#pen pressure isnt working so this is what i made

[dominodamsel]

to absolutely no ones surprise, i chose the route where you and your hot chad alpha empress gf overthrow an oppressive religious regime built by gods who care not for human life first

...and then i also went back to go with rhea because i want to fuck the pope

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem rhea #fire emblem edelgard #fire emblem #my draw #pen pressure isnt working so this is what i made

[billionairesitgirl]

Do you have any tips to help someone who keeps failing? I have been trying for several years now to get started and feeling more and more hopeless every year. I have attended $$$ events, lost weight, moved closer to major cities. Then of course COVID struck and made things worse. Is there something I can do that can help me gain an "in" or are certain things just not meant for some girls.

KEEP TRYING !!!

Yes i screamed it...  but that’s because thats the most important thing in succeeding.

Secondly Congrats on taking the steps and trying..... 

(THIS MIGHT MAKE MAKE YOU NEUROTIC.... If you already are then DO NOT DO THIS)

The following is also important 

1.) Have you asked your self why you keep failing?

Take a pen and paper and spend an entire day by yourself. Think, play things over in your head and Analyze.... This is probably the only time i truly suggested, over analyzing the crap out of your life, decisions, faliures and successes. 

(a) What mistakes, do you keep making? or What mistakes do you think you keep making. 

(b) what makes them mistakes 

(c) Would those actions have worked out better in something else or displayed to someone else 

(d) who and/or what would this action work on

2.) List your obstacles ... Every single one you could think of... 

Make 3 categories

 .....Obstacles you have gone through - What caused it? who caused it? (Regardless of who caused it... You owe some responsibility... so still own up to it... But remember BE KIND to yourself...) 

There is a fine line between being kind to yourself  and completely absolving yourself of any responsibility when owning up to the responsibility of things gone wrong

......Obstacles repeated - How do you NOT repeat this Again?

.......Obstacles Imagined and Obstacles that could still happen (based on different things, character flaws, finances, men’s personalities, race, looks, nature) Get as detailed as needed.  

Man plans and God unplans ... 

However, as humans we have ability to at least create contingencies... try to come up with possible contingency plan and POSSIBLE action on how to still not stand still when one of those obstacles appear... Basically figure out another way to scale through, wiggle through, swim through... whatever way (As long as there is life, health and will... there is a way.... After all people have clawed out of dungeous using only a stick or even their finger nails)

3.)  What have you tried that didnt work? or keeps failing... List it

4.) What ever #3 is that didnt work... What is the alternative that you haven’t tried. 

5.) Clearly you see this as an investment if you have lost weight, moved etc... What is missing in the picture? (I don’t know you, nor have I spent time with you or know your thinking process or views... So this is something even if you dont know what is missing... You have to sit and think... Sleep on it, give it time but remain introspective but be mindful to know when clarity presents itself. 

Being brutally Honest with yourself is the only way to know what is missing and where you are missing. 

Example: I met a gorgeous black girl A few months ago. From the get go, I knew she was hypergamous... The men also knew. But there was something missing and i couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Until we were all talking with the men present. 

She carried herself as a pretty girl, sweet and bubbly... But she made the mistake of trying to emulate the white woman’s countenance... So she could be doted on same as a white woman... I can’t explain this in detail.

But while it is good to emulate things noteworthy in other people... She lost her self and her own personal spark.  As a black woman... She avoided the pitfalls of a stereotypical black woman (quote on quote)... in the process, she mistakenly lost her goddess quality and blended in with the rest.  The men moved on from her. 

My Point is: WHAT IS MISSING... Are your run of the Mill? What is your core

6.) Standard - 

Do you have set standards? expectations of yourself and of the Men and of your surroundings?

Do you keep it? Do you up hold it or do you switch or lower it under pressure? 

Not to give too much information... I refused to live in the poor neighborhood when i moved off college campus. I lived in a condo and lived Smack in the center of the wealthy part of the city. I was not in this lifestyle then... But it was simply my standards... And even though it meant staying on campus longer till i got it... I did that.

Example 2: I have friends who do not care what hole they enter to get entertained (granted you can meet people anywhere)... But I am not the type that goes out very often... So why will i waste my few outings in some frat boys bar or club. So I go to high end places.

Example 3: I met a man who recently sold his company with upwards of $80 Million... I wasn’t told... I was aware of the process and listened to him through the proceess complain about delay in the closing and trying to avoid tax etc

He was deperate to meet me in person. As a matter of fact the day he closed. He flew me to his city (I went cause i was bored).  Long story Short... He is the type of man that got lucky... There isn’t much in terms of comparison... Thinks he knows everything, thinks himself black people’s savior and makes comments such as “If there were black women like you”...  Has some racists views he doesn’t think is racists... I met his friends... I liked one (But he just recently got remarried and was the smartest of the bunch). They had pissing games who had thr most rolex collection etc... He was crazy about me... Still is even without so much as a kiss and i spent a weekend there. (Had my own hotel room)

But, I knew while the money was there, he was generous and was crazy about me... It would drive me nuts being with him and interacting with his friends... My standard here is that I won’t deal with any man who so much as stresses me mentally especially as I am a black woman... I won’t take nonsense.

My Point is : What do you compromise on that you do? It is a long road being steadfast to your standard... But it has been worth it for me.

Do not use anyone’s standard... Create your own and work on keeping it... Men will despise you for it... But respect you all the same.... It is a weird placed to be.

7.) What type of events do you attend. When you attend events, go out etc... What do you do? How do you approach these events? Do you wing it? Do you plan it?  Are you fearless and confident or shy or just pleasant enough to exchange pleasantries alone? What vibe do you give off? 

How do you dress? Different styles can come across different ways... Some ooze Sexy, some ooze elegance with a hint of sexy, some basic, some regular, some say just another event person

8.) Closer to Major cities : what part of that do you live? Even if you are not in the center of things... Where do you go when you go out? How often to do go to wealthy areas, who do you interact with there? 

There is a plethora of questions who have to ask yourself.

With Covid I have met people (but then, I work for myself and have more freedom to move around and also take mini vacation in other cities) And I already have a network... So, I have a  leg up -  

But, I know girls here and people are also still meeting people.

What is stopping you? What avenues and methods have you tried? Have you thought outside the box? 

Hopeless? No... Wrong direction... As you fail you learn things that dont work so that should make you hopeful. 

Also, I am a big beliver in manifestation and law of attraction. Feeling hopless will only make things more hopless...It will attract more faliure...

Find ways to think more positively, ways to turn negative things into potentially positive things... In this case you do not have to be rational... Imagine everything negative happening has a positive... 

e.g  : A man cancelled on you = It wasn’t meant to be... It might have turned into a terrible situation for you... Thank God or the universe for saving you from whatever it is you arent aware of. 

eg : Covid happening : Time to make more money, invest. Brush yourself up, level up some more, learn new ways to meet this men and become more resilient so you come out fire when, the world isnt tupsy turvy

e.g : Getting older: Perfect, the more sure and certain you become in yourself, the more you actually find out what makes you stand apart, the more you find out who you are and realize that whatever amount a man was going to give you last year, you’ve outgrown it with age, maturity, acheivements etc.

You get the gist.... NEVER FEEL HOPELESS

You can feel sad... But not hopeless... Dust yourself up and try again...

Maybe one day i will take time out to share some of my own short comings and faliures... Cause i think we share the successes much more;  that people think there aren’t mistakes and faliures and short comings... I have had them, and I continue to work and fix them. 

The only thing is after my introspection... and brow beating myself and figuring it out...i don’t like to dwell on the faliures... I put my self to work updating myself. Besides I think sharing more good news brings more good news and vibes... But, there isn’t anyone that can claim to not have had obstacles and faliures.

Finally: My sister beleives everyone has a destiny... But everyone is also capable of changing theirs... 

With regards to your question...  About certain type of girls ...

The Answer is NO...

Some people might find it harder, or lack the resources and know how

But trying, pushing ones self, acquiring knowlegde and doing whatever it takes (of course within reason and comfines of morality ) Is what makes the difference.

As i write... I know women who took their entire savings to go to ST Barts for New Year...  (Would I? NO) But some would... My point is. 

You will go as far as you are capable of seeing yourself go.

So if you want a change in your pattern... You have to break the wheel... Try something new you haven’t tried yet... And a new approach. 

Question for you: “Gain an in?” Into what circle do you want an in? What type of man

#hypergamy, #datingtips #sugardatingtips #sugardatingadvice #levelup #levelupadvice #sugardatingtip #sugardating

[cunaeparker]

toffee & tears | peter parker x reader

Pairing: Peter Parker x Fem!OC

Summary: Peter's protective over cabbage, Shiloh Jane has a god-awful gag reflex and a bad tendency to cry in stressful situations, and Ned can't read an expiration date to save his life.

Word Count: 3.2k

Warnings: Mentions of vomit 

this is for @spider-pxrkers​ writing challenge !!! i used an original character if thats okay. the prompt i chose, ‘take a picture it’ll last longer,’ is in bolded italic. also, if you have a fear of vomit, please don't read the parts in between the asterisks. its not mentioned much and isnt very detailed but there are some descriptions. ill put an indicator ( asterisks ) where it is so you can skip, though as a fair warning, its kinda crucial to the storyline and if u dont read some itll be kinda confusing. no pressure tho !!!!

masterlist // peter parker masterlist

"It's raining."

And Peter was right: the rain pounded against the large glass windows and thunder streaked across the grey sky, making SJ's heart skip a beat every time it crashed, startling her, and permitting her hand to twitch at the sudden noise; it smeared her pen handiwork on her page, and with an angered scoff and a mutter, she attempted to quickly wipe it off though her attempts were futile — the brand of ink seeped and stained the lined paper rather well, given the fact that it didn't smudge yet based on the way she was writing with her left hand.

Of course, just when the written report was due for creative writing, she somehow managed to smear blue ink all over her assignment. And leave her computer at the bus stop, which is why she was writing on paper in the first place.

Great.

She wanted to scream, but when Peter waved his hand in front of her, trying to grab her attention, she looked up at him, his words bringing her back to ground: She was in his apartment, working together because he was her partner. How could she forget? The encounter had been anything less than pleasant, if she was being honest. Peter forgot to offer her a drink, his living room looked like a neglected neighbourhood wetland, and his fridge reeked of old cottage cheese that he forgot about.

SJ sighed and nodded reluctantly in response to his bleak observation.

"I know," she replied. "I noticed."

Her words were said coldly, though not at all there — she was distracted, still preoccupied with the stain. She frowned and tried to wipe at it again, but this time, it smeared onto her writing and made it nearly unintelligible. She scoffed and began to wipe more vigorously, unaware of Peter's small smirk as he observed her, amused: she was wearing an oversized NYU t-shirt that he guessed she got freshman year, black shorts that hugged her hips a little too tight, a silver necklace that dipped nicely into the divot in her collarbones, a pair of funky long socks that she borrowed from her friend — adorned in a dreadful pot pattern, of course — a small bit of something subtle underneath her high cheekbones, contouring them beautifully, and best of all, a large, frustrated scowl on her face, tinged pink with annoyance.

It was endearing, if it wasn't for the fact that her venomous glare at the inanimate object was penetrating enough to puncture flesh, of course. But anyway, regardless of how much her gaze made him uneasy, he spoke again.

"You look like your head is going to explode, Shiloh Jane," he said.

Her scowl deepened but she didn't look up from her page. In fact, her pen began to fly faster.

"Don't call me that."

Another simple answer. And a retort, at that.

Peter raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his water. "You're a tough one to crack."

She didn't look up. "I know."

"Why do you keep giving me short answers?"

"I don't know," she said, shrugging.

"You're frustrating."

She finally looked up from her page, eyes wide and face flushed. Exasperated.

"What do you want me to do, give you my views on the meaning of life?" she snapped, annoyance lacing her words as she leaned forward and pressed her lips together. "I came here only because we were paired up for this damn assignment. And I hate to be blunt with you, Peter, I really do, but I really don't want to be sat at your coffee table while you do no work."

Peter shrugged. He reached across the table to take a sip of her coffee. Her aegean blue eyes narrowed.

A another scoff echoed from the back of her throat.

"That's quite the tangent," he commented, swallowing the coffee. He suppressed a shudder and a grimace, finding it rather lukewarm for his taste. He didn't know why she drank it cold but intended to ask her later. He continued. "Do you need some water? Your throat must be tired considering all that scoffing you're doing."

She stared at him for a moment, incredulous, before shaking her head — and unpredictably, scoffing — before going back to scribbling.

Peter was about to comment on how her handwriting looked like chicken-scratch, but decided not to mention it. He would rather not be found in his apartment with a slit throat from her sharp-tipped ink pen.

But, within a few seconds, he was back on the instigating train.

"Okay," he teased, leaning forward and furrowing his eyebrows as he took another instinctive sip from the coffee mug — now grimacing because he wasn't expecting the cold taste, "are you angry?"

SJ's freckled cheeks reddened and he thought he saw a flash of rage pass behind her eyes.

"No, I'm not," she said quietly, leg bouncing rapidly from underneath the table. "I'm... irked."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "Irked?"

"Yes."

"That sounds like something my grandma would say."

Suddenly, she slammed down her pen and looked up at him.

Peter jumped back, unprepared to see her eyes as livid as they were, especially with her heaving chest that had to be from an irregularly beating heart. Her eyes were wide and livid, nostrils flaring and hair seeming to frizz and heat with electricity, body reacting to the live, angry wires sparking inside of her — until her chest heaved one last time and her eyes broke, welling with tears.

And then suddenly, she was crying.

Peter sat still, perturbed.

"You don't get to comment on what I'm doing, Parker!" she cried shrilly, tugging at her hair. "All I'm trying to do is make it through the fucking semester, but here you are, acting like everything's fine, when it's just... not! I need to focus for fuck's sake! Can you please stop pestering me?"

Peter stayed quiet.

A large influx of guilt passed through his body and he had to suppress a shudder.

"I..." He bit his lip and meant to say something else in attempts to comfort her and apologize, but for a fleeting, idiotic moment, among the sound of SJ's blubbering lips, his eyes darted around the room and landed on the English toffee Ned brought back for him from England on Christmas vacation four years ago on top of his fridge — it was old, never-eaten, most likely bad, but he still found himself asking in a spur of the moment blur, "Do you want some toffee?"

SJ's cries stopped and she looked at him as if feelers sprouted from his head. "Toffee?"

Peter hesitated and for a moment thought that she was going to surge forward and throttle him.

"Uh, yeah. Toffee," he said reluctantly. He nodded his head towards the fridge and fidgeted with his fingers. "I have some, if you want. I think there's liquor or something in it, if that helps how you're feeling." He paused. "I... I'm sorry for how I acted, too. It was really immature."

But SJ didn't miss a beat.

"Toffee?"

Peter didn't know what to say. He opted for a slow, hesitant nod and a small, forced smile.

And then suddenly she sprang out of her chair, shirt clinging to her body from the tears she shed. Peter nearly fell backwards out of his chair at the sudden agility she showcased, but she was already onto the next thing — SJ stormed to his fridge muttering curses under her breath as she threw the door open and began rummaging through his groceries.

It was all so sudden the only thing he could do was stand and watch with a slightly gaping mouth.

But when she tossed a head of cabbage Peter was planning to use for dinner onto the floor, that's when he lost it.

"What are you doing?" he cried, stumbling forward. He picked up the cabbage and looked at SJ, scandalized. "I was using that for dinner!"

"And I want to get rid of this before I eat your damn candy," said SJ heatedly, eyebrows furrowed determinedly (and rather angrily, for some reason) as she pulled out the container of cottage cheese. "This has made it increasingly difficult to focus. How the hell do you eat this shit anyway? It tastes like underpants," she grimaced, tossing it into the sink, where it landed with a sickening splat and a gross emission of something that smelled like... well, age-old underpants. "Your apartment reeks of it. I wanted to tell you, but I feel like you kind of deserve it." She simpered and snatched the cabbage from a star-struck Peter, patting it gently before putting back into the fridge. "And don't worry Peter," she began, "it was never my intention to hurt your baby."

Peter's nose wrinkled. "My baby?"

SJ snickered, standing on her tiptoes and grabbing the box of toffee on the top of the fridge.

"The cabbage, of course," she said, before opening the box and popping one into her mouth. But then suddenly, she winced and her face morphed into a funny expression Peter found concerning, ears turning red and visage becoming an ill shade of green. She spat the slightly chewed candy onto the floor. "That's rancid!"

"It is?" Peter asked, genuinely curious. He took the box from her hands as she hurried to the sink to grab some water. The label read: 'Best before 3-18-1988.' Peter's nose wrinkled again. Where the hell did Ned get this from? He opened the cabinet below the stove and promptly tossed the whole thing.

Once he slammed the small cabinet door shut, he hurried over to SJ, who was now positively green and dry-heaving, because apparently, she forgot that the cottage cheese was in the sink and as soon as she leaned down to take a sip, she got a face full of stink.

She dry-heaved again and groaned.

Peter grimaced and pat her back, wincing as a string of saliva hung over the sink, connected between her lips and a strand of thick strawberry blonde hair.

***

"It was really that bad?" he asked, gently rubbing her back as — was that vomit? — expelled from her mouth. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think Ned would get me candy that expired thirty years ago!"

"Thirty —" SJ vomited again, "years —" she inhaled a large gulp of air before nearly coughing up a lung, "ago?"

Peter nodded gravely. "Yeah... I'm sorry." He paused. "Again."

"Ah, come off it," SJ said, gasping before expelling her stomach contents for what was probably the last time. "It's okay. It's not the toffee that's doing this, it's that damn cottage cheese." At the mere word she looked like she wanted to vomit again. "I have a really bad gag reflex and if something smells that bad, I'm gone." She made a whistling noise and showed her hand falling from a high height, before it reached the ground and was backed by an amusing exploding noise. She smiled weakly. "Apologies for ruining your sink."

"You didn't ruin it," Peter said, frowning. He rubbed her back and helped her up from her bent-in-half position over the stainless steel. "I can wash it. I do after dishes every time, anyways." He offered her a small smile. "It's no biggie."

SJ smiled tiredly as he wrapped an arm around her waist. "'No biggie?' Who are you? The Notorious B.I.G?"

Peter rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Shut up."

SJ laughed.

Peter's grip on her waist tightened as they began moving towards the table, and it might've been a little much, but he knew from personal experience how shaky one's legs could get after vomiting. And based on how much SJ did, he was almost certain that attempting to walk after using that much energy would result in a cracked head.

"Ah, shit," SJ said suddenly. Peter whipped his head to the side, expecting there to be blood bubbling from her nose or something, but his gaze followed hers and landed to the mess on her t-shirt. SJ scowled and pulled away from Peter, not noticing how his face fell slightly, holding it up to her face. "It's ruined."

***

"You can borrow one of my shirts," he offered. SJ looked at him funnily. "If you want," he added quickly, turning a subtle shade of pink.

SJ seemed to notice his pinkening face, because her eyes narrowed in a slightly accusatory way, but she seemed to shake it off with a small shake of her head. She tilted her head to the side.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "I don't want to intrude."

"You aren't intruding," Peter said. "It's all okay, I'll go grab you one."

He shot her a smile before heading to his room, rummaging quickly through his messy drawers. He picked out a large, grey Queen t-shirt, and it might not have been the best choice because it was huge even on him, who was short for normal standards — he stood at 5'8, whereas SJ stood at a petite 5'3. He considered it for a moment but shook it off with a brisk shake of his head.

He rushed out into the living room, where SJ stood in the same spot, observing his photographs with a small smile.

As soon as she saw him walk in, her face brightened.

"Is this your picture?" she asked, pointing to a picture of Spider-Man hanging on the wall.

Peter nodded, handing her the shirt as another wave of pink tinged his face. What was getting into him? Maybe it was the fact that he only put it up last year; it was definitely not one of the most humble moves, he loved it: It captured the essence of his alter ego perfectly. He thought it was a good picture and he was proud, considering he took it himself on a timer and in action.

"Yeah, it's mine. Do you like it?" he asked reluctantly, not wanting to sound too full of himself.

SJ nodded. "It's amazing. All the other pictures I've seen of Spidey are blurry and terribly edited. Crazy how those are the only ones that get published, hey?"

"Totally," he agreed quickly. "I actually had an internship at the Bugle — y'know, where they publish the pictures — and they thought my pictures were drawn or something. It was so absurd. They never got published in the end, but I'm still proud of my work." And then to take off the edge of egotistical prick he added, "I guess."

SJ frowned and her mouth hung open slightly, eyes darting back and forth between Peter and the picture.

"You took this?"

"...Yeah?"

"Peter, this is amazing!" she praised. "The colours are perfect and the shot is so clear!"

Peter blushed. "Thank you," he said, walking forward and standing beside her, observing the picture as well. "I really appreciate it. Are you into photography too?"

SJ shrugged. "Kinda. I was into it for awhile, and even thought about majoring in it, until my parents deemed it 'too impractical' and made me do something with English and Science." She nudged Peter's side and scowled. "It's dumb, hey?"

"Yeah," he said, "though I don't see why you shouldn't be allowed to do something you're passionate about..."

Peter felt odd about SJ's small admission. He didn't completely understand why she gave up on the thing she loved when a set of people told her she couldn't do it. He thought she was more strong-willed than that. But, SJ only shrugged, and interrupted his thoughts by placing his shirt in between her legs and taking off her current one.

It was so sudden, just like that, that Peter barely had time to comprehend the fact that some beautiful girl was standing topless in the middle of his apartment, admiring the designs on his shirt like she had no care in the world.

"Uh, what are you doing?" Peter asked, trying hard not to blush and cower away. "You can go in my bathroom to change, if you want."

SJ chuckled and folded the shirt over in her hands, reading the design. "It's okay," she assured, though it didn't entirely help Peter's case. "You don't strike me as malicious." And then just like that, she shrugged off her bra, turning around.

Peter nearly passed out.

He couldn't see anything, obviously, but he couldn't help to observe her back... it was a little intruding, but he couldn't help it. With his heart in his throat, he tried to look anywhere else but her, but his eyes seemed to go against his will and stay there, staring. Her back was well-defined and toned. It looked like she was fit. Peter intended to ask why she just took of her bra in the middle of his living room, but before the words could leave his mouth, he noticed a large, white scar going up the length of her spine.

He frowned and before he could comprehend it, he asked, "What's on your back?"

He clamped a hand over his mouth and felt his heart race. Why did he ask that? Why was he so intrusive?

SJ halted her moments for a second. She hesitated, and her movements slowed, but she only shook her head and blew out a steady stream of air through her lips, finally shrugging the shirt over her defined shoulders.

"It's nothing," she said, turning and offering Peter a taut smile, though her words weren't said as confidently as they usually were. Peter felt an influx of guilt. "It's just some dumb old battlescar, y'know. We all have them." She patted his chest, and Peter's mouth opened to apologize, but she cut him off by pressing a finger to his lips. "Don't apologize," she said quietly. "I get that question a lot. But, most of all," she raised an eyebrow, looking grave and saddened, until a sudden, wide smile curled up her full lips. "You should've taken a picture, it would've lasted longer. I have eyes on the back of my head, Parker. And also, I like Queen. Very unique. You have good taste."

And then she turned, shooting a flabbergasted Peter an enigmatic smile as she walked over to the kitchen to grab a paper towel, most likely about to wipe off the residue on her own shirt. But, it left Peter confused: What was she hiding, but most of all, why did she look so good in his clothing?

***

tags :

peter parker taglist ➝ @galaxystern08 @averyfosterthoughts @pparkeramorr @peterparkermadness

tom holland taglist ➝ @thenoddingbunny-blog​ @galaxystern08​ @coni-marti @inhumanwithpowers​​ @softholand

mutuals ➝ @quackeroos​ @parkersbliss​ @chaoticpete​ @cosmicholland​ @stardustom​ @mannien​ @my-patronus-is-mabel-pines​ @silteplaittais-toi @spideygirl2003 @yoinkyourheart​ @darlintom​ @dreamofaprilsblog​ @the-crazy-fanfictionist @peterspideyy​ @eridanuswave @thirzaholland​ @t-holland2080 @peachyparkerr @parkeret @etoileholland @j-romanoff001 @spider-pxrkers​

#bellasmarvelwc #peter parker #peter parker smut #peter parker x reader #peter parker oneshot #peter parker blurb #peter parker imagine #peter parker headcanon #peter parker fluff #peter parker angst #peter parker x original character #peter parker x fem!reader #spiderman #spiderman smut #spiderman fluff #spiderman angst #spiderman oneshot #spiderman blurb #spiderman imagine #spiderman headcanon #spiderman x reader #spiderman x original character #spiderman x fem!reader #tom holland #tom holland smut #tom holland angst #tom holland fluff #tom holland oneshot #tom holland blurb #tom holland headcanon

[triumphorce]

                   under stars that feel as far as

                               real does..

at the moment.

at any moment..

kidnap me.

any chance presented  

& in moments prior.

spent alone

in 

zone.

far from progress.

stasis,

stationed next to

hope & regret.

on either side.

stamina. breathe now

to breathe more.

no free will.

i got to survive.

i got to make it,

especially if i just change aim

change rim-height,

relate with reality

change chin height,

keep head up,

lower expectations

keep pen up.

can’t make shit up,

so i make this shit up

dig deep, drain soon as i wake up

from sleep, or conscious nap..

break up

buildup

of words

that

feel

like

millions.

euphoric

ultimatum;

write,

or just

waste.

can’t wait

to post, create.

post haste

long ass roads that really dont have

an end, or means to.

I just become more of

whatever comes;

whatever emotions

i allow;

however

i react;

to

whoever,wherever,

when tf ever

‘cause all i am

is now, here.

a little more conscious..

that’s it.

&the more i remember,

the more i forget.

gotta pick and choose.

careful.

careful, please.

carefully

 cut ties, choose way

‘cause by the time it's time to remember

new knew's

once was' just can’t keep up

and i accidentally

delete something

important,

or distort it..

gotta

slow down

life...

ssssshhheesh

i once was in less pieces,

&I at least, once, knew peace, but didn’t know it,

more than likely still do

staring at sky blue.

so blue..

eyes find it soothes

waiting on.

bus late.

contemplating, mind rages

sea

lost in deep

hue pool

sharp, wind wrapping body.

waitin on,

waiting on.

contemplating. gone.

daydreamin way thru life.

thru the little things

i always belittled.

cause I thought I had what i needed. or what I had was mine to keep.

...just because.

i need a little more somethin

a little more new, more original stop cliches, tropes,& archetypes in general

droll,

repetition equals learning, well i'll just lurn-less

beg to differ, by beggin questions, even when forced to tread slow,&only do so in head.

we’re all middlemen.

just fiddlin’

‘round in world,

in universe,

riddled withh riddles,

that

trickle,

drip

in

complex

descent

from cognitive

  beginnings.

ephemeral glimpses of outside-nighttime-world,

through blinds in bed, as a child to now, still just as far from.

as far as real feels.

feelin nothing like how I do now.

but pain passes,

so it just must be my brain's capacity for trust shrank. & elaborates time taken for to cross neural pathways,

not get lost, and make it back safe save, all at the same time, while i attempt to ignore age

pay mind solely to the idea i can do, &I don't have to prove.

to become honest, so potential growth is optimum to be one with me, and know I can't ever be anything but and no idea is ever done, no matter finished, no grey matter greyer, no more dr. bender's, no more directions, no more winners, reflect on self, &what it means-to be better, i deflect defects w/ skylark teeth,  

a truer sense of.. truth

a higher level basic

newfound fundamentals

that all the world and creation in it,

then, now, or later

are truly small

&

no life was ever finished

nobody wants to give it up,but we learn to

and as a consequence return to world what we wish to see beyond our existence

to find trust again love again feel again believe again hurry up, clock's tickin

get it, grind look and find get inspired go inspire go perspire run a mile two three four

five seconds six seconds

gotta go for it gotta get better, 

 never listen only instrumentalz for me

in a room   aspire to be able to define my every rhyme and reason behind thoughts had,

itchin to stay consistent, keep on writing and don't worry about why, keep on filing tomes of dreams, ordering guides to self, from one idea to a whole library of shit I did,

 like,

"oh, damn kid, you wrote that?"

damn right I did.

conversations that I have in my head

while I reread pieces

an elixir, a pensive remedy

for when I feel reluctant toward

reality, when in reality

it's really just the people around me that I trusted, busted ass for, gave up past for filled up gigabytes, sticky notes, notepads for designed a whole world for,

put off parties, friends, a part of me I never gave a chance for. became an outcast for. put on mask for.

to be compared and not contrasted warned and not encouraged critiqued but not heard

made me want

to tell, create a story and not give a damn about glory.

although i worry how i come off..sometimes..

made me

change style time after time for some time, now..

made me have

to boost own confidence, own own ego; inflate like raft, & float to shore,

common ground with action &

focused on

how I'm amounting in life.

..apparently

im just climbing up invisible

mountains

but i don't let it make or break me,

used to,

but no more ,& nowit's just me.

&that's just crazy..

so im focused

on how im a mountain lion to moles tryna troll, but       most the time, tho                    I'm...focused on settling score with where               I've failed

& failed to respond to failure well

                                    let go

of initiative,   hung to anger

in orbit  around regret towards doors left unopened, words unspoken to people gone, that could've changed life, if only They could hear these thoughts.. if only I had someone to talk to besides myself, & people that talk to high-five themselves; given approval never sought, advice for battles never fought, in a room for most of youth, stuck in head, so much to see, explore lore of stories never written, so much done even before i decided to pick pen up, before i decided I was ready for commitment decisions in head turn to an every 5 minute thing,

                  stuck in holes    deeper than before

tell-tale signs around sub-subconscious                         that Im chasin nothin..

apparitions..

in front of people

waitin somethin fierce

for me to

summon what's already there

a mirror image of miracle from thinnest air from holes put in life for pride in pages of jumbled thoughts gaps in memories for drafts that define ironic, describing fine lines I believe are there, in thinnest mirror, between me and experience in eyes that remind me i am less, i am more i am worse, i am better everything in between all and nothing, not objective, but an object capable of observation, own purpose assigned no more worth than yours, no more than I have dealt my self chances missed to live for product tossed or lost in the end

x's & lines through a mind confused,              backspaces                       scribbles       procrastinating daily, delaying the inevitable,                                           staring at.. ...coffee steam            and letters linked in ink curves and ink in nerves

        on nights only sleep's deferred as vivid as yesterdays and scenes in head of tomorrows            mixed in with skips in consciousness     obvious options almost always missed second guesses linger in gut like wtf

what the fuck am i doing everyday, if I don't contribute to future

to believe, or not to believe i was in control of will was the whole problem let go of all it hone on goals. fly low, that is...

as far a stretch as breath of desire to contribute to the world   believing if chance exists, i will succeed I will fulfill promises thru notepads & audience

a caged bird singing

do or do not.

seems all I've done is try, it seems to try isnt good enough, seems what they want from me wasn't what I was told they want, which is for me to want from me & instead what they want to see is what they want to see

me to become this and not my own, no matter how many hours spent, no matter the font, text, or etiquette formed to gain attention, but apparently a proper use of improper use of prose prospered overtime & i kept my posture, keep me from losing self, going crazy, letting people make me think something's not okay, or wrong with me, or out of whack off top, not taken seriously

priorities of the majority of society made it difficult to captivate eyes, and garner respect, because of conflictive internal contradictions to set out for what I thought was spreading message, but was embedding judgment of self, & effort, looking at motives that been made a home in heart like they suspect, but they was who fucked with me when I wouldn't even fuck with me, wanna be someone else, something else, like what you want clave?

to wait for mine..

psh, nnn’eh, thinking I was good enough to be taken seriously ..

thinking there was nothing to do, but to do, but something changed course, one day,

 one day atta time

thinking that I was right behind, could just lift up arm and touch but that wasn't the case, ever, constant race

     couldn't hold on, couldn't hide the pain to psyche out greatest opponent, me

                   didn't want to, saw no point

   repeating and repeating, over and again

so on and so forth, thus forth destroying self                               convinced I couldn't help it      and still am

and still can't

accept I ever gave in,   broke under pressure, buckled under what some would chuckle over, no pity, just recognition of jimity's petition to push when pushed, with thoughts into written gale force, in a position to always hope, so when foundation crumbles, there's another one up under

if not, I use earth to wander.

whether with excess of momentum or subsiding in subtle realization of sustenance behind life's work

purpose on course set to find reward I'm told I'm looking for..

fin

#poem #dps #clavevesari

[ambunny]

If it isnt too much trouble can I ask you to go in depth about the Yiynova tablet you have? I've been looking at display tablets for a while and you're the first artist I've followed using this brand, and im curious about the what you like and dislike about it

Hey there! I’m no master reviewer, but I can share my thoughts and experiences using this tablet. I hope it’s of some help to you!

Firstly, the model I have is the early model Yiynova MSP19U, which I got back in July 2013, making it around 5 years that I’ve had this tablet. I believe they don’t make this exact model anymore, they seem to have upgraded it to an MSP19U+. The one I have does not have the side buttons, the face of the tablet is completely blank (this is preferable to me though, as I’m left handed and having shortcut buttons on the left side would not be useful to me anyways!).

Here’s an old image of what it looked like on its sale page:

I’ll now mention some of my opinions in pros and cons that I’ve seen while using this product. Keep in mind this was my first monitor tablet, and it’s still the one I currently use! I have never used a Cintiq or seen another brand in use other than a Huion of similar size that my housemate owns, so I don’t have enough experience with other brands to compare them to this one.

PROS-

-cost, does its job well for much cheaper than many other competitive tablet brands

-viewing angles are great, I use this tablet both for art and also as my main viewing monitor for watching videos and browsing websites

-monitor settings/programming are very nice and have many options for customizing

-pen pressure is responsive, minimal lag, feels very natural to draw on

-size is large, can easily display art programs + open reference images and has lots of workspace to utilize

-colour quality is excellent. May require some adjustment through monitor settings to get to what you want. It also had no dead pixels on arrival, and 5 years later I only have one or two dead pixels on the entire thing that are barely noticeable.

CONS-

-pen it came with has a few annoying quirks: the buttons on it are easy to accidentally press (which causes it to interrupt lines) but are programmable and can be disabled, which I did. The pen also is not rechargeable and uses 1 AAA battery, which gives it a weight some people may dislike (I prefer it though, & I use rechargeable AAAs anyway). It has a screw-on cap which unfortunately can be easily over-tightened by accident, this has caused my pen’s cap plastic to split a bit, making it easy for the cap to fall off while drawing. Taping it shut has helped, although it’s annoying. Lastly, the pen’s thin rubber grip cover can slip off super easily, it can be annoying while drawing (I’ve since just removed it entirely). I have heard that they’ve updated the design of the pen to no longer be the one I have, and fix the many issues mine had. But I have not been able to try out the new pen design yet. Here’s what my pen looks like:

The new pen design shown in all of their pages now is this:

From the pictures I can see that this new pen is reinforced so it shouldn’t be able to be overtightened, and it seems to have a texture throughout instead of a removeable grip that slips. It still runs on battery, and the buttons are placed in a way it still looks like they might be easy to accidentally click during drawing, though.

-vesa stand plastic quality is a bit poor, mine recently had the hinge holding it together shatter, which made the tablet no longer able to be adjusted in height/angle. I had to do a DIY fix haha, so far it’s holding up okay but not as well as when it was in original working order. Here’s a small picture of my broken vesa stand hinge, pointing to the part on the tablet that I’m referring to:

-VGA cable is a bit outdated and also a very delicate, susceptible to bending. VGA is an old input that many newer computer graphics cards don’t support, so I had to purchase a VGA to DVI converter. Minor issue, as it works fine with the converter. The second problem is a bit more serious. The cables on the yiynova are very seemingly delicate. They worked fine for the first few years of use, but now if I so much as bump the cable, it distorts the display and makes it flash in RGB colours. This is due to my computer setup requiring me to bend the cable slightly in order to fit in the VGA converter + tablet cable between the wall my computer is against. Right now I’m at a point where I have to manually bend/straighten some parts of the cord using zip ties, for the display to show proper colours. Here’s a short video showing what I’m talking about, in it I am bumping the VGA cable to show how the screen goes to magenta by a simple touch (warning for people with epilepsy, flashing colours):

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3_B6Vsv6deA

-screen resolution is a bit weird to work with at times, 1440 is fine but 900 is on the lower side. Other reviewers have complained about fuzzy resolution, but it doesn’t bother me so much and/or I don’t notice it as much, but I would definitely prefer an HD version. However, for the cost this serves its job well.

-size is great workspace wise, but this tablet is far too big and heavy to easily take with during travel. For those who travel, this is definitely a home model not intended for that.

Ultimately, I truly believe this tablet is worth it. It is easy and fun to work with. You get what you pay for, as there are some mild quality issues BUT these may have been fixed or improved upon in the updated versions. I don’t have much money and can’t afford to replace higher-end purchases like this, so I tend to use things I have for as long as possible until they are entirely dead and irreparable, hence the DIY things I’ve done to repair the pen, vesa stand, and VGA cable. I’m not sure how long a tablet like this is supposed to last, but this one has survived 5 years of heavy use, including moving house multiple times as well as across country, and cats that like to play with cables and loose pens.

This is all I can think of for now, I hope it helped! Feel free to ask me if you have any specific questions :D

#tablet #yiynova #yiynova msp19u #review #text #ask #uwu-tang-clan

[natasha--margaret]

Art Analysis

cogc

task: Complete the assessment on printmaking processes

1. Identify which process of printmaking you see yourself working towards and using your own words, describe this genre. Identify the key characteristics of this process.

The process of printmaking that I see myself working towards the most is linocut. I haven’t been able to try much of the different techniques so I will be basing this off of the different processes that I have tried as well as from what I have found out from researching, and i have decided that linocut is the process that I see myself working towards. I like this technique as it is very easy to do and you can do any type of design easily, you can also get any level of intensity you want when doing this technique. Linocut also gives bold designs and clean prints. My genre of art is dark, horror and alternative styles. As my personal style is dark and alternative, I like to use this as the genre for my artwork. Usually when doing things such as drawings or paintings, I like to do detailed graphic pieces that have a lot of dark colours and tone/depth. When it comes to linocut, my genre changes a little. When doing linocut I still like to do alternative/dark designs but I try to make them a little more simple but still with the dark graphic ideas. Linocut is a printmaking technique where the artist cuts into a linoleum sheet with a blade to create their design. After the design is cut into the lino sheet, the artist then uses an ink roller to roll printing ink over the lino. The inked lino is then placed on a material and pressure is put over it to help print the design onto the material, this is usually done by using a press. Linocut is very similar to woodcut but due to the different variables of wood and lino, linocut can leave different effects and styles when printing. Lino prints can be created in masses due to the ease of reusing the lino sheet. The sheet used for linocut was created in 1860 by Frederick Walton in order to find a cheaper alternative material. The technique of linocutting was created in the 20th century although was frowned upon by artists due to its ease and lack of needing technical skills. German expressionists such as Erich Heckel and Gabriele Munter are thought of some of the first to come up with using lino for art purposes. Linocut was being used for black&white prints in 1912 in the UK, and russian artists started using it for prints by around 1913. Coloured linocuts were inspired by Claude Flight’s work and was taught in Grosvenor School of Modern Art from 1926-30. Picasso was famous for using linocut and made his first linocut in 1939-60′s, he is also thought of as the artist who started the “reduction linocut” idea - which is where a lino design/sheet is used multiple times in the one piece. Namibian John Ndevasia Muafangejo and Henri Matisse are also famous for their lino prints.

2.  Choose 3 pivotal printmakers and their artworks to analyse and evaluate within your chosen genre.

Artist 1 - Ramon Rodrigues

Ramon Rodrigues is a graphic artist and printmaker born in 1982 in Florianópolis, Santa Catarina. He has various degrees in design and also has a studying background of drawing, illustration, anatomy, engraving and printmaking. Rodrigues specialises in dark gothic styled prints, which relate a lot to the same genre and style that I do in my work. From first glance, I can tell that Rodrigues specialises in black and white, there are some prints with colour but most of his work is black and white. This helps add to the horror and gothic genre of his work and works well with the designs of his prints. Another thing I noticed is the scale of his pieces, some are small little prints and others are very large, it’s very impressive to me how he manages to keep such detail and depth in his pieces no matter the scale. The main thing that I noticed when researching his work is just how detailed it is. Rodrigues’ work is filled with lots of tone and depth, all of his pieces have multiple layers of shading and all have little pieces of detail which help bring the piece together. The amount of depth and detail of his work is what really intrigued me and made me amazed at how good his work is. The amount of detail, depth and tone in his pieces make them look almost like a photo/realistic or that they were paintings (and not prints). These are three of my favourite pieces due to how diverse they are yet still all hold the great amounts of detail/depth/tone in them. Pieces like “Os Sete” are filled with objects in the background yet is still as impressive as something like “A Bruxa” which has less subject matter. All have different compositions, subject matter, layers etc yet are all as impressive as the other.

Artist 2 - Mazatl

Gráfica Mazatl is a printmaker based in Mexico City. His work centres around fighting for social, enviromental and political justice and works with groups related to these. The work that he makes is inspired by the work that humans do to “shake off the noose around our necks”. Mazatl creates pieces of printmaking, linocuts, woodcuts and also does murals. Mazatl is also a street/graffiti artist and is very into the punk scene. A lot of his work is also based from and inspired from his culture/heritage. Some of his interests include: anarchism, indigenous resistance and social movements. Although Mazatl’s work isnt as dark and gothic as some of the others on this list, I still think it’s dark and very impressive. The first thing I noticed in his work is the contrast between how much of each colour is used. His work, like the ones below, is predominately centred and filled mostly with one colour with smaller parts of another in it.  For example: white with black detail or black with white detail. Another thing I noticed largely when researching his work is the amount of detail and little marks that he uses in his work. Usually, printmaking pieces have a lot of blank space, yet in Mazatl’s work the entire thing is filled with little detail and little lines/engravings. At first look it is clear that his work is filled with detail but the impressive thing is that the longer you look, the more detail and depth you notice, which leaves the viewer interested for longer. I really enjoy all the little and impressive detail/depth used as well as the messages and subject matter that he puts into his work. I also enjoy how a lot of them have the same subject matter which makes the pieces look like a continuing story.

Artist 3 - Slippery Jack

Richard Wells, aka Slippery Jack is a printmaker who specialises in horror and macabre style work. Wells also does work for TV shows, album covers and book illustrations. His work includes things like Doctor who, Dracula (TV) and Green Lung (band), and work for authors such as Arthur Machen and M.R. James. A lot of his work involves traditional mediums such as linocut and drypoint etching. The thing that drew me into his work is the similar subject matter that we have in common, a lot of the work i do is similar to his work and the concepts he does. Although Wells still has the alternative horror genre in his work, some of his work is very modernised looking compared to other artists I’ve listed (e.g. second photo). The thing that drew me into his work is just how much detail and layering there is. Just like Mazatl, you can tell wells’ work is detailed from first observation, but the more you look - the more detail you see. It also impresses me how much depth Wells’ has in his work and how you can tell there’s a foreground, midground  and background. My favourite photo of his work is the middle image, this is because each is different yet theyre all as impressive as each other. The right hand photo has so much detail, from the book writing to the book stand. I really enjoy the subject matter and composition of the top middle one as it looks simple but is filled with detail in the animals. The left hand one is one of my favourite due to the creepiness of it, as well as all of the detail and little lines that were used to create it. I think the bottom middle is my favourite as there is so much tone and depth used in it, that you wouldnt think it is a print. The wings, face and outfit are all filled with depth and tone that it looks like it is done by pen or paint or pencil and although it’s simple it is still very creepy and effective. Even though Wells’ work all have the same macabre style, each one is completely different to the others. Wells’ is definitely an artist who is good at his perception in his work (tone, depth, dimension etc).

References: website: https://www.drawcutinkpress.com/south-american-linocut-artists/ publisher: draw cut ink press date: 2020

website: https://www.drawcutinkpress.com/top-linocut-artists-to-follow/ publisher: draw cut ink press date: 2016

website: https://www.ramon-rodrigues.com/sobre-about publisher: ramon rodrigues date: n/a

website: http://www.graficamazatl.com/about publisher: grafica mazatl date: n/a

website: https://www.juxtapoz.com/news/street-art/the-work-of-grafica-mazatl/ publisher: juxtapoz date: n/a

website: https://justseeds.org/artist/mazatl/ publisher: justseeds date: n/a

website: https://vampiresquid.co.uk/artist-richard-wells-on-folk-horror-tv-work-and-his-upcoming-book/ publisher: vampiresquid date: n/a

website: https://www.britannica.com/technology/linocut Uploader: Britannica Date: 2019

website: https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/an-introduction-to-lino-printing-2578530 Uploader: The Spruce Crafts Date: 2019

#mb_hndcpm1

[thetruemage-blog]

WW1 Short Story

                                                      Part I

The Fate of Europe hung on a fine thread for the last coming decades as unwanted and unneeded pressure strained the great continent like the powder kegs that felt a great compulsion themselves to tear across the land. Finally, when the thread was snipped by golden scissors and the deprived kegs blew up grander and more devastatingly than anyone had anticipated, it left people to wonder when this was all to end. And, when it was to end—if it was to end—what misfortunate shadow would be cast over the lives of the millions of people that lay claim to the great country of Earth?

In the great maw of bloodshed were necessities, and comfort, and everything that made life for the many fragile creatures normal, but as the aggression propagated and swallowed up Europe the commodity hardest to find was family. Stripped of their husbands, their children, their brothers, and their lovers, too many were forced to start anew with their hearts so badly broken. In the years that followed the war, there were some who received the pleasure of saying their hero returned home. For most others, the company of ghosts lingered in their cold living rooms and parlors, unseen and unheard, but not unwanted.

Arthur sat in a worn armchair in the dimmed light of his small London apartment, thinking about the ghosts that lingered in his cold heart. In the empty chairs and quiet air was the present memory of a charming young American who lived in these walls not so long ago. The only vestige Arthur held of the youth was a distressed photograph that only grew increasingly worn, and the scarce stack of letters Arthur wished had been larger. The tired man sighed wistfully and out of sheer force of habit, he began reading the letter dated September 1914.

Dear Arthur,

The army isnt as bad as you made it out to be. You really do worry for nothing, you know? The drills ain’t bad and I think the only thing I could really complain about is the food. We’ve been doing a lot of marching and rifle drills. Who knew I’d be a good shot? And you’d said I’d shoot an eye out in a week. Well, Art, I’m sorry to inform you I still have both my eyes.

I’m sitting in my tent right now with a few new buddies of mine. Though, they’re a loud sort and I don’t think you’d like them much. But you don’t like anybody much, do you? I’m honestly surprised you tolerated me staying at your place as long as you did. You know how while we were still in university you said that you wanted to travel around the world? Maybe I’ll live long enough to take you with me through Europe after this is all over.

It’s been raining for the past day which is the only reason I’m able to write you at the moment. It’s too muddy to go out for drills and we’ve been stuck in our tents for hours. I can’t imagine the poor blokes fighting out there in this weather. I suppose that’s something I’m not looking forward to, frankly.

Have you ever been to France? It’s a nice change in pace, I’d say. Nothing like the dirty streets of London. Everything’s so spread out and the land is so green. The locals are nice, and the girls are pretty. You’d like it here, I think.

Au Bientot,

Alfred.

P.S. I’ve been working on my French.

Arthur let a sad smile play his lips before he gently folded the paper. Placing it neatly on his end table, he picked up another letter. The date read April 1915.

Dear Arthur,

We have settled in a small town in the north of France. It’s interesting how few people live here. The town seems to have far fewer men than women, and most of the males are elderly or adolescent. I suppose this war has dwindled the population of men in all of Europe. The locals are rather disturbed by the presence of soldiers in town, but I’ve been looking past that. It’s nice to get a break from all the fighting, and if that means disrupting a few, I’ll gladly take it. On a side note, if you ever do go to France the natives do not appreciate being talked at in english. One young lady had the honors of hitting me with her purse. It seems the months of hardship have stripped away all my charm . Matthew and I hit the pub yesterday. What I call beer and what the French call beer are disappointingly different. It’s watery, flavourless, and weak. And I can’t say the wine is much better.

I suppose I have to take what I have. A break is more than most get in this war. Though, in a few weeks time I’ll be back in the trenches killing germans.  As the locals say, “Quand on a pas ce que l’on aime, il faut aimer ce que l’on a”

Yours truly,

Alfred F. Jones

A shadow consumed the confinement of the room at the sight of a particularly doleful letter. Arthur’s hand brushed over the worn parchment warily and he could not be certain if he had the will to read this one. “Oh Alfred.” He sighed, lowering in thought. “You were so innocent in a time less straining than now. I wish you could have remained that way.”

Dear Arthur,

I think I’m going to hell. I didn’t think it’d be so hard their the enemy but dammit I can’t do this anymore. Their people just like you and I and their dead because of me. I killed a man. He didn’t do nothing just think about his family oh god they're gonna miss him and I can’t do nothing about it. He was so young and handsome there's probably some girl back home waiting for him. They make you hate them. They make you want to kill them but dammit they're just people too. I’m going to go home when so many others lost their lives to meaningless war.

Alfred.

November 1914

Dear Arthur,

I’m writing to let you know all is well. Today there wasn’t much enemy fire so instead we spent our hours shoveling out water and mud and refortifying fallen trenches. Let me tell you, it’s much more exhausting than you’d think. The mud is almost impossible to walk through and I fell down more times than I’d like to admit. Matthew was there right beside me to make sure I didn’t fall down too much. It was actually quite a funny endeavor and I pulled him down with me a few times. Our commander wasn’t impressed with the mess we made, but I couldn’t care less. We need to cherish laughter, because you don’t know what day’s going to be your last.

Right now I’m sitting around a makeshift fire sharing letters with some soldiers. We just got in our Christmas mail today and I’m smiling from ear to ear. Thank you for the chocolate. It really means the world to me! How’s London doing these days? I honestly can’t wait to get back and see you. Please do tell me about everything when you write me next. I want to know how your Christmas went. Did you get to see your family?

Merry Christmas, Art. Matt says Hi.

Jusqu'à notre prochaine reunion,

Alfred.

(December 1915)

Alfred had become impermeable to normal emotion as the decades of each battle passed.  On one occasion, he witnessed the gruesome sight of a thousand casualties being carried off in stretchers from the front lines and fell in a fit of depression, not for the men who gave their lives, but for himself, for he would have to go into the hell in which they had come. It was impossible to stay human in the company of combat and it was impossible not to strip the given title of human from the men who fought on the other side. But every soul knew, and refused to admit, that they were all simply human. Alfred did not have the will to think of that now, but perhaps it would haunt him in the years to come.

My dearest Arthur,

How much longer will these poor young men have to lay down their lives for reasons unknown? I’ve been stuck knee-deep in this muddy hell hole and I still have not a clue when the fighting will end. It seems as if the only time of peace is in the early hours of the morning when the larks have not yet started to sing, and the sun has not yet risen over the trenches. Though, behind the hellish wall of smoke and artillery, the sun is barely recognizable. They told us we’d rotate- a few months of fighting and one on leave. But I have been stuck fighting for… oh god, how long has it been now? I believe 7 months. Four of the men I’ve started with still live, but I can’t say for how much longer we’ll hold up. I hope to get Matthew out of here alive. He’s the friend I told you about. I miss seeing your face and I

Alfred put his pen down and stared into the distance.

~ ~ ~

Through the dust and dirt of yesterday advanced a force with more bravado than any other. Every morning it came without fear to the trenches, through the land of no one unchallenged, and remained upon these men until the late hours when another more pernicious force would march and take its place. With the Great Red General (given the name ‘le soleil’ by the locals) came the army band to get the men on their feet. Every morning these larks would shout the orders to commence the fighting once more.

The band’s bloody cry rang through the hills, the valleys, the thistled black bushes and it rung through the sleeping corpses and the living skeletons who stood in attention, answering the cry and ready to die on both sides.

Dug seven feet under in the grave that would soon claim the lives and identities of these skeletons, not a sound escaped a spectre or the dying dead men with lacerations and mutilations too useless to be bothered with. Deep in the veins of the once thriving country, small creatures held their breath along with the breathless battlefield and waited, and wanted and wielded the fear and anger and sadness and shadows on their slumped shoulders alongside their weapons.

Skeletons sprung to their feet and ran. There was shooting and then shouting. Screams and smoke penetrated the air. It used to be so quiet. All of the skeletons were shot down and forgotten. From the graves there were plenty to take the fallen’s place. They were all dead. More shouts. The earth lurched and people fell and more dead. Whistles dropped from above, explosions rattled on both sides and there was the deafening clapping of thunder. Still more dead.

It was Alfred’s turn to die. He ran and dove and ducked and dared not look back. He still ran and ran and one more jump. He was in another’s grave and none but Matthew joined him. One jerk from a shaking finger and the enemy was dead but his face was still screaming. The screaming wouldn’t stop. Make it stop. Alfred covered his ears but he was the one screaming.

                                                      Part 2

The sound of silence once more touched the ears of the phantoms that burrowed themselves deep into the cavities of earth. The Great Red General had long called his men back, and to take his place emerged an assailant woman clad in robes of silver. Her militia shadowed her closely and gazed down on the dual armies with blinkless eyes, yet they were unseen through the cloudy fog. The Great Red General advanced and pricked the creatures with smoldering heat, but the moonlit mistress preferred other antics.  From her hoary robes, thin cloths were cut and gently placed over the eyes of Earth’s children.

The quiet never lasted long and both men, deep in the lines of earth, huddled closely in a desperate attempt not to lose the other. When one sense was stolen, the others became critical and so they listened urgently for any signs of life or death.  Their labored breath pierced the air and echoed louder than it should have. Fear assimilated in their very bones and perhaps if a rat had skittered past, both men would have sprung to their feet with guns drawn and ready, but the soundless air still blew gently through the darkness.

“I don’t like it,” Whimpered the echo of a once assertive voice.

“I know. I don’t like it either.” Another answered back. He blindly clutched a shred of humanity in his tremulous hands. “It’s too quiet”

“Well it would be. Would it kill you to whisper—!” Hissed the twin phantom. There was a prattling of bullets picking up on their own old conversation. Sound was the only thing to be trusted, and the shouting and advancement of ambiguous allegiances were leagues away and not to be worried about. The guns and grenades discussed gallant matters while they took turns drowning out the wails and wretched cries from those material beings.  It was a while before the two soldiers could continue where they left off, but they were used to this motion of breaking in and out of a conversation like nothing had ever interrupted it.

It was far from silent, but it was also far from the worst it had been. The one with trembling hands took this as an opportunity to remind himself of the earthly plain. “We’re still alive” he croaked, trying desperately to remember what speaking sounded like.

“Yes, we are.” echoed the other despondently.

“For how long?”

“I can’t say.”

There was a long pause to let that other tedious conversation go on.

“I remember when the sky used to be blue.” He laughed nearly innocently. “I think I used to walk with Arthur through the park every evening after class and watch the sunset—we wanted to travel, I think—I wonder if he’d like to come to France with me when we’re done here. I think he’d like that—I wrote him a letter.” His blind eyes from both darkness and gas stared unmoving towards the void in front of him. “I hope… I hope that he hasn’t forgotten about me.”

Another pause.

“It’s better to be forgotten than a wound gnawing away at the hearts of our families. I pray to God that my family can forget about me.” The pratting of machine responded with fervor. “Every second’s our last, ain’t it? We’re dead men.”

“If you think like that you are—”

“Don’t tell me you still think we’re getting out of this! You’re too naïve for your own good.”

“And you’re a pessimist.”

Not a word after was spoken, but perhaps he had wished there had. The echoes of conflict advanced them until the roars and howls pounded in their ears like a frenzied beast. Both, in their muted dread, waiting with tenacious horrors flooding their minds, equally knew that the other shared the same anxieties and thoughts that refused to be suppressed. It was mankind that dragged men down to hell and it was mankind that ruined the lives and minds and freedoms of all the creatures that lay claim to the great country of earth. But it was also mankind that laughed and shared moments with their fellow compatriots and brought hope to many, but there was not a sliver of hope that dared show itself in morbid countenance of battle. The sounds of battle still swallowed the peace of the night and refused to be muted.

He was hit before the deafening, yet familiar pratting of bullets reached the aching ears of the phantoms. The ammunitions that nipped all life in its path would never feel remorse for the innocence it had reaped from a boy too young to die but too old to go on in the world of the living. The boy lurched forward, collapsing on his knees while a shaky, desperate hand scratched at the wound lodged in his ribcage. His eyes felt heavy and his mind was becoming milky and inky as years drained from his face in seconds until he was older than the country itself. A sliver of childhood refused to leave his wet, fading eyes. “I can see it.” He croaked, laughing and coughing red spots.

“Shh” Matthew pleaded, “I know, just hang on. Listen to my voice.” His shaking hands clutched Alfred’s matted hair and softly placed him on the ground so he could rest.

“The sky is so pretty. Do you see it Matthew?” He chirped like the early larks.

He dimly nodded, and pressed bloody fabric against the wound. “It sounds lovely, Alfred. Tell me more about it.”

“Me and Arthur used to take walks. He liked to watch the sun set. It reminded him of… of… Home. I miss home—”

There was a long pause.

“Alfred? Please go on.”

Another pause.

“Alfred please!” Matthew begged “tell me more.”

“He’s forgotten about me.” His voice was so inaudible and frail that the wind carried it off towards the stars. Great curtains were beginning to drop over his eyes.

“No, Alfred.” He pleaded, and desperately shoved the other to his senses. “He has your letters, he hasn’t forgot. He’s read all of them. He needs you.”

“My letter.” Alfred whimpered and looked desperately with unmoving eyes. Matthew placed the red dotted parchment on Alfred’s chest. He fingers did not bear the ability to grip, but knowing Arthur was with him gave him peace and he let sleep overcome him.

#short story #writing #history #historical fiction #wwI #world war one #hetalia #aph england #aph america #aph canada

[brittababbles]

Can you write a Jason Todd x POC reader where the reader became Dick's friend and an intern of Bruce's after Jason died. She meets Jason for the first time at one of Bruce's galas and Jason tries to hit on her but she is not having it. But the next time she sees him is when he comes back to the manor to get first aid from Alfred after his patrol but Alfred isnt there so the reader patches him up and they hit it off.

Author’s Note: We should establish ahead oftime that I’m a firmly middle-class white woman, which makes me feel a littleunqualified to write a POC reader fic, but I gave it a try. I altered thedetails of the request just a little bit; I hope that’s okay. Obviously I haveno ownership of any of the DC characters. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCESATTEMPT SHOULDER REDUCTION AT HOME.

 Warnings: amateur surgery? Mention of injury,Jason being a bit pushy in the first part.

 So it’s true whatthey say: the best way to get a job is to know someone on the inside.

 ExecutiveAssistant to Bruce Wayne. You’re pretty sure what sold it was when you wrotedown “Dick Grayson” next to the line on the application asking if you knewanybody currently or previously employed at Wayne Enterprises. You’d known Dicksince Gotham Academy, when he’d befriended the new girl who was there on ascholarship, and you’d wavered in and out of touch with him since graduation.You’d been in an out-of-touch portion of your friendship when you’d submittedthis application, six weeks out of NYU with a business degree and back inGotham, desperate for income. Apparently he had fond memories of you, though,because you’d gotten a call back for an interview less than 24 hours later. Twointerviews and a shadowing later, you’d landed this job.

Let’s be real, youweren’t expecting Bruce Wayne’s assistant to have to assist him outside theoffice. Technically the gala was work-related. Or at least work-adjacent. You were getting paid for it. Mr. Wayne hadnodded in approval at the sight of you out of business wear and dressed up inyour copper ball gown, the braids that had taken hours to create carefullytwisted on the top of your head.

So here you were,holding a beaded clutch in one hand (that secretly contained your phone, asmall notepad, and several pens. You kept reminding yourself that this waswork), and a flute of champagne in the other, trying to decide if it wasreasonable to drink it with your boss watching. You leaned your weight slightlyonto one leg and sighed, staying within earshot of Mr. Wayne without getting underfoot.You took a small sip of the champagne and wrinkled your nose slightly againstthe taste. Expensive, and painfully dry.

“Not a champagne girl, huh?” a voice askedfrom your right.

You turned yourhead and spotted a young man grinning at you. He was vaguely familiar, but youcouldn’t quite place him.

“Jason Todd,” hesaid, extending a hand.

Ah. Dick’s littlebrother. The…dead one? You shifted your glass to your other hand and took hishand. They were strong, and more callused than you’d expected. Not the hands ofa rich kid.

“I’m –“ you began,but he interrupted you.

“I know. Iremember you. Dick’s friend,” he grinned, “You turned out...nice.”

Your eyes narrowedas his swept the length of your body.

“Uh-huh,” youresponded doubtfully.

“Wayne Gala,” heobserved, “they’re tedious. Wanna get out of here?”

“Yeah…I’m on theclock,” you said sharply, “I should probably stay close to Mr. Wayne.”

“Bruce wouldn’tnotice. He might propose business at these things but he won’t do it untilmorning.”

You fixed him withyour firmest glare.

“No,” you saidflatly.

He held up hishands in defeat, seemingly getting the message.

“Okay, okay, Ithought I’d offer,” he said.

Your glarefollowed him as he slipped across the ballroom and out of sight. You frowned atthe spot where he’d disappeared into the crowd for a second before turning yourattention to your boss, who was grasping the hand of a very important-lookingolder man. You took a deep breath, arranged a dazzling smile on your face, andstepped forward, ready for whatever Mr. Wayne needed. That was, after all, whyyou were here.

  You opened thefiling cabinet behind Mr. Wayne’s desk, slipping the manila folder into thedrawer. Time and a half for all hours outside the office made it totally worththe awkwardness of working in your boss’s study. You sank into the chair behindthe desk, reading off the laptop screen in front of you when you heard a loudcrash from the hall, followed by a shout.

“Goddammit…Alfred!Shit…” a voice called.

You poked your headaround the doorframe and spotted a silhouetted figure at the end of the darkhall, leaning slightly to one side. You slipped across the hall and grabbed theunlit candelabra off the side table opposite the door to the study. Creepingdown the hall as quietly as possible, you noticed the shadowy figure pawingrather gracelessly at the grandfather clock against the wall. You approachedsoundlessly, candelabra raised high.

“God…fuckingclock…why can’t he just…umph,” muttered the person.

A pair of headlightsflashed through the window and in the brief light you saw a flash of scarlet.The Red Hood. Your stomach clenched as you came closer; The Red Hood. What hewas doing in Mr. Wayne’s home was not a curiosity that you could even considerat this distance. You sidled up behind him and brought down the candelabrasharply.

In the subsequentscuffle, a lot of shouting echoed around the hall.

“Shit! What the…hey you’re that girl from the… Jesus woman, stop!”

“I. Won’t. Until.You. Tell. Me. Why. You’re. Here!” you yelled, punctuating each word withanother whack from the candelabra.

“Stop! It’s me!It’s me!” he yelled.

Abruptly thelights came on, courtesy of his hand slapping into the switch on the wall. Hepulled his helmet off and you were stunned at who you saw.

“Jason?”

“Yes!” he gasped,“What the hell was that for?!”

“There’s no oneelse here. It was self-defense,” you said, frowning at him.

“You just hit mewith a candlestick!”

“It was handy,”you snapped.

“Yeah, well…ack!”he broke off, clutching at his right shoulder.

“What’s wrong?”you asked, abruptly concerned.

“I think it’sdislocated,” he answered, teeth gritted, “Is Alfred here?”

“No, it’s just me.Mr. Wayne said something about going downstairs and I haven’t seen him since.”

Jason frowned.

“That’s not good,”he muttered.

You sat back onyour heals and looked him over, thinking.

 “Once completed,apply a sling to the injured arm,” the video concluded.

You and Jasonlooked at each other.

“It’s not hard,see?” Jason said calmly.

“You want me toput your shoulder back in socket based on a YouTube video?” you asked incredulously.

“You can’t make itany worse,” he answered.

“I really think Ican,” you said, shaking your head.

But he was alreadyawkwardly pulling his shirt off. Your eyes lingered on the skin beneath justlong enough to feel your cheeks heating up.

“Okay, fine. Itlooks like you need to lay on the floor,” you said, restarting the video.

Perhaps thehardest part was when the video instructed you to be patient. Steady but firmpressure was a much easier concept to describe than to execute. Jason didn’tscream. Instead he bit hard on his bottom lip until it bled.

Finally, after anaudible clunk, you felt somethingchange in the position of his shoulder. The raised portion had disappeared andhe let out a sigh.

“I think you gotit,” he said.

“I certainly hopeso,” said a voice from the door.

You both looked upto see Bruce Wayne and Alfred standing there, watching. Your eyes went wide, immediatelythinking off all the ways you could be fired. Jason, however, grinned.

“Hey, Bruce. She’sdefinitely the best assistant you’ve ever hired.”

[callonb]

GYBurst of Inspiration/Motivation

Where does inspiration come from? - Snacks I recorded a song with Samuel Hawkins recently and that was the first line of his verse. Lately thats been on my mind more and more. Where does my inspiration come from and why cant I always bask in its motivational energies? Seems that my drive comes and goes with the moon phases or as planets enter and leave our orbit. Could be the skys dictating my moods and movements (which i think it does have an effect) or it could be the mass amount of coffee and tea i drink a day. Definitely important factors but not quite the source. My mom definitely motivates me, she believes in everything Im doing and helps every way that she can. Its not financially but sometimes emotional support is more important. Shouts out to Momma B you the realist. Same for my homies and not homies as in people i force myself to be around, cuz having friends is what you do. Actual family that i grew up with and have developed a relationship with, the GYB family. The ones who sat me down years ago and was like dude...... you need to take this rap shit seriously. The ones who are now getting more and more involved with the movement every day, pushing everything to the side and riding along with my dream and making them their own. Everyday the homies are pushing to help me create this vision for you guys as they've adopted it as their own. Like minds on the prize, Shouts out the Layer homies. That only seems to be half of it tho, and Ive never felt this type of fire burning inside me before so what is it? Magazine drama and BS doesn't motivate me, Music doesn't seem to hit me the same way anymore. I used to listen to music constantly, new rap definitely doesn't do it for me.....makes me feel lower. New tv shows dont do it for me im bored with most of the popular shows out. Same for games or just typical activities that people partake in. Partys, drugs, random hook ups...It all seems so blah to me and im completely uninterested. I learned I have to stop feeding my lower self and focus on my higher self and what that part of my being truly wants and thats to CREATE!!! Whenever im around an environment that drives me to create and push myself i perform better. So i guess i just realized what really inspires me, and thats a creative environment. Who is responsible for this? Well I saw the Rotunda Project last weekend at Maiden Alley, a collaborative piece by Fairseas. The Fairseas are a group of musicians named Jeran Simmons, Bobby Dowell, Codie Franklin and Shanden Simmons. I watched them plant this seed years ago and now its a giant tree that you can sit back and marvel in its greatness. The main theme of the film was collaborating with your community. I cant lie ive had many many thoughts of leaving my community to collaborate elsewhere but ive came to a realization recently that it isnt necessary. To my surprise and probably a lot of people around here, there is a bubbling hip hop scene around here that is about to explode. Ive started to invest my time and efforts into this scene now and received nothing but results. Shanden has been a major influence in my artistry because he is always honest, encouraging and persistent....three very important characteristics to have in a creative environment and on top of that has become one of what i would consider my best friends. I look at him as one of my GYBrothers. On to the hip hop scene around here tho..... mysterious person named "A" aka the Hollow Man and he is one of the most promising producers/writers around. His solo stuff is outstanding and the collaboration effort we are working on "A & B: The Empire" is next level. Its been well over a year in the making and will shock most people when they hear the new styles i bring to the tape compared to my previous work. A always challenges me to be very intelligent when I piece together my verses and I like that. He makes me want to grab a dictionary and start reading so I can match his extensive vocabulary.....and maybe I have done that lol. Im the ONLY artist that the mystery man works with at the moment and that hits me now in a way it never has before. Like why me, do I really have something in my music that would make this beyond talented artist spend his time and efforts to make beats for us to collab on and want to include me in everything he does? His beats are above any producer Ive ever heard even in the big leagues of the rap game its crazy but he will prolly have his own GYBlog entry about him eventually. I have to move on before i make this to long lol. Next is JSkrilla, I have met the Skrilla a few times in passing but i dont think we realized what each other really could offer the other. Until i ran into him at the damn ROTUNDA PROJECT.....back around full circle. After that we decided to get together. We showed each other some of our music. I didnt know he made dope beats as well as spit hot fucking fire but he does. We shared our philosophies for our craft and talked hip hop and all sorts of other randomness. Then we picked a beat and wrote a song on the spot. Bar for bar back and forth. J stressed to me it had been a LONG time since he had been able to just sit down and write with another emcee that wasnt intimidated by his ability to write on the spot, or to match his caliber of wordplay and rhyme schemes. To both mine and his delight I delivered. Skrilla really challenged me tho, most artist get so caught up in the main stream BS or conforming to certain concepts and topics in their verses that it had been a while since I had felt pressure when writing to make sure my bars are up to par. Felt good to feel that energy again i had been missing the want to become better and that leads me to the main cause of my motivation and my improvments or just overall attitude change whatever you want to call it. the TRYBE!!!! Snacks, B. James, and Waun D. are the Cerberus of this rap shit. I have a lot to owe to them. GYB and Trybe share the same values as far as what we hope to contribute to the culture of arts and musics and how we hope to impact the hip hop community as well as the communities we all live in. I have done one show with them and have multiple other ones lined up with them. As a matter a fact i cant see myself doing a show with anyone but them from here on out. Once again them as well as JSkrilla could have their own full length blog entry but i digress for the sake of your attention lol. The Trybe challenges me to be a better emcee by making me freestyle. Which if you have been around me doing music ive never been a good freestyler.....UNTIL NOW!!! They have cracked that shell and brought me out of it. Making me partake in their cyphers everytime we get together. Soon Ill be as smooth off the top as i am with the writtens then its over for everyone! Sharpening my skills is not something that other rappers really push you to do. Rap is very competitive and braggadocios so pushing someone to improve and possible be better than you is unheard of. The Trybe doesnt see it that way though, they want us all to grow together. With a shared love for hip hop and me and Snacks shared love for Anime we can talk for hours and hours before we realize we havent done any music lol. Everytime I hear a new Trybe song i feel my artistry being challenged. The message in their music makes me want to really focus on the concepts i present in my music and start challenging my self to pretty much step my game up. Between Skrilla, "A", and TrYbe, everything new I hear makes me question my latest bars which is exactly what I need. Hip Hop is my life and my love and above any amount of money i can potentially make off this art is the desire to be the best emcee to ever grab a mic and thats the same mindset i had when i originally picked up the pen and decided i would be a rapper. Before i saw 8 mile and realized that being a white rapper wasnt necessarily accepted, before all the laughs, all the hate and just general shade i received for my dreams. Being white in this game is a roadblock but for the first time these guys made me realize that i have overcame that hurdle 100 times over. I had a long talk with the Trybe last night and they gave me a boost of confidence that finally fully ignited that fire i had lit but tried to conceal. Im no longer worried about what is cool or what people want. I just want to create and you will more than likely like it because I do have skills that i myself had been sleeping on. I hear these artist like A, Skrilla, and Trybe and i felt underneath them but now i see my self as an equal. We all have different things we bring to the table that compliment each other and its time to put it all together and make it happen. Plus we all just fucking dope and there is no denying. This is my new goal. No more time wasted on what i "think" is the right move. Im going to follow what i KNOW to be the right path and follow my heart. Thats challenging myself with these artist and like minded individuals to always be better. Also as Snacks has said before "move at LIGHT SPEED" thats just what Ill do with my light brothers here. We like some damn warriors of this rap shit waging war against a evil corrupt entity but thats also for a whole separate entry lol But no war of this caliber is complete without a general so shoutout to SirDuke. Ive also recently became friends with this crazy dude and he has shown me in just the short time ive known him more love and support than some people ive known my whole life. He also inspires me because he has dedicated his life to serve and protect (literally) and most importantly LEAD. He has an army of pretty much every hood and every rapper in each of them just waiting for his call. and he is not leading them astray, Shoutout the Kollektiv. Duke is also a talented singer and emcee. He has a show with me tomorrow at the Hangover in Murray MAKE SURE YOU COME TO THAT AND SEE MY NEW ALBUM CONSCIOUS TRAP PERFORMED LIVE starting at 9pm. but yeah Duke is dope and I can appreciate his leadership skills and what he hopes to accomplish in his community by cleaning it up through music. He is rubbing off on my and motivating me to hold that same position with my Layer army of GYB homies ive assembled. Most of them are clueless about the industry and music so its up to me to guide and lead them so they can be their own selves and make it in this world without the middle man down your neck. Im going to wrap this up because it ended up being way longer than i intended but i wanted to also say to my fellow collaborators and friends above all. Wolf, Golden Wrist Banks, Trevell, Dope, Simple, Benji and Angel Mascato. You guys have MAD SKILLS. You guys inspire me too because I hear something different in your music than i hear from most. I want you all to continue to grow and expand your creativity to new levels. Tell YOUR story. The same story is constantly told but how will you tell YOURS in the true challenge. So i encourage you guys like i have been recently, step outside of the norm and do what you truly feel in your heart that you need to, fuck what everyone else wants from you just create the way you feel appropriate. A lot of you are working with Duke regularly and I think he will tell you the same thing I am now. Even if its certain people in your lives holding you back, they gotta go. Surround yourself with positive people that want to grow with you instead of out grow you and you will see the same results. Probably why you guys were all on my latest album, except Trevell im sorry and you should have been but you know the deal homie its all love. Frank.....dammit man just rap lol but anyways ill end it on this note. Getting in touch with that child like mind state and that pureness of love in my heart again. Losing all my intentions to want to be better and out do someone but rather COLLABORATE with like minds in my community has already in return pushed me forward in a lot of ways. Seems almost as if they had been waiting on me this whole time. Its certain that my actions are now speaking louder than my words and everyone is starting to catch on. including myself finally. If you read this far thank you and I love you. Youre more than likely part of the reason why i typed this or why i even continue to do what i do. I trust you guys just as much as you trust ill deliver. Have a great day, maybe you can draw inspiration from this or some of the same people or things that i do! So put down that magazine full of empty content and read something meaningful that you are interested in, turn off the news and watch some anime, stop playing shooter games and play final fantasy, stop eating out and prepare your own meals, dont listen to music just play instrumentals and freestlye every day or just make your own, quit scrolling on facebook and take a stroll around the block, only spend time with those that help you grow rather than keep you low. So much inspiration out there sometimes we just have to break away from what we are used to in order to pull from the experience. Now im really done. and excuse my poor grammer and probably a shit load of spelling errors. That wont ever change, these blog post are run on sentences of my thoughts that pass through my head every day. Sometimes i just take the time to jot them out as they pass. PEACE LOVE AND GYB!!

[in-paradox-space]

today I haven’t done anything. I’ve been down, anxious and lazy.

I want to get high with friends and do sesh things.

I want to draw in my notebook which got lost along with my drawing pens

and some other stuff

I left my bag in a taxi

I left basically all my convenient shit in that bag, chargers, some meds, my ps4 controller, more usb wires, more usb shit but its all really niche convenient techy shit

it isnt that niche but for “””””techies””””” and travelers alike (me) its really convenient

usb type c and micro usb chargers, otg cables, plug heads, usb 3.0 card readers which btw i can plug into my otg cable transferring torrented shit from my phone to a usb wherever i am

a tiny amount of oxy and codeine, 2 weeks worth of medicine roughly, plus some 5htp vitamins

hella baggies just because

probably makes the prescription medicine in there look suspicious

my beanie

and a small sketchbook, pocket sized

I’ve had it since the start of 2017.

I’ve been developing my very own abstract drawing style in that book for over a year.

Nothing valuable was lost. Luckily my camera&lens worth around a grand wasn’t in there

but its just all my convenient stuff

and what sucks most is losing that sketchbook

and as ive been home alone today

ive wanted all the shit in that bag

i can get over the stuff in there

but I want my sketchbook back

it has my address in there, my name, probably some contact details

I really hope they send it there. Even if they keep the other shit.

I may have left the bag in a taxi though. Usually I’d walk to the taxi place, then walk back. It’s like 2.5 miles in total which is a good thing for me because I like the walk

gets me outside,etc

but uh im anxious

honestly most likely because I fapped

I fap like once every one or two weeks. Nofap is no lie. I feel like shit the next few days afterwards

and uhhh

my neighbour moved out, which leaves his girlfriend in the apartment next door... if shes even his gf anymore???? i have no idea but theyre both moving apparently

well yeah i spoke to her boyfriend a lot, got on with him

but i barely know her

and i have no key to the front door of my apartment building, long frustrating story lol

lost my keys

i keep going to the same key cutter because i have no cash and they do free fixes when their own keys fuck up

they made one key cut work, my apartments, but the one to the front door doesn’t work

i dont want to ask her to open the front door, i dont want to knock on her door, its just

the word here is awkward but everything is awkward thats not really a reason

im just irrationally anxious. I feel like she doesn’t like me. There’s many reasons for her not to but also reasons for her to.

Either way I don’t want to annoy her

and it would just be awkward if she heard me try to open the door, then its locked and she hears that from her apartment

then she hears me go back up the stairs and not knock on her door

then that leaves us both in an awkward place

do i knock on her door, knowing there’s a 50/50 chance she heard my attempt to leave my own apartment building

then do that shit

or do i go back into my flat, knowing she probably heard me avoid her

she can put two and two together

hmmmmmmmmmmmm

then she may even knock on herself

with her nice smile which is actually pretty welcoming tbh

well tomorrow

yeah tomorrow i think oh well ill find out

im getting more medicine which i ordered since i ran out and lost mine

one that im able to live without for a week no problem, havent had it for a few days

im supposed to get a blood test every month on this medicine but its been 3 months

lets hope im aight

and uhhh

i need some kick out of this slump

i just keep lazing around

like i have so much i can be doing

like studying, making things for my pages

just hella shit which isnt even that laborious

like i make memes

thats my main thing

i have hella pages

its fun to make them 

i draw too

thats also one of my main things on the down low

but i keep putting it off

i play rythym games

analyze music

can be boring sometime but im under no pressure to do that

i make videos with my friend

god yeah i should do that

like my studying isnt that hard

i dont have to clean toilets every day

man  i just

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

i want to get high on oxy and codeine for 2 weeks

but theres just a few a lot of problems with that:

money for one

thats 2 weeks out of my life

withdrawal from friends, having to hide that im back on the horse

then choosing between lying and telling the truth every time afterwards about the 2 weeks

then it wouldnt be as simple as just stopping would it?

maybe it would, sometimes i do just stop like its nothing

and what do i gain

but you know what

oxy might give me that kick

i just dont know the prices on the deepweb or how to use the deepweb

plus i dont have the money

but yeah i guess i feel like being withdrawn for 2 weeks

wouldnt mind doing some light opiates and reading homestuck

plus drawing 

then maybe cramming physics and maths work into literally every hour for a few days

im apparently having some xanax sent over by a friend

im having my doubts about that. it still hasnt arrived and he has reasons to not send them but still make me pay

this is my tumblr and nobody is fucking reading so yeah

but still drugs are mentioned, this is public and liable

id mention him but im just gonna say its the serious boyfriend of someone who got close to me

it fucked with him when it happened. idk how he feels about it now but hes polite to me

it could just be a polite front though, idk how he really feels

i actually really fucking admire the dude

a lot 

everything ive learned about him, from him and our mutual person has just been fucking exceptional

and thats on my mind every time she advanced on me

every time i invited it

every time i chose not to say no

hes a really great dude like i just

he could have beat me up that one time but he understood

he understood pretty much all times i think

and he opened up to me 

whether he sees it that way or not, i see it that way

id love to be his friend. maybe i will be even though this shit is in the air

but i think he may just be being polite, he probably hates me

but yeah

i like the dude

i dont want to fuck around with something that matters so much to him

when i honestly dont want to bother with her

shes admirably smart, very much so, but just not really the kinda person i want to spend more than an evening with

and i only want to be around her when she isnt drunk and in a good mood

shes so volatile i cant be doing with that

but thats why i commend him even more

hes stayed with her through it all and hes such a great person, in my eyes, to be in her life

and if hes gonna try to get cash from me this way then that sucks

like id probably just pay him if he asked considering how much hes forked out 

but nah hes gotta deceive me

i dont even wanna get into benzos, as nice as it is a few hours in,

i just dont like this memory fog

i dont remember any of it 

and the withdrawal seems fucking SCARY

plus tolerance and the fun wearing off when u get hooked

why couldnt he just sell me oxy lol

............. i may ask him

if i was doing oxy id probably actually get the fuck up

do the shit i wanna do

but yeah fuck that

thats basicslly all im saying

im getting anxious, low and unmotivated again

id call it dysthymia

#personal #sad #anxiety #kelly #drugs

[oflgtfol]

my calligraphy isnt good yet but it is kinda :) about learning a new skill like that. like it’s been so long since i first got into writing and drawing that the novelty has worn off, yknow? so now im actually sitting down and dedicating myself to improving it and it’s like, wow i haven’t done this in, Years

#and i mean i guess im always starting new skills but like... the improvement + learning process is less uhm. noticeable #like ya im starting coding and all that and yeah im trying to get better at building in minecraft #hell even with writing and drawing its like.. i dont ever rlly see an improvement except over Years #so its like.. literally just a few days of practice and im already better than the shit i was first writing when i first picked up #that brush pen yknow? idk it just feels kinda good #to see it so concrete and Right There #bc i know what good calligraphy looks like... #its not so subjective as like. art in general or writing or whatever #its like. calligraphy either looks good or doesnt #my flaws are easily picked out so i can easily know what i need to improve on #and theres no pressure for me to fantastic at it like there is at the stuff ive been doing for years bc well.. ive only #been doing calligraphy for a handful of days ! lol #anyway i think my brush pen is dying already LOL :( #brot posts #and i so rarely do DIGITAL art which is my main medium.. its been even fuckin longer since ive worked with anything traditional #so ya like calligraphy isnt.. the same as like. Actual art. not to uhm devalue the artistic qualities of calligraphy #but like u know what i mean. its not the same as like. sketching it out. inking. coloring. yeah #so its been forever since ive like. held a pen in my hand and like.. made something artistic #beyond doodles in class at least LOL #theres something satisfying abt seeing your Artistic Endeavors on a piece of paper in front of you rather than on the screen #and in actually holding a pen and feeling it against the paper rather than. a digital tablet

[aplaceforthesoul]

Anonymous submitted:

QW - last february,i had a big argument with 2 of my school friends. friends, i guess, for 2 years i was with them most of the time. i share some stories/my life as much as i do or more, to other people in my class. i mostly had a fight with Z because, Z is just so controlling. Y and X are my groupmates in our thesis. yeah, the common, as they say, fights bc of that. im being so petty right now. but i cant bring to myself to let this slide bc for me, i cant, and i wasnt okay with what happened. i cant bring myself to fully go back to what it was before. this is not just because of this, but i have some other issues with them. that i tell myself repeatedly not to voice out because its just not good. Z ‘talked’ to X and i about Y. and she had some personal problems. which at first, i felt sad and a bit conflicted because Y couldnt share it with us as groupmates and close friends, which Z explained Y. One thing that Z said that pissed me off the most is that we 3 - X, Y and i dont have to tell each other everything, i personally do that, as Y and i have worked before, and idk if she knows that, Y turns to Z first about our project (Z is already done w. this so i understand), but maybe i just think that in some decisions Y should at least inform us, what happends is that when a decision is made, its just laid there, were not even informed about it, just through some updates is maybe better for the group. and Z isnt even included. and then Z proceeds to tell us what to do, and i know i dont have to do everything Z says and i let Z know. and it just ended badly, but things were opened up, maybe or maybe not unecessary. but it has to be set aside. and obviously, now i am not fully okay with that yet. and i admit that i let my personal issues ruin this. i am quite okay with Y now. but just not with Z. I cant do it. It hurt me badly. And this is all new to me, having a confrontation, the better way. but it isnt an excuse either. i just usually bottle it up or share my feelings to some other close friends, which is so wrong. and now they are asking for some favor, i mean i will do it. but if it was other people, i would do it without much deliberation or bad thoughts whatsoever. just something i pulled from show i watched, “if she/he isnt in the equation, would you still do it?”

also…. just all my personal issues are being tangled. and im just a terrible person. i havent talked to my brother in nearing 2 years, and we all live together. for the first part, my anger, then revisiting anger for acceptance, forgiveness in my mind, understanding, anger, not feeling anything, forgiveness. now i dont talk to him because if i open my mouth, some bad stuff would just come out

hey there. so when it comes to group projects? everyone should communicate with each other, definitely! when it comes to making decisions that are going to impact other people? yes, you really should be talking to those people having a conversation about things, or at the very least informing them about decisions made. 

however...when it comes to personal issues, and making decisions that only impact you and not others? then you definitely don’t have to tell everyone. it’s good that you personally feel like you can tell your friends everything! but Y doesn’t have to tell friends or groupmates about personal problems, and if she makes a decision that really is only going to affect her? then she doesn’t have to tell others, her privacy is important, she has the right to choose what she shares. it can be frustrating when friends don’t share things like this, and it might feel like they don’t trust you? but it’s something you just cannot take personally, it’s about them and not you, and it’s about their struggle not a lack of trust in a friendship. it sounds like Z was only trying to look out for Y in her own way and make Y feel less pressure, try not to be too upset with her. 

about your brother, there’s a few things you can do. you say that if you talked to him then bad words would come out? but thefy don’t have to, you can take some control over yourself and your impulses. maybe try writing down what you want to say before talking to him? that gives you a chance to prepare yourself, it also can give you hints if you forget or get flustered while talking to him. if an actual verbal conversation is just not possible right now? then that’s ok too, but you can still talk to him. make use of letters, emails, the written word! writing everything down is a good loop-hole for when you find that you can’t talk about things verbally, it gives you a chance to process your thoughts and to take your time, there’s less pressure compared to a face-to-face conversation. so use pen and paper (or a keyboard and type it instead haha), start communicating with your brother that way and see how things go. start to learn how to manage your anger, if you need an apology from him to be able to move on then say that, talk about that. you’re not a terrible person at all, you just need to start learning how to deal with anger and disappointment. take care xxx

- tash

#advice #submission #qw #anger #resentment #disappointment #friends #conflict #argument #brother

[allofbeercom]

Can Adele fix the broken music industry?

Unless you fell into a post-holiday food coma, you know that Adeles album25just sold more copies in its first week than any album, ever. The average human being had been conditioned to believe this was not possible in 2015.

Remember that narrative?Napster destroyed the music business, the iPod stopped the bleeding, digital and streaming services are still nascent, and a Google search can find anything for free, so the good old days of multi-platinum records are pretty much gone.

On the heels of her first single “Hello,” Adele waved goodbye to that doomsday line of thinking, crushing decades-old sales records by such a distance that, if she were an Olympic athlete, wed immediately assume she healed her damaged vocal chords with PEDs. Putting aside certain idiosyncrasies of Adeles album buyers (it turns out old people still buy CDs!), getting more than 3.8 million people to doanythingin the same week is a triumphant feat.

The ripple effect of Adeles astonishing sales figure is already visible. This past week, Rihanna and her management made a last-minute decision to postpone the release of her new album,Anti, at the apex of the heaviest consumer spending moment of the year. It turns out the shadow of Adele is the one umbrella Ri-Ri wont stand under.

And who can blame her? Between Adeles album sales and Taylor Swifts cultural and touring dominance (FYI: She played to a stadium full of 76,000 people in Sydney last weekend), its tough to stand out at the moment, even for Rihanna, one of Forbes top 10 grossing female artists. Despite working in a music industry with a dearth of women in meaningful executive positions, the strength and power of female artists has never been more profound. And unlike Hollywoodwhere thanks to the North Korean email hack of Sony and a courageous Jennifer Lawrence, we now understand the starkness of the gender pay gapfemale musical artists get paid on par with their male counterparts. In music, the entire ecosystem earns a sizable percentage of whatever the artist makes; record labels make a percentage of album sales, promoters make a percentage of ticket sales, merchandisers make a percentage of T-shirts sold, and so forth. Which means we are at a unique moment in history where A-list women hold much of the real power in the music business.

The strength and power of female artists has never been more profound.

So what will they do with it? And how does their massive success shine a giant spotlight, for better and worse, on everything thats happening with the music business and the streaming business and the concert business and artist representation right now?

Adele and Taylor started this upheaval by each flexing a particular muscle that belongs to them and them only. Taylor used her pen as the sword, bringing the mighty Apple to the bargaining table to pay artists for streams during the free trial for Apple Music. Adele turned herback on streaming services to break an album sales record that had stood since Justin Timberlake was fronting a boy band with Britney Spears on his arm. But beyond the PR success and ego boost thats generated from seven-figure first-week sales numbers, these efforts did little to make a lasting impact on the business of music.

Like the rest of the news cycle, we celebrate heroic outliers, write think pieces, marvel at the numbers, and move on within the confines of the same old structure. As President Business from The Lego Movie would have us believe, everything is awesome. Only it isnt. While artists have done much to break through decades of exploitation and capture more of the value they create, the fan experience in most facets of music consumptionlive and recordedremains unconscionably broken.

Nowhere is the dysfunctional tension between Los Angeles/New York-based content creation and Silicon Valley-based technology more on display than in digital music services. In the Valley, we scoff at companies that ship their org chart in a product. (Note: Microsofts Steve Sinofsky who coined this phrase for mass appeal, and for some time it was Microsoft who was guilty of this en masse.) You can tell when groups within or outside a company arent working well together based on the way the products features play wellor dont play wellin production. This is displayed everywhere in digital music from convoluted hardware options and endless interconnected devices in the home to cutting-edge software that never seems quite ready for primetime. In particular, Apple Music still feels like a house built on the foundation of an old home that the owners never wanted to fully tear down for tax purposes. The compromises and technical debt are palpable.

The fan experience in most facets of music consumptionlive and recordedremains unconscionably broken.

But those issues pale in comparison to the evolving royalty structure in musicbasically, the agreements for how much artists, labels and songwriters get paid when you buy or stream a song. Without hit music from the Taylors and Adeles, those subscription music streaming services are essentially useless. Even if they have the best user experience for fans, without music that matters, their core proposition (the music you want for a flat monthly fee) becomes completely hollow. Disappointed fans know theyre being misled, especially when YouTube and BitTorrent offer even the mildly unscrupulous a holiday table cornucopia of free access to all the music on earth.

We know the economics of music streaming are still being sorted out, but we also know this happened with video content a few years agoand, eventually, major players like Netflix, YouTube and Hulu figured out how to window content, present it exclusively,and generate their own product. If music follows that model, then the biggest artists will sell their exclusivity to distributors like Spotify, Apple, YouTube/Google, and others. Our best asset to help that happen? Just keep complaining about this stuff.

What we are seeing and (not) hearing now as fans is the very public sausage making of a new recorded music revenue model, the loudly creaking rusty hull of an antiquated ship turning a bit too quickly in a swift current. For most of us downstream, it creates a suboptimal listening experience and never-ending frustration.

And its only worse with live music, where artists now make 70 to 90 percent of their income, despite a gallingly offensive fan experience.For one thing, the industry continues to lie to fansblatantlyabout the price of tickets until the very moment of purchase.An upper deck ticket for the Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas tour in Los Angeles on Sept. 17, 2016, is currently available on Ticketmaster for $49.95. After a $15.30 service charge, the actual price of that ticket is31 percent higherthan advertised. At StubHub, where between buyer and seller fees the ticket is routinely marked up 25 percent, the company tried to show pricing all-in. But after competitors didnt follow suit, StubHub reverted back to the draconian way of tricking fans into moving down the purchase funnel by baiting them with a lower price point, before dropping fees on buyers at checkout. Most artists are consciously (or navely) complicit in this dirty game. Many touring deals for large artists stipulate that artists are paid more than 100 percent of gross ticket sales. How can this be? Its because the promoter and venue make their money off of parking, beer, sponsorship, and importantly, service fees.

This wont change until fans start pressuring the artists to facilitate that change. Artists are intensely sensitive about their brands. With social media giving loud voices to all, artists are hyper-concerned with criticism for high ticket prices even though they have historically enabled a service fee system that exploits their fans. Its why so many good tickets often make it into the hands of brokers from venues, promoters, and artists directly. Ever wonder why you see so many VIP packages for sale? Theyre designed to charge market price for a ticket with a few low-cost add-ons attached. So why cant artists own their income desires and get paid what they are worth, or alternatively restrict transferability of tickets to ensure that fans get in at an artificially low price? Service fees are an extension of the ticket price, so why arent they presented as such up front in the buying process?

Apple Music still feels like a house built on the foundation of an old home that the owners never wanted to fully tear down for tax purposes.

All of the carnival barking about ticket prices comes against the backdrop of a swelling period of time between the onsale of a concert and the actual show date. For the concert example above, a fan buying four mid-level tickets would be putting down more than $400 of his hard earned money10 monthsbefore the show. That same week the tour plays a Wednesday night in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Who the heck knows what theyre doing on a Wednesday night 10 months from now in Albuquerque? The answers fall into three categories:

I dont.

Im one of the few passionate fans who will move my schedule around this show and give you my money ten months in advance.

Im a ticket broker, and Im buying bunches of tickets now to arbitrage and capitalize on all the people in #1 above.

This practice of ridiculously early sales has been expanded by the industry to bank money early, test demand, and reduce risk. Do they care that the best tickets go mostly to brokers, that fans pay more money than they otherwise would, and that the most passionate fans lose out on 10 months of interest on their money? Of course not. Were moving backwards.

The big question: Is all of this a calculated plan by the music industry to keep things as unfavorable for fans as possible, or can we chalk it up to sheer incompetence?

The recent Paris tragedy reminded us that the music industrys obligation to provide a better experience for fans are growing ever more urgent. The attacks on fans at a concert hall and a sports stadium were the manifestation of a longstanding fear we had at Ticketmaster about live eventscrowds are so much more vulnerable than we want to believe. We already learned this in air transportation after 9/11; 14 years later, we collect loads of data and restrict transferability of tickets between passengers boarding a 200-seat airplane. But with 80,000-seat stadiums, we continue to do almost nothing. With the use of cash, paper tickets, ticket reselling, and an average of almost three tickets-sold-per-order, upwards of 90 percent of individuals entering an arena or stadium can be unknown to event organizers.

The entire paradigm of music distribution is staring down the barrel of an evolutionary leap.

There are common sense solutions that would make live events safer for fans. By reimagining a ticket as a digital access credential replete with identity, payment, and location metadata, we could do the forensic work before and after events to identify bad actors. This need not restrict ticket transferability or resale; it simply means maintaining a centralized system of record where tickets can be sold and the data associated with buyers and sellers infinitely logged. Existing and emerging technologies, including blockchain, are candidates for handling this challenge. They can also prepare us for the dawn of virtual reality in live events, ensuring this technology becomes incremental and not cannibalistic to the artists live performance. To do so fully requires sunsetting the idea of a ticket as a piece of paper; identity and access can be tied to a phone, a card, or a fingerprint.

Guess what? This is precisely the course of technology across most consumer products today. Like other products, these advancements have the happy consequence of actually improving the consumer experience. This data can serve to personalize the live experience for each fan before, during, and after the event. It could allow artists to over-deliver on an experience for which they are charging astronomical sums, up to a year in advance. As usual, we fell way behind the curve in the music business. So maybe this is about incompetence over anything else.

Indeed, the entire paradigm of music distribution is staring down the barrel of an evolutionary leap. Twitter, like its many mobile social messaging peers from Snapchat to WeChat to Line to Instagram to Facebook, is really a direct-to-consumer distribution channel that could fundamentally transform the relationship between artists and fans. Katy Perry has 78M Twitter followers, Taylor Swift has 67M, Rihanna has 53M, and Adele, essentially without even trying, has 24M. Roughly half of the 100 most-followed accounts on Twitter are artists, and the technology is now in place for artists to commercialize their follower relationships by selling songs, tickets, and T-shirts directly on these platforms. Twitter led this effort; others followed suit. Its the fastest way to remodel the entire music industry. Any artist who pined for more control over the distribution of their art, as well as the artist-fan covenant, have the powers at their disposal to take command.

Which brings us back to what we learned this week, and this yearthat the biggest artists (including these stellar women who showed their might) have real leverage and real power right now. If they wanted, they could change a sedentary, broken industry. Conventional wisdom is that Adele is an outlier, capable of holding out for her own good but not much more. What if Adele, Taylor, and other elite artists united to force progress for all? Athletes in major sports leagues banded together. Actors held their own. So did screenwriters, directors, producers, and show runners. Music seems to be the only branch of entertainment where the collective voice of creators is mute.

The underlying driver of this silence is artist fragmentation. It is the key environmental factor upon which the 20th century music business was constructed: allow rare stars to extract their pound, but keep the bulk of the talent uncoordinated. Beyond the occasional telethon, its rare to find examples of artists working collaboratively for a cause at scale. Why is that? The leading culprit is that artists have traditionally outsourced a lot of their business decisions to their managers. Now that the time travelled from anonymity to stardom has shrunk to mere months, and artist-as-entrepreneur is a near requirement for success, the role of the artist manager has taken on increasing importance.

Sadly, management remains as fragmented and cutthroat as the days when Colonel Tom Parker was shepherding Elvis. In many cases, the speed to stardom brings along in its slipstream a relatively unsophisticated crew of hangers-on surrounding the artist. Cousins, classmates, boyfriends and the like, with little to no experience become entrusted with decisions that can impact decades of an artists revenue streams. Because most managers are paid on a percentage of the artists revenue streams, near-term money is usually prioritized ahead of long-term career value for an artist. Partnership and collaboration gets lost in fears and insecurities about acts being stolen away by other managers. Even the more sophisticated and professional managers suffer from the epidemic of the shark tank. Irving Azoff (Front Line Management) and Coran Capshaw (Red Light Management) are the two managers who have assembled artist management companies with meaningful scale. Ive apprenticed for them both, and they are excellent at what they do. But competition for the artists they manage (or would like to) remains high, and for their own business self-survival they are perpetually on alert. They do not operate in an ecosystem that fosters cooperation.

Music seems to be the only branch of entertainment where the collective voice of creators is mute.

Even the law works against artist representatives working together. California passed a law in 1978 called the Talent Agency Act that effectively says a person cannot be a manager and also book an artists tour. In practice, artists must carry both a manager and an agent, fragmenting the power of decision-making (and also the artists income). Entire cottage industries have been built on this church-state separation. Alliances are routinely built and broken between agencies and managers, further fueling the lustful competition and mistrust between artist representatives. One can surmise this is generally the scene that inspired the late Hunter S. Thompson quote: The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. Theres also a negative side.

Yet the opportunity for artists in the music business today is wonderfully beyond what even Thompson could have imagined (or hallucinated). And so it rests, finally, on the shoulders of artistsand the biggest ones, at thatto wrest control of this shallow trench of an industry away from those who have kept it in a state of morass, and give it depth. All that stands in the way of advancing the industry forward is overcoming the fragmentation within the artist community today.

And thats why Adeles eye-popping success last week is so confounding. Why, exactly, did she show her strength? The cynic will tell you it was for the money. But just as she could care less about what you think of her weight (somehow I dont expect the press to repeatedly address Chris Martins post-breakup body fat when the Coldplay album drops this week), she seems unmoved by the chance to make a few extra pounds. Which leads to the conclusion that like the rest of us, she falls somewhere on the scale between competitive and vain: She withheld her music from streaming services explicitly in search of setting a mark that none of her peers or predecessors ever did.

Having vanquished them now, will she flex her muscle for more than just the charts? She seemingly has willing partners in this effortin Taylor Swift and many of her now powerful female counterparts, as well as popular artists like Jay Z who have made recent business strides around artist empowerment. In so many ways, Adeles sales figures are less about her, and more a reflection of the continually crescendoing role of music in peoples lives.

In spite of all its dysfunction and fan neglect, our follower graphs on social networks hint that our accelerating interconnectivity is still threaded together most tightly by music. By following suit and binding together in this moment, Adele and the artist community can move the business and experience of music forward for all of us. As the Beatles knew: Come together, right now. Records are made to be broken. Adele and her peers have the chance to be indelible.

Nathan Hubbard is a former touring and recording artist, former CEO of Ticketmaster, and current head of commerce at Twitter. A version of this story was originally published on Medium and has been reprinted with permission.

Screengrab via AdeleVEVO/YouTube

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/can-adele-fix-the-broken-music-industry/

[raywarham-blog]

Liverpool Squad troubles

Mignolet – Been at the club since 2013. Never in my eyes been good enough. Comes across as a decent shot stopper but when you dig deeper that just isnt true. Can’t come for crosses, isnt commanding of his defence and his kicking is comparable to that of a 10 year old on Buckley Hill. Saved a fair few pens as a highlight but overall not good enough, never has been and never will be. The fact Klopp picks him as his number one completely baffles me, as I think it does many fans.

VERDICT - SELL

Karius – People where delighted when he signed. Another sign that fans don’t rate Mignolet. He came in and made some terrible errors. Bournemouth away was a shocker for him, especially so early on. Got a couple of games after that but never looked confident. One of the only keepers I’ve ever seen kick a goal kick out for a corner. As with Mignolet he cant come for crosses and although he looks confident on the ball he has every fans heart in their mouth as he tries to turn every striker rushing at him. What ever happened to just getting rid. Had a couple of cup games here and there inbetween lsoing his place. I think he done well against Southampton in the league cup but chances have been few and far between since. Given the chance again in the Champions League this year but terrible positioning in the Away leg at Moscow highlighted that he probably isnt the answer.

VERDICT – Keep for now but easily repleceable.

Ward – Not seen much of him in a Liverpool shirt to comment. He made an unbelievable save pre season, only for the defence to be asleep and it cost a goal anyway. Ward has had two excellent loan spells at Aberdeen and Brighton. All of the reviews seem to suggest he has the talent to become Liverpool and Wales number one but we all know the pressure that comes with that. Capped a couple of times for Wales and played their first game of the Euros, limited club time probably preventing him getting the number one slot. In my opinion should be given a run of games in the side after both Mignolet and Karius have shown their incompetence on many occasions. Klopp deciding to keep him as a 3rd keeper when he could have been playing for Huddersfield in the Premier League is another truly baffling decision by our manager and won’t have gone down well with Ward I’m sure.

VERDICT - KEEP

Clyne – I was probably one of his biggest critics going into this season, always thought he done okay defensively apart from the odd lapse at the far post but struggled going forward. In the modern game we expect our full backs to be good at both and if they arent we label them as not good enough. In all truth I cant wait for Clyne to return from injury. Never thought I’d see the day I thought that. With our attacking options, especially with Salah playing on the right this season I think Clyne being more reliable defensively will only help us. Less pressure on him to produce in the final third is something I think he will be happy with. We had Glen Johnson who was decent going forward and awful at the back. Clyne is opposite of that in my eyes and I’d prefer it that way. Maybe not good enough if you want to win leagues and go far in champions leagues year on year but for now Clyne is a decent and usually relaiable option.

VERDICT - KEEP

Trent – Youngster with bags and bags of ability, comfortable on the ball and doesn’t lack in confidence. Can deliver a wicked cross and we have already seen he can be deadly from set pieces. Takes a decent corner too, which is something we havent seen at Anfield for a few years. Beating the 1st man has been our achilles heal all too often. Needs a good few pans of Scouse and sessions in the gym to beef up but that will come with age. Signs looks really good for Trent and being a scouser we all want him to do so well.

Only downside for me is his defending. Maybe this is why a lot of people talk about Trent playing further up the field as he matures. Seems to switch off and lose his man a lot and has a tendency to turn his back on crosses. Again this could be down to age and I wouldn’t be too worried about this for now, but if he wants to be starting games he will need to learn this quickly. Gomez has been preferred to him in the bigger games this season and I’d put that down to him being better defensively. Fingers crossed for Trent he seems to have the right character to adapt and learn.

VERDICT - KEEP

Gomez – Looked great when he first came in. I rememebr him playing away to Arsenal and marking Walcott out of the game at left back. Walcott is no world beater but he is pacey and away at Arsenal in a rookie season can be daunting. Suffered two terrible injuries after this and many thought he wouldn’t return to the 1st team at Anfield. Credit to him he’s worked tirelessly at his recovery and is now playing regularly for both England U21’s as captain and Liverpool. Sometimes looks immature in his defending but hasn’t played many games at the top level and when he does its usually at full back when his preferred position is in the cernte of defence. Was great against Man Utd a few weeks back and Lovren’s latest gaff will hopefully provide Gomez with an extended run in his favoured position to show he’s got what it takes to make it.

VERDICT - KEEP

Matip – When we signed he came with a decent enough reputation. Played in the Champions League for Schalke, was a huge figure who likes to play out from the back. In reality he is sluggish, not commanding and for the size of him is bullied all to often both on the floor and in the air. Doesn’t look to have great positional sense and can often be found wondernig back when we are conceding goals. Been a huge disappointment for me, although he did come on a free which is something I guess. Definitely not good enough moving forward, he has been terrible this season and if it wasn’t for Lovren being worse he would be at the centre of fans abuse.

VERDICT - SELL.

Lovren – Hard not to go to town on Lovren here. Completely inadequate and not good enough for Liverpool Football Club. It’s at the point now where although I blame him for errors its not his fault Klopp continues to pick him nor failed to replace him in the summer. He makes mistake after mistake. Again like Matip nowhere near commanding enough for the size he is, often pushed aside.

Has complete lapses in concentration all too often to play at the top top level and his ball playing skills leave a lot to be desired. His passes to the full backs can often be found in the lower centenary. Had problems off the field which have been well documented and can’t have helped his performances. He once got my nephew a ticket for the game so I’ll always know he’s a decent human being and be thankful for that. Can’t see how he has a future with the Reds after his horror show at Wembley though.

VERDICT – SELL

Klavan – Came in knowing he would be 3rd or 4th choice CB. Had a couple of opportunities and played okay on a couple of occasions. Simply not Liverpool standard and no point wasting time evidencing why.

VERDICT – SELL

Moreno – Been at the club from 2014. Feels like 1914. Made a bright start scoring a cracker against Spurs away. Been pretty much downhill from there. Words probably can’t describe how bad his defending has been. Was one of the worst performers in the defeat to Seville in Basle. Dropped last season for Milner a midfielder playing left back yet has been brought back into the fold this season. Another of Klopp’s astounding decisions, how this has happened is beyond me. Many feel that Moreno has performed well this season, I just don’t think he’s been as truly woeful as he usually is. Blessed with blistering pace and it’s a good job because it gets him out of trouble at least twice a game due to his positioning incompetence. He was found closing the goalkeeper down the other week when we conceded away at Hoffenheim. Apparently has an excellent attitude and is clearly a favourable member of the dressing room but as a fan I couldn’t care less how many times he walks his dog on a hover board.

VERDICT – SELL

Robertson – Not seen enough to comment. Performed impressively on the few outings he’s been awarded by Klopp, MOM in one. Not sure if this was a committee signing or Klopp is bedding him in but I can’t understand why he hasn’t played more minutes. Bet he can’t either.

VERDICT - KEEP

Henderson – I’ve always liked Henderson I think he has the right attitude and adores the club. Came with a big(ish) price tag at the time and was a big move for him coming from his boyhood club. Hard one this as I think he is a talented footballer and the fact he’s always been picked by any manager he plays for even England backs this up. But I just don’t see it anymore. I’m not sure if injuries have hampered him, they certainly can’t have helped but he hasn’t lived up to anything near what he promised to be. Became our skipper after Gerrard retired, maybe by default in many eyes. I’m certain now that he’s not the right captain for us moving forward. I think as soon as we sign a commanding centre back they will get the armband or maybe Keita when he arrives.

Henderson isn’t a good enough leader, he is fine shouting abuse at the liner or referee but can often been seen head bowed walking towards the centre spot after conceding. He isn’t strong enough in the tackle when we need him and hasn’t got the ability of a Gerrard or Alonso to dictate the pace of play. Goals are another issue, I know he plays a lot of games as the deep lying midfielder but he simply doesn’t score enough. He threatening to a few seasons back but nothing since. He often snatches at good chances which is a same as he seems technically gifted. Too often sideways or backwards and that chipped cross to the far post is infuriating. Huge shame as like I say I like Henderson and wanted him to prove the doubters wrong, however I just don’t think he has it.

VERDICT – SQUAD PLAYER

Gini – Was a star performer in a relegated Newcastle side. Not sure if this should have been the writing on the wall. Came in and was solid, some really good displays and he bagged us some important goals in big games. City, Arsenal and Chelsea to name a few. Got about the pitch and at times looked like he could keep a ball in a phone box. It all looked good for him in his first season although his away form was a worry. Just a few months later and it’s the complete opposite. Away form is horrendous, carrying on where he left off last season, at times if I was Klopp I wouldn’t even bother naming him in the squad. That’s how bad he has been. For a box to box midfielder not to score away from home for Liverpool in more than a season is nothing short of pathetic in my eyes. We get enough possession and chances for him to have broken his duck. If we had better players or less on the injury table he wouldn’t be in the 11, its that simple. Time will tell for him but on the face of things not one for the future.

VERDICT – SQUAD PLAYER

Can – Where to start. Came over in 2014 as a youngster with huge potential having left Bayern Munich for game time at Leverkusen. Can has been hit and miss, more miss than hit. Played out of position by Rodgers at central defence and sometimes right back and struggled to find his form. Looked at the end of last season like he would kick on and played well in the last few games helping us get 4th. Like Gini and Henderson has struggled massively this term, a decent game against Seville at home his only stand out performance.

He should at 6 foot and a big unit dominate games through his sheer size and strength but too often is found out. Often caught in possession wanting too many touches on the ball and as a number 6 this often leads to attacks baring down on our already woeful defence. Linked with Juve which might suit him as the play in Italy in slower than that of the premier league. Believes his own hype and spends far too much time in front of a mirror to ever to Liverpool’s hard man. Would personally drive him to Turin.

VERDICT – LET GO to JUVE – Maybe leave out until then also. Not helping our cause.

Milner – Came on a free on huge wages. Joke wages if reports are true. Good honest pro, no nonsense and many managers have said you need players like Milner in your squad. He performed to the best of his ability at left back last season and a credit to him for that. However he was shocking for the final 4 months of the season and maybe this is why Klopp tried Moreno again? Been a decent enough signing and will play a part this season as and when called upon. Don’t think he will last beyond next summer as a Reed. Wish him luck.

VERDICT – SELL/RELEASE next Summer.

Coutinho – Another hard one to write. I said I wouldn’t let myself love a player after Torres broke many of our hearts a few years back and not many players have come close. Suarez was close and then this summer Coutinho was also. He’s a magician, a true game changer. One people pay to watch. Fans love him and managers love him. First name on the team sheet and maybe our only world class player.

That being said he won’t be a Liverpool player come next summer and we need to plan our spending well, IF we get the money. After trying to force his way to Barcelona in the summer he’s lost his place in many fans hearts. Rafa rescued him from Inter reserves and we have developed him into a star. He threw all that in our faces this summer and some of his antics where despicable. Never to be forgiven from me.

This season he has got his head down, like Suarez a few years back and has been a star performer again. Scoring or assisting in most games. He does go missing sometimes in games and for weeks on end but the quality is there and this season it’s been more regular than not. Will be greatly missed when he leaves but I won’t spend too much time worrying about it after what he done. Good riddance.

VERDICT – Be gone next summer anyway.

Lallana – Felt he struggled in his first season at Anfield. In and out of the side and had a couple of knocks. Became an automatic choice since then. His energy is vital to our press and winning the ball high up the pitch. He has a great first touch and the way he accepts a ball makes me think he can’t be English. Often overplayed by both club and country and has picked up injuries as a result, halting progress and action this season. We’ve badly missed him in the side. Should score and assist more for a man with his ability and will eventually see him replaced in the side for someone who does. Again great attitude and always leaves it all on the pitch.

VERDICT – KEEP

Firmino – Been a good signing in my opinion although his goal tally now he plays up front is not good enough. Don’t solely blame him for this and I don’t think he’s ever been a goal scorer or a number 9. Work rate is terrific and he is rated highly amongst a lot of Reds fans although doesn’t seem to get much acknowledgement outside of Liverpool. Can be breath-taking but can be frustrating also, something I suppose you get with Brazilians. Loves the club and loves playing for Liverpool. I think he needs to play as a midfielder again to fulfil his maximum potential to Liverpool as playing upfront he will never score us the goals we need.

VERDICT – KEEP

Salah – Been outstanding since signing. A snip in today’s market. Goals and assists galore and a terrific work ethic to boot. We need to add pace to our attack for when Mane is out and he’s provided just that. Looks fit and a fiddle and without tempting fate he’s played a lot of minutes already but seems up to the pace. Had a lot to prove after his Chelsea spell but has gone a long way to proving Mourinho was wrong back then. Terrific addition and hopefully be here a long time.

VERDICT – KEEP

Mane – Again an absolute snip at the price we got him for. Would possibly go for double now. Pace to burn and knows where the net is. Lots of energy and the biggest compliment to pay him is that we don’t look the same side without him, even with Coutinho and Salah. Glides past players after slowing them down. Having a frustrating season with both injury and suspension this term. Hopefully won’t be out too long and can get us firing again as soon as possible. I think we will struggle to keep Mane next summer if we finish outside the top 4.

VERDICT – KEEP

Sturridge – Such a shame. Used to say outside of Aguero he was the best in the league. Injuries have ruined his career, has all the talent in the world but will never be fit enough to show it. Used to be deadly given one chance, seems to have lost this now as well as a yard of pace. I don’t think Klopp has given him a good run of games in fairness to him. Many believe a lot of problems are in his head, unfortunately we may never know. One things for sure is that we won’t have him here beyond next summer to find out. Be astounded if Klopp doesn’t sell next year, on massive wages too.

VERDICT – SELL

Solanke – Too soon to pass judgement on him. Looked okay in his cameo’s. Needs a goal badly for some confidence.

VERDICT – KEEP

Chamberlain – Too early to tell in his Liverpool career. Massively overpriced for 35m and if he wasn’t English I don’t think we would have signed him. Hoping he gets a fair crack of the ship under Klopp, not going to judge before he does.

VERDICT – KEEP

Woodburn – Touted as the next big thing. Head and shoulder above at times at youth level when I’ve watched him. Done brilliantly for Wales in the two qualifiers and is always in the squad. He’s another one I don’t understand why Klopp doesn’t give more minutes too. Even as last sub, he never seems to get on. I know he’s young but so what. Gerrard and Owen were 17 when they started Okaying regularly, Woodburn’s just turned 18 and our midfield isn’t setting the world alight. He been playing more centrally lately so maybe we are bedding him in for that role in the future.

VERDICT – KEEP

[adambstingus]

Whats Worse For Your BrainDrinking or Playing Football?

Our correspondent drinks for a living. Is he putting his brain at more risk of damage than a football player?

I woke up Sunday morning with a throbbing headache. Id spent the previous night heavily sampling a selection of rare whiskeys with some friends.

That may have been fun, but now here I was, still in bed at 11 a.m., barely able to keep my eyes open, hardly able to think, certainly not wanting to turn on the days NFL games.

A parent cant consent to giving their kids a cigarette or a beerwhy can they consent to him playing tackle football?

And I thought this cannot be good for my brain.

The effect of NFL action on the brain is one of the hottest topics of the moment, with the movie Concussion opening this Christmas weekend.

In that film Will Smith portrays Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who first brought to light the appearance of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in American football players.

Thanks partially to Omalus work, nowadays when we watch the constant brutality on the football field, when we see players crashing their heads into each other down after down, when we notice aging players getting dementia (and worse) once retired, many of us have even started to wonder, Can I ethically enjoy football any more? Myself included.

At the same time, though, I often put my own brain in serious jeopardy too.

Yes, I am a professional drinks writer. Mid-day cocktail tastings. Evening scotch samplings. Beer festivals on the weekends. Trips to breweries, distilleries, and wineries. You should see how much free liquor gets delivered to my house on a daily basis!

People often tell me I must have one of the best jobs around. But they arent the ones that have had to drink literally every single day for hell, who knows how many days in a row it has been now. They arent the ones that wake up many mornings with a hangoverjust another occupational hazard.

So, with all this in mind, I decided to ask some football concussion doctors about the effects of my equally dangerous profession on my own precious brain. I wondered, how bad is my drinking compared to playing football?

Was a single whiskey shot equal to a QB sack?

A night of heavy beer drinking equal to a half of football?

Did my brutal Sunday morning hangover feel worse than it did on a Monday morning for a running back?

Neither Dr. Omalunor Will Smithreturned any of my calls, but luckily I had other accomplished doctors willing to answer my questions.

Dr. William Barr is the Director of Neuropsychology at NYU Langone Medical Center.

He is a clinical expert on epilepsy, forensic neuropsychology, and sports concussions. He has testified in numerous cases involving forensics and in civil cases involving MTBI (mild traumatic brain injury). More importantly, from the mid-1990s until 2004, Barr was a neuropsychological medical consultant for the NFLs New York Jets.

He quickly understood the somewhat silly concept behind this piece, and even why a professional drinks writer had reason to be concerned.

I used to think about boxers, he told me, noting that this was before all this concussion talk was in the mainstream. People used to say boxing was the only way for a kid to get out of the ghettobut he had to put his brain at risk. How terrible it was that society forced them to do this! But I also thought about the typical Mad Men-era businessmen. They had to do the three-martini lunches for their workthey too were pickling their brains just to get ahead!

Barr is a bit of a firebrand when it comes to talk about concussions. In fact, he believes concussionswhether from football or otherwiseactually have a fairly minimal impact on future cognitive functioning.

When you look at the studies and what happens three months after a concussiondo you know what meta-analysis is? he asks. I dont. He explains that, In science, rather than making conclusions based on a single study, you look at all the literature. Put it into a similar metric. Whats the overall effect based on many, many studies? So now, maybe, youre looking at 300 people over 10 studies. What it shows is the overall effect (on your brain) of a concussion after 30 days is lower than the effects of intoxication.

The study Barr is citing is Grant L. Iversons 2005 paper Outcome from Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.

Iverson didnt study alcohols traumatic effect on the brain per se, but he did find chronic cannabis use to be worse on overall neuropsychological functioning than an MTBI (mild traumatic brain injury) was on a person just one to three months after the injury had occurred. Likewise, he found chronic cannabis use to be slightly worse on future memory functioning than an MTBI.

For Barr, that was enough for him to deduce for me that alcohol abuse would be probably likewise worse on the brain than head injuries from playing football. Uh oh.

Barr isnt completely speculating, as he has co-authored his own significant studies. With a team of other doctors and PhDs he helped pen Cumulative Effects Associated with Recurrent Concussion in Collegiate Football Players and Acute Effects and Recovery Time Following Concussion in Collegiate Football Players.

Ive studied athletes more than the general population. With them we can get information before their injury and then after, he tells me. And what that shows is that 95 percent (of athletes who have a concussion) recover back to normal in 7 days or less.

He tests alcoholics brains in a similar manner to how he tests concussed athletes. He interviews them and then gives them a series of tests, ones mainly based on memory functioning (they have to remember a certain story).

So I might notice, this person has problems with attention and remembering things. In the past theyve been a 10-drinks-a-day alcoholic and now it looks like theyve pickled brain.

Though well-honored and quite thorough, you can probably see how Barr is considered a bit of a contrarian for his thinking on concussions.

Barr was even dismissed from the NFLs MTBI committee in 2004 by then-chairman Elliot Pellman, another former New York Jets team physician who is not without his own controversy.

I wanted another doctors opinion on my potentially pickling brain. Dr. James Paci, a professor and orthopedic surgeon, specializes in sports medicine at Stony Brook University Medicine. Hes also the football teams doctor.

First, he clarified that he was neither a neurologist nor brain physician. Despite that, he was trained to deal with concussions on a day-in, day-out basis in his own role as team doctor.

My expertise is how do we treat these athletes, Paci told me. What do we look out for? How do we prevent long term consequences?

However, unlike Barr, Paci somewhat struggled with the comparisons I was hoping he would draw for me.

Certainly there is some connection between alcoholism and Alzheimers, brain diseases. Drawing a parallel between drinking and football though? I dont think anyone has made that correlation. Though he does note, The rock n roll lifestyle and athlete lifestyle certainly do have some comparisons.

A man like Paci believes that both football and drinking are inherently dangerous, but thats OK, so long as we acknowledge the risk involved in both activities and, thus, let potential participants make informed decisions.

Ive had concussions before, Paci tells me. Anyone who plays sports has had one before.

Paci is about my age, having played football at Yale University in the late-1990s, while the slightly-older Barr played during a time head injuries werent treated all that seriously.

Back in the day when I played high school football, Barr tells me, you pretty much had to be in a coma before they did anything about it.

So both men had played football at a fairly high level, had head injuries on the field, and were still able to become prestigious doctors. But did they drink?

Not routinely, but I do, Paci tells me. Most doctors do. There are certainly benefits to some alcohol.

(Ive been saying that for years.)

I do, Barr also tells me. Everything in moderation. A little bit of alcohol can be good for the heart. Theres good data for the red wines. Some scotch in moderation, a finger a day maybe.

So you guys drink, but now knowing what you know, would you let your own children play football?

On that point Paci is fairly strict, believing young children simply dont have the body control and should stick to flag football or two-hand touch.

A parent cant consent to giving their kids a cigarette or a beerwhy can they consent to him playing tackle football?

Barr has a six-month grandson he absolutely wants to play football some day.

Should that boy play football or not? My take, from what we know right now: the chance of getting dementia, the prospect of a 13-year-old boy who starts football getting dementia one day is, lets say, 1 to 2 percent. Im being liberal, Barr tells me. But lets say that boy is not allowed to play football. Instead junior becomes fat and gets diabetes and high blood pressure. Now he has a 30 percent chance of dying of dementia.

So to Barr inactivity in this country is a much bigger problem than helmet-to-helmet contactinteresting, because drinkers on the whole are statistically much more active than non-drinkers according to the Center for Advancing Health.

That papers lead author, Michael French, a professor of health economics at the University of Miami, found that alcohol users not only exercised more than teetotalers, but the differential actually increased with more drinking.

I dont fully understand the relationship, Barr admits, though he has a speculation. Maybe people feel like after visiting the gym, they deserve to do something bad.

Its true enough anecdotally for myself, though Im a bit more of the reverse. I do something bad the night before, then feel the need to go jog five miles the next day.

I ask Barr point-blank, It seems like you ultimately think its safer to play in the NFL than to drink heavily?

Yeah, you could say that, he confirms.

This did not sound good for me. But what exactly did heavily mean? This week alone I sampled new whiskeys on Monday, drank wine with dinner on Tuesday, visited a hot new cocktail bar on Wednesday, went to a brewery opening on Thursday, and hit happy hour with friends on Friday.

Luckily, Barr relieved some of my concerns about any sort of future with dementia, simply telling me, You would not be on the phone with me, or even able to write this story, if you were drinking too much.

Regardless, I think Ill start trying to be more cognizant of my intake. As Paci ultimately summed up for me: The brain is an amazing thing. Your head hurts when you bang it. So you try not to bang your head again. With a hangover, theres obviously something similar going on there.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/28/whats-worse-for-your-braindrinking-or-playing-football/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/165813833432

[samanthasroberts]

Whats Worse For Your BrainDrinking or Playing Football?

Our correspondent drinks for a living. Is he putting his brain at more risk of damage than a football player?

I woke up Sunday morning with a throbbing headache. Id spent the previous night heavily sampling a selection of rare whiskeys with some friends.

That may have been fun, but now here I was, still in bed at 11 a.m., barely able to keep my eyes open, hardly able to think, certainly not wanting to turn on the days NFL games.

A parent cant consent to giving their kids a cigarette or a beerwhy can they consent to him playing tackle football?

And I thought this cannot be good for my brain.

The effect of NFL action on the brain is one of the hottest topics of the moment, with the movie Concussion opening this Christmas weekend.

In that film Will Smith portrays Bennet Omalu, the forensic pathologist who first brought to light the appearance of CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) in American football players.

Thanks partially to Omalus work, nowadays when we watch the constant brutality on the football field, when we see players crashing their heads into each other down after down, when we notice aging players getting dementia (and worse) once retired, many of us have even started to wonder, Can I ethically enjoy football any more? Myself included.

At the same time, though, I often put my own brain in serious jeopardy too.

Yes, I am a professional drinks writer. Mid-day cocktail tastings. Evening scotch samplings. Beer festivals on the weekends. Trips to breweries, distilleries, and wineries. You should see how much free liquor gets delivered to my house on a daily basis!

People often tell me I must have one of the best jobs around. But they arent the ones that have had to drink literally every single day for hell, who knows how many days in a row it has been now. They arent the ones that wake up many mornings with a hangoverjust another occupational hazard.

So, with all this in mind, I decided to ask some football concussion doctors about the effects of my equally dangerous profession on my own precious brain. I wondered, how bad is my drinking compared to playing football?

Was a single whiskey shot equal to a QB sack?

A night of heavy beer drinking equal to a half of football?

Did my brutal Sunday morning hangover feel worse than it did on a Monday morning for a running back?

Neither Dr. Omalunor Will Smithreturned any of my calls, but luckily I had other accomplished doctors willing to answer my questions.

Dr. William Barr is the Director of Neuropsychology at NYU Langone Medical Center.

He is a clinical expert on epilepsy, forensic neuropsychology, and sports concussions. He has testified in numerous cases involving forensics and in civil cases involving MTBI (mild traumatic brain injury). More importantly, from the mid-1990s until 2004, Barr was a neuropsychological medical consultant for the NFLs New York Jets.

He quickly understood the somewhat silly concept behind this piece, and even why a professional drinks writer had reason to be concerned.

I used to think about boxers, he told me, noting that this was before all this concussion talk was in the mainstream. People used to say boxing was the only way for a kid to get out of the ghettobut he had to put his brain at risk. How terrible it was that society forced them to do this! But I also thought about the typical Mad Men-era businessmen. They had to do the three-martini lunches for their workthey too were pickling their brains just to get ahead!

Barr is a bit of a firebrand when it comes to talk about concussions. In fact, he believes concussionswhether from football or otherwiseactually have a fairly minimal impact on future cognitive functioning.

When you look at the studies and what happens three months after a concussiondo you know what meta-analysis is? he asks. I dont. He explains that, In science, rather than making conclusions based on a single study, you look at all the literature. Put it into a similar metric. Whats the overall effect based on many, many studies? So now, maybe, youre looking at 300 people over 10 studies. What it shows is the overall effect (on your brain) of a concussion after 30 days is lower than the effects of intoxication.

The study Barr is citing is Grant L. Iversons 2005 paper Outcome from Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.

Iverson didnt study alcohols traumatic effect on the brain per se, but he did find chronic cannabis use to be worse on overall neuropsychological functioning than an MTBI (mild traumatic brain injury) was on a person just one to three months after the injury had occurred. Likewise, he found chronic cannabis use to be slightly worse on future memory functioning than an MTBI.

For Barr, that was enough for him to deduce for me that alcohol abuse would be probably likewise worse on the brain than head injuries from playing football. Uh oh.

Barr isnt completely speculating, as he has co-authored his own significant studies. With a team of other doctors and PhDs he helped pen Cumulative Effects Associated with Recurrent Concussion in Collegiate Football Players and Acute Effects and Recovery Time Following Concussion in Collegiate Football Players.

Ive studied athletes more than the general population. With them we can get information before their injury and then after, he tells me. And what that shows is that 95 percent (of athletes who have a concussion) recover back to normal in 7 days or less.

He tests alcoholics brains in a similar manner to how he tests concussed athletes. He interviews them and then gives them a series of tests, ones mainly based on memory functioning (they have to remember a certain story).

So I might notice, this person has problems with attention and remembering things. In the past theyve been a 10-drinks-a-day alcoholic and now it looks like theyve pickled brain.

Though well-honored and quite thorough, you can probably see how Barr is considered a bit of a contrarian for his thinking on concussions.

Barr was even dismissed from the NFLs MTBI committee in 2004 by then-chairman Elliot Pellman, another former New York Jets team physician who is not without his own controversy.

I wanted another doctors opinion on my potentially pickling brain. Dr. James Paci, a professor and orthopedic surgeon, specializes in sports medicine at Stony Brook University Medicine. Hes also the football teams doctor.

First, he clarified that he was neither a neurologist nor brain physician. Despite that, he was trained to deal with concussions on a day-in, day-out basis in his own role as team doctor.

My expertise is how do we treat these athletes, Paci told me. What do we look out for? How do we prevent long term consequences?

However, unlike Barr, Paci somewhat struggled with the comparisons I was hoping he would draw for me.

Certainly there is some connection between alcoholism and Alzheimers, brain diseases. Drawing a parallel between drinking and football though? I dont think anyone has made that correlation. Though he does note, The rock n roll lifestyle and athlete lifestyle certainly do have some comparisons.

A man like Paci believes that both football and drinking are inherently dangerous, but thats OK, so long as we acknowledge the risk involved in both activities and, thus, let potential participants make informed decisions.

Ive had concussions before, Paci tells me. Anyone who plays sports has had one before.

Paci is about my age, having played football at Yale University in the late-1990s, while the slightly-older Barr played during a time head injuries werent treated all that seriously.

Back in the day when I played high school football, Barr tells me, you pretty much had to be in a coma before they did anything about it.

So both men had played football at a fairly high level, had head injuries on the field, and were still able to become prestigious doctors. But did they drink?

Not routinely, but I do, Paci tells me. Most doctors do. There are certainly benefits to some alcohol.

(Ive been saying that for years.)

I do, Barr also tells me. Everything in moderation. A little bit of alcohol can be good for the heart. Theres good data for the red wines. Some scotch in moderation, a finger a day maybe.

So you guys drink, but now knowing what you know, would you let your own children play football?

On that point Paci is fairly strict, believing young children simply dont have the body control and should stick to flag football or two-hand touch.

A parent cant consent to giving their kids a cigarette or a beerwhy can they consent to him playing tackle football?

Barr has a six-month grandson he absolutely wants to play football some day.

Should that boy play football or not? My take, from what we know right now: the chance of getting dementia, the prospect of a 13-year-old boy who starts football getting dementia one day is, lets say, 1 to 2 percent. Im being liberal, Barr tells me. But lets say that boy is not allowed to play football. Instead junior becomes fat and gets diabetes and high blood pressure. Now he has a 30 percent chance of dying of dementia.

So to Barr inactivity in this country is a much bigger problem than helmet-to-helmet contactinteresting, because drinkers on the whole are statistically much more active than non-drinkers according to the Center for Advancing Health.

That papers lead author, Michael French, a professor of health economics at the University of Miami, found that alcohol users not only exercised more than teetotalers, but the differential actually increased with more drinking.

I dont fully understand the relationship, Barr admits, though he has a speculation. Maybe people feel like after visiting the gym, they deserve to do something bad.

Its true enough anecdotally for myself, though Im a bit more of the reverse. I do something bad the night before, then feel the need to go jog five miles the next day.

I ask Barr point-blank, It seems like you ultimately think its safer to play in the NFL than to drink heavily?

Yeah, you could say that, he confirms.

This did not sound good for me. But what exactly did heavily mean? This week alone I sampled new whiskeys on Monday, drank wine with dinner on Tuesday, visited a hot new cocktail bar on Wednesday, went to a brewery opening on Thursday, and hit happy hour with friends on Friday.

Luckily, Barr relieved some of my concerns about any sort of future with dementia, simply telling me, You would not be on the phone with me, or even able to write this story, if you were drinking too much.

Regardless, I think Ill start trying to be more cognizant of my intake. As Paci ultimately summed up for me: The brain is an amazing thing. Your head hurts when you bang it. So you try not to bang your head again. With a hangover, theres obviously something similar going on there.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/2017/09/28/whats-worse-for-your-braindrinking-or-playing-football/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2017/09/28/whats-worse-for-your-braindrinking-or-playing-football/