#Global Mens T-Shirts

[nauticonfashionstore9]

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[jmdbjk]

I'm telling you, their life flashed before their eyes...

The staffs' I mean...

WARNING: CONTINUED POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT! I may or may not mention "Are You Sure?" scenes in detail and their outcomes during these long rambling messy posts beginning with the next sentence.

While on the kayaks, JK flipped over almost immediately. this sequence will be legendary in my mind:

All is well so far. Let's go kayaking! After being assisted by the Black Hall Outfitter staff, including Mr. Gino, they take off.

At this point, staff is walking away, ready to get on a boat to follow. Everything is cool. But something's not right. Why is the horizon at a 45 degree angle?

Staff has not noticed yet...

Jungkook's $1700 Balenciaga fancy pants are about to get soaked.

Jimin does not see what's going on behind him. Yet.

I can read his mind: "WTF?"

Staff finally notices and thoughts of living on the street start to flash through their heads...

Jimin can't believe what he's seeing...staff is sprinting into action...

He was first worried about his phone but one of the staff had it.

Staff thinking "I'm too old for this shit."

Drowned Rat Jungkook was not on my bingo card. I need a new bingo card.

Meanwhile, Jimin fearlessly paddles out to the middle of the river wearing his $70,000 Patek Philippe watch on his wrist... gasp.

Please take a moment to appreciate that gorgeous sunset in the background.

Seems some of Jimin's Slytherin has rubbed off on our little Ravenclaw (I know that's debatable but that's for another post).

Jimin was probably clenching so tight that flipping over would have been disaster for him.

Jungkook gets back in the kayak and is on his way... staff breathes a sigh of relief that they won't be jobless tomorrow.

Remember when he said this?

And this is how we know Jungkook is able to move past his own missteps.

But still desires some sort of collateral retribution from those more fortunate than he:

And this is the true and lasting take away from this little incident:

A moment that can be a beautiful memory.

And this is about the time this moment happened:

Now we know.

Jungkook was about to put on his royal blue Salty to the Core t-shirt. He wasn't taking off a shirt, he had already taken off his wet shirt and he was about to put on a dry one. That shirt in his hands is not black. And now we know Jimin was about to put on his turquoise one. And now we know what kind of fun they'd had up to that point. And now we know Jimin was struggling with a stomach bug when this pic was snapped. And now we know that Jeep parked next to them was theirs. And now we know they were about to head to the campsite. And now we know why this photo was special enough to Jimin that he posted it on his Instagram for Jungkook's birthday. They'd just had so much fun doing something they never get to do. Definitely a cherished memory for them. It was so endearing to me. I feel privileged knowing so much about this particular day. I hope they are doing all right today...

Things I cannot relate to and will never happen to me:

• Driving over a bridge not realizing Jimin and Jungkook are the ones on those kayaks down there on the river.

• Shopping at Dick's Sporting Goods and running into Jimin and Jungkook while they shop for mens size small shorts and Nike slides.

• Sitting at a bar at my neighborhood craft brewery while global stars next to me sample several pale ales and hard sodas.

Again, I will end it here as I've used up the posts image limit. I will be back with part three of Episode 1.

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

is this adidas thing a big deal??

because i’m like meh

lol anything related to Louis is a big deal. Drop an Adidas x Louis collab right now, a basic white t-shirt, I guarantee you it will sell out in 5 minutes and raise globs of money for whatever they want.

If you mean whether this is good marketing, yes, it’s fantastic marketing.

First, Adidas is a huge global brand, just like Formula One and the Australian Open. Fans are driven and passionate, spread across the biggest social media platforms. Football is inclusive across every social strata and demographic— men, women, children, old people, rich, poor, in the biggest cities and the most remote areas. Football is the biggest sport in the world.

Second, it is on brand for Louis. Football is imprinted onto Louis’ backstory in numerous ways. His 28 Clothing is based in football culture. Numerous LT promo events, music videos, and songs feature football. Because of Louis’ love of football, his fans turn up in football gear to concerts even if they’ve never been on a football pitch. It is organic and fun.

Third, Louis’ recent marketing can be thought of as a foray into celebrity culture without touching his private life. This is important, maybe even vital, for expanding his audience, especially in Louis’ position of having to rely on promo entirely on his own charisma. I don’t think the Adidas cameo is a one-and-done.

Last— look at the state of One Direction fandom. No one makes the fandom come alive like Louis— I mean no one. Only one of them had 80k audience tuned in to a livestream in their first tour concert. Yeah, it’s always a big deal.

[manorpunk]

So, the future has some cool stuff. There’s UBI, and a shorter work week, and a restoration of some sense of hope and purpose. We can look in the mirror and say “the earth survives, and so do we.”

If you live on one of the Coasts you get access to all sorts of futuristic amenities like AI robot friend-servants, vending machines that dispense cooked-to-order meals, and functional public transport. If you don’t like the sound of that, then you can go to the Interior in search of your bucolic cottagecore dreams of starting a community and cultivating land in a Manor (also known as a Kowloon), as long as your dreams also involve meeting seasonal GLN (Global Logistics Network) production-per-hectare quotas.

If you don’t like either of those, then there’s the Eternal Frontier, a procedurally-generated fantasy VR world. It’s still in beta but it’s already more popular than Minecraft and opiates combined. It’s actually pretty cheap to get your own rig with a haptic suit, if you don’t mind the GLN technically owning your brain in perpetuity. Also, it doesn’t have sex yet, mostly thanks to the labyrinthine legal issues around AI consent and culpability, though there are persistent rumors of a sex-enabled Hardcore Mode available to a select few.

But if none of those sound appealing, there is, regrettably, a nihilistic mercenary death-cult you can join. It’s called the SYM (Surplus Young Men), it’s headquartered in Antarctica and full of blackpilled reprobates who do the GLN’s dirty work. And you might be thinking “that does sound kind of cool in a Warhammer 40K way,” but everyone involved is so lacking in aesthetic sensibility that it’s just unbearably corny. I mean, obviously the more important thing here is all the actual murders they do, but the fact that even paramilitary pseudo-states have a shitty brand just adds insult to injury. It’s like if Outer Heaven sold t-shirts.

Listen, there’s UBI so the future is good, okay? It’s good.

[selkies-world]

Sign the petition to demand the creation of a new international law requiring fast-fashion garments to come with a statement of the human cost and environmental harm caused by their creation.

We all know fast fashion is bad for the planet - slave labor, environmental waste, air and water pollution, and unsustainable practices are just a few of the ways they impact our planet, our health and our lives. To date, the fast fashion industry is the 2nd largest consumer of water and is single-handedly responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions (that's more than all international flights and maritime shipping across a year combined). Even the simple act of washing these clothes releases 500,000 tons of microfibers into the ocean each year - that's equal to 50,000 plastic bottles. Fast-fashion is the 3rd leading cause of the climate crises we face, yet is rarely addressed.

Knowing these stats is one thing, and understanding them is important. Being aware of them is somewhat informative. But as long as we keep turning a blind eye to the issue, the stats are only going to get worse, and nothing will change for the better. Ignoring the issue or brushing it under the rug won't help anything. So what if we could see the real-world damage done by each of the garments we buy?

In the same way that cigarette packets have shown the harm their products do to our bodies ("SMOKING KILLS", lung cancer visualizations, etc.), what if fast fashion manufacturers & retailers had to show the harm their products do to our planet?

[Image ID: A type-writer font has been used on a brown craft paper background. The text reads: "32 animals lost their habitat to the field where my crops were planted - 2 of those animals are already endangered species. 2,700 litres of water were used in my production. I was made in a sweatshop enslaving men and women aged 16 - 45, and children aged 6 - 14. I contain 0.22kg of carbon dioxide dye." End ID.]

This is a mock-up of a label / statement for a single T-shirt, with researched statistics and educated estimates for the information I couldn't find a calculated answer for.

Now imagine labels / statements like this for every single piece of clothing: how many toxic chemicals are in those new jeans? How many litres of water did that shirt take to make? How many animals were skinned to make those cute fur-trimmed boots? How many children made that jumper? How many people were forcibly removed from their homes, so production companies could plant crops to grow the materials used in clothes manufacturing? How many families were evicted for no reason other than corporate greed? How many trees were cut down? How many animals were displaced or killed?

Would you really want to buy those items of clothing if the answers to those questions were staring you in the face?

If this information was stated in clear, accessible ways on both the website and the ticket on the actual garment, this would dramatically reduce the number of people buying fast fashion items. It would also reduce the profits being made by fast fashion companies, and could lead to many of them being forced to choose between changing and becoming sustainable, eco-froendly and ethical brands, or shutting down due to being boycotted.

Who would really want to knowingly buy things that are made by slaves, or which cost a family their home, or which contributed to deforestation? Who would continue to buy fast fashion items knowing this is the damage caused by them, when sustainable alternatives are an option?

Whether it's second-hand fashion at affordable prices, or investing more money in sustainable products which were made with high ethical standards and which cost more money due to the fact their price accounts for the time it took a person to make that item... we can say for certain that sustainable shopping is going to become much more popular if people know how important that change is. Sustainable items last much longer than fast-fashion items, which by design are created to self-destruct, as they are made to be worn a few times and then discarded in order to be replaced by the next trend's items - and as trends speed up, these items become weaker and weaker. This then leads to people spending more money in order to keep up with the newest trends, and to keep replacing clothes they throw out after a few washes.

In contrast, buying sustainable items which are designed to last years means people won't have to spend money on new clothes every few weeks, which means they'll ultimately save money in the long term and actually be able to afford those pricier items which will last much, much longer.

Now, despite the amount of harm the fast-fashion industry causes to people and the environment, the last thing we should be doing is getting angry at those who continue to buy them. Being the target of anger doesn't make large populations change their behaviour - even a cursory look through history books will tell us that much. Neither does being the target of resentment or blame.

But guilt? Shame? Those are two of the most powerful emotions to magnify when you want change to happen in waves.

And frankly, if people feel ashamed of buying something, or if buying something makes them feel guilty... they're going to stop buying it.

Those aren't the only emotions that should be felt, though. Because only feeling guilt and shame leads to feeling hopeless, scared, anxious and depressed. And we don't want that. No matter how bad things get... we don't want that.

The only other emotions to provoke are hope and pride.

If there's no hope for the future, how can anyone be expected to imagine a better one?

You wouldn't think it, what with all the climate crises and disasters we experience around the world and the total lack of commitment made by billionaires, multimillion-dollar companies and corporations and politicians.

But it's true. Scientists in Scotland have discovered bacteria which eat plastic and speed up the decomposition of it. ‘Ecocide’ is now punishable by law. Some countries within the EU are already close to meeting their 2030 goals years ahead of schedule! Thanks to scientists and small, individual changes made on a massive scale by ordinary people who are making small adjustments to our everyday choices, we can and are healing most of the ozone layer before 2050. That is something we should all feel incredibly proud of.

So imagine how much we could speed that process up if more people made those changes. Imagine how much sooner we could heal our planet if billions of people made those changes, rather than millions. Imagine how much sooner we could be seeing the effects of a healthier planet if fast fashion companies were forced to choose between going green and transparent, or closing altogether due to a lack of interest from consumers. Imagine the changes we could create if corporations made massive changes in a short amount of time, in order to save their own profits.

Imagine more labels like this, sitting alongside each other on every single piece of fast fashion clothing. A statement like this beneath every item of clothing on fast fashion websites, which transparently states the harm done.

If every single fast-fashion company and store had to display this on their clothing, on their racks, on their websites, and if there were legal punishments for those who tried to evade or lie... fashion would turn a lot greener very quickly. We'd start seeing more and more labels with "I'm made from 6 plastic bottles! I used to be a newspaper! I had 0 pesticides used on me in my production! I only contain natural dye made from berries, beans and sustainably grown flowers. I was made from apple skins and corn! The people who made me get to go home to their families every night, have days off and the adults made £150.35 each in 1 week! The animal who made the wool for me is free-range and well-cared for! I came from a small family farm, and was created with a closed-loop water system!”

That'd be a much better civilisation to shop in, don't you agree?

That is hope for the future.

That is motivation, which can fuel ordinary people to do extraordinary things and create changes they thought were impossible.

If you want to be a part of creating this change, sign the Change.org petition which demands the the creation and implementation of an international law which will require all fast-fashion products to be displayed with a statement which states the harm done to people and the planet by that garment being made & shipped.

[glorianas]

im gonna be real i don't selling t-shirts at target that have the word "feminist" on it caused to global increase of misogyny i think it was gamergate and incel boards

like i think a lot of you have to come to terms with the sheer degree of online anti-feminism and how much influence it's had, it actually completely demolishes the idea that feminism has been "defanged" it suggests there are many men out there extremely threatened by even the most basic flavour of liberal feminism

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Whenever there's a story about a secret society or a shadowy quasi-government organization that pulls all the strings and controls the entire world and regularly defeats apocalyptic threats against humanity, I always wonder who the hell's paying for it all? The Men in Black, Hellboy's Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, the Assassins, the Templars, they all have blank check budgets and carte blanche to do whatever they need to, whenever, wherever, however. Need to go to an archeological site in Baghdad that may be the literal Garden of Eden? No problem, you'll be on the next flight alongside all your friends and co-workers, and all their supplies and guns and computers, you know, all the stuff that's really easy to ship across international borders. The Kola Superdeep Borehole is actually a portal to hell? I'm sure the Russian government won't mind us checking it out. Area 51 is about as impenetrable as the backstage at a rock concert; sure, some burly guy in a STAFF t-shirt or full combat gear may shout "HEY" and start chasing you, but you can give him the slip real easy and go about your business without him ever alerting a superior.

BORING.

Give me the shadowy agency that has had regular budget cuts since the 1980s. Their power and influence ebbs and flows every 2 years depending on which party controls congress. There's so much red tape and so many roadblocks that the 10,000 year old cult which was once the dominant global superpower is now just a rump echo chamber; they've preserved their ancient Proto-Indo-European language, the mother tongue of about half the world's population, but there was so much infighting over the millennia that they broke into countless warring factions that basically don't do anything anymore. "We're the People's Front of Judea, not like those wankers in the Judean People's Front."

Agent Kay once said "there is always an Arquilian battle cruiser or a Corilian deathray or an intergalactic plague about to wipe out all life on this miserable little planet, but the only way these people can go about their happy lives is they DO. NOT. KNOW ABOUT IT!" Surely they drop the ball from time to time.

"Hey, where's the Archduke? Aren't you part of his security detail?" "I thought that was your job!"

or

"When you disabled the alien ship, you set the autopilot to crash into the Pacific, right?" "The Administrator told me to aim for the Arctic." "Why the hell would he tell you that?!? Its orbit was nowhere near the Arctic! Where is it now?" "Apparently it's about to enter the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia. Whoops."

or

"A rematch?!? That wasn't the plan! Why don't the higher ups ever give me a warning before they go off book? Do you even know which campaign you're supposed to sabotage? Everyone already hates them both!"

[daisiesonafield-blog]

Louis Tomlinson is sequestered in the executive boardroom of a swanky hotel in suburban London, and is treating it the way a pupil might a classroom when the teacher’s popped out. He’s leaning back on his chair, feet up on a radiator, hands clasped behind his head and a cigarette on the go. “All right?” he says, grinning impishly.

Despite huge global success with One Direction (70 million albums sold), which prompted a fanaticism that made Beatlemania look tame, he seems remarkably unaffected and far more normal than one might expect from someone with 35.8 million Twitter followers. He’s a 31-year-old so unassumingly bloke-next-door that the bloke next door wouldn’t look twice.

“I’ve always had a problem with ‘ego’,” he says, “and I’ve always been worried about being one of those people in the public eye who just loses all sense of reality, and becomes an arsehole.” As if by way of explanation, he adds: “I’m from Doncaster.”

And so while his former 1D bandmate Harry Styles, a superstar, floats through life like the fashion world’s favourite clothes horse, Tomlinson kits himself out in JD Sports: Kappa T-shirt, black sweatpants, Adidas socks, scuffed trainers. When he tells you he often frequents his local pub unmolested, you believe him.

“If someone does come up after an hour to ask for a selfie, I won’t say no and I won’t run away,” he says, “’specially if I’m three pints deep!”

Of the five members of 1D, Tomlinson has had the slowest start to a solo career. There are compelling reasons for this — family tragedy for one — but he’s also had to figure out who he is without the band around him. “With this job,” he says, “there’s so much room for overthinking, you know? Someone from the record label will tell you they like your stuff, but you find yourself thinking: yeah, but do they? It’s the fans that help you really believe in yourself.”

In the band, Zayn Malik had the best voice and Styles had the best everything else. While the other three — Tomlinson, Liam Payne and Niall Horan — were hardly driftwood, each has nevertheless had to dig deep to carve out a solo persona that would compel beyond the bubble.

“I do miss the boys,” he says, “and I do definitely miss being one of the five, but I like doing my own thing too. It was time.”

It’s a bright winter’s day, and the man in sports casual is enjoying special dispensation here in the hotel: permission to light up. Had this been denied, there might well have been a problem, for Tomlinson chain-smokes with the wild abandon of Mad Men’s Don Draper.

After the release of his second solo album, Faith in the Future, in November, he adds another necessary notch in the belt of any self-respecting pop star next month: the documentary. All of Those Voices is a routine behind-the-scenes look at 21st-century celebrity but stands out for the multiple crises of confidence Tomlinson feels any time he’s not on stage.

“This is a confidence game for anyone,” he says earnestly, “and there’s been plenty of moments of vulnerability throughout the entire process.” An overriding concern of the documentary is not just whether people would be interested in him, but whether they’d take him, someone discovered on a TV talent show, seriously.

When Styles won his Grammy awards this month — he collected two and won four Brits — he used his acceptance speech to say that “this doesn’t happen to people like me very often”. This was swiftly ridiculed across social media because of course white men tend to win quite a lot. But what he likely meant was that it doesn’t happen to the product of manufactured boy bands, many of whom have the use-by date of a pint of milk.

“Only Harry knows what he means there, it’s hard to speculate,” Tomlinson says, “but we all came from relatively humble beginnings, and now we are where we are.”

But while Styles is a once-in-a-generation talent and knows it, his erstwhile bandmates — and this one in particular — need convincing.

Louis Tomlinson comes from a big family — his mother, Johannah Deakin, married twice and had seven children — and was a hopeful child actor before in 2010 auditioning for The X Factor. This is where 1D were created, “masterminded” by Louis Walsh. Deakin, who had Tomlinson when she was 19, was his biggest fan and they’d always been close. When, for example, Tomlinson lost his virginity, it was she he told first, not his friends.

In 2016, a year after One Direction split, she died from leukaemia, aged 42. Two years later, his 18-year-old sister, Félicité, who’d been struggling to get over her mother’s death, accidentally overdosed on cocaine, painkillers and an anxiety drug. The combined loss hit him hard. Aside from the single he wrote about his mother’s passing, 2020’s Two of Us, his mourning has been largely private.

He squints through a veil of cigarette smoke. “Some of the things that have happened recently have been quite drastic, yeah, but then so much in my life seems to have been pretty extreme, one way or the other.” In 2016, at the age of 25, a brief relationship with a Californian stylist, Briana Jungwirth, resulted in a son. “There’ve been challenging times, definitely. It’s funny, but I couldn’t even tell you how many years ago my mum passed, I just blank it out. But for the first 18 months, I’d take any form of bad luck personally. I’d feel every tiny thing. But now I genuinely feel I’ve come out the other side. I feel more empathy for everything and everyone these days.”

After his 2020 debut album, Walls, failed to set the world alight, Tomlinson called time on his relationship with Simon Cowell. “It was mostly amicable,” he says, nodding. “Simon always had my best interests at heart, and I liked him. He had his faults of course, like all of us, but it was always inevitable I’d have to go off and do my own thing.”

His new record, then, was a leap into the unknown and he elected to write not with professional songwriters but rather fellow creative artists: Theo Hutchcraft from the band Hurts, Joe Cross from the Courteeners and the singer-songwriter James Vincent McMorrow. “And that was a big difference, huge. These are people who live and breathe music. It’s the first time I felt really comfortable doing my own stuff, you know?”

Previously he’d been encouraged to sing like a nice young pop star should, without regional inflection. “When I was in the band,” he says, “working with professional songwriters whose entire aim was to write the hit single, they’d tell me that singing in my natural accent wasn’t commercial. Sorry, but what a shit idea! Who wants to sound like everybody else? I dumbed down a little bit in the band, because you do, but I’ve learnt who I am now.”

The album, which has its inspiration firmly in early Noughties indie, sounds more Kaiser Chiefs than One Direction. A risk, then. But when it came out, it debuted at No 1. While this did wonders for his confidence, it’s clear from the documentary that he still needs people — a support group — around him. He actively courts the friendship of his touring band, not necessarily a given among solo pop stars, and he seems almost always sociable. It’s when he’s not up for group activity that people worry. There’s a revealing moment in the documentary of him having just appeared on James Corden’s US talk show. Backstage Corden, an old friend, pleads with him not to go quiet on him afterwards. “You vanish, you change your number, no one knows [where you are],” he says.

Until recently Tomlinson lived in London with his long-term girlfriend, the model Eleanor Calder, but recent reports suggest they’ve split up and he’s dating another model, Sofie Nyvang. Life, clearly, is complicated. Perhaps that’s why he smokes so much. He says, though, that he feels finally relieved of the myriad pressures that once clung to being a pop star whose fanbase was predominantly teenage. Such as?

“Well, being a role model for one. I never wanted that. I always had to worry whether it was OK if, say, I was seen here or if I could get away with smoking a joint there, before concluding: hmm, probably not. But I never wanted to be the perfect pop star, especially in the climate of Instagram. I don’t want to put an artificial world out there. I think it’s important that people see your scars, your flaws.”

It’s never easy growing up in public and Tomlinson had no choice. “When One Direction split up,” he says, “I was mortified, I was absolutely gutted. I was a bit bitter, I suppose because it just felt like another loss to me. But I’ve a better understanding of things now, and there’s not as much anger. It is what it is.

“Getting back together at some point is hard to imagine right now,” he continues, “but I’d be surprised if we lived out our lives and didn’t have a moment where we had a reunion, or whatever you want to call it. I’d be up for that.”

When I ask what it’s like watching Styles’s ascendance into the biggest star of his generation — something that might delay such a reunion — he blows out a long plume of smoke.

“Well, it’s not a surprise is it? We were always aware that Harry fit that mould, and it’s been an amazing thing to watch. Envy? At the start maybe, when I was trying to find my feet, but it’s never healthy to cross-reference your own success with others is it? These days I’m learning to elevate myself in those moments when I have to. I didn’t know how to do that before, but now? Now I know I f***ing can.” All of Those Voices is in cinemas from March 22,  allofthosevoices.com

-Full article. Feb 23 2023. Link here. Free link here.

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

Plant, have you read Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror? She nails it. Read this part and think of Meghan Markle. This is everything!

The two biggest families in politics and culture today—the Trumps and the Kardashians—have risen to the top of the food chain because of their keen understanding of how little substance is required to package the self as an endlessly monetizable asset. In fact, substance may actually be anathema to the game. And with that, the applause roars, the iPhone cameras start snapping, and the keynote speaker at the women’s empowerment conference comes onstage.

Sophia Amouroso’s brand of “Girlboss Feminism,” and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In brought in an era of CEO capitalism as a type of feminism.] #GIRLBOSS is an extended exercise in motivational personal branding … [the memoir implies that] becoming successful is a feminist project. The basic idea here is that, for women, photogenic personal confidence is the key to unlocking the riches of the world. The Girlboss Rallies [pay to attend conferences] are supposed to work the same way: you pay to network, to photograph yourself against millennial-pink and neon backdrops, to take the first step toward becoming the sort of person who would be invited to speak onstage. This is meant to scan as a deeply feminist endeavor, and it generally does, at least to its participants, who have been bombarded for many years with the spurious, embarrassing, and limitlessly seductive sales pitch that feminism means, first and foremost, the public demonstration of getting yours.

A politics built around getting and spending money is sexier than a politics built around politics. And so, at a time of unprecedented freedom and power for women, at a time when we were more poised than ever to understand our lives politically, we got, instead of expanded reproductive protections and equal pay and federally mandated family leave and subsidized childcare and a higher minimum wage, the sort of self-congratulatory empowerment feminism that corporations can get behind, the kind that comes with merchandise—mugs that said “Male Tears,” T-shirts that said “Feminist as Fuck.” (In 2017, Dior sold a “We Should All Be Feminists” shirt for $710.) We got conferences, endless conferences—a Forbes women’s conference, a Tina Brown women’s conference, a Cosmopolitan Fun Fearless Females conference. We got Arianna Huffington’s Thrive Global, which aims to end the “stress and burnout epidemic” through selling corporate webinars and a $65 velvet-lined charging station that helps you keep your smartphone away from your bed. We got the full-on charlatan Miki Agrawal, who was regularly given media tongue-baths on the subject of Thinx, her line of period panties, until it was revealed that Agrawal, who proudly called herself a “She-E-O,” was abusive to her employees and didn’t know much or care about feminism at all. We got, instead of the structural supports and safety nets that would actually make women feel better on a systematic basis, a bottomless cornucopia of privatized nonsolutions: face serums, infrared saunas, wellness gurus like Gwyneth Paltrow, who famously suggested putting stone eggs in one’s vagina, or Amanda Chantal Bacon, whose company Moon Juice sells 1.5-ounce jars of “Brain Dust” for $38. On the wings of market-friendly feminism, the idea that personal advancement is a subversive form of political progress has been accepted as gospel. The trickiest thing about this idea is that it is incomplete and insufficient without being entirely wrong. The feminist scammer rarely sets out to scam anyone, and would argue, certainly, that she does belong in this category. She just wants to be successful, to gain the agency that men claim so easily, to have the sort of life she wants. She should be able to have that, shouldn’t she? The problem is that a feminism that prioritizes the individual will always, at its core, be at odds with a feminism that prioritizes the collective. The problem is that it is so easy today for a woman to seize upon an ideology she believes in and then exploit it, or deploy it in a way that actually runs counter to that ideology. That is in fact exactly what today’s ecosystem of success encourages a woman to do.

Heading out, but posting this so I don’t lose it.

[shookysmissingtooth]

Friends! and Lovers? - Chapter 1

pairing: model jjk, producer myg x Makeup artist reader

genre: friends to lovers

wordcount: 1.9k

summary: being an adult in a competitive world isn't easy. especially when you only have two friends. two you would never date. right?

warnings: this story contains smut and is for mature audiences only.

Masterlist Next Part->

🤍🖤🤍🖤🤍🖤🤍🖤🤍

You are the deepest sleeper you have ever seen. Which is why, when it was time to wake up for the first day of your new job, you probably wouldn't wake up on time. That is if you were living alone. But lucky for you, you have two friends who wake you up in time. Well, one friend since the other one isn't exactly a morning person. 

"Jungkook woke u up too?", Yoongi asks, seeing you walking in the dining room with your pajamas, which usually consisted of a t-shirt and shorts. The thing about living with 2 men is that you always have to wear a bra around the house, so your nipples don't get seen through your shirt. He's now sitting on the chair to your left, shirtless as he probably just woke up.  At first, you got flustered whenever you saw him shirtless, but you're used to it now. Kinda.

"Yeah", You reply. He's on his phone texting his girlfriend. Yup. Yuri. The girl that slapped you back in high school.  Shin Yuri, the girl that you still hate. It's been YEARS since that altercation happened, but what can you say? You hold grudges.  And every time you remember or think about that day, you get even angrier at her. 

 "Morning people!", Jungkook says as he walks into the dining room from the kitchen with two plates of food in his hands. He puts one plate in front of Yoongi and the other in front of you. "Eat up.", he says to the both of you walking back to the kitchen to get his food.

When he comes back, he sits across from you and pounces on his meal. LITERALLY. Like a wild animal, feasting on its prey. He looks up at you watching how you're staring at him in disgust. This man has no sense of table manners. "What?", he asks as he continues eating. He then looks to your left and notices Yoongi's phone in his hands. "Hyung! No phones at the table", now reaching to snatch Yoongi's phone out of his hands. Once he's successful he begins to run away trying to keep the phone out of Yoongi's grasp as they fight for it. He tries to read his messages out loud.

"I miss you baby", Jungkook says trying to imitate Yoongi's voice. "I miss you too", he says trying to imitate Yuri's. You physically cringe at the thought of Yuri calling Yoongi "baby".

"Ok, Ok give me my phone, I'll put it away", Yoongi says slightly annoyed. Jungkook then hands him his phone and says," No phones at the table", giving him a teasing smile. 

"So, first day of your new job ay", Jungkook says getting back into his seat, eyes now on you. Today is the first day of your new job. You recently applied for a job to work as a makeup artist at Calvin Klein.  And you got it.  Now today is your first day. Ever since you graduated college, you have been jumping around from one job to another. You've been a janitor, a plumber, a cashier, a food delivery driver, you name it, but you finally got what you've always wanted..to be a makeup artist, for a big company at that. 

Yoongi and Jungkook have always known what they wanted to be in life. Yoongi has always wanted to be a music producer and songwriter, which he has achieved, Jungkook has always wanted to be a model, which he now is. In fact, he's the global ambassador for Calvin Klein. 

Oh, and they are both famous. Worldwide famous. Yoongi had to work hard for years to build a name for himself in this crazy music industry.  And Jungkook started out just modeling for Calvin Klein. He would wear the seasonal outfits and model for their website. That was until people started to notice his looks and he built a big fan base, eventually giving him a huge social media following. And that's when he became global ambassador qualified.

Dozens of brands reached out to him but Calvin Klein snatched him up before any other brand could. 

You're like their not-so-famous best friend that's severely unknown. And you like it that way. 

Jungkook, for years, has tried to convince you to become a model because he says you're good-looking. He likes to call what you had a "glow-up". 

"You were really ugly back in high school" , he told you that one time the 3 of you were looking at your old photos.

The problem with having 2 famous best friends is that you can't go out with them without worrying if people would film you guys hanging out and come up with absurd rumors about you guys dating.

This has happened once.

The 3 of you went to a restaurant to celebrate your birthday. Yoongi had rented out the place for privacy,   and he was pretty early so the 2 of you waited inside the restaurant to wait for Jungkook.

When Jungkook arrived, he texted you he was outside, so you went outside to see him. The Both of you shared a hug, oblivious to the camera recording the both of you. 

2 hours later you received many texts from you're parents, and one of them sent you a link to an article titled, "Jungkook's New Girlfriend".

The only thing that saved you that day was the face mask you were wearing, otherwise, your face would have been all over the internet. And the last thing you need is people judging your looks, or people comparing your looks to Jungkook's. You're insecure enough as it is.

"Yup, can't wait.", you say, taking a bite of the pancakes made by Jungkook." I'm actually kinda nervous too. What if I make a mistake and get fired?"

"You'll be fine, stop worrying", he says. " Though, we should go over some things first.", You nod your head to his statement before he continues. "Nobody should know that we know each other". He sees the confusion that reaches your face and you ask him why. "Because, I've been working hard trying to avoid dating rumors, and if people see us talking they'll think we're together. Plus it's not normal for makeup artists to befriend their model clients. It's kinda looked down upon if you ask me".

"So let's say I run into you, you want me to ignore you and look the other way?", you ask, and all you get is a nod in return, mainly because there's food stuffed in his mouth. "So I take it we can't go to your shoot together.", and he shakes his head no. Yesterday you received an email letting you know about the shoot you'll be working at today, and it happens to be Jungkook's joint shoot with another model. You then turn to Yoongi with a pleading smile on your face before you ask for his car.

"Fuck no.", he responds. "Not after you scratched it last time"

"i'll give you $50 bucks"

"100. 100 or nothing", he says.

"Fine".

"You know I'm so happy I can finally have the house to myself. I don't have to see your faces all day and I can invite Yuri over.", Yoongi says probably mentally planning this day out in his head. He notices the way you roll your eyes at the mention of Yuri's name. "You're being a baby."

"What are you talking about?", you ask.

"You know you're eventually gonna have to get over the fight you guys had in HIGH SCHOOL. HIGH SCHOOL! You're both now fully grown adults with a whole different mindset and level of maturity. Well, at least one of you does". He says. You can understand why he's tired of your bullshit. It's been years since you and Yuri fought, but the girl hasn't even mustered an apology to you.  She's gonna have to apologize before you can even consider accepting their relationship.

"Yoongi, I'm not obligated to like the girls you date". , you say dryly.

"I'm not asking you to like her! I'm simply asking for your respect. Why should I have to feel guilt, whenever I talk about my girlfriend around you?" The annoyance in his voice is not something that can be ignored. Whenever Yoongi gets upset, he expresses it with his whole body.

"I don't appreciate how you're making me seem like the problem. Yuri doesn't like me either, but you're so blinded by "love", that you can't even see that!", you say, voice laced with anger. "Jungkook, back me up!", You say turning to him.

"This isn't my business", he says shrugging his shoulders and finishing the remnants of his food.

"I'm not trying to make you seem like the problem.", he says sighing. "I would just like to have  the support of my best friend."  He says calmly ending the conversation. He knows that if he says anything else, there will be a fight between the two of you and that's something that he wants to avoid. The awkwardness in the room lingers for a few seconds before Jungkook interrupts it.

"I'm gonna go head to the shower. Don't wanna be late.", he says standing up. You can't even fathom how he finished his food that quickly."You should hurry up too. Don't wanna be late for your first day"., He tells you giving you a calming smile before trailing off, leaving you and Yoongi alone eating in silence.

🌹

"I feel bad". You tell Jungkook. You're brushing your teeth whilst he's in the shower. You like his sink more than yours because of how spacious it is. You even have some of your hair and skin care products sitting on it. He doesn't seem to mind you using his bathroom. Well, that's what you think at least. "Do you think I was being an asshole to him?"

"I don't know.", he says shouting over his loud shower.

"What do you mean? It's a yes or no question."

"I just don't see why my opinion matters. It's not like my opinion is gonna solve things between the two of you." He has a point and you know it. But it'd be nice to hear that someone is on your side. What kind of friend dates the enemy of their friend? "If you feel bad, just apologize"

"Why should I apologize?" Why should you? It's not like you did anything wrong.  

"if you didn't do anything wrong, then why do you feel bad?", Jungkook says, as if he read your mind.

"I hate you", you respond.

 He turns off the water. "I love you too. Now get out, I'm done."

 You leave his bathroom and walk to yours to take your shower.

🌹

Showering Is something that calms you, and is really the only place where you're able to think, and as you rewind breakfast in your head, you can't help but think, "Maybe I am in the wrong.", "Maybe I am the asshole". And now you feel even more bad. 

You got out of the shower and made a promise to yourself that you would apologize to Yoongi before you left the house. 

Today is the first day of your job so you have to wear something that would make a statement. Something that screams, "professional". You scanned through every article of clothing in your closet and decided to wear leggings and a shirt with a blazer on top. You set the clothes on your bed and remove the towel that covers your body. 

"Hey, I just wanted to say that im-", you hear and you rush to reach for your towel and wrap it around yourself again before you turn around and once you turn you see Yoongi with his hand over his eyes. "I'm sorry, I should have knocked". He says before walking slowly to the door, trying not to bump into anything. "my car keys are on the table in the hall", he says and then he shuts the door once he's out. 

Today is going to be a longgg day.

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KIᒪᒪEᖇᑕOOK - ᑕᕼᗩᑭTEᖇ ５

Welcome to Raven's Reading Nook - a small corner of this blog dedicated to cozy story times. Join us in the family room as we sit around and browse our phones, and eat some Girl Scout cookies as we begin tonight's story. Rated Mature for language. Minors DNI.

It's unbearably hot and I needed a cooldown. Nothing soothes my soul quite like bullying the characters of One Piece. This chapter was inspired by my friends who yearn for KillerCook, this video of Brandon Farris (skip to 1:37 mark for the gag), and this illustration by Denise Fanta Stay hydrated and wear your suncreen, y'all »»»———　☠　———«««

*Phone app notification goes ping*

TikTok – KillerCook has uploaded a new video. Check it out!

Title: When Watermelons Attack Description: A summer science experiment gone hilariously wrong. 6 minute video. The thumbnail is a still frame of a partially clothed Killer and Kid, with a nervous Wire and Heat in the background.

*Press Play*

Four massive and buff men stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the camera, creating an almost cramped atmosphere despite the fact that they were located in a massive kitchen space. They all waved hello at the camera before KillerCook took a step closer to the camera.

The daylight spilled through the massive bay windows creating a high definition viewing experience. Global weather had been unbearably hot for everyone and the crew was not spared from the dangerous heat wave. Even in the cool-climate controlled house, all four men were sweating as the lead stepped into his role.

“Hello everyone, KillerCook here joined by my buddies whom you all should know and love by now. If you don’t, go back to my very first upload and don’t come back to this video until you’ve watched them all!” Killer held out a stern finger to the camera. “Or don’t, I’m not your father. I don’t care what you do so long as you like, comment, and follow my channel.”

Killer’s hair was weighed down by the humidity in the air, lacking its usual volume; his helmet looked like it was also perspiring under the unforgiving sunlight. Sweat glistened on his neck and arms, and his muscle tank top clung to his sculpted body as he presented some items in front of the camera.

“Normally I have a delicious recipe I create on camera but to be honest, heats killing us!”

Heat, flagged down by a small, pinned tag of his TikTok handle FlamingHot420, stood behind and off to the left of Killer, letting out a surprised look and hurt pout.

“I’m not doing anything!” he pulled back his long, baby blue locks into a ponytail so as not to touch or stick to the back of his neck or tattooed arms. His black, sleeveless gym tank hugged his trapezius muscles, which flexed noticeably along with his sinewy arms as he adjusted his hairstyle.

“Tsk, not you idiot!” Kid growled.

The Boss of the crew, the redhaired heartthrob tagged by his handle PunkNeverDied69, looked crankier than usual in the hellish weather pattern. He wore a loose, light colored t-shirt over gym shorts, his flesh hand tucked into pocket to flair out the billowy material to circulate more air flow around his body. Forgoing his metal prosthetic did not diminish his stature or build in any manner. He still looked like a wall of meat, packaged into a tight container of a body straining against his frame. Every curve and groove of his toned muscles seemed exaggerated with the sweat the dripped between each dip.

Killer dropped his covered face a few degrees before regaining his composure, “ANYWAYS – cooking or baking during these record breaking heat waves seems like a terrible idea. Especially for Wire, he’ll be the first to succumb to heat exhaustion since as we all know, heat rises.” As he spoke, Killer used his hand to demonstrate heated air rising, right in front of Wire’s stature to emphasize the tall joke he was making.

Wire slapped the hand away, “Even on a cool day your jokes suck ass.” Tagged by his handle Scream_maim_fire, he did not help disprove Killer’s point when he wrapped his signature cloak headdress around his body.

“You’re just saying that because you continuously put an endothermic material over your head that’s frying your brain stupid!” Killer retorted.

The heat wave was putting everyone in a pissy mood. Kid snapped rubber bands at them with his thumb and forefinger.

“ENOUGH! Let’s get this over with so you can make our melon slushies!”

“Right,” Killer cleared his throat. “Let’s rewind. Today, we’re going to do a science experiment! How much pressure can a watermelon take before it breaks. We have melons and an obscene amount of rubber bands. When we’re through with the experiment, I’ll make us refreshing and hydrating watermelon slushies.”

“Like hell a bunch of stupid bits of rubber can do shit. I say we get the claw hammer,” Kid’s grin turned sinister.

“No.”

A massive, oblong shaped watermelon was placed on the tarp protected countertop with a dull thud. Killer leaned his helmet close to the melon and began knocking on it to test its ripeness. He swapped the melon out three times before being satisfied with his victim.

Killer began the arduous process of expanding the rubber material and sliding it snugly down to the watermelon’s midsection. The bag he was pulling them from claimed it held 500 rubber bands.

At the 100 rubber band mark, Kid, Heat, and Wire began wrapping their necks, and Killer’s, with damp hand towels lined with ice cubes. Killer let out an audible sigh of relief as he cooled down, revitalized to keep going. The trio decided to spend their time observing while sucking on frozen fruit popsicles.

“By the time we get through all these melons, I’ll have enough for smoothies, fruit leather, slushies, juice, flavored water, and popsicles!” Killer huffed out.

“That’s 236 rubber bands, Killer,” Heat tallied the notepad he was writing in when the masked man gasped excitedly as a seam in the fruit tore, creating a tiny fissure that fizzled with tiny, red bubbles. At 269 rubber bands, the melon began to let out a soft hissing sound.

“It’s like I’m strangling it to death,” Killer said almost too enthusiastically.

“Heh cool,” Kid grinned ear to ear.

At the 398th rubber band, the fruit began to change in shape. The midsection was beginning to slim down, and the melon itself had started out with a bowling ball shape, it now looked more like a fall time gourd. The healthy green coloring it originally had was noticeably paler.

“Ok it looks like we’re getting close to the fun part. We’re going to take a moment to prep our area for the mess.”

The crew stood up, Wire and Heat put the chairs away and opted to stand back instead. Handing the TikTok star a clear-plastic tarp, the blonde placed it around’s the countertop’s base and spread it out. Then, he took off his top.

“Get out of the splash zone if you mind getting wet,” Killer directed to his crew.

“I like getting down and dirty, you know me,” Kid smirked, eagerly ripping his top off. The sun reflected off his golden nipple piercings and created a minor solar glare in the camera. Killer nudged him to move to make it stop. Kid complied while cautiously lowering his welders goggles over his face to keep his eyes free from foreign liquids.

Killer continued sliding rubber bands over the pressurized fruit. Then one snapped. Both he and Kid flinched slightly.

“No!” Killer pointed a stern finger at it. “We’re back down to 421.”

Everyone was noticeably sweatier than before. Whether that was due to the vicious sun rays beating down on their windows or anxiety from the impending explosion of sweet berry juice, viewers would never know.

“Kill, I think 433 is the limit,” Wire’s normally droopy and unbothered eyes were filled with stress, turning away slightly from the swollen fruit that was most definitely trembling. If someone were to snap a screenshot of his face, they would likely the image with text that would say something like: Moments before disaster strikes.

What happened in the next minute could only be described as mayhem.

As Killer grabbed the 434th rubber band, Wire and Heat began nervously backing up from their leaders. The sound of a rubber band snapping made them all flinch and back up slightly, however the fruit only marginally moved before it stilled once more. They all relaxed and resumed their original stances.

“Hey Killer! Hope I’m not too early for our plans tonight. I picked up—”

Killer was in the middle of spreading the replacement 433rd rubber band on the melon when a new person’s voice flowed in the kitchen. Killer turned his head to see who it was and missed the way the melon began vibrating on the spot. Heat, Wire, and Kid all took another step back but it was too late.

The watermelon exploded and ricocheted in two directions.

The top half of the fruit flew straight up in the air and out of frame of the camera only to come back into view and smash Sanji over the head as the French cook stepped into the kitchen to see what the house occupants were up to.

“—QUE DIABLE!” the short haired blonde exclaimed as he was knocked to the ground in a daze along with the grocery bags he brought.

At the same damn time, the lower half of the watermelon shot backwards into Kid’s chest. He tried to dodge the projectile but was too slow, taking the full impact on his collarbones as he was thrown backwards into Wire’s side, both of them tumbled to the ground.

Red slush spurted all over the kitchen, drowning Killer and Kid in juice, and marginally squirting Heat. Wire’s skin was spared thanks to his trusty cloak.

Heat was screaming, “HANG IN THERE LITTLE FRENCH DUDE! WE’LL PAY YOUR HOSPITAL BILL!”

The video froze and then did a quick rewind to the watermelon exploding again, in slow motion. It stopped at the frame that had both Kid and Sanji being hit by the melon halves. The image came out of focus slightly as large text floated over the frame reading the word: FATALITY.

After a four-second silence, a new scene took place. Kid, Wire, and Heat were happily sucking watermelon slushies through straws, the filter on the video had a dramatic sepia overlay as a Sarah McLachlan song played softly. More text floated down the video: In loving memory of the little French chef. Right underneath the ‘in memoriam’ were the ingredients and a small summary of the slushie recipe that disappeared after 10 seconds.

As “In the Arms of an Angel” played, Sanji could be seen kicking the shit out of Killer in the background.

“Sometimes we can still hear him,” Wire said mournfully as the redhead and bluette nodded in agreement.

“I’M STILL HERE YOU JACKASSES!” Sanji barked at them.

End of video.

BONUS: End of credit clip

The four housemates had washed the melon pulp off them and changed into clean clothes. Now joined by Sanji, aka Little French Chef, who stood next to the quartet wearing a spare set of goggles and borrowed clothes. Watching in anticipation as Killer slid rubber band #169 over a small, round pumpkin.

The gourd seemed to tremble slightly as a new voice could be heard in the background, “Hey Cook! Luffy wants to know when—”

The pumpkin snapped clean in half, sending fiber, pulp, and seeds everywhere. While the quintet managed to avoid the expulsion, the green-haired newcomer was not so prepared as he stepped into the kitchen and into the camera’s focus.

“—WHAT THE HELL!” Zoro screamed, dropping to his knees clutching his left eye.

“How the fuck do you people keep getting into my house?!?” Kid snapped in annoyance, pushing Sanji’s wheezing frame away from him as the blonde fell to the floor once more, in hysterics this time.

Zoro grunted out, “Door was unlocked and I know you bastards keep the good booze stocked up. The least you can do is send me home with a few bottles after you took out my EYE!”

The video ended with a sepia filter still-frame of Zoro mid-scream and mid-fall, the same Sarah McLachlan song played from before. Text slowly floated on to the screen to read: In loving memory of Idiot Swordsman’s left eye.

Read on Wattpad | Read on AO3

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Wilmer Valderrama, the 44-year-old actor best known for roles such as Fez in the sitcom “That ‘70s Show” and Special Agent Nicholas Torres on the drama series “NCIS,” has immersed himself into the activewear business.

The actor, entrepreneur, activist and fitness enthusiast has introduced a new active lifestyle brand for women and men called E.P.U., which stands for E Pluribus Unum, which is Latin for “out of many, one.”

“I Iove the fashion industry and it’s something that I really have been paying attention to, and have been so fascinated by the people who create fashion,” Valderrama said in a telephone interview Friday.

The collection features unisex T-shirts, tanks, crew neck sweaters, sweatpants and sweatshirts, along with men’s and women’s hoodies and joggers and women’s crop T-shirts and tanks.

Sizes range from XS to 2XL, with prices going from $25 to $75. The garments are crafted from 100 percent French terry cotton. The socks, duffel, unisex T-shirt, unisex, tanks, and women’s crop T-shirt are all made in the U.S., while the rest is made in Vietnam and India.

E.P.U. has forged a direct partnership with the USO (United Service Organizations) with a portion of sales benefiting their mission of strengthening the well-being of service members and their families. Valderrama, who is a global ambassador for USO, has been on more than 45 USO tours around the world and his time with the troops inspired him to give back to the men and women who serve to protect the country — and the people they leave at home.

Valderrama said he’s no stranger to the fashion industry. About 10 years ago he was involved in a casual brand for two years called Calavena, which sold in stores such as Saks, Kitson and Barneys. The brand no longer exists.

This time he decided to get into active sportswear for several reasons. First, he realized early on in his career that fitness was something that “not only helped the mental strengthening of the ups and downs of the industry,” but allowed him to look ahead to what roles I wanted to play next. “From Fez and having to transform into a person who could play a cop, it’s part of the transforming process,” he said.

In that journey, he created the hashtag #MyHouraDay, where he would do something active and share it on social media. His followers around the globe started giving their own answers such as “Going for a run,” or “Going for a Swim.”

Further, Valderrama has been inspired by athletes such as cross trainer Mat Fraser and snowboarder and skateboarder Shaun White, who are friends of his. “We’re always talking about mental strengthening, and when you’re out there trying to be number one, what is that mentality?” Valderrama said.

As a global ambassador to USO, Valderrama will bring friends along, talk to the troops and design and host big stage performances with comedians, musicians and DJs. “I’ve been to almost every base around the world. I’ve been to Iraq, Afghanistan, [South] Korea, Germany, Lithuania, you name it, I’ve been at that base,” he said. He began realizing the commonality of the military and what he loves so much.

“Part of their every day is how much they prioritize fitness. Fitness was an extension of their daily routines,” he said. He said he made it part of what he does professionally. “My workouts weren’t negotiable, they weren’t hobbies. [At] 4:30 in the morning, I get up and I’m going to the gym, and then I go to work. It’s part of my workflow. That mentality started creating this mental strengthening that I was not expecting. I always had the bug to go back to fashion. And all of a sudden, I was like, ‘What if?’”

He believed that he could take everything he learned from traveling the world with the military, and the inspiration from his athlete friends to create a brand that infused that kind of community for mental strengthening. Inspired by retro fashion from the 1950s and 1960s and Double RL hoodies and sweatpants, he felt he could create a brand that looked cool and functioned well. They designed the looks to be worn to the gym for a boxing workout or cross-fit training, as well as great travel outfits and clothes that can slip off easily for the pool.

Since today’s generation likes to discover brands on their own, he is selling E.P.U. through an online store, epuhq.com, as well as Instagram and Facebook.

One of his main objectives is to build a community. By donating part of the proceeds to USO, he’d like to be part of building USO Centers around the world and creating programs for veterans and their families. He pointed out that USO is a nonprofit and not government-supported, so it relies on donations.

“This is very much a passion project of mine, and I want to be as bold as possible in supporting these programs. And then the big thing is we build mental strengthening facilities,” he said.

Valderrama, who owns his Los Angeles-based company 100 percent, said he’d eventually like to launch accessories, socks, gloves to work out in, shoes, water-resistant products, weighted-vests and his own equipment.

Asked how he finds the time to run this business, while pursuing an acting career, he said, “There’s always time. If you have something in front of you that’s a priority, the schedule somehow molds into a place that you also have time for it. I have literally daily calls on this. We have photo shoots.…We have tons of community-building content around this,” he said.

“It’s a big undertaking, when they say cut, I start making calls,” Valderrama said. So far, he’s working with eight or nine full-time people in digital, social media and distribution.

Valderrama declined to divulge how much volume he anticipates he’ll do in the first year. “We’re hoping that we sell out very quickly and go right into the next phase. The internal testing that we’ve done has been received incredibly. People love how simple it is,” he said. He anticipates the tracksuits will be a bestseller.

The collection’s color palette is the official colors of the different branches of the military such as red and yellow for the U.S. Marines, green for the U.S. Army and blue for the U.S. Air Force.

Valderamma said he never got a chance to serve in any of these military branches since he got his first big break in TV when he was 18 years old.

He recalled that he became interested in USO years ago when he was walking through an airport and two members of the military came up to him and asked to speak to him. They said that after a long day of doing what they do, they trade “That ‘70s Show” DVDs like they’re baseball cards. “’And we laugh. It really helps and thank you,’” they told him. Valderrama immediately called his agent and said he’d like to show up at their bases. “In two seconds, they sent me out on a USO tour,” he said.

For the collection, he worked with “a design guru who helped scramble what was in his head,” and his fiancée, Amanda Pacheco, who was their fit model and gave suggestions on the women’s fit. To promote the brand, he plans community workouts to show who’s supporting the brand and what the brand is physically doing in real time.

Valderrama was born in Miami but grew up in Venezuela until the age of 13 or 14, when his family moved back to the U.S. and settled in Los Angeles. His father is Venezuelan and his mother is Colombian.

Next week, he will start taping the 22nd season of “NCIS,” which averages 6.5 million to 7 million viewers live every Monday night on Paramount+ and has about 12 million to 13 million viewers overall every week, he said. Valderrama’s next project is a “Zorro” adaptation for Disney, which is in development and he stars and serves as executive producer.

The actor has also written his first book, a memoir entitled “An American Story: Everyone’s Invited,” (HarperCollins) which will be published Sept. 17. “The memoir is a tribute to my family by bringing me to the U.S., and showing me the road and allowing me to walk it. I was able to take the American dream and make it something that belonged to my life,” he said. When he came to the U.S. at around 14 years old, he didn’t know how to speak English. “And by the age of 18, I’m booking ‘That ‘70s Show.'”