#School Fees of 2020

[uvgullascollegeofmedicine]

UV Gullas college of medicine is one of the best medical college in Philippines. We strive to give society the greatest doctors possible because we adhere to the amour, servitium, humanities ideology, which stands for love, leadership, and service to humanity. It is competent enough to deal with difficulties and competitiveness in the medical sector.

Most international students choose UV Gullas College of Medicine over other highly regarded medical schools in the Philippines for a particular reason that makes them feel at ease.

The UV Gullas Medical College is renowned for providing top-notch medical training to students across Asia. This is accomplished by having academics and doctors with extensive expertise who work hard to impart their knowledge on medical practitioners.

Simply contact the UV Gullas College of Medicine Admissions Office in Chennai, Vadapalani, India, which also accepts international students, for information on admissions for the academic years 2023–2024. Based in our Chennai's Vadapalani Admission office we have a trained team of admission coordinators that can assist in guiding you through the full admissions process and enrolling you seamlessly in the MBBS programme.

Our UV Gullas admissions advisors will assist you with every step of the admissions procedure, from completing out the application to obtaining a VISA to finding you affordable airfare! Indian students have a fantastic opportunity to enroll in MBBS at UV Gullas College of Medicine, a leading medical school in the Philippines with cutting-edge facilities and a stellar reputation worldwide.

To ensure that there are no difficulties for the MBBS students hoping to pursue MBBS in the Philippines through our college, the UV Gullas College of Medicine Admissions Process has been meticulously and elaborately created. The admissions process at UV Gullas is highly ethical and open, which is its main benefit. We don't accept donations and don't promote further payments above what this website's breakdowns already include. You can go to the UV Gullas Medical College Admissions Office in Chennai to apply for admission. The UV Gullas Admissions Coordinators will assist you in completing the process and registering for the UV Gullas Medical College BS-MD programme. The following certificates are required to begin the admissions programme:

Birth Certificate

10th Certificate

12th Certificate

NEET scores: a passing score of at least is sufficient. High NEET scores are not necessary!

The UV Gullas College of Medicine Admissions Office, Chennai, situated in Vadapalani, issues a Notice of Acceptance to the MBBS student upon submission of the aforementioned documents to the University granting admission to the programme.

ADMISSION AND COUNSELLING

The UV Gullas Admissions Programme suggests this for BS. Counselling, in which the candidate and his or her parents attend a session to discuss any concerns they may have about the college, the MBBS programme offered in Philippines medical colleges, life, the surrounding area, safety concerns, the food, the UV Gullas Hostel, etc. The original of every photocopy that had previously been submitted for the eligibility process is also submitted during this session for verification. A list of 19 documents that the MBBS student who plans to pursue MBBS at gullas college of medicine must prepare is supplied during this stage of the UV Gullas Admissions Process.

VISA ASSISTANCE

It is the responsibility of the employees at the UV Gullas College of Medicine Authorised Admissions Office, Chennai, to guarantee a smooth admissions process. Obtaining a visa is a necessary step in the UV Gullas College of Medicine admissions process. The first stage in processing a Visa is to confirm that all required paperwork has been approved by the appropriate authorities. For this, the MBBS student must be given access to a list of original documents that have already been shared. The government receives the documents after meticulous examination and authentication by the UV Gullas Indian Admissions Office, Chennai (located in Vadapalani).

The UV Gullas College of Medicine Admissions department contacts the embassy after obtaining the government-provided documentation to obtain a date for the Visa interview. The process of the visa interview is then explained to the students. The UV Gullas Admissions team makes sure that clients successfully complete the Visa interview, and staff members are always available to support and assist them as needed.

Airline tickets and lodging

Airline Tickets

To ensure that the batches depart together, the UV Gullas Authorised Admissions office assists in making ticket arrangements. While the student is pursuing his or her MBBS in the Philippines, a medical insurance is also taken out in the student's name to ensure that he or she is financially insured in the event that anything unfortunate occurs.

For more Ct : 9445553877

Visit our official website https://uvgullas.com/

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Slight 14DWY + Blog Changes! 💖

(16/12/23)

Leon will now move away from Corland Bay when he’s 10 years old. Originally, I never really put that much thought into it because it won't be explicitly mentioned in the game, but I figured I might as well make it more accurate now ^^;

Teo is now 26 (instead of 27). Again, zero thought went into this aside from wanting a wider range of ages for the cast — but now I want him to be closer to Jae and Violet’s age — especially considering they were all childhood friends and Violet was in the grade below them.

Elanor is now 30 and Kiara is 29. In the 2017 version, Elanor was originally the eldest sister, but it just didn't feel right to change it in the 2020 version. Day 3 will still be lore accurate, but everything on this blog will need to be retconned.

14DWY Purple (unofficial) will now be changing from #A14BF4 to #9D64FD.

Not a change, but adding more clarification: Angel will still attend university (and Jae and Teo will still be their university friend), but whether or not they enrolled will remain ambiguous! Day 1/2 kinda insinuates that they studied something ("Teo attended some of their classes"), but I wanted it to imply that they could've attended orientation and/or took "mock classes" after high school to see what it's like as well. I may change a few lines in the demo (in the future) to reflect that.

Egg

I'd like to (hopefully) try to remind everyone that whenever I write about Angel on this blog, they are gender neutral. Because if my ass had a dollar for every time someone assumed they were female because of the cutesy/pink themes or how "soft" I made the MC, I'd have enough money to fund voice actors, translators, custom soundtrack, and pay the $100 Steam fee /hj

Changed the crackpot theory tag into an actual tag!! About time sdghjdg

(07/01/24)

Also not a change, but to solidify Haruko's appearance + Ren's likeness a bit more... Haruko is supposed to be an anime character with pink/blue hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. He's a modern day "sorcerer" (a reference to JJK, not a literal fantasy wizard lmao) from an anime called "Attack on Giants" (another reference to "Attack on Titan"); and is very kind, ditzy, and empathetic. All Ren has copied is his hairstyle, vibe, and demeanour. Ren isn't outright cosplaying Haruko, and it'd take an avid anime enjoyer to notice that Ren is attempting to mimic Haruko.

I'll make a poll one day, but I might change Ren's left sleeve tattoo to the spoiler-free placeholder I used in this artwork. A lot of people seem to prefer it, but I'll wait until the poll to make any final decisions.

I might also make another poll to see if perhaps a new BGM theme would better suit the demo. Because in my mind, the "summer/beach location" = acoustic guitar (rather than piano) — and for some reason I get lo-fi vibes from 14DWY??

I don't think anyone has picked up on this subtle shift yet, but Ren will mainly use "he/him" over "he/they" now (since Haruko is a he/him enjoyer 👍). [REDACTED], however, will still greatly prefer "they/he", and will continue to use them interchangeably.

21/02/24 — or search through Obsidian. (Future Sai here.... I have no clue what this means???? What??? T_T)

I'm gonna cut down on the Teo and Ren bullying on this blog (and in general). I don't find it fun anymore, and it genuinely upsets me when people put down certain characters to make others look better (i.e. "Ren has no ass which makes Leon superior >:)" Just say you like Leon... I beg T_T). It also makes me doubt whether Ren is genuinely a good character or not, and it's gross seeing y'all tear down people who genuinely enjoy Teo. Be kind.

(11/01/24)

Eventually, I'd like to turn this meme into an event in the 14DWY Discord to help create an actual landlord for Day 3. The current landlord has always been a meme-y placeholder (I thought the idea would be funny), but looking at how the game is currently, I want 14DWY to be more "serious". The current landlord will eventually be turned into an easter egg!!

Whether or not Jae had bottom surgery will now remain ambiguous. Everyone is now free to headcanon whatever they'd like, so long as it's not offensive or too OOC.

From now on, I'll also try my best to remind everyone that Jae is gay and Kiara is lesbian. I tried not to bring it up frequently because I was afraid it'd come across like "being gay" was their only defining personality trait, but I'm tired of people sending in asks that don't apply to these characters ^^;

I might move all of the curiouscat questions to this blog and archive the account. It's becoming too much of a hassle for me to manage 3+ social media accounts sgkshjj

[mostlysignssomeportents]

This is your brain on fraud apologetics

In 1998, two Stanford students published a paper in Computer Networks entitled “The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine,” in which they wrote, “Advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers.”

https://research.google/pubs/pub334/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

The co-authors were Lawrence Page and Sergey Brin, and the ���large-scale hypertextual web search-engine” they were describing was their new project, which they called “Google.” They were 100% correct — prescient, even!

On Wednesday night, a friend came over to watch some TV with us. We ordered out. We got scammed. We searched for a great local Thai place we like called Kiin and clicked a sponsored link for a Wix site called “Kiinthaila.com.” We should have clicked the third link down (kiinthaiburbank.com).

We got scammed. The Wix site was a lookalike for Kiin Thai, which marked up their prices by 15% and relayed the order to our local, mom-and-pop, one-branch restaurant. The restaurant knew it, too — they called us and told us they were canceling the order, and said we could still come get our food, but we’d have to call Amex to reverse the charge.

As it turned out, the scammers double-billed us for our order. I called Amex, who advised us to call back in a couple days when the charge posted to cancel it — in other words, they were treating it as a regular customer dispute, and not a systemic, widespread fraud (there’s no way this scammer is just doing this for one restaurant).

In the grand scheme of things, this is a minor hassle, but boy, it’s haunting to watch the quarter-century old prophecy of Brin and Page coming true. Search Google for carpenters, plumbers, gas-stations, locksmiths, concert tickets, entry visas, jobs at the US Post Office or (not making this up) tech support for Google products, and the top result will be a paid ad for a scam. Sometimes it’s several of the top ads.

This kind of “intermediation” business is actually revered in business-schools. As Douglas Rushkoff has written, the modern business wisdom reveres “going meta” — not doing anything useful, but rather, creating a chokepoint between people who do useful things and people who want to pay for those things, and squatting there, collecting rent:

https://rushkoff.medium.com/going-meta-d42c6a09225e

It’s the ultimate passive income/rise and grind side-hustle: It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover a whole festering nest of creeps on Tiktok talking about how they pay Mechanical Turks to produce these lookalike sites at scale.

This mindset is so pervasive that people running companies with billions in revenue and massive hoards of venture capital run exactly the same scam. During lockdown, companies like Doordash, Grubhub and Uber Eats stood up predatory lookalike websites for local restaurants, without their consent, and played monster-in-the-middle, tricking diners into ordering through them:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/19/we-are-beautiful/#man-in-the-middle

These delivery app companies were playing a classic enshittification game: first they directed surpluses to customers to lock them in (heavily discounting food), then they directed surplus to restaurants (preferential search results, free delivery, low commissions) — then, having locked in both consumers and producers, they harvested the surplus for themselves.

Today, delivery apps charge massive premiums to both eaters and restaurants, load up every order with junk fees, and clone the most successful restaurants out of ghost kitchens — shipping containers in parking lots crammed with low-waged workers cranking out orders for 15 different fake “virtual restaurants”:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/01/autophagic-buckeyes/#subsidized-autophagia

Delivery apps speedran the enshittification cycle, but Google took a slower path to get there. The company has locked in billions of users (e.g. by paying billions to be the default search on Safari and Firefox and using legal bullying to block third party Android device-makers from pre-installing browsers other than Chrome). For years, it’s been leveraging our lock-in to prey on small businesses, getting them to set up Google Business Profiles.

These profiles are supposed to help Google distinguish between real sellers and scammers. But Kiin Thai has a Google Business Profile, and searching for “kiin thai burbank” brings up a “Knowledge Panel” with the correct website address — on a page that is headed with a link to a scam website for the same business. Google, in other words, has everything it needs to flag lookalike sites and confirm them with their registered owners. It would cost Google money to do this — engineer-time to build and maintain the system, content moderator time to manually check flagged listings, and lost ad-revenue from scammers — but letting the scams flourish makes Google money, at the expense of Google users and Google business customers.

Now, Google has an answer for this: they tell merchants who are being impersonated by ad-buying scammers that all they need to do is outbid them for the top ad-spot. This is a common approach — Amazon has a $31b/year “ad business” that’s mostly its own platform sellers bidding against each other to show you fake results for your query. The first five screens of Amazon search results are 50% ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/28/enshittification/#relentless-payola

This is “going meta,” so naturally, Meta is doing it too: Facebook and Instagram have announced a $12/month “verification” badge that will let you report impersonation and tweak the algorithm to make it more likely that the posts you make are shown to the people who explicitly asked to see them:

https://www.vox.com/recode/2023/2/21/23609375/meta-verified-twitter-blue-checkmark-badge-instagram-facebook

The corollary of this, of course, is that if you don’t pay, they won’t police your impersonators, and they won’t show your posts to the people who asked to see them. This is pure enshittification — the surplus from users and business customers is harvested for the benefit of the platform owners:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

The idea that merchants should master the platforms as a means of keeping us safe from their impersonators is a hollow joke. For one thing, the rules change all the time, as the platforms endlessly twiddle the knobs that determine what gets shown to whom:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

And they refuse to tell anyone what the rules are, because if they told you what the rules were, you’d be able to bypass them. Content moderation is the only infosec domain where “security through obscurity” doesn’t get laughed out of the room:

https://doctorow.medium.com/como-is-infosec-307f87004563

Worse: the one thing the platforms do hunt down and exterminate with extreme prejudice is anything that users or business-customers use to twiddle back — add-ons and plugins and jailbreaks that override their poor choices with better ones:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

As I was submitting complaints about the fake Kiin scam-site (and Amex’s handling of my fraud call) to the FTC, the California Attorney General, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and Wix, I wrote a little Twitter thread about what a gross scam this is:

https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1628948906657878016

The thread got more than two million reads and got picked up by Hacker News and other sites. While most of the responses evinced solidarity and frustration and recounted similar incidents in other domains, a significant plurality of the replies were scam apologetics — messages from people who wanted to explain why this wasn’t a problem after all.

The most common of these was victim-blaming: “you should have used an adblocker” or “never click the sponsored link.” Of course, I do use an ad-blocker — but this order was placed with a mobile browser, after an absentminded query into the Google search-box permanently placed on the home screen, which opens results in Chrome (where I don’t have an ad-blocker, so I can see material behind an ad-blocker-blocker), not Firefox (which does have an ad-blocker).

Now, I also have a PiHole on my home LAN, which blocks most ads even in a default browser — but earlier this day, I’d been on a public wifi network that was erroneously blocking a website (the always excellent superpunch.net) so I’d turned my wifi off, which meant the connection came over my phone’s 5G connection, bypassing the PiHole:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/28/shut-yer-pi-hole/

“Don’t click a sponsored link” — well, the irony here is that if you habitually use a browser with an ad-blocker, and you backstop it with a PiHole, you never see sponsored links, so it’s easy to miss the tiny “Sponsored” notification beside the search result. That goes double if you’re relaxing with a dinner guest on the sofa and ordering dinner while chatting.

There’s a name for this kind of security failure: the Swiss Cheese Model. We all have multiple defenses (in my case: foreknowledge of Google’s ad-scam problem, an ad-blocker in my browser, LAN-wide ad sinkholing). We also have multiple vulnerabilities (in my case: forgetting I was on 5G, being distracted by conversation, using a mobile device with a permanent insecure search bar on the homescreen, and being so accustomed to ad-blocked results that I got out of the habit of checking whether a result was an ad).

If you think you aren’t vulnerable to scams, you’re wrong — and your confidence in your invulnerability actually increases your risk. This isn’t the first time I’ve been scammed, and it won’t be the last — and every time, it’s been a Swiss Cheese failure, where all the holes in all my defenses lined up for a brief instant and left me vulnerable:

https://locusmag.com/2010/05/cory-doctorow-persistence-pays-parasites/

Other apologetics: “just call the restaurant rather than using its website.” Look, I know the people who say this don’t think I have a time-machine I can use to travel back to the 1980s and retrieve a Yellow Pages, but it’s hard not to snark at them, just the same. Scammers don’t just set up fake websites for your local businesses — they staff them with fake call-centers, too. The same search that takes you to a fake website will also take you to a fake phone number.

Finally, there’s “What do you expect Google to do? They can’t possibly detect this kind of scam.” But they can. Indeed, they are better situated to discover these scams than anyone else, because they have their business profiles, with verified contact information for the merchants being impersonated. When they get an ad that seems to be for the same business but to a different website, they could interrupt the ad process to confirm it with their verified contact info.

Instead, they choose to avoid the expense, and pocket the ad revenue. If a company promises to “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” I think we have the right to demand these kinds of basic countermeasures:

https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/our-approach/

The same goes for Amex: when a merchant is scamming customers, they shouldn’t treat complaints as “chargebacks” — they should treat them as reports of a crime in progress. Amex has the bird’s eye view of their transaction flow and when a customer reports a scam, they can backtrack it to see if the same scammer is doing this with other merchants — but the credit card companies make money by not chasing down fraud:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosalindadams/mastercard-visa-fraud

Wix also has platform-scale analytics that they could use to detect and interdict this kind of fraud — when a scammer creates a hundred lookalike websites for restaurants and uses Wix’s merchant services to process payments for them, that could trigger human review — but it didn’t.

Where do all of these apologetics come from? Why are people so eager to leap to the defense of scammers and their adtech and fintech enablers? Why is there such an impulse to victim-blame?

I think it’s fear: in their hearts, people — especially techies — know that they, too, are vulnerable to these ripoffs, but they don’t want to admit it. They want to convince themselves that the person who got scammed made an easily avoidable mistake, and that they themselves will never make a similar mistake.

This is doubly true for readerships on tech-heavy forums like Twitter or (especially) Hacker News. These readers know just how many vulnerabilities there are — how many holes are in their Swiss cheese — and they are also overexposed to rise-and-grind/passive income rhetoric.

This produces a powerful cognitive dissonance: “If all the ‘entrepreneurs’ I worship are just laying traps for the unwary, and if I am sometimes unwary, then I’m cheering on the authors of my future enduring misery.” The only way to resolve this dissonance — short of re-evaluating your view of platform capitalism or questioning your own immunity to scams — is to blame the victim.

The median Hacker News reader has to somehow resolve the tension between “just install an adblocker” and “Chrome’s extension sandbox is a dumpster fire and it’s basically impossible to know whether any add-on you install can steal every keystroke and all your other data”:

https://mattfrisbie.substack.com/p/spy-chrome-extension

In my Twitter thread, I called this “the worst of all possible timelines.” Everything we do is mediated by gigantic, surveillant monopolists that spy on us comprehensively from asshole to appetite — but none of them, not a 20th century payment giant nor a 21st century search giant — can bestir itself to use that data to keep us safe from scams.

Next Thu (Mar 2) I'll be in Brussels for Antitrust, Regulation and the Political Economy, along with a who's-who of European and US trustbusters. It's livestreamed, and both in-person and virtual attendance are free:

https://www.brusselsconference.com/registration

On Fri (Mar 3), I'll be in Graz for the Elevate Festival:

https://elevate.at/diskurs/programm/event/e23doctorow/

[Image ID: A modified version of Hieronymus Bosch's painting 'The Conjurer,' which depicts a scam artist playing a shell-game for a group of gawking rubes. The image has been modified so that the scam artist's table has a Google logo and the pea he is triumphantly holding aloft bears the 'Sponsored' wordmark that appears alongside Google search results.]

[lonniemachin]

Laila reached out to me to help share her fundraiser. She is a 22-year-old Palestinian architecture student urgently raising money to evacuate Gaza and continue her education in Cairo. She has only raised €2,489 out of her €35,000 goal so far! Please donate, and if you can’t donate, please share!

From Laila’s GFM:

My name is Laila Auda. I’m writing to you while my heart is heavy, my tears are pouring down out of fear and despair. My only shimmer of hope to achieve my dream of being an Architect relies on you.

I’m 22-year-old dreamer and 178 days genocide survivor. I’ve endured unimaginable hardships including four major aggressions and countless military escalations. I’m still reluctant to believe that I’m reliving the 177th day of the fifth war in my prime years. Not only have these wars destroyed my dreams, but they have also deepened my trauma and depression.

In 2018, I was granted the opportunity of a lifetime through the ACCESS Micro scholarship Program funded by the US Department of State for 2 years English learning.

In 2020 I graduated from Arafat for gifted high school with honor degree 94.4%. And I was granted to a scholarship for 2 years in EL-UNRWA College pursuing my dream of being an Architect. In addition of finishing 3 external courses of software's used in architecture beside the college. I’ve put immense amount of pressure on my back to fulfill my dreams in my early twenties, having a message of being an inspiring soul of success. I was already in my small circle as three of my siblings want to be architects too! They see how I stay up all night making study models.

Now I’m a third-year architecture student completing my bachelor's degree in the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG). The dream of completing my bachelor's degree in my homeland became almost impossible after the IOF bombed all the buildings of my university and amidst the terrifying conditions we endure daily being stripped of every human right imaginable.

I’m sure you’re aware of the situation we have been living. My words are laconic, but my pain is profound and my mental health has been irreversibly damaged due the state of war. Switching from a person who’s addicted to learning to a person who is thinking of how can I escape death. My dream is completing my bachelor's degree in Cairo university, come back to my homeland and be an active architect in the rebuilding programs.

My target is to raise 35000€, which will be allocated as follows:

(1500$) university registration fees.

( 5000$ ) education fees per year (*4 years > 20000$) as I’ll lose 1 one more year with the courses equivalence due to the difference between the plans.

for life expenses as student for 4 years. ( 10000$ )

Add to that 2.9% GoFundMe would take and the fees on money transfer the bank would take.

The overall sum amount is approximately 35000€ considering the bank my cousin- who's launching this campaign- is engaged which operates in Belgian currency.

Your support could mean the difference between dreams realized and dreams shattered. Together we can make a difference. Together we can ensure that the voices of those trapped in conflict zones are heard, and their dreams are not forgotten.

I love studying and I dream of a life where I can breathe giving. I want to help people to rebuild their homes thinking with them of every detail. I want to see people’s happiness by creating spaces that lies warmth within their souls..

I’m truly grateful for your time, consideration, and support. Your generosity will make a lasting impact in my life, illuminate the path toward a brighter and more hopeful chapter.

Every contribution, no matter the size it will be a step forward achieving my dream

If you would like to confirm the validity of this campaign, you can message Laila on X

Username: Laila_EYO

With gratitude

Laila Auda

[nessataleweaver]

FIC: You and I are like the ink staining all the other pages (Game of Thrones, Jon/Sansa)

RATING: Explicit (m/f sex); step-incest; possible dubious consent; underage sex

SUMMARY: (modern AU) Step-siblings Jon and Sansa have been in denial about their mutual attraction for a long time. When the Stark-Tully kids head out to the Halloween carnival, Jon is the only one willing to go through the ‘lame’ Ghost tunnel with Sansa. But they don’t know it’s been re-purposed from a Tunnel of Love, that’s been given an extra kick via magic...

PROMPT: For jonsa-halloween for their 2024 event, using the October 30th prompt ‘Magic’. 

NOTE: I originally had this idea for ‘curse’, but that would have involved Joffrey being stupid and vengeful, and I don’t really want to give his royal skidmark any page time, so I switched tracks somewhat.  While doing so, I realised I was actually writing a prequel to one of my stories from the 2020 event, ‘What you are in the dark’. So to clarify: this is a modern AU, where the Starks are a blended family.  Jon and Arya are Ned’s children, while Robb, Sansa and Bran are Catelyn’s kids.  Rickon is theirs, and is still a toddler. Theon, Robb, Jon and Sansa are all in high school. Arya and Bran are thirteen and twelve.

Can also be read on AO3

ONE YEAR EARLIER

“Agatha... what are those symbols you’re painting?”

“You seriously don’t know?”

“Well, from here they look like several examples of ‘surrender to your desires’, ‘increase affection’, and ‘increase libido’.”

“So why did you ask?”

(sigh) “Agatha, I was asking with the sub-text “Why in Hecate’s name are you painting magic symbols inside our carnival attraction, which we will be exposing many members of the public to?” Do you want us to get sued? Or called in by the Misuse of Magic Office?”

“Don’t be silly!  It’s not mind-altering or anything, it’s just giving things a little... push.  This is going to be a ‘Tunnel of Love’, so the couples that go through it will come out feeling lovey-dovey and horny.  Just think about the Yelp reviews we’ll get!”

“And what about people who aren’t couples, who are just going through it for laughs? Or people who are going on this because they get sick on other rides, and who’s significant others are on the coaster?  Or tweenage girls going through with their besties because it’s so romantic?”

(eyeroll) “It’s like you think I’m stupid or something. All the boats are floating on water, so the customers won’t be around any of the symbols long enough for anything to happen inside the ride. If anything, their partners will have a good time when they get home, or they get to discover the joys of masturbation. Honestly, the worst that will happen is that a few of the security guards might bust some couples fucking in the parking lot because they don’t want to wait to get home.  So what?”

(deeper sigh) “If something goes wrong, I’m throwing you off the flying carpet.”

“Fine, Miss Scaredy-cat!  And when we get asked to hire it out all over the North, I get all the bragging rights!”

ONE MONTH EARLIER

“Agatha, did you hire out our Tunnel of Love to a Halloween carnival?”

“Yep!  Their Ghost train got derailed somewhere in the Neck, and they’re paying us triple the usual hire fee plus ten per cent of the gate!  It’s easy to re-decorate – the whole tunnel looks like a cave anyway.  We put Halloween costumes on all the dummies, add in a few fake coffins and bubbling cauldrons and maybe put in a mad scientist lab or zombie graveyard to replace the masqued ballroom?  We hang fake spider-webs and black drop-cloths from the ceiling with ghost outlines, and instead of the love songs we play spooky sound effects over the sound system.  We haven’t painted the spare set of boats yet, so we make them black and use stencils for skulls and bones over that. Hey, if we keep them that way maybe we can add a pirate cave option?”

PRESENT DAY - LAST FRIDAY BEFORE HALLOWEEN

“Sheesh, Sansa, you’re such a scaredy-cat. We wait any longer to hit the really good rides, we’ll be stuck in line for ages.  All the college students will hit the carnival soon – trust me, I know.”

“I’m not scared, Arya,” Sansa told her step-sister.  “I just get motion-sick easily, remember?  I ride the roller-coaster, the Hurricane and the Zipper within an hour, and I’ll be bringing up dinner with a vengeance.  Just go without me.”

Arya made an expressive face.  “I forgot about all those meds you had to take for our family honeymoon.  But seriously, what was the point of getting to leave Rickon and the parentals at home if not to go on all the rides?”

Jon ruffled her hair affectionately. “You can still go on all the rides.  At least the ones you’re tall enough for.”

Arya scowled and hit her older brother in the side. “I haven’t had my growth spurt yet! That’s why Sansa found me these platform combat boots.”

Jon smiled, not even feeling Arya’s punch.  While Sansa had corralled Arya and Bran through the shooting games and stashing Arya’s armful of prizes in the car, Theon had split a joint with him and Robb.  As a result, Jon was feeling as chilled as a capybara.

“Robb and Theon are coming back now,” Sansa pointed down the midway.  “Robb loves those rides, too.  If he hesitates, tell him it’ll be a sibling bonding moment – that always gets him.”

Bran snickered. “Sansa, the mastermind.  But seriously, Theon loves the arcade but hates admitting it.  I’ll ask him to go through it with me and that’ll leave Robb for you.”

Sansa grinned.  “That leaves Jon to go through the haunted house with me.”

“No it doesn’t!  I want to go through the haunted house too!” Arya protested.

“And me!” Bran added.  “What about the mirror maze, or the Ghost Tunnel?  I think you’re the only ones who wanted those.”

“Um, maybe not the maze,” Jon mumbled.  “Reminds me of my ex.”

“The one who shot you with an arrow or the one who’s now running that cult?” Sansa asked.

“Dany,” Jon replied. He hadn’t even told his best friend Sam, or Robb, that his narcissistic to the point of God-complex girlfriend had once hired out the entire mirror maze for an hour so she could make him fuck her while she watched their reflections in about ten different mirrors. There were reasons he’d stayed with her as long as he had - almost all of them sexual.

“Ghost Tunnel then?” Sansa asked brightly.

“Sure,” Jon said agreeably. “It hasn’t been here before, so I’m up for the new experience.”

Leaving their younger siblings in Robb and Theon’s sometimes-capable hands, Jon and Sansa headed across the fairgrounds.

Sansa looked up at the night sky, and smiled.  “I love full moons, and this one’s special, did you know?”

“Wasn’t Bran talking about this at breakfast the other day?” Jon asked.  “It’s a blue moon, yeah? The second in a month?”

“Exactly.  It’s very good for charging spells and ceremonies.”

“You don’t talk much about your magic studies,” Jon remarked curiously. “Even when I helped you study for the botany section.”

“It tends to upset Mother.  I inherited the talent from her, but she’s so devoted to the Seven she always refused to do anything with it.  At least she’s never tried to keep me from it.  Though I think it’s partly because Uncle Brynden and Aunt Lysa had a discussion – the kind with a capital D - with her about it when I was younger.”

“So you’re not doing any of those spells or ceremonies?”

Sansa shook her head. “My mentor’s doing something tomorrow, but as a solo practitioner I’m not at the stage yet where it would be useful for me. At my level, without a circle or coven, I might even do myself some damage.”

Arriving at the head of the line, Sansa and Jon tore some tickets off their pre-bought roll, and handed them over to the attendant, dressed in what looked like a Shakespeare heroine costume with a fake vampire bite dribbling down her throat and pale sparkly face paint.

“A water ride? I haven’t seen one of those in a Ghost tunnel before,” Sansa remarked, as Jon handed her into the boat.  She stashed her messenger bag in a cage underneath the prow, before she settled into the seat.

The boat’s shape forced them to sit very close together and it took several attempts to find a comfortable position, Jon having to put his arm around Sansa as they headed off into the dark.

A lifelong connoisseur of haunted attractions, Sansa murmured comments to Jon as they slowly floated along.

“Glow in the dark paint usually looks a bit tacky, but these ghosts are painted really well.”

“Oooh, that’s a lovely effect on those floating candelabra!  Maybe there’s some actual magic being used here?”

 “I wonder why there are no scare actors?  There should have been at least one by now if this ride has them.”

 “Can you hear a crackle? You think there’s a set-piece up ahead with lightning effects?”

Just as Jon muttered his agreement, they rounded the curve and saw a large alcove holding what looked to be Frankenstein’s laboratory, complete with a semi-covered body on a lab table, and even a pseudo-skylight above showing lightning constantly flashing.  Their boat settled to a halt, either to change passengers at the beginning or to let them admire the showpiece, when a particularly large thunderclap made them jump.

Then the already dim lighting went out, leaving them in pitch darkness.

“What the hell?”

Silver runes glowed at several points along the wall, and Sansa exclaimed, “So they are using real magic!”

A soothing voice echoed through the darkness. “We are currently experiencing a power failure, and are working to restore the lights and movement of the boats.  In the meantime, we are providing an alternative soundtrack.”

Piano music echoed in the tunnel, and Jon absently identified, “Tchaikovsky. Kind of romantic for a haunted tunnel.”

“Still better than the creepy sound effects, given the situation,” Sansa murmured.

Sansa wasn’t sure how long they floated in the dark, before she found herself snuggling closer to Jon.  His arm tightened around her in response.

“Cold?” he asked quietly.

“Not exactly.”

Actually, she was feeling quite warm. Sansa opened up her zippered hoodie and pulled her sweater out from the waistband of her short skirt. She turned her head sideways to bury her face in Jon’s neck.  He smelled really good, and Sansa absently pressed her thighs together, enjoying the sensation.

Jon rested his head on top of Sansa’s, as his hand curved around her hip, his thumb at just the right angle to dip under the hem of her sweater to stroke her soft skin just above the waistband of her skirt. It felt really good, holding her close; her slim form fit perfectly into the angles of his own. He felt her lips on the sensitive skin on his throat, and bit back a groan as his cock stirred. Now was probably a bad time to remember all the times he’d fisted his cock to thoughts of his lovely step-sister. Even if those pretty tits of hers were pressed softly against his chest, and he was fairly sure that he could feel her hardened nipples through her sweater and his shirt.

Sansa could admit to herself, here in the dark, that her panties were wet and her breasts ached with need.  That she wanted to be even closer to Jon.  She wanted to feel his bare skin against hers, and to wrap her arms and legs around him. Her heart pounding, Sansa let her hand drift along the contours of his torso and down, until she could feel the hard bulge between his legs.  She sighed as she curved her hand around it, then gasped as she felt Jon’s lips against her ear.

“Let me,” Jon murmured, his voice almost soundless as he brought his free hand down to cover the fingers rubbing at him through his jeans.  He moved them aside just enough to undo the button and zip, and groaned in relief as he parted the slit in his boxers to free his erection.  Had Theon added something to that joint?  He was so horny he was pretty sure he could hammer nails with his dick.

Jon couldn’t see Sansa’s fingers gently, tentatively wrap around his rampant cock, gingerly fisting and stroking him, but it was really working for him. The hand he’d latched around her hip slid up and under her sweater, until he could feel the lace of her bra.  He ran his fingertips along the curve of her breast until he found the hem of the cup, gently tugging until her now-exposed breast fell into his palm, where his fingers could rub and flick at her nipple. She was half-way in his lap, her knee hooked over his thigh, and Jon used it as a guide for his other hand, gliding his fingers along her inner thigh until he found her mound.

Sansa whimpered as he stroked and rubbed her pussy through the soaking wet fabric of her underwear, but he wanted more.  Jon pulled and fumbled until he felt her bare folds, and expertly found her clit.  Sansa moaned, and Jon’s cock all but jumped in her grip in response.

Sansa’s head was spinning, and in the dark she was blind to everything but Jon.  His touch on her breast and between her legs, and the hot throbbing rod of muscle in her hand.  She felt so good, and she loved it.  Why had no one ever told her she could feel so good? She moved her hips against Jon’s hand, and his thick fingers slid in her slick folds until one slipped right inside her. She felt herself squeeze down on him in reaction.

“More. Jon, I want more,” she whispered.  Another finger pushed it’s way inside her, and they both wriggled and curved, and when Jon touched a certain spot Sansa slammed her hand over her mouth as she shivered and writhed through her first climax.

Jon had never fucked a virgin before, but Sansa was so tight around his fingers he was sure he was about to.  She was so wet she was dripping onto his hand, and he wouldn’t have any issues working his dick into Sansa’s cunt even though he was on the larger side and she was so tight.

“You need to sit on my lap,” he murmured.  It took some manoeuvring, untangling their legs by feel, but both Jon’s hands latched on Sansa’s hips, and he pulled her body flush to his with her knees bracketing his hips. His cock rubbed against her soaked underwear, and Sansa sighed and rocked her pelvis to increase the friction.  Jon could already feel the pressure building along his spine; he needed to move quickly. “Sansa? If I lift you up, can you put me in the right place?”

Sansa reached down and gripped his cock in answer. He felt her pull her underwear aside with one hand as the tip of cock brushed against her folds. As it notched into her opening, Jon eased Sansa down, groaning as he sank into her tight, slick cunt.

Was it her delectable pussy that felt so good, or was it because he’d never fucked raw before? Either way, Jon was pretty sure he was having the best sex of his life.

 “Your thing is inside me!” Sansa whimpered.  “It’s so big, I’m so full.”

“Are you hurting?” Jon rumbled softly in her ear.

“Mmmph, ah!  It feels really good, though,” Sansa gasped. She wriggled and squirmed, not sure whether she was trying to get Jon deeper inside her or find a position that didn’t feel like she was going to burst.  She pushed her sweater up to her armpits, and wrenched at the front hooks of her bra.  As Jon’s grip on her hips urged her to rock back and forth, Sansa slid her arms around his neck and rubbed her bare breasts against the soft cotton of his t-shirt.

“Lean back a little,” Jon ordered.

Sansa arched her back, mourning the loss of stimulation to her breasts, but Jon somehow shifted his hips, changing the angle of his hardness and Sansa yelped as he rubbed against the place inside his fingers had found earlier, making her feel like a lightning-bolt, sizzling and ready to strike. He did it again and again, and Sansa felt herself explode.

“That’s it, sweetheart, clench down hard on my cock,” Jon growled in her ear, and Sansa convulsed, her inner muscles trying to squeeze the delicious intrusion that already stretched her open without remorse.

Jon moved his hands to her tits, just the right size to fill his hands, and clutched them as his own climax slammed into him.

“Ah!  I can feel your hot stuff coming out, it’s squirting inside me,” moaned Sansa.

Thing? Hot stuff?  In the fragment of his mind that wasn’t drowning in pleasure, Jon wondered just what version of The Talk his stepmother had given the girl taking his dick like she was made for it. At least he could cum inside her without reservation; having helped Sansa study for her herbalist lessons, he knew she was licensed to brew moon tea.

Sansa pressed her forehead against Jon’s as she gasped for breath, and his tight grip on her breasts softened, gently cradling them in his big hands.

The rattling of chains broke their silence, and the boat jerked.  Sansa sat bolt upright as the boat started to move.

“Fuck, we’re moving! You need to get off me!” Jon yelped.

Sansa nearly fell out to the boat, trying to disentangle herself from Jon and sit back down while shifting her panties back into place.  At the same time, Jon was cursing beside her; Sansa caught a glimpse of his still-hard cock as he pushed it back into his jeans, and a swift after-shock of need ran through her. The dim light grew brighter, and Sansa gave up fumbling with her bra to yank her sweater down, hurriedly zipping up her hoodie, glad she’d borrowed it from Jon earlier in the evening and it was thus two sizes too big.

Their boat cruised through a curtain of strings of moss, and bumped into the dock.  Blinking away after-images of the bright carnival lights, Sansa ignored the ride attendant’s droning voice.

Looking down at the bottom of the boat, Sansa’s eyes widened in horror at the obvious stains surrounding Jon’s fly. His leather jacket wasn’t long enough to cover them.

“Hang on, I need my bag!” she exclaimed.  Bending forward, half-over Jon’s lap, Sansa groped for her messenger bag with one hand.  With the other, she passed her fingertips, faintly glowing river-blue, over Jon’s crotch while she whispered a key-phrase.

Jon had to help her out of the boat, too – her legs could barely hold her up.

Jon’s fingers circled her wrist, as he led her away from the ride, the attendant’s smirk not hidden by the fangs of his B-movie Dracula costume.

“There’s bathrooms under the stairs to the grandstand, hardly anyone should be there until it’s time for the fireworks,” Jon told her.  “Meet you outside once we’ve both cleaned up.”

Keeping his body turned away from the man at urinals, Jon shut himself into the farthest cubicle with a sigh of relief.  What in the seven hells had Sansa been playing at, fondling his crotch like that in front of that vampire jerkass?

Jon grabbed a fistful of toilet tissue and looked down to assess the damage.  In the bright light of the bathroom, he could see no tell-tale stains. Looking in the direction of the ladies’ room, Jon sent a mental apology to Sansa.  She’d been using her favorite cleaning spell; if he’d been paying attention to her words instead of her touch he’d have recognised it.  She’d certainly used it on Arya and Bran to help them avoid Catelyn’s wrath enough times.

In the only available stall in the ladies’ room, Sansa hung her messenger bag and hoodie on the hook on the back of the door.  Reaching underneath her sweater, she pulled the cups of her bra back into place but couldn’t quite fasten it.  With a sigh of exasperation, Sansa pulled off her sweater, static electricity making her hair crackle, and shrugged out of her bra.

Standing topless in the small concrete-walled building, Sansa felt her nipples harden again from the chilly air as she inspected her bra.  She’d somehow managed to pop the stitching that kept the hooks in place.  It would be quite uncomfortable if she tried to wear it now and she was sure to lose at least one set of hook-and-eyes. Folding the garment carefully, Sansa slipped it into the laptop sleeve of her messenger bag. Sitting down on the toilet, Sansa needed three lots of tissue to clean Jon’s spend from between her legs, and two castings of the ‘neaten-up’ spell to make her sodden panties wearable again.

Dragging her sweater back over her head, Sansa inhaled sharply as she tugged it into place over her hips.  The soft wool felt so good against her still-sensitized breasts, and the place between her legs ached with longing.  Even though she was sore down there from being forced wide open, she missed the fullness.  Shrugging on the hoodie, she left it open. After washing her hands at the communal sinks, Sansa settled the strap of her messenger bag in a cross-body position between her breasts.  Looking at her reflection, Sansa could see her hard nipples ever so slightly distorting the surface of her sweater, her unencumbered breasts framed by Jon’s hoodie at the sides and the bag-strap pulling the wool flat between them and taut across them. How easy would it be, for Jon to slide his hand under the hem of her sweater and feel her bare breasts?

Sansa smiled at her reflection as she smoothed the static from her hair.

When they met outside the bathrooms, Jon and Sansa were almost as immaculate as when they went into the Ghost tunnel. Maybe Jon’s curls were a little wilder, and Sansa’s lips were so red it looked like she’d been drinking the smoothie van’s ‘Bloody Brew’.  But so what?

Jon’s eyes traced along the curves of his step-sister’s breasts, which he was certain were bare beneath the jack-o-lantern patterned sweater.  He had to fight the urge to drop to his knees and bury his face between her thighs.  He’d come inside her fifteen minutes ago, and all he could think of was getting Sansa somewhere private enough that he could see her naked before driving balls-deep inside her.

Sansa licked her lips as her gaze flickered from his eyes to his crotch and back, and Jon knew without a doubt that she wanted the exact same thing.

“We could say that you’re not feeling well.  Theon can fit everyone else into his Rover, and we can take the car and find somewhere to park on the way home.”

Sansa shook her head, her face regretful.  “If I’m sick, Robb would insist on taking me home himself.  We’ll have to wait.”

“How long?” Jon asked, his voice gravelly with need.

“I’ll get Theon to invite Robb to stay over, so we can drive Bran and Arya home. Once they’re in bed, come to my room.  I can close the curtains around my four-poster so no one can see in even if they open the door.”

“Keep the curtains open to the window,” Jon ran his eyes slowly, deliberately over her breasts, tracing every covered curve with his gaze.  “I want to see you naked by moonlight.”

Sansa moved closer, until he could feel the heat of her body against the bare skin of his hand.

“Same here.”

ONE WEEK LATER

“I have to admit, Agatha, that ghost caves idea made us a mint.  Maybe we should look into leveling up the spooky decorations, and offering it as a permanent alternative option?  Could be in more demand than the Tunnel of Love for things like school carnivals.”

“Ha!”

“Agatha, what are you doing?”

“I’m doing the ‘Agatha was right and she’s telling you so!’ dance.”

“Well, could you please point your booty that way,” (point) “before you shake it?” (mutter) “Like I don’t see enough of your ass during sky-clad ceremonies.” (paper rustling) “The switch from romance to spooky takes, what, a day? And that’s mostly covered during set-up anyway.  The only thing I don’t have a cost breakdown for is the spell-paint and spell-removal.”

(full-body pause) “Spell-removal?”

“Yeah, what did it cost to erase the lovey-dovey and horny spells?  And what will it cost to re-apply them for the Tunnel of Love?  It’s not like that shit works off decals.”

(silence)

“Agatha... you did remember to remove the lovey-dovey and horny spells, right?”

“Um...”

“RIGHT?”

DISCLAIMER: Neither Kathryn Hahn or Elizabeth Olsen were fan-cast in this fic. Aubrey Plaza maybe.

Title comes from the song ‘Counterpane’ by The Birthday Massacre; mostly because I didn’t like the original title, and I was listening to the song during final edits.

[atiny-for-life]

Creative Spotlight #1: Kim Hongjoong

Masterlist

Intro: With so many new Atinys coming in, I figured now would be a good time to shed some light on all the boys' creative solo projects over the years, big and small.

Photography

Hongjoong's love for photography goes way back to his predebut days. In one of the first videos ever uploaded to their channel, you can already see him holding a camera on the set of Pirate King.

2 years ago, in 2022, he got to announce his first photo exhibition, FROM NOVEMBER 7, 1998, as a birthday present to himself, which took place from November 1st to 7th at gallery99 and was used to collect money for charity.

There was no entrance fee but spots had to be reserved online to ensure there'd be no dangerous crowding. During the exhibition, there was a little event planned for all attendees in which fans could collect points which were then converted to money that was later donated under Hongjoong and Atiny's name. The total donated amount was 10 million won!

In Logbook Episode 101, we got to see Hongjoong visit the exhibition himself and take a stroll through memory lane.

Due to the success of the 2022 exhibition, Hongjoong held another one last year which took place between November 3rd and 9th, 2023, and was titled A Walker - the event was accompanied by the release of an original song and led to the donation of 50 million won under Hongjoong's and Atiny's name to the Korea Childhood Leukemia Foundation.

BY. HONGJOONG

Back in 2018, Hongjoong shared during their stay in LA as KQ Fellaz, that he barely went to school since he already started producing music during his high school days. And yes, this is during the same tear jerking monologue where he calls Ateez his family for the first time and says he needs to hurry so he can see their sleeping faces before he goes to bed.

The first time we get to see Hongjoong fully in action as a producer is during his first 1-Day-Vlog in 2020 in which he's working on his Prince cover (more on that in a second).

But now to the main event: Hongjoong has an entire series going where he covers some of his all time favorite songs. Whenever he does, he likes to make the songs his own by recording his own instrumental track and typically adding an additional Korean rap verse with self-written lyrics highlighting his interpretation of the song's message.

Kicking things off with Space Oddity by David Bowie, a classic.

Side Note: As a lover of unisex clothing/androgyny, Hongjoong is likely not just inspired musically by Bowie, but also fashion wise. You can learn more about Bowie's influence on the climate surrounding gender and sexuality here.

Dressed in white, matching both his hair and the background, Hongjoong turned himself into a clean canvas on which he projected first footage of Bowie and later some floating orbs - it's very aesthetic.

Between the original verses and chorus, he placed a Korean rap verse in which he writes from Major Tom's perspective and laments his mental state while stuck alone in outer space, asking ground control to tell his mom he loves her while stating he still appreciates the beauty of space but feels lost and lonely all by himself.

Next up, we've got Purple Rain by Prince, another classic.

Side Note: Like Bowie, Prince too was famous for being androgynous in how he presented himself and toying with what society deemed masculine and feminine. He's famous to this day among the queer community for how persistently he defied gender norms and labels. Learn more about him here.

Instead of filming himself, we get a lyric video this time, fully kept in pastel lavender. Once again, Hongjoong added a rap verse of his own in which he speaks to a lost friend, talking about how he hopes that, even though they're apart now, his friend will still recall him as being sincere and that they can still think of each other fondly and remember the good times.

In a far more elaborate production, we've got Black or White by Michael Jackson up next.

Using green screen and multiple outfits, we get a fun spectacle of a little passion project featuring multiple versions of Hongjoong, background collages, emojis, and more:

Despite being shorter than the other covers, we still get the signature rap verse preceded by his famous giggle and, this time, he's got quite a bit to say.

Diving into the lyrics, he talks about how we're all different colors. Colors which are meant to be mixed. Our roots don't define us. Throughout life, we'll all get mixed up with each other, as we should. He doesn't want to see us divided. To quote: "What's wrong with you, babe? Stop it. You've already experienced the 20th century. Blah blah by dividing groups."

The song ends with the rap verse before the video dives into the making of in which Hongjoong specifically addresses his intent to talk about social issues like Michael Jackson famously used to while he was alive (think: They Don't Really Care About Us).

So long time by Yoon Jong Shin comes next with a sepia-toned video featuring Hongjoong at a grand piano. It's a pretty ballad highlighting his vocals and the use of multiple camera angles allows us to watch him play.

Shortly before we hit the 2 minute mark, Hongjoong gets up and we transition from the shot of the piano to a cassette player while the audio shifts to the original for a moment before Hongjoong returns.

We've reached the rap verse where he mourns a lost love, speaking of memories he can't let go of, even as he pretends everything is okay. He's cold and lonely now, a little mad at himself for continuously getting lost in the memories, and calls himself a fool before we return to the cover-part of the song.

At 3:58, the song wraps up and we've reached the making of section of the video where he talks about how his cover stems from the idea of a time machine taking you through the song, with the first verse (playing the piano) being the past, the rap verse symbolizing the present, and the memories then taking back over as he gets lost in them, leading to the piano's return.

Next up, we've got Last Christmas by Wham! which opens to a short clip of Hongjoong's acting on a pretty Christmas film set before we transition to a simple white back drop.

This time, the signature rap verse comes in early at 50 seconds with a little giggle before he talks about leaving the past in the past and moving on, letting the snow settle over painful memories.

However, this time, we also get a second rap verse at 1:45, where it becomes clear he hasn't moved on at all, plus a Korean vocal section at 2:43 which carries through to the end. Here, he highlights even further that he hopes they'll reconnect next winter so they can leave the painful past behind and live out a shared future.

Hongjoong in his emo era. This is the first Ateez-related video I've ever seen because I was born in '96 and my emo phase never ended so of course this was recommended to me when it was first released.

Numb by Linkin Park got the full Hongjoong treatment and was even reported on by Rolling Stone, quote:

The cover began trending on social media and YouTube within hours of its release, but the true prize came a day later when it caught the attention of Linkin Park themselves. The rock band’s official Twitter account ‘liked’ the post on ATEEZ’s page, with co-founder and vocalist Mike Shinoda confirming on a livestream that he’d seen and enjoyed the cover. As of this writing, Hongjoong’s version of “Numb” has over half a million views on YouTube and has garnered tremendous praise from Linkin Park’s fans.

We get the black eye makeup and nail polish, the plaid half skirt, the dramatic music video with fake fog and red lighting. The rap verse comes in hard, talking about getting mentally weighed down by an abuser and finally breaking free, cutting the ties.

As a long time Linkin Park fan, I love how unique this cover is and Chester would've loved it too I'm sure. I wish he could've seen it.

Fools Garden's Lemon Tree is another classic and I come back to it on the regular because the video has such a unique vibe and the song is famous for getting stuck in your head.

The video features Hongjoong alone in a house surrounded by colorful toys and games, bored out of his mind and visibly seeking a distraction from life but failing to find something, no matter how out of pocket his thinking gets.

Shoutout to the license plate - it's the release date of the song, November 3rd, 1995.

At 1:33, Hongjoong sprints off to the basement which is doused in red and we get a warped version of his signature giggle before the rap verse kicks in. The camera work in this section reminds me a bit of his rap verse in Not Okay.

While down there, he gets more and more deranged, talking about being locked up day by day, imprisoned, losing track of time, but being unable to break out. Instead of trying to escape, he just attempts to distract himself, listening to sad songs on a loop until his pain disappears and his world switches back to yellow.

Busking Event

In 2021, Hongjoong decided to put together a busking event featuring live performances of some covers, plus acoustic versions of some of their songs. Accompanying him were both Ateez and Maddox. You can find the full playlist here:

Collaboration

3 months ago, Chungha made a return to the music scene after escaping her former label and chose Hongjoong as a collaboration partner for her new debut. Beyond his rap verse, she also incorporated a move from Crazy Form in the choreography (she's lovely):

[petervintonjr]

Today we look at the pivotal role played by Evelyn Thomas Butts: activist, agitator, and (eventually) elected official. Born in 1924 Norfolk, Virginia, Evelyn Thomas was orphaned at a young age and raised mostly by her politically-conscious aunt. Evelyn eventually married a Charles Herbert Butts, who served in WWII but was injured. To offset his disability (no wartime benefits for Black veterans at this point, remember), the couple --and their eventual three daughters-- took in boarders, and Evelyn also worked as a seamstress. Inspired by her aunt's careful teaching about staying closely involved in local politics, Evelyn became a member of the Oakwood (Norfolk) neighborhood civic league and eventually was elevated to its president. She used this platform to speak out against segregated schools, segregated stadium seating at sporting events, and even organized a picketing of a local supermarket that refused to hire Black employees. She also co-founded the Rosemont Middle School during this period, and organized voting drives.

It was in the light of her voting drive efforts, that the largest elephant in the room at the time was clearly the Poll Tax --a significant (and insulting) barrier to voting rights; not just in Virginia, but in most of the South. Poll taxes, while technically having been in existence in varying forms since Colonial days, had in post-Reconstruction times, evolved into blatant discriminatory fees. While on paper these required payments made no mention of race or other category, in practice they were broadly designed to disenfranchise poor and working class voters, but most specifically the Black population. Added administrative "fine print" (such as vaguely-worded requirements to pay the fee on a different, specified date prior to an election and then being required to bring that receipt to the polling place), as well as weasel-worded grandfather clauses and impossibly difficult literacy exams, all conspired to ensure that few Blacks would be able to cast ballots.

In November of 1963, Butts filed suit in the Eastern Judicial District of Virginia in an attempt to have the poll tax declared unconstitutional. This attempt was dismissed, but, undeterred, Butts joined with Annie E. Harper and several other women from Fairfax County, Virginia, to consolidate their cases together, along a broader premise. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond heard arguments in 1964 but ultimately ruled the tax constitutional. Butts and Harper and their allies promptly took their appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, represented by then-solicitor Thurgood Marshall.

On March 24, 1966, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that poll taxes were in fact unconstitutional, violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (see Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections).

Evelyn's activism didn't stop there; in 1975 she was appointed as the first black woman commissioner to the Norfolk Redevelopment and Housing Authority. She remained an active member of the NAACP well into the 1980's, and also organized Concerned Citizens of Norfolk, a local initiative designed to encourage more African-Americans to run for office. A street in Norfolk was renamed in her honor in 1995, and a historical marker was erected in 2020.

[angesaurus]

Daycare has been …. increasingly pissing me off since they reopened in June 2020. They aren’t as good at communicating. The teachers avoid making phone calls at all costs and instead think sending a message through the (very unreliable) app is sufficient (in some cases it is! If she fell down and scratched herself and required a bandage that’s fine. If she fell and chipped her tooth or is getting sent home, that’s NOT fine). I don’t feel as though she is getting the same education Gavin got (hoping that changes now she’s in preK). The preschool teachers gave her bathroom anxiety (again, something that wouldn’t be an issue in preK because of the teacher). Tuition has been raised twice in the last year, which drives me crazy because the quality has gone down. And while I respect the teachers need to earn more and the tuition goes towards building fees/maintenance and this is a private daycare/school, not a chain, and they want to keep safe teacher:child ratios (I do too! It’s important) it is a HUGE slap in the face to get a message a mere 5 minutes after the school opens requesting people to please consider keeping their child home today so they can make ratio because they don’t have enough staff. Are you going to give those parents a credit on their next tuition payment?

For reference: when Gavin was 4, I was paying about $960 a month. Now I pay $1274 a month. That’s also more than what I paid when she was in the infant room 🙃

I hate wishing time away but I can’t freaking wait until she goes to kindergarten!

[dateagirlwhosuggestion]

December 31, 1997 – October 14, 2023

Katharine “Katie” Harris, #1 cat lover, a proud viewer of 31 Adam Sandler movies, beloved daughter, sister, and friend, passed away on October 14, 2023, at 25.

Katie was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 31, 1997. They were a Capricorn through and through. Katie was homeschooled until high school when she attended The Gwinnett School of Mathematics, Science, and Technology. In 2020, Katie graduated from The Georgia Institute of Technology with a BS in Psychology. After working as a substitute teacher through GCPS, she began work as a Research Associate for Quantitative Insights at Material+.

Katie was a light to all who knew them. Her humor and wit were unmatched -- she could make anyone laugh, no matter the circumstances, and she always found the spark of humor in the most challenging moments. They loved books, especially books about lesbians, and, most especially, lesbian found-family science-fiction. She visited Disney more times than anyone could count, and even though she loved roller coasters with a passion, her favorite Disney ride was “Living with the Land.” Their passions included sectional sofas, weird earrings, the McElroy Brothers, Pokémon, Adam Sandler, lesbians, concerts, pasta, puns, eating kiwis with the skin on (and reminding everyone of it), The Sims, Survivor, Infinity Train, fries with a side of ranch, other people’s drama, scenic overlooks, information centers, and so much more.

Katie was immensely passionate. She was never afraid to speak up and fight for what she believed in. They couldn’t tolerate people who lack empathy, people who don’t use their turn signals, olives, or push doors that look like pull doors. She never rode in an elevator unless she had absolutely no other choice because you never know when you might get stuck.

Between the celebration of life, legal fees, and time off work, Katie’s family is facing a huge and unexpected financial burden. If you are able, please contribute whatever you can. We will never forget her.

[krishna-sangini]

My Journey to Keshav

My journey to Keshav began when I was probably 2 or 3 years old. The tales that my grandpa and my great-granny told me; of Krishna's baal leelas, the cheer haran, His raas leela, His journey to Mathura, the slaying of Kansa, and then becoming the protector of uncountable people... All these tales I marvelled at as a toddler have the credit of hooking me onto my Keshav for the very first time.

This was just the start... Of a beautiful journey that would ultimately become my destination.

The toddler me grew up into a kid. That’s when the cartoon ‘Krishna Balram’ came onto the scene. And yeah, that show is 100% credited with making me fall head-over-heels for the sibling pair. I mean, y’all would be lying if you said you didn’t absolutely fall in love with Krishna and Balram after watching that show! Like, come on! Those two boys are simply sweethearts! Then came the ‘Little Krishna’ movie series. Ouffffff! My heart was completely occupied by the Makhan Chor by then. 

But then I entered teenage! The best phase of human life. You know, the phase everyone goes through where Westernization is considered cool and spirituality is considered ‘boring’ and ‘conservative’. Yeeeah… I fell into that ditch too. I pushed Kanha into the backseat. I got absorbed in the world of being ‘cool’ by shunning my religion and putting on the mask of atheism.

(This is not a dig at people who are genuinely atheists. Y'all are free to have your own opinions,  and I respect yours even if mine are different.) 

During those 5-6 years, I forgot all about my absolute bestie. The one who had stayed with me through every nightmare and sunshine. Needless to say, my life was a torment those years. Serious shitty family issues and my then school can be credited for that.

But again, once you’re into Krishna, he'll always find a way to bring you back if you go astray. That’s exactly what my Keshav did to me.

2020 saw the advent of the COVID-19 virus in India, and a long and tiring lockdown followed. Just as people were beginning to get frustrated to death, the good old Mahabharat and Ramayana started airing again. That was the turning point for me. Seeing Nitish Bhardwaj’s excellent portrayal of my Keshav, I was hit with the nostalgic memories of my childhood that I shared with Kanha. It was then that the thought struck me, “If a human can look so freaking beautiful, how much more radiant and divine must Kanha have looked in real life!”

And that was it. I called for Keshav after so long. He was waiting for me, perhaps. Waiting for me to call Him with all my heart, without my pride’s obstruction. I did, and He responded right away. A couple of days later was when I had that magnificent dream where my Keshav showed me a glimpse of Himself for the very first.

(I have posted about that dream here too; the link is in my pinned post. If you’re curious, you can check it out! Also, please share your Krishna story too!)

And since then, there has been no coming back.

I am now compensating for those 5 years by falling in love with my Keshav harder with each passing day. Not that I mind it. Because I absolutely love it. Now that I look back, it had been Him all along. All those times I sat crying alone in my room cuz of the mess our family was in, Keshav was there right by my side, caressing me gently. I was just too haughty to realize it. Had it not been for Him, the wicket of my life would already have toppled years ago.

Sooo, this is my journey to my Keshav. The journey that still continues; it will continue till we meet finally on the ultimate day… This journey has mended me in so many ways. It has shown me a whole new side of myself. It has helped me realize myself better. And best of all, it has made me feel my Keshav more and made me love Him much more. And I’m so so glad that I had people in my life who led me to the beginning of this journey. For this too, I thank our Manmohan.

Sooo, yeah. That’s it. How has your journey to Krishna been so far? Feel free to share!

Radhe Radhe, sakhis and sakhas! Kanha will stop by in your dream tonight~ (Yeah, he told me so himself!)

[yanderemommabean]

Being a pharmacy technician doesn't typically require any schooling, momma. Just a fee that you send to the pharmacy board with your application and a background check.

Oh? I looked on the Arkansas state board website and didn’t see anything about sending in money orders and such but I’ll admit I don’t really know what wording and things I’m trying to search for to try!

The program I’m apart of is a bit more than just pharmacy tech stuff as well, but I also have zero prior training in any sort of pharmacy field other than what I was apart of in nursing school back in 2020 and since that flopped and I can’t remember much, I figured some extra schooling was necessary.

I can try searching the site later on, but again I have no idea what to look for (because I’m stupid lol)

-Mommabean

[uvgullascollegeofmedicine]

UV GULLAS COLLEGE OF MEDICINE ADMISSION 2023-2024

UV Gullas college of medicine is one of the best medical college in Philippines. We strive to give society the greatest doctors possible because we adhere to the amour, servitium, humanities ideology, which stands for love, leadership, and service to humanity. It is competent enough to deal with difficulties and competitiveness in the medical sector.

Most international students choose UV Gullas College of Medicine over other highly regarded medical schools in the Philippines for a particular reason that makes them feel at ease.

The UV Gullas Medical College is renowned for providing top-notch medical training to students across Asia. This is accomplished by having academics and doctors with extensive expertise who work hard to impart their knowledge on medical practitioners.

Simply contact the UV Gullas College of Medicine Admissions Office in Chennai, Vadapalani, India, which also accepts international students, for information on admissions for the academic years 2023–2024. Based in our Chennai's Vadapalani Admission office we have a trained team of admission coordinators that can assist in guiding you through the full admissions process and enrolling you seamlessly in the MBBS programme.

Our UV Gullas admissions advisors will assist you with every step of the admissions procedure, from completing out the application to obtaining a VISA to finding you affordable airfare! Indian students have a fantastic opportunity to enrol in MBBS at UV Gullas College of Medicine, a leading medical school in the Philippines with cutting-edge facilities and a stellar reputation worldwide.

To ensure that there are no difficulties for the MBBS students hoping to pursue MBBS in the Philippines through our college, the UV Gullas College of Medicine Admissions Process has been meticulously and elaborately created. The admissions process at UV Gullas is highly ethical and open, which is its main benefit. We don't accept donations and don't promote further payments above what this website's breakdowns already include. You can go to the UV Gullas Medical College Admissions Office in Chennai to apply for admission. The UV Gullas Admissions Coordinators will assist you in completing the process and registering for the UV Gullas Medical College BS-MD programme. The following certificates are required to begin the admissions programme:

Birth Certificate

10th Certificate

12th Certificate

NEET scores: a passing score of at least is sufficient. High NEET scores are not necessary!

The UV Gullas College of Medicine Admissions Office, Chennai, situated in Vadapalani, issues a Notice of Acceptance to the MBBS student upon submission of the aforementioned documents to the University granting admission to the programme.

ADMISSION AND COUNSELLING

The UV Gullas Admissions Programme suggests this for BS. Counselling, in which the candidate and his or her parents attend a session to discuss any concerns they may have about the college, the MBBS programme offered in Philippines medical colleges, life, the surrounding area, safety concerns, the food, the UV Gullas Hostel, etc. The original of every photocopy that had previously been submitted for the eligibility process is also submitted during this session for verification. A list of 19 documents that the MBBS student who plans to pursue MBBS at gullas college of medicine must prepare is supplied during this stage of the UV Gullas Admissions Process.

VISA ASSISTANCE

It is the responsibility of the employees at the UV Gullas College of Medicine Authorised Admissions Office, Chennai, to guarantee a smooth admissions process. Obtaining a visa is a necessary step in the UV Gullas College of Medicine admissions process. The first stage in processing a Visa is to confirm that all required paperwork has been approved by the appropriate authorities. For this, the MBBS student must be given access to a list of original documents that have already been shared. The government receives the documents after meticulous examination and authentication by the UV Gullas Indian Admissions Office, Chennai (located in Vadapalani).

The UV Gullas College of Medicine Admissions department contacts the embassy after obtaining the government-provided documentation to obtain a date for the Visa interview. The process of the visa interview is then explained to the students. The UV Gullas Admissions team makes sure that clients successfully complete the Visa interview, and staff members are always available to support and assist them as needed.

Airline tickets and lodging

Airline Tickets

To ensure that the batches depart together, the UV Gullas Authorised Admissions office assists in making ticket arrangements. While the student is pursuing his or her MBBS in the Philippines, a medical insurance is also taken out in the student's name to ensure that he or she is financially insured in the event that anything unfortunate occurs.

For more ct : 9445553877

Visit our official website https://uvgullas.com/

[smallbearart]

Hiii! I am coming here to plug my print store!

I got scammed out of all of my savings that I need to pay off student loans. It was thousands of dollars I got refunded in 2020-2021 from housing and department fees that I did not use because I was doing school online. I am working with my bank to get it all back but this is a very stressful time so I am trying to be proactive about earning back the money I had lost.

Any print store purchases or kofi donations would be really helpful in this time.

(reblogs and boosts appreciated)

[mariacallous]

World Brief: U.K. Conservatives predicted to lose snap elections

The United Kingdom will hold snap parliamentary elections on Thursday that are expected to end the ruling Conservative Party’s 14-year hold on power. This is Britain’s first national election in almost five years and will determine all 650 seats in the House of Commons, the lower house of the U.K. Parliament. Experts predict a landslide loss for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, with the Conservatives expected to lose more than two-thirds of their parliamentary seats and Sunak likely to become the first sitting premier to be defeated in his own district.

Sunak became prime minister in October 2022, the third Conservative to hold the job in just under two months. Unlike former Conservative leader Boris Johnson, who won Britain’s last general election in 2019 by a massive margin, Sunak’s approval rating is a mere 18 percent—making him one of the most unpopular prime ministers in Britain’s history.

Labour leader Keir Starmer is therefore expected to take the helm. As the country’s former top prosecutor and opposition leader since April 2020, Starmer seeks to impose taxes on private school fees, reverse the Rwanda deportation plan, and address bogged-down public health services.

“A politically dominant Starmer will attend the G-7 as a leader in total political control, in stark contrast to his counterparts in France and Germany, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, who are facing high disapproval ratings and struggling to pursue their governing agendas,” former Labour advisor Mike Harris argued in Foreign Policy.

The sluggish U.K. economy remains voters’ No. 1 concern. The Conservative Party began its more than decadelong tenure in power during the fallout of the 2008 global financial crisis. Under Sunak, though, inflation slowed to 2 percent this year through May after peaking at roughly 11 percent when he first took office. Other key issues for voters include long wait lists with Britain’s National Health Service, unauthorized immigration across the English Channel, the housing crisis, and climate change.

Successive political scandals within the Conservative Party—what FP’s Sasha Polakow-Suransky termed the “Nightmare on Downing Street”—have also damaged its credibility. Johnson resigned in 2022 after attending Downing Street-hosted parties during the COVID-19 pandemic while the rest of the nation was under lockdown. Liz Truss briefly took over—but quickly left after a disastrous economic proposal. And Sunak has faced his own controversies after several staffers allegedly engaged in insider betting on when Thursday’s snap elections would be scheduled for.

Combined support for the country’s two main parties is only at 63 percent, the Financial Times reported last Tuesday—marking an all-time low since Britain’s two-party system emerged after World War I. This has led to the rise of smaller parties, including the far-right Reform U.K. party, led by Nigel Farage; the environmentalist Green Party, led by Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay; and the centrist Liberal Democrats, led by Ed Davey.

[upsettingandunfortunateclasshate]

English private schools are rushing to open lucrative satellite academies abroad, including in some of the world’s poorest countries, to funnel back millions of pounds in profits to pay for their charitable obligations.

Cambodia, Bangladesh and Vietnam are among the latest targets for English private schools aiming to expand overseas, in many cases in partnership with property developers looking to build luxury developments or even entire cities.

Some private schools say they are motivated to increase their revenues by fears that an incoming Labour government will add VAT to school fees and strip them of charitable status, creating financial difficulties for them.

Research by the Private Education Policy Forum (PEPF) has found that private schools with charitable status are making record-breaking profits from their overseas subsidiaries and satellites, with 40 British schools taking in £29m in 2020-21, compared with £1.6m in 2011-12.

[raspberry-and-friends]

Name: Rainbow Dash Pie

Gender: Agender (they/them)

Sexuality: Pansexual

Partner(s): Pinkamena Diane Pie

Children: Rainbow Sherbet Pie-Dash (16), Sugar High Pie-Dash and Electric Spice Pie-Dash (13), and Saltwater Taffy Pie-Dash (19)

Headcanons and disclaimers below the cut 👇👇

🩵 Retired Wonderbolt who now specializes in teaching future trainees. Rainbow sees a bit of themselves in every aspiring Wonderbolt, which is precisely why they love their job so much. That, and they’re afraid one of their students may end up “Washing Out” and falling in line with their rival, Lightning Dust.

🩵 Their adopted sibling, Scootaloo, realized he was trans soon after graduating grade school. Rainbow and their wife, Pinkie, ended up raising enough funds through a Wonderbolts-sponsored bake sale for him to transition.* It was during this time that they realized they were agender, and Scoots was, predictably, just as supportive as they were to him. What’s more wholesome than coming to terms with your identity while simultaneously finding time to help your older sibling accept theirs as well?

🩵 Has a soft spot for spa days, visiting with Rarity every once in a while to get their hooves done. It took Rainbow quite some time to get used to it, but eventually they even began letting the spa twins massage their wings after a particularly rough day on the job.

🩵 Surprisingly close friends with the dragons of Spike’s former nesting grounds. After Twilight discovered a spell capable of shielding a pony from the heat, Rainbow began going lava surfing with their new friends every other weekend. Ember’s a pretty cool gal (and Thorax does also get along quite well with Pinkie).

*In Equestria, surgery in the typical sense isn’t necessary for medically transitioning, seeing as there are plenty of complicated spells that can do the job in a fraction of the time it would take a doctor. Problem is, this type of magic is normally so incredibly draining for the caster that they often charge a pricey fee as compensation. In addition, only certain unicorns specially trained in the field of gender-reassignment are able to preform the spell(s) accurately.

***DISCLAIMER: In this AU, The princesses DIDN’T hand off their powers to Twilight, and still remain the primary rulers of Equestria during the course of this story. The illustrations and writing (the latter of which has since been revised to fix previously missed grammatical errors and to more closely align with my current headcanons) were done back in 2020-2021 and posted to my now-inactive DeviantArt account. The signature ‘Hun’ reflects the name I went by at the time, Hunter.***