#because i found out gay people existed when i was 10 after i stumbled across some levi x eren fanart on google images

[thawthebeez]

i was working with some grade 1's today at work and during religion one of the girls said "i'm not gonna use yellow because i'm a girl" so i asked her why, fully expecting her to respond with 'because yellow is a boy colour' but no. instead she responded with "because girls can marry girls." 6 year olds truly are interesting creatures

[nobigsecrets]

H50 Fic Recs

Light At The End Of The Tunnel by bluflamingo Rating: T, Words: 3,191 The first time Catherine meets Steve, he's a voice on the other end of the radio, asking for her help.

Where lies the final harbor? by @missslothy Rating: M, Words: 48,643 Steve and Danny had finally admitted their feelings for each other just three days before the events of Season 10 Episode 7. Can their new relationship survive the fallout from what happened in Mexico and Doris's death? (Coda to 10x07)

Agitated States of Amazement by @emphasisonthehomo Rating: T, Words: 5,823 He meets Stef when he’s like 18, on a sub-reddit that doesn’t exist anymore. She’s kind of a huge fucking cunt. Danny’s kind of in love with her. OR: Sometimes the people you meet on the internet stick with you.

I’m dumb she’s a lesbian (I thought I had found the one) by @five-wow Rating: G, Words: 1,299 Danny waves his coffee around a little more. The lid is the only thing that prevents them from having to dig up a mop. “What’d I do? All I did is tell her you’re handsome and single and free Friday night.” “You were setting us up,” Quinn summarizes. Or: Just another morning in the life of Steve McGarrett, whose best friend is deeply concerned with getting him a date.

COMPETITIVE BY NATURE by alizarin_nyc Rating: E, Words: 2,701 "Oh come on, that isn’t gay," Steve says. "I was in high school. You’re gay, you’re totally gayer than me. Your pants are tight across the ass!” Steve has his little protesty face on and it’s exactly like his earnest, don’t-worry-we’ll-catch-your-husband’s-killer face. It is so, so gay.

Does This Marriage Come With Any Perks? by @pterawaters Rating: T, Words: 3,369 After Danny suffers a life-threatening injury, he finds himself in Steve’s care. He doesn’t remember much about what happened after getting shot, but he’s pretty sure signing a marriage certificate wasn’t something he’d forget.

Sometimes You Just Need a Decoder Ring by kho Rating: T, Words: 2,849 Danny follows Steve into the kitchen and sticks the beers in the fridge. “Actually I’m of the mind that it takes two to tango so I don’t know who started and who fueled but you’re both in this fight, so I’m just trying to figure out how to diffuse this situation so I don’t wind up as collateral damage.” (Mary & Steve centric)

You Move Me by dogeared Rating: M, Words: 486 Yoga, and waffles, and kisses.

Pick up line by kaige68 Rating: T, Words: 100 Prompt from kapuahi, Hawaii Five-0, McDanno, Steve loses a bet with his Navy mates and has to dress in drag Bonus points if someone (Danny) tries to chat up Lady!Steve

Careful, or you'll end up in my novel by kaige68 Rating: M, Words: 2,200 Former Newark police detective, now mystery, writer Danny Williams follows his daughter to Hawaii, and meets his biggest fan.

I Want A Man With A Slow Hand by thefourofswords Rating: E, Words: 6,597 “Can I ask you a question?” he asked on their way to a crime scene, because no time like the present, and Danny believed in ripping off band-aids. “Why not?” Steve replied, eyes on the road. “You’re gonna even if I say no.” “What do you like in bed?” Or: Danny undertakes a very important mission to get Steve laid. For his health. Ahem.

As You Wish by Brumeier Rating: M, Words: 4,077 When Steve comes back to Hawaii to find the man who killed his father he finds much more when he stumbles across a mysterious bottle on the beach.

Just Enough Hope by aries_taurus Rating: T, Words: 2,594 He hopes for a lot of things: that he didn’t make a mistake taking on this taskforce, that the ache he’s feeling in his soul will go away, that he can sleep at night without seeing his best friend being ripped to shreds by bullets, without remembering he left him behind for nothing, or hear a gunshot killing his father over a bad sat connection and he just hopes he wakes up one day without a scream dying in his throat.

All Hearts Come Home For Christmas by @cowandcalf Rating: E, Words: 12,198 Steve debates for four days if he should eat this year's Christmas dinner in the charity Christmas tent organized for the veterans by HPD.

Built For Tough Battles by thefourofswords Rating: E, Words: 20,770 Adam nudges his shoulder, “He’ll find his way back, you know.” Danny blows out a breath. “I dunno anymore about that. The stuff he’s gone through in the last year...” “He’s had a lot go very wrong, very quickly,” Adam says. “I’m sure it feels like he’s slowly been losing parts of his family and when you reach a certain point, loss aversion takes over. It can make you do crazy things…” Or: Danny waits for Steve to be ready to come back.

Friends don't let friends... by kaige68 Rating: E, Words: 2,008 Steve finds a desolate Adam in a bar. (Steve/Adam)

Foreplay by @stellarmeadow Rating: M, Words: 4,305 When sparring isn't just sparring.

[imnotgrimimjustagrumpyreaper]

Everything you never thought to ask and never wanted to know about my Josépan playlist/history with and opinions of the ship.

Intro:

The journey of this playlist has been a long one, starting on Amazon Music and my old, janky and now defunct Ipad.

STRAP IN, CHILDREN AS I TAKE YOU BACK TO A MAGICAL TIME WHEN NEITHER LEGENDS OF THE THREE CABALLEROS; NOR THEIR CAMEO IN DUCKTALES HAD BEEN ANNOUNCED YET, MY BLOG ON TUMBLR DIDN’T EXIST (THOUGH I WAS LURKING) AND PANCHITO WAS STILL THE LEAST POPULAR CABALLERO, otherwise known as around late 2017.

A word on the origins of the playlist:

The playlist was not initially Ducktales focused because the two didn’t exist in Ducktales yet. I was rather unenthusiastic back in the day about this ship (oh how the times change) but I had stumbled across a song that didn’t fit them and Donald but fit just them very well and wanted to make an animatic of it. So, I cobbled together some songs I thought fit the vibe and made a playlist.

The history behind the story that inspired it:

I’ll spare you from starting at the very beginning. But, when “The Town Where Everyone was Nice” premiered I was already thoroughly and utterly obsessed with the cabs; I remember how beyond ecstatic I was for the episode. My hype for the Ducktales versions of José and Panchito continued far beyond what seems to have been normal for the average cabs fan. I found myself drawn to the ideas put forth by those versions of them. I don’t really remember what the tipping point was for me to break down and make my own college AU but eventually I did. It was affectionately dubbed “The TV Show That Will Never Happen AU.” José and Panchito were enemies to lovers or at least to friends. And it was around that time I began to go CRAZY with the headcanons as I got more active in the fandom. While my ideas for the Ducktales versions of them grew and grew, so too did the time between them appearing in “The Town Where Everyone was Nice” and their alleged next appearance in the show. When fans noticed the distinct lack of José and Panchito in the season two finale of Ducktales, Francisco Angones, @//suspenderofdisbelief on Tumblr answered these two separate asks that I might have engraved on tombstone one day:

I was GONE for the ship after that. I developed another AU for them based around their time in Baia trying to get people to fund their attempts to become famous musicians. Also, slowly falling in love... It was affectionately titled “The Fan-Comic that Will Never Happen” but not yet connected to my college AU. I don’t have much of a timeline for it after this point, but with that AU I really hit my stride for interpretations of the two characters and their dynamic. The version of them I hold dear in my heart and headcanons came to be. Then “Louie’s Eleven” came out and absolutely destroyed a lot of my headcanons (just kidding, just kidding). Since the new canon material didn’t really jive with a lot of the wholesomeness I had built up I was left with a lot of something else: angst. I LOVE angst, but the two’s bitterness and arguing...It was hard to accept at the time. Me and @cartoon-lizard on Tumblr, my IRL best friend, wound up writing a Josépan fic fueled on a bit of that angst and by her grace, a lot of my headcanons. I titled it “My Reverie is Being Haunted by That Ass.” In it Panchito makes an ass (rimshot noises) of himself by running off with a producer he met by chance during a visit in Duckburg to try to become famous. And doing so without so much as a second thought to the person he’s been living with/sort of dating for over a year. It took me a while but eventually I figured it out. These weren’t three separate AUs, these were three separate pieces of the same AU. And so my masterpiece never meant to be made came to be: “The Trilogy: College/Baia/Reverie.”

“The Trilogy” Itself:

The story will never be written for a variety of reasons, personal and practical. But if it ever were to be written it would be three separate fics, aka: College, Baia and Reverie.

College encapsulates their college years (duh).

To set the stage:

Panchito: A friendly, arrogant and easily excitable musician with big dreams, good grades and a whole lot of anxiety and insecurity. He has complicated feelings towards his identity as both trans and pan and how that might affect his dreams of becoming famous, but is overall bright eyed and innocent enough.

José: A lazy (depressed), charming, pessimistic, tbh kind of a douche and deep in the closet gay man. He tends to push forward a very “Manly man” persona to make up for his own deep seated internalized homophobia brought on by a shitty upbringing. He just got away from said shitty upbringing and doesn’t really have any hopes for his future...Maybe to travel a bit?

José and Panchito start as enemies, both fearing losing their one real friend, Donald, to the other. Despite this the three start a band and the two’s rivalry becomes far more friendly. They get particularly close during the trip down to Acapulco for spring break where the general feeling of being disconnected from life and reality leads to several rather romantic moments between the two...They almost become a thing several times but never quite do. However, they are very good friends by the end of college. The three stay in contact for a while after college but eventually lose touch…

Baia timeskips forward 13 years later (I know it's only 10 canonically, I always say 13 for reasons) to a conversation between Panchito and José on the Sunchaser at the end of “The Town Where Everyone Was Nice.”

Panchito: Life hasn’t been kind to Panchito...His need to be famous, to be something in order to be someone has led him to push a lot of people out of his life so he can better focus on “Work.” Or drive them out by constantly asking for their support, financial or otherwise. He has no friends and even his relationships with his loving and supportive family are strained. Currently, he’s working freelance as a performer at childrens’ birthday parties (in his eyes: a clown) and goes home to a sad, empty apartment every night to stare at a notebook full of half written songs and muster enough energy to eat cereal for dinner for the third time in a row. Needless to say, his optimism is wearing thin.

José: A lot of hard work on his part, some good therapy and mmm; drugs have put him in a pretty good place. He’s more or less got his life together now, is way less of a douche and is more of a realist than a pessimist. He’s also pretty much completely comfortable in his identity as a gay man. He’s been trying to explore romantic relationships, but unfortunately (likely due to the loveless marriage between his parents making him strive so hard to believe that love is real that he puts the unrealistic goal of true love above all else) feels incomplete without one and double unfortunately has a tendency to be drawn to toxicity and abusive situations. So other than a string of (short lived) bad relationships, he’s actually doing great!

Panchito has already asked Donald to drop everything and stay with him down in Baia to try to get funding for the band. Donald said no. José has a steady job, a decent apartment and a supportive friend group back home. He's also long since lost interest and hope in their college dreams of being famous...José says yes. The two have a bunch of wild and wacky shenanigans trying to get funding and both dance around their growing feelings for each other until it explodes and overwhelms them. They rush into a romantic relationship head first with no real ground for it to be built on and unrealistic expectations of what the other can give them. Despite all this, things seem quite happy...for a while…

If you've made it this far, <3, CONT. in pt 2.

[paunchsalazar]

hey!! bro ur my number #1 source for lupin III content so can I ask like how in the hell I go about watching all the series / movies / etc for it in order??? I’m really pumped for the live action so I wanna at least dip into all the other stuff. thanking ya kindly //tips hat

hello!!! what an honor!! oh my… ok I’m so sorry in advance… I’ve gotten a few similar asks and I started writing out a list and it was getting over 1500 words long so I had to try to chill out…so…

LUPIN III CRASH COURSE

I’m sorry that this is so long.. and consider I cut it down! but here is my intro because I know this franchise is huge and confusing!! (I’ve had multiple instances of friends being like ‘I tried to find that Lupin thing you like but I could only find the third one?’) 

I kind of liken it to Scooby Doo? it stretches some 60 years and has been handled by many different writers, directors, and animators across very different eras? most important to know! the order doesn’t really matter and things aren’t really sequential (save for where the three most recent shows) so you can jump in and explore whatever seems compelling! it’s overwhelming because there is so much but also nice because there’s something for everybody! if you like fun and pure, edgy, etc. etc. 

feel free to disregard everything coming… I will say my personal priority order is

- Castle of Cagliostro

- some episode of part 2

- part IV, ideally all of it! there’s filler but it’s hard to know which ones

- part I (or some episodes of it? up to you!)

- Fuma Conspiracy

- part V 

- part III (it’s great too!! just not as sequential as IV and V)

- First Contact… truly indulgent but its so cute!

(below I broke down a little about each and my favorite episodes, where to find them, etc. and there’s so much more but just doing everything below is a whole lot)

TV (All the shows except for The Woman Called Fujiko Mine are on Crunchyroll!)

Part 1 (1971) - crunchyroll!

The beginnings kind of a weird feeling because the first half was directed with one vision vs. the second half being co-directed by Takahata and Miyazaki, there’s a shift in Lupin’s personality and most significantly they sought to shed his ‘sense of apathy’ and make him more of a hero? something that’s echoed later on! honestly, I don’t think the transition is as dramatic as some people find it? but it does shift across the episodes and end on a sweet note!

truly they all have something to enjoy but I made note of 

episodes 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 19, 23 

for some reason? really really suggest watching the last episode! but get a bit of the first and second half beforehand!

Part II/Red Jacket (1977-80) - 155 episodes - on crunchyroll dubbed and subbed

there are a lot so I tried to narrow it down to a few of my favorites/ particularly noteworthy ones? I bolded my absolute favorites! I’m sure I missed a few but save for a few two-episode arcs you can jump in anywhere and it’ll be fine.

episodes 1-79 are dubbed on Crunchyroll! In my personal opinion the script makes it worth it!! there are a bunch of non-dubbed episodes anyway if you want to get a feel for both

(these episode titles are often hilarious, misleading, and/or horribly embarrassing?)

1 - ‘The Return of Lupin the Third’ - just a good starting point!

5 - ‘Will the Leaning Tower of Pisa Be Standing?’

6 - ‘Tutankhamen’s 3,000-Year-Old Curse’

7 - ‘Venetian Super Express’ - I want to say this is a cute little road trip episode? it’s been so long

9 - ‘Steal the FIle M123’ - this dub… madness. very strange Christopher Walken impression for absolutely no reason?

10 - ‘Bet on the Monaco Grand Prix’

15 - ‘Crude Reproduction, Perfect Frame’ - Lupin keeps committing strange and uncharacteristic crimes, but he has no memory of doing so!

29 - ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ - Lupin has some mysterious Levitation Technique and everyone is after it 

32 - ‘Lupin the Interred’ A famed hitman is after Lupin!

34 - ‘But Your Brother Was Such A Nice Guy’ - this episode is one of the zaniest ones and that’s saying a lot… Vampires? Jesus? Really really funny moments though especially in the dub

42 - ‘Cruisin’ in Drag’ Lupin infiltrates the ship of a wealthy bachelor disguised as a woman 

45 - ‘Diamonds and Minx’ kind of a mess of people stealing from each other? 

46 - ‘The Island of Dr. Derange’

57 - ‘Alter-Ego Maniac’ - Inspector Zenigata goes criminal

62 - ‘Church of the Poison Mind’ - Jigen and Goemon stumble into a religious cult

69 - ‘Zenigata Getcha Into My Life’ - this title is awful but this episode is great. 

78 - ‘Ice, Robot’ - an inventor has made a machine that can cry diamonds!

79 - ‘Baton Death March’ 

81 - ‘Fujiko, Men are a Sorry Lot!” - Fujiko gets engaged to a Prince, the rest of the gang goes after the monarchy’s Golden Bell

96 - ‘Lupin’s Gourmet World’ tbh this is a vore episode but there are some great gang moments here and a really fun third act

99 - ‘Fighting Jigen’ - first anime episode (I think like in history? but I could’ve misread) in stereo! And I believe the first to air of the TMS staff’s work, you can tell because the style shifts to a more Miyazaki/Cagliostro look and this will keep happening for the rest of the show

101 - ‘Fervent Love at Versailles’ - a crossover episode with Rose of Versailles! 

103 - ‘The Wolf Looked at an Angel’ - Goemon is an angel I can say little else

104 - ‘The Most Dangerous Golden Bed’ - debut of perhaps the best opening! I love this episode?? so much?

112 - ‘Danger! Goemon’ 

122 - ‘An Unusual End to an Expedition for Napoleon’s Treasure’ 

143 - ‘The Miami Bank’ 

145 - ‘Wings of Death: Albatross’ - ah yes, one of the famed Miyazaki-directed episode, truly so worth it

151 - ‘To Arrest Lupin, the Mission at the Highway’ - another not exactly Miyazaki episode but a lot of the people he trained? They depart from the part 2 style(s) again but its a good bit of fun all around! Really lovely character animation

152 - ‘Jigen and the Hatless Pistol’ - Jigen loses his hat and thus his ability to shoot

155 - ‘Thieves Love the Peace/Farewell, Dear Lupin’ - the finale episode! Miyazaki-directed as well, and just beautiful 

Part III (1984) - 50 episodes - crunchyroll!

I’m still very early in this one so I can’t say much yet! But it gets a bad rep? Perhaps for being more inconsistent stylistically and a bit on the zanier end! But I really like it!! these drawings are such a blast! I think each bit has its merits and this one is no exception. Plus with all their freedom animation-wise they can do a lot of fun stuff!

The Woman Called Fujiko Mine (2012) - 13 episodes - on kissanime for certain and I think animetake?

this is the most dramatic departure from the rest of the shows/films/specials. Fujiko Mine is the star of this part! It definitely has less obviously plot-important episodes but it’s one narrative from start to finish. I must note that it’s by far Lupin’s edgiest, I think it’d be safe to deem this part as R-Rated. There’s sex, violence, sexual violence, abuse, bodily mutilation, obsession… a gay character who gets a pretty tragic fate (at first I was excited by the very existence of an LGBT+ character but he really goes through the wringer and never gets a resolution.. I don’t want to spoil). This is probably Lupin at his ickiest? I do like Jigen’s personality here! And his dynamic with Fujiko, but it’s a lot more disjointed than the other parts. She meets each of them separately and towards the end, Lupin and Jigen interact more but there’s barely a time when they’re all together. That’s not meant to be a deterrent but personally, I’m a sucker for their friendship and love them as a group so it’s a bit of a bummer. Sequential plot-wise though! This one is definitely captivating, a bit disturbing, and there is a plot-twist that really got me. The villain design is really cool too!

Part IV (2015) - 26 episodes - on crunchyroll, also dubbed on Funimation

This part is narrative-based and sequential! It still has some more standalone episodes but there’s definitely an overarching story throughout! I think they’re all worth watching and might leave little important bits that’ll be confusing later on. Essentially this part takes place in Italy for the most part and starts with Lupin getting married to a multi-millionaire heiress/model/celebrity who wants to get into the thief business. This one feels like a good combination of old and new, it’s not quite as silly as the earlier parts can be, but it’s full of nostalgia while still feeling original. I really had a good time!

This dub isn’t bad but!! It comes with a different opening and soundtrack, I guess Lupin’s pretty big in Italy and perhaps there were licensing issues? I’m not sure? But it’s a bit of a bummer to be without the Yuji Ohno soundtrack. The alternate opening feels more like a collection of stills and footage found throughout the show? It’s not horrible, just different! Regardless, the Part IV Japanese OP (vs. the Italian/US one) is worth a watch!

Part V (2018, airing on Adult Swim right now, summer 2019!) - 23 episodes 

I’m actually not done with this part but its good fun! more directly tied to part iv then the others are to each other. It’s more sequential as well with a few sub-arcs and since it fell on the franchise’s anniversary it has callback episodes with Lupin in various jackets in various tones. Interesting Lupin characterization here… he seems… sadder, wistful? and we get hints of Lupin lore! Lots of fanservice but… I love it! I still think they could’ve pushed it more? it feels somehow more reserved than part IV in some ways, which is already different from the 70s and 80s, but it’s got a lot of lovely moments!!

Films/TV Specials

From 1989 to 2011 they had a special every year!! So much!

Castle of Cagliostro (1979) - Available on Netflix! 

perhaps the best-known piece of media in the Lupin franchise? And rightly so. This film is Hayao Miyazaki’s directing debut and a blast from start to finish! This characterization of Lupin is definitely Miyazaki’s more than Monkey Punch’s but that seems to be the strange nature of the Lupin franchise! I could really go on forever… please watch it!

The Fuma Conspiracy (1987) - 

perhaps harder to find, but it’s on Kissanime! Goemon is getting married but before the ceremony is over the bride is taken by the Fuma ninja clan and the gang helps him to get her back as well as learn the story of a family heirloom? Really great stuff from everybody! Adorable Zenigata, the fluffiest and most handsome Goemon, cute Jigen, Fujiko, and Lupin interactions, a really really incredible car chase! Even with Cagliostro’s fame, this one has got some serious pizzazz

Episode 0: The First Contact (2002) - on Kissanime as well! 

A journalist asks Jigen how he met Lupin III, this is probably my favorite TV special? And features one of my favorite opening scenes in the whole franchise. The instrumental!! Perhaps each member of the gang at their purest, whatever that means, really great moments between everybody and peak Lupin and Jigen meeting and somehow signing up to be life partners

[ratandphilgames]

Our Lives Don’t Collide

{chapter one: out of the closet}

summary: Shit hits the fan when famous actor!Phil is caught smooching a boy in an alleyway. Only problem? He’s not out and what's worse? The boy he was smooching was a journalist who set it all up to get a quick picture and now Phil is royally screwed. The only answer Phils management can come up with is a fake relationship to try and do damage control and famous actor!Dan is the perfect candidate.

word count: 2585

rating: t 

note: thanks so much to @definitelynot-danielhowell for editing this fic and all the people in the writing gc who hyped me up enough to post this! I’m going to *try* updating every Thursday but bear with me as I get the hang of this. Thanks!

{read on ao3}

{next chapter}

-----

Nothing was meant to come of the night, he was just going drinking with some old uni friends and he wasn’t going to be famous actor Philip Lester for once. He was going to be fun, free, reckless Phil Lester. What he ended up being was a dumbass.

He’d been drunk. He’d been drunk and horny and lonely. It was a mistake for him to think he’d been safe, to assume he could go back to being that kid he was in uni just because all his old friends were around. He wasn’t the same kid he was in uni, now he was famous and he had little kids looking up to him and nobody knew he was gay. He couldn’t just do what he wanted anymore. The alcohol, however, made him think otherwise.

The moment Phil let his guard down, shit really hit the fan. He was drinking and when his university friends had to leave, he decided he had to stay. The night was still young, and Phil was determined to prove he was too.

He started talking to the cute guy that had been making eyes at him from across the bar. The guy didn’t mention seeing Phil in any movies and that was enough reassurance for Phil’s tipsy mind. Still, he wasn’t a complete idiot. He suggested that if anything were to continue they should move to the alleyway and a minute later that’s where they were. Making out.

Phil didn’t noticed the black SUV parked at the end of the alleyway, he was too focused on the task at hand. It wasn’t until he saw the flash of a camera that he realized he’d royally fucked up. In a split second there were several more bright-ass lights in his face, then the boy he was with fled to the car with the cameras, and it sped off.

It didn’t take a genius to realize Phil had been set up. Immediately he sobered up and processed everything that went down. The alley boy undoubtedly worked with the man driving the car and taking the pictures. He’d used Phil to get a quick buck from a scandalous picture. That shit sold for thousands.

Before another paparazzi could show up, Phil whipped out his phone and called a car to come get him. Where there was one of the clingy bastard, there would be more and Phil was not about to wait around for them to show up.

It wasn’t uncommon for journalists to go ‘undercover’ in attempts to get more information from celebrities, but it was a whole new level of low to trick Phil like that. The more he thought about it, the more red flags he saw surrounding the guy. His dumb alcohol induced brain just chose to ignore every single one of them.

By the time his car arrived, Phil was fighting back tears and trying desperately to figure out any sort of way he could salvage the situation, but nothing was coming to mind.

He needed to talk to his management team asap. They were good in these kinds of situations, they could help make everything right again.

With tears still in his eyes, he dialed his managers number into his phone and prayed to the gods that he would pick up at this hour.

Being caught with a boy attached to your lips wasn’t exactly easy to explain when you were seen as straight to the rest of the world, no matter if you never actually said you were straight.

Fuck. He really fucked this one up.

-----

Dan woke up  around 8am to the sound of a bell. Waves of confusion overcame him as he tried to find the source of the sound. He slammed his fist on the snooze button, attempting to turn off his alarm clock, but found it wasn’t on at all, as it shouldn’t be. He had absolutely no reason to be awake this early.

After an embarrassingly long time, he realized the sound was coming from his phone, hidden somewhere in his duvet. By the time he found the shiny box of magic, the noise had stopped and Dan realized that he had missed a call.

He gathered his thoughts for a moment and then checked his notifications.

One missed call: Shannon the momager

He was going to be in big trouble if he ignored Shannon. She’d been his manager since he had started his career and truth be told, she was like a second mom to him, hence the momager.

With a big, excessive sigh, (he was an actor after all, he had to dramatic) he clicked the call back button and sat up in bed. It was unlikely she was going to let him fall back asleep after this, so Dan figured he might as well get a headstart on waking up.

“Hey Shan, you called?” He yawned while speaking, so it came out far more slurred than intended.

“Yes, I did, lazybutt, I’m sending a car your way. There’s a big idea in the works and I need you to be here like, now. Like yesterday, actually. Sam’s waiting on you.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Dan wasn’t going to argue with her, despite the 8am call in, mostly because Sam was involved. Sam, his ‘agent’ only got involved if there was a movie opportunity, or some sort of contract that needed to be signed, because legally, Shannon couldn’t do that crap. That never stopped her from getting involved, though.

The last ‘Sam is involved so get your ass here fast’ call Dan had gotten was because the casting director for a new and upcoming film had loved him in his previous work and requested an audition with him personally.

That audition had resulted in Dan getting a huge supporting role in “Switch Hitter” a movie about a young baseball player juggling the fact that he likes boys… and girls. Equally as much. It was the bisexual representation Dan dreamed of, and he got to be a part of it. It had yet to be released, but there was a lot of talk of award season already, and it was set to do very well.  

When he first started out in the industry he faced a lot of biphobia. He’d been out since he was 14, and despite the quickly progressing world, a lot of people turned him down once they learned he identified as bisexual. It was tough, but eventually Dan ended up on Shannon’s doorstep, and she took him under her wing. She found him an agent, Sam, who worked his magic and got Dan some amazing auditions. He was only ever unapologetically himself and people loved it. He was a fast growing bicon, and quickly became a fan favorite.

As soon as the call with Shannon ended, Dan was scrambling around to find clothes and straighten his hair, something he probably wouldn’t have done on this particular day had he not gotten this wake up call. But he was going outside, which meant he needed to look perfectly presentable. There were people with cameras everywhere, meaning in even the short distance from his door to the car he would be photographed tens of times.

He was constantly aware of the scrutiny he would endure for every little thing he did when a camera was around. What he wore, how he walked, his posture, how his hair looked. Everything. It was a lot of pressure for a 22 year old mess.

By the time he was unplugging his straightener, there was a knock at the door meaning the car had arrived. He was sprinting around his room, looking for some kind of matching shoes (preferably black) and running low on time.

Dan managed to stumble to the front door of his unnecessarily large home with his phone in his hand and his shoes on his feet, which was a win in his book. Upon opening the door, he was met with the icy eyes of his bodyguard, Andreas, who seemed to dislike Dan on an impersonal level (and maybe on a personal level). The people pleaser in Dan tried to let it go, but sometimes it really stung.

“Ready?”

“Yeah… yeah.”

It was awkward, having someone walk you from your front door to a car not even 10 feet away, but there had been some incidents and having Andreas around, despite his frosty attitude, made Dan feel a bit safer.

Per usual, a few fellows were perched right behind the iron gate installed all around the property, itching to get a shot of Dan leaving his house.

Dan’s driveway was unnecessarily long, to try and discourage people (paparazzi) from driving down it so it took a solid 5 minutes before they were even on a real road. By the time they were pulling up to his agents office building, it had been a solid 30 minute drive of pure silence. Andreas wasn’t much of a talker.

By ‘here’ Dan had assumed Shannon meant her office, but the driver had taken him straight to Sam’s. Business was really going down today.

Andreas ushered Dan out of the car, thankfully few seemed to care about his existence at the moment.

After entering the building, Dan was directed into an elevator. He had a lovely bout of awkward silence as annoying little tunes played in the background. Once, when Dan had first been introduced to Andreas, he had tried making small talk in a situation similar to this He had been met with a stern glare and a ‘we aren’t friends, I work for you.’ which had been very blunt, but very true. He’d been warned by Shannon prior that he was not to make a friend out of Andreas, as that would ‘compromise his morals’ or some shit. Really, it just made him feel awful lonely most the time.  

They reached Sam’s office and Dan knocked on the door rhythmically. He was always unsure if he had to knock.

“Come in!” hollered a shrill voice that was unmistakably Shannon. Andreas stepped in first, ensured the area was safe, and then exited. The little routine check always threw Dan off his rhythm, but it was essential if he was going to be left alone in a room, according to Andreas. As soon as Andreas left the room, the door was shut and he was undoubtedly standing on the other side of it, bored out of his mind.

Sam, sitting behind his big executive and fancy looking desk, motioned for Dan to sit down in the empty chair next to Shannon, who was looking at him with excited eyes. Surely only good news could come of today's meeting.

“A huge opportunity unlike any other has fallen right in our laps, Dan.” Shannon started off, clearly unable to keep her enthusiasm contained.

“Daniel-” Sam always used his elongated name when addressing him “you will be required to sign an NDA today before we will disclose any information about this business opportunity. Do you understand?”

This was not new. Non-disclosure agreements were common in this line of work, when the public is avidly trying to dig into your personal life. It’s important to make sure the information you don’t want out there, isn’t getting out. Sometimes the only way you can hold people accountable is through legal binds. He had to sign them in many instances, usually so he could read a script for a high budget film in order to audition.

“Yeah, I understand.” He answered, and before he could even blink, a piece of paper was being handed to him along with a pen.

“Your legal team looked it over this morning. Read it and then sign if you wish to continue.” Sam was being overly professional in this case and it was making Dan nervous. No matter how many of these papers he signed, he always felt like he was going to be tricked some way or another. He’s seen too many lawyer shows to be unsuspecting of loopholes thrown in. No matter how many professional lawyers looked over the piece of paper and confirmed his safety in signing, it always felt just a bit sketchy.

This document was fairly standard, and after reading through it Dan felt as though it was safe enough to sign. As soon as he had committed ink to pen and wrote out his name Shannon started talking.

“So here’s the basic rundown, there is a certain actor who is in a sticky situation, and you're the perfect person to unstickify the situation.”

Shannon was being very vague. Very unsettlingly vague.

“Just, look at this picture.” Sam said as he handed Dan his phone. Displayed on the screen was an image of 2 boys kissing. 2 very familiar looking boys.

The first being Phil Lester, academy award nominee for best actor and Dan's ‘celebrity crush’ should he be forced to give an answer.

The second boy in the photo looked very similar to Dan, in fact the only reason he knew he wasn't the one in the photo is because he was pretty fucking sure he'd remember snogging Phil motherfucking Lester, no matter how drunk he was.

After a long stare at the image, Dan remembered people were still in front of him.

“That's not me.” He said quietly, afraid they were accusing him of pulling a publicity stunt. Not that he would be upset if that were him. Phil was very handsome.

“No, we know it's not you. But the public doesn’t know that.”

Shannon was still being vague as fuck and Dan was so beyond lost.

“I’m sorry, I just don’t understand. Is that actually Phil Lester? As in the actor? What the hell does this have to do with me?”

“So basically, he was outed by the paparazzi last night, and to minimize casualties his management team is attempting to make it look like a loving relationship, instead of a drunken hookup. Try to keep some dignity and all that. They’ve contacted us because, as the internet has pointed out, you look very similar to the boy in the photo. All you have to do is confirm it’s you and everyone will believe it.”

Sam was a lot more blunt when it came to, well, anything.

“Wait, wait, wait. You want me to pretend to be the boy in the picture? Isn’t that like, lying?”

“It’s showbiz, Dan. Lot’s of celebrities have purely ‘Hollywood’ relationships. It’ll be great positive publicity for you and it’ll help get Phil out of a hole. The man just got outed unexpectedly, his team is trying to salvage the situation. I think this will be a great step for your career.”

This was… not what Dan had been anticipating when he got the phone call at 8am.

Sam had done all the talking, and Shannon, who never shut up, was being uncharacteristically quiet.

“Shan? What do you think?” Her job was to manage him after all, Dan wanted her opinion on what he should do.

“I think this is a good idea if you think you can handle upholding a believable relationship for the length of time they demand. We can set up a meeting and discuss the details if you think you want to pursue this, otherwise we won’t waste our time. It’s all up to you, hun.”

It’s all up to him.

“Okay, then I guess we should set up a meeting. I’m not saying yes to anything yet, but I’ll hear what his team has to say.”

[sumigakure]

Photogenic

Fanfiction, A03, Original Post

Rating: T, maybe teen plus? Is that a thing?  Words: 2700  Summary:  Halloween party prompt fill. In which Gai dresses as Kakahi and gets all the girls while Genma sulks (but not for too long). Genma/Kakashi pairing implied  Pairing: Genma/Kakashi   Warning: Mild language, Genma warning, implied adult situations  Author’s Note: This is a prompt fill for Sumigakure’s Halloween Event on tumblr. Prompt 10: Halloween Party. It’s not what I planned at all but Genma and Sukea stole the show, so sorry not sorry?

“You can not go as a ninja,” Genma grumbled. “The whole point of Halloween is to be someone different.”

“I’m not just going as any ninja,” Gai said dramatically, spinning in a circle to present his former teammate with a characteristic thumbs up. “I’m a copy of the Copy Ninja.”

For once, Gai had forgone his green jumpsuit in favor of the standard issue jonin blues and green flak vest. The leg weights or leg warmers, Genma was never quite sure which, were missing as well. A matching blue headband slanted over Gai’s left eye while his face hid behind a half mask. Somehow, the jonin had managed to frost his dark hair to silver, and copious amounts of hairspray held it upright. In poor lighting, and with enough alcohol, he might possibly pass for Kakashi. At least, until he opened his mouth.

While Genma had opted for a more tradition costume, he’d gone overboard as usual. Anko had showed him a contouring trick that paled his skin, made his cheekbones more prominent, and drew attention to his hazel eyes. While, make-up wasn’t normally his thing, Genma decided Halloween could be an exception. Both iconic bandana and senbon were missing, which almost never happened, and Genma’s brown hair had been slicked back from his face.

The tokujo toyed with the buttons of his shirt, undoing two, then redoing the lowest. The white fabric hugged his muscles, and the open collar provided a peek at the black choker around his throat. His black pants were tight enough that Genma practically had to shimmy into them, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he could get them back off. But if the night went the way he was planning, that wouldn’t be his problem anyway.

“Kakashi is going to flip when he sees you,” Genma said as he pulled on a deep crimson vest, then a high collared cape. He’d selected one that was short enough to show off his most valuable asset. There would be no point in tight pants if he hid behind a cape. Pearly fangs peeked through Genma’s wine colored lips, and he clicked them together, grinning. These were almost as good as senbon.

Gai paused in the middle of one-legged squats when Genma’s words finally sank home. “You think my eternal rival will challenge me to a contest of flips? We haven’t done that one yet.”

Genma shook his head, not bothering to explain the idiom to the other man. “We’re already late, let’s just go.”

Music reached Genma’s ears long before he found the place the Halloween Party was supposed to be held. Since it had taken him longer to get ready than he’d planned, the room was already full of people. A civilian in an ANBU costume greeted Genma and Gai as soon as they stepped through the door. Genma could tell by the muscle tone of her bared arms that she wasn’t shinobi, but the tightness of her shirt more than made up for that. Perhaps the most surprising thing about her, however, was that she flirted with Gai, rather than Genma. Her hand rested on his arm, and she trilled with laughter over something that Genma was ninety-five percent sure wasn’t funny.

Oh Kami, she really believes it’s Kakashi, Genma realized with a start. He wasn’t about to try and explain the woman’s mistake.

A cursory glance around the room revealed several familiar faces. The hulking mass of werewolf leaning against the wall next to a petite mummy had to be Asuma and Kurenai. Their bodies were far too close for friendship, no matter what they claimed. Anko stood by the drinks, skin green with makeup and red with fake wounds to make her look like a ghoul. At least, Genma thought they were fake; shinobi lead difficult lives, the scars might have been her own. Her outfit, some kind of wrappings that looked like cobwebs, managed to be more revealing than her normal attire.

Extracting Gai from the “ANBU” temporarily, Genma dragged him deeper into the room. As he navigated through the sea of disguised yet recognizable faces, he found himself looking for Kakashi. It wasn’t that Genma had spent extra time getting ready because he thought Kakashi might be here. It definitely wasn’t that Genma wanting the man to see him in something other than his uniform. He just wanted to see the Copy Nin’s face-well his eye-when he saw Gai’s costume. That was all.

Anko grinned at Genma as she handed him a red plastic cup of some sugar laced concoction that was supposed to pass for punch. Her eyes swept over the vampire from head to toe. “You’re almost pretty enough to taste my blood instead of the other way around.”

“Almost,” Genma returned with a chuckle. Though he was rougher than average in the bedroom, he had never understood the woman’s fascination with blood.

Gai huffed in annoyance as he looked at the cup in his hand. “How does my eternal rival manage to drink things?”

“Carefully,” Genma responded absently. His attention was focused on two pretty women who were watching he and Gai from across the room. One was dressed in a skintight, black bodysuit with cat ears nestled in her raven hair, and the other wore a nurse’s outfit like nothing he’d ever seen on a medical nin. If they instituted that uniform, Genma would have allowed himself be injured far more often. “Do you have a preference of the two?” He nodded his chin toward the women while sipping his drink.

Gai’s visible eye moved to the women, then he seemed to realize what Genma was asking. “It’s unfair to pick a favorite. Surely each flower has its own uniqueness.”

To halt the laughter threatening to spill out, Genma drained his cup. Gai certainly didn’t mean flowers in the sense Genma was thinking, but maybe after tonight, he would. The tokujo refilled his cup before leading his friend over to the women. When their eyes drifted past him to Gai, Genma felt a sinking feeling in his gut. Not again.

“You’re the Copy Ninja aren’t you?” Cat giggled as Nurse moved closer to Gai, touching his chest. Gai mumbled some kind of response that sounded vaguely Kakashi-like and the girls laughed again.

“You’re so pretty you don’t even need a costume, do you?” Nurse asked and Genma almost threw up in his mouth.

After ten minutes, he realized that neither woman knew he existed and excused himself to get another drink.

“Aw, are you feeling left out?” Anko purred, moving closer to Genma’s side. “Look at Gai though,” she nodded to where a third woman had joined his harem.

Genma snorted. “How can they really believe he’s Kakashi?” He finished another glass of the fruity, fizzy nonsense Anko was serving.

After sipping her own drink, the woman shrugged. “Because Kakashi isn’t here, and I doubt he would bother with dressing up if he were.”

Anko rolled her eyes, and pointed out some of the better costumes. A painfully pretty “Madara” stood beside a geisha, chatting easily. Near one of the walls, an unfamiliar boy was dressed entirely in brown with his long hair dyed green. Flowers and branches had been worked through it. The best thing Genma could figure was that he was supposed to be a tree. A shock of silver-white hair caught Genma’s attention, and temporarily stopped his heart, but it was only someone pretending to Tobirama, red marks and all.

“Who’s that?” Genma nodded toward a stranger in jeans, a long grey jacket, and a blue scarf wrapped around his neck.

Anko shrugged. “Some kind of photographer, I think. He said something about capturing memories for future generation when he came to get a drink.”

The pair watched the man move around the room, easily snapping pictures of couples and individuals. A few men and women paused and struck up a conversation with him, but he gracefully slid away from mos. Even the damn photographer, who hadn’t bothered with a costume, was getting more attention than Genma.

“I want some consideration too. Dammit, I worked hard on this makeup,” Genma sulked. Anko flashed an amused smiled, but wisely didn’t say anything.

The later it got, the rowdier the party became. Kakashi-Gai had half a dozen women around him and the cute photographer was talking with Tree Boy, and it looked an awful lot like flirting to Genma. They stood nearly as close as Asuma and Kurenai has been earlier. Speaking of that, the werewolf and mummy were slumped together in a corner of the room, making out in clear view of everyone. So much for secrets, Genma thought. In fact, several couples were doing the same thing around the room. That seemed a bad idea, but Genma couldn’t remember why and was too busy pouting to bother with it anyway. The man who always had a lover on his arm didn’t even have a prospective, and Kakashi still hadn’t shown up.

For some reason, probably jealousy, Genma’s hazel eyes kept being drawn back to the photographer. He’d moved away from Tree Boy and was leaning against the wall by himself now. Surprisingly, nobody moved in to exploit his time, though he’d hardly been alone all evening.

“Why don’t you just go talk to him. If you stare any harder-” Anko’s face scrunched up as she tried to figure out what she wanted to say, then she giggled.

Genma’s mouth fell open, and he nearly lost his fangs in shock. Anko was capable of a wide range of sounds, from menacing laughter to the edge of insanity chuckle, but giggles weren’t in her arsenal. “What’s gotten into you?” He was terrified of the answer.

Anko stumbled two steps toward the table and refilled her glass. “I may have spiked the punch, just a little bit.”

“How much is a little bit?” Genma glanced at the massive cauldron sized bowl they’d been filling their glasses from.

Anko giggled again, and Genma felt his stomach drop. “A bottle, or two. Maybe three. No more than four.”

That would explain the behavior happening around the room from the frantic making out and the number of couples stumbling out together. The Madara and Tobirama he’d seen earlier were dancing in way that looked more suited to the bedroom than the dance floor. Genma’s eyes widened as far as they would go when he found his former teammate. Gai and Cat girl were making out against a wall and there was far too much enthusiastic hand movements happening. Genma felt his stomach heave, but maybe that was the effects of the alcohol, he’d certainly drank too much.

Since he’d had enough of being alone with Anko and her poisonous drinks, Genma wandered off after throwing his cup away. The photographer stood alone still, surveying the scene around him with a calm demeanor. He probably hadn’t drank as much as everyone else since he was working. As he walked toward the man, Genma put on his most endearing smile. “Do I know you?” That was terrible as far as pickup lines went, but Genma couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Amusement filled the man’s unfamiliar voice. In a rush of overconfidence that was typical of Genma, he pressed closer to the photographer. Close enough for the faint scent of cologne to make his head spin, and to feel the tight muscles in the man’s forearm. “My name’s Sukea, by the way. Can I help you?”

“Do you want to go home with me?” Somehow, the normally smooth lines that were life to Genma fled, and he said the first thing that popped into his mind.

The man laughed, and his dark eyes appraised Genma’s body. While it was slightly uncomfortable, Genma wasn’t intimidated. He hadn’t been cursed with false modesty; he knew he looked good in his costume. “You’re quite forward with someone you’ve just met. You haven’t even offered me a drink yet.”

“Anko spiked the punch,” Genma confided a couple octaves louder than he meant to.

Sukea laughed. “I know, but I think I might need a drink before I let you take me home.”

Genma frowned. Sukea was pretty enough to be tempting, and it didn’t look like Kakashi was going to show up. Why not, whispered the voice that got him in trouble far more often than it helped him. Genma didn’t want all of his hard work on the costume and makeup to be for nothing, after all.

As they turned back toward the table and the drinks, Genma felt a hand ghost across his back then slide lower. Sukea leaned closer to whisper by his ear. “Do you have a pretty boyfriend I need to be worried about? Or girlfriend?”

“Would you be dissuaded if I said yes?” Genma turned back to the man and clicked his fangs together. They weren’t as good as his senbon, but they were fun in a different way. Heat entered the man’s gaze as he followed the movement with dark eyes.

“No,” Sukea chuckled, and it almost sounded familiar. Before Genma could figure out why, the man snaked an arm around his waist and pulled Genma close, pressing their lips together.

Breathlessly, Genma returned the kiss and leaned into Sukea. The hard muscles of the man’s chest met Genma’s, and he groaned in surprise. Another vague thought formed in the back of his mind, something about the fact that this man must work out harder than most shinobi, but Sukea’s skilled fingers caressing Genma’s back chased the thought away.

“I thought you needed a drink,” Genma breathed as they broke apart, his voice trembling slightly. He had been completely unprepared for the kiss, or for the electricity it sparked through his entire body.

“You kiss better than I thought you would,” Sukea growled softly, desire obvious in his voice as he trapped Genma from moving too far away.

Genma chuckled. “Wait until I get you home and show you what else I can do.”

Tugging his hand, Genma led the man from the room. Kakashi doesn’t know what he missed out on, Genma thought as he and Sukea stumbled into his apartment a few minutes later.

The next morning, Genma woke to an empty bed and a pounding headache. Groaning, he tried to recall the previous night, but it came in disconnected snippets. He’d definitely brought Sukea back to his apartment. He vaguely recalled that his fangs had left the man whimpering for more. The pants had been as difficult to get off as Genma feared, but Sukea solved that problem with a kunai. Genma could still see the tatters of black fabric on the floor by the bed, along with the buttons where the man had been impatient to get Genma’s shirt off.

There had been a moment, when they were wrapped around each other that Sukea whispered Genma’s name and he felt a flicker of something inside his chest. There had been multiple times during the night that Genma thought he was figuring something out, but Sukea was a distraction of the best kind and the alcohol made it too difficult for him to remember. Instead, Genma tugged the blankets back around him and fell back to sleep.

It wouldn’t be for another couple of years that Genma saw Sukea again. He, along with Kakashi’s genin, were in trouble for trying to break into the records room. Standing guard outside the Hokage’s office, he saw the man and felt the way that Sukea’s eyes lingered on him.

The hazy memories fit themselves back together like perfect puzzle pieces. The laughter could have only been Kakashi’s, the desperate caress as he whispered Genma’s name now sounded familiar. How it had taken him this long to put two and two together, Genma had no idea. Dark eyes met his, and “Sukea” smiled. Against all odds, Genma blushed and held his silence.

When Genma went back to his apartment later that evening, there was a envelop shoved under the door. A single picture of Genma nestled inside. He was lying in bed, brown hair falling over his eyes, with the sheets tangled around his legs. Though he was obviously undressed beneath the blankets, the photo only exposed his back and arms. It had been captured with just enough light to soften Genma’s features even more than the makeup had. Holding the photograph loosely, the man couldn’t help but laugh. Apparently Kakashi was as good at photography as he was in bed.

[virginiamurrayblog]

Teenage Boys Are Slaying the Makeup Game—and I’m Salty

Photo illustration: Ka Lee and Joel Louzado

Whenever I walked into a drugstore as a teenager, I would always feel the hairs on my neck raise as I passed the forbidden land: The Makeup Aisle. All the different brands and products were *so* overwhelming, and also totally intriguing. But as a young, Indo-Canadian man who wasn’t publicly out yet, I didn’t feel like I could partake in its mysteries. Until I moved out for school, that is. By then, I felt less restricted by judgemental high school peers and watchful family members, so I decided that my getting-cute routine could consist of more than just moisturizer. I told my girlfriends that I wanted to buy a concealer, news that prompted immediate screams of excitement. We drove to the nearest drugstore, and they each made their case for which brand I should buy. (None of their picks had options dark enough for me to use, but that’s another issue.) I chose one that seemed close enough to my skin tone and left before anyone else I knew spotted me. I felt quite insecure and anxious that day, but little did I know that crusty little concealer would open up a whole world of self-exploration.

Three years after that fateful Shoppers adventure, men are taking up a larger place in the world of makeup. Social media is full of young male gurus, like James Charles or Manny Gutierrez, who feel confident enough to express themselves using foundation—and so much more. But while seeing them genuinely makes me happy, when I scroll past 10-year-old instabaddies and 15-year-old beauty bloggers, I’m also faced with this overwhelming feeling of jealousy. It’s more than just being envious of someone who has achieved success at a young age—it’s that I can’t help but wish I had that much confidence (and support) when I was that age.

Instagram was just establishing itself when I was in grade nine, so I didn’t have influencers like Charles or Gutierrez to look up to. Until I was about 17, I didn’t even realize that makeup could be for men. In my naive little head, makeup on men was for Halloween and goth punks only. The first time I saw a man wear eyeshadow and lipstick casually was when I stumbled across a YouTuber by the name of Miles Jai. What intrigued me most about Miles was that, at the time, he presented femininely but still identified as male. Though he has since come out as non-binary, his videos were eye-opening for me; for the first time, I realized I could express myself in more traditionally feminine ways, yet still define my own gender.

Even though my parents know about my makeup and sexuality, I still can’t wear lipstick in front of them without feeling embarrassed

It took time before I felt ready to rock makeup as openly as Miles Jai. Being a teenager is tough, but being a teenager who’s also gay and Indian came with another set of challenges. Homosexuality is still illegal in India, which has a large impact on the way that Indian people, even in the diaspora, view men. Not only is homophobia rampant and common, but older straight men project their toxic masculinity onto their descendants. Just having my relatives chirp me for choosing arts over sports was enough to scare me away from makeup and anything deemed even relatively “girly.”

That’s partially why, when I see white boys who are makeup artists, I see a lot of other things in addition to their outstanding talent.

It is a monumental privilege to be able to do something that’s unacceptable in your culture without having to worry about your safety and mental health. The fear of an auntie or uncle seeing me in lipstick was enough to stifle my creativity for years. I’m not saying that this fear doesn’t exist for other cultures as well—wearing makeup as a man is scary no matter who you are. But issues of gender expression and sexuality are just not the same for a white person as they are for a person of colour.

And even when I did start buying makeup and experimenting with different looks, I still worried about what my family would think—especially when I moved back home after first year to save some coin. After a year of wearing makeup openly, it became something I did exclusively at night, when everyone was asleep. Taking pictures of my makeup and later posting them on Instagram (where most of my family was blocked, thank you) was the one thing that kept me from feeling less frustrated and alone.

follow @joellouzado for more! – Genderisasocialconstruct Dowhatyouwant!!! #MondayMotivation – DETAILS EYES @hudabeauty Mauve Obsessions palette @colourpopcosmetics Golden State of Mind Palette @stilacanada Magnificent Metals liquid glitter shadow in Kitten Karma @nyxcosmetics_canada Epic Ink liner – FACE @fentybeauty ProFiltr foundation in 380 @colourpopcosmetics No Filter concealer in Dark 40 @narsissist Liquid Blush in Torrid – LIPS like five different things that i don’t remember lol yikes

A post shared by joel (@joellouzado) on Aug 20, 2018 at 3:30pm PDT

Knowing how important Instagram was to me, it’s easy to see how much harder it was for feminine men before the rise of social media. Timothy Chan, a 33-year-old PR professional in Toronto, told me that he wore foundation to cover acne scars as a teen, but it wasn’t until he went to university in 2003 that he truly started to explore makeup. That’s when he tried out eye makeup as a form of self-expression, to mixed reactions. “My friends and peers were supportive and appreciated the artistry, but it was not always well-received by others,” he says. “It was common for people to stare and even verbally harass me.”

I’ve definitely had my own experiences with harassment because of my makeup. Recently, I was on the subway alone after a dinner with friends. When I got onto a mostly-empty subway car rocking a subtle smoky eye, a man sitting a few seats over made some extremely non-flirty eye contact with me. I’m used to stares by now, and usually staring back will make them look away quickly (a superpower I hold close to my heart). However, when I looked back at the man, he didn’t look away. Immediately, I looked down—I didn’t feel like this was someone I wanted to challenge. Sure enough, seconds later, I heard, “What are you looking at, faggot?” The five or six minutes it took to get to my stop felt like an eternity. I was just grateful that he didn’t get off the subway with me.

Wearing makeup as a man feels like an open invitation for people to judge my sexuality

Clearly, as far as we’ve come, many straight men are still not comfortable with other men expressing themselves in traditionally feminine ways. Although I came out to my family and close friends by the time I was 16, I wasn’t publicly out until I was in my last year of high school. So, wearing makeup before that would have amounted to raising a question that I wasn’t even comfortable answering for myself.  Maybe my jealousy stems from not being able to be true to myself at that early an age? I robbed myself of any opportunity of trying anything in makeup, because I was scared that I would be seen as gay before I was ready for the world to know.

I decided to speak to a real-life Teenager who could give me some insight on what it’s like to grow up with makeup. Kevin Kodra, who recently graduated from a Toronto high school, went viral this year when he posted a pic of his perfectly beat mug in his grad photo. Kodra started playing with makeup before he even got to high school, and by the age of 16 had perfected his skill. “I remember watching [drag queens like] Willam and Courtney Act, and I was mesmerized,” he says. This isn’t surprising, as drag artistry has always had a large influence on makeup practices.

“I couldn’t even get my A’s straight” In honour of my 18th birthday, here’s my senior photo . Really though, 17 was a wild year. I made memories that I’ll never forget. Thank you to everyone who was by my side every single day. From friends to family and even you guys, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Let’s grab 18 by the balls and make it my bitch ps. Can y’all stop with the James Charles comparisons, we’re literally two different people. It’s not fair to either of us.

A post shared by Kevin Kodra (@kevikodra) on Apr 30, 2018 at 4:48pm PDT

Kodra’s introduction to makeup and social media happened at a much earlier age than mine, or Chan’s. The difference shows in the way that people respond to his makeup. He claims that he has never felt unsafe in Toronto. “Of course I feel the stares behind my back, but the second I turn around, they put their head down,” he said. “I’m extremely thankful to live in a city that’s predominantly accepting.”

Though I agree that Toronto is accepting, I’m not sure that I have the same positive belief about the community. I understand that everyone’s experience is different and neither Kodra nor I represent a universal reality. But, I don’t think his story should necessarily be taken as a sign that all gay people and feminine men in Toronto are safe. The number of hate crimes against gay people in Canada has actually increased over the past few years, after all. It may just be that teens like Kodra are now growing up with more access to information about the LGBTQ community, and an overall greater understanding to breaking gender roles. Seeing people in media owning who they are can truly make a difference in the way that they see themselves.

I need to focus this negative energy into more positive change

Even now, when my parents know (and are proud of) my makeup, I still feel a sense of embarrassment when I have to tell them I can’t come down for dinner because I’m in the middle of doing a glitter cut crease. It is a learned behaviour that comes from years of hiding who I was. But I’ve come a long way since buying that first concealer. I’ve expanded both my makeup collection and repertoire (I learned that I love the artistry involved in makeup, and I’m like, not bad at it TBH), and over time I’ve found met more men who wear makeup, both online and in person. Of course, I know that compared to the men who came before me, I’ve had an easier time. I’m sure that older people look at me the same way that I look at teenagers like Kodra, wishing that they started living their lives openly as early as I did. While Chan and Kodra went through their journey to acceptance in makeup at different times, their stories aren’t that different, and aren’t that different from mine either.

I am grateful for older generations of men who wore makeup before me. They must have felt very alone, not having role models the way that I do, and it’s only because of them that more and more people are accepting me. And I’m also grateful for younger generations of men who are wearing makeup now. They demonstrate that you can never be too young to follow your passions, and exemplify a level of confidence that we should all aim to own.

please show him this picture and/or my insta page. it wouldve changed my life as a child to have seen another brown boy expressing himself. this story made me super happy pic.twitter.com/Z04vFfKTFA

— joel (@joellouzado) June 20, 2018

Ultimately, I’ve realized that this feeling of jealousy is counterproductive to why I started exploring makeup in the first place. It turns out that my saltiness is not with these teenage white boys themselves. It’s with the media that positions them as heroes, failing to realize that they are *still* only talking about white men. I think we have a long way to go before all men of colour feel as free to express themselves as I do. And who knows, maybe down the road, even straight men can feel confident to pop on some makeup. I take pride in the fact that just by applying mascara, I’m making a political statement. It would make me so happy if little brown boys in the future could feel nothing but pride when they’re putting on mascara, too.

Related:

Just Kids? How Today’s Teenagers Became Our Role Models This Edmonton Teen Let FLARE Snoop Through Her Phone For a Week What Tumblr Taught Me About My Gender Identity “People Say You Are a Certain Way Because That’s What You Were like When You Were Five”

The post Teenage Boys Are Slaying the Makeup Game—and I’m Salty appeared first on Flare.

Teenage Boys Are Slaying the Makeup Game—and I’m Salty published first on https://wholesalescarvescity.tumblr.com/

[theworstbob]

the thing journal, 3.26.2017

review-like bitlets of the 7+ new things i took in last week.

this week: the bombpops, lupe fiasco, 10 cloverfield lane, andrew mcmahon, halocene, the age of spin, the menzingers, beauty & the beast (2017). if you’re spoiler-averse, maybe don’t check out what i have to say about 10 Cloverfield Lane?

1) Fear of Missing Out, by The Bombpops: This album feels like home. I stumbled across this band because I was trying to find pop/punk acts with female involvement/influence, because hey maybe if I'm going to be writing extensively about the genre I should know more than three punk acts with girls in them? And I heard some song they made in 2012 or so and was impressed enough, and then I learned they had an album drop THIS YEAR! And I came away really impressed, especially by the title track. A lot of this album is love songs and break-up songs that are meant to get precisely at my nostalgic sweet spot AND I AIN'T MIND THAT ONE GOT DAMN BIT but "F.O.M.O." is an astoundingly mature song. I might be misinterpreting things, but it sounds like the band's thinking about where they're at in their music career, and how long they can continue keeping up the party before they realize they've seen/done everything and have to pack it in, it's this really cool blend of energy and introspection, and it gets me at this point in my life where I'm kind of in the same place except I've never made anything as dope as this album, but like I get that line, "I work at 9 AM, but I'm still throwing up." Never, um, Never quite been there myself, but I get what it's like to go to your normal job after throwing yourself into the thing that doesn’t give you health insurance. Even beyond that, there's a lot that I absolutely fucking love about this album, and I'm glad to have found it.

2) DROGAS Light, by Lupe Fiasco: From what I'd heard, I was prepared for this to be Certainly An Album, but I'm here to tell you: it's not that up its ass! It's still there, but only as far as your standard Lupe Fiasco album. It's not Tetsuo & Youth, but I'm not gonna be angry at an album for not being a masterpiece, y'know? I don't think it's inaccessible or overly self-indulgent, but y'know what, seeing that I had to type “not inaccessible or overly self-indulgent,” I'm willing to admit I'm something of a Lupe stan, and I could see how this album cover could appear for the non-believers as a glowing neon sign that says FOR SUPER-FANS ONLY, so I'ma hold off on recommending it. Hell, I'm not sure how often I'm gonna come back to this one. It's fine! Don't take my word for it, though. I'm an unreliable source.

3) 10 Cloverfield Lane, dir. Dan Trachtenberg: That first scene after the title card is so fucking good. The set design for Mary Elizabeth Winstead's room is on point, there's this stain on the ceiling that is never explained, the way there's like two different walls, it really feels like a hovel (and that makes the reveal of the rest of the shelter so much more interesting, how the parts of the room John Goodman designed for himself are so involved and furnished and filled with love, and then MEW's room is clearly just the pit where he keeps girls), but the way it's shot in that scene is insane. They make it feel like the largest room in the world when MEW's trying to reach for her clothes and phone, and then the space tightens up COMPLETELY the second we hear John Goodman's footsteps. The suspense in that scene is palpable, and the film more or less maintains it through the entire film. (More or less. Boy, that scene where they're playing Taboo is ham-fisted! "Hu-durr, what word is woman? I know it's been established I'm pretty much a pedophile, but I also don't know the word 'woman!'") And even though the movie largely takes place in the bunker, every scene in the bunker manages to feel like it takes place somewhere different. I'm not even getting into how this is an entire movie about three people in one location in a wide-release, brand-name sci-fi film, where the stakes are almost the smallest possible: leave the house, stay alive. Even if I didn't like it, I would still defend this film, because more like it need to exist.

4) Zombies on Broadway, by Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness: Boy, there sure is a lot happening in every single second of this record! I'm sure this arena pop would play well in, y'know, an arena, but it doesn't make for the calmest listening experience. It's really hard to find the heart of these songs, to find something to which I can connect, because there's so much overgrowth through which I need to cut. Weird Chainsmokers-y electronic influence here, overdramatic Coldplay flourishes there, vocals always always at 100, it's all So Much. I know there's a lot of heart here, this is a name I have trusted since I was a kid, but this album is so disorienting, I can’t even tell where to begin looking for that heart.

5) Can You Hear Us Now? by Halocene: oh sure yeah probably a lot of merit in evaluating a six-year-old pop/punk album On the plus side, because 2011 is one of those years where I was still committed to buying music instead of paying a flat monthly fee to have everything all the time forever but also was incredibly poor, this currently ranks as one of my Top 10 albums of 2011! Congratulations! I could see 2011 Bob touting the virtues of this album, though, there's a lot of charm, a lot of potential, enough cool things happening I'd be stoked to hear a full album of Halocene originals in 2017. But yeah I'm only here to say, hey, this is one of the albums I listened to this week, but I'm not gonna go all in on a debut album from 2011 because why, like yay active listening never stop thinking and all that, but what good would putting opinions on this into the world do anyone. What good have any of our opinions done, if we're being perfectly frank. Can You Hear Us Now? is the early front-runner for the title of "Most Innocuous Thing to Send Bob! Into an Existential Tailspin" for 2017.

6) The Age of Spin, by Dave Chappelle: BOY AM I OUTTA MY DEPTH WITH THIS ONE Like I thought it was kind of unfocused, but that's to be expected, it'd been years since Chappelle had to structure an hour of stand-up. I think Chappelle knows that, at this point, the mythology surrounding him is what people want him to talk about, and he's at his best here when he follows that arrow. When he's not talking about his own celebrity, the special falls flat; bits offering social commentary don’t hit, because they're the opinions everyone expects a 40+-year-old comic who was, literally, out of touch for several years to have, and they feel perfunctory, like Chappelle knows he doesn't have anything worthwhile to say about transsexuals, but he has to say it because people expect him to comment on the state of the world in 2017. But the bits about him -- bombing so hard in Detroit it goes viral, meeting OJ Simpson, his relationship with Kevin Hart ("That was a surprise to me. He charges $125 a ticket? I only charge $80!"), reconciling what Bill Cosby means to him with who Bill Cosby is, they're so good, well worth wading through clumsy throwaway jokes. It's not Chappelle at his best, but it's Chappelle.

7) After the Party, by The Menzingers: Punk is sort of becoming the millennial country, listen I know that's a bad sentence but you see it's a sentence I thought and I need on the record all the terrible things I think so that you may paint an accurate and complete picture of who I am and I’m making myself own it, punk is the millennial country! There's a lot of dope country artists, but even the good ones are still making music about being farmers and drinking whiskey. Punk music is in this groove where there's so many bands talking about issues people might actually be going through. This album references having useless college degrees, working at a job that doesn't guarantee hours, still sitting in basements getting high in your 30s, meeting up with an old friend who got their life together and remembering a youth spent sneaking out of church, seeing the foreclosure sign outside your childhood home, it's as country as anything can be while being so about city life. It's an album about what the new working class goes through. The band is thinking The Hold Steady and Springsteen, and of course they are, but albums like this are what can help bridge the gap between the Real America crowd and those goddamned millennials.

8) Beauty & the Beast (2017), dir. Bill Condon: So like my problem with these movies is, and this is prolly just me and I'm cool with that, I get that they're wondrous experiences, but I can never stop thinking about an actor sitting in the middle of a wide expanse of green, reacting to nothing. It's one of the reasons why I stopped watching Game of Thrones despite knowing some of it is filled on location, and it's what removed me from this film, watching the "Be Our Guest" sequence and thinking "she's looking at a marker" every time they cut to Emma Watson laughing. I'm never going to understand why these films try to split CGI and live-action down the middle, but a lot of people evidently dig it, so clearly the problem is with BIG FANCY BOB, WHO LISTENS TO FILM PODCASTS AND THINKS HE CAN HAVE OPINIONS. BAD OPINION BOY, THAT'S WHAT BOB STANDS FOR. Also, for all the talk of how gay this movie was, this movie wasn't nearly gay enough. It could have been, like, three times as gay, and it still wouldn't have been gay enough, that's how straight this movie was. ("What amount of gay would've been right?") I don't know, I would have had to have been involved with the editing process, this is sort of a "say when" situation.

[mightbedamian]

#TMIishTuesday #43 - 16 Things I learned in 2016

No more "first off"s anymore! It's 2017. It's Tuesday. It's #TMIishTuesday. Go! Hey there mighty people of the internet! And welcome to issue #43 of #TMIishTuesday - my weekly Tumblr post about what goes through my mind and what you guys want to know more about. It can be something very personal, it can be something political, it can be completely pointless - but in 99.9 % of the cases, it involves opinions. And mine as well. Last week I went quite cliché by posting my new year's resolutions as my last post of 2016. Addition to my 5 resolutions from last week: 6. Use after-shave every day. I haven't for a while. For which reason?? Also: So far I haven't failed any resolution. I mean… It wasn't too hard, but still. Kind of proud. :D Okay, and guess what follows on a cliché post!? Another cliché post! First post of 2017. What better time to reflect on 2016? Yeey, I'm so creative! :P But you know me. If you are expecting a break-down of political events, you might need to look somewhere else. I'm sure the BBC, NBC, or ARD have made enough "year in review" broadcasts to fill an entire year. No, THIS is a reflection of some of the events that - I figured out in 2016, - I learned I in 2016, - I achieved in 2016, - have moved me in 2016, or - simply have made my 2016. Ready? Let's see, if we can make it to 16 things. 1. It's okay to be gay! At the start of 2016 I came out to basically anybody, who knows. The only exception being my best friend. That was in December 2015 already. But in 2016 I told another very close friend (who might also be reading this. Hi there!), my parents, and the parents of my two best friends. Every single one of them has been absolutely supporting. Thanks to all of you guys! <3 2. Bosses can be assholes! Don't get me wrong: I've had three jobs last year and only one boss was an asshole. But this dude. Wow! I applied for a job to do in the period between Christmas and my new study that started in August. Among others, I applied at a call centre. Not the most satisfying job, but decent enough. It was all about getting working experience anyways. But this dude ordered me 4, 5, 6 times to do 1-2 hours of calls under his supervision saying that I was very close to getting the job all the time. All of that lasted from mid January to mid February. Then he said we should schedule yet another meeting and that he would email me a date for the following week. I was already really fed up with him and the entire place. And he didn't message me. When I emailed him half-way through the following week, he replied that they had no more interest in me. That was such a kick in the face! I basically worked my ass off for them and was then fired. I had no contract or anything, but still. I feel like they betrayed me for 150-200 euros there. So that was an experience… 3. Having help in looking for a job is crucial! I applied loads for the apprenticeship that I started last August. 40, 50 letters for sure. By mid-January a friend of my parents, who had heard I was looking for one, approached me: Hey, so, I heard that this rehabilitation clinic is looking for an apprentice still. I'm cool with their Vice CEO. You could tell them I sent you and just try your luck. At the end of February I had an interview there - and after doing a one-week internship I received a call saying I could start there in summer. WOOHOO! 4. Being a cashier can be awesome! After I had been "fired" (if you want so), I felt let down, discouraged. But I wanted to work really badly. Sitting at home doing nothing really felt bad. So I applied as a cashier at the supermarket closest to my parents' (where I had moved back in). And I got the job. Worked 4-6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Having basically no weekend (when you work late shifts on Saturday and early shifts on Monday) really sucks, but it pays just like any other job you can do without a study. Not having to pay any rent, I made quite some money. And it was really fun as well! It's a massive supermarket and there are lots of returning customers - also from the surrounding area. Not just the city itself. It's quite a cool store tbh :P And my colleagues were really cool as well. On New Year's Eve I went there for the first time since leaving for a different city. Just walking through those sliding doors I felt "at home". Such cool people! I kind of miss that place. In a way... 5. Tumblr is cool! These past days I realised how Tumblr played a big role in my coming out process. I never really was aware of its influence. But in Summer (or so) 2015, half a year before coming out, I created this account and followed some blogs posting cute guys. That was the first hint, I guess? In 2016 I continued scrolling through these posts and got waaay more into it. Not only did I start writing texts that I posted on Tumblr, but the amount of time I spent scrolling and browsing just increased a lot. And I like it. Oh, and I posted my coming out story to have it written down somewhere where I can read it any time I want to - and yet hidden from friends. Great decision! I wouldn't remember it as well, if I hadn't put it there. And look what has developed from this all! I write a ton of stuff about stuff that matters to me. Every week. And I did 21 posts of #mightyadvent as well. I love it! Thanks for reading my ramblings, guys! 6. Coming out videos are great and the world is not binary! This is something that is probably also valid even more for December 2015, but: I freaking LOVE coming out videos. Recently I've been way too busy and haven't watched one in probably a month or so. But until May or June I probably watched EVERY coming out video that was uploaded to YouTube. Just to get a feeling of how my coming out had gone. And because I wanted to hear other people's stories. There is a huge mixture of reactions out there. People getting disinherited or getting hit. People with indifferent parents. People who got very loving responses telling them they supported them the way they are. I was lucky enough here. While I knew that there is more than just - male/female for gender and - hetero/gay for sexual orientations, I never really knew what else there was. Like, what exactly is there beyond the binary? Then I started watching all those coming out videos. And I stumbled across people identifying as all kinds of genders and sexual orientations. Even if some were trolls (remember the guy who came out as playing Minecraft? F*ing bastard! Sorry, I shouldn't call people this, but he deserves it), I saw LOADS of real, sometimes very inspiring videos, and stories that just make you go "awwww". Anyway, I'm drifting off again. What I wanted to say here is: I learned that there are more than two genders and more than two sexual orientations. I knew that transsexuality existed, but never had an idea what people felt like going through it. And I now know a lot about asexuality or pansexuality as well. 7. Twitter is queer, too! In the summer I somehow stumbled across VollzeitJonas's Twitter. He must have replied to some YouTuber's tweet or so. Anyway, I followed his account and thereby truly boosted my experience. By him posting some stuff and retweeting lots and lots on LGBTQ+ issues, I began to discover the topics as well. I found queer.de, a wonderful German news website that focuses on news on LGBTQ+ issues. And I found dbna.de, a site for gay youth. Dating website, community, forum, tips - it's all on there. From Jonas's Twitter account it basically just evolved over time. I interacted with him and others, who follow him and by now I follow some more cool peeps. I like that! 8. Living on your own rocks! Yeah… I moved twice this year. From the students' house in the Netherlands I had lived in for the past 4.5 years to my parents' house (in February) and then to the place I live now. And I'm really living on my own for the first time. It took some money to get all the stuff needed to fill an entire apartment. And I basically spent all the money I had earned over the 4.5 months before as a cashier. But: It was worth it. I really like my interior. It also took some time to get used to all the stuff you have to do when living on your own entirely - with no flat mates. Not owning a dish washer, cleaning everything on your own, cooking on your own… You name it. But it certainly offers some advantages as well. 9. Work can be a positive thing, too! When I started the apprenticeship in August I was quite scared. How would I be able to cope with working 40 hours a week and having to study for school at the same time. It was quite hard to get used to, to be honest. But I figured out I don't have to study tooooo much for school. My study pays off. At times I feel like the most difficult thing is constantly translating from English to German cause I studied in English. Work itself is quite interesting. Different tasks and while it gets a little boring at times, most of the times there's more to be done. And they try to assign me different tasks so I don't get too bored. That's cool. Also I have - like at the supermarket - very lovely and caring colleagues. One tiny downside: There's only one guy my age there. And I think he has a girlfriend. :/ And for the "boring" stuff there's a positive news too: I'll get to see a different department in two weeks, so a little more variety to come. I enjoy working full time cause I can see what I am doing this for already. That's cool! However I should have taken a few days off work before Christmas. I did like 95 % of my Christmas shopping the afternoon before. Oops. 10. A car can save lives! Or well… Let's say it can improve the quality of life. I got a car a month after I started the apprenticeship. It's 15 years old. But you know… as long as it keeps going… Plus it's my first car. Oh and by going by car I save about 4 hours a week on travelling time. And some money as well. Sounds weird, but makes sense once you realise that a month ticket for the train is more expensive than day tickets for me cause I only work three days a week. The other two are school which is located in the city I live. And the car also proved very useful for visiting a friend in the Netherlands. He doesn't live in the place I studied at anymore, but moved further west to Apeldoorn, meaning it was a two-hour drive for his birthday. By train it would have been 3 hours - which I probably then wouldn't have done. And it was about the same price to go. Trains are f*ing expensive! 11. Travelling is the world to me! I didn't go on a long holiday in 2016, but did several weekend trips. In May I went to visit a friend in Denmark with the mates from my Dutch table tennis club. Had the greatest time there! Three days of talks, catch-ups, table tennis, a cool city (Århus), amazing weather - to say I enjoyed my time there would be a big understatement! Side note: That is now the most Northern spot I've been to. I told you about my trip to Apeldoorn already where we had a great time as well. Even if it was only about 15 hours. And I pretty much just got back from the last highlight of 2016: I visited a very good friend in Belgium. First time I went to Belgium. Or well… I crossed it on the way to Orléans as a third-grader. That doesn't count, does it? Anyway, Belgium was really fun! Being with my two best friends is always perfect. And exploring a city I have wanted to visit for a long time, makes it even better: We went to Brussels for an entire day and explored the city of Leuven for the other day. Really cool - both cities! Want to go again! Have no trips planned for this year, but could imagine visiting my Danish friend again - and who knows what else. 12. Online dating is hard! I don't know whether I mentioned this on here and I certainly didn't "offline". But I'm sure there's a tweet about this. In October or so I got inspired by VollzeitJonas and others and created an account on that gay online dating platform. After some browsing I got a message from a guy, who was looking to meet people. And I replied politely and thought I'd give it a try. But that's just as exams started at school and I had several other "big projects" in this thing called "real life" and I felt I wasn't quite ready to invest that much energy at the time. That's why it kinda just ended after one message. Sad story. But totally not his fault. I think I should give this whole online dating thing a go again. See my new year's resolutions, btw. [/shameless self-promo] 13. I can still feel the Pulse! This is probably the most grief I've felt this year. I woke up some Sunday in June to the news of Orlando. It was early morning over there when a "man" (should we call him "man", if he's that cruel?) entered Pulse club. One of the more popular gay clubs in the city. And now probably all LGBTQ+ around the world know the club. For a very sad reason: That man didn't just enter the club. He fired into the crowd trying to assassinate as many as possible. 49 didn't make it out alive, 53 more were wounded. Most of the people at the party were of Hispanic background cause the club was holding a Latin night. That much for the motive of the perpetrator and the description of what happened. Learning about the events in the morning on Twitter just twisted my stomach. It was the first major LGBTQ+ hate crime I heard of after discovering my own sexuality. I follow several LGBTQ+ folks on Twitter, so the message spread to me rather quickly. I realised how much of a deal this was when I saw so that basically any LGBTQ+ I follow on Twitter posted about it. Sheer madness. I had just become more proactive and had just fully accepted myself as gay - and then THAT happened. Writing about this still makes my fists clench. R.I.P. to all 49. 14. Terror is here! December - the time of the year most people here in Germany get excited for Christmas. And we have those cute little Christmas markets. You can get glühwein there and fries and lots of (let's face it: pretty useless) self-made stuff. The booths are lit up with chains of light and everyone is just letting go of the stress that tends to tension the atmosphere around that time of the year. A very famous Christmas market is the one in front of Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church which itself is one of the must-see places as a tourist. And then there was the man who would kill 11 and injure 55 more when he drove a truck into that very Christmas market on 19 December. I - again - read about it first on Twitter. At first I thought it was just an accident and didn't really bother too much, skipping the messages in my timeline and scrolling on. But after an hour or so I thought it was about time to check what really was going on in Berlin. It was only then when I realised how bad things really were. We had our first successful terrorist attack in Germany. R.I.P. to the victims! 15. Prejudice sucks! Remember New Year's Eve 2015? Lots of people were sexually assaulted right next to the famous Dom cathedral in Cologne. Potentially by men "of North African appearance" (that's what Police said). And there was an outcry in the entire country for how ruthless "all the immigrants" were. What they forgot - like so many times before and after the incident - is that a group of 5-50 people is not "all immigrants". But that's a different story I could rant over for an entire #TMIishTuesday post. What also was part of the outcry was how not-present Police were during that night. How was it possible that so many ladies were assaulted in public and Police didn't notice? No one really knew the answer. Lesson of these events: More police will be present at big public events. The results? Well… New Year's Eve 2016. Cologne again. More police is present. The square in front of the Dom is closed. And we still get news. News that make me wanna puke again. Why? Apparently police checked kinda any non-white person thoroughly, while not checking white people (or not checking them that much). That's prejudice. If not racism. And no debate about this: Police being accused of being racist is an absolute no-go! And that should make them think. For heaven's sake, why can't we just have a great time on New Year's Eve? 16. Chocolate cereal likes to play hard to get! I want to end this on a lighter note, so: In 2016 I discovered that my beloved chocolate cereal really is hard to get hold of. The best deal is certainly at the Aldi (thanks for not sponsoring this post, Aldi!). Problem here: People know that. And in each batch there are like 12 (?) boxes of different types of cereals, but only one box is chocolate cereal. And guess who went to the Aldi a good few times just to get cereal and ended up NOT getting it because there were like 5 batches of cereal in the shelves, but all chocolate cereal was gone? Yepp. This guy. Sad times! 17. Thank you! Finally I'd like to say thank you to all the lovely people who made this year as great as it has been: - My friends from my hometown: Stephan, Lukas, Ago, Dennis, Katja, Linus, Desiree, Tomas - My "Dutch" friends, who are not all Dutch: Marc, Linda, Laura, Christina, Martijn, Rik, Danny, Mette, Cédric, Annelies, Abhishta, Wouter, Menno, Celestine, and the rest of my table tennis club - My friends from the new town: Jenny, Florentin, Juliet, Linda, Marina, Katharina, Lina, Dana, and the rest of my class - My parents and family - and so many I probably have missed on this list.  Also thanks to loads YouTubers: - Those that showed me that queer is cool: Ash Hardell, Ricky Dillon, Connor Franta, Calum McSwiggan, ItsColeslaw, Troye Sivan, Hannah Hart, Chandler 'N Wilson, Sam Collins, Courtney-Jai - Special shoutout to those who I witnessed coming out this year: Ricky Dillon and ItsColeslaw - Those whose vlogs up my day: Marzbar, Ben, Oskar, Felix von der Laden, Ben Brown, George Benson, izzi, FunForLouis - The German Minecraft gamers out there: skate702, CubePlayTV, Herr Bergmann (plus teams #unfazbar, #Destilay and #Vibe for their great #VARO4 videos) - The rest, who just don't fit a category, but make THE BEST content: Julien Bam, Applewar, Mikey Murphy Finally thanks to the lovely Twitter folks: - VollzeitJonas, XLucamiraX, _FlexiHD_, achojo, Hennddrik, jsnjgr Wow! This has become such a long post! I feel like it's the longest I ever posted! :O That was totally not the intention. And it turned out a little more seriously than I initially planned. But that's fine. That's just a representation of my life. That's been my 2016! Hope you liked it. I certainly did! What did you achieve in 2016? I wanna know. Let me know by placing a comment, tweeting me, dming me, or what else you can think of - you know the means to get to me. As always: Next #TMIishTuesday next Tuesday. If you have any questions in the meantime, just ask away. Whatever you’re curious about - I don’t bite. :) Also: Poll to determine next week’s topic will be up on Twitter on Sunday afternoon. Until then: Stay mighty! Oh, and here’s some self-promo: - Last #TMIishTuesday: http://mightbedamian.tumblr.com/post/155176055527/tmiishtuesday-42-new-years-resolutions - More #TMIishTuesdays: mightbedamian.tumblr.com/tagged/tmi - Poll to decide next week's topic and more very cool stuff: www.twitter.com/mightbedamian - Even more very cool stuff: mightbedamian.tumblr.com

[virginiamurrayblog]

Teenage Boys Are Slaying The Makeup Game—And I’m Salty

Photo illustration: Ka Lee and Joel Louzado

Whenever I walked into a drugstore as a teenager, I would always feel the hairs on my neck raise as I passed the forbidden land: The Makeup Aisle. All the different brands and products were *so* overwhelming, and also totally intriguing. But as a young, Indo-Canadian man who wasn’t publicly out yet, I didn’t feel like I could partake in its mysteries. Until I moved out for school, that is. By then, I felt less restricted by judgemental high school peers and watchful family members, so I decided that my getting-cute routine could consist of more than just moisturizer. I told my girlfriends that I wanted to buy a concealer, news that prompted immediate screams of excitement. We drove to the nearest drugstore, and they each made their case for which brand I should buy. (None of their picks had options dark enough for me to use, but that’s another issue). I chose one that seemed close enough to my skin tone and left before anyone else I knew spotted me. I felt quite insecure and anxious that day, but little did I know that crusty little concealer would open up a whole world of self-exploration.

Three years after that fateful Shoppers adventure, men are taking up a larger place in the world of makeup. Social media is full of young male gurus, like James Charles or Manny Gutierrez, who feel confident enough to express themselves using makeup. But while seeing them genuinely makes me happy, when I scroll past 10-year-old instabaddies and 15-year-old beauty bloggers, I’m also faced with this overwhelming feeling of jealousy. It’s more than just being envious of someone who has achieved success at a young age—it’s that I can’t help but wish I had that much confidence (and support) when I was that age.

Instagram was just establishing itself when I was in grade nine, so I didn’t have influencers like Charles or Gutierrez to look up to. Until I was about 17, I didn’t even realize that makeup could be for men. In my naive little head, makeup on men was for Halloween and goth punks only. The first time I saw a man wear eyeshadow and lipstick casually was when I stumbled across a YouTuber by the name of Miles Jai. What intrigued me most about Miles was that, at the time, he presented femininely but still identified as male. Though he has since come out as non-binary, his videos were eye-opening for me; for the first time, I realized I could express myself in more traditionally feminine ways, yet still define my own gender.

Even though my parents know about my makeup and sexuality, I still can’t wear lipstick in front of them without feeling embarrassed

It took time before I felt ready to rock makeup as openly as Miles Jai. Being a teenager is tough, but being a teenager who’s also gay and Indian came with another set of challenges. Homosexuality is still illegal in India, which has a large impact on the way that Indian people, even in the diaspora, view men. Not only is homophobia rampant and common, but older straight men project their toxic masculinity onto their descendants. Just having my relatives chirp me for choosing arts over sports was enough to scare me from makeup and anything deemed even relatively “girly.”

That’s partially why, when I see white boys who are makeup artists, I see a lot of other things in addition to their outstanding talent.

It is a monumental privilege to be able to do something that’s unacceptable in your culture without having to worry about your safety and mental health. The fear of an auntie or uncle seeing me in lipstick was enough to stifle my creativity for years. I’m not saying that this fear doesn’t exist for other cultures as well—wearing makeup as a man is scary no matter who you are. But issues of gender expression and sexuality are just not the same for a white person as they are for a person of colour.

And even when I did start buying makeup and experimenting with different looks, I still worried about what my family would think—especially when I moved back home after first year to save some coin. After a year of wearing makeup openly, it became something done exclusively at night, when everyone was asleep. Taking pictures of my makeup and later posting them on Instagram (where most of my family was blocked, thank you) was the one thing that kept me from feeling less frustrated and alone.

follow @joellouzado for more! – Genderisasocialconstruct Dowhatyouwant!!! #MondayMotivation – DETAILS EYES @hudabeauty Mauve Obsessions palette @colourpopcosmetics Golden State of Mind Palette @stilacanada Magnificent Metals liquid glitter shadow in Kitten Karma @nyxcosmetics_canada Epic Ink liner – FACE @fentybeauty ProFiltr foundation in 380 @colourpopcosmetics No Filter concealer in Dark 40 @narsissist Liquid Blush in Torrid – LIPS like five different things that i don’t remember lol yikes

A post shared by joel (@joellouzado) on Aug 20, 2018 at 3:30pm PDT

Knowing how important Instagram was to me, it’s easy to see how much harder it was for feminine men before the rise of social media. Timothy Chan, a 33-year-old PR professional in Toronto, told me that he wore foundation to cover acne scars as a teen, but it wasn’t until he went to university in 2003 that he truly started to explore makeup. That’s when he tried out eye makeup as a form of self-expression, to mixed reactions. “My friends and peers were supportive and appreciated the artistry, but it was not always well-received by others,” he says. “It was common for people to stare and even verbally harass me.”

I’ve definitely had my own experiences with harassment because of my makeup. Recently, I was on the subway alone after a dinner with friends. When I got onto a mostly-empty subway car rocking a subtle smoky eye, a man sitting a few seats over made some extremely non-flirty eye contact with me. I’m used to stares by now, and usually staring back will make them look away quickly (a superpower I hold close to my heart). However, when I looked back at the man, he didn’t look away. Immediately, I looked down—I didn’t feel like this was someone I wanted to challenge. Sure enough, seconds later, I heard, “What are you looking at, faggot?” The five or six minutes it took to get to my stop felt like an eternity. I was just grateful that he didn’t get off the subway with me.

Wearing makeup as a man feels like an open invitation for people to judge my sexuality

Clearly, as far as we’ve come, many straight men are still not comfortable with other men expressing themselves in traditionally feminine ways. Although I came out to my family and close friends by the time I was 15 or 16, I wasn’t publicly out until I was in my last year of high school. So, wearing makeup before that would have amounted to raising a question that I wasn’t even comfortable answering for myself.  Maybe my jealousy stems from not being able to be true to myself at that early an age? I robbed myself of any opportunity of trying anything in makeup, because I was scared that I would be seen as gay before I was ready for the world to know.

I decided to speak to a real-life Teenager who could give me some insight on what it’s like to grow up with makeup. Kevin Kodra, who recently graduated from a Toronto high school, went viral this year when he posted a pic of his perfectly beat mug in his grad photo. Kodra started playing with makeup before he even got to high school, and by the age of 16 had perfected his skill. “I remember watching [drag queens like] Willam and Courtney Act, and I was mesmerized,” he says. This isn’t surprising, as drag artistry has always had a large influence on the makeup practices.

“I couldn’t even get my A’s straight” In honour of my 18th birthday, here’s my senior photo . Really though, 17 was a wild year. I made memories that I’ll never forget. Thank you to everyone who was by my side every single day. From friends to family and even you guys, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Let’s grab 18 by the balls and make it my bitch ps. Can y’all stop with the James Charles comparisons, we’re literally two different people. It’s not fair to either of us.

A post shared by Kevin Kodra (@kevikodra) on Apr 30, 2018 at 4:48pm PDT

Kodra’s introduction to makeup and social media happened at a much earlier age than mine, or Chan’s. The difference shows in the way that people respond to his makeup. He claims that he has never felt unsafe in Toronto. “Of course I feel the stares behind my back, but the second I turn around, they put their head down,” he said. “I’m extremely thankful to live in a city that’s predominantly accepting.”

Though I agree that Toronto is accepting, I’m not sure that I have the same positive belief about the community. I understand that everyone’s experience is different and neither Kodra nor I represent a universal reality. But, I don’t think his story should necessarily be taken as a sign that all gay people and feminine men in Toronto are safe. The number of hate crimes against gay people in Canada has actually increased over the past few years, after all. It may just be that teens like Kodra are now growing up with more access to information about the LGBTQ community, and an overall greater understanding to breaking gender roles. Seeing people in media owning who they are can truly make a difference in the way that they see themselves.

I need to focus this negative energy into more positive change

Even now, when my parents know (and are proud of) my makeup, I still feel a sense of embarrassment when I have to tell them I can’t come down for dinner because I’m in the middle of doing a glitter cut crease. It is a learned behaviour that comes from years of hiding who I was. But I’ve come a long way since buying that first concealer. I’ve expanded both my makeup collection and repertoire (I learned that I love the artistry involved in makeup, and I’m like, not bad at it TBH), and over time I’ve found met more men who wear makeup, both online and in person. Of course, I know that compared to the men who came before me, I’ve had an easier time. I’m sure that older people look at me the same way that I look at teenagers like Kodra, wishing that they started living their lives openly as early as I did. While Chan and Kodra went through their journey to acceptance in makeup at different times, their stories aren’t that different, and aren’t that different from mine either.

I am grateful for older generations of men who wore makeup before me. They must have felt very alone, not having role models the way that I do, and it’s only because of them that more and more people are accepting me. And I’m also grateful for younger generations of men who are wearing makeup now. They demonstrate that you can never be too young to follow your passions, and exemplify a level of confidence that we should all aim to own.

please show him this picture and/or my insta page. it wouldve changed my life as a child to have seen another brown boy expressing himself. this story made me super happy pic.twitter.com/Z04vFfKTFA

— joel (@joellouzado) June 20, 2018

Ultimately, I’ve realized that this feeling of jealousy is counterproductive to why I started exploring makeup in the first place. It turns out that my saltiness is not with these teenage white boys themselves. It’s with the media that positions them as heroes, failing to realize that they are *still* only talking about white men. I think we still have a long way to go before all men of colour feel as free to express themselves as I do. And who knows, maybe down the road, even straight men can feel confident to pop on some makeup. I take pride in the fact that just by putting on some mascara, I’m making a political statement. It would make me so happy if little brown boys in the future could feel nothing but pride when they’re putting on mascara, too.

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