#And then bitch about people bringing in jobs because apparently our economy can only be revitalized if it's by rich people

[vamptastic]

y'know it's really fun genuinely knowing A Fucking Lot about my hometown whilst having everybody i talk to about local issues think im a big dumb stupid idiot because i look gay and therefore like, Woke and liberal. whatever have fun crying on facebook because you live near an apartment complex and there's no all-white schools to send your kids to. these people have literally zero grasp on reality outside of their own immediate comfort.

[hopetofantasy]

Actress Nora Dari (wtFOCK): “I hope I don't go crazy. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens”

Two years ago she was allowed to bump into Matteo Simoni in ‘Patser’, now your fifteen-year-old knows her as Yasmina from ‘wtFOCK’ and she ended up in Cannes because of the new film by Bas Devos. Where it ends for Nora Dari remains to be seen, but you don't want to get in her way. “You’ve been looking so long for a Moroccan girl who wants to act and then you get me.”

“So I always try to be a bit low key...” She hesitates. "Eumh, do you know what 'low key' means?" "How much of antique do you think I am exactly?" “Gosh. You have a flip cover for your smartphone, I saw.” “Point for Dari. But what are you trying to be a bit low key...” “Huh? Sorry, I have no idea anymore. I was completely distracted by that pigeon over there.” It’s easy to forget - especially when she starts talking in her Genk dialect about her sky-high ambitions or her tough childhood in Winterslag - that Nora Dari is barely seventeen. After all, she’s already accumulated a nice record of achievements in two years. From the Belgian-Finnish crime series ‘Bullets’ (shown on Telenet) and a leading role in ‘wtFOCK’, the online series of SBS and Telenet, to her supporting role in ‘Ghost Tropic’, the most recent full-length movie by Bas Devos, who made the selection of Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes in May. The day after our conversation at an Antwerp terrace, she  leaves for London, for a fourth and final audition for a lead role in an international film project. “It looks good, but I can't tell you anything about it yet. That’s a tough assignment for me: my whole body really wants to scream. Seriously, I'm pretty much the Moroccan Tom Holland (Spider-Man, and the spoiler king of Marvel's Cinematic Universe). But I'll remain silent!”

How does a large, international production house ends up at your door? Nora Dari: “I started knocking on their door. I'm really not going to sit around and wait for someone to discover me miraculously, so if someone gives me a tip about an interesting movie, I'll go after it myself. I always want more and everything I set my mind to, seems to be working. An international series, ‘wtFOCK’, Cannes with my first film role and now this latest project is also within reach. Can you blame me for believing? In my head, I'm already in Hollywood. First become a Shooting Star at the Berlinale.” Just in between everything? Dari: “You can dream, right? Acknowledgement is not for me - I don't even know who decide such things - but rather, it’s a means to an end. If you end up in the same list of acting prodigies (those Shooting Stars) as Marwan Kenzari, Matteo Simoni and Matthias Schoenaerts, every director knows who you are.” You can also quietly build an acting career in Belgium. Or is that really not an option? Dari: “Why should I linger on a few square meters? My world was so small in Winterslag and now that it’s gradually getting bigger, I really don't know why I should stop at Flanders. Even if ambition is a very dirty word where I come from.”

How? Dari: “Winterslag is a neighborhood where many young people are going into the wrong direction. Big dreams are taboo, apparently. I was bullied, mainly because I wanted to start something with my life. Even if I said that I would one day want to go to New York, I would be laughed at: “Just sit down, Nora! Who do you think you are?”

Keep your head down, keep your nose clean and make sure that you can start working at the age of eighteen: something like that? Dari: *nods* “Graduating and going to work at the age of eighteen seems like quite an achievement in Winterslag. If you hadn't gotten into the wrong shit by then, you would’ve done well. At my school, we had two pupils without an immigration background and otherwise exclusively Turks, Moroccans and Italians from families who were really poor. Our parents worked very hard, you spend a lot of time on the street and bad things sometimes happened. *thinks* There’s a reason why I almost exclusively watch gangstershit movies. I come from a neighborhood where a lot of gangstershit happens. I’ve seen and experienced so many bad things, but at the same time Winterslag is such a big part of who I am and I get very angry when someone else talks about it like I do now. *small laugh* 

I’ll buy a house there one day. It’s still my home, all the beautiful things and all the rotten things in one pile. To be clear: I don't want to romanticize my childhood. Winterslag is hard, but nothing to be sad about. There are so many people who have gone through the same thing. Only, it sucks to be called a whore, because you want to do something that is apparently 'not normal'.”

It dawns on me why you once said that Algerian-Canadian Zaho's song Kif'n'dir summed you up quite nicely. Especially the text 'Je fais la morte pour ne pas mourir'. Dari: “That's what I've been doing for a long time. Keeping myself deathly still and don’t stand out too much. In the long run, you also start to believe what others are telling you, that acting is not for you.”

When did you finally stopping ‘being death’? Dari: “When I was fifteen, when I heard that Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah were looking for extras for ‘Patser’. That didn't mean much more than just bumping into Matteo Simoni, but I was sold immediately. In between shots, I approached Adil: “Mr. El Arbi, thank you for opening my eyes. From now on, I’ll go all out for this.” *laughs* We clicked and in the meantime we’ve become friends. I hope he thinks of me when they start recording ‘Patsers’, so that I can show how much I've grown in those two years.”

Not much later, through their casting agency Hakuna, you ended up as a suicide bomber in the Finnish-Belgian Crime series ‘Bullets’. What have I missed? How did you go from a sixteen-year-old extra to such an intense role in a few months? Dari: “I think - if I may say that - they were shocked after my casting. I’ve never thrown myself into a project as hard in my life. Whining. Shouting. Tantrums. All fucking emotions, one after the other. You’ve been looking so long for a Moroccan girl who wants to act and then you get me. *laughs* I've never loved anything as much as acting, so I’m giving everything during a casting. I know that I’m not the best and still have to learn, but I suspect my energy is making up for it. That, and I consider myself a very pleasant colleague. *laughs* I greet everyone in a Genk dialect, always walk around smiling and even bring cookies.

I've always had the feeling that I have to work harder than the rest, because people expect less of me. That's what my father taught my brothers and me. At the Liège boarding school where he studied, he was the only Moroccan in Latin studies: his classmates thought he was weird, because of his origins and the other Moroccans looked at him weirdly, because he aimed higher. "Ah, Mr. pope is back there." In the end it became so unbearable that he enrolled in the TSO (technical school), which was socially accepted.”

How does a 16-year-old feel like a suicide bomber? Dari: “They gave me a background, but I added a few things myself to make it easier. And music helps me really hard too: ‘Qui suis-je’ from Scylla on repeat and then a little method acting in that character. My mother was there on set and apparently got terrified. *laughs* I asked them not to accompany me anymore. When I see them, I come back to myself, while I try very hard to forget myself in front of the camera. I need to be able to get into a role on set. Although it remains very strange to hype yourself up for hours with the mantra 'I'm dying and I'm taking all these people with me'. Fortunately, I can also easily let go. I had to, I had exams the next day. *laughs* Suicide bomber by day, studying economy by night.”

In May you hopped around on the Croisette for the world premiere of ‘Ghost Tropic’. You play the daughter of Khadija, a woman who walks home through Brussels after falling asleep on the metro. Devos makes quiet, poetic arthouse films: it’s a huge leap from teenage series and thrillers. Dari: “It was an adjustment, yes. Before I played in ‘Bullets’, I had never even seen a Flemish film. Not a single one. Or wait: one at school. What was it called? I have to give a speech soon, with its protagonist.”

‘Daens’? With Jan Decleir? Dari: “That one! Everything I had already learned about acting was from Hollywood movies. That enlarged playing style also worked in ‘Bullets’, but when I tried that in ‘Ghost Tropic’, Bas blocked it very quickly. *laughs* "The less you do the better, Nora!" I thought about it all too hard. "Nora, just go." “Yes, but Bas, who am I? What have I been through up to this point?” I have a hard time playing without a backstory in my head.”

Did you learn something from Devos? Dari: “Bas and Maaike Neuville told me in Cannes that I shouldn’t forget to live. I was only busy with what should be my next big step, but I also have to learn to enjoy. Surrendering is nothing dirty, but if I put everything aside for this job, I’ll never be able to put content in my characters. Then they’ll give me a heavy role and I’ll get stuck.”

Sensible advice. Alarm bells already went off when I read in ‘Het Belang van Limburg’ that you certainly wanted to remain celibate until you were 27 and wouldn’t continue your studies, just focussing on your career. Dari: “In the end, I’ll study cross-media management and I’ve come back to that other one as well. *laughs* What?! I’m seventeen, I change my mind completely every month. When I am 40, I don't just want to have a nice IMDb profile to look back on.”

'9000 followers? That is more people than have seen my last film', Devos thought humbly in your Instagram Stories. Dari: “I hope ‘Ghost Tropic’ gets more visitors than I have followers, but I'm not going to bitch if only fifty people come to watch the film in the end. I just like to act and have hardly seen anything from ‘Bullets’ or ‘wtFOCK’ myself. When I'm not on set, I just feel bad. As if I'm not getting the most out of my life. 

At the very least, ‘Ghost Tropic’ gave me another experience and I was able to take my father with me, when we went to the Dominican Republic. My grandfather had passed away just before the shoot and we kind of processed that together there, while we were watching the sunrise at five in the morning. A very tender moment. Very cinematic, too. *thinks* I’m a very passionate person. Everything I experience is immediately very big. It’s all hard, good or bad. So hard that I can't always process all the feelings. *dryly* I hope I don't go crazy. I really wouldn't be surprised if that happens.”

You seem to be especially prone to obsessions. Whether it’s making music, painting or acting: if you decide to do something, everything has to make way for it. Dari: “When I got a keyboard, I was immediately very invested in my music. Making beats to accompany my slam poetry, tinkering at night, searching and keeping my parents awake until they went crazy. And then I suddenly got tired of it and started painting. Swimming. Dancing. I also played soccer for a while, mainly to get my dad's attention. During the 'consultation hour' around the tajine I could never have a chat with my brothers and father, because it was only about football and anime.”

Anime? Dari: “The men in my family are all next-level anime fans. They even speak Japanese to each other. *thinks* And I also plunged into my religion for a while, in between football and slam poetry.”

How? Dari: “When the community center closed its doors around the age of 13 and I saw a whole circle of friends go away in one go, I started clinging to something else. So, faith. At that time I also wore a hijab, because I was convinced that you could only be such a good Muslim. I was really pretty strict and took everything way too literally. Today I understand that you mainly have to look for your own interpretation.”

In the meantime, the average 15-year-old is also going through a storm for the second season of wtFOCK, which can be followed daily on Instagram and wtfock.be, good for about 400,000 visitors a week and more than 8 million watched - or at least started - episodes. Significantly more than the first season, although that also had good numbers. Especially for a series that was deliberately launched in silence. “You’re already bombarded with advertising on Instagram, subtle and less subtle,” says Dari, while she tries so intensely to make eye contact with a waiter that he almost bumps into a glass door. “I don't have any big theories about the future of television, but ‘wtFOCK’ really was a relief. It’s on the internet and you mainly do what you want with it. "Ah, I don't have to look?" That unforced approach works. The worst thing that could have happened to us, was that the press started writing about it en masse: it had to remain a bit mysterious and above all belong to the young people themselves. Normally we don't give interviews either: ‘wtFOCK’ is one big bubble that you shouldn't talk too much about.”

Without any illusions about the appeal of Knack Focus to fifteen-year-olds: is this conversation a good idea? Dari: “Sounds okay to me. I’m more now than just Yasmina? And I think fifteen-year-olds do know Knack.” 

For real? Dari: “That's the book we get in History as source material in class. *laughs* I think I'll stop giving interviews again after this. A little mystery can't hurt.”

SKAM, the Norwegian series of which ‘wtFOCK’ is a remake, became a hit in its own country. That’s not always the case with foreign remakes, except for the Flemish one. It continues to gain popularity. Do you have an explanation for that? Dari: “No idea why things were less successful in other countries, but ‘wtFOCK’ is so good because it is real. We don't disguise anything, don't pour Hollywood sauce on it and talk like I talk to my friends. Apparently, a lot of teachers also follow the series to get a better understanding of their students. Smart, because we tackle all issues a teenager has in a very realistic way.”

The makers of SKAM were prepared with a tour through its country and a survey of Norwegian teenagers. Their biggest conclusion was: no generation suffers as much from performance pressure and comparison anxiety as yours. Dari: “Social media. Instagram is a very beautiful, but at the same time very scary place. A lot of girls now ask me, for example, how they can also enter this profession. But if you ask them why, it turns out that there’s no passion, they just see it as a fast road to fame. Then join ‘Temptation Island’? They see  people like Millie Bobby Brown (from Stranger Things), who is barely fifteen and has a crazy career and they let themselves be hyped about it. I should actually say 'we'. I said it already: I ​​hope I don't go crazy.” *giggles hysterically* 

About 1200 teenagers showed up for the casting of wtFOCK, but the makers did not find their Yasmina there. Dari: *nods* “In the end they also had to call Adil, who gave me the tip.”

Why do you think that is? Dari: “I get angry when someone says they want more diversity, but can't find anyone. *throws arms up dramatically* "They aren't there!" They are there. In my neighborhood alone, so much talent is packed together. You may have to do your best to find them, because if you come from a neighborhood where ambition is laughed at, you’ll not find your way to a casting. Because the TV and film world seem so closed off from the outside - and it is. I also didn't know how to do that, I was just lucky that Adil, Nora Gharib and Ikram Aoulad wanted to help me. They helped me avoid a lot of rookie mistakes. And that I won't sign myself up for Temptation Island or something tomorrow.” *laughs*

Gharib also predicted that as a Moroccan woman she would have problems with ‘Patser’. From the moment you do not portray a classic religious Muslim woman, it seems to already lead to commentary. Dari: “I've had my part too. Women who send to me that I brought shame on the entire Moroccan community, for example, because Yasmina doesn't always wear her hijab. Usually these are women who’ve seen two minutes of the series and then get angry without seeing the context. *blows* You know, I don’t care. If my parents and I are okay with it, then no one has anything to say to me. Criticism slips away from me. It really takes more than an angry DM to get me off my path, I come from Winterslag breeding.”

*** Bas Devos, director ‘Ghost Tropic’:

“I had never seen Nora at work, but her audition video immediately made me curious. At the final casting, where she had to improvise a bit, it was already clear to me after a few minutes. She did a beautiful job. Nora is not trained as an actress, but I often work with a combination of non-professional and professional actors. That really doesn't matter to me. It's all about how naturally someone relates to the camera and how relaxed you are while being filmed. Then very beautiful things can happen. And I think she also liked not having to make her character bigger in an understated film like ‘Ghost Tropic’, as that’s sometimes the case for TV. To hear that you are still playing without doing anything. 

It's cool how she dares to go for something so outspokenly at such a young age, but I did point out to her that working alone isn’t the perfect solution. She’s very fond of that international career, but it is also easy to walk into a wall there. Seventeen-year-olds have to live, right? Well, she's sensible enough, I'm not worried. She'll eventually find the right balance. At the end of the shooting period, she said she hoped we could work together again. I told her that I hope she still likes it by then. *laughs*  Who knows which films will she be in then.”

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Tony Stark’s Guide to Being a Functional Adult

Step 3: Get a Job (AO3)

The next morning Bucky came into the kitchen for breakfast and made a face at the funky smell.  He found Tony was sitting at the table, determinedly eating his way through what looked and smelled like burnt, rubbery eggs.

“Breakfast mishap?” Bucky said, smothering a smile as he went to the pantry for cereal.

“Yeah,” Tony sighed, poking at the eggs.

“If you would like someone to show you around the kitchen, I can,” Bucky said as grabbed a bowl from the cabinets. “I used to make breakfast for my sister all the time.”

Tony washed down the eggs with a large swallow of coffee.  “I used to sit with Jarvis in the kitchen while he cooked, so I thought I knew what I was doing.  Turns out it’s a lot harder than it looks.”

“Try doing it one handed,” Bucky joked without thinking, and winced.  He snuck a glance at Tony but Tony was just looking mournfully down at his plate.  He’d been waiting for Tony to say something about his missing arm, to at least ask, and waiting for the inevitable awkward questions was making him anxious. 

“I couldn’t even crack the eggs right, I know you should be at least able to do that one handed.”  Bucky looked in the trash can and sure enough, there were a handful of destroyed eggs along with a ridiculous amount of paper towels.

“You’ll get the hang of it.”  He sat down at the table with his bowl and smiled at Tony’s downturned mouth as he gazed covetously at Bucky’s breakfast.

With a sigh, Tony managed to force down the last bite of eggs and pushed his plate away.  “Speaking of fixing things,” he said, clearing his throat and fiddling with his fork. “I don’t suppose you need any help in your garage?”

“You got experience working on cars?” Bucky said in surprise.  Nothing about Tony screamed “blue collar” much less “grease monkey,” but he should know better than to judge people by their looks.

“Not professionally, but I’ve been working on my dad’s cars for years.”  Tony must have realized that he was fidgeting because he flattened his palms on the table and met Bucky’s eyes.  “I know we just met, but I was thinking if you just let me show you what I can do…you know what, I’m sorry,” he said, pushing back from the table and standing. “It was a dumb idea, you’ve already helped me enough-”

“No, stop,” Bucky said, grabbing Tony’s hand before he could turn away.  “It’s not a dumb idea.  There are jobs that I can’t take because of, you know, my arm, so I could probably use another pair of hands. One whole pair of hands.  You know what I mean.” He let go of Tony and ran his hand over the back of his neck.  “Just come down whenever, or I can just get you when I have something for you to do.”

“Great!” Tony brightened like Bucky just made his day, and for some stupid reason Bucky felt himself blush so he turned back to his cereal and hoped Tony didn’t notice.  “I’ll just grab my laptop and come downstairs in a little while.”

“Sure, sounds good,” Bucky said in what he hoped was an offhand manner and prayed that this wouldn’t turn out to be a really dumb idea.

(More after the break!)

Bucky’s business was not what you would call ‘booming’ these days; having to do everything one-handed made him slow and limited the types of repairs he could do, and most of the people in the neighborhood already knew that by now.  He had one guy come by to change out his battery, which he suspected was more of a charity thing than anything else, and a couple of people came in for inspections.  Bucky was about to apologize to Tony for wasting his day when a guy in a suit came striding up his driveway, shouting into his cell phone.

“Hold on a second,” he said to the person on the other line, and muted the call to speak to Bucky.  “You’re a mechanic, right?  My car started making this ticking sound on the highway and when I got off on the exit, it just shut off at the intersection.”

“What kind of car is it?” Bucky was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to help this guy because it sounded like a fuel pump problem, but it was worth a shot.

“It’s a 2016 Jaguar XJ,” the man said, and Bucky started to open his mouth and admit that he didn’t know anything about Jags when Tony jumped down off the work bench he’d been perched on.

“I might be able to help you,” he said.  “How far away is it?”

“Just down the street.”

Tony gestured for him to lead the way and out of sheer curiosity, Bucky quickly locked up the shop and followed.  The man returned to his phone call, apparently more than happy to ignore them both as Tony popped the hood and took a look.

“Do you have any idea what it might be?” Bucky said in a low voice as Tony leaned into the engine compartment.

“Yeah,” Tony answered absently.  “People haven’t been buying Jags as much these days because of the economy, so in order to keep from having to raise prices too much or, god forbid, reduce the salaries of the senior employees, they’ve been getting cheap on the parts.”  He reached down and started fiddling with something Bucky couldn’t see from his angle.  “Will you grab some stuff from the shop?” Bucky nodded and Tony gave him a handful of things to bring back. When he returned it only took Tony about thirty minutes of fiddling in the engine while Bucky handed him tools before he took a step back and was closing the hood.

“Give it a try,” he said to the driver, who got behind the wheel. It cranked up with no problem and Tony smiled in satisfaction.  “The fix will get you another couple hundred miles,” Tony said to the driver through the window, who seemed to be barely paying attention, still intent on his phone.  “But you should take it to your dealer, it should still be under warranty.”

“How much do I owe you?”  The man said, tossing the phone on the side seat as he reached for his wallet.

Tony looked to Bucky, who took a gamble and said, “Two hundred for an onsite service call, since we had to close the shop.”  Bucky halfway expected him to protest because Tony only worked on the car for about thirty minutes, but the man pulled out four fifty dollar bills without protesting, which kinda made Bucky wish he’d asked for more.

“Good work,” Bucky said in surprise as they watched the Jag drive away, purring like it just came off the lot.

“Thanks.  I used to tell my friends that I was good at three things: drinking, fucking, and fixing things,” Tony said, surprising a laugh out of Bucky.

“Drinking, fucking, and fixing things, huh?” Bucky said as he turned to go back to the garage. “Are you as good at fucking and drinking as you are at fixing things?”

“Better,” Tony said with a lewd wink as he flipped a wrench into the air. He tried to catch it and missed as it came down, wink turning into a wince as it clattered loudly on the sidewalk.

“Smooth,” Bucky said, smiling. He took one of the fifties that the man had given them for repairing his car and put the rest in the cash drawer.  “Let’s knock off early and go get a drink.”

He led them to a tiny, hole in the wall bar called, somewhat ironically, The Yacht Club, that was only four blocks away. “This is my favorite place drink,” Bucky said. “Well,” he amended as he pulled the door open for Tony, “It's kind of my only place to drink. I don't tend to wander very far from home these days.”  Going more than a mile from his house usually sparked a panic attack that only got worse the farther away he went, but he didn't want to sound like a nutcase so he kept that part to himself.

As they went to sit at a booth near the bar, Tony was acting like he never seen a place like this before, running a hand over the scarred wooden tables and picking at the cracking fake leather of the seats.  In honor of the bar’s name, the décor was beach themed with pirate accents;  Bucky looked around and saw it as Tony must be seeing it and realized that objectively speaking, it was probably a bit of a dump. But it was a dive bar, a locals bar, with great food and a beer tap that rotated just enough to say interesting without attracting too many of the hipsters that were invading the neighborhoods of New York.

“Bucky, you son of a bitch, I thought I told you never to come to this bar again.”  Bucky was pulled from his thoughts as a man came up and threw an arm around him with affection.

“You told me to never come to this bar again unless I was bringing somebody who could actually drink,” Bucky corrected.  Bucky was usually on a one or two drink limit because of his meds, and though Sam knew that he still liked to give him a hard time.  “So that's what I did,” he said, gesturing to Tony.

“Oh yeah?” Sam looked at Tony with interest and Bucky noticed curiously that Tony seemed to tense but smiled politely anyway under his scrutiny.  “I'm Sam, the main bartender here,” Sam said, holding out his hand.

Tony relaxed as he shook Sam’s hand. “I’m Tony.  

“Tony is my new roommate and co-worker,” Bucky explained. “Today was his first day on the job so I brought him here to celebrate. The food here is amazing, if you are hungry,” he said to Tony.

“Yeah our cook is a visionary,” Sam added. “Not good with people but a magician in the kitchen.”  Interest piqued, Tony reached for the menu.  At this point anything would be better than more frozen dinners; they'd run out of Jarvis's meals last week.  “I’ll give you a minute to decide,” Sam said, and gave Bucky one more clap on the back before he left.  “Nice to meet you, Tony.”

“So I keep hearing that you are planning to go to school in the fall,” Bucky commented as Tony looked over the menu. “What are you going to study?”

“Mechanical engineering, hopefully,” Tony said. “I would like to go into clean energy, I think.  Or robotics, I haven’t decided.”

“A Master’s?”

“Uh, well,” Tony cleared his throat. “A PhD, actually.”

“Oh, wow,” Bucky sat back with a smile. “Impressive.”

“It will be my second,” he admitted. “It’s why my dad kicked me out.”

“Really? For wanting another doctorate?”

“Yeah, he said I was just wasting time instead of helping with the family business.”   Tony ran a hand over the back of his neck.  “Which might be a little true, but not for the reason he thinks.  He thinks I’m, I don’t know, lazy or something, but the truth is that I just don’t think our company is in the right business.”

Bucky waited for him to continue, but Tony just shrugged and smiled apologetically, clearly unable or unwilling to say more. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that about your dad, but the PhD thing does explain a lot, though,” Bucky said, waving for Sam to come back.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like why you don’t know how to cook but you can fix a Jag with some duct tape and a clothes hanger.”  They placed their order, two loaded burgers with a couple of beers, and Sam wandered off again and came back after a moment with their drinks.

“Cheers to your first day of work,” Bucky said, tapping his glass against Tony’s.

“Cheers,” Tony repeated, taking a sip. "So, how about you? Have you thought about going back to school or are you happy with the mechanics shop?"

Bucky snorted.  "Nah, I got my bachelors in history while I was in the Army because I was going to try to become an officer one day."  He gestured wryly to his shoulder.  "But things didn't really work out.  Nowadays the thought of going back to school..." Bucky grimaced.  Even if he got into a program, which would be difficult enough, he could imagine being in class with a bunch of people who were ostentatiously trying not to stare at him, or having to constantly find workarounds for only having one arm, or having to commute so far outside his comfort zone.  Even the idea of dealing with papers and deadlines and presentations made him sweat just thinking about it.  "Just sounds exhausting,” he finished.

"I can see that," Tony said, which Bucky thought was rich coming from a guy going for his second doctorate. Bucky's skepticism must have showed on his face because Tony protested. "Hey, I hated writing papers," he said.  "All of the English and History prerequisites, even for a science degree, were horrible.  My roommate Rhodey is the only reason why I passed those classes."

"If you say so." Bucky took a sip of his beer.  “I liked writing essays. I wasn’t too shabby at math, but history was definitely one of my favorite subjects.”  Bucky told Tony about this one essay he wrote on the impact of snipers in World War 2, and Tony shared some of his dad’s anecdotes from working with the military, and when Same brought their food over, he got drawn into the discussion from his experience with the Air Force.  The bar was slow enough that Sam was able to sit down with them and talk, which was when Tony found out that Sam had a day job with the local Veteran’s Affairs center.

“But enough about me,” Sam said, leaning over the table to study Tony with a mischievous look in his eye. “Let’s talk about you.”

“Sam,” Bucky said warningly, apparently knowing what he was about to say, but Sam ignored him.  

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“Uh,” Tony glanced at Bucky in confusion, but he was hiding his face in his hand and was therefore no help. “No?”

“No?” Sam echoed, sounding pleased.  “Hear that, Bucky? You know, Bucky here’s not seeing anyone either,” Sam said over Bucky’s embarrassed groan.

“Go away, Sam,” Bucky said, voice muffled by his hand.  “You’re not helping.”

Bucky couldn’t see the slow grin of unholy amusement that came over Sam’s face at that, but Tony knew that Bucky had just fucked up. “Helping, huh,” he said, and Sam’s tone made Bucky’s eyes fly up in alarm.

“Sam-” he warned again, but Sam just talked right over him.

“Helping implies that there’s something to help,” Sam said musingly, stroking his chin thoughtfully.  Then his eyes widened. “Oh my God, I’m crashing your date.  This is your first date, isn’t it?” As Bucky started to protest, Sam slid out from the booth.  “I’m so sorry, you guys get back to your awkward first date conversation.”

“This isn’t a date!” Bucky called out to his receding back.

“What was that?” Sam called back. “One slice of chocolate cake for the lovebirds? Ok, coming right up!”

Tony could see that Bucky’s face was getting red and knew he was blushing to match. “I’m so sorry,” Bucky said.  “Sam likes to think he's funny."

“It’s fine,” Tony said.  He wanted to say, I mean, it could be a date if you wanted it to be, but he didn’t know if that would make Bucky’s embarrassment worse, and anyway, they were living together and working together, so dating would be too much, right?  He sighed internally and plastered on a reassuring grin. “My friends are the same way.”  The silence between them was awkward for a minute then Tony said, “But we’re staying for the cake, right? That wasn’t just a joke?”

“Well, yeah we’re staying for the cake,” Bucky said as if that were obvious. “I mean, free cake.”

[rgr-pop]

LONG POST AIRING GRIEVANCES ABOUT DUMB SHIT IN BEAUTY COMMUNITY!! 

oh my GOD. okay, so, small youtuber who is climbing. beloved by many small youtubers because she is a regular girl and very nice and FROM UPSTATE NEW YORK and has social justice interests, she also posts a lot of drama content and some people (including me tbh) really like the way she kind of ~~democratizes drama content. don’t @ me it’s whatever. reddit HATES her because her mother buys her a lot of makeup for her birthday (literally) and she is not into self-punishing no-buys which is the only thing people like right now very coincidentally (going on a no-buy is apparently how you end landfills).

this youtuber is fat and not conventionally pretty--I really hate even saying the latter because it is objectively not true and also an evil thing to say even nicely, but for example she is always talking about how she doesn’t really care that her lips are small and is not interested in overdrawing or “fixing” them, and getting flamed for it. in the community (the respectable arm of it, which is the rddt, where we are ostensibly not allowed to be like “she looks terrible”), where there is smoke there is fire, and “not skilled at makeup” + maybe some nebulous complaints about whininess = she is a fat girl, end her. (”rude” = black youtuber too much power, end her.)

i’m talking about sm*key gl*w whose name is hannah, hannah #1, i think it is interesting to contrast her with the other hannah that i talk about sometimes--i try not to talk about her too much because we sort of teechnically have real world social connections and, also, i just feel bad for her. i feel desperately bad for hannah #2, because she is in her thirties having lived in art communities and global urban centers but for the first time in her life having to reckon with things like--”it is not appropriate to talk about calories at dinner, etc.” that is the second hannah, and while she is sweet and interesting to many in the small youtube community precisely because she is very alien to them (has mfa), it’s very difficult to watch, and sometimes i think she is the most “toxic” youtuber i follow. she is not an originator in any way, but she found herself in the center of a so-called anticonsumerist movement in small beautube that is kind of taking over, which is related to but not exactly minimalism--you have probably heard me talk about this already, at length. a good example of this is that second hannah recently said in a video that she was thinking of doing a shopping “fast.” i don’t know how she became this person, and how she held onto this kind of personality in spite of being in lots of communities that i am also in or have friends in where i know that if you talked this way about dieting etc. at a social event, someone would probably softly scold you. she somehow insulated herself from this kind of learning, i don’t know, then she threw herself into beautube where a woman who maybe sort of likes art and writes poetry and has heard of “fair trade” before is an absolute anomaly, but that community--like literally, where people do liposuction and skinny teas!--has only encouraged this absolutely unreal nasty and BAD behavior. etc. i have a lot of feelings about this.

so first hannah is a fat girl who is not rich--we will get to that!--but spends her money primarily on makeup. people HATE her. second hannah is thin, possibly rich in family origin (i think she is) but basically your average working artist in life. she frames her so-called overconsumption not even precisely as an addiction but specifically as a lack of willpower that she also struggles with when it comes to sometimes eating sugar (really). both of these hannahs consume and talk about quite a lot of luxury makeup--second hannah is very openly committed to luxury purchase as part of her self-conception. second hannah sometimes goes on “shopping diets” though, so people praise her! it is evil. 

above is the shit i hate day in and day out but the points below will have more to do with the screencap +...upstate new york, i guess. henceforth we are only talking about first hannah.

so this girl is from some kind of small town around rochester or syracuse--something up there. iirc she goes to a suny school i had never heard of (i looked it up and it is a “suny comprehensive college,” though i can’t remember if she transferred out of this school to a bigger school. but, as many of you know, sunys are cheap as hell and should be protected at all costs, this school costs well under half what my state school did, for residents anyway.) she is in her mid-twenties and not graduated yet, due to struggles she has had (and spoken openly about) as well as having gone to community college. they LOVE to bring up how she is too old to be a college student! she’s like...idk 24 or something. she is going to school to be a social worker in one of those accelerated programs, which she has found quite difficult (again, spoken openly about this) and which also requires, as many of you know!, lots of extra work, unpaid and paid. she said somewhere that she does not have student loans, but i don’t know if her parents paid for her college or just shouldered loans, or if she paid for it, or if it is all financial aid. (”not having student loans” is something that enrages people, ESPECIALLY when someone doesn’t have loans because they got need-based aid.) again, she probably had some financial catastrophes due to school failures (speaking from experience here), but: sunys is cheap as hell and there are a million reasons why someone could go to one and not be struggling with loans!

where was i...her parents. watching this has fascinated me! her dad was a school teacher and her mom is a social worker--absolutely public servant middle class. i thiiink (could be wrong) that her father retired already and ended up retiring from a principalship, so they were probably extremely comfortable by the time she was in college, but they are definitionally middle class. the biggest controversy around this youtuber is that for birthdays and christmas her mother goes fucking insane--probably spent two to four hundred dollars on her for her birthday. she talks about this all the time: her mother and her are very close and their hobby is shopping. people treat this like the bougiest fucking thing on earth and it is ba nanas. straight up, this girl has probably never even HEARD of anthropologie. listen, i can’t afford to live like her either but i recognize poor shopping when i see it. working class people like to blow their money on bullshit and to take issue with that is demonstrably racist and classist! i will not hear this conversation over again in 2019. for example, hannah made a video about her “high end bag” collection, in which she said she got a bcbg bag on sale for like $30 but had never heard of the brand before. she had once been gifted a kate spade bag and her DREAM was to purchase one on her own. she buys coach at the local coach outlet, which is a regional attraction. THIS GIRL IS NOT BOUGIE! THEY ARE JUST MAD THAT SHE OWNS CLOTHES AND IS ALSO FAT! she did a closet tour where she talked about how she has like 50 crop tops, they were ALL like forever 21. they are just mad about fat girl in crop tops. there is nothing to see here! does she have too much shit, and shop too much? sure. welcome to flyover country you dumb bitches. that is what I think about that!

so, she definitely makes money on youtube, but mostly enough to sustain youtube and makeup buying (possibly some savings? unsure. i know she said this in a video but i forget.) she has lived with this boyfriend of hers for a number of years and they are building a life together that doesn’t immediately include marriage, probably largely for financial reasons. i get the sense that his jobs pay a lot of their bills, but he just finished getting a teaching MA of some kind (i think he is a math teacher? i already forgot) and is entering the regular teaching job market. based on some of the following i think his parents might be wealthier than hers but i think they might also be teachers. as you can see in the screenshot above, people are enraged at this girl for apparently being a gold digger for getting a house with him before they are married! 

people are SO pissed that she was “able to buy a house” at age 25, but they did not watch the video! in which she said that they had been dealing with the death of her bf’s step grandpa all year, and the family had decided that they should take over the step grandpa’s house. (step grandpa’s family does sound “richer” because, according to her, this house had been owned by a GREAT grandparent and paid off decades ago.) her descriptions of this house are confusing to me because she keeps referring to it as both “old” and “from the eighties,”; I think it is an actually old house that had not been “updated” since the eighties. seems like the family did not “gift” it to them as much as sign it over to them in exchange for them being the ones to take out the renovation loans, which allegedly she said are $50k. unclear to me if she and her bf got approved for that loan--probably not, I think it was taken out in the family’s name. ($50k is too much to put into a house in rochester imooo but I am reserving my judgment there! rochester has a very flyover housing economy, much like ours, but with a much higher end, I think?)

so anyway, these vultures are sociopaths. “ Who gives someone a house no matter how much they like them? That seems wild to me” ...p-parents? dead grandparents? is your will gonna be like “my kid has to buy their OWN house like i did!” who are these people

YES SOMETIMES YOU STOP NEEDING YOUR HOUSE, WHEN YOU DIE

anyway I’m done. I just thought this thing would be of interest in particular to the upstate new yorkers. the whole condition of the indebted working-middle class is just like inconceivable to people who consume only ideologically pure content by wealthy west coast whites all day long 

[chuyumi]

CHU YUMI   ------   a nineteen year old leo ( august 6th ), entp.

columbus born & raised, just like jeremy & taemin. a surviving victim of the same local mob.

among many of her father’s vices, gambling was the most prominent one. one that resulted into the aromdee’s losing their house & being penniless when the child was only six years old & still unaware of what life is.

her father got involved with the aforementioned mob, became their little bitch, and managed to get temporary roofs over their heads from time to time. they adopted a nomadic lifestyle, going from one moldy, shabby, tiny apartment to another.

he pushed her mother into an alcohol-filled world, the woman gulping her sorrows away with every strong beverage that hit the back of her throat. she, sober or not, still attempted to provide for her innocent baby & take care of her, even though her father seemingly forgot that he had a family.

when her mother, tired of the same shit over & over again, became vocal about it, is when the abuse started. chimlin was twelve & able to recognise & remember every single poisonous word directed at either of the two aromdee females, mark every painful blow & count every single tear that rolled from the two pairs of eyes.

there was another kid caught up in the mob & chim used to see him around, but he was an older boy & she was too shy to approach him. apparently he turned out to be the mob boss’ son, so really all she should ever feel for him is hatred, right?

but one day while she was sitting in front of her building, both tears & blood ( from a glass cut ) streaming down her face & making a mess on her clothes, was when he approached her. her light. her saviour. her rock. her e v e r y t h i n g. he showed her affection & kindness she’d never known before. he gave her his eternal support & vowed to never leave her alone, to always protect her. he helped her run away with her mother by her side. he gave her the money he got from his drug dealing job & all the cash he managed to steal from his criminal parents and all of that combined with what they had saved, they were able to find a decent apartment just for the two of them.

without his knowledge, chim dropped out of high school & did a lot of sketchy jobs in order to keep the food on the table for her & her mom. the older aromdee, at first, busted her ass to do the same but she was only becoming more depressed because of their struggles and basically gave into her alcohol & drug addiction fully. she stopped being responsible, stopped acting like an adult. more often than not, chim would find her passed out in the living room and would try to carry her to her room or at least put her on the couch or, on the nights when she was tired, she’d make sure she was covered with a blanket, had a pillow under her head and was lying on her side so that she wouldn’t choke on her vomit in the middle of the night.

sometimes her mom would bring home her boyfriends, fellow addicts, that chimlin only tried to ignore because they were nasty & reminded her of her father. when they tried ordering her around &, for example, demanded a glass of water, she’d bring it & splash it into their faces lmao.

other than on those occasions, the two of them barely ever saw each other because they were always out on the streets … their relationship became so cold and ?? idk but the people she met on the streets meant more to her than her own flesh & blood. they drifted apart a lot.

i sort of wanted to drop this part of her when alice made jaesung a camboy, especially since kerry has a sugar daddy, but i can’t because it makes sense and i need it ok sorry. stage one: when she became of legal age a year ago, she added cam shows to her resume. they were more erotic & aesthetic rather than nasty & trashy. she’d never reveal her body fully, only heavily imply what was going on, use a bunch of filters & dress up in appealing pastel colours. and it turned out that people’s frustration & curiosity gained her a lot of money ?? stage two: she busted her ass & was incredibly persistent until she got a job as a go-go dancer in one of the local nightclubs. she was too street smart for anyone who visited that place   ------   she never drank anything there. she didn’t want to risk being drugged. stage three: she started giving lap dances so that she’d get paid more. stage four: sure, even when she was only a dancer, they’d offer her a lot of money in order to take her home or into a random hotel room where she’d provide them with sexual favours and, at first, she used to refuse all of it. then she became greedier. at first she’d only allow them to watch her. she’d put on a show just for the other person. then she started to accept sleeping with them if she was attracted to them. 35+ tho ?? no thank you.

because of all of that, she managed to get a couple of regular viewers/fans/whatever that are throwing their money along with gifts at her left & right ( she has a po box & basically she often returns home to her pals with packages & is like ??? i’m secretly a really popular youtuber & y’all are living under a rock sMFH !! )

before she was living with her friends, she used that money for, yes, food & necessities BUT also on ridiculously expensive crap just beacause ?? like, she definitely had that phase. but she could never pull it off. she’d throw on ridiculous high heels & a fur coat but she’d always be a street kid without manners & with the sharpest of tongues. watch her kick your ass & not giving a shit whether she gets blood or dirt on her silky blouse.

it all changed when she moved in with her friends. she’s now sending her mom money ofc & spending it on her friends more than herself. she often appears with random gifts & is like “don’t you know that it’s international friendship day pls. ...... . .. take that” or she’s be like “YO MAMA GOT PAID TODAY WOOO!!” ....... yes she refers to herself as mama. stfu. she apologises with gifts, she expresses her love with gifts. she doesn’t know how to do it in any other way. she goes to the grocery store & spends her money on all of their stuff & tells them “of course i took our joint $$ what are you talking about”

don’t fight me on this bc no one’s ever mentioned & i’m calling dibs on it   ------   she’s the one who breaks the expensive gift rule.

ok moving on. she’s been telling everyone that she’s taking online classes & that she’s an economy major. but yk the truth is, she’s a high school dropout & she’s soo embarassed of that that she can’t even say it to taemin.

she also sneaks out at night to go to work & prays to everything holy that her friends will never choose to go out to the club where she works bc everyone knows her there & they’d come up to her to greet her if she appeared there with them.

this bitch never sugarcoats anything. she’s real af. if you fuck up, she’ll tell you you fucked up. she’ll tell you when you’re being a dick. she’s sooo blunt & uses profanities non stop.

she can be so childish somethimes, you don’t even know. this is because she didn’t have a proper childhood, it was taken away from her against her own will so now she’s making up for it. she had to grow up when she was supposed to play and be careless. please take her to playgrounds and let her play with dogs and watch old disney movies with her and play video games with her and tell her stupid jokes.

the type to yell at someone for looking at her the wrong way on the street JFHBEFEFKLJGS

always carries a butterfly knife & a lighter ( jeremy taught her cool tricks with both of those ok )

.............. she’s sweet tho. JFGEPFGE

she’s bisexual af.

she sacrifices relationships with people she has genuine feelings for just because she can’t get rid of her sketchy jobs, like, she needs them. she’d starve otherwise.

she really hates this about herself but she can’t help it.

the reason why she’s so obsessed with money is that she didn’t have anything while growing up, obviously.

she’d rather marry a rich person whom she doesn’t love so that her kids would have everything she never had rather than a poor person whom she loves and risk making her kids go through what she went through.

she loves girls soo much, she worships them. she will make your nose bleed if she hears you talk shit about them. she’ll hurt you even more if she sees you hurt a girl or be rude to one like. please.

all she wants in life is to be f r e e.