#small college town kids just hangin out

[rotturn]

if i were perhaps to make Even More ocs what kind of. tropes? vibes? r u lookin for whats the vibe

[mysteryshoptls]

SSR Ruggie Bucchi Bloom Birthday Personal Story: Part 3

"Happy Birthday"

(Part 1) (Part 2) Part 3

[Savanaclaw Dorm – Birthday Party Venue]

Rook: Ah, how time flies when you're having fun. This is the last question.

Rook: “How do you spend your days off?”

Ruggie: My day off, hm… I mean, I don't really have many restful days, so, I dunno.

Rook: Oh, is that so?

Ruggie: Most days I got Magical Shift practice or matches, so…

Ruggie: ANY TIME I DON'T GOT THAT, I WANNA CRAM AS MANY SMALL JOBS IN MY DAY AS I CAN!!!

Ruggie: I'm pretty busy with my classes, so I can't do any long-term jobs, so for now, I'm basically doing one-off jobs down at the town at the foothills.

Rook: Wow, you do stay busy. But, I'm sure there are times that you are unable to find a job that suits your tastes, no?

Ruggie: Whenever that happens, I usually do odd-jobs for my dormmates, classmates, or clubmates.

Ruggie: They don't really pay good, but… Sometimes they'll treat me to a meal, or give me random stuff I find when I'm cleaning up.

Ruggie: And when I sell those things, I can make a good chunk of change. One man's trash is another man's treasure!

Rook: Très bien! Not only do you have an abundance of work experience, but you also care for the environment. I'm impressed!

Ruggie: Uhhh, I don't think it's anything that great, but… Uh, whatever.

Ruggie: Ah. But the other day, I didn't do any kind of part-time or odd-job, instead I went down to the town with few of my clubmates

Ruggie: After morning practice, we flew down on brooms. Basically, it was supposed to be my pre-birthday celebration.

Rook: To see such friendship forged through the trials of your club activities… Beauté! Such a beautiful relationship.

Ruggie: I mean, it's not like were always hangin' out with each other like best friends or anythin'. But, sure…

Ruggie: I guess I was happy enough that they were doing this as a return gift, or in return for doing their club chores.

Rook: You do look happy. What did they give you?

Ruggie: First, we did lunch. I had them treat me to the most expensive meal on the menu at the hamburger shop.

Ruggie: After that, we just kinda wandered the streets, lookin' at all the special sales they had going on…

Ruggie: And just as we started getting' kinda thirsty, we stopped at this pretty popular café.

Ruggie: It's not a place I tend to even think about going into, 'cause a drink costs close to 1000 madol, but…

Ruggie: If someone's treatin' me, then that a whole different story! Maaan, that sweet café au lait with all that whipped cream on top was sooooo good.

Ruggie: They blended the coffee, milk, syrup, and the ice into one smooth drink…

Ruggie: It was totally perfect for a slightly humid day! I also like that I can drink the whole thing without leaving anythin' behind.

Ruggie: Normal drinks'll leave ice in the end, so it kinda loses its good taste, tho.

Ruggie: But there's no way I'd be drinkin' that special drink if I had to pay for it. I wanna drink it again sometime, on someone else's dime, of course.

Rook: Fufu, it seems that you received a wondrous present.

Ruggie: I got tons, like candy-coated fruit, or bread that was stuffed with pasta and the like…

Ruggie: And a bunch of other stuff, all for free. I even got some snacks to take home, so it was awesome!

Ruggie: I had an amazing day and I didn't even need to spend 1 madol. And today, I'll be able to eat my heart out at the feast later…

Ruggie: Birthdays are the absolute best! Coming here to Night Raven College really confirmed that!

Rook: Reluctantly, I must say… We've made it to the finale. Ruggie-kun, please accept this broom.

Ruggie: Thank you! I don't really know much about flowers if I can't eat 'em, but these look kinda tasty. They got a nice color reminds me of baked pastries.

Ruggie: But man, this looks real fancy. I wonder how much it'd fetch if I sold it… Haha, I'm just kidding!

Rook: I'm relieved to hear you are only joking. This bouquet has a warm and gentle ambiance. Please take good care of this as a memento of today.

Rook: Now, Monsieur Dandelion. TAKE TO THE SKIES ALONGSIDE THIS BROOM OF YOURS!

Ruggie: Yeah, yeah, gotcha. 'Kay, guess I gotta show 'em what I got.

Ruggie: Only a little bit more 'til I get to go to the party I've been waiting for. Gotta fly hard so I'll be ready to eat at the feast!

(Part 1) (Part 2) Part 3

[aion-rsa]

25 Best Sports TV Shows

https://www.denofgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/TV-High-School-Travel-Guides.png?resize=400%2C400

Sports stories have traditionally belonged to the movies. Something about the rhythms of competition, in which an athlete or team trains, plays, and then either wins or loses, is a natural fit for the film world’s three act structure.

Television, with its multiple episodes and seasons, is often more discursive and therefore less viable for truly great sports stories. Thankfully, that all seems poised to change. While some sports TV shows have found success in the past, now the medium has really kicked things up a notch. Sports stories like Brockmire, Ted Lasso, Cobra Kai, and more are not only welcome on television, but an essential part of the cable and streaming landscape. 

Read more

TV

The United States of TV High Schools

By Alec Bojalad

Movies

The Best Sports Documentaries To Stream

By Scott Fontana and 2 others

With that in mind, it’s high time we pay homage to TV’s great sports programs. What follows is a list of 25 of the best sports TV shows of all time, hand selected by Den of Geek (i.e. me: the arms-crossed weirdo in the picture at the bottom of this article). 

It’s important to keep in mind that these are the best scripted sports TV shows. Television is, of course, no stranger to live sports and the various programs that surround them. Consider these unscripted American sports shows as honorable mentions: Hard Knocks, Last Chance U, Ken Burns’ Baseball, The Last Dance (and most other 30-for-30s), Cheer, Inside the NBA.

Enough of the undercard, now onto the main event. 

25. Red Oaks

Amazon Prime’s Red Oaks examines the bougie tennis lifestyle of the 1980s. It all comes through the lens of David Myers (Craig Roberts), a college student looking to pick up some cash by taking a summer job at an upscale Jewish country club in New Jersey. Sports stories and coming-of-age stories fit particularly well because the end goal of each one is usually growth. It’s hard to say whether David grows during his time at Red Oaks, but he certainly changes over the series’ three seasons. 

24. The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers

A TV show based on Disney sports movie behemoth franchise The Mighty Ducks was all but an inevitability, particularly when the major conglomerate secured its own streamer in Disney+. We’re all lucky then that The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers turned out to be quite good rather than completely perfunctory. The show is bold enough to recast its Ducks’ franchise as the villains and to rally around the radical idea that youth sports should be fun. 

23. One Tree Hill

At first glance, One Tree Hill doesn’t seem too different from the other teen shows of its era on The CW (though The CW was still “The WB” for One Tree Hill’s first two seasons). It’s about high schoolers in a small town, doing high school things. Where One Tree Hill excels (at least in its early, still high school seasons) is the introduction of basketball as a storytelling crutch. Half brothers Lucas (Chad Michael Murray) and Nathan Scott (James Lafferty) have a turbulent enough relationship to begin with. What better way to contextualize that relationship than through the high stakes lens of high school basketball?

22. Lights Out

Not to be confused with the 2016 horror film of the same name, Lights Out is a boxing series from FX that ran for one excellent season in 2011. Holt McCallany (best known now as Agent Bill Tench on Mindhunter) stars as retired heavyweight champion Patrick “Lights” Leary. Despite displaying signs of neurological trauma from his career, Lights can’t help but want to return to the ring for one more shot of glory (and to pay off his family’s many debts). Lights Out is a sad, elegiac little story about how one man who sees a sport that broke his brain as the only realistic option for success. 

21. Big Shot

Big Shot premiered shortly after its bigger-named Disney+ cousin The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. And while Game Changers made a slightly bigger splash, Big Shot might be the better sports show. The story follows Marvyn Korn (John Stamos), a tempermental basketball coach who ends up at an elite all-girls prep school to shepherd its basketball program. Big Shot runs through all the tried and true tropes and beats of sports stories and does so with aplomb. Consider it Hardball meets Hoosiers with plenty of Stamos charm. 

20. Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper

Sports are somewhat incidental to Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper’s mission. Sure, lead character Mr. Cooper (Mark Curry) is a former Golden State Warriors basketball player turned PE teacher. But like its TGIF programming block peers, this show is a charming hangout comedy with few lasting conflicts to speak of. Still, you don’t spend that much time in a gym without some three-pointers and lay-ups. 

19. Coach

Before Craig T. Nelson was Mr. Incredible (or made this truly amazing televised statement), he was best known for portraying the title role in ‘90s ABC sitcom Coach. In fact, many of our archetypical perceptions of what makes a football coach likely come from Nelson’s portrayal of Coach Hayden Fox (who first coached for a fictional NCAA football team and later an NFL one). This is a man whose skill at molding young athletes belies his lack of skill at…well, everything else. Ultimately, Coach is a worthwhile multiseason experience in which a grown man grows up.

18. Kingdom

Kingdom is probably the best sports TV show that you’ve never heard of. Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. That’s just the kind of thing that happens when a show is damned to languish on AT&T’s ludicrous “Audience Network”. Kingdom is set in an MMA gym and captures all the drama provided in the heightened world of mixed martial arts combat. The show is blessed with some great characters and an even better cast. Frank Grillo (Captain America’s most annoying foe, Brock Rumlow), Kiele Sanchez (Lost), Matt Lauria (Friday Night Lights), Jonathan Tucker, (Justified)  and Nick Jonas (yes, that Nick Jonas) all make their mark on the series.

17. The White Shadow

Premiering in 1978, CBS’s The White Shadow was uncommonly progressive for its time. The series follows Ken Reeves (Ken Howard), a white NBA player who retires after a knee injury and elects to take up coaching at Carver High School in South Central Los Angeles. Coach Reeves’s team is made up primarily of Black and Hispanic players and the show deals with the social ills of life in the inner city. It’s also quite funny and charming and features a commitment to realistic basketball scenes.

16. The League

FX comedy The League works as a sports show (and as a TV show in general) because it has a deep understanding of sports from a fan’s perspective. Sure, fans watch collegiate and professional sports to marvel at the athleticism, training, and skill on display. But more importantly, they watch sports to have something to talk about with their friends. Though the participants in the titular fantasy football league at the center of The League grew up as friends, who’s to say they would have stayed friends so long without this league keeping them together? Ruxin (Nick Kroll) is an asshole. Andre (Paul Scheer) is annoying. And Taco (Jon Lajoie) is, well…Taco.

15. Rocket Power

If the ‘90s taught us anything it’s that extreme sports are sports too, man! Rocket Power is a lovely little slice of life Nick Toon that follows four kids in a fictional California surfing community. Otto Rocket, Reggie Rocket, Maurice “Twister” Rodriguez, and Sam “Squid” Dullard spend their days skateboarding, surfing, playing street hockey, and occasionally snowboarding. It’s a wonderful ode to childhood and all the athletic activities that make the day (and years) go by far too quickly. 

14. Luck

If things shook out differently, perhaps Luck could have been considered one of the five or so best sports shows of all time. All of the pieces were in place. This 2012 HBO series had the right creative team (created and run by Deadwood’s David Milch and starring Dustin Hoffman with a pilot directed by Michael Mann) to go along with an intriguing premise (complicated characters’ lives intersecting at a horse track). But alas…the dead horses. Oh so many dead horses. Despite stringent safety measures put in place, Luck lost three hoof bois during filming of its first season and was canceled shortly thereafter. May they all rest in peace.

13. All American

High school is a turbulent time in all our lives. And when the high stakes world of competitive football is added in, things can only get more intense. The CW’s All American opts to take the world of high school football and opts to add in a welcome dose of sociopolitical commentary. This series is loosely based on the life of former New York Giants linebacker Spencer Paysinger and follows his character “Spencer James” as he is recruited from South L.A. to play for the affluent Beverly Hills High. The show wisely understands that sports (particularly when they involve Black teenagers) are a marvelous portal to explore American society. 

12. Pitch

Cruelly cut short after just one season of 10 episodes, Pitch is the kind of sports show that will inspire sports stories for years to come. This baseball series for Fox comes from Dan Fogelman (This Is Us) and Rick Singer. It follows the saga of Ginny Baker (Kylie Bunbury), who becomes the first woman to play in Major League Baseball when she’s called up to pitch by the San Diego Padres. Pitch was blessed with an excellent cast including Bunbury and Mark-Paul Gosselaar as a veteran catcher nearing the end of his Hall of Fame career. More interestingly, it was blessed with an actual MLB licensing deal. There are no silly fictional teams in this show like the Tuscaloosa Barn-Burners or the Helena Hellcats. It’s all real MLB team names and logos, adding to the realism of a cool premise.

11. Ballers

Of course, Elizabeth Warren’s favorite show has to be on this list. Ballers has a bit of an unearned reputation for being cringe thanks to its ridiculous name and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s delightful cornball energy. In reality, this is an exceedingly watchable TV show and one that examines the corporate side of professional sports quite well. It’s also noticeable for being most viewers’ introduction to eventual Tenet star John David Washington. 

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10. GLOW

Is professional wrestling a sport? Vince McMahon would argue that it’s “sports entertainment.” I would argue that that’s more than good enough to get the excellent GLOW on this list. GLOW tragically fell victim to Netflix’s whimsical cancellation procedures. Why the almighty algorithm decided a show needed to be canceled after it was already renewed is beyond me. But don’t let that sour three seasons of superb sportsy storytelling. GLOW follows the fictionalized rise of the very real “Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling” and it centers it on the conflict between two former best friends, Ruther Wilder (Alison Brie) and Debbie Eagen (Betty Gilpin). GLOW differs a bit from the usual sports fare in that the “sport” at its center wasn’t necessarily plan A for the athletes. But the experience of watching the ladies train, grow, and succeed is pure and sublime sports story stuff.

9. Cobra Kai

Cobra Kai absolutely could have been phoned in. The streaming world runs on nostalgia and there’s nothing more sweetly nostalgic than The Karate Kid franchise. Instead, this Netflix series changes the original franchise’s perspective by focusing on the “villainous” Cobra Kai dojo and re-examines things from Johnny’s point of view. Ralph Macchio and William Zabka deserve credit for embodying realistically adult, yet flawed versions of their original characters. Equally deserving of credit though is a whole host of young actors bringing the martial arts to a whole new generation. 

8. Blue Mountain State

A lot of the shows on this list are, let’s say, reverential to the sports, teams, and athletes they cover. Spike comedy Blue Mountain State is decidedly…not. This series, following the Mountain Goats football team for the fictional college Blue Mountain State, understands that not all depictions of athletes have to be saints. Sometimes college football player can just be the big dumb animals you want them to be. Through three seasons, this show developed a cult following that would follow it over for a lifetime of reruns on Netflix. Blue Mountain State is crass, dangerous, and entertaining, not entirely unlike football.

7. Sports Night

Speaking of being reverential to sports…like all Aaron Sorkin-created TV series, Sports Night can be a bit full of itself sometimes. That only works when the topic at hand, like the federal branch of the U.S. government, is consequential. Thankfully, sports can be pretty important sometimes too! This late ‘90s show follows the goings-on at a Sportscenter-esque news program hosted by Dan Rydell (Josh Charles) and Casey McCall (Peter Krause). It has all the witty dialogue you’d come to expect from a Sorkin venture. And if you can make your way through the inexplicable laugh track of the early episodes, you will find a mature, entertaining show that properly understands and contextualizes professional sports’ role in American society. 

6. Survivor’s Remorse

Survivor’s Remorse came into the world with two strikes against it. One is a bizarrely overwrought name, and the other is that its home network, Starz, isn’t a given on many cable packages. Still, this LeBron James-produced comedy is shockingly one of the best sports TV shows ever (and perhaps still the best creative venture James has been involved in yet). This story follows NBA athlete Cam Calloway (Jessie T. Usher) as he tries to balance the business and basketball aspects of his life. At first the show focuses on Cam’s guilt for having got out of his impoverished neighborhood when so many couldn’t (hence, the show’s title), but ultimately it evolves into a family comedy drama featuring some truly remarkable characters and performances like Cam’s cousin and manager Reggie Vaughn (RonReaco Lee) and his baller half-sister “M-Chuck” (Erica Ash). Even Monica Rambeau herself, Teyonah Parris, is a part of the proceedings. 

5. Playmakers

Sometimes I can’t even believe that Playmakers is real. Surely, this ESPN series about a fictional football team in a fictional league that is clearly the NFL was just a post-9/11 fever dream we all endured together. Alas, Playmakers was real and it was awesome. This series follows the players on the Cougars as they navigate a football landscape filled with ripped-from-the-headlines strife including Performance enhancing drugs, good old-fashioned drugs, domestic abuse, concussions, and more. The series even introduces the outing of a gay player more than a decade before Michael Sam and Carl Nassib revealed their sexual orientations. Naturally, Playmakers was canceled when the NFL intimated to its broadcast partner ESPN that it wasn’t too pleased with the content of its show. And enraging the National Football League alone is enough to make this an all-time classic.

4. Eastbound & Down

Eastbound & Down creator and star Danny McBride isn’t necessarily a huge fan of baseball. But he is, thankfully, a huge fan of weirdos and creeps. When McBride discovered just how bizarre and poorly behaved certain flamethrowing relief pitchers could be, Kenny Powers and the show around him was born. The baseball “action” in Eastbound isn’t much to write home about. The show isn’t too concerned with the results of any given baseball game and McBride always looks like he’s throwing a javelin and not a baseball. It’s still a phenomenal saga about athletes that dives into Paul Bunyan-esque tales of legendary misbehavior that fame encourages. It’s no coincidence that in the follow ups to Kenny Powers, McBride has delved into megalomaniacal vice principals and bejeweled, sweaty televangelists – all different aspects of the white American male id.

3. Ted Lasso

Of all the sports shows in the TV canon, none feels more like a traditional sports movie than Ted Lasso. This Apple TV+ series plucks an American football coach-fish and gently places him out of water in the English Premier League. The affable Lasso (Sudeikis) is charged with reversing the fortunes of EPL side AFC Richmond. Little does he know, however, that spiteful owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddington) is counting on him to fail, Major League style. Ted Lasso isn’t interested in reinventing the wheel. Instead it perfects it. This is a tale of relentless optimism and unconditional positive regard. Ted breaks the mold for what we expect from coaches, which is probably why so many actual coaches are fond of the show. Simply put: sports stories can’t be done much better than this one. 

2. Brockmire

Sometimes commentators like to bemoan the modern state of baseball. What was once American’s pastime has now supposedly fallen behind things like football and videogames in the pop cultural pecking order. Then along comes something like Brockmire to teach us that baseball as a continuous, seemingly eternal American presence is just as vital as ever. In a career-defining role, Hank Azaria plays disgraced baseball broadcaster Jim Brockmire. Once at the top of his game, an on-air drunken meltdown loses him his job and his sanity. In season 1 of this superb IFC show, Brockmire returns to the booth, this time for an independent league team in Morristown, Pennsylvania. The four seasons that follow are one big love letter to not only baseball, but the messy human experience itself. It’s rare that you get something this funny and this affecting. The fact that it’s wrapped in a stylish diamond-shaped bow is just icing on the cake. 

1. Friday Night Lights

Not only is Friday Night Lights the best sports TV show of all time, it’s hard to imagine it ever being supplanted from its throne. Simply put, Friday Night Lights is a sports television masterpiece. Each of Friday Night Lights’ five seasons (save for the writer’s strike-shortened second) fully capture the ecstasy and agony of high school football in a small Texas town where high school football is the only thing that matters. Friday Night Lights doesn’t shy away from the unsavory institution that is big time high school athletics.

The series opens with a life-changing injury before following it up with tales of corrupt boosters and garden variety West Texas racism. And yet, the show never looks down on its characters. If winning state is important to Coach Taylor (Kyle Chandler), Matt Saracen (Zach Gilford), Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch), Smash Williams (Gaius Charles), and Vince Howard (Michael B. Jordan), then it’s important to us too. In fact, when Friday Night Lights is really rolling and the W.G. Snuffy Walden’s Explosions in the Sky-style soundtrack is swirling, you might not recall anything ever mattering to you as much as the Dillon Panthers or the East Dillon Lions winning a football game. Clear eyes, full hearts, absolutely cannot lose.

The post 25 Best Sports TV Shows appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[jvnimo]

( remy hii, cis male, he/him ) i took a trip into town and ran into ALEX HUANG at the general store. isn’t that the PHOENIX you told me about last week? the one who is THIRTY FOUR, as well as INTENTIONAL and BLUNT? well, we didn’t chat for long, so i can’t say for sure, but i think you might be onto something…they even mentioned they want to EMPOWER YOUTH like you said. + meagan, 23, she/her, est

helloo, everyone, welcome to dew! i am so excited to finally get started and write with you all! everyone’s characters seem so wonderful, and i can’t wait to see what’s in store. did a last minute switch to alex because We Stan 30+ muses, and i’m really excited about him! ~lms~ if u wanna plot <3

basics

name: alex huang

face claim: remy hii

age: 34

gender: cis male

pronouns: he/him

orientation: ?? do i look like i know things. not straight tho. edit: i know now he’s link

occupation: school teacher, shop help at the general store

hometown: some small town idk

birthday: september 2

info

grew up in a small town not unlike stardew valley

abuse mention, drugs mention dealt a hard hand of cards in life, his mother left his family, and his father always blamed him. eventually put into foster care bc of dad’s drug habits.

alex was so angry and sad and hurt, would get in lots of trouble at school for fighting and stuff

fostered by cecilia north and emily huang!!! for the first time he knew what love was!!! they adopted him when he was in high school!!! love this for alex!!!!

started to heal some, got less angry and let some people in, though he was and is still very private about himself and things he finds personal (which are most)

studied education in college, then did his masters in social work, wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do, just knew he wanted to help kids like him

ended up in stardew valley teaching kids, and he could never leave because he sees how much they need it, since there’s not even a school and he just teaches them at the library, and he has to go to the city to buy a lot of materials out of pocket.

personality wise, he is friendly enough and will get to know people. kind of reserved, especially about his personal life and stuff, but overall a nice guy who cares about people!

hobbies: hangin’ at the saloon, playing at the arcade, fishing, writing, hiking, pretty outdoorsy and thoughtful

edit: alex got fired from the general store because they couldn’t afford to keep him with joja in town...and now he works at joja :O :O :O

potential plots!

adopted siblings

friends from college -- maybe someone who told him about sdv?

a little mentee :(

co-workers at the general store

people he likes to do sdv activities with, like foraging, fishing, exploring, mining, beaching, etc., especially foraging and hiking and walking!!

book club, game club, movie club

one really good friend

unrequited crush (either way)

exes

anything!!! let’s brainstorm!!!

[angelfiume]

Mouth Like A Sailor Part 1

Hey so I have no idea how to publish a fanfic on tumblr besides just putting it up like this so hopefully this goes well.  I was posting on qoutev but it kept crashing my computer so tumblr it is.

Marlena Curtis May 1965 5 months before    "I hope all of you will take this summer to exercise your minds... You wouldn't want to go into your senior year with a head full of nothing, would you?"  Mr. Mays shouted at the class, he wasn't angry, just obnoxiously loud.  I looked across the room at my brother's best friend, Steve, hoping to have someone to smile with or pass a note too, but he obviously was not interested and instead was tracing the hand of a short girl with bobbed hair.  She was giggling as he made ugly monster claws out of her manicured fingers, it was kind of sweet honestly.  I sighed and leaned back in my chair, looking around the room for anyone else that might be alright with me.  Mr. Mays voice quieted as he saw no one really cared about his speech on polishing the young mind, he resulted to letting us free for the rest of the period.  I rested my head on my arms and decided to spend the class just sleeping instead of awkwardly trying to make conversation with the dry, ginger soc next to me.  She seemed like she wasn't very interested anyways.    The bell rung two minutes in to my daydream, which couldn't have made me happier, I jumped out of my seat and yanked my bag with me out the door.  Finally I could just do jack-shit and paint my nails instead of listening to the same monotone creeps lecture for hours and hours.  I nearly ran down the hallway towards my friends, Sophie and Jean, they were talking fast and smiled big when they saw me running down to see them.    "MARLI, tell your brother you're gonna be at my house tonight baking cookies or some sweet shit, Gene Vincent is gonna be at Sophie's cousin's bar tonight in Oklahoma City!  Her cousin said we can all get in no sweat."  Jean said, she was so excited her heavy eyeliner was creasing from smiling so wide.       

  "Holy shit, Sophie did your cousin really say we can go?  How much money?" I asked with a small twinge in my stomach, the past few months have been pretty tough on my wallet, I really wanted all my money to go into my younger brother's secret college fund.   

 "None baby!  That's a perk of having friends with connections, just pitch in two bucks or so for gas, my daddy is letting me take the Malibu, ain't that exciting?" Sophie cooed, she had this soft voice that could have sounded polite even if she was telling you where it seemed your head was stuck.  She was   rich too, man her family did well.  But she was still my friend, because she didn't care if I lived in a hollowed out coat closet my brother set up for me, she didn't believe in the social class war going on.    

  "I'm in man!  I'll tell Darry I'm going to have a sleepover with ya'll, he won't ask questions, he's too wrapped around the axel with Soda right now."  I grinned at them and listened quietly to the rest of their chatter.  They could get awful excited about something real fast, it was damn cute.     

 We walked out to Jean's boyfriends car, he was a doll, always chauffeuring her and her friends around Tulsa.  Speaking of the devil, Tommy came sprinting down the concrete steps and bear-hugged tiny Jean, making her scream and laugh.  

    "Hello sweetheart, ready to be done with the bullshit for a whole 2 months?" he was another one of those guys that seems to really just shout instead of talk, he nodded to Sophie and I and smiled nicely, "ya'll hangin' or goin' home?" 

   "I can stay a little, we're supposed to be in the City by 9 and we gotta leave at 7 or so.." Sophie chirped    

   "Just straight home for me, thanks, I gotta make an appearance so Darry doesn't get suspicious"  I knew full well that he would expect the worst if I never showed up at home.    I jumped down from Tommy's pick- up and yelled to Jean I would be at her house at 630.  I smoothed out my black corduroy skirt and re-tucked the ratty pink shirt I had owned since 9th grade.  My sneakers crunched down the gravel covering the alley behind my house as I walked towards the backward, where I heard my brother and their friends.  Not even the whole gang was there, but it was still loud as hell.     

          "Hey Marls how was the last day of school?  I  miss anything important?" laughed Two-bit, the rusty haired boy lay lazily on our back steps.      

           "Ha, it was fine, you didn't miss anything important.  Just that Mark guy offered me a whole year supply of marijuana if I would flash the principal at the assembly this morning"  I told him as I took a carton out of my bra and lit a smoke, I giggled a little when I saw him cock an eyebrow.  The nimrod probably thought I went through with it.     

           "So ya did it right?"  Demanded a bored looking Dallas Winston.  He sat next to my twin Soda, who was laughing quietly to himself, he probably knew I was too much of a wimp to leave school one some crazy note like that.   

           "Nah," I took a long drag, "I could get that shit for free by just winking at some of the squares in this town... But anyways, where did Darry go?  He working late or something?"   

           "No, he should be home in ten minutes or so, you gonna bail soon?" Soda asked   

            "Around 6ish I'm going over to Jean's, Sophie and I are gonna spend the night with her."  I told him without much worry, I was used to making up white lies at this point, Soda would likely not even care that I was going into the big city tonight, maybe he'd even think it was tuff I was sneaking off to a high class bar with my socy friends.   

             "Ain't Jean that middle-class broad with the giant jugs?" Dally half-joked, it was almost a long running gag that we had, since he couldn't make a move on me, being three of the gangs' sister, he has always tried his best to get at my friends.    I just rolled my eyes and took another drag of my cigarette, lettings the boys' conversation go this way and that and just listen.  That's kinda been my go-to lately, when my mom and dad died three months ago I lost a lot of my talkative edge.  Shit it's been three months already... I pushed my body lightly off of the side of the house and dragged myself inside.  My room really was just a scraped out coat closet.  I ain't gonna complain too bad about it though, Darry really did make it alright and it wasn't even too small of a closet to begin with.  Hell, if we were able to fit my little mattress and even my record player I bought when I was 11, it can't have been that bad.  My stomach was beginning to feel a little green, I had been smoking like a chimney since I got home, and my room ain't too breezy so that tobacco stench really liked to hang around.   

           "Marlena?" I heard my oldest brother knocking at my door, he opened it and immediately looked a little peeved, "Oh lordy!  Did ya just set a whole carton of marbolos on fire?  It's a goddamn wildfire in here, you keep smoking like this and I'm gonna have to start checking what you buy at the store now, ya dig?"    

           "Yeah, I know.  Hey Darry?"  I said, without the slightest intention of cutting down on my habit, "I'm gonna go to Jean's tonight, Sophie will be there too, that cool?"    "That's fine" he said walking back to the kitchen.  I followed him out and just followed suit, he got a glass of water, I got one too.  We didn't even talk the whole time,  he's kinda been quiet lately too.  When our parents died in that accident everyone took on a different kind of burden, but sometimes I think Darry feels like he took the whole load, and maybe that's why he's so damn stressed. Coming home from the funeral with my brothers felt like I had just taken a few strangers from the graveyard and said "you'll do."  Darry used to be that real fun, hilarious older brother.  We used to go out all the time and just talk about everything.  We would talk about how mom was a little too harsh sometimes on people and that it was pretty funny that dad would just push her buttons when she would get annoyed by the little things.  My youngest brother, Ponyboy, well he just downright terrifies me the way their deaths changed him.  He didn't use to be so dreamy all the time, he always had a big imagination, but this time it's different, he tried to follow mom and dad's souls up to heaven and got stuck somewhere between space and the East Side.  Sodapop though, he seemed to take it the healthiest, he wasn't shy about bawling and howling like an idiot at the funeral.  He had to express how he felt, so he did.  But one thing that did change was the side of him people usually forgot about started to rear its ugly head just a little more every once in a while.  Soda is charming and nice, but he's also reckless and clumsy and he won't look before he just starts running.  I'm not trying to  but my brothers in  a bad light though, I certainly haven't been perfect since the accident either.

             Jean's dad was in the army, and her mom was a nurse, so they got along pretty okay.  She wasn't by any means rich, but she surely never had a shortage of cash by the end of the month.  Her house was just a quick bus ride from my neighborhood, it was two stories, well kept, and all the bathrooms were pink.  I knocked on the door and not even a second later it was the bermuda triangle of "can you answer that?" between her and her parents.  It was her mom who came to the door, she was a real neat lady.  Joan's mom was actually real tough, she had a hard life as a kid and she don't have the easiest job in the world.

    "Hello Marls!  Don't you look like a doll tonight?"  She smiled up at me, I am pretty tall for a girl and I usually tower over most ladies I meet. 

   "Thank-you Mrs. Massey, it's just my school clothes, but I figured it would be alright for tonight, ha," I tried my best to sound like a nice girl, but she was just so damn down to earth I really don't think she'd judge me too harsh.  She let me in and walked me all the way to Jean's room, asking about my brothers and if Pony was proud of himself that he came in 2nd at his last track meet.  It was nice talking to a mom.

      Jean popped up from the floor when I walked in, "You ready to leave soon?  I just gotta find my lipstick and Sophie will be here soon, we're gonna get burgers at Dairy Queen on the way out of  town, my mom gave me food money if any of us need."  she spoke briskly and with a butt-load of excitement. 

   "Yeah I'm all set" I giggled quietly as she threw tubes of makeup to the floor trying to find her token lipstick. She got it and we tumbled down the stairs just as Sophie was pulling up to the house.

[girlsbtrs]

Growing Up One Step Behind Lorde

Written By Lila Danielsen Wong. Graphic by Paula Nicole. 

It’s late July of 2015. It’s a little past two a.m. and I’m in the basement of my parents house. My parents left me home alone for a night, so I did what any newly 16-year-old would do; I got a bottle of cheap vodka from someone’s older brother and threw my very first small party. Two of my closest friends are sleeping inches away. Out of my cheap drugstore headphones come a slow synth build, sounding distant and underwater. It erupts into a pulse, just too fast to be a heartbeat. Lorde’s “Ribs” pushes on in all its teenage glory. “Mom and Dad let me stay home,” she tells me before confiding “it drives you crazy getting old.” In the next pre-chorus this morphs into the more tender, “I’ve never felt more alone, it feels so scary getting old.” 

Before a live performance of “Ribs” in 2014, barely 18-year-old Lorde tells the audience that she wrote this song about a big party she had when her parents left town when she was 16. She was with her best friend afterwards at 4 a.m. unsuccessfully trying to go to sleep. He asked her what was wrong, and she said, regarding the party, “There’s something really crazy about throwing a party like this and doing something this huge. It feels grown up, and it feels like a rite of passage, and that's cool. It's cool to do stuff for the first time, but it also really freaks me out because once you do something that feels grown up it's really hard to come back, and if you've only ever been a kid the thought of having to be an adult is really terrifying.”

Three years after Lorde had this conversation with her friend, I’m sitting in my own basement all the way across the world after my own party listening to that very song and letting every word vibrate through my entire self. It feels so scary getting old, but hearing a girl from suburban New Zealand say exactly what I was thinking makes me feel a little bit less “so alone.”

In 2013, Ella Yelich O’Connor wrote an EP called The Love Club with local musician Joel Little and put it on Soundcloud under the name Lorde. To the surprise of both of them, it blew up. After collecting 60,000 downloads, UMG released it commercially and it managed to hit the charts in New Zealand and Australia. However, it was the release of “Royals” as a radio single that put Lorde on the international radar. 

“Royals” was penned as a sort of wry defiance to celebrity culture and a call out to it’s disconnect from the general public. She noticed that many popular musicians based their clout on trashing hotel rooms and diamond watches, and this was so removed from her and her friends, at a house party not knowing if they would get a ride home. “Royals” and The Love Club EP were followed by Lorde’s debut album, Pure Heroine, a collection of songs about “the feeling of being [her] age” and “the weird social issues that come with being a teenager.” 

After her global success made her visible worldwide, those who would be attracted to listen beyond “Royals” and become fans were fellow teens at fellow parties who also were “counting dollars on the train to the party”. 

In 2017, Lorde released Melodrama. If  Pure Heroine is about what it’s like to be a teenager, Melodrama captures life as a fledgling adult. Lorde has said that Melodrama is an album about a break up. She also has called it a concept album about a house party, telling The New York Times “it’s a record about being alone. The good parts and the bad parts.” 

This release coincided with my high school graduation. It was the soundtrack of my final months of childhood and what I listened to through the transition to the next phase of life. 

I spent my first year after high school in my hometown. I remember sitting in my house in September after all my friends had left for college and listening to “Liability”. My parents had left for a weekend trip and I was home alone, this time with no one to invite over. “Liability” is the second single from Melodrama. It’s a stripped piano ballad about the depths of insecurity, driving people away until you find yourself startlingly alone. “Every perfect summer’s eating me alive until you’re gone,” she sings; getting older comes stark changes in social circles and lifestyles, some of which can leave periods of time in which you find yourself startlingly alone.

I related to these feelings of disconnect and isolation and felt the song intimately just as I had felt “Ribs” two years earlier. Whereas the loneliness in “Ribs“ was the feeling of distance from everything you know when you’re on the cusp of adulthood; this loneliness comes from the other side of this cusp, when you look up and everything has changed. Melodrama ushered me into adulthood, and Lorde was like a voice from the future reassuring me that this was normal. If two years ahead of me Lorde the international star was sitting in a taxi feeling the exact same way I was feeling, then perhaps this happens to everyone and is just part of growing up. 

The following summer, after a party I helped someone else host, I put on “Ribs” before I went to bed and was surprised to find that it didn’t “vibrate through my entire self” anymore. That stage of coming of age had come and gone for me. 

The parties in Melodrama had grown up too; we’re no longer worried about getting caught by our parents. “Green Light,” the lead single, Lorde described as a song about the girl at the party who is a crying mess but doesn't seem to care. “Sober” asks about the morning after; “But what will we do when we’re sober?” “Liability” is looking in the mirror and not feeling so great about who you are and where you are. Growing up is reframed as self-discovery, mainly through the common young adult experience of a house party. 

Sometimes, this is where I lose her. 

In “Sober II” she cites the “glamour and the trauma,” and my life is nowhere near “glamourous”. The desperate feverishness of these more grown up parties of Melodrama are not what my life looked like. At the end of the day, I was reminded that she’s a pop star who already has her life financially set for her, and I was a college student with a limited social life and a whole lot of homework. 

I wonder if I am just ready for the next album to usher me into the next phase of my life, or if this is this where our paths diverge.

Although the reception of “Solar Power” has been relatively positive, some fans noticed that the new single was missing some of the, well, angst of her previous catalogue. This is especially striking because for a lot of us this year has been somewhere on the spectrum of angsty to agonizing. Her most recent release, “Stoned at the Nail Salon,” ponders the nature of being settled. This second release contextualized not only “Solar Power,” but also why some fans may be feeling a little disconnected from her newest era. I listen to Lorde talk about how she loves her quiet, stable life, with “the vine hangin' over the door, and the dog who comes when [she] calls” from the corner of my sublet of someone’s living room, which I rent as I apply for yet another job that isn’t really hiring because of covid or is going to be taken by one of the millions of 2020 and 2021 graduates who got a serious delay on their quest for the peace and stability Lorde is talking about. This is not to say that me or any of her other listeners won’t relate to her new music, especially as she sprinkles in lines such “as all the music you loved at sixteen, you'll grow out of”, but it’s still up in the air whether or not the fact that she is a wealthy pop singer from New Zealand will finally effect her ability to “vibrate souls” of her younger fan base like she once did. 

Lorde’s fanbase is just enough younger than her that, so far, once she has written an album about whatever phase of life she just went through, they are on the cusp of experiencing it. Teenagers are known for their “no one understands me” angst, and growing up one step behind Lorde reminded me how deeply universal the feelings and experiences that came with growing up are. Whether it’s coming from a teenage girl from suburban New Zealand (who must have been way cooler than me because her first party topped mine by about 100 more people) or a full blown star crying in a New York taxi, Lorde captured the most intimate moments of youth, offered them as a preview of the next age to her young fan base, and gently reassured them that these glimpses of fear and loneliness are perhaps what unites us as humans who are slowly but somehow rapidly getting older. However, how much longer will her experiences be this universal? As an artist whose fan base is largely built around her ability to connect and relate, will she be able to maintain this intimate connection as her life looks significantly different from most of the people she entertains? Perhaps the appeal of the Solar Power era will be more in the preview of the growing security of your mid-late twenties. Perhaps none of the differences of her lifestyle and her fan base will matter, because she will continue doing what she does best, stripping memories down to their universal truths, and feeding them back to a slightly younger generation with just a bit of dramatic lighting. 

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorde

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88oR5GjjZ6k

https://genius.com/Lorde-royals-lyrics

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2013/10/24/5-things-to-know-about-lorde/?utm_term=.1072aea0ec9c

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/magazine/the-return-of-lorde.html

https://www.thenation.com/article/lorde-grows-up/

[themodernsouthernpolytheist]

Can you talk a bit about Southern folk magic? What's that like? How'd you learn it? What makes it distinctly Southern?

@erynn-lafae​ First, I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you! I was so excited for this ask, but life just got in the way. I’m also gonna tag @winebrightruby​ cause I know she asked me a long time ago and I never really got to discuss it. 

So, I’ll start with a little background on the term “Southern Folk Magic.” Obviously, hopefully anyway, the term is to denote regional variations of folk magic practiced in the US South. That said, I use it as an umbrella term for the practices that happen Down South because there are TONS. We tend to talk about the South as a whole, but what many folks from outside the region don’t seem to realize is just how much diversity there is down here. Like I mentioned here, there are tons of subregions in the South and just as our food, accents, and dialects are different, so can our magical practices be. My personal experiences have been in Memphis/Mississippi Delta/North Mississippi and Knoxville/East Tennessee/Southern Appalachia. I’ll be addin Atlanta and hopefully North Georgia to that list soon, but not quite yet. 

For those not from the Delta region, Memphis is often jokingly referred to as “the capitol of Mississippi.” This is largely cultural and demographic and I’ve long said “Memphis will always be more Mississippi than it’s ever been Tennessee.” And the older I get, the more true that seems to be. According to the 2010 census, Mississippi has a 37% Black population. It has also seen the largest increase in people reporting to be of “mixed race.” Memphis has a 61% Black population, with many of these folks bein the direct descendants of freed slaves who moved out of the rural South and into a city. And in West Tennessee, which runs from the Western border of the state to the western bifurcation of the Tennessee river and represented by the far left star on our state flag, even small towns often have 30%+ Black populations whereas Knoxville, the largest city in East Tennessee, only has a 13% Black population. So the folk magic I grew up around in Memphis is largely influenced by Black folks whereas East Tennessee Appalachian folk magic is much more influenced by Cherokee and Scots-Irish practices. 

So, when I moved to Knoxville for college, it was absolute culture shock. I wasn’t actively or knowingly practicing magic at that point, but the foundations had been laid. I got a blue doormat for the front door because that’s what you do. Now I realize this comes from a West African idea that harmful spirits can’t cross water and the blue doormat (or painting the underside of your porch roof) will hopefully confuse em. I’ve since learned this is common in Carolina Lowcountry from the Gullah-Geechee people, so I’m not sure the exact lineage of me learnin it, but it’s somethin I still do. Little things like this abound and I honestly only think about it when I find myself doin one of em.

Another tradition I grew up around is water-witchin water dowsing. The first time I heard the term as a kid, I was confused, but both of my grandparents on my daddy’s side could do it and it basically involves balancin a forked stick and when it drops, that’s where you dig your well. Other people use 2 sticks or metal rods and wait for em to cross. Either way, it seems to work.

I also wear a dime on a red string on my right ankle for good luck and to avert “the evil eye.” This is somethin a childhood friend’s grandmother made for me the first time sayin, “honey, you just need it.” And I think she was right. This is a practice that, from what I’ve read, also comes from African tradition, but specifically what or where has been all over West Africa. But the red string also carries over into Irish lore on good luck and as a Gaelic Polytheist, it makes a perfect blend of practices for me. There’s also what I feel like is a broder American tradition that comes to us likely from the Irish of hangin a horseshoe above the door. Modern folklore says to hang it points up so that the “luck doesn’t run out,” but it also seems to do have to do with the idea that horseshoes are traditionally iron and the fae don’t like iron. In East Tennessee, it’s not unheard of to see a tree with ribbons or scraps tied to it. The type of tree varies, but the idea is similar to Buddhist prayer flags (for a more recognized practice) and seems to come from the Gaels that settled in the area. But over heard people say it has Indigenous ties, too. How much of that is true and how much is “Cherokee Princess Syndrome” as I like to call it, I just don’t know. That’s one thing about bein down here; we’ve created a string cultural identity that, regardless of how it happened, mashed cultural practices together that there’s just no tellin where some of em exactly come from. And that’s honestly part of what makes it “Southern.” Our culture is an amalgamation of various African cultures, Irish and German immigrants, Acadians, French and Spanish historical colonization and influence, and countless indigenous cultures. If the stories of how that happened weren’t so absolutely mortifying, it could be beautiful, but we’ll always carry the wounds and scars of the past, imo. As for how I learned, it’s been a wild ride. A lot of things I just learned culturally growin up. When you’re “born in the South, given to a town raised on hand to mouth,” a lot of things I’d now qualify as folk Magic are just a part of life. But as I’ve grown and begun intentionally practicing, I’ve read everything I can. Lots of times, this means pickin through charlatans and pseudo-intellectual horseshit. It means often bein VERY wary of other white folks claimin to know anything about anything. I’ve talked to older folks who practice and try to learn what they’re willin to teach. But it’s been a tough road. And that, along with other historical factors, are why I don’t use terms like hoodoo for my practice. I think hoodoo is a form of Southern Folk Magic, but it also has its own specific history and practices ties to the Christianization and slavery of African peoples. I’ve found a lot of similarities in my practices and Hoodoo™, but I also have a much more heavy and specific Irish influence because of bein a Gaelic Polytheist than a lot of other folks. So, as with most topics, it’s incredibly nuanced and I’m sure I’ve left somethin out or even said somethin that wasn’t super clear, so if there are any questions, shoot! And if there are any other folks that practice Southern Folk Magic or Southern-influenced Magic, hit me up! I’d love to hear from y'all cause lord does it feel lonely sometimes. We can pm here, send me asks, hit me up on twitter, or shoot me an email at TheModernSouthernPolytheist@gmail.com.  

[chrisanthony88]

Nick 28/100 “I was born and raised in Santa Monica.” Did you go to SaMo [Santa Monica High School]? “Yeah. I went to Grant Elementary, John Adams Middle School, and Santa Monica High School. The full Malibu Unified School District curriculum.” Isn't SaMo known for celebrities attending their high school? “Robert Downey Jr., Charlie Sheen. When we went there Mel Gibson’s twin kids went there for like half a semester and the rumor was that they were sent there as punishment. They’re like, ‘Here’s some public school for ya.’ I didn’t even know they were there when it happened. Actually Santa Monica is one of the largest populated high schools. I think there’s like two thousand students on campus at all time, which is unheard of, you know. Venice High was like the second, like 1,500, and then there’s like Palisades and Malibu High. Those were the Northsiders,” chuckles Nick. What was it like growing up in Santa Monica? “Santa Monica, you know you hear like, quiet, friendly beach town, it is not friendly or quiet by any means. It is such a small city that has like, I mean like, gangs. There like five gangs in a five mile radius. Your Graveyard Crips, which are right across the street from Santa Monica College, your SM 13, basic Santa Monica thirteen gangbangers, Venice Shortline Crips, you know those three gangs, it was crazy. There was like murders all the time, and by senior year homies were gettin’ shot and like dyin’ and like holding services for these fools. Our football team, we never had a good football team because we were all a bunch of gangsters and we could never finish practice on time, and we never showed up, and you know when we did show up to play they wouldn’t play us ‘cause we’re a bunch of assholes. So it’s crazy, like Santa Monica was such a diverse group of just like beach kids and thugs, and just everything you can think of, it’s crazy.” So where in Santa Monica did you grow up? “Twenty-third and Ocean Park. Man I remembered my mom payed about $650 a month in rent for a single standing unit house, you know a two bedroom, one bathroom, it was awesome, and I was looking recently in the neighborhood, it’s a twenty-seven ($2,700) and over month place,” says Nick laughing. $650 a month in Santa Monica? “Yeah. Yeah it was unbelievable. It was the best, and Santa Monica is cool, lot of side streets and then alleyways everywhere so we can always just get to anywhere we needed to get then through an alleyway.” So where was a go to spot in high school? What did you do for fun? “Well, there were go to spots, like I was riding the bus in like fourth grade, that’s when I started riding the bus, it was fifty cents to ride the bus, so the Santa Monica bus line took us everywhere. So there was always 3rd Street Promenade and Santa Monica Pier. The 3rd Street Promenade was like the spot throughout middle school and high school, and you know they’re broken up in those blocks before they did all those renovations. The third block was called the ‘Promenade Rats,’ that’s where all the Promenade Rats would hang out, literally because the kids would have rats hanging on their shoulders. We wanted to be like those kids so we’d go hang out with them and smoke, and sneak into theaters and shit.” I thought they would be called Promenade Rats because they were rocking a rat tail [hairstyle], like back in the 90’s. “Oh, yeah the rat tail!” laughs Nick. “No, it’s because they had an actual rat tail hangin’ off their shoulder from a rat.” Was the 3rd Street Promenade as built up as it is now? “No, no. They put in those statues of the dinosaurs and stuff, and the fountains, so that brought a lot of attention so people would crowd around the fountains, so it wasn’t like really cool to hang out there and be a punk anymore. The Santa Monica Pier they had torn down all the old shit that we loved and put in a rollercoaster and a huge ferris wheel, so that kinda killed that. We stopped going there. The beach man, it was tough ‘cause you get on the bus in West LA because everyone was using their grandparents address so they can go to SaMo High with the rest of their friends, so we were one of those families that would use my grandma’s address, livin’ in West LA, taking the bus there, and man it was so hard to get off the bus when you can just sit on for two more stops and be at the beach and just chill at the ocean all day, you know. It was the best place. So it was tough, you know you’d be like, ‘We’ll go back second period. Ah, crap. We’ll go back third period. Oh, well, no point of going back now.’ That was always tricky.” How do you feel when you go to Santa Monica now? “It’s changed,” laughs Nick. “It’s all changed. Even in the last like, when I was working in Santa Monica like ten years ago, it changed so much just from then, you know. They put in that new Gold Line train, so just every couple intersections, just massive train construction for a bridge or stairway to get to the bridge.” Do you feel it has changed for the better or worse? “Umm. It’s hard to say, you know. It’s not the old Santa Monica, Old Santa Monica was chill. I guess in the sense that no one can afford to live there anymore, that’s not for the better.” Los Angeles is known for many things, one of which is the Entertainment Industry, and it is a well know fact that many individuals in the industry are not originally from Los Angeles, and is somewhat rare to find someone that is a Los Angeles native. What’s a big misconception or stereotype that many people have about Los Angeles or Angelenos? “The stereotypical thing would be something you see on Saturday Night Live. How people talk about how many highways it takes to get around the corner here and there, and we’re all laid back. I took a cross country trip with my buddies when I was seventeen, and it’s a whole different universe in between LA and New York, you know, and that’s what runs this country. And so I would say it’s easy to feel like once you’re here, born and raised here [Los Angeles] you feel like, ‘Well this is how it is everywhere.’ You can’t help but think like, ‘This must be how it is everywhere else,’ and that trip really taught me that, no it’s not. That we are a collection of the world’s top entrepreneurs, you know everyone comes here for a reason and that’s to get a great gig. There’s definitely opportunity out here and so I don’t blame people for flooding, but to answer your question, ‘A misconception?’ Yeah we’re not all laid back surfers that are doing yoga, or like hang gliding from the mountain tops, it’s a struggle out here. It’s not easy-going, never is, never has been.” So what did you do after you graduated high school? “I was wrapping up my pilot license. I got into flying real young, that was something my grandparents thought would be like a really good umm, school wasn’t my biggest thing, you know I stuck it out and finished it, but there was a little college money set aside and we kinda pow wowed and thought flight school could really hone some skills and put to use, and maybe become a private pilot or a commercial airline pilot. So I did that at the same time through high school and I think I got started too young, I got tired of just flying around by myself, or when I did have my private just the idea of flying one person to the next place, I just became a chauffeur to the skies.” What were you flying, a Cessna? “Yeah, Cessna, and later I moved onto multi-engine and got a little practice in the turbine engines and stuff and that’s when I realized this really isn’t what I want to do. We spent like fifteen grand in college fund to get there, and then the big kick in the pants was they had changed the rules to where you had to have a BA (Bachelor’s degree) to be a commercial pilot and that was the whole point was you didn’t need that. You needed a high school education and you needed a pilot license, and then hours, and so that changed. I could have been an instructor you know it’s just more of the same. Logging hours while someone is paying you to fly the plane. You know that tanked and I started working, making good money working. I graduated early, I graduated in February as opposed to June. I discovered summer school and college credits and everything to just graduate as soon as possible and start working. I moved out when I was seventeen with my buddies, you know we got a killer place together, threw the best parties, everyone worked, we just had to choke together like $1,200 dollars a month rent between the three of us. So that kept going for, you know we moved from that place to another place to Hermosa Beach, and that place was insane!” Nick lets out a laugh. “That was party central. We would bring the whole pier back to the house with us.” What season of your life are you in? “I think I feel like I’m definitely learning a lesson. I’m growing and learning from mishandling a lot of funds over the past ten years. Definitely that’s bitin’ me in the ass, so I’m like, you know kinda just like...I’m adjusting. Like to quote Eminem in 8 mile, ‘You know when you gotta stop tryin’ to live up here and start livin’ down here?’” Nick laughs. “You know things like that. I think, umm, desperation creates innovation and here I am with the Flick Nelix, and realizing this is something within my means that I can fully wrap my mind around from the beginning to end and make it happen. So that’s where I’m at. I’m starting to realize that I gotta get my shit together soon ‘cause or else it’s tough livin’ out here. West of the 405 is not for the weak.” Did you always have a passion for bikes? “Yeah, growing up that was, man, until I discovered chicks and pot it was all about just anything action sports related. Just cycling, skating, snowboarding, surfing, volleyball, just everything, so I’m tryin’ to dial back to those roots ‘cause it’s tough sometimes to find a passion and for me it’s being creative. Any opportunity to be creative, let alone get paid to be creative is the dream. So if I can sit around and conceptualize a bike and take it from a vision to a physical being, it’s very gratifying, and I get really pumped and excited about it, and not a lot does that these days.” So why vintage bikes? “Because I know that there’s a growing market in it and everything comes around full circle every so decades and I caught wind of this 70’s wave of old racing bikes, English road bikes, and it all started when I started restoring my uncle’s bike just for fun, just to get back into a hobby and then just going through the process and learning more about that process, and about that era of bicycling and it just ramped up from there. I saw how much potential there was and how little people were doing. Any opportunity to be creative is the direction I’m heading.” How did you start Flick Nelix? “Aside from tryin’ to open up my passion for cycling, I’ve recently learned how avid a road cyclist my uncle was, and I remember him showin’ up to the house to family events, and he’d ridden his bike from God knows where and he’d show up all broken and bruised and bleeding ‘cause some asshole ran him off the road, or you know he took a spill, or he was with a pot of bikes and got wrapped up, and I started remembering these things and I was just like, ‘Man, we owe it to him.’ He had passed away back in like 2002, 2003, so his bike had been sitting around in storage for that long [fourteen years] and I just remembered seeing this relic of a bicycle, and obviously I’ve been watching some shows on restoration and stuff like that and I figured ‘I love this, this is fascinating, I wish I had something to restore.’ Sure enough, there it is, it’s been waiting for me the whole time, so I gave it a go. I look into the best way to restore an old 70’s English road bike, and the way to go is you’re gonna paint it, you gotta powder coat it so it will never rust again, find the original decals, the original components, make sure everything is polished nice and bright and clean, and once I got to that point I realized that when it’s finished and it’s beautiful, it’s gettin’ tons of compliments, I was takin’ pictures of it, gettin’ a good response online, and I started to realize that there was money in this to be made. It’s not a whole lot of money but you know if I can make a couple hundred bucks here and there, a couple thousand bucks at the end of the month, it makes sense to me.” What was the story behind the name, Flick Nelix? “My name is Nick Felix and an old co-worker buddy of mine out of sheer boredom started calling me Flick Nelix, which is just a simple twist of the lettering of the name. I guess it stuck with me and then years later, you know I’m just shootin’ the shit, havin’ drinks, good friends and thinkin’ about, you know, ‘It’d be cool to get a cycling company going, maybe sponsor some riders, or start machining custom parts for bikes,’ and I asked my buddy, ‘What do you think about Flick Nelix?’ and he’s like, ‘It sounds like a trick, like a skateboard trick, like a double helix, a Flick Nelix.’ And we just got hyped on it and it stuck with me ever since, and when I did that restoration I kinda thought how I can brand it, you know. I’m not just flippin’ bikes like a Craigslist bike flipper, you know I’m restoring them to their former glory. The bike is worthy of a restoration process. Yeah, that’s how the name came about.” If you could go back in time ten, fifteen years, what is the single greatest piece of advice would you give yourself? “Dude, it’s so not exciting at all. It’d be, ‘Save for taxes.’” Nick laughs and adds, “But that was a unique situation that I was in that just fell on me like a pile of bricks, you know. Let see. I wouldn’t change any life decisions, I wouldn’t change any of my friendships, you know, I would…” Nick takes a moment of reflection. “You know it’s not fun stuff, it’s depressing, it be like maybe go back and help someone who wasn’t doing as well that didn’t make it as long as I did. Someone that may have taken their life, you know stuff like that I could have maybe have helped, things like that. Nothing really cool, like ‘Ah, man, I wished I never hooked up with that one crazy chick or something. I’ve got an answer that I would change. I would tell myself to never stress. Never ever stress. Especially over something you can’t fix or change on the spot, never stress. That’s what I would tell myself. Don’t worry, be happy, everything is going to be okay, you know.” What do you want to do before you die? “Getting in more traveling, as much traveling as possible. It’s all about traveling for me. This will always be home and it’s never going anywhere, so it’s okay to bail out of your hometown for a couple of years if you have to.” What do you like about traveling? “I guess the new experiences. I like just getting lost without ever having to worry about getting lost. I learn that when I drive, you know my worst is when I’m driving and I get like rage and then I start getting mixed up on directions and where I’m going, but when you’re on a road trip and you’re just tryin’ to get from, say like from here to New York, you can’t mess up as long as you’re just going one direction, you cannot go wrong. I remember that feeling on that trip I took when I was seventeen, I remember that feeling, never worrying about where we ended up or how much time is left in the day or whatever because it didn’t matter, and that’s what it’s like when you’re traveling.” What is your best friend going to say at your funeral? “I hear it to this day man, just fun to be around, and ahh, I don’t know, and I get that from my parents, I get that from my grandparents. We’re all just fun, happy going people. We rather laugh than bicker, you know, that’s just the way it is. In my family it was easier to be a friend than a parent figure, a grandfather figure, a grandma figure, let’s all just have fun together and not take things too serious.” 72 stories to go.

[miss-ladyy-blog]

Annette “Lady” Margaret Grant -- Character Sheet

saturday night she's rockin' out by the bonfire / foot hangin' from that tail gate and crankin' up the dial / come sunday mornin' she'll be singing with the choir / drivin' me crazy with that kiss me smile

there's a little bit of devil in her angel eyes / she's a little bit of heaven with a wild side / got a rebel heart a country mile wide

Archetype — The Innocent Birthday — September 5, 1995 Zodiac Sign — Virgo MBTI — INFJ Enneagram — 3; the Achiever Temperament — Melancholic Hogwarts House — Slythpuff Moral Alignment — Neutral Good Primary Vice — Gluttony Primary Virtue — Charity Element — Air

Overview:

Mother — Kathleen “Katie Erin” (nee Miller) (48) (FC: Valerie Bertinelli) Father — James Clancey Grant the III (50) (FC: Hugh Grant) Mother’s Occupation — homemaker Father’s Occupation — judge, holds seat on city council Family Finances — well off, not super rich but definitely comfortable Birth Order — eldest Brothers —  James Clancey Grant the IV (2, birthday: September 10, 2015) Sisters — none Other Close Family — Aunt Sarah (Jim’s sister) (47) (FC: Mädchen Amick); Grandma (Margaret Grant) (paternal grandmother); Grandpa (James Clancey Grant the II) (paternal grandfather); Grammy (Annette Miller) (maternal grandmother); Grampy (Robert Miller) (maternal grandfather); Uncle Robert Miller the II, Aunt Rose Miller, cousins: Robert the III (28) (wife: Allison, kids: Ronald (5), Nicholas (2)), Zachariah (24) (wife: Betsy, kids: Mary (1)), Jessica (20), Margaret (16); Uncle Nate Miller, Aunt Rachel Miller, cousins: Sarah Beth (25) (husband: Kevin Lund, kids: Matthew (1)), Andrew (24), Marisol (23); Uncle Josh Miller, Aunt Tina Miller, cousins: George (21), Martin (18) Best Friend — Constance Gutting (Kelly Marie Tran) (lowkey ex-girlfriend), Elizabeth Haynes, Nancy Boyd (sorority sisters); Jenny North and Kimberly O’Neill (best childhood friends) Other Friends — Aleatra (sorority chapter president), Adele, Margaret, Angela, Michelle, Debra (other sorority sisters) Enemies — rival sororities, Don Barker (ex who leaked nudes) Pets — none at the present time :( had a cocker spaniel back home named Precious and a chestnut quarter horse named King. Home Life During Childhood — it was good, her parents have a bit of a strained relationship, but overall kept up appearances around Lady, and she was definitely spoiled. When she turned 16, they told her the truth about being adopted, but Lady just kind of--elected to ignore it, at least on the surface. What did it matter? Her parents still loved her and everything. Things only got tense when her mom got pregnant. Her father is warm, but he’s also very serious and gone a lot, works long hours. Especially when she was a kid because he was a lawyer--he only recently graduated to judge. Her mom and her were really close until she got pregnant. Town or City Name(s) — Born in: Rincón, Puerto Rico; grew up in Atlanta, Georgia; specifically Ansley Park. What Did His or Her Bedroom Look Like — She’s had the same bedroom her whole life and has changed many times. But, it was always pretty organized. Soft pastel colors. It has a mural on one wall of rolling hills and a sunrise, that her mother painted when they were working on the adoption papers. The room is decorated to match those colors--pinks and yellows and reds. Any Sports or Clubs — She did softball in middle school, rode horses basically her whole life. Was on the newspaper for her high school. Was her class’ treasurer. Did a lot of charity work. Favorite Toy or Game — Is excellent at lots of board games--Clue and Monopoly are the ones she absolutely crushes at. Schooling — Private Catholic school for basically her entire life until college. Did well. Hardworker. Her grades slipped a little after she found out she was adopted, but she brought them up again quickly. Favorite Subject — English. Popular or Loner — Popular, but softspoken. A follower, not a leader. Important Experiences or Events — Finding out she was adopted. Her first boyfriend (when she was sixteen, his name was Patrick Banks, they broke up pretty amicably.) Her first girlfriend (Constance, was her sorority sister. They kept their relationship a secret. Broke up because Constance wanted to go #public.) Her nudes getting leaked. (By her boyfriend, who she broke up with after he showed up at the sorority house drunk one time, Don Barker. They sued him. (Part of her still loves him, because what they had was ~real.)) Nationality — American. She was just born in Rincón, Puerto Rico, but adopted within a year, and she doesn’t consider herself Puerto Ricanf. Culture — Southern American Religion and beliefs — Republican. Catholic.

Physical Appearance:

Face Claim — Denise Bidot Complexion — Dark, olive-y toned skin. Hair Colour — Dark, dark brown, but she’s dyed it before. Eye Colour — Brown Height — 5’11 Build — Curvy Tattoos — None Piercings — Ears Common Hairstyle — Long and wavy Clothing Style — Keeps up with the modern trends but errs on the conservative side of things Mannerisms — Talks with her hands. Nods a lot. Usual Expression —

Health:

Overall (do they get sick easily)? — Pretty hardy, only gets colds and such. Physical Ailments — None Neurological Conditions — None Allergies — None Grooming Habits — Very good. Uses face masks/hair masks. All good high-brow products for her makeup and lotion and stuff like that. Sleeping Habits — Sleeps pretty well. Can’t sleep in. Gets up at 8 almost every morning. Eating Habits — Eats pretty healthily, she’s pretty aware of her weight and doesn’t really like to eat around others except for small things. Which always made her family get-togethers hard. But, she definitely loves her Southern food. Exercise Habits — Does yoga. Goes for walks every morning. Is pretty in-shape. I give her a 6/10. Emotional Stability — Pretty good. She does the whole conceal, don’t feel thing. But she also tries to just push through things. Body Temperature — Runs a little hot. Sociability — She’s kind of nervous and quiet for the most part, a follower, not a leader. But, if she gets the hint of something she’s curious about she doesn’t let it go. Addictions — Sweet tea? Drug Use — None, usually. Has smoked pot before. Has done Molly. Alcohol Use — Binge drinks, but not often.

Your Character’s Character:

Bad Habits — doesn’t speak up for herself, timid, follower, too curious Good Habits — very courteous, also curious, kind, warm Best Characteristic — her curiosity Worst Characteristic — letting herself get pushed around Worst Memory — her break up with her girlfriend, Constance, and her boyfriend, Don--her photos getting leaked. Best Memory — getting inducted into Phi Mu Proud of — her status in Phi Mu Embarrassed by — her leaked nudes, her weight, the fact that she’s adopted. Driving Style — excellent driver, usually the DD for her friends, has a clean record. Strong Points — loyal, kind Temperament — mild, so mild, the most mild, even if she gets bothered, it is hard to annoy her. Attitude — very southern and charming, of course. Weakness — doing whatever people say Fears — that people won’t like her for who she is Phobias — doesn’t like the dark, or snakes, or spiders Secrets — she’s adopted, she is still in love with Don, she actually doesn’t want to be such a Good Girl, is resentful of her brother Regrets — breaking up with Constance/Don, Feels Vulnerable When — people talk about her weight or appearance or what she’s eating, etc, etc Pet Peeves — people who are rude Conflicts — wanting to break out and be rebellious v being afraid Motivation — to prove herself Short Term Goals and Hopes — explore Swynlake and all it has to offer Long Term Goals and Hopes — get married, settle down, start a life Sexuality — bisexual (closeted) Day or Night Person — day person, definitely Introvert or Extrovert — introverted, for sure Optimist or Pessimist — a little bit of both? I’d say more of an optimist for others, pessimist for herself

Likes and Styles:

Music — Country, of course! Loves Dixie Chicks, Lady Antebellum, Garth Brooks, Dierks Bentley. Both the more recent stuff and oldies. Though, she also loves some good pop music and more folky stuff too. She finds rap to be offensive and too “urban” and can’t understand why anyone would listen to something like that. Same with heavier stuff like rock’n’roll or screamo, etc, etc. Anything that shocks or offends is definitely not Lady’s cup of tea. She will go out of the way to listen to the clean versions of songs and I think that says a lot about her. Books — Gone with the Wind is her favorite. Her favourite book as a child was “Because of Winn-Dixie”; A Streetcar Named Desire, loves Pat Conroy and Nicholas Sparks. Also enjoys some Flannery O’Connor. Also enjoys In Cold Blood. Magazines — Oprah’s Magazine, The New Yorker, InStyle, Vogue, Country Living, Vanity Fair, The Weekly Standard, The American Conservative--she has a bit of a magazine addiction. Foods — Lady is very conscious about what she puts in her body. She’s certainly not vegetarian or a health nut, but she tries to balance herself. Though, that is hard to do with all the delicious Southern food. She loves ribs and barbecue and coleslaw and baked beans. Mashed potatoes and gravy. Chicken wings. And she absolutely adores sweets! She loves lemon drops and keeps boxes on her pretty much all the time. Drinks — Sweet tea, of course! Lady’s blood, she’s pretty sure, is sweet tea at this point. Chick-fil-a is the second best sweet tea to the one she makes at home and she used to go and get one almost every day. She was addicted. She’s gonna hate not having Chick-fil-a in Swynlake, or England really at all. Animals — Lady isn’t too much a fan of animals. She likes cute ones--dogs and cats and horses, but hates animals like rats/mice or possums. She believes they’re vermin that should be killed and dealt with. Hates snakes. Hates raccoons. Really she dislikes more animals than she likes probably. Sports — road horses, did softball when younger. Social Issues — right-leaning, is pro-life, things the gays shouldn’t get married (at least, outwardly, she’s still accepting that part of herself), is kind of afraid of people who seem “middle eastern” or uh like y’know just kind of in general American racist. You know. (Which is ironic bc she’s Mexican/Kuwaiti.) Favorite Saying — “After all, tomorrow is another day.” -- Scarlett O’Hara Color — Bright colors! Pinks and blues and reds and yellows--as long as it is bright! She also loves pastels, they are classic when it comes to fashion. Baby blues and powder pinks. She wears a lot of more neutral clothing too, but it is bright colors that make her the happiest and she will almost never be caught in something like black! Clothing — Her favorite stuff is her white dress for most Phi Mu events. Also loves her straw hats. Definitely a fan of her cowboy boots. She tends to dress modern/Southern. Owns way too much Lilly Pulitzer, probably. Jewelry — Her necklace of pearls is her favorite and she wears them to all special occasions. She wears jewelry to accessorize otherwise, but it’s usually costume jewelry. Websites — tumblr, instagram are her big ones TV Shows — Heartland, Pretty Little Liars, Gilmore Girls, Golden Girls, Gossip Girl (do you see the pattern here?) Movies — Gone with the Wind, of course, is a Southern classic. She also loves Under the Tuscan Sun. All Nicholas Sparks movies. Secret Life of Bees. Forrest Gump. Also loves musicals--loved La La Land when it came out and loves Wicked, Phantom of the Opera, etc. Not too sure about Hamilton. Some of the songs are good, but she doesn’t understand the hype. Greatest Want — to fit in somewhere Greatest Need — to accept herself

Where and How Does Your Character Live Now:

Home — She lives with her Aunt Sarah. She hates it. Household furnishings — Pretty modern. Nothing special. Favorite Possession — Her journals. Most Cherished Possession — Her pearls, they were her great grandmother’s. (Her older cousin Sarah Beth was pissed that Lady got them and she didn’t.) Neighborhood — Tortuga Place. Town or City Name — Swynlake Married Before — No. Significant Other Before — Patrick Banks, Constance Gutting, Don Barker Children — None Relationship with Family — A little strained, atm, but overall pretty good. Car — She had a black Chevy Sonic (2015) but not anymore. Career — Journalist for the Swynlake Squire. Dream Career — Journalist for Vogue or InStyle Dream Life — Married, writing a fashion blog, two kids, a dog. Love Life — Pretty nonexistent. Talents or Skills — Excellent writer, very organized, very good at taking care of people. Intelligence Level — Quite smart, rather intelligent.   Finances — Cut off, currently. Makes a meager wage at the Squire.