#they are perpetually judging each other’s taste in men like good friends do

[froggi-mushroom]

Meant to post this yesterday but

Nyo England pointing at Portugal: he’s cute!

Nyo Portugal looking at Portugal, who looks like he hasn’t brushed his hair once in his entire life:

[somedayistoday]

day 5 : #neverquit

Day 5 : ceramics

Today we went to the V&A museum where we saw a lot of ceramics art. There was other kinds of art at the museum such as glass, fashion, graphic design, Greek/Roman sculptures but I spent most of my time looking at ceramics.

I had to pause after each room and sit and think because it just became too overwhelming to think about the hundreds of pots that I had just looked at and the hundreds of ideas I had for turning it into something of my own. For example, the photo below is one room layout.

There was also a section for modern ceramic work that was more sculptural which is where I got the image below. On the wall dripping down we’re glazed drops. They are definitely something that I want to try making in the future.

I spent most of my time in these exhibitions for my friend’s interest, not my own. I do love and admire ceramics but my taste is specific and I didn’t like much of what I saw. Yes the form was good, yes the glaze turned out well but I mostly paid attention to pots that had glazed figures or ones that were an interesting shape. A lot of the pots look the same when you see the many thousands this gallery has on display. Something that I kept my eye out for was a piece by a potter that I could recognize. There were a few that I thought looked like Guillermo or Warren’s work but I was wrong until this bowl. It was here that I told a woman, a weaver, about how important finding this Warren bowl was. She noticed me struggling to get this photo and we chatted a bit before separating.

As a class, we went though the exhibition ‘Fashioning Masculinities’. This was an interesting show to me. When I realized that this exhibition was about men’s struggles I was initially upset. I have never felt comfortable in my own body and I choose clothes specifically to hide my body. I spend a lot of my time showering, shaving, plucking, poking and doing what I can to measure up to “beautiful” that it makes me upset to think that men feel they have it bad. What this made me realize is that we all just have it bad. No matter who you are or how you identify, people feel judged and do their best to appeal and attract. I realized this while watching Perfectionism. This was three different videos of men (over many time periods of time) grooming themselves.

A lot of the people in my life (especially in the past) have cared about their appearance to the point of inauthenticity. Because of my inability to change despite my discomfort, I have just accepted who/what I am. This has meant that the people I’m with have commented on my appearance and told me that I should do more because they don’t approve of when I forget to shave or should cover up more. It has mainly been men telling me these things and so it was hard to take myself out of my own experiences and to realize that the people who treated me this way had been perfectionists and were insecure about themselves. These actions do nothing but perpetuate the cycle of fighting for something you’ll never reach - the ideal appearance.

At the end of this exhibition, there was a beautiful dress that I recognized upon immediate entry. It was there dress that Harry Styles wore. It was a really nice surprise that helped to solidify the ideas presented in the exhibition.

Also in this museum, there is a living chandelier. At a distance, it seems like a simply gorgeous light fixture but the plaque on the side insists that it is so much more. Exhale, is a large bionic chandelier composed of 70 plastic leaves contain green microalgae, whose photosynthesis absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and releases oxygen.

After the museum, we went out for food but ended up getting snacks from the grocery store/market. It was good but it does hurt my stomach to eat a little. After dinner, I went out with some people in the group and we went to a bar that was more college aged. The four guys working were an efficient machine but I did not envy them.

All in all, an ok day.

[thetravelerwrites]

Geteb (Troll) Lemon

Rating: Explicit Relationship: Male Troll/Non-Binary Reader Additional Tags: Exophilia, Monster Boyfriend, Troll, Non-Binary Reader, Reader Insert Content Warning: Speech Disorders, Dysarthria, Stuttering Words: 2741

A commission for @mxnsterbabe​​! After getting sick from drinking contaminated water, the reader comes home to find the plumber fixing the water problem. Please reblog and leave feedback!

The Traveler's Masterlist

Moving to Willowridge hadn’t been your first option, but it was the only one that made financial sense. You were going to school at E.U. for business management, but Coleville was just too expensive, even living in the dorms, so you transferred to the Willowridge campus. There was an apartment complex with plenty of studio apartments for the college kids, and you rented the only ground floor apartment they had left. There was a trade-off, of course. You didn’t have to climb up and down seven flights of stairs every day because the elevator was perpetually broken, but you did hear every argument, party, and session of loud sex your neighbors decided to have.

Well, college life was college life, regardless of where you lived.

The only real problem was that the water was an odd color and tasted funny, and before your first day in your new place was over, you were in the hospital for suspected salmonella poisoning. You were in the hospital for over two days, and when you were released, there was a large stranger in your apartment, looking under your kitchen sink.

“Excuse me,” You said in alarm.

The stranger jumped and hit his head on the cabinet, swearing and dropping a wrench. He stood up, and you could see he was wearing a workman’s jumpsuit. You were suddenly confronted with a solid wall of man, easily seven feet tall, with a broad… everything. He was a troll, you realized, and judging from the dusty, pebbly texture of his skin to the tusks jutting out from his lower jaw to the hair like green moss that curled around his ears, he was a field troll.

Trolls were distantly related to orcs, though they didn’t have the same warrior culture as orcs did, if you recalled correctly. They were typically creatures of nature, keeping to the forests and mountains, often seen as slow or stupid. You weren’t sure if those claims were true or not. You’d met a few before, and they seemed normal to you.

“Sorry,” He said very slowly, his voice deep. “Are you… the one… that… got sick?”

“Yes,” You replied, coming inside the apartment but leaving the door open. “And who are you?”

“Sorry,” He repeated. “I’m Geteb. I’m the… plumber… for the building. I came to… fix the pipes.”

“Oh,” You said. “What was wrong with them?”

“The pipe… that p--pulls water…. from the city… broke… and street water… got in it,” He replied in the same slow cadence. “That’s why you… got sick. Your apartment is… the first in the line. When you… got s--sick, we shut it… off. We only just now… turned it back on.”

“Well, I guess it’s good no one else got sick, then,” You said, trying not to come across as bitter.

“I’m sorry… you did,” He said solemnly, though it was an odd sound, like a puppy whimpering after being scolded. “I… b--brought you… clean water.” He pointed to several jugs of water that were stacked along the wall in the kitchen area.

You nodded numbly. “Oh.”

“Just in case. We’re flushing… the system… now. I was just… checking the water… in the tap… to make sure it’s clean.” He held up a cotton swab that was inside a tube. “It’s a test, see? If it’s blue… then it’s con…” He stopped and struggled with the word. “Co... conta…taminated. But it’s not, see!” He held out the test swab for you to inspect. “So it’s all safe. But you should… drink the jug water… just in case.”

“Okay,” You said tiredly. “Well, if you’re done, I’d like to lie down. I still don’t feel very well.”

“Oh, okay,” He said, picking up his tools. “I hope you… feel better… soon. Call the front office… if anything is wrong… and I’ll come back… and fix it… any time.”

“Sure,” You said, ushering him out of the door.

You spent the next couple of days in bed, unable to eat. You managed a few sips of tea, but there wasn’t much else that your stomach could tolerate. As suggested, you drank the water from the jugs that Geteb had brought, but mostly because you just didn’t trust the tap water anymore.

Three days afterward, when you were finally starting to feel better, there was a knock at the door. Geteb was standing there in his work clothes with three more jugs of water in each fist.

“I brought you… m--more water,” He said.

“Oh,” You said in surprise. “Okay. Uh, bring them in.”

You stepped aside and let Geteb in, who had to duck to clear the doorframe.

“I’m sorry if I was rude the other day,” You told him. “I didn’t even really thank you.”

“It’s okay! I understand!” He replied. “You felt bad. I’m cranky… when I feel bad… too.”

“I just hope I’m well enough to continue classes next week,” You said.

He chuckled. “School was fun. I remember college. Lots of parties.”

He seemed to be better at speaking short sentences. “You went to college?” You said in surprise.

“Yes,” He said reproachfully, looking hurt. “I know… I’m not that smart… but I’m s--smarter… than people think. Just because… I’m big… and I talk slow… and I have trouble… with big words… it doesn’t mean… I’m stupid.”

Horrified, you said, “Oh, no, I didn’t mean…” But then you stopped. That’s exactly what you meant, and you knew it. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for, and I apologize.”

His frown melted, and he smiled. “It’s okay. I’m not mad.”

“What did you get your degree in?”

“S--struc…tural engin…eering.”

“Oh, wow,” You said. “That’s really impressive.”

He chuckled again. “Lots of people… don’t believe me… when I tell them… I h--have a… Bachelor’s degree.”

“Well, they’re idiots,” You said. “Listen, can I buy you a drink? To thank you and make up for being a rude asshole.”

His face lit up. God, he reminded you of a puppy. “Okay! I’d like to. I should… change clothes, I’m really dirty.”

“Aren’t you still on the clock?” You asked.

He stopped and thought about it. “Oh. Yeah. Later then?”

It was your turn to chuckle. “Later then.”

He met you after work at a local college pub and you bought him a round. Well, a pitcher for him. He had big hands.

“So, I don’t want to offend you, and I’m trying hard not to be an asshole, but can I ask something?”

“You… want to know… why I… talk so slow?” He asked with a patient smile.

“Yeah,” You replied hesitantly. “I’ve seen other trolls and they don’t talk like you do.”

“I have… dysarthria,” He said. “I had a… really bad ear… infection… when I was… s--seven… and it turned into… men…ingitus… and caused… a stroke. I was… in… a coma for… a while after.”

“Oh, god,” You breathed. “I had no idea you could have a stroke from an ear infection.”

“It’s rare,” He said. “I’m special… like that, I guess.”

You smiled at him. “How long were you in school?”

“The standard… four years,” He replied. “And then another… four years… app…p--prentice for the… plumbing job. T--that’s a long time… for people… to still think… I’m stupid.” He didn’t seem angry about it, just resigned.

“You’re definitely not stupid, Geteb,” You told him.

“It’s not just… the talking,” He said, gesturing at his mouth. “People… look down on… labor jobs. Just because… we work with… our hands… and get d--dirty… doesn’t make it… less… of a skill.”

“You’re absolutely right,” You replied sadly. “And it’s a shame people are like that.”

“You’re not… like that, are you?” He asked you.

“No, Geteb, I’m not,” You told him. “My dad was a carpenter. I know all about how difficult working with your hands can be.”

“That’s good,” He said. “Because… I’d like to… take you out again. My treat… this time.”

Your smile widened. “I’d like that very much.”

You went on several dates with Geteb. Because he was such a big guy, a lot of them were outdoors or in places that were wide open, like museums or aquariums. He liked looking at things and letting you talk, shy about talking in public or around a group of strangers. He was already unusual, and his speech impairment made him stand out even more.

Despite dating for almost a month, he still hadn’t kissed you yet, and you wondered why. You knew he was shy, but you’d been more than affectionate with him, so he had to know you wanted him to. Maybe you’d just have to do it yourself.

At the end of the next date, you said, “Bend down.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s hard to kiss you when you’re way up there,” You said, laughing.

He didn’t laugh. Instead, he sighed heavily.

“Do you not want to kiss me?” You asked him, teasing.

“It’s not that,” He replied seriously. “I do… v--very much… but if I… kiss you… that means… something to me…”

“It means something to me, too, silly,” You said. “It means I like you.”

“It means… more than that… to me.” He asked. “I’m… never going… to be normal… you know that… don’t you? I can’t… fix this.” He gestured at his mouth and head. “Kissing me… after so many dates… means… you’re commit…ting… to that… reality. Are you sure… you can… do that?”

“It’s not like kissing you means we’re getting married, Geteb,” You said, your brow furrowing. “It doesn’t bother me how you talk.”

“It doesn’t… right now,” He said. “But what… about in a… month? Or five? What about… when your friends… say something… or a stranger says something… that makes you… uncomfortable with… the idea… of being… with me. You may be… able… to tolerate it… now, but you… may not… be able to… forever.”

“Geteb, don’t be silly,” You said, frowning. “If someone has something to say about it, I’ll bite their ears off. And if my friends have something to say about it, I’ll get better friends. It’s that simple.”

“For you,” He said, looking away, and you took his face in your hands.

“Has something like that happened before?” You asked.

He frowned and looked at his feet. “I almost… g--got married once,” He told you. “I bought… the ring and… everything… but b--before… I could ask her… w--we got in a fight… she said… she always ha--hated… how I talked. After we… calmed down… s--she said… she didn’t m--mean it… but that’s all… I could think… about when I… t--talked to her… so I stopped… talking… and we b--broke up…” He sniffled a little. “I still… have the… ring. I couldn’t… bring myself… to return it. I didn’t want p--people… to be sad… for me. I was already… sad enough.”

“I’m so sorry, Geteb,” You said, stroking a thumb down his cheek. “Even if what she said was true, I’m not her. I love the way you talk. I can understand you perfectly fine. All it takes is listening, and I’m more than willing to do that.”

His expression looked so pained. “Are you… sure?”

Instead of answering, you turned the key in the lock of your front door, opened it, and pulled him inside.

“Let me show you,” You said. He gulped and allowed himself to be led.

Inside, you had him sit down on the pull-out couch-bed and sat in his lap. He carefully placed a hand on your lower back, as if testing the waters. You laughed softly and leaned against his body, laying your head on his chest.

“Isn’t this nice?” You asked him.

“Very,” He said, his lips in your hair. Not quite a kiss, was it was contact. “I have missed… holding someone… I have been… lonely… I guess…”

“I’m not surprised,” You said. “That’s kind of what happens when you try to keep people at an arm’s length.”

“I don’t mean to,” He said. “I just don’t… want people… to be hurt… because of me.”

“And you don’t want to get hurt, either,” You said, sitting up and looking at him. “I totally get that, Geteb. That’s a natural reaction when you’ve been hurt. I’ve been hurt too. You think my parents took it well when I told them I was non-binary? Or my boyfriend? Sorry, ex-boyfriend, because he can’t be with someone--excuse me, something--who isn’t a girl, which…” You scoffed and rolled your eyes. “I know it’s not the same as having a lifelong, debilitating condition that people don’t understand, I do get that. What I’m saying is that in some ways, I completely understand what you’re going through. And I want to go through it with you.”

“You’re sure?” He asked again.

“Yep,” You said. “You’re stuck with me, pal, like it or not.”

“I like it,” He said, smiling.

“Good,” You said, standing up so that you could be eye level and wrapping your arms around his neck. “I like it, too.” Then you kissed him. It was long and leisurely, not pressing him too hard if he didn’t want to go there yet.

Acceptance is a funny, powerful thing. It gives confidence to the meek, solace to the troubled, and in this instance, it made him very, very aroused. You could feel it the moment you climbed into his lap and straddled him. His hands gripped you more firmly and his kisses deepened. The tip of his large, broad tongue brushed across your lips, and you opened your mouth so that he could slip it inside, tangling with your own.

You kissed down his body, opening the button-up shirt and pulling it out of his pants. His jeans were tented, and you thought it might be painful, so you popped the button and unzipped the sipper, stroking him through his underwear, and he moaned.

“You don’t… have to…” He said between gasps.

“I want to,” You said, kneeling down. You opened the slit in his underwear and freed him, swirling your tongue around him. He grunted and his hips bucked upward involuntarily.

“It’s been… a long time…” He said. “I’m a… little… sensitive…”

“I’ll be gentle,” You said, and pulled him slowly into your mouth. A long groan of satisfaction issued from him, and you figured you were doing alright.

It didn’t take long before he was writhing under your touch, panting and gasping. He was throbbing inside your mouth, but before he came, he lay a hand on your shoulder to stop you.

“Can you… get undressed… please? I want… to look at you,” He asked, heaving in deep breaths. You obliged, making a little bit of a show of it. He watched you hungrily, and when you were fully nude, he reached out for you. You climbed back into his lap, and he caressed your body, kissing your neck and shoulders. You rose up and positioned him at your entrance and slowly, carefully, slid down on him.

You kissed him deeply as he grasped your hips, bouncing you a little. You braced your hands on his chest and came down harder on him, making your bodies slap together. You threw your head back and he kissed your throat, his tusks poking into the skin, his hand in your hair.

“I’m… close…” He wheezed.

“Me too,” You whimpered, speeding up. You felt the rush of pleasure hit your body just as he abruptly pulled you up and came all over your thighs and his jeans.

“Sorry,” He said as you collapsed onto his chest.

“It’s okay,” You panted. He held you close until you got your breath back. “You can use my mini washing machine to clean your clothes. I don’t have a dryer, though, so you’ll have to stay until they dry. It could take a while.”

“I d--don’t mind,” He said. “I can sleep… on the floor… if that’s okay.”

“I’ll make us a nice pillow fort,” You said. “Good thing it’s the weekend. We can just stay in our fort and order out and be naked the whole time.”

“The best weekend… ever.”

“Yes, it does. And we can do it every weekend from now on. What do you think?”

“I think… that sounds like… heaven.”

You stood up and dragged him to his feet. “Shower first.”

Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!

Thanks for reading!

My Masterlist

The Exophilia Creator’s Masterlist

[traumatized-motherfuckers]

CPTSD relationship patterns on repeat

Listen wherever you stream, search “complex trauma” and subscribe. Or, find episodes, blog posts, and a private support community at t-mfrs.com

.............................................................................................................................

Things I’ve gotten good at throughout this Trauma journey:

Seeing connections between where I’m from and where I am

Thinking for the first time about where I’m going

Letting myself have emotions

Letting those emotions go

Redirecting my energy and attention away from ruminating

Being accountable for my own feelings

Being accountable for times of being a shithead

Listening and validating other humans

Listening and validating myself

Recognizing what circumstances do/don’t work for me

Realizing how my codependency plays with relationships

Letting go of self-hate inner critic talk

Reframing events with reasonable views

Accepting myself, even when I first want to thrash myself

Semi-consistently caring for myself

Setting realistic boundaries and goals

Sleeping

Things I’m still shitty at:

Letting my overwhelm skew reality

Anxious self-slave-driving

Being a snarky turd when my head is overloaded

Taking on other people’s energies and emotions

Trusting myself in all areas of life

Forming healthy relationships.

Okay, it’s that last one that has me most perpetually fighting feelings of panic and doom.

This seems like an apt way to kick off the new year. I think a lot of us have questions about relationships and would like to improve our operations in 2021. I can also tell you, this one is extremely appropriate looking back at the last year of my life.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned in the past few spins around the sun has been how romance does - and definitely doesn't - fit into my life. I think 2020 was particularly packed full of important lectures and pop quizzes, many of which I failed. It felt like knowing that the correct answer was C, but finding my hand filling in the circle for A every time, anyways.

This is a terrible ideaaaa... and I'm doing it. Pause for about 2 months. Now I'm upset that it was a terrible idea.

Yeah, it's been great. But I have no one to blame but myself. Because as much as I've worked on this trauma management life of mine, I haven't done a good job of working on the relationship aspect of it. I've let my usual patterns dominate. And that's what needs to be examined today.

I mean. Can someone tell me about healthy relationships in functional terms? What IS that even?

Look, I’m not hoping that someone will pop up and share some, “mutual respect, good communication, trust, support, care, similar goals, similar beliefs…” sort of shit. I fucking KNOW about the idealistic, flowery terms that all the light-hearted couples counselors recommend establishing for a happy relationship. I get it.

I’m not ignorant when it comes to the ways humans should interact. I’ve had enough experience with friendships and relationships, alike, to understand the basics of person-to-person interactions. I know I talk about myself like I’ve been a feral child locked in a cage for 20 years, but the truth is that if you met me on the streets I’d probably seem like a normal, well-adapted, personable human being. That Leo Ascendant component of my personality tricks people into actually thinking I’m an extrovert who wants attention. (Hilarious, explains a lot of comments I’ve gotten in my past)

Nah, I’m not asking for the trite descriptions of a healthy partnership that everyone who’s ever been friends on a basic girl’s Facebook has seen before in cursive writing on top of a washed-out pink-tinted field. Those are empty sounding words that I don’t believe most couples manage to put into action, no matter how many selfies they take together or labradoodles they adopt.

For me, Fuckers, the mystery isn’t, “in a fairytale world, how do two humans interact to have a lifelong bliss factory?” Respect, trust, appreciation, mutual understanding… blah blah blah. What the fuck ever.

The real question is how.

And, shit, let me just be honest with all of you - not just the Patrons who’ve already heard my personal bitching - it’s on my mind because I did a thing I definitely should not have… recently, I got into a new romantic relationship that I definitely was not looking for. I’ll spare you all the details today, but know that I’ve entered it kicking and screaming, and it’s caused me a lot of grief already.

Let the life shittery begin! Can’t wait to be destroyed.

Today, I want to bring this personal fire burning in my gut into the podcast. Motherfuck me, if it hasn’t become difficult to ignore… plus, I know that a lot of us Traumatized folks are in a similar boat when it comes to relationship confusion, unhealth, and destruction. So let’s just count the ways that I have no idea how to do this right and I’m destined to be let down by my poor choices.

This time around, I'm bringing you a list of all the ways I tend to fuck things up with other humans. In part, due to Complex Trauma. In other part, probably due to my own personal shortcomings. Listed in no particular order. On a later date, I'm going to be revisiting a lot of these patterns as I examine how early life set a lot of us up for a lot of abuse acceptance in greater detail. Stick around for those continuations on romantic disaster, if this sounds like you, too.

I'm talking about:

Partner choice: Musicians, narcissists, and addicts

Emotional codependency

Mistrust

… That turns into willful blind belief of their words

Inadequacy

Parenting analogues

Authority figures & disappointment

Misdirected commitment

Learned helplessness

Partner choice: Musicians, narcissists and addicts

Who has bad taste in partners? Over and over and over again? It’s me! And probably a lot of you.

Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe they’ve been wonderful guys who just didn’t mesh well with my inner or outer world… but I can tell you, there have been some similarities, and they don’t bode well for a happy future together.

You know me by now. Difficulty connecting with “normal” humans, no interest in small talk, a huge fan of deep emotional honesty, a bit gritty and assholeish, tends to be repelled by anything too widely embraced by the general public, definitely comes with a difficult past, fears of the future, and ongoing challenges in the present.

So, who do you think I get along with? Ivy leaguers with stable, supportive families, an optimistic outlook, and a 20-year plan? Or equally messy and complex humans with a set of neuroses handed down from their unexamined early traumas that make them similarly bitter and disillusioned with life? Just… probably hidden from immediate sight.

Grown men who’ve responsibly built a life for themselves with ambition, personal insight, and balance? Or man-children who’re still figuring out that they can’t drink every night of the week if they want to be functional in life and financially sound? But... with their addictions hidden behind “an appreciation for fine whiskies” or a necessity to sample the craft beer they brew.

Independent, confident humans who have no problem running their own world like a boss and trust that I’m capable of doing the same, with integrity and respect? Or distrustful turds who need me to be in their sight, half-directing their lives at all times unless I’m aiming to be accused of cheating, lying, and being unable to care for myself? Only… they hide their controlling and aggressive tendencies behind go-with-the-flow facades in the beginning.

If you guessed “B” in all three examples, you are correct!

Plus... so, so many musicians. Like, the last 6 of them have either subscribed to guitar or drum camp. And that hasn't been a purposeful decision - those are just the men I get along with until we hate each other.

It's always a rapid connection, a mutual respect for our interests in the arts, and a shared shitty attitude that starts out directed at the world and ends directed at each other. So many emotions. So many ups and downs. So many proclamations of "I can't live without you!" until the day we run in opposite directions and never look back.

Is that a coincidence? Or are all musical folk a bit wild? I hate to generalize, but I can tell you with great amusement that if you start typing "Are all musicians..." into Google, it will autocomplete with "cheaters, narcissists, and crazy." It also suggests "rich," but I can tell you for a fact that isn't true. The narcissist thing... uh.... very well might be correct. But I'll leave that for someone else to study.

So, I don't know what to make of this trend. There do seem to be some commonalities between the musicians in my past life - and they do seem to be categorized by the instrument of choice. For instance, drummers are never concerned with my time, and guitarists are emotional catastrophes. But what do I know? Can't make sweeping conclusions... I, at least, need a larger sample size. With my track record, I'm sure I'll have the numbers soon enough.

Congratulations if you predicted nothing but unstable disasters in my past. It's true, I’m an idiot. Okay, that’s not fair. No inner critic talk. Get out of here, Pam and Karen.

The fact of the matter is, I am a terrible judge of character when I start sensing a connection. I tend to connect with people who have complicated lives and inner worlds, just like I do. And from what I can tell, that is always my downfall.

Challenging connections

Let’s go ahead and chalk this one up to never having close connections or support growing up.

You know what I always wanted, hoped for, and idealized as a kid? Someone loving me. Another human actually understanding my weirdness and signing on for more. The idea of a human who wanted to know what I thought and felt. The option of spending time with someone and feeling cared for. Also, somebody finding me attractive, instead of being repulsed by my ass-length ginger hair, flat chest, dorky hand-me-downs, bleach-stained horse sweaters, and buck teeth... also would have been a dream come true.

I’m pretty sure that growing up lonely didn’t help me in any regard when it came to my later-in-life relationship problems. Starving for connection apparently puts you in a state of deprivation, where you’re likely to think anything is better than the empty feeling inside. You know, just for the rest of your life or so.

To this day, if I meet someone and we’re able to converse without abundant clarifications or apologies for the prickly things that come out of my mouth as dry humor or unbendable opinions… we’re on a roll. If we can connect over shared perspectives on humans, life, and psychology… things are getting more serious. If we can honestly talk about the ways we’re horrible to ourselves and joke about our shared challenges in figuring out what the point of this shitty slip-and-slide of life is about… uh oh, this might be a real connection.

And so, it makes sense that I connect with all the most complicated people you’d ever meet. And we connect INTENSELY. I’m complicated, myself, and I look for folks who can accept it without their heads exploding. I’m never going to be happy holding conversations with Sports Bar Joe or Pretty Boy Blaine. They’re never going to understand the internal strife that dominates my world. I’m never going to understand how they can be all *happy,* *close with their families,* and *laid back about life.*

Gross. I can’t even say the words.

But give me the angstiest, most anxious, most misunderstood dude on the block, and we’re likely to get along swimmingly. We’ll talk over beers until the birds start to chirp. We’ll joke in our native tongues, playing with words, obscure references, and dry humor as if we’ve known each other for 25 years. We’ll share secrets about our tumultuous inner worlds and the ways that we can’t seem to get our heads on straight enough to keep our ships on course.

And the next thing you know, we’ll be incestuously connected with a somewhat false sense of intimacy that erupts out of the gates. “No one has ever understood me the way you do. I can really be myself around you. I’ve never had such easy conversations about this shit before.”

… That’s about the point when I lose all perspective. There’s a tunnel running from my face to this dude’s heart. I stop seeing things for what they are. I project a kinder, gentler, more well-intended personality on the subject of my feels. I quickly turn a blind eye to all the shit they’re doing that I wholeheartedly hate or otherwise cause my red flags to be unpacked.

I feel like I know them, inside and out. I feel like I can help them - like we can help each other - to sort through this dumb world we’ve been born into and all the circumstances holding us back. A real Sid and Nancy storyline emerges. No one gets him like I do. If only they could see the things I see. We’re just two broken souls who found each other, a little rough around the edges, but we see the diamonds underneath. And we’re in this battle together from now on.

Yeah, right.

Sooooo… This is how I wind up with the unpredictable narcissists who seem like nice guys, the secret addicts who keep their substance abuse hidden from everyone, and the emotional abusers who are ready to leverage my mental health admissions against me the first time they get the chance. Dudes who have highly emotional worlds and no idea how to deal with them. Men who don’t want to explore their own shortcomings and instead choose avoidant courses in life.

And, again, the musicians. So, so many musicians. I really am coming to think that they’re the most fucked up people of all - and that's saying a lot coming from me. Generally speaking, I've seen that there’s no sense of personal responsibility, an obsession with themselves, and a hidden inferiority complex that turns them into bitchy little dogs when they feel threatened. What’s with that, anyways? Can you guys try to be more original in your plight to be the most original?

Okay, anyways. Sorry to keep dragging on musicians.

The point is, my attempts at relationships start out on the wrong foot. Choosing the wrong partner is a pretty surefire way to dash all hopes for those fluffy ideals I mentioned earlier. No one is going to respect me, listen to me, or support me when they’re too busy dealing with their own alcoholism, abandonment issues, and narcissistic flailings… or, not dealing with them, to be more specific.

We aren’t going to be able to work through things when they’re consumed with being the king of the world, hiding from all negative emotions, and trying to keep their head away from analysing their own actions. Hell, it’ll be difficult to even find the time for serious talks, since they’re so busy traveling to band practices, hustling away for barely-paying gigs, and staring at their social media while they count the ways they’re victims of the universe.

Choose imbalanced, mentally ill, self-serving partners… get unhealthy, controlling, unpredictable relationships. Pretty goddamn obvious. And yet, I still can never seem to see the full picture of the human who’s caught my attention through the fog that’s created by the connection of our shared dysfunctions.

I guess this is where that, “love yourself and get yourself healthy first,” sentiment comes into play, so the connections don’t continue to be as disasterious as your personal experience is. Hopefully I’m on the right path in my own journey, at least. Also, a lot less starved for connection. I got y’all Motherfuckers in the Discord community, for starters. And I’ve become determined to live a life where I support myself and rely on no one outside of Archie’s snuggles, for finishers.

Step one: Be careful about who you deem a good person, just because you can share self-deprecating jokes about being nutjobs and similar musical interests. Learn to choose someone who isn’t an even trashier trash human than you are. It’s a start.

Emotional codependency

Hand in hand with forming connections that include deep emotional outpourings and admissions of all the dark things we hide from the light at our office jobs… comes codependency.

I’ve said it before and let me say it again… I didn’t understand codependency until very recently.

In my mind, it was akin to those creepy couples who won’t leave the house without each other, have the same friends, interests, and opinions on everything... and possibly wear matching cat shirts. Those people who never spend time with other humans because they're too busy being shoved up their partner’s ass. The folks who call to check in on each other throughout the day when they’re at work. Gag. Particularly, I imagined those pathetic girls who cry when their boyfriend is out of sight and post 12 pictures a day of them together.

Rightfully, I scoffed and insisted that I didn't have problems with codependency. That’s not me. But it turns out, this view isn’t quite right, so much as I was being an uninformed asshole.

Codependency doesn’t mean you’re a needy, incapable human being who sucks the life power out of someone else, like I used to think. Codependency is a two-way relationship defined by poor boundaries and non-existent emotional regulation. Two humans who see their experiences as one, all the way down to how they feel and how they deal with how they feel. (i.e. turning to their significant other for comfort and emotional control in a time of need instead of working through it by themselves). Relationships where the emotions are transferred from party to party until it's unclear who’s bringing what dish to the gathering. Waking up not knowing how your day is going to be, because it depends on how someone else feels about theirs. Emotional enablement city.

Oh, yeah, when you put it like that, I definitely have issues with codependency.

For me, the codependency is largely going to be emotional. In the past, I didn’t know how to have a relationship of any sort without having a third influence in the mix. There was the person, myself, and our shared emotions... that often called more shots than either of us did.

Because I tend to be on the empath scale (although I do everything I can to fight it out of defense), I think I’m naturally tuned into other people’s emotional and energetic states, for better or for worse. When someone walks into the room with a bad vibe, I feel it to my core. I become so uncomfortable that I take it on myself to try to “fix” the problem for them, and in doing so, I avoid the negative sensation, myself. This is negative reinforcement, if anyone wanted to ABA with me.

That being said, clearly if my boo is having a hard time… it’s not okay. They’re in a shit place and therefore so am I. I must do whatever I can to make it better. To sit down and talk in circles with them, if that’s what relieves some of their tension. To commiserate about how unfair the circumstances are. To validate the negativity that they’re projecting and wallowing in.

Don’t worry though, this goes the other way, too. In the past, I have fully expected my romantic partners to alleviate any inner discomfort that I’ve felt. If I was having a low-down day, I wanted them to cheer me up. If I was full of anxiety, I wanted them to find a way to release it. If I was frustrated with a work situation or coworker, I wanted them to be as angry and indignant as I felt.

So… I guess that doesn’t even sound too off-base to me, at least not when I’m leaning on my teenage expectations of what relationships are supposed to be. In my head, it was always completely ideal that I would wind up with someone who could essentially read my thoughts and comfort me like my family never did. I just wanted someone who would be by my side, thinking about me all the time, and working double time to make sure I was keeping my depression and anxiety on the up-and-up. Is that too much to ask? Uh… yeah, it is.

Maybe in a fairytale love story like the ones I saw in teenage romance movies growing up, this is the perfect way for two broken misfits to interact. “We’re both so damaged and hurt that no one has ever really seen us - but now we have each other to lick our shared wounds.” Yeah, romantic. Also really fucked up and dangerous in the real world.

The problem is, after a few months of this, it gets pretty hard to determine what’s my experience and what’s yours. The emotions become so transitive that it can be invigorating, immersive, overwhelming, and exhausting to be in each other’s company, depending on the day and the event. Living together or essentially sharing a residence makes it much worse - there’s no physical barrier between us, so that emotional barrier is even less existent. We don't have to try to text about our woes, we can just unleash them the moment we step foot in the door. Ready or not, your night is about to be ruined by my day, and vice-versa.

How does this go wrong? Uh, let’s count the ways.

1. My emotional management was never up to par, in the first place. Having your feelings catapulted my way effectively pushes me off the balance beam that I was already wobbling on. If I was having a difficult day but holding it together on my own through coping techniques and reasonable thinking - fucking forget it, that’s over now. We’re both in a shitty state now. Great. In the context of trying to recover from mental health issues… yeah, it’s a fucking disaster. Being retriggered by your partner or sucked into a depressive undertow when you’re trying to make positive change is a losing battle.

2. I never learned how to cope with my own emotions. There was generally someone else for me to hurtle them at, and our subsequent hours of bitching would give me the comfort I was looking for. I didn’t need to learn to manage my feelings - I always had a glorified babysitter to keep me alive. I never had to be accountable for my inner world. I never had to look at things with logic or reason. I could let myself spiral and trust that my best friend or boyfriend would catch me before I slipped down the drain.

3. It becomes impossible to talk about issues - personal or shared. When you’re already sharing emotions there’s an explosive effect when conflict is brought up. Neither one of us knows how to handle our shit, we expect the other person to hold us up with kid gloves, annnd now that person is the source of my distress? We’re both completely beside ourselves, upset, hurt, and angry… and it’s towards each other? Now who the fuck do we call? There's a huge sense of confusion and betrayal. No one has the skills to de-escalate the argument or return to a normal emotional state.

4. How do you break up when half of your existence is in the body of another human? You can’t mentally or emotionally separate yourself from them. Physically separating yourself feels like ripping out a few of your organs and leaving them on the streets. And, who’s going to keep you afloat when you’re going through the pain of the break up? That’s the job of your partner, afterall… can’t have a vacant desk sitting here. It’s best to just suck it up and stick with it. No one would understand what you’ve both been through together, anyways.

In a word, that’s codependency.

Not what people think it is. Not what our culture describes it as. Not so easy to spot until you’re educated and honest with yourself… plus, probably viewing things through the lenses of hindsight.

Definitely a sneaky recipe for disaster when you let it take over a well-intended, emotionally transparent, highly connective relationship. And, Motherfuckers, I’ve always tended to.

 Head to t-mfrs.com for more!

[yuudetama]

Goodbye, Peter Pan [Chapter 8]

Whisper your secrets in my ear; I will hold them close to my chest.

CSI!Bangtan AU. Chapter 7 → Chapter 8

“There’s not much I can say about her. She was my friend. We were relatively close when we were younger but lost contact after finishing college. Even though we weren’t the best of friends, I thought I knew her pretty well. But thinking back now, I’m beginning to realize that, even after all of the time we spent together, I hardly knew anything about Ji Hana.”

Kim Seokjin leans back in the driver’s seat of his sedan and frowns. The neighbourhood street on which he had pulled his car into is empty, providing the best kind of public privacy which the detective could afford on such short notice. In the passenger’s seat beside him sits Jeon Jungkook, who stares out of the side window with the sort of stillness one gains only through years of practice.

“She was a ghost.” Jin stretches his long legs into a more comfortable position, rearranging his limbs as though the physical movement will orchestrate the flow of his words. “Even when she was alive, the people around her knew next to nothing about her. She barely kept in contact with her family and it doesn’t look like she had any close friends in her life. Sunggyu said that her old friends in Gwangju had nothing substantial to say about who she was as a person, and even Joohee admitted that she didn’t know Hana well, not even back when they were in school together.”

Jungkook says nothing but Jin knows that he is listening, deeply contemplating the words which have been presented to him. There are many at the station who find Jeon Jungkook to be unsociable and withdrawn, but Jin is rather fond of the younger man. He’s observant, startlingly clever, and always lets Jin take his pick from the doughnut box first (though the last one is a bit of a stretch to count, seeing as Jungkook hardly touches any kind of sugary food anyway). He just doesn’t talk much is all, and there’s nothing wrong, in Jin’s opinion, with preferring to listen rather than to speak.

Jin drums his fingers on the steering wheel and glances at the empty street outside. The two men had just finished meeting with Lee Joohee, Hana’s childhood friend. The woman, with her sleek charcoal-gray suit and immaculately polished nails, had appeared appropriately sombre when the inspectors had arrived at her gallery office. “I saw the reports,” she’d said, extending a hand in greeting, “And Hana’s parents reached out to tell me themselves, but it didn’t seem real until I received your call. You never think it’s going to happen to you, you know? Or to the people in your life. I mean, murders, killers; it’s the kind of thing that’s only supposed to exist in movies…”

Jin continues. “Sure, Joohee knew what Hana’s likes and dislikes were, what her hobbies were. She knew what Hana wanted to do after high school, who her family members were. But all of these things are superficial. They don’t tell us anything about why Hana was murdered or even targeted in the first place.”

“I suppose you could say that we were childhood friends, although we met when we were sixteen. She moved to our school during the third year of high school, and we only started talking after we were put in the same study group. But honestly, I’m not sure that she would have said the same thing about the friendship that we had. It was hard to tell what she was thinking most of the time. She never talked much about herself, and she was rather quiet, even around me. Yes, we talked and laughed together, but most of the time she just listened to other people speak. Even when we went to the same college together, it still felt like she was keeping me at a distance.”

“Either she just didn’t like talking about herself very much, or there was something she wanted to hide. A traumatic past experience or a secret of some sort… But that goes against everything we’ve learned about her, doesn’t it? Her parents already told us that nothing of the sort had happened in her life…”

“But even with that quiet side, she could be surprisingly absentminded at times. Actually, I think ‘focused’ would be a better way of describing it. She was always concentrating on her art, so it wasn’t unusual for her to forget to bring her lunch or even assignments to school. Most of our classmates- and even some of the teachers- thought she was scatterbrained, but I always thought that it was because her mind was too busy thinking of what she could create next.”

“You don’t murder a person for no reason. And if that person just so happens to be a mysterious artist who keeps her life wrapped in shadows… She was definitely hiding something, wouldn’t you say? Even when she was young, she wanted to keep her secrets. Only the problem is, nobody in her life seems to have known what they were.”

“I think the last time I saw her was sometime a year ago. I was passing by this cafe downtown and glanced through the window, and there was Hana sitting at the front table. We’d lost contact by then, so you can imagine how surprised I was to see her there. But what was more surprising was who she was with: Seo Eunkwang, that self-acclaimed ‘doctor of the soul.’ Have you heard of him? He’s the one who claims he can heal your burdened mind and emotional scars through the language of love, or whatever it is. A bit of a farce, if you ask me. Anyway, they looked as though they were in the middle of a serious conversation so I didn’t want to interrupt to say hi…”

Jin hums out a thoughtful, tuneless melody. As soon as he and Jungkook had said their goodbyes to Joohee, he had texted Jimin with the name of the so-called “soul doctor,” asking the intel officer to pass along any available information about him. So far twenty minutes have passed with the two detectives waiting in the car, but Jin is more patient than he lets on, and Jungkook doesn’t seem to mind the wait, either.

“If Ji Hana was as private as she appeared to be, then why would she meet with that doctor? Judging from what we were told, this Seo Eunkwang fellow seems to be more of an unlicensed therapist than a professional medical doctor. And why do people go to therapists? To talk. To seek emotional help.”

He can feel Jungkook’s eyes turning towards him, but still, there is no answer. The silence is heavy, stained only by the faint noises of the world beyond the sedan, but Jin isn’t offended by the lack of response. He’s long since grown accustomed to Jungkook and his odd silences; Jungkook, with his habit of wandering into his own private thoughts while giving neither explanation nor invitation to those around him. He is entirely, Jin decides, like the ocean: perpetually reaching out to the awaiting shores, only to abruptly recede back into the space that belongs to him and him only.

“She wanted to talk,” Jungkook finally speaks for the first time since leaving Lee Joohee’s office. “It doesn’t matter how guarded she was with her secrets; she still wanted somebody to confide in.”

Jin nods in agreement. “Exactly, kid. And it’s too bad our job is to pry the lids off of secrets, not to keep them on.” His phone suddenly beeps, signalling the arrival of a new message. It’s from Jimin, who has sent a makeshift profile on Seo Eunkwang containing his background information, phone number, home and work addresses, and the interestingly high number of complaints filed against his business for fraud and extortion. Jin grins as he buckles his seatbelt, then motions for Jungkook to do the same. “We got a hit for his address. I hope this doctor doesn’t mind walk-in appointments.”

Even with the ease in the morning traffic rush, it takes almost thirty minutes to reach the business district of downtown Seoul, where Seo Eunkwang had chosen to situate his somewhat questionable business. With it being ten o’clock on a Thursday morning, Jin had gambled on finding the man of interest at his office rather than his home address.

“And it’s better not to call ahead,” he’d explained to Jungkook as he drove, slowing down to allow a red minivan to cut before him on the lane. “Wouldn’t want to give him a heads-up on the chance that he has something to hide, see? Not that I’m saying we should treat him as a suspect, but you never know in our line of work.”

The so-called “soul” doctor’s office is relatively easy to find, and Jin makes quick work of parking his car along the curb. While the building itself is small, and slightly drab-looking in comparison to its neighbouring finance offices, its exterior is plastered with company banners and advertisements, as though trying to make up for its lack of decor with boasts of the businesses residing within.

Soul Speech Therapy! Heal your worries with the language of love!, one sign reads, and accompanying the words are a phone number and a picture of the grinning soul doctor himself.

“He’s not exactly shy about marketing the nature of his business, is he?” Jin snorts as he steps out of his car. He waits for Jungkook to do the same, then checks to make sure that his vehicle is locked securely. “I know there isn’t much we know about Ji Hana’s character, but if she decided to meet this guy for ‘soul speech therapy’ or whatever, then I’d be pretty surprised. It seems a bit New Age for her tastes, if you ask me.”

Jungkook takes a moment to study the storefront. The address had placed the office on the fourth floor of the building. Even with the relatively low structure in framework, the windows are still too high up for the inspectors to be able to detect any motion inside. “Perhaps this was her way of coping with whatever she had to hide.”

“Hey, I’m not judging. To each his own, and all that,” Jin says good-naturedly, and walks around the sedan to join Jungkook on the curbside. “Now, come on. Let’s go see what the doctor has to say about our ghost.”

He waits until a pair of office workers pass by on the sidewalk, then gestures for Jungkook to follow his lead. The daylight is becoming brighter with the rise of the mid-morning sun, and Jin has to blink hard to keep the bright light from completely eclipsing his vision. With the end of the May month approaching, the weather is rapidly becoming more beautiful and carefree, as though entirely oblivious to the world and its incessant, unfortunate sufferings. Some might consider it an insult, Jin muses rather regretfully, that the sun can shine so blissfully in the face of a murder investigation.

Suddenly Jungkook speaks in his usual low murmur. “There. Seo Eunkwang is coming out of the building now.”

“Where?” Squinting, Jin raises a hand to block out the sun. The onslaught of daylight makes it difficult to see clearly past the front glass doors, but he is able to make out the figure of a man approaching from within. A man in his late thirties, with a thin, angular face and salon-ready hairstyle matching the picture Jimin had sent to a T. “Perfect timing. Maybe our souls told him we were coming to see him.”

As though somehow alerted to their approach, Seo Eunkwang suddenly looks up and catches sight of the detectives through the heavy glass. Jin and Jungkook are still a few steps away from the doors, but Jin thinks he can see the man’s eyes widen in alarm before he abruptly turns and disappears back inside the lobby.

Jin momentarily stops in his tracks. “Did you see that? He obviously saw us coming. Do you think he’s trying to avoid us?” Whatever reaction he had been expecting from the man, this certainly isn’t it. “I’ll try to follow him inside, catch up to him. You stay here in case he tries to leave through the front again.”

Jungkook murmurs an assent, but Jin is already hurrying towards the building. He steps through the front doors just in time to see the doctor’s figure disappearing up the lobby stairs.

‘He’s running,’ is the first thought which pops into Jin’s mind, and instinct propels him to quicken his own pace. The staircase is free of other patrons, allowing Seo Eunkwang’s footsteps to echo thickly in the air- a light, scampering sound, yet tinged around the edges with an unmistakable sort of desperation. The desperation to hide. The desperation to flee. It’s a sound Jin is all too familiar with, but normally reserved for pursuits after conspicuous criminals and lawbreakers; certainly not businessmen and self-acclaimed medical figures.

But why would such a man want to run? What had provoked him into fleeing the second he had caught sight of the two crime scene detectives? Jin can only imagine the reason as being something so painfully obvious, Min Yoongi would have rolled his eyes in disgust: Seo Eunkwang had something he wanted to hide. He had wanted to avoid talking to the authorities, and the reason behind it was evidently pressing enough that he had decided to run instead of playing it cool.

The doctor is fast; a part of Jin can’t help but wonder if he’s had practice running from the authorities. As Jin rounds up to the third floor, he catches sight of the man already disappearing into the fourth. Frustrated, Jin yells, “Mr. Seo! I don’t know why you’re running, but we’re only here to speak to you-”

His words are greeted with the sound of a door slamming shut. Slightly out of breath, Jin reaches the top of the stairs to find the fourth floor entirely empty of the doctor’s presence. Although it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where the man is hiding- right in front of the stairwell, on the left side of the corridor, is a door marked with the sign of the doctor and his soul therapy practice.

Jin approaches the door with heavy footsteps, feeling both exasperated with this unforeseen goose chase and a bit too winded from the run for his liking. The years hadn’t been kind on his aging knees, he thinks wryly to himself, before coming to a halt in front of the silent office door. “Mr. Seo,” he huffs out, “We’re here on official police business! Whatever it is you’re trying to avoid, we have no interest in that matter. My partner and I only want to ask you a few questions about an ongoing investigation-”

And it’s then that the door suddenly flings wide open, launching itself towards Jin and his quite unsuspecting, quite unprotected face.

"Son of a-!”

——-

Even with your clear warning to stay the fuck still, the man continues to pull something out of his pocket. Inwardly you think that he must be either incredibly brazen or incredibly stupid to ignore your warning, especially when your revolver is practically on display for him to see.

Your fingers tense as you quickly assess the level of danger. Although the man has yet to present himself as an outright threat, his actions are far too suspicious for you to overlook. He’s already proven himself to be a disturbance, if not nuisance, by sneaking up to the scene of the crime. Twice. Even if he’s not the person who dragged the body into the apartment- his build doesn’t match the one from the footage- you’re still reluctant to treat him as a harmless bystander. Firing your weapon has always been your absolutely last resort, but if he pulls out a gun or even knife of his own, then you have little chance of disarming or even evading his attack in this confining hallway-

The door to Ji Hana’s unit suddenly swings wide open. Neither you nor the man have the chance to react as Hoseok appears in the doorway. His eyes flash towards yours, and without a word he wretches the man’s arms behind his back. Within seconds Hoseok has the intruder secured in a death grip, pointedly ignoring the man’s yelps of pain. An object clatters to the floor, and you give it a quick, cursory glance. No knife, no gun, not even a stick to beat you over the head with- all you can see lying on the ground, much to your surprise and chagrin, is what appears to be an identification card of some sort.

“Ow ow ow, what the hell? I wasn’t going to do anything; I was only trying to show you my badge! I’m a journalist, for crying out loud!”

Immediately you swing your eyes to the intruder’s face. In the midst of the scuffle his mask has fallen off, giving you a clear view of his features and the grimace of pain which currently twists at his lips. There is something about his face that seems oddly familiar. Narrowing your eyes, you mentally sift through your memories, weaving through each until at last you find the right one. “You. You’re the reporter who wrote that month-long feature on the museum case last year.”

“That’s me. Lee Changsub; pleased to make your acquaintance again,” the man says in a pained voice. “Now, could you please call your partner off? I think my arms are going to fall off any minute.”

Relief floods your system, but just as quickly as it appears, it’s replaced by a wave of ire and exasperation. You let your arm fall back to your side and survey the man in front of you. “What do you think you’re doing here? You’re trespassing on private property, not to mention serious police activity.”

“Jesus. You don’t skip out on arm days at the gym, do you, buddy?” Lee Changsub grimaces as Hoseok wordlessly releases his hold. He straightens up and quickly takes a step away from your colleague, eyeing the inspector with an expression that contains both wariness and grudging respect. “I’m a reporter for The Globe. We haven’t been told much about this case- your chief is quite stingy when it comes to sharing information, did you know that?- so I decided to take some initiative and check things out on my own.”

“By sneaking past our officers without a pass?” you ask skeptically, just as Hoseok says, “That’s because that information is confidential.”

The reporter picks up his ID and mask, and dusts the items off. Now that you have a better view of him, you can see that he’s clearly not the suspect from the footage. Just as you’d thought, his frame is too slender, too lithe, to match the one from the surveillance tape.

Changsub pockets his belongings and shrugs at your question. “Gotta earn a living somehow. You can’t actually expect this story to stay under wraps, not when the city’s local art sensation Ji Hana is involved. And as I said, your chief hasn’t given us much to go on. He’s not very good at answering his phone, is he?”

“If you’re an authorized journalist, then you’ll know how the protocol works for this kind of thing. We answer your calls and hold media conferences when we’re able to, not anytime sooner than that.”

“You can’t blame a guy for trying, Inspector. But so long as we’re talking about protocol…” His eyes flash towards your hip, and you’re slightly taken aback to see Hoseok follow his line of sight. “Pulling a weapon on an innocent civilian? Wouldn’t you say you’re… jumping the gun a bit?”

You ignore his grin and tasteless pun. “Not if I have reason to believe that my safety, and the safety of the residents in this building, is at risk. Besides, with all of that sneaking around, you can hardly be called innocent. Consider this a warning. The next officer who finds you trespassing in crime scenes might not be so lenient.”

Changsub raises his hands in a show of surrender. “Alright, alright. I can take a hint. I promise I’ll be on my best behaviour from here on out. But before I leave…” Pulling out his wallet, he digs through the compartments for a moment before producing a white business card. He holds it out to you (a wise decision, you privately think, for Hoseok would have left the questionable offering hovering in the air). “I know that we media folk are something akin to vultures to you, but would you call me if you find any developments? Out of consideration for the public, if not for what I sense to be the beginning of a beautiful and blossoming friendship.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes and accept the card. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Once the reporter has left, you follow Hoseok back inside unit 905. The apartment is still as quiet as ever, still pitifully lonely, making it seem as though it exists entirely in a world of its own. As you walk behind your colleague through the living room, a thought suddenly appears in your mind. “What if he’d had a knife?”

Hoseok pauses briefly to consider your question. “Well, I suppose that’s where your gun would have had the advantage.”

“That’s not what I meant.” This time, you really do roll your eyes. Honestly, if this is how Yoongi feels whenever you throw sass at him, then you think you owe the poor man a long-overdue apology. “You were unarmed. You could have gotten hurt. Even if you caught him by surprise, he still could have attacked you, and you would have been defenceless to stop it.”

He glances over his shoulder to meet your eyes. In the low light of the apartment, his eyes almost appear to be black, and there is a startling intensity that once again catches you off-guard. “Exactly. What if he’d had a knife? Or a gun? Are you confident that you could have disarmed him with your weapon? Your gun may be fast, but if you don’t know what you’re going up against, then you lose the upper hand. I’m not undermining you, Inspector. But if you’re going to preach to me about being defenceless in the face of a risk, then I suggest that you do the same for yourself.”

His words provoke a conflicting mix of emotions within you: the urge to snap back and defend your wounded pride, a growing exasperation at the petty, practically high school-level tension that hovers in the air. As you evenly return his stare, you can almost hear an indignant voice whispering in the back of your head, what crawled up his ass and died? Over the years you’ve seen your share of haughty colleagues, some superior to your rank, others working beneath your orders, all equally as unwilling to cooperate like mature, reasonable adults. But Jung Hoseok is something entirely different. It’s not that he’s outright rebuffing you, no. It’s more that he’s refusing to allow himself to be read, and there exists a part of you that thinks he must have worked extremely hard to keep it that way.

Eventually you decide to settle the matter with a light shrug and word of thanks. Your work is already difficult enough, and damn it all if you’re going to let this childish tension cloud your focus. Ji Hana deserves better, you decide with a sense of resolution, than for two detectives to squabble in her apartment instead of finding the truth behind her untimely death. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for your help, then.”

He regards you for a second longer before pulling away in the verbal ceasefire. “Don’t mention it. If you had gotten injured, it would have only given your boss another reason to resent my presence,” he says dryly, then disappears into the bathroom to continue his tour of the apartment.

You stare after him before shaking your head. ‘He really is something else,’ you muse, then follow his lead down the hallway. The image of Hoseok putting Lee Changsub into a near-headlock suddenly appears in your mind, and, despite your earlier feelings of frustration, you can feel a wry grin tugging at your mouth. Really, the bureau director couldn’t have picked a better man for his unspoken mission to infiltrate the Seoul station while pissing off Min Yoongi. It’s just a shame that the person on the receiving end of Jung Hoseok’s… antagonism, for lack of a better word, is you and not the branch director in question (although there is a part of you that wonders what Hoseok himself thinks of this power play. Even with his inscrutability, you somehow doubt that he would willingly agree to be a pawn in another man’s political pissing party).

Casually leaning against the doorframe, you watch for a moment as he examines the contents of the bathroom cupboard: an unopened roll of mint toothpaste, a jar of face cream, a large bottle of shea body lotion that looks as though it hasn’t been touched in months. Most definitely not the contents of a woman who cared for a good skincare regimen. “So. What do you think?”

“What do I think about…?”

“About the case.” You wave your hand around the dimly lit room. “About the victim. About where we need to go from here.”

If Hoseok recognizes your unspoken offer of a truce (or diplomatic peace-making, as Namjoon often refers to it), then he doesn’t comment on it. His eyes flash as he absorbs the sight of the bathroom, and it’s only from the way that his lips are pressed together and his brows are furrowed that you can tell he’s taking your question seriously. “She wanted to avoid people,” he begins slowly. “She wanted to keep to herself. And not just because she had the personality of a recluse. No, there was a reason why she wanted to hide her life, and I suspect that the catalyst for this murder is connected to something that happened in her past.”

“Problem is, we have no idea what that something is. We haven’t found anything in this apartment-” you gesture your hand once again, “-that so much as hints at a past trauma. And it doesn’t seem like anybody in her life had any idea, either. Not her parents, not her friends; not even a single diary entry to point us in the right direction.”

“Just because she never told anybody, doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen,” he says, but this time you can tell that his disagreement is for the purpose of speculation rather than antagonism. “She could have lied. She could have pretended that she was okay. People tend to do that.”

“You sound as though you have a lot of experience with that.”

Hoseok tilts his head. “Are you investigating me now, Inspector?” he asks in that slightly mocking voice which you’ve already become so accustomed to, yet you think you can see something close to amusement in his eyes.

You flash him an indulgent smile. The tension from earlier has all but dissipated, but there is a residual hint of it which continues to linger in the air, something that either only a fool or a dead man would be ignorant enough to miss. “Just think of it as me becoming more acquainted with you. I like to know a little something about all of my case partners; you understand.”

“I wasn’t aware that we were partners to begin with.”

“Not officially, no. But we were assigned to this case together, weren’t we? Even if you and I work within different districts, that still technically makes us partners for the time being. And I don’t know about you, but I like to get along with the people I’m working with,” you point out.

He looks at you, and for a very awkward moment you think that he’s going to ignore your obvious attempt at peace-making. But then the inner district officer turns back to the cupboard and resumes his inspection of its contents. “Lies are the foundation of this job, both yours and mine. If I really thought that Ji Hana’s life was as transparent as we’ve found it to be, then I wouldn’t make for a very good detective, would I?”

“Well, when you put it that way.” You’re keenly aware that he’s sidestepping your question, but choose not to push him for further elaboration. “But believe me, I know exactly what you’re getting at. I’m a detective too, remember? I’ve probably seen it just as much as you have.”

“Of course. I never doubted that for a second,” he answers cryptically, and closes the doors of the cupboard with an air of finality.

With the inspection of the bathroom completed, Hoseok steps past you to make a beeline for the living room. He comes to a stop in the middle of the wide room, sweeping his eyes slowly around the space (and what a lonely, lonely, space it is) as he had done inside of the bedroom. Again, you watch silently as he takes in the details of his surroundings: the bookshelf that is crammed with a mismatch of books and painting tools, the weatherbeaten sofa which seems to grieve for the owner whom it knows will never return. The painting of the Night Dancer image, which had practically catapulted Ji Hana to local fame while revealing nothing about its creator or even creation story.

Your vantage point from the entranceway only grants you a view of Hoseok’s side profile, but you can see his gaze coming to a stop at the enigmatic painting. He says nothing, but you think you can see something pass over his expression. It flits over his features like a shadow, so small and fleeting that you’d almost believe it to be a trick of the light should he so make the claim.

You expect Hoseok to make some sort of comment on the image- Ji Hana’s identity had practically revolved around this visual discipline, after all- but he simply turns away from the painting and glances in your direction. Whatever that shadow had been, it mars his features no longer. All that you can see is that slightly mocking smile of his, looking so natural and effortless, as though it had never disappeared from its spot on his mouth in the first place.

“Shall we return to the station, then? Before you decide to- how did that journalist put it- jump the gun on another unsuspecting civilian,” he says, lips twitching in amusement at the echo of Lee Changsub’s jest. Without waiting to hear your response, he brushes past you and heads towards the front door to the apartment, leaving behind only the sound of his receding footsteps and the lingering scent of his cologne to your company.

‘Smartass,’ you think to yourself wryly, and begin to follow his path towards the apartment door. It’s only your second day of knowing this man, yet it feels as though the two of you have already gone circles upon circles around each other. Whatever his intentions are, whatever it is that he’s trying to keep guarded from the rest of the world, you somehow think that Jung Hoseok will be an even greater mystery to uncover than the murder investigation itself.

[marcusssanderson]

50 Valentine’s Day Quotes Celebrating True Love in 2019

This Valentine’s Day quotes collection will help you honor true love.

Valentine’s Day is an occasion to celebrate love, friendship and admiration. Each year on 14 February, people celebrate this day by exchanging cards, candy and flowers, or sending messages of love and affection to partners, family and friends.

Couples send Valentine’s Day cards and gifts of flowers and enjoy quality time together to celebrate their love for each other.

Valentine’s Day is celebrated in many countries around the world. However, different cultures have developed their own traditions for this occasion. While many observe it as a day for expressing love between couples, others see it as a day to celebrate the love between family members and friends.

Many couples choose to celebrate Valentine’s Day with dinner, a luxury hotel stay in a beautiful location, a picnic or special home-cooked meal. Whichever way you choose to celebrate it, Valentine’s Day is a perfect time to express your love and commitment.

To help make it romantic and memorable, below is our collection of inspirational, sweet, and cute Valentine’s Day quotes, Valentine’s Day messages, and Valentine’s Day wishes, collected from a variety of sources over the years.

Valentines day quotes celebrating true love in 2019

1.) “Your flaws are perfect for the heart that’s meant to love you.” – Trent Shelton

2.) “Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” – Lao Tzu

3.) “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller

4.) “Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly that you feel you could die of it.” – Henri de Toulouse

5.) “Where there is love, there is life.” – Mahatma Gandhi

6.) “Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” – Robert Heinlein

7.) “A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.” –  Frank Morgan

8.) “I just think Valentine’s Day is a day to really appreciate the person you love, no matter who it is, and to spend time with them. I don’t think it’s all about fancy presents or whatever. I think it’s about spending that quality time with that special person.” – Prince Royce

9.) “Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.” – Lord Byron

10.) “It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.” – Christian Nestell Bovee

Valentine’s Day quotes to help make it romantic and memorable

11.) “The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it. You and you alone make me feel that I am alive. Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.” – George Edward Moore

12.) “I like doing something romantic with a girl on Valentine’s Day, like making her dinner and keeping it simple. The more quality time, the better.” – Spencer Boldman

13.) “Although I believe affection and romance should be shown all year around, it’s always smart to have a good plan up your sleeve for Valentine’s Day.” – Marcus Samuelsson

14.) “Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.” – William Shakespeare

15.) “Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever.”  – Audre Lorde

16.) “I’ve never been so scared of losing something in my entire life, then again nothing in my life has ever meant as much to me as you do.”  – Anonymous

17.) “When you know who you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want to start the rest of your life as soon as you can.”  – Dierks Bentley

18.) “Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” – Thomas Merton

19.) “This fire that we call Loving is too strong for human minds. But just right for human souls.”  – Aberjhani

20.) “If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you.” – A. A. Milne

Valentine’s Day quotes for him or her

21.) “I won’t give up on us, even if the skies get rough.”  – Jason Mraz

22.) “A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”  – Ingrid Bergman

23.) “On a scale of one to ten, I’d give you a nine — and I’m the one you need.”  – Anonymous

24.) “I love that rush, when he folds me into his arms and I can let out a sign of relief, knowing I’m safe there. Always.”  – Michelle Poelking

25.) “In a world full of temporary things, you are a perpetual feeling.”  – Sanober Khan

26.) “Love isn’t finding the perfect person. It’s seeing an imperfect person perfectly.”  – Sam Keen

27.) “I love you not only for what you are but, for what I am when I’m with you.”  – Roy Croft

28.) “Love is a friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It’s loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weakness.” – Ann Landers

29.) “If there ever comes a day where we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.”  – Winnie The Pooh

30.) “The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone who loves the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.”  – Carrie Bradshaw

Valentine’s Day quotes to help express your love and commitment

31.) “I may not say much when I am with you, but all of me loves you all the time.” – Richard Nixon

32.) “As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.” – Bruce Lee

33.) “Great love awakens us to the fullness of life. Great love shapes us. When we are embrace of love the world appears brighter and evens our food taste better when we love.” – Tito Tinajero

34.) “Loving someone and having them love you back is the most precious thing in the world.” –  Nicholas Sparks

35.) “Life gives us many things to be thankful for. I give thanks to God for you! A blessing in my life, you are.” – Catherine Pulsifer

36.) “For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it.” – Ivan Panin

37.) “To love another person is to see the face of God.” – Les Miserables

38.) “On Valentine’s day we think of those who make our life worthwhile, those gracious, friendly people who we think of with a smile.” – Anonymous

39.) “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you … I could walk through my garden forever.” – Alfred Tennyson

40.) “Valentine’s Day is precisely what the spirit needs. It is hot chocolate for the soul. It is a bright splash of color on a stark white canvas. The day reminds us to reaffirm our love, or perhaps to give voice to that which has remained unsaid.” – Dorothy Denneen Volo

More Valentine’s Day quotes to celebrate love and friendship

41.) “No matter where I went, I always knew my way back to you. You are my compass star.” –  Diana Peterfreund

42.) “Valentine. Is the day of love. Many ways to express affection to the people we love. By way of giving a gift that is definitely synonymous with words of love and romantic. Gifts do not have to be very expensive.” – Arif Jmsh

43.) “Let loose the sails of love and let them fill with breezes sweet with tenderness to-day; scorn not the praises youthful lovers say; romance is old, but it is lovely still.” – Edgar A Guest

44.) “Take love, multiply it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever… and you still have only a glimpse of how I feel for you.” – Meet Joe Black

45.) “Romance is a beautiful experience. that we should all have the pleasure of giving and receiving. Being in Love is one of the most powerful emotions to experience in our lifetime and having the two makes life that little bit more special.” – Cassandra M Porter

46.) “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” – Maya Angelou

47.) “No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a single thread.” – Robert Burton

48.) “God’s plans are the perfect plan. He sent me a special valentine when He sent me you. God knew what he was doing when he sent me you.” – Theodore W. Higginsworth

49.) “Clouds never get tired of giving rain to us; and you, you must never get tired of giving your love! Valentine’s Day is day to remember to give more, to love more, it is a day to behave like a heavy rain.”  – Mehmet Murat Ildan

50.) “However, quality love relationships do not happen by accident. Real love is built the old-fashioned way – through hard work.” – Danny Silk

Which of these Valentine’s Day quotes was your favorite?

Valentine’s Day is an occasion to celebrate love and friendship. It is a perfect time to show your love and commitment to the special people in your life.

Whether you’ll be celebrating it with your significant other, or with your family and friends, we hope the above quotes will help make it memorable.

Did you enjoy these Valentine’s Day quotes? Which of the quotes was your favorite? Tell us in the comment section below. We would love to hear all about it.

The post 50 Valentine’s Day Quotes Celebrating True Love in 2019 appeared first on Everyday Power.

[pinarworks]

''Hell is Other people'' Michael Haneke’s 2005 movie Cache is categorized as a ‘’psychological thriller’’ in most magazine reviews and/or online streaming sites and DVD shelves; but after a close watching, apart from leaving the audience shocked and thrilled, it also leaves a profoundly bitter and unidentifiable taste in one’s mouth; because under the disguise of the category of psychological thriller, Cache is also a movie about colonialism, and its historical, physical and affective implications on people and societies. The movie starts with a stable sight of a house, shot from a direct angle at a distance. It’s a nice, peaceful street with bird sounds and not much traffic or noise and all the passersby are white. The audience instantly gets that it’s a middle class neighborhood which then is confirmed by the street sign that says Rue Des Iris. After a few minutes of the same sight we hear people talking over the view and thus understand that this is a videotape that was sent anonymously to the people who live in the house that the tape showed directly. It’s the house of Georges and Anne Laurent, a middle class, white couple with a teenage son named Pierrot. The tape shows nothing else than the house and the couple leaving and entering their building. It clearly has a message that says ‘’you’re being watched’’ and is only the first of many to come. Throughout the movie the mystery behind the ambivalent videotapes unfolds slowly but not completely, we never learn who actually did send them. After the first or second one, the tapes begin to be sent in a folded paper with a child’s drawing on it, each time a different drawing. First it’s a drawing of a kid with blood coming from his mouth. Then it’s a rooster whose throat has been cut and is dead with blood spilled around. Another tape features shootings of Georges’ childhood home in which he was grown up and then another tape leads to a door of a flat in a poor district of town. All of these mean nothing to Anne but Georges gets the clues and things start to unfold. By the means of these tapes we slowly dive into Georges’ past and also unconscious and learn that he has a secret that’s hidden from everyone and also himself: Turns out when he was 6 years old, he had prevented an Algerian boy called Majid, whose family were working as servants in Georges’ house and were killed in the Paris massacre of 1961, to be adopted by his own parents through lying about him because he was jealous of him and ‘’did not want to share his room with him’’. In this sense the events that the Laurent family encounter emerge as the reflection of French society’s colonial past. The hidden cameras, the hidden secrets and lies and things that are left ambivalent in their life all come together to echo French society’s hidden secrets and dirty past, both stigmatized with traumas of whose effects are still vibrant although kept hidden and unconfronted and unrecognized. As Georges who does not want to recognize his hidden past about Majid, France does not want to recognize and reconcile with its own colonial past too. In the movie Georges grew up while the French/Algerian war was going on and there were many protests and resistance movements against French government within France especially in Paris. It was in those days that his parents hired an Algerian family as helpers in the house. When the Algerian couple died during the Parisian massacre of October 17, 1961, Georges’ parents decided to adopt their orphaned son Majid, may be out of guilt. Georges was enraged with fear and jealousy and he told lies about Majid. He told his parents that Majid was coughing blood and then he killed a rooster by cutting off its head in cold blood (although it was Georges that told Majid his parents would only adopt him if he would cut the rooster’ head off). We see how Georges creates his own oxidant in the form of Majid as France created its oxidant through Algeria. Similar to Gobineau’s racial characteristics according to Hotze (Young, 1995), Majid is remembered and portrayed throughout the movie by Georges as an animal-like creature, who is prone to manipulation and with little moral values. Mahmut Mutman quotes Johannes Fabian when talking about how Western hegemony was constructed: Through ‘’pushing the other back in time’’. (Mutman, 1992-93). Majid stays that savage child who can kill an animal with a blink of an eye, needs to be taken care of, kept under control (Majid has been sent to a hospital or an asylum forcedly after Georges’ lies). Just as Algeria and Algerians needs to be kept under control. The events in which Majid’s parents were killed is known as the Paris Massacre of 1961, in which the police killed many pro-Algerian demonstrators by throwing them into the Seine River to drown. France did not recognize or apologize about this event until 1998 and even then, the government acknowledged only 40 deaths, although it’s been known that the death toll was more than that, between 100 to 300. This insistence on not recognizing the other, is prominent in both Georges own experience with Majid and France’s with Algeria. When George goes up to where Majid lives to confront him about the videotapes, we see how Majid is trying to open up a conversation. He is calm and careful and refuses he has anything to do with the tapes but Georges only wants to shout down at him and make him confess his supposed ‘’guilt’’. When Anne asks Georges about what actually happened back then that would have caused Majid to hold such grudge till now, Georges responds ‘’I was a kid, I don’t remember, isn’t it normal? Should I call it a tragedy?’’. He keeps ignoring, not recognizing and overreacting. Seems like he never wants to recognize Majid as a person. Just like French government’s resistance to accepting the actual death toll and just sticking to the number of 40. After all, in turbulent times like war, death is normal, isn’t it? Georges cannot accept that it was a tragedy. France cannot accept it was a massacre, Turkey won’t accept there was an Armenian Genocide. These are all banned words from the consciousness of people and communities of ‘’official histories’’ of dominant powers written by white Western (or Western wannabe) men. The first anonymous videotape instantly evokes some tension between the Georges and Anne as a couple which continue to climb up until the end of the movie. Anne is sure that the tape was sent for Georges although there’s no note with it that confirms this suspicion; and so sure is Georges too. He is the white male protagonist, the subject, of the movie, just like the white western male main agent of history in Western civilization, so it’s only natural that we assume things are going to revolve around him. This assumption is perpetuated in the way that representation is handled, very subtle but very effectively, in the movie. For instance, the neighborhood where the couple live, the interior of their home and their jobs: Anne is a book publisher and Georges is an intellectual discussion TV show host. They are surrounded by symbols of civilization: books: Books in their living room, books in the studio of Georges’ show, even books in their kitchen. They drink wine at dinners, invite friends over and talk. There’s an ‘imagined community’ of intellectuals, in a sense, of people who can judge good books from bad, who can discuss about art and ‘other’ people. They conversate about things, mostly superficial things that seem to mean nothing but they continue to conversate nonetheless. After all, in a dualist world that Western metaphysics offer, speech is the Meta medium in which a rational and authentic civilization can be erected by human animals who ‘speak’. The world that the videotape is recording is dominantly white too. The Laurents are surrounded by white, educated and secular intellectual ‘French’. The only black person who can find a way into this world is the ‘nameless’ black woman on their dinner party who looks very beautiful but speaks almost nothing. She seems to be the girlfriend of one of the male guests. Apparently she was ‘’saved by a white man from black men’’ (Spivak, 1988). We can assume she is only there because she has the adequate social capitals to be included in the dinner table, and also she may be one of those which Fanon calls as ‘black skin, white mask’, (Fanon, 1952) in the sense that she is a docile, assimilated, civilized, compromised ‘other’ who has been fit into the norms of the ‘mOther’ country, in a Lacanian sense, that is France which ‘nurtured’ her. The movie is full of subalterns in this sense. The power dynamics between characters and the impact of their positions are felt throughout the movie. As the white male subject of the movie, Georges has the strongest position which later is being challenged by ‘’the other’s’’ intervention. As a woman and a wife, Anne is subaltern to Georges but then again she is in a stronger position when compared with Majid. These subalterns ‘cannot speak’ or to put it more accurately are not ‘allowed to speak’ by those who hold dominant positions. Anne is being shut down by male characters in the movie all the time, her husband Georges, her friend Pierre, even by her child Pierrot, who believes she’s having an affair with Pierre and does not let her talk and explain it is not the case so. Once the anonymous videotapes start to come wrapped in drawings, Georges repressed past begins its return journey. Something clicks and the videotapes start to be interfered with a memory of Georges from then on; a flashback that shows a little boy with blood in his mouth being caught by a stranger ‘gaze’. This boy is probably Majid, the ‘other’ Georges hated when he was a child, did not want to share his room and his world with. The ‘other’ that he was jealous of. The ‘other’ which he constructed as ‘the other’ in a way as what Said would say, through lying and hence creating knowledge about. But once in a while, his narrative is challenged. The videotapes challenge his self-esteem and unconscious. Also in the scene when he is almost hit by a bike, we see how his constructed reality is shaken too. The rider of the bike is one of the very few black persons we see on screen other than the guest in the dinner party (and apart from Majid and his son of course). This young black person though, is not as silent, docile and ‘fragile’ as the black woman guest at the dinner. This young black boy is angry; he won’t be silenced. He talks back and corners Georges’ inner fear of the other. He symbolizes the return of Majid; the boy Georges did not want to be brothers with when they were little. Just like Majid, he too emerges as ‘another’ problem, a bump, in his white, clean, isolated, Western life. This constructed narrative about the other, the produced knowledge about the other comes in frequently in the movie. Georges’ isolated life filled with Western ideas, books and intellectual gatherings, is so sterile and separated from the ‘other’ side of France and then the world. He is only coming face to face with reality through recorded material. First these anonymous videotapes that are sent to him and then the news in the background in his home, telling about the war in Iraq and the invasion of Iraq by the European collaborative military forces. As in his TV show he is in charge of creating whatever knowledge he can create. As he can cut and edit the conversations and the flow of the TV show in a way as he thinks is appropriate, he can lie to his wife and mother about his past, can hold back certain facts or push others in front to create a new form of knowledge about his past and about Majid in order to deal with them more easily. After all, as Said argues ‘’Knowledge of subject races or Orientals is what makes their management easy and profitable’’ (Said, 1978). As a person who is very used to being under the camera’s gaze on TV and on media, why are these new surveillance tapes so scary for Georges? Because in life he has the control of the camera, he can cut and edit what the camera shoots in the production room, he excludes the scenes he does not like, he can create a new narrative a new discourse so to say among the existing ones by cutting, excluding and pasting the tapes. He wants to be the sole subject, the agent, the person that controls ‘the gaze’, he wants to be in control of the discourses. Because he knows what a ‘created’ narrative can do, he is scared of this new, ‘alien’ camera with an unknown person behind it. The anonymity of the camera drives him crazy. That’s why he actually does not question a lot. He immediately decides that it’s Majid or his son. He wants to have conclusions and leave the problem behind. The mainstream narrative, the representation of the other, the Orient in Georges’ mind, allows him to come to such conclusions very easily. Georges’ and the rest of the white adults’ problematic relation with ‘others’ show itself in the way they tend to infantilize the others in the movie. Georges constantly infantilizes his wife Anne, he lies to her, does not think she’s capable of understanding him and handling the situation. Then he infantilizes Majid, when they meet, keeps shouting at him, does not listen to him. He also infantilizes Majid’s son too. All of Majid’s attempts on being recognized on Georges side fail. In the end he commits suicide in front of Georges, cutting his own throat like he cut off that rooster’s throat. In a way he fulfills Georges’ fantasy of him being the savage, uncivilized, irrational creature. Frantz Fanon suggests that neither the colonizer or the colonized is free from the damage that colonization brings. The subject/other relationship of Georges and Majid gets complicated every time an attempt on recognition is rejected. The historical baggage this relationship has accumulated in both of these men’s and even in their family’s psyches, cannot be erased, forgotten or undone After Majid dies, his son comes to see Georges, still asking for recognition but the reaction is the name: No time for talking or trying to understand. Georges’ paranoia is still living as if he wants to keep it alive by refusing to solve the issue through talking. It’s the same for France and Algeria too. The actual war is over now. We are supposedly in the period of ‘decolonization’. The subject devoured its desire. But the after effects still show. Either in the form of increased terrorists acts in the colonized side or in the form of increased paranoia on the colonizer’s. Georges’ paranoia is similar to France’s obsession on secularism that bans the burka, makes Islamophobic legislations etc. It’s a vicious circle feeding on each other and keeping the fire burning. Since there’s no ‘genealogy’ of guilt, pain and horror prevails. Despite looking and acting like an intellectual, Georges actually lives a very close life, limited to the time he spends in his work, the dinner parties with friends and the guests he invites to his TV show. I believe there’s a critique here directed at the intellectual middle class of French society and then the Western world which sees itself as the center of the world and is not very much interested in what happens in the rest of the world. Georges is indifferent to the war news on TV at home, although claiming to be an intellectual, he does not seem to be bothered by what’s going on beyond his own doors, his own world. It’s the West and the rest. It’s Georges Laurent and the rest. On one scene we see a glimpse of a scene of Georges’ TV show in which guests talk about famous French poet Arthur Rimbaud. I think there’s a double reference here in the usage of Rimbaud as the main subject of that specific show. Apart from being a successful poet, Rimbaud is also known to have enlisted for Dutch Colonial Army and worked in the Dutch colonization of Indonesia and dealt with slave-trading too. He may be used as a symbol for France’s colonial past and also as a reference to the role of the intellectuals in sustaining the status quo, implying that those who are ‘sophisticated’ may very well be not free of responsibility of a collective crime. The movie ends without any conventional ending. Majid kills himself, Georges goes on with his busy life, refusing to confront Majid’s son, still not sure who shot and sent the tapes.  The only clue of a redemption/reconciliation is visible for a moment in the final scene that is shot through a video camera again, probably recording that scene too, in which Majid’s son (whom we never learn the actual name of) visits Georges’ son Pierrot after school. They talk a bit and part in seemingly good moods. May be it’s a reference to the idea of letting the ‘subaltern speak’. May be if Majid could have spoken and be recognized as his son was recognized by Pierrot, he would have not killed himself. In this very scene, Majid’s son the subaltern speaks and apparently when allowed, he can speak.

[303magazine]

While it may not always come with free two-day shipping, there are a lot of perks when you buy local. First, it is good for your community — on average 48% of your purchase goes back into the local economy compared to 14% of chain stores. Additionally, as is the case for this guide, your gifts are likely to be more unique, locally made or ethically sourced. So not only will your present seem more special, it’ll probably last longer and doesn’t come with a ton of ethical baggage. If this isn’t enough to convince you, this list was compiled by real-life local people (editor’s nonetheless) who not only endorse but actually enjoy the products on this list. And as a triple bonus, we were not paid by any of these companies for these inclusions (which has always been our policy, but we figured we’d remind you). Every year, we get together and ask one simple question: what do you recommend? Here are our answers.

Note: all of our selections are under $150! Go here to read our 2018 picks.

Food & Booze

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Local Booze & Beverages

Cost: Prices range

Where to get it: Local liquor stores, like Mr. B’s or Argonaut 

The Lowdown: A bottle of booze is usually a no brainer gift and luckily Denver has an insane amount of great locally made hooch. This season, we’d recommend checking out the freshly released Atticus Jones — the Family Jones’ straight rye whiskey made with 100% Colorado grains. Their first grain-to-glass spirit has all of the spice you’d want from a rye whiskey but with added dark cherry and molasses notes from its 10% of malted barley. If your giftee is more of a beer drinker, Longmont’s Left Hand has a solid gift pack of eight nitro beers that gives you that creamy deliciousness of a nitro beer at home (just make sure you follow the hard pour rules on the side of the can). It features their most famous core nitro beers including their famous original milk stout. But the one we love is the chai milk stout which really does have that chai spice flavor. If you’re on the hard seltzer train, we just rounded up the best ones in the state, so you can take your pick.

If you want something non-alcoholic but just as enjoyable, we can’t stop drinking the hop teas from Boulder’s Hoplark. In fact, they aren’t pictured because we accidentally drank them all. They are perfect if you’re trying to kick your beer habit or doing a sober month after the holidays because they slightly taste like a hoppy beer but in a weirdly satisfyingly way. (PS you can find these at the Whole Foods Union Station). CBD waters also provide some relaxing effects minus the booze and there’s none better than Salida’s DRAM (also found at Mr. B’s liquor stores).

Local Coffee

Cost: $3- $100

Where to get it: Queen City Collective Coffee 2962 Welton St., Denver or 305 W 1st Ave, Denver or online at Dragonfly Coffee Roasters 

The Lowdown: Almost everyone knows a coffee snob — hell, we are some of them. So if you’re hoping to buy a bag or two for your favorite ‘decaf or die’ friend, you can’t just go to the grocery and pick up any old bag. Rather look locally at two incredible roasters: Dragonfly Coffee Roasters and Queen City Collective Coffee. The former is for the serious aficionado, as Dragonfly was named one of the top roasters in the entire US by Forbes magazine and offers some of the rarest coffees in the world. So prices range wildly from a $14 bag of a classic espresso roast for your everyday drinker to a $100 Panama Geisha. For the perpetually busy and caffeinated type, Queen City Collective is the first in the city to offer steeped coffee bags. Functioning similarly to a tea bag, the environmentally sustainable one-cup solution is much better than a K-Cup and not as much work as a pour-over. If you want a splash of good in your coffee, they also launched a Made by HER program featuring coffees from women-run co-ops. Just look for the logo when you’re in store either in Baker or their new Five Points location.

Local Discount Guidebooks

Cost: $25-55

Where to get it: EatDenver Dining Deck // Denver Passport

The Lowdown: Every gift guide we typically recommend a few of these discount guidebooks because it’s a great way to explore new bars and restaurants and helps answer the age-old question: where do we go for dinner (or drinks)? Plus, they don’t look or feel anything like your grandma’s coupon books. Once again, we are recommending the Denver Passport  — the buy one, get one drink book — for two reasons: you get a bonus mountain passport and it also includes some buy one, get one coffee as well. Additionally, the booklet is always well-curated and does a good job of getting a feel for what’s cool, new and just flat out good in the city. For EatDenver, their dining deck was just revamped with the help of the former 5280 Dining editor and it has some fun new options. Alongside its more than $500 drink and food deals at 55 locally and independently owned restaurants, they threw in trivia on each card and a food and drink themed scavenger hunt through LoHi. It sounds like a great date night to us.

Pro tip: if you want to make the gift feel more personalized create an itinerary for a day based around spots in the guidebooks that you’d recommend. Maybe throw in a restaurant gift card to round out the experience.

Lifestyle + Culture

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Natura Obscura Tickets

Cost: $10-20 purchase online in advance here

The Lowdown: If you’re looking for a gift that is an experience rather than something tangible, tickets to one of the most sought-after immersive art installations in Colorado will do the trick. Called Natura Obscura, the experience puts visitors into an enchanted forest created by a handful of artists, filled with riddles, hidden symbology, augmented reality and more. Although the original closing date was in April, popular demand has kept it open. But the word is that Natura Obscura closes for good on December 29, so this will have to be a gift that is instantly enjoyed.

READ: Explore a Surreal Immersive Forest at Museum of Outdoor Arts’ Newest Exhibit

CultureHaus Membership

Cost: $105 per year, purchase here

The Lowdown: Another gift for the “doers” and experience-seekers in your life is a membership to the Denver Art Museum’s fundraising group, CultureHaus. Throughout the year, members are invited to special events like street art bus tours, late-night cocktail hours at the museum and more. Members also get to meet other art lovers in the city. 

Laser Show inside the International Church of Cannabis

Cost: $10-15 tickets, buy in advance here

The Lowdown: This gift mixes art and culture with one of Denver’s most notorious characteristics — marijuana. The International Church of Cannabis is an actual church with followers (who call themselves Elevationists) but the building offers members and non-members alike the thrill of standing beneath a monumental ceiling painting by world-renowned street artist Okuda San Miguel. The church now has laser shows and other events beneath the breathtaking piece of art, and you can buy tickets to wow your loved ones and stoke their burning questions about weed in Colorado. 

READ: International Church of Cannabis Reaches New Heights With Meditative Art Experience

Juju Be Gone, “Feeling Mystical?” Curated Gift Box

Cost: $125 (and other various prices) 

The Lowdown: Juju Boxes are curated gift boxes that are sent directly to your recipient, neatly packaged and thoughtfully crafted. Based in Denver, these boxes are all about “good vibes” and spreading joy, matching the sunny disposition that most people attribute to the Mile High City. There are dozens of combinations — gifts or her, for him, for the holidays — and all of them are geared toward lifting spirits and brightening attitudes through spirituality and “a little bit of sass.” The one pictured is the “Feeling Mystical?” collection which includes a pendulum, a recharging bath soak, Mystic Mondays tarot deck, The Golden Book of Fortune-Telling, a sage smudge and matches. It’s $125 (plus an extra $18.95 for the smudge and match add-on) and can include a personal message to your friend or loved one. Check out this page for the Holiday-themed boxes and this page for the “Feeling Mystical?” box.  

Awaken Sex Boutique

Cost: Between $15 and $79 or $141 before tax, two locations.

The Lowdown: These presents are definitely best for your intimate relationships, although the name of the game at Awaken Sex Boutique is destigmatization so we aren’t going to judge who you want to give these sexy items to. We asked the owners to put together a fun selection and the results made us tingle a little. Starting with the big-ticket item, pick up the Crave Vesper ($79) which is a vibrating necklace that is unassuming and stylish. Or, go for the combination of a Saint Orgasma prayer candle designed by Denver-based artist Kaitlin Zeismer ($15) and a silky blindfold and handcuff set ($27). Finally, if you’re hoping to snag something for a friend rather than a partner, grab the How to Date Men When You Hate Men coffee table book for some laughs and maybe some really sound advice.

Fashion

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Adventure Gear with Purpose

Cost: $55-$130

The Lowdown: If you have friends or family who appreciate the great outdoors, these are exceptional options for both men and women. Maroon Bell Outdoor’s Buffalo Leather Gloves ($65) are fitted and durable to wear for any venture you embark on. The local brand also gives 3% of the profits back to various nonprofits. For your adventure seekers, Adventurist Backpack Co. backpacks have exceptional quality and a clean design. Each backpack ($55-$85) is water-resistant, durable and comes with premium YKK zippers. Adventurist Backpack Co. also works with Feeding America to ensure families across the U.S. are provided with meals.

Sustainably-Made Skincare

Cost: Prices Vary

The Lowdown: This year, we rounded up the best in local skincare and beauty brands committed to sustainability and low-impact production, so you can feel good about what you’re giving. Homefill at Modern Nomad has plenty of options for the eco-friendly beauty guru ranging from CBD lip balm to package-free shampoo and conditioner bars. Aurora-based company, LipBar, creates custom cosmetics and personal, “makeup counter” experiences. Fan-favorite, Dram Apothecary, offers CBD Adaptogenic Beauty Drops ($56) that are organic, vegan and alcohol-free and can help protect your body, skin and hair from environmental stressors. Based in Fort Collins and owned and operated by a licensed esthetician, WildBloom Skincare offers a wide range of products that were created along the guidelines of the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Database. Blue Willow full-spectrum CBD products are infused with botanicals and essential oils to create high-quality, effective and clean skin topicals. WildBloom Skincare and Blue Willow are also women-owned and operated.

Locally-Made Accessories 

Cost: Prices Vary 

The Lowdown: Jewelry reigns supreme for classic gift-giving. Whether you’re shopping for your spouse or a family member, gifting a unique spin on a delicate accessory is a good way to go. Luckily, Denver based-company, Balefire Goods supports local jewelry designers that provide distinctive jewelry made from a variety of stones and metals. Eco-friendly jeweler, Nikki Nation, designed a Droplet Arc Necklace in Gold Vermeil ($121) made for someone who prefers statement pieces. For the one who’s currently obsessing with the geometric trend, gift Acebo Jewelry’s ($98) semi pearl studs made in sterling silver with gray/lavender water pearls. Both are available through the Balefire Goods website. Denver handbag designers, Kaci Head and Jay Davis both create luxury leather goods, from wallets to tote-sized bags, in a variety of styles, shapes and colors. Both designers also custom create each bag by hand right here in Denver. 

Local Streetwear

Cost: Prices Vary 

The Lowdown: For the fashion conscious and eco-conscious as well, local streetwear brand, False Ego, is the way to go. Each design is made using 100% certified organic recycled cotton, bamboo cotton and Supima cotton. Additionally, False Ego plants a tree for each product sold in a partnership the company developed with Tree-Nation. New South Broadway boutique and clothing brand, NOVL, is a perfect option for streetwear fans who also love the city’s art community. Owners, Taylor Sandona and Tyler Harwood, have taken great care to partner with local street artists for their apparel designs and have worked tirelessly to create a space filled with local street artists’ work. Denver-based footwear brand, Hypo Footwear, is the city’s premier sneaker company, with multiple designs available for both men and women to outfit any streetwear fan from head to toe. 

Music

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Mission Ballroom Custom Poster

Cost: Auction

The Lowdown: Concerts at the brand new Mission Ballroom are special, but promoters AEG Presents have gone a step further. For many of the acts that come through the venue, AEG commissions a custom gallery print designed by Kii Arens to accompany the show. These gallery prints are one of a kind and are only available on an auction basis. To get a hold of your favorite band’s custom print stay up to date with Mission Ballroom here.

Flaming Lips Soft Bulletin Vinyl with Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks

Cost: $40 + shipping 

The Lowdown: Limited edition vinyl distributed by Vinyl Me, Please of The Flaming Lips’ critically acclaimed 1999 album Soft Bulletin at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony in 2016. 

303 Music Vol. 2

Cost: $22 + shipping

The Lowdown: This all-around local vinyl benefits non-profit Youth on Record and includes 12 talented local musicians including Tennis, DeVotchKa and The Motet. There’s the added bonus that the album art is by local artist Anna Churney and the vinyl itself is a work of art with its custom splatter paint. 

Local photographer concert prints

Robert Castro 

Cost: Contact photographer for pricing.

The Lowdown: Ultra5280’s very own founder happens to be one of the most versatile photographers in the business. Castro has shot most shows around the Denver-metro area, with the added bonus of going to several national festivals including Austin City Limits. For variety and straightforward beauty, check out his gallery here.  

Alden Bonecutter 

Cost: Starting cost $15 for a 5X7 print, ranging up to $150 for a 24X36. Willing to print all photos on his website as well as his Instagram. 

The Lowdown: Bonecutter is the official Mission Ballroom photographer, and there’s a reason why he’s got that gig. With his color editing ranging from all parts of the pastel color wheel, his work leans on the ethereal, making for a dream-like picture you can’t wait to hang up on your wall.  

Editor’s note: Alden Bonecutter also works for 303 Magazine. 

  Colorado Local Set

Cost: Prices start at $100 depending on the local set

The Lowdown: For an unparalleled intimate experience at Red Rocks, the Colorado Local Set is just the right gift for you. The local sets vary from every music genre and put you right in the middle of the action with an intimate concert in the Red Rocks visitor center followed by a themed dinner and a tour of Red Rocks’ backstage. 

All photography by Amanda Piela, unless otherwise noted

Editor’s Guide to the Best Local Gifts in Denver 2019 While it may not always come with free two-day shipping, there are a lot of perks when you buy local.

[yourhealthmattersblog]

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