#i saw a print being sold of these two at the like artist alley they got set up around world showcase and it was so over for me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

markleesthighs · 3 years

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Can you make another jaemin x BOY reader? Since he looks so good and badboyish with his new raven black hair, can you make one where jaemin is the only son of a mafia leader who gambles, drag races, and other reckless underground stuff and the boy reader is a pure, fragile, and perfect ballet dancer and honor student, an only son of an ambassador. Like a dangerous boy meets a delicate boy or like romeo and juliet? Thankieeeeeee!🖤🤍

-aw this is so cute this concept... *chefs kiss*

Forbidden Moonlight

You attend one of the most prestigious art schools in the country. Everyone there had to go through rigorous testing, students needed to be academically and artistically smart and creative. You and your peers were the top 5% of the country where you’d all grow to be famous artists after you graduate. But there was one student who you were confused about was Na Jaemin. Apparently he got into school because of his amazing graffiti art and gambling skills. You got into the school from your amazing ballet performance and you being at the top of your class with perfect grades. You were the only son of an ambassador so your family had high expectations for you. Specifically, they support you for dancing but they push hard for your academics. Every grade you receive you have to report to your parents so they can keep track of your progress. You arrive to dance classes early, always volunteer for every club or in class, and keep up the best grades in the grade.

You were perfect as people say, and you got asked out by several guys in your class but you always kindly reject them simply telling them you don’t have time for a relationship. Jaemin on the flip side was just as popular as you, getting confessions from guys and girls but he also rejected them always saying his catchphrase, “you couldn’t keep up with me.” Rumors spread that he was a mafia leader and already had a spouse and kids but you didn’t know what to believe. Your parents would have scolded you for being distracted by silly things. Yet you still found yourself intrigued by him, he was everything you weren’t, a troublemaker, laid back, and competes in drag races instead of doing any work. You always wondered how he stayed in your school, despite his work ethic.

One night you went out to pick up a study snack from a local restaurant with a sweet old lady who would always give you extra of whatever food she sold. When you walked home you were staring at your phone, listening to music when you accidentally bumped into someone.

“Oh, I’m so sorry...”

You looked up to see a man at least a foot taller than you and had a huge build, he could definitely crush you would his fingers if he could.

“HEY watch where you’re going twerp!”

“I’m really sorry, I’ll just go-“

“Oh no you’re not! You need to learn your lesson!”

He grabbed you by the collar and brought you aside to the alley where he pinned you agains the grimy brick.

“You’re going to regret bumping into me-“

“Let him go...he’s worth a lot to this city.” A voice called.

“Boss??”

“Jaemin??”

“How do you know the boss??”

“That’s none of your concern, Sebastion, now go back to work.”

“Come with me y/n, you’re coming.”

“Wh- I gotta go back-“

Before you can say anything you were suddenly on his motorbike riding to his mansion. You got off his bike and were fathomed by his luxurious lifestyle, you expected him to live in a messy apartment for some reason. You walked in as you were greeted by a bunch of maids taking off your jacket and giving you heated slippers and a face towel. You kindly thanked them as Jaemin plopped down on his couch. You shyly walked over to join him.

“Here’s the deal, y/n, you’re dad owes me something of mine, and I need to keep you here as leverage got it?”

“Are you seriously expecting me to the calm about this? Jaemin this is crazy, my mind is circling...”

“Well...” He moved closer. “There’s no chance of me letting you go...willingly at least.”

Your face heated up smelling his light cigarette breath.

“But I assure you that you will be treated like a king here since you are my guest, so you might as well get comfortable.”

Jaemin got up and grabbed your hand giving you a tour, from olympic sized pools, bowling alley to shooting ranges and torture rooms. The tour ended at the bedroom, Jaemin’s bedroom.

“You’re going to be sleeping in my bedroom, since I don’t trust the other guys in the house if you’re alone in the room, all of them are horn dogs. I’ll leave you alone to refresh yourself.” Jaemin left and closed the door.

You were freaking out having a meltdown in the bedroom pacing back and forth. You decided a shower would calm you down, you undressed and stepped in the shower. You smelled the musk of Jaemin, it was warm and comforting, the complete opposite of his appearance. You dried and realized there were not pajamas for you. So you threw on one of Jaemin’s shirts and sweatpants. You opened the bedroom door to let Jaemin know you were done.

Jaemin turned and saw you, barefaced, raw, and he thought you looked breathtaking. It was a different look, and he liked what he was seeing. He went to shower and when he walked out he saw you staring at the night sky while sitting on the bed. He admired you looking at the moonlight the bright moon gleaming against your skin, the light shining though your irises and the reflection of the moon in your eyes. He snapped out of it and asked you if you were going to bed. You quietly nodded and tucked yourself in facing away from Jaemin. You didn’t know what to think, you were speechless about the situation.

Jaemin sighed and joined you in bed but he couldn’t fall asleep. He just keep watching you, making sure you were asleep and sleeping well. Despite the plush and lavish sheets you were shivering, from the cold room and a bit of anxiety. You didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow, your father is the type to send a whole army after you, you didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Jaemin snapped you out of your thoughts.

“Cold?”

“Y-yeah a bit, but I’m fine.”

You felt a warm embrace, Jaemin’s wrapped his arms around you tucking his head into your neck. It was comforting, warm, and nurturing. Your shivering calm down and you felt yourself drift off to sleep. While you were asleep Jaemin kissed you temple

“Goodnight, y/n.”

You woke up to some giggles by the maids cleaning up Jaemin’s room. Your vision was blurry but you noticed you were facing Jaemin as he was holding you in a warm embrace. You stared at Jaemin for a minute, his face was calm and serene, and his hair was a little messy. You smiled playing with his hair as he groaned in pleasure. A maid came in a rang a bell as Jaemin woke up confused.

“Master Jaemin, it’s time for school.”

He got up and sighed as he collapsed back into bed. You tried to get out of bed but Jaemin kept trying to pull you back in.

“Get up sleepyhead, you gotta show me your closet.”

Jaemin lazily got up and opened his finger print locked closet. It opened up to dozens of racks and shelves of designer clothing. Jaemin walked over to two bags one from YSL and one from Fendi.

“I asked one of the maids to pick an outfit from you I didn’t know which one you liked so you can pick one.” You peeked in each box and chose the one from YSL, putting it on in the dressing room and you walked out to see Jaemin shirtless. You apologized but he told you to stay and brought you closer. Your eyes traced his body.

“Take a picture it will last longer baby.”

You blushed hard and looked away. Why did he make butterflies appear in your stomach? He put on the rest of his outfit and sprayed his cologne and you were still looking away from him. Jaemin grabbed your chin and pecked your cheek.

“You have a beautiful face don’t hide hide it from me.”

You pecked his lips

“Well if you didn’t make me so flustered I think I’d look at you more often.”

That made Jaemin’s eyes go wide in shock.

“Don’t test me now baby, or will I have to show you how to play nice?”

You rolled your eyes as you walked passed him. He chased after you as you both ate a light breakfast and walked outside together holding hands. He gave you a helmet and he held your hand and made you wrap your arms around his waist. You arrived to school with a bunch of eyes all over you two. You were averting gazes but Jaemin held your hand as you both walked. You smiled at him as you walked together. You got gazes of jealousy and shock. You walked into class and Jaemin held you close squeezing your hand in reassurance.

“Would Mr. y/n l/n please come down the the front office please.”

You looked at Jaemin in confusion but he let you go alone to the office. You walked in and saw your father and mother standing there next to the principal. They led you into the principals office.

“y/n as you know you went missing last night according to your parents, once we were notified that you arrived on campus we contacted your parents. If you don’t mind, would you mind explaining to your parents where you went?”

“Did they drug you? Did they harm you?” Sobbed your mother

“Were you threatened? Do you know how worried we were how reckless are you?!” scolded your father.

“Well, I was with Na Jaemin, he helped me that night after I was being harassed. Is there anything you need to explain to me, dad, regarding Na Jaemin? Does that name ring a bell?”

The principal stepped out by simply saying that he won’t be involved or eavesdrop on family affairs and he shut the door.

“y/n, the Na family is the most powerful mafia family in the country right now, I have to meet and do deals with them to maintain the safety of this country. Last night I made an offer to Jaemin, and he accepted it saying he would return you to school the next morning.”

“How’d you know where I was?”

“I received intel from a mafia member who saw you with Jaemin.”

“What did you offer Jaemin?”

“That’s none of your concern, from now on I want you to stop affiliating yourself with him, he’s too dangerous for you. I forbid you from seeing him off campus, y/n.”

“WH-“

“As your father and guardian, I need to do what’s best to protect you and keep you on a clear track. No more boys no more mafia business.”

You felt as if you were going to cry, how were you going to tell Jaemin? What is he going to do? What if him and you father go to war? You couldn’t have that you’d have to choose. So who will you choose?

part 2

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gagosiangallery · 4 years

Text

Richard Prince at Gagosian Beverly Hills

January 15, 2020

RICHARD PRINCE New Portraits Opening reception: Thursday, February 6, 6–8pm February 6–March 21, 2020 456 North Camden Drive, Beverly Hills __________ In 1984 I took some portraits. The way I did it was different. The way had nothing to do with the tradition of portraiture. If you wanted me to do your portrait, you would give me at least five photographs that had already been taken of yourself, that were in your possession (you owned them, they were yours), and more importantly . . . that you were already happy with. You would give me the five you liked and I would pick the one I liked. I would rephotograph the one I liked and that would be your portrait. Simple. Direct. To the point . . . Foolproof. I started off doing friends. Peter Nadin. Anne Kennedy. Jeff Koons. Cookie Mueller. Gary Indiana. Colin de Land.

They didn’t have to sit for their portraits. They didn’t have to make an appointment and come over and sit in front of some cyclone or in front of a neutral background or on an artist’s stool. They didn’t have to show up at all. And they wouldn’t be disappointed with the result. How could they? It wasn’t like they were giving me photos of themselves that were embarrassing.

Social Science Fiction.

Another advantage was the “time line.” If you were in your sixties and you gave me a photograph that had been taken thirty years earlier, and that’s the one I chose, your portrait ended up in a kind of time machine. I couldn’t go forward, but I could go backward. Vanity. Most of the people I did liked the younger version of themselves. So the future didn’t really matter. Half of H. G. Wells was better than no half at all.

Who knew?

After friends, I did people I didn’t know.

I had access to Warner Bros. Records and their publicity files. The files were filled with 8 × 10 glossies of recording stars that they had under contract. How I had access is beside the point. It was a long time ago. Let’s just say an A&R guy gave me access, “permission.”

I spent time in their LA headquarters, in Burbank, and went thru the metal cabinets and took the “publicities” I wanted, took them home, put them in front of my camera, and made a new photograph. The first one I did was Dee Dee Ramone.

I did Tina Weymouth, Tom Verlaine, Jonathan Richman, Laurie Anderson. I did the two girls from the B-52s.

Not knowing these people, having never met them, or talked to them, but still being able to do their portraits, excited me. Satisfaction. I spent weeks in the basement of Warner Bros. I thought I had an advantage. My method, if you could call it that, was far more flexible than the regular way portraits were taken. I didn’t need a studio. A darkroom. A receptionist. A calendar. Makeup. Stylists. I didn’t have to deal with agents or the “personality,” good or bad, of the sitter. My overhead was minimal and I could do the portrait all by myself.

By myself. That was the best.

Why I Go To The Movies Alone.

At first I thought this could be a business.

Up till then none of the art that I was making sold . . . or sold enough to make a living. I had just quit my job at Time Life the year before and was trying to make a go of it living near Venice Beach in LA . . . sharing a house with three roommates and living off the occasional sales that Hudson, my friend from Chicago, would make selling my “cartoon” drawings.

This idea of a “portrait business” made sense to me. Who wouldn’t want their portrait done this way?

I continued to do friends. Paula Greif. Dike Blair. Meyer Vaisman. I did everybody’s portraits for Wild History, a book that I put together for Tanam Press of downtown writing. The author’s portrait accompanied their contribution. Wharton Tiers. Spalding Gray. Tina L’Hotsky.

By the end of ’84 it was over.

I’m not sure if it was the lack of interest in me, or in others. (My energy evaporated.) Maybe it was the inability to convince people to commit to a commission. It was a good idea, but after doing about forty of them, I put them in a drawer and moved on. Bored? Restless? I don’t know. Let’s just say it didn’t take off.

Leave it at that.

My cartoon drawings turned into jokes and the jokes started taking up everything. In the end, I think most people would rather have their portrait done by Robert Mapplethorpe.

Thirty years. Time passes.

The social network.

I looked over my daughter’s shoulder and saw that she was scrolling thru pictures on her phone. I asked her what she was looking at. “It’s my Tumblr.” “What’s a tumbler?” I asked.

That was . . . four years ago?

About three years ago I bought an iPhone. Someone had shown me the photographs you could take with the phone. I had given up taking pictures after they got rid of color slide film. I tried digital, but couldn’t make the adjustment. I never liked carrying a camera and was pretty much inkjetting and painting anyway . . . so the idea of using a big boxy camera with all its new whistles and bows wasn’t for me.

Enter the sandman.

The iPhone was just what I needed. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to point and shoot. You didn’t have to focus. You didn’t have to load film. You didn’t have to ASA. You didn’t have to set a speed. The clarity . . .

I could see for miles.

The photos you took were stored in the phone. And when you wanted to see them, they appeared on a grid. The best part: you could send a photo immediately to a friend, to an e-mail, to a printer . . . or, you could organize your photos, like my daughter had, and post them publicly or privately.

When worlds collide.

I asked my daughter more about Tumblr. Are those your photos? Where did you get that one? Did you need permission? How did you get that kind of crop? You can delete them? Really? What about these “followers?” Who are they? Are they people you know? What if you don’t want to share? How many of your friends have Tumblrs?

What’s yours is mine.

My daughter’s “grid” on Tumblr reminded me of my Gangs I did back in ’85 . . . where I organized a set of nine images on a single piece of photo paper and blew the paper up to 86 × 48. The gangs were a way to deal with marginal or subsets of lifestyles that I needed to see on a wall but not a whole wall. Each gang was its own exhibition. Girlfriends, Heavy Metal Bands, Giant Waves, Bigfoot Trucks, Sex, War, Cartoons, Lyrics . . . were all rephotographed with slide film, and when the slides returned, they were “deejayed” and moved around on a custom-made light box until the best nine made the cut. The “cut” was then taped together (the edges of the slide mounts were pushed up against each other and Scotch-taped), the nine taped slides were sent to a lab where an 8 × 10 internegative was made, and from the internegative the final photo was blown up. I’ve probably lost you. Technical stuff . . . application and technique. Sometimes it’s better to leave the “background” out of it. Better to “take it for granted.” Why should I care how a photograph is made?

Only sometimes.

How was it called back then? Sampling?

Primitive now, but back then . . . 50-inch photo drums were few and far between. The paper was 50 inches wide and came in a huge roll. If you wanted to, you could take a roll and roll it down the street, roll it down the sidewalk, roll it all the way down the West Side Highway.

Shakespeare’s in the alley?

No. Philip Roth is in the alley.

Joan Didion is in the alley.

Don DeLillo is in the alley.

What’s up, pussycat?

There’s a lot of cats on Instagram. Food too.

And there’s tons of photos of people who take photographs of themselves. (Yes, I know the word.)

On the gram. I was just asked why I like Instagram. I said, “Because there’s rules. And if you break the rules, you get kicked off.”

I got to Instagram thru Twitter.

Twitter first.

I’m not sure when I first started tweeting, but I liked trying to fit a whole story into 140 characters.

I call it Birdtalk.

I used to bird in the early ’90s for Purple magazine and birded in my first catalogue for Barbara Gladstone in ’87.

Short sentences that were funny, sweet, dumb, profound, absurd, stupid, jokey, Finnegans Wake meets MAD magazine meets ad copy for Calvin Klein. Think Dylan’s Tarantula. Then think some more and think Kathy Acker’s Tarantula.

Or, don’t think at all. I know I don’t.

Sometimes.

Sometimes I write down the first sentence that starts off my favorite novel.

Relative. I’m not much of a theory guy. But sometimes I think there was a reason why Einstein was a technical assistant in the Swiss patent office.

Let me fill your cup.

Twitter accepts photos, but is mainly text-based. I like to combine the two and tweet both photo and text.

I called the photo/text tweets I was posting . . . “The Family.”

I posted photos of my extended family . . . mother, brother, sister, nieces, cousins, uncles, aunts, in-laws, stepchildren, boy- and girlfriends. I would caption the photos with a short description of who, what, why . . . measuring my words so that they fit into the guidelines of the platform.

After posting the photo/text, I sent the information to my printer and inkjetted an 11 × 14 print of the marriage. I made thirty-eight “Family” tweets.

Distribution.

I placed each “Family” tweet in a plastic sleeve and pushpinned the sleeve to the wall. The wall was at Karma. I put all thirty-eight up. Salon style. It was Saturday. The doors opened at 12 pm. By 12:15 pm all thirty-seven were gone. One to a customer. I kept the one that had my father, mother, and sister in it. (My father and mother were naked, and my sister was sitting in between. My family wasn’t like yours. Hobnob doesn’t begin to describe them.) I sold the “Family Tweets” for $12 each. First come, first served.

Well, well, well . . .

In ma ma ma my wheeeeeeeel house.

I used to stutter. By the ninth grade, the sparkle was in my eye. It got so bad, the impediment turned me into a clam. I slept all day, every day. I wouldn’t get up until Sunday. I waited for Bonanza to come on the TV. I loved the cowboy father and his three sons.

Two summers ago, my niece was working for me out on Long Island and she showed me how to screen save. I didn’t know about the option. What other options don’t I know about?

Screen Save.

This might be one of the best applications in an apparatus that I’ve ever encountered. All-time. Hall of fame. First place. Just what I need. MORE photographs.

Hey kids . . . what time is it?

Now I have a theory.

I was beside myself.

Congratulations.

This past spring, and half the summer, the iPhone became my studio. I signed up for Instagram. I pushed things aside. I made room. It was easy. I ignored Tumblr, and Facebook had never interested me. But Instagram . . .

I started off being RichardPrince4.

I quickly recognized the device was a way to get the lead out. If Twitter was editorial . . . then Instagram was advertising.

A gazillion people.

Besides cats, dogs, and food, people put out photos of themselves and their friends all the time, every day, and, yes, some people put themselves out twice on Mondays. I started “following” people I knew, people I didn’t know, and people who knew each other. It was innocent. I was on the phone talking to Jessica Hart and had just looked at her “gram” feed before picking up the phone. I asked about a picture she posted of herself standing in front of a fireplace wearing what looked to be ski clothes and big fur boots. The post was in black and white, head to toe, full figure, and behind her, above the mantel, there was a portrait of Brigitte Bardot. I told her someone should make a portrait out of this photo. She said, “Why don’t you?”

Come to think of it.

I’m not sure if she knew about my Family Tweets. She might have. I think we even talked about them after she came to my studio for a visit. After I got off the phone, I thought about her suggestion: “Why don’t you?”

I went back to her feed and screen saved her “winter” photo. I sent the save to my computer, pressed “empty subject,” pressed “actual size,” and waited for it to appear in a doc, checked the margins and crop, clicked on the doc, and sent it to my printer. My inkjet printer printed out an 11 × 14-inch photo on paper . . . I took the photo out of the tray and put it on my desk.

Looking at Jessica’s feed reminded me of 1984. Except this time I had more than five photos to choose from. I went back to her feed a second time. I scrolled thru maybe a hundred photos she had posted and looked at all the ones that included her. The one in front of the fireplace was still the best.

Walk on.

Jessica had tons of followers. Thousands. And a lot of them had “commented” on what she posted. I read all the comments that had been posted under her fireplace photo. There was one comment I wish I could have gotten in my original screen save. When you screen save an Instagram image, you can get maybe three, four comments in the save if you include the person’s “profile” icon that appears on the upper left of the page. I decided early on I wanted the person’s icon to be part of the save. But what else could I save?

I went back to my desk and kept staring at the printout of Jessica. What do I do now?

I didn’t want to paint it.

I didn’t want to mark it.

I didn’t want to add a sticker.

Whatever I did, I wanted it to happen INSIDE and before the save. I wanted my contribution to be part of the “gram.” I didn’t want to do anything physical to the photograph after it was printed.

Five cents.

I went back to the comment.

I commented on Jessica’s photo in front of the fireplace, but my comment was one of hundreds and showed up outside, way down at the bottom . . . out of the frame.

If I wanted my comment to show up near her picture . . . how?

I got lucky.

I’m terrible when it comes to the tech side of technology. But somehow I figured out how to hack into Jessica’s feed and swipe away all her comments and add my own so that it would appear under her post. The hack is pretty simple and anyone can do it. You hit the gray comment bar and pick a comment you don’t want and swipe with your finger to the left, and a red exclamation mark appears. You press on the exclamation mark and four things come onto the bottom of your screen.

1. Why are you reporting this comment?

2. Spam or Scam

3. Abusive Content

4. Cancel

To get rid of the comment, you click on Spam or Scam. It’s gone. Just like that I could control other people’s comments and Jessica’s own comments. And the comment that I added could now be near enough to Jessica’s photo that when I screen saved it, my comment would “show up.” Make sense? It’s about as good as I can do. What can I say? Einstein and cuckoo . . .

So now . . .

So now I was in.

Waiting to follow.

Richardprince4 would appear at the bottom of Jessica’s final portrait. My comment, whatever it would be, would always be the last comment. The last say so. Say so. That’s good. That could work. My “in” was what I ended up saying. And what I would say would be everything I ever knew . . . what I knew now and what I would know in the future.

Tell Me Everything.

Finnegans Wake meets MAD magazine.

Zoot Horn Rollo. You seem to be where I belong (emoji).

The first three portraits I did were of women I knew. Or almost knew. Jessica, I knew. Pam Anderson, I knew. Sky Ferreira? I didn’t know, but was following her and had been reading about her new album and seeing posters of her album broadsided on sheets of ply on the Bowery and on Lafayette near Bond. I wasn’t sure what I was doing or why I chose these three. I just had lunch with Pam and had seen Jessica in LA. Sky, I was following because she seemed interesting. There was nothing more. No attraction. No fan. No desire. No date. No wanting anything from her. And the pictures she posted were candid, boozy, and seemed to be letting the viewer in on some kind of backstage diary. She also had thousands of people following her, and I could tap into her followers and follow them. I can do that? I didn’t even know I could follow the followers. Like I said, the hardware was all new . . . and I was just getting started.

The shoreline is never the same. (Like it should be.)

When I first started getting rid of comments, I thought the person whose comments I was getting rid of might get pissed. “What happened to all my comments?” I found out quickly that “the getting rid of” only affected my feed. The deleted comments didn’t affect the followers’ feeds. Their comments were still there even though they were gone from mine. All that happened is that MY comment showed up below their photo. Was I allowed? Yes. I guess so. It’s hard to explain. But the process is open, and at the moment, it’s the way it works and anyone and everyone can do it.

The language I started using to make “comments” was based on Birdtalk. Non sequitur. Gobbledygook. Jokes. Oxymorons. “Psychic Jujitsu.”

Some of the language came directly from TV. If I’m selecting a photo of someone and adding a comment to their gram and an advertisement comes on . . . I use the language that I hear in the ad. Inferior language. It works. It sounds like it means something. What’s it mean? I don’t know. Does it have to mean anything at all? I think about James Joyce confessing to Nora Barnacle. I think about opening up to page 323 of Finnegans Wake. Then I think about notes and lyricism. Policy. Whisper. Murmurs. Mantra. Quotation. Advice.

Chamber Music.

Didn’t Duke Ellington say, “If it sounds good, it is good”? He did say that, didn’t he?

Who are these people?

Larry Clark, Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe take great portraits. I’ve watched Larry take photos and I don’t know how he does it. I wouldn’t know where to begin. I could never go up to a stranger and ask them if I could take their picture. I’ve done it maybe two or three times and didn’t enjoy it. That part of art is in Larry. It isn’t in me. I feel more comfortable in my bedroom looking thru Easyriders and poring over pictures of “girlfriends” that are right there on the page. Page after page. Looking. Wondering. Anticipating. Hoping. What will be on the next page? Will I find a girlfriend that I really like? That’s my relationship with what’s out there. It’s as close as I want to get. That’s what’s in me.

IG is a bedroom magazine.

I can start out with someone I know and then check out who they follow or who’s following them, and the rabbit hole takes on an out-of-body experience where you suddenly look at the clock and it’s three in the morning. I end up on people’s grids that are so far removed from where I began, it feels psychedelic. Further. I’m on the bus. I feel like I’m part of Kesey’s merry tribe. I’m reminded of Timothy Leary’s journals, which I purchased years ago from John McWhinnie, and the concentration that came over me when I discovered his hand-drawn map of his escape from jail. How he literally shimmied on a wire that had been strung up from an outer utility building to the perimeter prison wall . . . and how I would trace with my finger his overland express to Tangier, where he hooked up with Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver and spent the next year seeking asylum in different parts of North Africa, ultimately ending up in Switzerland where his ex-wife ratted him out, and how fighting extradition took up the rest of his life. Wow, now it’s four in the morning.

Tune In, Turn On, Come Out.

“Trolling.”

If you say so.

I never thought about it that way. The word has been used to describe part of the process of making my new portraits. I guess so. It’s not like I’m on the back of a boat throwing out chum.

“We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

Included.

Everyone is fair.

Game.

An even playing field.

“Outside my cabin door. Said the girl from the red river shore.”

Men. Women. Men and women. Men and men. Women and women. Blacks Whites Latinos Asian Arabs Jews Straights Gays Transgender. Tattoos and scars. Hairy.

I don’t really know the score.

The ones I adore.

I just know where I belong.

“Oh, there I go. From a man to a memory.”

How do I tell you who or why I pick? I can’t. It would be like telling you why I pick that joke. WHY THAT ONE? There’s thousands of jokes. I read them all. It takes days to read just one joke book. 101 of the World’s Funniest Jokes. Days. If I get one, find one, like one, out of the 101, it’s a good day.

People on IG lead me to other people. I spend hours surfing, saving, and deleting. Sometimes I look for photos that are straightforward portraits (or at least look straightforward). Other times I look for photos that would only appear, or better still . . . exist on IG. Photos that look the way they do because they’re on the gram. Selfies? Not really. Self-portraits. I’m not interested in abbreviation. I look for portraits that are upside down, sideways, at arm’s length, taken within the space that a body can hold a camera phone. What did de Kooning say? “When I spread my arms out, it’s all the space I need.”

At first I wasn’t sure how to print the portrait. I tried different surfaces, different papers. Presentation? Frame? Matt? Shadowbox? I tried them all. Finally this past spring my lab introduced me to a new canvas, one that was tightly wound, a surface with hardly any tooth. Smooth to the touch. Almost as if the canvas were photo paper. It was also brilliantly white. I don’t think it could be any whiter. And . . . the way the ink jetted into the canvas was a surprise. It fused in a way that made the image slightly out of focus. Just enough. The ink was IN and ON the canvas at the same time. When I first saw the final result, I didn’t really know what I was looking at. A photographic work or a work on canvas? The surprise was perfect. Perfect doesn’t come along very often. The color that had been transferred from the file of the computer to the jet, from jet to canvas, was intense, saturated, rich. If someone I followed had blue hair, their hair looked like it had been dyed directly onto the canvas. Dye job. Rinsed. Beauty salon. It was brilliant, great color. You might call it “vibrant.” The vibe between the image and the process was “sent away for,” seamless, effortless . . . all descriptions I used to use when I tried describing my early “pens, watches, and cowboys.” (Has it really been forty years?) The ingredients, the recipe, “the manufacture,” whatever you want to call it . . . was familiar but had changed into something I had never seen before. I wasn’t sure it even looked like art. And that was the best part. Not looking like art. The new portraits were in that gray area. Undefined. In-between. They had no history, no past, no name. A life of their own. They’ll learn. They’ll find their own way. I have no responsibility. They do. Friendly monsters.

Speak for yourself.

To fit in the world takes time.

For now, all I can say is . . . they’re the only thing I’ve ever done that has made me happy.

http://www.richardprince.com/writings/bird-talk

#Richard Prince #Gagosian

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mirika · 5 years

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I went to Dutch Comic Con once again. On Saturday I went as Ladybug from Miraculous Ladybug, but as I spotted an Angewomon who told me she’d be there the next day too, I went as Mimi from Digimon on Sunday.

Besides, the whole point of not having blue hair anymore was so that I can wear both cosplay whenever I want.

Day one!

Downside of this year is that I did not have my annual friend with me - I always visit Dutch Comic Con (March edition) with one friend in particular. This meant that Saturday I was by myself. The plus side was that I could do everything at my pace(!), but the problem with being by myself was everything else. I took only one photo with another cosplay and that was when a friend of mine tagged along for a little while.

It’s me with a bunch of androids from Detroit: Become Human, heh. I was holding my bag and everything, so it was awkward too!

I saw many more androids who looked amazing, but I lost my friend and therefore could not take any other photos. There was one Connor & Hank in particular that I was very fond of, and I made sure Hank knew how much I appreciated the dedication to the beard they applied to their face. I was really amazed by it as beards are hard to achieve.

I also saw an amazing Sylvanas (World of Warcraft) cosplay, when I saw her I actually said “wow” (or more specifically “wauw”) out loud and I told her she looked good or something like that. She really did. On Sunday I also saw a blood elf character, but I am not familiar with all NPC’s, so...

As I said before, I also saw Angewomon and I really wanted to take a photo with her. She seemed in a rush though, told her I will go as Mimi tomorrow as she said she’ll be there tomorrow again and therefore left it as it is.

I also visited two Q&As that day. Felt nice to visit Q&As without having to make friends wander alone.

The first one right at 12:00 was Katherine McNamara, she is known as the main character Clary from Shadowhunters, a show that is a bit of a guilty pleasure. I loved her excitement and her love for the franchise and other characters, and she had to keep herself from telling any spoilers, but she is really excited for the first upcoming episode.

The second Q&A at 16:00 was Jennifer Morrison, known as the main character Emma Swan from Once Upon A Time. I know she has a role in Arrow too, but I don’t watch it. Because of Katherine’s excitement during her Q&A, Jennifer really made a huge contrast in that regard. Not that she wasn’t happy, it was just different. I slightly feel bad about all the Once-related questions because you could kinda tell she’s done, and she deflected a Swan Queen question by just answering she is an actress portraying a character who is written the way they are, so I liked that; no fuss about shipping. Shipping is what made the Once fandom so destructive, after all. She solved it very well, probably put a lot of thought into it.

Other than that I bought a bunch of merchandise. I actually only bought stuff from the artist alley; none of the official merch pulled me in. The artist alley is great, because it has such a variety in fandoms. My only issue is that I am limited to buttons, stickers and charms, because I would not know what to do with prints.

Two random animal stickers of a cat and a bat because the artist was kind and it looked cool. The bottom two are magnets from the video game Journey, and few of my friends know I’ve been very involved with a Journey community lately.

Three buttons of Connor from Detroit: Become Human. I am actually really sad that no one sold Kara or Markus because I love all three main characters nearly equally. Some did sell Hank and Sumo, but yeah... would’ve loved some Kara and Markus. That is why I was glad I saw some Kara cosplay around, compared to Connor the other two appear so underappreciated when they are all such lovely characters. I love Connor most too, but the difference for me is rather minor.

And a bunch of stickers! Illidan Stormrage from World of Warcraft (he looks so adorable and the vendor was so nice), Spider-man in his homemade suit, and a sticker set from Miraculous Ladybug.

I kinda wish I did not have to say that this sums up Saturday already, but here we are.

I found a couple of artists I want to commission from, but many are way above my budget. Complicated. I also took 1,5 hours to hunt Pokemon in Pokemon GO because there was a special day going on and inside the building the GPS was crazy, but because I could visit at my own pace, I made sure I saw all the shops already. I get really nasty about not having seen everything, my brains just can’t comprehend the idea of not seeing everything (or at least having tried).

Either way!

Day two!

On Sunday my bestie tagged along, but ironically now I didn’t really find any cosplay I wanted to take a photo with, hah. The entire day we visited I tried to find Angewomon, and by the time we were close to leaving (last hour at the con), we found her in line for food!!!

I found her Instagram so you can see her with her wings on, but yeah, she didn’t have them today (heavy). It’s the same as how I did not bring Palmon. We weren’t allowed any bags bigger than 12 x 18 cm OR they had to be transparent, so I had nothing to carry Palmon in (it’s for safety reasons due to recent shooting in the same city). Either way, I was so happy to have found her! We shared the mutual feeling of never seeing other Digimon cosplay, so we were both just really happy. Another stranger saw us together and wanted to take a photo as he’d never expect to see two Digimon cosplay together, and guess what, neither did we!

So she was easily the highlight of my day, haha! I saw she also did Garurumon on her page, which is really cool too!

I do want to say that I was pleasantly surprised with seeing The Umbrella Academy cosplay around as well by the way, even if it was 90% Klaus and 10% Five. Considering the show being new I thought it was amazing and for some reason it never occurred to me I could see cosplay from that show until I saw them. The Five cosplayers that were around were actually rather young-looking and short, so that was fantastic, and the Five who was together with towel-Klaus were very in-character together as Klaus was teasing them and Five wasn’t having it. I loved it.

Because I did not find any new merch I wanted to get, I ended up buying mysterious Japanese snacks. I meant to buy one box of panda cookies and one box of regular cookies, but the vendor talked me into this.

The cookies were alright, not too amazing, but I loved the panda cookies too much to even share sorry bestie. All of these are gone already, by the way. I uh... liked my pricey Japanese mystery food. Much better than mochi (yikes) or pocky (meh), but those are opinions!

I think that sums it up. I hope I get the photo Angewomon took of us on her phone, because that was a selfie.

It was a successful weekend regardless.

The photo of Angewomon and I has surfaced!

DCC 2019 - Ladybug (Miraculous Ladybug) / Mimi (Digimon) DCC 2018 - Ladybug (Miraculous Ladybug) ACC 2018 - Ladybug (Miraculous Ladybug) DCC 2018 - Ladybug (Miraculous Ladybug) RCC 2018 - Mimi (Digimon) WDCC 2017 - Mimi (Digimon) ACC 2017 - Mimi (Digimon) DCC 2017 - Mimi (Digimon) RCC 2017 - Mimi (Digimon) ACC 2016 - Hook (Once Upon A Time) DCC 2016 - Ladybug (Miraculous Ladybug) DCC 2015 - Sunday - Hobbit (Lord of the Rings) DCC 2015 - Saturday - Ellie (The Last of Us)

I have been to Elfia in 2015, but I cannot find this post. I was Donna Noble and I actually had a really bad day, which is why I have never returned to Elfia.

#mirika #mirikalj

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ifidontwriteillscream · 5 years

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Music is Life

I've decided to use songs as writing exercises. Music has always been a huge part of my life. Sitting and listening to the melody, seeing the lyrics come to life in my head.

Excuse any errors, its straight from head.

https://youtu.be/J1ia-OQThno

Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing

By Chris Isaak

The neon lights outside the window flickered, casting dim shadows in the room that came and went with the speed of my own thoughts. I couldn’t stop thinking about her she filled every sense; I could see her in my mind, smell her on the pillow next to me, almost feel her warmth against my side. Why did she do it? She had done some bad things in her life but nothing like this.

The ache in my chest wouldn’t allow me to sleep. I sat up, pulled a cigarette from the open pack on the table next to me and put it between my lips. I rolled the wheel on my lighter, the sudden brightness of the flame hurt my eyes. The smoke filled my lungs and calmed my nerves, but only a bit. I still felt like the world was crashing down on me.

I closed my eyes and saw her here with me the way she looked the last time I had seen her, too skinny, her eyes darting unable to stay focused on anything, her clothes ripped and dirty.

I wanted to be able to go back to that night and hold her, but that was never going to happen. I didn’t hold her that night, I yelled at her, told her to get out, that I was done with her.

I took another drag off my smoke and leaned back against the pillow. I had loved her from the moment I saw her four years ago. She was tall and thin then, not yet the shadow she would become, with long dark hair and brown eyes flecked with gold that seemed to sparkle when she smiled.

I dropped the end of my cigarette into one of the many empty beer bottles that littered the area next to the bed. I had stopped cleaning them up a week ago, it just didn’t matter anymore.

I curled up on my side, facing her empty spot on the bed and pulled her pillow into my arms making the illusion of her being there, still with me, even more real. I buried my face in it imagining it was one of the t-shirts she always slept in and tried to force my mind to hold still long enough to nod off. I tossed and turned for another hour, the sun was starting to come up when I finally did begin to dream. Of course the dreams were of her.

Her at the new years eve party two years ago dancing with me and then us kissing. The dream then changed to us at school together walking down the hall, both covered in paint talking excitedly about the projects we were working on, trying to get everything we wanted to tell the other person out before we had to separate again.

My alarm went off pulling me from my happiness. I yanked the cord from the wall and threw it across the room hoping I could go back to the early days of our relationship, the days before the drugs took over. When I fell back to sleep I still dreamt of her but the happiness was gone. It was her just a few months ago, when I had found her in bed with a stranger. Her and I had both agreed to have an open relationship and I wasn’t angry at her for being with another man, I was angry because she started having sex with them for money.

I woke up with the feelings I had been feeling that night six months ago coursing through my body. I was full of rage that night, the man had been in his fifties and obese, not someone she would normally considered sleeping with so I knew what had happened.

She had been doing heroin for almost a year. Her habit had gotten so bad that she couldn’t support it with her art anymore. She had come to me crying a few weeks before, desperate for a fix, so angry with herself, for where she was in her life, that she couldn’t look at me. I gave her the money she asked for but told her I wouldn’t do it again. That she needed to get clean. She never asked me for money again but she also didn’t stop using.

The sun had ben making its way across the room and had finally reached the bed, threatening to blind me if I didn’t move soon. I rolled out of bed and pulled on a pair of paint covered jeans, a black t-shirt and pulled my hair back into a loose tail at the back of my head before heading toward the door to get more beer.

Life had stopped mattering. I tried to paint but couldn’t, so I stopped trying. I had enough cash and online print sales to keep my apartment for a couple more months, the only other expense I had was food, but that had stopped too, replaced by alcohol.

We were both from small towns in the middle of nowhere and had come to the “big city” to go to a prestigious art school and had instantly connected. We were naïve. We wanted to experience all that city life had to offer us but didn’t want to do it alone. First we were roommates but that changed quickly. We were happy with our lives before she met Darius. He went to school with us but found his muse in drugs. She was always looking for more was to tap into her creativity and it didn’t take long for her to start doing drugs with Darius. First only occasionally but then he introduced her to heroin and it was all over.

I walked down to the market two blocks away, bought beer, some chips and two more packs of smokes and walked back. This was the only reason I left my apartment anymore.

I didn’t think much about her choice to use drugs at first, seeing it as “an artist thing”. Not until she stopped painting, until she stopped being the girl I had fallen in love with. Just thinking of that girl made my heart want to break in two. Made the weight on my chest so heavy I wasn’t sure I would make it up the two flights of stairs home. I put the bags down on he table and pulled out a beer.

I flopped on the couch and lit a cigarette. My eyes moved from the glowing embers followed the wisps of smoke up until my eyes landed on the painting across the room. The only painting of hers it was the only one left. She had sold the rest in her desperation for cash.

Darius ended up going down the same path, hooked to drugs, dropping out of school stealing to survive. In the last couple of weeks she would tell me how she was still better than Darius because what she did to make money didn’t hurt anyone but herself. She said that to me, said it like I wasn’t someone she was hurting, like she was killing me along with her. Like her fucking anyone with fifty dollars had no effect on me at all.

My eyes started to prickle with tears but there were none left to shed. Instead I went to the kitchen and took a couple of long swallows of vodka hoping to kill at least some of my pain.

It didn’t work. I had started drinking more than usual to help cope with her behavior, at least that’s what I told myself, really I think I was hoping she would see that I was self destructing and it would make her want to stop using. It didn’t work because she never noticed. She was obsessed with only one thing. Her and Darius started spending all their time together. She would disappear for days, leaving me to stay up all night worried about her, wondering if she was okay.

Three weeks ago, the last time I saw her had been the longest I had gone without seeing her. She had been gone for ten days. At first I looked for her. Skipped out on meetings and classes spending my days wondering the back alleys of the city hoping to catch her and bring her home, after a week I gave up and tried to live again. Then out of the blue she showed up in our apartment in the middle of the night.

It was early in the morning, I had been trying to sleep but thoughts of her wouldn’t allow that. She just appeared, out of nowhere, at the foot of the bed. Her brown hair in tangles, skinnier than I had ever seen her.

“Darius and I killed someone.” She said. She had tear stains in the dirt on her cheeks but wasn’t crying anymore.

I didn’t answer at first. My head and heart were both screaming at me. I was relieved to see her, wanted to clean her up and keep her home, force her into rehab so I could have my baby back but that’s not what came out of me.

“Get out!” I yelled at her. She had disappeared for days, screwed countless men, done who knows what types of drugs and killed someone and was now expecting me to help her. “You are nothing to me. Nothing but a drug addicted whore. Now get out!” I didn’t know what was coming out of my mouth but I knew I wanted to hurt her. She had left without saying a word, leaving me to spend every day and every night sick with worry and now she was here expecting me to make everything better. To just open my arms and take her back. I couldn’t, it hurt too much.

She and Darius had fucked up and done something that could never be undone. Something that would ruin both their lives and I had had enough. She was the love of my life, my best friend and I loved her more than life itself. She walked out the door and I hadn’t seen her since. This time I didn’t go looking for her. I was ashamed of what I had done, but I was also scared of who she had become. Heartbroken that she had chosen life on the street with Darius over me and unwilling to join them.

I turned on the radio and took a drink of my beer.

#writing #writers #wip #writing exercise #chris isaak #baby did a bad bad thing #music #music is life #just for fun #fiction #shortstory #story

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anime-watch · 2 years

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SwampCon: 1v1

SwampCon being my first anime convention, I didn't know what to expect at all. Rietz Union was practically transformed into a land of cosplay. The events were about a million different topics, some about anime and others indirectly related to anime (I attended two talks, one about writing and another about dramaturgy). While trying to find my way around, I got lost more than a few times. I also had to take a break and rest at the lowest level floor to catch my breath from all the crowd flow- there were a LOT of people.

It was fantastic just walking to different places and seeing the incredible cosplays. They ranged from casual (like a stylish Tomioka Giyuu button-up shirt that which could pass off as just a snazzy fashion choice), to beginner, to amazingly intricate. I was surprised on the amount of characters who I did not recognize- a lot seemed to be from games or characters not from anime. I remember somebody dressed up as a Smash-Bro character, Star Wars characters, and even Technoblade from Dream SMP. There were some cosplays that looked like they did not belong to a fandom, such as original characters or just people's own outfits. I saw more than one fur suit, as well as princess, witch, elf, and goth outfits that did not look like they fit into any particular anime, game, or comic fandom. One outfit theme that I saw multiple times were mushrooms! The mushroom dresses that I passed by were breathtakingly beautiful and always the same type of mushroom- red with white dots. Seeing all the outfits made me wish I had one on my own. Next year, I think I will try cosplaying, maybe a duo cosplay with a friend. Also, I was very happy with how many Demon Slayer cosplays there were. My favorite cosplays were a giant Pikachu, a medieval mushroom theme dress, and Mitsuri Kanroji!

The vendors and artist alleys were where I spent most of my time in SwampCon. It was fun to look at all the different fandoms that were available for purchase. There were a ton of awesome crafts. There were figurines, swords, cosplay outfits (I saw school-girl outfits), anime-themed clothes, collectable pokemon badges and pokeballs, soap, pins, jewelry of all kinds, and a tons of posters (both of anime characters and of original designs). There was even a stand that sold exclusively animal accessories (cat ears, bunny ears, and cat tails). There were things I didn't expect to see there, like a DND stand and soap stand (that smelled extremely nice). I was very happy with the variety of fandoms that were available. There were a ton of characters that I did not recognize and a ton of characters that I could name. Meme content caught me off guard, like a murderous Kirby with a knife and Miku shiteyanyo, both printed on stickers. What I ended up leaving SwampCon with were a few anime shirts, two pair of earrings, and a cute hairband. One thing I was surprised about was that the entire SwampCon was family friendly. Genshiken's conventions focused almost entirely on doujinshi of all kinds. At SwampCon, things weren't just family friendly, but I couldn't find a single fan-made comic for sale.

My second favorite part of SwampCon was the maid cafe! It was nice to sit down and have a bite to eat. Their dances looked very fun, and their outfits were amazing! When I looked more into the maid cafe online, I found out that they made all their own maid costumes and helped each member to sow their own outfit. Considering how the entire convention and cafe food was free, I thought this was pretty impressive.

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nostalgic-blood · 6 years

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so i went to california a few weeks ago and...

No, I didn’t go ham. I had friends who were like “HERE HAVE THIS” and then I had this thing, and later went to a convention and THEN I went ham.

Also this was my first non-family trip so I sort of bought a souvenir anywhere I deemed important enough to do so... America, you took a lot of my money. Oh and Disneyland too.

...also I couldn’t fit some things and forgot others in that top pic.

this wall scroll my cat is trying to destroy

a backpack I bought solely so I was able to even bring all this back, and the posters/prints I STILL needed a friend to ship back anyway...

and this cute koishi i bought, all of three of which were from fanime, yes...

Disneyland souvenirs! A friend (Souless) bought the one of the left. You may have noticed Minnie Mouse ears on the first photo! I didn’t actually get them from Disneyland itself, t’was a gift from our Disneyland veteran who led us to many-a-ride and the least amount of waittime possible, Souless’ fiance Kat. :)

And yes Inside Out is my favourite Pixar movie. Watched Coco recently which was really good, but it’s only second to Inside Out. P:

Let’s start off with my ridiculous friends who decided I needed to own more merch:

All of this was bought by my friend Cannibalfood AKA Akira who went to cons and saw stuff I might like but never got around to actually shipping them to me.. and then, came with me to California and brought this stuff. This is why Negima is on there. It’s been that long.

Oh the non-weeb stuff is souvenirs I got with her while we were in San Fran, including Alcatraz touristy photos since we have few pictures together, a taxidermy place where we each got matching stingray barbs, how romantic. The rock was my very first souvenir. I wasn’t expecting on buying anything else in that shop, so it is the most boring thing here.

Here’s a look at the Touhou artbooks!

One of two CDs, this one with best 2hu on it. I recall from reading the back that one of these has some TAMUSIC on it, which has lovely classical pieces.

Here’s a semi-random page with some artwork. I recognize some of the artists!

The other one! I cannot read anything in these books, and yes there’s plenty of text as well as the art.

Some sample of the art! I’ll have to revisit these books later but from first glance I think I prefer the art of the first book? Idk.

Next is stuff given to me by various people. The gacha is from Magus, the guy who I stayed at for about half the trip and spent the entire trip WITH since he also went down to SLO and I also shared hotels with him for Fanime. Awesome host, will do again. 10/10. I have another button from someone else but I accidentally included it wit my fanime merch pile photos, so it’ll be along shortly.

The dreamcatcher was made by SlimeMush’s friend who I paid $10 for, and for some mysterious reason it kept being returned to him every time he tried to send it to me. I couldn’t get a good pic of it alone because my cat kept attacking the feathers. SlimeMush also gave me the Flareon button! Apparently all the Eeveelutions he had went to those whose favourite was so-and-so, and apparently there’s equal amounts of love for all of them except for the two he kept himself because he loved them the most. Yes. Flareon is my favourite. :D

The gacha is a ditto + a ditto version of Sableye.

This Monster Hunter blindbox was given to me by Wolfe, whom I’ve had a few MonHun merch exchanges with so far. I also gave him a MonHun figure from another line, which I’ll elaborate further (because I gave them all out similar to SlimeMush giving out the Eeveelution buttons) and kept whichever was left behind. This is Monoblos! I didn’t fight him all too often so I don’t have much impression of it as a monster, also I thought he was white but w/e, still very cool looking to add to my collection!

Now of all my loot THIS is the stuff I really could have done without in terms of when and where I spent my money. I bought that Incineroar evolution line figure sort of on a whim at a random city in the middle of nowhere, California while on the long drive down to SLO. The Touhou blindboxes, Digimon CD, and RWBY manga came from Kinokuniya in Japantown. Just wanted to buy them because. Even if the Tri series was mediocre in the end the nostalgia still has a strong grip on my heart, especially that music with Kouji Wada. ;_;

And the most touristy thing was buying this wind chime at a gift shop in a spa that I really didn’t need but it was pretty so w/e.

See? Pretty.

The results of the blindboxes. Not the luckiest result as I wanted other characters but you CANNOT SAY NO TO WEEB MERCH!

As much as I have been distancing myself from the show, RWBY’s manga has wondrous art. It also decided to focus on some random unknown side character named Ruby instead of the main characters, which I thought while was quite the bold move, was rather refreshing.

DELICIOUS WEISS BACKSTORY. I recall posting something about this particular chapter on here before. YEEEEE!

So yeah I went to the island prison in San Francisco where AAAAAALL the tourists go. In my defence I have a genuine interest in prisons. Just ask my 300k RWBY fanfiction in which the first quarter of it is set in a prison. It is also not my first prison fic. I put lots of research in that setting to write that kind of shit.

Also all the souvenirs were the most gimmicky things possible that I didn’t think I’d ever use or would just be paperweight. Except this bag! I may actually use this bag! I know!

And excluding the stuff that is too big or I forgot to take a pic of near the beginning of the post, THIS was the Fanime loot! Magus got me the Monokuma onesie which was extremely nice of him and now I am no longer perpetually cold. Ah yes the warmth of the hide of a psychotic bear. So good.

I could not believe the artist who made one of my favourite Aya pics EVER was at the artist alley. I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT. Obviously this was an instant purchase. This was my phone background for the longest of times. She had Touhou artbooks too but they sold in the first twenty minutes of the first day of the artist alley. Wow. My friend may try to snag me some at AX in July, so here’s hoping!

I didn’t see a lot of specifically Weiss prints there, and this was the best of the lot IMO. My only wish was that it was a brighter print, or that Weiss herself being so white would stand out more because it’s the least noticeable thing on my wall atm, which is a shame.

I say this when I saw precisely ONE Aya print (jackpot) and one of another coming up in this bombardment of pics.

THIS IS PERHAPS THE MOST PROVOCATIVE ONE HERE LOL. But it was the only Tenko, and DRV3 merch was the most difficult of everything I was looking for to find. Unlike 95% of Tenko art SHE ACTUALLY HAS VISIBLE ABS HERE, which according to the official artbooks she’s supposed to have, so bonus points for that. I had a brief discussion with the artist too and we both agreed Tenko was the best and Ouma was overrated. He has great taste.

Overwatch on the other hand was all over the place in this con, from merch to art, to cosplayers. There were so many cosplayers they didn’t even have enough time to run through half of the tanks and all the supports at the shoot! So sad, so sad. This piece of Widowmaker is beautiful though, so I had to have it.

I saw this online a while back and really loved this image of all the Overwatch ladies being formal. There was a suit-version too, but for whatever reason I preferred this one. Sadly this print is quite small, as it probably would have benefited the most in being larger what with the many characters and thus detail.

Out of all this mess the one thing I wanted the most and hunted for the most was charms. I found NO GOOD CHARMS that fitted my taste and interest, and the closest were these buttons. Oh, and I met my good friend Raphyninja at Fanime and he gave me EXCLUSIVE RAPHYNINA MERCH! Thus that button being here and not in the friendo pile. ANYWAY. There was a deal, 3 for 5, so aside from the obvious ones I grabbed Kork. I love Kork. I didn’t think I would for that type of character, but somehow DRV3 managed it. He will of course be very far away from Tenko and Himiko though. >_>

Here’s a page from one of the Touhou doujins I got, which in hindsight I maybe should not have got? Way too late I noticed that I recognized the seller who I think showed up on a Tumblr post warning of a creeper at the Touhou shoots. He’d try to take pics of cosplayers in a private hotel room at weird, uncomfortable angles as far as I remember, so uh, oops? I was just so excited at finding Touhou doujin for the first time ever that I paid zero attention to the person selling so hopefully I am wrong and they were just someone that resembled that person.

Also I recognized this artist for their cute Satori Koishi content, but could not find any of their Koishi doujins. Sadness.

I bought two Monster Hunter blindboxes at Fanime because CLEARLY I need more, right. I got a Nargacuga, including the box left remaining in the pile I gave away and the one I already have... I now have three Nargacugas. That’s quite a lot for something I never fought before...

I also got this tiny Zinogre. If we include my buttons I have FOUR Nargacugas now and FOUR Zinogres. The difference is I have fought Zinogre multiple times (I have no idea exactly because I have 600 hours in 4U >_>) and actually really like him! Sadly, in grand tradition like the last time I visited San Francisco (when I was five) I lost something, that being my favourite MonHun button, Zinogre. It is now in the wild with my teddy bear and my hat, forever gone in the California abyss. ):

I got this at the swap meet for 6 dollars. It may not have a stand and is rather dusty, but damn is that a bargain. My only regret is not having the GIGA DRILL BREAKAAAA model instead. I also got that Monokuma bag there too, but that was just because I went there and couldn’t find a single thing I wanted until I saw the bag, which I was on the fence on but wanted to buy SOMETHING from there and got it, thinking that was it ... but then this and the Touhou doujins showed up, soooooo...

Finally this other Nargacuga that was left behind became my monster in that line of figures, the rest in the hands of my friends. It’s actually cuter than I expected, and barely fit in this cheap crappy display case I bought at a Daiso. I moved my dresser a nudge and the Pokemon fell over, so yeah.

You may have noticed a drop in quality in the photos and that’s because I cannot be bothered to touch up such a gargantuan amount of images anymore, not with the time I have. Would be nice tho. SO, THAT IS THE GIANT POST OF SPOTTO’S MERCH, NOW WITH 100% MORE QUANTITY THAN BEFORE! I spent too much money so I might as well get something out of it by BRAGGING about it! Right?

Ye.

#spotto's merch #too much stuff to tag not even going to bother #not all of it can even fit in this one image too!#and I forgot stuff to include as well!

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illuminatingcomics · 7 years

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I miss you!

It’s too late. It was only a matter of timebefore this happened. Out of cash, out of a job, out of my house, I only have thisplace where to vent out. I don’t want to supplicate for help, or bore you withmy sad story, I only want to open your eyes, be honest for once. This blog, andall the work published on it, was just a desperate attempt to fight back thegrowing insanity that overwhelmed my mind ever since I‘ve learned about thetruth…

And the truth, you shall learn, if you’rewilling to listen.

It’sa well known fact that Marvel experienced a terrifying financial crisis in themid nineties. Corporate greed and shady business practices saw Marvel’s stock value collapse; shares once worth$35.75 each in 1993 had sunk to $2.375 three years later. The market crashed.Retailers lost their shops, speculators jumped ship, and titles that soldmillions because they had twenty-three variant cover plated in gold and withattached trading card now sold only a few thousand copies. It was hell, and inthe back alleys of Wall Street, executives and editors were ready to cut eachother throat to salvage what little was left. Neil Gaiman compared it to thetulip mania, when back in the 17th century, the price of tulip bulbsexploded only to drastically collapse in 1637.

Now, what happened after?How did Marvel survive? The official version of the narrative tells us theyremained afloat selling the movies rights for some of their biggest and mostremunerative franchises (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, the Sub-Mariner), before finallyentering the Disney family in 2009, other meat for the unstoppable everconsuming grinder that company became. But that’s not the real reason. I knowthe real reason. I saw the real reason.

I worked as an intern forMarvel from 2002 to 2003. It was a strange period in the company’s history.Modern classics like Grant Morrison’s New X-Men and Millar’s Ultimates were published side by side with stuff like Marville and that War Machine book madeentirely of 3D models. You could tell by entering their offices that editorsweren’t giving second thoughts to any idea, threw everything on the wall to seewhat stuck, a process that resulted in both masterpieces and ugly catastrophes.

I said I was an intern, Iwas more like a glorified janitor, paid in food stamps to empty out the trashcans, make photocopies, walk out Perlmutter’s pet South Pacific cannibal, andstuff like that… I’ve never met anyone important, so if you’re expecting astory about certain famous writers being secretly lizard people, I’m sorry, thisis not it. I’ve only ever crossed roads with Joe Quesada, and aside form hisconstant need to gift me autographed copies of the issues of Ninjak he did in1993, everything was normal… everything, not everyone. There was an editor.This man… he’s why I’m writing this.

Howard Gardner was his name,but you won’t find it printed in the credits of any book, I assure you. Yet hewas an editor, that was his role. Asking around the building, I’ve learned thathe had been working at Marvel since before the bubble burst, but only oversawfew, scattered books. Apparently he was the guy that came up with the basicideas for Avataars:Covenant of the Shield, Fantastic Four: Unlimited, and he hadghost written at least two issues of Uncanny X-Men… you know the ones.People didn’t like working with him, writers didn’t like talking to him,artists didn’t like the notes he put on their pages, yet, in an era of constantbudget cuts and people losing their job, he was still part of Marvel’s staff.

He was a tall, lanky man,of an auburn complexion, maybe… I say that because there’re few things abouthim I can accurately describe. Something about him slips away from my mind, Ican’t put a face to a voice, can’t connect it all to a name, and I’ve met himseveral times. The harder I try to remember the less I do… or perhaps, I simplydon’t want to remember, as if my memories are protecting me from something. There was a certain oddness about the way he behaved, and the requestshe made at every editor’s meeting, all promptly ignored by the rest of thosepresent. Now, you think he was asking for something gruesome and horrifying,but knowing the graphic shit Marvel published in their MAX line, would youreally believe they wouldn’t have the stomach for something in particular? No,his requests were just strange.

“I want Black Widow tofight iridescent orbs” he told a writer, “Make the furniture blue, it’s myfavourite colour” he asked a colorist, referring to an inconsequentialapartment shown during a fight scene. Just bizarre non sequiturs like those, atevery meeting when he wasn’t pitching some outlandish stupid book. He behavedlike he wasn’t entirely there, the best way I can describe it is that he actedlike a tourist from another country, that didn’t know anything about thecustoms of the area, but still tried his best to awkwardly fit in.

Eventually I got used tomost of Howard Gardner’s strangeness, but one thing I just couldn’t wrap myhead around were his visits to Marvel’s “boiler room”. Sometimes he went downthere two or three times a day, sometimes once every few weeks, and neverfailed to announce it. “I’m going to the boiler room everybody!” he woulddeclare, sometimes in the middle of a meeting, standing up and marching out theroom. Nobody seemed to care, or at least, they pretended not to care. I triedto ask Quesada once, and he just replied “He’s a funny guy like that” beforehanding me over issue #3 of Sword ofAzrael.

Such was my morbid curiosity, that oneday, after yet another announcement, I decided to follow him. He didn’t takethe elevator to reach the boiler room, but stairs. I waited five or six minutebefore chasing after him, as cautiously as possible. He was already about fourfloors lower than me, so I kept that distance, walking by the wall rather thanthe rails, only once in a while peering out to ensure he hadn’t notice me. So Iwalked, and I walked, and I walked… after several minutes I began to wonderjust how deep could Marvel’s basement be? We were already far below ground level,and yet we kept moving. I had no idea the building was that big, and thefurther down I went, the more the environment started showing signs of decay,and disuse, like nobody had been there for years, or decades… It gradually shifted, looking more and moredecrepit, walls covered in incomprehensible, ruined graffiti, garbage coatingthe floor, huge, old stacks of Jim Lee’s X-Men #1 stuffed inthe corners. The air was filled with a stale and odd smell, a mixture ofvinegar and paper, it made my eyes watery and my mouth dry, but still, I moveddown, as an unpleasant, sweaty warmth surrounded me.

Finally, the stairs ended, and only onelong, shadowed corridor appeared in front of my eyes, scarcely lit by orangetinged lamps. No trace of Gardner,he just vanished in the darkness. There was a noise, a rhythmic noise,reverberating in the air. The shuffling of pages, of a book, no, many books, anarmy of people skimming through hundreds of books, all at once. It wasstrangely hypnotic, and I began following it, carefully moving across thecorridor.

The floor was wet. Puddles of a wateryblack liquid covered it. The intense smell I perceived in my descent was allaround, and I finally identified it as the acute scent of ink. Shreddedcomicbook pages were all around, so utterly cut up and ruined I couldn’t tellwhich issues they were from.

I proceeded across thecorridor, and it seemed to stretch out without end. The further I went, thedeeper the ink lake turned. I was in it up to my ankles, when finally, afterthe seemingly endless walk, I reached a single iron door, left ajar. The boilerroom. The heat was unbearable, coating me like a blanket in the summer. I wasviscous and sticky with sweat, so thirsty my throat was sore, yet, I entered,following the noise, constantly skimmingin the my ears.

It was dark inside, Icouldn’t see anything, but still I understood, the place was bigger, muchbigger than it had any right to be. It was as if I was entering an entirelydifferent building, another place, better yet, another world. The floor was a dense, gooey swamp of ink and soaked paper, the airbasically unbreathable, polluted by the toxic smell of industrial paint. I tookjust a few steps forward into the alien world, and the marsh reached my knees. I stopped, gazed into the darkness… and I saw Gardner. He was far away,and the entire lower portion of his body, from the belt down wasn’t visible:he was immersed in the ink… I have to wonder now, was it really ink, orsomething else? And if it wasn’t, then what?

I shivered, glaring at the scene. Gardner had his arms up. He was looking atsomething. I narrowed my eyes, looked up, saw nothing at all.

Then, it moved. That nothing, was everything. Therewas a shape, filling the void, in its entirety. It was grandiose andstupendous, it was horrifying and atrocious. I couldn’t comprehend anythingabout its anatomy, it was as if a thousands sails moved at unison, shifting inspace, like billions of pages stacked one on top of the other. The rhythmicshuffling belonged to it, the supernatural, diseased sound of its existence.

If it had eyes, I can’t tell. If it had consciousness,or it was just an endless sea of living flesh, I can’t tell. It was ancient andunending, primeval masterpiece of a bygone era. It existed long before anyonecould recount, it filled our dreams and our nightmares. It was the reason ofthe company’s endurance. It was its protector. The god they had swore to serve.And it, in turn, served them. It was Marvel.

The moments that followed were a blur. I barely hadthe time to contemplate my insignificance in the greater cosmic theatre and wetmyself before I decided to run. Out of the boiler room, out of the building,out of the city, out of the goddamned country. Some would say I am coward, andit’s true, because in front of that archaic force, we’re all cowards.

It’s been fourteen years. Itried morphine, I tried cocaine, I tried coke. I still cannot forget. The imagesare burned in my mind. Mocking the thing with silly internet edits was my wayof fighting its power, and maintain my sanity, but it’s not enough anymore. Ah!It was never enough to begin with, and anonymity only got me so far. I believethey found me. I realize now the truth about Howard Gardner. More than a man,more than an editor, he was an instrument of its hateful design. He saw meescape, and he’s been looking for me, hunting me down every waking moment hewasn’t busy green lighting projects like Marvel DIVAS and Curse of the Mutants.

Theend is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery bodylumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, the hand! Thewindow! The window!

#ask #october #marvel

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green-makakas · 7 years

Text

Cosplay, Fanart and Plagiarism

(gif curtesy to Mel)

TL;DR: An artist traced (!) my cosplay photo without permission, gave me zero credits, sold the prints at a con and denied she’s ever seen my photo. First, both of us, the cosplayer and the photographer, want to say that it would never have come to this if the artist would have immediately apologized to us in person, instead of being extremely rude to us and letting things escalate. A simple sorry and taking down the prints would’ve sufficed. In the beginning of January, being hyped with the new SU episodes, I immediately fell in love with Blue Diamond and cosplayed her. Two months ago, a friend let me know that an artist she saw drew a fanart based on my photo. I was extremely flattered and happy, but also kinda sad the artist gave me zero credits. Us cosplayers and photographers work really hard to get a nice result, and everyone is happy when their photo serves as an inspiration for another artwork. I wrote a letter to her stating that I love her art, but I’d like her to credit me as a source of inspiration (adding the screen shot). For two months, there was silence. I tried it again a few weeks ago, but again, no response. Okay, what can you do…

Last weekend we had a big con in Germany with a huge artist alley and both of us, the photographer and the cosplayer, attended. Suddenly, a friend came to us and said that there’s a girl selling this exact drawing. We were puzzled and decided to go to her booth and look at it ourselves.

Now, I added a gif our friend Mel made of her drawing and my photo overlapping. She didn’t really use me as a reference or an source of inspiration: she simply TRACED my photo. The changes she added to it are minimal! We went to her booth, showed her the photo and asked her to explain this: Why didn’t she ask us if it was okay? Why didn’t she answer two of my messages? And finally, why was she selling it? The artist answered that she’d never seen this photo in her life and she had no idea what we were talking about. Now, dumbfounded by the obvious lie, we asked her to cut it out and to explain herself honestly. She was very rude, didn’t even look us in the eyes and repeated numerous times that she’d never seen this photo, never seen my message and that she wants us to leave right now. We asked her how it could be then, that our photo and her picture were identical down to the folds on the fabric. She avoided answering, flatout refused to continue the discussion and told us to contact her via e-mail instead. No, we said, we are standing right in front of you, so please talk to us now, especially since we had already tried to contact her online.

Then she changed her story and admitted that she HAD seen my message after all, but was too busy preparing for this convention and thus couldn’t answer. Please note: she was contacted TWO whole months before the convention, so naturally we were having none of it. Later on, she changed her story once again and said that she didn’t understand my message bc it was in English and that’s why she hadn’t answered. This whole time, she continued to state that SHE HAD NEVER SEEN MY PHOTO IN HER LIFE. And by god, she was so rude… all in all, the whole thing was very disappointing and disheartening. Seeing as we had no chance to even have a constructive dialogue, we went to con helpers, who were so, so, so kind to us! They looked at the photo and asked us what we wanted to happen. We told them we just wanted her to stop selling this exact print here. That it wasn’t okay doing it and it wasn’t okay lying about it.

Now, the con helper responsible for the artist alley went to the artist’s booth, talked to her and asked us to talk it out in their presence. They looked at our photo and the artist’s picture and immediately took our side. Now, it was THE FIRST TIME the artist admitted that, indeed, our photo MAY have been used to for this picture, but not by her. Supposedly, it now was „a collab with a friend“ who did the drawing, while the artist in question only did the coloring, so she wouldn’t know anything about tracing our picture. Since her story has already changed a few times during our first attempt to talk to her, we were rather sceptical of this new excuse, but then again, shit happens, right? And it would explain her denying the absolutely obvious fact of tracing, wouldn’t it? Well, as we found out a few hours later on her twitter (thanks to another friend), back in January, when she posted the picture, she stated in no uncertain terms that she was the one who drew it.

Translation: „I watched the new Steven Universe episodes a few days ago and since then I’ve got „What’s The Use Of Feeling, Blue?“ stuck in my head“ „And that’s why I drew Blue Diamond today in the morning!“ Notice her claiming credit for DRAWING the picture alone (”ich habe gezeichnet” – “I drew”), without mentioning any colab friends. And needless to say, without mentioning us. Now, either she was lying to us about having a colab partner or she’s snubbing not one, but two parties of credit here. We do heavily lean towards the first option, due to the way this excuse emerged only after she had time to come up with one, but the second option doesn’t make her look much better either. But back to the story. Not having seen this tweet at that point, we relucantly bought the story of the colab partner being the one at fault here. The con helpers asked her how much was selling the print for. 12€ per print, people, and of course she’s already sold a few. We ourselves don’t even sell this photo and meanwhile someone was profiting of our hard work like this :( The story ended with the con helper taking ALL of her prints of Blue Diamond and giving them to me so she can’t sell them again (at least, not at this con). I shook the artist’s hand and told her that her drawings were beautiful, she was obviously very talented and SHE DIDN’T HAVE TO DO THIS. She could have asked and I would’ve said yes! I told her I wished her no harm and that I wished her good luck, but this was not okay and as an artist, she should understand this. I really wish the message came through, but, sadly, she showed zero remorse. She didn’t even apologize, but whatever. * Now. There are a lot of people who have used our photos as references in the past, but they usually ask beforehand and ALWAYS credit us properly. Nothing makes me happier than to inspire other people with my art. It’s a huge compliment to us as cosplayers and photographers. All the person has to do is to simply ask! It is NOT okay to TRACE a photo and to SELL the result with minimal changes… especially not witout permission. It’s just not. My artwork may be used as a reference, but it’s NOT A STOCK PHOTO and not „just“ a reference for art students or aspiring artists. Cosplay and cosplay photpgraphy are also an artform and there’s a lot of effort and money that goes into it! For this Blue Diamond shoot, we:

1) Put effort into developing the idea 2) Bought fabric and made the costume 3) Styled the wig 4) Did the make up 5) Worked on the studio set up 6) Worked on the lightning set up 7) Put thought into compostion and expression of the photo 8) Took the photo 9) Edited the photo

It is NOT A SIMPLE „CLICK“ OF THE CAMERA. We put sweat and blood into this because, same as fanartists, we are huge SU fans and we wanted to honor the amazing new episodes. In no way did I think someone would simply trace my photo and make profit of it without asking me. Of course, I do not own BD, her design or whatever. But this doesn’t mean that what I created isn’t an artwork within its own right and can be freely traced and sold without permission! The changes the artist made in her „drawing“ were minimal and nothing was changed in the concept, the composition, the idea or the artistic expression of the shot.

There’s always a shit storm in the community when someone reposts an artwork without crediting the artist or when people are reposting without credits for internet points, and rightfully so. Here it’s not just about internet recognition, it’s about actual monetary profit. So I do think it’s understandable that we’re deeply upset about this. This is not, in any way or form, some „Cosplayers vs Fanaritsts” discussion, it’s an „Artist vs Plagiarism“ problem. So please, please, PLEASE, just ask if you want to use someone’s photo, give them credit, show them your work! They’ll be so happy, flattered and proud! Don’t be like this artist… the situation here was entirely avoidable and caused unnecessary pain for everyone involved.

Regardless of the upsetting situation, we really want to thank all friends (and strangers) who showed us support! It was incredibly important and reassuring. Biggest thanks go, of course, to Mel who first notified us of the situation and helped us greatly in solving it! And so many props to convention helpers! We’re thankful beyond words!

#steven universe #cosplay #blue diamond #plagiarism

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mixietrattel · 7 years

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In case anyone was wondering about my drag con experience!!!

So this is going to be all based off of memory, which is in no way completely reliable so I’m probably going to be missing a few details but basically I just want to outline my experience/what it was like meeting the queens/how the convention was set up.

So day one Kayla and I arrived around 9, and they bring all of the non-VIP badge holders to the bottom floor to wait in a giant room. They started letting us in slowly, so a chunk of the line would go up at a time. Luckily we were the second group, so when we got up to the convention floor it wasn’t very busy yet. We were planning on seeing Shea first, but most queens weren’t at their booths yet so we decided to go to Raja and Manila’s line. As we were walking by though, we saw the beautiful Serena Cha Cha at her booth. We were in a rush so we didn’t stop to say hi, but she was super sweet saying like “hi girls how are you have a good drag con!” When we got to Raja and Manila’s line it was decently long and both of the queens were there. As we were waiting though, Raja had to go to the winner’s walk for the opening ceremony. The handler said that everyone could stay in line if they wanted to wait, or form a different line to meet Manila alone. Kayla and I had both met Raja before so we decided to just see Manila. She was so kind, and when I told her my poster was going to be the first one signed with my name (I have two signed ones I bought off of her website) she went “Oh! I’ll sign the back too then!” and proceeded to write my name on the back, so I joked and said “Awesome now it’ll be all over my white walls,” and she just went “oops.” Manila was amazing though, and I’ve been dying to meet her since she’s one of my all time favorites.

Next we went to go see Alexis Michelle because she was a top priority for me and I wanted to get a specific t-shirt from her. The line for her wasn’t bad either, probably less than ten minutes. When I went to buy the shirt before getting in line the guy told me they were all sold out and I guess I looked disappointed/Alexis overheard because she paused with the guest I was talking to and told me that the artist who designed the shirt was at the con and was selling prints of it if I wanted it and told me not to worry. I ended up getting a pretty 8x10 and getting back in line. Alexis was so so sweet and we talked about when she came to my school last year and there was an alt-righter trying to speak, and counter protests, which led to a glass door of the building we were in being smashed. Good memories. Our pic was super cute and she kept hugging me, I love my Auntie Alexis.

I think we went to go try to see Violet next, but she was walking a show at fashion week that day so she wouldn’t be there for a couple of hours, so we bought meet and greet passes for $5 each that we could redeem to get into a priority line. After that we went to go see Laila. Renee Martel was running her merch stand so I chatted with her about seeing her at Rhode Island Pride and Laila’s merch. She probably had the coolest stuff and the most variety, including old prints, little pins, an enamel pin (which I bought and wore day 2 idk if you can see it in pics), and 8x10′s. Her line was decently long, and while we were waiting to meet her we ran into these two women promoting a documentary on Boston drag that Laila was going to be in. The director was SO sweet and enthusiastic, and has been working on the project for over four years so I’m definitely going to post about it when I get more information. Laila’s line took I wanna say 30 minutes and then we got to meet her. We chatted about Keith Haring and other stuff, she was really cool and is super funny.

Pretty sure after Laila we went to go say hi to Biblegirl and check out the dragqueenmerch table. Bible was just kind of chilling in this little alley between two main alleys with Rubber and Lisa. She wasn’t talking to anyone, so we just went right up to her. Bible was probably the sweetest person we talked to all day. She was asking so many questions and kept saying how she was so happy to meet fans and did this all for us. We got to chat with the guy who designed her outfit that day, which was cool. Kayla and Bible bonded over their Libra-ness aka their messiness online. I asked her to tell Soju to get her ass over to the convention because at that point it was two hours in and she wasn’t there, so Bible told us exactly how to sneak into Soju’s gig that night. Again, messy but the absolute sweetest.

After Bible we went to Bob’s line, but Bob was on break so it was stagnant for a while, which was fine. She was probably the first queen we waited over an hour for, but as a winner it was worth it. I didn’t get anything from Bob’s merch stand, so I don’t have anything signed from her unfortunately. Funnily enough while Kayla held down the fort I went to wander around the con looking for Soju who had FINALLY showed up at that point, and I kept seeing Bob literally running around in her little clown costume. I went back to the line and after some more waiting Bob came back. The line moved pretty quickly so we got up to Bob easily enough. Her setup for pictures was a little tight and she had a guy there to take pictures, so I kept apologizing for getting in the way because I had to take pictures for three people, plus get pictures myself. Bob clocked Kayla’s accent and asked if she was Canadian, then turned to me and said “now I KNOW you’re Canadian because you’ve said sorry probably a million times,” and I told her that I was from Rhode Island, and her camera guy came to my defense saying he said sorry a lot too. Bob was a ton of fun to meet.

We wanted to go see Fame after Bob, and on our way I spotted Soju and her team off in a little empty area alone. I quickly yanked Kayla and our little group over and ran up to DS, because I was wearing my Soju shirt and had been DYING to say hi. When Soju saw me/my shirt she got so happy and pulled me into a hug. Then she turned to DS and told him to turn the camera on and all of the sudden she was interviewing me. She asked a bunch of questions and was super sweet, it was really surreal getting to talk to her in person. I didn’t get a picture with her though, so if she edits me out of the episode I’m going to be a little pissed.

After Soju we got in line for Fame and it was.... a mess. We waited for Fame for probably two hours. The line kept getting mixed up and people were jumping in and out. Plus, Fame was in a really heavily trafficked area and had an open setup, so a lot of people were stopping to take pictures and confusing the crowd. By the time we got to Fame we were pretty irritated, but nothing makes Kayla happier than Miss Fame so it was worth it. Fame recognized Kayla immediately so the two of them chatted for awhile, and I snapped a million pics but none of them turned out fantastic. I didn’t chat with her as much but Kayla was having her Laganja moment so I didn’t mind. Fame’s line took so long though that the convention was winding down to a close. We didn’t really have time to go meet another big queen, and I really wanted to see Joslyn who was nearby so we decided to make her our last queen for the day. We went over, and though you didn’t HAVE to buy anything to get a picture with her I really wanted a print so I got one anyway. Joslyn looked adorable but we didn’t really talk much as she was having too much fun dancing around to the music playing. We got a pic though, and Kayla got a video for one of her friends saying Happy Birthday. After that we just left the convention and went home. Day 1 was kind of stressful because the amount of queens was overwhelming, plus the lines were all ridiculous. Even though we both love Shea and Trixie we knew neither of those two were options to meet.

Day 2 we got in around the same time again, and I saw Michelle Visage in line for Starbucks which was a little surreal. Also, Meatball was wandering around dressed like Jackie-O so Kayla got a cute pic with her. We had a list of maybe five queens we wanted to see, and Naomi was up there so we hopped in her line first at like 10. Her people said Naomi would show up at 11, and since the line wasn’t too bad we decided to wait. Naomi got in at 11:30 though, and we still had the passes to go see Violet but she had to leave at 12. So I told Kayla she should just take our Violet pass and go meet Violet with two of her friends already in line, and I’d meet Naomi instead. If I made it in time I would’ve joined them at Violet’s, but it didn’t look like it would work out that way. I ended up talking to a guy in line though, so I wasn’t left completely alone. Brian from Soju’s show was the guy taking pictures for Naomi, so when the person in front of me was taking pics I got to talk to him a bit. When it was my turn, Naomi was so gushing with compliments and incredibly sweet. She told me I was beautiful, and she loved my hair, and all this stuff that was making me blush. She looked stunning in person too, so I was just a mess. Our pic together was probably my favorite from the whole weekend, maybe tied with Bob’s.

Kayla really wanted to meet Laganja and Gia next, and they didn’t have a line because they had closed it off for a break, but decided to stay longer. It cost $30 to meet them, so Kayla was the only one who wanted to do it, plus she got two cute t-shirts so it was worth it. I didn’t really hear what they talked to Kayla about because their camera guy was helping me edit my manual camera settings to better fit their specific lighting setup. He also gave me his flash attachment for my camera, so the pictures turned out really high quality. I didn’t talk to them much though so I don’t have a lot to say, Gia looked STUNNING though (no pun intended).

We got in Peppermint’s line next, which also took over two hours. The wait times were ridiculous, and even though they worked out some kinks by day two the queens kept having to leave their tables so lines would halt for twenty minutes at a time. Kayla and I just hung around in line, and got the same 8x10′s. There were these two little kids who both got Peppermint’s fans who popped them for her, and she was so enamored with them. She kept dancing with them and talking to them, it was adorable. When we went up Peppermint remembered Kayla from the awesome scrapbook she did, so Peppermint was talking about how much it meant to her and holding onto it. Pep had her own camera guy, so we both took pictures. Then I went up and Peppermint was incredibly sweet. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about but she just gives off such a good aura. So did her whole team, they were all so warm and inviting.

After Peppermint’s line we were kind of done with waiting for big queens. Aja’s line was a mess, Shea was charging an intense amount of money, we didn’t even look at Kim’s line. Even Bible had a decent line of people to see her, even though she didn’t have one yesterday. We decided to wander around to see what queens had shorter lines, and after searching all weekend we finally spotted Kimora’s booth. There was no one really there, and the setup was confusing because it was technically one booth split down the middle, one half Kimora’s one half Cynthia’s (who was not present at the time). Kimora was talking to a handler, and it seemed like they were getting ready to leave so I asked the guy behind the table what was up. He said they were going on break and they’d be back in fifteen minutes. I asked if we could wait in line and he looked super confused and said sure, we could wait at the table. We ended up being the only ones there and they left, so we just kind of hung out while she was on break. She didn’t take too long, and seemed really apologetic about making us wait. Her voice was super hoarse too, and she had a water bottle, which was probably why she had to go on break. Kimora was definitely the nicest Ru Girl we met day 2. She told me she was obsessed with my outfit, and we bonded over our love of wearing black. She apologized for her weird booth set up, and we talked about how odd the setup of the convention was. After her the whole day seemed kind of lame because she was just such a bright spot and just the best to talk to.

Kayla and I decided to go back to Bible after that, and waited in line for a few minutes because we’d rather have someone we could talk to than wait two hours for another big queen. Bible was again so cool and chatted with us for a while. We also had to retake pictures because our first day ones did not look so cute. It was just a reminder that drag really isn’t just Ru Girls, and sometimes your local talent is just as if not more interesting.

The convention was almost over, but Kayla had friends waiting in Fame’s line so we went to go join them. Kayla bought another print and I decided I’d rather just take pictures for Kayla, and stopped over at Shea’s booth to pick up a t-shirt that I really wanted. Fame’s look was even more stunning the second day if that’s even possible, and the wait was definitely better the second time around because we joined people instead of standing there the whole time. After Fame I tried to track Soju down to say hi again but the lights were getting shut off so we decided to leave.

Overall, I would say Drag Con was one of the best weekends of my life. I got to finally meet Kayla in person, and was surrounded by a community of people I felt safe and accepted in. There’s no way to really describe the surreal feeling that occurs from being around so many of your idols in one place. Both days when we left and were riding on the subway, our passes dangling from our necks as we were surrounded by normal people again (more often than not staring at our strange ensembles), we kept asking if that was real, because it honestly felt like a dream. Of course there were a lot of downsides. It was expensive, disorganized, the lines were eternal, the lighting was homophobic, and we deprived of food and water all day. Hopefully next year they can sort things out better, and more queens will come since it won’t be so last minute. Maybe with bigger names like Adore, Katya, Willam, and Alaska the Farrah line will be more accessible. I’m honestly counting down the days until Drag Con NYC 2018 is announced.

#this is sooooooo long and mostly for me to remember but basically my weekend experience!!!#drag con

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nuthingoodat4 · 7 years

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Stan Lee’s LA Comic Con 2018

So this past weekend was LA Comic Con or Stan Lee’s LA Comic con. I went into this show a little unprepared as I had hoped to be a vendor at Halloween Con or the Famous Monsters of Halloween Show in San Jose. Unfortunately that show was cancelled due to the Santa Rosa fires. I was able to secure a spot late at LA Comic Con but Comic Con conventions aren’t really my thing so even though I make a comic I wasn’t sure of what to expect or how well my work would be received. I also wasn’t spending so much money upfront as a booth at LA Comic con is way more expensive than a table in artist alley at Halloween Con. The folks at Famous Monsters were so nice and super communicative. I didn’t get the same vibe from LA Comic Con staff. Never the less I booked the show and drove down. LA weather was glorious and it always puts me in a good mood as it seems like a mini vacation. I won’t spend too much time on negative stuff but my name was spelled wrong on the vendor list and when I asked about it I was told that the list wasn’t public. I also didn’t get much info about loading in on the first day or much about where my booth was located other than to look at the map online. The staff was super nice but I’ve never been to this location and never used union workers to load my stuff in before. Anyway I was nervous so I showed up early and load in went smoothly. Unfortunately my name was still spelled wrong on my booth sign. Sigh. I was near the main stage though which seemed like a good location. Day One I met my booth neighbors and they were very welcoming and cool folks. Always a plus to have cool neighbors. They asked if I needed water,even got a bottle for my niece who came down from Pasadena to hang with me. Sweet guys at the Comikaze tee shirt booth. Also awesome were the dudes Braxton and Lawrence at the 3D printer booth next door as well as Karen and her brothers across from me signing up people for extra-life, a fund raising campaign. Really amazing folks all around. With all the love buzzing in our area you would think we would attract all the customers. Well not so much. Alot of lookers but not the best show in terms of sales. Everyone just seemed to show up to cosplay or get autographs from celebrities. I initially thought it was because I was selling comics outside of artist alley. Or maybe I should have been in the small press area but everyone I talked to said their sales were sadly very slow. There were a few exceptions of course. Some booths had lines every day. I had an amazing time and met some wonderful folks. Day Two was better but I Didn’t become a millionaire but at least I had more sales. If I didn’t have hotel costs to cover it would have been a good show for me. I honestly don’t think attendees were there to buy comics. I saw alot of trinkets and poster prints in folks hands.Day Three in the last hour I sold the most. Alot of prints,buttons,stickers and tee shirts. I love LA but I don’t think I’ll do this show again. Even though I have mixed feelings, I had an awesome time with the folks I met. Thank you to Stan Lee who is incredible and Thank you to the staff,organizers and volunteers...and ummm..The Rock for coming by. Love him. Ah so, Here’s to Halloween Con not being cancelled in 2018. I’m looking forward to spending Halloween weekend with you. Here are a few pics. and as always there are more on my flickr page. https://www.flickr.com/photos/storm1sky/albums/72157662119001638

#stanleescomikaze #stanleeslacomiccon #lacomiccon #comics #art #zines #avyjetter #nuthingoodeverhappensat4am #artists #zombies #losangeles

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theartofla · 7 years

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The offices of tHeARTofla.com reside in the lovely city of Pasadena where we are fortunate to enjoy a huge slice of the arts and culture that the greater LA area has to offer. Year-round there can be something interesting to experience in Pasadena.

This August the city hosted another of its public art events (free to the public). For a single day, artwork was installed throughout the Old Pasadena District in public spaces. The works varied greatly in size, scope, vision, and mediums. Many of the works encourage interaction, offering some new and surprising ways for people to engage with the city.

We got the change to speak with one of the planners behind the event Janet Swartz and with an art lover Mia Karnatz-Shifflett who attended BoldPasadena.

Mia Karnatz-Shifflett

DIRECTOR OF MEMBER SERVICES Art lover/Knitting Goddess KCLU

What brought you to the art take over?

A friend read about it in the LA Weekly and it sounded like a great afternoon.

Did you come out with a specific plan?

There was no plan other than to spend the afternoon experiencing art.

Was the art difficult to find?

Everything was very easy to find. The Old Pasadena website had a self-guided tour map and maps were also available at info booths set up throughout the area.

Was there anything about the event that surprised you?

Although I grew up in this area and know the city fairly well, I was surprised that there are so many great spaces in Old Pasadena that are ideal for public art installations. There are a lot of people who don’t visit art museums. I don’t know whether it’s because they don’t feel it’s for them or what. Bringing art installations into free, public spaces is a great way to make it accessible.

Do you feel that there was a nice range of styles and mediums represented?

I loved that the art ranged from whimsical, like Po Yan Leung’s “Walking the Pets,” to practical (Anali Gharakhani’s “Blister”), to the political/environmental messages of Viviana Palacio’s “Displacement of Working Objects” and Asli Tusavul’s “Better as a Color.” Many of the pieces encouraged interaction, which is a leveler that breaks down the notion that art is elitist and inaccessible.

Would you come to an event like this again in Pasadena?

Definitely!

How often do you come to Pasadena and why?

Probably 4 or 5 times a month. Museums, movies, shopping, and visiting family.

What kind of visual art do you often seek out and what kinds of visual arts would you like to see more?

I was fortunate enough to have parents to took us to art museums from the time we could walk so it’s always been an important part of my life. My tastes are broad, although I have a special fondness for the post-impressionists, German Expressionism, mid-century modern design, and light and space artists like James Turrell.

Asli Tusavul “Better as a Color”

Viviana Palacio “Displacement of Working Objects”

Po Yang Leung “Walking the Pets”

Arty Vartanyan & Zenah Sakaamini “Vantage Obscura”

Anali Gharakhani “Blister”

Armory Center for the Arts

Gold Bug

Images courtesy of Mia Karnatz-Shifflett

Janet Swartz Director of Marketing & Events OLD PASADENA MANAGEMENT DISTRICT

How long ago was this event being planned from inception to the day of the event?

We’ve been working on BoldPas for more than 6 months

How did you get the word out?

We ran KCRW radio spots, partnered with various social media outlets, distributed 15K postcards, placed posters in all of our merchant’s windows, and leveraged our own social media accounts. Our merchants (30 of which created Art Stops for the event) were also key in promoting the event to their customers and clients.

Was the event well attended?

It was a hot day and we were thrilled by the turnout. It was a hot day, and a first-time event, but we had nearly 15K views of our Google map, and handed out 5K printed maps of the art locations. The district was really busy all afternoon long and we saw people walking and enjoying the art in every corner and walkway.

How did the walking tours go? Do you feel this was the best way to experience this event?

Julia Long of Pasadena Walking Tours does a great job of preparing and presenting the information. She does extensive research on the history, architecture, our permanent public art, as well as the temporary art installations for BoldPas. We had two tours and both sold-out. The tours are one option for people who really want to know more about Old Pasadena and experience BoldPas in the context of our history and permanent art since only 30 people can take each tour. The number is predicted by Julia’s ability to be heard, and the difficulty in navigating people on the sidewalks and alleys in an already busy downtown.

What was the overall concept behind the art take over?

We wanted to create an event that motivated people to explore our alley walkways and public spaces. Pasadena has a rich arts community from which to draw, and Old Pasadena, in particular, offers the unique network of alley walkways and original historic architecture. BoldPas is the intersection of design, architecture, history, and art. The name came from the idea of presenting something surprising and fresh in Old Pasadena, as well as incorporating bold color, and play in our urban spaces.

How did you find the artists that participated?

We put out a call for submissions and posted it to various websites offering a stipend to the selected artists.

Some of the installations were quite large (“The Rainbow Gates” ), were there any concerns with this and were the artists given creative restrictions?

Yes, we worked closely with the City of Pasadena to permit the event and for them to allow us to place art installations in the public right of way, as well as for the merchants to extend out from their storefronts onto the sidewalk. Our guidelines for submissions were very specific and upheld the public safety and the protection of our historic district above all.

Will this event become annual?

Yes! We are very excited to bring BoldPas back in May 2018.

Would you consider doing it for longer than one day?

We are considering this possibility, but part of the original concept was the ephemeral nature of the one-day takeover and the imperative to get out and see it before it is gone. We will explore all of the options as we look to plan the next edition.

As a person involved in planning many of the art programs in Pasadena, what do you see as your overall objective or vision for the city now and going forward?

I work as Director of Marketing & Events for Old Pasadena, the 22 block historic district. Our goal is to promote Old Pas as a destination and encourage people to discover all of our side streets, parks and alleys. Old Pasadena has 300 ground floor businesses, and nearly 200 of them are independent and local. We want to create memorable experiences and a sense of community and connection in our authentic downtown.

If someone wanted to get involved with events like this or volunteer is there a way for them to participate?

As an artist, look for our call for submissions in February, and/or contact us to offer your services as an artist or creator for our merchant Art Stops. Contact us to volunteer in our info booths, and help set-up for the event.

ABBEY LUCK “The Rainbow Gates”

PAUL HEINTZ “Colorful Cacti”

HOMAGE

SARAH UMLES “Crystal Lucida”

Viviana Palacio “Displacement of Working Objects”

ANALI GHARAKHANI “Blister”

ASLI TUSAVUL “Better as a Color”

Arty Vartanyan & Zenah Sakaamini “Vantage Obscura”

If you live in the area or visit we highly recommend checking the website for OldPasadena to find out about more events of this kind in the future.

MORE ABOUT THE WORKS

ASH CANO “Rose Garden” – A structural yet playful installation that has an interactive component: Passersby can “pluck” the six-foot flowers – crafted from painted PVC pipe, cardboard, and fabric – and pose with the roses for a photo op. ashcano.com

ANALI GHARAKHANI “Blister” – Consisting of seven compressed cardboard spheres that have gone through a process of deconstruction, “Blister” is interactive, allowing visitors to rearrange them at will and use them to sit and lounge. analigharakhani.com

L.L. KESSNER “Macro/Micro Waves” – Playing with water imagery and cosmic representation, the tissue paper “tapestry” calls to mind a hanging sea of brightly colored blue waves and the pattern of microwave radiation that permeates the entire universe. The piece toys with a pun of water waves and microwaves, mixing the celestial with the silly. llkessner.com

PO YANG LEUNG “Walking the Pets” – A whimsical papier-mache installation that imagines Old Pasadena’s pet scene in a new way. The pets were from 18” to 36” tall – a size meant to encourage interaction with visitors. poyanleung.com

ABBEY LUCK “The Rainbow Gates” – Recyclable and brightly colored large streamers are strung across an urban alleyway to create seven inverse rainbows, which dance in the breeze and make a colorfully visual impact across a large space. abbeyluck.com

VIVIANA PALACIO “Displacement of Working Objects” – Evoking Pasadena’s history as a citrus grove capital, the installation places together found wooden orchard ladders and now cast off for their lightweight aluminum counterparts — a testament to a former place and time. vivianapalacio.wordpress.com

PAUL HEINTZ “Colorful Cacti” – Colorful Cacti showcases 200 brightly colored papier-mache cacti, some of them standing upwards of seven feet tall, bringing a showy garden to an urban alley. localstudiola.com

ZENAH SAKAAMINI & ARTY VARTANYAN “Vantage Obscura” – A visual and interactive exploration of color, perspective, and light, the installation features simple yarn and translucent colored film woven throughout a wooden framework of six 8-foot cubes. Shifting playful views are created as the viewer walks around and inside of the art work. zenahsakaamini.com and arty-v.com

ASLI TUSAVUL – “Better as a Color” Serving as both a commentary on the environmental consequences of plastic straws and how small individual elements form urban spaces, “Better as a Color” comprises thousands of straws sewn together and strung in rows across a 50-foot pre-fabricated steel frame. The straws will move with the wind and people passing by, colliding continuously and creating an unexpected, gentle “voice.” aslitusavul.com

BoldPas Art Takeover in Pasadena The offices of tHeARTofla.com reside in the lovely city of Pasadena where we are fortunate to enjoy a huge slice of the arts and culture that the greater LA area has to offer.

#BoldPas

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