#four swag and country

[genderfluidswagnesscontest]

Bugs Bunny vs. Jessie & James (Round 4)

And before you vote, let's learn about our competitors!

Bugs Bunny

queer icon back in the 70’s

if you haven’t seen Bugs as a woman, it’s really not hard to find, my goodness this rabbit dresses up so much

confirmed as outside of the gender binary by creator Chuck Jones

apparently inspired by Norse trickster deities, I’m sure you know the ones ;)

come on just look at him though

Jessie & James

the og 90's gender norm crushing duo

I literally cannot count how many times in their disguises James has worn the dress/more feminine outfit, while Jessie’s worn the suit/more masculine outfit

their gender is just whatever fits the other best

come on just look at them though

[nuha369murad]

My name is Nuha Riyad Murad, and I am married. I am a mother of two boys and a little girl. Abdulrahman is 15 years old, Amr is 13 years old, and Jana is 7 years old.

And this is our story:

We lived in Gaza and worked and studied hard to provide a decent life for ourselves and our young children.

However, during this journey, we experienced difficult wars starting from the Second Intifada in 2000, followed by four severe wars in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021.

But we overcame these wars with our determination to continue living with love and hope. We are a family that loves life, joy, and seeks happiness.

Then came this destructive war on Gaza, which has been ongoing for over six months, leaving us with nothing but destruction, loss, and pain.

The city of Gaza was bombed, including buildings, schools, hospitals, and shops, even the infrastructure.

We faced many hardships during this war, starting from the destruction of our house.

And car, which cost us over $15,000, and the destruction of my husband's workplace, as well as the bombing of my children's schools.

In Gaza, since the beginning of the war, there has been no stable or regular electricity, clean drinking water, reliable internet, or sufficient medical treatment, or the bare minimum of nutrition and food.

Of course, schools have been closed since the first day of the war.

Therefore, my small family and I have decided to leave Gaza in search of a better future for us and our young children.

We will start a new journey to build a good life in another country.

In order for us to leave Gaza through the only border crossing (Rafah), we will need $5,000 per person, approximately $20,000 for the family. We also need another amount to start our own business to provide the essentials of life for ourselves and our young children, approximately $40,000.

Therefore, any support from you will contribute to rebuilding a good life for my family.

@communistchilchuck @marvel @schooloutfitideas @nabulsi27 @el-shab-hussein @aria-ashryver @aces-and-angles @90-ghost @appsa @apollos-olives @notalk-justthought @northgazaupdates2 @palestine @palms-upturned @palestinegenocide @sar-soor @vakarians-babe @vakarian-shepard @sayruq @Tamaspayrollmanager @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @commissions4aid-international @ghost-and-a-half @4ft10tvlandfangirl @flower-tea-fairies @tamamita @turtletoria @thatdiabolicalfeminist @fiishboowl

@tooquirkytolose @sabertoothwalrus

@decolonize-solidarity @kropotkindersurprise

@xinakwans @xxgrimmreaperxx2

@charlesoberonn @vague-humanoid @mysharona1987 @memewhore @mens-rights-activia @paper-mario-wiki @tooquirkytolose @workersolidarity @queenangella

@troythecatfish @the-bastard-king @palipunk-blog @soon-palestine @heritageposts @magnus-rhymes-with-swagness-blog

[its-your-mind]

the transgender swag exhibited by the m9 is off the charts.

Four of them go by chosen names. Beau’s dad wanted her to be a boy, and is disappointed that she isn’t. Fjord remade his personality to mimic the only father-figure in his life. The two strongest people in the party are both girls. The person with the long pink hair and undercut and teal/pink mushroom aesthetic has the deepest voice in the party by a COUNTRY MILE. Caleb grew his hair long and shaved his beard as soon as he felt it was safe enough. Mollymauk Tealeaf is there.

[evermoredeluxe]

How Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Took Over the Entire World

By Chris Willman

By Alissa Gao for Variety

On the morning that Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” is about to begin a three-night stand in Dublin, the older gentleman taking charge of my passport at airport customs has clearly had his fill of Swifties, probably processing them by the hundreds already today. When I reveal myself to be one too — despite being arguably the wrong gender, inarguably old and lacking a telltale “Lover” mascara star over my right eye — his disdain is palpable. Suddenly, I’m getting way more screening questions than anyone not on a watch list should. “What do you like about her?” he sneers, peering up over specs.

This is probably the wrong time for me to point out Swift’s Irish heritage, or to assert that she is this generation’s James Joyce. (The original king of the Easter eggs, right?) I wouldn’t really go that far — I’m only on record as doing my best to certify her as this century’s Beatles. Trying to figure out how to answer him, the past 18 years of extolling Swift in print flash before my eyes. I end up murmuring the bare minimum: “Um, her songwriting.” This seems to disturb him further. He snaps back: “Aren’t they all the same song” — a slight pause, and I know what’s coming next — “about her breakups?” Then, abruptly, he stamps me through, sparing me a detour to Interpol for more grilling.

In the cab into town, the driver is blasting a local talk-radio personality sharing his dismay about the fans of an awful superstar taking over his country. The host reads an email sent in from a hater who says, “A year ago, when tickets went on sale, my partner and I made a reservation to take our kids out of the country this Friday morning. … Thank you for creating a safe space with your show.” I start to wonder if Swift might have met her match at the Cliffs of Moher.

But from my drop-off forward, the next three days are like living in a Swift-topia. The mile and a half to Aviva Stadium each night is like Disneyland when it shuts its doors early for an affinity group. Whether stopping in the pubs or walking through the charming neighborhood of Victorian brick homes adjoining the fancy new stadium, there’s that warm feeling of people who are united by one quality: They are all super in touch with their feelings — or else they wouldn’t be Swift fans. And they all are happy to stop on the street or over pints to talk about poetical expression. (Well, except for the occasional taciturn, invariably straight young male who has signified his supportive-plus-one status by wearing a jersey bearing the name of Swift’s Super Bowl beau, Travis Kelce.)

So it is that I end up chatting with a middle-aged gay man in a sequin-covered shirt whose female companion whispers to me, while he steps away to trade friendship bracelets with a 10-year-old girl and her mum, that Swift’s music just helped him through a difficult breakup. The girl then runs off to trade her homemade bracelets with a pair of high-helmeted Dublin policemen loaded up to their own elbows with friendship swag — unexpected accessories for long arms of the law.

All the stories about American Swifties swarming overseas to catch “The Eras Tour” turn out to be true: You couldn’t swing a neon golf club around here without hitting a Yank. Approximately one out of every five fans I approach is visiting from the States — and the jubilation they’re feeling about the night’s impending concert is compounded by the fact that nearly all of them financed a European vacation and a concert ticket for roughly the same amount they would have paid on a secondary ticketing site for a typical four-figure ticket to one of last year’s predatorily repriced U.S. shows.

Remember the venerable stereotype of the Ugly Americans, brusquely trampling over refined Europeans in their travels? Thanks to Taylor Swift, who has a gift for laying out global welcome mats, this is the summer of the Spangly American.

At the stadium on night one, just down the row from me are a group of millennials from New Jersey, several in glam unitards inspired by the “Lover” or “1989” portions of the career-spanning show and looking like they were costumed by Swift’s own designer, with fake jewel-encrusted microphones to match. I ask how many hours went into perfecting these nearly pro-grade outfits.

“About 80 hours for mine,” says Megan McLaughlin. “Hers probably longer,” she adds, nodding toward one of her sisters, Margo Steinberg. “She knows all the glues and the best gems.” Indeed, confirms Steinberg, “I was working on mine since January. And, yes, I did quit my job to finish it!” She adds, when I ask if she cares to share any secrets to a particularly good look, “You have to use the B-7000 glue.” (A third sister, Amelia McLaughlin, admits she resorted to buying her spangly dress off Etsy — “I was doing a PhD, but I had to match these girls’ enthusiasm” — while a fourth, Carolyn McLaughlin, skipped the glitter and went for a red dress that matches Swift’s from the “I Bet You Think About Me” video.)

Certainly, there is an element of cosplay to many of the fans’ outfits. Some have seen footage of the new segment Swift added to the tour beginning in April 2024 — devoted to her most recent album, the 31-song “Tortured Poets Department” — and have managed to manufacture gowns that look like they’re made of paper and feature lyric excerpts printed on them in script, à la Swift’s custom-made Vivienne Westwood dress. I meet a group of American women who became friends as literature majors in college who have “Tortured Poets”-themed outfits, one duplicating the Westwood dress and the other with handmade printouts of the latest album’s lyrics pinned all over her black dress, as if she were literally pulling pages out of Swift’s playbook.

It’s the devotion to lyrics, even more than glitter, that is most impressive about the bespoke outfits fans have concocted for the occasion. There are scores and scores of Swifties wearing homemade T-shirts — sometimes singular, sometimes matching with a friend, like walking Burma-Shave signs. Some of the messages are obvious, like the dozens of laddies wearing “It’s me, hi, I’m the husband/boyfriend/father, it’s me” shirts. (Bet that seemed really original at one time.) But a lot of them refer to more obscure songs or stanzas, as if every nearby street or stadium loge section is full of human Easter eggs, begging to be unpacked. It’s hard to think of any other superstar in the history of stadium tours who could have inspired as much fan-crafted clothing rooted in the power of words.

Combos of middle-aged mothers and their teen or 20-something daughters abound; some of them have seized on Swift’s mentions of her own mother, Andrea, to come up with their T-shirt ideas. On Lansdowne Road, I talk to a mum whose red-on-black shirt says, “Had to listen to all this drama,” accompanied by a daughter bearing the legend, “And here’s to my mama.” (This is a reference to Swift’s song “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.”)

Later, in a stadium Guinness line, I chat up a pair of thirsty locals, the daughter’s shirt reading “I call my mom, she said …,” with the mom’s shirt completing the thought: “It was for the best.” (Damn it, I had to Google to recall that’s from a “1989” Vault track that came out last year.) I ask the daughter if she had to explain to her mom what she was wearing. “She’s 52,” she replies. “I don’t think she knows.”

Age is really no guarantor of not getting it — the popular #SwiftieOver50 hashtag on X proves that. Although outnumbered, plenty of older people are unaccompanied by a minor, or by anyone who has been a minor in the past 20 years. I approach a middle-aged couple, Jean Sebastian Conley and Natasha Gagne, again bidden by their matching shirts — “Who’s Taylor Swift?” and “Who’s Travis Kelce?” They turn out to be French Canadians who found their 206-euro SRO tickets to be a steal compared with the extravagant resale prices they briefly considered back home after being shut out of the initial on-sale. I ask what attracted them to Swift since, unlike so many others here, they didn’t grow up with her.

“I really fell in love with her with the ‘Folklore’ album,” Conley says, referring to her low-key Grammy-winning album recorded during the early months of the pandemic. “I think different audiences and older audiences found her through that and ‘Evermore’ because they were more singer-songwriter, a little bit rougher indie music, and that’s what we like most. So that’s how I got hooked.” For her part, Gagne says, “I like everything she represents. And when she redid all her masters, that’s where I thought she was a lady boss.”

It’s a reminder that, for however many mini-narratives Swift packs into the three hours and 20 minutes of an “Eras” show, there are really four or five years of backstory that feed into the audience’s shared awareness. When she sings the ominous ballad “My Tears Ricochet,” accompanied by a coven of stone-faced dancers, at least some fans will understand it as a distant reflection of her very public feelings about the men she considers her business bêtes noires, Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta, who bought and sold (respectively) the rights to her first six albums, spawning much vitriol as well as four “Taylor’s Version” rerecorded albums to date.

When the dancers put their grins back on, Swift plays an ebullient excerpt of a very recent “Poets” bonus track, “So High School,” which every person in the crowd will know is inspired by Kelce. There are some breakup songs of recent vintage too — yes, Mr. Customs Man! — like “The Smallest Man in the World,” which may or may not have cost Matty Healy, the 1975 frontman and former Swift paramour, a night of sleep.

The whole tour is themed around not just the newer records but the rerecordings that have made every older album in her catalog feel improbably fresh. It was, quite possibly, the single most baller move in the history of the record industry … and led to the career-retrospective concept for what is already unquestionably the biggest tour in the history of popular music.

Any discussion of the charms of fandom isn’t meant to forestall discussion of “The Eras Tour” as big business. The numbers are fuzzy because Swift’s camp does not release grosses from her shows, unlike nearly every other artist at the stadium or arena level. Even when the tour wraps after 20 months on Dec. 8 in Vancouver, it seems likely those numbers will continue to be guarded with a zeal on par with the government of North Korea’s. Many industry experts believe the gross will approach or even surpass $2 billion.

What is known for certain — even without a confirmation from Swift World — is that she broke the all-time tour-gross figure when she hit the $1 billion mark, whenever exactly that might have been. The two trade publications that specialize in the touring industry have slightly differing estimates: Billboard calculated a cumulative gross of approximately $900 million when she took a break at the end of 2023, figuring that she would crack $1 billion shortly into the tour’s resumption in April, while Pollstar estimated that she had passed $1 billion by the conclusion of last year. Any way you guesstimate it, Swift took less than a year to break the previous record of $939.1 million, which Elton John grossed with his “Farewell Yellow Brick Road” tour across nearly three years of shows.

One source close to the production said early in the “Eras Tour” era that her average gross each night is $14 million. Others believe that is a highly conservative estimate, with a possible total that on at least some nights edges closer to $17 million. One remarkable aspect is that this does not include the revenue from any inflated resale tickets — which, as anyone who has tried to get tickets through Vivid Seats or StubHub knows, mostly have gone for several times their face value. It was little publicized, but Swift had “dynamic pricing” turned off for her ticket sales, possibly to avoid the controversies Bruce Springsteen encountered when the face value on some of his tickets leaped to the four-figure range upon their first sale. Swift left money on the table by not participating in the scalping of her own tickets, which had an average price of around $230 and topped out at $499, excepting VIP packages, which zenithed at $899 — all well short of what some other superstars ask nowadays. Of course, neither Argentina nor anyone at Wembley Stadium ahead of Swift’s opening night performance in June will be crying for her when she’s in reach of $2 billion without the resale inflation … not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars in merch.

(This is extraordinary also because Swift hasn’t done any press to promote the tour, except for when she was selected as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in December. But she doesn’t need to — the tour is constantly being celebrated on social media with every outfit change. And it’s also become so huge, it’s featured more A-list sightings than the Oscars, from Julia Roberts to Tom Cruise to Stevie Nicks, who had the surprise song “You’re on Your Own, Kid” dedicated to her in Dublin.)

Benson Boone, whose “Beautiful Things” is the most-streamed song of 2024 in the U.S. and the world, says he felt dwarfed when performing as the opening act at one of Swift’s seven shows at London’s Wembley Stadium. He has forever committed to memory the exact attendance figure he was given for the night: “89,497,” he says. “Just her stage alone is bigger than anything I’ve ever seen — 300 feet of it!” he says. “I took in every moment. It was cool for me to experience another artist’s world and learn from it. I want to work that hard and be the captain of my ship.”

Although it’s maddening to a media that likes official box office reports and can’t get them, it’s easy to see the wisdom in not flaunting those figures if you’re a superstar artist who counts on being seen as relatable. Swift certainly is proud of breaking records — she posted a tweet when “The Tortured Poets Department” spent its first 12 weeks at No. 1 on the album chart, one of only three albums in history to do so. But she’d rather count fan impressions than dollars. By the same token, she doesn’t publicize or confirm acts of generosity that leak out, like the sizable food-bank donations she makes in every city she tours, or the $100,000 bonuses that the tour’s 50 truck drivers reportedly got for Christmas.

An addendum to all this is how the “Eras Tour” film — released last fall, less than halfway through the actual tour — grossed just over $180 million domestically and $261 million globally, beating the records set by Justin Bieber’s concert film in the U.S. and Michael Jackson’s globally. Massive big-screen spoilers only heightened, rather than diminished, resale demand for the shows yet to come on the 152-date tour and helped precipitate the movement among Americans to head overseas, to make up for the supply found sorely lacking at home.

“She is the torchbearer for the live industry,” says Andy Gensler, editor of Pollstar. “It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before, and it’ll be a long time before we see it again. Her timing was exquisite: The pandemic created this yearning and hunger for live entertainment like nothing else in our history, so she couldn’t have picked a better time to go out.” Pollstar called last year a “historic golden age” for touring, as the top 100 global tours collectively surpassed $9 billion — up 46% from 2022 — with Swift obviously contributing a significant chunk of that total. (This year, the trade reports that overall tour attendance is down, with flat grosses, representing a slight reckoning for the live industry that, obviously, isn’t impacting “Eras.”)

“What my partners and I talk a lot about is how it’s one thing to have a big tour in North America. It’s another thing to have an equally big tour wherever you are in the world and to do doubles and triples in these markets,” says Bernie Cahill, an Activist founding partner and manager of acts including the Grateful Dead and the Lumineers. “It’s an anomaly. It’s not normal. And don’t forget, you’re going into what I call asymmetric venues, which are venues that are not really built for music; these are venues that are built for football games or soccer games and can be very challenging to do music. And they get it right every time — Louis Messina [Swift’s tour promoter since her earliest days] and his team are world-class.” But for all that globe-trotting, he notes, “there are some artists that you see do a show and you know they don’t even know what city they’re in. I always feel like Taylor knows exactly where she is. She has a relationship with that city or that market and those fans and she’s connected to them in ways that are very authentic, that you can’t fake.”

The one big snafu in the rollout of “The Eras Tour” occurred in November 2022 when the Ticketmaster system melted down after too many North American dates went on sale at once, causing thousands of fans to experience long delays. The on-sale broke the all-time record for tickets sold in a single day at 2 million, but it also nearly broke the world’s largest ticketing platform. Swift herself was Teflon in this situation, as the blame fell on a ticketing system not capable of handling so much of the Swift-loving world at once. And although most of the problems people have with Ticketmaster are different from what fans faced in the “Eras Tour” debacle — mainly, hidden fees and monopolistic practices — it could have big legislative consequences anyway. Dean Budnick, co-author of “Ticket Masters: The Rise of the Concert Industry and How the Public Got Scalped,” believes that the Swift hullabaloo was the main catalyst for Congress enacting reform. “There’s no question that perhaps there’s gonna be some meaningful change in ticketing as a result of what people experienced with that on-sale.”

That sense Cahill spoke about of the singer making it clear to an audience she knows exactly where she’s at is in full force in Dublin. Swift introduces the “Folklore”/”Evermore” segment by suggesting that she had a spiritual locale in mind when she started writing that more intimate material, locked in during the first part of the pandemic. “It keeps me up at night all year long: Which era is the most Irish?” she half-jokes to the crowd. “I’m gonna make a case for it being ‘Folklore’ … This album’s imaginary world had a whole aesthetic — like I lived in this cabin in a really green, nature-y, moss-covered landscape. You see where I’m going?… Another thing that I think makes it more Irish than the other eras is, ‘Folklore’ was all about storytelling. And I know you hear this a lot, but you guys are naturally gifted storytellers, right?”

Later on, Swift will cement the local connection by playing, as a “secret” surprise acoustic song, “Sweet Nothing.” She doesn’t have to give the crowd any explanation for that: From the first notes, Irish Swifties will immediately recall that the lyrics reference to the coastal town of Wicklow. The real cherry on top of the show for locals at any international Eras Tour stop, though, comes with a customized moment each night during “We Are Never Getting Back Together” when the spotlight is put on backing dancer Kameron Saunders for a couple of seconds, as he blurts out something locally appropriate, and cheeky. One night in Dublin, it’s the Irish catchphrase “the neck of ye!”; on another, he yells out “pog mo thoin,” meaning “kiss my ass!”; the massive, knowing laugh that inside joke gets makes it clear this isn’t entirely an audience of American tourists after all.

But the basic theatrics and emotional currents remain consistent from show to show. If Swift is surprisingly reticent to make her “Eras Tour” numbers public, that may be, in part, her desire to keep the focus primarily on a personal fan connection. Music industry veterans are taken aback by Swift’s ability to be giant and intimate onstage. “She’s a master marketer of herself — and she is not afraid to be vulnerable to her fans,” says Michele Bernstein, who runs a consultancy that works with stars like Drake. Bernstein could almost be quoting the lyrics of “Mastermind,” where Swift describes herself in almost comically omniscient terms, then dives into a bridge about how no one would play with her as a little girl.

People like my guardian of the customs gate may complain about Swift’s songs centering on her romantic splits, but that subject matter magnifies her own insecurities and weaknesses, expressed in genuinely eccentric wordplay, in ways that keep the audience in thrall to someone they perceive as a humble underdog as well as a veritable cage fighter. She could do a $10 billion tour someday and still keep the crowd enraptured by how she measures up to, or rallies to exceed, the smallest man — or men, or Kardashians — in the world.

This plays out in the “Eras” show in all sorts of symbolic ways, like the new segment in the “Tortured Poets” section where she seems to have fainted from the vapors of failed romance. Dancers in tuxedos try to revive her while a swing version of “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” plays over the PA. A pair of women dressed as nurses fit her with what looks like a majorette’s uniform — or, with all its off-white stripes, is it really meant to resemble a straitjacket? The resemblance is probably not coincidental. Swift fans know there’s nothing like a mad woman.

The most exhilarating moment that has been added to the show this year has her gliding down the ramp on a platform, appearing to anyone at floor level like she is levitating like the witch she makes herself out to be in “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” Taylor Swift: She was Agatha all along!

Yes, there is much to unpack. But in Dublin and in every other city where “Eras” has alighted, there is also pure inspiration for those who maybe haven’t always felt like they’ve had a voice, whether it’s her LGBTQ+ fan base or, well, women. It’s a modern transmutation of Beatlemania in which Swift manages to be all four Fabs, and a mirror, as well as object, of that gaze. You don’t have to be a woman to experience the explosion of pure female joy that takes place on a mass scale at an “Eras” gig, but for men, it doesn’t hurt to have a healthy sense of where you might sit on the female spectrum.

Outside Aviva Stadium, two young Londoners have formed their own two-woman straight-gay alliance: One is wearing a shirt with the hand- drawn words “You’re obsessive and crazy,” and the other’s shirt has the phrase “You’re gay,” each with an arrow pointing to the other. This echoes the original lyrics to Swift’s 2006 oldie “Picture to Burn,” which was rerecorded after some were offended by “gay” as a possible teen epithet. “I am obsessive and crazy, and she is gay,” laughs Zoe Gibson, pointing to her friend, India Day. “We want to bring back the original lyrics. We never found them homophobic — we want to reclaim it.” Day adds, “We’ve listened to her since we were 4 years old, so obviously there’s the nostalgia factor. But for me, she speaks on quite a lot of issues like gay rights and feminism, and all of her songs perfectly sum up the experience of being a woman.”

Some of the shirts are apropos for Pride Month. Seeing a boy of no older than 15 or 16 wearing a homemade “But Daddy I Love Him” shirt (the title of a “Tortured Poets” fan favorite), it’s easy to imagine some courage was required to don that apparel. Along the same lines, I spot any number of women making their own statement in shirts with the modified exclamation “But Daddy I Love Her.”

Gay or straight, 6 years old or 60-something, female or just female-allied, the crowd inside gets its sway on early in the show, with the arrival of the gentle, waltz-time “Lover.” It’s not one of the big set-pieces of this nonstop Broadway-style production — the spotlight is just on Swift and her acoustic guitar — but it might be the one where the entire audience feels like it’s at a four-minute campfire. No wicked witchiness here, just winsomeness.

Down on the floor, I’m seeing what amounts to a Taylor Swift mosh pit: gangs of two or three or five young women, ignoring the fact that Swift herself is just yards away from them on the ramp. They’re singing and acting out every last line to each other, as if the superstar isn’t even towering right over them. A waste of their euros? Hardly. Swift will capture their full attention again as the show proceeds, but in the moment, she isn’t just a superstar — she might be the world’s greatest community organizer.

[xplainthexmen]

In which you should stop hatin’, there’s a big difference between fill-ins and filler, Snow Valley needs higher Ferris wheel standards, Todd DeZago must really hate video rental clerks, and we’re all monsters – some of us just smell better than others.

X-PLAINED:

Strong Guy’s hellacious history

The nature and purpose of X-Men Unlimited

X-Men Unlimited #20-21

Rock Trolls (Chambliss, Nettles, and Munson)

What Asgard was up to in 1998

Magik vs magic

The Snow Valley Harvest Festival

Jubilation Lee, one of the guys

Eagles vs Hats

Fatman, Beardlady-o, Stickman-o, & Frogman-o

Tic Tac Toe fundamentals

Angry mobs

Paige Guthrie, Angry Mom

The many potential applications of Husk’s powers

Falls Edge, VA vs Eagle Ridge, WV

Payphones & video rental stores

X-friends

Rutland, VT (again)

Melvin J. Weals

Helen Back

The Donnybrook Country Club

Cat Fancier & Motorcycle Conventions

The Shi’ar Wardrobe Transmogrifier

Steel (the Shaq one)

The worst pun we’ve ever seen in a comic

Earth: the Hipster Planet

Which X-Men throw the best and/or wildest Halloween parties

Fan-casting X-voices

NEXT EPISODE: The X-Men team up with the Fantastic Four!

Check out the visual companion to this episode on our blog!

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[best-non-english-word-torunament]

Round one: OH-I-SEE, signed vs Штукатурка, štukatúrka

(poll at the end)

OH-I-SEE, signed (ASL, American Sign Language)

Translation: OH-I-SEE

ASL is used in the US and Canada except for Quebec. In total there are 990 000 users, of which 408 000 live in the US. It is part of a language family with sign languages derived from LSF, French sign language. This is the largest sign language family as France was the first country to gather all deaf children and teach them the same sign language. Many countries, including the US, recruited sign teachers for their own deaf schools from France, which means they have a common origin and form a language family. Because they evolve as languages tend to do and are influenced by local village sign languages (a group of deaf people in a community create their own sign language, common where deafness is inherited in one or a few families) or home signs (incomplete signs for a bare minimum of communication that isn’t considered a language, common where a deaf child is surrounded by only hearing people), they diverge and become separate languages. In turn, ASL has become the basis of many sign languages in the Caribbean and Africa, often due to missionaries. Some of them are still called ASL and some are named after the country.

Motivation: It's a good thing to say when you don't want to interrupt but still show that you're paying attention, deaf swag frfr, you can use it in a variety of situations, etc etc

Штукатурка, štukatúrka (Russian)

[ʂtʊkɐˈturkə]

Translation: Plaster

Russian is an Indo-European language belonging to the Slavic branch. It’s spoken by 134 million people in Russia and 255 million people in total. Russian is one of the languages written with the Cyrillic alphabet, specifically design to represent phonemes in Slavic language, though it has been/is used for non-Slavic languages too.

Motivation: It is veeery nice to say! ʂtʊ-kɐˈ-tur-kə feels like playing xylophone or going downstairs and stroking each railing post with your hand. штукатурка also crumbles in a really satisfying manner and if you wet it it will smell nicely. Overall it’s a sensory heaven for four of my five senses isn't it neat?

[strawberrylemonadeswagtourney]

Strawberry Lemonade Swag Tourney, Round One, Part Four

[klqrambles]

Q I need to hear you dump about all these musicals you like i am SO INTERESTED .

GRAHH the secret to my interest in musicals is: if it had a Korean production I probably like it /hj

Ok okokokokok I’mma try and summarize some of my current favs (i say current cause it’s always changing) feel free to ask me to elaborate on any of em

Also it’s beneath a readmore

Dorian Gray <- has been my interest for over a year now. Largely follows the plot of the book but what if Henry had the best character arc of the main three aka he goes from a silly little guy of an asshole to an asshole who regret his spaghet

Mozart l’Opera Rock <- follow the life and shenanigans of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart being the silliest queer man alive. Also Antonio Salieri has a lowkey mental breakdown about being gay for Mozart but that’s besides the point.

Swag Age: Shout Out, Joseon <- a story about a little guy named Hong Dan and his fight to be a silly little guy who does poetry in a country where poetry has been banned. A very very good rollercoaster of emotions

Frankenstein <- Not Frankenstein: A New Musical, but a Korean original. Does Not follow the book but has some highlights like Victor and Henry being Definitely gay for each other, Henry getting beheaded and turned into the Creature, the Creature being forced to fight in a fight ring under the most toxic queer couple to ever be in love(?), and Victor constantly referring to the Creature as Henry cause he can Not let his love die literally or figuratively

Pirates <- Follow Louis as he chronicles the Golden Age of Pirates alongside Captain Calico Jack, Anne Bonny, and Mary Reed. Also Anne and Mary are very in love (one of the songs is literally Love At First Sight) and Jack is smitten with Anne. Louis is Jack’s bestie and in some ways protege. Genderless cast aka both men and women are hired for the same roles, but the roles are always cast with the same gender pairs therefore it is always gay (so the guys play together and the girls play together but not across lines)

Mama, Don’t Cry <- uhm geeky little guy named V wants to be a vampire so he can get married to the love of his life so he travels back in time to get turned by Count Dracula. Count Dracula and V are a little gay for each other, V gets turned, V doesn’t get the girl, Dracula’s in drag, they end up possibly (definitely) in gay love forever and always 👍

Black Mary Poppins <- a tragic tale of four orphans, now adults, looking into the case of their Nanny Mary Smith and the lost memories of their childhood.

Diaghilev/Nijinsky <- two musicals detailing the lives of Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, and the rise and fall of the Ballet Russes. Gay and tragic and makes me wanna bite them /pos

Honorable mentions: Wild Grey (the Oscar Wilde musical), Western Story (cowboys but everyone’s lying), Brothers Karamazov (a condensed form of the series by Fyodor Dostoyevsky), Next to Normal (Mental health issues are hard), Salieri (what if Antonio Salieri had his own musical?), Mozart! Das Musical (Mozart’s life story again but make it focus on his times with Coloredo), Elisabeth (Queen Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary’s life as told by her assassin), Death Note (Death Note), Kinky Boots (Drag Queens lfgggggg)

[salmankhanholics]

★ Salman Khan, Arijit Singh Unite for ‘Tiger 3’ Songs: ‘A Collaboration That Was Waiting to Happen’!

October 19, 2023

The talents of Bollywood megastar Salman Khan and leading singer Arijit Singh will finally be united in Yash Raj Films’ “Tiger 3.” 

Singh has sung two numbers for the film. “Leke Prabhu Ka Naam,” a dance number featuring Salman and Katrina Kaif releases next week, while the second song is a romantic track.

India deploys a practice known as playback singing where singers render songs that actors lip-sync to on screen. Via this method, Singh has been the on-screen singing voice of most of Bollywood’s top male stars including Shah Rukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor among many others. He had yet to sing for Salman Khan, perhaps because of an alleged disagreement during an awards ceremony in 2014.

Since then Singh has expressed publicly that he wants “to retire with at least one song of you [Salman Khan] in my library” and that has now happened.

“Tiger 3” director Maneesh Sharma said: “We can’t wait for ‘Leke Prabhu Ka Naam’ to drop next week. It’s an out and out party track and having Arijit’s voice on top of Salman’s swag, is the cherry on top. Katrina’s ethereal beauty and the chemistry between the two makes it the perfect formula to have everyone dancing. We had a lot of fun filming in Cappadocia, Turkey, and this will be another huge dance chartbuster to add to the already enviable list of successes that Salman and Katrina have had together.”

Composer Pritam added: “It was a collaboration that was waiting to happen. Salman Khan is one of the biggest superstars and Arijit Singh, our generation’s top singing sensation. These two stalwarts coming together for a song was long overdue and we are thrilled that it is happening for ‘Tiger 3.’”

“Tiger 3” is the latest instalment in producer Aditya Chopra‘s spy universe that kicked off with the Tiger franchise, starring Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, beginning with “Ek Tha Tiger” (2012) and “Tiger Zinda Hai” (2017) and continued with “War” (2019), starring Hrithik Roshan and Tiger Shroff. “Pathaan,” starring Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone, released in January and is the second biggest Indian hit of the year with $130 million. The four films have together grossed some $300 million.

In “Tiger 3,” Tiger is in peril after being framed as enemy number one and goes on a life-threatening mission to hunt down his enemies. Tiger wants to clear his name for his country, for his family and he won’t stop at anything.

[shefanispeculator]

Kubota Partners with Blake Shelton as Presenting Sponsor of 2023 “Back to the Honky Tonk” Tour (kubotausa.com)

GRAPEVINE, Texas. (February 2, 2023) – Kubota Tractor Corporation announced today that it will be the presenting sponsor of Blake Shelton’s “Back to the Honky Tonk” Tour kicking off in Lincoln, NE, February 16, 2023. This official tour sponsorship builds on an existing partnership with Blake Shelton who is an active part of the #KubotaCountry social community where he regularly shares what life is like on the farm using his Kubota equipment. To coincide with the tour, Kubota is also launching today its Honky Tonk Concert Ticket Giveaway Sweepstakes to provide customers and fans a chance to win tickets to see Blake Shelton at one of four main tour venues.

“Kubota is all about helping people live the country lifestyle, and since I use Kubota tractors and utility vehicles to get a range of jobs done on my farm, it made perfect sense for us to work together on the road for my ‘Back to the Honky Tonk’ tour,” said Blake Shelton. 

The tour, also featuring newcomer Jackson Dean and CMA and ACM Female Vocalist of the Year Carly Pearce, includes 18 stops in cities spanning from Nebraska to New York, including St. Paul, MN, Birmingham, AL, Louisville, KY, and more, all before wrapping up in Buffalo, NY, on March 25, 2023.

Also kicking off today, the Kubota Honky Tonk Concert Ticket Giveaway Sweepstakes gives customers and country music fans a chance to win one of four (4) packages for an exclusive concert experience, including two (2) premium tickets, roundtrip transportation, accommodations (1-night hotel), and Kubota swag ($100 value) to one of four tour stops, including Louisville, KY (March 9), Oklahoma City, OK (March 17), and Kansas City, MO (March 18) and Pittsburg, PA (March 24). The Sweepstakes opens February 2, 2023, at 8 a.m. CT and ends March 1, 2023, at 11:59:59 p.m. CT. For official sweepstakes rules, visit info.kubotausa.com/honkytonkconcertticketgiveaway.

[transmasc-wizard]

🥀 [WILTED ROSE] How good is your OC at meeting deadlines? What motivates them?

🌾 [RICE SHEAF] How picky is your OC with food? What will and won't they eat?

🍀 [FOUR LEAF CLOVER] Would your OC spend hours looking for a four leaf clover?

🍃 [FALLEN LEAF] What's the darkest period of time your OC has been through?

🌷 [TULIP] What is your OC's favourite flower and colour?

uhhhh corey!!!

🥀: Corey is really good at meeting deadlines, however there's two ways he does it: perfectly scheduled to the minute, or. doing everything in the 3 hours before said deadline

🌾: Corey........ doesn't eat a lot of things. mostly coffee + other caffeinated drinks and various breads. sometimes oranges. maaaaaybe beef but it really depends. he Will eat some other things mostly when he has to but he hates it and he cannot under any circumstances make himself eat fish . autism swag

☘️: yes if that superstition existed in his world. he is very very superstitious

🍃: probably when he was 10 or 11 ish. he had to move countries, his brother died, he became chronically ill, and his mother got even worse with her treatment of him.

🌷: his favourite colour is blue and his favourite flower is white lilies :]

[genderfluidswagnesscontest]

Haruhi Fujioka vs. Alex Fierro (Round 4)

And before you vote, let's learn about our competitors!

Haruhi Fujioka

whole premise of the show is she gets mistaken for a guy and keeps it up to pay off a debt and because she doesn’t really care

“Why should I care about appearances and labels anyway? It's what's on the inside that counts.” - Haruhi

regularly dresses in both feminine and masculine clothing comfortably

“It's better to be recognized by who you are than be recognized by what sex you are.” - Haruhi

come on just look at her though

Alex Fierro

canonically genderfluid and transfemme, switches between binary genders and uses she/he pronouns

child of genderfluid deity Loki

obligatory shapeshifting abilities

a lot of people’s genderfluid awakening (shout out to y'all)

one of the first well known, canonical genderfluid characters ever (definitely contributes to the last point)

come on just look at her though

[fenrhi]

On Eunyung Baek and his Autistic Swag: diving into the mind of a very peculiar teenager

This very serious essay, written by yours truly, esteemed professor at the University of Autismology (🇫🇷), will cover chapter 1 from the end of Hara Kang arc.

Disclaimers: Before going into the meat of the subject, let me stress that there's not One Right Way of being autistic or One True Interpretation of Eunyung. The reason this post exists is simple: I think Eunyung is a wonderfully well-written character that shares a lot of similarities with my humble person and wanted to discuss it in details.

Due to Tumblr's pictures limit, this post will have to be cut up in four parts. Here's part one.

Introduction (1) : what is "autism" anyway?

Autism, as defined by medical experts in my country, isn't a disease that can magically be cured, but rather a disorder/disability. However, those same medical experts also talk about "symptoms of autism", like symptoms of a disease and generally believe it's best for everyone if we can mitigate these "symptoms" as much as possible. In short, autism is "a burden" autistic people have to live with.

The part of the population that doesn't have autism (called "neurotypiques") mistakenly believe that autistic people can be neatly put in two distinct boxes: the box for "stupid, weird autistics who can't talk properly or at all" and the box for "highly intelligent autistics who always have good grades in school". In reality, autism is a spectrum, so it's more complicated than that, but we can still find common "symptoms" of autism. Usually, autistic people have trouble with language, communication (verbal and non-verbal), social interactions, changes in their routine and their own emotions. As a result, autistic people often feel isolated, irritated or depressed.

Introduction (2) : who is Eunyung?

At the time I'm writing this, Eunyung's past still remains opaque, but we do know he grew up in poverty, with an alcoholic father and a neglectful mother. It's strongly implied he was physically abused, but nothing was confirmed so far. He wasn't close to anyone in elementary school nor did he have an adult in his life who could help him. In the present day, he's often seen surrounded by guys his age, but characters who live in the same dorm as him find him weird and unpleasant. He also displays traits commonly seen in autistic people.

I) Narrow-mindedness: not being willing to accept opinions, beliefs, behaviors, etc. that are unusual or different from one's own

(from "Haejoon Goh arc" to "Eunyung Baek arc")

This part focuses on Eunyung having "inappropriate" reactions to events occurring aroung him, not understanding or caring about how his actions and words affect others, and why some people react in anger to something he did or said.

I-a) First impressions

Our first introduction to Eunyung is far from glorious: he steals Haejoon's wallet (the protagonist, currently homeless and parentless) and uses all his money to organize a party with his friends.

Eventually, Haejoon manages to find Eunyung and furiously demands he gives back the wallet. This is what their conversation looks like

Please do note that Eunyung, despite hearing about Haejoon bad reputation ("kid of the ghost house", "violent lunatic") and seeing him beat up some of his friends, still smiles and jokes around Haejoon, as if he was disconnected from the scene. As if what was happening around him wasn't affecting him (or couldn't affect him). He's the only one who reacts like that. All his friends are trembling like leaves at the sight of Haejoon.

After that, Eunyung insults Haejoon's mom, Haejoon makes fun of Eunyung's tent, they fight, the tent gets destroyed and one of them ends up in a hospital.

I-b) The dorm

Due to a series of unfortunate events, Haejoon now has to live in the same dorm as Eunyung. And yes, their cohabitation is going to be atrocious. In fact, their first fight in the dorm happens right after they meet there. Eunyung tries to gaslight (I'm using the real definition of that word, not the Tumblr one) Haejoon into thinking he wasn't the person who stole his wallet and hurt him. Haejoon almost believes this, until he sees his wallet falling from Eunyung's pocket.

Haejoon reacts to Eunyung's behavior with anger and Eunyung responds with confusion and irritation. In his perspective, he did everything right. He was acting so polite and nice, why couldn't Haejoon just play along? Why did he get so angry? It's not like he died! It's not like he was the only one who suffered!

The ease with which Eunyung lies highlights that he used this method to get out of troubles a lot in the past. Haejoon, as an "anomaly", greatly upsets him.

This pattern repeats itself when Eunyung invites friends in his room. He doesn't understand why Haejoon is making a fuss and mistakenly believes he feels jealous and lonely.

....and this sort of things happens again when Haejoo trips on the trash bags in front of Eunyung's room

Eunyung doesn't understand what "cleaning" means because his old house was always dirty. This is what he has always known. This is what feels "right" to him. He doesn't see why he should change his way of living now.

I-c) the school transfer

In ch21, another misunderstanding occurs between Haejoon and Eunyung, the latter thinking the former wants to go back to his old school.

At first, it looks like he's offended Haejoon wants to leave "just because" the house is dirty. Eunyung can endure this much, so why can't Haejoon do it too? Why can't Haejoon be more like him?

But Eunyung is also upset because he thinks Haejoon is leaving because he hates him. In Eunyung's mind, he was never "that cruel" to Haejoon, so he should just "put up" with Eunyung like he did before. Eunyung doesn't understand Haejoon, but he does know it hurts to be treated like that by Haejoon.

So, does that mean Eunyung is doomed to always be narrow-minded, unable to change his behavior? No, autistic people aren't like that. Eunyung certainly isn't like that either.

Which brings us to Part II....

[parfumieren]

Polo (Ralph Lauren)

Perfumery, like all other art forms, is subjective. What makes an individual prefer one fragrance over another is largely a matter of personal association. If a scent reminds us of things or people we cherish, if it pushes our unique "happy" buttons, we like it. And if it doesn't, we don't. Nothing personal. It is what it is.

Less common -- but just as powerful -- are fragrances that tap into our bad, sad, or angry frames of reference. In such cases, prejudice overrides all attempts at objective logic. We know that a scent is just a scent. It's ephemeral; it can't hurt us. We grasp the concept behind it, appreciate the creative skill that brought it into being, and agree that the end result is a success.

And still, we hate it-- and nothing is going to change our minds.

I first encountered Ralph Lauren's Polo in 1982, the Christmas before my fourteenth birthday. At the annual family gift swap - held, for once, at our cramped suburban home - my uncle (an executive with Ralph Lauren Corporation) handed out identical canvas-and-leather gym bags stuffed with Polo promotional swag: perfume sample cards, lotions, soap-and-shampoo sets, bath towels, zippered makeup cases. We could never afford these items ourselves, and our uncle knew it. His real gift to us was this vicarious glimpse of the high life, a taste of luxuries beyond our grasp.

To working-class us, my uncle and his family inhabited Mount Olympus-- a stratosphere high above our messy, mundane world. Way up there, grownups knotted pastel cashmere sweaters over their shoulders and drank chilled white wine year-round. Their clean-cut junior-preppie offspring dropped references to "lessons"-- ballet, voice, flute, French horn. We envied and idolized and found it next to impossible to relax around them.

That year, my cousins responded to our generic mall-bought gifts with polite, detached thank-you's. Then came the Polo gym bags, handed around with indulgent smiles. They stood back and watched us coolly as we erupted with excited delight. Here was something we could flaunt in front of our peers, tangible proof that we were better than they thought we were (or than WE thought we were-- a subtle but important distinction). 

But by day’s end we still reeked from head to toe—not with Polo, but poverty.

Four decades have passed. I've rarely seen my cousins since, except in photographs. Time and reality have leached away everything about them that seemed divine to me. And as for what they think of me-- well, I just don't give a damn.

But Polo? Can't stand the stuff. Call it transference, if you will. But disillusionment, like despair, like fear, has a scent. For me, that scent is Polo.

Don't get me wrong. The objective portion of my brain thinks that Polo is a fine work of perfumery-- crisp, enlivening, reminiscent of the deep woods on a late spring morning. If it had been honest and unpretentious, if it had not put on airs, I might have even grown to like it.

But no. I loathe it. It steals the forest primeval and plants it in the center of a gated country club that will never admit me as a member. It brings back to me all that was elitist, excessive, and nauseating about the Reagan Era. It holds all the missteps, disappointments, and embarrassing moments of my awkward childhood. It makes me feel bad about myself, for no very good reason. As a result, I will always, always hold it at arm's length.

To paraphrase Eleanor Roosevelt, no person can make me feel inferior without my consent. Why should a perfume be any different?

Scent Elements: Pine, chamomile, artemisia, basil, thyme, cumin, coriander, patchouli, oakmoss, vetiver, leather, tobacco

[thecglcatalog]

Victorian Foundations ... from our Old-World Underthings collection

One of the pleasures of owning an adult baby is the pure nostalgia value … the return to an old-fashioned sort of discipline … the play with a “seen and not heard” ethos where children were shown off and then confined to the nursery again … the power of the old-fashioned nanny or governess’ iron hand and wooden cane … the imposition of gender roles elevated to a traditional art.

Our Old-World Underthings section is all about celebrating those old-fashioned child roles with traditionally made garments that give a just-so silhouette.

Victorian Chemise.  Square-necked, translucent cotton shift has a lovingly embroidered yoke, showing a charmingly naive design of swagged roses and chubby, dancing toddlers.  Cap sleeves and gown are softly gathered onto the yoke; hem falls to mid-calf.  Specify color: Innocent White with classic redwork embroidery, Innocent White with pale blue embroidery, Ivory Champagne with ivory embroidery.

Victorian Ribbon Chemise.  A shorter version of our classic Victorian Chemise, this little shift has a neck of cotton lace with a thin satin ribbon threaded through it.  The hem falls just to the thigh.  Specify cotton color: Innocent White, Ivory Champagne, White-Rose Ticking, White-Blue Ticking.  Specify ribbon color: white, blue, pink, red.

Victorian Girl’s Petticoat.  Falling just below the knee, this classic petticoat has – depending on how you count the different flounces – anywhere from seven to twenty-four layers!  To be so helplessly enclosed in ruffles and tucks is the essential old-fashioned girlhood experience.  Scalloped edges keep this sturdy cotton garment feeling fluttery and delicate.  Ribbon waist tie.  Specify color: Innocent White, Ivory Champagne.

Victorian Girl’s Hoop Petticoat.  Hold your little girl’s skirts in a charming bell shape without the weight and fuss of layers.  Circles of wire boning stiffen this thinner cotton petticoat, with only gently gathered flounces on top to help disguise their lines.  Skirts become easier to lift, more difficult to tuck down over the legs when lying down, and almost effortless to push up for diaper changes.  Specify color: Innocent White, Ivory Champagne.

Victorian Winter Petticoat. Shaped like our Victorian Girl’s Petticoat, but a couple of inches longer to show beneath dress hems, this classic underskirt is made from tartan wool blend instead of cotton, adding weight and warmth.  So pretty for Christmas photos!  A wire-hoop layer hides amidst the flounces to compensate for the fabric’s greater weight.  Specify tartan pattern:  Sailor Suit, Polo Pink, Sunny Day, Teddy Bear Turnaround, Red Light District.

Victorian Girl’s Pantalettes.  Two separate legs made from stacked cotton ruffles tie together at the waist.  Ruffles cascade to the ankle, reminding us of a time when little girls’ legs were preserved for the sight of Mama and Papa, not strangers.  Specify color:  Innocent White, Ivory Champagne.

Victorian Flannelette Drawers.  Split-crotch drawers with a drawstring waist have a frilled cuff just below the knee.  The classic modesty undergarment below a hooped skirt!  Many of our modern customers use them for pajamas.  Specify color: Cotton Candy, Blue Ticking, Soft Brick Pinstripe.

Victorian Underwear Suit.  Based on men’s undergarments from the early 19th century, these four-piece sets make charming underwear, sleepwear, or daywear for any gender of modern baby!  Short-sleeved shirt buttons up to the neck with a small standing collar, then tucks into split-front drawer underpants that reach below the knee.  An easy-tie cravat is pre-shaped with discreet gathers; just pass around the neck and pull one end on top of the other.  Non-stretch stockings with a pieced sole tie at the knee with drawstring “garters.”

Specify underwear set color: All White, Blue Country Cotton, Red Flannel, Grey Flannel.  All White set – the most traditional – has Swan White alpaca-blend shirt and drawers, Innocent White flannelette stockings, Innocent White cotton cravat.  Blue Country Cotton set has White-Blue Ticking shirt, Innocent White stockings and cravat, Blue Gingham drawers.  Red Flannel set has Warm Cream cotton shirt, stockings, and cravat with Soft Brick Pinstripe drawers.  Grey Flannel set has all pieces in Dove Grey flannelette.

[abacusdabacus]

This guy, his name Corkston Pronfs D-Swag.

He lives in the Feran. He lives alone, but occasionally, he has friends over. He works at the local 7/11, his favourite ice cream are the rainbow ice cream things, his favourite colour is purple, his favourite tv show is “oop and the loop”, his favourite artist is Zlep and the Martians, he currently has the world record on pinball ultimate, he’s scared of heights, bugs, and bright lights, and he dreams to be an adventurer.

At age one, he hadn’t really done anything much. At age two, he had learnt how to walk, and was taking his first steps. His parents were really afraid bugs, so both of them always asked Corkston to take care of any insects (even though he was like two[and he probably couldn’t understand them]) but him seeing his parents afraid of bugs made him afraid, so he’s always been afraid. At age three, he made his first friend, named Porky-Snorkler. They were neighbours, and their parents met at some mum group. At age four, his parents thought it would be funny to pull a prank on him. They pretended to sword fight in front of him on the balcony, and dad would pretend to fall off and die. He was so sad understandably so, and even after his dad said he was ok, Corkston was afraid of heights ever since. At age five, he started school. Porky-Snorkler had moved to another country unfortunately. This year, Corkston had thrown a rock, hitting a random kid in the back. Corkston has never let go of that memory. He looks back and laughs at it. At age six, he wanted to be a doctor. He would always pretend to give his parents medications. At age seven, he started a petition to get swing sets into school, unsuccessfully. At age eight, he was gifted a purple robe from his parents. It was regal, and it felt royal. At age nine, he went a circus, and they only sold the rainbow ice cream. This was the first time his parents gave him money to spend, and this is what he spent it on, and at age ten, his arm broke, so he had to learn to right with his right hand,