#2000 notes later i remember to add source

[fuckonami]

Security Units have morning routines too.

[rockethorse]

Do you have any tips or resources for improving at texturing? The stuff you’ve been sharing is brilliant— you capture the maxis feel so well!

Oh, thank you for asking, I'm quite flattered you think so! I have mostly been figuring stuff out through trial and error, so I'm hardly a texturing expert, but I can try and share what I've found works for me.

Firstly, wherever possible/practical I just steal from existing Maxis textures, LOL. Makes sense since we want to recreate that Maxis feel, right? If I can remember an existing texture that could be tweaked to work, then I go grab it at least as a reference. For example with the retextures of Alexander's little shorts-suit that I shared for the GoS challenge, I knew I wanted an oversized, hand-me-down denim jacket vibe... so why not go straight to the source and just grab a denim jacket texture from an adult mesh? Then it's just a matter of figuring out the "gaps" in the mapping and filling them in with airbrushing, clone tools, etc. Sometimes the final texture is completely different, but having the reference helped a lot. I'll also take or reference textures from TS3 and TS4 conversions.

On that note, I think it's immensely helpful for anyone working from a Maxis mesh to grab a UV map if possible. This thread of Maxis UV maps is great, but unfortunately not comprehensive - I can't find elder UV maps anywhere :( But still a great resource! It's especially helpful when you're changing something like necklines and shoes, which are often mapped awkwardly and make it really obvious when seams aren't aligned.

Full disclosure, I was already a digital artist, so I had a leg-up on certain aspects of learning to texture. But I still struggled a lot with hand-painting textures and would often get frustrated because what worked for my art didn't work with The Sims. Eventually I found brushes that worked best for me - this might differ from artist to artist, but I found that scaling airbrush tools down gave me the best balance of softness even for "hard" lines like seams, trim, etc. Using a harder brush stood out as looking too "digital" in-game.

Whenever I'm hand painting something from scratch, I first make sure my idea is possible by editing the alpha. I'll make the texture a bright floodfill like yellow, flatten any bump map, and then tweak the alpha how I'm imagining to see what parts are "meshed on" and where. This helps me figure out the boundaries of collars, necklines, hems, etc. in ways that aren't always obvious on a UV map. If the alpha can be edited the way I'm imagining, then I move on to adding small details like hems, buttons, etc.

Once I have these rough details, I start by adding "shape" to a flat colour with the airbrush tool. This means gradually building up shadows to give a sense of 3D. I often start from the sides to make sure the seams will be the same colour, though I do think it's best to go in afterwards with your UV maps to lighten up certain patches. Then I'll add highlights with the same technique, and start carving areas away to make folds and creases, etc. I do this before I add any texture. Often I'll start with a grey colour, to make recolouring easier later, but if I have a very specific colour in mind I'll do that one first and then make a desaturated version for recolouring later. Since I work with Maxis Match textures, it doesn't matter as much if you lose some detail with this process.

This process of building up a sense of 3D gradually and softly with the airbrush tool and shrinking the airbrush tool down to make finer lines instead of choosing an actual fine-line brush are the two biggest tips that I think improved my handpainted textures!

Also, and I mean this sincerely, but I make it look a bit crummy on purpose. EAxis textures are a wonderful blend of genuinely beautiful hand-painting and abhorrent photoskinning, all of which are flattened and smeared to squeeze onto 2000s hardware. Sometimes stretching or upscaling a texture is exactly what a recolour needs to achieve the "Maxis feel", you know? So don't stress too much about it. I always kind of laugh when I find myself obsessing over a tiny stray pixel or a mis-matched seam in my own content and then find the tackiest suit on MTS from 2004 like "looks great, unzip it". It's probably never gonna look as good in-game as it does in your graphics program anyway. Hair textures are where I truly embrace the fug because I know anyone who wants them is coming for exactly that. If people don't want smeary, slightly-dirty, mismatched-colour-groups hair textures, then they've probably found a different hair system that works for them, lol.

Oh, speaking of graphics programs, I use Krita for all my digital art and retexturing. If anyone is looking to get into making textures and doesn't have access to an art program, I highly recommend it for being free, open-source and powerful. If you're a beginner, then remember also that BodyShop crunches textures, especially for darker colours, so if your textures look pixellated in-game try using SimPE to build the DXTs instead for slightly different compression.

If it's an object I'm retexturing, I'll often clone the object in SimPE and then recolour the clone so that I can preview how it will look in SimPE without having to load the game. This isn't perfect, since there's no lighting in SimPE, so sometimes you won't notice little details that are meshed-on, but it's certainly faster than having to load the game every time, especially if you're making lots of little tweaks or stretching the object's mapping to its limits. I had to do this with the blackboards, the City Living toilets, and the bear chairs.

I think that's about it! If anyone has any more specific questions I can try and answer, and I'll try and add pictures that explain what I'm talking about a bit better the next time I go texture something. But in the end, I think "trial and error to find what works for you" is the best advice, along with "steal from other textures A LOT".

[billsfangearring]

Early Wolfstar Fandom vs. Today

I'm going to use @chdarling's response to an ask earlier about Remus and Sirius both being "messy, troubled, imperfect characters" and the effect that would have on any sort of relationship between them as a jumping off point to talk about changing trends within the Wolfstar fandom over the past 22 years that I've noticed. I'm specifically going to focus on 1999 to 2005ish and then compare that era to today.

Please (respectfully) chime in if you disagree with anything or have something to add! I would love to learn more, especially from those who were active in the fandom at that time!

Disclaimers

These are just my observations as a longtime Wolfstar/Jily/Marauders fan who has recently spent some time mucking around in Wolfstar spaces from the aughts/noughties. I have not made any attempt to review Wolfstar fandom history in any sort of comprehensive or systematic way before spouting off like I know something in this post. Also, I wrote this on a whim after dinner, so please forgive any mistakes/sparse sourcing.

My Qualifications (?)

I started dipping my toe into HP fanfic spaces as a reader in 2005. My understanding of fandom has been shaped by the time I've spent on MuggleNet Fan Fiction, FFN, LiveJournal, AO3, Reddit, and Tumblr. If you've seen this post about fandom generations, I sort of straddle the "I was there Gandalf" and Citrus Cheesecake generations. I'm much too young to have participated in online fandom when the ship first sprang into being in 1999 with the publication of PoA. Most of what I know (or think I know) about early/mid-2000s fandom comes from later efforts to locate fics from that period (see above) and learn about fandom history.

State of the Early Fandom

Wolfstar was a Serious Adult Ship for Serious Adult Writers

Older fans of the Harry Potter series were naturally more drawn to the adult characters and their relationships than those of us who were reading the books as children. I at least heavily identified with Hermione as a child and grew to love Remus and Sirius more in my teens. Therefore, ships like Wolfstar that featured characters who were adults in the series attracted a much higher proportion of adult authors than ships like Harmony or Hinny did at the time. (Remember, we didn't get our one real glimpse of the teenage Marauders until OOTP, which came out in 2003—four years after Remus and Sirius were introduced in POA and six years after the first book was published.)

A lot of people wrote Wolfstar as a messy relationship between adults with complicated pasts. That was the whole point for these authors—it's what drew them to the ship. Plenty of Wolfstar writers, such as busaikko, wrote both Remus/Sirius and Remus/Snape (or Sirius/Snape).

Marauders/MWPP-era Wolfstar was relatively less common at this point, and the long Marauders-era epics rarely included Wolfstar. There was a Marauders/Jily fandom and there was a Wolfstar/broader HP slash fandom, with limited crossover, though I should note that this split was the result of broader fandom trends than just the higher average age of Wolfstar authors.

I'm not super confident on this point, but I don't think the ship really took off among teens until it was popularized with a broader audience by The Shoebox Project (2004-2008), which is set in their Hogwarts years and also includes broader Marauders gen and Jily plots. That fic was able to pull people from both sides of the fandom interested in these characters.

Remus and Sirius's canon story was unfinished

You can clearly see the shifts between post-PoA, post-GoF, post-OotP, post-HBP, and post-DH fics featuring Wolfstar. Everyone wrote their take on what happened when Sirius went to "lie low at Lupin's" after GoF came out. OotP gave Wolfstar shippers a ton to work with between that year they lived in Grimmauld Place and Sirius's death, and those events were fresh and raw for authors. They're what writers had Opinions about and wanted to "fix" or explore. HBP, of course, threw a bit of a wrench in things by confirming Remadora was canon, but Wolfstar shippers (obviously) carried on by either disregarding Remadora entirely or writing Remus as bisexual (previously more of a Sirius thing).

I'll add here that before Remadora, a lot of readers thought Wolfstar was canon—the thought was that JKR couldn't have openly written a same-sex relationship into the biggest children's book series in the world so she'd limited herself to subtext and hints for the discerning reader to pick up on. Obviously, we now know this wasn't her intention, but it's a completely legitimate and easily understandable reading of the text. Wolfstar is the only queer Harry Potter ship with years of history of readers thinking it was intended to be canon. See the first meta post below for more!

Fic Trends Then vs. Now

A heavy ship lightens up

As a result of both of these factors, and probably others I haven't thought of, I'd say, overall, Wolfstar was portrayed in a much more dysfunctional, sometimes toxic way than the softer, sweeter Wolfstar relationship that's popular now. People wanted to explore Remus and Sirius's trauma and difficult past together without necessarily healing them or resolving their issues. Post-Hogwarts fics were more common, and there was a lot of enthusiasm about writing missing moments from the most recent book or speculating about what was in store for Remus and Sirius. Modern/non-magical AUs were a relatively niche genre given the focus on developments in canon; they've really skyrocketed in popularity in the past 10 years.

As someone who started out in Jily/Marauders gen spaces before discovering Wolfstar, I want to stress the massive tonal differences between the two communities during this time. Jily and Marauders gen was a fun romp, pretty clearly written by teens and young adults, that focused a lot on teen dramas and relationships. The older Wolfstar authors spent more of their time trying to tackle serious themes in a serious way. They liked to pepper in a lot of literary references, and the comment sections often turned into deep literary analyses that I personally found very intimidating and never participated in!

It's been interesting to watch the Jily/Marauders fandom shift in a slightly more serious and complicated direction as the Wolfstar fandom has moved in the opposite direction. This trend toward the middle has coincided with a greater blending of the two groups into a more integrated Wolfstar/Jily/Marauders community. It's wild to compare the proportion of long Marauders-era fics that feature Wolfstar alongside Jily now vs. back then.

Accessible writing wins out

I've noticed that the average fic length in the early years seemed to be a lot shorter than in recent years. One-shots used to be the dominant format—maybe they still are, but if so it's to a lesser degree. I’m not sure whether this is a Wolfstar- or HP-specific trend or whether it’s indicative of a broader shift in fanfic. If I had to guess, I'd say one of the drivers of the length differences is the shift from slash fics in particular mostly existing on sites that were set up in such a way that each chapter had to be a separate post (e.g. LiveJournal) to primarily being housed on AO3, where it’s easier to read and write multi-chaptered fics and really long chapters.

Style-wise, there's been shift toward a more straightforward writing style compared to the lyricism common in the early days. Again, this is on the macro level! There are still plenty of Wolfstar writers today who write in a more poetic style. I just think there seems to be a bit more directness with narrative and storytelling now than in the past. The differences in average author age and word count may have something to do with it, or perhaps this is just aligned with broader writing trends in the past 20 years. I'd love to hear from someone who actually took a literature course in college/university on this one!

Old Ship Meta Posts

These are sadly hard to track down these days, but if you're interested in learning more I highly recommend checking out some of these old-school ship manifestos and trope bingo cards!

The Case for R/S by elwing_alcyone (2003): An incredible textual analysis of PoA-OotP using direct quotes from the book to make the case for Wolfstar being canon. In addition to the character insights, read this for the snapshot of how much trust HP fans had in JKR's writing skills and in her care for her LGBTQ+ fans at that time. Oh, how she has fallen in our collective esteem...

Strange and Beautiful by blacksatinrose (2004): Another shipper's manifesto that focuses more on compatibility (and incompatibility) and potential than a close reading of the text. The author likes the ship precisely for their mismatch and the infinite number of stories that can be told depending on when and how you start their relationship.

Wolfstar circa 2005 by @theprogressofspring (2016): A bingo card based on popular tropes/elements in Wolfstar fics back in the day. (They also posted a screenshot of the earliest recorded use of the name "Wolfstar"—2001!) If you want to compare this with bingo cards covering more recent tropes, @bloodyhellharry made this one and @bookspark made this one five years ago.

Anyway, those are my personal observations about what Wolfstar looked like back in the day and how it compares to now! I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this topic, and whether I missed anything or got something wrong. Let me know what you think!

Edit: Now on AO3!

[qlala]

Is it cheating to submit a fic request for the pride post you just made? I neeeed the whole thing (I'm on my laptop, but insert the big gay eyes emoji)

fjskdgjslg "big gay eyes emoji" you know what? just for you. just for you i have written this. i'll clean it up and upload to ao3 later but for now: have 2.7k of len dragging a sunburnt, tipsy, and glitter-covered barry back to his apartment, and happy pride!

Len wasn’t the type to begrudge anyone a good time, especially when the good time involved loud music, leather harnesses, and throwing water bottles at cops. Central City’s annual pride parade came as close as it got to challenging that attitude; families, fellow queers, and queens descended on the city waving more flags than the United Nations after a hurricane, all decked out in color combinations that Len hadn’t been able to keep straight since the ‘80s. 

The end result was the kind of crowds that could make a grown man feel claustrophobic in the middle of a city block, and that was without the visible haze of alcohol wafting off the whole event. 

But what the parade lacked in personal space, it made up for with one very important commodity: unattended wallets. 

The flock of sunburnt twinks in denim cut-offs made Len’s job almost too easy—a hand on a sweat-slicked lower back, a flash of blue eyes, and most of them wouldn’t have noticed their wallets going missing if Len had dangled their IDs in front of their faces afterwards. (While there were plenty of women dressed in just as little clothing whom Len certainly wouldn’t have minded getting within robbing distance of, he’d found queer women as a group to be less enthusiastic about uninvited touching and more enthusiastic about wallet chains, even when three sheets to the wind off of canned rosé.)   

He’d taught a dozen visiting suburbanites the importance of not keeping valuables in their back pockets by the time he spotted a familiar profile in the crowd. 

His usual red getup wasn’t much more modest than some of the outfits Len had already seen, but even knowing the shape of that body didn’t prepare Len for seeing Barry Allen stripped to the waist, bright-eyed and flushed and shimmering all over with a fine dusting of glitter. Len noted, on auto-pilot, that it didn’t seem like he’d put any of the glitter there himself; he was standing dangerously close to a drag queen throwing handfuls of the stuff on anyone who got within arm’s reach of her. It set the sun refracting off every dip and plane of muscle across Barry’s chest and stomach. Barry’s hair, already wild and dark at the roots with sweat, was full of it.   

Len’s feet were carrying him closer before he gave himself permission to move. Barry managed to drag Len into his orbit at the best of times; visibly tipsy and dripping sweat, Len would’ve had better luck resisting the turning of the earth. 

Up close, Len could take that Barry had lost his shirt somewhat recently; the slight touch of pink spanning his shoulders and chest had nothing on the serious flush across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. He had a spray of new freckles as well. They were barely distinguishable under the haze of glitter stuck to his skin, but Len noticed them at once, the change unmistakable on an otherwise unchanging face (not a scar to be seen, even after three years of running into burning buildings and jumping in front of bullets; Len was equal parts frustrated and relieved).   

It looked like someone had painted a few strokes of color across one of his cheeks at some point, but it was smudged to hell and back. The back of one of Barry’s hands was stained a tell-tale matching purple, and Len could only guess at what it had been at the start of the day. 

He stepped into Barry’s space as easily as he had the rest, taking care to keep Barry between him and the source of the glitter, and hesitated for the briefest moment with his hand above Barry’s spine. He’d never touched Barry like this, skin to skin; the gloves had never come off between them, metaphorically or literally. Kept things neat. 

Nothing about Barry was neat right now. He turned even before Len touched him, and the movement brought Len’s hand into contact with his side instead. It took everything in Len not to pull it back in a flinch, and he met Barry’s curious glance with a tightly-controlled smirk. 

He’d expected Barry to step back, maybe add a bit of blush to those already-pink cheeks. Instead, Barry’s eyes took a belated second to focus, and then he gave Len a face-splitting grin. 

“Snart!” 

That time, Len did have to pull backwards to avoid Barry dragging him in for a hug. To think he’d been concerned about a hand. 

Barry didn’t seem the least bit put out, smiling loose and easy like Len hadn’t iced him to the door of a bank vault the last time they’d seen each other. He hadn’t taken Barry for such a cheerful drunk—he seemed inclined toward melodrama on a good day—but Len would take it over any of the alternatives. 

“Barry. Fancy seeing you here. And so much of you, at that.” He let his gaze slide down his bare chest and stomach, pulse ticking up at the warm brown of his nipples and the sharp vee of his hipbones that invited his gaze further down. 

“You’re overdressed,” Barry disagreed. He wasn’t quite slurring, but there was a careful deliberation in his tone that told Len it was a near thing. He took a step closer and peered at Len, suspicion evident in those pale green eyes.   “And… sober.”

“I’m not here to score. Perks include keeping my shirt on.” 

For the briefest second, Barry looked almost disappointed. But it was gone in a blink, confusion taking over. He glanced down at himself, puzzled. Then his expression cleared, and he looked up with another easy-going smile.  “I got hot.” His gaze dropped again, to Len this time, and he licked his lips. “Aren’t you… you gotta be hot in all that.” 

Len was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and thin jacket, and it hadn’t hit eighty degrees all week. But he wasn’t in the mood to argue with drunk logic. And besides, another scan of the nearby revelers had made something unpleasant begin to scratch insistently at the inside of Len’s chest, and he tapped Barry under the chin with one knuckle to bring his attention back up. 

The contact startled both of them—Len’s control had slipped, something he could not afford to happen around Barry Allen—but Len recovered first. “Where’s the rest of your team of do-gooders?” 

“Lost ‘em.” Judging by the return of Barry’s crooked grin, it was an accomplishment, not a concern. “Cisco said the shot was too strong, but I didn’t wanna go. He’s the d…” He faltered, brows pulling together as he frowned. “S’the designed. Designinated, superhero, anyway. Shh!” 

He shot a pointer finger toward Len in a movement that Len clocked, alarmingly, as intending to be pressed to his lips, as if he were the one who’d been chatting about Vibe’s secret identity. Len had three years of dealing with the Flash to thank for being able to catch Barry’s wrist in time to stop him, and he glared at him for the attempt. 

But Barry only gave him a crinkle-eyed smile and twisted his hand in Len’s grip to clasp his wrist back. “S’so good to see you here. I didn’t think…” 

“Don’t tell me you had me pegged for straight.” 

Barry made a frankly insulting noise halfway between a scoff and a hiccup and tilted Len a condescending look. 

“Speedster, remember?” he asked, far too loudly, even for a crowd currently screaming along to a pop song that’d been bad enough the first time Len’d heard it in 2000. “I see it when you...” He let go of Len’s wrist to make a gesture with two fingers, parting them in a V and sweeping them up and down Len’s body, the muscles in his forearm shifting distractingly under Len’s hand. God, the kid had to be a hundred degrees. “When you check me out. In the suit.” 

Len smirked. “It’s cute you thought I was being subtle.” 

“You’re cute,” Barry muttered, childish and sulky, and Len took it for the compliment it wasn’t. 

“You had a point, Barry.” 

Barry still looked displeased with him, but his brow was furrowed again when he met his gaze. This close, it was impossible to ignore that Barry had an inch or so on him. “About what?” 

“You didn’t think…?” Len prompted him. 

Barry stared at him blankly, and Len rolled his eyes and let go of his wrist. 

“Get out of the sun, Barry,” he said. “Find a park bench. Wait for your little friends to come find you. Shouldn’t be hard—you’re as red as your suit.” 

Barry either ignored his last comment or didn’t hear it. “Iris is here somewhere,” he said, possibly to himself. “She’s…” He twirled his finger absently beside his head. “Curly, today. And… bikini.” 

Len strongly considered abandoning Barry to his sunburn to go find out for himself. But Barry was beginning to sway a bit, and a man closer to Len’s age than Barry’s was giving Barry’s toned back a speculative look from a few feet away, and Len gave in to the unsettled feeling gnawing at his ribcage. He refused to call it worry. It was annoyance—or, at the very least, the feeling was annoying him, which was close enough.   

“As much a sight for sore eyes as that would be,” he said, allowing a magnanimousness he didn’t feel to color his tone, “I doubt Miss West ran away from her group and got heatstroke. Unlike some people” 

Barry didn’t look the least bit chastened, lips curving up mischievously in a way that drew another couple interested looks. Len needed to get them both out of the crowd before he started breaking noses.

“Tell you what. Give Cisco a call, tell him you went home. My bike’s on Kingsbridge, away from the parade route.” 

Barry’s smirk sharpened. “Trying to get me out of here, Snart? I thought you weren’t here to score.” 

Len gave him a flat look, ignoring the decidedly interested way his body was reacting to Barry’s tone. 

“You can barely stand.” 

Barry’s eyes glittered at the challenge, and Len realized his mistake. 

“Barry—” 

He hadn’t even finished biting out the second syllable when the world spun out from under him, the noise and the heat and the press of the crowd swallowed up in a hair-raising charge of yellow lightning. Exactly two and a half seconds passed in a blur of movement, just long enough for Len to realize Barry was supporting the back of his head with one too-warm hand. Then the world came skidding to a stop around them. Barry’s momentum carried them both forward several feet even after their new surroundings materialized, and they very nearly went straight through a window again before Barry seemed to remember how to stop. 

Len considered pushing him out the window anyway for the stunt. True, he’d been itching to get another taste of that feeling, the ozone snap-drag of Barry’s power like a live wire under his hands, but he’d rather have waited until Barry could pass a breathalizer. 

He realized Barry still had an arm around him and shoved him off. It did nothing to dim Barry’s self-satisfied grin, and Len had to look away or risk giving into the interested once-over Barry was skimming over his body again. 

“Pretty sure the point of a designated driver is not doing that.” 

Barry followed him when he took a step back. Len made a calculated decision, decided the risk of touching Barry again was worth it, and pressed his fingers to the middle of Barry’s chest—right where the Flash insignia would be on his suit, his brain offered unhelpfully—and pushed him backwards, hard. 

Barry unbalanced and wheeled back a step. Then the backs of his knees hit the edge of the couch, and he toppled, satisfyingly, back onto the dark leather cushions. 

It was a nice couch. The whole apartment was nice, actually. Len could’ve drawn a perimeter of possible locations based on Barry’s speed and how long it had taken them to reach it if he hadn’t already known the address. 

“Sit,” he said. And then, with a smirk: “Stay.” 

Barry rolled his eyes. “Gonna have to ask nicer than that if you wanna boss me around in bed.”

The way he threw it out there, easy as anything, almost made Len miss a step as he turned away. He wasn’t going to lay a hand on Barry, not when he was drunk on sunlight and skin and whatever concoction Cisco had apparently cooked up for him. But hearing him say it, like they’d already gotten all of the messy parts out of the way—it set off warning bells in Len’s head, flashing past all the possible off-ramps he would’ve taken if Barry had ever tried to have the conversation in a more linear fashion. 

“You’re drunk,” Len said, which was a coward’s answer, and behind him, Barry made a vague noise of agreement. 

“Probably,” he acknowledged. “You could stick around ‘til I’m not.” 

Christ. Len didn’t trust himself to look at Barry again, not when he knew he’d find him sprawled out and shedding glitter all over what had looked like a very expensive couch. “Stay,” he repeated, and went off to find the kitchen. 

By the time he got back with two glasses of water, the problem had solved itself; Barry was out cold on the couch, his painting cheek pressed to the throw pillow he’d curled himself half-around. He was shivering faintly in the air conditioning, all cooled sweat and goosebumps, and Len resigned himself to the now-familiar impulse to help him that stirred in his chest. He put one of the glasses down on the table and, not trusting his hands, knocked his knee into one of Barry’s where it was bent close to the edge of the couch. 

Barry buried his face into the pillow with a noise of displeasure, and Len said his name again. 

“Last warning,” Len said. “Ten seconds, you find out if I put on steel-toed boots today.” 

Barry groaned, and if the sound hadn’t made Len’s pulse skip, the easy shift of muscles in Barry’s arm as he pushed himself up to sitting again would’ve done the trick. 

“Water,” Len said, unnecessarily, as he passed him the glass. 

Barry took it with the tips of his fingers, as if it were something personally offensive to him, and took a single, polite sip before putting it down beside the other with no small amount of distaste. Then he glanced between the glasses, and up at Len, a dirty spark already lighting behind his eyes again. 

“Don’t get your hopes up. They’re both for you.” 

Barry let out a breath with audible annoyance and dropped back against the couch cushions to glare at him. 

Len felt a modicum of sanity return to him. This, at least, was familiar ground: Barry, frustrated, asking for too much, too soon. True, it had always been about the hero business until now, but Len knew a pattern when he saw one. Give Barry an inch, and he always took a mile. 

Len gave Barry one last, appraising look. He looked ridiculous, all self-righteousness and bare skin. There was only one break in the otherwise even coat of glitter, there on Barry’s side: faint, but unmistakable, the outline of Len’s hand on his waist. The feeling in Len’s chest coalesced into something pleased and possessive. He met Barry’s glare with a slow curl of his lips, then gave him an inch.  

“Call me when you’re sober, Barry,” he said, letting his voice slip into the Cold drawl just to watch Barry’s eyes go dark. “And you can show me how well you sit up and beg.” 

He could see the impatience radiating off of Barry’s frame, the effort it was taking him to stay on the couch instead of closing the space between them. 

“Call your friends,” he reminded him. “Enough people got a look at your face today without the CCPD splashing it on every milk carton, too.”

In the elevator, Len reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the thin black wallet he’d liberated from Barry during their sprint across the city. Two and a half seconds: child’s play. A little extra incentive for Barry to track him down in the morning, not that Len thought he needed it. He flipped it open, noted the deer-in-the-headlights picture of Barry on his driver’s license with amusement, and then thumbed open the bill compartment. 

Len smirked. Barry wouldn’t miss a few dollars; he owed him for the dry-cleaning it was gonna take to get the glitter out of his jacket, anyway. 

[whats-my-newest-obsession]

I NEED MY ANTI-LARRIES, LARRIES, HARRIES, LOUIES, AND EVERY OTHER GROUP INVOLVED WITH THIS GOD FORSAKEN SHIP TO PLEASE GATHER AROUND UNDER A FLAG OF TRUCE!

I ASK YOU TO PLEASE TAKE A FEW MOMENTS TO HEAR ME OUT, REMEMBER ASSUMPTIONS WILL BE KEPT OUT OF THIS DISCUSSION AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!

So I'm sure you guys have looked at us Larry shippers like we are completely delusional. Even I have been blown away at the reaches some shippers will make. I can't really blame you for being skeptical, but I want you to understand why there is such a vast majority of us that doesn't think the idea of Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson secretly being in a relationship or have in the past is an all that crazy idea.

(Please take note I'm going to be as FACTUAL and as REALISTIC as possible using the GIVEN FACTS I already have.)

Why do you think Harry and Louis are together?

I'm keeping this portion extremely small as it can be annoying to look at, but I just want to show some weird things us fans have noticed between the two that caused all the research I'm about to show you. (THERE WON'T BE MORE THAN THREE LITTLE SNIPPETS I PROMISE, ALL THREE BEING COMPLETELY RESPECTFUL TO THE TWO OF THEM)!!!

Now this video does actually exist on the internet today (I'll leave a link) and it does arise some questions. It seems a little strange to answer yes to this question while looking completely serious, especially since the dating rumors were already in full blast at the time. All things considered, it really just doesn't make sense.

(X)

This tweet can definitely be explained. Louis could have gotten hacked that day. But the weird thing is, is that the tweet still exists on his Twitter account today and has picked up quite a bit of noise (being the 4th most retweeted tweet in history). Again, I'll leave a link so you can access it.

(X)

Harry deliberately turned his entire body to face Louis and sung a very romantic line, neither of them laughing or trying to make a joke of it. Some people claim they hear "I'm in love with Lou" and "All his little things" which is entirely based off of ear so I'll let you decide. Unexplainable at best. Link:

(X)

How realistic can a situation like this actually be?

The thought of two boys who are both gay/bi/other being put into the same band and just happen to want to be together is already a pretty crazy thought to have, now add the theory that their wealthy and incredibly professional management team wants to cover up any remnants of an ongoing relationship between the two of them who also happen to be in a worldwide successful music group entirely appealing to the female audience and the thought has basically become an unrealistic fantasy.

But it's happened before.

I'm sure you've heard of the Irish pop band Westlife, who also have very impressive record sales. 13 major releases, 11 of which are albums, over 1,000,000 subscribers on YouTube, have sold over 55 million records worldwide, and over 550,000,000 streams on Spotify. Their achievements range from Top Album Sales of the 2000s in the UK to holding the Guinness World Record for 'First to Achieve Seven Consecutive Number One singles in the UK'.

But the most important resemblance this band has to One Direction is that they were signed by Simon Cowell, and Louis Walsh became their manager. They were signed with a Sony BMG company, very similar to One Direction's.

Little known fact about one of the old Westlife members Mark Feehily who later left the band, is that he is gay. He got engaged to a male British Fashion Photographer without any public awareness. In fact, everyone seemed to believe he was straight, as he was 'dating' women at the time.

The band has come out and said that while being signed under Louis, they suffered mistreatment and relationship cover ups.

I would highly recommend reading the article, the band members talk a lot about being forced to keep a squeaky clean image for the ladies and they even warned One Direction that they had a storm coming being signed under Simon. (X)

I understand that Mark and his ex fiance's situation was different than Harry and Louis' but it proves that the entire corporation Simon Cowell and his team run is not afraid to cover things up if necessary.

So even if this conspiracy is true, how would Sony realistically cover something like this up?

For the record, you can't count on me to understand what goes on in celebrities lives' especially when it comes to image management. I tried my best to do as much research as possible and get reliable sources, but this is a tough one to answer.

One thing that's true is that Hollywood has been proven to use fake relationships to boost Public Relations and create drama within the celebrity gossip world. These are called 'PR stunts'. While there aren't many celebrities who have come out and told the public that the relationship they were in wasn't actually real, a Hollywood publicist Jack Ketsoyan has exposed PR stunting in all it's entirety:

Many fans have long suspected that relationships Louis and Harry have been in were actually just stunts to hide the fact the two of them were together, specifically Elounor (Louis and Eleanor Calder). While the reasons these fans believe this doesn't seem logical, they also directly correlate with what Jack says defines a PR stunt:

Link to the article: (X)

So PR stunting is nothing new in Hollywood apparently. Now if Larry Stylinson is true, this would be a really good way to cover it up.

Why would Harry and Louis agree to this?

Life is very different nowadays then it was ten years ago. Gay marriage in the United States wasn't even legal until after One Direction disbanded. Homophobia was still extremely rampant in 2010, it wouldn't have been a good idea to announce that two boys in an incredibly famous band were actually gay and with each other.

It wouldn't be just about record sales. The band had a reputation of being girl loving and constantly available. Statistics show that 80% of One Direction's fan base was female. This is not saying that every single fan was a teenage girl who lived and dreamed about being with a One Direction member, but it was enough of them to build a brand around.

Even now, actors and singer still shy away from coming out immediately. There are still a lot of people who don't support it, and that kind of hatred, especially to somebody young, can be detrimental to their mental health.

Conclusion:

This post was NOT made to make you a Larry shipper. This was post was also NOT made to start a debate in the comments or through reblogs on wether or not Harry and Louis have/had something more than friendship.

This post was however made by a TIRED Larry shipper who just wants you to know that we are not crazy, or delusional, or even stupid to believe that this situation can be entirely realistic based on the circumstances

If you've made it this far, let me know in the comments if I've changed your viewpoint on us shippers or if this post opened your eyes a little on the secret mistreatment of celebrities.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, you are an absolute legend! TPWK!

-Andrea xx

[pan-delure]

hey I'm starting dice casting in resin as a quarantine activity! anything you think I should know? (I have researched a decent amount about what to do or not do but I feel like it'd be better to get the opinion of someone who knows things!) thanks for your time! I love your blog btw

Oh my gosh, thank you! Wow... okay where to start... (Just a heads up to anyone reading, this is going to be a long and probably rambling post)

There's definitely a large learning curve for dice making, so like you said it's really good to do your research! Experimentation is important, but I'll try to share as much as I can to help!

There are a few important stages that help improve the quality of your dice, and the quality bumps up a bit each time you go up a stage. Each stage would cost a fair bit to bump up, but it does show an improvement and most importantly, each one reduces the amount of time and effort you have to put into completely finishing a set of dice. If you ever get discouraged, remember that failure is part of learning, and of course your results will get better with experience! I'll include some pics of my first dice versus my most recent ones for comparison.

The first tests I ever tried with making dice, I had barely a clue as to what to try. The first molds I ever made were made with a small, extremely expensive Hobby Lobby silicone mold kit, and a small bottle of Alumilite casting resin.

At the time, I knew from watching King of Random videos that the best thing to use to remove the bubbles from silicone (improving the quality of your molds and final product DRAMATICALLY) was to use a vacuum chamber to "degass" the silicone as much as possible. At the time I couldn't afford one, so my old molds often had tiny bubbles that would leave small, stippled pieces of resin all over the surface of my dice. So, how do we get around all of this?

Well, one way would be to buy a vacuum chamber, but I recently found a better way to make sure there are no bubbles! But, I'll talk a bit more about this later.

(Side Note: I do not support Hobby Lobby or their policies in the slightest, but at the time it was the only place in my town that offered silicone or resin, and it still is. I now buy almost all of my supplies online, and buy direct from the manufacturer if they have a website to avoid using Amazon.)

So first off, what kind of resin should you use?

This is normally just determined by personal preference, but I really enjoy using Art n Glow casting resin for all of my dice. You measure the two parts in a 1:1 ratio by volume, and it hardens pretty well as long as you mix it for 3-4 minutes before adding any pigments or dyes. I'll add a link to their website here, but keep in mind they also sell a lot of interesting pigment options besides just resin.

So what about silicone?

So after my first unfortunate mishaps with my old Hobby Lobby silicone, I decided to do some digging and see what would actually work the best. After watching a lot of Rybonator's videos on youtube about making molds, I went with Smooth-On brand Mold Star Slow 15 silicone for my first serious molds. This specific silicone is a two-part, green platinum cure silicone, which basically means it will last a lot longer than something like a tin cured silicone. (I would add a link for where to buy it, but there is another silicone that I like much better that I'll talk about in a moment.)

This worked pretty well for me, but there is a major downside. When you use an opaque silicone, you can't see the resin as you fill up your molds. This works for a LOT of applications, but if you're interested in doing layered, swirled, or pride themed dice, I would instead go with Smooth-On Sorta-Clear 37 silicone (link included). One trial kit is more than enough for one full set of dice molds, with a bit extra left over for other projects. Not only do the clear molds leave you open to being able to make layered or pride dice, but the silicone itself is a bit firmer than Slow 15, which makes it easier to secure the mold together before you pour resin into it, and the mold is a bit more durable overall.

(Comparison photos of molds I've made with Slow 15 and Sorta-Clear 37, and my og molds)

But how do we deal with all of the pesky bubbles in the silicone and resin?

Well, I'm glad you asked. So, normally a vacuum chamber would be used to remove the bubbles from the silicone, and then you would use a pressure pot after you fill them with resin to basically crush down any bubbles that are suspended in your resin while it hardens and cures. When I wasn't unemployed and had a decently steady stream of income, I went out of my way to track down a decent vacuum chamber and a vacuum pump (which I had to buy separately). However, with a bit of experimentation, I found that you don't really need a vacuum chamber at all! Instead of buying both pieces, which would (if you're lucky) would cost around ~$75 for the vacuum chamber and pump, and $100 for the pressure pot, just using a pressure pot in place of a vacuum chamber will save on both time and a TON of money.

Using a pressure pot is one of the main stages that helps improve the quality and time spent sanding dramatically, and both Rybonator and Peter Brown have great videos on setting up your pressure pot. Harbor Freight sells a great model that has a massive capacity and is absolutely perfect for dice making! The technique for using a pressure pot for curing silicone is rather simple, just pour your silicone into your molds and place into the pressure pot, then let them cure for the length of time given on the packaging instructions.

In terms of actually preparing dice for molds, I would follow this guide from Rybonator, which is pretty much what I've followed in making mine. My molds are slightly different, but it's just trial and error to see what works for you!

Hey, so how do you pigment your dice?

Pretty much any way you want! There are lots of different ways to color and tinted resin, and nearly infinite things you can inset into them!

A few of the things I use are the cheap $0.50 bottles of acrylic paint you can buy at Walmart or any hobby store, alcohol based inks, liquid glitter, glow powder from Art n Glow, mica powders, pearl powder, cocoa powder, gold leaf, so pretty much anything! Peter Brown has an amazing video series where he takes household items and tests how well they work as resin dyes (link), and it serves as a pretty good source of inspiration for what to use!

Oh lord, am I going to have to sand these?

IMPORTANT NOTE: ALWAYS WEAR A RESPIRATOR OR FACE MASK, EYE PROTECTION, AND GLOVES WHEN WORKING WITH RESIN! (Yes, always!)

Unfortunately, sanding your dice can be one of the most tedious parts of this hobby, but each of the stages I've mentioned such as using a pressure pot or even getting your own dice masters can really cut down on the amount of time that you have to spend sanding and polishing. Personally, I use a mix of different wet sanding grits (normally the grits I use are 300, 600, 800, 1200, and 2000), and once I'm happy with the surface finish I move on to something called Zona papers (link), which work amazingly well compared to things like micro mesh pads that I've used in the past. I normally sand each face, including when polishing them, for about a minute or so on each face in a figure-8 motion, making sure that there is plenty of water to keep both dust from clogging the sand paper, as well as to reduce the amount you are breathing in. Buying master dice, such as those from Blue Mimic, can really reduce the amount of time you have to sand, but most hobby dice makers may not go so far as they can cost over hundreds of dollars, but are necessary if you ever plan on selling them or starting a business with them.

That's about most of the advice I have when it comes to making dice, but if anyone has any questions please don't hesitate to ask!! If I think of anything else I'll add a reblog onto this with any extra info. Remember, any failures you make are absolutely part of the process, and make sure you keep them to remember how far you've come!

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

@shattered-catalyst asked me what underused female Marvel characters that I’d like to see in the RPC. I misread it as asking what underused female characters I would like to see in a canon Marvel story, and started making this list. Then I realized what they ACTUALLY asked me---and answered it HERE-- but since I had this list started I thought I would post it! As a note, I tried to overlook my own biases for whom *I* simply want to see back in action, versus if there’s actually story potential there that I think other fans would genuinely want to see. It’s also by no means complete/comprehensive, so if you think someone is missing and deserves to be on here---you’re probably right! Feel free to add to it! BLINDSPOT - Blindspot is a female member of Mystique’s Brotherhood who was friends with Rogue, and had the powers of memory manipulation. After several missions, Mystique decided to cut ties with her due to lack of trust. Blindspot left, but not without wiping herself out of Mystique and Rogue's memories first, as she always covered her tracks, which is why Rogue doesn’t remember her (actual reason is she was retconned in, she’s a 2000s creation) Years later, when Rogue had become an X-Men, they would come into conflict once more, as Blindspot wanted to ‘save” Rogue from Xavier’s “brainwashing”, but Rogue would still leave Blindspot with her X-uniform to remember her by. Blindspot is unique in having been a Brotherhood friend to Rogue, as she was never shown as close to any of the other members, and was also mysteriously immune to Rogue’s powers. I think Rogue fans might enjoy seeing her in a Rogue story again, and perhaps learning more about their time together. CATSEYE - I think ALL the Hellions were criminally underused, and I know from X-Men/comics discussion boards that there’s an audience for their return. Catseye seems to be the favorite in terms of who people found most interesting, and I agree. A girl who believes she’s a cat who can turn into a human form, rather than the reverse, is a really neat concept, not to mention Sharon had a charming personality with surprising depth for what little time she got. There’s a lot that could be done with her return, and I think she could totally be the lead in a revived Hellions story on Krakoa, or a story depicting their time as Frost’s students at the Massachusetts Academy. CORDELIA FROST - Look, everyone loves Emma Frost, I think it’d be easy to get people interested in a Cordelia story. Not to mention the fact that like...Adrienne is dead, Christian was institutionalized, but Cordelia has been running around this whole time. She seems to have had some big plans once upon a time, what happened to that? Nothing ever came of it. Why not? What’s she been up to all this time? Also, we should finally get to see what kind of powers she has! I’ve seen it quoted around the Internet that Emma claims Cordy is “the Professor Xavier of empaths” but I’ve not only never seen the source for where she says this, she’s never demonstrated ANY kind of powers in canon, besides Emma not being able to read her mind. I would like to see what the “subtle, dark, and devious” Frost baby gets up to! DARKSTAR - Darkstar is a mutant and she’s been present in the comics since 1976. She’s been a member of X-Corps, as well as served in the Champions with Angel and Iceman back in the day. Yet her loyalty (coughBRAINWASHINGcough) has always brought her back to serving Mother Russia first and foremost. We saw recently though that Russia has gone back to its “All mutants serve the State or die!” position, and not allowing its mutants to go to Krakoa. It’s pretty easy to work Darkstar into a story about that, and finally exploring the way she was deeply conditioned to the point her “choice” to serve her country is probably anything but, and coming to terms with that at last. I’d really like to see a story like this, because Darkstar is kind of unique in that her brainwashing wasn’t a dramatic trauma-conga full of torture and abuse, she actually seems to have been treated well, she was just also kidnapped as a baby and never knew anything else. I think it’s about time we get a story that shows abuse doesn’t always “look like abuse” and how denial of someone’s agency can run so deep that their own choices that they THINK they’re making of their own free will, really are products of that. Also, her story could be an easy way to get my STARLIGHT fix, and FANTASMA on top of that. Remember, Fantasma was banished to Limbo, and pulled Starlight in after her. Why WOULDN’T Darkstar want to go rescue her teammate? And there’s a member of the X-Men who is mistress of Limbo and can open portals there, it’s totally easy! Darkstar enlists Magik (who has a huge fan following, and thus would get people interested) to guide her through Limbo so they can find Starlight and bring her home, but on the way they run afoul of Fantasma! Who, being a Dire Wraith sorceress, makes a great foe for Magik! PHANTAZIA - During 1990s, Toad struck out on his own and formed his own Brotherhood, which consisted of several old faces---Pyro, Blob, and Sauron (despite Sauron not being a mutant)---and a new one, the woman known as Phantazia, aka Eileen Harsaw. Phantazia had the power to manipulate electromagnetic energy fields. This allowed her to fly, disrupt machinery, and  disrupt the bioelectric energy fields and nervous systems of other living beings as well, resulting in pain, paralysis, loss of physical coordination, and in the case of superhumans, the inability to control their powers, causing them to fluctuate in strength, cease functioning altogether, or spew out uncontrollably. Not much is known about her personality, but she seems to have been well-educated, as Blob refers to her as “Ms. PhD” and tended to stay out of the arguments between her male teammates, ignoring them while she read books on scientific subjects, such as astrophysics. . She also displayed loyalty, such as when she also opted to stay with her teammates when only she among them was invited to Magneto’s new mutant sanctuary of Avalon. Alas, Eileen met a wicked fate---for some reason, she was one of the few mutants to retain their memories of the “House of M” reality shift, and the shifting back and forth drove her insane. She was last seen in a S.H.I.E.L.D. custody cell, babbling “House of M” over and over. I think Eileen was interesting. She had a cool powerset, hints of a personality, and was never much of a “bad guy” certainly not enough to deserve what happened to her. Female Brotherhood members are also pretty rare, so she catches my eye for that too. I like to think Xavier found her and fixed her mind, and she’s going to hang out with her old pals Pyro, Blob, and Toad on Krakoa. HAVEN - I’ve been yelling about her on this blog for like 5 years, but if you’re not familiar with her, Radha Dastoor aka Haven was a villain who ran a cult dedicated to bringing about the end of the world as we know it in order to usher in a golden age of peace. She only did this, however, because she was being possessed by a demon. Her real self was a kind, charitable woman who was just all about feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, and, as it happens, advocating for mutants. Though it had little to do with her villainy, Haven still found time to be a demon-posessed super-terrorist AND write books promoting mutant/human peace and give lectures condemning bigotry. She seems like someone who SHOULD have gotten saved from said demon, but no, she dies alone in the mud after being victim-blamed by a Marvel deity. Her entire arc is really misogynistic, she’s only possessed because she had sex once and then got pregnant, she’s basically punished for breaking the purity taboos of her culture once, and it’s also pretty...racist isn’t the right word, but she’s the first Indian and Hindu character in the X-Men comics, and a lot of her terrorist philosophy fed to her by the demon comes from actual Hinduism, which has unfortunate implications, as does the fact that the “brown woman with a funny religion ended up being a terrorist just like the government said so X-Factor attacking her before they were sure of this is okay” was part of her story. Eesh. Anyway, she was a very good person and an interesting character, I think bringing her back as someone trying to do good in the world again as a human ally to mutants while also dealing with what happened to her and what she did and her loss of 20 years of agency to possession, would be a good story. I at least want to see a cameo of her taking care of a bunch of orphan and refugee kids who are a mix of mutants, Inhumans, Warpies, aliens, and humans. LORELEI - Lorelei is another little-known woman from the Brotherhood of Mutants, and unique in that she’s NOT a mutant. At one point, Magneto used a machine to mutate members of the native tribes in the Savage Land, giving them super-powers. These Savage Land Mutates served him in their homeland, fighting the X-Men at his command, but he left them behind when he returned back to the rest of the world...all save Lorelei, who he took with him for his new Brotherhood, citing a possible “Pygmalion complex” for why. Lorelei was a beautiful blonde woman who could control men with her voice. However, she seems to have a childlike intellect, as she speaks very simply and in the third person, and doesn’t really seem aware of what she’s doing or why she’s being told by Magneto to do it. It’s a really worrying dynamic, and I also worry about Lorelei once Magneto just...kinda ditched her, I guess, and left her with Unus, Blob, and the Vanisher. Then she turns up back in the Savage Land serving yet another bad guy. Lorelei--or Lani Ubanu, as seems to be her name before Magneto transformed her--comes off as an unaware innocent that just gets constantly picked up and used by greater villains because she doesn’t know any better, and given that this is because of the powers Magneto gave her, I’d like to see that come back and have him take responsibility for her. And if she’s NOT as unaware and innocent as she seems, I’d like to see that, because she’s been around since 1969 and she doesn’t have a personality and she barely speaks! Flesh this girl out! MADELYNE PRYOR - I feel like this one is cheating a bit, because I’m not sure I’d say Maddy is under-used. She’s seen more action just this decade than all the others on this list saw in their entire careers COMBINED. It’s more than she’s just...not used well, in my opinion. 2000s writers generally seem to forget that her stint as the Goblyn Queen came from being infected by demonic energy and also insane (for VERY understandable reasons), and seem to think she’s just evil on her own. Not to mention they take all the depth out of her; she’s a character with a full personality of her own and some very fucked up struggles that she was not to blame for, but that all gets boiled down to “Scott’s sexy evil ex who is mad he left her so now she trounces around in skimpy clothes she never actually wore when she wasn’t possessed because EVIL LADIES ARE SEXY CUZ FEMALE SEXUALITY IS EVIL” and it’s just....u g h. When Maddy was herself, she actually was very heroic, to the point she sacrificed her life to save the world (her FIRST death, which everyone forgets). But she also has good reason to be really angry and bitter at the X-Men, and I don’t see her letting go of that even when she’s back in her right mind. So I think depicting her as an anti-hero, who saves innocent people yet works against the X-Men, would be a neat story, with the ultimate conclusion being her letting go of her grudge, not for THEIR sake but for HERS, to not have her be tethered to them any longer, not even by hate, and finally live a life that is HERS. MISS SINISTER - So, Miss Sinister is NOT Nathaniel Essex in a lady suit. She’s actually an entirely different person, and actually has a very sympathetic situation. She’s a woman named Claudine Renko, whom Mr. Sinister injected with a virus containing his own DNA. The idea was that in the event of his death, the virus would activate in her or one of his other test subjects, transforming them into Sinister complete with his consciousness replacing their own. But when it activated in Claudine after Sinister’s apparent (but in fact only temporary) death in the “Messiah Complex” story, Claudine did not become possessed by Mr. Sinister nor become him---not exactly. She became essentially a female clone of him, gaining aspects of his appearance (such as the chalk white skin) as well as his telepathic powers. He might also be how she got her wicked personality, but since we don’t know anything about her prior to this, that could just be how she was already. But she also suffered invasive memories of Essex's life, and that as a malignant presence within her mind, he was slowly killing her as a means of self-resurrection. He even managed to manifest briefly before being re-absorbed back into her. It was for this reason that she wanted to switch bodies with X-23, thus gaining Laura's healing factor, something she had wanted after her stabbing, and thereby freeing herself of Essex. The plan backfired when Essex took control of Laura's body and used her to mortally wound Claudine. Laura managed to overcome Essex's presence in her mind, expelling it through force of will. She was next seen working with Emma Frost on using The Mothervine, though Emma ended up turning on her. I remember feeling bad for Claudine when I read her story with X-23. Having someone else trying to take over your body is a pretty good motive for doing something as evil as trying to steal someone else’s, while also being inexcusable to do. It’s unlikely she was a willing subject for Sinister, so she probably isn’t to blame for what happened to her, but is to blame for her actions after, which is the kind of villain I like. Also, while she’s usually in lingerie ala a Black Queen of the Hellfire Club, she wore a really cute little normal outfit in a story with Sebastian Shaw and Daken...which ironically is when she actually was Black Queen! I’d like to see more of Claudine, and find out more about her story and who she was before all this, and whether or not she’s REALLY free of Sinister, as she seems to be now. After all...is anyone ever free of him? Bonus if she teams up with Madelyne Pryor! NOCTURNE - No not TJ Wagner, THIS LADY! I don’t think anyone (except me) is hoping for her return, as I don’t think anyone else really knows about her, but Spider-Man stuff is still popular so there’s no reason she couldn’t come back and have a prominent role in that. I really hope they go with the interpretation that she’s gay, since now is a time that they can actually have that open instead of coded, but more than just the representation of a gay WOC (which is awesome) I really am interested in her adjustment and journey into her new identity, and in particular her communication via empathy powers rather than speech. That really intrigues me about her. I think she could become very compelling and popular if brought back and handled well, perhaps in a story that brings back other neglected characters in the Spider franchise as well. SAT-YR-9 - Okay, so in the Captain Britain/Excalibur comics of the 80s, there was a woman named Courtney Ross. She was a banker and Captain Britain’s ex, and she became a side character, having adventures with the team and even besting none other than ARCADE through STAND UP COMEDY. Then one night, a version of her from another universe emerged in apartment, killed her, and took her place. This evil counterpart was Sat-Yr-9, who had been a cruel dictator in homeworld, and has been running around doing evil in 616 since while masquerading as Courtney. Captain Britain discovered the ruse and vowed revenge...but has yet to really do anything, probably because Sat-Yr-9 herself really hasn’t done anything since either. She popped up for a brief moment in the 2000s as the new White Queen of the Hellfire Club, but that’s it. I would like to see more of her, in that role or outside it. Given her connection to both the Hellfire Club and to Kitty (whom she was grooming under the guise of “Courtney Ross” and seemed to have big plans for, as well as some mysterious connection to that was never explained) I think she’d be great for the Marauders series. Or in the new “Excalibur” series that stars Psylocke as the new Captain Britain! I also think there would be interest in a story that finally resolves her murder of Courtney and shows Brian finally at least TRYING to make her pay, I still see it talked about on Marvel boards how unsatisfying and frustrating it is that Brian vowed revenge DECADES ago and has yet to do anything about it, and how much of a waste that makes Courtney’s death (Courtney was surprisingly popular with fans even to this day due to how she handled Arcade, it instantly endeared them to her...and then that’s RIGHT when she got killed off, literally the evening after) Maybe Betsy is the one who finally gets her at last! THRENODY - I think that Threnody’s coming back in the recent Deadpool series revived enough interest to justify bring her back yet again, and I think her baby being killed, however monstrous it was, means that fans are probably ready to see her get a happy ending for once. I know I sure am. ZALADANE - Zaladane was a personal villain to Polaris, and given that Polaris has never really had a book that was about her (as far as I know, I’m far from a Lorna expert) I think bringing her back as the bad guy for a Lorna solo series would be cool. I also would like it resolved if she’s Lorna’s sister or not. It seems to add up at the time it was written, but changes to Lorna’s backstory continuity since make it impossible. I think that a suitably comic-booky explanation could work for that, such as “she *is* Lorna’s sister but from another dimension, not 616, and also that explains how/why she’s in the Savage Land” or something like that. Plus it satisfies both the people who think she is and who think she isn’t.

[skylights422]

1, 12, 20, 43, 63, and 92 for the ask game?

1. coffee mugs, teacups, wine glasses, water bottles, or soda cans?

This is a tricky one because I use water bottles and coffee mugs the most since that’s what is around the house, but the aesthetic of tea cups and wine glasses are far superior. But if I had to choose one I’d go with tea cup because they are very charming to me.

12. name of your favorite playlist?

Oh gosh, this is where I realize I’m incredibly out of the loop with certain trends, despite having Spotify I never make playlists or anything, I just add a lot of songs to my favorites for later listening, so I don’t  have or even know any playlists by name? The mixes youtube makes are often full of songs I like though, so I enjoy those for when I’m writing or doing something where I don’t want to have to pick what to put on after each song.

20. preferred place to write (i.e., in a note book, on your laptop, sketchpad, post-it notes, etc.)?

Generally I prefer to write with my laptop since it is faster and easier to keep track of, though when I was younger I always wanted to write in journals/notebooks because I found (and actually still find) them incredibly charming and appealing, but I’m terrible at remembering to update them so they always ended up super scattered.

43. hoodie, leather jacket, cardigan, jean jacket or bomber jacket?

Hmmm tie between leather jacket and cardigan. I quite enjoy the leather jacket I own but cardigans are often cozy and a bit more diverse. Blazers weren’t on the list but now that I own one I can confirm I like those too because they make me feel fancy lol.

63. five songs that would play in your club?

There are so many different directions I could go with this, but I’m going to assume that since this is a club the goal is more dance types of music rather than just ‘songs I happen to like’, so here’s this chaotic mix of Grooves:

- ‘September’ by Earth, Wind, and Fire

- ‘Anti-Soul Mystery Lab’ from Castlevania: Lament of Innocence

- ‘Policy of Truth’ by Depeche Mode (or any of their more dance-able tracks)

- Caramelldansen (or really any other number of 2000s meme-hit songs lol)

- You Just Got Loki’d (because it makes me laugh okay)

There’s a lot of other songs from a range of sources that could potentially be on this list, but these were the first to come to mind.I was originally going to include less meme music and more regular songs or soundtrack songs but then they popped into my mind and I was forced to accept I would absolutely haunt my club customers with nostalgic memes so here we are. xD

92. lamps, overhead lights, sunlight or fairy lights?

I’m going to go with fairy lights, because while I actually own a lamp and generally enjoy lamps, and am quite appreciative of Fresh Sunlight, fairy lights are fun and feel ghostly and charming and magical and are much prettier than other light sources.

Thanks for the asks! ^_^

[attract-mode-collective]

"weLCUM to the motherfucking Queer matrixXx"

In part 1 of my recap of stuff tweeted during the later half of May, over at @AttractMode, I mentioned that one thing that kept me awfully busy… hence the backlog and two-part recap for Tumblr & Medium… was Death By Audio Arcade X Dreamhouse II.

The proper/full name of the soiree was Ova the Rainbow: DreamBoxXx, which is where most of these photos were taken, with a few from Death By Audio Arcade X Dreamhouse I; the photographer on the behalf of Gothamist was there for both opening & closing parties, to help add color to their story...

... BTW, the arcade will open one last time, this Friday (June 8th). Doors open at 7!

And as for the rest of last month... well... back to the subject of arcades for a sec; it’s a dream of many to have the full experience at home, though space is obviously the primary issue. Thankfully you (or your Lego minifigs to be exact) have options (via @ActionFigured)...

This Blast City shirt was designed on a CRT monitor, making it extra legit (no word if it was in TATE orientation tho; via theyetee.com)...

I basically know nothing about Avail, though appears to be a Target or H&M-like retail entity for Japan? Well recently they had a Gradius shirt for sale, but I missed my chance to save a copy of the PDF circular from which it made its seemingly sole appearance.

Hence why I had resort to blowing up this screencap (via miki800.com)...

There's actually a 2nd Gradius tee, and we thankfully have a far better look at it this time (via miki800.com)…

... I almost have to wonder if the 1st one was a mock-up or placeholder or something, cuz I seriously cannot find an image of it anywhere.

Few things get me as giddy as a nice 180 camera turn around with sprites (via segacity)...

And 3D turnarounds of polygonal characters are cool, provided that they’re watercolored (via typhlosionofficial)...

Same (via @BauceSauce)...

Sorry, but the sight of shelf after shelf, all bucking under the massive weight of countless carts & discs, is an eyesore IMHO. Instead, a modest pile of software with plenty of breathing room work best for me (via sixteen-bit)...

Such a beautifully personalized iPhone is essentially an iPhone for life (via miki800)...

A (video game) toy chest… a (video game) treasure chest… basically both? (via miki800)...

Remember hearing about Street Fighter 2 X Transformers? Well, they're finally here (via tfw2005.com)...

To be honest I have enough toys. Whereas I could always use more storage! Hence my interest in these SF2 USB sticks. But I can’t decide which World Warrior I want to see in such sad shape all the (via miki800.com)...

Time for another crossover, specifically Virtual On X bunny girls; a custom model kit of Angelan (via shop2000.com)...

A look at all the Tokyo Game Show poster girls since 2010 (via videogamesdensetsu)...

The first Famciase of 2018 to get my attention now has a fake ad to go with the fake game (via pepesalot)...

I'm 99.99% confident that this gaming set up/living quarters (via @miaumiauzmiau)...

... belongs to Polylina, aka Poririna, aka SEGA SATURN GAL (via this old post from a few years back)...

Note the similar pink curtains...

Who wears their Space Invaders shirt better? This guy (via shmups)…

Or this gal (via thesensualeye)...

The chairs for Space Invaders Frenzy has seen some serious shit (via oh-log-n)...

It’s a Space Invaders bathroom cuz why not (via it8bit)...

Nothing illustrates the harsh game making environment better than this one dev’s cardboard facade, underneath his desk, to emulate home (via videogamesdensetsu)...

Kitchen pantry cat’s prices are way better than bedroom closet cat’s (via @tatuya01)...

Memorial Day took place near the end of May, naturally, which meant another opportunity to repost my fave video starring the greatest soldier of the 20th century (via this other old post from years ago)...

Memorial Day weekend was also when I decided to post a bunch of YouTube vids; remember that one explaining why wiggling Sonic 3D Blast for the Genesis produces a level select? Did you also remember to subscribe to the channel? If so, you’d already know how Sonic R did transparencies on the Saturn...

Do you like Famiclones? Do you like Jackie Chan? Then you might like...

... I ended up going down a Jackie Chan rabbit hole, which resulted in a high-quality version of the infamous soundtrack to Hong Kong 97. Which in turn led to the discovery that the loop is actually a small portion of a full-length song entitled "I Love Beijing Tiananmen".

Sorry to ask everyone to click out, but I have a limit on how many videos I can embed in a single post and all.

Come to see what NES game Bithead1000 broke the bank on, stay to hear him bitch about Trapper Keepers...

Spoilers: it was Metal Storm, and can you believe that it managed to grace the cover of Nintendo Power? Not complaining of, more impressed than anything else (via shmups)...

Time for some bonus Bithead1000, which I’m not posting cuz of the aforementioned technical limitation, plus it has nothing to do with games anyway: hearing him talk about old school rap made my Memorial Day and hopefully it'll make yours, no matter what date it is.

Yet another video I must abstain from embedding is Johnny Cage performs 4'33". Hopefully all of you fans of Mortal Kombat/experimental compositions/shitty webtoons do not feel slighted (via roman55)...

Another look at the “New Aero City” stick, this time with the intended color scheme of yellow for both the balltop & buttons (last time they were red, as seen here; via hibachicandy)...

It’s the guy made Metal Gear and the guy who made Kong: Skull Island, playing Xevious & Ikaruga (via xtheo.ca)...

The beginning of the ultimate road trip (via lazywaifus)...

Like many others, I spent an entire morning pouring over that epic game collection before it was set to be auctioned off at the end of the month; my wish list included a SuperGrafx, TurboDuo, CD-i, Nuon, and Donkey Kong for the OG GB sealed… (via bodnarsauction.com)...

Alas, I couldn’t make the trip to Edison, NJ for the auction. Thankfully, @textfiles could; be sure to check all the photos he posted on May 31 for all that he saw...

Am surprised it took this long to see something like this (via @gamesyouloved)...

… The same source also posted this Sonic gif; I’ve looked everywhere for the source but zero luck… can anyone point me in the right direction?

Back to the aforementioned auction, or should I say the mass acquisition of old games; it’s always been a secret plan to collect a bunch of Super FX carts in order to extract the chips, for... something? (via pixelpolygon)

Thought check out what the Mega Drive/Genesis can do without the help of any fancy chips (via vidgam)...

...BTW, am aware of the fact that equally amazing programmers can probably push the SNES in crazy ways if given chance.

Am also familiar with the SVP or Sega Virtua Processor that drove the 16-bit version of Virtua Racing (which I enjoy better than the 32X version).

Re: the auction one last time: so the real reason why I didn't bother with making that trip to Jersey? There wasn't a Divers 2000 CX-1 on-hand (via anthony10000000)...

Here’s someone really enjoying a game of Zaxxon (via arcadezen)...

And someone... well... maybe enjoying a game of Polybius? (via dualvoidanima)

Okay, so this gif ain’t related to video games per say, yet this came up in a Tumblr that I frequent for super cool shit, plus the music video it’s from is neat, so there ya go (via mendelpalace)...

Speaking of sources for content, worlds collided with the surprise appearance of Just One Boss (which I first encountered at Death By Audio Arcade's Lo-Fi Game Night several months back) at obscurevideogames...

Worlds continued to collide with the surprise appearance of Attract Mode's Dark Souls print by Judson Cowan, in a recent article in Kotaku on the subject of Dark Souls Remastered...

One last last thing: I’ve long considered Suzuki Bakuhatsu to be THE game that best represents the Attract Mode a e s t h e t i c & I’m super happy that the RetroPals finally got around to playing it...

[thomaschattertonwilliams]

By Thomas Chatterton Williams July 20, 2018 LONDON — When the world first learned of Michael Jackson’s death, from an accidental overdose in 2009, the news had a whiff of unreality about it. This was in no small part because, for so long, it had been hard to remember that he was actually a person. A child prodigy who in adulthood became a genuine Peter Pan — fantastically refusing to grow old — Jackson was always more an idea than a human being in the flesh. Nearly a decade later, the shape-shifting body frozen in memory, his extraordinary image endures as if he never left. Now, an ambitious and thought-provoking new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, running through Oct. 21, seeks to measure the impact and reach of Jackson as muse and cultural artifact. “Michael Jackson: On the Wall,” curated by Nicholas Cullinan, sprawls without feeling bloated, occupying 14 rooms and bringing together the work of 48 artists across numerous media, from Andy Warhol’s instantly recognizable silk-screen prints and grainy black-and-white snapshots, to a vast oil painting by Kehinde Wiley. (Jeff Koons’s famous porcelain sculpture “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” is notably absent, though it is reinterpreted in several other pieces.) First the obvious: No artwork, however clever or pretty, that has been inspired by a talent the size of Jackson’s can compete with its source material. To get the most out of what this show has to offer it is best to acknowledge this at the entrance and move on, as the most successful pieces do, eschewing strictly aesthetic concerns and exploring instead Jackson’s conceptual possibilities. Consider for example one of the simplest works in the show, David Hammons’s 2001 installation, “Which Mike Do You Want to Be Like…?” The piece — full of wondrous pride even as it conjures a sense of depressing limitation — consists of three abnormally tall microphones and its title recalls the Holy Trinity of late-20th-century black American entertainment icons as set out by the rapper The Notorious B.I.G.: “I excel like Mike, anyone: Tyson, Jordan, Jackson.” (B.I.G.’s own guest feature on Jackson’s 1995 “History” album marked a crowning achievement in his career.) More than 20 years later, rappers still clamor for a Jackson co-sign. On “Scorpion,” his latest chart-topping release, Drake flexed the ultimate status symbol, having purchased the rights to unreleased vocals and scoring a posthumous feature with the King of Pop. Jackson, more than Tyson or even Jordan, so epitomized black excellence that Ebony magazine could unselfconsciously run an airbrushed image of him on the cover in 2007, his creamy skin and silky cascading hair framing a razor-sharp jawline, beside a headline reading “Inside: The Africa You Don’t Know.” A year after the singer’s death, Lyle Ashton Harris recreated that image on Ghanaian funerary fabric. It’s jarring to compare the real late-life M.J. with another imaginary iteration that Hank Willis Thomas appropriates in one of the show’s more shocking offerings, “Time Can Be a Villain or a Friend (1984/2009).” In this, we see an uncannily convincing, and wholesomely handsome rendition of Jackson with his natural skin tone, a pencil-thin mustache on his lip and an ever-so-lightly relaxed puff of hair on his head. Mr. Thomas explains in the catalog that it is simply an artist’s rendering from a 1984 issue of Ebony, a glimpse of what the magazine imagined Jackson would look like in the year 2000. Without any alteration, it is by far “On the Wall’s” most critical work — the image originally so full of pride and hope is now an indictment, and haunts the show like a scathing rebuke. In this post-post-racial, post-Obama era of resurgent populism and Balkanized identity politics, it really does feel as though it matters — and matters more than anything else — whether you’re black or white. It does make for a particularly fascinating moment to re-evaluate Jackson’s image as a fundamentally “black” but simultaneously racially transcendent figure, or a monstrous desecration, depending on your perspective. Indeed, there is a push and pull between these running through the exhibition and the catalog that accompanies it. In the catalog, the critic Margo Jefferson calls Jackson “a postmodern trickster god,” noting “what visceral emotion he stirred (and continues to stir) in us!” She anticipates, in the next pages, the novelist and essayist Zadie Smith’s castigating contribution. Ms. Smith writes of her mother’s initial preoccupation with the singer: “I think the Jacksons represented the possibility that black might be beautiful, that you might be adored in your blackness — worshiped, even.” But, she adds, “By the time I became aware of Michael — around 1980 or so — my mother was finished with him, for reasons she never articulated, but which became clear soon enough. For me, he very soon became a traumatic figure, shrouded in shame.” “It was as if the schizophrenic, self-hating, hypocritical and violent history of race in America had incarnated itself in a single man,” Ms. Smith concludes. This critique is at odds with the warmth with which many black people still hold the singer, particularly in the United States, where he remains enormously beloved. But it calls to mind the furious assault on Jackson’s racial credentials with which Ta-Nehisi Coates began a recent essay on Kanye West. “Michael Jackson was God, but not just God in scope and power, though there was certainly that, but God in his great mystery,” Mr. Coates writes. “And he had always been dying — dying to be white.” He continues: We knew that we were tied to him, that his physical destruction was our physical destruction, because if the black God, who made the zombies dance, who brokered great wars, who transformed stone to light, if he could not be beautiful in his own eyes, then what hope did we have — mortals, children — of ever escaping what they had taught us, of ever escaping what they said about our mouths, about our hair and our skin, what hope did we ever have of escaping the muck? And he was destroyed. Such criticism, however heartfelt and comprehensible, makes the mistake of reducing Jackson to the role of tribal ambassador in a society built on oversimplified and regressive notions of racial and gender identity that his own art and self-presentation never stopped pushing against. It occludes the far subtler and more interesting insights that a genius can provoke, and too confidently pigeonholes an individual who knowingly rejected the stifling limitations of his country’s artificial racial binary for a dupe. The man who wrote “We Are the World” and “Liberian Girl,” and proudly recreated Egyptian splendor in “Remember the Time,” had an idealistic and expansive view of our common humanity. His androgyny, too, helped shatter restrictive notions of black masculinity. One of the most counterintuitive and compelling contributions to “On the Wall” is Lorraine O’Grady’s series of four diptychs, “The First and Last of the Modernists (Charles and Michael).” Comprising blown-up found photographs of the 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire and Jackson striking similar poses and tinted in a variety of pastel hues, like many of the works here, these pieces deal inventively with the theme of mirroring. “When Michael died, I tried to understand why was I crying like he was a member of my family,” Ms. O’Grady explained in an interview at the show’s opening in June. “I realized the only person I could compare him to was Baudelaire,” she said, listing ambiguous sexuality and a proclivity for wearing makeup as commonalities. “But more importantly, they both had this exalted idea of the role of the artist,” Ms. O’Grady added. “If Baudelaire thought he tried to explain the new world he was living in to the people around him, Michael had an even more exalted vision: He felt that he was capable of uniting the entire world through his music.” In Ms. O’Grady’s view, Jackson didn’t simply try to become “white,” as his detractors would have it — rather he “crafted himself physically to appeal to every demographic possible,” she said. By the time of his death, Jackson had long been one of the most famous people on the planet, if not the most famous. The footage of his “Dangerous” tour in newly post-Ceausescu Romania, on display in an eerie loop, provides hallucinatory testament to his outrageous global reach. It is estimated that his memorial service at the Staples Center in Los Angeles reached at least a billion people worldwide. “The first of the new is always the last of something else,” Ms. O’Grady notes in the catalog. Baudelaire, she writes, “was both the first of the modernists and the last of the romantics.” And Jackson “may have been the last of the modernists (no one can ever aspire to greatness that unironically again) but he was the first of the postmodernists.” He was, perhaps, the first of the post-racialists, too. Yet in our hyper-connected age of heightened political consciousness and reactionary fervor, in which identity is both a weapon and a defense, that view of race can feel naïve. But this is a failure of our own imaginations and dreams, not his. As “On the Wall” makes clear, Jackson’s own face — through a combination of fame and relentless surgery — became a mask, reflecting our own biases and ideals while concealing a deeper truth. His art and lasting appeal, on the other hand, function as a reminder to consider our own disguises, and what we might gain by letting them go. Michael Jackson: On the Wall Through Oct. 21 at the National Portrait Gallery, London; npg.org.uk.

[hannahkevin40]

Designer Spotlight: Amanda Berry

#wehave #hasbeen #booksread

(This post, Designer Spotlight: Amanda Berry), was originally written and published by The Loopy Ewe. © TheLoopyEwe, 2021)

Today we have Amanda Berry in our Designer Spotlight. She has some of the cutest designs I’ve seen, and has been featured in books and magazines. Amanda lives in the UK, in a town called Reading in Berkshire, about 40 miles west of London. I know you’ll enjoy learning more about her today! (Note – today’s discount code works in Amanda’s Etsy shop only – see the end!) All pattern links go to Etsy, all yarn links go to The Loopy Ewe.

Loopy: Hi Amanda! Thanks for being in our Spotlight today. How long have you been a knitter and who taught you to knit?

Amanda: Hi Loopy! I started knitting when I was about 6 years old and my Mum taught me the basics.  I also had a book called “A Ladybird Book About Knitting” which was a beginner guide aimed at children.  I remember using that book as I made a few scarves for my teddy bears.  But I didn’t start knitting properly until 20 years later when I was going through a difficult time and my therapist recommended some crafting.  I picked up the needles again and it reignited my passion for all things woolly.

Pippin the Mouse © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: Knitting really is a wonderful way to destress, isn’t it? What is your favorite type of item to knit?

Amanda: I love making toys, I am just a big kid at heart!  I don’t have the patience to make a blanket or anything large scale, and I enjoy the challenge with toys of shaping and bringing the design to life.

Riley the Puppy © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: Your patterns and toys are some of the cutest I have ever seen. (Like that Peacock up there. I definitely need to make myself a Peacock!) What is the most challenging thing that you have knit to date?

Amanda: I recently made an Old English Sheepdog and it was made by knitting loops, and I really dislike knitting loops! I don’t know why, but knitting loops always makes my fingers sore; I was so happy when that dog was finished.

Farmer Drabble and Sheep © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: It’s good to challenge yourself, though, so that sounds like it was a good one. When did you start designing, and what spurred that interest?

Amanda: I started designing in the late 2000’s.  I wanted to knit a toy for a gift but I couldn’t find a pattern I liked, so I designed my own.  I was encouraged to share the pattern and published my first designs in 2010.  

Fruits & Vegetables © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: I looked at your patterns and see Fruits and Vegetables as the first design listed. And it’s still as fun as ever! Do you have a favorite pattern that you’ve designed?

Amanda: Griff the Dragon is one of my favourite toys, he’s really cheeky.  I also love making little knits like my Teeny Animals as they are great for using up odds and ends of yarn, and are super quick to knit for impatient people like me!

Eggy Chicks © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: Those teeny tiny creations are adorabley! What is your favorite part of your designing? And your not-so-favorite part?

Amanda: My favourite part is making up the toy seeing it come to life. I prefer to design as I knit so I have the flexibility to change ideas as I knit, so it is great at the end if my ideas actually worked!  The downside of working this way is sometimes the shaping doesn’t work so I have to frog and start again.  

Griff the Dragon © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: You must have to take really great notes as you design on the go like that. Do you do this business full-time, or on the side?  And is that hard? Do you have other jobs outside of pattern designing?

Amanda: I am now full-time designing which is fantastic.  When I started designing my knitting was crammed in during the evenings and I was also part-time working and studying for my degree at London College of Fashion.  That was really hard work, so after graduating in 2014 I chose to design full time and it has kept me really busy ever since.

Gerry Giraffe and Ziggy Zebra © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: I figured with the number of patterns you have, you must be doing it full time! Does anyone else in your family knit?

Amanda: It is just me now.  My husband doesn’t knit, but thankfully understands to wait until I reach the end of a row before asking me a question.

Teeny Animal Knits © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: It sounds like he has learned that lesson well! Are there other hobbies that you enjoy?

Amanda: I enjoy walking.  We have some lovely countryside near my home and (especially during these lockdowns) country walks keep me sane. I enjoy being out with nature, even if it is a grey rainy day.  It gives me some headspace which is so important in these Covid days.  I am not an avid reader, but I occasionally enjoy reading PG Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster books, as they always make me chuckle.

Mr. Snowman © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade Superwash Sport)

Loopy: Your countryside really is beautiful, rain or shine. What a treat to have such lovely walkways close to your home. What would be your favorite way to spend a day off?

Amanda: I would have breakfast in bed (cooked by someone else please!) – a large cup of coffee and baked beans with fried egg on toast, yum!  Then I would go to London for the day and visit a museum. I especially enjoy going to the British Museum, the V&A and the National Gallery. I would then have some food at the Southbank and browse the vintage book stalls. That would be a great day off.

Olive the Owl © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash Aran)

Loopy: Well I did not know there was such a thing as Vintage Book Stalls. I think I would be lost in there all day! Last set of questions: Morning or Night person? Coffee or Tea? English or Continental? Solids or Multicolors?

Amanda: Morning once I have had my first coffee.  Coffee, never tea (it gives me a headache).  English please, anything vegetarian with an egg is great.  Multi-colours, I am a fan of stripes.

Beeper the Robot © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: Anything else you’d like to add?

Amanda: Thank you so much for taking the time to read my little ramblings.   I hope you are all keeping safe out there, and happy knitting! 

Pocket Monkey © Amanda Berry (Sandnes Garn Smart)

Amanda is offering 20% off one pattern of your choice from her ETSY Pattern Store with the code: LOOPY20

This code is valid 3/19-26, 2021.

I’ve already bought Beeper, but definitely need to make Mr. Snowman, Griff the Dragon, and Pippin.

Sheri

By: Sheri Berger Title: Designer Spotlight: Amanda Berry Sourced From: blog.theloopyewe.com/2021/03/designer-spotlight-amanda-berry Published Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2021 15:00:00 +0000 source https://blog.theloopyewe.com/2021/03/designer-spotlight-amanda-berry source https://victoriamark932.blogspot.com/2021/03/designer-spotlight-amanda-berry.html

[laylaanthony40]

Designer Spotlight: Amanda Berry

#wehave #hasbeen #booksread

(This post, Designer Spotlight: Amanda Berry), was originally written and published by The Loopy Ewe. © TheLoopyEwe, 2021)

Today we have Amanda Berry in our Designer Spotlight. She has some of the cutest designs I’ve seen, and has been featured in books and magazines. Amanda lives in the UK, in a town called Reading in Berkshire, about 40 miles west of London. I know you’ll enjoy learning more about her today! (Note – today’s discount code works in Amanda’s Etsy shop only – see the end!) All pattern links go to Etsy, all yarn links go to The Loopy Ewe.

Loopy: Hi Amanda! Thanks for being in our Spotlight today. How long have you been a knitter and who taught you to knit?

Amanda: Hi Loopy! I started knitting when I was about 6 years old and my Mum taught me the basics.  I also had a book called “A Ladybird Book About Knitting” which was a beginner guide aimed at children.  I remember using that book as I made a few scarves for my teddy bears.  But I didn’t start knitting properly until 20 years later when I was going through a difficult time and my therapist recommended some crafting.  I picked up the needles again and it reignited my passion for all things woolly.

Pippin the Mouse © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: Knitting really is a wonderful way to destress, isn’t it? What is your favorite type of item to knit?

Amanda: I love making toys, I am just a big kid at heart!  I don’t have the patience to make a blanket or anything large scale, and I enjoy the challenge with toys of shaping and bringing the design to life.

Riley the Puppy © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: Your patterns and toys are some of the cutest I have ever seen. (Like that Peacock up there. I definitely need to make myself a Peacock!) What is the most challenging thing that you have knit to date?

Amanda: I recently made an Old English Sheepdog and it was made by knitting loops, and I really dislike knitting loops! I don’t know why, but knitting loops always makes my fingers sore; I was so happy when that dog was finished.

Farmer Drabble and Sheep © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: It’s good to challenge yourself, though, so that sounds like it was a good one. When did you start designing, and what spurred that interest?

Amanda: I started designing in the late 2000’s.  I wanted to knit a toy for a gift but I couldn’t find a pattern I liked, so I designed my own.  I was encouraged to share the pattern and published my first designs in 2010.  

Fruits & Vegetables © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: I looked at your patterns and see Fruits and Vegetables as the first design listed. And it’s still as fun as ever! Do you have a favorite pattern that you’ve designed?

Amanda: Griff the Dragon is one of my favourite toys, he’s really cheeky.  I also love making little knits like my Teeny Animals as they are great for using up odds and ends of yarn, and are super quick to knit for impatient people like me!

Eggy Chicks © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: Those teeny tiny creations are adorabley! What is your favorite part of your designing? And your not-so-favorite part?

Amanda: My favourite part is making up the toy seeing it come to life. I prefer to design as I knit so I have the flexibility to change ideas as I knit, so it is great at the end if my ideas actually worked!  The downside of working this way is sometimes the shaping doesn’t work so I have to frog and start again.  

Griff the Dragon © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: You must have to take really great notes as you design on the go like that. Do you do this business full-time, or on the side?  And is that hard? Do you have other jobs outside of pattern designing?

Amanda: I am now full-time designing which is fantastic.  When I started designing my knitting was crammed in during the evenings and I was also part-time working and studying for my degree at London College of Fashion.  That was really hard work, so after graduating in 2014 I chose to design full time and it has kept me really busy ever since.

Gerry Giraffe and Ziggy Zebra © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: I figured with the number of patterns you have, you must be doing it full time! Does anyone else in your family knit?

Amanda: It is just me now.  My husband doesn’t knit, but thankfully understands to wait until I reach the end of a row before asking me a question.

Teeny Animal Knits © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: It sounds like he has learned that lesson well! Are there other hobbies that you enjoy?

Amanda: I enjoy walking.  We have some lovely countryside near my home and (especially during these lockdowns) country walks keep me sane. I enjoy being out with nature, even if it is a grey rainy day.  It gives me some headspace which is so important in these Covid days.  I am not an avid reader, but I occasionally enjoy reading PG Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster books, as they always make me chuckle.

Mr. Snowman © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade Superwash Sport)

Loopy: Your countryside really is beautiful, rain or shine. What a treat to have such lovely walkways close to your home. What would be your favorite way to spend a day off?

Amanda: I would have breakfast in bed (cooked by someone else please!) – a large cup of coffee and baked beans with fried egg on toast, yum!  Then I would go to London for the day and visit a museum. I especially enjoy going to the British Museum, the V&A and the National Gallery. I would then have some food at the Southbank and browse the vintage book stalls. That would be a great day off.

Olive the Owl © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash Aran)

Loopy: Well I did not know there was such a thing as Vintage Book Stalls. I think I would be lost in there all day! Last set of questions: Morning or Night person? Coffee or Tea? English or Continental? Solids or Multicolors?

Amanda: Morning once I have had my first coffee.  Coffee, never tea (it gives me a headache).  English please, anything vegetarian with an egg is great.  Multi-colours, I am a fan of stripes.

Beeper the Robot © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: Anything else you’d like to add?

Amanda: Thank you so much for taking the time to read my little ramblings.   I hope you are all keeping safe out there, and happy knitting! 

Pocket Monkey © Amanda Berry (Sandnes Garn Smart)

Amanda is offering 20% off one pattern of your choice from her ETSY Pattern Store with the code: LOOPY20

This code is valid 3/19-26, 2021.

I’ve already bought Beeper, but definitely need to make Mr. Snowman, Griff the Dragon, and Pippin.

Sheri

By: Sheri Berger Title: Designer Spotlight: Amanda Berry Sourced From: blog.theloopyewe.com/2021/03/designer-spotlight-amanda-berry Published Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2021 15:00:00 +0000 Via https://blog.theloopyewe.com/2021/03/designer-spotlight-amanda-berry

source https://victoriamark932.weebly.com/blog/designer-spotlight-amanda-berry

[victoriamark932]

Designer Spotlight: Amanda Berry

#wehave #hasbeen #booksread

(This post, Designer Spotlight: Amanda Berry), was originally written and published by The Loopy Ewe. © TheLoopyEwe, 2021)

Today we have Amanda Berry in our Designer Spotlight. She has some of the cutest designs I’ve seen, and has been featured in books and magazines. Amanda lives in the UK, in a town called Reading in Berkshire, about 40 miles west of London. I know you’ll enjoy learning more about her today! (Note – today’s discount code works in Amanda’s Etsy shop only – see the end!) All pattern links go to Etsy, all yarn links go to The Loopy Ewe.

Loopy: Hi Amanda! Thanks for being in our Spotlight today. How long have you been a knitter and who taught you to knit?

Amanda: Hi Loopy! I started knitting when I was about 6 years old and my Mum taught me the basics.  I also had a book called “A Ladybird Book About Knitting” which was a beginner guide aimed at children.  I remember using that book as I made a few scarves for my teddy bears.  But I didn’t start knitting properly until 20 years later when I was going through a difficult time and my therapist recommended some crafting.  I picked up the needles again and it reignited my passion for all things woolly.

Pippin the Mouse © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: Knitting really is a wonderful way to destress, isn’t it? What is your favorite type of item to knit?

Amanda: I love making toys, I am just a big kid at heart!  I don’t have the patience to make a blanket or anything large scale, and I enjoy the challenge with toys of shaping and bringing the design to life.

Riley the Puppy © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: Your patterns and toys are some of the cutest I have ever seen. (Like that Peacock up there. I definitely need to make myself a Peacock!) What is the most challenging thing that you have knit to date?

Amanda: I recently made an Old English Sheepdog and it was made by knitting loops, and I really dislike knitting loops! I don’t know why, but knitting loops always makes my fingers sore; I was so happy when that dog was finished.

Farmer Drabble and Sheep © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: It’s good to challenge yourself, though, so that sounds like it was a good one. When did you start designing, and what spurred that interest?

Amanda: I started designing in the late 2000’s.  I wanted to knit a toy for a gift but I couldn’t find a pattern I liked, so I designed my own.  I was encouraged to share the pattern and published my first designs in 2010.  

Fruits & Vegetables © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: I looked at your patterns and see Fruits and Vegetables as the first design listed. And it’s still as fun as ever! Do you have a favorite pattern that you’ve designed?

Amanda: Griff the Dragon is one of my favourite toys, he’s really cheeky.  I also love making little knits like my Teeny Animals as they are great for using up odds and ends of yarn, and are super quick to knit for impatient people like me!

Eggy Chicks © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: Those teeny tiny creations are adorabley! What is your favorite part of your designing? And your not-so-favorite part?

Amanda: My favourite part is making up the toy seeing it come to life. I prefer to design as I knit so I have the flexibility to change ideas as I knit, so it is great at the end if my ideas actually worked!  The downside of working this way is sometimes the shaping doesn’t work so I have to frog and start again.  

Griff the Dragon © Amanda Berry (try it in Sandnes Garn Smart)

Loopy: You must have to take really great notes as you design on the go like that. Do you do this business full-time, or on the side?  And is that hard? Do you have other jobs outside of pattern designing?

Amanda: I am now full-time designing which is fantastic.  When I started designing my knitting was crammed in during the evenings and I was also part-time working and studying for my degree at London College of Fashion.  That was really hard work, so after graduating in 2014 I chose to design full time and it has kept me really busy ever since.

Gerry Giraffe and Ziggy Zebra © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: I figured with the number of patterns you have, you must be doing it full time! Does anyone else in your family knit?

Amanda: It is just me now.  My husband doesn’t knit, but thankfully understands to wait until I reach the end of a row before asking me a question.

Teeny Animal Knits © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: It sounds like he has learned that lesson well! Are there other hobbies that you enjoy?

Amanda: I enjoy walking.  We have some lovely countryside near my home and (especially during these lockdowns) country walks keep me sane. I enjoy being out with nature, even if it is a grey rainy day.  It gives me some headspace which is so important in these Covid days.  I am not an avid reader, but I occasionally enjoy reading PG Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster books, as they always make me chuckle.

Mr. Snowman © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade Superwash Sport)

Loopy: Your countryside really is beautiful, rain or shine. What a treat to have such lovely walkways close to your home. What would be your favorite way to spend a day off?

Amanda: I would have breakfast in bed (cooked by someone else please!) – a large cup of coffee and baked beans with fried egg on toast, yum!  Then I would go to London for the day and visit a museum. I especially enjoy going to the British Museum, the V&A and the National Gallery. I would then have some food at the Southbank and browse the vintage book stalls. That would be a great day off.

Olive the Owl © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash Aran)

Loopy: Well I did not know there was such a thing as Vintage Book Stalls. I think I would be lost in there all day! Last set of questions: Morning or Night person? Coffee or Tea? English or Continental? Solids or Multicolors?

Amanda: Morning once I have had my first coffee.  Coffee, never tea (it gives me a headache).  English please, anything vegetarian with an egg is great.  Multi-colours, I am a fan of stripes.

Beeper the Robot © Amanda Berry (try it in Cascade 220 Superwash)

Loopy: Anything else you’d like to add?

Amanda: Thank you so much for taking the time to read my little ramblings.   I hope you are all keeping safe out there, and happy knitting! 

Pocket Monkey © Amanda Berry (Sandnes Garn Smart)

Amanda is offering 20% off one pattern of your choice from her ETSY Pattern Store with the code: LOOPY20

This code is valid 3/19-26, 2021.

I’ve already bought Beeper, but definitely need to make Mr. Snowman, Griff the Dragon, and Pippin.

Sheri

By: Sheri Berger Title: Designer Spotlight: Amanda Berry Sourced From: blog.theloopyewe.com/2021/03/designer-spotlight-amanda-berry Published Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2021 15:00:00 +0000 source https://blog.theloopyewe.com/2021/03/designer-spotlight-amanda-berry

[ericvick]

The Crypto Daily – Movers and Shakers – January 17th, 2021

InvestorPlace

10 Smart Stocks to Buy With $5,000

If you’re looking to build a portfolio of stocks to buy with just $5,000, the advent of fractional share ownership has made it a whole lot easier. Google the words “fractional share portfolios,” and you get 527,000 results with everything from reviews on seven of the best fractional share investing brokerages to links to some of the leading players in this burgeoning area of the markets. Many think of Robinhood when they think fractional, but the truth is almost every major online broker in this country’s got some offering or service.InvestorPlace – Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Heck, I can remember years ago, when FolioFN was the only game in town. Launched in 2000, it was acquired by Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) in May 2020. FolioFN’s self-directed accounts are scheduled to be transferred to Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ:IBKR) early in 2021. In the meantime, for those who don’t want to do the work of constructing a $5,000 portfolio of stocks to buy, here are 10 recommendations to help get you started. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) SVB Financial (NASDAQ:SIVB) Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A, NYSE:BRK.B) Dollar General (NYSE:DG) Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) Williams-Sonoma (NYSE:WSM) Thor Industries (NYSE:THO) 9 Stocks That Investors Think Are the Next Amazon Their share prices will add up to $5,000 or less. To make things interesting, all 10 stocks must have share prices exceeding $100. Stocks to Buy: Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) $1,740 Source: BigTunaOnline / Shutterstock.com It’s funny, I had intended to include Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) in my list of 10 stocks to buy, but given I was limiting my names to those companies with shares prices greater than $100, the e-commerce giant’s $3,166 share price would have made it awfully hard to fit nine more under $5,000. So I went with Alphabet, a company I didn’t write about at all in 2020, but helps me achieve my task. InvestorPlace’s Mark Hake recently suggested that rising ad sales make it an attractive investment in 2021. My colleague compares Google to the valuations of Apple, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Amazon. He reckons that Google should have a similar valuation to the three companies at $1.43 trillion or 6.7 times sales. As I write this, Google’s market capitalization is $1.18 trillion, 17% below Hake’s simple calculation, which puts its share price at $2,112 per share. I like the upside. Tesla (TSLA) $845 Source: franz12 / Shutterstock.com The second-highest share price in our $5,000 portfolio, we can thank Elon Musk for doing a five-for-one stock split in August 2020. Without it, TSLA would take up 86% of our investment capital. I’m an unabashed Tesla fan, so I’m not going to give you reasons why the valuation is over-the-top, although there’s no question it puts all the other large car companies to shame with its $810 billion market cap. InvestorPlace contributor Matt McCall recently gave investors some wise advice regarding the electric vehicle (EV) maker. McCall believes that rather than griping about the price you have to pay for its shares, embrace the fact that even the mighty Tesla has corrections, so buy like crazy on the rare occasion that it happens. To illustrate his point, McCall references its pullback in September 2020, shortly after its stock split. On Aug. 31, it was trading just under $500. In a week, it fell 34% after Tesla was left off the annual additions list for the S&P 500. 7 Cheap Stocks to Buy as Democrats Gain Control Ultimately, Tesla was added to the index on Dec. 31. As money managers added TSLA to their portfolios, it moved even higher. Nvidia (NVDA) $528 Source: Hairem / Shutterstock.com If you’re one of the lucky investors who joined the Nvidia bandwagon five years ago when it was trading around $26, you’re sitting on an annualized total return of more than 79% through Jan. 13. It’s crazy to think that things can get any better for NVDA shareholders over the next five years. Still, they actually could, given the growth in gaming, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. As my InvestorPlace colleague, Faizan Farooque, recently stated, you most certainly won’t be buying Nvidia if you’re a value investor — it trades at 45 times its forward earnings, far higher than many of its peers — but when it can grow sales at 50% a quarter and continue to beat analyst expectations, it most certainly deserves a premium valuation. In June 2019, I argued that Nvidia’s free cash flow made it a great stock to buy on dips. At the time, it had lost about half of its value over nine months — October 2018 to June 2019 — and was trading around $145. Some 18 months later, it’s up almost four-fold and generating more than $4.2 billion in 12-month free cash flow. Buy some now and wait for the next big dip. It’s bound to happen sooner or later, no matter the near-term prospects. SVB Financial (SIVB) $465 Source: Pavel Kapysh / Shutterstock.com I’m not going to say too much about SVB Financial because it’s one of those bank stocks to buy that you have to get to know for yourself to understand why it’s so special. You wouldn’t think this was the case by the analyst coverage of its stock. At the moment, 21 analysts cover SIVB, with eight rating it a buy and 12 a hold with an average price target of $424.49. Sure, it’s come a long way over the past year compared to its peers — it has a one-year total return of 74.2% — but that’s because investors recognize that the bank’s laser-like focus on providing lending, asset management, and banking services to innovators and entrepreneurs will always be in demand. Recently, it announced that it would pay $900 million to buy Boston Private Financial Holdings (NASDAQ:BPFH) for a combination of cash and stock. The Boston-based private bank specializes in wealth management and other banking services. Together, SVB Financial’s wealth management business will have almost $18 billion in assets under management. The 7 Best Marijuana Stocks on the Markets Right Now Continue to ignore SIVB at your peril. Roku (ROKU) $418 Source: JHVEPhoto / Shutterstock.com The streaming platform has gotten off to a hot start in 2021, up 26% year-to-date and more than 205% over the past 52 weeks. Roku and HBO Max parent, Warner Media, buried their longstanding disagreement recently by announcing that the streaming service would be available on Roku as of Dec. 17, 2020. By getting a spot on Roku, HBO Max is now on all the major over-the-top platforms. “We believe that all entertainment will be streamed and we are thrilled to partner with HBO Max to bring their incredible library of iconic entertainment brands and blockbuster slate of direct-to-streaming theatrical releases to the Roku households with more than 100 million people that have made Roku the No. 1 TV streaming platform in America,” Scott Rosenberg, SVP of Roku’s platform business, said in a statement. The key part of the above statement is that Roku believes that all entertainment will eventually be streamed. I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I recommended ROKU stock in December 2017 and still recommend it among stocks to buy in 2021. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A, BRK.B) $235 Source: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com I recently read an article about the reasons why Warren Buffett failed in 2020. This kind of analysis of the Oracle of Omaha has been going on for years, possibly as long as Buffett’s been investing in stocks to buy. Yes, Berkshire Hathaway severely underperformed the S&P 500 in 2020 — up 2.5% versus 16.5% for the index — but I’ve always believed that the biggest boost to BRK stock will come when the holding company has to be methodically wound down due to the passing of Buffett and Charlie Munger. Consider that its equity portfolio, which is massive at $271 billion, represents just one-third of Berkshire’s assets at the end of September 2020. I can assure you that the true value of the $418 billion or so in privately-owned assets on its balance sheet is worth far more than this. When the time comes to wind it down, the board will do what’s necessary to ensure fair value is obtained for every business. It’s possible the process could take a decade or more. The 7 Best Startups You Can Buy on StartEngine Right Now When people say that Warren Buffett has lost his touch, they forget that the final tally has not been given. Not by a longshot. Dollar General (DG) $213 Source: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com It’s not a secret that Dollar General caters to customers that don’t have a tremendous amount of disposable income. It probably also doesn’t come as a surprise that its employees aren’t flush with cash, so the fact that it will pay those of its 157,000 employees who get a vaccine four hours of pay is noble. And smart business. “‘We do not want our employees to have to choose between receiving a vaccine or coming to work,’ Dollar General (DG) said in a press release, noting that its hourly workers face hurdles to getting vaccinated, such as travel time, gas mileage or childcare needs.” If there’s a retailer that has done well during Covid-19, Dollar General would have to be at the top of the list. In early December, Dollar General reported Q3 2020 results that included 12.2% same-store sales growth and a 62.7% increase in earnings per share. As a result, it’s passed on a total of $173 million in 2020 for employee appreciation bonuses. As it continues to open more stores while simultaneously growing its gross margins, the fact that it remembered that its employees are the ones who deliver this good fortune to shareholders is a big reason why DG stock will continue to move higher in 2021. Apple (AAPL) $130 Source: Hadrian / Shutterstock.com Most of the talk around AAPL stock right now revolves around its long-simmering Project Titan and its efforts around delivering its own autonomous electric vehicle. The Verge recently reported that Apple held discussions in 2020 with Canoo (NASDAQ:GOEV), the EV startup using a platform based on a skateboard to provide a much better cabin design for its future vehicles. Canoo apparently just wanted some investment capital. Apple, on the other hand, was thinking more about acquiring the business and integrating it into its existing work in this area. The two didn’t come to an agreement. Canoo went public and Apple’s now working with Hyundai (OTCMKTS:HYMTF) on getting a self-driving EV to market by 2024. Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives recently suggested that Apple could be worth $3 trillion by sometime in 2022 due to strong iPhone 12 sales. He projects it could sell as many as 250 million in 2021. “If Apple continues to execute at this pace, a $3 trillion market cap could be on the horizon over the 12 to 18 months,” Ives is reported to have said. 7 Dividend Stocks That Are Growing Their Payouts As I write this, it’s at $2.2 trillion. Williams-Sonoma (WSM) $125 Source: designs by Jack / Shutterstock.com Several news outlets reported that the retailer’s CEO, Laura Alber, sold some Williams-Sonoma stock just before Christmas. Don’t be alarmed; it was only 15,000 shares or 3.5% of her total holdings. And it was part of her Rule 10b5-1 trading plan started in September 2019. As I always like to say, even wealthy CEOs have bills to pay. Over the past year, Williams-Sonoma stock has delivered a total return of 61.4% for its shareholders, including Alber. That’s double the returns of the specialty retail sector as a whole and three times the entire U.S. markets’ performance. In June 2016, I called WSM one of the best retail stocks to buy due to its excellent omnichannel experience. Going on five years later, nothing’s changed about that assertion. During Covid-19, business at the retailer has been full-speed ahead. Here’s what I said about it in December: “It’s got a business that’s ideally balanced between online and brick-and-mortar sales. In the second quarter, it generated 76% of its sales online; in Q3, due to the novel coronavirus constraints, its online sales accounted for 70% of its total revenue — while growing by almost 50% over last year– and that’s during a pandemic,” I said on Dec. 9. “More importantly, its Q3 profits were through the roof — up 151% to $2.56 a share thanks to significantly higher margins — and that was only through Nov. 1. It doesn’t include Black Friday and Cyber Monday.” The world’s going digital, and that’s good news for Williams-Sonoma. Thor Industries (THO) $105 Source: Angel DiBilio / Shutterstock.com There is no question that 2020 was good for recreational vehicle manufacturers such as Thor Industries, as people young and old sought the great outdoors, away from the maddening, Covid-19 crowd. The problem for investors who’ve followed the RV industry for any length of time is that the good times never seem to last. In the case of the novel coronavirus, once vaccines make humans comfortable with packing together in large crowds, the great outdoors won’t be nearly as enticing as Paris or Australia. That being said, the latest push into RVs may be coming from a sub-set of consumers who might actually take to the open road. “All dealers are reporting a high mix of first-time buyers as evident by lack of trade-in units,” said Wells Fargo analyst Tim Conder in a July 15, 2020 note. “Dealers are saying as high as 80% of customers are first-time buyers … vs. the typical 25% mix. The pandemic is driving the purchase decision for new-entrants.” If even half of those first-time buyers stick around long enough to upgrade to a bigger or better model, Thor Industries might not have to worry about the eventual downturn. To me, THO is one of the perfect stocks to buy for the long haul, buying more whenever it corrects by more than 5-10%. On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. Will Ashworth has written about investments full-time since 2008. Publications where he’s appeared include InvestorPlace, The Motley Fool Canada, Investopedia, Kiplinger, and several others in both the U.S. and Canada. He particularly enjoys creating model portfolios that stand the test of time. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. At the time of this writing Will Ashworth did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities. More From InvestorPlace Why Everyone Is Investing in 5G All WRONG Top Stock Picker Reveals His Next 1,000% Winner It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. The post 10 Smart Stocks to Buy With $5,000 appeared first on InvestorPlace.

[smart-asset]

Jim Cramer: Everything You Need to Know

Jim Cramer ran a successful hedge fund for 14 years. He regularly made over $10 million annually. Then he retired from that life to focus on writing and media. He started a successful TV show in 2005 and has since reached an almost cult following. Many know him simply as Cramer and he addresses his fans as "Cramerica." It’s great that he gets so many people excited about stock picking, but what advice can we gain from this financial guru? Let’s see what Cramer has to say about building wealth for your future.

Top Financial Advice From Jim Cramer

Jim Cramer mostly advises people on which individual stocks to buy or to avoid. We won’t go into his stock picking advice here, though. Instead we’ll look at Cramer’s broader financial advice, which boils down to a few simple ideas.

First of all, Cramer stresses you are the only one who understands your exact financial situation. Don't trade stocks just because you heard someone say that it was a good thing to do. Cramer readily admits that stock trading isn’t for everyone. It requires work in order to have success and involves taking financial risk. If you have no savings and are struggling to make ends meet, Cramer advises that you forget picking stocks - at least for now. (You might want to consider you might want to try something like Dave Ramsey’s seven baby steps instead.)

If you do decide to trade stocks, Cramer says to remember that you that you can pull out of the market at any time. Maybe you have a high risk tolerance but then something changes at work and you can no longer handle the same risk. Adjust your investing strategy according to your life. Cramer tells people that risk isn't always bad thing, but he also likes to tell people that there are no second chances on Wall Street. So don't do anything you aren't comfortable with.

So let's say you want to trade stocks. Cramer says that your goal is to create a diverse portfolio of well-researched companies. Read everything you can about the companies you consider investing in. Research the company before you invest in it and continue to follow it closely after you invest. This advice applies regardless of your age but we can also break down Cramer’s advice by the different stages of your life.

In your 20s, Cramer advises focusing on savings before anything else. You may want to invest in a 401(k) from your employer or open an IRA. He recommends creating a portfolio of index funds like the S&P 500 index fund.

"There's too much risk in individual stocks to just put together a portfolio of them of your own choosing," Cramer says, according to CNBC. "So, at a minimum, I am demanding that you put your first $10,000 beyond what you have from your first 20 years into an index fund, the S&P 500 being my favorite."

Once you get into your 30s, Cramer thinks you can add more risk to your portfolio. He says to look for stocks that pay you dividends. Even if you want to stick with funds (instead of individual stocks), Cramer says to invest in a fund with higher dividends than the S&P 500 index fund. Keep in mind that this is general advice from a single financial expert and other experts may disagree. The best asset allocation for your portfolio will depend on your individual risk tolerance. If you're new to investing, you may want to find a financial advisor who can give you advice based on your specific financial situation.

Back to Jim Cramer. Not much should change from your 30s through your 50s, according to Cramer. The main difference he advises is adding bonds in your portfolio by your 40s. He notes that bonds won't earn you much but they will protect the investment capital that you’ve built thus far in your life.

By the time you get into your 60s, Cramer recommends that you play things safe and focus primarily on bonds. You don’t want to risk the retirement savings that you’ve worked hard for. He says you might want to have as much as 50% bonds in your portfolio. Then consider increasing the percentage of bonds in your portfolio by 10% for each decade after 60.

A Brief Bio of Jim Cramer

Cramer graduated from Harvard College, where he was president of the student newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. After college, he went on to multiple journalist positions. He covered various beats from sports to crime and worked at papers in many states from Florida to California.

A few years later he went to Harvard Law School to earn his J.D. However, Cramer never practiced law. He began investing in the stock market while he was in law school, even going as far as leaving stock tips on his answering machine. He impressed Martin Peretz, the owner of The New Republic, with his investing acumen. Peretz gave Cramer $500,000 to invest and Cramer earned Peretz about $150,000 in just a couple of years. This helped Cramer land a job as a stockbroker with Goldman Sachs in 1984. He left after just a few years to start his own hedge fund.

Cramer was with the hedge fund from 1988 to 2000. He had only one year of negative returns (though he made up for it the next two years with returns of 47% and 28%). He retired from active money management in 2001. In his time with the fund, he earned average annual returns of 24% and regularly made millions of dollars each year.

Jim Cramer got into media while he was working for his hedge fund. He served as editor-at-large for Dow Jones’ SmartMoney magazine. He and Martin Peretz co-founded TheStreet, a news source on finance and investing, in 1996. In the early 2000s he published multiple books. Cramer also made appearances on radio and TV before joining CNBC in 2005 for his own show. The show, "Mad Money With Jim Cramer," focuses on finance and speculation. It uses an entertaining presentation style instead of the strict, journalistic style applied to many investing programs at the time.

Financial Focus and Philosophy

Jim Cramer’s focus is, and always has been, picking stocks that will provide market-beating returns. This is something he tries to do with his own money and with all of the funds that he has managed in his life. After retiring from his hedge fund in 2001, Cramer has focused more on helping others to pick successful stocks on their own.

His TV show is mostly about which publicly traded stocks he thinks people should buy or sell. He does speak about broader financial and economic trends, but mostly to frame his opinions on individual stocks.

Where You Can Find Jim Cramer There are a lot of ways to keep up with Cramer. His TV show, "Mad Money With Jim Cramer," airs weeknights on CNBC. You can find videos and stories from previous episodes on the CNBC website. He is also the co-host of "Squawk on the Street," a financial show that runs weekday mornings on CNBC.

You can find daily online articles by Cramer on RealMoney. RealMoney is a part of TheStreet, the digital media company that Cramer co-founded in 1996. His financial commentary and advice is available daily through the site's premium (paid) service.

You can also follow Cramer on Twitter. He posts regularly with financial advice, stories and videos.

Current Projects

Aside from his TV shows and online articles, Cramer runs the charitable trust portfolio, Action Alerts PLUS. If you become an Action Alerts PLUS member, you get access to all of Cramer's advice on picking stocks, trading and building a portfolio. Then you can build and manage your own portfolio with confidence.

Takeaway

Jim Cramer has made a career telling people which stocks to pick. As the Host of CNBC's "Mad Money," he is an energetic presenter who loves telling people what to buy buy buy and what to sell sell sell. However, he readily admits that you don't need to make risky trades to meet your financial goals. Regardless of how you invest, remember that you are the one who knows your financial situation the best. Make sure you understand your individual goals (or seek a financial advisor who can help you do so) and invest in the way that best helps you realize those goals.

Photo credit: flickr.com/khouryp23, TheStreet.com, Scott Beale/Laughing Squid

[icecream-and-gadreel]

Flowers

Summary: A man comes into your flower shop sweating and out of breath, demanding a bouquet of flowers.

Pairing: Office worker!DeanxFlorist!reader

Rating: pg

Warnings: Language...maybe?

Word count: 2000+

A/N: From the Archives, this story is so fluffy I wanna die. 

“I need flowers.”

The man damn near screams it. You stare wide-eyed, your fingers still gently clenching a rose's leaf. The man is breathing hard; his suit is a mess and his forehead in coated in sweat. Digging in his pocket, he sets out a few twenty dollar bills, gesturing to you with wide eyes. 

“I...I need a bundle of..flowers..”

He stutters over his words, his face sinking into a frown when you don't respond.

“Miss?” he mumbles, gulping thick.

You shake away the initial shock. “Yes – sorry you said you need a bouquet?” You smile at him, wiping your hands on your apron and making your way to the counter. He huffs, swiping a hand over his face and nodding. It must be for his girlfriend.

“Yeah, bouquet, just really pretty flowers,” he grunts. You stare around your store and rest your hands on your hips, humming under your breath as you look for your prettiest flowers. He shifts impatiently In his place, following your gaze. “Those. The blue ones are perfect.”

“Does your girlfriend have allergies?” you ask, picking up a bundle of the blue flowers and searching for wrapping paper. You settle on metallic gold, gently bundling the flowers and glancing at him over your shoulder.

“Girlfriend?”

You smile and hand him the bouquet. “I just assumed it was for a girlfriend,” you chuckle. He gulps down and stares at the flowers, shaking his head. “Regardless, that'll be ten-ninety-five, sir,” you say. He gestures to the twenties on your counter before zooming out, hustling out of the store with his eyes locked on the flowers.

–

“I need flowers.”

Again, in that ruffled up suit, the green-eyed-man stands in front of your counter with his chest heaving,  coated in sweat. You frown, reluctantly making your way to the counter and smiling.

“Pretty ones again?” you chuckle. He nods eagerly, digging in his pocket. You shake your head and show him the twenties he left the day before. “I owe you about forty dollars.”

“Oh – crap I'm sorry –”

“If you plan on coming in again, you can open a balance,” you say. He huffs, nodding reluctantly.

“She liked the blue ones. Sneezed a lot though. Maybe some classics, roses?”

So there was a girl. Probably a wife. You glance down, chewing your lip. Yup. He's wearing a ring. You point your thumb to the wall of roses behind you.

“What color?” you ask. He tilts his head up, a focused gaze on his face.

“What's your favorite?” he asks in a near whisper, turning his eyes back to you.

“People generally favor pink –”

“But what's your favorite?” he chuckles. Furrowing your brow, you turn to the wall, gliding your eyes over the array of colors. Before you can answer, he clears his throat. “You said pink, let's do pink.”

“Pink it is.”

Again, just as the day before, he zooms out of your flower shop, leaving the scent of his warm cologne in his wake.

–

“I need –”

“Flowers,” you finish with a chuckle, resting your hand on your hip and cocking an eyebrow. A big, bright smile spreads across his face, crinkling the corners of his eyes and taking your breath away.

“Yeah. She liked the roses. But apparently pink isn't her color,” he says, shrugging and leaning against the counter. “I was thinking about an Asiatic lily.”

“Have you been practicing your flowers, sir?” you giggle. He smirks and throws a hand up.

“I thought I'd try. Maybe red ones?” he says.

“Well, that would work, but you said pollen was an issue for her,” you say as you pick an Asiatic lily from a vase. “This --” You gesture a piece of pollen. -- “Is pollen. She'll be sneezing all day.” He leans forward, his lips parted and his eyes wide.

“Can't have that can we?” he chuckles, gently running his finger over the petal before meeting your gaze. “What has less pollen, isn't pink, and is really pretty?”

You smile, turning to your peonies. “These.”

“Perfect.” After you wrap up the flowers you hand them to him, tallying off more of his balance and smiling. He turns to leave, pausing in his tracks and turning to you. “Thanks...what's your name?”

“Y/N,” you say. He smiles, waving slightly.

“Dean. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Same time, same place.” You wave as he leaves, watching as he jogs down the street.

–

Dean rushes into the shop, a small smile on his face as he approaches you. Still sweating, still out of breath, but he seems much more relaxed than before.

“She doesn't like the way peonies smell –”

“Mark my word, we will find her flower!” you say. He gives you a taken aback look, stifling his laughter as you search around. Peonies are out. Roses are out. Lilies are out. You pause on red tulips and smile.

“Those?”

“These,” you concur, picking out white wrapping paper and a bundle of the flowers. This time, just as a little extra flare, you tie a blue bow around the stems, handing the bouquet to him with a proud look. Dean brings the flowers to his nose and inhales, his eyes lighting up as the smell fills his nose. “If she doesn't like these ones, I give up,” you chuckle. He opens his mouth to talk but you turn away from him before he can speak. You pick out a few yellow tulips, pushing them into the bouquet sporadically. “A little...poof.”

“A little poof." He hums, smiling and locking his eyes on yours. “I'm gonna have to use that,” he says. You say your goodbyes and as always, you watch him jog off.

–

It's been almost a week since Dean came into the shop. Yay, you actually found his wives favorite flower. But you'd be lying if you said you didn't miss watching him run into your store every morning. You hand a customer change, turning to the shop's phone as it rings. Pulling it off the hook, you rest it between your head and shoulder.

“Hidden garden, Y/N speaking.”

“Great, it is you,” Dean's familiar voice makes you perk right up, your stomach flipping as he speaks. “You did it. She loved the tulips. I want four dozen.”

“You coulda just came in and got them,” you say, laughing awkwardly.

“I need them done by the time I get there,” he says. You sigh, nodding and mumbling a goodbye before gently setting the phone on the hook.

…...........

Half an hour later, he's running through the door, smiling at the assembled tulips in front of him and taking two bouquets in his hands. Dean meets your gaze, tensing his jaw.

“Can you help me?” he asks. You nod silently, taking two bouquets in your arms and walking them out to the car. After setting them in the backseat,  you head toward your store, pausing when he pats your shoulder. “I might need help when I get there,” he mumbles, staring at the ground and shifting his feet.  “I want to surprise her,” he adds. Even if the thought of delivering his wife flowers makes you want to scream, you smile, nodding and sinking into the passenger seat. The majority of the ride is awkward eye contact and classic rock. You barely realize where you are before it's too late.

“Wait –”

“We're on the second floor,” he says, picking up two bouquets and rushing into the hospital. You gulp, forcing yourself to follow him. If things weren't awkward already, this was taking the cake.

“Mr. Winchester,” a nurse squeals, standing from her desk and waving frantically. “She's been talking about you all morning,” she says, pausing and flicking her eyes to you and twitching a smile.

“I got stuck in a meeting, would've been here sooner,” he says. When you both arrive in front of a door, he turns to you, smiling warmly and sighing. “Thanks for doing this,” he breathes. You nod, smiling in an attempt to hide the fact that you're melting. He slowly pushes open the door, a widesmile breaking across his face. “There's my girl,” he cooes.

“Uncle D!” a little girl squeals and sprints up to him, giggling as he swoops her in his arms.

“It took you long enough.”

You turn your head to the source of the voice, staring down at the hazel-eyed man.

“Shut up, I got stuck in a meeting. Hows my girl doing?” Dean cooes, peppering her cheek with kisses.

“I'm going home tomorrow uncle D!” she squeals. She halts when she sees you, giving you a toothy grin. “I'm Delilah!”

“Delilah?” you say, a grin on your face. You offer her a bouquet and her eyes go wide, her smile tugging at her cheeks. “These are all for you.”

“REALLY?” Delilah takes the flowers from you and snuggles them close, turning her eyes to Dean. “Thank you!”

“No problem,” he chuckles, turning his eyes to you. “She wanted to meet the woman who guessed her favorite flower,” he says. You giggle, throwing your arms up.

“You didn't make it easy –”

“Are you uncle D's girlfriend?” she blurts. You suck in a breath before stammering over your words. You stop when Dean bursts out laughing, shaking his head and pecking her on the cheek.

“Stop tryna set me up, 'Lilah,” he chuckles.

…............

You stayed with Dean and his family all day, telling terrible jokes and explaining various flowers to her. At the end of the day, Dean tucked her in, sitting by her bed. After sitting silently for many moments, you finally have the courage to ask.

“So, you never bring your wife flowers?” you say, clearing your throat and shifting in your seat. Dean frowns, turning his gaze to you. 

“I don't have a wife.”

“Oh...husband?”

“Nope. Single,” he chuckles. You focus on the ring on his finger and he follows your gaze, huffing. “Oh..no...this was my moms,” he says, twisting the ring around his finger. “She's uh...not here anymore.”

“Oh god, I'm sorry –”

“Hey, don't be.” He sighs contently, leaning back in his seat. “It was hard but...at some point you remember how to live again,” he says, smiling and gesturing to Delilah. “She's a dead ringer for my mom. Just as picky too,” he adds. You smile at her, noting the blonde locks framing her face. “Thank you for coming.”

“You don't have to keep thanking me.”

“Well I'm gonna,” he chuckles. You smile, locking your eyes with his and nodding.

“You're welcome.”

–

“I need flowers.”

You frown, turning to Dean and resting your hands on your hips. No sweat this time, and his chest isn't heaving. Instead of waiting for you to respond, he points to the wall behind you.

“Some of those pink ones,” he says. “And some 'poof',” he adds. You chuckle, picking out a dozen flowers and bundling them up. Offering them to him, you cock an eyebrow.

“I thought she was already out,” you say. He nods, staring down at the bouquet. “Oh...they aren't for her?” you mumble, frowning when you get a nod. “Then...” your voice trails off as he offers the flowers to you, your heart pounding against your chest as you try to hide your smile.

“For you.”