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getitinbusan · 4 years ago

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10 years with Jungkook

California

You met Jeon Jeongguk in the summer of 2012. Two kids brought together by a calling to California and a chance at making it big. Best friends from the start, what happens when only one of you becomes successful? Do you ever forget your first love?

Childhood friends to lovers, angst and smut.

Words: 4600

Warnings: 18 plus smut. Oral F, Sex MF, Swearing. Pretty Mild for me. This is a previously posted fic that has been updated and reworked.

It was a rare rainy August day in California. The heavy drops created a sad melody on the window as you put the dishes away. Tired and lonely, the feeling in your gut kept nagging at you, maybe it was time to give up.

The savings account was drained, there were no jobs to be found and this was the second month of falling short on rent. Surely it would only be a matter of time before your roommates would stop exchanging house cleaning for money.

Hanging the threadbare towel over its hook you stood in the kitchen, your mood mirroring the dim light of the afternoon. Feeling frusterated and stupid, it had taken you way longer than it should have to realize that in LA, you were nothing. Not pretty enough, rich enough, skinny enough or talented enough to ever make it big. So this is how the great Califonia chapter of your life would end, not by choice but necessity.

Gathering up the mail that was strewn across the countertop, you shuffled through it sorting its priority. Junk mail, bills, personal…one in particular standing out. Your heart began pounding as you took in the details.

The penmanship was nice, black ink on an unassuming envelope. But it was the stamp that caught your attention. It was sent from Korea.

Flipping it in your hand you examined the torn top. The letter, having been read, was cradled back safely inside. Addressed to your roommate a frown crept onto your face. Why wouldn’t he write to you?

It was a ridiculously hopeful notion but you widened the envelope and inhaled trying to find a trace of his fragrance, something, anything to trigger a happy memory. Cool California nights were the best excuse. How many times had you borrowed his sweaters just to have his smell on you?

You missed him. It had been a year and a half and you couldn't help but once again ponder the nagging question that always crept back. If you hadn't forced him to break the rules would he still be a part of your life?

It was too tempting to resist, your fingers pinched the paper inside of the envelope and pulled it free.

I’m feeling low, I don’t know who I am, only who I’m supposed to be.

What would life be like if I had stayed in California? We could all be roommates, hanging out and having fun, going to the beach on weekends.

Does she even think about me?

It sounds greedy that with how much I have right now, it’s not enough. I would give anything to wake up in bed beside her everyday. I want more than anything to be able to talk to her about these things but I can’t. I’ve made the mistake of trading her for fame and now I’m destined to keep her at an arm’s length so she’ll never know the price I paid.

How does she even see me? As an Idol? As the boy who abandoned her? Has she forgotten the good days we spent together?

I’ve been wrestling with myself, whoever that is. I wish I could be the teenage boy from that long ago summer again. I wrote this song thinking about it…

~When I see you smile in the screen

You’re good at everything

You’re just perfect

Feels like I've never been you

Do you even see me?

Do you know who I am?

Or how do I look now?

You don’t like me like that

I want to be your decalcomania~

I’m afraid I may not get back for a while, please write. Your friendship and thoughts of her are the only things that are keeping me tethered to some semblance of reality.

Clutching the letter to your chest, your mind took you back to that day.

"Decalcomania, the art or process of transferring pictures and designs. Making a copy of the original on a different medium"

Reading the description on the wall you’d both stood laughing at the piece's strange name, Decalcomania. The gallery visit felt like lifetimes ago but you still remembered clearly. You remembered, not because the piece had struck you as particularly special but because that's where you had decided that Jeongguk's laugh was the best sound you'd ever heard.

California had lured you into its promise when you turned 14. Having been accepted to an intensive dance program at The Movement Lifestyle Studio you packed up and headed West for the summer.

It was July and it was hot, the dancers stepping off the bus one at a time took their places in the studio.

Looking around there were so many older kids, you were probably one of the youngest. Calling out names they put you into groups, it appeared to be by age so you made your way across the unfamiliar wooden floor to the tiny gathering of teens in the darkened corner.

Shy introductions were made as one more member was ushered over to where you had congregated. “This is Jeongguk.”

He had the cutest smile and barely spoke english but his eyes twinkled like the constellations. Immediately drawn to each other you became fast friends.

Absolutely exhausted by the end of the first few days he quietly knocked at your door.

He was homesick and lonely, used to being surrounded by his six members, he couldn’t sleep well without someone beside him. You let him crawl into bed with you, you were 14 and it was innocent.

Inseparable, days and nights were spent side by side, the others began referring to you as the twins. It was the best summer of your life but like every boy meets girl summer story, it had to come to a close. Promising through tears to keep in touch and stay friends you went your separate ways.

Jeongguk would send silly videos of his practice sessions, goofing around with the other members. He’d facetime and text but he always loved to send handwritten letters.

They lived in a box under your bed and contained stories of how hard he was working to become an idol. He always signed off with, "I miss you,” and a few lines of lyrics he’d written.

You didn’t know then how important they would become, the only tangible piece of him you could still hold on to.

Whenever he came back to America you did everything you could to see him. You always found a way to get to the small tour stops whenever they came through. 2015 was the first, then KCon in 2016, but 2017, it was different.

Facetiming you with the news that they were bringing the Wings tour to NY, Chicago and Anaheim, he asked if you’d be part of the dance crew. How could you turn down two weeks with Jungkook the hottest new K-pop Idol? They were getting bigger, more popular and their lives were changing rapidly.

He had strict rules, girls were completely off limits. No talking, no hugging, no smiling at one another, any little thing could be easily misconstrued by the fans. Everything had to be done in secret. Jungkook would sneak you into his hotel room where you would spend your nights together catching up. The boys would bring you in food and cover for him while you both stayed locked away out of sight.

While happy to be with him, you could tell there was an underlying sadness he was holding on to.

"I wish I could go and explore the city with you like we used to," his voice trailed off.

You were laying in each other’s arms cuddling on his bed. Leaning over he kissed the top of your head.

"All I really want is to take you on a proper date."

You snuggled closer into his side as he exhaled deeply, releasing his secret.

"I’ve been waiting so long to become someone, a man worthy of your affection. Now I’m stuck. I have everything I wanted and I’m not allowed to share it with you."

His arms gripped you tighter.

"I’m sorry, this is a terrible confession. I don’t expect you to love me back, not under these circumstances, I just need you to know, you’re the only girl I’ve ever loved and there won’t be anybody else, ever."

Every bit of his confession, every moment of that last night in the hotel room had stuck with you to this day. The words of a 19 year old boy whose life had become bigger than the feelings of two people.

He'd left in the morning without knowing. You were a coward, too afraid to tell him you loved him too.

LA became your home right after they left Anaheim. Focused on your dancing, if you became good enough, maybe you could join the tour with him.

A letter with a big bouquet of flowers arrived a few weeks later.

"Congratulations on your new house in LA!

I hope that all of you are getting along as roommates, it’s hard living with others sometimes.

Last night I dreamt that I was there with you and all of our friends. We were having a party on the beach and we sat together watching the sunset.

Do you remember after practice when we would skateboard as fast as we could to the ocean so we wouldn’t miss the colors?

Maybe one day my toes can feel the sand there again.

I miss you, I miss me… the me I am when I get to be with you.

We're coming back in October for a few days and I’m hoping I can see you, I’m lonely already.

Jeongguk

~Won’t you please stay in dreams

I can hear the sea from far away

Across the dream, over the bush

Go there where it becomes clear

Take my hands now

You are the cause of my euphoria

When I’m with you, I’m in utopia~

By the time The AMAs came, the plan had been finalized. You would steal Jungkook away so that you could take him on your first real date.

Having enlisted Namjoon to help, he was your inside man. The boys, happy to help finally get you together, would cover for his whereabouts with management. The day before the awards they were only scheduled for styling, as long as he wasn’t late for the press rounds the next afternoon your plan could work.

It was Namjoon’s job to get him out of the building. Telling him to follow his lead, Joon convinced the managers that Jungkook must have eaten something bad for lunch. Claiming to not feel well, he was whisked away to meet you at the hotel’s back receiving door.

Sitting in the shiny red rented convertible you tossed him a pair of sunglasses. What you wouldn’t give now to see that smile again.

Barely giving him time to get in you’d sped away heading straight for In And Out Burger.

"Kookie, I hope you’re ready for the best day of your life! We’re going to eat until we explode, drink and party at the beach and then, instead of returning you to your fancy 5 star hotel you’re staying the night in my crappy little house with a tiny uncomfortable bed!!"

He laughed, that perfect laugh. It was so pure and honest, thinking about it now made you sad. Was that the last moment he'd gotten to be his true self? Jeongguk the man not Jungkook the personna?

Knowing you only had one day to give him everything, one day to show him you loved him, you tried to make the best of it.

Picking up the food Jungkook held onto the red and white bags in the passenger seat, sneaking his hand in to steal fries when he thought you weren’t looking. If you weren’t sure you were in love with him before you you certainly were now.

Pulling up beside the tree on the beach he was stunned, "Ahhh Jagi, I can’t believe you brought me here."

Happy that it meant as much to him as it did to you, you both sat on the branch and ate. Two blocks from the old studio this used to be your escape. Every break you’d make your way to the tree for some time alone, together.

With the burgers done he turned to you and smiled. It felt like he wanted to say something, but stupidly, you'd cut him short leading him back towards the car.

Making your way through your checklist you brought him back to where you'd first met. The Movement studios students were starstruck when he walked in. After insisting that he teach some choreography, he reluctantly led the class.

Your eyes were glued to him as he moved in front of the mirrors, no longer that awkward teenager but a full grown man mesmerizing you with his every move.

Getting back to the car he stopped you before you reached for the handle. Putting his arms around you he pulled you in close. But again, you resisted him.

"You stink Jungkook, our next stop is the ocean."

You remember pulling away. How stupid you were, you should have held on to him longer. Reaching into the back seat you revealed a pair of swim shorts and a towel. He looked disappointed that you kept interrupting his attempts at intimacy. It broke your heart but you had a plan and limited time to execute it.

The Ocean was chilly but the wind was warm, he came out of the change room with the shorts on but still wearing his shirt.

"Kookie, this isn’t Korea, you don’t have to be so modest here. Plus, you should grab some sun, you may not believe it but when your skin is sunkissed," you grinned, "you look really sexy."

He raised his eyebrows and quickly removed the shirt at your request.

Running into the water you splashed and played and he took great pleasure in picking you up and throwing you as far as he could.

The sun was getting ready to set and you wanted to dry off before the cooler air set in.

Leading him back to the shore you both laid down on the towel. He put his arm around you and you cuddled into his side.

"My god Guk, look at your abs!"

He blushed like crazy as you traced the muscles on his stomach.

"Stop, it tickles," he giggled.

But you didn’t, you kept tickling him until he held you so tight you couldn’t move. He had you pinned, flipping you on your back he shook his wet hair flinging water droplets all over you. Pleased with himself he leaned in closer to you, his eyes asking for permission to kiss you. As the gap between you got narrower you could hear his name being shouted and footsteps running closer. He flopped onto his back and sighed as your roommates and friends piled on top of him.

Eating, drinking and catching up with everyone you watched each other from across the bonfire. Moving from person to person he slowly made his way back to your side.

"Welcome back." Running your hand through the back of his hair, it was now or never.

Pulling him closer your lips finally met in the way they were destined, soft, slow and full of love. His hands instinctively moved to cup your face as the world stopped around you.

"I love you," you whispered.

Nose to nose he smiled at you and it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.

It didn’t last long, his phone started going off incessantly. The managers knew, you’d been careless, photos and videos of him from the studio had been posted online.

"I’m so sorry Jungkook, I didn’t mean for you to get in trouble."

His eyes turned hungry as he grabbed your hand.

"You promised I wouldn’t be going back to my hotel tonight, let’s get out of here."

If he was going to get in trouble anyway, why stop now?

The drive back to your place was quiet, adrenaline and hormones flowing like electricity through you both. The time for smiling was over as the seriousness of the situation lingered in the air between you.

It wasn’t just being in trouble or being caught, but the fact that you both knew what was going to happen when you stepped into your bedroom. One act that would change everything between you, it held the power to change the dynamic of your relationship forever.

Leading him to your room you closed the door and stood staring at him as he sat on your bed. He raked his fingers through his hair before he spoke.

"I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to be able to make love to you. BUT I also know that when I leave I’m not going to get to see you again for a very long time." His head hung low. "Management is going to do everything possible to keep us apart and that won’t be fair to you. I think that maybe we should just let our happy memories of today be enough, I don’t want you to regret anything. "

Walking closer you stood between his legs and he wrapped his arms around your waist.

"The only thing I'll regret is never getting to experience all of you. I can’t live not knowing how it feels to be totally yours even if it's only for one night."

He rested his head against your chest, "You’ll always be mine."

His hands traveled to the hem of your shirt and his fingers ran over the soft skin of your stomach. Undoing the button of your jeans he slowly slid them down your legs and you stepped out of them.

Standing up he lifted the thin fabric of your shirt over your head and you stood before him waiting as he took his off too. Unclasping your bra he sighed as he looked at you taking in your shape, his fingertips hovering over your hard nipples.

"I’ve never done this before," he confessed.

"Me either," you whispered. "I've only ever wanted it to be you."

More relaxed he let his mouth start exploring your body. You were goosebumps and shivers beneath him as his tongue found it’s home between your legs.

He was soft and careful, placing his lips over your clit sucking it in delicately until your moans couldn’t be contained any longer. You could feel his eyes burning into you as he watched in awe as his finger slid inside you.

"It feels good Kookie, please…"

You could feel his mouth stopping to smile before he picked up speed. Moving your hips to eagerly meet his mouth you were unravelling quickly.

"The way you taste is better than anything I had imagined."

Devouring you in sessions between his words of adoration you came hard on his tongue.

"I'm really regretting running you all over town today when we could have just been here...doing that.. " You were out of breath.

"I was worried that I wouldn't be any good." He grinned at you pleased with himself.

Moving up to where your head lay on the pillow he pushed the dampened hair off your face, "Are you ok? Do you need anything?"

He placed his forehead against yours.

"I just want you. I need you to know I'm yours, forever.

Rolling a condom on he moved slowly to line himself up with your entrance.

"Tell me if you need me to stop okay?"

He pushed carefully, slowly stretching you around him. Watching intently for discomfort he froze when he saw the tears welling in your eyes.

"Shit, I’m so sorry, let’s stop, I didn’t mean to hurt you." He was apologetic as he thumbed away the tears.

"No," you delicately kissed his lips. "I’m okay… I’m just so happy, so overwhelmed with how much I’m feeling right now."

He smiled down at you, pressing his body closer he gave another push until he was fully inside. Your bodies fell into a beautifully choreographed rhythm until Jungkook was so lost in pleasure he began to move at his own pace. Quicker and deeper he moved until he finally spilled into the condom.

Laying together in euphoria you kissed, and kissed, and kissed until you finally found sleep while wrapped around one other.

Every few hours he’d wake you up. His hands running over your body checking to make sure you weren't just a dream. You’d made love each time, everytime better than the last.

It was 9 am when he caressed you awake once more.

"I have to leave soon. I don’t want to." He spoke in whispers nestled into your neck. "Please tell me to stay."

Your heart broke at his words. "If I ask you to stay, I’m selfish, you’ll always wonder if you made the right decision." The tears came, knowing you had to do what was right. "If I tell you to go, your dreams come true… ” your voice trailed off.

"And I’ll always wonder if I made the right decision,” he finished.

Your phone started ringing and you knew time was up.

It was Joon, "I’m outside. Sorry, I held them off as long as I could. I told them that I’d come get him so you could at least have time to say goodbye."

Your tears fell out in heavy ugly sobs, "Okay, five minutes… and Joon… thanks, I know you’re probably in trouble too."

Hanging up you turned back, Jungkook was already out of bed with his clothes thrown on. He stood with open arms bravely waiting.

"Thank you for yesterday I'll never forget it."

Laying your head against his chest you took a moment to listen to his heartbeat. You could hear him sniffle and knew he was crying too.

You flashed back remembering that night long ago when he came to you homesick, holding you so he could sleep while he tried to hide his tears. There was a knock at the door and Namjoon’s voice broke through the moment.

"We’ve got to go Jungkook."

Stepping away you’d left his shirt soaked in tears, handing him his sweater he pushed it back towards you. "You keep it."

He kissed you one last time before opening the door to reveal Namjoon's weary face. His Hyung put his arm around his shoulder and led him to the car.

Turning one last time he looked back, his eyes were filled with tears as he gave a small wave before getting in the back of the big black sedan.

For months you pretended that management was the only thing keeping you apart.

You held on to that silly notion until May when they were coming for the Billboard awards. For weeks leading up you waited for a message, a secret meeting arrangement, but you got nothing. His image was all over the TV and his voice echoed through your empty heart. Then, just like that, it was over and he was gone again.

Now, here you stood in your kitchen, his letter bringing him to the forefront of your mind and opening old wounds.

He was just as sad as you but what could you do?

Picking up a pen you began writing…

I shouldn’t have done it but I read it in your letter

You said to a friend that you wish you were doing better

I wanted to reach out but I never said a thing

You don’t ever have to be stronger than you really are

And honey, you don’t ever have to act cooler than you think you should

You’re brighter than the brightest stars

You’re scared to win, scared to lose

I’ve heard the war was over if you really choose

The one in and around you

You hate the heat, you got the blues

You’re changing like the weather, oh, that’s so like you

I’ll pick you up

I’ll catch you on the flipside

If you come back to California

We’ll do whatever you want, travel wherever, how far

We’ll hit up all the old places

We’ll have a party, we can dance till dawn…

Y/N

October came again and a chill was in the air, the smell of the ocean hit your nose and you stopped to take it in.

Bundled in Jungkook’s hoodie you threw your bag over your shoulder and began your walk to work. You'd gotten lucky, Movement had hired you just as you were about to give up and leave California. Filled with hope and excitement a new intensive program was scheduled to start today and you were going to meet the future superstars of the dance world.

Memories flooded your mind as you made your way through the familiar neighborhood. It still hurt, but things were beginning to feel happy again. Writing the letter had given you closure, he knew how you felt and beyond that there was nothing else you could do.

Opening the heavy door to the studio you caught a familiar reflection moving in the mirror. Chalk marker in hand he was writing something, It couldn’t be?

Hearing the door click back into place he turned to face you.

"Hi."

He walked towards you slowly. Unsure of what your reaction would be, he approached with caution.

"Hi."

You were breathless, in the months of not seeing him he’d only grown more handsome.

"I can’t change what happened… and for the rest of my life I’ll be sorry for all of the time we missed."

He was getting closer.

"But I can’t take another day not knowing if I can fix this… somehow…"

He reached for your hand but you pulled it away. His head fell in disappointment.

"Jungkook, I can’t listen to this… look at me."

Reaching for his chin you pulled his head up until he was facing you again.

"I refuse to listen to you apologize for something that is out of your control. Your life was decided before you met me and I am nothing but grateful that I got to appear in some part of your story."

He tilted his head and pressed a small kiss into the hand that was still holding his chin.

"God I’ve missed you." He wrapped his arms tightly around your waist.

"How long are you here? I’ve got to teach class.. It’s the first day but I’d love it if we could catch up?"

He laughed at you and your knees buckled at the sound of his happiness.

Taking his chance he pressed his lips to yours and you could feel the smile forming on his face.

"I’m your private lesson Jagi, I’ve booked you for the next two weeks."

Taking a step back you had to ask, "How Jungkook? What will you be giving up?"

Pulling you back to his embrace he began to dance with you.

"There is no more giving up, on anything. Our contracts were over and I only had one thing I wouldn’t negotiate on, that’s you."

He guided you to look at the mirror.

"I wrote you something."

~Please call my name one more time

I’m standing under the frozen light,

but I’ll walk step by step towards you

Still with you ~

"I promise I’ll never let you go again."

#jungkook #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook #Jeongguk #jungkook x reader #kookie #nochu #10 years with jungkook #california #lana del rey

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whispelanix · 3 years ago

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Gameplay features we should have in a future Fallout title

Based on what we’ve had in previous games. Just some random storyline stuff and game stuff I’ve enjoyed so far:

Regions (Fallout 4, 76): Yes, I know every game has regions, but I'm talking about the difference in how life grows in certain areas and the level of radiation in said area kind of thing. The regions in 76 have so much personality. Fallout 4 only had the Commonwealth/Glowing Sea as its base game regions in how nature has evolved, but in 76 it's so diverse. Different mutated creatures are more native to different areas, and it has the flora to go alongside with it.

Plans (Fallout 76): Yeah, most of the 3D Fallout games has a few schematics for some weapons, and maybe a small variety of unique consumables, but I like how 76 makes you actually work and spend caps for Plans in order to know how to make something new. Not just weapons, but food, drinks, armor, workshop, etc. Because if this was real life, you wouldn't magically know how to make everything all of a sudden. They keep basic knowledge food items like deathclaw steak, which you can just cook up, as recipes you already know and you find recipes for more "advanced" dishes, and I really enjoy that.

Consumables System (Fallout 76): The amount of variety you have in regards to consumables in this game is amazing. There's so many mutated animals to cook up, so many plants to make soup, and you can make tea and even make juice out of something like mutfruit. I also love the additions we can put into consumables now (sugar, salt, pepper, honey, and we FINALLY have milk). So what they gave us in Fallout 4 with the better cooking aspects has been taken to new heights. Your food spoils now, and boiling water doesn't purify it, it just makes it boiled, which means you NEED a purifier to make it clean.

Eating/Drinking consumables without using Pip-Boy (Fallout 76): This is extremely useful, especially in an online game, and I think it'd work well in single player as well. You no longer have to hoard a bunch of stuff to just eat it, you now have the option to eat it on the spot as well, and move on with your life.

Layered Armor System and the ability to wear costumes over them (Fallout 4, 76): Fallout 4 introduced to us the layered armor system, which is one of the greatest things we've been given in regards to customizing outfits in the game, and now with Fallout 76 we have two different outfit options, armor and clothing. Now, not only can we wear underarmor and armor over it to protect us, but we now have coveralls as well to do so in style whilst retaining the effects of whatever else we wear underneath it.

Distant Weather Systems (Fallout 76): Pretty self explanatory - the ability to see storms coming from a distance as well as nuclear explosions along the horizon is pretty great if you ask me.

Faction Reputation (New Vegas, Fallout 76): I really like these features, because let's be honest, you can't stay on everyone's good side forever. There was only one case of this in Fallout 4, and that was the "You are now enemies with X faction". That ain't good enough. If we could get a mix of the faction reputation system in NV/76, I would be very pleased.

Karma and Affinity (Fallout 3, New Vegas, Fallout 4): The ultimate decider of good and evil. While in NV you had reputations amongst different factions, the karma system is the ultimate decider of where you stand in the wasteland. I like the individual Affinity system with companions as well, because it gives you the chance to either be a certain way, or pretend to act a way to gain trust. I can see why Karma was removed in 4 though, because Karma is based upon what everyone in the wasteland knows of you, so that would've limited the ability to stay on all the companions good sides if your Karma was at a certain level. If there was a way to balance it out though, that would be great. Or maybe they could find a way to make Karma separate from companions, and still make it work out nicely with their individual Affinity.

Maybe Karma in regards to companions could be the determiner of "first impressions", and then the Affinity you develop with them is the determiner of who you really are. They did a reversal of this in Fallout 4 where companions such as Cait, MacCready and Hancock have a more badass reputation when you first meet them, but as you get to know them you find they've been through a lot of suffering. But they still keep their initial reputation among outsiders. If it can be done with NPC's, who's to say it can't be done with the player?

"You are now dressed as a member of X" (New Vegas): The ability to disguise ourselves as members of different factions was a great addition, and really should be bought back. You can get into places you couldn't before, amongst people you normally couldn't, but I think if it's bought back, then factions you work alongside with should be able to detect whether or not it's you, unless you wear a mask or a facial covering.

Clothing is as clothing does (Fallout 4, 76): Suits shouldn't just magically turn into dresses just because you decided to play as a female. If you wanna alternate between "male" and "female" versions of an outfit, then let there just be suit/dress versions of certain styles of clothing. I liked how 4/76 did this, because now, if you wanna be a guy in a dress. Guess what? You can be a guy in a dress.

Workshops and C.A.M.P features (Fallout 4, 76): I doubt we're going to get the ability to make an obnoxious amount of settlements again (maybe), but I admire the chance we're given to build and really make a part of the wasteland our own, and I even more so love how 76 really gives us all those buildings and furniture and decorations to really personalize what you have. Who knows, maybe a future title will give us a combination of workshops you naturally have in place for construction, settlements to help build up (because saving the day always seems to be the job of the player), and then C.A.M.Ps that we as the player can move wherever we like. Maybe we could be given the option to build campsites for other NPCs as a temporary or permeant home. Maybe what we build up will have the ability to be destroyed like in 76.

Grey Morality/Politics (A bit over all titles, talking especially about New Vegas, The Pitt, things of the sort): The factions we were given in NV all had good and bad sides to them, making it sometimes difficult to have a truly perfect utopia. I hope we get back more morally grey choices as well as factions and politics, or instances in where there is no right answer other than wrong and a little less wrong. I don't really need to explain in detail, you've seen how things have played out across titles.

Old Dialogue System (Every game but Fallout 4): Options yes, no, no but actually yes and sarcasm aren't good enough. I love the cinematic aspect FO4 had, don't get me wrong, but conversation is so limited. I also loved the ridiculous way the camera would zoom right on someone's face (I feel sometimes in 76 you can just be way too far from someone talking sometimes) and I'd like to be able to walk out of the conversation whenever I want as well.

Certain Perks/Stats result certain outcomes (Most of the old titles): I wanna be able to get away with low intelligent speeches, flirt with people to get my way, things of the sort. Pretty simple.

That's all I've got for now since I've been working on this list for hours but yeah. Feel free to add things you'd like to see. Personality I'd just like to see the best features and aspects taken from all the games to create the "ultimate Fallout experience".

#fallout #stuff #thoughts #idk

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aestheticseungmean · 4 years ago

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Midnight Academy- Yeosang

You were born with magic, and because of that, you went to Midnight Academy. Yeosang caught your eye the first time you met him.

Magic Au, loosely based off of Harry Potter.

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Life as someone with magical powers can be fun if you knew how to use them. The wrong wrist motion could injure someone and the wrong pronunciation could turn someone into a frog and not a cat. Risks are a casual thing in the world of magic. There are many types of magic that each child will learn in Midnight Academy. It was a simple and quaint little school that was restored regularly. Not a crack lay in the foundation nor a chip of paint peeling from the wall at the start of the year. Throughout the year, typically, newer students blow up potions and cause the loaned rats to explode. Nasty business that is. The poor caretaker has to scrape the bits off the wall before scrubbing it clean.

You could see why he hated new students and trouble makers, they made his job impossible sometimes. If students were bad, their punishments consist of helping Mr.Darty with his job. Mr.Darty was an older elf gentleman with balding grey hair. More often than not, he was cranky as most of the staff were. He was always found accompanied by his favorite Sphynx cat, Chabiel. The two were inseparable as if the cat was his life support. Mr. Darty was not the only teacher who seemed to have an animal attached to them. Although he was by far, the one with the ugliest. Often, you’d see a mixture of miniature dragons, owls, cats, dogs, and even an occasional Harpy Eagle or Peregrine Falcon. They typically roamed the halls to deliver notes and packages to and fro their owners that the mailroom was too lazy to deliver or be bothered.

This year was a special one. It’s your first year at the Midnight Academy. Time to get away from the non-magical creatures. Muggles as they are called. You loathe your brothers whom you live with. Silence is scarce in that household and luckily, you were the only one who had inherited your mom’s recessive trait of witchcraft. She herself had not had any magic rather, she made up for it by being a very successful business tycoon. Often, you helped her manage some of her gaming companies and you tested them too. Hex Gaming Co. was the creator of some of the world’s most famous games such as Utopia, Weapons of Deception, Deception 2, Undying, and more. All of which were some magical role-playing game that was super addicting and had kids playing it everywhere. If you ever told anyone who your mom was then instant fame. Your dad, on the other hand, was not as famous but he was still a famous musician.

Aside from your brothers, the only person to know about your wealth and parents’ true jobs was your best friend, San. He had inherited magic but he’s also part incubus. You met him when he appeared on your block five summers ago. Fourteen was your current age now and you guys practically live with each other and do everything together. When most people hear that San is part incubus, they stay away because they are afraid of having their dreams visited. But what people didn’t stay to find out that San didn’t find the need to go into people’s dreams. Besides, he only found you slightly attractive, everyone else wasn’t even on the radar. Deep down you know that he might be bi but he will not let you have the satisfaction of being right.

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𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗢𝗻𝗲

San and you entered into the school that is more intimidating the closer you get. The seeming mile-high doorway made you feel small enough already. All the new students were being crowded together to get handed their classes and dorms they were going to stay in. Of course, you will miss your brothers but you got San! You’d prefer that any day. “I hope we get the same dorms. I don’t think I’d be able to live without you.” “Me too, San. Me too.” To say that you weren’t scared for your life was an understatement. Anymore worrying and you’d be dead. Finally, your turn came around to get your scroll. The teacher administering them was undeniably short and part goblin. He had a snaggle tooth that stuck out of the bottom of his mouth and long Yoda like ears that stuck out of his head. Little hairs covered the face, they were minuscule but visible.

“Name.” The voice was gravely and harsh but you still gave him your name. “Here you go.” You took the parchment with shaky hands. San waited for you at the door. “I got Sapphire dorm!” As soon as your face fell, so did his. “I got Emerald dorm.” Emerald dorm has the reputation of some really mean and uptight people. They are usually the richest ones. “No escaping from my money now.” You groaned out. San placed a quick kiss to your cheek. “You got this.” He ignored the stares but you didn’t. Blood rushed towards your cheeks. A slender figure appeared in front of you. You recognized it as the teacher most often seen by the headmaster. Her voice was strong and dominant, perfect for teaching. She was aged like the expensive cheese your mom was forced to eat at business meetings. “ATTENTION! You are to go in and find the table corresponding with the dorm name you got. The headmaster will address you soon.” As you walked in, hand in hand with San, you were taken aback by the busy chatter. Almost immediately, you were pulled away from San and torn to the table decorated in different hues of green.

You know nobody so where to sit was nerve-wracking for you. “You can sit by me.” A hand waved in the air and you saw a boy giving you a cute smile. “Me?” He could be talking to anyone so you wanted to make sure. “Yeah! I’m new too.” With nowhere better to sit, you sat down next to the blond boy. “Hi! I’m Wooyoung and I hope we can be friends!” “I’m ________.” You smiled at him. A voice sounded through the room getting everyone’s attention. “Students. Most of you are coming back from a great year last year and I wish you a welcome. For the new students coming here this year, we all give you a warm welcome and wish you well in the following days to come. Make good friends, learn new things, and most importantly, do great things. I hope that I do not need to interfere with any problems as our teachers will deal with it accordingly. Just know, we will be paying attention.” Wooyoung and you shared a nervous look.

“For now, we feast!” Little fairies delivered the food to the table. Immediately, you recognized them as brownies. They are house fairies that live to clean as love dishes of cream. You loved the brownie that resides at your grandparents’ house. His name was Hayelam and he was the nicest creature you had ever met. At night when everyone was supposed to be asleep, you’d sneak out and leave a bowl of warm cream on the counter. It was a ritual and you couldn’t go to sleep without doing it. Maybe you could sneak some for them. Without thinking, you grabbed some cream. “Are you going to make whipped cream for this delicious pecan pie?” Wooyoung asked, causing you to look at him. “Ah no, habit. I’m going to heat it up somehow for the brownies.” “Brownies? Where?” You giggled at Wooyoung looking for actual brownies. “The house-elves silly. They love warm cream.”

Taking out your wand, you attempted to do a simple heat spell but it didn’t work. Neither did the next six tries. “Let me try.” How would he be able to do it? You watched in amazement as the metal bowl in his hands turned a soft red causing the cream to simmer a little. “Woah!” The cream was still hot when he set it down onto the table. “I’m a descendent of a fire fairy.” “I guess you could say that you’re hot.” Normally, San would give you a dirty look for your puns but Wooyoung loved it. Although he was laughing, he was dying inside from embarrassment. “Let’s dig in!” You exclaimed, grabbing a turkey leg and taking a bite. San laughed at you from afar glad that you found someone to talk to. Don’t forget about me. Get out of my head, San. Looking up, you caught him pouting but after you gave him a smile, he cheered up.

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“Mr.Song, would you be so kind as to answer this question on the board?” Your red-haired classmate stayed visibly slumped in his seat. He wasn’t the only one confused, you watched as Wooyoung got confused as well. Discreetly, you waved your wand and watched as the answer appeared on your seatmate’s notebook. Thank god that he saw it appear and reworded it. “In a sense, if you added blisterwort instead of chorus eggs then you would essentially get a toxic hair remover. Extremely dangerous if taken in as it acts as a poison as well. The victim would be dead within minutes.” “Very good, Mingi.” The teacher turned and continued on with her endless lecture. “Thank you,” Mingi whispered. “You’re welcome!” Your hushed voices caught the teacher’s attention and she was now standing in front of you. “What are you saying you’re welcome for?” Once again, Mingi froze up, you, on the other hand, were used to this pressure.

Thinking quickly of a lie, you responded calmly. “My seatmate asked me to help him with the things he doesn’t understand.” “Hmmm, all right. No more talking in my class.” The bell rang and the hallway became overfilled. “Wait up!” A hand on your shoulder made you jump. You turned and saw Mingi. He was taller than you thought, around 6’0. “Can you actually tutor me in alchemy?” “Sure. The defense room is empty around six.” He smiled and nodded. A different, smaller hand appeared on your shoulder except for this time, you recognized this hand. “San!” You were quick to hug him tight. “We have the next class together so I wanted to see if you wanted to walk with me and meet my new friend.” Playfully, you pinched him and pouted. “You’ve already replaced me?” “YOU REPLACED ME FIRST,” he whined. Mingi, who was still there, cleared his throat. “Oh yeah, San, this is Mingi, my classmate and friend. Mingi, this is San, my bestest friend in the entire world.

“What about me? I thought I was your bestest friend in the entire world and he was your BFF.” You giggled as you watched Wooyoung walk up still whining and complaining about your rejection. “Woo, of course, I love you. You two are my bestest friends in the whole wide world.” Once you introduced the two, Mingi went on his way while you, San, Wooyoung, and San’s friend whom you later learned was named Seonghwa, walked towards class. You watched as San waved bye to his newfound friend before walking into class with him and Wooyoung. In the middle of class, you watched as a 2nd-year student came in to get the teacher to break up a fight. “MR.OIEK! YEOSANG AND TJUM ARE FIGHTING RIGHT NOW.” “Lead the way, Hongjoong.” The class rushed towards the windows where there was a clear view of the courtyard.

Unfortunately, you got pushed out of the door during the madness and fell right into one of the boys. For a moment, the boys stopped and stared at you which let the teacher neutralize them. “Why are you out here Miss.____?” “I-I got pushed. Sorry, sir.” You hung your head in shame, not wanting to look into his intimidating eyes. Ignoring the pain in your wrist or the odd warm feeling on your lip, you stood up. “Yeosang, I trust that as a 2nd year you can show her to the nurse’s office.” “Yes sir.” When you started to protest, the boy gave you a look, the one your brothers gave you when you should shut up. Sighing, both of you started trekking towards the nurse’s office well aware of the fact that you’ll be missing the next class too. With Yeosang leading the way, you couldn’t help but take in his figure from behind.

“Right in here.” “I’m fine, I really don’t know why you are taking me to the nurse.” The look on Yeosang’s face made you question if you were losing your mind. “You are bleeding from a cut on your face and your wrist is sprained.” If that wasn’t convincing enough, the nurse told you the same thing. There wasn’t much she could do quickly so she gave you a concoction of herbs to help heal you. “Wait here for a few minutes so it can start working.” You nodded and watched as the old woman sauntered away, mahogany robes swishing with each step. As soon as the door shut, you turned to Yeosang who was forced to stay with you. He was entranced by something outside of the window, a bird perhaps. His features were vague but what stood out to you was a birthmark adorning his left eye. Your gaze traveled down his body, crossing over his arms and his black robe with a sapphire blue trim and down further. Underneath the undone robe, you caught sight of the pressed button-up with the top two undone showing the perfect amount of collarbone.

His gaze flickered towards you and you looked at your feet, avoiding the blush of the fact that he caught you when you were checking him out. “I saw that, you just checked me out.” A meek sorry was all that you could manage, your face ten times redder now that he called you out. Luck was on your side, the nurse returned and assessed the healing. She warned you not to strain your wrist too much until tomorrow. You agreed and followed Yeosang back to where lunch was being held. All through lunch, you couldn’t take your eyes off of the older boy and you completely ignored what Wooyoung was saying. It wasn’t until Yeosang caught your eye that you looked away, nodding to whatever Wooyoung was saying. You still threw him glances and at one point, you swore you saw him smile. Or smirk. Either way, you finally focused on Wooyoung and whatever he was saying.

Lunch ended and it was time for the next lesson. Fighting. For some reason, the school decided to do second years and first years together, something about the experience. The teacher, short and balding, partnering you up with a short boy, definitely a second year, about two inches taller. His casual laid back posture made him look superior despite the fact that you won every sparing round. “Petrificus Totalus!” You flicked your wand before he could blink and once again, he found himself bound, unable to move. “Very good work, Miss._____!” The boy, whom you later learned was named Hongjoong, congratulated you on doing well while pouting. You thought it was absolutely cute. The bell rang and you stayed behind. There was still a few hours before dinner and Mingi was supposed to meet you. A tall figure emerged behind you and then another.

“I hope you don’t mind, I brought a friend.” “Do they need tutoring too?” Mingi shook his head. “Great work at fighting today, Hongjoong couldn’t even raise his wand.” Mingi’s friend, who was as tall as him if not taller, sported black robes with an emerald green trim. Same as yours and you can’t fathom how you missed someone as tall as him roaming around the dorm. “I’m Yunho by the way.” His cute smile gave you puppy vibes and you forced the instinct to cuddle him away. Mingi introduced you quickly to move on through to alchemy. You couldn’t help but giggle when his potion failed and he screamed at it. “I DID YOU RIGHT! YOU JUST DON'T LIKE ME, DO YOU?” Eventually, you found yourself rolling on the floor laughing when Yunho had put a silencing hex on Mingi. Mingi continued to scream but nothing came out. “You only get your voice returned when you get a kiss on the cheek.” Mingi sheepishly looked at you and leaned closer. “Yunho…” He laughed and ended the hex. Mingi was taken aback at first but ultimately ended up laughing along. Maybe this year wouldn’t be so bad after all.

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Year two

Grey clouds rolled overhead signaling the start of another gloomy season. You, San, Wooyoung, Seonghwa, Mingi, Yunho, and Hongjoong trudged towards the train car that was to take you back to the academy. Surprisingly enough, you realized that the boys didn’t live that far from you. As summer rolled along, you and the six boys grew closer and of course, your brothers liked them too. Yeosang, you found, should’ve been in the emerald dorm but something got screwed up in the housing situation. The rumor got around that he was being switched back to the correct dorm though only time will tell. Although, it would be quite awkward. The seven of you were confused to find someone in your car already. A boy of a stronger build and brown hair sat by the window staring out of it. “Hello?” His head snapped towards you. “I’m sorry, am I in your area?” He was new, you could feel it, the newbie energy radiating off of him. You knew the others could too. “It’s okay! You can sit with us. I mean you’re new aren’t you?” Gosh, you love how kind Wooyoung is. He’s so sweet, you are surprised you don’t have a cavity. “Y-Yeah.” As you all settled in, the boy introduced himself as Jongho.

We introduced ourselves and soon got lost in laughter and conversation. “Did you see the new Deception: End Of Time game is coming out tomorrow?” Wooyoung asked. An abundance of yeahs and can’t waits filled the car in agreement. “You’ll love it. I did.” The boys looked at you in confusion. San laughed and nudged you. These people didn’t know you were one of the testers of the game let alone the daughter of the creator. “My mom runs that company and created those games. I test them out.” “You have to convince her to let us test some out too.” You giggled at Jongho’s enthusiasm. “Maybe during spring break. I know mom is working on a big game.” They cheered quietly. San a little more considering he’s done it before and knows the excitement of giving suggestions. It was also a bonus when the character he creates in the test is a character that gets added to the game and is already situated to his stats.

The ride to the school felt short. Jongho proved to be a perfect fit for your friend group. He sank back at the intensity of the school but you and your friends ushered him forwards. “Don’t worry! You’re only alone until they give you a dorm and there is at least one of us in each dorm.” The first year smiled and watched as you guys sat at your respected tables. It wasn’t that long of a wait considering his surname was a C. He quickly found that he got ruby dorm. It turns out for you that Yeosang and Yunho got mixed up therefore Yunho was with San and Yeosang got transferred into his rightful dorm. The headmaster made his welcoming speech before launching into an apology. “I’d like to wish a formal apology towards two-third years. I humbly ask for you to see this as a way to make new friends.”

You glanced over at Yeosang getting surrounded by a bunch of people welcoming him into the emerald dorm. His face looked panicked, clear that he was not used to all this attention. Wooyoung seemed to notice it too and felt for his hyung. “Yeosang, hyung! You can sit with us if you want.” He looked at the two of you, happy, ecstatic to see two faces he knew. A year ago, if someone would’ve told you that you’d be sitting with Kang Yeosang, you’d have laughed in their face. But here you are now, sitting face to face with the boy. His eyes met yours and you fell into a trance. “Earth to ______!” “Sorry, what were you saying?” Wooyoung repeated his words once again, not even bothered that you had zoned out once more. The bell rang and you jumped up, ready to head to the dorms, forgetting the tradition you and Wooyoung did every day last year. “Are we not going to heat up some cream for the brownies?” You turned and nodded sheepishly while grabbing a bowl of cream someone had left. Yeosang watched in amazement as Wooyoung's hands caused the liquid to bubble.

The following weeks of school consisted of review and having awkward run-ins with Yeosang. It wasn’t until your professor introduced teleportation to you that things got started. All second years had to learn how to use their magic and teleport from one place to another. And with most people, you initially aren’t the greatest when you start to learn something. For the next few days, you’ve practiced and practiced, only teleporting to the common room and back to your room. Unfortunately, the following day, you were going to be tested on your skills, and frankly, you could barely even make it out of your bedroom. This is how you found yourself at two in the morning on the roof of the mailroom trying to teleport from one end to the other.

You closed your eyes and imagined the other side and muttered some hopeful words that this would actually work. A quiet pop sounded and you opened your eyes to complete darkness. Trying to find your way out of wherever you were, you blindly walked around only stopping when you hit your ankle on something metal. The surface you fell on was a mix between hard and soft. A pained groan emitted from behind you causing you to let out a few choice words. In the midst of the rant, a light turned on and you caught Yeosang’s brown eyes boring into yours. “Well, this is most definitely not where I wanted to teleport, sorry for appearing in your bed at 2 in the morning.” The words lingered in the air and neither one of you moved. Maybe you should just give up and fail the test.

A sigh left Yeosang’s lips and he grabbed his wand. You watched curiously as he stood up and took a place beside you. “Hold my hand.” “H-Hold your what?” His hand grabbed yours and you felt the familiar swirly feeling that you got when you teleported. A cold breeze brushed your cheeks and you shivered realizing that you were back outside. “Why did you bring me here?” This was the first time, you actually went into the gym despite this being your second year. “I’ve been hearing from Wooyoung that you have a test tomorrow and I…I wanted to help you learn to teleport.” You wanted to hold Yeosang and treasure him forever but that would be quite awkward. “Okay then. What are we waiting for?”

Turns out that either you’re a great teleporter or Yeosang is a great teacher. You opted for Yeosang though because without him, you would’ve failed. In fact, you actually aced your test. The first one since the best friend test that you did with San in first grade. When the students were to return to the dorm, you waited excitedly with the little slip of paper in your hand. For the first time, Yeosang was late back to the dorm. He found you asleep on the couch beside Wooyoung who was doing his homework. “Hey, hyung!” “Hi, Wooyoung. Why is she asleep?” He asked, pointing to your form. “She wanted to show you that she aced her test and she waited and waited for you. I came out to keep her company but she fell asleep.” Yeosang carried you to your room and tucked you into your bed. He left a note with one of the post-its that he found on your desk along with your unfinished homework. He’ll apologize tomorrow for leaving you waiting for so long.

The knock on your door woke you up. When you opened your eyes, you saw the sunlight peeping in through the cloudy windows. “Rise and shine, angel. It’s almost time for class.” Shoot. Class. You rushed to get dressed only stopping momentarily to read the note attached to your now finished homework. ‘I’m sorry I kept you waiting, I had some things I had to do. Meet me on the rooftop tonight at midnight so we can celebrate your success. -Yeosang’ You shoved the paper and the note in your bag before running out to the common room. “Come on Woo! We’re going to be late for class.” You two rushed to the Alchemy classroom and took your assigned seats. A smile formed on your face as you saw your seatmate had already made it there. “Good morning, Sannie!” “Morning, Sunshine.” He smiled at your chirpiness and returned his attention to the homework he was rushing to finish.

The day buzzed by and midnight arrived quickly. Quietly, you teleported to the roof and saw Yeosang already sitting on the edge. “Such a pretty moon, isn’t it?” His question caught you off guard. Had he heard you arriving. “Yes, I suppose so.” “So I heard you aced your test for the first time. Glad I could help.” You took a seat next to him and sighed, watching your breath form a cloud in the chilly air. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much you’ve helped me.” “I want to make a deal. For each test you ace, I’ll tell you something about me.” Yeosang is a mysterious person and plus you had so many questions about him. Why is he in the Emerald dorm? Favourite food? Cats or dogs? Why go to the academy? Why teach you? “For your first test, I’ll tell you what everyone wants to know. How am I in the ‘rich’ people dorm?”

He told you how his dad was a very famous doctor and his mother was a famous chef. His deal made you ace all your tests-with help from him of course- for the rest of the school year. By the time summer rolled around, you practically knew his entire life story, like how he loves the colors red and black or how much he treasures his drones. You knew that he vents by riding a skate board and he loves to play your mom’s videogames. His reaction was just like the other’s when you told him who your mom was. Yeosang demanded -more like pleaded but he won’t admit that- to meet your mom and praise her for her games. When you introduced him to the guys, they all welcomed him with open arms aside from Hongjoong and Seonghwa who were previously friends with him already.

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You walked around blindly, only stopping when you hit your ankle on something metal. The surface you fell on was a mix between hard and soft. A pained groan emitted from behind you causing you to let out a few choice words. In the midst of the rant, a light turned on and you caught Yeosang’s brown eyes boring into yours. “Well, this is most definitely not where I wanted to teleport, sorry for appearing in your bed at 2 in the morning.” The words lingered in the air and neither one of you moved. Maybe you should just give up and fail the test.

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𝙔𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝙏𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙚

Everything was the same as last summer except this time, Yeosang was involved. The same playful banters and video games nights proceeded as normal. The adventures and park dates continued. To them, Yeosang was just another family member, not an outsider. Everything was the same down to a T. The ten of you gathered on the train once again to head to yet another year at the academy. For you, it was the third year of your life but for the older three, it was the beginning of their last year at the academy. Four years is the total amount of schooling needed to be deemed okay enough to use magic on the streets. Although, some students head onto university to further their magic education or regular education depending on who you ask. If you asked your mom, she’d say something along the lines of it’s not her place but four years is way too short.

The dorm rooms were the same as usual, clean and tiny. It almost feels like home. You sighed and sat your bags on the bed and headed to the common room to spend some time with Wooyoung. When you got downstairs, he was sitting there staring at the fire. “Hey, Woo! Long time no see.” You joked around. He smiled and tackled you in a hug. “You saw me thirty minutes ago but it does feel like forever.” He squeezed you extra tight before letting go and returning to his original seat. He patted the seat indicating that he wanted you to sit so you did. The seat was slightly warmed by the heat of the fire. It was cozy and swallowed you into the cushion. “Wooyoung?” He hummed and turned his head towards, signaling that you had his attention. “What’s going to happen to the friend group now? I mean it’s Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Yunho and Yeosang’s last year. Next year Mingi, San, you and I are graduating. And, Jongho will be last. I’m scared, Woo. I don’t want to lose us.”

His eyes softened and he ran his fingers through his hair which showcased his sad eyes. It was evident, he didn’t want to lose you and the guys either. Unbeknownst to you, from the staircase, Yeosang was heartbroken and his eyes threatening to spill tears. Before he came to this school, he was a nobody. A quiet kid who was good at school and had anxiety. He couldn’t make friends, it was impossible. Yeosang couldn’t stop embarrassing himself in front of his classmates. He had told you all this already after you aced your transformation test at the very end of the year. Your words on that night will forever play in his head as a way of remembering that he could make friends who loved him. “Yeosang-ah. I want you to know that if you ever need a friend, just call me and I’ll be there.” No way could he let you guys go. Back in reality, you cried silently into Wooyoung’s sweater. Yeosang had to control his own emotions before helping you, besides, Wooyoung looked like he was doing a good job.

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You hated Yeosang. You hated that he had you putty in his hands but was completely oblivious to it. Either you were going to confess or you were going to die. Those are your only two options until you told San and he suggested using a love potion. It seemed like a good idea at first but it soon became a fiasco. Neither one of you knew how to make a love potion, that was advanced stuff. Something Yunho would know. This is how you found yourself in the kitchen baking a ‘Love Cupcake” as the boys called it. “I don’t know if I’d be scared or honoured if a girl slipped me a love potion.” San pondered out loud to no one in particular. “I’d be scared.” “Yunho, you aren’t helping my mind.” He smiled and let out a quick ah as if he was going to say something. “This is the perfect thing for Yeosang. I’m tired of seeing you go for an oblivious idiot.”

The cupcake turned out messy and San ended up wearing more than half the icing due to a wrong cut to the tip of the bag. But all in all, you were pretty impressed with the look of the sweet pastry. The yellow cake topped with the light red icing was placed on a paper plate. You carefully held it and met up with the rest of the boys in the courtyard. “Yeosang! I have this for you. As a thank you.” Yeosang grabbed the cupcake and took a bite. He hummed in delight and watched you throw away the plate. “This is delicious. Thank you.” According to Yunho, once the item containing the potion is consumed, it will take up to twenty-four hours for it to set in. You mustered up the most innocent smile you could form. Now, you wait.

��ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦𝑠 passed and Yeosang was still acting the same as usual. No compliments, no flirting, no heart eyes. Maybe the potion was incorrect. Not possible, Yunho aced that class. Maybe, it didn’t work. It doesn’t hurt to ask the ‘Potion Master’ if something went wrong. “Three days passed and he’s still acting the same. Is it possible that it failed?” “No way. I’ve seen this work before. There’s no chance for it to go wrong.” Now you were forced to confess. Well, eventually. You turned to go back to your dorm to vent to your diary. “Hey, _____!” That smooth, deep voice set you off. You turned towards Yeosang and stomped up to him. “You-“ you forcefully poked him in the chest. “I slipped you a love potion but what the hell? You’re not even acting different.” You threw your hands up in the air in defeat at his confused look.

“Maybe, if you used your brain, you would’ve noticed a lot sooner that I like you.” Yeosang towered over you and watched as you stood in place dumbfounded. “Close your mouth princess, you’ll catch bugs.” “Y-You like me? Like, like like?” At this point, Yeosang was fed up with your obliviousness as hypocritical as it seems. “If it weren’t against the rules, I’d kiss you.” “Screw the rules!” The boys were cheering as you and Yeosang snuck a quick kiss. “Meet me on the roof tonight for our first date.” A smile appeared on your face and suddenly, you couldn’t wait for midnight to roll around. As excited you were for the night, it seems like mother time had other plans. The seconds seemed to pass by slow, almost as if each tick was an hour itself. Finally, midnight rolled around and you teleported to the roof to find Yeosang sitting on a blanket surrounded by a bunch of food. What a perfect first date for you.

22 notes · View notes

shinymooncolor · 4 years ago

Note

1-30 for the nonamerican asks

1. favourite place in your country?

My home - Northern Jutland - beautiful nature and oceans on all sides.

2. do you prefer spending your holidays in your country or travel abroad?

Well, as I live abroad, I spend a lot of holidays going back home to Denmark. But I do love to travel as well!

3. does your country have access to sea?

Hah, yeah - Denmark has oceans on both sides and we have easy access as we’re a teeny tiny country of little islands with Fjords running in between.

4. favourite dish specific for your country?

Ohhhh... I’m going to do a meal and a dessert

Main meal: Frikadeller (danish meatballs) with red cabbage and rye bread

Dessert: real Danish pastries - we do an amazing cinnamon swirl!!!

Also check out PROPER danish Rye bread. IT will change your LIFE!

5. favourite song in your native language?

ohhhh... “Han har tænkt” by Allan Olsen. Incredible lyrics describing my home and amazing music as well...

6. most hated song in your native language?

HAh I don’t even know. Some of the new stuff which is just stupid and misogynistic

7. three words from your native language that you like the most?

HAHA okay. so. I'm gonna do the three words that all non-native speakers are challenged to say heh

“Rødgrød med fløde”

8. do you get confused with other nationalities? if so, which ones and by whom?

Language wise people ask if I'm from Sweden, Norway or for some unfathomable reason Holland (The Netherlands)

Also “Is Denmark the capital of Scandinavia?” is a classic?

9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best?

Germany is the only country that we neighbour physically but we’ve got Sweden and Norway just across the ocean. I love all three countries to be honest. We used to take day trips to Sweden when I was younger - the Danish Krone is a lot stronger than the Swedish so we saved a lot of money. I've been to all three a bunch of times but still have a lot to discover and explore!!!

10. most enjoyable swear word in your native language?

Well. Bae is actually danish for poo. I know it's not a swear word but it's hilarious. You're calling your s/o a poo ;)

11. favourite native writer/poet?

H. C. Andersen

12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem?

Ohhh. Well H. C. Andersen was Danish and I think the translations are fairly successful.

13. does your country (or family) have any specific superstitions or traditions that might seem strange to outsiders?

oh I guess we do? First of all, we do Christmas on Christmas Eve 24/12.

We also have a “Confirmation” when we're 14 which is technically a confirmation of our Christian Fatih but now it's just an excuse for friends and family to give you money and presents.

14. do you enjoy your country’s cinema and/or TV?

Honestly, I think Danish tv is sometimes a bit cringey to listen to. Hah, I love my country and we have some hilarious films and tv shows but I honestly don’t get the whole hype of danish tv shows like the killing or Borgen

15. a saying, joke, or hermetic meme that only people from your country will get?

“Rosinen i pølseenden”

translation: “the raisin at the end of the sausage” - or being the very last one in whatever situation you're in

16. which stereotype about your country you hate the most and which one you somewhat agree with?

that vikings had horns on their helmets. That's all Hollywood. Also Vikings might have been a bit barbaric but they were also ahead of their time with a lot of societal issues such as equality, cleanliness and other stuff - also we were hella good sailors and boat builders. We went to Canada and North America WAAAYYYYY before Columbus and the other guys

17. are you interested in your country’s history?

Very much. My mom and dad are both really interested in history - my mom is a part time historian and my dad, while not formally educated in history, writes historical books in his spare time.

We are very interesting in history in general and love to learn more and I've definitely inherited that curiosity.

18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language?

YES. hahahaha. I'm from the very north of Denmark and thus I’ve got a very “flat” northern accent heh.

19. do you like your country’s flag and/or emblem? what about the national anthem?

I like the red and white flag. and our lion (the royal crest I believe). It’s very pretty. And yes I do enjoy the Danish national anthem.

fun fact: in 2009, Alberto Contador won the Tour de France but they accidentally played the Danish national anthem instead of the Spanish.

20. which sport is The Sport in your country?

MENS soccer. zzzzz. even though we’re not very good. The women are much better and we’ve got so many other cool sports where we are so much better - yet football is where the money goes :(

21. if you could send two things from your country into space, what would they be?

A lego set (YES IT IS DANISH) and one of the royal sausage dogs probably.

22. what makes you proud about your country? what makes you ashamed?

we're small but we’re still doing really well

Ashamed: how we treated (treat) our former colonies (Greenland and the Faroe Islands) it's awful, exploitative and we still haven't seen a lot of apologies there.

23. which alcoholic beverage is the favoured one in your country?

SNAPS. HAHA. and of course Beer (Carlsberg)

24. what other nation is joked about most often in your country?

Sweden. Germany or even the US. heh.

Scandinavian countries love to hate on each other - but if anyone else comes for one of us - be certain that the other two will come to defend.

25. would you like to come from another place, be born in another country?

I don't think so. Honestly. I've gotten a lot of opportunities and security by being a Danish citizen and you don't find that in a lot of other countries.

26. does your nationality get portrayed in Hollywood/American media? what do you think about the portrayal?

Yes it does. I think it's mostly favourable? however, I will say: The utopia that Denmark is the proof that socialism works is wrong: we have our own issues people. Don't fall for it.

27. favourite national celebrity?

The Queen. What a lady!!!!

28. does your country have a lot of lakes, mountains, rivers? do you have favourites?

Hehe. We have some lakes. but no mountains or rivers. We have some gorgeous nature though - but we’re small, flat and green.

29. does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country?

oh yeah so I'm the furthest away from Copenhagen so there's always the Capital vs rest of the country... Copenhagen sucks anyways, it's basically a Swedish province ;)

30. do you have people of different nationalities in your family?

Well, my family is partly Faroese, we've got some English aunties and my pony is German. heh

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suckitsurveys · 3 years ago

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The U Survey by joybucket

Have you ever taken Uber? Yeah, Which stove burner do you use the most? We almost always use the front left because the right side of our stove usually has dishes drying on it lol. Do you live in the USA? I do. Do you like to wear colored underwear? Yes. What is something you don’t understand? How people are Republican.

What is something you wish other people could understand? Mental health.

Do you like…. ukulele music? using an umbrella when it rains? visiting your uncle? hearing stories of peoples’ missions trips to Uganda? the idea that the universe is expanding? underwire bras? the name Ursula? the name Uta? the name Uma? ugly Christmas sweaters? Ugg boots? when someone types “u” instead of “you”? maps of the USA? songs about the USA? the song “Party in the USA”? wasting time on useless things? unicorns? unibrows? Usher? Have you ever…. lived in the USA? visited the USA? been to Uruguay? been to Uganda? been to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida? dressed up as a unicorn? seen a unicorn walking down the street? had a unicorn-themed birthday party? wore a unicorn horn on your head? ridden the Underground (aka the subway in London)? been to Utah? lived in Utah? been to Ukraine? had an ulcer? tried uglyfruit? (it’s a type of fruit) been a student at a university? ridden a unicycle? tripped UP the stairs? been to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula? Are you…. unkind? a US citizen? a unicorn? understanding? underweight? unreliable ? Do you feel… ugly? unloved? unclean? unclear about a lot of things? used? understood? More Q’s! What are three things you love about the United States? The landscapes, the diversity, the endless amount of things to do/see. What are three things you dislike about the United States? Dude. Do you have an hour? Do you own an umbrella? Yeah. If you own an umbrella, what does it look like? It’s green with little cartoon cats and dog on it. Do you use an umbrella when it rains? Sometimes. In your opinion, what is the ugliest color? Eh, depends on how it’s used. What do you think is the ugliest animal? Probably some rodent. What do you think is the ugliest car? I don’t know. Have you honestly ever thought you were ugly? Is “ugly” the only U word you can think of? If you attended a university, what are three things you loved about it? Literally nothing. ….and three things you didn’t like? Literally everything. If you went to a university, which one did you go to? No. Do you think “uber” is a cool word? Sure. Do you have a favorite uncle? I only had one uncle.

Which state (or country) did you attend university in? Illinois. Do you think “umpire” and “empire” sound too much alike? Whatever. How many of these words do you know the meaning to: umpire, umber, uber, urchin, ubiquitous? All of them. Have you ever met anyone whose name started with a U? Yes. What are five things you think of when you hear the word “universe”? Space, earth, Universal Studios, Do you own anything with the Lisa Frank unicorn on it? I am sure I did at one point. If you had a pet unicorn, what would you name it? Jules. What are five things that appeal to you about unicorns? Magical? List ten things that can be found underground. Bugs, dirt, dead people, dead animals, fossils, bones, treasure, roots, some foods, basements. Have you ever seen a UFO? Maybe.

Do you think “urn” is a cool word? Eh. have you ever been an understudy in a play? Yes. Do you know the meaning of the word “utopia”? Yes. List ten words that rhyme with “use.” Amuse, blues, cues, dues, fuse, hues, pews, ruse, sues, accuse. When was the last time you used an umbrella? I don’t know. Have you ever built an umbrella fort? No. Which name do you like better: Ulysses or Uzziah? Neither. Have you ever heard anyone say, “huzzah!” Yes. Final section: Words with U in them. True or False You like guava. You’ve enjoyed being in quarantine. You’ve had a pet iguana. Your favorite color is blue. You like to sit in the sun. Sunday is your favorite day of the week. You go to church on Sunday. You used to go to church on Sunday. You’ve never been to church on Sunday. <--I’ve been once with an old friend and her family. You like running. You’re an uncle. You have an Uncle Rick. You have an Uncle Sam. You have an Uncle Bob. You hate Elmer’s glue. You like gluesticks better than Elmer’s glue. You sing out of tune. You’ve eaten tofu. You’ve pet an emu. You know what an emu is. You’ve had overdue library books before. You’ve worn a tutu. You own a tutu. You’ve known someone named Stuart. Your eyes are blue. That’s all for now- I hope you have an Uber-awesome day! :)

#surveys #abc surveys #U

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awesomeandis · 3 years ago

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GUIDE TO SUSTAINABLE LIVING FROM INDIA

A Guide to Sustainable Living from India!

Living sustainably is about thinking sustainably. A sustainable lifestyle is about the choices you make every single day. Choices that are so simple that it is hard to imagine the impact they could possibly have on the world.

The most common dismissal of conscious sustainable choices is on the count that it will be expensive and tedious, it will require us to let go of our ways and be uncomfortable. Though if we take a moment and rethink the notion of sustainable living, we might see that sustainability isn’t about letting go, it is not ‘one at the expense of others’, it is rather about holding on, holding on to what we value.

Values are the thread that weaves India together, making it one of the most interesting places to explore sustainable living. Most of the answers we are looking for have been around us all our lives. In a world torn between prioritizing sustainability or development, India can help us see how sustainability makes development also more accessible, how sustainable living is not a pipe dream. It is not a utopia made of what one could do when they have everything. Rather it is the reality of what one does today with all that they already have.

All of this sounds nice to read, nicer to say, as for what we can do? India has many stories to tell:

Clothes to Rags to Clothes to Rags to Clothes

The ‘circular design’ i.e a continual use of resources such that there is minimal or no waste, is no new phenomenon in most Indian households. Most old clothes turn into dusters and table cleaners, into raw materials for patchwork, and sometimes into new clothes for many others. This reluctance towards throwing anything away creates a space for being crafty with what you have, repurposing old items, and reusing most.

Invisible recyclers and a door-to-door barter system

In almost all cities in India, there is an informal barter system that has operated for many years now. The Waghris, a nomadic community, have been operating a system of trade where they would barter old clothes for new utensils and household items. This mesh of inter-community/inter-state linkages over the years has built a network of second-hand trade, a recycling system. They collect old clothes, often by the weight, and exchange them for new utensils. These clothes invariably end up in markets for second-hand items (often referred to as chor bazaars, chindi markets, mandi, etc.) hidden in tiny lanes in big cities, to be sold and used again.

Zero-Waste Recipes

Cooking in India is not just a myriad of flavors, it is also often an inter-generational transfer of skills. Ingenious ways of making the most of every part of a plant/fruit/vegetable have been passed on from generation to generation, culture to culture in different forms. Many cultures in India have their own spin on dishes that fit into what the world is reclaiming as zero-waste cooking. Take Rajasthani food, or Bengali for that matter, the practice of using every part of watermelon including the seeds and the peels in different snacks and dishes is fairly common. In Rajasthan, where deserts and droughts are common, every resource is valued. Food was not always abundant. Rajasthani cuisines are famous for using various kinds of cactus and dried vegetables, as well as dishes made exclusively out of peels (known as chilke ki sabzi)

Act Local, Do together!

Bringing together a traditional knowledge/skill base with contemporary entrepreneurship has made some strong individual drivers of sustainability all over the country. From sustainable fashion brands rejuvenating local economies to initiatives that upcycle waste materials to create unique products and generate employment. Many entrepreneurial engineers, designers, thinkers all over the country have established unique models, the collective identity inspires many to participate in whatever way they can. An engineer developing waste management using heat addition, a designer conceptualizing zero-waste cutting in the context of weaving, a farmer coming together with social scientists to propagate permaculture, there is a lot always happening somewhere.

It then comes down to what we set out to find, what we believe in, and what we are willing to do!

If you’re feeling inspired,

To donate your old clothes

To find a local second-hand items market

To try out some zero-waste Indian recipes

To support a local brand: flourish.shop

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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How We Use Dystopian Landscapes to Tell Very Human Stories

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This guest post was written by Caroline Hardaker, author of Composite Creatures, a character-driven science fiction debut about the burgeoning relationship between two people set in a melancholic and mundane near-future climate change dystopia.

When we think, we escape our biological bodies. We hardly ever reflect on it, but from the day we’re born until we collapse into ash – that’s all we are. Organic machines, birthed in balance with an environment we spend our lives harvesting. No matter how much we sometimes take it for granted, we can’t survive without the land, sea, and sky working in perfect harmony, yet we all likely face a problematic future where the world will look quite different.

Writers and filmmakers are obsessed with imagining this speculative future. And not only how it’ll look, smell, or feel, but also how humans will engage with it emotionally. If the earth transforms into a different planet, will we transform into different people too? Modern books and films depict the future of environmentalism in a whole host of ways, from burned-out deserts to boots burning upon a toxic wasteland. In each, often it’s how humanity engages with nature which is the most interesting aspect of the storytelling. Yes, there are aesthetic changes to the sky, sea, and soil, but often it’s humans who’ve changed the most.

It’s something I wanted to explore on a domestic level in my novel, Composite Creatures. Set in a very near future, many of the changes are subtle – creating an uncanny eeriness that it’s hard to shake off. A lilac-tinged sky, a metallic taste on the air, and mice that scurry up trees just slowly enough for you to spot the stitches holding their limbs together.

Credit: Angry Robot

But, sometimes, dystopian landscapes are revealed as alien worlds, almost unrecognisable to our own…

Perhaps the landscape that first comes to mind when imagining a typical, desolate future is the sort of barren sandy stretches in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road—an environment in which humankind has reverted to a mechanical way of life in order to survive the heat and brutal stretches of ‘nothingness��. Survivors continue only by embracing sex, drugs, racing, fighting and looting. Every minute in this world is a struggle, a fight against the elements. Sand clings to skin, blinds the eyes, and rattles in the lungs. The sun mercilessly burns everything beneath it, and the characters can only watch as the planet disintegrates and blisters into a dead, dusty flatland.

The dead landscape and emotional ‘nothingness’ are taken to the extreme in Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Road. A story about a father and son travelling across a cold, dead landscape stripped of all colour and life, this haunting, post nuclear landscape is frequently hailed as a terrifyingly realistic depiction of what will happen in the event of environmental collapse. McCarthy never shies away from the future’s bleakness, and frequently making the connection between a dead world and a dead emotional state. Survivors live as scavengers and cannibals, their humanity burning away with each day. Even the father and son kill to survive, prompting the son to ask his father if they’re still the good guys. When it’s kill or be killed, where does this leave morality?

Set in England in 2027, P.D. James’ Children of Men has become another classic depiction of environmental apocalypse. Here, an unknown catastrophe has rendered humanity infertile. The planet is in a state of collapse and the youngest person on Earth, we are told from TV reports, has just died at the age of 18. Britain exists as an authoritarian state, attracting migrants fleeing plagues and nuclear devastation. But they arrive to find a hostile environment of xenophobia and societal paranoia. London is a grim landscape of terrorist bombings and security checkpoints; of prowling military, sealed-off spaces, grey buildings, barbed wire, filthy streets, and armed police. Life is cruel, and humanity has turned away from nature and into itself. Individuals keep their heads down and look out for themselves, stumbling around their neighbourhoods as if drunk on life’s bitterness. Unlike Mad Max, there are no technopunk gadgets to help communities surf this new landscape. War, isolation, and a lack of hope has sapped any energy and left humanity in a fog of its own misery. The only thing holding society together is the desperate desire to pretend everything is normal; to continue, to keep breathing, to keep calm and carry on.

Credit: Envela Castel

This ‘turning a blind eye’ is also seen in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, which explores the consequences of biotechnology on nature and society. Atwood describes a world where humans are the cause of environmental destruction, and even in the realisation of this they don’t stop. In fact, they continue to develop new ways to manipulate the natural course of the world. In Oryx and Crake, scientific corporations with the scientific know-how to genetically alter animals run the world, and nothing is quite as it seems. All ‘natural’ aspects of the planet’s biology are now extinct, and the environment has become the petri dish for one long experiment. Here, humanity doesn’t learn from its mistakes.

Regardless of how the environment arrived at its ruin, these dystopian landscapes frequently become the main antagonist. It doesn’t matter if we’re to blame for polluting the soil or for melting the ice caps – humans frequently battle these new wildernesses to survive. Picture the endless, dangerous seas in 1995’s Waterworld, for instance. Kevin Costner embodies the only character we see whose body has adapted to the environment, and this causes him to be ostracised. Does having gills and webbed digits ally him with the enemy water, perhaps?

Similarly, in The Girl with All The Gifts by Mike Carey, it’s the moment when Melanie partners with nature to deliver an ending she believes will provide the young with a future when we (as the reader) are left questioning the morality and finality of her actions. Poor Miss Justineau, the only remaining central character to which we can relate, must live in a bubble, forever disconnected from the air.

These aren’t the only worlds that condemn those who are more engaged with the environment. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, those who do not have a use or place in Gilead are sent to the outposts, to spend the rest of their shortened lives cleaning up toxic waste. Those in power have split Gilead into two halves – a heaven and a hell – a religious utopia balanced by a polluted, poisonous nuclear netherworld. Unlike many other dystopian landscapes, here those in power have deliberately done everything they can to shape a heaven from a broken, polluted America, in which fertility rates are dropping and religious radicalism is on the rise. They brainwash citizens into believing that Gilead is exactly the new land that God would want, shining up their constructed utopia to hide the reality of the man-made nuclear wastelands their new world is built upon.

Dystopian futures routinely feature landscapes shaped by mankind’s poor decision-making. Mankind’s blame for environmental deterioration is often only a little mentioned fact aside from the main plot. In 1999’s The Matrix, we’re shown a jagged horizon lit by an angry storm as Morpheus explains to Neo that humans deliberately scorched the sky to strike a blow to the solar-powered machines. Ironically, this decision meant that the earth’s surface became uninhabitable, and in a cruel twist of fate, human bodies become organic batteries, photosynthesising energy to fuel the machines we created. And just like with Gilead, the remaining humans create a new ‘heaven’ under the earth’s crust – Zion – to escape the horrors of the world they’ve poisoned.

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Perhaps it’s not so ironic that – regardless of the particulars of the dystopian world – in depictions of futuristic environments, it is humans who regress. As the world moves forward, we devolve and take on animalistic or primitive behaviours. We become batteries, scavengers, cannibals. Even when the horizon is dark, and the stretches of ‘nothingness’ reach on as far as the eye can see, we adapt with a kind of stubborn resilience. We build new technologies to survive however we can, and build emotional walls to stop the terrible truth from sinking in.

Composite Creatures is out today, and is available to purchase wherever books are sold. You can find out more about Caroline Hardaker and her work here.

In celebration of Composite Creatures’ launch, Angry Robots is hosted a free digital launch party at 7pm GMT/2pm ET.

The post How We Use Dystopian Landscapes to Tell Very Human Stories appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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getitinbusan · 4 years ago

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Jungkook's first love. Angst and smut, inspired by the song California.

It was the second month of not making rent and it was only a matter of time before your roommates would stop exchanging house cleaning duties for money.

Standing in the kitchen feeling stupid, It had taken you way longer than it should have to realize in LA you were nothing. Not pretty enough, rich enough, skinny enough or talented enough.

Gathering up the mail that was strewn across the countertop, you shuffled through to sort priority. Junk mail, bills, personal… one standing out in particular. The penmanship was nice, black ink, unassuming envelope, but it was the stamp that caught your attention, it was sent from Korea.

The top had already been torn, the letter having been read, was cradled back safely inside. Addressed to your roommate a frown crept onto your face, why wouldn’t he write to you?

It was a ridiculously hopeful notion but you widened the envelope and inhaled trying to find his fragrance, something, anything to trigger a happy memory. How many times had you borrowed his sweater just to have his smell on your skin? Cool California nights were the best excuse to wrap yourself in his scent.

You missed him, it had been a year and a half since he’d last come around.

It was too tempting to resist, your fingers pinched the paper inside of the envelope and pulled it free.

I’m feeling low, I don’t know who I am, only who I’m supposed to be.

What would life be like if I had stayed in California? We could all be roommates, hanging out and having fun, going to the beach on weekends.

Does she even think about me?

It sounds greedy that with how much I have right now, it’s not enough. I would give anything to wake up in bed beside her everyday. I want more than anything to be able to talk to her about these things but I can’t. I've made the mistake of trading her for fame and now I’m destined to keep her at an arm’s length so she’ll never know the price I paid.

How does she even see me now? Just an Idol? Has she forgotten the days we spent together?

I’ve been wrestling with myself, whoever that is. I wish I could be the teenage boy from that long ago summer again. I wrote this song thinking about it…

~When I see you smile in the screen

You’re good at everything

You’re just perfect

Feels like I've never been you

Do you even see me?

Do you know who I am?

Or how do I look now?

You don’t like me like that

I want to be your decalcomania~

I’m afraid I may not get back for a while, please write. Your friendship and thoughts of Y/N are the only things that are keeping me tethered to some semblance of reality.

Clutching the letter to your chest, your mind took you back to that day.

“Decalcomania, the art or process of transferring pictures and designs. Making a copy of the original on a different medium"

You’d both laughed at the strange name, reading the description of the art on the museum wall during your visit so long ago.

California had lured you into its promise when you turned 14. Having been accepted to an intensive dance program at The Movement Lifestyle Studio you packed up and headed West for the summer.

It was July and it was hot, the dancers stepping off the bus one at a time took their places in the studio.

Looking around there were so many older kids, you were probably one of the youngest. Calling out names they put you into groups, it appeared to be by age so you made your way to the tiny gathering of four.

Shy introductions were made as one more member was ushered over to where you had congregated. "This is Jungkook.”

He had the cutest smile and barely spoke english but his eyes twinkled like the constellations. Immediately drawn to each other you became fast friends.

Absolutely exhausted at the end of the first few days he’d knocked at your door.

He was homesick and lonely, used to being surrounded by his six members, he couldn’t sleep well without someone beside him. You let him crawl into bed with you, you were 14 and it was innocent.

Jungkook would send silly videos of his practice sessions, goofing around with the other members. He’d facetime and text but he always loved to send handwritten letters.

They lived in a box under your bed and contained stories of how hard he was working to become an idol. He always signed off with, "I miss you" and a few lines of lyrics he’d written.

You didn’t know then how important they would become, the only tangible piece of him you could still hold on to.

Whenever he came back to America you did everything you could to see him. You went to the small tour stops when they came through in 2015, KCon in 2016, but 2017 was different.

Facetiming you with the news that they were bringing the Wings tour to NY, Chicago and Anaheim, he asked if you’d be part of the dance crew. How could you turn down two weeks with Jungkook? They were getting bigger, more popular and their lives were changing rapidly.

Jungkook would sneak you into his hotel room so you could spend your nights catching up. He had strict rules. Girls were not allowed and even though it was just friendship, it could be easily misconstrued by the fans. Everything had to be done in secret. The boys would bring in food and cover for him while you both stayed locked away out of sight.

While happy to be with him, you could tell there was an underlying sadness he was holding on to.

“I wish I could go and explore the city with you like we used to,” his voice trailed off.

You were laying in each other’s arms cuddling on his bed. Leaning over he kissed the top of your head.

“All I really want is to take you on a proper date."

Your head moved on his chest as he inhaled deeply.

"I’ve been waiting so long to become someone, to become a man worthy of your affection. Now I’m stuck, I have everything and I’m not allowed to share it with you.”

His arms gripped you tighter, “I’m sorry, this is a terrible confession. I don’t expect you to love me back, not under these circumstances, I just need you to know, you’re the only girl I’ve ever loved and there won’t be anybody else, ever."

You remembered every word of his confession, every moment of that last night in the hotel room. The words of a 19 year old boy whose life had become bigger than the feelings of two people.

He left in the morning without knowing. You were too afraid to tell him, you loved him too.

LA became home right after the they left Anaheim. Focused on dancing, if you became good enough maybe you could join the tour with him.

A letter with a big bouquet of flowers arrived a few weeks later.

"Congratulations on your new house in LA!

I hope that all of you are getting along as roommates, it’s hard living with others sometimes.

Last night I dreamt that I was there with you and all our friends, we were having a party on the beach and we sat together and watched the sunset.

Remember after practice we would skateboard as fast as we could to the ocean so we wouldn’t miss the colors?

Maybe one day my toes can feel the sand there again.

I miss you, I miss me… the me I am when I get to be with you.

We are coming back in November for a few days and I’m hoping I can see you, I’m lonely already.

Jeongguk

~Won’t you please stay in dreams

I can hear the sea from far away

Across the dream, over the bush

Go there where it becomes clear

Take my hands now

You are the cause of my euphoria

When I’m with you, I’m in utopia~

When The AMAs came, all of your friends in LA were involved with the production. Your roommates helped organize the coup to steal Jungkook away so you could take him on a real date.

Having enlisted Namjoon to help, the boys would cover for his whereabouts. The day before the awards they were only scheduled for styling, as long as he wasn’t late for the press rounds the next afternoon your plan could work.

Sitting in the shiny red rented convertible you tossed him a pair of sunglasses. What you wouldn’t give now to see that smile again.

Barely giving him time to get in you’d sped away heading straight for In And Out Burger.

"Kookie, I hope you're ready for the best day of your life! We’re going to eat until we explode, drink and party at the beach and then, instead of returning you to your fancy 5 star hotel you’re staying the night in my crappy little house with a tiny uncomfortable bed!!”

He laughed, so pure and happy, thinking about it now made you sad. Was that the last time he got to be his true self, Jeongguk the man not Jungkook the personna?

Knowing you only had one day to give him everything, one day to show him you loved him, you tried to make the best of it.

Pulling up beside the tree on the beach he was stunned, “Ahhh Jagi, I can’t believe you brought me here.”

With the burgers done he turned to you and smiled. It felt like he wanted to say something, cutting him short you pulled him up and back towards the car.

Making your way to the Movement studio the students were starstruck when he walked in. After insisting that he teach some choreography, he reluctantly led the class.

Your eyes were glued to him as he moved in front of the mirrors, no longer that awkward teenager but a full grown man mesmerizing you with every move.

Getting back to the car he stopped you before you reached for the handle. Putting his arms around you he pulled you in close, “You stink Jungkook, I think our next stop is the ocean.”

You remember pulling away, how stupid you were, you should have held on to him longer. Reaching into the back seat you revealed a pair of swim shorts and a towel. He looked disappointed that you kept interrupting his attempts at intimacy, but you had a plan and limited time to execute it.

The Ocean was cold but the wind was warm, he came out of the change room with the shorts on but was still wearing his shirt.

“Kookie, this isn’t Korea, you don’t have to be so modest here. Plus, you should grab some sun, you may not believe it but when your skin is sunkissed… you look really good.”

He raised his eyebrows and quickly removed the shirt at your request.

Running into the water you splashed and played and he took great pleasure in picking you up and throwing you as far as he could.

The sun was getting ready to set and you wanted to dry off before the cooler air set in.

Leading him out of the water you both laid down on the towel. He put his arm around you under your neck and you cuddled into his side.

“My god Guk, look at your abs!”

He blushed like crazy as you traced the muscles on his stomach.

“Stop, it tickles,” he giggled.

Eating, drinking and catching up with everyone you watched each other from across the bonfire. Moving from person to person he slowly made his way back to your side.

“Welcome back,” running your hand through the back of his hair, it was now or never.

Pulling him closer your lips finally met in the way they were destined, soft, slow and full of love. His hands instinctively moved to cup your face as the world stopped around you.

“I love you,” you whispered.

Nose to nose he smiled at you and it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.

It didn’t last long, his phone started going off incessantly. The managers knew, you'd been careless, photos and videos of him from the studio had been posted online.

“I’m so sorry Jungkook, I didn’t mean for you to get in trouble.”

His eyes turned hungry as he grabbed your hand.

“Let’s get out of here, you promised I wouldn’t be going back to my hotel tonight.”

If he was going to get in trouble anyway, why stop now?

The drive back to your place was quiet, adrenaline and hormones flowing like electricity through you both. The time for smiling was over as the seriousness of the situation hung in the air.

It wasn’t just being in trouble or being caught, but the fact that you both knew what was going to happen when you stepped into your bedroom. One act that would change everything between you, holding the power to change the dynamic of your relationship forever.

Leading him to your room you closed the door and stood staring at him as he sat on your bed. He raked his fingers through his hair before he spoke, “I’ve never wanted anything more in my life than to be able to make love to you. BUT I also know that when I leave I’m not going to get to see you again for a very long time. Management is going to do everything to keep us apart and that won’t be fair to you. I think that maybe we should just let our happy memories of today be enough, I don’t want you to get hurt."

Walking closer you stood between his legs and he wrapped his arms around your waist.

"The only way I can be hurt is if I never get to experience all of you. I can’t live not knowing how it feels to be totally yours if only for the night.”

He rested his head against your chest, “You’ll always be mine.”

His hands traveled to the hem of your shirt and his fingers ran over the soft skin of your stomach. Undoing the button of your jeans he slowly slid them down your legs and you stepped out of them.

“I’ve never done this before,” he confessed.

“Me either,” you whispered, “So, I guess the bar's pretty low.”

His giggles cut the tension before he pulled you on top of him onto the bed. More relaxed he let his mouth start exploring your body. You were goosebumps and shivers beneath him as his tongue found it’s home between your legs.

“It feels good Kookie, please…”

He sighed as his mouth picked up speed and another finger slid in. Moving your hips to meet his mouth you were unravelling quickly.

“The way you taste is better than anything I had imagined.”

Devouring your clit in sessions between his words you came hard on his tongue.

“I made you so wet,” he said, impressed with himself.

Moving up to where your head lay on the pillow he pushed the dampened hair off your face, “Are you ok? Do you need anything?”

He placed his forehead against yours.

“Just you Kookie, I love you so much… I want you so badly.”

Moving slowly he lined himself up with your wet entrance.

“Tell me if you need me to stop okay?”

He pushed slowly and you could feel yourself stretching around him. He watched your face and froze when he saw the tear roll out of the corner of your eye.

“I’m so sorry, let’s stop, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He thumbed away the tear.

“No, baby… I’m okay… I’m just so happy, so overwhelmed with how much I’m feeling right now.”

He smiled down at you, pressing his body closer as he gave another push until he was fully inside. Your bodies fell into a beautifully choreographed rhythm until Jungkook was so lost in pleasure he began to move at his own pace. Quicker and deeper he moved until he finally spilled into the condom.

You kissed, and kissed, and kissed until you fell asleep wrapped around each other.

Every few hours he’d wake you up, checking to make sure it wasn’t a dream, you'd made love each time, everytime better than the last.

It was 9 am when he caressed you awake once more.

“I have to leave soon. I don’t want to,” he spoke nestled into your neck just under your ear, “Please tell me to stay.”

Your heart broke at his words, “If I ask you to stay, I’m selfish, you’ll always wonder if you made the right decision. If I tell you to go, your dreams come true… ” your voice trailed off...

“And I’ll always wonder if I made the right decision,” he finished.

Your phone started ringing and you knew time was up.

It was Joon, “I’m outside, sorry, I held them off as long as I could. I told them I’d come get him so you could at least have time to say goodbye.”

Your tears fell out in heavy ugly sobs, “Okay, five minutes… and Joon… thanks, I know you’re probably in trouble too.”

Hanging up you turned back, Jungkook was already out of bed with his clothes thrown on. He stood with open arms waiting,

"Thank you for yesterday.“

Laying your head against his chest you took a moment to listen to his heartbeat. You could hear him sniffle, and knew he was crying.

"We’ve got to go Jungkook.”

Stepping away you’d left his shirt soaked in tears, handing him his sweater he pushed it back towards you, “You keep it.”

He kissed you one last time and turned the handle opening it to reveal Namjoon. His Hyung put his arm around his shoulder and led him to the car.

Turning one more time his eyes were filled with tears and he gave a small wave before getting in the back of the big black sedan.

For months you pretended that management was the only thing keeping you apart.

You held onto your silly notions until May when they were coming for the Billboard awards. For weeks leading up you waited for a message, a secret meeting arrangement, but you got nothing. His image was all over the TV and his voice echoed through you empty heart and then he was gone again.

Now, here you stood in your kitchen, his letter bringing him to the forefront of your mind, opening old wounds.

He was just as sad as you but what could you do? Picking up a pen you began writing…

I shouldn’t have done it but I read it in your letter

You said to a friend that you wish you were doing better

I wanted to reach out but I never said a thing

You don’t ever have to be stronger than you really are

And honey, you don’t ever have to act cooler than you think you should

You’re brighter than the brightest stars

You’re scared to win, scared to lose

I’ve heard the war was over if you really choose

The one in and around you

You hate the heat, you got the blues

You’re changing like the weather, oh, that’s so like you

I’ll pick you up

I’ll catch you on the flipside

If you come back to California

We’ll do whatever you want, travel wherever, how far

We’ll hit up all the old places

We’ll have a party, we can dance till dawn…

Y/N

October came and a chill was in the air, the smell of winter hit your nose and you stopped to take it in.

Bundled in Jungkook’s hoodie you threw your bag over your shoulder and began your walk to work. Movement had hired you on for a new intensive program and today you were going to meet your students.

So many memories flooded your mind as you made your way through the familiar neighborhood. It still hurt but things were beginning to feel happy again. Writing the letter had given you closure, he knew how you felt and beyond that there was nothing else you could do.

Opening the heavy door to the studio you caught a familiar reflection moving in the mirror writing something on the glass, It couldn’t be?

Hearing the door click back into place he turned to face you,

“Hi.”

He walked towards you slowly, unsure of what your reaction would be, he approached with caution.

“Hi.”

You were breathless, in the months of not seeing him he’d grown more handsome.

“I can’t change what happened… and for the rest of my life I’ll be sorry for all of the time we missed.”

He was getting closer.

“But I can’t take another day not knowing if I can fix this… somehow…”

He reached for your hand but you pulled it away. His head fell in disappointment.

“Jungkook, I can’t listen to this… look at me.”

Reaching for his chin you pulled his head up until he was facing you again.

“I refuse to listen to you apologize for something that was out of your control. Your life was decided before you met me and I can only be grateful that I got to appear in some part of your story.”

He tilted his head and pressed a small kiss into the hand that was still holding his chin.

“God I’ve missed you” he said as he wrapped his arms tightly around your waist.

“How long are you here? I’ve got to teach class.. It’s my first day but I’d love it if we could catch up?”

He laughed at you and your knees buckled at the sound of his happiness.

Taking his chance he pressed his lips to yours and you could feel the smile forming on his face.

“I’m your private lesson Jagi, I’ve booked you for the next two weeks”

Taking a step back you had to ask, “How Jungkook? What will you be giving up?”

Pulling you back to his embrace he began to dance with you.

“There is no more giving up… on anything. Our contracts were over and I only had one thing I wouldn’t negotiate on…that’s you."

Holding you tightly he moved you to look at the mirror.

"I wrote you something”

Please call my name one more time

I’m standing under the frozen light,

but I’ll walk step by step towards you

Still with you

“Y/N, I promise I’ll never let you go again"

#jungkook #jungkook smut #kookie #guk #bts

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jackcliu · 4 years ago

Text

On tokens, markets, and a path to a real-time economy

Two years ago on March 1, 2019, I posted a Letter to my future self to the Bitcoin blockchain. This is the story of that letter, one where I didn’t write a word, and how two years later, the dream is still alive. There is an actual path with tokens and markets to make utopia a reality, and my case for what that might look like.   

About a month prior to March 1, 2019, I had privately begun telling my close friends, colleagues, and family that I was going to be making a significant career and life change and dedicate the next chapter of my career towards building exclusively for the Bitcoin SV blockchain. You can guess the confused looks and concerns people had about what it was I was doing. Did I lose my mind? To be fair, I still get those messages today. I knew what I had envisioned when I first read the white paper back in 2013 and somewhere along that journey, the crypto industry had taken a path that veered dramatically from the one I had imagined. With Bitcoin having course corrected twice already via hard forks, I wanted and needed a guiding compass - a North Star. That’s when I had the idea to write a letter to my future self.

I confided in one of my best friends, Jackie to help me write it. It was a busy month for me, my mind was all over the place and I needed help. Over two afternoons, I shared with Jackie what I wanted to say, what was the possible world that I imagined. To her I must have been repeating myself since she and many of my friends had heard this for a decade. The future would bring Proof of Work from a term to describe a computer science thing to one that would describe the workings of the entire global economy and drive a seismic shift in how value was created and how we humans would interact and cooperate with one another. I wanted her to include a thank you to some people who helped me along the way - titans of the industry whom I was fortunate to cross paths and work with. Jesse Powell, gave me my first job at Kraken. CZ hired me to OKCoin in 2014. Star believed in me and gave me so many growth opportunities. At Circle, I worked with my long time friend Dan, who would go on to create CMS. A few days later, Jackie sent me a draft. I was pretty shocked at first, thinking hey this doesn’t even say Bitcoin in it. Where are all the names I wanted to include. Then I read it another time and when she asked if I wanted any changes or if the approach was right, I said, “Let’s not change a single word”. It was different, it was exceptional, to me it was perfect. I sent the letter internally as part of my Circle resignation email, flew off to San Antonio with my parents to watch the retirement ceremony of my favourite basketball player Manu Ginobili, and then a month later on April Fools Day, RelayX was launched.

Having this Letter out there has served me well. Nobody could have expected the course of events of the past two years both within BitCoin, and the world at large. Politics, COVID-19, money-printing, delistings, court cases, you name it. Without it as an anchor, I might have lost sight of the bigger picture. If you would have asked me then what BitCoin would look like today, I would have predicted a 100x rosier picture than the current situation. Despite most of the boom in the cryptocurrency industry having not occurred on the Bitcoin SV blockchain, the rapid adoption of blockchain and digital currencies from NFTs to DeFi, to institutions putting BTC on the balance sheet shows the underlying movement is in full force. Just this week, I watched sharpshooter JJ Redick utter the words “non fungible token, and blockchain technology” on his podcast talking about NBA Topshot. That’s incredible.

In the letter are the words - “Your world will be frictionless and marked by truth, freedom and fairness. Your world will truly be one that is defined by human imagination and honest work.”

I am making the case for tokens as the critical solution to a real-time economy. I want to break the spell of the narrow definition of tokens that has bounded the Bitcoin SV ecosystem. For much of the past two years, there appears to be two camps in BSV when it comes to tokens. The dominant one being we want only regulated tokens, security tokens, tokens backed by real assets, with real utility, that real businesses and enterprises can use to make their businesses more efficient. The other, perhaps out of jealousy for what’s going on in other blockchains being let’s just port those Ethereum ERC20’s over and let it run wild for it might pump the BSV price! Funny thing is neither has happened as developers are busy debating whether tokens should be on layer 0 or layer 1 or layer 100 but that’s a topic for another day. Both views are myopic.   

Tokens are going to be a much bigger deal on BitCoin than anyone might imagine.   How many websites are there on the internet? I looked it up recently and the answer is 1.7Bn. How many token contracts are there on the Ethereum chain? The answer is 350,000.   

Websites are kind of hard to set up - you have to purchase a domain name, at least use a website template creator, and there isn’t that much use for getting one for the average person. Not when you can have an Instagram page, a Facebook account, a Twitter handle, a Medium blog without having your own site. Yet there are 1.7Bn of them! Ethereum tokens are prohibitively expensive mining fee wise to generate. Out of interest, I asked one of the devs who minted the original USDC contract during my days at Circle to find the transaction. It cost 0.44 ETH. At today’s prices that’s well over $500 to create a token. Yet there are 350,000 contracts!  

I would wager there will be over 100Bn unique tokens on BitCoin and I’d guess higher but I don’t want to be outside the bounds of the very Overton window I’m creating.

It takes a few seconds to issue a token on BitCoin and at current mining fees, less than a tenth of a cent to issue. If I’m a store owner, I might issue a different gift card a week for the various deals I have going on. If I’m an artist, a different NFT for each piece of artwork. Neither the store owner nor the artist needs more than one website and you start to see the math.

If reading this, you still think tokens are going to be contained to some narrow definition of ‘security’ tokens, or NASDAQ like tokens, or fiat currency tokens, realise it’s like saying the internet will only have The New York Times or CNN or some licensed officially approved site. It’s ok if not every account on Instagram is world class photography. Not every Twitter account is going to be insightful (that’s clear) and that’s ok. In a world of 100Bn unique tokens, You bet there’s going to be a great deal of useless ones and a pretty large number of scams. Just like there are websites that are phishing for your passwords, websites with illegal content, and websites with viruses in them. Over time, services emerged to protect you by blocking, or warning you about potentially dangerous websites.

What’s the bigger picture and what do tokens have to do with a real-time economy? I’ve made the case for there being a ton of tokens. Does that mean it’s just going to be a Coinmarketcap with a lot more pages? An exchange with a lot more trading pairs? No, a lot more exciting than that.

A world with 100Bn tokens means every single asset, service, good, company, project, video, post and many more abstract things than one can imagine is going to have a dynamic, live price. It’s not about the tokens, it’s about the markets. Today, you visit a restaurant and you check Yelp to see if has a good review. BSV entrepreneurs are making some new review site but with reviews posted on the blockchain thinking this is the problem that needs solving. “Immutable reviews”. Much more valuable than a review or immutable review however is if this particular restaurant’s loyalty token is trading at a premium to the other one next door. There’s actually money on the line. Then after eating, instead of being a foodie with a blog and an Instagram to hype up such restaurant, if you’ve got that talent for knowing what’s going to be the next hot restaurant, you can just buy on the open market more of the restaurant’s tokens. Yes, a local foodie just became an crypto trader. Now you profit when you promote the restaurant on your blog. The chef who started that restaurant instead of using Groupon to attract an initial set of customers who have no loyalty to you, can instead issue 10,000 tokens, where each dish costs 100 tokens. Pretty soon if your food is delicious, those token prices are going to jump. Think Global, Live Local is not just going to do good, it’s going to now make you rich.  

 I grew up in a lower middle class first generation immigrant family. I remember being a teenager in those years where oil prices were very volatile as the world approached the idea of “Peak Oil”. We would sometimes drive by a gas station one day where prices were a few cents cheaper than the day before, and even though the tank was half full, we filled up. Other days, the warning light would be on, but we held off for another day to fill up the tank in hopes prices would come down. Is this speculation on oil prices bad? Another fun memory I had was going grocery shopping with my folks and my favourite cookies were the Chip Ahoy Crunchy chocolate. Eating those with milk is probably half the reason for my height. Once in a while they would be on sale but next to them were the No-Name brand versions of the same cookies. Chip Ahoys were definitely better but were they $2/100grams better? No. We would calculate every time to decide which we would buy. Is this speculation on cookie price bad? How come other goods and services in the economy didn’t fluctuate in price? That’s what’s always fascinated me. I knew they would if they could. With Bitcoin, it was possible.

Tokens on Bitcoin with the perpetual scaling design of Bitcoin where it isn’t the holder that’s rewarded (Proof of Stake) but rather those contributing to scaling the network (Proof of Work) will lead to the formation of markets where markets were too inefficient to exist - unlocking trillions of value in the process.   

A fully tokenised economy makes everything efficient, fair, honest, and real-time. I don’t mean efficient like fast transactions or cheap mining fees. It’s the economy that will be efficient. You won’t need to be a big grocery chain or a big oil company or big tech company with financial analysts, and big data and machine learning folks in order to know what to set the price of a Chips Ahoy or a Gallon of oil or surge pricing on a taxi ride. It’ll be orders of magnitudes better than that and for every person on earth because it’s all going to be open, issuable, transferable, tradeable. You won’t be checking page 978,950 of Coinmarketcap. You won’t be scrolling to AHOY/USDT on an exchange. I predict all of this will happen without you realising that it did and all our lives will improve as a result.

For those who immediately think of the regulatory ramifications of this, I’ve thought the same. In 2015, while leading OKCoin, I led our initiative to become the first international benefactors of Coin Center - the industry body working with regulators and governments. I am a minority seed round investor in Chainalysis which looks for criminal activity onchain. I look forward to working with all those who would like to embrace innovation while having an eye on ensuring an orderly, legal transition to this future.

I could not be more excited to support the emerging token projects on BitCoin, through building products, investment, advice, or even in spirit.   Bitcoin is plumbing - just plumbing where billions of trades and speculation down to the satoshi will be happening every second.

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aleatoryalarmalligator · 7 years ago

Text

Life Story Part 91

My mother decided to move out of Wes's. She ended up getting in some kind of fight with him right before he had got sick in the hospital. There wasn't enough room for us four to live in that basement and she was suffering financially after a combined thievery from my sister and niece and from the fact that when Wes went to the hospital, she was temporarily out of work until he came him. This time though, he was really sick. It didn't look like he would be coming back. He wouldn't stop eating food that was bad for him. When my mother prepared him healthy dishes he would eat them, and then pay people to bring him sugary snacks that he couldn't eat anymore. He had lost his second leg. And every time he caught a cold or a flu it came close to killing him if he didn't go to the hospital. So the facts of the matter were that taking care of Wes was going to prove a very unstable income for my mother and there just wasn't enough space for all of us.

After the fight, I had just gotten home from learning Zack had feelings for Sarah. My mother came down the steps and had started screaming and throwing things at me. I remember I feeling awful. I wasn't angry at her. My heart was confused. It didn't help to have small items and articles of clothing being tossed at me. I couldn't even hear what it was she was yelling about, and I didn't care. Zack's affections were for Sarah. And of course they were. Sarah was beautiful, charming, she was hilarious and had an accommodating personality. If Sarah had been born a snaggled tooth she still would have reeled people in with the sheer brilliance of her personality. For some reason Sarah was trying to fog my vision. Perhaps she didn't want to hurt me. In any case, I was hurt. I waited seven years, so I reasoned. Seven years. Even when I had moved on, my heart still must have carried inside of it, some fragment of my love for him. And then he had come back to me, and I had been so certain that my life had made sense again – even though it wasn't making any sense it all. Where would this all lead?

When I absently didn't respond to my mother's fury, she took note and stopped throwing things at me. I distantly told her that Zack didn't love me, flatly. For what it's worth coming from my mother of all people, she felt as badly as she was capable of feeling. She didn't understand what it felt like of course – she had never really been in love, but she knew I had told her was something of that was pretty big for me. I had to swallow my pride I guess. Life wasn't going to stop just because I felt badly. Sometimes continuing to try felt dizzying and it was hard to see to what means I was doing anything. It was coming to the periphery of my realization that I was on my own. Sarah said she was with me, but how could she really be with me? She was no longer really listening to me. Even though she showed no indication of it, I knew we weren't making a connection. I couldn't really be mad at her though. She had spent the last two years trying to make me a functioning cog in society so that I could climb out of the hole that was my family.

Some part of me was going limp. Twenty pounds had fallen off my that month due to stress. My clothes were fitting better. I had moments where I looked in the mirror and it please me that I was getting so much thinner. But if someone had given me a way to escape my own brain I would have taken it without thought. I felt emotionally drained.

Wes was in the hospital, which was a short walk away from the house. My mom told us that Wes would be cheered up if we went to the hospital to say hello. It was a beautiful day outside, so David and I got our shoes on and headed up to the hospital. When we got there – Wes was asleep. He was too ill and tired to receive guests, so we turned around and decided to walk back home. As I was walking, suddenly I felt this achy feeling in my chest. At this point, feelings of this nature were commonplace with me. I was constantly hurting in some form or another. This was who I was now, and I was trying to adjust to being sad and happy and feeling crazy all the time without bothering everyone around me with it.

Sarah had given me a friendship ring that winter. She had bought it for me before I had gone up to visit my grandma and I was feeling like giving up, as a reminder to stay strong and remember there was something worth not giving up for. It reminded me of Sarah. It meant a lot to me, and I wore it everyday. It was made of thick plastic, it probably came from a venting machine or from the front counter of a trinket store. It fit well – it wasn't hard for me to slide on and off. As I was walking down the road, feeling the strange ache in my chest, I suddenly felt this weird burst around my ring. I looked down and it had shattered. The plastic had shattered into six pieces. David and I looked at the wreckage of my friendship ring with confusion. At first all I could try to make out was that something must have hit it or there must have been some kind of extreme pressure that made the ring break. But none of that had been the case. I had been walking down the road and the ring had just burst.

I didn't want to be superstitious, or to assume anything about it. It was so weird though. I couldn't help but connect it to the dream I had had where Sarah and I were disconnected. I wrote Sarah and told her about it. It was not lost to her that this seemed connected to what I had told her of my dream. She was coming into town that next day – and she told me she was going to stop at a store and buy another one. There was no way she was going to let some supernatural force break our friendship rings. She would bring Zack with her.

I waited the next day that morning for Zack and Sarah to show up. I was always so happy to see them, and some melancholy feeling of dread took over at the same time that was mysteriously repelled. I couldn't figure it out, but I didn't have much choice in the matter. Maybe it was the knowing that Zack was interested in Sarah and not me. Maybe it was garden variety jealousy and I was just making it into something far more profound then it actually was. Their car showed up and I walked out onto the porch. It was beautiful outside. As Sarah and Zack got out of the truck, something hit me. I couldn't explain it. Neither one of them had said or done anything directly strange. And yet there was something about the way they had gotten out of the truck that spoke a thousand words. Both of them were wearing sunglasses bought from Claire's. Zack had rainbow sunglasses on. He was looking pretty cool. Sarah had bought herself a pair of heart sunglasses. Something had struck me as strange about their mannerisms, or their appearances. Something about the very minute details of their exit from the vehicle told a story I didn't know I wanted to hear.

Sarah had to go to work. It would be one of those days that Zack drove me around. We drove out of town. We listened to one of Johnny Cash's 'American Recording' records. Then we were silent. Zack started talking about the normal stuff – the phoenix, the fact that we were family. Some God stuff that I drowned out. At this point I knew that talking about Sarah was going to be an inevitable part of our discussions. He was obsessed with her. There was a neediness in his obsession I didn't care for. The idea that Sarah could cure him of drugs the way a holy man could cure someone of leprosy or blindness wasn't something I could be obliged to believe. Plus, I knew Sarah. She was definitely not holy. She'd been a great friend and she was a good person and all that. But she wasn't capable of really understanding the depths of addiction. She didn't really understand my weight loss and all the struggle that had been for me – so I knew she wasn't going to grasp Zack's addiction to methamphetamines. I wanted to argue this point, but I didn't.

In any case, he started talking to me in this cryptic way about all sorts of stuff. We were on the outskirts of some small town with maybe one hundred people living in it. He started talking about how – him, me, Sarah, his sister Whitney and his stepbrother Josh – who had dated Whitney off an on for several years now before and after their parents decided to date and marry (more explanations on that later), where all going to live in a house together and it was going to be essentially utopia. This was the first time I had heard some specific goal like this. I didn't even know what to say. Obviously Zack didn't understand what it meant to pay bills. I wondered if this had been his plan all along. Where was this idea stemming from? I told him I didn't believe him and I laughed it off. But he had a dead certainty in his eye.

He then started talking about Sarah. I had anticipated this. It felt like getting hit with a hammer when he talked about her to me. There is something about listening to somebody you are infatuated with talk lovingly about your best friend with you in this way. I felt ugly and awkward and belittled – but at the same time I didn't have the right to tell him to stop. Nobody owed me anything. He was doing nothing wrong. But then he started talking about how him and Sarah were already together. I looked at him confused. They weren't together! What was going on here? My first thought was that Zack was crazy. The second thought I had was that Sarah didn't feel that way towards Zack, and third, she had a boyfriend, and fourth, even if she did have feelings for Zack, she would never act out on them because a. I was her best friend and she knew doing something like that would destroy me, and b. Zack was a meth addict.

But here Zack was, telling me anyway. I began to panic in silence. I slouched in the passenger seat. I frowned with frustration. I put my head in my hands. A little voice that lived in my thoughts took hold – the one that I thought I should ignore since I thought that being suspicious would make me seem crazy. I started going over every action and indirect action said and implied in every moment with Sarah and Zack since his arrival. Individually each piece fit together to make what Zack was saying true. It would make sense with what I had picked up off of Sarah. It all made horrible sense when I thought of all the times I just thought I was sensing something but couldn't put a name to it, and yet when I thought of it in terms of one lump reality, the whole thing seemed profoundly unlikely. There were so many safeguards I thought, that would prevent something like this from ever becoming a thing. It was the same baffled horror I felt when Donald Trump would be elected six years later.

Zack was still talking about it all. Against my strong need to be composed, I was beginning to curl up into a ball in the passenger seat. Zack's eyes glowed indifferently as he continued to drive and dreamily clarify cryptically, how it all was going to be now from here on in – for him, me, Sarah. He didn't just stop at telling me about him and Sarah – he started talking about me as well. He had plans for me – so I had nothing to worry about. I couldn't talk anymore. I was afraid if I started I would just begin to scream or laugh or cry. I didn't want to fly into hysterics. Maybe Zack was telling the truth – and Sarah and him were a couple. Sarah had kept it from me, but now Zack had been sent to tell me all about it because Sarah was too cowardly to look me in the eye and tell me herself.

Zack told me that my place was to serve him and Sarah. I had no other purpose outside of him and Sarah. My old life was over. My sole purpose was to be there for them. He told me that everything I had fought for and believed in up to this point in my life had been to get to this point so that Sarah and him could be together and now that it had happened my role was to essentially be their servant, pet, maid. My individuality was nothing. Zack and Sarah had decided this for me. Was I not excited? Why was I crying? Why was I not happy for him and Sarah? Didn't I love them both?

It was awkward to be crying in the passenger seat, holding my head, slouching and half dead. I didn't care. I wasn't crying because I was losing Zack. At this point, I had to face the reality that I just couldn't care about ninety percent of whatever it was he was saying. It was Sarah. Sarah had been my true friend. She was one of the only people I had ever trusted, and the only person I had trusted when I had woke up that morning. I could never even have imagined any of this happening. She was the last person I ever would have suspected. She knew everything about me. I thought she respected me. She had helped me grow as a person for those years. I had been so open with her – I had been vulnerable. And she had stepped on me to get to Zack – if what Zack was saying was true. She hadn't even really waited. If what Zack was saying was true, she either intended on a. going along with exactly what Zack wanted, or b. she was willing to lose me as a friend in order to keep him. It had only been three or four weeks since Zack had even shown up. She had passively shut me down every time I felt weird about something. She had promised me, desperately to trust her. And why??

So everything I had been relying on, everything I had been standing on was a lie. I had nobody. I was nobody. I felt like I was dying. Zack didn't get why I was upset. He told me he knew that I had feelings for him, that Sarah had told him. I felt betrayed by this as well, violated in fact – and the believability of this whole ugly mess was starting to sink in. I had no dignity left to even pretend anymore. Sarah had told Zack everything. She told him about my feelings for him. She had likely seen it as a romantic hurdle that was preventing them from being able to truly be together, not as very real feelings I was having. I was dehumanized. And every time in the last several years where she had supported me and tried to debunk any self loathing I had been feeling or doubts – every time she had gone above and beyond to make me feel like I had value, it had all been one big lie. It was humiliating. I couldn't believe I had allowed myself to trust someone so openly.

Then Zack started to tell me that I should have suspected this. He explained that in high school Sarah and him had been super close. About how he had written her letters and sang to her. This was false! It was me! Zack and Sarah didn't talk much in high school. Zack and I had been the ones who were close. I felt strangled with fury and frustration. He could take my identity from me, my self worth, my friendship – but now the past was being altered. And Sarah knew he was intentionally or unintentionally misremembering how this had all started seven years ago. Those had been my years. Zack had written those letters to me. He had sang in my ear. It had been me! And she had gone along with it when he talked to her about it – she had knowingly pretended that it wasn't me that had all happened to. She knew perfectly well the truth. I remembered on the phone, going long back to the dim age of fifteen when I had asked Sarah if she would take my place with Zack if she could – and all the things he said to me had been to her instead. She had said yes. She had said yes. I couldn't believe it. I never forgot that moment, but seven years on and I thought we were done with that. Had this been the plan all along – all the way since high school? Who knew that this would be playing itself out in reality seven years later. As hideous as it all was, it felt poetically to absurd for what little things we had said and done in school to be mangling our adult lives.

There were so many ugly new realities coming to light at once while I sat there. I continued to slouch in a ball and hold my face. Zack wouldn't stop talking. I wanted to ask him specific detailed questions, but I also wished he would just shut the fuck up. He wasn't overly concerned with my emotional state. He was mostly excited to talk about his views. I tried to tell Zack that it was me that he wrote letters to, but he dismissed what I was saying. And why not? Him and Sarah both had me pegged as their child-servant. I wasn't to be taken seriously. Then Zack started saying something that hit me with disgust. It's probably the grossest thing anyone has ever seriously said to me, and for what it's worth, in that moment, fifty percent of the love I had for Zack mysteriously dissolved in me. I felt like shit, but never again would I take him seriously. He had gone too far.

What he said to me was something along the lines of the idea he had in his mind that my father and I were soulmates and should be together. It was disgusting. I mean, it was too absurd to even take seriously, which only somehow made it more gross – because Zack meant it. I had thought Zack was my friend. It would have been laughable, if only I hadn't taken Zack so seriously up to that point. It wasn't even in consideration of my father and me that I felt foul about what he had said. A statement like that is laughable at best in the context of a joke. Zack wasn't making some Freudian observation. He was honestly idealizing some disastrously sick scenario where my father and I got married and Sarah and him got married – like on the same day or something. I think it goes without saying that my father would both have laughed and called Zack a sick fuck. What grossed me out about it was just how sick Zack had to be for that even to cross his mind. Did he understand anything? Like, did he get that my father was a parent and I was a child? Or that incest is messed up? What part of life was he missing to think that saying something of that nature was acceptable. Sarah's betrayal aside – the whole heartbroken part of it, even Zack's drug addiction laid to the wayside as well as my leftover feelings, the idea that Sarah would give so much up for an idiot who would think that the solution to my life was that I get romantic with my own dad made me feel more than anything, a deep seated embarrassment for even knowing who Zack was at all, and an even deeper seated embarrassment on Sarah's behalf. Because she was the one now who had really given herself over. I had been timidly trying to accept what Zack had put on the table these last weeks – trying to find the right way to take it all in before I decided to sell out entirely, but Sarah had been lunging into her wallet and throwing down big money before she even knew what it was she was buying. We had both been foolish for sure, but Sarah was by far the biggest idiot. Even while I felt hurt and broken, I could see that now immediately.

It was hard to believe that Sarah could actually be a bigger idiot than me. My misgivings had made some sense all along. There was some relief to know that at least one part of me hadn't been crazy after all. I had just been confused because I had assumed Sarah would have been reacting differently to our circumstances. But where I was sensing where this was heading even when I wasn't cognitively able to comprehend it all, Sarah was totally blind. And it was here where I started to see Sarah a little differently. Sarah wasn't all she was cracked up to be. I had underestimated myself and overestimated her capacity to see that deeply. Yes, she was charming, quick witted and despite all the horrors at hand, could be selfless (it was hard to recall those times now that I knew what I was dealing with). But she couldn't see Zack for what he was. The messed up thing about me was that I had seen Zack for what he was and I hadn't flinched like I should have. Maybe my emotional pain tolerance was high. Maybe there were things about Zack's less than stellar character that I was amused by and intrigued by. Even through the psychological issues I had been having, I must have enjoyed the self awareness and duplicity of my circumstances. In any case, in three weeks time I was seeing Zack somewhat clearly – which doesn't bode well for my psychological well being but I wasn't fooling myself either. To a degree I had even come to face that Zack was not the boy I had been in love with in high school. It wasn't a pleasant reality, but I had faced it. The biggest embarrassment would be trying to explain myself. I knew my reasons and my feelings. I knew myself well enough to know that if Sarah and my roles were reversed, I wouldn't have sold Sarah out like she had done me.

But with Sarah, she saw Zack as someone else entirely. She thought herself invisible. She thought she could fix Zack overnight. She believed what Zack told her at face value. If he said something she didn't like, she pretended she hadn't heard it. She was living in denial. When my feelings conflicted with her feelings she had decided to dismiss me even – her very best friend – as I had become an inconvenience to her. There was something embarrassingly weak about all of that. Desperate, ugly, and stupid. She didn't even try to sort through the conflict or come to any sort of conclusion or acceptance. She ran from herself in fear and when something didn't go her way she denied all of it. And when reality didn't pan out the way she wanted it to, when she had run from any and all sense of responsibility for her lack of responsibility she would rather cut herself loose than admit she had done anything wrong. Even in admitting she had done something wrong, it felt more like a second rate infomercial performance version of a real apology – something she knew would look good if she did so she could get it over with. She couldn't actually be vulnerable with herself to even process any of it enough to give a convincing or meaningful understanding apology. She had no realization of her own self. It didn't come from the heart. Sarah might have been prettier than me, funnier, more functional in society – a lot of good can be said of Sarah that could not be said of me. But there was something really fucked up about that lack of genuine self curiosity, something messed up about someone who would stab their best friend in the back and not even admit to themselves that they did it, and I wondered how far that personality flaw of hers would drag her down.

I was still crying by the time we got to the Zany's parking lot. The sun had set, but there was an ominous red and orange hue in the horizon that faded into the black of the sky beyond the mall parking lot and the Lewiston hills in the distance. I was shaking all over. I had never felt this way before, even with all the weird feelings I had grown accustomed to. Everything about my body was pained. There was a need to self destruct, but there was also something liberating in my spirit. I am sure I looked a mess, and I didn't even care if Zack saw me like this at all. I was done with him. I had feelings for him still, but I realized something about love in that moment. I didn't love Zack. It had been something. It had been intense. It had brought out the realization that I hadn't entirely gotten over him. But love? It wasn't love. Maybe I had never been truly in love before. I wasn't connecting with Zack at all. At times I had even felt repelled by him but didn't know how to comprehend it. Zack sure as hell didn't love me. I doubted he loved Sarah. This whole thing was selfish and stupid – on everyone's part. I wanted out. If Sarah actually loved Zack, I honestly felt sorry for her. That must suck.

It seemed like such a sick joke all playing itself out the way it had. I had romanticized the idea of Zack for years. I literally had a pile of poetry and handwritten confessions about him sitting in a box in my closet. And it all meant nothing. I had been in love with a ghost. I would have been better off falling in love with a physical object. Zack didn't care about me. If he had cared about me in high school then why didn't he seek me out? And if I had loved him so much, why had I been too afraid to find him? Clearly I hadn't love him enough to step out of my comfort zone. Real love requires that – without question. I had been uncomfortable most certainly, but that didn't mean that I had been drawn out of my comfort zone. There was a distinct difference. I had confused nostalgia for love. It was a terrible mistake, and I vowed never to do that again.

We waited for Sarah to get out of Zany's in the car. She eventually scuffled out of the building as some other workers locked the door behind her. She looked at the car and then down. She didn't want to look at me. She knew what she had done, and was going to continue on doing. I didn't know how I felt looking at her either honestly. I hadn't even processed enough to be angry. My thoughts and feelings were shambolic. I wished desperately that I could be a new person. This life wasn't going well so far. I thought very seriously about leaving. I didn't have what it took I knew but leaving at this point was the only thing that made any sense. Leaving Allison behind would be the hardest, but who's to say I couldn't find her later and bring her with me? Realistically though – it couldn't happen for me. I didn't have the social skills, the knowledge, and probably most importantly the money or the job experience to just get on a bus and leave to a new city. I thought momentarily about leaving for Spokane – staying a year there and then moving onto Seattle, somewhere new. But unfortunately, it was and forever more would be just a dream at this point. I couldn't escape this life. I couldn't escape the skin I was in. If I ran my family would try and find me. It was also in this moment that it became more clear to me the social and emotional implications of having money. If I were rich, I could have gotten through this already. With enough money, theoretically I could escape. I could get the help I needed. I would never have to look at Sarah blank guilty defeated stare or Zack's ugly mug ever again if I didn't want to. But realistically, as much as I didn't want to admit it, Sarah was still the best option I had of getting 'out'. Whatever 'out' even meant anymore. It seems like even when you fought and fought you were still in it.

Zack jumped out of the car to meet Sarah as she was approaching her car. They talked in the parking lot by where he had parked his car, as I stayed in Sarah's car. She and Zack held each other closely. They were having the 'serious' talk about what to do with me. Zack had been instructed to deal with me I guess, to tell me all that he had. Sarah had been too afraid to do it herself. She didn't want to deal with me anymore. She wanted to deal with me through Zack. She wanted to see the version of me that Zack saw, the one that was their back seat bitch or whatever. I knew we would be talking about it soon though. I would be getting in the car with Sarah. Zack was going back to Kendrick in his car. At this point I didn't even know what I was doing. Did it even matter? Sarah and Zack lingered outside for twenty lousy minutes with what can only be describes as self-important cooings towards one another. I sat there silently looking at them, trying not to look at them but at the same time letting myself see the dynamics for what they were.

Eventually Sarah got in the car. I ended up exploding in tears. I had held a lot back for the few hours it had taken for Zack to explain the situation to me. Sarah I could tell felt really bad. I couldn't process that Sarah had betrayed me, what with her being so sympathetic. It was sympathy I should have rejected. If this happened to me I would have ghosted her and Zack both. It was the weak kind of sympathy that wouldn't do me any good. I couldn't reject her though. I was in shock and I wasn't strong enough. As bad as this all was, I reasoned that she was still better for me than my parents. She meant me more well than my father -surely I thought that had to be the case. I couldn't accept she had done this to me. I began to go over the ways it might have been my fault. I had been too needy too emotional. I took and took and there wasn't a lot I could give. I was a bad friend. I had been an emotional disaster all winter. I couldn't even get through a job interview I was so pathetic. I was nothing but a big useless baby. I didn't deserve to be mad at her. If anything she deserved to be mad at me. I reasoned that she had every right to take Zack away from me. He was never mine to begin with. Zack had told me in the car several times, whatever was mine was now his. Maybe he was right. Maybe Sarah deserved to take whatever she wanted from me. Maybe if I gave her more then this whole ugly thing would stop.

Sarah took in my sobbing and my babbling about who deserved what. She was reaching for some excuse for her actions, any excuse really. I think she was tempted to buy in with the idea that I owed her – if it shone a redeeming light on her in some way. She seemed lost. I asked her how it had all happened.

She explained to me in as much clarity as possible. The second Zack had looked at her when he went up the steps, she had immediately become infatuated with him. She denied it at first, thinking she could control her own emotions, mine, and his. She realized this spelled the sudden death of whatever fragment of a relationship she still had left with Alex. There was nothing left between them. All of this she was going to ignore however, until the day that I had the dream about our friendship. She was constantly stressed out about me. That was very sincere. She wanted nothing more than for me to get a job and get the hell away from my family. It had been front and foremost on her thoughts. She had found Zack and wanted to talk to him about her stress. I imagine she felt lonely in a sense. Sure she had me, but who could she rely on when she was feeling lost?

Zack had comforted her, and patted her on the back. He told her 'everything's gonna be fine'. And I guess she had so readily needed some kind of affirmation – some basic comforting, that she suddenly had decided she would give everything up in her life to be with him. He told her then that he had feelings for her, and that he felt 'their hearts were tied'. Sarah and him agreed to date, just as soon as she formally broke up with Alex and told him the truth – which she then did, and they could figure out that pesky inconvenient little fact that I had feelings for Zack and jumping into this relationship like she had wanted to would be a betrayal of our friendship, which I guess then transformed me into some kind of snag in her unstable need to rush into a new relationship just as soon as she could. And I guess from there they decided to turn me into the family dog to discredit my entire reality. And now apparently, I owed everything to them. The logic wasn't sound – but it was the logic of the group. It was the page we had all turned to.

I went to Sarah's house that night. I cried myself to sleep on the living room floor. I woke up feeling weird. On one hand, I felt a great and odd sense of relief. Zack was no longer my problem. I hadn't been able to admit it to myself, but the prospects of feeling like Zack was my keep, that his addiction issues and his behavior were somehow something that I needed to work with or tie myself with were over. Sure, I guess in his mind I was still the little slave person to him and Sarah or whatever, but I felt that to me he had dismissed me from ever getting or feeling entitled to be close to any of that if I didn't want to be. I didn't feel like there was anything I had to honor. It was all Sarah's problem. Secondly, at least I knew now. At least I hadn't been half as crazy as I thought I had been. The feelings and thoughts I had had were grounded in something. I felt all kinds of terrible, but I wasn't making things up. I was just extremely sensitive. Third, even though I felt like a lot of things had run their coarse – there had been a loss of innocence with me in this situation, I now felt more compelled then ever to better myself. Whatever this thing was that I was feeling, these conflicted feelings of anger, hurt, bittersweet happiness, remorse, a loss of friendship, emotional alienation and distance, skepticism, misunderstanding and mistrust and now a growing sense of wisdom, I now knew I could grow from it all. I could make lemonade if I had to. I survived. I felt released from a spell. For the first time in my young life, I could finally really let go of everything and everyone around me and simply be. There was nobody in my way from being out in the world. I could experience it all without having to carry anything on my shoulders.

My Life Story in Chapters, PARTS 1-80 (this link below will lead you to a list of all the chapters i have written thus far).

http://aleatoryalarmalligator.tumblr.com/post/168782771574/life-story-sections-1-90

#text #Life story #long text #writing

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iwannabeawriter1996 · 4 years ago

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Thanks for tagging me @eowima!! This was a lot fun! 💙 you 😘

1. What is the color of your hairbrush?

I don’t think i even own a hairbrush?

2. Name a food you never eat

Cheese. i hate cheese. As Emperor Kuzko said, ‘Cheese, me no likey.’

3. Are you typically too warm or too cold?

Typically, i’m too cold. But i’m in Australia and we’re going into summer right and damn, it’s so hot right now.

4.What were you doing 45 minutes ago?

Drinking a beer

5. Whats your favorite candy bar?

Mmmm.... Milky Way, i think.

6.Have you ever been to a professional sports event?

Yes a few times I've been to Football (rugby) and Basketball games with my dad and my sisters.

7. What is the last thing you said out loud?

‘Good fucking luck, you fucking pricks.’

8. What is your favourite ice cream?

Chocolate 😋 😋

9. What is the last thing you had to drink?

Orange Juice

10. Do you like your wallet?

I do, it’s a Ripcurl wallet my sister bought me for my birthday a few years ago but I think I need to get a new one soon. It’s a bit old and worn :)

11. What is the last thing you ate?

Chicken & Gracy sandwich, it was a nice lunch.

12. Did you buy any new clothes last weekend?

Do shoes count? If so, than yes.

13. What’s the last sporting event you watched?

Rugby League’s State of Origin, NSW vs QLD

14. What is your favourite flavour of popcorn?

I don’t eat popcorn very often but when I was a kid there was this popcorn shop in my hometown, I forget what it was called but they had this popcorn called ‘creamy creamy caramel’. It was the best popcorn ever but since that shop shut down, I haven’t been able to find any as good.

15. Who is the last person you sent a text msg too?

My mum

16. Ever been camping?

Yes, I was actually camping my way on a trip around Australia before Covid-19 hit and screwed it all up 🤬. But I love camping, it’s awesome.

17. Do you take Vitamins?

18. Do you regularly attend a place of worship?

No, I’m a proud Agnostic Athiest. Meaning, basically, I don’t know if there is a God, so I don’t see the point in pretending I do.

19. Do you have a tan?

Yeah, I’d say I do....

20. Do you prefer Chinese food or pizza?

Pizza! Personally, I’m not a big fan of Chinese food.

21. Do you drink Soda through a straw?

Sometimes

22. What colour socks do you usually wear?

Mostly white

23. Do you ever drive above the speed limit?

I try very hard not to but sometimes i speed without noticing and slow down when I do.

24. What terrifies you?

That Freedom of Speech is under attack in the stupid SJW controlled academia and these stupid people constantly demanding ‘equality of outcome’ instead of ‘equality of opportunity’ is going to lead us back down the path of the Soviet Union & Mao’s China, which killed over a 100 million people in the pursuit of an equal Utopia where no-one was ever offended or privileged over another person. The ignorance of the modern day world shocks me.

25. Look to your left, what do you see?

An empty table, out the back of my house.

26. What chore do you hate the most?

The never ending chore of laundry.

27. What do you think, when you hear an Australian accent?

Since I’m Australian, I don’t think much of it. When I compare it to other accents, I think, ‘is that my voice?’ 😂

28. What’s your favourite Soda?

Coca-Cola

29. Do you go in a fast food place or go through drive through?

Ahhh..... both, don’t really have a preference.

30. What’s your favourite number?

31. Who’s the last person you talked too?

My sister

32. Favourite meal?

Perfectly cooked steak 😋

33. Last song you listened to?

Love on Display by Guy Sebastian

34. Last book you read?

Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky

35. Favourite day of the week?

Sunday, it’s the only day I get off work 😩

36. Can you spell the alphabet backwards?

Probably, if I tried hard enough

37. How do you like your coffee?

I don’t drink coffee.

38. Favourite pair of shoes?

My red, white and blue Nike Air-Max’s ;)

39. Time you normally get up?

6:30 Monday to Friday but I work all night on Friday and Saturday, so probably around 10:00am usually on Saturday and Sunday, depending how late I work.

40. Do you prefer sunrise or sunset?

Probably sunset, I don’t know to be honest 🤔

41. How many blankets on your bed?

Atm just one, which I’m kicking off during the night, because we just started summer here in Australia and it’s so hot 🥵

42. Describe your kitchen plates?

Boring, round, white & gold

43. Desribe your kitchen atm?

Messy, I’ll do the dishes tomorrow

44. Do you have a favourite alcoholic drink?

I’m Australian, I love my beer 🍺 but I also love bourbon, particularly‘Gentleman Jack’.

45. Do you play cards?

I have played cards but not very often.

46. What color is your car?

Atm I don’t own one

47. Do you know how to change a tyre?

Sure do, I do it a lot at my work

48. Favourite state or province?

Oh there’s too many to choose from. I’d love to visit London, Paris..... I want to travel all through Europe :)

49. Favourite job you’ve had?

Probably the one I have now, I fabricate a lot of interesting things and I’ve learned a lot of new skills.

Tagging: @you-guys--are-losers & @victor-physikorov if you’d want to :)

#tag games #long post #ask games #lot of fun

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hermosilla-ignacio95 · 4 years ago

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03 - 09 - 2020 There's a hidden epidemic of racism in UK schools – but it's finally coming to light

the two biggest stories this year are coronavirus and Black Lives Matter, and one of the places they meet is on a cul-de-sac in Romford, Essex, silent on a weekday afternoon apart from the thrum of lawnmowers. Inside one of those tidy houses lives Intisar Chowdhury, with his wide grin and big glasses and life story that you partly know.

He’s the son of Abdul Mabud Chowdhury, the hospital doctor who even while sick with coronavirus wrote an open letter to Boris Johnson pleading for more masks and gowns for NHS colleagues. When he died three weeks later, 18-year-old Intisar was thrust into the headlines. This was early in the course of the pandemic, when each evening brought news of hundreds more Covid-19 deaths. As the adults in power tore lumps out of each other, a grieving teenager spoke with poise about the government’s lack of consideration for black and Asian carers. Of the more than 30 doctors the British Medical Association knows to have died in this pandemic, around 90% came from ethnic minorities, it says.

When we met earlier this month, Intisar showed podcast producer Mythili Rao and me the garden where his parents threw parties, the conservatory where his dad’s tablas sit silent. He has had more life pushed into the past few weeks than most schoolboys should have to live over 18 years. He could, maybe should, have taken a rest. Instead he is doing something extraordinary.

Outraged by the police killing of George Floyd, he wants to use whatever attention he has gained to battle racism. Along with his friend Clara, he appealed last month for other teenagers to recount the racism they face at school. As the call-out spread across social media, dozens of stories flooded in, from Lincolnshire to Surrey to Kent. Assembled into a dossier and reported exclusively by the Guardian, they comprise a horrific indicator of the abuse and even assaults dished out to black and Asian children by their peers and sometimes teachers in English schools.

And they crack some of the orthodoxies around race. Those big-name commentators fretting they could be silenced by “cancel culture” would do well to listen to these children who usually have no voice. Those who affect to believe that the Black Lives Matter movement is all about rusty statues or that the UK is a “post-racial” utopia should read the accounts from black schoolboys told by teachers to stop hanging out together “because we looked threatening in a gang”, or the Muslims warned by staff not “to congregate in large groups” – supposedly to prevent terrorist radicalisation.

Then there’s Appy, a black girl who goes to her Midlands grammar with natural hair, only to be told by senior staff it’s against “governmental regulations”. She is frogmarched to a storeroom, given a roll of navy blue fabric and ordered to sew her own headscarf.

In a different classroom, a teacher interrupts his presentation with a slide from a Ribena ad – a cartoon of a fat, purple blackcurrant with outsized facial features. He spends the next five minutes calling the only two black students in class, “the Ribena boys”. When one of them writes “the entire class laughed”, you feel the heat of his shame.

Doctor who pleaded for more hospital PPE dies of coronavirusRead more

We entrust our children to teachers, telling them that doing well in education helps you do well at life, believing that classrooms teach tomorrow’s adults to live together. But what many kids learn is that there isn’t the same tolerance for them as for others, whether on the syllabus or in the playground. Nor do their teachers necessarily get it: while 25% of pupils at English schools are from ethnic minorities, 93% of heads are white British.

This dossier doesn’t pretend to be science. It is a self-selected sample of students telling their side of the story, although no school we put allegations to denied them. As a gauge of the scope or scale of racism in schools, this collection is useless – but so is everything else. Academics at the University of Manchester note that the only record is those incidents that schools log with police as hate crimes. What this collection gives instead is rare indeed: a record by minority-ethnic students of their daily humiliations, the sort of thing that teens don’t tell their parents, out of guilt or a sense of isolation.

I remember that feeling. I started school at my mother’s primary in Hackney, east London, until she fell badly ill and I was moved to my local primary in Edmonton, north London. It was topsy-turvy: from holding my mum’s hand to being handed to a childminder, from multicultural inner London to (then) white-working class outer suburb. As almost the only Indian-origin kid at the new school, I went out on that first break into the playground to find what seemed like every single boy in the school hanging off the fence and chanting “rubber lips, nigger lips” – and worse. I was friendless, helpless. This continued day after day, so I went to a teacher who shrugged that they’d eventually get bored. Again, the helplessness.

It actually stopped on day four, thanks to a spelling test where I got top marks. From then on, all the boys with skinhead brothers wanted to copy my answers. So: good marks equalled not getting your head kicked in. It was my introduction to what meritocracy meant for the likes of me.

That was back in the 1980s, and I’d assumed things had got better. In many places I’m sure they have, but to read this dossier is to see why in a poll published by ITV last week, 62% of black Britons agreed that the education system had a culture of racism. It is also to see just how school communities can punish their non-white children.

Black girls are still policed for their physical appearance; Asian kids are laughed at for having strict parents. In the whiter areas or the better schools, there is often a sense that the minority-ethnic children are lucky just to be there. Naomi told me about starting primary in Chelmsford, Essex, and being the only black girl in her class. Kids called her “poo”, said she smelled and laughed at her hair. “I felt very, very ugly,” she said. One bully physically assaulted her.

Raised a Christian, she would ask God “what I did wrong for me to be black … Like, my whole life is a mistake”. She was six and this was 2010, just two years before the Olympics ceremony celebrated multicultural Britain.

For Naomi, as for me, being the target of racist abuse was an intimate shame, something that followed us home from the school gate and made us wonder what was wrong with us. Yet to see so many similar stories gathered together at first provokes sadness, then anger, but finally a strange optimism. Because in their collected weight, these testimonies show that it wasn’t our fault at all. The responsibility always lay with our tormentors and the society that enabled them. And for an 18-year-old boy to achieve that, in the depths of his own grief, is a remarkable feat.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/22/racism-uk-schools-teenager

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shmosnet2 · 5 years ago

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What life was really like for women in Ancient Egypt

Shutterstock A lot of the time, people think of women's rights as something that started only very recently. Society in the past was horrible compared to the glorious, enlightened geniuses of the present. To make ourselves look good, everyone else has to be bad. But history isn't a straight line. Feminism wasn't something invented in the 1940s or even the 1840s. While there have been plenty of times in history when women were horrifically oppressed (looking at you, Ancient Greece), there were also periods, in some cases long periods, where they enjoyed almost equal rights to men. Ancient Egypt was one such time. If you ignore the slavery and the disease and living at the mercy of the Nile River, Ancient Egypt was a pretty awesome place to be a woman. But just how awesome was it? Well, from the importance of alcohol to matters of makeup, here's what life was really like for women in Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian women were rolling in rights

Shutterstock It's almost unbelievable the number of rights women in Ancient Egypt had. According to Ancient History Encyclopedia, in Ancient Egypt, women could, "own land, initiate divorce, own and operate their own business," and have many kinds of jobs outside the home. But wait, there's more! They could also own their own houses, "enter into contracts with men, have abortions, and dispose of their own property as they saw fit." Ancient Pages adds they could get drunk, make legally-binding wills, and receive both the same pay as men for the same work and the same punishments for the same crimes. It was a level of personal and sexual freedom that no other ancient civilization gave women and wasn't even common in modern times until recently. When the Ancient Greek historian Herodotus visited Egypt, he was shocked at how women behaved. This made sense, since he came from a place where men didn't even like women going outside, and suddenly, he was in a feminist utopia. Well, almost. No society in history has gotten the equality of the sexes thing right, and Ancient Egypt wasn't perfect. While women did sometimes have authority over men, that wasn't considered ideal, and men were usually in charge. There were positions women couldn't hold, usually those of the most important government officials. And in 3,000 years, Ancient Egypt only managed to have seven female rulers. Still, the US hasn't managed one woman president yet, so we can't really say anything. Ancient Egyptian marriages were interesting

Shutterstock Women had a ton of rights in Ancient Egypt, although things were a bit tricky when it came to marriage. According to Short History, girls usually got married right after they hit puberty, which at the time was generally about 13 years old. While boys often weren't that much older, usually marrying between 16 and 20, it wasn't uncommon for teen girls to marry much older men. So how a marriage can really be an "equal partnership" when you have a major age discrepancy is questionable. Still, Ancient History Encyclopedia says that while it was understood that men were the head of the household and had the final word, there's "plenty of evidence to suggest that men consulted with their wives regularly." Ancient Egyptian fathers gave marriage advice to their sons that included "do not control your wife in her house," not to snap at her, to "recognize her skill," to enjoy her company, and to "[desist] from strife at home." Still, wives had certain expectations on them, like having lots of children, and if they committed adultery, they could be killed. But if they didn't like their husband, divorce was simple. A woman just had to say she wanted one. She didn't even need a reason like infidelity on her husband's part. And she got custody of any children. Running the home was a massive responsibility While women may have been equal to their husbands, the job of taking care of the house still fell to them. Rich women might have servants or slaves, and many women also had jobs outside the home, but how well their house was kept was still on their heads. According to Ancient History Encyclopedia, while men helped out with housework from time to time, women had a lot to do. In a time before alarm clocks, a woman had to wake her whole family up so they could go to work or school. Then she had to take care of the family altar. Every house had one, and keeping the gods happy was the woman's job. Then she had to cook breakfast, do the dishes, haul the daily water from the well, do all the childcare, and take care of any elderly relatives. And of course, she had to feed, water, and generally take care of any animals the family owned. Plus, she had to make lunch, do some weaving and sewing, do laundry, bake bread, brew beer, make dinner, serve dinner, clean up dinner, put everyone to bed, and do it all again the next day. And this was before there were any appliances to make her life a tiny bit easier. Some tasks were extra essential. The Ancient Egyptians were neat freaks, meaning the house needed to be spotless, so it looked nice, but also to keep pests away. Tending the garden was also super important, since it was the source of most of the family's food. Ancient Egyptian women often had jobs outside the home

Shutterstock Plenty of Ancient Egyptian women worked in the domestic sphere, but it was also perfectly acceptable for women to — wait for it — work outside the home. According to Ancient History Encyclopedia, the list of jobs they could do was basically endless, and many of them involved authority over men. In a time before locks, when an important room or container needed to be closed and stay closed, you called on a sealer. These bureaucrats carried official, authorized seals that would have to be broken to open whatever they were used to close, so it was a great way of locking something. That made the position of sealer one of the most important jobs in Ancient Egypt, and women sealers were considered equal to their male counterparts. Women could be doctors, as well, and the female physician Pesehet even taught male students in a medical school. Male patients would also see lady doctors with no issue. There were female dentists, female seers who interpreted dreams and omens for people, and women who ran textile manufacturing businesses. There are even paintings of these women supervising their workers. Ladies who had a talent for performing could become musicians, singers, and dancers, entertaining privately and in public temple events. Even women who liked domestic work could do it on the professional level. Girls could become servants as teenagers and rise up the ranks. The top position was household manager, basically running everything for a rich woman who didn't want to do it herself. Women made beer, and Ancient Egyptians loved beer There was one job in Egypt that held supreme importance, and in a completely unexpected twist, it was dominated by women. That job was beer brewer. Beer was vital to Ancient Egyptian existence. The story went that it had been given to humanity by the god Osiris, with breweries watched over by the goddess Tenenet, according to Ancient History Encyclopedia. Another story said when the goddess Sekhmet decided to destroy humanity, she was tricked into getting drunk on beer, passed out, and forgot about it. These and other gods were regularly given offerings of beer, and many temple rituals involved getting very wasted. So beer was important on a spiritual level but also on a practical level. Ancient Egypt Online says everyone drank beer, including children. Beer was seen not so much as a fun drink but a nutritious food staple. Laborers were often paid partly in beer, including the ones working on the pyramids, who got a daily ration of 1 ⅓ gallons each. When experts at the British Museum recreated Ancient Egyptian beer, they were surprised to find it was "absolutely delicious." Since beer was really a food, that made brewing cooking, and cooking was women's work. There's evidence that, definitely in early Egyptian history and probably for most of it, breweries were "entirely operated by females." They made huge quantities of booze, which meant they could make a lot of money. And since beer was so vital and ubiquitous, it was an important, honorable profession. Women could be collateral

Shutterstock Slavery was a complicated institution in Ancient Egypt. There were different levels of servitude, and it's often hard for experts to distinguish between them, according to Tour Egypt. Servants were a thing, but so were slaves, with no distinct dividing line. People who owned land could still be listed as property of a king, making them sort of equivalent to serfs. Slavery was inherited (if your mother was a slave, regardless of who your father was, then you would also be a slave), or prisoners of war could find themselves enslaved, and slavery could even be a temporary thing you (more or less) chose for yourself. The UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology says in times of famine, men and women could offer to become slaves in order to make sure they got enough food. Sometimes, men found themselves in debt, and they would offer family members, usually women, as collateral. Those women would remain slaves until the debt was repaid. Even among slaves there was a hierarchy, with foreign slaves seen as "better" since originally, they or their families had been of a higher class than regular Egyptian slaves. Slaves could own property and negotiate transactions. There's a record of two slave women who gave their master some of their own land in exchange for goods. While some slaves became like members of the family, others were freed. One way of finding freedom was by being "purified" and going to work in a temple, and as it turns out, King Tut actually purified some slave women who worked in his palace. Ancient Egyptian women could do what they wanted in the bedroom

Shutterstock Prudish, male, Victorian researchers though Ancient Egypt had prostitutes because, obviously, any women who were having sex out of wedlock must've been working girls. But that was totally wrong. According to Ancient Egyptian Sexuality, people back then weren't hung up on sex. Even their gods and goddesses were always getting up to filthy stuff. Indeed, with the exception of adultery, which was a serious no-no, Ancient Egyptians seem to have been totally cool with women doing whatever. Ancient History Encyclopedia says there was no Ancient Egyptian word for "virgin," possibly meaning that didn't matter. There was definitely no guilt attached to young, single women having their fun, and if one of them ended up pregnant, it was probably something to be celebrated. Fertility was so important to the Egyptians that an out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy was a great thing, because it meant lots more babies to come. There are no records of brothels in 3,000 years of Ancient Egyptian history. What they did have were "sacred prostitutes" who worked in temples. They were there to scratch the priest's itch. This was a hugely honorable position, one families would offer up their most beautiful daughters for. The women would walk around in sheer clothing, or just naked, happily calling attention to their job. They didn't even get paid, the honor was so great. When they got older, they would leave and go get married, with no shame attached to their previous profession at all. Priestesses were powerful and very clean

Shutterstock The Ancient Egyptians were seriously religious. Keeping the gods happy was of the utmost importance, so the people who served them on a day-to-day basis had lots of power. This included women, since there were plenty of priestesses. While Ancient History Encyclopedia says it was typical for female attendants to serve goddesses, this wasn't always the case. Some priestesses served male deities, including the all-important Amun. One woman held the position God's Wife of Amun, a job that "would eventually become as powerful as that of the king." Literally anyone who worked in a temple was considered a priest or priestess, so daily life varied drastically, depending on whether you were more on the janitor end or the high priestess end of the scale. Rituals could involve bathing and dressing a statue of a goddess, lighting sacred fires, or cooking food for the deity. Many priestesses worked part-time, just one month out of every four. According to Herodotus, priestesses had to be super clean, bathing four times a day and shaving all the hair off their bodies and heads (including eyebrows and eyelashes at some temples) to keep lice away and to stay pristine. They also had to practice singing and dancing, so they could entertain their goddess. The power some priestesses had is evident in their tombs. National Geographic reported on a tomb discovered in 2017, belonging to Hetpet, a priestess of Hathor. According to the magazine, it was "lavishly decorated," including paintings of cheeky monkeys and hunting scenes. Royal women had a say in running the country

Oliver Lang/Getty Images Ancient Egyptian royalty lived lives of luxury. While there were a small number of women who held the top job in Ancient Egyptian history, the vast majority of pharaohs were men. But they had women in their lives. Lots of them. Ancient History Encyclopedia says each pharaoh would have numerous queens. One of them would be the most important "principle wife." While in the early years of Ancient Egypt, a queen might just be expected to run the palace, support her husband, and act as regent for an underage son, in the New Kingdom, queens had major power. She got her own royal and religious titles, official duties, land, an income, and a degree of independence. Queens were often the pharaoh's most important counselors, who according to Historic Mysteries, "molded the pharaoh's thinking in matters of state and religion and provided him with strong support." They might act as diplomats, and at least one had her name written in a cartouche, just like a king. Some pharaohs had their wives depicted in statues, occasionally the same size as their own, standing or sitting beside them, making the two royals appear equal in importance. Nefertiti (pictured) basically took over running the country for her husband while he concentrated on religion. The royal line was passed through women, not men, so they were of supreme importance, even daughters of the pharaoh. Of course, the men these royal women were having kids with were often their brothers, fathers, or uncles, so it's not all great. Egyptian women had fertility tattoos Until very recently, it was thought only Ancient Egyptian women got tattoos. After all, only women were depicted with tattoos in Ancient Egyptian art, and of all the Egyptian mummies that had been found, only the female ones were inked. Of course, it was male archaeologists who usually found these mummies (since they were basically all dudes until recently) and they had some not-so-nice theories about the women with body art. According to Groupthink, the male archaeologists decided these ladies must be "dancing girls" or of other "dubious status." Even if they found them buried among royalty, at best they must have been a pharaoh's concubine. Now we know that's not accurate at all. One of the slut-shamed mummies turned out to be the priestess Amunet, which excavators would've realized if they'd just read her burial inscription. Ancient History Encyclopedia says as more tattooed women were connected to the royal court, scholars had to change their theories. Now, it seems tattoos might've been connected to fertility. In general, these tattoos (usually patterns of dots) appear on women's stomachs, thighs, and breasts. It seems women inked themselves to honor the goddess of fertility and as a kind of permanent amulet, giving them help conceiving but also protection during pregnancy and childbirth. The tattoo artists were also exclusively women. Only in 2018 was the first discovery of a tattooed male mummy revealed. So inked men did exist in Ancient Egypt, but so far, it seems very uncommon. A women's appearance was very important Everyone can immediately call to mind what an Ancient Egyptian lady looks like, whether it's the head of Nefertiti, one of a million images of what Cleopatra might've looked like, or just a random woman painted with her head turned to the side. And that distinctive look was hugely important to the average Ancient Egyptian woman. According to Ancient Pages, clothing was considered "one of the most important elements in a person's life." The Ancient Egyptians are famous for one look because it stuck around for thousands of years. No twice-yearly fashion shows full of new styles for them. Women wore a basic, tight, strappy dress that fell to their ankles. In the winter, they would throw a thick linen cloak over their shoulders. Women working in the fields switched to a short skirt and nothing else. The "in" color for all clothing was white, as much for practical reasons in the heat as anything. Some new fads did come in, including pleated cloth and brightly colored fringe. All women, no matter how poor, wore jewelry. Jewelry was vital to look attractive for the gods, so women covered themselves in beaded necklaces, bracelets, earrings, collar, and rings. Makeup was not only aesthetic but also holy. Religion and beauty went hand in hand, so everyone wore makeup. Women did elaborate eye makeup, which might've also been practical, as the thick black kohl could've acted a bit like sunglasses. They also shaved their heads and wore wigs, completing the look.

https://ift.tt/2ozOCRj . Foreign Articles, مصر September 30, 2019 at 04:33PM

#. Foreign Articles #مصر What life was really like for women in Ancient Egypt

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