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spiffyworks · 6 years ago

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Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching

SSSo recently, after finishing (an admittedly long-overdue) a piece, I decided to download a trial of the new Corel Painter 2019. I hadn’t used Painter since my old DeviantArt days (circa 2005) and wanted to see how it felt with more digital art-veteran hands. Loaded it up, started sketching my default doodle-muse and wow, that “Real 2B” pencil feels great. I loved it so much, and wondered why.

That’s the story that is spawning this weird personal series of Software Surfing. I wanted to write little notes to future-me on how it felt using my favorite sketching tools in each program I have, and after the sixth one I thought it might be a good idea to check out inking, colouring, painting, etc. and writing those down as well.

So I’m writing this series for myself, but making it available in case anyone else can benefit as well. Thanks for sticking with the intro, let’s get into it.

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching Artist’s Software Surfing P2 - Inking Artist’s Software Surfing P3 - Colouring Artist’s Software Surfing P4 - Painting

There are many ways to sketch, but this is specifically the classic “pencil” or “drawing” form using the tools with the program’s default settings.

As an introduction, this is my doodle-muse, Cloey. She was my first original character, and though I don’t usually share my anthro art on here (I know that’s not everyone’s thing) I do have a separate blog for that stuff that you can find here if you’re so inclined. If you’re familiar with Artgerm (and you should be), she’s basically my Pepper.

Corel Painter’s “Real 2B”:

The one that started it all. The pencil just GLIDES, and I’ve always loved when you can tilt a pencil tool and it will shade just like tilting a real-life pencil. The only thing I want from a program now is to be able to bind touch to blenders so I can use my finger to smudge-blend the scribbling. (I tried drawing that fist so many times /fume)

Likes: Tilt functionality, line width variance, stroke speed, eraser Dislikes: Rebinding Rotate Canvas tool was a pain. I like Shift+Space, and that key combo is reflected in the shortcut panel, but it just continued to pan. Never worked for me, and rotating or flipping the page quickly is crucial for my sketching process. Also sometimes if I quickly resize the eraser and mash it down to use, it won’t detect any input.

Photoshop, Kyle Webster’s “2B” & “Animator Pencil”:

**Disclaimer** Firstly, I’ve used Photoshop for over 15 years now, and it’s a great digital art tool, but for drawing and painting I find it’s sorely lacking. It’s slow, expensive, and unintuitive. That being said, there are some things this program does exclusive to others so I’m still clinging to it (desperately) and while I would definitely recommend something else for budding digital artists, I have to supplement my misgivings by purchasing additional plugins and tools, such as the famed Kyle T Webster’s Ultimate Megapack for Photoshop (

which is now complementary with Photoshop CC, damnit

). Unless otherwise noted, all the brushes I use in Photoshop will be from that pack. **End Disclaimer**

Following off the heels of Corel, I remembered messing around with another “2B” (which btw is my personal favorite traditional pencil to sketch with) in Kyle Webster’s Drawing Box in Photoshop. It felt a bit similar, but with no tilt functionality and it really lacked the chunky-thickness (a scientific term) I enjoyed with Painter’s pencil. I switched to my favorite (and the favorite of MANY digital artists btw) his “Animator’s Pencil”. So chunky, but the ability to shade lightly... It’s really a fun brush to use for sketching digitally. Still one of my absolute favorites.

Animator Pencil Likes: Line width variance, texture fills in and scales perfectly Dislikes: It’s a photoshop exclusive, a program that for some reason you can’t bind shortcuts to whatever you please, takes forever to load, and WAY too often suffers input lag while drawing. Also no tilt shading, :’( aw

Paintstorm’s “Textured Pencil” & “Pencil Tilt”

As a bit of an aside, I love Paintstorm, Paintstorm is what got me back into digital drawing and painting after doing 3D and game design for 7 years. I bought it for the very low price of entry (2 licenses for $30) and was impressed by its ability to customize literally anything in the program. You can create your own tool/brush boxes, bind any shortcut to any key combination, and every single brush tool adjustment comes with the most customization control of any program I’ve come across since Photoshop set the bar way back in the day. Out of the box a lot of the basic brushes have that old OpenCanvas or PaintTool Sai feel, but more recently they’ve added some very textured default brushes you can play around with. It’s also hands-down the FASTEST program I’ve ever worked in. I highly recommend giving it a try, it’s great for learning and experimentation. I grew a lot working in Paintstorm.

The Textured Pencil is a fun sketching brush, you can get as think or thick as you’d want and it keeps a clean outline. The Pencil Tilt really blew my mind the first time I used it. YOU CAN SHADE! It was the first time I had ever seen a program do that. The tilt has a great texture, fantastic control, and gets just as dark as you’d need. I’d recommend using them both, the Textured Pencil for a cleaner sketch, and the Pencil Tilt for something more expressive or loose.

Krita’s Ink-Tilt & “Sketch”:

I’ll be honest, I have almost no experience in Krita despite having downloaded and given it a try back in 2014. It was a hell of a time to figure out how to rebind my usual shortcuts (flip horz, rotate canvas). I couldn’t even rebind colour grab/eyedropper. Yikes. I opened up the “Sketching” brush box and there were only two options, made worse as one was a sketch pen... That lacked the flexibility of ballpoint.

First I grabbed the pencil dubbed “Sketch” and was bewildered why the size of the circle was so large compared to the mark it made. Very confusing. Feeling intimidated, I abandoned it immediately to try out the “ink_tilt” (which by the way there’s no tilt functionality??) and hated it. I reluctantly went back to the pencil and just started trying to make marks. Wow. It’s weird, but surprisingly fun. You have to be willing to relinquish a LOT of control, but the shapes the brush makes while moving and tilting during a stroke can yield some really interesting and suggestive shapes. I would say great for early concepting or making something really loose and expressive. Fun to play with, but not really practical.

Clip Studio Paint’s Real Pencil & Rough Pencil

I’ve been wholly immersed in CSP since I purchased the program back in late 2016. It goes on sale often, so you can pick up a nice fully featured program for ~$35. I’d had my eye on it for a while and still really want to get into self-publishing comics, so I picked it up, bought a couple of brush packs for it (it’s pretty lacking in default painting tools) and I’ve been illustrating in it ever since. The brush creation isn’t as fun as Paintstorm, but brushes are quite customizable. I usually like to use the “Rough Pencil” if I want just a little texture and line variance, or the “Darker Pencil” for something cleaner. Trying to be different, I just jotted out a couple heads in ones I don’t normally use, the Real Pencil and Design Pencil. The Real Pencil has a lot of texture, but for some reason in CSP the textures don’t seem to scale with the brush, so I tend to avoid using it in most cases. I hate the design pencil, I just could never get dark enough. I guess that’s probably the point, though.

Well, that definitely wraps this digest up. I feel refreshed after trying out a lot of new digital sketching brushes. I was really reminded of how much I enjoyed drawing in Paintstorm. I hope someone other than me found this useful or otherwise inspiring! Sometimes, especially if you’re stuck in some art blockage, it’s a good idea to try something new, and for me digitally that’s hopping programs and trying new brushes.

I’m thinking about doing inks, colours, and painting at some point. Let me know if anyone’s interested in those! I’m planning on doing some for myself eventually, but I might expedite a post if anyone is interested. o/ Take it easy, y’all.

Artist’s Software Surfing P1 - Sketching Artist’s Software Surfing P2 - Inking Artist’s Software Surfing P3 - Colouring Artist’s Software Surfing P4 - Painting

#process #sketching #software #guide

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ailithnight · 7 years ago

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AT LONG LAST! The long awaited, month and a half late I’m so sorry, Sequel to Gifts from the Dark Side! So, yeah. I meant to have this finished and posted on Christmas... I’m very sorry to all the people who have waited so long they probably don’t even remember the first fic. Or those who have changed their url’s since asking to be tagged. I don’t know why but I got through about 4/5 of this and just... lost the motivation. And I didn’t want to force an unsatisfying ending for it, so I just kind of shelved it until I could find it in my heart to come back and finish it. Which I FINALLY did! Yay! So without further ado, here it is.

Title: Gift from the Light Sides Words: 5687 (Mercy, I really did that!) Content Warnings: Some Angst. Panic Attack. Crying. Lots of Crying. Sleepless night. Mild self-deprecation. I think that’s it, but message me if I should add something.

General Tagslist: @moose-squirrel05, @didsomeonesayprince, @readeatfightlove13

Gifts from the Dark Side Tagslist: @uwillbeefound, @jughead-is-canonically-aroace, @highpriestessofthexeoniancouncil, @its-raining-cats, @lightlady599, @leesacrakon, @milomeepit, @lenakszak, @five-hour-anxiety, @nightmarejasmine, @theamberrose97, @lizziepopanime, @llamaly, @cinquefoilelove, @nerdy-emo-royal-dad, @bangthekobrakid, @soiguessthisismyusername, @samidaboss3

Virgil was honestly shocked by how much could change in just one year. Less than that really. Half a year more like. It was astonishing, wonderful, and terrifying all at once. Virgil didn’t typically handle change all that well. He couldn’t help it. Change meant differences. Differences meant new things that could go wrong. And Virgil was driven by his own nature as Anxiety, to imagine each and every possible and impossible scenario. Which is what he was doing now. Though this time, not for Thomas.

What if they’re angry at me? All those years of lying, what if it makes them upset. What if they hate me. What if they hate themselves? Oh god, what if they feel guilty? What if I make them feel guilty? What if they’re mad at me for making them feel guilty. I can’t. I can’t do that to them. But I can’t do nothing. I have to do something. Something has to change. What do I do? Dammit! What am I supposed to do now!

Here Virgil was, pacing a small circle in his room, wrapping paper of half a dozen varieties strewn around his room, tape and tissue paper making home of his space. The question had been plaguing him all month and now, here it was, December 24th, and Virgil felt no closer to a decent answer. In all those years, dreaming of acceptance, Virgil had never believed it even remotely possible enough to imagine the real-world implications. It was a genie wish, now coming true, and Virgil was facing the unforeseen consequences.

There were several benefits to being semi-fictional. One of which was an expedited healing process. Things that for a normal person would take days to heal, would take only an hour or two for the sides. Weeks became a handful of days and months not more than a few weeks. But even at this reduced rate, it was still taking the sides months of work and effort to recover from the psychological damage the past 28 years had done. Virgil was struggling in his own way, slowly but surely finding his place among the others and rebuilding his own sense of self-worth. Forgiving them had been easy, forgetting… not so much. And for the other’s forgiving themselves was a challenge almost as hard as Virgil’s battle. Guilt and shame and an intense desire to right the wrongs were only logical after discovering you had mistreated someone for so many years. Virgil knew they were struggling to come to terms with their past actions. He had no desire to make it harder. Which is why as Christmas Day drew ever nearer, Virgil found himself pacing his room trying to figure out what to do.

Patton had been so shy when asking Virgil if he wanted to celebrate Christmas with them. He made a point of emphasizing that Virgil didn’t have to do anything that he didn’t want to or feel comfortable doing. Of course, Virgil wanted nothing more than to spend the holidays with his family. Upon expressing this, Patton’s whole demeanor had shifted, becoming once more the bubbly, excited character he typically was. “Oh wonderful! It’s going to be so much fun having all the Kiddos together. You can help us decorate and bake and we’ll leave cookies for Santa and I’m sure he’ll leave you a present too this year.” That had given Virgil pause.

“I-I-I d-don’t know Pat,” Virgil stammered out. “I mean, he never has before. And I’m not… really the one who… has changed… a lot.”

“Nonsense!” Roman had exclaimed from the stairs, helping Logan haul down a large storage container Virgil assumed held the Christmas stuff. The noise had evidently startled everyone as Virgil and Patton both jumped and Logan almost dropped the box. Patton and Virgil stood to help them. Once the box was safely on the floor, Logan spoke.

“Virgil, I suspect that since Thomas has now accepted that you are a good guy, given that this is his mind, it is likely you will land on the so called ‘nice list’ this year.”

“Yeah!” Patton giggled. “I’m sure Santa knows you’re a good guy now! He’ll probably leave extra stuff to make up for all the years he messed up.” Virgil gaze shifted between the three of them, so hopeful and happy. He couldn’t find the words to tell them the truth, to dash their hopes and layer on the guilt. So, he didn’t.

“Maybe.” He muttered, shifting uncomfortably. Thankfully, they seemed to understand the Virgil wanted to drop the subject. They cracked open the storage box and together made the mindscape commons festive.

Now it was late at night on Christmas Eve and Virgil had spent the whole day in his room bouncing between monitoring video progress, then reception; and wracking his brain for a solution to his current conundrum. The three typically wrapped presents were waiting in their annual spot beside Virgil’s door. This year, Logan was receiving a nebula painted inside of an eye, Roman a fancy new journal and fountain pen, and Patton was getting an old polaroid camera with film and paper. The gifts themselves were not the concern for Virgil, rather it was how they should be presented.

If I give them as Santa, then I also have to come up with more gifts from me. What else could I give them? I worked hard on those. And what about myself? I can’t give myself a gift from Santa. That’s just messed up on so many levels. Besides, I do want to tell them eventually. Just not yet. Not when we’re in the middle of all this other shit. Fuck, what do I do?

An alarm went off on Virgil’s phone and he glanced at it. Midnight. It’s Christmas. Shit, shit, shit, dammit, fuck. I’m running out of time. Virgil pocket the phone and walked over to his door. He opened it quietly, listening to hear if the others were up. When he could here three sets of soft snoring and no one stirring, Virgil picked up the three gifts and crept downstairs, as was his normal ritual. Last chance to change your mind. If I leave them, they’re from Santa. Virgil worked slower than usual, taking extra care to be absolutely silent. He sat back to appreciate his work, still internally debating. Seeing them there, just like every year, but in a whole new light given recent events, Virgil made his decision. I can’t take this away from them. Not now. Not in the middle of all this other change. Let this tradition remain. Resolute in his decision, Virgil stood. He ate the cookies, this year not feeling the desire to consume them all given that he had been able to enjoy them all month. In fact, it was almost difficult to eat just the normal two and a half. He chased the sweet down with half the milk, then finally retreated back upstairs. Now to figure out what to give them from me.

Taking a few notes from the video, Virgil worked through the remainder of the night, barely even aware of the passing hours until sunlight began streaming in through his windows and he could give a shy smile at his newly finished creations. It wasn’t much, but Virgil hoped the others wouldn’t mind, chalking it up to Virgil not really knowing what to get them. He had expanded on the card idea to give Patton a small book full of puns and compliments and a long list of reasons Virgil loved the dad character. For Logan, Virgil had used his vast Tumblr knowledge to compile an alphabetical list of slang terms and memes, including notes of which ones were already outdated and which ones were old and would likely become outdated soon. Roman had been tougher. What do you create for Creativity. In the end, Virgil had written an epic-like poem, telling the story of the dashing prince who saved his kingdom from a monster called Boredom with his horse Inspiration and his sword Imagination. Virgil was quite proud of the trinkets, especially considering the time crunch he was working on. He stood and stretched with a yawn. He summoned a few gift bags and grabbed some tissue paper from the mess of his room. I’ll have to clean this up before anyone walks in. Once the gifts were packaged and labeled, he took them on downstairs, firmly closing the door behind him. Once the presents were under the tree, Virgil released a face splitting yawn, the sleepless night weighing heavily on his body. However, Virgil could tell, too many anxious thoughts sparked and swirled in his mind for sleep to be feasible. So, rather than go back to his room and attempt to rest, he wandered into the kitchen and made some hot chocolate (coffee was never a great thing to give the embodiment of anxiety). With his warm drink in hand, Virgil curled up on the sofa and flipped on the tv, muting it so it wouldn’t wake the others. He flipped through channels until he found a familiar movie, A Christmas Carol, and watched the scenes flickered by in a trance-like state of almost dozing.

“Good Morning and Merry Christmas, Virgil!” Virgil was jerked from his blank minded staring by Patton’s cheery tone. He looked around, noticing how much lighter the room had grown as sunlight filtered in. Patton giggled as he came off the stairs and wrapped Virgil in a hug from behind. “Couldn’t sleep, could ya, Kiddo.” Virgil hummed a vague affirmation, too out of it to produce words just yet. Patton giggled again and grabbed Virgil’s mug, still half full but now cold. “Logan and Roman will probably be up soon. In the meantime, would you like to help me with breakfast?” Finally coming back into full consciousness, Virgil nodded.

“Sure Dad. Sounds fun.” Patton gave him a bright happy grin, which Virgil returned with his trademark, shy half smile. Once Patton let him go, Virgil stood and stretched, groaning as tired muscles clicked and popped back into place after no less than an hour and a half sitting hunched on the sofa. Patton was already pulling out pans and bowls when Virgil joined him. “What do you need?” Virgil asked, walking towards the fridge.

“Eggs, milk, bacon, butter, flour.” Virgil pulled the ingredients as Patton listed them off. Patton cheerily taught Virgil how to mix up pancake batter while the father figure managed the stove. Somewhere in the middle, Logan came down and began to brew a pot of coffee. Roman was the last to come down. He set the table. As the house filled with the sounds of life and merriment, Virgil’s smile slowly grew. This is the life. Only after breakfast was eaten did Patton stand, a bounce in his step, and announce, “Present time!” With light chuckles, everyone moved into the living room. Virgil felt nervous energy well up inside of him, but he pushed it down, focusing on the easy warmth of being with his family. First the stockings were distributed and Virgil noted the distinct lack of coal in his own. Then Patton sat by the tree.

“You do the honors, Padre.” Roman told Patton.

“Okay!” He grabbed a present at random, carefully avoiding the Santa presents, and read the tag. “To Logan from Roman.” Logan took the gift.

“Thank you, Patton.” He tore into the wrapping, exposing a pair of soft, unicorn slippers.

“To match your onesie.” Roman clarified. Logan chuckled.

“Thank you, Roman. They shall see much use.” Virgil felt warmth blossoming through him.

“Virgil, next one’s for you,” Patton spoke. “It’s from me.” The father grinned as Virgil gingerly accepted the gift.

“Thank you.” Virgil pulled off the wrapper to find a framed picture. Tears sprung to his eyes as he recognized the image. It was a selfie Patton had taken with Logan, Roman, Virgil, and Thomas in the background. After the whole ‘ducking out’ thing, they had gathered in Thomas’s apartment for a good feelings jam and movie night. It had been one of the best nights of Virgil’s life. In the picture, Virgil was wedged between Thomas and Logan with Roman to the side. Virgil and Roman both had red tints creeping on their cheeks and Thomas was doubled over with laughter. Logan looked bewildered. The memory magnified the warmth in Virgil’s chest ten-fold. He cleared his throat, trying to speak without too much emotion. “I love it. Thanks Dad.” Patton flashed a grin.

This continued on, Patton handing out presents and everyone opening theirs and sharing words of love and appreciation. Patton had gotten a scarf, hat, and mittens set from Roman covered in cats and dog; as well as a joke book from Logan. He has squealed when he opened Virgil’s gift and Virgil could feel his cheeks burning. Logan and Roman both also gushed over Virgil’s gits to them. From Patton, Logan received one of those Lego Architecture set to build famous buildings and things. In homage to Sherlock, Logan got a set for London. Roman got a scrapbook of playbills from all of Thomas’s past shows and from Logan, a book about improv and method acting. Virgil got a Nightmare Before Christmas puzzle book from Logan and a new makeup set from Roman. Finally, they were down to Virgil’s Santa presents. Virgil tried to hide his excitement, ignoring the shooting glances everyone sent at the stack under the tree.

Logan opened his first. The soft gasp the gift elicited almost made Virgil giggle with bubbly joy. “This is… incredible.” He held the painting up. “The detail is simply astounding. Thank you, Santa.” Virgil hid his smile with a sip of cocoa. Roman’s was next.

“Magnificent! Just what I’ve been needing lately! Thank you, Santa.” Finally, it was just Patton’s gift. Virgil noticed the way his fingers trembled as he pulled the box near. He opened the box and pulled out the camera, turning it over in his hands. Virgil saw the tears well up in his eyes. “I love it. Thank you, Santa.” The underneath of the tree was now empty. Virgil closed his eyes and leaned back in the couch with a contented sigh. Suddenly, “I’m so sorry, Virgil.” Virgil looked up where Patton was now standing above him. The father looked conflicted and lost. Virgil’s eyes darted to the other two who seemed to be in similarly confused states. “I thought for sure… I don’t understand why he would leave you out.” Patton was almost crying now.

“Pat, what are you talking about?”

“Santa.” The damn broke and Patton sobbed. Oh. Yeah. That. Virgil gave the father a soft smile, standing to give him a hug.

“It’s okay, Patton.”

“N-no, it isn’t. It’s not r-r-right.”

“How could Santa be so callous!” Roman sounded affronted.

“Virgil,” Logan spoke, calmer than the other two, “You should have received a present to. You deserve one as well.” Virgil pulled out of Patton’s arms. He tried to swallow past the lump in his throat and come up with some way to make it okay again.

“But it’s okay. I don’t need a present from Santa to know I’m not a bad guy. Besides, there’s nothing he could give me better than this.” Patton’s sob slowed.

“W-what do you mean, K-kiddo?” Virgil flashed a smile, a real genuine smile.

“All I ever wanted was to be accepted, to be a part of the family. I have that now. Nothing Santa could give would be better than that.”

“Do you mean it?” Roman asked, sounding choked. Virgil nodded.

“Absolutely.” Before he realized what was happening, Virgil was on the couch, wrapped in the biggest hug he had received to date. Warmth and happiness and love flared almost painfully inside of him. They sat just like that for a long while. After a bit, someone turned the volume back on, on the tv. They spent most of the day watching Christmas movies. At some point, Virgil’s sleepless night caught up with him, and he fell asleep wrapped in the embrace of his family.

“You got him, Ro?”

“Yeah, I’m good, Patton.”

“He’ll sleep better in a bed.”

“I wonder if he slept at all last night.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if the answer was no.”

“Shh. Guys, you’ll wake him.”

“Take him on upstairs, then, Roman.” Virgil snuggles into the soft, warm wall he was held against by two strong branches. The distant voices fell silent and a gentle swaying lulled him back into a deeper sleep.

Roman couldn’t help but smile at the lanky emo currently nuzzling his chest. It was only 5pm, but Virgil had fallen asleep. Patton mentioned he had been up when he had come down that morning and Logan speculated he didn’t sleep well, if at all. They had decided he should be put in bed where he could rest comfortably and Roman, being the strongest of the group, had volunteered to take him. He climbed the stairs slowly, careful not to jostle Virgil too much. It probably wouldn’t be good for anyone to have the embodiment of Anxiety wake up in an unexpected place being carried by someone. It took 4 minutes, but finally, Roman made it to the second story. Virgil’s door proved a bit of a challenge, but Roman finally got it to swing open. The sight that greeted him inside was shocking to say the least.

First and foremost, Roman never would have expected a mess. The one time they had popped up with Thomas in Virgil’s realm (which would be found on the other side of the room outside of where the replica of Thomas’s bedroom door was), it had been immaculately organized. Of course, there had been spider webs everywhere, but otherwise, it had been clean. Logan had hypothesized that obsessive organization was a side effect of anxiety. Virgil had confirmed that if he couldn’t find what he needed when he needed it, he tended to freak out. But the mess alone was not what brought Roman to a stuttering halt in the doorway. It’s what the mess was made of. There was Christmas wrapping all over the place, despite the fact that Virgil had used bags. Most surprising of all was the three rolls in particular that stood out to Roman, the three designs he easily recognized. His eyes darted around the room, trying to make some semblance of sense out of the chaos. An idea tickled the back of his mind, but the implications were so horrible, Roman couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it. After several moments, Virgil shifted in his arms, and Roman moved. He cleared a spot on Virgil’s bed and laid him in it, tucking the covers snugly around him. Virgil shifted again and mumbled something incoherent before sighing and relaxing. Once he was certain Virgil wasn’t going to wake up, he made his way swiftly back to the stairs, leaving the door open behind him. He came halfway down before calling for Logan and Patton’s attention.

“I think there is something you two should see.” Patton was on his feet instantly.

“Why, Roman? What’s wrong? Is Virgil okay?”

“I… I think so. Just, come on. Let me show you.” Logan gave him s skeptical look, but got up and followed nonetheless. Roman showed them to Virgil’s room, where they all peeked in.

“What are you talking about? He looks fi-” Patton’s comment came to a stilted halt as he took in the whole room. “Oh.” Logan adjusted his glasses, then cautiously walked in. He picked up the three familiar rolls, balancing them in his hands, a thoughtful look on his face. “Logan? What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking…” Logan turned his gaze to their youngest counterpart, “I’m thinking we should discuss this downstairs.” With that, Logan snapped his fingers, the mess of the room organizing itself at his will. Logan kept hold of the three rolls and brought them out of the room with him, closing the door quietly as he left. “It would appear Santa is not who he seems.” With that, the three sides left Virgil to rest, and went downstairs for a long discussion of Christmas traditions.

Virgil awoke feeling better rested than he had in a very long time. He came around slowly, blinking blearily to clear his sight of sleep. He expected to wake up in the living room, perhaps on the couch, with the others around him. But when his eyed finally focused, he was surprised to see the almost black blue that was his painted ceiling. He blinked a couple times. “When did I come up here?” He turned his head, expecting the absolute disarray that was his last memory of his room. He was met with confusion at the tidiness of his space, all the wrapping paper stacked neatly in a box by his desk. He wracked his brain, trying to remember cleaning up, until he noticed something. Or more specifically, something missing. Shock pierced his system and he sat up, slivers of fear immediately beginning to crawl up his spine and sit freezing cold on the back of his neck. “Where’s the wrapping paper?” He threw off the blanket and stood, stumbling slightly as his muscles woke up. He staggered over to the box and pawed through it, looking for the old, familiar wraps he has used for many Christmases past. It became increasingly apparent that the paper wasn’t there and Virgil became increasingly desperate to find it. He threw himself at his bed, checking underneath, but only finding his art supplies and canvases. He checked his closet next, only met with his clothes and a few shoeboxes of old photographs. The longer he looked but couldn’t find, the more panic welled up inside him. After 15 minutes of frantic searching, breathing became too difficult to continue. He sat at his desk chair, struggling to regulate his breathing. It wasn’t working and Virgil’s mind began to spiral away from him.

Oh god, what if they found them? What if they brought me to my room and they found the mess and the paper? What of they realized it was me all along? What if they hate me for lying to them all these years? What if they’re mad at themselves for not knowing sooner? What if Patton is upset that Santa isn’t real? Oh god, this is bad. This is bad, bad, bad. I should have cleaned up earlier. I should have dropped off the gifts and come back up to clean. Stupid. Lazy. Fuck-up. I fucked up. I fucked up. I fucked up.

Suddenly, Virgil felt a familiar tug in his gut. He tried to swat the sensation away. “Noooo. Not right now. I can’t. I’m… I …I… noooo,” He whined, but the sensation persisted until Virgil was pulled into the real world.

“Virgil, what’s wrong.” Virgil couldn’t focus on the speaker, too caught up in his own self-deprecating, panicking thoughts. “Virgil, hey, bud, look at me.” Virgil tried. It took a few minutes, but eventually he was able to meet Thomas’s gentle gaze. “There you are. Can I touch you?” Slowly, Virgil nodded. Thomas reached out, placing one hand on Virgil’s shoulder, grounding him further. The other hand grabbed one of Virgil’s guiding it to Thomas’s chest. “Can you breathe with me?” Thomas breathed deeply, in for four, hold for seven, out for eight. Virgil fought to match the steady rhythm, panicked thoughts fading to the background as Virgil focused on the simple task. After several minutes, Virgil felt like he could breathe on his own again.

“Are you back with us, Kiddo?” Virgil was only mildly surprised to hear Patton’s voice. If Thomas had summoned him, it made sense that he had summoned the other’s too. Virgil flicked his gaze to the father, but almost instantly dropped it again.

“Yeah. M’here.”

“Good. We’re glad.” Virgil flinched back from Roman’s boisterous tone. “Sorry.” Roman amended.

“S’okay.”

“Virgil?” It was Logan speaking now. The logical trait has knelt beside Virgil. “Would you mind telling us what caused this attack? Perhaps we could help.” Virgil couldn’t bring himself to look up and meet their gazes.

“It’s nothing. I just… couldn’t find what I was looking for.”

“Oh. Well, what was it. Maybe we can help.” Thomas was as chipper as ever, if slightly concerned. Virgil glanced briefly at him, then at Roman, Patton, and finally Logan. They were all watching him expectantly.

“It’s nothing important.” They frowned. A thoughtful look crossed Logan’s features.

“Would it perhaps be these?” Logan grabbed something from beside the stairs and three familiar rolls of paper came to rest in his hand. Virgil looked between him, the paper, and the others. Their expressions were unreadable. Virgil felt heat rise to his face and he hung his head.

“M’sorry.” They seemed to get a reaction. Patton came down with Logan, wrapping Virgil in a half hug.

“Whatever do you think you have to be sorry for?” Virgil thought for a moment, trying to put into words the weight on his mind.

“For not telling you sooner. For lying for all these years.”

“Well, why didn’t you say something before? Did you think we wouldn’t believe you?” Patton asked curiously.

“No. That’s not it. I mean, maybe once upon a time, but not now.” Virgil was hesitant.

“Then what?” He prodded gently.

“I didn’t want you to be upset.”

“We would never be upset with you for this.”

“Not… not just with me. Not anymore.”

“I may be alone, feelings are not really my thing, but I don’t understand what you mean, Virgil.” Logan seemed somewhat baffled.

“I didn’t want you to be upset with yourselves. For excluding me. And for jumping to conclusions. You’ve all been trying so hard, just like I have, to be better and I know sometimes you struggle to forgive yourselves even though I’ve already forgiven you and I just… I didn’t want to make it any harder. Especially not right now. It’s… it’s Christmas. Christmas is supposed to be happy.” Virgil couldn’t stop his babbling until the feelings had had their say. It was always something he’d struggled with. Once the words were finally out there, a heavy silence settled over the room.

Patton was the first to respond and Virgil found himself engulfed in the father’s arms. Virgil looked at him, confused by the odd mixture of deep sadness and joy that seemed to be fighting for dominance of his facial expression. “Oh, Kiddo. Virgil. It’s so sweet that you want to protect us from that we love you for it, we really do, but…” Patton trailed off, a small frown forming on his face. Logan picked up where he left off.

“But you can’t protect us from that. It’s illogical and it will not help in the long run.”

“Logan is right,” Roman interjected. “We messed up in a most grievous manner. We caused you pain for many years. There must be consequence for our actions. We must atone for our sins.” Virgil frowned. That’s exactly what he didn’t want.

“I don’t want atonement. I just want to move on. I want to leave the past behind so we can just be a family.”

“Virge.” Thomas piped up, taking on his normal role of mediator and leader for his sides. “The only way to move on from the past is to acknowledge it. We all must come to terms with our past mistakes. It’s the only way to truly heal. That’s the consequence Roman speaks of. The healing process, forgiving ourselves and each other and learning how to be better, it’s a messy process and its going to take time. But in the end, it will be so worth it. Because isn’t healing so much better than pretending not to be hurt?” Virgil listened intently to what Thomas had to say. He was trying to take to heart what he was saying. At the same time, his brain made a connection that had a small smirk pulling at his lips.

“You sound just like you do in the videos. Are you sure you don’t have a hidden camera set up somewhere?” The easy wit did wonders for the tension in the room. Thomas and Roman both chuckled, Patton giggled, and even Logan let out an amused snort.

“No. No filming today.” Something occurred to Virgil then.

“Then why did you summon us all?” Thomas just chuckled again.

“Actually,” Patton chirped, jumping up. “He didn’t Logan and Roman and me were already here.”

“I,” corrected Logan.

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Said Roman, rhythmically.

“What, is it National Talk Like A Pirate Day?” Asked Patton cheekily. Logan just sighed and shook his head. Virgil tried to hold back a chuckle, but failed and just barely managed to muffle it with his hoodie sleeve.

“Virgil.” Logan spoke seriously. Virgil swallowed nervously, something Logan didn’t miss. He made a point of softening his tone when he continued. “We were up here seeking help from Thomas. You see, with how thoughtful and generous you’ve been with your gifts for all these years, we thought it only fair you should receive something equally special from us. We required Thomas’s assistance in acquiring it.”

“Oh. Um. Y-you guys didn’t ha-ave to go through all that tr-rouble just for me.” Virgil stuttered out.

“They wanted to.” Thomas responded calmly. “I wanted to. We want to show you how much you mean to us, Virgil. We can’t make up for all those years we excluded and isolated you. But we can make dang sure you feel loved and included now.” Virgil ducked his head, hiding the soft pink spreading across his cheeks, which were on display since Virgil hadn’t put on his make-up yet.

“O-o-okay.” Virgil glanced up from under his bangs, catching the broad smile on each of there faces. Even Logan, Mr. Emotions are the bane of my existence, was sporting one. Patton had bounced over to the coffee table were a medium sized box wrapped in electric purple paper sat. He grabbed it and bounced back over, plopping down next to Virgil and sliding the box into his hands. Virgil noticed a card taped to the top.

“We hope you like it, Kiddo. It was Roman’s idea what to get.”

“Well, Logan picked out which one.” Roman replied sheepishly.

“Patton and Thomas made the card,” said Logan.

“It was a team effort!” Giggled Patton. “Open it up.” Virgil opened the card first. It was a home-made paper card, like the one he had received from Patton what felt like a lifetime ago now. On the front, they had drawn Logan, Thomas, Roman, and Patton with Virgil soaring above them on purple wings. It read: ‘For our Guardian Angle, who takes good care of us…’ Virgil opened the card. Inside, he had landed on the ground and the others had grouped around him in a hug. ‘Don’t be An-Jealous! We want to take care of you, too!’ Virgil made no effort to hide the smile on his face. He carefully slid the card back into its envelope. Then he turned to the box. He glanced up at them, looking for confirmation. The all gave him soft smiles and small nods. Virgil tore into the paper and opened the box. His mouth fell open when he looked inside. He glanced between his family and the box, unsure if this was even happening. “Well?” Patton pressed gently. Virgil’s hands fell into the box, pulling out the soft purple and yellow fabric. He began to unfold it, unsurprised when it took on a humanoid shape. The unfolding revealed pieces of orange fabric mixed in. Once it was fully unfolded, Virgil held in his hands a Spyro the Dragon onesie. Tears welled up in his eyes at the thoughtfulness that must have gone into this gift. He couldn’t even imagine what they’d had to do to get it here within the last 24 hours.

“It’s perfect, guys. Thank you. I love it. I love you.” It was weird saying it, after spending so long hiding those feelings. But even weird, it felt right.

“We love you to, Virgil.” They all chorused back. The tears spilled over, but Virgil found he didn’t mind. Not when Patton was there, gently wiping them away with his own tearful smile. They were all quiet as the cried out their individual feelings of overwhelming joy and love. After a while, Roman snapped his fingers, gaining their attentions. He beamed a broad smile, looking for all the world like he had just had the most brilliant idea in the whole world. Virgil was more than happy in that moment to believe that maybe he had.

“What does everyone say to a PJs and Movies Day with the whole family.” The others all responded with varying forms of yes. Roman looked at Virgil.

“Sounds good to me, Princey. But only if The Black Cauldron makes the list.” Patton bounced up with a giggle. He launched himself upstairs to get some extra pillows and blankets. Virgil stood too, coming off the stairs to stand with Roman by the TV. Logan moved off to the kitchen to prepare some snacks. Thomas went upstairs to help Patton and also to put on his pjs, the sides having snapped instantly into theirs.

“It can be first. But we are definitely watching a classic second. Cinderella.”

“I vote Aladdin third!” Thomas called down.

“Don’t forget Winnie The Pooh!” Patton responded from the top of the stairs.

“And Big Hero 6 if we may,” said Logan.

“Perfect!” Exclaimed Roman, “A day of favorites with all my favorites.” Virgil couldn’t keep the smile off his face. His new Spyro onesie was soft, warm, and comfortable. His family was all around him wearing their own onesies, save for Thomas (Virgil made a mental note to make sure Thomas got one, too at some point). It was the day after Christmas and for the first time in living memory Virgil felt like absolutely everything, down to the last minute detail, was perfect.

Part 2

#Thomas Sanders #Sanders Sides #Virgil Sanders #Patton Sanders #Roman Sanders #Logan Sanders #TS #Canon Divergence #Angst #Panic Attack #Crying #Self-Deprecation #Hurt/Comfort #My Writing

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wolveswithhats · 6 years ago

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writing wip game

Rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you or interests you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

The titles weren’t interesting so I vainly just posted some excerpts from a grab bag of more recent stuff. If I did everything it’d honestly probably go on for pages. I have a lot of unfinished stuff (pretty much...exclusively unfinished stuff dfjkdjfkg). Like a decade’s worth.

Tagged by @ackbang. TY TY, MY DUDE. If you see this and you’re a writer, consider yourself tagged. Like for real. Only not tagging because I can’t remember who writes fanfic and who doesn’t.

Looooooong post below.

ling ling the goblin king (ling + lan fan, fma)

"lan fan did it," the prince says, and for a moment she feels a flare of anger and betrayal over his deception. 'it wasn't me, i didn't do this. i didn't kill anyone.' but the prince is bending at the waist, low enough that that his tail of hair brushes the dirt, and she realizes his lie is for her benefit. "thank you, m'lady. i owe you my life."

her mouth feels dry, face hot from exertion and the burning gaze of her older peers. "d-don't do that," she stutters, and she's not sure if she's referring to the lie or the bow.

"you dare give me orders?" but there's no heat in his voice, eyes crinkling with humor as he rises to his full height. she has no idea how he can look so amused with a hole in his shoulder, covered in the blood of a man he just killed. he grins lopsided, teeth crooked and painted red. the sight is altogether ghoulish.

limb choppy choppy (lan fan + greed + ling, fma, part of the revival au)

And Greed is stilling his struggles, catching his wandering hand in his own, running comforting circles with his thumb over Ling's blood-smeared cheek. “Hey, you little pissant, this is nothing, piddly kids table shit. Remember that time that one Central soldier tried to gut us? Right down the middle, like splitting a sausage. Goddamn crimson tide. I thought we'd never get the blood out of that coat. Now that was an injury.”

“T-they took my arm.”

“Yeah, and who needs one of those anyway? Gonna get you all sorted, get you one of those shiny metal ones, like your girl Lan Fan here. Guess the adjustment period takes a bit, a year or three, but bet we could expedite the process with proper motivation. I'm thinking sandwiches.”

He laughs, or something approaching as much, a soggy intake of air. She's struck with an unexpected wave of jealousy, that it's Greed that's offering reassurance and intimate personal jokes. A former homunculus, a former demon, a watery imitation of a man. Creature comforts from the creature. It should be me, she thinks, though she has nothing to offer beyond promises of protection, and even those feel like falsehoods after all that has happened here. Comforting platitudes are beyond her. What could I ever say to make this better?

lets get lit fam (greedling + ed, fma)

wobbly-legged, too uncoordinated to walk. almost stumbles into a line of trash cans at the mouth of the alley, but ed hooks his elbow and steers him away. "what the hell were you thinking? we're supposed to be keeping a low profile."

it's not an accusation he's fully equipped to grapple, not when he's still so bleary from sleep—and some other pleasant, dizzying sensation he thinks might be inebriation. he's never woken up drunk before. he's never been drunk before period. "what'd i do?"

"not you, ling. you would have gone straight for the food menu, not the liquor list. i'm talking to the dipshit you share a mental occupancy with. greed, what the hell?"

"was just a few drinks," ling slurs, but it's not his words, or his voice, and wow he's never been so aware of his own tongue before.

solid citizen (ling + greed, fma)

"geez, kid, you're certainly in a mood." so he was reading his thoughts, just fantastic. he look he gives him is withering, but greed pats his shoulder, almost condescendingly, pitying for sure.

"you're plenty fine, kid. i'll give you the ears, but you're top shelf in the looks department otherwise. if you were ugly, i'd tell you straight up. i don't lie. this here," he points to his own face. "is ugly. nothing like my old human face."

it's a bated response, he knows, and he doesn't really feel like playing, but greed did make a passing effort to make him feel better. "human face?"

he beams, dreamily, which is an impressively soft expression to pull off a mouthful of razors, and ling is suddenly reminded of the mythology of the man fawning over his own reflection. surely greed can't be that vain? "yeah i was a real stunner. fucking gorgeous." or maybe he could, apparently, what did ling know anyway.

wreckage (vincent, re-l, ergo proxy)

When she makes it back to the Rabbit, chest burning and damp with exertion, Vincent has already stripped Pino of her overalls and laid her across the table. Cooling fluids draining, frayed wiring spooling out of her gashed torso, sprawled like a tiny metal Tityos. Her left arm is snapped off and dangling at the elbow, her eyes glassy – glass, literal glass – staring at the ceiling. Broken doll parts. Just another disassembled AutoReiv, but this isn't like that at all, because Pino isn't just another AutoReiv. She's like Iggy--

It's almost too much for Re-l to take. Hand over her mouth, breathing sharp through her fingers in short repetitions. Tries to steel herself, to be calm and assertive, because one of them has to be, and Vincent-- Vincent was awkward and mousy and sensitive, Vincent who spilled his cereal and tripped over his own feet and housed an ancient being of unspeakable power in his lanky boy-frame. But his god-strength was of no use here, drowned under the weak, simpering, overpowering grief for something that was no more human than he was.

do NOT worry about meryl (vash + wolfwood + milly, trigun)

milly caught the hurt. naive, for sure, but shrewd. "oh, we'd never think that of you, mr. vash. it's just our job as representatives of the bernadelli insurance society to mitigate any and all damages from the humanoid typhoon, even the rumored ones."

wolfwood: "bernadelli employing a little insurance of their own, eh?"

milly nods. "if we had to pay out claims on every false report of mr. vash's wrongdoings, we'd go belly up in no time!"

caught up on the word 'wrongdoing', growls, "you make it sound like i'm doing any of this on purpose."

"it's just sensible. your name has a lot of weight, vash."

grumbles: "yeah, i'm aware."

"and that's why meryl was so insistent on following up on this one, even knowing it wasn't really you. so many people drag your name through the mud, and it just doesn't seem fair at all."

his name had long since been dragged, strangled and shot, left to rot under a flock of buzzards circling its carcass in the heat. There was no saving it. still, the intent was kind, if not bewildering. "you...were trying to protect my reputation?"

milly looks at him like he's insane for thinking otherwise. "well, yeah. we've come to think of you as a friend, mr. vash, and that's what friends do.”

baby scrub (locke + rachel, ff6)

offers his hand and a single word: "lock."

her faces scrunches distastefully at his uncouth greeting, but she's not sure what else she was expecting from a dirty street boy. "lock?"

"with an e," he adds, as if that clarifies anything.

"that can't be real. you just made that up."

"all names are made up," huffs locke-with-an-e, looking impatient with her slow uptake on this odd world of his. "and i never said it was real, but it's all you're going to get."

spike bday (spike + dawn, btvs)

“if I show you something, you need to promise not to say anything. not to the watcher, or your sister. not to anyone, right?”

even through her tears, she nods, curious. spike's always good for skirting just outside the limits of good taste.

“I'm serious. spool your intestines out your nose, string 'em up like christmas garland. I mean it.”

“colorful threats of bodily dismemberment, I get it.”

hands her a faded yellow tintype. a young man, twenty-five or thirty maybe, a riot of disheveled curls, glasses, frumpy suit. not an unattractive man, but a timid one, uncertainty written into the slanted bow of his shoulders. he had the weedy air of someone who spent a lot of time duct taped to flag poles, or whatever the victorian equivalent would be. did it count as a twirly if you were dunked into a chamber pot?

a rebellious counterpoint in wrinkled tweed to the hard, starched lines of victorian decorum – interesting, but not very relevant. and a little disappointing, if she was being totally honest. spike's anecdotes usually had more flash and gore. “I don't get it.”

he's exasperated, fingers twitching like he's ready to snatch it away, and he tucks his hands under his arms in an awkward self hug. she takes in the hard set of his jaw and the...flush of his cheeks? god, she didn't even know vampires could blush. it had to take some serious breaking of undead physiology to ping that level of embarrassment, and something beyond that even to flap the unflappable spike. he hisses impatiently. “would you just—look at the face.”

and she does, tilting the little photo to and fro in the dim of the crypt. unassuming man-hermione with hair that cannot be tamed. sharp cheekbones and dark heavy brows under the rims of his glasses and suddenly she sees it—him—the angular planes of his face coming into sharp relief, like a camera finding its focus. “oh. oh my god! this is you. holy crap, spike. you look....”

“normal,” he finishes for her, and something in her stomach swoops and clenches, stones in a pond. “mundane.”

“i was going to say like a megawatt dorklord, but we can use your word instead.” she wipes her nose on the back of her hand. he snorts, amused and embarrassed.

“i was a poet.”

she tried to envision anything beyond smutty limericks carved onto the wall of a bathroom stall.

“were you ever published?”

“i was a shitty poet,” he amends, grimacing.

boston au (spike + dawn, btvs)

bodily kicking a dumpster, sending it careening into the street with a rusty scream of metal. a hydrant follows suit, ripped from the sidewalk. caps off his tantrum with a boot to the side of Angel's GTX, but even the size-10 crater marring the passenger door of the angelmobile did little to ease his frustration.

“better?” dawn asks, when he drops bodily into the driver's seat with an aching sigh, anger dissipating. she looks so tiny and forlorn, knees drawn to her chest, picking at a cigarette burn in the upholstery. two years ago she'd have been a ripe treat, poor little lost lamb. now the idea twists his gut, her sorrow palpable, proprietary, under his skin and in his veins.

“no,” he grunts, staring out impassively at the aftermath of his outburst. water spurting from the sidewalk, skip spilling out into the road. half a dozen cars along the block chirping in a chorus of wailing alarms. and angel in the foyer, something vaguely resembling pity etched across his massive cavebrow. fucking wanker.

...

“we go back to sunnydale then. try again. badger the scoobies until they agree to help. we'll figure this out.”

“i don't want to.” quietly. barely a whisper.

“to figure it out?”

“to go back.”

“dawn...”

“there's nothing there. they're not going to help because i'm nothing. it's an ongoing memorial to my own non-existence. can we not go back? can we just keep driving?”

“where?”

“I don't care. away.”

thinks about leaving sunnydale. thinks about what he's leaving behind. shitty memories, regrets, lost love. he has a small collection of personal effects; records, first edition books, family heirlooms that cannot be replaced, a hundred years of mementos of his whirlwind romance with dru. wonders if he can ring up clem, ask him to send a care package once they get to wherever they're going. looks at dawn in her clearance-rack pajamas, realizes she has lost everything. she has no belongings, no family, no remnants left as evidence she even had a family. nothing but him and her, here, in this moment.

it's just stuff. it's surprisingly easy to let go.

he drives.

taco hell (spike + dawn, btvs, part of the boston / unravel au)

Right where her window was supposed to be, a swirling doorway of light ringed in licking green flame, spilling out into....a fast food restaurant?

"I think it's Taco Bell," Dawn said, pinching a tissue to her--aw hell--bleeding finger. He took inventory of the spell books around her, the scrying bowl, and the ashy pentagram burnt into 70s shag weave of her bedroom carpet. So much for their security deposit.

"You opened a hell dimension to Taco Bell?"

She craned her head to squint at the pimply teenager manning the register, oblivious to his cross-dimension spectators. "I think it's just a regular Taco Bell. I don't see any dragons or shrimp people or anything."

"Not all alternate universes have shrimp people."

"I know that. You know, it actually looks like the one downtown, across from the KFC? On Kellner? Unless the Kellner Street Taco Bell is a Taco Hell. I've been reading up about liminal spaces, where the fabric between realities is weakened. Maybe it's a hot spot, and all the employees are actually like, octopus centaurs. How would we know? Not like I'm going to crawl over the counter to check, you know?"

"Well, now's your chance to ask Squiddly Diddly here what he's got going on downstairs." Slack-jawed employee finally cottoned on to the door to another universe in the restaurant lobby. Dawn awkwardly waves. Poc Ock waves back, bewildered, before the portal collapses in on itself in a burst of white light.

"It stopped bleeding." she holds up her finger.

(I don’t think anyone would, but as a precaution: please don’t reblog these to the Herald. They’re sloppy and incomplete and mixed in with a bunch of other fandoms so it’d just be really weird. THANK)

#some of these are ok #most if not all of them will never be finished #i have a ton more?#i just didn't want to go TOO buck wild with it #i already feel like this is way too much lfgklfg #wolves writes

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gordonwilliamsweb · 3 years ago

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Veterans Push for Medical Marijuana in Conservative South

RALEIGH, N.C. — Each time Chayse Roth drives home to North Carolina, he notices the highway welcome signs that declare: “Nation’s Most Military Friendly State.”

“That’s a powerful thing to claim,” said Roth, a former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who served multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Now he says he’s calling on the state to live up to those words. A Wilmington resident, Roth is advocating for lawmakers to pass a bill that would legalize medical marijuana and allow veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other debilitating conditions to use it for treatment.

“I’ve lost more men to suicide since we went to Afghanistan in ’01 than I have in combat,” said Roth, who said he doesn’t use cannabis himself but wants others to have the option. “It’s just unacceptable for these guys to go overseas and win the battle and come home and lose the battle to themselves.”

He is among several veterans brought together by a recently formed advocacy group called NC Families for Medical Cannabis. These veterans have testified before the legislature and visited lawmakers individually.

In a state that’s home to eight military bases, one of the largest veteran populations in the country and a Republican-controlled legislature that prides itself on supporting the troops, they hope their voices will act as a crucial lever to push through a bill that has faced opposition in the past.

“If we really want to be the most veteran-friendly state in the union, this is just another thing we can do to solidify that statement,” Roth said.

From California to Massachusetts, veterans have been active in the push for medical marijuana legalization for decades. But now, as the movement focuses on the remaining 14 states that have not enacted comprehensive medical marijuana programs or full marijuana legalization, their voices may have outsize influence, experts say.

Many of these remaining states are in the traditionally conservative South and dominated by Republican legislatures. “The group carrying the message here makes a huge difference,” said Julius Hobson Jr., a former lobbyist for the American Medical Association who now teaches lobbying at George Washington University. “When you’ve got veterans coming in advocating for that, and they’re considered to be a more conservative bunch of folks, that has more impact.”

Veterans also have the power of numbers in many of these states, Hobson said. “That’s what gives them clout.”

Successes are already evident. In Texas and Louisiana, veterans played a key role in the recent expansion of medical marijuana programs. In Mississippi, they supported a successful ballot initiative for medical cannabis in 2020, though the result was later overturned by the state Supreme Court. And in Alabama, the case of an out-of-state veteran arrested and jailed for possession of medical marijuana incited national outrage and calls for legalization. The state legalized medical marijuana earlier this year.

To be sure, not every veteran supports these efforts, and the developments in red states have been influenced by other factors: advocacy from cancer patients and parents whose children have epilepsy, lawmakers who see this as a states’ rights issue, a search for alternative pain relief amid the opioid epidemic and a push from industries seeking economic gains.

But the attention to the addiction and suicide epidemics among veterans, and calls to give them more treatment options, are also powerful forces.

In states like North Carolina, where statewide ballot initiatives are banned, veterans can kick-start a conversation with lawmakers who hold the power to make change, said Garrett Perdue, the son of former North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue and a spokesperson for NC Families for Medical Cannabis and CEO of Root Bioscience, a company that makes hemp products.

“It fits right in with the general assembly’s historical support of those communities,” Perdue said. “For [lawmakers] to hear stories of those people that are trusted to protect us and enforce the right of law” and see them as advocates for this policy “is pretty compelling.”

Gary Hess, a Marine Corps veteran from Louisiana, said he first realized the power of his platform in 2019, when he testified in front of the state legislature about seeing friends decapitated by explosions, reliving the trauma day-to-day, taking a cocktail of prescription medications that did little to help his symptoms and finally finding relief with cannabis. His story resonated with lawmakers who had served in the military themselves, Hess said.

He recalled one former colonel serving in the Louisiana House telling him: “They’re not going to say no to a veteran because of the crisis you’re all in. As someone who is put together well and can tell the story of marijuana’s efficacy, you have a powerful platform.”

Hess has since started his own nonprofit to advocate for medical marijuana legalization and has traveled to other state and national events, including hearings before the North Carolina legislature.

“Once I saw the power my story had,” he said, “the goal became: How do I expedite this process for others?”

Experts trace the push for medical marijuana legalization back to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s, particularly in California’s Bay Area.

As the movement tried to expand, medical marijuana activists realized other regions were not as sympathetic to the LGBTQ community, said Lee Hannah, an associate professor of political science at Wright State University who is writing a book about the rise of legal marijuana in the U.S. They had to find “more target populations that evoke sympathy, understanding and support,” Hannah said.

Over time, the medical marijuana conversation grew from providing symptom relief for patients with AIDS to include such conditions as cancer, pediatric epilepsy and PTSD, Hannah and his colleagues noted in a 2020 research paper. With each condition added, the movement gained wider appeal.

“It helped change the view of who a marijuana user is,” said Daniel Mallinson, a co-author on the 2020 paper and the upcoming book with Hannah, and an assistant professor at the Penn State-Harrisburg School of Public Affairs. “That makes it more palatable in these legislatures where it wouldn’t have been before.”

In 2009, New Mexico became the first state to make PTSD patients eligible for medical marijuana. The condition has since been included in most state medical marijuana programs.

The movement got another boost in 2016 when the American Legion, a veterans organization with 1.8 million members known for its conservative politics, urged Congress to remove marijuana from its list of prohibited drugs and allow research into its medical uses.

“I think knowing an organization like the American Legion supports it frankly gives [lawmakers] a little bit of political cover to do something that they may have all along supported but had concerns about voter reaction,” said Lawrence Montreuil, the group’s legislative director.

In Texas, when the Republican governor recently approved a law expanding the state’s limited medical marijuana program, he tweeted: “Veterans could qualify for medical marijuana under new law. I will sign it.”

It’s smart political messaging, Hannah said. Elected officials “are always looking to paint laws they support in the most positive light, and the approval rate of veterans is universally high.”

Nationally, veteran-related marijuana bills seem to be among the few cannabis-related reforms that have gained bipartisan support. Bills with Democratic and Republican co-sponsors in Congress this session deal with promoting research into medical marijuana treatment for veterans, allowing Veterans Affairs doctors to discuss cannabis with patients in states where it is legal and protecting veterans from federal penalization for using state-legalized cannabis.

Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), who has co-sponsored two bipartisan bills concerning veterans and medical marijuana this session, said the interest of veterans is “what drew me to cannabis in the first place.”

In North Carolina, veterans like Roth and Hess, along with various advocacy groups, continue to drum up support for the medical marijuana bill. They know it’s a long battle. The bill must clear several Senate committees, a full Senate vote and then repeat the process in the House. But Roth said he’s optimistic “the veteran aspect of it will be heavily considered by lawmakers.”

An early indication of that came at a Senate committee hearing earlier this summer. Standing at the podium, Roth scrolled through his phone to show lawmakers how many of his veteran contacts were now dead due to suicide. Other veterans testified about the times they had contemplated suicide and how the dozens of prescription medications they had tried before cannabis had done little to quiet those thoughts.

The hearing room was silent as each person spoke. At the end, the lawmakers stood and gave a round of applause “for those veterans who are with us today and those who are not.”

The bill later passed that committee with a nearly unanimous vote.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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stephenmccull · 3 years ago

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Veterans Push for Medical Marijuana in Conservative South

RALEIGH, N.C. — Each time Chayse Roth drives home to North Carolina, he notices the highway welcome signs that declare: “Nation’s Most Military Friendly State.”

“That’s a powerful thing to claim,” said Roth, a former Marine Corps gunnery sergeant who served multiple deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“If we really want to be the most veteran-friendly state in the union, this is just another thing we can do to solidify that statement,” Roth said.

Veterans also have the power of numbers in many of these states, Hobson said. “That’s what gives them clout.”

But the attention to the addiction and suicide epidemics among veterans, and calls to give them more treatment options, are also powerful forces.

Hess has since started his own nonprofit to advocate for medical marijuana legalization and has traveled to other state and national events, including hearings before the North Carolina legislature.

“Once I saw the power my story had,” he said, “the goal became: How do I expedite this process for others?”

Experts trace the push for medical marijuana legalization back to the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s, particularly in California’s Bay Area.

In 2009, New Mexico became the first state to make PTSD patients eligible for medical marijuana. The condition has since been included in most state medical marijuana programs.

It’s smart political messaging, Hannah said. Elected officials “are always looking to paint laws they support in the most positive light, and the approval rate of veterans is universally high.”

The hearing room was silent as each person spoke. At the end, the lawmakers stood and gave a round of applause “for those veterans who are with us today and those who are not.”

The bill later passed that committee with a nearly unanimous vote.

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easyfoodnetwork · 4 years ago

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Until I Can Go Back to My Favorite Restaurant, This Jerk Paste Is the Next Best Thing

I don’t know how I lived so long without a jar of Walkerswood jerk seasoning | Elazar Sontag

Walkerswood Jamaican jerk seasoning has quickly become a kitchen staple

I smear the dark brown paste on everything. I pat it onto salmon filets before I slide them into the oven and sneak it between tightly stacked leaves of cabbage layered into a steamer basket. I use my hands to massage it into Brussels sprouts, roughly chopped carrots, and broccoli florets. And every time I pull the container from my fridge, I ask myself how the hell I lived so long without a jar of jerk seasoning.

I didn’t grow up eating much Jamaican food in Oakland, California. This city, awash with some of the best Ethiopian and Eritrean, Filipino, Mexican, and Laotian food in the country, has comparatively few spots offering flavors of the Caribbean. And neither of my vegetarian Jewish parents were making a whole lot of curry chicken or braised oxtails.

My introduction to jerk chicken — its skin soaked in the flavor of sweet smoke, of Scotch bonnet peppers, allspice berries, ginger, and green onion — was during my first year of college, across the Hudson river from a New York town called Kingston. That’s where I had my first meals at Top Taste, where you’ll find the best — and more or less only — jerk chicken, curry goat, and oxtails in town. The snug restaurant, painted with wide stripes of yellow and green in the colors of the Jamaican flag, and set on the corner of a sleepy residential street, sells all sorts of groceries you can’t find elsewhere in the area: ackee, saltfish, canned callaloo and Tastee Cheese in vacuum-sealed aluminum containers.

As soon as the door swung open on my first visit four years ago, I was greeted by booming dancehall coming from a boombox propped above the entrance and the smiling faces of owners Melenda Bartley and Albert Samuel Bartley, known to a stream of friends and loyal customers as Sammy. For many, Top Taste brought familiarity and reminders of faraway homes. To me, everything about the experience was new, a welcome and deeply needed change of pace and scenery from the always-boiled, never-baked food of my college dining hall. I didn’t own a car, but whenever I could convince one of my new friends to drive me there, I was at Top Taste.

This wasn’t the sort of recipe I could transcribe, fold up, and stash away for safekeeping.

Over the years, Melenda and Sammy became friends, and their restaurant felt more like home than the cement-block dorm where I slept. I’d order from the menu scrawled on a piece of neon green cardstock on the wall, and while Melenda was filling my square plastic plate with rice and peas, stew chicken, oxtails, and plantains, I’d walk around to the restaurant’s snug concrete patio, where a plume of smoke tipped off the whole neighborhood that Sammy was making a fresh tray of jerk chicken.

That chicken was like nothing I had eaten. The meat was almost blackened by the time it absorbed the smoke, and while the skin was crisp, it gave way between my teeth. The flesh was ever so slightly past the point of juiciness, the fat and connective tissue broken down over hours of gentle cooking, so that the meat melted with each bite, mixing with starchy sweet plantains, steamed cabbage and peppers, and a dot of ketchup and scorching hot sauce.

A few months into my often twice-weekly trips to Top Taste, I asked Sammy how he made his jerk chicken. He sat down next to me with his spice-smudged apron still on, and explained the process in very matter-of-fact terms: The meat gets marinated overnight in a rich jerk seasoning blend (very, very heavy on the ginger), and the next day — rain or shine — he lights a spark under the pimento wood in his old barrel grill, caked with a thick layer of seasoning from good use, and cooks the chicken until it’s done.

I’d known as soon as Sammy first walked me through his process that this wasn’t the sort of recipe I could transcribe, fold up, and stash away for safekeeping. He’d made the dish on so many occasions that each step was second nature: an inkling that more scallion, garlic, or Scotch bonnet was needed, a sniff test confirming the salt, heat, and herbage was balanced to his liking.

When I moved to the city after leaving college, I made it a point to seek out jerk chicken whenever and wherever I could, always comparing it to the meat that came off Sammy’s grill. Some restaurants in Brooklyn had plantains more plump than the ones at Top Taste. Others had the perfect rice and peas, each grain and bean whole and separate, never mushy. Many served a jerk chicken that was good — exceptional, even. But despite following every recommendation, no one’s chicken compared to Sammy’s.

I came back to Oakland to spend the first month of shelter-in-place with my family. But like so many others who up and left cities with no real plan, a month turned into three, and then four, and now here I am, writing from my childhood home six months later. When I lived in Brooklyn, I hadn’t once tried to make jerk chicken in my own kitchen, knowing when a craving really hit — which it reliably did — I could buy an Amtrak ticket for $38 and be perched comfortably at one of Top Taste’s plastic-upholstered booths by lunch. Now, I feel pangs of sadness thinking about Sammy and Melenda and the plate of jerk chicken and rice and peas I could be eating 3,000 miles away.

But on YouTube, where I spend so much of my life now, I recently came upon Terri-Ann, a Saint Lucian home cook who walks viewers through hundreds of incredibly appealing recipes. They include pandemic classics — banana bread and dalgona coffee, our old friends — but also some favorite dishes I didn’t get a chance to peek into the kitchen and watch Sammy or Melenda make on visits to Top Taste. Terri-Ann has recipes for oxtails robed in velvety gravy, flaky golden beef patties, and, to my great satisfaction, jerk chicken. In one video showing viewers how she makes her chicken, Terri-Ann pulls out a glass jar of Walkerswood Jamaican Jerk Seasoning, a pre-blended mixture of spices and herbs which she says she swears by. She plops a generous spoonful of the deep brown mixture into a bowl of chicken drumsticks, along with a big spoonful of her herby green seasoning blend and a drop or two of browning sauce for color. I hastily switched tabs and bought three jars of the seasoning blend with expedited shipping. It wouldn’t be the same, but maybe it’d do the trick.

Since then, the Walkerswood blend has become a staple in my kitchen. The spicy mixture of scallions, Scotch bonnet, allspice, nutmeg, and plenty of thyme finds its way into more or less everything I cook. It’s notably lacking in the generous heaps of grated fresh ginger I know Sammy adds to his blend, but still, it’s excellent. I live just blocks from Minto, one of few Jamaican markets in Oakland, and I regularly stop in to add new sauces and seasoning blends to my growing pantry. I have a jar of browning sauce now, and I’ve bought as many of the hot sauces I remember seeing on the tables at Top Taste as I can find. But nothing I’ve added to my pantry since coming home comes close to my jar of jerk seasoning. In addition to using it in recipes from Terri-Ann and other Caribbean and Caribbean-American YouTubers and food bloggers, I add the paste to fried rice, to tofu, to — you get it.

The boldly flavored mixture is a perfect match for chicken, but that’s where I use it least, instead opting to put it on a thick slab of salmon or slather it on vegetables before roasting. Perhaps there’s just too much dissonance when I pair it with chicken, the bar too high to meet.

I miss Sammy’s jerk chicken like I’ve never missed food before. It’s a yearning that’s become familiar during this pandemic, for those things I know I can’t have. There is no takeout order that will meet the craving, which is as much about the environment surrounding a plate of chicken as it is about the blend of spices or the kiss of smoke that permeates each bite. Those meals were colored by a sort of care and hospitality that you can’t pay for and that’s hard to even seek out. The extra steamed cabbage and carrots because Melenda knew I liked to run the mixture through a pool of curry goat gravy on my empty plate. A piece of bubblegum set on the table as I finished eating, just something to chew on during the drive back to campus. Later, Melenda would send me off with a warm slice of her homemade rum cake wrapped in aluminum foil. It sat in my coat pocket and warmed my hand as I boarded Amtrak to go back to Penn Station.

The first time I bit into a piece of baked chicken I’d marinated in the Walkerswood seasoning blend, I felt pulled in two directions: It was delicious — fragrant and hot, every spice and herb present but not overwhelming. I also felt a little disappointed, as if I’d really expected my thrown-together Wednesday night dinner to taste anything like what Sammy pulled off his smoker after hours and hours of slow cooking and constant attention. I know now, as I go on seven months without a single meal in a restaurant’s dining room or even on a reopened patio, that what’s missing isn’t a handful of grated ginger or the smoke from pimento chips (though both would improve my chicken game dramatically). What’s missing is something only a restaurant like Top Taste can provide, that can’t be found in a jar of seasoning. But right now a jar of seasoning is what I’ve got, and until I find myself in that tiny dining room again, this one is pretty damn good.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/32ZNWqa https://ift.tt/3mNPQlT

I don’t know how I lived so long without a jar of Walkerswood jerk seasoning | Elazar Sontag

Walkerswood Jamaican jerk seasoning has quickly become a kitchen staple

This wasn’t the sort of recipe I could transcribe, fold up, and stash away for safekeeping.

from Eater - All https://ift.tt/32ZNWqa via Blogger https://ift.tt/2EBMbWY

#Blogger #cooking #Eater #food #recipes

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dippedanddripped · 5 years ago

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This past January, Buffalo native Alvin Worthy, known throughout the music world as Westside Gunn, expedited his passport in order to attend Paris Fashion Week. At 37 years old, it was his first time leaving the United States. His Griselda Records collective provided the soundtrack for Virgil Abloh’s Off-White™ Fall 2020 preview and Westside was as at home as ever sitting front-row for the festivities.

He was so inspired by the trip that he booked some extra time in the City of Lights to record a new project, motivated even more once Abloh confirmed that he’d like to create the cover art. What resulted was Pray for Paris, a project that manages to balance the boasts of aspirational opulence attained with some of the grimiest street rap in the industry today.

Westside Gunn has never pursued subtlety, which is more apparent than ever on his latest record. Pray for Paris opens up with a recording of the auction of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” painting at Christie’s New York, which sold for a record $450 million USD. As the gavel announces the final sale, it’s clear that Gunn is positioning his latest creation as a rap album of bespoke luxury.

Abloh’s cover art, a photoshopped reworking of Carvvaggio’s 1607 oil on wood painting, “David with the Head of Goliath,” adds the burden of Westside’s three chains around the conqueror’s neck. The aesthetic audacity aligns perfectly with Westside Gunn’s past hand-painted album covers, which alternate between vintage wrestling references, faceless FLYGOD fashion poses in Balenciagas and an unapologetic Hermès-rocking Hitler with his third eye stamped on his furrowed brow.

Jacopo Raule/Getty Images

There’s a moment on last year’s WWCD album where the vision Worthy has been plotting out over the past decade, even before he was Westside Gunn, comes to fruition. Rapping alongside brother Demond “Conway the Machine” Price and cousin Jeremie “Benny the Butcher” Pennick, his voice rings in the “Dr. Bird’s” chorus in an antagonizing echo. “Told Virgil write ‘BRICK’ on my brick,” he yells, essentially speaking their eventual collaboration into existence.

Even years before the “Dr. Bird’s” chorus, before the Shady Records and Roc Nation deals, and before his Griselda crew was captured at Kanye West’s Wyoming ranch, Westside was pulling inspiration from Abloh’s initial foray into fashion, PYREX VISION. “It’s not like I’m just supporting him now because of Off-White™ or Louis Vuitton, like all of a sudden I got a record deal and I can afford it. No, his first shirt was on my back,” he said.

Gunn fights against what he perceives as the limitations of being labeled a rapper. It’s a line straight out of Kanye’s big book of philosophy and even something Tyler, The Creator mirrored in his post-GRAMMYs speech. “I don’t even wanna be considered a rapper. I bring so much more to the game,” he told HYPEBEAST. “I love art, fashion, design, executive producing, putting songs together with the skits — all of that sh*t I love more than actually rapping.”

For someone who doesn’t consider himself a rapper, Westside Gunn managed to curate one of the year’s best rap albums, creating a world where he’s at its very center, surrounded by some of the most talented veterans in the hip-hop world today.

Westside revealed that he had been battling a coronavirus diagnosis shortly after the release of Pray for Paris. He joined HYPEBEAST to talk about his recent recovery following his first time out of the country, maintaining his FLYGOD status and the creativity that sparked his collaboration with Virgil Abloh.

HYPEBEAST: First off, how are you feeling? Where are you in the process of recovering from COVID-19?

Westside Gunn: I’m feeling good, man. There’s people dying from this sh*t and it did its little tornado tear-down but I’m building back up. I’m losing my mind because I ain’t smoke in weeks. But everything is just a process and I’m trying to get strong again.

We’ve been working and honestly I’m more motivated. I needed this project because this sh*t just got me more focused and looking forward. I’m not just sitting here on some pitiful sh*t.

What was the inspiration behind the title Pray for Paris?

Just the way I killed [Paris] Fashion Week. You had to pray for everybody in Paris the way I was doing it, man. People there, especially the paparazzi, they didn’t know who I was, but they knew who I was after Fashion Week. It was a dope experience. It was the first time I ever left the country.

I went out there with all my jewelry on with my big security guard from Buffalo. I had like four or five people out there with me. It was really last minute. Every show I went to I got dressed up in one-of-one pieces, so it was like FLYGOD on steroids. Just pray for that country man.

How do you feel about hip-hop’s cultural influence in the fashion world right now?

I think it’s beautiful. I was actually doing fashion first. Griselda Records came as a spinoff from my fashion line. To see hip-hop being accepted so much in fashion now is great, but I’ve been fly my whole life. I was designing jean suits and sh*t in high school. I always was ahead of the game when it came to fashion. Even when it comes to the Virgil connection.

I sent him pictures of me in 2013 when he did PYREX VISION — his first introduction to the fashion world and I was supporting him then. I always say, it don’t matter what you buy, it’s gotta be in you. I love looking on Instagram and seeing what everyone’s doing with their style because at a point in time, it felt like I was the only person doing that type of sh*t. So now that the hip-hop community is accepted by certain brands, it’s pushing the culture forward.

Virgil created the cover art for this project, too. How’d that collaboration happen?

When I was out in Paris, after all the fashion shows and all the partying was over, I still had three days left. I was so influenced by everything that took place that I went into the studio. I was with Virgil the night after I first recorded and I was like, “I already knocked out three, tomorrow I’m gonna finish the rest.” Virgil told me, “This sh*t is crazy. If you do that, I want to do the cover.” So of course, who would say no to that? It actually inspired me to record more because if he did the cover, it’s gonna be a different kind of crowd that actually listens to this.

This is gonna gain more fans for Westside Gunn on a fashion tip. It’s like I’m not even a rapper, I’m an artist. I don’t even wanna be considered a rapper. I bring so much more to the game. I have an ear for production. Some people are just rappers. That’s what they do: they’re good at rap. But I love art, fashion, design, executive producing, putting songs together with the skits — all of that sh*t I love more than actually rapping.

“I always been a supply and demand guy. I was in the streets, I lived by it.”

There’s no mysterious book of rhymes of Westside Gunn or a file of 10 unreleased Westside Gunn songs. Everything I’ve ever recorded is out. You can be like, “Yo, let me hear some new sh*t.” My new sh*t is Pray for Paris. There’s no song that’s just sitting in the computer, bro. Rapping is like the tenth thing on my list I do. But it’s important because everything else that I do before I rap inspires those raps.

You’ve always made sure that your Griselda merch and vinyl releases have incredibly limited runs. Have you looked to any brands for inspiration on keeping supply vastly lower than the current demand for what you create?

Even when I was doing clothing and I wasn’t rapping, I knew that I was doper than the majority of the game. There was a void and I wanted to fill it and bring a balance of the underground culture, the boom-bap culture, people say “backpack rap” or whatever you want to call it — I knew there was something missing.

Everyone wanted to be more from the south, or like Chicago drill music when that became big. People in my lane weren’t popular, they weren’t getting those looks. People always wanted to push forward the popular sound, what’s in the clubs and what’s on the radio. I always been a supply and demand guy. I was in the streets, I lived by it.

You gotta think like a street corner hustler back in the day. Like six, seven people be on one corner or in the projects and they gone fight for the same fiend. And I was like, “Why do that? I can go to a whole other city with no competition and make triple.” I applied my street methods to hip-hop and fashion. You give a crackhead free crack, that’s the best crack they ever had. They gone do anything to come back and get that again.

It was like, “Okay, everybody want to listen to this, but I’m about to make this popular.” It’s really like the dope game.

You linked with Tyler, The Creator on this record, both as a producer and as a featured artist. What was it about his energy that you gravitated towards?

Tyler is somebody who I respect because he’s himself. He don’t give a f*ck. A lot of people be scared to be themselves. In this game there’s a lot of make believe bullsh*t, man. A lot of these people that you see, well they not like that in real life.

With Tyler, he’s himself at all times. He don’t care who in the room. It could be the toughest dudes in the room and he might rap some off the wall sh*t and tell another dude that he’ll kiss him. If you know him, you respect it because that’s him. He’s a good dude with good energy.

As you can see, he killed the project on both levels, on rhyming and production. I’m thankful for that. I actually hit him to congratulate him on the GRAMMYs and that’s when he said he was making a beat for me. When he came to bring me the beat, he heard what I was already playing and he started rhyming.

You also connected with The Alchemist and featured veterans like Freddie Gibbs, Roc Marciano and Boldy James. How competitive were you when trading bars with those guys over The Alchemist’s productions?

Alchemist is Griselda, man. You know how Mobb Deep was always Havoc and Prodigy? The Alchemist was their third unofficial member. Basically what Alchemist was to Mobb Deep is what he is to Griselda right now. He was already a legend before he got with us and now he’s a part of the Griselda sound. Him working with Boldy, now that’s extended family. Because before I was on him, but I wasn’t on him. When I was listening to [The Price of Tea In China] I was like, “Dude is incredible. He remind me of like a Detroit Benny.” It was so vivid.

I always was a fan of Gibbs and I’ve been doing sh*t with Roc Marci for the last five years straight. Benny [The Butcher] went on tour with Gibbs so you build these relationships. Then when it comes time to start painting these pictures, you go to your family and you go to the best. The first time I heard The Alchemist beat [for “$500 Ounces”] the first person I thought of in the world was Gibbs.

“With Tyler, he’s himself at all times. It could be the toughest dudes in the room and he might rap some off the wall sh*t and tell another dude that he’ll kiss him.”

With me, it’s never competitive. I go on the beat and just do me, man. That’s never been my thing to compete. I was the guy who early on pushed Benny to be like, “Yo, I’m about to just sing a little hook that’s catchy that people gone remember from me, but I need you to spit 100 bars straight of the craziest sh*t you can think of.”

You have songs like “Shower Shoe Lords” and things Benny was performing for the first year and I wanted to see him kill it, not see who was better on the mic. I know what he can do and I want him to shine. Now look at Benny today.

There always seems to be a fork in the road when major labels and additional management step in and alter an artist’s course. Even after Shady Records and Roc Nation, that hasn’t happened with Griselda. How have you managed to maintain that vision?

One thing for sure, these guys been around me my whole life. And Daringer been in my life for too many years, man. This is family and family is first. Of course people have their misunderstandings and little arguments but when you a real family, that sh*t don’t mean nothing. Everybody’s grown. At the end of the day, we here for the culture. We know what we signed up for.

This sh*t was all written. We gotta remain strong because what we’re doing is legendary. We from somewhere where nobody ever came from. We also all slept in a cell. We lost key members of our crew. We almost lost Conway. We dealt with the shootings. So now it’s about giving the world some of the illest hip-hop of all time.

Is there any advice you would give to your younger self about maneuvering through the industry?

Don’t rush. Everything’s gonna happen organically. I’m very blessed. Even with a few bumps in the road, I learned from them so it could never happen again. I take the good with the bad. I’d tell myself to let everything happen organically and if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.

Four years ago, Griselda was still considered just underground boom-bap and nobody was really listening. Today we’re spoken of from every big name you could possibly think of. There were a few moves I made prematurely around three years ago. Those things can still come back to haunt you to this day but you live and you learn, man. You keep working.

You have your own day in your home city now, too. The Mayor of Buffalo declared August 28 as Alvin “Westside Gunn” Worthy Day. What are your plans for celebrating this year?

I’m trying to put a wrestling ring in the middle of the hood. I might have nWo [New World Order Wrestling] come out. My love for wrestling is next level. I’m not saying I’m the king of the city or any of that sh*t, but I have the most influence and me having my own day makes me want to give back.

Of course I want to do a concert but who knows with what’s going on in the world right now. This corona sh*t got everything backed up. We might still be in the house during my day. But God-willing if everything clears up and I can do something, I wanna do it for the streets because that’s where I’m from. They’ve backed me and showed me love.

How did your love of wrestling help inspire your career as a rapper?

It came natural. One thing about Westside Gunn, since my first project in 2012, Hitler Wears Hermès 1, you always gonna get art, you always gonna get wrestling. It’s the same thing you’re getting in 2020. My first album cover was an art piece, this cover’s an art piece.

“We all slept in a cell… we almost lost Conway. We dealt with the shootings. Now it’s about giving the world some of the illest hip-hop of all time.”

There’s wrestling on the first [album] and there’s wrestling in this one. I can only be me. I’m only giving the world pieces of who I am. I grew up watching wrestling and I just incorporate everything in my life into my music.

Outside of Pray for Paris, there’s been some rumors about you teaming up with Madlib for a collaboration. Any updates?

Only update I have is that it’s still happening. Everything’s just a chapter right now. After the Pray for Paris chapter I need to give the world part eight of the Hitler Wears Hermès series and then I’ll give you the project with ‘lib. That’s a lot for 2020, but you’ll definitely get all of them.

The Griselda Records lore of the past half-decade plays out like a movie. Let’s say a Griselda major motion picture comes out. Who’s directing?

Sh*t, me. (Laughs). I was there. Nobody knows the story more than Westside Gunn. Of course I could easily say Hype Williams because he hasn’t done one since Belly. We could do some sh*t like Belly in 2022 or 2023. I love how Hype did that one, I love how Dame Dash did Paid In Full — that’s one of my top five movies because that story was so incredibly shot.

Especially being from the streets and knowing the story. I’m not gonna say no Scorsese or some sh*t like that. The reason I say me is because I have the confidence. I feel like I’ll be able to capture Griselda like how Dame and Hype captured their’s.

#griselda records #westside gunn #fashion blog #music blog #pray for paris

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wrathofgnon · 7 years ago

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Image is a cut up text, original as follows:

Architectural Drawing in the Digital Age

By Jacob Brillhart

New drafting software, such as CAD and Revit, has changed the age-old practice of hand drawing. Though invaluable tools, they are unintentionally compromising the education and creative development of the young architect. As hand drawing is eliminated in favor of CAD both in the office and in the class-room, the full extent of collateral damage has yet to be appreciated. It is, unarguably, an exciting time for architects who have at their fingertips the powerful tool of the computer. Yet, relative to the hundreds of years in which architects have traditionally practiced architecture, the technology is still very new and un-vetted. Recently my personal observation of creative output in the academic setting has revealed that the computer’s shortcuts unintentionally create a digital vacuum in terms of scale, diminish our under-standing of designs, and weaken our editing processes. When drawing by hand, one designs, thinks, plots, and prints simultaneously in a single process. Computer drafting is instead a two-step process: The designer captures ideas via the computer, inputting these thoughts through a series of logical commands. Still ephemeral, the work is not a drawing yet, but rather intangible, changeable, and temporary. It is only during the second step, the plotting or printing of the file—the creative filtering process—that the image takes on life, delivered from the virtual to the actual. Although the computer functions are rapidly executed, they are nonetheless fractured and disjointed from the printing process—very different from the right brain’s holistic process of creation and production in hand drawing. This time lapse between the perception or idea and the printing reduces the sense of personal ownership of the image. The ownership of the hand drawing, however, is always evident through its “real time” creation, and is not diluted by the limited vocabulary of the printer or the computer. The phrase “I didn’t know how to draw what I really wanted to do on the computer” or “when I went to print this is what happened, I am not sure why” are frequently heard from students today. Excuses such as these are commonly accepted because most people, students and teachers alike, have little under-standing of the technology they are using. The norm is to blame the plotter or the computer for poor drawings, which raises the question: Who is in charge? The blind dependence on CAD and other software tools increases after architecture school as young designers continue to design things they do not understand. Working under severe time constraints, they make maximum use of the copy and paste commands, pulling details,elevations, and wall sections from past projects and reassembling them. The drawing can be altered and then reproduced by the new author without tracing over every line. Seemingly a swift and efficient technique, it effectively undermines the apprenticeship aspect of the architect’s education. When one draws, one understands and remembers; when one uses the right click command, one does neither. This scenario not only inhibits the intellectual development of young designers, but also leads to a complacent architecture that is void of invention. The path of least resistance is followed, leaving the computer in charge by choosing from a menu of defaults. Software technologies, when used to supplement or expedite processes of design, are invaluable. The computer unquestionably belongs in schools and architectural offices. However, the fundamentals of architectural design are still rooted in hand drawing. If ownership of the design shifts to the software and plotter, and the architect’s grasp of scale diminishes, buildings will inevitably suffer. To balance the benefits of technology with the human component of creative design, we must consider how we process and perceive information using our right and left brains. In my opinion, we need to encourage more use of the right brain and not continually default to the left brain activity of data entry. One of the simplest and most effective ways to engage the right brain is to encourage the use of a sketchbook as an incubator of ideas and intellectual activity. This is why, six years ago, in a feverish need to escape the confines of my computer at Columbia University, I set out on a series of European road trips to rediscover the forgotten practice of sketching in situ. The great architects of the past drew by hand on site to understand directly and deeply scale, light, shadow, and form in the full, physical three dimensions of the real world. This is in marked contrast to the flat, virtual two dimensions of the computer monitor—where there is no sun, no shadow, no gravity, no weight, no material, no scale, and zero physical and cultural context. The drawings and small paintings reproduced here—selected from over 700 hundred travel sketches I have made on site in Europe, America, and Asia—are intended to sustain the physicality of history. They attempt to resuscitate the forgotten tools of the imagination and the resilient influence of drawing on design.

#Jacob Brillhart #Canaletto

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aroundtheworldinsearchofcoke · 5 years ago

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Day Twenty-Four: Under London

https://aroundtheworldinsearchofcokev.blogspot.com/2019/07/day-twenty-four-under-london.html

St. Pancras – or to use it’s full name, St. Pancras International – resides among crowded real estate. Right across the road is one of London’s other major rail terminals – Kings Cross – and it’s just down the road from yet another at Euston. The reason for this was a phenomena known as Railway Mania, in which dozens and dozens of railway companies sprung into existence in Britain – the Midland Railway (St. Pancras) wasn’t about to ask for access to Great Northern Railway (Kings Cross) track, nor that of the London and North Western Railway (Euston).

Today, St. Pancras serves as Britain’s rail gateway to Europe, by way of the Eurostar high-speed train through the Channel Tunnel. As a result, it is one of the busiest in the city of London, and is served by no less than six Underground lines – on paper. In reality, although all of these lines serve the same station in theory, they’re often quite a hike a way from each other. The walk to the so-called sub-surface lines is a long one indeed, going right under Kings Cross to the other side of the complex. This is where I began my expedition this morning.

If you can find a Tube map, you should bring it up. You may want to follow along.

The first train I boarded was on the Metropolitan Line, the oldest underground railway line in the world – it opened in 1863, using steam power. This naturally caused problems and was thus electrified at the turn of the century. It’s called a sub-surface line (or a cut-and-cover line) because it is pretty much right below the surface – the builders literally dug up the street, built a railway line, and then covered it up again. In the modern day, there is very little difference between the Metropolitan and the other sub-surface lines – they use the same ultra-modern S-stock trains introduced a few years ago. They are smooth-riding, air-conditioned and comfortable, but one misses the older trains they replaced. They smelt, they were loud, they were hot, and they had character.

I went as far as Euston Square on this train – one stop down the line – and then changed to the Hammersmith and City line to Baker Street, which still retains much of its Victorian character. I got off there to wait for a Circle line train to carry on… and wait… and wait… and wait…

Thoroughly browned off, I eventually got in another Hammersmith and City line train to Edgware Road to try finding a Circle line train there, and as luck would have it, there was one on the very next platform. We passed Paddington – this is another famous London termini – this time for the Great Western Railway – and will one day be a key stop on Crossrail (or the Elizabeth Line, as they call it) – it’s also nearly completely on the surface, giving a rare moment of (cloudy) sunlight on this voyage.

The Circle took me to High Street Kensington, where I swapped trains again to the District line. I reached Earl’s Court, changed to another District train heading towards Tower Hill (despite being a ‘line’, the District has a bewildering number of branch lines) and finally got off at Victoria (yet another terminus – this one for shared by the South Eastern and Chatham and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway). Here I left the sub-surface and went down into the Deep Tube.

Here I boarded the Victoria line, perhaps appropriately. This is one of the newer Tube lines, constructed in the late 1960s. It is also the line I most rarely use, although I can’t really fathom why. There’s nothing wrong with it, the stock (2009-stock) is fairly modern – I suppose there’s just always a better route from where I happen to be.

This was the beginning of what I shall call a series of one-stop ‘hops’ – I got off at Green Park, near Buckingham Palace, and swapped to the Jubilee line, the newest on the network – it opened in 1979. As a result, it is probably the least exciting, yet it’s rarely too busy either. At Bond Street I changed trains again to the Central line. The Central line is always, always, always packed – probably because it runs right through the middle of both the City and Westminster, past the big banks and corporations. As a result, despite its vintage (1900), it’s probably my least favourite of the Deep Tube lines.

No matter, I was off it after one stop – Oxford Circus. I proceeded to the Bakerloo line – definitely my favourite. The aesthetic is perfect – the old, somewhat hazy stations; the smell; the trains, the oldest remaining on the network (1972-stock). It feels like an old noir movie or 1930s film. Alas, my time on the Bakerloo (so named because it connected Baker Street and Waterloo) was short – I got off at Piccadilly Circus.

From there, it was the Piccadilly line – which uses the almost-as-elderly 1973-stock. It was a quick hop to Leicester Square – realistically I could have walked, but I had no intention of leaving the Underground until I was done. At Leicester Square, I swapped to the Northern line, the oldest of the Deep Tube lines (the first section was opened in 1890.) From there, it was – appropriately – northbound, past Tottenham Court Road, past Goodge Street, past Warren Street, past Euston (not to be confused with Euston Square), until I reached my final destination…

I understand most of you are probably a bit confused. Mornington Crescent is something of an old in-joke – it gave its name to a spoof game show in the 1970s, in which contestants improvised stupidly complicated rules to the ‘game’ of Mornington Crescent; it basically amounted to shouting Tube stations randomly un til somebody got to Mornington Crescent and ‘won.’ It was also well known for being closed at weird times, although in recent years that hasn’t been the case, and for being a bit hard to get to (as you need to get on a specific branch of the Northern line.) Basically, Mornington Crescent is an object of great affection for rail and underground enthusiasts.

That meant it had to be the end of the line. Here I was, at the end of a journey that had taken me on every single regularly-operating tube lune on the network (the Waterloo and City is closed on Sunday and also doesn’treallycount), without visiting any stations or lines twice. How did I feel?

There was a strange sense of anti-climax, once the novelty of Mornington Crescent wore off. I was standing in a tube station, totally alone, looking at a station sign. I was hot, thirsty and sweaty from the humidity of the Deep Tube. I had completed this task that I had wanted to do for as long as I remembered, and perhaps in doing so, some of the magic of the ideawore off. What had I actually done?

I had ridden some trains, most of which were basically modern, past what was essentially a bunch of names with no real context. A lot of the old characterof the Underground of my mind – the dirty old trains on the Circle and District lines, the endless procession of buskers in the tunnels, the eccentric opening times for the various stations – they’re mostly gone now. Perhaps much of my ‘old Tube’ never really existed. Such is the power of nostalgia.

I travelled back to Oxford Circus, in silence for the most part. The trains (I had to change to the Victoria at Euston) rattled and rumbled, screeching on the curves, and all the masses of people around either stared at the paper or the map printed above them. Nobody looked around. Nobody took interest in what, to them, was just another aspect of life. And yet I was gripped by thoughts of the glimpses of mystery in the tunnel – strange lights, mysterious doors, tracks that led nowhere, brickworks covering closed stations. I wondered what secrets might lay beyond them, waiting to be discovered.

And you know what? I hope I never find the answer. The fictional ideas I form around them are far too exciting for that.

---

And no, before you ask, I didn’t spend all day riding public transport.

After my voyage, I headed to Hamleys, because why the heck wouldn’t you go to Hamleys? It’s Hamleys. I bought a goods wagon and Bentley car for my layout, and then walked to Trafalgar Square. I recuperated from my experience there with a coke, and then went to the National Portrait Gallery.

Some people thing portraits are boring. These people are wrong and they suck, but they think that and free speech is a thing. Portraits reveal so much about people – artist, subject and the world they lived in. For example, the portraits of the Plantagenet kings in the gallery, painted long after their deaths and more based on Shakespeare than reality (which sucked for poor old Richard III.) Or you might look at the paintings of Charles II and William III, and compare the man who revelled in luxuries and riches and the man who revelled in soldiery and battle. It shows how much things have changed, too – the image of female beauty changing from plumpness to rail-thin stomachs, the rise and fall of military heraldry and dress; there’s a magnificent portrait of Clive of India in one room, and a plain bust of Nehru, one of those who tore down all he made, in another. Backgrounds go from plain, stoic black to sweeping panoramas of battle and lush landscapes. I’d recommend a visit – see it for yourself, make your own impressions.

Plus it’s free.

After that, it was off for home, where I write this now. It’s been a long day; tomorrow we do very little, before on Tuesday we set out west on the next stage of this adventure…

No, not to America. To the West Country.

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gyrlversion · 6 years ago

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Trump’s tax returns and the Democrats’ coming fight to get them

Liberals have been wanting to get their hands on Donald Trump’s tax returns for years. Now, with Democrats holding a House majority with subpoena power, they have a real possibility of getting them.

But they have to be careful about how they go about it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters this month that she’s aware of the “impatience” on the matter but wants to do it right. “It’s not a question of just sending a letter. You have to do it in a very careful way,” she said, according to NPR.

Democrats are looking into an obscure 1924 law that would allow them to request Trump’s returns from the Treasury Department. Republicans and the White House are preparing for a fight, and even Democrats appear split on how aggressively to proceed.

There are plenty of reasons for Congress to want to take a look at a president’s or candidate’s tax returns: The documents can help lawmakers to identify potential conflicts of interest, suggest ways to reform current tax law, and conduct oversight of the IRS, which is supposed to audit the president’s and vice president’s taxes. And in Trump’s case, the argument for reviewing his tax returns is even clearer. He has refused to separate himself from his vast business empire, and questions about whether he is profiting from the presidency have dogged him his entire tenure in the White House.

“The really clear argument is in favor of simply requiring [releasing tax returns] of everyone,” Joe Thorndike, a tax historian and director of the Tax History Project, told me. “The issue is clearly bigger than Donald Trump, although he is the current problem.”

How Democrats could get Trump’s tax returns, explained

Democrats are looking to invoke Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code, a statute dating back to 1924. It authorizes the Ways and Means Committee to get the tax return information (personal or business) of any taxpayer — including the president — from the Treasury Department.

Essentially, that means Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal (D-MA) would request Trump’s returns from Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Mnuchin would, theoretically, have to comply. If he doesn’t, a court battle would likely ensue. The committee then could vote to have some or all of the tax returns released to the rest of the House, so all members would have access to it — increasing the odds they would get out to the public. There’s a debate as to whether that could then be made public; I’ll get to that later.

University of Virginia law professor and former Joint Committee on Taxation chief of staff George Yin laid out how the process would work in testimony earlier this month. He explained that the authority of Congress to request tax return information was added in 1924 as a co-equal branch of government, and before, only the president had such authority to request and disclose tax returns. Per his testimony:

Section 6103(f) does not place any conditions on the exercise of the authority to obtain tax return information by the Ways and Means Committee. Moreover, it provides no basis for the Treasury Secretary to refuse a request. I believe both features were intentional. Since the president at the time had unconditional access to tax returns, Congress wanted to give its committees the same right.

In 1976, Congress made changes to the law in a couple of key ways relevant to today. First, they eliminated language allowing the committee to submit only “relevant or useful” information to the House. But Yin says the committee still needs a reason to send information to the entire House. Second, they eliminated the ability of the president and any congressional committees not related to tax to disclose tax return information to the public. But tax committees still have that authority, meaning Ways and Means, the Joint Committee on Taxation, and the Senate Finance Committee.

Basically, a handful of committees can still lawfully request someone’s tax returns and at the very least send them to the rest of the House or Senate, assuming they have a legitimate purpose for doing so.

But this might not be that big of a hurdle. “Evidence that Trump has abused our tax laws is plentiful,” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), who has been making the case for pursuing Trump’s tax returns under Section 6103 essentially since Trump was inaugurated, said in an emailed statement to Vox. He cited a New York Times investigation into Trump and his family’s tax practices that suggested the family for years engaged in a number of schemes to avoid taxes, and leaked pages from Trump’s 1995 and 2005 tax returns; the 1995 ones show a nearly $1 billion loss.

“Americans have a right to know if their president has paid his taxes, if he has followed the law, and if he is free from financial conflicts of interest,” Pascrell continued. “The law is clear. Under 6103, the Ways and Means Committee chairman is entitled to request Trump’s tax returns — and the Treasury secretary is obligated to deliver them. That’s all there is to it.”

Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), now the chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, speaks at a news conference in June 2018 in Washington, DC.

Toya Sarno Jordan/Getty Images

Even if they have a plan, it won’t be easy

Neal is proceeding prudently in an effort to be on as solid a footing as possible if and when he asks for Trump’s returns. Dan Rubin, a spokesperson for Neal, told Politico at the start of the year that he wants to “lay out a case about why presidents should be disclosing their tax returns before he formally forces him to do it.”

But whenever they go for it, the White House promises to be ready. Politico’s Nancy Cook reported that the Treasury Department is “readying plans to drag the expected Democratic request for Trump’s past tax filings … into a legal quagmire of arcane legal arguments.” In other words, Mnuchin probably isn’t just going to happily hand over Trump’s taxes. A Treasury Department spokesperson did not return a request for comment on their plans.

In parallel, Republicans are also coming to Trump’s defense, trying to paint Democrats’ efforts as ones of extreme partisanship and arguing that seeking Trump’s tax returns is a breach of privacy. They previewed their arguments at a Ways and Means Committee hearing on tax law and legislation related to presidential tax returns at the start of the month.

“Every single American has a right to privacy and personal information contained in their tax return,” Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA) argued in the hearing. He warned that releasing Trump’s returns would open a “Pandora’s box” for Congress to go after virtually anyone’s returns.

Steve Rosenthal, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center who testified at the hearing, said the slippery slope arguments Republicans employed are absurd. “This is so different. [Trump] oversees the entire executive branch. In my view, the whole request by the Ways and Means Committee ought to pursue their legislative oversight responsibility, part of the checks and balances of the Constitution,” he said.

There’s a debate over whether making Trump’s tax returns public is legal

Richard Nixon was the first president to normalize releasing his tax returns, when questions about his tax practices came to light as part of a lawsuit (completely unrelated to the Watergate break-in). He released his tax returns in December 1973 in an effort to quell suspicions, but that’s not what happened: The Joint Committee on Taxation found he owed about $475,000 to the government.

After Nixon resigned, presidents since started releasing their tax information as a matter of tradition. Trump, however, hasn’t released any — and he doesn’t have any plans to.

But even if Democrats get Trump’s tax returns, it’s legally questionable if they can make the information public.

Ken Kies, the managing director of the Federal Policy Group whom Republicans called to testify in the Ways and Means Committee hearing, testified that it would be a felony for a member of Congress or staff to publicly disclose tax returns, punishable for up to five years in prison. Others, however, disagreed.

Lin told me he believes that Kies is incorrect in his reading and that Trump’s returns or information from them, if they get from the committee to the House, could also be made public. “The act of submitting to the House creates the possibility of public disclosure, and, in fact, that was what Congress intended when it drafted this entire provision,” he said.

Rosenthal concurred, and pointed to a bipartisan Senate Finance Committee report from 2015 that concluded making taxpayer information available to the Senate and the public as part of an investigation into whether the IRS targeted certain political groups “is clearly permissible under section 6103.”

Republicans argue that they’re afraid that committee Democrats will leak Trump’s tax information once they get it. But it’s not clear how much water that argument holds.

“Republicans are trying to feel their way forward on how they can raise objections,” Rosenthal said.

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters after signing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law in the Oval Office in December 2017.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Democrats are building their case

Democrats also appear to be trying to build a case for why they are pursuing Trump’s tax returns so they have a better shot if it does end up in court — a probable outcome. They are on firmer ground pursuing Trump’s tax returns out of their legislative and oversight duties and not because of a partisan fishing expedition.

John Kovensky at Talking Points Memo recently delved into the matter:

The key test that Democrats would face in any future court battle comes down to whether they have established that Congress has a legitimate purpose in requesting the returns. Asking for them just to release them immediately, or out of spite or a desire to humiliate, could serve as a reason for a judge to strike down the request.

A couple of court cases serve as precedent in the matter. One is Kilbourn v. Thompson, an 1880 Supreme Court case dealing with whether Congress could compel testimony after the House issued a subpoena related to a bankruptcy. The court essentially ruled that the nature of the dispute was between private parties and wasn’t within Congress’s legislative or oversight scope. Another is McGrain v. Daugherty, a 1927 case related to the Teapot Dome Scandal, a bribery scandal in the federal government. In that case, the party subpoenaed refused to comply with a Senate investigation, and the court held that Congress could compel testimony because in that case it was under its oversight purview.

“My reading is that as long as the inquiry fit within one or both of those two responsibilities [oversight and lawmaking], that should be a legitimate purpose, at least based on this case law,” Lin said.

Democrats appear to be aware of what’s at stake.

“I think the idea here is to avoid the emotion of the moment and make sure that the product stands up under critical analysis,” Neal told CNN in January. “And it will.”

The news moves fast. Catch up at the end of the day: Subscribe to Today, Explained, Vox’s daily news podcast, or sign up for our evening email newsletter, Vox Sentences.

The post Trump’s tax returns and the Democrats’ coming fight to get them appeared first on Gyrlversion.

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#All #breaking news #2018 tax refund #donald trump #gyrlversion #tax refund #tax returns #trump

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captain-ezri-dax · 6 years ago

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cryptickeyboard

replied to your post

“I wanna uhh Info dump abt my rwby ocs”

Do it I thrive ob this

y EAh im very late BUT i will literally never turn down an opportunity to infodump abt my rwby ocs

Okay uh lets start w/ Lyca bc she’s my main girl. She’s a fox faunus w/ the ears & is Small, like 5′3″. She’s like. demisexual & cis. Her timeline sorta follows the canon rwb/y volumes so she’s 17 at the same time as the canon characters & in the same school year, tho she’s only like 2 months from her 18th birthday at the time of her initiation. She grew up in one of the coastal cities in Sanus w/ her mother & her older brother, learning to fight from him & basing her weapon off his, having had it built before starting combat school a year or two late. She mainly keeps her weapon in staff form which is thick enough that she can barely wrap her hands around it so the top of it has enough room to hold the folded down halberd form, the staff form painted to look like wood as to look similar to a bo staff. A switch near the bottom extends the halberd part on top which is sorta rust coloured. The blade itself is larger than a normal halberd’s to compensate for the weight imbalance from the thicker staff part, letting her use the weight of the blade itself to swing instead of needing to use her full strength. At least part of why she prefers staff form is that if she’s facing an opponent with any form of intelligence, like the white fang at the fall of beacon, she hopes they’ll slightly underestimate her thinking she uses a simple bo staff. The first version of her weapon is lost when she uses it to barricade a door in a hospital to keep everyone safe, knowing she couldn’t fight off everything/everyone that entered the room. When they retreat to the roof where they’re all evacuated, her weapon is left behind & subsequently lost. It’s loss breaks her heart but It’s later replaced with a very similar built in collaboration w/ Kale & Lilen. It’s near identical to the first design but thinner, the bottom half folds into the top for easier carrying, & it looks more metallic w/ a golden brown colouration. She spends a few weeks getting used to the lighter weight. Her semblance is sorta like mental camouflage. I like comparing it to not noticing a bench in the park that you walk though every day until one day you suddenly notice like “ohh i didn’t know there was a bench there” but you know it’s always been there. That’s the type of effect Lyca triggers, mentally blending into the environment. She has to make sure she doesn’t do anything noticeable while using it since standing out dissipates the effect, she can’t use it mid combat since everyone knows she’s there already & it doesn’t work much against grimm. It can be used on other people too but only through physical contact. She herself thinks of her semblance as useless, rarely using it. She didn’t really have many choices of career growing up, her mother pressuring her into the huntress career in an attempt to make her family name mean something, her mom pushing her to the point where she unlocked her semblance by mistake, tho she doesn’t fully realise what it does for a few weeks. Her brother takes over training when she’s abt 12 until she joins a combat school, taking a coat that belonged to her brother w/ her. Choosing Beacon wasn’t a particularly significant choice for her, it was just the closest academy to where she grew up. She tends to get minor injuries a lot during her training since she got into the habit of activating her aura simply during combat instead of a lot of other instances where it might help. She often has a few cuts or bruises, but her subconsciously using her aura wherever it may help improves over her time at beacon. She ends up as team leader sorta by mistake when she finds Idris, Lilen & Kale all together and lost after getting her own relic solo, leading them back to get theirs, ending up in charge sort of by default & becoming Idris’ partner at the same time. I’m 98% sure she ends up dating Kale at some point. She ends up w/ appendicitis during the vytal festival, meaning she’s in hospital in vale when the attack on Beacon happens. She ends up briefly fighting & splitting open her stitches, leading to the situation where she loses her original weapon. She & her team then spend a few months apart but still in contact, staying in vale to provide a little aid where needed until they’re ready to move to another academy, likely vacuo apparently like other beacon students w/o a school. Now for. Other Facts. She’s a real bad potty mouth, swearing constantly no matter the situation. She’s allergic to strawberry, coconut & is lactose intolerant. Back home she has a cat she called Cat & in her apartment before transferring she had a room full of nothing but empty boxes. She keeps the coat her brother got for her & wears it in most environments, even tho it’s pretty badly faded & tattered. She likes to goad racists & bullies into fights where she’ll happily injury them, then claim self defence when questioned later. Has a real low alcohol tolerance. Tends to pretend everything’s alright to the point where her pain killers are too low while in hospital & instead of asking someone to up them, she has Kale climb into bed next to her to squeeze. Not a morning person at all, needs coffee. Hates the cold, loves warmth. Can’t cook to save her life.

Idris time. They’re a very bisexual NB human who’s like 6 foot tall, which is kinda jarring when stood next to partner Lyca, exclusively uses they/them pronouns & the same age as as the rest of their team but is technically the youngest. They grew up in a mining town on a cliffside in mistral, learning survival skills relatively early in their life, as an early child & probably had 2 dads. One dad taught them how to survive in the wilderness, fight & cook and the other taught them how to be Human. Grew up kinda isolated tho since their community is kinda small and rarely entertains visitors & their social skills didn’t develop fully, keeping them relatively isolated from anyone but their team at beacon. They never attended a combat school & was only initially interested in beacon as a way to advance their fighting skills, not caring about the team aspect. They’d planned to use their hunter licence to bring more money into their home & the assorted skills to protect it. They get super attached to their team super quickly tho, especially when showered w/ affection. Often cooks for everyone. But gets homesick relatively often. Very likely has their pilots & drivers licence. Their weapon is an overly large shotgun like weapon w/ three separate barrels in a triangle pattern, each one fires a different type of dust ammo for different effects. The barrel at the top of the triangle is the one to fire, glowing the used dust colour when active, the separate barrels rotating to slip into place. It doesn’t technically have a melee form but it’s heavy, hardy and can swing real good, so getting smacked with it is gonna be pretty rough. Their semblance is more passive then active. It’s like that check in dnd where you roll to find out if a character is sincere or not - they can passively read even the most subtle of body languages, letting them see who’s sincere or hostile or friendly. They can, for the most part, see through even the best of liars. They’re a walking lie detector.

Lilen is an asexual trans man of average height but is pretty skinny, especially w/ how low an appetite he has. He’s definitely autistic & has a small range of mental illnesses, all of which he gets medicated once he gets to beacon. He grew up in a small settlement in vacuo almost alone after his parents died, quickly adapting to living on the streets. He didn’t do great but learnt how to survive, scavenging old broken tech that others threw out & restoring it to working condition, getting good at engineering & growing an interest in it. He spent 7 years of his life without a home, moving around different sleep spots and taking odd jobs to get pieces of technology working again, developing his weapon out of junk parts in this time. He & Kale also met during this time, tho Kale’s parents didn’t want her talking to him so she’d meet him just briefly after classes at combat school, which is where he learnt to fight just well enough to pass the beacon entrance exams. Beacon became his choice when Kale asked if he wanted to go with her, and that he likely didn’t have many other options. His talent & interest in engineering grew pretty quickly while at beacon, developing his own tools to expedite the process & learning to work on vehicles as well as appliances & weapons. He isn’t particularly verbal & knows a form of sign language that he shares w/ Kale that Lyca & Idris come to understand. His weapon both is and looks as if it’s been built out of junk parts, cobbled together over months of trying to find all the right components. It’s original frame was a simple fireaxe, tho the wooden handle has been replaced w/ metal & the blade was reforged and made collapsible. A barrel was added to the top of the handle, the area of the handle being surrounded by a jury rigged firing mechanism for dust bullets, the trigger near the grip of the handle, preferring electrical dust ammunition. The different types and panels of metal aren’t seamlessly connected or coloured, some of the metal being slightly rusted until later replaced at beacon. His semblance gives him minor control over wind currents. There isn’t really much more to say about it, he’s a windy boy w/ a bit of control over where the wind goes and it’s strength. He’s only discovered it relatively recently and doesn’t have a lot of practice with it, making it not very powerful when he first joins beacon until he gets some practice, but it ends up useful in combat over time.

And last but not least - Kale. She’s a pretty tall lesbian w/ the worst fashion sense of the team, usually showing a bit of skin similar to how Sun has his shirt open after growing up in the heat of Vacuo. Her family wasn’t particularly rich but would act as if they’re already important, trying to restrict their only child into doing what they wanted. She didn’t take a single part of their wishes on board tho, eventually forcing them to allow her to learn to fight or risk losing her, hiring a huntsman to train her. She took to fighting like a duck on water, enjoying throwing some punches and using every type of weapon she could get her hands on. She wouldn’t start fights with anyone but would be eager to fight someone if she saw a need, having little self preservation instinct until she ends up getting her arm broken when she was like 13, at which point the basis of her weapon started to form. She started off by wrapping her arms in thick layers of bandages to blunt the hits she’d give out, officially adapting it at school by adding a harness strapped on her forearm to use arm blades, similar to blades used by The Predator. She ends up choosing beacon over the natural choice of Shade for the simple reason that her parents wanted her to go to Shade Her fully developed weapon & semblance are completely connected, her weapon being utterly useless to anyone except her. Her semblance allows her nervous system to connect to and control machinery via touch, sort of assimilating it into her control. She can’t walk up to a random android or take a stranger’s weapon and know the full extent of it’s controls, assimilating a piece of technology takes time and a large amount of aura - the larger and more complicated the machine, the more aura it takes to assimilate - and every time she gives it a command it takes either another, much smaller, pulse of aura or a sustained use. Firing a gun without pulling the trigger just by holding it takes a pulse of aura so small it’s basically nothing, but something like controlling a car with her semblance takes a heavy sustained use of aura that’d deplete it quickly, tho she has a small surplus of aura compared to a lot of others to help compensate. Her weapon is so heavily connected to said semblance that its physically impossible for anyone to use it to it’s full extent without her semblance. It resembles two heavy pieces of armour covering her forearms with smaller and thinner pieces of armour more resembling purple leather extending from underneath the gauntlets & up the rest of her arms up to her shoulders. Her gauntlets are about an inch thick but have a smooth surface, save for where the different components are built into the structure. They have no control systems, not movement or trigger or any form. When Kale activates a component that she needs, the component that she’s chosen springs or pops out of the structure of the weapon. For example if she wants to use a blade, the weapon she’s best at, a small dagger will spring out facing outwards. When she needs a ranged attack a small cannon like gun will pop out the top near her wrist (think of the car w/ the headlights that sorta... fold into the car? idk ive been writing this for Hours my brain is dying a bit), the need for mobility will activate a grappling hook on the underside, on the same side as the dagger. Only one component can be used at a time, as locking in one component will lock out the others. Kale has a tendency to add new components impulsively or work on it while she’s depressed, seeing it as a literal part of herself since it kind of is w/ her semblance. Despite a potential for abuse from her semblance, she uses it sparingly & only connects to pieces of tech that she owns or belongs to someone who gives her permission. She connects to both of Lyca’s weapons for example, once activating the halberd transformation for her while she’s exhausted. Bonus - Kale’s parents were really unimaginative w/ naming their children.

this is super long enough already so uhh lets leave Beryl, Polo & Cide for another day

#have All Of It about All Of Them #long post #idk how long this post is gonna be actually on the dahs but still #Lyca #Idris #Lilen #Kale #ocs

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universitybee · 8 years ago

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answer 11/ask 11

Thanks for tagging me, @milkteafirst!!

1. What’s your go to comfort food?

I love, love, love chips. like, I will eat 2 family pack bags of chips for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 3 days straight (especially the buffalo flavoured ones). also mashed potatoes!!! ,,, I know, I am so healthy

2. What genres of music do you listen to?

I’ve always really liked alt/indie music! I absolutely adore Cage the Elephant, Grouplove, AM, The Vaccines, Arcade Fire, etc. also classical and more recently, vaporwave, bc I am Trash,,

3. When was the last time you did something you shouldn’t have?

LAST NIGHT I stayed up until 4 am looking at memes on the interwebz when I had to be up at 6:30 to go to my 8 am class. rip in peace

4. Do you consider yourself technologically challenged?

I pretend that I’m not, but I’m pretty much a grandma when it comes to navigating technology. sometimes it gets really embarrassing when I’m trying to exchange numbers with someone and,, I can’t even set up a contact correctly lmao

5. What do you do to unwind/relax?

I really like to draw/paint!! I’m currently working on a sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project 2017! I also nap as frequently as possible

6. Describe yourself in three words.

procrastinator, shy, & artistic!

7. What is something you would improve in your life if you could?

Ahh, I would definitely try to be more outgoing so I can make more friends in college. I’ve made a few, but I never lived on campus with everyone else and so my social interactions have been limited to classmates ;A;. I’ve stepped out of my comfort zone and joined some clubs recently which is helping!! But I wish I could expedite the process a bit,,

8. Are you still friends with anyone from your childhood?

Yes!!! My best friend since 2nd grade and I are still frequently in touch although she attends college out of state, which is awesome! I also still talk nearly daily with my best friends from 8th grade onward despite living about 2 hours away from them. I luv my friends <3

9. What was something that you did that you didn’t think you could do?

I have an extr e m e fear of teachers and professors, to the point where I’ve never spoken to a professor in college and have only spoken to my TA’s a handful of times. Earlier this week, I conquered that fear by inviting one of my professors to a program where you sit and chat over coffee!! I didn’t think I would ever have the guts to even attend office hours, much less sit and talk casually for an hour. it went wonderfully and he said he would definitely like to go again!! I didn’t think I had it in me; I’m so glad I did that :’))

10. If you could be friends with any character, who would it be?

idc if this is basic, I would love to be friends with Elizabeth from Pride and Prejudice!! I have read it about 10 times over the past few years and I admire her wit and charm soooo much;; she’s so smart and independent and bad*ss

11. How would you describe your aesthetic, if you have one?

uhm.....hm. somewhere between struggling art student and preppy school kid because I live in c o n s t a n t c h a o s but when I pull it together I can be super organized + I love sweaters, tea, notebooks, etc. idk if that even makes sense! lol

I tag @defensivedad, @loveliestbee, @studybless, @hahaudidntthinkihadablog, @pinkexoplanet, & @roseyboyy

1. What is the most recent thing you read? (book, article, fanfic lol, etc)

2. What is a song that speaks to you & what does it mean to you?

3. What is one of your life goals?

4. What do you do in your free time?

5. Do you like tea or coffee better? Fav kind?

6. Would you say that you are introverted or extroverted?

7. How often do you stay up until 4 am?

8. Where would you travel to if money were no object?

9. Are you more of a heart breaker, or do you get your heart broken?

10. Do you like the sciences or the humanities better?

11. Do you use bitmojis? (everyone in my life hates on me for this, no judgement lmao)

Thankz ! <3

#ask #about #long post

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michaelfallcon · 5 years ago

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In The Netherlands, Touring The Giesen Roasters Factory

Last fall, I finally got the chance to visit Giesen Coffee Roasters. Almost two years of intermittent emails, calls, texts, and mild-mannered coffee festival doorstepping had transpired between my first interview request and the morning I found myself journeying from home in Amsterdam to Giesen headquarters in Ulft. A bike, three trains, and a bus got me to the town, located in the province of Gelderland and, more precisely, within what is known as the Achterhoek, the country’s “back corner;” Germany is just a half-hour walk east.

That Monday was so chilling that most horses in fields along the way were draped with blankets and the still-erect sunflowers were suddenly shriveled. But as I would learn while sitting comfortably in the Giesen showroom that overlooks their production line, the visit’s timing was favorable. Many of their buyers want new roasters before Christmas or year-end, so I was seeing the factory in full flourish. What’s more, there was news for the new year.

In early 2019, Giesen unveiled its largest industrial-scale roaster: the W140A, which has been in development since 2017 and is named for its 140-kilo batch capacity and its automatic controls. Also due to debut is Giesen’s new roast profile software, promising to be more advanced, user-friendly, and remotely monitorable than its original version.

The Giesen W140A

Giesen is officially 12 years old, though it emerged from another entity that, in more ways than one, was its parent company. De Eik, as it was called, was a metalware factory that made parts and products for businesses in the area. One notable customer was Probat, the century-and-a-half old roaster manufacturer in Emmerich am Rhein, Germany, for whom De Eik made complete machines. De Eik was founded in 1988 by the father of Karin Bussink, who married Wilfred Giesen. When Bussink’s father died at age 50, about 25 years ago, Karin and Wilfred took over. They carried on with the metalsmithing, but in 2006, Wilfred decided to make his own fully realized roaster.

“We thought we could make a better roaster because we had the knowledge of how to build it, and we saw potential for a lot of improvements,” says Davey Giesen, Karin and Wilfred’s eldest child. “That was the point that my father designed the first roaster, the W6, and also put it on the market.”

He was just about a year old back then, but now, at age 26, is Giesen’s COO. Davey has been with the company for six years and has clearly been keeping notes.

“I think I was number 18,” he specifies, referring to where in the sequence of staff hires he falls. “So I saw the company grow.”

Studying IT and, on nights and weekends, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in management have helped prepare him for daily company duties, though his coffee education began much earlier. He got hands-on training working full-time for a year at the micro-roastery and shop that his parents ran in the nearby town of Doetinchem. They opened Koffiebranderij Venetië in 2008 “because they wanted to show how it should be done in the field,” says Davey. Besides providing a setting to test out Wilfred’s earliest products, the venue gave Giesen customers real-life, real-time lessons in running a roastery.

“But after some time,” Davey explains, “we didn’t have any time to run a roastery because of course we were getting better and better at building roasters. And we want to put the energy more into the factory than the roastery.”

Though they sold the shop about eight years ago, it still exists, and the current owners continue using the original W6A that Wilfred installed there. A souvenir from that chapter in the family’s entrepreneurial history appears in the form of the Koffiebranderij Venetië-logoed cup in which I am served coffee shortly after arriving at Giesen headquarters. Ebullient sales representative Miguel de Boer has prepared the drinks, and I talk with him before heading into the factory itself.

“We started 10 years ago with 10 people, and up until two years ago, in 2016, we had 50. In the last two years, we really expanded a lot,” he says.

Like the majority of Giesen’s staff, De Boer is a relatively recent hire. He appreciates the sales culture at Giesen after spending years as an account manager for PepsiCo, overseeing the Benelux sales of Tropicana, Gatorade, among other Big Bev and snack brands.

“In the fast-moving consumer goods, it’s hurry, hurry, hurry and small margins,” De Boer says. “Here, it’s: take it easy, big margins, no discussion about one- or two-dollar discounts. No. People might want to have a discount, but it’s not the most important thing when they want to buy quality.”

On that note, I follow De Boer on a tour. He begins in the electrical department.

“We make everything wire by wire,” he says. Here each order gets assigned a serial number and each machine-in-the-making is placed on a cart. As parts are amassed, they get checked off on a list. A photo documents the list and gets archived; this process is repeated elsewhere along the production line to ensure completeness and to keep record of what has been done when.

To expedite repairs, the warehouse shelves stay neatly stacked with piles of spare parts. In a fluorescent-lit office, a 24-hour service support staff sits, ready to field calls, emails, or Skypes from six continents. Visitors to the Giesen stand at World of Coffee 2018 may have noticed on hand some VR goggles and screens; a sales tool, they encourage prospective buyers to cozy up, virtually, to the various machines and envision how they might fit in their own workspaces.

The next department through which we wend is welding. Bodies of the roasters—as well as Giesen’s destoners, green bean conveyors, cyclones, filters, afterburners, presentation tables, and coffee bins—are made of steel. I see huge sheet metal rectangles resting on sawhorse tables, as casually available seeming as reams of paper might be in photocopy shop. Most materials are sourced from within Europe, and some come from very nearby. Ulft is situated in a region known as the Oude IJsselstreek, where the soil contains high amounts of iron, leading to a locally quite prolific industry; the earliest blast furnace is recorded as first appearing in 1689.

After assemblage, attention turns to surfaces. In the degreasing and painting department, a chemical scent hangs in the air, fittingly. Roasters come in standard black or customers can request a special paint job in up to three tones with a glossy or a matte finish. Lately, there has been demand for the unpainted raw look, which results in a griege coat that shows all the welding marks. Roofs come in stainless steel or hammered gold, and handles are made of olive, bubinga, or zebrano wood. Logos are not the only way to customize. De Boer is not being hyperbolic when he tells me anything is possible.

“You can have sparkles on it; you can even have Swarovski diamonds,” he says.

At the end of the production line, it is time for testing. This final step is usually executed by Wilfred, Davey, or Marc Weber, Giesen’s global sales manager. After three successful roasting sessions, a roaster is deemed ready to leave the factory.

A wall-mounted map in the front office is marked up with red and green radii showing the varying costs of delivery according to distance. The machines have all been assembled by hand in the Netherlands, and a bucolic Dutch touch travels with outgoing W1, W6, and W15 roasters. They reach their destinations by horse trailer, pulled by cars driven by the very mechanics who handle the installation. Larger machines go by truck while their mechanics catch a flight. Roasters bound for destinations that fall off the map are flown or sent by sea container. The company relies on 35 trained agents around the world who assist with sales, installation, and repairs. Where there are none regionally (for example, in Argentina and Maldives), Giesen headquarters deploys its own mechanics. These days, their market is wider than ever. I’m told that South Korea, China, and Germany are among the top purchasing countries. Roasters are still being shipped to Iran and Syria. And as of March 2018, Giesen appointed Pennsylvania-based agent David Sutfin for the US and plans to expand the Stateside team with three more agents.

The W6A remains the most popular model. Next is the W15A sold with an external cyclone (which permits less interrupted roasting because it does not require a user to stop mid-session to remove bean chaffs from inside the machine). The smallest-capacity model is the WP1, intended for sample roasting. What must be the very smallest Giesen ever made, however, stands on a table in the showroom where I begin and end my visit. Built in honor of Wilfred’s 50th birthday, in 2016, the delightful little dummy is, literally, fit for a Barbie Dreamhouse.

Human-size Giesen equipment is also exhibited in the showroom, as is a vintage sample roaster. Between that set-up and the espresso bar, featuring a two-group Synesso MVP, the back wall displays a collection of T-shirts lately being promoted by the new marketing department employees. A recent addition is a black fitted V-neck with the company name in swash-heavy font scripted over the fuchsia outline of a W6. It makes me think of the hot pink one- and six-kilo Giesen roasters once famously purchased by Kaffismiðja Islands coffee roasters in Reykjavik. It also reflects how this once mom-and-pop heavy-metal factory is changing with the times and appealing to a broader-hued spectrum of clients.

“They sell like crazy—people just want a T-shirt with ‘Giesen’ on it,” says De Boer.

“Even when we are at events, when we close down for the day, we have to take away these items,” he shares as he points to roaster handles, the likes of which expo attendees have apparently pilfered in the past. Still, De Boer sounds more flattered than flummoxed.

On a daily basis, Karin and Wilfred handle general management. Davey’s younger brother, Dani Giesen, oversees facilities and building management. The youngest Giesen sibling is still in secondary school, so it is premature to say if her future is at the factory. Regardless, the family is well positioned to communicate with a major rising segment of the coffee industry: younger people and their globally, millennially minded counterparts. I ask Davey what he has observed of his peers, particularly in comparison to his parents’ coffee industry cohorts.

“They do a lot of things differently,” he replies. “The older generation still want to have manual controls and want to see everything analog, and the generation after that is more about automatization, running a better business. They really use the profile system to control the roaster and all that kind of thing, so it’s more about the digital world.”

Davey Giesen

When I inquire about gender balance among clients, Davey acknowledges that “the market is more men than women.” He adds, “But we find it really good that more women are building roasteries. We also see a lot of couples doing this together, husbands and wives.”

The life-partners-as-corporate-partners format has certainly yielded much for the Giesens. In giving a new, more narrowly defined purpose to an old factory, Wilfred and Karin have enriched the specialty coffee industry with their products and their progeny. Both contributions are relatively young, but their potential to keep upping the quality of roasting and its accessibility for everyone is profound.

Karina Hof is a Sprudge staff writer based in Amsterdam. Read more Karina Hof on Sprudge.

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In The Netherlands, Touring The Giesen Roasters Factory published first on https://medium.com/@LinLinCoffee

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