#not super good and a bit overly compressed i think but that is fine

[divine-motion]

don’t fucking interact if you ship t/cest and minor/adult ships

more shitty phone photos of sketchbook sketches for my tmnt fan incarnation/tmnt 2012 rewrite bc i have no shame and i’m having fun with it! pictures should have captions since i spent time writing them out, but tumblr might mess it up, so in case captions doesn’t work: 1. left to right: leo, donatello up, raphael down, michelangelo 2. Casey Jones up top, April O’Neil to the right, donatello in the middle and karai at the bottom 3. casey and don again, raphael to the left, mikey at the bottom just bc i liked how their their expressions turned out and didn’t want a bunch of negative space so don and case appear again 4. size chart featuring turtles. left to right: leo, don, mikey, raph 5. sketchy Slash design. big boy.

general thoughts character stuff below the Keep Reading. A Lot of rambling below so beware!!

April: 15 years old, trans and bi. local fifteen year old telepath finds out that not everyone is able to feel what other people are feeling, something she’s been able to do since she was six after she played in that one weirdly glowy puddle (early Kraang mutagen attempt that only managed to mutate April in the sense that it gave her telepathy, was originally intended to make humans become part of the Kraang hivemind). she’s largely unfazed by the existence of mutants and aliens, taking it in stride, and finds out about the Kraang - and meets the turtles - while snooping around TCRI business (aspiring journalist that she is) and accidentally witnessing the mutation of Snakeweed. her telepathy, which later as she grows in power alongside the turtles extends to telekinesis and basically possession, is very useful whenever she gets into a scrap since she can predict what moves her opponent will make, thus letting her dodge their blows effectively. personality wise she is a very determined and driven young girl, incredibly curious (and cannot mind her own business, she wants to know all the drama while not having to be part of it... which makes her very fortunate to be a telepath. listen she’s 15 she’s allowed to misuse her powers a little bit. as a treat.), playful, and cheerful, and she’s an extroverted autistic. in her spare time between her studies, she likes to play bass, sing, read, and write. that, and investigating whatever shady business is going on in town, and she makes it very clear to the turtles that even if they weren’t going to deal with the Kraang, she’d continue to try to stop them herself. she would like to not live under the threat of her or her loved ones getting mutated, thank you very much! and, you know, it’s kind of exciting. kind of.

i know it’s bc i have brain issues when it comes to parent figures but i am very much leaning towards Splinter not being... a good dad. i don’t think 2012 Splinter is a good dad anyways but i’d probably amp it up, make him a mix of 2012 and idw probably. i’m still mulling it over but like, remember in the season 1 finale when leo is watching his show and thinks the captain guy making a totally unnecessary sacrifice is a heroic move, and then Splinter tells leo (his fifteen year old child) that leo should know what or who to sacrifice, more or less telling him to sacrifice his brothers’ lives, potentially?? i know there was a lot at stake but hello??? i remember watching it and being like me: ah i see, this is showing that splinter is wrong and there is no need for any sacrifices as seen in the show when the captain Goes Down With His Ship for no reason other than just sacrificing himself, and leo will see that- leo: *tries to sacrifice himself twice in the finale, both times being kind of unnecessary/seemed like if he had just hurried or done something slightly different there would be no need to stay behind, and he gets out fine with no consequences, seemingly no injuries, and does Not learn anything, his brothers don’t even get sad when they think he died or get mad at him for pulling such a dumb move) me: surprised_pikachu.jpeg

like that moment haunts me. has any other splinter told their sons to sacrifice himself or his brothers? has any other splinter put that on them??? idw doesn’t count if he has bc he’s more explicitly supposed to be bad so???

sometimes writers think they’ve made an uncle iroh but they really, really, really haven’t. also his backstory is the same as in the show

anyways. Donatello: 15 years old, bog turtle, nonbinary (he/they, doesn’t mind being called brother but doesn’t like to be called “boy” or “girl” or whatever), bi. he isn’t in love with April. no creepy incel shit here. donnie is instead more like a mix between his Rise and 2003 self. he has trouble expressing himself and is pretty introverted, but he is very altruistic, kind, and compassionate. a lot of his inventions are made to help people and he was driven to learn about science and engineering because he wants to find a way to reverse splinter’s mutation, to give splinter his life and humanity back. he feels like he needs to know if splinter would just abandon them if he wasn’t a huge rat man, needs to know if there’s any part of splinter that blames them for being constant reminders of his mutation. other than that, he also likes to make inventions because he’s a dreamer and wants to experiment to see how much of the unknown he can push beyond. also, the best liar out of the turtles. also fairly good at compromising and prefers to solve conflicts without violence he can get a little... “obnoxious 15 year old genius” at times. even when he’s helpful it can come off as a bit “poor dear isn’t as smart as me”, and while he usually gets along well with Raph, he doesn’t handle Raph’s temper well at all (calls him “Wrathael/Wrath” and thinks he’s being super clever) and gets really dismissive of Raph’s “outbursts”.

Michelangelo: 13 years old, diamondback terrapin, unsure about the gender and sexuality thing but he doesn’t think he’s exactly cis and definitely not straight. a bouncy ball of sunshine and surprising emotional maturity and emotional intelligence! more so than his emotionally constipated brothers, at least. it’s on his thirteenth birthday (it was leo’s idea for them to pick dates that would let them have their own birthdays instead of sharing the “Mutation Day”, Mutation Day being another special “holiday”) that the Plot would be set in motion, as he’s finally allowed to go to the surface same as his brothers, and on this first night out they meet April and the Kraang and other mutants. he is a goof still, but he’s capable in his own right and gets frustrated when people treat him like a baby or an idiot because he’s not. he doesn’t always treat everything with the seriousness it should but like. he’s thirteen, he’s having fun. even so, he’s very insistent of taking responsibility whenever he does do something wrong and gets mad if someone tries to take the blame for something he’s done. definitely the most compassionate and empathetic out of the turtles, he’s quick to make friends and is very persuasive due to his earnest nature and good heart. much like donnie, he prefers to solve conflict without violence but does enjoy knocking skulls a lot more than donnie. unlike donnie, though, he is almost overly forgiving and not petty at all. he’s well aware that his kindness and forgiveness may be taken advantage of, but he still likes to approach people with an open hand, even if he knows that it may end up getting bitten. oh, and his hobbies include drawing, cooking, singing, and dancing. he likes to express himself!

Raphael: 14 years old, mississippi map turtle, trans, bi. all his fury is compressed within his tiny body, that’s why he’s so angry all the time! no, he’s not angry all the time, but he does have a short fuse. he absolutely hates his anger issues which leads to a lot of self-loathing, and a lot of frustration as his family members either don’t take his anger seriously or don’t have the tools to help him with it. he’s the physically strongest out of the bunch and the least agile. he loves animals and plants a lot and keeps a lot of flowers in his room, hoping that he can one day become a gardener. as his idw self, he wants to watch things grow, but no matter what he does he seems to be best at destroying things. he’s also the one most self-conscious about how the human world perceives them, as he greatly fears rejection, and is the first one to see something positive with people getting mutated - namely, that maybe this way mutants will be more well known and finally accepted by society, so he’ll no longer be trapped in the sewer until the end of his days. so yeah, he’s a huge optimist, in truth. also he’s great at knitting - great at creating and taking care of things in general - and there’s no leo and raph rivalry this time around. he can get mad at leo but not really more than he gets with his other brothers.

Casey: 15 years old, nonbinary (they/them), bi. teen vigilante who gets inspired to fight mutants and the big time criminals (no beating up pickpockets or shoplifters or whatever, just the ones that are really hurting people) and gets roped into the turtle fam after meeting raph and becoming unexpected friends (everyone was expecting it, once Casey realized that mutants are people and not weird monsters. well, not all the time, anyways). they struggle a bit in school not because of a lack of trying but a lack of time, as their parents work full time jobs and someone has to take care of casey’s little sister. their parents are very loving, but they only have so much time, so casey takes it upon themselves to take care of their little sister when their parents are busy and/or burned out from work. that, and they run into the classic dilemma of vigilante work clashing with school work. as always, they have a short fuse, they’re pretty cocky, they like beating ass, and they like hockey a whole lot. hockey, vigilante work, school, and taking care of their little sister... yeah, they have a lot on their plate. oh, and making their little inventions like the taser glove and their puck bombs, something that they bond with donnie over.

Leonardo: 17 years old, Central American wood turtle, trans, gay. he doesn’t fall in love with his sister oh my god. ahem. so, leo is raised from the start to be a Leader and has to mature very quickly, learning to be an adult way earlier than he should’ve, and as such he is very stoic and quiet, and doesn’t seem to have any hobbies, instead just doing chores and training almost constantly, and when he’s not doing that he’s reading or sleeping in his free time. he’s incredibly protective of his younger brothers and his other allies/friends, even if he acts distant and detached most of the time, and removes himself from situations where they’re having fun to not be the stick in the mud. he loves his brothers and admires them greatly, believing they could be So Much if the surface world would just accept them, and as a result he tries to be The Soldier so his brothers won’t have to. alas, they still get caught up in the Kraang and Shredder business, which frustrates him internally. he is the best fighter out of the turtles on account of having more years to train (and convincing Splinter to wait a few more years before they got Real training bc Come On Dude They’re Kids) but it’s the Only thing he’s good at, along with stealth and his sharp eyes. he absolutely sucks at talking when it isn’t about a mission or something he can script easily in his head. in his mind, he’s supposed to be more of a weapon than a person, an idea that isn’t exactly encouraged by Splinter... but not exactly discouraged either. his arc would be very paralleled with Karai’s, as they would both learn to hate their dads... also, absolutely down for murder, and a lawful neutral at best, putting his family and friends’ safety above all other things and following a strict personal code. doesn’t care too much for society’s laws, though.

Karai: 16 years old, demigirl, lesbian. same backstory as in the show, she’s born as Miwa but gets taken by Oroku Saki and raised as his daughter. however, she doesn’t exactly want revenge against Hamato Yoshi because she believes that he killed her mother. she never knew her mother, so it’s much more difficult to hate someone for taking her mother away, even if it does mean that she never got to know her mother. especially since her father rarely spoke of what her mother was like, and much more about how much he hates Yoshi. instead, her need for revenge is more for the possibly idyllic life she was robbed of, since she believes that maybe, just maybe, her father Saki would’ve been a kind father that would’ve let her have a normal childhood and not be molded into a warrior from the start if her mother still lived. and hey, maybe Tang Shen would be a nice mom too. being trained in the art of deception, Karai has a tendency to talk a lot and say very little, or at least very little that is true. she is rarely ever sincere and acts as if she’s taking nothing seriously, which is part of her defense mechanism to never let anyone close or see her true self. she mocks pretty much everyone, ally and enemy alike, but especially likes to make fun of her father’s henchmen and is always the first to point out their failures. while she does value honor to some extent, she is a bit “flimsy” when it comes to loyalty, especially after the truth about her father is revealed. when that is revealed, she at first just feels very numb, learning that not only has she been nothing but a tool and a weapon for the Shredder from the very start, but also that the idyllic fantasy where her mother still lived, perhaps her life wouldn’t be so different after all. she looks at leonardo and sees a reflection of herself, that her “real” father chose to train his sons the same way the Shredder trained her. she feels stupid for feeling like she’s been robbed of even a fantasy, but it still enrages her. of course, this also inspires her to stay with the Foot Clan... just to get the kill on Shredder.

... yeah. that got long. ahem. i’m very passionate about this unfortunately!! anyways i might draw/write more for it because no one can stop me and i’m having fun

[letterstothemidnightsociety]

It's 2007 and somehow, miraculously, Supernatural survives yet another rocky (?) season of mediocre ratings to come back for a third season, or at least, half season, but that season starts out with a real bang! Like, just a real solid trio of an opener for season three. It reminds me of all the things I love about SPN and also it reminds us of all the things that frustrate the hell out of me on SPN. So where did we leave things off?

First up, there’s Dean, who sold his soul to the devil in order to bring Sam back from the dead. Sam, you’ll remember, was part of some overly complicated ponzi scheme to find the perfect vessel to open a door - yep, open a door - and lost to Aldous Hodge who just straight up murders Sam in the season finale. So Dean get’s Sammy back, but in exchange, he’s only got one year left before he permanently moves down south. Oh! And even though they got Sam back and Sam kills Aldous Hodge (RIP pal), they neglected to keep the door from opening. The door to Hell, that is, and now they’ve allowed a shiz ton of demons out to freely roam the earth. Way to go, boys, you lost again! They are two for two on these season finales guys!

OH but they DO kill the Yellow Eyed Demon, so that’s a plus, but not before he plants the most perfect seed of doubt in Dean’s mind - “How do you know what you brought back is all Sammy?” Like, ugh, UGH, ugh!!!! What a way to drive the knife in deeper! What a way to make the heart of this show slowly start to crumble! C’est Magnifique!! *chef's kissy fingers*

So with all that emotional baggage weighing us down, how do we start season 3? How else - with a threesome of course! And also some technicolor grading, it’s wild guys.

Oh boy guys, let’s talk about this opener for a hot sec. I got into it a little bit last season, but as much as I love Dean, you HAVE to admit that that boy is gross. Just like...he’s a little gross. I’m also old enough now to see exactly how many red flags he’s raising through the last 45 episodes. Like, sorry Little Me, but he is not boyfriend material. Not to mention that all this debauchery is 1,000% him distracting himself from the consequences of his own actions, but we’ll get into that later.

Meanwhile, Sam is doing something constructive and trying to figure out how to reverse the curse and save Dean’s soul. And here we have the culmination of two seasons worth of character development - faced with the imminent demise of Dean Samuel Winchester, Sam tries to step up and take care of his brother for once in his life; Dean parties like it’s 1999. There were two things I thought of during this episode - 1) isn’t this not unlike the sort of behavior you see in suicidal people who have finally decided to take their own life? Which is just, like, further held up by the fact that Dean’s big monologue at the end literally has the line “Truth is I’m tired, Sam. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” and like...dude, you are NOT ok! Why isn't??? ANYONE??? ADDRESSING THIS????? And 2) Dean is sharing a lot of similarities with the demons in this episode.

Because MEANwhile, there’s demons! So many demons! Specifically, the Seven Deadly Sins ones, but also, spoiler alert, Ruby, who is gettin’ reeeeealll into that ketchup.

All these baddies just really taking advantage of their time topside cuz Hell is, as they so artfully put it, it’s like Hell, so they’re just livin’ it up while they still can ~almost like foreshadowing or something~?!?!?

Real talk though, it being a real long time since I’ve watched this season, it’s these kinds of details that I’m impressed with this time around. There is so much character work that goes into this show and it’s something I definitely connected with the first time around, but not on conscious level. Now I can look at it through time and experience and articulate what I’m seeing, which makes this re-watch infinitely more enjoyable.

Episode 1 of this season continues what they started in season 2 and just keeps building out that Hunter Community. Like, there really is a whole Community out there that keeps in contact and works together and makes sure everyone’s up to date on the latest hot goss, and it all makes John Winchester come off like a real creepy splinter cell lone gunman type. And that in turn makes the Winchester sons look like total, unprofessional boneheads who managed to open a portal to Hell. “UGH Great Jorb Guys, but can we blame them? They’re John’s kids,” is a conversation between hunters that I am headcannoning, but also 100% support.

Honestly, I love the idea of the Winchesters being just these real, like, b-grade, Walmart Brand Hunters that other Hunters are just SO done with. We kind of see a little bit of that with Isaac and Tamara, but by the end of the episode, the Winchesters prove that they’re...better Hunters? I hope somewhere in the next 12 seasons I get an episode that is told from another Hunter’s POV who is legitimately better/more emotionally balanced than the Winchesters and the whole episode is them just, like, cleaning up a bunch of Winchester messes like, SONuvabitch, these two ASSholes. I think we see a fair amount of episodes from the POV of people who are less qualified than the Winchesters who end up being mentored by them, but I’d be stoked for them to run into just a group of people who hate them for totally legitimate, professional vs amature reasons.

Bobby does not count because Bobby signed up to be their Dad and so he agreed to take care of their messes when he took that job.

And then we get to “The Kids Are Alright” which showcases one of my fav changes for this season - BRIGHTLY! LIT! HIGH! SATURATION!!!! And of course, by fav, I mean, Most Hilarious.

I do walk a fine line on this one truth be told. Like, season 1 was definitely going for A Look. It’s super gritty and high contrasty and stylized. Now, I got what they were going for but I wasn’t always crazy about it, mostly because the quality on the DVD’s was terrible. Quick tip for everyone: in order to get 2+ hours worth of content on a DVD, you have to compress the final edit of the program to a pretty small bitrate. When we drop videos onto DVD’s at my work (it isn’t often, thank goodness), the discs themselves only hold, like, 2GB worth of content and that is NOT A LOT when it comes to video files. The more compressed a video file is, the less detail you’re gonna get in the visuals. Watching episodes on Netflix (where everything’s probably at a higher bitrate and therefore is a better quality visual), it’s not bad, but on my DVDs, the compression is so heavy that we get SUPER hot highlights and SUPER crunchy shadows - what a lot of people would called “crushed blacks” because you’ve lost all the detail in the shadows and you’re left with a grainy, noisy, black hole on the screen. Like I lost so much detail in the pilot episode guys, I could not make out this guy’s face.

A rough approximation of my DVD quality. Still recommend it over Netflix for the Accurate Soundtrack tho.

Season 2 SPN toned that Look down a lot, like, a lot a lot. Enough that you still got the general vibe they were going for but not enough that you couldn’t make out faces anymore. But through this whole process, the CW execs kept pushing for the show to look lighter, more colorful, less film noir more...well, CW. And in season 3 it finally happened!!!

I get what those execs were going for, but also, I feel like the colorists on these first few episodes just REALLY went wild out of spite. Lookit this shot from “Magnificent Seven” right before Envy causes some rando innocent bystander to beat a girl to death for her shoes -

GREEN GREEN GREEN GREEN!!!! I WONDER WHICH SIN THIS GUY IS????

Then in “The Kids Are Alright” the birthday party looks like everything is coated in day-glow neon.

The Winchester Bros look like they just got back from 3 weeks in Aruba - LOOK at the saturation levels in these skin tones! LOOK AT THEM!!

My screencap ability aside, only in SPN can a cemetery at night have brighter lighting than a diner in the middle of the afternoon.

This is definitely a thing I will be tracking the rest of the season because I have a distinct memory of a future episode where the brothers have been magically gifted completely different lives where they were never Hunters, they know nothing of Hunting, and they’re completely normal until the end when everything gets snapped back and the episode literally changes colors. V. Excited to see just how saturated this season stays through the end.

But maybe more importantly in “The Kids Are Alright” we learn that Dean does NOT, in fact, have a son. Not that he would be a good father...well...maybe? I mean, this Dean, this season 3, definitely-suicidal, completely-reckless, can’t-keep-it-together Dean, is not good Dad material. Later seasons Dean? Probably fine? Earlier seasons Dean might ALSO be fine? And if he’d found out that Ben was his legitimate kid, it could have made a WORLD of difference, who knows. I know he ultimately does become father-like to Ben and that gives me a lot of feelings. But this Dean is not in a good place to take care of anyone, including himself and really, someone ought to do something about that.

I gotta say, this is an actual bummer. I can’t remember if, in the later seasons, they do any clarifying on this or not, but I am legitimately bummed that Ben is not Dean’s kid and that as far as we know, Dean has no natural children floating around out there with surly attitudes and soft hearts. Dean’s motivation from Day 1 has always been family and despite what comments he may make in early seasons, Dean’s secret desire is to have the wife and the kids and the dog and the white picket fence. And honestly, we’re only 3 seasons in and I just want Dean to have nice things!!

And then guys, we come to “Bad Day at Black Rock,” and I just...WHAT a masterpiece. I had almost NO memory of ever watching this episode before and I don't understand why. What a glorious masterpiece this episode is. Let’s make a list -

More Hunters™, who should be really annoying but were actually kinda charming in a Marx Brothers kind of way

Gordon’s in jail, where he belongs, but also is masterminding a coup against the Winchesters which is A+ spooky stuff

Slapstick comedy that I didn’t know I was missing from my life

Bela F*cking Talbot

Guys, I think this is my fav episode so far purely because I felt, while watching it, that the last 10 years of my life were not in vain and that I had in fact grown as a human person. I remembered hating Bela Talbot. Like, I DID. NOT. LIKE. HER. To the point that I questioned if her British accent was even real. It is, her mother is from the UK and she lived there for a time, but like, honestly, the audacity of Little Me.

This time around? Oh she’s defs my new fav. Just everything about her is like, A+, Great Job, Why-Did-We-Cancel-Her??? Like, oh yeah, probably because somewhere in here they try to shoehorn a romantic side plot with Dean. I don’t actually mind rioting over shoehorned romance, but also, if they’d let this play out for a season or two and then got the two of them to bone? I’m on board. I’m 100% on board.

Maybe it’s just that she is unapologetically out for herself, maybe it’s the fact that she is definitely a match for the Winchesters in a non-murdery way, probably it is both of those things. She's smart, she’s crooked, she has impeccable taste, she’s honestly a helluva lot of fun and I am so excited to see more of her and so BUMMED that she will not make it past this season.

Despite the fact that I absolutely adore all three of these episodes, they also bring up the problem that I was starting to see in season 2 - WHO is this show about? Isn’t it supposed to be about the Brothers as a whole? But the majority of these first three lean pretty heavily on Dean’s emotional arc. Granted, it makes sense. I mean, of COURSE Dean’s demon deal is gonna be the BIG thing in a season where he is literally staring down the barrel, but knowing that there’s a side plot about Is Sam Evil?? seems like...something we should really explore more? I believe it comes up in season 4, or at least, Sam’s demon-blood powers become a bigger deal in season 4, but I would have enjoyed seeing Sam have a more active stake in this season. I can see planting some weird new ticks being planted for Alive-Again Sam that just get weirder and darker and then a mid-season finale or a run up episode to the end of the season where Dean (finally) decides he needs to stop his demon deal because he needs to stick around so he can keep Sam from going completely off the rails. As much as I love Dean 5ever, I do think the show works best when the emotional weight of the season is distributed equally is all. And to be fair to the writers this season, there could have been a bigger plan for something like that but they ran out of time - their season was cut by about a third due to the Writer’s Strike.

Still, all in all, a solid opening to the third season. I want to say that these episodes feel like Classic SPN, but then I remember that this is season three out of fifteen. These ARE Classic SPN. Mostly self contained with enough emotional drama to remind us of the overarching plot. Maybe a little heavy on the emotional drama, but Dean’s only got a year to live and the show’s only got 16 episodes to resolve that crisis, so it’s fine.

[peters-starks]

NUMBER NEIGHBOUR

Peter Parker x Reader 

Summary: when texting your number neighbour you got more than you bargained for. 

Word Count: 4,059

Masterlist

The recent trend on Twitter of people texting their “number neighbour” the person who has the same phone number as them but with one number difference had become really popular in the past few days, so much so even the majority of your friends had now done it. So, when you were having a chill night in with two of your friends and they tried to persuade you to text your number neighbours you really weren’t surprised.  

“Guys I’m not going to do it what if it’s some weirdo and they probably won’t even reply so it’ll be pointless” you chucked and shook your head. 

“Come onnnn this movie is so boring and we’ve both already spoken to our neighbours so it’s your turn!” Your best friend, Merise, wasn’t wrong, this movie was like a YouTube comedy remake of an actual horror movie and frankly the acting was beyond awful. 

“What happened to typical fun games like truth or dare” you yelped as your other friend, Amara, threw a pillow at you 

“Just do it” they groaned at you going to reach for another pillow making you put your arms over you in defence whilst laughing

“Okay okay! I guess I have no dignity left to lose!” 

All your friends gathered around your phone as you typed in your phone number and changed the last number at the end and selected the message option. You typed out a simple “hi” and then clicked send. 

“Hi? Hi! That’s so boring” Amara groaned and Merise pinched her side 

“What else were they gonna say?” 

You shook your head at your overly energetic friends and stared at your screen for a moment longer with nothing happening. “I told you there would be no resp-”your words were cut short by a notification noise coming through and Merise grabbed your phone laughing. 

UNKNOWN: hi? Who is this? 

You groaned and watched as Merise tapped away and the sound of a message being sent shortly followed. 

Y: I’m your number neighbour! Have you seen the trend online? 

Your eyes widened at this. “OMG what if they’re like 90 years old? Or like 8? If they’re like underage isn’t this illegal I mean” you typed as you rambled your friends watching you in amusement. 

Y: unless you’re like not online which is super fine and if you’re like really young then ignore this aha :) 

“Honestly I don’t understand how your level of awkwardness can project through a screen that hard like I’m getting awkward radiation poisoning from this” Amara gaped at you making Merise chuckle and mumble something in agreement along the lines of ‘it’s not that deep’.

~|~

Peter was perched on his favourite rooftop taking a break to view the New York skyline at night, this being one of the reasons he loved patrolling in the evenings as nowhere else could you see this view. His phone vibrating caught his attention and he assumed it was Aunt May asking when he would be home as she was probably fretting about him swinging across the city, still not completely loving his new role but all the same supporting him to an endless amount. 

Peter’s eyebrows furrowed when he saw an unknown number on his phone screen and swiped to open the message seeing a simple “hi”. The number looked vaguely familiar but at this point Peter was far too tired to place it. He replied cautiously and waited for the mystery person to answer him. 

When his phone vibrated again he was mildly surprised by the two messages. His number neighbour! Peter secretly loved that trend online much to MJ’s dismay as she found it ‘pointless’ and had sent her number neighbour links to government conspiracies when they had text her to which she had no reply. Peter thought she just didn’t like the trend because she was upset she didn’t make a new conspiracy friend. 

P: ohhhh, of course I know, hey neighbour! And don’t worry I’m not really young 

P: well that depends what you class as really young, 13 is pretty old right? 

P: lol kidding 

Peter face palmed himself at that, god he was such a dork. 

Y: Idk 13 is quite young when you’re 65 

Y: I’m not actually 65 tho don’t worry 

Y: how old actually are you tho lol 

Peter smiled slightly sensing your mild anxiety at texting a stranger and honestly it was most the reason he hadn’t done it yet because knowing his luck he’d message a child and have some very unhappy parents at his door. 

P: I’m 18 wbu 

Y: snap! 

P: thank god! Are you from New York? 

Y: yup lived here for a couple of years now, I take it you are too? 

P: Queens 

Your two friends squealed as you found out this stranger lived surprising close to your apartment. 

“Ask them their name! We might know them considering they’re so close” Merise squealed slightly. Honestly you just thought she was like a puppy who was excited to meet new people. 

Y: so neighbour what’s your name if you don’t mind me asking? 

Peter hesitated at this for a second as even though his identity was hidden, only those the very closest to him knowing him as Spider-Man, giving his name to someone over text who literally could be anyone seemed risky. However, he doubted that any random government agent or evil bad guy would know of number neighbours or be able to joke around so easily. 

P: Peter, what’s yours? 

Y: Hi Peter from Queens, I’m y/n.

Amara braced herself for Merise’s literal yell at finding out the person you were texting was not only the same age and from nearby but also A BOY. 

“I BET he’s cute, he seems nice over text and dorky so he’s gotta be cute ugh” Merise winked at you after her small speech and you simply rolled your eyes. 

“I’m sure he is, if he’s who he says he is” you started staring at your screen waiting for his reply. Time passed and after 40 minutes you gave up on checking your phone screen every 10 minutes waiting for Peter to answer you. He probably got bored of texting a stranger which you wouldn’t blame him. The internet came up with weird trends. 

Just as you let your friends out as it was way past the time they were supposed to leave as you had school the next day, your phone had another text notification.

P: hi y/n :) 

You smiled faintly at this because Merise was kind of right, Peter sounds like a bit of a dork. 

Y: do you go to school in New York? 

Y: that’s if you’re in school aha 

P: yea I go to Midtown actually 

Your eyes widened slightly as that was Amara’s school whilst you and Merise went to one a couple miles away from Midtown. 

Y: no way! My friend goes there. You must be pretty smart. I go to the next school over. 

P: nice! Guess we really aren’t too far away then. 

A few hours passed and you and Peter were still texting back and forth, knowing you both really should be asleep but the conversation flowed so well that time passed without any realisation. Which you both paid for when school started the next day.

Y: I.am.so.tired.

P: I literally slept through 3 alarms and coffee isn’t working. Help. 

Y: at least you don’t have a bio test today I’m honestly screwed. 

P: if you need bio help I’m actually kind of a nerd with that stuff. Text me the questions secretly ;)

Y: oh yea totally not noticeable. 

You smiled and rolled your eyes at Peters texts catching Merise’s attention. “Still texting Queens boy, are we?” She nudged your shoulder and winked at you. 

“Maybe I am” you tried to answer with a straight face but honestly it was difficult. 

Throughout the day, you and Peter exchanged small texts here and there, both your friends seemed to notice you being glued to your phones more than usual. 

When school ended, you went home and tried to get your school work done but honestly nothing was going in so you opted for aimless scrolling for a while. The top of your newsfeed was an alert of Spider-Man ending yet another Robbery only a few blocks away from your apartment which usually you took no notice of but it was the bank your parents used so it caught your attention more than usual. 

Y: yknow I think I’m going to need that study help, literally everything is distracting me. Including bank robberies! Not even Spider-Man can save my grades this semester. 

P: you never know, Spider-Man is probably pretty good at bio. 

Peter laughed at himself, inside jokes about his identity really were the only enjoyable part about hiding himself from the people around him. He was sat back on the rooftop from last night trying to rest up his side as he took a pretty hard blow from one of the robbers and certainly has a bruise. He remembered Ned saying a solution to help bruising the other day and decided to ask him and without looking dialled. 

“Hello?” 

Ok. So that isn’t Ned. 

“Peter is that you...” 

When you saw peter was ringing you it confused you but you did ask him for study tips so maybe he was saving your ass via phone call. 

Peter froze when he heard your voice, checking his phone and seeing “y/n” on the screen. God, he must’ve selected your contact instead of Neds since he was thinking about you. 

“Oh um hi sorry I meant to phone my friend about some bruise stopping thing but I must’ve called you by mistake” 

“Bruise stopper?” You cocked your head in confusion. “Do I even want to know” you chucked slightly. Hearing Peters actual voice was kind of weird but as much as you hated to admit it even his voice sounded cute to you. 

“Ah um I kind of ran into a wall aha yea like super hard” Peter literally wanted to dive bomb off the roof top, god his awkward rambles always revealed too much. And a wall?? Who’s going to believe that.

“Right a wall... clumsy I take it” 

“Yeah you could say that” peter laughed lightly. 

“Well don’t ask how I know this but cold compress it on and off and apply Arnica gel a few times a day and Aloe if you want to be extra careful” 

Peter raised his eyebrows in surprise a thought going through his head that you weren’t some secret vigilantly too or worse maybe some villain. “I won’t ask don’t worry but um thank you” 

You smiled gently “you’re welcome Peter from Queens” 

“Well i guess if you’re curing my bruising you can call me Peter Parker instead of Peter from Queens” 

“Well Peter Parker, y/n y/l/n” 

Peter smiled more until his cheeks hurt under his mask as you carried on speaking to each other, hearing your voice somehow made you more real to Peter and speaking to you was relaxing. You didn’t know him as Peter Parker quiet nerd from Midtown or as the rookie avenger that kind of went to space and saved the world but also helps old ladies cross the road. You knew him as Peter, number neighbour and hopefully at this point friend. Getting to know someone new was really a breath of fresh air. 

It was getting late again and honestly you don’t think you can go another day of school with next to no sleep no matter how much you loved speaking to Peter. And so you and peter began to say your goodnights. 

“It was really nice speaking to you today Peter, like actually speaking to you” 

“Yea it was really nice speaking to you too... maybe we can do it again sometime?” 

“You can call me whenever, especially if you are gonna help me with studying orrr if you need anymore bruises to heal” you smiled as you spoke, the tiredness etching into your body slowly. “Well, goodnight Peter Parker” 

“Goodnight y/n” 

Over the next two weeks you and Peter spoke every single day, most the time through texts and mainly through meme’s as well as evening phone calls. Sometimes Peter would have to leave the call abruptly with weird excuses which made you suspicious, Merise said it’s probably a girlfriend he doesn’t want you to know about but Amara shut that down saying that she doubts it. Amara also went to midtown with Peter but had no classes with him and barely knew his face, she said her friend said he was probably the guy with the Stark internship. When you asked Peter about the internship he got nervous and stuttered a lot which confused you but you convinced yourself it was because there was lots of Top Secret Avengers stuff he had to be careful with. 

“I’m so jealous you get to work with the avengers y’know? I’ve always loved those guys, like how cool would it be to have some kind of power and be able to save people?” You gushed to Peter one evening which honestly made him blush a bit. You were a bit of a superhero nerd too. 

“Yea it must be pretty cool” Peter tried to keep the tone in his voice even but Karen quickly informed him that his voice indicated excitement and anxiety. 

“Have you met many avengers? Have you met Thor? He’s a literal god I mean even meeting Tony Stark alone must have been amazing I’ve always found him so interesting like he’s was so clever and he saved us all like literally! Oh god and SPIDER-MAN he’s just so cool because he’s like our thing you know? Like a New York special hero” you were also blushing as you spoke realising you were fully geeking out to a guy you’d never even met and he probably thought you were a total avengers fan girl. 

“Yea Spider-Man is pretty cool, Thor is awesome though! The dude is massive! And Mr Stark was just a great guy y’know? I kinda owe him everything” Peters heart dropped a bit at mentioning Tony but talking about him kept his memory alive in Peter’s eyes, and that’s the least he could do for him. 

“Right yea, sorry I didn’t even think, I’m so sorry for your loss, he was such a great man” you cringed at yourself for not thinking. Of course Peter would’ve been affected by losing Tony. 

“No no it’s okay, I mean you and me wouldn’t be here without what he did so we all owe him one, it’s good to acknowledge it, bet it feeds his ego a bit really” Peter laughed a bit trying to lighten the mood and make you feel less bad. You had both previously spoken about the Snap as both of you had disappeared for those 5 years and late night discussions had run into the early mornings as you had heart to hearts about its tolls on you both. You both found it so easy to talk to each other it was like you’d known each other for years even though you’ve never even seen each other face to face before, both being too awkward to even suggest meeting. 

-|- 

 You knew it was a bad idea to walk home alone so late, but the extra studying was highly needed as Peter couldn’t make your evening phone call to help you study your math quiz tomorrow and if you failed it one more time you were in serious trouble. The lampposts illuminated just enough of the street for you to feel safe-ish but speed walking was definitely needed. 

You were only a block away from your apartment when you got that feeling. It was deep in your gut and it made you shiver. Something was wrong and you couldn’t put a finger on what it was. You turned your head slightly to look around you and at a first glance you saw nothing however a shadow moving in one of the alley ways made your hair on your arms stand up. This was a big nope. 

You grabbed your phone and kept it close to you ready to call for help as footsteps started coming behind you. However as a rough hand grabbed your shoulder pulling your whole body backwards with a tell your phone was knocked out your hand, tumbling towards the ground like your hope of getting through this. 

Your eyes closed in terror as a small object was pushed against your back. Who knew studying would literally be the death of you.

“What’s in the bag” the voice was rough and desperate causing you to hold your breath. “Give me the bag” 

You turned slowly, hands up and faced the man, his face was covered by some makeshift white mask and a black beanie covered his hair, the small black handgun being pointed at you was shaking slightly in his gloved hands. 

You slowly moved your backpack off your shoulders and moved it in front of you, dropping it to the ground and using you foot to push it towards the masked man. Just as the man moved to pick it up a blue and red blur zoomed past you eyes, knocking the man to the wall and his gun became stuck to it by some webbed material. Webbed material. SPIDER-MAN. 

“Hey I don’t think that belongs to you” the voice spoke sounding weirdly altered. 

The robber attempted to swing at the spandex covered hero but missed as Spider-Man ducked and then proceeded to pull him back with webbing as he tried to flee. 

“You know I think an apology would be in order for this” the robber simply muttered a “fuck you” under his breath to which Spider-Man tutted and webbed the guy to the wall before whispering inform the authorities and turning to you. 

“Um hey sorry about this, are you okay miss..” the hero was shorter than you thought standing taller than you but not by a huge amount and his posture seemed almost awkward as he scratched the back of his head waiting for your reply. 

“Oh um y/n” you whispered, trying your best to process your brush with death and also not crying in front of your favourite hero. 

At the mention of your name the eyes of Spider-Man widened and he seemed to freeze. Peter was shocked. Y/n? As in his y/n? Your voice sounded the same but surely not and he almost hoped not considered what just happened, what if he didn’t get here on time? Oh god I mean he thought you were pretty but this pretty? And everything that just happened you must be so terrified and right before your math quiz... 

You saw the hero frozen in place and became instantly confused. “Um... are you okay?” At this he seemed to snap out of it and laughed slightly. 

“I think that’s my line you know” Peter once again realised he fucked up as his voice changer was no longer on, Karen must disabled it when Peter froze and he bet she did it on purpose knowing full well who you are. 

When Spider-Man spoke your eyebrows furrowed because that voice sounded oh so familiar but you could only place it to one person. 

“Right yea um I’m okay I should probably get home I have school tomorrow” you nervously nodded hoping he would say something else so you could confirm it.

“Of course yea um, is it okay if I walk you home? Just to make sure you’re safe?” Peter knew there was no turning back, you’d either figure it out or you wouldn’t and there was no way he was going to let you carry on walking home alone after this. 

“Um... that’d be nice actually, thank you” 

On the walk home not much was said, Peter tried not to say something accidentally and completely reveal himself whilst you were wrapped up in thinking about what just happened to you and the fact not only was Spider-Man walking you home but you’re pretty sure he is your mystery friend Peter Parker. 

When you arrived at your apartment you thanked the Webster and watched him swing off into the New York skyline and then took your phone out and dialled the only number you could think of. 

“Hello? Everything okay?” Peter sounded out of breath which was very convenient and he also sounded worried which if you weren’t already so suspicious you wouldn’t take note of. 

“You’re not going to believe the evening I’ve had” you went on to explain your half robbery slash attack and Spider-Man’s dramatic entrance and you have to admit Peter is a good actor, although his concern for your emotional well-being seemed to consume his efforts in hiding his fake shock at Spider-Man turning up. 

“Yea it was so weird like I’m totally okay but I can’t figure out what’s the strangest thing, being saved from a robbery by Spider-Man or finding out Spider-Man is my number neighbour you know” you bit your lip with anticipation as you spoke. 

“Well yea u mean it sounds like a strange nigh- wait what” God Peter was so stupid of course you knew! He would recognise your voice anywhere so why wouldn’t you recognise his? “I’m-I’m not Spider-Man I m-mean that’s ridiculous” and he stuttered. Good job Peter. 

“Yea I mean Stark internship? Knowing the avengers and Spider-Man and you sharing a voice is a lot of coincidence huh? It was nice to finally meet you Peter” you didn’t sound offended or angry from what Peter could tell you actually sounded humoured which made him breathe a sigh of relief. 

“Go to your roof top” and with that the line went dead.

Five minutes later you were stood on the rooftop of your apartment complex, glad the door was old and easily pushed open. The hoodie you threw on barely kept you warm from the winds that bashed around you but that was all forgotten as Spider-Man , Peter , landed on the roof next to you. 

“Hey” you smiled and nervously tucked some hair behind your ear as he got closer. 

“Um hi” Peter said, approaching you slowly whilst being kind of unsure. 

“I know your identity is a big thing and I promise I won’t tell anyone about this but I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know and I mean it’s pretty cool but also awkward because I can’t BELIEVE you let me geek out about the avengers and YOURSELF to you for ages and didn’t say ANYTHING I mean wha-“ you were cut short by Peters body colliding with yours in a kind of awkward but sweet hug. He smelt really good. 

When he pulled away you cleared your throat and muttered a sorry. Peter only laughed and lifted his hands up to take his mask off. Underneath he was a lot cuter than you expected, honestly you had to hold in a gasp. His brown hair was floppy and curly, slightly messy from the mask, and his jawline was sharp framing his face and his brown eyes honestly were breath-taking as cliché as it sounds. 

“It’s nice to finally meet you too” Peter said playing with his fingers nervously “you um you’re prettier than I thought wait not that I thought you wouldn’t be pretty but I mean you’re just wow like super pre-“ this time peter was interrupted as your arms wrapped around his neck and you kissed him on the cheek. 

“Thank you. For um saving my life earlier and all, who knew Spider-Man could not only save my life but also save my grades by helping me study” you both chucked at that.

For the rest of the evening you sat on the roof top and enjoyed finally being around each other. The conversation was a lot easier in person, mostly because of the flirty body language and the fact Peters eyes told such a story. By the end you were nearly asleep on his shoulder as he wrapped his arm around your torso to help keep you warm and you both silently enjoyed watching the New York skyline at night. Peter had found a new favourite roof top. 

++++++++++++++

OKAY SO my first one shot on this account because the most stupid things inspire me, including twitter trends. i hope you like it as i wasn’t too sure with this one and feel like its a bit rough here and there but overall i enjoyed the concept too much to put it aside. 

Add yourself to my taglist 

TAGLIST: @aesthetic-png @liac2299 @animegirlgeeky @sexysamsungl @mikariell95 @evoutionofkatep  @orowit

[ikiyou]

Chuuya’s Outfit Part 2

Chuuya’s hats  Chuuya’s Outfit Part 1

I meant to update last weekend, but I didn’t quite get to it with homework, and I didn’t really have any new photos either – we mainly checked on some alterations in the mockups, and discussed a few points, as the fabric swatches hadn’t come in yet, but came in a few days later on Tuesday, so we decided to meet again this weekend to choose fabric, rather than our usual every two weeks.  

Next weekend is again our usual meeting, which means three weekends in a row!  I like the drive, though, so….anyway, below are the results from last Saturday and this Saturday, along with pics of my fabric choices.

This little guy showed up!!!  

He’s staring at the Kyouka dangly on my phone.  She’s also got a cute little small dog.

Choker and Harness:

Definitely gonna be a harness.  Curse the fanart for instilling this desire in me but rip.  She went to a Renaissance Festival and found someone to do the leather work!  I’m excited, OF COURSE Ren Fairs have people who do leatherwork, and they’re dang good at it.  She’s using Oda’s harness from that last fanart as a model ^^  (see part 1)

Additionally there was the question for the buckles of….shiny silver?  Plain silver?  Dull silver? I decided to go with plain – not shiny or polished, and not overly dull.  I think super shiny would make it a bit overly costumy and fake, but a regular silver that has it’s normal shine would be just fine. Hat chain: Speaking of silver….the hat chain!!!  I decided to go with a chain despite the fact that anime!Chuuya doesn’t wear one, probably for easier animation purposes.  I had the most unfortunate fortune to read a most excellent fic where the author suggested that Chuuya’s chain was one of these.  As soon as I saw the chains that this company produced, I knew without a doubt that that is the chain that Chuuya would have.  I mean look at it have you ever seen a chain that nice I don’t even know what it is about it but I am literally drooling over it.

 And then we have the price.  0.0

cough, sputter, choke

As much as I love eating ramen for the sake of Chuuya’s outfit, I can’t exactly justify $3-8K on a single chain.  And stick it on a hat.  Where it might eventually get lost or broken. Because then that would end my trip to Yokohama as I rip apart the city looking for it, as Chuuya seemed like he might do in the fic.

SO.  After crying that I might never get the most gorgeous chain I have ever seen in my life like how the heck can a CHAIN look so good like omgggggg  I decided to go with a chain similar to what Chuuya wears in some of the official manga images which is….as much as I can determine….a silver satellite chain.  I went with one that had a rather largish 2.6mm round bead, but I’ve seen some that were 3mm.

(Or it could be black but…..I’m going with silver)

Although in some pics, it looks like a larger link chain, in others it looks like a bar and ball chain…. so…..frick, chains are cheap, he probably has more than one, I might end up buying others, buy what you like!

 Chain education 101 Ball chain:  

Link chain:  View that lovely lovely Santos de Cartier chain up there ^

Satellite chain: a combo of the above.  The ‘satellite’ pieces are measured in millimeters and are either round beads or rondelle beads, which are round except compressed, so they look like ovals from the side. 

Bar chain: I’ve just never found one that I’ve liked, for some reason.  It looks fine in Wan, but the actual chains just don’t look appealing....they seem kind fake and not chain-like????  You can even get bar and ball, but they’re the balls from the straight ball chain up above, which, you know, isn’t a great looking chain to be honest.

Many types of chain for your education: https://blog.halsteadbead.com/2012/07/17/jewelry-chain-glossary-of-styles/

Seriously guys, now that you know what chains are what, you can more easily search for exactly what you want, rather than gesturing vaguely and being…I want it to have THIS kind of look because google search is so good at reading minds NOT. Hat:

Swapped for a size up (a medium instead of a small) because the Chuuya wig added so much bulk that the small hat was really rather tight when wearing it.  I wish I could have a hat that worked with and without the wig but……they can add strips inside the hat to size it down, if I want.  I also had them flip the brim down and steam it to match Chuuya’s.  They can also steam the brim perfectly FLAT too, but if they do that, it become impossible to ever flip them back up and have the same kind of curve that it used to.

Hat band:

Same color and fabric as the coat lapels.  I left my hat behind so she could work on it.  I keep acquiring and then dispersing my pieces.  Last weekend, I left the wig at the hairdressers and picked up the hat. This weekend I left the hat  (which I’d only brought to show off rip) with the seamstress and picked up shoes. Shirt:

I forgot to mention anything about Chuuya’s white shirt before, but I was instructed to go buy a men’s dress shirt (A men’s dress shirt is apparently gonna have a different style of fabric than a girl’s) from Macy’s (which, even at their full prices, would be cheaper than getting it made from scratch).  Macy’s also has lots of sales, so you can get a $70 shirt for $35, and I did choose the one that I thought had the nicest fabric – it also claimed to be anti-wrinkle, so that’s a plus.  And for your FYI, for those Dazai cosplayers out there, dress shirts exist that are striped and have a white collar, or blue with white collar, just like Dazai’s.  I thought this was just some strange way the art and animation was colored but nope, they’re real things.  

Also, Chuuya most certainly has his shirts made or tailored (or maybe he shops at the….small and short store) because I bought the smallest size they had, and it’s still long on me.  Men’s shirts, for the record, have 2 measurements – the neck, and the shoulder width.

Also, Chuuya’s shirt has a high collar.  You could say that’s just the style of animation, and to an extent it’s true, but Ms. Seamstress pointed out that at least in the anime, the collar starts higher than normal. So she’s going to take the extra shirt material and completely remake the collar.  Also, she points out that the style of collar looks rather soft – it’s not extremely stiff like a men’s formal dress wear shirt, it’s more like a woman’s collar pffff.  So she’s gonna make that.

To be fair, I also gotta point out that the look of the collar varies somewhat between anime and manga, as does how much skin he’s showing…..so, in the end, pick something you like. Coat:

She added more fabric to the cotton mockup so it flows nicely, and it will flow even better with the real fabric. It does sit on my shoulders nicely when I walk, and I’ll be able to wear it normally as well.  Remember, Chuuya doesn’t fight with his coat on his shoulders – it flies off, so I don’t think I should be too concerned about it staying on while I do jumping jacks and run marathons.  For anyone overly concerned, small buttons or something could be used to keep a coat on.  She also enlarged the lapels more, and plans to enlarge the top even more.

For the lapel fabric, she showed me three camel colors:

I decided on the rich camel color (third from the left - I’ll have to ask her which shade it is exactly) because I thought it had the most pop, and in some of the anime official art, it starts to look more like the rich brown, and less like the dull subdued brown in the official anime character spread (something closer the 1st or 2nd swatch).  Heck, in some of the colored manga pics I’ve seen, his overall colors seem to get lighter with more pinks/skin tones.  I’m not in general a huge fan of that particular color scheme, and I’m not sure if those are official or fan colored (check out Satellite Chain Chuuya above ^)

The lapel choice ^  :D  It looks exquisite next to the black.

For the lining…she showed me a slightly pinky rayon, and also some less-pink-but-still-have-some-if-you-squint silk gabardine swatches.  

Chuuya’s lining tends to look kinda pink depending on your source.  It’s not a bright pink.  It’s a subdued pink, really.  Something between a warm pink and a grey.  I liked the color of the rayon….but I didn’t really want rayon.  I wanted silk….I thought the silk would match better with the quality of the suit, which is of importance.  So I went with a silk that, while isn’t the exact color I would want, still looks good.  Seamstress also pointed out that, with my bolder choice of lapel fabric, the pink actually doesn’t complement it that well. And the less-pink silk will look much better.  Since I wanted to go bolder on my colors, and still want this to look like a very expensive suit, I decided to trust her judgement and go with the silk.

^ The lapel, the lining, and something close to the vest color. 

Also, I wanna mention that the black bolt of fabric in these pics is not the actual black that my fabric will be. Mine will be blacker. Whaaaat.  Yeah.  I didn’t realize this either at first, loll.  It hasn’t arrived yet.  My black is actually gonna be a real black like my hat sitting there.  J  How pleasing!!

 ^ The blacker than black hat, soon to be matched by blacker than black fabric.  Double black heheheh. Note of caution I ALSO want to point out that the lapels on manga!Chuuya’s coat (see Satellite Chain Chuuya pic ^) aren’t....quite....the best design.  I discussed this with Seamstress.  I actually like the look.  But the issue she raised is this:  the lapel looks like it’s in 2 halves, the top and bottom, both attached individually to the edge of the coat.  What this means is that the lapels will flop around and won’t be able to lay flat that well.  It’s not a show stopper by any means, but Anime!Chuuya’s lapels are actually a better design (scroll down for a pic of Anime!Chuuya).  If you look very closely at where the top and bottom halves meet in the anime and manga versions you’ll see a difference.  Mine are going to look more like the anime version, and won’t be as large as the ones in the manga.

Vest:

She’s still looking for a heavier weight grey weave fabric than what we currently have, so the grey fabric in the pictures hasn’t been decided on yet, but we do like that grey. Bolero: Same black, same camel fabric as the coat.

Pants: Might be the same fabric as the coat and bolero, but it depends on the stretch.  She’s gonna make it so it stretches so I can kick like Chuuya (which reminds me, I need to start yoga or something).  She’s gonna match the black of the fabric to the coat and bolero.

Shoes:

Needed to get them by the 11th, as she’ll have pants for me to try, and we gotta make sure the pants are the right length (seems trivial, but, important, you know?) Chuuya’s pants are a slight bit long as they bunch up a little around his ankles when he wears his shoes.  Normal dress slacks are tailored so that they hang straight when you wear your shoes with them.  But again, normal dress slacks aren’t….skin tight lolollll.  

I’m not spending tons on super nice dress shoes…at the moment….so as I was driving home I had my butler, Google, pull up some thrift shops (Goodwill always seems to have a nice shoe selection, but your mileage and local thrift stores may vary).  My butler really needs to learn how to clean and cook too, seriously, he’s only good for navigation. SO I pulled into Goodwill, and as I was browsing the selection, I realized that most men wearing dress shoes are gonna have feet bigger than me, rip.  So most of the dress shoes (which I didn’t like the look of, to be honest) were waaaay to big.  But then I saw one, which looked decent, and was ‘boy’s size 6’. >.> well, yep, that is my approximate size in men’s shoes *cough*.  Oh hey, it fits pretty well, roomy in the toes without being too big, and gosh, it sure is comfortable.  Hmm, $6. :D  Cheapest part of the whole outfit.  I may or may not upgrade later if I find something ‘higher quality looking’ that would be more befitting of Chuuya, at a reasonable price, but these are not bad.  As much as I want to be as true to Chuuya as possible, there are some things I’m less willing to spend on….such as $8K chains and shoes.  The MOST important requirement for shoes is comfort, since you’ll be in them all day.  Chuuya’s shoes are basically black blobs in all the art.  I don’t think there’s a one that details them.  Get a men’s dress shoe that is comfortable, fits, and that you like the look of.  The manga sometimes makes his shoes look more pointed, in the anime, they are not pointed.  For the record, I did see some women’s dress shoes, the closed toe kind with the laces, and maybe a bit taller of a heel than a man’s….but it did not fit the image portrayed in the art, which is that of a man’s dress shoe.

^ Not a pointed toe, trust me on this.  A flat or gently rounded toe.  Also seems to have more of a heel than the manga.  It’s possible that this isn’t exactly a dress shoe.

^ Might actually be pointed.  Slightly hard to tell, but it DEFINITELY has the shape and feel of a men’s dress shoe - you can especially tell by the one in profile. 

^ See, nearly the exact same profile as in the manga.  Less so for the anime.  The way a dress shoe gets flat and narrow toward the toe when you look at it in profile is the key.  So I guess you could say my shoes are a combo of the anime and manga?  Manga dress shoe with a flat front of the anime?

Although we all know Chuuya is super stylish, I gotta say, his clothes are probably made to be comfortable as well.  As much as I am certain he’d wear uptight suits and clothing that is made more for looks than for comfort if the situation requires it, I’d also think that (if we’re assuming he gets his clothes tailored and probably personally made for him) that he wants comfort designed into them as well.  After all, he probably works long hours, and if he’s doing martial arts in his usual outfit, it has to have some stretch to it.  I mean, there’s no other way he’d be able to kick like that.  Same with his shoes.  I’m sure his shoes are impeccable.  He has excellent taste in shoes XD  But I’ll bet that they’re also comfy. I think that covers literally everything!….Next weekend….I should have things to wear….so I’m looking forward to updating again!!!  :D :D :D

[cannotollie]

Day 0 to 9 How I Survived My TONSILLECTOMY

🧸Welcome back to my tumblr page! 🧸

I’m here to share you some of my latest nightmare, cruelity, disgusting experience about my tonsillectomy surgery !

If you have no idea what is tonsillectomy, shortly, it’s a surgery to remove your tonsils. And what are tonsils? It’s the twin egg that stays in the middle of your throat to prevent your from infection but if you’re unlucky they turn into a self destructing machine to gets your sick every. Single. Month. And YES I HAVE SORE THROAT EACH MONTH 😒 thanks to my overly inflamed tonsils. Moving on... I’ll just leave a link about tonsillectomy

These past week has been the hardest week of my life. Not being able to eat solid food, lost 12 lbs in 5 days, midnight suffering and many more. I have written you my day by day experience, I hope you enjoy reading it 😊

Day 0

I was told to fast at least 6 hours before the surgery this means I wasn’t able to eat or drink anything before the surgery

Day 1

operation at 9am, they changed my clothes even my underwear and injected me with anesthetic medicine ( I heard that it was morphine ), I coughed for several times until I finally passed out

after 2/3 hours I woke up in my nursing room, I was still super unconscious and right after the anesthetic had clearly gone they gave me cold water ( no popsicle they said they ran out of it 😡 )

My nose bled because they put tubes inside me to help me breath

tried to get up and grab some water but I felt extra nauseous, I threw up that day for like 7 times. At first I was so afraid to throw up because I’ll definitely throw up blood, but then it gets so much better after you get them out, they said that it was because of the anesthesia

they injected some pain killers every several hours so I didn’t feel that much pain

didn’t eat anything on day 1 because I was feeling super nauseous

mom bought some ice cream but dairy products produced so much mucus on my throat so I stopped eating dairy. I can only drink cold water and also ice packs was my best friend

Day 2

they gave me some porridge with chicken broth, but I was still not able to eat anything. I probably only ate 2 spoon of porridge that day. Day two I didn’t feel that much pain (but there were definitely pain )probably because they still gave me pain killers intravenously every 4 hours

In the afternoon my ENT doctor came to visit me and told me that I was ready to go home, great!!! But this was where all the pain started 🤣😂

The doctors gave me some antibiotics, and some pain killers, but I have to switch the pain killer with some OTC products that is made for kids called ‘rhelafen’ because the one that the doctor gave me made my stomach hurts like hell

Day two the pain was increasing continuously and I was still not able to eat anything. My mom bought me non dairy popsicle and that helped me so much, also I never stop the ice pack because that really helps to numb the pain

I can talk but the more you talk the more you have to swallow your saliva so I suggest you not to talk too often. The more you have to swallow your saliva the more it hurts

I woke up at 2 am in the morning because of the sharp pain on my throat, I even cried that night, I really can’t help it but I didn’t take any pain meds I just put ice packs on my neck and tried to suck popsicles as much as I could

Day 3

was hell, I woke up with sharp pain on my throat.

Day three was like the very downhill of this recovery process

I started to take pain meds more often (every 4 hours) the pain lasted throughout the day, I also have light fever because of the infection

Swallowing and talking was even harder than day 1 and 2

I didn’t do anything on day three because I feel so hopeless but I was able to eat some scrambled egg because I was super super super hungry

Day three I have thick blood coming out of my nose

Night time was the hardest, It’s even harder to fall asleep, and again I woke up in the middle of the night to put ice packs on my neck because my throat hurts so damn much, it felt like glass coming out of your throat.

Day 4

The pain was crazy when I woke up in the morning I forced myself to eat some porridge and took my pain meds

But it gets so much better during the day, I felt less pain, I can do a lot of stuff I can even made a banana smoothie to brought in some vitamin

I can see the scabs (the white thing that covers the open flesh around the tonsils we’re getting thicker

I felt pain when I wanted to go to sleep but then it was not as much as the midnight pain. I woke up suffering (it’s always worst during this hours I have no idea why)

I took my pain meds again, because I really couldn’t sleep because of the pain

Day 5

day 5 was pretty much the copy of day 4

Burning sensation when I woke up in the morning, sharp pain when I woke up in the middle of the night

And less pain during the day

Woke up in the middle of the night to put ice packs and took my pain meds

My nose were still bleeding and the weirdest thing is that everything I tried to drink something it got to my nose, tasted to weird... 🤮

Day 6

The pain felt exactly the same like day 4 and 5

Everything goes uphill during the day, I even tried to swallow some super soft chicken breast my mom brought

Wake up at 3 in the morning the pain was crazy, so I woke up and took my pain killer but I stopped compressing ice packs because it gets way too cold, pain killers helped me that night

Day 7

I woke up today feeling frustrated because my throat is burning, I think I took too many pain killers that I was getting resistant to it :( I really couldn’t swallow barely anything that morning so I took my pain killer before having my meals

I took a look at my tonsils and i saw some of the scabs were falling off. Maybe that’s why I have sharp pain just by drinking water and also the metal taste caused by the blood

Everything was fine during the day, I ate more today, drank some carrot juice, I stopped taking pain killers in the afternoon because I had too much of it and it’s not good I already had 4 bottles of OTC pain killer

However, I slept better that night, I didn’t even wake up to take my pain meds

Day 8

the morning was less horrible than day 7, but I still have to take my pain meds before I can actually swallow anything

Today I went to see my ENT doctor Yeay! She was surprised because I didn’t bleed and my breath wasn’t stink

I got soo confident after seeing my doctor because she told me that I’m actually doing great compared to her other patients and that the pain I was dealing with was normal

She also told me that after my first weekly check up everything is going uphill, I really hope so

I still take my pain meds before going to bed, but never in the middle of the night anymore since that day

Day 9

she was right! Everything is going uphill. I can even eat some rice and noodle but it still felt pretty rough

I didn’t take any pain meds unless I feel pain swallowing something

I slept well that night with only 1/10 pain

THATS ALLL~

Right now I’m on my 10th day, and everything is going waay waaay waaay better than I expected. Still not able to eat solid or spicy food but I gained some weight and feeling a lot better than before. The doctor told me that the full recovery takes up to 1 whole month.

For anyone that’s asking does my voice change? I guess I can say yes just a little bit, even my boyfriend told me that I sound different, heavier, I guess it’ll fix itself after I’m fully recovered

🧸TONSILLECTOMY RECOVERY TIPS 🧸

1. Stick to your medicine (I took antibiotics, pain meds and dexametashone)

2. BRUSH YOUR TEETH! it helps you to get rid of the bacterias, not just brush your teeth, do daily hygiene as much as you could

3. Less talking and don’t force yourself to eat solid food to prevent bleeding

4. Use ice packs and buy tons of popsicle

5. Drink some juice, don’t starve... eating helps you to heal faster

6. Take a 10 days rest, just stay inside the house and focus on your healing

7. Take pain meds in the morning before having your meals to help you swallow

8. STAY HYDRATED

Thank you for reading this, if you like my writing please leave some notes. If you have anything to ask text me on my social media account 💝ifafathika💝

If you like to play mobile games add my on pubgm : Prynncess

Bye

[captainlenfan]

New Post has been published on http://websiteshop.network/episode-427-qa-with-robb-and-nicki-20/

Episode 427 – Q&A with Robb and Nicki #20

http://robbwolf.com/2019/05/10/episode-427-qa-with-robb-and-nicki-20/

We’re back with Episode 427, Q&A #20 and more of your best questions!

Submit your own questions for the podcast at: https://robbwolf.com/contact/submit-a-question-for-the-podcast/

If you want to see the video for this podcast, be sure to check out our YouTube channel.

Show Notes:

  1. Fasting: Minimum Hours? [2:08]

Raysha says:

Hi Robb,

Really appreciate all the work you are doing. You are a huge inspiration to me and hopefully one day, I’ll be able to make as big a difference as you have in people’s lives.

Just a quick question, what’s the minimum number of hours someone should fast if they just want to maintain good health? I typically fast about 12 hours and I have heard you mention that its a good fasting duration in one of your podcasts. Is this enough if I just want good metabolic health?

Thank you

  2. Alcohol While Paleo? [4:30]

Jay says:

I’ve noticed that some nutrition experts detour from their mission of nutritional health seemingly to promote the ingestion of certain alcoholic beverages.  In your opinion, why is this done since according to the WHO alcohol is a known carcinogen sometimes leading to esophageal, stomach, breast cancer, etc. Apparently there is “no safe amount” to avoid its’ effects so why is it promoted?

  3. Former Smokers: Can Paleo Reverse Damage? [10:02]

Filipe says:

Hey Robb

Thank you for your wonderful contributions to our collective (and personal) health. Your teachings left a lasting, highly beneficial imprint on by health and on by wellbeing. A part of that was quitting smoking. As a former smoker, what can I do now to minimize the risks of cancer? Since there are millions of former smokers in the U.S. alone, your answers will certainly appeal to a large audience. Thank you so much. All the best

  4. Gymnastics Training For Jiu Jitsu? [13:17]

Duey says:

Hey Robb,

I’m excited that my gym finally got gymnastics rings.

Do you have any free resources for beginners you would recommend? My primary sport is jiu jitsu.

Straight arm strength in particular is tough to come by. Trying to find progressions for those.

Also, I’m curious as to what you like to do for neck and wrist conditioning. Mine are always creaky from grappling.

Best

Duey

  5. Oil Roasted Almonds [16:36]

Kathleen says:

Hi Robb,

First I wanted to say thank you for all the valuable info you provide. You are one of the few voices I fully trust because you always follow the evidence and are willing to change your mindset if the evidence leads you somewhere new.

With that, I have heard you say on the podcast that you eat a lot of blue diamond smokehouse almonds (I love those) and it got me wondering. I have tended to avoid them in favor of the blue diamond almonds that are roasted without any added oil, because the smokehouse say that they may be roasted in canola or other vegetable oil. I was curious your thoughts on this. I tend to totally avoid vegetable/canola oil whenever possible, but I assume the amount of oil you are actually ingesting with these almonds would be low. What are your thoughts? If everything is dialed in and you’re feeling good, do you not worry about the minimal amount you’d be getting from this? Or have you seen evidence that it takes more than this little bit of oil that the almonds would be roasted with to really create a problem?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

Kathleen

    Where you can find us:

    Submit questions for the podcast: https://robbwolf.com/contact/submit-a-question-for-the-podcast/

  Transcript:

Download a copy of the transcript here (PDF)

Nicki: Don’t even think about it.

Robb: Well hello there. What’s going on, wife?

Nicki: Oh, not too much.

Robb: Yeah?

Nicki: Yeah.

Robb: You seem a little nervous, you’re a little on edge.

Nicki: Well, I’m protecting my leg because you were just tickling me.

Robb: You have no proof of that.

Nicki: I actually do.

Robb: Oh, okay.

Nicki: The camera was rolling, we’re just saving that for something else, I guess.

Robb: Blink twice for help.

Robb: So, we just got back from [inaudible 00:00:33]. Super cool, awesome people, had a really good time.

Nicki: Even met several of you, who have had your questions answered on the podcast, so that was awesome, super fun.

Robb: Yeah. Met a ton of people who’ve gone through the keto master class. Just a really amazing event, a long event, I’m totally knackered by the end of those, but super cool. Yeah.

Nicki: A lot of fun.

Robb: Definitely. And it was kind cool getting you back in the trenches there, that was fun. You haven’t been in the mix for a while because of the kiddos.

Nicki: I’m like an every other year Paleo FX attendee.

Robb: That’s a good way to do it. That’s not a bad way to do it. And then recharge for two years. Yeah.

Nicki: Yeah.

Nicki: So, should we jump into this week’s first question?

Robb: Sure.

Nicki: Okay.

Nicki: Let’s see, we have a question from Raysha , on the minimum hours for fasting. She says, “Hi Rob, I really appreciate all the work you are doing. You are a huge inspiration, and hopefully one day I’ll be able to make as big a difference as you have in people’s lives. Just a quick question, what’s the minimum number of hours someone should fast, if the just want to maintain good health? I typically fast about 12 hours, and I’ve heard you mention that it’s a good fasting duration in one of your podcast. Is this enough if I just want good metabolic health?”

Robb: Yeah. I mean, a concise answer would be yes, that’s a good spot to be. Again, you know, it’s interesting, the fasting topic, we’ve talked a lot about it, I think we’ll talk about it for the next 10 or 20 years, assuming that we’re still in this, doing this stuff. But it’s a really powerful tool, it’s a cool tool. But like any tool, you wanna use it appropriately, and there are definitely scenarios in which more is not better, with regards to fasting. If somebody is exercising a ton, if they’re under a lot of stress, it may, 12 hours may be plenty.

Robb: And honestly, some of the research, when you really get in and scrape out the vegan centric dogma, and some of the hyperbole, and everything, 12 hours is a decent spread. If you can compress it a little bit more, that’s fine, but there’s definitely scenarios, like a breastfeeding or a nursing mom, a growing child, a hard training athlete, you know, there are scenarios where 12 hours may be the maximum that we wanna tinker with that stuff.

Robb: Everything that we know about, just simply not overeating, and building muscle mass, and all that type of stuff, we know that there’s good benefit there. The extended fasting si speculative at this point, what it means for human health performance, longevity, and whatnot. So, certainly get in and tinker, but don’t overly link your wagon to something that we just don’t know that much about yet.

Nicki: And if you start noticing some adverse effects …

Robb: Yes.

Nicki: Then obviously you’re gonna wanna change something.

Robb: That’s the time to pull the rip cord on that. Yeah. Yeah.

Nicki: Okay. Thanks to Raysha, our next question is from Jay, Jay has a good question. Should I consume alcohol while on paleo? Jay says, “I’ve noticed that some nutrition experts detour from their mission of nutritional health, seemingly to promote the ingestion of certain alcoholic beverages. In your opinion, why is this done? Since according to the World Health Organization, alcohol is a known carcinogen, sometimes leading to esophageal, stomach, breast cancer, etc. Apparently there is no safe amount to avoid its effects, so why is it promoted?”

Robb: That’s a really good question. I kind of struggled with this over the course of time, when we were running the gym, the timing, the place, we were earlobe deep in real estate agents. I mean, just droves of them. Really interesting people, very diverse cross section of folks. And within that scene, the way you carry yourself, the way you look, that all ends up playing into how effective you are at what you do, because there’s a huge social component to building the relationship when somebody’s doing the biggest financial decision, often times, of their life.

Robb: So, we had really good success with these folks, they would lose weight, they would feel better, and they had benefits based around that. But then we also had these folks report, “Hey, I’m having some problems because I’m used to sitting down, and wining and dining people, and building that relationship … “

Nicki: Meeting people, networking over …

Robb: Meeting people, networking …

Nicki: Drinks and dinner.

Robb: Yeah. And there’s just kind of a reality that, I think you’re hard pressed to find very many cultures, there’s a few, that don’t use alcohol as a social lubricant, cohesive element. I would venture to say the bulk of cultures, like alcohol is a feature of the whole story. So, you know, we can get totally wrapped around the axle of, protein, carbs, fat, and circadian biology, and all the stuff. But we always mention the social component, and the community component, we know that an inadequate social connectivity is as negatively impactful on health as a pack a day smoking habit.

Robb: So, you know, it’s a really interesting question though, you know, so I’m ingesting a known carcinogen, to have a social connectivity that maybe …

Nicki: Given me joy, and is fun, and makes life …

Robb: Yeah. And what’s the net win on that? I don’t entirely know. But eve for myself, I honestly am not a huge fan of booze, it’s not my preferred cup of opiates, but it … There’s also kind of a reality that, I already eat differently than most people. It’s changed a lot over the last 20 years, so it’s easier to find community, easier to find folks that don’t look [inaudible 00:06:34] at me if I order a burger without a bun. It’s just not a big deal now, whereas 15, 20 years ago, you were totally a weirdo doing that.

Robb: But if we go hang out with friends, of we have a family gathering or something, like having a glass of wine, putting some element into a NorCal margarita, or something, that’s super nice. It’s just kinda nice to unwind and relax with that.

Robb: So, Jay, I don’t know if that super answers your question, but …

Nicki: I think there’s also a reality that, when you’re trying to get people to start changing their food, and removing a lot of these processed foods, it’s like a baby step sort of thing. SO, if you said, “You’re not gonna eat any grains, no dairy, and no booze.” How many people would even give it a shot? Whereas, if you’re like, you’re gonna cut out the grains, you’re gonna try to eliminate dairy if it … Or at least see if it gives you problems and then maybe reintroduce …

Robb: And on booze …

Nicki: On booze, have a glass of red wine, or a NorCal margarita. And then over time, people just start drinking less anyway, because they notice the effects, and how their body feels with the alcohol, how it affects their sleep …

Robb: But that step wise story is a really important point, which I kind of neglected. Some people can jump in whole hog, and they just cut everything out, other people do better with a stepwise fashion. For a lot of people, if you suggest booze needs to come out of the rotation, they’re like, “Fuck it. I’m done.”

Nicki: I mean, how many people have transformed their health with this ancestral health concept, right? And how many of those wouldn’t have even given it a shot if, in order to do it, it was zero booze?

Robb: Yeah.

Nicki: So.

Robb: So, I don’t know, Jay, if that fully answers the question of the risk reward story of allowing, or recommending booze. But I think that this is a great example of trying to not make perfection the antagonist of good enough. Like, if we’re getting people off of refined carbohydrates, they’re sleeping better, they’re exercising, they feel better, then to your point, it really is true. If they start feeling better in general, what we find, is that people have a drink, maybe two, and then they’re like, “That’s enough.” Because they feel shitty enough from that, that they’re like, “Yeah, I’m totally good.”

Robb: So, interestingly, it does kind of self regulate on the back end of that, if we get the buy in on the front end with all those other things. But if you’re just living like a cockroach, and you just feel like shit all the time, it’s really hard to de-tangle, is it the crappy carbohydrates? Is it the booze? Is it …

Nicki: The lack of sleep.

Robb: The lack of sleep, yeah, because it’s all on top of you. But you start feeling better, and you actually notice the difference when you have booze.

Nicki: Okay.

Nicki: Our next question is from Felipe, he says, “Paleo lifestyle is a way of minimizing the occurrence of cancer in former smokers. Hey Rob, thank you for your wonderful contributions to our collective and personal health, your teachings left a lasting and highly beneficial imprint on my health, and on my wellbeing. A part of that was quitting smoking. As a former smoker, what can I do now to minimize the risks of cancer? Since there are millions of former smokers in the US alone, your answers will certainly appeal to a large audience. Thank you so much.”

Robb: So, this is really interesting, and there’s actually a very interesting development of late. Philip Morris, tobacco manufacturer extraordinaire, for a couple of hundred years, I think, they’ve been making tobacco products. They just started offering life insurance for people who quit smoking. There’s all kinds of interesting economic things to be learned from that, but it’s really interesting that the most important thing to do as a smoker, if you wanna minimize your risk of all the associated problems, is to just stop smoking.

Robb: Like, if you just stop smoking, the change that occurs on your risk profile is nothing short of amazing. And then beyond that, circadian biology, I would probably put right at the top of the list, get out in the sun early, get that sun on your skin, appropriate vitamin D levels, go to bed early. That circadian biology piece, I could almost make an argument, is more important on the whole cancer story. I may modify that over time.

Robb: But people get super focused on food, and the food is important. And again, for the cancer story, just not overeating is a huge factor. And then we start iterating beyond that. This is maybe a scenario though, that we could make a case for a couple of three to five day fasts a year, even for the first couple of years. It’s maybe an argument for a 16/eight eating window, and stuff like that.

Robb: But again, all of that stuff, I can’t emphasize it enough, it’s really cool. It’s really interesting, it may end up being the bees knees as we move along. But if we know anything for sure, if we sleep better, if we do some exercise, if we get out in the sun, if we lift some weights, if we don’t overeat, then we’re stacking the deck massively in our favor, we know that for a fact. And then some of these other things, if they’re amenable to your lifestyle, sure, drop them in. Little 16/eight fasting, maybe some extended ketosis, maybe a longer fast a couple of times a year.

Robb: But those things, I would definitely put in the highly speculative category at this point. Not that they’re not valuable, not that we shouldn’t investigate them, but really make sure that you are buttoned up on the things that we know about first, and then we can start iterating from there.

Robb: And I’m stoked that we’ve had influence on what you’ve done. Yeah. I could never get my parents to stop smoking, and that was one of the things that I just begged them to do. So that’s awesome that this has been a part of what’s happened.

Nicki: Okay.

Nicki: Our next question is from Duey, on gymnastics and jits. “Hey Rob, I’m excited that my gym finally got gymnastics rings. Do you have any free resources for beginners that you would recommend? My primary sport is jiu jitsu. Straight arm strength, in particular, is tough to come by, trying to find progressions for those. Also, I’m curious as to what you do for neck and wrist conditioning, mine are always creaky from grappling.”

Robb: Tap earlier. So, on the ring strength work, there’s a great book called, Overcoming Gravity, and, huge tome, but really has some slick progressions in it. Very simple. I’ve always like gymnastics bodies. The progressions tend to be a little on the long side, which I think is laudable, because coach Christopher Sommer put a lot of thought into that stuff. But sometimes folks just kinda run aground on that, so I would check out the book, Overcoming Gravity.

Robb: And then on the neck and wrist conditioning, Nicki got me into the Kinstretch stuff, in which we do something called …

Nicki: If you look up, functional range conditioning, I’m sure there’s tons of YouTube videos on it, but you can learn how to do, what’s called CARs, Controlled Articular Rotations. And they have them for the neck, they have a wrist series as well. So, I mean, that something you should do every single day.

Robb: Yeah. Yeah.

Robb: And then, in poking around, you know, classic wrestler bridging, and stuff like that. There’s some information back and forth on whether or not one should do that, if you didn’t develop that skillset as a kid, then maybe it’s not as good. But, you know, doing a basic neck harness in strengthening the neck, inflection, extension, you know, lateral movement. There’s a thing called the iron halo, I believe, something like that, that I’ve been looking at. It’s like 600 bucks though, so it’s kinda pricey, but it looks really good. It sits on your head, and you hook it up to, either a pulley system, or a weights system, and then you can …

Nicki: So, is it like, resisting as you …

Robb: It’s resisting through all these different, you know, ranges of movement. Those things are really helpful. If you have a partner that is willing to help you with things, that can just provide manual resistance with all the different directions, that’s kind of a pain in the ass to do sometimes though, but that’s definitely helpful.

Robb: But then on the wrists, in particular, again, kind of back to the gymnastics bodies, or even some of the stuff from, Overcoming Gravity, like there’s the push ups, where you push up onto the wrist, and on the back of the hands. And you can go from kneeling, in which I push up, and then extend up on the kind of backs of the finger tips, and then lower down.

Robb: So, again, there’s … If you poke around a little bit, there’s some good wrist conditioning stuff. Just getting, either a weighted … a pretty good sized hammer, or a bar with, like the, where you can put weights on one side, and doing the rotation, flexion, extension, like there’s all these different movements you can do with that. It’s really valuable, and really effective, but it’s super simple stuff. You just kind of need to get a little bit of a template, or an idea of some of the things to drop in on that.

Nicki: Okay.

Nicki: Let’s see. Our last question for this week is from Cathleen, on oil roasted almonds.

Nicki: “Rob, first, I wanna say thank you for all the valuable info you provide. You’re one of the few voices I fully rust because you always follow the evidence and are willing to change your mindset if the evidence leads you somewhere new. With that, I have heard you say that you eat a lot of Blue Diamond smoke housed almonds, and it got me wondering. I have tended to avoid them, in favor of the Blue Diamond almonds that are roasted without any added oil, because the smoke housed say that they may be roasted in Canola, or other vegetable oil. I was curious your thoughts on this. I tend to totally avoid vegetable and Canola oil wherever possible, but I assume the amount of oil that you are actually ingesting with these almonds would be low. What are your thoughts? IF everything is dialed in, and you’re feeling good, do you not worry about the minimal amount you’d be getting from this? Or, have you seen that it takes more than this little bit of oil that the almonds would be roasted with to really create a problem? Thanks in advance.”

Robb: Man, so one thing, I’m not doing so well with the almonds anymore. But I think that that’s more of an oxalate issue, is I’ve kind of poked around on that ironically, they taste so good. But, yeah, I get some kind of gnarly belly from it. Macadamias are kind of the main nut that I do occasionally, and even that I … Funny enough, I’m eating fewer and fewer vegetable sources, and shifting more and more carnivore, just tinkering with how my gut feels, how my digestion feels. I did like a three week, four week carnivore deal, and I kind of went insane because I just wanted a fucking avocado, and some artichokes, and stuff.

Robb: But eating keto, I never had food cravings, and then when I did that, I really went kind of bananas. But it is funny, I’ve been noticing, I’m kind of gravitating more that direction. I seem to do well with fruit, up to a point. So, it’s interesting, I’m still tinkering with that.

Robb: But that’s not really the question, the question is related to, that fats in here. I don’t know that anybody knows what exactly the safe amount is on these seed oils. There’s not a lot that goes into something like these roasted almonds, it’s a very passing amount. If you are deficient in elongated omega 6 Arachidonic acid, and also, EPA/DHA, then these shorter chain polyunsaturated fats are more of an issue with regards to inflammation.

Robb: But this is one of the things that, you know, it’s like, people will freak out if they go out to eat and, I don’t know, Chipotle, or something like that. You’re on the road, you’re looking for food, you have no other options, and you go into Chipotle or something, and it’s like, “Oh, they use Canola oil.” And it’s like, well, either starve, or eat that one meal. And you’re not having refined grains, presumably, you’re not having sugar, you’re not drinking soda, so, is that really the place to freak out about it?

Robb: And if you have serious health problems, and you notice that you react to that stuff, then I guess that’s a different story. But I’ve historically not been super freaked out about stuff like that. So, it’s interesting. Would I prefer that they use coconut oil on to, or something? Yeah, probably, but coconut oil has a very specific, distinct flavor, so it’s kind of tough in that regard too. So, yeah, I mean, I historically have not been that freaked out about a lot of vegetable oil here.

Robb: I remember when I did … Posted eating some, not sardines, but the oysters.

Nicki: Oysters in cottonseed oil.

Robb: And they were in cottonseed oil. Fuck, man, people lost their minds. And one, you just don’t get that much, there’s not, you know …

Nicki: You weren’t drinking the oil.

Robb: Yeah, I don’t drink the oil, you drain it, you can even rinse it a little bit. But these things are … It’s another thing where people [inaudible 00:19:42] me with all these options for non-cotton seed oil varieties, and that’s great, but the places that we typically shop don’t have those. And it’s just another pain in my ass to, okay, am I gonna order it online, or whatever, and I have them reasonably frequently, but not every single day, so. And again, in the greater mix of life, it’s like, I like them, they taste really good, I think that there’s other healthful benefits to it, and so it’s kind of that cost benefit trade off on that.

Robb: And I don’t know, maybe it’s fucking killing me, and I’m being an idiot with it, but it’s just, I don’t like obsessing over every Goddamn thing that I put in my mouth. Like, I’m super gluten intolerant, I’m not all that good at handling carbs, so I’m already kind of fucking limited, and it’s just kind like, Jesus Christ, I just wanna eat sometimes, you know. And that is …

Robb: Sometimes I’m hesitant to even post what I eat online because again, all the armchair warriors jump in, and everybody’s got a fucking opinion, and they know me better than I know me. But at the same time, what ends up happening when I get in and battle with those dick heads sometimes is that, the people who are watching, I’m learning more and more that it’s not so much about the interaction I’m having with a specific person, it’s everybody else watching.

Robb: And they’re watching somebody that, and I’m very grateful for this and I take it very seriously, someone that they respect with regards to how they approach this stuff. And I’m not obsessive, I’m not neurotic, there’s some things that I don’t have a lot of flexibility on. I’m not gonna, on a daily basis, sit down and eat 100 grams of carbs from rice, because it’s gonna fuck me up, and I’m gonna feel terrible, and I’ll probably die from diabetes with it. But I don’t think I’m gonna die from a little bit of seed oil in almonds, or tinned fish, or something like that. So, that kind of got off in the weeds, but.

Nicki: Okay.

Robb: Any other, you have any thoughts on that? I mean, you navigate this stuff pretty well too, just being flexible with what you’re doing, and.

Nicki: I have nothing to add.

Robb: You have nothing to add. Okay. Okay.

Robb: Well, should we thank our show sponsor?

Nicki: Yeah. Thanks to our show sponsor, Element Recharge. You can follow them at @drinkLMNT, on Instagram, Facebook, etc. It’s an electrolyte drink mix, to fuel everything that you’re doing.

Robb: Especially if you’re doing some sort of a low carb, or a ketogenic diet. You need to be on point with your electrolytes, in particular, sodium. So, yeah, it’s super helpful for that.

Nicki: And then, as always, you can submit your questions to robbwolf.com, on the contact page. We love answering your questions, and …

Robb: We have the smartest questions anywhere, because they’re yours.

Nicki: What else?

Robb: I think that’s it for now.

Nicki: Anything else? Is that all?

Robb: Yeah.

Nicki: Okay.

Nicki: Thanks guys.

Robb: Yeah. Talk to you soon.

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[d00dt00nz]

Obligatory promo stuff at the top because it sucks and I hate it and let’s get it out of the way! follow me on twitter where I’m active, check me out on spotify for music, or like my facebook for sparse updates on music stuff. Thank you. The Cover art is by Ellie Tison

I'd say this was the first track I wrote for this album, but that's technically not true. This was maybe the second or third track that I wrote for another album that died on the vine. For that one I got weirdly fascinated with the overly polished sound of late 90s alternative rock music. I got into some weird obsessed mindset about how a recording isn't a real sound, and when you record something you're making conscious decisions on how to manipulate the sound. Basically my mindset was that everything on a recording is chosen, therefore a “raw” sound is just as manufactured as a “polished” sound. To bring that even further, there's no meaningful difference between synth drums and real drums. With this in mind I set out to make an album that was plastic as all get-out and the only real thing I cared about was how clear it sounded, how crisp it sounded, and how big it sounded. I'd become... adult contemporary. It was like that part in the 90s that nobody talks about where a bunch of middle aged white people started putting bongos and bird sounds in their music. As the symbols that built it up collapsed, music had been reduced to sounds. Sounds were reduced to vibration. Everything was aesthetic. Nothing was real. Dogs and cats weren't only living together, they had literally melded together like some horrible freak of nature. Its name was Catdog; its name was chaos.

Anyway that album wasn't very interesting or good, and it turns out that I was just doing what every 14 year old with a pirated copy of ableton has been doing this whole time – only it was even worse because I was doing it intentionally. The project was already mutating when I wrote this song.

This song was written as yet another attempt to capture that Pavement faux-alt-country sound. Sort of. It's a little ironic because Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement) has said he wrote those country-inspired songs because he was trying to get something positive out of evil music he hated. It makes sense. Malkmus grew up in the 70s and 80s when country rock was big and mainstream and top 40. The excess, smugness, and obnoxious hypocrisy of it was in his face all while he was growing up. For me all that is done before I was born and only the music remains, and as it turns out I kinda like it. I guess the closest analogue would be something like Guns N Roses or Pearl Jam. The sound of a bunch of douchebags writing songs about how great they are, trying desperately to impress other douchebags. Or maybe I just think it's annoying. Maybe I'm trying to retroactively attach some moral imperative to music that I don't like. Or maybe I don't even truly dislike the music. Maybe I'm just jealous because I showed up 35 years too late to the douchebag party where I could freely act like a douchebag and be welcomed with open arms by other douchebags.

I wanted to make a song that fused actual 70s country rock with the kind of 70s inspired 90s country rock that hated 70s country rock. Realistically I'm over complicating things. On a scale of 70s to 90s, and there's a needle right in the middle, I'm moving that needle to the left. I wanted the clean sound and the harmonies of the 70s combined with the energy, size, and fullness, and fidelity of the 90s. It was kind of fun. I rarely try to produce anything in such a lifeless robotic way, so it's fun to turn the compressor up to 11 and put digital echo on drums. I used techniques that would make blush the 34 year olds who produce hardcore albums written by 14 year old suburban kids. Limiters on everything, compression up the wazoo. The kind of Equalization that the soviets dreamed of. I was the overproducer and it became the overproduced. Had I a steel guitar, I'd have used it. Had I a 12 string guitar (and I actually really wish I had one for this album lol) I'd have used it. As current Brian Wilson collaborator Joe Thomas has famously said: “let's see how we can really make this song sound like shit”

I am reasonably proud of the harmonies in the chorus of this song. I actually figured those out on piano and wrote them out on sheet music. It worked really well. I'd like to do that again. The backing vocals on the chorus was one of the first times I tried a trick that shows up a few more times on this album. I added an amount of reverb to the vocals, combined it with the vocals, and then compressed it. It made for a sound like I was recording in a big hall. It was nice, the reverb was audible, but the sound wasn't all aimless and echoy, and the reverb tail wasn't very audible.  It's probably obvious to more seasoned producers, but I'm still learning.

The song structure of this song is something that I usually try to go for, which is a verse that meanders and has a bunch of chord changes that tell a story followed by a dumb chorus where the chords are very simple, as is the melody. I can't really imagine a proper melody for the verses, which I'm a little annoyed about. It's just me wailing in my singsongy “country voice”. That's the main thing that changed from my first album attempt to this one – I decided to actually sing on this one. I considered going back and adding some strings to it. At some point I played trumpet on this track, but I cut it because I didn't think I did a good enough job at playing the trumpet. I learned a tiny bit of trumpet in highschool, so I think it's safe to say I probably didn't do a good enough job at playing trumpet.

The lyrics are another thing that's indicative of the earlier project. They're maybe a bit introspective, but in a really roundabout flowery way. I'm not super jazzed on them, but I don't hate them either. They're not very direct and maybe a smarter man could convince you it's poetry, but some of these lines are real stinkers.

I know I've been pretty down on this song, but I really don't want to give the impression that I hate it or even dislike it. It's a song I wrote almost three years ago and it's hard to get excited about something that you did three years ago while presenting it as new to people. I thought it rocked when I finished it. For a long time it was one of my favourite tracks on this album. I  like the groove on the chorus a lot. It should be telling that I've kept it in the tracklist all this time while cutting a bunch of others. I actually did wonder if it should have been cut, but in the end I decided it's probably fine. Tiff liked the song when I showed it to her and she's not a freak about these things like I am, so it's probably safe to say it's okay.

[olivereliott]

Road tested: Gear from uglyBROS, Velomacchi and 1Self

This month, Wes and Matt check out two new additions to Velomacchi’s range of moto luggage, discover a surprisingly good kangaroo leather jacket from a new Australian brand, and road test the Kevlar version of the famous uglyBROS Motorpool jeans.

1Self Gear Genesys Jacket Wes: Headquartered in Australia but manufactured in Thailand, 1Self Gear is a young apparel company that has come out the gate swinging. Their flagship jacket—the Genesys—costs US$795, pitching it against offerings from premium brands like Roland Sands Design and Lewis Leathers. But the spec list is primo.

The chassis is 1.0 – 1.2 mm full grain kangaroo leather, with sections of additional abrasion resistant fabric, Kevlar-backed stretch panels, and a full complement of Knox armor. (Like several other high-end apparel makers, 1Self reckon that kangaroo offers the best mix of light weight and good protection.)

The jacket’s been enhanced with various treatments, like weatherproofing and abrasion resistance-boosting tech (there’s a full breakdown worth checking out here).

It’s also drop dead gorgeous, with an aesthetic that lands somewhere between sporty and stealthy. Details include tough YKK zippers, a small zipper latch at the top, accordion panels for mobility, and a white leather 1Self logo stitched onto the arm. You also get a moisture wicking liner, with two internal and two external pockets, and waist adjusters to fine-tune fit.

The Genesys is so beautiful, when 1Self accidentally sent me the wrong size I was gutted that it didn’t fit. They offered to send out a new jacket, but instead I tearfully handed the Genesys over to a friend of mine, to get his input.

On feel “It feels soft and super comfy out the box, and didn’t need too much wearing in to be comfortable. The leather’s already softened more since the beginning, and I think it’ll just get better. Weight wise, I like the fact that it feels substantial, but it’s not overly heavy.”

On fit “It fits extremely well—more ‘ergonomic’ than other jackets I’ve worn. It’s snug where you need it, with the paneling making it feel molded to your body. On the bike, there’s more than enough mobility and comfort, and the slightly longer tail’s great for hiding the inherent riding crack. The stretch panels do let some air in, which might get chilly in winter—but they’re great for hot Cape Town summer days.”

On design “I love the simplistic yet practical design. Function was obviously the driving force here, but none of the form has been lost. There’s a lot of great detail too, if you look closely—like the soft fabric panel on the back of the neck, which adds some comfort.”

Both of us noted that the general quality of the Genesys is top-shelf, but we did spot one small bit of stitching that was coming undone. I raised this with 1Self, and they assured me that they ship each jacket with a one-year warranty against defects (and that they’ll be following this up with their factory).

1Self ships anywhere in the world for free, but it’ll take about four weeks for the Genesys to reach you, because each jacket is made to order. And if you want to spend a little less, you can get the US$695 Genesys V2, which substitutes kangaroo for Nappa leather. [Buy]

uglyBROS USA Motorpool Kevlar Matt: When I first reviewed the Motorpools, I was impressed with the fit, finish and fashion-forward approach uglyBROS had taken with rider protection.

The CE-rated padding at the hips worked without giving me an hourglass shape. And the ability to slide the armor out of the external knee pockets made them an easy option for casual days at the office, or running errands around town. On top of that, flexible fabric made them as comfortable as all that “athleisure” stuff that’s on fleek with the kids these days.

One thing the original Motorpools don’t excel at, though, is abrasion resistance. The 11oz. denim is tough, but it isn’t designed to slide. And after a low speed crash on a dirt road, a spinning knobby rear tire tore the right leg on my pair.

To their credit, uglyBROS stepped up immediately and couriered out a fresh panel to be sewn in, and my Motorpools were as good as new. But if you’d rather not suffer the indignity of naked flesh on your ride back to camp—or worse, having that Koi fish tattoo on your leg erased by asphalt—check out the new Kevlar-lined Motorpools.

Dubbed the Motorpool-K, a Dupont Kevlar liner has been stitched into the seat and thighs, and continues down the length of each leg to just below the knees—essentially covering all the fleshiest bits most likely to need that extra protection.

With that skin-saving fabric in place, the slim fit of the Motorpool-K’s gets a touch cozier but there’s no need to size up. The flexibility of the originals remains intact, so any initial snugness fades after the first couple of miles. In fact, now they feel the same on my lowers as the originals, whether out riding or not.

The only time you become acutely aware of the new addition is during hot weather. The extra layer of fabric can make things a touch warmer during the dog days of summer—but really, this is a tedious point since the protection levels increase exponentially.

Other changes to the Motorpool-K include the swapping of buttons for metal snaps on the cargo and rear pockets. This makes getting into and closing the flaps infinitely easier, especially with a gloved hand, and is worth the $30 surcharge alone, IMHO. Sure, the metal will turn into a branding iron during any extended slides but the snaps all fall well within the Kevlar’s coverage range.

If you’ve been on the fence about the Motorpools because of concerns about abrasion resistance, the Motorpool-K’s are the model for you. They’re an incredibly comfortable set of strides that blend into the urban aesthetic and now, tick all of the protection boxes too. [Buy]

Velomacchi Extended Carry Packs Wes and Matt are both huge fans of Velomacchi’s gear. But both agree that the 28L Speedway roll-top backpack is a daypack only. The Oregonian brand now offers a couple of extra options for more hefty carry, and the boys have put each bag through its paces.

Velomacchi Speedway Backpack 40L Matt: If you don’t need the capaciousness of Velomacchi’s big 50L duffel but find the 28L a smidge cramped, this new 40L version should be on your radar. Like everything else in the ‘Speedway’ line, the 40L duffel is constructed from rugged and weather resistant 1000D Cordura fabric—and encapsulates your vital belongings in a completely watertight cocoon.

Despite its added size, the 40L version still fits incredibly well on and off the bike, thanks to Velomacchi’s 3-point harness system. The oh-so-cool Iron Man-esque magnetic closure is carried over from the 28L version and makes unloading at your destination a cinch.

But this time around, you get a highly usable secondary, watertight front pocket. And elasticized panels integrated into this pocket make it easy to secure smaller items like phone cables, portable charging stations or a set of tools for a trailside repair.

This is the bag I wish Velomacchi had debuted with: it offers up all of the storage space I need for my daily 9-5 life, and works incredibly well to schlep clothing, computer and camera gear whenever I’m on assignment. And, if you’d rather not ride with a pack on your shoulders, there are tie down loops to allow the 40L to function as a tailbag too. [Buy]

Velomacchi 50L Speedway Hybrid Travel Duffle Wes: Velomacchi call this “the ultimate watertight ADV duffle,” and they’re not far off. With a total capacity of 50 liters (42 in the main compartment, and four in each of the two side pockets), the Speedway Duffle (above) is designed as an all-purpose stuff-and-go pack.

It’s made from the same 1000D fabric as the rest of their bags, with a fully waterproof main compartment. (I’ve tested it, and it really is waterproof.) The main zip is heavy duty, with a chunky anchor on the end to get your fingers around, and stretch panels to help you close it when you’ve over-packed.

Features include a hidden pocket with a small lanyard for securing keys, and two compression straps running over the top. They tighten via a system that uses sliding buckles, and leaves no tailing straps. The base of the duffle is a heavy-duty quilted affair, so you can bet it’ll stand up to abuse.

The side pockets fasten with elasticated toggle closures, which I find a bit fiddly. To be honest, I would have loved this pack without the side pockets, as they tend to billow when empty and take up precious space when you’re loading the bike.

But it’s the versatility of the Speedway Duffle that has me hooked. Behind the side pockets are hidden compartments that stow a pair of carry handles. And behind the hefty base panel are backpack straps. It takes a couple of minutes to set them up, but once you’re done the pack actually functions surprisingly well as a backpack.

That’s mostly because those straps have the same rotating clavicle hinges as their bona fide backpacks. And Velomacchi also include size markings on the straps—so if you know what works for you, setting the pack up second time around is quicker. There’s also a sternum strap with a magnetic closure.

The Speedway Duffle’s also designed to mount to the back of your bike. Velomacchi include four tie-down straps—each with an aluminum buckle that hooks into a corresponding nylon loop at the base of the pack. It takes a little while to set up but once that’s done, it’s a neat and effective system.

The nylon loops are tough, so you can tie it down tight. And even though it felt like I could shift it around a bit with of force, it seemed to stay put on the road—provided I packed and mounted it in a balanced way.

My biggest gripe? With all these carry options, I would have liked a shoulder strap too. But I’ve already used the Speedway Duffle on the back of a bike through the Bavarian alps, on family weekends, and as a backpack on a small local airline with lenient carry on restrictions. Recommended. [Buy]

Images by Wesley Reyneke and Tom Jeffries.