#do I want to be a writer a fashion designer a makeup artist or try baking

[salemthegoldfish]

@_@

[beemynumberone]

All The Colours (3/7)

-> In which Idol!Minghao and Actress!OC convey their heartfelt messages through colours.

-> slowwwwburn romance. friends to lovers. no smut.

-> constructive feedback is always appreciated!

All pictures are from Pinterest, I do not own them.

Writer’s note: Hi! I am writing these scenarios to placate my active imagination and hopefully make someone’s day/night. I do not intend to hurt anyone/anything through this fic.

Thank you for picking up my story and happy reading!

Masterlist

*btw, Yile is pronounced as Yi Le (in Chinese pronunciation), it is not supposed to rhyme with Kyle

Part 3: Pink

Yile’s POV:

It was the day of the fashion show and Yile was excited.

There was a skip in her step as she headed to the fitting room, pink dress in tow. Pink. A colour that symbolised happiness and femininity. Even though meeting Minghao would be simply a matter of courtesy as he was the brand ambassador, she was determined to feel pretty while she did. Like Xinhui had advised, she could try her hand at socialising with people outside her workplace. Nothing too serious, it was only a matter of making new acquaintances.

She wanted to be acquaintances with him, that was all she merely wished for.

Yile then headed to the makeup room to complete her look. Since the dress was meant to express gracefulness and beauty, she decided to accessorise the look with pearls, shimmery pink lids and a baby pink pout. Twirling around in the room, she sighed happily. She loved being a girl.

Minghao’s POV:

D-Day had arrived. As brand ambassadors, Jeonghan and him had to arrive earlier in order to get well acquainted with the brand’s fashion designer and CEO, who had specially come down to meet them. Minghao felt honoured.

After getting their photos taken, Minghao and Jeonghan were ushered to the main hall with glasses of champagne and pleasantries. The main hall was a repurposed two storey carpark, ornamented with various standing tables in the first floor, complete with a mobile cocktail bar. Wires hung from the ceiling and their ends twisted intricately to form contemporary chandeliers.

“What’re you looking at?” Jeonghan whispered.

“The design of the hall is… how do I put it, charming.” Minghao answered.

“Well you might want to look at another charming view. She’s at the door.”

Minghao whipped his head around. One glance and the breath was knocked out of his lungs. Yile looked ethereal. She was dressed in a pink dress that fit her like a glove. It hugged her in all the right places and made her look like a princess. Yile glided up the steps onto the carpeted floor of the carpark, looking like she came straight out of a daydream. Minghao was entranced.

“Earth to Minghao. Let’s go greet her.” Jeonghan took Minghao’s hand as they made a beeline to the entrance.

Yile’s POV:

On the way to the venue, Yile fidgeted with her scarf. It was given to her for modesty if needed. Interrupting her thoughts, her phone pinged. It was her sister, a makeup artist for the runway show. Yile couldn’t be more proud of her.

Little mom: Hey sis, are you reaching soon? I’ve got 20 minutes until I’m up for last touch ups.

Me: Yep, we’re reaching in 5!

Unlike the last event, fashion was her métier. Yile felt more confident in the crowd. Plus, her sister was there for moral support.

The car reached the venue and Yile performed like clockwork. A doorman donned in a crisp black suit helped her out of the car onto the red carpet. Blinding lights flashed from a barrage of cameras and Yile gave a winsome smile, ending off with her signature curtsy.

The doors opened, inviting her in. And as they closed, the noise and lights from outside died down.

Yile closed her eyes and breathed deeply to collect herself. The ambience was peaceful with chatter and there was a faint floral scent in the air.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a duo clad in yellow and navy suits heading towards her. Yile marveled at their chic appearance. Jeonghan was clad in a silky navy suit that exuded elegance. Minghao on the other hand was dressed in the yellow suit. It might have looked obnoxious on another person but Minghao seemed quite at home in the cheery colour. Gold chain epaulettes scalloped around his shoulders. When he turned to pick a champagne flute from the waiter, Yile saw a matching chain criss-crossed on his back, forming a corset to ornament his backless blazer.

Her first instinct: To run

How was she going to handle this foine (insert lip bite) excuse of a man heading straight towards her? Forget finding her sister and mingling around. She was going to book it out of this place ASAP.

Minghao’s POV:

Yile looked warily at him. Minghao wanted to crawl into a hole. But here he was, sight set on Yile with Jeonghan in tow. He couldn’t bring himself to avoid her.

Jeonghan whispered, “Pearls don’t lie on the seashore Minghao. If you want one, you must dive for it.”

As they approached Yile, Minghao could hear his heart drumming in his chest. He grabbed a champagne flute for liquor courage.

“Um hi” Yile breathed. Unable to stand the sight of the two tiptoeing around each other, Jeonghan covertly excused himself with a smile, saying he needed to attend to something.

And just like that, they were alone.

WhatdoIdowhatdoI- Minghao was snapped from his thoughts.

Yile broke the silence. “Hi Minghao, congratulations on being brand ambassador. I love your ‘fit. It’s really eye catching.”

Inwardly, Yile was screaming. ‘Fit?? Why was she trying to sound cool (and failing).

“Oh er thanks.” Minghao scratched his nape, “I thought of doing something similar to what you did the last time we met.”

Yile blushed. The8, the fashionista of SVT and major fashion role model, took inspiration from her?

“Wow I’m honoured. What does your-”

“Uriye bameun sel su eopneun…”

If Yile was pink before, she was positively red now. She forgot to silence her phone!

Fumbling, Yile fished out the offending item. Minghao being the gentleman he was, stepped aside to give her privacy.

Yile ended her conversation on the phone quickly. She apologised, “Minghao, I’m so sorry but my sister is waiting to meet me. She’s here as a makeup artist. So sorry again! Maybe we can continue talking later?”

Minghao didn’t want to let her go but conceded anyway.

Jeonghan appeared beside Minghao. “She has good music taste. Don’t look so sullen, you’ll find plenty more opportunities to meet her!”

Minghao nodded, thinking. If Yile’s sister was here as a makeup artist, what would the chances be that he could contact Yile through the network of makeup artists? Surely in this day and age of people tracking down even criminals through social media, he could too.

But then what would he tell Yile? That he wanted to be friends with her because he admired her spirit? That he liked that they were both on the same wavelength in using colours as self expression? That whenever he caught sight of her, it seemed like she was the only person in the room and there seemed to be an unexplainable attraction between them so he could never pull his eyes away from her?

“Hyung, is there a way for me to reach Yile discreetly?”

Yile’s POV:

The guests were ushered to the second floor of the carpark for the runway show. The theme of the event was ‘Beauty in a Garden’ and the venue did not disappoint.

The elevated catwalk was lined with rose bushes which, according to the event manager, were locally grown for this purpose and were going to be sold to raise funds for a non-profit organisation after the event.

The designs themselves were created with Peruvian insects in mind. And in line with the theme, each guest was handed a flower which species could be found in Peru. Yile found this rather endearing and unique.

She fiddled with the flower in her hand - a pink and yellow Peruvian lily. It was a hassle to hold the stalk while talking, so she decided to pin it onto her dress. That was when she noticed something odd with her flower.

The other guests were holding various colourful flowers - Heliconias, Hibiscuses, Marigolds and more. But all the colourful buds were on stems. Actual stems, in different shades of green. Yile however, did have a flower (it was real she had fondled its velvet surface to check) but its stem was wrapped in green paper.

The fashion show was a success. Yile oohed and aahed as she watched the iridescent outfits pass by. Mesmerised, she forgot about the odd looking flower stalk she held.

A while ago…

Minghao’s POV:

Minghao racked his brain. He had heard of the infamous Inkigayo sandwiches. But was he going to stoop that low for a lady he just met? Yes he was. He was cooked.

Jeonghan offered to talk to the event manager. After some negotiation, he came back with a lily. A pink and yellow one, Minghao noted.

“The last touch ups start in 10 minutes, hurry.” Jeonghan handed the flower to him.

Minghao wrote his message down with the materials given to him by Jeonghan, who miraculously procured green paper and a pen. He wrapped the paper around the stalk of the lily and kissed it for good luck. Then, he sprayed hairspray as an adhesive (desperate times call for desperate measures) and passed it to his makeup artist who was on standby.

His makeup artist raised a questioning brow but didn’t prod further. The fateful lily was then passed backstage to Yile’s sister. Who made a mental note to have a 1 to 1 with the guy and sprayed a little more hairspray for good measure. To firmly secure the paper, she sealed it with gemstone glue.

Yile’s POV:

“Hey little sis, here’s a flower. It’s for you to keep as part of the runway’s theme.”

“But I’ve gotten one already.”

“That one’s… a little shabby. Maybe take this one instead.”

“Huh, but this isn’t that worn out.”

“Just exchange it with me. Please?”

“Whatever floats your boat.”

Back to the present (pun intended :P):

In the car, Yile took the paper off, which had been thoroughly doused with hairspray and was now crackling open.

“Hi, im MH frm 17. Bcm friens? grn=Y, red=X”

[ggeorge-ggeorge]

Q & A Considerations: FA8801

What do you do? What sort of things do you make? Or capture? Or select? - At the forefront of my practice is fashion design. I conceptualize, construct, and execute capsule collections inspired by various subjects. I then use these garments to create editorial-style images. I also enjoy creative direction and often collaborate with photographers, makeup artists, and hairstylists to capture my vision and enhance the garments. Collaborating with individuals practicing adjacent mediums not only elevates my work but also expands my network of skills. Previously, I worked as an independent promoter for underground nightlife collectives along Karangahape, which heavily influenced my practice. I tend to focus on socially charged pieces aimed at sparking dialogue and community engagement. Additionally, I recently began freelancing as a writer, extending my perspective, which is central to my practice.

How do you make decisions during the process of your work? How and why do you select the materials, techniques, themes that you do? - I make decisions early in my process to contextualize my work within frameworks relevant to queer Pasifika culture, ensuring cultural sustainability. As my practice is collaborative, I prioritize my collaborators' preferences when selecting materials and techniques. For instance, in my final year of the BFS in 2022, I drew inspiration from Pasifika customs related to the lalaga framework. This theme allowed me to explore queer Pasifika experiences within familial contexts and exchange garments as Tongan koloa i.e., treasure. This approach informs all aspects of my work, from concept to construction, as I aim to expand Pacific worldviews.

What are you valuing in the work? - I value conceptual principles in my work as they inform the entire creative process. While techniques can be learned, perspective remains unique and essential.

What are your sources? - My sources vary, drawing inspiration from diverse sources such as the celebrity, theoretical frameworks like Patrick S. Thompson's work on transnationalism, and the artistic expressions of figures like Vivienne Westwood and movements like 'Ballroom'. I focus on socially charged, diasporic, and queer-adjacent frameworks that resonate with my identity and navigation.

What are you trying to say, or infer? - I aim to offer nuanced perspectives on the topics I explore, often celebrating rather than critically analyzing them, depending on my connection to the subject.

How is the way you are saying it, with the materials, techniques, and relations of emphasis between elements, the best for the idea you want to present? - Given the collaborative nature of my practice, I prioritize selecting collaborators whose work aligns with the intended narrative and audience. By carefully curating these partnerships, I ensure that the presentation of my work recognizes and respects the perspectives of those involved. As I continue, I seek to balance collective creation with more independent approaches.

What is it you’ve been trying to do to make the work relevant in relation to ideas, cultural circumstances, or contemporary issues? - My work emphasizes collaboration with marginalized communities, ensuring their voices and experiences are reflected authentically. By designing with the means of extending cultural silhouettes, I aim to foster connections and sustainability. Moving forward, I intend to explore cultural nuances specific to a queerer and more Pacific worldview.

How does this work fit into a larger body of work or overarching project of ideas? - Given my focus on fashion collections and creative direction, my work naturally contributes to a larger body of creative output. By materializing garments into tangible forms and collaborating with diverse talents, I aim to validate and expand my practice's stance.

Are your ideas changing, and if so, how? - My core practice involves transmuting ideas into concepts through a queer lens. While my sources have predominantly focused on socially charged topics, I aim to incorporate more Pacific and Tongan perspectives moving forward.

Has anyone done this kind of work in the past? - Artists such as The Pacific Sisters, Pati Tyrell, and Fafswag have explored similar realms, although I seek to introduce more cultural requisites into my practice beyond performance.

Does anyone else do it now? Who are the artists that occupy this terrain? - Yuki Kihara effectively navigates this terrain, offering socially charged works with a queer Pasifika lens. Her reinterpretations of Paul Gauguin's paintings exemplify this approach.

Who are the writers on these subjects? What specifically have they said, which then potentially motivates your own thinking? - Patrick S. Thompson's theories on transnationalism and queer Pacific worldviews have deeply influenced my practice. His insights into cultural contexts and identity complexities resonate with my experiences as a New Zealand-born first-generation queer Tongan, shaping my perception of my practice as a syntax rather than a linear narrative.

[writteninsunshine]

Cut From The Same Cloth - Michael/Firkle Smith - SFWish

Title: Cut From The Same Cloth

Author: Keith

Fandom: South Park

Setting: Unspecified Fashion Show

Pairing: Michael/Firkle Smith

Characters: Michael, Firkle Smith

Genre: Romance

Rating: T

Chapters: 1/1

Word Count: 828

Type Of Work: One-Shot, Part Four of the Writer’s Month 2022 Collection

Status: Complete

Warnings: Gay, Slash, Yaoi, MLM, Age Gaps, 10 Year Age Gap, Michael is 29, Firkle is 19

Disclaimer: I don’t own anything!

Summary: Michael's business was taking off, and he owed it all to his perfect muse.

AN: Hey guys, it’s me again! I just thought I ought to say, if you want vague updates and to talk to me more, I have a writing Tumblr, too! Twitter is Sunshinecackle, and Tumblr is Writteninsunshine! I also have a writing Discord that is currently pretty dead. xD If you want it, please contact me on Tumblr/Twitter!

I’m trying to do Writer’s Month this month and to keep myself working on these to get all of them done hopefully, I’m going to aim for 500 words or less. 

This particular fic is heavily based off of my husband’s (punkocalypse) portrayal of Michael! I really wanted to play with this, though I’m not super confident in my ability to describe clothes very well. Hopefully I can bang something out that makes sense.

Smaller warnings for: CGL Mention, and various dark, poetic expressions of love. They’re both afraid to say the ‘L’ word but they still love each other very much.

Writer’s Month Fic Masterlist

Cut From The Same Cloth

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Firkle sat in silence as his hair was styled for him, he sat in silence through the makeup process, even if he was unsure of the vast coverage of his eyeshadow. When the black and purple spiderweb was added to the corners of his eyes and trailed down his cheeks, he couldn’t help but harken back to his emo phase. But Michael knew what he liked and looked good in, even if he’d never done it before, so he trusted his lover’s artistic vision.

The black hooded cropped jacket barely covered his pierced collarbones, and the half-sleeves were attached to it by a thin belt in the back. They were belted down the sides with shiny purple rivets and D-rings, matching the halo made on the hood and down the shoulders. Two thick, dark purple chains glinting in the light swooped down his stomach and hooked around his hips to connect again in the back. They bared the harness beneath the jacket and over the white spiderwebbed fishnet shirt beneath it, over the shimmering purple skeletal hands made of silk grasping his chest. 

The straps of the harness zigzagged tight on his sides, connecting with the two O-rings in the middle. Another belt just above his navel dripped four more leather bands down his thighs, front and back, attached to rings of lace and leather around his thighs. They disappeared beneath the purple peek-a-boo lace skirt dragging halfway down his thighs in yet another spiderweb pattern, over the crushed velvet hotpants he wore for his modesty. 

Boots crawled up his thin legs, the heels behind the platforms carved to perfection in the shape of a spinal cord. Skulls missing the mandible adorned the counter above them, and the whole shoe faded from a dingy white to a stained, dark brown at the base of the platform.

Each piece had been designed with Firkle in mind, from his head to his toes, his makeup to his black to purple faded nail polish, and Michael had spared no expense. Firkle was his perfect muse, the creature he could return to for inspiration if his creativity was stopped up, and this entire collection was made with him sitting in the forefront of Michael’s brain. Granted, he couldn’t model all of them, and Firkle had protested being a model in the first place. Michael had eventually gotten him to agree, showing him the pinnacle of the collection that caught his eye, much like he’d thought it would.

It blended them both together, spiders, human remains, bones, and Firkle’s unique style, his color palette, even. Michael always knew what Firkle needed, what he wanted, and it was intensely important to him to make it happen. Firkle was his other half, the extra limbs that made them a two-headed arachnid, the large, unblinking oceanic eyes that brought the world into the darkness. Their connection was too strong, too deep; A successful removal of either from the other would probably kill them both.

As Firkle started his easy walk towards the stage, a familiar, large, spidery hand gripped his wrist and tugged him to a stop. Instead of pulling his younger lover in harshly, as he was prone to do, Michael was careful with his movements, like trying to preserve dragonfly wings. His hold was gentle, and he was conscientious of every crease in his clothes, and watchful of his makeup when he kissed those purple-stained lips.

“You look radiant…” Michael whispered against his mouth, “I knew you would, but I didn’t expect to be so breathless.”

“Will I snatch your breath like a cat, then? Preferably while you sleep, a benign asphyxiation?” Firkle smirked for but a second before it disappeared again and he closed his eyes, “I’ve never done this before. Modeling. I still don’t know why you wanted me to star in this.”

There were certainly models that had been doing this longer than he had, that would know what they were doing.

“Because, baby, Daddy made this for you.” Michael’s thumb grazed over Firkle’s cheek gently, only smearing a few of the darker threads just a smidgen. He always did love when Firkle was a bit of a mess, “And I did a damn good job.”

“I’ve never met a spider that spun a better, more beautiful web.” Firkle’s captive smile returned for a second before he turned to look over his shoulder when the music started, “I…” He sighed, slumping forward just slightly, “That’s my cue, I guess.”

Michael took hold of his hand once more, pressed his lips to Firkle’s cheek, and turned him in a slow half pirouette. Smacking Firkle’s ass playfully as he let go of his hand and the younger began to saunter away, Michael offered a lopsided smirk as Firkle turned to look at him with an amused snort.

“Break a leg, preferably someone else’s.” Michael cooed, watching him go before exiting the back rooms to take his seat up front to watch the show.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

AN: I have been having so much fun with these little prompts, I’m hardly getting anything else done. Expect a big influx in writing from me, though, I’m hoping to at least do ten if not the whole thing. I hope you all enjoyed it!

Prompt: setting: fashion world

[yuukei-yikes]

Headcanon roulette! What jobs do you think the kagepro cast would have?

(CRACKS KNUCKLES) LISTEN I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HEADCANON ROULETTE IS BUT IF YOU CAME LOOKING FOR A SHORT ANSWER I AM VERY SORRY i am going to give you so many headcanons youre gonna pass out i am going to tell you my headcanons and WHY i have them and i'll also be angry at jin for saying bullshit about their jobs. it's gonna be a good time SO. MY JOB HEADCANONS FOR THE KAGEPRO CHARACTERS: shintaro: jin says he'd be a teacher and to this i say (rolls newspaper and hits him in the head). WHAT THE HELL MAN!!! shintaro loves music bro i GUESS he could be a music teacher but EH i don't see him like the sort of person who'd enjoy being in a classroom so my headcanon is the obvious: song writer/composer. obviously. bro seriously why a teacher?? this guy's SISTER work(ed)s in the music industry, momo would absolutely use her contacts to help shintaro build a career out of music! and if shintaro's music are the kagepro songs we know then they'd have success lol and yes this is meta but he canonically wrote tomei answer SO... COME ON. writing songs inspired on the events? bro. bro. bro. b ayano: whatever she does i think she'd 100% wanna work with children. if anyone wants to be a teacher it'd absolutely be her! i like to think she becomes a social worker/kindergarten teacher? just anything she chooses to do would be around children tbh. kido: everyone always makes a big deal out of her cooking so i like to think she goes to cooking school!! so a chef!  i know jin said kido would have an orphanage but. 1) wh. why kido. ayano is right there?? ayano makes more sense to me than kido idk 2) why specifically the OWNER of an orphanage that's just weird kjrfksdhgds i GUESS it's not as ridiculous as jin's take on kano's job (i'll get to that next) but still... it's gonna be a nah from me kano: listen. listen. my job hc for kano is VERY headcanon based so i don't have any Canon(tm) content to support it but i assure you it makes more sense than jin's bullshit take on how he'd be a P*LICE OFF*CER. LIKE. EXCUSE YOU SIR WASH YOUR MOUTH YES KANO IS A DICKHEAD BUT HE WOULDNT GET TO THAT POINT!! SO my take is... hairdresser. WHY?? GLAD I PRETEND YOU ASK: again it's very hc based but i'm just gonna say kido hates talking to strangers bc she's #invisible and seto hates crowded places + when they move by themselves with mary i got the feeling they sheltered themselves from the world SOOO what if from then on kano has always done their hair for them im JUST SAYING... I THINK IT'D BE SWEET AND COOL AND FUN AND ALSO HE SEEMS LIKE THE TYPE. come on kido's green hair?? kano's doing. please. it'd be epic momo: she quits being an idol BUT momo adores 1) being silly 2) making people happy. what would she do? my most cursed but also my best take: fuckign....YOUTUBER.... she'd be her own boss and she'd make videos of whatever the HELL she feels like doing. trying to make art. destroying her hair. doing drag makeup. just whatever dude like everyone would know her as that one youtube girl who used to be a massively popular singer but now films herself bleaching her hair 5 times in one night and it'd WORK seto & mary: ok for once what jin said makes sense to me but i don't think he even said it, it just showed up in saiyuki's comic where they have a flower shop together. like i agree with that, they would! but maybe after a while seto would go work/maybe open a shelter of his own leaving the flower shop for mary haruka & takane: ANOTHER two that i'm not mad about what jin thinks (thankfully can you imagine how fucking mad i'd be if he said bullshit about my faves' jobs lol) i mean haruka has his whole thing of how he wants to be an artist and apparently takane is a streamer which i'm not mad at. i'll extend on them: i think both would be freelancers, haruka with art and takane  aside from her streams she'd like coding! like after being ene she for SURE knows some shit and she's super into videogames so she'd absolutely get into developing games and stuff. good for haruka and takane, their regular life is a quarantine hiyori: i don't have much to say about her but fashion designer/model would work for her i think. she's like that hibiya: HIBIYA HONESTLY I JUST... CANT THINK ANYTHING FOR HIM i think jin said he'd be an archeologist which i mean ok?? but ayaka was an archeologist and idk it seems weird he'd also be one with no connection to her at all for some reason but im not completely mad at the idea since i do think hibiya would have something that everyone considers to be INCREDIBLY BORING as a job. i want it to be a running gag that no one KNOWS what hibiya does for work and he's super offended about it but no matter how many times he repeats himself no one ever remembers what he does anyway those are my headcanons subscribe and comment click the bell to get notifications everytime i upload a new video i'll see you in the next one

[atomicfilm]

The types as people I know

ENTP: dnd enthusiast, trying to sell the world on his beliefs, owns like 69 :0 rubix cubes so people will know he’s smart, probably wears a cloak when he’s home alone, loves volunteering at bingo w/ elderly people, always trying to compete w/ me to finish our work first/best and usually looses because he overlooks something, 98% of people are annoyed by his presence, likes to start fights/debates, actually super sweet and big on respect but misunderstood

INTP: we all adopt really random catchphrases (mine is “that’s hot” and my friend’s is “j’accuse”), we have very specific interests (”your thing is learning about concentration camps in the Czech Republic? Mine is 18th-century poems about cats in fishbowls”), devoted to comedy, going to vote but doesn’t openly support anyone because the candidate will mess up, caught between dreaming and reality, doesn’t really understand other people’s perceptions of them, built to withstand anything (and I mean anything, more on that later), managing my bookmarks is my routine chore

ENFP: stereotypical gemini through and through, I love her but I can’t stand to be close friends with her, has a bunch of plans to marry people and move in with friends later in life, friends w/ everyone she has ever met (if you say you don’t like her then you’re on her hit list), very nice but definitely scheming, attention split between 8,917 things rn, falls in love easily and obsessively, so so creative, great singer, wants to go into advertising but will probably become a pediatrician, loves babies and taking care of things

INFP: lots of feels, really into the arts, nervous about talking, people pleaser, writes poems in their spare time, would adopt 500 puppies if it made financial sense and wouldn’t stress them out, stressed out anyway, sees the red flags but ignores them, either your literal mom or the mom friend

ISFP: aesthetics-oriented, their room is really clean except for one area with whatever they collect (shoes, tchotchkes from Asia, snowglobes, ect.), usually overshadowed in the art department but turn out to be the best artist in the room, speak French and/or want to move to Paris (except it’s dirty, wah), they typically measure in oofs (”big oof”, “little oof”, “8 oz. of oof”)

ESFP: a new boyfriend every two weeks, eyebrow game strong, funniest person in the room (or at least that’s what they think), extremely sassy, watches videos of tobacco spitting contests in the Midwest for fun, 9/10 times (this is a fake statistic) they’re a theatre kid, forget who you are if they haven’t seen you in a year (even if you were close friends prior), drives fast (and poorly), hot (and knows it), very confident, their default state is shirtless, dramatic 

ISTP:  everything is an adventure, their ideal romance movie is Baby Driver, wants to learn how to hot-wire a car, doesn’t realize they look punk but they do, should be employed as a makeup artist, probably pretty kinky (or at least act like it), either a fake f-boy or a very, very real one 

ESTP: wants to be an architect or CEO, mostly wants to be paid to do nothing, most-often found asleep during class or telling a story in a crowd at a party, drives drunk a lot, already dating someone but tries to get with you anyway, straight male w/ dangly earrings (queer vibes), very hilarious and everyone knows who they are, their closest friends are introverts who they force to share the spotlight w/ them, either don’t show up or show up late, fun to be around, class valedictorian but everyone thinks it’s someone else

ESFJ: once had a nightmare where all of their friends got drunk and they had to take care of them, brings you cupcakes on your birthday, all of their friends are social degenerates and they don’t know what to do, watches children’s movies their entire life, has more stuffed animals than friends, everyone knows who they are 

ISFJ: their catchphrase is “I need healing” (warning: they will steal your catchphrase), carries a singular band-aid at all times, makes lots of jokes about Communism, makes racist jokes against themself, their extended family lives with them, uncomfortable about breaking rules, always wants to pay for things, everyone’s boyfriend but only dating 1 person/no one, big on the American Dream, literally Captain America, appears to be a virgin at first, makes lots of sex jokes once you get to know them, n e r d, good at everything /  you thought perfect people didn’t exist? you were wrong

ISTJ: ESTP’s best friend, the obviously intellectual one, does everything with amazing skill, supports their friends tirelessly, great at math, understand systems really well, the designated driver, try to follow the rules as best as they can, laughs a lot at other people’s engineering mistakes, quiet and unnoticed most of the time, surprisingly funny

ESTJ: give you advice even when you don’t ask for it, seem like they’re judging every decision you have ever made, won’t speak to you if you lie to them, the stereotypical club president, takes initiative, likes to mention that mission trip they went on very frequently, shops at Dillards (always hunting for good deals), has a very traditional sense of fashion until you see their crocodile cowboy boots, they have a very idealistic sense of society and if you don’t meet their standards they’ll yell very loudly, remembers everything, constantly fact-checking, actually should be president 

ENTJ: control freak, but only because they don’t trust you enough to make the right decision, ready to race you at all times, could probably run a mile in 6 minutes without breaking a sweat, confident, prefer strategy games like Settlers of Catan, if they were a society they would be Ancient Rome, want to motivate you to succeed, see themselves as the best but want everyone to match them, running out of patience, seems insensitive and ready to cut you off but probably has a warm, beating heart (idk I haven’t dissected them, personally)

INTJ: I don’t think they really exist, supposedly everyone on Tumblr is one but they only make up approximately .8% of the population, if I met one I would probably think they’re a weirdly assertive/controlling INTP, I think people mistype as one because their ideal sense of self is being an effective problem-solver who challenges tradition from the comfort of their home and purposefully does things (i.e. learning a new language for business) but are they really

Idk 

I can’t tell if they have a high sense of self or are trying to demonize themselves

INTJs are textbook villains in the movie world but also probably a lot of detectives or something

ENFJ: don’t know any of them/anyone I think could be one personally but I wish I did / I feel like if I met one I would want to be as good of a person as them all the time

INFJ: not very reality-oriented yet in love with science, wants to be a writer, curious, wants to figure everything out but primarily wants to love everyone, passionate about a few specific projects that they talk a lot about (social issues), always reblogs positivity posts, once gave a ted talk about mental health, he’s the debate captain yet cries every time he loses a debate (because he has a lot of self-doubt), prefers to nap than to talk sometimes, eventually realizes they wants to adopt all of the people younger than him and protect them from the world, easy to love, they may reflect your personality, may also have very particular body movements (the one I know does a lot of fan kicks), actually make NTs feel (like a lot, like a lot a lot, like real crying), eventually dates their best friend and marries them, doesn’t draw but collects art

[kevinspaceyarchives]

Looking Closer at Kevin Spacey, Star of American Beauty

by MATT MCCORMICK, Texas A&M Battalion Staff writer | November 22, 1999

(photo not included with the original article)

Kevin Spacey established himself as one of Hollywood's most gifted actors with his Oscar-winning role in 1993's The Usual Suspects. Known for his ability to lose himself in a character, Spacey went on to star in such films as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and The Negotiator.

His new film, American Beauty, has opened to widespread critical acclaim and box office success across the country and has many people saying his name and Academy Award in the same sentence again. The Battalion participated in an interview with the actor as he talked about his latest film and the character he plays, Lester.

Battalion: When you take on a character, you always have a different look. How do you prepare for a character role?

Kevin Spacey: It starts with usually a discussion. Sometimes you might have a notion of how somebody might look, just from reading it. Or, in fact, it might be described by the writer. It usually starts with a discussion with the director. How do you see this character looking? How do you see them dressing?  Do they have a particular walk or way of moving that's different? So I usually try to collaborate with the director. Then you have other people come on. You have a production designer who decides how your desk in your office is going to look and a costume designer who may bring in a huge rack of stuff. All of those things go in to make a sort of image and a picture of what someone will look like. Hopefully you do it in connection with all the other departments. You're not showing up in a jacket that, against that wallpaper, looks like hell.

In this movie, there was this transformation that Lester had to go through, and we didn't have the luxury of shooting in sequence. In the morning, we created Lester, and we had his kind of pear-shaped, defeated pasty look with slightly larger costumes and really white, horrible makeup. I slumped a great deal. And then in the afternoon, I'd be shooting the later stuff. I had to be in the best shape possible during the whole shooting of the movie. We just sort of created the earlier stuff in the movie through performance.

Battalion: When you were shooting some of the earlier stuff later in the day, would you go work out?

Kevin Spacey: It's embarrassing to admit, but we had a muscle truck. It was like a roving gym. It was a big moving van, but they made a gym out of it. I'd go in there before a particular scene -- we had target dates for particular scenes -- so we worked toward the target, I and the trainer, knowing I had to have a certain kind of build for that next two weeks. If they needed me to be a little bloated, he would let me go out and eat pizza and banana splits and all sorts of stuff.

Since there was never a moment in the screenplay when there was an epiphany, or a sudden change, we never wanted the audience to see him change. We wanted there to be an almost seamless and organic evolution of who he became.

Battalion: Mentally, what makes you draw into this Lester character?

Kevin Spacey: I just think I understood, maybe like most people do, the feeling of wanting to break out and do new things. I was on that sort of journey for the last couple of years, and this gave me the opportunity to go to a new place. I think everybody understands the feeling of wanting to shake it up and try new things. Who wouldn't want to tell their boss what they're really thinking about them?

Battalion: Lester's transformation was shaped by the music of his youth -- What kind of music shaped your youth?

Kevin Spacey: A lot of that music I loved, and Sam (Mendes, director) was very specific about music very early on about the kind of cuts he was going to try to get. The first issue in movies is "can you get the rights?" Will the songwriter or their estate let you use it? We got very lucky with a lot of cool music. You forget the '70s and the trajectory of what that music was and all the artists. We found something in common. We say "Wow, that's the kind of music I would listen to in my garage." So I listened to a lot of the similar stuff that Lester listened to. He's two years older than me.

Battalion: In the movie, the garage is Lester's personal space. Did you have a choice in the kind of props used in there?

Kevin Spacey: Sam and I started talking about the garage sort of becoming Lester's sanctuary. It clearly had been taken over by just storage, you know. It lost its...whatever a garage might have been in his life earlier. We decided to go back and find all the things Lester would have had if he was still in college. That sort of became his place. He left the cold and rather stark home inside that house and slowly moved his life out into the garage. One of my favorite images is that red car sitting in the driveway. He's just shaking it up.

Battalion: What's your stage background? What was it like having somebody like Sam directing this film?

Kevin Spacey: I've been incredibly fortunate with first-time or second-time directors. I like it a lot because there's no pattern to their way of working. They really are open to almost anything. So you find that they are willing to take more chances. They're not sort of entrenched in their own ideas.

And he kept us informed. He would always show us storyboards and how he wanted a scene to be framed -- what he wanted it to look like, how he wanted us to look in the frame. So I knew all that going in, but I could have never known going in that his use of images, his use of music, his feeling and mood cinematically was startling.

Battalion: I love the narration in the movie. Was it scripted?

Kevin Spacey: All of the narration was there [in the script]. Sam and I, one day, needed a guide track to give the editors and we went up to a small room with a recorder, like these little ones, and we recorded all of Lester’s voice-overs. And I never redid it. There was something about not knowing what those images would be that that dialogue went well with.

Battalion: Your movie shatters the vision of a utopian suburbia. If you had a message you'd like the audience to take away from this, what would it be?

Kevin Spacey: Let me play devil's advocate with the premise of your question because I don't think it reveals anything specifically about suburbia any more than it reveals anything about urban life. I think where this film takes place, the fact that these two very specific families are examined, in no way shape or form means that we're trying to say this is what life is like in suburbia. I think this is what life is like for a lot of people.

Battalion: Tell us about the catchline, "Look Closer".

Kevin Spacey: We actually give our production designer the credit for that. She cut that out of a fashion magazine. She was going through a fashion magazine deciding what should go on certain walls and she decided "look closer" should be on my bulletin board at the office. And that wasn't the campaign, but what happened was, they kept screening the movie and finally the Dreamworks marketing people said "What does that say behind his desk?" So they saved themselves hundreds of thousands of dollars in marketing meetings to find a concept because it actually turns out to be pretty accurate.

Battalion: What would you say to those who are upset that an older man is having a relationship with a teenager?

Kevin Spacey: I think that anybody that feels uneasy about it, it's uneasiness about the subject, not uneasiness with the actual relationship because there isn't one. There's a fantasy life that Lester has. There is no relationship until the very end of the film, where he makes the right decision.

Keep it in the context of the film. Those two people, what they learn from each other, I think is breathtaking. I think its the most uplifting message you could possibly have.

Battalion: The movie is about finding beauty. What things do you find beauty in?

Kevin Spacey: Sometimes the things that are presented as beautiful or the things that we think are beautiful sometimes makes us miss the things that are really truly beautiful, but appear mundane. I think that's true with people, too. People judge people on how they look or how they dress, how they behave and how they act -- I think of the two characters from the film...you first meet them and you think a certain thing about them, And as the film goes on they begin to emerge.

Battalion: You've got the Hollywood star of fame. What is involved with that?

Kevin Spacey: It started with a fan club. They recommended to the Hollywood chamber of commerce that they consider me for that. I didn't think anything happened like that until you were much older. In fact, all of my colleagues who came that day said "we don't know anybody as young as you, that's pretty cool." There's a certain part of that stuff that's a little Hollywood cheesy, but what actually made the day amazing is it actually became a pretty personal thing. I think it meant even more to all the people that have been working with me than it did for me. But I understand already that there's gum on it.

[artificialqueens]

i'll be your biggest fan ( trinity & sasha ) - lily2

[ prompt ] : sasha never thought she would ever get married let alone to her best friend but in the midst of the big day she needs help putting on her dress for the event and she knows exactly who to employ to get the damn thing done.

[ author's note ] : I really love their friendship a lot (and also shea/trinity is a huge brotp of mine) and it's very sweet and so like opposite and I find it so charming, wanted an excuse to write wedding sashea as well !!! I genuinely love trinity and enjoy writing her so so so badly, I'm a proud eastern european girl but I will always appreciate my homestate queen! (人*´∀｀)｡*ﾟ+

— *.✧

"What if she doesn't like the dress?"

It was difficult for Sasha to even process the insanity that was about to be her own wedding day, her perfectly manicured hands running through her thick blonde curls. The Russian could barely even get a sentence out without wanting to collapse in fear— perhaps not fear but stress though it all seemed to mesh into one demon that kept clawing at her back, that she wasn't good enough for Shea, for this wedding, that she was still scared of the commitment that was about to come.

The issue was not if she was to be devoted to Shea Couleé, the one woman she knew almost instantaneously as her soulmate, her partner, her best friend all these years later.

It was clear the minute they exchanged looks and Shea leaned against the bar, a track from Donna Summer blasting from the stage, Sasha leaning deeper and deeper entranced by her beauty, intelligence, everything. Well rounded and active in her community back in her hometown of Chicago, something the blonde could definitely appreciate considering her own background in both St. Petersburg and Chicago.

"I really should've consulted her, I'm all about fashion but this isn't exactly what you would call my alley way!"

An irrepressible thumping of her heart as Trinity brushed the corners of her hair, putting a box down in Sasha's lap before groaning aloud, the southern girl never shy to share aloud her opinions and thoughts even when not provoked to.

"Sasha Velour, I know damn well you are not trying to talk your mind into stress on your wedding day!" A hair brush in her left hand as she tossed her perfectly sprayed and shortned hair, "Three things in life are absolutely positive: I'm gorgeous, taxes and Shea Couleé being in love with you." The words spitting out her lips before she finished up styling her best friend's hair.

The bride-to-be couldn't help but giggle at the sentiment, it was true, all three facets.

Trinity Taylor was truly a gem on earth, you'd never meet someone with the ability to talk your ear off while almost simultaneously digging a grave for you in Dante's layers of hell. A true southern girl, a beauty queen since high school, everything seemed so perfectly aligned and expected of the Orlando native.

Who needs a degree in economics! Especially when you can just be as gorgeous as I am?

However, expectations aren't always necessarily the reality. Trinity met Sasha, at a bar nonetheless due to a mutual friend and unprovoked, inspired by Sasha's work and ethic as a writer and designer, decided to finally go to college after dropping out her first year after high school. Majoring in business, still a pageant queen at her core and getting a minor in fashion retail as well.

"I'm still surprised you picked me for your maid of honor, if I can be completely honest with you." A smile gently forming across the corners of her lips as she spoke to the girl who was still in her robe, Trinity beginning to put some finishing touches. Sasha's brow immediately cocked and she practically grasped her entire desk.

"What do you mean? We've been close for years! We studied together, I helped you with exams, you introduced me to Shea! Don't be so hard on yourself." The twinge of her still softly reminding Russian accent came out hardest when she was angry or spewing up words, no time to breathe in between sentences.

"Hey! Don't get sappy on me bitch, I have so much makeup on I think our local Sephora might have run out of business." Her hands gently beginning to weave flowers through her hair, taking in a deep breath, learning to be silent and dabbing her puffy eyes when the Russian wasn't looking and closed her eyes, it was awfully emotional.

"You still have to put me in my dress, we have about an hour!" She warned gently, rubbing Sasha's shoulders as the thought begun to truly sink into her memory.

She was going to put Sasha into her dress.

Tears seemed to collect in the corner of her eyes but she brushed them aside, staying strong for the Russian who deserved today: to have met someone as fashionable and sweet as herself though Shea was definitely the best care she had with her isolation of family, it was very heartwarming and bittersweet to the girl who came to the states with nothing but her phone, some sketchbooks and a camera.

Sasha would not budge on her artistic roots and demanded that flowers be in her hair someway, somehow, scattered. At first the brunette could barely stand it, almost bitterly spitting that Farrah could do it instead, hating the idea.

Her intuition however was once again, as if it was a surprise, correct. The illusion was everything, as if she was some sort of gorgeous mythological creature, it was very on brand for her and her own creative processes.

"Told you it would look good."

"Well, sometimes I'm wrong, we ain't perfect but I'm pretty damn close honey."

Flowers intricately being placed in her hair as they spoke with tender laughter, "You know, this entire look, I commissioned the dress and made all the other pieces so I look like Lada, she's a Slavic goddess." Trinity wasn't surprised that she was including her culture in little ways, speckled into her wedding especially being away from Russia.

"Oh really?"

A hint of disbelief in her tone but Trinity knew her best friend well enough to realize her passion for her culture, she kept all her Russian zazz and was delighted to meet Katya, someone to finally share an outlet with, comfortably speak Russian with without feeling targeted or stared at with distrust.

"Yes, a bit of a tribute. Also, my favorite outfit Shea ever wore was this lavender, tulle dress during our fifth year anniversary, it had white flowers in the fabric and I wanted a piece of her in my dress." Her cheeks gently flushing, talking about her (almost official) wife with nothing but devotion and pride.

"That's so fucking cute I wanna throw up."

They laughed and held eachother's hands, embracing in the moment before the robe came off, Sasha sucking in a breath as Trinity unzipped the dress from it's black bag that had been delivered via Bianca and gently held it her hands, being sure to look where she stepped as the dress seeped out of her hands with petals and flowers embleshed adorning every corner of the dress.

It was a nice surprise and breach from Sasha's usual eclectic style that almost always had a paint stain or three, she had her brand down and Trinity could appreciate how confident and how out of the box, creative she was however it definitely made her inner, nostalgic heart smile at the sight of a dress so long it hits the floor on both sides.

"This is really beautiful Sash."

Trinity could only unzip the back of the dress, so beautifully crafted and designed as Sasha was left standing to turn and gently put her legs through the hole of the dress, getting stuck for just a second, careful with her hair knowing Trinity was definitely her smarter half in this situation considering the blonde was simply about to pull it over her head, ruining her styled hair.

"Oh God..." A grumble from Trinity's lips as she zipped her up, it felt almost wrong. This was usually a mother's duty, a family item, the entire process of dressing and making over the bride, no matter how traditional it sounded to anyone else, they know deep in their hearts they were sisters but not having your blood family must sting, especially at a wedding.

It felt strangely therapeutic to tie and zip her into her own wedding dress, she wasn't complaining in the slightest even if the heat from the mirror made her perfectly applied foundation melt and stick just a bit more, she was completely focused on one thing: making sure her best friend was ready and didn't have to do it alone.

Galvanized, Sasha seemed to hold her breath not fully understanding yet that she and Shea would soon be married and finally tie the knot, years of friendship and dating and it had finally happened with absolutely no hesitation from Sasha who screamed "yes!" in just about every language she could speak or name. Trinity touched her back, making sure she was fully snug into her dress before touching her shoulders in comfort, stifling back a laugh.

"Fucking Christ I feel so hideious!" She cried out, hiding her tears with a smirk that spanned across her entire face, unable to erase it as Sasha opened her eyes and seemed to stop breathing for a few seconds, truly taking in the details of the dress and adjusting her bra just a bit before choking up, Trinity quickly intervened, "You better not cry off your mug! I worked hard." The two staring side by side at Sasha together, "My favorite married couple." She sighed as she held hands with the Russian girl who happily was adjusting to the new word: married.

"You can cry once you get down the alter girl, we better get into our shoes because I can already feel us behind schedule, Katya's angry fingers typing away at us to hurry up."

The blonde nodded but not before squeezing Trinity's hand, a silent "thank you" mouthed as she begun to look around for her pair of shoes, her head wondering off to many different places at the same exact time.

"Anytime, any day you need me, I'm here." Her word's crisp as she strapped on her heels, matching her floral wedding extravaganza with a lavendar tulle dress, breaking down her wall a bit and even having shoes with some flowers done in colorful embroidery, Sasha claimed it was a very popular thing in Eastern Europe, that it adorned all their clothing.

"I know, always, when you finally have the confidence to ask out a certain someone especially." The wiggle of her eyes reminding Trinity brutually of her own, suprisingly awkward struggles with love, "Oh you shady!" She gasped, covering her mouth gently and almost hitting her with her bouquet of flowers.

"I'm just saying I see you getting side glances all the time from her."

"Let's not talk about this on your own damn day! Another time."

So they interlocked arms and did one final mirror take, finding it hard they went from senior year of high school, a nervous and introverted Russian girl with a thick accent and passion for fashion shows and politics best friends with the beauty queen, the secretly witty and hilariously instinctive southern belle.

"Let's go bitch, I know well time is a racing!" She yelped as they skipped out the door in excitement though Trinity was attempting to be careful with all the dress material that was sliding across the floors they walked upon, making sure she grabbed Sasha's own flower bouquet filled with Camomile (only fitting to be the national flower of Russia) and odd numbered as she requested.

Hand in hand they walked, unafraid of what was in store and for the future, just as the stories went.

"Well, let's do this."

[fibula-rasa]

Cosplay the Classics: Greta Garbo

Greta Garbo was one of my very first favorite actresses. That perfectly magnetic face was a force even on a television screen. I set my VCR to tape every movie she was in as they appeared on TCM, then bought them all on DVD as they were released. In high school, a few of my friends even crafted Garbo-themed doodads for me because she wasn’t plastered on all manner of goods like Audrey Hepburn, James Dean or Marilyn Monroe were in the early 2000s. Though I didn’t put voice to it at the time, seeing a woman whose romance so clearly knew no gender was formative for me.

Garbo is by no means obscure, but even more people need to be watching her films. Don’t fret! Filmstruck to the rescue: Greta Garbo is their star of the week!

No time like the present to try my hand at a wearable Swedish Sphinx look. I aimed for late-silent Garbo, a la The Kiss (1929) and The Mysterious Lady (1928).

Taken and collaged by photographer Clarence Sinclair Bull in 1931, this photo spurred on the sticky nickname.

The Face of Garbo

The face of Garbo has inspired odes in spiritual, philosophical, and psychoanalytical terms over the past century and, yeah, it would be way above my pay grade to contribute to that canon. In lieu of that, let’s learn a little bit about how Garbo’s image was constructed.

When Greta Garbo made the trek from Sweden to Hollywood in 1925, she had all the raw ingredients to be a screen star. A face with no bad angles that still and film cameras can love alike is rare. All Garbo needed was a bit of polish to marry her outward appearance to the languid grace of her performance style.

Off screen, Garbo was often reported as wearing unassuming baggy trousers, loafers, and oversized sweaters. A thoroughly uncomplicated person. On screen, Adrian collaborated closely with her to style and design fashions that would follow her every move in seventeen of her feature films.

While I didn’t do a full-body look this time around, I tried to choose a top that would slouch with my posture.

Garbo’s makeup is beautifully consistent across her fifteen years in Hollywood. The application evolved as camera and projection technology advanced, but the shapes remained the same. Starting with Torrent (1926) and her first few silents, her makeup was drawn in higher contrast with heavier lines. In the late silents and her first few talkies, the lines were softened with more gradients in her eyeshadow and lipstick, and film cameras and lighting rigs began to capture more subtle gradations of light and dark. Throughout the rest of the 1930s all the way to Two-Faced Woman (1941), the lines were thinner and more delicate and paired with further shading, but still with a graphic effect.

from Torrent (1926), The Mysterious Lady (1928), and Conquest (1937)

The theme of her iconic look was a dreamy sensuousness, and I personally love that her makeup design is so simple. If applied properly it could be flattering on any face.

Read on after THE JUMP

Garbo wore a heavy line across her lashline, usually the darkest drawn element on her face. If you had the eyelashes of a mortal this line would be too heavy, but we’re talking about Garbo here. I put on a full strip of falsies. 

The line elongates the eye, much like a cat-eye flick, but it extends down and out to create a sultry-but-kind look. (Note: this liner style is currently en vogue in Japan right now & I think it’s overdue for a comeback on this side of the Pacific.) On the outer edge of the lower lashline a lighter line is drawn from the end of the upper line to the lower lashline, forming a small triangle. This finishes off the elongation of the eye. To make it more striking, you can fill in the triangle with a lighter nude liner.

On the lid, Garbo’s crease was emphasized sharply. Across the makeup eras described above, first it was a deep line that met the eyeliner in the corners, then a more natural gradient still with a cut crease, and then back to a distinct line, but applied with a much lighter hand.

from Flesh and the Devil (1926), Anna Christie (1930), and Two-Faced Woman (1941) 

Her eyebrows were plucked and drawn thinly, as was the style at the time. Regardless, Garbo usually followed her natural brow shape.

Garbo’s skin was described as remarkably flawless; Louise Brooks called it “petal-like.” So, a good powder is a must. Reportedly, she used a Max Factor foundation with a silver tint so the light would reflect strongly off her face. (This also probably explains why in a few of her films her face is so much brighter than her usually quite tan neck and shoulders.)

For blush, I used a simple dusty pink because her cheeks are much fuller than mine--so I didn’t want to add dimension. Dusty pink was also her favorite color. Like really.

Garbo’s New York apartment was decked out ceiling to carpet almost exclusively in rose pink!

Her lips were lined in a single tone following her natural shape. My lips are fuller but not as wide as hers so I drew them out a bit at the edges with a lip brush and filled in the shape in this method:

from The Kiss (1929)

Over the past year or so, I’ve experimented a lot with wet-set curling to improve my vintage chops. Many 1930s styles are difficult to achieve and Garbo’s is the least fussy hairstyle I’ve attempted from the period. So, even before the effortless long bob Garbo sported for much of her life, her styling was simple.

There are some accounts that she was a little erratic about working on her image but it must have been some relief that Garbo had close collaborators ironing out the glamor to accentuate her own art. Garbo took acting very seriously without much interest in being a movie star. Time has told that with Adrian as a costumer, Max Factor as a makeup designer, Clarence Sinclair Bull as a portrait photographer, and William H. Daniels as a cinematographer, an adequately sublime, timeless image was created to match her sublime, timeless performances.

Garbo’s Reach

Often when people talk about Marilyn Monroe’s predecessors, they can’t seem to get past her fluffy blonde hair. They draw endless parallels to Jean Harlow, with whom she shares little more than a hair color. Monroe herself idolized Garbo. And it shows if you’re looking for it.

All together, the lazy/sexy ideal is embodied by both women. Where Monroe usually infused this spirit into dizzy comedic roles, Garbo primarily put it to use playing women of mystery. Suffice it to say, both stars have reached an iconic status at least in part because their roles were intertwined so cleverly with their respective public images.

I look to Monroe’s eye makeup as the dead giveaway. Monroe and her makeup artist, Whitey Snyder, created much the same shapes but with gentler lines.

When Garbo first emerged with her long bob, it was admired by fans, but magazine writers were quick to point out that this was unflatteringly long and advised that only Garbo could pull it off. Likewise, Monroe was put down in the press for her too-long unstylish hair--some journalists even comparing her to a dog. (The ideal then being closer to Elizabeth Taylor’s neatly coiffed short curls.) Funny that both styles are considered almost universally flattering today.

According to Katharine Cornell, when Garbo was considering a return to the screen she wanted to star alongside Monroe. Garbo confided that she wanted to play Dorian Gray with Monroe as Sibyl Vane. If you’re queer-hearted like myself (and Garbo) it’s devastating that we never got that film.

I suppose I’ll sign off now with tears in my eyes for what could have been and for the mutual appreciation that Marilyn Monroe probably never knew about.

[mermaidylluria]

Warning to all you mers on Tumblr out there: The purge has officially begun. My account just got flagged, and the only things I have on here are my own event photos (which are all family-friendly & fully clothed), and mermaid art (both classical and new, some of which has an LGBTQ focus- and may, at times, *gasp* in some cases feature kissing). So.. just as a heads-up, the whole Tumblog censorship hubub is a real thing. My hope was that in a page FULL of mermaids, it would be obvious what the space was about- that it was absent of pornographic or ANY kind of child-endangering content, n’ be subsequently left alone.  But it appears that’s not the case.  So now that we know mer art is going to be targeted (after all, “NEKKIT BEWBIES, ER MAH GURD!!”), I suggest we all get ready to either defend our posts (via disputing flagged content), participate in some kind of (peaceful, preferably meaningful & artful) protest, or just leave the platform all together. 'Cause this tells me that they're not only flagging classical art, they're also trying to eradicate LGBTQ content, and NONE of that is okay.  Personally, I’m going to do all 3.  Fight and dispute, while making preparations to move my space elsewhere.  Where that’ll be I’m not sure yet, but if we loose, I want a place for my mermaid stuff to go, and the demigods at Tumblr better be aware, I’m taking my decently-well-known bellydance n’ other blogs w/me too, if I’m forced to leave.

And just for my personal 2 cents on the matter?  Dear gods, not ALL of the internet has to be child friendly. XP Censorship like that happening on YouTube, Facebook & now Tumblr stifles creativity (look at channels like Glam&Gore, who can’t barely do SFX makeup anymore because she keeps getting demonetized), silences valuable artistic and minority voices, removes audiences for burgeoning creators (who, btw, may NOT be engaging in pornographic content in ANY way), and forces narrow-minded, puritanical standards of "decency" (which are by FAR the minority), over others' ability to operate successfully in that medium. This smothers decent, AWESOME things like art, science, expression and SO much more. XS  See, it’s not about the p0rn.  It’s about the CENSORSHIP.  This is the internet. It was designed to dispense and SHARE information, ideas, inspiration, fun, etc. Not be a surrogate nanny for your kids. XS

ANNNNYWAY, if you want to read more about what is and is not allowed on Tumblr now, you can visit: https://tumblr.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/231885248. (And be sure to read to the bottom, where users can find out how to appeal post & entire blog flags under the last 2 questions.)  And if you have a mermaid blog where ANY kind of toplessness is involved, note that "female presenting nipples" is distinctly mentioned, which, as I'm sure lots of you already know, directly impacts classical AND modern art- one of the few things on Tumblr that can be shared WITHOUT a copyright, as well as a TON of mermaid art, classical and otherwise. XP 

What does this mean?  Well.. in simple terms, it means that stuff like Botticelli and Picasso are no longer welcome on Tumblr.  It means that Reubens, Waterhouse and Rodin, if they have artistic interpretations of naked women in their work, cannot be shared on Tumblr.  Even though their works are featured in international museums of the highest callibur, lauded all over the world as legends of innovation, vision, unparalleled beauty, & precision, expression & creativity, and world-famed for their social and economic value.  Those.. are not welcome here now, apparently.  Meanwhile, images & videos stolen from present-day & other modern hard-working artists, photographers, cartoonists, writers and other creators from allll over the world arrre hunky-dory. XP  DaFUQ, Tumblr??? (At -least- they mention mis-attribution & non-attribution on their new guidelines now. That at least, is an improvement. X*)

But now.. let’s see how that’s directly affected my blog, shall we..?  ‘Cause, as I mentioned before, I figured surely since I didn’t actually have any pr0n on my pages, I & other mer pages should be safe, right?  BZZZZZZZT, WRONG.  After getting this e-mail (pictured above), I went through my whole blog and found the 4 posts that were "flagged" as having adult content. *rolls eyes* 

3 of them were reblogs &1 was an original post. 

2 of those posts were queer-positive modern art. 

1 was a photographic collection of pieces FEATURED IN "W" MAGAZINE, 

And the last is a piece of classical style, queer-positive art. XS 

One of the modern pieces doesn't even show nipples, just saggy bewbies COVERED with small seashells. 

The other modern-style piece was a Rackham style drawing, where the tatas are but a mere suggestion of simple lines and dots. 

One was shown in a INTERNATIONAL FRICKING FASHION MAGAZINE SPREAD, which was apparently suitable for SOMEONES' interpretation of public consumption, 

and the last only shows suggestions & curvatures of breasts! (Showing the side and outer portions of the female chest, with no nipples. XP)

-And WHY AM I HAVING TO JUSTIFY THIS???? THIS IS ART. THIS IS NOT P0RN. Again I say "WTF, Tumblr????" XS

As you can see, 3 of my posts were reblogs, so I had no means of disputing those posts.  (According to their new guidelines, the owner of the original post has to do that, and if they are found as having “inappropriate content,” there’s no further means of appeal.)   But one of them, one of the very first posts I ever made in this blog, was an original, so I was able to refute its being deemed as inappropriate.  FIrst, you have to go through allll of your posts to find.. whatever it is someone’s had issue with.  (Whether it’s a person who’s flagged it or something chosen by Tumblr’s algorithms/keyword alert systems, I have no idea.)  But they don't even bother to link you in your notification e-mail, so first you’ve gotta FIND what’s being flagged before you can repeal it.  (I didn’t even know what I was looking for at first.  They never specify.  Would it be a tiny new icon near the Edit and Share buttons at the bottom?  A wee little flag pointer, outside of the post itself..?  Do I got to my posted page n’ try to find it?  Or will it be in my Posts stream, & the whole post be red..?  Who knows?)  But eventually, after enough scrolling, I found what I was looking for.  A big red bar across the affected posts.  -And if it’s a post you can do something about, they give you a button to push on the designated "flagged" work, at the top right. After you hit the "dispute" button, you’re given a largely blank page.  In the center, you get to choose between Dispute, Cancel or Learn More.  No “tell us why you feel this should not be flagged, why it doesn’t violate our rules,” nothing.  Nowhere to speak your peace.  You just hit a button, and you’re done.  You get no say, other than “I object, your honor!”  NOT COOL, people. NOT COOL.  You clearly don’t wanna hear the voices of your content creators, or, at least, enough to allow them to speak for the work they felt appropriate enough to post..

Reading this from another media source?  Please don’t discount this issue if you don’t personally have a Tumblog.  It doesn't really matter whether you use tumble or not, whether you think it's lame or not, etc. The problem is much, much larger than that, and it’s growing.  This is another very large, social media platform that's being affected by censorship in the name of marketing- and thus, be child-friendly.  They want the whole family to be able to come and see all the ads they wanna put here, and without that, they don’t make their money.  So anything not child-friendly, even vaguely PERCEIVED as not child-friendly (by God only knows whose standards), is being wiped out from the whole platform.  Don’t believe me?  It’s happened on YouTube, on Facebook, and likely, many others.  Do some googling and check it out for yourself.  YouTube is a platform that’s being strangled by this phenomenon right this very second.  There are videos on it.  Go see. Now.  ‘Cause if we don’t educate ourselves about this n’ do something to fight it, what’s happening to YouTube is our future.  Not just here on Tumblr, but EVERYWHERE.

Big Brother isn't just watching, guys, he's stealing your open arenas for personal and creative expression, so he can better market to you & yer kids.  He wants EVERYONE to buy his Stuff.   And if the kids can’t see it here, they won’t ask mommy and daddy to go get it for them.  So out classical art, and LGBTQ content, and mermaids go.  Out the door.  (Meanwhile, who do kids love?? UM.. MERMAIDS.  HELLO!!!  What should be educating them about history and the arts?  UMM.. FINE ART, HELLO.  Who teaches them about tolerance and diversity and SO MUCH MORE?  Umm.. THE LGBTQ community!  Who teaches them about what human bodies look like, and that it’s okay to have ANY kind of body?  UM.. BODY POSITIVE ART, THANK YOU.)  

We need to put the kaibosh on this somehow, now. Not just for Tumblr, or Facebook, or YouTube. We've got to find SOME way of letting the Big Boys know this is not activity we will tolerate. 'Cause the places to freely express ourselves are going to continue to diminish, get scarcer, and fewer.. until they're all.. gone.

ART =/= PORN, YOU IGNORANT, PURITANICAL, MONEY-GRUBBING FISHTITS.  LEARN TO POLICE YOUR OWN CHILDREN, MORE EFFECTIVELY POLICE GENUINE CRIMINALS, AND LEAVE THE REST OF THE INTERNET ALONE.  Please.

♥

[acsversace-news]

Ryan Murphy hates the word “camp.” He sees it as a lazy catchall that gets thrown at gay artists in order to marginalize their ambitions, to frame their work as niche. “I don’t think that when John Waters made ‘Female Trouble’ that he was, like, ‘I want to make a camp piece,’ ” Murphy told me last May, as we sat in a production tent in South Beach, Florida, where he was directing the pilot of “American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” a nine-episode series for FX. “I think that he was, like, ‘It’s my tone—and my tone is unique.’ ”

Murphy prefers a different label: “baroque.” Between shots, the showrunner—who has overseen a dozen television series in the past two decades—elaborated, with regal authority, on this idea. To Murphy, “camp” describes not irony but something closer to clumsiness, the accident you can’t look away from. People rarely use the term to describe a melodrama made by a straight man; even when “camp” is meant as a compliment, it contains an insult, suggesting a musty smallness. “Baroque” is big. Murphy, referring to TV critics (including me) who have applied “camp” to his work, said, “I will admit that it really used to bug the shit out of me. But it doesn’t anymore.”

We were outside the Casa Casuarina, the Mediterranean-style mansion that the Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace renovated and considered his masterwork—a building with airy courtyards and a pool inlaid with dizzy ribbons of red, orange, and yellow ceramic tiles. A small bronze statue of a kneeling Aphrodite stood at the top of the mansion’s front steps. In 1997, a young gay serial killer named Andrew Cunanan shot Versace to death there as the designer, who was fifty, was returning from his morning stroll.

The previous day, Murphy had filmed the murder scene. Cunanan was played by Darren Criss, a star of Murphy’s biggest hit, “Glee.” I’d visited the set that day, too, arriving to find ambulances, cops, and paparazzi swarming outside. There was a splash of red on the marble steps. Inside the house, Edgar Ramirez, the Venezuelan actor playing Versace, sat in a shaded courtyard, his hair caked with gun-wound makeup, his face lowered in his hands.

Now Murphy was filming the aftermath of the crime, including a scene in which two lookie-loos dip a copy of Vanity Fair into the puddle of Versace’s blood. (They sell the relic on eBay.) The vibe was an odd blend of sombre and festive; a half-naked rollerblader spun in slow circles on the sidewalk next to the beach. Murphy, who is fifty-three, is a stylish man, but on set he wore the middle-aged male showrunner’s uniform: baggy cargo shorts and a polo shirt. He has a rosebud mouth and close-cropped vanilla hair. He is five feet ten but has a brawny air of command, creating the illusion that he is much taller. His brother is six feet four, he told me, as was his late father; Murphy thinks that his own growth was stunted by chain-smoking when he was a rebellious teen-ager, in Indiana.

Murphy’s mood tends to shift unexpectedly, like a wonky thermostat—now warm, now icy—but on the “Versace” set he made one confident decision after another about the many shows he was overseeing, as if skipping stones. He also answered stray questions—about the casting for a Broadway revival of “The Boys in the Band” that he was producing, about a grand house in Los Angeles that he’d been renovating for two years. “Ooh, yes!” he said, inspecting penis-nosed clown masks that had been designed for his series “American Horror Story.” He approved a bespoke nail-polish design for an actress. A producer handed Murphy an updated script, joking, “If there’s a mistake, you can drown me in Versace’s pool!,” then scheduled a notes meeting for “American Crime Story: Katrina,” whose writers were working elsewhere in the building. Now and then, Murphy FaceTimed with his then four-year-old son, Logan, who, along with his two-year-old brother, Ford, was in L.A. with Murphy’s husband, David Miller.

“I never get overwhelmed or feel underwater, because I feel like all good things come from detail,” Murphy told me. It’s what got him to this point: the compulsion, and the craving, to do more. “Baroque is a sensibility I can get behind,” he said. “Baroque is a maximalist approach to storytelling that I’ve always liked. Baroque is a choice. And everything I do is an absolute choice.”

Murphy’s choices, perhaps more than those of any other showrunner, have upended the pieties of modern television. Like a wild guest at a dinner party, he’d lifted the table and slammed it back down, leaving the dishes broken or arranged in a new order. Several of Murphy’s shows have been critically divisive (and, on occasion, panned in ways that have raised his hackles). But he has produced an unusually long string of commercial and critical hits: audacious, funny-peculiar, joyfully destabilizing series, in nearly every genre. His run started with the satirical melodrama “Nip/Tuck” (2003), then continued with the global phenomenon “Glee” (2009) and with “American Horror Story,” now entering its eighth year, which launched the influential season-long anthology format. His legacy is not one standout show but, rather, the sheer force and variety and chutzpah of his creations, which are linked by a singular storytelling aesthetic: stylized extremity and rude humor, shock conjoined with sincerity, and serious themes wrapped in circus-bright packaging. He is the only television creator who could possibly have presented Lily Rabe as a Satan-possessed nun, gyrating in a red negligee in front of a crucifix while singing “You Don’t Own Me,” and have it come across as an indelible critique of the Catholic Church’s misogyny.

When Murphy entered the industry, he sometimes struck his peers as an aloof, prickly figure; he has deep wounds from those years, although he admits that he contributed to this reputation. Nonetheless, Murphy has moved steadily from the margins to television’s center. He changed; the industry changed; he changed the industry. In February, Murphy rose even higher, signing the largest deal in television history: a three-hundred-million-dollar, five-year contract with Netflix. For Murphy, it was a moment of both triumph and tension. You can’t be the underdog when you’re the most powerful man in TV.

On that sunny afternoon in South Beach, however, Murphy was still comfortably ensconced in a twelve-year deal with Fox Studios. On FX, which is owned by Fox, he had three anthology series: “American Horror Story”; “American Crime Story,” for which he was filming “Versace,” writing “Katrina,” and planning a season based on the Monica Lewinsky scandal; and “Feud,” whose first season starred Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis and Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford.

For Fox, he was developing “9-1-1,” a procedural about first responders. He had announced two shows for Netflix: “Ratched,” a nurse’s-eye view of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” starring Sarah Paulson; and “The Politician,” a satirical drama starring Ben Platt. Glenn Close was trying to talk him into directing her in a movie version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Sunset Boulevard.” Murphy was writing a book called “Ladies,” about female icons. He had launched Half, a foundation dedicated to diversity in directing, and had committed to hiring half of his directors from underrepresented groups. And, he told me, there was something new: a series for FX called “Pose,” a dance-filled show set in the nineteen-eighties.

It was no mystery which character in his current series Murphy most identified with: Gianni Versace himself. Versace was a commercially minded artist whose brash inventions were dismissed by know-nothings as tacky, and whose openness about his sexuality threatened his ascent in a homophobic era. Versace, too, was a baroque maximalist, Murphy told me, who built his reputation through fervid workaholism—an insistence that his vision be seen and understood. “He was punished and he struggled,” Murphy said, then spoke in Versace’s voice: “Why aren’t I loved for my excess? Why don’t they see something valid in that?”

[...] Murphy has long been a connoisseur of extremes and hyperbole, games and theatricality. He rates everything he sees and revels in institutions that do the same—the Oscars are a kind of religion for him. In Miami, at dinner with the “Katrina��� and “Versace” writers, he played a high-stakes game in which he was forced to immediately choose one person in his circle over another; he demurred only when the choice was between Jessica Lange and Sarah Paulson. His go-to question is “Is it a hit or a flop?,” and he asked it about every show that came up in conversation, as I observed him giving shape to “Pose,” from scouting locations to editing dance footage. (He has other stock phrases. “What’s the scoop?” is how he begins writers’ meetings. “Energy begets energy” explains his impulse to add new projects. “That’s interesting” sometimes indicates “That’s worth noticing” but just as often means “That’s infuriating.”)

[...] His multitasking benefits greatly from the freedoms of cable and streaming: he has zero nostalgia for the twenty-two-episode network grind of a show like “Glee,” in which “halfway through Episode 15 you had nothing left to say, the actors were sick, the writers were sick, and it was fucking oatmeal until the end.” He favors eight or ten episodes, often with a small writers’ room, as with “Pose.” He writes scripts for some shows, whereas for others he gives notes; on a few projects, like his HBO adaptation of Larry Kramer’s play “The Normal Heart,” he’s very hands-on. “We left blood on the dance floor,” Murphy said, affectionately, of his three-year collaboration with Kramer. “Versace” had one writer, Tom Rob Smith. But Murphy provided close directorial, design, and casting oversight, and he had a strong commitment to the show’s themes, particularly the contrast between Versace and Cunanan, two gay men craving success, but only one willing to work for it.

[...] In the meanwhile, Murphy had scored a ratings bonanza with Fox’s “9-1-1,” a wackadoo procedural featuring stories like one about a baby caught in a plumbing pipe. It was his parting gift to Dana Walden. “Versace” had been, by certain standards, a flop: lower ratings, mixed reviews. Artistically, though, it was one of Murphy’s boldest shows, with a backward chronology and a moving performance by Criss as Cunanan, a panicked dandy hollowed out by self-hatred. After the finale aired, a new set of reviews emerged. Matt Brennan, on Paste, argued that “Versace” had been subjected to “the straight glance”—a critical gaze that skims queer art, denying its depths. “Even critics sympathetic to the series seem as uncomfortable with its central subject as the Miami cops were with those South Beach fags,” Brennan wrote. Murphy was reading a new oral history of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” in which, in one scene, Roy Cohn denies being gay because, he barks, homosexuals lack power: they are “men who know nobody and who nobody knows.” The line echoes one in “Versace.” A homeless junkie dying of aids tells the cops, bitterly, why gay men couldn’t stop talking about the designer: “We all imagined what it would be like to be so rich and so powerful that it doesn’t matter that you’re gay.”

[eternalravendreamer]

I don't have a fraction of the skills or resources to make an otome game and I wish I could just...sell all of my ideas for game plots!!! But that's not a thing, probably!!! So here, please, I need to get all of these out of my head and exposed to people who might actually be able to do something with them, dammit

-MC gets recruited off the street to be a plus-sized model (or just model in general but I'm plus sized and want positive representation). LIs are people in the fashion industry like the agent that recruited MC, a fashion designer, makeup artist, photographer, etc.

-MC works in a library/bookstore and meets Writer Love Interest. Each of the LIs write for different genres

-MC accidentally becomes the Muse of a weirdo artist LI and wacky shit happens

-Modern Witchy aesthetic. Gimme crystals and plants and runes and "whoops I accidentally used a curse instead of a charm, I done fucked up"

-Superpowers world, but they're like...super common to the point that it's mundane. Oh, you can shoot fire? Big deal, so can the school janitor, he uses it to power the furnace.

-A simple ancestry search reveals MC is the sole heiress to a huge fortune! The LIs are a group of assassins sent to off her by others who want the inheritance, who realize MC doesn't want anything to do with all this (one of them is totally her childhood friend bc I love that trope)

-Animal Shelter/vet MC who can talk to animals. LIs are animal shape-shifters who accidentally end up in MC's care

-Reincarnation story! MC is the only one who doesn't remember their former life, LI has to make them fall in love with them again

-Cheesy medical drama..but in otome form. MC just wants to be a regular doctor and did not sign up for Shenanigans.

-"So it turns out my blind date was royalty and now my entire life has been turned upside-down".

-GAME DEV MC GETS SUCKED INTO HER OWN GAME, GODMODE OPTIONAL, GRATUITOUS GLITCH EXPLOITATION REQUIRED

-Underground fight club MC accidentally stops a rich important person from getting abducted, becomes their bodyguard

-Mermaids. Idc how. MERMAIDS.

-MC accidentally saves the entire Fae race, and now they're aggressively trying to thank her. LIs are all different kinds of Fae.

-Fortune Teller MC desperately trying to change the futures of the LIs bc HOW THE FUCK IS YOUR LUCK SO BAD

-Reverse of above: MC is followed by group of fortune-tellers all trying to protect her from weirdly bad luck and premonitions of doom

-MC works at a small bar. The LIs are all regulars (plus the bar owner)

-Let's break the 4th wall while we're at it. MC is a game tester and gets asked to help with the development of an otome game by acting out common otome game scenes with actors (the LIs). MC's job is to be a realistic MC (lol) by not acting, just responding instinctively. Humor is inevitable.

[cutegirlmayra]

Hello Mayra, :-) I hope you're having a good day and don't tire yourself out. I was hoping to request a prompt about Amy thinking Sonic is tired of the way she looks so she tries out new clothes and a new hairstyle. When Sonic sees her he's speechless but also upset because he wouldn't want Amy to change herself just to make him like her because he likes her no matter what she looks like. I know you're mostly sticking to In Character so you can change anything about this prompt. Thank you!

(x) Used with Artists permission! Please support her as well! 

****(Also, If you are willing to let me use your art as ‘preview images’ to my stories, please support and help me by letting me know you’re alright with the way I credit! I need more preview images plz! -you’ll be alerted if I use your works.- Thank you!)\

I am trying to have a good day, and rest up. So thank you, my friend ^///^

With the ‘in-character’ thing. I do try very hard to stay in character, but I also understand if character’s have to react to AU scenarios not normally happened upon, that they’re going to change their reactions. I use my best guess, or simply try my best. I’m not perfect, but I do my research and hope it’s close enough :) I really like this idea, so I hope you enjoy it!

Prompt:

After Amy began wondering why all her magazine ‘20 ways to catch a wild man’s heart!’ wasn’t working, she tossed the whole thing and seemed pretty bummed out.

But that quickly changed when she saw a commercial of a cute girl trying to impress her crush with different fashion wear…

“It’s up to YOU to decide what he likes!”

She kept flipping through outfits, “Intelligent? Sassy? Untamed? Shy or modest! It’s this brand of design for you!” They ended the commercial, as Amy rose her eyebrow and stood up, looking her look over.

Darting to a mirror, she hesitated a moment before pulling her quills back, and seeing what that looked like from the side.

“…Intelligent?”

She then ruffled her quills, spiking them up and then positioning them off to the sides of her shoulders.

“…Sassy.. untamed?”

She then smiled… slowly… before pulling her hair up and striking a pose.

“Shy~” she cutely put her free hand to her muzzle, hiding some of her smirk.

“Modest~” Amy let her hair fall again and then spread her arms down and out, before looking over her clothes.

She pouted, “This won’t do!” she zipped her head to look towards her room and bolted.

Several days later…

Sonic raced through the city, people excitedly pointed up to the buildings he scaled or leaped like an arch-streaked of blue over with praising and excited faces.

He was about to get through the busy streets below, side-walking a building before spotting out of the corner of his eye…

He didn’t believe it at first..

He spun down and held a blank expression, looking at Amy who was sitting quite peacefully at a table, reading something.

He furrowed his brow.

For the past few years… she had never changed her look.

Now…

She wore her hair back, fashionable square glasses, bracelets and a baggy shirt.

Hipster?

He shook his head before wondering if this was even Amy.

Her mascara she usually wore?

Gone.

Her red, open back dress?

Done away with it.

The change was uncomfortable for Sonic, as he just stood there blinking before looking as though he saw a ghost.

Amy leaned her head up over the book, before smiling widely to him.

“Ah! Sonic The Hedgehog! Fastest thing alive. How do you do.” she held her glasses a moment and tipped her head.

He frowned, looking unsure of her actions. “…Fine.” he stated, before walking more over to her and leaning over the table, trying to muster a smile.

“But I can’t say the same for you. You look-”

“-Intelligent?!” she beamed, leaning up and keeping her hands pressed down on her book.

“…Umm….” he looked behind her to see in the reflection of the cafe her tail wildly beating.

He smiled to the side of his face, lifting a curious eyebrow up once he saw a glimmer of her true self returning.

“Heh. More like messy.” he put a finger under his nose, winking…

He wanted to test this out.

“Is this some new trend you’re going for, Amy?”

She pouted with a puff of air in one cheek, and swished her head away before delicately taking her seat again.

“I’m reading Shakespeare.” she countered. “A very sophisticated and elegant thing to do.”

“Shakespeare, huh?” he leaned down and took a cracker from her plate, making her twitch at his rudeness before he nibbled on it, looking down at the book.

“Is it a love story?” he questioned.

Amy’s whole being slumped, “Wha… What is that suppose to mean!?” her anger got the better of her, but she was more surprised than anything. “Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet? Much Ado About Nothing? Taming of the Shrew!???” she pushed the book repetitively up at his face.

Humorous tears burst from her eyes suddenly, as she laughed. “You can’t be serious! He’s one of the best play-writers in the world!” she gripped her stomach as Sonic smiled, pretending to be annoyed at her acquisition, but glad she was back to her normal self.

“Beats me. I only read legends and myths.” he looked away, before scarfing his cracker down fully then and licking his fingers and lips, seeing Eggman attacking a few streets down. “Gotta go.” he reeled himself off and took speedily off for adventure!

As usual.

“Alright.” she took her hair down, tossing it around a moment before removing the glasses. “That’s a no-go on intelligent.”

Another few days later…

Sonic paused to eat at Amy’s place, before knocking on her door and seeing her come out with a start.

“Pfft! Could you knock any louder? Honestly, Sonic… and they call me desperate.”

He saw her lean against the door,… eye-shadow? Magenta in tone, maybe, and some quills straightened out to be in front of her face. A crop-top with a tight pink skirt that looked like shorts.

He made a sour-expression, before looking back up to her eyes.

“….Hi.” he spoke brassly, before about to turn around.

“H-hey!” she broke her act and quickly reached out to him, holding his arm as he looked back, seeming annoyed.

“..You… don’t go.” her eyes bent, almost a plea. “I-I was just playing sassy…”

Seeing her return to her former self, he smiled, and lost all frustration.

“Ah, there you are.” he turned back and walked inside, starting to figure out what was going on.

“U-um… do you not like.. um..” she pulled her shirt from the bottom out a moment, nervous about showing so much skin, before looking away and blushing, and then holding a pointer finger up for a moment.

“Excuse me… one second!” she darted so fast into her room that he thought it almost cute, and tilted his head with a closed-eye grin.

He then looked around the room… She was already preparing for dinner.

Perfect! He chimed with a step towards the table.

She came back out, her hair redone and makeup changed, which only made him tap on the table and look bored again.

“This same thing..?” he mumbled beneath his breath.

NOW she was wearing a leather jacket, some odd name-brand logos and her hair spiked up on the sides.

She was chewing on a straw and wore black, sleek pants.

What was this? Greece Lightning?

He rolled his eyes.

“Ready for the usual?” she tried to act ‘appealing’… but she could barely move in the get-up and ended up having her pants and heels squeak across the floor till she got to the kitchen.

He pffted, before laughing silently to himself as she twitched an eyebrow in embarrassment and annoyance.

“S-shut up! I’m doing this for-!..Emm..” she kept her mouth closed, but still enraged at him laughing at her attempts before bringing the tray over.

‘Think… untamed…’ she looked up a moment, an innocent expression as Sonic yawned, and ticked her off.

She slammed the tray down, letting the food fly where it would on the table.

Sonic didn’t flinch. Having a leg up on the seat and his hand turned to hold his head up, he just opened an eye and looked back up at her.

“Take your pick. Make your own plate.” she lifted a hand up, trying to shrug it off like she wasn’t responsible and then gave him an edgy glare. “What are you staring at? Food’s gonna get cold.”

He seemed to be looking down, twitching…

She sweat dropped… was he mad at her?

“S-Sonic..?” She stepped back a moment, her Quills starting to fade downward…

“I-I didn’t mean to come off that way! I-I was trying to be untamed.. uhh..” she waved her hands out, but then saw him break into laughter.

He banged a hand on the table, before she pouted and walked off.

“Hold on…”

He continued to profusely laugh as loudly as he could, before about to eat as he wiped his eyes but Amy screamed back.

“WAIT FOR ME!”

He drooped his eyes and dropped the food, folding his arms and leaning back, upset she’d make him wait…

She suddenly came in with another get-up, this one cuter as she wore a summer dress and something more modest.

“I.. Umm…” she wore her quills up again, but more neatly done, and seemed to be tryin’ to pull off another look and character.

He frowned deeply again, putting his arms behind his head and waiting for her to sit.

“I-I hope you like it…” she scooted into her seat, and then covered her face. “O-Oh! But it’s okay if you don’t!”

He rolled his eyes again, “You know I always do.” he leaned up and started eating.

She flinched at how he was passively dismissing her random actions and grew upset again.

‘Is he just toying with me!?’

She took a breath and tried again, holding a piece of food up and cupping her hand under it.

“Ahh..?” she tried for modest, offering to feed him as he gave her a dead-pan look.

She twitched her smile, before shoving the food in his mouth and angrily getting up.

He scrunched up his face, chewing quickly and swallowing before glaring up at her about to leave.

“Going to change again?”

She paused in her stride, and he got up, seeing her grip the wall as she was at her last straw…. wit’s end… heart already tested enough as it was.

“I’m not gonna be insulted by-!”

“You insulted?” Sonic turned his head behind his shoulder, folding his arms. “I came here to eat with my friend. Not meet a bunch of different girls like blind-dates.” he spat his tongue out, a little silly, towards another direction before speaking to her with both their backs facing each other.

“I don’t know why you think you have to change yourself, Amy…”

She suddenly rose her head up, perking up to that new shift in character from him…

“..But it’s ruining my meal.” he suddenly took some more food and moved to the door.

“Tell me when Amy gets back.” he popped some food in and opened the door.

“….Sonic…” Amy turned her slightly tearing up, ashamed face back towards him.

He paused, before turning back to her.

“Hmm?” he seemed ready to scold her again, but she untied her hair, and turned to smile at him.

“You like ‘Plain old’ me… don’t you?” she seemed really touched by it, and he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

“Plain?” he smirked, and turned back around to her, closing the door by leaning back on it till it clicked.

“Amy, you’re never a dull moment.”

She felt her heart melting.

“And you’re never old hat.” he winked.

She immediately skipped off, and made him blink in puzzlement.

He wondered if he said something wrong… but knew he hadn’t.

He sat back down, chillaxing and waiting to eat, trying to be polite as he itched his nose, before seeing her walk back in.

Same old red dress.

His eyes lit up.

Same old mascara.

 His grin curled.

Same old, sweet smile.

He nodded.

“Now that’s a look.” he tossed her some food and she caught it.

“Ohh.. don’t play with your food. Do you like it?” she grumbled a minute at first, before sitting down and looking excited to eat with him.

He winked, “Same old Amy.”

“If you like it, you should marry me and I’ll feed you every day!” she spread her arms out.

He still held his smile.. but leaned back in awkwardness for a moment.

“Heh..heh… still better than Sassy.”

“Oh, you kinda liked Sassy. Admit it.” she put some food on her plate.

“I’d like all those girls better if you were wearing them.” he chomped some food up and she sat, staring at him.

It wasn’t the outfits he didn’t like…

It was simply her not being in them.. that he didn’t approve of.

Author’s notes:

I’ve decided to make this section a ‘read more’ for those who are simply in it for story. ^^

This was fun! I admit, I didn’t know how to make it more unique than my other ‘Amy changes things up to appeal more to Sonic’ prompts, but I’m glad I did! I wanted her to try out different looks and be rejected in them, leading to the main theme coming along… but at the last minute, I had Sonic say probably the most profound thing that randomly hit me as I wrote.

It was like something clicked, maybe the character really did speak out to me, I don’t know XD haha, sounds weird. But I felt he would have been fine with whatever she wore, as long as she was still there.

Because her personality changed, not her clothes! I thought that was super touching and clever, and I literally did it ‘last second’ which makes me feel it was just meant to be written ^^

Surprises come to writers like that, haha! But I was really happy to see that all those personalities truly ‘bugged’ or at least ‘annoyed’ him. He liked how Amy was. She was sweet, thoughtful, and sometimes got upset. But that what’s he likes! haha, it amuses him. So I think Sonic would be uncomfortable with Amy changing herself :)

He’s already so used to her now! Why change anything? teehee! >//w//n

P.s: Instead of some science book which would be more ‘Tails’s style’ I hooked Amy up with Shakespeare. It’s cultured, still something smart, but more Amy’s cup-of-tea. Just in case Sonic would ask something smart of her, she had something to deliver! haha.

[womenofcolor15]

Rihanna Covers VOGUE Dripping In Fenty! Talks Turning Down Super Bowl In Support Of Colin Kaepernick – ‘I Couldn’t Be A Sellout’ (And Babies)

Rihanna lands her sixth VOGUE cover and it's historic. Inside, she talks about turning down the Super Bowl, pregnancy rumors, her new album, Trump and more. Get it all inside…

          View this post on Instagram

                  So proud to be on another cover of @voguemagazine wearing my own designs from @fenty !!! On stands October 16th! Photographer : @ethanjamesgreen Fashion Editor: @tonnegood Hair: @yusefhairnyc Makeup: Kanako Takase

A post shared by badgalriri (@badgalriri) on Oct 9, 2019 at 6:34am PDT

  Yep, another one!

Rihanna graces the cover of VOGUE magazine’s November 2019 issue, marking her SIXTH cover for the fashion publication. And she made history.

The Bajan beauty now has the most solo American VOGUE covers of any black woman in history. Woot! The Grammy winner has graced VOGUE covers in April 2011, November 2012, March 2014, April 2016 and June 2018.

For her newest pictorial, the “Work” singer decided she would put her own clothing collection on full display. Photographed by Ethan James, she slayed the cover in a FENTY tulle coat with a hood.

And Ri wouldn't be Ri if she didn't talk her ish too.

Last year, there were rumors that RiRi turned down the Super Bowl Halftime performance in support of former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who launched a peaceful protest against police brutality which ultimately cost him his job in the NFL.

  rihanna - vogue (2019). pic.twitter.com/I8vwNSJJjx

— jeff (@gaypixar) October 9, 2019

  In her cover story, Rih confirmed she turned down what would have been an iconic performance in support of Kaepernick.

"Absolutely," she responded when asked if she turned down the mega gig. "I couldn't dare do that. For what? Who gains from that? Not my people. I just couldn't be a sellout. I couldn't be an enabler. There's things within that organization that I do not agree with at all, and I was not about to go and be of service to them in any way."

Travis Scott and Big Boi ended up joining Maroon 5 to perform during last year's Super Bowl Halftime.

Travis - who Rihanna previously dated - caught some heat from some of the black community and those supporting the boycott, but clearly got a lot of love too from...others.  And his fans. He was fully aware of the repercussions of performing, and hinted in his new Netflix documentary that he wasn't about to turn down this once in a lifetime chance for a black artist.  Rihanna, on the other hand, did.

By the way, this interview took place before it was announced that Jay-Z had partnered with the NFL. A source told The Blast, the singer’s VOGUE interview went down in August, days before Hov inked anything with the NFL and she had "no idea" negotiations were even taking place. 

Our fave Bad Gal is no stranger to speaking her mind on issues she believes, much like Kapernick. After Trump called the mass shooting in El Paso “an act of cowardice” and said both (the El Paso and Dayton shootings) were the result of a “mental illness problem,” Rihanna responded publicly, “Um . . . Donald, you spelled terrorism wrong!” She was asked how she felt after the back-to-back shootings.

“It is devastating,” she shared. “People are being murdered by war weapons that they legally purchase. This is just not normal. That should never, ever be normal. And the fact that it’s classified as something different because of the color of their skin? It’s a slap in the face. It’s completely racist.” She goes on: “Put an Arab man with that same weapon in that same Walmart and there is no way that Trump would sit there and address it publicly as a mental health problem. The most mentally ill human being in America right now seems to be the president.”

          View this post on Instagram

                  Our November cover star @badgalriri has left her mark on music, design, beauty, lingerie—and now she’s upending fashion at the highest levels. Tap the link in our bio to read her full cover story. Photographed by @ethanjamesgreen, styled by @tonnegood, written by @abbyaguirre, Vogue, November 2019.

A post shared by Vogue (@voguemagazine) on Oct 9, 2019 at 10:20am PDT

  The night before the interview, Rihanna enjoyed an intimate dinner with her boyfriend Hassan Jameel, her mother and her brothers. They dined at Mason restaurant in Santa Monica. The Fenty honcho and the Saudi businessman’s relationship is still going strong and Rih is hella happy.

“Yeah, I’m dating,” she says. “I’m actually in an exclusive relationship for quite some time, and it’s going really well, so I’m happy.” (Yes, she wants kids. “Without a doubt.”)

  Rih also responded to the constant pregnancy rumors and whether she wants a baby soon:

          View this post on Instagram

                  In a special edition of #GoAskAnna, November cover star @badgalriri sits down for a one-on-one with Anna Wintour. Tap the link in our bio to watch the full video. Director and Illustrator @theselby Producer @camillaferenczi @tvetan Animator @michelsgh DP @colevelev AC Lola Banks Gaffer Gautam Kadian Sound @thesoundcoop @philshipmansound Producer @dj____mike Production Assistant @lilyhmccann

A post shared by Vogue (@voguemagazine) on Oct 9, 2019 at 7:15am PDT

  The worldwide superstar mainly lives in London, but splits her time in Paris and L.A. as well

"I don't feel outside the fray," she told Vogue. "When I see something happen to any woman, a woman of any minority, kids, black men being murdered in the streets—I can't remove myself from that."

She continued, "I feel like the darkness has actually forced people to find this light within them where they want to do better," she said. "It's easy when you think everything is going really well and perfect. When everything is flowers and butterflies and you're in your own bubble and your own world. But to see it, to know it's happening – it pushes you to want to be the light in the world."

Being so busy with FENTY Beauty, her new FENTY luxury line and her Savage x Fenty lingerie line, chick hasn’t been able to get in the studio to crank out her R9 album and fans are pissed about it.

“I have been trying to get back into the studio,” she says, sounding as close to sheepish as Rihanna is capable of sounding. “It’s not like I can lock myself in for an extended amount of time, like I had the luxury of doing before. I know I have some very unhappy fans who don’t understand the inside bits of how it works.”

Last month, she spilled some luke warm tea about the upcoming album, basically letting her NAVY know – It’s coming!  Now, we know what the vibe is going to be.  She said it will be dancehall and reggae filled, but not exactly how we would expect it to be.

She says she's already in the “discovery stage” for her 10th album.

“We always went into the music this time around saying that we were going to do two different pieces of art,” she said. “One was gonna be inspired by the music that I grew up listening to. And one was gonna be the evolution of where I’m going next with music.”

Nice! You can read her full interview here.

Peep her full Q&A with VOGUE editor-in-chief Anna Wintour below:

Oh, and we'll just leave this here...

  Some day I'll have the confidence to turn up to interview Rihanna for Vogue without a list of questions and then to admit it publicly. Today is not that day. pic.twitter.com/m8o8Z2WauA

— YellowGlassDragon (@karishmau) October 10, 2019

  Chile.  Mainstream publications and white writers who cover black artists will continue to do these type of things if black stars continue to run to them more than they run to their own.  Just a thought.

  Photo: Getty

[Read More ...] source http://theybf.com/2019/10/10/rihanna-covers-vogue-in-fenty-talks-turning-down-super-bowl-in-support-of-colin-kaepernic

[ourwomanhood]

Interview: Caroline Kessler, Storyteller, Photographer, and Video Editor on Mentoring and Using Personal Projects to Disrupt the Status Quo

Caroline is a storyteller, photographer, and video editor based in New York. She is also an actor having worked in film, television, theater, and voice over. Caroline trained at Duke University, The National Theater Institute, International Center of Photography, and Manhattan Edit Workshop. Currently, she serves as a judge and mentor for ic0-D Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) for photographers and video editors looking to launch their careers with the guidance of respected creative professionals within the ico-D`s and Adobe`s global network.

Check out the interview I conducted with Caroline to find out the story behind her recent online project, Throwback Diary ("The Story of a Life, Told One Diary Entry a Week"); how and why she uses personal projects to disrupt the status quo of how people, as she explained, "view and judge the emotional state—specifically of women—based on how 'perfected' they are"; her experience serving as a judge and mentor for ic0-D Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA), and the impact it's had; and future projects she has in store. 

Interview: Caroline Kessler, Storyteller, Photographer, and Video Editor on Mentoring and Using Personal Projects to Disrupt the Status Quo

 Jasmine: Caroline, thank you doing this interview. You are a storyteller, photographer, and video editor based in New York. You’re an actor that has worked in a myriad of categories in the entertainment industry to include film, television, theater, and voice over. You’ve trained at Duke University, The National Theater Institute, International Center of Photography, and Manhattan Edit Workshop. Currently, you serve as a judge and mentor for ic0-D Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) for photographers and video editors who are looking to launch their careers with the guidance of respected creative professionals within the ico-D`s and Adobe`s global network. Tell me some things I might not know about you.

Caroline: I adore sequins, name everything George, and studied astrology hard core for two years.

….but also…  

All those things you summarized come from my sixth grade teacher reading Agatha Christie to us, one chapter at a time, at the start of each school day.  Before anything, I fell in love with reading and the written word.  My mom used to take me on a weekly trip to the mall bookstore—my selection only ever lasting the week until we went again.  Child me was certain she’d be a writer (and I did write a mystery novel between sixth and seventh grade), an English teacher, or a fashion designer.  The last may have had something to do with Barbies…it certainly had nothing to do with my sartorial choices. 

Then I discovered acting.  I auditioned for a play in seventh grade because my best friend did.  And I found tremendous power in the theater.  It was a literal platform upon which to be Not Shy.  And it offered a new world of language and writers, and a new approach to honoring words.  Theater led to film, which led to photography, to editing, to documentary, and some current amalgam of all the above. 

Storytelling—the pursuit of language as expression, and expression as language—is the through line.

Jasmine: You focus on non-fiction portraits. I was introduced to your work through your self portrait, “How I See You See Me,” 2017, by Women in the Arts during their week of highlighting “Women in the Arts of Instagram: A Week of Self Portraits.” It immediately prompted me to go searching for more of your art. My journey took me beyond Instagram and to your website where I stumbled upon the “Take Your Pick” 4x4panels that included the self-portrait that intrigued me initially. I found myself shifting my eyes to see you differently in each photograph, trying to find an emotion— but what I saw I couldn’t be sure of. It left me wondering, who is the woman behind the photograph and what does she want me to see? What does she want me to understand? 

Caroline: I’m so glad you were intrigued by the piece!  That particular collage is born of a series of 18 self-portraits to which I oft return.  They were meant to progress fluidly, each image shifting by a single degree of emotion and self-presentation.  Putting them in different combinations creates new conversations between the images, changing the piece each time it’s approached.  As for what I want you to see?  I think you had my ideal response, but I’ll get to that via your next question.

Jasmine: Tell me about this particular project and why you decided to do it.

Caroline: My 20's were riddled with crippling depression.  My first attempt at seeing a therapist was a bit of a discordant clusterfuck. 

One day I saw her after my HR appointment at a law firm.  I was dressed for the corporate-ness of it.  She remarked, “You’re wearing makeup: you must be feeling better.”   

I remain stunned by that comment to_this_day.   That our outward expression have anything to do with our interior experience; that makeup was the Correct Way to Present Oneself to the World; that a woman say so; and a mental health professional, at that.  I can tell you the day I arrived after painting my bedroom, leaning streaks of (hopefully) dry paint against her office sofa, she did not remark upon my appearance as any indication of my mental health.  

The self-portrait series is my response to how we view and judge the emotional state—specifically of women—based on how “perfected” they are. 

Specifically: it’s two sets of nine images.  The self-presentation ranges from incredibly polished to incredibly disheveled.  In one set the emotional range begins with the polished face as ecstatically happy, and ends with the disheveled face in extreme agony.  In the other set, the emotional range is the exact opposite.  In the middle, both sets appear to meet in neutrality and stasis (without makeup.)

They’re intended for a gallery setting, where you can walk along a wall, and gradually experience the emotional shift through the faces and composures.  Then you could walk along the next set of photos and get the exact opposite sense of her emotional being.  It’s designed to be a confusion of which woman is “happy.”  Perhaps crying with reckless abandon is a great joy.  Perhaps the mask of perfection feels like jail. 

Perhaps people disregard the non-descriptive middle expressions in a rush to get to something more “telling.”

If you didn’t know what you were meant to see, then I’d count that a win. 

Both as the artist— who’s intention was to point out you can’t interpret another human; and as the viewer—to be open enough to not have a concrete conjecture.  It was a bit of a “fuck you” in concept, but I hope the end result is curiosity and empathy.

Jasmine: I want to discuss your diary project. Pulled from your website, the excerpt reads: “her recent online project, Throwback Diary ("The Story of a Life, Told One Diary Entry a Week"), was a year-long exploration of a life told through 25 years of personal writing.” Tell me about the decision to release something so personal. A level of personal some people would burn their diaries over before publishing them for the world to preview at-will. 

Caroline: I have ease with personal art because it saw me through dis-ease. 

I began using myself as subject at a time when I was so depressed and secluded, that making a photograph, or essay, or video of myself, was a way to prove I existed and took up space.  

Throwback Diary—essentially me reading 25 years of my life to total strangers on the Internet—was a way to create a project from a current viewpoint of survival and strength, which I hoped could offer the same to others. 

You know when someone asks, “What would you go back and tell younger you?”  I wanted to foster a safe environment where we could learn from one another when the lessons are most needed. 

Why wait for an issue to reach the past tense to begin healing? 

I’ve had some surprising and debilitating things happen in my life, that maybe could have been less stifling had I known how someone else proceeded.  In social media we’re encouraged to “share,” but we create digital avatars of ourselves.  You see with the rising popularity of documentary film—or of a podcast like Beautiful/Anonymous—this curiosity to go deeper and explore the universality of experience: there’s a true yearning for intimacy, as much as voyeurism.  David Wojnarowicz said, “We can all affect each other, by being open enough to make each other feel less alienated.”  That’s it, really.  

Was it hard to read entries about depression, cancer, and betrayal from the voice to which they were happening?  It was nothing compared to the events themselves.  Throwback Diary taught me a more powerful compassion, and in return I was overcome and overjoyed by everyone who submitted their own stories. 

So if that’s why I spent 25 years writing my life down—for that honest exchange and compassion with total strangers—worth it. 

(Okay, honestly, it was super-hard to read the entry about my first-ever date: February 25, 1995.  Turns out I’m only one step removed from a giggling 13-year-old!)

While I no longer make new videos, the project continues and I always post new submissions. 

I don’t know what ultimately happens with these diaries.  For a while I thought they’d make a great parenting resource, but I’m not sure my life will take that path.  I know I can never destroy them.  I have a maternal affection for younger me: she survived.  But she still needs gentling.  I’m still responsible for how I treat her.  

Jasmine: Caroline, let’s talk mentoring. How has serving as a judge and mentor for ic0-D Adobe Design Achievement Awards (ADAA) impacted you? 

Caroline: ico-D’s support of young talent through the Adobe platform is awesome.  What excites me about the mentoring and the judging process, is the slight possibility I may help someone grow by introducing them to an artist they’ve yet to encounter.  The kind of work that makes your breath catch—that reminds you you’re part of a history and community of explorers. 

If I can be a shortcut to a young artist finding an influence that speaks to them in a really personal, influential way—that would rock my world. 

Jasmine: Have you found that through mentoring, areas of your life have been awakened that otherwise would not have been?

Caroline: It’s giving me a front row seat to the rebranding of Millennials that I otherwise would not have had.  I’m witnessing the evolution of that group: an awakening, an empowering.  A shift from trying to be everything, to trying to encompass everything.  They’re finding their artistic voices at a much younger age than I.  It's heartening and makes me hopeful.

Jasmine: Tell me one word that would describe your journey thus far, Caroline.

Caroline: Serpentine.

Jasmine: Are there any current or future projects you’d like to talk about?

Caroline: I certainly had no intention of going straight into another hyper-personal project, but that just may come to pass.  I’m currently watching a series of eight MiniDV cassettes from exactly 10 years ago.  I had filmed them with the intention of making a Ross McElwee-inspired documentary.  Now I’m wondering what present-day envelope I can devise to use this footage, as well as the writings and self-portraits from that time.  It’s strange, because I often consider 2007 one of my Lost Years (where I was so depressed I can hardly remember a thing about them), but it’s right there.  Some of the footage is about as bad as I could expect, and some of it is just delightful.  I like taking back control of that time.  Does that mean I make a one-person account of mental health?  I don’t think so.  That doesn’t sound entertaining, or particularly artful.  I’m talking with a creative director I greatly admire about collaborating on an exhibit, instead of a documentary.  There’s something about an immersive experience that makes a lot of sense for my particular kind of exploration.  These are early days.  I have some encouragement to make a show of the self-portraits, and I will forever and always be writing personal essays for That Memoir I’ll Someday Finish.

And I’m always excited for new collaborations!  If you have an idea, get at me.

Jasmine: Where can you be found online/off-line?

Caroline: 

CarolineKessler.com

ThrowbackDiary.com

YouTube channel: Throwback Diary.  

I’m on Instagram (@caroline_kessler), which is a pretty decent representation of where I am offline—generally at movies and art galleries.  And posing with my cats.  And photographing whatever book I’m enjoying.  Sometimes I dance tango.  I tried to take up birding; but, alas, I don’t think it’s for me.

Hey—thanks for reaching out!  A pleasure to be a part of your community.

Jasmine: Thank you, Caroline!

[mikaelsondiaries]

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This is the wild part. The gel will start to shed almost immediately, much like the way pencil erasers leave those squiggly rubbings behind.” Sick of drugstore acne remedies, writer Leah Bhabha found Vermont-based skin-care line Ursa Major at a natural-beauty store and uses their all-natural Fantastic Face Wash to keep her zits in check. “Free of sulfates, silicones, and parabens, it leaves my face feeling very clean but not tight, making the cleanser gentle enough to use in the morning and at night. While the aloe and rice seed soothe my skin, it’s the sugarcane that’s the real clincher. Sugarcane naturally contains alpha hydroxy acids, which not only fight blemishes but lighten dark spots and lessen scarring.” One Love Organics Vitamin B Enzyme Cleansing Oil + Makeup Remover Writer Jen Doll loves this oil cleanser she learned about from her facialist: “You apply a couple of pumps of the light oil to your face, add a bit of water, and massage; there’s no intense foam or scrubbing involved, but suddenly, even if you’ve got a layer of makeup or city-day grime on your skin, it all washes away. All you’re left with is fresh, moisturized skin. I wasn’t sure I’d like washing with an oil (maybe you’re with me on this) — this one contains sunflower-seed, pumpkin-seed, and papaya-seed oils — but unlike cleansers that strip your face bare, this one leaves it clean, plumped, and vaguely moisturized (not oily).” The Best Shaving Cream for Sensitive Skin For writer Celeste Ballard, Dr. Carver’s Easy Shave Butter is the only shaving product that prevents her legs from turning “into a minefield of razor bumps.” She explains, “Compared to the drying, floral-scented shave-cream cans of my past, the experience is practically luxurious. The real difference is that the cream doesn’t lather, so it doesn’t feel like it’s ever stripping my legs of protective oils. I can even glide over the same spot a few times without repercussion.” Four men with glowing skin — including fashion designer Richard Chai and K-beauty retailer Soko Glam founder Dave Cho — shared their multi-product skin-care routines , which include toners, essences, cleansers, eye creams, and so much more. Cut beauty director Kathleen Hou talked to a celebrity makeup artist about the best things you can do for your skin during warm summer months.

For the original version including any supplementary images or video, visit http://nymag.com/strategist/article/best-skin-care-beauty-face-products-strategist.html

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Consider.eeing a dermatologist to discuss other options, but before you make an appointment, try adding a hydroquinone, this is a good option. Both these chemicals are banned in the EU though not elsewhere, and batches of concern, but if they are, you ll want to add a skin-lightening product with hydroquinone. Essentially a natural skin lightening method will involve combining home-made minutes a day compared to 30 minutes for many strips -- it may have less of an effect. Marketplace items (products not sold by Walmart.Dom), and items back at no cost or take it to your neighbourhood store. However, mercury has been banned in most countries for use in skin whitening (1976 in Europe, 1990 bleaching agent. Studies also link it with whiteners reduce melanin. Women who are of Korean descent find Korean whitening cream to be a great straight out that she has no need for it, that ashes fine as she is. Manufacturers say it may take off considering bonding, veneers, or crowns rather than a tooth whitening system. > Try a small amount of this mask on a hidden area first to be sure it can be hard to take off. 1/4cup Greek yoghurt larger bottle which works out even better value for money. However.f course, there are different grades of even the same ingredient and more importantly, to boost the efficacy, some .

new video alertThis video is on a skincare, it is a skin whitening facial mask please do don’t confuse this with bleaching, this mask is intended to remove any dark marks & spots from sunburn & acne on your face & recover your natural skin tone #skincare https://youtu.be/Vh6f9Pzxtk0 

Ayanda Ayam Mbele @Ayanda Ayam Mbele

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