#1990s body spray

[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

I am so excited to have this in my collection! I got this in 6th grade and it's one of my top 3 Art Stuff scents. My BFF was in the other room when I found this on Ebay and she said she heard me repeatedly saying "omg omg omg omg omg" lol. I was so excited, I was lost for words cause I bet I said "omg" 15 times in a row lol

I want to get the little stars tattooed on my arm weaving in between all the tattoos already there, I love Art stuff and Sassy Starberry so fucking much!!!

Bath and Body Works Art Stuff Sassy Starberry Cosmic Cool Body Splash

1999-2000ish

My personal picture of my collection (woohoo!!!)

[d0llcuries]

hiii im new to your blog so idk all the rules yet but I was wondering if you could do a neteyam x navi reader ofc like when they first arrived to the reef you and tuk clicked immediately you both have a really close bond like you two spend a lot of time together weather it’s swimming together or making matching jewelry🩵 and that’s kinda how you and neteyam even started dating because of how much tuk would talk about you !!!! I hope this isn’t too much sorrrryyyy❤️ I love your work btwwww

TIDES THAT BROUGHT ME TO YOU

pairing(s): neteyam x fem!na'vi reader

summary: the sullys arrival to awal'atu causes a stir among your people, though you could care less about their presence. that is, of course, until a certain forest girl changes your mind

author's note: i fear there is an inexplicable pull within me to write yn as an absolute freakazoid in every oneshot i create. that being said, if you want yn to be normal in your request plspls specify her personality type otherwise she'll come out acting like winona rider from mermaids (1990). kinda fumbled this one too i should not be writing on my period ����

the first thing you notice about them is how thin they are.

their descent from the sky on their great winged beasts stirs up the sand in great, sweeping clouds, but it does nothing to hide the way their limbs, long and lean, cut through the air as they dismount. forest people. they move with a lightness, a caution that seems strange to you. the metkayina are not built like them. they are broader, bodies strong and firm, their muscles shaped by the tides and the weight of water. and their tails—their tails—eywa, they are so thin! practically useless. you wonder how they manage to balance at all.

you and tsireya emerge from the water, sliding off your ilus in one fluid motion, the cool spray of the ocean dripping from your skin as you wade through the shallows. the soft sand shifts beneath your feet, and your tail flicks lazily, trailing behind you as you approach ao’nung and rotxo, who stand together just ahead. tsireya pushes a strand of wet hair from her face, her movements graceful, her eyes immediately catching sight of the sully brothers—the skinnier of the two stares at her a little too long, his expression a mix of curiosity and something almost like awe.

you almost laugh when he nods in her direction, his voice low and far too confident. “hey.” (miles morales ahh)

tsireya’s face flushes a familiar shade of soft blue, and you cringe inwardly, the secondhand embarrassment hitting you like a wave. her reaction is painfully obvious, her wide eyes as she bends her head, a hesitant smile betraying her. you glance sideways, searching for a distraction, and rotxo is already there, as if sensing your discomfort.

“look at them,” he mutters under his breath, his voice pitched low so only you can hear. “how do they even manage with tails that thin?”

ao’nung, standing just beside him, snickers, his broad shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. it's the kind of laugh that is infectious, spreading like ripples across the surface of the sea, and even though you are not cruel—even though you know it’s wrong—you can’t help the small tug of a smile that curls at the corner of your mouth. it’s all in good fun, after all. forest people, clearly they have wandered too far from where they belong. surely they won’t be here for long.

it is not that you want to make fun of them, these strangers who have come to seek uturu, but something about them seems... wrong, somehow. misplaced.

you were still laughing when you caught neteyam’s eyes on you.

his gaze was steady, calm in a way that she didn’t expect, and she felt the weight of it like a shift in the tide. not accusing, not angry, but watching. taking her in as if she were something curious. something strange. her smile faded, the amusement leaving her as she pulled her gaze away, pretending not to care. what was he looking at?

you shift your weight slightly, your arms hanging loose at your sides as you observe the exchange between the sullys and tsireyas parents. she watches them with a quiet, thoughtful expression, her brows knitting together in concentration. there’s no judgment in her gaze, no hint of the amusement that had touched your own. she looks at them with nothing but curiosity, a flicker of compassion lighting her features. she catches your eye and raises an eyebrow, silently urging you to soften. you sigh, the weight of her gentle disapproval settling over you. of course tsireya would be the first to see beyond appearances. she always does.

you’ve known her for as long as you can remember, since you were both small and would spend your days swimming out into the open waters, daring each other to dive deeper, pushing your lungs to their very limits. she has always been the heart of your little group, the steady, guiding force that tempers ao’nung’s bravado and rotxo’s sharp-edged laughter. where they tease and taunt, she soothes, her voice like the steady rhythm of the waves, always pulling you all back to center.

it’s no surprise, then, that you find yourself drawn into spending more time with the newcomers, tsireya’s gentle insistence pulling you along as she helps guide them through the early days of their stay. you are metkayina; you know the ways of the water, the ebb and flow of the tides, the secrets that the ocean keeps. it’s your responsibility to teach them how to live in this world, even if you don’t want to.

at first, you hang back, letting tsireya do most of the talking, watching as she shows them how to breathe, how to move, how to swim like the metkayina do. it was exhausting just to look at them. lo’ak struggles to hold his breath, his frustration palpable as he tries again and again to stay underwater. kiri moves with a sort of distracted grace, her attention more focused on the creatures of the reef than the lesson itself. you observe them with detached interest, your thoughts drifting like the waves.

you don’t care about them. you don’t.

and then, tuk happens.

you hadn’t meant to pay attention to her. in fact, you had barely noticed her at all in the beginning, the youngest of the sully siblings blending into the background behind her older brothers and sister. but tuk has a way about her, a brightness that’s impossible to ignore. she’s all wide-eyed curiosity and boundless energy, so unlike the others, who carry the weight of their family’s uncertainty like a heavy cloak. while they are cautious, tuk embraces everything around her with an infectious enthusiasm that makes her impossible to overlook.

you catch her one day after a particularly long lesson, her small hands fumbling with a piece of seaweed, attempting to braid it into her hair for whatever reason. her brow is furrowed in frustration, her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration, and something about her determination—her fierce little spirit—draws you in before you even realize what you’re doing.

“like this,” you murmur, kneeling beside her and gently taking the seaweed from her hands. your fingers work quickly, weaving the strands together with ease. “you have to twist it more. it’s not like the vines in the forest.”

tuk’s eyes widen, her expression lighting up with awe. “wow! you’re really good at that!”

and that’s it. from that moment on, you can’t seem to shake her. tuk becomes your shadow, or maybe it’s the other way around. wherever you go, she’s there, trailing after you with an endless stream of questions, her small footsteps pattering through the sand as she tries to keep up with your longer strides. her curiosity knows no bounds, and you find yourself drawn into her orbit, unable to resist the bright spark of joy that seems to follow her everywhere.

the first time she swims with you, her movements are awkward, her limbs too quick and too stiff, and she sputters as she breaks the surface, her wide eyes filled with frustration. “it’s too hard!” she huffs, pushing wet hair from her face. “i’ll never be as good as you.”

“you will,” you say gently. “you just have to feel the water. do not fight it.”

tuk frowns, unconvinced, but she doesn’t give up. over the days, you watch as she grows bolder, more confident in the water. you teach her how to control her breathing, how to let go of her fear, and she listens, her small face set in determined concentration. she clings to your arm after each lesson, her bright laughter ringing in your ears as she pulls you back to the beach.

and with tuk, inevitably, comes neteyam.

at first, you barely notice his presence, too busy entertaining tuk. he lingers on the outskirts of your time with her, watching from a distance, never quite joining in but never too far away either. it’s easy to forget he’s there, his quiet nature blending into the background.

but neteyam has a way of making himself known, even in his silence.

it starts small. you feel his gaze on you more often, the weight of it something you try to ignore at first. he never says much, never interrupts your time with tuk, but you notice him lingering just a bit closer with each passing day, his tall frame casting a shadow over you and tuk as she chatters on about whatever has caught her attention in that moment. sometimes, you catch him smiling—those soft, fleeting smiles that seem to disappear before you can fully register them. they’re rare, but when they happen, they make your heart stutter, a strange warmth blooming in your chest that you quickly dismiss.

he’s deliberate, thoughtful, always watching, always observing. you can feel his attention like the gentle pull of the tide, steady and unyielding. it’s unsettling, but not in a way that you dislike. in fact, if you’re honest with yourself, it’s kind of... comforting.

tuk even speaks about him sometimes, her admiration for him clear in every word. “neteyam would love this,” she says one day, as you show her to repair a torn fishnet. “he’s so good at everything. you’d like him, i think.”

tuk had been telling you some story about their home in the forest, her small hands moving animatedly as she spoke, when neteyam quietly joined the two of you. he folded his legs beneath him, watching with that same gentle expression he always wore when tuk was around. you paused, hands stilling over the bracelet you were working on, and glanced at him out of the corner of your eye.

“you do not have to stop,” he said, his voice low and easy, the corners of his lips lifting in a small smile. “i am just here to watch.”

you thought about running away, getting up and leaving after making a up some excuse to remind them that you had better things to do than sit with them in the sand making bracelets. something about the way he spoke—his voice so warm and unhurried—caught you off guard. the way your heart bested faster when he was around, the way you caught yourself blushing like tsireya whenever lo'ak opened his mouth was... unusual. it unsettled you in a way you couldn’t quite put into words.

the three of you sat there in comfortable silence as you finished the bracelet, your hands working on autopilot while tuk chattered on, oblivious to the subtle shift in the air between you and her brother. you were grateful for her presence, for the way she kept things light without realizing it. by the time you tied the last knot and secured the bracelet around tuk’s wrist, you hadn’t noticed that neteyam had been watching you the whole time, with a softness that made you feel like he wasn’t just looking at you. he was seeing you.

“you are good at that,” he said quietly, his voice barely louder than the sound of the waves.

you tightened your grip on the edge of the bracelet you’d been working on for yourself, gaze dropping to the sand. “i have had practice.”

he nodded, still watching you. the weight of his gaze felt like a physical thing, pressing against your skin, exposing you in a way that made you feel uneasy. you were used to keeping your distance, keeping your indifference like a shield between you and his family. you had learned to tune it out, the presence of others—your people, the sullys—but with neteyam, it was different. you couldn’t ignore him the way you did the rest. but neteyam was quiet, his presence like the sea on a still morning, surrounding you without making a sound. you liked that.

as the sun dipped lower, casting warm golds and pinks across the sand, you tied the final knot and slid the bracelet onto your wrist. it wasn’t perfect—nothing ever was—but it felt right, the weight familiar against your skin. you held it up, inspecting your work, twisting your wrist slightly to catch the fading light.

“that one is beautiful,” neteyam said softly, his eyes on the small woven beads, the shells glinting like scattered stars. his gaze flicked to your wrist, then back to your face. “you should make me one.”

you blinked, your lips parting in surprise. “you want me to make you a bracelet?”

he smiled then, a small thing that felt like it could crack open the horizon. “well, you made one for tuk. i feel a little left out.”

you glanced at tuk, who was too busy showing off her new bracelet to the other children playing by the water to notice the exchange.

“i do not know,” you said slowly, turning the bracelet on your wrist. “i do not usually make things for people.”

neteyam tilted his head, his expression open, waiting. “you made one for tuk.”

“you do not even like it here,” you said suddenly, sharper than you intended. the words left your mouth before you could stop them, and you could see the flicker of surprise in his eyes. he opened his mouth to respond, but you continued before he could speak, your voice quieter this time. “you do not like us.”

the truth of it lingered in the space between you. you hadn’t forgotten the way they’d arrived, tense and uncertain, the way his brother had snapped at you and your people, the way his parents had worn their worry like a second skin. they didn’t belong here, and they knew it. the thought had made you laugh at first, but now, sitting here with neteyam, you didn’t know how to feel about it.

for a long moment, he was silent, his gaze turning out toward the sea, his expression unreadable. the light of the setting sun cast long shadows across the sand, and you could hear the distant calls of the other children as they played by the water. tuk’s laughter echoed somewhere nearby, but it felt distant, like the tide pulling away from the shore.

“you are right,” neteyam said finally, his voice low. “we do not belong here.”

the words were a simple acknowledgment, but they landed heavy between you, pressing down on your chest. you didn’t know why it bothered you to hear it. they didn’t belong. that was obvious. but there was something in the way he said it—something quiet, resigned—that made you realize just how heavy that truth must have felt for him, for all of them.

“but we are trying,” he added after a moment, his voice soft. “we are doing our best. even if it does not seem like it.”

your fingers tightened around the bracelet on your wrist, the edges rough against your skin. you could feel the weight of his gaze again, warm and steady, and for the first time, you met his eyes without looking away. there was something in them, something that caught you off guard. not sadness, exactly. not defeat. but acceptance. a quiet understanding that maybe, just maybe, you weren’t so different after all.

you swallowed, your throat suddenly dry. “i will make you a bracelet,” you said, your voice barely more than a whisper. “if you still want one.”

neteyam smiled again, that small, warm curve of his lips that felt like it could light up the entire ocean. “i would like that.”

over time, it became harder to stay distant, your walls cracking under the weight of his quiet companionship. you didn’t even realize how much you’d begun to change, how your awkwardness softened, until one day you caught yourself laughing at something neteyam had said—really laughing, not the half-smile you usually gave. it wasn’t that you’d stopped being strange or different, but it didn’t matter so much anymore. neteyam had a way of making you feel like it was okay to be the way you were, that there was no need to force yourself into shapes that didn’t fit. the space between you that once felt wide now felt smaller, warmer, and for the first time in a long while, you didn’t mind the closeness.

he listened, the way he understood things without needing to say them. they spent more time together, sometimes with tuk, sometimes just the two of them, and slowly, quietly, something grew between them.

it was in the small moments—the way his hand would brush against yours when they walked, the way he’d smile at you from across the water. you didn’t fight it, didn’t push it away. you let it come, let it settle into your bones like the rhythm of the waves.

one evening, as you sat together on a small outcrop of rock, watching the sun sink into the horizon, neteyam turned to you, his expression soft and open in the fading light.

“you know,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper, “tuk talks about you all the time.”

you smiled, “does she?”

he nodded, his gaze warm. “she adores you. she’s always telling me how you are the best swimmer, the best jewelry maker. she even started asking me to tell her stories about the forest, because she wants to impress you.”

her heart tightened at the thought, and she couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped her. “tuk is very easy to like.”

neteyam’s smile grew, and for a moment, you sat in comfortable silence, the sound of the waves lapping gently at the shore below. then, quietly, he added, “she is not the only one who talks about you.”

you glanced at him, her heart skipping a beat. “oh?”

his gaze met yours, steady and sure, and the warmth in his eyes was enough to make you breath catch in her throat. “i do too. all the time.”

his gaze meets yours, steady and sure, and the warmth in his eyes is enough to make your breath catch in your throat. “i do too. all the time.”

you blink, caught off guard. a breeze rolls off the sea, pulling strands of your hair into your face, but you can’t bring yourself to move. his words hang in the air between you, sinking into your skin like the warm sun after a cold swim. all the time.

“why?” your voice comes out smaller than you mean for it to. you’re almost afraid to hear the answer, as if it would shift the ground beneath your feet, change the delicate balance that has settled between you both.

neteyam’s gaze softens, his lips curling into the smallest smile, and you realize, with a start, that he isn’t nervous at all. he seems sure of whatever it is that lingers in the space between you. quietly confident, like always. “i guess because... i think about you a lot.”

you open your mouth to say something, anything to fill the silence, but before you can find the words, a small voice cuts through the moment like a blade.

“hey!” tuk’s voice, sharp and high, breaks your quiet. you both turn to find her standing at the edge of the rocks, her little face pinched in frustration, her hands on her hips. “i knew it!”

your eyebrows shoot up, startled. “knew what?”

tuk stomps closer, her bare feet padding noisily across the stone. “i knew neteyam would steal you from me!” she jabs a finger in his direction, her small frame shaking with righteous indignation. “you’re my friend, not his!”

the words hit you like a slap, and you glance at neteyam, who looks equally taken aback, his mouth parting in surprise. tuk’s big eyes shimmer with unshed tears, and something in your chest squeezes painfully. you hadn’t even realized how much time you’d been spending with neteyam, how it must have felt to tuk, who had so eagerly claimed you as her own from the start.

neteyam steps forward, hands raised in surrender, his voice gentle. “hey, tuk. no one is stealing anyone.”

but tuk isn’t having it. her little fists clench, and she whirls on you, eyes wide and brimming with hurt. “you promised we’d make more jewelry! and swim with the ilus!” her bottom lip trembles, and she takes a step back, as if the distance will make the ache in your chest less sharp. “you said you were my best friend.”

guilt washes over you like a cold wave, chilling you to the bone. you kneel down, reaching for tuk’s small hand, but the little girl pulls away, hurt radiating off her in waves. “tuk, i did not mean to—”

“you don’t like me anymore.” tuk’s voice is small now, defeated, and your heart breaks at the sight of it, at the raw pain in her eyes. “you like him more.”

the words leave you stunned, speechless. you look to neteyam for help, but he stands frozen, his jaw tight, clearly torn between comforting his sister and letting her work it out. after a long pause, he crouches beside tuk, his voice soft and reassuring.

“that is not true,” he says quietly, his hand resting gently on tuk’s shoulder. “she is still your friend, tuk. i am just... lucky to be friends with her too.”

tuk sniffles, her little fists rubbing at her eyes, and your heart clenches in your chest. “but i found her first,” she mumbles.

you can’t help the soft smile that tugs at your lips at the child’s words, your heart aching in the best way. “you did find me first, tuk,” you say gently, finally managing to reach out and take her hand. tuk lets you this time, her fingers small and warm in your grasp. “and you are still my best friend. nothing is going to change that.”

tuk looks up at you with wide, watery eyes, still unsure. “promise?”

you squeeze her hand, your voice soft. “promise.”

after a moment, tuk’s shoulders relax, and she swipes at her face with the back of her hand. she glances between you and neteyam, her lip still trembling but her anger starting to fade. “okay,” she whispers, “but you have to make me another bracelet first.”

a small laugh escapes you, and you nod, relief settling into your bones. “deal.”

tuk brightens instantly, her smile returning in full force. “and you both have to swim with me tomorrow. no skipping!”

neteyam chuckles, brushing a hand through his braids. “we would not dream of it.”

satisfied, tuk gives a dramatic sigh before turning and running off toward the other children, her earlier tears forgotten. the weight of her outburst still lingers, though, and as you both stand there in the quiet aftermath, you realize just how much tuk’s words have struck something deep inside you. you like him more.

it isn’t true, is it? or maybe... maybe it is. you’re not sure anymore. the thought makes your throat tighten.

neteyam seems to sense the shift in you, his gaze turning serious as he watches you carefully. “you okay?” he asks, his voice soft, a little uncertain.

“i do not know,” you say quietly, your voice barely more than a whisper. “it feels...different.”

neteyam is silent for a long moment, his brows furrowing slightly as he steps closer, his presence a steady, comforting weight at your side. when he finally speaks, his voice is low, careful. “what does?”

you look up at him then, the words heavy on your tongue. “everything. you, me, tuk...”

neteyam's voice is quiet, almost hesitant as he asks, “is it a good different?” his eyes search yours, the question hanging in the air between you. there's an openness to him now, a vulnerability that makes you pause. you see him clearly in this moment—the forest boy with his thin tail, strong but out of place here in your world. his presence is unfamiliar yet comforting, the way his skin contrasts with the sea, the way he stands rooted even on shifting sand. the difference is undeniable, but it's not unsettling. it feels like something new, something good.

you meet his gaze, and in that instant, everything falls into place. his eyes, a deep shade that reminds you of the forest he came from, hold a quiet kind of warmth, like the steady burn of a fire. you're different, yes—he, with the wilderness in his bones, and you, with the sea in yours—but that contrast feels like a harmony rather than a divide. with a small nod, you let the truth settle between you, firm and certain. “yeah,” you murmur, a soft smile pulling at your lips. “it is.”

i'll proof read this when i get back home i have to go out now 😭

[that-butch-archivist]

"Tess was a performance artist and part-time jewelry maker who now worked as a set designer. [...] The first night we spent together, I taught her to knit — my classic seduction technique (High Femme Camp Antics, or HFCA) — and about frisson, that carbonated feeling that accompanies a crush. We stared at each other for a long time, unblinking. Because I knew that this otherwise might take forever (lesbians!), I finally asked Tess point-blank if she felt a frisson for me (HFCA). In response, Tess kissed me hard, with teeth. I knew she wanted to fuck, but I pushed her hands away dramatically when they crept under my skirt (HFCA). I told her that I didn’t typically sleep with people so soon (HFCA), which was true not for any real reason but because I was privately humiliated by my body (HFCA). Instead of letting her fuck me, I scratched Tess’s entire torso with my long, pink fingernails (HFCA). “Her fingernails drifted down my neck, across my shoulders,” Jess Goldberg, the butch narrator of Stone Butch Blues, says of a high femme whose camp antics thrill her. “I’d forgotten the sheer pleasure of a high femme tease.” “Your fingernails are full of frisson,” Tess said as morning light began to stream in through the window above her bed. “I know,” I said. I recently read a collection of funny stories by Lesléa Newman, high-femme chronicler of dyke life in the 1990s (the materialistic, shopping-addicted Golden Age of HFCA). In one story, a butch named Flash arrives to pick Lesléa up and take her out to dinner. Flash politely tells Lesléa that she looks nice. “The average femme would have taken that to be a compliment,” Lesléa dishes. “But this high-maintenance femme hadn’t spent the last two weeks shopping for the perfect outfit and the last seven hours bathing, shaving, bleaching, filing, polishing, combing, brushing, drying, moussing, spritzing, spraying, and applying five pounds of makeup to have all her efforts summed up in one little four-letter word.” Flash’s flimsy compliment doesn’t satisfy Lesléa’s desires to be seen, appreciated, and worshiped, and so Lesléa starts from the bottom and works her way up, prompting Flash to compliment her shoes, her miniskirt, and finally her hair in a grand, shimmering pyramid of HFCA. But even as she performs satiation, Lesléa is insatiable. Her antics fail at getting her precisely what she wants from Flash, because there’s always something unsatisfying about getting what you want by asking for it. Lesléa’s desire glows from within the frame of her HFCA, distilled and exposed and unmet. Can I Come Inside, my high-femme sex game, deals primarily with unmet, outsourced, and circumnavigated desire. In Females (2019), trans lesbian critic Andrea Long Chu argues that femaleness is a universal, existential condition rather than a gender or a sex — a condition of being and of consciousness that involves letting others do our desiring for us. At stake in Can I Come Inside, as well as in HFCA at large, is a femaleness that both craves and rebels against its tendency to outsource desire. In playing Can I Come Inside, I, like Lesléa, ask Tess to do my desiring for me, and Tess in turn defers her desire to me: the game is strictly my desire, one that she insists she does not share. Even though it mandates a performance of aggressive desire from Tess, there’s no doubt that Can I Come Inside is about my desire; it’s my game; I make the rules."

-- An excerpt from "High Femme Camp Antics," an essay written by Jenny Fran Davis. (Emphasis in bold my own.)

[haggishlyhagging]

"I did it for me," reads the plaque held by the woman in a Botox ad. There's a sense that she's presenting the plaque to us, the audience, and it's kind of unnerving. The makers of the ad are conversant in the basic language of both body acceptance and choice feminism, and this ad is an attempt to make an end-run around any existing skepticism about cosmetic surgery, by appealing to free, market-savvy choice and its result, empowerment. This woman who paid a tidy sum of money for a smooth forehead and nonexistent nasolabial folds is not a dupe of the patriarchy, dammit! She's not doing it for a man; she's not doing it for a woman; she's doing it for herself, and those are the magic words. Variations on “I did it for me” appear and reappear in ads for Botox and breast implants; they're present when Vogue suggests—you know, just puts it out there—that you could shorten your toes in order to better fit them into Jimmy Choos; they exist whenever morning talk-radio hosts give away free breast implants to the woman with the best small-boobs sob story. "I did it for me," "I did it to feel better about myself," and, "I'm not doing it for anyone else" are defensive reflexes that acknowledge an imagined feminist disapproval and impatiently brush it away.

It's been twenty-five years since Naomi Wolf wrote, in her bestselling book The Beauty Myth, that "The ideology of beauty is the last one remaining of the old feminine ideologies that still has the power to control those women whom second-wave feminism would have otherwise made relatively uncontrollable." For all the gains that various women's movements have made possible, rigidly prescribed, predominantly white beauty standards are one site where time has not revolutionized our thinking. Concurrently, it's also where the expansion of consumer choice has made it possible to bow to such standards in countless new ways.

Choice has become the primary way to talk about looks, a phenomenon that journalist Alex Kuczynski called "an activism of aesthetics" in her 2006 book Beauty Junkies. In the book, the cosmetic surgery industry in particular is portrayed as a kind of Thunderdome where the waiting lists for a new injectable climb into the double digits, impeccably spray-tanned celebrity doctors jostle for prime soundbite space in women's magazines, and speakers at surgeons' conventions end their speeches with a call to "Push plastic surgery." With a rise in options—more doctors, more competing pharmaceutical brands, the rise of cosmetic-surgery tourism that promises cheap procedures in tropical locations—the landscape of sculpted noses and liposuctioned abs has been defined by choice. The "activism," too, is one of individual choice—it refers to being proactive about one's own appearance, vigilant enough to be able to head off wrinkles, droops, and sags at the pass. Framed within our neoliberal discourse, an activism of aesthetics doesn't dismantle the beauty standards that telegraph worth and status, but advocates for everyone's right to purchase whatever interventions are necessary to achieve those standards. The individual world shrinks to the size of a doctor's office; other people exist only as points of physical comparison.

Though we often think of beauty and body imperatives in their prefeminist form—the hobbling footbinding, the lead whitening powders, the tapeworm diet—the ostensibly consciousness-raised decades since the 1970s have brought a mind-boggling array of dictates, standards, and trends to all genders, but most forcefully to women. When capri pants were the move of the moment in the 1990s, Vogue was there to suggest quick surgical fixes for knobby knees and undefined calves. Less than ten years later, the clavicle was the body part du jour, balancing the trend of voluminous clothing with reassuring proof that, under all that material, the wearer was appropriately thin. (One clavicle-boasting woman stated to The New York Times that the clavicle was the "easiest and least controversial expression of a kind of sex appeal"—not as obviously sexy as breasts, but evidence of a physical discipline coveted among the fashion set.) A handful of years after that, the focus moved south again, to the "thigh gap" coveted by a largely young audience, some of whom blogged about their pursuit of the gap with diet journals and process photos.

Though certain types of bodies have historically come in and out of fashion—the flapper dresses of the 1920s required a boyish, hipless figure, while the tight angora sweaters of the '50s demanded breasts, or at least the padded semblance of them—the pace with which bodies are presented as the "right" ones to have has quickened. The beachy girls-next-door of the 1970s were elbowed out by the Amazonion supermodels of the 1980s, who gave way to the heroin-chic waifs of the '90s, who were knocked off the editorial pages of the early 2000s by the Brazilian bombshells, who were then edged out by the doll-eyed British blondes. Meanwhile, the fashion industry selectively co-opts whatever "ethnic" attributes can be appropriated in the service of a trend. Black and Latina women with junk in the trunk who have been erased by mainstream glossies, overlooked as runway models, and ill-served by pants designed for comparatively fat rears were rightly annoyed to hear from Vogue, in 2014, that "We're Officially in the Era of the Big Booty" thanks to stars like Iggy Azalea, Miley Cyrus, and Kim Kardashian. There is no wrong way to have a body" wrote author and size-positive sage Hanne Blank, but that sentiment will always be contradicted by a market, and a media, that depends on people not believing it.

-Andi Zeisler, We Were Feminists Once

[lilithism1848]

Atrocities US committed against ASIA

Between 1996-2006, The US has given money and weapons to royalist forces against the nepalese communists in the Nepalese civil war. ~18,000 people have died in the conflict. In 2002, after another civil war erupted, President George W. Bush pushed a bill through Congress authorizing $20 million in military aid to the Nepalese government.

In 1996, after receiving incredibly low approval ratings, the US helped elect Boris Yeltsin, an incompetent pro-capitalist independent, by giving him a $10 Billion dollar loan to finance a winning election. Rather than creating new enterprises, Yeltsin’s democratization led to international monopolies hijacking the former Soviet markets, arbitraging the huge difference between old domestic prices for Russian commodities and the prices prevailing on the world market. Much of the Yeltsin era was marked by widespread corruption, and as a result of persistent low oil and commodity prices during the 1990s, Russia suffered inflation, economic collapse and enormous political and social problems that affected Russia and the other former states of the USSR. Under Yeltsin, Between 1990 and 1994, life expectancy for Russian men and women fell from 64 and 74 years respectively to 58 and 71 years. The surge in mortality was “beyond the peacetime experience of industrialised countries”. While it was boom time for the new oligarchs, poverty and unemployment surged; prices were hiked dramatically; communities were devastated by deindustrialisation; and social protections were stripped away.

In the 1970s-80s, wikileaks cables revealed that the US covertly supported the Khmer Rouge in their fight against the Vietnamese communists. Annual support included an end total of ~$215M USD, food aid to 20-40k Khmer Rouge fighters, CIA advisors in several camps, and ammunition.

In December 1975, The US supplied the weaponry for the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. This incursion was launched the day after U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had left Indonesia where they had given President Suharto permission to use American arms, which under U.S. law, could not be used for aggression. Daniel Moynihan, U.S. ambassador to the UN. said that the U.S. wanted “things to turn out as they did.” The result was an estimated 200,000 dead out of a population of 700,000. Sixteen years later, on November 12, 1991, two hundred and seventeen East Timorese protesters in Dili, many of them children, marching from a memorial service, were gunned down by Indonesian Kopassus shock troops who were headed by U.S.- trained commanders Prabowo Subianto (son in law of General Suharto) and Kiki Syahnakri. Trucks were seen dumping bodies into the sea.

In 1975 Australian Constitutional Crisis, the CIA helped topple the democratically elected, left-leaning government of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, by telling Governor-General, John Kerr, a longtime CIA collaborator, to dissolve the Whitlam government.

In 2018 after the release of a suppressed ISC (International Scientific Commission) report, and the release of declassified CIA communications daily reports in 2020, it was revealed that the US used germ warfare in the Korean war, 2. Many of these attacks involved the dropping of insects or small mammals infected with viruses such as anthrax, plague, cholera, and encephalitis. After discovering evidence of germ warfare, China invited the ISC headed by famed British scientist Joseph Needham, to investigate, but the report was suppressed for over 70 years.

Between 1963 and 1973, The US dropped ~388,000 tons of napalm bombs in vietnam, compared to 32,357 tons used over three years in the Korean War, and 16,500 tons dropped on Japan in 1945. US also sprayed over 5 million acres with herbicide, in Operation Ranch Hand, in a 10 year campaign to deprive the vietnamese of food and vegetation cover.

In 1971 in Pakistan, an authoritarian state supported by the U.S., brutally invaded East Pakistan in the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971. The war ended after India, whose economy was staggering after admitting about 10 million refugees, invaded East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and defeated the West Pakistani forces. The US gave W. pakistan 411 million provided to establish its armed forces which spent 80% of its budget on its military. 15 million in arms flowed into W. Pakistan during the war. Between 300,000 to 3 million civilians were killed, with 8-10 million refugees fleeing to India.

In 1970, In Cambodia, The CIA overthrows Prince Sihanouk, who is highly popular among Cambodians for keeping them out of the Vietnam War. He is replaced by CIA puppet Lon Nol, whose forces suppressed the large-scale popular demonstrations in favour of Sihanouk, resulting in several hundred deaths. This unpopular move strengthens once minor opposition parties like the Khmer Rouge (another CIA supported group), who achieve power in 1975 and massacres ~2.5 million people. The Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, carried out the Cambodian Genocide, which killed 1.5-2M people from 1975-1979.

In 1969, The US initiated a secret carpet bombing campaign in eastern Cambodia, called, Operation Menu, and Operation Freedom Deal in 1970. An estimated 40,000 - 150,000 civilians were killed. Nixon lied about this campaign, but was later exposed, and one of the things that lead to his impeachment.

US dropped large amounts of Agent Orange, an herbicide developed by monsanto and dow chemical for the department of defense, in vietnam. Its use, in particular the contaminant dioxin, causes multiple health problems, including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, still births, poisoned breast milk, and extra fingers and toes, as well as destroying local species of plants and animals. The Red Cross of Vietnam estimates that up to 1 million people are disabled or have health problems due to Agent Orange.

US Troops killed between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians, including women, children, and infants, in South Vietnam on March, 1968, in the My Lai Massacre. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. Soldiers set fire to huts, waiting for civilians to come out so they could shoot them. For 30 years, the three US servicemen who tried to halt the massacre and rescue the hiding civilians were shunned and denounced as traitors, even by congressmen.

In 1967, the CIA helped South Vietnamese agents identify and then murder alleged Viet Cong leaders operating in villages, in the Phoenix Program. By 1972, Phoenix operatives had executed between 26,000 and 41,000 suspected NLF operatives, informants and supporters.

In 1965, The CIA overthrew the democratically elected Indonesian leader Sukarno with a military coup. The CIA had been trying to eliminate Sukarno since 1957, using everything from attempted assassination to sexual intrigue, for nothing more than his declaring neutrality in the Cold War. His successor, General Suharto, aided by the CIA, massacred between 500,000 to 1 million civilians accused of being communist, in the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-66. The US continued to support Suharto throughout the 70s, supplying weapons and planes.

Between 1964 and 1973, American pilots flew 580,000 attack sorties over Laos, an average of one planeload of bombs every eight minutes for almost a decade. By the time the last US bombs fell in April 1973, a total of 2,093,100 tonnes of ordnance had rained down on this neutral country. To this day, Laos, a country of just 7 million people, retains the dubious accolade of being the most heavily bombed country in the world per capita.

From the 1960s onward, the US supported Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The US provided hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, which was crucial in buttressing Marcos’s rule over the years. The estimated number of persons that were executed and disappeared under President Fernando Marcos was over 100,000. After fleeing to hawaii, marco was suceeded by the widow of an opponent he assasinated, Corazon aquino.

Starting in 1957, in the wake of the US-backed First Indochina War, The CIA carries out approximately one coup per year trying to nullify Laos’ democratic elections, specifically targeting the Pathet Lao, a leftist group with enough popular support to be a member of any coalition government, and perpetuating the 20 year Laotian civil war. In the late 50s, the CIA even creates an “Armee Clandestine” of Asian mercenaries to attack the Pathet Lao. After the CIA’s army suffers numerous defeats, the U.S. drops more bombs on Laos than all the U.S. bombs dropped in World War II. A quarter of all Laotians will eventually become refugees, many living in caves. This was later called a “secret war,” since it occurred at the same time as the Vietnam War, but got little press. Hundreds of thousands were killed.

In 1955, the CIA provided explosives, and aided KMT agents in an assassination attempt against the Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai. KMT agents placed a time-bomb on the Air India aircraft, Kashmir Princess, which Zhou was supposed to take on his way to the Bandung Conference, an anti-imperialist meeting of Asian and African states, but he changed his travel plans at the last minute. Henry Kissinger denied US involvement, even though remains of a US detonator were found. 16 people were killed.

From 1955-1975, the US supported French colonialist interests in Vietnam, set up a puppet regime in Saigon to serve US interests, and later took part as a belligerent against North Vietnam in the Vietnam War. U.S. involvement escalated further following the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which was later found to be staged by Lyndon Johnson. The war exacted a huge human cost in terms of fatalities (see Vietnam War casualties). Estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed vary from 966,000 source to 3.8 million.source Some 240,000–300,000 Cambodians,source23 20,000–62,000 Laotians,4 and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict, with a further 1,626 missing in action. Unexploded bomb continue to kill civilians for years afterward.

In the summer of 1950 in South Korea, anticommunists aided by the US executed at least 100,000 people suspected of supporting communism, in the Bodo League Massacre. For four decades the South Korean government concealed this massacre. Survivors were forbidden by the government from revealing it, under suspicion of being communist sympathizers. Public revelation carried with it the threat of torture and death. During the 1990s and onwards, several corpses were excavated from mass graves, resulting in public awareness of the massacre.

In 1984, documents were released showing that Eisenhower authorized the use of atomic weapons on North Korea, should the communists renew the war in 1953. The 2,000 pages released show the high level of planning and the detail of discussion on possible use of these weapons, and Mr. Eisenhower’s interest in overcoming reluctance to use them.

In the beginning of the Korean war, US Troops killed ~300 South Korean civilians in the No Gun Ri massacre, revealing a theater-wide policy of firing on approaching refugee groups. Trapped refugees began piling up bodies as barricades and tried to dig into the ground to hide. Some managed to escape the first night, while U.S. troops turned searchlights on the tunnels and continued firing, said Chung Koo-ho, whose mother died shielding him and his sister. No apology has yet been issued.

The US intervened in the 1950-53 Korean Civil War, on the side of the south Koreans, in a proxy war between the US and china for supremacy in East Asia. South Korea reported some 373,599 civilian and 137,899 military deaths, the US with 34,000 killed, and China with 114,000 killed. Overall, the U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of bombs—including 32,557 tons of napalm—on Korea, more than they did during the whole Pacific campaign of World War II. The US killed an estimated 1/3rd of the north Korean people during the war. The Joint Chiefs of staff issued orders for the retaliatory bombing of the People’s republic of China, should south Korea be attacked. Deadly clashes have continued up to the present day.

From 1948-1949, the Jeju uprising was an insurgency taking place in the Korean province of Jeju island, followed by severe anticommunist suppression of the South Korean Labor Party in which 14-30,000 people were killed, or ~10% of the island’s population. Though atrocities were committed by both sides, the methods used by the South Korean government to suppress the rebels were especially cruel. On one occasion, American soldiers discovered the bodies of 97 people including children, killed by government forces. On another, American soldiers caught government police forces carrying out an execution of 76 villagers, including women and children. The US later entered the Korean civil war on the side of the South Koreans.

In 1949 during the resumed Chinese Civil War, the US supported the corrupt Kuomintang dictatorship of Chiang Kaishek to fight against the Chinese Communists, who had won the support of the vast majority of peasant-farmers and helped defeat the Japanese invasion. The US strongly supported the Kuomintang forces. Over 50,000 US Marines were sent to guard strategic sites, and 100,000 US troops were sent to Shandong. The US equipped and trained over 500,000 KMT troops, and transported KMT forces to occupy newly liberated zones as well as to contain Communist-controlled areas. American aid included substantial amounts of both new and surplus military supplies; additionally, loans worth hundreds of millions of dollars were made to the KMT. Within less than two years after the Sino-Japanese War, the KMT had received $4.43 billion from the US—most of which was military aid.

The U.S. installed Syngman Rhee,a conservative Korean exile, as President of South Korea in 1948. Rhee became a dictator on an anti-communist crusade, arresting and torturing suspected communists, brutally putting down rebellions, killing 100,000 people and vowing to take over North Korea. Rhee precipitated the outbreak of the Korean War and for the allied decision to invade North Korea once South Korea had been recaptured. He was finally forced to resign by mass student protests in 1960.

Between 1946 and 1958, the US tested 23 nuclear devices at Bikini Atoll, using the native islanders and their land as guinea pigs for the effects of nuclear fallout. Significant fallout caused widespread radiological contamination in the area, and killed many islanders. A survivor stated, “What the Americans did was no accident. They came here and destroyed our land. They came to test the effects of a nuclear bomb on us. It was no accident.” Many of the islanders exposed were brought to the US Argonne National laboratory, to study the effects. Afterwards the islands proved unsuitable to sustaining life, resulting in starvation and requiring the residents to receive ongoing aid. Virtually all of the inhabitants showed acute symptoms of radiation syndrome, many developing thyroid cancers, Leukimia, miscarriages, stillborn and “jellyfish babies” (highly deformed) along with symptoms like hair falling out, and diahrrea. A handful were brought to the US for medical research and later returned, while others were evacuated to neighboring Islands. The US under LBJ prematurely returned the majority returned 3 years later, to further test how human beings absorb radiation from their food and environment. The islanders pleaded with the US to move them away from the islands, as it became clear that their children were developing deformities and radiation sickness. Radion levels were still unacceptable. The United States later paid the islanders and their descendants 25 million in compensation for damage caused by the nuclear testing program. A 2016 investigation found radiation levels on Bikini Atoll as high as 639 mrem yr−1, well above the established safety standard threshold for habitation of 100 mrem yr−1. Similar tests occurred elsewhere in the Marshall Islands during this time period. Due to the destruction of natural wealth, Kwajalein Atoll’s military installation and dislocation, the majority of natives currently live in extreme poverty, making less than 1$ a day. Those that have jobs, mostly work at the US military installation and resorts. Much of this is detailed in the documentary, The Coming War on China (2016). 

After the Japanese surrender in 1945, Douglas MacArthur pardoned Unit 731, a Japanese biological experimentation center which performed human testing of biological agents against Chinese citizens. While a series of war tribunals and trials was organized, many of the high-ranking officials and doctors who devised and respectively performed the experiments were pardoned and never brought to justice. As many as 12,000 people, most of them Chinese, died in Unit 731 alone and many more died in other facilities, such as Unit 100 and in field experiments throughout Manchuria. One of the experimenters who killed many, microbiologist Shiro Ishii, later traveled to the US to advise on its bioweapons programs. In the final days of the Pacific War and in the face of imminent defeat, Japanese troops blew up the headquarters of Unit 731 in order to destroy evidence of the research done there. As part of the cover-up, Ishii ordered 150 remaining subjects killed.

In 1945 during the month-long Battle of Manila, the US in deciding whether to attack Manila (then under Japanese occupation) with ground troops, decided instead to use indiscriminate carpet-bombing, howitzers, and naval bombardment, killing an estimated 100,000 people. The casualty figures show the US’s regard for filipino civilian life: 1,010 Americans, 16,665 Japanese and 100,000 to 240,000 civilians were killed. Manila became, alongside Berlin, and Warsaw, one of the most devastated cities of WW2.

US Troops committed a number of rapes during the battle of Okinawa, and the subsequent occupation of Japan. There were 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture alone.1 American Occupation authorities imposed wide-ranging censorship on the Japanese media, including bans on covering many sensitive social issues and serious crimes such as rape committed by members of the Occupation forces.

From 1942 to 1945, the US military carried out a fire-bombing campaign of Japanese cities, killing between 200,000 and 900,000 civilians. One nighttime fire-bombing of Tokyo took 80,000 lives. During early August 1945, the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing ~130,000 civilians, and causing radiation damage which included birth defects and a variety of genetic diseases for decades to come. The justification for the civilian bombings has largely been debunked, as the entrance of Russia into the war had already started the surrender negotiations earlier in 1945. The US was aware of this, since it had broken the Japanese code and had been intercepting messages during for most of the year. The US ended up accepting a conditional surrender from Hirohito, against which was one of the stated aims of the civilian bombings. The dropping of the atomic bomb is therefore seen as a demonstration of US military supremacy, and the first major operation of the Cold War with Russia.

In 1918, the US took part in the allied intervention in the Russian civil war, sending 11,000 troops to the in the Arkhangelsk and Vladivostok regions to support the anti-bolshevik, monarchist, and largely anti-semitic White Forces. 

In 1900 in China, the US was part of an Eight-Nation Alliance that brought 20,000 armed troops to China, to defeat the Imperial Chinese Army, in the the Boxer Rebellion, an anti-imperialist uprising. 

In 1899, after a popular revolution in the Philippines to oust the Spanish imperialists, the US invaded and began the Phillipine-American war. The US military committed countless atrocities, leaving 200,000 Filipinos dead. Jacob H Smith killed between 2,500 to 50,000 civilians, His orders included, “kill everyone over the age of ten” and make the island “a howling wilderness.”

Throughout the 1800s, US settlers engaged in a genocide of native Hawaiians. The native population decreased from ~ 400k in 1789, to 40k by 1900, due to colonization and disease. In 1883, the US engineered the overthrow of Hawaii’s native monarch, Queen Lili’uokalani, by landing two companies of US marines in Honolulu. Due to the Queen’s desire “to avoid any collision of armed forces, and perhaps the loss of life” for her subjects and after some deliberation, at the urging of advisers and friends, the Queen ordered her forces to surrender. Hawaii was initially reconstituted as an independent republic, but the ultimate goal of the US was the annexation of the islands to the United States, which was finally accomplished in 1898. After this, the Hawaiian language was banned, English replaced it as the official language in all institutions and schools. The US finally apologized in 1993, but no land has been returned.

[wroteclassicaly]

Summary: Two years. You never drive far anymore, you don’t linger outside of your new city limits. Because how can you drive into the desolate life you once had? Then again, Hawkins and its story book tragedies have a way of bringing you back for more. A mangled marriage, an abandoned two story, and a loved one in turmoil, it finally brings you back home.

Parings: Eddie Munson x Female Reader

Warnings: Language, shitloads of angst, mentions of major health trauma (it’s heart related, so be warned before reading, as I don’t want to trigger anyone), that angsty angst, but with a happy ending, & obvious smut/nsfw content that will appear later in the story!

A/N: Sneak peek/teaser into my new series, and the first one I’m publishing for this fandom — That House In Indiana (inspired by Ethel Cain’s ‘A House In Nebraska’. Lyrics below that I obviously don’t own) There will be a happy ending, so don’t worry! I’ve also drawn off myself for the situation with Wayne, based off what happened to my own dad. It’s pretty rough, but Wayne will be okay — I promise! He has a health crisis in this that might trigger some people, so please DON’T read if you know it’ll upset you! And let me know what y’all think if you do read, please and thank you? ❤️💘❤️💘

February 1st, 1990

~*~

Labored breaths and bed sores, sing it to me all day long

When the aching sound of silence used to be our favorite song

You and me against the world, you were my man and I your girl

We had nothing except each other, you were my whole world

Then the day came and you were up and gone

And I still call home that house in Nebraska

Where we found each other on a dirty mattress on the second floor

Where the world was empty, save you and I

Where you came and I laughed, and you left and I cried

Where you told me even if we died tonight, that I'd die yours

~*~

Shaking hands with chipped polish of a once fresh manicure, now worried down from alternating chewed grinds between chattering teeth and trembling lips, stained with overflowing salt — switch to a tight grip around a faded leather steering wheel, the cracking leather mingling with that of rustling denim. Scattered neon pink chips spray nail beds, making you twitch with the need to placate that urgency in your guts that pummels the muscles, seizing those in your eyes to force you to glance at where the gold band used to sit, used to distract you so perfectly. You were sure that you’d gotten over that. Funny what delusions the mind can bank on to get you through destruction and pain. You sniffle upon a jagged exhale, breath coming out choppy and overused.

Your body feels stuck to the seats, melted into a frozen statue. You really don’t want to be you, to think. Hell, your thoughts border on everything they shouldn’t, all the what-ifs, the blames, past tragedies, and your wishes that if this was the end result — maybe it would’ve been better if you died that night in the Spring of 1986. Long drives that aren’t in line with the simplicity of five minutes, you’d avoided for the last two years. Four hours from your one bedroom townhouse in Illinois to a hotel room in your hometown of Hawkins, Indiana — you’re a prisoner to your psyche.

You’ll see your crumbling dream in the form of white plaster, broken wood planks, and rotten rose bushes, frosted across shattered glass windows — ones you had stewed over for days on what color would look the best for curb appeal, and a large for sale sign in the front yard that was once littered with the cars of friends and loved ones. That very same home, the one you had shaped with your partner, that curly haired, doe eyed boy that you first met when he gave you money to pay for the groceries you couldn’t quite afford when you were fifteen, unbeknownst to you that it was his last five dollars, but he gave it to you because he knew you needed it more. He’d be fine as long as you were. You don’t have to try to embrace every whisper his hands had gifted your skin with. Your walls are gone, body ripped open and bare for the entire town you’d left behind two years ago.

The scenery is starting to fill in, barren trees near bloom. Maybe an early Spring, you can’t be sure? Your tires click against wet asphalt when you turn, splashing water on the chrome body of your car as you head into the embankment of treetops that glow, entwined into an arch that blankets the road in charcoal shadows. You manage to raise your hand to hit your windshield wipers, crystal clearing in a thick smear. Your sclera, however, floods over, lashes sticking to raw under eyes, puffy and exerted. You swallow harshly around a raw and wet throat, foot accelerating the gas pedal. You have to get there.

You haven’t slept since you heard his voice, your ears floating into a familiar peak, a swell of overwhelming longing stealing every ounce of breath from your lungs, trapping your diaphragm beneath whimpers not cried. You knew right away that something wasn’t okay. He called for the first time in years, he was in the place of his uncle, your confusion palpable as you hadn’t expected the youth for the familiarity of your weekly calls with his own family. You could hear his deep voice, raspy and shrouded in painful storms unmatched. Your body was like a dead weight, fingers struggling to hold onto the receiver, tone a mere whisper, one that felt like broken glass being dragged out through your windpipes.

“What’s wrong, Eds?”

“He… I, Y/N—“ Like a plea that was too silent to fully find its vessel, his voice became caked with an ocean of tears, thick like the swamps of isolating despair.

You’d almost resorted to begging, but you had known, even then, Eddie always took his own path to processing grief. Resisting an instinctual soothe towards him was like rejecting the air that earth offered you.

Your fingers prickled in an uncomfortable heat, numb and dulled, tongue heavy and choking you. The same as that night you awaited to hear whatever horror Hawkins had dropped into your lives once more.

“It’s Wayne.” There was an eerie quietness as Eddie had caught up with himself and moved forward enough to inform you. You couldn’t have stopped the gasping cry that left your mouth if you’d taped it shut.

He’d wanted nothing more than to reach through the phone and take you into his arms, needing to remember what the heartbeat of another human felt like, more specifically — his human. But you weren’t, you hadn’t been, and he wasn’t calling you to tell you that. You loved his uncle like a father. Having to break this news, to lay a layer of pavement over your spirit and let it dry, driving over it to forget, Eddie guiding your heart into another turmoil — it made him want to attempt to dislocate his own jaw.

“What about Wayne? Please tell me what’s going on?” You lost every piece you’d mangled together, helpless to their violent disappearance.

Eddie had trembled as he sighed, shaky and worn. “He had a heart attack a few hours ago.”

Your organ had begun to lose traction, beating sporadically that you were sure some of your bones had been reduced to ash beneath the forceful erratic rhythm. Leaving behind everything but your shoes, coat, keys, and purse, you were already at your front door, phone cord stretching with you. “I’m coming home. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Yeah. Kay. I’ll be here.” Eddie sounded lost, that light he’d accumulated in his lifetime, part of it was dimming. He couldn’t lose the one person that had been with him his whole life. You were already gone. This would devour him whole.

You sit up straight in your seat, the action causing your back to crack. You take a few deep breaths, engrossed in the glossy branches in your sky view, thunder roaring in the distance, your vehicle approaching the clearing and ready to hit that final road that will take you home.

~*~

[beardedmrbean]

Iwas born in Gaza Strip in the late 1990s, one of six children. At the time, the Palestinian Authority was the ruling party. My father, like most people in Gaza, was sick of the PA's corruption and was waiting for any alternative. Hamas promised "change and reform" and they won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in 2006. One year later, I awoke to the sound of gunfire. Hamas gunmen were fighting Fatah, and they ended up killing of more than 600 Palestinians. It became clear very quickly that Hamas was not the "change and reform" that we hoped for.

To silence dissent, Hamas terrorized the citizens of Gaza. On the way to the Dar-Alarqam school I attended in the al-Shujaiya neighborhood near the Israeli border, a group of masked men carrying Kalashnikovs would check each car. At the end of the year, masked men opened offices in our school to promote Hamas's military camps and register students.

I graduated and began my studies at the Islamic University of Gaza, along with future Hamas leaders and current members. All art classes were replaced with radical Islamic teachings, and the elections of the student councils and clubs were only open to Hamas members, who hoarded all the privileges and distributed all the grants between themselves.

Voicing dissent was not an option. Hamas has a no tolerance policy for criticism or objections to any of its policies. Even discussion is forbidden Any journalist who objects or criticizes a policy is suspended and investigated. Demonstrations are strictly prohibited. Freedom of speech in Gaza is a fantasy. The dirtiest tool Hamas uses to silence citizens is character assassination through online campaigns accusing dissenters of working for hostile bodies or committing immoral acts. Hamas also routinely breaks into the homes of people deemed disloyal and humiliates them in front of their family and neighbors.

I observed all this with growing horror as a student. And as Hamas's oppression of the Palestinian citizens of Gaza increased, the quality of life deteriorated. Hamas's aggression toward Israel resulted in fewer and fewer job permits and limits on the electricity in Gaza, which we only got for eight hours a day. The economy cratered. Social and economic conditions collapsed.

A huge social gap opened between the wealthy elite who belong to Hamas and the rest of the population who were increasingly living in driving poverty. Public sector jobs were limited to Hamas members, and taxes were increasing on necessities day by day, even as the cost of living skyrocketed.

Many of us could no longer bear it. I was one of them.

Though we knew dissenters were subject to imprisonment, torture, and even murder, in 2019, a few of us decided to join forces and form a protest to voice our opposition to Hamas. We called it the "We Want to Live" demonstration. Our demonstration elicited an extreme reaction by Hamas. They violently cracked down on the protests and we were all arrested.

I will never forget my first day in jail—walking up the steps listening to screams of my colleagues, most of them fellow students, who had been arrested before me. I was held under arrest for 21 days and subjected to various types of torture. I was beaten with batons and sprayed with cold water in the late winter night hours. My friends didn't fare much better. A Christian friend was in the next cell and I could hear them screaming at him, "You are a Christian and you don't like the situation? Then go to another country!"

After we were released, most of those who participated in the demonstrations emigrated away from Gaza. There was no hope for any change in the current situation. We suffered ongoing harassment by Hamas members. Some died trying to leave, like Tamer Al-Sultan, a pharmacist whose crime was asking for a reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.

People's living conditions got worse. The wealth gap expanded even further. We protested again in 2023 and were crushed in the same manner as in 2019. I was arrested again by Hamas last year and held for 14 days, this time in a small cell with no bed, no window, and barely enough space to sit down. I was released on bail on the condition that I not take part in any further demonstrations.

I still expressed my opinion occasionally on social media, but the arrest warrants after each post and the continuous threats from Hamas members and accusations of treason made me lose hope that I could make any kind of change. I left Gaza in August to seek a better future for myself and my family.

All this time, Hamas was planning to expand its extremism and intimidation. They knew what would happen as a result of their massacre on October 7, when they attacked Israeli civilians, and Israel responded with a massive war aimed at destroying Hamas, which has obliterated large parts of the Gaza Strip.

Now all the inhabitants of the city are being punished for Hamas' actions.

I think it's hard for Israelis to understand that there are many innocent people in Gaza who have suffered as much from Hamas's evil as they have. I understand those Israelis. During my life as a Gazan, the only thing I believed about Israelis was that they all hate us and want to eliminate us as a Palestinians.

Now I know better. After criticizing Hamas for its horrific actions on Oct. 7, I made friends with Israelis for the first time in my life. It turns out that many of them, like me, just want this conflict to end so they can live in peace. These friendships opened my eyes to their suffering. I now have a better understanding what they are thinking, and have decided never to make judgments before listening to the other side.

I hope my new friends feel the same way about the many Gazans living under the boot of Hamas's oppression.

We Palestinians have a saying: "Hope is born from the womb of suffering." I hope that after the war, that after Hamas been defeated, we can create a real, lasting peace for both the Palestinians and the Israelis. Many Gazans are praying for this, too.

Hamza Howidy is a Palestinian from Gaza City. He is an accountant and a peace advocate.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

[bud-1962]

I’d like to discuss my first girl. Mostly because it was so complex. I was a 19 year old virgin going to college and working nights cleaning offices. My boss was 35, blonde and had a very nice body. She was a MILF and a cougar long before the terms came along. This was 1981.

She was living with a guy who was going out of town for the July 4 holiday so she invited me over. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen but I had a fair idea. We wind up on her couch drinking and making out. I think I asked if she wanted to move to her bed and she nodded. She led me into her bedroom and proceeded to strip naked. I took off my clothes and we played on her bed while it poured outside. Turns out I drank too much so my guy wouldn’t stand up to perform so we just cuddled. I remember going home disappointed in myself. So we wind up eating lunch every day at her place for the next 3 weeks when I finally worked up the nerve to ask for another chance. She didn’t say a word but stood up and held out her hand. She led me into her bedroom again and stepped out of her jeans and panties. She held her hand out in front of her spread legs and asked me to come over. I jumped out of my shorts and moved between her legs. After satisfying herself that I was stiff she quickly pulled me toward her snatch and before I knew it I was buried deep between her legs. She had a big smile on her face and I’m pretty sure I was smiling too. She hugged me and we kissed while I bounced up and down on her. It only lasted about 2-3 minutes and I fell a surge between my legs and I groaned a bit as I exploded inside her. She knew she broke my cherry and she was beaming. My cock was throbbing inside her and I’m pretty sure I was smiling too. After a few minutes my cock stopped throbbing but I was still stiff and still inside her so I asked if it was ok to keep going. She smiled and nodded so I continued fucking her and suddenly she let out a blood curdling scream. Turned out she was cumming (something I obviously knew little about). This was the start of an affair that lasted 5 1/2 years. We broke up 3 times before everything ended between us.Oct 1984, June 1986 and finally in April 1987. I move on and eventually met a girl that I decided to marry. We get engaged and things progress. I’m sitting at home in Nov 1990 and I get a phone call. The caller asks if I know who is calling and I say no. She keeps talking and for about 90 seconds I don’t know who this is and then suddenly from deep in my brain there’s the answer ……it’s my ex. I still don’t say I know who she is and eventually she hangs up. If I wasn’t engaged I might have been inclined to go see her but would not have liked what I was going to do to her. She never swallowed me (with one exception) so I was prepared to face fuck her and have my load spray all over her. Or I was going to fuck her in the ass. She had a very sexy ass and other than rimming her the space was forbidden.

I believe she died in early 2021 so that chapter of my life is closed.

[rabbitcruiser]

Candle Day

Candles offer more than just light — fill your home with sweet scents and transform any space into a warm oasis.

For those who absolutely love the joy of lighting candles to provide warm, soft light as well as a delightful fragrance to their homes, especially in winter time, Candle Day is a beautiful way to usher in the cooler season.

History of Candle Day

Typically celebrated on the first Saturday of December, Candle Day was founded by the American retail company, Bath & Body Works. Originally owned by the Limited Brands, which also owns brands such as Victoria’s Secret and Abercrombie & Fitch, the first store in the Bath & Body Works chain was opened in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1990.

Selling products for the body, as the name implies, the company grew rapidly and now runs more than 2000 stores all over the world, 1600 of which are in the United States.

Bath & Body Works is a brand that is particularly beloved for its amazing scents that have a wide range of popularity, from fruity scents to flowers and also offering a line for men. Some of the most popular scents have been Sweet Pea, Japanese Cherry Blossom, Cucumber Melon and Country Apple.

Within these popular scent lines, as well as many others, are many products such as body lotions, fragrances, room sprays and, of course, candles. And for many people, Candle Day is one of the best times of the year to celebrate at Bath & Body Works because that’s when they hold some of their best sales.

Because the season for Christmas and other winter holidays often includes gift-giving, and because candles make incredible gifts, Candle Day was started in 2013. Plus, it’s a great time to simply stock up on candles for the cold, winter months.

So get ready for the fun and celebration of Candle Day!

How to Celebrate Candle Day

Candle Day offers a variety of options for just about any personality, whether looking for some time to spend at home or getting out and taking advantage of various sales. Consider celebrating with some of these ideas:

Light a Candle

Candles can bring so much comfort and warmth to a room, especially if they also envelop the room with a cozy and delicious scent. Fragrances such as Champagne Toast, Cinnamon Apple, or Strawberry Pound Cake are a lovely way to enjoy the day.

Buy a Candle (or Several!)

Head to the local Bath & Body Works to get access to their Candle Day sales and discounts, or look them up online and have the products delivered directly. This annual event typically provides customers with the opportunity to get the brand’s most famous 3-wick candles at a deeply discounted price. Other brands, such as Yankee Candle, may also be offering special prices in honor of Candle Day.

Give a Candle for Candle Day

What a great time to delight and surprise someone with a little present in honor of Candle Day! Find out which scents are a friend’s favorite and get them a large winter-themed pillar candle in honor of the season. Or leave a small votive on the desk of a coworker as a little bit of encouragement.

Source

[thenewwei]

Brief stopover in Kuwait City. I’ve been in many middle eastern airports so the sights are similar—the sheikhs in long robes and the women in black coverage of various types depending on their religiosity but invariably wearing dirty sneakers, fancy makeup and perfectly manicured nails 🙂 Of course the workers are immigrants of all backgrounds. Should have known security would’ve confiscated my Axe Body Spray at slightly over the legal ounce limit even though US airports including JFK on the way here didn’t care. Also had my iPad smashed by an obnoxious customers’ bag but it seems fine for now. I’ve been reading about Kuwaiti culture a bit and didn’t realize how much the 1990 Iraqi invasion really affected the country’s infrastructure and collective psyche. I was so sleepy (consistently woken up on the plane by my seat-mates), that I initially curled up on two seats but finally found a lounge area with bed-length couches. Downed a cappuccino and Turkey sandwich. Now onto Mumbai! #travelblogger #travelphotography #travel #authors #authorslife #authortravel #kuwaitcity #kuwaitlife #kuwaithistory #kuwaiti #KuwaitInternationalAirport #writersofinstagram #middleeast #arabic #authorsofinstagram

[y2kbeautyandother2000sstuff]

.Bath and Body Works Flowering Herbs Body Splash

Left: early 2000s

Right: mid 1990s-2002

Left found on Ebay, user gwh-health-beauty-supplies

Right found on Ebay, user oppshopsales

[goatsludge]

AWS Inc. P/N 50990 CQB Vest

This was AWS's penultimate body armor design, developed out of their custom "DA Trauma" Vest made for CAG and Green Berets during the late 1990's. It took all the lessons from that carrier and refined them with a few upgrades such as MOLLE/PALS integration while still maintaining their legacy snap-on modular panel system.

They were really only popular with Green Berets/SFG, as Delta Force had taken a liking to the Paraclete RAV by this point, which outclassed the CQB Vest in many ways (notably with the RAV's 'cutaway' system).

However, the CQB Vest persisted well into the 2010's before ultimately being discontinued - Crye Precision put the writing on the wall from that point on and there wasn't really any room for clumsy BALCS-style armor carriers.

This example is UCP Camo, but was spray painted by a previous owner.

Tu Lam of Ronin Tactics was known for wearing an AWS CQB Vest on many occasions.

[supersonicart]

ChrisRWK's "Promise Made. Promise Kept."

Opening on February 11th, 2023 at Harman Projects in New York City is artist ChrisRWK's solo exhibition, "Promise Made. Promise Kept."

ChrisRWK creates layered mixed media paintings drawing inspiration from cartoons, comic books and his time as a graffiti writer. These paintings feature a selection of recurring cartoon-like characters that the artist has been developing over the last two decades. Centered in this cast of characters is the eponymous robot. The most iconic image in Chris' work, the robot actually originated as a cube that began appearing in his work in the late 1990s and evolved into a television and then finally a robot around the turn of the century.

The current body of work largely features mixed media paintings made with layers of paint, ink and collage heavily embedded with messages and symbolism. These messages, both seen and unseen help to create pieces that hold a great deal of meaning to the artist. In the top left hand corner of Lost Amongst Ghosts And Shadows, pictured above, the artist has spray painted "Rosebud" the iconic line referring to the childhood sled belonging to Orson Welles' character in Citizen Kane. This text, half obscured is one of countless details that invite the viewer to take a closer look.

Promise Made. Promise Kept is a highly personal exhibition. The artist states "...the past five years have been rough. I Lost my Dad, my Mom, my Mother-in-Law, my dog, six friends and have dealt and am dealing with other things. The art is my sanity. The staying busy and moving helps me process stuff. Writing a word like forever over and over is cathartic. Once I lost those people they were gone forever but only on earth. They’ll forever be in my thoughts and my heart and the work."

Despite dealing pain and loss, the strength of love and friendship is illustrated throughout the work. Hearts as well as references to friends and family find their way into nearly every painting, reminding us to show our appreciation for those whom we hold dear.

THE SUPERSONIC ART SHOP | FOLLOW ON INSTAGRAM

[mariacallous]

In 2000, 17-year-old activist Marta Manojlovic was severely beaten by police outside Belgrade city hall. Twenty-three years later, she saw history repeat itself as security forces again used batons against demonstrators.

Manojlovic was a member of "Otpor" -- a student-led movement instrumental in toppling strongman Slobodan Milosevic, who headed Serbia during its 1990s wars against Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

She was peacefully carrying a flag with a clenched fist, the symbol of resistance against Milosevic's authoritarian regime, when the police rounded her up.

"One of the policemen hit me with a baton on my shoulder, I fell down and I think some seven of them had beaten me," Manojlovic told AFP.

She lost consciousness and sustained 12 stitches on her head, bruised ribs and haematomas all over her body. Manojlovic took 10 days to recover -- but to this day has not let go of the flag.

- On the streets again -

After parliamentary and local elections on December 17, she took to the streets again to protest what she believes is a fraudulent poll orchestrated by  President Aleksandar Vucic, a former Milosevic ally.

Vucic's right-wing Serbian Progressive Party won roughly 46 percent of votes in the parliamentary elections, while the leading opposition coalition secured 23.5 percent, according to official results.

Vucic -- a former nationalist turned pro-European Union populist -- has been criticised his alleged autocratic grip on Serbia.

On Sunday evening, Manojlovic was among thousands of protesters in front of Belgrade city hall demanding the vote be annulled.

Some tried to storm the building and broke windows with flagpoles and rocks, while the police responded with pepper spray and dispersed the crowd using batons.

"History repeats itself in the worst way possible," Manojlovic told AFP.

"My experience told me that conflict was inevitable... so I left just before the clashes started."

Afterwards, she saw images of police beating up young people.

"I felt terrible. This country continues the devour the best people it has, ones that love it the most," Manojlovic said.

"We again, unfortunately, live in an autocracy."

International observers -- including representatives from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) -- reported "irregularities" in the election, including "vote buying" and "ballot box stuffing".

Several Western countries have also expressed concern.

Vucic has denounced the protests, saying there was evidence the violence had been planned in advance and suggested that foreign actors were trying to stir up unrest.

- Student movements -

Manojlovic's generation grew up taking to the streets to demand democracy.

Her parents protested against Milosevic's autocratic regime when she was just a child. "Otpor" (Resistance) quickly became very popular with Serbian youths and mobilised them for a final showdown that toppled Milosevic.

The current protests are also led by university and high school students united under the "Borba" (Fight) movement which also uses a stylised clenched fist as its symbol.

The movement was formed after the elections from an informal group, "Students Against Violence", that echoed the name of the country's main opposition camp, "Serbia Against Violence".

The movement underscores it is not linked to political parties.

Some of Borba's members are proud to wear their parents' protest memorabilia, like Otpor pins, flags and banners.

"I was born in 2002, and I regret that a democratic transition did not take place then," Emilija Milenkovic, a politics student, said.

- 'Tolerating stabilocracy' -

During the 1990s, Milosevic's Serbia became a pariah state over its role in bloody wars that tore apart the former Yugoslavia. His regime was roundly condemned and isolated by the international community.

Vucic however enjoys external political support and and several EU leaders congratulated him personally for the election win despite the fraud allegations.

Political analyst Aleksandar Popov said protests against Vucic cannot succeed without the support of democratic countries.

"They are still tolerating stabilocracy... and this is where you can see the hypocrisy of the West, especially when they speak about human rights and rule of law," Popov told AFP.

"They don't care about... sky-high corruption, collapsed institutions, suppressed human rights and stolen elections."

[jessiereyna]

✿ 1990 & Posedump ✿

♡ @shop1990.sl - Beach Bunny Set is available at The Grand.

→ Set includes Bikini, Skirt, Bunny Sandals, Bunny Hair Clip, Beach Tote and Tropical Body Spray. All pieces sold seperately or FATPACK. Rigged for Reborn, Waifu, Legacy, Pin-Up, Kupra and Peach.

♡ @posedump - Exotic Static Bento Pose Pack is available at Mainstore.

→ This pose comes with 3 poses and a phone prop included {Not Shown}

📍The Grand Event: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Grand%20Event/82/29/47

📍Posedump Mainstore: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Inao/141/168/389

[klogggzz]

Beach Is There A Problem? 🏝💗💫

⬇️ @shop1990.sl ⬇️

🏝🐰~ “Beach Bunny Collection” (inkludes skirt/body spray/bag/hair klip & is Lokated @ The Grand)

💗💫

💅🏼~ “Summer Gyal Set” (Lokated @ The Mainstore)

💗💫

💫Events💫

The Grand⬇️

LM📍: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/The%20Grand%20Event/153/108/2004

💫Mainstore💫

1990 Mainstore🏪: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Redwood/98/57/3667