KILLING WIL (a dramatic screenplay by Chun Chih and Wilson)

I swear the dumbassary of these two feeds my soul | Cr

"Bad together"

Prologue: Benjamin Reilly

Peter Parker x Reader

General audiences

Warnings: none.

"And if I'm dead to you

Why are you at the wake?

Cursing my name, wishing I stayed"

My tears ricochet - Taylor Swift

"... It's a disaster! Look at her! It's like someone took a look at Black Cat, selected everything that made her sexy and then took it out!"

Black Cat. The name froze the young photographer on his tracks right outside his boss' office. He hadn't heard that name in a long time, the last sighting had been well over a year ago. He would know.  After all, it had been him, the very last person to have seen Felicia Hardy, alive or dead.

"What are you talking about? That looks hot af, not to mention badass!" Jade's persuasive voice reached his ears, making him smirk: It was no secret the chief editor had a soft spot for the young intern. And, on her part, the petite brunette was a firecracker. Poor old Jameson didn't stand a chance. "Come on, dad. Single handedly taking down three of the Kingpin's goons? That's impressive. It deserves to be one of the slides!" 

"Not if we don't get a higher quality picture. That blurry video is good enough for a thumbnail, but not for a slide" Slides were a big deal, they were the Dailybugle.net's equivalent of a front page, and if J. Jonah Jameson took something seriously, it was his web site. He prided himself in the quality of the "receipts" of his "tea", as if that validated the trashiness of the bullshit articles he posted, more fiction from hyper imaginative wannabe writers than serious work from real reporters. 

"Well, then let's get the pictures. Where is that star photographer of yours?" 

The photographer rolled his eyes, typical Jade. As if the queen of cool didn't know his name. As if she hadn't graced his bed a handful of times already. 

"That's a good question. Dolores, get me Reilly!"

"I'm here, Jonah" Ben finally stepped inside the office, throwing an envelope on Jameson's desk before throwing himself on a chair across it. He could feel Jade's eyes on him, almost like a physical caress, trailing from the long, slick back curls on the top of his head, to the muscles of his arms, threatening to rip open the seams at the sleeves of his white t-shirt, to his jean clad thighs. Still, he didn't turn to look at her, refusing to give her the satisfaction. 

"What do you have for me today, boy?"

Ben gesticulated vaguely with his head in the direction of Jade, and Jameson caught the hint. 

"Jade, out!" 

"But, dad, my story!" The petulant reply left her mouth before she could stop it, undoubtedly the product of years of habit. But she had the grace to look embarrassed and leave the office without another word, trying to save whatever professionalism she had left. 

Once she was gone, Jameson opened the envelope, flipping through the various pictures of a masked figure swinging around New York in a black and red suit. 

"Hmmm… these are good" the older man praised, staring at the images of a frustrated robbery at 5th avenue

Ben snifled nocomitically,

"There was a fire at 16th avenue happening at the same time" He offered, "we could use that. Spider-Man forgets his roots and leaves his old neighborhood to fend for itself, running off to save some pretty socialite…"

"Oh, that is excellent! See, this is why I like you, kid. You have initiative. Unlike these snowflakes out there. Oh, but Spider-Man is a hero. Hero, my ass"

"Well, when you watch your so called hero sit back and do nothing as your life gets destroyed" Ben shrugged, "the rose colored glasses tend to fall off…"

Jameson made a face at that,

"Yeah, about that… I'm sorry. For the role the Daily Bugle played on that…"

Ben shook his head, 

"You thought you were getting the truth out there. It's not your fault to have been played, along with half the world. Plus," he added, sounding genuinely enthusiastic, "you gave me this job. And now we can really tell the truth"

"Even when our idea of the truth is somehow different" The older man scoffed, flipping around a picture of Spider-Man sat on what appeared to be a hammock of his own webs, eating a hamburger and reading something that looked suspiciously like a comic book, "Still hung up on that high schooler theory of yours?"

"Well, if it talks like a brat and acts like a brat…" Ben took out another envelope, this time containing a few burger king wrappers and, effectively, a spider-man comic book. 

"Where did you even get these?"

"Harlem" was Ben's curt reply, and Jameson knew that was as exact a location as he was going to get. 

"So you still believe this is a copycat? Some kid playing dress up"

Ben simply shrugged again. 

"Well, there seems to be an epidemic of those lately" Jameson admitted, indicating Ben to come closer, passing a tablet to him, "Jade just handled me this, take a look"

Ben took a deep breath, steeling himself, already knowing what he was going to see in it. Yet, a part of him couldn't help but hope to be wrong. To hope the silver haired figure facing three much bigger, stronger looking ones as he pressed play, wasn't the same one he had spent weeks memorizing last summer. Wasn't the body he had found solace in, when everything fell apart, once again, for the hundredth time in his life. 

To hope it wasn't you. 

But when in his twenty-two or so years of existence, had things ever gone his way? 

Ben felt the screen crack under his fingertips.

"I've heard of her" he lied through his teeth, "didn't even think she was real, to be honest. Extremely elusive, and cunning." That much was true, "I don't understand how something as mundane as a security camera managed to catch her…" 

Unless you wanted to be caught, that was. 

"Well, I don't care if she's the fucking Loch Ness monster, I want an HD picture of her on my desk tomorrow to go with Jade's article. I already have a headline: New Catastrophe Jen wreaks havoc on Hell's Kitchen" Jameson's eyes lit up with glee as he weaved his hands up in the air, like writing on an invisible marquee. 

Ben snorted

"Don't you mean Calamity Jane?"

Jameson's face fell, the color rising to his cheeks, characteristic vein popping on his forehead. 

"I meant what I meant, boy! Now, what are you still doing here? You have 24 hours to get me that picture"

"I'm going to need 72," came Ben's unphased reply, "and I want twice what you pay me for the spidey pics"

Jameson's vein looked about ready to explode,

"48 hours. And deal."

Ben jumped from his seat and bolted out of the office before his boss could change his mind, not realizing until it was too late that he was on a collision course with a sweet looking short haired blonde girl. 

"Watch where you're going! Jeez!"

"Me? You're the one who crashed against me!" 

Ben rolled his eyes, but crouched next to the girl anyway, helping her gather the papers that had been sent flying on impact back together.

"Peter? Oh my god, is that you?"

Of course. What an idiot, he should had recognized that annoying, shrilly voice the second he heard it. It had caught him off guard, something he knew he couldn't afford. But how could he had ever imagine he could run into Betty fucking Brant, Yale cum laude, in the freaking dailybugle.net headquarters of all places?

"Sorry, sweetheart. You must confuse me with someone else…" He mumbled, lowering his head even more in a vain attempt to hide his face.

"Of course not!" She insisted, "You're Peter, Peter Parker, we went to Midtown together!"

"Miss, I have no idea what you're talking about…"

"Don't be silly, Peter!" She chuckled, completely deft to his tone or the way his whole demeanor had changed the second she had called him by the old name. "How have you been? Oh, just wait until I tell Ned, he's going to be so-"

CRACK.

At last, the tablet that had been in peril ever since Jameson had put it in Ben's hands, the one that contained his assignment, met its demise, both broken halves falling to the ground, along with all the papers he had picked up for Betty. It was several moments before he could get the shaking of his hands under control, before the tar black rage inside him subsided enough for him to be able to move without shifting. But it had.

"Peter Parker is dead." He deadpanned, dark brown eyes finally meeting Betty's stunned blue ones, "Tell Ned that, he'll probably be glad to hear it"

With that, he stood up and walked away, leaving a confused and agitated Betty behind. 

To be continued...

Whatever It Takes : RELOADED

Ghost fights his hurt feelings and discovers something in the process. Could this be the key to locating Samantha?

Table of Contents

Previous Chapter : Delayed Flight

Chapter 18 to another story made by Ray (echo-three-one) Comments and Reviews appreciated! I hope you enjoy! Love you all ❤️

Lurking in the Shadows

Simon "Ghost" Riley

Task Force 141 - Disbanded

400 meters east of Safe House 110197, Brazil

Ghost checked his phone by the hotel nightstand. It's 3:34 am and not a single notification from the team. They probably believed he was out to get intel and didn't bother to look for him. He was fine with that.

"What time is it?" a female groan murmured beside him as she circled her soft arms around his bare chest.

"3:34" he whispered, making the girl giggle as he ran his hand on her hair.

"We aren't supposed to be cuddling like this, remember?" She said, sighing as she got up slowly. Ghost immediately followed, groaning as well.

"I'm sorry Alexandra. It's just…"

"Don't worry. I know this sounds too odd for you at the moment. To be honest I got carried away too…" the interpol agent frowned and wrapped herself up with a towel, making her way to the showers. Ghost trailed his eyes at her and sighed.

"What have you gotten yourself into, Simon?" he murmured and turned to his phone, rereading their conversation.

It was as clear as day that they both agreed to this whole "No strings attached" thing together and he only said yes because he was too broken about France. He needed someone who could treat him well but this was the closest thing he could find. 

Sure, he had no regrets about the woman, she was amazing, but while his body was happy, the heart yearned for something more. It was getting worse every day especially when he woke up to see the two lovebirds chasing against each other around the house.

Just as he placed his phone beside hers, Alexandra's notification tone beeped and her screen lit up, as it showed a message from an unknown number.

Simon wanted to take a peek but the message itself is encrypted, his mind wandered more as the security detail of such a message meant that it was of high importance. It might've been from the EMP machinery they're still investigating on which could also be a lead to Nero. He's debating whether he's going to ask her for information just as he intended to, but he's scared that she'll think he's just using her.

"Hey, you got a message." Simon called her from the bed. 

"Who's it from?" she asked, her voice was faint as the shower sounds concealed it. Ghost wore his pants and grabbed her phone, leaning by the bathroom door as he announced the details.

"It's encrypted." he murmured. The water stopped pouring and the shower curtains peeked open.

She didn't even bother how she looked as she quickly wiped off her fingers and grabbed her phone.

"Shit." she cursed scrolling to the contents of text, which Ghost observed as very lengthy.

"Wh-" he paused and hesitated. He didn't tell her of their little rogue act so any questions might come off as suspicious.

"Shepherd wants to exchange Samantha for the I.P. Address." she mumbled, looking at Ghost.

"What's his deal?"

"To fund his EMP Nuke that he'll get from Nero." she replied as she continued scrolling.

"With New York already in chaos, the President would most likely be desperate enough to fund this, now that the economy is in shambles."

"What's stopping them from fighting against the New York attacks?" 

"We have no idea where the small EMP interferences are, and our strongest lead is that the missing persons are being manually controlled to travel and situate themselves near the stock exchange where they blindly emit blasts through their phones. Like the one we found back in Europe." 

"They walk and interact like normal civilians, so with millions of people around the city. It'll look like we're looking for a needle on a haystack." She added, wrapping herself with a towel and quickly dressed up.

"Where are you going now?" He asked as she walked past him.

"I'll try to talk some sense into someone who can talk some sense to the president. The EMP nuke is not a joke." She spat, the worry in her eyes made Ghost want to console her. But now was not the time for that.

"Can I ask a question?" Ghost said.

"Be quick." She said, putting on her jacket and collecting her stuff.

"Do you have any idea where Shepherd is?" 

~

The sun wasn't up when Ghost decided to return to the Safe house. He expected that it'll still be closed but it looked like Price and Jack were already sipping coffee by the balcony.

"Where have you been?" Price asked, his tone wasn't that strict so Ghost decided to lie.

"I just took a walk around the town." he replied, hoping that there will be no more follow up questions.

"For Twelve hours. Okay." Price noted as Ghost got inside the house. Ever since he started this little team of rogue soldiers, Price became protective. And Ghost knew that it was bound to happen. Any injuries under his care will not be funded by any higher department and they need to be careful.

He immediately accessed their little command center and began searching. He got two locations to research on, and he needed to act fast.

He did the best he could, hacking into public and unsecured CCTV footage, squinting his eyes over the poor quality videos just to look for Samantha. She was last spotted in Moscow about 30 minutes ago. Ghost had to admit his cryllic knowledge is a little low and his fingers were trembling in panic. He needed help.

He slowly creaked the door open and saw Alex, Soap and Roach peacefully sleeping, Roach was upside down and clung onto Alex's metal leg, a sight worth taking a photo on but he didn't. It almost made him guilty to wake John up, but knowing the guy, he'll understand the urgency.

"Psst." he nudged his shoulders. It felt very awkward now that he's still frustrated about the guy winning France's heart but he needed to act professional, besides no one but Alex knows about his emotions toward the duo.

Soap groaned and slowly opened his eyes, flinching at the skull face that woke him up.

"Bollocks!" he exclaimed, making Alex and Gary shuffle and reposition while Ghost quickly pulled his mask and shushed him.

"Sorry Soap. But I need your help." he whispered as he slowly got up and collected himself following him outside.

"What about?" his heavy accent echoed against the quiet halls while he rubbed sleep off his eyes.

"Russian Alphabet." 

"Okay." he murmured lazily. "What for?" 

"A lead on Samantha." he said. The expression on Soap's face changed from sleepy-scotsman to what-are-we-waiting-for as he jumped to the control center and began typing.

The two teamed up together translating codes of texts and typing commands on different kinds of webcams all across Russia, all they had was a barely readable plate number of a black van which allegedly housed Samantha and three of Shepherd's men which were designated to protect her.

Hours passed and they barely got through any possible lead. The rest of the team woke up one by one and slowly helped the duo. Once Alex woke up, they got another additional pair of hands to help and it made them more efficient. If only Ghost knew that Alex knew Russian, it would've been less awkward. But then again, he needed this kind of interaction with Soap, so he could finally be comfortable around them.

Then there it was. The first solid lead with Samantha's face on it. A hotel not far from the airport. Alex couldn't help but creep his head close to the monitor, his eyes had that longing look on the blurry screen. He was sure it's her.

They later reported their findings to Price and Jack, and it was indeed a lead worth pursuing. But when asked how they got such info overnight, they all turned to Ghost to which he said that it's still within the phone's encrypted messages. Price and Jack nodded and Ghost sighed in relief. He didn't want anyone to know about his little fling.

"Then let's have breakfast and have a little briefing after. I'll make calls to Nikolai to arrange us a visit to his homeland." Price announced as everyone, especially Alex's, face lit up and felt energized. 

HAPPY TRAVELER INN PARKING AREA

MOSCOW, RUSSIA

8:52 PM

Ghost set up his little command set up at the back of the van. The plan was easy, Alex, Soap and Roach sneaked inside her room, silently knocking down the three guards, taking their clothes and escorting her back to the van to safety. While Price would take down their driver and replace the getaway vehicle with this one. 

The group of five didn't bring any weapons so as to not raise suspicion, after all they're just sneaking Samantha from Shepherd's hands. No need for violence.

"Can you hear me, lads?" Ghost muttered softly against the microphone.

"Loud and clear, mate." Gary responded.

"Yes pal." Alex commented.

"Aye lad. I can hear ye." Soap added.

Price gave a thumbs up from the driver's seat. Ghost pressed some buttons and after a few moments, he now had access to the whole building's cameras and some controls. 

"Chuckles, I'm in." Ghost commented to which Gary snickered. It looked like he was the only one who understood the reference. 

"Okay lads. The janitors are on their break. They're inside that incoming elevator." Ghost informed as he looked at the live feed. The three carefully grabbed the janitors without intention of hurting them. Carrying some rope and cloth, they quickly tied the janitors and hid them on a blind spot away from the camera's eyes. Ghost could hear Alex muttering something to the three in Russian, he couldn't translate it fully but it had the word sorry, don't worry and okay in it. After that, they immediately wore their janitor uniforms and the janitors were already on their way to the 10th floor.

"I don't have cameras inside the rooms. But your hallway is clear."

"Okay. Your ride home is ready." Price muttered, Ghost never noticed the old man exit the van but apparently he already took care of the driver.

"Great. It's all on you three now. Let's save Samantha." Ghost said as the cameras show three janitors knocking on Samantha's room.

Next Chapter : Vlad the Janitor

Notification Squad my Beloved

@samatedeansbroccoli @smokeywhalee @ricinbach @enderio @beemybee @whimsywispsblog

I've been wanting to this but I've been too shy for too long hahahaha

I've been making verivery content for a while but I really want to improve my gif sets, and your gifs are mighty beautiful TT_TT may I ask for advice? Like do you use your laptop or your phone? Do you use photoshop??

oh feel free to ask me anything ! :D and yes of course ! gifmaking is actually fairly complex on tumblr ;-; so i'll try my best to include the basics and all the important stuff ! 

for gifmaking i use photoshop 2018 and so i use a laptop >.< i’ve seen a lot of asks where people ask about what apps gifmakers use... and to put it nicely ... there is no easy way to get nice gifs T-T the reason gifmakers on tumblr have such nice gifs, is bc there’s a lot of patience, learning, and practice involved in creating gifs for this platform... you can’t just plug in a video clip to a gif converter and expect it to spit out an hd gif for you ... unfortunately ... 

before beginning i’ll recommend this tutorial ! it’s the tutorial i used when i was first learning... and my best advice is to have lots of patience ;;;; tumblr is a hard platform to make gifs for and learning how to make nice gifs will not happen overnight 

Photoshop and other resources 

i personally downloaded ps 2018 and that works fine for me but i’ve noticed that ps cs5 or earlier tends to have a broken ‘import frames to layers’ action so i’d suggest newer versions for gifmaking ! to download i basically looked up youtube videos and checked comments to make sure the tutorials actually worked,,, but if you want you can try these posts ! (1, 2) i’m not sure if they work but usually there’s a lot of posts made on tumblr + other sites for downloading it for free ! 

About video processing programs

i also use avisynth to process my frames... this might be a really complex bit to learn and it’s not 100% necessary so i’d say you can skip over it when you’re first learning photoshop and everything but if you are interested ! basically programs like avisynth and vapoursynth reduce the video file size down to tumblr’s preferred image size without reducing the quality as much as resizing in photoshop does :o ! additionally it helps process torrents (these are the ts and tp files for live performance stages that are super hd !) but again it’s somewhat complicated i’d recommend this tutorial for download and use if you ever want to ! (vapoursynth additionally has sharpening and denoising options, but since i’ve never used vs it’d be easier to look up a vs tutorial than to ask me >.<) 

Where to get videos 

this part is CRITICAL !! for gifmaking,,, you could be the best gifmaker on this whole site but if you have a video with poor quality... no matter what,,, your gifs will not come out nicely T-T so when downloading any vlives or youtube videos, they should be at least 1080p in quality ! or as high quality as possible ! this is bc you need to reduce the file size down by a lot for tumblr’s dimensions and this means you need the best quality :o ! i typically just screenrecord videos these days bc downloading whole hour long vlives / long youtube videos is a strain on my laptop hhh ;;; for live perfo stages you should always download torrents to use but this means you need video processing programs like i said above >.< there’s a resource here to help find them ! 

these are the basic tools you’ll need hhhh there’s a lot more including sizing, sharpening, coloring, frame rate delay, exporting, saving, etc... and i don’t want to make this too long but ! 

essentially tumblr has size dimension restrictions for image files, a pixel too big or too small will cause tumblr to stretch or compress your gifs making them blurry... the dimensions are optimally:  a.) 540pixels (width) for one gif in a row b.) 268pixels (width) for two gifs in a row c.) 177pixels / 178pixels / 177pixels for three gifs in a row 

for sharpening many people use topaz etc. and i’ll point you to other tutorials if you want to use it but tbh ! i use photoshop’s smart sharpen options and those work just fine for me... (plus topaz takes forever to render and i h8 its guts so) 

coloring - okay so this is probably THE MOST time consuming part for gifs for me.... idk if you’ve noticed but lots of times, gifmakers’ gifs have pretty colors and nice lighting when you compare to the original video ! that’s bc we add layer adjustments in photoshop to make them look nice ! these include brightness, saturation, exposure, vibrancy, etc. but knowing how to use adjustments is a whole post on its own >.< there’s lots of coloring tutorials out there as well if you want me to direct you to them ! 

for frame rate delay, i use 0.05 seconds for 30fps (so your normal videos) and 0.03 for 60fps (if none of that made sense that’s okie ! it’s just basically how fast you set frames to play in your gif !)

when exporting - tumblr has a 10mb gif limit but honestly anything above 8mb starts making me anxious or takes too long to load .... so most my gifs are like ... 3-7mb only 

but yea these are just some basic tips and stuff ?? i’m sorry it took me so long to respond and it wasn’t as nicely organized as it could be... there are a lot of really good gif tutorials out there ! you just have to look a little ! if you have any additional questions tho feel free to let me know ! i just didn’t have the heart to type out the literal process i have to go through everyday when making just one gif :p i’m sure a lot of gifmakers can relate haha,,,, happy gifmaking !~ 

2. For the first time in a decade, Tony has a sex tape leak. This one was filmed without his knowledge. As awful as it is having a non-consensual sex tape of oneself go viral, Tony never really cared whether the internet saw the full monty before—until now. This time he definitely cares. Because this time, the guy in the video with Tony—well, he looks undeniably like Tony’s 18-yo mentee. How do people react? What does the media do with the story? And most importantly, how does Peter react?

ahhh this was such a good prompt and it instantly caught my attention and inspired me!! sorry it’s a little longer than I initially planned for just random prompt fills but I had a lot of feelings~

tags: starker, mature, angst with a happy ending

The image quality is a little blurry, not quite in focus, but the bodies are clear enough, Tony’s fucking face clear enough as he stares at the man above him, runs his hands over toned skin and down to grip at the man’s ass, pull him to sink down onto him. The audio quality is great, though, picks up the man’s breathy sigh and the groan that gets punched out of Tony as he bottoms out, the slap of skin on skin as the man starts riding him, thin, lithe body twisting and grinding, the sound of Tony murmuring “that’s it, kid, yeah, just like that”, the little sigh the man makes when Tony reaches up to run a hand through chestnut curls and tug, and—

The video pauses, Tony pulling the man’s head back, exposing his undeniably younger face, toned body arching over Tony’s more solid one, the moment frozen in time as Pepper’s picture appears over the holoscreen image.

Tony picks up even though he doesn’t want to, wincing in anticipation.

“At least tell me he’s legal, Tony.”

She sounds more angry than he’d expected, though if she thinks she has to ask whether the man was legal Tony supposes it’s a reasonable anger.

“Christ, Pep, no—I mean—fuck, of course he’s legal.”

He hears her exhale of relief.

“You couldn’t have given PR even the slightest heads up? I know it’s been awhile, but you used to have a protocol for this, Tony.”

Tony winces—at the reprimand, at the reminder of a past when he’d had so many escapades that he’d tell some poor sap in the marketing department when he’d let someone film or take pictures of him in bed so they could be prepared for damage control, at the reminder that that protocol had fallen by the wayside long ago, when he’d first gotten together with Pepper (he hoped the poor marketing sap still had a job, just a better one), and, even worse, at the reminder that despite that, here he was back again, in his fifties with a sex tape leak.

“I didn’t know.” His voice is barely a croak, but he knows that Pepper hears him, even if she follows it up by repeating him incredulously.

“You didn’t know? You—Tony Stark—didn’t realize you were being filmed? What the hell happened, Tony? You used to be careful about this.”

“I know, Pepper, I—” he trails off, instinctively turning for where the bar used to be and then clenching his fist when he’s reminded of the fact he hasn’t had a drink in years. He takes a deep breath, hopes it’ll steady him, tries not to be disappointed when it doesn’t. “How bad did I fuck up, Pep?”

He hears her sigh, hears the shift in her from Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, to Pepper Potts, his ex-wife, one of his best friends, in spite of it all.

“With the company? It won’t be too bad. We’re past the days when the stock rose and fell on your latest news story, and you’ve got a long track record of being able to perform no matter how much of a shitshow your personal life is. With the media? Not great—you know how they love a breakdown story, and you didn’t do yourself any favors with how young he looks. But it’ll pass as soon as the next scandal comes along, probably sometime in the next forty-eight hours.”

Tony waits for the tightness in his chest to release somewhat, but it doesn’t.

Pepper hesitates and he thinks she’s going to hang up, but then she says, “With… him?” And Tony freezes, because he knows who she means, and it’s not the man in the video, and he hadn’t thought she’d know, hadn’t thought anyone knew, that was kind of the whole point of the man in the video, but he supposes that it’s not subtle to anyone who really knows him, not after this leak at least. “I… I don’t know, Tony. I really don’t know.”

The tightness in his chest is now a death grip, and he chokes out a “Thanks, Pep,” before he hangs up the call with a swipe of his hand and collapses back against his worktable. He finds his way over to a back corner, where his old car collection still sits, desperate to get his hands in the guts of his ’32 Ford Flathead Roadster, something old and finicky that he can get lost in for days, until all of this blows over and he can work on getting his life set back to rights. He’s only barely gotten his hands on the engine when he hears the sound of the doors to the lab opening and closing behind someone. He drops the wrench, which lands on a piece of the engine with an accusing clang, because the list of people with automatic access to his lab is short and—at this particular moment—terrifying.

He turns around with his heart already halfway in his throat, because those footsteps are familiar, and he’s greeted by the sight of the one person he’d been most hoping not to see right now. Peter Parker is standing in his lab, at 2 in the morning, peeling off the Spider-Man suit because of course the kid webbed over here, and—fuck, with dark circles and eyes red at the corners as if he’s been crying, and he looks nearly as bad as Tony must look. Tony tries to speak—he does, he really does—tries to say something comforting, or mentor-like, or even just honest, but it catches in his throat and twists and boils and all that comes out is a fucking joke.

“Come to deliver my mentor of the year award?”

Peter makes a strangled noise, and Tony flinches at just how abysmally he’s managed to handle this.

“Fuck, kid, I’m sorry—” he starts, but Peter makes a high-pitched noise that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob and Tony suddenly wishes he had the wrench back in his hand, because hitting himself with it as hard as he could would have been less painful than hearing Peter make that sound.

“You—y’ called him kid.”

Guilt rips through Tony so fiercely that he actually staggers back to lean against the car, quietly cursing. “Fuck, Peter, I’m sorry, he—I promise, he wasn’t a kid, he was young but he was an adult, he was a consenting adult who was free to do what he wanted, I—”

“And I’m not?” Peter’s cut him off, voice suddenly raised, and in it Tony can hear anger and pain and he it looks like Peter’s fighting back tears, and Tony wants desperately to know what to do, but all he says is “what?”, dumbly confused.

“He—so he’s young but he can be an adult and make his own choices but I’m just a kid, —‘m always just some kid,” Peter says, but Tony finally notices that Peter’s slurring his words slightly, and when he’s done talking he tries to take an angry step towards Tony but ends up swaying, needs to reach out and grab onto a workstation.

“Peter, are you… drunk?” Tony doesn’t bother to conceal the horror in his voice, not because Peter’s drinking—because sure he’s not 21, but no one waits until they’re 21 to start drinking, and Peter deserves as much normalcy as he can possibly get—but because this is Tony’s fault, he’s not drinking for fun with his friends, but Tony’s somehow driven Peter to get drunk, to drown himself in alcohol, and fuck he’s making all of the mistakes he’d never wanted to.

“So what if I am?” Peter says, “ ’s not like you care.”

“Christ, Pete, of course I—I always care, but—shit, how much did you even drink to get drunk, with your metabolism?”

Peter shrugs. “Dunno. Stopped counting. Doesn’t last long, anyway, but I just needed to—just needed to be drunk to come here and say—and say—” Peter slumps forward, as if all of the anger has been drained out of him.

Tony takes a tentative step forward, afraid that Peter’s drinking is actually catching up, suddenly terrified of what could be happening.

“Say what, Peter?” Tony asks gently, taking another step forward, but then Peter looks up and there are tears on his face.

“I don’t—I don’t know, I just—I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Mr. Stark.”

Tony’s stomach drops, to the floor, through the floor, through the center of the goddamn earth, because he has apparently messed this one up badly, terribly badly, and Tony would trade every dollar he has to make this up to Peter, but that’s not how this works, and he wishes he could say the right thing, but he’s Tony Stark, and so even though as he takes a step towards Peter he realizes his own hands are shaking, all that he can say is, “Peter? Pete?”

Peter doesn’t seem to notice or care about his slow approach, just wipes at his eyes with the back of his hands and keeps talking.

“It’s stupid, but I just… I saw it and I told myself not to watch it, but then of course I did, because I’m stupid, and then I got jealous, and that felt even stupider so I started trying to get drunk, and it didn’t really work and all it did was make me realize that I—I mean, the way things were was fine, I could tell myself at first that you had Pepper, and then after that that you didn’t like men like that, or that you would never look at someone as young as me like that, but then there was that guy and—I just—I guess it’s just that’s that it’s me, that’s what I realized, that it’s not my age or my gender, it’s just me that you’ll never see that way, and it’s one thing to be half in love with someone and spend all your time with them when you know you can’t ever have them, and it’s another thing to—to—it just feels like rejection? Even though it’s not?”

Peter pauses to draw in a shaky breath, suppressing a sob, and Tony is aware that he’s trembling now. “Peter, Pete—what are you saying, Pete?” he whispers, mind stuck somewhere between overdrive and frozen, like a part that’s gotten jammed, trying desperately to whir through his thoughts but somehow just—stuck.

“I don’t—you’re right, Mr. Stark, I’m drunk, I’m not—I probably won’t quit in the morning or anything, I couldn’t—but I just—this was dumb, I should just—”

And Peter’s turning away, and heading for the lab doors, and Tony’s desperately trying to send the signals from his brain to his limbs to go after him, to take just one fucking step forward, but it’s not working, and all he can do is yell after him.

“Pete, wait, please!”

But Peter’s not stopping, just says, “It’s okay Mr. Stark, it was a mistake to come here, I’m really sorry, maybe we can just—pretend this didn’t happen, okay?”

And he’s almost at the door and Tony’s finally started to move, but not nearly fast enough, so he says, “FRIDAY, lock the doors!” And he knows his voice sounds a little throaty, a little desperate, but it works, because he hears the smooth click of the lab door sealing shut, sees Peter reach it and push uselessly before turning back around.

“C’mon Mr. Stark, seriously, I don’t wanna—just, please?”

“Pete—you were… jealous?”

And maybe it’s not the best place to start, but it’s the thing that Tony’s brain is stuck on, because it feels so laughable—that Peter could ever be jealous of someone who was only ever meant to be a cheap imitation of Peter. Peter just turns away, trying to hide his face again.

“Mr. Stark, I don’t wanna—I already said I was, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Tony’s close enough to touch him now, rocks forward as if he might and then thinks better of it, his brain trying to catch up. “Pete, I—I just—god, we were both supposed to be smarter than this. I mean—you honestly think it was a coincidence he looked like that?”

At this, Peter starts to turn around, eyes wide with a mix of confusion and hope, but Tony just keeps going.

“You don’t think every time I called him kid it was because I was picturing you? Shit, I’m sorry, but—you don’t know how hard it was not to give in and call him Peter.”

“Mr. Stark, what are you—are you saying—”

“Stop me if I’m—if you don’t want—” Tony murmurs, closing the distance between them to lean close and press his lips against Peter’s, so gently, tentative, a question. There’s a long moment, and just when Tony’s starting to pull away, resigned to his error, Peter answers, leans forward and wraps a hand around the back of Tony’s neck, pulls him close and opens his mouth in a shuddering gasp, kisses Tony back like he wants to drown in it, and Tony meets him with everything he’s got, finally wraps a hand in those perfect curls, drinks in the soft gasps from Peter until he’s weak in the knees and has to pull away to draw in great gulps of air.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter whispers against his neck, where he’s pressed himself tight to Tony, wrapped in a hug like he’s as afraid of this moment dissipating as Tony is.

“Come to bed, Pete,” Tony says into the top of Peter’s head, feels him nod. And as FRIDAY unlocks the lab and they walk, intertwined, constantly touching, towards Tony’s bedroom, Tony’s mind is for once quiet, content in the knowledge that in a few minutes he can tuck Peter into bed beside him, for now just hold him while they sleep, and in the morning—everything will be better.

Thanks to @betsysinlove for the tag on her wonderful piece!

The rules are the same as last time!

Enjoy!

———

Love Is Blind: Episode Two

Alma tapped her pen against the spiral bound notebook in her hand. She scrutinised the handwritten notes that had accumulated throughout the experiment. A couple of redeeming qualities here, a few witty one-liners that made her laugh there. A big fat NO over the slimy man that gave her the creeps - she had scribbled out what little she recorded until the pen ran out of ink.

Nobody in the potential list held a candle to Frankie.

She’d been looking forward to seeing him all day. Eventually he would walk in to her pod (they told her to stay in one place this time and let the men come to her) and that’s what spurred her on.

When she lay on her back, listening to the chirpy sportsman talk about his athletic achievements, she wondered if Frank was at all competitive. When the blanket cocooning her made her feel safe and secure whilst enduring disgusting “womanly expectations”, she consoled herself with the thought that at least Frank had made it out of the 1800’s. When her date didn’t reply to anything with more than a one word answer, she longed for Frank because she knew he would have taken a huge interest in her and what she had to say.

‘Okay, Alma,’ the voice of a crew member caught her attention as he let himself into the room. ‘Thank you for your time today, we got some great footage. We don’t need to go over anything else so you...are done!’

‘I’m done?’

‘And dusted. Shall I take you back to the common room?’ He blinked. ‘You’re looking confused.’

‘That can’t be. I haven’t seen all of my dates yet.’

Now it was his turn to look confused. ‘We’re on a tight schedule so that should be everyone...’ he flipped through a cluster of pages on his clipboard while Alma fought off a certain degree of panic. ‘No, you’re definitely finished. We don’t have anyone else lined up to see you today.’

‘But what about - I wanted a second date with-.’ She stopped, for fear of crying.

‘With...?’

‘Frankie. Frankie, you must know who I’m talking about. Thick plummy accent, likes to drink Old Fashioned cocktails?’

‘Oh right. Him.’ The crew member wore an expression that Alma couldn’t quite read but didn’t like. ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but to go on a second date you both have to agree.’

That painful sinking feeling was all too familiar. Of being punched in the gut and a large rock forcing its way down the throat and into the stomach. She felt her face getting hot and dearly wanted the man to go away and let her cry in peace.

Deep down she didn’t expect a different outcome. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

She was shaking all over on her walk back to the common room. She forced a fake smile and invented many wonderful dates to keep up with the other girls. When the time came she climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her head.

Only then, away from the cameras, did the tears well up and spill over.

———

Frank stared at his notebook, fluffy pen in hand.

I have not seen Alma for two days. I am starting to get bad again.

The skinny men in black t-shirts and wireless headsets came to tell him Alma was ill, too ill to see him that day. He was sympathetic at first. Poor little thing, he thought, feeling poorly and being away from home is a simply rotten combination. He sent positive thoughts to his endearing first date and wished her a speedy recovery.

But it happened again the next day, and this time he wasn’t quite so understanding.

If she was too sickly to even sit up and hold a simple conversation, what on Earth was she still doing on set? He had exceptional hearing, the sound of a veichle driving away no matter how distant would have caught his attention. She should be at home, where she would be taken care of. Come to think of it, he didn’t know where the medical unit was. Or if they even had one...

Frank was mooching all of this over in the common room, not really listening to anything the rest of them had to say. Which didn’t stray from the norm but at least he had a reason this time.

‘I think they allocated me a mute today. I barely got two words out of her. I can’t even remember her name. Olga, or something.’

‘Alma?’

‘Yes! Have you been on a date with her too?’

‘I think once, at the start of the experiment, but I hear she’s the reason that guy disappeared.’

‘I heard a rumour that he got arrested.’

Frank was so flabbergasted that he remained speechless for the first few moments. Upon making the connection between Alma, another man and a law that may have been broken, he snapped to attention.

‘Say that again?’ He leaned forwards, crossing his right leg over the left. ‘What happened?’

The man to start the conversation gave him a weird look. ‘Haven’t you noticed? That guy, the older man with the expensive suits. He was here one day and gone the next and the word is that this Alma was the last girl to be in the pod with him.

‘And,’ continued another, ‘I overheard the producers talking amongst themselves and from what I could pick out it may have been a legal obligation.’

Frank stared back at them with an expression akin to a sex doll. He could feel his mouth hanging open and his eyes unblinking but he was so lost for words he couldn’t even think straight.

Not only had Alma not fallen ill (therefore he’d caught the producers in a blatant lie) she’d had an altercation in which someone...tried to hurt her?

‘How could a crime have been committed when two people are separated by an impenetrable wall?

‘Oh, you never know, it only takes one thing. My guess is she reported him for something and they had to look into it by law and found something else.’

‘Me personally I didn’t like him, I thought he was a bit weird and too old to be on a show like this. It just came off as strange.’

Frank thought hard and tried to remember the man in question. He sat back and listened most days. Observed. However most of the time he fell into a daydream and didn’t realised he’d zoned out until there was no point zoning back in. A vague memory came to mind of spotting a tiny gold cufflink winking at him in the middle of the floor, but it ended there. One could safely assume it belonged to the vanished man if he’d already been cited as wearing expensive suits.

He was confused, but also felt a strong rage. Who would dare try and hurt his sweet little Alma?

He excused himself and entered the small room in which they made their video diaries.

‘Who’s in charge here?’ Frank demanded of the glassy lens staring at him. ‘I have a few things I’d like to discuss.’

He immediately recognised the man who’d briefed him before going into meet Alma on the first day. He stepped into the room with an arrogant smile on his face.

‘Hey, Finn, what’s going-?’

‘It’s Frank,’ he growled. ‘Why the fuck did you lie to me?’

‘Okay, first of all I won’t be spoken to like that-.’

‘And I will not be taken for a fool. You told me Alma was ill, too ill to sit up straight, yet I’ve got three men talking about their encounters with her today! And what’s this about unnerving men and jail time?’

———

Alma glanced over at the table stocked with Absolut, orange juice, an ice bucket and fresh orange slices. Because she didn’t drink anything else, the team left her the ingredients to make her vodka and orange herself, yet she didn’t feel like drinking it when it only reminded her of Frankie.

No stranger to the real world, Alma knew you can’t always get what you want. After letting herself get very upset she consoled herself with the thought that at least Frankie would find someone in the end.

Maudlin and disingenuous, she knew that.

It still would have hurt but it wouldn’t have been such an embarrassment if he’d just told her. She felt stupid and naive for letting herself feel so happy and excited. To get her hopes up like that for it all to come crashing down...and to have the whole thing broadcast on TV as if it wasn’t bad enough.

If no one interested her today, she would leave. She couldn’t put on a fake smile anymore.

‘I’d know that blurry shadow anywhere...’

The smoky drawl made her heart leap. She sat dead still, hardly daring to believe it.

‘Hello, stranger.’ Alma’s hands were shaking. ‘Where have you been hiding?’

‘Frankie!’ Alma launched herself from the sofa and down in front of the blue wall, almost crying with disbelief. Too overcome with joy to play it cool. ‘Oh, Frankie! I thought-! You said - I mean, they said-! They told me you didn’t-!’

‘I know what they told you, my darling. Believe me I am furious. Tell me, sweet girl, please tell me you didn’t think it was true?’

Alma lowered her gaze and swallowed hard.

‘I’m sorry, Frankie, I...it didn’t make me think you were a horrible person, I just-.’

‘Hush now, it’s alright. Don’t upset yourself.’ The urge to kick down that wall was as strong as ever. The poor girl was innocent in all of this and had been made to feel like a toy instead of a human being. ‘I adored my time with you, Alma.’ Frank stressed every word in the hopes that she would believe it. ‘I didn’t want to go. I never would have left you alone like that. The day after our meeting they told me you’d caught a sickness and were too poorly to see me, to see anyone. Earlier today I found out I’d been lied to and I demanded they take me to you.’

They lied?

Why would they do that?

How on earth did they think they could get away with it?

———

‘I’m intrigued by you, Alma.’ That voice sent shivers up her spine every time but with words like that...they’d have to mop her up from the floor. ‘Tell me more. Talk to me.’

Bold request when she could barely remember her own name.

‘Well...I’m Alma, you know that. I’m twenty years old, you know that too. I’m happy where I live, but it’s a bit out of the way. I wish I lived closer to the capital.’

‘Why?’

‘Stuff happens.’

Frank chuckled. Classic Alma. That term was coinable.

‘I love animals, I have two cats at home. They become members of the family and loosing them is a different kind of pain. My doggy taught me that, we lost him suddenly and it broke my heart.’

‘Oh you poor thing. I have five dogs at home and I couldn’t imagine loosing any one of them.’

‘Five? What type of dogs are they?’

‘I have a blue Staffordshire Bull Terrier called Persephone and I have a soft spot for her as she is my only girl. Razor is my Siberian Husky who thinks he’s a puppy and tried to sit on your lap and cries to be picked up and cuddled. Cujo is nothing like his namesake, he’s loving and docile, a true gentle giant. More recently I welcomed Kaiser into the house, a striking German Shepard who loves playing tug of war. And not two weeks ago I met my Newfoundland Dexter. He’s very big and stupid but the name suited a big bumbling dog in an affectionate sort of way. Well, to me it did.

Smiling so much for so long made Alma’s face ache.

‘But enough about me. You, my dear, are far more interesting. What do you do for fun?’

Going into this conversation, Alma thought it best to be careful about the information she shared. But something about Frank’s presence and the comfort she felt from it made the words just fall out. She felt safe around him. Like they could talk about anything. Therefore an hour after Frank asked to know more she was still talking about herself.

Now Frank knew most everything about her. Foods she liked, her love of reading and why that came about, things she was proud of, things she would go back and change if given the chance. Her insecurities, her fears, what she worried about and what she dearly hoped would happen one day. Music that made her cry and films she’s never forget, what she hopes to achieve from participating in the experiment and what she hoped to achieve from facing life head on.

‘...don’t feel bad Frankie but I was heartbroken when I thought you’d changed your mind because nobody else in here makes me feel the way you do. I feel happy and safe and protected and like I could never truly have a bad day again. I couldn’t handle thinking I’d never see you again, especially after-.’

Frank frowned. ‘What, darling?’

Alma didn’t want to put Frank in an uncomfortable position by telling him about the weird date that nearly made her leave the experiment. Especially since she just realised she might not be allowed to tell anyone in the first place. The laws of producing television shows were lost on her.

Frank had a feeling he knew what she wanted to tell him, but didn’t want to admit they’d been discussing her behind her back. She might feel disinclined to trust him and that would never do. Especially since he forgot to clarify with the male producer whether he was allowed to disclose his knowledge in the first place.

‘I’m sorry, petal, don’t worry. Just because you can tell me everything doesn’t mean you should have to.’

The conversation took a deliberate turn to steer them away from the discomfort.

‘So that’s me,’ Alma said. ‘What about you?’

Frank knew this was inevitable but that didn’t lessen the fear. He had a quick decision to either lie and spin a tale of normality and safety or be honest with a complete stranger (however much he liked her the statement was still true) and risk being turned away. Again.

Alma was not person of prejudice and judgment. She had already been so lovely and sweet to him, surely he owed it to her to at least give her a chance?

‘I suppose there was only so long I could get away with that,’ Frank mused, obviously smirking by the sound of his voice. ‘Well, darling, I’m Frankie, I’m old enough to legally drink alcohol and I live in a big country house in Windsor. Just a short drive away from London, where I recall you’d like to be?’

I just want to skip the formalities and get married right now.

Don’t be the first one to say it, you might come on too strong and scare him off.

I am nothing if not traditional.

‘I employ household staff who help me take care of such a big place. They are more like family than personnell. I take pride in my house and my appearance,’ well, though Frank, that’s one way to put it, ‘because I worked very hard to get to where I am now and I earned everything I have. I’m a firm believer in that where you come from or the start you have in life means nothing to where you can go or what you can achieve.’

Of course he would think like that. It all worked out for him. Alma didn’t see herself having huge prospects in anything. But she wasn’t going to tell him that.

‘That determination is refreshing,’ she said. Inwardly though she was already sulking as this was the second time Frank’s achievements thrawrted hers and, although she was sure he didn’t mean to, made her feel inferior and even quite guilty for making a connection with him. There were so many people better and more suited to Frank than she was. It was like ordering champagne and receiving sparkling water.

‘Let’s play a game.’ Alma immediately snapped back to attention. ‘I’m going to try and read your mind. I bet you’re sitting there now thinking that it’s all well and good for me to say these things but what does it really mean if I’m already there? You might even be thinking that I didn’t have any obstacles in my way, or affluent family members, or even a single scratch card and pot luck.’ Alma didn’t say anything. She was too embarrassed that she’d been caught red-handed. ‘Darling, if I told you I have a “weird” or “undesirable” aspect of myself that meant I did have to work harder than the average person and I still did it...would you believe me?’

‘No,’ she said immediately. ‘Because you’re not undesirable.’

‘Everyone has battles they have to fight, sweet girl. Not just you.’

Frank felt as sense of deep honour that Alma had opened up to him in the way that she did, explaining her fears of never succeeding because of narrow minded people that wouldn’t give her a chance because she wasn’t like ‘everyone else’. This turned into a long and deep and sometimes emotional conversation. Frank’s heart went out to her but he also couldn’t believe his...he supposed luck was the wrong word, but what divine being had looked down on him and presented him with someone now only who he liked and who liked him back, but someone who he didn’t have to be afraid of because he could relate to her all the way? Because they were exactly the same?

‘I know you like me, darling. You’ve never seen me before, you wouldn’t recognise me if I passed you on the street. Are you bothered at all about how I might look?’

‘No. I can’t wait to see you. I want to see you so badly. I want you to put your arms around me and pick me up and kiss me and smile at me.’

‘So why do you think I would feel any different? If you knew how much I like you, Alma, even after such a short time, how excited I am to head your voice and how I think about you all the time you’d never doubt yourself again.’

‘I think there’s a little bit of anxiety isn’t there?’ Frank continued when Alma didn’t say anything. ‘That I’ll change my mind once I really see you.’

No one could lie to Frank for long. ‘Yes.’

Frank stayed quiet but his kissed his palm and pressed it against the frosted blue glass. This was supposed to be fun and he didn’t want her getting worked up again, so he said,

‘I suppose that will make the moment I shove a big fat ring in your face that much sweeter.’

She laughed, thankfully, and the conversation remained lighthearted and loving until it was time to leave.

A producer met them at the door and said they would now be allowed to choose who they spent time with. They both immediately chose each other.

———

‘I’m excited but I’m scared,’ Alma said to the camera during her video diary. ‘I like Frankie so so much and I can’t wait to see him but I’ve never done this before. I don’t know how.’

‘What if I ruin it?’

‘My reputation precedes me and that’s what worries me the most. I know I look scary, and I know the average person will be shocked by my behaviour and appearance. I’ve been told time and time again that I come on too strong. The last thing I want to do is scare her, especially when she’s never been with anyone in this way before.’

‘He’s the right person—.’

‘—but I don’t think it’s the right time.’

‘So my answer is yes. I’d like a third date.’

compulsive shopping

something I never thought I would be dealing with. for one, I was never a big spender. since being very little, I hated the thought of people having to spend money on me and I was very good at saving it. yet I've never bought as much as I have the past year and I don't remembered why I bought most of the things or even what they were. which means I've never owned as many unnecessary things before. during that year I also spent all of my savings including some money I’ve had put away for years and rarely touched before because I never had big needs that would require extra money. whenever I reached for those savings this year it felt like an emergency, I planned on putting it back there after my next paycheck, but I never did - some new purchase would always seem more urgent. “I was living from paycheck to paycheck. I was living FOR the paycheck”*(The Minimalism documentary). pretty early on I found myself in a financial crisis and had a lot less money to spend, unfortunately it wasn't about how much I would spend, but the way I would spend it.

since I can recall I’ve always hated spending money going out, going to movies, eating with friends, buying food for myself - it seemed like such a waste of money - on something that lasted a moment instead of something material that I could have forever and that would bring me joy and serve purpose. or better yet, multiple purposes, right? too bad I wouldn’t use anything for long. I own some clothes that I wore literally once or twice. most things I would get were horrible quality and poor source which I was aware of. a lot of clothes didn't fit me, therefore didn't serve purpose, but instead would make me feel frustrated with what I looked like. and the joy, momentary excitement, dopamine kick - that was what would initially drive my constant need to buy new things, but it would last less and less time. the rush I would get from checking out “inspirations”, looking up things, reading product reviews, planning purchases, placing orders, waiting for deliveries and then using those items for the first few times- gradually it shrunk to feeling excited until the end of each transaction. I haven't even worn something, I didn't even get it in the mail, I would already look for something else, I was already hung up on something new. I had never-ending lists in my head of stuff I wanted to get next, that I needed next. I had a few private Pinterest boards specifically for that, that's what all my Instagram likes went to. and I would obsess over them. that’s what I would spend all of my free time on. my energy, thoughts, motivation to get up, to work, to survive through bad days. to live, I guess. they were my treats for doing well, my consolation prizes and my what the hell’s. I didn't plan on buying 10 things at once, but just this one and, of course, these two. while still in my head, most things felt essential, unlike previous ones- I was crazy getting that previous item, but this? I clearly need this. if I look better, I’ll feel better.  my shopping habits were gradually becoming more impulsive and compulsive. I was no longer thinking through or questioning what I needed, practicality was not high on my list. I would almost never try on stuff, I would base my decisions on the fact that I liked the way something looked on someone I saw. usually on Pinterest or Instagram- so people of completely different proportions, physical features, lifestyles, preferences and identities - not me. it usually looked good with other articles of clothing that I didn't own, so when shoes arrived in the mail and I wasn’t so sure about them, I would sometimes convince myself that I also needed different trousers, t-shirts, different colours or materials to go with them, that would solve it. when I had less money, I would buy more, but cheaper items. it made so much more sense to buy multiple things for less. and if it’s cheap, why think twice?what's the harm? I actually knew enough about the harms of fast fashion industry, but I chose to ignore them. I thought I couldn’t afford to be environmentally conscious, to make ethical choices, to consider people behind products, to pick more intentionally. I couldn’t afford to buy as many quality items, so I chose quantity over quality. and it’s hard to appreciate quality, when you get bored and dissatisfied with everything so quickly. but each time it felt like that one item was the one that would perfectly fill in the painful space in my life, each product seemed ridiculously important for a short while, it somehow was supposed to be the start of a new life- a toothbrush that, at least in the pictures, matches my bathroom tiles and other beautiful, pure, and organic-looking sink accessories that I was getting next; or a running windbreaker that I can fold into the size of my fist and that might not go with any of my clothes, but I could always have it with me and it would help me save space in my giant everyday backpack full of other essentials. it felt like every little thing would weirdly define me for a second. that when I pick a product, I decide what kind of a person I am. but who I was and what I liked was becoming very blurry.

style and clothing felt like such an easy way or opportunity to redefine or redesign myself. it gave me a sense of identity, it was a symbol of a different better life. and when I was out of ideas for myself and my life, any image that gave me a sense of what I lacked i.e. self-confidence, self-respect, ease, balance or even better social skills or ability to fit in among certain people sounded great. I reached a point where there were too many different voices saying what would make me feel better and I would get very confused. not even with what I needed or wanted, but as to what I liked, what was aesthetically pleasing. which btw, while not the most important in life, comes in pretty fucking handy when you work as a product designer and a craftsman. that lead me to my worse state. I could change my mind about what I wanted to look like, which subconsciously translated into whom I wanted to be, in five minutes while randomly scrolling through a board of pictures on my Pinterest or checking out my Instagram feed. it didn’t come out of nowhere, I was never able to stick to the same clothes, I went through so many stages, I tried out more haircuts within the last five years than most people have in their lifetime. I actually would feel sorry for people who had the same hairstyle their whole life and wore the same type of clothes for years- how boring are you and how unadventurous is your life? I didn’t see the integrity some of those people have, the lack of need to fix what already works, the peace, the contentment, the blissful zero fucks to give about something this empty and unimportant. I thought they lacked sensitivity, awareness and were afraid to experiment or take a risk, while it seemed natural for me to play around, constantly research, look for something. I even convinced myself that I had to be that way to keep an open mind and my creativity levels high. but when it got out of control and started changing so fast I couldn't keep up with it, I realised how much my low-self esteem was being used by the industry convincing me to want new things to fix me and immediately hate the old ones. definitely wasn’t news to me as a phenomenon, but took me a while to realise that it affected me, and how much. as those things tend to, it aligned with various work stuff, break ups, prolonged health problems, family conflicts, other everyday stuff and social media apps, including Instagram and Pinterest, have become my pacifiers, a way to push away all sorts of thoughts, issues, anxiety, to look away, to avoid, to calm down, to entertain myself, to distract me and keep me busy. once I realised just that, they stopped working that well. I suddenly felt like notifications, badges, sponsored posts, fake smiles, free trials, special discount codes, pictures carefully selected for me were attacking me more and more, but none of them no longer made much sense. it all quickly turned into an uninteresting, disturbing, worthless noise and waste of my time that I was able to, surprisingly easily, let go off. sadly, that didn't make my shopping urges and impulses go away. in fact, I still have to fight them pretty much every day and it will take a while. but I really want to work on this. work on this by not letting things be more than things are and define me or change the way I feel about myself. even though I don’t feel great about myself right now. I want to end this post on a positive note because I’m really feeling incomparably better most days now, but the truth is I obviously just started uncovering some stuff and it’s not pretty, so it might take more than giving up retail therapy.

if you can relate, feel more than free to message me, bother me, ask me questions, but beware I might recommend you an endless list of podcasts, essays and videos that helped me and that my friends can’t take any more. if you can’t relate, you lucky fuck, hope you found this interesting. and if you did, the interesting part actually is the shit that happens next, now that I’m taking steps to live a simpler, slower live, without all that excess bullshit, so stay tuned.

GIF SHARPENING USING PHOTOSHOP’S CAMERA RAW MODULE: A GUIDE

Disclaimer: I’m sorry for any further mistakes, i’m not english. I also was kinda lazy with the settings themselves, because they were made only for the purposes of this tutorial, to show you the basics and mine are a little bit different. 

So a few weeks ago i was looking for a way to sharpen my gifs without using a third-party plugins such as topaz, ect, because it’s long, and it crashes very often, so i just got REALLY tired of using it. I also don’t like using a simple Smart sharpen anymore, because it makes edges look pixelate and rough, and i said about it in this tutorial. And I accidentally bumped into a YT video, it was a tutorial about Camera Raw Module, which you can find on Adobe’s site (WIn & mac). I know that it’s frequently used among photographers, because it does a very good job with editing photos, but guess what? It works pretty well with gifs too! Click “read more” to get started

So what Camera Raw basically does is that it removes the blurriness and increases the contrast to make the image look more solid. First, go to that link i posted above, download and install Camera Raw. If your photoshop is opened, relaunch it for the module to show up. Done? Good, now the fun stuff. We’re gonna need these two tabs - the first one and the third one

But before you do anything, make your gif as always and convert it to timeline, then go to Filter > Smart sharpen (Note: these settings were only made for the purposes of this tutorial, so play around with the sliders to find out what suits you best)

Then Filter > Blur+ with opacity settings (again, it depends on what your sharpen settings are)

Then duplicate your layer and go to Filter - Camera Raw filter. As i said, i wasn’t really careful with these because my goal was just to show you the basics of this filter and my original settings are different, but it’s important not to “overdo” all of this, because every scene is different, lightning is different, skin tones are different, ect, so it’s important to increase the settings so it could look like there was just a bit of it. We’ll be working with these settings. Again, you can experiment and find what’s best for you

But it does even more! If your video is poor quality, you can remove the pixelization and make it more “clean” by playing around with these sliders

Usually after applying this filters, gif should look a bit better

Maybe it’s not the best option, but it’s also not as pixelate and grainy as if you’d just apply a Smart sharpen. And again, my settings were a bit dirty

What i personally love about this filter is that it removes the noise and sharpen exactly what needs to be sharpened, such details as hair, eyes, but don’t make the skin look too rough on the edges and also makes the coloring process a bit easy and make it look better because of the contrast. I actually used this on my latest gifsets too: x, x 

That’s it! I love sharing tips with you guys, because i like the thought that it can actually help someone. So please, like/reblog if it is and feel free to leave a message if you have any questions!

Wow imo we have lexa or cs informing because how could anyone see S's name on that menu in a poor quality video, it's so far and blurry. And sorry but menu names are still not enough proof, these folks have put up so much faking through the years that's it's hard to buy any of their fake life circus, sure hope tho S is happy and well whatever the truth of his romantic life might be. And I agree there's nothing bad to say about CS in comparison to the cheap vulgar thirsty ig clone faker Valery.

Please! PLEASE! 😂😂😂

There is nothing vulgar about VK. 🙄

We Got Video Now

"Okay, so me, the rune witch, and our very tired kelpie, we w-"

"I'm tired cause I own the only braincell of this trio"

"It's cause your the mom friend"

"You're right and I despise that"

"Anyways, we were on a supply run when , One: I remembered we never explain anything about who and where we are, and Two: we found an old camcorder!"

"Anyways, hey hold this, we going to try to get video here"

"Wha- fine"

[There's rustling as someone seems to be handing off a mic]

"Guys!, I think I got it working"

{Video cuts in, it seems to be pointing down as the only things visable is a pair of shoes, it's very blurry}

"The quaility is shit though, eh it's good enough"

{The camera straightens out and the focus is played with for a second, There's two women visible. One has a pair of sunglasses perched on her head, along with two very noticeable eye bags. Her lower half of her face is covered with some cloth, there’s a hood bunched up around her neck. Her red hair looks windswept while still holding a very strong aura of bed head. There’s a bow and arrow on her back along with a quiver, there’s also a longsword on her hip. She’s wearing jeans with a tailcoat buttoned over a dark green shirt, with knee high boots. The second one is wearing a tank top and shorts, there’s a cloak tied around her waist, it reaches her ankles. There’s several runes and sigils visible on her skin, the quality’s too poor to be able to make them out. She has a pair of steampunk goggles on her head and a half-face gas mask. She has a backpack by her feet as she's playing with a butterfly knife}

“Here’s the mic”

{The one with red hair tosses a audio recorder at whoever’s holding the camera}

“Thanks anyway, right now we’re heading to our local string of power lines, 3 miles out. We don’t know how they get power, we don’t know why we can get wifi there, we don’t question it”

“We stopped asking questions a long time ago”

“The rune witch has the dead batteries we need to charge in the bag along with the laptop, so we can edit and post this thing”

{A hand comes from behind the camera and points at the bag at the feet of the one with runes}

“Laptop? I thought you had it”

“Come on!, give me a minute. How far are we again?”

“Bout one and a half miles”

[groan] “Fine”

{they hand off the camera to the red hair one, as the view flips around, there’s a clear view of whoever was recording. They’re wearing too many clothes to be able to place a gender, lots of layers, but two wings as tall as them are sticking out their back. They have sunglasses and a pair of aviator goggles on their head under a hood, along their own gas mask. They take off their sunglasses and pull on their goggles. Putting down their own bag and an instrument case, they take a few steps back and fly off}

“You have it don’t you”

{She only response with a smile}

“Of course you do. Any who while we wait for them to get back, I’ll explain something, like where we are, This is a seam for forgotten things”

{She pans the camera around, there’s piles of different things along with half destroyed buildings. Where the two are standing though there seems to be an absence of things, like a path has been cleared. other than that everything seems to be a stark white}

“A seam is basically a natural generated pocket dimension, while most people make their own pocket dimensions to store things, this one was generated by the multiverse. There’s a bunch of these, some of them are for lost souls, those seams are better known as purgatory, others house broken things, some discarded things, lost things, or forgotten things like this one. We don’t entirely understand how things appear in here, but even if everyone dies it still counts as forgotten for some reason, that’s why we have so many broken buildings here”

{She pans to the broken walls around the two of them, as she hits one of them with the side of her fist}

“But our basic understanding is, you know when you forget about something and it seems to disappear, like you lose some coins in an old jacket pocket and then next year the pocket’s empty, well those coins end up here. Anything forgotten and basically disappear, appears here. This does include storms and fires.”

“One time I got caught in a hurricane, I hated it”

“Yeah, natural disaster just popping up next to us, is not fun. Part of the reason we wear lots of facial covering when we go out the Library, is the dust storms and the stupid amount of poison gas that somehow gets in here”

{She turns the camera to her face and pulls down the cloth covering her face down a little to reveal a small device over her mouth and nose, there’s a couple runes on it. Also the sunglasses also seem to have runes of there own. She turns the camera back around}

“People can also create portals into seams, which is how we got here. We were teenagers, and we found an old cabin in the wood with a bunch of old notes on magic. We took a journal labeled dimensional travel, I guess we thought it would be fun. It took us about three days to gather the things for the spell circle, It really shouldn’t of worked. Well, then we got trapped here, because the portal to our dimension closed behind us. So we use the stuff in here to try to find a way back because-”

{She walks around the wall and grabs a book off a huge pile of random objects, and pulls her leg up to write a quick rune on the cover. A series of symbols appear near the rune}

“Most thing in here have symbols like this when we use a dimensional locate rune our warlock made. We can use these symbols in a dimension travel spell circle to head to the dimension it came from. We still haven’t found our original dimension, but we were able to get to a dimension where the spell circle killed us instead, so close enough I guess”

“How long has it been since wings left I would of thought they would of been ba-”

{A black streak dives out of the sky, tackling the warlock, they tumble a few feet before stopping, they’re in a small pile as the winged one is yelling at her as the scuffle}

“You little bitch, you made me fly 3 miles for NOTHING, I’m going to combo you into fucki-”

“Hey you two stop, just kiss and make up”

“Sorry mom”

“Sorry, mum”

“Ew, no. I’m not even that much older than you”

“You’re literally centuries older then the both of us”

“Ah curse my mythological heritage”

“Give me the camera back”

“Say please”

{She tosses the camera and recorder back to the winged being}

“Alright so our kelpie must have bored you so it’s time to sign off, till next time, that one winged sorcerer”

“Wait wait wait did you say ‘kiss and make up’, What the fuck An-”

❤10 Years with JUMP ❤

[Disclaimer] This is all base on my opinion. I might pay more attention to certain things than you do. So please read with an open mind. I just wanted to express my love for the boys <3 Plus, sorry for all the blurry pictures! They were high quality once...a long time ago... T.T

I’m going to share 10 of my favorite JUMP moments (things) to reminisce what these wonderful boys have been through and all the joy they’ve brought to me through these past 10 amazing years.

So starting at #10….

10) Your Seed Dance formation

I remember back in 2008, I was freaking out so much because of this dance formation. It was so cool and is still so cool. I watched this pv for days and even tried to learn every move from Chinen to Yabu hahaha I still think it was one of the coolest dance choreography JUMP has. They were so young…

9) Yuto’s comeback?

After JUMP’s debut, Yuto fell into a “slump year,” which made him lose the center position to Yamada. BUT, he worked very hard and gained popularity again from his acting roles (Hanzawa Naoki, Suikyuu Yankees, etc.). The most amazing thing was when he got to sing the climax in Asu e No Yell. I felt like a proud mom. Love you Yuto~

8) Yamada’s Solo

I was so fricken happy because as you all know, Yamada is my ichiban. And…..Ok…It’s not surprising that out of all 9 of them Yamada got a solo single. BUT, during the making of Mystery Virgin, he was so bored so he talked about all 8 of the members and cried out for them because he was so lonely (My poor baby T.T). He was also expressing his worries about going solo. I felt so good to be his fan because he cared for his members and because he was talking about his worries so openly it made me feel happy that he could share it with his fans. I could sense that he wasn’t letting his fame cloud his perspective which made me trust him that he would not leave HSJ. I understand that other popular members from other groups left because they wanted to explore other opportunities and want to try new styles. I will not be mad if one day Yamada leaves but I will miss him in JUMP. So I hope he doesn’t leave.

(Gif not mine, credits to rightful owner)

7) Host of Shounen Club

This was one of my proudest moments of them. They were finally the SENPAIS hosting the show like Koyama and Nakamaru. Although their hosting didn’t last long it was so much fun to watch them host in their own style, performing their songs in a relaxed manner and be the senpais.

6) “Coming of Age” songs

When all of HS7 finally turned 20/21, they released more matured songs. Like Ride With Me, Aino Arika, Weekender, and Asu e No Yell. I’ve watched them grow up and have seen all their different concepts. From being cute, to being bold, I’ve seen it all (for now, expecting to see more creative concepts). This was one of my favorite periods of JUMP. I sensed their manliness but they still had a goofy and kiddy side. They will always make me happy no matter what!

5) Concerts

I know this is very vague but all their concerts were a great part of their 10 year journey. They always surprise me every time! If I were to talk about them, this blog post will never end. To shorten it up, take a look at some of the pictures down below. These are not enough pictures to describe how great their concerts are! Just go watch them :)

4) Itadaki High Jump

THEIR OWN VARIETY SHOW! This is by far, one of the best things for JUMP. I love how each member gets to shine and all of their personality compliments each other so well. I love the concept of this show! I hope they get more guests  soon! And our English prince, Keito, is finally getting the spot light on that show. He finds every chance he gets to use his English! Haha Like #5 explaining this show will take forever. So please check out how amazing this show is down below:

3) Shin Domoto Kyoudai

Their appearance on Domoto Brother was the cutest thing ever. These freshly debuted kids were so nervous to be on this show and not to mention, it was hosted by their Dai-senpai, which most of them admired a lot. They were asked a lot of typical debut questions (who’s your admired senpai, why did you join JE, etc.). They were also asked to show their teamwork and I was shocked that they all were thinking the same thing (They all did the “jumping to my dream” hand movement). I wish they did that to introduce themselves every time hahaha. Overall, I think this is a MUST WATCH to any new JUMP fans! If you need a link, message me :)

2) Debut Performance

Their debut performance on Hey! Hey! Hey! Was probably the most adorable thing ever, especially when they were introducing themselves.  V6, TVXQ, Yui, and others were also guested on the show. I was very happy that those big artists like them got to see my boys perform. They had so much energy and they all shined so bright!

1) Don’t mind?

When JUMP just debuted they were invited on this Subway quiz show as volleyball supporters. I don’t know the name of the show. If you haven’t seen JUMP guested on this show, I will explain it. The setting of the show was set up like a subway where each player had to hold a subway strap and give their answer. If they got two questions wrong they will get punished by getting spray with some stuff (looked like fire extinguisher stuff haha). The questions were slangs or shorten word and you had to answer with the formal wording (Exampls: kimu taku = Kimura Takuya, KY- Kuki Yomenai, CD= Compact Disc, and so on). JUMP went on the show with another volleyball supporter. It was Chinen’s turn and he couldn’t think of the answer so he was about to get sprayed but Ryutaro pushed him away because he also got a question wrong earlier so he was going to get sprayed in Chinen’s place (he was “taking responsibility” haha). But the person that came on the show with them ended up getting sprayed for both of Chinen and Ryutaro. She was annoyed so she pushed Chinen and said “Don’t Mind” in a rude way. So chibi Chinen pushed her back. She was going to push him again but then Keito stepped in and protected him!! Then Ryutaro said something along the lines like “Violence isn’t the answer” so she went towards him and Yuto protected him. Lastly, Daiki ended up pushing her unto to ground.

This was my favorite JUMP moment of all time!! They were all protecting each other and they all just had very great chemistry with each other! I miss their chibi days! If you watch it you would understand why it was such a great moment! I think all earlier JUMP fans have already seen this but for those new fans who haven’t, here is the link to the video but there is no Eng Sub. 

BONUS: Hikaru getting casted in “Ikemen Desu Ne.” (Japanese version of You’re Beautiful) This came as a huge surprise to me but whoever was casting did it right! I wouldn’t have thought of anyone else in JE to play this role other than Hika-chan! Another proud moment I had.

All my boys are growing up so nicely! Even Ryutaro! Happy 10 Years boys! I will always be here to support you all :D You guys make me happy and give me the best joy! I wish to see you all again one day! Until then, stay healthy and keep smiling.

 If you came this far, thank you for reading!! 

[Picture and Gif credits to rightful owner!

I tried to use as much of my own screenshot as possible!]

Baldessari’s (optional) assignments for his 1970 Post-Studio Art class at CalArts

I could only find abridged versions, or blurry photos of the original handouts, so I transcribed everything, and here it is.

1. Imitate Baldessari in actions and speech 2. Make up an art game. Structure a set of rules with which to play. A physical game is not necessary: more important are the rules and their structure. Do we in life operate by rules? Does all art? 3. How can we prevent art boredom? 4. Write a list of art lies, un-truths that might be truthful if we really thought about them. However consider this: Art truths that we have often are boring in their correctness. 5. How can plants be used in art. Problem becomes how can we really get people to look freshly at plants as if they've never noticed them before. A few possibilities: 1. Arrange them alphabetically like books on a shelf; 2. Plant them like popsicle trees (as in child art) perpendicular to line of hill; 3. Include object among plants that is camouflaged 6. How can gallery use be subverted, as in land art? Exchange locations with another business? Photo gallery sq. ft. for sq. ft. and paste up in another space? One way glass in front of gallery? 8. Give police artist verbal description of Baldessari and have him do drawing. Perhaps everyone in class do verbal description. 9. Describe a neutral object completely with fileand tape or video. Do it until you have fully translated all its qualities to the medium. Perhaps better a class project in that more insights would be available. 10. Create art from our procedures of learning. How does an infant learn? How do we continue to learn. How do we learn speech? To count? To know danger? Investigate Montessori methods, books and learning and perception. 11. Do a tape recording of raw sounds and edit into a composition. 12. Make up a list of sound as art projects (see example). 13. How can a gallery space be used rather than put art objects into it? 14. Two man film project. Each shoots up an amount of film. Each edits the others film. A film collage problem. Important that the footage be "found" 15. Given: The availability of an airplane or helicopter for a short time use i.e., an hour. What would you do? 16. Given: $1. What art can you do for that amount? 17. Cooking art. Invent recipee. They are organizations of parts, aren't they? 18. Subvert real systems. I.e., dial a number that records passages while the person is out and dial another number that gives recorded messages. Put the two phones together. Put a sigh that says "SLOW" in the middle of a street. Get it? 19. What art can arise from magic and myth. Or just a magic trick on video. 20. A sensory deprivation piece. A sensory overload piece. 21. Ecological guerilla art. 22. Disguise yourself as another object--a tree maybe. Or becoming a tree. A big bird? 23. What are the minute differences in things that are supposed to be the same? And vice versa. If you took 36 photos of a lawn, would they all be the same? Or of 36 sections of the same lawn? Or of a wall? Or 36 identical nails (either, finger or kind you hammer). 24. File loops of slides of all the objects one stares at in a given interval when in an arbitrarily chosen room. Or recorded on a tape recorder as one's eyes look on them. 25. 36 slides from start to finish of simple motion like picking your nose, scratching your ass and so on 26. Slides of #24 projected in correct places in another room. 27. Wet and dry. I.e., how does wet gravel in a parking lot look next to another dry area. Perhaps an actual situation, where something would be constantly wasted. 28. Recreate sculpturally with other materials in a magic realist approach any 12" sq area of earth land. Perhaps better yet to keep your own seeth out of it would be to have another choose it for you. 29. Have some take a photo portrait of you just before you go into a store to steal something. Have your portrait taken immediately after the act. Photo the object stolen. 30. Design and have printed your calling card. 31. Steal the trash from Pres. Corrigan's wastebasket and make a collage of it. 32. Have yourself photographed in act of insulting a person. To repeat each time insulting a new person. 33. Pay homage to a movie star, rock musician, etc. in form of a pilgrimage visit. Photograph is required of the two of you with a personalized signed greeting by the culture here. Or it could be a famous person's grave. In this case a photo of you at the grave. Person's name on the gravestone should be visible. No signiture necessary. 34. Defenestrate objects. Photo them in mid-air. 35. What kind of art can be done with real animals? 36. Record all actions, thoughts, for 1/2 hour on tape recorder. 37. What kind of works can be done literally under the earth. 38. Liquid works. 39. Chemical works. 40. Biological works. 41. Photograph landscape in color. Make 8x10 color print. Make some color changes. Color landscape to match retouched photo. Color landscape to match photo. Rephoto. 42. Class make up list for scavenger hunt. Exhibit works at end of day. 43. Forgeries. Each in class tries to forge my signature on a check by looking at an original. Or forgeries of forgeries of forgeries, etc. 44. Take any sentence of text to 6 signpainters to be lettered in letters of same style and height. Study differences. 45. Punishment. Write "I will not make any more art" "I will not make any more boring art" "I will not make make good art" (or something similar) 1000 times on wall. 46. One person copies or makes up random captions. Another person takes photos. Match photo to captions. 47. Serial TV works. 25 ways to fold a hat, to comb your hair, 25 different people spitting. 48. Develop a visual code. Give it to another student to crack. 49. Disguise an object to look like another object. 50. Do a film or TV script or scenario. Use TV layout paper. 51. A video tape that is a result of reading a book. You give book report in front of camera. 52. Smell pieces. 53. Touch pieces. 54. Art that you see by looking up or down 55. How do we get eyes off the visual and into experience. Rent a service rather than an object from Yellow Pages. 56. Take a canvas stretcher, size of your choice, to an upolsterer and have it upolstered with fabric of your choice. 57. A piece that deals with measurement--up, down, right, left, etc. and where spectator is located. 58. Make up list of distractions that often occur to you. Recreate on video tape 59. Make up art parables. 60. Edmund Scientific Catalog project. What art can you make my ordering from this catalog. Maybe grow plants chemically. 61. Hypnosis. Can art ideas be planted and removed in a mind? 62. A wall drawing based on numerous persons height--each marks his height on wall with line, signs name and date. 63. What art can arise from such phrases as: 1. Entasis. 2. Gestalt with some left over information. 3. Simple shape, simple experience. 4. Unitary form with reduced relationships. 5. Unitary form with line of fracture. Or can pure information be art? 64. The structural movement of cameras as subject matter. 65. Performance pieces. I.E. Speak thru your hand to your thigh but not with your head. Or talk with your knees t osomething knee-high. Or what are your dog-like traints without imitating a dog. Or the delivery of a speech to an imaginary person in different spaces in a room. Do a series of artificial voices. Can the various positions of the hand change the resonance of the voice? Say "good morning" every morning into a tape recorder for the length of the tape. See Growtowski, Towards Poor Theater. 66. A snapshot album of things to see in Los Angeles with exact locations so that others could locate sights (sites). 67. Document change, decay, metamorphosis, changes occuring in time. 67. Do good an bad compositions (by photo) of same scene, object. Frame a photo in viewfinder and move camera a foot to side before shooting. 68. Make up a list by looking at art books. Talking to artists on things to avoid in making art. Do them. Ask yourself if results are good or bad art. 69. What art can come from the use of a set of walkie-talkie radios? 70. By using movie camera to follow actions and by your observations into cassete recorder, document the movements of someone secretly for an entire day. Or have someone follow you. 71. Photos are flat. Photograph flat surfaces. Maybe exchange them. 72. Change, control, alter, arrange light in room environment. 73. Art Powers. How much and what kind of art can you make from kleenex and masking tape, for instance. 74. A film video tape etc that deals openly with a physical flaw of yours (in your estimation). A film called PIMPLE? 75. Information exchange. You writer letters to someone and they to you and so on. Framed letters of Refusal (I am sorry, but...) for instance. Or Thanks (That you for your ...blah blah etc). 76. Random photos. End of, beginning of, roll photos. Camera sent up with pidgeon, balloon, given to another person with shooting instructions, shooting from hip, etc. How do we avoid our good taste? 77. Using of time devices. Time clock (that prints time in and out), random time devices (red dot on cash register tape), a fuse, a candle 78. Large scale art that can be seen in its entirety. For instance, if you dyed sheets each a separate color and arranged them checkerboard like, say a hundred or more, they could only be experienced by walking through them, but the ycould be seen (also photoed) by helicopter or airplane. 79. Photograph backs of things, underneaths of things, extreme foreshortenings, uncharacteristic views. Or trace them. 80. Put labels on things that list their contents. 81. Design an art test. 82. Can one give and take away aesthetic content? 83. Street works, art determined by locaiton. What would you do on top of a 30 story building? What would you do under water? 84. Given $50, could you increase the sum in a period of time? 85. Describe the visual verbally and the verbal visually 86. Film of, or video of, children's play activities--walking on a ledge, drawing a line in the dirt, etc. 87. Do a work of art by telephone. Or use TBA (John Collins). 88. An all word TV tape. Or a single word. 89. A real time movie or video tape. A steaming cup of coffee. 90. If photos come from reality, what kind of reality comes from photos? Reconstruct a photo tree-dimensionally. 91. Scenarios. Do a movie for an existing, stock scenario. Or 1 person write scenario, another shoot movie. Or grabag scenario--everyone write 2-3 scenes, drop in box, someone pull out maybe 10 and they are shot in the order drawn out. Or everyone do their version of the grabag scenario. 92. Video tape of making sound effects. 93. Design a secret handshake (for our class members?) 94. Verbally describe a landscape instead of painting one 95. A distinctive work that is based on parts and not a whole, that is one see the parts and never teh whole 96. Prove a point as in a science fair diorama, display tableau such as, "How quickly does bread mould under certain conditions?", or "a plant growth hampered by use of conditioned water?", "The effect of colored lights on plants", "Is untreated seaweed useful as fertilizer", "What effect does ultra Sonic vibrations have on plants?", "The effect of asperin on potato plants", "Why is a rainbow round?", "Do race, color, texture affect the strength of hair?" and etc. 97. Take the titles of any amateur art exhibit and illustrate them. For instance much titles as, Ah, Toro!, Autumn Leaves, Mexican Patterns, Xenogeniala #2, Xanadu, Wharf Enchantments, French Restaurant, Boat Patterns, blah blah 98. Repaired or patched art. Recycled. Find something broken and discared. Perhaps in a thrift store. Mend it. 99. Art that requires the rental of a Service rather than an Object. 100. How does one react to a minor stress problem. Perhaps compare what he is thinking to his outward behavior. 101. Put new canvas over old paintings. 102. Composition based on the duration of say, one gal of paint. 103. A 30 day continuous line of adding machine tape. 104. The shapes of shadows of well known people (or well known artists for a specific example) 105. Reversals. Be black, say things backwards, all while standing upside down. 106. Put make-up on dogs and other animals. On trees and plants. 107. "If each of us were to confess his most secret desire, the one that inspires all his plans, all his actions, he would say: 'I want to be praised.'" (E.V. Cloran). Do a piece that deails with Praise as a theme. 108. Photograph of umbrella and sewing machine on an operating table. That's Surrealism isn't it? 109. Blow powdered color through straw on drawing made with fat on wall underground. That's cave art isn't it?

I saw there was a post on this recently, and after reading the comments saw there was some good advice, and some bad. In today’s world online and social media marketing are becoming not only important, but actual tools to increase revenue and profit. There’s a bunch of ways to grow an IG account, and a bunch of ways to tank one. This will be a long post, so I’ll try and break into bits. Apologies for mobileSorry guys, I know I'm super late on this, I've just been really busy the past couple months. Here you go, and please don't hesitate to reach out for specific help or advice. Also I'm sure I missed some points, so feel free to add your experience. Just be very careful about using suggestions. Saw some advice in the comments on my last post that was good, and some that was bad. Do your research, and be careful. Have at it​UNDERSTANDING THE AUDIENCE​It really doesn't matter all that much what you're using your IG account for, whether it's to sell a product, to increase brand awareness, to create connections, or just to generate hype, if you don't understand your audience. Know the consumers you're trying to target and what kind of things they like and follow. Do your research, google searches, ask random people on the street, ask friends and family what they think and how would they feel. As with all things marketing, the most important step is to put yourself into their shoes and think strategically the best way to engage with themTHE IMPORTANT THING IS TO COME AT IT WITH A STRATEGY. Each post is an opportunity to gain followers. Your waves of followers will come from quality posts, so make sure you attack each post with a strategy and a hungry mentality. If you're on this sub, y'all are fucking sharks. Be a shark.​THE ALGORITHM​In all honesty, we don’t really know what the algorithm is, but understanding how it works is far more important. Basically, like Facebook, Instagram has a formula that ranks its content (posts) in the feed and in the explore page (more on the explore page later). It has variables such as time of post, total likes and comments, hashtags, location, details on the account that posted, and even includes software to recognize what is in each post, and boost or demote it that way. Therefore, if you tend to only like pictures that have luxury cars in them, IG will boost those pictures in your feed. If you only pics of food or dogs, IG will boost pics of food or dogs in your feed and explore page. Each account has a slightly different algorithm in this regard.This is why it’s important first of all to understand your target audience, and get in their shoes, not yours. So if your product is a technology that primarily benefits middle aged woman, but you only post pictures of the technology, you won’t do as well as if you posted pictures that were applicable and likeable by middle aged woman. Like and comments are your direct assessment of your post. If your audience like it, they’ll engage with you. If not, they won’t.Also the algorithm changes every few months, so what worked last year or even last quarter, probably won't work the exact same way now.​POST FREQUENCY​Some of the comments on the previous post touched on this, but gave some poor advice. Do NOT listen to anyone who tells you you have to post as frequently as you can or post twice a day no exceptions. This is shit advice. Anyone who makes a sweeping rule is clearly not a real entrepreneur, or at least not a very good one. Theres more than way to skin a cat.In general, posting twice a day is a safe option. Once a day, isn't bad either, 3x a day can work. I've had success with even posting 3x a week. I would say somewhere between 3-20x a week. But make sure you aren't oversaturating your feed. You can easily bother your followers by making too many low quality posts. Quality over quantity every time. I know this probably sounds vague, but the important thing to remember is each account is different and unique. Please feel free to ask questions specific to you in the comments and I bet as a community we can really give some good advice.​TIME OF POST​Pretty simple here. 12-9pm EST tends to be best. 12, 3, and 9 specifically. This is when most people tend to be on IG. Sorry if you're international, but I would suggest a quick google search looking for best times to post on IG. Generally speaking, Sunday tends to be the least engaging day of the week, but I've still found plenty of success these days.​CONTENT​Quality content is so important to have. There are three types of posts you can make on Instagram. Just a regular picture, a video, or a gallery post, meaning multiple selections where the user has to swipe in order to see the full post. Generally speaking, videos that are 10-30 second long will perform best, but this is absolutely not a rule of thumb. All posts that have a clear resolution, aren't cropped weird, and are professional are capable of performing well. People are forgoing their websites to only use an Instagram page for their business. Therefore, you have to use professional and quality content on your page. I've only had one post that was blurry that performed well, and it was in the middle of a good week (all other posts were getting thousands, and some tens of thousands of likes and engagements). IG boosts accounts that show consistent positive results.I know that it can be hard to find quality content to post, so if you have questions in this regard specific to your account or business, let me know in the comments.Otherwise, there are a couple apps that let you pull down other profile's posts off the app. I like Grab the best, but it is a bit clunky to use. Buffer lets you do reposts, but I've had a lot of bad experience with Buffer, but one of my mentors has really loved it, so you can try it out and decide for yourself.Always tag people in your posts as well. Instagram lets you tag up to 20 accounts in one post, and you can now tag in videos too! this is awesome. So find influencers in your niche and tag them. Find big accounts related to your niche, and tag them. Find pages your audience follows, and tag them.We also need to discuss the concept of a powerlike. A powerlike is when someone with a big following likes your picture and engages with you. Your post is then much more likely to be displayed in their followers feeds and explore pages. Certain accounts likes have more value than others, so use this to your advantage.​EXPLORE PAGE​Your ultimate goal through organic growth is to consistently get on the explore page and get promoted this way. The explore page is the page you access through the little magnifying glass at the bottom of the mobile app, or the compass when using desktop (don't use desktop, IG's desktop sucks). It shows suggestions to you based on your previous likes and comments and who you follow. This is a great way to utilize OUTSIDE ENGAGEMENT, which I'll get to later.​HASHTAGS​Probably the best improvement you can make on your content is the correct use of hashtags. Each post can have up to 30, so use 30. I also suggest “hiding” them in the comments section by posting them as a comment, but there’s no evidence to support that this truly makes a difference. Use hashtags relevant to your niche. If you’re niche is in to cars, but your using hashtags like #hairstylistlove or #cutedogsoninstagram, IG will actually tank you for incorrectly “gaming” the algorithm.There’s a couple of strategies you can use. 10/10/10 is a good start. Basically, there are big hashtags (over 500,000 posts), medium hashtags (50k-500k posts), and small hashtags (under 50k). You’ll see these ranges vary depending on who you ask, but for 10/10/10, I like these ranges. 10/10/10 basically means to use 10 big hashtags, 10 small, and 10 medium sized ones to properly market your post. Pretty simple. There’s also 25/5, and all smalls. In this case I’d use 25 hashtags under 100,000 and 5 over, or all hashtags under 100,000.The important thing with hashtags is to keep experimenting and find what works. Not all posts are going to do well in a good set of hashtags, and not all good posts require a good set of hashtags to do well. Ik that sounds confusing and tricky, but if you take the time, and put effort into making quality content, Instagram will reward you. They want people to USE the app, to SPEND TIME using their product. The more you use it the more you’ll gain.Geotagging is using a hashtag specifically related to your area. So for example #beverlyhills90210 or #minneapolisweather. These can be great if you're specifically trying to grow your brand in an area.Tagstealing is a term I use, but basically, it means going into the explore page and searching a hashtag relevant to your niche. Find a post that performs well compared to that profile's usual posts. So if someone posts a picture and it gets 500 likes when all their other posts get 50, use the hashtags that they did. They already gamed the algorithm and did the hard part for you.​SHADOWBANNING​This is a widely misunderstood concept and its important that we cover it in its own section. Shadowbanning is where Instagram bans certain hashtags from showing your posts in the explore page. usually these hashtags are porn related or can be porn related. So for example, #petite is banned and won't show results when searched. You can just Google banned hashtags checker and find free online tools that determine whether or not something is banned.​Shadowbanning is NOT however, Instagram demoting your posts for whatever reason. it is strictly related to hashtags​CAPTIONS​Captions are the voice of your posts. It gives you an opportunity to share your opinion, connect with your audience, drive engagement, or really determine the direction of your post. I almost always recommend having a call to action ("let me know what you think in the comments below") to help drive engagement on your posts. Encourage people to want to interact with you, but don't be desperate. That shit turns people off. Some people have long winded, winding stories as captions, while others have maybe a sentence at most. It really depends on you and who you are. Be genuine and real with your audience, and they'll respond to that. Never try to do something just for the likes, always attack IG with the mindset of being yourself and putting your best content and effort into the page.You can use hashtags here, or you can post them in the comments section. I like utilizing the comments method because it "tricks" the algorithm by showing your post as having an extra comment right away.​LOCATION​This is a tricky one but can greatly be used to your benefit. This mainly affects the explore page. Basically, you want to use a location that garners a lot of activity, and more importantly, people on their phones. Stadiums, famous malls, public monuments, or popular Instagram spots are good locations to use. I’ve had mixed results when using restaurants. If you’re trying to grow in a specific city this is wonderful. But make sure you get a little more specific, if you’re just going to do a certain city. Use a neighborhood instead, i.e. Brooklyn not New York, Beverly Hill not Los Angeles.​OTHER TOOLS BESIDES POSTS​This is going to be things like Stories, Live, IGTV. Instagram wants you to use the app, so that they can make more money off of ads. Therefore, they're going to boost you for using the other aspects of the app. Post stories once a day or 5x a week, as a general rule of thumb. An easy strategy with stories is to just do reposts on similar accounts and encourage them to engage with you. Minimal effort for decent reward. also turning the camera around and showing you, talking into the camera, showing your workspace, or you in the field is great as well. More effort, but also probably more reward. Live feed maybe once or twice a week, or more, if you have the content/activity. Things like talks, lectures, videos, lessons etc. Sometimes you can do giveaways exclusive for your live viewers. This encourages viewers to come back consistently and engage in your live stream. IGTV is the newest tool here, but I've best seen it used and used it in the form of interviews, similar to a podcast, or in lectures or announcements. Amanda Bucci has a really great use of stories, live, and IGTV, so check her out for inspiration. These are now so much more important for gaining followers. Make sure you're using hashtags and tagging people in your stories etc as well.​OUTSIDE ENGAGEMENT​This is where you'll really separate your account and make huge strides in growth. I grew an account from 3k followers to 10k in 3 months throug this. You should be spending 30 mins to an hour a day, going out and liking and commenting on other people's posts, to help drive engagement to your page. If you haven't noticed by now, the key word in IG is engagement, and you have to give if you wanna get. You can open a post in the explore page, like it, leave a comment that opens/starts a conversation, and move on in literally less than 10 seconds. Great, swipe right, and do it again. and again. and again and again and again for 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after each post. I've seen this strategy work, but also doing this multiple times throughout the day. Experiment and find what works for you. Each account is different and unique. Each method is going to be different and unique. More than one way to skin a cat.Also make sure that youre replying to all your comments on your posts. This will not only increase loyalty and motivation among your followers, but also trick the algorithm. if you get three comments on a post, and reply to all of them, you now have 6 instead of 3. Always be engaging and active with your followers, and try to reach out to other accounts in your niche and bring them in.I saw a question about bots and stuff, there are plenty of bots on instagram. If they leave a comment, then leave a generous reply, and ignore, unless they respond and seem to be more than just automated. Bots are another follow, but having a group of loyal active followers will grow your account much faster than a bunch of bots who don't engage.​DONTs​Don't buy followers. Most of them tend to be bots, or the wrong type of followers, and won't engage with you at all. Instagram tries to ban these accounts, which could negatively affect yours. Organic growth is infinitely more valuable than buying followers.Don't forget about it or give up. Stay consistent. IG rewards consistency. If you keep at it, you'll eventually break through. Ik trust me, it is very tough and difficult, but can be very rewarding as well.Don't post just to post. Make sure each post has care and effort. Think of it like a new baby each time. You are shaping and raising your baby to give it the best possible opportunity to succeed. If you have a kid just to have a kid and don't put care into, it's going to turn out like shit. Be diligent​DOS​Consider paying to boost your posts. Get a couple of posts to perform really well, and consider spending 10 or 15 bucks on each post. This can easily bring you a thousand or more followers, depending on your account and history.Do consider reaching out to influencers, asking for help, or a shoutout. This is a livelihood for a lot of people, and they will want to gain off your following as well. Most of the time, it's win win.Engage engage engage. If you come away with one thing from this, it's that engagement is key in Instagram, and you need to find ways to drive engagement on your page. Experiment, try new things, have multiple accounts and cross promote.​That sums up the generals guys, but I know that I missed plenty. Please please don't hesitate to bring up any issue or question you have, through either comments or PM. Im super busy right now, but will try to get to all of them. I've worked with single person accounts in past and helped people grow over 100k followers. Currently, I'm working as CMO at a startup, and have experience in all things marketing and sales. I'm looking to get into coaching/consulting, and would love to use you as a guinea pig.​Take care, and best wishes