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hydraulicfluidinmyteapot · 3 years ago

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Pirates of the Caribbean

This is an ask from @shrigma-male, but i accidentally deleted the ask.. so sorry! I am high key excited to get an ask about this topic, as the Pirates of the Caribbean ride is probably one of my earliest animatronic centric obsessions. not only is it one of the earliest and most impressive feats of Imagineering, it also remains solid to this day. it houses a great many iconic animatronic figurines, all of which work together in perfect harmony to capture beautifully life filled scenes of a cohesive storyline. Its individual ride concept was so strong that it birthed a line of clones and even a famous movie franchise. isn’t that sick? a RIDE was the key source material for a whole movie series! but it’s unsurprising, with the time and care poured into the ride. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you think about it, the ride is JAM PACKED so there is a LOT to talk about. This will only be a super brief post information-wise, but who knows? There may be more to come if this performs well. Apologies, my life’s not going great at the moment and i don’t have a lot of spare time so this is not as high a quality as i would like it to be.

Here’s my fast fact file on it!

Debut: March 16, 1967

Withdrawal: All rides are still operating

Attraction: The Pirates of the Caribbean

Locations: Disneyland, Magic Kingdom, Tokyo Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Shanghai Disney (but this one’s heavily modified)

Attraction Type: Dark ride

Riders Per Vehicle: 23–24

Number of vehicles: 50

Animatronics: 119 ish but it depends on the ride version

Ride videos: The entire ride varies from version to version and different people want to see different parts. i’m leaving you guys to find your own ride videos. it’s a very popular ride, just type on in to youtube and you’ll find heaps of nice high quality ones.

The thing that stands out about this ride is the theming and the sheer amount of effort put in to creating an immersive environment. the ride houses an impressive 119 audio animatronics, 53 of which are animals. There are 630,000 gallons of water in the ride (original Disneyland) and takes three whole days to drain. there are over 40,000 gold coins in the treasure room scene alone. It holds what could possibly be considered Disney’s first themed restaurant which can be seen at the start of the ride. It is objectively one of the coolest things I’ve ever ridden. I want to call specific attention to the boat scene, where cannons fare at each other from opposite ships, creating glowing impacts and throwing water about. the first time I rode it it ensnared my attention and completely suspended my disbelief.The ride system is based on the one used in it’s a small world, due to that rides incredible success in debuting a boat-based transport system. Although I hate it’s a small world with a burning passion and refuse to write anything on it, I must be forced to admit that it did wonders as a test on how to create a good dark ride, emphasising key features such as a high rider capacity, boat-based transport system, and proving that animatronics are an incredibly attractive key event. Since the 60’s when it debuted, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride has gone through many changes throughout its location, including entire scenes being added and removed. but what it has maintained throughout its historic run time is its notoriety and splendour. the key change that I will bring up is the 2006 and 2007 renovations that include more theming from the very successful movie franchise. slightly unrelated, but the song “Yo ho, a pirate’s life for me” was actually first written for the ride. The rides are all being constantly updated in minor ways whether it’s slightly improving the animatronics, touching up background details or changing costuming. I’ll attach here a brief sort of timeline of the ride that I’ve whipped up here, but it only touches on the most notable modifications. sorry about how crap-tier it is..

Now, to talk more specifically about animatronics. The animatronics used on this ride are some of the earliest made by Disney. some are really quite basic, with their full range of motions being a singular full body action such as raising and lowering out of a barrel, but others move heads and arms in (sort of) lifelike actions. Some are newer, (specifically captain Jack Sparrow), but most are the original ones from the 60’s. One of my (and everyone’s tbh) favourites is the redheaded lady. She is (very originally) named Redd. Previously she was being sold off for auction, but in 2018 she was swapped to being an auctioneer. She has stunning red curls and a beautiful dress to match, and now holds a gun. here’s a little before and after.

in the same refurbishment that changed her the mist screen in the tunnel before the fort battle was removed and replaced with a pirate in a cage who turns into a skeleton via an optical trick as well as an octopus playing with some medallions, along with the original 1967 narration about cursed treasure being restored. Her new version is based off none other than Anne Bonny herself (worth a google, she’s a fucking BOSS (like seriously!! Queer history icon!!! LOOK 👏 HER 👏 UP 👏 )) . She’s also displayed in dead man’s cove in a portrait, which I think is kinda neat. Her Paris version is completely silent, but the others yell about selling rum. Sadly I have never actually seen the new Redd in person, as I have only ridden the ride in Tokyo (where she is still being sold).

Now, the barker bird! oh how I love him so <3 he’s a little green pirate parrot, who spent his days crying about the ride. he was originally in the queue area but got kicked outside eventually to help deal with crowd control. he was then gotten rid of in 2006 in the big movie refurb. He was remarkably similar to the original barker bird who resided outside of the Enchanted Tikki Room; however, the pirate version has a peg leg, eye patch, tattoo on his chest and wondrously villainous hat. he was originally based off of Captain Flint, the parrot from Treasure Island. It is theorised that he has a skeletal clone inside the ride; the parrot belonging to “the Dirty Feet pirate”.

When you first get on the ride, the first animatronic you come across is Old Joe. he is an animatronic character used in multiple different attractions, including Liberty Belle Riverboat, The Western River and Mark Twain Riverboat. in each version, he lives in a shack and is associated with the banjo. I say associated because it is actually a really common misconception that he actually plays the banjo. he does not, it is just a dark scene and there is banjo music playing around him. you can see the tip of his pipe glowing as you approach it in the ride, lit up alongside the fireflies. he is a small taste of what is to come.

Barbossa replaced the original pirate captain of The Wicked Wench in the boat battle scene in the mass movie renovation. he is my tied favourite with the redhead, as his dialog adds so much to the scene. his character moves in a beautiful fashion, lit up by a spotlight. His face is artfully painted, capturing what I believe to be the most human expression in the entire ride. His boat is fighting a Castillo del Morro fortress of Isla Tesoro, whilst busy searching for treasure and presumably captain jack sparrow. in 2011 his WDW version’s outfit was swapped over to his privateer uniform from On Stranger Tides, to keep the ride tied to the movies. What can be considered quite odd is that in Paris’s later renovation, the Captain did not replace the Wicked Wench captain, and was rather added in to a scene at the end of the ride, in the skeleton grotto. he is standing on the shipwreck beside the skeleton helmsman, carrying a lantern.

The auctioneer. I don’t like him. greasy man. his eyes are wild. He’s originally voiced by Paul Frees (an icon, a legend) and is inspired by Captain Bartholomew Roberts (considered the most successful pirate in the golden age of piracy. He is also a pirate from the ship The Wicked Wench, and his auction is set up near a canteen called "La Cantina”. very creative. He was originally selling brides (human trafficking, not very snazzy) but now he sells chickens he stole from townspeople. however, this is unsuccessful. In the Paris version, instead of the chickens he is trying to sell a painting of Jean Laffite. Funnily enough, Jean is one of Disney’s sort of “stand in” pirate characters that they frequently just use whenever they need a pirate to slide in. Unfortunately, the auctioneer is always kept relatively up to date with the shiniest, newest technology that Disney can spare, and is always one of the most advanced figures on the ride. doesn’t deserve it, he’s slimy and I don’t like him. I should probably mention that he doesn’t actually have a name other than the auctioneer. There’s also a clone of him used in the haunted mansion for the duelling animatronics. loser.

This is a very long post, so I shall cut it here. I will leave you with an image gallery, further reading and a possible promise of a part two if this post does well. Thank you!

(ok so i actually haven’t got any further reading gathered yet. give me like 6 hours and ill fix it in an edit. i promise. i just want to get this post out asap)

#animatronic #audio animatronics #Audio Animatronic #animatronics #Disney #disney parks #pirates #pirates of the caribbean #redd #captain barbossa #history #long post

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curiousconch · 4 years ago

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Lions on the Prowl

Chapter 7 of Ricochet (An Open Heart AU)

Catch up here: Series Masterlist

Chapter Synopsis: Bryce and Rafael go on the hunt to unravel the sinister truth, hoping that what is revealed leads to Heather.

Pairing: Rafael Aveiro x MC (Dr. Heather Song) | Bryce Lahela x MC (Dr. Heather Song)

Words: 1.8k+ | Genre: Crime, Suspense/Thriller, Romance

Rating/Warnings: Mature (16+) / language, violence

Author's Notes: As promised, here's chapter 7. It has minor references to canon, but I did some tweaks to fit the overall storyline. Thank you so much for taking time to read this series. Please let me know if you want me to include/remove you in the tags list. Also, disclaimer: Majority of the characters are owned by Pixelberry, except the main character Heather Song and an OC Jordan Anderson.

Bryce slipped his phone into the pocket of his suit after his call with Rafael. He got into his car and punched the coordinates of his destination, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for the GPS to load. Once he heard the first set of directions, he turned on the ignition and drove off. As the miles went by, he began to map out his strategy to interrogate the person who started it all - Travis Perry.

After half an hour, he was let into the maximum security facility. He went through the strict visitor SOP before he was led into a small room, devoid of anything cheerful. He tried his best to shake off the inherent thoughts he had about Heather's current situation, focusing instead at the matter at hand. Several minutes passed before he heard a click and the door opened, revealing a dank and skinny figure.

When Travis realized who was visiting, he rolled his eyes.

Bryce watched as he sat down while his handcuffs was hooked at a protruding hole in the center of the table. He waited for the guard to step outside before he leaned forward, switching into full-on lawyer mode.

"You better tell me what you know now, Perry."

Travis smirked, looking ominous.

"Desperate much, are you, ADA Lahela?" he leaned back, slouching. "Why come to me so early on in the game?"

The answer was easy, he was desperate. Every passing minute that Heather was missing reduces the possibility of finding her alive. He knew that much. And Bryce was willing to risk anything to see her breathing again. Even endangering his career or his dignity.

"You know very well why I'm here, Travis," his fingers ran up his blue tie, loosening it a little, hoping that he was playing his cards right. Bryce knew Perry's confidence came from the knowledge that he had nothing left to lose. He can't put him at fault though, his sentence were pretty much signed, sealed and delivered. However, the ADA didn't expect him to give up anything without a fight. He was the criminal who attempted to kill a senator, after all. So he came prepared.

Bryce shook his head, sneering back, a finger pressed lightly on his chin.

"Travis, Travis, Travis..." he stood up, circling around the prisoner like a lion on a prowl. "Aren't you forgetting something? I'm just a man who can offer you something that is going to be very hard to turn down," he stopped once he stood directly behind his prey. He then crouched down and leaned forward, his smug face inches away from Perry's. "So, you interested?"

Perry hissed, a look of disdain overcoming his previously confident composure.

"I thought so," Bryce smiled, satisfied. His work wasn't done yet though. He put the tips of his fingers together, pulling back so he can continue to prance around. It was the signature Lahela move.

This was a signal to anyone beyond enemy lines that Prosecutor Bryce got you in his grasp. That's why they call him magic hands.

"You better start talking then. Clock is ticking," he returned to stand opposite him, the palm of his hands pressed flatly on the metal table. "Well, that is, if you choose to cooperate."

The perp he worked laboriously to convict fell into a contemplative silence. Bryce watched intently, as Travis closed his eyes and took deep breaths before sitting back up, determined not to say a thing.

"I take it you don't want to talk then?" Bryce pursed his lips in an attempt of mockery. "Why? Suddenly grown a conscience after being caged for a few months? Wanna make Jonathan proud?"

At the mention of his younger brother, Perry abruptly stood up causing his chains to rattle against metal. He lost control, as he screamed to the young ADA's face.

When he lost his steam, Travis eventually backed down looking pleased with himself as he found Bryce's stunned expression.

"You will never catch him! Jordan is more cunning and more capable than any of you pieces of shit!" Travis roared, startling Bryce. "You're all just as worthless as that fucking senator! You think you're so different? Well guess what, you're all the same!"

For a few long moments, Bryce did seem like someone who just lost a battle. The convict sat down and pressed the button under the table to call in his escort. But before anyone came back in to get him, the cunning golden boy mimicked his movements and stared back at him.

"Well, thank you, for your kind assistance," Bryce said quietly as a guard entered and uncuffed Perry. Travis looked back at him, puzzled. He was ordered to stand up, and when he was about to leave the room, Bryce quirked a brow, his lips twisting into a smirk of a cheshire cat.

The mouse just fell into the trap.

"Jordan, huh? I wonder who that is."

Perry's face drained of all color. Bryce chortled in reply before he continued his celebratory address.

"And since you didn't agree on anything, I'll consider it an early holiday gift that doesn't need to be repaid," the lawyer brushed back his hair and stood up, straightening his dark grey suit. With a shrill scream, the heavy metal door closed upon Travis Perry's face, leaving Bryce alone in the room. He waited for a few moments, fixing his tie, then walked back out to the correctional's office.

One more thing before we're done here.

He requested for Perry's files, browsing through his phone records and visitor logs for the past 6 months. When he turned to the third page, he found exactly what he was looking for. Bingo. He fist bumped the air, then took pictures of the pages where he found the matching name. As he set out to collect the rest of his belongings, he quick dialed Rafael and reported his findings.

"We have a name," he walked back to his parked car and got in, turning the ignition on. "It's Jordan Anderson. Look for any records related to him and how he connects with Travis Perry, I'm coming over." he backed up the car out to the road and drove to town.

Hold on, Heather. We're coming for you.

***

Rafael reopened Perry's files for the tenth time since tonight after he ended his call with Bryce. It was a breakthrough, after hours of not being able find anything of value since the investigation started. The name didn't ring any bells, but he was confident he's going to find something. He had to.

Before he closed the file another time, he read a single phrase in the page about Travis Perry's family background. There it was listed:

Parents: Theodore Perry (Deceased), Jenny Perry (deceased)

Siblings: Jonathan Perry (deceased), foster brother (presumed alive, identity unknown)

He highlighted the two words - foster brother.

Is this him? Did we find the kidnapper?

He beckoned the agent beside him who was poring over Farrugia's phone logs. "Marshall, can you find out if Travis' parents took in kids for foster care?"

The agent nodded and opened the application for the National Foster Care directory. Raf watched as he browsed per county, directing him to a site containing Boston's list. Time seemed to slow down for Rafael as Agent Marshall typed in the parents names into the search criteria. He pressed enter, and together they watched the loading icon, as the app attempted to pull up any matching records.

After an excruciatingly long 10 minutes, the application displayed a single name: Jordan Anderson.

This was the solid lead they needed.

He directed half of his team to find anything they could regarding Jordan Anderson. One by one, they pooled in the data and eventually created the most accurate biography of the man who just became Boston's most wanted.

Raf asked for his image to be emailed to the IT guys to run facial recognition on surveillance footage around Edenbrook and Bryce's condo, marking it as urgent. He approached the whiteboard, and began to write a summary of what they knew so far:

JORDAN PETER ANDERSON

* Foster brother of Travis Perry

* Aged 29

* Last known address: Everett, MA

* Last known occupation: Maintenance Crew, Stintson and Co. Cleaning Agency

* Criminal records: Juvenile detention for Shoplifting, illegal drug use, stalking, trespassing

He also listed down the number of restraining orders issued against him, painting a picture of a long history of offenses and a troubled life. He read the accompanying material that they were able to dig in the last half hour and built a psychological profile of the suspect.

Several minutes after, ADA Lahela walked into the room. Bryce nodded to him, before perusing the bulleted points on the board. "This is good work," the prosecutor said.

Raf handed him some of the printouts, allowing him to make his own analysis. The special agent began to discuss his.

"He appears to have a close bond with his foster family, seeing that he didn't move out of Massachusetts. As to how much contact he had with Travis, we're uncertain yet," Rafael said.

With that, Bryce pulled up the pictures he took at the correctional facility. He showed it to Raf.

"There were several rows of the same number in the call logs starting a few months back, starting on the day Perry was transferred," Bryce pointed at the records in contention before proceeding. "So I trailed a pattern. I tried looking at the days when that same number didn't appear in the call logs and looked at the visitor records instead. The name Jordan Anderson came up every single time."

"We received a tip!" an agent stood up and approached the two conferring men, interrupting their discussion. "Apparently, Dr. Song called for a car to bring her to the airport this morning. The driver waited in front of ADA Lahela's complex and was about to leave when he saw a suspicious guy in an overall leaving a side entrance. He was carrying a black luggage bag and a woman who the driver thought as drunk. The woman matched her description."

They shared a look, prompting them into action. Rafael pulled up his phone to dial the surveillance room, but before he could, it pinged for an incoming email. It was from an anonymous sender. It contained a video file attachment. He tapped the play button.

It was a dash cam footage. The first few seconds were dim, but it wasn't long before a black car pulled up into the empty road. The vehicle stopped, a male figure emerged from the driver's seat. He opened the backseat door and there was Heather, limp and unconscious, being dragged by a man who shared the same face as the picture in the printouts. Both men's breathing hitched.

The video finished playing when they heard another ping. It was another email from the same sender. This time, it only contained a single line:

24th Avenue, Panacea Pharmaceutical Boston Tower.

"Panacea? Why does that sound familiar?" Bryce questioned, frowning.

"Panacea, as in the Panacea Labs?" the agent inputted, looking at each of them. "Panacea Labs partnered last year with Edenbrook and Mass Kenmore, prompting the construction of a new office downtown. But the company was shut down due to ethical and regulatory violations, halting the project. It was never finished."

"Can someone put up a recent image from 24th Avenue?"

Another agent walked up to them, showing his laptop screen.

There in the image was a faint sign, Construction Ongoing. Underneath it was the word Panacea.

Rafael raised his phone beside the computer, comparing the still frame from the video.

There it was, at the upper left side, the same sign and the same word.

At that moment, both men knew they were only scratching the surface. But they can deal with that later.

Right now, they knew where Heather was. And it's about damn time they get her back.

Taglist @ramsey-lahela @eleanorbloom @choicesficwriterscreations for Fics of the Week

#open heart #open heart fanfiction #rafael aveiro #bryce lahela #choices fanfiction #play choices #choices #open heart 2 #open heart au #choices fic writers creations #fics of the week

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fruitsvillage · 4 years ago

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Could we please get a tutorial on how you did your latest lookbook? Ily 💌💌

ok this is gonna be a long post so under the cut is a general tutorial, i cant go step by step exactly as i did it since i didn’t save the editing file, but here’s at least my basic process i always start out with, plus how to do the silhouette effect i used in the last example!! also i’m not sure about your experience level re: image editing or digital art so i’m going to try and explain it in a way that hopefully anyone can understand but please feel free to come to me with more questions!! Also my screen res is very wide but I wanted to be able to show off where all the menus are, so clicking on the images for full view may be necessary for you.

OK so step 0 is gathering materials- you will need a photo that you want to edit plus an image editing program. You can easily get photo’s from your switch with the switch’s built in image sharing mode, either by posting them to facebook or twittter, and then saving them to your computer from there. Or if you have a computer that can read a microsd card or you have a microsd card reader you can plug into your machine, you can transfer images that way. The only other thing we need is an image editing software. I will be showing you my process by using Clip Studio Paint but you don’t need to use this specific program. I personally recommend using a program that allows for transparency even if the end result isnt transparent because it’s easier to move layers and elements around but that being said you COULD edit images with a program as simple as microsoft paint. There are free more advanced softwares out there like krita, gimp, fire alpaca, etc.

Step 1) While this step isnt necessary, I personally run my images through a filter to reduce the JPEG noise, to smooth out edges and to make the image clearer. You can also use websites or apps that do this for you like waifu2x or yome2x if you want.

Step 2) Isolate your subject from the image’s background. You can either choose to just erase away directly on the image layer or you can use selection tools to choose the parts of the image you are going to separate first. I prefer the selection method because then I can use a masking layer which I’ll get into in the next step. You’ll want to erase or select out everything except for your character (or other photo elements you want included in there too like if you decorate a bit). There are many different ways you can use the selection tools depending on if you want to opt for speed or for the cleanest possible edges. I usually use the magic wand tool to get a good chunk of my selection and then go in with the selection brush for precision.

Step 2.5) If you have opted to select out your desired subject then the next step is to create a masking layer. The easiest way to do this is to finish your selection and then to hit the Quick Mask button circled in yellow, it is represented in my version of CSP as a rectangle with a dark circle inside. This will automatically create a mask including everything except your selection, making those unselected elements completely transparent. The mask if shown to the immediate right of the affected layer. The black bits are what is hidden and the white is what is shown. You can edit the mask using the brush and eraser tools- the brush will expose hidden bits of the layer and the eraser will hide. You can also create a layer mask by opening the Layer menu at the top of the window > Layer Mask> Create from Selection. This is how it works in CSP, other softwares may not make use of the eraser tool but instead only the brush tool will be needed to edit a mask. I encourage you to search the web (google, duckduckgo, etc) “masking layer + (your drawing program)” for specifics on your particular program.

Step 4) Now comes the silhouette effect specifically from my lookbook post. Duplicate the character layer. This will create an identical layer for us to edit.

Step 5) Create a new empty layer and make sure it is on Top of yhe layer we just duplicated in the above step. Then create a Clipping Layer using the empty layer. Clipping layers will chain to the layer immediately below, and allow you to create effects that only affect the layer it is attached to. You may chain multiple clipping layers to a single layer in order to layer almost infinite effects.

Step 6) Using the fill/Paint Bucket tool, fill the empty clipping layer with your preferred color. Notice how the layer is technically completely filled with yellow, but it only shows up in the actual image as the shape of the layer the clipping layer is attached to!

Step 7) Reorder your layers so the original layer we started with is displayed on top.

Step 8) Use the move tool to drag either the copied layer or the original layer around to a position of your liking. You can then repeat this process as many times as you want, using whatever colors or gradients or brushes or textures you like.

Step 9) Draw or import textures or clip art* or literally whatever to decorate your image how you like. Elements from this piece include a heart shaped brush that came with CSP for free, a polka dot screen tone brush I downloaded for free from the CSP shared asset website, and hand drawn elements and lettering done by me! *When using materials you find on the internet for your edit work please, please make sure you have permission to use it. Don’t take art from people’s art blogs and turn them into stickers or whatever unless u have permission. If you dont want to draw it out yourself i recommend searching the web for royalty free clip art or textures. Hopefully this tutorial was what you were looking for! If not you can always ask me more questions and if it’s helpful or interesting for anyone out there the next time I make a lookbook edit I can record that as a video so you can see my step by step process as I actually create the image,

#long post #chatter #anon #acnh lookbook #tutorial #Anonymous

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blackfemmecharacterdependency · 4 years ago

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6. Passion Project

“What the hell am I reading?” The woman squealed in his ear, “And why is it ALWAYS something bizarre with you?”

“Did my favorite perennial flower get my emails?”

“Simon… you do know that I have both college AND a job to do, right? That not all of us achieve our dreams the first try?”

“I pay you good money for the work that I ask you to do!” Simon complained. “Unlike your day job that both pays you less than your male counterparts and less than you deserve in general.”

“Yeah, well… I live in the real world. Not like there’s some magical train to take me away from society and all it's problems. But, seriously… researching is one thing, but this feels oddly like stalking. First of all… I had to do some very illegal things to get this information - which, yes, I went ahead and did it, because by the time I got to that point I was feeling a little bit insulted by the thought of failing. Secondly… who IS this woman, Simon? How do you even know about her and what are you going to do with this information?”

“I met her in my everyday life and was interested in her, but found a simple background check difficult. I was people watching for a new story, but it’s become more like a passion project, now. But, I feel like you’ve got a lot to tell me about her!” He was teeming with excitement.

“I… found out things, things that I never would have wanted to ever know about anybody and am now honestly considering charging you for the therapy it’s gonna take me to get over this information… Where in your everyday life did you meet this person?”

“Why… what’s… what’s wrong with her?” Simon asked.

“A LOT. But… I don’t know… I guess she’s doing better, if you’re just seeing her out and about, but… I just…” Tulip yelped.

“Tools???” Simon called out.

Deep breathing. Then, she was back. “Sorry. Mikayla’s out, so I’m by myself and EVERYTHING is startling me. I’m gonna send you everything I found and my charges for this information. And Simon… please don’t ever send me anything like this again, and I mean it.”

“I only wanted to find out if she changed her name and why. How difficult could the information have been?”

“Most people don’t just change their names out of boredom, Simon. Also… it isn’t right to look into somebody this way. I’m only giving it to you because I don’t deserve to be the only person who has had to look at this.”

“That bad?” He heard sniffling. “Tools…”

“No, Simon! This is messed up! Don’t ask me for another favor again if you don’t know ANYTHING about the situation!”

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again, I promise.”

She let out a deep breath. “Is your mom going to the retreat or whatever this year?”

“Yeah. She’s super excited about it. She says that she hasn’t seen yours in too long. Is she going?”

“Yeah, she was able to scrape up this year to reserve her spot.”

“Mom’s already pulling out all of her Single Mom Squad shit.”

Tulip groaned. “I’m really glad that they had a support group and stuff, but honestly. Why did it become their entire personality for so long?”

“Because it was their little escape from having smartasses like us at home.” Tulip laughed and Simon reiterated, “Really sorry about whatever you read about Grace.”

“I… Is this somebody that you think that you could care about, Simon?”

“Yeah?”

“Okay. Just… be careful. I don’t see how they’re even still standing, much less how they’re in a position to care for someone else. I don’t know if I’m more afraid that you might get hurt if you get attached or that she might, but… it just looks like it’d be super hard to build with this person. They’ve got… a lot of... history.”

“She’s tried to warn me of that and I ignored her and will most likely ignore you.”

“Well, I did my part, anyway.”

Her name was not Grace St. Catherine… Well, it was, because she had it legally changed four years ago. But it had been Grace Monroe when she was born… up until when she was 10.

She was kidnapped when she was 10. Apparently there was a ransom requested, and whenever it was set to happen, the kidnappers took the money and did not return the child. Nobody who knew her before saw her again for 8 years.

When she was 18, she was arrested for assault and when giving her name to arresting officers, said 148, but eventually Grace Monroe. From there, she was discovered to have been missing for 8 years and her parents were contacted.

The Monroes conducted every possible test available to check the well being of their now 18 year old daughter. She was treated for several illnesses, including STDs and a number of mental issues...

She was committed at age 18, and declared a ward of her parents, instead of convicted, and spent the next three years recovering. At age 21, she was allowed to be classified as an adult. She changed her name, and lived with her parents until 2 years ago...

When she began working at the bookstore...

Tulip had even been able to find court documents, police records, and psychiatric files. So… yeah. He owed her big time, even beyond payment for having read even a portion of this stuff. Some of it was simply things Grace had reported to her doctors. Some were things that she had not spoken of, but there was physical evidence enough to grant some ideas.

Years of damage to her uterus… Bruises and scars on her back, knees, thighs, wrists… A symbol carved into the back of her neck… He clicked on the images given from medical reports and saw the same A that had been spray painted on targets’ doors. He now knew who these people were, and why they deserved whatever Grace and her friends were doing to them. He looked at the photos of the girl before her disappearance vs the teenager in the mugshot. That didn’t even look like HIS Grace. She was the same person. He saw familiar features - her perfect round nose and beautiful full lips, the shape of her face a little more shapely there - probably wasn’t eating as well… but… that was a stranger. Only her eyes looked the same. Passionate but filled with pain. Beautiful and wide enough to get lost in, but dark, cold, and freakishly mysterious.

He quickly called her and she picked up, “Did I not just see you a few hours ago?” she teased.

“I was just thinking about you… hoping that you’re okay tonight. Are you okay?”

She laughed, “Are you?”

“I just… want you to know… whatever happens, I’ll always be here for you.”

She was quiet for a long time. He wondered what she was doing on the other end of the line. She was looking at a selection of masks and knee pads, but her mind was no longer on the outfit for her Date Night, but the man on the other side of this phone conversation.

“Thanks, Simon… Um… Are… you sick? Is something happening to you? This just really feels out of nowhere and quite frankly, I’m a little worried.”

“There’s nothing to worry about! I’m fine. I just… really care about you, and had to tell you that.”

Grace could’ve sworn that she saw a chorus of red flags being twirled around before her. Dancers, circling her and performing tricks with them. She was never one for rose colored glasses. She learned a long time ago that those weren’t for her… so these were red flags. She also knew that she often saw red flags where there were white ones. Because she didn’t believe in surrender, only blood for blood. She was angry in general, and usually seeing red. Simon’s red flags were probably no more red than any other poor guy that tried to simply make her smile over the past few years. But then he said, “Grace, I lo…”

“Simon, I really can’t do this right now. I’ve got something I’m in the middle of. So, like… Just… I’ll talk to you another time.” She hung up and snatched a mask that looked like it was crying blood and a pair of purple knee pads. “Not L words, Simon. For fuck’s sake…”

Simon had learned so much, then she was just gone. She wasn’t at the bookstore in days and whenever he finally asked her coworker, they said that she had a no call, no show and they hadn’t heard from her since. She didn’t respond to any of his texts. She seemingly deactivated social media (or worse, blocked him), and she wasn’t even staying at home, because he drove by several times for two days, then literally camped outside for another two. If she was inside, she hadn’t answered, and he hoped that she wasn’t just ignoring him pining through the door. He hoped that she just wasn’t there to hear him beg her to please at least tell him what he did wrong.

He went into the flower shop and the guy that he had become super familiar with as “152” online, even though his nametag said “Heath,” asked him what he could help him with. Simon ordered a bouquet and wrote out a card for Grace, apologizing for whatever he did wrong and asking her to come back, He sighed and asked Heath, “Could you make sure that Grace gets this, please?”

“Grace?” the guy repeated, eyeing Simon suspiciously. “I don’t know any Grace, Mister.”

“148, maybe?”

Now, the guy looked downright ready to fight. “I don’t know what you mean, but you’re making me uncomfortable, so I’m going to have to ask you to leave, now.” He even tried to refund him for the flowers.

“No, no… Please, just… tell her that I’ll be waiting, if she ever feels better…” He left and Heath followed him out of the door, watched him get into his car and drive off before he went back in to call Grace, panicked about that visit.

“Who the hell is this person and how does he know where I work?” Heath asked.

“Let me guess, a little taller than me, skinny, blond with gray eyes and something on his head trying desperately to be a ponytail? That was Simon. I must’ve mentioned the flower shop, or something.” She knew that she never had, but to tell her friend that this person had potentially stalked her and learned about him in the process just seemed like it would cause more harm than taking the blame.

“You must’ve mentioned it? Grace. Either you mentioned it, or you didn’t, and YOU would know. It isn’t like you to be careless about our personal information!”

“I know, I know, but maybe I said that it was my favorite flower shop or something. Heath. You know that if you want, I can get you a job at basically anywhere else that I own.”

“I like flowers!”

“Then, I’ll buy another flower shop you can work at, if he made you feel threatened.”

“Are you safe? He seems a little attached. He bought a really expensive bouquet and left a card. It’s sealed but I can read it to you.”

“No, I’ll stop by. I’ve got some job hunting to do, but…”

“Why don’t you just work somewhere that you’re familiar with, or somewhere that you own?”

“I don’t know. Because, I’m suddenly hyper aware of how messed up I am again, and I wanna feel like a normal person.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but normal people don’t get to just start over when life seems to be too much. We’ve gotta just continue to live it out, and change only ourselves, and maybe eventually our circumstances. Normal people would have called out of work (if they could even afford to) and came back, whether or not they were better and pushed through being miserable.”

“Are you suggesting that I return to the bookstore and ask for my job back?”

“Yeah. If it’s normal that you’re shooting for. But… I’ve got the feeling that you’re avoiding this creep.”

“I think things are moving way too fast. That’s terrifying.”

“Good news… that’s terrifying for normal people, too. Not everything that we do and feel is because of what the Apex did to us. If your manager likes you and values you, you can probably coax them into forgiving you for vanishing, with a good sob story.”

“Gonna go with dead homie,” she said. “Meds, etc. The whole works. If that doesn’t work, guess I’ll buy the bookstore. I really don’t feel like looking for another job, anyway… And I guess I can’t avoid him forever.”

She was back at work the next week. She noticed Simon sitting in the coffee shop whenever she came in. She skipped going for her old routine, to clock back in and get to work. She had to take down the Read Across America stuff and make sure to have all the Easter and Earth Day stuff situated… When was Easter this year? She checked her calendar as she grabbed her legal pad to start planning displays whenever she almost ran into Simon. He’d come over when he saw her return to the floor. She was startled. Then annoyed. “Simon. Please…”

“What did I do?”

“You’re… getting a little bit too… familiar. You didn’t do anything, I just don’t know how to handle having somebody else in my space this much. I just… need some space.”

He frowned and nodded his head, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Okay. You’re the boss.” She wanted to say something… explain why she was like this… why she could only trust her friends, who were more like her immediate family than her parents… even that she desperately wanted Simon to be in her space and to wait for her to be comfortable with having him there…

But, she couldn’t find any of those words. Even if she had, what if she were wrong? What if Simon catching feelings would be the worst thing to ever happen to her, or to HIM, for that matter. She watched him go, and hoped that after she had some time to chill out a little bit, she might be able to contact him again, and get another chance. So, she watched him leave the bookstore and get into his car. He peeled off, and she didn’t know if that meant he was angry or if there was a fluke with the car. She just hoped that he didn’t just show up at her friend’s job or anything else like that. Or something worse. The last thing he wanted while sad was to get on her friends’ bad side. The last thing she wanted was for him to learn that the hard way.

Simon overthrew every piece of furniture in his home. Samantha rushed into her room and hid, terrified of the noise. He cried, shook, paced…. How could he show her that he was on her side? Why did she want space?? Was she afraid of him??? DID SHE HATE HIM???? He flopped onto the floor, holding his head and shivering with tears, trying to catch his breath.

He needed some place else to handle dealing with her, he realized as he glanced around his demolished home. A storage unit, maybe… He collected all of his stuff pertaining to her and put it all together. He stuffed it into one of his bags and put it into his trunk. He could clean up his house whenever he stored things away safely. He needed a big storage unit. He had a feeling that he was going to be collecting more while giving her some “space.”

This was how he might cope. He turned on the light in the new storage space and set down a few boxes. He hadn’t been back into the bookstore. There was no need. He wasn’t writing right now, anyway. He had more important things to do. He’d printed out everything Tulip had researched for him and made plans to visit places he highlighted from all of the files. He got some photos professionally printed up - some poster size, some not as big, and some he simply just had various photo sizes. He just thought they would make nice decor for his new space. Grace had deactivated, but he still had just about every photo of her saved to his phone or computer, and they had taken a few as well…

He also… was starting to take them of her whenever he watched her… He just really missed her. It was only a couple of months in her presence, but that was longer than he had been interested in another person in a while, and he had never been this interested in anyone before. Any time he ever thought that he might be going too far, he reminded himself that she had both done and been through much worse than anything that he was up to at the moment, and that became his truth up until the very last time that he ever had to tell himself anything.

That was May. By May… he didn’t think. It was simply part of his lifestyle. Following, watching, studying, photographing, sometimes recording. But, she still hadn’t reached out to him, and he wasn’t sure if she wanted him to reach out to her. He tried to test it, by leaving her a bouquet of those red poppies that he’d seen her and her friends put on their friend’s grave. He watched, recording her reaction whenever she got home and saw them on her doorstop. She looked around, startled, kneeled to check the card. “Missing you. - S” She looked… relieved. He wasn’t sure who she thought they were from, but she grabbed them, went inside, and moments later, came out with an overnight bag and her turtle. She didn’t come home for days.

Next, he texted and said, “Hey. Sent you flowers. My mom asked about you. Hope you’re okay.” He watched her check the text before she went into the train station, but she didn’t reply. So… she still wasn’t ready, but he was letting her know that he was still waiting. By that time, nothing felt unreasonable to him. He was simply waiting for her to realize that she’d had enough space. He was curious about where she went to when she’d leave for days. The next time he scared her into not staying home alone, he’d follow. It was all that he could do at the moment.

07. Things Went Wrong

#AU Infinity Train #Infinity Train #Nesha Fanfiction #Infinity Train Fanfiction #fics #People Watching

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silvergeek · 4 years ago

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Debunking Misinformation About Kamala Harris

Most of the misinformation regarding Harris is valid information that leaves out the bigger picture, context, and details. They're snapshots rather than the full movie reel, if you catch my drift. I've read that she has been over-targeted because she is an easy target. People (all people - because racism is systemic and it embeds itself deep) have strong, implicit bias against Black people and against women ("misogynoir" they call this). Plus, many folks will *more willingly* eat up negative information without fact checking. The slew of widely believed misinformation about Kamala Harris - even from progressives all of diverse backgrounds - is due in part to strong, implicit racial and gender bias. In other words, it's real easy to get rumors going about women using fractions of truths. People will believe them. People are less likely to fact check them (especially as thoroughly as I just did). This is because of bias. Even PROGRESSIVE folks are guilty of this.

Not long ago, I posted a meme defending Kamala Harris to racist and sexist bias. It was loved and hated - pretty divisive, which is unsurprising for something as simplistic as a meme. I apologize. For all of those tumblr accounts that reblogged the meme with flagrant misinformation about the VP elect... I am going to rectify what I did with thorough, sourced information.

Also check out this twitter: https://twitter.com/blackwomenviews

Debunking Information:

Claim: Kamala pushed a law that forces schools to turn undocumented students over to ICE

The Real: Kamala Harris has consistently been a supporter of sanctuary status and a champion for immigrant rights. The false claim arises from a change in how undocumented youth arrested for felonies were reported to ICE. Kamala Harris was not responsible for nor did she push for then Mayor Gavin Newsom’s 2008 unilateral decision to modify his policy to include reporting undocumented youth charged with felonies to ICE. Previously the policy only applied to undocumented adults. Newsom changed the policy in response to reporting that San Francisco had been footing the bill and illegally flying Honduran youth accused of dealing drugs back to their home country as well as sending them to other parts of the state. The statement that writers have taken out of context to inaccurately use as evidence Harris pushed for a change was a statement in response to the scandal over the illegal flights. Harris stated, “While detained juveniles are under the custody and control of the juvenile probation office and the court every city agency needs to work together to balance our obligations under federal law and the sanctuary ordinance to solve crimes and put the offenders behind bars.” The statement was made prior to Newsom’s policy change and from the contemporaneous reporting it is clear that the policy was not a collaborative change.

(Ref: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/ILLEGALS-CALLED-COURT-S-PROBLEM-3206302.php)

A fact checker wrongly accused Kamala Harris of being untruthful when she said that the change by Newsom had unintended consequences, but in fact the elected Public Defender Jeff Adachi made a similarly statement that the policy resulted in unintended effects when discussing it a year after it was implemented. Adachi stated “When this policy was put into place, the intent was to deal with what was then identified as a specific problem with Honduran youth,” Adachi said. “But we’re seeing this policy affecting youth who have lived most of their lives in San Francisco, are in school and make a mistake.”

Claim: There are multiple variations of the false claims levied at Kamala Harris over the Kevin Cooper case such as: withheld DNA evidence to keep a man on death row; denied DNA testing to exonerate a man on death row; kept a man on death row despite DNA testing that exonerated him.

The Real: Kamala Harris played no role whatsoever in the Kevin Cooper case for several reasons: 1) Convicted of four murder counts in 1983, Cooper had exhausted all of his court appeals in November 2009 which was prior to Harris taking office as AG; 2) Cooper’s only recourse left was clemency which is solely within the Governor’s powers. (Ref: https://miro.medium.com/.../1*IWka2R0J2hUcUR70rh6iBw.jpeg)

Governor Schwarzenegger first denied Cooper clemency in 2004 then again in 2010. Cooper requested clemency from Governor Brown in 2016 which was not granted. Governor Brown issued an order for new DNA testing in December 2018 shortly before leaving office. Governor Newsom expanded the testing in February 2019. Testing is still ongoing so claims that Cooper has already been exonerated and was held in prison despite of it are false.

Claim: There are many smears and distortions about Kamala Harris’ anti-truancy record including: false claims about laughing about putting parents in jail if their kids missed school; locking up parents; targeting poor families and people of color.

The Real: Truancy has been a prosecutable offense in California since 1977. Kamala Harris made the decision to tackle the elementary school truancy crisis in San Francisco after discovering that 94% of homicide victims were high school drop outs. Tackling truancy was not about punishing or prosecuting parents (which was a rarely used last resort), it was about providing parents resources needed to get their children in school.Kamala Harris did not lock parents up. A widely circulated HuffPost Editorial painting Harris as a truancy zealot contains many distortions about her record on this issue. The most egregious distortion is using a woman by the name of Cheree Peoples as a horror story of Harris’ doing when her case was a result of a local Orange County program. More details debunking the article can be found here. Kamala Harris achieved success in lowering truancy in San Francisco by 20% during her tenure. As AG, Harris created the Bureau of Children’s Justice which formed private/public partnerships to increase resources available to educators and parents to reduce truancy. (Ref: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1181175579837632513.html)

Claim: There are various versions of the false claims that Kamala Harris: blocked the release of prisoners; kept prisoners locked up for cheap prison labor; kept prisoners locked up for slave labor; refused to address prison overcrowding; kept prisoners locked up to fight fires for cheap.

The Real: The false claim arises around one specific court filing by one of the 1,000 attorneys (Patrick McKinney) working for the CA DOJ . The role of the CA AG office is to represent various state agencies in litigation and in this case the state agency was the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The court rejected McKinney’s filing on behalf of the CDCR, therefore prisoners were not in fact kept locked up despite earning 2 for 1 good time credits. Kamala Harris was not involved in the court filing nor aware of the filing prior to a news report. With over 20,000 cases per year in the Civil Law division alone (resulting in exponentially more court filings) it would not have been customary for the Attorney General to be involved in a case that only required the expertise of a mid level Deputy AG III that was several levels of management below the Harris’ level. (Ref: https://www.calhr.ca.gov/state-hr.../pages/5730.aspx)

Claim: Oversaw a state prosecutor falsifying a confession to get a life sentence and then destroyed the evidence.

The Real: This claim is in reference to wrongdoing by Deputy District Attorney Robert Murray of Kern County. The Attorney General oversees 4,500 employees including over 1,000 lawyers, but the AG does not supervise local District Attorneys and their deputies. In 2013, prior to trial during plea discussions, ADA Murray admitted to falsifying a translated transcript in the case of Efrain Velasco Palacios who faced 5 counts of lewd and lascivious acts against the 10 year old daughter of his live-in girlfriend. Palacios was facing 8 years for the 5 counts and was not charged with a crime that faced a life sentence. Superior Court Judge Staley threw the case out due to Murray’s misconduct and Palacios’ attorney being removed from the case for allegedly saying his client did not have a viable defense. The judge’s decision was appealed, arguing that Palacios could still get a fair trial with a new counsel. The judge’s decision was upheld on appeal. In 2015, Efrain Velasco Palacios plead no contest to lew or lascivious acts and unlawful intercourse with a 13 year old girl and was sentenced to 4 years in prison.

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A quote that is backed by sources above and further sources down below:

"On the DNA case. This wasn't a case of Kamala actively trying to suppress the evidence. I believe the defendant was asking for the DNA evidence to be reexamined years later using newer, more reliable, methods. Problem was there was some bureaucratic rule that wouldn't allow it in the DNA department or something like that.

The jist of it as it applied to Kamala was there was a department within the CA DOJ that was denying the testing, and to my knowledge it was never directly raised with her till after she was out of office. She has since called for him to be given access to the testing, and I thiiink he got it. But like I said I'll try to get more detail tomorrow.On jailing black men disproportionately and coming down hard on cannabis, these are examples of folks taking statistics for the entire California criminal justice system and placing blame solely on Kamala.

Yes, black men made up a disproportionate share of prisoners in California during Kamala's tenure as AG. That was the case before she was AG and that is still the case today. It's terrible, but it's not really fair to put the effects of the entire system on Kamala. AG's don't have sole authority when it comes to law enforcement. Kamala made efforts to curb this; through reentry programs, not enforcing the 3-strikes laws, being the first AG in the county to require her officers wear body cameras and take implicit bias trading, etc.

The problem is she only had authority over the California Department of Justice. The bulk of prosecutions and incarcerations happen at the local level, with city and county DA's and police. She could not direct them to take the same steps she was taking, all she could do was try to set an example. But the law being what it was, those DAs and police had the authority to be as stringent as the law allowed (which was very very stringent). But if you look at the statistics in the areas Kamala had authority over (and again I'll try to find citations tomorrow) you'll see that she actually reduced incarcerations.

The same goes for marijuana incarcerations. People point to the 19k marijuana convictions that occured while she was AG as evidence she was a avid warrior in the War on Drugs. But that is the statistic for the entire state, and the bulk of those convictions were at the local level. And even still, over all Marijuana convictions across the state fell every year she was in office to eventually there being only like 900ish across the entire state in her last year. She obviously doesn't get all the credit for that decline, but it's another example of people manipulating statistics to fit their narratives."

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Examples of things she did to improve the criminal justice system as DA & AG California:

Kamala Harris announces police anti-bias training program

California’s attorney general announced a statewide training program aimed at getting police officers to avoid having built-in biases compromise their ability to enforce laws fairly and with appropriate force.

The announcement Friday came as Kamala Harris outlined the results of a 90-day review by her agency that sought to find ways to strengthen the trust between police and the public following recent slayings of unarmed civilians by officers in cities across the country.

Harris also said that under a pilot program, of Justice Department special agents would be outfitted with on-body cameras similar to those worn by officers of some local forces in.

Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/205/04/17/california-kamala-harris-announces-police-anti-bias-training-program/

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continued: SAN FRANCISCO / D.A. won't pursue death in cop slaying / Harris fulfills campaign pledge with decision.

San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said Tuesday she will not seek the death penalty against a man accused of killing a San Francisco police officer over the weekend, a decision that legal experts say is rare if not unprecedented in California.

The death penalty was restored in California in 1978, but The Chronicle's review found only limited documentation about the outcome of cases before 1987.

Focusing on 90 cases since 1987, the newspaper found that prosecutors sought the death penalty in nearly every case in which a suspect was arrested.

source: https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/SAN-FRANCISCO-D-A-won-t-pursue-death-in-cop-2767716.php

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ALTERNATIVE SENTENCING GAINING ACCEPTANCE

Back on Track, a San Francisco program for first-time young adult drug offenders, involves job training, apprenticeships in the building trades, G.E.D. preparation, money-management skills, child care and other features. Because failure to complete the program means the defendant goes right to jail, the recidivism rate has been less than 10 percent. Back on Track costs $5,000 per year per participant, a significant reduction from the average cost to incarcerate someone, which can run anywhere from $20,000 to $40,000 or more.

source: https://psmag.com/news/alternative-sentencing-gaining-acceptance-23551

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She also helped spread this program:

L.A. County Jail launches program to keep inmates from coming back.

source: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-antirecidivism-jail-20150311-story.html

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She was the only AG to investigate big banks for their role in the mortgage crisis.

Without her the national mortgage settlement would be watered down promises rather than the guarantee it was.

source: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/business/how-kamala-harris-finessed-a-foreclosure-deal-for-california.html

In 2012, Harris helped win a massive, $25 billion settlement with Wells Fargo and other financial institutions for foreclosure abuses:

"As the fraud was being uncovered, many of the AGs were yelling 'Settle, settle, settle.' They just wanted to get their hands on the money," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who during the negotiations was setting up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for the Obama administration. Warren has endorsed Harris for U.S. Senate and has appeared in one of the attorney general's campaign ads. "[Harris] was the one who said 'No, we have to do better, and we have to investigate more. Too many families have been destroyed by the crisis and the illegal activity of these banks.'"

In 2012, Harris also helped push through a bill in the California Legislature that offered homeowners some of the strongest protections in the nation against aggressive foreclosure tactics by banks, which was credited in part for a plunge in foreclosures in the state. The measure also gave private citizens the right to sue financial institutions if they violated the law.

Shortly after taking office, Harris created a mortgage fraud task force that not only assisted with the mortgage settlement, but also went after financial firms that targeted homeowners facing foreclosure. The task force also took legal action against the banks and financial ratings firms for the massive losses that California's two giant public pension systems, the California Public Employees' Retirement System and California State Teachers' Retirement System, sustained after unknowingly investing in securities that included risky subprime mortgages.

Harris' office collected $921 million in mortgage-backed securities settlements with JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Inc., Bank of America Corp., Standard & Poor's and Goldman Sachs.

Troncoso, who led the mortgage fraud strike force, said building a criminal case against bankers involved in the foreclosures that led to the national mortgage settlement would have been "extremely difficult." Harris acknowledges as much.

"I too, like most Americans, am frustrated. Clearly crimes occurred and people should go to jail," Harris said. "But we went where the evidence took us."

source: https://outline.com/8cPJ2j

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As DA filed an amici curiae brief in support of DC's handgun ban in DC v Heller.

source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1713643.html

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As AG she made clerks begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples immediately after prop 8 was overturned.

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J93691asilw

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Talked about defunding, i.e. shrinking budgets and reallocation of funds, the police all the way back in 2006.

source: https://mobile.twitter.com/adamjsmithga/status/1269761430322139136?s=21

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She has introduced bills to (1)provide a tax credit of up to $6,000 for lower and middle income individuals and families and (2)tax credits for renters. (3)Vox did an analysis of the candidates' anti-poverty bills and Kamala's LIFT Act and Rent relief act have the potential to lift the most people out of poverty, 9.6 million and 7.8 million respectively.

multiple sources:

(1)https://www.bustle.com/p/what-is-the-lift-the-middle-class-act-kamala-harris-has-a-bold-tax-reform-proposal-12606048

(2)https://nlihc.org/resource/senator-harris-introduces-rent-relief-act

(3)https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/1/30/18183769/democrat-poverty-plans-2020-presidential-kamala-harris-booker-gillibrand

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She supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

source: https://www.harris.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-harris-joins-colleagues-in-support-of-15-minimum-wage-bill

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She has also introduced bills to address (1)bail reform and start (2)body camera programs at CBP and ICE.

Two sources:

(1)https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rand-paul-kamala-harris-team-reform-bail-practices-n794031

(2)https://www.thebeatdc.com/blog/2018/10/3/kamala-harris-wants-to-establish-body-worn-camera-programs-at-cbp-and-ice

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She supported the FIRST STEP Act, as a first step, but she said would like there to be more prohibitions on private prisons in the FIRST STEP ACT.

"All of the Act’s sentencing reforms should be applied retroactively, and the Act should further expand application of earned good time credits, place more prohibitions on private prisons which profit from the incarceration of individuals, and further limit the use of electronic monitoring," Harris added.

source: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/421719-harris-announces-support-for-white-house-backed-criminal-justice-bill

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She has also supported banning private prisons.

source: https://m.facebook.com/KamalaHarris/posts/10154833054297923

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She co-sponsored Booker's bill legalize marijuana.

Here is an old summary of that "tooth and nail" quote:

So when the judge in question says the AG office "fought tooth and nail" to sustain the false testimony in question, he was referring to the actions of the office under the prior attorney general. Which the judge says in the immediately preceding the quote in the same sentence! "Your office, now under a prior Attorney General, but your office, fought tooth and nail to keep the 1998 sentencing transcript away from the Court of Appeal." Timestamp 32:01. So the quote specifically about Kamala's predecessor but has been used to smear her.

source: https://thehill.com/regulation/legislation/387101-kamala-harris-backs-booker-bill-to-legalize-marijuana

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On the DNA case:

Kevin Cooper: I won't go deep into the facts on this one because they aren't really the point and because I did a terrible job at brevity with the last case. I'll just note that the origin of this case is 1983. Now, the person you're quoting here doesn't seem to have their facts straight. They don't even align with what is in the sources cited. The NYT article referenced (which isn't even the one cited, here - sourced below - is the actual one) does call her out but does not assert that she "refused" to grant DNA testing. Here's what the article actually says with regard to Kamala:

Kamala Harris, who was state attorney general and is now a U.S. senator, was unhelpful.

That attorney general's office was in possession of the evidence and could have conducted the test. It didn't. And in the NYT article cited in the quote Kamala said she regretted that it did not happen and that her office should have done it. You may not care what she has to say, but she owned up to it. And then she went a step further and she called on the governor to allow the testing to proceed. Not the other way around, as your quote states.

source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/17/opinion/sunday/kevin-cooper-death-row-innocent.html

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And here is an article debunking a meme about her disproportionately incarcerating black men for marijuana possession. It also debunks some particularly racist and sexist stuff that was out there, so if you don't want to have to wade through that bullshit here is the section on marijuana and convictions:

“IMPRISONED 2,000 BLACK PEOPLE WHILE CALIFORNIA AG” – NO EVIDENCE

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) shared state level statistics of incarcerations by offense with Reuters via email (it is important to note their statistics are for state prisons and exclude data from county jails). The admissions for marijuana and hashish related offenses for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016 was 581 (page 37 in report also visible here ). Their 2013 data is unavailable, while 2011-2012 data shared with Reuters indicated 921 offenders in 2011 and 505 for 2012 for these drug categories. This adds to a total of 2,007 offenses for the years 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016. This drug offender data was not, however, categorized by race. (Calculations by Politifact reached similar numbers in 2019, here )

Mercury News noted that most of the marijuana cases in the state were not prosecuted by the AG, but by county districts attorneys, so the total number for the state is likely a lot higher than the CDCR data. As San Francisco’s DA, the paper says, Harris oversaw “1,956 misdemeanor and felony convictions for marijuana possession, cultivation, or sale”, some of which did not conclude in jail time (here).

In California, the possession of over 28.5 grams of marijuana and possession with the intention of distributing the drug are considered misdemeanors (here). Kamala Harris is listed as AG in the California Department of Justice (DOJ) data reports from 2010 to 2015 (DOJ reports for 2016 data onward fall under Xavier Becerra, Harris’ successor as AG). California DOJ statistics for 2015 show the number of Black people arrested (not imprisoned) with misdemeanors relating to marijuana offenses was 656 (table 34, page 42 here ), in 2014 it was 717 (table 34, page 42 here ), in 2013 it was 768 (table 34, page 42 here ), for 2012 it was 1,069 (table 34, page 42 here ), for 2011 it was 981 (table 34, page 42 here ) and for 2010 it was 8,985 (table 34, page 42 here ). This totals to 24,211 arrests for marijuana related misdemeanors (the substantial drop from 2010 is likely a result of legislation changes.

see source https://www.cjcj.org/news/5542

In short, both California DOJ and CDCR reports show that marijuana related arrests and state level incarcerations for Black people during Harris’s time as AG (the closest data to what Reuters assumed the claims are implying) were not reflective of the 2,000 figure stated in these claims.

source: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-kamalaharris-five-claims/fact-check-misleading-meme-featuring-five-claims-about-kamala-harris-idUSKBN25H2F2

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If you're interested in how she handled Marijuana convictions when she was DA and had a more direct role in those cases, and her record generally as DA, here is a piece by Niki Solis who was a public defender when Kamala was DA. (And if you know anything about local court politics, you know DA's and Public defenders often do not exactly see eye to eye).

source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2020/08/10/kamala-harris-progressive-pioneer-san-francisco-da-column/3334668001/

Marijuana sales cases were routinely reduced to misdemeanors. And marijuana possession cases were not even on the court’s docket. They were simply not charged. Unless there was a large grow case, or a unique circumstance, this was the reform-minded approach then-DA Harris’ office took. The accusations about marijuana prosecutions being harsh during her tenure are absurd. The reality was quite the opposite.

Other quotes from Solis:

“Sen. Harris’ progressive approach did not end with marijuana prosecutions or lack thereof. She co-founded the Coalition to End the Exploitation of Kids. She then spearheaded a task force combating the human trafficking of girls. Upon her invitation, I went to the task force meetings to speak on behalf of one of my juvenile clients. My client, a beautiful teenage girl, had aspirations of joining the military. She was selling her body to earn money when her life was cut short; she was found dead in a San Francisco dumpster. Harris and I talked about my client and the exploitation of young girls happening on a constant basis. Unlike her predecessors, she did something about it. She stopped prosecuting young girls for prostitution — acknowledging that they were victims who needed treatment for trauma and not criminals who needed to be incarcerated.

For those who have heard contrary arguments about Harris’ past work as a prosecutor, rest assured that you are hearing this from someone whose life’s work has been dedicated to the cause of equality and justice. I am the chair of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office Racial Justice Committee and have scratched and clawed for some semblance of justice in our courts for well over two decades. I grappled with this idea of defending a former prosecutor for a long time, but Harris is more than that. I have to acknowledge the truth and say what I feel is right to set the record straight. Should Joe Biden decide not to select Kamala Harris as a running mate, her track record as San Francisco district attorney should certainly not be one of the reasons.”

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trulisthetic · 5 years ago

Photo

Japril The Sims Project - April’s Room

[Included in Jackson’s House - s13 (level floor)]

Story

April moved back into Jackson’s house after the Montana/Maggie/Matthew fiasco was all cleared out (read x, x, x etc). Even though they were working things out and were sleeping together at nights, April still spent a lot of time in her old room. Jackson’s bedroom was bigger and far more elegant, but her room always held a special place in her heart. When they had first had Harriet and she had moved in with him, he had allowed her to make any changes to it she wished, and she hadn’t missed a heartbeat. The creative person she was, she changed the entire place completely, making it so her that Jackson couldn’t bring himself to change a single thing about it even after she moved out... even with Maggie around. April’s room was left completely untouched and unused, waiting for her to come back; just like Jackson’s heart. He wouldn’t have it any other way... even including those stupid throw pillows.

Series VS Sims Pictures

The idea was to create a copy of the original Grey’s Anatomy set in The Sims 3. However most of the time, and this is no exception, we are shown only bits and pieces of a room, and thus the result isn’t 100% accurate. In addition I am obviously not a professional of any short, this is something I do just for fun.

All those aside, here are a couple of comparisons from the original set and the Sims one.

Note: All screenshots from the series are from the opening scene of episode 13x15. I have partially cut the characters out of the images so that the background is clear, but other than that the images haven’t been modified in any way.

Little Details

Nighty, nighty!

April is the cutest when she sleeps, and Jackson can back that up. But she is also thoroughly organized even then. A well-made bed with no wrinkles on the sheets is a must for a goodnight’s sleep. And so are many fluffy pillows for cuddling (can be replaced by a certain someone *cough**cough*) and a warm and cozy blanket with floral patterns because it’s April we are talking about here. Those noisy slippers have to be neatly placed on the side of the bed, her gray robe waiting on the hanger for the morning, and there’s always a glass of water on her nightstand just in case she wakes up thirsty during the night; waking Harriet is definitely not something she is interested into. Organized as she is even in this department however, she is ridiculously messy once finally asleep. Her hair is all over the place, her limbs fly to all directions, she cuddles everything within reach and yes, she snores. Jackson made the mistake of pointing that out once... let’s just say he should have known better.

Fun fact: That painting above her bed was originally in the Japril Apartment back in seasons 10-12. Specifically it was located in Japril’s bedroom, right above their dresser.

Feels like home.

It is common knowledge that April is a nature freak. Being born inside a barn (she is the one she was talking about in 12x24, fight me) and growing up in a farm in Moline, it was sort of inevitable. As a child she used to spend a great amount of time walking in the woods, her favorite sound the rustling of the aspens’ leaves as the wind blew through them. It makes you wonder if the tale of the little red riding hood was written for her; she sure owns the color.

Long story short, nature lives inside her, and it sure reflects on the way she decorated her room. As long as actual living creatures are not crawling around inside, Jackson is fine with it.

Organization is the key.

If you’ve met April, then you probably already know what her desk looks like. Simple but effective is the motto here, and not a single thing is out of place. She keeps her files in folders in alphabetical order, and she uses markers and post its in such a degree it’s ridiculous and adorable all the same. Her Bible is also in reach, always coming handy. And is that a red little notebook over there? You can bet that it is.

Did anyone say throw pillows?

There’s a little ‘hide’ in one corner of the room, a round loveseat filled with endless throw pillows, in a classic April fashion. Of them, starring is a handmade one she made herself in the shape of an apple; a reference to the one nickname she was once given that she actually liked. The walls behind are wooden, one full of classical works of literature that satisfy her romantic nature, the other proudly displaying a collage of April’s most treasured memories. Located right next to the fireplace, it’s the ideal corner for cold winter nights of book reading, a hot cocoa, and maybe a couple of fortune cookies just for the shake of it.

Speaking of memories...

April is always thankful for everything she is given, but there is nothing she feels more blessed for than the people closest to her. Collages are her thing too, so what’s more natural than a wall collage of her most treasured memories taking up an entire wall? It’s mostly consisted of her friends and family... who aren’t all necessary human. April didn’t think she overdid it with this project. Jackson kind of did, but he had an enormous smile on his face for the entire day when he first saw it, so he never said anything. He secretly loves it, but don’t let anyone know. Also don’t let them know the name of that pig.

There’s a pic of April and her father on her dresser as well. Her almost-wedding to Matthew once upon a time wasn’t such a fun story to tell, but it was the only time her father got to walk her down the aisle. She hoped she would get the chance to update the photo though, if and when she and Jackson got married once again.

Note that she loves music boxes. There are three here, one with a ballerina, one with a unicorn and one with a fluffy bunny; the latter being her favorite.

And last but not least, that trip to Montana -even though for a while it had unfortunately been given a meaning completely different than it was supposed to- was a real turning point for Japril’s relationship. No blood no fool however, and since everything had been cleared out they could only look back at it as a time of real bonding, deep connection, and brilliant make-up sex.

So that’s about it for April’s room! Thank you guys for sticking around through this narration, I definitely enjoyed creating this room and I hope the results are satisfying to your eyes as well. Let me know what you think!

See ya <3

#japril #japril the sims #japril the sims project #sims 3 #April's Room #April's bedroom #jackson's house #jackson avery #april kepner #project #japrilgreys #grey's anatomy #I TOLD YOU I WOULD NEVER GIVE UP ON JAPRIL #I'm still here folks #boost me up so I can get this project going please?#leave a little comment below tell me what you think #THANK YOU!!!

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tisthenightofthewitch · 5 years ago

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AN INTERVIEW WITH TOBIAS FORGE.

The Swedish rock band Ghost will be performing at the TaxSlayer Center on October 8. Coming off a European stadium tour with Metallica, the group has headlined summer festivals and has embarked on a massive North America tour that includes New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Boston … and Moline.

Tobias Forge is Ghost's creative force, front man, singer, songwriter, musician, and architect of the storylines woven through the band's albums, videos, webisodes, and live shows. Although Ghost has been awarded a Grammy and had three consecutive number-one songs on the Billboard mainstream charts, it is the musicians' tongue-in-cheek anti-pope appearance that truly defines them. In a July 30 interview, Tobias spoke about developing the band's visual identity and his aspirations as a filmmaker.

Visuals define Ghost’s image. Are they as important as the music?

Oh, absolutely. Even though I don’t sit down and specifically draw and paint our album covers, I’ve always been very specific in what I wanted. And how I wanted the record sleeve to embody the record I made.

As a record collector, I am more than often compelled by the artwork of a record. I’m a firm believer in a really nice-looking record sleeve. And that makes me want to like the record more. Today, even though people might not consume a recording in the physical way we used to, it’s definitely a case of your visual presentation that accompanies whatever file they are going to listen to. If the graphic content is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it opens up an avenue into people’s souls. I know this because I’m so easily charmed by record sleeves.

Are the album titles also important?

Absolutely. There needs to be a sort of a narrative between the artwork and the title of the record. And, of course, its content. In some way or form, it helps if the title summarizes a little what the record is about. Usually, most good records have some sort of theme – even though the songs might be about different things.

A lot of singer/songwriters go through phases: it’s the “divorce” album, it’s the “I’ve just gotten married” record. “I’ve just became a father or mother” record. And “now I’m older” record. And “the midnight crisis” record. And “the beard” record. In some way or form, it’s good to communication a little of what kind of state of mind you were in while making it or which state of mind you want the listener to think you were in. As opposed to just leaving it blank.

There’s a fascinating word play in your titles. Do you enjoy playing with words? Creating a sense of mystery through words?

Very much so. I’m also very much influenced by cinema. Even though I know there’s no film called Infestissuman (the title of Ghost’s second album), I also try to come up with a title for a record that could be a film as well. Like a big epic, three-hour mastodon matinée film. (Laughs). I’d like to make a film called Meliora (the title of Ghost's third album).

I understand that you have aspirations to be a filmmaker. That you’re working on a film. Could you speak about the film?

About a future Ghost film?

Yes.

I cannot speak about it in detail. But, yes, I’ve always been very fascinated with the art of filmmaking.

I definitely am in the process of exploring the possibilities of combining my musician career with a film project. Let’s put it that way. And as with anything cinematic, it takes a lot of time – and way more politics – than making a record.

In the process of this, I’m trying to vet my brain and my ideas into being super-sober about making a film that is actually needed and called for and will turn out really great – so that it doesn’t just became a really confusing project.

Over the course of rock history, there are a few films that have been made that are really cool. Even though many of them end up in more of a cult section because they are … weird. I don’t mind weird at all. I grew up watching a lot of films like that.

I would love to make a film. I would love to make it good-weird, but it needs to be good as well. It needs to be something that people can watch. I’m currently in the process of learning if I can.

The humor in your webisodes complements your albums, which sound epic. That’s a fascinating combination.

Yes. Just to give you a hint of what I spoke of in my previous answer about a possible film: a full-length film would be in that vein. Based on that sort of mythology. I believe that there is something more to tell within the storyline – within the concept of what we’ve outlined briefly – in those episodes.

Most of my favorite films have some sort of absurd humor in them.

I think it’s important for films, too. Just as with any dish at any restaurant, there are certain ingredients that you need to have. Even if its just a pinch of salt. Usually you need that. There are certain aspects in there that make it a consumable plate.

Even if you’re making a horror film or drama or thriller, there needs to be some sort of comic relief at some point. I guess what would change in a long format, is that it wouldn’t be as comedic every minute as it is in the short form.

As there is comedy in a horror film, your music has a unique dichotomy. You have metal riffs and an understated singing style. That’s very appealing to me. Was this natural to you? Is it something you developed?

Everything develops on the basis that it is being received. So I believe that to a certain degree if you’re an artist – be it a musical artist or a filmmaker or a writer or a painter – you need to be somewhat auditive when it comes to the needs and the wishes of your receiving part. As much as any aficionado of subculture, I like a lot of artists that just go against everything and make whatever that comes into his or her head regardless of what a public thinks. But most successful artists have in some way or form nurtured the relationship they have between themselves and their audience. The way that you would nurture any relationship with another part – be it a partner in life or a partner in work. There’s some sort of collaboration.

If you look at big bands that went from debutantes playing clubs to big arena acts, their first records are usually slightly more raunchy and maybe faster in tempo and might include a little bit more complicated arrangements. What you usually find over the course of time and further into their careers, they start making records that are more moderately paced. Or they are paced in a different way. Certain songs don’t really translate very well in a very, very big room in front of thousands and thousands of people. Common lingo among rock fans is that, “Oh, they sold out. They just want to sell records.”

No, they write music that will feel comfortable in the setting – in the forum in which they are performing these songs.

You do what you feel is good for both parties, and that’s how you develop your relationship with your crowd. You don’t do this 100 percent all the time. But you should be aware that if you start doing shit that your significant other – in this case the crowd – doesn't like, you’d be stupid if you continue doing it.

Coming out of a Swedish metal tradition, your music is surprisingly melodic. Sometimes hauntingly beautiful tunes with beautiful choirs. How did this sound emerge?

I have always listened to lots of different music styles. Everything more or less oriented in punk and rock. Except for my love for underground extreme metal from the '80s, most of the other types of music that I listen to are actually quite melodic. I’ve always been melody driven. Ninety-nine percent of the time, my way of listening to a song is to listen to the melodies. It doesn’t hurt if there’s a really good rhythm.

For me, melody is like the dialogue of a film. If you just make a film with just background, it might be an interesting idea. But if you want the film to be of value, you definitely need to have someone within frame saying something. And it’s important what he or she is saying. That, for me, is the melody of a song.

But then you can pimp the song out in so many ways and that’s part of the craft of songwriting. But without a melody, the likelihood of a song being good is not big.

On your first album, I understand that you played all of the instruments except the drumming. Is it hard to only be the front man in live performances?

No, I’ve learned how to deal with that. I just had to sort of disregard how I viewed myself. I always thought that I was going to be the lead guitar player of a band. A Keith Richards in the band. My intention with Ghost was the same. During the first four years – between 2006 and 2010 – up until the very last moment of recording the album, I still thought that, just before mixing the record, that we better find a singer. We never found a singer. So we kept my demo vocals basically. I re-sung them to get better takes. They were on the demos just to explain how the song goes.

That’s the way I’ve always worked. When I write a song I always play everything. So regardless of who might have executed it on a record or executed it on stage, it’s always my way of playing. If I were to play a bass in another band, that’s how the bass would sound. If I were to play drums in a band, the basics of how I arrange songs, that what you hear in Ghost. That’s how I play the drums. Then I get a really good drummer in to play really well, but that’s how I approach thought in all these different instruments. And that has become a signature thing for Ghost.

That makes writing records easier. That makes having a band together very hard. But that is just the nature of the beast. It’s just coming to terms with accepting and owning that. It has definitely taken some time.

Fame doesn’t seem to be your prime mover. What do you think of fame now that your identity has been revealed?

I have, as much as anyone who has any inclination to rock in a band, always wanted to be in a well-known rock band. What comes with that is fame. Up until I was probably 30 years old, I wanted to be very famous. And I wanted to be known. After I started working with Ghost, I was definitely enjoying … . I wouldn’t say anonymity. I was never anonymous. But Ghost and the visual side of Ghost was definitely overshadowing anything that I was. Over the years of being in a well-known band without being a very well-known person myself, I actually started to prefer that over being a recognized person myself. Despite having wished for that before, there are definitely two sides of being recognized. When you dream about it, you only see the upsides. It’s only about the perks of fame.

I don’t feel in any way or form that my so called “coming out” was negative. It was just a weird thing having to deal with a higher level of recognition so far into your career. That was a little bit weird because it usually comes gradually.

For example, for seven years I never took photos of people. If you ever saw a photo of me, it was always a friend of mine that took a photo and I thought it would never be posted online. Or it was someone taking a photo of me without me knowing it. So all of a sudden, when I was out of the closet, you couldn’t really tell people any more that you wouldn’t take a photo with them. All of a sudden, you can’t say no to anyone.

That is something I suddenly had to adopt to because it was very easy earlier to say no, no, no, no. You know how it is. Now if I say no, someone could be very offended. Which is a little sad because I might be on my way into a car that is leaving in 10 seconds and we’re in a hurry. And there are 10 people by the car and you’re like, “I really don’t want to do this to you but … .” And I can’t even finish that sentence before the door is closed. And people get offended. I don’t want people to be offended and sad.

Fame is something that sort of came overnight. But it’s a good problem to have.

All content owned by River Cities Reader

#Tobias Forge #Tobias Interview #The Band Ghost #Ghost Band #Cardinal Copia

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goffilolo · 6 years ago

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Demise!Izuku as a Youtuber?

Yep! You heard me right. Demise server is a strange little land, full of strange little ideas, unfortunitely this one idea in particular wasn’t so little. So without further ado here’s all the shit we came up with in the server in regards to izuku as a youtuber within demise!au:

If Izuku was a YouTuber can you imagine the fucking chaos dumpster fire his channel would be

He's be like an edgy twink Jenna marbles(edited)

Doing Me time every damn day

bandit is jennas dogs

tenya is julien

He'd have weird ass videos like dipping bandits feet in red pet dye then putting a sign on him that says "you pet and you'll meet the last person who dared to"(edited)

And he's also make videos about him breaking into UA and interrupting classes and stuff

"hey gamers, today we're breaking into UA to see my boyfriend and read all of my friend's secret files"

And a video just of him filing Aizawa in weird places and at the end putting him on an inflatable mattress and watching him float away

He wakes up in Canada

They don't know how or why

He just attaches a go-pro to trash bandit and let's him run wild. He probably has a seriesJust letting him loose in weird places

DONT LET TRASH BANDIT EAT AIZAWA'S SLEEPING BAG AT 3AM | VERY SCARY"hey guys so today ill be doing the 'How many bottles of quil can i steal before i get caught by Tsukabitch' challange. feel free to make a video of your own!"

He probably dyes Bandit according to holidays and puts him as the profile picture. The kicker is, he only does it for holidays that his country doesn't celebrate

Like 4th of july

And Canada day

"Hewo soulless fuckers it is me your overlord, King of the soulless fuckers. Today I'll be going up to people in the streets and telling them that I killed God and Satan. But y'all know me, that's not enough. So I'll be asking them which one I killed first and if they get it wrong I take a shot of quil. The quil I'll be taking is the plain ol kind so don't worry your little marshmallow heads about it."

He only makes text posts in OwO speak this just makes me realise demise!izuku would make a great youtuber

He would twitch stream all the time doing the weirdest shit for hours on end

"what is up gamews! today i wiww be weviewing the new game cawwed life! i have been pwaying it fow about 16 yeaws now and i have to say it's pwetty bad my guys!"

I feel like he'd be absurdly popular and whenever someone mentions him and they look up the channel they are like "wth have I stumbled upon?!"

I'm just imagining what his front page would look like

The seasonal trash bandit profile picture, the banner would be a flaming hellscape with people he dislikes burning and trash bandit looming on low opacity in the background

(He made it so that only people who view it on TV get the full experience.)

He probably has his own segment on buzzfeed unsolved

Not talking

Its about him

The intro video would just be him staring into the camera while mixing together a horrible concoction of quil then downing it without breaking eye contact(edited)

His about section is written in 3 different types of code and it's all in owo if you manage to crack it

i love demise|!izuku as a youtube cryptid

Clown Speak and OwO speak mixed together

I feel like in the beginning Izuku was this obscure YouTuber that you only find out about if someone in the know tells you about it until a bigger YouTuber found him out on a deep dive video and just couldn't stop watching yes

i imagine once he gets big people from react channel would invite him to react to videos of people reacting to his videos

What if in one of his videos he started acting like his old self just to freak everyone out. He didn't say anything about it instead he talked about hero analysis with a bright smile and trail off into muttering a few times only to blush when he realized it. He have his hair in a ponytail with only bangs framing his face and some messy pieces falling out. Also her be wearing something plain but like old Izuku, maybe hero merch or something. The comment section was just people flipping out and shit

He never acknowledges the video after he made it

No matter how many comments he gets he acts like it doesn't exist

omg you know wha tthat would actually allign with the demise and canon swap places for a da

yand you know what that gives me a lot of feels

the millions of subscribers get to see the old izuku

Maybe after a milestone he would post a video he made in middle school of him analyzing a quirk in video format to make sure it wouldn't get destroyed

And he put a couple videos of younger him after it

But it starts being supporting Izuku

And his present and past self and stuff

PEOPLE MAKE FAN ART first Its all full of trash and memes

What if that picture of canon Izuku meeting demise Izuku was a fan art someone made of his old self meeting the new him

Kids from his class kinda Piecing together they really screwed up?Some even sending in apologies, perhaps

For mental health day I could see him posting a serious video about what he went through and his time in the mental hospital

And on national stop bullying day he would talk about his decade of abuse including the details of how the school and teachers fucked up and everything aboutbakugou

izuku using youtrube for shitposting and advocating

And for mothers day he features both Rei and Inko?

Endeavor exposure video

What if Rei helped edit or something?To help pass the time for her

Give her something to do

People love the mysterious editor

I feel like villains watch his content like maybe Dabi

rei and fuyumi sometimes make appearances

Dabi just shows up in the videos

Quickly become faves

I feel like Dabi would become a fan and start crying after seeing his mom happy in one of Izuku's videos

"...and this is rei, my hospital mom and this if fuyumi, her daughter so like my sister she helps me keep my shit together and sometimes gives me quil.."

dabi crying from seeing his mom happy in some lunatic's youtube videos

“...and this is shin, dont let the looks deceive you this man went to jail"

Shin comes in and covers the cameras a lot

FATHERS DAY IS A PICTURE OF TRASH BANDIT WITH HIS DADS VOICE SCRAMBLED OVER IT

“and this is the local florida woman and her alligator

WHAT IF BNHA VERSE HAD QUIRKLESS AWARENESS WEEKizuku would go ape shit during that week

"who needs a quirk when my dad gave me a gun!"

He would give axe sharpening tips

"Remember kids! Society won't help you, so you gotta help yourself!"

he would make 'how to cook videos' except it would only be quil combos

What if one day he just put quil in the ovenand pulled out a muffin

Remeber, don't try this at home kids." makes A horrifying quil combo "rememer never ever do this even if you have a quirk that allows it." downs the horror concoction

"so today were gonna do my boyriend does my makeup challange and since both me and tenya are dumb and know nothing i borrowed my mums makeup..."

It’s a given he’s gonna do makeup tutorials. The real question is would they be good or absolutely horrendous?

good or horrendous? Both

Amazing makeup at horrendous things? Hmmm interesting

“Hey guys today I’m turning myself into a real like eldrich abomination with the help of eyeliner and glitter!”

izuku has a whole playlist of videos dedicated to tenya and UA

theyre all jsut shitposty compilations of some footage when tenya isnt looking

Even tho it looks like he couldn't give a fuck he is very selective with which footage makes it online. He's very careful at how much is revealed and makes sure no students or secret identities would be in danger with his content

izuku isnt stupid...hes jsut having a good time

Sneaking into UA highschool by hiding in pro hero eraserhead's sleeping bag | NOT CLICKBAIT

Izuku would totally play carefree and childish games while just being Izuku

Like his animal crossing series

Fucking legendary on his channel in terms of gaming

izuku's sims lets play

it's like a 10 generation long telenovela lowkey based off the todoroki family

He has no straight sims, he recreated UA and class 1a in sims

the wedding of sim izuku and sim tenya is like the biggest party in the sim neighbourhood

He creates endeavor just to lock him in a room with 50 ovens

Omg his draw my life has got to be super depressing

He'd be super blunt and monotone during his whole draw my life going through all of the abuse and bullying that he went through because of his quirklessness and also his suicide attempt and all that jazz(edited)

izuku would paint on a potato

Izuku would make a get ready with me where he does something totally batshit crazy then ends it with "Ah. Yet another day in my life."

Izuku meets Marie Kondo

“Only keep what brings you joy”

“Well this gun from my father sure brings me joy”

Knifemaking videos but with axes

Izuku decided to do a wardrobe tour and like 4 things were bloodstained which he never addressed. The most popular comment was what happened, which of course he never answered.

Izuku does these new year (like all of the questions from last year) or milestone Q+A’s/AMA's which are basically people just asking a bunch of the things he wouldn't answer or address before. A lot of his viewers write down and timestamp when he does something and doesn't address it. If you don't you'll never hear an answer.

He has his boonk gang phrase which is probably like Bandit gang or some shit like that, which he shouts while breaking into places. UA dorm rooms, UA facility office, UA, Hero Agency’s, Endeavour's bedroom (Don't ask), etc.

He has a variety of videos where he does things from different communities. For example he has a few hair tutorial and following hair tutorial videos. Same for makeup.I feel like Izuku would also have some dresses and slutty Halloween costumes that be put on in a video all while looking like someone who just had finals and was studying for 4 days straight beforehand.

At like 4AM a thought hit Izuku to have Trash Bandit meet Kouta for the first time and learn what his sheep talks about and what he has to say. Needless to say he took his camera, went to UA, stormed the dorms, went up to the shy kid sheep in hand, looked him dead in the eye, and asked “What is my sheep saying.” bandit speaks and Kouta goes from confused and slightly scared to disgusted and horrified. What did Bandit say? Who the fuck knows…

Izuku loves analysis and while he doesn't do it for heroes anymore when he misses it too much sometimes he does it with tv shows or other things.

Idk what yet but Izuku is weirdly good at something and only showed it on camera once. (He's casually known to be a good artist) Whatever he's good at he did it once for a video and it's in one of the most popular compilation videos of him. 15 minutes of Izuku being a cinnamon roll.

Izuku has a shit ton of videos featuring the UA kids. He has some playlists dedicated to certain ones even if all you see is the back of their head.

Any proceeds Izuku manages to get (he is popular but he gets demonetized a lot) goes to different charities for the quirkless.

He made only 1 serious cooking video on his birthday, but instead of using a knife he used an axe.

He has a video called “My sharp things (tour)” where he just shows off all of his knives and axes and shit along with a massive pair of scissors he got Momo to make.

Izuku makes videos of himself destroying endeavor merch while staring at the camera.

#demise!au #bnha #youtuber!au #boku no hero academia #midoriya izuku #word vomit

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mytearsrricochet · 6 years ago

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color icon tutorial

ok i’m not super great at making icons but an anon requested a tutorial for my icons so i will post my process! it’s good for beginners i think (even tho i have been making these icons this way since 2016 lol)

you’ll need:

Photoshop CS5 or higher (I have CS5 which is quite old, I know, but I pirated it many years ago oops)

relatively hq pics to make icons out of

a psd (if you need some, tumblr.com/tagged/psd is what i periodically check for some).

an action (preferably sharpening action, since that is what i use)

a texture if you want

you, yourself, and you, and i guess this tutorial

i’m going to be making this as a beginner’s tutorial so it’s gonna go about as in-depth as one can be! it’s gonna include a lot so feel free to skip a lot of it if you are already pretty well-versed in photoshop or icon-making.

ITS SO LONG IM SO SORRY IT IS SO VERY IN-DEPTH I’VE EXPLAINED EVERY POSSIBLE THING I COULD’VE

but also if you have any questions at all, please let me know. i love teaching people stuff.

example of the icons that i make:

Hi hello welcome

Ok, so first open up Photoshop. I am using CS5.

You will need hq pics of whatever you plan to icon. I do 99% Taylor Swift, so I use taylorpictures.net for all my icon needs. Make sure they are of semi-decent quality, they don’t have to be amazing since we will be shrinking them down to a very small size so much of the quality is gonna disappear anyway but like, make sure you can at least tell the subject from the background distinctly (you’ll see why later).

This is the picture I am using for this tutorial (and will post icons separately):

Open this in ps (File > Open > the picture)

Ok so now it’s the actual tutorial lol

1. Crop the image

We are not going to crop it to 100x100! Select the Crop tool and set the dimensions to 300 px x 300 px--MAKE SURE THAT YOU TYPE IN PX AFTER YOU TYPE IN 300, OR ELSE IT WILL CONVERT TO CM AND THAT WILL NOT WORK FOR THIS!

Next, crop the picture you want as much as you want--as long as you get what you want in the icon. For these kinds of icons, you just want to focus on one item--like Taylor, for example--instead of multiple (not Taylor and her backup dancers since this isn’t what my icons look like and you won’t be able to do that very well on a beginner level). Crop that to a 300x300 px size and click the check mark on the top bar to finalize it.

If your pic is hq enough--meaning a larger picture--it will probably look super small. That’s ok, it’s just proportional to the old picture. Go to the right side bar and select the Navigation tool.

If that tool isn’t there, you will just have to go to Window and select Navigator, and it will bring that up for you.

See where it says 100% in the picture right there? It will likely say something like 25% or whatever if you just cropped it, so change it to 100% which will bring it to full size.

Cool! now it should look like this:

2. Use the Quick Selection Tool

Go to the left sidebar on Photoshop. Depending on which PS you have, it might look different. This is what mine looks like. Regardless, the icon should look relatively the same I believe across all Photoshop versions. If it’s not there, you might want to left click and hold down on some of the icons and see if it is an alternative option (it should be there already--but it is grouped with the Magic Wand Tool just in case).

This tool has three options in the top bar: free select, add, and subtract. Start with the middle option: add.

This will allow you to choose which parts of the picture you want to select to cut out for your icon. You can change the selection brush size, but I always keep it at 3px because it keeps it really precise.

Drag your mouse over the area of the image that you want included in your icon. This tool will automatically choose parts of the image that are similar--for example, Taylor’s blonde hair will like all be selected around the same time, but the pink/blue background will not be, since it can tell that those are starkly different colors and thus two different objects in the picture. It should have a crawling ants moving line around the areas of the picture you want to select. If you go outside of what you want included in your icon, that’s ok! That’s why the subtract option is there. Just select that--to the right of the Add option--and go over what you do NOT want in your icon to get rid of it using the Subtract tool. You might have to go back and forth between those tools in order to get exactly what you want in the final product.

I can’t show you my final outline for Quick Selection since it goes away when I screenshot, but after you’re sure you got what you want in your moving ants line, it’s time to finalize it.

Remember, this tool effectively cuts out the selected portion of the picture from its background.

3. Refine Edge

On the top bar, click the big rectangle button that says Refine Edge. It will bring up a window that looks sort of like this, but I have settings adjusted the way I like:

You can change these settings any way you’d like, but I generally stick with this. It’s also okay to mess around with them and see how you feel. If you don’t want to do that, you can just use my settings and edit anything you don’t like later.

Click OK to cut.

This has pretty much removed the background from the picture and only left what we cut out and a transparent background (hence the checkered background--that is space that doesn’t actually exist). You can also see some shadow from the background around her arms and hair, which we can delete out later very easily. That is a result of the settings from Refine Edge, which is why some people choose to lower the Feather bar so that it doesn’t include as much shadow--which is good for many pictures since a lot of these are straight cuts, but this can occasionally cut out part of the icon you want to keep or make it look weird since you want just a little space to mess up when it comes to the Quick Selection Tool.

Bonus step if you want a selective colored icon:

Some people like really vibrant icons that include re-coloring. I’m not very good at it, but what I do (and it sometimes turns out well--this is typically the way people do it, though they are less sloppy than I am) is select a color from the Swatches at the right that is similar to the one that they want to paint over. For example, if I wanted to make Taylor’s hair more yellow/gold and vibrant, I will choose a yellow. Select the Paintbrush tool. On the top bar, the Opacity will likely be set to 100%, which will basically color right over the picture and look weird. Set the opacity to something very light--mine is 20%--and paint over the part that you want to color. Make sure you do this in one stroke--if you paint over her hair with 20% opacity once, let go of the mouse, then go over it again, it’s gonna start building up and becoming more opaque!

You can also completely recolor a picture this way, like if you wanted Taylor to have entirely pink hair, you can use this same method but choose the pink you want instead of a similar yellow. This can be very difficult and tedious, so I don’t typically selective color my icons, though occasionally I do because I love those icons with obnoxiously vibrant colors.

4. Open texture/create new background.

Ok, so I do both of these things depending on the background I want. I have some textures saved such as this that I use for icons:

I didn’t make it--it’s pre-made by another artist on tumblr from whom I downloaded their texture pack. You can make backgrounds like these too, but I’m not very good at them.

SO you can either File > Open one of these pre-made backgrounds/textures, or you can make your own.

In order to do that, you can do File > New and change the settings to width: 100 pixels and height: 100 pixels. Under Background Contents, choose White. That’s very important! You don’t want transparent, it doesn’t help us. That brings up a new window on Photoshop next to the picture we’ve just cut out, just a small white square. You can paint that whatever color you’d like. Use the Paint Bucket tool and choose a color from the Swatches section on the right. This will make the background completely one color. However, if you want a gradient, you can do this several ways, but I do it like this:

Click that, go to Gradient, and mess around with the Gradient options and see how you like the background. Here’s one I made, for example:

Boom! Background for icon. I will use this since I made it for this tutorial so yeah it might not look amazing but here we are.

IF YOU USED THE TEXTURE I JUST POSTED OR YOU KNOW THE TEXTURE YOU ARE USING IS NOT 100x100--THE ONE I POSTED BUT DID NOT MAKE IS 200x200--THEN YOU NEED TO RESIZE IT TO 100x100.

You can do this by going to Image > Image Size and changing the 200 pixels x 200 pixels (or whatever is there) to 100 x 100.

5. Duplicate layer

Now it is time to combine these two images we’ve created. Go back to the original picture we worked on--mine is Taylor at the BBMAs--and go to the right sidebar. You should have two copies of this image now: Background and Background Copy. Background Copy is the cut out picture we are using for the icon. Right click on Background Copy and select Duplicate Layer...

This will bring up a window that asks what you wanna do with this layer.

Select the dropdown under Destination. Currently, the Document selected is the image we are already on (my Taylor pic was saved under 056.jpg) but we want to click the dropdown and select the pic that we are using for the background. In my case, it’s titled Untitled-1 since I didn’t change the name. Yours probably is too. Select whatever your background image is saved as and click OK.

Now go to the background image or texture that you just selected--your cutout should be there, but you can probably juuuust barely see it! That’s because your picture is about 3 times bigger than your background.

6. Resize layer

Use the Select tool--the very top icon on the left sidebar--and make sure Show Transform Controls is selected on the top bar. If it’s not, you’ll know--because you won’t be able to resize the image.

The square you are seeing (that isn’t the picture) is the layer we just duplicated onto the background, aka the icon. You’ll want to hold Shift and select the bottom right part of the image to resize to whatever you would like visible in the icon--it could be the entirety of the picture we cut out, or just part of it, if you realize you like how only part of it looks. Either way, you need to hold Shift while you do this, or else the image will NOT stay proportional, and it’ll look all wonky. Hold Shift the entire time you are resizing. This is what mine looks like:

You can see I both resized it and moved it a little to the right--you can use the Select tool to move it, but that might move it way too much since it does it incrementally, you can just use the arrows on your keyboard and move it by pixels which takes longer but is way more precise.

You can still see the shadows from the background on the icon, so select the Eraser tool (if the shadows bother you or you don’t like how it looks) and zoom waaay in. You want to be careful with the Eraser tool! (Also make sure Background Copy is still selected so you don’t accidentally erase the background. If you just have Background Copy selected while you erase, it will only erase whatever is part of that layer, it won’t bother the background).

While zoomed in, erase the pixels that are obviously discolored from the rest of the image. You can zoom in and out to check how you like it as it progresses.

Here is mine after I used the eraser tool on any parts of the image I thought were bad! It should lay on the background naturally.

Now that we’ve figured that out...

7. Sharpen/action

Now is the time to apply an action! Please sharpen your icons. You want them to look good on your blog or others blogs, and in order to do that, you need to sharpen them.

If you already have actions uploaded, cool! If you don’t know how, well, I sure am going very in-depth here so you’re in luck.

Download an action from any photoshop resource (or tumblr.com/tagged/photoshop-action is where I look occasionally). You will have to load them onto your Photoshop now. Click the button that looks like a movie Play icon on the right sidebar. This will bring up the Action list. Photoshop likely has pre-made actions for you, but we don’t use those because I never taught myself how to use those so maybe you can use them, I don’t know. I just use ones I download from Tumblr.

Click that little dropdown menu and click Load Actions...

This should bring up a file opener and you can select the action that you downloaded for this icon. It will download it into Photoshop and will now always be there--you don’t have to load actions every single time you want to use them. If you load them once, they should be there for the rest of forever.

Scroll down to find that action and select it. Now, make sure you still have Background Copy selected. I don’t care about applying an action to the background, just the copy, which is still our image that we cut out. Click the Play button on the Action list--pictured above on the very bottom of the screenshot, next to the Circle and the Folder icon. This will apply the action to the background copy. (Hint: if the Play button isn’t available, it’s probably because your action is in a folder. Click the dropdown of the folder and click the first thing under it--that should be the action and it will apply it).

There it is with the action applied! It’s muuuuch sharper--perhaps a little too sharp, but that’s ok, it won’t look bad on people’s blogs.

8. Add a PSD

To apply a PSD, File > Open and choose the PSD you want to use. I listed above where I find most of my PSDs, just download one you like. You can choose 100 different ones and try it out if you want. I use the same one for everything, by @toxicpsds (I believe it’s #6). This should open a third window with the PSD over a sample image (thanks to the artist!). You just have to select the PSD layer--not the image with it--and Duplicate Layer and put it on the image that we have produced thus far. It is the same process as when we took our cutout and put it on the background. (The PSD is probably under a group--mine says Group 1--so just select the group in its entirety--shift-click it if you need to).

You can tell the background is also lighter. If you don’t want the color of the background affected by the PSD, select Background Copy and the PSD together, right click on one of them, and select Merge Layers. This will put the cutout and the PSD in the same layer, which should take the PSD off of the background and revert it back to the color we had before. However, I really like what the PSD did to the background, so I will keep it this way.

I am finished now with my icon!

9. Save it for Web

To save the icon to be able to post on Tumblr, go to File > Save for Web & Devices, which will bring up a window like this. It might look a little different since I have my settings a certain way, but whatever.

(Sorry this looks weird here, it’s just what happens when I screenshot. I’m not a tech wizard).

Your pre-saved things might look different, but make sure you are saving a a PNG-24 for the best quality. Just make your settings look like this, basically, then click Save.

There she is! All done!

If you have any questions, let me know! I tried to be really specific, but I’m not sure what level people are on Photoshop (probably better than I am) so just ask if I need to clarify anything!

#icon tutorial #tutorial #*mine

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rainh2oman · 5 years ago

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Jazz Potluck - Episode 01.

Like countless folks around the world, I LOVE music. Pretty much any and all genres. JAZZ however, is the music that seems to bring the most joy in my life. As a creative person, I always need to have music on in the background while I work, (well, all the time really) and jazz has always seemed to catalyze my creativity.

I dig this sentiment from the late writer Anaïs Nin:

>>>"Jazz is the music of the body. The breath comes through brass. It is the body’s breath, and the strings’ wails and moans are echoes of the body’s music. It is the body’s vibrations which ripple from the fingers. And the mystery of the withheld theme, known to jazz musicians alone, is like the mystery of our secret life. We give to others only peripheral improvisations."

This “Jazz Potluck” is something that I’ve been wanting to do for years and years, but I never quite got around to it... (I’ve got enough plates spinning already, not much room for another! Hehe.) Anyway, I’ll be sharing Spotify playlists here as often as I can... containing a rich mix of jazz that I love, and would love for YOU to love! I’m certainly no music critic, and I’ve no intention of “analyzing” the music I share, the way that a professional might. But, I will provide some brief personal notes about the songs in the playlists, and hopefully some jumping off points for further exploration, if you dig what you hear!

So without further ado, here’s the very first edition of my Jazz Potluck... Episode 01! There are 16 songs here, with no particular theme, other than that I DIG ‘em, and they get a lot of rotation in my headphones! Quite an eclectic mix!

Here’s the direct link to the playlist on Spotify - Jazz Potluck, Ep 01.

A preview of the tracks in the playlist, and some brief notes on the songs, below.

“Dirty Blonde” by The Bad Plus

“Giant Steps” by John Coltrane

“Chinoiserie” by Medeski, Martin and Wood

“This I Dig of You” by Hank Mobley

“The Windup” by Julian Lage

“3-in-1 Without The Oil” by Roland Kirk

“Gangsterism on the Rise” by Jason Moran

“II B.S.” by Charles Mingus

“It Might As Well Be Spring” by Brad Mehldau

“Gazzelloni” by Eric Dolphy

“Nu Nu” by Avishai Cohen

“Salmon Jump Suite” by Happy Apple

“Brother Mister” by Christian McBride & Inside Straight

“Tiffakonkae” by Kamasi Washington

“Greasy Granny” by the Charlie Hunter Trio

“Cease the Bombing” by Grant Green

Playlist - EP 01.

01. “Dirty Blonde” by the trio “The Bad Plus.” Starting this thing off with a BANG! From the moment I first heard this song back in 2004, I knew that I had stumbled on a Jazz Trio with something utterly unique in their music. A piano, bass and drum trio that has produced some delightful original material over the years, as well as a bunch of “cover” songs that in some ways, helped make them famous in the Jazz world.

For all of the critical acclaim the band has received over the years, one thing that has always stood out to me is the HUMOR in their music. They are often filed under “Avant Garde” Jazz... but they are really in a sub genre of their own. They play with real heart and soul, but they don’t take themselves too seriously, and they KNOW how to have a good time. When you hear all hell break loose at the 2:44 mark in “Dirty Blonde,” you’ll know that you came to the right party.

02. “Giant Steps” by John Coltrane. What can I say... I listen to this song pretty much EVERY MORNING when I wake up. If not immediately after I open my eyes, certainly by the time I’m making coffee. The fast paced tempo and saxophone wizardry of Coltrane and his crew in this Jazz standard always motivates me to get going.

If you’re not familiar with the song, here is a FANTASTIC video backgrounder on the piece, called “The Most Feared Song In Jazz, Explained.” I highly recommend watching it right before or after listening to the song. VERY enlightening!

03. “Chinoiserie” by the trio “Medeski, Martin and Wood.” What an amazingly funky cover of the Duke Ellington composition! I’ve been a fan of MMW since the early 90′s, and this album is probably my favorite, next to ��Shack Man.” Medeski rocking the Hammond B3 Organ, Chris Wood’s bouncing bass, and Billy Martin’s frenetic drumming, make this tune just boogie right along. Be sure and listen to Duke’s original version of the song, to see how it sounds with a much larger band!

04. “This I Dig of You” by Hank Mobley. Uptempo, feel-good tune! (And I love Art Blakey’s drum solo around the 4:50 mark!) This is widely considered to be Mobley’s most popular original composition.

05. “The Windup” by Guitarist and Composer Julian Lage. This tune features his current Trio. I was a latecomer to the music of Julian Lage. I only really started listening to his music in 2019... but I’ve made up for lost time! (I think I have his entire catalogue now!) If you’re not familiar with Lage, he’s a prodigy and was recognized as such by age 12. Now he’s in his early 30′s, and a career that’s going strong!

06. “3-in-1 Without The Oil” by Roland Kirk. If you’ve heard of Roland Kirk (who later went by Rahsaan Roland Kirk) you’re likely aware that he was famous for playing multiple instruments at once. I always found his crazy, loosy-goosey style to be sort of “optimistic” if that makes sense? Very unconventional, and devil may care!

And speaking of his talent for playing multiple horns at the same time, here’s a passage from my FAVORITE novel, “Another Roadside Attraction.” Author Tom Robbins seems to really peg Roland Kirk in just one sentence.

>>>They are playing phonograph records, some wild new jazz. Straining my ears just now I heard Amanda ask, “John Paul, is it true that Roland Kirk is the entire Count Basie orchestra in drag?"

07. “Gangsterism on the Rise” by Jason Moran. I love the heavy left hand Moran utilizes on his piano in this tune. (Not unlike Pianist Ethan Inverson from “The Bad Plus” in “Dirty Blonde,” the first track in this playlist.) Boom boom boom! Here’s a quote from a music critic that pegs Moran’s style quite well: >>>“Moran is a spellbinding virtuoso who moves between boogie, avant-funk and Brahms as if he had never heard a good reason not to.”

He’s also a stylish sort of fellow....

08. “II B.S.” by Charles Mingus. I’ll have MUCH more to say about Mingus in future playlists... but I had to include at least one of his compositions in this 1st Episode! He is likely my all time favorite Jazz Composer. (He was an amazing bassist as well, but his compositions are what really knock my socks off.)

09. “It Might As Well Be Spring” by Brad Mehldau. This album was Mehldau’s major label debut, and was the first album of his that I purchased way back in 1995! What an AMAZING debut! I chose to include this cover of "It Might As Well Be Spring” because of it’s unusual and playful time signature. It’s a classic Rodgers and Hammerstein tune from the 1945 musical film “State Fair.” Mehldau does something really surprising with this classic tune, and it was such a breath of fresh air to me when I first heard it!

Here’s a passage I dig, from the great jazz book “Playing Changes,” by veteran Jazz Writer Nate Chinen. He zeroes in on what makes Mehldau’s rendition of the song unique.

>>>Introducing Brad Mehldau opens with a quick spray of staccato: tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, like someone knocking impatiently at a door. It’s the preface to Mehldau’s arrangement of a show tune, “It Might As Well Be Spring,” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein film musical State Fair. The song had long been a verifiable jazz standard, with dozens of canonical recordings: by singers like Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nina Simone, and by others ranging from the pianist Bill Evans to the trumpeter Clifford Brown.

>>>Mehldau’s version arrived in 1995, precisely half a century after the line “I am starry eyed and vaguely discontented” made its way into the popular lexicon. He and his trio had made a neat structural modification to the tune, tinkering with its pulse in a way that their syncopated prelude set in clear relief. Instead of the even 4/4 cadence known as common time, the track races along in 7/8, creating the impression of a rhythmic hiccup, or a sprint with a hitch in its stride.

>>>Jazz musicians have been dabbling in irregular meters since well before Dave Brubeck’s enormously popular 1959 album Time Out, which made them an exotic selling point. What’s striking about Mehldau’s performance is where he ventures after the opening vamp, phrasing the melody in a cool, flowing cadence even as his partners, the bassist Larry Grenadier and the drummer Jorge Rossy, busy themselves with percolating chatter behind him. In his articulation of the theme, and in a solo full of deft intricacies punctuated with breathlike pauses, Mehldau gives the song a sleek, appealing contour. His performance doesn’t feel herky-jerky or cerebral. It feels natural, even inevitable.

10. “Gazzelloni” by Eric Dolphy. "Out To Lunch” was the first album I ever bought in the “Avant-Garde Jazz” genre. I certainly wouldn't have been ready for this album in my teens or early 20′s, but I’m really happy that I developed a taste for the genre in later years. It’s some of the most expressive Jazz that I’ve ever heard, and I LOVE to have it on when I’m designing something, or working on a painting. Seems to connect the creative synapses in my brain somehow!

11. “Nu Nu” by Israeli Bassist and Composer Avishai Cohen. (Not to be confused with the Jazz Trumpeter of the same name.) This song is the opening track to Cohen’s album “Continuo” and really sets the tone for the rest of the album. I don’t know what time signatures Cohen uses in this tune, but they change up frequently over the course of 5 minutes. He’s a great composer, and a MONSTER on the bass. It’s said that he took up the bass in his early teens, because he was inspired by the legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius. (An inspiration that likely applies to MANY Jazz bassists since the 70′s.)

12. “Salmon Jump Suite” by the trio known as “Happy Apple.” This song is a smash-em crash-em DEMOLITION DERBY.... and I mean that in the most respectful and delightful way! Play it loud, and I think you’ll agree. Badass.

Oh, and the Drummer is Dave King, who’s main gig is as the Drummer for the aforementioned trio “The Bad Plus.” King is one of my favorite drummers, not just in Jazz, but it ALL genres of music. A real monster on the drums!

13. “Brother Mister” by Christian McBride and his band “Inside Straight” from the album “Kind of Brown.” McBride REALLY gets around as a bassist and composer... just scroll through his credits as a sideman on his Wikipedia page! One of the hardest working musicians in ALL of Jazz! His humor and playfulness comes across in both his playing, and his compositions, and "Brother Mister” is a great example of these. “Kind of Brown” is easily my favorite McBride album!

I should also note that McBride’s funny, extrovert personality has turned him into a popular Jazz radio host! You can catch him on Sirius X, NPR and other programs.

14. “Tiffakonkae” by Kamasi Washington. I simply cannot get enough of Kamasi’s music. I find him to be one of THE greatest talents to emerge in Jazz, in it’s entire history. I don’t think that is hyperbole. I was a couple of years late in discovering him, but since the day I heard his first album “The Epic,” he has been on my DAILY listening routine. No kidding.

If you like what you hear in this cut from his 2nd full length album, do yourself a favor and watch/listen to this special on NPR, that will show you some of what I’m talking about. It’s a 2 hour live performance and series of brief interviews with Kamasi and his collaborators, known as “The West Coast Get Down.” It might give you a buzz.

I’ll be featuring Kamasi and company on PLENTY of Jazz Potluck playlists going forward!!!

Here’s Nate Chinen again, from his book “Playing Changes,” talking about Kamasi bursting onto the scene. (Indeed, Chinen opens the first chapter of the book with Kamasi!)

>>>Kamasi Washington stood tall on a lot of big stages during his Year of Ascendance. Swaying in tempo, pushing heavy gusts through his tenor saxophone, he exuded the regal composure of a conquering hero: dauntless, doubtless, ablaze with rugged purpose. His sound on the horn—rangy and intemperate, or clipped and urgent—suggested an almost tactile force, a physical fact. He cut an equally imposing visual presence, in an unkempt Afro, a thick beard, and a dashiki, its patterned fabric loosely draped over his burly frame. And as his band raged around him, the music’s exultant sprawl enacted a ritual of transcendence. It was all rattling and ecstatic, maybe a little mystical. For many who bore witness, it was, brazenly, something to believe in.

15. “Greasy Granny” by the Charlie Hunter Trio. This album was my first introduction to this virtuosic Guitarist, back in 1995. (I seem to be including a number of albums from 1995 in this list... funny coincidence!) Anyway, as you listen to this tune, keep in mind that he is playing bass lines, chords AND melodies, ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY!!! I don’t know how in the hell he does it, but I’ve seen him performing live a few times over the years, and he makes it look effortless!

This song, “Greasy Granny” is as FUN as the name suggests.

16. “Cease the Bombing” by Guitarist Grant Green, from his 1970 album “Carryin’ On.” Figured I’d close out this 1st Episode of the Jazz Potluck with a long and smooth groove. Easy like Sunday morning.........

Stay well, people!

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echonidae · 5 years ago

Photo

edit nov. 23rd: alrighty, break is over !! the seven main slots are back c: for now commissions will be done in a slower pace while i sort out schoolwork (but i only have classes for two more weeks !!) so there's that c: ,,,,i ended up not having much time to revise the whole commission page ;o; but i'll also eventually make a separated page for the older completed slots, just so the page doesn't get progressively longer asdfghjfghj

——— COMMISSION STATUS - OPEN please read all the info + rules carefully before requesting a commission!! by placing an order, you're agreeing to all the rules!!

4000x4000px .png images (icons are 800x800px !) at 600-700ppi by default, digital medium only; one file watermarked for reposting purposes, another with a tiny signature off to the side; payment is done half upfront, half right before i send you the finished drawing (two invoices) after i accept your order, you must pay the first half in 72h to occupy a slot or your request will be considered null and void! waiting period for the finished drawing is 1 to 3 weeks (due to classes — i tend to work fast tho) — i'll keep you updated!

7 slots per batch — icons have dedicated slots!! once i get this batch done, i'll open more slots — for icons, i'll create a new batch and reopen slots as they get done instead :) max of 2 slots per person (icons don't count for Main slots so if you want two commissions + up to two icons, that's fine !!) , only one character per slot.

more info under the cut!! please read all the info + rules carefully before requesting a commission!! by placing an order, you're agreeing to all the rules!!

this price sheet is on dA too, in case the readmore link can’t be opened on mobile!

- first batch slot 1 - completed !! slot 2 - completed !! slot 3 - completed !! slot 4 - completed !! slot 5 - completed !! slot 6 - completed !! slot 7 - completed !!

- second batch slot 1 - completed !! slot 2 - completed !! slot 3 - completed !! slot 4 - completed !! slot 5 - completed !! slot 6 - completed !! slot 7 - completed !! -------------------- icon slot 1 - completed !! icon slot 2 - completed !! icon slot 3 - completed !! icon slot 4 - completed !! icon slot 5 - completed !! icon slot 6 - completed !!

- third batch // opened on nov. 23rd slot 1 - OPEN slot 2 - OPEN slot 3 - OPEN slot 4 - OPEN slot 5 - OPEN slot 6 - OPEN slot 7 - OPEN -------------------- icon slot 7 - OPEN icon slot 8 - OPEN icon slot 9 - OPEN icon slot 10 - OPEN icon slot 11 - OPEN

— USD (paypal invoice) only

> ICONS - 800x800px - digital painting style - full color + shading/lighting - colored lineart - optional white outline, chromatic aberration, etc. - simple backgrounds (mandalas, patterns, geometric, texture, transparent, etc.) — ICONS: $ 11 USD

> SHADED LINEART - cellshading in 1 to 2 colors - clean lineart in 1 to 2 colors - solid color bakcground with/without texture - chromatic aberration in the lineart is optional — BUST: $ 12 USD — KNEE-UP: $ 14 USD

> OVERLAYED GRAYSCALE (as in, the drawing is done in grayscale and then i overlay a ton of diffrent colors on top of it) - cellshaded - clean lineart - minimal lighting - simple background with/without texture or simple shapes - chromatic aberration in the lineart is optional — BUST: $ 15 USD — KNEE-UP: $ 18 USD

> BASE COLORS - cellshaded + lighting and lighting effects - base colors - clean, colored lineart - chromatic aberration in the lineart is optional - simple background with/without texture or simple shapes — BUST: $ 22 USD — KNEE-UP: $ 26 USD

> FULL COLOR - full color digital painting - full shading/lighting - colored lineart - simple background — BUST: $ 38 USD — KNEE-UP: $ 55 USD

— each major change (as in: something significantly big and/or detailed, or a portion that is more than 45% of the piece, must be redone partially or completely) to the order after the lineart is done increases the price by $2 to $5 USD!

- will draw furries/anthro animals plants humanoids monsters humans body horror some gore your ocs - will not draw fanart (sorry!) nsfw/fetish/sexualized nudity hyper realistic gore mecha/vehicles/intricate armor (this sort of armor is fine! in doubt, feel free to ask!) text-only references (please send images instead!) someone else's oc (unless you have written permission!) hate speech/racism/lgbtphobia character sheets custom oc design custom clothing design (please send references!!) drawn backgrounds (as in, actual full scenes — abstract or simple shapes like mandalas or the ones in the previous commissions are fine)

feel free to ask if you're not sure whether your order would be ok or not !!

here are the full example images: - icons 1 // icons 2 - shaded lineart - overlayed grayscale (a more colorful one in this style would be [this] one!!) - base colors - full color (this was an ab extra for an auction so i can only link the preview, sorry!! most of my art is in this fullcolor style tho so here are some substitutes [1] [2] [3] [4]) feel free to check out previous commissions here!!

——— RULES / MORE INFO

- i reserve the right to refuse a commission request without needing to provide a reason — please don't take it personally!! - once i've accepted your order, i'll send you an invoice asking for the first half of the payment, which you must pay in 72h. after i receive that, you’ll occupy a slot and i’ll start working on your piece! - i'll send you some rough colored sketches for you to choose which one you like better; please make sure to think carefully and say if you'd like to change something before greenlighting one of the sketches! we can stay at this stage for as long as it is needed, no rush c: but please keep in mind that once you greenlight it, i'm not going to start over! - i'll update you again once the lineart is done (wip screenshot including the previously agreed color scheme, if applicable) — at this point, only color palette and minor changes to the lineart (small changes in the expression, moving a hand a bit to the side, more or less texture detail on faces and hair, etc.) are allowed free of charge — each major change after the lineart is done will increase the price by $2 to 5$ USD! - * i'll send another update right before finishing the piece so as to work out last minute details and small changes. * once your commission is done, i'll send a second invoice asking for the rest of the payment — after i receive that, i'll send you the full-res images! i'll also post the commissioned drawing here, on tumblr and on ig — if you don't want to be linked to the drawing once it's posted, please do say so ahead of time! - i won't accept private commissions (as in, the drawing isn't posted anywhere). i also will not do any edits after the commission is done (as in, after the second invoice has been sent) — again please make sure to voice your thoughts in the sketch phase! - please understand that, although i'll follow references as closely as i can * (and you can feel free to tell me if i missed a detail any time) * , i'll make stylistic choices due to my artstyle and i will not try to replicate someone else's style. - i keep all the copyrights to use, post and showcase the commissioned drawing in any and all websites, portfolios, announcements, etc. i won't sell or make prints/etc. of the drawing, and i'll make sure to add info on who the commission was for. - the commissioned drawing is for personal and non-commercial use only; you may not claim my art as your own nor profit in any way from the drawing. the resolution should be good for printing and you may do so for personal use but please don't sell prints of the drawing. * the commissioned drawing is a digital file, and i won't send any physical items to you. * - you keep all the rights to your own ocs, designs, concepts, and stories. - do not trace, copy, or edit the drawing in any way. and please do not erase my signature in the unwatermarked image, it won't be obstructing anything. - i'll send you a watermarked and an unwatermarked version of the drawing — only the watermarked version may be reposted (with credit) to prevent misuse/theft! the icon's file i'll send you does not have a watermark — still, credit is appreciated! i'll post icons together in a single post, and those do have watermarks for the same reason as mentioned previously ;v; - please don't commission me with a deadline in mind — your piece may take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to finish, though i'm aiming for the former. i'm currently in classes right now and they, of course, have a greater priority over commissions — if something comes up that results in a significant delay on your piece, i'll notify you of it! - i'll refund your payment if i wasn't able to finish or start your order. if you must cancel your order for any reason, please contact me asap so we can discuss it! if you give up on the commission mid-way or after it is done, i will not refund you and won't take commissions from/sell adopts to you in the future. - that being said, please do not commission me if you're unsure you can pay or unsure you actually want it!

by placing an order, you are agreeing to the terms and i assume you have read all the info i've written down! i'm not going to negotiate the terms! feel free to ask any questions!!!

——— IF YOU'RE INTERESTED

send me a note/PM with the following information:

subject: commission request paypal email: (so i can send you an invoice) type of commission: (icon, lineart, grayscale, base colors or full color?) type of composition: (knee-up or bust?) description/ideas: (please write a detailed description of what you want from this piece! what sort of mood/expression/pose/color palette/etc. do you have in mind? do send any ideas for composition and other elements even if they feel vague, we will work together on shaping your order c:) reference image links: (other than character sheets, these can be palettes, pictures of outfits, pose references, etc.! please keep in mind i won't do text-only descriptions/references, nor will i design characters/clothing/etc.!! also please make sure that the character sheet is colored or send a specific palette! if you have a quick sketch or doodle of what you have in mind [even if it's just stick figures!], it would be greatly appreciated if you linked it too!!!)

anyway yeah thank you for reading this far!! i realize this is very very long, still haven’t quite set up a dedicated page for commission info orz if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment or send a note, i'll get back to you asap!! c: ♥

#artists on tumblr #my art #commissions open #paypal commissions #artenidae #commissions #price sheet #artists on deviantart #illustration #digital art #portrait commissions #<3 here we go again !!

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