#i gotta learn how to use the render engine at some point :(

[sweaterregrets]

they are having a DISCUSSion do not disturb

[sanshofox]

In recent unreal engine news.

I am sooo fed up. I can’t put into words how I feel about this. I am just tired at this point. „Paying per seat“. Imagine you forgot smth and need to reopen the file but it’s a new seat, gotta pay double or what??

„Free for students“. What about people like me who still learn but aren’t at school anymore (as a creative you‘re always a student in some form). It’s unfair. So like you’re not a student so you automatically fall into the category developer even if it’s absolutely not true?? I am just a small artist using it for rendering and reference sheets for posing and lighting. I am using the bare minimum but still need to pay a full fledged sub meant for developers?

It’s taking advantage at this point.

Also it seems very contradictory what sweeney said. At one point he says there will be a treshold on when you have to pay, at the other point he says it’s like a subscription/pay per seat, so everyone has to pay.

As one commentator in this article said; what about the people in different countries where the sub amount could be hefty?

They say they wanna keep it at a low amount. That’s not helping at all. In order to be able to use unreal in its potential (or make it in the industry) you need to use other programs too that are already taking huge amounts of money. Zbrush, photoshop, maya, substance painter and many more. Per year you pay a hefty amount of money.

At this point blender will rise and shine even more and I fear that bigger company will hold a grudge and will find ways to even ruin blender. Let’s not forget that adobe is financing blender.

[thiswasinevitableid]

for mermay, 24 indruck nsfw?

Here you go! 24 was Lighthouse, and I made it a continuation of this space mermay fill. NOTE: this fill contains oviposition.

Communication Log between Lieutenant of the Amnesty and Chief Astrobotantist Duck Newton.

Joseph: Storm is forecasted to last four days at least. We won’t be able to land on Atlantia to pick you up until it passes.

Duck: Roger that. We should be fine here; ‘Drid says the storms are dangerous for spacecrafts and travel but not for buildings. I’ll keep testing the specimens we found in the meantime.

Joseph: if it gets too dangerous, let us know and we’ll try to get an emergency retrieval ship to you.

Duck: Will do. Duck out.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Atlantia, one of the four moons of the planet Oceana, is off limits to most. It’s home to precious minerals that the residents of the moon Aquaria have been known to go to war over, fighting to see who controls the territory in which the substance resides. To avoid these conflicts, the whole moon was declared a public resource, and all but the native Atlantians must acquire elaborate permits to visit. Outsiders are practically forbidden.

Unless said outsider is married to one of the most valuable individuals in the whole lunar system and said individual is suddenly very willing to throw his weight around for the sake of his beloved’s research.

Indrid’s negotiations were only able to secure permission for him and Duck, not the rest of the Amnesty, and so Duck spent the better part of two weeks scouring the plant life and trying to discern if the mineral make-up of the soil produced plants more likely to contain the curative properties he’s searching for. When the storm picked up, rendering the surface of the moon unsafe, Indrid apologized profusely for not foreseeing the change in the futures. Duck pointed out that it was sudden enough that the two of them had already arrived at the pick-up spot before the storm turned violent.

Of places to be sheltering during a storm, an Oceanic Beacon is at once an excellent and terrifying choice. It’s a combination of a lighthouse and landing strip, alerting travelers to the presence of land and the location to dock their craft. Because light from the beacon has to reach a massive distance into the sky and across the waves, the building lives beneath a dome of specially engineered, see-through glass. A storm has never so much as cracked one. But it means that Duck has a perfect view of the gigantic waves washing over them which, while awe-inspiring, makes his lizard brain certain he’s about to drown.

So he spends most of his time in the terrestrial rooms researching to keep his mind off the weather. Except for when Indrid swims up from the heavily fortified subaquatic portion of the lighthouse to visit him. Then he devotes every last bit of his energy to his husband. Most of the Aquariads he meets are shocked to discover he’s not only happy to be married to the eerie, formidable seer, but that he actively misses him when he’s out on his missions.

“The others are not too worried I hope?” Indrid swims to him as he comes down the stairs from the communication pad.

“Nope.” Duck pulls off the top of his uniform, “once you knew we had food to last over a month if we had to, I got a hell of a lot calmer too.” He drops into the pool, water carrying a hint of heat, as Indrid curls the celestial expanse of his tail around his waist. Duck is a strong swimmer, but Indrid’s ability to carry him to and fro without getting so much as winded makes him want to feign helplessness and spend his days in those undulating scales.

“In that case, sweet one, care to join me for a swim before dinner?”

Duck smiles, “You know it, sugar” and draws the alien in for a kiss as the lights of the beacon make gemstones of the salt spray on the glass.

--------------------------------------------------

Two days down, two to go, and Indrid wishes he could enjoy their little impromptu second honeymoon to it’s fullest (he’d taken Duck on a proper one his first visit back after joining the others on their expedition). His body has other plans; it seems to have caught on to the fact his partner keeps coming and going, and that if he wishes to have offspring with said partner, he needs to be ready (never mind that he and Duck cannot have offspring through any sort of biological means). So when Duck’s scent fills his nose and his laugh floods his ears, his body decides to fill his ovipositor.

Thus, he’s spent the last three days increasingly uncomfortable, the weight noticeable in his abdomen. His initial plan was to excuse himself early in the evening when they got home and masturbate until they were all released. But the beacon, while spacious, has very few rooms closed off, and the water is so clear that there are a high number of futures in which Duck catches him in the act.

Which is why, as the human sleeps a very safe distance from the edge of the pool (“‘Drid, if I fall in the worse that’ll happen is I get a hell of a wake up call” “yes but I cannot bear even the slightest risk of you drowning”), Indrid is squirming in an attempt to get comfortable. He doesn’t even realize he’s chirping in frustration until Duck murmurs his name.

“It, it is nothing sweet one, go back to sleep.”

“Darlin, your spots are goin’ green.” Duck indicates the flickers of sickly chartreuse in the water, “you feelin sick?”

“No. Or, ah, not in the sense you are thinkingoh, ohhh” he sighs, rubbing his face against Duck’s palm as the human gauges whether he’s feverish, “but I am achy and restless.”

“And hot, christ ‘Drid, there are med supplies here right? I mean, I got some in my bag, but they’re for humans-”

“I am not sick. It’s this” He rolls onto his back so Duck can see his cock straining to emerge.

“Sugar, you know you can ask for help with that any time.” Duck’s smile is sweet sin.

“No, it’s” Indrid whines as the tip emerges, the bulge of the first egg painfully obvious.

“Oh. Huh. Kinda figured you weren’t due for that again for a year or so. Not sure why; guess I just assumed Aquariads had a matin season.”

“Unfortunately it can happen quite often. If, if you do not mind, I will excuse myself and deal with it. It’s to the point where the eggs need to come out sooner rather than later.”

“Sure. Or, uh, if you want, I could, uh, help you out?”

--------------------------------------------------------------

The widening of Indrid’s eyes and the shock of orange that travels up his tail and fin suggests Duck has just done something remarkable.

“Surprise you, sugar?” He tucks a strand of silver hair the behind the aliens fanned out ear.

“Yes. There, there were no futures where you offered, why in the name of the deep did you?” His colors have turned nervous, but Duck spots occasional bursts of desire.

“Because” He sits up, patting his lap so his husband will rest his head in it and let Duck rub the knots in his neck, “you’re my ‘Drid; I wanna help you out, make you feel good too. And uh, I gotta admit, I been a little curious about it. Plus that holo-porn compendium you sent me while I was gone time before involved it a lot and it seems like it could be fun.”

“So you did watch it” Indrid looks up, grinning.

“Course I did. Gotta learn how to please my Aquariad husband.” He teases, kissing Indrid’s forehead.

“You need no help in that area whatsoever. I could not ask for a finer husband, human or otherwise.” Indrid kisses Duck’s belly through his thin shirt, then pauses, “you are not offering this out of a feeling of obligation, right?”

“Right. I want to do this with you, ‘Drid. Cross my heart.”

Red eyes skate up to his face, “In that case, disrobe and get in the water at once.”

Duck sinks into the clear depths the instant he’s naked, Indrid swimming back only long enough for him to get in before crowding him against the edge of the pool.

“My love.” Indrid purrs, kisses so languid and gentle they almost disguise the heat in his fingertips as gropes Duck’s ass, the force with which his tail forces his legs apart.

“You know itAHhh, fuck, fuckin love that” he groans as the tendriled tip of his cock teases Duck’s own, “so, uh, this gonna be that different from the way we normally do this?”

“For starters, I will not cum until all the eggs are deposited.” Indrid’s fin flickers pink, “and it will be more intense on your end, not only because of the stretch but because I have to be rather, ah, vigorous in order to make sure they all come out.”

“As opposed to all those times you don’t fuck me like there’s no tomorrow.” Duck snickers, wrapping his legs around the dark scales to help ease Indrid’s cock into him.

“It’s not my fault you are the most delectable, ah, ‘piece of ass’ I have ever seen. Did I use that correctly?”

“Yep” Duck tips his head back, allowing Indrid to kiss it as he pauses his thrust so his tendrils can stroke his G-spot before continuing deeper, “you been watchin earth porn for ideas?”

“Indeed. I also found some featuring an actor who looks rather like you, and watched it an embarrassing amount during your absences.” He chirps as he bottoms out and Duck toys with the sensitive band in his fin as Indrid positions them so the bottom half of his tail is flat against the wall, which lets him keep Duck pinned to it.

“You are going to squirm, and I do not want you doing so and coming off my cock.”

“Seem mighty confident you’re gonna get that reaction.” Duck nips his ear.

Indrid’s sharp-toothed grin takes on a hungry glint, “The futures tell me so. But since you seem to doubt them…”

“AhFUCK!” Duck’s back bangs into the wall as Indrid pulls halfway out and then drives back into him, “fuckyeah, sugar that feels so fuckin goodOHwhatthefuck” the bumps in Indrid’s cock are moving, the ones towards the base of the shaft grinding on Duck’s dick as they do.

“Nmmmm, I told you I was pent up, oh, oh yes, yes sweet one, get ready to take the firstAHhhnnn.”

“Jesusfuck” Duck bucks his hips as the first egg pushes into him. It’s not hard like a birds egg, more soft and squishy, but all the same his body convulses as it registers something inside him. His brain, however, sends a moan from his mouth because as alien as the sensation may be, the fact it’s Indrid doing it makes him wetter and harder than he’s been in weeks.

Better still is the look on Indrid’s face, his head tipped back in bliss as he fucks him. It’s only when he looks down that Duck sees the tears threatening his eyes.

“You, I, I’ve, you are letting me lay in you, letting me mate with you, no, no one has ever let me do this before.”

The heat spiking through him on the word mate changes to fierce affection at the thought that Indrid was denied such closeness, or any closeness, for so long.

“Oh darlin, c’mere” he guides the alien into a kiss, then moans as another egg presses into him. Indrid swallows the sound down, keeps Duck in the kiss until the pressure has subsided.

“Such a lovely little mate.”

“Do my best.”

Indrid rubs their cheeks together, “That is why this has been so frequent, you know. I am so very enamored with you that the primal parts of my system want nothing more than to fill you with my eggs, keep you here pampered and fucked out until we have a whole little school swimming about the house. I, ahhhn, I could even look after them on my own while you are away. Or, or if we decide that is not for us I want to lay in you every day so no one else will ever dare to think you could be theirs.”

“Not a fuckin chance, fuck, darlin” his thighs tighten around his tail as another egg pulses out of the tip, “it’s so fuckin hot when you talk like that.”

“Really? I was afraid I was babbling. OhOHohdear, ah, this is unexpected.”

“Uh-”

“Not in a bad way, but I am so aroused the eggs are going to start coming out more quickly. Which means, my darling husband, I suggest you hold on.”

“Way ahead of youUUUshit, fuck” his hands switch from gripping Indrid’s shoulders to thrown around them for dear life as Indrid bounces him roughly on his dick. There’s not pause between the fourth and fifth egg and he’s starting to feel full, squirms when the sixth egg almost pushes Indrid’s cock free.

“I, I told you so.” Indrid purrs, hands holding tight to Duck’s ass as another egg emerges, “but you are not going anywhere, little human. You are, nnng, staying right here, taking every last one of them, because you are my mate and if I want you full to burst you will be.”

“Holy fuck, ‘Drid” Duck buries his face in his husbands neck as his cock shifts backwards. The tip opens wider, covering all of Duck’s folds as the tendrils return to his dick, “fuck, fuck, sugar I’m gonna cum.”

“Yesss” Indrid growls, tail rippling as he forces the next egg into place, “that’s it, sweet one, cum for me, cum while I stuff you full, my perfect, perfect, wonderful one.”

Duck can’t even get words out as his orgasm races through him, muscles spasming in new ways around the eggs. He whines as Indrid continues bouncing him, eggs shifting and keeping his muscles from relaxing, tendrils keeping a rapid tempo on his dick.

“Oh, ohohohoh I am close, ohyes, Duck, my sweet Duck, you take me so well, take a little more, be a good mate and take the last one, take my cum, you are going to hold all of it until I am satisfied that you are mine AH, ahhhhyes” he trills and Duck grunts as he’s stretched wider by the last egg and flood of cum. Indrid clings to him, chirping and trilling as his tail twitches, until his cock retracts. Then it’s just the storm and the sound of their joint panting as Indrid swims them weakly backwards to a shallow section of the pool.

“Here” the alien guides Duck to recline half out of the water, “if you spread your legs and relax, most of them will fall out on their own.”

“Gotcha.” Duck can neither keep his eyes open nor stay upright, so Indrid adjusts so the human is resting atop him, back against his chest. One by one, the eggs slip out dissolving in the water after a few moments. The last two prove stubborn and Indrid massages his abdomen, cooing about how wonderfully he did, until they too slip away.

“Thank you.” Indrid murmurs, nestling his chin on his shoulder.

“Any time, darlin. Or, uh, maybe not too many times back to back. Not sure my junk can take it. Still, better we did that than tryin it up my ass. Woulda lead to some awkward med records and my crew never lettin me live it down.”

“Do not be so sure. I suspect Joseph would have been envious.”

Duck snorts a laugh, looking over his shoulder in surprise.

“I read his sexual preferences on those forms they made you each submit.” Then he smiles like a sunrise welcoming Duck home, “but I think I made the right choice, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sugar, I do.”

[spaceskam]

what’s it gonna be? (3/3)

warning for implied childhood trauma & homelessness

previous |

ao3

It was awkward.

“So, uh… Yeah, Liz is cool. Smart. She talks a lot,” Max said, picking at a loose string on Isobel’s comforter. Michael was curled up on the bean bag again, his eyes on the floor. Could he tell that Max had accidentally fallen a little too hard for Liz? 

“Alex is cool and smart too. Probably smart in a different way. He knows a lot about music. Um, he likes movies. Basically just art in general,” Michael answered, looking up at him, “He smokes, I don’t know if that’s a dealbreaker for you.” 

Max shrugged, “As long as he doesn’t do it a lot.”

“He doesn’t,” Michael insisted, “Just sometimes.”

Max breathed in and nodded, eyes going to the ceiling as he tried to think of what else he wanted to say. He’d talked to Liz so much, but he didn’t really want to share. It felt like his information even though it wasn’t really private. It just felt special because it came from her.

“Liz wants to be a biological engineer when she gets older, kinda like you,” Max tried.

“Cool,” Michael said, “Kinda like how Alex is into artistic stuff like you.”

They both sort of stalled at. Max wondered if their plan had really failed that spectacularly. He’d fallen for Liz and apparently Michael had failed at learning anything about Alex. Max wasn’t really ready to give Liz up, but now he had to. They made a deal. 

“So, uh, maybe we should just, like, all hang out at the Crashdown or something? That way we can sort of get a neutral setting. And Liz and Alex are friends, so it’ll work out,” Max suggested. Michael took a deep breath and nodded. He looked out of it. “Hey, man, you good?”

“Yeah, yeah, I, uh, just didn’t sleep much last night,” Michael admitted, “Crashed on Old Man Sander’s couch and his dog kept jumping on me.”

“Well, you’re sleeping here tonight, so no dog,” Isobel said as she walked out of the bathroom that connected her room and Max’s. She was wearing a strapless white dress that was tighter on top, but flared out at the waist and went down to a few inches above her knees. “Are you guys done talking about boring stuff long enough to tell me I look good?”

Michael and Max both laughed at that. Max was thankful she came in and changed the subject. It was too awkward despite their previously agreed upon subject. At this point, once Michael got with Liz, Max wasn’t even sure he was going to go after Alex at all. Sure, he was hot, but Liz was everything.

“You look great, Iz,” Michael said first. Isobel smiled and looked at herself in the mirror hanging on her closet door.

“I know,” she breathed, twisting to look at herself, “But I don’t think this is the one.”

“Then change,” Max suggested. She again looked at herself before turning to face them.

“I’m gonna buy a new one,” she decided, looking between them, “Have you guys gone shopping yet?” Neither of them answered and she rolled her eyes. “Boys.”

They watched her strut back into the bathroom to change out of her dress and Max rolled his eyes. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to go to the dance anymore, not if he couldn’t go with Liz. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, could they?

He just had to figure out how to actually be a wingman now.

-

Michael waited a few houses down from Alex’s house, fingers tapping on the steering wheel as he rested his head back.

Ever since he left the Evans residence that evening (he planned to return later to spend the night there, but he had to at least make it look like he left) he’d been trying to think of a good way to distance himself from Alex. It’d only been a week, but it was too easy to get obsessed with someone like him. He was really sad that he had to let go and let Max have him. Hell, he didn’t even know how to ask Alex to go hang out with them so they could do that. He just liked being with him alone.

The passenger side door quickly swung open and Alex climbed in, closing it behind him. He instantly got into Michael’s space, a smile on his face that only came out when the sun was down. In a way, Michael understood that and he smiled right back.

“I got you something,” Alex said softly. Michael furrowed his eyebrows.

“What? You shouldn’t have gotten me any‒”

“Shh, I got you something,” Alex said, scooting a little closer. Alex was sitting sideway, his left knee bent and resting on Michael’s lap so he could move closer. Michael waited patiently.

Alex reached into his bag and pulled out a small yellow flower, somehow unharmed by being in his bag. Michael’s heart swelled in adoration and his throat seemed to close with it, rendering him completely speechless. Alex just smiled and moved to tuck it behind his ear in lieu of the joint he tended to keep there. Once it was all settled, Alex gently grabbed his jaw and pressed the softest kiss to his cheek. Again, Michael didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t quite sure when they crossed from intense stares to flowers and cheek kisses, but the idea of going back made his chest ache.

“I got you something else too,” Alex told him, gently nudging his nose against Michael’s cheek before giving him another kiss there and pulling away. Michael swallowed hard as he watched Alex pull his bag onto his lap. It clanked with the sound of cans and, sure enough, Alex pulled out a bottle of spray paint. “Let’s go tag some shit.”

“Yeah, fuck it, let’s do it,” Michael said, voice a little hoarse. Alex grinned wildly and didn’t move an inch as Michael put the truck in drive.

Alex stayed close as they drove to the only parking lot downtown, his fingers carefully pulling at Michael’s curls and watching them bounce back. Michael couldn’t help but bounce the leg that wasn’t being used to press the pedals as excited energy pulsed through him. Alex had reached out to hold it down for a second, but all that did was make him bounce it even more once his hand let up. It made him laugh which just made it all better. Max who?

He pulled into the parking lot, a few miscellaneous cars still there for whatever reason. Shops had closed an hour ago, though, so it was pretty empty. As Michael shut off the engine, Alex pressed his finger into his chin to make him look at him. Michael did just that.

“You can run just in case, right?” he asked. Michael nodded and Alex smiled, leaning forward and kissing the tip of his nose. It took Michael a second to realize when he started getting out of the car.

Alex led the way as they walked down the empty street, acting normal as possible. There was a moment when Alex seemed to get comfortable, though, and he grabbed Michael’s hand. And then they were holding hands. Because they could.

“I like nighttime, it feels safe. Easier to hide if I need to,” Alex offered up. It was the first blatant statement he’d ever said about himself, one Michael didn’t have to read between the lines to get his meaning. 

“Why would you need to hide?” Michael asked. Alex shrugged, squeezing his hand as he started to swing them a little.

“I don’t know,” Alex said, voice soft even for the still of the night, “Home sucks and I’m too big to fit in the cabinets anymore.”

“But you’ve got a home, right? That’s gotta count for something,” Michael said. He didn’t really have one of those, not a permanent one at least. Still, Alex shrugged.

“Maybe,” he admitted, “I’ll let you know if I think of anything.”

“I’ll be here,” Michael promised. Alex smiled a little again, bringing their linked hands up to his mouth. He kissed Michael’s knuckles with his eyes closed, the whole thing more meaningful than he could actually comprehend. It was so safe. “I like hanging out with you like this.”

“Let’s keep it up then.”

Alex grabbed his hand a little tighter and pulled him down an alleyway between two shops. He let go when they got to the back of the alley, one two more hall-like paths perpendicular to the one they’d just walked down. Michael kept watch as Alex dropped his bag, digging out what he needed. A giant stencil, tape, and a can of spray paint. 

Michael helped hold down the stencil as Alex put some tape on the corners, covering old tape. As he looked at it, though, he saw the very familiar symbol of a stereotypical alien head only it looked like it was melted and had star-shaped eyes and Alex used red paint.

“I’ve seen these around town,” Michael said softly. Alex smiled and put a hand on his chest, backing him away. 

“They’re super simple, but it pisses off the locals,” Alex told him before pulling the collar over his shirt over his mouth and nose. Michael did the same and watched him shake the can before spraying it over the stencil.

“You’re a local,” Michael pointed out.

“Ouch, hit me where it hurts, why don’t you?” Alex scoffed, but there were those little crinkles by his eyes that showed he was still smiling. Michael rolled his eyes. “C’mere.”

Michael did as he said, taking over the spray paint and coloring in the stencil in the same way he’d seen Alex do it. Once it was filled in enough, Alex put the lid back on the paint and went to take off the stencil. They both took a step back to admire that admittedly simple but still exhilarating work.

It was only when they heard people laughing and saw the approaching sight of phone lights that Alex grabbed his arm and tugged him to the left. His back was pressed up against the wall and Alex was pressed up against him, faces so close he could feel his breath. It was overwhelming.

“Shh,” Alex shushed, moving in just a little closer under the guise of hiding. However, Michael wasn’t stupid. Or, actually, maybe he was extremely stupid. Either way, he pushed himself forward just enough to finally kiss Alex on the lips.

Alex sighed in relief and pressed in harder, his hand the only thing keeping his head from hitting the brick wall. He tasted better than Michael could've imagined and he got his hands on Alex's face to hold him close, his tongue slipping past his lips to deepen the kiss. It was too good. Fuck Max.

"God, I've wanted to do that for so long," Alex breathed, smiling wider than he ever had. Michael thought about asking how long, about figuring out how much time he'd wasted by not noticing Alex earlier. He pushed the thought away for later.

"Then don't stop," Michael said.

"Don't plan on it."

-

Liz Ortecho was somehow infinitely more appealing when she was entirely off limits.

They were supposed to just be studying on this fine Sunday afternoon, but, as they sat on the hood of his Jeep and watched the sunset, it felt like much more. His conversation with Michael that morning loomed in his mind, though, and he kept trying to figure out how to ask her to go have a meal so he could introduce her properly to Michael.

“Have you ever had a girlfriend, Max?” Liz asked randomly, looking over at him to see he was already staring at her. She smiled when she noticed which saved him the embarrassment.

“No,” Max answered honestly. Liz rolled onto her side.

“Well, like, have you ever kissed anyone?” she wondered, resting her head in her hand. Max shrugged and nodded.

“Yeah, a couple times,” he answered honestly. Liz looked at him, her eyes searching his face in a way that made heat pool in his cheeks. “Have you?”

“Yeah,” Liz said, moving a little closer. She looked pretty in the sunset. She always looked pretty. “And I’ve been wondering when you’re finally going to kiss me.”

Max’s eyes widened and if he’d had any less of a grip on his place laying on the hood, he would’ve fallen off the car. Liz just smiled as if she was proud of his shocked expression.

“Huh?”

“We’ve been hanging out and talking for, what, a week now? And you haven’t even tried, not even when I went for it,” Liz told him, tilting her head, “Do you not want to?”

“No, I…” Max breathed, trying to find the words to say. He knew he should’ve said no, but she was staring at him like she wanted him and that didn’t happen to him a lot. And it especially didn’t happen to him when that person looked like Liz Ortecho. Michael who? “I want to.”

“Then do it,” Liz instructed. Max just stared at her, a little overwhelmed and a little lost. He’d kissed two girls before, but neither of them had been so upfront with what they wanted. He liked it, though, even if it scared the shit out of him.

“I-I’m not really sure how to‒”

“Boys,” Liz scoffed, rolling her eyes before she leaned in for him.

Suddenly, Max was being kissed. Like, really kissed. Liz easily showed up the girls he’d kissed before if only based on sheer confidence alone. She knew what she was doing as she had her hand on his chest and she knew what she was doing when she moved on top of him.

Max held her waist as respectfully as possible as she kissed him, but his brain found it hard to even focus enough for that. She pushed her tongue into his mouth at some point and that seemed to be the moment he lost all guilt. Her strong thighs anchored on either side of his hips and her hands slowly slid down his chest before grabbing his wrists and pinning them above his head. He felt surrounded by her and a little helpless to her in a good way. He liked the way him being a foot taller than her didn’t fucking matter.

Her hands squeezed his wrists gently before weaving her fingers to lock with his, still kissing him like the world was ending and this was all that mattered. Honestly, if it was, he wouldn’t care. He just wanted this.

“Wait,” he breathed, “Shouldn’t we be studying?”

Liz laughed, pulling back to look down at him. She looked confident in a way that made his heart beat a little harder in his chest. He wanted her to look at him like that for the rest of his life.

“Would you rather study chemistry, or,” Liz said, smiling as she slowly sat up. He stared at her as she led his hands to her thighs, trying to keep his entire system from freaking out over such a small little action. “Would you rather a little introduction to human biology?”

Max swallowed hard, taking a deep breath. Maybe he should mention the fact that his brother had a crush on her and they probably shouldn’t be doing this until he talked to Michael. God, Isobel was going to have a field day with his fuck ups. But, as he looked at Liz, he didn’t really care. Fuck Michael.

“Where do you want to start?” Max asked. Liz grinned so bright it could’ve taken out the sun. 

For what felt like a while and yet not long enough, Max and Liz kissed and touched on the hood of his Jeep. It was a brand new experience and he ended up needing a few minutes to calm down before he could drive her home. Liz thought it was funny.

“Next time we’ll have to be somewhere a little less uncomfortable than the hood of your car,” Liz decided with a laugh as he drove her home.

“Next time?” Max echoed. Liz swatted his arm gently.

“Yes, next time,” she said, “Maybe we could even, I don’t know, go to the dance together?”

Max took his eyes off the road to look over at her. She was watching him with that same confidence. He looked back to the road.

“You want to go to the Homecoming dance with me?” he asked. 

“Yeah, that’s why I suggested it,” she said. Max rolled his eyes and fought the smile that tried to show on his face. “Could be fun.”

Max thought about their agreement, how Michael wanted to take Liz. But, at this point, Liz had already made her choice. She liked him. Trying to pass her off to Michael would just be rude to her, right? It wasn’t his choice to make when it came to who she was seeing.

“Okay,” Max agreed, nodding his head, “Let’s do it.”

“It’s going to be fun,” she promised, leaning over and kissing him on the cheek to solidify the agreement.

Now he just had to figure out how the hell to tell Michael.

-

Michael watched Max like a goddamn hawk as they ate lunch.

He’d been up all night thinking about Alex and trying to figure out how to tell Max that they needed to just cancel the deal. He expected that Max was going to be really mad at him, but Isobel would be there to soften the blow and he had a hard time imagining a world in which Alex kissing him didn’t make a little brother’s quarrel worth it.

Max, however, was already avoiding his eyes. His tall body was hunched over his tray and he had been successfully ignoring everyone. Michael was slowly but surely becoming convinced that he somehow already figured it out and he was waiting for Michael to tell him so he could sulk even more publically. It made him feel even worse.

Still, Michael slowly scanned the cafeteria until he locked eyes with Alex. He smiled a tiny smile and looked back to his friends, but the smile was worth it. It gave him a little bit of strength to try and talk it out.

“Hey, Max, can we talk?” 

“Here we go,” Isobel said under her breath.

Max looked up at him, “Yeah, what about?”

“About the deal we made,” Michael said carefully. Max didn’t show any immediate expression, instead just watching Michael and almost following his lead. It made Michael uneasy. It shut him right up.

“Okay, yeah, I’m not about to listen to the world’s emptiest conversation,” Isobel butted in, “Just say what you need to say, both of you.”

Max and Michael both looked to Isobel, but she had that no-nonsense look on her face and they both looked back to each other. There was no going back. He’d already kissed Alex, Alex already admitted to liking him, that was it.

“I kissed Alex.” Michael blurted at the same time Max said, “I kissed Liz.”

“Now was that so hard?” Isobel asked. Max and Michael still stared at each other, both a little wide eyed and shocked.

“But you said Alex wasn’t your type,” Max accused. Michael scoffed.

“You said Liz wasn’t your type.”

“And having a type at all is boring,” Isobel added, “Which is why we’re not going to make a big deal out of this. You both have someone to make heart eyes at, we’re all good.”

“Are we actually all good?” Michael asked, “You’re not mad?”

“No,” Max said, eyeing him, “And you’re not mad?”

“No,” Michael admitted, “I really like Alex.”

“And I really like Liz.”

They both nodded slowly, both a little unsure of the other one’s words. Obviously, they weren’t lying, but it never hurt to triple check. They both seemed to be okay with it though.

“I guess it works out where we both have dates for the dance now,” Max pointed out. Michael laughed slightly, nodding.

“Yeah, you have a point.”

“You know what that means?” Isobel said, smiling as wide as she could, “Suit and dress shopping after school.”

Neither of the boys had it in them to say no.

-

As fun as kissing Liz in the backseat of his car was, Max eventually found himself overcome with guilt.

After settling things with Michael, he thought he would be able to forget the deal in the first place. He was happy with Liz. However, the more he thought about it, the more he felt bad that he wasn’t being completely honest about why he’d approached her in the first place.

“Liz, can I tell you something?” he asked. Liz pulled away, looking at him with a hesitant look like she wasn’t quite sure what he was about to say. Still, she nodded slowly. “So, well, basically, I don’t really know how to word this, but, basically, my brother has a crush on you.”

She blinked in shock, sitting up straight. “What?”

“Well, I mean, had a crush on you, technically,” Max specified. Liz eyed him a little still. “I originally told him that I would become your friend and then introduce him properly, but I ended up really liking you myself, so that failed. I just didn’t want to lie to you.”

Liz stared at him for what felt like an hour. In reality, it was probably only a minute. It still felt like forever.

“But he doesn’t like me anymore, right? Because he’s with Alex and I need to tell him if that’s the case,” Liz said. Max’s eyebrows shot up.

“You know about that?” he asked. Liz nodded.

“Alex tells me everything,” Liz said, “But you’re sure he’s not into me anymore?”

“He’s not,” Max promised, “He’s into Alex.”

“And you are into me, right?”

“So, so much.”

“Then we’re all good,” she decided, slowly relaxing again, “And that explains why you took so long to kiss me.”

“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that long,” he laughed. She rolled her eyes dramatically before moving back into his space exactly where she was welcome.

“It felt like forever.”

-

Michael hadn’t ever experienced a moment quite like the ones he shared with Alex.

They were laying in the back of his truck, huddled in the blankets and cuddling close. Alex was in his arms, his head securely under his chin, and their legs entwined. It was comfortable and safe and Michael dreaded the moment they’d have to move. But, when he thought about one day being able to do that in an actual bed, it made up for everything.

Still, there was still a main thing keeping him from relaxing entirely.

“Hey,” Michael whispered, “Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah,” Alex whispered back. They were in the middle of nowhere, they didn’t have to whisper. They did it anyway.

Michael swallowed as he bowed his face against Alex’s head. “I started hanging out with you because Max had a crush on you, but I sort of accidentally ended up liking you way more than him.”

Alex was still for a second, long enough to instill some panic in Michael, before he snorted.

“Max Evans?” Alex asked, not moving from his comfortable spot against Michael’s chest.

“Yeah,” Michael said, smiling a little at Alex’s calm demeanor.

“No offense, but that never would’ve worked,” he admitted, lifting his head a little bit to look Michael in the eyes.

“Why not?” Michael asked. Alex smiled softly, reaching out to touch his cheek.

“Well, for one, I think I have way too much baggage for him,” he said. Michael snorted, nodding in agreement. “But mainly I don’t think I could ever date any of your friends. You’re just the only one I’ve wanted.”

“You want me enough to go to the dance with me?” Michael asked. Alex scrunched up his nose and gave a dramatic sigh.

“I mean, I guess,” he said. Michael laughed, moving forward to give him a soft kiss. Alex reciprocated it. 

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Michael promised, letting his eyes close as they settled into each other even more. He was sure more than ever that he had no doubts in his decisions. Alex was everything.

“I know you will.”

-

Isobel watched as Michael and Max sat with their dates in one of the booths at the back of the Crashdown. 

They were all dressed up and looking gorgeous despite the heat that was the school’s gym. None of them had decided to stay long, choosing to leave as soon as Isobel was announced Homecoming Queen. They’d congratulated her and gave her hugs, but she allowed them to get wrapped up in their dates. When prom came along, she would insist on much more attention.

For now, though, she was content to let them be happy. They were all smiles and heart eyes and, as much as she didn’t get it, she wasn’t about to ruin their party. She liked seeming calm and happy and laughing. They deserved it. That’s what mattered, right?

Isobel felt a little lonely and a little sad, but she would be okay. 

It wasn’t until later that night, though, that she really understood what being okay really was. Max snuck into her bedroom and crawled into bed beside her, wedging himself between her and the wall. A few seconds later, Michael was climbing off the floor and on the edge of the bed. They all stared at the ceiling together.

And, maybe for the first time, they were all happy.

[alarawriting]

Inktober #8: Frail

This was delayed a day because it’s longer than any of the others. Relates to my WIP “No Drama”, aka “Q is an investigative journalist researching whether God is a corrupt politician of his people”. 

So the first thing I need to explain before I tell you about meeting Heph is his name.

Humans call me John Deer (it’s a joke. Their name for a man who has no name is John Doe, but a doe is a female deer. I don’t technically have one of their genders, strictly speaking, and if you go by the body I’m in, it’s not female, so I thought I’d go by John Deer. Turns out the joke’s on me; add a silent e to the name and it’s a company that makes tractors. Go figure.)  However, as I hope would be obvious, that’s not my real name. The Aleph don’t have physical bodies and aren’t made of matter and the pure information we are made of doesn’t translate to syllables you or anything that makes sound can pronounce. If I were to translate my name, it would be impossibly long to convey in words; an Aleph’s name is, essentially, a hash function of our personality, the defining nature of our being. I’m not going to stand here and recite my entire personality to you, or anyone else’s entire personality, either, and don’t expect any other Aleph to do so.

So when we walk among pre-eschatonic species, we generally go by the names of gods in their language, or animals of symbolic value (which on most planets, for many groups on that planet, are indistinguishable from gods), or Virtue Names like “Patience” (that one is definitely not mine). And then, when we speak to one another with our meat mouths because we’re in meat bodies, we use those names, the use-names specific for that planet, that culture, that language. On Earth, in English-speaking languages (as well as a significant number of the other ones), I’m known to other Aleph as Fox, Ferret or Weasel, depending on their current opinion of me. My opponent goes by the Lion, or the Ape. But Heph doesn’t use animal names; for the past several hundred years, when he walked on this planet, he called himself Hephaestus. The Greek God of engineering, smithing and invention – technology, in other words – who also happened to be crippled. I think it would be hard to find a myth better suited to be Heph’s use-name.

You see, Heph was born damaged. (We aren’t “born” like you’re born, messy screaming infants coming out of a parent’s orifices. A seed is woven by an entire team of Aleph who’ve chosen to procreate and gotten permission to do so, and then that seed grows fractally. So we are a little less random than spinning the Wheel of Sperm and Ova like you guys do… but not much less random.) By the time he was grown enough that anyone was able to notice the damage, it was too late to correct him without making major changes to his essence, and most Aleph would have to be dying before they’d consent to that (if then. Personally I’d rather die.) It’s hard to explain what the problem is to a non-Aleph, so I need to draw an analogy. In essence… his bandwidth is too low. He cannot quickly upload anything to the Host, and he doesn’t have the storage capacity for the energy we draw down to do our reality-altering things. Where the rest of us are gods, Heph is barely a guardian spirit.

Back when we were both living in the Host most of the time, I am… ashamed to admit that I overlooked Heph, the way almost all the Aleph do. He can’t join with one of us – well, he can, but it’s shallow because of his low bandwidth. Not to be crude about it but it’s as if one of your males was trying to make love to a woman with the vaginal depth of a tea saucer. It… doesn’t do a lot for most Aleph. He can’t participate in most of the things we do because he can’t store enough energy to do it. So he isolates himself from us, and we let him do it because we’re all kind of at a loss as to how you include a guy who can’t do 90% of what you take for granted.

Heph, however, is very smart. All Aleph are by human standards, but Heph is by our standards. So he found a way around the problem.

When I met him on Earth, I was dying in a gutter. I’d been sentenced to a decade of being locked down to a single mortal body, and since I’d been on Earth when they grabbed me and put me on trial, it was Earth they sent me back to. Specifically, Victorian England. Naked, and with no money. Or antibodies. I ended up in a workhouse, where as you can imagine I did fantastically well since I’ve always been so eager to do pointless busywork and follow orders. The main punishment for disobedience was not being fed, followed by being held in a cell for a day and then given clothes that were supposed to shame you. I had no sense of shame, but I got a lot less food than the body I was in needed, and I was surrounded by people who were not in the best health. When I couldn’t work anymore and I was delirious with fever, they threw me out to be picked up with the rest of the refuse, assuming I’d be dead by morning.

Heph was on Earth too. He tracked me down, using technology he’d created. That’s Heph’s thing. He creates technology to compensate for his weaknesses. We have safeguards against anyone or anything but a recognized member of the Host drawing on power, so his tech can’t do all the shiny things a full-powered Aleph can, but we have plenty of access protocols to reach the database of knowledge. So he was able to find me. No Aleph was supposed to render me aid, but Heph was not afraid of pulling the cripple card to get away with doing anything he’d been forbidden to do that he nonetheless decided was the right thing to do. He may be one of the smartest of us, but most Aleph treat him as if he’s not particularly bright, just because he can’t output his thoughts as fast as the rest of us, or fork himself and multi-process. And he made sure not to give me any aid that only an Aleph would be capable of. He fed me bread mold, a powerful antibiotic – you know it as penicillin – that humans happened to not have discovered yet, and pumped sugar, water and saline solution directly into my veins with a sterile glass tube ending in a needle, which humans would later refer to as an IV once they’d invented it. It was all with materials that could be found on Earth, that humans could have discovered (and in fact did, later on.)

I didn’t know my sentence was for a decade. Nobody had told me there was a time limit. I thought they’d left me on Earth to die. Heph restored meaning to my life. The Host as a whole may have abandoned me, but one specific Aleph still cared, and went well out of his way to take care of me. Heph’s not known for being a fluffy, love and compassion kind of guy; he’s cold, aloof, introverted, with difficulty outputting his emotions in a format most Aleph can read, and his shallow bandwidth means that if an Aleph tried to probe him directly, it would cause him a lot of pain. Which, since we are a compassionate species, meant no one was allowed to probe him without his permission. Which he never gave.

In those days, Heph had been tall and broad-shouldered, still going with the whole blacksmith motif. He was never ripped like a bodybuilder, but his upper body had some substantial muscle to it. He’d affected black curly hair and bronze skin like the Greeks he’d named himself for. And he’d worn thick spectacles and walked with a cane. I’m not sure whether he does it on purpose or whether it’s a subconscious compulsion, but every body Heph creates for himself in matter has damage to mobility and damage to perception, representing what he suffers in his true form. I tend to think Heph identifies so strongly with being disabled, he can’t imagine having a form that isn’t.

Ten years before I’d even learned the sentence was finite. Heph had known, but hadn’t been allowed to tell me – and while obviously he thought he could get away with saving my life and being my companion and showing me how to survive as a human, equally obviously he didn’t want to disobey the Host in the matter of telling me my sentence. Their logic was that it was hardly an aspect of being mortal to know for a fact that if you just survive long enough you’ll get your immortality back. The truth was, of course, the Lion had had the judges in his pocket. We hated each other even then; that’s why I started investigating him. He had them do it to be pointlessly cruel, and they came up with a rationalization to the rest of the Host. Well, in those ten years, Heph became my best friend. Raven and Cat and Monkey, my other close friends, hadn’t come to visit. Even Isis, who treated me like I was her little brother and used to watch out for me when we were millions of years younger, left me there. Heph was the only Aleph willing to risk the displeasure of the Host to be my friend.

So as soon as I came back to Earth, I looked him up, of course.

I’m kind of in the same boat he’s always been in; I have my powers, but the moment I draw down energy to do anything major, or even upload any complex hand-rolled query, my memories upload to the Host. And I’m absolutely sure that the Lion is going to honor the law and not seek to obtain illicit access to privacy-locked memories. Yup. Positive. So the moment I use my powers, my enemy gets to see exactly what I’ve been thinking and planning up to that point. Which means I can’t use my powers for anything short of “my physical body has just been killed and I need to upload or I’ll actually die.” But locating a fellow Aleph is such a common query, we have a wizard for it, which can be triggered without uploading – and while my privacy lock keeps that particular simple query from finding me, Heph’s never felt the need to hide.

But I gotta admit I was kind of shocked when I saw his new body.

He recognized me, of course. “Fox. Come on in.”

Heph was living in a farmhouse that he’d converted to his brand of tech wonderland, probably because he wanted to have enough land between him and his human neighbors that no one called the cops for strange noises or mysterious lights. I stepped over several gadgets of unknown function, following Heph to the kitchen. “You still drink tea?” he asked me.

“Uh, yeah, what have you got?”

“Oolong, chai, green with ginger, peach chamomile, Earl Grey, and hibiscus.”

“Gimme the chai.” The last time we’d met, chai had been something you’d only get if you were actually in India.

I made my way to his kitchen table, which was covered with papers and had what looked like two laptops sitting on it. I happened to know they were laptops the way desktop computers are abacuses, but humans probably wouldn’t have been easily able to tell the difference, unless they knew the Unix operating system well enough to know that Heph was not running a variant of it. Heph pushed the papers out of the way on one of the chairs, giving me a clear spot to sit down, as he remote-activated a teakettle with his mind.

“What brings you back to Earth?” he asked.

“Before we get into that, I need to address the elephant in the room, Heph.”

“No one here goes by Elephant.”

If I hadn’t known Heph as well as I did, I might not have guessed he was telling a joke; he was completely deadpan. “Yeah yeah. What have you done to your use-form?”

Like I said, the last time I’d seen Heph, he’d been built, matching the crippled blacksmith stereotype. Now… he was still tall. That was about the only point of resemblance. He’d gone for a pasty white, skinny form with long blond hair in a ponytail, thick glasses with a tint to them so I couldn’t really see his eyes well, and his body looked like it would blow away in a strong wind. There was a visible brace on his left leg, and he dragged it very slightly when he walked. Heph had always made his use-forms disabled, but there’s disabled and then there’s “looks completely helpless.”

“This is the new look for the 21st century technologist,” Heph said.

“It looks like the consumption chic that was going around in Byron’s day. Do you eat? At all?”

“Sure. Chips, pizza, burgers. All of the fatty, unhealthy stuff that modern technology gurus poison themselves with when they’re crunching on a project, which is all the time.”

“Great, so you’re not just incredibly skinny, you also probably have a dozen vitamin deficiencies. Heph. You gotta keep that body running! With your upload time—”

“Thanks, I’m aware of my upload time. And I’m pretty sure you didn’t drop in on me just to tell me I’m too thin.”

“I’m worried about you. You look like one high fever could do you in.”

“They’ve invented a lot more antibiotics than they had around when you got sick. Listen, Fox, I get that you’re worried, but I’m not trapped like you were. If something goes wrong with this body because it’s too fragile to survive, which is highly unlikely anyway, I’ll have enough time to upload. I’ve got plenty of equipment to scan it for health.” He got to his feet with some difficulty and limped over toward the singing teakettle.

“What was wrong with the old one?”

“Firstly, too many photographs got taken of it. I had to fake my death so I didn’t have uncomfortable questions about why I looked exactly like my great-grandfather.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that before posing for photographs right after they were invented.”

“It’s not the Victoriana I was concerned with, it was more the World War II era stuff. And secondly, it’s the aesthetic. Today people don’t think of blacksmiths when they think of technology. They think of autistic white men with bad vision.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Did you actually give yourself autism or is that just a metaphor?”

“Look the definitions up, I am actually the closest thing to autistic the Aleph have ever produced.” He came over to the table with my tea. I didn’t try to help him or intercept him. Quite aside from the fact that he’d find it insulting, he had so much junk on the floor that his knowledge of what to step over and when made him more mobile than I’d be. “But stop trying to sidetrack me. What are you doing on Earth?”

If another Aleph had asked that question, there might have been all kinds of subtext in there. Are you in exile again? Have you gone native after spending ten years as a mortal here? Don’t you have anything better to do? From Heph, it more or less meant exactly what he’d asked. “Can’t tell you unless you’ve run a backup,” I said, taking a sip of the tea.

Heph rolled his eyes. “You’re so dramatic,” he said. “Look at this.” He got up again and dodged some more junk on the floor, making his way toward what the people who’d built this place probably thought of as a family room or maybe sitting room. I followed, feeling like a drunk guy in a china shop. My personal aesthetic has never been tiny, delicate motions, so getting anywhere across Heph’s floor without breaking his stuff was like a minefield, except with fewer actual explosions, I hoped.

It was a metal box. “Very impressive,” I said. “I especially like the craft in the solder lines.”

“Don’t be an ass. Here.” He unlatched a latch I hadn’t recognized and lifted the lid. Inside was a crystalline array of the kind the Aleph used to use before we shifted to encoding our data in neutron stars. “Local backup device.”

I tried not to look impressed. Of course Heph had a local backup device. I was kicking myself for not assuming he’d have created such a thing. “Does it work?”

“I changed my use-form. How do you think I did that without it being a major pain in the rear?”

That was a good point. Heph’s bandwidth was low enough that it would take him a couple of days to upload to the Host. Changing bodies would have involved creating a new form, uploading out of it, and then downloading into the new one… which was a problem if it took you two days to upload or download, because your physical body might very well die on you or suffer brain damage while you were imperfectly socketed in it. I felt a lot better about Heph’s frailty now. “How long does it take to transfer to that?”

“I’m running delta backups every time I sleep, so if the body were to die unexpectedly, I’d only need to transfer at most a day’s worth of memories and experiences. Probably 20 minutes at a maximum. Also, if it wasn’t obvious to you, I’m not doing regular backups to the Host and I can tag data to keep it out of the upload when I do, and there’s no way any other Aleph is getting into my local backup server. It’s not even connected to the Host except when I run uploads from it.”

Okay. His memories weren’t accessible to the Lion either. That meant it was safe to tell him the details of what I was up to. I made my way back to the table with my teacup. “So, this is going to be a long story…”

[haloud]

running through your veins

ao3 ----------------------

On days like this where Kyle spends five hours saving a single life, he celebrates by getting outrageously drunk and, more often than not, getting off with a random stranger in the backseat of his car. If anyone asks where he’s been, he says he’s “reminding himself he’s alive,” which—since it’s usually his mom doing the asking—earns him rolled eyes and a smack to the back of the head. But guess what, mom. He’s a grown man now, and he’s not scared of the safe sex lecture she would always gleefully use as a punishment if he got caught sneaking around with girls. Grinning against the rim of his glass, Kyle knocks back another shot of tequila.

He doesn’t usually drink at the Wild Pony, if only because DeLuca doesn’t like him; he knows she overcharges him and sticks the extra cash in a donation jar. And hey, he can’t really blame her, but the atmosphere generally isn’t so good for his party of one. Tonight, though, he can’t stop rubbing his fingers together to remind himself the gloves are off, can’t stop smelling blood. Drinking alone isn’t really so appealing, no matter how loud he turns up the music, so the Wild Pony it is

His wild night, turns out, even comes with a show. He watches for about an hour, getting increasingly wasted, as Michael Guerin successfully bilks Racist Hank out of two hundred dollars.

Part of him wants to blame the tequila for the way he blushes every time Guerin lays himself languid and slow over the pool table, giving Kyle a perfect view of his ass under soft old denim jeans, shirt riding up to show the smooth skin of his waist. DeLuca does keep some damn good tequila on the shelf, but Kyle prides himself on being man enough to—eventually—own up to the handies he traded with his roommate sophomore year at Michigan, so he’s not going to wuss out now. He props his elbows on the bar and rolls a shot glass between his hands. His type basically stops at smart, like maybe med school broke something in his brain after it rendered him incapable of even jacking off without thinking about studying. And Guerin’s definitely that, Kyle thinks, thumbing his bottom lip. Last time he broke down and drank at the Pony, he had front row seats to another occasion when Guerin took Hank for all he was worth after Hank dared him to get viciously drunk, go outside, and take his engine apart, which Guerin did, then put it back together so fast it was damn near superhuman.

So Guerin’s got one point in the brains column and a question mark under the “anatomy class” column, but is it enough to balance out the inherent negatives of hooking up with a local? When your mom is the sheriff, that can get ugly quick, and Kyle is, like, way too drunk to work out the math right now, so he just waves his hand at the non-DeLuca bartender because more tequila will definitely help him make a decision.

(Maybe Maria would like him better if he learned the names of her employees.)

(…Nahhhhhh.)

“I’m cutting you off,” DeLuca interrupts, appearing seemingly out of nowhere to shoo her bartender away.

“DeLucaaaaaaa,” Kyle whines, and he squishes his cheek against the bar which smells—Kyle sniffs—reassuringly of Pine-sol and spilled beer, and nothing at all like copper or bleach.

“Nope, nn-mm, no way, McDreamy. Your money’s not good enough to make me deal with your mama when she has to scrape you off the floor.”

At the mention of his mother, Kyle tries to snap himself up into better posture, but his biggest success is not falling backwards off the barstool. Combing his fingers through his hair, he looks around frantically and tries to just look regular drunk. DeLuca snorts out a laugh, not a real one but not a mean one either.

“She’s not here yet. But it’s only a matter of time before Guerin starts throwing punches, so. Sheriff’s son’s gotta go, or else I’m borrowing trouble.”

Kyle spins around to look out at the bar, and sure enough, he peers across the room to the pool tables, where Guerin is grinning kinda sleepy and dangerous with his hands in the air, nearly chest to chest with a red-faced Hank.

Nnnh. He doesn’t want to see any violence, bruises, bloody lips. Not tonight. He slides off the stool, grabs the bar to right himself, and wobbles as he straightens up. Hehe. Straightens. Just ‘cause his Guerin-boner went away doesn’t mean it’s not still funny.

“Valenti, what the hell are you doing.” DeLuca hisses as Kyle staggers away. He flaps his hand behind himself in a way he hopes is reassuring, because he’s totally got this.

“You guys done with the table?” He says loudly, pointedly not tripping on anything as he crosses the floor. Hank sneers at him and says something foul, but what’s he gonna do? Kyle’s got dirt on that guy, uh-huh, and he’s got a bunch of codes, but the football team bro-code shit is way past its expiration date. Hank tries to, like, loom over him as Kyle leans on a pool cue to hide his swaying back and forth, and that’s definitely annoying, but Kyle’s more concerned with the way Guerin bares his teeth and the way it’s both scary and really hot.

“Why, you lookin’ for a game? At least I know you can afford the buy in, Doc.” Guerin drawls.

“I don’t have any cash. And I don’t know how to play pool, because beer pong is the real man’s game. But here.” He fumbles his wallet out of his pocket and slaps it down on the wooden edge of the table. “I’ll open a tab if you wanna give lessons ‘stead of sleeping in a cell tonight. And making me talk to my mom when I’m wasted,” he adds mournfully, rubbing his hand over the chalky end of the cue. Even drunk, he doesn’t miss the way Guerin’s eyes flick briefly to the motion. Nice.

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that? God damn, I come to this bar to avoid people like you; aren’t you late to get your chest waxed or some shit?” Guerin snaps, and hey, it’s none of Guerin’s business (yet) what parts of him are or aren’t waxed professionally. But guess what, Kyle’s already winning, because Guerin doesn’t even blink when Hank fucks off to do Racist Hank things somewhere else, even though that’s the fight he was spoiling for walking away.

“I mean…I can just leave if you’re not looking for easy money…and not looking to show off”

“I’d have to be as drunk as you are right now to take you up on this, and I don’t think that’s even possible for me. Buzz off, Valenti.”

“I gave you an open opportunity to try,” Kyle points to his wallet still perched between them. “C’mon, Guerin. One game. You can kick my ass like you never actually got to in high school! Call it cth—caht—catharsis.”

Nailed it.

“Fine.” Guerin ticks his jaw, runs his tongue over his teeth, and it makes Kyle all warm and tingly even as Guerin snatches the cue out of his hand. “One game. And if you can’t beat me after that, you’re gonna be losing a lot of fucking money, Valenti.”

One game turns into two, actually, and is Kyle learning anything with Guerin hot like a fever—and maybe it’s just the flush of the alcohol, but being all over him feels like burning up—moving his arms and pressed up against his back? No, not really. But it turns out Guerin’s not so bad when he shakes out his curls and laughs around the mouth of a bottle of beer like he can’t believe himself for spending time with Kyle of all people, especially a version of Kyle so uncoordinated he can barely wrap his brain around the concept of breaking, like, in general, let alone any of the trick shots Guerin is easily enticed into demonstrating with the fluid grace of a truly practiced drunk.

They aren’t buddies; even if they did see each other outside of the Pony, they wouldn’t acknowledge each other at all. Kyle doesn’t start going to the bar more frequently, either, not to seek Guerin out or for any other reason. But if every now and then he feels like some drunk company and the night ends up with Kyle’s wallet feeling light and him on his back in the bed of Guerin’s truck?

Well.

Ain’t life worth living after all?

[elisaphoenix13]

Far From Home Ch.2

Peter had left his bracelet behind when he and Ned left to join their classmates to do more sightseeing, and immediately found himself alone when his best friend ditched him for Betty. MJ found him amidst his confusion and follows his gaze to the two getting their picture drawn.

"Did I miss something?" Peter asks.

"Oh yeah. Ned and Betty bonded on the plane while you were asleep."

Peter whips his head around to look at Michelle incredulously. "How long was I asleep?"

"Only about an hour. Ned didn't tell you they're dating now?" Michelle asks as if it were obvious.

"Wh-what? No!"

"Oh...well, they're dating." MJ says dryly. "I think he felt left out since you have Cassie."

Peter rolls his eyes. "That reminds me, I need to get her a souvenir."

The teen points in the direction of a shop he caught sight of earlier before walking and Michelle falls into step beside him while telling him about the new Italian lingo she had learned. To Peter's surprise, it was new to him too. Either Tony and Stephen didn't know about it or it was bad enough that they refused to use it. If it was the latter, then it was probably worse than what MJ was making it out to be. It wouldn't be the first time.

The two teens step into the shop and look around, and it took a few minutes for Peter to realize he had no idea what to get Cassie. Ok, more like he didn't know what he could get away with without announcing their relationship to their parents or the team. Worst case scenario? Get her something she likes and she could pretend that she went with Stephen somewhere and got it for herself.

That was totally pathetic. It kind of sucked having to stay under the Avengers radar and that was hard. They couldn't do anything that would even hint to a relationship while in the tower because Tony would find it immediately, so a lot of the time they spent together was out in the city.

So he picked up a simple necklace with a small jewel (her birthstone) in the shape of a tear drop, and paid in cash. He had made sure to have some cash on him for this exact reason in case Tony happened to look up his purchases. Otherwise he used his debit card for everything else. It didn't matter how much money he spent on his trip, it wouldn't put a dent into the allowance his parents were giving him. Something he gave up arguing with them about when Tony put his foot down and said that Peter was his kid (a good one at that) and if he wanted to spoil the teen, he damn well would. Stephen had agreed and that was that.

"Come on loser. You got your gift for your secret girlfriend."

Peter blushes and follows Michelle out of the shop and back out to the canal where they can see Ned and Betty in a gondola. As the girl kneels next to the water, the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and he looks toward the sound of gurgling, water draining into a small manhole. Peter tilts his head in curiosity and then jumps when the water in the canal shoots up into the air and takes on a monstrous form. The water pushes the gondola containing Ned and Betty back toward Peter and Michelle and they both help them out of the boat.

"We need to run!" Peter shouts over the roar of the water. Except he meant they but Betty didn't know about his alter ego. Once his friends run for safety, he engages his emergency web shooters and shoots a web at the monster, only for them to be sucked into the water harmlessly and rendered ineffective. "Seriously?!" Peter follows the monster's gaze to the screaming people on a nearby bridge. "Oh no you don't!"

The teen rushes toward the bridge, jumping across poles as a shortcut and ricochets himself up to the bridge with a smaller one. Peter briefly thought of how proud Natasha would be if she had seen that, but it was short-lived once he got people out of the way. The water monster punched him, sending him against the opposite stone railing and soaking his clothes thoroughly.

"Note to self, water is apparently a Stark-Strange curse. Tell Mom and Dad." As he gets back to his feet, green mist hits the monster and he looks back as someone flies in to fight whatever this thing was. Peter's first thoughts were that this guy ripped off his parents suits and combined them, minus the fishbowl helmet. He had no idea what that was about. The second thing he noticed was that the stranger seemed to be using some sort if magic, and it looked nothing like what Stephen used. The mask on the ground next to him was the third...and he felt ridiculous putting it on.

But he did and got as close to the stranger as possible while clinging to the top of a bridge overhang, and offered his help. "I'm really strong! And...sticky!"

The stranger turns to look at him. "Lead it away from the canal!"

That's what they did. Although the guy wearing the fishbowl did most of the leading and fighting, and Peter did the following up until the monster cracked a bell tower. So he jumps over to it and webs nearby buildings as leverage to keep it from falling.

Then the tower gets hit again, sending Peter into the bell and knocking him on his back. "Son of a--" One of his webs snap and the other starts dragging him and he plants his feet, the momentum bringing him up...and smacking into the bell again. He falls back again, losing his grip on his webs as he blinks the stars out of his eyes. "I officially hate bells."

The rest of the battle consisted of Peter trying to bring the bell tower down and away from possible casualties while the stranger took care of the water monster. Once everything settles and the man flies off, Peter returns to the hotel, changes into some dry clothes, and joins his classmates back in the hotel lobby. Of course, that was when he got a call from Tony.

"Kid, I saw what happened there. Do I need to send Mom?"

"No no no. I'm fine. It's taken care of. Some weird guy fought him off. By the way, can you ask him if there's some kind of green magic?" Peter asks.

"Green magic?" The engineer says on the other end. "Babe? Is there--geez, just ask Stephanie."

Peter sighs when he hears the phone being taken away from Tony. "Before you ask, I'm fine. So green magic?"

Stephen sighs. "Not that I'm aware of. Are you sure it was magic?"

Peter rubs his forehead. The bruise that had previously been there from hitting that bell twice was gone, but he still felt the phantom pain. "No? But there were weird symbols and it was kind of like mist."

"Aren't you glad I snuck your suit into your bag?"

Peter laughs nervously. "Oh...uh...it was in the hotel when this happened."

"Peter Benjamin St--" Stephen starts.

"Oh! Uh! Ned's calling for me! Gotta go! Love you guys!" The teen says hastily before hanging up and MJ snickers from her spot on the staircase.

"Hey dickwad!" Flash calls. "Your parents know anything about this Mysterio guy?"

"Mysterio? Uh...no. He lives up to his name I guess." Peter mumbles as he folds his arms.

"Mysterio." Ned says. "Cool name." He and Betty say simultaneously. "Babe!" Again.

Peter looks over at MJ. "If you ever catch me and Cassie doing that, please shoot me."

Michelle laughs and Peter follows Ned up to their room when their teachers call for the students to head to bed. Once their bedroom door closes, his best friend turns to him and follows Peter after the vigilante pulls out his toothbrush and toothpaste.

"What are you going to do about the water monster?" He asks.

"Nothing? It's gone and that Mysterio guy has things under control. I'm here on vacation man. You know, sightseeing and making memories about pigeons taking a crap on Flash."

Ned blinks. "Did that really happen?"

Peter laughs. "No, but it would be funny." He walks over to the sink. "So what's this about you and Betty? What happened to Europeans liking Americans?" He sticks his toothbrush in his mouth.

"Oh! So, I was finishing this fruit cobbler--"

Peter's enhanced hearing picks up a near silent thwack and the teen turns when Ned collapses onto a mattress, completely knocked out. He turns even more and finds none other than Nick Fury sitting in a chair in a dark corner of the room. His first thoughts?

What the hell was Nick Fury doing in his room in Europe?

"You're surprisingly difficult to get a hold of Mr. Parker, considering you live with Tony Stark." Fury says as he places the tranquilizer gun he had used on Ned in his lap.

Peter removes his toothbrush from his mouth. "It's Stark actually. Or Stark-Strange if you want to get--" Fury gives him a look. "Why are you here?"

"You keep ghosting me. I had to come in person."

"Ghosting? I never..." Peter trails off as he thinks about whenever that might of happened and vaguely remembers the calls he got from an unknown number a couple weeks back. "Those unknown caller ID's were you? I don't answer those."

Fury slams a small device down on the table in front of him and a hologram of the earth pops up. He tells Peter of recent attacks similar to the one in the canals earlier that day, and when Ned starts snoring in the middle of it, the older man sends a glare in his direction before looking back at Peter. The disruptions were constant after that and the teen secretly found it kind of funny. First it was their teacher to check on them, then Betty because Ned wasn't responding to her texts, and the last being another one of his classmates. Fury eventually got annoyed and told Peter to suit up, and took him to where he and Maria Hill were based.

That was where he met Mysterio, a.k.a Quentin Beck. Beck told him about his world being destroyed when Fury mentioned he was from Earth, but a different one, and Peter yawns when they mention the Multiverse.

"Are we boring you Stark?" Nick snaps and Peter jumps to attention.

"Uh...sort of? I know about the multiverse. So why am I here?"

"There's still the Fire Elemental and that's the one that destroyed my world. I could use some help bringing it down before the same thing happens to this world." Mysterio says.

Peter raises an eyebrow before looking at Fury. "Why didn't you just call my parents?"

"Your father is still recovering from the battle with Thanos and Dr. Strange is a bigger pain in the ass to contact than you. He also has his own responsibilities." Fury grouses.

"I can literally call my mom right now and he can help so I can enjoy my vacation." The teen points out as he takes out his phone.

"You really call him your...? Nevermind. I'm not getting into your psychotic family habits. Do you really want to put this on his shoulders as well when I know for a fact that he's sometimes gone days at a time and gets home exhausted?" Fury asks and Peter's thumb freezes over the call button under Stephen's contact photo.

Nick Fury had a point. Both of his parents were tired, and he didn't want to burden them with anything if he didn't have to. Peter still had to turn down the ex-director though for personal reasons.

"I can't risk my friends' lives or risk revealing my identity. If anyone finds out I'm Spiderman, it's game over for me."

Fury levels him with a glare. "Fine. Dimitri, take him back to the hotel."

Good. That was that. Peter could go back to enjoying his vacation like he should.

Except, Fury had other things in mind, because the next morning, their itenerary was changed and Peter discovered that the man had hijacked their summer vacation.

Great.

[luckyspike]

Creative Mode - A Good Omens fanfic about friends and Minecraft

HEY GUYS WHATS UP ITS YOUR GIRL 

dont hold me responsible for this i was seized with the spirit of minecraft halfway through building a diorite tower and had to write (ie i was bored and wanted to do something different but minecraft-adjacent)

forever filling my need for found families, we have the good omens idiot circus. behold.

---

There was a laziness about the winter holidays - no school, soft snow coating the ground outside, and nowhere, in particular, to be. It was the week between Christmas and New Years’, and Adam was enjoying himself. He had a good Christmas - a few things he’d been hoping for, as well as the ever-constant box of socks and underwear - and was planning on spending New Years’ Eve with the Them. He had, somewhere in the haze of his fourteen-year-old mind, designs of trying to kiss Pepper at the stroke of midnight, but these thoughts were fuzzy and tentative, and kept bumping up against thoughts of Pepper hitting him for telling her she looked “more like a girl than usual” on a day this past fall when she’d worn makeup to school.

He would need to consider it more.

Still, he reasoned there was plenty of time to consider. After all, he was largely on his own for the week while his parents were visiting his older sister in Spain. Certainly he was supposed to be spending the nights with Wensleydale and his family, while Anathema and Newt watched Dog*, but during the days he was free to wander around the village as he pleased, playing with Dog and just generally Hanging About. RP Tyler had already composed fifteen mental letters to the paper and Adam’s father about it.

It was sort of boring though - one could only strategize one’s New Years Eve romance so much - and by the fourth day Adam was wandering with less intent than usual, up the walk toward his house, Dog bouncing through the belly-deep (for Dog) snow alongside him. He was considering how to best while away the hours until Wensley finished with his piano practice, and was lightly entertaining the thought of finding Brian and asking if he’d like to see how far out they could get onto the ice on the pond before it broke and they fell in, when he heard a car pull up beside him.

He turned, and then he beamed. “Hey, Crowley!” Dog yapped excitedly, while the demon waved lazily.

“Hey, Adam. How’s things?”

“Boring,” Adam responded, completely honestly. “What are you doing here?”

Crowley shrugged. “I was in the area. Need a lift somewhere?”

Adam considered it. “I wasn’t really going anywhere. Home, I guess. Mum asked me to water her plants a few times while she’s away.”

“Ah.” And Crowley leaned across the seat, and popped the passenger-side door to the Bentley open. “Get in, I’ll drive you.” He managed to bite back a remark when Dog also jumped in, immediately leaving muddy pawprints on the leather seat. “What kind of plants?”

“I dunno, she’s got a lot. She left a list. Got directions on it and everything.”

“Ah.” Crowley pulled away after Adam shut the door, only sliding a little in the slush around the corner to Hogback Lane. “Having a nice holiday?”

“Yeah, not too bad. Kind of boring, though. Brian’s got his aunt over so he can’t hang out as much, and Wensley has piano practice for a few hours every day and Pep, uh …” Adam trailed off, and then swallowed. Imperceptibly, Crowley almost smirked. Teens. “I dunno, she has family or something.” A thought occurred to him. “Hey, didn’t Aziraphale say you have a bunch of plants or something?”

“I’ve got a few.”

“Only I’ve never watered my mum’s plants before, and she’s got some really weird directions for some of them.” He looked over, cautiously optimistic. “You wouldn’t have a minute to - ?”

The Bentley rolled up along the curb outside of the Young’s house, and Crowley shut the engine off. “Yeah, I have a minute.” Adam beamed.

Adam began to suspect Crowley had more than a few house plants based on the look he gave Adam’s mother’s plant care list when he picked it up. He read down the very-specific list of directions with Adam, and did a lap of the house with the kid, Adam studiously misting and watering as directed. He did notice, sort of distantly, how the demon would linger at each plant for an extra few seconds, apparently glaring at the foliage over the rims of his glasses, but he was preoccupied with the heavy responsibility of gardening, and the quiet hissing escaped his notice. As did the nearly-silent trembling of the leaves. The African violet, for the first time in four years, started to bloom. 

The boy deposited the watering can and mister back on their usual shelves, and stuffed his hands back into his pockets, surveying the plants around the house and feeling the warm glow of responsibility managed. “Wasn’t so hard, really,” he reflected, as Crowley joined him back in the kitchen, setting the list back on the counter by the sink. “Hope none of them die.”

“They won’t,” Crowley replied, likewise sticking his hands in his pockets. “So … family out of town?”

“Spain.” Adam sighed. “Dunno what I’ll do for the afternoon. Guess I could grab a few magazines and read ‘em back at Wensley’s. Maybe play a few games.”

“Which games?” Crowley asked, with the sort of passing interest that adults and adult-shaped beings used when they were trying to encourage a kid to talk about their interests. “I’m assuming video games, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Adam sighed. “I dunno. I already beat the ones Mum and Dad got me for Christmas. I guess I could play Minecraft for a while, start a new world or something.” Something about that - probably the bit about the new world - seemed to catch Crowley’s interest. Adam went on, “I mean, me an’ the Them got our world, but that’s more fun when we’re all playin’ together, so I guess I could just do a single-player. You, uh, you know what that game is, right?”

Crowley shrugged. “Can’t say I’m much of one for video games**.”

“Oh. Well, it’s really cool. You like … you start with nothing in the middle of like the wilderness, and you gotta build a house and find resources or whatever, an’ there’s monsters and you can starve to death and stuff. But you can build stuff too, like cool stuff.” He trailed off briefly, unsure of how his pitch was landing. “I could show you if you want.”

The demon appeared to consider it for a minute. Then, with a shrug, “Sure, I don’t have anywhere to be. You build stuff, you said?”

Adam nodded, enthusiastic, already leading the way to his room. “Yeah, I’ll show you.”

It took twenty minutes to get the console started, and to give Crowley a crash course on how a controller worked. He picked up it a lot faster than Adam’s father had. Probably, Adam reasoned, on account of him being so old. Must have been something like a controller sometime before in history. Adam perched on the side of the bed, controller in hand, while Crowley sat cross-legged on top of the plaid comforter, Dog happily stretched out between the two, already asleep. “Right, so you’re on the bottom of the screen an’ I’m on the top.” He watched studiously for a minute. “You gotta get some resources. If you punch the tree it’ll break and you get the wood from it.”

“Oh. Naturally.” Crowley twiddled the sticks and obediently began punching the tree. There was a pop, and an 8-bit rendering of a wood block appeared on the inventory bar at the bottom of the screen. “Right. Now what?”

Adam paused in his own tree-punching endeavors. “You can make a crafting table, but you have the make the block into planks first. Once you get a crafting table you can make all kinds of stuff.”

This is a complete waste of time, Crowley thought, as Adam coached him along through the crafting table process. And then, I love humans so much, these absolutely nutty things.

It didn’t take long for Crowley to pick up on it. He may have been new to console gaming, but Adam had chosen wisely in terms of introductory games, and he did have the unique intuition and common sense granted by six millennia living among humans. And Adam was, for the less intuitive parts, a good teacher. He chatted the whole time too, about whatever happened to drift across his mind - school, his friends, the current state of international affairs as far has he understood it (and questions relating thereto), things that annoyed him, and on and on. The light outside got dimmer, and they continued to play, controllers clicking quietly in the background, while in the game a house began to take place and then, by parts, look … good.

“You’re pretty good at this for a grown-up,” Adam reflected, after a couple of hours. He had changed position at some point, laying on his belly on the bed, feet kicking idly as he played, with Dog splayed across the small of his back.

Crowley considered that. “Am I a grown-up, technically?”

“Not sure what else you’d be, 6000 years old. You can’t be a kid.”

“True.” The demon hissed a little in frustration when he punched an existing pane of glass and it shattered, and Adam pretended not to notice. “Not a bad game, this one.”

“Nah, it’s cool. An’ you got the building down really fast. Even Wensley doesn’t make houses that look this good,” he hadded, appreciative, as he ran around the perimeter and surveyed the word done. “You sure you haven’t played this before?”

“Absolutely positive.”

“You played other building games then? Oh, or did you build stuff like, in the olden days?”

Crowley paused, and his nose twitched slightly. Adam had learned, over the years, that this was a tell. He was stumbling in to something, and if he wanted Crowley to hang around for any further length of time today, he shouldn’t push. He’d find out eventually. “Long time ago, yeah,” Crowley said at length. “Not that it was similar to this.”

“But like houses and stuff? Cause like, this is a good house. Looks really cool.”

“Not quite houses.”

“Oh!” Adam exclaimed, after arrowing a creeper to death and collecting the gunpowder for later. “Is anything you made still around? Like, in real life? Could I see it?”

“Yeah.” Adam blinked, and realized that the lower half of the screen - Crowley’s half - had gone mostly still. Mostly. The view, such as it was, was just the digital night sky, spinning slowly around. “You could.”

“The stars move with the moon,” Adam said helpfully, after a few beats of silence. “In the game,” he added.

“Yeah.”

Adam swallowed. And then, cautiously, because curiosity was gnawing him away from the inside, and yet he felt like a man perched at the edge of a vast chasm with the winds whipping at him, he said, “You’re not talking about buildings on Earth, are you?”

Crowley frowned a little, and Adam paused, finger hovering over the save button. He might have gone too far. But then, quietly, Crowley said, “No. Never built any actual buildings. Just …” He shrugged. “Other stuff.”

“Stars,” Adam said quietly, and it wasn’t a question. He stopped time, once, Adam remembered, but even for him the memories seemed just a little fuzzy now, three years later, separated in time by years of mundane things like school and video games and being normal. Sometimes, every once in a great while, he almost forgot altogether. Almost. They’re not just old people. They’re not people.

“Stars,” Crowley agreed. “Not a lot. Just a few. Someone had to do it, and it wasn’t a bad job.”

“Prob���ly.” Adam paused for a second and then, because he didn’t care for the weight of the silence, he said, “I think a zombie might be eating you.”

“Oh. Huh.” And the moment passed. 

The zombie was slain, and Adam returned to mining ore, while the weight of the silence lifted by inches and Adam breathed a little easier. Stars, he thought. I wonder which ones. He didn’t ask. “You know,” he said instead, “if you get a console at your place you could keep playing. Like online.”

“Oh yeah?” Crowley’s eyebrows raised. “Interesting.”

Adam set his controller aside. “I can write down what to get for you,” he explained, even as he pulled a pencil and pad off the little desk. Dog grumbled in protest as he slid from his Master’s back and onto the bed. “An’ the server an’ the password an’ everything so you can find it then. An’ you can text me if you forget.” He bent his head to the notepad, and so he didn’t notice Crowley’s smile, just a quick one, when it happened. The paper tore, and he handed the demon the note, scratched in the messy handwriting of a fourteen-year-old. “You know, if you wanna keep playing after you leave.”

Crowley looked the note over. “I might.” He glanced at the clock in the room then, and asked, “Is someone going to be expecting you home at some point?”

“Yeah,” Adam said, scooping his controller back up and returning to the game. “Wensley’s parents told me to be home by five, though, so I have time. But Wensley’ll be done with piano practice around three so I figured I’d go back about then.”

Crowley glanced over with a bemused grin. “It’s half three already, Adam.”

“Well, yeah, but I’m lost down this mine and I don’t wanna lose all the gold ore I got. We have to make a Tower. I’ll come back, then I’ll go.”

“Right, yeah, the Tower.” Crowley’s grin didn’t fade, and he cycled through the inventory to the map. “Hang on, I think I know where you are.” 

At length, Operation: Rescue Adam and the Gold Ore was a success. Adam shut the console off, and Crowley stuffed the note into a pocket. The house was locked up (with one last plant-check from Crowley, although Adam wasn’t sure he understood why), and the demon, the not-Antichrist, and the Dog loaded up into the Bentley, bound for Jasmine Cottage to drop Dog off. “You want me to wait?” Crowley offered, the car idling at the garden gate, while Adam and his dog jumped out. 

Adam considered it. “Nah. I’ll walk. Not that cold out.”

Crowley looked vaguely concerned, insofar as much as he ever looked concerned in situations that did not involve the impending Apocalypse, his own death and/or inconvenience, or Aziraphale being cross with him. “I could wait, really. Don’t have anywhere to be.”

Adam considered it again, but from the cottage he was fairly certain he caught a whiff of Anathema’s famous Polvorones, and shook his head. “Nah. Thanks, though.” Adam pretended not to notice when Crowley sniffed the air - the cookie smell really was strong - and then waited while he swung out of the Bentley and joined Adam at the gate.

“Might as well make sure you get inside alright and say hi to Anathema while I’m here,” he said, as an excuse.

“And get some cookies?” Adam suggested, cutting to the core of the issue, the two of them crunching up the walk together, Dog trotting between them.

“Aziraphale would kill me if I didn’t.”

Adam laughed. “Right. Oh, uh.” He stopped a few feet short of the door. “Uh, Crowley, um,” he looked up to the sunglasses, the carefully-arched eyebrow, and his mind raced a mile a minute. Which stars were yours? his brain whined. Which ones up there did you actually make? What’s outer space like? Are there aliens? What’s it like to make a star? His mouth, after a minute, said “Thanks a lot for the ride.”

Crowley was watching him. Not for the first time, Adam wondered if demons could read minds. He couldn’t have, he didn’t think, when … things were happening. But he was different then. It wasn’t the same. And Crowley had never said anything, but every now and again, he had this Look he could give you, a thousand miles wide and Adam wondered …

And then Crowley grinned, and shrugged, and knocked on the door. “Not a problem. Thanks for the game.”

“You think you might get a console?” Adam asked, as footsteps approached on the opposite side of the door. Crowley rocked back onto his heels and shrugged, but the amiable grin never dropped.

“You know Adam, I think I might.”

-

* In spite of numerous attempts, Dog and Wensley’s cat had never been able to reconcile their differences.

** This was not altogether a lie. Crowley had never played a game on a computer or a console, although he had been instrumental in the development of the E.T. game for Atari. Phone games, on the other hand, were another story entirely, and Crowley was rather proud of his perfect score in Heart’s Medicine, although only Aziraphale knew about this accomplishment.

[magzoso-tech]

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/snapchat-launches-bitmoji-tv-zany-4-min-cartoons-of-your-avatar/

Snapchat launches Bitmoji TV: zany 4-min cartoons of your avatar

If you were the star of every show, would you watch more mobile television? Snapchat is betting that narcissism drives resonance for its new weekly videos that put you and your friends’ customizable Bitmoji avatars into a flurry of silly animated situations. Bitmoji TV premieres on Saturday morning, and it’s remarkably funny, exciting, and addictive. Think cartoon SNL on fast-forward with you playing a secret agent, a zombie president, or a Moonlympics athlete.

It’s a style of content only Snapchat could pull off that relies on ubiquitous personalized avatars only Snapchat owns. The company says 70% of its daily active users, or 147 million of its 210 million, have made themselves a Bitmoji. Snapchat bought Bitmoji’s parent company Bitstrips in 2016 for a steal at $62.5 million, and it’s paying off. Amidst a sea premium video and haphazard Stories that blur together across streaming services and social apps, Snapchat finally found something Facebook can’t copy.

“We really believe that we have invented a new category of entertainment. It’s scripted but it’s personalized. You could take that in a million directions” says Bitmoji co-founder and CEO Ba Blackstock who wrote and directed Bitmoji TV. “First and foremost, I hope that everyone who watches this has kind of a mind blowing experience that they’ve never had before.”

Bitmoji TV, which TechCrunch was first to report Snapchat was building last month, will have its own Snapchat Show page where users can subscribe to get notifications and see new episodes on the Discover Page. Users can visit this page on mobile or tap and hold on the Snapcode below while pointing at it with the Snapchat camera.

They’re designed to be PG-13 with some bleeped out swearing and a little bloody violence. The shows are made out of Bitmoji’s Toronto office and are based on North American TV, film, and advertising. Each episode cuts away and back to a main story, with the first two centered around an America’s Best Bitmoji game show and a Mime Cops hostage negotiation. Interspersed are ‘channel flips’ between shorter single-gag clips that take your avatar into sit-coms, soap operas, action movies, and informercials.

But you’re not alone it Bitmoji TV. There’ll be occassional celebrity guests like Randy Jackson, Andy Richter, and Jon Lovitz. But your co-star in these segments is the Bitmoji of whichever person you last interacted with on Snapchat. That lets you control whether you want your best friend, your significant other, or some rando alongside you. That decision will change the way you interpret the jokes and scenes. Your Bitmoji won’t talk, but their’s will.

Getting philosophical, Blackstock explains that “When you say words to me, it’s not just your words in a vacuum. They’re coming from you. You’re the medium . . . In any narrative fiction you learn about the characters, they have back story, they have relationships that exist under the story that color it.” Who you make your supporting actor lends personal subtext that enriches each story. That’s one reason you can’t download or easily share clips of your version of Bitmoji TV, and Snap instead just lets you share a link to watch the real thing. Blackstock says it just doesn’t have the same effect if you’re not in the spotlight.

[embedded content]

One thing you won’t find in Bitmoji TV, at least at first, are advertisements. The initial 10 episode season won’t have them. But that does seem to be the plan. When I asked Blackstock about monetizing the show, he said “You can imagine. Discover has a business model of showing ads.” Snapchat would get to keep that ad money since it makes Bitmoji TV rather than paying it out with revenue shares or by buying content. Just as we’ve seen music and video streaming apps move to cut royalty expenses by creating content in-house, Snap seems to have the same idea.

Snapchat has yet to monetize Bitmoji directly beyond its merchandise store where you can get yours on t-shirts and mugs. Surprisingly, it doesn’t sell premium or branded clothes and looks for Bitmoji, nor allow brands to pay to have their apparel featured. Snap did recently start letting people mix-and-match clothes for their Bitmoji, and when asked if that could foreshadow a revenue opportunity, Blackstock said “You gotta build the store before you start selling the clothes . . . this was a foundational evolution designed to not only improve the experience for users but to set the stage for things to come.”

Having watched the first three episodes, I’m pretty certain Bitmoji TV is going to be a hit. The show embodies the whimsy of Snapchat and the youth culture of the community who uses it. It’s rare to see something so premium but so unabashedly weird. It’s remininscent of the Rick & Morty ‘Interdimensional Cable’ episodes that similarly features rapid-fire snippets of fake and absurd TV shows.

Yet “the idea for Bitmoji TV actually precedes Bitmoji. It’s something I’ve been thinking about since those days [before Snapchat acquired it.] In a way it preceding Bitstrips. I’ve been making comics and cartoons since I was a little kid” Blackstock tells me. “That’s how I met two of the co-fodners of Bitstrips was passing them comics in class. Even after school when we had jobs I would draw comics of my co-founder that were very compromising and I would fax them to his office to try to get him fired” he recalls with a hearty laugh. Now he has the budget to make them TV-worthy but meant for your phone.

Snapchat has a good hunch it’s going to work because it’s been testing a comic-stripped down version called Bitmoji Stories. These still or lightly-animated slide shows use the same idea of starring the avatars of you and your friends, but without full-motion video or constant audio. 130 million people have watched Bitmoji Stories since they launched in late 2018.

Blackstock tells me “They were easier to make at a high volume and release ongoingly, which we could put out as a prelude to get our audience ready for personalized content — but also for us to learn from and see how people responded and figure out our own processes in terms of production.” Snapchat had animators and engineers work hand in hand to build a rendering system for Bitmoji Stories and TV. That helps it rapidly produce the personalizable content than can flex to accomodate any shaped avatar without them clipping into their surroundings.

Tonight, Bitmoji TV will receive an in-person ‘silent disco-style’ premiere at Los Angeles’ Soho House. Guests will scan a code on the big screen, don headphones, and each watch on their own phone with themselves as the star.

Snapchat’s head of original content Sean Mills tells me that “New technology will unlock new kinds of storytelling” citing “the power of bringing a user into the experience with their best friends.” Bitmoji TV has certainly found a way to turn vanity into engagement. It’s certainly more compelling than the mediocre originals on Facebook Watch. And it’s technologically innovative, unlike the planned lineup for Quibi.

If the modern era of visual communication began with the selfie, Snap honed it into a messaging tool. A few words were more interesting with a friend’s face behind it. The original Bitmoji chat stickers let your face say whatever you wanted even without having to get on camera. Snapchat’s new Cameo feature grafts that face into GIFs to express even more complex feelings. And now with Bitmoji TV, an animated version of your face can live out your wildest fantasies or weirdest dreams. That’s something worth tuning into.

[joescanlan-blog]

Niketown, USA: Ten years of Air Jordans

First published in frieze (Jan./Feb., 1994): 11

Remember Neo-Geo? Haim Steinbach’s shelf units, Jeff Koons’ basketballs, Ashley Bickerton’s tech fetishes? Remember Hal Foster and how the “Damaged Goods” show claimed to confuse and challenge the boundaries separating high art from mass production, museum installation from commodity display? Now, a decade later, Neo-Geo’s retrenchment to high art systems and values is taken as evidence of the movement’s conceptual skid, greased, perhaps, by the trackless art market and the work’s own accelerated shelf life. I would argue that Neo-Geo did not fail so much as it was out-hustled, out-innovated and outclassed by the arena it claimed to have entered—the real world of consumer product innovation, design, marketing and display.

A case in point is the ten-year retrospective of Air Jordan basketball shoes in Niketown, a five-story museum and retail store that was Chicago’s most visited institution last year. Why run all over town to the Shedd aquarium, the Art Institute, or the museums of science and natural history when Niketown offers cultural artifacts, innovative technology, and life fish? Better still, after learning all about Bo Jackson’s shoes or Andre Agassi’s shorts, you can walk into the next room and buy them; not postcards, not replicas, but the things themselves.

NIKE Inc.’s masterpiece is the Air Jordan line of basketball shoes, products that have maintained an indifference to social reality that almost qualifies them as art. They were the first basketball shoes to retail for more than $100; the first to have a role in a major motion picture (Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing); and the first that people literally killed for. In Niketown a special room is dedicated to Michael ‘Air’ Jordan and these shoes. A Memphis-style display case holds ten Plexiglas sarcophagi, each containing an autographed pair of Air Jordans actually worn by the man himself. A basketball goal hangs at regulation height from the ceiling, and the floor is an actual hardwood basketball court replica. A 28’ photomural of Jordan in full regalia looms above. The sound of cheering fans cycles on and off every ten minutes—long enough for a sales clerk to ask if I need any help. (I’m considering spending $130 on a pair of Air Jordan 10s—not to wear, to store away. NIKE has informed me that early model Air Jordans are going for $1,200 in Japan.) The crowd roars. The cash register rings. Another artifact sold.

Tinker Hatfield has designed Air Jordan since their inception in 1985, but Jordan has been involved from the beginning. As the story goes, it was Jordan and his agent who pitched the concept of the shoe to NIKE. Meeting regularly with Hatfield, NIKE’s public relations staff, and product engineers, Jordan gives performance feedback and makes aesthetic suggestions. (Could it have been the player’s influence that led to the dropping of the NIKE logo from the shoe, in favor of the AJ mark alone?)

Of all the shoes, AJ 5 and 6 are the ultimate combinations of Hatfield innovation and Jordan intellect. Although AJ 5 returned to the idea of structurally compartmentalizing the upper, this regression is counteracted by an ostentatious display of synthetic materials, aerospace lacing, and a “see-through” heel—a running shoe innovation that is the benchmark of NIKE technology. The idea of being able to see through a shoe’s most critical performance area exalts the shoe’s technology at the same time as revealing its signature ingredient: air. The see-through sole fused the key innovation, material, functional pun: we already knew who Air was, now we could see what air did. AJ 6 took this levity and playfully grounded it in brawny, earth-bound muscle.

The AJ 6 profile is reminiscent of early Jaguars and Porsches in that all its shapes are inverted and downward flowing, more about using gravity and traction than escaping from them. The look of speed has been sacrificed for the feel of power; surface flash has been discarded like a T-shirt from the Incredible Hulk. Strangest of all is a low-slung heel and ankle panel that looks like an inverted pigeon wing, and a heavy looking all black sole with roadster flames spurting backwards from its mid-section.

By June of 1993 Michael Jordan had won two Olympic gold medals, three Most Valuable Player awards, seven consecutive league scoring titles, two Defensive Player of the Year awards and nine consecutive All-Star game appearances. In addition, his team, the Chicago Bulls, had won three consecutive world championships. But then came ‘the troubled shoe,’ Air Jordan 9. Rendered in black and grey Nu-Buck with a sickly, multi-colored tongue, it looks more like a hiking boot than a basketball shoe. The breathing holes in the uppers are scarce compared to previous models, and the see-through sole has been sealed up, entombed. The shoe looks tough, moody, impenetrable, and is the only model to have a polypropylene finger loop stitched to the heel for greater ease in pulling them on. Jordan never had to worry about pulling them on, though, as he retired from professional basketball just one week before the scheduled start of the season.

It’s conceivable that being the most influential figure for NIKE’s deleterious sociology played a part in Jordan’s decision to retire. NIKE Inc. has been rightly criticized for baiting a generation of predominantly Black youths with the proposition that basketball is a way out of the inner city, but in the end Michael Jordan was the casualty of the socio-economic crossfire. While his Gatorade endorsements encouraged kids to “Be Like Mike,” his NIKE ads averred that “It’s Gotta Be The Shoes,” which adds up to: be like Mike, but, Mike’s the way he is because of the shoes he wears, so…that’ll be $100, please. Every time he made an incredible basket, he sold another 1,000 pairs of shoes. At some point, perhaps, Jordan’s athletic skill and commercial manipulation became too indistinguishable, incompatible, or just plain out of control.

Visit Joe Scanlan’s website to see all of his archived works.

[fallwritesfiction]

Prompt: 013. test Fandom: RWBY Pairing/Characters: Blake Belladonna/Ruby Rose Rating: Explicit Wordcount: ~1800 Summary: Finals hit. Everything is tiredness and forgetting to eat. Part of the Beacon University AU. Notes/Warnings: Transgender Blake, transgender Ruby, yes there are faunus no I haven't worked out what that means for this setting, just to be clear everyone’s of age here

After finals, they curl up in Blake's bed and sleep for basically an entire day.

Engineering finals are brutal no matter who you ask, and while Blake only has one sit-down test - perks of being an English major; all her core classes want papers that she turns in well before everyone else's exams - she took advantage of the business of finals week to pick up more hours at work, and filled her normal Ruby time with working on her latest novel. They snatch little pieces of time together, mostly spent sleeping or desperately trying to catch up on calories, and while Blake misses her girlfriend, she's mostly too tired to actively feel the loss.

Technically, the invitation for the day after finals is for movies and cuddles. The normal implication is that there will be a lot of bad television, some kissing, and if Ruby gets too tired to hike back to her and Yang's apartment, she's welcome to share Blake's bed. This time, when Ruby shows up Blake sees her own exhaustion reflected in Ruby's face, and they skip everything else in favor of sleeping for twelve hours.

Blake feels Ruby leave the bed, but when lips press against her forehead, her half-awake mind assumes Ruby must be using the bathroom, and she falls back to sleep. She's not sure how much time passes between that, and when she feels gentle fingers stroking her face, but it's not long enough for her to get into deep sleep, and it's a good way to wake up besides.

"Hey," Ruby says softly. "You gotta eat something, Blake."

Blake cracks open an eyelid, looking blearily up at her girlfriend. Part of her recognizes the sense in what Ruby's saying. The rest wants to finish sleeping off two weeks of working effectively seventy hours a week.

"I ordered food," Ruby coaxes, "and made tea."

Now that Blake's a little more awake, she can smell spicy beef and seasoned chicken, along with vegetables and, yes, tea. She groans but stretches her arms out over her head. Blake curls back into herself a little, scooting forward to press her nose against Ruby's leg. She'll get up, but she's been starving for contact for the past few weeks. Let her have this.

Ruby laughs, her fingers moving up to stroke Blake's cat ears. Blake groans at the light touch; Ruby's learned all too well exactly how to rub along the base to make her into a puddle of faunus, and it's not fair.

"That's not fair," Blake informs her, eyes closing. "You want me to get up, but you keep petting me."

"Come eat," Ruby says sensibly, "and I'll pet you as much as you want."

"Promise?" Blake asks, trying to be grumpy and failing.

"Promise."

Blake looks up reluctantly, only for her breath to catch. Ruby's eyes are open, soft, and an affectionate smile curls her lips. Blake can't remember Ruby ever looking at her like this, and her heart flutters in her chest.

"I love you," Blake blurts out.

Before she can panic - she knew she loves Ruby, but she didn't mean to say it yet - Ruby leans down to kiss her, smiling. "I love you, too."

Blake wants to pull Ruby down for more kisses, but her mouth tastes like death and she really needs to wash her face. So she smiles up at her instead, hoping Ruby understands how happy she is right now.

"Let me brush my teeth, and I'll be right out."

Ruby nods, standing and heading toward the living room. By the time Blake gets out there to join her, Ruby has set them up with two plates full of food, and is halfway through hers.

"Thank you," Blake says, kissing the side of Ruby's head and picking her plate up. Ruby grins, then goes back to digging into her food.

They devour their food without saying a word, some sitcom playing that Blake doesn't even pretend she's paying attention to. Normally they watch stuff with Ruby commenting and Blake occasionally saying something in response, but they're both too hungry for any of that. They've barely made it through an entire episode of whatever it is before both their plates are clean. Blake leans back on the couch, sighing in contentment. Ruby pulls her down so her head is in her girlfriend's lap, and before Blake can fully come around to being surprised, Ruby's fingers are moving through her hair. Blake lets her eyes close, drowsing.

She manages to catch up on the sitcom by passively listening while Ruby pets her, and she lets another couple episodes slip by while she enjoys the attention. It took a while for her to be comfortable letting Ruby touch her like this, but now that she is, she really likes it. Judging by the way Ruby does it as often as she can, she likes it, too.

Ruby's hand moves down to cradle the back of her head and pull her up. Blake's eyes flutter open, only for Ruby's mouth to gently cover hers. Blake props her hands up behind herself, kissing back. She thinks Ruby is just being affectionate, then a tongue teases at her lips. Blake moans softly, opening her mouth under Ruby's.

Blake shifts so they're on the same level, twisting to face Ruby. Her girlfriend's fingers slide back into her hair, this time causing little pinpricks of awareness along her scalp. Blake shivers, feeling the first hint of heat between her legs. Feeling daring, she moves so she can support herself on one hand, the other guiding Ruby's hand down to slide in under her shirt.

They've gotten this far before, more than once. Blake knows what Ruby's breasts feel like in her hand, knows Ruby's touch. She's not as familiar as she wants to be, but it's happened enough that Ruby doesn't hesitate before she pushes Blake's bra up and starts circling one nipple with her thumb. Blake pushes herself into Ruby's hand, wanting more. Ruby pulls at her nipple, and Blake pants into her mouth.

This is their boundary. Blake's ended up with her shirt off before, but they both skittered away from more, curling up in Ruby's bed without any pressure to go further. This time, Blake doesn't feel the same hesitation. She wants-- maybe not everything, but something. Definitely something.

Ruby must be thinking something similar, because she squirms her legs out from under Blake, twisting around to lie on top of her. It's the first time they've been this close while kissing since Blake confessed to Ruby, and a little shiver of worry goes through her. Ruby's gay, she knows, completely uninterested in men. What if feeling Blake against her isn't something she wants? Before Blake can move to put space between them, Ruby's pressed directly up against her hardness, thighs on either side of Blake's.

She expects Ruby to move away, or at least pause, but if anything, Ruby's kisses get hungrier. Her other hand joins the first in cupping Blake's breasts, and Blake can't help but whimper at the attention. Ruby rocks against her, and for a second, Blake sees white at the edge of her vision. Without thinking, her hands find Ruby's hips, thumbs brushing over skin. Ruby jolts, accidentally nipping Blake's lip. She mumbles an apology, pulling away to meet Blake's eyes.

"I'm fine," Blake pants, trying to think despite the throbbing between her legs. "Are you...?"

Ruby nods, dipping back down to kiss her again. She rolls her body against Blake's, their hips flush. Blake moves with her, meeting Ruby's tongue with her own.

They push against each other in smooth motions. Blake's skin feels too tight for her body, heated almost to the point of being uncomfortable. She can only concentrate on Ruby, on the friction between them.

"Ruby," Blake makes herself say, "I'm gonna...."

Ruby nods, her voice dipping low. "Me too."

Just that admission nearly sends Blake over the edge, but she's determined to make Ruby come first. She fits a hand between them, cupping her. Ruby breathes out a sharp breath, her hips moving in jerky thrusts as Blake rubs her. The back of Blake's hand gives her enough pressure against her cock to keep her thinking hazy, keep her moving. Ruby's breath starts coming in pants, and it's not long before her back arches, mouth opening in a silent cry.

Blake kisses her through it, brushes her lips over Ruby's cheeks, her jaw. Ruby huffs out quiet laughter, then opens her eyes. She catches Blake's gaze and holds it, gently pulling Blake's hand out from between her legs. She starts moving again, purposefully rubbing herself against Blake's hardness, and Blake can't look away.

This is ridiculous. They're dry humping like teenagers, cramped together on Blake's slightly-too-small couch. Ruby doesn't like men - not that Blake is one, but she's never expressed any fondness for penises either - and yet.

And yet this is the most connected Blake has felt in years. She's willing to let Ruby render her helpless, without a single second of hesitation or discomfort. When she orgasms, it's with the sure knowledge that Ruby has her, that Blake can trust her to have her.

Ruby lies back down to press herself against Blake, and they stay like that for a bit. Blake likes the closeness, but she knows she has to take care of the stickiness between her legs before it cools too far and starts feeling disgusting. She doesn't often get hit by the kind of dysphoria most transgender people struggle with, but having her own ejaculate on her skin for too long is one sure way to trigger it.

"I'll be right back," Blake tells her, gently moving Ruby up and off of her.

Ruby nods, sitting up and reaching for the remote.

When Blake gets back, Ruby trades places with her, heading for the bathroom. Not long after, Ruby tucks herself back into Blake's side. They watch some documentary - Blake thinks it's about obesity, but she's also drowsy and satisfied and a little too full from stuffing herself with takeout - for a while.

"Hey, Blake?" Ruby peeks up at her from under her arm. "Next time... can I suck you?"

A thrill goes down Blake's spine, and she closes her eyes, forcefully thinking about their disgustingly pale and skinny History professor (the one everyone is pretty sure is on some sort of drugs) to calm herself down.

"If... if you want to," Blake manages, only barely able to keep eye contact.

"I do," Ruby says, "but I want you to feel good, too."

Blake chuckles, trying to ignore the heat on her cheeks. "If you do that, Ruby, I guarantee you it'll feel good for me."

"Good," Ruby says, turning back to the show.

They get most of the way through it before Ruby starts to feel heavier against Blake's side. She looks down to see Ruby half-asleep, one eye closed all the way and the other halfway there. Blake shakes her head fondly, shifting to pick her girlfriend up in a princess carry.

"Blake?" Ruby mumbles, turning her head into Blake's neck.

"C'mon," Blake says, carrying her to the bedroom, "time to finish sleeping off finals."

"'Kay," Ruby says, relaxing against her.

They curl back up in Blake's bed, sleepy and warm, and forget about the outside world.

Part One | Part Two | Part Three

[sheminecrafts]

Snapchat launches Bitmoji TV: zany 4-min cartoons of your avatar

If you were the star of every show, would you watch more mobile television? Snapchat is betting that narcissism drives resonance for its new weekly videos that put you and your friends’ customizable Bitmoji avatars into a flurry of silly animated situations. Bitmoji TV premieres on Saturday morning, and it’s remarkably funny, exciting, and addictive. Think cartoon SNL on fast-forward with you playing a secret agent, a zombie president, or a Moonlympics athlete.

It’s a style of content only Snapchat could pull off that relies on ubiquitous personalized avatars only Snapchat owns. The company says 70% of its daily active users, or 147 million of its 210 million, have made themselves a Bitmoji. Snapchat bought Bitmoji’s parent company Bitstrips in 2016 for a steal at $62.5 million, and it’s paying off. Amidst a sea of premium video and haphazard Stories that blur together across streaming services and social apps, Snapchat finally found something Facebook can’t copy.

“We really believe that we have invented a new category of entertainment. It’s scripted but it’s personalized. You could take that in a million directions” says Bitmoji co-founder and CEO Ba Blackstock who wrote and directed Bitmoji TV. “First and foremost, I hope that everyone who watches this has kind of a mind blowing experience that they’ve never had before.”

Bitmoji TV, which TechCrunch was first to report Snapchat was building last month, will have its own Snapchat Show page where users can subscribe to get notifications and see new episodes on the Discover Page. Users can visit this page on mobile or tap and hold on the Snapcode below while pointing at it with the Snapchat camera to open Bitmoji TV.

The show is designed to be PG-13 with some bleeped out swearing and a little bloody violence. The shows are made out of Bitmoji’s Toronto office and are based on North American TV, film, and advertising. Each episode cuts away and back to a main story, with the first two centered around an America’s Best Bitmoji game show and a Mime Cops hostage negotiation. Interspersed are ‘channel flips’ between shorter single-gag clips that take your avatar into sit-coms, soap operas, action movies, and informercials.

The gags are ridiculous. At the basketball “Moonlympics”, a player jumps up for a dunk, but low gravity causes him to crash through the glass dome and suck all the other players into space. At Cannibal High, an school announcement says “Attention students, we’re all deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Vice Principal Schneider. To honor his legacy, today the cafeteria will be serving Vice Principal Schneider.”

You’re not alone it Bitmoji TV. There’ll be occassional celebrity guests like Randy Jackson, Andy Richter, and Jon Lovitz. But your co-star in these segments is the Bitmoji of whichever person you last interacted with on Snapchat. That lets you control whether you want your best friend, your significant other, or some rando alongside you. That decision will change the way you interpret the jokes and scenes. Your Bitmoji won’t talk, but their’s will.

Getting philosophical, Blackstock explains that “When you say words to me, it’s not just your words in a vacuum. They’re coming from you. You’re the medium . . . In any narrative fiction you learn about the characters, they have a back story, they have relationships that exist under the story that color it.” Who you make your supporting actor lends personal subtext that enriches each story. That’s one reason you can’t download or easily share clips of your version of Bitmoji TV, and Snap instead just lets you share a link to watch the real thing. Blackstock says it just doesn’t have the same effect if you’re not in the spotlight.

One thing you won’t find in Bitmoji TV, at least at first, are advertisements. The initial 10 episode season won’t have them. But that does seem to be the plan. When I asked Blackstock about monetizing the show, he said “You can imagine. Discover has a business model of showing ads.” Since it make Bitmoji TV, Snapchat would get to keep that ad money rather than paying it out with revenue shares to partners or by buying content. Just as we’ve seen music and video streaming apps move to cut royalty expenses by creating content in-house, Snap seems to have the same idea.

Snapchat has yet to monetize Bitmoji directly beyond its merchandise store where you can get yours on t-shirts and mugs. Surprisingly, it doesn’t sell premium or branded clothes and looks for Bitmoji, nor does it allow brands to pay to have their apparel featured.

Snap did recently start letting people mix-and-match clothes for their Bitmoji, and when asked if that could foreshadow a revenue opportunity, Blackstock said “You gotta build the store before you start selling the clothes . . . this was a foundational evolution designed to not only improve the experience for users but to set the stage for things to come.” You and your friends seeing your avatar’s fresh outfit on Bitmoji TV might make people care more about what their digital mini-mes wear.

Having watched the first three episodes, I’m pretty certain Bitmoji TV is going to be a hit. The show embodies the whimsy of Snapchat and the youth culture of the community who uses it. It’s rare to see something so premium but so unabashedly kooky. It’s remininscent of the Rick & Morty ‘Interdimensional Cable’ episodes that similarly feature rapid-fire snippets of fake and absurd TV shows.

Yet “the idea for Bitmoji TV actually precedes Bitmoji. It’s something I’ve been thinking about since those days [before Snapchat acquired it.] In a way it precedes Bitstrips. I’ve been making comics and cartoons since I was a little kid” Blackstock tells me. “How I met two of the co-founders of Bitstrips was passing them comics in class. Even after school when we had jobs I would draw comics of my co-founder that were very compromising and I would fax them to his office to try to get him fired” he recalls with a hearty laugh. Now he has the budget to make them TV-worthy but just as crazy.

Snapchat has a good hunch it’s going to work because it’s been testing a comic-stripped down version called Bitmoji Stories. These still or lightly-animated slide shows use the same idea of starring the avatars of you and your friends, but without full-motion video or constant audio. 130 million people have watched Bitmoji Stories since they launched in late 2018.

Blackstock tells me “They were easier to make at a high volume and release ongoingly, which we could put out as a prelude to get our audience ready for personalized content — but also for us to learn from and see how people responded and figure out our own processes in terms of production.” Snapchat had animators and engineers work hand in hand to build a rendering system for Bitmoji Stories and TV. That helps it rapidly produce the personalizable content that can flex to accomodate any shaped avatar without them clipping into their surroundings.

Tonight, Bitmoji TV will receive an in-person ‘silent disco-style’ premiere at Los Angeles’ Soho House. Guests will scan a code on the big screen, don headphones, and each watch on their own phone with themselves as the star.

Snapchat’s head of original content Sean Mills tells me that “New technology will unlock new kinds of storytelling” citing “the power of bringing a user into the experience with their best friends.” Bitmoji TV has certainly found a way to turn vanity into engagement. It’s more compelling than the mediocre originals on Facebook Watch. And it’s technologically innovative, unlike the planned lineup for Quibi.

If the modern era of visual communication began with the selfie, Snap honed it into a messaging tool. A few words were more interesting with a friend’s face behind it. The original Bitmoji chat stickers let your face say whatever you wanted even without having to get on camera. Snapchat’s new Cameo feature grafts your face into GIFs to express even more complex feelings. And now with Bitmoji TV, an animated version of your face can live out your wildest fantasies or weirdest dreams. That’s something worth tuning into.

Snapchat Cameos edit your face into videos

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2uMrUbK via IFTTT

[technicalsolutions88]

If you were the star of every show, would you watch more mobile television? Snapchat is betting that narcissism drives resonance for its new weekly videos that put you and your friends’ customizable Bitmoji avatars into a flurry of silly animated situations. Bitmoji TV premieres on Saturday morning, and it’s remarkably funny, exciting, and addictive. Think cartoon SNL on fast-forward with you playing a secret agent, a zombie president, or a Moonlympics athlete.

It’s a style of content only Snapchat could pull off that relies on ubiquitous personalized avatars only Snapchat owns. The company says 70% of its daily active users, or 147 million of its 210 million, have made themselves a Bitmoji. Snapchat bought Bitmoji’s parent company Bitstrips in 2016 for a steal at $62.5 million, and it’s paying off. Amidst a sea of premium video and haphazard Stories that blur together across streaming services and social apps, Snapchat finally found something Facebook can’t copy.

“We really believe that we have invented a new category of entertainment. It’s scripted but it’s personalized. You could take that in a million directions” says Bitmoji co-founder and CEO Ba Blackstock who wrote and directed Bitmoji TV. “First and foremost, I hope that everyone who watches this has kind of a mind blowing experience that they’ve never had before.”

Bitmoji TV, which TechCrunch was first to report Snapchat was building last month, will have its own Snapchat Show page where users can subscribe to get notifications and see new episodes on the Discover Page. Users can visit this page on mobile or tap and hold on the Snapcode below while pointing at it with the Snapchat camera to open Bitmoji TV.

The show is designed to be PG-13 with some bleeped out swearing and a little bloody violence. The shows are made out of Bitmoji’s Toronto office and are based on North American TV, film, and advertising. Each episode cuts away and back to a main story, with the first two centered around an America’s Best Bitmoji game show and a Mime Cops hostage negotiation. Interspersed are ‘channel flips’ between shorter single-gag clips that take your avatar into sit-coms, soap operas, action movies, and informercials.

The gags are ridiculous. At the basketball “Moonlympics”, a player jumps up for a dunk, but low gravity causes him to crash through the glass dome and suck all the other players into space. At Cannibal High, an school announcement says “Attention students, we’re all deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Vice Principal Schneider. To honor his legacy, today the cafeteria will be serving Vice Principal Schneider.”

You’re not alone it Bitmoji TV. There’ll be occassional celebrity guests like Randy Jackson, Andy Richter, and Jon Lovitz. But your co-star in these segments is the Bitmoji of whichever person you last interacted with on Snapchat. That lets you control whether you want your best friend, your significant other, or some rando alongside you. That decision will change the way you interpret the jokes and scenes. Your Bitmoji won’t talk, but their’s will.

Getting philosophical, Blackstock explains that “When you say words to me, it’s not just your words in a vacuum. They’re coming from you. You’re the medium . . . In any narrative fiction you learn about the characters, they have a back story, they have relationships that exist under the story that color it.” Who you make your supporting actor lends personal subtext that enriches each story. That’s one reason you can’t download or easily share clips of your version of Bitmoji TV, and Snap instead just lets you share a link to watch the real thing. Blackstock says it just doesn’t have the same effect if you’re not in the spotlight.

One thing you won’t find in Bitmoji TV, at least at first, are advertisements. The initial 10 episode season won’t have them. But that does seem to be the plan. When I asked Blackstock about monetizing the show, he said “You can imagine. Discover has a business model of showing ads.” Since it make Bitmoji TV, Snapchat would get to keep that ad money rather than paying it out with revenue shares to partners or by buying content. Just as we’ve seen music and video streaming apps move to cut royalty expenses by creating content in-house, Snap seems to have the same idea.

Snapchat has yet to monetize Bitmoji directly beyond its merchandise store where you can get yours on t-shirts and mugs. Surprisingly, it doesn’t sell premium or branded clothes and looks for Bitmoji, nor does it allow brands to pay to have their apparel featured.

Snap did recently start letting people mix-and-match clothes for their Bitmoji, and when asked if that could foreshadow a revenue opportunity, Blackstock said “You gotta build the store before you start selling the clothes . . . this was a foundational evolution designed to not only improve the experience for users but to set the stage for things to come.” You and your friends seeing your avatar’s fresh outfit on Bitmoji TV might make people care more about what their digital mini-mes wear.

Having watched the first three episodes, I’m pretty certain Bitmoji TV is going to be a hit. The show embodies the whimsy of Snapchat and the youth culture of the community who uses it. It’s rare to see something so premium but so unabashedly kooky. It’s remininscent of the Rick & Morty ‘Interdimensional Cable’ episodes that similarly feature rapid-fire snippets of fake and absurd TV shows.

Yet “the idea for Bitmoji TV actually precedes Bitmoji. It’s something I’ve been thinking about since those days [before Snapchat acquired it.] In a way it precedes Bitstrips. I’ve been making comics and cartoons since I was a little kid” Blackstock tells me. “How I met two of the co-founders of Bitstrips was passing them comics in class. Even after school when we had jobs I would draw comics of my co-founder that were very compromising and I would fax them to his office to try to get him fired” he recalls with a hearty laugh. Now he has the budget to make them TV-worthy but just as crazy.

Snapchat has a good hunch it’s going to work because it’s been testing a comic-stripped down version called Bitmoji Stories. These still or lightly-animated slide shows use the same idea of starring the avatars of you and your friends, but without full-motion video or constant audio. 130 million people have watched Bitmoji Stories since they launched in late 2018.

Blackstock tells me “They were easier to make at a high volume and release ongoingly, which we could put out as a prelude to get our audience ready for personalized content — but also for us to learn from and see how people responded and figure out our own processes in terms of production.” Snapchat had animators and engineers work hand in hand to build a rendering system for Bitmoji Stories and TV. That helps it rapidly produce the personalizable content that can flex to accomodate any shaped avatar without them clipping into their surroundings.

Tonight, Bitmoji TV will receive an in-person ‘silent disco-style’ premiere at Los Angeles’ Soho House. Guests will scan a code on the big screen, don headphones, and each watch on their own phone with themselves as the star.

Snapchat’s head of original content Sean Mills tells me that “New technology will unlock new kinds of storytelling” citing “the power of bringing a user into the experience with their best friends.” Bitmoji TV has certainly found a way to turn vanity into engagement. It’s more compelling than the mediocre originals on Facebook Watch. And it’s technologically innovative, unlike the planned lineup for Quibi.

If the modern era of visual communication began with the selfie, Snap honed it into a messaging tool. A few words were more interesting with a friend’s face behind it. The original Bitmoji chat stickers let your face say whatever you wanted even without having to get on camera. Snapchat’s new Cameo feature grafts your face into GIFs to express even more complex feelings. And now with Bitmoji TV, an animated version of your face can live out your wildest fantasies or weirdest dreams. That’s something worth tuning into.

Snapchat Cameos edit your face into videos

from Social – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2uMrUbK Original Content From: https://techcrunch.com

[sffc-xyz]

Writing a Custom Camera Plugin for PhoneGap

Originally posted on January 3, 2014.

PhoneGap (the brand name of Apache Cordova) is a great tool for writing cross platform mobile applications. With JavaScript and rendering engines getting faster by the minute, we're quickly approaching the time when many apps can be written exclusively on the web platform without needing to dive into Objective-C and Java for iOS and Android.

Like all great things in life, though, PhoneGap has its limitations. For example, the abstraction away from Cocoa Touch means that the UI of your application is not automatically updated with new versions of iOS. But perhaps the most clearly defined limitation is the integration with native components. PhoneGap does a good job of abstracting things like contacts and the accelerometer, but it struggles with native components that require more than just an API.

In this blog post, I will dive into one of these native components: the camera. I will explain the limitations behind PhoneGap's out-of-the-box implementation of the camera, the steps you need to take to implement a custom camera overlay in iOS, and some tips and tricks along the way.

This tutorial applies to PhoneGap 3+. The plugin specification changed with the introduction of PhoneGap 3.0, so you will need a different tutorial if you intend to support older versions of PhoneGap.

I assume that you are competent in JavaScript and Objective-C, and that you are developing on a Mac with Xcode installed. Since the iOS simulator does not have a camera at the time of writing, you will also need a physical iOS device for testing. If at any time you get lost or your code doesn't work, you can refer to a working copy of CustomCamera on GitHub.

Let's get started!

The Default PhoneGap Camera

The default PhoneGap camera plugin has a clean JavaScript interface. From a developer's point of view, capturing a photo is as easy as one command:

$ phonegap local plugin add org.apache.cordova.camera

…followed by a few lines of code:

navigator.camera.getPicture(function(imagePath){ document.getElementById("photoImg").setAttribute("src", imagePath); }, function(){ alert("Photo cancelled"); }, { destinationType: navigator.camera.DestinationType.FILE_URI });

However, from the end user's point of view, things are not quite as slick. On iOS, a modal opens with the same camera overlay as the native UI. They can choose an image from their preexisting photo albums, or they can snap a new one. They are then brought to a screen where they can preview the photo and choose to retake it. Finally, when they submit the image, the modal closes and the JavaScript callback is evaluated.

This is fine for an app where the camera is not a core feature, but for apps where the user spends a significant amount of time taking photos, the default PhoneGap camera might not give a good user experience (UX).

Writing the PhoneGap Plugin

We can make a custom user experience by writing a PhoneGap plugin. The folks at Apache have improved the plugin API and its documentation substantially in the past few months, but there is still a definite learning curve.

I'm going to do my best to walk you through the process of creating a camera plugin for iOS.

Step 1: Create an empty PhoneGap project

The first thing we need to do is to create a new empty PhoneGap project and add iOS support. If you have the PhoneGap Command Line Interface installed, you just need to run:

# NOTE: Change com.example.custom-camera to something else unique to your organization. $ phonegap create custom_camera com.example.custom-camera CustomCamera $ cd custom_camera $ phonegap local build ios

The last line creates the iOS project directory at custom_camera/platforms/ios.

Step 2: Write the JavaScript bindings

It will make our lives easier if we write the JavaScript bindings for our plugin right up front. Make a new JavaScript file at custom_camera/www/js/custom_camera.js. Put in the following code:

var CustomCamera = { getPicture: function(success, failure){ cordova.exec(success, failure, "CustomCamera", "openCamera", []); } };

cordova.exec is an automagic function that lets us call an Objective-C method from JavaScript. In this case, it will create an instance of CustomCamera and call openCamera on that instance. We will write the CustomCamera class in Objective-C in the next step.

Notice how we made our API very close to PhoneGap's camera API. This is optional. At the end of the day everything boils down to cordova.exec.

Let's also create a button that we can tap to run the above function. Modify custom_camera/www/index.html and add the following inside the div.app tag:

<button id="openCustomCameraBtn">Open Custom Camera</button> <img id="photoImg" style="position: fixed; top: 0; width: 50%; left: 25%;" /> <script src="js/custom_camera.js"></script> <script> document.getElementById("openCustomCameraBtn").addEventListener("click", function(){ CustomCamera.getPicture(function(imagePath){ document.getElementById("photoImg").setAttribute("src", imagePath); }, function(){ alert("Photo cancelled"); }); }, false); </script>

Finally, don't forget to tell PhoneGap to copy the new files into our iOS project directory.

$ phonegap local build ios

Step 3: Set up the Xcode Project

If you run the above app on your iOS device, you will get an error telling you that the CustomCamera class is not defined. This is where we get to start diving into the Objective-C.

Open up the Xcode project located at custom_camera/platforms/ios/CustomCamera.xcodeproj. Press ⌘N, make a new Objective-C class for Cocoa Touch, name the class CustomCamera, and (this is important!) inherit from CDVPlugin. Save it in the Classes folder and the Classes group.

In the previous step, we told our JavaScript to call the openCamera method on an instance the CustomCamera class. We need to declare this method. Make your interface in CustomCamera.h look like this:

// Note that Xcode gets this line wrong. You need to change "Cordova.h" to "CDV.h" as shown below. #import <Cordova/CDV.h> // Import the CustomCameraViewController class #import "CustomCameraViewController.h" @interface CustomCamera : CDVPlugin // Cordova command method -(void) openCamera:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand*)command; // Create and override some properties and methods (these will be explained later) -(void) capturedImageWithPath:(NSString*)imagePath; @property (strong, nonatomic) CustomCameraViewController* overlay; @property (strong, nonatomic) CDVInvokedUrlCommand* latestCommand; @property (readwrite, assign) BOOL hasPendingOperation; @end

And wait, what the heck is CustomCameraViewController? It's the class that will handle the UI side of the plugin. Cordova will instantiate an instance of CustomCamera, which in turn will instantiate an instance of CustomCameraViewController as we will see later.

Press ⌘N again, make another new Objective-C class for Cocoa Touch, name it CustomCameraViewController, but this time inherit from UIViewController. I recommend creating a XIB file. Save it in the Classes folder.

The interface in CustomCameraViewController.h should look something like this:

#import <UIKit/UIKit.h> // We can't import the CustomCamera class because it would make a circular reference, so "fake" the existence of the class like this: @class CustomCamera; @interface CustomCameraViewController : UIViewController <UIImagePickerControllerDelegate, UINavigationControllerDelegate> // Action method -(IBAction) takePhotoButtonPressed:(id)sender forEvent:(UIEvent*)event; // Declare some properties (to be explained soon) @property (strong, nonatomic) CustomCamera* plugin; @property (strong, nonatomic) UIImagePickerController* picker; @end

Now we need to make the button that, when tapped, calls the takePhotoButtonPressed method. To do this, open the XIB file with CustomCameraViewController.h still open, make a button on the screen, and Control-Drag the button from the XIB file onto the method in the header file.

Gotta say it's a decent GUI that Apple put together!

We also need to add code to custom_camera/platforms/ios/config.xml in order to make PhoneGap see our plugin. Add the following lines somewhere inside the widget tag:

<feature name="CustomCamera"> <param name="ios-package" value="CustomCamera" /> </feature>

With the header files and XIB out of the way, we need to dive into the guts of the Objective-C.

Step 4: Write the hard core Objective-C

The primary API for interacting with the camera in iOS is the UIImagePickerController. We will be instantiating an instance of UIImagePickerController, configuring it to fill the whole screen, and opening it as a modal in front of the web view. When UIPickerController tells us that an image has been captured, we will save it as a JPEG file, tell JavaScript the file name, and close the camera modal. While the details of UIImagePickerController are beyond the scope of this blog post, it should be relatively straightforward to follow along with the code.

Let's start by writing the implementation for our CustomCameraViewController class, in CustomCameraViewController.m. Please read along with the comments.

#import "CustomCamera.h" #import "CustomCameraViewController.h" @implementation CustomCameraViewController // Entry point method - (id)initWithNibName:(NSString *)nibNameOrNil bundle:(NSBundle *)nibBundleOrNil { self = [super initWithNibName:nibNameOrNil bundle:nibBundleOrNil]; if (self) { // Instantiate the UIImagePickerController instance self.picker = [[UIImagePickerController alloc] init]; // Configure the UIImagePickerController instance self.picker.sourceType = UIImagePickerControllerSourceTypeCamera; self.picker.cameraCaptureMode = UIImagePickerControllerCameraCaptureModePhoto; self.picker.cameraDevice = UIImagePickerControllerCameraDeviceRear; self.picker.showsCameraControls = NO; // Make us the delegate for the UIImagePickerController self.picker.delegate = self; // Set the frames to be full screen CGRect screenFrame = [[UIScreen mainScreen] bounds]; self.view.frame = screenFrame; self.picker.view.frame = screenFrame; // Set this VC's view as the overlay view for the UIImagePickerController self.picker.cameraOverlayView = self.view; } return self; } // Action method. This is like an event callback in JavaScript. -(IBAction) takePhotoButtonPressed:(id)sender forEvent:(UIEvent*)event { // Call the takePicture method on the UIImagePickerController to capture the image. [self.picker takePicture]; } // Delegate method. UIImagePickerController will call this method as soon as the image captured above is ready to be processed. This is also like an event callback in JavaScript. -(void) imagePickerController:(UIImagePickerController *)picker didFinishPickingMediaWithInfo:(NSDictionary *)info { // Get a reference to the captured image UIImage* image = [info objectForKey:UIImagePickerControllerOriginalImage]; // Get a file path to save the JPEG NSArray* paths = NSSearchPathForDirectoriesInDomains(NSDocumentDirectory, NSUserDomainMask, YES); NSString* documentsDirectory = [paths objectAtIndex:0]; NSString* filename = @"test.jpg"; NSString* imagePath = [documentsDirectory stringByAppendingPathComponent:filename]; // Get the image data (blocking; around 1 second) NSData* imageData = UIImageJPEGRepresentation(image, 0.5); // Write the data to the file [imageData writeToFile:imagePath atomically:YES]; // Tell the plugin class that we're finished processing the image [self.plugin capturedImageWithPath:imagePath]; } @end

Now let's write the implementation for the CustomCamera class, in CustomCamera.m.

#import "CustomCamera.h" @implementation CustomCamera // Cordova command method -(void) openCamera:(CDVInvokedUrlCommand *)command { // Set the hasPendingOperation field to prevent the webview from crashing self.hasPendingOperation = YES; // Save the CDVInvokedUrlCommand as a property. We will need it later. self.latestCommand = command; // Make the overlay view controller. self.overlay = [[CustomCameraViewController alloc] initWithNibName:@"CustomCameraViewController" bundle:nil]; self.overlay.plugin = self; // Display the view. This will "slide up" a modal view from the bottom of the screen. [self.viewController presentViewController:self.overlay.picker animated:YES completion:nil]; } // Method called by the overlay when the image is ready to be sent back to the web view -(void) capturedImageWithPath:(NSString*)imagePath { [self.commandDelegate sendPluginResult:[CDVPluginResult resultWithStatus:CDVCommandStatus_OK messageAsString:imagePath] callbackId:self.latestCommand.callbackId]; // Unset the self.hasPendingOperation property self.hasPendingOperation = NO; // Hide the picker view [self.viewController dismissModalViewControllerAnimated:YES]; } @end

Of special note is the hasPendingOperation property on the CDVPlugin. This is an undocumented property that, when true, prevents the web view from being released from memory (garbage collected) while the camera view is open. If the web view were to be released from memory, bad things would happen: the app would essentially restart when the camera view closed, and the image data would never reach JavaScript.

Step 5: Test drive

Phew, that was a lot of Objective-C! But does it work?

Hook up your iOS device to your computer. If you haven't yet set up a provisioning profile, do so now. (For more information on connecting your device to Xcode, ask Google.) Build and run the app on your device from within Xcode. Tap the button to open the camera, then tap the button to snap the photo. The camera overlay should close, and you should see your image within the WebView!

The UI could obviously use some improvement, but the guts of the plugin are all there now.

Bundling the PhoneGap Plugin

In a crunch, you could stop right here and write the rest of your PhoneGap code inside your CustomCamera project. But the better practice is to give our plugin some metadata that we can use to include it in whichever project we want with a click PhoneGap command.

Step 6: Write plugin.xml

The metadata for PhoneGap plugins is stored in plugin.xml at the root of the project directory. Make custom_camera/plugin.xml with the following markup. More detail can be found in the PhoneGap docs.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <plugin xmlns="http://apache.org/cordova/ns/plugins/1.0" xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android" xmlns:rim="http://www.blackberry.com/ns/widgets" id="com.example.custom-camera" version="0.0.1"> <name>Shopeel Camera</name> <description>PhoneGap plugin to support a custom camera overlay</description> <author>Shane Carr and others</author> <info> This plugin was written with the tutorial found at: http://codrspace.com/vote539/writing-a-custom-camera-plugin-for-phonegap/ </info> <js-module src="www/js/custom_camera.js" name="CustomCamera"> <clobbers target="navigator.CustomCamera" /> </js-module> <engines> <engine name="cordova" version=">=3.1.0" /> </engines> <platform name="ios"> <!-- config file --> <config-file target="config.xml" parent="/*"> <feature name="CustomCamera"> <param name="ios-package" value="CustomCamera" /> </feature> </config-file> <!-- core CustomCamera header and source files --> <header-file src="platforms/ios/CustomCamera/Classes/CustomCamera.h" /> <header-file src="platforms/ios/CustomCamera/Classes/CustomCameraViewController.h" /> <source-file src="platforms/ios/CustomCamera/Classes/CustomCamera.m" /> <source-file src="platforms/ios/CustomCamera/Classes/CustomCameraViewController.m" /> <resource-file src="platforms/ios/CustomCamera/Classes/CustomCameraViewController.xib" /> </platform> </plugin>

Customize plugin.xml with your plugin details, file names, and so on.

Step 7: Specify the JavaScript binding

PhoneGap plugins treat the JavaScript file we made like a module. This means that custom_camera.js will be evaluated in a sandbox, and we need to specifically expose properties in order for us to use them.

Take note of the following lines in plugin.xml:

<js-module src="www/js/custom_camera.js" name="CustomCamera"> <clobbers target="navigator.CustomCamera" /> </js-module>

What this means in English is "include custom_camera.js and bind its module.exports to navigator.CustomCamera". If you've used Node.JS, you are probably familiar with module.exports. All we need to do is to add the following line to the bottom of custom_camera.js:

module.exports = CustomCamera;

Now, in applications in which we include our plugin, we can open the custom camera view with navigator.CustomCamera.getPicture().

Step 8: Deploy the plugin

We are finally ready to include our plugin in our real PhoneGap project!

Installing the default PhoneGap camera was as easy as:

$ phonegap local plugin add org.apache.cordova.camera

Guess what: our own custom camera plugin ain't much harder to install!

$ phonegap local plugin add /path/to/custom_camera

You can also give phonegap local plugin add a path to your Git repo.

$ phonegap local plugin add https://github.com/vote539/custom-camera.git

Conclusion

We now have a very basic, working PhoneGap plugin for iOS!

The next steps would include:

Add support for Android, Blackberry, Windows Phone, and all other targeted platforms. You would first need to add said platform to your PhoneGap project, then you would need to refer to the documentation for PhoneGap and your desired platform about how to implement a camera. Don't forget to modify plugin.xml once you're ready!

Package your plugin for the community. This might be as easy as plugman publish /path/to/custom_camera. Before you do this, make sure that you use a real reverse URL identifier for your plugin, rather than com.example.xyz.

If this tutorial helped you, let me know by posting a comment below!

[iges]

Journal Wrap-Up 2018

Jan

      I wonder why I doubt myself, feel so small when my potential is so tall

I wonder why I miss people, but still don't pick up the phone to call

      Duhet te njohesh shpirtin e njeriut,qe mund ti admirosh fytyren

      What do you mourn first? That which you were meant to become, or the many lives you've lived and died on your way to becoming who you are?

      I got a lot on my mind / not enough hours to shed / not enough trust to believe, not enough feeling to care / I'm feeling numb to the world so I been ignoring instead

      Your own people be laughing when you on ya positive shit

      "you're a poet?"

·        "something like that. I like to play with words to create experiences"

      "it's gonna take a long ass time or a hell of a miracle for me to take someone seriously again. Let alone even consider a relationship."

      Living my life like it's golden

      Inspiration is everywhere. But it has to find you working

      Si qiri po me tretet jeta

      When all external affiliations and descriptions are erased; when self-projected facades are defaced; when you take off all the class rings, bracelets and school branded sweaters, who the hell are you?

      I can't wait to get out of this country and explore the world. It's almost about damn time I get out of here

      Can I get a kiss? And can you make it last forever? I said I'm bout to go to war. And I don't know if imma see you again

      So free- don't flee from me

      You make this shit feel like summertime

      Day is yours beautiful. Go remind the earth why it loves you

      The world has said so much to me and I just wanna give it right back to em

      Lovin life above a reason

      Got expensive energy...can’t afford to give it to everybody

      Have you fallen in love with me yet? / you should for a good two weeks / two weeks is best for lovers

      Who is healed?

Who is housed?

Who is silent?

Who speaks?

      How many generations did it take to become feral?

      I know what it’s like to be hardened by the world and all the shit that happens to you. and that’s why I choose softness everyday (or at least try to)

      Move me

      Family. community. Calm unity.

      Love is dope but I’m careful where I place mine now

      That dope ass beat in your heart? Vibe to it

      The words might escape us, but it is the knowing that matters. It is the knowing that creates the experience.

      “Alicia keys aura reminds me of you”

      I flower and don’t apologize

      Every piece I create, creates me. I create to create myself.

      It's very important you take cues from yourself. It is such a wild world full of chaos and chance and if you can see that this is the best part of it, that it's open ended and unscripted, that your fate is your whim, then the vibe hits you and life is the vibe. Often you have to become what you need, and very often the world will punch you in the mouth. You spit out whatever blood may come, you let your eyes give off their wild crazy, and you make yourself into a bolt of lightning. I think if life has fucked with you, I think you get what I mean

      I am wayward careening, losing myself in the next next next, little more than a reactive engine, needing to be touched, needing hot exhale on my neck, needing, everything. Would a fight, would words repented, would a fear of violence, of escape, of abandonment, would an action incapable but accomplished, something to tear the heart through the night. I remain and waste and weather and realize why an organism became a predator.

·        I place compassion in a bowl and set it aside. I crucify the pity I fill for myself and as I resurrect I realize I no longer know you. I do as you and shrug my shoulders and it is all there is to do.

      Turn off your phone before you start making things

      People will tell you you’re weird your whole life till they see you doing your own thing or better than them

  Feb

      Only allowing another body to interrupt long enough for our limbs to tangle like weeds up the side of a brick house, reaching for something impossible

      Most people I know cannot sleep until they crawl themselves through someone else's hollow.

      There are nights when I wish we were all still children, but then again, I suppose we may be or at least there is no other way to explain how we make every doorway our own. The way we stain ourselves and anything else that moves. The way we scream into the dark like a siren & the weeping, yet another thing we never mention in the morning.

      Months later, I fell in love with a coast where my phone calls were no longer currency

      Let the n-word spill out from behind the wrong tongue and paint the entire room a new shade of trouble

·        Doesn't understand how a word can hang in the air and multiply twice its weight before it ever comes down

·        I watch as the air above us gets thick and becomes an anvil of smoke

·        It must be nice to wrap your tongue around all of the words in that song without also asking to bleed out on a sidewalk - the only traces of your body be the traces of chalk on the sidewalk

      A new sharp and boundless city between us forever, or sometimes multiple

      I don’t sleep like I used to under this city's moon. I never got used to eating alone out there and I instead got used to hunger. how small I've become because of these things. I forgot how to talk about distance out loud

      “ya know I knew there was something worth admiring about you. you keep proving me right every day”

      If you get tired, learn to rest not to quit

      You gotta train your mind to be stronger than your emotions or else you'll lose yourself every time.

      A lot of people spend time worrying about all the things that could go wrong. I don't think about those things. Where you place your attention grows. I focus on my vision and understand that just because things don't go according to plan doesn't mean that they're going wrong. The universe is collaborative, we aren't in full control. Focus on what you want in your wildest imagination and let it come into being. I'm recontextualizing anxiety as excitement. Depression is just when I need to modulate my mood. Sometimes it's just time to sleep all day. Rest and dreams are as important as the work. It's ok to feel low. It's ok to be confused. You move and breathe through it.

      It's easy to find your truth in retrospect. What's hard is to find your truth in the moment

      Feeling small again as I leave the city. This restless city…is part of why I'm so restless. Part of the grind is embedded in my bones the other parts are cultivated by this city. When I go elsewhere for too long, my soul becomes more restless than ever.

·        But it is ok to feel small at times. Reminds us of how grand we are afterwards. Refer back to yesterday's entry. Recontextualizing the emotions I feel so I can be more comfortable with feeling them.

      Sometimes people will come into your life because they're attracted to your energy but they'll misuse it for their own healing. Let that go.

      Maybe you won’t get attached to me if I get lucky

      You’re my golden girl/ the sun has been kind to you

      and this body, this skin, this lineage, how can i wear them with honor? how can i find peace in them?

how do i carry on when it seems there are more of them than there are of me? those folks who do not even think of tenderness, do not even care to know their souls?

      to stretch past our current realities toward a future we deserve. to stretch past our own shit in order to build the collective we need.

      Can you dig it?

      I feel like I asked god for it and got back "are you sure? Ok. Just know that everyone can't go."

·        So I'm watching that. And it is tough. But I'm too deep in and I can do so much good.

·        It's lonely out here but beautiful.

      Everyone who has told me they loved me has meant something different

 March

      Officially going to south Africa in the fall

      Fullness is risky business

      Were you looking for someone? As I watched you go? I’m mad because I don’t know what you used me for

      Self-improvement is the best dating advice

      My single years have been the most emotionally rich, spiritually uplifting moments of my life. It is in these moments of solitude that the self is discovered and furthered.

      Creating beauty and opportunity

      I love hard but I don’t give a fuck even harder

      I might be too great alone. Solitude is the wave

      Someone said the whole point of living is to age. I haven’t been the same since

      My dreams return to me. Like seeds shifting in the dirt. I could have a joy unlimited. Imagine that. Imagine that there is a warmth deep enough in the earth to withstand a few chilly seasons of fear. Imagine you blooming anyway. Despite | in spite. Inspire. It's the kinda thing that makes your muscles loosen. Your colors richen. Spring forward.

      I love low lighting and low voices and a low moon. I wish love was easier to give- wish it came with settings. I would turn you on, so that you illuminated us both.

      She remembered who she was and the whole game changed.

      I guess you wake up one day and decide to be strong

      Writing to sunsets while on the road. I think this is the way my life is supposed to go

      It’s funny how overemotional encounters render me emotionless

      Listening to canal st and thinking back to blasting this while I came down from my trip with rumeer this summer. Walked him to the train and then walked through the city with the homies. Walked like a pack blasting music and just talking some real shit. It was a day of so many emotions, so many tears- of sadness for lack of understanding, of happiness for finally making my dreams come true, of laughter for being able to be stupid together. And a night full of raw thoughts. I felt so at one and at peace with myself. I knew myself better at that point in my life than I have ever known myself before, than I know myself now. I can't wait for life to feel that way again.

      Don’t rush yourself, but apply pressure

      As artists, we have to keep reinventing ourselves; we can't ride the same wave forever, for, that's how you drown

      They always ask "where are you now?" in a way that insinuated there were only two places on earth one could be: new york and somewhere ridiculous

 April

      i keep waiting to receive you. i keep wanting, past what's warranted. i keep asking and opening. i keep giving you an entrance. why tho?

      some glimmer of a thing. potential, hope, lust- all shimmer in the dark. i spotted you. to my detriment maybe. you are decadent maybe.

      i'm making you up as i go because you won't come close enough to show me the truth. and because my truth feels better. and because i keep wanting a reason to want you.

      there is no reason why this should end well. but we hang around just in case. i've got to protect myself just in case.

      suicidal thoughts happen on sunny saturday afternoons right alongside the sprout of pink flowers. in a single sigh of relief, there is the joy of being alive for another spring, and there is the exhaustion of having survived another winter. wanting to quit. wanting to stay. pendulum swings. i can't imagine what it's like to not feel both, feel everything, in constant oscillation.

      i moved to america in what felt like the middle of a sentence. childhood morphed into something unfamiliar, something of a memory, which isn't the same as the thing itself.

      some version of me thought it would be romantic if we could connect off the strength of who we were when we were 11.

      it didn't turn out so well or last very long. whatever personality she might have had, she drowned out with drugs and hennessy. and it's strange the way the paths you take can age you. from juice boxes to drugs and sex and a lot of smoke and fog to clog the memories. it does something to you.

      my preferred style of loving is from a distance...like the sun. it's enough for me that someone cna stand in my warmth and stand in their own truth at the same itme. it's enough for me to be a flame, a shining light, a star. except for when i'd rather be touched.

      the real [quest]ion is: how do i create and embody a life i enjoy? what is my power? what happens when i add more courage? let's keep moving to find out.

      the whole point of abundance is

to have enough and be enough

so you don't have to build it all at once

      pardon my bohemian ways

i know i act like i be stuck in a bohemian daze

you said you love me, so don't rush me

love is patient and now you gotta trust me

      buffering, creativity suffering

when you bustlin' hustlin' for the numbers and

you missed the journey if you climbed too fast

      traveler, never falling victim to these calendars

they say greatness gets better with time

so why expedite my prime?

see i'm just a lilac tied to the earth

exuding the fragrance of life and birth

so respect my photosynthesis

my petals, my stems, full of nourishing flow

you thought this was a love song, but no

i just need you to let me grow.

      life is a fleeting thing--and a fluid thing. i am a wave dissolving against the shore--then rewinding. it's not very interesting to some, but it's real. to me, it's fascinating. it does fill the time with something. my unimportance is shimmering under the sun until it becomes it's own beam of light, until i become aware of my light and take flight.

the words don't always come because sometimes there are none. not for what i want to say. not for where i stay. but are to be found in the spaces i need to go.

and so this is how i become a fleeting thing--and a fluid thing. my life takes shape based on who i am and who i become. so i'm living this life like it's my only one.

      What I am trying to say is: I am trying to travel more lightly these days

      i have to live in a numberless now. do i feel alive? have i danced enough? written enough? created enough today? or any other day? will my tired heart renew its strength again? these questions don't care what month it is. when i go to answer them, that is how my life evolves. there is no schedule, no score, no scale that will accurately reflect the tale of my life.

it is happening now. tune in now or you'll be lost in the next episode.

      self pity is just cloud cover. it is defense mechanism against difficulty.

there's no way out of carrying the weight of your own life. and that shit is humbling. because the consequences are impartial to both innoncence and ignorance. whether we know better or not, whether accidental or on purpose, if a bone breaks, it breaks. we can spend an eternity rationalizing the causes, but the effects are here now, and the bone is still broken. they demand to be dealt with.

      most days i feel like everything that could be said has been said. i write anyway.

      trauma attaches to our genes and our choices, and we pass these things on to the next installment of living beings. why is it so hard to fathom that everything is connected, and that the good we do today matters? it matters to our ancestors, our present peers, and our successors... that we heal, we love, and we create. and we do this with the wilderness and joy we were born to do it with. this is a wounded place we are living in. i wish to tend to it already

      when my lungs ebb and release the air, the shore of my soul comes into form. time recedes, reveals the miracle of being born anew each morning. heaven is the reachable pulsating heart in each of us.

      how do we go about living our days there?

      maybe i keep my distance because the best way to enjoy something is to not bother it.

      the sun loves us from a distance. maybe that's where i get it from. getting closer changes everything. it changes your skin entire.

      I feel as though I am sunshine with a pulse

      i have been trying to gather my thoughts, but they don't want to be gathered. they want to roam wildly.

      i am thinking of you and how you could be anyone and how i've written your poem already under another title and another face.

      i just can't go back to a place where everything in life is centered around romantic love. there is so much more important love to me now. a love poem is never just about a person anymore, it's about a person, myself, our dreams, and everything in between that makes us free. besides, what is a love poem, but a pair of wings?

      emptiness is an opportunity. to fill, to fly

      i wanna know why we all aren't laughing, why our mouths aren't all prepared to swallow the moonlight

      i am so warm and willing. it's like glowing from my superpower. it's like knowing what star i came from.

      what are my essential needs?

what has to be met in order to connect?

what boundaries can i unfasten to let more freedom in?

      language is a constant movement in my body--as the lungs, the heart, and the blood. always, there is a charge to communicate. it is the original addiction. i learned early the world is molded by storytellers. i discovered the sentience of a sentence and couldn't return to unfeeling. the call to express is as fluid as a reflex. as natural. as eternal.

at the end of the day, my voice is an invitation to my loneliness. language brings fellowship to my solitude--makes compelling the insignificant. it is a never present temptation. to speak and feel and build. it is an opening.

      sometimes i just like the feeling of not being home. i enjoy the fog and flow between two places. perhaps i'm going nowhere slowly. but to enjoy the relief of being back in familiar territory, you must leave every once in a while to soften yourself against the unknown.

      "how do you know me so well?"

"because i know myself"

      i've been writing about love since i was a child. it was always the loose thread in the tapestry. one tug and you could watch the whole thing unravel. i was 11 when i noticed this subtle energy holding everything together. didn't quite know what to call it back then. but i found myself in a constant flirtation with whatever came close.

poetry is the matter of twirling that thread around my finger, sensing the collective pull as love touches everything. colors are saturated by it. music erupts from it. dreams are made bold because of it. sometimes i will call it by other names:

summer, water, desire, energy, you.

words are for linking them all together, naming the constellations, and finding our way in the dark. words were born from our insatiable need to connect and from the allure of cause and effect. i'm glad for it.

my favorite space to be is here...because i know you'll love me back from the otehr end of the string. one tug and we can watch the whole thing unravel, revealing the raw nakedness underneath.

i've been writing about you since before i knew you by your name.

      i think there's this sweet spot you find when you're discovering yourself that is both private and sincere. you are not obligated to share it. it is a vibe you register as peace or loneliness with a hint of fire and warmth. a heart of sorts. perhaps the heart itself. you are alive and complete, as is. sure, over time, you will glow and erode and merge with others, but there will always be your center. your zero. your infinite. the gift you take when you leave your mother and discover singularity, whether  that mother is a person or a country. you take not of it like hearing the muffled baseline of a familiar song in the distance that carries the rhythm like something of a home. your song. deep down, you are your own. i think this is the love i've been trying to remember and re-discover. she saves me in the end. i've always had quite a strong sweet tooth.

      One day I’ll wake up and it won’t be on the battlefield

      "eating salmon with pumpkin rice and thinking about how many times i've written my existence into reality"

      most people forget what could change another life once changed theirs

      im sitting in my room crying over my progress report from kindergarten because i've literally always been like this. sometimes i forget. but i won't waiver because i can't waiver. i promise to keep holding it down till i'm in the ground. peace.

      remember that spirit bomb of a book i put out? lol. what happened to that?

      yo peace to everyone who understands this shit isn't theoretical

      it's always the motherfuckas with no magic tryna tell you what to do with yours

      inspiration as a force but not with force

      i'm a different soul now than when you first knew me. it's not the same shy timid girl you met. i now know myself, i know what i want from life, and i know my journey. and i am not willing to let anyone fuck with that. so you're either with me or not.

      I am so grateful for this passion. For this creativity. For this fire burning within me

      I don’t know how to explain war language to those who have never had to speak it

      a year of subtle dopeness. it was no accident that i was off campus during my birthday. it was no accident that it was with a small group of good company. it was no accident that i had a great night at the party regardless of those around me. it is no accident that i don't let anybody fuck with my energy lately, even while mercury was in retrograde. it is no accident that i feel like i am floating. though life may feel like a series of coincidences, i have come to realize that i have learned how to be very intentional with my energy and actions in order to create the vibe i want for my life. and i have come to be so thankful for that. it is no accident that i am where i am today. i have brought myself here, willingly, intentionally. love and support has helped carry me here. of myself and others. it is no accident that i feel at home wherever i go these days; that i can up and leave constantly and come back and settle in whenever needed. while still floating. i have learned to make a home of this body and soul. i am learning how to build peace from it. i lay foundations, willingly, and intentionally. with love and support. i didn't just happen here; i put myself here because i wanted to be here (no matter how hard it may be to believe or remember sometimes). i am grateful for this power and awareness. continuing to vibe to the dope beat in my heart; continuing to build my song; continuing to let the rhythm (of love and support) carry me wherever i need to go; continuing to sing it wherever i go.

      Don’t quit your groovy shit

      seeking the sun

      "you've got such a great heart yo. mad generous and loving"

"now i do. took a while"

      Reminder: “if you wanna fly, gotta give up the shit that weighs you down”

      writing is a stimulant. where the blood goes, the words flow, and heat rises to the surface. a story is what we tell when we are most free.

      to execute a vision, you have to trust the movement.

certain things you just can't rush.

namely, Growth.

      I am releasing everything.

      i think i displayed, often, that i cared about your well-being. enough to warrant, at minimum, a little transparency on your end. something, anything, a single word. but distance? silence? why that? why didn't i deserve a reason? i'll live, but it does sting a bit.

      set your anger down and think about who's in control.

      i am a lover, with or without a lover.

 May

      and every day, the world will drag you by the hand, yelling "this is important! and this is important! and this is important! you need to worry about this! and this! and this!" and each day, it's up to you to yank your hand back, put it on your heart and say "no. this is what's important" -Iain Thomas

      i want myself unconditionally. i want my own love. with everybody else, there are requisites. fuck that.

      to write myself in and out of moods.

to create new energy for myself.

this is the move.

      Belonged | Beloved

      against the blue of the sky, this tree was a peacock in a past life.

      There’s not enough room nor time for anger. It’s time to forgive us both.

      how much time does it take to be a real writer?

what does it take to be a real writer?

what does it take to call yourself all that you are?

      i pull sativa smoke into my lungs and feel my muscles loosen

      Notice Me- Migos

as i find my limits stretched, i'm understanding that i'm not in the position to ask for more. my inventory is capped. the things that are already here want to be noticed. and it's about time i notice them. you create space for wealth by giving thanks and taking care of what is already there. i stand in my space and register my blessings: running water, a community to love, unread books, muscles to temper, rage to soften, love to give, my work cut out for me. my advantages eclipse my deprival. society would rather have me believe that i don't have enough any day. it would rather me reduce myself to greed where no life can be sustained. i have plenty i could stand to appreciate more if i know what's good for me. and i am learning what is good.

      i realize now how i always considered babson a temporary destination, always thought of it as a visit. and because i said that before i even got here, i have been treating it as such ever since. when i lost sight of it, when i tried to fully immerse myself, i got lost in it and lost myself in it. it is okay to acknowledge that there are some spaces you are just a visitor to, that you can never truly belong there. even if these are the spaces you are supposed to call home. home is not a place that i call, home is a place that i feel called to.

      i always want to get straight to the heart of things.

      my spirit stayed behind to find the sun.

she has found it and is now catching up to me.

rather than abandonment, i feel nourishment.  

a sentiment known since we felt the shadows of our parents for the first time.

      what am i not tryna deal with right now?

      i just be lookin forever eternally

      lately i've been questioining a lot. most people are fake supportive, and i no longer have energy to give outside of my craft

      last night was a night of affirmations. everything came full circle. my purpose was affirmed, my character was affirmed, my role here was affirmed, and now it's time to go the fuck off.

      there is a lot of tenderness in my life when i know where to find it and when i choose to seek it out. choice is what this is all about. gratitude is the fuel.

      summer in my soul

      i can't do it, not because i'm incapable. because it's not part of my purpose

      looks can be deceiving, words can be misleading, i see blood on my shirt but i'm not the one bleeding

      realizing and recontextualizing.

      i trust myself so much. i trust my emotions. i trust my thoughts. i trust my body. no one can tell me who i am.

      collecting and connecting

      i'm not seeking anyone to fill anymore emptiness. it turns out i never needed that. what i've always craved are simply opportunities to be my most authentic self. love is bigger than two people but can also be as small as one. love is having a place in the world and in yourself. love is wanting a future. love is the courage to keep going. love is a lot more. sometimes a person is not the answer. for me, it seldom ever is. sometimes, most times it is movement. sometimes, it is rain, money, the right song, an adventure. sometimes it is sleep. sometimes it is drug store candy and a day in full of wet windows and kisses. sometimes it is the right album and a hike and a mountain view. all this estate for my mind to run. but a lot of the poems suggest that you have to wait for someone to give you a chance to be somebody. that's what i am here for. to shift the notion that you ever need anybody to give you the permission or opportunity or freedom to become all that you ever are on your own. you gotta know what it is like to feel wanted. i know what it's like and it's beautiful. but the world is still burning. but it feels most beautiful when you are wanted by and for yourself. there is opportunity/freedom in emptiness. to fill. to fly. i am not seeking anyone anymore because this emptiness is not for filling. i’m flying baby. you are welcome to dance with me in this expanding space. but i don't expect you to have the answers, and i pose the same request to you. more than anything, i just want to be myself, in myself, with myself.

fuck all that other noise.

      people here are so concerned with looking busy that they're never actually doing anything.

      how can you ever go wrong with the girls who call earth home

      everybody else is 2's and 3's. you're the 1. i love you.

      i do possess the desire to be understood on the level that touches my poetry, sensitivity, and the playful melancholy from which my rebellious love sprouts. but because i know myself where it counts, i don't beg for it elsewhere. there is no urgency. few people have met me in that soft space of feeling, laughing, and moving slowly. i resented that at first. but it's not a big deal now. alone is how i get to be unglamorous on my own terms.

      i write more than i talk. i like to walk along the beach and listen, walk the city streets and listen. i enjoy giving because wanting takes me out of my element. i don't always know how to explain that to my friends when they call and i don't answer. but if you came to my door, i'd let you in.

      for the sake of compassion, a lot can be simplified. every now and then you want somebody to talk to, and maybe you wouldnt mind fucking them, if they didn't mind it. is it so paramount that we make it A Thing? maybe you only wanna talk or listen or be around, but you don't wanna overstay your welcome. maybe you get lucky and find everything in one person. maybe you find one thing among many, right when you need it. maybe you are all you need, sometimes. i think we ask a lot of each other before we know any better. i feel like we get too high up and too fast, and now that we need to climb down, we are more afraid than ever. we shouldn't be afraid. we were searching for a friend. we succeeded. we don't need to complicate that.

      tired. what's next? i'm suffering. what's next? i'm shedding. what's next? i'm not holding on tightly to anything anymore. or maybe ever again.

      both patient and relentless, this love does not allow me to remain a victim. it lifts and dares me with the same strength of limb- an embrace that is forgiving and urgent. get up, it implores. pushing tenderly. refusing pity. and this is novel, alarming, beyond denial. this love won't let me proceed unchanging, just as the softness of hands shaping clay does not detract from their calculated strokes. it touches me purposefully deep down in my sorrow, demanding its purge. confident in my ability to harvest light. i am anxious within it, yet still assured..that this is as it should be- ruthlessly constructive.

      if you stopped loving me, would you be brave enough to tell me?

      when i was lonely, i ran to love to cure it. i am not lonely now, and that is its own affliction.

sometimes i just don't want to be seen. i imagine living outside the context of my body like a smokescreen. is it such a terrible idea to do things in increments? i wish i could disappear for months at a time without offending anyone. like the bears do. it's not always about you. i wish i was as light as air.

but i am fire. and i must be around so we can stay warm.

the world is allowed to be temperamental, yet we aren't. how come? aren't we of this world? aren't we allowed our seasons?

but fire has no season, my dear.

      "just to hear it in your words"

·        i love how you ask me the things you already know just to be able to hear it in my own words

      you make my desire pure

      croque is my hub of solitude, intimacy, and creativity. it is one of the few places i am most intimate with myself and my work always. and by work i mean creativity, which has always been the work of my heart.

      nomadic in spirit, grounded in character, free in energy.

what an incredible experience to become who i've always wanted to be. so liberating, so humbling, so powerful, so beautiful.

      this really incredibly dope trippy thing in my life has been happening lately where everyone i know, in different circles are all going through similar things. and it's so cool because as they all talk to me about it, it almost feels like they're having conversations with each other. and all my circles are shifting into venn diagrams and life has never been more interesting.

June

      as a child i've always been to myself because i somehow picked up the ability to make myself happy. that's why detachment is easy for me. i know that i'm not the easiest person to like. i've always treated myself like the i'm the privelege and the priveleged. people have expressed dissatisfaction with my way of thinking but it's really not an egotistical mentality. in order for me to believe that i'm the privelege it's because i want to be that. i work hard at being that. i'm always working on myself and my energy. i'm always trying to improve so i can be a benefit to those around me. i'm the privilege because i want to be the best friend, i want to be the one you need. i want to be the one you rely on. the reason i want to be that way is exactly why i choose to treat myself as the privelege. i will continue to do so because i'm a firm believer that my energy will gravitate towards similar energy.

      if i told you i love you but do not want you, would you understand the gift this is, the freedom, the open lane, the life without expectations, which become contracts, and then we employees to each other, checking off to-do lists, holding meetings, taking surveys, sitting and stewing instead of living. i have a notion that love is not a necessity and that this sanctuary and steeple idea is a means to hamstring a wild flight through existence. i love you. i do not stay. humans do not mate for life. they barely know themselves. they forget everything. i am seeking power over my memory, with you by my side, for as long as we choose. i am drifting away. it does not make me good or evil. i am not a scoundrel. i am not salvation. we had life together. it ended. it ends.

      If you don’t get it off your chest, you’ll never be able to breathe

      i think this is the course of my life. i know what i want. my soul knows where it wants and needs to go and it steers me there through manifestation. from thoughts to words to existence. this is the way our lives form. we must choose to shape them.

      don't explain your philosophy. embody it.

      i live in another dimension and i do not have time for things that have no soul.

      feed my soul or get lost.

      go where you feel the most alive.

      "even if you feel lost, everybody feels fucking lost. in so many ways.

the mind is what you gotta train the most before anything

-coffee shop overheard

      if i had a nickel for the times i was absent minded i forget to hit your line

i was minding mine and you just want to see me shine

i was minding mine i meant to mend and make amends

      it is incredible how much love is in the world, awaiting me. i don't know why it's happening now- why i feel the flowers bursting from the valleys in my heart. perhaps they've had enough rain.

the sun cuts right to the chase. i walk to the store that's farther away just to enjoy it longer. i play the same song four times over. the wind is in my lashes. my eyes reflect the honey of the bees. i mean..love turns up in every blade of grass when your mind is open. that's what i'm getting at here.

i'm giddy because you don't realize the weight of worrying until you drop everything and breathe. i can do anything i want to, and that is the hill worth climbing on. love is knowing that i can succeed. peace & joy is the ultimate success. you have to choose which thoughts to believe.

      everything has its own place and pace. and i really like this view. at times, my humanity rushes in towards me. a resurgence of recognition.

i am a limb on the branch. i am a member of the tribe. ours is a life of seasons.

i've got an entire lineage of roots that hold me down and rely on me to lift them up, to keep this growth part of who we are. there is so much love to harvest here. and so i must keep moving towards the sun. i am grateful for all of it. for everything that has built me for all this movement and a spirit that never strays nor stays for too long.

      here comes peace.

i am not here to compete for anything.

falling out of love doesn't make me an enemy.

my humanity doesn't make me an enemy

perhaps nothing is harder than telling the truth

but nothing is more free.

my wings are here.

      i am vibrating love

      i walk in love, never fall in it. might get tripped up in it once in a while, but it is an accessory to my journey rather than a destinaton.

      [feeling my feelings]

      I’m opening up all the channels to love that have been clogged by circumstance

      I’m laughing right now because it occurred to me that I can love myself through it all and that’s a fucking blessing

      Reflections and rewards

      I have unlimited potential. Joy- abundant. What’s stopping me?

      Present at where we are

      your eagerness to create without hesitation is inspiring.

      the difference with you is that nothing gets in the way of your creativity. you live seamlessly. you grow spiritually & it all makes sense. there is so much truth to your patience.

you show others that no matter how long it takes to create something, your work can be timeless

      I’m only out here just tryna impress myself now

      I might love you more than you love yourself. And that might scare you

      Visible light. That is what you are

      water does not resist. water flows. when you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is caress. water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. but water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. water is patient. drippng water wears away a stone. remember that, my child. remember you are half water. if you can't go though an obstacle, go around it. water does.

      but his pride is bigger than his heart will ever be. so the feelings remain silent.

      "you shine like a river when the sun catches its eye during the sunset"

      nobody cares. work harder.

      I’m only at 37%

      they don't like you they like a version of you and when you aint that version its the end of the world

      hey you,

when did you begin to show yourself love?

      what's in front of you?

what are you trying to see?

what are you hoping is on the other side?

what do you believe in?

what are ten things you care about?

what does the world need to know?

what are you getting out from?

what are you leaving behind?

      he say nothing

i say nothing

but i love you

      sometimes, we are both looking for a way out

some days, the exits look a lot like each other

      i know i know i know

we repeat like broken vinyls

      if i don't leave now and go on my path i might (will) get stuck

      i refine my falling outs. i improve the ways i break. i better course my disasters to run into the heart and not the toes. (this way i don't stumble over my mistakes. take them to heart so this way the lesson is learned) i make good the details of every collapse. this is to continue forward in life.

      ferox : wild; Bold; warlike; defiant

      i think growth is so beautiful and fascinating. because there are moments where you can finally find the words to explain the ways you felt when you were younger and didn't have them yet, feeling helpless in your silence and search. and then there are the moments where you feel like that child all over again.

as i write about certain moments, i start to realize the feelings are so familiar. and maybe its the conglomoration of feelings through the years that make it feel that much stronger and intense now.

like i've been here before. i've felt this before. i've known love all along. i've known community all along. i am finally building it for myself. and now i have the words for it all.

      don't fall in love

walk in love

live in love

      roamers & seekers

      we really out here setting ourselves free

      intention and evolution has been really big so far this year

      effort is the only measure from here on out

      and then the vibe hits you and life is the vibe

 july

      i am scared i won't get to finish my sentence in the midst of telling my store. but the truth is: i am complete. i am lucky i got the chance to live. there is more of me now, than in yesterday. i am full and that is all i need to go on.

      i am paused at the spilling point looking back, looking forward scared as hell. in the blur of spilling, i am all the things i used to be, i am in mourning, i am in bloom.

      let curiosity reveal yourself to you.

reward yourself with the pursuit of your dreams.

seek the thrill in your own life.

and lastly, feel no shame.

      to execute a vision, you have to trust the movement.

      don't deny yourself anymore love just because you're not where you'd like to be. or because the thing you wanted didn't want you back. so what, fuck em. show up for yourself.

      In life some moments make you disappear, others make you show up

when Lauryn sings "how you gonn win if you ain't right within"

& i am, oh i am right within for this small & shrinking moment

i am right within for this newborn praise,

because it is a new day

& the rain stopped,

& the clouds cleared earlier

& yes the darkness arrives earlier now

& yes the streets are still slick and humid

but on this day, the children are in them

dodging the street lights with their street smarts & bikes

& they leap across the city streets like they own them

with their knees still freshly bleeding from the last fall

but it is summer now & none of that matters

all that matters is these young bodies throwing themselves into the mouth of two jump ropes

& then into the mouth of the ocean

& this is the only country they know

this right here

 what does it mean to get free when all you know is a country called freedom?

 we speak of a free childhood

& she tells me "this is a great place to grow up but where do you go once you're grown?"

when home don't feel like home no more?

when home can't house your larger & older body

& all that's left to do is throw our bodies into the mouths

of ropes & oceans & each other

just like the good ol days

but these days they swallow us whole

 & so i say then:

make a border around any place where you are loved & call it your own

& so i say then:

make a border around those who hold you up & build a home

& so i say then:

i know the suffering and burning cannot be forgotten

but if only for a sweet second, on this night

we claim a new & fleeting empire

governed by food & prayer from everyone's grandmas

& loud children

& men who drink and play games all day

& these men who know they ain't shit

& their women who know it better but have lived a tried and tired life

& loved them too long to stop now

 & look what a beautiful country we can claim,

on this day,

how beautiful our borders are,

& so i say then to

our new & brief & fleeting home:

how we grow from you full

how we wish you everywhere

how we try to taste you in the air instead of war.

 my face in the reflection of a wave

i am pretty

even if for a brief second before the crash

i am beautiful

look how pretty i am with god slowly drifting out of my heart like dry ice under a ceiling fan

it's 1998 in the tips of my fingers again

sometimes i forget how good the beginning feels until the end

 i dream of rapture

i dream of war

i dream of my mouth forming a blanket around my most secret thoughts

i learn to become small under the shadow of what love i know

it is almost always summer here

even at the mountain peaks cloaked in snow

the mountains never stop moving even after we go

i think about everything forever in the light of the sun instead of dirt

and for the first time in forever,

it doesn't hurt

         closeness. the lengthening of time. the love that rests in a name. the comfort words bring when they describe something perfectly. when they fulfill a purpose for me. when they make sense of all the chaos, and in this, the chaos also does not have a name. at least not one people can ever remember right. she, too, intimidates people. but here she lies. the signifer and the signified, slow dancing together in a small room, drunk on meaning. the dizzying lights of our insides spilling out, unencumbered by a physical form. all this love does not have a name. it can hardly be described, only felt in the deepest parts of the chest where no thoughts go. what have we become? a gnarled thing approximating love. a river overflowing with water. a fire burning with passion. finally, we build up the courage to purse our lips and we call it what it is. chaos turned benevolence.

      i realize i think all my life my idea of relationships--and they, themselves-- was built around always talking and the exchange of words as a measure of connection. both a way to build and resolve. but with you, we just do. i think that is what's most refreshing. instead of exchanging words, we share experiences. & that's why this bond feels so much deeper.

      remembering: the dream is to fly away and write. it is happening. the pages are turning and the wings(words) are preparing for flight.

      ENERGY UNFUCKWITTABLE ALL SUMMER 18

      there is something about this month that feels like a shout! a bursting, pulsating energy. so intoxicating and vibrant

like fierce, courageous, brave, gonna battle my own demons and dance with all my fears

like expanding past limitations that bind me and keep me small, keep me denying how deeply i yearn to love

something feels real honest about this month, and really, this whole summer.

      what magic are you a vessel for?

      Note to self: few can fight like you can, my dear. and your willingness to show up, wave after wave, to do the work you must do in this world is a blessing. thank you.

August

      notice the roles that you cling to for validation. notice the ones that you stay in out of obligation. notice the ones you now have to contort yourself to fit into that you didn't used to. what felt good once, won't always. how you align with others is changing. how you work within your communities is changing. how you work towards your dream, vision, and hope for the future is changing.

change for a lifetime

      i welcome the empty spaces that this purge creates. i remember that releasing what is burdensome yet familiar is far from comfortable, but completely necessary if i am to grow.

      08.12.18 release for departure

      convo with stephen from nov 2016

·        "girl you are a trip, what am i gonna do with you?"

·        "hope you enjoy your stay"

      i do not look outside for what can only be fulfilled within. i do not try to get love, praise, or power from the world. i look for ways in which i can put more love into the structures i enter.

i know that every time i create a space for my own healing, i am making a powerful statement to myself and my life.

declaring that i am too worthy of such a radical act of love, i reclaim any power i gave the world to dictate how well i am doing.

      this is where i come to refill and refuel

i gather myself around the fires of my creative capacities

this is the flame i am devoted to maintaining

      the more i let go of what i think my life should look like, the more i am able to align myself with the regenerative energy of my creative process. i am using my time to discover, uncover, and validate the talent i naturally possess and the work ethic needed to help this goldmine do what it came here to.

      like most things that live, i choose fluency in fire

i swallow the sun squirming in my hand like a seed

      there's a whole lot of time and opportunity on this side

can't waste it

      bop your head get your neck skrong

      it was not a mistake to be open. i was always myself. i was never uncomfortable

(some people hurt you anyway)

i am still the ocean.

      i feel myself healing. this is so powerful. i feel myself winning

release for a new life to occupy the space of pain and loss.

growth in place of pain

peace in place of unknown

gratitude filling to the brim

overflowing with joy

the body stretches and becomes an exit

everything must go except for me

      so many people in cape town had commented on my confidence and how they need it to help them with their own. I think it’s fascinating the small things people notice about you that sticks most with them

      it's fascinating. this is a different type of gravitational pull. i am more grounded with this energy. it's more than intriguing, it's inspiring to these men. and frankly, these people.

      Keep learning yourself. Keep loving yourself.

      Free up ya heart boo

      “yeah but you’re different tho, you stay true to yourself wherever you go”

      be proud of who you are and where you come from: roots, origins, language, accents, food, clothes, culture, heritage, traditions-- all of it.

be yourself because everyone else is already taken. And be proud cuz can’t nobody do you like you

      reclaiming my energy

 September

      keep asking yourself if what you are doing has any energy behind it. if it excites your being. if it clarifies your reasons for advancing along the lines that you are. if it doesn't life your spirit in some major way, it's not going to have the stamina to work in the long run.

      who really gonn hold us down? me

      never know where you go, rollercoaster

all your highs got a low, rollercoaster

      some of us gotta be homes for those who can’t/don’t know how to be their own

      the distance that you have travelled along the healing roads you have tread

lift up how you have mastered some of the hardest lessons you have had to learn recently

praise you for taking the time to process what hurts

      a kind of murder

and i don't feel like writing about protest or poetry of how one informs the other

what choice has america given me but to weaponize my own breathing, to organize every inhale/exhale into a grassroots movement of sound?

      my very pulse

a poem

      do you know any mothers zomibified by grief? working class women who mourn on a sliding scale?

      im stuck at the border and i think theres something in the water

      centered & uncensored

      it is september 7th & i have been writing about birth & death like clockwork. stare at the clock and read that mac miller is dead.

a heavy day of processing

another life lost to substance abuse

& we watch the news

& we see death everywhere

& we feel devastation

& we take this moment to vow to take care of ourselves through the pain of life & growth

fuck man.

      it is so easy to lose yourself in this world

it is so easy to lose sight of who you are

it is so easy to let yourself go

in all the wrong ways

      spiraling into control

remembering who i am

reclaiming my space

reclaiming my time

reclaiming my energy

      shoulda died already

      why the fuck you need me

don’t you know how to fly already

      we forgot our roots before & trust me, things, they fell apart

      my life is on these words, this is my affidavit

      I can’t see a thing but things never been clearer

      We on the same trip / we just got different baggage

      your wounds aren’t always your fault

but your healing is your responsibility

      hashtag we are doing whatever we want 2018 till infinity

only thinking forward

only doing forward

only being forward

      can't fake vibes. synergy. living things in your living spaces (children, plants, pets, spouse) consume your energy. surround yourself with positive vibes and high vibrating energy

      home...is it a building? a city? a country? a state of mind? a state of mine?

      where i seek,

i find,

myself

      travel with all of its clouded and unexpected moments is still the most me i feel. i feel most at home when i am moving between the delicate balance of belonging to my self and the world. i miss my family but in that space from here to there i don't miss any parts of me.

      "she guessed my favorite color on the first try..

but between me and u.....i didnt even have a favorite color until she yelled out yellow!! she was hella excited n smiling like a little kid. so i told her she was right and i havent seen yellow the same since, its in everything. i could probably live in it now."

      there is no place more intimate than the spirit alone

      my family spans the entire globe and I am lucky that I get to love them

      I have so much joy that I don’t feel like I’m fighting anymore

      in a world of choices, I choose me

      you probably inspire people that don’t have a clue what it is you actually do

      nowstalgia - creating moments i will forever look back on & love

      "you have the confidence of like a woman and i need you to help me"

a man writes into my phone at 12 am at a bar in the middle of cape town on a wednesday night. i look down, laugh, and shaking my head, ask, "help with what?"

"my confidence" he answers, looking into my eyes and then quickly down.

the same night, a few hours later, another man stops me and tells me

" when i look into your eyes i see love"

i look down, laugh and shaking my head, ask, "what makes you think it's for you?"

the same night, a few hours earlier, another man finds out i'm a poet and writes a poem in his phone about me

it began with "she is albanian. she is american. she is everything good balanced. she is exotic. she is...."

it ended with "and she is a muse for every nigger to come her way"

i look down, laugh, and shaking my head, ask, "what?"

the same bar, a few weeks later, the same man comes up to me and asks "hey do you remember me?! i wrote that poem in your phone. i wanted to formally ask you if we could work on poetry together. like you start and i'll take it somewhere. i just wanna take you somewhere"

one is a fitness trainer. gets any pussy he wants. still needs help with his confidence.

one is a business man. gets all the money he wants. still needs love.

one is just a man. somewhere between a writer and a regular man. gets lost in everything he comes across. still needs a muse.

still.

needs & wants.

we still.

      loss, tastes like her skin on a bed next to a warm saturday sun. loss, tastes like her mind over emails, over texts, over whatsapp negotiations that travel over art & dreams & what it means to kiss god. loss, tastes like her soul over troubled bridges trying their hardest to stay above water & not burn. loss, tastes like, her heart torn and mended in fear & hope. the heart that sacrificed itself in the name of peace.

loss, tastes like confusion, cuz you know that there ain't no damn nobility in giving up heaven to create peace in hell. and hell, if i could just get a piece of peace, i'd be good and well. loss, tastes like, you need to drink more water and eat more fruit and all the self care trends lost in a sea of no self love, and perhaps, just maybe once the bitterness has passed down your throat, and the water washes it away, once you've washed away the moans from your lips, you both, this time, without teeth, only with tongue, can love again.

and then. you can tell me what love tastes like. the love we lay in.

      I am unwilling to be led away from myself

      i forgive us both for... being passing ships in the night--sails set on separate horizons. what is the point of wishing things were different? they were different enough. curiosity is the current which guides the bow of the boat. and our curiosity led us to different spaces. made us think our dreams on different horizons. who can we blame for the calmness of the tide before the storm came? who can we blame for how quietly the storm came and left? who can we blame on those nights when we had a chance? once enough time passes, once enough distance is gained, it will no longer feel like a loss or a mistake. to not confuse loss with lost. merely the consequence of brevity in a wide sea of opportunity. how were were supposed to know? you and me? who do we blame? you or me? we cannot possibly embark on every path presented to us. and for this, i forgive us. for being passing ships in the night. the storm has passed. it has turned to day. and i must say. there is an overwhelming sense of peace in forgiveness.

      my parents were tasked with the job of survival and i with self actualization. the immigrant generational gap is so real. what a luxury it is to search for purpose, meaning and fulfillment. and when i try to explain it to them and they don't understand, i gotta remember, we don't always speak the same language.

      let it go. you're ready to vibrate higher.

      the old life. is an old life. one you have already lived. one you do not have to keep living. you are too wondrous. for one life.

      feel it. the thing that you don't want to feel. feel it. and be free.

i have been facing a lot of my hidden feelings & demons here. i have been freeing myself.

      they loved me in pieces

in sequels and trilogies

in songs and stories

in ideas and concepts

but never whole.

      i am beginning to come home to myself as i should and listen more closely to the truth. i am not just what i do - not even just what i think - but i am also a unique expression of my parents' genes. i have spent my whole life running from this, just to now finally run towards it. i am an offspring. i spring forward in the summer. i am a river drifting toward one great big sea. i am a brief dreamer. i came from a truly unknown plane where i had no say. but that does not matter because i am a miraculous actuality. nothing is more comforting than this undeniable presence. and the beauty of understanding it. coming back to family. coming back home. coming back to me.

i have arrived & i am ready.

      my voice, not just as my voice, but as an echo of all those that came before me. how affirming this is.

      HEAVEN ALL AROUND ME

      people grow when they are loved well. if you want to help others heal, love them without an agenda.

      healing has been so freeing.

      the next step: figuring out how to undo this inherent guilt.

      be aware of how your voice dominates spaces.

how much space you are taking up

take note:

when do you feel big in a space?

when do you feel small?

how big are you actually? (vs just how big/small you feel?)

      closure like collision

      i remind myself that anything i repeatedly imagine is also imagining me

October

      movement.

there is no way around complexity. everything is touching and leaving (its stain, shadow, mark, vibration) in passing.

we live such residual lives, like the ocean tides.

we seek communities that might best master the mess of it. and yet, the way we are deeply alone in our minds- that is its own kind (of art, mess, playground, salvation).

the heart told us about oscillation, showed us what a throbbing web of nerves is able to accomplish.

there is no way around the intricacies of humans being. of energy being.

      i'm nothing if not forthcoming / i tell you / i show you / i give you me freely / if it's wasted on you, then that's on you / i give up making it my problem / i give up making demands / you lose / you win / whatever you want / we will sleep fine at night / won't we / i will keep my heart sweet / won't i / i'm nothing if not healing / i tell you / i show you / i feel you / i heal you / we will keep our love sweet / won't we

      it's been a while, so the smoke travels down our legs slowly, and it feels like we are taking root. we share cold mango juice to stave off the humidity and the cottonmouth. sometimes our fingers interlock like the tree roots, in the middle of the night. the clouds rid us of our names. we are down to our breath and our skin and a conversational silence, lit at the bud's end. blooming at the center.

      this weekend was...

paradise

a trip

a journey

climax

cloud 9 and everything above it

freedom

this weekend i let go

i let myself do what i never do. i let myself feel and fall

i've held on for too long. the price to pay is a heavy one, but it is all worth it. for that sweet taste of sensation after falling into temptation. for that sweet sweet lovin you love on me with. even if just for a day. it sustains me for months. it stays with me for years. the love we encounter carries us. but you must let yourself fall into it's hands, let it hold you & console you tightly. feel the way it heals, patches up wounds and lets them reveal the beauty underneath. fresh flesh reveals itself. heals itself. "there are bits of god inside all of us" he tells me as we speak of our natural healing tendencies and our strength and resilience as we make it up this final stretch of a mountain. our legs on the brink of giving up but our minds not letting us. our hearts just catching up. "everything is connected when you really think of it"

      there is always someone to love.

that someone is me

      a study:

did you leave my life better than you found it?

did i leave your life better than i found it?

      distance/absence makes the heart fonder/grow the fuck up

      Ubuntu

      intention behind creation

          (?)

      growth at the expense of what?

      our parents think they always do whats best for us but they fuck up along the way. and that becomes a reflection on us. how we deal with it on both ends determines whether that mirror reflection shatters or gets mended.

      we are just enough. we've come such a long way. we may not have had the right examples of love but we have grown and nurtured ourselves to a point where we love people in a way that sticks.

      midnight rain and the thought of your hands in my hair. i pillow my head on whispering darkness that envelopes me like a sheet, while i search blind for your light. extend my hands in volition, in surrender, to feel your body crystalline against mine. tell you how limestone tastes under the weight of years. all those lives calcified. meanwhile, time is running, reaching around the moon for me tonight. she knows the spaces between artery and vein, in spaces between depth and vain, the in and out of heated blood, the in and out of beating blood. meanwhile, on the horizon, lighting licks the mountains into a brisk and subtle start. you sleep by open windows to let the thunder and lightning lull you into quiet. i lie awake with constellations tucked between me, touching nameless skin, giving name to this life we live under and in.

      sometimes the only way onward is inward

      a word:

i don't think we (as a culture) fully understand how hard it is for artists to exist in 2 realms:

reality and whatever the universe is where we constantly travel to find inspiration, imagination, concepts, etc. we often find ourselves battling depression and at war with ourselves because we're not really equipped to go on the human part of this journey while time traveling between the two. it's weird. i don't know how to explain it fully because we're like here but at the same time we're always elsewhere. and people don't know how to accept that. and shit, sometimes, neither do we. but this shit is so real man.

      the question accompanying the poet like her shadow under the sun is: who am i to be so alone? who am i if i am not with another? the demand for another is always mute but piercing. all these texts ask for another and all the poets ask for another, but not so much another person as so much another tongue, another language, even for a foreign language perhaps, because the essence of poetry is to find strangeness in language.

      "tiring

yet inspirational

warrior"

-cory

      today feels still and spiraling and solid all in one. it's been a reflective time and now its go time.

i'm grateful for the work i do. i'm learning a ton.

i have to remind myself, as i look around my life, that this position is temporary. i fear sometimes that i'll be stuck here reliving the same day until i die. all my life, folk have called this stability. without a plan for elevation, that's stagnation. i've been quiet for the past few days, planning, and praying, and listening to myself. tuning in. is this a turning point or a tuning point? you decide

there's nothing about this, or perhaps everything about this, is poetic. i'm trying to stay focused on growing into the very best version of myself amidst all the movement that is my life. some moments are overwhelming. some, you sit in the center and remind yourself how beautifully solid you are.

      when the right energy comes around you

the wrong energy gets nervous

      an unhealed person can find offense in pretty much anything someone does.

a healed person understands that the actions of others has absolutely nothing to do with them.

every day, you get to decide which one you will be.

      so we're sitting in a tent in darling at 5 am with a group of people who were complete strangers just a few days before (Ayanda, Tando, Chat) and once starts speaking in Afrikaans and the other responds in Tsutu and another answers in Xhosa and they're having a full conversation across so many different tongues. and understanding each other through it all. and i look up and the moon is tucking away under a brighter sky. and once again, it hits me that i'm here. i'm in the middle of south africa. i'm tripping the fuck out. such is the beauty of language. of life. of journey. this shit is so beautiful, i almost can't believe i'm in it. all the love & light.

      once you have flown,

you will walk the earth

with your eyes turned skyward;

for there you have been

there you long to return

-leonardo da vinci

      of all the people in the world, you talk to yourself more than anyone. make sure you are saying the right things. in the right ways.

      travel is not reward for working, it's education for living. - anthony bordain

      i've come to understand and accept, after years of famishing my joy on a diet of self-excusing grievances and fighting against the sweet and bitter aroma of purpose, that life is in fact gorgeous. even when it is making beauty out of our ugliest ingredients. i think of this now, this moment, i am on the cusp of manifesting gods in the presence of my enemies. this, while the world i know-the me that i knew is commanding change and death (the only things guarunteed)- a carving away of unhealthy thoughts and habits. i know we're taught through various trendy doctrines to point the finger at the world, but let me be honest here: i am the only enemy i have ever known.

this fire of death & life has happened so many times and i just wasn't ripe enough to humble myself to its knife. the demand to remain present during the discomfort in your shoulders as wood and wounds meets ceramic and regrets, as the anxiety about a pledged future churn through your mind, is just as beautiful.

i don't believe it's too late. i do know that i have to plant myself, learn all the things i didn't know and unlearn all the things i thought i knew. i know that i don't need to hang out in hopes of tasting community or family cuz i'm feeding myself. i don't need validation cuz the recipes are already laid out in front of/ inside of me. life ain't perfect, but the truth is, nothing can stop you from forgiving yourself and healing, but you. nothing can make you know, beyond a feeling, that you're deserving of every good & perfect gift that you are blessed with. there is nothing, not a goddamn thing that can devour a hungry soul.

and for that, stay bold & keep going.

      the woman that i'm becoming gives me chills. i'm obligated to move differently. i have work to do.

      me sharing my story allowed me to grow away from it. with every book i sell, comes the realization that...it's just a story. even though it's mine. i have books circulating the entire world right now. i let it go. and i'm still building upon it.

      your entire life can change in just one year. you just gotta love yourself enough to know you deserve more, be brave enough to demand more, and be disciplined enough to actually work for more.

      you won't always be motivated, which is why you have to be disciplined.

i am mastering motivation. and i've come pretty close. motivation is everywhere but it has to find you working. i've been working nonstop here and it has found me repeatedly. continuously. exhaustively.

next to conquer: discipline.

      until you flip your perception on its head, you'll be stuck in the same position

      vision keeps growing clearer but i keep losing focus. gotta change my lens maybe

      what if i picked up the pace?

what if i actually started running the race?

      what kind of media are you taking in?

      throwback to this gem from stephen: "i don't want you to experience disappointment for disappointment's sake. i want you to experience disappointment for what it feels like the next day"

      saron: "people need to realize that your existence isnt to be their escape route"

      if the heart isnt in it, the blood doesn't flow

      how repetition has grounded me

through words

through gestures

through experiences

      worry bout yourself and don't worry bout nobody

take care of yourself and take care of your body

      restructure & reroute

      pay attention to your heart / never go astray

      closure is an unknown variable. always. i always have to heal without it. always. nothing helps except time. and it can't be rushed. if it takes a thousand days, if it takes consecutive journal pages asking why to an unresponsive reason, so be it. until the scar fades. until a reinvigorated life overwrites the old one. i go forward with the wound open.

      feeling for harmony between the ridges

      what are you taking personally instead of taking as an indication of what to heal, bring to consciousness, and bring into therapeautic spaces?

      if it hurts, it needs your attention. tend to your pain points.

      wish everyone the best cuz i know where i'm headed

      woman as appendage

woman as appendix

      a soft & pursed smile

a soft & cursed smile

      the thing i came for:

the wreck and not the story of the wreck

the thing itself and not the myth

the drowned face always staring toward the sun

      not all loneliness can or should be filled or fixed. some of it should continue to exist exactly as it does. solitude is the default state. there is a single presence here: self-recognition. i am alive, and that all i truly know for sure.

or.

the default state is community. my first village was my mother. my second was the landscape. my third was the village that carried my three year old body. i was gifted with loneliness the morning i was born and torn from her womb. when i seek communion, i am dreaming of the womb from the beginning- before i was a name or number- where life chose us. it is a series of solitude which follows that first choosing.

but.

sometimes i miss you anyway. i dream of linking our loneliness, forming a single presence through the filling. love as a filling of sorts. we are deeply alive, and love is how we taste our first choosing together. you remind me of the beginning of time

      this month is full of aweh's and yebo's

i love how this language always affirms people

they have words for "i hear you" "i see you" "i feel you"

      ingesi is how you say english in isiXhosa & in Yoruba

gesi means electricity in zulu

·        slowly uncovering/creating what my name means every day

      so i recently found out that my book, my baby will be featured on a syllabus at the University of Cape Town to be studied as a subject of American & cultural literature & poetry. I don't yet have the words for how powerful this is or how I feel or how this is beyond my wildest dreams. I am beyond honored that my work has not only landed but is to be studied in one of my new beloved homes of Cape Town. You know, you start writing your story and one day, you muster up the courage to share it in hopes that someone will relate and it will help heal them as it is healing you. But it's a whole different game when you begin to get asked for it, when people are seeking it, when people are studying it. It's an inexplicable feeling. I don't have a lot of words right now except for these: I am so blessed. To the students that will be studying my narrative while I fly back halfway across the world: you are who I do this for. It is people like you that keep me going. People like you who, when I stop along my journey and crippling self doubt asks "am I really supposed to be here? what am I really doing? why doesn't my progress look like anyone else's?", it is you that answers. that affirms me. To the culture(s) that raised me: you are who I do this for. To put lil ol' Albania on the map as a place rich in culture and people & let em know we have a story to tell too. To help us find our voices. To my third culture kin: to remind everyone you can be both Albanian & Brooklyn & you don't have to pick your identity. To my beloved friends that have become family: you are who I do this for. for, your endless hypeman antics keep me going. & your incredibly talented spirits keep me inspired & motivated. To my parents: you are who I do this for. Trust & believe. The point is, knowing and staying true to yourself & your journey can get you through anything, and take you to heights you may have never imagined. And I stil can't believe any of it. Because I took off the earth crust and flew. Because I am still landing. Because all the while, my support system keeps my moving spirit grounded. I am in a place of unshakeable peace and happiness as I vow to live my truth wholeheartedly & unapologetically. The power in our stories is something that cannot be measured until it is released. If you asked 3 year old Gesi if she could have ever imagined something like this, she would tilt her head back, releasing an uproar of disbelief and laughter. & then go climb some mountain somewhere. Here's to soaring. Here's to our release, to our healing. Here's to our dreams surpassing themselves. Thank god, thank self for finally becoming who I've wanted to be all along. The woman I'm becoming is scaring me and I'm loving every second of it. All this to say, I am in love. All this to say, how far I am. All this to say, colors in every direction.

November

      how is cape town framed to the foreigner?

      what kinds of tensions are around you right now?

what is your tension?

what are your resistance practices?

      we want to get all our ends of the story

      you are building an archive of perspectives here

      anything i do going forward has to water me back

      you don't break habits; you only replace them

      an era of release

      fears that go unfaced become limits

      and i am letting go to make room for my breathing

we often forget to make room for the things we need most; the things that keep us alive.

we don't think about breathing so we don't make room for it. to change this

#gratitudeistheattitude

      the question is: how do i want to live the rest of my life and what am i doing to insure that i get to do it exactly or as close as possible to how i want that living to be? i want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as i can decently manage, loving all the people i love, and doing as much as i can of the work i still have to do. i am going to write fire until it comes out my ears, my eyes, my nose--everywhere! until it's every breath i breathe. i'm going to go out like a fucking meteor!

      i want to live as shamelessly as possible. i want the full lightness of freedom. i want the orgasmic quality of being who and what i am.

and i want to be enjoyed or left alone. nothing in between.

      words are our timekeepers. our balconies overlooking our lives. our conversations. our merging

      woke up wine drunk and happy. woke up to a joint rolled and ready. woke up to a lover laying next to me. woke up to a cup of tea. woke up at 4 am to the hoxha singing prayers from the mosque. woke up and felt my gramps spirit. woke up and cried in a spiritual experience. woke up and fed my soul. woke up in love. woke up in a tree house. fell asleep & woke up to a new life every time i opened my eyes. two lovers in Bo Kaap

(a short story that reads in both words & pictures, forwards & backwards)

      listening to Hookers on the corner and almost missed my light

·        almost missed my light these past few weeks

·        had to remind/remember who i am and why i am.

      Goddess of Growth

keeps showing up

i welcome her with open arms every time.

      jupiter last travelled through your 9th house from late 2006-7.

what did you learn?

where did you travel?

what did you publish, seek, and find to be true for you then?

what similar growth spurt are you experiencing now?

how is your current exploration, expansion, or learning a continuation of that time?

      everything good and long-lasting requires our effort. yours is needed but whatever you give to yourself at this moment is matched by the universe's benevolence

      the 12th house is also about the work we do behind the scenes, this transit is especially beneficial to anything in its creative incubation. protect it. expand inward with it. watch your inner life for inspiration. keep watching the ways in which your projects take shape when given the right space to safely grow

      bad energy (stay far away)

      keep my shades on cuz they tryna see the vision

      homie said greatness and nothing was the same

      i told him i need some space

real busy body, never stay in one place

      in the past week, a couple of different guys have confessed love/strong feelings for/to me. & along with all the other heavy shit going on around me right now i'm caught in a whirlwind of overwhelming male energy. and so i had to step away for a while. i've had to use the past few weeks to really ground myself. the universe is testing me in the space i'm in right now. there is some overwhelming aggressive negative energies around right now. this is her testing how my grounding is. because i'm still floating. but i had to come back down. she wants to know just how hard i've worked at grounding and healing.

      there's also a lot of new energies around. some of them feel quite destructive. this is her testing how i will react/respond/move accordingly.

      i am just in a space where if you are coming into my life to interrupt or distract me in any way, just stay away. don't come in at all. no interruptions or distractions welcome.

      i enjoy most things. almost everything. yet i have some restless searcher in me. why is there not a discovery in life? something one can lay their hands on and say "this is it". perhaps i've felt it before and haven't known. perhaps i've felt it too many times that it becomes numb and unknown. my depression is a harassed feeling. i'm looking: but that's not it--that's not it. what is it then? and shall i die before i find it? can i live for it? then, as i was walking through rondebosch square last night, i see the mountains in the sky, the great clouds, and the moon which is risen over cape town. i think of how the sun rises over the city & sea and sets behind the mountains & into the sea. i wonder what kind of intimacy that must be. those last few moments of glimmer and light before she tucks away below the horizon into another world. those first few moments when the sky darkens to the moon's light. let's it shine bright. i wonder what kind of intimacy that must be. i have a great and astonishing sense of something there, which is "it". it is not exactly beauty that i mean. it is that the thing is in itself enough; satisfactory; achieved. a sense of my own strangeness walking on the earth is there too: of the infinity oddity of the human position; trotting alone rondebosch square with the moon up there watching over me and the clouds sitting like a tablecloth atop the mountain peaks. who am i, what am i, why am i, and so on: these questions are always floating about in me, and it is only when i am flying that i have a sense of an answer. and then, i bump against some exact fact-- a letter, a person, and come to them with a great sense of freshness. and so it goes on. but on this showing, which is true, i think, i do fairly frequently come upon this "it", and then feel quite at peace.

      you never know what the child's reaction is going to be: either break down or the child emerges solid as a rock from the experience

      he wanted to fuck her once, but that doesn't mean much. that's the laziest desire. a flimsy thing. she wanted her soul sucked clean. she wanted something as tough as god. could not find it among men but hoped still, for the next best thing.

she wanted it to be you.

      i am not in a rush to do anything anymore

      depression is what it sounds like. and beyond. it is a sinking of sorts. it is a darkening. it is a gradual thing but also something that knocks one day and enters without asking. you feel the downward spiral as you bore through the earth of your life, surrounded on all sides by sullen ideas too thick to get out of. that happens slowly and without much effort over the course of what could be months or years. and before you know it, the very shape of your breathing has changed. this is what i know.

but i also know that healing is possible. but it happens slowly and takes twice as much effort. whereas depression feels like a falling, healing is a digging and pulling. it is digging into the deepest parts of your soul so you can finally face them. i forget that it took years to bury myself inside my sorrow and it could take years to climb back up into my light. but that is my time to take. perhaps i'm not ready to break my heart in new ways. and perhaps it will be a while before i'm dancing every day again. but no longer do i shy away from the shadow of where i've been.

i've started dancing almost daily again. tonight, i danced with her, with all this earth around me, tasting every trace of light within me.

      i look for ways to say i love you but i ain't into makin love songs

      i'm findin it hard to settle i want it all forever

      summer in november darling

      what's your november?

      cafes are where i process the world around me

      losing my fucking mind but chilling at the same time

      I shouldn’t bleed this good or often

      all i am is everything and nothing at all

all i am is a shoulder for your heart to lean on

all i am is love

      processing...

slowing down...

      there is a wave of loss and grief coming over the people in my life again. we are all tuned into it and the synchronicity is this overwhelming but also comforting feeling. the universe is trying to teach us something here. about attachment. about letting go. about releasing. about healing. it is an era of release all over again. which is a frequency i've been riding throughout this year, but this time the wave hit me quite hard because the loss is more tangible. but it has gotten me to look at things differently. as my time in south africa slowly draws to a close, i have been thinking about the proper steps to transition myself out of here and back to new york. the difference in cape town is, i don't feel a temporality in it, like i do with every other place i go. i have truly made a home for myself here and it is grounding point just as much as it is a moving/flying point. but maybe this is what i needed. there has been a really aggressive energy surrounding me these past few weeks and maybe this is the doing away of it. can't tell if i'm numb or calm at this point but i'm hoping its the latter. i'll see better in retrospect. but for the time being, maybe this marks the beginning of this era of release. at the end of the day i'm still livin and lovin and everything in between. love & light.

      sun is alone too. still shines.

      i'm most upset about the ideas i lost in that phone. the cape town overheards amongst other shit. art ideas and projects. i am glad though that i'm such a journal freak and that i have scatters of jounrnal thoughts spread in multiple books and online thoughts. but. lesson learned. backing up is extremely important. beyond that, it is a lesson in inspiration, motivation & discipline. which have been themes i've been meditating on a lot lately. inspiration & motivation are everywhere, but they have to find you working. discipline, however is what you gotta build to make leeway for the rest to flow through. an opening of sorts.

      feet hurt today. they are asking me for more grounding.

      the tools you created to survive won't serve you when it's time to thrive

      we create defense mechanisms to shield us against the trauma of our youth but they can be damaging once we are out of those situations & will often lead to self sabotage

      closure doesn't come. there is only an ever-growing distance between then and now. and the old thing is interwoven an overwritten

      the answer is still the same:

you won't get what you want till you work on what you need

      at your best, you are love

you're a positive motivating force in my life

      though this feeling of solitude is familiar, the strength that allows me to embrace it is refreshing and new

      i got angels

      invoking the angels in times of need. for guidance. for protection. you can't move how you've always moved. like everything is just as normal as it used to be. because it just isn't.

recognize how you shift the space of a room when you walk into it. recognize that for who you are. as much as i just want to be normal and move as such the universe keeps showing me that things aren't what they used to be. and how i see myself is not how people see me. and so i gotta move differently. suddenly my identity shifts into this liminal space in a venn diagram between how i see myself and how people see me. and once again, i'm caught in between.

      bottom line is, believe in yourself

      i've got too much love within me to choose being bitter and closed off. i've just got to be more careful and selective with who i dispense my love to.

      i'm sure there's a lesson in all this but it's so hard to keep tuning in cuz i'm so fucking exhausted

      nothing says focus like distance

i know i have something to tend to

tis the season

      [feelings redacted]

      sometimes the universe will take everything away so that all we have left is trust

      making my mother miserable by creating something that will make her proud

      the words may escape us but it is the knowing that matters. It is the knowing that creates our adventure. (harris)

      love yourself so that when love comes it is not a stranger

      do your best, leave the rest

can’t take care of every fucking thing

December

      just read the signs its clear to see

to heal, it takes some time

      woke up in the sky

      harris running through the hall into the door with his hands full of things yelling "where is my girl?!" is a feeling i want to feel forever. so much joy. so much warmth. everything is forgotten except for each other's company.

      my least favorite thing is having to answer to people. i dream of a world where i can live and be myself wholeheartedly and not have to worry about answering to no one. a world where i can disappear for a while and not have to constantly update people. how freeing. how freeing that i am slowly creating this world for myself.

      i aint askin why no more

taking it all if its mine

i never did know how to stay within the lines

only knew how to fly

      bullets that don’t carry the names they take with them

      all this chatter bout movement / tell me something by doin it

      I ain’t been comfortable / that’s bad for the soul

      albums of 2018: flower boy, saturation I II III,

astroworld, kamau's urth,

      finally flipped my perception and got in the drivers seat and driving on my own side at my own pace.

and now i have to leave the space that helped me do this. while also carrying everything it taught me with me

      for the first time in a long time, my heart and soul are in the same space that i occupy physically

      "so who's the lucky man?"

"hahaha nobody. i'm the lucky woman. i belong to myself, first and only."

·        i hate how people assume that happiness and joy and carefreeness is attached to a belonging to a man. fuck that i been making myself happy this whole time.

      all of a sudden, the people i been admiring from afar for years, this year i have been attracting. it's not even a forced or predictable thing. it's a gravitational energy thing. when your energy is right, the right people (some who you would've never thought) come into your life and contribute to it.

      i switched the time zone, but what do i know?

i could fly home with my eyes closed

and you could find me, i ain't hiding

      almost got stuck in oblivion

      exoticism under a microscope

      my soul swollen

my wallet empty

      either way you golden

      GoLD [moving STiLL]

      feeling kamau's energy heavily lately

      our time together was brief but so intense [as everything with me tends to be]

but the energy exchanged there has stayed with me. and continues to show up randomly when i need it most

feeling MuRiN most in times of transition

      i just let it go

we don't ever know

where its gonna go

we go with the flow

we just let it go

i already know

that we're gonna grow

      like the way the world goes round

funny how it all comes down  

      figuring out how to cultivate and encompass longevity

      cuz darling i wake up just to sleep with you

      i hate when people disappoint me. and i don't get disappointed easily.

      it's just like fuck man.

i dropped so many guys for you. cuz you showed me better and then i didn't care for them because they didn't fulfill me the way you did. but i never told you/showed you that part cuz it didn't matter. all that matters is that i showed up for you. time and time again. and you left me hanging. time and time again. now i'm tired. & you're timeless.

      i'm not even mad really. i'm just fuckin sad. like i gotta say bye to all the love i've built here. and the people involved are just making it harder. i don't understand why guys always act up before i leave. i wish they would just fucking be normal so we can enjoy the time we have left fully. instead of, i feel like i always spend the last week or so trying to mend weird energy and arguments so we can part ways on a good foot. but my feet are fucking tired. and so is my heart. i just wish people were as kind and understanding with their love.

and just stop being so fucking petty man. like i get it i'm leaving. but we been knew this. for months. we knew this before we even started things. so why let that stop us now? can't let that end us before we end ourselves. can we just be grown about transitions and departures? can we talk about it? can we communicate our emotions through the process? can we let it be a natural flowing process? can you ask me how i'm doing in the midst of it? instead of disregarding the tough shit and creating more for me to deal with. can we just groove? you see the way we make each other move? fuck all that other noise. at the end of the day, it's just you and me, for as long as can be. until one of us has to leave. until then, can we let that be?

      i'm always leaving. that's always the cut off. i'm always leaving one place and off to another. i wish that didn't always get in the way. i crave a lover who is willing to understand that.

·        the only thing i crave is people that love and understand my moving spirit without trying to change it

      heavy influx of emotions this morning as i work through the growing pains of leaving again.

      gratitude as grounding

      i've got love all over me. written all over me. hanging all over me. wear my love on my sleeve

not the whole heart, but in parts.

to think of all the parts of my heart

the parts that ground. that strengthen. that heal. that love.

imagine that. all in one organ. all flowing through me. relentlessly.

how can i not be in love with life?

      i think it's time to step away from this space to fully understand and contextualize what this all means for me. i have my work cut out for me. i need to understand what this all means for me so i can do the work to bring myself back here. i know now that cape town is part of my journey. it is a home base for me. a grounding point just as much as a moving point

      "make sure you stay soulfully grounded in this transition. and keep your inner compass intact"

      i said greatness

& nothing was the same

      free till i evaporate

my whole body see thru

      been crying every day for the past week. let these tears be the fertilizer for the growth that is about to take place.

loss as a release to make room for the gift of abundance

      2018 has been a year of so much loss/release

i know there is much abundance coming my way that the universe is making room for.

i also know i have to put in the work for it

      "i'm happy for each day that i see you smile. such comfort and a blessing. a good source of strength."

Response/title "i'm trying to feel again"

a whatsapp convo between terrence and his sister

      you already writing the story, might as well a book right? why not?

      same time tomorrow

      overheard: "i pray every day or at least talk to god. and its like i'm always begging for immortality"

      they never bothered to understand me until i understood myself

      they only listen when you speak your soul

they only see you when you see yourself

      break bread with me

better yet, bake bread with me

      we be so worried about how much we need the dough

we forget the little things we need to know

like how to knead the dough

if done properly it won't spread so thin when your people show

      here i am.

i'm grateful for the aura of protection that allows me to explore my creativity and time on this earth. i'm grateful for believing in myself and my own potential. i'm grateful for the love that guides and carries me

      DONT LET ANYONE TELL YOU THAT YOU CANT DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT

      all the energy i used to give you

i now give to myself

GODSPEED

      tan lines on my back, my life startin to feel like a special occasion. these past 6 months felt like a vacation. standing between the mountains, the city, and the sea, i finally see myself. i found gesi. now we steady flowing into eternity. when i say we makin waves, i'm talkin wavelengths and vibrations. movement is the only option, never stagnation.

      give me pollination not validation

      you might stop howling & become the moon

      "when we were outside you were all different and more composed. soon as we step in you sit down lean back and say 'yeah bruv whats good? light that shit' and i just think thats really dope"

people often comment on the distinction between my public and private self, but the fact of the matter is that the course of my journey forces me to have the two and balance the two. i can't just be transparently me all the time because there's always people watching. and to leave myself entirely open is to be vulnerable to many energies that can interrupt my own.

navigating public spaces requires a sense of sensitivity and confidence. communication between you and your surroundings is pivotal to feeling like you are allowed to belong. understanding that space can only be accessed through a certain level of moral integrity and not through entitlement or ego. but to also understand your energy is special and not for everyone and then to let that shit g(r)o(w)

      help me understand the responsibility of masculinity

what we lack in father figures

we make up through masculinity

and measure in figures

perpetuating a system that only hurts

you & me

let me teach you how

your vulnerability is a masterpiece

      it's hard to stop my movement when i'm already in motion

      always grinding

/

always grounded

      being true to yourself is nothing short of revolutionary

      special shoutout to mzi for being there for us. for praying for our safety. for loving and caring for us the way he does. he is truly such a special spirit in my life.

      special shoutout to us. me and orjada. me and my sister. we are fucking champs for handling it the way we did. we didn't let go of each other no matter how much they tried to separate us. who knows how things would have turned out if they did. we screamed to the top of our fucking lungs and managed to protect our things and ourselves with minimal damage. our timing was divine. the universe still looked out for us.

i seriously need to tune into what the universe is trying to tell us lately. about loss, release, attachment. about the spaces we find ourselves in. about feeling like we are just normal people leading just normal lives but knowing we are too different for  that to be true. and most of all, about grounding.

shoutout to the way we came home and talked about it till our hearts were sore so we wouldn't let fear and trauma fester.

i hate the way trauma instills a permanent kind of fear. that makes you scared to do anything at all.

it's been so long since i've had to unpack and process trauma. but we've gotten through much worse so i know we can get through this.

      They have nothing of ours. We have everything intact

      all women with sob stories. know trauma. have heard his echos one too many times. i want to scrub him off of her body. want to give her her body back. i wil whisper any hymn to you. what would you like to hear. whisper "he didn't take anything from you" until it becomes yours always. i will sit on shattered glass with you. bleed. we can laugh at all the puzzled poems our trauma can make together. say a thing out loud. ask a stupid question like: can i make a complaint to tinder for letting mold grow on the edges of my homegirl's bed? see the thing is it is not stupid. her body just wont get an answer. if she sees her body growing dirt, we will make soil our friend. we will tend to the growth that needs to take place. pain as fertilizer instead of the dirt itself. all of deforested trees leave roots. so i vow that we will grow something in this waterless patch. become the water ourselves one night and cry, pouring into each other. scream into the sunset that i love you and you didn't deserve it. scream that a man aint anything but a thing that only knows taking. never just talking about a man. never will rush you into another man and never will not smile if you ever let a man touch you again. see how proud i am of you. home girl had the audacity to wear yellow. do you know how brave yellow tastes after blood spills everywhere and you call no one? when i say call me, what i mean is 911 won't come for us. what i mean is i got you. what i mean is we all know emergency, say hello to our bodies. what i mean is turn on blue lights before the sirens come. bruises in place of the absence of blue lights. how our bodies manage to fill voids if the thing itself cannot save us. spill everywhere. i love you all soil and waterfall. yellow and the bleeding. fuck 911 and call me. what i mean is i am sorry. i want his head on my lap. what i mean is i am sorry. i am tired of violence being non negotiable when violence is all we're asked to swallow. i want to hold his mother's hand. i want your smile and you in yellow even if it brings the bleeding. the bleeding wasn't supposed to come for you. the bleeding wasn't supposed to come for you. but it will promise all of the exit. watch the body in its healing. wash the body in its healing. a baptism of sorts. watch. as the body expands until it becomes an exit. an exodus. and now there is a new us eclipsing what once was.

      people don't understand themselves enough to show that to you and you can't take that seriously or personally. gotta leave em and let em grow up on their own

      you ever wake up and remember what you're capable of?

      what you heal with your origin story, you heal in your present and future

      the solstice full moon marks a moment where you get to witness the distance that you've traveled. the marks that your journey has left upon you can now be worn with pride. you earned these tattoos and you've got a tale to tell about them

      it's hard to understand what we're capable of until we risk leaving behind what we've always known

      know i gotta keep it safe

tho i'll never let it lead me stray

same time, keep a sane mind

sane mind keep a safe mine

mine mine, keep it safe

people take, i ain't never seen a sane mine

i ain't ever made sweet

i ain't ever been tamed

& i ain't afraid to let you see my teeth

      too many minds

in these media land mines

we must be careful how we use our imagination

      wonder how i'm always so scared of falling but never of flying

to come to realize

but to fly is to fall when the sky is the floor

      he says / you are so gullible / so naive / so going to take all of this and swallow it / there's no other choice / he says be strong like the woman i know you to be / i never knew how loud he spoke / until i suffocated in his screams / he says there are many women that have raised me / to not just thank my mother / says it takes a village / says there are many ways to raise a child / you musn't be so picky / why do i ask for a number still? / i always let curiosity get the best of me / until its the worst of me / he says he still doesn't know their anniversary / says i dont remember which day she was given to me / give and take all the same / whats a date and a number to a no-name? / he says lets talk about this later / later never comes / i know all too well how these conversations weave and waver till they come undone / he says you know / what my father did to my mother / this is beyond your time / do not call this abuse / you would know abuse if you felt it / i no longer know where the line between a promise and a threat would split / he says we will never split / it's not in our culture / you have no idea what the fathers in this lineage have been through / i watch as he becomes his father now / he is his father now / his father is his father now / his father is his father now / all these missing fathers falling into abandoned parenthood / filling the void of where the word family once stood

      longing seeps in her eyes / in my eyes / longing sweats from the palms / and flies around our stomachs / i drip out extend / i trip out and pretend / that it is all normal / holding memory / hold it right in front of her / longing smiles back / tries to tell me he loves me / i listen to a whisper / i hear nothing / love makes this instead / puddle / drown out a voice that goes unheard of / we never hear it but we swim in it / we swim good

      let's run from / to love like that

like gentle / like too soft

like pure

like walls / full of corners

where we hide / want the kind

of love / of exhaustion

that congests homes / hoards memories

tell me / name it / her

speak her dreams & nightmares

let's run

speak with / sleep with

not hide / run from corners

to love like

like tired / like boil / like spiral / like chaos

into safety

i feel safe in rough / in the midst of your war / in the midst of your arms

love me like this

i like love like this / like fire

and we call no one / let it burn love

this is not toxic / not alarming

just gonna burn these walls to the ground

and we breathe

and we burn

and we love

      maybe they'll recognize my absence. that's the goal. to leave an imprint wherever i go.

      Gotta keep makin waves till the tide brings us back to the cape

      the childhood shows the man / as morning shows the day

      the confusion is a part of it. don't give up on yourself. see it through

      clarity is coming

      processing

...

..

.

braiding

.

..

...

understanding

      regain your privacy

      I want to roam slowly and wildly across the world without embarrassment of my place in it.

      the main thing i recieved this holiday season was a hint of clarity. nothing  changes your life quite like the truth

      in the past year i've grown so much and also gotten so much younger.

this year has taken & added years on my life

      don't need nobody new to miss

already miss so many people

have had to miss so many people cuz i had to dip on so many people

      I remember the night sky after my last day at work. It was a deep Marine Blue. It smelled felt like freshly clothes without dryer sheets, it tasted like freedom, it was bitter and sweet.

I will always remember that blue and that feeling.

-kamau on MuRiN

      we move some things

we shake some things

we from out of town

we don't settle down

but now i own my days

and now i own my ways

      i'd rather be hungry than have a hungry soul

      i hate love but in a crazy way

      you know whats good

so why do you get carried away my love

      just let go of sorrow

like theres no tomorrow

cuz tonight might be your last

so stay up till sunrise

wipe the tears from your eyes

leave it in the past

      why love when its free and does no harm?

      rhythm in the fucking bones

daddies that were never there

and grannies raised the strongest ones

so opposites attract and leave

and heartbroke in my tendencies

      "" she says to me gently while wrapping the khanga around me.

"listening to the ancestors is the first step to wisdom"

whenever i wear the khanga, i feel an invincible cloak of protection. i wore it into the Moroccan cities and desserts. while driving through the driver points out that we're driving through a Berber village. the berber people are nomads. they tend to spread through the mountains and by the sea.

With the Berberi last name in my bloodline, i feel an ancestral pull to this space. it took endless questions and conversations later to uncover their original name isn't Berberi, it's Amazingh.and so the story goes, the romans came in and renamed them Berber as an insinuation of a barbaric people. and so the story goes, these are the same romans that changed my grandfathers last name from Basha to Cinari because the original was too threatening. Basha is a mayoral figure in Berber. There is a ever too frequent history of people trying to colonize native peoples because they feel threatened, and we know that story all too well. But the name remains. Amazingh by the way, means "free people". I come from a free people. what better way to approach closure but with clarity? I come from a free people. of course, i'm such a free spirit. of course, i'm always moving, pulled by the wind, the mountains, and the sea. and i got a sweet spot for a good city. i'm just living in my ancestor's wildest dreams. and so the story goes, i had to go all around the world just to find my ancestors in the mountains. the same mountains that birthed me. i come from a free people and that is the intention i move into everything with accordingly. i am the manifestation of my ancestors wildest imagination. what a blessing to bask in it and tasked with the job of being an echo for it all.

      i met so many cool motherfuckers in cape town

and honestly i'm comin back a cooler motherfucker

because now i understand what is required

      this year

these past few months alone

i saw/met my ancestors

i saw/met myself

i saw so many new parts of myself. healed parts i didn't even know were bruised. tended to all the wounds. got in the dirt. felt the fertilizer. freed myself. grew so much and only got younger. and then understood it runs in my ancestral bloodline. i come from a free people.

i am free.

      been movin through time zones for the past 6 months. so of course when i get back, imma be movin on a different timing. new times call for new movements.

      SICKO MODE is a cape town MOOD. BIG BIG MOOD.

reminds me of every lit as fuck moment/mood/ energy in cape town. daisies, on the way to, we love summer, on the way to. on the way out every night. astroworld. yours truly. waiting room. fiction. lit energy all around. a bunch of cool motherfuckers in a room all grooving to the same energy. all around the world.

cape town was me in SICKO MODE. almost at my prime type energy

      i have to make it back to cape town

      at 21 i went the fuck off

      manifesting everything

      this year will be a creative one. moving in with creative energy

      fuck the money

      if not now, then when?

if not me, then who?

      such an emotional transition when i realize i'm not flying back to cape town. i'm going to new york. i wonder how my energy will be received. how i will be received. how it's going to be to return to the same spaces as a whole new person.

      at least this i know for sure:

i am coming home anew.

i have arrived at myself, and thus, infinity.

      expanding.

everything.

horizons.

hearts.

stomachs.

wings.

      switched up the lens before departure/arrival

      i belong in the place of my departure

&

i belong in the place of my destination

-cristina

      i'm definitely going to miss the open and honest nature of people there.

      khoza told me he loved me that first night. i wonder if he remembers that. or if he even knows he did.

      tando means love

ntando means with love

      practice no don't ever preach

let your practice do the preachin

      feels like the life i need

now feels like the life i needs a lil distant

at least i know what it feels like so i can return to it  

      at departure, we were already preparing for arrival

      to prepare myself for the likely huge wave of depression that may hit me when i realize i'm not in cape town anymore. and the next arrival is unknown.

to do this through discipline. self care practices (yoga once a week at least. exercise once a week at least. writing once a week at least. keep journals on me at all times. keep MY tools on me at all times. pursue projects. keep the good kind of busy not the babson kind of busy. meditate more. take time to yourself. pursue friendships deeper. always. leave the imprint you always do. move quietly but with your own purpose. let your purpose and energy guide you always.)

to process the experience for what it was and be grateful to be so blessed. in processing, to allow myself to re-live. to keep up with cape town. whether it be artists, people, bodies, articles. to surround yourself with love & adventure. to live in the moment and make it worth it while i'm in it.

      BUTTERFLY EFFECT

ending song of cape town times.

for this life i cannot change

drop the top

pop it let it bang

this year is described well as butterfly effect.

      life is just a maze

goin through all my phases

      to touch a tongue that isn't foreign

i can't remember what that feels like  

      up against the wall / we don't need a title

      "you are love"

-mzi

      love on the brain

i experienced so much love in cape town. i was surrounded by it. engulfed in it. and so much of it came from me. an abundance from others as well. and i was being loved in the ways that i needed to be. for the first time in a while. the wind hugged me on that side of the world

and now i can depart with sooo much love on me, in me, coursing through me.

it's always good to have something amazing to part with/say goodbye to.

      can we burn somethin new?

      "and she fuck me and love me all in the same dose"

      moving into a new space with a new rhythm.

the loves i experienced here all had a rhythm.

it is carrying me in the transition.

      there's so much love in the air and that's always appreciated. misery loves company but my pack provides positivity and prosperity

[techbarcelona]

Crash Bandicoot N. Rational Trilogy: As great as the uneven arrangement will ever get Survey: Gorgeous change picks legitimacy over change, for better and for worse.

Crash Bandicoot N. Normal Trilogy gets about as much great amusement set of three of this degree could. A couple of uneven and unoptimized great diversion remasters have been drawn out as of late, and I'm glad to report that the Crash arrangement's handlers at Activision have not failed in any Activision-y route, past a present bolt on PlayStation 4 frameworks. No pre-arrange limitations; no microtransactions; not in any case corner-cutting on the amusement's generation.

N. Rational Trilogy handles this week with a considerable measure of clear love and care. It additionally arrives with a similar things that made Crash such a troublesome platformer arrangement in the '90s. While that makes N. Rational Trilogy an extreme amusement to unequivocally prescribe, it likewise feels like the main way this accumulation could have turned out. Engineer Vicarious Visions picked validness over change, and, in the circle of gaming history and authentic, that decision matters.

Looney Tunes allure is in place

As I learned in a June meet with Vicarious Visions' makers, this Crash Bandicoot collection is a dubious one to depict. N. Rational Trilogy isn't a "revamp," since the three recreations' levels and general outlines have been left for the most part in place, yet it's not a "remaster," since the majority of the substance must be remade and re-rendered starting with no outside help. Hard drives were lost; codebases and resources didn't exchange. Arrangement makers Naughty Dog did genuine, spearheading work to get the first Crash amusements to look the way they did on PlayStation 1 comforts, and those code traps don't mean current CPU/GPU combos, either.

This PlayStation 4 amusement boots with each of the three diversions selectable from the get-go (on the off chance that you purchase the 23GB advanced rendition, it will download Crash 1 first). They all request pretty much a similar thing from players: keep running from the beginning of a 3D level to its complete, while breaking boxes and searching for privileged insights en route.

The firsts completed a noteworthy activity driving the PlayStation 1 as far as possible, and keeping in mind that the same can't precisely be said for the N. Rational Trilogy, it utilizes significantly more visual muscle than I anticipated. Surface work positions straight up there with the spotless, brilliant stylings of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and level geometry has been fleshed out to resemble a cutting edge PS4 diversion.

In the interim, lighting, shadow, climate, foliage, obscure, and hide impacts see the PlayStation 4's GPU turned pretty profoundly. The refreshed movements and rendering slapped onto Crash and his sister Coco are brimming with Looney Tunes magnetism, and it's anything but difficult to botch some of their zoomed-in groupings as pre-rendered silver screen content.

On the other hand, N. Rational is as yet a PS1 diversion on a fundamental level, so CPU activities are straightforward and see separations are limited (albeit Vicarious has at any rate dropped the review edge somewhat for an enhanced point of view). That influences the amusement's 30 fps to invigorate somewhat harder to swallow. Vicarious ought to be pleased with how much a portion of the amusement's scenes look pre-rendered, and the edge rate seems to have an ironclad bolt at 30Hz (which, gaming students of history will call attention to, makes this indistinguishable to the PS1 unique).

Be that as it may, control inertness is key for an extreme as-nails '90s platformer, and, in the PS1 time, most gamers had the advantage of a CRT screen. Current players are as of now losing a couple of milliseconds to their TV sets, and the most exceedingly bad piece of the Crash Bandicoot set of three—its gerdanged pixel-consummate hops—are harder to swallow with the obvious additional slack that originates from a blend of a 30 fps revive, the DualShock 4 Bluetooth controller, and any HDTV slack. (I tried N. Rational on a similar apparatus I use to play any semblance of Mega Man 2, in case you're pondering about my platforming predisposition.)

Pseudo-3D that really matured quite well

Crash isn't a terrible platforming arrangement by any extend, particularly contrasted with its '90s associates. Its blend of best down, from-behind, and from-ahead points of view managed arrangement makers Naughty Dog some sharp traps in building strong run-and-bounce and-dash content. Most would agree that Crash got the last known point of interest—not as quick, obviously, but rather there's unquestionably a solid "bash and turn through levels for top speed" component to the level outlines. Furthermore, most other platformer arrangement at the time had no clue how to make anyplace close as equipped a hop to 3D.

One reason is that Crash was a sharp arrangement. It was no place almost an undeniable 3D platformer, and Naughty Dog ensured that by locking its viewpoint. The engineers constructed Crash on an establishment of dependable 2D platformer standards, and it changed those with more "paths" of development managed by completely 3D rendering.

The most glaring issue for this remaster is that Naughty Dog didn't utilize one of the Mario arrangement's best lessons: utilize an incredible, new thought once, at that point toss it in the waste. Crash Bandicoot 1, 2, and 3 depend vigorously on reiterated levels that have players return, over and over, to a similar contrivance or curve with just slight changes or hops in trouble. Fleeing from a rock was an impact at first! Be that as it may, not the 6th time.

This is made all the all the more irritating by the arrangement's apparently irregular concealed thing and mystery leave position, which may be more passable if Crash didn't insta-pass on at whatever point he falls into a pit or finds an adversary while unguarded. You're probably going to do both of those things while squeezing against level edges or bouncing toward apparently mystery lined ways. You'll keep running into erosion in any case: center around the insider facts, and monotonous levels take that any longer to beat. Disregard the insider facts, and you miss some of Naughty Dog's really cunning level turns.

For what reason wouldn't they be able to simply open everything in these?

Had N. Normal transported with an "all levels opened" mode, as we at Ars have asked amusement remaster groups to do, I may have sung an alternate tune. Mischievous Dog sufficiently spread smart, fun, vivid, and time trial-commendable levels over the initial three Crash recreations to be justified regardless of a full-length diversion. Vicarious ought to have made a novice's "playlist" of these levels in N. Rational Trilogy to avoid that sentiment redundancy and underscore the full arrangement's assortment.

Rather, as well as can be expected do is skirt the principal diversion—which Crash 2 conveniently exceeded, and Crash 3 developed to better than average impact (however with a couple of too much "ride this supportive animal" levels for my tastes). N. Rational is as yet a strong gathering, and all levels advantage from a modified time-trial framework that doles out time rewards for players who find and bust open the right containers. I've delighted in pursuing lower finish times while wondering about the change's first rate cartoony stylings.

Notwithstanding, my psyche hasn't been changed about a portion of the arrangement's more passerby platforming challenges, which I find are cushioned by pixel-consummate hops and upsetting "one wrong move and you gotta re-try an entire moment of bouncing" minutes. In the event that you skipped Crash in the '90s and believe you're in for a genuine nostalgic treat, be cautioned. Extremely cautioned.

Then again, at this moment, for both the cost and the measure of substance in here, I can't think about a superior PlayStation-selective platformer to provide for a child—particularly the sort of child who wouldn't fret examining FAQs and mystery things advisers for get to the 100-percent check. The smooth outline will deceive them into playing through a genuine platforming-class history lesson, and what parent doesn't prefer to sneak some training into their children's stimulation?