#I was originally aiming for something that felt like the old drafting tables I used to use but things got weird somewhere along the line

[chiropteracupola]

chill maritime beats to do the accounts to

[this is @benjhawkins's oc charlie fortune!]

[stylesluxx]

cold? chilling? freezing? (II) – s.rogers

[warnings: a fight scene and mentions of death but I think that’s it]

summary: in which y/n is an assassin turned lover | part one | part three

word count: 2,176

masterlist

The knock at your door pulled you out of your thoughts and out of the bed. You walked over to the door and opened it, not expecting who was behind it.

"Something I can do for you, Captain?" You asked the blonde that stood in front of you.

"I just wanted to formally introduce myself, get a chance to talk to you," He said firmly and held out a hand. "Steve Rogers-"

"I know who you are, Captain. And you know who I am. Is there something I can do for you?" You cut him off.

"Can I come in?" He asked.

"Two shoes in a shoebox," You raised an eyebrow and stepped aside so he could fit through the doorway.

You shut the door but kept an eye on him at all times, never having your back to him.

"You can sit on the bed," You told him but you stood by the door, leaning on the wall.

He nodded and walked over to the bed, sitting with good posture.

"I'm assuming you don't want to talk about the mission since your tone doesn't seem urgent enough and you're sitting on my bed. So, what do you want to talk about, Captain?" You asked.

"You can just call me Steve. I just figured I could talk to you one on one; there wasn't much about you in the files."

"There's not much to me, that's why. Whatever was in the file, was all that you needed to know about me," You spoke sharply, not liking that he wanted to know more about you.

You saw him let out a sigh in what looked like defeat and stood to leave. You felt bad; he was trying.

"Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, I know I'm a bit cold but I'm not used to being any other way," You forced out, not wanting to show any signs of weakness or kindness, but you also didn't want to upset him.

"It's no problem. I'm here if you ever need a chat. I'm sure we're more alike than you think."

"I'm sure we are, Captain."

He gave you one last nod before leaving, walking as if he were on a mission, very determined.

You shut the door behind him and turned around to look at your white suit that had hints of red highlighting it. S.H.I.E.L.D. designed it and you went along, agreeing it was good to rebrand. You previously wore an all-black one but you switched for two reasons. One, you knew there was already someone on the team that liked to keep a dark look, Natasha. And two, because the black looked was attached to a life that only had bad memories for you. This new look could be a new start. The only flaw about the suit is that it's so bright and noticeable so your enemies could see you coming but it also draws more attention and you didn't like to be the center of it.

"Loki means to unleash the Hulk," You heard in your ear, distracting you from your inner conflict about the suit.

You sighed and left the room, making your way to the lab. Once you got there the scientists, spies, and super solder were already there, going back and forth. And there was a weird gun-like contraption sitting on the table.

"Loki is manipulating you," You heard Natasha speak as you walked over to lean on the table with the contraption, where you could see everyone.

"I would like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction," Banner spoke clearly, catching your attention.

"You knew about this?" Steve turned to ask you.

"I'm new here just like you, Cap," You responded, not even bothering to look at him.

You listened to the boys go back and forth, causing you to roll your eyes.

"I'm sure if he were still making weapons, Stark would be neck-deep–"

"Since when was this about him?" You questioned Steve which caused a smug smile to decorate Tony's face.

"Yep, I like that one," Tony hummed to himself.

"I'm sorry, usually most things are," Steve retorted and narrowed his eyes at Tony.

"You know, this is exactly what Loki wants," You said as everyone started to speak over each other, but you knew you weren't heard.

"That's his M.O. isn't it? I mean, what are we, a team? No, no, no, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're- we're a time bomb," Banner ranted but with a calm and neutral voice.

"You need to step away."

"Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" Tony instigated and put his hand on Steve's shoulder.

"You know damn well why. Back off!" Steve said and pushed Tony's arm off.

"Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me," Tony antagonized him, making you crack a smile at the interaction.

"Yeah. Big man in a suit of armor," Steve says and starts circling Tony. "Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Tony answered smartly and you and Natasha nodded at the same time, agreeing.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you."

"Knew," You quietly corrected."I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you," Steve dug into Tony.

"I think I would just cut the wire," Tony went back at Steve.

Steve glanced over at you quickly with a smile; not a happy one, you could tell he was annoyed.

"Always a way out. You may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero? Like you? You a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

"Put on the suit. Let's go a few rounds."

Thor laughed so you knew it was okay to let out a giggle, it was getting tense and you didn't want anyone to look at you weird.

"You people are so petty," He chuckled. "And tiny," He said while look at you, making you give him a face.

"Yeah, this is a team," Banner rolled his eyes.

"Agents Romanoff and Y/L/N, would you escort Doctor Banner back to his-"

"Where? You rented my room," Banner said and pointed off to the general direction of Loki.

"The cell was just in case-"

"In case you needed to kill me. But you can't. I know, I tried."

You and the others looked over at him, and you crossed your arms over your chest as you analyzed him. He was a little more unstable than you originally presumed.

"I got low. I didn't see an end. So, I put a bullet to my mouth, and the other guy spit it out," He explained.

As he kept talking, you watched as his hand moved to Loki's scepter, immediately putting you on guard, your hand reaching for the gun you kept strapped on your ankle. The others soon began to pick up on what you already noticed making you slightly worried about their reaction times.

"You wanna know my secret Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?"

"Doctor Banner... put down the scepter," Steve spoke up just as you took the safety off the gun and held it at your side.

Banner looked down at the scepter in his hand before looking up at everyone. And just at that moment, the computers started going off, garnering everyone's attention.

"Sorry, kids, you don't get to see my party trick after all," Bruce said bitterly and walked over to the other side of the lab.

Everyone started speaking again, trying to draft up individual plans rather than a plan for the whole group to follow.

"You're not going alone!" Steve tried to stop Tony from leaving and going after the Tesseract by himself.

"You gonna stop me?" Tony challenged and swatted Steve's hand away from him.

"Put on the suit, let's find out."

"I'm not afraid to hit an old man."

"Put on the suit."

"Oh, my God," Banner mumbled, taking his glasses off.

There was a big boom that shook the whole Helicarrier and tossed everyone in different directions. Steve tried to grab onto you, but you fell through the glass windows with Natasha and Bruce and he was tossed against a cabinet next to Tony.

"Romanoff! Y/L/N!" You heard from the earpiece in your ear.

You looked over as a bunch of metal was sprawled out over you, Natasha, and Banner. The glass shards cut tiny holes in your black cargos and long-sleeve shirt. You hadn't been in action in an outfit like this since you were back in France.

"We're fine," Natasha spoke back with uncertainty in her voice.

"Are we really?" You asked and tried to move the rubble off of you.

You heard Banner groaned in between you and Natasha's pants.

"Doctor?" You asked but he groaned even louder, his hands balling into fists.

"Bruce? You gotta fight it. This is just what Loki wants," Natasha spoke calmly, but no matter how you talked to him, he was going to shift. "We're going to be okay. Listen to me."

You watched as other agents attempted to come in and help, but Natasha shooed them out in an attempt to keep the doctor calm.

"We're going to be okay. Alright? I swear on my life, I will get you out of this. You will walk away and never ever-"

"Your life?" Banner spoke, outraged by what she said.You saw him turning green and turned back around to work on getting out of the rubble.

Banner gave you two one last look before fully turning into the Hulk.

"Bruce," You heard Natasha whisper.

You wiggled out of the pipes and quickly got up. You went over to Natasha and picked the pipe up off her leg. She shot up and you both started running, but not before grabbing the gun that fell out your hand.

"You go up top and I'll stay down here," You told her and she nodded, running up some steel steps.

For a while you were both running around, trying to hide from the big guy before crossing paths again. You found Natasha sneaking around containers, trying not to be seen by the big green man. You both looked up and he growled upon the sight of the two of you. You quickly aimed your gun and shot at a pipe, wanting to distract him so you two could run. The two of you ran through the hallway, trying to get away from him when he got close and swatted Natasha out the way, tossing her into a wall.

"Come on, you big green idiot!" You called as you kept running, bringing him further from the Russian.

He chased after you until you heard a big bang that seemed to have taken him out. You look through the hole in the wall and see him and Thor rolling on the floor. Thor tried to reason with the Hulk, calling him Banner and ultimately getting punched through some bins. You tore away from the two and ran back to Natasha.

You pulled her off the floor and dusted her off, not bothering to ask if she was okay. You heard a message about Barton, causing you and Natasha to look at each other and nod.

You and Nat figured out where he was and split up. You catch him from the front, and she'd attack from the back. You picked up that this was important for her, so while you weren't going to fight Barton yourself, you'd be there for backup and as a distraction.

When Barton saw you, he pulled up his bow and was ready to shoot an arrow at you, but Nat turned him around and narrowly dodged the shot. At one point he had her against the railing, so you took the opportunity to punch him and kick him down. He pulled out a knife and kept going back and forth with his friend. But you noticed the redhead was in a position she couldn't get out, so you kicked the back of his legs, letting him fall to the ground and Nat hit his head against the railing.

"That was a bit hard for someone we want to keep alive," You muttered and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

You looked back at the man with the arrows as he fell back, clearly disoriented.

"Natasha?" He questioned and the woman quickly punched him, knocking him to the ground.

You and Natasha had been waiting for the medical team to arrive and get Barton. She was leaning against the railing, looking completely drained. You sat on the floor, head on the railing so the coldness of it could help with the migraine that was starting to form.

"Agent Coulson is down," You heard Fury speak after a while. "They called it."

[AN: I was not expecting this part to be this long omg but I hope you guys enjoyed it]

[tags: @thisartemisnevermisses]

[sixteenandsixteenhundred]

The Guy Who Saved My Life

Summary: This is an alternate epilogue to The Sun ending I wrote after several days of joking that I could’ve written a better plot (I'm not saying this actually is better it's just a silly little wish fulfilment piece I thought I would share). There are a few things that don’t exactly adhere to the world of 2077 simply because I think the stuff in the original TTRPG and Cyberpunk Red is cooler. This is also a reminder to everyone to go and read or re-read Never Fade Away.

Words: 2.6k

Warnings: Spoilers for several character deaths, as well as events that lead up to The Sun ending.

A/N: Is this a crappy first draft with minimal editing? Did I pressure myself to finish and post it before 2020 ends? Did I spend valuable time writing this when I have three unwritten essays due in soon? The answer to all of these questions is yes.

Also on AO3 here

‘Hello, Night City! Drag your asses out of your sad sack and turn to face the sky!’ The radio chirped as V pulled herself out of bed, greeted by the afternoon sun. She was on autopilot, completely lost to the chaos of the city below until the cold shock of the shower snapped her back to reality, if that’s what you want to call it.

‘But for all you sitting in the gutter, looking up at the smog, here’s someone you ain’t heard in a while - Johnny Silverhand!’

‘Off.’ V barked, but it came out ragged and broken. She coughed. Blood. The radio fell silent.

‘Good afternoon, V. I trust you had a restful sleep.’ Alva’s voice was flat, empty, it scratched at the back of V’s skull and sent tension down into her fists.

‘Not now, Alva.’ A quiet chirp and the AI fell silent. Obedient.

Finally, a moment to herself - she hated it. Hard to be alone when you don’t recognise the bitch in the mirror.

She remembered the stench of loneliness that had bombarded her at Kerry’s mansion. There was only one thing in this damn apartment that didn’t smell just the same. She pulled the first clothes she saw off the floor and managed to dress herself before reaching for the samurai jacket Rogue had given her.

She hadn’t worn it all week, but then again, she hadn’t done much that warranted getting dressed since everything had happened, since everything had gone wrong.

It didn’t make any sense. Johnny had been a construct in her head; he’d never worn the jacket and she’d never been able to smell the guy, but instinct told her it smelt of him - cigarettes and tequila and something she couldn’t even place. She pulled the sleeves down as far as they would reach, hoping to cover the tattoo.

Reality called again, or rather Emmerick did. ‘Ey, boss.’ Hearing a familiar voice helped more than she thought it would; hurt a hell of a lot more too though.

‘Em, shit. Couldn’t ask a favour, could I?’

‘For you? Anything.’

‘Tell him the job’s off the table.’ V waited for a response but wasn’t surprised that she didn’t get one. ‘No renegotiating, not some other time, just call it off.’

‘Sure thing,’ Emmerick replied. ‘Couldn’t come and do the honours yourself?’

‘I got something else I wanna do, besides, you can handle him; don’t be afraid to put some lead in him if he starts anything; fed up of that schmuck.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind.’

‘Call me with anything urgent; I’ll drop by in a day or two. Oh, and call off Del, I won’t be needing that ride.’

‘Will do, boss, and no worries, take your time.’

Her agent flickered off as she hung up. Before heading out she grabbed the pistols, Pride and the Malorian, and donned Johnny’s aviators to hide her bloodshot eyes.

It wasn’t far to the alley behind Misty’s - V’d made sure she stayed in the neighbourhood, even if she didn’t amble about it the way she used to. The kids loitering on the steps gave her a wide berth, staring wide-eyed at NC’s newest legend, snickering behind their hands when she stumbled and slipped on a flyer. She managed to catch herself, but her heart sank as she waited for a snide comment that never came.

Viktor wasn’t shocked to hear the door open or the metal grate give way, but he sure was surprised to see V stood there before him. Neither he nor Misty had heard from her other than a quick call to say that she was alive, and rumour had it she’d only shown her face at The Afterlife, her own damn club, once or twice.

‘What can I do for ya, V?’ Viktor stood from his chair and welcomed her in.

V’s eyes scanned over the room for a moment, eyebrows creasing in confusion.

‘Fuck, Vik… I dunno.’ It hit her that she had no idea why she’d come here. ‘Don’t know why I’m anywhere anymore.’ V perched on the end of Viktor’s desk and closed in on herself; eyes cast downwards, shoulders hunched.

‘Sorry for bothering ya, Vik.’

He stepped forward and put a sturdy hand on V’s shoulder, crouching to make eye contact. She started a little at the touch but didn’t pull away.

‘Don’t worry about it, you’re always welcome here kid.’

‘Thanks.’ The gratitude was hushed and heavy with regret.

Viktor pulled his friend into a hug, and, for a long moment, there was only the muffled drone of the city above them.

Tears began to creep down V’s face, emerging from behind the glasses.

‘What the fuck am I gonna do, Vik?’ V posed a question they both knew he couldn’t answer.

She kept talking just to fill the silence of the clinic. ‘I killed ‘em all Vik. Rogue’d be alive if it weren’t for me.’

Viktor kept his arms tight around her, scared if he let her go she would crumble. ‘Rogue was great; she just had bad luck, nothin’ anyone could have done. Blood isn’t on your hands.’

V’s memories of that night were hazy but one stood out, crystal clear. Rogue’s body, limp and contorted in the bowels of Arasaka tower, Pride still clutched in her hand, finger on the trigger. The thought of it made her feel nauseous.

‘Isn’t it Vik? Whose is it on? What about Jackie and T-Bug? Evelyn Parker? Takemura? Scorpion?’

Her final question was choked out in a whisper. ‘What about Johnny?’

Viktor knew what he could say - Johnny Silverhand died 55 years ago to a bunch of greedy corpos - but he knew that wouldn’t do jack shit with the state she was in right now.

The heavy grate screeched open again. Nerves fried to shit, paranoia scratching at the nape of her neck, V turned, in one swift movement pulling the Malorian on whoever had intruded. She held the pistol in her left hand.

Shit.

Misty froze, raising the cups of coffee she held in each hand. ‘Only me, V.’

V holstered the gun, cursing under her breath as Misty approached, setting down one of the cups beside Viktor.

‘Sorry, shouldn’t’a barged in like that.’

‘Nah Misty, shit, I’m the one who pulled iron on ya.’ V removed the aviators and pulled her hands across her face. Her eyes were bloodshot and bruised, her skin gaunt and lifeless. Calling her a living legend might be a bit of an overstatement.

The buzz of NC set in again. The silence between the three friends was oddly comfortable, considering none of them had a damn clue what to say to each other.

A minute of shuffling and sparse eye contact passed before V put the glasses and a brave face back on.

‘I’m gonna head outta the city for the night.’

‘V...’ Misty wanted to stop her but knew she was pushing her luck.

‘I can’t stand it here; it’s all so loud. I gotta delta.’

‘Shit, can’t pretend to know what’s going through that head of yours. Just take care of yourself out there, kid.’ Viktor downed the last of his coffee before it had a chance to go cold.

‘I’ll drop by again tomorrow, promise.’ V’s voice was laced with guilt, desperate for her friends to stop worrying about her. ‘Managed to get some sleep last night, ya know.’

Misty and Viktor saw a familiar blank look set on V’s face as she gazed passed them, looking for something no one else saw.

‘Hey, that’s great V.’ Misty chirped.

‘Just as I was slippin' outta my head, finally, I-‘ Fuck. What was she doing? What did she think she’d say next?

There are some things you don’t tell anyone. The fact that, just as she lost consciousness, right arm stretched out across the empty bed, she could've sworn she’d felt cool, smooth chrome resting in her hand? That was top of the list.

Scrambling, tripping over her own words, V was quick to change the subject

‘You guys ain’t gotta word about me.’ She gave a single, hollow laugh. ‘Hell, I stormed Arasaka and made it out alive, or so I’ve been told - I’m untouchable.’

Viktor and Misty mustered their goodbyes. They wanted to reach out, ask if she wouldn’t stay in the city for tonight, they could all grab a pizza and talk crap until the sun came up again. But V had said it best herself; she was untouchable.

Jackie’s Arch was waiting for her back up in the alley. Sure, it wasn’t the safest place, but V preferred to keep it locked up back here. Besides, I wasn’t like keeping something in a garage has ever deterred a thief, she knew that from personal experience. She dragged the bike out onto the street and it revved to life, radio crackling over the noise of the engine.

‘-Significant roadblocks up in Northside. NCPD are aiming to clear the roads quickly but that’s about all the information we have. For now, we’d advise against any unnecessary travel through the district and we’ll keep you up to date with any breaking information.’ The announcer’s voice fizzled out and a song took its place. V sat for a moment, calculating, before speeding off ‘round a corner, cursing under her breath.

Autopilot set in again, and V was barely sure of where she was until a red light flashed up ahead of her. She considered just running it, but at the last moment, the bike came to a screeching halt.

Looking around, V recognised a few buildings, washed out and faded. She hated this part of town – never any good jobs and always tinged by some sad shadow of the past.

The lights turned orange but V’s eyes were instead cast down an alleyway, and she couldn’t resist the pull that drew her in.

Resting the Arch against a wall, V’s slow steps took her deeper into the shadows. The buildings here were old, concrete beginning to crumble, plants sprouting through the cracks – it was odd to see anything in this state. Sure, it wasn’t V’s favourite place to be but it was hardly bad real estate, and wild plants growing in the middle of NC? Not a typical sight.

Enchanted by the story this place wanted to tell her, V pushed on until she met the end of the alley. Looking up at the building before her, a memory stung in her chest. She’d never been here before.

There were no signs left to indicate what this place might’ve been, but plants burst from every escape they could find, moving gently in the wind to beckon V inside.

Then it hit her. She half expected that blue, glitching static, ‘Relic malfunction detected’ flashing across her vision, but there was only silence.

It was too quiet for Night City, even the noise and chaos seemed to have abandoned this place.

The doorway had collapsed in on itself a long time ago, a tree now twisting its way around the rubble, barring V from entering. She clambered up a rusted, crumbling fire escape, working on a muscle memory that wasn’t hers until she was two floors up, facing a boarded window.

It didn’t take V much effort to pry the brittle wood away from the building, which was just as well considering she had little left.

Through the window, V stood in a small entrance hall, remnants of a staircase falling away behind her. Putting a hand against the door before her, every ounce of strength evaporated from V’s body. She took a deep breath, a moment to calm herself down. In a weird twist of fate, she’d’ve given the world to see his flickering blue form right now.

Putting her weight against the door, V pushed into a larger room. Plants had escaped from their ornamental pots and weaved across the floor, a few even daring to entangle themselves in the gaudy chandeliers that hung from the high ceiling. Beneath the plants and long-settled dust, booths with plush, syn-leather seats were scattered with bottles and glasses, a few cheap pistols even scattered about.

Whoever abandoned this place was quick to delta. Probably had no idea they wouldn’t be coming back.

In the centre of the room sat a grand bar with a pale marble countertop. V pulled herself up to sit atop in, tucking her legs under her as she looked down onto the lower counter. It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for.

A skewered receipt confirmed what she already knew:

        ATLANTIS

        3:16AM, MARCH 8TH 2024

The order was cheap vodka shots and a slew of cocktails she’d never even heard of, but that didn’t matter.

Dismounting to rain the cabinets below, V pulled out a bottle, the label long since faded and worn away. V tossed the lid onto the floor and took a long swig. Even then she couldn’t put a finger on the strange liquid, but it burned her throat and that was good enough.

V set the bottle down, trading it for a rusted corkscrew that had been abandoned half a century ago.

‘If these walls could talk…’ With that she deltaed, jumping down from the fire escape and pacing back over to the bike.

Somewhere along the way, the city gave out to dusty open fields, old Petrochem plants dotting the barren landscape. V pulled the bike off to the side of the road and began wading through the scrap and rubble to a familiar slab of concrete.

V wondered if anyone had been here since their visit; the metal sheet lay undisturbed bearing her messy inscription:

        JS 2023

She flipped the sheet over – there was less graffiti on this side – pulled out the corkscrew, and got to work.

The sun had long since set by the time V was finished. She carved a thin channel and stuck the cool metal into the dirt at the edge of the concrete. After propping it up with a few worn-out tyres, she took a step back to admire the new inscription. Her penmanship, if you could even call it that, was shoddy, but she couldn’t care less if anyone else could read it.

Across the bottom were four names; T-BUG, SCORPION, EVELYN PARKER, GORO TAKEMURA, each with 2077 scratched below them. Above them were three more. On the left of the sheet;

        RACHEL ‘ROGUE’ AMENDIARES

                  2077

        STILL THE BEST

The right-hand side read;

        JAQUITO ‘JACKIES’ WELLES  

                  2077

        “THE ONE THING WE CAN’T DO IS BE AFRAID OF OTHERS”

She’d left the central space blank until last, as if leaving it unwritten made it any less true. But eventually, she’d managed it, tears falling onto the metal as the night’s chill crept into her bones;

        JOHNNY SILVERHAND

                  2023/2077

        THE GUY WHO SAVED MY LIFE

Finally, V dug a small hole in front of her plaque, dirt embedding itself beneath her nails. She drew Pride and placed it in the earth before her. The Malorian sat heavy in her hand, and as much as she willed her hand to set it down beside Rogue’s pistol, every inch of her body resisted. The gun found its way back to the holster at her hip.

After burying Pride, V laid back on the concrete, looking up at the few stars that were visible once you left the city. She pulled a cigarette from a pack in one of the jacket's pockets – she certainly didn’t put them there – and lit it.

Closing her eyes, V tried not to think about the body below her. She pulled the jacket tight around her against the chill of the Badlands, alone.

[whumpbeans]

Soulmark

So I’m writing this bc when I was a young bean I was told that if I didn’t get married at 16 I was worthless, and then when I graduated high school I was degraded by my nuclear family so this piece contains some of that good venting hurt lmao. Also be gentle, I’m not a good writer and this isn’t edited lol.

Tw: suicide attempt, bullying, suicidal thoughts, near character death

Characters: lance centric angst, Keith, hunk, Pidge, Coran, Shiro, Allura (eventually), axca

Part one

He stood on the edge of a ten story building. The cold night wind sent a shiver up his spine. The hair on his arms stood up. He lifted a foot in front of him. He tested the gravity. No solid ground touched his foot. His heart pounded in his chest.

His foot firmly planted back on the ledge. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket.

His head pounded. He looked up at the sky. The stars obscured by city lights. Lance’s knees wobbled under him and he almost fell forward. He managed to stabilize himself and took a step down from the ledge.

This time he opted to sit on it instead. His feet dangled limblessly. He closed his eyes tightly and tilted his head back. His fingers gripped the ledge. He scooted himself closer to the edge. He let out a shaky breath. A wave of pain crossed through his chest. Something heavy and cold weighed his heart-or what used to be his heart.

“Soul-bonds, huh?” Lance chucked a crumpled piece of cement onto the pavement. Most people in the world were born with odd marks somewhere on their bodies. Once their destined touched them, the mark grows into a bigger tattoo. Lance stared at where his clean, unmarked flesh sat. His soulmark never existed. Likely his destined died in childbirth. Lance never even got the chance to meet them. “Fuck…” his voice choked. Hot tears slid down his cheeks.

“What’s the use of a soul if it’s incomplete?” His mother said this to his abuelita over the phone. She didn’t know he heard her.

“But it’s true,” Lance whispered to himself. He sighed. No point. “To be fair I never had a point here.” He chuckled, but his throat grew tight and hot. He coughed.

“I heard people lose their soulmates when they whore themselves out.,” his uncle glared at Lance. Lance was seven when he heard that. He shook his head.

“He’s broken, don’t touch him,” a woman grabbed one of his classmates arms and pulled him away from Lance.

“Broken,” Lance repeated numbly.

His eyes felt wet and burned. He squeezed his eyes shut.

He opened up his eyes and stared ahead. The shadows of tall buildings covered his frame from detection of any passerby in the street below. He took a deep breath and stood to his feet again. Another deep breath. He glanced behind himself. His neon blue sneakers sat propped on the base of the ledge. Lance’s eyes returned ahead of himself. Another deep breath.

Lance took a step forward. His eyes stared at the street. Time seemed to slow down. His body weight inched closer to the pavement. All the blood in his body rushed into his ears. It filled his head. He felt light.

His heart pounded rapidly in his chest. He closed his eyes. Lance waited for impact.

Except there was none.

Except someone held onto his hips. Strong arms wrapped tightly around him. His body half dangled over the ledge. The person who held him grunted. He pulled Lance back. Lance didn’t fight it. Instead he leaned his body backwards which allowed the guy to not fall over the ledge with him.

Lance fell backwards and onto the person who held onto him. He grunted. A sharp jab pressed against Lance’s ribs. Lance yelped and rolled off of the guy. He glared at the guy. His eyes immediately softened at the familiar face.

“Fuck me,” Lance groaned.

Keith-fucking-Kogane saved him. The most emo and well liked student amongst the garrison. He practically followed through Shiros, the school’s original top dog before he went MIA, footsteps. Why was he even here? Lance scattered to his feet and backed up. His back hit the wall of the ledge. Keith sat up quickly. His eyes wide. He quickly jumped onto Lance as if Lance would immediately try to jump off of the building. Lance struggled with Keith sitting on his hips. He tried to buck Keith off. Keith kept him pinned down.

Lance thrashed his head back and forth.

“Listen to me-hey!” Keith yelled at him. “Snap out of it!”

Lance tried to move his arms from under Keith’s grip. He Threw his head back and forth again. Keith wrapped his arms then around Lance’s torso. His body now supported by Keith. Lance froze.

Fat tears rolled down Lance’s cheeks. He buried his head into Keith’s shoulder. Sobs wracked his body. His hands clutched Keith’s stupid cropped jacket.

______________________________________________________

Lance was sure Keith didn’t recognize him when they got blasted into space. By the way he acted, Keith either could win a grammy with his acting performance or he didn’t recognize Lance. He felt pretty certain of the latter.

Now the team stood on an alien planet. They tried to recon with the planet but the planet was ambushed by galra.

Lance leaned his head back. His heart pounded in his chest. Blasters sounded off in the distance. He heard the familiar sound of a lion taking to the air. Now if he could just get to red…

“Get to your lions! We need to form voltron!” Keith commanded over the comms.

Galran soldiers yelled off directions. They stomped closer to where Lance hid. He readied his bayard. He took a deep breath in. He aimed. He shot down a soldier. He exhaled. The Galra turned towards Lance’s direction.

Lance took that as his cue to run like hell. He turned around and ran straight into someone. He quickly backed up, but his weapon got knocked out of his hand. Lotor’s squad. The big hunk of galran meat, Zethrid, grinned at him. Her murderous eyes filled with mirth.

“Can we do this another day, I gotta plane to catch,” Lances voice shook.

She grabbed his arm and threw him against the back of a tree like plant. He gasped.

“Lance! We don’t have time to joke around!” Pidge grunted through the comms.

Zethrid threw a punch at Lance. Lance ducked. He side-rolled. Lance ran forward. Zethrid grabbed his ankle and swung him into the ground. All the air in his body left him. She punched his chest plate. Lance choked.

He struggled against Zethrid, but she pinned him.

“Guys?!” he struggled to say into the comms, “I got trouble!”

The comms buzzed. “Lance, what’s your position?” Keith asked.

Zethrid raised her arm. Lance’s eyes widened. “I-”

She threw her hand down. The impact of her hand against Lance’s helmet cracked it. His head slammed against the ground. He felt dizzy. His eyesight blurred.

He could hear the comms buzz, but the sound they made didn’t make sense. Zethrid filled his vision again. She held up her hand again. Another punch. Lance felt the impact. His jaw ached. His eyes burned.

A neon blue colored bird landed in front of him. It bounced around and then took off. And with the bird, so did his consciousness.

Warmth spread through him. It dripped from his head and through his body.

Something pressed his shoulder. Something shook him. Lance lazily opened his eyes.

A purple galra shoved a clay cup into his face. Lance took it. He stared at the cup. His head dizzy and thoughts constantly derailed. He took a sip of the water. The water held no taste. Satisfied, the guard left. A cell locked in front of him.

Across from Lance sat another empty cell. Both areas purple and dark. Lance shivered. A cold draft passed through the cells. His head throbbed. Lance squeezed his eyes shut.

What happened? “Prisoner,” Lance’s eyes snapped open. He got taken. He looked down at himself. He wore nothing but a pair of scratchy, brown colored cloth pants.

“You’re up,” said a shrill voice.

Lance shivered.

His cell door squeaked open. A pair of sentries and a druid came in and cuffed him. They placed a magenta colored collar around his neck that attached to a similar colored leash. The druid held the leash behind Lance.

Lance’s heart pounded in his chest. He swallowed thickly. The robots lead him into an off room adjacent to the prison cells. In the room sat a large lab. Many large tubes filled with strange purple and silver colored liquid stationed around the lab. A large dissection table with straps attached. Off of the center stood something that looked like a pillory.

The druid yanked his leash. It sent electricity through the leash and onto Lance. Lance yelped. He quickly matched his pace to the druid. It lead him to the pillory. Lance felt shame burn his cheeks as they locked his head into place.

“Blue paladin,” the druid almost sang. “I have been given permission to test you in the most lethal ways, how wonderful!” The druid drifted towards one of the control panels. It picked up an item sitting on it. The druid levitated back to Lance. It displayed a long whip at Lance. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

Fear gripped Lance’s stomach. “He-hey! I’m not really into this stuff,” he stuttered, “Maybe we should, um, do something else?” His voice became shrill. The druid disappeared from his vision.

The first strike always hurt the worst. Lance squeezed his eyes shut.

“These freaks deserve worse,” Charlie Diaz rose his stick up again. He slammed it against Lance’s back. Lance screamed. He couldn’t fight back. Charlie was much bigger than him being a fourth grader while Lance barely stood a chance at seven years old.

The second strike snapped against his back. He felt blood trickle down his shoulder.

A hand wrapped around his throat. “This is wha’ ya get!” His uncle slurred. “Soulmateless...ha! You’re a sorry excuse of a life.”

Tears burned Lance’s eyes, but he held them back. He’s been through worse. Another snap of the whip. Lance’s knees wobbled. After another hit, his knees gave out. He barely held on using his ankles to support himself in an awkward squatted position. His body weight now half leaning against the pillory.

Several more whips attacked Lance’s skin.

“Lo siento, mijo,” his mother kissed his forehead. “No tienes una media naranja.”

Lance didn’t really understand her words. Soulmates were for parents anyways, and he didn’t need an icky partner. They had cooties anyways. “No la necesito,” he whispered. He looked into his mother’s eyes. The whites of her pupil red and wet. Her cheeks flushed. She hugged him.

The pillory’s lock snapped open. Lance fell to the ground. His back ached. His limbs too heavy to move. The druid yanked on his leash. The zap of electricity brought to life his jelly-like limbs.

Lance stood up and followed the druid. It lead him next to the table. He laid onto his back. He yelped from the pressure on the lashes that covered his back. The druid strapped him in. It tied Lance’s leash to a pole attached to the side of the bed across from his head.

The druid then returned to one of the control panels. Lance took several deep breaths. It came back with a syringe filled with some strange neon blue colored liquid in it. Lance glared at the syringe. The druid slapped his arm a few time. It then held his elbow steady and injected the serum.

The prick distracted Lance briefly from the pain in his back. A familiar heavy feeling sank in his chest. The serum took full effect. The druid unlatched Lance from his restraints. It didn’t undo the leash from the pole. Lance cautiously sat up. Fatigue crawled through him. The druid levitated to a high vantage point.

Lance sat against the table. His head felt dizzy. His back hurt. His chest felt empty. He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his head against them. His heartbeat slowed. He swallowed back a sob and bit his lip.

He blinked hard. He wanted to...he shook his head. Not now, Lance ordered himself.

The blood on his back trickled. Unable to keep clotting. Lance let out a trembled sigh. He laid on his side. His eyesight blurry. He heard the druid levitate closer to him.

[angeltriestoblog]

Bullet Journaling 101: My Story, Flipthrough, Tips and Resources

A bullet journal is a system of organization created by Ryder Carroll that “aims to track the past, organize the present and plan for the future”. It’s a diary, journal and planner all in one: an amalgamation of all the facets of a person’s life in a series of different bullet points. Several YouTubers and bloggers have attributed their newfound sense of productivity and success to this and attested that it has helped tremendously in reordering their priorities.

And just like everyone else who seemed tempted by the idea, I’ve been wanting to join the whole movement. In fact, I’ve been watching flipthrough videos since last year, with my “bujo inspo” YouTube playlist amassing a grand total of 109 videos as of press time. I’ve followed a lot of Instagram accounts who’ve made a living out of this practice, and even put a short-lived Pinterest account (for the third time since the ninth grade – I don’t know why it can’t stick with me) in the hopes of gaining inspiration to get started. But, none of those worked in helping my intimidation die down.

I have been exposed to a great number of bullet journal spreads that are so aesthetically pleasing and color-coordinated that they seem almost unrealistic. I lacked the skills and resources required to start. Not enough Tombow brush pens or collaging skills in my arsenal, I thought, which would just lead to a decline in my journal’s appeal. At this juncture, I would like to point out that a bullet journal’s main priority must be functionality. Yes, it can also serve as a great medium for artistic expression but this must not hinder it from serving its true purpose: to get its owner’s life together.

Anyway, dumaldal na naman si Angel. Wala talagang kupas.

If it’s of any interest to you, I use a Leuchtturm 1917 ruled notebook in the color purple, which I got for half its original price at my local National Bookstore. I was initially supposed to go for the dotted version, as it is more popular in the bujo community. Turns out I forgot to check the label before paying for it, and only found out I had bought the wrong version when I had got home. I don’t have any regrets though: I find it easier to write on lined pages, and they don’t really change its effectivity.

I have a black Pilot G-Tec in 0.4mm thickness for writing, as I feel my handwriting looks best when I use this pen. Alongside these are my Dong-A fineliners—which are a great alternative to the much pricier Steadtlers—and my pride and joy, my Stabilo pastel highlighters. I have a black Artline Stix brush pen, which I use for my headings, and a normal pencil for making rough drafts of spreads. I also keep a thin pad of Post-it notes that I replenish weekly on the front page, where I write down any ideas that pop in my head that I’d later on put in its respective spread. I’m trying to keep my set-up as minimal and low-maintenance as possible, but with a pop of color here and there so it won’t end up being too bland and boring.

But contrary to popular belief, there is no fixed set of materials that one must purchase to start a bullet journal. In fact, there doesn’t even need to be any purchasing at all: you can start with something as simple as an old notebook lying around your bedroom floor, and the regular pen that you use for school. Colored markers and washi tapes and any other art supplies are purely optional.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s a peek into what’s actually inside my bullet journal:

Key: Consists of a series of symbols that mean to organize entries into different categories. I have tasks—which can be subdivided into those that are complete, have been migrated or scheduled on another date—events and notes, which can be further emphasized by an asterisk that means they are a priority.

About Me: A short page on the side complete with my basic information. I don’t intend on sharing this with anyone else after this post, but I like keeping this as it feels like a standard way of starting a journal.

Index: Serves as a table of contents. It’s incredibly helpful when it comes to locating spreads, but it cannot fulfill its purpose if one is not consistent in supplying the information it needs. I like to jot the page number and a short description of what’s written on it in the index immediately after I fill out another spread so I don’t forget.

Future Log: My next six months at a glance. This is where I write all major activities and events. I’ve considered putting in birthdays of people who are important to me as well, but I feel like they’d take way too much space so I’ll work on assembling a separate spread to keep track of them.

Collections: Just a few pages to jot down some books I need to read, movies to see, posts to write for this blog and places to go. If ever you have any recommendations, you can shoot me a message here on Tumblr or any of my social media accounts.

(Half) Year in Pixels + Habit Tracker: Admittedly my favorite spread so far. Although I did have to make the grids manually because I’m using a lined notebook, I am very satisfied with how this came out. On the far left side, I’ll be tracking my mood by coloring in squares according to how I felt during the day: purple if great, red if good, orange if it was smack dab in the middle, blue if it was an off day and green if terrible.

For the remainder of the spread, I’ll be monitoring my progress in developing five habits of my choice and checking the corresponding box if I was able to do it on that specific day. The ones I’ve chosen to focus on are drinking eight glasses of water a day, eating only one cup of rice for lunch and dinner, not lurking on anyone’s accounts during my free time to avoid counterproductivity, saying only kind words towards others and using social media for only an hour a day.

Monthly Spreads: Pretty self-explanatory. This is the one I’ve made for November 2017, and I feel like this is the layout I’ll be sticking to. On the left-hand page, I have all the days of the month written vertically with an important task or event beside it. You might have noticed that these are the exact same items under my Future Log, and think that the whole practice of bullet journaling can get quite repetitive but I find it better to write the same things over and over again so they stick to my head.

To the right, I have an expenses tracker, where I write everything I’ve bought for the month. I was supposed to add a box to indicate my savings goal, but I’ll get around to that eventually. I also have a sleep tracker, which I will be doing in the form of a line graph, and my five main goals to give me a sense of direction.

Grades Tracker – 3rd Quarter: Where I write down all the marks I’ve gotten in all my subjects. I write down HW for homework, PT for performance task, Q for quiz and SW for seatwork, then my score but I haven’t been able to do the latter yet since none of our class activities have been graded yet. I’m aiming to become at least a Merit Card Awardee by the end of the school year, so this tool will be extremely helpful in ensuring that everything I do is a step in the right direction.

I have a page that shows my class schedule for this semester and two weekly spreads but the former is too private to divulge and the latter is still under construction, so I decided not to include any pictures of them. Besides, I don’t think any of them would be of much interest to you. Do note that this serves mainly as a source of inspiration. Your bullet journal does not have to follow this format. Since it’s highly flexible and customizable, revolves around you, you wants and your needs, you call the shots at the end of the day and are given full authority to change things up to your liking.

If, by any chance, this post has made you consider converting to this system, congratulations. You’re making a great decision, and I can’t wait for you to see your life get whipped back into shape. I’ve only been bullet journaling for two weeks tops, but I can honestly say that I’m never looking back. As mentioned in my previous blog post, it has given me a newfound sense of order in and control over my life, and keeps motivated to do the tasks required of me. Literally my favorite feeling in the world right now is getting to cross out everything I needed to do for the day.

Below are some resources that I found could be helpful for any bullet journal beginner. There’s honestly much more where that came from, and you can always message me for them:

Ryder Carroll’s (the creator of the bullet journaling system) video

The official Bullet Journal website

Boho Berry on YouTube

AmandaRachLee on YouTube

Caitlin’s Corner on YouTube

planningwithkay on YouTube

Mistral Spirit

[josephsciuto2]

THE KINDNESS OF THE HANGMAN

  Many years ago, over forty years ago, on Christmas night, I gathered with my friends from Parkchester at our favorite bar, “The Golden Note.”

  We drank and celebrated as we listened to Nat “King” Cole sing “The Christmas Song” for the hundredth time before his voice would fade away, once again, into the oncoming New Year.  The Yule theme wouldn’t be heard again until the following year.  Yes, back then in the stone ages, the Christmas season began on the day after Thanksgiving instead of Labor Day (or earlier) as it does now.

  Jimmy was the bartender at the Golden Note that night. He was young.  Before that night, I assumed that he was in his early twenties.

    Exceptionally good-looking with straight blond hair parted on the side, Jimmy’s hair barely touched his shoulders and fell down slightly passed his ears. He was a soft-spoken, amiable guy and everyone liked him.

    At times, I used to think how great it would be to be Jimmy, especially since I was such an ugly little teenager.  How nice it would be to have girls look at you and say, “Wow! He’s a good-looking guy. I wonder if he has a girlfriend?”

  The Golden Note, for all practical purposes was an old man’s bar. It was dark, with the stench of stale beer buried so deep inside the stainless wooden bar that it would take a nuclear explosion to rid the place of the smell.

  Across from the bar, there were booths with torn, green leather cushions.  At any giving time, you might find a regular patron comfortably asleep across the bottom cushion of one of the booths with his head resting on a folded jacket that was used as a pillow.

  We were all teenagers at the time, and even though most of my friends were eighteen at the time, which was the legal drinking age back then, I was still a couple of years below the legal age, but that was of little consequence back then in the Bronx.

  At about 3 in the morning, we decided it was time to go home.  The group decided to leave Jimmy an extra big tip, which at that time was probably thirty-five dollars split among six of us. He was exceptionally grateful, and he bought us all one last drink.

  We were the only ones left in the place, and Jimmy joined us at the end of the bar with a drink of his own.

  Someone asked him, if he had done anything special on Christmas Eve.  Jimmy replied, “No, I just stayed home and watched TV. I like it that way.”

  “So, nothing at all?”

  “Yeah, just stayed home, watched TV, and had a few beers. Ever since returning from Vietnam, I prefer the quiet and uneventful.”

  The war in Vietnam had ended just a couple of years previously and none of my friends, who were all too young to be drafted, had gone to Vietnam. We got our news about the war from the newspapers and the TV coverage. Jimmy’s confession came as a shock to us. He didn’t look much older than most of us.

  “No, I’m plenty old to have been drafted. Just turned twenty-seven.”

  “And what was it like?”

  “Scary,” he replied as his eyes drifted to another time.

    He transformed his arms and hands into a makeshift automatic rifle, which he pointed toward the floor.

  “During one firefight, I remember shooting a dead Vietcong soldier over and over again.  It wasn’t until my sergeant pulled me away that I realized that I just shot like forty rounds into a corpse.”

    Jimmy unwound his arms and hands, looked up, shook his head and smiled a haunted smile.

  Ten years later, sitting at one of my favorite bars, Mirabelle, on the Sunset Strip, I drank a cold, refreshing beer.   I occasionally looked up from the newspaper I was reading and glanced admiringly at Ava, the barmaid, a Czechoslovakian beauty who, at 41, made the young, aspiring starlets walking along the Strip and sitting at the tables at Mirabelle look positively plain.

  The gentleman sitting next to me asked me if there was any “new news” he should know about. I simply shook my head and replied, “The same old shit.” He was in his mid-thirties, with long straight hair coming down past his shoulders and sported a bushy mustache.

    The man was soft spoken and drinking a coffee, which I assumed he brought with him from the table where he probably ate dinner. Ava put a fresh beer in front of me, and I asked the gentleman if I could buy him a drink to go with the coffee.

  “No,” He replied as Ava refilled his cup of coffee. “ I haven’t had a drink in nearly ten years, since I went on a five year binge after coming back from Vietnam. I was there for about a year and a half and saw virtually no action, even though I went on routine patrols throughout my whole time there.”

  He paused as he took a sip of his coffee and looked straight up and into the mirror behind the bar.

    “Just before I was going to leave Nam, we were out on just another routine patrol and we were suddenly ambushed by the Vietcong.  For what was probably no more than five minutes, we were in a firefight.

  All I remember was shooting wildly into the jungle straight ahead of me during the entire time. When it was all over, there were dead and wounded soldiers from my company spread out all around me.

    “I didn’t have so much as a scratch… just the smell of gunpowder, sweat, and the cries of my wounded comrades,” he continued.

    He took another sip of his coffee and repeated, “And that was all the action I saw over there.”

    Ten years later, sitting at table #27 at the Palm Restaurant in West Hollywood I listened to Hal Goodman tell me some fabulous stories about the entertainment business.

  Hal was short, maybe 5 feet, 5 inches tall with broad shoulders and short, gray hair. He had worked in the industry close to fifty years and, for most of that time, Hal worked as a comedy writer for Johnny Carlson.

  Like me, Hal was also from the Bronx.  He told me when he was about eleven-years-old, his mother forced him to take violin lessons.  He said he never felt so embarrassed as when he had to walk through the neighborhood holding that stupid violin case. But his mother meant well, he said, and he still loved her.

  Hal was soft-spoken, extremely gracious, and I don’t know if there was a mean bone in his body.

    After a few minutes, we got off the subject of the entertainment business and discussed the upcoming Presidential election between President Clinton and Senator Bob Dole. We both agreed that it would be very difficult to beat President Clinton, especially with the economy so strong.

  I felt that the only advantage I saw Senator Dole had was his war record.  Hal reminded me that it didn’t matter much when Clinton beat President Bush, a war hero, and that most people of voting age today were not even born when World War II ended.

  Hal, to my surprise, told me he served in the army during World War II. The army and Hal just didn’t seem to go together.

  Hal was so easygoing and kind that it was hard for me to picture him holding a rifle, nevertheless aiming and shooting at another human being. He told me that during one fierce battle with the Germans everything suddenly went dark and he was knocked unconscious.

  When he woke up, the dismembered bodies of his friends were scattered all around him. The Germans had dropped a bomb on them and he had no idea how he survived. He was wounded, and airlifted to an army hospital, which would become famous in the following days when General Patton visited wounded soldiers.  The mercurial general went on his famous tirade against a soldier suffering from post trauma stress.

  Hal reiterated that he did not see Senator Dole getting any boost in the polls for his military service, and he went on to tell me a very funny story about Red Skelton.

    A few years later, while sitting in a chair in the backyard of a friend’s parents’ home in Beverly Hills, Lisa’s stepfather, Henry, picked up a copy of one of Goethe’s books and started reading it in very fluent German. He remarked, “When you read it in its original German it sounds so much better.”

  Having Goethe read to you in German during a yard sale is a rather surreal.  And to answer your next question…yes, they do have yard sales in Beverly Hills.  But I cannot imagine you getting the best deals.

  Henry was an optometrist and, on a few occasions, I accompanied my wife to see him for her annual checkups. He was quite enthusiastic about his profession, and there was never a time I went in which I didn’t learn some fascinating facts and stories about the eye.  For instance, he had recently seen a patient suffering from an eye infection and, after a number of failed attempts to get rid of the infection, he did further tests and discovered the patient’s infection was actually syphilis.  Syphilis of the eye…now that is something I never even knew existed.

  I tried not to imagine where that individual’s eyes had been, or more likely where his hands had been when he unknowingly spread the virus from his hands and into his eyes. Thankfully, he was cured and hopefully learned not trek too deeply into dirty places.

  Henry was thin, with gray, bushy hair and was occasionally frazzled from too many patients.  He wore glasses and without knowing anything about him, you would assume that he was a doctor, a researcher, a scholar, or a professor.

  In fact, he was all of the above. He was born in Cologne, Germany, and at five-years-old, he witnessed the rise to power in 1933 of Adolf Hitler (Talk about a deranged and syphilitic mind).

  Henry unfortunately was born Jewish, and he and his family were uprooted from their home in the lovely city of Cologne and relocated to a ghetto at Lodz, Poland.  Shortly after the forced relocation, he received a one-way, fourth-class train ticket to Auschwitz where he was separated from his family and would never see them again…

  Amazingly, Henry found the strength to survive while almost everyone around him succumbed to the gas chambers, starvation, experiments, hangings, a bullet to the head, and disease. Henry was one of only 19 German-speaking Jewish boys to survive the concentration camps.

  Henry Oster died two weeks ago. He lived to 90-years-old, and most people would agree that is a nice long life.

    I can’t help thinking how many years is “just” compensation for the torturous childhood he was forced to live: The stench of death and disease that surrounded and engulfed his youth.

  Ignorance will argue that at least he made it, whereas six million others died.

  Henry made the most of that time.  He donated his time to the Thalians, a charity to help people with mental problems.  He spoke at conferences around the world about the Holocaust at many venues ranging from local Los Angeles schools to the Holocaust museum to events in Europe.

  This man, who had arrived in the United States with no money, no education, and unable to speak English, let nothing hold him back.

  After all, he survived the Nazis.  Every day of his life was a victory…a slap in the face to the brutality and inhumane culture that this syphilitic ideology produced.

  In 2014, Henry Oster published a book titled, “The Kindness of the Hangman” that was a harrowing retelling of his very early childhood in Germany, his re-location in Poland, and finally his long-term internment in the hotel Auschwitz where many checked in and only a few rare cases were allowed to checkout.

  After reading the book, I had the pleasure to carry on a lively correspondence with Henry about the book.  We talked about his torturous experiences as a child and as a young teenager.

  He was a treasure trove of information and insights.  There have been many books written on the Holocaust by survivors and historians.  By 2014, however, very few living survivors of the Holocaust remained.

  Henry answered all my questions truthfully; even though with each answer, I could still feel the pain and isolation he felt some 70 years after. The suffering, torture, and pain went to bed with him each night and woke up with him each morning.  I suspect that it gave him no relief during his sleep, either.

  In our last correspondence, Henry emailed me to congratulate me on a book I just had published. We talked about the current world situation, and I asked if he saw any parallels between the current world situation and what he went through some 70 years ago.

  He said he was disgusted by what was going on in Syria and Yemen, but what was most troubling for him was what was going on in the United States.

  The anger, bigotry, and racism right here in his adopted and beloved country was more like what he heard back in Germany as Hitler consolidated power. It saddened him greatly, and he wondered what would become of this moment in time in ten or twenty years from now.

  A few nights ago, I was asleep when my son, Bogie, a handsome, debonair feline decided to jump on me and use me as a trampoline. I woke up, desperately trying to catch my breath as the big fur-child feigned his innocence.

  I patted his head and looked across at the TV, which my wife had left on. A young girl, maybe 4 or 5, came toward me from the screen. She was dirty, her clothes torn, and her hands pressed against her tiny ears.

  She was screaming as the Syrian army bombarded a village of innocent civilians. I had seen images similar to this over the last decade and I thought to myself, “Well, maybe if she is lucky enough to survive, she might not remember any of this.”

    Then, I thought about Jimmy, the stranger at Mirabelle, my friend Hal, and my friend Henry.

  I couldn’t help but laugh at the stupidity of my hope that the little girl could escape the terror of her life.

  If she is lucky enough to survive, that moment in time always will be with her, buried deep inside her soul.  One day, it finally will emerge, screaming and shrieking, before it goes quiet and voiceless…if she lives that long.

  The terror will haunt her for the rest of her life, whether she lives to be 90 or only for another day.

  Yet, somehow, I’m sure that Henry Oster is watching over her, telling her that she is not alone.

    REST IN PEACE, my dear friend, Dr. Henry Oster.  Your courage, your generosity and your kindness have left the world a better place.

A CURIOUS VIEW: “THE KINDNESS OF THE HANGMAN” THE KINDNESS OF THE HANGMAN Many years ago, over forty years ago, on Christmas night, I gathered with my friends from Parkchester at our favorite bar, “The Golden Note.”

[georgialouisea]

Dadda

Characters - Reader, Dean, Sam, Mary, Castiel and Phoebe.

Summary - Part 10 of my Baby Winchester series! 

Catch up HERE 

——–

Ever since you found out you were pregnant there was one thing you wanted to do, set up an email account for your baby, it seems weird. Yet to you it was the most secure way of giving your unborn child a memory and photo album without the risk of it being stolen. Charlie had performed her magic on it so it was fully encrypted and non accessible unless you had the 5 codes, one for you, Charlie, Phoebe, Sam and Dean. It seemed over the top yet as a hunter you could never be too careful.

Since Phoebe was born you’d sent many an email to her address’ one to send adorable baby photos, the other to inform her of her father’s mark of cain affliction. You still weren’t 100% sure if you’d give Phoebe the hunter’s email address, yet you and other hunters still emailed her, such as Jody, Donna, Claire and occasionally Cas.

You’d sent Phoebe (who before she was born was known as bean) The videos of her baby shower, and shopping videos. Any form of memory you shared with Sam, Dean or your hunting family made it’s way into the emails as you all began to realise time with other hunters was short lived.  

Not once did you log into the email addresses you’d set up for Phoebe, you wanted her to watch the videos and read the emails when she was old enough and safe enough. You feared she would never be safe, when she was born you felt the bunker was the safest place in the world for her to be.

Many a time you’d sat in the bunker with Phoebe as it was the safest place to you. During hunts Dean insisted you stayed home on you sent emails to Phoebe with a few photos or videos attached. When Dean had decided to take the Mark of Cain upon himself you decided to exclude it from the updates you sent Phoebe, not knowing how it would end for Dean and yourself. It was months before you sent a truthful email to Phoebe’s email, you felt guilty for lying to her, yet at the same time you didn’t know what was going to happen to her father. Even now you weren’t too sure how to phrase the email to tell Phoebe her father had the first curse and had subsequently become a demon. Which resulted in over a month of you hiding in Europe with burner phones and fake names.

Once again attempting to send an email to Phoebe informing about the affect the first curse had on Dean was difficult, yet since yourself and Dean had promised to tell Phoebe everything that happened in her life, you felt you needed to include it.

You had left it weeks before informing Phoebe of what had happened with the darkness and her fathers’ obsession with Amara, the weird bond he had with her made you uncomfortable. You left the latest update as a draft as you weren’t too sure as to how the week would go for yourself and Dean. Your plan was to leave it until the end of the week to update Phoebe’s email, yet when you heard of Dean’s new plan which would most likely end in him dying, you ran to him, in an attempt to save him. Save the man you loved.

As you packed up a bag to take Phoebe with you to find Sam and Dean you received a call from Sam.

“Y/N, I don’t know what happened, Dean is gone, he’s disappeared I don’t know if he’s alive or not.” Sam informed you frantically as you took in the information.

You also received a call from Cas. “Y/N. I believe Dean is dead.”

That was it, all he said. The love of your life was dead.

In the hours after those phone call Sam told you he would be heading back to the bunker with Cas. You informed him you’d stayed put yet after 30 minutes and no word from anyone you decided total Phoebe out to a park which was 20 minutes away. You watched her play and squeal with happiness as you helped her down the slide, and pushed her on the swing.

You decided to make your way back to the bunker but before you stopped at the store to get supplies you all needed, everything you were doing was taking your mind off Dean and the situation he could be in. As you reached the store Phoebe began to throw a tantrum over a stuffed toy, having a child seemed to be tougher than you thought yet when your 16 months old throws a tantrum when your boyfriend may have been killed by God’s sister, it seems much tougher.

You weren’t the type of mother to cave to her daughter’s demands, yet today you did. After buying her the stuffed toy you piled back into the car before speeding off back to the bunker. The to the bunker wasn’t fully locked, something which wasn’t uncommon yet with the current situation you found it a little odd.

With Phoebe in one arm and the shopping in the other you began to descend the stairs you dumped the shopping on the war table before realising what was on the floor. Blood. Pulling your gun from your handbag you held Phoebe close to your chest cocking it as you moved to grab your phone with the same hand which held your gun.

“Siri call Sam Winchester.” You spoke into the empty room informing your phone of what to do. After a few dials the phone line went dead. “Siri call Sam Winchester.” You repeated as you worried Sam’s phone was off. Upon no answer you tried Castiel, Dean, Crowley and Rowena for good measure.

“Oh Phoebe what is happening.” You asked your daughter as you rummaged through the bag of shopping to give Phoebe her toy, placing her on the library floor away from the blood you handed her the toy as you ran back up the stairs to lock the bunker door. You must have checked it at least 20 times, the warding too. “Okay Phoebe, Let’s get you somewhere safe and try and get someone to answer their phone.” You smiled at her as you spoke avoiding worrying her, you set off towards her nursery knowing it had further warding, which was the safest place ever.

20 minutes later all of your calls were going unanswered, Phoebe was peacefully playing with her new toy. At this point you’d switched the safety on your gun and your mind was racing trying to think of what to do now. That’s when you heard it, the bunker door slamming shut, someone was here, you scooped Phoebe up in your arms, too afraid to leave her alone. You once again cocked your gun, the gun Dean had given you 3 years ago as a Christmas gift, the gun that never left your side, it was your version of a comfort blanket.

One of the things you’d taught Phoebe from an early age was ‘hush’ with your finger raised to your lips, you’d never wanted to use it but her knowing when to be quiet was vital for a potential situation. One like this, she was smart and took in your facial expression which now was most likely full of fear, she gripped onto the collar of your shirt (technically Dean’s shirt) as she buried her face in your neck. Placing a kiss to the top of her head you made your way out of the bunker towards the noise origin, your gun aimed out before you, the grip you had on Phoebe was strong, the one she had on you even more so.

As you reached the library you saw no one, nothing disrupted, everything as it had been, as you began to walk further into the room the sound of a gun clicking sounded behind you.

“Hands in the air get on your knees.” The female voice ordered behind you.

“Who are you?” You questioned grasping Phoebe tighter to your chest.

“Hands now.” She ordered once more.

You turned to face her, gun still armed and aimed towards her as a barrel of a gun was aimed towards your chest, where Phoebe was. The woman you recognised didn’t drop her gun but took in the child in your arms. “Please let me get her safe and then i’m yours.” You pleaded with the woman as you unarmed your own gun and placed it on one of the library tables.

“Woah woah woah woah woah woah woah, it’s okay, it’s okay. She’s my girlfriend.” Dean placed himself between the gun and you and Phoebe. “Baby.” He gushed as he turned to you, hugging both you and Phoebe before kissing you.

“Dean. You’re alive? Castiel told me you were dead.” You felt tears in your eyes as you spoke.

“I’ll tell you everything, where’s Sam?” Dean questioned you.

“I don’t know he said he was heading her with Cas, I took Phoebe out to the park for a bit and when I got back, no Sam, no Cas and there’s blood on the floor.” You informed Dean of all you knew, as soon as you finished talking Castiel burst through the bunker door.

“CAS.” Yourself and Dean chimed in unison.

“Dean, you’re alive? What happened with the bomb and the darkness?” Castiel asked Dean as he hugged him.

“Long story, Where’s Sam?” Dean questioned in response.

“We came back here there was a woman waiting for us she blasted me away. I don’t know who she was, I don’t know what happened to Sam.” Can filled Dean and yourself in on what had happened to Sam.

“Not an Angel, a Demon, a Woman?” Dean questioned as his brow furrowed.

“Yes.” Cas responded bluntly.

“Angels?” The woman questioned Dean.

“Er yes, this is Castiel. He’s an angel.” Dean replied to the woman. “Y/N, Cas, this is my mother, Mary.” Dean continued to speak.

“How?” You questioned opened mouthed as you finally recognised the woman before you from Sam and Dean’s family photos.

“Amara brought her back.” Dean replied as he glanced over to you and Phoebe.

“Mary, this is Y/N my girlfriend and Phoebe our daughter, your granddaughter.” Dean informed his mother of her new relative. You watched as her eyes grew wide in shock as she looked between you and Phoebe.

“Hi Mary, It’s lovely to meet you, weird but so lovely.” You blurted out. “Sorry I didn’t mean…” You stopped yourself from talking further.

“Dadda.” Phoebe’s innocent voice filled the room as she stretched her arms out towards Dean. Handing her over to Dean you began to question Cas focusing on the missing Winchester instead of the one who was back from the dead.

“When did this happen?” Dean asked Cas as he sat in a chair, Phoebe in his lap.

“9am.” Cas informed Dean as he opened up a laptop and began to search on Castiel’s information.

“Is that a computer?” Mary asked as she watched Dean in awe.

“Yes, I don’t trust them.” Cas replied as he looked at Mary.

“Got something, an SUV ran a red light a few blocks from here.” Dean spoke interrupting the silence. “Not another car for 20 minutes.” Dean added as he zoomed in to get a plate.

You stood watching Dean as he clarified the number plate image, Phoebe grew restless in Dean’s lap as she had a look of a near melt down on her face. “Do you want to show Daddy what you got today baby?” You asked her knowing it was stuffed in the back of your jeans. “Ready?” You teased her as she giggled holding her hands out towards you. As you placed the stuffed teddy in her hands Dean overexaggerated his excitement which only made Phoebe more excited.

“What is that?” Dean questioned Phoebe as he cuddled her tighter to his chest.

In response she shoved the bear in Dean’s face and began to wiggle it around, somewhat taunting him.

“Can Daddy have it?” Dean asked her.

She held it out in her hand, just as Dean was about to grab it she threw it sloppily in your direction.

“Do you think that’s who has Sam?” You asked Dean whilst Phoebe was distracted.

“Yes.” Dean replied.

After a few minutes of planning you had decided to stay home with Phoebe purely for her safety, you wished Dean would do the same, yet he wouldn’t dream of it if Sam was in danger. You waved them off in the early morning. Castiel, Dean and his newly back from the death Mother, that was going to take some getting used to.

Part 11 

Taglist - 

@tas898 @do-you-have-a-trenchcoat @potterheadgirl5 @meghan-brannon @yellowtheremarvelfan @kaedynce @straightestgay-voice @mrsdeanwinchester16

[jimblanceusa]

As Suspect Press shuts down, are Colorado’s other free, indie magazines in danger of disappearing?

The final issue of Suspect Press, photographed at City O’ City in Denver. (Beth Rankin, The Denver Post)The website for Suspect Press, a seven-year-old Denver literary and art magazine, confronts readers with a stark yet familiar proclamation.

“PRINT’S NOT DEAD,” it states just under its digital masthead, and in relation to its Summer 2020 issue — the magazine’s 26th overall.

Just beneath that, however, is a letter from editor-in-chief Amanda E.K.

“We all know nothing lasts forever — especially not in 2020 — and we at Suspect Press have made the decision, after 7 years strong, to go another direction,” she wrote. “This is the last issue you’ll hold of this version of the magazine before we go into hiatus. Then, when the time is right, our art director Lonnie MF Allen will introduce you to a new draft of Suspect.”

But it wasn’t just the pandemic that did it in.

“We knew already a year ago that our Meow Wolf contract was running out,” E.K. said over the phone. “We were like, ‘What’s going to come next? We could look for grants and investors, keep talking with Meow Wolf, or become a nonprofit.’ We already knew we were going to be struggling in 2020.”

In fact, the $125,000 grant from Meow Wolf — Santa Fe’s buzzy art-and-entertainment company that’s planning to open a Denver location next year — was originally set to run out this week. But having laid off half its staff earlier this year, Meow Wolf ended that contract two months early, E.K. said.

“We used their money to help build our book-publishing business, pay salaries and make this a full-time gig,” E.K. said. “That was extremely exciting.”

With an average, pre-coronavirus distribution of 5,000 copies at more than 300 metro-area locations, Suspect Press looked like a success story amid Colorado’s boom-and-bust publishing scene. Even with the decline of traditional media and the rise of multiple digital-news startups, the Front Range has always boasted a panoply of free, arts-and-culture-focused print magazines that can be picked up at book stores, coffee shops, dispensaries, liquor stores, music venues, bars and restaurants.

Suspect Press editor-in-chief Amanda E.K., left, and former editor Josiah Hesse in a photo shoot for Out Front Colorado — another free, independent print magazine in the metro area. (Veronica L. Holyfield, provided by Suspect Press)”Cool, free, arty zines and publications like that — they’re always a struggle,” said Patricia Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword, Denver’s alternative newsweekly that often sits near these free, local magazines. “They’re usually labors of love. People do things like Suspect Press because they believe in them, not because they’re going to make money.”

Some independent magazines do, however. While Suspect Press was a black-and-white newsprint publication, Denver’s monthly magazine Birdy is a sturdy, full-color art concern that has recently expanded to Los Angeles. The Rooster, a college-aiming magazine based in Longmont, runs more like a national glossy, with copious ads, happy hour guides and other millennial-targeting content.

Edible, which expanded from Colorado Springs to Boulder, Denver and Fort Collins earlier this year, tells stories of the people behind the food we eat. The Marquee, a free, Boulder-based print magazine distributed to more than 30 locations since 2013, has filled in the gap of major-market publications’ coverage since investments in music journalism have dropped in recent years.

The Rooster, a free monthly magazine that’s delivered at drop spots around the Front Range, bills itself as “a magazine that allows you to relax and fully engross yourself in a humorous and provocative editorial journey that won’t drain, but enlighten and excite.” (Beth Rankin, The Denver Post)All of these magazines have wildly different revenue models, goals and character, their publishers are quick to point out. But what they share goes beyond their free-to-take print models.

Plummeting or nonexistent ad revenue, hobbled distribution and overlapping national crises have forced them to consider what these labors of love are really worth, and how long they can be sustained. Owing to their print focus, most of the aforementioned titles had little to no online presence before the pandemic. They’re now scrambling to beef it up amid the overall trend toward virtual life.

That makes free, local, indie print magazines even more meaningful, publishers say, particularly as otherwise mundane, face-to-face experiences — from school lessons to doctor’s appointments  — are increasingly conducted digitally. Despite the high costs of paper and ink, and the newly complicated business of distribution, there’s no substitute for the sense of community they encourage.

Ashley Kirkovich took over Edible Denver in January and released her first, retooled print issue in March. (Provided by Edible Denver)”Print is also a break from modern life,” said Simon Berger, founder of The Rooster. “It gives you a moment to step back from the overwhelming bombardment of technology and control your pace of information. There’s a novelty and nostalgia to it, but it really is a reprieve from your phone.”

The Rooster, which Berger launched in 2008, was one of Colorado’s first publications to openly accept medical-marijuana dispensary advertising (and, eventually, recreational ads) starting in 2010. While dollars from that green tide have seemingly lifted all publications in Colorado, Berger knew he had to diversify to keep his core print business afloat.

In addition to locking down big sponsors such as Kroenke Sports and AEG Presents, Berger and his staff launched Red Bird Creative Studios, an advertising agency, and are preparing to debut a digital happy-hour guide next month (yes, even during the pandemic).

But print is still a precarious place to be. The Rooster had to take three months off from publishing earlier this year after the pandemic hit as Berger figured out how to pay for it. With a normal complement of 75 to 100 advertisers, and average distribution of 60,000 free copies in 2,000 statewide locations, The Rooster had significant costs to cover.

Berger won’t say by how much his circulation or distribution has dropped since then. But when The Rooster came back in July with its first new print issue since the pandemic arrived, it was with renewed purpose — and austerity.

(Provided by Birdy Magazine)”We’re conserving cash, cutting our budget and not investing too heavily in anything outside the company,” he said. “And, of course, all of our events are on pause.”

As Berger also began to invest in his digital product, he watched subscriptions — which are typically low-to-nonexistent for free, locally distributed print magazines — jump from about 100 to 1,000.

“We’ve always wanted to create something people would pay for, but that they were lucky enough to get for free,” he said. “We want to be taken home, shared with friends, and displayed on your coffee table.”

Or the dinner table. The Colorado-based franchise of Edible, a free, printed food magazine with products in more than 70 U.S. and Canadian markets, had just relaunched in March when the pandemic hit.

“My timing was terrible,” said publisher Ashley Kirkovich, the former marketing director for Niman Ranch who had admired the magazine (formerly known as Edible Front Range) before purchasing it in January. “We’re a quarterly, so I felt like, for the sake of brand consistency, I really needed to be visible in the market.”

Without bars or restaurants for readers to visit (or for Edible to solicit advertising from), Kirkovich estimates the first issue’s distribution was down by about 60% over previous installments — though she admitted she doesn’t have many data points to compare it to. Her summer issue fared better, even considering that she curtailed the print run from 15,000 copies to 12,000 to adjust for decreased demand.

Jonny DeStefano and Krysti Joméi, co-founders and co-editors of Denver’s Birdy Magazine. (Provided by Birdy)For her fall issue, releasing Sept. 28, Kirkovich will bump Edible’s print run back up to 15,000 copies in anticipation of adding another 30 distribution outlets to Edible’s existing 50 or so. That’s impressive, considering she’s often felt too guilty to ask for advertising from her usual supporters.

“It feels so crummy to say, ‘I know you may not be in business when this comes out, but want to take out an ad?’ ” she said. “So I’ve definitely pivoted toward (advertising from) liquor and retail stores.”

Readership and ad dollars in some Edible markets has increased since March, Kirkovich said, based on calls with other publishers. She sees similar opportunity in serving Front Range foodies who have shifted from visiting every new restaurant that opens to baking, gardening and Instagramming their own kitchen experiments.

Kirkovich has also gotten creative, partnering with community-supported agriculture programs to add a free copy of Edible to the boxes of fresh produce delivered to farm-share buyers. But she refuses to go online-only.

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“Call me old school, but at the end of the day, I bought a print magazine,” she said. “When digital fatigue sets in, people need something tangible to engage with when having a glass of wine.”

Also strongly committed to sticking around is Birdy, the monthly Denver art magazine that has benefited greatly from its artistic partnership with Devo founder and film composer Mark Mothersbaugh. Despite the trials of 2020, Birdy recently expanded its distribution to 140 locations in Los Angeles, with about 1,000 copies of each issue (total average monthly print run: 10,000) headed to potential new readers in that city.

Prior to the pandemic, Birdy was distributed to 300 or so locations along the Front Range, not including national and international subscriptions.

“We could not bail out on the most important moment in our lifetimes,” said Krysti Joméi, co-founder and co-editor of Birdy. “It sounds dramatic to say, but as a magazine, we’ve been through times that are just as hard as right now on our (business).”

As a result, Birdy has not skipped a single issue since March, despite ratcheting down its copies from March through May of this year to 3,000, about 70% off from its usual print run. Along with partner and co-founder Jonny DeStefano, Joméi has also seen Birdy’s web traffic skyrocket, despite her lack of past investment in it, even as they build up their print numbers again.

“We never had much of a website before this on purpose,” she said. “We were always, ‘We’re super punk-rock and analog, just like vinyl records!’ But since March, there’s been a real urgency to provide even more accessibility to our readers.”

In that, all of these publications continue a grand tradition of scrappy, DIY entrepreneurship that has defined the Front Range publishing scene for decades, said Westword founder and editor Calhoun, including now-defunct, nationally lauded titles such as Muse and Modern Drunkard.

“The fact that they’re independent means they generally don’t play well with others,” she said. “They often don’t have organizations behind them. Who’s got time for that? But you’ve got to have a patron, or grants, because publishing in print isn’t cheap.”

Whether or not institutions like D.I.N.K. — a.k.a. the Denver Independent Comics & Art Expo — return in the future (they took this year off, for obvious reasons), the scene will continue to exist regardless of economics. The passion inherent in independent publishing is stronger than market trends, publishers say.

“I’m sad that we’re losing this established platform that actually paid contributors,” Suspect Press’ E.K. said. “But I’m hoping that us fading away will inspire other young kids to come up in the scene, take what we did, and make it their own.”

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, In The Know, to get entertainment news sent straight to your inbox.

from Latest Information https://www.denverpost.com/2020/09/14/suspect-press-independent-publications-colorado-coronavirus/

[laurendzim]

As Suspect Press shuts down, are Colorado’s other free, indie magazines in danger of disappearing?

The final issue of Suspect Press, photographed at City O’ City in Denver. (Beth Rankin, The Denver Post)The website for Suspect Press, a seven-year-old Denver literary and art magazine, confronts readers with a stark yet familiar proclamation.

“PRINT’S NOT DEAD,” it states just under its digital masthead, and in relation to its Summer 2020 issue — the magazine’s 26th overall.

Just beneath that, however, is a letter from editor-in-chief Amanda E.K.

“We all know nothing lasts forever — especially not in 2020 — and we at Suspect Press have made the decision, after 7 years strong, to go another direction,” she wrote. “This is the last issue you’ll hold of this version of the magazine before we go into hiatus. Then, when the time is right, our art director Lonnie MF Allen will introduce you to a new draft of Suspect.”

But it wasn’t just the pandemic that did it in.

“We knew already a year ago that our Meow Wolf contract was running out,” E.K. said over the phone. “We were like, ‘What’s going to come next? We could look for grants and investors, keep talking with Meow Wolf, or become a nonprofit.’ We already knew we were going to be struggling in 2020.”

In fact, the $125,000 grant from Meow Wolf — Santa Fe’s buzzy art-and-entertainment company that’s planning to open a Denver location next year — was originally set to run out this week. But having laid off half its staff earlier this year, Meow Wolf ended that contract two months early, E.K. said.

“We used their money to help build our book-publishing business, pay salaries and make this a full-time gig,” E.K. said. “That was extremely exciting.”

With an average, pre-coronavirus distribution of 5,000 copies at more than 300 metro-area locations, Suspect Press looked like a success story amid Colorado’s boom-and-bust publishing scene. Even with the decline of traditional media and the rise of multiple digital-news startups, the Front Range has always boasted a panoply of free, arts-and-culture-focused print magazines that can be picked up at book stores, coffee shops, dispensaries, liquor stores, music venues, bars and restaurants.

Suspect Press editor-in-chief Amanda E.K., left, and former editor Josiah Hesse in a photo shoot for Out Front Colorado — another free, independent print magazine in the metro area. (Veronica L. Holyfield, provided by Suspect Press)”Cool, free, arty zines and publications like that — they’re always a struggle,” said Patricia Calhoun, founder and editor of Westword, Denver’s alternative newsweekly that often sits near these free, local magazines. “They’re usually labors of love. People do things like Suspect Press because they believe in them, not because they’re going to make money.”

Some independent magazines do, however. While Suspect Press was a black-and-white newsprint publication, Denver’s monthly magazine Birdy is a sturdy, full-color art concern that has recently expanded to Los Angeles. The Rooster, a college-aiming magazine based in Longmont, runs more like a national glossy, with copious ads, happy hour guides and other millennial-targeting content.

Edible, which expanded from Colorado Springs to Boulder, Denver and Fort Collins earlier this year, tells stories of the people behind the food we eat. The Marquee, a free, Boulder-based print magazine distributed to more than 30 locations since 2013, has filled in the gap of major-market publications’ coverage since investments in music journalism have dropped in recent years.

The Rooster, a free monthly magazine that’s delivered at drop spots around the Front Range, bills itself as “a magazine that allows you to relax and fully engross yourself in a humorous and provocative editorial journey that won’t drain, but enlighten and excite.” (Beth Rankin, The Denver Post)All of these magazines have wildly different revenue models, goals and character, their publishers are quick to point out. But what they share goes beyond their free-to-take print models.

Plummeting or nonexistent ad revenue, hobbled distribution and overlapping national crises have forced them to consider what these labors of love are really worth, and how long they can be sustained. Owing to their print focus, most of the aforementioned titles had little to no online presence before the pandemic. They’re now scrambling to beef it up amid the overall trend toward virtual life.

That makes free, local, indie print magazines even more meaningful, publishers say, particularly as otherwise mundane, face-to-face experiences — from school lessons to doctor’s appointments  — are increasingly conducted digitally. Despite the high costs of paper and ink, and the newly complicated business of distribution, there’s no substitute for the sense of community they encourage.

Ashley Kirkovich took over Edible Denver in January and released her first, retooled print issue in March. (Provided by Edible Denver)”Print is also a break from modern life,” said Simon Berger, founder of The Rooster. “It gives you a moment to step back from the overwhelming bombardment of technology and control your pace of information. There’s a novelty and nostalgia to it, but it really is a reprieve from your phone.”

The Rooster, which Berger launched in 2008, was one of Colorado’s first publications to openly accept medical-marijuana dispensary advertising (and, eventually, recreational ads) starting in 2010. While dollars from that green tide have seemingly lifted all publications in Colorado, Berger knew he had to diversify to keep his core print business afloat.

In addition to locking down big sponsors such as Kroenke Sports and AEG Presents, Berger and his staff launched Red Bird Creative Studios, an advertising agency, and are preparing to debut a digital happy-hour guide next month (yes, even during the pandemic).

But print is still a precarious place to be. The Rooster had to take three months off from publishing earlier this year after the pandemic hit as Berger figured out how to pay for it. With a normal complement of 75 to 100 advertisers, and average distribution of 60,000 free copies in 2,000 statewide locations, The Rooster had significant costs to cover.

Berger won’t say by how much his circulation or distribution has dropped since then. But when The Rooster came back in July with its first new print issue since the pandemic arrived, it was with renewed purpose — and austerity.

(Provided by Birdy Magazine)”We’re conserving cash, cutting our budget and not investing too heavily in anything outside the company,” he said. “And, of course, all of our events are on pause.”

As Berger also began to invest in his digital product, he watched subscriptions — which are typically low-to-nonexistent for free, locally distributed print magazines — jump from about 100 to 1,000.

“We’ve always wanted to create something people would pay for, but that they were lucky enough to get for free,” he said. “We want to be taken home, shared with friends, and displayed on your coffee table.”

Or the dinner table. The Colorado-based franchise of Edible, a free, printed food magazine with products in more than 70 U.S. and Canadian markets, had just relaunched in March when the pandemic hit.

“My timing was terrible,” said publisher Ashley Kirkovich, the former marketing director for Niman Ranch who had admired the magazine (formerly known as Edible Front Range) before purchasing it in January. “We’re a quarterly, so I felt like, for the sake of brand consistency, I really needed to be visible in the market.”

Without bars or restaurants for readers to visit (or for Edible to solicit advertising from), Kirkovich estimates the first issue’s distribution was down by about 60% over previous installments — though she admitted she doesn’t have many data points to compare it to. Her summer issue fared better, even considering that she curtailed the print run from 15,000 copies to 12,000 to adjust for decreased demand.

Jonny DeStefano and Krysti Joméi, co-founders and co-editors of Denver’s Birdy Magazine. (Provided by Birdy)For her fall issue, releasing Sept. 28, Kirkovich will bump Edible’s print run back up to 15,000 copies in anticipation of adding another 30 distribution outlets to Edible’s existing 50 or so. That’s impressive, considering she’s often felt too guilty to ask for advertising from her usual supporters.

“It feels so crummy to say, ‘I know you may not be in business when this comes out, but want to take out an ad?’ ” she said. “So I’ve definitely pivoted toward (advertising from) liquor and retail stores.”

Readership and ad dollars in some Edible markets has increased since March, Kirkovich said, based on calls with other publishers. She sees similar opportunity in serving Front Range foodies who have shifted from visiting every new restaurant that opens to baking, gardening and Instagramming their own kitchen experiments.

Kirkovich has also gotten creative, partnering with community-supported agriculture programs to add a free copy of Edible to the boxes of fresh produce delivered to farm-share buyers. But she refuses to go online-only.

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“Call me old school, but at the end of the day, I bought a print magazine,” she said. “When digital fatigue sets in, people need something tangible to engage with when having a glass of wine.”

Also strongly committed to sticking around is Birdy, the monthly Denver art magazine that has benefited greatly from its artistic partnership with Devo founder and film composer Mark Mothersbaugh. Despite the trials of 2020, Birdy recently expanded its distribution to 140 locations in Los Angeles, with about 1,000 copies of each issue (total average monthly print run: 10,000) headed to potential new readers in that city.

Prior to the pandemic, Birdy was distributed to 300 or so locations along the Front Range, not including national and international subscriptions.

“We could not bail out on the most important moment in our lifetimes,” said Krysti Joméi, co-founder and co-editor of Birdy. “It sounds dramatic to say, but as a magazine, we’ve been through times that are just as hard as right now on our (business).”

As a result, Birdy has not skipped a single issue since March, despite ratcheting down its copies from March through May of this year to 3,000, about 70% off from its usual print run. Along with partner and co-founder Jonny DeStefano, Joméi has also seen Birdy’s web traffic skyrocket, despite her lack of past investment in it, even as they build up their print numbers again.

“We never had much of a website before this on purpose,” she said. “We were always, ‘We’re super punk-rock and analog, just like vinyl records!’ But since March, there’s been a real urgency to provide even more accessibility to our readers.”

In that, all of these publications continue a grand tradition of scrappy, DIY entrepreneurship that has defined the Front Range publishing scene for decades, said Westword founder and editor Calhoun, including now-defunct, nationally lauded titles such as Muse and Modern Drunkard.

“The fact that they’re independent means they generally don’t play well with others,” she said. “They often don’t have organizations behind them. Who’s got time for that? But you’ve got to have a patron, or grants, because publishing in print isn’t cheap.”

Whether or not institutions like D.I.N.K. — a.k.a. the Denver Independent Comics & Art Expo — return in the future (they took this year off, for obvious reasons), the scene will continue to exist regardless of economics. The passion inherent in independent publishing is stronger than market trends, publishers say.

“I’m sad that we’re losing this established platform that actually paid contributors,” Suspect Press’ E.K. said. “But I’m hoping that us fading away will inspire other young kids to come up in the scene, take what we did, and make it their own.”

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from News And Updates https://www.denverpost.com/2020/09/14/suspect-press-independent-publications-colorado-coronavirus/

[ia4003-seminar-blog]

Storytelling: The Performance - writing our story

Over this week I worked with Mark to create our story. It focused on a man who worked behind the till at the bakery. We wanted to paint him as an irritable character by putting him in petty and everyday disagreements so the reader doesn’t like him. We wanted this mundane presentation to carry through to the ending where he gets so distracted that he crosses the street and gets hit by a car where he dies with nothing more to say. We started by brainstorming ideas together and then in our own time before we met up to discuss the ideas on Monday. We aimed to create a plan for the story and to start writing on Monday so we could finish a first draft on Tuesday where we could reflect on it and see how we could improve it for the next few days however that didn’t go to plan.

If I were to do the assignment again I wouldn’t go for this idea because the ‘hit by a truck’ feels like a cop out and lazy even though I did like the idea of the story stopping in the middle of a sentence, when the character dies. However, we found this difficult to execute because there had to be some kind of suggestion of what happened but we didn’t want to come out and say it directly. We considered foreshadowing in the screeching and the 4x4 car which I though was effective in making the ending less unrealistic. But I’m not 100% happy with the final result because of this struggle to balance ambiguity, enough to tease in the reader. I don’t think we achieved this balance. I think it would have gone better if the story had a main plot which led up to the ending because in our story there wasn’t a story which developed or grew in tension, which I believe is important in a story to keep the reader wanting more (as Jane suggested). The lack of plot meant the story felt disjointed and it didn’t flow well in my opinion, we should have discussed our ideas further or we could have focused on one interaction and worked up the tension and frustration if the character that way.

An issue Mark and I came across were varying opinions and perspectives which I think led to the disjointed narrative because it was hard to focus on something particular that we both felt we could manage. Mark also got the flu halfway through the week so we wrote our parts separately and tried to join them together. I think it was also difficult to get into the narrative because I didn’t see Marks part until the last minute. Originally we had planned to write it together but Marks sickness meant we had to change the plan.

I’d like to try writing my own story focusing on a single plot in the coming weeks because I really see the importance of improving my writing because it directly relates to illustration and animation and i think the thought process behind storytelling in writing acts as a way of investigating a character, who they are and their motives.

I hope to go over it with Mark once he is better but this is the story:

‘Four by four’

By Mark Horwood and Justine Rykiel

The man behind the till looked annoyed. He rested the weight of his head on the palm of his right hand as he stared at the cluster of stacked pennies. One by one the child picked up one from his Spider-Man wallet, over the edge of the counter (onto his tip toes) and onto the counter. The man behind the till waited as his gaze shifted to the dirty fingerprints the boy had left of the display unit.

75. 76. 77.

The man behind the till noticed how the child seemed a little bit too old to be practising his numbers but boy insisted on counting each one out loud as he stacked them. This was a bakery not a math class the man thought. 78. The boy was proud but. 79. Oblivious to the mans. 80. growing impatience. 81.

82.

At 83, the boy went still. He realised he didn’t have enough to buy the 85p cornflake cake he saw in the display unit next to him. He had worked so hard to earn that money, cleaning dishes and mowing the lawn for an entire week but it just wasn’t enough. He retreated as he sheepishly rested his hands on the edge of the counter as he looked up to the man behind the till who blankly stared back at the boy and then up to his mother.

“Well then?” The cashier asserted. He was unbothered by the silence of the mother’s pleading eyes as he looked her dead in the eye said: “You’re two pence short, you’ll either need to pay up or leave.”

Frantically searching the corners of his wallet and pockets, the boy scanned the floor in hopes of finding any loose change which could be stuck to the sticky floor or hiding under the grime caught in the grout of the tilled flooring. He checked his wallet once more. Empty.

The man behind the till thought the boy was already charged with more than enough energy, he didn’t want to see how a cornflake cake could only make that worse. The man showed no sign of budging. The boy’s mother sighed as she unzipped her bag to retrieve her wallet. She drew out two one pence coins and threw them on the counter. “Here, will this do?” She said. The man behind the till swiftly reached for a napkin, then the cornflake cake and handed it to the mother in the hopes it would get the now crying child to leave as soon as possible, it was doing the man's head in.

The mother and son left. The man behind the till was pleased about that, even though it had left a long queue behind them.

The next customer approached.

He asked about the where the ingredients used in their malted wheat loaf had come from and if they were organic. The man behind the till got asked a lot of questions like these and each time he heard it he grew more and more bitter. It was like nails on a chalkboard to him. Each time he questioned why he still worked there and each time the answer was the paycheck.

Over the hum of the kitchen ovens, the man could hear the clatter of foldable chairs and tables coming from outside. The noise grew louder and louder, getting closer and closer to the font of the shop. A horrible screeching came with it. The man thought about how it sounded like the cat who lived in his neighbourhood. He hated that cat. It always yowled at the crack of dawn and it enjoyed gouging scratch marks into the mans neatly painted front door. The racket touched a bad nerve in the man and even though the noise had come from a group of chattering girls, who were setting up a charity bake sale, it put him on edge. They positioned themselves directly outside the bakery. The screeching was here to stay. The man tried to block it out.

The man behind the till rather hated business-type people. He hated everyone, but he held a particular seething hatred for business type people, they were so often distracted, demanding and more fickle than any child he had ever dealt with. The one in front of him now was yapping away into a bluetooth headset, gesturing absentmindedly with his coffee cup at whatever baked good he wanted the man to load into a box, presumably for some lunch meeting or office party, the man didn’t really care. The box was nearing full and the businessman showed no sign of stopping, so the man behind the till coughed loudly and somewhat rudely to get the businessman to focus on him for a second.

He didn't say anything, only held up the bulging box for the businessman on the phone to see, and then had to restrain himself from throwing it at his face when his nose crinkled and he covered his headset to demand the man behind the till start afresh. He didn't like his selection and instead now only wanted a box full of fruit muffins. Slowly, with the hope of making the businessman late, the man behind the till loaded another box with muffins, made him pay, and as the customer walked out the shop barking loudly into his earphone the man behind the till began to replace the entire box of goods back into their respective shelves, cursing all the way.

A group of teenage girls pushed their way to the front of the queue. The man behind the till looked at his watch which read 3:18. School had finished and that’s when he would have to deal with the teenagers. One approached the till and asked for a gluten free and sugar free brownie as the others chatted behind her. They only sold gluten free brownies at the bakery, not sugar free which agitated the teenager as she started to rant to the man behind the till addressing how insensitive shops like these were to her ‘healthy lifestyle choices’. The man behind the till had heard this many times before so he didn’t really listen to the teenager’s lecture. Instead his attention went to one of the girls behind the customer as she started reciting the lyrics to the song which was now playing on the radio. She blurted out the lyrics to everyone in the shop as the man criticised her lack of rhythm in both her singing and her dancing under his breath. Unfortunately for the man the teenager’s enthusiasm only encouraged the rest of them to join in. They were all at it, out of time and out of tune. “We interrupt this broadcast with breaking news.” The performance broke up when the song was interrupted by an announcement on the radio. There was an active police incident on the other side of town, with a suspected chase to ensue involving a four by four. The teenagers got board without the music so they left with the customer who was still raging about the incident to her friends.

Once he had finally been left alone by that terrible group of teenagers the man behind the till was able to go back to his sulking. He glanced at the clock, noticing that his co-worker (an awful woman with blue streaks in her hair and a grating, nasally voice) had been gone far longer than her scheduled break. He could hear that god awful voice leaking out of their back store room, bitching to presumably her boyfriend at the other end of the overly long phone call. The man at the till is not sure what he would like more, the woman to come and get back to her job, or to stay back there where all her cloying perfumes can only taint the baked goods and not his nose. He wants badly to demand she come back, but as his bosses daughter that hadn’t gone well before.

An hour after her allotted break ended she returned, bringing with her that horrible chemically flower smell she liked so much. As soon as she put her apron back on, the man behind the till bolted, grabbing his coat and announcing that he would be taking his own break now, bustling out the door of the shop as he wiggled his cigarettes out of his pocket only to hear the bake sale girls nattering and screeching once more.

They were still at it and even worse, they had taken his usual spot.

He stepped out into the road to get away from all of the nonsense, aiming to drown out the racket with the passing by engines.

A grating screech of tires rang through his ears and he lamented for the thousandth time that nobody in this city knew how to fucking drive. The grill of a 4x4. Oh shit- he thought