#yet i’ve lived in australia my whole life

[wishchip106]

its really humid where i am at the moment

i am not coping 😢

save me cherik

[waffles-art-writing]

JOKER - Task Force 141 x Reader

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First post - please ignore any mistakes as I write this on my phone at like midnight most of the time haha. Be Nice :’). Anyway, enjoy! Sorry if any of the slang or anything like that is wrong. I’ve never lived there (I’m in Australia)

GIF: thewriterg

Proofread: Half-assed proof-read sorry.

I got inspo for this from the song “Joker -Rory Webley”.

Summary: Joker (you) gets captured on a mission. Ghost and Soap search high and low for you as Gaz and Price gain as much information as they can about the man they suspect has taken you. Will you make it out and get back to your team?

Pairing: Task Force 141!Platonic x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 4.4K Roughly - kinda long sorry

Age Rating: 16+ Preferably, unless you can handle goreish stuff- otherwise anyone can read it

Codename: JOKER

Key: Y/N - Your Name, Y/N/N - Nickname. L/N - Last Name

Warning/Info: third person??, descriptions of injury, blood, weapons, normal COD stuff, mentions of Torture, Kidnapping, Childhood trauma, angst?? I think… FLUFF, Soft!Ghost. If theres anything I need to add please say so :)

EDIT: If this gets enough traction or if you guys want! I am more than happy to make a part two or turn it into a whole mini series :) Thanks for all the likes and reblogs <3 (Here’s the part Two)

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The rolling thunder in the distance rumbles, you can feel it through the ground. The air is thick with the feeling of rain, but not a single drop has touched the dry and dusty earth you are currently laying on. You’re watching the rest of the team work their way through the small village, your thermal scope making them glow like glow sticks at a rave. “Joker, how copy?” Price’s voice crackles to life in your ear, you press the button on the comms to reply. “Hear you loud an’ clear Cap” you reply, clicking the button to the pressed position to keep the comms open, you’re watching Ghost and Soap clean house in one of the larger ruins of a house.

“Do you ‘ave eyes on the target yet?” Price’s stern voice rumbles in your ear again. You adjust the scope to get a larger field of view, scanning all the windows in the dilapidated village. Your eyes narrow as you watch a figure poke their head around a wall not far from Ghost and Soap’s position. “Not yet Sir, but there's a shifty guy looking for Ghost and Soap” you comment “Ghost do a one eighty… some guy is looking for you from the building with a red door.” You pick up a low grunt in response from Ghost as Price acknowledges what you’ve said. You’re zoned in on watching any and all movement not yet spotting who you are looking for.

Sweat forms on your brow as you continue watching for any shifty people, the balaclava you wear has red paint smeared on it like a smile like the joker from Batman, the fabric is not helping with the heat. The faint sound of dirt shifting draws your attention from the scope, you push yourself to your knees while spinning around to face the source of the sound. Your glock raises steadily as you lift your arms in front of yourself, the pounding of your heart is deafening, blood pumping quickly, breathing quickens. You scan your surroundings, you’ve perched yourself just in front of a moderately sized group of boulders, shrouded in twiggy bushes.

The little amount of sun casts harsh shadows on the ground as you rock yourself up into a crouched position, your feet light on the ground as you stay close to the boulders. Your breathing falters as you see a shadow not matching up to a group of bushes and rocks in front of you. You whip around to the sound of more footsteps, your vision blurs, you feel your body go numb, black spots decorating your vision like snowfall. The faint sound of Ghost’s stern voice and Soap’s concern calls can be heard as your vision fades to nothing.

“Joker, do you have a visual?” Ghost asks as he looks over the wall he’s crouched behind, Soap just a few feet away. “Joker? Lass, can you hear us?” Soap barks out as he looks over his shoulder towards Ghost, his brows knitted together as he watches Ghost try reaching you again. “Price! Can you reach Joker?” Soap quickly questions through the comms, his mind running a thousand miles a minute as he tries to figure out what happened to you. “You two need to get the fuck out of there now, Joker’s been compromised.” Price barks through the radio, his voice commanding as ever as he himself looks over to Gaz who is desperately trying to figure out why you're not responding. “What?” Soap breathes out as he looks up towards the hill you were perched on, trying to see if you’re still there but to no avail. Ghost is quick as he spits out commands to Soap to follow him to the rendezvous spot you all agreed on if something went south.

“Sir, the locator she has is saying she’s still where she was before the comms went dark.” Gaz states as he types furiously across the keyboard, his eyes flicking between maps and coordinates. “The fuck is going on Gaz?” Price asks as he looks over the younger man’s shoulder. Price runs a hand down his face as he watches the white dot on the map blink, his heart skips a beat when he watches the light go out completely. “Fuck! No, no, no. Come on” Gaze mumbles as he tries to get the locator back online, his attempts falling short of the goal he wishes he reached. “Ghost, Soap, can you see Joker anywhere at all?” Price curses under his breath as he watches Ghost and Soap’s lights nearing the rendezvous spot. “Nothing… What the fuck is going on Gaz?!” Soap sneers down the line, Ghost staying quiet as he looks around, looking where you would’ve been coming from up on the ridge line.

“I don’t know, her locator is offline.”

“I thought you couldn’t turn ‘em off without smashin’ ‘em or disconnectin’ from our comms?” Soap growls out.

“You can turn them off if you know the correct button order but they are hard to get to without the proper tools”

“What do ya mean Gaz?” Ghost questions.

Gaz rubs his brow as he looks at the map again. “She either had to have the patience to disconnect it without breaking it, or someone broke it…” his words hang heavy over everyone’s head, everyone knows you’re not the patient kind, nor are you one to smash her own locator without telling them beforehand or without good reason.

“She’s been taken…” Soap’s voice cuts through the silence, everyone knows deep down that's what has happened yet they don’t want to believe it. “You two go search where she was, try to find anything you can on what happened to her. We need to get her back.” Price growls out, he marches out of the room where he was with Gaz, his footsteps echoing around the building.

Your heart is thumping, body aching, throat dry as the Sahara Desert. Your eyes hurt like they have been stabbed with nails. A small groan escapes you as you attempt to move, nothing happens. Your vision is blurry as you look down at yourself, noticing the rope around your wrists and ankles, securely tied to the chair you have the opportunity to sit in. “Wha- What the hell…” your voice is scratchy, hoarse, but clear. Your head snaps up, your eyes widening as you notice the balaclava you hardly ever took off is now missing, it's gone, your face on full display. “Welcome to the waking world Joker… or should we call you Y/N?” Your breath hitches as the voice sounds out from behind you.

You attempt to look at the man who spoke, your attempt failing as a hand comes to grip your hair holding your head forward. “Get your hands off me!” You scream, attempting to loosen yourself from the binds and get away from the bastard that's behind you. “Oh don’t be so harsh now” “Get your fuckin’ hands off of me you bastard!” “Now, now Y/N don’t be so… callous” his voice drips with a sickly sweet tone, your skin crawling as you watch him walk around to the front of you. You stare at him, brows furrowed, jaw clenched as you see it is the same man you were tasked with finding and killing.

“Cat got your tongue?” His eyes roam your body, the shirt you are wearing now sticking to you from sweat, your combat pants covered in dirt just like your shirt. Boots gone. “My eyes are up here you arsehole” you sneer as you watch his eyes trail back up to yours. They are dark, not dark like Ghost’s cold and calculating stare. They are dark like a man with sinister intentions, a predator who’s on the verge of snapping and turning into a hellbent rabid dog.

“Why are ya doing this? If you want information ye ain’t getting it outta me you sick bastard. You’re just a coward hiding behind a name.” Your voice darkens as you stare him down “You won’t even survive five seconds out there if it weren’t for yer’ guards or yer’ stupid little posse that kisses the earth ya walk on!” The man stares at you, his movements blur in the low light of the dark room. The cold blade of a knife traces along your cheek. “I wonder how you got these scars…” his voice trails off as he follows the pale scar that runs along the apple of your left cheek going towards your nose. The scar is from your early years in the armed forces, you were sparring with a fellow comrade which ended up with you face in the dirt and cutting your cheek on the end of the rough mat you were on.

“How about this one?” The tip of the knife pushes against the corner of your mouth, a small scar going to the side, almost like it’s extending your smile by a fraction. You’ve had it since you were young, you were using a stake knife, you were playing around with the knife and using it like a fork. Your parents were out and they left a steak for the babysitter to cook, yet the sitter was distracted by her phone. You accidentally moved the knife slicing the corner of your mouth open. Your parents ended up scolding you while you sat on a bed in the overnight section of the local doctors surgery.

“That’s none of ya fucking business” you sneer as you lean away from the blade. “Well I’ll now know where this one will come from, hold still… let’s match the joker smile that’s on your mask to your pretty little face shall we?” “No, no no no no no no!”

Boots splash in the puddles of mud, rain falling heavily from the clouds overhead, grumbles of curses can be heard throughout the group as they march through the drenched ground. Soap is quick to push the door to the safe house open, Gaz not far behind, followed by Price, Ghost a few strides out. Price immediately heads to the wall decorated in maps and sheets of information, Gaz opening the laptop on the closest surface. Soap looks over to Ghost. His shoulders rigid, eyes set in a hard stare, hand in tight hold around the strap of the rifle case you decorated with patches from all the places you’ve been.

The gun was gone, you were gone, but the case was still there sitting in the dirt.

Soap and Ghost looked around the area you were in, just as they were getting close, the clouds opened up the heavy rain fell, it drenched the earth quickly like a burst fire hydrant. Ghost was the one to spot the case hap-hazardly thrown into the bushes off to the side. Ghost knew you adored making at least something personalised, make it seem less… daunting…

Ghost places the case on the table, keeping a hand on it as Soap steps up next him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “The lass is probably already on her way back to us L.T…” Soap quietly states, his voice low. “She’s strong… she’ll be back with us in no time”. Ghost looks to Soap out the corner of his eye, watching the Scotsman walk off towards Price. “She better…” His voice is low, a small hint of worry dancing in his tone as he runs a gloved hand over the patches on the case.

The taste of iron rests on your tongue. Blood.

Throbbing, stinging pain burns across your face. Pain.

The burning feeling of aching muscles flows through your legs, arms, back… Just everywhere.

All you see is red, the colour of blood, the smell of death. The corpses of men littler the corridor you stand in, the men that once beat you to a bloody pulp, talked down upon you like you’re some barnyard rat.

Sound of blood rushing fills your head. Your feet drag across the ground as you limp over the dead men towards the door, the door that leads to the outside world, to your escape, to your freedom… to your team.

Rain, water, cool air, wet ground. You let the rain run down your face, your hair a tousled mess as it clings to your forehead. From sweat? From rain or from blood? You don’t know and you don’t care as you stumble through the slippery mud. Your mind is flooded with the desire to get somewhere warm and dry, to be surrounded by your team, your friends, your found family.

The dark silhouette of the safe house can be seen amongst the other small village buildings, the safe house isn’t far from where the mission was taking place, it was for convenience. It was just over half an hour by car, but by foot it was just over seven hours of nonstop walking. Your feet are red with blisters from walking across the earth. You were lucky enough to find a quad bike off to the side of the run down building you were held in, but it quickly ran out of gas within the first 10 minutes of riding it. You were close to giving up right there and then, you were barely able to stay upright, your grip on the handlebars was almost non-existent. You dumped the dead bike in a ditch, not giving a shit about how out of place it looked.

Four hours of nonstop walking, rain, mud, wind and the occasional moments of running to avoid being spotted by someone driving past.

Tears rim your eyes as you approach the front door of the safe house, inputting the code in the keypad, your breathing ragged as you nudge the door, the creaking of hinges sounding out, muttering can be heard from behind the door leading into the main common room. Using your good shoulder, the doors open quickly and the voices go silent as they turn to the sound of the doors opening. Your eyes are half lidded, your right hand clutching your left bicep. “I-.. I’m sorry…” your voice comes out mumbled, your legs quiver as you feel yourself tipping forwards.

Ghost turns to the doors, his back once to them, his eyes widened as he sees your tired, bloodied and dirty face. “I-.. I’m sorry…” his feet moving before he even realises he’s moving, Soap right behind him. “I’ve got you kid, I’ve got you…” he mumbles as his arms wrap around your waist, his grip firm but careful to not hurt you any further. “Lass…” Soap’s voice is soft as he approaches you and Ghost. Your face is pushed up against Ghost’s chest, blood still dripping down your face. Your hands clutch to Ghost’s tactical vest, the rough surface rubbing against the deep gashes that drag heavily across your cheeks. “J-Johnny…” you whimper out as your hazy eyes focus on the blue eyed Scotsman next to you. “I’m here Lass, don’t worry.”

Only you and Ghost have the pleasure of calling the ruthless Sergeant Soap MacTavish ‘Johnny’.

Everything around you is muffled, nothing is coherent enough for your fizzled mind to make out. You feel your body get scooped out from under you, your head leans into the junction of Ghost’s neck and shoulder. His broad frame keeps you stable and warm, Soap is rushing ahead to the kitchen moving everything out of the way on the small island bench. “Shit, kid, what did they do to you…” Price curses, his question comes out more like a statement. “I… I didn’t tell... I didn’t s-say… anything” your mumbled words slur as you lean into Ghost more. “Don’t close your eyes L/N. Keep those pretty eyes open.”

‘Did he call my eyes pretty?’

You whimper when Ghost places you on the kitchen island, grabbing the med kit from Gaz who was running in from getting it from the bathroom. Price is standing to your right, Gaz next to him. Ghost to your left, while Soap wraps a tourniquet around your left thigh.

“We gotta cut your pants lass, I know you like these ones” Soap chuckles lightly as opens the pant leg up to your thigh. He’s quick to clean the bullet wound that marks your flesh. Ghost has gone quiet, his whole body rigid from head to toe, his hands working quickly to rip open your shirt, not hesitating to run his hands gently down your ribs. “Gaz, get a bowl of warm water” Soap barks out as he realises what state your feet are in, his touch is firm but careful.

Your body feels numb, the men around you are fuzzy, your eyes roam Price’s face as he holds your shoulders down when Soap says he’s gonna have to dig the bullet out. You don’t move, other than a pained and strained cry leaves you as you feel Soap pulling the bullet out. It wasn’t too deep. Thank god.

“Joker, look at me girl. Keep your eyes on me, that's it sweetheart.” Price’s voice is stern, commanding, as he desperately tries to keep you awake. “I’m sorry C- Cap…” Price shakes with his head lightly, a small smirk playing on his lips. “I know, kid, I know. You just need to keep talking, okay? Can you do that?” You nod your head slightly, cringing when Ghost touches a bruised rib while applying anti-inflammatory cream to it, hoping to ease the pain. “Ow- you arse…” you mumble as you glance at Ghost, who’s eyes squint slightly like he’s smirking. “M’sorry, keep your eyes on Price for me.” He says gently as he takes a damp cloth to your cheek. You flinch away harshly, tears falling down your face even quicker now. The adrenaline is wearing off quickly, the pain from everything is bubbling to the surface.

“No. No no no” you whimper out as you try to hide your face away from Ghost’s touch. Price and Ghost swap positions naturally. You glance up at Ghost whose face is now upside down when he looks at you, your eyes blurry with tears. “Kid… Love, you gotta look at me. I need to clean your face to see where you’re bleeding from.” His voice is muffled by the Balaclava, and hard skull mask adorning the dark fabric.

“He- He said let’s m-match the mask… make my f-face match my mask… he-” your pained voice states, tears streaming down your face, Price’s grip on your hand and shoulder tightens. Gaz’s hand’s still from cleaning the cuts and scrapes around your ankles and feet. Soap halts his bandaging of your thigh, they all stare at you with stormy eyes, filled with rage. Ghost’s hands cup your jaw gently, his fingers twitching with adrenaline from the rage, his eyes darken as he stares into your teary and puffy eyes. “I’m gonna fucking kill him…” he sneers lowly, your voice sounds like a small kitten when you speak.

“You can’t….” “Why can’t he kill ‘em Lass?” Soap questions as he secures the bandage around your thigh. “He’s… he’s already dead… I killed him.” Your voice breaks when a sob racks through your body. “He’s dead, in a puddle of his own blood… I killed him…” you repeat, “… he’s unrecognisable now…” you lift your hand to place it on Ghost’s forearm. Your hands shake as you do so, Ghost snaps out of whatever trance of rage and concern he was in. He nods his head, Price has gone to call for a medic evac, Gaz and Soap continue cleaning any other wounds you have.

You lean into Ghost’s touch, allowing him to clean one side of your face at a time. The gashes are reasonably deep, not deep enough feel from the inside of your cheeks thankfully. “I can’t stitch these L/N… the doctor will have to do that. All I can do is cover them with gauze and tape…” he sounds sorry, only slightly, his eyes still burning with anger but there is some softness of concern in them. “Just… just do what you can Ghost…” the man nods as he gently sits you up, allowing him to see if the wounds will bleed when you are up right.

You sit there, eyes heavy and dull. The dried tear stains are still on your cheeks as Ghost gently applies antiseptic cream and gauze, followed by medical tape. You wince at his touch. You feel like you just got your wisdom teeth removed, your head cloudy, your face aching, eyes sore.

“Ghost the heli will be here in five minutes, is she ready to move?” Price barks out as he walks over. Gaz and Soap throwing anything dirty and used away in the trash. Ghost looks from Price to you, his eyes scanning your body from head to toe. Noticing the skin around your ribs already turning a dark blue and purple. That’s gonna hurt. Your hands shake as you push yourself to stand on the ground, as soon as your feet touch the ground your knees give way.

Ghost is clutching you to his chest, you whimper as you clutch to him like your life depends on it. “Doesn’t look like it, Sir.” Ghost states as he keeps his arms under your arms, to keep you upright. “Well, gotta carry her then.” Ghost just nods as he leans back, making you look up at him. “Johnny’s gonna carry you okay?” Ghost states as he sees Soap approach you two, one of his shirts in hand and a blanket. “… O-... Okay…” You look over at Soap and let one of your hands reach out to him, doing a grabby-hand motion.

The Scotsman chuckles as he moves over, slipping the spare shirt around your head, slipping your arms through it gently. Ghost wraps the blanket around your shoulders, making sure you’re snug once you’re in Soap’s arms. “Comfy there Lass?” His low chuckle makes you smile as you lean into him more, letting your eyes close. “Yeah… just tired…” you mumble as you nuzzle into his neck, his cologne comforting you in a way. “Don’t sleep just yet, we gotta get you outta here.” He states as he walks to the door, following Gaz and Price. Ghost behind you with your belongings and Soaps rifle and his own. “Keep talkin’ to us, love.” Ghost states as he makes eye contact with you, you nod your head gently. The sound of the chopper overhead is loud, the wind from the blades and the rain makes you bring the blanket up more, making you curl in on yourself.

“Can they go any fuckin’ slower?” Soap laughs at your complaint about waiting for the chopper to land. “I don’t think so or they would stall Lass.” You chuckle with Soap as he tightens his grip on you as you approach the chopper, a medic is there waiting, you groan as you realise that Soap has to put you down. You wrap your arms around his neck, hugging him tightly to show you don't want to be out down. “No.” The medic looked at you confused, she was ready to help you with your injuries. “Lass we gotta put-” “No. No. No.” You cower further into Soap’s chest as you see the medic reach for you. “Fuck off!” You growl, Soap’s arms wrap around you further as he gets comfortable in the chopper. Ghost sits next to him, Price is up by the pilot, Gaz on the other side of Soap.

The ride back to the main base of operations is quick, there's mostly silence amongst everyone, other than the medic who keeps asking questions about your injuries. Soap mainly answers, Ghost pitching in when needed. The whole time you kept your face hidden in Soap’s shoulder or neck, keeping the blanket up by your face.

You wouldn't let go of Soap until you were in the medical wing, laying on a bed. But even then you wanted at least one of the boys to be in the room. The nurses and head medic came in and out the entire time, asking questions upon questions, preparing you for further treatment of your condition. You eventually fell asleep after getting some pain medication and proper medical attention to all the injuries.

But when it came to stitching up the gashes that made you look like the real-life Joker from Batman, you requested Ghost or Soap to be there. They both ended up being in the room, Ghost and Soap were standing to your left, your face turned towards them, having the left side already dealt with and covered. The head medic did whatever he could to help lessen the scarring. Ghost was like a brick wall, unmoving, cold eyes as he watched the medic. Soap was letting you play with his hands, and fingers, which allowed him to play with yours in return.

Blinding lights.

The smell of cleaning products.

Beeping. Bloody Beeping.

Your eyes crack open, your nose scrunching as the blinding lights flood your vision. Your head feels heavy, and your body aches. You hear the sound of the heart monitor and another softer sound. You look around the small room, three figures can be found in the room. Soap and Gaz leaning their heads on the bed. Your right hand is held in Soap’s as he snores softly, Gaz leaning on his arms that are crossed on the bed, out cold. Ghost in the armchair in the dark corner of the room, his chin to his chest, safe to say he’s probably asleep. The door to the room opens softly, you see Price closing the door with his foot.

He smiles when he sees you awake, he approaches and places two paper cups on the table next to you. His hand falls to your shoulder, a light squeeze in greeting. You smile up at him, your free hand wrapping around his. “Got you some juice, they said not hot liquid for a week…” he mumbles softly as he hands you the paper cup. “Thanks, Cap.” You softly say, barely above a whisper, your voice scratchy from just waking up. “Those two-“ Price points to Soap and Ghost “-have been here the whole time, Gaz got up to get food for them but otherwise he's been here most of the time.” “And you?” “I came just after you passed out, Laswell sends her regards as well.” You nod in acknowledgment, your eyes finding sudden interest in the liquid in your cup.

“You did good kid, I’m proud of you.” You look up to Price who is now sipping his coffee, tears form in your eyes as you nod your head. “Drink your juice kid, get some sleep too.” He states as he ruffles your hair.

You are safe, protected, inside, warm and dry. Surrounded by your team, your friends, your found family.

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[outsideratheart]

On a Night Like Tonight (Alex Scott x reader)

Retirement. A word that had been playing on your mind for a the past 12 months. After Australia, Team GB went on to win gold in the Olympics and it left only one trophy missing from your cabinet. The World Cup.

2027, Brazil. It was the day that you gave the fans the thing you promised 4 years ago. You lead your team to their first World Cup star and did so by beating the United States on penalties.

Unlike last year Alex was pitch side with Fara eagerly waiting for you to come over and when you did she welcomed you like the champion you now were or at least she gave you the PG version given you were live on TV.

You were overcome with emotion as Alex held you in her arms. To the outside world the tears you were clearly shedding were that of happiness but between you and Alex you knew they were sad tears too.

The celebration awaiting you back in England was unlike anything you could have imagined. It put the euros one to shame. The whole country showed up to celebrate you and you made sure to savour every moment.

Each player had their turn on the microphone and the fans loved it but when it was your turn to speak the fans took one look at your face and went silent. You could hear a pin drop in Trafalgar Square.

“You all know I hate being a bench warmer and I don’t want to be one of those players the play long after their time is up. It has been my greatest honour being your captain for over ten years but it is time that I pass on the torch and hang the boots up”

It was announced the following day that England’s match against Germany at Wembley in one month’s time would be you final game in an England shirt. The match sold out in minutes and it set the perfect scene for your send off.

The days leading up to it was hectic, you barely had a second to yourself and most of all it was extremely overwhelming. You questioned if you had made the right decision. You were still playing world class football, why stop now? Your question was answered one night at St George’s Park. It was the night before your final game and the entire team could tell you were having an hard time. It’s the reason Sarina allowed Alex to stay in your room even though it was against the rules.

“I don’t think I can do it”

Alex looked up from where she was laying on your chest.

“Can’t or don’t want to?”

“Football is all I’ve ever known Al, I’m not sure I can give it up”

“You’re not retiring completely. In a week’s time you will be back at Cobham with Chelsea”

“I’m going to be home a lot more”

“You make it sound like a bad thing. Remember the reason that made you consider retiring in the first place?”

It was a night you remember well. You and Alex spent over an hour talking about the future and what it could look like. You got so caught up in the hypotheticals that reality became disappointing. It made you want to skip the next few years so that you could start the next chapter of your life, the one where being captain was no longer the highest responsibility you had.

You feel asleep that night dreaming of the future and when you woke up you were ready to say goodbye to the team that you loved so much.

It was a bitter sweet feeling as the final whistle was blown. The entire England team, both the players on the bench and on the pitch, came running to you. It that moment you felt loved and appreciated. It was a moment that you would remember for the rest of your life. As you take a lap around the field you try to take in as much as you can.

“You know you don’t have to retire” Leah appears by your side.

“It’s my time. I have loved playing for this team and every time I wear this badge it is a great honour but this is my final curtain call Leah, my swan song” You pull the blonde into your side and kiss the side of her head.

“Don’t be getting soft. Save that for Alex because we need to go do media” Truth is Leah didn’t want you to leave, she had told you this much but your mind was yet.

“I know but before that there’s something I need to do”

You pull Leah towards the middle of the pitch, away from the shouting fans, the centre circle becoming your own little bubble.

“I have been captain of this team for almost ten years. I have lead them to the highest highs and the lowest lows. It takes a lot from you when you wear this band but it can also reward in the best possible way. I have spoken with Sarina about who I want to be my successor and that person is you Leah”

With a heavy heart you take the armband off and pull it up Leah’s arm. You were passing the torch, this was a changing of the guard and you were doing it for the whole to see.

By the time you reach Alex and the BBC team you are on the very line fine between keeping it together and breaking completely.

The world now knew about the two of you but with a camera pointed straight at you, you felt the need to stay professional but Alex soon changed that.

“We’re not rolling. It’s playing her career highlights” one of the camera men tells Alex.

“Come here” The BBC presenter pulls you into her arms and for a brief moment you allow yourself to feel, feel everything that you have been bottling up since you woke up.

“It’s over. I’ve played my last game as a lioness” you could feel tears falling down your face and you were aware that there were multiple people watching the interaction but no longer had to strength to bottle up your emotions.

The same man who told you that the cameras were rolling informed you that they would be live in 5, then proceeded to count down using his fingers.

As a way of regaining control of your emotions and in attempt of staying together you move away from Alex and closer to Jill and Fara. As if knowing that you still weren’t ready to answer the unavoidable questions Leah takes charge of the interview and the presenters follow her lead. It is when she is asked a question only you can answer do you need to get involved.

“Jill asked what’s next for you?” Leah nudges you.

“I go back to Chelsea. As for the next international break, well I have no idea. Maybe go on holiday, what do you say Al, fancy the Maldives?”

“Sure, why not. Fara can cover for me”

“Seriously though Y/N. What’s next? When asked about retiring you said that you have given over 15 years to your country and that it’s time to prioritise your personal life. I think I remember you saying it’s what our dear Alex over here deserves”

Leah switches places with you when Alex is mentioned. Sensing that being next to your person may bring you more peace and encourage you to answer the question without making jokes.

“If the song is right then I believe I hear wedding bells” Jills says.

You wonder what song she is referring to and upon turning to Alex you see that she is also at loss.

“You know the song. The one about kissing in a tree. I won’t sing it seen as though we are live on air and I am a professional”

With Jill’s clue you know exactly the song she is talking about although you think you may have been in high school when you last heard it.

“Since when are you a professional?” You scoff. You refused to bite.

“I get what you’re saying. I believe it says first comes love”

“Check” Alex plays along.

Before Leah continues you turn to Alex. Your hand sat on the small of her back and unknowingly to the women around, you tap you ring finger which was missing a very important piece of jewellery. Alex leans into you with her head on your shoulder and tells you to go for it.

“Then comes marriage-“

“Check” you were proud to finally announce that you had in fact married Alex but up until this moment it was only your immediate families that knew.

The faces of your friends were priceless. In that moment you wish you had a camera to take a photo but then you remember you are on live TV. Oh god, you were live on the BBC. Not only had you told your friends about your nuptials, you had told the entire world.

“Shit”

“Y/N” Alex playfully slaps your arm “We are live”

“I am now aware of this Al”

“I would like to apologise for the language made by Y/N Y/L/N”

“Don’t you mean Y/N Scott?” Jill asks.

“No she does not” you say rather defensively “Alex took my name, she is Alex Y/L/N”

“How about we discuss the details of our marriage when we are not live on TV.” Alex tries to get the interview back on track which you are happy to do.

You then proceed to talk all things football. Jill recalls your first training session as a lioness, Fara tells her favourite Y/N Y/L/N stories, Leah brings you to tears once again when she tells you about how you showed her what is possible and Alex grins ear to ear when she explains all the ways that you have changed the game and how a lot of people have you to thank for how far the game has come.

Almost an hour later you are in one of the hospitality suites at Wembley. The news of you and Alex had spread to rest of the team and the party that was originally planned for your retirement has now turned into a retirement / wedding party.

It doesn’t take much for you to get overwhelmed, how could you not. You escape to one of the boxes near the suite, the cold air grounds you and the silence is welcoming. Looking out at the pitch you are filled with nostalgia as memories flood your mind, it’s as if a highlight reel is playing.

“People are asking where you are?”

You feel your body relax upon hearing your wife’s voice. It is one of the things you love most about her.

“You found me. Any chance I can persuade you to stay here with me for a moment?”

“I can think of a few things”

“Can one of them be a hug? I could really use one”

Alex’s eyebrows furrow. You were a cuddler, Alex learned this very early on in your relationship but there is something about you asking now and the way you did it. You sound so vulnerable.

Your wife doesn’t say anything, instead she opens her arms and you melt into her hold.

“You know a lot of people are in there waiting to celebrate you, with you. Yet you are out here alone or at least you were until I found you”

“I want to celebrate with you though and everyone keeps stopping me from doing that. They want Y/N the England captain or I guess now it’s former captain but I just want to be —“

“Y/N, my wife”

Her wife. It sounds cliche like something that would be said in a movie or a line in a book but you loved hearing her say that and even now as you both wear your rings, you couldn’t believe that she had agreed to marry you.

“Can we go home?”

Alex knew that you liked to party and it didn’t take much to persuade to celebrate something no matter how small. It wasn’t like you to leave early and Alex knew that you might be feeling more than you are letting on if you want to leave a party that was honouring your international career.

“I didn’t tell you this but Ella and Alessia have wrote a speech. They read it to me and you’ll want to hear it. If after that you still want to go home then we will, I promise”

You stayed for the speech and boy are you glad you did. It was one of the most heartfelt yet hilarious speeches you have heard. You did end up going home but not till hours later. After hearing your plea, Alex stayed by your side the entire night and her presence allowed you to relax and have fun. A chapter of the book you called life was over and the chapters that followed would go on to be some of your favourite because each and every one of them included you wife Alex Scott.

[longing-maiden]

I’m trying to convert to Catholicism (I haven’t started the RCIA program yet, I’m still waiting for a priest to get back to me), but I was brought up Lutheran and my mum is somewhat against my conversion, so here I am every Sunday going to a Lutheran church at 10 AM and also going to a Catholic Church at 6 PM Saturday or yesterday the 5 PM Sunday because she forbade me from attending the vigil for whatever reason.

I’ve been going to this Lutheran church my whole life, I’m distantly related to a large portion of the congregation, and my family has been Lutheran for many generations and moved to Australia 170~ years ago partly because of it, so my mum feels a bit betrayed by my decision. Those reasons are also partly why it took me so long to make the decision to convert even though Catholicism seemed so sure to me.

The Lutheran church is dying, most of the congregation are elderly, and I have been helping out somewhat with the livestreams, so my mum tells me that the church needs me and I do feel quite bad for it. Although granted, the church is dying because many of the current congregation had very few if any children and did not impart the faith into them since they do not incorporate it enough into their own lives. The Lutheran church of Australia also just voted in to allow female ordination so uh…

[evita-shelby]

Incantatrice

Chapter 19

Cw: offscreen murder

*Spoilers* rip Arthur

Taglist: @thegreatdragonfruta @wandawiccan60 @zablife @call-sign-shark @cljordan-imperium

The negotiations with Polly Gray had gone well.

For letting them live and move to Boston with Ada or Australia with Polly, all she had to do was hand over Tommy Shelby. They’d give up their life of crime and never bother again.

Tommy had damned them all, it was only right that he gives up his life for them. It wasn’t like he lived anymore, he merely existed.

One man in exchange for many.

Well, two actually.

Polly didn’t know about Arthur, but Edward Ross needed to be avenged. It was the least they could do for Mrs. Ross and the other mothers of the other boys he’s maimed and killed in the boxing ring.

But that wouldn’t be traced back to them, after all, was it Changretta’s fault that Mrs. Ross had bought a gun for the occasion? Was it her fault that Arthur killed her Edward?

��I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” Ada Thorne asks as they meet each other for a third time in the library.

“Yes, I was one of your investors, and a guest at a charity gala my family invited you to. Don’t worry, your company will be in good hands, we Rileys got a Midas Touch when it comes to business.” Eva kept her back to her and perused the shelf some more.

Shelby had spies everywhere, Eva had rooted most of them out and now there were several here watching them. Good, she thinks as she sows seeds of suspicion between Tommy and his only sister.

Especially after it’s just them and Finn left.

“I’d ask why you are doing this to us, but I already know the answer.” The woman took the book next to hers and wisely didn’t ask for what she already knew. “What do you gain from this?”

“Justice for my husband’s father and brother, a kingdom ripe for the taking.” Eva answered honestly, no need to lie about it now. It was all going to end soon, very soon.

February 3, or near that date.

Tommy would be dead, every Shelby scattered to the wind and the Changrettas building an empire from Tommy Shelby’s ashes.

All because the man didn’t verify if the shooter had even been Italian.

“The Spiniettas fear you, don’t they?” Ada asks something even her brother and aunt didn’t seem to piece together. “They know you are the reason Luca is on a whole other level, and they know he isn’t satisfied with following orders anymore. So the two of you took your chance to leave and carve out your own place here.”

“Even your brother didn’t put two and two together, Mrs. Thorne, color me impressed.” The witch comments and yet refused to turn around. “My husband will stop once Tommy is dead. As long as you keep away from this you and your son and your little brother will live. You can even keep your share of the company.”

“I won’t betray him, if that’s what you’re asking.” The communist turned businesswoman caught her drift very well. No wonder the legal part of Shelby Company was doing so well.

But Tommy won’t trust her word either, not when Polly is betraying him and Arthur dying in an hour.

“Not asking you to, just asking you to focus on other things.” Eva smiled and gestured to Benjamin Younger waiting to meet with her just on the other side of the aisle. “You could be happy again, Ada, happy with your son and perhaps a daughter. All you have to do is step aside.”

Ada doesn’t speak, but Eva hears her agree to it anyways.

“I didn’t think the woman had it in her.” Matteo laughs in surprise when the decoys deliver the news.

It had not been planned by this, but Luca knew better than to deny a mother long overdue justice.

Arthur Shelby had been dead the moment he came into her parlor and sat there while the boy in the photograph was cold in the ground. Mrs. Ross had been told how he hurt his wife, how her sweet Edward wasn’t his last victim and given the push needed to buy herself a gun.

Only Thomas was left and soon enough he’d be joining his brothers in hell.

“No one knows rage like a mother,” Luca said taking a new matchstick into his mouth. He’d been warned of this chance in plans, of the wagon in his path and how this helped seal the deal with Polly.

A nephew is not a son, the witch had said as she kissed him goodbye this morning. You will have your enemies at your feet before the first flowers even bloom, my love.

“What makes you think your old whore will keep her word, Luca?” his right hand asked knowing Arthur was part of Polly Gray’s deal.

“She won’t want me to kill her little boy. I didn’t run out of bullets by accident, you know.” The capo couldn’t wait for Polly to know just who she was dancing with.

She’d thought herself safe believing they didn’t know she was spying for her nephew, but after today, she’ll know better.

Polly Gray overestimates herself, he knows that very well. After all, she’d thought he’d never find out about her dalliances with Gray while he was in America. Luca had to teach her a lesson, teach him a lesson too.

Perhaps after this is over Luca will tell her how he killed her husband and had her children taken away for cheating on him all those years ago.

She could hold a grudge, just not as good as he did.

“Salvatore, take us to London. I have a meeting with Sabini.” Luca ordered as he made plans to take over London even if little Aurora Sabini lives long enough to marry his son.

[peerbear]

Cinematography Class - Exercise 1 - A Sense of Home

Am I Really Home Again?

Over the years I’ve lived in Australia, Germany and Brazil for different periods of time, but Scotland has always been a place to come back to. This is the place where I grew up. It is the place I have always called home. It is the place where I was born, but I don’t have any Scottish heritage. My parents are German and Brazilian. If you are born and grow up in a country where you are not originally from it gives you a different sense of belonging and idenitity. Because you belong to all of the cultures that you have grown up with, but at the same time you don’t belong to any of them. It can be lonely when you are unable to find comfort in a single one of them. But when you do it is very special. This sense of feelling at home and a stranger in my country and my identity is something I have always been aware of. It is always on my mind.

Home is a very emotional concept. For a long time I’ve said home is not the place but the people. Last semster I went to study abroad in Canada and since then I’ve come back to my definition of the word. Home is not a place or the people, there are always great people wherever you go. For me home is a personal feeling of comfort and belonging. I have also come to the conclusion that home can also be a lonely ‘metaphorical place’ or even state of mind and this like everything else is always subject to change. It is not something that you always share with other people, often it is something that you have to create or build on your own. Saying this right now feels dramatic as I have moved back into my family home for the time being while I wait for the flat Eva and I have lined up to hopefully move into soon. You would think this is home and that living in my parents flat, a place I have always called home my whole life would be my home still. But I don’t know that this is the case for me anymore. I adore my parents and they are wonderful to be around, but I don’t want to live in this flat anymore, that part of my life feels like its been done. I don’t feel that this is my home, it will always be a base to come back to, but the meaning of this place has changed for me. I found this so interesting as initially when I heard the brief to take photos/footage that demonstrate a sense of home, I thought I would revert to older thoughts and take photos of this space. I didnt take a single photo in the house because it just didn’t feel right.

This weekend I brought some of my close friends to my favourite beach for the first time, its called Tyninghame. I’ve been going there with my family since I can remember and its always been my favourite place. Whenever I go there I feel at ease and inspired. The ocean calms me, bodies of water ground me. For me I feel at home when I’m there in the nature. I feel like I belong. The photos I took were an exploration of me and my friends in this space where I feel at home. Here they are in greater detail:

Article from ASC:

Total Immersion for Avatar: The Way of Water

I chose this article because I am obsessed with water and I am keen to specialise in water cinematography for film. I know that is very specific, but it is something I have wanted to do since making Bodies of Water last year. As I said before water is a happy safe space for me and I feel it would be great to work in a place that offers me this kind of tranquility. Sadly, I believe this film doesn’t really offer that kind of tranquility that I am talking about. Although I have not yet seen it from what I have gathered its very much about destruction and unrest within this beautiful ocean world. The Avatar sequel is filmed by a different cinematographer to the first one, this time it is filmed by Russell Carpenter.

The article went into great detail describing lots of equipment that Carpenter used for the film, a lot of which I have not heard of. From what I gathered it mainly demonstrates how complex and difficult this film was to film. It was filmed with many cameras, mostly of two groups which were live action and 3D virtual cameras that needed to match up perfectly as moving images for the CGI animation to work.

For some of the water scenes they struggled a lot with reflections. The way Carpenter dealt with this was by using clear plastic beads layered together on top of the water to stop light from coming through this way there were no unwanted reflections. For me I would not want to hide reflections in water, I think its one of its many and most beautiful attributes that mesmerise me. I am aware that this is done to control as much of the lighting in the film as possible. However, I would find it hard to manipulate it this way. Carpenter himself says “The light should be a living and breathing expression of the life of Pandora.” From the stills I have seen he has achieved this.

Something to note is that although this film is highly technically skilled and moving the film industry forward with new technology, it is important to acknowledge that there are problems with the story - which culturally appropriates indegenious people and makes money off of a screening (eventually streaming) that is based on colonialism. This is something that the director of the film argues aganist, however, it is literally what happens in the film.

The film is supposed to be about belonging and finding where you fit in the world, which I find fitting, in spite of the plot, as this correlates to the home aspect in the first part of this exercise.

Message of the week: I have promised myself that I will be reading more this year and that I will actually contribute a lot more to my blog. This is something that in previous years I found very difficult, but while writing this post I have realised it is more fun and even therapeutic than I remember.

Stay tuned for some queer content.

[mattnben-bennmatt]

The Evolution of Matt Damon

GQ (8 September 2021)

He was the golden-boy actor who became one of Hollywood’s biggest icons. But as of late, the narrative hasn’t been so simple.

By Chris Heath | Photography by Lachlan Bailey

-

No one notices the masked man sitting on a bench at the back of the Malibu Seafood Fresh Fish Market & Patio Café’s covered seating area. Nobody catches—floating in the warm ocean breeze above the drone of the cars on the Pacific Coast Highway and the smush of the crashing waves beyond—any of the telltale snippets that might prod them to look twice:

“…I mean, Bono lived down the street…”

“…There was the moment when I passed into the realm of being somebody who was an elder statesman versus the new guy. You know, I never was clear when that happened. It was just kind of like I woke up one day and that was the case…”

“…Those last few days of shooting, we knew that we were going to get shut down…”

“…You just get way too much credit for things that you normally wouldn’t get credit for. ‘Oh, you’re so nice.’ ‘No, I’m not really—I’m not so nice.’…”

Instead, Matt Damon manages to turn up here, talk about pretty much anything and everything for two hours, and leave undisturbed. The mask clearly helps. He is wearing it for our encounter because his 12-year-old daughter, Gia, has COVID. Though she has been isolated in her bedroom and has had nothing but a low fever, and although everyone in the household is having PCR tests every 18 hours, all so far negative (Gia’s aside), caution dictates that our masks stay on and we sit diagonally across a table. It only adds to the all-round strangeness. Before meeting him, I expected that Damon might be one of those polished celebrities who bombard you so affably and articulately with chosen tales from their life that you might not notice until it’s too late all of the things that they’ve carefully decided not to share. But the man I encounter will be nowhere near so controlled or straightforward.

Damon and his family spent the first part of the year in the relative sanctuary of Australia, for reasons we will come to, but about three weeks ago they returned to the Northern Hemisphere. “It’s been a whirlwind,” he begins to tell me, though neither of us is quite yet aware just how roughly some of those winds may have buffeted him. “The relative calm of a COVID-free continent,” he continues, “to L.A. and then France…”—for the Cannes Film Festival—“…and then back here. And, you know, dealing with this.” Family illness, worry, quarantine. “It’s just been a lot, like from zero to hundred again. I was excited to kind of reengage with the world, but I forgot how fast it moves.”

Shirt, $760, by Prada. Vintage shorts by Polo Ralph Lauren from Front General Store. Vintage belt by J.Crew.

At the Cannes Film Festival, Damon was promoting the release of the movie Stillwater. One possible sign of Damon’s disorientation as he reengaged with the world came during the ovation at the end of the Stillwater screening: Damon was widely reported to have teared up. He says now that he didn’t even realize that he had done so until he was told afterward. “Had it not been for a bright light and the camera literally two feet away from me in that moment,” he says, “I guarantee you nobody would have noticed. But, yeah, I was just pleasantly overwhelmed a little bit.”

Do you tear up easily?

“Sadly, yes. Now, the last few years, more than any other time. Yeah, for a whole host of reasons. I’m an easy get now.”

Why do you say, “Sadly, yes”?

“Well, I’ve never liked, you know, cheap tears. I don’t want to be, you know, the person where it’s like, ‘Oh, there he goes again.’ Because that gets pretty boring too. But, yeah, you do see it a lot as people get older, particularly men—at least in my life, I’ve noticed that—people are a little quicker to tear up.”

I guess they’ve put so much fucking effort into not crying…

“…for so many fucking years! And now they’re just like, ‘Ah, fuck it, I’m not bothering with that anymore.’ ”

Robe, $450, by George Cortina for Anderson & Sheppard. Ring (throughout), $2,700, by J.E. Caldwell and Co. from Wilson’s Estate Jewelry. Towel, $245, by Hermès.

A while back, Damon let slip a story about one other time that he cried, right at the beginning of his career. The origin saga of Good Will Hunting is now Hollywood lore: the two teenage Boston friends, Damon and Ben Affleck, both set on acting careers, who shared everything as they followed their quest (their joint BayBank account had the code “River P”: “Because,” Damon says, “he was the guy who got the jobs that we wanted, he was like the best young actor and we just admired him”); how in their early 20s, frustrated by a lack of opportunities, they decided that the only way to break through was to write their own film to star in; the years the two of them spent honing a script about a roughshod but preternaturally talented Boston kid; their willingness to walk away from huge amounts of money if they weren’t allowed to appear in the film; the eventual triumph, leading not just to Damon’s first Oscar nomination for acting but their shared win for best screenplay, which made Damon the second-youngest person ever to win a screenwriting Oscar. (Affleck was the youngest.)

These tears came on the very first day’s filming. In front of the camera were Robin Williams and Stellan Skarsgård. Damon and Affleck sat watching. At last, it was the start of everything.

“Sometimes those moments sneak up on you,” Damon reflects. “And that was another one of those moments we never thought was going to arrive. To see not only actors, but those actors, saying the stuff that we wrote, was like…fuck. Just, I guess, a mixture of joy and disbelief. And relief. And gratitude. That would probably be it. That was a really nice moment. I’m not ashamed to say it.”

I ask Damon whether Affleck was crying too.

“I remember him as crying. Now, memory is a funny thing, as we know, so you would have to ask him, but my recollection is we both were. Yeah. I think, as I recall, I put my hand on his arm, as these guys were talking. On his shoulder. Like: ‘Holy shit…’ ”

Later, I do ask Affleck, who concurs: “We both cried.”

I ask Affleck whether they’d been surprised to see each other cry.

“No, I knew Matt was an emotional…” he replies, leaving the sentence hanging, no noun required. “No, it didn’t surprise me at all to see Matt crying. It surprised me a little bit to be crying along with him, but maybe he felt that way about me.” Affleck likewise reflected to me on why that moment caught them in this way: “It was all we thought about, it was all we focused on, and we never really believed it would happen. And it sort of represented the sum total of what we tried to do. You know…”—Affleck laughs here, perhaps a little wryly—“…we might have cried for other reasons had we been able to see the whole future and understand the complexity of what we’d gotten ourselves into. But at the time, we had the sort of surety and the naivete of being just guys in our mid-20s who weren’t thinking about anything except what was happening just right there in the moment, and feeling a tremendous amount of belief and satisfaction that it actually happened. That we actually accomplished something. We just felt relieved that we hadn’t totally failed.”

-

Going into the pandemic in the early months of 2020, Matt Damon was better informed, if not better prepared, than many of us, for the most Hollywood of reasons. In 2011, he had starred in the Steven Soderbergh movie Contagion, in several respects an uncannily precise fictional preview of what was to come. After Contagion, Damon had kept in touch both with the screenwriter, Scott Burns, and the virologist, Ian Lipkin, hired as technical adviser to guide the film’s science. Over the years since, whenever some kind of outbreak or epidemic seemed to be threatening, Damon had been in the habit of checking back with them to “get kind of the down-low on what was going on.”

As the first mutterings emerged from China, Damon duly contacted Burns to ask what Lipkin was saying. “No, this one’s real” he remembers Burns telling him. “This is exponential—the world is going to look completely different in two weeks.” Damon was in France, shooting The Last Duel with director Ridley Scott, and they raced to complete vital exterior shots. The plan had been for the production to move on to Ireland, but it became increasingly obvious that this might not happen right away. The day before the scheduled move in early March, the shoot was put on hold.

Damon’s wife and three youngest children were with him in France, and they had a family meeting. Should they fly back to America while they could, or travel on the crew charter flight to Ireland and wait things out there? They chose Ireland.

In many ways, it was a decision that worked out. “We got really lucky,” says Damon. “We had about as good a lockdown as we could have ever hoped.” As well as the house waiting for them in the coastal community of Dalkey, other nearby properties had been rented by cast and crew who had returned to America. These were all now vacant, so there was plenty of room for Damon’s party to spread out. In one house, for instance, Damon installed the teachers they had been traveling with, allowing his children their own in-person private school that they could walk to each day. His assistant and trainer also got their own spaces. Within the two kilometers they were permitted to travel, they could swim in the sea, take long hikes in the Irish countryside. It was like a time out from the world.

“He has freedom. It’s the most intoxicating thing of all. And that, very few very famous people have. He’s free from self-consciousness. For a man who looks in the mirror for a living, he’s not even a little bit self-conscious.”  — Bono

“There was like a quiet,” Damon reflects. “There weren’t scripts being sent, or work to do, or people who needed answers for anything. It was just: Take the kids to school and then go train, or go for a walk. It was very simple. That part of it was eye-opening, going forward, in terms of how I’d like to spend my days.”

​​Meanwhile people elsewhere were watching a younger Damon deal with far more harrowing pandemic circumstances, as Contagion became a hit all over again. Surreally, these viewers were joined by Damon himself. “We were just flipping on Apple TV and it was just there, in our face,” he remembers. “People were kind of hungry for more information, and the information was kind of scarce at the beginning. And so, I don’t know, I think we probably went through the same kind of subconscious or conscious process that everyone did, and just pressed ‘play.’ ” Damon allows that he was pleasantly surprised by what he saw. “I remember thinking: This is better than I remember! Because when we released it, I think it felt more like a science fiction movie. It felt a lot more far-fetched than it actually was.”

Sweater, $3,550, by Brunello Cucinelli. Shorts, $450, by Hermès.

Word soon spread that Damon and his family were here: In the upside-down world of spring 2020, this curious happenstance even prompted its own article in The New York Times. That story, “A Seaside Irish Village Adopts Matt Damon,” detailed a few Damon Dalkey sightings and explained how a photo of Damon holding a bag from the Irish supermarket SuperValu “seems to have been his ticket to local acceptance,” leading to a proliferation of “delighted memes and glowing articles in the Irish press.” The particular excitement triggered by this SuperValu image seems to have been its stars-they’re-just-like-us implication that Damon might have gone gloriously native, his plastic bag loaded with beer cans ready for a determined drinking session.

I speak to one of Damon’s neighbors from that time who recalled for me the disruptions caused by this American movie star’s unexpected presence:

“I’ve lived in this village, or next to this village, for 30 years—this fucker is there for three months and they make him the king of Dalkey! I mean, it’s unbelievable. He’s caught in some kind of local photo shoot with a SuperValu plastic bag, and the rumor that he’s carrying cans, and suddenly he’s got all this credibility that some of us just are incapable of ever achieving. He’s beloved! I mean, there’ll be a statue of him there. I don’t know what it was, and what he did. But I’m very annoyed about it. I’m not happy at all.”

The speaker is Bono. His ire—“Thirty years I’ve put into that fishing village, and suddenly the fisher of men takes over!”—is, of course, theatrical. Damon and Bono are friends, and go back some way. In fact, according to Damon, Bono was indirectly responsible for initiating the third great focus of Damon’s adult life aside from his acting career and his family: his work in expanding global access to water, primarily through the organization water.org. This was back in 2006. Damon had been exploring making a trip to Africa with Bono’s charity. He planned to go just as soon as he could find the right moment. That was when, according to Damon, Bono applied his renowned powers of persuasion: “He called me, and I said, ‘No, no, I’m going to go,’ and he said, ‘No, you’re going to go now.’ I said, ‘No, no, come on, my wife’s pregnant.’ He said, ‘There’s always going to be a reason, and you have to go now.’ And he was right. And that started the journey—it wasn’t going to start until I went. Until I started engaging, nothing was going to happen, and I think he knew that.” (For his part, Bono downplays his role here—“I think he gives me too much credit”—but extols Damon’s subsequent achievements in this arena: “I think he’s better at it than I am—subtler, less hectoring, very effective.”)

When we speak, Bono also offers up some more general reflections about Damon, ones I will come to ponder a great deal.

“In the last hour, with this call coming, I was trying to think what it is about him,” Bono says. “And I realized that he has the thing that the whole world wants: He has freedom. It’s the most intoxicating thing of all. And that, very few very famous people have. He’s free from self-consciousness. For a man who looks in the mirror for a living, he’s not even a little bit self-conscious, I’ve found. I mean, I think I’ve got freedom, but I’m self-conscious. When I walk into the newsagent’s, I can see myself walking into the newsagent’s, do you know what I mean? He’s really himself.” Bono subsequently appends to this a further, related thought: “There’s some things you shouldn’t get too good at. Celebrity’s one of them.”

I ask Bono whether he’s saying that, in the nicest possible way, Damon is not that good at being a celebrity.

“Yeah, that might be the truth,” Bono replies, and contrasts a particular glazed look he has learned to recognize in the eyes of some politicians he meets with the affect of someone like Damon. “He’s not professional,” Bono suggests. “He’s way beyond that. He’s an amateur, in the way that he should always be, regarding celebrity. You know, quite good at it on the weekends, probably falls down in the week. But the respect for people and for human life, and the squandering of it, that’s absolutely core to who he is. And he’s just trying to be useful. Trying to be helpful.”

Jacket, $3,995, by Paul Stuart. Shirt, vintage. Shorts, $480, by Hermès.

After about three months in Dalkey—the SuperValu bag, incidentally, had actually been filled with beach towels for the kids—Damon and family headed back to Los Angeles, though they would return to Ireland for two months later in the year to finish The Last Duel. Toward the end of that shoot, Damon turned 50, but the production was under a strict quarantine protocol, so there could be no party. Instead, he conferred with his old college roommates on their shared text chain: “I was just texting that I definitely bested their COVID 50th. I was shooting a battle scene in The Last Duel in which I had nine confirmed kills. We were laughing about that: ‘This is the best midlife crisis ever. I’m just slaughtering my way through my midlife crisis.’ ”

Then, near the end of last year, the possibility arose of a new escape. Damon had made a brief, surreal appearance in Taika Waititi’s 2017 Thor: Ragnarok, as “actor Loki.” Now Waititi was preparing a follow-up, Thor: Love and Thunder, to be filmed in the early months of 2021 in Australia, and asked Damon whether he would consider reprising his earlier cameo. It was not hard to see the appeal. Australia was, as we shall see, somewhere he and family already had close history. It was also one of the safest, least virus-infected places on the planet (and, consequently, not an easy place to visit). Damon agreed to take the role if he could bring his family. Discussions began, and permission was granted. “There were government officials who called me and explained to me in no uncertain terms: The only reason you’re getting in is because this production is creating jobs,” Damon explains. “Now, could the production live without me? Yeah. But you start pulling jokes away from something that’s funny and eventually it’s not, you know what I mean?”

Again, things worked out well. Although he would be required on set for only two days, Damon was able to stay there with his family for five months. He played his onscreen part as required—“It’s going to be a laugh, and it’s going to be a really good movie, so I’m always up for that”—and there is circumstantial evidence of some socializing: A photo surfaced of Damon at an Eighties birthday party thrown for one of Chris Hemsworth’s friends, dressed as…well, best let him explain.

“I didn’t know what the heck to get,” he says of preparing for this outing. “So I went kind of Run DMC and got me the old Adidas tracksuit with the Kangol hat, which was very much the look in the ’80s where I grew up. I think my wife got some plastic chain online that I accessorized with. And, funnily enough, Idris Elba came in dressed in the exact same thing.”

But mostly it was family time, and a further reprieve from what was happening elsewhere.

“So again we were really lucky,” he acknowledges. “I mean, we’ve been about as lucky as you can be throughout this pandemic.”

Which, on one hand, is very evidently true. Though, on the other hand, the fact that he is saying this when one of his daughters has tested positive and is isolating at home, and when his oldest daughter—who was in New York at the beginning of the pandemic—had her own brush with COVID in March 2020, may also show how much we have all learned to recalibrate.

Sweater, $1,200, by Prada. Shirt, $495, by Brunello Cucinelli.

When Damon and I speak for a second time, 38 hours after that first meeting, he is now unmasked (sufficient testing and quarantining has been achieved), and we are two-and-a-half-thousand miles away from Malibu. Today, we have brunch at the Osprey restaurant in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

This is Damon’s new neighborhood. He and his family have been principally living in Los Angeles for some years but are now in the process of moving back to New York. “A big transition for the kids—new schools, new everything,” he says, explaining how he’d like them to be able to have the kind of independence that a less car-dominated environment can allow. “So, ‘in flux’ will probably be the best description of my personal life. Not to say we’re not excited—we’re really excited.”

Damon and his wife, Lucy, have four daughters (the oldest, Alexia, predating their relationship). Their names are inked, one above the other, hidden high on Damon’s right arm— “Alexia,” “Isabella,” “Gia,” “Stella”—​​though Damon seems momentarily taken aback when I mention this, as though unsure that this is public knowledge. “Did I show my tattoos?” he muses. “I guess I did.”

“My own kind of sanity and mental health really benefited from having someone who I grew up with who was also going through something similar.” — Ben Affleck

He added these four names a couple of years back, but his first tattoo, on the same upper arm, was done in 2013. It had been his wife’s idea.

“She just announced it,” he says. “We were in our apartment in Manhattan, and she was, like, ‘We’re getting tattoos.’ I was, ‘Okay.’ ” Damon says that he had only one stipulation—that they fulfill a promise once made. “There is a friend of ours who did all of Heath Ledger’s tattoos,” says Damon, “and I told him if I ever got a tattoo, he was my first phone call.” That call was duly made and the friend, Scott Campbell, biked over from Brooklyn and freehanded the name “Lucy.”

Idly, I ask about the stray tattoo on Damon’s upper arm that doesn’t appear to be a name: a strange loopy line heading up toward his shoulder. This, it turns out, was done on that same day in 2013 and comes with its own story:

“That’s something that Heath had on his arm. Heath was an incredibly restless, creative person. Like, I talked to the person who did his hair on The Patriot and she said he hated sitting still so much ��that by the time I got the wig on and I set it and everything, and I’d finished, he’d get up and there would be a sculpture of bobby pins that he’d done.’ He was really sensitive. This stuff just flowed out of him. He was really special. I just wanted to get something that Heath had. Scott showed me his laptop and I said, ‘Scott, what’s that one?’ And he goes ‘I have no idea—I think that’s just some shit that Heath squiggled.’ And I went, ‘That’s the one I want.’ ”

Lucy, who was also friends with Heath, got the same tattoo on her foot.

“So we both have that,” says Damon. “It’s like a little creative little blessing. It’s like an angel that looks over all these names that are on the arm.”

Hoodie, $1,340, by Louis Vuitton Men’s. Vintage shorts from Front General Store.

Damon was first urged to read Eric Jager’s book The Last Duel, about a dark and dramatic episode in 14th-century France, with a mind to its movie potential, back in 2011. He demurred. Hearing that Martin Scorsese already had the rights, he felt it would be a waste of his time: “I said, ‘Well, if Marty has it, he’s going to do it with Leo.’ ” Seven years later, the rights now available, Damon relented.

At first, he couldn’t see it. “Twenty pages in, I was just thinking, We can’t do this,” he says. “Like, these guys are absolute savages. These guys are born in the middle of a hundred--year war, they do nothing but rape and pillage and fight for their entire lives.…” But then the central story gripped him: of two men, one accused of rape by the other’s wife, and of the woman at the center. “She had, at great risk to first her reputation and then to herself, stood up and told the truth, again and again and again,” says Damon. “It was just pretty amazing.” He sent the book to Ridley Scott, whom he had wanted to work with again since their successful collaboration on The Martian. Scott shared his enthusiasm. Now they needed a script.

One evening, Damon had dinner with Ben Affleck. Over the years, the two teenage friends have remained close, in a way that—as they separately acknowledge—far transcends the cartoon best-Hollywood-buddy way it can often be depicted.

“Like, I don’t want to be his friend in public, you know what I mean?” Damon says. “It’s way too important a friendship for that, and it goes so beyond this career or anything. You know, it’s a significant part of my life and not for public consumption in that way.”

“I can’t speak for Matt,” Affleck offers, “but my own kind of sanity and mental health really benefited from having someone who I grew up with and knew as a child who was also going through something similar—this 20-year-plus journey of being in the public eye—who I could reflect on it with honestly, talk things over with, be myself with, who I knew why we were friends, why he was interested and loved me, why I loved him. I often think of people who just become successful and then get thrust into this, and I think, ‘How do they do it without having somebody that they can talk to? Who they can trust? Who knew them before?’ It’s just been such an asset to me—and, I think, I hope, to Matt—this relationship that we’ve had.”

The two of them have remained periodic work colleagues—they share a production company—but after winning their Good Will Hunting Oscar, they had never even attempted to collaborate on another script. To a large extent this was a reflection of just how successful their initial strategy has been—kick-started by that movie’s success, both had long been busy with the kind of opportunities they could once have only dreamed of. But it was also that what they had done back then seemed too cumbersome to ever repeat.

“The process of writing was so time consuming when we did it, when we were 22 and 20,” says Damon.

“We didn’t have jobs, we didn’t have anything else to do,” echoes Affleck. “We had two years to sort of muddle our way through a draft, and then another draft—to spend time sitting around and drinking beer and talking about the themes and playing video games and bullshitting.”

“We really understood the characters, and so we would take them and we would put them in these different scenarios,” Damon explains, “and then at the end, we kind of mashed these disjointed parts together into what could cohere as some kind of narrative. And that’s a really inefficient way to write. And I think both of us just intuitively felt like: Well, we’re never going to have enough time to do that again.”

Sweater, $1,295, and vintage shorts by Polo Ralph Lauren. Vintage shoes by Brooks Brothers from Melet Mercantile. Socks, $13, by American Trench.

But over that dinner, Damon told Affleck about The Last Duel, and at the end of the meal lent Affleck his copy of the book. “He was recently sober,” Damon recalls. “And when he’s on his game, he really sees the matrix. At seven o’clock the next morning, he called me—he had gone home and read it—and said, ‘We should write this.’ ”

Affleck tells me that he had stayed up until three or four in the morning, reading. When Damon had solicited his opinion on material in the past, Affleck hadn’t always “been super-enthusiastic,” he says. This was different. “All of a sudden I had a very clear idea of: Absolutely, this is a movie, this is how we should do it. It just thrilled me. And the story of this woman and what she had experienced and been through and the bravery she’d exhibited and the resilience and strength of character it must have taken to have gone through this—it just became very, very clear to me right away how it could work as a movie.” He became possessed with a great sense of urgency—“we have to do this and get it done now”—that he needed Damon to share. “He’s got a busy life, he’s all over the place,” Affleck explains, “and he frankly requires being marshaled a little bit to focus and zone in.” So Affleck laid out a plan of action: “Okay, and this is how we’re going to do it: We’re going to do four hours a day, I’m going to schedule it, I’m going to come over there…”

As soon as they began, they quickly found a very different rhythm from the last time around. “It really fit in with our lives,” says Damon. “Get up, get the kids out the door, to do everything we needed to do in our personal lives, and then meet in a very relaxed setting, work for four or five hours, then go back and kind of fulfill all of our obligations at home.” He describes these sessions as involving a lot of pacing around, acting out scenes, before one of them consolidated what they had. “He’s a better typist than I am,” says Damon. “But sometimes I’m closer to the laptop.”

They also soon realized that they needed something else. Damon’s initial proposal had been that they should tell the story from the different perspectives of the principal characters, and it became obvious that they needed a third collaborator, someone who could write the wronged wife’s story in a way they never could. That’s when they brought in the director and writer Nicole Holofcener. “I mean, what a great story, what a unique story, and what a feminist story to tell,” says Holofcener. “It was daunting in that she was a real person, and I felt honored and terrified to make sure that I was doing her justice and make it very clear that her truth was the truth, and to make her a whole person. She was extraordinary for speaking the truth, despite horrible consequences if they decided she was lying.” From the way the collaborators talk about it, their aim transcended the unwrapping of a he-said/he-said/she-said tale to lay bare some of the toxic consequences of even allowing such a story to be framed in that way. “If Unforgiven is the anti-Western Western,” says Damon, “then this is the anti-chivalry chivalry movie.… I think it’s a really good movie. We’ll see what people think.”

Both Damon and Affleck now imagine collaborating together more often in the future. “The discovery, I think, for both of us,” says Affleck, “was: It’s so much more pleasant and rewarding and wonderful to go to work and work with people that you love.” But for now, Damon has nothing planned beyond The Last Duel’s release. He’d like to spend the rest of the year bedding down in New York. If there’s something suitable he can make in the spring, he will; if there isn’t, he won’t. Somewhere along the way, he will eventually direct. He has come close twice but stepped aside. He was initially scheduled to direct Promised Land, a movie about fracking that he wrote with John Krasinski, and was also supposed to direct Manchester by the Sea, which was based on an idea Krasinski had proposed to him over dinner. But when Kenneth Lonergan subsequently tendered the script that they had commissioned, it was obvious to Damon that Lonergan should direct it instead. (He likes to joke that the best move he made as the movie’s producer was to fire himself as the movie’s director.)

Most likely, though, more acting will come first. “I feel like I’ve been steadily improving at my job for a long time,” he says. “And that’s a great feeling.” He muses about how sometimes, for all one’s effort, movies may still misfire. “I really want people to care as much as I do about the things I’m putting out,” he says. “And, you know, some of them have really worked, and some of them really haven’t.”

There’s no one making films, I suggest to him, who gets it right all of the time.

He nods. “That’s what I think’s so interesting about it—it’s impossible to do it perfectly, this. It keeps you coming back, like an addict. You know more and more, but you know you never know enough to know.”

Sweater, $3,325, by Hermès.

Pandemic aside, there was one previous extended break—over 18 months between the end of 2016 and the summer of 2018—when Matt Damon stopped making films. The first year of this period was spent back in Boston, staying close, during his father Kent’s final illness.

“We rented an apartment a block from his apartment,” says Damon, “so if he was well enough, he’d come for dinner, and if he was well enough to be at home but not to come to our place, we would go to sit and have dinner with him.” And when his father was in the hospital, Damon would be there every day. It was an intense time not just for Damon but for his wife and children. “They were very much a part of that. They had a front-row seat to that process, so it was a big year for them too. For our whole family, it was a seismic event.” Echoes from this time reverberate throughout our conversations. “I remember my dad saying in his last year of life,” Damon will mention at one point, “that he didn’t feel old. His spirit felt the same.”

Damon’s father died of multiple myeloma on December 14, 2017. That same week, the orbit of Damon’s life was also knocked askew in a completely different way. It feels important to note that although Damon points out that these two events occurred at the same time, he never explicitly links them beyond that. Specifically, he doesn’t try to sidestep any of the trouble that would cascade down upon him, as perhaps he might, by excusing himself as a man distracted by grief.

In Matt Damon’s career up until that point, there had been very few significant wrinkles: It generally seemed as though he had fluently mastered how to put his most charming face forward to the world, and that the world by and large had reciprocated by being duly charmed. Until that week. To dutifully promote Alexander Payne’s Downsizing, filmed the previous year, Damon had surfaced to record an interview for Popcorn With Peter Travers, the first part of which appeared on ABC on the morning of his father’s death. At one point, Travers asked Damon a series of questions about the wave of #MeToo allegations sweeping Hollywood. Damon replied at length and with apparent confidence, in a manner that would strike many people as that of some kind of presumptuous luminary who felt he had the answers everyone had been waiting for and who assumed it would be appreciated if he not only stepped in to tell it like it is but also set a few things straight. The response to both what Damon said and the fact that he seemed to believe it would be appropriate for him to say it was forthright.

“I mean, we all come into the world and we’re a fucking hot mess, do you know what I mean?” he says now. “And we make mistakes. And even in doing our best we make terrible mistakes.” The ensuing reaction was not one that Damon was accustomed to. “It was painful,” he says. “It’s hard to take punches for things…the person that they were saying, ‘He’s tone-deaf, and he’s…’ you know, I don’t like that guy either. So it’s hard to hear those things about yourself.”

An old friend persuaded Damon that he should rein in any instinct to wade right back into the conversation. “She said, ‘Don’t respond. You’d be inclined to say, “But I’m a good person.…” Don’t do that. Just be quiet for at least a month and just listen. Listen to the objections to what you said. Try to understand why you upset people.’ And that’s what I did. My friend’s advice was great in the sense of not getting in a defensive crouch—because that was my inclination, and you can’t hear anything in a defensive crouch—and as painful as it is, the only way forward is to really try to understand what you’ve done and really reflect on it.”

Even if Damon might still take issue with much of what was thrown at him—“95 percent of the stuff was entirely unhelpful, it was just Twitter-bashing stuff, which did put me in a defensive crouch, because you just go, ‘That’s nonsense’ ”—the more solid criticisms hit hard. “There were articles written about things that I said, about centering a man in a sexual assault situation. And I go, ‘Wow, I did do that. I thought of it entirely from his perspective.’ Like, that’s where my head went. And, ‘I didn’t think about these women’.… Because I’m trying to relate to the situation, and I relate to the person who has more in common with me. But in so doing, I’m doing damage not only to the people in that scenario but to anybody who’s ever been in that scenario and who feels like, ‘Oh, here I go again, getting overlooked.’ So it changed the way that I look at some of these things. It makes me hopefully more aware.”

A month after the initial interview, Damon resurfaced to promote a campaign for water.org and briefly addressed the situation: “I made a very sincere apology about not wanting to further anyone’s pain. Which is my truth. I mean, I don’t think it’s particularly revelatory. I think most of us would say that. But I certainly wanted to make it clear that I was truly sorry; that I didn’t mean to do that.”

And then he went away.

It was Damon’s wife who suggested to him that they go to Australia. This trip, lasting several months, was, says Damon, primarily a response to “the end of this fucking horrible year that I’d spent in the hospital with my dad.… It was like, ‘Let’s go to the other side of the world, just our family, and let’s make memories with the kids. Let’s go on an adventure.’ ” This recent media firestorm provided one further impetus. “I think that we would have gone either way. But certainly I was like: Nobody needs to hear from me for another year at least.”

In Australia, the Damon family traveled around, doing camping trips, finding remote beaches and islands, before returning to a base in Byron Bay where sympathetic friends lived. “The whole Hemsworth family,” says Damon, “and all of their friends, we’re close with all of them, and they were just a huge support system for us.”

Back then, in the year after his father’s death, Damon simply didn’t know when he’d go back to work. But eventually a script came through that enticed him: Ford v Ferrari. Nonetheless, his transition back into the world of what he used to do did not go as smoothly as Damon had anticipated. He was playing the cocksure former racing driver, now race car designer, Carroll Shelby.

“I just kind of showed up,” he tells me, “and I put on everything and none of it felt right. I’m supposed to be playing a guy who can sell anybody anything, and I didn’t feel like I could sell anything to anybody. I really didn’t. And I thought: I’m not ready to work. And I remember walking out of the trailer, it was the summertime so it was over 100 degrees. I remember walking to the set in my boots that were already giving me blisters after about 10 steps, with my cowboy hat that was stiff on my head, with this feeling that I can’t sell anything to anybody and I’m about to pretend that I can. And because I don’t feel that I can, I will be pretending. And I remember thinking: ‘This is a really stupid job.’ ”

Acting? I ask.

“Yeah, the whole thing. ‘I can’t believe this is what I decided to do with my life.’ ”

Damon’s first scene was with “a great character actor from Georgia” named Ray McKinnon. By chance, Damon had worked with McKinnon back when Damon was 19, in a TV movie called Rising Son, one of his first jobs. (Damon, naturally, was the son who was rising.) Somehow that helped. “There was something about coming back to where it all started, and doing a scene with Ray. And he just was so good that I was, ‘All right, maybe this isn’t the dumbest thing in the world to do.…’ ”

Damon’s next scene was with his costar Christian Bale—“one of my favorite actors,” says Damon, and a key reason he’d committed to the film. “Six months earlier, he had been 245 pounds,” says Damon—Bale had been playing Dick Cheney in Vice—“…and he was not a pound over 170. And I came out and he was sunburnt, and he had these coveralls on, and it looked like he’d been wearing them for his entire life, and he had this hat that was just beaten to shit, and it was just every detail. Every detail. I mean, it was fucking beautiful. And I went: ‘Okay. This is why we do it. This is a great thing to do with my life. Because we tell people stories—we tell people stories, and that’s the most human thing there is.’ And if you’re going to tell them stories, then fucking tell it well.”

It had come back to him. He was Matt Damon, and—for now, anyway—he knew what to do.

Matt Damon has never embraced social media.

“I just never saw the point,” he says. “And I feel better and better about that decision as time goes on. I understand wanting to be connected to everybody on Facebook, but my life is so full and I’m connected, really, to everybody I need to be connected to. And then Twitter, I just reflexively didn’t believe that my first knee-jerk response to something was necessarily something that should go all over the world.”

But then Damon mentions that he does, nonetheless, have “a very private Instagram account,” one he uses to see friends’ kids growing up around the world, and to which he only very occasionally posts.

I reflexively ask him what one of his typical posts would be. Slightly to my surprise, he pulls out his phone.

“I’ll show you,” he says.

As the app opens, he reads out his stats: “I have 76 followers and I’ve done 40 posts since 2013.” Then he shows me the most recent photo. It was taken of 15-year-old Isabella on her birthday. “That’s what she’s been doing,” he says, by way of explanation, “every time we take a picture of her nowadays.”

In the photo, his daughter is looking at the camera—and at her father—brandishing two raised middle fingers.

Days after our final meeting, something new blows up and I am reminded of the impulsive ways in which Damon seems to oscillate between great reserve and openness. This circumstance also stems from Damon sharing something about his family. An interview appears in the British newspaper The Sunday Times in which Damon is quoted as explaining how, some months earlier, one of his daughters had left the dinner table after he had made a joke using what he said she called “the f-slur for a homosexual”; how she had subsequently written him a letter explaining his transgression, and how Damon had agreed that she was correct and that he would retire the word. If he intended this story to show how we all must continue to learn and adapt and listen and strive to be better (and maybe also to show appreciation and deference for daughterly wisdom), that was not how it was widely received. The message that landed was: Matt Damon had been blithely using that word until a few months ago (and so might be, it was often also implied, a thoughtless homophobe). In the wake of the unfavorable coverage that followed, Damon issued a statement. In it, he sidestepped an apology, arguing for the good intentions behind the father-daughter story he had told, disputing its status as a “personal awakening,” denying that he uses “slurs of any kind,” and asserting, “I stand with the LGBTQ+ community.”

It nonetheless left an uncomfortable and unresolved mess. When GQ sought to discuss this further with Damon, he declined. In that vacuum, I found myself thinking about this, and about other unguarded moments that punctuated the conversations we did have. It made me consider how for all his poise and worldly bearing, there could be something guileless about Damon; and whether there was an aspect of himself that made him somehow vulnerable to stepping into those puddles that more deftly cynical men know how to step around. It made me wonder, too, whether a celebrity who shuns social media might also fail to learn how to inoculate themselves against the perils that lie in wait in the savage judgment chamber of the modern world. And it made me ponder anew Bono’s observation about how Damon wasn’t good at being a celebrity. Bono clearly meant this as a grand compliment, but perhaps the same virtues Bono sees may sometimes carry their own cost, out here with the rest of us, adrift in the follies and rewards of being human.

Back before, in the last few minutes of our Brooklyn brunch, I had asked Damon whether he ever felt misunderstood. In answering, he once more referenced back to his 2017 missteps. “I felt like I was being represented as something that I didn’t feel in my heart,” he said. “And the media, it’s so powerful—like, that fire hose of attention is overwhelming, no matter what. Even when it’s good, it’s really overwhelming. Some people love it, and you can see that they’re looking for it and they need it, constantly trying to get more of it. I’m not passing any judgment on that, I’m just not that way. Some people love a bright light on them. I’ve never been that person. I always really wanted to work. I really wanted to work. But not the other part.”

Shirt, $760, by Prada. Vintage shorts by Polo Ralph Lauren from Front General Store. Vintage belt by J.Crew.

Chris Heath is a GQ correspondent.

A version of this story originally appeared in the October 2021 issue with the title "​​Sincerely, Matt Damon."

[joanna-vane]

And I’ve been making a list Of all your so called “big plans” And I'm really having trouble Cause it’s longer than the stretch of my attention span Wait, what were we talking about again?

Birthday — 30 May 2004 Zodiac Sign — Gemini Sun, Libra Moon, Leo Rising MBTI — ESFP Enneagram — Type 4 Primary Vice — impressionable Primary Virtue — talented  Element — Air

Overview:

Mother — Unknown Father — Rodger Vane Mother’s Occupation — Unknown Father’s Occupation —Addict/Abuser Family Finances — lower class Birth Order — Only child Brothers —  N/A Sisters — N/A Other Close Family — unknown  Best Friend — Sutton; a girl from her school whos family was also very poor. Parents were both drug addicts and stole copper piping from the neighborhood to support their living. Joanna met her at school and spent most of her free time with her when allowed. A bad influence - would come up with the ideas and Joanna would act on them. Mercer; another girl from school who was in the system. Spent nearly all of her time with Joanna as an escape from her group home. A follower but was at least nice. Other Friends — Kids she knew from school. Kids she knew from going to local concerts. Girls from her dance school. Enemies —  her Father Pets — none yet Home Life During Childhood — treated like a burden her whole life. Severely abused her entire life by her father. Was always left hungry and dirty. Used to make money to fun her father addiction. Town or City Name(s) — Fitzroy, Australia What Did His or Her Bedroom Look Like — a small room with just a bed, a closet, and a desk. Not decorated and had two giant locks on the outside. Any Sports or Clubs — dance company Favorite Toy or Game —could never afford games; does enjoy skiball Schooling — went to public schooling in Australia and graduated as a senior. Currently on the run to attend PrideU Favorite Subject —Biology Popular or Loner — a loner due to being dity and poor all through primary school. Slowly became a bit popular as Joanna got older. Important Experiences or Events — shifting for the first time at the age of 5. Getting arressted for the first time. Stealing her first diamond ring. Nationality —Australian Culture — Australian Religion and beliefs — non practicing

Physical Appearance:

Face Claim —  Maddie Ziegler Complexion — tanned freckled clean skin Hair Colour — light brown Eye Colour —light green Height — 5’5” Build — Tall, slim, toned Tattoos — none as of now Piercings — Double on her ears Common Hairstyle — Long, loose waves, either down or pulled up in a messy bun Clothing Style — alternative, punk, band tshirts, doc martens and converse Usual Expression —

Health:

Overall (do they get sick easily)? — when she was little she was always sick Physical Ailments — nothing besides acne Neurological Conditions — none Allergies —  none Grooming Habits — she has a rigorous skin care routine and cannot go a day without showering Sleeping Habits — either too much or too little Eating Habits — very concious of what she eats - but does love to go get snacks from the store - has always had to worry about price of food or where she would get her next meal Exercise Habits —  she works out daily in any form of dance or a jog Emotional Stability — very short fuse and her emotions can range from rage to love - can get scared rather easily by reaction - flich for fear of physical abuse Sociability — Very outgoing and not afraid to talk to anyone just doesnt mean it will always be nice Addictions — Nah Drug Use — no thanks  Alcohol Use — steal beers from the corner store

Your Character’s Character:

Bad Habits — impulsive, has a bit of a temper, reckless, tends to over romanticize situations, vile and viper tongued, willing to do as others say for praise or to be liked Good Habits — very determined, tenacious, head strong, very smart and very talented Best Characteristic — she really has the best intentions when she is trying, she is very smart intellectually and street smarts, she is tenacious and won’t give up until she has what she wants Worst Characteristic — vicious, kleptomaniac Worst Memory - turning into a lizard for the first time as a child; being kicked across the front lawn for it and locked in a cage until she turned back Best Memory — turning into a lizard for the first time ; have her freedom in her own way and a sense of purpose and a chance of history Proud of — magical ability, dance talent, and history Embarrassed by — her lack of money, he father, doing wrong Driving Style — wreckless at times Strong Points — talented and tenacious Attitude — unbothered, vile, goofy Weakness — money, stealing Fears — failure/displeasing someone she looks up to Phobias — nothing serious Secrets — she ran away from her abusive father   Regrets — getting caught/arrested Feels Vulnerable When - when someone truly sees her Pet Peeves — incompetence Conflicts — tbd  Motivation — to not end up like her father, to find out who her mother was and why she is a lizard shifter Short Term Goals and Hopes — to start college and make something of herself, find real friends, dance Long Term Goals and Hopes — to graduate college, either dance professionally or join RAS Sexuality — bisexual Day or Night Person — night Introvert or Extrovert — Extrovert! Optimist or Pessimist — both  Greatest Want — acceptance Greatest Need — money

Likes and Styles:

Music — pop punk Books —fantasy Foods —  cereal, scrambled eggs, gas station snacks Drinks — iced coffee with splenda, diet coke, and iced water Animals — lizards Sports —  dance and surfing Social Issues — pro magik Favorite Saying —“yeah right” Color — black and any shade of green Clothing — trendy, grunge, punk, alternative Jewelry — wears a lot of rings and necklaces and earrings Games — hmmm TV Shows — RHONY, RHONJ, RHOM, RHOOC, RuPauls Drag Race, MTV The Challenge, and Gossip Girl  Movies — War Movies, Chick Flicks, and nostalgic animation

Where and How Does Your Character Live Now:

Home — PrideU dorm Household furnishings — whatever the college provides Favorite Possession — her doc martens Most Cherished Possession — doesn’t have any Neighborhood — PrideU Town or City Name — Swynlake Married Before — No Significant Other Before — a few boyfriends but they were never anything real Children —  None!  Relationship with Family — zero connection with her mother and has run away from her father Car — n/s Career —  student / waitress and dancer at The Court of Miracles Dream Career —  RAS - Magical Historian Dream Life —  own a home, have a career, not fall subject to the life her father has Love Life —  single and ready to mingle  Talents or Skills — very personable when being her true self, and dance  Intelligence Level — very smart almost too smart Finances — has literally only $100,000 of stolen money to her name

[aajjks]

this one’s for you big blue!

BC!JK

dear diary,

i’m a simple girl or at least i think i am.

i like drawing, eating, sleeping, and all of that boring stuff.

somehow i’ve been surviving school but it wasn’t easy, trust me. i’ve managed to make two friends (finally) 😮‍💨 but it required me to come out of my bubble anddd that’s okay because they’re really cool.

friend #1 is choi danielle! she’s our new transfer student that used to go to school in australia but her mother got a job in korea and guess what? I’M HER FIRST FRIEND 😁👭

hmm…what else???

OH! my crush 💗 eunwoo 💗 looked at me today!!!! he. looked. at. ME. aaaahhh, i can finally die happily knowing my crush acknowledged me today even though it was because i was yet again bullied by the bully club. the worst people in the whole world 👿 and guess what, diary? they’re ALL BOYS!!! they pick on everybody and make everyone’s life a living hell.

the oldest is kim seokjin, min yoongi, jung hoseok and kim namjoon. they’re all very good looking but don’t let their good looks fool you THEY’RE EVIL I TELL YOU EEVILLLLL!!!! next are the brats of the group: park jimin and kim taehyung 😒

jimin is the captain of the dance team at our school and i won’t lie, he’s an amazing dancer but he’s still EVIL. taehyung is evil too, he may be the president of our fashion and design club but…you get it.

last but not least, the leader, the THORN IN MY SIDE, jeon

before you could finish writing in your journal, here comes the handsome devil himself, jeon jungkook AKA the golden maknae and leader of the bully club.

even though the club picks on numerous amounts of people in the school, somehow the group always likes to pick on you. they threaten you with false information if you don’t do their homework, they push you around, make you run errands for them, and diminish your self esteem.

the bully club HATES you. every fiber of your being, i mean, it’s what their leader tells them. you’re a nerd, a loser who doesn’t deserve the kindest treatment but despite the brewing HATE the club has for you, there’s a certain person that admires you.

he won’t say it to your face because he has to look cool! he has a reputation to uphold here and while his friends fuck around with the prettiest girls in school here he is crushing on the nerd he hates. the nerd he made his friends hate, that “person” is none other than jeon jungkook.

yeah that’s right, THE LEADER LIKES YOU yet he bullies you and in that same sentence, he can’t stand anyone bullying you, looking at you, flirting with you, or even touching you unless it’s him.

sooner or later you’ll realize you love him too, i mean what’s a man to do? he has a reputation to uphold and he’d rather eat his cake with his ice cream too. he’ll figure out how to come to you with his feelings but until then…

“HEY GIVE THAT BACK!!!”

“aww is the little nerd writing in her diary?”

“hmm let’s see, oh look at what she said about us taehyung! she said we’re “eeevil” hahahaha”

“QUIT IT!!? GIVE IT BACK YOU ASSHOLE!!!”

the septet toss your diary around until it lands in jungkook’s hands and when he reads it he feels his heart sink when he sees eunwoo’s name surrounded by hearts.

you have a crush on someone and it’s not him…

“Oh look guys the little whores got a crush on someone.” Jungkook says, laughing but inside his heart is burning, he wants to clench his jaw just wants to scream at you, but right now he can’t.

But it’s hard for him to pretend that he is fine right now because he really isn’t. You got a crush on that pretty boy that’s not even in your class? “Eunwoo is his name~~” jungkooks grip on the book tightens as he says the name out loud. Taehyung raises his eyebrow and SeokJin just shrugs.

“Oh fuck so we’re evil, huh?” Jimin chuckles. “Oh poor baby.” Namjoons mocking you and hoseok laughs at your helpless expression, Yoongi isn’t really interested right now.

Jungkooks jealous. “Oh yknow that pretty boy?” Jungkook suddenly speaks, “isn’t he your senior, you little whore?” Jungkook grits his teeth, and the guys decide to leave the both of you alone.

“So… he’s got your little heart in his hands? Aw poor you.” Jungkook starts laughing. “he’s way out of your league. And he’s probably dating some girl.” He stalks closer to you as he’s taking something out of his pocket.

His eyes are set on you like a predator and you begin to sweat, he’s enjoying the fear in your eyes, and especially the flash of hurt that’s visible in your eyes. “YOURE ugly.” He spits.

All because of you, he feels sick to his stomach right now.

“I’m the thorn by your side?! Fuck you.” he grits. His teeth is finally letting his anger get the best of him as he takes out his lighter. He smirks as he lights it up and brings it to your diary, “I’m gonna burn this shitty little book of yours.” He says before setting fire to the page.

And he is laughing at he sees the name of your crush burning to nothing but trash, and you finally let your tears fall.

It satisfies him, but he feels his heartbreak at the same time.

[ale-detrinidad]

the environmental effects of coffee production

How many times have you heard someone say “don’t talk to me until I’ve had my coffee” or “i can’t survive without coffee”? Coffee has become part of many people’s everyday life all around the world, and is being produced in mass quantities to be exported all over the world. The United States has Starbucks, Europe has Blue Bottle Coffee, and even McDonald’s opened their own individual coffee chain in Australia called McCafé. But with all of this in mind have you ever really thought about how the coffee gets to all these places, or even how or where it’s cultivated? In this blog post, I’ll be talking about the environmental effects of coffee as a person who lives in a country where coffee is one of the main things we export.

Why does this matter:

Protecting natural resources: the production of coffee can have a huge impact on natural resources (soil health, deforestation, etc…). By understanding the environmental impacts of the current way people farm coffee in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras for example, people can start to implement sustainable farming practices to protect natural resources.

Engaging consumers: consumers in todays day and age are becoming really interested in buying sustainably produced products. By educating consumers, this can encourage the people or even the countries who produce coffee to implement more sustainable methods of production.

promoting sustainable practices: understanding the environmental impacts of coffee production can encourage people to engage in more sustainable methods of farming, therefore reducing their carbon footprint.

When it comes to problems like this people have to use design thinking and cross disciplinary methods to solve these problems. People, especially nowadays, should be well educated in ecology, policy, sociology, and economics since they’re so prevalent in todays world, and by being empathetic and using systems thinking so that people can see the bigger picture when coming up for solutions to the problem at hand. These all have helped me in particular acquire a deeper understanding of the problem while doing a research project with the global problem solving institute because it allowed me to understand the experiences and perspectives of both coffee producers, consumers and other stakeholders, while also designing solutions that encourage stakeholder to consider the coffee production system as a whole, especially the factors that impact the environment.

Conclusion:

This topic is especially important, especially to me, because its such an under looked problem that actually affects so much of todays world in so many ways. And as a person who lives in a country where so much coffee is exported, i feel that its important to know the risks as well as the benefits that it poses to our society. As agricultural engineer for one of the most successful coffee farms in Nicaragua , Jose Angel Buitrago, said, “The sustainability of coffee is a vital operational work. Concerning the economic aspects of coffee, it is essential as the economic operations depend on the good behavior of the plantation and the results of the farming operations.” By using this blog post, i hope to provide real information on problems such as these, that affect the world so much, yet aren’t talked about enough since it would mean changing aspects of a system that provides comfort and luxury to the people of the world, but not the world itself.

[livisnotlee]

Well, it’s July…

I don’t usually get overly personal or sentimental on here anymore but I wanted to make an exception this time.

This is going to be an appreciation post for my best friend: @demeterdownunder (As well as for everyone I’ve met in the sfw tk community)

I won’t say his actual name for privacy, so in this post I’ll call him Dimitri.

Bring your tissues and your popcorn, this is going to be a long one.

Hey there bud.

I met you over a year ago now. It’s crazy how time flies huh?

When we first crossed paths I was going through hell.

Di (my grandma) had recently passed away, and I was just broken up with by the person who I thought was going to be there for me no matter what.

If it were not for you gathering up the courage on that discord server to ask me if we could be friends, I don’t think we would be talking today.

You didn’t know it yet, but meeting you… it probably saved my life.

We instantly hit it off, calling and texting almost every night. I still remember how nervous you sounded that first time I heard your voice, and the way you exploded with happiness when we worked out that we both lived in Australia.

Finally. Someone else in the community from our own damn country.

As I learned to trust you more, and you let me in, we formed a small group of friends that would become like a second family to us all.

At first it was you, me, @pixliidraws, and @willthelee, but then it grew with @bearlee-giggling, @altheadajoysoul, Pix and Auggie’s partner, @the-gingerbread-lee, and my wonderful girlfriend (happy 4 month anniversary babe!) who’s name I will keep anonymous for privacy reasons. We made a little home together, a chaotic family if you will (roll credits).

These people became my closest friends, my family.

We spent so much time together on call, laughing, playing games, teasing each other, sharing our best and worst days.

We bonded over extreme stress and heartache, an event this time last year that ultimately cemented our friendship.

I won’t go into the details of this as it would we are all processing it in different ways, but I will say that I am glad that I chose these people to stick by, because there is two sides to every story and you shouldn’t let lies on the internet interfere with the real, deep, and posssibly life-long connections you make with those in your community.

Dimitri, you know more than anyone how important it is to ask for help, and to learn to rely upon those around you for support when and if you need it.

Without your support and unconditional love, I would not be the person I am today.

You were there when my whole world was falling apart. You were there when the memories seemed too difficult to bare. You were there to help guide me through, to help me process things that I would have never faced on my own.

When it comes to helping those you care about, you have an unshakable sense of bravery and compassion. You are our rock.

I was there for you too. Staying up with you into the early hours of the morning to talk about everything and anything that was on our minds. Pouring out our hearts to eachother and never shying away from even the most terrifying and depressing subjects.

We knew we needed to be real with eachother, that rather than toxic positivity and conflict avoidance, we needed honesty and tough love to get us through. And above all we needed hope.

We made a promise to eachother one day; that no matter what happens, nothing will ever permanently keep us apart. We promised eachother that one day we would meet up, and that we would be able to hug eachother in real life instead of from over a screen.

And meet up we did… twice.

It was like being reunited with the long lost sibling that you never knew you had.

After getting over the initial shock and poking eachother just to make sure we were real, it just clicked.

Everything felt so natural by your side. We held hands like we had done it a million times before. We explored Sydney and Canberra, walking for hours on end without getting tired. We became closer than we had ever been before.

Leaving was awful. It felt like loosing you all over again. It didn’t feel the same. I wanted to hold your hand and hug you the way I did so many times that week. You became part of me.

It got easier with time. Knowing that you were only a call away, that I could text you and hear your voice whenever I wanted, even if you weren’t there with me physically. I knew you would be by my side again soon. Though it hurt like hell, I knew it was worth it.

You introduced me to a song that I played on repeat whenever I was feeling sad. ‘We’ll meet again’ by Vera Lynn. I think the lyrics speak for themselves.

After the closing of the second time all those months later, we were at peace. We had discovered just how close you can feel to someone, while never doubting for a second it was platonic. It felt safe. If it’s possible to have platonic soulmates then that’s what we are. We were able to love eachother deeply without taking away any romantic love that we had for our respective partners.

If I had to do it all again I would in a heartbeat. And there is no one else I would rather do it with than you.

I am so excited to meet up with you again! To have you stay with me and show you my home town, the place I grew up. Remembering that every time that you have to leave, is one step closer to you never having to leave again.

One day if we choose, we will be able to move in together. To go travelling, and meet all our friends over in America. And to be there for eachother physically whenever we need it.

But for now let’s focus on getting through it one day at a time.

1 more week.

This time next week we will be together already.

You will get to see my family, my cats, my town.

You’ll get to have a break from everything and just breathe.

It’s going to be okay.

It’s all going to be worth it.

While I could keep talking about you forever, I think it’s best I end it off here. There are a million other things I would like to say but I’m sure you know them already.

Dimitri, my brother, my confidant, my best friend.

Thank you for everything. I love you just as much as any younger sister could ever love their older sibling. You mean the whole world to me and that is why i’m writing this, because want the whole internet to know it.

I’m not really sure how to end this properly after all that, honestly the last half an hour writing this has just been a blur. But when have you ever been one for formalities anyway hahah.

I’ll see you when you inevitably come flustered in my DMs 5 minutes after you see this, keyboard smashing in happiness like the dork you are.

I’ll always be here for you mate, and so will the rest of the chaos fam.

Take care, and I’ll be with you soon.

-Liv 💖

[purplesurveys]

1696

Typical Information

What is your name? Hello! I’m Robyn.

When is your birthday? April 21st, 25 years ago.

Locations

Where do you currently reside? I’m from the Philippines. Born, raised, residing.

If money weren't taken into account, where would you like to live? Somewhere the citizens are actually taken care of...countries maybe like South Korea, Australia, Germany, Finland, etc.

How many states have you been to? We have provinces instead of states, and out of 81, I think I can say I’ve been to around at least 30. Not a lot, but I’ve definitely traveled around.

How many countries have you been to? Seven, all around Southeast and East Asia.

Which city do you believe has the prettiest skyline? I’ve never been to either, but I would go with New York and Chicago.

What is the prettiest location in your city? I dunno...maybe the local museum. You don’t really go here if you’re a tourist, though. The nearest touristy place would be Metro Manila but even that’s not a very exciting choice because the most you’d be able to do is shop. If you’re going to the Philippines, go to either the beaches or to cities like Baguio and Vigan which are very rich in local culture and history.

What is the best restaurant you've ever eaten at? I honestly don’t think I’ve found it yet. I like exploring restaurants, but I haven’t discovered any that’s been close to like, changing my life.

Have you ever traveled to or through a mountain range? Which one(s)? Yes, the Sierra Madre when we went to Tanay.

If you took someone on a tour of your town, what would you show them? The museum I mentioned and a couple of the bars and cafés that’d give you a view of the Metro Manila skyline.

What is the farthest you've ever been from home? Bali, Indonesia.

Approximately how many times have you traveled by airplane? Enough for me not to be able to count it by hand.

Have you ever traveled by train? Nah. I’ve commuted by train, but I’ve never used it to travel from one side of the country to another, or to a different country altogether.

Have you ever traveled by Greyhound? I have no idea what that is.

What's the farthest distance you've traveled from home for a concert? Around three weeks ago, I flew all the way to Thailand to see BTS’ Yoongi. Seemed to be a universal choice among Filipino ARMY since I can’t even tell you how many people I saw having flights to Singapore, Jakarta, and of course Bangkok as well to see him. 

It was awesome. Our flight to and from Bangkok was just jam-packed with fans and you can so easily tell because everybody has BT21 keychains on their bags, BT21 luggage, had on purple tops, etc (including me!). Our flight batch even took a group photo before we departed as a souvenir despite not knowing one another. The whole thing was just such a cool, sentimental experience; I’m very grateful to have been able to experience it all.

Have you been to the Capital of your state? I live in it.

Would you be more in your element camping in a tent or an RV? I’d go with the RV.

Music

Which album could you listen to from start to finish without getting bored? After Laughter by Paramore or Indigo by RM. BTS’ MOTS:7 is SO close to meeting this category but the On remix with Sia had to be on the album.

Who is your absolute favorite band / artist? Beyoncé will always own my heart. I entered late, but I am also a lifer with BTS. Paramore for bands.

Who are some other bands / artists you enjoy? Bruno Mars, SE SO NEON, Twice, Seventeen, The Weeknd, Ed Sheeran, Miley Cyrus. 

Who is your "Musical Mount Rushmore" (four favorite musicians)? BTS with all their 7 faces smushed into one spot, Beyoncé, Paramore, Bruno.

What is the best concert you've ever been to? Yoongi for the sentimental value, but GOD my crowd fucking sucked I feel like I still have to give best concert to my 2018 Paramore show. I’ll have to tie them. I love Yoongi to death and I had a fucking blast; I just wish the crowd was as hyped up as I was. Can you believe I barely heard anyone in my section singing and rapping along for those two hours? HOLY SHIT?????? Why would you not NANEUN UKHAE the fuck up with Yoongi already right in front of you???? 

Have you ever met any musicians? Which ones? How were they? Nothing other than a quick run-in with Greyson Chance when he was at a mall I never expected some celebrity to be in.

Are there any musicians you're dying to meet? Not really. I’m okay with not meeting the boys either. I’d much rather admire them from afar.

What is the most recent album you've purchased? That would be Yoongi’s D-DAY.

What is an album you're currently really into? Well, that would also be D-DAY. Partly because of the post-concert depression.

Do you have a favorite genre of music? If so, which one? K-pop.

Have you ever composed a musical piece? Nope.

Have you ever written any song lyrics? I have not.

[harvestingwholeness]

5/7/2023 - 8 days until I own my house on 4 acres! I couldn’t be more excited and nervous. I’ve created so many Pinterest boards, Amazon wishlists, and Home Depot shopping lists. I know what I want and I can’t wait to jump in. With so many projects to work on, my ADHD brain is going to have a blast.

Most of my efforts this year will be transforming the interior of the home. Though I also plan to bring ducks into the mix this summer!

I considered getting chickens but to be honest, I’ve got a lot of chicken trauma. I cared for my family chickens from age 6 when we brought home our first chicks. At the most we had over 30 chickens and they were my full responsibility. Every rooster we owned was so mean. Like, jump on my shoulders mean. I know with care you can foster a kind flock, I just know I’d go in scared. Ducks though, no claws, rounded beaks, cute quacks, waddling. I’ll go in with love and I think that’s what matters most. Plus, my favorite farm in Belize serves duck eggs so I will get to pretend I’m sitting in the outdoor lounge eating my breakfast sipping coffee and reminiscing my great Belizean adventures. Or, that’s what I hope for anyway, I will see what happens when reality strikes.

I used to travel every week for work, Monday through Thursday. I had the added benefit that instead of flying home on weekends, I could go anywhere as long as the flights were cheaper than going home. I live on the west coast and for a year and a half I was flying to Boston. So many places around the world were cheaper than going home. I traveled to Belize over 20 times and it’s my greatest love. I spent a little bit of time in Europe, but Central America is really where my heart feels at home. If climate change doesn’t destroy the region, I would love to retire in Belize. Gotta have dreams, right?

While I feel my frequent international trips are no longer my greatest priority, I still have high hopes of traveling to Africa in my future. Egypt, Rwanda, Kenya ahhh I want to go so badly. The only reason I didn’t go while I was traveling for work, is that it would take the whole weekend just to get there haha the furthest I traveled was Australia, but I took two weeks off to enjoy that time. That was my craziest adventure yet, someday I share about my stranded with no water camping alone on an island experience while going through antidepressant withdrawals because I lost my luggage. Good times.

This morning I was thinking a lot about who I was before my childhood trauma hit me hard. When I was about 7 years old, I suppressed my memories of abuse and they began returning about 6 years ago. Last year one of my cousins was on trial for what he did to two younger girls. He hurt me as well, but until the week of the trial my memories were too foggy to report. However during the trial I panicked thinking if I was asked on the stand if I was a victim of this cousin, I wanted to have a clear and confident answer. That’s when my childhood memories returned full swing. I know I still have a lot more suppressed, but I now remember so much more. It was about two weeks where my memories we’re constantly returning, like I was watching a movie of my life. It sent me into a dark spiral and I ended up in a partial hospitalization program to recover. Anyway, I was such a confident person before the memories came back and before the abuse got to be too much. I was a bold adventurer, defiant, so much more social, and even though I was riddled with blights of deep depression, I felt solid. All of the abuse I endured as a child warped me into who I am today. I don’t know if I’m proud or depressed about that, depends on the day.

I have so much more to write but I think I will end for the day.

- Hannah

[kanmom51]

This attitude some 'fans' have of being owed. The entitlement. Forgive me, but I just don't get it, and I’ll be lying if I say it doesn’t also anger me.

How many music or film industry couples, you know, those you suspect are a thing but haven't made it official (in the media that is, not talking about what they do with each other) do we see gallivanting around in public, interacting, publicly, on SM with each other? Seriously. Try and think of that.  

Tom and Zendaya but one example. I'm not even talking about their public behaviour before they kind of confirmed they've together. But even after. They are doing them as much as they can in private, because that's what they want, that's what's good for their relationship. I don't see their fans screaming every second minute they've split up. Why's that?

And they, my friends, are a straight couple.

Not a queer closeted couple in a conservative country that is now taking sexuality and queerness, that barely got acknowledged as is, out of their school textbooks, because to acknowledge it can 'turn' kids. 

Not a country where people in the current administration call queerness a mental illness. 

Not in a country where these two so very brave and amazing men, who for years tried to tell us who they are and who they love, constantly pushing the boundaries, are now awaiting enlistment into a super homophobic military, one that still has an active sodomy law (it ain't cancelled yet), disallowing queer relations even off base on leave (because that has everything to do with their actual service...).

Add to that mail stealing (that we are sure of), blackmail claims (we even have a fan boasting on how they broke into JM’s apartment and stole private stuff from him).

I wonder how those fans would feel, their privacy being invaded in any kind of way, knowing there are those out there that not only threaten to hurt them (mainly JM), but have literally taken active measures to hurt at the very least one of them.

the entitlement of said fans, that’s what gets to me.

Even in more or less accepting societies there are still those that hide their sexuality, famous people, actors in openly accepting Hollywood.  People that have much to lose if they ‘come out’, if they admit to being in a queer relationship, even a long term committed one.  Popularity to dwindle, roles not to be offered.  And this is in a place they would supposedly be accepted. Not a country, a society that would most probably shun them for being queer, for choosing to have a life together as a queer couple, a country in which queer couples in long term relationships don’t dare to openly live together as it could cost them their jobs, their safety.

Even in Australia, again, a more or less open society (I’m talking about the big cities like Melbourne and Sydney), I know of a queer couple that built a life together, living together for over a decade, all while one of them is hiding it at his place of work, them thinking he has a girlfriend.  Because even here, even now, there could be implications for him if it was to come out.

As for them not being spotted together or supposedly not interacting on SM (their public accounts that is):

I’ve written a whole post about this - you know, not seeing them doesn’t mean they ain’t together, and I’m not going to go on repeat here.  

We have seen almost zero of them together in public (when not having the mask of working together, like in LV) since December 2021.  We have also seen almost zero interaction between them on SM, well their IG public accounts.  And yes, once again I’m saying this out loud - they are not personal accounts, they are public accounts for them to interact, individually, with the fans, not each other.  They have told us multiple times that they do interact privately with each other, even if they don’t tell us or show us on SM.

Back then, in Jan 2022 fans were going ballistic.  Rumours of breakup, rumours of betrayal, rumours of both moving on with others.  Oh, the fanfics you could write with these rumours (or perhaps these rumours were taken based on fanfics...).

And then we had the Seoul concerts.  They were the exact fucking same as they ever were, if not even louder.  That’s also when we saw a glimpse of JM’s moon tattoo.  JM’s day counting.  And at the end of it all we had the White day post and photo.

Suddenly all the rumours didn’t make sense.  Suddenly all was well.

And then the next break, and the rumours up their ugly heads again.  

And then LV and how fucking loud those two were there.  So, suddenly all was well.

And this goes on and on and on.  We don’t see them - “something happened”; We see them - “Oh, they’re fine”.  How do people not see the pattern here??????

What we didn’t know back in January 2022 and we do know now is that things changed for them all.

Beyond the fucking political environment they are now in, beyond the upcoming enlistment, beyond the personal shit they had to go through (and those of you who know know).

BTS was going through stuff, things were changing, things changed. and now behaviours that could be written off as being part of the group, behaviours that could be written off as exactly what most of the fandom loved and lived to write them off as - the F word - Fanservice, well they couldn’t anymore, not when they are going each on their solo paths.  

We also don’t get content, well almost no ot7 content.  And as such, we don’t get to witness their interactions with each other. 

When we finally do get it, things are as per usual.  For example, the telepathy and flying Yoga Run episodes. 

Hobi’s party is another instance where at first there was almost no footage and the footage we had was them apart, so the tongues were wagging, oh how they were wagging.  And then the BTB dropped.

Yeah, it’s about time that people understand a basic point.

These young men have private lives.  

Stuff they do, people they spend time with, interactions they have that we are not privy to, that we have no right to be privy to.  

What they want us to see, what they want to share with us they do.  

And they have shown us over the past few months that they ARE spending time together, that they are still very much important to each other.  If we want to see it, we’ll see it.  If they want us to know, they’ll tell us.  

And sometimes it will be directly, like JK telling us in his birthday live that JM came to see him or JM posting the pic of JK blowing out the candles on his birthday cake, the one JM and Hobi brought him (and there is great significance to JM’s post, his choice to share with us that JK is the one he went to to celebrate his birthday with).  

And others it will be indirectly, like JK telling us his mom made seaweed soup on JM’s birthday (again, the cultural meaning and significance of it something not all of us understood or understand, even after Karmy’s explanation),  

Oh, and dare I mention JK’s thirst trap birthday message for JM?  Yes, many small minded people tried to twist it all around, but guys, really? The message WAS for JM and for us to know the message was for JM.

Jose Ochoa saw it:

Whoever had eyes and a working not homophobic brain saw it.

This article could be an interesting read, not only for the choice of calling the first cinematic queer rom-com “Bros”, but also a little enlightening to those that think there is a “gay look” or “gay behaviour” or about how about the difference between a stage persona and one’s personality:

So, we don’t see them out and about (and let’s be real here, over the 7 years some of us feel they were together for, how many times did we actually see them out and about together just the two of them, privately?), but for god’s sake, get it though your thick skulls - 

NOT SEEING THEM DOESN’T MEAN THEY AREN’T THERE.

Not seeing them together doesn’t mean they aren’t spending time together, wherever that may be (even going out together for meals at restaurants they have the semblance of privacy in), in public or in private.

NOT SEEING THEM DOES NOT MEAN THEY AREN’T THERE.

You might also want to read this thread:

Bottom line:

They owe us zilch.

They will show us what they want to when they want to when they are able to.

They are doing them.  What’s good for them.  What suits them. 

And for those that are insecure or want to believe the rumours or find it hard to believe in them and to continue to support them, well it’s up to you, no one else.  But know that this logic you abide by, well, it’s flawed. But again you do you.  I’m just here to try and explain to you how illogical that way of thinking is.

Why do we no longer see or hear about Jikook hanging out together ? Are they hanging out but are careful not to be seen ? Or are they not hanging out at all ?!

If they were careful because of the military, then I think it's going to backtrack on them. Because many Jikookers started to doubt them and think they either broke up or never were together. So, if they continue like this, they will have only few supporters left when they get discharged and no one to defend their relationship anymore.

If they were to be seen hanging out, no need to be careful because the fandom will just think they are friends. But acting like strangers in sm and in public, just makes army believe in the fanservice idea. Why be careful when you can be perceived as just friends, exactly like how they go out freely with the other members!

Anon please explain to me how this is acting like strangers on social media

Or this entire live

At the end of the day those that believe in them and have the capacity to understand the impact certain circumstances have on them as a couple, will stay and support them.

If you listen to them and watch them together you can see what they have is special.

Those that don't are no great loss.

How they choose to live their relationship is their business and it is not for them to 'prove' to us they are together.

💜💛🌈

[l-tora-l-archived]

Oh, well not yet! My head doesn't get cut open until new years lol

I'm still sick and was only online for today, trying to detox a little and having a fever but well! Wanted to write you

So for the next question (your life sounds so exciting by the way, wait where are you living now?)

My unpopular opinion?

The salami comes under the cheese! Not over!!! + I think dolphines are viele creatures and sharks are cool

Uhm next question soooooo

Describe your ideal type ;)

NDJSSNJD WELL I HOPE YOU HAVE THE SPEEDIEST RECOVERY EVER🤧 TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF OKAYY🤍

Also tysm 😭 I always thought I was boring :0I live in Australia now! Came to Australia in 2011 thanks to the global financial crisis😔(I sometimes wonder where I’d be if that didn’t happen🧐).I was also born here before we went on that whole travel thing!

Omg yeahh dolphins are actually horrific I saw some vid on them and😬 (putting a read more to prevent dash spam plus this is a bit embarrassing 😭)

As for your question; I don’t exactly have the capacity to like people that way now(i think it’s aroace?), tho I can tell you what I ‘liked’ in the past- there was this one guy whom I haven’t even spoken to or known anything about, I just saw him and just made a personality for him based on his looks and went with it💀 so If I did like anyone again I think someone smart(that was the reason I liked him-cause he looked smart😅) but also kind and cares 😭and one of my top things I prioritise in a person is the ability to be understanding and accepting, as well as having high emotional maturity? Also someone who has a sense of humour. If you mean looks- then it’s a bit funny to say but I’ve always had a tough time looking at people and thinking they’re attractive or something, tho I have been able to overtime look at someone and be like yes that fits societies view of attractiveness so they are pretty? It almost feels robotic which I haven’t rlly met someone who shares this view as me? But I have recently understood the beauty of dark coloured hair-it is so so pretty🥲.

My question to you is a scenario: if you knew that soon you would get ur memory wiped and you had the chance to write yourself a letter, what would you try to remind yourself of?

[foli-vora]

greatest love of all

A/N: Heart crushing softness I half wrote while in hospital after having mini and felt gooey enough to finish today. 

Summary: Post birth softness with Frankie.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader

Word count: 1.1k

Warnings: brief swearing, heavy talk of birth & babies, sweet soft fluff, Frankie deserves the fucking world ok????

A brief note: I know healthcare varies around the world when it comes to giving birth, but I’ve written this based on my experiences in Australia so will be different to what is typical in the US and whatnot.

----------

“You’re incredible.”

You breathe a sleepy chuckle, eyes fluttering in exhaustion as you melt into the pillows supporting your back. The hand dancing along your hairline in soothing motions moves down your cheek, rough fingertips tracing over your skin until they finish at your chin, pinching it softly as lips ghost over yours.

A small noise of protest cuts through the moment of peace and your eyes open immediately, automatically falling to the small face creased and nuzzled into your bare chest.

Frankie laughs quietly, lips moving from yours to press tenderly into the flattened dark locks still damp from her arrival.

“Yes, and you, too.” He whispers, hand seeming so large in comparison to your daughter’s head as he caresses her gently.

It hadn’t been easy, and he could feel it now still, a slight tremble in his bones—true, sharp panic in the very core of him, burning through his gut and bringing out a long forgotten feeling pushed down by vigorous training and missions.

He thought he’d be okay. He knew everything about labour. He had been present for all the classes, he’d googled every little thing and read every book you had borrowed from the library. He’d felt stress before - he’d seen some heavy shit in the past, but this? Your obvious pain had pierced his very soul. It had crippled him, wrapped it’s horrific hands around his throat and squeezed until he couldn’t breathe, choking on each word as he tried to coax you into breathing better yourself.

The way you had cried out, the way you thrashed and arched and screamed… and yet, you still had the energy to smile, to laugh, giddy and practically aglow as a little squirming body was guided and pressed into your chest. Suddenly it’s like all of the pain and the tears and the suffering of the last twenty six hours had evaporated, leaving nothing but peace in your features, sweat still licking at your skin but tranquillity radiating from your pores.

He wishes you would share a bit.

He needs a cigarette. Or five.

“How are you feeling?”

He doesn’t know why he’s speaking so quietly. It’s not like the room is silent. Short alarms of various meanings sound out in the hallways beyond the closed door, machines beep and pagers sound out. The midwives move about freely chatting amongst themselves, cleaning away the bloodied sheets and checking your blood loss with calm, easy smiles every so often. They stay out of the way for the most part, content to let you both enjoy the new life cradled gently in your arms and give you time to breathe in the feeling of her skin on yours, so new and fresh and warm. It’s a good thing for you, he had learnt in his studies… this ’skin-to-skin’ thing. They’re right. You glow. He watches on with a whole fucking galaxy shining in his eyes. 

“I’m okay.” You answer after a beat with a sleepily wide smile, and he doesn’t know how you do it.

“You’re a goddamn machine.” He comments while running an anxious hand through his hair, truth hanging onto every word. “I was about to fucking pass out.”

Your body heaves with your laugh, your hand moving from the baby to trace along his jaw softly. He nuzzles into your touch, moustache tickling your skin. “Thank god you didn’t - the guys would never let you live that down.”

He grunts in agreement, breaking into a small grin before burying his face in your shoulder and breathing you in.

“Are you okay?” He can’t help but worry. “Really?”

You barely hear him with his face pressed so tightly against you. The birth had been a blur, but you do remember the pure panic shining in his eyes when you had looked up at him with the comforting coaxes of the midwives to breathe ringing in your ears, you had felt the tremble in his hold, you had seen the build of terrified tears when you cried that you couldn’t do it anymore.

You turn your head to press a series of gentle kisses into his hat flattened curls. 

“Look at me,” you breathe, waiting until he pulls a few inches away to speak, “I’m okay, baby.”

His pupils flicker between your eyes, searching the very depths of them for even the slightest trace of a lie. He breathes a quiet sigh of relief when he finds none, swallowing the last remaining trembles down before looking at his daughter, lips twitching at the puckered angry face frowning at the brightness of the room.

“She looks like a potato.” You mutter, finger tracing her little nose.

“Well she did just squeeze her way through your -”

“Please don’t remind me.” 

He chuckles lowly, resting his head on your shoulder and throwing an arm over the both of you. You snuggle into his hold and relax, content to lay and bathe in the warm afterglow. It’s easy to see how enamoured Frankie is with her already. He coos soft reassurances whenever her face deepens into an unhappy frown, his fingers trace her little features with such a tender fondness it has tears stinging the backs of your eyes.

“She’s beautiful - even if she does look like a potato and is covered in… whatever that is.” He mutters, grinning.

You hum tiredly in agreement. “She’s wonderful, Frankie.”

His eyes roll to your face, his lips pulling into a soft smile as yours flutter in your exhaustion. He tightens his arm around the both of you, murmuring that you can rest, that he wouldn’t be going anywhere and he would watch over you and your daughter.

Something sweet and electric rolls across his skin, seeping through into his veins and wrapping around his heart.

He’s finally found it.

He always thought a man like him would never get it. He didn’t deserve it after the things he’s witnessed, the things he’s taken part in, the things he’s done himself with his own bare hands—he had made peace with that long, long ago.

But no… here it is. Right here, and all for him and him alone. His own happily ever after. His own peace. His own love. His own home. You and her - it was everything he didn’t deserve, and yet here you were. Tears build again, and this time, he lets them fall, lips unable to let go of the smile still curling them.

Everything could wait. The world could wait. Pope’s endless, currently unanswered calls could wait. As of now, he was full. Content. Truly at peace—he had everything he needed, right in front of him.

+

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