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ihatetaxes99 · 3 years

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A Brief Retrospective Look At MVA (In The Anime)

Well. Here we are. Every end of the time is another begun. After what has felt like years of anticipation (mostly because it actually has been years), My Villain Academia has been fully animated. Well, "fully" may be the wrong word here, but that's something I'll get into later.

To honour the end of the arc, I decided to do two things: One, I re-read the entirety of the arc in the manga all in one sitting; Two, I rewatched all five episodes of the anime's adaptation back to back once again. My life is pain and I know not of sleep. Anyway, the reason I did this is because of a little project I proposed to myself back just before the first episode aired; Once MVA was done and dusted, I would go back and give my own retrospective on the whole thing. Because why the hell not, sounds like fun. This will also hopefully be less emotional than my thoughts I shared as the episodes were still airing, but who knows?

So, let's begin. And I wish to start by stating that My Villain Academia is my absolute favourite arc in the manga. It did a lot of things right. It focused entirely on my favourite faction, the villains. It offers a glimpse into their lives and goes a long way in humanising them, particularly Spinner and Shigaraki. It sets up key points for others too, such as Mr. Compress' habit of thinking more about the bigger picture than the others, which would factor into his major reveal during the Paranormal Liberation War and of course the formation of the Front itself. It introduced us to Rikiya Yotsubashi, one of my favourite characters in the manga, even if he honestly peaked in this arc and was never as good again. And it gave us a large-scale, grueling fight for supremacy in which I found myself actively rooting for the League. It is, in my mind, the very best of BNHA, the only arc I would want them to do well in the anime. They could screw up literally everything else and I would be happy if MVA was even just as good as the manga, it didn't even need to be better. I would have been delighted to have an excuse to experience the arc all over again, seeing my favourite moments with the sublime soundtrack and voice acting.

Yeah…

But before I get to that, let us take a little trip of sorts down memory lane to see the road to MVA, what led to it. So, 2021 rolls around. What a fun year. It's just 2020 without the excitement of everything being so uncertain, and frankly it's been really fucking boring as a year. However, BNHA Season Five was announced. In February, we get the first trailer for the upcoming season. It's... It's fine. Obviously, it focuses heavily on the Joint Training Arc (in fact, that is all it shows) and although I despise that arc with a passion, it's not too bad. I had not watched the anime since Overhaul ended, so my plan was I just wouldn't watch JTA and would wait until the big attraction, MVA. And so, Joint Training starts. And it goes on. And on. And on. I checked back almost two months later to discover it still wasn't over yet. Now I found this odd. Joint Training Arc was horrible for many reasons, but the big one was that it dragged on for so long as a result of Horikoshi's health complications, which is by no means his fault. But, surely the anime, which would consistently release on a weekly basis, wouldn't have the issues associated with this. Episodes of BNHA have always encompassed around three to five chapters, and Joint Training's were shorter than usual, so why was it taking more than ten episodes to adapt it?

Very strange, but I didn't question it much. Then, the key visuals released, confirming that MVA was at the very least happening. Great, wonderful. I love it. We've got the whole gang there, seeming like they're in Deika, looks pretty good.

Wait, did I say whole gang? Yeah, my bad, there was someone missing. Spinner. Now, I am not the biggest Spinner fan so I wasn't prepared to riot over his exclusion like I would have been if Compress wasn't in it. But this was starting to get strange. Spinner was the main narrator of MVA. Even if his importance was not on the level of Shigaraki, Twice and Toga, it was certainly more than Dabi and Compress, who did both appear in the art. Why was he excluded? Obviously, I bet you're all having a good old chuckle to yourselves right now because in retrospect, this makes perfect sense now.

Alright, then. I heard from a friend around June time that Joint Training was finally over. Awesome, great, time for the good stuff- why is there a Christmas episode here?

Yes, this was probably what really started to get the alarm bells in my mind going. The Christmas episode- in June. Very, very strange. Also, absolutely no mention of Rikiya, which even if they were reshuffling things, I would have expected him to appear in the episode of Bakugo and Todoroki getting their licenses, since it directly ties in. Concern levels rising, I shrugged it off and waited for next week.

Bam. Major reshuffling. Now, Endeavour Agency comes first, fuck you if you want context for who the hell the PLF are or the significance of Destro's memoirs. This was really starting to worry me now. I told myself that the key visual meant that MVA had to be happening, but it was starting to seem like the villains were being shafted. A fact not helped by the new OP.

Look, I'm sorry. I don't mean to complain or whine, but season five's second OP is just bad. The music is fine, I have no problem there. But the visuals are just awful. Not only is there an extended focus on that stupid bloody trio of Midoriya, Bakugo and Todoroki, not only is there more screentime given to characters who don't appear in MVA or EA than the main cast of the former, but the animation itself is just so stiff and lacking. It had potential, but the visuals are the worst out of any recent anime opening I've seen in a good few years and this was what got me really panicking.

Boom, a beach episode smack in the middle of Endeavour Agency to promote the upcoming movie. Boom, adapting two chapters per episode during EA. Boom, the Shirakumo episode, which I always thought was part of the War Arc and not EA. But finally, mercifully, the title leaks came and it was revealed that episode 20 of season five would be the start of MVA.

20. Out of 25. And it was pretty obvious that they weren't going to end the season with MVA, so really, up to 24. Ohhh no…

But hey, I'm an optimist sometimes. I was excited to just finally be clear of all this nonsense and get to the real good stuff. Hell, in preparation, I watched the entirety of the season up to that point. I finally realised why JTA took so long and it's one of the most depressing things I've ever learned, in a bad way. Were all those flashbacks really necessary? EA was okay, as someone who as a manga reader, already had the necessary context for the PLF stuff. The beach episode, I watched half of, got too bored and skipped the rest of. And you know what, I liked the Shirakumo chapters. They weren't as good in the anime, but it was nice to see.

And then, finally, in comes episode one of My Villain Academia, on a cold, dark August morning. I even bought Crunchyroll Premium to watch it as soon as possible, I was excited. All the messing around, all the crap, it was finally over and the time had come to enjoy what this season was really all about.

I can now safely say why Bones kept pushing back MVA, because if I was them, I would be embarrassed to show this.

No, that's not fair. I promised I wouldn't get too snarky, so let's reek things back in. As a whole, MVA has been… fine. Just fine. Not good enough to justify the bullshit, but not horrendous (mostly.) In fact, right now, I'll give a ranking of the episodes, my worst to best:

5) Episode One

4) Episode Two

3) Episode Three

2) Episode Five

1) Episode Four

Yeah. So, there's a clear pattern here, that things more or less got better as time went on. From just straight up bad, to still not great, to alright, to the final two episodes being what I would comfortably call good. This is not a good look. I'm sorry, but Episode One, an episode that I just called bad, is still one of the season's best in spite of that. That spells out awful things for this season as a whole. But what exactly made this such a disaster?

Well, cut content is the big thing. MVA in the anime cuts out:

The League's battle with the CRC

Their struggle with poverty

The sushi joke setup

All of Spinner's character

All of Rikiya's character, including most mentions of Detnerat and Miyashita

Fairly integral pieces of Skeptic's character

Most of Giran's integrity and bravery

This doesn't look too bad at first. It could be far worse. We got basically everything else from the arc, so what? Well, I would already be annoyed about all of these cuts, but the issue is that they cause a knock on effect. Without the establishment of the League's poverty, the payoff of Toga's duffle coat now makes no sense. Without the setup of Spinner's characterisation, his battle with Hanabata now feels hollow. Rikiya's surrender to the League now makes even less sense, as his love of human life and desire to cause no more death is completely non-existent. The first time Rikiya being a CEO is mentioned is in the closing minutes of the arc. The sushi scene is hamfisted into a two second flashback just so that the payoff makes some sort of sense, but again, it is hollow without it being at the start (this is also the first mention of the League's poverty and it literally happens just as they are freed from it.) Can you see how these little seemingly unimportant cuts spiral into bigger problems? I would have been pissed even if they hadn't caused some tremendous cascades, but the fact that they did just makes this from a subjective issue to an objective one.

Yes. They did some things well. Toga's backstory is mostly intact, SMP is just as satisfying as the manga, Tenko's backstory is one of the best things the anime has ever done, the awakening is very well done, I adore the PLF formation as much as I did in the manga. Everything important is intact, but as I keep saying, you cannot just keep the bare minimum and expect it to work. How about in the next arc, they decide to cut everything involving Bakugo out, and only keep him jumping in front of Midoriya because it's the only absolutely necessary thing he does in the arc? People would be pissed, and it's the same thing that's happening here. It's a problem, it's not just a bad adaptation, it leads to bad storytelling in general.

The animation. Now, I do not believe this is a be all, end all. BNHA's anime is never going to look as gorgeous as Horikoshi's art, that is a fact and I do not begrudge them for that. They have a week to draw hundreds upon hundreds of frames, it's not a process that lends itself well to good looks and the animators and artists do their best with what they have. This does not change the fact that it is extremely hit or miss. Some things, Tenko's backstory in particular, look fantastic. Other things, mostly every action scene, make me laugh at how bad they can look and some things, particularly Twice and Re-Destro's hideous designs in the anime, make me cringe. The lighting is also an issue. Garaki's lab looked fantastic, but every other scene is just boring mid-afternoon with dull, basic lighting. I don't expect huge detail, but sometimes, it fails to achieve competency and as an extremely popular show, I don't think that's okay. I don't blame the animators, I blame the higher ups. And while I wouldn't mind the poor animation and art in an MVA that at least has all the story content, this does not have that and so I am even harsher than I would have been.

MVA was rushed. That's not up for debate. It took forever to get to it and once it came, things moved so quickly that they gave me whiplash, with no time to think or lament. Now, this could be attributed to the story structure of the arc, which is essentially a series of big fights, and it just isn't as bad in the manga because I can stop at any time to catch my breath. But I think it's worth noting that the anime at least highlights these issues. Curious dies in the same episode where she first appears, really driving home how pointless she was in the end. Episode Two alone tries to cover everything from the journey to Deika up until Jin finding Toga's body. That's a lot of content to fit in one twenty minute period and it was bound to feel messy in the end. I will say that, much like everything aside from the animation, this did get better as time went on, with episodes three, four and five adapting more reasonable amounts of content, compared to one giving us almost nothing and two giving us too much.

At the end of the day, that was it. The show's over. MVA has been closed in the anime. It will never be given a chance to improve, to go from just fine to anything even close to the manga. Why did this happen? I don't think we'll ever truly know. Some blame the new movie, others the studio's lack of faith in the villains, and there are those who say that it's just how fate turned out. I personally think it's a combination of all of these things. Without the movie, that beach episode wouldn't exist, giving more time to MVA, without the studio's hesitation, we'd perhaps get stuff like an actual good OP and perhaps some more general hype for it (I mean, MVA didn't even get a trailer.) Whatever the reason is, we got what we got. My verdict is something that's very overplayed as of late, but seriously, just read the manga with the fantastic soundtrack playing in the background. The anime's adaptation of MVA is not worth the time investment, when you could read the manga in roughly the same length of time and get more content, a more coherent plot and beautiful artwork.

So, what may come next for Season Six? I don't know. Season Five has definitely been one of the most unpopular seasons in the anime, with a lot of people speaking out against it, but this mostly seems to come from the Western fanbase, so it's up in the air if Bones will learn from their mistakes. Since they'll have a full season to do presumably the War and Rouge Deku arcs, then I feel like they'll put on a better show. But we just don't know. Spinner had his spotlight stolen this time around, will Compress suffer the same fate in Season Six? Dabi and Toga will probably be handled well, since they have inexplicably high amounts of popularity, but with his own lack of recognition rivalling Spinner's, I can see Sako ending up much the same way. Time will tell, I suppose.

#my villain academia #mva #league of villains #Meta Liberation Army #studio bones #bnha season 5

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sirfrogsworth · 4 years

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You seem to think it's not possible to hate corporations for getting tax breaks AND think people on disability shouldn't get stimulus checks. Neither should people on welfare. They'll just blow the money on tattoos and televisions instead of paying a bill or getting their kid braces. I grew up deeply impoverished, no one hates poor people than a former poor person.

If I understand you correctly, you believe because a few people foolishly spend money on tattoos or televisions, we should deny EVERYONE additional funds?

I know a single mother who eats one meal per day to make sure her kid has enough food. There are thousands of people who ration their insulin because they can’t afford to buy it every month. Some of them die doing so. There are people endlessly paying interest to loan sharks because they had an emergency and had to get a payday loan. This stimulus check could help all of them greatly. It might even save a few lives.

But someone got a tattoo so fuck all of them, right?

Almost every good thing has a price. Kindness is in finding the things that do the most good while trying to mitigate the cost. You can’t punish the masses for the sins of a few.

Candy is tasty. People love candy. But if you eat too much candy it might harm your teeth. But I don’t think that means we should ban all candy. Perhaps we just need better education about taking care of teeth and moderation. (Universal dental healthcare might be nice too.) Just like a lot of people in poverty never get any kind of financial education. They were never taught how to create a budget or balance a checkbook or file their taxes. No one teaches you how to be poor. But you would have them punished for that societal failure.

Yes, there are always going to be people who take advantage. But I believe that is a small price to pay to make sure truly desperate people get food and medicine and shelter. In fact, the amount of fraud in the welfare system is actually quite low.

“A 1978 federal report found that just 1 percent of the annual budget of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was lost to unlawful, willful misrepresentation (fraud) or excessive services and program violations (abuse).”

–The Myth of the Welfare Queen

“While critics still like to use old arguments of rampant abuse to lambast a program that feeds millions of Americans, the fraud rate has decreased from “about 4 cents on the dollar in 1993 to about 1 cent” by 2006. And this decline has only continued, with the 3.5% rate of fraud in 2012 reducing to less than 1.5% today.”

–The Very Short History of Food Stamp Fraud in America

Compared to corporations of significant size, the percentage of fraud in our social safety net is actually less. Some companies will just write fraudulent activity into the budget as the cost of doing business.

“One government report says fraud accounts for less than 2 percent of unemployment insurance payments. According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), the typical business loses 5 percent of its revenue to fraud each year.”

–Just How Wrong Is Conventional Wisdom About Government Fraud?

And who cares if someone gets a television? Hell, I just bought a television on sale over Christmas. Poor people shouldn’t be restricted from buying a nice thing every once in a while. I saved up a little each month over a year and a half. I had to start over twice because of unexpected expenses. But I kept at it and found ways to be even more frugal. I ate food I was sick of because it was cheaper in bulk. I found online coupons and deals for my regular expenses. I transitioned my family off of cable to streaming services. I was proud of my financial ninjutsu. I’d prefer to not have to be that frugal on a regular basis because that was frustrating and stressful. But I’m glad I accomplished my mission. My TV is the main tool I use to keep me sane while being trapped in this room. I feel like it was an important purchase. Which means you don’t even know if people are being foolish with their money. You’re like those ghouls who judge people for buying a steak with food stamps. Sometimes people need a damn steak. Because being poor is depressing and steak is delicious.

Also, I know plenty of people who clawed their way out of poverty who don’t “hate poor people.” In fact, many appreciate what they have even more and do everything they can to give back to those less fortunate. So I reject the premise that former poor people hate poor people. I posit that you are, and always have been, a giant asshole. Don’t try to justify your harsh ideas by believing it’s some common trope.

I feel like your comment should inspire an update to the “Okay, Boomer” meme. You have done this cruel calculus that really reminds me of someone. Perhaps we can use a new phrase to quickly shut down people who have abandoned their empathy. And it is brought to you by the TV you probably think I shouldn’t have…

#long post

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earthlyemily · 3 years

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I’m struggling so much financially and honestly just wanted to vent somewhere. I’ve always lived in poverty and I think in my whole life I’ve had maybe 2 years where I didn’t have to stress about money and not be able to buy groceries or pay rent or be put into collections for not being able to make payments etc and that was when I was in college. For at least the past 5 years I’ve been struggling but I never talk about it. I don’t even know where to start haha I don’t even know what it’s like to not stress financially and be in debt. I’ll just start with the first things that come to mind with what I’m owing maybe. So it’s Dec. 23 and rent was due yesterday because we moved into this small suite attached to someone’s house on Nov. 22. It’s $1200 which is so expensive, but also the average price for BC if not even cheaper for a one-bedroom with a yard, utilities included. and no first and last, no pet deposits, etc because this is just short them for 4 months until the end of March because i reached out and asked and they said yes.

After 1 month I already remember why we went into the trailer almost 2 years ago and it’s literally because we can’t afford any other lifestyle. I think that’s the difference between us and some people that live in trailers, vans, etc. like we lived in a mouse & mouse shit infested trailer for 6 months breathing in their feces and urine and having it all over all our belongings. i literally had to take my whole life to the dump and we officially have no food storage because they ruined it all. there were at least 50-60 mice because a few birth cycles happened in the ceiling. I could write a whole post about my experience of living with field mice, but now isn’t the time so for rent, i only had $600 yesterday so that’s what I gave them. thank goodness they were okay with me asking for a few more days to make the other half. but I don’t even know when that’s going to be :(

my etsy shop veganveins has been doing so bad lately for more than one reason, most of my orders are just postcards and stickers, and while I’m grateful for them, that $1-3 profit isn’t going to keep my business going. and it’s so hard for me to work lately. the wifi doesn’t work sometimes for hours and I always get distracted by shawn and the dogs working from home in a small space. I need to get better at my time management. I got up at 8:30 today which is actually early for me so I’m proud of myself. I’m chronically ill and I really need to go get a blood test and see what’s happening because I haven’t gotten one since being diagnosed with graves disease again 1.5 years ago. anyways. i switched to a print on demand method this year for veganveins for some shirts and sweaters because i couldn’t afford to keep ordering shirts in bulk, and it’s honestly been so, so expensive and i barely make any profit. I’m currently owing my t-shirt printer $999 on one invoice (it was originally $2196 so I’ve at least paid half of it) but that was 2 weeks ago and I still need to pay it. Mario, my t-shirt printer has been with me since I started veganveins and I’m so grateful he gives me extensions on paying the invoices. every other t-shirt printer I’ve ever asked has said no. in addition to the $999 there’s going to be another $2200 invoice I’ll be receiving this week for my last order. I think because of the holidays he’s going to give me some time to pay off that too, but the problem is when I have outstanding invoices he doesn’t print new orders for me. He’s closed now until Jan. 4 so I just need to somehow make that much before then.

btw I don’t have a credit card ($8500 all used on veganveins and it got put into collections last march) and I had a fully used $5000 line of credit but I got a debt consolidation loan for $16,000 1 month ago and my payment for that is $167 a month. it fully paid off and closed my credit card and line of credit + $3000 overdraft which is nice. but now I don’t have any extra money except for what comes in. my credit is only 640 which is really bad in canada so I won’t get approved for a new credit card or loan until I build that up, which is going to be a few months of regular payments. so for regular payments, the $167 for the loan is due on Dec. 27. Yesterday the trailer loan which is literally unliveable from what the mice did until we renovate it came out for $260, that’s how much I pay once a month for it on the 22nd. I didn’t have $260 in my account so it got rejected and I got charged a $48 NSF fee. omg if anyone is reading this long i’m shook. i’m genuinely just writing this for myself to process my feelings and in case anyone was curious about my financial situation here you go haha. maybe some of you can relate, maybe some can’t. anyways. so now I somehow have to get $260 in my account for that for when they try to take it out again in the next few days.

another payment that was supposed to come out yesterday but hasn’t, but I’m sure will come out today is our truck loan. they deferred it for 8 months because of covid which was so nice, but we started paying it again 2 months ago. for both those months I called and made my payment a later date and that helped, but there’s barely any service here so when I called 4 times yesterday to try and change the date the payment comes out, I was on hold for 20-30 mins then my phone would disconnect and hang up. so that’s $586 and it will come out today, I have $0.46 in my account right now so it will get rejected and I’ll get charged another $48 NSF fee. this is why being poor always costs more and the banks are always harsher on those who don’t have money. today I’ll try calling again to see if I can ask for it to come out on a different day like january 10 instead, so I can first have time to pay rent and the trailer and also our $190 truck insurance which got rejected from my account 3 days ago, which was another $48 NSF fee. oh and something else i’m so stressed about is CIBC is going to put me into collections on December 28 if I don’t pay $1000, $700 of which is purely their fees. I have a $300 overdraft which they said i have to cover by then and the $700 is literally their $48 fees added up over the past 3 months. I got a text from them today saying my account is over and it’s because an amnesty international $11 monthly donation came out and obvi there’s no money in there, so that’s another $48 they charged. they’ve already given me a month to pay it and don’t want to wait any longer :(

I owe everyone in my family money, my sister $1650, my mom $700 and my brother also lent me $700. none of my siblings have money either and my mom definitely doesn’t so I hate that i had to borrow that much, and it’s literally been months. thankfully they’re so patient but i can’t wait to not owe them that

omg and i can’t even think about the amount of money shawn’s grandma has lent us. she’s genuinely the only reason we haven’t been completely homeless. but it’s a lot. like i don’t even want to say the number on here. she let us use it from her line of credit over the years and we’ve been slowly paying her back, but she lets us go months at a time without making a payment which i honestly hate doing, but have no choice. i’ve felt a lot of shame and guilt about this, but I also know that she genuinely would rather help us than see us suffer.

so i’m gonna talk about a big reason I’m broke this month especially - saving a pig named buster. his rescue cost me $1850 out of pocket that I didn’t have. but otherwise he was going to be killed in 2 days, he was my baby and I loved him so I had to do it. I somehow made $1350 that went towards it but I’m still owing $500, which I just asked for an extension for today until the new year. i’m not really supposed to talk about it but everything I’ve ever posted here has stayed here, so that cost was literally just from me buying the pig off the farmer. myself along with everyone else ive talked to is disgusted that he charged that much, but he wasnt budging and if that’s what it was going to take, of course I’m going to do it. I wouldn’t think twice about doing it for my dogs and Buster was smarter and more affectionate than them. i love him and I’m so happy he was saved. a non-profit organization transported him to a sanctuary and it was my biggest wish come true and the happiest moment I’ve had all year. my eyes are literally tearing up haha i love him so much. i could write a whole post about his neglect but basically he hasn’t had fresh water in weeks, he was only being fed handfuls of mixed nuts, he was constantly dirty in a muddy enclosure with an electric fence that he was always getting shocked on. he never got true love or affection except for when I gave him it. i posted an instagram story about him and asked people to message me and that i needed help, 2 people donated $111 and $120 each, and 2 other people donated $15 and $12. Someone also e-transferred me $20. These 4 donations equaled almost $300 ($277) and I was so grateful for those people wanting to help me help buster. if anyone else wants to help me with the cost of his rescue i still do need help and would appreciate it so much. this feels really weird and vulnerable for me to do and i’m sorry if anyone is annoyed by this post, I just genuinely am struggling and figured if someone does have extra and wants to help, there isn’t harm in that. but i do feel guilty for asking because i know there are so many other people struggling out there that need even more help than i do :(

i haven’t talked about it publically but i guess I will now, this farmer that I bought buster off of is the owner of the organic vegetable farm i was living and working at this past spring and summer. we worked really hard all summer to be able to stay there and park for free in the winter, but this past fall he told us no one was allowed to stay at the farm anymore, including us, so we had to find a new place to bring our 14ft trailer in to live. so that was an unexpected bummer and if we had known we wouldn’t be allowed staying there anymore (despite doing the labour of $1200 a month for free harvesting organic kale, for an off-grid spot he told us was worth $350 a month to park) we wouldn’t have driven 8 hours with the trailer and we would have stayed in the snow in northern BC and sucked it up and lived on the land we got the opportunity to rent this fall. Donna, the woman who is renting the land to us has been the biggest blessing in my life this year. I love her so much. Basically, she’s letting us live on 170 acres for $600 a month. letting us do whatever we want on the land (building a cabin, setting up rainwater catchment systems, having a solar passive greenhouse and a huge garden) LIKE WHAT. we could even open a farm sanctuary if we had money, i wanted to so bad but obviously that dream didn’t even come close to being reality. opportunities like this literally don’t exist in canada, especially not in BC. i cant even process my gratitude, i cry everytime i think about it. when we go back in the spring it’s going to be the beginning of the rest of our life :) i want to rescue so many senior dogs. everything we’ve always wanted to do we’ll be able to do, assuming we have money haha. but i want to have an organic farm and grow veggies to donate to families in need, especially since we live on stolen indiginious land and I see how the goverment actively restricts their access to fresh healthy produce. but anyways by then it was too dangerous to drive 8 hours back hauling a trailer in the snow and it was just easier to stay in the okanagan until the spring. i know the farmer probably doesn’t realize this and he’s also probably struggling financially but not being able to stay at the farm for the winter months we worked for, and buying buster for that price is a big reason I’m in the financial stress I am now so I figured i’d talk about it.

anyways. i think this is long enough and i think anyone reading this gets the point, i’m drowning in debt, my small business is almost costing me more to run and i’m not making nearly enough profit to live, the past few months ive been living off grid (not by choice) and just focused literally on surviving and not freezing and getting water etc and not having service or internet has affected me negatively. there’s internet now in the suite I’m in, it works really good in the morning and not as well at night, like for example tumblr doesn’t work past 5 pm for me to post photos. but ive been in a bad sleep schedule since i got here that i need to change. im sick and i need to heal myself. tomorrow i’ll set my alarm for 7:30. hopefully i make some money today. i got a social media managing job and it will end up being $1000 a month once i do the 3+ hours a day of work which im already feeling like i barely have time for my own basic life tasks. but i can do this.

if anyone reading this wants to help me out a bit, my paypal email is [email protected] or http://www.paypal.com/paypalme/veganveins

and my e-transfer email is [email protected] i have auto deposit so you won’t have to ask a question :)

this is my first time in 7 years i’ve made a post like this or asked for help. i won’t do it again but figured i have nothing to lose. if you read up to here i love you a lot and thank you so much for being here <3

#personal #finances #broke #poor #vegan #small business owner #graves disease #saving animals #off grid #I wonder if anyone will even read this all #debt #life update lol #p

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thekitchensnk · 4 years

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and the spider lilies bloomed in the fall (chapter 21)

Rating: T Warnings: Violence Pairing: Gin/Ran Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21

“They say that lovers doomed never to see each other again still see the higanbana growing along their path, even to this day.”

A girl collapses on a dusty road one day. A boy takes her home.

The girl lives.

—

(The boy doesn’t.)

The next few days were hellishly busy, as Yuki had predicted ominously, and the four women found themselves devoting every spare moment to scraping together plans and contingencies for the future, which raced relentlessly forward.

It was decided, in a quiet moment where Rangiku, Yuki and Sayaka had sat with their heads together and discussed the matter in hushed voices, that each of them would give Ayame what they could spare from any savings and spare cash they had on hand.

When they had told Ayame of their plans, their expressions focused and serious, her face had been ashen and her fists had clenched by her sides.

Ayame had always been fiercely self-reliant, a girl whose grand plan had been to lift herself out of poverty and into comfort by the sweat of her own brow, and it was galling for her to have to rely on the kindness of friends. But she had agreed in the end, frustrated, but ultimately beaten down by the simple fact that there was no other way. It was that, or starve on the streets.

Rangiku was not so much of a saint that she did not mourn the cakes and clothes she could have bought with the money she was giving away. She allowed herself a few hours of moping and self-pity, where she pathetically sploshed her mop around and imagined the yukata she could have bought for next year’s tanabata. But she was doing the right thing, and the thought tided her through the sense of loss.

“It’s mostly my winnings from betting on my fight,” she informed Ayame begrudgingly. “You better call the brat ‘Rangiku’ after all this, I’m telling you.”

“What if it’s a boy?” Ayame asked with a wobbly smile, her hand placed self-consciously on her belly.

Rangiku was pulled up short, and she glowered at Ayame for pointing out the obvious problem. “Then he’ll be the first boy in Soul Society to be called ‘Rangiku’, and he’ll be proud of it!” she insisted.

Ayame snorted. “I didn’t want this, but I don’t hate the poor baby. I’m not going to consign him to a life of teasing.”

“Or her,” Rangiku pointed out.

She paused as a thought crossed her mind. She smiled, and it was a soft, warm thing.

“I used to have a friend,” she told Ayame breezily, “a friend called ‘Gin’, of all things. And he-“ she caught Ayame snorting in surprise, and she leapt on the reaction with delight “-yep, ‘he’, not ‘she’- even had silver hair.” She sighed, and the look on her face was nostalgic. “So try hard, right? And such a weird name too. Who’s actually called that?”

Ayame laughed, and it warmed Rangiku’s heart to see it. “Poor boy,” she said. “Did they pick on him?”

Rangiku scoffed. “No. He picked on them.” She pulled herself upright energetically. “See? It’s character building.”

Ayame gave her a gentle, considering look. “You know, I think that’s the first time you’ve ever mentioned someone you knew before you came here.” A warm, teasing smile played about her lips. “I just thought you had no friends because you were too lazy.”

It was the first time she had said his name in three years, and Rangiku had caught herself by surprise with it.

It didn’t hurt. Not anymore.

She turned to Ayame, and she glowed. “Nope, you’re right,” she said cheerfully. “I spent all my time in bed, all day, every day.” She giggled to herself. “Gin was my servant. And he was rubbish at it.”

Serves him right, she thought contentedly.

Ayame just snorted.

By far the hardest thing to find was a place for Ayame to stay. Rent was expensive, and people willing to board with a pregnant whore few and far between. Yuki, Sayaka, Rangiku and Ayame herself scrambled haphazardly trying to get the word out that they were looking for a place, but between the clientele of the Floating Moon and their unorthodox working hours, they had little luck in their search.

Or at least, they did until Rangiku went out one morning, her mouth a thin line of determination and her eyes bleary having scarcely slept the night before. She came back with a familiar face in tow.

She looked around, her face inscrutable.

“Ah,” Hisana said curiously. “So this is where you work?”

Ayame and Rangiku shared worried looks, fearful of her judgement.

Hisana paused. “No wonder you were both struggling to keep track of time. Days and nights, weeks and months must blend into one in your, ah-” she coughed delicately, “-line of work.”

“Can she stay?” Rangiku asked urgently.

Hisana took a long look at Ayame’s pale and tired face, at the hand resting on top of her belly.

“You both know I’m from Inuzuri?” she said gently.

They nodded fearfully.

“Then you should know that I will never judge what another person does in order to stay alive.” Her eyes, usually so gentle and placid, were intense. “I’ve lost that right. Of course you can stay. You can stay as long as you need.”

Rangiku whooped and engulfed her in her arms. “Hisana!” she exclaimed joyously. “You are our hero!”

Hisana blushed in her arms. Rangiku turned excitedly to look at Ayame, but when her eyes landed on her, they softened at what they saw.

There were tears on her cheeks. “Thank you,” Ayame said quietly, and she stared hard and blinking at her lap. “I don’t know why everyone is exerting themselves like this for me.” She looked at her hands. “For me.”

Hisana extracted herself from Rangiku’s overenthusiastic embrace, and went to sit by Ayame.

Rangiku, who knew well how it felt to be alone, to have no one and nothing in the world and then to have everything all in a moment, said nothing.

“No tears,” Hisana said, smoothing away Ayame’s tears with her thumb. “No tears. Everything is going to be alright. We’ve got you. You’re going to be alright.”

Ayame cried quietly for several minutes, and the three of them sat and weathered it together. They were all pulled sharply from the moment when Ayame suddenly jolted.

“We didn’t even offer you tea!” she wailed.

Rangiku smiled to herself, and went to put a pot on. Somehow, down in her bones, she knew that everything was going to be okay.

---

The day eventually came when Chiyo found out.

It was a simple thing, and brief for all the trouble it caused.

They had been preparing for opening when it happened. Sayaka had been resplendent in a yukata of emerald green, her dark eyes narrowed with focus as she bent over to paint a thin charcoal line on Ayame’s eyelids. The charcoal had been wet and emollient; the smoky smell had lingered in the room.

Chiyo had slid the door open. It had not banged, or clattered, or made much of any noise at all, but their hearts had all plummeted into their stomachs as one all the same, and they had eyed her with fearful eyes.

Sayaka had flinched, and the delicate line had smudged.

There had been something absurd about that.

Ayame had gone pale, and Rangiku had moved instinctively to place herself between her and Chiyo, but she had found herself next to Ayame, not in front of her, as she had intended.

By her side, pressed against her thigh, she had felt Ayame’s hand brush clumsily against her own, and she had squeezed it tight.

Bravely, white-faced with fear, Ayame had raised her chin to look Chiyo squarely in the eye.

The old woman had sighed deeply, and Rangiku had blinked in surprise, only for fury to coil in her gut.

How dare this woman sigh as if she wasn’t the source of all their misery, as if she was sorry for what she was about to do.

“Be gone before opening tomorrow, Ayame-kun,” Chiyo had said. It had sounded regretful. It had sounded remorseful.

It had sounded like poison. Rangiku had wanted to hit her.

Chiyo had turned on her heel, and she had left as suddenly and silently as she had come.

Rangiku had paused. Rangiku had ran.

“Hey!” she had shouted, “Oi!”, until she had caught up with the old woman.

Her fists had curled into balls by her sides, and her hair had been a wild mane of gold about her head. Her eyes, soft like blue flowers, had flashed defiantly and proudly.

“I’m leaving too.”

It had been like an electric thrill in her skin, like a roar in her heart, like the defiant snarl of a wildcat.

“I’m leaving too.”

She had expected pushback. She had expected something.

Chiyo had looked like her she was nothing, like she was less than nothing. The last words she said to Rangiku were cold.

“So be it.”

That night Rangiku bantered and hustled and worked like she had never worked before in her life, joking, laughing, grinning, and smiling as she went.

Part of it was a keen awareness that she needed to make as much in tips on her last night as she could, to keep herself fed until term started in Seireitei.

But the other part was a keen sense of catharsis, of freedom, of closing the door on this part of her life and bringing it to a close.

“Ayame and I are off! We’re leaving!” she announced loudly.

Some of her regulars cheered, some shouted in dismay- some even cried, and she smiled sadly to herself to see that somehow, without even realising it, she had touched these people. She knew suddenly and certainly that she mattered to these people, and the thought had her eyes welling up.

Her voice wobbled. “We’re going to go and become outlaws. Sexy bandits,” she joked, and someone patted her on the back. The crowd laughed at the image, and she suddenly ached to leave them, and this place, behind.

But no party could go on forever.

She consoled herself by telling them that she’d be back soon, in her shiny new uniform, and she’d be unbearable and she’d be brilliant, and she would see them all again.

She smiled and laughed and tossed back her hair, but she knew deep down that it was time.

The evening wore on, and eventually the music stopped, the dance floor emptied, and she watched as happy businessmen and yakuza and made-up women clung to each other and stumbled out the door. They bumped into each other, and walked like strange three-legged beasts, grasping at each other as they went, but they laughed and sang all the same.

Outside, the cold, winter sun was beginning to rise over the horizon, and its eerie light played on the water.

She climbed the stairs for the last time, the muscles in her calves aching.

In their room, a scene which was already becoming the strange stuff of nostalgia played out, as it had a thousand times before.

“I can’t believe you!” Ayame complained heatedly. “It’s our last night, and you-“

“I didn’t! And even if I had-“ Sayaka grinned wolfishly, “would it really be worth all this fuss? It can’t be good for the baby.” The light danced in her eyes.

“You’re impossible!” Ayame huffed, her brows furrowed. “But I’m going to miss you anyway.” She laughed in disbelief. “What does that say about me?”

“You’ve got good taste, that’s what,” Sayaka teased.

Rangiku left them to their bantering. Yuki was beckoning, wooden comb and silver-backed hair brush in hand.

“One last time for old times’ sake?” She asked hopefully.

Rangiku sat cross-legged in front of her, her yukata in inelegant disarray about her knees, and pressed Yuki’s soft, gently lined hand to her cheek.

Yuki got to work gently untangling the rough knots laced throughout Rangiku’s hair.

“I’ll miss this,” Rangiku confessed quietly. “You’ve always been the best at this. You’re so patient, and gentle. You should give up the game and become a hairdresser.”

She had said it before. Yuki had always laughed and said nothing, but this time she paused, and Rangiku turned her head to look over her shoulder at her.

“Maybe I will,” Yuki murmured. “Maybe I could get out too.” She looked at Rangiku, and she smiled a secret smile. “Maybe Kanae and I could open up shop together. Could you imagine that?” Yuki laughed, and Rangiku felt a secret delight to see it. She tried to hide her smile, and as she moved her head, a few loose strands of hair fell in her face. She pushed them back behind her ear with her fingers.

Yuki was silent for a moment, eyeing her fingers.

“What happened to your ring, Rangiku-chan?” she asked with quiet surprise.

Rangiku’s fingers drifted to where her tin ring had once sat upon her finger. There was nothing there.

There had been nothing there for weeks.

“Oh. That,” she said absent-mindedly. “It doesn’t fit anymore.” She looked up at Yuki with honest eyes. “I outgrew it.”

Yuki’s lips pursed in thought. “Hang on a minute,” she said in determination. “I’ve got an idea.”

Sayaka, evidently bored of antagonising Ayame, flopped down on the floor next to Rangiku. “We never did get that story,” she said waggling her eyebrows suggestively.

Why not? Rangiku thought. What a sad, pathetic story. This time I’ll make it a tale worth remembering. I’ll make it worth her hearing it.

She hummed lowly, mind set to spinning out a story. She paused, for a moment, gathering her thoughts.

“Well…” she intoned with great drama. And so her story began.

“Once upon a time, in a far off land under the mountains, in a land surrounded by dark and haunted forests, a girl was walking along a road.”

“Was she sexy?” Sayaka demanded lethargically.

Rangiku eyed her disdainfully.

“The sexiest,” Rangiku said, insulted.

“Anyway,” she resumed, “this girl was wandering in the woods on a bright and sunny day picking flowers, when the weather took a peculiar turn. She had just reached an odd forest clearing when it suddenly started to rain.

But this was no ordinary rain. The rain fell but still the sun shone, water and fire mixed high in the air, and it was like one great, illuminated curtain of diamond-light. She was so struck dumb by its beauty that she just sat there in the rain, red flowers in her hands, waiting for the world to end.”

She paused dramatically.

“Air-head,” Sayaka jibed.

“Hey!” Rangiku said heatedly. “Do you want the story or not?”

Sayaka motioned her hands lazily in the air, gesturing for her to continue on.

Rangiku glowered.

“The shining curtain drew back suddenly, and there in all its glory was a great wedding procession, with lamps and fine-robed guests. A retinue so grand could only belong to a noble, she thought, and in a moment, she was proved correct.

The long, snaking line parted, and from its head descended the fine lord to whom it belonged. Only, when the girl saw him, it wasn’t a fine lord.”

Sayaka snorted, but she raised herself onto her elbows to listen more closely.

Gotcha, Rangiku thought triumphantly.

“It wasn’t obvious at first, but when I- the girl. When the girl looked closely, she could see the tails hidden beneath his embroidered coat, and the glossy coat of silver fur which covered them. The two of them, girl and boy, stood silently beneath the glassy rain for a moment. Her hair was plastered to her face, and all of a sudden, her heart was in her throat. The rain battered the leaves of the persimmon trees and the sunflowers were almost bent double under the weight of the water.

He bent down on one knee, and he said, ‘Matsumoto Rangiku,’-“

Sayaka laughed a great squawk of a laugh.

“Matsumoto Rangiku,’” Rangiku pressed on, feigning seriousness, “’you’re the hottest dish that ever existed in Soul Society and I’d ravish you right here and now, but my parents raised me to do things properly, so I guess that means we have to get married first.’”

Sayaka giggled.

“And so he gave me this silver ring-“

“Come on, Rangiku-chan,” Ayame chided primly. “You’re too old for fairy tales. And anyway, there’s no way that old thing is made of silver. Just look at it! You’d be lucky if it was made of tin.”

“Shut up, Ayame!” Sayaka ordered. “I wanted to hear about Rangiku getting down and freaky with the nine-tailed fox.”

“So anyway,“ Rangiku continued at a higher volume, ignoring Ayame, “he said-“

But Yuki had returned to cut off their squabbling before it began, a long, metal chain necklace in hand and Rangiku’s ring, fished out from beneath her pillow.

“See?” Ayame said. “Just look at it. Rangiku’s fox was a cheap-skate. You’d think that he could afford better.”

We could barely afford food, Rangiku couldn’t help but think all of a sudden. And yet he wasted the money on me.

He had never made sense. He never would.

Yuki looked at Rangiku earnestly. She proffered the ring and the chain to Rangiku in an outstretched hand.

“Your ring is precious to you and you should be able to wear it. It makes me sad to see you without it, knowing that someone out there gave it to you out of care for you. Put it on this chain, and you’ll be able to wear it again.”

Rangiku’s mouth formed a small ‘o’. She shook her head vigorously. “I can’t take something like that from you! Look at it! Ayame’s right. It’s probably worth twice as much as the ring!”

Yuki was adamant. “Rangiku, I want you to have it. Think of it as a goodbye present, from Sayaka and me. We want you to have it.”

“Huh? Oh- erm- yeah!” Sayaka stumbled, nodding her head enthusiastically, as if she hadn’t just been roped into Yuki’s justification a split-second ago. “You should take it!”

She paused, and looked at Rangiku with a rare serious expression. “If you never accept anything from anyone, you’ll end up with nothing. If you don’t ask, you’ll rarely get. Take it.”

Rangiku took the chain reluctantly.

“Put it on!” Yuki encouraged, and so she did.

The chain was too long to wear conventionally. Worn as a normal necklace, the ring sat almost near her navel. She looked at the other two in confusion.

“I think the chain is a little bit too long.”

It was pragmatic-minded Ayame who engineered a quick solution. “Wait. Loop the chain through the ring.” Seeing Rangiku struggle with what it was that she was describing, Ayane slowly manoeuvred to her feet, and did it for her. “No, no. Not like that. Like this. There we are!”

It was Sayaka’s turn to frown. She shook her head. “No, no,” she said agitates. “Not yet.” She pulled the dangling end of the chain, and quickly placed it between Rangiku’s breasts. She whooped wildly. “Now we’re talking! Look at her!”

Rangiku looked at herself in the mirror, and an irrepressible grin of her own rose to meet Sayaka’s.

On Rangiku’s right, Ayame with her chestnut hair and her heavy belly, her hand placed on her right shoulder, a rare and bright grin on her face. Behind her, Yuki, with the soft crows’ feet at the corners of her eyes and her gentle smile, one hand in Rangiku’s golden hair. On her left, Sayaka, with her sharp features and her thick brows, her arm slung around her.

She had been a small, frozen child when she’d arrived here, having walked all the way through snow-filled roads and tracks in summer sandals. Her hair had been cut ragged with a knife, and it had sat at her shoulders. She’d had no hips to speak of when she was shown to this room for the first time by Ayame, who had watched her with small, pitying glances, and given her a space in which to sleep. Her clothes had been threadbare, and so too had her soul.

Her hair was long; her eyes were bright and keen; her hips and breasts had grown full and thick. Most important of all however, she thought, turning to face these women whom she had loved, she had never been allowed to feel loneliness again, not whilst she slept in their room, not whilst she stood by their sides.

Her fingers traced the ring at her collar bone, and the long, shining chain around her neck.

“Ladies,” she announced. “I think we’ve got something here.”

She gave them all a coquettish wink in the mirror, and then turned to meet their eyes.

She was met with three soft, reflected smiles.

“Thank you,” she said, and it was as simple as that.

---

When she woke late the next morning, she looked around the room for the last time, and her eyes lingered on the hairbrush, the mirror, the door which Ayame had once dragged her into, almost giving her a concussion.

The room had a small, slotted window, barely more than a shuttered square to help ventilate the brothel during the humid heights of summer.

Rangiku peered out through it. Snow drifted across her vision, and pale walls stood like giants in the distance.

A flutter of excitement spread through her chest.

Seireitei was waiting.

#Bleach #ginran #Rangiku Matsumoto #matsumoto rangiku #hisana kuchiki #end of part 2 my lovelies #part 3 featuring a new header image coming to your screens soon #back to our regularly scheduled disgusting murder boy #now featuring Aizen Sosuke #complete with a e s t h e t i c killing #borderline grooming #and stupidly intense revenge plots

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skelffricat · 3 years

Text

Good grief, Charlie Brown.

I’ve never owned an electric toothbrush. I’ve never had a dishwasher. I am the dishwasher. I like washing dishes. I never bought an iron. I don’t have a hairdryer. I find it strange that I get advertised these reusable alternatives for things that I never use anyway. Alternatives to cling film. I put another plate over the dish. Alternatives to cotton buds. I use my finger. (Ew, you may say, but surely a finger’s that size to fit in ears and nostrils? Or whatever orifice you please. Wash your hawnds.) Alternatives to cotton wool circles. What? I dont know why these thoughts have come into my head, when I want to write about my youngest child. Really, I’m meant to be working, but an annoying email from my dead daughter’s school sent me down a suicide rabbithole. Perhaps those other thoughts come about as my classic brain avoidance schemes. Like when you hoover instead of doing an essay. Positive procrastination, I used to call it. I wanted to visit some friends last night- a fun thing! but I was feeling all solitary and awkward. I cleaned the bathroom ceiling at first, instead! I had to really talk myself into going to see them. I was looking at my bed and it was saying, “Get into me! and read your book!”

Then I went, and I had a lovely time, of course. I still finished the book I was reading, when I got home at midnight, until three am, making myself ever so tired. I’ve stopped taking the tablets- beta blockers and mirtazapine (more by accident rather than design. They’re still up in the chemist waiting for me. I’m rather disorganised) and so sleep doesn’t come as readily. I have to take deep breaths for ages sometimes, to get over. And I awake in the night hearing things that aren’t there. I heard The Woodcarver calling me, one night, plain and loud as day. Another time, I heard my son knocking my door three times, sharply (or was it a burglar? I said that to someone and they laughed. Burglars don’t knock! Oh, hello there, wake up, I’m robbing you blind!) Bounced out of bed. Heart hammering. Called him. He was fast asleep. Was it her ghost? I don’t believe in ghosts, really. Kind of wish I did. She’d be a mischievous one, no doubt. Is it always 5:57am, when I awake? The same time. Time to find your dead child.

I’m often in the house alone, now. They didn’t want to leave me alone, and there were so many people in the house, for ages. Then all of a sudden, it stopped. And I changed lovers... I changed to the one I’d been in love with for over a year, the one who seemed too young, the one who wasn’t interested. Suddenly he was interested. Well. It wasn’t sudden. It took a few weeks. Seven weeks? The seven week itch? It coincided with when the Scottish lover asked me to stop letting other people come to the house. He wanted me to himself. Which is kind of fair enough, though I knew it wouldn’t last anyway. (People coming to my house, I mean, not the relationship. I really enjoyed having a relationship with him. He is very sweet, funny, intelligent, and kind. The sex was great. He can cook wonderful food and play guitar well. I liked to sing with him. I am ashamed to say I was bothered by his being smaller than me, though. His face tended to itch me, too- he never quite grew a beard long enough to stop that. As he kept shaving it off, not because he couldn’t. That was the first time he kind of annoyed me, though.)

Lockdown doesn’t help, of course. We were all breaking rules in our grief. Covid is cancelled, my mother said. Masks off. Hugs all round. A friend told me you need extra oxytocin when you’re grieving. I was getting plenty of it. Good grief...

Now I am frequently alone, and as my new lover is very busy studying (or perhaps less interested in me again now that he has my attention back? Though his reticence in getting with me stemmed from his concerns about the uneven nature of our interest in each other...) I haven’t seen him all week. I feel myself becoming depressed, and withdrawn, and paranoid, yet I still don't feel particularly sad about my daughter’s death. Which is strange. Isn’t it? Here is the email I received from her school this morning (it had her name and class at the top of the email):

“Good morning

I hope this email finds you all well.

A number of years ago I signed the college up to the campaign against period poverty. I receive and distribute sanitary products to girls, primarily on free school meals, but any who are in need of the products and either can’t afford them or it is difficult to get them. The products are normally distributed by myself, during P.E and games, unfortunately this can’t happen at present.

These products are still available during the school closure. If you wish to avail of them, please contact our school info account (which is only read by one member of office staff) your request will be directed to me and I will contact you directly regarding collection.

These are difficult times for many at present and to quote my favourite supermarket, ‘every little helps’.

Kind regards...”

I was really with her until she quoted Tesco. And said they were her favourite!! Ugh! I mean, it really is a great idea. Though they really should check if the people they are writing about are still capable of bleeding. My heart bleeds....

I replied thus:

“Hello there.

Great idea, but as (my youngest daughter) has died, she won't be needing them any more. I hate Tesco- they ruin many little businesses.

Maybe take me off this mailing list?”

Then I attached one of her seven suicide notes: the one for school. Which I had previously not shown them. I only found it on Christmas Eve. Can I attach it, here? It has no names...

There we are. Is it wrong of me to find her notes amusing? She is so angry, people say. I wonder how much of it is literal, and how much of it is using the school as a big nameless scapegoat. She was funny in the rest of them, too, and very loving. I found them comforting, like a fucked up Christmas present.

Then I started reading articles about suicide, and they were about how we shouldn’t call the people who do it selfish, about how depressed they are, how they need pity, not anger. I’m tired of the pity (though I’m not the suicidal one). I’m not producing enough sadness from myself when people pity me, either. Where is my sadness? Am I too acceptant of it all? We are all going to die. Is suicide like a C-section? Is it cheating death, like I thought my Caesareans cheated birth? Is suicide self euthanasia? Why do I not miss my daughter more? Is it because she had already left? Was she released, happy, free as a bird, swooping away on an Awfully Big Adventure? Trapezing her way into the æther? I googled to see if I could find any positive reactions to suicide. Is this my nature, to try and find the good in everything? To try and make light of the horrific? Is everything a joke to me?

I found this blog post, from Andreas Moser.

I love it. Am I trying to take the blame away from myself? The NHS? The school? Should I be reeling and railing against the systems that let my daughter get into that state? Why am I instead trying to find ways to applaud her behaviour, accept it, even enjoy it?! When I read his words, “I admire their courage (because logical as it may be, it’s not easy) and the determination to make the ultimate decision in life oneself.” I felt a strange sensation of relief, that someone else could think those things. I had been thinking them, but trying not to, because it seemed like such an awful thing to think. But then I think, why does anyone else have to be to blame? It was her decision.

The book I was rereading is called Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson. It’s my favourite book, I have decided, for now. Do favourites stay favourites? I was looking at my old Couchsurfing Profile today (because of Andreas’ blog- he, as a hippy hermit, is, of course, on Couchsurfing). One needs to update these every so often. Explain that you have watched another film in the last twenty years, that there is one less sofa in your living room, one less child on your earth. Even though no-one is allowed to move around, really. No visiting. No exploring. Perhaps she killed herself to escape the boredom.

In Life After Life, the main character, Ursula, lives again and again. (I forgot that to live again and again, she had to die again and again. It's a very sad and graphic book, spanning two wars- read it. It is, ultimately, uplifting.) I wanted to read it again to make my daughter live again, and again. We need to write her alive. Show her drawings and paintings. Listen to her songs (they're hilarious). Read her poems. Admire her photographs. Tell the stories of her antics.

I know that really she was actually depressed and withdrawn. I know it isn’t a glorious escape. That her wee head was broken, and that sometimes it’s just easier to say, it was unfixable, she was determined, this is what she wanted, than to contemplate it as my (or anyone else’s) failure to help her. I know that she used to be confident and gregarious. She would have danced in front of people, inspiring others. She was always upside-down, tumbling, twirling, cartwheeling. She had a dry, cheeky wit, and rather an amusing obsession with poo and wee. She was kind, and wise. She liked to bake vegan treats. She could draw, and paint, and sing so beautifully. She played the ukelele, but by then she was hiding away. She had started to write poems- songs? She wouldn’t show us them. We had to beg her to perform on the trapeze for her Granny’s eightieth, in July. She did so, beautifully, but you could tell she hated the attention. Four months later, she hanged herself on it.

Had we all withdrawn into ourselves, this 2020? Was there really nothing else to do? Yet I remember the start of Lockdown seeming idyllic. All that free time, all that sunshine. Was I just trying to convince myself, as usual? The only people we saw were the Woodcarver and the neighbours. She taught the wee boy next door to ride his unicycle. When she died, he brought in a picture he had drawn, of them on their unicycles, she as an angel above herself, a rainbow arcing over the three figures. His sadness affected me. I felt like I could only be sad through other people. Where is my sadness? Where is my grief? Good grief, bad grief, no grief? Alternatives to grief.

#teenagesuicide #goodgrief #badgrief

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dragonindigo245 · 5 years

Text

So I know there’s a superhero AU for the sides but consider... supervillain?

Bare with me. This is going to seem really funky but I figured why not? In this AU Thomas is a superhero and the sides are supervillains. Here’s a semi-breif- Oh nvm this is way to long. Woop dee doo. Feel free to scroll away if you don’t want a long AU. If you’re into that... here’s some character descriptions!

Thomas

•Thomas is a YouTuber who vlogs and is known for his small skits and vines. His most popular series after vine died though is his Awkward Adventures.

•He collabs with his friend Remy to do some “sleep” skits.

•He used to collab with Patton, Logan, Roman, and Virgil back when vine was around too but they hardly knew each other.

•Thomas hardly remembers them besides a few off set jokes.

•Thomas was born with the powers of flight, super speed, and to feel emotions.

•He can’t alter them but he does try to help others like the good person he is.

•Actually was convinced by Emile to take up superhero work. Emile didn’t mean it in the “go beat up bad guys” way but here they are.

•Everyone knows Thomas identity. He doesn’t hide it.

•Joan and Taylon designed him a superhero outfit. It is basically a white jumpsuit with rainbow cuffs and a giant, glowing rainbow star symbol in the middle. There’s also an epic rainbow cape to go with it.

•He doesn’t view the supervillains as bad guys, but rather broken people. He only uses physical force if they attack him. Otherwise he try’s to convince them to turn themselves in. Course it doesn’t work all that well but he tries.

•He doesn’t go by anything besides Thomas. He doesn’t need a superhero name to be super.

Patton

•Patton has two kids who go by Fiona and Liam (The kids from vine) and is a single parent.

•Their dirt poor and often have trouble scraping by. His kids don’t even go to school due to school fees.

•He declines any money from his friends and his family has given him all they can. They aren’t as poor as Patton but also aren’t comfortable.

•Logan actually comes by Patton’s house weekly to try and tutor them to his best abilities. In certain subjects they know more than kids there age but in some their lacking.

•Patton was born with the powers to alter emotions and to fly.

•He actually alters his own emotions so he can remain happy around other people.

•Problem is that only represses them for later. When he’s alone he’s a total mess.

•He started going into crime around 5 years after he adopted his kids, when poverty was at its max.

•He doesn’t have a job unfortunately because he was to low on money to send the kids to school, hence not having time for a job.

•Pat only does crime for the money so his kids can eat and he can keep his apartment. He really hates it though.

•He doesn’t have a supervillain costume but he wears the typical black mask superhero mask along with his cat hoodie.

•Despite hating crime, he’s the best at it compared to the others. He can actually be really intimidating when he needs to be.

•The only crimes he has committed are robbery, attempted murder (course he would never actually kill someone), and trespassing.

•His kids don’t know he’s a supervillain and he intends to keep it that way. They have gotten dangerously close though.

•He hasn’t been captured yet.

•He still calls Virgil his “dark, strange son”.

•Virgil accepts this and the kids treat him like an older brother.

•Patton was the one who got Virgil into eyeshadow surprisingly.

•Patton actually hasn’t gotten hurt by Thomas. He munipulates his emotions to make him not hurt him. Thomas has stopped him from doing whatever crime every single time though.

•His supervillain name is Curse, due to him wearing a cat hoodie and the whole black cats have bad luck thing. Also based on him often using fear to keep enemies away.

Logan

•He lives in a two room apartment, one room always remains locked and with a few modifications, made the door booby trapped.

•Only he knows how to get past them without destroying them.

•There’s actually a booby trap designed to go off if you destroy the door trap.

•He often tutors kids other than Patton’s. However they know what they should be learning so their significantly easier to tutor than Fiona and Liam.

•He received his powers in illegal experimentation though he was a test subject so he wasn’t in much trouble.

•Really he just had a migraine for a few days and suddenly he could lift an entire couch with one arm.

•His powers are unique. He is quite literal when he says “Knowledge is power.” His strength is based on how much intellect he possesses.

•Currently he can lift 2,000 pounds comfortably. This does mean he can lift some cars.

•Ironically because he looks so skinny, people tell him he should go to the gym so he’s able to hold his own in a fight.

•If you mention a new topic to him he doesn’t know much about, he will get a splitting headache and he is almost incapable of resisting researching it. He will become hyper fixated on it for like a month.

•His supervillain costume is a black jumpsuit along with a black bandana. Patton stitched in a black hood to the jumpsuit because Logan was worried that he could leave a hair at the scene of the crime, and get caught. He also extanges his glasses for contacts.

•He commits crimes the least often compared to everyone else, only doing so to unleash bottled up anger. When he gets angry enough for that though, all hell breaks lose.

•His first crime was commited in his softmore year of High School.

•His crimes include homoside, arson (don’t ask where the fire came from), assault, kidnapping, property destruction, and finally trespassing.

•He has been captured twice but has gotten away before they could unmask him.

•His supervillain name is Mind Bender because he wasn’t exactly discrete how his powers work. Really Thomas just came up with it on the fly and the media loved it.

Roman

•Roman lives in a two bedroom apartment with his roommate Remy who knows of Romans identity.

•Thankfully Remy doesn’t give a shit unless Roman intrupts his life with it. He had to take an oath not to tell anyone as long as Roman doesn’t bother the Starbucks industry.

•Remy may not care Romans’ a supervillain, but he will keep his identity a secret because he doesn’t go back on his word.

•Roman was considered to be a magnificent actor but was disgraced once Remus became a supervillain.

•He now works for a modeling company... as a photographer.

•He loathes he can’t be a model himself but doesn’t make a fuss about it.

•Honestly being the photographer is just rubbing salt in the wound for him.

•His powers include the ability to make anyone enamored with him and he counts his reflexes as a power even though it isn’t. He’s just crazy talented.

•His powers actually were a hex from Virgil, as a way to able him to be a supervillain. He also has been begging Virgil to give him the power to communicate with animals but Virgil has told him to wait for awhile.

•Problem is, his powers actually make him more prone to falling in love. Magic always takes its toll.

•He’s actually once had 3 relationships in one week before. It was just sad.

•After losing the acting carrier, he became extremely greedy and obsessed with riches. You can imagine why he is a supervillain.

•He started becoming a supervillain around the 2 month mark for his photography job.

•His list of crimes are theft, robbery, shoplifting, arson (again nobody knows where they get the fire), manslaughter, and kidnapping.

•Though with the kidnapping he literally did it to spite the ladies boyfriend. Really nothing happened to her. She sat in a dark room, tied to a chair, having a debate with Roman which Kardashian was the best. Then the police showed up and Roman jumped out a window.

•Romans outfit is the same princely getup as in the series and a white and gold masquerade mask. Also a gold crown that he bought himself. He carries a sword as well to aid in battle but he uses it as an accessory all the same.

•Patton once swapped Romans’ crown for a Burger King crown in the middle of a heist. He didn’t even realize until Patton handed him his original crown like half an hour later.

•There is viral camera footage of this event. Roman is still a bit bitter towards him but secretly finds it funny.

•He has been caught five times (every time he went on a heist with Remus) and has had his secret identity revealed in private by a few cops. They were all killed by Remus before they could tell anyone.

•Technically Roman owes Remus.

•His supervillain name is Prince for obvious reasons. Remus claimed him as his sidekick immediately so that helped the name decision.

•Everyone thinks Remus is Romans sidekick though. Nobody believes Roman is the lesser one here.

Virgil

•Virgil lives in a 3 bedroom, house with Dee and Remus.

•He’s actually been alive since the dark ages.

•Currently he works at a Hot Topic.

•He’s a supervillain because he is actually a serial killer. Virgil loathes this fact though and tries to repress it as much as he can.

•His powers come from a spell book he has. He can do electrical magic and some illusion magic without help from the book but otherwise he has to read it from the pages in combat. Easy to do with cops, hard to do with superhero’s.

•The spellbook however gives the user intense fear for as long as it’s left open. He tries not to use it to much.

•One time however he literally collapsed and had a panic attack while fighting Thomas. Thomas actually stopped fighting and helped Virgil through it though.

•The athoreties showed up with Virgil proped up ageist the wall beside Thomas. He willingly came but wouldn’t allow for his identity to be seen. He was rescued by Logan later on before he had to go to court.

•Virgil has been detained twice, the first time being him beaten down, the second time him willingly going.

•His outfit is a black cloak along with the rest of his body wearing black. He has fingerless gloves too. His face is hidden by a simple black bandana.

•His supervillain name is Shock, in both the electrical way and emotion way. Another one Thomas came up with.

Dee

Well for starters I just found out how to do this easier. Okay anyways resuming.

Deceit goes by Dee or Dec. He refuses to tell anyone his name. If they ask he says something like “Karen” or “Linda”.

He doesn’t have a job for this reason.

Oh and the fact he can’t cover his identity very well so he’s on the run from the law.

He was involved in the same experimentation Logan went through, but was tested for something different.

Long story short: His body ended up going through the extremely painful process of growing scales on his right half of his body, his canines (teeth not dog) grew into poison filled fangs, and his tounge became thin and forked. An unfortunate side effect was him going blind in his right eye.

He was the one who actually got the experiments shut down.

He was treated as a freak of nature and feared. Eventually he developed the mindset that society was a lie and it needed to be torn apart.

So I guess now he wants an anarchy.

He’s also a narcissistic liar so he fits the role of a snake.

His powers are being immune to physical damage on his right side, and having a venomous bite.

He wears the same bowler hat and everything he originally wears. There is no need to change when you can’t conceal your identity.

He’s actually terrified of snakes despite being part one. Unfortunately snakes are attracted to him.

Remus constantly reminds him that snakes can have two d-

He started a few years ago with his whole anarchy thing from Orlando but Thomas quickly put a stop to it.

His list of crimes just... keep going... it’s to extensive but let’s just say genoside is on there.

His supervillain name is Deceit. He made it himself.

Remus

Ho boy the real train wreck.

He’s currently hiding at Virgil’s place along with Dee.

He is not mentally stable enough to have a job. He’s also the most wanted person in America. This guy can’t get a job.

He’s literally chewed his way out of a straight jacket. This mans unhinged.

His powers? Nobody knows where he got them. Probably used Virgil’s spell book.

His powers are teleportation and shapeshifting.

Leads to some interesting interactions.

He has the achievement of being the only person Thomas has genuinely lost his cool with.

Remus doesn’t conceal his identity. His outfit is just his normal duke outfit he wears everywhere.

I mean when the police first showed up on his first heist he was eating a dollar bill and introduced himself as, “Remus, but you can call me Duke.”

He’s frankly terrifying.

He’s committed every crime in the book. Tax evasion to mass homocide.

His villain name is Duke and it is a household name across America.

Somebody get this man under control oh my god.

So there’s the character bios. Here’s some little tad bits of information!

Emile Picani is both Thomas and Virgil’s therapist.

Virgil hasn’t told him about being a supervillain but oh he knows.

Emile very discreetly is trying to get him to be better one step at a time.

All the supervillains logos were designed by the media.

“Curse” And “Mind Bender” are apparently I dinamic duo on the internet?

Patton, Logan, Roman, and Virgil often team up. Their not official team members or anything but just good friends.

The four often try to pull each other out of crime. For example someone will anonymously give Patton some money, keeping Logan calm, ect.

Virgil used to team up with Deceit and Remus all the time but slowly started to pull away due to them being absolutely unhinged.

Fiona and Liam actually are friends with Thomas.

Remus can actually be quite calm around Deceit and Roman. There can’t be anyone else in the room though.

Thomas is very insistent on finding everyone’s identities and helping them out.

Remy actually knows everyone’s identities besides Virgil’s but because the unhinged ones are already known, he doesn’t care.

Virgil and Roman will sometimes come over to Patton’s house to give him a much needed break from being a single parent.

Logan and Dee are actually extremely good friends and have been since the experimentation. Everyone is pretty good friends with everyone but those two are a whole new level of friends. The others are convinced they might have telepathic powers between each other.

Emile and Remy often hang out together and chat about whatever.

Welp there’s that! I’ll probably be writing some stuff for this so stay tuned! Enjoy the rest of your day!

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bobcatmoran · 5 years

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Les Misérables Manga: The Not-Scanlation, 3.2.3 (for real this time)

Previously on Les Misérables Manga: Marius meets Les Amis, declares his adoration of Napoleon, and is dissed in song by Combeferre.

Coming up: A hopefully-better-than-Google-Translate version of how Marius leaves Courfeyrac in the most Pontmercy manner possible, sinks into poverty, and completely misses the point of the July Revolution of 1830.

As always, beneath the cut are scans, followed by the translated script. Translations of previous parts and overviews of all the chapters can be found at the [manga masterpost].

If it’s within your budget, I highly encourage you to support the artists by buying the manga via any of the links [here]. The entire run of the manga is available in both Japanese and French! (alas, you’re stuck with my amateurish translations for English) Also, that way, you’ll get to see Marius’ almost-butt up close and personal!

Preview is making poor life choices

Courfeyrac: What do you want to do today, Marius? Are you coming?

Marius Pontermercy: I’m…

Courfeyrac: I wonder if the sudden excitement was too much. With this rite of passage, he can “start on to wisdom,” I guess.

SFX: *Knock knock* *Ka-chk*

Landlord: Is M. Courfeyrac in?

Marius: He’s out right now.

Landlord: Then how about you? You’ve moved yourself in and are living here. It’s a bother, yes? I’m not about to only get rent for one person. Do you have the money?

Marius: Y-yes, I do. I don’t right now, but I’ll have it as soon as I sell my clothes!

Marius: The bill so far — I’ll pay it off in full.

Courfeyrac: I’m back.

SFX: *ka-chk*

Courfeyrac: Marius? Are you here? Don’t you know how to depend on others? Seriously, what an awkward fellow.

Marius: I left the lodgings. Courfeyrac had looked after me so far, and I hadn’t thought about the debt I owed him. But, when faced with the truth, I may have just run away scared. On that day, the light I’d felt in the dark room of the Musain was too strong.

Marius: As I caught up to my deceased father, his image dimmed. The tempting light of another doctrine, if my eyes perceived it, they were burned by the crimson sun. I wanted to forget it as quickly as possible. I respect my father and worship the emperor. In order for my feelings to remain as they were now…

Marius: I decided to live in poverty. Days without work. Evenings without candles. Nights without sleep. I sold my clothes, sold my watch. I managed to buy one sou’s worth of bread and cheese scraps. When I went shopping, under the suspicious eyes of the maids, if I bought a six sou sheep’s rib — On the first day, I’d eat the meat.

SFX: *gnaw gnaw*

Marius: The second day, I’d suck on the fat.

SFX: *Slurp*

Marius: The third day, I’d gnaw the bones, keeping away the hunger for 3 days.

Marius: By searching out my whereabouts, my aunt repeatedly delivered an allowance of 600 francs. Every time, I sent it all back without touching any of it. I could also be prideful. Even when I was in difficulties like that, Courfeyrac and M. Mabeuf would help me out. In them, I have two friends. How reassuring that is.

Marius: In 1830, a big revolution happened.

*July Revolution [note from original]

The House of Bourbon fell. However, with the House of Orleans, the dynasty continued, and the social inequalities persisted. The foundation didn’t change, but I was content. Compared to before, Paris has a wind of greater freedom blowing through.

Marius: I had a hard time of it, but I finally got my qualifications as a lawyer. However, my main job was with a publisher, translating sales statements and newspapers. Plots, debates, judgements — The brutality talked of in that job was not in my nature. Still, I had a steady income of 7,000 francs a year, and making a living by my own means was a pleasure. I was content. 1831 — 21 years old I noticed that four years had passed since I departed from my grandfather’s side.

Heading: Gorbeau House

Marius: Here is this month’s rent.

Landlady: You always pay right on time, such a great help.

Marius: It’s nothing.

Landlady: On the other hand, your neighbors…

Marius: Neighbors?

Landlady: M. Jondrette, of course. There’s a family of four living there. Don’t you know them?

Marius: Uh…

Landlady: Next time, I’m going to throw them out, because they’ve fallen behind on their rent.

Marius: Throw them out… That’s pretty harsh. How much do they owe?

Landlady: 20 francs.

Marius: …… Here are 25 francs.

Landlady: My goodness…

Marius: Please give the extra 5 francs to M. Jondrette. I ask that you don’t tell him it’s from me.

Marius: I never even noticed my neighbors…

Jondrette: Hey, go and buy wine.

Jondrette: Are you listening?! Éponine.

Next time on Les Mis manga: Marius meets the love of his life, fails completely at actually talking to her, and bonds with a handkerchief.

#les mis manga #not quite scanlations #attempts at translation #marius pontmercy #courfeyrac

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samtheflamingomain · 2 years

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death and taxes: a love story

My mother is an accountant, so until I was kicked out 5 years ago, she did my taxes. Now I do them myself. It's really not hard, and I actually suck at math.

I've gotten used to how it goes. Every year it gets more and more streamlined - only took me a half hour today. Didn't even have to punch in all the numbers, they just magicked them into the boxes from my CRA account.

Another thing they've updated this year is that you get your Notice of Assessment (your receipt with the government saying yep you jumped through all our pointless hoops you can pay us now) immediately. I don't know how that's possible, but again, I know just enough to get by. I own nothing and claim nothing, so it's mostly just me hitting the "no" button a thousand times.

I was expecting 2 things today. First, that I'd owe around $300. Second, that my NOA wouldn't be processed for a week or so, like it used to be. Until you get that NOA, your number is still a guess. It's probably right, but you wanna be sure.

Well, fuck me twice I guess cuz I owe $820, signed, sealed, officiated and confirmed by the NOA. Payment due by April 30th.

Want a payment plan? Cool, we're gonna charge you daily compounded interest so it takes you a literal fucking year to pay it off if you pay $75/m - more than you pay for groceries. We're hungry, bitch. And you're about to be, too. For the crime of being poor, we sentence you to being much poorer.

I was out of work a lot of last year - like a lot of people. I collected EI, which I EARNED by working for 10 years and never collecting it. It helped me scrape by. I cracked $23k, which is a bit less than a normal, non-covid year. Last year I made $31k thanks to CERB. But I was able to save enough to pay all my taxes at once.

I was JUST getting back out of a serious relapse of my eating disorder. In February, I bought groceries for the first time in 6 months. I was "surviving" on the free meal I get at work twice a week and coffee. But once I start getting cold, I know I need to stop.

I run very hot, all the time. Summer is torture. I live in a cold basement but I'm usually still in shorts year-round. When I realized I was freezing to death, in a sweater, in a hot kitchen, standing in front of a deep fryer, I knew my organs were probably close to giving out.

I'm a trans man. This is the first time a relapse has lasted more than a month or two. Pre-transition, I used to go by not getting my period - another Very Bad Sign when you're anorexic. Without that metric, I just kept going. It wasn't until I remembered that being cold is actually a side effect, and a pretty serious one, that I decided it was time to eat again.

Well, looks like the Canadian Government has decided that actually no it's not. Ever again.

I might get lucky - April is a 3-pay month for me. If I can make it till April. I feel like I'm falling apart. I've never been more tired and sore in my life. Long Covid is real, kids.

On the other hand, I plan on killing myself sometime this year. Not doing this poverty shit for a minute longer than I need to to finish some last projects. I could probably get away with not paying before I go. If I do pay it, I'll be gone a lot sooner.

The only problem is that, if you don't pay anything before the 1st of May, and your income is provided by the government (like disability and welfare) they just go ahead and deduct a percentage from your monthly check!

They sure did patch up every single tiny crack that one or two poor people might slip through. Oh no, they used up all the cement and now they can't fill in the loopholes for the rich. Darn.

But the worst part is that I was going to call about going back to rehab today. Now, I can't afford to miss a day of work let alone a month or more. But I also can't afford to keep drinking as much as I do.

I can't afford life. I've been planning for a good 6 months now. In a way it is a choice I'm making, but the more life keeps kicking me while I'm down, the more I see it as a no-win scenario with only one way out. It feels less and less like a choice with each day, each extra kick to the balls.

I had it too easy for a hot minute. Lived like a king on CERB while still saving a shitload. Got sober for 5 months, saving a shitload. Lost 60 pounds, saving a shitload. Then I wasn't sober anymore, costing a shitload. Then I started eating again, costing a shitload. Then I took a near 50% cut to my income overnight. And as I returned to work, it quickly set in that this was it. That this would be my life forever. 80% of people born into poverty die in poverty. I'm not special.

My exhaustion suddenly started getting a lot worse a few months ago, and it's rapidly deteriorating. I'm lucky if I can stay awake for 8h at a time and wake up by the 4th alarm.

I've tried doing the Etsy things so many times and so many ways. I've tried writing freelance. I've taken typing jobs from courts that end up costing me money to produce because, in our year of the Lord 2022, we still have to print out these 200-page documents and deliver them to the judge in person. Between typing, editing, printing, dressing for court, bussing across town, waiting a good half hour... I'm basically working for nothing.

I've tried everything. Every side-hustle, every medication, every therapy. I just have too many problems that are very much permanent to believe it's possible for my life to ever improve in any way.

We put down animals for less.

#sam #suicide tw #ed tw #anorexia tw #poverty

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houseofvans · 6 years

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ART SCHOOL | Q&A with JAY RIGGIO (LOS ANGELES)

After one day cutting up a polaroid and gluing it down to paper from old magazine he had laying around, New York native Jay Riggio began his journey with collage art and as an artist. As Jay’s work grew so did his ideas, and his work began to expand beyond the confines both in his storytelling and level of craftsmanship. Moving away from traditional collage making with scissor, paper and glue, Jay’s new sculptural collages with resin can take up to weeks to finish. We checked out his new LA based workspace in our post In The Studio | w/ Jay Riggio, and instantly we knew we’d like to chat more with Jay and find out how he started first making collages to his current work of massive 3D sculptural collage pieces made out of wood and resin.

Make the Leap!

Photography courtesy of the artist | Portrait by Yon Na

Introduce yourself? My name’s Jay Riggio. I was born and raised in New York. Six months ago my girlfriend, myself and our two dogs moved from Queens to Burbank, California. I make art, listen to music and read a lot of books on true crime.

How did you first get into making and creating collages? In high school I was drawn to movies and writing. I remember distinctly being moved emotionally by things I read and saw. Essentially, it was my visceral response to an artist’s creation. Somewhere along the line I got a polaroid camera and started shooting photos. The notion came to me that I could tell a story, a long story even, all with a single photo. This concept consumed me. I was overwhelmed with the possibility of composing what existed within the four corners of a frame. One day I cut up a polaroid, glued it down to paper and added some cutouts from old magazines I had laying around. That was the start things. To this day, I still get that overwhelming feeling of possibility when I make art.

Was there a moment when your fascination with collage shifted into you creating them as a career? How did you start selling work? I actually spent over 10 years working different full-time jobs. I was raised to believe that you needed job security. It didn’t matter if you were happy. It mattered that you had something steady that enabled you to pay the bills. Working desk jobs, it felt as if I were pretending to be someone else. Like I was some kind of paid actor. I made art in my free time but rarely shared it with anyone other than close friends. I was always intimidated by the art world. I was aware of so much incredible art out there and felt I had no place in that world.

When social media began, my idea of the giant, scary art world became a lot smaller and easier to comprehend. About four years ago I decided to share the collages I was regularly making on Tumblr and Instagram. The combination of positive feedback on social media and the daily agony I experienced at my 9-5 job pushed me in the direction of full-time artist. I started selling work via Instagram and slowly moved towards selling through galleries as well.

We spotlighted your studio in a post called In the Studio early this year where you’ve been taking your collages to another level. When did you decide to go bigger and work with chemicals like varnish or lacquer? I’ve always dreamed of making larger, more 3-dimensional work, but my tiny New York apartment only allowed for small scale stuff. My new body of work really only began 6 months ago when we moved to California. I turned our two car garage into a studio. Now I can make a giant mess and not have to clean it all up before my girlfriend gets home from work.

Originally, I experimented with layering hundreds of pieces of paper, cutting them out one at a time beneath an existing collage, using the thickness of the paper to create a sculptural effect to the work. Not only did it take months to finish a single piece, I quickly learned that layered paper warps, the larger the piece gets. That’s when I decided I needed to work with wood. Without having done any woodwork before, I bought a bunch of saws and started cutting my own wood shapes. I wanted the imagery I created within a frame to became the actual frame… for the piece to exist as sort of a hanging wood sculpture. My new work consists of a combination of acrylics, spray paints, handcut paper, glue, wood stain and resin on woodcut panels. Lately I’ve been experimenting with the layering of resin. You can achieve a 3D effect with multiple resin layers. When you get it right, it’s as if the imagery were floating in a shadowbox. The new process has been super exciting. I never went to art school, so it’s been humbling to try new techniques. I’ve learned something new every day since I started working with wood and resin.

What’s your process for assembling and creating an original collage piece on paper. Take us through your creative process? My process has changed so much in the last few months. I still use old books and magazines as source materials, but these days each piece takes more planning from start to finish. For pieces that will end up being a few feet long, I need to make sure my source material is large enough. I still compose the imagery as I’m working on the piece. Once I get the imagery right, I paint borders, cut the shape of the wood with a scroll or jigsaw. When it’s time to glue down the imagery, I make decisions on how I want to layer the pieces within the resin. Some pieces can take up to 9 layers of resin. I wait 24 hours for the resin to dry and then it’s sanding out bubbles and imperfections before gluing down more imagery and prepping for another resin layer pour. These new pieces can take a couple weeks to finish. It’s hard to believe I used to make multiple pieces a day when I was just working with glue and paper.

What are you looking forward to artwise in 2018? What’s coming up for you? I’m participating in a few group shows. I’ll have a piece in the Spoke NYC “O Cohen Where Art Thou” Show opening in February. It’s a tribute show to The Cohen brothers films. I’ll have a piece at the Night on Broadway art and music festival in Downtown LA at the end of this month, I’ll have work in the Grumpybert Red Envelope show in Brooklyn and a piece or two in the Bailey House Auction in March. I’ve also been doing graphics for Lovesick Skateboards, my friend Aleks’ board company. I’m also hoping to find a gallery to show some of the newer large scale woodcut pieces.

What artists past and present are you really into at the moment? I’ve always loved Raymond Pettibon, Mark Gonzales, Ray Johnson, Winston Smith. As far as contemporary guys, I’m really into the work of Kris Kuksi, Fred Stonehouse, J. Grabowski, Porous Walker, Chris Johanson and Adrian Landon Brooks.

What would be your ideal collaboration? Vans would be rad. Doing board graphics is always amazing. Anti-Hero would be sick.

What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t an artist? At this point in my life, I can’t imagine doing anything else other than spending my days making art. If there comes a time when I can’t make rent, I’ll live on the street and try to sell my art.

What are your favorite Vans? Hands-down, my favorites are the classic, all black slip-ons. I work in them, skate in them and wear’em when my lady and I have date nights.

What advice would you give someone thinking about art as a career? Don’t allow the self-doubt, poverty, endless frustration, emotional devastation and heartbreak to interfere with the reality that you’re spending your days doing what you truly love.

FOLLOW JAY | Website | Instagram | Tumblr | Facebook

#Art #Vans #Vans Art #Art School #Jay Riggio #Collage #process #studio #wip #interview

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tilly-sails · 3 years

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March 16, 2021

This is awkward. I never thought I’d find myself here again, especially after wiping my online presence completely. But somehow, this survived. And I’m hoping the lack of activity throughout the last 5 years has buried this page far enough into the depths of the internet, that this can transform into something just for me. I don’t need eyes on my thoughts. I don’t need comments on my thoughts. I just need a place to “word vomit” anything and everything from milestones reached (or failed) to mild inconveniences or annoyances.

So here I am, starting..... fresh-ish (I’m honestly terrified of reading any of my previous posts. And plan to keep that same consistency with these new posts.) As soon as that “Post” button gets clicked, my ramblings will have been sent to every corner of the internet, and in that instant, I will have forgotten what I had to say; What I felt at the time. Again, this is for no one but myself.

3 months into 2021 and I wouldn’t have guessed I’d be here without looking at a calendar. As most everyone knows, Coronavirus has entered our lives swiftly, and for the last year and counting, has wrecked havoc across all spectrums of life. Social life pivoted to online. Work life pivoted to work from home, (for those lucky enough to have a job that can be done from home). And all the while, having to listen to the pure garbage that some people spew. How they speak so loudly, so proudly as outrageous claims get told, I will never understand. I can’t comprehend the selfishness of my fellow human. I can’t understand the vitriol blaring from television sets. Now more than ever, the “us vs. them” mentality seems to be ripping the centerpiece of what an idealized American should be. (If you ask me, the American Dream died long ago, and those optimistic enough to believe that it can return, reveal themselves to me as foolish, or more importantly, selfish.) For those that do everything they’re told, for those that put in extra work, for those that have stepped over actual humans to better position themselves where they want to be, ask yourselves why? Is it really for a shot at the American Dream? To provide for your family and have them not hurt? I am allowed to ask if everyone is privy to the American Dream?

On one hand, you could argue that selfishness is exactly what built society as we know it. For the boon that followed the industrial revolution, to the climb from the depths of the hole that was the great depression, to the housing market collapse/financial collapse which led to the great recession, growth was a symptom. But during my short time on this planet, I have watched time and time again, that all of that doesn’t really work. Because of selfishness and because of greed, what once provided optimism and growth, now because the cause of the failures that quickly follow it. It’s too much greed; it’s too much selfishness. 1 company cannot have 900 CEO’s but that doesn’t mean that the inequality of wealth found rampant in our economy should be ignored.

I feel as if most people have bought in to the idea that with enough hard work, with knowing the right people, and dedication and passion, that the goal of being a CEO, neigh, just being paid like a CEO is attainable. I can see why they would believe this so fruitfully, as it has been engrained in the minds of previous generations along with mine, and probably future generations. But I don’t believe it. Not one single iota.

Its never been about the money for me. I don’t recall ever having the dream of being the richest person in the room; Of acquiring wealth so monumental that my children’s children’s children would never have to work a day in their life. Maybe I’m a pessimistic in my thinking, but isn’t that a part of the problem as to why we are where we are? I try not to discuss my views and feelings with anyone close to me, because once the subject gets brought up, I get the feeling that those close to me begin to view my as a social outcast, as a leper. “Don’t you want to have children? Don’t you want to have something to leave them?”

And while I’m not opposed to bringing a child into this world eventually, but what would I be bringing them into? Dealing with my own thoughts of “I didn’t ask to be here”, I’m terrified of adding to the problem. Overpopulation, resources running out, a political climate that has seen bloodshed over a disagreement, education lacking at best, and generational poverty at worse; why would I want to succumb my own blood to a life that I can’t even say that I’ve enjoyed. There have been things, people, and activities, that do bring a glimmer of happiness, but happiness is fleeting. 85 percent of my time is spent saying how exhausted of it all I am.

My brother posed an analogy as to how he feels. I paraphrase, “I feel as if I’m in a hole. But at the bottom of the hole, there is a comfortable bed to at least lay down in. My biggest fear is getting too comfortable, and therefore not trying all options to get out of the hole. “ And I wholeheartedly understand and sympathize where he comes from. But I also have analogy too. I feel as if I am also in a hole, with no bed, but a hole nonetheless. All my life, I’ve been told to find a way out. Fight and claw and cry and find a way out. Not only am I in this hole, but it is raining and the hole is quickly filling up with water. I scream for anyone to hear me. “Help, this hole is filling up! What do I do? Can you help me?” And I scream until my voice is hoarse. From crying out for help, it switches to just me being angry at the water for rising. “Fuck, it’s filling up fast. Shit, it’s at my ankles. WTF, it’s at my shins now!” The water has gotten chest deep, but I have no more energy, I have no more fight. I don’t even have any anger anymore. And the more and more I think about it, how nice it would be to keep quiet, slump my head down into my chest, and just letting the surface of the water wash over me. The water was cold at first, but my body has adjusted. The water level flows around my ears, and for short bursts, silence fills my head. And I find myself wishing for longer bursts of silence, until all goes quiet. Fully submerged, no one can hear me pleas; I can’t even hear my pleas anymore either. Quiet and serene and almost forgiving; I can picture the water caressing my and telling me that I tried my best. But everything has an expiration date.

God, I’m so tired.

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bananashemmo · 7 years

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When We Collide (Part 37)

Pairing: Assistant!Y/N/CEO!Luke

Rating: NC-17

Masterlist: Here

Summary: He is the definition of high class smart ass, swimming in Dom Pierre Pérignon champagne and has never seen the shadow of poverty. She is underprivileged, lives in a messy dorm room on sale and struggles working as an assistant after being thrown out of college. But how will they collide when Luke makes Y/N pregnant after a drunkenly one night stand

When We Collide on Wattpad

Confusion was written on your face once you stood in your bedroom. If it wasn’t for the fact that the door was open you wouldn’t have grown suspicious as to what had happened inside.

“What’s this?” You asked to nobody in particular but with an unfinished brownie in your hand.

You looked over your shoulder to see nobody standing behind you and decided to take the step forward to walk closer to the navy blue dress spread on your bed sheets.

There was something about it that seemed ever so familiar. The way it was cutting behind the back and how the color became stronger the closer you walked to it.

You looked over your shoulder for the last time just to make sure nobody was watching you. You weren’t even sure if anyone was home besides you, you had seen Patrick leave for the night half an hour ago.

“I know this dress.” Was the final thing you said after grabbing the shoulder fabric of it and lifted it up in the air to see.

You had to blink twice just to make sure that you were remembering correctly.

Yep, it was the dress from the old dress shop you had seen months back.

The navy color was just as strong in your hands as seen from apart. The fabric was soft between your fingers and it was giving a nice view of the back where the sleeves were parting.

You looked over at your full body mirror unsure of what to do because it wasn’t laid on the sheets for nothing.

But were you supposed to try it on?

The fabric was loose you could tell but the last time you had seen it there was no way you would imagine you would be able to fit it. Not to mention that it was expensive as insane so if you ruined it, you knew you would die inside.

You looked down at the fabric as long as the dress was and that was when you noticed the small yellow note that was almost hidden between the sheets.

It had fallen out during the process of you grabbing the dress so you leaned down as far as the belly allowed you to pick it up.

“Wear me.”

As if everything could get any weirder. You didn’t know what was going on but to be honest you liked that it was sounding secretly. It was something out of the ordinary and you didn’t know what the expected was.

Moving the dress fully away from the bed you walked over to your mirror and took a full look by holding it in front of your stomach.

It was obvious it had been sewn just for your belly to be there. It wasn’t as obvious as first but when holding it like this you could tell that it would fit every curve and bump of your body perfectly.

Was this supposed to be for something special? Were you supposed to be wearing makeup because if so you needed at least half an hour more.

You weren’t sure when you were supposed to be ready so you imagined it had to be as fast as possible. Your hair had been in a bun because you expected that you would go to bed and watch old cartoons because nobody was home.

You had even skipped dinner but that was because half of the fridge was empty. You had expected the maid would have bought something but since nothing was there you just assumed it was one of those bad days.

You had even considered making pasta but being so pregnant meant that even doing a simple thing like that seemed to be the hardest thing ever.

First you would have to bend down to get the pot and afterwards wait fifteen minutes until it was done. You didn’t have the patience for that so you settled with eating rug-bread later during the evening if you grew very hungry.

Pulling out the bun from your hair you ran your fingers through it a couple of times. It looked pretty nice actually and not like something that was prepared for your bed sheets.

You weren’t sure about makeup so you kept it simple. It was better off that way because you had no idea if you would be visiting the living room or a gala premier.

You sincerely hoped it wouldn’t be that. Standing up for too long and seeing so many paparazzi would be too much for you to handle. No matter how many months it had been you would never grow used to it even if you were just the assistant.

The dress seemed so beautiful you were amazed it was even in your bedroom.

You were so careful when sliding it up your legs and over the belly. You were just preparing to hear that cracking noise where you know that you’ve broken something you really just didn’t want to.

It was like you prepared for it so much it was a sigh of relief that came from your lips when it was over the bump and nothing had happened.

In fact you stood frozen in front of your mirror trying to register what was going on.

It had been a while since you had been this pretty. Pregnancy meant less time in front of the mirror and to be honest you never really did anything out of yourself besides when going for work. That was the only time where you were still required to be more fancy than usual.

You had to blink twice just to realize that it was actually you standing in front of the mirror.

“I didn’t know you could look this pretty while being pregnant.” You sighed again and touched the fabric, glancing up and down your body.

It did in fact fit perfectly and it wasn’t annoying to wear. Growing so big meant that every time you would wear something it would either be uncomfortable or too tight around the belly. But this, was both tight but comfortable at the same time and you didn’t feel like you would explode any second by now.

“You’ve always been beautiful. Pregnant or not.”

Looking over your shoulder you saw Luke standing with his long body leaning against the door frame with a smile on his face.

You looked down at the dress almost with a blush creeping on your cheeks. You had no idea for how long he had been standing there but you couldn’t help feeling a little bit embarrassed.

“This was your idea, wasn’t it?” You asked even though you knew the answer and looked back at the mirror.

“You remember I promised you something?” He asked back and you could see him walk closer from the reflection in the mirror.

You shook your head by his question and tried to think back. You remembered the dress shop and you puking into Holly’s bag but that was pretty much it.

“With promises comes loyalty.” He explained and stood beside you to adjust the butterfly that matched the color of your dress.

“And I once promised you a real date.”

You had to blink twice again just to make sure that he was telling the truth. He looked at you with soft ocean eyes and nodded his head twice just to illustrate that what was going to happen was going to happen.

You looked back into the mirror and you couldn’t help looking a little bit surprised.

“And when you looked at this dress I could tell that it was love by first sight.”

You looked up at him to see him nod his head in agreement and held the fabric between his fingers.

“I know you say I’m in a need for change but since I promised this I had to do it 100% with my heart. I made it customized for you and to make sure it would still fit the bump without causing trouble. I hope it’s okay?”

He was sincerely sounding a bit nervous when he asked the question and you couldn’t help but feel your cheeks turn more red.

It was more than okay. It was perfect.

“Luke I don’t know what to say.” You shrugged half, still looking into the mirror because you didn’t want him to see you blush.

“You could start out by saying yes and agreeing.” He said casually like it was nothing but you could hear amusement in his tone.

“Say yes to what?” You asked not really catching up with what he was hinting towards.

“Going on this date with me of course.” He said like it was obvious and held his arm in the air for you to hook it around yours.

You gave him a questionable look but it was sooner replaced with a smile. Hooking your arm around yours he knew that you were up for the idea and seconds later you were followed into one of his personal cars.

This would be his night overall and you would let him. He would be the one to decide what was going to happen because when you thought about it, deep down.

If you had to get to know someone you needed to understand every side of that person to complete it.

It wasn’t a far ride but you could tell you had never been to this side of New York when you showed up in front of the restaurant Luke had picked out.

It was small but French. A cute place where there weren’t much people but you could tell the ones who were hear enjoyed the coziness. The place was covered in leaves from the top and you could tell that it had two floors.

“Welcome to L’amour L’emporte.” He introduced once you got inside and instant sounds of people clinking their wine together appeared.

You looked up at him with a raised eyebrow but still smiled regardless.

“I didn’t know you spoke French.” You commented after being guided to your table that was by one of the full body windows that lead to an amazing view. Just like as if you were in Paris.

“Fluent since I was 5.” He replied like it was nothing with his eyes glued to the menu card.

You looked at him with wide eyes because he was saying it like it was nothing and in the end he smiled. Looking up from the menu card he blinked with his right eyes and nodded his head down at your card.

“If you need any translation you know who to ask.”

You shared eye contact for a few seconds before your eyes adverted back to the cards.

It was obvious you wouldn’t have any wine but Luke actually explained some of them were non-alcoholic. That way you would still be able to taste some of the greatest wines in French without having to worry about the baby.

To be honest you had no idea what was what on the menu card. You had French in college shortly but after getting kicked out it wasn’t much you had learned during the process.

“I think I will go with the cuisses de grenouilles.” You tried to say as best as you possibly could. There was so much on the menu you didn’t understand you might as well pick out something random.

“I don’t think you want that.” Luke was quick to comment and you raised an eyebrow.

“And why so?”

“Because it’s frog legs.” He said and instantly your eyes widened.

You looked back at the menu card completely confused and he had to hold in everything not to laugh.

“But unless you want that I’ll order it-,”

“No I think I need something else.” You laughed and he did the same, looking down at the menu card.

“You know I’m just gonna order something for the both of us. I’m sure you will like it and there will also be garlic bread and pasta on the side. It just takes that you trust me.”

“Do I have a reason to trust you?” You smiled and looked at him questionably.

“You always do.” He smiled back and shut the menu card to take yours as well.

You nodded your head as in acceptance of letting him order and watched as he communicated with the waiter. You most probably assumed that they could speak English if they wanted to but Luke decided to do it the French way.

You had no idea what was going to be served but living together showed what each other liked and disliked.

Besides he knew that you were eating for two, three when days like these were worse.

“I think you will like it.” He commented when the waiter came back 20 minutes later with the dishes you had ordered.

Your eyes widened in surprise when a large lobster was placed in front of you. To be fair you had never actually tasted it before, Luke had tried before to let you eat it but you had denied.

“Lobster in butter along with pasta?” You questioned and he nodded his head impressed by your reaction.

“You will get some of my pasta if you don’t like it.” He blinked and you grabbed your fork liking the challenge.

It was like he already knew you would enjoy it by the look he was giving you. He was so confident about this and you somehow hated when he was right because he was.

The lobster tasted amazing and nothing like you had tried before. Sure, you had tried seafood at the local restaurant down by the beach but it was nothing like this. It was fresh, taste and full of flavors at the same time.

“You like it?” He hummed and looked up at you with wiggled eyebrows.

“To the fullest.” You commented not wanting to deny it, filling your mouth with as much as you possibly could.

He nodded his head in agreement and focused back on his foot. There was something about him you couldn’t tell but he was smiling. Generously, not just the way he always cockily. You could tell that he was actually enjoying being right at the second right there with you.

“So,what is the perfect date?” You asked, starting up the conversation.

“The perfect date?” He asked back and you nodded your head in confirm.

“I don’t think there is a term of the perfect date. You can always do something that is so out of the extraordinary it feels like the perfect date because it’s something that doesn’t happen in front of the dinner table. But I always feel like you need to be comfortable with the other person to actually enjoy something even if it’s a date, going out or just being together.”

“Well said.” You nodded your head impressed and filled your mouth with pasta.

“I assume this isn’t the first time you’ve taken someone out for a date?”

He almost choked on his piece of lobster but still smiled after grabbing a napkin to dry his chin.

“You think I go on dates all the time?” He asked and you shrugged your shoulder.

“I’ve been on a couple of dates throughout my life. Always made sure that they were blind dates because I couldn’t handle having someone already knowing that it was me they were going to date.”

“Knowing it was you?” You lifted an eyebrow and he placed his fork down onto the plate.

“Oh my god you’re Luke Hemmings! You’re one of the riches young men in the world!” His voice was high pitched and he had his hands in the air to illustrate.

“Wait you’re one of the richest men in the world?” You furrowed your eyebrows and tried to think back. He had never actually mentioned it before.

“I’m in the top ten riches men under the age of 25.” He shrugged like it was nothing and a blush came to his cheeks.

“Blind dates make sure I’m not just dating someone for the money. You can easily judge someone by its cover that’s why I’m having so hard trying to find someone I can date without going through all of this.” He made fake excited motions with his hands again and you nodded your head.

“I totally understand that.” You mumbled and filled your mouth again, “It must be hard being judged all the time.”

He nodded his head in agreement and grabbed his wine to take a sip.

“Is this your usual place? You know the place you always take girls?” You asked, not trying to sound rude because that wasn’t your intention. You were just curious you didn’t even know this place existed.

“No, no I don’t do that.” He laughed quietly and shook his head.

“I picked this place for us because I wanted it to be more cozy than fancy. Of course it is fancy and all but it’s not as expensive as the restaurants I usually go to.”

“How come?” You asked and grabbed your own glass but not before clinking your glasses together politely.

“Well first of all I love this place. I usually go here alone because it’s the only place where the media knows I’m not coming. There has never been a single photographer here or paparazzi. It’s my own little happy place.”

He finished drinking so he could talk furthermore.

“I know the owner Jean. He’s an old friend of mine from back in the days so I come here once in a while to show a little bit of support. If you ask me it’s even better than any of the restaurants I’ve owned in my life so far.”

By the mention you looked around and towards the wine bar where a male was standing behind the cashier.

He looked sincerely calm and happy talking to the costumers. You could tell that Luke knew him because when he looked towards you he waved happily.

“He doesn’t do this because he wants to be the best he does this because he loves it. I think that’s very inspiring and the reason why I love spending time here.”

You nodded your head by his words and focused back on his face. He was drinking the last bit of his wine and looked down at the bottle that was served. A puzzled look came to his face.

“You know we haven’t really spoken about a name?” He mentioned and your eyes widened in surprise.

You still hadn’t found something yet. It was something you had discussed once but never actually settled with anything. There weren’t much time yet and you really wanted to find out a name before she was born.

“We’re not going to call her something after a wine.” You were quick to comment by the way he was looking at the bottle.

“Of course you’re declaring veto on that.” He commented back and you smiled.

“I’m just saying I don’t want our daughter to be called ‘Duchess de 1993.’” You shrugged and his eyebrows lifted.

“Isn’t that the cat from Aristocats?” He asked and your eyes widened as well as his.

“Oh my god that’s true.” You mumbled and you looked over at him.

“Veto.” He was quick to say and you fell back in the chair. You had barely started and if it was going to be like this you would never find an end.

“You know we can continue to do this all the way to Sydney and back?” You asked and he hummed in agreement. But then his eyes widened.

“No, we’re not calling her Sydney.” You commented but he shook his head.

“No that’s not why I’m widening.” He mumbled and pushed his chair closer to the table.

You could tell that he had suddenly remembered something but you weren’t sure if you wanted to know. When he looked like this you were never sure if you wanted to know what he was hiding in his sleeve.

“That reminds me of something I haven’t told you yet.” He started to explain and you quivered an eyebrow.

“We’re going to Australia next week.”

Your eyes widened to the point of popping out and your lips fell. That was definitely not something you had expected and you sincerely hoped he continue to explain because you had no idea how to react.

“Yes, I know.” He nodded his head in agreement to your reaction, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before but it slipped out of my head because of my rest days.”

You tried to swallow the small piece of lobster but it was nearly impossible.

“Why in the world are we going to Sydney?” The question was so obvious but you still said it out loud.

“I know it’s very urgent but I’ve got some business meetings and such with my dad. You have to remember he was the one I took over from the business and that means once a year I go visit them to make sure everything is alright. And it makes sense since you’re my assistant you’re going too.”

“But what do you need me for?” You asked, not that you didn’t want to come it was just so sudden.

“Well yea that’s the thing.” He mumbled again and looked down at his plate, “I decided that I was going to explain to them that you are pregnant with my baby.”

You had to look at him twice just to make sure he meant it. And there he was looking at you as seriously as he possibly could while nodding his head in agreement.

“But what,- I uh-, am I even allowed to fly?” You had so many questions in your head at once you didn’t know what to ask first.

“Yes I checked everything and made sure there will be a private doctor on the plane in case of something happening. This is just so important to me it’s necessary that you come along both for moral support but also because I need it for the work.”

You didn’t know what else to say so you just nodded your head in agreement. You couldn’t even believe what was going to happen you most probably would realize when you would be sitting in the plane.

“So yep, flash news of today. I will explain more I promise I just really needed you to know.” He shrugged and you widened your eyes again.

“Well nice to know.” You almost spat but still smiled to show that you weren’t mad.

“I can apologize by buying you a kangaroo when we get there.” He said like it was nothing and you rolled your eyes.

“I don’t need one when I have you.” You fired back and his eyes widened by your sass.

“Cocky.” He smiled, “And that comes from you.” You were quick to say back and cocked your head to look at him.

He smiled and focused back on the food, letting you control the rest of the conversation.

You were trying to come up with a baby name and he continued to explain the Sydney trip but you still couldn’t believe it would happen. But you thought it was a nice thing because he would be able to get more day offs and breath for a little bit.

It would also be good for you to know stress at either the studio or the office.

When you finished your food and the dessert that was also served Luke showed you around the small neighborhood. There was a large park which you took a small trip in before heading home.

It had actually been such a good night and you were really surprised by both it and him. It was like it was finally growing into something new.

“You know what you did today was really sweet. I had a good time.” You commented after coming into the apartment and took off your jackets.

“Me too. Even better than a blind date.” He responded and you laughed quietly and looked over your shoulder.

“Thanks for it. I think you’re the best date I’ve ever had.” You smiled and nodded your head towards the stairs. The only thing you could think of now would be a long bath and get into a pair of joggers.

You leaned on your toes to place a soft kiss to his cheeks and fell back to your heels right after.

A blush came to his cheeks it was a luck lights were faintly on in the living room and you backed away slowly while smiling at him.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.” He mumbled more to himself than you and watched you disappear up the stairs.

He leaned over to grab his blazer and took an extra look at it. For no reason in particular but his thoughts made him furrow his eyebrows.

“Fuck...”

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moviesyndrome · 4 years

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Movie Syndrome’s Film of The Hour” London Fields “DIRECTOR’S CUT.” 2019

The only time to watch and review The Director's Cut of London fields is now: within a human species post-crisis, so novel to that species that there is no occurrence leave alone a record. Its the only time that London Fields makes more than just sense, total sense. It is now our new potential mirror and or X-ray machine for our so called"New Normal." It can be London but it can be any city, town, enclave of human dissonance.

As a child I went to the school of life though films presented by the great Alex Cox, on his Moviedrome show, I was introduced to precursors to the coming influx of Neo-90's Noir. Narratives that coiled around its characters with the love of hungry anacondas; stories from the shrades of the social human fringe; men and women alike gleefully hapless or broken, souls just seeking to steal their inevitabilities from fate and make it their own - as if that some how made thier doom bearable. Films where pale shadows crowded the celluloid frame even they were alone they were just paler than the crowd.

London fields so reminds me of this vein of filmmaking. In Neo-90's noir people were incapable of making anyone happy, not even themselves, or anyone else, they either new it and would violently seek irony, or just detraction, or simply some air of self-appointed cleverness about their failures: their philosophy the wisdom of one's own doom is better than the ignorance of it (as if that helps).

It was a joy to feel like a kid watching films I shouldn't be watching, with the sound turned down low, so parents in bed don't wake, listening to an intro by the great Alex Cox, and the prototypes of the coming 90's noir. This is what it felt like watching London Fields.

The first shot had dance in its guts, the first sign of a good director, making sure the audience know s/he cares. I was reassured and sat back in comfort knowing I don't have to be anxious. Few films know how to utilize stock footage, or some films over use it, some just don't respect it, we may see more of it since the big plague of 2020 hit planet earth. The now infamous "C" word hit just 4 months after I saw it in 2019 on the eve of the UK election that would decide the fate of thousands literally and of the new London that I am now living through. This is why London Fields Directors cut must be watched post-global pandemic, post London post human incubation, post human global coma, wake up and watch it!

The true value of London Fields is in its ability to be relevant externally, not just internally, it will be talked about for decades as the greatest film-restructuring/ turnaround since George Miller saved Mad Max 4 from september 11th. As long as London is here with a new normal that a film and book called London Fields possibly predictive like Nostradamus "pre" and mid plague predictions. Like Daniel's predictions of the fourth beast, that is a president of the free world advising people to drink bleach as it cures plague like some victorian charlatan-witch-doctor.

Talking of victorian London look out for a wonderful Fagan meets Sid-Vicious like surprise, it will remain a surprise as I will not spoil it , you will have to watch it. Remember the advent of dvd extras where the story behind the story became King and queen, well here is your story behind the story of London Fields the coiling fluid labyrinth that this director's cut had to circumvent and master at the same time, is in itself a book, a film maybe a trilogy. It then becomes a matrix for the films ability to gracefully scream with silent pain, palpable in its starving human waifs, the population of jagged grizzled shadows of an old world, just like a pre-covid London.

My story:

- I waited 5 years to watch the director's cut, as I knew this would be the film to watch, I know from day zero, that this would be the definite splice, I am glad I waited, but i had no other option. More importantly I am glad I waited to be one of the fortunate survivors of the real London apocalypse to be able to write a review worthy of note.

Filming locations:

During the pandemic I walked around the many locations that London Fields filmed in, like Brixton where I grew up, and I went to bulk buy food, part of my post apocalyptic preppers protocol. I'm a prepper by nature so I had bought my ffp3 mask months before. I actually gave a health and safety threat and risk consultation to a filmmaker heading to Ebola hit Lagos, I said "Make sure you have 3 meters on everyone and every surface so only the soles of your shoes need chlorine (the only chem that degrades DNA) I didn't call it social distancing I called it don't get Ebola. Here we are fortunate it was not Ebola that hit world and London Fields. I bought food in bulk buying is very different from panic buying, but I can't judge london is pretty but pretty tough to live in.

London Fields Anatomy: + Matrix: When I say The Matrix of London fields I speak about the meta-mould, London is the ideal place to film an apocalypse, London was once the capital of the world since Britannia once owned most of the world. Location location location is everything. +Concept: You can have a concept of any thing a concept of concept itself , a concept of the idea of a principal. Why not start with the concept of human nature, give our nature enough rope and we will hang ourselves and each everyone else in the room , but why is the nicely investigated by Bill Bob Thornton's character. This rope reaches the macro space to the micro of all the individual characters. + Basis: I have a feeling much like the basis for the characters in "Withnail and I" the writer Ames, the author of the book, he has based these characters on the transients that peppered his life in London. + Grounds: There are sub-cultures of ravaged souls who make the characters even in the book look pale in comparison - art always mimics life not the other way round.

+Criteria: The criteria is to capture a credible cinematic vignette of a very wild book + Responsibility: There is an integrity of context well policed diegetically and in the non diegetic space. The director is now renowned for policing this context which was under threat when islamic content (there's that other "C" word) was misaligned with pornography to create a pornography, the legal battle that ensued was only fueled by this particular mismanagement of content with no context.

+ |Sense of place "This is London" London is hit by hyperinflation, social controls, shortages, poverty, mass unemployment, Social Unrest,divisions, divergency of schisms, social branching in to pockets of gang pods.

+Pattern of capacity: is potent disconcerting X-ray machine to the lower digestive system, beyond the ice-tipped persona of innocence, the bystander, observer, storyteller. It peels back the plasters wrapped around the slick wounds, and it does it finger by finger of London's inner ducts, where its appendix once was.

The shadows of a cosmopolitan gas chamber known as London slither and preen the boiling social swampy waves seeking their nothings in what they see as somethings', goals that are obvious traps or not so obvious. They leave patterns of psycho-splatter across the corridors of doom-drowned doors with no one able to reach their goals and no one capable of making each other happy but, even though deep down they know it, they still pursue against instinct better judgment. They have to, as if they don't we would not have any drama.

This is Kitch satire the likes of which spilled out of neo-grungy scenes of the 90's neo noir, but its interesting to see this in a London steamy punky setting, rather than Hollywoodland. Highlights of the film is an interesting crossing of the 180 degree line, which is always a tricky area.

In London Fields the human ice-berg is built almost entirely out of constellations of man and woman's failure points, we are left with the question simply what will drive us, what will keep us going after the discovery of these failure points.

I: Inspiration by the challenge to put a x-ray, a mirror in front of the face of London as a gateway to the face of the wider world W: WHy do this film? Well every couple of years in intervals where London is begging for this mirror so lets provide it. V: The vision was to engineer an exposing investigation of the ghosts of London all the way to their souls and their soul-engines. M: Mission was to find the cast and support structure to manifest this vision S-T: The strategy to tactical synergy was to turn the motion of this story in to an serendipitous dance off the page of the book on to the cinema screen. Vision: To make a respectable cool potently socially vital potency vignette that a 2 hour film cna do for the many pages of a book Strategy: To go in with fervent dedication leveraging years of mastering skill of marrying music and image, and an industry that forces the discipline of story. B: Diegetic: Why do these characters do what they do, human beings have drives from baseline to top line drives, these drives are constantly hungry, convergent and divergent simultaneously. where do we put drives, what do we do with them, where will they go The characters with doomed naive seek happy endings for their drives, in doing so misd judge everyone. The souls here are using chess strategies to leverage their needs and clear the road of others in their path creating an emotionally psychologically all-in-ring wrestling match everyone eliminating each other. - Agility: The agility is not just in the films dynamic rehabilitative turnaround but agility in characterisation of the most hyper-wild surreal characters in a book nicely done by Jim Sturgess fagan meets sid vicious sex-pistols. And Johnny Depps Cockney-Rockabilly predator. 5.- kudoi: The Synecdoche: Here is with the director has managed to perform if not one of but maybe the most important Innovation Turnaround in the history of cinema. This could be the making of a new career. It is a career I went into recently I have performed it on other films myself but never had to do it on my own. 6.- Innovation: The director holds the mantle on the most strategic siege-craft innovation since those valiant thanes of the 5th century, took the gabled hall to siege in King Fin's realm of friesland; that young King of Denmark Heanerf with with 60 retainers went to visit his sister, recently married in peace weaving in Frankish lands, and for reasons yet to be disclosed to us, is put to seige in a gabled hall. It is an example in history where siegecraft worked. Matthew Cullen would have had to must some ancient type of lock-jaw dedication to pursue a siege craft of 5 years. with an army of producers, investors and compounding resistance. 7.- leadership side: The leadership it requires to execute a turnaround on a business is Herculean. There are 5 stages to a turnaround 0. People 1. Runaway - Leverage Cash runnaw 2. Technical engineering 3. Value chain strategy: add value - take away value - modify underlying value 4. Finalizing product market fit and fitness to execute a cut 5. New Campaign 6. Re-delivery. Just like in the film the characters all see themselves as leaders but they are ultimately proxy-puppets of a greater chess game. 8.- assertiveness: The director asserts with a five year kung-fu grip to show that the little voice in the milestone of a crocodile culture of producers, investors and meta-investors that the little voice can shout the loudest when it counts. It can do this when it is important, when our voice must protect the unicorns gallop and leave our creativity factory, we must do this so they don;t fall down the cracks. In the film we see actors forging their stamps on their portrayals, of characters seertingthier desperations on each other's visions of happiness. 9.- Resonance of Messaging:brand Matthews Brand is potent authenticity of creativity this resonates in his film-turnaround and in the realignment of creative assets in,most in the alignments 10. Positive magnet respect attract positive Providence: The Universe has shined on Matthew and his valiant journey as the results have shown that it was on his side

LONDON FIELDS GLOSSARY:

- Conceptuals: What if you apply business turnaround to your own film not just someone's film but your own. Inside the film the concept - Concept of principle: The core principle was constant unbridled constant pulse of exposure of warts and all innards of post-social apocalyptic jagged humanity character by character. - Context: The Meta Post-Apocalypse: the after-party to the aftermath of London. - Grounds: Matthew had good grounds to purser this Colonel kurtz-like mission his unicorns had been dropped down the - Reach - if it is made more clear where to find the directors cut this will be king, . - Inimitability: Anyone trying to imitate this will stick out like a pik zeblinp - replayability: There is plenty here to study and restudy and this is the best master class in Film Turnaround making Matthew Cullen the most history making CFO of London Fields successfully restructured like LEGO brick By Brick (Which is also an interesting book on how lego turned themselves around in 5 years). - Accessibility: There is plenty here to make accessible to wider audiences with lots of help from Johnny Depp providing magnetic rockabilly-cockney psycho-menace - Principle: Waste nothing and produce more with as little as possible. Vision mission : Apex-Crux: A poetic battle manual in overcoming the cataclysm-apocalyptic crushing of your family as a consequences of the poisonous chains of criminology. - Idea: Human nature builds cunning paths of self-sabotage for itself knowingly and unknowingly and its infectious. - Theme(s): self-infliction, sabotatge, self-sabotage - Terms of understanding: the terms of understanding here are though the pattern of traffic between peoples' enemy within how they clash and - Dance: The film is nicely dancing - sculpture : There is a sense of engineering finess to the this cut that reaches between the small life of characters and the wider outside world that is out there somewhere but hasn't been seen in a long time and and clearly is not missed. 4 - Signature: The signature here the brand the unique finger print is garishly distinct defined unmistakable, flamboyant graish clever use nourish pop-kitch- - Innovation: There is an interesting way that Matthew Cullen breaks the 180 line look out for it, Jim Sturges Innovative contribution to a now infamous Sid -Vicious meets Fagan mashup is no legend. ---------------------> - Communication: The colours seem to be the some of the most dominant communicator in London - Message: Warnings of not just the soul's emotional vulnerability of people, the hazard of peoples problems, but the hazard of a now victorian like London - Language - Conveyance - Shape Nuance: Nuance swells in the misery that Billy Bob Thornton carries around, it hangs like the unsucked cigarette smoke constantly trailing his character's - Ethos: The Directors ethos is the first rule of any endeavor is never give up! Once the mission was demanded to turn the film around this rule become law so taking names off a film are not part of this ethos. The Films' ethos everything is available. - idiosyncrasy: The positions of satirical use of nourish pop--kitch is so uni - ethics: The direct fought to remedy inflammatory scenes IN the original cut there were scenes where religion is explicitly juxat - Responsibility: There is obvious responsibility to do just ice to the book, but also to the characters and how the actors navigate this, then there is London, one of the most if not the most unique city in the world. - Code: Its code of conduct is to never let you rest to corrugate the constant exposure of the shades of core characters and new characters both minor and major. - Policy: IS to be calmly unrelenting in the face of adversity on and off set.

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ohsoethical · 7 years

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LET’S TALK ABOUT ETHICAL FASHION PLS

Ethical fashion: ‘an approach to the design, sourcing and manufacture of clothing which maximises benefits to people and communities while minimising impact on the environment.’ Ethical Fashion Forum

(Source: https://airrclothingblog.com/2015/03/06/brand-profile-beaumont-organic-available-at-airr-clothing/)

Wow. Where do I begin?

Actually let me begin with this disclaimer: ANY CRITICISM I MAY MAKE ABOUT CERTAIN SITUATIONS/ORGANISATIONS/GROUPS OF PEOPLE IS NOT AN ATTACK ON THESE PEOPLE AS INDIVIDUALS BUT THE SYSTEM FROM WHICH THEY HAVE DERIVED FROM.

K lets begin.

So I guess you could say I’ve been in/observing the ethical fashion scene for about 4/5 years now. During my first year of uni I realised I needed to go beyond complaining about the oppression of garment workers and start acting, and decided to create a blog called Oh So Ethical. My first thought was to create an ethical fashion blog where I styled outfits I’d made out of secondhand clothes, and raved about the latest ethical brands I loved (I cringely called this ‘Fridays Five Ethical Faves’ ffssssssss). After a while I stopped, but went back into it when my cousins and I realised we needed somewhere to share our opinions, ideas,and hopefully inspire others to think and act ethically- and so we rebranded Oh So Ethical and made it what it is today.

At the beginning I tended to place a large emphasis on ethical brands that we liked and bought from. ‘Ethical is the new black’ was my favourite slogan. However, as the years have gone on, and with more interaction with activists, friends, random people I’ve met, and having witnessed the ongoing exploitation of garment workers continue year after year, I have become extremely cynical of the effectiveness of ethical brands, particularly ‘ethical fashion’.

Indeed, through learning from others and seriously thinking about ethical fashion, questioning whether it is an actual means of empowerment for workers,and if it will ACTUALLY dismantle the system of oppression, I have come to a conclusion:

It’s a resounding NO.

Here’s y.

(Source: https://fashionindustrybroadcast.com/2017/06/12/sustainable-ethical-fashion-faux-has-never-looked-so-real-or-this-stylish/)

I recently read an amazing article in The Guardian by Martin Lukacs, which really helped me understand the underlying processes behind ethical fashion. To sum it up, we live in a neoliberal society, where we are taught to act and thrive individually. When it comes to activism, we are taught to focus on how we, as individuals, can change the situation, and are made to feel personally responsible and guilty for the world’s problems. Due to the guilt created by this individualism,we feel the need to relieve our guilt by acting in a way that makes us feel better, and as we are seen as consumers (as opposed to citizens) within neoliberal ideology, our means of creating change is through buying and consumption e.g. buying ethical clothing.

While these individual actions are undoubtedly important, by placing such a great emphasis on individualistic activism, we are intentionally being steered away from focusing on the real perpetrators at large: CORPORATIONS- who are out here exploiting workers and the environment, and continue to get away with it. In turn, we are made to neglect the fact that we need to be targeting the root causes of exploitation, including the deregulation of state power that allows corporations to get away with murder, and the capitalist system that puts profits over people, encouraging exploitation and greed. By steering our attention away from such issues, corporations can continue making profits and getting away with their bullshit, while we discuss the pros and cons of bamboo leggings. (see more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/true-north/2017/jul/17/neoliberalism-has-conned-us-into-fighting-climate-change-as-individuals)

Author of Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion’ Tansy Hoskins provides a similar discourse, adding that we are encouraged to trust in capitalism to make change and better the world; that companies can be made ethical through our consumer actions. However, the contradiction is that corporations have only become stronger and continue to exploit workers/resources, despite their greenwashing and attempts to come across as ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’. More shopping is not going to free workers from this system. By using consumerism as a sole means of empowering workers, we are utilising the very system that has led to the exploitation of workers in the Global South, namely capitalism, without even acknowledging or striving to challenge or dismantle it. (see more: https://oxfordleftreview.com/olr-issue-14/tansy-hoskins-neoliberalism-and-fashion/)

In an insightful article on White Saviour Complex and Fair Trade, Bani Amor delves into the colonial connotations of attempts to ‘save’ the world via ethical companies, which are argued to share parallels with the colonial activities of the West going into the Global South and attempting to civilise the ‘Other’ with its saviour tactics, thus ensuring domination over the GS and its resources, validating supremacy. I’m not saying ethical companies are going to these countries on colonial conquests, but we really do need to understand the historic relevance of colonialism in interactions between the Global North and South such as these. If you go to these countries, get products made, sell them in the name of ‘liberating workers’ while not giving them a say or listening to them, and continue to stay silent on the structural system that has resulted in your existence as an ethical brand, you are falling into dangerous territory.

The article also reviews research on cause-related marketing, which is basically when corporations and nonprofit charities combine to promote sales and causes simultaneously. By tying serious social causes such as poverty and exploitation to making profits, this results in the depoliticising and downplaying of such causes, and provides an undignified, extremely simplified solution to a complex, very dire situation.

Finally, one pivotal point made is the fact that coloured women, through this process of ‘saviourism’ are made both “hypervisible, but also invisible- ‘seen but not known’”. Their existence is highlighted, but they are simultaneously being silenced, as workers are spoken over, dehumanised and patronised by brands and movements that are supposed to be ‘empowering’ them. (read more: https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/spend-save)

In general, the ethical fashion movement tends to solely focus on how we can individually change the industry and ‘save’ workers in a way that utilises and continues to prop up the very system that is screwing workers over in the first place, conflicting with its ‘empowering’ rhetoric.

GREAT SO WTF DO I DO NOW THEN MAYISHA.

(Source: http://www.vqronline.org/reporting-articles/2014/04/ghosts-rana-plaza)

Okay so I know I’ve painted a very dull image of ethical fashion, and I know not all ethical brands are the same, etc etc. However, when the industry constantly paints ethical fashion as a positive means to an end, neglecting the issues surrounding ethical fashion, alternative viewpoints are needed.

I get a lot of people asking me for advice e.g. about ethical brands, how to be more ethical etc. Ultimately we want our goods to be made by workers who were treated fairly. Personally, I stick to secondhand- it’s cheaper for me and helps reduce waste in landfill. I do like ethical clothing, and knowing where my clothes/jewellery has come from, but if I do buy ethically I will from now on be seeing what that brand is doing to support garment workers and in calling out corporations, so if you’re an ethical brand prepare for a QnA sesh with ur girl.

One thing I would advise is to not simply boycott the high street- this comes from trade unionists and garment worker activists in Bangladesh. They want to produce garments and a source of income, they just don’t want to be tortured in the process (obviously). At the same time, we cannot deny that our excessive consumption is part of the problem, so if you need a new jacket- please just buy your jacket and not a jacket, 5 tops and 6 dresses because they were half price- really think about your purchases. Being a ‘shopoholic’ is a cute insta aesthetic but its seriously impacting the environment and feeding the system of worker exloitation.

Also acknowledge that a lot of people simply cannot afford to buy ethically, and should not be made to feel guilty for going to primark to buy jeans.

One thing I also really want to highlight, as you would have probably guessed from the blog, is that our activism is not limited to our purchasing. We need to be vocal, we need to be out there demanding change from corporations, calling them out, exposing them etc. Something as little as a tweet, an email, and insta post can go a long way guys. I know its not in fashion to support such movements (pardon the pun) but we really have to keep pushing- we cannot afford to wait for another Rana Plaza for us to take action.

This might piss people off. I’m sorry. But understand that a few years ago I was the same as the very organisations and brands I’m talking about, and it took criticism like this to understand that I needed to rethink my activism if I were to truly create change. Plus, you feel pretty helpless after hearing of a factory fire every other week, another worker protest because factory owners didn’t pay their workers that month, stories of sexual abuse of young females from management, refugees being exploited, masses of workers fainting simultaneously, and NO ONE CARING. Not even the very people who by default should be sharing and raising concerns about these issues. It’s surreal.

We have groups and regular discussions on twitter that enable ethical brands to get together, support each other and discuss how we can promote ethical brands and use them etc. It’s nice how such elaborate forms of unity can be created surrounding ethical branding but little is done to address the very problems that has led to the reason these ethical brands exist, and how to put an end to worker exploitation. Again, we are steering towards ‘solutions’ that aren’t actually solutions, but are utilising capitalism and perpetuating the neoliberal stance that we need to individually create the change.

BUN THAT SHIT.

Things are going to start changing.

We are not only going to change the world with our individual practices, we are going to change the garment industry in a way that emphasises our solidarity and support for garment workers, creating a mass solidarity movement. We are going to call out corporates when we clock their messy moves and let them know as consumers we don’t f*ck with them unless they treat their workers with dignity. We are not going to buy our way to change, we are going to collectively DEMAND it.

We have no choice but to.

(Source: http://thechronicleherald.ca/world/1126316-bangladeshi-garment-workers-protest-on-may-day)

#fashion #ethicalfashion #ethical fashion #ethical #ohsoethical #ootd #garment industry #garment workers #garmentworkers #garmentindustry #workers rights #workersrights #rana plaza #ranaplaza #bangladesh #capitalism #neoliberalism

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