#are his action now a good example for young skaters?

[anewbeginningagain]

yeah i like yuzu and am really excited to see his new SP but i don't understand why he doesn't attend practices either. especially if he says he's going for the 4A, i don't understand why he doesn't take advantage of the opportunity to actually practice on competition ice?

He also didn't submit his SP music (his FS is of course a repeated program because 99% of the time it is a repeated program) because apparently, he needs his stans to hyperventilate from the anticipation? I legit don't get it and I'm over it, only fanyus fall for it at this point, I doubt Shoma/Yuma/Nathan care, they all want to do their own thing and aspire to be the best they can. The only people who still fall for these cheap tricks are fanyus.

Also going for the 4A in the FS is insane and not in a good way. He says he never landed it so he's either lying and he did land it in practice and he wants it to be like "he landed his first 4A ever in competition and not even in practice what a legend" or that he is completely irresponsible and is willing to risk his health for this goal of his.

I don't say it often (rarely at all) but for me this is a case of someone who might have been better to have retired because right now it feels like the 4A will be some kind of excuse to end up missing another games.

[fantastic-rambles]

As a person who both hates and loves Adam, I really appreciate your insight into his character. I think for me personally, the part that really made me feel icky about Adam was in one of the episode previews where Adam was making a lot of suggestive/sexual remarks to Langa (who wasn't even listening and was talking to Reki instead haha). Adam's behavior may be silly and overexaggerated because anime is like that, but it also feels kind of predatory to me. It also feels, I don't know, a bit out of place? Sk8 focused very heavily on Langa and Reki's friendship in the first 2-3 episodes and Adam was kinda of haphazardly introduced imho, so that may explain a bit of why a large chunk of the fandom doesn't really vibe with him being there.

At the same time, I'm a sucker for villains who have a twisted sense of love, and I just love all the pieces of the past we get of Adam with Cherry and Joe and Tadashi. Adam's obviously an amazing skater but we still don't quite have that link as to why he started skating so violently and I am burning to know. I also want to know why his dad burned his skateboard, what did Tadashi have to do with it, did something happen in America while he was gone? Adam has a lot more depth than people give him credit for and I know most of those questions won't be answered in the last few episodes, but I hope a few are at least.

(Gonna apologize to my followers in advance for not putting most of this under a cut, but I think it’s really important and don’t want it to be hidden.)

Okay. So, I think I’ve figured out why Adam’s behavior (pre-episode 11) doesn’t bother me (I think that what he did to Cherry in episode 9 is wrong/excessive, but I also felt that it was necessary for Cherry’s growth as a character so he could realize that Adam wasn’t who he was in the past and stop idealizing him). I was recently chatting with some people elsewhere and came to this realization, which is why I haven’t said anything about it until now.

Firstly, when Adam first appears in front of Reki and Langa and does his “creepy” thing with Langa, he explicitly asks Langa for permission to touch him and let him show him how to position himself better when he’s skating. And when Langa doesn’t give him permission, Adam never actually touches him. So to me, he’s hamming it up for the spectators since he’s dramatic af, but he’s still considerate of other people’s wishes. To me, it’s no different than when he told Miya to move his foot up on the board by 3 cm or something. He’s just trying to give advice to promising young skaters to help them get better. The difference is just that he’s unnecessarily flamboyant when he does so as “Adam” versus “Ainosuke.” This is something that I’ve thought since the beginning, but the next point is my “oh!” moment.

Of course, when he’s skating against Reki and Langa, when he grabs them, he doesn’t have their explicit consent to do so. But immediately after I finished watching episode 5, I started to write a ballroom dancing AU with Adam. However, my mind didn’t make the connection between why I didn’t have a problem with what he did until the aforementioned conversation. To me, when Adam is skating with someone else, yes, it’s a competition, but he also treats it like dancing, which he does do solo, but which he enjoys far more when he has a partner. Like, the way most people in-universe describe his actions *is* that he’s dancing, and although the fandom mocks him for his “tap dancing,” I think it’s actually flamenco? Or maybe some other Latin style; I don't have the experience to ID it definitely. So as a casual ballroom dancer myself, I see his actions as him acting like a leader in a dance, holding onto his partner and directing them on the “dance floor”/skate course.

The problem there, though, is that neither Reki nor Langa are at his level (at that point), so they end up being thrown around for the most part because they can’t keep up with his superior skill/ability. Yeah, he’s at fault somewhat for pushing them beyond their abilities, but depending on the leader, that’s how some of them really do dance (and in competitive arenas, how they *should* dance). For example, I’ve cracked the toenail on my big toe and ended up bleeding all over my shoes and the floor because I was dancing with a leader who was better than me. I made a mistake in my steps and got in his way, so when he stepped forward the way that he should have, he injured me. So to Adam, the fact that they’ve agreed to skate with him is them consenting to be his dance partner, as well as being his competitor. Especially since it’s pretty well-known that Adam has a history of behaving like this and hurting his opponents: if they didn’t want to take that risk, they would refuse to skate with him. (As various people tried to convince Reki to do, and as Reki tried to persuade Langa to do.)

And his whole “Adam” persona is based around the theme of “love,” but it’s obvious that he doesn’t actually know what it is and is just being dramatic/flamboyant to put on a show for the spectators. As he admits in episode 11, he loves to entertain others. Just being a good skater isn’t enough: almost everyone has their gimmicks, from Cherry’s ninja costume and AI-enhanced board, Joe’s super buff and flirty attitude, and Langa’s snowboarding-esque style. Adam’s is that he’s the “Matador of Love.” Yes, he does have a particular fixation on Langa, but it’s a fixation as a competitor/dance partner, not as a romantic partner.

But yesssss. So many questions about Adam that I want to know the answers to. I really hope they explain what exactly set him off on his search for Eve, since that’s the biggest thing that’s led to his development and all of this conflict. </3

His dad burning the skateboard seems pretty straightforward though, especially if you consider Tadashi’s conversation with Reki in the love hotel. Skating is something that’s associated with “punks” and people who like to live outside social norms. But Ainosuke is expected to be a perfect child/person who doesn’t take any risks that could compromise his (family’s) reputation. Also, the time he spent on skating could be used on studying or something else that was more “productive.”

[romancandlemagazine]

An Interview with Wig Worland

If you walked into a WHSmiths during the 1990s, then chances are that you will have seen the high-calibre work of Wig Worland.

As a photographer at seminal skateboard magazines like R.A.D. and Sidewalk, his sharp eye helped capture a relatable world of British skating, a million miles away from sun-drenched California schoolyards.

First question - when did you start taking photos? Was there something that set you off with it?

I started in school when one of the better teachers realised I wasn't going anywhere academically and lent me her camera. I don't think there was anything else I could have done to be honest. I started to assist photographers straight out of school.

How did you end up doing skate photography? What was the camera set-up back then?  

I grew up near an adventure playground. One day in the early ‘80s a quarter pipe with 'Skatopia' written on it appeared there. We would ride our BMX bikes on it. A few weeks later a guy called Wurzel appeared - he literally dropped over the fence.

All of us, including Wurzel, rode bikes for a bit but as the world transformed around us we all got into skateboarding. One of my best friends at the time was London street skating legend Phil Chapman. He let me take pictures of him and I got better at it.

It’s funny how when you're young it just doesn't occur to you that those are the formative years, even though that’s what every older person is saying to you at the time.

My first camera was a Canon FTB with a 24mm lens - I couldn't afford a fisheye lens. I then wasted more time and energy on a 17mm lens. It was really terrible, but I did get my first picture published in RAD using it.

What was that?

A guy called Doc with a chuck on handrail at the bus station in Milton Keynes in an article in R.A.D. in 1990. In the same article came my second and third published picture. It was such a pivotal moment in my life but just like buses, three came along at once.  

Do you remember the first photo you took where you thought, “I’m getting quite good at this”?

Not any single shot, but I think when I got to shoot Manzoori or Channer or Wainwright, I was beginning to shoot people who were making great pictures all the time. The trips back and forth to the lab became less fuelled with anxiety and worry about what I was doing.

So something must have been going right, maybe I knew enough about the dark art of shooting on slide film that I could relax into it. A bit anyway.

The late 80s and early 90s are quite a while ago now. What are some things people forgot about that time?

There was no Instagram! There wasn't anywhere other than the monthly magazines (and of course books) to get any information about anything. It really is odd to say it now because we are all so used to finding anything out that we want to know immediately.

My sister has a theory that technology is making us all more stupid. We simply don't have to retain any information anymore. To get from place to place you don't even need a sense of direction, just flick on 'Waze' or whatever and it tells you where to go.    

How weird was it to be a skater or a rider in the late 80s? Obviously now skating is going through another 'cool wave', but how much stick did you get back then for it?  

We got so much hassle from everybody at the time. It’s ridiculous when you think about how 'cool' it all is now. We didn’t care at all though. We knew what we were doing was way more important than simply school or fashion or T.V. or whatever else our other friends or peers were into. We were involved in making something happen.  

R.A.D. was split fairly evenly between skating and riding. Was there much of a divide at the time? And what were your opinions on the other avenues of raditude?

I'll fully admit it; I went from BMX to skateboard. I was probably a little too young to catch the first wave of skateboarding in the UK. I was six or seven and my mum wouldn't let me have a board, though my best mate at the time had much older brothers so I can claim to have ridden a Logan Earth Ski in the 70s.

By the time BMX hit I was a little more in control of my life. I saved up my lunch money for an entire year so I could buy a Kuwahara ET. My friends and I had so much fun knocking about on those bikes in the 80s — it was amazing. Before I knew it I'd given up BMX 'racing’ and was getting more serious about BMX 'freestyle' (which really is an oxymoron when you stop to think about it).

Within a year or two I had switched to a GT Performer and I was entering freestyle 'contests' and wearing ever more dodgy clothing. Obviously we didn't know it at the time but they really were the formative years of my life.

A good friend from that time, Lee Reynolds moved to California and went on to become a very successful freestyle pro rider with Haro. Back then we all hung out at Mons ramp like one big happy family, and that’s where I started to meet more people.

As BMX started to die, I just moved my attention to skateboarding. There was just so much to get into. You can do way more stuff with a skateboard than a bike! Sorry to the entire BMX community.  

What were you looking at for inspiration back then? Even your early photos had a definite style.

I was looking at BMX Action and BMX Plus from America that would appear periodically in the newsagents near my school. Then Freestylin' and Transworld, and Thrasher when I could find it. Back then Thrasher wasn't quite so appealing — it was half a music magazine with really cheap paper, and was scrappy compared to glossier titles of the day. It’s amazing how Thrasher has outlasted them all.  

I loved Spike and Windy, and, obviously J Grant Britain, but I also really love TLB's pictures. He really was an amazing complete photographer - properly trained and much better than me. Now I have had a chance to see the stuff in the RAD archive, I can't begin to say how amazing it is. It might not have looked all that good in the mag but that was because of the awful print quality. When the book comes out you’ll see what I mean.

R.A.D. faded into the shortly-lived Phat in the early 90s. How did Sidewalk come about?

Andy Horsely and I were doing a magazine called The System during the last days of TLB R.A.D. When R.A.D. was sold to yet another publisher that was out of town, Tim didn’t want to leave London. He thought it was a dead end. By a series of strange occurrences Andy Horsely and I managed to get ourselves in the door at R.A.D. There’s a bit more to this story, but the full version will be in the book hopefully.  

Whereas early skate magazines had their fair share of day-glo high-top fashions and boned-out, high-zoot grabs, Sidewalk had a much more British look. Was this intentional? Or was this just a reflection of the times?

It was absolutely intentional. We wanted it to look like a British skate magazine, and perhaps naively, we wanted it to feature all British people, in Britain. The US skate magazine culture was, and still is, so dominant, but we wanted to showcase the UK.

At the time the world was beginning to see Rowley, Penny and Wainwright but we knew there was so much more. Making an all-British magazine was way more difficult than any of us imagined and I'm not sure how sustainable that idea was (and still is). We tried our very best given the resources we had.

Was there things you wouldn't photograph - maybe dodgy outfits or questionable moves?

We had an unspoken ban on the Benihana at Sidewalk. Ha! I wonder if anyone else would admit to that. Everything else was totally fine. We even put Dan Cates in the mag with all his craziness for heaven’s sake!  

The mid-90s seemed like the real glory days of magazines. They were thick, they came out once a month, they had all sorts of mad stuff in them… and they could all be bought from WHSmiths for a few quid. Why do you reckon there were so many good mags around at this time?

It was really the only way to communicate before the internet really took a grip. Nowadays, you put your tricks up on Instagram and let the world judge you. Back then, we shot the photo, we took it to the lab, and then it was sent off to be printed in cyan, magenta, yellow and black on paper.  

After a lot of fuss and bother, the magazine hit the shelves and the rest of the world could see the moments that I had had all to myself. It really was an incredible moment. I'm not sure I'd go back to it though! It was pretty insular and created some difficult politics. It's probably a bit more democratic now. If you don't like what somebody is doing, you 'unfollow' them and that's that.  

What was a typical day like back in the early Sidewalk days? Was there a typical day?

Probably wake up late and head to the office via the lab, to pick up the film from the previous day. Maybe pet the dog when I got there for a bit. Horse would invariably arrive later than me and we'd get lunch. After looking through some pictures on the light table I'd head out to shoot skaters in various parts of the country.

One day I'd be in Hull, the next in Birmingham and the next in London. It was a pretty insane schedule to be honest.

I’ve said this before in other interviews but I’ll say it again, I hated driving up and down the motorway system in the UK, but I loved the people I met along the way. I really don’t think there was anyone that I didn’t like — it was incredible. A good example of this is driving to Hull, which is a really long way from anywhere. But when I got there, there was Eggy and Banksy and Scott. Amazing people.  

This might be a bit of a camera tech guy question… but imagine I’m stood at the top of that flatbank hip at Radlands and a young Tom Penny is cruising towards me… how do I capture the action? Should I pan? Is my flash mounted on the top of my camera… or on a cable… or on a stand? What film should I use?

If you're at a comp it's best that your flash is mounted on your camera, because if you’re trying to be clever like I was in the 90s trying to use an off-camera flash on a lead (Windy Osborn/Spike Jonze style) you're going to miss a lot of shots. Yes, always pan with the subject if you can, it's just better and I'd use whatever film you can afford. It’s really expensive and you only have 36 to 39 shots depending on how clever, or stupid, your camera is.

If it’s not contest day then spend a little longer on your lighting. But not so long that you forget to shoot the scene, the look of the place and the informal portraits of the skaters. You’ll regret that later on if you don’t shoot that stuff. Ahem…

Sidewalk did a very good job of making some fairly drab looking spots pretty good. That photo of a lad named Cookie gapping from a Carpet Right car park in the rain comes to mind… something like that could easily look pretty depressing in lesser hands. What were your tricks for making these fairly everyday places look decent?

Bring your own sun — a portable flash. Oh, and a little jiggery pokery with the slide film we were using as well. Also, know what you’re doing, and how the film is going to react to the light. Photography is all about various kinds of lies to create the shot you want.

I’m glad you remembered that Cookie shot because it is pretty special. He was such an amazing, positive person. Never mind my photograph, but how did a person stay positive when you had such terrible conditions to skate in! It’s not exactly California.

Pretty much sums up how we should all approach life, the Cookie story...

I don’t know if I’m looking into this too much, but a lot of the Sidewalk stuff celebrated British culture rather than disguise it. I’m not sure where I’m going with this question, but do you think it’s important that people embrace their situation, rather than endlessly dream of California?  

My entire life’s philosophy is to draw out what you can from the place where you are, rather than dreaming that somewhere else has the answer. This ridiculous dreaming is the reason that the air is so polluted these days with people crossing the world on long haul flights to wherever and with people driving from perfectly fine A, to almost certainly nearly the same B.

Of course all this is fine for me to say, I don’t have a car but I live in London where there is a brilliantly sophisticated Public transport system. I grew up in Milton Keynes so it wasn’t a shock to get to California and see the state they’re in, but I truly believe the car has ruined a lot. Not least for our children who can no longer play in the streets primarily because of the number of vehicles on the road. Rant over.  

Haha fair enough. What were some of the hassles of making a magazine back then? Any camera mishaps or blatant errors come to mind?  

Radio slaves were terrible but they still are. That’s the nature of radio waves in a very wet country. There was some dodgy kit but you could usually spot it pretty quickly and pass it on. I did have all my cameras stolen from the boot of my car once which did feel like the end of the world at the time. Grant  Brittain  very  kindly  sent  me  one  of  his  old  cameras  and  a  fish  eye  to  start  me  off  again  and  Pete  Hellicar  rang  round  all  the  big  names  in  the  industry  in  the  UK  asking  for  donations  to  get  me  started  again. Really  kind,  amazing  people.  

The problems were always with the printers or repro people. Handing over your precious photographs and layouts to people who aren’t as invested in the project shall we say. Having said that, there weren’t that many problems, only ever issues that the editor or I would notice.  

I’d say skate photography fits under the documentary category, but how far would you go to get a better photo? I know moving the occasional rucksack out of shot is fairly commonplace, but I’ve heard stories of photographers carrying around brighter clothes for people to wear so they stand out more.

There are a few skaters who would bring their own brighter clothes for the shoot. Have a look through my shots and see if you can guess who they are for a fun game. I think this is brilliant.

I don't think that skateboard photography is documentary at all. It’s a collaboration between the skateboarder and the photographer to produce the best image they possibly can.

What about the days when nothing happened? Surely there must have been a few afternoons when no one was feeling it, or did the fact you had a big camera bag egg people on a bit? It rains a lot in Britain, I'm sure you've noticed. On those days, if you were lucky, we'd sit about in the local Skateshop. If we were less lucky we'd get caught at the local indoor skate park and wait for the rain to stop. I remember thinking then that I would never get that time back, now of course if I had that time back I would do just the same thing. Amazing days. I'm sure people did feel motivated by having a magazine photographer in town to shoot pictures of them yes, but that just makes me wonder what it's like now? You can literally shoot a picture whenever you like and upload it anywhere.

Do you think these advances in technology have improved skate photography or not?

I would have killed for a digital camera back when I was shooting skateboarding every day. I’d not only have been able to see what I had in terms of stills, but shooting sequences would have had a lot less pressure involved as well. A couple of people have said that seeing the used rolls of bails lining up on the stairs or pavement beside me gave them extra incentive to land the trick, but it made for some pretty heated sessions.

The Chris Oliver kickflip off a bus stop into bank with another drop springs to mind. Fair play to the ginger genius though, he bloody landed it, and he can say he did it on film as well. So, so sick.

Did you enjoy doing sequence shots or was it just a case of documenting the new tech?

I wasn't really interested in shooting sequences to be honest, I always thought that was the job of the video camera. In some ways I wish I stuck with that attitude and concentrated on the style of the skater rather than the high tech that they could put down. I think that would have made for a more interesting back catalogue.  

This is maybe another fairly camera-orientated question, but I’m interested, so the casual readers will have to suffer… you were maybe one of the first skate photographers to push the studio-lighting style out into the real world. What led to this development?

Ollie Barton thinks I was the first to do the studio on the street thing. I guess other people had tried using flash slaves off camera before, but I made it my own. I was the first out there with portable studio flash which had more spread of light than the dedicated flashes made by camera manufactures. I'm sure I was responsible for keeping the Lumedyne brand going for a while. Lumedyne really are the most terrible looking lights that have ever come to market, made from bits bought from Maplin or Radio Shack, but they worked quite well and everybody had them in the early 2000s.

Did setting up multiple flashes in ropey areas ever become a problem?

It's funny you know, I never felt odd about setting up lighting anywhere. If you’re prepared to pop a light out on a dodgy estate then you’re serious about getting something done. I think most people whoever they are respect that, some are even interested in it.

There were a few hairy moments — like a car taking out a light in downtown Stockport while shooting late at night. But the light was in the middle of the street, so that one was on me. Nobody ever picked one up and legged it. Not once, but as I said they don't look expensive so maybe that was enough.  

Maybe a bit of an obvious question, but do you have a favourite photograph you’ve taken? And are there any photos which you wish you took?

As I rather flippantly alluded to earlier, I don’t feel I shot anywhere near enough incidental stuff. I was too interested in making the lighting right to capture the trick perfectly. If I could go back I’d have a point and shoot with me at all times and I’d use it constantly.  

I don’t have a favourite photograph. There are just too many, of so many amazing friends and brilliant talented people. I couldn’t pick one above all others.    

Today it’s easier than ever to take a photograph. Is this good or bad? Has the advent of phone-based camera gadgetry devalued the art (or at least the science) of photography?

No, it hasn't devalued it. Because more people have cameras, more people are interested in photography. If you want to lug around a huge old school view camera to shoot pictures then there are sub-genres of sub-cultures that can more easily facilitate that stuff nowadays. Of course more people think they can do it, but it's still the case that only some people do it well.  

Have you got any wise-words you’d like to add?

No, just enjoy life as best you can. We’re not all going to be famous or millionaires, so don’t believe anyone when they tell you to follow your dreams — real life might conspire to not let you get there. Life just happens to most people.

[lillaxtrigger]

Young hope: Chapter 16

A frighteningly large mob encroaches on the Spicer estate, aiming to break down the gates and take the blonde prize that awaits inside. Among her was several of her lovers friends and family, watching together in worry as Kingsley paces back and forth along side the entry hall. A pondering gaze is print across his face as he wonders what their next course of action they might have to take in the approaching danger. “Uh, Kingsley, sweetie…Are you feeling okay?” his mother worries. All the boy could muster as a response was a slight: “Hmm...” “Are you worried?” Renee guesses. “Hmmmm...” “You cooking up a plan?” Tore than wonders. “Hmmmmmmm….” “Uh! For fuck sake. Just spill it already!” Cayenne demands. A brief turn towards the group in waiting, he announces to them all: “O-Okay. Okay. I think I might have it all figured out. First things first is to get Renee out of Townsville.” “What? Why? I wanna stay and help.” the blonde pipes up. “I know you do. But the best you can be at right now is out of town. The chaos might die down once they realize you’re out of town.” Although Renee feels inclined to disagree, she can’t really find a reason to do so. Perhaps it is best for her to lie low for now. At least until all this madness dies down. With a reluctant sigh, she complies. “Fine, you win. But what about my mom? I’m worried about her with my dad being in a frothing rage.” “I’ll take care of things from there. Cayenne and I’ll stop by your place and pick her up.” “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Renee questions the genius with. “Don’t sweat it. We’ll sweep her out before you’re dad even notices us.” Kingsley then turns his attention towards Cayenne and tries to convince her to help out. “Now, Cayenne. I know what you’re gonna say, that this has got nothing to do with you and rather be doing something else But, we could really use all the help we can get in this whole ordeal. So if you don’t mind-”. “Fuck it. When do we head out?” Cayenne wonders, raring to go. “Oh...Well great...Thanks.” Her answer takes Kingsley aback quite a fair bit, making him hesitate for a slight moment before turning towards his indigo agent. “Err...Anyway. Tore, can you take Renee and fly outta Townsville as fast as you can?” “Agent Bluebird is on the case.” The blue boy drops the English facade for a moment, remembering something very crucial. “Wait a minute. My mom and Mally are still out there. Who’s gonna get them?” “That job will be up to my parents. I’m sure they can hide long enough until mom and dad swoop in and get them out town.” “But what about Chloe? She’s still at the mall.” “Right. If everyone has caught on to us being apart of this whole scheme, then they’ll probably try and catch Chloe in hopes of using her as bargaining chip to get Renee. Need to find a way to pull her outta there, ASAP.” Just then, Tore hears mumbles coming from his phone. Oh! Seems Mally is still on the line. Wonder what she wants? “Hm...Oh, hang on. Let me put you on speaker.” Just as he said, Tore sets his sisters phone call to his speaker, allowing Mally’s voice to reach everyone’s ears. “I can help with that.” she insists. “Huh?” Kingsley utters, his glance gazing towards the mobile device. “You said she was at the mall, right? That’s not far from where we’re at. I can go meet up with her and take her someplace to meet her folks. You guys are stretched for help as is, anyway. Figure its better for me to do something then sit on my ass, waiting to be rescued like an old school Disney princess.” “Nnn...I-I don’t know. Seems a tad of reckless.” “Come on. Kingsley, give her a shot. I’m sure if anybody can get your sis out in time, she can.” “Hmm...alright. Get to the outskirts of town once you’re out of the mall and my parents will try and find you guys.” “Just get my mom first, n’kay?” “Right.” From outside, the sound of crashing metal echoes into the estate. Looking out, they find a car had crashed through the gate, floods of townspeople beginning to encroach upon the front ready to tear through the mansion. “Time to fuck off and move people.” Cayenne demands. Without further hesitance, they take towards the night sky, the mob below watching as the fly off. Mally puts on her gear, ready to follow up on her promise of getting Chloe out of the mall. She sets to head off, where upon her mom stood in her path. A rather displeased look is painted across her face, aiming right in Mally direction. “Uh...Hey mom, I-I was just gonna scout ahead for any kind of safe routes we could take. I’ll just-” “Mally. I over heard everything.” her mother mentions. The girl was nervous, trying to think of any excuse she could to set off. “M-Mo-Mom. You don’t understand. Th-they were short on help. I needed to do something to help and not sit on the sidelines.” A weary sigh escape from the woman lungs, her admitting aloud: “It’s not like I can stop you if I tried..” “You’re...Just letting me go? Why?” “Well. If I knew if my friends needed me, I wouldn’t hesitate a single second to help them out. I’d be setting a bad example if I didn’t. Besides, I know you can handle yourself out there. I just don’t want you bolting off without telling me, okay?” With a heartfelt smile, Mally hugs her mother, biding her farewell with: “You’re the best, mom.” Her goodbyes said, she bolts off into the streets towards the mall. Watching her daughter skate causes her to reminisce about her own adolescence. “What happened to us Todd?” In an orange blaze, Mally skates through the streets of Townsville, the buildings on the side being nothing but blurs as she makes her way through the city. A sizable mob starts to form within her sites, the rioters making little room to traverse through. Seeing the skater coming, the mob begins to approach, determined to prematurely end her mission and turn her in. To that end, Mally pulls out her grapplyo, thinking that its time to test how far the gadgets limits go. “Hank, don’t fail me now.” A car on the wayside ahead, she leap atop the automobile and ramps off the glass to ascend. The airborne skater uses her yo yo to hook onto a nearby street lamp and swing across. At the ark of her swing, she lets go of the light and uses her gadget to pull herself towards the top of a traffic light pole. Mally grinds across the steel above the streets, jumping over the stoplight themselves before closing in towards the end. It’s then that she jumps off and tosses her yo yo towards the glass covered piece of architecture on the side. The mob below watches as Mally glides across the glass and avoids their reach. Reaching the end of the mob and the turn ahead, she jumps off the face of the building and hooks herself onto the stop sign within the inner most corner. Mally makes the sharp turn towards the left and escapes from the rioters sights, all without compromising any of her speed. Hell yes! There’s not a single chance in hell they can catch up now! The coast seeming pretty clear ahead, the orange haired skater thought it the perfect time to call in some backup. Kingsley plan seemed to have all the ends cover, though it wouldn’t hurt to add a few more protective layers, just to be on the safe side. The first person that comes to mind to call is none other than Roy. Tapping his name in the contacts, she awaits his answer as the dial rings. Moments pass before she hears his bro’s voice on the other line. “Hello?” “Roy, thank god. Need you help fast, I-” “Hello? What?” “Roy, I don’t have to-”. “I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up. What are you saying?”. “I trying to say that-” “Ahh ha ha ha ha ha ha! You’ve been talking to my voice mail this whole time, you stupid asshole. Just leave a message and fuck off after the beep. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!” The beep sounds off after the message. God dammit! Seems he’s busy. She’ll have to remind him to change that dumb voice mail his after all this is over. Oh well. Next best then. Once more the dial rings, this time with an actual answer behind it. “Hey Vivi.” “Holy shit, girl! The fuck did you and your bro do!? You two are the goddamn news with a 10 bil bounty on your bro’s girlfriend. Towns going on a fucking frenzy looking for all of you!” Within the skeletons abode, they watch the news within their living room. The channel had been relaying the incident that happened at the Buxaplenty manor on repeat, alongside the handsome reward that the owner of said estate had posted. “I know. We all have this whole plan set up, but I need you’re help.” “You kidding, right?” “I know its lot to ask so suddenly, but I-” “Hell yeah! You bet your sweet ass I’ll help! With my parents outta town, I’m ready to fucking go! What’s the plan!?” “Cool. I need you to clear my way. I’m on route towards the Townsville mall on...” Mally look ahead, peaking towards the passing street signs. Noting the address, she repeats the oncoming street to her awaiting comrade. “East Arbator way.”. “The fuck? That’s like 20 miles from where you’re at. How the hell are you gonna drive there with the shit storm going around town?”. After a relieved sigh leaves her lips, she admits to them: “That’s a relief, I thought it’d be farther. Should only take me around 15 minutes to skate there then. 10 if I hurry.”. Laughter escaping from their mouth, Vivi reassuring her: “Don’t worry, Mal. I got ya back. Be there in a sec.” “You’re the best, Vivi. Thanks, a bunch.” Upon the call ending, the skeletons happy demeanor quickly morphs into a worrying stare as she turns her gaze towards one of the doors in her hall. They peek open the door just a crack, letting the light of the hall leak into the darkness of the room. From within, a black hooded figure snores the night away, a scythe resting at the foot of their bed. Vivi sneaks through the room, nearing the weapon on the side. Her boney palm reaches out towards the sharp scythe, but is hesitant to grip the handle. Although she used it just recently, she felt but an ebb of the scythes nightmarish force. A power that frightened the poor skeleton to their very core. Come on Vivi! This is no time to be such a little bitch. Your friend needs you! They’re more important than your shitty ass fears. Just take the damn scythe already! Thoughts that run through their head as they try to snap their hesitation. The half skeleton takes quietly calming breath, those mantra’s repeating in their head. Finally, she grips the weapons black handle and swiftly makes their escape. That’s one ally on the way. Time to call another. Mally skims through her list of contacts, wondering who to call next, her thumb stopping at Biz. The scene shifts over to the Townsville mall. The lights of the shopping complex glowing over a rioting mob, rummaging through whatever they come acrossin hopes of finding their elusive prey. Most of the stores inside were in the midst of being broken into in the midst of the ensuing pandemonium. Some even being set a blaze for whatever reason. Presumably for shits and giggles. Several more calm and organized parts of the party begin to hatch a plan amongst themselves. One of them holds up a phone, clusters of people gather around its owner to see what its screen presented. Displayed was a picture of Chloe on a social media site, posing as she sits with someone whose head was out of frame. The caption at the bottom of the picture reading: “Guess who I’m out having a good time with.” The time below that showed when the post was made looked recent. Very recent. Mere minutes before the town fell into such chaos. “You sure this is her?” one of the people crowding the phone owner wonders. “I’m positive that this is one of the Spicer kids.” the owner reinforces. “Hold on. What’s the plan again?” another one pipes up. “Come on. I’ve said this like five times already. Since the Spicers are in on this whole kidnapping thing, all we gotta do is find and kidnap their daughter. Once we do that, we can work out a deal for the Buxaplenty girl. Got it?” Most of the crowd around him awe in reassurance, finally the plan. One guy step in and mentions aloud: “Hang on. I just got here. What are we doing?”. “God dammit! I’m not explaining this shit again. Go block off the exits so they can’t escape. Watch the ceilings in case she tries to fly out.”. “Can she fly?” “I’m sure she can.” “I thought that was the mom.” “No, I think she can fly too.” “Just get moving already!” With that command screamed at them, the group dissipates in several direction. As they scramble, they fail to notice the redhead in question staring through the curtains of a photo booth. As she retreats back in, she growls, remarking with someone in the booth with her: “This isn’t how I pictured my first date going at all. I pictured something more fun and romantic, less chaotic and fiery. Why does everything have to turn into hell when I’m enjoying myself? Fuck it, I’d take a dinner date in hell over this.” Beside her was the special someone she had teased her followers about. He speaks up, mentioning to the redhead: “Looks more like a fight club out there if you ask me.” “Melvin, you can’t be serious. You wanna actually fight through all that?” “You got a better idea then being stuck here in this cheap ass photo booth all night? Who the fuck even uses these things anymore? We literally have camera’s in our phone nowadays. We could just pull ours out and take a buncha selfies in higher quality then this piece of shit can crap out. Ya know...If we didn’t leave our phones behind.” “As a matter, I do have a better idea. One that won’t get us mauled by a crowd of rioting jackasses. We’re going to take a more stealthful approach to this. Lucky for you, I happen to be quite the stealth expert.” “So were just gonna tip toe around like god damn bitches. Screw that shit. I aiming to punch someones jaw clean off after the fucking circus act that went down with people chasing us. Like, bruh, the fuck all you doing messing with me and my girl for? I’ll beat yo asses in.” “Well, I’m sorry, Melvin. I’m just trying not to approach all this like a charging bull. I’d rather take a far more safer option.” “If that’s attitude, then why just fly us out. Couple of glass ceilings in here we could break through.” “I’m just a little worried.” “About getting caught?” “About them packing heat. Not really sure how many of them brought guns in here. One guy with a pistol spots our shadows under the light and we could both be dead… I mean least, you’d be dead. They’ll probably try and keep me alive.” With an irritated groan, Melvin gives in, admitting to the Chloe. “Fine. We’ll try you’re way first. But if we get caught, I ain’t afraid to go Wesley Snipes on someones ass.” The red head peeks out of the wayside booth once more to check if the coast was clear. Though the red head find some people to the left, they don’t appear to be looking in her direction. Thinking that it be better go now while the irons are hot, she turns back to her date and answers: “Alright. Coast clear. Lets get moving.” With that, her and Melvin sneak out from hiding, away from the ongoing crowd. The two manage to find themselves on the end of the electronics department. Many a townsfolk look for the two in and outside the miniature stores, on the alert to catch the daughter of the Spicers at a moments notice. Like these fools were jumpy as shit. After Chloe silently signal the boy beside her to follow her lead, they move out. With quietly swift foot, they traverse through the front of one of the stores. The few people inside look about, not seeing the two behind promotional posters. They duck under the walled railing to evade the gaze of the people on the opposite end of the mall. It proves to be more of an effective form of cover than it initially looks. Witnessing a patrol inbound, the two hide behind the front desk of an empty cell phone store. Patiently, the couple wait for them to pass, attempting to not make a single peep. Incidentally, Melvin’s sneaker squeaks on the polished wood finish, catching the patrols attention. The patrol ventures back, wondering what might have caused such a sharp squeal. He approaches the front of the store, slowly nearing the front desk. Reaching his hand onto the solid plastic the lurker, gripping the edge as he prepares to peek down whatever maybe hiding. Could it be the prize everyone else in this mall so sought? Finally, he looks over the counter, take a view of all the empty work space. Strange. He could have sworn the squeaker echoed from in here. The patrol takes a quick gaze around the store from his vicinity. No one but him is in here, it seems. Oh well, must have been something else. The patrol retreats back to his search, failing to see Chloe and Melvin sticking themselves atop the corner of the store. With that close call avoided, the pair proceed onward with more careful diligence in mind. One more obstacle, stood in their path toward the rest of the mall ahead. A tunneling electronics depot with some people searching within stands before them. The mall planners had in mind to build a store within the passageway towards the other parts of the mall in an attempt to squeeze out more cash from passers by. It’s kind of diabolical now that its been brought up. In any case, they have ran into a bit of luck in this troubling predicament. Several island native plants have been displayed in pots through the store to try and authenticate its tropical motif. Seems kind of out place here, even if the mall wasn’t in flames. No matter how stupid they think the theme might be, the couple could use it as cover among the searching rioters. Chloe and Melvin travel down the tunnel, using the exotic foliage around them as cover from their hunters. The rioters were too occupied breaking the glass display cases and plundering what was within to notice the pair. One of them pulls out a game system from the case, inspecting its onyx finish. “You think that this would make a good Christmas gift for Marty?” “A game system? Does a bookworm like Marty even play games?” “I’m sure he would. The guy likes hanging out with us. Maybe he’d use this as a sort of party starter.” “Doubt he’d use it for anything else. It’d just be under his TV, collecting dust.” “Well, what the hell would you get him?” “I don’t know. Maybe a gift card.” “A fucking gift card, really?” “What wrong with gift cards?” “You mean besides the fact that they basically say: “Hey, didn’t think to get ya anything. So I got ya a plastic piece of shit that ya can only use at one fucking store?” “Would you rather us give him cash, then?” “I’d rather give him something from here since were looting the damn place.” “What the hell could he even want from in here? A tablet?” “Do they even sell tablets here?” “They did sell em over at the electro barrel over there, but that place was robbed dry.” During Chloe and Melvin’s hidden traversal through the store, Melvin nearly trips and falls upon the fake grass carpeting. Luckily for him, Chloe manages to catch him just before he slams down on the floor and pull him up before the pair of robbers notice. The rioters turn over to the tropical foliage the two were hiding behind, one of them wondering: “What was that?” “Don’t know. Let’s just look somewhere else.” The pair of robbers abscond, the other mentioning: “I hear the furniture place is still up for grabs. Maybe we can get him a comfy arm chair to sit in.” “How the hell we’d even carry one outta here?” With there only obstacles having left, the couple hurry out of the store and dive into a nearby Kiosk. Inside, Melvin whispers to Chloe: “So, you got some sort of plan other than sneak around, hoping to not get our asses caught?” “Of course I do. I’m not an idiot. Now that were out of the electronic wing, we can make our way towards the clothing department. If one of the stores haven’t been robbed, we can make ourselves some disguises and walk right out the back unnoticed. Easy as that.” “Is that really it? Were just gonna dress up and fuck off outta here?” “Oh what, your telling me you can do better?” Melvin can’t even give muster a response upon the objection. His silence basically all that Chloe needs to hear. He’s got nothing. Choosing to give is two cents upon the idea, he comments: “You better not put me in some stupid looking shit.” “Just relax. I’ll get us something simple to wear. It wouldn’t be very stealthy if you wore something that stood out.” Above the rioting streets of the city, the indigo agent and his platinum blonde passenger soar over the pandemonium. The two watch on as the townsfolk below partake in such chaotic escapades as breaking and entering, flipping cars over, arson, destruction of property, assault. Every single thing on the “fuck this town to shit” list had been checked and filled. The police were engaging in hopes of quelling the rioting masses, but are obviously overwhelmed and forced to retreat for their lives. Some of the townspeople that spot the pair gliding above begin to take chase, some on foot, some on automobile. With a whistle, Tore comments to Renee: “Wow! You’re dad sure whipped the town in a frenzy. How long as it been, like close to half an hour? And already, things are looking like hell broke loose and had a horrible fireworks disaster.” Staring down into the ensuing chaos, Renee begins fuming with: “I hate this so much.” “Hm?” “Everyone’s doing their part in trying to help, but here I am. Being forced to flee with my tail between my legs. It’s so...frustrating!”. “Yeah. I know what you mean. I hate missing out on all the action too. But, I...”. Renee is confused why the boy stopped his sentence short, but hears him continue with: “We...just gotta place our bets on Kingsley now. The guy knows what he’s doing. If it weren’t for him, we probably would have never saved all those kids from Circe. I might not even be here.” Hearing this brings calm to the blondes mind. She quickly turns her frustration into delight, giggling with: “Yeah. If it weren’t for him. I might have gone crazy dealing with my father by now. I just hope my dad doesn’t make things any worse with how volatile he is.”. “And I just hope the mob under us ain’t packing heat.” “Oh, calm down. With the bounty on my capture, I doubt anybody would be stupid enough to risk shooting me.” As if the universe awaited for the moment to prove her wrong, waves of bullets and rockets rise around the two. The people below shoot out whatever they have at the airborne pair, hoping to take them out of the night sky. The ascending storm of led and explosives forces them to take cover atop the roof and a nearby apartment. Tore peeks out from the edge of the building to see if the angry mob had stop firing. He narrowly avoids the shot of a rocket launcher as the explosive flies over his head. Both him and Renee watch as the rocket explodes into the night air. “You guys have a real rocket launcher problem over here.” “It’s a pressing issue.” Renee admits. Another pair flies through the skies of the city, heading tin the opposite direction. “So, since ya got everyone flying through the town, the hell’s the plan on our end? How we getting Renee mom out of her house?” Cayenne wonders. “Well...To be honest, I’m kinda of making stuff up as I go along. I didn’t think things would get this bad.” her boy genius passenger admits. “Eh, don’t sweat it. Pretty sure I can bust the door down, fuck up the guards and grab the bitch before Renee’s dad even knows.” “I don’t know if that would end too well.” “What, afraid you might shot? Just wait outside while I get her.” “Hmm…” Before Kingsley could ponder if Cayenne’s crude plan could actually work, his ringing phone catches his attention. The number on the screen is unknown, making him question weather he should answer. They’re usually just telemarketers and salesmen trying get him to subscribe to something. Its usually a wonder what they might be trying to get him to buy next. One time, one offered him a subscription for a bizarre anus lubricant creme. An obscene incident that never fails to make the boy shudder. Dear god…Just...No. His finger tilts towards dropping the call, when his thoughts waver once more. What if was just some poor shlock who called the wrong guy and doesn’t know it. What if they need help and their only hope was in the hands of a hero that they failed to contact. Their final thoughts being one of sorrow because their one and only hope neglected their very lives. Such a guilt would surely drive the boy utterly mad. Not knowing which to choose. He sweats upon what might lie behind the awaiting number. “Oh for fuck sake. Just answer already!” Cayenne barks. At her request, Kingsley answers the phone with a hint of caution. “Hello?” “Hey, Kingsley. Just callin to tell ya something.” a familiar girls voice on the other end pipes up. “Mally?...How did you get my number?” “Just listen. You guys don’t have to worry about breaking into Buxaplenty’s manor to get Renee’s mom. I already got someone working on getting her outta there. All you guys gotta do his meet her at the park and fly her outta town.” “Really? Who did you call?” Kingsley questions. Back in the front driveway of the Buxaplenty manor, a lone shadow peeks out from the bushes. They witness several parts of the manor security roaming through the outside of the manor. One open window could be seen on the opposite side of the manor, giving a clear view of Mrs. Buxaplenty at her bedroom mirror. The figure moves onward, skating through the driveway on roller blades as they use whatever cars were left parked for cover. Nearing the manor, they then use the opposite bushes to creep towards the side of the manor without the security’s notice. When at the side, they pull out a grappling hook and shoot it towards the roof. The hook latching on the side, the figure immediately begins their ascent. Climbing the luxurious stone wall, their ears catch Mr. Buxaplenty’s fuming rant from within the bedroom. “The nerve of that blueberry bastard! Striking me whilst I lecture my daughter. And then having the gall to take her away from me no less. I’ll have him and his family hanged for this. If Renee had only behaved herself, none of this would have happened.” The misses tries to calm her frothing husband down, hugging him by his backside as she lightly rubs the bandages across his face and softly insists: “Honey, baby. Relax. I’m sure that she’ll come to her senses and come back to us. You just gotta calm down.” Her attempts to soothe his nerves fail, her husband quite literally pushing the woman away. “This...This is all you’re fault. If you had been more strict with the girl, she would not have had this rebellious upbringing!” “My fault!? Renee has been working hard since she had joined public school to uphold her studies and the public image that you wanted her to keep! Maybe she wouldn’t have left if you weren’t so abrasively hostile!” At the drop of a hat, Mr. Buxaplenty strikes her wife across the face, causing her to slip upon the carpeting. “You know nothing, woman. A firm hand is required to prepare Renee to carry on the Buxaplenty name. To fashion her into the strong figure she is destined to be and leave me with comfort the day I depart from this mortal coil. You’re soft demeanor has been getting in the way of that.” With that said, the man of the house takes his leave, the only words he leaves for her are: “Now clean yourself up for when I get back.” The bedroom slams shut. The misses picks herself up and sits in front of the mirror once more to cover her fresh bruise. Covering herself with make up, the wife wonders how she managed to get herself into such a horridly entrapping marriage. Where did it all go wrong? Was it ever right in the first place? Upon the midst of her metaphorical reflection, she hears the door opens once more, her figure blocking whoever might be awaiting her. Assuming that its her husbands return, she states firmly: “If you’ve come to apologize, then its far too late.” “Jeez, I just fricken got here and people are already wanting to say sorry.” That’s not her husbands voice. Perhaps one of the maids then. No. The demeanor sounds far too crass. Looking beside her literal reflection reveals Biz standing within the door frame. “Who are you.” the misses questions, turning about towards her unexpected guest. “Me? I’m your ticket outta this poor excuse of a soap opera episode. You coming or what?” At the prospect of escape, Mrs. Buxaplenty turns back to gaze upon her mirror. She rest the tip of her hand upon the bruise her husband had inflicted, halfway covered with make up. Along the roads of the city, our orange haired skater streaks through. She finds something amiss though, the streets being devoid of any people. Although before, she managed to spot a few loaners that tried in vain to catch her, there was virtually nobody around. The only thing filling the streets were abandoned vehicles laid strewn about the empty roads that Mally swivels through. Just what is going on around here? Behind her, a teal glowing hand casts forth. Automobiles that Mally passes begins to radiate a glow of the same color and start careening themselves in her direction. Peeking back, she witnesses the vehicles incoming and ducks under the first one, twirling to the side to evade the second one, and finally flips over the third. Landing backwards, she finds a teal glowing man, flying towards her direction She hears the man comment aloud in his pursuit: “Once I capture and trade you in for the Buxaplenty’s daughter, I’ll finally have more than enough to pay of my collage debt.” Both of them race past an abandoned semi that crashed into one of the buildings. The blue psionic uses his psychic power to lift the truck out of the complex and lifts it over head. Guessing what he plans on doing with the heavy cargo container, Mally turns around and dashes forward. Just as the skater predicted, the psychic tosses the semi her way, right when she spots an upcoming intersection. She hooks her grapplyo onto the stop sign within the inner left corner to make the sharp turn, narrowly evading the trailer. The teal hunter in pursuit lets out a growl upon his catch slippery evasion. “So that’s the game you want to play is it? Fine. Let’s see you skate through this.” His warning dealt, the man’s teal glow intensifies as he raises his arms. The pavement below Mally begins to furiously crack. The road before ascends, shaping its self into a ramp that forces her air bound. Midair, the skater finds the road straight ahead to be breaking apart and rising, exposing the sewage pipelines below. Some of the straggling rioters retreat towards the safety of the buildings inside. She manages to land upon one of the floating chunks of concrete, skating across and leaping towards the next. The psionic waves his teal hands around, commanding the airborne chunks of the street to spin and turn whilst floating about the air, all the while tossing whatever he could in hopes of getting her to crash. One car he throws smashes itself on the pavement Mally had been skating across. In her escape from the collapsing concrete, she leaps off, hooking onto and swinging off a floating streetlamp towards a sideways piece of road. Mally wall grinds across the face of the pavement, jumping off towards the start of a twisting road. She manages to glide across the twisted highway without falling off. The psionic pulls his finger back, making a broken truck careen towards the girl. She finds the oncoming truck approaching her front just before coming toward the ramping end of the road. Looks like the windows have been broken into. Probably a break in of sorts amidst all the chaos. A harrowing displeasure for whoever owned the vehicle, but a stroke of luck for Mally. Without a hint of hesitance, she jumps off the ramp and towards the vehicle in a twirling corkscrew. The psychic hunter is astonished when he witnesses Mally pass straight through the careening vehicles windows, not even laying a single scratch on her as she passes through the inside. That obstacle having been cleared, she hooks onto an upcoming hydrant and swings upwards towards a detached traffic light pole. Mally grinds across the pole as it turns in the air and bounces off when it turns to the side. Her pursuer was beginning to run out of patients amidst the stunt show before him. “Slippery worm! Just crash into something already!”. The psionic hunter thought it best to end these shenanigans once and for all. Raising his arms upwards, then pulling them back in again, he begins to gather the pieces of the urban jungle towards his targets direction. Mally watches as the pavement around her begins to crush itself into a tunnel that threatens to entrap her. The skater blades through the closing tunnel as fast as she can. In the midst of the tunnel, she slides under a lowering pole, grinds through a winding set of rails, wall grinds off the side of the pavement and bouncing off the sides of entrapped automobiles. The gaps of the tunnel begin to close in as she approaches the ascending finish, finding the moonlight at the end to be fading as the hole starts to collapse in. Gotta speed things along here, or else her skate trip might come to a sudden stop. Using her grapplyo, she hooks onto an attached streetlamp and pulls herself up in the middle of her ascent. She then attaches the yoyo to the wall and makes it retract, sending her upward bounds. In her climb, the skater jumps from wall to wall to evade the broken part of the rising road. Not much of the moonlight is left shining through as the end of the tunnel closes in. Mally tosses her gadget upwards upon the end of the tunnel and ascends. It’s incredibly close, but she manages to rocket out of the psionic crafted tube of concrete and steel. Descending from the night sky, she latches her grapplyo onto a streetlamp at the bottom of the grounded road to keep herself from crashing into the pavement and speed along her way. “That is it! This skating stunt show horse shit has gone on for too long. You’ve forced mw to pull out all my stops.” The teal psychic’s aura flaring, he raises his arms high into the air. “How the hell do I get this teal asshole off my back? Doubt I can hit him from up there.” In Mally’s pondering moments, she notices chunks of concrete and steel drift beside her. None of them seemed to be aimed at the skater. It’s almost like their gathering behind the skater. She turns around and finds the roads, cars and other miscellaneous pieces of the city to cluster themselves in a giant mass of junk, all being perched atop the psionics mental grasp. “If you will not yield in one piece, then I shall simply take you’re broken body.” That having been said, the hunter hurls the boulder of concrete and steel towards his prey. The ball of junk crashes to the ground, rolling through and crushing whatever stood in its pursuit. With the ball of rock and metal encroaching, Mally looks ahead and finds no turns to make her escape. If she can’t turn, she’ll simply rise instead. She tosses her grapplyo towards the nearest building and beings to pull herself up. She skates up through the piece of architect in hopes of evading the approaching boulder. “Oh no you don’t!” the psychic hunter reprimands. He uses his power to break apart the building Mally was ascending, causing the skater to tumble back towards the ground. Although she manages to land safely, it hardly matters as the large chunk of rolling junk was gaining, threatening to trample the girl into an early gruesome demise. Just before the boulder could take the chance to crush Mally’s escape, a thin wave of green power slices the mass to pieces. The broken bits of the ball rain down upon the streets below. Mally evades the downpour of concrete and metal, dodging past fallen cars, street signs and lamps, a bits of broken off architect. One piece of scrape that crashes down before her was a semi trailer that lays itself across the road with no space to move around it. With the wrecked semi too close, there was little time to stop herself from coming to an abrupt halt. She’s gonna crash! The ground beneath her exudes a flow of green power, similar to the wave that sliced the junk boulder a moment ago. Bursting from the pavement rose a nightmarish limb made of bone, ramping her over the wreckage. Air borne, she witnesses Vivi pass right by with their scythe in their grasp. Mally watches as Vivi intercepts the psionic in a clash of teal and green, the psychic hunter holding Vivi’s scythe back by hand. “Yeah, Vivi! Kick his ass!” the skater cheers as she descend. Have said her words of encouragement, Mally lands back on solid ground and makes her exit. The clash settled, both the teal psychic hunter and the scythe wielding skeleton land on upon the concrete. Some of the citizens that are still straggling about, flee from the two, knowing full well the showdown about to take place. “Young lady. I demand that you move aside so that I may pursue the skater this instant.” “The only thing you’ll be pursuing is the E.R. They’ll need to patch up your insides when I shove the sharp end of this scythe up your fucking ass!” they aggressively threatens. “Such vulgarity. If you fail to let me pass, the least I can do is whip some etiquette into you. I simply capture my bargaining chip later.” Vivi dashes towards their psionic opponent, the man backs out from their reach. In his retreat, the psychic clasp his hands together, making the pavement below Vivi entrap them in a tulip of rock. He’s quickly astonished however upon seeing the skeleton slice through his trap with ease. After their escape, Vivi’s scythe glows an ominous green aura as they slash the air in front of the teal hunter. A wave of green energy is cast from the blade and shoots its way towards the psychic. He leaps away from the oncoming wave, watching as Vivi follows him above the streets. The man takes chunks of the architect around them and throws the pieces towards his skeletal opponent in hopes of slowing them down. But this proves to fail, as Vivi simply slashes whatever careens their way, set on a flight path towards the psychic with scythe at the ready. Once more, the man catches her scythe with his bare hands before it has the chance to reach him, taking in a clear view of Vivi’s determined glare and noticing a flowing green power leaking from their beady eyes. Vivi on the other hand finds the psionics face redraw itself from a worried gaze to a sinister smile. “Just what the hell are you so happy about, you teal colored shit stain?” “Oh nothing in particular, just the thought of freedom from my crippling debts. I will have my bounty yet!” From behind the psychic, Vivi finds the building around them breaking from their base and begin to approach the pair. The skeletons glare transforms into an angry scowl as the energy leaking from their eyes gushes out. From the base of their scythe, a green beam shoots downwards and strikes the roads. Out from the concrete bursts out massive skeletal arms that swipe and break the approaching buildings away. Finally, Vivi breaks the psychics guard, sending him crashing towards the ground. Getting up from his rough descent, he watches as Vivi lands upon the concrete and begins to approach. Surrounding the skeleton was a menacing green light, one that irradiated a harrowing aura that overcomes the psychic hunter. He felt as if death itself was reaching out for him, ready to crush the psionic in its unholy grasp. “Okay. Screw this. I’m out of here.” With that declaration, the psionic attempts to flee from the his skeletal foe. But a brush of bone erupts from the pavement and halts his escape. “Where the fuck you think you’re going?” he hears from behind. Turning back towards his green glowing adversary, pointing their scythe straight ahead. “Got the fucking balls the mess with one of my friends and now your wanting to fuck off? The only way you’re leaving now is when I drag you straight to hell.” Their threat sent, Vivi dashes towards the psychic once more, ready to slice the hunter into pieces. The dim lights of the mall join the descending moonlight shining through the glass as both reflect upon the waters of the plaza fountain. Just as instructed, the front doors had been barricaded with several miscellaneous mall object, including benches, booths, and kiosks of the sort. Around it stood many a people, searching for the elusive red head in hopes of trading her for their prize. Unbeknownst to them, the girl in question and her date were right behind the corner, sneaking past they’re gaze and into the nearest store for cover. Once behind the safe darkness of the stores cashier counter, Melvin finds it safe to softly speak to Chloe. “So, how we getting past here?” “Not really sure. Kinda making our route as we go here. Good news is were halfway close to the clothing department. Shouldn’t be much farther now.” “Fantastic.” the boy responds, a hint of sarcasm escaping his breath. Gazing into the store itself, something between its shade covered shelves grasp Melvin's attention. Peeking out from behind the desk, she witnesses some of the searching mob to be despersing. “Alright, time to get moving. You ready Mel?” Awaiting her dates word, she fails to hear a response. “Mel?...Melvin?” Curious why he wasn’t answering, she turns back and finds the boy no longer by her side. Rather, he was making his way down into the shady depths of the store. “God dammit.” Following after, Chloe looks down one of the forlorn isles she saw the boy go down. “Melvin.” she tries to loudly whisper. Dammit. As if he’s enough of a pain to keep under control as is. Why the hell did he even come back here? The redhead starts to head down the isle in hopes of finding him. The shelves surrounding her were halfway baron, the only pieces to occupy their space were torn up packaging and broken toys. The fragmented look of the mistreated playthings mixed with the encompassing darkness made the girls trip down the aisles a little tense. “Melvin. Come on. This isn’t funny.” Turning the corner, she finds a dark figure right in front of her. She falls over and frantically backs away in retreat, taking every ounce of her not to shriek out in terror. Her fright goes just as quickly as it came upon second glance, where she found the shadow to be nothing more then just a cardboard cut out of some cartoon character. “You okay?” she hears. To her side was the boy in question, looking down upon her as she laid on the marble tile. Swiftly picking herself up, she dusts herself off and asks him: “What the hell, Melvin? What happened to following my lead?”. “Damn, sorry. Just saw something back here that might help us.”. “Oh please. What, in this excuse for a makeshift horror attraction could you have possibly have found to help us?” “A vent?” Melvin tilts his head while pointing backwards, giving Chloe full view of the air vent atop one of the shelves. The girls frustration turns to amazement as she approach the vent in question. “Oh wow. I didn’t even see it back here. Nice work, Melvin.” The boy chuckles with a smile upon the compliment. Floating up, she tries to quietly pull the grate off, but to no avail. The grate was tightly screwed in. “Yo girl, what’s the hold up?” Melvin whispers. “The grate won’t come off.” “The grate won’t come- Girl, just blast the damn thing off.” “Oh, sure. Why won’t I just announce to the whole fucking mall that were in here while I’m at it.” With a frustrated sigh, she further inspects the screws keeping the grate in place. All she could gain was that the screws had straight lines upon their heads. What kind of screws were these again? Dammit, Kingsley would know this. Whatever. Looks like anything can screw them off anyway. “Mel, hand me your pocket knife.” “What? Why?” “Just do it.” With a disgruntled sigh, the boy complies. He takes his knife out of his pocket and hands it up to Chloe. As soon as she laps up the boys knife, Chloe begins to unscrew the gate off the wall. The screws themselves fall to the floor with a sharp ting. A little ways outside the toy shop, a couple of searchers dream what they plan to do with the reward money. “So, the biggest bounty this town have ever seen and you plan on wasting all of it on, seeing if I got this straight, chocolate?” “Yep. Just gonna buy as much as I can horde it all for myself.” “It’s gonna go bad.” “No-No it won’t. Chocolate’s like...Like canned shit. It can’t go bad.” “Bruh, it can expire. Like two years tops.” “Nah man. I mean...Like...um...uh...Really?” “Yeah. Especially if its made of milk.” “Ah...Fuck. I had this whole plan man. Like...I wanted to make a 50 foot chocolate statue of myself. That’s shit was supposed to last for fuckin years.” In the midst of they’re friends rant, the searcher hears the slight sharp ting nearby. “Bruh, shut up. The fucks that noise.” “Probably the sound of my candy land dreams crackin to pieces.” “No, seriously. Shut up. Like, I hear something.” Halting their bickering for a single moment, the tings reach into both their ears. “Ah shit. I hear that too.” “Come on.” Both searchers pursue the source of the sharp sound, others gathering alongside their pursuit. Their search leads them to the inside of the toy shop where upon one of them pierces through the shade with a flashlight to find the air vent grate off on the far end of the store. Immediately, the mob heads down the shop to inspect. “Why the hell this grate off?” “Was it off before?” “Last time I was in here. It wasn’t.” “It must be that red head, then.” “So, she thinks she can hide in the vents, eh?” One of them looks within the steel tunnels in hopes of spotting their hunt. “See anything?” “Nope. Nothing. She must have crawled in deep.” “Don’t stand there gawking, climb in there!” The desperate mob starts to shove themselves in the air vent in hopes of catching Chloe and Melvin, not realizing that the couple were aside the cash register behind them. The two begin to sneak out of the store in the midst of the distracted mob. One of the searchers looks back, managing to spot something diving into the plaza fountain. Her curiosity peaked, the rioter divides from the pact and wanders towards the shutdown geyser to investigate. Looking into its rippling waters, the reflection of the lights above proved to hinder her sight, only able to make out various coins. Thinking that it was just her imagination, the rioter shrugs off the incident and ventures back towards the toy store. As soon as the coast was clear, Chloe and Melvin quietly arise from the fountains waters and take in hush breath once more. With swift foot, they climb out of its rippling waters and head for cover, their clothes dripping wet. “Hnn...Why did I have to where one of my good dresses tonight?” Chloe grumbles. The dangers of flying over the streets of Townsville proving too risky, Tore opts to take Renee to the city limits via jump from roof to roof instead. “Ha ha! Like to see those guys in the street try and shoot at us now. Bet it won’t be long til we get out of the city, huh Renee?” the indigo chauffeur boasts. “We should be halfway through Townsville by now. Once we reach the city limits, it should be safe to take flight once more..” the blonde elaborates. “Cool. Say, where do you want me to take you after we get outta town? We can go wherever we want really, like um...the forest, the mountains, uh...the ocean, cavern. Oh! Can we go to the plains. I love looking up at the stars there.” “Anywhere is fine, really. Though, I much prefer to be with Kingsley at the moment.” “You worried about him, ain’t ya?” “Quite a lot, yes.” “Well, don’t worry. I’m sure with Cayenne by his side, he should be fine.” Landing upon the top of one more buildings, the roof below their feet suddenly erupts, careening them back. Getting up from the bursting scene, the two find a man dressed in crimson landing before them, staring them down with a blood red gaze. “Finally, caught up with you guys. Bet you thought you were safe jumping from roof to roof, huh?”. A gruff laughter escapes the mans lungs, followed by him demanding: “I’m only gonna say this once, blueberry sunrise. Hand over the girl, pronto. Else I’m gonna haveta put some hole in that suit of yours.” Seeing the boy get in front of Renee with a readying stance, the hunter gives a sinister grin. “Alright. You’re funeral, then.” Tore’s stance wavers when he finds the man before them kneeling over in pain, his grunts of agony catching him off guard. Both him and Renee are taken aback when they witness the mans back burst open in a shower of red. Arising from the hunter was a blood red monster, its slim upper torso exposed to the open night air. “Ew!” Renee retches. “Cool!” Tore admits. As the man gets back up and takes deep breathe, his parasitic demon extends reaches out towards the two, its finger protracting razor sharp claws. “Giving you ten seconds, kids. Give up the game now, else things might get dicey.” the blood red hunter warns. Tore looks back to Renee, suggesting too her: “Think you might wanna stand back, Renee. Hate to see ya get hurt in the crossfire.” “Hold on. You actually plan on fighting that thing?” “You bet I am. I don’t think he’s just gonna let us waltz outta here without a brawl. Besides, This night finally starting to turn into a party I can get behind. No way I’m skipping out on this.” Its at this moment that Renee begins to question the sanity of the blue suited brawler. “Oh my god...” the blonde utters in disbelief. “Time’s up kids!”. His countdown at an end, the blood red bounty hunter lunges forth, his demon ready to strike. Tore stops his approach on the spot, holding them out of Renee’s reach. She backs away, stopping short from the side of the roof and catching a glimpse of the empty alleyway down below. Before the demon could grab hold of their prize, Tore knees the man in the stomach, followed by sending him across the rooftop with a swift fist. Getting up from the blow, he sees Tore unfurl his wings, ready for a fight. “You wanna go, you blueberry brat?” The boy punches the palm of his hand, a gleeful is drawn on his face. “More than anything.” Tore declares. Tore takes the first charge, the blood hunter ready to dig his demons sharp claws in his flesh. The demon takes its swipes, the blue boy evading the demons blood red claws. The indigo agent counters with a kick that send his foe off the side of the building. A moment or two passes waiting for the hunter to rise back up. Approaching the side of the building, he looks down, wondering if he simply gave up. To his shock, Tore finds the man hanging on the wall, his demons claws embedded in the brickwork. Before he has the chance to back away, the beast claws at the boys face, making him flinch. The hunters opportunity comes, he jumps over the indigo agent and makes his way towards Renee. Ready to clam his bounty, he has his monster reach for the bracing blonde. The hunters beasts stop short of grasping for her face, Renee opens her eyes and sees Tore holding the hunter back by his leg, the boys faces still dripping with blood. The blue boy takes the man for a twirl, flinging the man over to the building across the street and away from her. The blood red hunter crashes onto the roof of the opposing building. Getting up from his rough landing, the hunter finds his blueberry adversary flying after, descending with a thrown ball of light. His blood red beast’s claws extend, slashing at the sphere and splitting the energy in half. The halves exploding behind him, the man looks up to see what else the boy might throw and finds him rocketing downwards in his direction, ready to deliver a powerful stomp. The hunter evades the crushing blow, the roof of the building cracking upon impact. He than lunges at Tore in hopes of getting another slash in. The indigo agent ducks under the demons horizontal slash, and sends a sweeping kick that trips his bloody foe over. Sending his opponent in a fall, Tore gives him a swift uppercut before he even it the roof, sending them high in the air. Got em now! Without hesitance, the boy follows the ascending hunter into the sky. Seeing the angel ascend after, the hunter has his monster spread itself out, the man himself getting behind his demon like a shield Front every inch of its front, blood red spines shot out towards their pursuing foe. Too close to evade, Tore blocks the oncoming daggers, the needles giving him and his suit countless scratches. Its then the blood hunter dives down upon the indigo agent, delivering a heavy stomp downward and breaking through the rooftop below. In the halls of a recently evacuated office complex, the ceiling above collapses. The pair crash down and destroy a set of cubicles upon their impact. The crimson hunter as Tore pinned down and stabs his beasts sharp claws at the boys head in hopes of quickly ending the fight. Tore shift his head around in dodging the monster lunging attack. He swiftly blasts the man off of his person and kicks him across the office. In his recoil, the hunter retreats behind still standing cubical for safety. The indigo agents wastes no time in destroying his opponents cover and fires his beam at the office structure. The office space destroyed, Tore fails to find the blood hunter anywhere in the destruction. Where did he go? Tore looks from behind, just as the moment that spines scrape by his face. He manages to spot the hunters monster ducking down from another cubicle. Quickly, he fires at the office structure, reducing it to nothing but rubble. Nothing behind it either. No sooner that happens, the hunters beast pops out from a knocked over desk on the side and throw its bloody spikes towards the blue angel. This time, he manages to evade the storm of needles and fire his beam out towards the hunters cover. Again, nothing behind it all. Once more time, the monster pops up from behind a cubicle, shooting out its quills towards him and after promptly dodging, shoots towards the line of cover. Just like all the other times, nothing is behind it. Oh, so that’s his game, is it? Hiding behind cover was never really Tore’s style. So, why start now? Immediately, he begins to haphazardly fire around the room, thinning out whatever his foe could possibly use as cover. The man in question has his demon fire its bloody quills at the boy, thinking that he’s just distracted. As he evades the needles, Tore continues to destroy the office around him. It’s not long before there are few spots left for the hunter to utilize. A wayward shot at one of the wayside cubicle walls draws the crimson hunter out of hiding. Gotcha! Having been caught in the open, Tore quickly begins to close the distance between him and his bloody foe. Its then the hunter reveals a hidden power, one normally reserved for sneak attacks. His demon extends its claws towards the encroaching blueberry fighter. Although coming as a surprise, he manages to narrowly avoid the claws razor sides, leaving mere cuts along sides on his approach. Tore delivers a powerful blow straight towards the hunters chest. In the hunters recoil, he grabs hold of the boys arm and flings him into the executive office. Landing with a skidding halt, the boy finds his bloody foe throwing more spines through the broken glass windows. Although he evades the storm of red needles, its not long til he hits a wall. The confining walls of this private office make it rather hard for Tore to dodge effectively. The hunter refuses to halt his spiky storm as he slowly approaches. If he wants to escape, he’ll need to shield himself from the spines. But with what? There’s barely anything in here that could withstand such a bloody barrage. The glass desk is a definite no. The pictures hanging on the wall wouldn’t serve much better either. Maybe the filing cabinet could’ve helped, but he blast that to bits during his laser light show fiesta. Only thing left for a shield was a computer monitor left on the side. Oh well, guess that might work. Dell widescreen LED display, don’t fail him now! Grabbing a hold of the monitor, he dashes out of the office in the midst of the demons storm of needles. Tore holds the screen in front in hopes of blocking the barrage. The monitor proves to be more of an effective shield then at first glance, blocking the oncoming needles. But it looks like it had its full of combat, looking on the cusp of breaking. The monitor fulfilling its duties, the blue angel chucks the screen towards his bloody adversary. The hunters demons slices the monitor into sparking pieces, his pursuit turning into a deadly lunge. The blue boy than uses the distraction to slide under both the hunter and its monster. One of its claws manage to catch the boys arm, making a sizable cut. Once passed his foe, Tore leaps back up and grasps at his cut arm, quickly patching up his injury. After that he dashes straight towards the hunters backside, the man himself turning around just in time for Tore to deliver a swift kick upwards. The blow sends the blood hunter through the roof, with Tore on hot pursuit. Kingsley’s and Cayenne’s flight leads them straight to the city park. Taking a full view of the few rioters below. “Alright, made it to the park. Where the hell we meeting Mally’s “mysterious contact”?” Cayenne wonders. “She said to meet her and Renee’s mom at the lake pier. Shouldn’t be too far now.” The park lake within their site, they begin to pick up the pace. Just then, something dashes out from below, shaking Kingsley off of Cayenne back. Quickly, the boy begins to plummet towards the earth, the ground on the rapid approach. He braces himself for the inevitable impact, hoping to make it out with just mild injuries. His sudden trip towards the earth stops short when Cayenne manages to snag him in the nick of time. “Oh...Oh my god! Holy Jeez! Thank you! Thank you so much, Cayenne! Thought I was dead for a moment there.” he thanks with haste breathe. “Always have my bitches back. Now then...” Putting Kingsley down, Cayenne looks out in the vast open fields of the park and shouts: “Alright! Who the hell’s the jackass with the massive balls, balls that will soon go straight into their mouth once I rip them off!” Upon the call out, a purple haired figures descends before them. “That would be me, thanks. I’m the jackass, your looking for.” “Roy!? B-but why?” Kingsley stresses. “Ain’t that obvious? I’m here to snatch your sweet ass up so I can trade it in for the Buxaplenty blonde.” “Wait, Roy. You don’t understand. She can’t go back. You have no idea what her dad has been doing to her.” “Yeah, hate to be that dick, but...I don’t give a shit. With 10 billion dollars on the line. I can give my mom the stable life she needs, plus much more.”. “Well what about Tore and Mally. What would they think of you doing this?”. “You mean how Tore basically caused all of this by not minding his fucking business.” “I...How did-” “I’ve lived with the guy for about eight years straight. Don’t think I don’t know when he’s fucked something over? Besides, he’s not once shown any interest in relationships, like period. So when I heard that he gotten a girlfriend out of the blue, I knew bullshit was afoot from the start.” “Well...That still-” “Not to mention that he fucked up further and got Buxaplenty to send the town in a frenzy.” Kingsley remained silent. Although he would not admit, Roy was right. If Tore hadn’t screwed with the plan they had, or better yet, not involve himself with Kingsley’s affairs, things might have gone way smoother. “Tell you what, Kingsley. If you promise to come quietly, I promise not to be too rough with ya.” the purple merc offers behind a wink. “Okay, no. Fuck no! Hell fucking no! Fuck that shit! I ain’t letting you touch him, you violet bastard! You want is ass, then you gotta beat mine first.” Cayenne swiftly objects. “Why, Cayenne. Have you finally started coming on to me?” Roy question. “Fuck you! Kingsley, make a break for the lake. I’ll take care of this purple piece of shit real quick.” “Um...Al-alright.” With that, the boy genius absconds, leaving his best friends to hold off the purple merc. Roy watches as Kingsley parts, saying his farewell with a wave and a smile. “See ya, Kingsley. I promise we’ll catch up real soon.” “You ain’t going anywhere. Know why, cause you be too busy coughing up dirt after I shove my boot down your throat. Cause I think we both know how this went down last time.”. “Oh, Cayenne. Last time was a warm up practice. Still getting the bearings from losing and arm and shit. But I’ve gotten a bit more practice in since then and am ready to round two.” Cayenne takes the first charge, lunging towards Roy at incredible speeds and ready to throw her fist in the boys face. The dark winged angel flips back to evade her swing, landing upon his single hand and pushing himself towards Cayenne to kick her from below. Once she regains her aerial balance, the spice queen fires her red hot rays towards her violet foe. Roy evades the lethal lasers and decides to return the favor by sending a jet black ray of his own. She smacks the beam aside and finds Roy on the rapid approach. She prepares to counter with a heavy hay maker, only to miss the slippery angel. Making his way behind Cayenne, Roy holds her her in a choke hold from behind with a single arm. The spice queen tries to get the purple merc off her back, but can’t quiet reach for him from her back. “I wasn’t joking when I said I got practice in. Things aren’t gonna go the same way they did last time, you massive cu-” At that moment, Cayenne begins to rapidly plummet towards the earth. Her back facing the approaching ground, she threatens to smash Roy upon the earth. Their impact shakes the entire park, the remaining fall leaves break off from their trees. The spice queen arises from the ground as the dust from the impact settles. Although Cayenne finds her slam has created a sizable crater, she fails to find the purple merc himself. She takes a quick view of her surroundings, wondering where the hell the purple asshole scurried off to. Its then that the earth bursts open, a cover of dirt clouds erupting from beneath. What burst from the ground was none than the asshole she’d been looking for, grabbing the spice queen leg in the midst of the dust. Before she had the chance to counter, Roy spins Cayenne about, clearing away the dirt clouds surrounding them. At the apex of their twirl, Roy lets go of the girl, throwing her a ways across the park. She’s sent flying into the parks gazebo, breaking through the roof in her crash. As bits of wood fall upon her head, Cayenne lets out an irritated growl. Descending back to the ground, a boastful laugh escapes Roy’s lungs. “How’s that for a boot down your throat? Ya taste the dirt yet?” In his bragging, he spots something glowing in the sky heading is way. “What the-...What the fuck?” As it the glowing object closes in, Roy finds it to be the gazebo that she just crashed into, set ablaze like a burning meteor. “Oh shit!” He narrowly evades the fiery park stand, feeling the heat coming off of the blazing mess. The gazebo however was merely just a distraction for Cayenne to close in from the side. The spice queen delivers a mighty punch to the purple mercs money maker, sending him flying through the park. Roy careens into several trees, his impact snapping each one in half like a cheap dining pick. Finally, he comes to a crashing stop amidst the pile of park grown property, seeing Cayenne quickly on the approach. “Shit. Gotta think of something fast.”. Roy looks around for anything he could strategically use against his foe. Anything would work, really. His frantic search leads him to spot one of the broken tree halves that he crashed into beside him. As Cayenne lunges forth, she spots Roy lifting the sizable tree with a single hand and swings the wood in her direction. The long reach of the tree manages to catch Cayenne off guard, smacking her aside. Quickly regaining her balance, she finds Roy on the swift approach, presumably to swing the once great oak at her once more. She’d like to see how well he’d swing his wood after setting it on fire. The spice queen spits out a fireball towards the coming merc. Roy blocks the oncoming ball of flames with the only thing he has in hand, holding up the trunk of the tree. His massive wooden weapon quickly burning to cinders, he opts to throw it for one more attack. The oaks ultimate sacrifice proves to be in vain as Cayenne breaks the tree apart with her bare fists. The girl then finds that Roy took a page from her book and saw him awaiting her on the other side of the burning bark. A strategy that fails as Cayenne evades Roy’s punch kick combo. “You know. With all this flaming wood, I’m beginning to suspect that you might have a burning passion for me.” Roy taunts. Cayenne retaliates with some swings of her own that Roy dodges around. “And I’m beginning to suspect that you might just be a huge bitch.” she retorts. Having evade her attacks, Roy comes in with a swift kick to the side of Cayenne’s chest. The spice queen counters with a kick to the side of Roy’s head. Both brawlers reel back from each others blows, Roy taking the moment to fire a ball of darkness in Cayenne direction. Cayenne manages to pull herself together just in time to dodge the dark energy and watches Roy go on the approach. She takes the moment to clap her hands together, igniting sparks of electricity that make their way towards the purple merc. Roy blocks the stream of electricity with his single hand, waving to prove itself harder to keep back then he thought as it start to push him back. He soon however finds his ground and starts to make way to its source. Seeing this Cayenne turns up the juice and strengthens the sparks. Although he staggers, Roy ultimately gives one big push towards the Spice queen, halting her storm by grabbing her arm and pulling her head into his knee. Cayenne quickly retaliates with a bellowing stream of flames. Finally, Chloe and Melvin make it to the opposite end of the mall, where before them stood countless clothing stores and trinket shops. The insides of the boutiques have not favored well in the ensuing chaos, their fronts having been broken into and defaced. The insides, ransacked and plundered. Nothing left within except few garments and dresses, torn apart by the rioting populous that have left the store in nothing but empty husks of their former glory. The redhead weeps for her favorite establishments, lamenting their destruction with: “No. All my favorite fashion boutiques, destroyed. All those cute shoes and beautiful dresses, stolen. All those special imports, gone. The worst of it is the huge sale that was going to happen today. All those cute designer outfits that I was gonna lap up are nothing but a faint dream.” During Chloe’s quietly emotional breakdown, Melvin looks over, whispering aloud: “Doubt there’s anything left for us to use as a disguise now. Plan B, then?” Chloe manages to pull herself together in the midst of her sniveling lament, denying with: “No…No. There’s still gotta be something for us left in this fashion disaster, and god dammit if we don’t find it. Come on.” With quiet haste, they split up, hoping to cover more ground to search for what little was left. The stores that Chloe search through seemed more desolate and baron then the last. Coming into one of them, she mourns for one of her favorite boutique, its insides pilfered and torn asunder. Look at what those animals have done to the poor shop. Its cute décor and beautiful dresses, ruined at the seems. It was now baring only lite accessories amidst its ruin, small trinkets such as sunglasses, scarves, necklaces, key chains, and other works fit to only complement. Although Chloe takes the moment to nab some cute looking treasures to take home with her, she knows it won’t be enough for a full blown disguises. Better her have them then any other rioting asshole looking around here anyway. She keeps up her search in the clothing department, hoping to find something that will work, or at the very least, a nice purse. Melvin search doesn’t bode so well either, the only stores he comes across having torn and tapered garbs, among its finite stock. Well, that’s not completely true. The boy does come across a strangely untouched shop, filled to the brim with garments amongst its lines. There was just one massively glaring issue. The store was a costume shop, the only kind of clothing along its racks being colorful and creative costumes. You gotta be kidding me. Melvin was obviously no undercover agent, but even he knew that nothing in here would prove to make the best disguise into fool the crowd. Not a single outfit he finds could ever hope to work, unless they were sneaking through a pirate ship, or a circus, or maybe even a hospital. Figures the only store that wasn’t robbed to the bone during this brief of chaos was a goddamn costume shop. Better chance of taking a clean punch in the eye in a street fight then passing with one of these stupid outfit. Might as well look somewhere else. Before he could abscond away from the array of holiday wares, something brushes past the side of his face. A sharp pain following briefly after, he touches the side of his head to find a cut that oozed blood. He looks back, wondering what kind of sharp weapon grazed his side. The only thing he could find was a playing card lodged within the shop wall. Melvin looks back towards the entrance of the shop, pondering what kind of weirdo tossed the paper thin projectile, but finds nobody within his sites. Weird. He goes to dislodge the card from the wall, finding something printed out on the front. Melvin reads the word on the card to himself: “You’re in for a real treat.” What? What the hell does that even mean? Before he could understand what the message foretold, the folds of the card open up, pouring out smoke and confetti that engulfs him in a blinding cloud. The rioters on the wayside take note of the smoke leaking out of the costume shop and hurry towards its entrance. Within, they find nobody inside, the only thing of note being the leftover confetti that littered the floor. “The fuck?”. In another clothing shop, Chloe was looking along its shelves for anything that could make her and Melvin a worthwhile disguise, but ultimately finds nothing worth even that. Dammit, all that she could scrap up were accessories and cheap fashion wear. Why do people always have to take the good stuff? Thoughts that crosses her mind before something passes by from behind The red head witnesses a card stick itself within the wall of the shop before her. Taking it out, she reads the word imprinted on one of the sides. “It’s time for the show to begin.” What show? As she was trying to figure that out, the card erupts smoke and confetti from its folds. Part of the ongoing mob find the smoke coming from the ransacked store and go forth to investigate. Once at the entrance, they find nothing out of the ordinary, say for the countless amounts of confetti littering the floor. “Was someone throwing a party in here?”. “In the middle of a riot? Who the hell does that?”. After a lengthy trip through the city, Mally finally arrives at the mall, finding the entrance being beat in by rioting townspeople who wanted inside. Some of them manage to spot her and quickly abandoned their pursuit for an equally beneficial prize. The skater flees down the side of the mall in hopes of escaping the encroaching mob. In her escape, she comes over to the loading bay, hoping one of their garage doors might be open. She doesn’t even come across a window to break into, much less an open door. Come on. There’s gotta be something this stupid mall. Its then that another part of the mob comes from around the other corner, some aiming their firearms in her direction. With both parties threatening to trap her in, she figures the only way to go was up and tosses her grapplyo overhead. She begins to ascend away from the gathering rioters, aiming to find a way in through the rooftop, all while evading gunfire from below. Its not until a wayward rocket goes off right in front of her does she she begin to fall. Plummeting down towards the awaiting populous, she braces herself for whatever they had in store for her. Before she could land in the mobs waiting arm, something sweeps Mally from their grasp. The skater opens her eyes to find Bianca carrying the skater in her arms. “What the-...Aren’t you one of the kids we save? Cayenne’s cousins, right?” “Si, senorita. Kingsley had called us and thought it might be fit for us to repay you for rescuing us from that witches clutches.” “We?” Red beams descend down to the pavement below, causing the mob scatter and giving room for Ty and Lequan to land. Immediately, they begin to fight the rioters back, punching and kicking them away in an effort to drive them off. Lequan dodges some of their melee weapon, countering with swift punches and kicks, all while munching on a chocolate bar. With a surrounding group lunging their way towards him, he tosses his candy bar in the air. The youngest of the trio then spins in the air with a twirling kick, knocking all of them back as the bar makes its descent. Lequan then opens his mouth to catch the falling chocolate, finishing of the delectable treat. Ty fights his way through the angry townsfolk, aggressively mowing waves of them down. “You bitches ain’t got nothing on us. Wanna know why?” He grabs hold of one of them and starts to spin about, using the rioter as a sort of weapon and smacking them aside with the poor mans legs. Eventually, he throws him into an approaching part of them mob, knocking them down like pins. “Cause we the BTL mothafucka’s!” Some of them aim their firearms above in Bianca and Mally’s direction, hoping to shoot them down. In the midst of the bullet storm, Mally urges Bianca to: “Throw me to the roof!” “Que!?” “Just do it.” Following her wishes, Bianca tosses her towards the rooftop. Mally tosses her grapplyo towards one of the vents to pull herself in for a safe landing. Once atop the roof, she looks back to find the trio fending off the mob below, with Bianca looking back with a thumbs up. After returning the gesture, Mally looks back to try and find a way in. She looks down one of the glass ceilings in hopes of spotting the red head and finds countless rioters roaming the mall grounds below. Seems too far of a risk to come in through here, especially with all the heat on her. The vent she hooked onto looked to have taken a bit of damage during her descent. It’d make a for a much more inconspicuous way in, even if it would be a bit dusty. She wrap her yoyo’s string around the vent and starts to pull. With great force, the cylinder snaps off, flinging itself off the ceiling and down the ensuing chaos below. Bianca punches one of the rioters away, knocking down the others behind him. She sweeps another of the floor before kicking him over. One rioter pounces from behind ready to deliver a blow to the back of her head with a crowbar. Before he could, the vent that Mally threw off clonks in on the noggin, knocking in down on the pavement. The girl looks back up towards the roof of the mall, giving a warm smile. All three of them gather as the mob surround the trio. “Yo, sis. How long you think we gotta hold these assholes off?” Ty wonders. “Yeah...I’m all out of snacks...” Lequan comments. “As long as it takes, mi hermano’s. As long as it takes.” Bianca answers. Combining their power, they create a powerful energy wave that sends the crowd flying in all direction. Atop one of the roofs of Townsville, Tore continues his brawl with the bloody bounty hunter. The blue boy weaves around the hunters beasts many slashes and jumps overhead. He throws a ball of light down upon the hunter, only for his monster to slash the sphere to pieces. Renee watches as the fight unfolds from a neighboring complex. The blonde was too distracted to notice the shadowy figure behind her, inching their way ever closer. The blonde finally feels the figures presence upon her back. Was it another bounty hunter seeking to snatch her away? One of the townspeople hellbent on turning her in? Renee quickly turns around, worried who might be here to try and take her next. She’s greeted not with the menace intent of another hunter, but rather the friendly smile of a fellow blonde. “Hello!” the newcomer cheerfully greets. Renee is speechless, not entirely sure if the girls bubbly demeanor was a form of distraction or not. At this point, anything is possible. “You must be Renee. It’s so nice to finally meet you. Kingsley told me all about you during his brief call.” “You-...You know Kingsley?”. “Of course, silly. Cousin Cayenne, said you needed a ride outta town in case something happened. And Persi here is happy to help.” Hearing this calms Renee’s nerves. At least she knows her actual boyfriend is safe for the time being. “Well, you coming or what?” the bubbly blonde offers. “Oh...Um. What about him?” Renee questions, pointing towards the ensuing battle across the street. The hunter manages to get a single clean slash across Tore’s chest, leaving the blue boy with a torn up suit and a scar. The indigo agent doesn’t even hesitate in pain before lunging after his bloody foe. Although the hunter tries to stop his approach with his beasts extending claws, the blue angel slips between the red razors. Tore delivers a blow to the hunters midsection, sending the hunter a way across the neighboring rooftop. The crimson hunter stops himself from falling over the edge with his familiars claws. Witnessing his blue adversary on the approach, he has his demon dig its claws through the roof below. As Tore encroaches upon the man, he stops short just when a blood red pike burst from the rooftop before him. Soon, more spikes pop out around him, threatening to skewer him in like a red and blue shish kabob. He ascends in hopes of evading a puncturing fate, but find the needles below to be growing after him. Tore looks over to find the hunter himself, completely wide open for a swift counter attack. He shoots out a beam of light towards the unguarded hunter, the ensuing blast covering him in smoke. That had to have rattled him. Time to end this. The blue boy to heads down to finish the fight once and for all. Right when he closes in, several red razors erupt from the dust and pierce themselves all throughout Tore’s body. The blondes look on in horror as the hunter tosses his limp body in the alley below and tumble down in a bleeding mess. “He he he...Now that that brats outta my hair, time for me to go reap the spoils.” Having that said, the crimson hunter looks over to the Renee and Persi and approaches the edge of the building facing the two. His demon extends its claws over towards the complex across the street and digs its claws into the roof. Leaping over the street as the claws retract towards the building, he lands with a loud thud. Seeing the bounty hunter begin to slowly approach, Persi sweeps Renee off her feet and takes off in their escape. The demons claws extend towards the two, determined to not let his prize escape after all the trouble he went through. Right when Persi’s leg was in reach, the blood hunter feels something tug his beast back. Behind him was the boy that he just skewered, holding his conjoined familiar in a choke hold and pulling it back. “What you think you’re doing, huh? I’m not even close to finished.” “What!? How-How are you alive!? I skewered you to a bloody mess!” Instead of answering his question, Tore lifts his bloody foe in the air and throws him down on the rooftop below, shaking the foundation of the building. Their worry of him having been put rest, Renee and Persi fly off towards the city. Getting back up from his slam down, the hunter watches in disappointment as his bounty flies into the distance. A growl escapes his mouth as he stand, he looks over to Tore with a vengeful glare. “Kid, you’re gonna pay for letting my bounty escape. I’m gonna tear you into so many pieces, they won’t tell which part of you is which.” A smile draws on the blue angels face as he cracks his knuckles. “About time you got serious. I was worried that the party might be dying down.” Within the barren walls of a part of the mall, puffs of smoke expel from thin air. Two coughing teenagers emerge from the dissipating clouds and notice one another in their sites. “Melvin?” “Chloe?” “How did you...How did we get here?” the red head wonders. “Not sure. Picked a weird card off the wall. Suddenly shot out smoke in my face. Still got some on my lungs.” “You too? Weird.” “The hell are we anyway?” Melvin wonders. Taking in their surroundings, the pair find themselves surrounded by shelves of boxes alongside some loading equipment. Rows of garage doors line the wall to their side, with a regular door at the far, far end of the hall. “Looks like were in the malls loading docks.” Chloe elaborates. “Aw, bitchin. That cuts out the disguise bullshit. We can just fly right on outta here. Come on.” the boy insists, rushing towards one of the garage doors. “Hang on a second!” The red head obviously knew that all this was far too suspicious to pass off and attempts to stop her bullheaded boyfriend. Right within the doors reach, something erupts from the pavement before Melvin, halting his escape. Backing away, he found his obstruction to be a massive line of dominoes that cover the garage doors. “The fuck?” he wonders. Trying to blast the wall away proved fruitless, as Chloe’s shot leaves not a single scratch. In their moment of confusion, the lights above them go out. With only the glow of the Chloe's charm to lead them, the couple gather upon each others backs. “The hell’s happening” Melvin questions. “We stumbled our asses in a trap is whats happened.” The two prepare themselves, ready for whatever horrors were waiting to pounce out from the pitch black darkness of the loading docks. In that very moment, a single spotlight shines down upon the couple, enveloping them within its glow. A feminine voice breaks through the shadows and reaches their ears, echoing with the announcement: “Welcome, one and all, to the experience of a lifetime. The lucky couple before us has been given the honor of witnessing on all exclusive show. Please give a warm round of applause to...” The spotlight venture to the other side of the docks, illuminating an elegantly carved wooden box that rises from the pavement. Out from the inside of the box walks out a tuxedo dressed woman, complete with fishnet stockings, cape, and a top hat. “The elegantly magical Palmove!” the woman finishes, matching the previous announcement in voice. The magician looks towards her guests and finds the couple staring at her not in utter amazement, but baffling confusion. She however takes their silence as the former and gives out a light chuckle alongside: “I’m glad to find to find my amazing entrance as made you two speechless already. If you’re impressed now, just wait until the show truly begins.” “Just what in the hell is going on here?” Chloe question. “Yeah, spill it bitch! The fuck is your deal!” Melvin threatens. “Well, don’t you suppose that answer is obvious by now?” A wand sliping from her sleeve, she points over towards the red head. A second spotlight shines down upon Chloe upon her wands command. “You, Chloe Spicer, have been invited to be whisked away towards your destiny. That destiny being to help me fulfill my dreams of riches. Once I claim the reward, I’ll take my act and go global. Maybe even partake in an audience beyond the stars. But!...Before we depart...Allow me to present you and your beloved the greatest show of your lives. Desired or otherwise.” Her announcement finished, light floods the docks once more. The elegantly magical Palmove begins her act with but simple card tricks, the contents of her deck traveling from within her sleeves, around her vixen figure. The pair stand back, awaiting for whatever the magician prepares to uses her deck for. Aware of the exit on the far side of the loading docks, Chloe looks about for whatever escape they could utilize in case they were to get walled off. To her right was another door leading out to the rest of the mall. Not the most ideal means of escape, alongside the countless rioters awaiting them on the other side. Best to leave that as a last resort. Above was an air vent installed in the roof, locked behind the security of a grate which could be easily blasted off. It be a better way out, but the ceiling is quite a ways up. Depending on the capabilities of their tricky adversary, the magician could interrupt their flight and prevent their escape. In the midst of her pondering, the red head proves to be far too distracted to find Palmove tossing a pinch of her deck in their direction. After tackling Chloe out from the cards lethal edges, Melvin lunges forth towards the performer, aiming to bring a premature end to her deadly show. “Melvin, wait!” With but a tip of her top hat, the magician lets out a flock of pigeons onto her guest. Overwhelmed by the feathery flock, Melvin attempts in vain to swat the storm away. Chloe rushes toward her boyfriend in hopes of assisting him, but is unsuspectingly snagged. From her leg, a rainbow of tied together ribbons envelop themselves all throughout her person. Wrapped in their binds, Chloe is whisked in the air, hung from the ceiling like a colorful mess of streamers. “Behold, the fiery teenager, entrapped within the folds of her colorful cocoon. Now for my next act, I require a someone from the audience. Any soul brave enough to volunteer?” Amidst the swarming flock, Melvin lunges towards the elegant Palmove in a blind fury. The magician remains patient among the rapidly encroaching teenager, awaiting until the very moment he approached to erect another box that traps the boy within. “Splendid.” With that warning said, she opens the folds of her tuxedo, letting free a flurry of blades erupt from the sides of her chest. The countless swords float through the airs of the dock, surrounding the box Melvin was trapped within. The red head hanging over head knew all to well what the show entailed, struggling to free herself among the tight grip of her ribbon prison. “Best watch carefully now. This trick could prove itself to be a little dicey.” With a wave of her wand, the magicians commands her countless blades to all lunge forth towards the box before them. Using the power of her stone, she creates a small pink knife and tears out from her rainbow imprisonment, Acting fast, she casts her whip towards the box her date was trapped in and pulls him out of the swords piercing stabs. The carved box breaks upon the concrete support beam, freeing Melvin from the wooden trap. “Aw. Is the show I’m putting on not grand enough for you two? Well, fret not. I have plenty of more tricks up my sleeve.” Upon another tip of the hat, something begins to erupt from the fancy head wears inside. Melvin, getting back up from his splintery trip, glances over to find a massive clown head gunning in his direction. He evades the hammering slam of the jesters head, the impact breaking through pavement pillar before the spring from behind pulls it back. The clown head continuing its destructive rampage through the docks, the couple dodge around the clowns hammering slams. Chloe attempt to shield herself from the heads impact, but her defenses are quickly broken, only managing to deflect the jesters slam. Getting behind a loading cart, Melvin kicks the piece of equipment towards the great Palmove and manages to trip the magician. The clown head retreats back into her hat upon her great flop upon the cart. Upon the magicians stumble, Chloe finds it to be the perfect moment to enact their daring retreat. She rushes over to her beloved, sweeping him off his feet as they try their luck with the outward exit. Before they could reach their means of escape, a domino wall rises from the pavement and stops them in their tracks. “Now why, pray tell, are you two in such a hurry to leave? I’d hate for you two to miss out, especially since the show is just beginning.” Once more, Palmove flips her cape, casting out a hawk from its folds that lunges its talons after the couple. Cayenne was in the midst of dragging Roy across the park by his head. Roy stops their rough travels with a blast to the spice queens side in the middle of a playground. In her short flight, she manages to come straight back upon grasping at a steel merry go round, turning about and fling herself back at the purple merc. He blocks Cayenne’s return. The impact skidding them towards a jungle gym. Roy manages to grab his opponent and drag both of them inside the metal grid. Landing inside, he makes the first move with a sweeping kick to her legs. Cayenne jumps over Roys low blow, but inadvertently hits her head on the steel bar ceiling. The merc takes this moment to grab her leg and slam her down upon the wood shaving covered ground. Down on the floor, Cayenne aims her red hot rays at Roy’s face, the black winged angel avoiding the blast by his skin. In the middle of his dodge, she then kicks him in the stomach, slamming him into the side of the gym. Seeing her on the approach with a punch at the ready, Roy evades Cayenne fist as it goes through one of the holes of the metal grid. The opportunity arising, he grabs the young woman arm from the outside holds it against the steel, pinning her within his reach. Stepping down on her closest foot, he taunts Cayenne with: “Like to see you punch your way through this.” He follows with a knee to her side, making the spice queen counter with a kick from her only free leg. Roy then delivers a swift head butt to her face in retaliation. “How bout I punch your fucking lights out instead.” the spice queen retorts. That said, Cayenne sends a heavy jab on his only arm, the blow making him release her from Roy’s entrapment. Free, the first thing she attempts is to land on more punch on the purple merc. Roy evades her swing and tackles her, bursting out from their steel grid prison. Dragged through wood chipped ground, Cayenne kicks Roy off her person and sends him careening towards the tether ball poles. He stops his flight when he grabs hold of one of the pieces of equipment and uproots the pole. Spinning the tether pole in his grip, he aims the end with the ball towards the spice queen. “Looks like you ran outta luck. I was a champ on the tether ball pole back in grade school.” Cayenne snickers at his poor attempt of a warning, mocking Roy with: “Are you fucking serious? You were the champ of a 6 year olds kids game?” “It’s more impressive than it sounds!” Roy then takes the charge, brandishing the pole in his tight grip. Seeing that he’s serious, Cayenne readies to counter. She dodges several of Roy’s swings, evading the blunt steel of the pole. The spice queen then tries to counter with another hay maker, only for Roy to twirl away her efforts. He swings the other end of the pole her way, and dodges once more. But is unexpectedly hit with the ball. Roy manages to get a couple hits in with the tether ball before wrapping the string around the young lady. The purple merc throws Cayenne over head and down on the ground before tossing both her and the pole high in the air. Cayenne quickly frees herself from her string binds and sees Roy ascending after her. Whilst grabbing the ball, she spikes the pole down towards her pursuing foe. The dark angel catches the base of the pole, stopping it mere inches from the ground. He tosses it in the air, giving him a moment to escape before Cayenne drives it into the ground with a crushing stomp. The spice queen throws the ball right into Roy’s face as he retreats, sending him flying towards the swing set. Before Roy could have the chance to crash into the swing set, Cayenne flies past and grabs a hold of one of the swings. She hopes over just as the purple merc is ready to pass and wraps the chains around him, binding the dark angel to the metal pole. Roy watches as Cayenne leap high in the air for a diving kick. Too late to break the chains. Guess he’ll have to break the swing set instead. He shifts himself over to the left just as the spice queen was about to land, instead having her break the pole he was tied to. Seeing her ready a stream of flames, Roy breaks out of his chain prison before Cayenne could roast him alive. Flying up to evade her fiery blaze, Roy lands atop the massive structure of playground equipment. Cayenne bears witness as the dark angels single hand arises. From it, a ball of dark energy begins to grow. She attempts to halt his charge with a shot from her eye lasers, however misses as Roy simply leaps over the beam. His figure overshadows the glow of the full moon. The perfect moment to strike. Roy casts his sphere of shadows towards his red hot adversary. The spice queen evades the overwhelming darkness as it consumes half of the playground into its void. Landing, she looks around the once joyous play center, now left as nothing but a demolished wreck in the wake of their duel. “Where the fuck did he go?” she wonders aloud. In her search for Roy, she fails to notice the purple merc himself lunging towards her and is promptly tackled. Their trip leads them up a wayward slide, their speed sending them rocketing into the night sky. Grabbing hold of the magicians legs, Chloe uses her whip to toss Palmove into the shelves full of boxes. The show stopper crashes into the shelf, toppling over countless boxes that pile on her. A moment of awkward calm passes, Melvin and Chloe gather and wonder if a crash like that really could have done her in. Maybe now would be the right moment to make their escape? Alas, the opportunity passes when the boxes burst out and from the seems; black streaks rapidly travel all throughout the docks, all the walls and through the ceiling. As the couple watch the streaks speed along their gaze, they hare the sound of Palmove’s voice announce from thin air: “I suppose now would be the perfect moment for us to play a little guessing game.” Finally, they come to a halt, revealing themselves to be massively oversized hats. “I’m offering the two of you the chance to go free. All you have to do is guess which of these hats I may be hiding in and I’ll let the lovely couple walk out with no strings attached. But pick carefully now, choose wrong and you’ll be in for quite the nasty surprise.” The red head glances to where the hats came to a stop. While one rested upon the floor in front of them, the other she could find on the ceiling, blocking their exit. She turns her gaze over to her last resort escape, finding it blocked off by the final hat. “She can’t be fucking serious, right?” Melvin wonders. With rash consideration, she tries her luck with the hat on the roof, hoping to blast it away and reach the air vents before the magician reveals whatever nasty surprise Palmove has in store. Upon the beams impact, the novelty over sized head wear explodes in a mess of smoke and confetti the engulfs the entire loading docks. Upon the smoke clearing, Chloe finds herself entrapped within the confines of a glass cage. The transparent wall of her prison gave her a clear view of her date, strapped to the metal bindings of a spinning wheel. Struggling to break free from the steel braces holding his limbs, he demands someone: “Get me the fuck out of this god damn thing!” “Now why on earth would I do that?” Palmove wonders, stepping within the boys sites. “Especially in the midst of the finale?” Both witness conjure her entire deck from the folds of her sleeves, the cards rapidly slithering through her figure like snakes coiling through their master. Realizing what the magician was about to do, Chloe attempts to free herself from the clear walls of her prison. Before she could shatter the glass, puffs of smoke began filling the tank. “Chloe!” Melvin shouts. “Never fret. Tis simply knockout gas. The red head shall remain unharmed. Not sure the same could be said about you though.” the magician explains, enveloping her eye site within the cloth wrappings of a blindfold. Some of her cards slither their way betwixt the gaps of her gloved fingers, Palmove priming to throw her deck towards the spinning teenager. Pushing the rising gas aside, the red head tries to free herself once more, aiming her ray towards the glass. Firing, the laser ricochets off the wall, bouncing throughout the confines of her cage. She ducks down in an effort to avoid having her head popped of by her own beam, holding her breath against the rising gas. Shortly, the ray hits the ground next to her, scorching the pavement. She rises from the gas, taking in whatever fresh air was left within the chamber as she helplessly watches the magician ready to toss out her deck towards her wheel bound boyfriend. With no further hesitance, Palmove rapidly tosses out most of her deck towards Melvin, the boy closing his eyes as he await for his end. Feeling next to no pain, he opens his eyes once more, finding not a single card had pierced his body, simply only surrounding the outline of his figure. Frightened looks upon both her guests faces, the magician unfurls her blindfold, letting a joyous laughter escape her lungs, after which commenting: “Oh boy. I always get a kick out of their faces when I finish that trick. But...” She draws an ace of spades from her sleeve, aiming her final card towards the boys chest. “Alas, the curtains call and my show must come to an end.” Seeing Palmove ready to throw her final card, Melvin attempts in vain to release himself once more. His girlfriend struggles to free herself from her glass prison, the gas filling the cage beginning to overwhelm her. “The two of you have made a wonderful audience and I wish you all a farewell.” Right on the cusp of casting the lethal edges of her ace, something bursts out from the air vent above. The grate falls, the pixie dress skater rapidly descending from the ventilation. The magician looks above, just in time for both to crash upon her. “Ah! Man, my ass hurts! What did I land on?” Getting up from her rough landing, Mally looks about, seeing the couple within their strange prisons. “Um...Did I-Did I miss something?” “Just get us one of here, already!” Melvin demands. “Whoa, okay! Jeez.” She casts her trusty grapplyo, latching onto one of Melvin’s braces and pulling it off the wheel. As Melvin frees himself from the rest of his metal bindings, Mally scanned through the domino walled docking bay, searching for whatever could smash through Chloe’s transparent prison. The only thing around remotely hard enough was a chunk of the concrete support beam that broke of during the clown heads rampage. Perfect! Without hesitance, she wraps her yoyo’s string around the concrete chunk and swings it about. Around the docking bay she twirls the rock, gradually picking up speed until the moment of truth. Finally, she flings the boulder into the cage, shattering its transparent walls to pieces and releasing the gas engulfing the red head. Mally quickly approaches her the moment Melvin frees himself, finding Chloe’s unconscious body among the shards of glass. “Chloe?” she worries as the skater reaches out. Melvin quickly sweeps her body off the concrete and glass, attempting to wake her with: “Chloe? Chloe!? Come on girl, wake up!” Opening her eyes, the red head was met with the site of her date, taking in the view of his relieved smile. “Mel-...Melvin!” She swiftly holds the boy within her embrace, lamenting with: “Oh my god! I’m so glad you’re alive. I don’t know what I do if you wound up dead.” “Girl, relax. Its gonna take more than some sharp ass card bullshit to keep me down.” After a brief moments of staring into each others gazes, their lips entangle together in a moment of passion. The site of their make out session breaks Mally’s heart to pieces, shattering whatever fantasies the skater desired to make into a reality. The thought of rescuing the her crush from impending danger, sweeping the red head off her feet and within her longing arms, destroyed. The possible romance she hoped would blossom from the aftermath of the disaster, spoiled. The dream of sharing countless moments of intertwining passion, embraced within each others grasp, vanished. All of those hopes and dreams, all for not. Their moment of passion ceasing, the couple look towards their rescuer, noticing her disbelieving stare. “Yo, you feelin okay?” Melvin asks her. Mally snaps out of her heartbroken trance, stuttering to answer his with the false answer: “Uh...Y-yeah...I’m fine.” “Why are you even here anyway? Weren’t you going to a ball or something?” Chloe wonders. “Uh, yeah. I was. But with the whole town going crazy like this, Kingsley was worried about you. Since I was close, he wanted me to help you out until your parents came.” In the midst of the trio’s mingling, they fail to notice Palmove rising from the pavement. Glancing upwards, she looks from where Mally had fallen upon her and covers the air vent with a domino. With that taken care of, she looks backs towards her audience, failing to even notice the magicians reawakening, paying special attention to her uninvited guest. How dare that orange haired brat spoil the climax of her finale, drawing her guests attention away from the show? This rowdy showstopper will pay for her grave interruption. Dunking her in a tank full of sharks should prove swimmingly. “Really love your dress by the way. Where’d you get it?” Chloe asks. Melvin ventures his gaze off from the conversation, noticing the magician casting out a stream of ribbons in their direction. “Oh, this? I had it for a little while. I actually got it from-”. “Get down!” the boy warns, tackling both ladies from the ribbons reach. The tied cloths within her reach, Mally catches the magicians tether aside and jerks her aside, sending her careening into one of the domino walls. Seeing the magicians momentarily down, Chloe pushes Melvin and Mally off her person and fires at the door. The results of the haste fueled blast fail to go unnoticed by the rioting mall goers, beginning to follow the smoke of the aftermath. From the smoke, their hunt bursts out, the red heads friends in her grasp as she escapes from the loading docks. Almost immediately, they begin to give chase, waiting not a single moment to unload whatever they had at the trio in hopes of shooting out of the sky. “We need to bail! Now!” Melvin insists. “What does it look like I’m doing!? But, I can’t find an exit anywhere in site!” “I found a glass ceiling not too far from where we’re at! In the plaza!” With that, the three rocket through the mall, hoping the ascending storm of bullets fail to halt their departure.

[allythurston2]

Blog #1: Examining Youth Culture

This week we were assigned to watch four films and one television show that encouraged us to examine youth culture. These films and the television show took place in different time periods, ranging from the 1980’s up until the present.  When watching these films, I occasionally found myself identifying with characters and some of their actions. Surprisingly, I identified with Brian from The Breakfast Club. Like Brian, I was very shy and nerdy. My parents put a lot of pressure on me to do well, I was the oldest sibling which meant I had to set a good example. I was easily intimidated by others just as Brian was intimidated by John. I also had a huge respect for authority, I was very careful to not get in trouble. Seeing Brian constantly cut off during conversation was like looking in a mirror. Being soft spoken, when I did talk, I was talked over constantly, which added to my reasoning to just not talk at all. I never really pictured myself relating to him, I have watched the movie before, but I never really saw the connection until watching it again for my communications class.  

While these films were all different in their own ways, they each presented similar themes. The first theme that popped out to me was acceptance. Many of the characters in these films were seeking the acceptance of the people they surrounded themselves with as well as self-acceptance. In the show Euphoria we are introduced to an array of characters, each fighting their own battles. One character in particular named Kat stood out to me. Kat was always considered the less attractive member of her four-girl friend group. Boys often referred to her as “fat” because she did not fit the typical size 4 boy type that many find attractive. Unlike many characters who were seeking the approval of others, Kat seemed more focused on seeking approval from herself. She showed clear signs of being insecure, but after a video of her preforming a sexual act ended up online that all changed. She blossomed, developing this “hot girl” mentality once she realized how many people found her attractive the way she was. She found the acceptance within herself that she desperately needed. In the film Mean Girls, Cady was a prime example of someone who was seeking acceptance from others. She wanted to fit in so bad that she gave up who she was, transforming herself to fit into the Plastic’s cookie cutter standards. She left behind her genuine friends in order to be accepted by the popular crowd who in all reality did not like her in the first place. Both of these characters can be compared to the youth of today. Today’s youth seek acceptance, whether it be from others or themselves, it seems to be a common goal among many. When I was a teenager I wanted so badly to be accepted, but I was quiet, and awkward, a combination that did not exactly scream “cool”. I found myself struggling to remain true to who I was while also trying desperately to find the “group” that I fit in with. While I struggled for most of my high school experience trying to accept myself as well as be accepted, I ultimately had a revelation my senior year that the only person who needs to accept me is me. I focused on loving myself for me and have not looked back since.  Another theme I felt was present in these films would be the common goal to live life to the fullest. Many characters were focused on attending the next party or living their life the way they wanted to, regardless of consequences. In Mid90s the skater crowd just wanted to skate and party, they did not care who it effected in the process as long as they were having a good time. In Kids, Telly was focused on partying and being sexually active. He had no regard for the safety of himself or the girls he was involved with which ultimately was a major downfall. I feel that the youth today still possess the same mindset. Parties are still happening regularly even though we are in a pandemic. People do not care if they get sick, all that matters is they were living their life to the fullest and on their terms. While I was awkward in my youth, I still attended parties regularly. I was friends with people who were at every party every weekend it seemed, and I truthfully enjoyed every moment of it. Thinking back on it now, I was reckless, but being reckless made me feel alive. I feel that everyone at some point goes through their “I’m indestructible” phase of life, but that phase can really humble you. Living life to the fullest is what being young seems to be all about. A final theme I found common amongst all of the films was the theme of sexuality. While it was more present in films like Kids and Euphoria versus the film The Breakfast Club, I felt its something definitely worth mentioning. Sexuality is very prominent in youth culture. Teenagers are experimenting with not only sex but discovering their own sexuality. Promiscuity is no stranger to many high school students, it seemed like high school was a common time for many to figure out who they were sexually. While in that department I am a very private person, I will say that high school was not really the time for me to come to terms with any type of sexuality. I did however witness many of my friends go on their journey of sexual discovery, and I learned a lot from their stories. In high school I felt that everyone always knew who was sexually active and who was not. It always seemed like people would have all this knowledge on other’s personal lives, but not by their choice. People talked; privacy was virtually nonexistent. It seemed as if nothing was sacred, and while the girls definitely did their fair share of talking, it always seemed like the most outlandish stories came from the boys. The scene in Kids where Telly and his friends were talking about girl’s sexual preference and Jennie and her friends were talking about their own preference is what I imagined these conversations actually went like during my time in high school. Being the quiet girl met people always felt comfortable talking about things around me, and I can recall more then one occasion hearing both genders sides of an encounter and let me tell you they were always extremely different.

When watching these movies, I noticed one other big thing outside of my relation to a character and the very prominent themes all the films appeared to share. I noticed the music, and how it set the overall narrative of the film. I noticed how in each film when there was something traumatic or sad occurring the music reflected the feeling the scene was meant to give. When there was a party going on or when characters were doing something fun the music was fast or upbeat. The music helped set the overall vibe and tone for what was happening, it’s almost as if it gave you an indication of what was going to happen. I took the time to create a spotify playlist which I will link below this post. Each song I chose because I feel it reflected my experiences during my youth well. The first song I chose is “Kids in Love” by Mayday Parade. This song reminds me of the silly romances I had throughout my youth. I always thought I was in love, but at that age who didn’t. The second song I chose was “Therapy” by All Time Low. I was a very angsty and depressed kid, I listened to this song on repeat when I would go through my frequent, spurts of depression. While the song itself is sad, it oddly brought me comfort. The third song I chose was “Killing in The Name” by Rage Against The Machine. This song is a bit strange, but the ending in particularly reminded me of my mentality during my youth. There is a lot of colorful language in the song, but I felt the ending, which essentially is saying I’m going to do what I want, was spot on with my overall attitude during the age of sixteen to seventeen. The fourth song I chose is “Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks. I have always idolized Stevie, I would listen to this car during the warmer months, driving with the windows down, and feeling as free as a bird. Honestly anything by Stevie put me in a good mood, I would drive around singing her music at the top of my lungs quite frequently. The fifth song I chose was “ I Want You To Want Me” by Cheap Trick. This song represents my desire to be wanted by someone, which I feel everyone can relate to. I wanted to be in love, I wanted someone to be crazy about me. I watched way too many romance movies during my youth, hence my minor obsession with love. For my sixth song I chose “Rock and Roll All Nite” by KISS. This one I feel is self-explanatory, I wanted to party all the time! This song is fun and upbeat and to this day I still enjoy it. For my seventh song I chose “I Will Not Bow” by Breaking Benjamin. This song represents my depression, I refused to allow it to break me. I shut myself away from the world a lot, I was “a cold-blooded fake” at times. This song pulled me out of some pretty dark times, I still listen to it when I find myself in a less then ideal head space to remind me that I am strong and “will not break”. The eight song I chose is also slightly morbid but is one of my favorites. I chose “Can You Feel My Heart” by Bring Me The Horizon. The lyrics “I’m scared to get close, and I hate being alone, I long for the feeling to not feel at all, the higher get, the lower I’ll sink, I can’t drown my demons, they know how to swim” was essentially my headspace when I was sixteen. To say mentally I was going through it would be an understatement. This song was not around when I was a teen, but when I first heard it my mind instantly went back to that time. My ninth choice is far less morbid, I chose “First Date” by Blink-182. It reminds me of the nerves and craziness of a first date. It embodies the awkwardness that you feel at the beginning and then the happiness and excitement that followed. The final song I chose is “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance. This one I chose because to me it is the anthem of what being a teenager is! Teenagers can be scary with how little care or regard for safety they have. They’re wild and angsty. I like how this song covers how mean some cliques could be too, it overall is just a really cool song in my opinion. While my song choices are a bit all of the place, I feel my wide variety of genres and songs paint the picture of who I was during my youth. I was a mess, but I made the best out of it. 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0pvLKBWYfBXFGyloP2Bu8K?si=2oJOguBYTguW12UIhhtdHQ&utm_source=native-share-menu

[talabib]

How To Stop Living For Others And Start Living For Yourself

Take a minute and answer these questions: Why are you in your current job? How did you choose your major in college? Why don’t you spend all your time on your favorite hobbies? To the first question, you probably said, “The job pays enough money.” The second: “My parents told me to get a career.” And the third, “Hobbies all the time? That would be selfish.”

These answers highlight what’s wrong with many of our choices in life: we do what others tell us, or what we think we are “supposed” to do. What you really want deep down rarely enters the equation. This has to change. You need to start living for yourself and start doing what you love doing!

Your negative beliefs are the biggest obstacle between you and your dreams.

If you feel that you’re an undiscovered genius lost in the daily grind of a dead-end job, you need to ask yourself – what’s holding you back? Most likely it’s you, or more specifically, your negative beliefs.

What we believe is largely based on the messages with which we’ve been bombarded since we were very young. Your parents, for instance, might have told you that nobody in the family has ever been any good at making money. The more you hear this message, the more likely your brain and subconscious will believe it’s true.

The result? You’ll shy away from pursuits that could lead to financial success, from learning about investment strategies to pursuing an MBA – all because you’ve convinced yourself that trying to make money is pointless.

Such negative beliefs are known as the Big Snooze. It’s this part of your personality that keeps you from chasing your dreams. Fortunately, you’re more than capable of freeing yourself from the crippling power of the Big Snooze. How? By adopting positive beliefs that allow you to have faith in yourself.

Start by reflecting on who you are as if you were another person entirely. Admire your strengths, and think honestly about all the good things you could say about yourself.

Use these reflections as the basis for some positive beliefs. When you believe that you’re talented, that your ideas are worthwhile and that you have something to offer the world, the negative attitudes that you’ve carried with you for so long will cease to hold you back. It’s at this point that your journey begins.

Discover the person you want to be and don’t let anyone tell you to quit.

When we’re young, we have an intuitive understanding of who we are and how we do things. But as we grow older, we stop listening to this inner knowledge and do what others tell us to do.

If you want to make your ambitions reality, you need to embrace your inner badass. Once you stop caring about what other people think, you can find your own path!

Do you dream of becoming an author? To do this, you’ll have to write a lot! This, in turn, likely requires you to carve out free time while you hold down a job that helps you pay the rent.

Colleagues may snicker about your “hobby.” Friends may drift away as you spend less time with them and more time on your novel. These changes can be bitter, but you have to push on if you want to get published.

Appreciate that you’re doing your own thing, and you’ll find the strength to ignore the disapproval of others. Granted, it’s not always easy to discover your “thing.” The demands or pressures of friends and family hem many of us in. But if you decide to become a doctor or a store manager just because it’s family tradition, you’ll wind up hating your job and your choices.

So listen to your intuition and take a step back to observe how you live, what you do and what really interests you. Reflecting in this way will help you discern what you truly want from life. If you’re yearning to become a blacksmith, for example, then accept this fact and go for it!

Express a desire to learn, cultivate gratitude, and learn how to forgive for a happier, richer life.

Your time on this earth is limited – so make the best of it! Every day offers a chance to enjoy and celebrate life’s journey, though it’s all too easy to forget this in the rush and bustle of modern life. There are three things you can do to value each day a little more:

First, change your attitude to challenging tasks. Rather than approaching a problem like an expert, consider yourself an avid learner. People with a passion to learn don’t feel pressure to prove their abilities, which means they don’t grapple with the fear of failure, either. Mistakes are no longer frightening but a welcome part of the learning journey. Let’s say you’re a professional ice skater. If you see yourself as a champion, every fall can feel like failure and a blow to your self-esteem. But if you’re instead a lifelong learner, you’ll approach new challenges with a playful attitude, with more courage to take risks that in turn help you learn more.

Second, make an effort to express and experience gratitude daily. Gratitude isn’t about showing appreciation for the sake of being polite – it’s a positive state of being. By being grateful, you keep all the good things in life in the foreground of your thoughts. And by practicing and sharing gratitude, you can help others stay positive, too. Say, for example, you work in a tight-knit team. You can practice gratitude by focusing on what your team does well. Perhaps you’re able to keep communication transparent, open and kind. Or your team strives to keep egos in check. Whatever it is, be thankful for it! And thank every member for the things they do well.

Finally, you can improve each day by learning to forgive others and yourself, too. If someone hurts you or betrays you, the incident will trouble you until you forgive them. Why? Because forgiveness allows you to move forward in life. The same goes for something you might have done that you now regret. If you’ve done your best to make amends, it’s time to forgive yourself. By accepting yourself and your mistakes, you’ll be able to free yourself from negative thoughts and sleepless nights.

Your thoughts are powerful, so make them work for you!

In our modern world, we’re hyper-focused on action. Thinking things over and taking time to develop ideas, on the other hand, are habits that we don’t often practice. But we should.

Perhaps you want to become a writer, but the road to becoming a published author is unclear. To uncover the how of this process, you might look to literary role models and examine how they achieved their dreams to find inspiration for your own path.

As you feel your way and progress, you’ll begin to feel comfortable calling yourself a writer. Thinking of yourself as the person you want to be is another powerful way to make your thoughts work for you.

By acting as if the thing you want is already a reality, negative thoughts won’t be able to hold you back. In other words, fake it ‘til you make it!

If you dream of becoming a great speaker but are afraid of addressing a crowd, don’t focus on your trembling hands or timid voice. Instead, visualize yourself delivering fantastic speeches, and you’ll soon be presenting more confidently. The more speeches you give, the more your confidence will grow, and the more your public speaking will improve – this is called a virtuous circle.

Tackle procrastination, excuses and hesitation

Thought is a powerful tool when it comes to achieving your goals, but it must be combined with real action. To act positively, you need to first overcome the drag of procrastination and hesitation.

When we procrastinate, we let the fear of failure stop us from following through on decisions. If you think that you’re not qualified to perform a certain task, you’ll look for any reason not to try it. Thoughts like “My writing isn’t good enough” or “It’ll never pay the way” will only hold you back.

To overcome these excuses, you need to convince yourself of your purpose. If your resolve is weak, this may be a sign that you need to redefine your goals.

Taking action also requires you to overcome hesitation. This isn’t easy! Often, we hesitate when we’re scared to become someone we might not like. Let’s say that your dream is to become a stage actor, holding the attention of appreciative audiences and commanding a powerful presence.

But you hesitate when you seriously consider this goal. After all, you’ve never liked extroverts, and it seems to you that most people judge such people negatively, too. Will becoming an actor turn you into the very person you dislike? Short answer – no. You simply need to learn to overcome your hesitation.

To do this, you need to stop judging others. Then spend time asking yourself tough questions, like “Do I really want to become an actor?” or “Will it make me happy?”

If you answer yes to these questions, then it’s time to recognize your hesitation and procrastination for what they really are. No more excuses!

Focus all aspects of your life toward your goal.

So you’ve decided to change your life path to work toward your dream goal. But how far will you go? Too often talented people don’t live their dreams because they give up too soon.

Remember that failure is a fact of life, and we all experience rejection. Basketball legend Michael Jordan didn’t make the cut for his high school basketball team; renowned movie director Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school three times!

While rejection is a part of anyone’s journey, quitting is something you should never do. Instead, learn from your mistakes and keep pushing until you create the life you’ve always wanted.

To overcome the temptation to give up, you need to remain responsible in all aspects of your life. If your habits, surroundings or circle of friends make it harder for you to achieve your goals, it’s time to make some thoughtful changes.

In fact, creating a new environment and lifestyle centered around your life purpose is one of the best ways to stay on track.

If you’re an aspiring writer, surround yourself with people who have similar passions. Start and end your day in ways that will help you reconnect with your goals. Explore new groups, places and communities that can provide you with more support as you push forward.

It’s also worth reflecting on how you think about money. While it’s good to be conscientious about saving and spending, choosing to spend big from time to time is justified if doing so will improve your life. Use your money to live the life you want in accordance with your life goals!

Ultimately, your new life will emerge through clear intentions, powerful desires and action. Don’t care about what others think, and crucially, give yourself permission to live your dreams!

To stop living for others and live for yourself., learn to pinpoint the things in your life that are holding you back and make changes to how you live and think to address these blocks. Importantly, don’t let anyone distract you from doing what you love! Soon enough, you’ll find yourself living a life of which you’ve always dreamed.

[aion-rsa]

Julie and the Phantoms’ Charmingly Cute Queer Romance

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This article contains spoilers for Julie and the Phantoms season 1.

For all the improvements in queer representation in children’s entertainment there are still only a few shows that have queer characters and even less have them take center stage. We’ve seen a growing number of queer main cast members in recent years but many of them (such as She-Ra and Adventure Time) only confirmed their leads were queer in the final episode. 

Others have queer leads but their queerness isn’t a major factor in the show. There’s of course something to be said for a character being queer and it just being a small part of who they are. Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts is a great example of this casual queerness and the romance between Benson and Troy is delightful. For audiences starved for representation however, there’s often a desire for a character’s queerness to be more prominent. For it not to be something quietly revealed and then hardly mentioned again or only given small scenes in a few episodes. As much as queer people are more than just their queerness, it’s nice to see that part of themselves which is so often neglected in media given prominence.

Wonderfully, Netflix’s Julie and the Phantoms is not only making its queer characters central to the plot but also making their queerness very important to it.

The musical comedy drama series follows three teen musicians, Luke, Reggie, and Alex who died in the ‘90s after eating some bad hot dogs just before they played the biggest gig of their lives. In 2020 the three appear as ghosts to teen Julie and together they form a band, the titular Julie and the Phantoms, and whenever they perform the ghosts can be seen by the world. It’s a charmingly wholesome series that features a serialized plot across its nine-episode first season.

One of the main stories running throughout follows Alex (played with much charm by Owen Patrick Joyner), the bands drummer, who’s also gay. His band mates are 100% accepting of it but the show wisely establishes in the second episode that before he died Alex’s parents hadn’t accepted him. There are many valid stories to be told about queer kids dealing with unaccepting parents but Julie and the Phantoms simply uses this to acknowledge the reality of many queer kids in the ‘90s before moving on to something far more sweet and uplifting. Giving Alex a crush.

In episode three, ‘Flying Solo,’ Alex is on his own in Hollywood when, after passing through living people, he collides into a teen skater boy. As the boy takes his helmet off in slow motion, Alex is immediately smitten and it’s not subtext. A sick guitar riff plays, which Netflix’s subtitles describe as “seductive rock music,” and Alex’s mouth is agape. The skater boy introduces himself as Willie (Booboo Stewart, turning in an endearingly warm performance) and the whole scene is a perfect meet cute. The two share some awkwardly sweet introductions, Willie casually revealing he died in a skating accident, Alex sharing his nagging questions about why he became a ghost, and they even share some jokes about Alex dying by hot dog.

In this sweet and adorable exchange, filled with longing looks between the two, Willie explains the upsides to ghost life.

“Being a ghost lets me do my favorite thing… skate anywhere I want without getting busted. I mean, bro, when I’m not skating here or the beach, I’m skating Justin Bieber’s empty pool.”

Alex responds, clearly drinking in Willie’s looks, with a simple, “Wow!” before admitting he has no idea who Justin Bieber is. (Remember, he died in the ‘90s.)

What’s so great about their meeting is that there’s no room for ambiguity. Even if you somehow missed the obvious chemistry between the two, and Willie giving Alex the cute nickname “hot dog”? When Willie skates away Alex tells a human who can’t see him, “he’s cute, huh?”

It’s refreshing to see something so simple between two queer teens, sharing the kind of scene straight characters get all the time. Julie and the Phantoms isn’t the first live-action series to have queer teens, Disney’s Andi Mack previously gained a lot of positive attention for having a queer character in its cast. Still, it’s wonderful to see just how much screen time Alex and Willie get over the course of Julie and the Phantoms’ fist season.

Other series might have had that scene I described above be the big gay moment of the show and then have Alex and Willie’s romance fade into the background but this is not the case for Julie and the Phantoms. The two share major scenes in all but one of the episodes for the rest of the series.

They share cute moments, like when the two visit a museum and we get some cute hand holding and a heartwarming moment of Willie helping Alex with his anxiety by encouraging him to yell a lot. Their romance forms a core part of a major overarching plot, as Willie is under the control of the Hollywood Ghost Club and accidentally puts the three ghosts under the control of its leader Caleb (Cheyenne Jackson, who’s clearly having a blast playing the villain). If they don’t join Caleb (who tempts Alex with some cute teen boy ghosts) they’ll disappear forever. Willie and Alex are the main focus of this plot, Willie even risking his soul to check in on Alex even though Caleb has warned him to stay away. Alex is hurt that Willie seemingly betrayed them, accusing,

“Why should we listen to a word you say?”

Willie, in tears, responds, “because I care about you, Alex.”

Like any good teen romance, this is the moment where you think it’s all over but the two’s feelings manage to overcome all obstacles. 

Willie can’t forgive himself for what he did, saying he should have just skated away before he told Alex about the club but Alex lovingly responds, “I would have still followed you.”

None of these scenes are short and the two’s romance is given pretty much the same amount of focus and screen time as the show’s other big romance, Luke and Julie, although Alex and Willie sadly don’t get a love duet. Both those romances are afforded the show’s biggest display of physical affection however, a hug, and I’d argue Alex and Willie’s hug feels bigger. Willie is risking his very soul to save Alex and his friends, what’s more romantic than that? He even tells Alex, “I’d do anything for you.” The hug that comes after that is charged with emotion. It feels huge.

Alex and Willie’s relationship is very tame but that’s what makes it so welcome. Speaking from experience, when I was a young kid figuring out my sexuality (I’m pansexual now) the only queer media I had access to was meant for adults. It was good to have but as a young teen the amount of sex or adult themes that were in many of those films was a lot for me. I, and many other queer kids and teens, could have used something as innocent as what you’d see in a standard Disney film. Julie and the Phantoms has given us that and more with Alex and Willie.

They’re not shunted to the side and their queerness isn’t deemphasized or hidden until the last possible moment. They get to be two gay boys with crushes on each other given a lot of screen time with room to grow if the show is given more seasons.

We even get Alex showing his queerness off in very relatable interactions with his (seemingly) straight band mates. When Reggie makes the off handed joke, “girls, am I right?”

Alex just laughs and replies, “No.”

Any queer person who’s hung out with cisgender straight guys knows how Alex feels in that moment of heteronormativity.

It’s also an unexpected delight that the acknowledgement of Alex’s parents falling out with him over his sexuality is the only time the queer characters experience hardship because they’re queer. The rest of the time they only have to deal with regular teen issues or fantastical problems. Again, queer characters being given storylines that reflect real life struggles are very important but often times it feels like queer characters are included in a show solely to go through hardship only to maybe get some happiness way later in a series’ run.

I appreciate Julie and the Phantoms for showing that making queerness a focus of the story doesn’t mean it has to involve hardship or discrimination. That, along with its commitment to making the queer characters prominent in the storyline and their romance given the same level of focus as its straight one, makes Julie and the Phantoms a welcome and needed addition to kids TV.

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By the by, a love duet between Alex and Willie next season would make it even better.

The post Julie and the Phantoms’ Charmingly Cute Queer Romance appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[tadakixd-blog]

Sendai Monument Ceremony: Part 1

- Courtesy of Mainichi

This was a really nice interview, but 45mins is a long time and I don’t want the post to become overly long, so I’ve decided to break it into parts instead. Here is roughly the first 20mins of the talk show.

Shizuka: No well, at that time Japan's Figure Skating was rather blocked off by the rest of the world, a time when we did not get through to the rest of the world. Ever since Ito Midori we didn't really.., we only had 1 spot and there were no opportunities. So it was called a Western Sport, a sport which was hard to beat the western athletes in. For myself, even when I left Japan to compete internationally, I never really even thought about winning. So therefore I didn't really...even after winning the All Japan Junior's and then following that the All Japan Nationals, I felt that at an international level, if I were to compete internationally, those wins wouldn't get (me) through. That's all I could think about. 

Yama: In other words, to Hanyu, for example if the choreographer were to say something like "maybe we should just change this part" (you'd reply with) "No way, don't be ridiculous" - is that how it is?

Yuzu: Well, if I was told "Isn't it better to change?", I would give a performance that would completely overthrow that. As if to say "did you see that?!", and "This is what I wanted to do!"

(Part of the) Full translation under the cut.

Here both are referred to as Arakawa-san and Hanyu-san, which would be Ms Arakawa and Mr Hanyu, but to me that sounds awkward and also tiring to type, so I've just stuck with their names instead.

The host is Yamamoto Hiroshi, a former NHK announcer and now a professor in sports and health science.

You can follow along with this video. Although I have included descriptions of their actions where appropriate, their interaction with each was very nice and it was a warm, comfortable interview.

Yama: Please, come to the center. Yama: Do you come back to Sendai when you are free? Shizuka: Yes I quite like Sendai so even if I don't have a reason to come back I often look for one.

Yama: Oh my..

Shizuka: Therefore I do come quite often. This time too, if I had come yesterday that would have been enough to make it for this event but I came the day before instead.

Yama: How is it? Do you have incidents were people look at your face and go "Ah it's Arakawa!"?

Shizuka: No I don't really get noticed. Yama: Eh? Shizuka: It's probably because I'm of average stature, so when I walk around... (people don't realise)

Yama: Then please, give us some of your time. Have a seat there. Shizuka: Please look after me

[0:56]

Yama: Please come in, Hanyu. Yama: You're incredibly popular! Yuzu: Thank you very much. (and then after Yama smiles and laughs, Yuzu turns to the crowd and bows again) Thank you very much

Yama: On top of that you even came back just as the cherry blossoms are at their peak!

Yuzu: Yes that's right. Last spring, because of the pain in my foot I had stayed in Canada recovering so, being able to see the cherry blossoms in Sendai makes me happy.

Yama: How is it, this air? This food? This atmosphere? (crowd claps) Yuzu: (laughs) Sendai is the best isn't it? There's good food and all too.It's really a relief (t/n: connotation of relaxed).

Yama: Yes, then please, have a seat. Yuzu: Please look after me.

[1:47]

Yama: Arakawa, this place, Sendai, used to be called the Figure Skating's place of origin (in Japan) correct?

Shizuka: For me, it was a short while after I started that I came to know of that. There is a statue at Goshikinuma (a lake in Sendai). When that statue was made, I found out that this was the place of origin for figure skating. 

(The statue is of a pair skating team doing a death spiral, and is called the origin of figure skating. An accompanying plaque tells of when FS came to Japan and the activities and teachings from an american and german skater that was then passed on to Japanese skaters)

Yama: Hanyu, when you were young, did you know of Arakawa? Yuzu: For me, I was really young and Arakawa... how do you say this she was above?...in the class? above me. I was really just, how do you say this, a regular...a regular student? I say student but well it really was a school, not a club but something like a school that I was skating at so... there were almost no chances to meet. All I knew was that we were skating at the same rink.

Yama: Ahh I see

Yama: For Arakawa, you started skating at Katsuyama Skate Centre? Shizuka: Yes I started skating at Katsuyama, and moved to what is now Ice Rink Sendai when it first opened up. 

Yama: It's at Izumi (a ward in Sendai) isn't it? Shizuka: Yes that's right. There was a Daiei (large supermarket chain) over there so even now if you tell the taxi drivers "Izumi's Daiei" they'll know where to go. It seems like people are more used to "Izumi's Daiei" than they are to "Ice Rink Sendai".

Yama: Judging from their response right? (t/n: not sure if he means the taxi drivers or the crowd, since Shizuka looks at the crowd and smiles)

Shizuka: It was since then. Probably if there is a person from Sendai, telling them "Izumi's Daiei" would give them a much clearer idea (of the location), for a long time (to come)

Yuzu: Much clearer, much clearer (nods) Yama: Yes that's right

Yama: In the first place "Sendai is really strong at figure skating!" - just exactly what is there?

Yuzu: (in response to Shizuka looking at him) What is there? (laughs) Shizuka: Yes well, in the Nagano Olympics, for all 4 disciplines, everyone was born in Sendai. I say born (t/n: this word means "come from" and usually refers to birthplace, hence she re-explains what she meant) but well, it's more like we all had a connection (to Sendai), (we were all) people who were practicing in Sendai. It just happened... yes I think it just happened to be that way.

Yama: But even so it is amazing isn't it? I mean from the 2006 olympics where Arakawa won gold to the recent great reversal in the World Championships... 

(crowd applauds and Yuzu bows and says thank you - or mouths it, his voice doesn't reach the mic)

Yama: That's why the people from Sendai, the people from Miyagi prefecture (t/n: Sendai is the capital city of Miyagi) are like "Figure skating? Leave it to us" right? (yuzu laughs) That's the kind of feeling I get.

[3:59]

Yama: So then, about the Olympics, it's been a while but let's go back to it. Arakawa, was it in '93? When you were in middle school, the All Japan Junior Competition

Shizuka: Yes Yama: you won it? Shizuka: Yes Yama: Was it around there that you went "gaaah" to the top? (he gestures an incline, and with this sound he's indicating she steadily went straight to the top)

Shizuka: No well, at that time Japan's Figure Skating was rather blocked off by the rest of the world (t/n: literally, to be hampered by the walls of the world, ie, Japan was still struggling to break into the international FS world then), a time when we did not get through to the rest of the world. Ever since Ito Midori we didn't really.., we only had 1 spot and there were no opportunities. So it was called a Western (t/n: Lit American + European) Sport, a sport which was hard to beat the western athletes in. For myself, even when I left Japan to compete internationally, I never really even thought about winning. So therefore I didn't really...even after winning the All Japan Junior's and then following that the All Japan Nationals, I felt that at an international level, if I were to compete internationally, those wins wouldn't get (me) through. That's all I could think about.

Yama: When you were in high school, you went for the Nagano Olympics right? Shizuka: Yes Yama: Was that time also a disappointing... competition? (t/n: this doesn't sound as harsh as it reads because he asked it very haltingly and she had also just expressed disappointment about not being able to win internationally)

Shizuka: At that time too.. at the world championships the year before, I had gone as a substitute then but we only managed 1 spot for the Olympics so because of that, I thought that if I could fight for that 1 spot at Nationals and become the Olympic representative, I would be happy. That's about all I had thought then, I don't think I had actually considered what I wanted to achieve at the Olympics beyond that. Ito Midori is, for sure, a special person, she was a skater who was able to get through to the rest of the world, but she was completely - we all thought our reality was different from her so thoughts like "how well could we place?" - we couldn't really see that. If it was an era like Hanyu's now then I think there would be the hope that if One worked hard then maybe One could become (like him) too. But for my generation it was still... even if you worked hard you could't even see what kind of world there would be (for you). So that's why there weren't things like disappointment with regards to the positions we won, in fact I was actually relieved that out of the 4 categories I had the most preferable position. (laughs) truthfully.

Yama: I see Shizuka: That was the kind of situation it was

[6:22]

Yama: For Hanyu, the Nagano Olympics happened just after you were born right? (t/n: the way he says this makes it sounds like he almost said you weren't born yet before he quickly changed it haha)

Yuzu: When I was 4 years...3. I was 3 years old. Yama: 3 years old. What about your skating boots? Yuzu: (seems like he might be answering Shizuka here) yes it was '94 Yama: You hadn't worn your skating boots yet? Yuzu: No I hadn't Yama: Not yet? Yuzu: Not yet Yama: So that means that during the Nagano Olympics, when your senior Arakawa Shizuka had appeared, it was long after that before you started skating right?

Yuzu: Ah...I started the year after that. In the end, the fact that in the Nagano Olympics, in the four categories, there were 4 skaters that had come from Sendai became a big topic. And then, the rink was right there, close by, and then my older sister attended (classes) there, and then I followed along - that's how it happend. So if you think about it you could say that it was thanks to the Nagano Olympics that (I) became aware of (figure skating), and started too.

Yama: So in other words - I'm not trying to stretch this connection but - starting from Arakawa, the connection of (training at) the same place continued along with these feelings.

Yuzu: Yes that's right, without a doubt Yama: Ahh it is (a) precious (thing) Shizuka: Instead of continuing it's more like he shot up far ahead right? Yuzu: No no (shakes head) Shizuka: Like pyooon (t/n: onomatopoeia for when something leaps or bounces)

Yuzu: Nothing like that, nothing like that

Yama: But after all, when there is a really amazing athlete, kids will look up to them right?

Yuzu: Yes that's right. In the same rink, having Japan's number 1 skater there, having the best skater in Japan skating at the same rink as you, just that alone, to skaters, it changes the way they feel inside. I think there is definitely something like that. "If I skate here then I'll be able to become Japan's number 1" or "I'll be able to go to the Olympics" and such, those were the kind of feelings I had.

Yama: I see

[7:57]

Yama: And then...during the Salt Lake Olympics you lost your chance...(t/n: shizuka was 2nd at nationals so could do make the Olympic team) you were in your 3rd year of university right? Did you have feelings like "I'm done with this"? Or did you feel like you'd make a strong comeback?

Shizuka: Well from the beginning I had planned to skate up till I was around 20 and when the Salt Lake Olympics happened I was just exactly 20 so I thought it was about the time that I should retire. After all, when you've been allowed to fight for so long, you want to end it off when you're pleased with and satisfied with yourself. That's how I felt and so my feeling towards my own retirement were along the lines of "let's do this all the way and finish it off" and then, with those feeings skating became fun and so even though I couldn't go to Salt Lake Olympics, I thought let's continue the year after and see and I continued that way year after year. (everyone nods)

Yama: Hanyu I think you may be interested in this (gesturing to Shizuka) but

Yuzu: Yes Yama: During the Torino olympics, the year before that there was a training camp there right? (referring to Shizuka)

Yuzu: '-' Shizuka: It was right before the olympics (not the year before) Yama: Ah right before. There, you changed your song right? Shizuka: Yes (t/n: she had changed the song she was using for her FS to her SP, and used Turandot, which she had previously used in 2004, for her FS instead)

Yama: (to Yuzu) What do you think of this? Yuzu: No... this doesn't happen... usually. Yama: Usually it doesn't! Yuzu: Yes usually it doesn't. First of all to change your song in the middle of the season is a very big decision. And well, this came to me again when I was listening to the conversation earlier but, because the program itself is completely different, (you'd have to) change everything that you had skated (and learned) up till then and that's a different kind of difficulty altogether. Also, I think just the fact that you're changing something would normally give rise to a sense of anxiety as well.

Yama: In other words, to Hanyu (t/n: you can see Yuzu starting to smilehere already as he gets the question coming), for example of the choreographer were to say something like "maybe we should just change this part" (you'd reply with) "No way, don't be ridiculous" (t/n: literally don't joke) - is that how it is?

Yuzu: Well, if I was told "Isn't it better to change?", I would give a performance that would completely overthrow that. As if to say "did you see that?!", and "This is what I wanted to do!" (audience applauds)

[9:49]

Yama: Then, during the actual day, after the SP, you were third with a very tiny difference from first, how did that factor into your strategy?

Shizuka: I felt relaxed. Definitely when there is a narrow margin, the one who is trying to catch up has it easier. So I felt that (it was nice that) I could go into the FS with this good placement order. 

Yama: Right after drawing the order of skate, there is the official practice session right?

Shizuka: Yes Yama: I heard that alot of things happen during the practice session? Shizuka: '-'.....? Yama: I don't mean anything special by it, but do you feel like you want to show off your strong points?

Shizuka: Ah yes well...on top of what you've already prepared in your own program, the techniques,everything that you can do, you include that in your practice so if during the session your condition is good, you'd want to go with that. And then because your condition gets better, that feeling of getting better probably makes the other skaters think "ah if that's the case I can't lose too". That's why I think that when there's a narrow margin, if the skater who is behind does well during practice, it puts alot of pressure on the skaters at the top.

Yama: In other words even though it is not your own performance (t/n: that is, they practice other things beyond the program), you can still put pressure on your rivals?

Shizuka: Yes...that's right. If you think about it, it's a mental psychological battle, the Olympics. Therefore, it's not very nice when, as an opponent, you feel "ah this person seems to be in a really good condition", right? (she looks towards yuzu who nods vigorously)

Shizuka: So becoming someone who can make others feel that way, being able to control the competition such that it meshes with your own situation is a very important thing. Having said that, in reality if you put everything together (for your practice) you might feel troubled because you'd feel like you can't fail and you might end up being overtaken with those feelings instead, which happens often to skaters - for me too, I felt this way instead so maybe I was that kind of person (who became troubled)

[11:57]

Yama: At that time your rivals were Sasha Cohen and Slutskaya weren't they. Hanyu do you feel like what she has said resonates with you?

Yuzu: Yes I understand, completely. Definitely you watch the skaters around you alot more than one would think. But during the 6 minute practice, - that's the one right before the competition - during the practice right before the competition you don't watch them much. In the open practice sessions though, because after all everyone's music plays individually and, well you do something like a rehearsal (t/n: he sounds like he's repeating himself often but if you watch the video you'll understand he's actually paraphrasing for the interviewer and fans to make it easier to understand, just in case). During that time, it does attract your attention. 

Yuzu: Also, what's different from before is that now it's quite common to see fans coming in to watch during the open practice sessions. So in that sense too, when the fans are watching and they applaud or scream, you'd think "oh this person's condition is good" or "this person may not be doing so well" and such. Those kind of things you can kind of tell from the atmosphere.

[12:40]

Yama: And then in the end, with that blue costume, you had a wonderful performance, and grabbed the gold medal and came back (t/n: he's referring to Shizuka, although this sentence applies to both of them)

Yama: After that, there was this incident right a big fan of yours sent you welcome back gifts when you came back.

Shizuka: Yes many people called out to me when I returned and well if anything, with my skating I would be happy if people could remember, even if just a little, what kind of performance I gave. That was one of my goals that at the end, I was able to achieve. Then when I returned, instead of my name it was "ah, ina bauer!" that came first and at the beginning I did feel conflicted about that, but slowly I came to be happy about that. My name wasn't really remembered but for some reason Ina bauer became some kind of a title. Actually to skaters that's a really boring technique and I don't think many people knew of it, but I was really happy to be known as "the person who did the Ina Bauer".

Yama: Um, I'm only saying this here but even in my workplace during the end-of-year party a large number of people came up and did the Ina Bauer.

(laughs)

Shizuka: And with that the Ina bauer become known as this great technique but I feel like I've given everyone the wrong impression. What I do is called the Ina bauer yes but actually as long as you skate with your feet like that it's called the Ina bauer and many skaters, in their program, will include it at least once so it is a major technique but also unexpectedly, a pretty boring one. Maybe because I did it that way (gestures the layback with her hand) that I was remembered for it, and when I think like that I guess that's alright too. I came to think of it a good thing.

[14:20]

Yama: And with the influence of the Torino Olympics, and finally, to Sochi. Hanyu, you went with a blue-based costume right? Was that because of any connection (to Shizuka's)?

Yuzu: Well there's something called a jinx. The season before that I had done the same programe but at that time the costume was green, or should I say grey or well, that was the base colour for that costume. But then, for the Sochi season "let's go with blue", that's what (I) had decided secretly.  (t/n: if you’re thinking that parisienne 1 was black well, the rest of Japanese twitter thought so too)

Yama: It was in 2012 correct? You shifted your base to Canada and changed coaches. Was that a planned reaction (to the upcoming Olympics) that you wanted to show for the Olympics?

Yuzu: Umm... Actually it was more of considering, at every step of the way, "what is the best thing (I can do) in order for me to acquire my skills?" and the result was that I moved to Canada.

Yama: In the beginning you were a Hiroshima baseball fan weren't you? Yuzu: (laughs) yes hiroshima is working hard right now, they're in top form. Although that I'm saying this whilst in Sendai is a little...

Yama: Yes it is...

Yama: If I'm not wrong at the rakuten match (t/n: Rakuten Eagles - the baseball team of Miyagi prefecture) you....

Yuzu: Threw the ceremonial first pitch yes Yama: you threw the first pitch didn't you! Yuzu: Yes I practiced extremely hard for it. Yama: You practiced? Yuzu: Yes Yama: More than you practiced your salchow? Yuzu: ahhh.....that's not possible (laughs)

- Courtesy of Asahi

[15:42]

Yama: Alright so how was it? You moved to Canada, what were the changes that occured in yourself?

Yuzu: As you'd think, having skaters around you who can jump quads easily (is one thing that contributed) and also, this is the case now but the top level ladies' skaters in Canada, well, the 2nd and 3rd place world medalists if you'd like, are people I skate - no I don't skate with the 2nd, the 3rd - I skate with the 3rd place medalist (t/n: Gabrielle Daleman). So in that sense, it's not just the men or just the ladies (that skate well). It's a place that overcomes that classification, where a high level of skating takes place, and being able to skate there provides a different sort of stimulus.

Yama: About Javier, it seems everytime you look at the reports it's always something like "I really like Yuzuru!". It seems like an extremely good team relationship.

Yuzu: Yes that's right. But um, maybe from last season? Up until around last season during practices and such we got along really well but recently... recently? Mm, after starting this season we both seem to be becoming more aware of each other. It's not like we're at odds with each other or anything, it's more like "let's do it today", that kind of atmosphere. (t/n: ie, they’re a little more competitive)

[16:50]

Yama: And now you've won GPF 4 times in a row Yuzu: Thank you very much Yama: It was just right before Sochi that you starting winning all these titles wasn't it? Was there anything that changed?

Yuzu: No there wasn't anything special. I just simply wanted to give my own performance, just wanted to become better and it feels like those thoughts finally took on a (tangible) form. Especially at the very beginning of the season shown on this monument, when I first took the WR in the SP. Um, how do you say this, up till now the whole premise for my own jumps have primarily been to be clean, beautiful, to have a good flow out of the jump and above all else for it to match with the music. That was something that I often couldn't really do well in during the actual competition. The competition where all that was well-encompassed was - well perhaps I should say program instead of competition - the program that encompassed all that was this. Parisienne Walkways.

Yama: I see. And during the actual compeition, after the SP ended you had the FS. How was your psychological state then?

Yuzu: You mean during the Olympics right? Well, I was nervous. Especially during that time - well I think it will be the same for this next Olympics too and am making preperations for it - because the rink where Figure skating takes place is the same as for the Short Track competition in speed skating. So if the short track competition is in the morning, the practice session is before that so then it happens quite early. This time, the broadcasting rights have been acquired by an American TV station, so in that sense the timings of the competitions become even earlier, and so do that of the practice sessions. Ah well, what I wanted to say is, I won't be getting enough sleep. 

Yama: Ahh Yuzu: When the SP ends it's probably about 10 o'clock and after that is the doping test, so by the time that ends and I return it's probably around 1 o'clock, and then the practice is at around 7 o'clock, so I really only have about 5, maybe 4 hours of sleep time. It's going to be that kind of hard schedule.

Ends @ 19:14 // EDIT 18/4/17 - fixed some formatting errors (like who said what), made some parts clearer, added time stamps thanks to @raomina!

Part 2 over here :)

Video Courtesy of M M on YT

[rudyyoungcreatives]

We were given the task of coming up with an idea and creating something for the young creative awards. 

The first thing I am going to do is start with an idea list of different projects I could create.

Poster

Logo

Illustration

advertisement.

Typography piece.

Skateboard graphics.

Motion Graphic

Animation.

mid day drinking

Photography

Lighter Design.

Portrait Drawings

Life Drawing

Clothing graphics

Collage Work

Isometric Work

Architecture/Building Designs

Tattoo Designs

Some of these topics/Ideas are rather broad so I am going to look at three of them and think about what route I would go down If I was to go with the specified topic area/idea.

Out of the things listen the once that I would most like to create are, Isometric work, Illustrations and skateboard graphics.

Isometric Work.

I really like some isometric posters and design and have never really given it a try because I think it might be a bit hard to wrap my head around it with it potentially being almost 3d on a 2d platform but I could possibly make a Isometric character or buildings or some sort of scene there are many options and possibility as Isometric Work is more of a style but it is something I am interested in and would like to try out at some point.

Illustration Work.

I really like illustration and would like to make something within illustrator or Photoshop but I am not very good at digital drawing and would like to learn more about it and get better at using Wacom pads but I could also create anything under this topic like animation or character design or just nice poster drawings.

Skateboard Graphics.

I like this idea and have been skateboarding for a few years and have always wanted to make some graphics for skateboard decks. I could do lots of things here and incorporate illustrations or isometric work but If I decide to go with this idea I need to think about If I want to create a deck for a specific brand or company or I could start a fake skate company or just design a set of board graphics.

After thinking about each topic I am going to make skateboard deck graphics as I can go with anything form vector work to more traditional illustrations allowing me to keep developing my idea of what I am going to put on the boards and if I want to capture a certain brand or style.

Neck Face

Neck Face is a anonymous graffiti artist and illustrator and is know for his more dark and grungy work which is also commonly comedic. He was born in California in 1984 where his work is featured on the streets but also in art galleries around the world, his first gallery show was when he was 18-years-old and was sponsored by Rich Jacobs and held at New Image Art gallery in West Hollywood, California. His drawing style is said to be rough and scratchy with bloody violent themes attached to his work. His first skateboard design was for krooked skateboards creating a pro model for skater Mark Gonzales. Neck face  uses lots of mediums from marker pens spray paints and pencils but sharp metal masks, felt installations, and sculptures have been featured in his work.

I really like this idea and look of dark illustration and would like to incorporate it in my work. His work also reminds me of other artists I like such as Lumps and  Jenkins and Pollynor.

Pollynor

Lumps

Design process.

The artist Lumps dose not really have a specific he says he gets most of hist ideas from artist inspiration and constantly doodling in other words its more of a waterfall process. He usually starts with doodles then goes to sketches and then finally inking of digital tracing.

Christoph Niemann

Christoph is an illustrator, graphic designer and author of several books but out of these things he is mainly known for his illustrations. He was born in 1970 in Waiblingen in west Germany. He studied in Germany and developed his art but his career really took off when he moved to New York in america in 1997 and worked on and created many covers for the popular magazines and news papers such as the new Yorker, Atlantic monthly and the new York times. His work follows lots of different styles as he uses lots of things to create his work from pencils to paints and painting with coffee. 

I do really like his illustrations and I think the reason why there so good is because of how creative and abstract some of the ideas are. He does things to help his imagination go wild and to help him create interesting ideas, for example he has multiple sketchbooks with one shape on the front and then he will fill the hole sketchbook with drawings incorporating the shape. One of the things he does to help his work be as creative as possible is that he says when things are going well you should always pick another direction allowing him to really experiment and create complex ideas.

The reason I am looking into this illustrator is because I watched a Netflix documentary and I really like the way he works.

His design process.

He usually does all his work in his office as he says he cant do it anywhere els and he will work from nine in the morning to six at night. He has everything he needs with him before he starts working allowing him to just start and create something. the thing that I like about his approach is that he doesn't plan or wait for inspiration to hit him he will just start drawing and let the ideas come to him, he says “you haft to trust that crazy things happen”. He dose not like to put words or titles to his work as he feels that the illustration should explain itself and represent the contents its associated with. When he works to deadlines he dose not allow himself to experiment to much and he will just jump right in by putting pen to paper. He says that its not about waiting around for hours waiting for inspiration to arrive its about turning up and starting because once you start creating something creations and ideas take place and this is something that I really like the idea of and would like to try in my work.  

Now that I know that I want to make skateboard graphics and have some artist that I like that could help inspire me and influence my work I need to work out what work process I am going to use.

Agile

The agile process is essentially a process where you slowly develop an idea allowing yourself to go back and develop your work working with clients and getting feedback helping you create your finial piece that is suitable for the client or you design project. Essentially your not fixed on one pacific idea you are allowing yourself to develop it and change your idea before the final development process making it a safer working method when it comes to client work or product development.

Benefits: using this method can lead to better customer satisfaction, quicker development time as you may not need to go and change a whole idea because you are working with other minds or a client throughout the design process meaning you are both know the final look and outcome. Sometimes you need people to look at your work as others can help and bring ideas to the table or maybe point out flaws or things you missed.

Problems: You might not want to create exactly what you want. There is a chance that you might be relying on other people to do something and they might not be able to do it as well or as quick as you. Working with people can speed up the process of things but also slow things down if your working with people that do not agree with you or you do not like what they are doing.

Waterfall

Waterfall is a method where you create a set idea and then develop it. This method can work well for projects that are for yourself and also clients if the clients trust in your ability to create what there looking for in one shot. One of the problems with this method is that is can be risky for example if your working with a client and they want a logo so you have an idea and make it then the client might not like it and you haft to go back to the drawing board wasting lots of time but if you use the agile process you can work with people to develop your ideas making it fit the brief resulting in happy costumers. Waterfall can work well but can also be very hit or miss I think it depends on the project your doing.

Benefits: This method can be quick as you do not go back as much as agile and you are potentially setting a goal and finishing it without time to converse or adjust. You are able to do things your way without someone telling you how they might want to build on your ideas/designs. If your using this method with a client it might mean there giving you full creative freedom meaning you can create what you want to make and how to do it.

Problems: Without involving others or conversing with your client as much it might mean you spend lots of time creating a final product and your client does not like It and wants you to try again meaning you have wasted time. Sometimes you do not see the faults in your work and having someone els look at it means that they might be able to help you or bring something to the table but if you are not getting others too look at it your designs might not be as polished as they could be.

There are different ways to plan out your work and your process an you can use things like action plans, lists, graphs and more. There are even webistes out there to help with teams devloping something or helping people get things done essentially using action plans.

Monday.com is a website that allows you to manage tasks so you can do things on the site such as check progress of tasks, set tasks and communicate with the people your working with. This site uses things like action plans and graphs.

There are other sites that offer simular survices such as Mavenlink who also have features that help you keep track of time and budegets allowing you to not just manage your team but also finace.

Because I am creating this project for the young creative awards and there is no specific criteria I can just make what I want to make so I think the waterfall method will work well as I will create the idea I want to create with me being the only person that needs to be happy with the final piece I can develop it how I want. I would like to incorporate a bit of a agile work process into me development to as I feel it is a good idea to get other people opinions on my work which might help me create something that a larger audience likes other than me.

After looking into some artist I want to go down the digital illustration route and want to make something potentially dark and gory. Because these are skateboard decks I might try and incorporate some skate culture. I have been skating for a long time and am familiar with the background, skateboarding still has this rebellious reputation with more grungy brands like thrasher and enjoy promoting a look of skaters being influenced by drugs sex and just being general rule beakers. This idea is a little old fashion now as skateboarding welcomes everyone but this traditional outlaw skateboard scene is often portrayed in skateboard decks especially when there representing skaters for pro models.

I have not really done any illustration so I drew some illustrations to help me get used to wacom pads and start to get the hang of digital drawing. Here is one of the drawings I did.

I am thinking of going down the route of darker illustration for the skateboard decks so I made a mind map to help me think of visuals I can bring into my work.

I then tried to come up with five ideas in five minutes with the visual elements from my mind map in mind.

The one minute ideas that I came up with were.

1 Skeleton with a boner

2 Alien on the moon drinking beer in a deck chair

3 one planet eating another planet

4 the grim reaper cutting vegetables with its blade

5 Pervert ghosts

The Idea that I like and would like to develop further is pervert ghosts as I think I will be able to fit ghosts on a skateboard deck well and I also think it could be funny ghost spying on people in possibly dodgy situations.

I am now going to list some scenarios that you might not want other people to witness.

Being on the toilet

Sleeping

Having sex 

doing drugs

killing someone

spiting in food

keying a car

illegal graffiti

littering

being sick

eating bogies

eating other peoples food

robbing a shop

smoking in work

cheating at video games

I then got my friend to look at the different options I had written down and she said she liked doing drugs, eating bogies because its relatable and also littering because its a common thing people do.

I like the idea of doing drugs, drinking in mid day so the next thing I did was create quick sketches of some of the things I listed here are the sketches.

After doing the sketches and just thinking off the top of my head I had three ideas for the skateboard decks.

1- for the first idea I wanted to have someone in a toilet cubicle smoking weed out of a bong and then the person will have ghosts around them basically spying on the person. I want to make the artwork look scratchy and grotty like my artists and I also think it would be fun to vandalize the toilet with posters and graffiti. To make things a little more weird I had the idea to put the character with the bong inside the toilet instead of them siting on it.

2- for the second Idea I wanted to make a business man that was sneakily drinking in the middle of the day behind some bins outside some sort of corner shop. And then I will follow the theme of pervert ghosts and out in ghosts spying on the character.

3- the third idea I wanted to draw was a character practicing Satanism so I want the character to have a goat mask on and then maybe a chicken that he is about to sacrifice and then the room the character is in will be filled with things that relate to satanism and the devil.

with my ideas and creation of the illustration I am taking more of a waterfall approach as this is just a project that I have come up with and am not creating it for anyone but me but I like to possibly bring some agile methods into my work to help potentially develop it.

Now that I have done the sketches and have my ideas for the pervert ghosts skateboard series/triptych I went into the design process where I used Photoshop and a wacom pad and pen to create the illustrations.

The plan is to take inspiration from the artists I researched and skate culture. I want my work to have a rough scratchy feel like lumps and pollynors work but I want to follow a design process that fits with christoph niemann so for he illustrations I have a idea but I am mainly going to be looking at my very rough sketches as a guide and the reason I haven't done more detailed sketches of what I want the final piece to look like is because I want to start drawing and hope that different ideas and elements of things I could add to the illustrations come to me as I draw hophally making something a little weird and wacky and this is an approach Christopher niemann uses in his work.

 My design process.

first thing I did was google the size of a skateboard deck for Photoshop and it said  9.5 x 33 inches so I used this but skateboards are a variety of sizes but I trusted google and used that as my dimensions. I then used my sketches as reference and started the designing. The process that I usually do is I would do a rough drawing of the thing I was trying to make in Photoshop to give me a rough guide for when I put in my line work. I then turned the opacity of that layer down and started putting in the line work. Whilst I did this I tried to not make the line work look too clean to fit the scratchy rough style I was trying to incorporate into my work so I would rarely hold shift when drawing lines and if I did I used the pressure sensitivity in the wacom pad to make all the lines different weights and thickness. After I had the line work down for the thing I was drawing I would create a layer bellow which would be the coloring layer, so I then colored in everything under the line work. I tried to make my color pallet for the three boards look a little grotty and dirty and then once I had done the coloring in I created two layers one for shadows and one for highlights. I would then work out where the light source is and using white and black to draw over the color layer and then turn the opacity of those layers down to create more depth and lighting. Then lastly I add another layer and draw in final shadows. When creating I am working of my minimal sketches in the hope that ideas come to me naturally but I will also be doing research to influence my creations. Another thing I will be always thinking about is that this is a skateboard design so the main focus of the illustration will be in the middle because the trucks of a skateboard cover the top and bottom section of the deck.

Once I had my ideas and rough sketches I started to create my first skateboard graphic of the character standing in a toilet. I started drawing the basics such as the things that I knew were going to be involved in the drawing such as the character the toilet and walls to the cubicle. I then started to think of things that could be added to the drawing and one of the main areas where I could just draw and doodle to try and make creations happen much like Christoph Niemann would was the vandalism I wanted to do on the toilet walls. Most of the vandalism will be coming off the top of my head but because I wanted to incorporate elements of an agile design process (involving others in my work) I showed people on instergram my work so far on the drawing and asked them about toilet graffiti to get some inspiration and possible thoughts of the project. The question I asked was what have you seen on toilet walls and here are some of the responses.

I also took a look in to Liverpool and Glasgow toilet graffiti as people were saying that these places had the best toilet graffiti. I was also sent these photos by people from Instagram as a response to my question.

After geting feedback and people involved to help inspire me I was ready to start coming up with the things to put on the walls. Some of the graffiti I came up with were things such as a dick snake, glory hole and a sign that said wash your hands and then hands had bee crossed out and replaced with gran. From this point on for the first board I did not do anymore research and I just drawed and doodled letting ideas come to me, Once I had the basic sketching and line work done for the toilet and walls I started adding posters to the walls and toilet doodles off the top of my head. Because I was working completely Randomly I didn't have very structured layers in Photoshop as I would have an idea start sketching it, then doing the line work, coloring and shading and then once I had finished that I would move onto the next drawing, I did this because I was just trying to start creating and get my ideas for the drawing down much like the artists I have researched but when I wanted to move certain parts of my drawings around I wouldn't know which layers where which so I spent some time grouping things so it would be easier to move around but it still got a little confusing but I was still following the idea of sketch, ink, color then work out where the light source is going from and draw dark and light sections to whatever I was drawing to give the illustrations depth. I was coming to the end of my illustration and I was almost finished but I asked for a second opinion making my work flow have a bit more of a agile approach and the advise that I got was if I was going to fill all the walls up with posters and doodles I should file other parts of the drawing up because I looked a little bare. I agreed so I decided to add some little extra drawings such as toilet roll on the floor and vomit and then where ever there were patches in the illustration where it did not look as full as the other parts I would draw a ghost to fill the space making the hole illustration look full and busy but hopefully not too crammed so you can understand what the drawing is.

Here are the sketches layers the line work and then the final coloring in with black and white shading.

For the next skateboard design I wanted to try and plan everything out and just have a little bit more structer to my layers so I would get so confused on which layer and section I was working on and it would make it easier to go back and edit my illustrations which is something that I did a lot when I was drawing shadows and highlights so the plan was to simply keep things in groups and label all the groups and each group would have an outline inking layer a color layer a layer for shadow and a layer for highlights and then possibly another layer for touch ups and extra things I wanted to put in basically so I could go back and change or add things. I still went in with the same plan as the first illustration so I just drew the basics in a digital sketch form going off my very basic sketch and then started adding everything in working with each element or section one at a time.

Example of the process.

Inking/line work

coloring

Highlights and shadows.

for this illustration I once again let things just come to my head and drew everything how I wanted so I also didn't have a specific color pallet in mind I just picked colors that I thought would work with the idea that I needed to make all three illustrations look similar because its a trip tic of pieces and I wanted the colors to be a little bit more gross and dirtier..

Here are the sketch layers and final piece.

For the final illustration which is to do with satanism I used the same design methods as the other illustrations but for this one I had to do some research mainly looking at symbols and reading about satanism practices.

for this illustration I made the layout look simulat to the first one because I really liked having the walls that you could place things on. I added things like upside down corsses and some comedic things such as a poster saying I love mom. I also had the idea to add a moster energy poster and the reason for this is because one the drink is called moster but I remeber watching a video where a lady explains how the monster energy drink is satanic. Here is that short video.

Here is the sketch layers and final illustration. 

Evaluation.

What were the final ideas.

The final idea was to create three skateboard illustrations to put on skateboard decks. The title for the three boards is Pervert Ghosts and the concept of the art is ghost spying on people doing things they maybe shouldn't be doing. I am also trying to represent skate culture and artwork and illustrations within the skateboarding scene.

For the first board I wanted it to be drugs related and because marijuana is popular in skate culture as skateboarding emerged from the more hippie surfing scene I decided yo have a character smoking out of a bong surrounded by ghosts in a toilet cubicle.

The second idea was to focus on daytime drinking as lots of business men potentially use drink and drugs to keep them going so I wanted to have a character in a suit drinking behind some bins surrounded by ghosts spying/perving on the character.

For the last board I wanted to explore Satanism as the concept involves ghosts and evolved from me doing idea generation within dark themes so for the last illustration I wanted to have a character sacrificing a animal like a chicken surrounded by artwork and items attached to the culture.

How did you arrive at these Ideas.

To come up with the concept and ideas I was exploring in all the different ways of idea generation and one of them was writing down an idea a minute and I did this with darker themes in mind and I came up with pervert ghosts. I then came up with the ideas for the illustration by doing more idea generation and looking at the different angles and topics I could work with that related to the concept of pervert ghosts.

What inspired me?

I have been skateboarding for a few years so I am inspired by the culture and skateboarding as a whole as it is something I enjoy to do but I also really like art attached to skateboarding and artists that work within street ware and skateboarding. So I looked at some artists that I liked and was inspired by there styles and work methods to develop ideas and the process to creating work.

what specific approaches did you practice?

I looked into different design approaches and I decided to take more of a water fall approach to my work as I came up with the idea and the artwork and final piece will just be for me and not a client but I did also try and bring some of an agile approach to my work as I think its useful to get other peoples opinions on your work and get opinions and tips so I mainly used a waterfall approach so I could create exactly what I wanted to make but then also bring in other people to help develop my work making it appeal to more people than just myself. After researching artist I took influence from there work flow and used it in my work for example there techniques in idea generation such as getting a pen and just randomly drawing letting the ideas come to you and trying to not give yourself to many specific boundaries so you can truly create what your mind can come up with.

What issues did I encounter?

I didn't really encounter many issues but one thing that I did on the first illustration was not label or group my layers making it really tricky for me to go back and redraw or edit certain bits because I was spending a lot of time trying to find the right layers.

How did you overcome them?

For the second and third illustrations I grouped and labeled the elements in my drawings and tried to follow a layer structure for each illustration putting coloring, line work, shadows and highlights into different sections.

what have you learnt during this project?

I have learnt more about different methods to develop ideas and also more about structuring your design process. I have also learnt lots about illustration such as using a wacom pad experimenting with brushes and pressure sensitivity and layer structure when drawing.

What do you like

I really like the first illustration from the character to the posters and graffiti on the wall I also like the scratchy more rough grotty art style I was trying to portray. I think the more dirty looking color pallets look good and I think I did some good illustrations with shadows and highlights thinking where the light source might have been coming from. I also think the composition was okay and I did a good job at keeping the main focus of the illustration in the middle as skateboard trucks would be covering the top and bottom of the illustration I especially think the layout of the second illustration looks nice with all the elements and layers with the bushes at the front and then the character and shops in the middle with a city skate at the top.

What do you not like.

I think the background of the first and last illustrations look very similar compared to the 2nd illustration and it just makes it look out of place because its a triptych they should all look similar so I should of eather made each illustration all in completely different looking scenes or have all three in a the box like room that the first and last illustration have. I also think the last illustration seems a little bare and not as full as the other too. Also the character is not very good and I do not like the goat mask I gave him. I am also not a huge fan of the colors in the second illustration as I do not like the grays in in the skyline I think there a bit too dark and I could of added brinks or more texture like the shops have but I didn't because its in the background so it doesn't have as much focus. I also think the color pallet for all three designs vary to much so I should of been more strict with my colors and stuck to a specific color pallet. I did try and use the same colors from across the illustrations as much as I could but I feel like there is too much of variation of colors throughout the three illustrations. Also the moc up that I made of the designs on skateboards the decks are a little to big leaving a small section at the top and bottom of the board with no illustration on it.

I uploaded my work to the young creative awards but I only uploaded my first illustration as I dint think the other too were as good or good enough.

[rainbowravioli]

Depictions of romance and attraction in Yuri on Ice

Valentine’s Day has come and gone, and with it so has Chris’ birthday. To celebrate, Kubo has posted the following image on instagram (+ a cropped version on twitter):

No comment is made about the hand he is holding. Couple that with the very soft, fond smile on Chris’s face, directed specifically at whomever he is holding hands with, and we can say that this picture holds romantic implications.

Romance in Yuri on Ice and its depiction has always been a hot topic. Particularly about Victor and Yuuri and, lately, particularly about how its portrayal felt lacking to many people upon the conclusion of the series and how the staff seems to be downgrading their relationship into subtext territory instead of having it stand on firm, canonical ground. Count me in as one of the people who found it lacking and who is disappointed with the staff, particularly Kubo, since the finale aired.

Arguments in favor of the staff’s treatment of Victuuri and its portrayal in the finale tend to be extremely similar. Three points that usually come up are 

That the depiction of romantic relationships in Japan is always subtle and ambiguous because “cultural differences” (covered by @soobaki here)

Censorship

That what we have with Victuuri is already “enough”, usually followed by the baseless (and honestly offensive) accusation that people like me want to see them make out or have sex on screen to be satisfied

Plenty of comparisons between Yuri on Ice and other anime have been made to explain our side of the argument but today I want to look at the way Yuri on Ice depicts romance outside of Victuuri; from ambiguous to explicit, from one-sided to unquestionably engaged. I will do this to show exactly what I mean when I say I want a non-ambiguous confirmation of the nature of Victor and Yuuri’s relationship outside of coach/athlete and to underline that, within the same series, not all relationships are equal in how they are treated.

Note that I will not cover any married (or divorced) couple.

Matters of attraction

Sexuality, seduction and attraction are constantly referred to and portrayed in Yuri on Ice. No metaphors, no ambiguity. Yuuri’s entire short program is themed around this. We are constantly told about eros, about how Yuuri must seduce Victor and the audience with his skating. We have the entirety of Chris’ character, we are told that Seung Gil Lee wanted to express sex appeal in his short program, we have constant reminders of just how hot Victor is considered to be in-universe.

An important thing to distinguish though, is that a character may refer to another as being attractive without feeling attracted to them. It’s the difference between, say, Takeshi calling Yuuri sexy

and any time Minako reacts to Chris

Portrayals of one-sided attraction are fairly common and obvious within the series. To cite a few examples, there’s Minako and her constant obvious interest in the young male skaters, of course, but Yuko is also shown to be attracted to Victor and Sara is shown to be attracted to Seung Gil despite his rude behavior towards her

Staying with Sara for a minute, the concepts of romantic relationships and dating are constantly referred by name in relation to her, being a big part of her character conflict and that of her brother’s.

Mila as well, brings up dating when talking to Yurio, and Yurio brings up that she recently ended a romantic relationships of her own.

And this is her and Sara reacting to Otabek in episode 12.

An argument can also be made on how there is implied attraction towards Yuuri on Minami’s part and towards Leo on Guang Hong’s part.

The argument is particularly strong when it comes to Minami. However, both of these cases tend to fall on the more ambiguous side of things when compared to other examples and sadly can pass as simply a very strong admiration (Minami) or friendship (Guang Hong).

As you can see so far, the series has no problems mentioning attraction or the concept of dating, the ambiguity of the last two cases not withstanding. How does this compare to Yuuri and Victor? We have several moments in the series showing mutual attraction between them. Victor brings up Yuuri’s and his previous dating history several times (using gender neutral language, by the way). Victor also brings up being Yuuri’s boyfriend specifically at the beach during episode 4 (though Yuuri aggressively denies him).

So far, so good.

Unrequited love

The first instance of unrequited love in the series is that of Yuuri towards Yuko. 

Everything about Yuko’s introduction to the audience serves to set her up as the common trope of “childhood sweetheart of the main protagonist”. It’s there in the direction of the scene, the text, and the characters’ actions. The reveal that she’s married with triplets and thus, out of reach for Yuuri would never be as effective if it weren’t for how carefully they go about placing her in that role and showing us Yuuri’s feelings for her. Even though they haven’t seen each other in years, Yuuri shows he still finds Yuko attractive.

The reason why this is different from the above example of Takeshi saying Yuuri is sexy should be obvious. In the shot before this one we are watching Yuko from Yuuri’s perspective, as he thinks of how she used to be his idol when he was little. As Yuko catches him staring, she smiles at him. Yuuri smiles back, blushing, and his eyes shimmer. Any ambiguity of the nature of Yuuri’s feelings is erased  by Yuuri skating Stammi Vicino for her as a way to confess his feelings (yes, that’s not the only reason he did it, but it was part of it)

Yuuri was even going to voice his feelings for Yuko, specifically how he has always loved her, but was interrupted by the reality check of her daughters showing up.

Quoting myself, from here

Now, Yuko is married with triplets. I don’t think Yuuri was looking for any sort of retribution of his feelings; I think he just wanted to express them. He had been in love with her for years - she was his first idol in skating. So skating Stammi Vicino for her (and it is for her, he says he has been practicing and wants her to watch) was his way of conveying that love as well as his gratitude. I think Yuuri is just at a point in his life where he wants to move forward, and finally vocalizing his feelings for Yuko would be a way for him to get closure on that chapter of his life.

The other instance of unrequited love is that of Georgi towards Anya. Most of Georgi’s character is in fact centered around this. There is absolutely no ambiguity about the nature of the relationship between Georgi and Anya. It’s spelled out for us by Mila, with the addendum that Anya is now dating someone else.

But we don’t get insight on this relationship only through characters outside of it, no. Georgi is a very emotionally open character who makes it very clear on where he stands with his feelings. Particularly, his inner monologue during the free skate.

An important thing to note here: not only do we have a character openly, explicitly declaring their love, but the word used to do so is “aishiteru”.

The rest of Georgi’s program involves him daydreaming a scenario full of openly expressed romantic text and imagery as well. Yes, it’s mostly played for comedy, but the point is that it’s absolutely impossible to interpret Georgi’s feelings and his late relationship with Anya as being anything other than romantic in nature.

Georgi and Anya also serve the narrative purpose of being a contrast to the development of Victor and Yuuri’s relationship in episodes 6 and 7 respectively. A lot has already been written about this topic by the fandom, even pointing out how “Tale of Sleeping Prince” is a fitting song for what Victuuri goes through in episode 7.

Other than that though, Victuuri doesn’t hold up too well against these two cases, especially when comparing to Georgi’s. Even though we spend more of the series seeing things through Yuuri’s POV, Yuuri never thinks about Victor or his own feelings for Victor in romantic terms. The closest we get comes from Victor’s POV, when he says Yuuri is the one who gave him his “life and love”. Unfortunately, later saying that others have also found their “life and love” through Yuuri undermines the romantic meaning.

Romantic Resolution

Another relationship that we can compare Victuuri to is that of JJ and Isabella. Unlike all the other examples discussed here so far, JJ and Isabella are in a serious romantic relationship that we can actually see develop over the course of the episodes. Similar, if in a much smaller scale, to how see Victor and Yuuri develop.

The first time we’re made aware of this relationship is when JJ thinks about Isabella during his free skate in episode 9.

Note the term of endearment and how he specifically thinks of her as his girlfriend. Note as well how radiant and beautiful she looks, as well as the detail of the “JJ” necklace. This shot is a flashback from JJ’s POV, so this is how JJ perceives her. You can tell he loves her a lot.

The show could have easily left it at that, but we actually get to meet Isabella in the following episode. She comes to Barcelona with JJ to offer her support in the Grand Prix Final. Almost all the time we see them together on screen they are engaging in some sort of affectionate physical contact. Typically, JJ will have his arm around her and Isabella will sometimes place her hands on his chest. It’s very natural, casual, couple behavior, with nothing sexualized about it.

We quickly learn that some time before Barcelona, JJ asked Isabella to marry him. He is quick to refer to their new relationship status. We also see them showing off the rings in instagram and, of course, there’s JJ’s attempt at a joke at the restaurant about how he will be the one winning gold and getting married. Isabella readily agrees.

The rings are a background detail and easy to miss, but JJ’s relationship status is still talked about very openly and more than once. Another easy to miss background detail is the fact that both JJ and Isabella can be seen in one of the photos of last year’s banquet, indicating that they’ve been together for more than a year now.

We’re also shown the specific moment JJ proposed. In a parallel with Victor and Yuuri, he sets a condition to their wedding.

It’s important to point out that this specific flashback happens while JJ is fighting off a panic attack while skating. As Isabella expresses her full trust in JJ’s abilities to win gold at all the events the scene distorts and dissolves into JJ alone, falling in the dark while the other GPF competitors look down on him. The placement of this flashback here goes to show that JJ is not just concerned about losing the gold here, he’s concerned that this will lead him to lose Isabella as well. The same way Yuuri fears losing Victor over his own performance.

Lucky for JJ, he got a very positive and clear resolution out of this, unlike Yuuri. Not only do we see Isabella crying and fiercely singing along as he skates, but when JJ is at his lowest she makes her unconditional love and support for him very clear.

The next time we see Isabella she is sitting together with JJ, smiling at him as he talks with her. We don’t see them kiss or even engage in physical affection in this shot, but we don’t need to. We already know that they are, of course, still together and still engaged. Isabella made her feelings very clear on the matter. Nobody who watches the series doubts where these two are standing at the end because their feelings have been shown, explicitly told, and reassured to the audience throughout the episodes.

How do Victor and Yuuri compare? Well...not great. Again, we, the audience, never see Yuuri and Victor refer to each other in any romantic terms. Even after the ring exchange which should mark a shift in their relationship. Victor calls them engagement rings, so they are engaged, right?

Herein lies the problem: this is a declaration Victor is making, towards the characters present in the scene. As they exchange rings, no actual words of engagement are exchanged between them. This is fine considering the context of the scene and how the rings have a layer of meanings, including that of an omamori which in itself carries a lot of connotations. I’ve talked about this before: I don’t think Yuuri intended to propose when he started his day. That said, we can’t deny that the fact that he bought wedding rings and the way the entire scene is set up indicates that they did, indeed, get engaged. Victor even confirms it, right?

But Yuuri doesn’t.

So much so that many people interpret Victor’s declaration as a joke, something aided by the fact that the matter of this engagement is never brought up again.

JJ and Isabella are side-characters. Isabella is especially secondary since she exists as an accessory to JJ’s narrative. And yet their love story, their engagement, is give more solid ground than the main characters’.

It especially becomes a problem when you have the Yuri on Ice staff refer to the rings as anything but engagement rings. They carry “(...) the meaning of a symbol that the two of them are like soul mates”(x) and "More than implicating something like a wedding, it’s similar to members of the same circle deciding to have a matching item.”(x)

JJ and Isabella are openly engaged. Georgi is openly still in love with his ex. Side-characters are afforded the luxury of having their feelings out in the open and calling their relationships for what they are or were. Victor and Yuuri need to rely on subtext and metaphors. 

Which brings me back to this image

The case of the Mystery Man

Back when episode 11 aired a lot of buzz was generated around the man we see in a Chris flashback, picking him up at his house. This character appears a total of four times in the series and it’s always by Chris, leading to the fandom wide assumption that he is Chris’ significant other.

It’s an easy assumption to make when you consider that this character was absent from the series previous to episode 11 and how his purpose seems to be to act as support for Chris in the finals. Considering he also picks up Chris at his house, we can assume they are at least on friendly terms with each other. Of course, there is the counter-argument that he was completely absent from episode 10 and wouldn’t Chris have brought him along for dinner at least, but still, a lot of talk was generated around the character and the staff was aware.

I’m bringing up the Mystery Man because his hypothetical relationship with Chris would be the only other same-sex relationship we see portrayed or even alluded to in the show. Which in itself is odd, considering the staff has said that there’s no discrimination in the world of Yuri on Ice, so you would expect that to reflect on the side-characters too.

Unfortunately, the two don’t interact in any romantic way, so the fandom has to rely on ambiguity. I didn’t have a problem with this, until Kubo was specifically asked about who he is (x) 

Q. Who is the handsome guy always together with Chris? A. He’s a man from the Swiss Skating Federation. I created him because I didn’t want Chris to feel lonely (LOL). I’m not going to say anything about what his relationship with Chris is, but we believe that he’s a former ice dancer that belongs to the Federation.

Kubo is aware that most of the fandom assumes they are a couple, yet she refuses to specify either way. You know, in a similar way to how she wants to leave the final Victuuri scene of episode 7 up to interpretation (x)

This is a problem.

It’s a problem because, as I’ve shown, every single relationship or even attraction in the series between male and female characters is shown openly. Nobody has doubts or speculation about JJ and Isabella’s feelings, because we are repeatedly told where they stand. On the other hand, Victor and Yuuri are not given the dignity of being referred to as the couple they are shown to be. Chris and his mystery friend, meanwhile, are treated as a little “wink wink nudge nudge” to the fangirls. And yet, without being questioned about it, Kubo mentioned that Mila was starting to get romantically interested in Otabek. So it’s only between two men that she can’t be open about, even though she even says that she created the character so Chris wouldn’t be lonely, *wink wink*. Why say that she won’t specify his relationship with Chris and then draw Chris a birthday picture where he is romantically holding hands with an unseen character, knowing full well who the fandom would assume said character to be? 

You know what I call that? I call it bait. 

And Yuri on Ice deserves better. And Victuuri deserved what JJ and Isabella got.

[yugihell]

Ok, buckle up, it’s time for my Yuri On Ice review. Not comprehensive, just general thoughts about the show (spoilers: I enjoyed it a lot).

Good:

The exploration of characters. In a show which could have used stereotypes to build their characters, they instead take them and analyse the ‘why’, or make them multifaceted. All of this without actual subversion - the character actually being in contrast to the stereotype, which is great for a realism point of view. Leading to;

The entire show going ‘yeah, they’re camp. Get over it’ with no excuses ever being made. Flamboyant clothes, dialogue choices, actions, but without any veil of ‘no homo’ OR ‘this is a joke’. Not once are we invited to laugh at the campness - the scenes with Victor’s old androgynous skating outfit, Yuuri’s “teach me to dance like a woman”, and even Russian Yuri’s attire during the final skate all spring to mind. While each of these scenes may create ‘shock value’ with the audience, they are not played that way - it is the audience alone who provides that emotion, without help from the show, therefore normalising it.  

The characters are all fairly unique. Only Russian Yuri becomes close to a trope, but dances just short of that line.

The animation. I don’t know how many human sacrifices were needed for Yuri On Ice, but I bet it was a lot. Not just the skaters, but the background work must have been killer.

It almost seems to be designed as a middle finger to the people who go ‘oh you just wanna see two guys screwing’, by saying quite clearly ‘actually they just want to see two guys get to be engaged and lead happy and fulfilling lives together, but thanks for playing’. It honestly feels like it was done on a dare - you can write whatever you want, but you can only have one non-G rated kiss, and no-one can mention being gay at all. It’s deconstructive in a way that is going to be held up as an example for years. This is the sort of media that will encourage representation - see you don’t have to sexualise it by snogging and groping just because it’s gay. And conversely, that there are ways to convey eroticism without falling into traditional tropes if that is what you’re going for.

You won’t convince me that ‘the siblings’, complete with ‘wish we had rings like that’ isn’t a dig at people trying to read this (and other blatantly queer media) as platonic.

Speaking of which, the brief hetero-baiting with Yuuko was a masterpiece. I also liked that they were showing a woman with children as being young, whereas media in general seems to shy away from that, despite it being very normal.

You named two main characters the same thing. I love such blatant breaking of The One Steve Limit.

The Russian characters have Russian accents. We’re not just saying they’re from Russia, they actually sound it, which anime can sometimes be pretty bad about. And people have discernibly different skin tones. I shouldn’t have to be thankful for it, but I am.

The AU potential, thank you for this stage.

The food. It makes me so hungry all the time.

Not Good aka. the FIFTEEN section:

*he hides his head in his hands, knowing this is probably going to be opening a whole can of worms*

Adults have their hands on Russian Yuri way, way too much. Strangely I feel like there were actually the bare bones of subplot to do with that, that never really goes anywhere, which is a shame because if you were going to show that, you needed to show some kind of fallout from it. 

Russian Yuri being revealed to be fifteen naturally made all shipping thoughts stop like I was about to drive straight into a brick wall (which is good, got to give those emergency breaks a test every now and again). Given that it is in people’s nature to want to give the characters they like another character they connect to strongly (therefore leading to a romantic contingent 9 times out of 10) I feel like the show could’ve benefitted from having a character his own age for people to explore that with. Which as far as I remember gives you Kenjirou and Guang Hong Ji who are 17 (as far as I remember he never meets either) and that’s it. I know there are gonna be Otabek shippers out there yelling at me, but 19 and 15 is too much for me to be comfortable with. [Disclaimer: my own husband is 8 years older than me - so yes I know people with age differences can still have healthy relationships, but no I do not think it is something I want to normalise in teenagers]

Character ageing in general. Yuuri being revealed to be 23 was a bit of a ‘huh’ moment, and Victor is clearly drawn to look much older at 27. Yuuko is 25 and has Yuuri Syndrome by looking a lot younger than she is (though as I mentioned above, it was great to see a younger person with children for a change). HOWEVER, they do go to great lengths to keep reminding you of the characters’ respective ages and I am very grateful for that.

*he takes a deep breath* Ok, if those didn’t open the can of worms, this one will. 
 I don’t like that Victor Is Yuuri’s coach.
 I really don’t feel comfortable with that kind of power dynamic ever being involved, or normalising that sort of relationship, especially when young athletes have a good chance of watching this.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  :

Not a single impromptu erection joke in all of that nudity and skin tight outfits. Especially when Victor’s essentially naked wrestling him in the bath house? Lose 1 point for lack of realism.

Glasses-no glasses = no confidence-confidence

This being an AU where there’s apparently no backlash about homosexuality. I sort of miss having any realistic moments about it, but at the same time I appreciate the safe space it creates for queer people watching by removing that drama entirely.

At twelve episodes at twenty minutes each, I can see why things are less fully fleshed out than they could be. Russian Yuri’s arc is touched on, but in less depth than might be desired (see above), and also it means that the excellent insight into the characters can come off as a little clunky, as we don’t really see them off the ice, and it means that their ‘ice monologues’ are heavy on the exposition.



By the same principle, it means even the main characters can be difficult to pin down sometimes. But, and boy is it a big one, they play with this incredibly well, it is very intentional and that makes all of the difference. Yuuri’s tears being half-therapeutic/half-manipulative is a surprise to the audience and therefore an excellent moment of character building - you misunderstood him because it fit your narrative, look again, pay attention. The same thing with The Banquet Incident, which is fantastic. The writers play into your narrative assumptions of ‘eh anime logic, sure Victor sees a video on the internet and turns up’, but then blindside you with a funny but completely logical explanation as to why it actually happened. They make the time constraints of 12x20 episodes work for them, not against them and as a result of that, the story they manage to tell is even more clever and impressive.

[1inawesomewonder]

From Thomas F. Sullivan Arena, St. Anselm College, Goffstown, NH – January 8, 2020

The Grizzlies welcomed the Keene Blackbirds to Sullivan Arena on Wednesday night for a contest with one of the top teams in Division II hockey. Goffstown scored first and then gave up 4 straight goals in the second and third periods. A pair of Keene’s goals were scored on power play opportunities, they were 2 for 2 with the extra skater. The Grizzlies stormed back but could not score on their power play chances, and fell 4-3.

The Grizzlies line up to go toe-to-toe with the mighty Keene Black Birds. (Sage Photo)

Most of the first period was spent with both teams playing good hockey and it was fun to watch. Goffstown scored first when Jackson Burke made a gorgeous rush up the ice and dropped a pass in the slot for Jack Wilkinson. Wilkinson was tied up by a defender and the puck dropped behind him, right on to the stick of Colby Gamache. Gamache picked his spot and wired a wrist shot past Jacob Russell for a 1-0 lead at 4:57. The Grizzlies still had their troubles at times with trying to secure the puck in the in their own end, and then break out with it. This would catch up to them in the second period. Madeline Sage made 10 saves on 10 shots in the first period, and some of those were from very close range. Theo Milianes took a slashing penalty with 17 seconds left in the opening period and that too caught up with Goffstown in the second period. Keene held the edge in shots at 10-8 for the first period.

Jackson Burke had a nice game for the Grizzlies but this shot didn’t go too far. (Jen Webber Photography)

Jerred Tattersall possesses one of the best shots in all of Division II hockey, in my opinion. He is a goal scorer, a finisher. In the second period he scored a natural hat trick. His first goal of the period came at 1:25 on the aforementioned penalty being served by Milianes. Peter Haas had the lone assist on the play. Just a few seconds before the goal, Keene had hit the post with a shot. I thought that Goffstown was much better on their defensive assignments in this game despite being down another one of their top defenseman for this game. Keene may be one of the better offensive zone teams that Goffstown will see this year, especially the Black Birds first line. The value of possession of the puck for the Grizzlies especially when attempting to break out of their own end continues to plague them. Keene capitalized on that very trouble over the entire second period. At 7:25 of the period Tattersall scored again, this time from Joe Walsh. At 8:40 of the period, Peter Haas snagged a failed clearing attempt and walked in from the left point only to ring his shot off of the corner where the crossbar and post come together. Then at 11:04 Maddie Sage made an impossible save on Tattersall’s clean breakaway attempt. I am still unsure how she kept that puck out of the net. Jerred’s third goal was assisted by Peter Haas, and came at 12:10. These goals were the result of a great finishing touch by Tattersall but also came after Goffstown either had the puck or had an opportunity to clear the puck, and Keene ended up in possession of the little black rubber disc. Ben Brown took his turn when he hit iron with a shot off of the crossbar at 13:08. Keene would finish the period with a 3-1 lead, even though shots were even at 9-9 in the period.

Grady Chretien had a memorable night despite the loss. Here he gets a little love from the Keene defender. (Jen Webber Photography)

The Grizzlies played a pretty decent third period, but Keene would cash in when they were given advantages. Goffstown took a penalty for too many skaters on the ice at 3:51 of the third period. It took Keene only 8 seconds to convert on their power play chance. Ben Brown scored from Peter Haas and the Keene lead had grown to 4-1 at 3:59 of the period. Goffstown wasn’t about to give up, and they answered with a goal of their own only 20 seconds later. Jackson Burke scored from Jack Wilkinson and Luke Ouellette on a nice play consisting of perseverance and puck movement. Goffstown trailed 4-2 in the final period and that’s when looking back at missed chances, or chances given start to cloud the thought process. For example, at 3:06 of the period the Grizzlies had won an offensive zone faceoff back to Eric DesRuisseaux at the left point. DesRusiseaux stepped into a nice hard shot that beat Russell, but it clanked off of the near side post and went wide. Right after that, Keene scored on their power play.

Goffstown was getting chances and playing well despite trailing by two goals. Then Colby Gamache made a brilliant rush through center ice and was skating hard for the net when he dished the puck to Grady Chretien on his left. Chretien put the puck in the net for an historic goal, his 50th career goal. It was a great play. I only know of three other players that have eclipsed that mark in their Goffstown careers. Dan Mercier (’02) had 60 goals. Noah Charron (’18) had 60. Sean Naughton (’04) had 54 goals, and now Grady has 50, and counting.

#gallery-0-16 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-16 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-16 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-16 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Colby and Grady fly past the net as the puck lays in the net for a moment. (Jen Webber Photography)

There is respect within the group, and oh, what a smile! (Jen Webber Photography)

Career goal #50 for Grady Chretien, a historic goal. (Sage Photo)

Grady greeted by the team while Colby flips the milestone puck to the bench for safekeeping. (Sage Photo)

The Grizzlies now trailed 4-3 with lots of time left to play. At 10:37 of the period, Joe Walsh took a double minor penalty for high sticking and unsportsmanlike conduct. Goffstown had the advantage for a whole four minutes and even though they came close, including pulling Sage from the net at 14:00 of the period, the Grizzlies could not get the equalizer. Goffstown led the shots count 13-5 in the period, and 30-24 for the game but fell short on the scoreboard, 4-3.

Hopefully Goffstown will get at least one of their defenseman back for Friday’s afternoon home game against Dover. Dover comes to town with a 5-0 record and a 26-7 goal advantage over their opponents. Then less than 24 hours later, the Grizzlies will play host to Somersworth-Coe-Brown at noon on Saturday.

So, after the game and going to my son’s practice over at West Side Arena, I got home and I started writing. As I finished up, I received a string of pictures of tonight’s action from Maureen Sage. I downloaded them, and uploaded them, and so on, just to add them to this post. Then as I was finishing that, I got a string of pictures from Jen Webber covering the game tonight. The pictures from both young ladies are awesome, as always. What was even more cool was that they got pictures of some of the same plays from different angles at the same time. So here, I present some galleries from two people that I cannot thank enough for their contributions to me, to these articles, to the team, and to our community. Thank you. Enjoy!

Who did it?

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The referee asks for a show of hands for anyone that just committed a penalty. Honesty is the best policy. (Jen Webber Photography)

From the other side of the ice, Burke is down, and we know who did it. (Sage Photo)

Captain Archer

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Colby Gamache scores for the Grizzlies and goes into a classic celebration pose. (Jen Webber Photography)

Fortunately there were no actual arrows fired in these pictures, but Colby’s shot on goal was a dart. (Sage Photo)

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Grady and Colby have become one of the more potent scoring tandems in Division II. (Sage Photo)

Chretien hits top speed in pursuit of the puck. (Jen Webber Photography)

Jack Wilkinson had a pair of assists against the Black Birds. (Sage Photo)

Burke leads the charge while the bench isn’t happy with a ‘no-call’. (Jen Webber Photography)

Jackson Burke on the fly against Keene on Wednesday night. (Sage Photo)

The puck crosses the line to give the Grizzlies a 1-0 lead. (Jen Webber Photography)

Drew O’Brien back checking against Keene. (Sage Photo)

Let’s talk about what just happened out there. (Jen Webber Photography)

Maddie

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Madeline Sage made 20 saves in the loss to Keene and she kept the Grizzlies in the game early on. (Sage Photo)

Maddie and Mel defending against the Keene Black Birds. (Sage Photo)

  NHIAA Hockey:

Updated records.

Goffstown (5-5-0) vs. Keene (4-0-1)

Thomas F. Sullivan Arena, St. Anselm College, Goffstown, NH

Monday, January 8, 2020. 5:13 PM Start:

Summary:

Goals:

Goffstown: 1-0-2 = 3

Keene: 0-3-1 = 4

Shots:

Goffstown: 08-09-13 = 30 Keene: 10-09-05 = 24

Scoring:

1st Goffstown at 4:57. Even. Colby Gamache (9) from Jackson Burke (5) and Jack Wilkinson (1).

  2nd Keene at 1:25. PPG. Jerred Tattersall from Peter Haas.

2nd Keene at 7:25. Even. Jerred Tattersall from Joe Walsh.

2nd Keene at 12:10. Even. Jerred Tettersall from Peter Haas.

3rd Keene at 3:59. PPG. Ben Brown from Peter Haas.

3rd Goffstown at 4:19. Even. Jackson Burke (4) from Jack Wilkinson (2) and Luke Ouellette (2).

3rd Goffstown at 6:11. Even. Grady Chretien (13) from Colby Gamache (10).

  Special Teams:

Goffstown Power Play: 0 for 4.

Keene Power Play: 2 for 2.

  Saves:

Goffstown: Maddie Sage 20 of 24. (44:00)

Keene: Jacob Russell 27 of 30. (44:45)

The beginning of every article. (C) 1inawesomewonder 2017.

Someone thought this was a good idea. Fellow lefties unite. (Jen Webber Photography)

The thoughts and opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributors, mostly mine, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the schools, coaches, players, or characters listed in any of these blog posts. Or, maybe they do, but you would have to ask them directly. Either way, “It’s a great day for hockey” ~ the late “Badger” Bob Johnson. 

Hockey: Goffstown 3 vs. Keene 4 From Thomas F. Sullivan Arena, St. Anselm College, Goffstown, NH - January 8, 2020 The Grizzlies welcomed the Keene Blackbirds to Sullivan Arena on Wednesday night for a contest with one of the top teams in Division II hockey.

[thrashermaxey]

Cage Match Tournament 2018 – Breakout Players (Week 4)

Remember how all along I said there would be at least three summer Cage Match Tournaments? Well, after a break to celebrate Bubble Keeper Week, I’m back with a fourth Tournament, this time to focus on up-and-coming defensemen.

Cage Match Tournament #4 – Breakout Unproven Defensemen

For this tournament, you’re going to vote on which defenseman (or defensemen) – who has/have never previously scored 40 or more points or had a 40+ point scoring rate – will beat his/their career high in points (or scoring pace) by 10+ points in 2018-19. The 18 choices are listed below, along with their previous career high. As with the second and third Tournaments I’ve included a “none of the above” choice in case you believe none of them will meet the criteria to merit your vote.

Voting Rules and Guidelines

Yet again you can vote for as many or as few players as you want – just be sure every player you’re voting for is someone you realistically see as someone who’ll beat his previous career high in points (or scoring pace) by at least ten in 2018-19. Since we’re dealing with actual points being scored, once again Band-Aid Boy status and injury history are negatives, since if a player is prone to getting hurt then he has less chance to outscore his prior career high.

Beyond that, and as also was the case in all prior tournaments, make sure to vote with your head more than your heart. That means you should mainly bear in mind objective factors affecting one’s scoring, like contract status, likelihood of being traded during the season, and individual/team situation. You can still use instincts and hunches; but keep in mind your fellow Dobberites will look at the voting results for crowdsourced fantasy guidance, so don’t – for example – vote for someone for “good karma” simply because he’s on your team or not for someone else because he’s on the squad of your chief rival. The idea is to enjoy yourself, but also have the results be meaningful.

Once again voting will take place in the Dobberhockey forums. I’ll put a direct link at the bottom of the column. Now without further ado, here are your voting choices (in alphabetical order):

Thomas Chabot (Previous career high scoring pace = 32 points)

As I write this, Erik Karlsson is still a member of the Ottawa Senators. But chances are he might not be when the 2018-19 campaign begins, with Chabot a big beneficiary even if another defenseman comes to Ottawa as part of the deal. Chabot used last season to get a full taste of NHL action, and, in contrast to the rookie wall many first year players hit, got better with each quarter, culminating in ten points in 24 games to end the season while taking the ice for 42% of Ottawa’s PP time and for nearly 20 minute per game overall. With Chabot, the question is less so whether he’ll break out, but when. Despite the Sens looking poised for another poor season, Chabot would be a top option for blueline offense right away once Karlsson is shipped out of town. Even on a bad team, that is a recipe for points.

Jakob Chychrun (Previous career high scoring pace = 24 points)

Unlike Chabot, Chychrun fared worse as the season – his second – wore on. Yet he still made key strides overall, including his per game power-play time doubling to 2:02 and his overall ice time clearing the 20 minute mark. He also saw his SOG rate climb significantly to more than two per game. All signs are pointing to a major jump in scoring, and it could come as soon as this season, especially if Arizona’s young nucleus starts to gel as expected.

Aaron Ekblad (Previous career high scoring pace = 39 points)

When he nearly hit the 40 point mark in his age 18 season in 2014-15, few thought he’s still have yet to clear that threshold after three more campaigns. And although many will see his 2017-18 output of 38 points and figure he failed in his magical fourth season, his totals don’t come close to telling the full story, as 26 of those 38 points came in his final 43 games. Yet before we take that and get too carried away, he was still seeing the ice for roughly only a third of Florida’s PP time and his normally high SOG rate cratered, such that he finished with 36 fewer SOG in 2017-18 versus 2016-17 despite playing in 13 more games. This is a tough vote, since some signs point toward a big scoring spike while others are indicating that he might be lucky to keep his points total above 35. Your votes hopefully will help point your fellow Dobberites in the right direction when it comes to predicting Ekblad’s 2018-19 output.

Mattias Ekholm (Previous career high scoring pace = 35 points)

Although if you read my cage match from June on Ekholm, you saw how there’s no precedent for a team with four defensemen each scoring 45+ points, so that would seemingly make Ekholm’s quest for that number next to impossible due to the high scoring and more favorable deployment of Roman Josi, P.K. Subban, and Ryan Ellis. Yet as we saw when Ellis was hurt, Ekholm can score at a 45+ point pace (13 points in his first 20 games). so if somehow one of Nashville’s “big three” gets injured or even traded (as had supposedly been rumored for Subban in the spring), then suddenly Ekholm gets a chance to once again strut his stuff. Injuries and trades do happen, so perhaps on that basis Ekholm merits your vote?

Samuel Girard (Previous career high scoring pace = 24 points)

As we see from some of the other voting choices, it’s rare for a young defenseman – even one as highly touted as Girard – to connect the dots by his second season. Yet the supremely talented Girard could have it in him to improve enough to deserve your vote, as although his SOG rate was low and he took the ice for under 18:00 per game last season, his last five regular season games each featured him receiving 20:00+ per game and he fired a total of ten SOG in those contests, posting two points. Stretch that into a full season and he’d coast to at least 32 points. The question for you to decide in casting your vote is whether Colorado is ready to commit to Girard to that extent over an entire campaign.

Noah Hanifin (Previous career high scoring pace = 33 points)

If Hanifin can produce what Dougie Hamilton did, then 43 points would be a walk in the park. Where concern arises is Hanifin was having a difficult time getting regular PP time in for the Hurricanes, so what will happen now that he’s the Flames, who have more options? With Hanifin set to enter his magical fourth year right after Mark Giordano and T.J. Brodie posted only 21 PPPts between them, there might be a chance for Hanifin to seize the PP reins and, in doing so, see his points total spike to 43+.

Oscar Klefbom (Previous career high scoring pace = 38 points)

After portions of three seasons with the Oilers, Klefbom landed squarely on fantasy radars in 2016-17 with 38 points. As was the case with most Oiler skaters, much was expected of Klefbom for 2017-18; and like many of them, he fell short, managing 21 points in 66 games. But for each bad sign (like only 6 PPPts) there was a positive, like him equaling his 2016-17 SOG total in 16 fewer games. The concern lies in whether the Oilers trust Klefbom to be their top guy, including on the PP. It’s seemingly his spot to lose for now; so if the Oilers revert back to their 2016-17 ways, he could have huge point totals.

Esa Lindell (Previous career high scoring pace = 28 points)

Last season Lindell made strides in the points department, plus saw his average PP Time per game rise by 50%. And he was cruising along on his way to 30+ points until he limped to the finish with a mere four in his last 21 games. If Erik Karlsson comes to Dallas, then Lindell becomes an immediate fantasy afterthought; however, if that doesn’t happen we could see Lindell continue to progress and, with that, tally even more points, perhaps even a lot more despite John Klingberg remaining top dog when it comes to the Dallas blueline.

Josh Manson (Previous career high scoring pace = 38 points)

Last season Manson, at age 26, came from nowhere to post 37 points, easily besting his combined total from his last two seasons. And he did it without scoring a single PPPt, which right there is the big wrinkle. If Manson is unable to break into the PP rotation, he’s unlikely to equal – let alone surpass – his scoring output from last season. Yet if he can continue his offensive showcase the Ducks might just try him on the PP, where if he clicks he could outpace even his surprising stats from last season.

Mike Matheson (Previous career high scoring pace = 27 points)

For the time being Matheson is a third wheel when it comes to defenseman scoring, behind Ekblad and Keith Yandle. Yet the Panthers certainly think highly of him – highly enough to ink him, last October, to an eight-year deal paying him just under $5M per season. And with that kind of money usually comes more ice time and responsibility, which is exactly what occurred, with his power-play time doubling to more than a minute per game and his overall time per game climbing by nearly a minute to 21:20. The question is whether Florida can become a dynamic enough offensive team to support three d-men all scoring at or above 37 points.

Brandon Montour (Previous career high scoring pace = 33 points)

Unlike Manson, Montour already figures prominently in the PP equation for the Ducks, seeing the ice for more than 50% of the team’s time with the man advantage and jumping from 17:28 per game overall in his first season to above 20 minutes per game in 2017-18 and responding with 32 points. With Shea Theodore now gone, and neither Cam Fowler nor Hampus Lindholm representing a true PP QB, Montour has a chance to step up and grab the job, and, with that, the points boost that would come with it.

John Moore (Previous career high scoring pace = 28 points)

Although Moore was not signed for his offense, the B’s have a history of players (like Dennis Seidenberg) who, although defense first in their mentality, also put up nice points along the way for the team. And Moore could be the next in that line, especially if he gets some PP2 time and plays more than 20:00 per game for the high-scoring Bruins.

Darnell Nurse (Previous career high scoring pace = 26 points)

Although visions of Nurse being a dominating d-man, with ample points and punishing defense, have not come to fruition as yet, he enters 2018-19 with a shot to grab the PP1 job, especially if Klefbom falters. Although Nurse only had 26 points in 2017-18, he had six multi-point games, which shows he can score in bunches. And if we count his 44 game 2016-17, this would be his magical fourth season, so between that and a rebound for the Oilers we could be in for a breakout that takes him to 36+.

Dmitry Orlov (Previous career high scoring pace = 33 points)

The groans you heard back in early July were from Orlov owners when John Carlson re-signed, since that likely meant Orlov would remain on the outside looking in when it came to PP1. This despite Orlov being a dynamic puck mover and otherwise skilled enough to be a PP QB. Still, the Caps still have enough firepower to score in droves, and with the ice time and PP2 role that Orlov has that could be the recipe for him to score in the 40s.

Ryan Pulock (Previous career high scoring pace = 38 points)

After ending last season with 24 points in 40 games, all Pulock would need to do is keep up that pace in order to best his career high by ten. So should you stop reading now and vote for him? Not so fast. As was discussed in last week’s Bubble Keeper edition of Goldipucks, Nick Leddy is still “the guy” in New York, with Pulock taking the ice for 50% of New York’s man advantage minutes in a mere six of his 68 games last season. Still – Pulock could do what Matt Dumba did in Minnesota last season, which is force the issue enough for there to be two top defensemen scorers in town.

Damon Severson (Previous career high scoring pace = 32 points)

Still only 23, it seems like Severson is even older, likely because he’s already played 279 NHL games and will be entering his fifth season in 2018-19, although you could count it as his magical fourth if you look past the 51 contests he played in 2014-15. Thus far all poolies have to show for patience with Severson is one season above 24 points. And now Sami Vatanen and Will Butcher have entered the equation as go to options for d-men points. Yet Severson still managed 15 points in his last 38 games and it wouldn’t be the first time a young d-man finally blossomed once the spotlight was shining less brightly on him.

Nate Schmidt (Previous career high scoring pace = 39 points)

Although Colin Miller and Shea Theodore will likely duke it out for top PP minutes in Sin City, Schmidt is poised to be the defenseman anchor for the Knights, with the higher ice time to show for it and some PP scraps. If the Knights continue their high scoring ways there should be enough points to go around such that Schmidt will cruise pass the 40-point mark and maybe even make a run at 50.

Shea Theodore (Previous career high scoring pace = 39 points)

As noted above, Theodore stands to battle it out with Colin Miller for top dog PP minutes in Vegas. And after posting 21 points in his last 39 games, with ten of those coming in the playoffs thanks in large part to over three minutes per game of power-play time, Theodore might have the inside edge. Always a highly touted prospect, Theodore is getting a chance to strut his stuff and looks to be making the most of it, so a major breakout could be in the cards.

. . . . . . . . . .

There are your 18 voting choices (19 if you count “none of the above,” which once again I’ll list as a choice as well). Remember, you can vote for as many or as few of the 18 as you think will actually score 10+ points higher than their previous career best in 2018-19. To vote, click here.

As with last week, when voting, be sure to also post in the thread about which player(s) you chose to vote for and why, as that way your fellow Dobberites can get better insight into your thought process and the Tournament can be as instructive as it is fun.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-home/cage-match/cage-match-tournament-2018-breakout-players-week-4/

[thornburgrealty]

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from WordPress http://www.thornburgrealty.com/2018/07/03/earlier-a-fun-game-think-im-year/

[bel-mari-eee]

Speaking text

-favorite sports athletes 

I like Yuzuru Hanyu. He is a figure skater and he was the Olympics in this year. First of all his performance is very elegant and beautiful. I think many people in the world is attracted by his figure skating. I respect not only his performance but also honest character and challenging attitude. - favorite habits in weekend

I really love to go out for a brunch with my friend. In weekday I do not have enough time to enjoy the breakfast but I love the time such as having a morning with tasty cappucino chatting with my friend. -trip I try to travel as much as I can. I absolutely agree with that opinion.  First of all, When I was traveling, always I could come across with new experience. For example, I can meet different people and culture, and touch different way of thinking. It makes my value  borden  and noticed that where I live in is small island  and what I can see is so narrow and the world is large. This experience brings me the motivation to your future.

Third, travel can be a refresh and relieve stress.

Negative point: Once you experienced the travel abroad, you alway think that when you can travel next.

-歴史に触れられる都市 Second during traveling I visit many historical place and  get a realistic recognition for the history.For instance, in Tokyo there is almost no old buildings and historic site which can remember the past. I sometimes wonder if  the fact which we learn at history class is true. Of course it is true but it seems to a fiction or fantasy for me if we cannot see the trace of the fact  physically.

-建築について

I studied architecture and completed master degree in art in architecture.My field is architectural design and history of the architects. I studied in Germany for one year as an exchange student. I can get a lot of knowledge and method for designing contemporary architecture make a harmony with historical buildings. It was completely different approach and thought to design architecture and it stimulates me to further study or work in Europe.

While I was studying in Europe, I had a travel and visited many architecture as much as possible. I visited Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Switzerland, London and so on... Architecture itself was a great teacher for me . I can read the living of people in those days , social conditions, religion and technology. What is impressed me is architecture is highly connected with culture and culture is shaped from geology, temperature, climates and so on.

食事

I think to take three meals in day is highly important because our body are made of what you eat. Eating regularly with balanced nourishment is one of the most essential thing for our life.

I think older people can enjoy s cooking because most of young people including me hardly cook by myself. The one reason is that if you live alone it costs much cheaper buying already meal than cooking by own. I was  really surprised that Vegetables and fruits are very cheap in Europe. But elder generations has a habit of cooking because they have an experience to cook for their family. In addition It is not so much popular the ready meal 30 years ago compered with now.

I think the technology will develop more and more , some company improve the quality of microwaved meals which keep the nourishment. Moreover there is some possibility of robot or AI can cook for us.

-週末

I often visit museum in weekend. There is many interesting temporal exhibition in Tokyo. Last weekend I visited Mori Art Museum in Roppongi about Japanese architecture. This exhibition focuses on the history ofJapanese architecture both contemporary and historical aspects and illustrates the back ground of the culture. Visiting exhibition brings me new aspect about theme and broaden my horizon.

-親友

I have a best friend Marina. We meet in the summer of 2016. We studied in Berlin together for one year and discuss about assignment, design and cultural difference. She is good at time managing and theoretically thinking and I am good at thinking creative ideas and taking an action. We are the best partner.

-言葉

Yes. I actually am learning German. I realized most European can speak three languages at least while I studied in Germany.  I think to learn different language is a great help to understand different culture and thought in another country.

-歴史

I am interested in contemporary history especially after the industrial revolution. It is because after the industrial revolution , life style of people changed dramatically and made a foundation of modern system same as ours.  I am curious about how people could apply to new technology and thought.

In addition, my field is contemporary architecture and that is significant turning point of it.

[thissurroundingall]

Enzo Smits

On subculture, memories and the art of doing nothing.

Dutch translation.

Date of interview: march 2018

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

Truth be told, Enzo Smits (1988°) is no stranger to us. We met him about ten years ago in the local skate scene of Mol and to this day we still share the same world of interests. Today we meet Enzo on a fairly sunny Sunday morning at the South Station of Brussels. This time not for skating, but to discuss his work as a filmmaker and screenwriter. 

Enzo grew up in Mol, but has been living in Brussels for about ten years now. His developing body of work includes the short films ‘All We Ever Wanted Was Everything’ (2014) and ‘It won’t be long now’ (2016), the group exhibition ‘Nothing is Cool’ (2015) and the scenario for the comic ‘Wolves’ (2016). As owner of book and record shop ZWART-WIT, Enzo displays his daily life as an idiosyncratic selection of reading and listening material. Somewhere between all these things, he finds the time to work together with illustrator Ward Zwart on a second comic.

Before heading to his apartment, we start the day off with a msemmen, a delicacy of Maghreb origin that strikes a balance between bread and pancakes. Feta and olives? Yes please. After a short walk through Saint-Gilles we arrive at his apartment in Vorst. We’re served a black tea as we reminisce over past memories. After thriving in his natural environment for a while, we move the conversation to Le Petit Molière, a cosy café just down the street. That’s when the conversation really gets going. To the soundtrack of "I Can’t Live Without You", "Roxanne" and "Staying Alive" the locals make themselves at home.

Skateboarding is, albeit indirectly, a theme that often recurs in your work. You were a skater yourself during your teenage years. How do you look back on this period?

Skateboarding is super interesting, but the skating itself wasn’t my strongest feature. Pretty soon I felt that I wasn’t going to be very good at it and I started to focus more on filming and shooting photos of my friends.

That's how I discovered the 'creative side' of skateboarding whilst being introduced to a whole bunch of new things. A brand new world opened up to me in terms of music. But I also got to know filmmakers like Mike Mills, Spike Jonze and Harmony Korine this way. I think that, as is the case with every teenager, subculture is a good way to discover other things. In that regard, skating was just a starting point for me.

It’s also true that skating, and in particular hanging around and searching for places, has unconsciously had a strong influence on how I make films now. As a skateboarder you learn to look at a public space in a different way. I think that’s how I developed my fascination for parking lots and other non-places. Places that actually have a very specific purpose, but are used by skaters in a whole different way.

16mm-still from All We Ever Wanted Was Everything (2014)

In your graduation project ‘All We Ever Wanted Was Everything’ (2014) we follow a group of young skaters. How did the creative process of this film come about?

It took a long time before I knew how I wanted to make that film. I didn’t want it to be just another story about skating. I have yet to see a story in which everything revolves around the act of skateboarding itself, to be filmed in a successful way.

Instead I wanted to show everything that happens in the margin: the moving around from spot to spot, the waiting and all the non-moments that stuck with me. That’s also the reason why I wanted to make a film, with people I knew at locations I was familiar with. I did have some idea beforehand of how I wanted it to look like, but there was no fixed script. It would’ve been weird to force text on people. For me it was just as valuable if someone said: "My toes are numb", than any text I could have written. Why would I impose my vision purely upon these people instead of letting them tell the story themselves.

Throughout the making of the film we gradually discovered how we wanted to tackle this subject. The idea was that the film would have the structure of a photo album. That you as a viewer could let your eyes glide from image to image and that the story gradually unfolds. That’s the main idea, but then you still have to convert that idea into a process. At times the filming itself looked very much like hanging around and skating, but with a clear goal in mind. Our 'scenario' became more of a map consisting of places, people and situations. During productio these elements were then brought together and we gradually came to the final result.

The movie was shot on actual film. Why is that?

In terms of material we deliberately opted for a minimal setup: one camera, two different lenses, two types of film and no added light. As a result, we often had to wait for the right light or accept that certain things weren’t visible. Turning on a pellicule gives a grainy character to the image. It was clear beforehand that we would mainly film still images: empty rooms, still lifes, environments, ... Because of the grain you feel as a viewer that there is movement, that you are not looking at a picture or a frame.

Apart from the aesthetic aspect, using 16mm film also entailed a certain method. Unless you work with huge budgets, which is certainly not the case with me, you have to choose much more carefully what you shoot or don’t shoot. In addition, you can’t immediately review the shots. Because of this, during the editing process I had already forgotten certain considerations that I had at the time of filming. I could see the images as just … images. But that certainly doesn’t mean I reject the digital. Each film requires a certain working method. For me the question "How do I make this film" is just as important as "What kind of story do I want to tell". It differs from project to project. For example,'It won’t be long now' (2016), the short film that I made for the 4x7 series for Canvas (broadcasting station), was fully digitized. Apart from the neighborhood views in the beginning, which were made the day before, everything was filmed in one evening. The film is made up of only a handful of long shots, so that the course of time becomes tangible. The best moments in the film came about when it was unclear whether the camera was running or not. Since my characters had never been in front of a camera, this was a convenient way of working.

For me it was just as valuable if someone said: "My toes are numb", than any text I could have written. 

Film-still from ‘It won’t be long now’ (2016)

Young people always seem to pop up in your work. Do you cherish a certain nostalgia for your teenage years?

It’s a world that I know and recognize. It is a period that feels like one big intermediate moment, it has a certain slowness to it where you constantly seem to wait for what will come. This world lends itself very well to the stories I want to tell. What I very often tend to create is a kind of ideal, a romantic image of boredom. Boredom without it being boring. In telling something about teenagers, you can really emphasize that feeling which makes the subject so great.

In addition to this, I’m also somewhat receptive to the nostalgia and the melancholy that you can associate with it. My view of how I think about my youth is also a kind of romanticism that only comes about afterwards. I was confronted with this fact during the making of my first film. I had a certain image of the town of Mol or a similar place in my mind that did not resemble what it looked like in reality. In the end, we went searching for places like the ones in my imagination. I’ve been deliberately engaged in maintaining these memories and  trying to show a realistic picture of it.

What I very often tend to create is a kind of ideal, a romantic image of boredom. Boredom without it being boring.

The images in your films tend to be quite static. Is that primarily a contentual choice?

I quite often make the choice to film on a tripod. But that might also have something to do with my fascination for photography. I like it when time becomes something tangible/palpable. When this happens, the viewer is given the space to recognize himself in a certain moment or situation. A space between images arises, in which you can create your own stories as a viewer.

I also find this true for books. Even if it’s just about turning pages. One of the few remarks I might give on Ward's drawings is: "Make it longer or try to stretch that action a bit longer."

Do you always choose to work with a small production team?

By working on other films I discovered that the machinery behind a movie is not really my thing. This was my reason for working with a small teams ever since. I want to work with people I trust instead of a big team that only slows everything down on set. If you’re working with forty people, you can no longer jump into the car at the last minute to film somewhere else. Sometimes I'm jealous of photographers because they only have to take care of themselves. Yet I would miss the dialogue with other people. I think I’m looking for the best of both worlds. With Grimm Vandekerckhove as DOP and Kwinten Van Laethem as sound engineer I found 2 people that I feel think about film in the same way I do. So for the time being I do not see why I should need more people.

How can the exhibition ‘Nothing is Cool’ be situated within the context of your work?

‘Nothing is Cool’ is a something I already spoke about with Nick Geboers and Stef Renard while filming for ‘A.W.E.W.W.E.’ The way a film is shown has an enormous impact on it’s reception. Too often films are arranged within a program of other shortfilms with whom, apart from the length, they have nothing in common. Yet these films affect each other and people unconsciously compare or link them.

Nick and Stef both work regularly on youth and skateboard culture, it seemed interesting to work with them and build a groupshow on this theme where different media could be combined. Sarah Hermans also joined the show quite quickly. Everyone approached the theme in his or her own way. While building the show everything seemed to fall into place.

I showed ‘A.W.E.W.W.E.’ in loop on a tube television. It happened that people started watching in the middle of the film. Up until now this was for me the most satisfying showing of the film. I also had the feeling that people suddenly understood it better by placing it within the bigger picture.

By limiting yourself in terms of scenario and the way of filming, you try to determine as little as possible in advance. Isn’t this a big difference with the narrative structure of ‘Wolven’ (2016), the comic in collaboration with Ward Zwart of which you wrote the scenario?

The stories in ‘Wolven’ are in that comic and not in a film because the stories have more in common with the structure of narrative fiction, for instance the use of dialogues. A lot of the stories in Wolven are unfinished scenario’s for shortfilms. The format of a comic permits me to get rid of these stories someplace else. But you can also add unrealistic elements in a comic and thus respond to the emotional world of the characters better. Finally, an animated dialogue is less decisive than one that is spoken out.

Fragment from Wolven by Ward zwart

A lot of the stories in Wolven are unfinished scenario’s for shortfilms. The format of a comic permits me to get rid of these stories someplace else. 

Do you have a regular routine while writing?

I admire people who can sit at their computer in the morning to start working right away. It’s really quite the opposite for me. For the greatest part, my work process consists of doing nothing, or at that moment thinking that I am not doing anything but being busy in a unconscious way. I walk around or gaze in books, I waste a lot of time behind the computer or I listen to music and suddenly there is one hour of concentrated work. Because I spend a lot of time commuting nowadays, that hour often takes place on the train. For me, work often takes place in between. As a result, I sometimes think of myself as being lazy or doing nothing.

When making a film it is nice that there is an effective filming period which is super intense. Then you are really busy from dusk til dawn.

Do you feel that you want to justify yourself for doing nothing?

I have already admitted that to myself, but sometimes I feel the need to justify something to the outside world. It is also difficult to explain to others what you do when you are writing or preparing a movie. One does not see how a project comes about. That is difficult to measure. I think it is a struggle for many people to accept that doing nothing is part of ones practice. I am quickly distracted, but that distraction is, at the same time, such a large part of the input. In all the things I make now, pop culture and everything related to it is super important.

For me, work often takes place in between stuff. As a result, I sometimes think of myself as being lazy or doing nothing.

It strikes me that you’re quite frank about the fact that your work is made up of the work of others. Who or what influences your practice?

In my films as well as in ‘Wolven’, I really want these influences to be part of the whole. Forty percent of my work was probably stolen in a way. A portion that I have picked up for processing. For example in ‘Wolven’ there is a character who  resembles David Foster Wallace because Ward and I like him. The movie posters hanging on the wall are from films that we like. There are scenes based on a Slint song. This is no different with my films. I don’t want to just drop names however. I just believe that pop culture, subculture and youth culture are so closely related that it would be strange to ignore their existence.

People often act tough about it. But when you write an essay, you also literally state all your sources. Why would you hide everything in fiction?

Forty percent of my work was probably stolen in a way. A portion that I have picked up for processing.

"Small town growing up" is a recurring theme in your work. You have been living in Brussels for a while now. Can we expect a story taking place in our capital soon?

Apart from school assignments I have never filmed anything in Brussels. I would love to do that, but there is still a feeling that it is not up to me to tell anything about the city. Many films about Brussels create a certain image of the place. You thereby create a stigma. While I do the same for Mol. I also give an unrealistic picture, but at the same time that has much more to do with an emotional world. I only discovered that and dared to admit it by making work about it. At first I wanted to resist, but I always returned to Mol to make films. For the new book, for the first time I started making something that took place in a city. But in the first scene the main character takes back the train to some allotment.

We end the conversation with "Another brick in the wall" in the background. The regulars open their throats and make their first modest dance moves. Enzo is not really in the mood for dancing, we decide to hang around in Brussels and let the day slumber on.

Blog A.W.E.W.W.E. It won’t be long now Wolven

Interview : Alexander Delport, Jakob Van den Broucke Translation: Alexander Delport, Jakob Van den Broucke Photography: Alexander Delport, Jakob Van den Broucke, Enzo Smits English editing: Tessa Vannieuwenhuyze, Maxim Ryckaerts

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