#* gv

[sinsoakedsaints]

NOAH & DREW. // SEND A ☾ AND I WILL GENERATE A NUMBER FOR WHAT MY MUSE SAYS TO YOURS. // 58. // @ofrvnaways

          “Take me back to the basics and the simple life,” Noah murmured, the words only out of his mouth for a total of five seconds before he was trying to suppress a laugh that was winning the battle between the two. 

     Growing up with a father who had more money than sense, Noah had never known either of those things -- the closest he had come was Drew sharing tidbits of his past. 

         ( Even then, who was to say that what the younger man said was the truth. ) 

    “I didn’t buy that either. Never mind.” 

[dippedanddripped]

Sneakerhead culture began 30 years ago as an underground movement.

Now, thanks to the casualization of fashion and increasing dominance of ‘athleisure’ and streetwear, it has, in recent years, well and truly exploded into the mainstream.

As the numbers of people interested in copping super hyped trainer releases increases, the brands that sell those trainers have profited from the opportunity by leveraging scarcity as their business model, creating a disparity between demand and supply in order to generate maximum brand hype.

It’s a demand that motivates people to camp for days outside stores in order to be able to get their hands on a pair of limited edition Yeezys.

inRead invented by Teads

It’s also a demand that has, in isolated cases, led to violence. In Chicago in 2005, two men murdered a 17-year-old for a pair of Air Jordans. In 2012, two teenagers who had successfully purchased Air Jordan 11’s were robbed and shot in New Jersey. In 2016, over 500 people lined up overnight outside an adidas store in Taiwan for NMD sneakers and several people were injured in the ensuing stampede, and in 2017, a man lining up for the atmos x Nike Air Max 1 outside a Nike store in Hong Kong was attacked.

  “It’s a broken system,” says Josh Luber, the co-founder and chief executive of sneaker resale website StockX. “The shoe is worth $1500 but the brands are selling it for $250 and then relying on bedlam and chaos for people to get their hands on it.”

In a bid to solve the problem, Luber teamed up with Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team owner Dan Gilbert (who also owns Quicken Loans, the largest mortgage lender in the United States) and launched StockX in 2016, a website that uses a variable pricing model based on the same system used to buy and sell shares on the stock market, to sell consumer goods.

The Detroit-based company, which makes money by taking a percentage of sale prices, now employs more than 500 people and has expanded into additional categories of streetwear, watches and handbags. It’s one of the fastest growing startups in the US, with more than 8 million people using the platform every month, resulting in more than $2 million per day in sales. They raised $44 million in funding in September from Google’s investment arm GV (formerly known as Google Ventures) and Battery Ventures, plus a couple of names you might recognise, like Don C, Steve Aoki, and Karlie Kloss (Eminem, Mark Wahlberg, and Scooter Braun are already invested), and expect to turnover $1 billion worth of sneakers and streetwear this year.

Unlike shopping on marketplaces like Ebay and DePop, transactions on StockX occur automatically when a buyer’s bid and a seller’s asking price meet. Once this happens, the seller ships the item to a StockX hub, where it’s physically authenticated by a team of sneaker experts before being sent to the buyer. After all, when you’re shelling out £12,250 for a pair of Adidas, you want to be sure they’re not knock offs.

After LA and New York, London has more sneaker sellers than anywhere else in the world. In the UK, the trainer resale market alone is worth an estimated £200 million annually and is set to grow upwards of 20 per cent per annum as ‘sneakerhead’ culture enters the mainstream. Which explains why StockX just opened its first UK authenticating hub, at a site in West London.

Globally, the sneaker resale market is valued somewhere between five and seven billion US dollars. “Even if you say it’s five billion, the primary sneaker retail market globally is about 100 billion, so this is still a pretty small fraction of the overall market so there’s a lot of room to grow,” says Luber.

With an opportunity like that, it’s perhaps not surprising some of the behemoths of the fashion world have started to pay attention to planet sneakerhead. In February, LVMH Luxury Ventures (the venture capital arm of luxury conglomerate Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton) made an undisclosed investment in NYC-based sneaker and streetwear resale store and e-commerce site Stadium Goods. The brand, launched by New Yorkers Jed Stiller and John McPheters in 2015, had raised $5.6 million prior to LVMH being involved, and was on track to do over $100 million in gross merchandise volume in 2017.

And just this week, leading online luxury fashion marketplace Farfetch announced it was acquiring StockX’s main competitor, Stadium Goods, for an enterprise value of $250 million. “It is clear that there is a great opportunity for our two companies to leverage each other's strengths to go after a larger share of an exciting and fast-growing segment of luxury fashion,” said Farfetch Founder, CEO and Co-Chairman, José Neves of the move.

The trick to making money selling sneakers is getting your hands on them cheap at retail, before selling them on for inflated prices. StockX once saw a pair of Nikes bought for $250 at retail, sell for $40,000. “Anyone that managed to get their hands on a pair of Air Jordans from the first Virgil Abloh’s Off White x Nike collaboration for example bought the shoes at $200 or $250 at retail and could resell them immediately for $1500,” says Luber. “There’s massive profit to be made. Because that exists, every single person wants to be able to buy it at the retail price, which means it’s almost impossible.”

Those unwilling to spend four days camping outside their local Nike Town tend to have success by forging connections with store managers who keep shoes back for them, while others go to the extremes of writing computer programmes to hack the online store systems on release days.

Brands are nowadays making it harder for bots to shop the drops with quizzes and raffles that require human interaction and knowledge. For one of its recent drops for example, Nike embedded eight clues within their app; only those that answered them all correctly could shop the release.

George Sullivan runs a UK-based website called The Sole Supplierthat aggregates information on sneaker retailers, their raffles, quizzes and release dates, to make it easier for people to shop sneaker drops. He’s noticed the fastest growing demographic of sneaker traders is those under the age of 18. “I always hear about these kids that are 15 or 16 and they’re just like a genius coder tapping away all day and night,” he says. “They won’t be playing Call of Duty they’ll be coding a bot to buy loads of Yeezys off Adidas.”

Some of these teenagers are building serious businesses from their bedrooms. “These guys coding bots are getting 50 pairs on a Yeezy release from Adidas in different sizes,” says George. “If for example you were a really savvy 15-year-old and you managed to get your hands on a pair in every size from the Yeezy Zebra restock (the most hyped Yeezy that resold for about four times its initial selling price of £250) and you resold them quickly, you could make £50k in a day.”

However, while there’s undoubtedly cash to be made, the vast majority, insist both Luber and Sullivan, are in it for the love of shoes. “Lots of people buy one pair to wear and one to sell – one to rock, one to stock as we say – that’s the dream,” says Sullivan, adding that 90 per cent of product sold on his site is “box fresh” (unworn). “Then from the money they make selling a pair it means the pair they have on their feet are free.” Luber agrees that, while his site attracts collectors who own hundreds of pairs unworn of trainers (he personally owns 400 pairs, 30 of which are unworn), most are buying to wear.

Brands do not directly make money from the resale market, but the hype created by limited supply is fantastically good PR. “The brands that play in the space are really really good at understanding those supply and demand dynamics to release products that are technically in under supply,” says Luber. “That creates hype and riots and that prestige is good for them.”

Luber’s personal focus as StockX grows is developing direct relationships with brands so that they consider StockX an alternative retail channel where they can release product directly on the site — what he calls an IPO. “At some point you have to stop fighting and figure out a way to work together,” says Luber, likening his business to the world of ticketing ten years ago. “It used to be like this when chains and leagues were trying to arrest ticket sellers and shut down ticketing websites, but eventually those markets realised they should work with them and now you have marketplace companies like StubHub.” In 2016, StockX had its first sneaker 'IPO' - Nike released LeBron's first retro sneaker on StockX – it was featured on the New York Times homepage.

So should you be investing in sneakers? In short, probably not unless you really know your Air Force from your Air Max… and are a dab hand at writing a line or two of code. While some of the trading margins may be higher than that of gold, the reality is you need to know your stuff and be prepared to devote some serious time and energy to getting rich from flogging Yeezys. Plus, compared to something like gold or oil, they’re a riskier asst, lacking in longevity. “They’re just leather and rubber,” says Luber, “if they just sit there for 50 years the rubber and glue will come apart.”

That said, if you’re looking to make a quick buck (or ten… thousand), I’ve heard of sillier plans.

[ofbrokensouls]

starter for gv. teen scream:

Jessica didn’t come out the riot unharmed. Despite all signs pointing to Jason’s guilt, she did what she could to protect him. But getting some bruises and cuts on her face was nothing compared to what happened to Jason. She was in a state of shock when she saw his body. After collecting the statements of the people that remained at the station, she went into the break room to get some coffee. Leaving the station to get some air, she couldn’t help but wonder how could she protect the town when she town took the law into their own hands? 

[sinsoakedsaints]

cont. from here (x) 

“Oh man,” Ashley says on an exhale, his palm pressed to his chest above where his heart resided, the race of it a combination of exertion and affection for the girl laying next to him. 

“I love it when you talk comics.”

He punctuated just how much with a stolen kiss, the brief press of their lips a luxury he was still stoked to have permission to do. It’s not new ground but it’s one they’re still navigating, and he couldn’t be happier about it if he tried. 

( Much to most folks annoyance, a happy thief was an overly cheery one. ) 

“Do we have to get up and go thieving today?” 

[sinsoakedsaints]

“Your heartbeat’s really loud.” (tigerthief)

｡･ﾟﾟ･ 𝐒𝐎𝐅𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒 ♡

Harry had always figured that if he should ever find himself entrapped in a closet with Tiger that it would be a consequence of a stupid game they were all playing. 

( Yeah, they were in a gang – somehow that didn’t seem to matter when the idea of alcohol and either spin the bottle or truth or dare came up. ) 

When he had imagined such a scenario – and he had, as sad as that sounded – he had envisioned himself playing it far cooler than sweaty palms and a look of anxious terror on his face. 

That being said, in none of the potential play throughs his imagination conjured up, the cause of their proximity hadn’t been his fuck up on a job. The place was supposed to be empty, he had read so on the calendar that clung to the fridge via magnet. Big red line from Monday through to Friday. 

‘VACATION.’

Clearly, that had gotten cut short which left the pair of them staring at one another wide-eyed while they ransacked the top floor and had to think fast on how to conceal themselves. 

“Think it’s the shock still,” He whispers, though he knows that’s only a minimal contributing factor to the fast race of it. 

( She’s always the cause. )

“They weren’t due back for another day. We need to figure a way out of here before they start looking around.” 

[sinsoakedsaints]

continued from here. (x) 

The loose soil beneath his feet felt like a warning -- the ground is unsteady here, thread lightly. It’s a hilarious thought for Sky Montgomery, the crook turned cop turned crook again. Nothing about his relationship with Harlow could be entered into lightly. 

( If he had of been looking for a Pretty Woman situation when he entered into this thing with his favourite beck-and-call-girl the more true to life working title would be Nitty-Gritty Woman. ) 

So there they stood, her in a deepening grave and him on the literal high ground, with the choice of keeping up the illusion that he had any right to take the latter or to carve out another level to their relationship. 

( What base did burying a body fall under? )

Without further hesitation or deliberation, Sky crouches down so he can drop his body into the grave with her, an inexplicable sensation of claustrophobia creeping in despite the open nature of their setting. He could envision the walls of a casket enclosing him in, the cold chill it conjured making him swat at his neck as if to attack a phantom fly that irritated him there. 

“I’m all in baby,” He tells her finally, reaching to pry the shovel from her so he could take over the grim labour. Bringing the cutting edge to the dirt, he put some weight on the step until the blade sunk in, disrupting the soil so he could toss it out to the growing pile above earth. 

“How much can you tell me about why we’ve ended up here?” He asks, his voice bearing signs of the strain the repetitive digging caused. 

“There’s no point in being shy about it now, I’m as culpable as you are now.”

[sinsoakedsaints]

｡･ﾟﾟ･ halloween-ish starter prompts / @heartrendcrs / cemetery! ajax and harlow.

No matter what time of year it was, Jax is sure that the temperature in the cemetery was always at least two degrees below what a thermometer would read anywhere else. He did his jacket up a little further, shoulders tense as he fended off the October chill. Halloween was a few days away, and even without trying to the cemetery made that fact feel all the more eerie. 

Walking in sync with Harlow, they made the familiar trek to the headstone with her mother’s name etched on it. He was a frequent flyer at Lena Procter’s grave, it provided a refuge for him -- the one place he could go to still talk to his best friend. 

( He hadn’t been stood at it alongside their daughter since the funeral, something he thinks weighs on them both. )

“She loved Halloween you know, your mom.”

[sinsoakedsaints]

｡･ﾟﾟ･ continued from here.

Ashley’s head had been leaned over the arm of the couch, as though a position that would make a chiropractor weep might ward off the food baby he was currently carrying. With a hand under his Jurassic Park t-shirt, he rubbed his stomach in a bid to ease his discomfort as he listened to his twin try to pontificate on the legitimacy of aliens. 

“Wait,” Ashley interrupts, his head popping up like whac-a-mole. “You know that Zoe Saldana exists, right? Or do you only find her that hot when she’s full body green playing an angry alien? Cause that’s a little spicy,” Ashley mocks, teasing his twin was up in the top three of what was fun about having a twin. 

( That and the fact he could steal all his trainers -- thank you, shared shoe size. ) 

“Sure I do,” Ashley says with a shrug, reaching over to eat another nacho which could have been misconstrued as a tangy cheese attempt at ending it all. He munches on the chip and lays his head back against the corner of the couch, looking to Aidan when he eventually elaborates. 

“Look how long it took us to get to the moon which is like, our next door neighbour solar system wise. Even if there was nothing living on that, it’s arrogant to think that it’s just us in this big old solar system. We probably look like cavemen with our iPhones and climate change to our future alien rulers. They’re definitely laughing their little green asses off at us in their hovercrafts.”

[sinsoakedsaints]

want a random starter? / @heartrendcrs​ / sky x harlow.

📹 for me to use a line from my favorite movie as a starter – pretty woman (1990). 

“It's just that very few people surprise me.”

[sinsoakedsaints]

meme generator starter call! / @prxcticalmxgic based on --

It’s unclear to Maddox if his re-assignment from the brothel’s main bouncer to being personal security to the woman who was running it all was intended as a promotion or a punishment -- but he’s not complaining. 

( There was benefits to working closely with the boss that weren’t just a bump in his weekly cut. )

“I don’t think so,” Maddox says, his palm pressed to the chest of an irate regular who was demanding entry to her office to make his dissatisfaction known. While he doesn’t know his name, the face is familiar, and he’s had to throw him out of the brothel for less than what he was bleating about now. 

“You have five seconds to turn around and walk out or I’ll put you out and that’ll be the last time you step foot in this place.”

( With great power came greater flexibility with banning rowdy regulars. )

When the suit with a sour expression decided to skulk away begrudgingly rather than test his patience any further, Maddox rapped his knuckles lightly against the door and waited for a response before he stepped inside so he could clear up any concern that might be present if she had overhead what had been going on. 

( Plus he rather enjoyed being alone with her. )

“The hedge fund guy who likes to be pissed on was pissed off with whatever girl he was with. I sent him away to cool off. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

[sinsoakedsaints]

｡･ﾟﾟ･ halloween-ish starter prompts / @ofrvnaways / costume! droah.

Adjusting the yellow suspender against his bare shoulder, Noah took another look at himself in the half length mirror in his en suite bathroom before he returned to his bedroom, depending on his company to give him an honest critique of his costume. 

He had diverged slightly from the typical in his choice of fancy dress. 

( In truth, trousers, yellow suspenders and no shirt was more firefighter calendar than costume -- but he figured it was close enough. )

His father’s annual Halloween party was usually a gaudy affair, with most in attendance in black tie rather than a costume. If Noah was a better son, he would have gone for something classic and reserved, most likely with a bowtie. 

( Spoiler alert -- Noah had never been a good son, he’s sure that would be his father’s deathbed declaration. )

That’s what made Drew the perfect test audience for his potential outfit, he didn’t know anyone else who a) hated their father as much as he did and b) checked out his ass as frequently as the thief did. 

“So, what do you think?” Noah asked, two thumbs pinging his suspenders against his shirtless torso for effect. 

“What says I dare you to write me out of your will more? The costume or bringing you along with me?”