#had this idea ages ago but never did it because: very time-consuming :P
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
ifindus · 1 year ago
Text
Tumblr media
1660 - Cavalryman - Several wars under Denmark against Sweden.
1697 - Gunner - pre-Great Nordic War under Denmark against Sweden.
Tumblr media
1774 - Skiing Soldier - pre-Theater War under Denmark against Sweden.
1785 - Infantryman - pre-Great Northern War under Denmark against Sweden.
Tumblr media
1808 - Coast Guard Officer - Napoleonic Wars under Denmark.
1845 - Infantryman - pre-First Schleswig War under Sweden against Germany.
Tumblr media
1855 - Infantryman - during the Crimean War (Sweden-Norway debated joining the UK and France against Russia).
1905 - Hunter - preparing for wars of independence against Sweden.
Tumblr media
1914 - Engineer Officer - First World War.
1940 - Infantry Officer - Second World War.
147 notes · View notes
thygoddessouijathicc · 1 year ago
Text
Unfinished Draft For Horror Thing For Reasons
Mackerel awoke from her sleep at the sound of the bell.
The bell marked the start of every day, it always had since the day she was named, that first day when she had picked the can off the shelf. 
Mackerel had always felt unlucky for her choice, she had no idea what it was that she had picked, she had simply chosen a random can. She hadn't been told what was in it. She did not know how to read. And she was never informed that whatever she picked was the only food she would receive that day.
She had always envied her friend Pear, Pear was smart enough to choose something good.
Mackerel put on her uniform, and then looked across the room to wake up Pear.
“You always sleep through the bell, it's unfair.”
“If it's so unfair, sleep through it.”
“I can't, it's too loud, and the instructors get mad.”
“Well maybe you’re the lucky one, then?”
The two girls get up and quickly report to their daily orientation.
They stand in a line with all the other children living in the base, the last of humanity their instructor had always said.
No child present was over the age of 18, older people never left because they were too valuable, and because the kids first had to reach the age of 7 before they could be used in military operations, it was a very limited timeframe.
Mackerel zones out through today’s orientation, she never needed to listen to most, just if she was going out today.
She is designated to be part of a scouting team with Pear and 2 other kids. This makes 4. 4 is important. Odd numbers bring bad luck. Everyone knows that.
The group goes to suit up for the cold, and when picking up their equipment, that's when the first thing goes wrong, Mackerel’s grappling hook is broken due to an accident a few days ago in which she dropped it.
She looks up at her allies, terrified.
“Here take mine, I'm a good climber.” Pear says.
“But you-”
“Don't worry Mackie! We’ve never needed them! Why would that change?”
“I feel like something is wrong…”
“If we don't go out we don't get to eat!”
“...Alright…” Mackerel says, as she fastens the hook to her belt.
The group leaves through the front gate, its colder than expected, they’d never been sent out on a day like this, no one has… but the attacks had been getting more frequent.
“I’ve never seen an Outsider, what do they look like?” One of the younger members of the group asks, trembling in fear.
“I've never seen one either.” Pear explains “Outsiders are rare, to see out this far at least, and the ones that are here are tricky. Outsiders are very pale, they blend right in to the snow, and they move very quietly, most people never see them, they only hear them once they fall in the traps.”
The snow is deep, and seems to be getting deeper, its quite hard to walk, and the group is almost sure they hear footsteps nearby…
The younger boy from earlier is suddenly snatched by a large monstrous being emerging from the snow it had been using to hide itself as it followed them, the creature makes a screeching noise and the boy does not get time to scream before he is consumed.
All 3 remaining children draw their weapons, the other girl who had come along immediately starts firing, but is not fast enough as she is knocked aside.
The creature pins Mackerel and prepares to eat her when Pear opens fire on it, and starts yelling to get its attention, it lets Mackerel free as it charges for the other child, who starts running as she fires at it, eventually ending up on what once was a frozen lake as she shoots the creature down.
The monster falls, and for a moment there is peace, until the fall of its body cracks the ice.
Pear is out too far, “Goodbye Mackie.” She says quietly, before the ice shatters and she plummets into the pit beneath as Mackerel screams her name.
The older girl comes to Mackerel’s side and pulls her away from the pit. “P-Pear…” She whispers.
“She’s gone… that's an outsider lair, lets just hope she died on impact with the ground.”
“I gotta go down-”
“NO! WE NEVER TOUCH LAIRS! YOU ARE NO SPECIALIST YOU WILL DIE DOWN THERE!” the girl yells. “L-look, I’ll file a report and see if they can get someone in to retrieve the body. We need to get back and tell our superiors the traps aren't working.”
As Mackerel is pulled away, she continues to stare at the hole.
2 notes · View notes
allstarsstorymode867 · 3 years ago
Text
All-STARS -STORY MODE- CHAPTER 18 PART 2
Part 3
Part 1
This is a continuation of the first part.
-Back to the rest of the Group in the hardware store-
10:48
“Do any of you believe in the existence of evil?”
Ash had asked the whole group that question after they got back without U!Takeo, after they had to explain what had happened back in Wonderland Plaza. “A force of nature capable of giving rise to all things wicked?” his back was back to everyone with his hands on his hips when he asked further, waiting for an answer.
“Most of us do.” Primis Richtofen answered as he was seated on a crate he shared with the Engineer, “Back in 1918, before the end of World War I, me, Doctor Maxis und our men had gone to Excavation Site 64, we had uncovered an ancient tomb vith large amounts of Element 115 inside, from vhat ve had found is very likely from zhe middle ages, zhe statues zhat looked exactly like us und elemental stones zhat can be used by staffs.”
“It was long before we got involved, German.” Primis Nikolai growled in anger as he glared at him, “You and others had uncovered and created something that should never be unburied and undisturbed but you went ahead and unleashed the evil upon the land with no second thoughts!”
Diego was silent as Ash turned around to face them with his arms crossed, Engineer then spoke up “Before all of this, we had met and seen things on every Halloween, most of it was normal before but some of ‘em ain’t good.”
Ash looked at everyone as he explained “Guys, listen to me and what I had gone through in my own experience, alright?”
“It happened 30 years ago, my friends and I spended the night at the cabin,”
Tumblr media
[Digitally drawn by Meaghan “Icefir” Halter, images, screenshots and movie poster belongs to Sam Raimi and the one and only; Bruce Campbell.]
The walls shown the memories of Ash’s younger years with his former girlfriend, a friend with a girlfriend of his own, and his sister in the car riding into the woods and arriving to the old cabin behind everyone as they settled to listen to his story
“We shouldn’t be looking but we have found the book… Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, Book of The Dead. Created by the Dark Ones as it was inked in blood and bound in human skin. Having the power to resurrect demons and summon the powers of darkness.” as the scene of these memories changed into a book, like Ash had said himself; the book was bound in human skin and flesh, and it was inked in blood of the fallen to write and drew the book in as Ash and his friend, Scotty, looked at it before they found a reel-to-reel tape player with the type left behind.
“The professor, Raymond Knowby, long before we got there, had taken it to the cabin to study but when he read the box’s text out, he was never seen again.”
Scene had rewinded to an elderly man, Professor Raymond Knowby, his wife, daughter and assistant wandering into the ruins of a castle until they discovered Necronomicon Ex-Mortis and along with a dagger, both of them were covered in dust before it showed the cabin once again as the windows was glowing light through them.
“When we played the tape Knowby left behind, we unleashed something dark, something evil that lasts for centuries that lives in the woods.”
Then we are shown a flashback of Ash having pinned his possessed hand onto the floor with a knife in order for it to stay in place while he uses a chainsaw to sever it while blood- his blood, sprayed onto his face as he screams in agony.
“It got into my hand and went bad so I lopped it off.”
We then saw into the evil entity's point of view flying and dashing through the forest as it was going towards the same cabin and it broke down the back door, flashbacks shown the images of Scotty, Sherry, and Cheryl had been possessed; Cheryl was the first one to be possessed, locked in the fruit cellar of the cabin as she was banging under the chained up cellar door for most of the night. Sherry was then the next unfortunate victim of the Kandarian Demon when she was attacked in her room and eventually Scotty was too the next one to go as he was severely injured when he tried to find an alternate route back to the outside and he was eventually resurrected into a Deadite.
“It then got to my friends, twisting them, changing them, they made them… less than human. And Linda, she…”
We are then presented to one more flashback of Linda in her night gown as an unseen force breaks through the glass while she screams and then presented to the now Deadite Linda being decapitated by Ash with a shovel and her head flew upward and back down to him in a struggle.
“...And then soon, things escalated quickly after that.” he finished.
“Escalated quickly?” Primis Nikolai commented on Ash’s story, the way he looked at him now as the Russian suspects that this Necronomicon Ex-Mortis may have something to do with this and Ash Williams may somewhat be involved with it.
“A lot of sh!t, I was the only one that managed to escape and now all because of a screwup I’ve made; read from that book, one lousy time, evil has found not only me but all of you somehow. and I am now, as I was thinking, responsible for all of this.” Ash somewhat confessed with his hands raised and then fell down onto his sides, everyone looked at him as silence remained until U!Dempsey said “Huh, funny that you were the reason why we are here in the first place.” as he gave him the stink eye while Ash then remarks “You don’t think to catch a rabbit once it’s on the wrong foot, do you?”
“Okay, that’s it; I’m shooting him.” before he got out a pistol and then aimed it at Ash who got his “Boomstick” out and the only one that prevented this was the Engineer who stood between them and said “Hold on, let’s not make it worse, boys.” with his hands raised in a gesture of calming the situation or an attempt to calm it down.
“There’s gonna be other theories, if what Ash says about the Necronomicon story didn't have anything to do with this then what we are dealing with is worse than zombies and Deadites.” Shaw had to explain as he stood up from his place towards the standoff between El Jefe and the marine.
“Examples?” Corporal asked as he still was looking at Ash, “Stanton may have a point.” Primis Richtofen added with must, “Apothicons are the second one to be on the list, as of now the Book of The Dead is top of it but now with other theories that anyone want to share?”
David Tapp then spoke up with raw rash, “Jigsaw may be behind this zombie outbreak but now when I think about it, I don’t think that kidnapping people through interdimensional means was a way for him to act out his games on.”
More and more theories are coming up more in people's minds as Ash and Tank had to lower their weapons to listen.
“A part of us believed that the Order was somewhat behind all of this,” Diego finally spoke up before two of his teammates could, “If this was their plan the entire time, then we must surely do something about it.”
“Maybe Saxon’s mistake,” Medic suggested, “He might have caused a universal rift in our universe to yours.”
“Stop, stop, stop!” Miss Pauling interjected, “It could be Gray Mann, he is the only one that is advanced with machinery and technology, maybe he could be responsible for all of this.”
“But it doesn't explains how those creepy-looking f*@#ers that brought us here, ones with jack-o-lantern faces.” U!Dempsey had poked a hole into these conspiracies'.
“Still,” Bill finally spoke after they all talked, “Last thing I remembered was turning on the generator to help my teammates to get away from zombies and then getting the wind out of me before things turned back.”
David Tapp, up until now, looked at Bill with concern and said with hasite “Did you think that you’d died?”
“I think so, Detective.” Bill Overbeck had confirmed and then the store went still, silent, “I think I had died too but how are we even alive?” David said as he placed a hand on his forehead as if he was pressing against a headache.
“How the hell are you even here, breathing, not undead?” U!Dempsey asked, adding further questions but Primis NIkolai already figured out how, “You were both resurrected. By something.”
“Resurrected?” They both said, not believing the Russian but before he could say anything, a knock was heard and he honestly had no idea who got out a shotgun as a bang was heard and split the wooden door and a yell was heard.
“Engie!” Ash yelled to whoever saw him with the Frontier Justice, “Sorry, Ah panicked!”
“Stand down!” A familiar voice was heard from the back of the door, their ears perked up as P!Richtofen questioned “Takeo?”
As if it was automatic, Pyro had gotten a flamethrower and then walked over to the door as P!Nikolai tried to stop them but Spy stopped him. “Don't recall what happened in the Wonderland Plaza.”
Nikolai looked at him for a moment and said “Do you think Mercer had found us?”
“Oui., I believe so, if I am wrong, it could be Takeo.”
Pyro slowly grabbed the handle and then slowly pulled it open and pointed at whoever it was on the other side of the door with the weapon. On the other side was Frank West who had his hands up and beside him was Ultimis Takeo who tried to ushered to the pyromaniac but then realized two reasons: his encounter with the shapeshifter with biomass and his allies may had relayed this to the rest of the group.
“Pyro, lower the flamethrower, we are not like him.” he reasoned as Pyro looked at U!Takeo with suspicion, he carefully walked over to the Pyro as slowly as possible. When he got close only for Pyro to see more than Frank, and then rolled his sleeve a bit for the same vine to present a flower for them as proof.
It was good enough for Pyro but not for Frank West yet the Samurai were able to have their back turn and they talked quietly as the photojournalist watched rather dismayed with tribulation.
“He?”
“Hai.”
“But what if he’s?”
“He’s not Mercer, if he’s him, he could’ve consume me rhen he had the chance but he didn’t on rhe rhole way here.”
“He’s not him?”
“Iie, his name is Frank West-san, not Alex Mercer.”
Frank examined the private conversion between the two with loathsome pause while these two whispered to each other with no end it seems, Pyro seemed to be in two minds on the dilemma until the delay that took 5 minutes they finally turned to Frank West, saying nothing but Pyro moved and lets Takeo in, he turned and looked at Frank before saying “Are you coming?”
Frank was a startled at first as he was be bit suspicious of this before he cautiously walked into the hardware store, so far on his first day; he had countered a mad man known to him as a Psycho in form of a gun shop owner when he was out trying to find more unlucky survivors in the zombie after he helped Brad to try take down a terrorist reasonable for this.
He was thinking that these people could have something to do with this outbreak as well when he entered the store and there were people inside, he recognized them right away as they were with the other townspeople before the barricade was broken in but there are two old-aged men who are unfamiliar.
“Well, hello there, stranger.” Diego was the first one to greet him, “Hey, you must be the ones from the Entrance Plaza, I guess they did get away rather all.”
“And you are?” Ash asked as he crossed his arms while he looked at him. “I’m Frank West,” Frank introduced himself, “Right now I rather want to know than exchanging pleasantly.”
“Right on the spot,” Bill said as he stood up, “Are you writing a story about this?”
“I’m a photojournalist, just listen, your friend has led me here, I guess to convince all of you to come with me.”
“To where?” U!Dempsey said with suspicion, “As I recall nothing in this mall is safe.”
“There is,” Frank rebuked, “An security room was wielded shut so none of these walking corpses could get in.”
“Welded shut?” Scarlett perked up, that caught their attention so the Engineer urged “Is it true?”
“A Janitor, Otis, had wielded it shut with a blowtorch to make sure none of them would get in, that would be the only place left that could be safe.” He explained to the group who were interested in this conversion.
Miss Pauling looked at him before pulling Primis Richtofen, and Scarlett away, “Guys, a word please?” and they were on the other side of the store right away. “What do you zhink, Frank vas telling zhe truth or…?”
“If he was lying, he couldn’t spill it out. There’s hardly a window there and…”
“If the door was wielded shut from the inside, how did he manage to get out of the room?” Scarlett had to inject the two, “And I want to know how.”
“Still, better than being here with the dead.” Miss Pauling as she and P!Richtofen looked at her with treaty, “If ve follow him, he could-”
“He had said rhe “helicopter” ras coming,” another voice joins in the meeting of theirs, they looked and saw him, Takeo who was watching them with arms crossed across his chest.
“Vhat/what?” the three said at once.
Ultimis Takeo walks over to them, stopping once he got close enough to them, “He had spoken of his “ride ``coming rithin three days. Rhis is how he had planned; find the story to make sure it will be worth for these three days.”
“Why can’t it be three hours?” Miss Pauling thought with hefty impatience, they were silent for a moment and soon, Richtofen said “Is his escape route reliable?”
The warrior nodded, “Hai, story was the reason he is here.”
The three looked at each other with the thoughts, possibly thinking it over about it but you could ask why couldn’t Primis Richtofen use the Summoning Key?
Well, he had tried earlier but for a shocking reason, Key didn’t open up the portal like before. He had tried and tried but it failed each one time.
Primis Nikolai had berated him on this but it wasn’t honestly his fault, the key wasn’t working and something was very wrong.
This seemed to be the only option for them now, much as he doesn’t like it but he had to agree to the deal. “Alright.”
“Okay.”
“Sure.”
U!Takeo looked content with their decision, but not before Richtofen stated “But if ve all had to vait for three days for it to arrive, ve'd need supplies.”
“Brad’s gonna handle that.” Frank had came around the corner where the four were, “Frank, you see-”
“I kinda heard the whole thing, Tak,” Frank had confessed, no joke, he had listened to what he said, U!Takeo felt a bit bad for what he had overheard and looked at him to say something but Frank continued “I'm gonna check if everyone could fit inside the helicopter, afterall, my guy is reliable.”
“Well, Brad is going to need help with supplies.” Scarlett suggested, “Where is here now?”
“Well…”
12:14
Two hours it took for a few of them to get in the security room with much supplies they needed but of course, they had to share them with the survivors Frank had rescued for the three days as Tank had tied his jacket around his waist as he had a black tank top with his dog tags is standing guard of the vent, making sure that there won’t be any shambling zombies won’t get inside the room through the vents.
Brad had got back with more supplies as Tank was pressing his back against the wall close to the door to the monitor room, Brad looked and then said “Yo guys! Gimme a hand here!’
Dempsey and Frank walked over to Brad who had the supplies in a box that was sitting inside the air duct, Frank grabbed a cola from it but Brad gently grabbed him by the arm and made the photojournalist look at him.
“Wh-what gives?”
Brad grabs the soda and pulls it away from him, “Considering the helicopter, bringing more hands here and all, we have to work together.” Brad said as Ultimis Dempsey nodded and added “But that doesn’t mean that we all tell you anything of what was going on.”
“The corporal had the point; things are classified for security reasons and things that, if we do tell you, cannot be printed as necessities.”
“Yeah?” Frank sledded with his arms crossed, “So?”
“So, we just want you to appreciate the situation.” Brad answered as he and Tank looked at him, Frank looked up at the ceiling and said “Well, we are all trapped in a mall with a bunch of zombies.” before looking at them again “Yeah, I think I appreciate the situation just fine.”
“Zombies….” The Afican man looked down at the floor before looked back to Frank, “I still can’t believe all of this is happening, you know, it seems unreal.”
“But this is reality, we know how to take them out.” Tank blissfully thinks as Brad gives the cola back to Frank West and carries the box to the monitor room as the marine goes with him.
“Ya alright there?”
“Yeah, we got it.” Dempsey answered as he opened the door to let Brad and himself in while Frank opened his drink and sipped it down.
Dempsey went into the hallway as where the rest of the group was, Shaw was making another batch of Acid Bombs with Ash looking over at his work before looking over at the old man and greeted with “Making new friends, already?”
“Hahaha, go f*** yourself, Ash.” mocked Dempsey with a sneer as he walked to P!Richtofen with Scarlett and Pauling on what they will be doing once the rescue arrives. Tapping him on the shoulder, making him jump a little but realized that it’s Dempsey.
“It was a tiring day, too bad that the stuff we could use is back at the hardware store.”
“Ve could always come back to it vhen ve go out of zhe room vhen ve still can but on limit of three days,” P!Richtofen recounted with the 1940’s marine, “Ve sleep for about 4 hours per night to switch shifts, ve vill figure out more by morning.” he then turned to walk over to his own living place with little supplies he had carried with him as U!Takeo nodded in agreement.
4:56
Four hours passed with David Tapp, P!Nikolai and Richtofen and Engineer kept awake, ready for action while others slept. U!Dempsey was up to get ready for watch as he cracked his knuckles as Miss Pauling was up as well with her legs against her chest, looking down.
“Your turn was up, German.” It was Primis Nikolai who looked over and said this to Richtofen to rest, with a nod as he got and then walked away so Ultimis Dempsey could take watch. He looked back and saw David Tapp doesn’t let anyone have a turn, just kept watching that lead having five of them, one being the Pyro, sat with them.
“He must’ve been determined.” he thought as he walked over to his sleeping quarters, gently sitting down on the floor and sat down with ease next to Bill. The old man looked at him and said “Did you figure out what the hell was going on?”
P!Richtofne looked at William with confusion at first, “Hmm?”
“The whole “Interdimensional Time travel” bullsh!t?”
“I do not know yet, William.”
“Not even the parts on how me and Tapp are still alive?”
“I do not know about zhat either, if I do know, I vould.” P!Richtofen replied with skepticism. Bill looked at him with his arms crossed, he had been through hell and back in a form of war through Vietnam and Green Flu zombies with his teammates whom he will now consider them as friends and he hoped they are still alright right now after… What he must do to ensure their safety.
“Doc,” Overbeck insisted, “I am not that stupid, if this… Whatever is happening, did those “App-o-con” creatures have something to do with this?”
“I believe so, William-”
“Just call me “Bill,” Ed.”
“Bill,” The Doctor corrected himself, “As much as I vould love tell you everything about vhat had been going on und vhy zhis is happening in zhe vhy is has been, I couldn’t find zhe words for that. Time travel und all zhat had happened, vhy zhe dead vas resurrected but as a normal person, not a zombie is beyond my level of reasons.”
Bill seemed to get that but then said “Maybe it was out of no reason whatsoever or just brought me and David back to live on purpose, a bullsh!t purpose.” before turning over to Richtofen before he lays down.
“Besides, I didn’t sign up to be in this hellhole but I’m here anyway.” before closing his eyes and then starts trying to close his eyes to sleep.
Primis Richtofen looked down at the floor as he wondered back at what had happened at the hardware store. “But it doesn't explains how those creepy-looking f*@#ers that brought us here, ones with jack-o-lantern faces.” U!Dempsey had poked a hole into these conspirities.
Frustration, irritation and condemned in this dimension, he groaned in fervid and furious at this sudden change to his plans to save the universe as something had not only brought him and his fri- Allies to do god-knows-what, but everyone else getting involved in this agenda as well. He fully believed that Dr. Monty would do something about this but…. A thought came to him, it should’ve been sooner but his mind had heaved it from it too late; Why wasn’t Dr. Monty doing anything right now? Putting a stop to this?
Edward was amazed yet uncertain by it. If Dr. Monty knew what was holding him and his team up and figured it out, he could do something to cut this situation short, get everyone home and resume what they were doing but why wasn’t he?
Maybe, just maybe, something must’ve figured out that Dr. Monty could try but must’ve shuttled him out from this strange modern dimension as a precautionary measure if he did find out what was going on. Or maybe it had found him, Dr. Maxis, Samantha and-
“Nein, Edward, do not overzhink it…” he swallowed those thoughts before they could get more avid. Shaking his head at this as he closed his eyes to let out a sigh.
“Hopefully soon, ve could be able to get back vith zhe rest of our groups und figure what is going on yet most critically: vho vas behind it all.” he whispered to himself as he laid down at last.
Using a handbag filled with clothes from the store as a makeshift pillow for his displeasure yet usual slumber, it took him a jiffy for him to find comfort on the floor until he eventually found it and fell off into a slumber….
6 notes · View notes
Text
Various Typical Official STRATEGC-MARKETS PREDEVELOPMENTS __**ALTHOUGH: “NETWORKING OF MARKETING SYLLABUS_EXCH”, 2021
 This is NETWORKING PSYCHOLOGY GRUESOME_ATTACK
 I am Beautifully attecking your typical POWERED’ UPCOMING KNOWLEDGE PRAYING DELIBERATIONS PLAYABLE && YIELDABLE EXCHANGE Fatalities but single period of time. My names are quotationally well-known as well as wellrembered HOWEVER ALTHOUGH WITHOUT Enforcing such unnecessary agreement compossability …….for we are infusing maybe Confrontation by now differentially of BUSINESS OWNERS REGARDING “SUPPLEMENTED_DROPWORKS Things and Smaller ideas’ rudimentary PSYCHOLOGIC__PRODUCTS” Because eversince those are supposedly literaly Another termed perceivability’s mentality’s piecework peerages terminological FIXER, we can need or require.
 Therefore Undoubtedly underneath NETWORK—MARKETING SYMMETRIC QUOTIDIAN SYMBOLS, We couls very often be discovering many disturbing Products descending from varous__fewest__ jargonisation __REMOVABLE__Language efforts as you witness myself having DONE EXACTITUDE Aforementioned.
I had been “Certain SOME OTHER NEWBIE SOMEBODY from SOUTH AFRICA COUNTRY” But still I beloedly hectically plus awkwardly plus magnificently HONOURED INTERLINKAGES SOURCES __....ME & MYSELF Needing requiring that I Disclose their EXTREME PSYCHOLOGICAL RUNNINGS ENSOURCEMENTS’ PARTS ACQUIREMENTS, as why Probably I SPEAK this period time about “SUPPLEMENTED_DROPWORKS Things and Smaller ideas’ rudimentary PSYCHOLOGIC__PRODUCTS”. Even without NNMMPP (**network marketing systems ROUNDABOUT NAMINGS FOR PSYCHOLOGY) they are 80m Percent which go perpetuations uprisings BUT WITHOUT ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS DEPTHS RESOLVED-OBSCURITY Background’s Scourings Demands Installations for effortlessness consumability you are CLINICALISINF TO WANT FRANKLY THEREUPON.
Do you believe myself //>.me arriving BACKWARD OR BACK expounding those ENTERPRISE Vaccuums some little numbers of LIBERTY REMAINING VOLUNTEERING CUMBERSOMENESS Days, but yes I must be composing those across “Retuning Advertisements” from me automatically.
https://r.honeygain.me/THEDA87090
Dashboard
1.     I would get TECHNICALLY_PREPARED SUFFICIENT ENOUGH Preparing somehow that of how Expounding GATES are still remembering to recognise ADVERTISEMENT’S VACUUMM EXPOSURE across My beloved instrumentation of PRODUCT caLLED honeygain memberships.
Myself is upon doing plus exponentiating SYLLABUS SYMMETRICNESS into rebuilding and promoting && safeguarding && PREAllocating nevertheless VEHICLES OR VESSELS FOR POORER SALESMANSHIPS VOLUNTARY-DELIBERATED’ RUNNERS OF Littleness enjoyment “from our CORRIDOR Kitchens floors crossovers belovedness RANGES DAYPASSINGS Footbakings and Footcoolings because I have been offered POTENTIAL _PORTENDING __THOROUGHFARE to be popularity holder volunteer at maybe HONEYGAIN INSTRUMENTATION, But although promissory myslef concerning ‘UPCOMING ADVERTS FUTURE DENSITY Remorses and expoundings”.
2.         
https://www.webtalk.co/beebuomavebwilfred.themba
beebuomavebwilfred.themba
PROFILE PAGE SETTINGS
 With this additional supplementary advertisement BEEBUOMAVE B. Wilfred THEMBA IS ATTEMPTING TO Let us both together keep always remembering HONEST ANGLES throughout HONEST ANGLES throughout HONEST ANGLES  __>>…..eversince he authoritatively is PASSIONATE WELFARE RUNNINGS BAPTISIZZER SOMEBODY WHENEVER Arrivals are beautifully spewed or spewwed according to beautifully reminiscing “<< WEBTALK .Com>>” as is “TOTALLY ALWAYS DRAMMATICALLY Very important enough” how HIGHEST ROUTES MAXILEVELLINGS become known plus precollected by bombardment. As you CAN JUST STUPIDLY UPJOIN abovementioned one surplus, you are eating the Berries BUCKETS YOU WERE HUNGRIEST FOR, they are called IT’S ONLINES INTERNET YIELDINGS PROCEEDINGS PLAYER (  precollected by bombardment ))^^. You must preKnow ALL EFFORTS MECHANISMS Eversince never all human _Beings must try outwalrdly OR ELSE inwardly Any Boundary called this EARNEST SINCERE EXCLUSIVITY BENDER OF INDUSTRY.
 3.    Beebuomave B. WILFRED Themba
(a.)            
http://freebotsystemlaunch.com/Prelaunch/?R=41919941&F=Beebuomave+B
(b.)         IT’S ONLINES INTERNET YIELDINGS PROCEEDINGS PLAYER (  precollected by bombardment
 What was yor own Remote International Global BIRTHRIGHTS ANATOMIC BIOLOGICAL NAMES And Surnames?? Are you HONOURABLY GORMANDING SOME MALTS AND MALTS AND Nutriution Breakfast and Afternoon’s PORRIDGE OF GROWTH BIOS?? Do you finally know TELEVISION AND CONFERENCING COMPANIONSHIPS CLUBBINGS At any yielded Internet /…… although I am inquiring are you knowing eventually abovementioned << typical movements kinds appertaining into FREEBOTSYSTEMLAUNCH??
 Many STRONGEST NEWFANGLED_QUALITY__PERIODS **Times But THEMBA BBW Myself strategizing myself I am HARDLY SUPPOSED AT CEMENTING TO CULTIVATE YouTube Contents Powers Components’s NETWORKABLE SALESMANSHIP instead of me robustfully undertaking These ABOVE Examples and trials commandments many quotidian unforgettable FUNCTIONARIES ACQUIRED BIOLOGICAL FRANKIEST Numbered Days belonging from me towards you people. It takes FURTHER _OVERDELAYING__TASKS to scour whether youTube Things SALEMANSHIP is “TOTALLY Suitable” in particularity of my Syllabus Orientations ALONE WITHOUT Peoples other remote Infusions never assimmilable through my privatised Scope Warranty. I am CLEVERLY postponing them without hating to merchandise them by JEALOUSIES RUNNINGS CORRIDORS OF MY Handlings and Chances for you companionship’s Platoons & INDIVIDUALS.
There is a BOOK _PUBLICATION STUDIOUS MIDDLEPOINT Educational Ordinary SOCIETY NEIGHBOURHOOD_BOOKS ELEMENTATION PROJECTIONALS underneath which I was seen embarking to be preconstructing : “BACHELORDYNAMICS JKKC Book this “Internet Strongholds Ways Approaches” of course although I am PSYCHOMETRICALLY Begged that we are applicating e_-mails addresses PRECommunications that utilised me and people OF SUBMARKETS SALESMANSHIP to preCommunicate pertaining to “ZEROINGS LEGALISSATIONS IMMACULACY SAFETY FOR PURCHASINGS exchanges & exchanges”.!!!
This Renders the Bachelordynamics BOOK END-PRODUCTS to beckon gradually measuring itself like as “The P**O***D.’, in the jargon and jargonization of BOOKISHNESS GLOBALITY INDUSTRY SO FOR ABOUT TECHNICAL PURPOSES How instead “……..BACHELORDYNAMICS End-Product Writings become remade && regainnable underneath BETTER SALES CONTRACTUAL Modest waywardness Pricing Height ___surpassing PRICING Height created longest years ago by AMAZON. Com CORPORATE CONTROLLING BUREAU to Price Findings”.
They did ## An AmAZON PRICER WEIGHT ^^$$ 34, 50 themselves without My IMMACULATE PRESCRPTIVENESS Permission. Of course, I am speaking about REMORSES ABOUT PRICES WAYS at where I am Rejuvenating and RE-controlling nevertheless << ~~~~~~ ::/ …..??    ??
         BACHELORDYNAMICS J K K C Lyceum (Perifier ) Orthodox
                   https://www.amazon.com/dp/BO14RDZTXS/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_awdo_x0H4Eb767FJ25  
ASIN Ranges Alone PRECONSUMPTIONS ALONE CIRCULATIONS IF Separately__WANTED Somehow:
B014RDZTXS
OR FRANKLY ADDDITIONAL SAY ABOUT Trying inwardly, https://www.amazon.com/dp/ B014RDZTXS  
With this additional supplementary advertisement BEEBUOMAVE B. Wilfred THEMBA IS ATTEMPTING TO Let us both together ………
Dashboard I am Beautifully attecking your typical POWERED’ UPCOMING KNOWLEDGE PRAYING DELIBERATIONS PLAYABLE && YIELDABLE EXCHANGE Fatalities bUt single period of time.  Of course by Auspices of GLOBAL General Manager called or looking like FRANCIS Kwadjo, a somebody’s paramunt Dangerousness Infiltrations SPECIALISTICS SOMETIMES_UNDEDICATED MAN of the Internet Manhood Syllabus common psychologies approvements’ Yielded PLAYABLE—PLAYABILITY Purest products questionable too as well.
For more information and to apply: http://www.convergys.com/company/careers/work-at-home/
To join the Convergys Home Team, you will need the following:
·   A home office environment that is quiet and free from distraction
·   A PC that meets the requirements of the Home Agent platform. You can test your PC during the on-line application process).
·   PC must have a vendor manufactured date less than six years in age as some older models are not compatible with our secure environment (Example: If today’s date is 1/1/2012, the PC manufacture date should be no older than 1/1/2006)
·   High speed Internet access (DSL or Cable only)
·   An Internet Service Provider that Supplies 2 or more IP addresses OR an Internet Service Provider that supplies 1 IP address and is connected to a router.
·   Employees working as Remote Agents are required to have and maintain one (1) dedicated internet connection. Popular gaming systems, Smartphones, and any portable device that may use wireless connections within the home must be turned off prior to and during scheduled shift hours.
·   A USB headset with a built-in digital signal processor
·   A telephone* with a mute button to be utilized during training, team meetings, and individual coaching and technical support sessions.
·   Power Bar/Surge Protector that is UL 1449 Recognized – This will assist in protecting equipment plugged into the power bar, in the event of an electrical storm or power surge
PC Specifications:
You can test your current PC configuration for the following requirements through our site when you start your application:
·         3.0 GHZ Processor (minimum of a Pentium 4 processor or equivalent processor running at a clock speed of 3.0 GHZ)
·         PC must have a vendor manufactured date less than six years in age as some older models are not compatible with our secure environment (Example: If today’s date is 1/1/2012, the PC manufacture date should be no older than 1/1/2006)
·         2 GB of RAM for Windows XP, Vista users* or Windows 7 users
·         12 GB of Available Hard drive space
Additional equipment requirements include:
·         Monitor - 17" minimum (capable of 1280 x 1024), Flat Panel Display highly recommended
·         USB Headset with noise cancellation.
·         SanDisk Cruzer 8GM USB Flash Drive
·         No Wireless Devices, i.e. headset, keyboard, mouse
·         Telephone with a mute button available during all scheduled work hours to be used during training, team meetings and feedback sessions (All monthly telephone and internet charges are the responsibility of the employee and are not reimbursed by Convergys.)
·         Wired router - such as those sold under the brand names Belkin, Linksys, Netgear and D-Link
·         At least two available USB ports with unnecessary peripherals removed while working to free up the ports(cameras, printers, game controllers etc)
Computer Software requirements include:
·         One of the following Windows Operating Systems
·         - Windows XP 32-bit OS - Windows Vista 32-bit OS - Windows 7 32-bit or 64-bit OS
·         Current anti-virus / spyware software updated and installed at all times. Convergys recommends for support purposes one of the following:
·         - Microsoft Security Essentials (free) - Norton - McAfee - Symantec
·         A full anti-virus system scan completed within the last 30 days
·         If hired, a full anti-virus system scan is required EVERY 30 days to maintain security
·         Internet Explorer 6.0 SP2 or better
·         Minimum Windows Media Player 9.0*
·         Adobe Flash player plug-in version 9.0 or above installed*
·         Minimum Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0*
*You can get the latest versions of Adobe Flash player and Adobe Acrobat Reader FREE at the Adobe site www.adobe.com. You can also get the latest version of Windows Media Player for FREE from www.microsoft.com. PLEASE NOTE: You must apply from the same PC/system from which you plan to work if hired as a Convergys Home Agent. During the application process, your PC will be validated to ensure that it meets the minimum system requirements.
1 note · View note
szopenhauer · 4 years ago
Text
where were you 2 hours ago? in the local store do you kiss a lot of people? I kissed only one person in my entire life
are you wearing socks right now? ... no
have you bought any clothing items in the last week? yes
one thing you hate about yourself? my chronic illnesses mostly
what do you know about the future? we will all die, sooner or later
do you have a tan? slightly, on my arms
what day is tomorrow? Sunday 
are you dating someone? yes
why? because of many reasons
using your current first initial choose a different name for yourself. Zefiryna  or Zyta if polish what piece of furniture have you replaced the most? hmm... dunno, I’m not rich enough to replace my furniture
what do you think is the most over-rated candy ever? candies are overrated in general what is broken that you have, that you wish was fixed? my body  line from the last thing you wrote to someone? jak uważasz
Have you ever wondered what you look like when you’re sleeping? yeah ^^” Do you put your friends or family first? my parents and my S.O. Do you have bad allergies? ugh... Are your parents proud of you? there’s nothing to be proud of Would you ever be your school’s mascot who wears that costume? I could Is/was your school full of fakes? obvi What age did you start staying home alone? I’m not sure tbh but late
Would you rather see the Great Wall of China or Big Ben? Big Ben because I’d prefer to visit England and not China Ice Ice Baby or U Can’t Touch This? both XD
Can you do a handstand? used to Do you own any shirts that are yellow? several What’s a brand of shoe you like, but wouldn’t buy a pair? creepers for example Would you like to live in a cottage home? yup but I won’t
Are you comfortable with your height? wish I was a bit taller Last text received?
Tumblr media
Are you afraid of heights? not really
Were you happy when you woke up today? I was glad I could sleep almost 10 hours Have you ever laughed so hard you cried? few times hahaha Do you curse in front of your parents? oh well ^^” Are you slowly drifting away from someone close? ... What are you listening to right now? iamamiwhoami  How is the weather right now? warm Have you ever been caught doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing? I don’t recall Do you use chapstick? ewww, gross How long do you think you will live? not much longer How’s your life going lately? no comment Have you ever had to get your blood drawn? countless times What is the most important thing to you? health that I don’t have Who was the last person you high fived? someone close to me Who hugged you last? parent Why do you feel the way you feel? where should I start... When was the last time you went shopping? this day as I already mentioned Are you liking how you look today? it’s ok Do you hate when they give a lot of tv commercials? especially when they repeat  Are you a very stressed out person? that I am 
Do you hate when people stare at you for no reason? awkward Which color is better? Red, Blue, Green, Black, or Yellow? definitely not red and blue *said a person who is wearing this today:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
*I also hate pink, you will never understand me  Are you good at hiding your feelings? can be but what for Is anyone annoying you right now? not rn Did you cry today? not so far When was the last time you had a sleepover? years ago Do you like taking pictures? kinda Don’t you hate that when it’s freezing cold outside your eyes get teary? that’s awful
Have you ever trespassed? it wasn’t a big deal Do you tell your parents where you are going? basics at least Can you give a good back massage? been told 
Did you ever mix up the words “message” & “massage”? possibly Are there any other words you get mixed up? there are  Do you think women should hold open doors for men, too? why not, it’s nice to be helpful Do you raise your hand or participate in class? umm... I had my moments Would you ever spend the night in a treehouse? doubt it? What do you think of people who own wild animals? hard to tell If a book was written about your life, what would be in the summary? no idea  Are you good at explaining things, in general? I try my best to be straightforward and turn out being misunderstood If your friend had a drug-problem would you abandon them? I might, sorry Has a friendship ever ended over similar reasons? I wasn’t in a situation like this before Do you like window shopping?  fun Do you mind lending money to your friends? I’m poor What, to you, is the best part of traveling? souvenirs Do you like to try new things? very rarely Does it bother you if someone talks bad about you? gossips/lies bother me
What time of day feels the most magical to you? sunrise and evening/night? Does your head hurt right now? bardziej mi się kręci w głowie po prostu Is your hair wet right now? dry Have you ever dreamt of being a famous athlete? I had a night dream about being an athlete ore than once but I dislike sports  Do you have a rich friend that you’re jealous of? whoops you got me Are you interested in a girl who has a girlfriend? that girlfriend is me muahahaha Do most of the guys who like you annoy you? omg truth (I’m a lesbian though) but majority of society annoys me (especially men) so... What musical do you think you could play the lead in? Cats if I had talent What medical conditions do you have? what medical condition I don’t have... Do you wear leggings often? everyday Are you responsible in general? I avoid responsibilities  Would you consider yourself mature? not enough, I’m childish  Can you reach your ceiling? me?... Do you have a reading nook? I’m a librocubicularist Who is the cutest baby you know? babies ain’t cute  *weird fact - I think those with Down syndrome are prettier - is that offensive?
Tumblr media Tumblr media
What makes you nauseous? I constantly feel nauseous
Someone walks into your room, what do they notice first the amount of plushies
When you have sex, do you keep your eyes closed or open when finishing I tried to keep them closed, I’m embarassed If I stepped into your shower, what is the first item I would notice who knows
How many times a day do you think you sneeze it’s not a daily thing to me Your phone rings but you don’t know the number, would you answer it if I wait for a call like from hospital etc. How many cars have you actually owned 0 Do you always take a shower after you have sex no When you wash your hair in the shower to you face the faucet or away:. face Would you let the girl pay on the first date if she really wanted to split or else I just feel ashamed Have you ever had a friend who preferred the same sex I’m that friend ha! What was the name of the last alcohol you consumed that got you trashed not applicable Do you let your girlfriend drive, or do you prefer to we don’t drive The last time you had sex was it in the morning, afternoon or night afternoon
Are you afraid of stink bugs? they’re harmless :o Do you have a printer? but we don’t use it What is the closest thing to you that’s yellow? pencil  Does anyone own any embarrassing pictures of you? I’m ugly on all photos... Do you care what others say about you? who and what? Are you into anime? blergh Name one movie that has made you cry more than once. ex. Five feet apart When is your father’s birthday? Mother’s? next year *my father is a Pisces and my mother is an Aquarius like me  no more info for ya! Are you a sarcastic person? very Do you overthink things? 24/7, every single detail, even from ages ago Are you naturally paranoid? would say so
What was the last song you listened to? Lola Marsch - Echoes
Which is more important in your life, TV or Internet? internet, I don’t watch TV and I’d even choose net over movies if I had to Do you overuse smileys? gifs :P When was the last time you ate something? an hour ago *but I fill out this survey for couple of hours  Have you seen all of the Jaws movies? I haven’t seen any of ‘em Do you know what Entomophobia is? had to google it When was the last time you played cards? (not on the computer) months ago Ever owned a pair of the original Nikes? (white, with only a single swoosh) not my type of shoes Ever worn leg warmers? yes, I still have several pairs  When was the last time you read a book over 700 pages long? never, I only written over 700 pages Have you ever had a black eye? nope, just bags under my eyes
How do you mark through your word search puzzles? I cross them with my pen Do you hate people who ask a lot of questions? I enjoy questions but... Have you ever seen a roll of bluish-green toilet paper? yep Can you name five ‘z’ words off the top of your head? besides my name? in english or polish? If a rooster laid an egg on the peak of a roof which side would it roll to? roosters don’t lay eggs
1 note · View note
ma9l · 5 years ago
Text
Annotated Bibliography: Instagram and Depression Sources
Frison, Eline, and Steven Eggermont. “Browsing, Posting, and Liking on Instagram: The Reciprocal Relationships Between Different Types of Instagram Use and Adolescents’ Depressed Mood.” CyberPsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, vol. 20, no. 10, Oct. 2017, pp. 603–609. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1089/cyber.2017.0156.
The authors in this article took the approach of doing a longitudinal study on 671 adolescents between the ages of 12 and 19. They decided to do this because they noticed that a cross-sectional longitudinal test had not yet been performed between mental health and Instagram use. The results confirmed that the more browsing one does on Instagram, the more depressed their mood is. On the flip side, they also found that the more depressed one is, the more likely they are to post on Instagram when they are depressed. It addressed both sides. Either Instagram can affect your mood, or your mood can affect how you behave on Instagram. This article was published in 2017 and the authors both have a PhD in this field of study which increases their credibility. Charts of data were provided to demonstrate how they measured and collected their results. The charts display information regarding the different times the participants were interacting in different ways on Instagram (posting, liking, or browsing) and jotted those activities down. In order to measure, they used a scaling system of numbers 1-7 where participants would rank how often they did one of the 3 activities with 1 being never and 7 being several times a day. Another chart shows the relationships between those activities with a depressed mood so we can see how they correlate. Something these authors took into account was they considered whether gender had anything to do with the likeliness of someone being depressed after spending time on Instagram, but the results for each sex were similar. To my understanding, there are multiple ways one can browse on Instagram whether it be by scrolling through your feed, viewing stories, watching Instagram TV/other videos, and visiting accounts of those you follow. Because there is such a variety in what you can do on the app, there must be a variety of emotions that users experience as they bounce from one activity to another. The article stated that browsing had the largest impact, but I am still curious as to how the others compare.
Hunt, Melissa G., et al. “No More FOMO: Limiting Social Media Decreases Loneliness and Depression.” Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, vol. 37, no. 10, Dec. 2018, pp. 751–768. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1521/jscp.2018.37.10.751.
This article can be found in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. Here, four authors work together on an experimental study to discover if social media plays a role in causing “worse well-being.” Rather than experimenting with only one platform, participants (from the University of Pennsylvania) were asked to limit the use of three: Instagram, Facebook, or Snapchat to ten minutes a day or they were assigned to just use them as they normally would for three consecutive weeks. This created a control group and a test group. Interestingly enough, after the three weeks were up, both groups resulted in being less anxious and having less FOMO (fear of missing out). The authors credit this to more persistent self-monitoring. However, the group who limited themselves proved to be less depressed and lonely than the controlled group who didn’t make any changes. The study is only about a year old having been performed in 2018, a lot of facts and numbers were included thanks to the authors’ research, a clear outline of the process, and a defined prospective timeline of events. The procedure involved a voluntary sign up, surveys scaling different categories, participants sending screenshots of their battery level at specific times which is affected by the amount of time they spend on certain applications, etc. It is very thorough and well thought out. Limitations and the possibility of manipulation were considered as well. This study focused on social media in general, yet each form of social media has unique characteristics that could potentially alter or skew results based on which specific applications were used at a particular time and for how long the user spent on a single platform. For example, Facebook has a lot more to see than Instagram does when it comes to scrolling. Facebook is endless, whereas Instagram displays a kind reminder saying “you are all caught up” once you get to where you left off. I feel like one could be tempted to waste more time on Facebook than Instagram and therefore be exposed to more negative factors and consume information that would affect them mentally. Then again, maybe it all comes down to the content provided. Either way, based on the findings of this study, the authors recommend limiting your social media use to 30 minutes a day to improve your well-being.
Hwnag, Ha Sung. "Why Social Comparison on Instagram Matters: Its impact on Depression." KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems, vol. 13, no. 3, 2019, p. 1626+. Gale OneFile: Computer Science, https://link-gale-com.ezproxy.uvu.edu/apps/doc/A586241540/CDB?u=utahvalley&sid=CDB&xid=c957fbb6. Accessed 26 Oct. 2019.
The study was officially published in March of this year (2019) by Hu Sung Hwang at KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems. Out of all of the articles, this one was the most applicable to me because the study focused on college students. 245 college students who used Instagram were surveyed on questions related to Instagram activities and their relation to social comparison. The article claims that there are three types of comparison: upward, downward, and horizontal that each contribute to our psychological well-being either positively or negatively and considers whether or not they contribute to depression. I wish she would have gone into more depth on what defines the three types of comparison because I didn’t quite understand that concept and how it tied back to the topic. Unlike the other sources a lot of background information on the topic was provided here which gives us a better idea of how educated the author is on the subject matter. It also makes up for the lack of charts or photographs as proof of experimentation having taken place. Another thing the author made sure to do was she broke it down and looked at individual aspects of the title of the piece, meaning she separately discussed instagram, social media, and depression and then combined them to understand how they are connected. This journal excerpt was long and well-developed. The areas measured include: Instagram use, activity, social comparison, depression, and demographics.  The final results produced are as follows: “Taken together, these findings indicate that the daily amount of time spent using Instagram and the frequency of Instagram use influence all types of social comparison. In addition, they also suggest that users who spend more time looking at other people's status updates or commenting on other people's photos are more likely to experience upward social comparison than other types of comparison.”
Lup, Katerina, et al. “Instagram #instasad?: Exploring Associations among Instagram Use, Depressive Symptoms, Negative Social Comparison, and Strangers Followed.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior And Social Networking, vol. 18, no. 5, May 2015, pp. 247–252. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1089/cyber.2014.0560.
Similar to the NBC article below, this study focused on Instagram as an outlet rather than an inlet. In a sense, this means the authors were considering how people use the platform to express themselves, particularly when they are sad. The authors predicted that the negative connotation of Instagram has risen due to social comparison and the number of strangers followed. The second contribution (strangers followed) hadn’t been addressed by any of the other articles yet, so that was a clever insight. They were able to reach the wide array of 18-29 year olds by hosting an online questionnaire for 117 individuals. By doing this, they were able to analyze both how frequently the participants used the app as well as the number of strangers they followed. To insure that the test was reliable, two different types of scales were incorporated: the Center for Epidemiological Resources Scale for Depression and the Social Comparison Rating Scale. This helped them measure and recognize patterns and relations: “Findings generally suggest that more frequent Instagram use has negative associations for people who follow more strangers, but positive associations for people who follow fewer strangers, with social comparison and depressive symptoms.” A question I have is what about having strangers as followers? A lot of accounts are public on purpose because they want strangers to follow them. Does that influence what people post? I wouldn’t be surprised if it did because these kinds of people are usually concerned about the numbers and getting people to follow them, which only happens when they post certain things. I would even go as far as saying they become fake. They post what their followers want to see as opposed to what they sincerely want to share. Why? They don’t even know these people? I would be curious to learn more on this matter. Anyway, in the title of this article, the hashtag #instasad is mentioned. I had a hard time deciding if that was a real hashtag that the study was based on or if it was created by the authors because it made sense with the topic. Either way, you can surely find the tag on Instagram and a decent selection of depressive posts linked to it. Because this study was performed in 2015, it is more out of date than the other sources I looked into, but it is important to view earlier stages of research to see how it’s grown and developed over the years. Having been released 4 years ago, it’s interesting to note that the same problems we experience today existed back then.
Mackson, Samantha B., et al. “Instagram: Friend or Foe? The Application’s  Association with Psychological Well-Being.” New Media & Society, vol. 21, no. 10, Oct. 2019, pp. 2160–2182. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/1461444819840021.
An obvious curiosity that was explored within the article: “Instagram: Friend or Foe?”, was that of the difference between those who use Instagram and those who don’t. The question in the title itself imposes that we ask ourselves how we personally view the platform. I don’t think most people would strictly say one or the other, I believe there is hesitation because so many of us have a love-hate relationship with Instagram, making it both a friend and a foe, just at different times. Now, depending on who is asked, people might wonder whether or not the impact the app has on it’s users is really all that significant compared to people who avoid it entirely. Is it worth avoiding? Or does it hardly do any damage? I feel like Instagram should be balanced between friend and foe, landing in the middle somewhere as more of an acquaintance than anything else. This way, it’s up to you to decide on the kind of relationship you want to have with it. If you want to get to know it better, you’ll spend more time with it, whereas if you have negative feelings toward it, you may want to distance yourself at times and take frequent breaks. Isn’t that how relationships with humans are defined? Along with this, some of the most common mental illnesses these days are depression and anxiety. They almost go hand-in-hand. This article addresses both as their negative connection with Instagram is brought into question. Results confirmed that those with the application ranked higher in experiencing symptoms of the illnesses than those without it. The reason they refer to the platform as a “friend or foe” is because it can be used for both good and bad. Yes, this article is up to date-very much so, in fact. It was put out on the 10th day of this exact month and year. In depth research on depression and anxiety were outlined near the beginning of the issue. This was smart and necessary because it provides readers with the opportunity to be more informed on the illnesses before drawing conclusions about it. In short, this article was a success because it clearly proved that “Instagram is associated with psychological well-being.”
Macmillan, Amanda. “Why Instagram Is the Worst Social Media for Mental Health.” TIME, 25 May, 2017, https://time.com/4793331/instagram-social-media-mental-health/. Accessed 21 Oct. 2019.
This TIME  article is slightly outdated because it was written in 2017, but that doesn’t mean the information within it is false; In fact, Instagram has been around for almost 10 years so it is actually more recent than it is old. I stated in my project proposal that through my research I wanted to see how Instagram compared to other social media platforms and this article addresses exactly that. “Out of five social networks included in the survey, YouTube received the highest marks for health and wellbeing and was the only site that received a net positive score by respondents. Twitter came in second, followed by Facebook and then Snapchat—with Instagram bringing up the rear.” This supports my topic and tells us that Instagram is the least beneficial for our well being, which reinforces the significance of researching this specific issue. The author was helpful as she compared the pros and cons (positive/negative effects) of social media rather than just focusing on one or the other. Not only does this article give us the facts, but it also suggests ways to change. Some of those ideas include: a “heavy usage” warning, a highlight for photos that have been edited or changed from their original state, and finally teaching it to students as part of their health education in school. I agree with these ideas and I’m excited to see the difference they will make after being implemented. I’m especially passionate about having it be taught in schools because children are the rising generation and humanity depends on them for creating a bright future. Not only that, but they are also the most common users of these platforms ranging from elementary to college aged students, thus are the ones most needing to be educated in safe usage. As we can see, action is fortunately already being taken, but the issue can’t be fixed overnight. I appreciate how it concluded by saying “We must be ready to nurture the innovation that the future holds.” Technology is a part of our day and it isn’t going away so we need to find ways to embrace it.
Miller, Caroline. “Does Social Media Cause Depression?” Child Mind Institute, https://childmind.org/article/is-social-media-use-causing-depression/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2019.
This article was written by a member of Child Mind Institute, a non-profit organization. Her name is Caroline Miller. The organization is dedicated to helping children and families with mental health issues and disorders. Although there is not an exact date listed, the website is current and still running because the copyright year is 2019. Outside educational sources have been linked throughout the write-up with raw facts and data to inform readers about the studies that have already been done as a reminder that people are actively engaged in resolving the conflicts with social media. Since the website revolves around mental health, some of the links take you to related subjects written by other members of the Child Mind Institute team that can deepen your understanding and widen your view of mental health. Miller has the perspective that Instagram doesn’t directly cause depression, but that the time spent on Instagram only correlates with the rise in depression. Several negative associations with social media besides depression, but those which still fall in the same realm, are listed in consecutive headings. For example, sleep deprivation, isolation, or less healthy activity are a few Miller dives into. A clinical psychologist for CSI says: “The less you are connected with human beings in a deep, empathic way, the less you’re really getting the benefits of a social interaction… The more superficial it is, the less likely it’s going to cause you to feel connected, which is something we all need.” I couldn’t agree more. Often, it’s easier to replace our social health with social media rather than going out with friends or attending events, but social media needn’t be a replacement. Instead, it should only be considered an additional way to connect with others. It’s a great tool to keep in touch with people-especially for those who live far away, but it isn’t a genuine way to develop and strengthen relationships. Thanks to the article, 6 tips for healthier social media use are layed out near the conclusion of the piece This shines a spotlight on us as it invites us to reflect on how we can improve our health as it relates to online activities. This is similar to the article by Pawlowski who also gives helpful advice on the matter.
Parnell, Bailey. “Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health?” YouTube, uploaded by TEDxTalks, 22 Jun. 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg_9C7gw0o.
Unlike the other sources I found, this one is in video format as a 2017 TED Talk. Bailey Parnell is the speaker. She’s an award winning digital marketer, public speaker, etc. In her talk, she, herself, started out by demonstrating a monologue of someone scrolling through Instagram and reacting to its content. It was funny, lighthearted, and relatable which is a fantastic way to introduce your subject and get your audience engaged. Parnell had previous data and statistics to show up on her PowerPoint slides, but she also did some primary research on the spot by surveying her listeners. She asked them questions and had them raise their hands. She was able to involve her audience, and see if her previous research aligned with the experiment she did in the moment. One example of this was when she asked if anyone noticed the notification alert in the upper corner of her slides. Several people had and admitted that it was driving them crazy. I am the same way because I am always checking my notifications to get them to disappear. It’s like a checklist where you have to mark the task off to say it’s been acknowledged and completed. Is this a demonstration of addiction or obsession? Something to think about.. Bailey used pathos through her tone of voice, but mainly towards the end of her speech as she had slides of kids who had committed suicide because of the bad experiences they had online. It got so bad for them that they gave up because they couldn’t handle it anymore. If that doesn’t encourage you to reevaluate your online interactions with others, I don’t know what does. The stance she took on the issue was that social media isn’t the issue, it’s the people who use it. We don’t have to be negatively impacted by it, but we allow ourselves to be by the way we engage with it. Like several other articles, tips were given on how to be safer online and Parnell also says not to get rid of it because it's not going anywhere, but to, instead, find ways to practice “safe social”.
Pawlowski, A. “Can Your Instagram Photos Reveal That You're Depressed?” NBC, https://www.nbcnews.com/better/health/can-your-instagram-photos-reveal-you-re-depressed-ncna794041. Accessed 22 Oct. 2019.
This news piece has a unique take on the depression/Instagram correlation concern. Instead of seeing the platform as an inlet where one is obtaining a bunch of information that can contribute to their mental state, it views it from the opposite side of the spectrum in saying Instagram can also be used as an outlet for your emotions and reveal whether someone is depressed to their followers based on certain characteristics like the color scheme they use in their photographs. The colors blue, white, gray, or black seem to be more commonly associated with depressed individuals due to their dull, melancholy appearance, but not always. It’s important not to assume that everyone who uses that color scheme is depressed, but is still a trend amongst persons with depression. The article is rhetorical and uses a great deal of pathos in its tone as it appeals to emotion. It does this by giving a real life example of a woman who filled her account with pictures that portrayed how she was feeling which was, in fact, depressed. It also discusses how a computer program was designed to review these photos and identify whether someone was depressed. It is still in the works, but could be useful in the future for assisting those who aren’t receiving proper help with their condition. I was curious before starting my research on this issue about how involved parents are with their children’s social media use and under a heading titled “If you’re a parent worried about your child’s Instagram images…” it advises them to check in with their kids in a constructive way. If I were a parent, I would be following my kids on all the platforms and addressing them in person if I noticed anything concerning because they probably aren’t going to approach me voluntarily. I think it’s safe to say that most parents want to have a strong and trustworthy relationship with their children so they feel safe enough to talk to them when they aren’t feeling like themselves, but unfortunately this isn’t always the case. That is where social media becomes a tool for parents. The article concludes with a paragraph on self-reflection and self-analyzation which encourages you, if you’re feeling down or different, to look at your own photos to see if any of them confirm depressiveness. This applies to everyone whether you’re the one who is depressed or someone you know. It can either persuade you to reach out for assistance, or allow you to be a helping hand for someone else.
Wong, Brittany. “An Instagram With No 'Likes' Could Have A Big Impact On Mental Health.” HUFFPOST, 10 May 2019 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/instagram-hiding-likes-mental-health_l_5cd092d3e4b0548b735e50bc?guccounter=1. Accessed 21 Oct. 2019.
This article from HUFFPOST has an interesting layout. Aside from other sources, Wong uses the visual spectacle to her advantage by including a video introduction and a screenshot of an Instagram post to break up the written article itself. Perhaps the most important thing about this source, and the reason it is so reliable, is the fact that Adam Mosseri, who is the head of Instagram, was directly engaged-and he should be! Who is more credible to speak about this topic than the head of Instagram himself? He performs a presentation in the video where he suggests three ways to make the Instagram app safer for its users and to actually combat cyberbullying which can most certainly contribute to depression. If the head of instagram recognizes that something is up, then something is definitely up. Granted, money could very well be his motivation for making these changes, I still think he is wise in making these suggestions. In Canada, a separate test was being experimented with based on the question: ”Could a like-free Instagram make us a lot less thirsty for approval and more mentally sound?” In simpler terms, the number of likes would be removed from a person’s post so that the viewers focused more on the content of the picture rather than the engagement with it. This differed from Mosseri’s suggestions, but was still a clever idea and worth reading into. Negative and positive effects of social media are mentioned throughout the article, links to related sources are cited, and it was written in May of this year so it is very recent, which makes the data more relevant to the present. The author of this source even includes examples of a man and woman (Sarah and Cam) who personally participated in the experiment with a “like-free Instagram” in order to see how they benefited. They both reported that they prefer not being able to see the likes on photos. Count me in! I want to know what that kind of experience is like. Imagine how much your thought processing would change!
1 note · View note
dippedanddripped · 5 years ago
Link
Ever since launching contemporary shoe brand Swear in London in the late 1990s till founding B-Store in the early aughts, he’s pushed the boundaries of what it means to shop. When Neves founded online marketplace Farfetch in 2007, it was something the industry had never seen before. Instead of buying inventory from brands, holding it, and selling it to consumers, he simply gave consumers a fully-serviced platform to shop from fashion boutiques and brands around the world, comparable to the Amazon of high fashion. It’s resulted in Farfetch being valued at $8 billion on the day of its Wall Street IPO in 2018.
Now with its eyes set on the growing multi-billion dollar streetwear market, Neves is making big moves. In the past year alone, he’s purchased Stadium Goods for $250 million and most recently he surprised the industry when Farfetch announced it had purchased New Guards Group, the mother company of Off-White, Heron Preston and Palm Angels, for almost $700 million.
We dropped by the Farfetch offices in London to speak to Neves about the recent purchases, the future of the resale market and how the next generation will shop.
The below interview is a written version of ‘On the Record’ Episode 4. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Christopher Morency: Big announcement with the New Guards Group. I think there’s this common misconception that it’s the mother company of Off-White and Heron Preston and Palm Angels. But that’s not completely accurate. Can you explain what the New Guards Group is and what approached you to the group in the first place?
José Neves: The New Guards is a brand platform company. They take creative concepts and creative people, and build brands with them. And that goes from the original idea and concept to collections. They have the full studio capabilities, in terms of coming up with incredible industrial design capabilities, planning, merchandising, price architecture, production, sourcing etc. They’re based in Milan, so they have great access to the Italian manufacturers. Then there’s also a sales and marketing side to the platform. Then they have a showroom in Paris, do runway shows and all the PR and marketing that goes with. They have a turnkey solution to bring a brand like Off-White to life. It’s a company that I’ve always admired. And obviously, when the opportunity was there to start the conversation, it was something I was really excited about.
The company is fairly new. Before The New Guards Group, was there any other company that could establish and scale brands at such a rapid pace?
I’ve been [working] in fashion for 25 years and I’ve never seen anything like it. So it’s really impressive what Davide and Andrea have built. I think, obviously you have the luxury conglomerates that build portfolios of brands like LVMH, Kering and Only the Brave. But they have a completely different model where they acquire existing brands. Very rarely do they build brands from scratch. The luxury conglomerate model is one of the 1980s or 1990s and obviously still super successful today. But what’s really interesting about New Guards is that they have a very asset light model. So it’s not about operating their own stores or having a lot of franchises. It’s built for the digital world as a platform and built around these creatives that can build digital communities very fast and create hype around their brands.
What are some of the elements that the New Guards Group deeply understands when it comes to bringing a new brand into the market?
What New Guards does so well — and they have an excellent track record — is having the ability to identify and scout talent. It all starts with the creative mind behind the brand and an ability to create a movement around that creative vision. Virgil is a great example of that but there are other community-driven brands. Luxury fashion is extremely complex. So, having the ability to have the right fabric, the right fit, the right print, the right materials, the right price point, even the right range, it’s extremely hard. It’s much harder compared to other cultural industries such as music. If you look at brands that have menswear, womenswear, handbags, shoes, eyewear, accessories, like it’s incredible what they do in terms of industrial design. And this is where so many other brands go wrong. They have the talent, they have the buzz around their talent, but then they really struggle because it’s difficult to have that industrial design capability and that industrial proficiency. That’s where New Guards excels. Combined with Farfetch’ digital platform, it’s a vision that will create many brands of the future.
Last year, New Guards pushed out 200 collections divided over their brands, almost like fast fashion in that sense. To have that infrastructure in place, that’s something that’s never been seen before.
Absolutely. I think Davide’s background is the industrial world. He’s brought other brands to life in previous businesses which he has sold. So he knows the industry inside out. And he’s built a team that absolutely is world-class at this. It’s incredibly powerful.
This is where the partnership with Farfetch, to me, makes complete sense, because the thing they did not have was the digital capability. So 97% of their turnover wasn’t direct to consumer. It was essentially the wholesale model. They didn’t have the operational ability to even integrate with Farfetch, in terms of their digital capabilities. And not for any philosophical reason, it’s because they just didn’t have that digital DNA. So that’s where the two companies really compliment each other.
You purchased the business for a value of $675 million, which is a massive amount. What makes New Guards Group worth all that money?
New Guards is a very large company. It’s a multi hundred million revenue business growing very close to 60% a year, and it’s very profitable. So the multiple was what you would expect in a transaction like this. I think what that says, is what can be built via the combination of both businesses. So if you think of it, we have the best design and industrial platform, the best brand platform in the world that is able to scout, conceptualize, materialize, produce, sell, and manufacture, all categories. And then this company is now joined with the world’s most global online luxury platform. So we were able to take them from their current stage and build a direct-to-consumer model, and also involve our boutique network of 650 boutiques.
The speed at which these brands like Off-White and Heron Preston are built, what does that say about the state of fashion today?
I think it’s extremely exciting. I was a shoe designer in my previous life, 25 years ago, and in my days I had to come up with the designs, find the studio, find the factory, find the showroom, and these would be different people, all with my own investment. To build a brand [then], I had to attract the attention of the department stores, would have to wait for the stylists and the editors of the glossy magazines to feature it and they needed three to four month lead times. So the cycle was extremely slow, and the gatekeepers were the media and the department stores in the main markets. So very few gatekeepers and the very long cycle, And that’s why the conglomerates came in to help these designers such as Alexander McQueen to build global brands. Fast forward Off-White five years and it’s one of our top brands at Farfetch and stocked at hundreds of boutiques. And all of this is accelerated through the ability to bring those creative concepts to life via a platform like New Guards. Thanks to platforms such as Instagram and Highsnobiety, you’re able to create a buzz and a movement. That’s ultimately exciting for the consumer.
Farfetch was founded in the age of the recession around 2008. Why did you think then was the right time to launch your own business?
I’ve done everything in fashion except being a model, which, I wouldn’t be able to cut. I had a multi brand boutique called B Store. I ran a trade show here in London and a licensing business helping other brands starting their shoe collections, and obviously my own footwear label Swear. So I knew the industry really well, and I knew what made the boutiques tick, how designers thought about building their brands, and how consumers engaged with this culture. The idea Farfetch just came naturally, because I was essentially thinking, this incredible community doesn’t have a high end platform. To me, it was very super simple idea. The execution is a bit more complicated, but to me, it seemed like an idea that evolved naturally. Right now we have around 450 brands directly on the platform and around 640 boutiques.
Farfetch is enabled through three pillars. You have your logistics pillar, your data pillar and then your tech pillar. For someone who might not know know Farfetch’ operations, how do these three things work together?
When I started Farfetch, there were very few businesses that connected on demand, supply from the real world with one single digital platform. Today, there are many businesses in other industries that do that. OpenTable connects you in real time with restaurants, Uber and Lyft are other ones. In our case bringing physical products to a global audience was something that for our industry was quite revolutionary. It had to be built from scratch. What you see in-store, you will see online on Farfetch. On top of that, we’ve built a logistics platform because obviously you need to ship. But what we’ve really built is data and logistics platform on top of our own proprietary tech stack. It’s a lot of work and we have around 1,500 technologists between product managers, engineers, data scientists. That’s what Farfetch is. It connects you in real time with the most beautiful product from anywhere around the world.
Was it tough in the beginning to get these stores involved to convince them to go online?
It was. Fashion, in a way, is an industry that doesn’t move very fast. It moves very fast in terms of the trends and the creative side of it. In terms of the business model, it tends to be cautious. Again, back in 2007, when I started speaking to boutiques, it was the year of the iPhone. If you think of it, apps didn’t exist. The concept of one single global digital platform linking customers from all around the world with boutiques and brands was just mind boggling. I think maybe that’s why I called it Farfetch because it was kind of far fetched idea.
Digital sales today are only about 10 percent of total sales for brands. Most sales still happen via brick and mortar. How do you stand out in retail?
I discovered the magic of physical retail when I was operating my multi-brand boutique B Star, which opened in 2003. For me, it was incredible to see when you do retail right, when you have the right interior design, the right curation of brands, the right merchandising, the right customer service, it’s magical. I think fashion is culture, but fashion is material culture. It’s not like music or video. Similar to cuisine or architecture or industrial design, fashion is physical, it can’t be digitized, so the physical store will always be relevant. In the end, the human experience is what differentiates physical retail.
What role will personalization play with physical stores of the future?
I think personalization is going to be huge in retail. It’s already, if you don’t embrace it online, you’re dead in the water. Online is all about how do you cater to different personas and how do things like your ranking algorithm work based on previous visits? What do you recommend to the customer? What do you show the customer? That’s a science that’s evolved very fast online. Offline, we just don’t do it. From a consumer perspective, it’s very impersonal. If you think of it, especially intellectually, customers are traveling customers. If you have a customer from Shanghai who is a big Chanel customer, let’s say in the local Shanghai store, if they go to Miami or if they go to New York, they won’t be recognized. Maybe they won’t have the attention that they probably would deserve as a very loyal customer of the brand. Maybe what the sales assistant is going to offer isn’t relevant. Maybe they already bought it, in a couple of colors. So there’s no data flow. That person entered the store, left the store, and no data was collected, unless there was a transaction. Even when there is a transaction, there’s a very poor connection of the dots around the customer journey. It’s so important and it’s a big part of our Store of the Future and obviously involves an option for the consumer to opt in, be recognized or not.
What’s interesting to me with the next generation of consumers it the increased speed in which people consume. Have you guys at Farfetch seen the speed go up in recent years?
I think the speed is going up and it’s again function of the internet. That conversation has a much quicker cycle than the previous offline conversation. Because it has a quicker cycle, the consumption cycle is also quicker. That’s where you see resale coming in. That’s where fashion businesses also have a responsibility to think if it’s sustainable and what they can do to facilitate a circular economy.
It ventures perfectly into my next point, Stadium Goods. Do you remember the first time you met John and Jed from Stadium Goods?
We were introduced by a mutual friend in New York. I first met with John, and I was absolutely amazed with his business. John is a real connoisseur. He understands the sneaker community and he’s part of it, and it comes very natural to him. At the time, I could really see a huge opportunity for both companies to work together. I come from a more designer-oriented side of fashion and sneaker culture is a different ball game, they can tell I’m not one of them from a mile away. So having someone that is part of that community, and is super passionate about sneakers, to me made it clear that if we wanted to play in the space, it will have to be a marriage.
We launched them on our platform in 2018 and it was an immediate success. We saw big demand from China and the Middle East, as well as the rest of the world. A few months later, we ended up acquiring the company.
It caused quite some waves in the sneaker world as you bought it for $250 million. It cemented the credibility of the sneaker resale market as something that might not go away tomorrow.
I absolutely think it will be here in the future. I always remember watching that documentary on Netflix, Sneakerheadz. It’s really interesting because that documentary takes you through the years when eBay first started being used by the sneaker community and all of that. It’s always existed, it’s just that you didn’t have specialists doing it. So I don’t think it’s going to go away. In the US you see, you know, three or four players emerging and having a lot of traction, but you’re starting to see it in China too. We’re trying to accelerate that side of the business. I think the international opportunity for the sneaker resale market is tremendous.
Many brands are still against the resale market, but one can’t live without the other.
Even if they could, I think it would be a really bad for the primary market. Because right now it shows your brand has credibility and it demonstrates hat you’ve done your job right. You’ve done your marketing, your distribution right, your design right. And the community has given it the stamp of approval and therefore your sneakers are being resold at higher prices. That’s a badge of honor.
Where do you see the (sneaker) resale market going?
The first thing that will happen is international expansion. So I think what already started happening in the US will be absolutely massive and maybe multiple times bigger in Asia. This global phenomenon will happen and then there will be innovation around the model. I also think because of the international expansion, you will find certain editions, certain colorways in specific countries that you don’t find anywhere else, so you’ll have this whole new world of limited releases. It’s something Farfetch could facilitate because we have the logistics capability. Stadium Goods could piggy back on top of that.
If you flip the coin. What do you think about the negative connotations around reselling?
What creates inflation is scarcity, not the resale model. If anything, the resale model makes it more efficient, therefore the price will be lower. But, again, the reason why it’s hard is because they’re rare. They’re difficult to find. It’s not because there’s a resale market. So imagine there will be no resale market. Shoes would be even more expensive. It would be completely opaque how much they’re going for. Therefore, you know, someone could ask whatever they wanted. Right? So I don’t think that it is correct to say that the resale market is creating inflation. What is creating inflation are the brand’s distribution policies. It makes it exciting because suddenly there’s a gamification element. And then so if you kill that, you also kill a part of the magic.
To round things off, if you look back at your own experience over the past 20 years working in fashion. What are some key takeaways you’ve learned along the way you could turn into advice for the next generation of entrepreneurs?
I don’t like to give advice a lot because I think times change. So what was maybe not working then is working now and maybe what failed 10 times, it will work at the 11th. My wife always says that if advice was valuable, it wouldn’t be free. Right? To me, the only thing that I’d say is that it’s a very tough industry. As we said, there are 3000 designers that we have on our platform, but that’s a subset of the industry. You have tens of thousands of amazing creative talents and companies from all around the world. So it is a vast industry with lots of participants.
So you have to do it for the love of fashion. It has to be a labor of love. If you’re going to start a business or a brand, the acid test to me is if you will not forgive yourself if you don’t try. And that’s my only advice because then it’s a win-win. You always win because even if you fail you can say, “I failed.” But it would be even worse if I hadn’t tried. That will give you the resilience and the drive because you’ll have many bumps along the road. That’s the only truth that’s out there. It will never be an easy ride. And on those days, if you do it for the love of your industry, and if it’s something you will never forgive yourself if you weren’t doing, then it’s worth it. And that gets you through the noise and hopefully to something that’s successful.
1 note · View note
marsixm · 6 years ago
Text
edit sorry this post is both long (if the readmore fails i am truly truly sorry) & longwinded im just reflecting and thinking; (another edit: u can probably just read the tl dr and get it)
anyway allow me to spin some very personally based theory here for a mo while i put off/warm my fingers up from the cold in preparation to email my therapist
so growing up i had, i think only, het ships, but i never quite had the ones you were (narratively speaking) “supposed to” have
in most media i recall when i was a kid, there were like, 2 diff structures of character romance plot arcs in media i consumed, there was the main lead and 2 best friends model, where thered be the star of the show who had outside romantic leads and the 2 best friends (who were always a boy and a girl) would have their secondary romance, OR there were ensemble shows where there was a more clear romance set up between the main boy and main girl, then side characters whod pair off in whatever ways ended up happening. in the first, see: hannah montana, the second, see: zoey 101. obv this isnt a hard rule and there were loads of exceptions but like, lets just say i tended not to care for the romances set up for the main girls in the trio models, or quite as hard for the main boy and girl in the ensembles, and in general if there was an obvious romance between two leads i either didnt care or outright hated it
basically i never liked the ships they set up for us in straight media, as a kid (namely, a girl) i liked being that “ew pink!” “i hate valentines day” sort of contrarian, but what i remember actually disliking was the predictability of it, because i clearly still shipped characters, so it wasnt /really/ that i hated romance, per se
looking back on it i think it was probably or at least to a degree more like that i hated the hetero expectation of it- i can nit pick down to more specific examples of why i disliked the main pairings (kataang, for example, i thought was weird bc katara acted like a mother/older sister figure to aang, and i didnt feel like there was romance between them at all except where it felt shoehorned in) - maybe it was also that i thought it made more sense for a main character to be with someone they clearly already spent a lot of time with and not some random new hot boy in town (i very distinctly remember shipping miley and oliver on hannah montana, and i believe that was the first time i ever read fanfiction @ age like... 11 lol) as is often the case w like these things.
theres another level to this though, which is that i notice i tended to ship characters who were more vaguely similar to each other, like, physically (ie, similar heights, or hair colors mainly) obviously this is funny now since my main pairing is johnlock which is such a physically different ship we can construct them from basic shapes and colors and theyre still recognizable as who they are, but i have some thoughts about this- but i think there might be two interesting things about this again in retrospect
first of all, this sounds silly ik, but shipping the vaguely similar ones as a child’s way of queering heterosexuality is an interesting concept and not that difficult, like, two boys are also vaguely similar to each other in a similar way a boy and a girl with the same hair color and height might be, which is something i thought of a while ago
the other way in which this is really interesting to me now, that i think might have been more actually pertinent to myself as a trans child, is that i think i shipped the characters i did in an attempt to morph the concept of boy and girl? to find the boy counterpart to every girl??? that second one makes more sense actually. anyway, i digress
2 start off i definitely had gender feelings starting from a very young age so i think these observations ring more true than just reflections, PERHAPS
so the first thing i remember shipping, ie wanting them to be together, thinking about it an inordinate amount of time outside watching the films, even imagining them eating ice cream together in their pjs (i was NINE DHFJGghfkg) was jack sparrow & elizabeth swan from potc (basically my franchise of choice as a kid bc i never read harry potter) now this doesnt quite fit the “visually similar” thing bc actually orlando bloom looks more like kiera knightly and is prob due to them like making out in one movie, but i think this works for the “shipping as gender expression” theory, because elizabeth swan dressed up as a boy, spent most of that movie wearing boy’s clothes, etc- meanwhile jack was a wacky pirate which like hello duh i’d want to be. so i wonder if beyond the fact that they kissed and flirted, there was something to this concept of me wanting two characters to be together, meant i wanted to marry together two conceptual things happening with two characters, or absorb the cool dude and the boyish girl characters into each other to make one whole archetype for myself? i likewise shipped aang and toph (toph who, normally doesnt really have anyone to be shipped with, since she likes sokka but he has a gf) who we all know is the VERY boyish girl character, so boyish im p sure her actually being a trans dude later in life is a p decently accepted headcanon (i dont actually delve into aatla fandom though so i can only hope) 
another thing about this ship thing, is most of my ships had brown hair (like miley and oliver), just like i always have, and in certain cases the girl character would look a LOT like me (i also shipped logan and quinn on zoey 101, which to my surprise n delight actually came true later (although looking back im like... 11 yr old me is glad they made out a lot but adult me is like uhhh why were the kids on this show making out a lot? anyway thats another issue) and i def was a weirdo girl with glasses and long brown wavy hair) which sort of further fuels my feeling that this was an attempt by my brain to do 1 of 2 things, if my own involvement really was a greater motivating factor in this thing, 1. ship MYSELF with a boy (which is like def possible for my gay kinnie ass, but not quite my thesis here) or 2. morph these boy and girl counterparts by imagining them together, seeing them together, etc
for example, i realize now, when i was a kid i drew an avatar sona for myself and said sona looked an awful lot like how id imagine a katara/zuko fusion would be, and the fact that i shipped zutara (very hard lol) was what lead me down this thought path rn
i feel like even to me this concept sounds weird and far fetched but like, gem fusion made enough sense for someone to write with its clearly, usually, romantic implications and we all “get” that, so whom knows???
another thing ive noticed while writing this is for a good few of these ships you can argue the boys in them can be read gay, like jack sparrow and zuko and aang, which feels even more strongly like me trying to marry my gay boy feelings to my tomboy realities [thinking emoji]
the biggest reason i think this makes sense to me is because when i was 10 i became obsessed with the idea that this boy i was friends with and i were secretly twins separated at birth, like i was so into the concept that we looked alike, i like hoped and wished so hard for it to be true, i wished a christmas miracle would happen for fucking real and a magic door in my house would open and be his new room and itd all work out perfectly! and you might think this was a manifestation of my difficulties with my family and wishing to leave it, but in my dream world my parents were still my parents and he came to live with us- which makes me think the obsession of ME looking like this BOY was a manifestation of my gender feelings, which i think can maybe be traced to this concept of pairing a visually similar, possibly gay, brunette boy to every brunette and/or tomboyish girl
anyway. if you actually read all of this id love it if you lmk somehow (doesnt need to be a like) like this is clearly very long and strange but i hope it makes sense. i think i stop myself a lot from ever commenting on gender or theory or whatever but i am a living breathing trans person who has experienced things and i have opinions and i dont think im claiming anything destructive with this lol i think its not unusual to reflect on the way you interacted with the world as a gay/trans kid
also im obviously not saying that shipping straight things is somehow inherently queer, im not trying to retroactively claim something about straight ships, like, those two characters are still functionally straight, and i definitely also shipped probably all of them for normal shipping reasons (although, kid ones, so less “oh theres a lot of ACTUAL romantic subtext between these two” but rather “oh theyre friends and would be cute together!” (or like they kissed and i was like O: )) but im just trying to theorize about something its possible my tiny trans brain was trying to express- and who knows maybe im not the only one!
anyway i guess the TL;DR is: when i was a kid i had a lot of “unconventional” straight ships- i already observed that i eschewed the main canon pairings in kids media in what was probably my tiny baby brains rejection of hetero culture, but i also actively shipped side characters who looked like me, and also looked like each other (ie, both tall and brunette, a boy and girl counterpart of Each Other) OR characters who seemed to be a gayish boy and a tomboyish girl, and im theorizing that maybe the reason that was was my tiny trans brain wanting to gem fusion those two together because of my Gender Feelings and fuse the boy with the girl and this desire manifested in shipping therefore thinking about a lot these pairings of boy and girl counterparts
14 notes · View notes
porchwood · 6 years ago
Text
THG Reread: Interesting Tidbits from Ch 1
Disclaimer: I’ve never taken part in any official THG reread/discussion and I essentially read the book in isolation, so anything I say in these posts may well have been discussed and dismissed years ago.
When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and crawled in with our mother.
I find it interesting that Prim leaves Katniss to find comfort with their mother, especially since Katniss seems to see herself as Prim’s sole protector and provider. Are Prim and Mrs. Everdeen closer than Katniss realizes (having such an abrasive relationship with her mother as she does) or is it simply that Mom will always be Mom and in a moment of terror most children prefer the embrace of their mother over a sibling?
Also: sleeping directly on a rough canvas-covered mattress? Are bed sheets are that great a luxury in the Seam? :(
I swing my legs off the bed and slide into my hunting boots. Supple leather that has molded to my feet. I pull on trousers…
So she gets out of bed and puts on her boots, then her trousers... So...girl’s a firefighter, right? :D
Tumblr media
(Sorry for the crummy pics. Apparently the Tumblr presence of the Emergency! fandom is microscopic at best - I guess that happens with a ‘70s show :P - so these are screenshots I made from the S1 DVD, because yes, I’m that big of an Emergency! fangirl and you can never have too much Johnny Gage!)
Tumblr media
It gives “girl on fire” a whole new meaning!! ;D
All merriment aside, we know that fire was a constant danger in the Seam, with its “old wooden homes embedded with coal dust,” so it’s entirely possible that residents slept with trousers and boots in readiness at the bedside, to be stepped into at a moment’s notice for a rapid escape if needed.
I…tuck my long dark braid up into a cap…
This has been discussed in previous rereads so it really isn’t news, but I’d love to see more Katniss-in-a-cap popping up in fics and fanart. THG opens in summertime and she’s still wearing the cap, so it was definitely a staple of her wardrobe! (And it brings us a little closer to the girl-disguised-as-a-boy trope, which is one of my all-time faves! :D)
Tumblr media
(Behold this adorable @ghtlovesthg rendering!)
Our part of District 12, nicknamed the Seam, is usually crawling with coal miners heading out to the morning shift at this hour…
Somehow I had always (erroneously) assumed that there was just one twelve-hour shift that all the miners worked (ex. 6am-6pm). Since artificial light would be required inside the mines anyway, I suppose they could work around the clock with no regard to the sun and stars. Folks who live in/near coal mining communities: do they generally operate 24 hours a day or is there some arbitrary cut-off point in the evening? (I’m sorry I’m so ignorant about this!)
Most of the Peacekeepers turn a blind eye to the few of us who hunt…
Has anyone else figured out who these mysterious additional hunters are??
I watch as Gale pulls out his knife and slices the bread. He could be my brother. Straight black hair, olive skin, we even have the same gray eyes. But we’re not related, at least not closely.
First off: it truly befuddles me that Katniss’s hair color is stated on page 8 of THG (though, interestingly, never explicitly afterward) and yet it’s unusual - maybe even rare - to find fanart or even fics that depict her with black hair. Why is that? I was in love with her long black hair from moment one (truly black hair is unique, at least in my part of the world, and so striking to boot) so I probably belabor it a bit in my own writing, but it’s such an exquisite feature, why would you not?
Secondly: “He could be my brother.” That feels significant, and not merely in the “we look alike” sense. I’ve been working on a post about how Gale came into Katniss’s life in a very significant fashion after her beloved father’s death and she was drawn to him because of certain (I would venture to say striking) commonalities, but as I was wrapping it up last night (and sharing various details with my favorite sounding-board @ghtlovesthg), I realized there was a whole - vitally important - flipside to my theory that absolutely cannot be overlooked. So I might not get that finished till we’re on CF or even MJ. (No spoilers just in case someone pips me at the post - pun inadvertent ;) - but I think it’s pretty cool!)
And thirdly, because I can’t resist: I headcanon that Gale and Katniss are cousins through their great-great-grandfather (Galen Greenbrier, if anyone cares :D), who had two daughters (Aisling and Elspeth), who each had a daughter (Wren and Ashpet), who had Hazelle and Jack (Mr. Everdeen), who begat Gale and Katniss, respectively. Ergo: related but “not closely,” per canon. :)
With both of us hunting daily…
I’d always thought Gale and Katniss only hunted a few times a week, with Sundays being their largest haul/best trading day. (“Usually we devote all of Sunday to stocking up for the week.”) I know Twelve is an unusually permissive district at this point in time, but if two Seam kids were sneaking back and forth under the fence every single day and (forgive me) flaunting the fact by selling game in town (and when did they do this? before school, after, both?), surely, inevitably, the Peacekeepers would have been obliged to do something about it. Or were there some trips where Gale and Katniss only brought back enough for their own families, making their illegal activities not quite so blatant?
Cross-referencing with Catching Fire, I find Katniss saying, “Back when we were in school, we had time in the afternoons to check the lines and hunt and gather and still get back to town to trade” - exactly what time did they get out of school and how late were they doing these trades (not to mention, when did anyone get homework done)?? - but she also says it’s “an hour-and-a-half trek” just to check the snare line. I guess it isn’t impossible, but it seems a much more extensive (and time-consuming!) arrangement than I would have thought they could get by with, even in Twelve.
We easily trade six of the fish for good bread…
Like the rest of you, I’m trying to figure out who’s selling this “good bread” at the Hob. For some odd reason, at one point I thought maybe the bakery’s day-olds were sold there, à la:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
They could potentially sell said day-olds at less of a discount than merchant clientele would demand but the reduced prices would be low enough for some Seam clientele to afford, and of course, even day-old bakery bread would be superior to homemade tessera bread (and therefore: “good bread”). 
I’m not sure where I got the “bakery outlet” idea (I think it was all the early canonverse fics where Katniss ran into Peeta in the Hob, so I figured he was running a day-olds stall or something) but having been away from it for awhile, I actually kind of like it! :)
You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn twelve.
I’m going to wax exceedingly about reaping ages in another post, but for the moment: I presume this rule means that anyone who turns twelve between reaping days becomes eligible for the subsequent reaping, correct? So if we arbitrarily set the reaping at, say, June 1, someone whose birthday is on June 2 wouldn’t be eligible till the following year. (Which would be especially terrible for your 18-yr-old reaping: being a day away from 19 and freedom, of a sort, but still having to go through one last reaping.) Now I think of it, it’s possible Career districts took advantage of this. Highly invested parents in a Career district could have planned their pregnancies with the intent of a late summer birth (i.e., a month or two after reaping day) so the resulting children would have the advantage of extra months up on other tributes in their same age group.   
On the flipside of this: Prim, whose birthday is in late May, would be an especially young tribute, since she’s only just turned twelve (think school kids with summer birthdays who don’t turn the “right age” for their grade till 1-3 months after school is out), and similarly Katniss, whose birthday is May 8, would be on the young side of the group of sixteens. 
“Pretty dress,” says Gale.
Madge shoots him a look, trying to see if it’s a genuine compliment or if he’s just being ironic. It is a pretty dress, but she would never be wearing it ordinarily. She presses her lips together and then smiles. “Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don’t I?”
Now it’s Gale’s turn to be confused. Does she mean it? Or is she messing with him? I’m guessing the second.
Gaaah, so much going on here! I can’t decide if I want to make a proper Gadge post, so in the meantime, here’s some food for thought:
1) Why does Gale remark on her dress? Really - give me suggestions, because I’ve been turning it over in my head. If it’s meant to be ironic and she gives him sarcasm in reply (as seems to be the quintessential Gadge dynamic :D), it’s odd that he would be confused and not have a volley/riposte/etc of his own on deck. I mean, Katniss doesn’t seem to know (or at least, doesn’t clarify in her narration) whether or not it’s a compliment -
2) Which is interesting, because she guesses straightaway that Madge is “messing with him” in reply. ;)
3) Gale gives Madge what outwardly seems like a compliment and this is what ensues. One might surmise they’ve done this before... :D I mean, if there was no precedent, Madge would’ve just said “thank you” and exchanged money for berries. Since the mayor is such a valuable customer (being one of very few who can afford their asking price for strawberries), it’s interesting that Gale would antagonize Madge and risk losing the strawberry trade - not to mention bringing up the subject of tesserae at the mayor’s back door on reaping day! Does he take similar potshots at other merchants or is it just Madge? Is he irked (even threatened) by Katniss’s friendship with Madge? (I love that Katniss immediately defends Madge in the face of Gale’s tesserae rant. ♡) Does he feel like he can sound off at her (with impunity) because she’s Katniss’s friend? Or is he secretly crazy about her and resigned to the fact that he’ll never get her but the reminders of the impassable gap between them still incense him? Sorry, my hand slipped there for a sec. ;) 
Gale knows his anger at Madge is misdirected.
I didn’t recall this line from previous reading and it just makes me happy. :)
To my surprise, my mother has laid out one of her own lovely dresses for me. A soft blue thing with matching shoes. [...]  For a while I was so angry, I wouldn’t allow her to do anything for me. And this is something special. Her clothes from her past are very precious to her.
I’d never caught the “matching shoes” bit before! Do you suppose Katniss means dyed [blue] to match/covered with matching fabric (so that’s what they do at the shoe shop!) or simply that they go well with the dress? And if she means that the shoes literally match the dress: is this a particularly special dress (hence particularly special shoes) or is it customary for merchant girls to order shoes to match their dresses?
And further: why this year? It doesn’t sound like Mrs. Everdeen has offered one of her apothecary-era dresses before, which could have been due to Katniss’s repeated rebuffs, but still: why offer one of those very precious dresses this year? Did she have a feeling about this reaping? Or is she starting to see Katniss as a young woman, not just an angry, resourceful child? (Coupled with the fact that she subsequently puts Katniss’s hair up, the latter makes a lot of sense.) 
On a sidenote: Has anyone written meta on the significance/usage of braids in Twelve? (Notwithstanding WTM: Ch 13 and all that Mellark bridal braids/braid coils/engagement hairpin business.) Ex. Does a girl "graduate” from pigtails to a single braid around puberty and then to a crown braid as a young woman/wife, or does she/her mother simply style it however she feels on any given day? I’m just now realizing that I consistently picture reaping day!Prim in pigtails because of the film, but it doesn’t state in the text how her hair is styled, so it might be in a single braid or held back at the temples with a clip or even worn loose.
The square’s surrounded by shops, and on public market days, especially if there’s good weather, it has a holiday feel to it.
I’m really curious about “public market days,” since the Hob seems to be Twelve’s primary market - or at least, has become so in fanon - but Katniss makes a clear distinction between them (“Make only polite small talk in the public market. Discuss little more than trades at the Hob, which is the black market where I make most of my money”). Is this public market like a farmer’s market or a craft fair - or a bit of both? Is it simply the “merchant version” of the Hob? How often are they held? Who gets to sell at this market, and what sort of wares are we talking about? (Is it just merchants bringing their product outside, like a sidewalk sale?) Does the Capitol/Justice Building collect a fee from everyone wanting a stall/booth/table?
Edit: While looking up details for a different post, I found this passage:
Gale and I went to the market on the square so that I could buy dress materials [for Prim].
So apparently they sold fabric and notions in the public market? (Not at, say, a mercantile/general store?) I’m wholly confused now!
95 notes · View notes
mcguireboone0-blog · 6 years ago
Text
July Exercise Schedule. Register for Newsletter & The PW Willpower Be Emailed.
Folks for the Moral Therapy from Pets has actually delivered vegetarian/vegan starter packages to Australia's fattest areas and American Samoa. They warns me about diet on a lengthy term Whenever I chat along with some nutrition practioner in my country which understand keto and LCHF. Make certain if any individual distinguishes you that through just basing on the machine wobbling about, you can burn fat. For the weight loss, for the surgery - under YOUR choice and YOUR opportunity, for each of the happiness you are worthy of. The other thing I missed after dumping the diet regimen was my extreme obsession along with meals. While this is actually extremely most likely to cause weight increase also for under a healthy weight people, you'll acquire primarily fat around your abdomen, making you skinny fat". However, after submitting this active ingredient for evaluation to the European Meals Safety and security Authority, which resembles the FDA, they fully examined it and surmised this component had not been helpful for fat burning. Yes, I'm that irritating person which actually did drop weight as well as keep it off with a practical diet plan and a little bit from workout. I liked and also didn't as if some factors in each book, however what resonated with me was the fact that this will certainly need to be 80% diet, 10% workouts, and 10% genetic makeups" baseding upon Tosca Reno, writer of The Eat-Clean Diet, healthy and balanced chef, and physique rival. If you're definitely intending to lose weight, when they mention fat loss is 80% what you consume and TWENTY% exercise," they're fairly best-- receiving just what you eat so as (and also I am actually not pointing out only consume cabbage shakes," only something as straightforward as mattering calories) is actually way more vital. The Revelation: Delight's blog site is a terrific source for clean, unrefined and also healthy recipes, along with DO-IT-YOURSELF all-natural charm pointers, product referrals, video clips and dish prepare tips. I was doing this HIV vaccination study as well as receiving had a weight of each month while I was actually losing my weight. Snatch your copy of 5 Measure Dish Think about Lean As well as Healthy and balanced Body system" book through clicking the web link below to find out the basics from possessing a healthy and balanced diet today! At 19 years of ages, I am 5' 4 1/2" as well as my body weight varies between the low to the middle of 130s. Despite the fact that I recognize the typical person can't maintain this up, so my recommendation is three dishes a time, like the French, the Okinawans, and also no food items between. Additionally soon after surgical procedure, the pancreatic recoups the capacity to reply to a meal with a proper blood insulin spike. The Carb30 resembles an Atkins design plan and also has under 30 web carbohydrates daily. A reduced carb diet without sweeteners is extremely effective at decreasing sweets food cravings. This study assists the use of vinaigrette as a mixed greens or vegetable wearing people attempting to reduce weight along with diet plans like the Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet regimen Vinaigrettes are actually mixtures of olive oil and also vinegar, usually with different seasonings included. Various other analysis presents that a bulk from ladies which reduced weight report significantly higher frequency and also total satisfaction from sexual activity and much better emotions about their good looks and their self-worth. Three months later on Jeff had shed four kilos, whereas Liz's body weight was the same. He/she could help lead you on properly, and of course, you can do it. 5 years ago I was 230lb and 5' 2 ″, and also I lost the body weight without medicines or surgical treatment. When I simply can easily plug that in my personal digital assistant and also compose that down, plus I simply loathe having to search for precisely what I prefer online. So after I would certainly take 15 minutes to consider on my own at my objective body weight I will take that picture out and also check out this and also tell myself that I will certainly never ever be that person once more. This breaks the idea of the Paleo way of living, which motivates that meals options are cooked in their all-natural condition. Therefore food is quite low-cost, that is actually certainly never been as cheap; whatever we earn, what our experts spend on meals, it's cheap and also that is actually freely readily available. At concerning half-weight point in the course of his weightloss (measuring about 145kg) he would certainly require concerning 13200 kJ each day to sustain his body weight. Supporting, fulfilling and cooling with sauce spices to help food digestion, this is an excellent supper meal. But if you do not find out the best ways to switch these practices in to lifestyle from low-carb lifestyle, you are actually guaranteed to gain the weight back. Yet typically, nutrition shortages tend to have their very own collection of distinct signs and symptoms, but meals substance addiction is none from all of them. Foot as well as ankle items are actually a popular issue for folks which deal with their body weight. The concern along with any kind of diet plan is that this does produce you slim down as well as our experts see that as a good thing while that is actually most likely merely some portion of a fancy responses device to keep you booming as well as to life. If you are actually truly looking for a brand new technique to receive encouraged to drop weight, this happening February I desire you to sign up with in on the Blogilates Hot Body Difficulty. http://egeszsegeseletmod-blog.com/eroman-opiniones-precio-como-utilizar-como-funciona-efectos/ in meals don't result in cardiovascular disease, whether you are a type 1 diabetic person, or not. There were additionally 125 unfavorable customer reviews, with the bulk declaring there was no effective weight loss, cravings reduction, or even any type of perk to this label. During the time of health center admittance, higher ejection portions were actually connected with more significant adherence to the Mediterranean diet plan (P Because his diet plan at lengthy phrase results in very massive damages to the health and wellness from the patients, no surprise he was actually banned off the medical association. Thus, when I woke up I went straight to my e-mail to allow the DailyBuzz Meals welcome for Ocean Spray's Diet plan Cranberry extract Juice Drink Assessment. Hey there Kwaku, No, avoiding dishes really isn't the technique to go. Compute your calorie requires for effective weight loss as well as spread out those fats out one of your 3 foods and also a treat.
1 note · View note
jarrettfuller · 6 years ago
Text
Celebrity designers, context collapse, and rethinking how I teach design history
My first typography professor loved introducing us to her favorite designers. I remember learning about Paula Scher, Stefan Sagmeister, Milton Glaser, Neville Brody, and David Carson in that class. (She loved David Carson! We saw a lot of his work that semester — this was the mid-2000s, Sagmeister was at the height of his career and the shadow of Carson still loomed.) She wanted us to see work from history, as well as the contemporary work she found exciting so that it could inspire, inform, and guide our own work. Looking at the earliest work I did in school, you can see what designers had caught my interest at various points in my undergraduate career: the Vignelli phase came first, then it was Pentagram. By junior year, I was interested in illustration, and my work looked like Charley Harper's and Frank Chimero's. I had an infographic phase inspired by Nicholas Felton and an embarrassing handlettering period that mostly resulted in bad Jessica Hische knock-offs.
My classmates were the same way. There was a group of us who closely followed design blogs, tracking the 'celebrity designers' of the time. Some of us even got really excited by the two required design history surveys, saving images to our pre-Pinterest inspiration files and trying on the styles of different designers likes costumes. I remember one student particularly well who, following the lecture on Art Nouveau, decided he was going to make every project look like an Alphonse Mucha poster for the rest of the semester. I still cringe at the Russian-Constructivist-inspired poster I designed for a school function. We named dropped in critiques, showing off with our knowledge of history or our awareness of the trendy designers of the moment, completely unaware that half the class was rolling their eyes. For myself and my friends, it felt like part of being a good designer was knowing those names.
When I found myself back in the classroom — nearly a decade later, this time as the teacher — I was surprised to find how many of my students, at every level, had little sense of the history of graphic design, not to mention the 'celebrity designers' of today. Design history is largely foreign to them; it's an optional course in many design programs. It's rare for a student to know Sagmeister, Carson, and Scher (or Rudnick, Hu, and Walsh) if I mention one in class. I once had an upper level student who had never heard of Pentagram. Pentagram!
It's not that this generation of designers isn't consuming design media but the way they do is wildly different than when I was in school. At their age, we read blogs to find out who was doing the most interesting work, but those don't exist anymore. My students aren't reading It's Nice That or Eye on Design. They are on Instagram, on Behance, on Pinterest. Their design awareness, sensibilities, and taste is constructed through likes, pins, and retweets. They might not know the name Michael Bierut or have heard of Wolff Olins but they've seen the work. And they've also seen work from countless other designers flying below the mainstream design press radar.
Consuming design this way creates a peculiar context collapse. Everything moves fast, the thumb occasionally pausing for a closer look, where work from an international branding agency can sit next to a great poster by a high school student in India. These images travel from board to board, retweet to retweet, ever so slowly removing any sense of where it came from — the designer is often anonymous, the subject matter irrelevant. A quick tap saves it and then it's on to the next image. My students don't know the names of designers or agencies or studios but they do know what's trending, the popular styles, and the latest rebrand. Eventually, all the work starts to look the same.
Kids these days, I caught myself thinking. I had become the cranky old man complaining about how the next generation doesn't understand it sooner than I had thought I would. I mean, I'm only thirty and here I was worried about what this meant for the future. It was better when I was in school, I thought.
But what if this isn't necessarily a bad thing? Maybe this is an opportunity to teach design history and culture another way. Maybe it's a good thing for the idea of the 'celebrity designer' to die. The myth of the solo genius, alone in his studio, doesn't work anymore, and far too often it continues to only elevate the white male designer. Design conferences continue to feature the same designers year after year, sometimes even when at least one of those designers probably deserves to be cancelled. This perpetuates a particular idea of what a successful designer looks like and what makes for 'good design'.
Whether intended or not, the images my undergraduate professors showed us became the standard by which we judged design, and the names attached subconsciously became the people we were supposed to be emulating. The design history courses I took a decade ago were surveys: the professor would click through images on the screen in the front of the room; a list of names and styles we had to memorize. We spent little time talking about the content or articulating the context it sits within. Like my students now, I would get excited by something else I saw and use it in my own projects, regardless of context or content. Where we knew names, they know styles. Is one of these really worse than the other?
To be clear: this is not to say that names shouldn't be attached to the work or that we should disregard history. I believe these to be important elements of any design education. But inspiration is not enough. Trends are not enough. Simply collecting images is not enough. To move beyond inspiration, to dig deeper than trends and avoid celebrity design culture, we must make space for our students to reflect on this work and think about how it connects to their own blossoming practices.
In every class I teach, at both the undergraduate and graduate level, I've started requiring students to keep a visual journal — a dedicated place to keep images, PDFs, videos, photos — a simple attempt to encourage them to be more thoughtful about what they are consuming and saving. I try to build time into class for students to reflect on the work they are finding, and at the same time, I'm sharing the things I'm looking at and thinking about. (And I make it clear that what I share isn't always an endorsement.) Together we try to figure out why we are drawn to these things. Or repulsed by them. Or why they are trending. Or where they come from. We talk as a group about art movements and trends and gaps in history. We lean into the aesthetics, the contexts, the politics, and the ideologies that may or may not be embedded in the work. We dissect the visual moves the designer did and why she may have made those decisions. We find out more about the designer, of course, but we let the work speak for itself. Just because it came from a particular designer or a particular studio doesn't mean it's automatically great. Some of the best moments I've had in the classroom are when the students start debating these ideas — amongst themselves, without any guidance from me — trying to formulate their own point of view.
I want to create a space for young designers to feel comfortable conducting a thoughtful interrogation of images, visual culture, and the very profession they are about to enter — perhaps a small step in dismantling the celebrity designer complex while moving beyond the trends of their time. Looking at other design will always be central to the young designer's process, but they should't feel bound to trends, to styles, to celebrity as they move through their careers. The problem isn't that students don't know designers' names or are blindly following trends, it's that it is all moving too fast. Instead of fighting the new consumption paradigms, I've started to embrace it. Where I once looked down on these new modes of consuming media, romanticizing my own college experience, I now see the design students today as better equipped to do this work than I was at their age. They are well-versed in reading images, fluent in media literacy, and far less interested in celebrity. They get to experience more design — from all across the world — than any previous generation. If any of us can move beyond celebrity and dig deeper than the latest trend, it is them. We just need to be sure they have the critical tools, along with space and time, to do this work. The kids, I'm beginning to think, will be alright.
2 notes · View notes
misakishishido · 7 years ago
Text
asks for fanfic writers (response)
So I got tagged by @jurina-holic in relation to a post on a series of questions for fanfiction writers and I have to say, I am honoured to be tagged x’D Though I kinda doubt these would be satisfactory answers, I tried :P
Also, I’ll base this mostly on the 48G fandom kay? ;) 
Credit to tumblr user ibuzoo for the list of questions found here: http://ibuzoo.tumblr.com/post/145298642692
6. how did writing change you?
Well this is one of, if not, the most personal question in the list to me but I definitely don’t mind sharing about it. Tying it in somewhat with Q.5 since how long do you write, I’ve been writing stories (well, on and off now) since I was 11/12 years old. Prior to that, all I’ve done was draw and game and... game. Definitely not the most productive of hobbies in terms of building my character. 
I mainly started writing with my best friend when we decided to make a ‘sequel’ of sorts for the Cardcaptor Sakura series one day while chatting on MSN (ho ho, I’m showing my age?) back then so those were fun times. It started off as just random role-playing, then all of a sudden, we were both so engaged in figuring out how the plot-line should be from then on.
And bam! That was pretty much the start of my writing career. I wanted to see how far my creativity could take me, especially when I was still so fresh at this and ideas just kept appearing in my head. It was an amazing feeling, and it was all thanks to just a sudden random role-play with my best friend.
Since then, I’ve decided to write my own stories (own OCs, plot yadda yadda) which were discontinued due to the lack of direction I wanted to go with it, then I moved onto the writing platform-- Fanfiction.net, posting fanfics on popular series such as Persona 3 and K-ON!. My first FF.net fanfic was a discontinued Ace Attorney (Gyakuten Saiban) fanfic for the pair Miles Edgeworth and Mia Fey though. Which also brings me smoothly to my next point: my career path.
I loved writing so much (and heck throw in English as a subject at this point) that I decided to do something related to using words as a form of art. My parents ‘recommended’ me to get into law, and so I did. Of course I won’t lie, I dread the whole course and I’ll always remember my experiences as a law student to be one of ‘hell on earth’. (Yes I am still a bar student at this time of writing this post.)
Despite loads of shortcomings throughout my writing career during this time (started to feel a huge distaste when it came to writing, hated reading, creativity disappeared, lack of time to do anything fun at all), deep down, I still love this hobby of mine. My parents were also proud of me, having such a productive hobby (of course I never let them know what I wrote exactly though *cough cough*).
Well to put it short, writing has given me a chance to develop my creativity further (other than doing art, which I’m still crappy at tbvh), keeps me productive and wanting to strive for perfection one day whenever that eureka moment comes to me haha.
14. easiest character to write
Without a doubt-- Matsui Jurina. 
Okay so... I got into the 48G writing community because of WMatsui, and I actually started writing proper because of how fun it was to write for the pair. But the thing about Jurina that breaks her away from her counterpart is that she’s very........... ‘protagonist’-y in my opinion.
Throw her in any plot and she gives off this “I can be a protagonist if I wanted to” feeling, even if she’s written as a sub-character. I dunno, I relate her thoughts and motivations to the typical shounen series main protagonist, and I have a feeling I’m not the only one who has ever said this too (someone in the 48G said this about Jurina I’m sure of it). 
So she basically has this particular ‘mold’ in my head and I’ll just make do with that sample for a majority of the stories I write with her in it. She’s basically a ‘character’ I can bend around and throw into the fire but she would still come out strong, achieving the results I want in the end x’D
Also, you can ship her with pretty much anyone and it’ll still seem natural. :v
30. hardest part of writing
Definitely the planning process. I USUALLY wing it and the end product would be satisfactory... however, that applies mainly to the one-shots I’ve written.
As such, I have serious issues with multi-chaptered fanfiction, especially in the directions department. Sure I do somewhat plan in advance what should or should not happen in each chapter but a part of me would think like I’m writing too much unnecessary details and/or I have no idea how I to word a certain scene etc. that I end up staying at the drawing board for a long long time which results in me giving up after a while.
Using an ongoing fanfiction for the 48G I kinda sorta stopped writing as an example, I wrote that one purely on a whim. It had no direction whatsoever the moment I posted it on a certain 48G fanfiction thread. However gradually all the ideas flowed and worked in my HEAD, but it could never be translated into proper words for my readers to consume. Oh and procrastination. 
Also another issue is motivation, especially if my fanfic is very ship-centric. If it’s a multi-chaptered fanfiction I’m doing, and I stop, and Ii want to get back into it but all the ships I’ve used in it are ships I’ve either lost interest in or is just very “meh” about... that really affects my attitude in writing ^^;
45. share the synopsis of a story you work on that you haven’t published yet
I don’t have an actual synopsis of it buuuut I can roughly talk about it. It’s basically a reworked fanfic which was supposed to feature Oshima Yuko, Takahashi Minami and Matsui Rena as the main trio BUUUT I changed it to Yamamoto Sayaka, Yokoyama Yui and Miyawaki Sakura (a.k.a. Hantannee) as the new main trio :v Just to fit my current tastes okay? *shot’d*
Anyways, the story’s something like this.
---
Yamamoto Sayaka, Yokoyama Yui and Miyawaki Sakura are a band of Phantom Thieves ‘terrorising’ the major cities of Japan. However, they don’t steal just for the sake of it. They steal precious artefacts under a strict contract for an organisation-- a contract that would hopefully lead to answers regarding the disappearance of Sayaka and Yui’s caretaker, their ‘father’, who took them in when they were left to die on the streets as children. 
On the other side, there is the genius Interpol agent Matsui Jurina, who has a track record of 100% so far in terms of criminal capture rate. On orders from the higher ups, she had just got posted with her fiancee, Matsui Rena, at a police branch in the region which the Phantom Thieves frequented. Jurina is more of a lone wolf agent who would rather not bother with team work, to the dismay of the police chief-- (Okada Nana/Shiroma Miru -- unconfirmed atm).
Will the Phantom Thieves be captured before they find out the truth? Find out ne--
---
NOPE *SHOT’D* I can’t do this x’D But yeah basically it’s a police flick thing that I had written parts of like, last year? Two years ago? I forgot. But I thought it would be interesting if I only knew how to frame it all together and had time to do so. 
Not sure if this will ever be published but if this hypes anyone up that’d be great x’) There’ll be ships for sure. Like JuriSaku for one.
And there you have it~ 5 little facts about me as a fanfic writer o/ 
5 notes · View notes
deeeelightfuldee · 3 years ago
Text
surveyss 008.
1. Can you remember what you were doing at 8:15 this morning? I was just staring at my ceiling. 2. In your phone’s contacts, who is the first person listed under the letter ‘R’? When did you last see that person? Rana. Uhhh, I don’t think we ever really saw one another in person because of Covid, but maybe once or twice in passing 2 years ago. 3. If someone is sticking their nose into your business where it isn’t wanted, how would you deal with that? Would you say something to them?I tend to either withdraw entirely, change the subject, or just flat out say well that isn’t something I feel comfortable discussing. I’m kind of over spending so much energy to make everyone else comfortable and myself miserable.
4. What did you have for lunch today? Or, if you haven’t had lunch yet, what do you think you will have? I had a bagel for breakfast/lunch.
5. Is there someone you desperately want to see/speak to atm, but you can’t? Yeppppppp. I really want to talk to and see kile, but that won’t happen. He won’t message, or try to contact. I’m pretty convinced he never wanted to come out here anyway, so I guess it’s for the best. It’ll get easier.
6. Do you and your significant other have a special song? What is it? no sig other at the moment. 7. If you HAD to sing something on karaoke, what song would you choose? Turn on the radio by reba is the first one that came to mind hahaha.
8. Can you remember the last time you felt ill? What was wrong with you? Yeah, today! I think some of it is stress related.. not sleeping, not eating the best, but I have been having these awful headaches and it’s been making me super nauseated. 
9. What time is it now? Are you tired?  It is 10:35 pm and I’m not really tired. Mentally I’m freaking wiped, but I won’t be able to shut my brain off for some time. 10. If you wear make-up, do you take it with you, to reapply throughout the day? Does your make-up stay for a long time after you first apply it, or do you find that you need to reapply often? Are you wearing any make-up atm? I seldom take it with me unless I plan on being super warm, wet, or gone overnight. It typically stays for a long time. I have a little left over but I am not feeling up to going and washing it off.
11. What if you found the last person you kissed, in bed with the last person you texted? Hahahahahaha, well I know that they are both straight so I doubt it would happen. If it was the last opposite sex situation uhh, it would be very surprising because she is happily in a relationship and he has no idea really where she is. 12. The last person you held hands with - have you ever kissed them? Not yet.
13. Can you remember what your parents bought you for Christmas last year? My mom got me so many lovely gifts. She got me an awesome speaker, art stuff, slippers, perfume, etc. She spoils me. My dad has never gotten me anything for Christmas.
14. Think about the person you fell hardest for. Why do you think your feelings for this person were so strong? How is he/she different compared to everyone else you’ve had feelings for? Oooo boy. There are two people that I have had really strong feelings for that are completely different from one another. One of them was just... so .. in sync with me. I could flirt shamelessly with him, he calmed every insecurity, had this smile that melted me, and we were like the most beautiful fit at the worst possible time. He was smart, super dang funny, helpful, patient, kind, driven, talented, hard working, thoughtful, and made me feel so safe and so special. The other guy I had fought feelings for for a while. I was determined not to like him because he was self-centered, hard-headed, cocky, and it just bothered me. However, over time he morphed into this like... completely different person. He began to work on himself and he poured SO MUCH time, effort, money, and energy into making me feel like the most incredible creature he’d ever encountered. He is intelligent, stubborn, generous, and was my very best friend that I just felt whole when talking to him. We didn’t live near one another, but it felt like I took him with me everywhere every day because we just stayed in contact constantly. He became this amazing version of himself that just... so fit me.
30. Have you ever caught your friend cheating on their boyfriend/girlfriend? If you have, what did you do about it? If you haven’t, what do you think you would do? Yeah I have and I called her out on it haaaaaaard core. Her sig other found out and even saw the texts of me saying “you need to tell him NOW.”
31. When your last relationship ended, how long was it before you felt ready to think about being with someone else? I think it’ll be a while. I wasn’t even in an official relationship this last time, though it felt like it. The previous one it took me maybe a year or so before I dated again, but a lot of that was because I just genuinely didn’t have the schedule. 
32. Has any of your friends ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend that you found attractive, and you would secretly have liked to have for yourself? Hmmm.. I’ve found some attractive, but no not for myself. I’m very picky and (without sounding terribly cocky) I know what I am worth. I bring a LOT to the table and I just don’t want to settle. The guys that I’m thinking of are PHENOMENAL fits for the girls they are with, but not for me. My needs are different.
33. How many guys do you know named Matthew? Love that name. always wanted to marry a matthew. I know probably 5? --- none are marriage material HA
34. Think about the last person that made you cry. Would that person be there for you if you needed help? Uhhh, I guess it depends on the help. I honestly think a couple months ago he would have dropped anything to help me any time for any reason. He was always dependable. But now it kind of seems like .. idk. He just doesn’t care about me. I think if I needed help that was financial? maybe he would step in. But beyond that, no I don’t think so. Wow, thats.. hard to think about.
35. Who was the last person you talked to before you went to sleep last night? Do you remember what you talked about? Kile. We talked about how we were done. We discussed an airbnb for some reason.
36. Has someone of the opposite sex made you cry at any point during the last 24 hours? Yeppppppppppppppppppp. Which is unusual for me, but this is the loss of a really very close relationship. It’s the adjustment period.
37. Is there anything you would like to say to your most recent ex? Depends on what you call an ex. an official boyfriend, gosh no. I am very much OK not ever talking to him again. If it is this semi-relational situation, yeah there’s a lot I would say, but it doesn’t quite seem.. no. 
38. If your friends are sexually active but you aren’t, does that bother you? Have you ever felt pressured to have sex before you were ready, because your friends had done it? It doesn’t bother me at all. My friends have different viewpoints regarding sex and they know mine is totally different than theirs because of my trauma. Definitely never felt pressured by them.
39. In your opinion, what is the difference between having a crush and being in love? Have your own experiences helped you to realise that there is a difference? Crushes are like “eek, I hope he looks at me! I hope we bump into one another! I hope our hands “accidentally” brush against one another” whereas love is just consuming. It’s loyalty. It’s the deeper... passionate and steady feelings. It’s working towards making another persons life better without looking for anything in return.
40. Did the last person you hugged have any of these letters in their name: T, R, K, P, J? R 41. What’s the most unhealthy thing you’ve eaten in the last 24 hours? m&ms
42. What was the last compliment you received from someone of the opposite sex? I was just asked if I could be someone’s sugar baby because “your eyes scream beauty while looking trustworthy and genuine” lololol. 43. Who did you last say ‘I love you’ to? What colour are that person’s eyes? My sister, blue eyes.
44. If you took away the first and third letters of your name, what would you then be called? Ina.
45. Name 7 things that make you happy, and explain how it might affect you if you had to give them up. Benny, family, school, air conditioning, pools, bobs burgers, bread --Some of these things I don’t have access to and lemme tell you it is BRUTAL. Some of these things would destroy me if I lost them.
46. Think about your Facebook profile photo. What kind of assumptions do you think a stranger might make about you, from seeing that photograph? Would any of these assumptions be correct? Yikes I don’t even know what that photo is. They’d probably think “wow, thats an old looking photo and why doesn’t she ever update her profile” and each of those statements would be correct.
47. You buy a bar of chocolate, but you decide that you don’t want to eat it now, and put it in the fridge. When you go back later, half of it’s gone - someone else has started eating it! Who are you most likely to blame? My grandma forrrrrrrrrr sure.
48. Choose 5 friends, and talk briefly about each person’s longest/most serious relationship. Who was the relationship with, and how long did it last? Oye. No. 49. Do you think it’s wrong for someone to commit themselves to a long-term relationship at a young age? Explain. No. I think the only downside is that you lose the ability to learn who you are on your own, your beliefs, values, standpoints, non-negotiables, standards, etc. without the influence of the other person. Plus, getting together really young takes away the ability to think about yourself solely which is kind of a bummer. 50. Is there something happening in the near future, that you’re looking forward to? The distraction of the holiday will be wonderful.
0 notes
jettremy · 7 years ago
Note
11 for cas!
( * seven minutes in heaven . )
                    ➥  (   11.  )  needy, hungry kiss.
Tumblr media
            WHEN YOU LOSE EVERYTHING & all at once, it’s laborious & nearly impossible to escape a mindset so disturbing, jaundiced & detrimental. you morph into an ominous, dark thundercloud, spreading your electrifying negativity like a virus via air particles. those whom you haven’t pushed away yet, you’re poisoning with your blackened blood that’s being paradoxically pumped by the sheer N O T H I N G N E S S between your rotting lungs. you inject your venom into their pristine flesh with every graze of your lips & teeth against their body while hidden beneath thin sheets. all of your friends you’ve abandoned, determining that you’ve acquired a peculiar taste for the menacing touch of self-hatred, the strangling embrace of solitude & the deadly kiss of depression, a taste none of them would understand. you resort to numerous unfit lovers whom you throw away when they fail to make you feel ANYTHING, even if it’s repulsion. you’ve become erratically violent towards your own skin & bones, mutilating & scorching not only your own costume but the world around you as well   ——   seeing something consumed by flames is comforting & calming, makes you feel as if the destroyed object might sense a sliver of what your insides are going through constantly, or at least when they’re not numbed by the substances that will steal your life away prematurely. all of it jeremy has tasted on his tongue, felt on his skin. all it took was a single summer for him to lose two of the most substantial people of his life and for everything to turn to shit. so far, he’s been through three notable phases & all of them could be linked to a particular love interest of his.
CASSIUS HWANG   ——   the happiest version of jeremy. back then, everything was normal &, most importantly, easy & painless. he often dreams of the life he used to have & is desperate to experience it all over again.
RHEE TAEMIN   ——   the worst version of him, one that he wants to erase from his own memory. one that he’s ashamed of, one that he despises with every single cell of his lanky body. occasionally he’s tempted to fall back into his old ways, but, thankfully, he’s regained enough strength to pull himself up every single time & escape his old vices’ vicious claws.
KERRY HIMURA   ——   the newest version of the artistic male, one that’s yet to be fully explored because he’s stuck healing & finding himself all over again. it’s as if he’s walking on thin ice, deathly afraid of potentially relapsing to his second phase, when all he wants to do is be who he was while dating cas. he masks his true sensitivity with jokes, too busy teasing people to form DEEP, emotional connections with them.
Tumblr media
            EXTREMELY INFREQUENT ARE THE INSTANCES when the four of them find themselves in the same room, when all of jeremy’s emotions and old selves come crashing together, his various identities colliding and threatening to D E M O L I S H anything and anyone, guilty or innocent, that’s in their way with an overwhelming, disastrous force. he’s on edge whilst appearing to be comfortable on cassius’ sofa, his feelings confusing the living fuck out of him as his wild eyes try to take in everything that’s going on around him. the only indicator that he might be feeling UNEASY is his left leg which is mercilessly bouncing, though, if you know jeremy, you know that’s one of his many, many annoying habits that he can’t seem to shake off. on days when it’s just too hard to breathe, jeremy skips out on these cutesy get-togethers and exchanges them for a night of spray painting and liquor abuse. however, today’s too special for him to ghost on his friends, both in an unexpected, unannounced manner & with a fake excuse. a long time ago, this date used to be one of the most I M P O R T A N T ones to him   ——   CAS’ BIRTHDAY. days before it, jeremy would prepare gifts for his then boyfriend, little drawings and paintings, he’d rehears playing his favourite songs on his old, beat-up & sticker-covered acoustic guitar, even when he wasn’t the biggest fan of said tunes. he’d treat him like a king on that day, perhaps only a smidge more than he normally would on any other   ——   he always made sure that cassius was feeling good and was treated properly. whilst recalling some of their joint memories that he holds very dear, like piercing cas’ nose and inking up his skin ( a sign of TRUST in jeremy’s eyes ), or having him lovingly hold remy’s hand when a piercer stuck a needle through his privates, his often red-rimmed, black oak bark orbs are tirelessly following the birthday boy who’s dressed up so nicely. even jeremy found it in him to put on a proper outfit for this occasion   ——   a dark rose gold silk dress shirt embellished with onyx embroidery on its collar & the very ends of its sleeves ( dae did make him laugh previously by saying it looked like a delicious, mouth-watering raspberry adorn with the sun’s breathtaking golden glow ) paired with tight charcoal jeans that beautifully show that he never skips leg day at the gym. they carry his characteristic edge & rebellion, since they’re tastefully ripped. when he talked to the blond, they might have told him that the fashion major of the group would surely find him attractive in this outfit, which might have caused him to smile secretly. his stomach was tied in knots at the thought of kerry’s reaction & impression of his garments which he assumed she’d keep to herself. chimlin did surprise him with her obnoxious ‘ OMG LEE, YOU CLEANED UP NICELY ’ which earned her a scoff from jeremy who stated that he had a good fashion sense, but that he preferred his cozy, oversized sweatshirts. though, surely everyone would argue that tight-fitted shirts like this one, which show off his lean waist & broad shoulders, suit him far better. 
Tumblr media
            THEY’RE ALL SUPPOSED TO BE pregaming before going out to celebrate cassius’ birthday, but the architect has done his fair share of prepregaming all alone in his bedroom before kerry, bless her heart, came to notify him that it was time for them to leave & go to the mansion next door. though he was, at first, buzzing around the little brunette, complimenting her new hairdo & expressing that he could never in his life decide whether it fits her better than blonde locks or not, once he stepped into his ex’s house, it all stopped abruptly. the two men from his past aggressively dragged his thoughts & feelings away from kerry, mostly because seeing them in the same room always reminds him of how defeating it feels to hurt or be hurt by another person. he realises how badly he’d burn her if she came too close, how she’d get swallowed by his endless darkness if she peeked into his heart   ——   HE’D DESTROY HER. she doesn’t deserve that. thankfully, he’s not in the limelight tonight, resulting into no one noticing how mopey he’s become whilst sitting on this damned overpriced sofa and gulping some fancy-ass, well-aged whiskey. he’s not sure exactly whose idea was it to engage in many different drinking games, but he sure does pick up on chimlin trying to persuade them to play seven nights in heaven   ——   sure that childish bitch would propose that, a lover of all things dramatic & secretive. he witnesses her hand the empty whiskey bottle to the peach-haired man, encouraging him to give it a spin. it unsettles the tattoo artist who immediately recalls his ex-boyfriend crawling out of a closet with a blossoming bruise on his neck, made by no other than han yeseul. he’s well aware of the fact that he doesn’t get to be J E A L O U S, mostly because that night he got marked up by kerry and, yes, he fucking liked it, but it still made him feel uncomfortable, tightened his chest significantly. he knows that during these past three years cas must have dated, loved, screwed who knows how many people   ——   it’s something inevitable   ——   but the thought of him loving someone else shatters his whole being, mostly because he hasn’t been able to have true feelings for anyone ever since they parted ways. perhaps because he didn’t get proper closure.
Tumblr media
            HE’S ITCHING FOR A CIGARETTE, a glorious death stick that would ease his nerves while the bottle’s spinning on the floor, making him queasy as he thinks about all the possible outcomes of this situation. he knows that cas doesn’t mind that he smokes, but this happens to be junhyuk’s house as well & he has no fucking clue how the writer feels about having one lit in his home. this is why jeremy ends up anxiously drumming his tattooed, slender fingers on his knees instead. he could deal with cas going into that stupid closet with dae, jaewon, jaesung, dylan and kerry. everyone else ? it’s a strong no from him, considering that yeseul, rin and chim could do who the fuck knows what with him, jun is obviously into him, and … having taemin & cas in a small closet together ? a war would happen and there’d be only ONE survivor   ——-   yes, he’s the one to blame for that as well. his lids shield his eyes from the bottle, protecting them from what’s about to happen & his head falls back   ——   he’s not even tipsy at this point which SHOULDN’T come as a surprise to anyone since he’s quite experienced in this domain, his body used to all sorts of opiates that it’s begun to welcome them as if they’re a normal part of his system. having tuned everyone out for a mere second as he braces himself for the worst, he suddenly senses a shove to his ribs   ——   he’s being elbowed by none other than daehyun for a reason still unknown to the older male. as soon as his chestnuts are revealed, they’re faced with the opening of the glass bottle, which is pointing at him, & numerous sets of eyes boring into him   ——   F U C K. act cool. act fucking cool. this ? this is the last thing he thought would happen. jeremy forces out an exasperated sigh and theatrically reacts as if he’s done with their childish bullshit when in reality his heart’s shaking in terror in its cavity, like a leaf repeatedly hit with light wind. he pushes himself up & off the elegant piece of furniture casually, his body moving unhurriedly, and refuses to allow anyone to see how solicitous he is about what’s in his and cassius’ near future.
Tumblr media
           JEREMY’S MASK FALLS AS SOON AS the door closes behind him & he’s all alone with his former lover. his beaming smile lights up the darkness of the tight place they’ve been shoved in, his whole expression indicating that he’s nothing but amused & sated. he reminds himself not to lean back & hit the wood in order to prevent the others from being suspicious of what they’re doing.          ❛     oh me, oh my … all alone with the birthday boy ? me ? how did i get so lucky ?     ❜         it occurs to him that he has no idea what cas is feeling towards him at this point, or if he has any feelings left for him after all this time. hell, he has no clue what the fuck his own mutilated, bleeding heart wants. still, he takes a courageous step forward, carefully presses the older against the closet wall and snakes his arms around his neck. it feels delightful doing it to someone else for once. although his go to type are petite girls & boys alike ( exhibit a, KERRY   —–   exhibit b, TAEMIN ), he’s always loved his and cassius’ height difference, basked in feeling small for the first time in his life in the taller man’s arms, adored how he could feel like a protectee rather than a protector, even though cas is much softer & sweeter than jeremy is. it’s good not to get neck & back cramps from leaning down so much, even more amazing having to look up in order to see his handsome features.        ❛    this must be the best present you’ve gotten thus far, but the night is full of surprises, cassie.     ❜         a whisper taunts cas’ earlobe, along with a set of incisors that graze it dangerously. his desire leads him to the jawline he’s explored many, many times ( much like every other spot of the radio host’s body ), his naturally pouty lips planting kisses on their path to jeremy’s final goal. a pair of nostalgic, desperate hands caresses cas’ sides and then goes all the way down to POSSESSIVELY cup the curve of his back, squeezing hard enough to make their hips clash together, and perhaps earn a gasp.         ❛     do you still have that little tattoo i gave you down there ?     ❜         of course it couldn’t have disappeared on its own, like cas did from jeremy’s life, and the younger truly doubts cas would go through all that pain just to get it removed, but he needs to ask, his question making his smirking lips brush against the other’s   ——   he doesn’t cave in just yet, though, he waits for the answer to his teasing. in a pointless attempt to bring his F R I E N D closer, he rests one of his hand on the back of the taller’s neck, and with a hard grip on his thigh, brings his leg up and around his own waist, pressing cas into the wall. immediately after connecting their mouths for the first time after three years, jeremy has to pull back to catch a breath because the overwhelming, much needed contact sucked all the air out of him with its intensity. like a starved animal, he eyes the other’s parted, glossy lips ravenously, along with his somewhat hooded soul windows, & his irresistible expression pushes jeremy into a lip-lock that promises to provoke a spontaneous combustion. his blood vessels are boiling, body shaking as his tongue licks between cas’ precious pillowy softness, tugging on his bottom pinkness afterwards. using his exceptional upper body strength, he picks cas up for a few seconds, just enough for him to crouch and sit on the floor with cas on his lap because ... why exactly would he be standing if he can be comfortable on the ground while sharing needy kisses with the birthday boy ? jeremy slowly dials down on the desperateness, savouring the moment while he can. he pulls away, his hands going up to the other’s face. he brushes his knuckles against his cheek which leads him to gently cradling both of them and tracing cas’ adorable dimple with his thumb.         ❛     happy birthday, cas.     ❜         he whispers softly, pressing their lips  together in a fond, lingering peck. his eyes are shut, his brain going back to the texts they exchanged the other day, when cas asked him whether he was still in love with him. this, this very moment is when jeremy’s insides start PAINING HIM UNBEARABLY.
11 notes · View notes
surveys-at-your-service · 7 years ago
Text
Survey #114
“oh yeah, i’m a reaper man; every good thing, i kill it dead.”
What kind of makeup do you think is appropriate for church?  Who cares.  Wear what you want; I don't see how your makeup affects God's opinion on you while in His house. What would you wear to church?  I don't dress up for the same reason as above.  I just wear my usual. Would/do you like having brown eyes? I like having blue eyes.  It's not that brown isn't pretty, it's just so common. What kind of gift would you appreciate for your birthday? I'm just asking for money again.  Can already go see Sara, time to work towards the tattoo. What do you use Facebook for?  My main reason is legit funny pictures lmao.  There's few people I'm actually actively interested in keeping up with. Would you rather be called a geek, a nerd or a dork?  A geek is 100% a compliment lol. Do you like pretzels? Soft ones, yes.  Especially the ones from those little shops at malls, omgggg.  I'd prefer to not eat hard ones. You want your next pet to be what? A bearded dragon.  Or two rats. Would you spend 20 dollars on a candle?  Ha.  No. What is the goriest thing you’ve seen in real life? There was a deer that died directly beside the road leading to our old house and it was decaying.  I still remember all the maggots squirming around in its side. @_@ Do you take any meds? If so which and why?  Mood stabilizers, anxiety med, something for nausea if one of my mood stabilizers causes it, Melatonin, something for heartburn, and birth control unless I want my uterus to tear me apart from the inside. Is "no glove, no love" your STRICT policy?  If I actually was to have sex, yes.  Even with me on the pill, I'm not taking any risks.  Not getting pregnant. If someone breaks a law, should they be punished if they did not know it was a law?  Depends on the law. Name a band you sort of like:  What a thing to admit, but Blood on the Dance Floor.  I like some of their songs, while others are just too repulsive. In your head do you call yourself 'I’ or 'you’ or both?  Usually "you," and always when I'm trying to calm or reassure myself, because it's like hearing validation of something from another person. Someone tells you 'well there are black people, and then there are (removed term bc fuck that word)’. What do you think?  My former friend used to say that and I fucking hated it. Who REALLY has a higher sex drive, girls or guys? How can you tell?  I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure there's science behind men having more of a libido. Do you enjoy wild parties?  I literally could never. Have you ever been stereotyped? As what?  I was called both emo and goth in high school.  It wasn't offensive to me personally, but I don't think I totally fit any stereotype. Who do you know that you believe does not masturbate?  I don't for a number of reasons, and I can name a few others I'm pretty sure don't. Does a cloned human being have a soul? Why or why not?  explosion.gif Who looks better naked, men or woman?  Women.  I'm bi, yes, but penises look fucking disgusting to me personally. Is there anything you won’t say unless someone else says it first?  Nothing immediately comes to mind. What’s your favorite type of doughnut? Either glazed or cake (the totally plain ones). Do you have any candles in your bedroom? Do you light them often?  No, I have an incense burner.  I use it often enough. What is your least favorite thing about your full name?  I just don't like my last name, and my middle name's too common, but at least I like the name itself. What’s your favorite kind of Poptart?  Probably the chocolate sundae one.  But I don't like Poptarts much. Do you think you look good with a hat on? I can't remember the last time I wore a hat. Are there some songs you can’t listen to because they remind you of something? "The Mortician's Daughter" and "Stairway to Heaven." Do you live near a street light?  No. Do you wear any rings? A red gem one I got from Mom, then a "bitch/jerk" friendship ring (Supernatural reference) with my girlfriend. Do you put collars on your cats? When we had cats, yeah. Do you like celery?  Ew no. Did you cry while watching the Notebook?  I've never sobbed at a movie, but I cried, yeah.  I've cried in subsequent watches too lmao.  I think I've always teared up, actually. Do you have a protective mom and dad?  Mom's extremely protective of me.  I'd say Dad's pretty normal. What field trip did you last go on?  Probably for a band competition in high school. Five ways to win your heart:  Uhhh.  Show compassion, patience, generosity, wisdom, and maturity. Your views on mainstream music:  It's getting too vulgar to be on the radio.  I firmly believe children don't need to hear profanity (they don't know when it's inappropriate to use) or talk of sex, and songs just have so much censorship yet lack thereof now.  If you're going to censor almost an entire song, why the hell play it?  Then some songs are so clearly about sex or just openly say the word that it bothers me.  I wouldn't wanna explain what sex is to say my like five-year-old if they heard some of the shit on the radio and asked questions. Put your iPod on shuffle and write that 10 first songs that play: 1.) "Clocks" by Coldplay, 2.) "Paradise City" by Guns N' Roses, 3.) "Blessed With a Curse" by Bring Me the Horizon, 4.) "Let It Die" by Starset, 5.) "I Don't Love You" by My Chemical Romance, 6.) "Animals" by Nickelback, 7.) "Shoots and Ladders" by Korn, 8.) "Divinity Statue" from DMC3, 9.) "Float On" by Modest Mouse, 10.) "This Is Gospel" by Panic! at the Disco. A quote you try to live by: "Life's hard.  Shouldn't you be, too?"  ... It's not meant to be an innuendo. How do you know when someone thinks you’re attractive?  I would literally have to be told lmao. Which one of your relationships was the shortest?  Two weeks and it was fucking stupid. Which was the longest?  Almost four years. If you want to get married, what age? I don't have a set age in mind.  Just whenever my s/o and I are ready. What did you end up getting for Christmas? A PS2 after mine broke years ago ahhhh, way too much money from my dad, his wife, and my grandpa, a "meerkat lover" street sign, a meerkat puzzle I'mma do and frame for my room, some pajama pants, an iHome for my iPod, Pikachu and Grumpy Cat plushies that're too cute, among other things that aren't coming to mind rn. Do you think buying underwear/bras at Victoria’s Secret is a waste?  Meh, mixed feelings.  Like they are way too expensive for some damn bras and underwear, but if they make you feel more confident or pretty in your body, buy them. Do you like glittery things? Usually. Do you like Red Lobster?  It used to be my favorite restaurant, but after I got sick after eating there, I haven't gone since.  Even though I was feeling sick before we went, it's just an association thing. What are you most scared of?  Relapse, losing certain people. Favorite video game?  "Silent Hill 2" Do you believe that leaving a significant other for someone else is ever a good idea?  YUP. because if you loved the first person, you wouldnt even consider the second.  <<<< This. Do you have any possessions that you’re very attached to, and you’d be absolutely devastated if you damaged or lost them? Absolutely devastated... the little rock I got from my partial hospitalization at Holly Hill.  When someone "graduates," you pick a shiny rock from a jar that gets passed around the room for your "classmates" to wish you well and say anything they'd like to say about you while they hold it.  I cherish that thing so much. What’s the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done, and you got away with it? I guess have oral entirely naked on the old chaise in the living room.  But we were home alone. How much do you want to weigh?  I was totally happy at 120, but I was fine at 140.  Supposedly I should be like 130-something. If you HAD to do your holiday shopping for EVERYONE in only ONE store what store would you pick?  Uh probably Walmart lmao. Do you believe that guns don’t kill people and that people kill people? Why?  People kill people, and that's coming from someone afraid of guns.  You have a choice where you're pointing that thing. What is the difference between a good poem and a bad one?  I don't like ones that are virtually impossible to understand. Which do you need more: sugar, caffeine, alcohol, drugs, sex, sleep?  I'm addicted to caffeine, I can't go two days without it. @_@ Who is someone you know should deserve more respect?  Ha, my Dad from my mom. What movie would you like to see again, that you haven’t watched since you were a kid?  The first movie that came to mind was "Shiloh." Are birds happy in cages? Are pets happy indoors?  I truly doubt birds are happy in cages, but maybe if they have enough entertainment and it's big enough?  But I'm sure like dogs and cats are fine indoors considering a whole house is much bigger.  Though I think bigger dogs especially need to be let out to run around sometimes. Hula hoops or jump ropes?  Jump ropes.  Loved it as a kid.  Now my knees would murder me. Can you understand sign language?  No.  But I remember learning this song in elementary school that we had to sing and do sign language to, but I don't remember any of it. Does anyone in your family hunt?  Nicole, my little sister. How about fish? Me and Dad, maybe his dad. Do you pronounce the "l" in salmon?  No. Have you ever gotten stuck on an amusement park ride? Thank Christ no. Have you ever seen an albino animal?  Maybe?  I've seen a white alligator, but it technically wasn't albino. Have you ever tried summoning Bloody Mary?  No. When is the last time you consumed alcohol? New Year's Eve.  I drank a margarita way too fast but felt nothing because my alcohol tolerance is God-Tier. ᕙ(⇀‸↼‶)ᕗ  (Though I like never drink.) Do you ever judge people based on if they believe in God or not? No. Are you sometimes scared to express your opinions in fear of what others might think? Y U P Do you ‘bless’ strangers when they sneeze? Sometimes. Would you rather go to a University or a community college?  The latter if they offered good classes.  It's cheaper, and you can still get a worthy degree. What’s your favorite kind of bread?  Pumpernickel. What toppings do you like on your pizza?  Only jalapenos or pepperoni. What color or design does your shower curtain have?  It's just white. What color is your microwave?  Black. Could you ever give yourself a shot?  If I had to, yeah. Have you ever been so embarrassed that you cried?  Story of my life. How many people have told you they were in love with you?  One. Would you ever have sex with the last person you texted?  Well, we're both girls, so actual sex would be psychically impossible, but I'd do as close as we could to it if she made it very clear she wanted to. Does it bother you when people don’t answer questions with exact answers?  Yes, especially if I'm asking them a question about needing validation for something.  Don't be vague. Have you ever watched a needle go into your own skin?  I usually do so I know exactly when it's coming.  And if I'm getting my blood drawn, I watch it for whatever reason. @_@ Have you ever seen someone get a piercing/tattoo? Yes. Do you like strawberry and banana smoothies?  Strawberry.  I doubt I'd like banana. Do you know someone that is mute, deaf or blind? My sister Ashley is literally blind in one eye, I think her right?  For the other two, idk. What’s your favorite horror movie? I really like both "Blair Witch Project"s, as well as "The Crazies." Is it true that people with depression CAN’T function in society?  Sometimes, absolutely. Can you think of any person or group you cannot empathise with?  Pedophiles, rapists, racists, abusive people, homophobes, the list goes on. Do you want to get married? If so, what color will your dress be? It'll be either black, white, or ivory, idk. Do you like peanut butter and fluff sandwiches?  NO. Do you play video games? If so, what kind?  Yes, just about exclusively story-based ones that usually involve horror.  But I like many others, so long there's actually plot to it. How old is your oldest and youngest friend?  Oldest is like... 32, youngest is 17, I think. How weight conscious are you?  Only extremely. Stripes or polka dots? Polka dots. What was your first word?  "Dada" What's a show that you absolutely refuse to watch?  "13 Reasons Why" Do you remember how old you were when you started swearing? 7th grade. Have you ever been involved in a custody battle before?  I'm actually not sure.  I don't think so.  If it did, Mom never told us. Did your parents ever let you play in the pits of those multicolored balls?  Yes, until I think a dirty needle was found in one of McDonald's ball pits. Do you think biting is weird or sexy? I like it so long you don't leave a mark in an obvious spot. Do you have a class ring?  No. What type of internet browser are you using?  Chrome. How long do your showers typically last? Not even ten minutes. Can you cry on cue?  No. Were you a Nancy Drew reader when you were younger?  No. Are you the kind of person that takes pictures with a drink in your hand?  No, and quite frankly, it's obnoxious.  You're getting intoxicated.  Congrats. Do either of your parents have a mental illness?  Mom has depression, and she says Dad's bipolar, but I absolutely don't see it now that they're divorced. When you were growing up, did your family rent or own your home?  Own. When was the last time you wore a full face of makeup?  I couldn't tell you.  The most I ever wear is eye liner, shadow, mascara, and lipstick, but I don't consider that a "full face of makeup." Do you own an iPad?  No. Have you ever experienced sleep paralysis?  No, thank goodness. Do you think it’s wrong for people to say 'retard/retarded’ as an insult?  I FUCKING HATE IT. How many people of the opposite sex have made you cry?  I think two. Would you eat a live tarantula for $1,000?  No, I just wouldn't be able to.  If it didn't have its fangs, maybe? What’s one health problem you wish you didn’t have?  Anxiety.  Shit would be so much better without it. Is your mom or dad the older parent? Mom by one year. Do you have any close friends that were adopted? No. Do you believe that people can be psychics? No. List these apple types from greatest to worst: green, red, yellow. Red, green, yellow. Does your house have more than one fireplace?  We don't have even one. When it rains does it leave a lake in your front yard?  No.  My original home was like that, though.  It ALWAYS flooded. Do you dread when people ask you to sign their yearbooks?  No, I actually found it flattering to know they wanted me to sign it. Where is one place that you’d never be caught dead in?  A strip club, to name one. Do you have a favorite Scooby-Doo movie?  I loved the Phantom Virus one.  Even had the game. Do you dislike when people ruin the endings of anything for you?  Yes, unless I ask to just be told. You are holding onto your grandmother’s hand and the hand of a newborn that you do not know as they hang over the edge of a cliff. You have to let one go to save the other. Who do you let fall to their death? What was your rationale for making the decision?  ... Whoa.  I'd feel fucking godawful, but I'd save my grandmother.  I'm not calling the baby less human, but my grandmother is more conscious of life and everything, I guess? Which would you choose: true love with a guarantee of a broken heart, or never loved at all? Why? Never love at all.  Heartbreak is fucking awful. Have you ever seen the movie "A Walk to Remember?" Cliche or worth watching?  I think it's worth watching.  Very sweet movie. Do you know how to sew? What’s your favorite thing to sew? No. Do you own many pairs of shorts?  I don't own any. Do you ever have movie nights with your significant other?  Ye<3 Do you like fiction or non-fiction books more? What’s your favorite?  Fiction.  "Johnny Got His Gun" and "The Outsiders." Have you ever slept in the same bed as your friend? Yeah. How many tattoos would you get?  I want LOADS. What brand of toothpaste do you use? Crest. Would you ever tattoo the name of a bf/gf or spouse on yourself?  No.  I'd get a matching tattoo relatively deep into marriage, but name, nah. What’s your least favorite season? Summer. D: What’s your favorite dessert?  Red velvet cake. Do you like cotton candy? Meh, I can have a couple bites. Do you have any shirts signed by famous people?  No. Where do you normally get your hair cut? A family friend's salon. What would your dream engagement ring look like? I really like dragon's breath opal rings or rose gold ones but idk how expensive either are. @_@ What’s the longest your hair has ever been?  Like to the small of my back. How do you feel about bleach blonde hair? Gorgeous on some people, not for me. Do you know anyone who has been arrested? Yes. Name 2 questions that you will most likely never say ‘no’ to:  1.) "Do you wanna go get a tattoo?", 2.) "Do you wanna Skype?" if it's Sara. Imagine someone has a great personality, sense or humor, family and job. they also really really like you a lot. Would you consider dating them if they: Were fat?  Yes. Limped?  Yes. Were a midget?  Yes. Had HIV?  No, because I'm too scared to put myself at risk. Were paralyzed in one arm?  Yes. Had a glass eye?  Yes. Had only 6 months to live?  No, that would destroy me. Would you get married on TV?  No.  I don't want people I don't care about watching. Do you own a metal detector?  No.  I did as a kid, though.
2 notes · View notes
todokori-kun · 7 years ago
Text
Ok:
Luna, you’re the best. You’re smart, you’re talented, you’re dedicated, you’re creative and caring, a wonderful listener, so much fun to debate with, and the best friend anyone could ever ask for. I’m so grateful for everything you’ve helped me with ever since we started talking; I respect your resolve. You’re unique and amazing, and I’m so, so sorry this is happening to you.
I won’t go into detail because it’s a complicated story that’s also way too long, but I’ve sort of felt that way before too (thinking it might be better if I just disappeared/wishing I didn’t exist/feeling worthless). It sucks.
I don’t know if this’ll help, but just know that I’m always here to listen if you need it. You can Email me (though I guess that’s probably not an option lol) or just, like, I don’t know, maybe post something on the blog like ‘Evans can we talk’ and I’ll definitely see it and respond because I stalk this place 24/7 (Evans is a creep please don’t encourage her). I’ve also been considering finally getting a tumblr so maybe we’ll be able to PM each other sometime.
There’s absolutely nothing to apologize for. It’s really brave to talk about stuff like this (I never can). And if there’s any way I can help, please, let me know.
  (Also, funny story (it’s actually gross and is basically just Evans whining about stuff):
I know from experience that stomach-related sicknesses suck. When I first started taking swimming lessons I was an idiot with zero stamina who could barely swim halfway across the pool without coming up for air, so needless to say, I ended up gulping a ton of water (especially since my teacher didn’t go easy on me; mom told her not to because I’m a sloth and I usually won’t do any exercise on my own besides simple stretches and some walking/running). I mean, the water in swimming pools is usually a bit disgusting, and it’s even worse where I take lessons because it’s a pretty old place and I don’t think it gets cleaned that often… so not only did accidentally swallowing it trigger my clean-freak senses, I also ended up with a terrible stomachache. I thought it was fine, that it would pass. But then I got a fever and every other thing I ate made me feel like someone was twisting my intestines from the inside, I couldn’t even lie down and rest for a sec because whenever I moved or tried to change positions it got even worse ;p; (also my mom never let it go, she kept jokingly 'reminding’ me that water from a swimming pool is not something you should drink after I started swimming again. I guess I kinda deserved it, though. I was an idiot))
That sounds so lovely <3 I’d really love to go visit Norway myself sometime, though I’ll probably have to wait a few years (my mom has back problems that make it painful for her to stay in one position for too long, so long plane/car rides are a huge no). And oooh if you have any good pictures I’d love to see them :D
Thanks, I’m glad I managed to explain my shipping reasons (like it’s so hard to properly talk about why I ship stuff sometimes XD)! I would give anything to have you join me in Stoki hell so let me just recommend basically the entire Remember This Cold series (it’s angsty as heck so proceed with caution…there are bits of humor and fluff in there, though, and then some extremely rare (almost) pure fluff fics. Like the one where Steve wants to propose but is a nervous bean because Loki’s a PRINCE and he wants to make it perfect). I’ll also try to find some more good fics later becase I can’t remember any titles right now ^^;;
YES ANOTHER T'CHALLA FAN I adore this guy (also I feel like he has a really cool voice. Not really sure why, it just sounds so nice). I really respect him for his attitude towards Steve and Bucky after he figures out Bucky’s not the real murderer, and how he later stops letting his anger towards his father’s killer consume him.
We’ll fangirl over the Black Panther movie together when it comes out, won’t we *schwing*
(right after I wrote 'schwing’ I got this mental image of Hisoka having his glowing, expolsive schwing moments after seeing T'Challa. And then Hisoka schwinging in theater while watching MCU movie fight scenes. Why am I like this)
I can draw, but I don’t know how to animate so these memes will never be a thing ;-; it’s so sad, I’ve got everything planned out…everytime eyes are mentioned the screen zooms in on Illumi’s eyes (yes even when Illumi’s not in the song because he’s a Zoldyck assassin, you can’t keep him out) and the word 'eyes’ gets the weird treatment where all these high/low/metallic(?) voices get layered so it sounds like the creepiest thing ever
('History has its eyes on you but it’s actually Illumi’ is both the animatic I want to see the most and the animatic I hope will never be created)
Fun HxH facts I want to let you know about:
Kite (AKA Ging’s student and Gon’s big brother figure) is dead and has been brainwashed into being a weapon/punching bag for his captors. When sunshine angel Gon meets the new Kite he lets Kite beat him up and then hugs him, promising to save him (THE FEEEEEEELSS)
Forgot to mention this about Chrollo, but when Kurapika killed one of his troupe (a guy named Uvogin), Chrollo acted all cool and never really talked about Uvo…
but then he had the rest of the troupe murder 2000 mafiosi guarding a building they were trying to get into, and while watching the chaos from afar, listening to their enemy’s screams, he started waving his hands as if conducting an orchestra…
“Uvogin-san. Can you hear it? This requiem we’re dedicating to you.”
(jeez Chrollo we know you’re extra but you can’t just murder 2000 people and play a funeral march with their cries of horror every time you lose a subordinate)
Lastly: There’s a new character named Knuckle who’s like the HxH version of Metal Bat. He is the sweetest cinnamon roll. I love him. I’ll send you a pic later
So um did you hear the news about Hinami
(Queen Luna cosplaying Maka(? or any of the other three MCs)…omg that sounds so awesome)
*facepalm* ok WHOOPS I actually read about that on the SE wiki a while ago. How did I forget about it
Yep! It was so good <33 (Lizzy looks so graceful and pretty I can’t even) I actually found the whole movie on YT but just watched the parts I was really looking forward to seeing animated, like UT’s fight scene, Seb getting stabbed, the rest of the Midford family…(Francis’ hair shocked me. Idk how to feel about it. At first I thought it made her look like an old lady, but then, the more I look at it, the prettier it gets…like, it’s actually a really nice design, but I guess I got too used to manga!Francis lol)
Light is the trash GOD.
(hope you get to read the light novel! As far as I know it’s got a TON of L and Naomi in it so it might make you feel better :D)
Oh yeah, I get what you mean. Light’s reasoning/views on the justice system probably connects a lot to the culture and social issues of Japan at the time.
DN’s probably still one of the easier-to-adapt mangas out there, though, since the themes of justice and questioning the idea of 'greater good’ is something anyone can relate to (and they still botched it, I’m very salty about this and you can’t stop me ;-; even with how terrible Ryuk and Rem looked in them, the Japanese movies were WAY better, and it’s actually pretty rare that Japan makes a good live-action movie from a manga or anime. Apparently the TG movie that came out this year was pretty good too, though :D).
(I apparently somehow accidentally erased the part where I mentioned I actually read HCs/theories about Japanese-American Light on tumblr somewhere….that’s what got me thinking about it.
I agree though, seeing how different cultures would change Light’s character would be very interesting.)
The lack of potato chips doomed the entire Keikaku from the start.
I can see you being similar to Pearl too! I think I’m maybe a bit like Lapis…or possibly Connie. Or maybe Blue Diamond because I also cry way too much (but then again BD actually has a reason to be miserable so)
Those are both cool gems<3 and yeah, they’re both really pretty :D
I was talking about gem 'roles’ back on Homeworld, though ^^;; like, how Pearls are considered servants or pretty accessories, Diamonds are leaders, fusions like Garnet are outcasts, Rubies are 'dumb muscle’, Sapphires are valuable prophets, Peridots are tech experts, Jaspers are soldiers…sorry, I should’ve been more specific OTL
I’d probably be a Pearl lol. I could see myself being a Peridot and being scared to death without a Quartz soldier to guard me but I’m not good with any kind of technology so nah.
And sorry for asking weird questions, I forgot it’s been a while since you watched the show ^^;;
Hey, don’t feel bad about slow replies! Like I said before, I seriously don’t mind as long as you’re ok :D and I’m so glad I’ve managed to help.
('a friend I appreciate’ *ugly sobbing* thank you)
Did someone say suffering?
*'Remember That We Suffered’ plays in the background*
DID THE QUEEN JUST SAY 'Goals’ ABOUT SOMETHING I MADE OMG I’M FREAKING OUT TYSM
Ayyy I’m so glad you liked them! (The Hide pic was painted with the intent to kill)
(last thing:
I’m sorry, this is probably really creepy, but I ended up telling my mom about you because she asked who I was talking to (she knows I have internet friends and has seen me writing messages before). Since I’m only 13 she worries about the people I talk (she knows all my friends on ao3) so I told her some small things like your age, that you’re from Croatia, that you play the piano too and that you mentioned having a sister.
I’m really, really sorry if this makes you uncomfortable, mom just worries a lot and she likes to hear about my friends (like, she worries for my safety on the internet so she has to ask me some basic things about the people I talk with, and when she knows I have a good friend on the internet she sometimes wants to hear if my relationship with them is ok). I’d never tell her something really private but sometimes she wants to talk and I know she worries for me so I do tell her small, random details from our convos.
if you’re uncomfortable with that, though, I’ll stop. Again, I’m so sorry about this.)
And after two weeks of silence, the species finally shows some signs of life.  ;-;
I’m totally not crying.  I’ve said this so many times and you’re probably getting annoyed, but I have no idea what I did to deserve you in my life.  You’re actually the only person I’d told about my current mental state at that time, and I’m so glad you didn’t freak out or just write it away as me overreacting (like my mom did), and it means so so so much to me. Truly, thank you for being here for me. (And not giving up on me, considering how long my replies take ;-;)
I’m here for you as well, though, so if you’re ever feeling down, you can message me ^^ 
Oh, it’d be cool if you’d get a tumblr! I can guarantee my replies would be faster then, since the messages would show up in my notifications...
Also, to brighten things up a little, this is how I picture you at the beginning of the message:
Tumblr media
Oh  god that sounds disgusting XD And perfectly describes why I don’t wanna do swimming as a sport. Are you still swimming? It’d be cool if you were, cause it’s a really beautiful sport imo. 
That’s unfortunate... Hopefully you’ll be able to visit it someday ^^
Tbh considering the shit I unironically ship sometimes, no ship is weird enough to be unexplainable. Name a single reason why you ship it, and it’s valid in my eyes. Heck, it can be ‘they look good together’ and I’ll say ‘makes sense’. Y’know why? Because I’m one of those ppl who will ship it if they so much as look at each other.
ok fun fact: I’ve loved T’Challa since I was like 8, because every summer, there would be a weekly publication of superhero comics, and Black Panther was almost always there, and I was a nerd even then, so I’d always buy them. Other than Spiderman, Black Panther was my favourite superhero. 
Lololol I need the HxH Cast watching MCU movies. Oh yeah, I found this a while ago and immediately thought of you:
Tumblr media
Amazing... If you ever learn to animate, please send me a link, because I will pay money to see that. Just. I’m not even into HxH, but I’d give up a lot to see the crossover XD
Ouch, that seems like a lot of feels... Seriously I have no idea where you get the mental strength to read to many angsty moments...
um, yeah... i have actually... but um, she’s alive, right?
Turns out I gave my skirt I’d used to charity, so until i find a replacement, I can’t take any pics... well, at least i can grow my hair out to Maka’s length till that happens XD
I adore the movie, seriously, the animators did such an amazing job with it, especially the most important scenes. BUT HECK; WHEN WILL WE FIND OUT WHAT OUR CIEL’S NAME IS?? It’s been hinted that it’s quite unusual, BUT THAT MAKES IT EVEN HARDER HNNNGH
Oh yeah, I’m gonna find that novel even if it kills me, because I need the L. 
lol I still haven’t forgiven the movie adaptation of Avatar the Last Airbender. It was so bad that most people (including me are denying its existence). I might watch Death Note some time soon, so I can judge it for myself tbh... 
Of course, the chips were a vital part of the Keikaku... No wonder it didn’t succeed...
No worries! It’s not your fault! Tbh, i dont think id even reached that part when I was watching it, so it’s interesting to hear all the roles...  Aw, you’d be an adorable Peridot ^^
Tbh ‘friend that I appreciate’ doesn’t even begin to describe how precious you are to me. You’re the first online friend I made and the first person I told about my mental state, so honestly, you’re one of the people I feel closest to...
Nah, I don’t find it creepy at all!! Seriously, I sometimes tell my parents about people I talk to, so I’ve mentioned well ^^ It’s your choice what/who you’ll talk about ^^
2 notes · View notes