#i will continue this in a later post bc i am procrastinating | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jawnkeets · 5 years ago

Note

How are you so clever??? I’m new to your blog and I’ve been looking at your posts (not in a stalkery way but because they’re so cool) and you seem super intelligent! Like you always reference things I’ve never heard of and use fancy words and it’s just really awesome. How did you get so clever? Do you read a lot or are you just naturally clever? If it’s from reading then what books would you recommend to someone who’s interested in literature and also broadening their general knowledge? Thanks

awwww. well thanks for the lovely ask!! this is way too much detail bc i’m procrastinating work but

i read a ton as a kid, mostly horror books - i was obsessed with the supernatural, and especially vampires, and the idea of things changing into other things (in a magical way, but also stories where characters develop and end up very different, tales of betrayal etc). my favourite series when i was little was the spiderwick chronicles, followed a little later by the saga of darren shan. i didn’t read any classic literature at all though, as i’d decided i hated it for some reason. as a kid i always prided myself on my creativity/ imagination rather than my intelligence (it’s a distinction i’d always drawn and still do after a fashion), but i was and have always been obsessive, and also used to sit and play memory games for hours, too; i remember one where i’d have a list of cards and i’d put one down, say what it was, turn it over, add another one, say what the previous one and this one was, turn them over, and continue until i couldn’t remember every single card in order, and then i’d start again. i wrote a lot, especially poetry, and used a thesaurus often because i loved words. i had a very very vivid imagination and refused to live in the real world until the age of about 11 or 12. then from 14 onwards i read almost nothing (apart from like idk two of the hunger games books) until i was 17, when i finally started reading classic literature, triggered by the great gatsby, which changed my attitude to learning completely. until then i’d despised secondary school partly because of the way learning was presented (i got good grades at gcse but went through the syllabus and exams mechanically with little genuine love) and partly for… other reasons, and had almost given up on taking academics seriously. but i got very lucky and had an incredible english teacher throughout sixth form, who encouraged me to take risks and break from methodical, formulaic writing. at the end of the first essay i had to do for him i still remember that he wrote ‘literature is for you. now and always. carry on.’ at the bottom, and that changed my life. he also introduced me to philip larkin and romantic poetry outside of class. after that, i was gripped by the desire to read and discover as much about the humanities as i could, make links between works, discover new ones, recover the feeling that i was possessed by after finishing gatsby. tumblr genuinely helped with art, literature quotes, and making it all seem accessible, e.g. seeing text posts making jokes about shakespeare, keats, etc helped to demystify a bit. yes, dark academia, i’m also looking at you for making learning seem exciting, but tentatively and with narrowed eyes. general knowledge-wise, it helped me to begin to break down the barriers between ‘subjects’ at school (even if you’ve left school, it’s pretty branded into our brains); they’re sometimes very fuzzy and even arbitrary, and to separate into strictly-defined categories like this is not the only way learning can or should happen.

a work that i thoroughly recommend to everyone who asks where to start is letters to a young poet by rainer maria rilke. he relates so perfectly this idea that the first step is to let yourself be filled with how amazing and vast the world is, and how much there is to read, listen to, and see. that’s not something you can learn from reading, and it’s not something you can be taught by anyone (unless being inspired by someone counts). it’s instrumentally important because it will drive you, but i also think it’s inseparable from understanding (and to me, it is understanding, just understanding without the right words yet). this is the highlight, and it was the mantra stuck up on my wall at 17 when i decided i wanted to learn, and learn seriously:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

i was relatively articulate before i started reading the classics/ reading widely, but not exceptionally articulate. here’s an example of two essay openings - one i wrote when i was 16, and one i wrote during my first term at university (2 years apart):

i’d say that since then my essays have probably improved by a similar proportion, as i’m as embarrassed to read the second as i was the first when i wrote the second, and the typos r annoying me (am too embarrassed to post recent writing :’( - doesn’t count if over a year and a half ago, hence posting the second :p). obviously, then, this isn’t natural intelligence (everyone has to get knowledge, big words, etc from somewhere, right?), this is natural receptivity and willingness to learn, which i genuinely believe anyone can gain at any point, coupled with A LOT of reading the opinions of others (i.e. literary criticism and theory), and reading literature from many different periods to discover how language is moulded by individual poets and by ‘eras’ more widely. but this is also synthesising everything i absorb into a personal vision (this is the hill i will die on soz i don’t think theory should be ‘objective’ like what does that even mean). you can and should put yourself into it!

in terms of what to read - if you like the rilke (really hope you do!!) then depending on what you like about it, you can search from there. try some of rilke’s poetry. or if you like that ineffable feeling it brings, try the romantics (keats’ ‘ode to a nightingale’ and blake’s songs of innocence and experience are good to start with!), or larkin’s ‘high windows’ and ‘the mower’. also try shakespeare’s hamlet, because that is INCREDIBLE (watching it is always easier, and the more shakespeare you watch/ read the easier it gets! andrew scott’s hamlet is the best imo). from there it’s a question of asking what you liked about what you just read (time period/ vibe/ themes/ subject/ style of writing) and finding things similar - often google works and i made use of it a lot to start with, tumblr too, otherwise ask people who you know (on the internet/ teachers/ friends etc). this is a personal journey, especially to begin with, i think (you have to jump in somewhere), and there’s no one who can give you a list of books to read in the order best for you, because - annoyingly, i know - that’s something it’s best if each individual works out through trial and error, and part of the fun in truth. there are western canon lists out there, e.g., which contain some fabulous works, but have very obvious problems.

a really really rough chronological development of english lit: beowulf, any of the canterbury tales, hamlet, paradise lost, pope’s satire, romantic poetry, victorian novels (e.g. david copperfield, jane eyre), the waste land, waiting for godot (it would also help to read the iliad, the aeneid, and metamorphoses too, and as much of the bible as you can, especially genesis, exodus, isaiah, job, and the gospels, but genesis and the gospels first if ur stuck/ overwhelmed). this is the lightest of pencil sketches, but if they’re works that go some way towards defining each ‘era’ or ‘period’, then it becomes a little easier to search for works branching off from these that are influenced by or chafe against them. you can always come back to me if you’re struggling with what to look for next :+) also, i have a list of my poetry favs, if you want to check that out (it includes the stuff mentioned in the previous paragraph, as well as others).

hope this helps (?!) ❤️

#asks

46 notes · View notes

croatian-nt · 5 years ago

Text

Mafia au-Part six

Summary: When an unassuming artist saves a man’s life at the shooting at the gallery, he ends up in the midde of the war between two mafias and as he gets dragged deeper into the whole thing, he soon learns the line between the sides and right and wrong blur more than he expected.

Pairings: Tin/Ante, hinted

Word Count: 3709

Warnings: mentions of kidnapping, blood, death threats

Notes: Are the gaps between updates getting longer or is it just me?(they are getting longer bc I procrastinate a lot, sorry). Anyway the chapter is here and I planned on posting it a bit later today but since it’s @morska-vjestica ‘s birthday, let’s count this as her present. As always big thank you to @lovren-la-vida-luka for editing this. Anyway, enjoy :)

Tin

Tin opened his eyes and blinked a few times. His eyes still felt unusually heavy. How long did he have before his next class-

Suddenly, the events from earlier that day came crashing back to him and he jumped on his feet. He immediately stumbled, grabbing the couch he was lying on for support.

He glanced around the unfamiliar apartment, trying to find an exit, when suddenly:

"You are awake."

Tin turned to the voice, his eyes landing on Ante who was leaning on the doorway of what Tin assumed was the kitchen.

"Not thanks to you," Tin hissed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Ante sighed, dragging his hand over his face. Tin closed his hands into fists under his crossed arms, pushing away the urge to punch Ante in the nose and actually give him a reason to look at him like he was doing something stupid.

"What did you expect me to do? Honestly, Šime knocking you out was a better option. The alternative was him putting a bullet through your brain."

Tin really didn't have the time to process that. Or how many times he almost died today. Was it even still today?

He glanced to the window, the way the sun was slowly setting. That probably meant he was out for a few hours but it was still the same day.

"I’m guessing the other option would have been more convenient for you."

Ante snaps his eyes to his, and he looks almost surprised? Angry? Tin can't tell and that bothers him for some reason. He used to be able to tell how Ante was feeling just by the way he fidgeted with his hands or the ways his lips twitched at the corners. Now he is just a blank canvas Tin is trying to fill with colors he once knew.

"How can you say that? I- of course I didn't want him to kill you!"

Tin bit his lip, but he couldn't stop bitterness from pouring out.

"You may not want him to kill me, but if he decided to do it, would you have even tried to stop him?"

Silence. That was more than enough of an answer.

Tin snorted, sitting down on a couch and letting his head fall into his hands. What was he doing? Why did it matter if Ante cared if he lived or not? He had to get a grip. There were other, more important things he should be worrying about.

"Who are you, really, Ante? And your friends as well? Who is Luka, if that’s even his name, that man I saved at the gallery?"

Ante pursed his lips together, and oh, Tin knew that expression. Ante always had it when he was trying not to tell him something.

"I think I deserve to know something. I saved his life and got myself into all this mess because of him, I’d at least like to know who the hell he is and how you know him."

Ante sighed again, and came closer, throwing himself in an armchair facing the couch Tin was sitting on.

"Luka is his name, I promise. He’s a good guy for the most part, and you did a good thing. Let's just say that you saved the life of someone of high rank in-” he paused, but realised there was no turning back. When he continued his voice was much quieter and he stared at the floor instead of at Tin. “In the mafia."

If Tin wasn't already sitting down, he definitely would have collapsed at that. This had to be some kind of a joke, right?

"You are joking right? These things happen in movies. Are mafias even still a thing?" Tin laughed nervously, fidgeting with his hair. "Besides, if he’s in the mafia, what kind of idiot would try to kill him? This doesn't make any sense."

"A rival mafia. And yes, they are still a thing."

Tin opens his mouth, then closes it. Swallows.

"Rival mafia?" He asks weakly.

Ante’s interest in the pattern on the rug appeared to intensify as he avoided Tin's questioning gaze. In different circumstances, Tin might have found it funny. It was like looking at the foggy mirror. You could recognize the shapes and colors of someone, but the full picture was blurry.

"Yes. They have been fighting over territory for years. Not in an open war, that would be stupid. Well, not until now, anyway."

Tin took a deep breath and tried to let the information sink in. His head was still spinning a little, and he found it hard to tell whether it was a lingering effect of the chloroform or if the events of the whole day were finally catching up with him.

"Then why.."

"Why did they try to kill Luka?" Ante asks, and there is an almost there smile, the one that he has when he can guess what Tin is thinking, "I don't know. All I do know is that it's definitely not good for any of us."

Tin swallows again, fidgeting with his hands in his lap.

"So what happens now?"

What happens with me? That was the real, underlying question Tin wanted to ask. He remembered the man from the hospital, the way he swiftly killed those gunmen, without thinking twice.

Tin knew their faces, and he knew their names… when was he going to become too much of a liability, and they would decide to get rid of him?

"Well, you have to stay here for now. We can discuss that more when Šime gets back."

Tin studied Ante for a moment, finally letting himself really look at him. Letting himself analyse the similarities and differences to the boy he dated in high school.

He was maybe a bit taller, and he had more muscle. Frankly, Tin didn't want to imagine what kind of things he did to get it. But possibly the biggest difference was how cold and closed off he seemed. It was as if he was just an echo of his past self, and Tin was blindly following the sound that disappeared long ago.

He reminded himself to breathe in again, trying to sort his thoughts. He didn't trust Šime at all. God knows why he didn't kill him already, but Tin was pretty certain he would at one point. And as much as it pained him, he didn't think he could trust Ante, either. So that left him one option. Trying to run away.

He quickly glanced at Ante and then at the door. He could make it, if he did it right. Deep breath. In and out.

If he read the situation right, and if he remembered right, there was one thing Ante had no idea how to deal with. Tin crying. Which meant that would be a good distraction.

Tin buried his head in his hands again and sniffled, trying his best to sound like he was crying.

"Tin?"

Tin made a pained sound, curling more into himself. God, he hoped Ante didn't remember he used to be part of drama club as well.

"It's just- it’s too much. I can't- breathe-" Tin sobbed, and he could hear Ante moving.

He sat next to Tin, awkwardly wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Tin almost laughed when he imagined his face. He rarely cried, and Ante never knew how to deal with it when he did.

"It's going to be okay. Nobody is going to hurt you, okay? I promise."

That sent a pang of guilt through Tin’s stomach, and he hesitated for a moment. But then the memory of Ante just standing there and letting Šime knock him unconscious with chloroform resurfaced. The anger resurfaced and he shifted a bit in Ante's embrace. And then he kicked him between the legs. Hard.

Ante doubled over, swearing loudly, and Tin pushed him off, ignoring the pained sounds Ante made. He jumped off the couch, running towards the door.

Before he could reach the door though, Ante managed to grab his leg and pull it, and Tin crashed to the floor.

He didn't have the chance to try and get out of the grasp because Ante was there, pinning him to the floor.

They were face to face and Tin could feel Ante's warm breath on his face, and the way both of their hearts beat wildly in their chests. Those ocean blue eyes threatened to swallow him in their depths, and he tried to remember he wanted to escape and not pull him closer.

"I am starting to regret teaching you self defense," Ante said, right next to his ear and Tin suppressed a shudder.

He tried to wrench his wrists from Ante's grasp, but to no avail. Ante smirked and Tin let his head fall back to the floor with a quiet thud.

"So, what now? You plan on holding me pinned to the floor until your friend comes back or what?"

"I don't know," Ante said, gently rubbing circles into Tin's wrist with his thumb, "it depends if you will try to escape again or not."

Tin swallowed, his heart racing at the gentle motion. The memories of Ante he was in love with collided with this new, dangerous man in front of him. As similar as he seemed at first glance, Tin couldn't forget how easily he killed a man, without a flinch or any sign of regret. It made his stomach turn.

"Stop it."

Ante's hand immediately stilled at that. Tin breathed out in relief, but his heart and mind continued racing. Šime wasn't here yet, but it was only a matter of time before he came. Tin couldn't win in a physical fight against Ante and escape. So what could he do?

Alert someone else. Alert Andrej. He would know what to do.

Tin purposefully relaxed into Ante's hold, instead of trying to find a way to get out of it. Ante narrowed his eyes at him.

"I won't try to run away again if you let me make one phone call.”

Ante snorts at that.

"Sure, why don't I just call the police for you while we are at it?"

"I wouldn't try to call the police. I am not that stupid,” Tin sighed, rolling his eyes, "I just want to call my roommate. If I don't come back he will freak out and he will call the police. You don't want extra attention do you?"

That made Ante pause, and Tin counted that as a victory. The truth was, Andi probably wouldn't notice him missing for at least a day or two without Tin calling. Sometimes Tin worried how much time he spent in his room, apparently working on his assignments. Tin barely even ever saw him leave to go to his lectures, but he supposed it was none of his business.

"You can even stay in the room while I call him. I won't say anything that could lead him to you."

Ante studied him for a moment and Tin readily met his gaze, willing himself to stay calm. He could do this - he had to do this. If he had to choose between not dying and lying to Ante, well. He'd choose lying any day.

"One call. You have two minutes, and I will be listening to everything you say. One wrong word and I'll send someone to get rid of your friend. Understood?"

Tin nodded jerkily. Another reminder why he couldn't trust Ante. He knew Tin too well, his family and now Andi as well. And he could hurt them if Tin did anything wrong.

Tin cursed himself and his inability not to get involved. If he just let Luka get shot, he wouldn't be in this mess.

But no- he didn't regret saving his life. As much as he hated this whole situation, Tin knew he couldn't have done anything differently. He was never one to stand aside if he could do something.

Ante let him go, and offered Tin a hand to help him get up. Tin very pointedly ignored it, but he didn't miss the way Ante's shoulders fell a little as he pulled his hand back. Tin pushed the feeling of guilt away, turning his head the other way. This wasn't the same Ante anymore. He was in the mafia for God’s sake, and he was actively involved in kidnapping Tin. Tin assured himself that he had nothing to feel guilty about.

"So, can I have my phone?"

Ante wordless reached into his bag and handed Tin the phone. He made sure their hands didn't brush, and Tin was thankful for that at least.

"Two minutes," Ante reminded him and Tin refused the urge to roll his eyes.

"Yes, I think your original threat was clear enough. Can I just call him now?"

Ante sighed, but motioned to him to go on. Tin pressed call and prayed Andi actually heard his phone, or this was all for nothing. It rang one, two, three times-

"Hello?"

"Oh thank God," Tin exclaimed, immediately slapping a hand over his mouth, "I mean. I am glad you answered. I wanted to tell you I won't be coming home today."

Silence. Tin pretended not to see the suspicious stare Ante was giving him and focused on breathing instead.

"Okay? You didn't have to call me for that, you know."

Tin was suddenly very grateful that Ante didn't ask him to put the phone on speaker.

"I know, I know, I just thought you'd be worried. It might be a few days before I come back, I’m not sure yet. But I wanted to ask you for a favor."

Tin swallowed, aware that now both Ante's and Andi's attention was on him.

"Sure? What is it?"

"If you could buy those cupcakes we saw in the store the other day… the ones with lots of red sprinkles on top, I'd love you forever."

Next to him, Ante chuckled, but Tin could hear Andi take a sharp breath. Neither of them liked cupcakes, which is why they made that a sort of code to let each other know if they were in trouble. The sprinkles signaled how bad the situation was. Green meant something unpleasant, like “get me away from this terrible date”. Yellow meant something more like, “I'm lost or hurt, come pick me up”. And red… well. They both expected it to stay hypothetical. It meant they were in real danger and the police had to get involved.

"Sure. Where are you staying for the time being?"

Tin glanced at Ante, biting his bottom lip. How much could he say? It was probably the best not to risk it. He didn't want Andi to get hurt.

"Oh, just with a friend. On that note, he’s right next to me and I feel really rude right now, so I should go. Stay safe," Tin said, trying his best to sound cheerful and not terrified like he felt.

He pressed end call before he could hear Andi's answer. He was too scared that if he heard the worry in his tone he might break down again.

Before Tin could return the phone to Ante though, the door opened and Šime walked in, his eyes immediately landing on the device in Tin's hand.

Before Tin could blink, Šime painfully twisted his wrist until he dropped the phone and then, a moment later there was a knife under his throat. Tin felt all of his muscles locking in place, and he barely dared to breathe.

Šime's hands were elegant, even with the numerous tattoos spanning over them. If Tin didn't know any better he would mistook his fingers for someone who played piano, or perhaps a skilled thief. But he knew how quickly his hands could move and his knife cut straight through his neck.

"Why did the hell he have a phone?" Šime asked, his eyes boring into Ante.

Tin knew better than to answer a question not directed at him. Even Ante looked careful, showing his palms, as if not to startle Šime. Or maybe so he could disarm him quicker, if given a chance.

"I let him call his roommate, so he doesn't report him as missing. I was right here, listening to the whole conversation. He didn't say anything that could alert him, I swear."

Šime laughed, a quick, sharp sound, before tightening his hold on Tin.

"You are such a fool, Rebić. Who knows what kind of code he and his friend have? He could have said anything! And you just let him," Šime hissed and Tin felt as if he was going to be sick.

"A code? Šime, I have told you countless times, he is an artist. A college student. Why would he have a code? You aren't thinking rationally about this."

Tin didn't notice at what point he started trembling and his breaths became jagged. He could feel the weight of Ante's worried gaze on him and the coldness of the steel of his skin, but everything was becoming one big blur.

"Oh, I am not thinking rationally? Fine. Let's see what your little artist has to say about the whole thing. With a little encouragement."

The knife cut into his skin- it was a brief, barely-there cut, just enough for him to draw blood. Tin gasped, his hand automatically going up to cover his throat. Šime caught it easily. but before he could even ask anything, they were interrupted.

"Šime. Let him go. Now," Luka said and Tin never thought he'd ever be so happy to see him again.

He and Šime's gazes locked onto each other for a moment. Tin couldn't quite make sense of it. It didn't make sense that Luka, with his height and build, and how easily he got shot, could make Šime do anything. But something about the way he carried himself now made a cold shiver run down Tin's spine. Ante’s words from earlier echoed in his mind: he’s a good guy for the most part. Tin supposed this must be a glimpse of the lesser part. Šime let go of him suddenly, his legs gave out, and he fell to his knees.

His hands covered his neck and came away bloody, which made his gasp for air once again. Rationally, he knew that the cut wasn't nearly deep enough for him to bleed out, but rational thoughts seemed far away and he couldn't catch them. His head was spinning more than ever and he was sure he was dying, and everything else came through a deep, thick fog.

"Take him to the other empty room and stop the bleeding. Livi and Bruno will be here any moment. We have far bigger problems than someone reporting a college student is missing."

There were hands on his elbows, but Tin tried to fight them- he didn't want anyone touching him. But the other person was stronger and Tin gave up, letting himself be dragged away. He was faintly aware of the door closing and someone close to him rustling through something.

Enough time passed for his breaths to slowly return to normal, and then for his vision to stop swimming. He saw Ante rummage through a first aid kit and fish out a dressing that looked like a large band aid. Ante shuffled closer to put it on Tin's neck, but Tin caught his wrist in a bruising grip.

"Don't. Touch. Me," Tin hissed.

Ante wordlessly handed him the band aid and watched as Tin struggled to apply it without seeing his wound. But he didn't utter a word of complaint, and Tin was glad. He wasn't sure if he tried to touch him again if he would break down crying or break his wrist, but he was sure that he didn't want to find out.

"Are you alright?"

Tin snapped his gaze to Ante, disbelief evident on his face.

"Am I alright?" Tin made a choked off sound, "someone just held a knife to my throat. No I absolutely am not alright! I don't feel like I’m ever going to be okay again!"

Ante locked his jaw and stood up, starting to pace around the room.

"You don't like this? Well, newsflash sweetheart, you should have thought about that before playing the hero for a criminal," Ante hissed, completely forgetting about trying to be patient with Tin.

"I didn't know he was a criminal!"

Ante rolled his eyes, minutely pausing his pacing around the room.

"Well then, maybe you shouldn't try to help people all the time. Especially when someone is trying to shoot them."

"What do you want me to say? That I am sorry that I saved his life?"

Tin paused, catching Ante's gaze, blue staring into blue. The sky and the ocean meeting during a storm.

"Because I’m not. I am not sorry for being a good person. If you want to question someone's life choices, you should probably start with your own."

Ante sighed, closing his eyes for a moment.

"I can live with my life choices, Tin. I am not sure you will be able to do the same with the consequences of yours. Being a good person doesn't mean you will get out of this unscathed."

Ante stopped, looking over at Tin, as if he was memorizing his face. He bit inside of his cheek and turned his head away, as if just looking at him hurt.

"And I don't think I will be able to tip the scale in your favor, either." He whispered, and before Tin could even begin to unpack what he meant, Ante turned on his heel and exited the room, locking it behind him.

Tin was left staring at the door, his tired brain trying to catch up on everything that happened. He was sure of a few things. He was kidnapped by the mafia, which was bad. He probably had no way of getting out on his own, which was worse. And lastly, the men who kept him there had no reason to leave him alive for much longer, especially since it seemed they had bigger problems already.

And last, but not least, if he somehow survived all of this, Andi was going to kill him.

Taglist:

@morska-vjestica

@hetapeep41

@lycanrvc

@incelhugochavez

@wordpuddle

#croatian nt #mafia au #tin jedvaj #ante rebic #sime vrsaljko #andrej kramaric #long post #tw blood

12 notes · View notes

daggerzine · 5 years ago

Text

R.E. Seraphin molds tiny shapes into big songs.

Though he’s been on the scene for a while now (with different bands) I hadn’t heard the music of Bay Area musician R.E. “Ray” Seraphin until this year via a cassette called Tiny Shapes via Paisley Shirt Records (more on the label below). His first real band was Talkies, which he discusses below (and I have enjoyed), but he seems to have really come into his own this year with that cassette and a new EP, A Room Forever, which came out just a month or so ago. In his music you’ll hear influences of 80’s jangle pop as well as some deeper post-punk stuff (and for more current stuff I hear whispers of Dean Wareham and his bands and Wild Nothing). Reading below he seems very well grounded and seems to have a great attitude about everything (even not being able to play shows during a pandemic or being in a writing slump). I think once this is all over this guy will go on 5-year tour and gain lots and lots of new fans. In the meantime do check out his stuff, you won’t be disappointed.

Where did you grow up?

Berkeley, CA. The area I grew up in was filled with Victorian homes and dilapidated industrial warehouses. My family home was walking distance from a lagoon and an old, rusty set of train tracks. I felt I lived in an unremarkable college town. There wasn't much activity outside of the school. I discovered Berkeley’s storied political and musical history much later in life. Now, of course, there are many books written about Berkeley, but I thought it was a kinda nondescript city as a kid.

Do you remember what band made you fall in love with music?

Dating myself hard here, but I remember being floored by The White Stripes’ “Fell in Love With a Girl” video when I was 11. The Top 40 music making the rounds on VH1 and MTV at the time was beyond dreck — a lot of Train, Staind, Matchbox 20. The White Stripes were the first band I was exposed to that made succinct, catchy, no-frills music. I was genuinely enthralled. Plus, the Lego animation in that video still holds up.

Was guitar your first instrument?

I started on bass. My first instrument was an extremely cheap, pointy BC Rich knockoff monstrosity. I believe I was 13. I had no idea how to play and little interest in learning. For the first year, I putzed around with a Pro Co RAT, a wah pedal, and a tinny-sounding Crate practice amp. I just tried (and succeeded in) being as obnoxious as possible. When I started writing songs, I eventually graduated from playing bass poorly to playing guitar poorly.

Tell us about your first band.

My first band that played shows was called The Phil Spector Shotgun Experience. That was primarily a cover band I put together with my high school buddies and my mom. We covered Radio Birdman, the Pink Fairies, and the MC5; we also had an unwittingly hilarious original called “Nitroglycerin Man” — the first song I ever wrote (maybe I was subconsciously inspired by Wages of Fear). At some point, we kicked my mom out of the band and started playing as the Impediments. That band kicked ass — we made pridefully dumb American punk music. That was also my only band to sign a record contract, so it’s quite possibly been downhill from there!

Tell us about The Talkies (unless that was your first band mentioned above).

Talkies (no article!) was a group I started in 2014 as a vehicle for my songs. My previous bands had been more of a shared vision, so Talkies was my first foray into being the lone genius of a group. The sound was mostly drawn from what is disparagingly known as power pop. Basically, I was heavily into the band Shoes for a few years.

We released a few albums and EPs. Did a couple short tours. During that time, the project was dragged from the Bay Area to Austin and back before I finally, mercifully pulled the plug last year. It was time.

When did you transition from Talkies to the solo stuff you’re doing now? Did it feel comfortable?

Talkies had run its course, but I had a smattering of songs leftover from that project that I wanted to record. Around that time, I learned my good friend Jasper Leach (Burner Herzog) was getting ready to skip town. I had always wanted to work with him and, seizing my final opportunity to do so, we banged out my début, Tiny Shapes, last summer. The whole experience was fairly serendipitous. The stars aligned for that one.

I wouldn't say the process was comfortable. Recording the album felt necessary, urgent — almost compulsory at times. My heart was ready for a new project and I truly wanted to center myself for the first time. I’m glad I did. This is the happiest I’ve been musically in some time.

“I think therefore I am”

I love the songs on A Room Forever. How did they come together?

So glad to hear that! I got asked to contribute to a compilation back in April. With the deadline approaching and inspiration still eluding me, I took a glance at my bookshelf, noticed a particular Carson McCullers title, and whipped up “Clock Without Hands.” After my trusty collaborator Owen Adair Kelley added his parts, I felt we had stumbled upon a great sound. I tried to harness the creative spirit and pushed myself to finish a few ideas buried deep in the recesses of my Voice Memo app. I got friends Matt Bullimore (The Mantles) and Yea-Ming Chen (Yea-Ming & The Rumors) involved, and that was that. No great origin story — just pure American ingenuity and elbow grease.

Tell us about Paisley Shirt Records. Who runs it and how did you hook up with them?

Paisley Shirt Records is simply the man, the myth, the legend — Kevin Linn. He is a San Francisco-based musician and artist who records as Sad-Eyed Beatniks.

I met him when I was looking for someone to release my album, Tiny Shapes. He had just put out a tape by Hits — a great local band featuring some friends of mine — and I felt a kinship with his roster. So, I reached out to him. Foolishly, he agreed to put out my album and we’ve been inseparable ever since. Solid dude. High marks.

Have you done any solo tours? If so where and how did they go?

Ha! No. I had only notched two shows as R.E. Seraphin before the pandemic hit. Likely not doing anything beyond the odd live-stream show for a while. That said, if any tastemaking European touring agencies are reading this — give me a ring!

The latest EP

What are your top 10 desert island discs?

Ah, jeez. This question. I’ll just say these are 10 (plus one) that I come back to quite often. In no order:

Marquee Moon by Television

The Everly Brothers’ Best

Forever Changes by Love

Let it Be by The Replacements

Third/Sister Lovers by Big Star

The First Songs by Laura Nyro

16 Lovers Lane by The Go-Betweens

In a Silent Way by Miles Davis

A Different Kind of Tension by Buzzcocks

Something Else by The Kinks

Old No. 1 by Guy Clark

What are a few Bay Area bands that we should know about.

This is a golden-era for weirdo pop music in the Bay. To name just a few: Galore, Cindy, The Umbrellas, Tony Jay, Flowertown, Healing Potpourri, Latitude, Cocktails, The Reds, Pinks, & Purples, Yea-Ming & The Rumors, Anna Hillburg, the 1981, Toner, Frank Ene, Neutrals, Owen Adair Kelley, April Magazine, Telephone Numbers, Hits, Sad-Eyed Beatniks. Essentially every act associated with Paisley Shirt Records and/or Mt.St.Mtn. My bias is strong.

Do you feel that the pandemic has helped your songwriting or hindered it (if either)?

A li’l column A, a li’l column B. I’m a natural procrastinator, so I’ve definitely savored the lack of band practice and shows (things that often necessitate new material). That said, I doubt I would have finished A Room Forever had I not been quarantined at home. Without having many obligations and without being able to leave my house, music definitely became my raison d’être for the first time as an adult. I was fortunate to not be deemed an “essential” worker and to be able to focus energy on my passion momentarily. Silver lining.

What’s next ? A new record by the end of the year possibly?

Hopefully continuing to promote my music and play shows on the ol’ webiverse. A Room Forever will be receiving a small vinyl and tape pressing at the end of September via Mt.St.Mtn. and Paisley Shirt Records. So, looking forward to that.

I was creatively tapped for a few months after A Room Forever. While a new album is possible, it’s not probable. I am plugging away at a few tunes, but I tend to conceptualize albums as a thematic whole and not as a collection of songs. Haven't stumbled onto my next Big Idea yet. Don't count me out, though. I could see myself dashing off a covers album for sure.

What is one song you wish you’d written?

Too many to name! I’ll reframe that question to mean a great song I could see myself capable of writing in an alternate time, place, or dimension. Maybe one of Peter Holsapple’s songs from The dB’s — “Black & White” or “Neverland.” Also: anything by Wreckless Eric or Martin Newell.

Final thoughts? Closing comments?

Just finished reading an interview with the great James Purdy, and thought this quote summed up iur current political climate well:

“You go out into the world and no one knows you, you can be ruled because you’re programmed. Everything is stamped, put on the shelf, described, thrown out into the garbage. It’s a political process, and behind that an economic process. But to be nothing, that is the worst of all possible things.”

www.reseraphin.com

www.paisleyshirtrecords.bandcamp.com

2 notes · View notes

bonnissance · 5 years ago

Text

@berenacountdown fic rec day 2: throwbacks

There are a lot of fics in the archive (go team!). Many of them are absolutely incredible works that shattered me the first time I read them, while others simmered on first reading w an intensity that grew over time.

It’s the latter ones that have stayed w me all these years, continuing to evoke huge feelings even after the three dozenth reread. They’re also the ones that remind me of why I stepped back into fandom when I did, and why I keep coming back now.

These are the fics nourish me, energise me, sustain me. And every one of them, a gift for which I’m so grateful to enjoy, especially after all this time.

(also im deliberately not including smut recs in this list bc I’m assuming there’ll be a day for that later. Or at least a dedicated list from me just cos I feel like it. And I mean fics are about/for the smut, not fics that include erotic elements. That fact should be clarified given the writers on this list *waggles eyebrows*)

the gathering of stones by @strangerstarsandlands bc of the fkn yearning, the w a n t i n g, and finally the c o m m u n i c a t i o n. Professing undying love to someone’s sleeping form makes me go hogwild -- the intimacy of bedsharing and the safety of silence is just !!! - and this fic might be where it started? Like, what a fkn blessing.

Karma Suture by @ktlsyrtis remains the funniest title of a fic I have and will ever see in all my days. When someone mentions well titled works, or expertly written humour, I think of this. And it’s a brilliant fic -- it’s funny, it’s fluffy, it’s intimate and carefilled. It takes all the best bits of canon dynamics and gives them space in a self contained one shot of the highest order written by one of most prolific writers our fandom is blessed to have; someone I am proud and honoured to call a friend. What a gift <3

Night Terrors by deviltakehimback is the pinnacle of Bernie gets appropriate treatment and learns how to heal, and also Serena and Bernie fall in love and are happy and healthy and together fic. And it is wonderful. Truly a gem from the depths of the archive, and what a gem!

No Escape by Chalkhillblue is b i g canon compliant feels post berena honeymoon phase, and it hurts so good. It’s got intimacy and communication and healing and commitment!!! So much of that good stuff which makes angst w a hopeful, if not happy, ending so sweet to read.

and finally, bc I have to limit myself to a reasonable number

heartease by @tea-and-procrastination is a lovely collection full of yearning and tenderness and space for character to breathe and exist in each other��s spheres and talk. It’s brimming with early berena energy, full of hope and want and possibilities, and I cherish it still.

#berena final countdown #countdown to freedom: holby addition #holby for ts #i sigh i sigh i sigh #long post #i miss the superhero au #that oldie was dope

15 notes · View notes

axelsandwich · 8 years ago

Text

yuzuru hanyu: an exhaustive introduction

YUZURU HANYU IN 8 SECONDS: A SUMMARY

the weird goat noise crying at the end is yuzu himself basically going ‘nooo no way, no I don’t want this, that was scary, so scaryyy’

THIS IS ALSO YUZURU HANYU IN 13 SECONDS

YUZURU HANYU JUST BEING HIMSELF (PART 2)

choose your fighter

he’s happy a lot

basically the embodiment of the n__n emoji

and cute

the cutest

ever

loves nature on the rare occasions he goes outside

hitting his coach with a fan

scaring his other coach and then running away

adorable w kids

loves teaching

but also falls down a lot. very cutely.

sometimes in a stupidly beautiful way

factual info you could probably Wikipedia but are too lazy to do so: Yuzuru Hanyu is a Japanese figure skater from Sendai, born 7 December 1994 who competes in the men's singles discipline.

PSA: YUZURU HANYU IS NOT THE MODEL FOR KATSUKI YUURI FROM YURI ON ICE (yuuri katsuki is canonically based on tatsuki machida thank u)

japanese media (esp in sendai) basically filmed him growing up and called him a young prodigy so we’re lucky to get footage of chipmunk-cheeked yuzu with his (flying) mushroom hair

look at this tiny bean

he was interviewed in ice rink sendai with japan’s other figure skating gold medallist shizuka arakawa. to quote, when asked “can you become a gold medallist too?”, he said “probably”. and then he went and did exactly that.

he would get into fights with his rinkmates, used to ball up skate rink magazine flyers to hit like a baseball and basically had a 5min attention span after which he would get bored

he also remained top 5 in his class academically while competing internationally during high school and does online education at waseda university, which is one of the most prestigious universities in Japan (this kid was away the day God handed out laziness and procrastination I s2g)

he’s studying Human Informatics and Cognitive Sciences (ie. basically a massive maths nerd)

my favourite in-depth and extended interviews with yuzu are his press conferences with the foreign correspondents club in japan, he really lets his intelligence and thoughtfulness shine here in particular:

2014 post-sochi olympics

2018 post-pyeongchang olympics

2018 post-pyeongchang olympics (japanese media)

memelord mc memeface (no, I am serious)

literally can’t control his face

I could go on.........

for a long time

(this is my fave)

the duality of man

10 expressions for the price of one

‘yuzuru will also respond in english’

yuzuru was a victim of the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami and lived in an emergency shelter with his family for about a week. spent the summer afterwards skating 60 different ice shows to raise money for the victims. he lost his home rink because of the earthquake and so would go to the show rinks early to practice ):

it’s heartbreaking that he’s still very affected by the memories. he’s said he doesn’t take anything for granted and is always grateful to have a rink to skate on, and the impact he had on the survivors had a profound effect on his skating

he mentioned it in his post olympics interview

if you feel like crying really really hard today, watch yuzuru visiting sendai’s disaster affected areas and where he stayed initially in the days after the disaster

he donated all his olympic winnings to helping tohoku recover

the only regular TV appearance he does every year is 24hr TV which is a charity marathon to raise money for various causes, especially for areas affected by natural disaster

“If it is because I visited them that those who suffered from the disaster can forget about their hardships for even just a moment, to me that would be something very meaningful. Therefore, at that moment, I thought that I wanted to get another Gold medal at the next Olympics.”

the reason why he’s going for another olympic medal. cry with us

gets on with nobunari oda like a house on fire and carries out shenanigans whenever they meet

nobu and ex-tennis player matsuoka shuzo have been his most zealous and purest hype men since he was sixteen, it’s the cutest thing in the world, they’re regularly worried about him, stunned by him and moved to tears by his performances

here they are reacting to his olympics programs

here’s yuzu thanking shuzo for his support by putting his gold medal around shuzo-san’s neck

has the cutest bromance ever with training mate javier fernandez (eg. when he cried bc he didn’t win but was also super happy for javi, and when he watched javi’s free skate)

gives the best hugs to javi

iconic(TM)

just before the Olympic medal ceremony, yuzuru cried after javi told him this would be his last olympics and saying ‘no I can’t do it without you’ wow I didn’t need my heart or anything today

has the cutest interactions with all skaters including his direct competitors

here’s boyang jin giggling about how he got a hug from ‘the guy who likes Pooh’

nathan chen commenting on yuzu & both of them complimenting each other

dodges media attempts to pit him against shoma uno as bitter rivals bc they are NOT ABOUT THAT LIFE

olympic gold medallist checking to make sure the olympic silver medallist has his jacket on straight and teaching shoma to wave bc he is actually just a mother

the only person who has the ability to make him lose focus: his forever-idol evgeni plushenko (now in motion)

probably the only asian boy who willingly opted for a bowl cut

who he shamelessly cheers on during ice shows

literally not capable of not being extra as fuck

here’s his pre-competition rituals aka. lipsyncing silently at a wall

he does it a lot

where every other male skater is in sensible shirts and pants, you will find yuzu standing there BEDECKED IN SEQUINS AND FEATHERS

he don’t give a fuck about your gender norms

and looks excellent while doing so

here he is, single-handedly destroying toxic masculinity

here he is just generally being Extra, with the rest of the men, bullying junhwan, bullying boyang... speed skating

tbh his milkshake seems to bring all the boys to the yard...seriously. and obviously most of the girls...

famous for his death glare murder face of hyper-competitive intensity

scariest thing is how quickly he can switch it on

there’s literally a collection of photos of yuzu - from when he was a bb to presently - eyeing the gold medal from another podium position like ‘my precious will be mine soon’ (here’s another one)

but also for being the sweetest kid ever

he is truly SUPER polite wherever he goes

hugging his competitors at the 2018 pyeongchang olympics

staying behind to answer all questions from media at the competition

CRAWLING ON HIS HANDS AND KNEES behind competitor shoma uno so he doesn’t get in the background of shoma’s interview

mr worldwide (he thanked reporters at the Olympics in five languages)

watch him say thank you in korean

JP TV basically had entire TV segments where they were like ‘OBSERVE HIS GOD-LIKE BEHAVIOUR’. It continues to this day

there’s literally a shrine with kanji similar to his name and fans pray for him there

he has three dedicated shrines that his fans make pilgrimmages to - yuzuruha and the two seimei shrines.

oda nobunari visited one and basically all the ema wishes were for him (yuzuru himself also visited the shrine to pray as well)

helping people repair the rink after competitions

single-handedly keeping the winnie the pooh soft toy industry alive.

Disney-senpai finally noticed him in 2018

he donates all the toys he gets to local orphanages and charities

gives his fans regular heart attacks

watch him save jumps that shouldn’t have been physically possible

changing program halfway through when he failed a jump to accommodate #emergencyquad and #yolotripleaxel

casually breaks world records because he was annoyed with himself

casual jump combinations during practices

casually says shit like wanting to jump hithero impossible jumps

jumped new quad when pissed off at the world team trophy It is REALLY IMPORTANT to know that the main reason for fan heart attacks is because he’s dealt with a distressing number of injuries, illnesses and misfortunes in his skating life but has somehow managed to come back and succeed in spite of them

a really scary accident that happened at cup of china 2014 and he decided to skate anyway because he wanted to qualify for the Grand Prix Final (which he then went on to win) and he really should not have been allowed to but he.......did that > <;

he then came back a month later to win the Grand Prix Final for the 2nd year in a row

he then had abdominal pain and surgery right after winning Japanese Nationals in 2014

and after spending a month recuperating, still managed to win a silver medal at worlds 2014

this is why we don’t talk about boston

important to note he skated his iconic chopin/seimei 2015 grand prix final programs WITH THAT INJURY

but then he came back and won the world championships in Helsinki in 2017

he missed almost the entire 2017-2018 olympic season he severely injured his ankle while practising the 4Lz in practice at the NHK Trophy, while recovering from a fever

is making his comeback from injury either at the pyeongchang team event or potentially yolo-ing it and going just for the individual event, we have no idea, we just know heart attacks are imminent

update: he skipped the team event and made his COMEBACK SKATE FROM INJURY after 3 months of no competitions and 1 month of prep at the individual mens event of the pyeongchang olympics.... AND FRIKKIN WON HIS SECOND OLYMPIC GOLD

he then...injured himself again for the 2018-19 season, went out and skated anyway, won the event and showed up to the victory ceremony on crutches. he made a comeback at the world championships 2019 on painkillers yet again and still managed to get a silver medal

is proficient at disappearing like a ninja and subjecting his fans to radio silence for months on end, usually bc he injured himself ))):

so his fans made him a banner

(he has some ridiculously talented fans tbh)

a helpful guide to stanning yuzu (warning: you may feel Attacked)

did I mention he happens to be pretty good at figure skating?

he’s broken the world record 16 times and counting (the video is his reaction to the first 11 (most of them are his own records)

he’s the first man in 66yrs since Dick Button to win back-to-back Olympic gold medals in mens figure skating (sochi 2014 and pyeongchang 2018)

I cannot emphasise HOW FRIKKIN #YOLO HIS 2018 OLYMPIC SEASON WAS. this was the medal he wanted his ENTIRE LIFE, which he had literally planned since he was a novice skater and had seriously begun planning since right after he won the gold in Sochi. this plan had to be adjusted due to the truly distressing number of injuries, illnesses and misfortunes he sustained during the last quad (his Olympic athlete profile has PARAGRAPHS dedicated to all his injuries - and note these are only the post-2014 ones). but yuzuru started the 2017-18 olympic season with a plan to basically break all 3 of his WRs at the olympics by recycling his Chopin and Seimei programs but upgrading the layout and introducing a new quad - the 4Lz - which he had been preparing for years. and then this plan was, once again, thrown out the window when he sustained the injury in NHK in early November, which was much more severe than he first thought. he sat out of competition for 3mths despite hoping to return first at Japanese Nationals and then to the Pyeongchang team event, but pulled out of both as well. yuzuru made his comeback from injury debut at the individual men’s event, aka. the BIG DEAL, after marching into the airport like a BOSS. we were told he had only recovered his triple axel 3 weeks ago and his quads 2 weeks ago, but post-Olympics, he’s slowly revealing that it was even more dire than that. he skated the entire Olympics on painkillers that were not working 100% which meant every jump landing hurt. and he. frikkin. WON. by doing this. and this. (it was also the 1000th medal in Winter Olympics history because destiny rewards those who are Most Extra)

seimei is arguably one of the greatest masterpieces of skating programs and yuzuru was involved in every step of putting it together

his iconic moves ; _ ;

edges, have you seen anything more ridiculous

romeo and juliet 1.0 at worlds, less than 1yr after the tsunami disaster and really launched him onto the international stage

sochi olympic short program (the thing that won him the gold lbr)

sub point: his reaction to gold

sub point: his reactions to BOTH HIS GOLD MEDALS

chopin and seimei at Grand Prix Finals 2015/16

WR for highest short program and total program score and he’s gonna bring them both back and try to surpass them for the Olympic season because he wasn’t already under enough pressure.........

hope and legacy FS at Worlds 2016/17 where he came back from 5th place in the short program to win the free and break his own world record yet again (annotated version)

broke his 12th WR in the first event of the 2017-2018 Olympic season at the ACI Challenger event with a sore knee and downgraded jump layout

hilariously, his coach brian orser was - uncharacteristically - warning everyone that his first skates of the season are like ‘first pancakes’ and to not expect too much from him before the SP

his fans, needless to say, were amused

he did go ahead and die in the free skate the following day though, and finished with his obligatory Canadian silver

Jumped and landed his first 4Lz in competition at the Rostelecom Cup 2017 (watch it clean - it’s a THING OF BEAUTY) and now has landed 4 types of quads in competition (4T, 4S, 4Lo and 4Lz). Has now said that being the first person ever to land the 4A - his childhood dream - is one of his key motivations.

just go watch all his programs lol

has a majestic jump face. it’s art. literally.

seemingly endless appetite for getting better and continually challenging himself

his favourite word: kuyashii (ie. frustrated)

one of my favourite interviews of him ever was right after his broke all 3 world records and went over 200 and 300 for the FS and total competition score for the first time at NHK 2015. “[On losing to Patrick Chan at Skate Canada & the fact he was practising during gala rehearsal where everyone else was chilling] I thought I want to improve, even here right now. Patrick was nearby and it was a really good motivation. It’s like, ‘Watch me.' I will definitely practise all kinds of jumps and I will grow for sure. I will win the next time for sure, I have been practising with that in mind.” Then 3 weeks later, at NHK Trophy, he had a different lay-out. Yuzu: This is not related to Patrick anymore. I was really fired up this time. Boyang Jin got 95 points in SP, right? When I saw that score, I thought, wow NO MISTAKES!! He gave the best of his abilities! OH YES!!!! Matsu: You didn’t think OH NO!!! You thought OH YES???? Yuzu: I thought “It’s here!!!" Since I was a child, I have never liked winning a competition when others made mistakes. Everyone skates to their best, but I still come first, above all. That is what I like. I like pushing myself to the edge—.” (translation cr: yuzusorbet) says volumes about his competitive mentality.

this is also iconic AF. ‘In your mind, what do you mean by wanting to win with a commanding lead?’ yuzuru (no hesitation and immediately): after everyone goes clean, I go clean and win. (matsuoka shuzo’s face is a MOOD)

oh, also he’s had asthma since he was two

he talks about it here

it was referenced in a movie

he got an asthma attack 2wks before the World Championships in Helsinki 2017 and still went out and Did That

the new york times did a long feature on him and it’s mostly a pretty comprehensive article if you want an overview

has remained at number one in the world standings for the entire olympic cycle since 2013 despite aforementioned heart-attack-inducing injuries and illnesses

sucks at finding suits that fit him. because he needs one imperfection

questionable fashion sense in general (generally remains stuck at ‘japanese teenage boy circa 2005′)

he wears toe socks and has been seen wearing crocs once, ho n e st l y

Good Guy Yuzuru: doesn’t wear fitted suits often because he knows it’ll kill his fans and/or will only do so if he gets paid for it tbh

unless he’s wearing under armour

he can keep wearing under armour

seriously, why isn’t he being sponsored by under armour

why

really obsessed with earphones and has like 50 pairs, many of which are custom-made and cost over $1000. he gets really excited about sound quality & bonds with sound technicians over their headphones. basically it’s the only thing he talks about when interviewers want to know what he likes to do in his spare time

that and play games in his room by himself

he’s hyper-competitive about games too

is this a surprise at this point

he’s basically a shut in when he’s not on the ice rink, in competition or at an ice show. he is not v exciting

he got really obsessed with kendama and now has like 8 of them

can’t dance but has no shame (yeah) (YEAH. you’ve been warned). werq it boi

made his japanese film debut in a bald cap, playing the young lord of Sendai which he SORT OF BASICALLY IS

get you a man that loves you like the entire city of Sendai loves yuzuru

their cheer video for sochi and pyeongchang

as of originally writing this intro post - part of the top six men in figure skating right now. probably possesses the Most Lack of Chill, being world champion, olympic champion and holder of all 3 figure skating records. we’re all drinking heavily this olympic season, not in the least because Olympic season has been a Pretty Big Disaster So Far

BUT HE WON THE GOLD MEDAL AND THE MENS EVENT WAS - FOR THE MOST PART - PRETTY DAMN BRILLIANT, especially given all the disasters that happened this season.......so I recommend watching it all. ; __ ;

alas Patrick Chan and Javier Fernandez have now retired ;;

he’s also b e a u t i f u l

um excuse me, rude

VERY RUDE

apparently not interested in sex appeal.........

‘acting’

want to research more?

here’s a recommended watchpost

a compilation of interesting interviews by tsukihoshi14

gif cr: balladestorm

in conclusion, thank you for reading and I hope you know more about this special, brilliant boy ( :

#yuzuru hanyu #hanyu yuzuru #figure skating #figure skate #yuri on ice #pimp post #I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS FOR 6MTHS I S2G #do people even do pimp posts anymore #anyway this is for anyone who hasn't fallen into the sinkhole that is yuzu's existence #maaaybe I will do some for other skaters #i contemplated making this a powerpoint slide meme #but then there was too much to link #so you get a HUGE FUCKING LINKS MASTERPOST INSTEAD #((if i've missed anything pls message me))#in celebration of fucking AUTUMN CLASSIC STARTING THIS WEEK AD:HS:FKJSA:

3K notes · View notes

urfavmurtad · 7 years ago

Text

Here it is… my masterpiece of procrastination… the long-awaited sequel to The Quraysh Were Good Actually: 2 Ghazwa 2 Furious, per anon’s request. I actually couldn’t get it all in one post anon, sorry, bc it’s goddamn 10,000 words long jfc but I got it into two, which is much better than the five I had @quranreadalong!!!

This is all about military expeditions in Mohammed’s time. It sounds dry but I promise it’s fire. Jews getting massacred! Temples getting burned down!! Swarms of bees sent to punish the disbelievers!!! Extreme feudalism!!!! All this and more during the spread of The True Religion. I took mercy upon all y’all app users by not putting the whole thing as one post and making u scroll 5 minutes to get to the end of it.

This is an almost-complete rundown of military expeditions in Mohammed’s era, starting in Medina (622 AD) and leading up to the expedition to Tabouk (630 AD). It all started with our dudes the Quraysh in Mecca and their allies.

Mohammed’s followers had been raiding trade caravans headed to and from Mecca for a while. The first attempted attack on a caravan was only a few months after Mohammed moved to Medina with his followers, and more raids were carried out once every couple months after that. The motive was simply to get whatever the caravan was carrying. The early historian Ibn Ishaq quotes Mohammed as sending his men out with the command:

Go forth against this caravan; it may be that Allah will grant you plunder

Ambushes like this were pretty par for the course; there were always brigands laying in wait to attack caravans and steal their shit. So while this was annoying, it was not really unprecedented for a center of trade like Mecca, and the men traveling with each caravan were used to dealing with the situation and escaping from attempted raids. Mohammed’s people were simply one of many nuisances at this point, and their raids did not actually accomplish much until late 623 AD. This was the Nakhla raid.

Here’s the deal. In both the Islamic calendar and the polytheistic Arabian calendar that preceded it, there are four “sacred” months during which you’re not supposed to shed blood. One of those months is Rajab, the seventh month. Both Muslims and polytheists agreed that no one should be killed in this month, but Mohammed sent out a raiding party towards the end of the month anyway, headed by one of his idiot extended family members, Abdallah ibn Jahsh. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, Abdallah had a penchant for Yeezys, and the Meccan caravan happened to be carrying some.

This expedition proceeded until they reached Nakhlah where they found ‘Amr ibn al-Hadrami leading a trade caravan for the Quraysh. That day was the last day of the sacred month. The Muslims were divided in their opinion. Some of them said: 'We know for certain that today belongs to the sacred month, we are of the view that you should not violate it because of greed’. The opinion of those who desired the stuff of this world gained the upper hand; they attacked Ibn al-Hadrami, killed him and seized his camels. Ibn al-Hadrami was the first person to be killed in a fight between the Muslims and the disbelievers. The disbelievers of the Quraysh heard about the incident and sent a delegation to the Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace. They said to him: 'Do you allow fighting in the sacred month?’ As a response, Allah, exalted is He, revealed this verse (They question thee (O Muhammad) with regard to warfare in the sacred month…)

So even though it was a truce month and the raiders themselves knew it, they attacked the caravan, killed a trader, and stole the Yeezys anyway. The Quraysh were very upset and demanded answers from Mohammed, at which point “Allah” revealed that the raid was okay because the Quraysh were big meanies and disbelievers.

Now convinced that Mohammed’s followers were murderous lunatics, the Quraysh decided to prepare an army to send out to defend their next caravan if necessary. When Mohammed moved to attack a caravan returning from Syria to Mecca, the army set out to defend the caravan. The two armies met at a water source between Mecca and Medina called Badr, and that battle went well for the Muslims, with a few dozen Meccans dying and more being taken captive. (The caravan got past them, though.)

After Badr, many non-Muslims in Medina were furious at their new neighbors for instigating such a conflict. The Muslims were viewed by their non-Muslim neighbors not only as the aggressors, but also as a real threat to Medina’s relations with Mecca and their allied merchants in the area. One such person was a woman named Asma, a poet. In one of her poems she expressed rage at Mohammed and his people attacking the Meccans (many had friends or family in Mecca and the two cities were generally friendly with one another prior to Mohammed’s arrival) and wished for Mohammed’s death:

Do you expect good from him after the killing of your chiefs / Like a hungry man waiting for a cook’s broth? / Is there no man of pride who would attack him by surprise / And cut off the hopes of those who expect aught from him?

Mohammed was not happy upon hearing this. Ibn Ishaq’s biography continues:

When the apostle heard what she had said he said, “Who will rid me of Marwan’s daughter [Asma]?” Umayr b. Adiy al-Khatmi who was with him heard him, and that very night he went to her house and killed her. In the morning he came to the apostle and told him what he had done and he [Muhammad] said, “You have helped God and His apostle, O Umayr!” When he asked if he would have to bear any evil consequences the apostle said, “Two goats won’t butt their heads about her”, so Umayr went back to his people.

As far as I recall, Asma is the first recorded unarmed murder victim among the polytheists of Medina. She would not be the last Medinan poet to be killed that year; Mohammed also ordered the death of an old Jewish man for similar reasons that same year (and later ordered the death of another Jew who committed the same offense). The murder of those who dared speak against him was part a campaign of stamping out dissent and solidifying control of the area.

Mohammed believed that one community in particular stood in his way.

The first of three conflicts between Mohammed and the Jewish tribes of Medina began not long after Badr. As I’ve said before, Mohammed didn’t really interact with Jews en masse until his Medina days, and he seems to have been genuinely appalled that they not only didn’t believe he was a prophet, but believed that he was a bullshitter who distorted the Torah’s stories and their belief system. Relations between Muslims and Jews in Medina were not ideal for this reason, especially because the Jews were a prosperous and influential minority group that held power in the city, but from 622-624, there wasn’t really outright conflict. But the Jews’ persistent refusal to “embrace Islam” was noted and deeply resented.

That changed after Badr. Mohammed was feeling like a widow who just buried her third husband and was sick of having to deal with the Jews’ shit when he was basically running the place. Ibn Ishaq:

When God smote Quraysh at Badr, the apostle assembled the Jews in the market of the B. Qaynuqa’ (one of the three Jewish tribes, mostly smiths and jewelers) when he came to Medina and called on them to accept Islam before God should treat them as he had treated Quraysh.

And so he announced:

O assembly of Jews! Surrender to Allah (embrace Islam) and you will be safe!

Those who did not convert were told in no uncertain terms what Mohammed was preparing:

You should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle, and I want to expel you from this land.

From here on out, relations between Muslims and Jews were quite understandably tense. He saw the Jews as an obstacle to full control of the city and he wanted them gone from Medina. And before long, he would accomplish that goal.

The first of the three tribes to displease him was the Banu Qaynuqa. Neither Ibn Ishaq nor al-Tabari (nor any sahih source) gives the specific trigger for this incident, though more... colorful historians did invent an excuse it that is genuinely laughable. According to these accounts, the incident that prompted their eventual doom involved a jeweler belonging to the clan interacting with a Muslim woman and taking off her veil by pinning it down to a counter without her noticing (other histories say he “stripped her naked”–quite a strong pin!). A Muslim man observed this and beat the jeweler to death, prompting nearby Jews to try to pull him off the guy and subsequently kill him, and so on.

Whatever happened, Mohammed made good on his earlier threat to the Jews.

He sent his men to besiege the Banu Qaynuqa in their quarters for two weeks. It was evidently a bloodless siege as the Banu Qaynuqa do not seem to have fought back, and were perhaps unable to do so. They offered an unconditional surrender. The question then was what to do with them. One of the leaders of Medina forcefully pleaded for their lives. Al-Tabari:

Abd Allah b. Ubbay b. Salul rose up when God had put them in his power, and said, “Muhammad, treat my mawali [friends of tribe] well”; for they were the confederates of al-Khazraj [Abdallah’s tribe]. The Prophet delayed his answer, so ‘Abd Allah repeated, “Muhammad, treat my mawali well.” The Prophet turned away from him, and he put his hand into (The Messenger’s) collar. The Messenger of God said, “Let me go!” – he was so angry that they could see shadows in his face (that is, his face coloured). Then he said, “Damn you, let me go!” [Abdallah] replied, “No, by God, I will not let you go until you treat my mawali well. Four hundred man without armour and three hundred with coats of mail, who defended me from the Arab and non-Arab alike, and you would mow them in a single morning? By God, I do not feel safe and am afraid of what the future may have in store.” So the Messenger of God said, “They are yours.“

(This is the same guy labeled one of the munafiqun/fake Muslims in the Quran; there is no doubt that his kindness to the Jews of Medina was part of the reason for the suspicion towards him.)

The Jews of the Banu Qaynuqa were all kicked out, male and female alike, except for those few who wanted to stay and “converted” to Islam. The rest made their miserable way north. Mohammed confiscated their property and divided it among his followers and family members according to “Allah’s rules”. By pure coincidence, the Banu Qaynuqa had been prosperous smiths and jewelers who operated Medina’s market. Which was now up for grabs. Hrm...

That took care of the first Jewish tribe. They were the lucky ones.

The first recorded Medinan Muslim deaths outside of combat occurred about a month after this. Two farmers, at least one of whom was Muslim, were killed when a group of Meccan soldiers, seeking to avenge their comrades at Badr, torched a field a few miles away from Medina, where the two people were killed. This was, of course, the fault of The Jewz. Ibn Saad’s sira states:

They knocked at the door of Huyayy ibn Akhtab to gather information about the Apostle of Allah and his companions. He refused to open the door. They knocked at the door of Sallam Ibn Mishkam who opened the door, feasted them, offered them drink and supplied information about the Apostle of Allah.

Huyayy was the leader of the Banu Nadir tribe of Medinan Jews. Sallam here was a rabbi who deeply disliked Mohammed and thought he was a charlatan and, after his Badr and caravan expeditions, a dangerous cult leader. He exposed Mohammed’s lack of Biblical knowledge on multiple occasions, and Mohammed loathed him in return. We have absolutely no idea if Sallam’s involvement here is true or not due to the weak chain of transmission. It seems rather unlikely; the Meccans seem to have just been intent on quickly causing trouble and then leaving rather than staying to plan any larger attack or gathering information. When Mohammed decided to turn his wrath on the Banu Nadir, this supposed incident would not be the trigger, or even mentioned as an excuse.

Meanwhile, Mohammed can’t stop, won’t stop the raiding business. But his raids this time didn’t accomplish much–the Muslims captured some pack animals and goods at best, and walked away empty-handed at worst. Ibn Ishaq blandly lists the raids that occurred in 624 AD following Badr (no motivations are given for any of them). One involved Mohammed’s fighters trying to find some men of the Banu Sulaym tribe to raid, but they couldn’t locate them. There was another raid on the Quraysh, though this one doesn’t seem to have worked. Finally, we’re told that “he raided Najd, making for Ghatafan” shortly after the burnt-field incident mentioned above. Najd is the region to the east of the Hijaz, and the Ghatafan tribe was a large confederation of mostly-Bedouin clans that lived there. We will be seeing them again later, and we will discover that they didn’t enjoy Mohammed’s antics much.

Ibn Saad’s sira adds some color to this last raid, and gives some details to flesh out the story: two Ghatafan clans, we are told, were amassing themselves… in the middle of the Najd… to attack Medina. Of course. (Ibn Saad’s sira does this over and over again, it’s kind of funny. He probably got this tendency from his inventive teacher, al-Waqidi.) Mysteriously, when Mohammed’s army approached this spot, the evildoers… fled in terror and didn’t even try to engage them! The Muslims were able to capture a guy, who told them:

They will never confront you. If they learn of your march they will flee to the peaks of the mountains.

Some sources say that this poor dude was then put to death, or, as one book nicely puts it, “met his fate ordained from pre-eternity”.

So much for that whole threatening-Medina thing.

Finally, there was another caravan raid in this time period, also in the Najd region. Ibn Ishaq states:

The Quraysh were afraid to follow their usual route to Syria after what had happened at Badr, so they went by the Iraq route. Some of their merchants went out, among whom was Abu Sufyan, carrying a great deal of silver which formed the larger part of their merchandise. … The Apostle duly sent Zayd, and he met them by that watering place and captured the caravan and its contents, but the men got away. He brought the spoil to the Apostle.

The evil Meccans specifically took a different route to avoid the Muslims, but the Muslims wanted that sweet, sweet cash and attacked the caravan anyway. They took a shitload of silver straight to Mohammed.

It is at this point that the Meccans said “you know what? fuck this shit”, prompting the Battle of Uhud, which is a mountain near Medina. Uhud did not go very well for the Muslim army; Mohammed’s troops were poorly disciplined and left themselves open to cavalry attacks from the Quraysh. About as many Muslims died at Uhud as Meccans had died at Badr. So the Quraysh went back to Mecca, feeling confident that they’d taught Mohammed a lesson, rather than pursue his people into Medina.

Mohammed’s pride was badly wounded by the whole incident, and he needed to raise his army’s morale. So the day immediately following the battle, he ordered his some of his men to chase down the Meccans as they were headed home. The two armies seem to have tried to play psychological games with one another without actually engaging each other, but nothing came of it--the Quraysh made their way back to Mecca and Mohammed’s men went back to Medina. A couple of weaker sources say that Mohammed’s guys were able to capture a small number of Meccan soldiers and kill them, though Ibn Ishaq doesn’t say this. Regardless, the whole incident appears to have just been Mohammed letting his men release some frustration after losing a battle, similar to the Meccans attacking the field after Badr back in the last section.

With the Quraysh victorious and out of reach for the moment, Mohammed turned his wrath on smaller enemies, namely regional Bedouin (desert nomadic people) clans who refused to embrace Islam. This period contains a lot of “Mohammed ‘learns’ that some small clan somewhere is planning on attacking Medina and has to go attack them first, clan flees in terror, Mohammed steals their shit” incidents in Ibn Saad’s sira, though the motives usually go unstated in Ibn Ishaq’s. The victims of Mohammed’s fuckery this time were the Banu Asad bin Khuzayma in Najd (east of Hijaz, central modern-day Saudi Arabia). Upon arriving at the site, all the Muslims found were three shepherds with their flocks. The poor unlucky souls were taken captive and their animals were taken as “war booty”.

This happened yet again with another clan from the Najd area, the Banu Lahyan. This time, though, Ibn Hishsm says that Mohammed sent an assassin instead of an army and had him shank the chief of the clan. Abdullah ibn Unais was the assassin in question; the chief lost his head, which was brought back to Mohammed as a trophy.

Unfortunately the Banu Lahyan did not react very well to the murder of their chief and the desecration of his corpse. They bribed two guys, who went to Mohammed and pretended to be Muslims, asking him to send some of his own men to their clan to teach them all about Islam. Mohammed didn’t believe them and sent ten spies with them disguised as missionaries. Naturally, they were ambushed along the way by the Banu Lahyan, who wanted to take them captive in order to get money for the life of their chief. The Muslims refused to be taken alive.

Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) sent a Sariya [detachment] of ten men as spies under the leadership of `Asim bin Thabit … About two-hundred men, who were all archers, hurried to follow their tracks … When `Asim and his companions saw their pursuers, they went up a high place and the infidels circled them. The infidels said to them, “Come down and surrender, and we promise and guarantee you that we will not kill any one of you” `Asim bin Thabit; the leader of the Sariya said, “By Allah! I will not come down to be under the protection of infidels.

Of the ten, eight died in the fighting there. The remaining two were traded for money in Mecca… unfortunately to people whose family members they had killed at Badr, and they also died. (The whole hadith above is worth reading… it involves shaving pubes, magic grapes, and Allah sending bees. Everything in the hadith that occurs in Mecca is obviously made up, as all of these people died and no one but the dead would know these details, but it seems like the incident itself did happen.)

After this was a more serious incident that was very similar to the one above. The second one is called “the incident at Bir Maona” and follows the same pattern: a guy says he wants Mohammed to send missionaries to his clan to teach them about Islam, Mohammed sends some people (the numbers are uncertain; some say 40, another source says “70” but that number just means, basically, “dozens”), they get ambushed along the way, the ambushers promise not to harm them, a fight ensues, and all but two get killed, again. The perpetrators had various reasons for loathing Mohammed; some clans had been attacked by his followers, others were allied with people who had been attacked. They did not go easy on them.

But while he was reporting the message of the Prophet, they beckoned to one of their men who stabbed him to death. My maternal uncle said, "Allah is Greater! By the Lord of the Kaaba, I am successful.” After that they attacked the rest of the party and killed them all except a lame man who went up to the top of the mountain. (Hammam, a sub-narrator said, “I think another man was saved along with him).”

Mohammed was very unhappy.

For thirty days Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) invoked Allah to curse those who had killed the companions of Bir-Mauna; he invoked evil upon the tribes of Ral, Dhakwan, and Usaiya who disobeyed Allah and His Apostle. There was revealed about those who were killed at Bir-Mauna a Qur'anic Verse we used to recite, but it was cancelled later on. The verse was: “Inform our people that we have met our Lord. He is pleased with us and He has made us pleased.”

This verse is no longer in the Quran. It was “cancelled”. Don’t ask me why. I think it was because the phrasing made it sound like the dead people were talking instead of Allah, so Mohammed changed it, possibly to 3:169.

Anyway, the two incidents above are so similar that I have to wonder if the details of them sort of blended together (or were heavily embellished). But the Bedouins’ overall resistance to the True Religion was noted and Mohammed filed that knowledge away to deal with it later.

Remember the Banu Nadir Jews, involved in the field incident? Well, besides killing that one poet after Badr, Mohammed held off on dealing with them for a while. But after the above, he was pissed off and needed someone to take his anger out on. This brings us to our second of three incidents with The Jewz. Like the Banu Qaynuqa, the triggering incident (the whole thing with Sallam helping the Meccans is not mentioned here, which also leads me to think it was bullshit) described by the histories is extremely petty.

Here’s the rundown from Ibn Ishaq. One of Mohammed’s followers, Amr bin Umayya, promises two dudes from the Banu Kilab clan that he won’t hurt them and then kills them while they’re sleeping, ostensibly because he thinks they were involved in Bir Maona (the guys were in fact unrelated to the incident and were given orders of protection from Mohammed himself).

To keep the clan from hating him, Mohammed promises the victims’ families that he’ll pay them for the murders. Despite the fact that the dude has plenty of money at this point (see the raids from the last section), he goes to the Banu Nadir and asks them to pay the money, because they’re close to the Banu Kilab. The Banu Nadir agree to this, presumably because they saw what happened to their Jewish brethren when they even mildly upset Mohammed.

None of this really has anything to do with the reason why the Banu Nadir got kicked out of Medina. Rather, what happened is that while Mohammed was at the Banu Nadir’s place outside the city discussing this matter, “Allah” told him that one of the Jews was going to assassinate him by dropping a rock on his head. So Mohammed left and returned to Medina’s city limits. …Yes, really. This is seriously what happened, according to Ibn Ishaq.

When Mohammed’s baffled followers found him again, he informed them of what “Allah” told him, then instructed them to get an army together.

he told them of the treachery which the Jews mediated against him. The apostle ordered them to prepare for war and to march against them. Then he went off with the men until he came upon them.

The Banu Nadir at this point are completely fucked because they have no way of defending themselves against Mohammed’s baseless allegations, as “it was a revelation from Allah” functions as a trump card for Mohammed’s followers. Like the Banu Qaynuqa, the Banu Nadir had absolutely zero hope of winning any fight. A siege lasting between one and two weeks followed, with the Muslim besiegers destroying the date palm trees that shielded the Banu Nadir’s quarters, and the Banu Nadir surrendered unconditionally with no loss of life recorded on either side. Also like the Banu Qaynuqa, the Banu Nadir Jews were allowed to either convert or leave. Their property and any possessions left behind were taken by Mohammed for himself and his family.

The properties abandoned by Banu Nadir were the ones which Allah bestowed upon His Apostle for which no expedition was undertaken either with cavalry or camelry. These properties were particularly meant for the Prophet (ﷺ). He would meet the annual expenditure of his family from the income thereof, and would spend what remained for purchasing horses and weapons as preparation for Jihad.

This story is told all sorts of ways in early Islamic history books, with the same endpoint but differing descriptions of what, exactly, the dastardly Jews were planning on doing. The most likely explanation for these differing accounts is just that there was no obvious reason for their expulsion so people had to make up stories about it. Regardless, the Banu Nadir, rather than fleeing far to the north like most of their Banu Qaynuqa brethren, stayed relatively close by in a Jewish settlement called Khaybar. It would prove to be a mistake.

We haven’t talked about the Quraysh in Mecca for a while–most of Mohammed’s conflict in the last section involved Bedouin in the Najd and the Jews in Medina. But he did not forget the blow to his ego that was Uhud. Oh no. He remembered, and in 626 AD, he set out to prove his prophet credentials to his followers. He returned to the scene of his first and greatest glory, Badr.

After the previous battle, the leader of the Meccan army (Abu Sufyan) told his people that they would likely face the Muslims again the same time next year. But when this period actually came, he decided against it. Ibn Saad:

When the period came to a close, Abu Sufyan was reluctant to march. (In the meantime) Nu’aym Ibn Mas’ud al-Ashja’I arrived in Makkah, Abu Sufyan said to him: I made a promise to confront Muhammad and his companions at Badr. That time has come, but this is a year of drought while a year of plenitude and prosperity suits us.

Abu Sufyan told Nuam (a deeply sketchy character we’ll come across again later) to try to convince Mohammed not to fight by exaggerating the size of the Meccan forces, but Mohammed didn’t fall for it. He was rearing to fight and wasn’t gonna let the Meccans chicken out on him. So he marched his men out to Badr and waited. But the Meccans really did not want to fight and went straight back to Mecca without engaging with the Muslims. This reasonable action (there really was a drought) is naturally presented as a sign of the Meccans’ cowardice in Islamic texts. In reality, they probably should have gone through with the battle, because by not engaging in war, they allowed the Muslim army to look like they’d scared them off and established dominance. This shifted perceptions of Mohammed’s army in the region and made tribes consider aligning with him.

This was followed by a few more raids that followed an identical pattern, the most notable of which occurred very far to the north, in Dumat al-Jandal (the north of modern-day Saudi Arabia). Mohammed heard rumors that there were brigands of some kind making trouble there and laughably told his followers that they were going to attack Medina (they are hundreds miles of desert away from each other). The troops were gathered yet again and marched off to meet this clear and present danger and yet again never found their phantom enemy. It is very likely that this was Mohammed’s way of showing his strength to the Christians of northern Arabia in preparation of a wider Islamic conquest, which would begin a few years later. Mohammed was clearly feeling as though he had supplanted the Meccans as the dominant force in the region and wanted people to know it.

(Many years later, during the Tabouk expedition, Dumat al-Jandal would be one of the cities forced to pay jizya to the Muslims. And three years after that, during the conflict called the “Ridda Wars” that occurred immediately after Mohammed’s death–when unhappily converted people and those made to pay jizya turned against Abu Bakr and Islam in general–the city rebelled against their overlords and was crushed by the caliphate’s army.)

Mohammed’s raids got bolder around this time. The pattern (accuse people of conspiring against him, attack them, steal their shit) held, but sneak attacks began to be used to prevent the whole “flee in terror” middle step. Also in the year 626 AD was an attack upon a clan called Banu Mustaliq, living halfway between Medina and Mecca. The attack was sudden.

The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) made a raid upon Banu Mustaliq while they were unaware and their cattle were having a drink at the water. He killed those who fought and imprisoned others.

Mohammed “married” the daughter of the chief of that clan after she was enslaved, and his men raped the other women (except for the ones related to Mohammed’s new wife, as raping the siblings and cousins of your beloved prophet’s wife is not a good look). This raid is mentioned in a hadith in which Mohammed discussed with his men whether using the pull-out method vs splooging in their sex slaves’ vaginas was preferable. Enjoy reading that if you want.

We are now entering the year 627 AD and shit gets increasingly real. 626 marked the beginning of Islam becoming a genuinely dominant force in the region, and in 627 those who had opposed Mohammed were either defeated or drastically reduced in power.

In January of this year, several of the people Mohammed had pissed off over the years attempted to finally deal with the situation in Medina. The Quraysh had the opportunity to do this all the way back at Uhud, recall, but no one had actually tried it until now. So the Meccans teamed up with the Banu Nadir, the remainders of the Banu Qaynuqa in the area, and some clans of the Ghatafan and asked them to help besiege Medina.

Mohammed knew they were coming and the Muslims dug a trench along the side of the city facing the direction that the Meccans were coming from in order to stop any advance on horseback (the other side of Medina faced mountainous terrain). This was possibly done on the advice of a Persian man living with them, who knew the tactic well from his homeland. The siege was, like the offensive sieges we’ve already seen, tedious and involved very few casualties. For a little over three weeks the besiegers tried to find an opening but couldn’t; occasionally someone would fire an arrow at the other side, but only five people were killed in total. Irritated, the Quraysh finally just asked Mohammed to send one of his fighters out to settle the battle in a traditional Arab one-on-one duel. He sent Ali, who won, and the besiegers began to suspect that this whole exercise was pointless. The two sides spent most of the rest of the siege yelling insults at one another like a Monty Python movie.

At this point the intrigue shifts to inside Mohammed’s camp. If you recall, there were three large Jewish tribes living near Medina when Mohammed got there. He expelled two of them, but the third was still around. This was the Banu Qurayza. The Banu Qurayza were fairly uninvolved in all of the above–they had assisted the Muslims in digging the trench, but they weren’t fighting on either side. But during the siege, Huyayy ibn Akhtab (the leader of the Banu Nadir) came to his co-religionists to talk to them. He was initially turned away, but later let in. Ibn Kathir:

[Qurayza leader] Ka`b said to him, “No, by Allah, this is the opportunity for humiliation. Woe to you, O Huyay, you are a bad omen. Leave us alone.”

News of the meeting between Huyayy and the leader of the Banu Qurayza began to spread inside Medina, fueling rumors that terrified the population, convincing them that a surprise attack was coming while they were still besieged. Had this been true, it would have been a disaster, because the Qurayza lived on the other side of Medina–the undefended side, right against the mountain. They had weapons (they sold weapons as part of their trade) and men to use them. If they had attacked Medina on one side with the tribes distracting the Muslims on the other, it is entirely possible that Medina would have fallen.

But the Qurayza never made a move to attack Medina in any way; if they even sincerely thought of joining the siege, the thought clearly did not last long. Muslims sowed distrust between the Qurayza and the alliance of tribes besieging Medina, and the besiegers were already thinking of heading back home anyway. If the Qurayza didn’t make a move soon, the alliance said they’d just leave. Several sources recount a rather convenient story in which they swear the Qurayza did agree to attack Medina, but the planned attack fell on the sabbath day, so they didn’t actually do anything. Hmm.

When the siege ended and the Meccans and Ghatafan clans left, Huyayy remained with the Qurayza. Some history books say he had the opportunity to flee, but chose the honorable option of remaining with the Qurayza, knowing that their impending punishment was partially his fault.

The failure of the siege was a serious blow to the reputation of the Quraysh and another sign that Mohammed’s armies were becoming the supreme armed force in the area.

All that the Qurayza had done, as far as anyone could prove, was remain uninvolved in the siege and talk to Huyayy, who had been labeled a traitor by Mohammed’s enemies by the end of the siege. They had not marched on Medina. They had not killed a single Muslim. In fact the siege as a whole was virtually bloodless, and it was kept that way by the Qurayza refusing to fight alongside the Meccans. (This is explained in some Islamic history books by stating that the Qurayza were going to fight, but the chosen day of their sneak attack fell on the Sabbath, so they told the Quraysh they couldn’t do it. Convenient!)

But the lack of blood didn’t matter. What mattered was that the Qurayza had possibly entertained the thought, even for one moment, of going against Mohammed. The Qaynuqa and Nadir had been on the receiving end of the first Muslim expulsions of Jews. The Qurayza would be on the receiving end of the first Muslim massacre of Jews.

Immediately after the besiegers left, Mohammed informed his troops that Jibreel, the angel who talked to him on occasion (who no one else could see), had given him a command. Allah wanted the Qurayza dead.

Then Gabriel whose head was covered with dust, came to him saying, “You have put down your arms! By Allah, I have not put down my arms yet.” Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) said, “Where (to go now)?” Gabriel said, “This way,” pointing towards the tribe of Bani Quraiza. So Allah’s Messenger (ﷺ) went out towards them.

And so another siege began, this time with the Muslims being the besiegers. It lasted about as long as the previous siege had, and like the other two sieges of Jewish quarters, ended with the unconditional surrender of the Jews. It is very likely that the Qurayza expected the same fate to befall them as befell their coreligionists, namely exile. But Allah was no longer in the mood to simply send Jews packing. Instead, by both “Allah’s will” and the suggestion of one of the leaders of the Medinan Muslim tribes, all the Qurayza men were to be put to death and their property, women, and children “distributed” to the Muslims. The only ones who would escape either death or slavery were those who converted to Islam on the spot. Boys were differentiated from men by having them drop their pants; those who had pubic hair were deemed “men” and executed.

Those whose pubic hair had grown were killed, and those whose pubic hair had not yet grown were let go.

The men of the Qurayza were brought into Medina’s center. Mohammed had ordered some shallow trenches dug into the ground there. Hundreds of men and boys, between 600 and 800 of them, were marched to the trenches. One by one they were beheaded. Huyayy was killed along with them.

Huyayy was brought out wearing a flowered robe in which he had made holes about the size of the finger-tips in every part so that it should not be taken from him as spoil, with his hands bound to his neck by a rope. When he saw the apostle he said, ‘By God, I do not blame myself for opposing you, but he who forsakes God will be forsaken.’ Then he went to the men and said, 'God’s command is right. A book and a decree, and massacre have been written against the Sons of Israel.’ Then he sat down and his head was struck off.

Huyayy’s people, the Banu Nadir, had fled to Khaybar, which was around 100 miles directly north of Medina. But the Banu Qurayza would meet their end in Medina. One woman died after going insane watching her relatives die, according to a hadith judged hasan (of good reputability).

No woman of Banu Qurayzah was killed except one. She was with me, talking and laughing on her back and belly (extremely), while the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) was killing her people with the swords. … The man took her and beheaded her. She [Aisha] said: I will not forget that she was laughing extremely although she knew that she would be killed.

It was the complete and utter destruction of the Banu Qurayza. The tribe never existed again. Hundreds more people died on this one day than had died in all the conflicts between Muslims and their many enemies, combined, before this.

In case anyone missed the message that Mohammed was sending, a few years later he told all remaining Jews from other clans (who lived in Medina in small numbers) to get out of the city and never come back unless they wanted to convert.

He exiled all the Jews from Medina. They were the Jews of Bani Qainuqa’, the tribe of `Abdullah bin Salam and the Jews of Bani Haritha and all the other Jews of Medina.

Like the “pin” incident with the Qaynuqa and the rock incident with the Nadir, the Banu Qurayza’s main fault was being Jewish. Whatever they really discussed with the besiegers, the Qurayza never actually did anything to betray Mohammed; Medina was in fact saved by their lack of betrayal. It didn’t matter. The three large Jewish clans of Medina had been a thorn in Mohammed’s side for years and 627 AD was when he finally got rid of them for good. The only Jews remaining in the city were those who lived among the polytheistic clans and some small, politically insignificant clans that posed no threat to Mohammed’s power.

Those who lived outside Medina were safe, but only for the moment. They would be dealt with later in the year. Learn what happens in the thrilling conclusion!!!

#islam #history #rant

17 notes · View notes

endless-ventures · 7 years ago

Text

an intro

Hi there, everyone!

I am End! I have been on tumblr for a while and had been using this as an art blog. I had been looking up to the studyblr community for quite a while, taking inspiration and using the resources you guys would provide and have now finally decided to join!

Here’s some stuff about me:

-I am currently a high school senior!

-classes I am taking: AP Physics C, AP Calculus BC, Economics, English 12, AP Studio Art, AP History of Art

-I am interested in art and plan to attend an art college and pursue it as a career!

-I have a bujo and I love to make it a part of my art process by using it for inspiration and brainstorming

-I am originally from India and then immigrated to US at age of 13, you will sometimes see me struggling with language

-I have all sorts of things that I love, here are some: axolotls, cats, pets of any kind, succulents, marine creatures, books, crime series, and anything else adorable that catches my eye!

-I am prone to procrastination but this year I hope to be more productive and reach my goals, hence this blog to keep me motivated!

-Since this was originally an art blog, you can go and check out my art on the page, and I might continue posting more later, maybe.

Here are some studyblrs I have been gaining motivation from:

@emmastudies (this blog has helped me in so many ways, thank you so much!) @seatudying @journalsanctuary @thecampusghost @plantednotes @blueboystudies @phctcsynthesis @indikoro @shilensjournal

Thank you very much for being there!

#studyblrintro #intro #studyblr #mypost

32 notes · View notes

handle-with-utmost-care · 7 years ago

Text

Cheerleader/Soccer player PART 5

Ok so I wrote this series years ago (i think like 4 yrs lmao) and I had a very uncharacteristic urge to finish several stuff I have lingering about..

and this was one of them…IDK If anyone is still interested in reading? Lol or even remember? Or maybe you’re new here bc of riptide but lmao surprise I wrote this cringe drabble that turned into a 5 part fic :)

I am like...70% embarrassed by this fic bc i hate mostly every previous part. it was hard to continue bc I had to get over my crippling distaste for sudden POV changes. maybe someday when I’m not too caught up in my own procrastination I’ll go back and rewrite and flesh out this mess and post it on AO3, but for now this’ll have to do.

to the person constantly harassing me to finish it YOU KNOW WHAT ANNIE I FUCKING IFNALLY DID IT OKAY. MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS HAPPY NEW YEAR YOU ASS! @cherylsbosom

also apologies for any typos

PART 5

“Alright, status report girls.”

“I thought we were dropping the fancy lingo?”

“Yeah it’s kinda confusing to keep up with.”

“Status report,” Ally Brooke repeats, sharply eyeing the girls on her bed.

She had invited Dinah and Normani after school to continue discussing a potential plan B.

But from the looks of it, Ally’s got the distinct impression that that’s the last thing on their minds. If their giggling over Dinah’s phone was any obvious indication.

Ally clears her throat pointedly. When that has no effect, Ally stomps her foot. “Girls!”

Dinah drops her phone and Normani’s laughter immediately tapers off.

“We have to focus here. Lives are at stake,” Ally says, as she flips open to the newest empty page in her notepad.

Normani gives her a look of disbelief. Ally almost flushes at the expression, because, okay, maybe she is still getting a bit carried away with this Operation Camren thing.

But she had convinced herself that Camila and Lauren were both too stubborn to realize the obvious. This was all for the sake of love.

And Ally was a firm believer in doing things for the sake of love.

Her eyes glance down at the notepad in time to realize she had already spelled out the mortifying title. She hastily scribbles it out before the girls can see. Normani’s expression turns into an annoyed eye roll.

Fortunately she doesn’t comment, much to the Ally’s relief.

“Mila’s not doing so well,” Dinah says, finally returning her complete attention on the topic at hand. “She’s been ditching soccer practice lately and she never wants to leave her room whenever I try to invite her to go out.”

Ally figured as much. It’s been almost a month since that awful incident at the party, an incident that Camila has been very close lipped about.

Ally had lost count of the number of times she tried to get the girl to open up. Inevitably, each time had always ended in a very indignant frown and an annoyed: “Just drop it Ally, everything is fine, okay?”

Ally wouldn’t press after that. But it was clear that everything most definitely was not okay.

“Lauren is bitchier than usual and I don’t think it has anything to do with the freshman cheerleaders fucking up the pyramid formation,” Normani admits after a while.

Ally sighs at this. She’d been aware of the head cheerleader’s mood swings, witnessing a firsthand account of it yesterday when Lauren completely chewed out a freshman for missing a step in the routine. An honest mistake that really didn’t deserve such a harsh scolding.

Ally had tried to calm Lauren down at the time, but she was having none of it. Instead, Lauren had chosen to stomp off and cut practice short.

Normally, this wouldn’t exactly worry Ally. It wasn’t anything new for Lauren to throw tantrums when things weren’t going her way. But for the tantrums to be so closely followed by a complete emotional 180 was something to be concerned about. And recently Ally had caught Lauren in a state of severe melancholy.

It was a draining experience hanging out with the girls only to have Lauren bringing the atmosphere down with the frequent amount of times she would frown sadly. Or respond sadly. Or even just breathe sadly. Ally had lost count of the sudden urges to shake Lauren and demand what was wrong.

But then, Ally would catch Lauren staring at Camila.

And she had decided that perhaps leaving them alone really was the best option.

Ally plops down at the edge of the bed, defeated.

“And I really thought this was all going to work out.”

“Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be,” Normani offers, as she inspects her nails. “Even though their horoscopes say they’re totally compatible.”

Ally doesn’t question how Normani even knows Camila’s birthday.

Another month passes. Another month of the same strained atmosphere. Ally is sure the rest of the cheerleaders have picked up on their leader’s flip flopped mood swings. The girls on the squad learned to leave a wide span between themselves and Lauren.

The soccer team wasn’t faring much better. Ally had noticed Camila’s performance out on the field had suffered drastically to the point that she’d been sitting out on the bench more often than not.

It was a dreary month for all of them, despite the rapidly approaching homecoming game. Something that she, Lauren, and Normani had excitedly talked about at the beginning of the school year was a topic that had been seemingly forgotten.

Yet the school didn’t share the same sentiment. Everywhere, people were buzzing with pregame excitement weeks before. Hallways were adorned with bright posters and decorations. The school’s PA always made sure to add a final comment reminding students to buy their tickets. Many conversations between classes were heard predicting the outcome of the game.

Today isn’t any different, Ally thinks as she pushes past a group of guys on the football team hyping the other up. She rolls her eyes. The action makes her stop before the cafeteria. She wasn’t like this. Usually she’d join in on the hype. Relish in it.

This whole Lauren and Camila is seriously putting a damper in my mental well being too.

She sighs, pushing through the double doors leading to the cafeteria, feeling a wave of despair at the thought.

The cafeteria is loud and rowdy. More than usual, Ally notices. Her eyes flit over to the source of the noise to find a growing throng of students near the far end of the room.

The shouts and jeers echo across the cafeteria walls, mixing into a cacophonous mess. Ally can’t exactly discern what is being said or cheered. But from the school spirit that’s been thrust in her face recently she thinks she has a pretty good guess.

For a moment, Ally panics that this was a planned lunch event she forgot about, or in one of Lauren’s irrational moods, she’d decided to have an impromptu pep rally to punish the squad.

Ally quickly rifles through her bag, pulling out her weekly planner. After flipping to the latest date, relief spreads through her chest.

No. No scheduled event.

More students gravitate towards the crowd. Ally pushes through several people, in the opposite direction, until she finds Normani.

“What’s going on?” Ally questions, sidling up beside the girl. Normani simply shakes her head.

“I don’t know.”

Ally opens her mouth but Normani quickly cuts in.

“And no, I don’t want to know.”

Ally pouts at her indifference.

The both of them make their way to their usual table. And when Lauren joins them a few moments later, she makes no indication that she’s noticed the unusual overly eager students.

Well that rules out an impromptu pep rally.

Lauren takes a seat. Ally immediately feels a wave of sympathy upon seeing her friend. She takes in Lauren’s miserable frown, the distressed knit of her eyebrows and downcast eyes.

This was probably worse than the random angry outbursts the past month. Seeing Lauren so dejected always managed to pull at her heartstrings.

“Hey girl,” Ally greets, moving to take the seat across from her. Lauren barely lifts up her gaze as she tosses her food with the fork in her other hand.

“Hey,” she answers, casting her eyes down upon the untouched food again.

“You want some of my fruit salad?” Normani probes.” My mom put in some mangos, I know you like them.”

Lauren doesn’t even flinch at the uncharacteristically nice gesture.

“Maybe later.”

Ally and Normani exchange a look. This behavior had seemed to be going further and further into a downward spiral as the weeks progressed. Ally was almost tempted to go through with her intervention.

Look how your meddling turned out.

Maybe Normani was right. Maybe it would be just best to leave them alone.

Ally sighs, before pulling out her own lunch.

The crowd continues to go on strong. The jeers and sneers reverberate throughout the lunchroom even more so than before.

Ally begins to notice that the majority of students are starting to swarm the crowd. Her eyes glance around the people trying to determine the situation. That’s when she realizes something that makes her stomach drop.

“I think that’s the soccer team’s table,” Ally says. The tone of her voice grabs both girls’ attention. She watches as Lauren’s eyes dart towards the crowd and the similar conclusion comes to her. Her expression instantly sparks to life.

Lauren is out of her seat before Ally has time to register anything. She doesn’t even have time to tell her to wait because in the next second Lauren is shoving people out of the way and disappearing among the mass of students.

“Come on,” Ally blurts out, tugging Normani up from her seat to chase after her.

Their process is a lot less effortless than Lauren who had people parting like the red sea after her aggressive pushes.

It’s probably because of the hastily muttered excuse me’s that fall from Ally’s lips. Eventually Normani becomes so frustrated that she just hollers a very loud MOVE.

The students finally part, allowing them to push through until they reach the table…. only to realize that they’re too late.

Ally feels her blood turn cold when she sees her friends.

Slowly, her senses come into focus. And she realizes, dizzily, that cheering she heard earlier were actually people chanting FIGHT.

Dinah and one of the freshmen on the cheer squad are in an intense hair pulling scuffle, while Lauren is on the floor trying to aim a punch on another beneath her, who Ally suddenly recognizes as the girl Lauren chewed out at practice what felt like forever ago.

Ally lunges forward trying to pull Lauren up from the girl, as Normani attempts to pry apart the two other girls beside them.

She manages to get Lauren to her feet, not without a ridiculous amount of struggle. Because then Lauren keeps attempting to hit the girl on the floor. The victim of Lauren’s assault isn’t making things any easier for her either, as she continuously claws at them until Ally gets caught in the fray.

Ally feels her hair being yanked in an awkward angle painfully.

God, if she wasn’t a pacifist she swears she would –

“Stop! Stop! Stop this immediately what on earth are all of you – girls STOP IT!”

The sound of the principal makes them all spring apart from each other.

The six girls are huffing and red faced, attempting to catch their breaths.

Ally’s hand instantly comes to gingerly rub her sore scalp, before scowling at the culprit for the hair pulling. The freshman’s eye is already swelling, and Ally tries to quell the silly surge of pride towards Lauren for getting her good.

She glances at Lauren, sighing in relief that her friend looks unscathed for the most part. Her eyes then come to Dinah and Normani. Dinah is pouting as she tries to fix her mussed hair and Normani is pressing her fingers to her bottom lip in search of blood.

Ally sighs again, and that’s when she remembers the last girl. She searches in a frenzy for Camila, praying she wasn’t a part of this. But then she sees the soccer player, gaping wordlessly at them …completely covered in food.

The principal turns his attention towards them all.

“You seven. My office. Now.”

A month’s worth of scraping gum off the cafeteria tables seems a lot better than a potential suspension. Ally will take what she can get, she decides as they all disperse from the principal’s office.

The two offending freshmen pull Lauren aside to beg for forgiveness. Though from Lauren’s stony expression, Ally figures Lauren is already planning to kick them off the team. But then is momentarily shocked when Lauren accepts their apology stiffly, followed by a malicious threat to stay in line.

(Later on, Ally would find out the girls’ had decided to go after Camila in a misguided attempt lighten up their captain’s somber mood).

“Did you see that girl’s eye? You got her so good, Laurenzo. I’m kind of proud,” Dinah compliments, after the two girls slink away. Lauren’s lips tilt into a small smile.

“Yeah but you practically pulled out her entire weave. That’s impressive,” Lauren responds, a smile finally breaking out.

Not that Ally condones fighting, because, like, she so doesn’t, but it’s nice seeing them get along. Albeit for the wrong reasons. But there’s something so amazing seeing Dinah nudging Lauren in that friendly manner. As if they’d known each other their entire lives.

“You both are ridiculous,” Normani snaps. “I literally just got my nails done yesterday and this happened.” She lifts her hand up to show off a broken middle fingernail. They both laugh and after a while Normani cracks a grin. “But okay, yeah it was kind of bad ass.”

“Kind of? Did you see the other girls?” Dinah demands.

“I don’t really understand how you’re all so happy. We got a month’s detention because you guys can’t communicate like normal people.” Camila’s voice pierces through the lighthearted atmosphere. Ally almost forgets her presence because she had been so silent during their walk through the hallway.

She watches as Camila pulls out a spaghetti noodle from her hair and flicks it to the floor.

“We were defending you,” Lauren mumbles after a while.

“I didn’t ask you to,” Camila snaps. “I was handling it.”

“Clearly,” Lauren mumbles sarcastically.

“You know what?” Camila whirls around. “I don’t need your sarcasm. And I don’t need your stupid sympathy, okay? Today wouldn’t have even happened if you weren’t such a bitch.”

Lauren visibly recoils.

“Mila,” Ally begins but the soccer player shoots her a glare.

“No, don’t do that-“

“It wasn’t my fault,” Lauren begins hotly.

“Like you didn’t plan to have them dump the entire squad’s lunch on me. I have spaghetti noodles in places there shouldn’t be!” Camila snaps.

“Mila, she didn’t know that those girls were going to do that to you. You really think she would send those cheerleaders after you?” Dinah questions.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

It’s the statement that does it. That plunges the atmosphere completely into a subzero level. That makes Lauren look completely heartbroken. That actually breaks Ally’s heart.

It’s another week of radio silence between the two. Another week of Ally and Normani (and now on occasion Dinah), watching Lauren sigh dejectedly into her food during lunch. Sometimes she’d cast a few sad looks over to the soccer team’s table. And the girls would look upon her sympathetically.

Lauren didn’t know which was worse.

The pity or being ignored. While one was infuriating as hell, the other just…hurt.

This morning in particular was brutal. She had run into Camila in the hallway, accidentally knocking her duffel bag from her shoulder. When she tried to reach down to grab it, Camila scrambled to pick it up herself and hurried away head bowed. The exchange – or lack of one – left Lauren feeling like she was a ghost.

“Would you just talk to her?” Normani groans exasperatedly after Lauren recounts the events to the three of them in Ally’s room after school.

“She practically hates my guts.” Lauren mutters into her pillow.

“Look, as much as I love kicking you especially when you’re down I don’t think I can take any more of your moping. It’s actually starting to depress me,” Normani sighs, sitting down beside Lauren on the bed. “And I doubt she hates you.”

“Yeah, it’s impossible for Mila to hate anything,” Dinah chimes in from her spot on the floor.

“Except me.”

“She’s just really upset right now, Lauren,” Ally supplies. “And rightfully so. You really did a number on her. What the heck did you even say to her at the party?”

At this, Lauren feels her face redden with shame.

She had toyed with the idea of telling them, but she feared that they would hate her more than she hated herself. And she wasn’t ready for any more negativity.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Lauren mumbles. “It was…it was really bad. And I feel really shitty for it too.”

“Then tell her that,” Normani snaps.

That’s easier said than being done, Lauren thinks. She makes a small grunt that earns an eye roll from her friend.

Ally comes to sit next to her and places a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Lauren, we’ve all seen the way you look at her.”

Lauren freezes at this. It’s the first time they all sort of acknowledge the big pink elephant of the room that is her more than platonic feelings for the soccer player. And she almost expects mockery or insults. But when she glances up to find them all staring at her supportively, she feels a deep seated worry slowly dissipate.

“And we’re all more than positive she feels the same way,” Ally continues, saying just the right thing to settle her confused doubt.

“Really?”

“Girl, of course she does,” Dinah adds in. “She looks at you like you put the pineapples on her pizza.”

“That’s disgusting, Dinah,” Normani retorts with a fake gag.

“Well where else are you supposed to put pineapples?”

“Um, not on a pizza.”

“It’s called Hawaiian pizza.”

“All that should be on my pizza is pepperoni and cheese,” Normani argues stubbornly.

“How can you not like pineapples on pizza? Who doesn’t like pineapples on pizza?” Dinah demands turning to look at them incredulously.

“I like Canadian bacon,” Ally says unhelpfully.

Lauren tunes the rest of the conversation after the two decide to settle the matter by ordering pizza. Her thoughts stray to the soccer player. And a pang of guilt hits her.

When the pizza arrives twenty minutes later, Normani demands (through a mouth full of Hawaiian pizza) that Lauren take her self-pitying ass next door and grovel for forgiveness.

Dinah agrees, and Ally rephrases that advice in a more encouraging manner. The thumbs up did little for her self esteem as they all but threw her out of Ally’s room and confiscated her phone lest she try to uber it back home.

And that’s really how she finds herself on Camila Cabello’s doorstep, desperately trying to think of ways to get out of knocking.

It’s stupid. This is dumb. There’s no way – absolutely no way Camila would even want to see her. The past week, the soccer player has been pointedly avoiding her.

No, that was an understatement. Lauren was getting the cold shoulder. That blatant icy treatment that left her feeling even worse than before the stupid cafeteria incident.

The last thing Camila had said to her was still plaguing her mind. Camila had insulted her, offended every nerve that could possibly be offended and yet Lauren knew she deserved it. Dinah may have been right – it wasn’t possible for Camila to hate anyone. But reducing Camila to the type of person who could be so incredibly harsh to another person just made the situation all the more worse.

Camila hated her. It wasn’t even something to debate.

Lauren hesitates ringing the doorbell. Her fingertips ghost across the button, brushing the smooth surface uncertainly.

A hundred and one things filter through her head and they all revolve around the girl somewhere behind the door.

She doesn’t get a chance to summon up much courage because in the next second the door is flying open and the Camila Cabello is standing before her.

She doesn’t look as surprised as Lauren feels, which is more than a little disheartening, but she tries not to let it faze her. Instead, she straightens up, almost to the point of rigidity.

Relax Lauren. Jesus. Okay. Here we go-

“What are you doing here?” Camila asks just as Lauren begins to form the apology that was burning to in the back of her throat ever since she Camila ran out of her bedroom crying.

Lauren hesitates, suddenly feeling the little flicker of confidence she fabricated fade away. Camila looks all around unimpressed with her display and this only serves to turn her nerves into jelly. Abort, Lauren. Abort.

NO. You will fucking stay and say your peace or so help me god you dumb shit.

“I asked you a question,” Camila snaps. It seems strange, so completely out of character seeing her so angry. There’s a venom that wasn’t there before in her voice, in her sharp expression that leaves Lauren wishing she had come better prepared for this.

A stab of guilt pricks at her chest as she realizes the only person who made this happen was herself.

Lauren swallows thickly, fiddling with the bracelet on her wrist. The attempt to occupy herself with something besides Camila’s steely gaze is pitiful. But then again, she is a coward. She’s not even sure she can look the girl in the eye anymore.

“Look, if you’re not gonna say anything you might as well just –“

“-I’m sorry!” Lauren blurts out. The desperation of the outcry overwhelms her. She’s not going anywhere until she makes Camila listen – to everything. Because she knows deep down this is her only chance. Her only shot at fixing anything that she’s so despicably good at fucking up.

Camila’s glare softens slightly. It’s very miniscule but it gives Lauren the hope she needs.

“I’m sorry, Camila,” she says again, internally quivering at the name that rolls so effortlessly off her tongue. It comes out so naturally, almost as if it had always sort of had its own place in her voice. As if she was supposed to say it over and over again. Which, admittedly she would do…in the privacy of her room…in the dead of night…where literally no one would be able to hear.

(Of course she would deny ever doing that if anyone asked her).

But it’s the first time she’s ever called Camila by her name. Well the first time non insultingly. And it’s something that doesn’t go unnoticed by the both of them. Lauren feels her face flush suddenly, and Camila’s eyebrows rise.

“Camila,” she pauses, feeling the nervous little buzz building in her stomach at the name. “I didn’t – look, about what happened at the party – I didn’t mean it.”

Camila’s eyes narrow and the walls are back up again.

“It sure didn’t sound like it. Just because you defended me last week, which I didn’t even freaking ask you to do by the way, doesn’t mean I’m going to be welcoming you into my life with open arms,” Camila says. “You humiliated me.”

“I know.”

“No. I don’t think you do, Lauren. It hurt. Like a lot, okay?” Camila blurts out. “I’m not even sure I can forgive you.”

Lauren feels that little glimmer of hope crash dive. This isn’t going as planned. Oh what did she know? There weren’t any plans or any go-to instructions for this kind of situation. How were you even supposed to convince the girl that you’ve been stupidly in love with for four years that you want her?

She flushes at the thought and the familiar wave of denial bubbles up in the pit of her stomach. She can barely even admit that fact inside her own head. How could she possibly even begin to explain it to Camila?

The girl practically thinks she hates her, which she doesn’t. Oh god, she doesn’t even hate her at all.

“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Camila,” Lauren begins, feeling her voice tremble. “I really don’t. I just – I just wanted to explain.”

Camila stares at her expectantly.

“I didn’t know what people were going to think if they found out,” Lauren mutters and Camila rolls her eyes.

“That’s not enough.”

“I was scared.”

“That’s still not enough.”

“Camila, please.”

She sees the girl’s expression soften again, the aggression slowly crumbling away. It gives her the courage she needs, the motivation to bring down her own stupid barrier preventing her from being vulnerable.

And this time, when Camila speaks her anger has soundly melted. “Don’t be scared.”

It’s just a small request, not even louder than a whisper but Lauren can hear it. The conviction behind the three words. The ounce of moral support beneath them. The figurative hesitant arms being slowly opened for her to walk into and it’s enough.

Lauren takes a deep breath, her heart pounding. She swallows thickly and tries to calm the rapid beating.

“I really didn’t mean what I said to you at the party,” she begins

Lauren almost anticipates Camila to make another sarcastic comment, but she simply stares at her so she continues.

“I didn’t mean it when I told you that there wasn’t anything that would happen between us. I didn’t believe it in the slightest because…I wanted something to happen,” she admits in a rush. “And all that stuff about you being no one was just about the shittiest thing I’ve ever said and I feel terrible. It’s not true at all, Camila. Not even a little bit. I was just – I wanted to hurt you because I was the one feeling like the loser. I’m a shitty person know I am.”

“You’re not a shitty person Lauren,” Camila sighs wearily. The admittance makes her hesitate. Makes her stop and stare at Camila keenly, feeling her chest ache suddenly.

Even in her anger, Camila will still defend her. Lauren isn’t even sure if this should please or upset her.

“I am though. And it’s not even about the night of the party. I know I’ve put you through hell for like years. I’ve just been such an idiot about all of this because I was just so fucking scared of what it all meant.” She stops and runs a nervous hand through her hair. “Because I’ve never felt this way, like ever about anyone and I knew, deep down that you had the power to hurt me in the worst way. And I just, like I just refused to give you that power so I thought that if I hurt you first…” Lauren trails off, shaking her head. The shame that’s kept her up all night for weeks manages to creep back up.

She averts her gaze, feeling the all too familiar burning stinging building. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of Camila.

“It’s stupid I know,” Lauren mumbles. “It makes no sense – that logic. I’m an idiot and I don’t want to be that person anymore. I don’t want to be that person who gets scared over every fucking little thing, or the person who cares more about her popularity than the things that really matter. I just don’t care about that stuff anymore. Camila, I don’t care. I don’t even – I can’t even properly articulate how fucking sorry I am. For everything. For making your feelings seem like they don’t matter because they do, Camila. They matter so much to me. And…I’m done belittling my own feelings as well because…because they matter too.”

She feels Camila’s eyes burning into the side of her face, almost as if prompting her to turn and face her. But she’s afraid of what she’ll see. Disgust? Anger?

She doesn’t expect the softness. She doesn’t expect the understanding. She doesn’t expect the feel of her fingertips brushing against her. In comfort. Acceptance.

Camila’s warm hands come to grip hers, undoing her tight fist. She feels a palm press into hers and it feels so incredibly intimate that Lauren is almost tempted to pull away. The sudden fear springs up again. The fear of being hurt.

But when she looks up at Camila’s face again, the fear melts.

“What do you feel?” Camila asks gently.

She poses the question that went unanswered in that stuffy room during the party. She’s opening the door of vulnerable opportunity. She’s allowing Lauren a second chance. One that she knows she doesn’t deserve.

A gentle squeeze of their hands prompts Lauren to speak again.

“I feel…” Lauren’s voice dies, as a lump forms in her throat. It’s stupid to get this emotional, she thinks. But god it’s been such a long time since she’s felt anything remotely similar to this. “I feel a lot,” she finishes lamely.

Camila tilts her head. For a second, Lauren feels that she’s going to laugh at her dumb attempt at opening up. But Camila is patient, something that Lauren is beginning to feel grateful for. She’s nothing like Lauren.

“I think you should know, that I…” Lauren trails off uncertainly. She stammers on the spot for a moment. It takes another gentle squeeze for Lauren to calm her nerves. “I think you're the most irritatingly adorable person I've met. I get butterflies every time I'm even in the same room as you, or even when you just look at me because you make me so nervous. And you make me doubt everything and it pisses me off but at the same time I love it because it’s you.” She pauses, releasing a shaky breath. "You’re just – like – I don’t even think you realize how extraordinary you are Camila.”

Lauren averts her eyes. Blearily glowering down at her shoes. Shifting weight between each foot. But Camila’s hand is still in hers. Intertwined. Giving Lauren just enough courage to continue.

“And I know it’s stupid because I’ve been such a bitch to you all of these years. I know it probably doesn’t mean much to you, saying all of this now. I just,” Lauren pauses, searching for the proper words. Her pounding heart isn’t exactly making it any easier. Camila staring at her so intensely isn’t making it any easier either. “I just wanted your attention. And I didn't care if it was negative attention.”

Lauren lets out a shuddering breath. The hand in hers loosens, and Lauren quickly tightens it, keeping their fingers firmly interlocked.

“I wanted your eyes on me. I wanted you to know me. That’s what I’ve always ever wanted, Camila."

The homecoming game falls on a chilly Friday night in October. The winds send a biting chill as the sun falls into its daily descent. The bright lights of the stadium highlights the puffs of breaths exhaled from excited students as they find their seats on the bleachers.

The football teams congregate on either side of the field, huddling for their plays. The cheerleaders form a tight group on the track, coming closer for warmth behind their short, pleated skirts, awaiting their captain’s presence.

The frosty air extends past the field, curling and slithering beneath the cracks of the school’s double doors, spreading through the empty hallways. Even faintly permeating within the small confines of the girl’s locker room. Where the conveniently absent head cheerleader has dragged a more than willing soccer player away from the loud crowded football field.

Lauren presses Camila up against the locker. She feels Camila squirm beneath her weight and she gets a thrill out of it. Her lips brush against Camila’s forehead, her cheeks, her nose, her chin, finally resting upon her mouth. Lauren moves them slow and sensually, closing and parting her lips in a delicious rhythm she has become quite familiar with.

Lauren parts her lips again, taking in the Camila’s bottom lip. Her teeth close around them, almost playfully. It would be playful if Lauren’s hands aren’t currently trying to cop a feel beneath the girl’s shirt.

Camila pulls away breathlessly. Her pants beat enticingly against Lauren’s lips, tempting her to close the gap again. But Camila is resilient, even angling her body away slightly.

“Did the girls give you a hard time?” Camila asks, her hands loosening their tight grip in her hair.

“No, it’s not halftime yet.”

Camila nods and leans back against the locker again.

“Do you think they suspect anything?”

“Please. The girls are still betting on Ally’s dumb Operation Camren plan,” Lauren scoffs. Camila laughs. Lauren feels Camila’s fingers play with the ends of her hair, twirling a few strands.

The uneven pace from the kissing has melted, warming Lauren up inside, as if she had her own personal Camila sweater. The thought almost makes her cringe. When did she turn into such a sap?

“You know, without Ally’s dumb plan this probably wouldn’t have happened,” Camila murmurs.

Lauren wants to disagree. She wants to protest and go through her detailed argument of how very much it would have happened anyway. How they were inevitable from the very beginning. It was only a matter of time because they were made for each other.

But it’s stupid and makes her sound like a weenie, even in her head.

Lauren is a lot of things. But she is most definitely not a weenie.

“Should we thank her?”

“Hmm, probably not,” Camila says, glancing down at Lauren’s lips. “I think she’ll be disappointed that she couldn’t plan our first date.”

There’s always the wedding.

For a horrifying second, Lauren almost says that out loud. It takes her a moment to recover from her almost blunder. She secretly thanks the big man upstairs for gracing her with the ability to keep her mouth shut.

(She makes a mental note to go with Ally to church more often).

“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Lauren finally responds, eyes roaming across Camila’s face. Her flushed expression. Her red, bruised lips, tousled hand blown out eyes. Lauren feels a quiver of happiness and something not quite as innocent fluttering below her waist. Her nails dance around her skin lightly. Camila shivers beneath her touch.

“Are you cold?” Lauren asks in a soft voice.

Camila glances up at her from beneath her eyelashes and Lauren swears she feels her heart stop.

“A little,” Camila murmurs. Lauren doesn’t hesitate in shrugging off her lettermen and draping it over Camila’s shoulders. “Wait, no I was kidding kind of. You can’t give me this you’re gonna get cold and plus everyone is going to see-“

“I’m not gonna need it during the routine,” Lauren reassures in that same soft tone. “And you’re my girlfriend now. Let everyone see.”

Oh god, did that really come out of my mouth? That stupid cheesey dumb good for nothing line that’ll probably make Camz totally cringe. that’s it I’m becoming a Satanist –

But then she looks at Camila and she’s is staring right back at her with an expression Lauren can’t quite put her finger on. But it easily becomes one of her favorites.

She doesn’t get a chance to speak because Camila is pulling her face down for another long, deep kiss. Their lips move at a heated pace. Lauren can feel the message conveyed in the very contours of Camila’s mouth.

I love you.

It’s not time yet. It’s too soon.

But eventually.

Ally bundles up in her letterman, standing next to Normani on the track field. The noise of chatter from the onlookers on the bleachers is a comforting sound, setting in her cold body pleasantly. Her eyes glance towards the football field, watching her boyfriend Troy in his gear, stretching by the bench, before running out into the field to replace another player. It’s the last game of the season and the excitement is tangible.

“Any sign of Lauren? The quarter is about to end. We already be preparing for the routine,” Normani complains.

As if on cue, the head cheerleader runs on to the field hurriedly, looking much too flushed for this cold weather.

“Hey,” Lauren greets, unevenly, making Ally and Normani exchange a furtive look. Lauren catches this. “What?”

“You’re all red,” Ally supplies, rather sheepishly because thinking of Lauren doing whatever she was doing (or who she was doing, rather), isn’t something she wants to picture.

“And you’re …flustered.” Normani smirks.

“Where’s your jacket?” Ally adds.

Finally Lauren snaps. “What is with the third degree? Jesus, I’m here aren’t I? You know what just get into formation.”

Both Ally and Normani resist the urge to laugh at the blushing girl.

Ally doesn’t have the heart to tease her further. Instead, she follows Lauren’s lead, falling into place with the rest of the cheerleaders.

However, as the routine progresses, Ally can’t help but notice something –someone – emerging from the very same double doors their head cheerleader had burst from just moments ago. Out comes a very flustered, but very happy soccer player, wearing a very familiar letterman jacket. And if Ally hadn’t noticed Lauren’s obvious shivering, the fact that Jauregui was engraved across the back in gold letters was telling enough.

Ally watches as Camila practically skips up towards the bleachers to sit beside Dinah, looking absurdly pleased with herself. The sight brings a silly grin to Ally’s face.

She glances over to Lauren who is too busy staring down at her shoes. But Ally notices the distinct pink tinge to her cheeks.

Her attention shifts to Normani and sees that she, too, notices Camila’s sudden wardrobe change. Normani smirks. But both remained tightlipped.

Once halftime is over, Ally watches as Lauren scurries back through the double doors leading to the locker rooms. She doesn’t even wait to have a quick debriefing of their routine, which Ally finds almost irresponsible. Well, she’ll talk to her about that later. It’s not like she doesn’t know what’s got Lauren all flouncy. Or who.

As if to further demonstrate this, Dinah approaches Ally and Normani down from the bleachers with a smug expression on her face.

“I see Laurenzo isn’t with you.”

Normani glances over Dinah’s shoulder.

“Neither is Camila,” Normani states, a matching smirk growing on her face.

They all sort of giggle at their observation.

Camila and Lauren were not discreet at all. Whatever secret they think they had was about as subtle as a neon sign. A blinking one. With dancing interchangeable lights. And fireworks lighting up in the background.

If all of the times Ally’s caught Lauren waiting by Camila’s locker weren’t an obvious indication. It’s probably the hickeys she’s absently seen as Lauren tries to hastily change into her uniform for practice. Or the nights she’s caught Lauren wearing what looked like one of Camila’s jerseys during sleepovers. Or the flowers Camila swears were from her father the days leading up to the game, (even though Ally distinctly remembers her father never buying flowers because of his allergies).

Not that she confronted them about it. At least not directly.

A little teasing maybe. Something that both of her snickering friends could agree with and had wholeheartedly participated in.

But no. No. She’s definitely learned her lesson about meddling…at least until that potential future wedding she’s begun making plans for comes into play.

Which, in that case, Operation Camren 2.0 is definitely a go.

A/N: happy 2018 !

#hwuc fics #wow i can't believe this happened #i still blame you #annie #camren

20 notes · View notes

sanhatation · 7 years ago

Text

ri’s thicc 2017 reflection post !

its still quite a few hours away from 2018 for me but i just wanted to take this time to reflect on my absolutely Lovely 2017!!! yay time 2 get sappy as i word vomit and overshare about my year on tumblr.com !!!!

thank you loads to all of my LOVELY followers !!!!!!!!! yall are the cutest, make my day on the daily ! i wish you the best 2018 that the world can offer !!! stay healthy, take time for yourself, love yourself, love others, and be kind! 💓💓

this Riley Rant here, is gonna be here for me than anything. like a Fat journal entry !! and i am an Oversharer so here she goes [jeopardy music]

to begin, i have met and befriended so many amazing people on here this year and WOW!!!!!! lovely and supportive and talented, beautiful aroha friends??? it doesnt get better than that!!!!! i would attempt to tag all of u but yall know who u are ;)) im endlessly grateful to those of you who have really made being on here worth it. heck ya sometimes im like “why do i even spend time on here” but then!!!! idk sunny comes swingin in with just a heart full of love or sara comes swingin in with her eggs or marian comes swingin in with her rare pairs or j comes swingin in with her baking posts and thats not even HALF of it !!!!! seriously.....love you guys tons.

to my friends who i have had the pleasure of remaining your friend this year and getting closer to u !! i love you. i really dont know how yall handle me especially 2015/2016 me?? a MESS! yall are the REALEST. again, yall know who u are ;)) i hope we can continue to talk and have fun in 2018, i wish yall the best.

and lastly....heres a THICC shoutout to my six shining stars.

as for me as an individual, 2017 was a freaking Whack year. it was incredible....dare i say, iconic. and now its time for.....RILEY’S 2017 HIGHLIGHTS !!!!!! (also includes: the sucky parts bc even those allowed me to grow !)

- man, did 2017 start out pretty rough when my country decided it was a good idea to elect a freakin cheeto for president. however! i had the lovely opportunity to attend the women’s march at my capital the day before inauguration !! and it was powerful!!!! truly an experience ill treasure forever!

- binch....thank u Winter Dream for my whole life. tbh i wont forget sobbing at my best friend’s house when it dropped. thank u Miss Again Dance Practice. thank u Miss You & Me MV. thank u Miss Cotton Candy Choreography. thank u.

- ah.....when some pinhead started that tr*mp chanting at a basketball game lol! so iconic that we made the new york times! gotta love that....

- OMG !!! HOW TO SUCCEED !!!! an absolutely amazing experience. granted, the male lead was a Snake, but i had a blast. Rosemary will forever be close to my heart and ill always cry a little when i hear Brotherhood of Man or Paris Original !! such an awesome opportunity. i learned a frick ton about myself as a performer. i improved a ton in acting and dancing, and also came to learn that i am very good at receiving instructions and memorizing lines quickly. i learned that i need to work on some of my facial expressions and i also learned some of my habits ! i miss u Queenie H2$ :’’)

- had my first tap dance performance ever??? i really enjoyed learning tap, and i hope to pick it back up in the future !!!!

- BIIIIIINCCH i had the opportunity to visit my sister in korea!!!!!!! wow.....truly the BEST week of my entire year, maybe even LIFE! i went to the dog cafe, the sheep cafe, mcountdown, the lunar festival kick off, gwanghwamun palace, dongdaemun, shopped a ton around hongdae, ate food by the han river, visited namsan tower (but not without getting lost), hit the noraebang TWICE, walked into a private Fantagio board meeting, ate delicious chicken on a STIIICK, ran in the rain, ordered delivery mcdonalds, had the BEST fried chicken, met a bunch of monks, was led around dongdaemun by a very old korean man, SAW EUNWOO AND DOYEON AND RECEIVED MUCH LOVE AND NEARLY DIED, hit the convenience store literally every day, snuck out, GOT A WAVE FROM KEY :((( , bought Winter Dream and lots of skin care products and lots of cute clothes, had the clearest skin ive ever had in my life, went to a buddhist temple, witnessed a drunk man fall into the splits inbetween the ground and the subway, ran up and down 1000 subway stairs, fell in love with a man named Peanut, drank too much banana and strawberry milk, sobbed my face off at the festival as korean grandmas bowed to me, tried tons of new foods (including the nastiest bowl of cheese ramyun ive ever had in my life), bought lots of socks, rode an airplane for......like 40 hours in total? literally the best week of my Life

- had my junior vocal recital ! it was a cute girl. i felt my acting had really improved since sophomore voice recital !!

- had prom on my 17th birthday and had a jolly good time !!! my mom made my dress and i felt like a Stunner

- dream pt. 01...she rly is that Bad Bih. best era. miss her loads. none of us ever deserved her.

- les mis !!!!!! two whole weeks.....another Best Time. i learned so much, made so many lifetime friends, had a blast, sang my heart out.....such a freaking good time. i miss her

- got to spend the ENTIRE summer with momo!!!!!!!!!!! literally the ENTIRE!!!!! and what did we do? hit the park, watched lemonade mouth and fantastic beasts and starstruck and that random unicorn movie, made the Best slime, made that ICONIC weki meki video, laughed a ton, cried a ton, stayed up all night for the sunrise, stayed later for the sunset & thunderstorm, walked home in the pouring rain & lightning (IT IS VERY WET), went to the beach, met many dogs, got me hairs cut, befriended that Cat, and went to a painting class

- cabin week !!!!!!!!!!! whatta lovely time

- my brother’s wedding !!!! honestly? my best outfit of the year... had a bangin time. his wife is truly a cutie and i love her tons!

- there was that Mess in august and i still feel sorry to those who felt hurt because of it. i learned a lot about how things especially on the internet can be easily misunderstood and misinterpreted, so u gotta be EXTRA careful with your words !

- through that i also came to accept that u cant get everyone to understand or like u, and tbh that is okay for now. all we can do when we make mistakes is try to understand & learn, apologize, and try to better ourselves. and sometimes even when u do that, u still may not be liked. and thats okay. as long as you are trying your best and recognize mistakes, its all good.

-skinny dipped at girls time wow what a freaking TIME

- woah dude i dropped out of my arts school lmao!!! the BIGGEST change in my life since 2014.;..wow! i dont even have the words to say how much stress was lifted off of me and i love senior yr !!!!

- momo came to CT!!!!!!

- seeing svt live !!!!! but tbh the best part was seeing momo, “I LOVE A MAN WHO CAN SEW”, “I!!!!!!!!!! LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JIHOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”, “IM UNDERAGE”, and when Mo BLASTED to that other line

- LAKE COMPOUNCE LMAOOOOO I LOVE JIHOON PT2!!!!

- my mom, sister, and i took an eight week painting class! i finished two paintings and learned a ton!! honestly a good time

- dream pt. 02.....shes that other Bad Bih....absolutely adore her

- i also learned that its okay to cut people off who are toxic. especially if you have already informed them that they make u feel bad, they are not worth trying to please or keep around. take care of yourself. similarly, its okay to block people, and you dont owe them an explanation

- MADI CAME HOME !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! my other half...missed her so much :(((

- riley’s calligraphy christmas !!!!! was so much fun and i loved people’s reactions and i loved learning arohas favorite astro lyrics !!!

- ah...............one of the hardest weeks of my whole life. the pain still lingers, and i know itll hit me again like a boulder the next time we see only four of my angels standing on stage. for four months, i was worried sick about another member, and i even knew he was hurting, that his mental illness was real. my heart aches and there is a piece of it missing, but it will never be replaced. i know you are much happier now, jjong. i love you.

- and also because of that, i have been able to think a lot about how i live my life. thoughts like ‘am i watching out for my family and friends enough?’ ‘am i listening enough?’ ‘is this funny comment worth it?’ ‘am i happy?’ im trying to be better. to not take things for granted, to only be kind, to always be there for those i love, for those who love me. and i will try my hardest to not complain about small or petty inconveniences. to try harder to be optimistic.

- christmas was with my whole family for the first time in five years ;;; she was such a cute girl!

and now on to the next act !!!! its called RILEY’S NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS !!!!!!!!!!

1. lets start with the basic stuff that im 99% not gonna pull through on: keep ur room clean. keep everywhere u go clean, it makes mom upset. eat better, u know there is other foods in this house besides peanut butter and pepperoni and popcorn.

2. send out at least one Lovely Ask per day. i made this goal sometime over the summer, and i did it for a few months until i started to forget ;; its not that hard, u just gotta remember to do it !!

3. sis.....quit Procrastinating.......GET ur FREAKING application done...do ur homework the night before lmao! call who u need to !!! write those thank u cards!!!! go get them scholarships!!!! enter that graphic design contest lmao!!! just DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!! time is wasting

4. just be happy

#hot frick this is four pages on google docs FHFJJDSLASJ #anyway heres a word dump #if u actually read this......ur insane................and i love u #about me !#riley's thicc 2017 post #riley really really rambles

5 notes · View notes