#90% of my sketchbook is them it’s embarrassing
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I have a slight obsession…. Sorry for the bad quality lol
#this book has taken over my life#90% of my sketchbook is them it’s embarrassing#love the dead and dying girlies#griddlehark fanart#griddlehark#gideon nav#gideon the ninth#harrowhark nonagesimus#harrow the ninth#harrow the first#kiriona gaia#the locked tomb#tlt fanart
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Crime Wave: David Hale x Reader
Tagging: @kmc1989 @hatersaremymotivators bennykk kelpies-shed
Companion piece to Graffiti
David Hale wants to court you.
It surprises you because up until now the men in your life have been interested in one thing and one only and that’s fucking you.
When he calls you that night, you fully expect it to be a booty call. It’s past ten pm and you’re curled up in your arm chair, listening to the sounds of the 70s, 80s,and 90s over the radio as you sketch out a scene from the café on Main Steet earlier today. It’s nothing special, just a flower that you saw in a glass of water but you haven’t been able to get it out of your head so you’re committing it to paper. That’s usually how your art comes to you, you see something in the wild that sticks in your brain and you can’t let it go, not until you’ve drawn it.
Usually it’s people. You have entire sketchbooks dedicated to folks you don’t know the names of because you’re fascinated by their posture and facial expressions. It’s the reason you decided to draw David this morning.
When you met it had seemed like he carried the weight of the world up on his shoulders but in that moment, asleep in your bed, he’d seemed relaxed, free. You’d wanted to capture that. You didn’t intend to give the picture away and the phone number had been a last minute addition, hastily scrawled as he was heading out the door.
The truth is you never expected him to call.
“Don’t tell me it took you this long to find my number.” You tease after he greets you.
He laughs and that sound, you don’t realise how much you’ve missed it during the twelve hours you’ve been apart.
“It’s been a busy night.” He tells you as he sits at his desk, reviewing the arrest reports. “It’s been hard to find a moment between throwing the regulars in the drunk tank and arresting delinquents for drawing dicks on other people’s property. It seems you’ve started a trend, one that’s going viral.”
“You’re kidding right?” You say, tapping your pencil on the surface of your sketchpad and you can envision him shaking his head with that amused expression of his as he surveys the evidence.
“I wish I was.” He tells you and you hear the chair creak as he leans back in it. “Cars, mailboxes, shop windows. You’ve inspired a crime wave.”
“Honestly David, I’m so fucking embarrassed.” You say as you press your fingertips to your lips. “Let me make it up to you.”
“This is dinner and a movie at least.” He tells you with a humorous lilt to his voice. “I can give you a tour of your handiwork afterwards, we can rate them, biggest to smallest, most anatomically accurate…”
You can’t help but laugh and on the opposite end of the line David feels something blossoming in his chest.
“I actually took some pictures for evidentiary purposes if you’d like a preview.” He tells you as he scrolls through his phone. “I thought I’d ask as I’m against sending unsolicited dick pics to women I’ve just met.”
“That implies you’ve sent some to women you do know in the past.” You tease and you swear you can feel the blush creeping across his cheeks as he clears his throat.
“I can neither confirm or deny…”
“Some would consider it a form of art.” You say as you survey the images he’s just sent you. There’s some real creativity going on in these pictures, you’ve never seen such a variation of cocks. You wonder if you should be putting together some sort of art installation.
“Like your life modelling?” He prompts and you tune back into the conversation.
“Does that bother you?” You ask him. “That other people see me naked on a regular basis?”
It’s been a source of contention with most of your previous partners. They don’t understand that life modelling isn’t about sex, it’s about the art form, about providing a subject for students to learn from, to develop. It’s not a job for just anybody, you have to be comfortable with yourself, sociable enough to put the artists at ease especially in the beginning stages of their journey.
“No.” He says and you can tell he means it. “You have a beautiful body.”
It’s your turn to blush.
“Do you want to come over tonight?” You ask him and he hesitates.
“Yes.” He says finally. “But I think we should wait for that dinner and a movie.”
You read between the lines.
I want to fuck you, but I want to date you too.
“Tomorrow night.” You say as you scroll through your phone searching for the movie listings. “I’m free tomorrow night.”
Love David? Don’t miss any of his stories by joining the taglist here.
Like My Work? - Why Not Buy Me A Coffee
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I might be drowning in lost fic requests. 🤦🏻♀️ If you can help I would REALLY appreciate it. ❤️
Stiles started dating this really abusive guy, he cut off all contact with the pack, his dad Etc and the guy moves them away (maybe Chicago). Stiles eventually leaves him and goes back home and it turns out the pack and his dad have been trying to find him.
Lost River (never reached the sea) by scribespirare | 13.2K | Mature
Three years Stiles has been gone. Three years, and then out of the blue he shows up on Derek's front porch, bloody and bruised and in need.
I am looking for a fic where there's the monster of the week (it's maybe an incubus?) and it shifts to look like stiles. It convinces derek to not turn him into the rest of the pack. Derek agrees just to be able to be with 'stiles.' scott i think figures it out? And tells derek that it would have slowly killed him.
Derek hates touch because of Kate and flinches whenever someone touches him. But Stiles does this thing where he never touches Derek, instead he lets his hand hover around him, allowing for Derek to initiate the contact if he wants to. Oh! And Cora’s alive and I’m pretty sure the one who notices this. She ends up confronting Stiles about it at some point. I know it’s pretty short, just one chapter/ a one-shot, and around 5,000 words. I think, I could be wrong.
i see that you've come so far [just like them old stars] by crossroadswrite | 2.3K
But her big brother’s unwillingness to touch anyone, like he thinks he doesn’t deserve it isn’t the only thing she notices. She also notices how Stiles doesn’t touch him.
Everyone reaches for Derek in some form or another, but Stiles- Stiles is something different altogether because he reaches for Derek but he never makes contact.
Hi! Could you please help me find this fic where Derek is an alpha but of like the whole town I think? Or something. Stiles keeps getting into trouble or losing control (or something) and he goes to stay with Derek for a few weeks to help him behave/get focused because hes the alpha. Derek helps him focus better on his homework and runs exercises with him to burn off excess energy and misses him when he goes back to his dad's. That's all I remember, sorry its so vague.
Do you know of a fixk where derek and Stiles kill Gerard together but when chris ask them about it they act surprised he did? I dont know anything other than this so sorry
Basically it's young Derek x Stiles, Derek is part of the basketball team and they end up going on like a trip for a basketball game. Stiles tags along and they end up staying at a motel (they share a room). At some point it's Stiles’ Mothers death anniversary and Derek brings him fast food back from his jog. And I'm like 90% certain that there's like a bonfire at the back of the motel and Derek brings out his guitar infront of everyone and starts singing abt his crush on Stiles.
Okay sooo, young Derek x Stiles but the hale family are still alive. There's this whole thing about them both promising to have a starwars marathon. Derek also draws a lot in this sketchbook thing, he's like rlly private abt it but stiles ends up looking in it and finding a drawing of both him and Derek. Then Derek kind of wolfs out? He like loses control a bit and is afraid of hurting Stiles. OH! And then there's another bit where theyre playfighting in the Hales' kitchen and Derek pins Stiles down and stiles gets really embarrassed abt it. And then at the end there's like a really cute line abt their hearts beating as one 🥺🥺
Hey! I hope you or your followers can help me out but I've been wracking my brain on this one for awhile trying to remember this fic where everyone loses their memory of Stiles' existence but this is where I get fuzzy on the details. All I can remember is that Stiles returns to his house and his dad threatens him because he doesn't recognize him and so he ends up at Derek's. IIRC, Derek doesn't actually recognize him either (he might reveal this right away or later?) but helps him anyhow?
Hi! Ive been trying to find this fic, it was a amnesia type fic and I believe Derek went to visit his family who live out of state, he planned on finally telling them about Stiles but hes in an accident, loses his memories, and his family starts trying to set him up on dates(?). I think some of his family were wellknown or famous or someone told Stiles about Derek going out and Stiles just assumes he'd wanted out of the relationship but didnt want to tell him. Its mostly the summary I remember😅
Hi, I'm looking for a fic where young Stiles meets Derek in the woods as a werewolf, helps him get back home, to thank Stiles he writes him a letter and Derek replies that they become pen pals. That's what I remember that's how it starts. thank you!
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🍧☀️🙊🎁🌈💖 for Katie?
og my GAURD thank you guys what!
🍧 SHAVED ICE - do they still have any objects from their childhood? what significance does it have to them? what would their reaction be if they lost it? Can't think of much besides her keeping her first few sketchbooks! They hold a lot of sentimental value to her. Don't mean to be that person that is trying to make art her entire personality, because it most definitely is not! But, her love for cartoons, 90s anime, and all sorts of media is what sparked her love for drawing anyway. So there's a lot of value in those old pages. Not sure if she'd let anyone see them though, she can be quite secretive (and embarrassed) when it comes to them. If she lost them? Definitely distraught for awhile. Would end up getting angry at herself for being so dense for losing them, all those years of work down the drain. However, she'd move on! There's always space for more sketchbooks in her heart. <3
☀️ SUN - are they a morning person? what is the first thing they do in the morning? Katie isn't much of a morning person, but she'll get up when she needs to. Although she does prefer to sleep in a little later, the evening is more of her preference, everything is so lively then! First thing she does in the morning is use the bathroom. I don't care how silly it sounds, it's routine. After that? Maybe breakfast, she doesn't eat it often but if she has the chance she'll indulge. Spend time with her pets, lay around, enjoy the morning and get ready for the day!
🙊 SPEAK-NO-EVIL - what is something your oc will refuse to stay quiet about? Anything that involves someone, or even herself, being bad-mouthed. She is not afraid to stand up for other people and speak out for them if she needs to. Even if it results in her getting backlash, you can count on her to be there to defend you when you need it the most. Katie's childhood and past relationships were filled with her being unable to speak her mind about how she feels. So no longer will she tolerate holding back if there's something she needs to communicate.
🎁 PRESENT - what types of presents would they be most happy to receive? are they good at gift giving? Oh!! I like this one! Katie would love to receive anything as a gift honestly, she's not one to complain. It's the thought that counts, right? But if I had to say, it would probably be giftcards. A little splurging never hurt anyone right? She has a big knack for shopping, whether it clothes or even just going out to eat. But she mostly prefers to give gifts instead of get them! Katie is a wonderful judge of character and a great listener, so if there's a holiday or birthday coming up, expect a well thought out gift to come your way!! She always makes sure to put effort into the gift being something she knows the person will enjoy, or get use out of! Even if it comes down to being money, lol. She's very selfless in that regard!
🌈 RAINBOW - what advice would they give to their younger self? Hm. Don't let herself be deterred by the things her mother says, or the things other people say about her, or what she is planning to do with her life. There are always going to be people out there who dislike you, or that will try to hurt you, but at the end of the day, they won't matter. All that matters is how you come out of it, preferably a better person.
💖 SPARKLING HEART - are they a subtle or a showy lover? A little bit of both, but more so on the showy side. Katie would always make sure to let Nate know he's loved and appreciated. Even in her past of being mistreated, she'd make sure the other person was always happy. I suppose it would make her more showy. As an addition, i believe her love language is 'Acts of Service' and some 'Quality Time' as well. Anything to let Nate (in this regard) know he's loved and very cared for!! She literally loves him so much, it still eats her up inside. Which is why she's so lovey and hands-on with him! Like, !!! alll the time, so much.. i could make another post ab it but you get it <3
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It's 4/13 so here's an embarrassing confession from when I was in school and I had One special interest and it was homestuck:
I read the final chapter of homestuck in my school computer lab and I cried and my friends had to hide me with their bags so that the teachers couldn't see me being so autistic
Teacher saw me anyway and instead of asking me if I was ok, she told my dad (who worked at my school) and he then asked me when I got home "what were you crying about at lunch?? Is everything ok???"
Had to explain I just really like this comic about aliens and I was sad it was over.
I got diagnosed as autistic 2 years later when we got showed an autism acceptance week video and I was like *Spiderman meme* and throughout my diagnosis I couldn't help but think about the GRIP that homestuck had on me for 4 years.
I plan on digging out some old sketchbooks soon and 90% of them are shitty homestuck fanart so who knows maybe I'll do some redraws or something seeing as it's been 10 years of this fucking Creature being in my brain
#milkytalk#homestuck#happy 413 everyone#edit: just remembered that the book they use to diagnose autism for people under 18 in the uk#is a book about frogs magically flying at night that you have to deduce random impossible information from#any other uk autistics will know#i hope#anyway yeah im sure that probably had something to do with my constant thoughts about homestuck during diagnosis
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Nobody likes you...
Loki x GN!Reader
A/N: A short lil fic that kept me awake last night (and kinda this one as well). Just Loki being a cute little bean.
No proof reading this time. It’s late and I already should be in bed by now.
Summary: Loki suddenly behaves a little weird
Word count: 594
You sat at your desk doodling in your sketchbook when you heard a soft knock on your door.
“Come in.” you called, not even bothering to look up from your doodle.
You couldn’t see how the Tricksters head carefully peaked inside your room before he entered it hesitantly. When you heard the familiar click of your door lock you met his gaze.
“Hey Lo, what’s up?” you smiled sweetly at the God who stood there fumbling with his hands.
“I just wanted to tell you that I do like you.” he blurted out.
“Ok?” you watched him amused, not sure what to do with this information.
“And I would never leave you.” he added, his gaze never leaving yours.
“Thank you?” you chuckled slightly uneasy.. You knew that Loki could be quite eccentric at times but you still hadn’t gotten used to his intensity sometimes.
“And if you like we could hang out tonight, because I always have fun when we spent time together.” he continued, slowly stepping towards your desk.
“Sure?” you grinned at him. Did he really just want to coax you into a movie night?
“What do I owe the pleasure of your little prose?” you chuckled, when he nonchalantly let himself fall onto the beanbag beside you as if nothing strange had just happened.
“I just wanted to make sure that you know that you’re loved and appreciated.” he rummage through your book collection, suddenly not willing to meet your gaze anymore.
“Loki, are you okay?” you asked slightly worried now, “Are you dying?”
“What, no?!” Loki scoffed, his nose scrunching in that adorable way you adored.
“Oh, ok. Am I dying?” you asked a little horrified now.
“No! Why would I know if you were dying?” Loki asked bewildered as he looked at you blankly.
“I don’t know, you’re just kinda weird right now.” you reasoned, “Then what’s this all about?”
“It’s nothing. Is it that weird if a friend wants you to know that they love you and appreciate spending time with you?” he defended himself.
“No, but there are different ways of doing so.” you chuckled. “Come on, tell me. What was going on.” Loki looked at you like a little puppy that had ruined the carpet and knew it was wrong. He hesitated a while before he sighed in defeat.
“I might have heard you mumble to yourself earlier in the kitchen when you made yourself lunch...” he slowly confessed timidly “..and I might have eavesdropped when you said that no one liked you and left you and that they all were out having fun. And can I just say, you deserve much better friends than those jerks.” Loki rambled. He looked up at you when you didn't say a word. Your face seemed to be frozen in… shock? Loki only got more confused when you suddenly began to laugh uncontrollably.
“Oh you precious bean!” you snorted as you pulled him into a hug.
“What? What’s so funny?” he wrestled himself out of your arms.
“Nothing!” you brushed away a tear that had fallen down your cheek from laughing so hard.
“I wasn’t mumbling, I was humming.” you explained, “It was a song by Green Day that got stuck in my head a few days ago. Haven't you heard from them yet?”
“They must have bypassed me.” Loki mumbled visibly embarrassed.
“Then I know what we’re going to do tonight. You have to let me introduce you to the world of 90’s punk.” you declared with a smile, gladly fetching your CD collection from your shelf.
~
The song for anyone curious. And I feel the need to apologize for this "fic”... I bame it on lack of sleep.
~
Taglist: @lucywrites02 @funsized-mimi @silver-lupines @variant59 @austynparksandpizza
Let me know if you want to be added:)
#loki#loki x reader#loki fanfic#loki fanfiction#loki laufeyson#loki friggason#loki odinson#loki drabble#loki oneshot
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the first drawing you made that you're still proud of (ever since you were a child?) what influences were there and what inspirations propel you to make certain drawings? also, do you think the next art style you will try to attempt (if that is indeed one of your goals) would it be similar to your current one or something wholly different? colour pencils or charcoal pencils? (sorry this got too specific gjjfdjk)
Don't be sorry i love this question for real. I've been drawing since i was literally like a year old and a couple of pieces i can recall are an oil painting i did of a Norwegian snowy forest but my uncle bought that from me and I don't have pictures :( it ended up having quite an impressionist look (which my teacher adored)—and this life drawing i did for class like a year ago (warning there's boobs)
I don't really have easy acces right now (its 2 am) to anything i did before 2015 especially not for school but ive been skimming thru my hs scketchbooks and a lot of it holds up surprisingly so (hey maybe ill do a tour someday and embarrass myself)
excuse the quality, its bAD
these are bts watercolor portraits. i should probably do more of those tbh
and these are either harry potter sketches or ocs so
Theres also a particular piece worth noting that i cant access right now but it's essentially a watercolor drawing of a balloon i did at like 4 ans my parents love it.
As for influences, i can't really talk about specific pieces cause my memory is shit and i take a lot of inspirations foe just one drawing, but some art that has been central to my art has been Fiona Staples' (you might recognize her from SAGA or the newest Archie Comics), Bill Sienkievicz (who i have the HONOR to say drew half of my face at Madrid's comic con in 2017), Claire Wendling's, Chris Hong's, Ashley Wood's, John William Waterhouse's, Alphonse Mucha's, Al Buell's and more recently Glen Keane's (who recently directed Over the Moon) and John Pomeroi's and generally 90s/2000s (and a bit of 60's too) disney concept art. Honestly i could spend days talking about my artistic influences. But weirdly enough i think one of my biggest influences was Alessandro Barbucci's W.I.T.C.H which i spent so much time reading and drawing as a kid, and what all of these have pushed me to do is telling stories (i wish i had my comics from way back when theyre... an experience) through design and stroytelling (i really should do comics again) and expression i think ans i aspire to do so much more.
I don't particularly intend on trying or pursuing new styles at least for now, i'm pretty happy with the direction my art is taking when it comes to that, stylized yet not too cartoonish.
I actually haven't picked up colored pencils or charcoals in so long, and both of them i normallypic up for quick sketching. I think charcoal is nicer to use overall, it's quick and soft and overall effective although it's true that i don't think i'd use it in my sketchbook.
Sorry this is so long but i really appreciated this question and kind of needed to dive in i guess 💜
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For those quarantine questions: 3, 14, 18, 27, 35 and 38! :D
Aww thank you Arcadia for sending this 😭 These questions are from This Ask!!
3. What show/YouTube video(s) do you put on in the background when you when you don’t have anything to watch but you want something on?
My ADHD is so bad when it comes to watching shows. I can’t be consistent on what I want on when I need something on. Sometimes I just put on vaporware lofi music. Other times it’s the news. Sometimes it’s pokemon videos from MandJTV. Sometimes it’s the jellyfish cam from Monteray Bay Aquarium. Cooking videos. Knife restoration videos. Idk I have no consistency with this stuff FHDJSAKL
14. Favorite mug you own
It used to be this d20 mug I had that mysteriously disappeared. I have a bunch that are in the garage for when I move out because I have so many mugs that people gift me (and I LOVE THEM) so it’s probably either my color changing one that makes a starry sky have constellations or it’s my mug about being a DM that one of my players gifted me.
18. What’s that one TV show that you’re a little bit embarrassed to watch but you still like nonetheless?
I’m not embarrassed by any of the shows I like to watch because I’m not really a person who gets embarrassed by their interests in general. I guess 90 day Fiance is the most “embarrassing” one but I love it. It’s chaotic and stupid and those people make $1400 per episode so really it’s on them at this point.
27. What section do you immediately head for when you walk into a bookstore?
WHEREVER THE TABLETOP GAME STUFF IS. I just love ttrpgs. After that I go for the manga section to roast the hell out of the ones I hate. Then I look at the clearance section for any sketchbooks or journals for me to swipe. Then I’m outtie.
35. You have to get one meme tattooed on your body, what meme is it and where does it go?
I think I’d want the Candace “MOM HOLY FUCK” and I want it on my leftside ribs. FHJDSAKHFLS
38. Favorite mid-2000s song
JEALOUSY TURNING SAINTS INTO THE SEA
SWIMMING THROUGH SICK LULLABIES
CHOKING ON YOUR ALIBIS
BUT IT’S JUST THE PRICE I PAY
DESTINY IS CALLING ME
OPEN UP MY EAGER EYES
CAUSE IM MR BRIGHTSIDE
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Random things about me no-one asked for, because I’m tempted to make an About page:
I’m always Annoyed when interpreters don’t sing the little bit at the beginning of jazz songs, that part comes before the verse/chorus
I hoard collect sketchbooks and notebooks. Impulsively. Even though I don’t think there’s a single one I actually finished.
too many people around? I will walk down the street so fast. Or, alternately, grip the Best Beloved’s hand like there’s no tomorrow.
I instinctively try to find a second voice when I sing along to the radio and whatnot
I wear glasses from the moment I open my eyes in the morning to the moment I close my eyes at night, and yet can’t be arsed to draw them 90% of the time.
I know a character is a favourite of mine by two things: the overwhelming urge to fondly call them an idiot and the twisting of my guts when something bad happens to them.
Too Much Noise is SO BAD and will make me cry if I can’t escape it
I fall for good/feelsy/fun friends and/or siblings relationships in fiction so hard and fast it’s embarrassing
I hate to drive but as the only one with a licence in the household (of two) I have A Duty
sometimes all it takes is a warm, clear round note from a horn or a trumpet or some particularly moving cello strings to bring a lump to my throat and make me cry
I will automatically assume I’m 99% useless and decreasing that number by even 1% is Very Hard.
That’s all I got for now :3
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ShellsuitZombie Magazine Issue 2
Published on July 26, 2011
[ View larger version here ]
Text from the article can be read below. (There may be some errors.)
I, BOLLO
One spectacularly sunny lunchtime, ShellsuitZombie managed to hunt down a rare Gorilla only common to Clerkenwell London. Dave Brown, most famous for his role as Bollo in The Mighty Boosh, spends most of his time as a designer and photographer producing (alongside Boosh work like 2008s spectacularly successful 'The Mighty Book of Boosh') beautiful printed staff for clients like Universal and the BBC, as well as of course the odd performance to tens of thousands on arena tours around the country. It's safe to say we were feeling pretty smug about trapping him in a pub in Clerkenwell (which happens to be just below his studio) for a pint and a chat about Design, the future of Boosh, Noel's new book and photographing Julian Barratt and villagers in Ghana.
SSZ: So Dave/Bollo, what would you consider to be your main job?
Dave: I guess I consider myself to be a creative, the Boosh started as something I did with my mates as a laugh and it blew up into something huge. I've always had to juggle the worlds of and Design, quite often for me they overlap, obviously when you're out on tour it's all consuming but even then I've been known to be sat in my hotel room on a squeezing the odd freelance job in.
So you've always been freelance?
I couldn't be full time, in the early days I needed the freedom to be able to drop everything and get involved in a Boosh project at the drop of a hat, so freelance was perfect, then just before the first live Boosh tour in 2006 I did something I'd always wanted to do and set up my own agency, aptly named Ape, with a mind to be more of a collective of creatives rather then just a sole trader It allows me to get all the amazing creatives I've had the pleasure of meeting and working with over the years involved as and when I can on all kinds of creative projects.
It's been pretty full on since to be honest, so full on in fact that I haven't even had time to launch the website! It always gets pushed to the bottom of the to do list when I'm busy and then when I find the time to get back to it I've gone off everything I've done and start again. There's a holding page up at the moment that says 'Gorillas can use up to 52 different tools.They're currently using those tools to build this site'. Well they're obviously rubbish at using them because it's taking them bloody ages to finish!
Would you say Boosh has helped the rest of your career?
I guess so, although you could also say it's got in the way. I am doing a lot of books now as a result of the Boosh book but many of my clients haven't a clue who I am. I've done work for Feame Cotton, Ben Brooks, James Rhodes, Nick Cave and recently comedian Tim Key as a result of the book and Boosh work in general. BBC books actually just rang and asked me if I'd be interested in designing this years Top Gear guide to Christmas book! They've approached me because they said they loved the Boosh book and would like my take on things. Will be great if that's true but I'm not counting my chickens just yet. I recently did an interview with Radio 4 where I went on a massive rant about Jeremy Clarkson's stonewashed pumpkin arse not fitting into my Morris Minor so if they get wind of that it could be off ! (Ed.- Since doing this interview Dave has stepped away from the Top Gear job due to, shall we say, creative differences)
It sounds like books are your bread and butter. How do you go about designing a successful book like ‘TMBOB’?
I don't have a process, I approach everything from an idea, every brief is obviously different and I design to that, so it's a bit worrying when people say 'I love the Boosh book, can you do that for me?' - I interpret that as can you adopt a similar way of approaching the brief rather than making it look exactly like the Book of Boosh. The Boosh book was designed around the characters really, the style and feel of each page born from an idea in the writing and from the vibrancy and diversity of the show, a 4 column grid with a consistent type style was obviously never going to work!
The Boosh book sold incredibly well, largely due to the popularity of the show, but we were also very keen to not just make it a standard off the shelf spin off shitty annual like most TV show books. Like all Boosh product, we're very hands on, mostly doing it ourselves and we dedicate time and effort to make sure the final product is worthy of the show. That's pretty unique to be honest I think this attention to detail and quality control is what makes our fans so insanely loyal. We haven't done anything new in ages but the books and DVD's are still selling, purely down to the quality of the design of course!
Surely not everyone just wants you for your Boosh?
No, like I said, I have a fair few clients that don't know I'm in the Boosh, in fact, awhile ago when I was still freelancing, one client left me in charge of their studio before getting on a flight to New York, on the flight they watched a Boosh ep and saw me playing Joey Moose in the first series. They were like 'Is that the guy we just... what the fuck?'
Bollo has played to some huge crowds...
Yeah the last tour we did was insane, Wembley Arena, multiple nights at Brixton, selling out the 02 two nights on the trot, it's been a crazy time and I'm so lucky to have had those experiences, it is hard after a touring sitting back at a computer designing but I get my kicks out of the creative and I still keep a toe in show business with a bit of directing, writing and the odd gig here and there. To be honest it's hard trying to keep it all up and sometimes I wish I just had one job to do. Design isn't exactly a part time job is it! and I've also just had a baby girl, so lets just say I'm pretty tired and exhausted at the moment, I'm smiling though, honest.
What are you up to at the moment?
At the moment I'm working on a book with Noel called The Scribblings of a Madcap Shambleton, not Boosh related, it's basically a book about Noel’s art and writing and I'm design and compiling it. There's also a lot of my photography in it. It's a visual bombardment of Noel's mind really, paintings, sketchbooks, scribbling, it's looking amazing. He's pretty prolific, such a huge body of work. He's been painting for years, unlike some famous freaks who get a set of colouring pencils for Christmas and decide through boredom that they're now an artist. Noel can actually paint his tits off and does so every moment he gets and has done for years so at the moment I'm trying to get 530 pages down to 320! What's really interesting about the work when you see it all together is that you can see how he writes to inspire his painting and he paints to inspire his writing, I know I'm biased but I love his stuff if you haven't seen it think Basquiat, Haring, DeBuffet, Magritte, Hockney, Aubrey Beardsley...
So are there any plans in the pipeline for the Boosh?
Well everyone's working on separate things at the moment Noel is busy doing his own show 'Noel Fielding's Luxury Comedy' and Julian is doing a Russian play at the Young Vic 'Government Inspector'. Those two have pretty much become Howard and Vince.
The last thing we were working on was the album. I was told when I last heard it about 3 months ago that it was 90% done and it sounded immense then so no idea what's going on! It has all the tracks from the show reworked, longer and better as well as new ones written for characters, I reckon they all stand up in their own right, even if you'd never seen the Boosh I still reckon you could get into it, the new Crack Fox track is incredible! It's a great album, people should have it in their ear holes right now.
People always ask if The Boosh have split up, I guess it’s inevitable when nothing new has happened in a while but we haven't and stuff will again, Noel and Julian do things when they're ready, they've produced so much material over the years, they're just having a break at the mo. There's still loads of stuff on the table that's never seen the light of day, but they'll do it when they're ready and when they do it will be great. They just need to find out where that table is...
Is the passion still there?
Yeah of course, always will be, for them and for me. You always come back stronger after a holiday, just maybe a little sunburnt, haha.
So I hear you're involved in some charity work. Fancy talking about that for a bit?
Yes, I love talking about it! I have just become an ambassador for afrikids.org, A freaking ambassador! Afrikids is a charity focusing on child rights in Northern Africa - They've been an absolute joy to work with, I've done some fundraising for them as Bollo, I've rebranded them, not as Bollo, and I even got the opportunity to spend some time in Ghana last year seeing their projects firsthand. I was filming and taking stills for their library, it was an incredible experience - it sounds clichéd and worthy saying it was life changing but it was. The Upper East region of Ghana is an amazing place, the people are beautiful, many of them have next to nothing and yet they're so welcoming, so happy, so positive and an absolute joy to photograph. From a portraiture point of view it was incredible. You expect a certain amount of shyness or self awareness from someone when you stick a big camera in their face but everyone there was so natural and un-effected. They would just look right down the lens without a hint of embarrassment or effect. I couldn't stop taking pictures. I need to go back, there's a chance I will be involved in an ambulance convoy driving donated medical vehicles and equipment from Southampton to Bolgatanga in Northern Ghana next year, imagine the photographic opportunity there! There's a book in that... If I could do anything I'd be travelling the world taking pictures
How does that compare to shooting backstage on tour?
Worlds apart in terms of there being more more booze, hairspray and ... erm ... humous but actually not that different from a photographic point of view, it’s still about getting yourself in the right place, sensing when to be anonymous and when to get in amongst it. I'm lucky with the Boosh obviously because I'm an insider, it means everyone acts as if there wasn't a camera around, except Rich of course who turns into a complete psycho, nutjob, showoff whenever any recording equipment appears. He's a shy introvert mouse normally!
The trouble with me taking all the backstage Boosh shots is that I'm never in any of them, but then when we get photographers out on tour to shoot us I always feel for them because they usually get nothing! Especially when they're big personalities and act all crazy and hyper like that's what we react to! I always smile to myself and think 'you're not going to get anything here mate, especially from Julian' He rarely gives me anything photographically let alone a strange cool cat called Moses in his silly hat and mad trainers wondering why in every shot he has of Julian he's talking or eating!
I can imagine him being a pain in the arse
Not at all, well, maybe just a little every now and then but aren't we all? He's also the most truthful loyal down the line no shit guy you'll ever meet, he's also fucking hilarious and one of the best comic actors out there.
How did you meet?
Me, Noel and Nige (Boosh animator and co creator of Noels new show) went to see Julian do standup at uni - he was fucking amazing. Noel had wanted to go in for an award which Julian had won the year before, the daily telegraph open mic award, so thats why we saw him ... I think ... but then they met in Edinburgh and both got signed to the same management company and started writing together. Then they did three years in Edinburgh before the radio and TV shows. Being there from the off means I have photography all the way back to the source, I plan to do an exhibition and book some day of the lot, maybe next year, I think it’s 10 years since the first series? I may be wrong, my mind is mash, too much humous on tour.
OK We have some questions from ShensuitZombie readers. Graeme asks: Where are you keeping the severed head of the honey monster*?
* After a Sugar Puffs advert used a similar crimping style to the Boosh, Bollo exacted his revenge on the brand’s iconic beast live on tour.
Ha, I don't know where that is. It's probably behind a bin backstage somewhere in a Scottish theatre. The last gig on our last tour was in Aberdeen, I don't know whose fucking idea that was. It was a great gig and the people were amazing but we it did feel a bit of anti climax, although the journey back to London was ridiculous, it felt like it was half an hour! The honey monster head, I don't know, it's probably in Peter Kay's bed, discuss.
Holly asks: Do you find yourself grunting and acting like a primate after being onstage?
It's the most powerful thing to be in that costume, and acting it - especially in real life situations, I've found that out when I've been doing charity work, fundraising in banks and stuff, getting in lifts and acting nonchalant amongst business men and women. Some people react well and have a laugh, embrace it, others desperately try to ignore the fact that they're standing in a lift with Gorilla, others have massive heart attacks and die at my primate feet. It's weird for kids because they either run up and cuddle you or freeze, have meltdowns and are forever scared.
A friend recently did a film with John Landis [Director of American Werewolf in London and Thriller] who is apparently obsessed with monkey impersonators. He has a room in his house dedicated to all the monkey actors of the world and reckons he can tell who is in any monkey suit in any film anywhere. So he asked my mate for a signed photo of Bollo and I had to send him a strange signed shot like those ones you see in New York dry cleaners. Still, now I know I'm in John Landis's monkey room I sleep better at night.
John asks: In the Bollo Cadburys ad parody is it you in the suit*?
** If you don’t know what this is referring to, look here: tinyurl.com/bollocadburys
Of course it is, how very dare you suggest otherwise...
Which is your favourite episode?
Milky Joe is awesome, I love Nanageddon and Old Gregg and in series 3 it's got to be Eels. It’s tough to pick a favourite, I genuinely piss myself at most of them even when I watch them back now.
Is anything ad-libbed?
Yeah, have you met Rich? Ever tried to get him to say the same line twice! It's always where the best stuff comes from, harder in TV land but on tour it’s encouraged and is always where the gold comes from, also keeps you alive, when you're doing 6 shows a week for four or so months you need to keep it fresh.
In fact, there was one thing that Bollo had to do in the live show, rolling a big prop offstage. One day the caster caught and I stacked it, incidentally ripping my leg open in the process. It got the biggest laugh of the night so I carried on doing it for the rest of the tour!
Thanks Dave, it's been sweet.
No worries, nice to meet you.
And with that, like an ape in the woods, he was gone.
Check out Dave's site - www.apeinc.co.uk
Dave took hundreds of photos of Ghanaians on his recent trip with Afrikids, a charity for whom he is ambassador.
#Dave Brown#Noel Fielding#Julian Barratt#The Mighty Boosh#ShellsuitZombie#ShellsuitZombie Magazine#`❦
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Old OCs
I’m going through some old public posts from my Patreon that never got shared here and cross-posting in an attempt to get back into blogging, like them old days of the early 2000s. This one is from October 2019.
As a teen I got $20 a month for doing chores and watching my sister. I wasn’t allowed to get a job but I did babysit and find ways to scam more money by making jewellery. Even though I didn’t have much spending money, I eventually got a subscription to Batman. Of all the various imaginary worlds, Batman was one I could picture myself in easily, thanks to all the movies and cartoons. Until that subscription the world of comics weren’t something I knew. To get a comic book that wasn’t Archie you had to drive to the town with a mall (and then choose from the paltry offerings at the little mall bookstore). For things like Batman and the X-Men, I only knew the cartoons. And, unlike the various Batman cartoons, the X-Men show was, well.
So, when I say I loved the X-Men as a kid, you need to understand which X-Men. It was not the cool ones. I didn’t see one of their comic books until maaaaaaybe 2000-it was something with Marrow in it and I definitely picked it up at the mall. For all that I loved Batman, it was the X-Men that I made an OC for. I’ve shared some things about her before, but not the original comics I made, out of embarrassment I guess. Well, I think after 20+ years the statute of limitations on embarrassment in old work is up.
I’m actually kind of impressed, looking at my old sketchbooks, and the pages of the comic that did survive (there were multiple coloured pages that just don’t exist any more) at my innate ability to understand how to put together a minicomic, from pencilling to inking on a separate sheet (with a pen nib!) on the light table in the productions classroom, laying in the text and gradients in Photoshop (which I used on those old candy coloured iMacs). I’d seen less than a dozen comic books at this point and it was well before you could look up resources easily online.
Somewhere as a teen I learned that light could be a particle and a beam and decided to drop that onto a character I’d go on to refine for two decades, until she was basically a thought experiment. But, in the late ‘90s, Nova was an alienated teen who found herself hunted for her abilities to create life-like holograms and killing lasers. When I drew her it was in a sci-fi situation because at the time, I didn’t know that making a character for an existing property and putting them in a fic was a thing.
Even so, when I played out the stories in my mind as a nightly habit to deal with insomnia, Nova worked with the X-Men. Like not knowing what fanfic was, I didn’t know liking girls was an option, so the romantic offers she rebuffed were from Gambit or Wolverine. Girl was too busy for either man’s charms or Xavier’s bureaucracy, she was too busy evading the shadowy government forces because her abilities made her an ideal assassin.
For all of her overpowered skills, even as a teen I knew the best heroes were ones with flaws. Thanks to the way her body processed and used light, Nova’s eyes were super sensitive and one eventually required an eyepatch-which she could see through, just in different wavelengths. Take that, other OCs with violet coloured eyes, my OC’s powers slowly damage her and the thing that makes her special eventually alienate her from normality.
That’s the form, more or less, that Nova was in until I saw Suicide Squad in theatres a couple of years ago. I pretty much immediately wanted to drop her into that world and even posted about it on Patreon once or twice. She was still the same basic character at first, the blacked-out lens of her glasses, same overall look and motivations. But I kept picking at the idea, reshaping it to fit the world and the way I create characters now.
I’d always wanted to find a fandom and I did, with Dungeons & Dragons, but this character has been with me for so long I wanted to do something with her. Since I have an AO3 (that currently has a Batman drabble and a couple fics about a lucha libre show) I figure I might as well give her an end and finally write her into the worlds I imagined her in.
I’ve only got two chapters done but hey, it’s AO3, I can post as I go.
Even with all the other things I have to get done weighing heavy, it’s nice to have something purely indulgent, like a gift to teen me.
The post Old OCs appeared first on B.Zedan.
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every! single! one!
can you tell my mood dropped hard like halfway through
angel; do you have a nickname?at the moment lars is pretty much just a nickname because my mom won’t let me get a name change
awe; how old are you?19!
baby; favorite color?red!
bloop; spirit animal?that’s not a very good term iirc but i guess wolf?
blossom; favorite book/movie/song?book: wolves of the beyond is very near and dear to memovie: the world’s end, the thing 1982, the incredibles, deadpoolsong: i have... so many
blush; what was your stuffed animal as a child?
her name is baby, she’s dressed up, and i still sleep with her to this day,
breeze; most precious childhood memory?sitting behind my dad and watching as he plays games on the psx and gamegear, i mainly remember ristar and sonic on the gamegear and silent hill on the psx
bright; mermaids or fairies?both!!!
bubbles; do you have a best friend?@aceiou @gruvu
buttercup; showers or baths?showers, submerging my body freaks me out
butterfly; dream destination?a road trip to visit all my frands
buttons; are you religious or spiritual?spiritual, mainly superstitious
calm; favorite scent?a kind of cologne my dad used to wear
candlelight; what did you dream about last night?my brain reminding me of my deep-seated desire to reconnect with an asshole i used to crush on despite me wanting to bury it for good
charming; have you ever been in love?yes
cozy; eye/hair color?i think the name of my hair color is light ash brown? people confuse me for ginger and blond though somehow
cuddly; what’s your favorite time period?80s/90s, also the aesthetics of the 20s~50s
cupcake; favorite flower/plant?succulents, roses, lilies
cute; what did you get on your last birthday?clothes, something useless from my sister, a panic attack
cutie pie; most precious item you own?baby, my phone, my sketchbook, a paw print from sadie the people that put her to sleep sent us
cutsie; what makes you happy?i’m too numb rn to really know
daisies; describe a moment when you felt free.i think the last time i got to go anywhere with friends and without my mom involved was last summer
daydream; how do you want to be remembered?like my dad, where people try to remember him fondly while ignoring the glaring bad shit about him, hhhH
daylight; favorite album of all time?smoke + mirrors from imagine dragons, in silico from pendulum, no culture from mother mother
dear; zodiac sign?sagittarius on the traditional zodiac, ophiuchus on the updated zodiac, my animal is the rabbit
delightful; concerts or museums?museums, concerts get me overloaded unless it’s a band i really like
dimples; have you ever written a letter?yeah
dobby; dream job?i don’t know anymore
doll; how do you like to dress?comfortably, ideally masculine
dovey; any paranormal/magical experiences?my dad haunts my house
dreams; do you want or have any tattoos?i wanna get either an eye coming out of my shoulder of a shamrock in memory of my dad, something simple and space (and/or wolf) related in white ink, uhhhhmaybe the pokemon league symbol somewhere
drizzle; do you believe in aliens?they’re out there
euphoric; talk about someone you love.ace is adorable!!!! i love them so much, their voice, their face, their fashion, their art, their writing!!!!!!
fairy; do you have a pet?ginger morkie named rusty, i wanna get another lab sometime
fluffy; ocean or mountain?mountain
forever; where do you feel time stop?sitting outside at night when it’s snowy, it’s so quiet and magical feeling
froglet; are you a good plant owner?unfortunately no
garden; how many languages do you know?one, trying to learn german or danish or irish
gem; who are your favorite tumblrs?aceiou, gruvu, bunjywunjy, bogleech, weirdmarioenemies, uuhhhh
giggles; what is your aesthetic of choice?either space or red+black glitch stuff
glittery; do you like anons? why/why not?when they’re nice
glow; list the top 5 things you like about yourselftoo numb for that rn
heart; silk or lace?silk feels nice to touch but i wouldn’t wear either
honey; coffee or tea? how do you take it?coffee, cappuccino mixed w/ hot chocolate and a lot of creamertea, raspberry or peach iced tea
hugsy; do you enjoy people watching or bird watching more? why?birds don’t judge you
hunnybunch; what sounds help you sleep?white noise - the sound of a fan, the sound of rain, etc
jewel; what’s your favorite kind of weather?rain, especially stormy
jiggly; what do you usually like to do on weekends?every day is a weekend. i have no life. i am rotting
joy; do you laugh loudly or giggle more?i wheeze or silently laugh. i used to have an ugly loud laugh
kinky; do you blush easily?i blush when embarrassed or crying
kisses; what romantic cliché do you wish for most?spending every moment loving on the person i’m with, every day being like the first day we met
kitty; what’s your favorite time of the day?sunset to night
ladybug; what’s your favorite artist to listen to when you’re sad?mother mother
love; what is your favorite season and why?autumn. it’s not as depressing as summer
lovey; what is your favorite flavor of macaron and ice cream?i’ve never had macarons, but i love bunny tracks and peanut butter cup and bear creek caramel and
magic; what are five flaws you have?you think i can narrow it down to just five
moonlight; do you prefer soft pastels, warm neutrals, or cool darks?warm pastels, warm neutrals, warm and cool darks
munchkin; what do you look for in your significant other?idk but i got it
paddywack; how would you describe a perfect date?wandering around mainstreet and old town st charles, eating at rt weilers, getting ice cream at riverside sweets, then having sodas from the old soda shoppe, ideally in autumn
pebbles; how do you spend free time by yourself?sleeping, wasting away on the internet, the likes
precious; what is something valuable that you learned in your life?don’t get attached, everything will go bad someday
pretty; do you like to cook or bake more?baking is easier but i feel more in control when cooking
prince; how would you describe your handwriting?horrible, illegible
princess; do you play any instruments? if not, are there any you wish you could play?i used to play the recorder, then the flutei want to learn the guitar but i’m so bad at it that when trying to tune a very expensive guitar i got as a gift when i still had passion for it i broke a string
prinky; how do you relieve stress?i don’t
pumpkin; what is your favourite kind of fruit/vegetable?strawberries, raspberries, bananas, pomegranates, pickles, broccoli, tomatoes, pumpkins
rainbow; what was the last line of the last book you read?i can’t focus on reading anymore
roses; what is the most significant event in your life so far?my dad’s death.
smile; what is one thing that has greatly affected you?my dad’s death.
shine; art or music?i’m not good enough at art to deserve picking it, and i’m an audiophile (not! a! fetish!), so
shimmer; do animals tend to like you?i get too rough without realizing it. rusty probably doesn’t like me. he just licks me and sleeps by me whenever he doesn’t have my mom to love on.
smitten; do you collect anything?bottle caps, can tabs, pokemon merch, empty pill bottles
smoochies; how many pillows do you sleep with?four at the head of my bed (two go unused), one plain blue body pillow to hold, like five other pillows to add pressure to my legs
snuggle; what is your favourite candy?peppermint kisses
snuggly; do you have a camera? if so, what kind?phone
sparkle; do you wear jewelry?i used to wear necklaces all the time. they all break because of how i stim with them. my mom doesn’t trust anything around my neck anymore
spooky; sunrise or sunset?sunset
sprinkles; do you like to listen to music with headphones or no headphones?headphones
starlight; what was your favourite show as a child?crashbox, digimon, power rangers, pokemon, total drama
soft; describe your favourite spot in your house.my room.
soothe; digital or vinyl?digital
squeezed; who do you miss right now?read over some of the questions and ask me again
sugary; what traits do you value most in friends?can i trust you
sunshine; do you prefer for things to be practical or aesthetically pleasing?both
sweet; do you find it easy to open up?too easy
sweetie; do you like kids? if so, do you ever want to have any?they are sensory nightmares
thimble; is there somebody you look up to? who are they?edd gould is dead
toot; what is something you find unique about yourself?my ability to get completely numb over the dumbest bullshit
tootsie; what kind of friend are you?a bad one
treasure; what was something that made you smile today?nothing so far
velvet; are you an early bird or a night owl?night owl
whiffle; if you could have a magical power, what would it be?shapeshifting or invisibility or mind reading
whimsical; do you prefer doing stuff at home or going out?ideally i wanna go out but only if i trust whoever i’m with to understand that i burn out fast anymore
whiskers; do you usually wear makeup?no
wiggly; are you a messy or tidy person?i obsessively organize things but am very messy
wispy; do you like the place where you grew up? do you think you will live there when you get older?i have no choice, i legally own the house i’m in now. i can’t go anywhere without dragging my mom along. i’m trapped
wobbly; have you ever wished upon a star?i wish to have good birthdays. they never come true
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SKETCHY BEHAVIORS | Interview w/ STACEY ROZICH (LA)
From animal mask wearing people sifting through antiques to creepy mascots being arrested by equally creepy looking officers, Los Angeles based artist Stacey Rozich’s watercolor works are all things awesome. Strange, familiar, dark, humorous, and pleasantly eerie at times, Rozich’s paintings, while done in the style of folk traditional painting, are filtered through her own lens of modern pop culture. With some upcoming shows in the New Year–a group show at New Image in LA in February and a two-person show at Portland’s Talon Gallery in September–we couldn’t wait to chat with Stacey Rozich about her early experiences with drawing, her collaboration with Subpop Records, and her sketchiest story involving loud raucous metal heads and a little out-of-the-way saloon in Malibu in this latest Sketchy Behaviors.
Photographs courtesy of the artist | Portrait by Kyle Johnson
Tell us a little about yourself.
My name is Stacey Rozich, or Stace, Stace Ghost, etc. I’m from Seattle, but I now live in Los Angeles. I’ve been painting in watercolor for the past twelves years, and drawing before that since forever. I sometimes do large scale versions of my work as acrylic murals, which is something I stumbled into. I dig painting in the folk tradition, but through my own lens of modern pop culture, and way too much tv watching as a kid. Seriously, I was an insomniac in middle school and for some reason my parents gave me a tv in my room, so I stayed up all night watching VH1 Pop-Up Video and Adult Swim (circa late 90’s). I have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of The Simpsons seasons 3 - 8 — I used to recite monologues from the show to my family when I was a kid. And I still do!
What was your first experience with art / drawing? And who were some of your early artistic influences?
In Kindergarten I drew a many-legged leopard in the forest with crayons and I got a lot of praise for it from the other kids and the teacher. I felt a combination of pride and complete embarrassment for the attention I got for something I created without thinking. My earliest artistic influence was probably Sailor Moon. I wish I could say I was one of those really smart arty kids that loved Picasso, but honestly I wasn’t that aware of what “real art” was until later in pre teenhood. The flashy colors and character designs of Sailor Moon were so exciting for me! Even the lush watercolor backgrounds captivated me. I liked drawing people then so the outrageous proportions of the girls was something I could mimic in my own drawings.
Some of our favorite aspects of your work is your use of gouache and watercolors. Can you share with folks what it is about this particular medium you enjoy so much?
I absolutely love watercolor, and truthfully I don’t use gouache that much to consider myself proficient in it since it’s a slightly more opaque medium and I use it for accents. Especially the fluorescent gouaches I picked up in Tokyo, those against my watercolors pop nicely. But watercolor, yeah, I think I have that one in the bag. I remember using it in high school and absolutely loathing it — where was the control? One wrong move and it all just blended together into one big wet puddle. When I was a freshman at CCA (California College of the Arts in San Francisco) I took an intro Illustration class and the first thing our professor did was give us a watercolor demo; I was not looking forward to it. He was such a wizard with it! He gave us really smart instructions to not use very much water, and really “charge up the brush” with the pigments and paint it in and let it dry fully. That way edges of the paint have dried and created a barrier for the next application of color next to it. That’s why the barrier for entry with watercolor can seem too high, when it gets too slippery to work with there’s an overuse of water. I got that suddenly and it all clicked. Since i grew up drawing habitually I liked that I could use a very small brush and almost draw with watercolor, and large brushes to fill in certain planes with tonal washes. I like that I can wipe and dab away little pools of color and it creates a nice stained glass effect — that looks really lovely against a matte layer of watercolor that I’ve used extremely little water with.
Are there other mediums you’d like to try in the future?
In the future I would really like to start painting portraits of people in my life. Like, Alice Neel style portraits in oil. Oil intimidates me greatly so I think I’d start in acrylic.
What’s a day in the studio for you like?
I get to my studio around 10am since I’m not a very early riser, unfortunately. I so envy early morning people! One of my girlfriends who’s an incredible textile artist is up and at ‘em and hiking in Griffith Park by 6am. And there I am under the covers with a cat on stomach looking at her Instagramed hike thinking “Some day that will be me” — I like to lie to myself. Anyway! Once I roll into my studio I settle in to write some e-mails, putz around the Interwebs, and then get down to the task at hand. It’s usually 11 around this time so I’m usually really chugging along by 3, and then I’ll keep going for a few more hours. If it’s a painting for a commission or gallery show I tend to spread my timeline out so I don’t get burned out. If it’s a commercial gig there’s a lot more scanning, Photoshop clipping out and editing which can take me later into the evening.
What’s that process like?
My process always starts with loose sketches on paper, which can mean in a sketchbook or whatever blank piece is lying closest to me. I work out compositions with really doodly lines — they’re virtually unintelligible but I know what they mean. When I move to the final I mostly wing it when it comes to the color palette. If anyone has ever seen my watercolor palette they know it’s a goddang mess which works for me. I usually work with whatever shades I’ve pre mixed and let dry in the pan.
You’ve worked with various clients and companies over the years. Do you enjoy collaborating and what do you find the most challenging about it?
I do like working commercially, the collaboration with art directors can be incredibly rewarding. Though there are times it becomes a slog when you’ve created about four or five killer rough ideas and they go with the weakest one. Why does that always happen? You have to do what they say essentially, but still keep your voice even when it feels a little pinched.
In 2015, you collaborated with Subpop Records on some amazing record art and design? Can you tell us a little about that collaboration and process?
Subpop is one of my favorite labels to work with hands down. Their art director Sasha Barr is such a boss. I was really lucky when I was working on the Father John Misty album that I got to create the art and not worry about the editing process. I sent it up to them since they had access to a gigantic scanner to get a full high-resolution image. It meant a lot that I was able to do the art as an actual full scale piece, as opposed to broken up to little scraps and then scanned on my wee little ancient scanner. Sasha did all the leg work to clip out the whole thing and to figure out how to stage the multi-layered pop-up interior gatefold. Usually when I work with smaller clients they ask me to do all this which is…not a good idea. Ultimately that album packaging was nominated for a Grammy in Packaging Design in 2016, but we lost out to Jack White because of course. Damn you, Jack White!
What WOULD BE your ideal collaboration?
I would like to work with a great publishing house to do my own young adult series. Basically all the characters and worlds I’ve been painting distilled down into a serialized art book/graphic novel type thing. That’s a big dream of mine that swings from feeling so possible and exhilarating and then feeling completely futile because everyone has the worst things to say about the state of publishing right now. I still have hope that someday I’ll get it together to at least put forward a proposal.
On a different level I’ve love to design some patterns for Gucci. I’m not really up on the latest collections of luxury brands but Gucci is one I’ve noticed has been doing a fantastic job incorporating illustrations into their garments either as accents or printed motifs. The uniqueness of the artwork coupled with excellent hand done detailing makes my brain feel fuzzy in a really good way.
What type of music do you listen to when creating? Can you give us the top 5 bands you’ve been checking out?
I waffle back and forth between music and a lot of podcasts. For the times when I can’t listen to anyone talk anymore, I listen to Jim James, Solange, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Shabazz Palaces. I just started listening to Andy Shauf’s new album which is lovely, it reminds me a bit of Harry Nillson. Also there’s a great massive playlist on Spotify called Twin Peaks Vibes that is excellent.
What’s your strangest or sketchiest art story that you want to share?
I was eating lunch with some friends at this little out-of-the-way saloon in a canyon east of Malibu after a hike a few months ago. It’s pretty isolated down there — they’ve been using this place for filming Westerns since the 30’s so it’s a very specific strange and cool gem. I was sitting at the bar and these bros come in, being loud and raucous. I kind of internally rolled my eyes at them and ignored them. I hear one of them say “Excuse me — are you Stacey Rozich?” I got scared for a moment because anytime someone recognizes me by name I feel like I’m going to get into some trouble. I told him I was, and then he and his friends got very excited since they all were huge Southern Lord fans, and loved the album artwork I did years ago for the band Earth. I was really surprised (and relieved) and we had a good chat! It was a very unexpected encounter down at this little far away rustic saloon.
What’s a common misconception about artists?
Perhaps that we’re all lazy. That we don’t have a good work ethic since what we do is hard for most people to wrap their brain around. It’s a completely unconventional path to go down, and you have to be extremely dedicated to it. Yet somehow this doesn’t quite translate to most folks since it seems like basing your life and career on an unknown pursuit like art seems insane. And there’s an idea that artists have a lot of free time to spend laying around waiting for inspiration to strike.
What’s been the biggest challenge for you as an artist?
The largest challenge for me, honestly is: myself. I’ve been working solely on my artwork for the past six years and it’s been full of a lot of ups and downs: emotionally and financially for sure. There’s always a feeling of not being good enough, why aren’t I as good as this or that artist, why aren’t I doing X, Y or Z. Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of myself for what I have accomplished but I need to remind myself of that before I go down a spiral of anxiety. It comes from a fear of rejection which can prevent me from pursuing things, submitting a proposal for the aforementioned young adult series for example. Sometimes I need to remind myself to get out of my head and to get out of my own way.
What do you think you’d be doing if you weren’t an artist?
I’d probably be in finance, on Wall Street most likely. Kidding! I think about this sometimes. Being someone who creates has always been so tightly wrapped up in who I am as a person that it’s hard to extract myself from what I would be without. I would hope I would do something in Slavic studies. My dad’s side is Croatian (by way of Detroit) and while that’s been a huge inspiration for my artwork I’ve always been really fascinated with that region’s history of conflict and resilience. When I spent six weeks there back in 2012 it only deepened my love for that place and also my curiosity for what makes it tick.
What are your favorite Vans?
A pair of beat up, worn in, maybe a couple of holes at the toe blue or red Authentics. A true classic.
What’s a question you never get asked in an interview and would like to ask and answer yourself?
It would be, ‘If there was one person living or dead who you wished owned or could have owned your art — who would it be?’ To which I would say that’s such a hard question there’s so many people I admire! But as of this moment I think it would be rad if David Lynch had some of my art. I love his unstructured style of storytelling, all the loops and the sometimes frustrating dead ends his narrative world has. The effect of creating an unusual if not downright confusing vignette just for the sake of it reminds me of how I approach the storylines in my work.
What cool and interesting projects or shows that you’re working on - should folks keep an eye out for next year?
Since it’s the end of the year things are usually pretty quiet in terms of projects, but I’m in a group show in conjunction with Luke Pelletier’s solo show at New Image here in LA in February. I’m scheduled for a two-person show at Portland’s Talon Gallery in September and! Hopefully, if it all aligns, I’ll be headed Internationally to do some muraling. I’m stoked for it!
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Life Story 104
My father ended up taking Allison out to visit my eldest sister Maria. Since I had stopped being Maria's live in babysitter three years previous, Maria had messed up her job at Walmart, and gave up everything to follow this creepy new boyfriend named Dan. None of us really knew much about Dan, other than Maria was doing hard drugs with him and things seemed off. She didn't let us see Jasmine, Ian, Chantelle or JT anymore. They lived out in the middle of nowhere with Dan's parents in a part of Idaho where, if you went any further you would be in in the official government owned Wilderness area. None the less, Allison had wanted to see them, and my father and her had driven out to visit.
What my father reported was disturbing. He claimed that the living conditions were so bad that someone needed to call CPS on them. He was friendly towards Dan in order to gain his trust, and what he discovered was that Maria was full of bruises, there was no running water, no toilet – only a hole that Dan had forced Maria's kids to dig. The kids were being forced into harsh manual labor. Dan was creepy, psychotic and violent. My hope had been, upon hearing all of this information, to inform my mother, and maybe I could get Jasmine – she could live with me and I could help her. Maybe Chantelle could then live at my mother's, and Ian and JT could go to one of their aunts on their father's side. Someone needed to do something. If my father was worried, that meant something. He wasn't the type to fret about other people's children, but what he had seen had been shocking enough to cause him distress.
Anymore, I was always shaky. I was burning out. That year had simply thrown too much in my lap. I had too many contradictions in my nature, my friendships and anything grounded had pretty much fallen apart. Though I have always had the tendency towards over analyzing things and towards questioning reality, it had just really become too much. I had grown so much that year, but it was almost too fast. I now felt like a completely different person than I had been a year previous. I was in shock. I seemed more confident and together than I had ever been in my entire life, I laughed a lot for instance and had developed a lot of social skills. I now had a little bit of money to spend and I looked better than I had since I was a child. But internally, I didn't understand how I was still standing. Internally I was losing it, pride was keeping me standing, as well as the expectation and fear of going backwards. I was realizing more and more that nothing I could do or say would make a difference. I felt like I had been struggling against some invisible wall, and it didn't matter if I screamed and cried or tried to reason with anyone or break that wall. No matter what, I was where I was, and the more I said, the worse I made things.
I went with Sarah one more time for one of Zack's little excursions. This time he was visiting his friend Cody, the very same one that murdered that kid in the 90's, because of course Zack was such a piece of trash that his best friend would be a murderous redneck. It was an outing in the same field that I had made those flower crowns while reading Jack Kerouac books years back. Cody had his wife Sara, a woman who was clearly abused and unhealthily proud of being Cody's woman. They had two little girls, and these two little girls were absolutely the most precious little girls I had ever met. While Sarah and Sara stood behind Zack and Cody and talked in the camp ground, I went down to the creek to play with the girls. I loved those girls. I could tell that Cody was mean to them because one of them whispered to me that she was afraid of when her father got mad at her mom, and I felt poorly about that.
Later on we went to Cody's house, but we didn't stay long. I didn't know what was going on with Zack and Sarah, but there seemed to be some tension around the fact that Zack had chickened out at the last minute about his job in North Dakota. It didn't matter to me anymore. I barely cared or paid attention. It almost felt to me like spending more time indulging Sarah's horrible relationship only kept it alive more. I had barely wanted to come with Sarah and Zack up to this visit to Cody's, and had mostly come with them as a favor to Sarah.
Zack and Sarah ended up getting into an argument, and Zack grabbed Sarah's sketchbook out of her hands and threw it in the woods. Watching this happen, I realized fully what little respect Zack really had for Sarah. The idea of taking someone's art and throwing it was massively disrespectful in a way that went beyond anything I had honestly really expected. I began to suspect that Zack wanted to hurt Sarah. He had this manic aggressive, mindless wired look in his eyes – this need to push Sarah down. When I watched Zack throw Sarah's sketchbook, I called him a manbaby. I wanted Sarah to understand that I didn't approve of what he had done. This of course made him more pissed off. We ended up with Zack driving us all home speeding and driving erratically down the road, to prove some sort of point to me and Sarah no doubt. He was babbling about how we didn't understand 'god's glory' and he was listening to this Christian electropop music that was pretty awful. When we got home and I was finally dropped off, I knew I was done with ever going anywhere with Sarah and Zack again. And I never did. If I saw Zack behave like that, I felt this surge sweep throughout my entire body, and I wanted to kill him. I feared losing control. It seemed massively insulting that Sarah had ruined our friendship for probably the worst person I had ever met. The reality of who Zack actually was was an insult to every precious little feeling or sense of love I had had for him all those years. And to add insult to injury, if Sarah was going to waste our friendship, I would have at least taken some pragmatic appreciation had Zack actually been a good boyfriend. But he wasn't, and the sham of his existence and Sarah's and his relationship insulted me and everything I stood for. He was so infuriatingly selfish and mean. I couldn't think of one decent attribute to him anymore, not one redeemable quality. Everything he had to say was phony, contrived and putrid. Zack was such trash, I never wanted to see him again.
I guess I still loved Josh. I knew Josh. It was crazy to feel like I just met this guy and now I knew him, but it was true, I really grasped all his negative and positive qualities. And I loved him, I understood him. It was real love. However, I couldn't be happy because Josh had pretty much made everything horrible very fast. Just as soon as he had warmed up to me, even acting a little bit interested in me, he had suddenly become really sullen and cynical towards me. He glared at me when I got home from work. And the situation with Allison made me sick to my stomach. As long as her feelings were involved, I vowed to never let myself be romantically inclined towards Josh. Honestly, the situation was so horrible to me that I just wanted out. As in love with Josh as I was, had someone given me the opportunity to move far away and start fresh in a new city where I knew nobody, I would have taken it. The situation had already been ruined before it ever began, so with every feeling of warmth or love came this awful sense that Allison was hurt and confused, and that Josh was basically waiting it out until he felt he had a chance with Sarah, which was a blow to my self esteem that made me insane if I let it. It felt like a repeat of what had happened with Sarah and Zack all over again. Only worse. Zack and I never really connected. I think I had wanted to be in love more than I actually was. With Josh, I was in love. I knew the difference, because I didn't feel fear of Josh. I was open, even when it was embarrassing, even when it was tempting to shut down. I was willing to put the preservation of my ego aside and I was willing to let someone have a part of me. I had always been too afraid to actually be open with someone like that before. I hadn't ever been real towards anyone before.
But it was also very much a reckless move on my part. Josh in his own strange way accepted my love for him. Once a few weeks rolled around and he realized I wasn't going to slit my wrists or jump in his bed while he slept or anything really insane, he silently implied that he accepted my love and took it into his life in a very real way that most people would only do if that same love had been requited. It was a gift I guess, but it hurt that it was a gift that he was more or less taking without anything in return. I absolutely refused to believe that he took that love and he wanted nothing to do with me. He didn't reject me. There were times and moments where he gave strong indication that he loved me back, but it was always very obscure language so that when I tried to talk about it with other people it didn't make any sense, because it was so tied into the very unique way Josh and I communicated. And sometimes he would stare into my eyes for minutes at a time. He did it intentionally. He wanted me to be invested in him. I had to believe it was for some end. Even if he thought he was in love with Sarah.
He stopped being as close with Allison when she became madly obsessed with him. She wasn't good at hiding her confusion, her anger, her resentments. She was jealous of me, jealous of Sarah. She felt betrayed. And for the time being, I really wanted nothing more than to make things better between us. Fuck Josh, he was a full grown man and I knew that my investment in him was kind of fucked up and on me. Fuck Sarah, she had made her own bed. David had pretty much eliminated my ability to be close to him ever again, but Allison was a victim. She had had a very rough year, and neither my mother or father truly appreciated what they had to her. Maybe I too should be in that boat. Truth be told, I never fully understood what I did that upset Allison and David so much. It's been seven years, and nobody has ever given me a straight answer. Nobody knows. I guess it was just something that was just something about who I was.
We finally moved into the new house. It was sort of big, but a lot of the rooms were very awkwardly set up. In fact, the whole house was basically awkward. Their were too many doors, the bathroom was between two bedrooms. It wasn't that nice of a house. And it was in the worst neighborhood in Clarkston. Methheads and junkies walked passed the house every five minutes, and there were several instances in my living there where strange people just walked into the place. Josh's car was stolen. The house was owned by a business behind the house that sold dirt bikes and four wheelers. They felt lucky to find someone move in at all. The house itself was well known as a former home with a meth lab and drug dealers in it. The paint was chipped, the yard was dead and covered in puncture weeds. It was a very hideous house. But it was my first real taste of independence and on some level, I was proud and happy to live there. There was something golden about having my own life that, despite all the social situational stuff I was now facing, far surpassed anything. Despite all the bad stuff, I was free.
My room was downstairs in the far corner of the basement. I didn't have much, but I brought what I did have into the room. There was a small open closet that I also put my bed in. This created a strange collection of dresses and shirts that hung above my head at night. I put up my Cramps and White Stripes pictures and Halloween decor. I set up my collection of books in cardboard boxes. I didn't own my own computer yet, and I didn't really have much.
The room next to mine was small, and Whitney stayed in there. Somehow she was able to fit a lot of her things in her room, and I realized that despite any fault I found with Whitney personally, her sense of aesthetics was 10/10. There was some part of Whitney that she never really expressed to anyone that I really liked. She lived her aesthetic and she did so unabashedly. Her living space was more than just a room. It was a piece of art in and of itself, not only a expression of her inner self, but a very atmospherically superior vibration that was consistent with itself resonated from everything she kept on her walls. Every part of her wall was covered in paintings she had done, in surreal lights, with pictures of musicians and people in her life. There were a lot of Hindu things in there. One got the sense that they were walking into a shrine. Being in her space was like being on a drug – but it was oddly calming despite the strange lighting and colors. She mostly smoked weed in there and listened to music and painted. If she wasn't doing that, she was getting ready for work, putting on her make up and doing her hair in flowers for her shift as a hostess at Zany's. I envied her ability to fill areas with beautiful and consistent color and art. She could be such a flawed person, but there was a loveliness about her that could never be denied.
Josh slept upstairs. He had an absurdly big bed that filled the entire room, and he kept his cableman uniforms in his closet. There was one painting Whitney had done for him of Ichigo from Bleach set awkwardly on the blaring white plaster wall, it was a bit grungy, but nothing was terribly out of order, and that was all he had in that room. Josh didn't really believe in personalized expression. He felt it was shallow, or maybe the idea of trying was absurd and felt like a contest against Whitney' aesthetics. He was a very weird and expressive person, but he liked being plain and anonymous. I always felt he was too afraid to really personally express himself – afraid to be open. He admired status in his items more than he admired anything sentimental. He wanted people to see him as a business man, and failing that he wanted very little to do with color. When he picked colors, he generally went for dull browns and corporate grays. It didn't necessarily appeal to me, but there was something kind of refreshing about the simplicity of it just the same.
Sarah and Zack camped in the other upstairs room. It was mostly a bed and a television so Zack could play video games and they could just lay there. Josh hated Zack living with him. He complained bitterly that it didn't seem fair to him that everyone in the house had to work except for Zack. Instead Sarah doted on Zack, feeding him, paying the rent on his behalf. Between all five of us though, the rent was only 125$ a month. It was ridiculously cheap.
Josh and Whitney ended up throwing a small party for the new house. They invited Melissa of course, as well as Valerie, Zack's other ex. Both Melissa and Valerie stared confusedly as Sarah with Zack. At the time Sarah didn't understand the look they were giving her, but later she realized they were repulsed and confused as to what a girl like her was doing with Zack. There were a few other people I didn't know. It wasn't very eventful and ultimately boring. I spent twenty minutes getting the feel of the living room, and ended up making it known that I thought that Zack looked like a blonde redneck Rasputin (on meth) which made Sarah and Zack wildly uncomfortable, before retreating back into my own bedroom to be away from the pointlessness of it all. I recall that Allison had written some new songs on guitar and she wanted to sing and play them for everyone who was there. Josh and Whitney had been obsessed with Allison all summer, and I think she really wanted to get attention for her artistic endeavors. She started to sing and play, and as soon as she did Josh ignored her to talk to Sarah. Eventually everyone was talking over Allison's song, and I was sitting next to her, the only person who was listening. Her eyes looked hurt. She got shaky, and she left the party to cry.
Walmart was just down the street. It was a two minute walk away. I could see the parking lot from the front porch of the new house. I didn't like Walmart, but given I didn't drive and it was so close to where I lived, and at times so cheap, I did a lot of shopping there. I hadn't really been a consumer up till that point. I had never had money to spare. When I went in grocery stores, up till that point I had always seen the items around me not in terms of anything I could ever own. They were décor that I wasn't really supposed to consider as potential objects that I was in possession of. So now that I had money in my pocket for the first time in my entire life, years after my peers had jobs and money of their own, I had a new power I had never had before, and having it come upon me at time that it did, I began to realize that buying stuff made me feel better. I had no friends, or at least no friends I could trust. But money filled that void. And perhaps it's safe to say that, in absence of something meaningful and wholesome, I began to use money to fill the hole of my existence. I could almost feel that hole in me, something so large it was a wonder at times I was able to continue to breath. It seemed strange to me that you could feel so horrible inside, but you could smile brightly and nobody would ever know. There was an anonymity to being in the crowd. Nobody knew that I was heartbroken or lost.
I began to wander around for hours in Walmart, sometimes very late in the night and early in the morning. I didn't really go crazy with shopping – never became a real hoarder or bought anything totally inexplicable, and if I did I had next to nothing in terms of things I owned, so it did little harm whenever I did splurge. I bought a lot of dumb stuff, things I had thought I wanted when I was younger but could never afford until now. Maybe I was buying gifts for the former teenager I had once been. I bought cheap jewelry, only to take it home and realize that deep down I didn't like it and it was cheaply made. But in the store I felt disembodied, a certain numbness of suggestibility. Something in the colors and the packaging subconsciously made me feel like I would be complete if I owned it. I bought a lot of dresses that weren't my style. I bought a lot of dumb stuff that year. But honestly, I was years behind. I was just learning what most people my age already knew about themselves. I was used to gray tshirts and sweat pants. Now I could dress nice. I didn't know my own style. It caused me to look at the stuff around me in terms of myself and who I was or could be. And it was inevitable that eventually my sadness could be exploited by the capitalist system, and it was inevitable that I learn what worked for me and what didn't. And of course I had to make a lot of mistakes in that process.
One night Sarah and I went to Walmart to buy something rather, and on the way she mentioned to me that she wasn't using birth control. I told her that was a bad idea and she shrugged. It really confused me, but I let it go. It was late evening and as we were leaving Walmart this fellow jumped up and introduced himself. He reminded me of Roberto Benigni. He was hyper. He asked our names and began singing about it. He did a little dance. He then introduced himself as a professional gardener for our boss's boss, the owner of the Happy Day Corporation, Bruce. He said that he was trying to write jingles for local commercials, and he had made one for our place of employment. And then he sang and danced this ragtime style song about Zany's and the Happy Day Corporation. It was kind of wild, insane and ultimately very entertaining. I hadn't really ever met anyone like this guy. He seemed unconstrained by rules and obligations, and totally theatrical at all times – dedicated to song and dance. Was this guy even a real human being? Most people I knew were somewhat dulled down or tired. Anyway, he said he would come and eat at Zany's one day, but if he did, I never saw him. It was a pretty strange little event that I never entirely forgot. It's not everyday someone jumps out of nowhere and accosts you with performance.
I had a strong sense that things weren't going to work out with Zack being there – but maybe any of us really. I suppose it could have all been in my imagination, but everyone seemed hyper charged with some strange chaotic energy even when we were all mostly civil and everyone's ego's and intentions were through the roof, confusing, and it was bound to snap. I felt tied to some kind of of king rat. We all wanted something from somebody else in the house, and we weren't getting it, and we all hated each other even when we really liked each other. And living in this new human-group was probably one of the rare instances I had ever had at really comprehending group dynamics. I had always been distracted by fantasy in school. I had spent a little time with my friends in high school, but that had naturally dissolved – I had only ever worked on myself. I hadn't ever consciously studied myself in a group before. It had not occurred to me that being a part of a new group of people was something that involved thinking about I guess. While I was stressed out, manic, and constantly felt caught off guard by the insane reality of everything that had suddenly happened, I found myself seeing through people in a way I hadn't before. Allison was perhaps the easiest person to read, and from there it was easy to look at the dynamic of the entirely of our new little home made fellowship.
For instance, I had never consciously thought about jealousy becoming a factor, or domination, let alone how people went about these power games, outside the realm of creating fear and the threat of violence – which was the world I was accustomed to as it was where I came from. I hadn't consciously thought a lot about soft diplomatic power – the kind that Sarah used, or the sexual manipulation/caretaking tactics of Whitney. I had a lot of experience with those things of course back when Ava had been in my life, but that was years ago, and given how eccentric Ava had been, it was easy to write her off as an exception to most rules. There was a hierarchy that was trying to form in our group but nobody quite wanted to follow behind one another and it was creating some weird atmospheres with us all in the house at once. Josh was the one in charge, and this came about because he had made connections of power with both me and Allison, plus he had the best job and therefore the most money and was probably the most consciously aware of the power dynamics, aside from myself. Whitney and Josh were always struggling internally for power in there ongoing long drawn relationship, but Whitney had power over Allison and so did Josh as they had seen Allison's innocence as making her weak. Josh had power over me, he had known how to reach me and now I felt like I needed him. At this point I didn't feel like I had power over anyone, but my style has always been generally to observe at a distance and strike consciously and deliberately, so perhaps I would end out on top of this mess eventually. Sarah had power over Josh because Josh wanted to impress her and she wasn't impressed which caused her to have Josh's self esteem in her palm whether she really wanted it or not. And Zack, for whatever god awful reason had power over Sarah because she had given up something good on his behalf. Sarah also had some power over Whitney, because Whitney was a little bit jealous of Sarah given Sarah's newly held position in her family that made Whitney not feel like the alpha female anymore.
In short, we were all a sick confusing mess.
And in the end, it didn't end up working out with Sarah and Zack. Zack and Sarah lived there for one week, before Zack and Whitney got into a fight and Zack freaked out which caused Josh to kick both Sarah and Zack out. I had no idea how the fight began. All I know is that I heard a lot of crashing and yelling upstairs as I was getting ready for work, and I went upstairs to have a look. Zack was screaming and throwing things in the house. Allison was there, and so was Whitney, and Sarah – everyone seemed tense. Whitney was screaming at Zack, and Zack was in turn screaming at mostly Sarah. He was ranting and raving through the house about god. I don't even remember what Zack was screaming about in detail. It was like he was accusing everyone of one thing or another. It was drug induced. He was acting insane. His face was red and his eyes squinty and selfish and he was saying really fucked up things to everyone, even to Allison who he barely had any interactions with at all. Sarah was following behind him rubbing his back trying to talk to him in a baby voice. It was pathetic. I sat outside on the bench, and Zack came up to me and started to scream at me, and I started to cry.
Whitney went to the front porch and called Josh up, explained that Zack was acting insane. Josh told Whitney to hand the phone to Sarah, and he swiftly told Sarah that he wasn't going to live with her and Zack anymore and they needed to move. He blamed Sarah for not being able to 'control Zack', as if she as the female was meant to control her man using whatever means necessary. And that was that. Sarah was gone. I spent that night at work, relieved to be washing dishes. The situation had reminded me of all the times I had been scared when my father or my brother had controlled everyone through anger and rage, and I realized that I could never go back to anything like that. I was too broken to. Josh later explained to me and everyone there that nobody in the house was allowed to yell. As angry and out of control as things got, nobody was allowed to scream or become violent. I was grateful, despite everything, that he made that rule. I felt sad at first that Sarah wasn't going to live there. I guess for whatever reason I thought that moving would make everything better. In terms of how I didn't trust Josh with Allison anymore, in terms of not wanting to be insulted on a daily basis, I relied on Sarah. But eventually I came to be happy she was gone. I had been alone for some time by then. I was fooling myself if I really believed that I was never not alone anyway. I was alone with all my so-called friends. I was alone at work. The things I had gone through had left a mark on me that set me apart, but maybe even before all that I had been alone. When Sarah left the madhouse, a certain internal quiet set in. Being alone helped me put it all into perspective and everything began to make a bit more sense. I wasn't happy – the truth was ugly and sometimes oddly enough, far more simple than I wanted it to be, but I began to feel grounded somehow, at least for the time being.
Allison did one week of the alternative school up in Moscow. But what I later learned was that Mike was not teaching there anymore. He had been given a teaching position as the teacher of English for the Moscow High School as well as becoming the founder of the debate team. As happy as I sometimes am that he got away from the alternative school – that he found a more prestigious position with a lot more money, it is a shame that a lot of the lost students who went to the alternative school no longer had a teacher like him to really change their world. When Allison went there, the teachers were kind of awful. The students were mean. And Allison was going crazy as all she could think about was that she was missing out and that being away from Josh was torture to her. She called me sobbing and I told her it was alright by me if she came back down to Lewiston. The entire reason I had wanted her to go to that school in the first place was because I knew Mike could help her put herself back together. There was no adults in our situation, no parents. And Mike was the only person I thought might be able to offer the kind of assistance that she would need, emotionally and academically. But Mike wasn't there anymore, and for the few weeks she was there, it was clear that the school wasn't doing her any good.
So Allison came back down to Lewiston, and she decided to live at the madhouse as well. I didn't want her there. We were all a bunch of messed up adults, and I thought Allison needed something better. The dynamics between her and Whitney and Josh disturbed me. Josh telling Allison he would marry her someday disturbed me. Allison acted like a little little girl in their presence, and they gave her attention for it and soon it was like she wasn't herself anymore – her life's purpose was to act like a very small kid so she could be received positively by Josh and Whitney. There was only baby Allison. She acted half her age. Whitney treated Allison like a cute little pet, and it bothered me. I saw Allison losing her dignity in the face of it all. Whitney, I later learned, was obsessed with being and remaining a preteen herself. She was in her mid twenties but she really only saw beauty in terms of being a porcelain fourteen year old girl, and it was how she painted herself and presented herself. So Allison acting like a little girl fed into something for Whitney. And it gave her a massive amount of power over Allison. She kept Allison in her room most of the time. I was in the next room and I cold hear them. It was hard to define exactly what bothered me about it, but there was something definitely wrong.
Josh meanwhile, though he had at first endorsed Allison's baby version, now resented everyone. He had played into a fantasy I guess that everything would come together for him, that perhaps he would absorb everyone and become some super mutant with us all in the house. He had presented himself as this funny and lively person, but living with him, he became far more cynical. Nobody was living up to their 'true' potential, which of course he alone knew everyone's 'true potential' and he became judge, jury and executioner of whatever it was we were doing wrong. To a degree, there was definitely a thread of truth to what he was saying. We were all wasting our time. But with Josh, he saw himself as deserving of Tom Cruise level fame – and no matter what was in front of him he would find ways to compare it to himself and find it wanting. He wanted us to make him feel famous, and when we all failed him in this regard. He became jealous of Whitney and Allison's friendship, and therefore he found a lot of reasons to attack them both. With Whitney I didn't really care, as the more I found out about her past, the more I saw a long string of people she had hurt on a whim, so Josh's critique of her wasn't really an issue for me so much. She didn't seem like a particularly nice person, which was confusing because she always seemed very sweet on the surface. Furthermore, she didn't really care about what Josh said. She didn't really value him as a person. So it didn't matter with her.
But Josh turning into a cynical ass really became something that bothered Allison. She had wanted him to treat her like a special little girl, every single day of her life. She wanted vast amounts of attention. She wanted mindless adoration from him. But now that she was around all the time, he no longer gave his approval so readily. It made Allison frantic and unhappy, which in turn caused her to react even worse in Josh's eyes. And when she felt insecure, she ran to Whitney who treated her like a pampered chihuahua. Allison seemed to be getting used.
I didn't know what to do for Allison. I couldn't tell my father about what was happening. He hadn't ever really considered Allison in a real way before, and he had forfeited a lot of his say over what happened to Allison when he coldly kicked her out last fall. So she was on her own. I tried to talk to Allison, but she hated me. One day I remember trying to talk to her. I was trying to explain to her that I was sorry about how I had gotten so wrapped up in Sarah and Zack. She ended up calling me ugly, calling me fat, and saying she hated the way my face moved. She implied that she thought I should kill myself. It really hurt my feelings. Was there anyone in my life at this point who didn't essentially want to slam me in the face? I took a step back emotionally from her. I couldn't afford to break down. Furthermore, I had to realize that this was her emotional disposition at the moment. I wasn't ugly, or fat, and if she hated the way my face moved what for fucks sake could be done about that? She essentially hated me. I think a lot of it was possibly built around jealousy. She saw Josh and I getting along and it made her resentful. She saw me as someone who was stopping her from getting what she felt she needed and wanted. She was feeding into David's mentally ill rage towards me. She had replaced me with Whitney and Josh who made her feel good. Her self esteem was shot. So I couldn't talk to her anymore, or shield her from anything because she would fight me and fling cruel comments towards me if I tried to get too close. The best thing I could do was respect her wishes and only talk to her at her own level, at least for the time being.
I did however, want her out of the house. Whitney and Josh were bad news. It was bad news that I felt I belonged to. Josh, Whitney, and myself, ultimately we were all ruined people, or at least I saw it that way. Life had taken me down a strange path, and I knew the element I was in. This was where I was supposed to be. But Allison was young and I wanted something better for her than to be Whitney's pet, or to be pining over Josh and trying to live up to his egotism. I looked at the situation realistically, and I honestly thought that the best thing I could do would be to at least try to warn my mom about Josh's overtures towards Allison, regardless if he meant it literally or no. It was creepy. I was messed up for still liking Josh still, and that was on me, but despite that, I would spite my own feelings if need be so that Allison could get out of that situation because it was the right thing to do.
My mother wound up going to the hospital right around that time. I remember going up to visit her in her hospital bed. They let Roxanne go in order to see her. What happened was, for some reason my mother's digestive system stopped working, so she ended up throwing up everything she ate in the worst way possible. They had to do some minor surgery, and she was in the hospital for a few days. We were all very worried, but it seemed to correct itself ultimately. David was in the room. It was the first time him and I had been around one another since Shorty was put down. He was taller and thinner, paler. He looked serious, and worried. He didn't stay too long in the room once I entered it.
My mom was joking in the hospital. We all laughed a little bit, despite her sitting in the hospital. It was explained to me that things would be fine. I told her about work. When I had the space and Allison had gone somewhere with Roxanne to find a venting machine, I told her about what Josh had said to Allison. I guess I had to believe my mother would care that Josh had been saying these inappropriate things towards Allison, who was only fifteen. I had hoped she would be horrified, that she would make a place for Allison back at her apartment, where Allison should have been living anyway. I was hoping she might even tell Josh he needed to watch himself, like a normal mother would. But no. She smiled when she heard the news, and was hopeful that Josh would marry Allison – just as soon as it was legal. She saw the idea of an older man taking care of one of her children so she didn't have to as a positive. Looking in her twinkling oblivious eyes, she really didn't get it. Her own mother had tried to get her to date forty year old men in the logging camp when my mother had been a teenager. It wasn't something that sociologically crossed her mind as inappropriate by comparison. And what can you really say to someone who doesn't get it? I was ultimately on my own.
So I ended up kicking Allison out of the house. She screamed and cried. She told me she hated me. But nobody stopped me. I wanted to demonstrate to Whitney and Josh that there was still some order in this mess, that they didn't get to take advantage of Allison quite so readily. Plus, it was assumed that I had brought Allison to the madhouse, that she was my charge – and I was paying for her (my rent had gone up a bit for having her live there), and yet as far as I could tell, Josh and Whitney had taken things out of my hands, though Josh didn't mind that Allison had been moved out. I told her I would tell our father about what Josh had said if she tried to stop me as a possible threat. I realize it was cheap, but I had her at heart. Ultimately I really didn't know what would be best. Living at our mother's was it's own kind of hell, but the idea of Allison living with Josh and Whitney seemed worse somehow. If nothing else, even if it was futile, I had to at least demonstrate that I was trying to do the right thing, and I had come to this point where I was beginning to realize that sometimes that involved everyone hating your guts, and that was fine.
I guess what was beginning to occur to me, was that I was in a pool of people who were profoundly selfish. I knew I had selfish inclinations just like anyone, but at some point one of us had to demonstrate some class, some character, some fucking restraint. All this ego was tiring, and I admit and would have admitted even then that I was of course very much apart of the pool of selfish people. But despite myself, I knew better and felt within me that there were bigger things in life than feeling good and powerful and always getting your way. There had to be more to everything than just using people, or stealing from people, or lying to save face. I was pretty sick of it all. I felt like people were taking emotions that could be artful and contemplated into something interesting and beautiful, and it was all being thrown into this tasteless lowest common denominator of greedy, selfish and phony nothingness. People were wasting away because they only ever looked after themselves. And even though I wanted to shut down how I had spent my late teens and early twenties – because they were sad and somewhat embarrassing, I came to realize that those sad painful years had built character in me that set me apart. It was obvious the more I was around people my own age that even when I failed or fucked up, I had developed some quiet sense of integrity.
PART 103 - https://tinyurl.com/yblwsv3p
PART 102 - https://tinyurl.com/yc5m3cq7
PART 101 - https://tinyurl.com/yafyhse2
My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-100 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far).
http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-100
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day 17 - fashion au
Day seventeen of the November Fic Challenge is a fashion AU! Which I put on the list at the beginning of the month without even thinking about it and when I looked at it today I was like, I know absolutely nothing about fashion? But here you go. Tony/Rhodey established with future Pepper/Tony/Rhodey. Partially inspired by this photo.
“She’s the one, Rhodes, she’s absolutely perfect.” Tony sighs wistfully, staring down in the magazine in his hands. Pepper Potts stares back at him from a full spread showcasing some nobody’s spring fashions, which are nowhere near as good as his spring lineup and thus why Pepper Potts should be modeling for him instead.
“So just ask her to model for you,” Rhodey replies, clearly some sort of mind reader. He turns a page in his own magazine, not even looking up at Tony.
Tony groans and shakes his head. “I can’t! She’s super picky about who she works with, she likes highlighting new designers.” Which is all well and good for newbies trying to break into the scene, but that’s definitely not Tony. There’s no way Pepper would want to work with him.
“You’ll never know if you don’t ask,” Rhodey points out, and while he has a point, Tony’s too buy wallowing in his own pessimism to consider it right now.
“Rhodeyyy,” he whines, flopping down on the couch and dropping his head in Rhodey’s lap. “Help me.”
“You’re crushing my magazine, man,” Rhodey says, frowning, and tries to tug it out from under Tony’s head.
Tony pouts up at him. “Please?”
Rhodey sighs, giving up on his magazine and carding his fingers through Tony’s hair. “Look, I think you’re an amazing designer, otherwise I wouldn’t shoot so much of your stuff.”
“Even though we’re sleeping together?” Tony asks, mildly offended. He’d hope his ass was worth a few photo shoots even if he was only mediocre.
“Even though,” Rhodey agrees, patting him on the cheek. Tony tries to bite Rhodey’s fingers and they get distracted for a moment as Rhodey fends him off. Tony gives up on the biting and just takes hold of Rhodey’s hand in his.
“As I was saying,” Rhodey tries again, glaring at Tony, who just grins and presses a kiss to his knuckles. “Your work is great. Show her some of your ideas, ask if she’s interested. It’s simple.”
“It’s not simple. I can’t just toss my old inferior designs at her. I’d have to create an entirely new line of stuff for her.”
Rhodey raises an eyebrow at him. “You say that like you weren’t going to do it anyway.”
Tony huffs and rolls onto his side, burying his face in Rhodey’s sweatshirt, but his mind is already laying out patterns and themes and colors. Maybe Rhodey’s dumb plan might just work.
“Oh, Pepper! What a coincidence seeing you here,” Tony says brightly, managing not to wince at how incredibly forced that sounds. To be fair, it is a coincidence; he hadn’t known she was on this particular set when he walked in.
Pepper must’ve just finished a shoot, her face still in full makeup, but she had her hair pulled back and was wearing a silky robe over her underwear. Tony blinks and looks up―damn, she’s even taller in person.
“Can I help you?” she asks, curious but not annoyed, from the sound of it. That’s probably a good sign.
“I’m Tony Stark.” He holds out his hand and she gives it a shake.
“I’ve seen you around,” she says, drawing her hand back and crossing her arms over her chest. “Your designs are very...avant-garde.”
Tony grins. “So I’ve been told. But I was wondering―speaking of avant-garde―if you’d be interested in a show I’m putting together. Kind of a ‘fashion of the future’ sort of thing. And it’s for charity,” he adds quickly, hoping that might encourage her to consider.
Pepper purses her lips, and for a moment Tony thinks she’s just going to turn him down, but instead she says, “Why don’t you send me the details and I’ll take a look? I should have a card around here somewhere...”
She pats her hips as if checking for pockets, realizes she doesn’t have any, then looks around. Instead of a business card, she grabs a marker from a nearby table, then takes Tony’s hand and jots down a phone number on his palm.
“Thanks,” he says after a very long delay of just staring down at his hand, which had been in her hand, and now had her number on it. “I’ll, uh, yeah, I’ll text you all the info. Thanks!”
Pepper smiles at him, charmed, he’s totally sure, then someone calls her name and she excuses herself, walking back toward the set.
When Tony shows Rhodey his hand later that night, giddy with success, Rhodey just rolls his eyes and says, “What the hell is this, some ‘90s teen movie? Write it on a piece of paper and go wash your hands.”
Pepper agrees. He has no idea what convinces her, but he’s ecstatic. Now all he has to do is actually finish putting together the show. Rhodey helps, of course, bless his heart. Tony calls up a few of his usual models, lines up a caterer and venue, coordinates with the charity the show’s proceeds will go to, and everything falls into place.
He puts together some rough drafts of his designs based on the measurements she sends him, and Rhodey comes with him when they meet up for a quick photo session. Tony wants to see what she’ll think of his pieces, and Rhodey wants to make sure Tony doesn’t embarrass himself too much.
Tony keeps the backgrounds simple, wanting to focus on Pepper and the outfits. When she walks out in the first dress, a dark maroon color that stands out against the off-white set, Tony can practically feel his heart beat right out of his chest.
“How’s the fit?” he asks instead of saying what he wants to say, which is a bunch of variations of ‘Wowza.’
“Not bad,” she answers, moving across the set to where Rhodey directs her to stand. “The drawings had a glove included?”
“Yeah, it’s not done. I do all the metalwork nearer to the end,” Tony answers absently, standing behind Rhodey and looking through the screen on the camera.
Pepper looks over at him, surprised. “You do the metalwork yourself?”
“I do everything myself.”
“The papers you emailed had some helmets doodled on them, like armor? It’s interesting.”
Tony grins and asks, “You want me to make you a suit of armor for the catwalk?”
Pepper laughs. “It’d be an interesting change of pace.”
“Okay guys, let’s cut the chitchat,” Rhodey interrupts, going over to the camera. “Time to let the real master work.”
“The real master of bossing people around,” Tony huffs, but he steps out of the way and lets Rhodey work his magic. He makes notes of changes as Pepper goes through the different outfits he brought. Seeing them on her in person is even better than just imagining it. The elegance is breathtaking.
Pepper snorts softly and Tony looks up from his sketchbook, confused. Had someone been talking?
Rhodey, taking pity on him, says, “You said her elegance was breathtaking. Out loud.”
“Oh god,” Tony mutters, looking back at Pepper, but she just smiles and waves at him. “Why didn’t you stop me?”
“I’m working,” Rhodey says, keeping his voice down. “Besides, I think she finds you charming.”
“Really?”
“In a super dorky way.”
Tony beams, even when Pepper asks them if they’re done gossiping so they can get back to work.
Everything’s going so well, Tony can’t believe it. Three days from now everyone will see Pepper Potts wearing his designs and be totally blown away.
And then he gets the phone call.
“You did what?” he asks, startled. “Are you okay?”
Across the table from him, Rhodey stops eating and mouths ‘What?’ at him. Tony shakes his head, still listening.
“Shit, no, don’t apologize,” he says at last into the phone. “We’ll find someone else. Yeah, it’s fine. You take care, okay?”
He hangs up and lets out a deep sigh. Rhodey waits, concerned.
“Pepper broke her leg,” Tony announces, head in his hands. “She can’t do the show, unless we want her to hobble down the runway on crutches, and obviously I wouldn’t make her do that.”
“Shit, Tones, I’m sorry.” Rhodey reaches over and puts a hand on Tony’s arm. “Is she okay? Aside from the leg thing.”
“Yeah, that was the worst of it.” He sighs, putting his head down on the table, no longer having any appetite for dinner. “This sucks.”
“Hey, the show’ll still be great,” Rhodey reassures him, gently squeezing his arm. “Your new collection is amazing.”
Tony looks up, disappointment clear on his face. “I know, but I made it for Pepper.”
“So make her something else. I bet she’ll love it anyway.”
Tony takes Rhodey’s hand in his, giving it an affectionate squeeze. “Thanks, honey. And thanks for all your help.”
“Of course,” Rhodey says with a nod, and the two return to their dinner, hands still clasped in the middle of the table.
They get one of their regulars to fill in for Pepper at the show, but while the overall effect is good, it’s just not the same. Tony sighs into his champagne glass for the hundredth time that night, and Rhodey tells him to stop looking so gloomy at his own show.
“I know, I know,” Tony grumbles. “It’s just that Pepper―is here?”
He sees the tall redhead approach from across the room, slightly hindered by crutches and a cast. Rhodey helps her into a chair at their table, and Tony asks,
“What are you doing here?”
“What, just because I broke my leg I’m not invited anymore?”
“No, of course not,” Tony says hastily, but she just laughs and waves away his attempted apology.
“I wanted to see the show. I really do like your designs, Tony. And I was hoping...” She glances between him and Rhodey, suddenly looking embarrassed. “I was hoping I could model something else for you instead? Once my cast is off, of course.”
“Wait, you want to model for us?” he asks, a little stunned. “But you never work with big-time designers.”
Pepper blushes, the tips of her ears turning red. “Not usually. But you two are a lot of fun, and your work is really interesting.”
Tony looks at Rhodey, flabbergasted. He just shrugs and says, “Fine with me. She’s really easy to shoot.”
“We’d love to,” Tony tells her without hesitation once he has the okay from Rhodey. “You know what, we might not even have to wait for the cast to come off, I’m already thinking of some designs we could incorporate―”
“Slow down there, tiger,” Rhodey says, patting him on the hand. “Enjoy your current show before jumping ahead.”
“That’s the theme tonight, isn’t it?” Pepper says with a little smile, looking at Tony. “Fashion of the future.”
“That’s the spirit!” he cheers, raising his glass in a toast. Tony sure is looking forward to what the future has in store for them.
#pepperhony#pepper potts#james rhodes#tony stark#pepperrhodeytony#fanfic#au#*mine#november fic challenge#which technically i don't know anything about any of these other aus so
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KotoUmi!
LONELY MY LOVELONELY MY HEAAAART
Who’s the messiest one:Kotori. When she’s in designer mode, she has sketchbooks, pencils, references, and fabric all over the place.
Who feels the most uncomfortable about PDA:Umi is far too reserved for PDA! She’ll tell Kotori she’s being shameless if her girlfriend tries to hug or kiss her in public. Kotori tells her she’s no fun.
Who’s the funniest drunk:UMI! She never drinks so it’s a rare sight, but when she does, she’s a happy, giggly drunk. Kotori just gets sleepy.
Who texts the most:Kotori! She loves to send Umi cute pictures and to just let her know she’s thinking of her. Sometimes she gets lonely when she hasn’t heard from Umi in a while, or she worries that she did something wrong.
Who has the most embarrassing taste in music:Kotori listens to a lot of her favorite childhood anthems that should have died in the 90s but they’re UPBEAT AND CATCHY SO SHE WILL KEEP LISTENING TO THEM.She also probably listens to Anemone Heart on repeat
Who reads the most:Umi! She loves to curl up with a book and a cup of tea.
Who’s better with kids:Kids tend to like Kotori more, since she’s very sweet, but she tends to be a pushover. Umi is very polite with children, but she also gets shy and may end up treating them harshly if they misbehave. Overall, Umi is probably better with kids because of her balance of kindness and discipline.
Who’s the one that fixes things around the house:Kotori! She’s handy even outside of the realm of sewing.
Who’s got the weirdest hobby:Legendary Maid Koto- Minalinsky(Not that having a part time job is weird, but it’s more ~extra~ than anything Umi does.)
Who cooks and who cleans up:Umi prepares healthy, balanced meals for both of them! On school days, Kotori is the one who arranges them into cute bentos though~
Send me a (Love Live!) ship!
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