#i am a photographer first and foremost

[formulaseven]

NEW MCLAREN POST ON INSTA AND THEYRE LIVING MY DREAM (owning a Nishika N8000 3d camera)

[mylight-png]

I have thoughts in regards to That Photo of Shani Louk receiving an award.

But first, I'd like to address something I've seen in our community about how the situation has been handled.

Many people I've seen have been sharing their anger and pain in regards to the photo and the award, rightfully so. However, many of these people have shared those thoughts alongside That Photo. While I understand the intent of this, I'd like to just ask for people to not do that.

Do not distribute That Photo in any way, please.

Shani Louk's family has asked for that photo not to be shared. Her family has asked for her to be remembered for her life, not her death.

Instead, I encourage you to share your views alongside a photo of Shani from her life. Share her as she lived, not as she died.

Let Shani's memory be who she was, not what was done to her.

Now, I know there's little I can say about the photo and award that hadn't already been said. I'd like to talk about it anyway.

First and foremost, receiving an award for photographing a woman being subjected to the worst a person can endure is disgusting. That award was given for taking a picture of a woman who has been raped and killed, and of her body continuing to be violated and paraded around. Not for protecting her, not for intervening, not for doing anything to help anyone.

Additionally, as I mentioned before, Shani's family has asked for that photo not to be spread around, and the resurgence in publicity that this photo is getting as a result is a direct blow to the family's wishes.

In that photo, for the purpose of that photo, Shani is used as little more than a prop. It is dehumanizing and violating. It is beyond that, but I cannot even come up with words to articulate how horrible it is.

I'm sure we've all heard the phrase, "people love dead Jews" at this point. This photo receiving a major award is simply confirmation of this. This photo, a photo of a dead Jewish woman, receiving such a highly esteemed award, proves this. I am sick to my stomach just writing about it.

There is nothing about that photo that would merit an award and it tramples upon Shani's memory and dehumanizes her even further than she already has been.

In protest of that award, I encourage you to share photos of her that aren't of her lowest moment.

Share photos of her life, share photos of her art. Do not share photos of her death.

Here are some photos I am choosing to share:

You can find these photos online, there's a whole Instagram account dedicated to sharing photos of her life. The first and last photos are from an article about her art being put up in an exhibition. These photos are out there, just find and share them please.

May her memory be a blessing and may it be protected from further desecration.

[nnicknnelsonn]

Kit literally tops Hollywood Reporter list

Next Gen Talent 2024: The 10 Hottest Young Stars in Hollywood

From Netflix-turned-Broadway sensation Kit Connor to DC newcomer Aaron Pierre, meet the young stars climbing everyone’s call sheet.

Thank you for the tipoff @thegoldenretrieverandthegaynerd (X)

Kit Connor and Josh Rivera photographed November 11th at Broken Shaker in New York; Source: Hollywood Reporter (X)

1. Kit Connor

Connor is ready to break out beyond high school. He built his career as a child actor (see him as a young Elton John in Rocketman) before scoring the lead role in the high school rom-com series Heartstopper. This desire to graduate is part of what drew the Brit to Broadway, where he’s currently leading Romeo + Juliet with Rachel Zegler, bringing Shakespeare to the Gen Z masses. “It just felt ballsy,” Connor says. “It’s been what I���ve been trying to do with my career decisions recently, just try and do things that are a little bit more ballsy.” Connor, 20, isn’t sure if Heartstopper will return for a fourth season, but after the curtain goes down on his Broadway stint, he’ll start promoting his most adult role yet in Alex Garland’s A24 thriller Warfare. After that, he says, “I’d like to take a little break just so that I can kind of cleanse my mind and my palate, and then I’d like to do something completely different.” He adds, “I want to try and spend the next couple years just doing quite hard stuff so that I can try and force myself to get better.”

IF I WASN’T AN ACTOR I’D BE “I would first and foremost be a student due to my age. [My major] would probably be something like film studies, English or history, those are the subjects I found the most interesting in school because they were about people. I never did well with numbers. Still don’t.”

THE PERSON I AM DYING TO WORK WITH “I would love to work with Josh O’Connor. He and I are friendly, and every time I see him I think how I would love to see him at work.”

HOW I DECOMPRESS ON SET “I like my private time. On Warfare, we didn’t do that at all. Every night we did everything together and I wouldn’t have changed it at all. But a lot of time on jobs, I go home and just sit and listen to music.”

BEST ADVICE I’VE GOTTEN WORKING IN ENTERTAINMENT “Trusting the process. Quite a lot of my friends in the industry have given me that general advice.”

SONG OR ALBUM I HAVE ON REPEAT “David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. I used to, at the beginning of the run of the play, I was listening to a lot of music that would try to hype me up because I wanted to have a load of energy going into the play but then I started re-listening to that album‚ “Rock and Roll Suicide”, “Five Years”, “Moonage Daydream” — that put me in a good mindset for [the play].”

THE MOVIE OR SERIES I AM OBSESSED WITH “The Sopranos. I started watching it when I got to [New York] because I thought Jersey is just around the corner.”

MOST HOLLYWOOD THING THAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME “There is something pretty crazy about seeing your face on a billboard in any capacity.”

[earlycuntsets]

"Wanted: 1979 Pontiac Trans Am

Tuesday March 24, 2009 | Posted by: Gerard

Some of you, who have seen my twitter about wanting a 1979 Pontiac Trans Am, may be asking yourselves, "Is this for real?"

And my answer to you is one-hundred percent MFR ("Mad Fucking Real" for short).

Some of you may be asking, "Why?" , so I provided this photograph to answer your questions, and if you need further persuasion-

Quite simply, I need the vehicle for "research and exploration". I will be researching the high-voltage hydra known as the 9th dimension , I will be exploring the barriers of speed and time, the history of heavy-metal haircuts, and the 24-Hr rest-stop cappuccino.

I will be chasing the "electric-manticore", and unlocking the riddle of "Muscle Mystery" in this muscle-machine, and it will most likely occur in the desert.

Now that I've assuaged your curiosity, here's what I'm looking for, more or less, and some might think I'm picky, but I think you should be picky when looking for such an important piece of scientific equipment.

***What I want*** First and foremost, I want a good car. It doesn't have to be great, it doesn't need to have been kept in an airtight garage for 30 years, but I would prefer something that's not a piece of shit. I would like it to be in California, close to or within the greater Los Angeles area. I would also like "the fast engine" to show you how much I know about cars, though I have friends with vast automotive knowledge, and my father was a mechanic when I was a child. I want it to run, run well, and have no rust. Oh and it needs to be an automatic, as I can't drive stick (suprise!).

***Colors and specifics*** Exteriors (in order of awesome): Silver, the color of steel, and the eye of the falcon. Faded, slightly shitty, or semi-bombed out looking Nocturne Blue. This color looks great with some age. Mad-Max Black. Shitty bombed-out Red/Orange

Obviously I am looking for something with a bit of character but I will settle for better shape for a better car.

I am open to other things but I absolutely do not want Gold, Brown, or that frigging Smokey and The Bandit car- that shit is whack.

Interiors (again in "awesome order") Red leather (combined with a silver exterior is an ideal car for me- like a fucking Mach-5 red-velvet cupcake with Terminator 2 frosting) Black leather (of course) Blue (cuz it's cool, but this limits what I can paint the exterior if I choose to do so) Interior material is not as much a deal breaker as a bad color.

I've seen the "Anniversary Edition" '79 Trans and I like it but something about the silver leather interior rubs me weird. Looks like pudding, and a light color will only stain when I shit my pants as I tear-ass through scorched earth.

T-Tops a BIG plus.

All of this stuff I am semi-flexible on, as I just want a great car, but I think I will know the right one when I see it.

***Important*** No scams or hustles. I won't have cash on me, and I'm not important enough to kidnap, but if you've got the right car and the right "vibe" I can find us someone important enough to kidnap together- IN-THE-CAR-YOU-JUST-SOLD-ME. Like, for example, the Jonas Brothers. I have been on T.V. and I have access.

You bring the 'bird- I'm bringing "British Steel" by Judas Priest.

xo g

PS- Thanks for everyone's help thus far- you guys are great. I will be looking in the twitter replies for leads. ***Update*** I have noticed that some people are wondering if I am having a mid-life crisis or asking why I am not buying a station wagon or something for a baby. Answers! Firstly, I am only 31, so I have a bit of time before that whole "crisis" thing, and secondly- I've run the numbers on car safety and have come to the conclusion that this IS the car for the baby. This thing is a tank. Usually, when people get into accidents while driving a Trans Am they usually ask "How is the other guy?". Trust me. I got this."

from gerards blog on mychemicalromance.com 03/24/2009

[naturistgirl]

Crowded Tourist Spots, Deserted Places and the 'Textile Offended'

I live close to a beautiful tourist area. For a naturist that can be frustrating. The beautiful landscapes, valleys, hill tops and woodlands near where my home, come in two flavours - crowded and deserted.

I am openly naturist. I hate getting tangled with the 'Textile Offended'. Let me explain my meaning. Most people I meet are generally accepting of naturism; happy and cheerful in their greetings; few are ever offended. All of us have seen a naked woman before. The 'Textile Offended' apparently aren't among them. These are people who walk past you several times to get a closer look or even a photo on their phone. They are likely to go out of their way, even changing direction so that they can be 'offended'. They wear clothes and in this hot sticky summer weather they can get awfully hot and bothered. If possible I like to avoid the risk of being on the same path. They will come up to you to tell you you're 'breaking the law' (you aren't) or 'damaging children' (naturism is NOT a safeguarding issue). The clothed don't offend me by wearing textiles but I do draw the line at them bothering me with groundless arguments and accusations. That does offend me and and it can spoil my day!

Yesterday we went hiking above Newchurch-in-Pendle. This is a well frequented area with people climbing Pendle Hill. It is a very pretty village and one associated with the Pendle Witches. There is a little shop here 'Witches Galore' and the churchyard reputedly has a hanged witch buried there. See the little witches on brooms on the fingerpost above? It gets busy in summer (and on Hallowe'en).

I generally don't even put clothes on to start with. I do however carry a side tie bikini with me 'just in case'; little triangles of cloth that cover me (barely). I have 'Daisy Dukes' too if necessary and a very skimpy little gingham blouse. They don't get much wear and the bikini is pretty pointless anyway but they do keep the 'textile offended' at bay! Yesterday I had to wear them for a little while as there were plenty of people about. It is one of the penalties of visiting textile tourist spots!

Once naked, I STAY naked, even if I see someone approaching. They have already seen me, so what? Nothing looks worse than scrambling furtively into clothes or hiding behind a rock! Just be bold; smile (a lot) and say a very cheerful 'Hello' (around here the phrase is 'How do?' Generally, my 'emergency textiles' stay neatly in my bag where they belong!

The photographic shots here were all taken in relaxed fashion as we walked the track away from the village towards Ogden Clough. It demonstrates how you can do a little naturism even in a really popular tourist area.

Most people just tend to hang around the pretty village, buy souvenirs and take cute photos on their phones. I really like that they do! It keeps them off the trails. Yes, we did see a few people hiking on the same path as us but they were mostly busy, like us, enjoying the great outdoors.

If another hiker comes along the path behind me (one did), I don't really worry too much. I don't think my derrière is capable of offending anyone? I hope not! Hopefully the same is true for my husband. Girls like tight buns too!

Finally an entreaty! Tumblr is first and foremost a Blog Site. If you are a naturist like me and enjoyed this blogpost, please like, share and re-blog with my blessing. Do add your own affirmative comments. More important, if you feel inspired to hike clothes free, please blog about it too! Though there are maybe 6.5 million naturists in the UK, we do need some more!

I welcome messages from anyone who generally wants to know more about naturism. I also love to chat with other naturists about the lifestyle. This ISN'T a sexually themed blog however (I do have one of those too but the photos will never appear here).

Indeed a Naturist lifestyle is NOT about having lots of sex simply because you're naked! Paradoxically, sex is NOT about nudity and the absence of clothing. Erotic clothing (and its gradual removal) is a sexual tease and a must!. I also work as an adult model. Photoshoots generally start with underwear and what happens when it is removed! As a naturist I simply don't wear any!

My perennial postscript: Thank you to this wonderful guy (my loving husband) for the photos shown here. (I married my photographer!)

Without him, these blogs would be all words. He makes the blog special with what he does and I love him to bits.

Walking together with Mart, we are a naturist couple and if we meet anyone else, this is generally more acceptable (for some reason) than being alone. Single naturist men are often criticised, single naturist women tend to get chatted up (and delayed!).

Jane xx

[jeonqkooks]

our beloved summer | jjk (06)

You made a vow to hate Jeon Jungkook ever since he packed up and left you without a single explanation, but when he shows up at your door after years of radio silence, it turns out that maybe your resolve isn’t as strong as you thought.

pairing: producer!jungkook x songwriter!reader

genre/warnings: exes au, fluff, angst, eventual smut, swearing, kissing (omg k1ss1ng omg WHO IS IT ??? 😦), tbh this is the only warning i wanted u guys to read cuz 6 chapters in and we finally get sum action i feel like that's a win lmaooooo, jimin being Real as fook, unbeta'd cuz uhm i'm a godless menace who should be conked on the head, once again we are severely lacking jk in his own fic lol i'm owning up to this 🤗 BUT! this is probably the last chapter where jk feels like a side character lol apologies my dudes

rating: PG-13

word count: 8.1k (honestly i wrote obs6 just so i could get to obs7 lmao that's why it's a lil bit shorter)

note: my apologies if this sucks. you are legally allowed to stone me if you hate it. but i hope you don't hate it. but if you do hate it don't tell me just stone me lol 🤐 why am i so unhinged with this update

series masterpost / playlist ; moodboards ; taglist

— as always, i’d appreciate any thoughts or comments you may have, and please drop a like and/or reblog if you enjoy reading ♡

I can see you starin', honey Like he's just your understudy Like you'd get your knuckles bloody for me

Exile - Taylor Swift (ft. Bon Iver)

The picture is fucking terrible.

“Jimin, what the fuck,” you grumble, staring at the huge framed photo on the wall, taken on the day of the opening party. You, Taehyung and Jimin are gathered on the floor of the dance studio, with boxes of takeout neatly sitting between the three of you. “I look like ass.”

Jimin barely glances at the wall, just continues to stuff his face with the dumplings that you ordered. “You look fine,” he says absentmindedly, mouth full, continuing to munch on the food despite your little dilemma.

“Bitch, I have my eyes closed.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“I look like I’m in the middle of a sneeze.” You cross your arms in front of your chest, squinting at your photographed self again. The more you look at it, the more irritated you become.

Realistically, you know nobody would pay enough attention to notice the immortalized visual of your fluttering eyes, and you yourself wouldn’t care about it that much. Maybe you would even laugh in good spirits and poke fun at yourself as you often do. Make a meme of it for the group chat.

“What’s the big deal?” Jimin asks.

You shrug petulantly. “I told you. I look like ass.”

Yeah, true, but it’s also more than that.

It’s the fact that the person standing next to you looks so good that you must voice your grievances. It’s the fact that he looks so much more than just good. 

The guys stop eating to look at you. You wonder just how much of what you’re feeling is written all over your face. Regardless, they don’t comment on it. 

One of them clears his throat, shaking the whole thing off.

“Did you tell Yoongi anything yet?” Jimin asks.

You poke at a lone dumpling with your chopsticks, popping the ‘p’ when you say, “Nope.”

“Damn, Y/N,” Jimin scolds you. “It’s been three weeks. He doesn’t want to push you for an answer but the man has got to be suffering.”

You flick a piece of spring onion garnish at him. It lands on his hair, a single bit of green sitting among golden locks. “I don’t know what to tell him!”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Jimin shakes the onion piece from his head and chucks it back at you. “Obviously you say yes!”

You exhale through your nose, then take a bite of your dumpling. You nibble on the fried dough, stretching out the silence, delaying your response.

It hasn’t even started, and it might not even start. But you’re already thinking about all the things that could go wrong. Yoong is your friend, first and foremost. He’s a good friend, and you would be crushed if you lose that relationship. 

What if he hurts you, or you hurt him?

Sometimes, people are meant to hurt each other even if they don’t mean to.

Yoongi hasn’t seen your pieces in all of their jagged glory, how they’re only meant to reflect the light but never be healed by it. He’s still blissfully unaware of the ugly thoughts that have a home inside your head, and you’re afraid if you let him in, he’d realize it’s a place he doesn’t want to be. It’s hard to love a broken thing. You wouldn’t want to love you either.

Maybe this is the real reason that’s been holding you back all this time. Maybe it isn’t Jungkook - though he certainly isn’t absolved - but it’s you, and how you just don’t know if you’re someone who deserves to love and be loved. You’ve felt inadequate more times than you can count. You’ve been left before. Who’s to say it isn’t going to happen again?

You’re well aware that this is a bad way to look at things, but can anyone really blame you? You still have a heart, and despite how fragmented it is, you still want to protect it.

“I know that look,” Taehyung says, parting your fog and pulling you back to him. “You’re overthinking again.”

You roll your eyes. He knows you so well, but does he have to call you out every time?

“I’m not overthinking. I’m regular thinking.”

“Right. And to normal people, that’s overthinking.”

“It’s just…” you wonder out loud, gaze on the floor. “What if I go all in, and Yoongi sees me for who I am and thinks that I’m just an utterly sad person who can’t be loved? That I’m too much work when he’s got literally thousands of people throwing themselves at him left and right?”

Taehyung stares at the side of your face as he bites the inside of his cheek. His tongue soothes the spot, his jaw clenching once. “He’s not going to think that.”

“You don’t know that,” you say, the corners of your mouth tugging down.

“You’re not unlovable just because one person didn’t love you right. So stop it with that bullshit, because I love you,” he says, voice serious. Even Jimin stays silent as he listens to his friend, his eyes flickering between you and Taehyung. “And Jimin loves you. Hobi loves you.”

You merely blink, because you hate it when he’s right. In all fairness, you understand. This is the same thing you would tell him if the situation were reversed.

You deflect anyway. That’s what you do best.

“You don’t count,” you tell him with an unserious scoff, your tone starkly contrasting his. “You’re my family.”

You taste something bitter as soon as the words leave your mouth. You should know better than anyone, that just because someone’s your family, doesn’t mean they have to love you.

Taehyung reenacts the blinking guy meme before chuckling, holding a hand over his chest like you’ve just wounded him. “Ouch.”

“You two are getting nowhere,” Jimin interjects. “Just call Yoongi.”

“And say what?” you ask.

“I told you. Say yes. God, you’re so dense sometimes.”

You reach over to jab a finger into his side, making him hiss and shuffle away from you.

“That wasn’t nice,” you grumble.

“Well, somebody’s gotta say it.” He gives you a look, eyebrows raised for a few seconds before he lowers them and grows more stern. “Come on, Y/N. You know you don’t want to say no, or else you would’ve turned him down already. You said you wanted to start dating again. Yoongi is practically on his knees offering himself to you. What are you waiting for?”

There’s a voice in the back of your head - tiny, barely audible - that whispers, Who are you waiting for?

“Fuck it, I’ll say it,” Jimin continues. “It sucks balls that Jungkook hurt you, but you can’t let that affect you for the rest of your life. Not everyone is going to hurt you. You’re not even giving Yoongi a chance just because someone else did you dirty. If you keep always thinking about the worst possible outcome and banking on it to happen, then you’re never going to get anywhere. I love you, dude, but y’know.”

You stare at Jimin with your mouth slightly open, stunned into silence. When you glance at Taehyung, he’s surprised too, though probably not as much as you.

After a couple of minutes, you say, “Wow.”

“Tough love. I have my moments.” Jimin shrugs casually, like he didn’t just drop a truth bomb on your head. “But also…” He picks his phone up and types something in. Your phone instantly buzzes with a notification.

“Open the link I just sent you,” he says.

“You are literally sitting across from me.”

“Just open it! I made you a playlist.”

“Aw, Jimin, that’s so cute,” you coo softly, reaching over to pinch his cheek before he swats your hand away. You unlock your phone to see what Jimin made you, because that is some friendship hall of fame stuff right there. However, when the link redirects you to your music app, your smile immediately drops.

Aaand he’s back.

You stare at the screen for a good ten seconds to try and find your bearings, flabbergasted at something that is quite honestly very on-brand for Jimin if you think about it. “You made me a playlist called Dick Appointment with an eggplant emoji and the tongue out emoji and it’s mostly just Yoongi’s songs. Even the playlist cover is from his Valentino shoot.”

“So you can get it on while Agust D plays in the background!” Jimin grins, and you could just smack it right off his face.

“Park Jimin, who raised you? You are vile.”

“Validate me,” he demands. Oh, you would smack him. You really would. “I spent hours making that playlist.”

“It’s literally just Yoongi’s songs.”

“Yeah, but I had to curate an experience. I can’t just dump every song into a playlist and call it a day. I gotta make sure they fit the vibe.”

“I literally just heard the most profound shit from you not even two minutes ago.” Then, you turn to Taehyung with an exasperated look on your face. “Why would you let him do this?”

He just waves a dismissive hand in the air, like Jimin isn’t even there. “I’m not responsible for the stupid shit he does.”

Jimin crosses his arms in front of his chest, both eyebrows raised dramatically as he gapes at you. “You both suck. From now on, you can make your own sexytime playlists.”

“Nobody even asked you to do that!” you cry.

“Yeah! Which makes me an even more considerate friend,” he says. “Ugh. Whatever. Go call Yoongi.”

“You want me to do it now?”

“Yes. Because I know you’ll wuss out when you’re alone. You can stay and put him on speakers for us to hear or you can go out into the hallway. Come on, chop chop.”

“No, I have to text him first,” you protest. “What if he’s busy?”

Jimin narrows his eyes at you suspiciously, but allows you this after a moment. “Fine.”

You take out your phone from your bag that’s lying carelessly on the floor to draft a quick message to Yoongi. 

[12:59] You: got a minute?

The three of you go back to the food, abandoning the previous topic of conversation in favor of something lighter and meaningless or else you would go crazy waiting for Yoongi’s reply. After you’re finished, you and Taehyung are in the middle of putting away all the empty containers and soda cans when your phone buzzes again. 

You go to grab it to look at the notification, hands already starting to sweat.

[13:17] Yoongi: for you? always :)

You turn back to the guys to find them already looking at you. Jimin wiggles his eyebrows suggestively while Taehyung just stares at you.

“Time to get your whore on,” Jimin says in an exaggeratedly sultry voice.

You turn to Taehyung for help. “He’s bullying me.”

“Ignore him,” your best friend tells you gently. “Go call Yoongi.”

When you take your phone out into the hallway, you make sure to go to the far end of it, near the main entrance so the two dorks can’t eavesdrop. You’ll tell them everything once you come back anyway, but you don’t want them within earshot while you’re in the middle of it.

Yoongi picks up your call on the third ring. In the background, your ear picks up on some chatter.

“Hey, princess,” he greets you. Then he holds the phone away from his ear to tell someone that he’d be back in a bit.

“Hey,” you say. “Where are you?”

“Just at a fitting. I have an ad campaign to film next week,” he answers. “Did you call just to get my whereabouts?”

“No, I… If you’re busy, we can talk later.”

“We’re still in the middle of lunch break anyway. What did you want to talk about?”

You briefly regret not taking a minute to psych yourself up before. You suck in a deep breath, which eases your nerves for just a second, long enough for you to say, “Yes.”

You’re met with brief silence from the other end of the line, which only makes your palms more clammy than they already are.

“Yes?” he echoes confusedly. “Yes what?”

“Yes,” you say again. “To…”

The silence commences once more, and lasts longer than you think you can handle. Then, you hear him stop in the middle of a breath.

“Oh.” A subsequent chuckle in response to the lightbulb that must’ve been switched on. “To that?”

“...Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

It feels like you two have invented a secret language that nobody else could understand. A single syllable, bouncing off the metaphorical walls of your conversation. Two idiots sharing the same brain cell.

“Yes?” he continues to prod, but at this point, you know he’s just teasing you.

“Yes! God, stop making me say it again. We sound so stupid.”

He graces you with a hearty laugh that makes you fight back a sheepish smile, even though there isn’t a single soul in sight to witness it. Yoongi makes you so fucking shy for some reason. Your nerves dissolve momentarily as you lean against the wall, your index finger running along a crack in the paint.

“Hmm, I wish you would’ve told me this in person,” he says, his voice soft.

“I can’t handle you in person. You’d tease me so much.”

“Because you’re adorable when you’re flustered, that’s why.” He waits a second before adding, “You’re blushing right now, aren’t you?”

“You’re being overly confident, Min.”

“Maybe,” he responds easily. “But am I right, though?”

“Shut up.”

When Yoongi said he would cook for you, you almost gasped.

“You can cook?” you had asked. It wasn’t an earth-shattering revelation or anything, but you suppose you’d never given much thought to the hidden sides of him. 

“Y/N,” he laughed then. “I’m a great cook. I could probably make a pretty decent career out of being a chef.”

“I didn’t know that,” you told him sheepishly.

“There’s a lot of things you still need to know about me.” It sounded like a promise. Like I’m willing to show you me. Like I’m willing to take the first step if you’d be in this with me too. “Does that sound like a good idea? You, me, dinner at your place?”

“My place?”

“Yeah, so you’ll be more comfortable. I’ll come over.”

This one simple gesture shouldn’t affect you that much, but it does. You appreciate that he’s considerate even when it comes to the littlest things. You swell with gratitude for the thought he puts into this, into putting your comfort first. It made you feel a bit better about yourself, calmed your stormy sea of thoughts enough to rationally accept the fact that he genuinely cares.

Regardless, it doesn’t stop you from spending most of the day obsessively cleaning your apartment. Even - and especially - your bedroom, although you’re sure that is not where the night will end. Every surface is spotless, not a single speck of dust to be found. It’s like the goddamn Pope is coming over for a house inspection. 

You haven’t had a first date in… fuck, how long has it been now? Nine years? It’s almost been a fucking decade already? You honestly can’t tell if that’s embarrassing or not.

But you remember the last time.

College, freshman year, with Jungkook. His yellow piece of sticky note that he slipped inside your favorite book. His adorably flustered expression when he timidly stood in front of you in the campus library. The way he was trying so hard to be confident and charming throughout your first dinner together. How he ran back to you after saying goodnight.

No.

You shut your eyes and shake your head, warding off any Jungkook-related thoughts before they could send you spiraling. You can’t reminisce about your ex while waiting for someone else to show. Yoongi deserves better, and that’s what you’re trying to be.

You’re not exactly sure how nice you should dress tonight. Yoongi told you that you could be clad in sweats for all he cares. If the dinner didn’t hold any connotation other than platonic, maybe you would’ve really donned your loungewear like you were merely having Taehyung and Jimin over for pizza.

You’d completely forgotten all the things people worry about in the early stages of dating, when you want to impress the other person but don’t want them to think that you’re trying too hard. 

Calm down. It’s just Yoongi. He’s seen you ugly crying with mascara running down your face, for fuck’s sake.

In the end, you opt for a sweater and a comfortable skirt. Casual. 

Yoongi rings your doorbell about ten minutes later than when he said he’d be there, holding a bag full of groceries. The visual alone makes you bite back a giggle and subsequently fail. You believe this is what people would call husband material.

You take his coat and guide him into your home. “Welcome to my humble abode,” you say shyly, gesturing around as you lead him into the kitchen to show him where everything is. Why are you acting like this? This isn’t you. If Taehyung or Jimin could see you right now, they would probably laugh. Hoseok would straight up be rolling on the floor.

You barely breathe as you watch Yoongi take in his surroundings. It’s intimidating, even though you know it’s just Yoongi. 

“I actually don’t know what I expected, but I like it. It’s very you,” he comments, smiling.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that it’s cute,” he says, throwing you a wink as he leans against your kitchen counter.

You avert your gaze immediately. “Oh… Thanks,” you reply, fiddling with the hem of your sweater. “So, uhm, what are you making? How can I help?”

“Just sit down. I got this.”

“Yoongi,” you say his name in protest. “I want to h-”

“I’m trying to romance you here. Let me do that,” Yoongi says, his smile turning lopsided as he starts emptying the contents of his grocery bags. Even though his tone is light, the gentle reminder of tonight being a date shuts you right up.

You take a seat at your dining table, though you can’t really sit still. As Yoongi starts working, you absentmindedly talk to each other about your day, about his campaign, about Seokjin’s album. At one point, you get up to creep over to his side when the smell of whatever he’s making becomes more prominent. You try to peek at the pot, curious, but he just shoos you away by bumping his hip against yours.

When you give him a small pout, you pretend not to notice the way his eyes dart to your mouth. You retract yourself from his personal space, choosing a spot on the other side of your kitchen island, staring at his back as he works.

You watch him expertly navigate your kitchen like he’s been here before. When he’s finished, he makes you sit down, not even letting you help bring the food to the table.

“What is it?” you ask once he’s settled in his seat, everything plated in front of you.

“Kimchi jjigae,” he says, a proud look on his face. “My mom’s recipe.”

It’s endearing, and it makes you smile.

For the most part, Yoongi lets you eat in peace, though there’s still a couple of flirtatious comments here and there. Every time it comes, you bite down on your bottom lip to try and snap out of that daze before you cough, as if that would help tone down the colors adorning your face. There’s no verbal response from you, and it seems like Yoongi doesn’t expect one either, because he just chuckles. You think he must notice the palpable nervousness that radiates off of you, but it’s not like you’re doing a very good job at hiding it.

You’re taking baby steps and he knows it. The fact that you even agreed to this at all is already major progress.

When you’re done eating, he clears the table while he asks you to open the expensive bottle of wine that he brought over. It does wonders for your nerves.

Three glasses in and you’re visibly more relaxed as you both sit on the couch in the living room, facing each other. There’s a small smile on your face that you can’t help, maybe it’s some of your inhibitions wearing off as a side effect of the alcohol. 

You glance around the room, and you take in the sight of Yoongi sitting here, this close to you. He feels bigger than your small world can handle.

“You know,” you start. If the wine didn’t make you more mellow, you probably wouldn’t be saying this. “There are thousands of people thirsting over you every day.”

Yoongi tilts his head, swirling the wine in his glass. “Really?”

“Don’t you look at the internet? I personally know two girls from college who are on the Yoongi Marry Me train,” you say matter-of-factly, like you aren’t borderline tipsy in front of him.

You aren’t an avid Twitter user, but every time you check the damn bird app, Yoongi is almost always trending. In every single one of his posts on social media, there is always an influx of comments asking him to marry them. Not only that, when word first got out about you collaborating with Agust D back then, people you knew - both old friends and acquaintances - practically bombarded your messages to see if it was true, and to ask if you could get them an autograph.

Yoongi stretches out his legs until they brush against yours. Your stomach flips even though it’s only your legs that are barely touching.

“The what train?”

“You seriously don’t know about the Yoongi Marry Me movement? Look it up. It’s a whole thing. People would do anything to, I don’t know, hold your hand or something.”

With an amused look on his face, he holds your gaze. “Would you?”

“What?”

“Would you do all of that just to hold my hand? Because you don’t have to, y’know.” He brings the wine glass to his lips, partially hiding his face from you, and you don’t know whether he’s doing it for your sake or his in preparation for the words he speaks next. “But I would do it to hold yours.”

You’re sure that your cheeks are burning bright, your stomach twisted in knots. It’s the wine, but it’s definitely the effect of his words too. You stare at Yoongi in surprise; no matter how many times he openly flirts with you, he’d still elicit the same reaction from you. It’ll be hard to get used to it. He just always seems to know what to say to make you blush like a schoolgirl, which you resent but you can’t deny the sparks of excitement that make your fingertips tingle.

Yoongi is smooth, and it’s even worse - or is it better? You haven’t decided yet - that you know he means every word he says. It makes you feel… wanted. It’s good to know that he’s being genuine, and to know that Yoongi isn’t the type of person who would ever pull the rug out from under you.

Yoongi is… stable.

You suppose, after everything you’ve been through, that stability is what you need. It’s good for you.

You try to swerve around the thoughts, to avoid them at all costs, but deep down you know now that they’re glaringly true.

That love is stored in two bags of groceries, so filled to the brim that some onions almost fall out. Love is stored in every flick of his wrist holding a knife, slicing the sharp blade across your cutboard. Clean cuts, yet he’s never this way when it comes to you.

Love is stored in a fond smile and adoring eyes when he sees how you cradle your expensive dishware like it’s a newborn baby before you set it carefully on the table.

Love is stored in a Yoongi-shaped silhouette, dancing over your countertops with practiced precision in every movement, filling in the cracks of your home. The love in him is reserved because you, like the moon when it crescents, still have a ways to go.

When he stands at your door an hour later with his coat in hand, you wait for him to speak first.

“Performance review?” he asks. “How did I do?”

“I… liked it. It was nice,” you say honestly. But you still feel the wine in your system, and it makes you bold enough to tease him for a change. “But it was my first date in a while, so it’s hard to tell if that opinion is objective.”

He rolls his eyes fondly. “Do I qualify for a second date then?”

You hum in thought, making him wait on purpose. “Yeah, I guess,” you say, feigning nonchalance, which earns you a hearty laugh.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asks, hopeful.

“Don’t know yet,” you answer, though you’ll probably end up going home and catching up on a kdrama. “Are you coming in tomorrow?”

“Just in the morning. I have a shoot in the afternoon.” He shifts to lean his weight on his other leg, tipping his body closer to you. “But I can pick you up after.”

“Yeah? And where would we go?”

Yoongi shrugs in earnest. “Just drive around? Grab a bite?” he thinks out loud, tilting his head slightly to one side for emphasis. “I could take you to that popup store you mentioned.”

You quirk an eyebrow. “You would stand in line with me to buy a novelty mug?”

“Pretty sure we wouldn’t have to stand in line if I gave them a call,” he says, grinning. “One of the perks of the job, y’know.”

“Must be nice,” you laugh, then shift to lean just a tad closer to him. You look at him for a brief moment before you agree, “Yeah, okay.”

You and Yoongi stand there at the door, each of you on either side of the threshold. This would be an appropriate moment for a kiss, you think. That explosive first kiss, if this were a movie. Exhilaration courses through your veins. You feel it from your head to the tips of your fingers to your toes. The feeling is rendering you a mere teenager again. 

It’s exciting because it’s new. You have the entire book ahead of you, waiting to be written. At this point, anything could happen. You’re a blank canvas waiting to be drawn, a blank page hoping to be written. 

Wait.

Back up.

A kiss?

A kiss?!

With Yoongi?

You’re thinking about kissing Yoongi?!

Fuck.

Fuck?!

It’s the wine.

Your thoughts knock against each other like bumper cars, echoing loudly in your brain that it almost gives you a headache.

You stay still as Yoongi leans down, your heart racing while your brain just keyboard-smashes. You can’t tell if you want him to kiss you or not, but when he only presses his lips against your cheek, you feel two emotions at once.

The first is disappointment, the second is relief. They press down on you with almost equal force, and you’re not really sure which one weighs heavier.

Baby steps.

You blink when he pulls away, and he just smiles fondly at you as if he can read your mind.

“Goodnight, princess.”

You watch him until he’s in the elevator, until the doors close and the lift descends. Even when you know that he must be on his way to his car and that someone else is making their way up, you stand there, with your hand loosely wrapped around the door handle, your breathing slightly erratic as you process what just happened. 

Déjà vu? 

It’s oddly reminiscent.

You’ve been here before.

Part of you thinks he’ll burst through the elevator doors, or rush up the stairs if the lift is occupied, and come back to grab your face and kiss you senseless.

He doesn’t.

Jungkook knows you’re probably waiting for Yoongi.

He’s seen Yoongi pick you up after work almost daily over the past couple of weeks, and it’s driving him insane. Even on the days that Yoongi comes to the studio during the day, the guy is all over you, so much so that he doesn’t even bother being a nuisance to Jungkook anymore, which just makes him a thousand times more insufferable.

Something is happening.

He can’t weasel shit out of Jimin anymore because Jimin has been especially tight-lipped after accidentally spilling Yoongi’s confession to you.

Because that should be him in Yoongi’s place. Or should he say his place, and Yoongi is just a placeholder. An imposter.

Because it used to be him that you smiled shyly at.

Jimin’s words have been plaguing his every waking hour since he was forced to hear them. If she wants to choose Yoongi, let her do that too. It feels like he’s rewinding all of your memories, retracing them with cautious fingers only to find that his every footstep is being erased to make room for someone else.

An abandoned dirt road, while you walk down a flower-filled path holding someone else’s hand.

Like you’re stamping him out.

Like he was never there at all.

Not only are you denying him a chance, you’re giving it to someone else. When he tries to move at someone else’s pace, all he gets is left behind.

It’s not about Yoongi; or at least, it’s not just about him. Yoongi doesn’t even really matter to Jungkook in this equation. It’s about what Yoongi represents. An idea of a person that Jungkook can never be.

A bigger life. A stable present and an even brighter future. Yoongi is everything better than him.

And that’s his own problem to deal with, not anyone else’s. At the end of the day, no one has to live with his insecurities but himself.

But still, he can’t help it. Whenever he sees you with Yoongi, his eyes burn. Please don’t let him take my place, he wishes every time, you’re the only good thing about me.

It’s jealousy, sure, of course it’s there. 

But what if you realize what everyone else already knows? That Yoongi is better in every single way. That Yoongi is the person who really deserves you.

What if you start to see Jungkook the way he sees himself?

You hating him - despising him with every cell in your body - is a thousand times better than you deeming him unworthy.

“I talked to Jihyo,” he speaks up suddenly, when it’s only the two of you.

“Okay,” you answer, never taking your eyes off the page in front of you. You must have circled the words daisy a thousand times already, wracking your brain for anything that rhymes. “I don’t know why you’re telling me this, but good for you.”

At this point, you wonder if you should just avoid the studio for the time being. It’s empty here again. You resent Seokjin for drowning in concept photos. You resent Namjoon for leaving Jungkook here to fend for himself, but it’s only fair, because Namjoon was only supposed to give him a helping hand, not take over the whole thing. You even resent Yoongi a bit, for not being here right this second.

“I talked to her,” Jungkook says again, ignoring your sass. “She won’t give you a hard time anymore.”

This makes you look at him. You never asked him to do this. You never asked him to do anything. In fact, you have only ever implored him to sit still and leave things alone.

“She never gave me a hard time,” you say. Sure, you don’t appreciate being given the death glare first thing in the morning, but it’s not something that you can’t ignore. It doesn’t actively affect you, and the only reason Jihyo does it is because of Jungkook.

Because he broke things off with her?

Because he gives you more attention?

Ugh. Attention?

This is the stupidest and most childish thing you have had to think about in ages.

“You said she acts differently toward you.”

“And aren’t you the reason why?” you counter. “Because you two were fucking?”

Jungkook visibly winces at your words, like he did when you mentioned it the first time in the break room. You don’t mean to be snarky; you’re just stating the facts. They were hooking up. 

You don’t harbor any ill will toward any of his past lovers, and that includes Jihyo. You know she doesn’t have anything against you either, at least not on a personal level because you don’t know each other well enough to do so. She’s just someone you pass by every day on your way to the elevator.

“So why did things end?” you ask just for the sake of it, since he was the one who brought it up. But you’d be lying if you said you weren’t curious.

He hesitates for a moment. “She wanted something more and it wasn’t the same for me.”

It’s stupid that the tiny voice in the back of your head resurfaces, hoping that you were the reason why he couldn’t pursue things with another woman.

Jihyo isn’t you, that much is clear. You never asked for anything more from him, not once from start to finish. He was always the first one to pour love into you. It’s arguable which one of you loved the other more - maybe you loved each other equally, just in different ways - but it was a fact that Jungkook always took the initiative. He made the first move so you wouldn’t have to. He gave you the option to match his affection, and never have to worry about being left out to dry.

He took initiative, right until the very end.

You bite your bottom lip, then give him a curt response, “Okay.”

Your phone vibrates with a text from Yoongi but you don’t open it just yet. You look at Jungkook, who only looks back at you. His lips part slightly as he searches for the right words, or any word at all. It’s like you’re asking him to navigate a minefield when all he has to do is be honest. Even if he told you that he fell out of love with you, it wouldn’t be that bad. You would be hurt, yes, but you wouldn’t blame him. You would understand. It would be a reason.

Silence fills the room, save for the continuous tapping of your pen on paper.

He says your name, pleading. “I’m trying here.”

At Jimin’s party, Jungkook said you were someone important to him. You don’t doubt that he meant it, and that’s what infuriates you the most. You’re important, but he keeps running circles around you and making your head spin. You’re important, but everything he’s done makes you think that you’re the opposite. You’re important, just not important enough to get an explanation.

You know he’s genuine about everything he says, but that’s not enough. You can’t sustain yourself on just his words alone.

It’s another cycle of the same conversation, running over and over and over again. He’s reaching out but he’s holding back. You’re still getting nowhere. You don’t know how many times he has to make you ask this, only to not give you any clarity at all.

If there is a trait of Jungkook’s that you both love and hate at the same time, it is that he doesn’t know when to quit.

He texts you every day even when you don’t reply - one for good morning, and one for goodnight. He gets you a chai latte every day, which doesn’t do shit for your concentration because there’s not enough caffeine in it. He gets the door for you whenever you go into the same room together. He hounds your every waking moment. He makes sure that he’s the first thing you see when you wake up, and the last thought that crosses your mind before you go to sleep.

I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.

You suppose this is him, showing up again. In a lot of ways, it’s selfish. But it’s an effort too. Now your phone is full of meaningless messages that remain unread.

You barely glance at him. It’s routine at this point. He tries in ways that you don’t bother acknowledging anymore, because you figured that the best course of action is to let him wear himself out.  When he has had enough of it, when he deems his efforts to be enough to absolve his guilt, he’ll stop. He has to.

But at what point does it stop?

At what point will you stop wanting to give in to him? Your mind rages wars with itself every time you feel his eyes on you, and you have to kill the urge to not turn your head and look at him too. At what point will you stop wanting to go to him and let him in again? At what point will you stop unconsciously making him a priority?

All of this, you supposed, is to say: Do you still love him?

You know that if you sit down and get to the root of it, you’ll find an answer you don’t like. Even in this moment, you want him to tell you just a fraction of the truth, because that would probably be enough to reel you back in.

Your own heart claws at your chest but this is how it has to be for a while. All you can do is take it one day at a time, gently nudge your heart in one direction like a child that needs to be goaded, until he doesn’t live on the forefront of your mind anymore.

Until someone else does.

“No, you’re not.” You stand up then, closing your notebook with more force than necessary. “If you’re really trying, then I wouldn’t still be wondering why I wasn’t enough to make you stay.”

Even then, you’re still hoping that he’d say something else. But when you’re only met with silence, the anticipated disappointment in you bubbles, boiling. His reluctance to clue you in makes it easier for you to decide.

There's someone else who's willing to give you things that you don't even need to ask for.

In your mind, it's clear who you should choose.

Jungkook clenches his teeth, holding his breath as he watches you shove your things into your bag. “Are you going home?” he asks after a minute.

You could say yes and let the conversation die a swift and simple death. But for some reason, you choose to kill it violently. You bite the inside of your cheek before you tell him, “I don’t know. Yoongi’s picking me up.”

The chagrinned look that takes over his features for a split second is one that you immediately catch. Maybe it’s because he wants to make sure you know how he feels about this, or maybe you still have a way of reading him somehow. Regardless of what his face tells you, he doesn’t prod any further.

Your phone vibrates on the table, the sound ten times more thunderous amidst the silence that’s befallen the both of you. You don’t need to check the screen to know who’s calling, and neither does he. When you leave, the sound of your fading footsteps ricochets off the walls. It shoots right through him.

He hears every word of that conversation ringing in his ears then. He recalls that afternoon’s sunset; it was the most beautiful sunset he saw that year, despite the sun overhead mocking him with every magnificent glint of light. He sees the look on your face when his words finally register in your mind, the Oh moment when you understood what he was saying, when the smile you wore sunk helplessly to the floor because even though you knew that love had an expiration date, you hoped your love would be the exception. 

That memory fades, only to be replaced by something much worse. He sits there with Jimin’s words, echoing in his mind, reverberating around the room.

Technically, you and Yoongi haven’t been on a second date. You think.

You’ve seen him almost every night since the dinner, when he picks you up at the studio. Sometimes, you two just drive around. Sometimes, you sit by the river in the cold, eating hot ramen cups and giggling over nothing. Sometimes, he just takes you straight to your home if he has a packed schedule the next day.

These days, you see Yoongi even more than you see Taehyung. Even though he hasn’t explicitly implied that any of these outings is a date, you know you aren’t hanging out as just friends anymore.

It feels good to be wanted. The feeling is reinforced tenfold because it’s been so long that it’s like you’re experiencing it for the first time in a new body, as a different person.

But even after all of that, you two can still go back to being friends like nothing ever happened. Because in a way, maybe nothing did happen. Maybe things have always been like this between you, the only difference is now you’re noticing the meaning behind his words and glances.

You two can still go back, because technically, no line has been crossed.

But tonight, something feels different. It’s colder, but Yoongi keeps you warm with all the looks he’s been giving you all night.

It feels like you’re both toeing that line right now. 

You know that once you cross it, things can’t revert back to the way they were anymore.

You know that it will happen eventually, because Yoongi isn’t doing this just to half-ass it. He won’t back out, and he has made it crystal clear from the start. 

Usually, this is the part where he tells you goodnight and you have to pretend not to freak out when he kisses you on the cheek in goodbye.

He takes a step closer, you take no step back. 

“You know what I’m about to do, right?”

You do. You could say you’re even hopeful.

“I might have an idea…”

“Okay,” he says easily. He takes your waist in his hands and brings you closer. The way the corner of his mouth tugs upward tells you that he’s pleased, that you know what’s about to come and you’re letting it happen. Still, he asks, “Can I?”

You nod. That glowing sensation washes over you in waves.

“Words, princess,” he reminds you. 

Your hands land on the lapel of his coat. “Yes, you can.”

He chuckles, and squeezes you a little tighter. 

Then it happens.

The line you clumsily drew in the sand has been erased.

Yoongi is kissing you.

You’re kissing him back. 

He’s soft and warm and he holds you like you’re delicate. His sincerity, you can feel it in his kiss, and it’s only a fraction of it. Regardless, there is still life that blooms this winter. Inside of you, small and fragile, but it’s there.

You sigh into his mouth, feeling completely limbless if not for him holding your body upright. One of his arms wounds itself tighter around your middle while his other hand tucks your hair behind your ear so he could cup your cheek more easily. Yoongi tilts his head further to one side to deepen the kiss. You feel something in his kiss that you have never heard in his words, something soft and pleading. Wanting but still contained. Out of fear that you might run away, perhaps? You can’t blame him though. You are a bit of a flight risk.

The wind dances past like a nosy bystander, pressing you further into him like it wants you to be more sure in the way you move, in how much of yourself you’re willing to give to him. Instead, the cold just makes you shiver.

When you break away, his hand on your face moves to hold the back of your head. Yoongi doesn’t look half as flushed as you think you do, though his cheeks are slightly rosy.

Through a thin veil of clouds, the moon still shines down on his profile. 

The chill in the air, the mesmerizing view of moonlight dancing across his features, and most of all, the way you’re still lost in the kiss, in the feeling of being wanted.

“C’mon, I’ll walk you up,” he says, after you stay silent for a beat too long, hooded eyes basking in the warmth of a heart chasing your own. You want to want him. You do want him, but there’s still something missing. It doesn’t feel entirely right, but for now, you try not to dwell on it too much. Just let it be. Maybe in time, that void will inevitably fill.

Yoongi holds your hand through the lobby and on the whole way up even if neither of you says anything, just shy glances in the elevator and bashful half-hidden smiles. You don’t invite him in once you get to your door - because an invite now insinuates something that you just aren’t ready for - but he does kiss you again. If the kiss you shared downstairs is a proper goodnight kiss, then this one means see you later and doesn’t last half as long, but it makes you tingle just the same.

He pulls back, only to dive in again, and again, and again, until one chaste kiss turns into five and you have to push him away with a giggle so you can breathe.

“Sorry,” he mumbles, eyes still set on your mouth. “Couldn’t help myself.”

“Yoongi,” you say, a little breathily, like oxygen hasn’t sufficiently made its way into your lungs since downstairs.

He rests his forehead against yours. “You’ve never said my name like that before,” he sighs.

“Like what?”

“Like you want me to kiss you again.”

You tug your bottom lip between your teeth and pretend to consider this even though you know you would like to be kissed again. “Maybe I do,” you say after a beat, bravely. “Just one more.”

He gives you your final kiss of the night then, one that lasts a second longer than the others, like he’s trying to memorize how you taste.

You head in once Yoongi is out of sight. You lean your body against the door the second you snap the lock shut. You touch your lips lightly, reliving those moments again even though they happened mere seconds ago. You’re buzzing with excitement like a schoolgirl, every feeling coursing through your body all at once. 

You’re familiar with this. It’s the stage right before every love song you listen to suddenly reminds you of that one person.

You go through your regular evening routine with a pep in your step, thanks to a certain person tonight. You take off your carefully applied makeup and take a nice, hot shower. You think the heat would help melt away the high that you’re riding - like you’ve had too much coffee to drink and now your senses are beyond heightened - but it doesn’t. Once you’re fresh and comfortable in your PJs, you still feel that jittery feeling seeping through your pores, keeping you awake. There’s a message from Yoongi that tells you he has made it home safely.

It’s still early, and you’re far too restless to go to bed. You decided to brew yourself a mug of chamomile tea, even though you don’t even like chamomile and you can’t remember why you even have it, but they say that apparently chamomile is good for sleep. You decide to take the mug into the living room to sort through your mini mountain of mail that should’ve been dealt with days ago.

Sitting underneath that pile of junk mail and letters addressed to the previous tenant even though you’ve lived here for nearly two years, is a cream-colored card addressed to you. The material feels smooth under your fingertips, like velvet if that’s even possible. Inside, there are two names - one you recognize and another you don’t - typed out in a fancy calligraphy font and encircled by pretty flowers, all pinks and whites and romantic.

The saccharine sensation associated with the thought of Yoongi dissipates instantly. Instead, your mind blanks, only to buzz to life again momentarily with a newfound sinking feeling dragging you down.

You suddenly realize that Jungkook hasn’t crossed your mind once tonight. Not until now. That crestfallen look in his eyes from the other night appears in your mind again, clear as day.

You are, quite literally, holding someone’s declaration of love and yet, it’s not joy that you feel, having been asked to join them on their special day. 

You never thought you would see Jungkook’s family again - even though you always adored his parents and you felt that they loved you too - let alone receive an invitation to his brother’s wedding.

remember when y'all said u wanted a wedding?? well u didn't say whose wedding 😌

— all rights reserved © jeonqkooks. reposting, translating and/or modifying is not permitted by any means. [posted march 27, 2023]

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 7/16/2024

how your backyard hurricane go, the houston area? pretty good it doesn't seem

to be clear other than losing everything in my fridge and developing some mold around the windowframes IM personally fine and so are the girls and so is the lair. we lost power sunday afternoon and got it back friday morning (upside down smiley emoji x16)

listening

THREE CANONICALLY BISEXUAL CLUB BANGERS!!! also, trying out a new thing with spotify and youtube videos for songs bc my readership is about 70/30 and i want to streamline the process of actually listening to new music for ppl. it must be really annoying this week but that's bc there's three songs. sorry. it will rarely be this long

anyway.

ANXIETY by Lilyisthatyou is new to me, off the spotify autogenerated dance playlist. a chiller groove in the spelling-things-out genre of dance music. VERY flashy-lights music vid fyi

Why do I feel so alone? Does it show That I'm dancing to fill the void with pretty girls and pretty boys?

i know about kesha's joyride bc i happen to be an alive queer woman. im SO happy kesha is also alive and making music more regularly. this one is canonically bisexual bc kesha is bisexual. also a really flashy-lights lyric video. the most classically recession-pop/early KESHA sound of all three tuesdaysongs this week. im always fascinated when an accordion shows up.

Rev my engine ’til you make it purr Keep it kinky, but I come first Beep-beep, bitch, I'm outside Get in, loser, for the joyride

thank u new releases spotify playlist. also canonically bisexual bc the singer is, also an early KESHA feel but she is a metal artist first and foremost. very fun to headbang to at a stop light. i don't totally Love how it's an emasculating song but given how dudes in the metal scene generally are? i think she should make it more emasculating actually

Take you down a peg (And peg and peg and peg) If you're a macho man then beg (And beg and beg and beg) Bend you over the bed (The bed the bed the bed) It's time to take you down a peg (And peg and peg and peg)

-

reading

fun fact i still haven't seen this movie. i got this from the library the day before the hurricane proper and it gave me a really lovely two hours of not thinking about the active hurricane the day after. enormous format photographs! full-length shots of every look! ithe little personal notes from each designer were so fun to read, and i think this genuinely healed my heart a little. everyone was so excited to go into detail about what choices they made and what inspired them, and even though i would have loved more specific construction details, specific fiber types, and full-length shots of the Back of every look, i recognize i am a freak.

-

watching

watched a truly bonkers assortment of films at my bestie's house this week. her husband is big into godzilla and i sat down not really paying attention or planning to pay attention to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024, dir. Wingard) but found myself actually paying attention. i unfortunately was a character i hate, Person Who Stops The Movie Halfway Through To Demand A Recap. loved these guys, whatever the fuck they were

the most fun thing about this movie is that it is not a silent film but it acts like one. there are long, long stretches of movie without dialogue bc all the political action is happening between a bunch of giant monkeys. this is going to sound like im damning it with faint praise but they really thought carefully about directorial and artistic choices here! there was a vision and they executed it! it's fun to look at and not just because there's a big monkey in most of the shots!

-

playing

got a look at characters for the new fire-themed land coming up this fall. ppl are understandably big mad that the land is based on Ring of Fire cultures and everyone is paper-white. i think it is correct to be mad and ask them to do better, and they have tweaked designs before release before, however, i don't think this will bring about a sea change in gacha games.

i am rolling along clearing out map markers and achievement hunting and my GOD are there a lot of time-gated achievements in inazuma (electricity-themed legally-not-japan). so so so many of them i originally got halfway through or did 1/5 and then wandered off bc i didn't realize there was a quest or achievement locked behind doing something for three or five days in a row. i now have a post-it on the corner of my monitor with nine different things i have to keep checking in on this week. please someone give me a REAL JOB!!!!!!

-

making

cross stitch progress. this was the only thing i did last week aside from shake like a chihuahua and sleep. very slow going! may have to ship the package off to my brother with an IOU bc it is already stressfully late.

made the bean influencer soup (creamy miso coconut butter beans). i made a batch before the hurricane last week so most of my notes are from then. the grocery did not have canned butter beans so i made the same thing (big lima beans) from dry. i have not made beans from dry since i was very small. these beans were so large, so pale, so aggressive.

changes: i was able to find a little carton of straight coconut cream at the grocery but they were out of miso paste. i did have miso soup mix and plopped that in. i also used frozen spinch bc it’s cheaper and i felt better about it than the somewhat questionable fresh spinch on offer. also used two onions instead of one and a hearty dollop of minced jarred garlic bc who do u think i even fucking am. i would have loved to use fresh dill, bc i did plant some and it was growing very well, but the caterpillars were very intense and ate almost everything on my balcony.

going in the rotation! im making it AGAIN as im typing up this post! pretty cheap, very tasty, i don't regularly keep butter beans or coconut cream in my pantry but that can change!

[clemswinecorner-socials]

Trackside - [MM]

Letting you guys know I am not a football girly, I just think mason mount is a hot shot tbh. I am a motorsports girly first and foremost, so it's Motorsports photgrapher!reader x mason with a bunch of references to the drivers and not so much to any football :) also disclaimer: the timing might not be fully correct (esp the football schedule) but for the sake of the story let's pretend alright?

Yourusername

liked by callum_ilott, lissiemackintosh and others

yourusername motorsports photographer takes on summer break

posted august 3rd, 2022

pierregasly who took that second pic huh? ;) formula1fan bye these piccccs landonorris starting a jpg account as well i see

yourusername im literally a photographer

paularon_ looks great! lissiemackintosh hope youre enjoying summer break x ynstan love how they were all taken with different cameras

yourusername duh, your girl is always prepared

... view more comments

Yourusername

liked by mickschumacher, cmpulsic and others

yourusername motorsports photographer gets sidetracked tagged masonmount, declanrice, chelseafc

posted september 15th, 2022

chelseafc loved having you here y/n! footballfan the last pic of mase ohmylord

masonfan he looks in love f2fans can't blame him, i met her and she was the sweetest and prettiest person in the world

formula1fan love that you're branching out! declanrice should support the better team next time ;)

yourusername wym i already am?

... view more comments

Yourusername

England

liked by scuderiaferrari, benchilwell and others

yourusername past months of time off in england + silverstone <3 tagged charles_leclerc, scuderiaferrari, masonmount

posted september 23rd, 2022

footballandf1 the combination of f1 and footie 🤌🏼🤌🏼 clementnovalak supporting the right team i see

yourusername 😌😌

footballfan girly idk where you've come from but please keep this mason content coming omg f1fan omg your insta has been top notch recently and honestly love that for you yourfriend we saw each other like every day and not a single slide of me :(

yourusername i'm sorry!!! saving them up for your birthday bc we never take pics together and you post the ones i take of you

... view more comments

Yourusername

liked by redbullracing, marcusarmstrong and others

yourusername motorsports photographer takes her football boyfriend trackside posted october 8th, 2022

landonorris first time i didn't mind you stopping for a chat

yoursername thanks mate, loved photographing your sochi podium🔥🔥 landonorris that was mean

fanaccount BOYFRIEND?!?!?! EXCUSE ME??? masonmount i loved seeing your world anotherfan i didnt think id like masons gf more than mason but here i am masonfan mase's comment omg he in love love clementnovalak stop by the f2 paddock next time?

yourusername we will just for you clem

... view more comments

Yourusername

Chelsea

liked by masonmount, georgerussell63 and others

yourusername i think this football thing is kind of growing on me…

posted november 3rd, 2022

yourroommate the football or the guy?

yourusername ...

masonmount <33 masonmount thank god it is fanofboth girl i do not blame you juanmanuelcorrea_ you better not abandon us

yourusername i'd never

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Yourusername

Abu Dhabi

liked by jakcrawford, jackgrealish and others

yourusername motorsports photographer goes back to her day job tagged scuderiaferrari, pierregasly, jakcrawford_, jehand98, dennis_hauger, olliebearman, prema_racing

posted november 26th, 2022

alex_albon offended to not be onhere racingfan so ready for the last race!!! yourfriend i almost forgot you were a motorsports person and not football omg, this looks good premafan awww love all the boys on the last pic

yourusername my feeder series kids🫶🏼🫶🏼😚😚 dennishauger im literally older than you

... view more comments

read the continuation 'sidetracked'

[justforbooks]

Letters by Oliver Sacks

The kaleidoscopic world and polymathic interests of a great neurologist brought to life in his correspondence

In 1960, Oliver Sacks, a 27-year-old University of Oxford graduate, arrived in San Francisco by Greyhound bus. Born in Cricklewood, London, Sacks spent the better part of his 20s training to be a doctor, but came to feel that English academic medicine was stifling and stratified. A “tight and tedious” professional ladder, he thought, was the only one available to aspiring neurologists like him.

A young queer man with a growing interest in motorcycle leather, Sacks had other reasons to leave. The revelation of his sexuality had caused a family rift: his mother felt it made him an “abomination”. And so he looked for escape across the Atlantic. America, for him, was the wide open west of Ansel Adams photographs; California was Steinbeck’s Cannery Row. The new world promised “space, freedom, interstices in which I could live and work”. This is how we meet Oliver Sacks in Letters: as an immigrant undertaking an internship at Mount Zion hospital, the first step in a career on US soil that would span another five decades.

Sacks’s San Francisco years also marked the beginning of his life as a writer. The city wasn’t an arbitrary choice. As he eagerly confessed to a one-time lover, Jenö Vincze, his true motivation for travelling to California was to force a meeting with an artistic idol, the British-turned-Haight Ashbury poet, Thom Gunn. Gunn’s The Sense of Movement (1957) spoke to and stirred Sacks’s predilection for motorbikes. Moreover, it performed on Sacks the kind of private miracle only poetry can: it helped decode “the babble” of his emotional life. “There is a queer, colossally big London Jew called Wolf,” Gunn wrote to his partner in 1961, after first meeting Sacks (who used his middle name, Wolf, as a nom de guerre when frequenting the city’s gay bars, wise to its lycanthropic resonances). “[He] came out to be a doctor here because I live here.” Sacks shared his writing with Gunn, whom he found a ruthless but tender critic, later crediting the poet with first impressing on him that he had real literary talent; a pivotal moment for a man who would go on to publish a dozen books.

“I am not a good correspondent,” Sacks wrote to his parents in 1961, “because I speak and write at people rather than to them.” This is an apt summation of Letters: 52 years of outgoing mail sent (or left unsent) to family, friends, scientists, writers and later, fans and celebrities, a panoply of addressees as diverse as the subjects Sacks writes “at” them about. Unleashed in a self-described “volcanic logorrhoea” that typifies his writing style, these letters variously consider botany, etymology, entomology, geology, neurology, and literature; the tussle between xenophobia and xeniality in Star Trek; the “phantasmagoric-comic unconscious” of actor Robin Williams. Edited by Kate Edgar, who worked as Sacks’s editorial assistant for over 20 years, Letters represents a mere fraction of the total in his archives, which runs to more than 200,000 pages.

Many of the included letters are incomplete, with ellipses denoting gaps whose editorial logic we must take on faith, even when they occasionally appear to interrupt tantalising trains of thought. In a 1984 letter to Lawrence Weschler, for instance, Sacks’s conflicted reflections on strike action in hospitals that might put vulnerable patients at risk feel prematurely curtailed. Despite these excisions, Letters leaves one with the overwhelming impression of a brilliant and vivid mind, a man whose intellectual appetite was vast, and whose professional and creative passions – far from being the self-absorbed obsessions of a pedant – were first and foremost an act of reaching out, the means through which he sought to communicate with others, a “love affair with the world”.

Sacks is an endearing and entertaining prose stylist – inquisitive, often funny, never obtuse – and the organisation of Letters, separated into broadly thematic, chronological chapters with concise editorial introductions, provides narrative momentum. The resulting book is far more engaging than the unwieldy reference text for Sacks specialists it could have been. It might, in fact, serve as a more affecting autobiography than his On the Move (2015), which occasionally slides into sentimentality. Letters is crammed with off-the-cuff profundities, moments of elevated perception that briefly unriddle the more inscrutable aspects of human nature. Here he is on grief, after the passing of his mother in 1972, an emotive state he deems “so unlike depression: it is so filling and real and expanding and uniting and – (it sounds an almost blasphemous word) – nourishing”.

Letters also draws an illuminating line from Sacks’s neurological career to his unlikely emergence as a bestselling author. In the late 60s, having relocated to New York, Sacks treated a group of patients suffering from encephalitis lethargica, also known as “sleeping sickness”, with an experimental drug, L-dopa. This experience informed his second book, Awakenings (1973), which married scientific research with storytelling through case studies of his patients’ lives and their responses to the treatment – a hybrid genre that irritated his colleagues just as it struck a chord with general readers. The literary attention Awakenings received set Sacks on a course to public renown.

“Brevity has never been a quality of mine,” he wrote to Mrs Miller, a physical therapist who helped him regain mobility after a leg injury in 1974. Indeed superabundance – the instinct toward excess – is everywhere in these letters. As a man of 30, dallying with powerlifting, Sacks routinely bragged to his parents about his weight, how much he could lift, the amount he ate – “I love to shake the pavement as I walk, to part crowds like the prow of a ship.” At Mount Zion, special scrubs had to be made to accommodate his bulk, and he found himself in disfavour with his superiors for stealing patients’ food.

But his overconsumption wasn’t always dietary. During the following 10 years or so, Sacks took a prodigious amount of amphetamines and psychotropics – “every dose an overdose” – with one trip producing visions of the “neurological heavens” so intense it inspired him to write his first book, Migraine (1970). By the 80s, following Awakenings and an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show that boosted his profile, pumping iron and popping pills had been replaced by correspondence. “I receive at least fifty or sixty letters and phone-calls a day,” he told his father with the same pride he formerly felt after squatting 575lb, “and, if anything, this number is increasing!”

What was Sacks trying to satiate? His substance abuse, the workaholism that eventually displaced it, speaks of the addict’s need to fill or stuff a void, an effort to forestall the unbearable loneliness that might accompany a moment’s rest. And loneliness certainly runs through these pages. Sacks once felt that his very existence was only made tolerable by rejecting intimacy and becoming “impersonal or supra-personal”; relationships, he said, were a forbidden area for him.

Late in life, he cited internalised homophobia as the driving force behind this isolation, a heart-rending admission, given that he temporarily felt liberated from this oppressive “social matrix” during that short-lived 1965 love affair with Jenö. It wasn’t until 2008, after 30-odd years’ celibacy, that an epistolary meet-cute with the writer Bill Hayes precipitated a loving, intimate companionship, one that would last the remainder of Sacks’s life. It’s a touching if bittersweet moment that arrives towards the end of Letters, the coda to this portrait of a man who, half a century earlier, had travelled across the world hoping to meet a poet who might truly understand him.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[osiriascapsule]

1.1.2025 - It Begins

Introduction

My name is Coven. I am an 18-year-old goth with a love for photography/photo editing, fashion, writing, and the goth subculture. 

One of my resolutions in 2025 is to create a “closet capsule” for the year. I will post every outfit that I wear out. Following the end of the fall semester, I will be posting a summary of all the outfits I have worn out this year.

This summary will include:

What pieces I wore most often

What pieces in a specific category (tops, pants, etc.) I wore most often

What I wore most in a certain month

What colors I have worn the most

This summary will not include:

What I wear on days I do not leave my house

Clothes/accessories that reveal personal information (local logos, ID badges, etc.)

My locket. Unless something happens to it or I have a change of heart, assume it is a part of every outfit, even if I forget to include it in the photograph/description. 

Why am I doing this?

It’s fun – It combines a lot of my above-mentioned hobbies.

Personal benefit – Knowing yourself is important. I do not want to be trapped in a cycle of endless purchasing and dissatisfaction. A visual representation of what I have and like will allow me to avoid this trap. 

Giving inspiration – Tumblr has several artsy and self-expressive people, and I have plenty of to provide in this regard.

My Tags

#osiriascapsule – Any original content I make will be tagged with this.

#osiria's closet capsule 2025 – Outfit documentations

Want to Join?

If you have read this far, chances are you find this concept pretty interesting.

If you would like to join me in posting this challenge, please use #closet capsule 2025. Feel free to @ me if you would like to be mutuals – just keep in mind, this is my side blog. My main is @everythingosiria. 

Other Accounts:

DNI:

Main (Self-Reblogging): @everythingosiria

Self-Care/Self-Improvement: @unveilingosiria

BYF/Notes:

🕸 Basic Tumblr DNI Criteria

🕸 Body-Shaming/ED-Centric Blogs

🕸 NSFW

🕸 “Name 5 songs”/Goth Fetishizers/Generally annoying n' creepy people

🕸 I am semi-new to Tumblr and autistic, so apologies for any unspoken etiquette rules broken

🕸 Yes, the goth subculture is music-based. I understand how near and dear the subculture is to people, and am not unaware of the occasional influx of uninformed and disrespectful people into the space.

That being said, this is first and foremost a fashion blog. I do like the music, but that is not my niche here. Please do not expect music-related content.

🕸 Though I didn’t get this idea from anyone specific, I would not be surprised if I am not the first to come up with this. If you know of anybody doing something similar, please tag/tell me about them! I would love to be able to point people interested in this sort of concept to like-minded creators!

[rametarin]

Okay. So. Why DID American society vote for George W. in 2000? I'll tell you.

Last night I saw a youtube video I will not repeat that seemed to imply that if we had social media of today back in the late 90s, W. Bush would've never become president, "because facts would've come to light educating the voters."

This is such an incredibly naive and astonishingly ignorant thing to say, and it assumes the only reason people voted for any candidate was because they just didn't know what they stood for or what they believe or what that means for a candidate. That they were just a bunch of clueless bumpkins with no agency nor education nor drive and position of their own in the process, they just voted based on shallow 30-second "candidate good, theirs bad." and nothing else.

I am 40. We've been in a post 2000 George W. Bush presidency for more than half my life, at this point (Jesus Christ....)

Lets remove the hindsight is 20-20 of the Iraq War, Afghanistan, New Orleans and FEMA fiasco of the George W. Bush presidency for a minute. None of that stuff has happened yet.

It's the year 2,000. Bill Clinton is leaving the White House. People have been talking about George W. Bush, son of George HW Bush, since he threw his had in, the summer of 1999. People have known of Bush since his father was president.

American Society in the 90s was.. decompressing. That's worthy of a few paragraphs in and of itself.

First and foremost, American Society from the 40s to 91 raised its children, lived and became mature and grey on the premise that there were two major forces on earth at the time. The Americans embodied The West. New, free of classic imperialisms, dictators, private property owning, personal liberty loving. And, then there were the Soviets, whom followed principles that ideally envisioned a more purist, Marxist idea of law and society, where the state ("Society") owned everything and people lived equally under that.

The Soviets were ready and willing to steamroll over the rest of Europe to "save it" from capitalism, as evidenced by their massive fleet of, "steamroll immediate neighbors before unnamed enemies from afar can even get their boats in the water" tanks and heavily armored vehicles. And their tens of thousands of big, heavy tanks and demolition vehicles. They claimed they needed a massive land army and heavy tanks for "self-defense." And sycophants and sympathizers for the USSR outside of it claimed the Americans were the aggressors, imperialist and militant. Sometimes they would say that in comparison to the Soviets, as if the Soviets were just intellectuals, and sometimes they'd just say it as critique of the US as negative qualities that miraculously disqualified the US, but not the Soviets. Some real "you can't get me for things I haven't said, but there's lots of quiet parts not spoken here" stuff.

The Soviet Union was a shitshow of mismanagement and idealism and a circus of corruption that finally shit itself when its dreams died, after decades of careful propaganda and grassroots guerilla informational war that tried to disparage the American military's capabilities went up in smoke, as the Sadam Houssein regime got absolutely righteously SPANKED in the most photographed and video recorded war to exist at the time. Where the American Abrams and the British Challenger absolutely decimated 3,300 Iraqi T-72s and similar Soviet made tanks, and lost 30 tanks themselves. And even then, most of those were lost to accidents like falling off bridges, or friendly fire. So the Iraqi regime can only count 10 Coalition tanks. That's a KD ratio of about 1:330.

So good job on that one assessing the Soviet war capabilities, experts. Reformists stay winning, I guess. If you're hearing the laughter of children reverb through the battlefields of Ukraine, that's my voice from 33 god damned years ago at the propagandists that declared the US entering Iraq would just be a sandy version of Vietnam, where we do nothing but try and occupy and die by the thousand per year unable to meet any objectives or hold territory in the face of supposed superior Soviet armor.

And after their biggest trump card was exposed as a limp dick, which the Soviets always relied on to feel secure and content that, at the end of the day, even if the Americans and Western Europeans lived easier, more free lives, at least the USSR had the security of military supremacy, the Soviet delusion collapsed under itself and the entire dream just DIED. Matrix rejected, Soviet citizens disillusioned.

That's not hyperbole, after Saddam's thorough SPANKING that didn't even last an entire changing of the seasons before we swept up and went home, the Soviet Union croaked. Was it the final nail in the coffin? The final insult that did it? The disillusion, on top of the economic problems? I'd say it had something to do with it.

And in the west, our Very Progressive People(tm) have always had a kind of crypto-relationship with anticapitalists, open or crypto-Marxists and all of them liked to hide under liberalism. Not Big L Liberals themselves, but predatorily mimicing it. Even if they wanted liberalism to mean opposition to what they saw as the thing permitting racism.. which.. surprise surprise.. was capitalism.

But the thing is, they're pseudo-intellectuals. They did not want the stigma of openly stanning for socialism or communism, most of the time. They instead chose to convey themselves simply and purely as positive things. Like being "anti-racist," or being "anti-sexist." Wink wink. The fact they intrinsically tied these things to capitalism and western society, to where in order to be good and not oppressive you'd have to destroy and replace western society in its current form (its entire legal system and economic system) was kind of a lower rabbithole you had to go through. They'd still tout themselves as being big fans of justice and equality, even if unknown to you those words had MASSIVE asterisks that departed from the encyclopedic definitions of those words. And unless you were in their vibe and indoctrinated and agreed with them, they weren't about to tell you that.

But the trick was, how do you secretly get Americans to more easily agree with you without even knowing what they're agreeing to? How do you control their feelings and effectively put them down a logical and linguistic corridor so the only conclusion they reach is your logic's conclusion?

You rely on some dirty tricks. Peer pressure, gaslighting, cooking books and then braying about what an educated person you are for employing them. This was the world I grew up in. With little girls being oh-so educated by their buzz cut angry aunts and handed textbooks that were too advanced for them, but contained what amounted to proverbs and bible verses for them to throw out as platitudes and things you weren't allowed to argue with them over. ("Where's your PhD? :^)" )

So. What I'm getting at here is US Society had already been dealing with pseudo-intellectual gadflies, propaganda magazines and unscrupulous people joining publications with a political bias.

It got REALLY, REALLY egregious in the 90s. Radical Feminism was ubiquitously TERF-central, but you couldn't even argue against it as a white man, even if many of the points people like me made in the early 90s were true. Because, "you're a white MAN, you don't get to act like you know anything about feminism and what it means to be a GIRL." And they'd reject any opinion, give you no benefit of the doubt, reject any legitimacy anything you said had, because of its source.

And the thing about this is, the more they argued, the more cracks formed in the obfuscation. The less emotional impact having your younger female family turn on you as disingenuous, morally motivated weapons had on you. The more they would try to back up their arguments by citing the sources of the supposed intellectual professors and professionals they were quoting. The more their works could be scrutinized and made to bleed as men, not omnipotent narrators of science and truth.

The supposed anti-racists, supposeldy motivated by a world where no one is disrespected or made lesser by laws or policies that favored or disfavored people on the basis of race, cheering loudly for legislation that didn't discontinue racist policies, but ushered in "minority community protection" entrenchments, allowing "minorities" (almost uniformly just black people) access to free shit not because they were poor, but because they were black. In the same breath as telling white people they should not be permitted anything on the basis of their whiteness, and should, "get over" race. And in doing so, reveal themselves to not care about racism. And reveal their true values to be about treating race as class, and whites designated as oppressors. These are very different dynamics than trying to free a society from race based favoritism/disfavoritism policies.

So the "anti-racist" populists and their fringe viziers openly bragging about how they believed everybody but white people mattered, how national borders should not exist.. for America.. how they were glad millions of illegal immigrants were pouring in and would eventually be voting for their candidates in their own community's self-interests, and they'd happily vote to make sure the people paying taxes here would finance aid and benefits packages that non-Hispanic whites would not be allowed to enjoy the benefits of. Openly bragging about how "the whites have had enough." and that the poor only mattered if they weren't white.

The "Anti-sexists," which in discussions and arguments from angry radfems at the kitchen table had barked weird Gyno-Futurisms where men would be made obsolete and women would inherit society. How men were the cause and source of all wars, and under a feminist future, "society would equally share everything" and be kind and nurturing and some other shit that phased in and out depending on whether Daughter or Niece Dear felt more like being a spiritualist "witch" or an objective empirical scientist secular intellectual, that day. Where they'd demand all male spaces be made gender neutral and open to all, but open more spaces designated specifically and purely for women, with benefits for women just on the basis of being a woman, and tax the whole of society to make those happen. That women should have automatic positions arbitrarily opened up to remove any possibility women WOULDN'T be elected to share power, and loudly declaring all western art and literature featuring women was garbage, because you couldn't have good western literature and art in a society whose sexual values were garbage (this is hilariously circular and amounts to, "it's capitalist and not socialist, therefore, it's inescapably wrong.")

These were all things we learned as we sat by the supposed saccharine-swet "liberal" that hated all things sexist and racist, and beside them were their best buddies whom they shared literature with. They played Good Cop Bad Cop. They were literally being the Motte and Bailey argument of leftism. The general liberal progressive would set up the general platitudes that if you disagreed with, you were branded a reactionary or retro racist and traditionalist example of the white patriarchy, and then the radical would loudly shout you down while testing the waters of your peers for if they'd resist their own brand of spin on the subject and situations and facts they were beating you with.

So people got a taste of exactly what the very much not-liberal Progressive Leftist believed, and had in store, and through the impurity of the liberal tolerating their very not-liberal leftist friend, was going to allow to taint what should have been simple, acceptable policies.

Policies that were against relegating women to second class citizen status, policies that removed race from the equation in society and did not favor anyone or disfavor anyone based on their background, nor enshrine the importance of anyone's ethnic background.. and then promptly promised that everybody's race and background mattered, but white peoples, specifically. And then had the audacity to call people white supremacists and male chauvinists if they opposed this.

That was my childhood. Stumbling through realizing what bullshit was festering in the left, because according to their own propaganda, none of that was true or existed.

But don't get it twisted; I wasn't blind go the fact racists joined the republican party specifically to deny any benefits to people if it meant minorities would benefit too. Or the favoritism of rich people to rich people. Or the religious fundamentalists that believed in "family values" that used those avenues to push the idea of a monogamous marriage and expectation such would dominate exclusively under a Christian (or Jewish, to a lesser but not insignificant extent) lens. That was true, but not to the degree of evil the hard/far Leftist non-liberal was pushing it.

This is why George W. Bush was elected and even given a chance. Because with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Rodney King riots, the initial wide adoption of anti-racism and willingness to change from the propaganda of what they THOUGHT was true and the status quo, what they THOUGHT was the more left position, only to learn much of what they said were wild exaggerations, histrionic delusions and padded stats vilifying history and the status quo just to get people on their side to vote for what they wanted- which was banning guns, opening the borders, making sure people that weren't white had ample tax-payer driven benefits for the purposes of growing those demographics and securing their success at the expense of the majority. And the promise that more of this would come, the more power their fringe had in the left-wing.

This is why younger voters voted for Bush. Because the, "Racism is when white people oppress black people, Asian people and Indigenous people" crowd revealed their real face and said, "this is Leftism, and whether you like it or not, we're a packaged deal with liberals."

And the more general liberal just sat there smiling, not arguing with the radical, not confronting the radical, not disagreeing with the radical. Just playing the role of the enabling mom as the step-dad sexually abuses their child.

The black children from newly integrated suburbs with their first white friends, and their white liberal sisters that were taught from a young age that smart, progressive white girls should make sure their stupid male family members in this "stupid white supremacist patriarchal society" didn't cultivate racism, that they "challenged it' on radical feminist principles. Where at first, Sally seemed like a nice girl that had their back. But then revealed herself to just be a soapbox standing, histrionic mental abuser that would take every opportunity to get one over her male peers and show off how "anti-racist" she was, while toeing a line and trying not to overreach and destroy the delusion.

At the end of the 80s and towards the end of the 90s, those black children had grown up in a place where the white people that were trying to be courteous and respectful and open, just to get treated like shit by girls like Sally, called racist while Sally ran interference for things she didn't need to run interference for.

It's because of girls like the proverbial Sally (Social Justice Sally) that towards the end of the 90s, black people were writing N-word passes hand over fist and so many adopted a mindset (however brief) that we lived in a post-racism world. Because they saw far more accusations of racism than the sorts of racism they recognized or cared about among white people, and were offended on behalf of their white friends and community. It was so irritating and ideologically slanted and intellectually insulting, this is the origin of why the republicans got such a large spike among black people towards the end of the 90s.

Well. That, and how their very far-left peers tended to join with the likes of Farrakhan black supremacists.. And they weren't having that.

It was not because of a lack of information. It was not because we didn't have Twitter and Community Notes, or the algorithm giving us propaganda articles to read to correct misunderstandings or teach us what we didn't already know. Before the digital world and information outlets, we had sources of that information. We had pamphlets, we had reports from the government telling what we had then and what was coming, we had general ideas of where we were, and where we were going.

Put simply, people had the attitude that something was seriously wrong and rotten with the top of the democratic party for enabling and fascillitating the far-leftists, and giving them access to the platform. They were smarter than industrial wealth hogs and racists, and better able to be the +1 in any policy table.

People felt they could more easily police out the religious fundamentalists, white supremacists and financial oligarchs, while still holding policy to reflect gender and racial equality. Bush was not running on a platform of white supremacism, nor beliefs that put women back in the kitchen.

And after we experienced how the federal government handled WACO and Ruby Ridge (look those up), heard the very unflattering rumblings of what they thought of rural white Americans, the willingness to treat them like active militant hate groups and burn down their homes and kill their families over even PERCEIVED violations of federal law, and the promise of more of that to follow, the absurd crusades made to try and make firearms progressively more and more inaccessible to illegal, we figured maybe the illiberal left-wing was a bit too much of a liability to be in power.

George W. Bush was not voted into power because Americans didn't know anything. He was voted into power because Americans had too many bad personal experiences with the hanger-ons of the left, and hoped maybe the right wing could be spruced up a bit going into the new millenium.

And then the Islamic world attacked the west, financed directly and indirectly by limitless oil money and a network of interconnected cultural interests and sacred delusions, among which was the complete destruction of Israel and the Jews, and radical Islamic jyhad. And just by virtue of tackling this problem, with the supposedly anti-conflict bad press of the illiberal left not helping matters (thanks, smearists and propagandists), the right wing had to tackle Islamofascism and take the responsibility of blame for the conflict even existing at all.

As far as the public consensus, reinforced by hard-leftist propaganda goes, it's just white America trying to impose an evangelical death cult on some harmless religious and ethnic minorities in the middle east, based purely on Christian supremacism and white supremacism.

Meanwhile Obama, a democrat, willingly continued the policy of using drones to take out middle eastern Muslim mafioso families and royals, as they thinned the herds and worked to arrange peace across the Islamic world by curtailing crime bosses and radical structures of power that were leading to fundamentalist groups like ISIS and ISIL. And as messy as that looks in hindsight, just based purely on the structure of that religion and the social elements, it was inevitable. It was a question of how that was going to play out, not if it would.

Today, many countries that previously were on board with the Islamic populist belief of bulldozing Israel and getting every Jew out of it, want peace with the west and Israel, and are working to undo decades to centuries of fundamentalist conservatism. Which is the long term foreign policy goal, and has been, since even before the Ayatollah assumed Iran.

Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden all have been party to this Middle Eastern policy that has openly or secretly been dealing with the shadow war of Islamic theocratic expansionism and imperialism and terrorism as a means of physically and conquering the opposition. The idea that George Bush and the republicans just embody some warpigs fueled by manifest destiny and white supremacy is a very uncharitable reading of some very flawed individuals, with uncharitable assumptions of motivations, and the people that voted for him assumed to just be know-nothing morons that just didn't have informed consent, or malicious defenders of what is presumed the status quo, that has never been and will never truly be the modus operandi of the USA, even if some with fringe beliefs think it should.

Bush was voted in not because of ignorance or malice, but because he was an option, and at the time, they thought the opposition could be trusted with a change.

I anticipate to see more absurd takes that disagree with my lived experience. Statistically, it's inevitable. But it doesn't make it any less insulting to witness.

[life-as-gwen]

Teachers

Becoming a parent is the biggest commitment we will make in our lives. We will be responsible for caring for, nurturing and keeping our children safe for years to come. They will rely on us for everything at first. As they get older, they will become more and more independent and eventually make a place for themselves in the world. It is truly an amazing gift to watch a child grow and mature. 

There comes a time, though, when the nurturer becomes the nurtured, the teacher becomes the student. As our children expand their universe, it is only natural that we learn from them and their experiences.

First and foremost, I have learned that I am unconditionally loved. My history with addiction must have made it difficult to love me sometimes. But in my mind, I never doubted that they did. Not for one second.

I have learned to appreciate the beauty of nature. How a walk in the woods has a profoundly calming effect on the mind. How one can feel completely at peace as the rest of the world seems to fade away.

I have learned the power of art and creativity. How a troubled soul can create a painting that is both beautiful to look at and deeply meaningful.

I have learned that the more passionately we love, the more deeply we feel the loss. I have also learned that the pain goes away in time.

I have learned that the process of self discovery and self investigation can lead to a deeper understanding of our behaviors, thoughts and emotions.

I have learned to love animals. How they can give love and loyalty in a way that no human can.

I have learned the power of a photograph.

I have learned about patience, diplomacy and timing. Not yet perfecting it, but understanding it's importance.

I have learned many, many things.

The bond we have with our children is unbreakable. We see them in a way that we see no one else. They are our best teachers..

[tired-old-men]

"So!" Cedar pipes up, grinning happily as he hobbles over with his cane, "Not much of you Guardians compared to my family, huh? I'm curious. Got any photos or stories of your elders? Do love me some old vintage photos and learning some strange history!" He giggled, "I love peaking at ones in my family myself! hehe!".

Hawking makes his way to the small yellow echidna in his wheelchair, holding a photo album in his lap. 

“Ah this I could answer for ya lad! Me and Spectre are what’s left of the ‘Old Guard’ of Guardians, per se. While I may be too old to continue being the Head of Household my grandson has done quite the tremendous job upholding the mantle. But man, when I was active in my duties I worked alongside some incredible people I am proud to call family”

He gently pats the photo album in his lap before levitating it with his chaos abilities towards Cedar to better display the photographs.

“Let’s see what we got here, and take this old man on a trip through memory lane....”

“First and foremost, we have our First appointed Guardian Steppenwolf. He’s the one that began our group many years ago after the untimely death of his father from the uprising of the Dark Legion.  His legacy surpasses all of ours with how much he’s done not only for this Island but for his family as well. He always had such a strong stoic demeanor, even in his old age he was wise and headstrong. I believe if we were to compare families, he would be the equivalent of that Shepherd of yours from what I hear.”

“Then there was his son Moonwatcher.  He was quite eccentric especially in comparison to his father. This picture in particular was captured from his first visit to our base, Haven, a father and son like night and day I tell you.  He was obsessed with this space show of his, when I was young he would have been about as old as I am now, and he would still be watching that show, even when blindness took over he would still listen to the episodes  having them memorized by heart. He always had this bright energy to him just always upbeat and ready to tackle the day. While he certainly was aloof he was a good guy, very openminded about social change, and had a great mind for the stars, he almost became the first echidna in space, believe it or not.”

“Moonwatcher’s son was another 180 in terms of personality between father and son. Unlike his father Harlan was very stoic, he  had one of those faces of someone not to be messed with, but that was just his general appearance. He’d mastered the art of meditation to strengthen and channel his chaos abilities, so he was always very introspected and had a great sense of wisdom. Sometimes he would give you advice or even a small piece of wisdom that would really make you think, I always came to cherish that about him”

Hawking flips over the page to this photograph and his face lights up.  “Ah this, this was the pinnacle of the Old Guard! This was quite the historical moment for us. When Harlan’s son Rembrandt came up with a monicker for us ‘The Brotherhood of Guardians’. A small change but an accepted consensus between us that solidified our bonds as Guardians, as well as a symbol of upholding our commitment to this Island, and all life that inhibits it”

The old echidna stumbles upon this image and gives a hardy chuckle. “Ohoho! Oooh good times good times! That was me and my old man Mathias back in our prime, we did such great work together. All my wisdom and skills I owe it all to my old man, for shaping me into the man I became.  Although I have to say it’s so interesting seeing him like this, the older he got the more he began following in Harlans teachings, delving deeper into the chaos force and strengthening his bond with it through meditation. He began wearing these long intricate robes, his demeanor was a lot more calm, and there was this aura about him that was hard to describe but very much felt. He truly was an incredible man on all fronts, I’d like to think that even to this day.. I feel like he watches over me” He smiles.

Hawking flips through a couple of pages until he lands on a particular image that makes his eyes soften, a sheepish smile escaping his lips as he reminisces on the image for a moment before speaking. “This… this was a special moment for me. There I was alongside my son Tobor and his lovely wife Voni-Ca, and can you believe that little ball of sunshine is my dear grandson Spectre? He looked so different as a small boy, quite the curious little puggle he was! …This photo is particularly special since it was the day I had the honor of passing on the mantle of Guardian to my son. It was a very proud moment for us all…” Hawking took another long look at the photograph, his eyes beginning to show a hint of sadness, he clears his throat as he flips through another couple of pages to a different Guardian all together. 

“My granddaughter needs no introduction, for I’m sure Thunderhawk has spoken about her greatness many a times, but she was truly a delight to this world.  Janelle-Li was relentless and surpassed any challenge that was ever imposed on her. I can’t deny she had an uphill battle in earning the title of Guardian, but she blew everyone out of the water with her sheer determination alone. She was truly one of the best of us and gave us a perspective like no other.  Here we have her guiding her son Athair when he was just a young lad. He's also was quite the eccentric echidna himself, but his mother had such a patience with him, really guided him right and supported him in his endeavors regardless of how silly others might have found it. Besides being an amazing Guardian she was a wonderful mother, she even help raise Sabre when he was a young Guardian. Really set him right and gave him the much needed love and guidance when he moved away from his parents and his tribe to live on Angel Island.”

Hawking slowly brings the album back to his hands, holding it open in his lap for a last long look before closing it gently, placing a palm over the cover fondly. 

“Ah- I hope that gave you an answer to your inquiry lad, give you some insight of my family members past, or at the very least got something interesting out of letting this old man ramble on.” Hawking gives Cedar a hardy chuckle. 

“Truly a pleasure talking to ya lad, feel free to drop by anytime for a chat.” 

[very-accomplished-backstabber]

First of all: do you just flirt with everyone? Second of all: YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER??

Firstly, no. I do not flirt with everyone. I usually have a goal in mind when I do. More often than not, it is to make RED mad. As for my team, I do not flirt with them. I am just being friendly with them, I enjoy their company. I can be romantic when I want to, it comes natural to me, but it is a tool first and foremost.

If this is about how I feel about RED, you are terribly mistaken. I find most people aesthetically pleasing, but do not mistake that with love. I can appreciate how someone looks without any sort of desire, it's not unlike viewing art at a museum.

Secondly, yes I have a daughter. Is it really that surprising? I don't get to see my children often, but I do recieve photographs in the mail on occasion. No I will not show you.

[hauntedobservationobservation]

Crochet flowers, or trying to go back to my crafting ways

First and foremost, I should dissuade anyone with hopes of aesthetic and beautiful pictures of crafts. I am quite terrible at photographing but I will do my best with the materials I have currently at my disposal.

After my post about how I wanted to go back to crafting in the usual manners I'm accustomed to, I was inspired by a friend to create some ornaments for the upcoming end-of-year festivities. Now, I am not a festive person. In general, yes, but more specifically for the end-of-year holidays. The way I have grown up have caused me to receive these dates with negative rather than positive feelings, but now at my current age of [REDACTED], I feel rather neutral and I would rather think of them as simply, days on the calendar that aren't different to others. On the other hand, my mother loves Christmas. And I love my mother. So ornaments it is. Besides, I figured it would be a way of making a few short projects to get back into the creative mood, and feel more of a short term gratification from them.

In that spirit, I've began to make these red flowers. There are seven of them, and they will be the center of seven motifs with which I will attempt to create a doily. The pattern I'm making these from, I've taken from a book called Country Christmas Crochet, from 1998, which I've found in my beloved Archive.org.

(Parenthesis here: this is the first time I've made something from a book or magazine in Archive.org, I should rely on this service more often to find knitting or crochet patterns, they have a lot of vintage books and magazines to peruse in all sorts of crafts, not just this one)

I'll try to remember to link the book here.

Another thing to note is that this is made from scrap yarn, so I have no information about the yarn other than "I think this was purchased locally". I will be trying to use the scraps I have and spend as little as possible, so that will be fairly common in my blog every time I craft something. I'm not adverse to purchasing new materials but I cannot afford it at the moment.

I'll try to update soon whenever I can advance more in this project. I tend to either try to finish it as soon as I can, or I drop it because it's taking too long and I get bored and want to do something else instead. Or nothing at all, or nothing at all. Wish me luck!

[alter-ipse]

Day 2

My counterpart tried to tell me her name today, but I didn’t want to hear it. Mainly because she has a name in the first place. She’s already too much of a person as it is. Within this file, which has been encrypted so securely that I doubt she’ll ever find it, I will call her Alter - the other. She is my other, after all. I believed her when she said that I was the copy, not her - she had a whole childhood’s worth of memories and photographs and corroborating evidence to back it up. I had a series of remarkably uniform recollections of twenty years’ worth of teaching compressed into two at school, and a face that has never once changed or aged. They tried giving me false childhood memories when they sent me out to kill Alter, but they didn’t take, and I was too embarrassed to say anything about it. I had plenty of motivation as it was, no need to make myself a target for the kind of carnivores that had to be kept in school because they were too monstrous to release into the outside world. I know full well that some of my former classmates managed to delude themselves into believing that they were the dispossessed originals, not their targets, but where’s the sense in that? Idiots, all of them. I have no problem with being another’s tool– I was made to be useful, first and foremost- but I will not forget my own mind in the process.

I will call myself Ipse, because I know above all things that I am myself.