#I finally found the profile of my best friend from like 2015-16

[alannah-corvaine]

the big ‘so you’ve found my blog’ post;

So. The follow button has led you to me, and now here you are with me on your dash. I assume you’re here for one to three reasons: the ffxiv content I post and reblog, my character(s), and/or the aesthetic content. Possibly also my riveting commentary on why ffxiv hasn’t added a sidebraid hairstyle yet. You’re all valid and welcome here. 

Maybe you’re curious about me and my OCs, but you don’t want to go digging through my blog and the absolute mess of tags I’ve amassed over the years. I’m here to present a half-assed solution to your curiosity instead of fixing my tags in any sort of meaningful way.

                                   WHO RUNS THIS BLOG?

I’m Alicia, I run this circus.

she/her pronouns, I’m cis.

I’m 31 years old at the time of writing this post.

This blog is 5 going on 6 years old.

If you see @alannahcorvaine​ that blog is also me but I don’t use it anymore, as it’s a sideblog and I moved over to this blog years ago.

I’ve been playing FFXIV since 2015.

I also play Elder Scrolls Online and World of Warcraft and have separate blogs for related OCs, content, and aesthetics.

I’m a cat person but I also love dogs.

I have a five year old black cat named Kilala who keeps me in line.

I’m not much of a people person, I’m made of anxiety and paperclips.

I yell into the void a lot, the void being my blog.

I don’t really RP outside of spectacularly outstanding circumstances these days, but character and world building are my jam.

Even if I don’t RP, I’m always down for character connections and relationships. I’m totally up for brainstorming and bouncing around headcanons.

Most of the time in game you’ll find me either standing around my house or out in the world taking screenshots. My mailing address is gpose.

I have a full roster of 8 characters on Balmung, but currently only 3 are active. You’ll probably see screenshots of the others too from time to time.

                                                    THE OCs

                                      A L A N N A H  C O R V A I N E 

Your first assumption on seeing my blog name is that it’s probably the name of the titular OC that this blog focuses on. You would be correct. All of my OCs have their own blogs, however I am infinitely lazy and just end up posting screenshots of everyone here because this is where the followers are and the sideblogs end up being used as aesthetic warehouses. Anywhoo, here’s some need-to-knows about Alannah.

Alannah has two main verses: Warrior of Light and Non-WoL.

Her non-WoLverse is actually the primary one, but with Shadowbringers I’ve been focusing more on her WoL story. 

I also have an infinite amount of AU verses for her based on various media but nobody has time for me to list all of those.

In both verses she’s a White Mage, a capable healer, but focuses more on offensive elemental spells (wind, water, earth).

Alannah is my only OC with a Warrior of Light verse.

She’s 23 years old.

She has severe allergies to  grass, pollen, dust, dander, and certain foods.

Her allergy reactions are largely kept at bay by a delicate chain diadem made and blessed by padjal. It also helps correct her shitty vision, magic is great.

Her deepest fears include deep water and phurbles.

She has four older brothers: Faron, Ean, Davon, and Brennan.

Family issues. Just so many family issues. That’s an entire post on its own.

Her hair is dark brown, not black. I cannot state this emphatically enough no matter what my edits look like.

The white streaks are magical scars, the cause of them vary by verse.

Non-WoL Alannah is married to Nine Outway, they have a three-year old daughter named Aislinn.

Warrior of Light Alannah (hereafter known as WoLannah) I ship exclusively with dead ghost boyfriend Ardbert.

Deep-seated anger issues buried beneath a placid and friendly exterior.

Her aether is just irreparably borked and highly chaotic and is controlled via her staff and arcane symbols painted onto her arms in aether ink.

Her childhood dream was to be a powerful thaumaturge, which didn’t work out with her aether control issues. 

                                R E B E C C A  “B R I N A”  C R O S S                                               ( @thesilentcygnet​ )

26 years old.

Born to a moderately wealthy Limsan merchant family.

2 older sisters: Pippa and Lacy.

Jacke Swallow (of rogues guild fame)  is her best friend (and secret love) since childhood.

Her entire family was murdered when she was 16 because her father made shady deals with the wrong people and owed them money.

She’s been mute since the day of the massacre after witnessing the murders while hiding in the cellar beneath their feet.

She’s been staying with Jacke and his cohorts in the Dutiful Sisters of the Edelweiss since then, though he’s the only one that knows her true identity.

A long chain of events has lead to her being kidnapped from Kugane, shipwrecked off the coast of Othard twice, sucked into a magical whirlpool, and left stranded on the First.

Will she ever get home? Perhaps, when I’ve finally decided that her ridiculous journey has been Odyssean enough.

                                           K H I A R N A   K H A                                               ( @khi-tastrophe​ )

29 years old.

An incandescent ball of unquenchable rage, probably for valid reasons.

The daughter of the khan of a minor offshoot of the Kha tribe.

Had a twin sister named Khiela, who pretended to be kidnapped by an aggressive suitor and lead Khiarna on a wild goose chase across Eorzea in an attempt to find her.

Khiela and her lover conspired to and succeeded in murdering her father.

Khiarna returned to Othard and murdered the shit out of both of them in retaliation for killing her father.

She was then unanimously chosen as her father’s successor and currently reigns as khatun to the nomadic merchant tribe.

While traveling across Eorzea in search of her errant sister, Khi was involved in a relationship with a pathological liar, which has severely damaged her ability to trust people (on top of her family drama).

Currently in a relationship with Sidirahg of the Sixth ( @sidirahg​ ), who has the patience of a saint with her issues and also might be a masochist.

Khi is a shaman and uses a mix of conjury and pugilism in combat. 

She covers her fists and feet in a solid layer of rock and then lights them on fire, using a combination of speed, flexibility, and disorienting blows to fell her opponents.

                                    COMMON TAGS I USE

#alannah aesthetic - aesthetic tag.

#screenshots - tag for unedited screenshots of my characters.

#edits - tag for screenshot edits done by me.

#drabbles - tag for writing done by me.

#about alannah - tag for character profile memes, ask replies, relevant quotes.

#art of alannah - tag for art i’ve commissioned of Alannah.

#commissions - tag for art i’ve commissioned that also includes my other OCs.

#lanna things - tag for posts relevant to Alannah.

#9 - tag for posts related to Nine Outway.

#familial faultlines - tag for all of Alannah’s family issues.

#benedictions]&[bulletholes - ship tag for Alannah and Nine (contains screenshots, quotes, and aesthetic inspiration).

#the gravity of guilt - sub-B&B ship tag referencing events at the ruins of Nym.

#scars of nym - another B&B tag because I don’t have enough of them.

#otp: as one fool to another - ship tag for WoLannah and Ardbert

#AU: Warrior of Light - WoLannah tag.

#AU: Gloriana - tag for the AU in which Alannah goes power mad / angry at the world and misuses her magic to become an unstoppable force of destruction.

#AU: Dark Sunrise - tag for the AU in which Nine perma-dies and Alannah sells her soul to the darkness.

#keeper’s captain - ship tag for Brina and Jacke.

#boyfriend adjust - ship tag for Khi and Sid.

#tbd - tag for me yelling into the void that I pretend I’ll delete later.

                                             OTHER BLOGS

@eastofean - ffxiv aesthetic inspo blog for Ean Corvaine.

@aether-and-ash - ffxiv aesthetic inspo blog for Aislinn Outway.

@blacklacelullaby - ffxiv aesthetic inspo blog for Katja Iryut.

@cleric-stance - salty healer memes.

@sundownsanctuary - nsfw aesthetic inspo blog.

@lannahlearnsart - my hoard of digital art tutorials.

@halion​ - general World of Warcraft blog and inspo for my WoW OCs.

@veil-of-blades​ - ESO inspo blog for various Elder Scrolls OCs.

@theviciousnothing​ - my personal aesthetic blog.

                                           PARTING NOTES

You’ve done it, you’ve reached the end of this post. All of this is just a basic overview of me and my characters, if you ever have any questions about anything please feel free to drop me an ask or a DM any time. Thanks for following. ♥

#behind the blog #pinned post

[tenglows]

in the name of the old days

summary: it’s the last day of the year and you’re feeling nostalgic. you come across the twitter of the boy who used to be your best friend a few years ago, and decide to message him.

category: fluff, a bit of angst? maybe??, internet friend!mark

it was currently december 31, at half past one am, and you were scrolling on twitter

some chuckles here and there while reading your friend’s posts about timothee chalamet

you were about to close the app to go brush your teeth and prepare for bed

when your eyes wandered off and focused on another tweet

“almost 2020 and still no flying cars” read the tweet

from @/markly_

this made you sit straight in your mattress

you clicked on his profile

you two still followed each other

there weren’t a lot of recents tweets, so that’s why you figured you hadn’t come across the boy’s twitter sooner

plus; lately you weren’t the type to be so active on social media either

you mentally counted the years since you first met mark lee

it was 2019 (almost 2020) now and you guys had met in 2015

you had gotten involved in a drama with a one direction stan, you being part of 5sos stan twitter

and mark, little mix stan, had defended you

it was in the middle of the zayn and perrie scandal, so he assured both of your teams had to stick together to defeat one direction’s fans

you became mutuals after that

and you soon realized that mark had the tendency to initiate lots of twitter fights

often with the people that would bash perrie and her group

your friendship rose as the two of you took turns defending the other one on those enfrentations

you don’t know how but all of the sudden there was no day you wouldn’t talk to mark

you were both 16 at the time, you being older just by a few months

you guys would talk about everything and anything

and basically grew up together

you were there for him when school got hard and future scared him

he was there for you when you faced a pretty bad relationship

and you honestly considered him your best friend

sleepless nights with him on facetime were one of the things you looked forward to the most

hearing him talk about his day

him showing you a new song he learned on the guitar, or him playing some melodies and lyrics he composed himself every now and then

watching the same movie or show at the same time on your respective screens

struggling to press play together to match the exact second

“i totally knew he was gonna die”

“shut up you’re way ahead!!!!”

you had other friends at school, too

but mark was just mark

and you two had such a loving bond, you were so close you took him with you to everywhere you went

you just wished you had him closer

at least you were both from canada

him being from vancouver and you from quebec

you had made lots of plans about meeting in real life, and you genuinely believed they would come about

but it is true that time passes and people drift apart

you were about to begin college and made new friends

mark moved out to toronto

and gradually, the responses took longer

and the calls had kinda been left aside

until one of you just stopped replying

you honestly don’t remember who it was

but there isn’t really a reason, either

you just parted ways

and it’s fine, it’s human and natural and normal

but now looking at his profile picture: a polaroid of him hugging another boy

you felt as if a bucket of cold and frostbound nostalgia had been dumped over your head

you recognized his moles, and how he had the same smile

his header picture was a guitar

and it wasn’t the same he used to have, but something about him still liking music made you feel warm

it’s always astonishing to see how the life of a person who is no longer in yours just,,,

goes on

and you aren’t aware of a thing about their existence

or even think about them

so it’s almost as they don’t exist

but now you know mark still exists

and it’s so weird to think about how your lives had been so overlapped, so united

and now you didn’t know anything about him

the mix of reminiscence about this and the year ending

resulted in your impulsive fingers pressing the envelope icon in mark’s profile

you stayed like that for a few minutes, writing and deleting messages. the sentences you thought about never feeling enough

you sighed as you told yourself this would be the last attempt

“hi mark, i’m not sure if you remember me but i saw you on my tl and it made me want to check on you! maybe this message will disappear into thin air but i just wanted to try. i hope you’re doing well <3”

you stared at the blue bubble of text almost without blinking for a moment

maybe he didn’t want to talk to you, and it was okay. you stopped talking in 2017, almost three years had passed

you thought looking at yourself in the mirror while you brushed your teeth

you came back to your room and turned off your lights, ready to go to sleep

but when you grabbed your phone with the intention to charge it, you saw you had a twitter notification

“y/n! how could i forget about you? haha it’s been so long two years without talking. how are you? how’s life? tell me something”

an instant smile started growing upon your face

the way he texted was the same as before

and you missed his haha

two and a half hours into the night you felt as if you were stuck in 2015 all over again

you had always had this fluidity at the time of talking with mark

the conversation just,, bloomed

he told you he still lived in new york, but he was actually gonna move back to toronto in a couple of months

he was majoring in music and owned a soundcloud rap account, and he had gotten quite popular as well

you mentioned how you had changed majors

what started as you being a marketing management major ended up on you leaning towards philosophy

something that no one had seen coming

so you expected the same reaction from mark

“i can totally see it, you always liked to think and question everything a little too much”

and that comment made you feel thrilled in your stomach, to say the least

even after all these years

mark was probably the person who knew you the most

days passed

weeks, even

and what you thought was just a conversation remembering the old days and filling the other in on your life

just,,, never stopped

mark and you went back to talking every day

everything felt the same as it did before

because after all, it was the same mark. it was always mark

still, the day you had agreed on facetiming for the first time again you felt kinda nervous

what if you ran out of what to talk about? what if it was suddenly weird?

and when you picked up the call and found yourself face to face with a flustered mark you knew he felt the same

you both hesitated as to who would speak first

him being the one to break the ice

“hey y/n” he giggled

“wow, your voice has gotten deeper”

he laughed loudly at your honesty, making you laugh back

“your hair is shorter”

“i know right? it was so long, i just got fed up of it reaching my waist”

“i like it, it looks pretty” he paused “you look pretty”

and in that moment you wondered how your heart could be beating this hard at a blurry screen with poor connection

comments like that kept making an appearance as time went by, sometimes from mark and eventually from your part

and that was the only thing that differed from the relationship you used to have with the one you had now

was it flirting? you didn’t know

but you had never thought of mark the way you think about him now

“so? what do you think?”

you set the phone on your desk as you walked away and showed mark your white dress. you were on your way to a costume party one of your friend’s brother was throwing, and even though it was cliché, you couldn’t be bothered to think of a more ingenious costume than a traditional angel

mark took his time fixing his gaze on you, his eyes getting closer to concentrate on what the vague wifi let him

“i can’t recognize the costume”

“what do you mean? i’m literally wearing wings and a halo”

“could it be because you always look like an angel?”

“ayee mark that was cheesy”

“i know, i’m sorry” you both laughed

“but really, you look amazing. go and have fun babe”

then pet names came into play

you weren’t sure what you were doing, but flirting with mark was sweet and fun and innocent

you always found yourself wanting for more

you were yearning for mark, you wanted to see him, listen to him, touch him

and you didn’t know what to do with yourself

until one day he called you out of the blue, which startled you, since he always asked before calling

“hey! were you busy?”

“no no i’m just doing the dishes, what’s up?”

“okay, so you know how i’m moving to toronto in two weeks, right?” you nodded “well, i just managed to change my flight so i would go to quebec for some days before properly settling in toronto, you know since it’s not that far”

“you’re kidding”

“i’m going to visit you!!!!!!!”

he squealed in your ear and you squealed back, scaring your poor cat who was sleeping soundly

after some more yelling, the excitement died out a bit and you stayed in silence for just a few seconds

“i don’t really have a place to stay though” he snorted, embarrassed

“you can always stay with me, mark”

after some long and never-ending hours and days (you had seriously convinced yourself some wrinkles had appeared on your forehead from all the waiting)

it was finally the day you would see mark

it was currently 11 am, mark’s flight was at 1 pm and he would arrive at quebec at approximately a bit less than 3 pm

now, he was at new york’s airport taking care of all the travelling procedures

and you were cleaning up the same spots in your aparment for the fourth time in a row

to say you were nervous was an understanding

you felt like you were going insane

you barely had gotten any sleep the night before, not being able to defeat the crowding thoughts about finally meeting your long-time friend

(who now you wanted to be more than a friend and seeing him physically could totally help with that)

you arranged some lunch for you and your cat (magnus) and sat in front of the tv, wanting to find literally anything that would keep your mind occupied

luckily, it worked, and you let yourself lose track of time

until your phone beeped, indicating you had received a text

“i’m boarding now!! i’ll text you when i get there, can’t wait to see you”

“have a safe flight love”

you sighed dramatically and rested your arm against your forehead

magnus stared at you in confusion and boredom

“magnus, i think i’m going to die”

as promised, mark texted you as soon as the plane landed

you offered to go pick him up at the airport, but he denied, saying he had already scheduled a taxi

so now you were ready and dressed, going all over your apartment non stop

mark was texting you through all the taxi drive and updating you on his location, you growing more and more anxious as you knew he was getting closer

you went to the bathroom and as soon as you stepped out, a knock was heard on your door

it was soft and steady, and you opened your eyes widely when the realization of who the owner of the hand was hit you

you panicked, one last time

you even eyed your room window to check if you had any chance of jumping out and running away

but you took a deep breath and walked decidedly towards your door

you just had to remind yourself it was the same mark as always, and nothing could go wrong if there was him

thus, you opened the door

and the facetime pixels and instagram pictures could have never prepared you for how dreamy mark looked

you two stayed like that for a bit

just watching the other with shy eyes and smiles

you eventually snapped out of your trance and helped mark get his luggage inside

"it's a bit small but i hope you can make yourself comfortable"

"oh please it's perfect, don't worry" he gave you a reassuring smile before getting totally distracted by the fluffy ball of hair in your couch

"oh my god is that magnus!!!!"

after letting mark get comfortable and installed, you guys decided to take a walk and go over your apartment zone, showing mark all your favorite places and memories you had there

it was a bit cold and you were both tightened around your coats

eventually, it was getting late and more chilly

so you opted for going back to your place

as you walked there in a bit of silence, you could feel mark's body getting more close in proximity

you looked at him, his gaze fixed upon the path with a small grin on his lips

you got closer too

and you liked it

it was cold outside but when mark brushed against your body

canada has never felt more like summer

you guys were really close now

as you took step after step, your jackets made static sounds, rubbing against the other

you looked at mark and delicately touched one of his fingers with your pinky, as if asking for permission

he finally looked up from the way and focused on your eyes instead, breaking into a smile once again

he took a peek at your close hands and softly intertwined your fingers

both of your faces reddening, from the low temperature and the feelings that were growing in your stomach

when you got to your apartment you guys were still holding hands, but you realized you had to open the door with that one, and couldn't find the keys in your pocket

"y/n, you will have to let go of my hand to get the keys"

"that's the point. i don't want to"

"y/n, i'm freezing. please open the door i can still hold your hand when we're inside"

and yeah,,

he did

you changed into comfortable and warm clothes and prepared some hot chocolate while mark chose a movie in your laptop

when you entered the room, two mugs in hand

mark was lying on his stomach on your bed, his hand on his chin with his mouth a bit open while concentrating on the variation of movies netflix offered

you felt a shiver down your spine

he really was here

after taking a while to decide on a movie, or at least its genre, you just selected a random title

you turned off the lights and went back to your bed, getting under the covers

and you just felt warm

and whole

maybe more because of mark than the actual sheets that were meant to keep you heated

(he also held your hand the entire time, rubbing his thumb against your palm and drawing invisible figures on it)

your head rested on his shoulder and you went up as the same time his chest did with every breath he took

in some moment you stopped paying attention to the movie

your mind wandered off to thoughts about the boy, about how you have never felt this close to him. you felt like you were really inside his ribcage

still from his shoulder, you moved a bit so you could look at him

his face was glowing

yeah, the images and lights of the computer were reflecting on him

but you meant this boy glowed in the dark

he just had something in him

it was either rays of sunshine or neon paint

but he, in this frosty and amusing night within your bedroom walls, glowed on his own

he turned his gaze towards you too, and tightened the grip on your hand

you felt mark’s arm on your waist and he rearranged the position so you would be on his chest

hearing his heartbeat, it was music

mark always did music. and he himself was music too, his heart creating your new favorite beat

“markie”

“hm?”

“i’m falling asleep” you confessed with a drowsy voice, making him laugh

“let’s turn off the movie, shall we? we can continue it tomorrow”

he shut the laptop closed and placed it on your desk, quickly making his way back to the bed so he would hold you

you had prepared him another bed next to you, a mattress already covered

but he was showing no intentions of moving a muscle

“are you going to sleep here?”

“that was the plan, yeah” he giggled on your neck. you shuddered

“i made the bed just in case”

“i can go there if you prefer”

“no” pause “i want you here”

and he smiled proudly as he hid his face in the crook of your neck

you smelled nice, like coconut and vainilla and all his sweetest dreams combined

and with his arms around your waist he felt strong, like he could defeat anything that the world aimed at him

“do you think it was meant to be that we’re here after all this years? would you consider it destiny?” he thought out loud, gazing at you

“i can’t give you an answer right now”

“fine, philosophy major” he mocked, making you both laugh

“as a philosophy major, i don’t know. destiny is always a tricky thing to discuss”

“but as y/n, yeah, i believe it was meant to be”

he stared at you in awe

“i really want to kiss you right now”

#mark lee au #mark lee scenario #mark lee fluff #nct au #mark lee #nct fluff #superm mark #nct mark #nct #superm #fluff #angst

[doux-amer]

Last but not least, here are my favorite shows that I watched for the first time in 2020 (with one exception)!

BARRY (HBO)

2 SEASONS | 16 EPISODES | 25–35 MIN 

A hit man from the Midwest travels to LA to kill someone and accidentally joins an acting class that makes him question his life.

Dark, absurd, and hilarious. It’s such a good character study. The show isn’t for everyone, but I love it and it made me appreciate Bill Hader as an actor and director (the “Ronny/Lily” episode really showed how skilled Bill Hader is). And you have to watch it for Noho Hank but the other characters are interesting and grow in unexpected ways. You may not like them all the time—you may actually want to throttle some to death while those you found silly may end up worming into your heart—but you get them.

SUCCESSION (HBO) 

2 SEASONS | 20 EPISODES | 55–65 MIN

When the founder of the biggest media/entertainment company in the world decides to step down, his children fight to become the next CEO.

It took a few episodes for me to get hooked, especially because everyone is terrible, but it’s worth sticking it out. The characters are still terrible even then, and you shouldn’t root for any of them—except you do. This is truly one of the best shows out there and while it’s gotten critical claim, it feels like it’s still somewhat under the radar. The second season is one of the best-made seasons of a TV show I’ve seen in recent years, and I want to yell because I only have a few people to yell about it with. Anyway, this is a show about power! Trauma! If you like that, watch it. The dialogue is ridiculous (even ridiculously good) and memorable. SICKEST THEME SONG, HANDS DOWN. 

KINGDOM (NETFLIX) 

2 SEASONS | 6 EPISODES | 45–55 MIN 

In 16th century Korea, a crown prince goes on a suicide mission to investigate a mysterious plague overtaking the kingdom and uncovers a political conspiracy.

 If you want good zombie content, Korea’s the best at it now. Even if you don’t like zombies, I recommend giving Kingdom a try! I was neutral about zombies until Train to Busan changed my mind and now, Kingdom. Kingdom is so unique, and it’s a timely show in that there are so many parallels to present-day politics during the pandemic. The show is a critique on the privileged and those in power, but it also is chock full of engaging action scenes. Some of the acting is over the top, but the writing is strong, the story is engrossing, and it’s most likely going to be the most gorgeous show you watch this year if you haven’t seen it yet. The cinematography is stunning and words can’t express how incredibly sumptuous the sets and wardrobe/hair are. Kingdom is a visual feast!

KILLING EVE (BBC AMERICA/HULU)

3 SEASONS | 24 EPISODES | 41–55 MIN

Two women, a British intelligence investigator and the psychopathic assassin she's after, develop a mutual obsession as they try to capture and evade each other.

Wow, I loved the first and second season (but not the third). This is a riveting, unpredictable cat-and-mouse chase that keeps you at the edge of your seat, and there’s intense chemistry between the actresses. Sandra and Jodie are SO. GOOD. Is it a healthy relationship? No, not really. But Eve and Villanelle understand each other in ways no one else can. Everything falls away so only the two of them exist in the world, which has its consequences. If you like love/hate relationships and enemies-to-reluctant-allies/enemies-to-lovers, this is for you (yes, I’ll say enemies-to-lovers because come on, they pretty much made the interest/affection reciprocal in season three, with the wildly seesawing emotions they had for each other reaching an equilibrium).

SCHITT’S CREEK (NETFLIX)

6 SEASONS | 80 EPISODES | 22 MIN

The formerly wealthy Roses suddenly find themselves broke and forced to move to a motel in a middle-of-nowhere town that they bought as a joke years ago.

I assume that by this point, you all know the show so I won’t get into too many details. This is my one exception to the “new shows only” rule for this post because I had so many feelings about the last season. Schitt's Creek is the rare show that had the perfect ending for all the characters. T_T The character development is just so, so well done. This is my comfort show and the final season made me so happy/sad because I was so satisfied with where all the characters ended up but reluctant to say goodbye to them.

SIGNAL (NETFLIX)

1 SEASON | 16 EPISODES | 65–75 MIN

Communicating via a walkie-talkie that transcends time, a profiler from 2015 and a detective from 1989 work together to solve cold cases.

MY FAVORITE SHOW OF 2020!!!!!!!!!! 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

I DON’T CARE IF YOU DON’T WATCH KOREAN SHOWS. WATCH THIS ONE. If you know me, you know I’m not big on Korean dramas, but I’m obsessed with Signal. I kept thinking about it when I watched it, and there hasn’t been a day since I finished it that I haven’t thought about the show. Everything about it is so good. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. I LOVE EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT IT. THE WRITING IS PHENOMENAL. THE STORY IS GRIPPING AND SUSPENSEFUL BUT SO FULL OF EMOTION. THE SOUNDTRACK IS STELLAR. THE ACTING IS, FOR THE MOST PART, REALLY GOOD. THE CHARACTERS. UGH. THE CHARACTERS. The show focuses on platonic relationships, and you care deeply about all of them even if they’re minor—and of course, the relationships between the main trio. No character suffers from or is sidelined by unnecessary romance even if there is a bit of romance in this. I have so many feelings. Please get into this so I have people to talk to about the show because I got into it years after my friends urged me to watch it. :’’’’’) I’m a clown. A clown who loves Signal.

[creativity-is-rebellion]

Top 10 Favourite TV Shows I Have Seen (So Far)

I’ve done a few of these lists for film and music now, so I thought I would turn my attention to the small screen. The funny thing about these lists is that they may not represent an entirely accurate picture of what they intend to illuminate upon, but rather what comes to one’s mind when they are being compiled. In saying that, all of the below TV series definitely stand somewhere on my lengthy favourites list. So, here we go:

True Detective, Season One (2014)

It’s been said by others before me, but Season One of True Detective is without a doubt a near-perfect blend of narrative, dialogue, and cinematography, arguably the best in the last 20 years or so of crime shows. The Southern Gothic and Cosmic horror elements are present in the decay of the surroundings, the extravagantly decorated victims, and the sinister antagonists. This is juxtaposed with the world-weary detective trope, which switches between present-day interviews with the show’s two protagonists and flashbacks to where the narrative of the season began back in 1995, with the discovery of a body that has been placed in some kind of ritual tableau. Both Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey do a fine job playing the protagonist detectives on the case, but the complexity of McConaughey’s Rustin Cohle definitely steals the show, so much so that his performance re-launched his career (known at the time as the McConaissance). It’s a lot more terrifying than your typical detective series, borrowing a lot of concepts from philosophers, such as Nietzsche, and has an overall depressing and nihilistic vibe. But these elements, in my opinion, just add to its ingenuity and watchability. 10/10.

Dead Like Me (2003-2004)

Ok, so this show is now a cult classic, but at the time it didn’t get enough viewers, so there were only two seasons. I was one of the people who didn’t watch it until many years after its initial run. The renewed interest in the series even spawned a movie version in 2009, six years after the series came out. The premise is simple enough; a young, sardonic girl dies in an accident, and now she, along with a few other wrongfully-dead individuals, need to help a certain amount of people cross-over before being allowed to finally go through the pearly gates themselves. But the series approaches the plot in a unique manner, adding heart to the characters, and being appropriately funny, deep, and interesting when it needs to be. There is a reason it is now a cult classic. 10/10. 

Mindhunter (2017-2019)

Ah, the show that tells the story of how profiling at the FBI began, without naming any real-life FBI agents, but portraying hauntingly accurate versions of the serial killers that helped shape the system. I preferred the first season, even if Holden Ford, the main character, at times, appeared just as creepy as the monsters he was interviewing. The freaky-deaky sex scenes in the first season were kinda unnecessary, in my opinion, and took away from the main plot. It was enough to hear about the sexually-deviant acts of the sadistic killers being retold during interviews, and, even though it was meant to show the effects these stories were having on Holden, it still wasn’t needed. I also hated his bitch of a girlfriend. But other than that, the plot moves along at an interesting pace, with an adequate amount of foreboding that should be there when you fill up your days interviewing homicidal psychopaths. The second season took to long to appear in the world of Netflix, where audiences have the attention span of goldfishes, and was over-ambitious in its introduction of more serial killers than its predecessor, and jumping ahead too much in the timeline. I think that, since the first season, it has been interesting the way they start some of their episodes with the exploits of then-uncaught Dennis Rader, or the BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill) Killer, but, because there will be no more seasons, we will not see the ending of this plot. Also, in the second season, the plot about Bill Tench’s boy, and Dr. Wendy Carr’s love-life also took away from the plot. It seems that every time they delve into any of the main characters’ personal lives, they veer wildly off-track. They also could have found a more interesting serial killer to track than the Atlanta Child Murderer Wayne Williams, or could have done it differently. The audience agrees with this, obviously, because there will be no third season. Boy, it sounds like I was super-negative in this review, but I swear, I am a fan, if only for the interesting premise, excellent character portrayals, and creepy atmosphere. 8/10.

Dexter (2006-2013)

Fellow Dexter fans, repeat after me: We choose to ignore the ending. We choose to ignore the ending. We choose to ignore the ending. Sigh. Feel better? Good. Moving on. Dexter, the premise of a serial killer who only kills bad guys, as sketched out originally in Jeff Lindsay’s books (the novels for which the TV series was based upon), was, in 2006, a delightfully refreshing addition to Showtime’s prime-time slot set. In spite of what others thought, my favourite character besides Dexter was his sister Deb, played marvellously by Jennifer Carpenter. After Rita’s sadly horrific death at the end of Season 5 at the hands of the Trinity Killer (the best antagonist of the entire series), the quality of the show tumbled steeply downhill, but not enough for me to stop watching. 8/10.

American Horror Story (2011-Current)

I’ve enjoyed all nine seasons of American Horror Story, for its scares, and even for, at times, the sheer ludicrousness and campy acting. The best seasons, of course, include Jessica Lange, and no season to date has eclipsed the first two, but I like how there is a connected universe with each addition to the anthology. I am a person that enjoys a side-helping of Easter eggs and foreshadowing in my TV series, and AHS provides just that. Season 1 will always be the best for being the one that started it all, and Season 2 is a masterpiece. After that, my rankings are 5, 3, 4, 8, 6, 9 and 7. The latter seasons tend to follow a trend of peaking midway through, before skulking toward lukewarm endings. But the sheer existence of this show pleases the horror buff in me, so I will never tire of it. I can’t wait until October to see what they have in store for Season 10. 8/10.

Freaks and Geeks (1999)

Judd Apatow’s foray into the politics of high school in the early-1980s only lasted one season, but what a season it was. Freaks and Geeks introduced 16-year-old Lindsay Weir, who, after her grandmother’s death, is sick of being the brainy kid and wants to hang out with the freaks and finally be cool, sometimes with hilarious or heartwarming results. There is also her geeky freshman brother, Sam, and his equally awkward friends who run along as side-plots and occasionally provide the moral foil to the overarching plot of an episode. With a stellar cast, most of whom went on to even greater things, such as Linda Cardellini, Seth Rogen, and James Franco, Freaks and Geeks is more real than most teen dramas, and has rightfully developed a cult following in the years since the show’s cancellation. 9/10.

Twin Peaks (1990-1991, then again in 2017)

Ahead of its time, a pioneer 

American Gothic (1995-1996)

This is a forgotten horror gem of the mid-90s that kick-started Sarah Paulson’s career long before AHS, and Gary Cole was electric as crooked cop Sheriff Buck exerting evil supernatural influence over a small god-fearing town in the South. I first saw this show when I was 10, and it scared the crap out of me. The senseless murder of Merlyn Temple at the hands of Cole’s aforementioned sheriff haunted me years afterward.

Community (2009-2015)

In the first few seasons, Dan Harmon’s hilarious comedy, Community, starts off normally enough, centring around a lawyer (Joel McHale’s Jeff Winger) who is exposed as having a fake degree, and is required to attend community college to obtain the proper credentials to be re-admitted into the bar. When he forms a study group, initially with the goal to convince the girl he has a crush on (Britta Perry, played by Gillian Jacobs), to go out with him, they all become fast friends and partake in many crazy exploits while studying at Greendale, including a dark parallel universe, which has evil versions of each character. With a stellar ensemble cast, including Donald Glover of Childish Gambino fame, and Chevy Chase, who is still hilarious in his seventies, this show is must-see television. Stream it today. 10/10.

The Good Place (2016-2019)

The ending made me sad. 

[justkarliekloss]

Karlie Kloss interview for British Vogue August 2019 by Elaine Welteroth (Part 2)

* If you have a fan accoun and repost it, please give credit.

The sun is finally up when we land in Los Angeles and discover, via text, that the Project Runway production meeting - the reason for our early cross-country flight - has been cancelled at the last minute. As I unleash a growl of annoyance, Karlie rests her hand on my shoulder and gives me a dose of the glass-half-full positivity that has defined her career: "Well, at least now maybe you can go get some sleep before the day..." I am reminded that I have never met a single soul more relentlessely cheerful than Kloss. It is not a persona: she is good to the core. "When you say that someone is nice it can sound pejorative but it's not," says her friend and mentor Diance von Furstenberg. "It is that honesty and eagerness that is resonating. Karlie is a good girl and a good role model for young girls."

Indeed, just ask around about her and you'll begin to wonder if she is the kindest person in fashion. But do not mistake her sweet nature, or her recent conversion to Judaism (the Kushner family are Modern Orthodox), for weakness. "Changing  part of who you are for someone else can be seen as weak. But you know what? Actually, if you've been through that I've experienced, it requires you to be anything but weak," she says of her decision to convert. "It requires me to be stronger and self-loving and resilient. I really did not take this lightly. It wasn't enough to just love Josh and make this decision for him. This is my life and I am an independent, strong woman. It was only after many years of studying and talking with my family and friends and soul searching that I made the decision to fully embrace Judaism in my life and start planning for a future with the man I chose to marry."

The newly-weds recently put their immaculately decorated two-bedroom apartment in the East Village up for sale, looking for a new home in which to start their married life. Kloss first settled in New York five years ago, at the apex of her catwalk career, spending her hand-earned money on a place next to the Hudson river. At that point, she'd been working for five years, having been first scouted in St. Louis mall at the age of 13, when she was a coltish 5ft 8in and a burgeoning ballerina. Two years later, she landed her first New York Fashion Week show, with Calvin Klein, and her first editorial, an Arthur Elgort shoot with Teen Vogue. In the early days, Kloss travelled to jobs accompained by her physician father and her art direction mother, who protected her from the wilder aspects of the industry, but even as an adult, she has never been swept up in the party scene. Famously private, Kloss keeps a tight-knit circle of friends - albeit a high-profile one that includes Taylor Swift, Serena Williams and Derek Blasberg.

Once out of the airport, we part ways to shower. A few hours later we reunite on James Corden's set, where Kloss charms a rowdy audience with a little beauty trick she picked up backstage using a spoon to enhace Corden's lashes on live TV. Finally, after a scooter ride through Venice and a late dinner, jet lag strikes, and we decide to catch up on the phone a few days later, when she's managed to pull away from her hectic schedule for a meditative retreat with her husband in Wyoming.

In her Zen state, it's easy to see why she has so enthusiastically embraced the Jewish Shabbat, a day of rest that requires unplugging from work and completely disconnecting from the digiital world from sunset each Friday until nightfall on Saturday. She describes it as a "grounding force" in her otherwise non-stop lifestyle. "I think we all have a tendency to just keep going," she says on the phone. "Some people find grounding through meditation. Some find it through exercise. And to each their own, but for me, Shabbat has brought so much meaning into my life. It helps me reconnect to the actual world."

Kloss's studious approach to embracing Judaism reflects her insatiable curiosity. In 2015, long before the current wave of feminist hashtagivism, she enrolled in New York University's Gallatin School to study feminist theory. During this soul-searching period, she quit one of her most lucrative contracts, with the lingerie conglomerate Victoria's Secret. Bear in mind that this was before the rise of cancellation cuture, before walking away from a problematic company could earn a celebrity praise from the "woke" masses.

"The reason I decided to stop working with Victoria's secret was I didn't feel it was an image that was truly reflective of who I am and the kind of message I want to send to young women around the world about what it means to be beautiful," Karlie says. "I think that was a pivotal moment in me stepping into my power as a feminist, being able to make my own choices and my own narrative, whether through the companies I choose to work with, or through the image I put out to the world."

At the time, such a move may have felt risky and potentially damaging. But Kloss's star has only continued to soar - last year, Forbes named her the second most highly paid model in the world (Kendall Jenner pipped her to the top spot), and her fortune is estimated at $20 million. "In the modelling industry, every year is like a dog year," she says, smiling. "If you survive a year, it's like seven years in any other industry." If so, then she is a statesowman at just 26 - one whose enterprising embrace of new media put her on the front line of the digital revolution (she was one of the first major models with her own YouTube channel, in 2015) at a time when fashion was still resistan to change. I know because I was one of the magazine editors lurking around backstage the first season she showed up with a camera to capture her own getting-ready process in Hyperlapse to share with her growing following on social media. I found it innovative. Others found it bothersome, at best.

"I appreciate you using the word innovative. In the moment, I was a nuisance," Karlie laughs. "I got so many dirty looks at Paris Fashion Week. I remember getting yelled at and they would call my agency because I was Instagramming backstage." But she insists her rise hasn't been all selfies and sunshine. "I remember being 16 or 17 years old and afraid to say, "I don't want to wear this sheer top because I'm fully exposed and my mom is in the audience." I remember how it felt when I didn't say that I didn't want to do it, and how humilated I felt seeing those images and feeling sad that I didn't stand up for myself," she says. "Now I'm not trying to please anyone but myself."

The lesson she wants to share with other women? "Looking back at my late teens and early tweenties, I think I was fearful that I would lose a job or lose my position if I said I didn't want to do something. But I did not lose out on jobs, If anything, the more I exercised the power of my voice, the more I earned respect from my peers. And I earned more respect for myself. Only now do I have the confidence to stand tall - all 6ft 2in of me - and know the power of my voice," she says. "There are days when I wake up and I feel like I'm not this enough or too much that. We are all so critical of ourselves. But I love everything I do now, there is intention behind it."

#karlie kloss #vogue #british vogue #elaine welteroth #kkinterviews #britv19

[deafchild2000]

Shame and Forgiveness Ch. 2

(Aftermath of the failed coronation for both Audrey and Ben.)

In Auroria...

The Honeymoon Cottage...

3rd POV

"THE MALEFICIENT(S) CRASH THE COURT!"

"KING BEN UNDER SCRUTINY!"

"IS KING BEN FIT FOR THE THRONE!?"

"LOVE SPELL MISHAP!? A PLAN TO TAKEOVER THE THROWN!"

"VILLIAN TEENS, RIGHT OFF THE ISLE!"

"ROYAL SCANDAL! IS BEN THE KING WE NEED!?"

THWACK!

Former Queen Leah, Queen Aurora, and King Philip looked up from their seats to see Audrey had thrown newspapers onto the table. One look at them said it all.

It had been a quiet morning in the 40-roomed castle and the cooks and fixed a delicious breakfast for the royal family for the family to enjoy. All but one, that is.

"Don't they have anything better to do than harass Ben!" she hissed. "It's bad enough that the coronation was ruined and postponed, but now they're making it seem like it's all his fault!"

Sighing, Queen Leah took a sip of her morning tea before explaining, "And they have that freedom to do so."

"What?" Audrey asked incredulously.

Her grandmother nodded. "When Ben was elected to be King, he knew what was expected of him by looking towards his father's rule. Now, changes can be expected, but when you have a spectacle as big as his coronation, it is no surprise it won't be taken lightly. In this case, some could believe this was all in his making."

"Huh? So they think he, what, planned on ruining his ascension to the throne to get more popular?" Audrey snorted.

Queen Leah sent her a fixed glare. "Watch your tone, young lady. It is not becoming of a princess. And to answer that question, no. Ben knew there was a risk by taking in those children of the Isle, and to let his guard down long enough for Maleficient's daughter was able to slip him a love spell is quite the scandal. Not to mention how the Fairy Godmother's daughter practically disgraced herself with that foolish display of hers."

"Yes," Audrey shrugged. She had heard that Jane had got the equivalent of a verbal thrashing and that her mother was going to keep her on a tight leash from now on.

"The fact of the matter is: Ben was, or still is, the representation of his people, and royalty alike. His actions reflect on his person, and those actions have made certain people believe that he isn't ready for the throne," Queen Leah stated.

"But he's a King!" Audrey exclaimed. "Or a Prince, at the very least! He grew up with royalty, he studied his butt off to know all there is to know about Auradon before it was even a founded country! His mother is the most down-to-Earth woman that has ever lived and he knows from his dad's past to not act like a spoiled brat. And he is so, so mature... He's ready for the mantle, Grandmother. This was just a...a hiccup."

Audrey inwardly winced at the sound her grandmother's hand hitting the redwood table.

"Just a hiccup!? Audria, please remove your personal feelings from the situation and regard it like a princess," Queen Leah admonished. "Just because he is a prince, doesn't mean that he has the maturity of one. If you may want an example, think of Queen Cinderella's son, that for his childish action in which would make any royal monarchy disown him, was simply sent away for the remainder of the year. From the way rumors have it, especially considering how with his mother's background of being a servant in her own home, it would do him some good to learn some humility before embarrassing his family's name in ignorance. Ben is young, yes, but a ruler should know when to make certain risks and when to ensure his people's safety. And while yes, his family background has given him a sense of modesty, being smart isn't always enough. A king must be prepared to give himself, all of himself, to his people. Especially as he gets older, he will realize that he has no time for fun and games."

"So what happens? Because he's not fully instated as of the coronation, the council can just what? Abdicate his right to the throne? Pick someone else?" Audrey asked.

"Well, I wouldn't use that exact wording, but most likely, yes," Queen Leah stated indifferently.

"But that's not fair!"

"Life isn't fair, Audria, and you would do well to remember that!" her grandmother snapped. Audrey jumped back at the steel in her voice.

"Mother!" Aurora exclaimed. King Philip was just about to join in when Queen Leah raised her hand, taking a breath.

"I apologies, Audrey," she started, "and I can see why you'd feel this way. But you must know that actions must have consequences. Just look at what Maleficient's daughter had planned. She had waved that wand at us, at you, and then read all about her plans for Auradon if she had succeeded in controlling Ben! I am under a good authority that for her plans to had become fruition, it would have been years. And if she was well-liked and silver-tongued enough, maybe sooner. It's bad enough what her mother had done, but now her child had been this close to Auradon's ruin...It's all out in the air now and if he wants to reclaim any doubt that he could still make a good king, how he handles it will determine so. And with that, comes with an eventual press conference if he wants to start."

Taking in a deep breath and reigning in her frustrations, she sat down beside her grandmother and placed her head down.

"I don't think that's even going to come close once school starts again," Audrey groaned inwardly.

Officially, because of the incident and in concern for the safety of the students and their, Auradon Prep had been closed for an unscheduled break and be re-open in two weeks. Audrey and everyone else, including Ben, would be returning the week after this one.

Unofficially, the scandal has put AP under lockdown for a high-profile investigation regarding the VKs whereabouts, classes and extracurricular activities. They were looking for anything that was a dead giveaway to their plans and had slipped under their noses.

And Fairy Godmother was leading the charge.

Queen Aurora and King Philip reached out and grabbed both of her hands softly, to comfort her as she let out what was practically screaming in her chest.

"I told them," she started, feeling her eyes moisten. "I told everyone that Mal and her friends couldn't be trusted. I told Ben repeatedly that, as your stories said, the evil fairy is still the evil fairy. That doesn't change just because she had a child. And what do I get: I get humiliated in front of everybody as he...as he declared his love for Mal. Of all people, and I had to suddenly grab and get with Chad to because-"

"Shhh," Aurora soothes, bring another hand to caress her daughter's head and wipe her tears. "You don't have to explain. It over now."

King Philip growled and did his best to make it as inconspicuous as he could. He had heard rumors about that game and got mixed stories. Future king or not, Audrey was his only daughter, his only child, and for Ben to hurt her like that? Under a love spell or not, he would have killed him. It would have made fighting Maleficent look like a walk in the park!

He knows his daughter was proud, and unlike her mother in many ways, but at that moment when she called crying, all he could do is comfort her over the phone alongside her mother and tell her it would pass.

"I was the bitter ex-girlfriend as she got popular. Cheerleading was only bearable since I was the captain, but most of my friends avoided me in favor of her. Using magic to help the girls grow longer hair. Yeah, so what if I was mean to her on Family Day, Jane was just as well! She took it farther than me almost. And then my reputation when down the hill too. Reduced to a bitter, jealous, vengeful princess now...I don't think I can trust anyone at that school anymore. Maybe I should transfer to Arcadia or maybe Sherwood Academy is better. Ha, maybe that might stick it to 'em!" she laughed bitterly.

"You're not going anywhere because you're staying at Auradon," Queen Leah said finality.

Audrey whipped her head to her in shock. "What?"

"Audi, you can't just hide from your problems. Trust me, I was raised by fairies for 16 years to escape a 100-year sleeping curse and it still happened!" Aurora stated irritatedly.

Shaking his head at his wife, King Philip took over. "Look, Audrey, sometimes in life you've got to pick your battles and to know when it's time to surrender. You sensed something in your gut that told you something was off right?"

She only nodded.

"Good," he continued. "You knew something was off, you tried to warn people, and sometimes, the best and only thing you can do is let the chips lie where they fall. It may not feel right or make you feel better, but that's how it can be sometimes. You tried, you fought, probably longer than you should, but you eventually had to move aside. You said your piece and that's all you had to do. Everyone else? They have to live with the fact that they chose not to heed your warning and that's on them. But not you. And that's why you're staying at Auradon. Because as King and Queen, and your parents, you don't get to give up so easily."

"And what if they try to apologize?" Audrey asked. She only thought about it once and decided she didn't want their apologies and excuses.

"Then, you straighten your back, keep your head up, look them in the eyes, grace them with a small smile, and simply say '"Thank You"' and '"I accept your apology"'. Granted, you may not feel like it, but a princess must always carry herself with strength and dignity as well as grace and respect. You may have been born with that title, but the only person who can take that away from you is yourself and by running away, that is exactly what your doing," Queen Leah told, keeping her granddaughter's eyes on her.

The power Audrey felt perforating into her made get into a proper position to raise her head high. While it did do some good for her, part of her knew her family's advice could only do so much.

#fanfiction #audrey deserves better #ben florian #descendants #audrey descendants #pre-descendants

[chudovyygirl]

THE WWE'S GLASS CEILING IS JUST A FOOTNOTE FOR RENEE YOUNG She's the first female color commentator in the history of the company. But don't expect Young to list "trailblazer" on her IG anytime soon. She has a bigger mission—to become the greatest to ever put on a headset.

After three grueling hours of fulfilling her role as WWE’s first ever female color commentator on Monday Night Raw’s live broadcast each week, there’s a good chance Renee Youngis going to have to sneak away to the restroom when it’s all over. The enormity of breaking one of professional wrestling’s thickest glass ceilings doesn’t faze her. It’s the smaller things, like not getting a chance to discreetly escape to the lavatory from the announce team’s perch adjacent to WWE’s massive LED stage that, she says, will take some getting used to.“It was one of the things I was legit the most stressed out about doing commentary,” she reveals. “‘But when do I pee?!’ But I feel like I’ve overcome it.”

Young says that since taking over the third chair on Monday Night Raw from Jonathan Coachman, she’s begun to limit her liquid intake throughout the day. She doesn’t really have all that much time to sip coffee anyway, as her new role requires hours of pre-show preparation and research. In addition to a mandatory production meeting where on-screen talent is briefed on storylines, scripts and talking points, Young takes the initiative to chat with the wrestlers one-on-one, getting a sense of who they are, what’s going on in their real lives and where they see their characters going that week. She also scours social media for any interactions between wrestlers or any trending pop culture stories she can reference.

It’s this kind of work ethic, and an ability to make adjustments on the fly, that has helped Young do something no other female broadcaster has ever accomplished in the 66-year history of WWE: co-piloting the company’s flagship broadcast. To some, that makes Young a trailblazer, but she downplays that label with her trademark self-deprecating, cheery sense of humor. “I’m not going to put it in my Instagram headline: ‘Renee Young, trailblazer.’ I do feel the responsibility of it, but it’s also a responsibility I asked for.”

Renee Young, born Renee Jane Paquette in Toronto, Canada, took one of the more circuitous routes imaginable to get to WWE. She grew up in a show business household; her father was a concert promoter and her mother a bookkeeper. When she was 10, Young was encouraged by a client of her mother’s to try her hand at modeling. “I didn’t even know what that meant,” she recalls. “I was like, ‘Sure, it sounds great.’ I would go meet with different talent agencies and different modeling agencies.”

In addition to modeling, however, Young had a penchant for making people laugh. When her parents divorced, Young found that a well-placed joke could defuse the roiling tension of a divided home. “Kind of taking away that spotlight and the awkwardness of the things that were happening,” she says. “Once I realized that’s something that worked for me, I loved nothing more.” That need to be irreverent would manifest itself at school, too. “I was getting kicked out of class regularly,” she says. “I wasn’t a bad kid. I was just loud. Getting kicked out and still trying to make people laugh in the hallway. I was always in kind of a little bit of a situation. I didn’t know when to shut up. Shocker.”

When she was 16, while bouncing around the modeling world, Young was handed a small pamphlet for the Second City improv training center. She would keep it in her bedroom drawer for years as a reminder of who she truly wanted to be. Finally, when she graduated high school in 2003, she asked her father for the $250 necessary to register for her first improv class.

Improv was her passion, and she fully embraced her time at Second City, hoping to transition to a career as a comedic actress. After a brief spell in Los Angeles when she was 19, she came back to Toronto to work in music videos and commercials before settling on a career hosting on Canada’s The Score sports network in 2009. There, she began fronting a wrestling talk show called Right After Wrestling. (The show aired directly after Monday Night Raw in Canada.) That got the attention of WWE, who brought her in for an audition and eventually hired her to conduct backstage interviews with the wrestlers.

WWE offered Young her biggest platform ever, as well as a very strict set of guidelines about what to say and how to say it. Many of the interactions audiences see on Monday Night Raw and SmackDown Live are heavily scripted by a team of writers. The performers are asked to get as close to reciting the lines verbatim as they can for their backstage interviews, in-ring promo segments and pre-taped vignettes. Before most interviews, Young would have to preface the exchange with, “Please welcome my guest at this time”—a catchphrase that’s become fodder for jokes within online wrestling fandom.

Despite her early struggles with the tried-and-true WWE formula, Young quickly found allies to help her push forward. Former announcer, and current mouthpiece for Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman was an early supporter of Young. He helped her ease into what can be an overwhelming, esoteric world of wrestling jargon, high pressure and unceasing travel. “He’s had my back from the get-go,” Young says. “He did not need to do that. For whatever reason, he and I have always been close when it comes to talking about being better and wanting to be the best.”

Before her debut as an analyst on Monday Night Raw, Young hunkered down in the stands of the empty arena, where Heyman found her to give his sage counsel. “He just kind of gave me advice on how to be a little more succinct, how to create those little punchlines,” she remembers. “You’ve gotta think about what this is going to sound like in a video package. Make sure you’re saying their name instead of he or she. Just little nuggets like that that you might forget. And I do forget. Sometimes, I might be out there and catch myself saying, ‘Oh, he just speared him’ instead of ‘Roman Reigns just speared Braun Strowman.’”

For the former class clown, it’s not always easy to color inside the rigid lines of WWE’s corporate universe. “Prior to working for WWE, I was always in control of my own material [at The Score].” The commentary role on Raw allows for more off-the-cuff banter for Young, play-by-play announcer Michael Cole and color commentator Corey Graves. “I’ve been here for six years, but until now, I haven’t had many opportunities to flex that [improv] muscle. I’m trying to get back into that mode.”

In her six years with WWE, Young has done pretty much all there is to do besides actually work a wrestling match. She’s worked segments on Raw and SmackDown. She’s hosted an intimate, almost Oprah-style interview show on the WWE Network streaming service called Unfiltered. She’s co-hosted the SmackDown aftershow Talking Smack with former WWE champion Daniel Bryan, and she’s helmed the pre-shows leading up to WWE pay-per-view events.

Perhaps the strangest detour in Young’s career was a brief, season-long stint on the E! network reality series Total Divas, a series that follows WWE female talent like Nikki and Brie Bella, Natalya, Naomi Paige, and Lana through their day-to-day lives. Total Divas is not all that different from other E! reality franchises like Keeping Up with the Kardashians, with its various mundane real-life dramas set against the backdrop of the glamour of the entertainment industry. One of the main storylines of the show was the question of whether or not John Cena would marry Nikki Bella. The particulars of their coupling and the eventual dissolution of that couple was all fodder for the cameras.

As helpful as the show was for her personal profile, Young departed Total Divas after completing work on Season 7. “I think the hardest part for me, for doing Total Divas, was having my relationship be on display,” she says with a sigh.

Her husband, Jonathan Good, also known as Dean Ambrose, is intensely private, according to those who know him—a shy, reserved, sensitive man who only opens up once you’ve made yourself worthy of his trust. “It’s always a compliment when John has a conversation with me,” says Natalya Neidhart, Total Divas cast member and one of Young’s closest friends on the WWE roster. “He doesn’t talk to that many people, so when he talks to me, I’m so flattered.” Young is the opposite that attracted, still that same young person always trying to make others laugh with a one-liner. “[Renee] didn’t need someone who was going to compete with her, in the sense of being bubbly and charismatic. She needed someone who complemented her, and John is just so quiet. He very rarely lets people in.” That dynamic might not have been ideal for reality TV.

“I think [our relationship] was not something we wanted to pull the curtain back on,” Young says. “That made me uncomfortable as well, because the whole time I’m just saying he’s crazy and how do I deal with this crazy person [for story purposes], which is really not our dynamic. That was really odd to navigate as we were doing it.”

Until 2015, the heightened reality of Total Divas was one, if not the only, path to success for WWE’s women. Women’s wrestling simply wasn’t a major attraction on WWE TV until Stephanie McMahon debuted highly touted prospects Sasha Banks, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch to usher in the “Women's Revolution” campaign that gave female performers more to do than just pose for the camera and smile. But Young is a part of a class of performers who have become bona fide stars without that platform. Though she’s never competed in a wrestling match (the closest she’s gotten is a brief feud where she and Ambrose traded insults with The Miz and his wife, Maryse), Young has amassed a social media following on par with former world champions like Bayley and Alexa Bliss. “Renee is going to be a superstar at this,” says Michael Cole, who, in addition to being her cohort on Raw’s announce team, is also the person who oversees every announcer in WWE.

“When all is said and done, Renee is going to go down as one of the great analysts that we’ve ever had, because you have to stand out in this business,” Cole says. “Renee will stand out because she’s offering something that’s never been done before. Forget the fact that she’s a woman. Put that aside. That’s become a footnote now. She’s different because never before have we had in the wrestling business what Renee offers to the announce booth. It’s that innate ability to talk to people, to be able to dig underneath the surface and find out what makes these superstars tick.”

Her personality and charisma shined even if her on-screen character is mostly just a slightly toned-down version of the real Renee. “I just have to be a little bit more PG when I’m on a live microphone,” she says. The Evolution pay-per-view is something of a culmination of everything Young has been striving for since she joined the wrestling world. “When I was told I was going to be doing it, I was floored,” she says. “I feel like I can open up a door for other women, show other women and girls different paths to go down.”

Young has done her research into other women who’ve made it into the sports commentary world. She’s especially a fan of ESPN NBA analyst Doris Burke, another supreme talent who has a similarly rabid online following. “One of the things I took away [from my research] is that everyone is used to older white men doing commentary and anything that’s not has been deemed wrong. It’s not [wrong]. It’s just trying to change what people are used to hearing.”

Eventually, audiences will get used to Renee Young’s voice on commentary, if they haven’t already. In addition to her weekly job on Raw and the spot on Evolution, she’ll be calling WrestleMania in April. While Raw is three hours and the average pay-per-view is around four, WrestleMania tops out at a whopping seven hours from start to finish. When will Renee get to go to the bathroom then? “If that’s the biggest of Renee’s worries, she has nothing to be concerned about,” Cole says.

“I am not ready for that yet. I don’t think my bladder is quite prepared,” Young says with a chuckle. “We don’t travel with port-a-potties up there.” For every arena, Young has devised a route to the restroom, just in case. It’s absurd that we keep coming back to the issue, but as Young puts it, “This is real life” and she’s not one to hold back on what��s going on in her own head. “She’s relatable because she’s not perfect,” Neidhart says. In that life, as it is in her journey to relieve herself, Young’s mantra is simple: “You gotta navigate your path.”

#renee young #wwe #mentions of: #deanee

[caveartfair]

When Can Artists Bend Ethics for Art’s Sake?

Sophie Calle, Suite Vénitienne, 1980. “At the end of January 1980, on the streets of Paris, I followed a man whom I lost sight of a few minutes later in the crowd. That very evening, quite by chance, he was introduced to me at an opening. During the course of our conversation, he told me he was planning an imminent trip to Venice. So I decided to follow him.” © Sophie Calle / ADAGP, Paris & ARS, New York, 2018. Courtesy of Perrotin.

What right does an artist have to use other people in their work—to invade their lives, violate their privacy, or cause them harm? What will we forgive in the name of art?

These are the questions I was asking a decade ago when, for a graduate performance art class taught by Tania Bruguera, I paid a classmate $1 to befriend my best friend Laura and write reports on how she thought Laura was coping after a recent break-up. At our final class, I passed around a folder containing these reports and a photocopy of the $1 check I’d written. The folder reached Laura last. I watched across the table as she read the document of my simultaneous care and betrayal.

I got an A for the class, but lost my friend. It was a horrible thing to do, but I was 21 and obsessed with Sophie Calle and the line between art and life. Since the 1970s, Calle has repeatedly invited us to question whether artists should be held to the same standards as other people. In viewing her work, we must ask whether invading someone’s privacy or betraying their trust is an acceptable emotional cost to art.

Sophie Calle, The Hotel, 1981. “On Monday February 16, 1981, I was hired as a temporary chambermaid for three weeks in a Venetian hotel. I was assigned twelve bedrooms on the fourth floor. In the course of my cleaning duties, I examined the personal belongings of the hotel guests and observed through details lives which remained unknown to me. On Friday March 6, the job came to an end.” © Sophie Calle / ADAGP, Paris & ARS, New York, 2018. Courtesy of Perrotin.

In 1979, Calle followed a man she’d met at an art opening in Paris to Venice, where she spent two weeks spying on and photographing him as he went about his business in the city. She presented the images alongside text detailing both her observations and emotions during the period, as Suite Vénitienne. This man, identified only as Henri B., was the first unwitting participant to Calle’s artistic game.

In 1983, she found a lost address book on the street and photocopied the contents before returning it. She then telephoned each of the contacts to question them on the identity of the owner, and published her findings as a series (“The Address Book”) in the French newspaper Libération. The owner, the documentary filmmaker Pierre Baudry, threatened to sue her, wrote open letters to Libération, and eventually sent the paper a nude photo of Calle that he demanded they publish as retaliation. This literal tit-for-tat response to her exposure of his identity did not perturb Calle; she ultimately incorporated it into the piece.

For The Hotel (1983), Calle worked as a chambermaid, exploring and documenting the private belongings and writings of hotel guests. Observing this piece, we experience both Calle’s curiosity and the unsettling thought that, at every hotel we have ever stayed in, our own possessions might have been subjected to similar scrutiny. What might someone like Calle have learned from our nightgowns and slippers, our diaries and postcards? How might she have misinterpreted us?

Sophie Calle, Suite Vénitienne, 1980. © Sophie Calle / ADAGP, Paris & ARS, New York, 2018. Courtesy of Perrotin.

Neighbors #14, 2012. Arne Svenson Robert Klein Gallery

A crucial element of these early pieces is Calle’s involvement of the viewer in her transgressions. By inviting us to immerse ourselves in the narratives of her observations, she makes us complicit in her voyeurism—even as we question it. It is not just Calle invading these strangers’ privacy and observing their lives without consent, but us, too. We may not agree with her methods, but by engaging with the work, we find ourselves tacitly condoning it.

Decades later, though, the question that still hangs over these pieces is whether or not they were ethical. Did Henri B., Pierre Baudry, or those hotel guests have a right to privacy? Can any of us expect to be protected from the artist’s gaze?

In 2013, Arne Svenson caused a Calle-like controversy for using a telephoto lens to take photos of his Manhattan neighbors, later exhibiting the work in a local gallery. Svenson was sued, but won the case based on his First Amendment rights, and “The Neighbors” went on to be exhibited across the country. Though the discussion continues as to whether Svenson’s photographs of families, children, pets, and intimate, private spaces is ethically acceptable, the judge’s ruling makes clear that legally, at least artists have a right to invade aspects of our privacy.

Santiago Sierra, 160 CM LINE TATTOOED ON 4 PEOPLE, El Gallo Arte Contemporaneo. Salamanca, Spain. December 2000, 2000. © Santiago Sierra. Courtesy of Lisson Gallery.

Considered in conjunction with conversations about digital surveillance, data protection, and online privacy—not to mention random strangers who might be livetweeting intimate exchanges—this ruling might seem rather scary. Belgian artist Dries Depoorter uses digital technology to explore this fear. For Tinder In (2015), Depoorter traced women (and some men) who appeared on his Tinder app to their LinkedIn profiles, then displayed and published their profile pictures from each side by side, pointing out both the ease with which individuals can be traced, and the split-personalities of online identities.

The interesting thing about all of these pieces is that, while their controversy lies in the question of an individual’s right to privacy, the works themselves actually reveal very little about their subjects. In reading the texts accompanying Calle’s work, we learn much more about the stalker than the stalked. It’s easy to understand the sense of invasion felt by Henri B. and Pierre Baudry, as well as Svenson’s neighbors and Depoorter’s Tinder matches, but perhaps the true grievance is that the artists have used these strangers’ images and identities to create works that have nothing to do with them.

Spanish artist Santiago Sierra’s use of anonymous individuals raises similar ethical questions, though rather than invading their privacy, he asks them to submit to him bodily. For 160cm Line Tattooed on 4 People (2000), he paid heroin-addicted prostitutes the price of a shot of the drug to allow him to tattoo them. For Group of Persons Facing a Wall (2002), he paid homeless women the price of a night in a hostel to stand facing a gallery wall. And for 10 People Paid to Masturbate (2000), he paid workers $20 to masturbate in front of a camera.

Santiago Sierra, 10 PEOPLE PAID TO MASTURBATE, Tejadillo Street, Havana, Cuba. November 2000, 2000. © Santiago Sierra. Courtesy of Lisson Gallery.

Unlike Calle, Svenson, and Depoorter, Sierra does seek consent from his subjects, but the nature of this consent is highly questionable. These pieces draw attention to the exploitative, transactional nature of our society, pointing to the commodification of bodies and exposing the power structures that operate within our everyday lives. Conceptually and politically, the works might be seen as noble, but in actually using the bodies of vulnerable individuals, Sierra must enact the very exploitation and dehumanization he critiques. He forces us to ask if it is okay for an artist to use people. Can the end justify the means?

In 1992, Paul Auster based a character in his novel Leviathan on Sophie Calle, borrowing some of her works as well as inventing new ones. This depiction of Calle is heavily critiqued in Chris Kraus’s autofictional novel I Love Dick (1997); she claims Auster’s version of Calle is “a waif-like creature relieved of complications like ambition and career.” Ironically, this criticism—that using a real person as the subject for art strips that person of their individuality and complexities—can be levelled just as fairly at Suite Vénitienne, The Address Book, and The Hotel. Like Auster, Calle presents her subjects as simplified versions of themselves, and treats them like fictional characters in a narrative she remains in control of.

It is, I think, this relieving of complications that is most disturbing and, in the end, most painful. Should we find ourselves the subject of an artist’s gaze, most of us would like them to see the whole of us, to render us fairly and try to understand our complexities. Unfortunately, the artist’s motive is often more to do with projecting or reflecting a part of themselves rather than reaching an empathetic understanding of their subjects. What they were looking for, really, is a mirror.

Dries Depoorter, Tinder In, 2015. Courtesy of the artist.

In the play between the private and the public, artists have both the ability and the right to provoke, shock, and disturb. What we often fail to recognize, however, is that by giving them a platform, it is us as viewers who have bestowed this position of power upon them. By consuming and applauding Calle’s early works, we effectively opened our own curtains to Svenson and gave our profile photos to Depoorter. Perhaps the question is not whether artists have the right to invade our privacy or cause us harm, but why we’ve allowed them to.

I’m not proud of what I did to Laura back in grad school. A decade later, I’m appalled by my callousness and can hardly remember my own justifications. But I do remember the surprise I felt at her anger. I remember expecting her to understand, wanting her to acknowledge my cleverness, to think about the nuances of privacy and trust, and sense as I did the precarious power wielded by the word “art.” I wonder if it is this kind of optimistic thinking that drives Calle and other artists. For those who have devoted their lives to their work, perhaps it doesn’t seem so extraordinary for them to imagine others should be willing to devote theirs, too.

from Artsy News

#Artsy News

[1ffeeebz]

It’s 2018 and its three years later. Within those three years I have found myself convinced that I was over you, over what happened, but when another wave of nostalgia hit again recently and I started checking your profiles again, my hurt was ever more prevalent than I had ever admitted or addressed. In October 2015, I bought you flowers, to be told to sit down and listen to you. I looked into your eyes and listened to you tell me that you didn’t want me, that you found someone else, that she was the one for you.  I told you it was okay, because I wanted you to be happy, even if it wasn’t with me, and let’s face it, if I had said otherwise, you still would not have cared. You told me you wanted to be friends, but you never had that intention, you just wanted me off of your conscience. I left, heartbroken, but as time went on I picked myself up and put pieces of myself back together. I aimed to get over you, to get over the situation. In 2016 I aimed to get really fit and show you what you were missing. Nothing worked; all that came out of it was gaining 2 stone from eating my sadness. I’ve followed and unfollowed you on social media’s on multiple occasions since the day you told me you don’t want me anymore, desperately hoping that it would help me shut you out of my head, hoping that not seeing you happy would help me heal, but I knew you were, and I couldn’t tell myself otherwise. For 3 years I feared that unfollowing you meant that I was losing you forever, so I always ran back, because I know you never feared losing me and you wouldn’t be the one to chase me, the idea of you not being in my life, even just through being on my timeline terrified me. You’ve also come back into my life 3 times; you’ve built my hopes up, only to shatter them – every single time. You’ve checked up on me, asked me if I’m seeing anyone, told me you’ve missed me, only to leave me in the dark. I’m mostly mad at myself for allowing it to happen, but at the same time when you message me, I can’t help but be desperately hopeful that you’ve finally realised what you’re missing. I was always so careful what I say to you when you used to text me, because I didn’t want you to leave again. I am so stupid for apologising to you when you told me that you thought I hated you, because perhaps the reason why I felt so hurt until today is because I have never had the closure I have needed and deserved. I have never told you how hurt I am because I’m scared you’ll leave again. I should not be the one apologising, you should be. A part of me loves that you’re happy, but my heart hurts too. It hurts. I’m angry that you get to be happy and I don’t, because out of the two of us, I deserve it. You broke my heart, you used me, you strung me along and here you are living your life, loving and being loved in return, you’re meeting new people and visiting new places, everything I wanted to do by your side. You’re living fine without me, without me running through your mind like you do mine, but I still sit in the darkness wasting my thoughts on you, and wondering how you are, and what we could have been. I still remember the tiniest and biggest details about you, I noticed and loved every one. The randomest things remind me of you and I hate it. I remember that you had a teddy named Doga that you struggled to sleep without; I remember that your favourite animal were giraffes, that you loved baking and crime books, that your favourite flowers were lilies. I remember your ring size, your favourite meal deals and McDonald’s orders, and that you always used to smell of Beyoncé Heat. I remember the dates of our dates and our first kiss. I still have the aquarium tickets. I drive past where we used to meet and the memories hit, I lay in my bed and on my sofa and remember the times you were there. It’s crazy how over 3 years, and especially throughout 2017 that I realised my worth, I began to love my strengths and recognised and began working on my weaknesses, I realised that I deserve nothing but the best and learned to say goodbye to anyone who treated me otherwise. However, when it comes to you, I turn back into the 16 year old, vulnerable version of myself, the version of me who is alone and weak. But today it changes. Today I need to say goodbye to you, once and for all, just how you did to me. You’re ruining my life without even being in it. I don’t think you do realise what you missed out on. I loved you with all I had; you were the centre of my life. You were amazing, funny, passionate, selfless, full of life, intelligent and beautiful. I would have taken a bullet for you, donated an organ for you, anything at all that you wanted, I would have found a way to give to you. All I ever wanted to do was make you happy, I wanted to make sure you were okay and the best you could be, I wanted to see you achieve things and be so proud of you, I always thought you were so much more clever and amazing than you gave yourself credit for, I wanted to look after you, when the weight of the world was on your shoulders, I wanted to be the one to do everything I could to make it feel a bit lighter again. 16 year old me was blind, weak and perhaps deluded. 16 year old me was wrong to think that you’re selfless and amazing. You made me feel guilty about my mental health and my feelings, you made me feel like a psycho because I fell in love with you, and still care. I didn’t and don’t deserve that. I realise now that if I loved you as much as I did, without being loved in return, then my love for someone else will be greater. I have a huge heart which someone else will love back, and that I will love myself back with too. A heart is something you lack, you don’t even love yourself enough to stop throwing love to everybody else, to stop jumping from relationship to relationship. You broke my heart. And for three years I have missed you and been a complete and utter fool for you. I hate that you were my first love, or even a love at all. I can’t change the past, but today I will no longer allow you to have that power over me, nor allow myself to hurt over you. Today I will get the closure I need and deserve. It is 2018 and I am nearly 19, I am stronger, smarter and wiser and I will find my happiness and I will heal. I never understood why people remain bitter, until now that is. I have tried to tell myself for three years that if I’m happy for you then it will free me, but it hasn’t. If anything it has made me more angry, you don’t even care. You will never take responsibility for your actions and how much you have hurt me and it is pathetic. I’ve always been taught to let the anger go, because it will act like an anchor and the toxicity will ‘weigh me down’, that forgiving someone without their apology is a good thing. That may be true, however, fuck that. I am allowed to be angry, you hurt me, I am allowed to be bitter and to hope with every inch of me that karma gives you what you deserve. You’re a fucking heartbreaker.

#vent #healing #self love #moving on #breakups #mental health #heartbreak #self care #love #girls #personal #feelings

[keepingupwiththeroyals]

Prince Harry: I sought counselling after death of mother led to two years of 'total chaos' in my twenties - exclusive Telegraph interview

Hannah Furness, royal correspondent 16 APRIL 2017 • 10:37PM Prince Harry has disclosed that he sought counselling after enduring two years of “total chaos” while still struggling in his late twenties to come to terms with the death of his mother. The Prince says in an interview with The Telegraph that he “shut down all his emotions” for almost two decades after losing his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, despite his brother, Prince William, trying to persuade him to seek help. Disclosing that he has spoken to a professional about his mental health, he describes how he only began to 
address his grief when he was 28 after feeling “on the verge of punching someone” and facing anxiety during royal engagements. Prince Harry speaks frankly about fighting his demons on the wake of his mother's death and how he finally sought professional help Prince Harry speaks frankly about fighting his demons on the wake of his mother's death and how he finally sought professional help CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES Describing the “quite serious effect” that losing his mother had on his personal and professional life, he tells how living in the public eye left him feeling he could be “very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions”. The Prince, now 32, turned to counsellors and even took up boxing. He says he is now in “a good place”. Prince Harry has decided to give an unprecedented insight into his past in the hope it will encourage people to break the stigma surrounding mental health issues. He has spoken to Bryony Gordon for the first episode of her podcast, Mad World, in which she will interview high-profile guests about their mental health experiences. Show more The 30-minute conversation is one of the most candid insights into the innermost thoughts of a modern young member of the Royal family. The Prince, together with his brother and sister-in-law, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, have set up Heads Together, a charity which promotes good mental well-being. Prince Harry, who was 12 when his mother died, says in the podcast that he spent his teenage years and twenties determined not to think about her. “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life but my work as well,” he said. Diana, Princess of Wales with Prince Harry who has said he regrets not opening up sooner about how his mother's death affected him Diana, Princess of Wales with Prince Harry who has said he regrets not opening up sooner about how his mother's death affected him “I have probably been very close to a complete breakdown on numerous occasions when all sorts of grief and sort of lies and misconceptions and everything are coming to you from every angle.” Asked whether he had been to see a 'shrink' to offload his thoughts, he said: “I’ve done that a couple of times, more than a couple of times, but it’s great.” The Prince admitted that at times he had struggled with aggression and turned to boxing as an outlet for his frustration. My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help? “During those years I took up boxing, because everyone was saying boxing is good for you and it’s a really good way of letting out aggression,” he said. “And that really saved me because I was on the verge of punching someone, so being able to punch someone who had pads was certainly easier.” He eventually sought support with the encouragement of his brother and others close to him, who told him: “Look, you really need to deal with this. It is not normal to think that nothing has affected you.” Since learning to talk honestly about his feelings, he said, he now feels able to put “blood, sweat and tears” into making a difference for others. “The experience I have had is that once you start talking about it, you realise that actually you’re part of quite a big club,” he said. Later this year, the Prince and the Duke will commemorate the 20th anniversary of their mother’s death, commissioning a statue and presenting awards in her name to honour “kindness, compassion and service”. Prince Harry with a picture of his mother Princess Diana, with staff and users of The Running Charity, which is the UK's first running-orientated programme for homeless and vulnerable young people, in Willesden in north west London. Prince Harry with a picture of his mother Princess Diana, with staff and users of The Running Charity, which is the UK's first running-orientated programme for homeless and vulnerable young people, in Willesden in north west London. CREDIT: GEOFF PUGH Prince Harry said of his loss: “My way of dealing with it was sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help? “[I thought] it’s only going to make you sad, it’s not going to bring her back. “So from an emotional side, I was like ‘right, don’t ever let your emotions be part of anything’. “So I was a typical 20, 25, 28-year-old running around going ‘life is great’, or ‘life is fine’ and that was exactly it. “And then [I] started to have a few conversations and actually all of a sudden, all of this grief that I have never processed started to come to the 
forefront and I was like, there is actually a lot of stuff here that I need to deal with.” He said he now counts himself very lucky that it was “only two years … of total chaos” before he learnt how to talk about it. “I just couldn’t put my finger on it,” he said. “I just didn’t know what was wrong with me.” Even at royal engagements, he said, he had found himself battling a “flight or fight” reaction without properly 
understanding why. Once he started opening up to friends, he added, he found those same friends felt able to “unravel their own issues”. Dismissing previous speculation he may have suffered mental health issues because of his time in Afghanistan, he said he felt clear that coping with the death of his mother on a very public platform had the greatest impact. “I can safely say it’s not Afghanistan-related. I’m not one of those guys that has had to see my best mate blown up next to me and have to apply a tourniquet to both their legs. Luckily, thank God, I wasn’t one of those people.” Prince Harry said his work with the personnel recovery unit, where he listened to wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women talk about 
 serious mental health issues, had proved a turning point in his understanding. “I know there is huge merit in talking about your issues and the only thing about keeping it quiet is that it’s only ever going to make it worse,” he said. Prince Harry left the British Army in May 2015 after 10 years' service that saw him fight on the front line in Afghanistan twice “Not just for you but everybody else around you as well because you become a problem. I, through a lot of my twenties, was a problem and I didn’t know how to deal with it.” On eventually seeking help, the Prince said: “It’s all about timing. And for me personally, my brother, you know, bless him, he was a huge support to me. He kept saying this is not right, this is not normal, you need to talk to [someone] about stuff, it’s OK. “The timing wasn’t right. You need to feel it in yourself, you need to find the right person to talk to as well.” But he added: “I can’t encourage people enough to just have that conversation because you will be surprised firstly, how much support you get and secondly, how many people literally are longing for you to come out.” Confessing he was “a little nervous, a little tight in the chest” about the interview, the Prince said he was determined to make a difference while the younger members of the Royal family are “still interesting” to the public, doing his bit before Prince George, Princess Charlotte and any of his own future children step into the spotlight. My brother, you know, bless him, he was a huge support to me. He kept saying this is not right, this is not normal Of his current focus on mental health, he said: “What we are trying to do is normalise the conversation to the point where anyone can sit down and have a coffee and just go ‘you know what, I’ve had a really s--- day, can I just tell about it? Because then you walk away and it’s done.” He is now in a “good place”. “Because of the process I have been through over the past two and a half years, I’ve now been able to take my work seriously, been able to take my private life seriously as well, and been able to put blood, sweat and tears into the things that really make a difference and things that I think will make a difference to everybody else.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/16/prince-harry-sought-counselling-death-mother-led-two-years-total/

#Prince Harry

[outsideangle]

The Expat’s Dilemma: Reckoning With a Trump Presidency From Abroad

Waking up in my foster home of Melbourne, Australia on Wednesday, November 9th, I felt a mix of hope and certainty that my country would come to its senses. Judy Woodruff and co. looked bright and cheerful on the PBS NewsHour live stream as the polls on the eastern seaboard closed 16 hours behind me and tallies began coming in, and with the previous week’s polls showing an almost assured victory for Hillary Clinton—some being so bold as to predict with 90% certainty or more—the crew had good reason to be. I was excited, bordering on proud: my country was about to elect its first female president and show the world that yes, actually, Americans do happen to do the right thing eventually. Eventually has turned out to be much further off than predicted.

It’s a curious feeling, being the only American in an office of internationals, watching as Florida falls, your birth state of Wisconsin flips, and your home state of Pennsylvania fumbles under the crushing weight of Appalachia, and all the while trying to plan a lesson for your evening class. I started receiving texts from friends everywhere—American and not—as the poll closings rolled west and our hope gave way to panic and fear and frustration. Some of my co-workers tried making jokes, and I nearly snapped at one of them, but channelled that anger into a Facebook post proclaiming that now was not the time for humour. My ex-girlfriend and I, both Americans living in Australia, traded messages of outrage and heartbreak—hers worse, as her parents had voted Trump—as we realized what was happening at home; she ended a Tinder date early that night so we could drink whiskey and beer and wallow in our powerlessness from across the Pacific. We shared an awkward kiss goodnight when I went home, born of uncertainty, but it fit with the new world we’d been hurled into. Uncertainty is a frustrating emotion, but after the election nothing was stronger than my sense of powerlessness. I’ve felt it subtly for years, but didn’t begin acknowledging it until the killing of Michael Brown and the events that followed: continued deaths at the hands of police who never faced consequences, one mass shooting after another, and watching the government slowly be taken over by ultra-conservative politicians who not only didn’t care about any of it, but also wanted to limit the rights of minorities by strengthening the institution that kept them repressed. I was living in South Korea as an elementary school English teacher through most of that, and in my rational mind I knew that being home and joining movements wouldn’t really change anything, but my geographic inability to take part in activism and grassroots participation exacerbated the feeling—even then, I sometimes wonder if, were I home, would I have partook at all, or was it looking in from the outside that made me long to engage. Watching your home burn from afar, stuck, awakens an entirely different set of emotions than having the flames around you. That was a different time, though, and nobody could’ve predicted Trump’s ascension to the Republican nomination—he’d only been a contender for two months when I returned to the United States in August of 2015. When I left again, this time for Australia, in February 2016, nobody could believe his hate-filled campaign was still running, and with such success. As I watched him clinch the nomination and somehow hold his own in polls with Hillary Clinton, I began thinking, “I should be there. I should be fighting this. I should help.” All I could do from abroad was send in an absentee ballot and sign petitions, and these felt like hollow actions. Hate is not passive; it is aggressive and threatening, and passive resistance will not stop it. I tried to be active and assert my power in Melbourne the Saturday after the election, where I joined a march through the city protesting Donald Trump. A few days prior, I had posted on the event page, “I’m an American living here, and I cannot WAIT to protest this demagogue my country has somehow chosen,” and was met with numerous critics telling me to “get over it” or “get out of Australia.” One sad soul with a lot of time on his hands (he commented at around 3 AM on a Friday night) went through my old profile pictures, found one of me dressed up in a sports bra as a female jogger for Halloween and posing with my female friend grabbing my boob, and overlaid the sentence, “I WONDER IF SHE’D FUCK ME WITH A STRAP ON AFTER THE TRUMP PROTEST.” The photo was deleted, but he posted it again the next day telling me I was a “seppo cuck,” and still people are saying “you lost, get over it.” Regarding the cry of “you lost,” I can understand the criticism of protesting, especially outside the United States. However, to call out protestors for that is to miss the point: we protest not because we lost the election, but because we will not tolerate the rhetoric that elevated Trump to office—we protest to show we will not let human rights go quietly into the night. Many people don’t have the luxury of “getting over it.”

The march turned out a few hundred people, mostly socialist student activists, and while it felt good to be in the streets, it was too soon after the election for anything to come of it. The sense of powerlessness quickly returned.

In other attempts at effectiveness, I’ve not stopped reading analysis and action plans, even going so far as to give myself a Christmas gift in the form of a subscription to The New Yorker. The day before the inauguration, David Remnick wrote how it’s our duty to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution from Trump and his cronies in the Cabinet, referring back to 1787 and that the Constitution’s ratification alone did not “guarantee [its] endurance and health,” and that it’s the “constant work of citizens, collectively and individually,” to maintain it. At The Washington Post, Linda Hirshman urges us to take cues from abolitionists of the 1850s when it comes to achieving a goal after a disastrous setback. These are great ideas, but once again leave little opportunity for expats to participate.

One piece of reading that did help temper my seething fury was “Indivisible: A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda,” which pulled from the methodology the Tea Party used to gridlock the country. It presented some direction and concrete ways to affect change, and this essay wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t read that guide—I’m ecstatic to see all the local action groups it’s inspired. Still, though, all I can do is write or send emails, but I can’t be there in person to confront my Members of Congress or march in protests, and that pains me.

At least I’m not the only expat who feels this way; there are several million of us living outside the country, after all. I’ve asked other Americans living abroad how they wrestle with this sense of inefficacy, and nobody seems to have a perfect answer yet. Laura Hagy, who works in Haiti, and Kathleen Phelan, an Australian/American dual citizen, both agree that “having open and honest dialogue” with Trump supporters and people they disagree with is the cornerstone of resistance. I admire the optimism, but from my travel experience I have not once met an American Trump supporter, and face-to-face discussion would probably be the only way to sway opinions—our comments on Facebook posts and message boards are useless and, for me, an unrelenting wave of frustration at the hands of obvious trolls. Bob Kennedy, who lives in Korea, thinks the most effective method is to “lobby the DNC to never again play kingmaker for a candidate,” and I’m inclined to agree with him.

When people on my travels ask me how Trump won, I tell them he didn’t; I tell them that the Democrats lost. The DNC is a hollowed-out husk of a party that needs to be restructured and find its base again. Since Obama’s 2008 victory, the Democrats have lost more than a thousand statehouse seats, 12 governorships, nearly 70 House seats, 13 Senate seats, the presidency and the Supreme Court—that is failure on a colossal scale. If Democrats are going to be the party of resistance, then they need to get it together and demonstrate that they can be effective again.

Ms. Phelan’s final thoughts on best resistance are a little morbid, but no less accurate: “Just survive.” That’s almost all we can do from outside the country, though Ms. Hagy shares my feelings that “[being] far away doesn’t mean I have an excuse to be inactive,” and it’s something both of us are still grappling with. It’s the crux of the expat dilemma this election has posed: reconciling the love for travel and residing abroad, and the internal drive to fulfil one’s civic duty.

Every day since the election, that predicament has been kicking around in my head. My first idea was to start a non-profit organization where expats can donate money and, depending on the amount donated, have a “surrogate” represent them—that could be marching at a protest in their place, or perhaps reading a letter to their Congressperson on their behalf. I also toyed with returning immediately, joining the Democratic Party to try and shake it up from the bottom, and running for office in 2018. Ms. Hagy, for her part, is seriously considering a return to the US to take a more proactive approach. For myself, I decided to put my ideas on hold and move to Singapore for a few months to give the organizations in America some time to figure out a plan of attack, then move back and join the most effective, but still the waiting nags at me. Several weeks into Trump’s presidency and he’s taken a hard-line on immigrants as I’ve moved from one country I’m not a citizen of to another.

The beginning of his time in office has had me reconsidering, though. Since taking office he’s written horrific executive orders on immigration, the Dakota Access Pipeline, and—most frighteningly—restructured the National Security Council and given renowned white-supremacist Steve Bannon even more power. Then there’s the fiasco with Russia that forced Michael Flynn’s resignation, and it surely won’t be the last scandal this White House sees. We’d been preparing for the worst, and a shred of me hoped, “maybe it won’t be as bad as we’re expecting.” But here I am, and there they are.

The day after the inauguration, the Women’s March on Washington took place, and my parents and some of their friends went to DC to protest—my mother even knit a plethora of Pussy Hats—and my brother marched in Philadelphia; I could not be more proud to have a family that’s ready and willing to take a stand, especially when I’m not there to join. For my part, I participated in Melbourne’s solidarity march. I arrived expecting a few hundred people, much like the protest the Saturday after the election, and was astonished to discover more than 6,000 crowded around the steps of the State Library of Victoria, all despite a massacre down the block that claimed six lives the day before.

That crowd, and those all over the planet, showed me that I am not alone. It demonstrated that there are expats everywhere—and non-Americans—who are prepared to stand up to Trump and his vitriol. I wrote postcards to my Senators as well, as per the Women’s March action plan; I’m writing this essay, and intend to write more; I’ll keep sending messages to my representatives. All I can hope is that people do more than protest—that they get involved by donating time and money to organizations that need it and participate in our democracy.

So far the signs are positive, and it’s the most important thing friends and family can do for me back home: send the hope on. Me and other expats only ever see the news, and the news is rarely ever good; we need the good stories from home to keep us going—to let us know that change is in the works. I still don’t know what the best course for me to affect change is—maybe this blog will help, at least in a selfish sense—but perhaps I do have a unique power as an expat: in my travels, I can be an example, and show the world that Americans are many things, but that we are not our president. We will, eventually, get it right.

Photo: Joe Raedle / Getty (via The New Yorker)

#abroad #democrats #Trump #Donald Trump #election #expat #indivisble #protest #march #international #news #politics

[nicosroom]

Nico’s “52 list”

The aim of the 52 list are to set down a “to-do” list of sorts in order that 

I don’t get overwhelmed by everything I’ve ever wanted to do (and therefore never do anything); 

and to weed out things I don’t actually want to do with my life (as in, if I don’t do it at the end of 2017, I have to decide if I want to put it on next year’s list or just admit I’ll never do it). 

Here it goes--

1. Learn to poach eggs - perfecting them is an ongoing process, but I have the basic technique down; follow the saga on Twitter

2. No sugar in smoothies or oatmeal for two weeks - January 23-February 5. My plan is to maintain sugar free smoothies, but some oatmeal just needs sugar, okay?

3. Practice blow drying my own hair approximately once per week. Despite how little I do it, I really do enjoy wearing my hair straight once in a while. Typically, I have it dried straight at the salon after a haircut. I’m far too clumsy and impatient to do it myself. But, this year, I want to practice so that just maybe I can do more things with my hair than letting it air dry and throwing it up in a bun when I get tired of it falling in my face. 

4. Try Penzeys Spices.  It was everything. 

5. Day trip to Yellow Springs, OH.

6. Visit Old Schoolhouse Winery in Eaton, OH.

7. Visit Hanover Winery in Hamilton, OH. It may be the best kept secret in Butler County. 

8. Buy an immersion blender at the KitchenAid summer sale.  I bought an immersion blender and then some. 

9. Use sumac in a recipe. Almost two years ago, Catherine and I were cooking from Ottelenghi’s Jerusalem cookbook for my shoddily run cookbook club. It seemed like a ton of the recipes called for sumac. After a couple attempts, Catherine finally located it at the international market and she gave me ziploc snack-bag filled with sumac. Have I used sumac one single time since she gave this to me? No. This has to change in 2017.  It took a while, but I have now. 

10. Save $15 per week. Is it cheating if I automated this?

11. Buy a membership at the Cincinnati Art Museum. Student memberships are $30 per year. That’s like the smallest fraction of my discretionary spending budget that I could ever imagine. 

12. Make cannellini bean and lamb stew from Jerusalem. Check it out. I’ve been cooking out of this book Spring 2015 and it took me all this time to realize they sell lamb stew meat in very neat packages in the regular meat section at Kroger. This whole time, I keep looking for it at the international market, but they only have fancy lamb cuts that seem overwhelmingly expensive. 

13. Take more baths. I recently have been rereading The Bell Jar. Old Esther Greenwood may be kooky, but Plath sure made sure Esther knows a thing or two about taking baths.  **This is basically over. I probably took three baths in the month and a half after I made this list. Now, I’ve moved into an apartment that doesn’t even have a tub. Too bad! 

CANCELLED 14. Go speed dating.  Jen & I did a little research and we found that “Predating” seems to be the only speed dating service in the area. And they separate their groups into “25-35″ and “27-39,″ charge $39 to participate, and hold a session like once a month at a really inconvenient time, like 7 pm on a Tuesday. I’m highly dissuaded. Ladies should be able to speed date for free. The way I see it, reparations for sexism and patriarchy.

14. Make a leche flan from scratch. It’s my very favorite imperial dessert. I devour it at Filipino holiday parties and I always save room for it when I eat out at an American Mexican restaurant. But, I should try to make my own, at least once. 

15. Download and create a profile on a dating app.  Check out my assessments of Coffee Meets Bagel and Tinder.

16. Watch Blue Hawaii

17. Try some place new for brunch once a month. 

January: Sleepy Bee Cafe (Blue Ash (Cincy))

February: technically I failed. I only went out for brunch one time and it was at First Watch. But, at least, I tried a new location? The one in West Chester. 

March: Spice Kitchen (Cleveland)

April: Triple header - Holly’s Homemade Eats & Sweets (College Corner, Indiana); Bellevue Bistro (Bellevue, Kentucky); Hang Over Easy (Clifton (Cincy))

May: Sugarcreek Restaurant (Sheffield Village, Oh)

June: Rising Sun Cafe (Yellow Springs, Oh)

July: Treaty City Cafe (Greenville, Oh)

August: another new First Watch location (Secor Rd, Toledo)

September: another new First Watch location (Montgomery, AL)

October: Chik’n Mi (Louisville, KY); Keystone Bar & Grill (Covington, KY location)

November: Doodles (Lexington, KY)

December: Asiana Korean Restaurant (West Chester, OH). I guess this isn’t quite a brunch place, but I ate an delicious eggy beef stew, Yukaejang and we ate there at 11 am, brunch time.  

18. Visit downtown Waterville, OH. It’s a small town adjacent to the city of Toledo. I pass through it whenever I drive back and forth to the city from my mom’s new home on the farm. One of these days, maybe I’ll check out the local business scene, the metroparks, and the possibilities. 

19. Get a desk that I like and will use. Although people say I have a nice desk, I disagree. I found it near the dumpsters at the apartment complex next door. It does its job, but I don’t love it.

CANCELLED. 20. Complete a Whole 30 reset.  Though I remain curious, after much research, I decided that the reset is a terrible idea. 

20. Watch Up. 

21. Go to a live NFL game. Hopefully not the Bengals…unless they play a really interesting team…or, I can’t afford anything else. 

22. Learn hollandaise sauce. Look. 

23. Make an eggs benedict dish for breakfast -or lunch/dinner, I suppose. Perhaps a classic with English muffins, but maybe something like a salmon or fried green tomatoes benedict. 

24. Make my bed every day for two weeks. I’ve read that this is a habit of highly successful people. I think it would be really good for my “working from home” vs. napping problem. 

25. Make a TV-watching schedule. In college, I read some advice that you should schedule when you’ll watch TV and you should only watch TV then. I read that before the days of Netflix instant video. With Netflix, and especially after I moved into my own place, I formed a habit of “watching TV” as background noise while I do any number of things - wash the dishes, cook, fold the laundry, wash my face. As such, I get a lot of stuff done and also take in a lot of pop culture at the same time. But, I also see where this is an extremely counterproductive habit. Such as when I start a new 43 minute episode, but it only takes 20 minutes to wash dishes…and I watch the whole thing…Specifying the TV watching time gives you something to look forward to and provides some space to relax (unlike watching TV while simultaneously doing chores). The schedule should also put an end time on your TV watching. I’m gonna try for an hour Sunday-Thursday, likely between 8-9pm and make Friday and Saturdays open for watching a running list of movies I’ve intended to see. Check out my schedule and what I’m watching!

26. Make roasted pine nut hummus from scratch. Big brand pine nut hummus is so good. But after those hummus recalls by both Sabra and Trader Joe’s, we are in a trust no one situation. I shelled out $24 for a 3lb bag of pine nuts at Costco and I’ll be making my own hummus all year long. 

27. Do a cleansing face mask once a week for four weeks. 

28. Exfoliate lips once a week for four weeks. Will 27 & 28 stay weekly habits?? 

29. Color (in my adult coloring book) for 15 minutes before bed, Sunday through Thursday night for two weeks. I started 2017 hoping this could be a nightly habit. A late night here, a phone call with a friend there, a “oh, I forgot to make a lesson plan” on this hand, or a “just-too-tired today” on the other and suddenly I haven’t touched my $22 coloring book in more than two weeks. Alongside some of the above plans and habits on this list, maybe I can do this if I am a little more flexible and realistic. So I’ll shoot for work nights for two solid weeks and see if I can then turn it into a more definite routine. 

30. No tech after 10 pm, Sunday through Thursday for one week. 

31. Read Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Case for Reparations” from The Atlantic. You’d think this is easy; it’s an article from The Atlantic, after all. But when I made a PDF of this thing it was 62 pages long. That feels like a short term commitment and I’ve got to put it on the calendar one of these days (after comps).

32. Cook a Julia Child recipe. I made her hollandaise. I like the way she makes one feel empowered to do it, like its the most natural thing in the world. Not like Masterchef, where you’re doomed to fail from the start. 

33. Go on a solo weekend trip. Details here.  

34. Go to one of those miles long/wide antique malls. I pass by them often on my highway drives around the state and I fantasize about completing my Corelle and Pyrex butterfly gold collections. Somehow the timing is never right - I’m in a hurry, or they’re not open, or whatever excuse I can think up. Some local possibilities: Ohio Valley Antique Mall (Cincinnati’s largest, apparently, in Fairfield), Riverside Antique Mall (over 100 dealers on the scenic Ohio River; Cincinnati), and Heart of Ohio Antiques (according to their website, America’s largest antique destination just an hour away from me in Springfield). 

35. Visit Grand Lake St. Mary’s/Celina, OH. I passed by this lake/state park last summer when I drove up US 127 until it connected with US 24. It’s a grueling drive compared with taking the fast-paced highway, but I saw so many tiny towns that might be interesting to visit. Grand Lake St. Mary’s looks like a nice beachy getaway. Though it probably gets busy and touristy in the summers, I bet the weekdays are quiet enough for me to enjoy a day or an overnight here. Perhaps this is a good candidate for that solo weekend trip I noted above. 

36. Make tom kha gai. Thai coconut soup with mushrooms (and maybe chicken). So good, so good. 

37. Go to IKEA. I was impressed. 

38. Go to another distillery on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. In 2012-13, I went to Four Roses, Wild Turkey, Woodford Reserve, and Maker’s Mark. In 2014, 2015, and 2016 I took trips South in which I drove right through all the places in Kentucky where I might stop off to finish the trail, but I did not stop once - not even for Jim Beam, which is right next to the highway! In 2017, I should go to one, at least. Will I finish the Bourbon Trail or my dissertation first? Stay tuned! 

39. Whole 30 Prep: Phase out yogurt for two weeks. I haven’t bought any yogurt since. The question remains, when will I tackle cheese?

40. No alcohol for two weeks. 

CANCELLED. 41. Whole 30 Prep: No grains for one week.  

41. Go see Fiona the hippo at the Cincinnati Zoo. 

CANCELLED  42.  No peanut butter, soy, and legumes for two weeks.

42. Go to Miami football and hockey games. I lived in Oxford for 5 years and did neither of these. My only incentive once I move to Cincinnati will be crossing it off this list. 

43. Make a meal with a spaghetti squash. I’ve eaten spaghetti squash of course, but I’ve never bothered to roast/dismantle/serve one on my own. This year, I’m finally making that Southwestern Stuffed Spaghetti Squash recipe I pinned about three years ago. 

44. Ride the carousel at the Banks in Cincinnati. I tried to do this a couple summers ago, but I showed up 30 minutes after closing time. Time to try again! And some of the carousel characters are pigs! 

45. Find red wines that I like. I’m a dry white wine drinker - which puts me in some difficult situations sometimes. Working wine tastings since 2013, I’ve learned some favorites - Raffy Grand Reserve Malbec, Haka Tempranillo, Brion Cabernet. That is, I’ve learned expensive taste. I haven’t stopped working on this, but here are few winners so far. 

46. Eat at J. Austin’s. It’s this restaurant I/we pass by every time we drive through Hamilton on the way to somewhere else. One of these days, J.Austin’s should be my/our destination, just to check it out. 

47. Get a couch. I’ve managed to live seemingly on my own for five years and never have bothered to get a couch. I was walking around the Salvation Army on April 7 and I impulsively bought a couch.  

48. Visit the American Sign Museum - I’ve made it to most of Cincinnati’s museums by now, but not this one. In 2017, it’s time. 

49. Visit two new U.S. states - I chatted with a guy in the dating app about his goal of visiting all 50 United States before he turns 50, prompting me to list the states I’ve been to and steal his idea entirely. After eliminating all the states I’ve driven through but had no meaningful interaction with (Mississippi, North Carolina, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia) and the ones I don’t remember (like South Carolina, where we lived when I was an infant), I’ve got 21. I was in panic mode - how will I get to 29 states in the next 22.5 years? For the next five or ten years, I think I’ll try to hit at least two a year. In 2017, I have my sights set on Missouri and Arizona. Can anyone recommend some interesting border towns? 

Phoenix, AZ trip is booked! Oct. 25-31

50. Have four artist dates. An artist date is a solo date with an artist/artwork. You go by yourself and the point is to just spend time with the artwork without the pressures to talk to other people about it or work on/around their schedules. When you go it alone, the only schedule you have to worry about is yours. Now  that I think of it, I should have called “artist date” every time I made the mistake of dragging my ex-boyfriend to a military history museum and then feeling rushed because he didn’t want to read everything on every plaque like I did. This is precisely the problem artist dates solve. Dates can range from visiting exhibits and galleries, artist talks or performances, concerts or movies, spending the entire day reading a book, or listening to music in the peace of your own home without any other distractions. I heard about artist dates from Janice MacLeod (author of Paris Letters) and had planned to have one every month during 2015. Life got busy and all kinds of excuses not to have artist dates turned into no artist dates by the middle of the year. I set the bar lower this year, at four, hoping I can do this once a quarter. 

February 19, 2017 - George Takei’s Allegiance

May 13, 2017 - Citizen by Claudia Rankine

June 2, 2017 - Jordan Peele’s Get Out 

December 7, 2017 - Tom Hanks/Emma Watson/Dave Eggers, The Circle 

51. Learn to sew on a button. Whenever my buttons need help I take the clothes to my favorite seamstress and pay $4 for the repair and make who knows how many carbon emissions driving over to her place. 

52. Watch Star Wars. I’ve never seen it, so I have no idea about the allusions, the “Star Wars nights” at sporting events, or the Cold War metaphors about race, gender, and nation.  I wasn’t very impressed. 

#52 list #2017 #goals #travel #explore #nicos52list #52 list project #new year

[marrincostello]

3 Ways to Work-at-Home Doing Internet Research

Today we're answering a question from a reader. So, if you've been interested in internet research jobs, keep reading.

Hi Holly,

I found your advice in the Woman's World Magazine and have been searching all through the Pinterest for work from home jobs. There are so many to go through, and some want money, and others I am not sure are real jobs. But Holly, I LOVE to research and would like to start a business doing research, but have no idea how to get started. I thought I would ask if you had any ideas since you are seeking ways of possible employment for people.

I hope you will have some ideas and share them with me as I am very eager to get started.

Sincerely, Judy L.

Hi Judy,

Internet Research is an excellent way for you to work-from-home! There are lots of companies who hire freelancers to do their research for them — you just need to know where to look.

Law firms, marketing departments, insurance companies, academic institutions, healthcare providers, political groups, real estate agents, writers, and college students all need researchers.

If you have background experience in one of the areas above, I suggest starting there first, as you'll have a leg up on your competition.

Where to Find Internet Research Jobs and How to Get Started

You can try searching for internet research jobs on traditional career sites like Indeed or CareerBuilder, but these sites are so large, it can be challenging to find these positions. You'll also have to thoroughly research each job posting as they don't screen companies very well.

Here are some other sites that I recommend using to find online research jobs:

FlexJobs is a paid online job board that caters to flexible work arrangements. The reason I like FlexJobs is they screen every job for legitimacy, so you never have to worry about falling prey to a scam. They also have great sorting options, so it's easy to locate what you're searching for on their website. You can sort jobs by type, schedule, job category, career level, job title, location, or a combination. Some keywords you'll want to explore, include Internet Research, Research, Web Researcher, and Research Assistant.

Fiverr

Fiverr is a freelance marketplace where you can list and sell your internet research services. When Fiverr first came on the market, the premise was individuals would sell their freelance services for $5 (hence the name). Freelancers would keep $4, and Fiverr would take a $1 administrative fee. Today freelancers sell their services for anywhere from $5-$10,000 a pop, and Fiverr takes a 20% administrative fee. Fiverr is free to join, and it's an easy way for you to list your freelance research assistant skills and the niches you specialize in.

Upwork 

Upwork is a freelance job board that contains different tasks for freelancers to complete. Simply register for an account (it's free), search for Internet Research positions, and submit your bid. If your bid is accepted, you'll complete the work and get paid through the platform, minus a small fee (usually 10 percent). While many freelancers complain of the low rates on these sites — it can be an excellent way for you to establish yourself in the field and to work with repeat clients. Also, check out this article from Danny Margulies and how he was able to earn six figures from Upwork — he has a smart strategy for using the platform!

Companies That Hire Internet Researchers

Cannabiz Media hires part-time virtual data researchers to collect, fact-check, and analyze license info in the cannabis industry. Applicants must have a strong business or legal research background, excellent communication skills, and be able to work 20 hours per week.

Clickworker is a short task platform and smartphone app, where you can make money by completing microtasks like text creation, categorization, copy editing, proofreading, internet research, and more. You won't be able to earn a full-time income using this platform, but it is a nice way to bring in a little extra money. To get started, sign-up for free, fill out your profile, complete short skills assessments, complete work, and get paid weekly or monthly via SEPA or PayPal.

Fancy Hands hires independent contractors to provide virtual assistant services to individuals and small business owners. In this position, you'll work on tasks like scheduling appointments, internet research, data entry, and making phone calls (so it's not just research). Assistants are paid $3-$7 per task, and payments are distributed every other Tuesday via Dwolla.

I know I mentioned FlexJobs above as a great place to find legitimate work-from-home positions, but they also hire part-time, freelance, job researchers to research and source legitimate jobs, companies, and opportunities for possible publication on their website. Pay is $15 per hour, and you must reside in one of the following states: CO, CT, FL, IL, KY, MA, MD, ME, MN, NC, OR, PA, TN, TX, or VA.

Just Answer hires independent contractors to research and answer questions on various topics. To become an expert, you must have experience in a particular niche, such as a doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher, or chef. With these opportunities, you're not only researching answers for people, but you're also writing the answers online — so you'll need to have excellent written communication skills. Just Answer pays 20 – 50 percent of what the person is willing to pay for the answer (if it's accepted). Payments are made monthly via PayPal.

For more places to answer questions online, read: How to Make Money Answering Questions Online

One company that hires internet researchers to gather information and find credible sources is Wonder. In this role, you'll work as an independent contractor earning $15-$18 per hour on average. Applicants must have a Bachelor's degree and prior research experience.

Start Your Own Internet Research Business

If the above options aren't what you're dreaming of — you can always start your own internet research business in the niche of your choosing. Here are some simple steps to get you started.

1. Educate Yourself on Running an Internet Research Business

No matter what type of business you're starting, you need to educate yourself on the best business practices. Here are a couple of resources that can help you understand and implement the basics for starting and running an internet research-based business.

2. Get Your Business Ducks in a Row

Once you understand the basics of running a business, you'll need to map out your business plan. Your business plan doesn't have to be a formal document, but you will want to create a list of steps to take.

Here are some common questions you'll need to address:

3. Set Up Shop

After you have the preliminary framework in place, you need to set up your digital footprint, which will include your website and social media profiles. You should also think about which communication, marketing, and organizational tools that you'll need to run your business.

Here are some helpful articles and resources:

4. Get Clients

There are many ways to get new clients, but probably the fastest way is to reach out to family, friends, and past colleagues and let them know you started a new business. Just think, if you send an email to 100 contacts, you'll likely have at least one person who needs or knows of someone who needs your services!

When I started my blog, here is the email I sent out. This is how I was able to build my blogging audience so quickly. Oh, and feel free to use this template and modify it for your business.

Hello Friends & Family,   As many of you know, for the past 16 months, I've been researching, writing, and working with a graphic designer to launch a website for women and mothers who would like to work-from-home.    As of today, all of my hard work has finally paid off, and I'm proud to announce the official launch of The Work at Home Woman! An online resource for women who wish to work-from-home or become self-employed.   Please visit my site and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear your comments and suggestions!   I would greatly appreciate it if you could forward this link to anyone you know that could benefit from this site.   Feel free to keep up with The Work at Home Woman, and follow me on Twitter or Facebook

Thanks for your support, Holly

There are many different routes you can take to becoming an internet researcher! Whether you want to freelance, find a telecommuting position, or start your own business, there are many viable options available. Choosing a niche where you have experience will help you hone in on the opportunities that are best suited for your skills.

You'll Also Love These Posts:

Studies have shown if you like this blog post — you will also enjoy reading the following articles.

Originally published January 9, 2015. Content updated April 22, 2020.

Holly Reisem Hanna is the publisher and founder of  The Work at Home Woman, which has been helping individuals find remote careers and businesses that feed their souls since 2009. Through her unconventional career path of holding over 30 jobs and obtaining two college degrees, she's been able to figure out how to find a career path that you're truly passionate about. Holly's had the pleasure of sharing her expertise on sites like CNN, MSN Money, Huffington Post, Woman's Day Magazine, as well as being recognized by Forbes as one of the “Top 100 Websites for Your Career.” Holly resides in Austin, Texas, with her husband and daughter and enjoys reading, traveling, and yoga.

This page includes some affiliate and referral links. Please be aware that we only promote advertising from companies that we feel we can legitimately recommend to our readers. Please see our disclosure policy for further information.

This content was originally published here.

[lodelss]

To lose Toni Morrison is to lose a great earthly guide. It feels personal, familial, yet I am aware that it is not. She had her own, very full life, with two sons, Harold Ford Morrison and Slade Morrison (who died in 2010), as well as grandchildren and other extended family. Still, I was born into her world. When she died last Monday night after a short illness at 88, Toni Morrison, born Chloe Wofford in Lorain, Ohio, had published eleven novels, nine volumes of non-fiction, five children’s books (in collaboration with Slade), two plays, a libretto, and more over four-and-a-half decades. After her third novel, Song of Solomon, Morrison left her job at Random House, where, as senior editor, she shepherded work by Lucille Clifton, Toni Cade Bambara, and Angela Davis. She “single-handedly produced a black literary canon,” poet Harmony Holiday wrote as part of a longer reflection. A good amount of this work, including Clifton’s memoir Generations and The Black Book, from 1974, is out of print. The essayist Michael Gonzales told me The Black Book was “a breathtaking tome of black life from the Motherland to the Otherland, sheet music and slave notices, pictures of baptisms and black bodies burning as hordes of white men laughed.” In her foreword to the 35th anniversary edition, Morrison called it a “requirement for our national health.”

My earliest years overlap with the publication of Tar Baby, Beloved, and Jazz. Morrison won the Pulitzer in 1988 and became a Nobel Laureate in 1993, when I was not yet a teenager. In their tributes, many writers have spoken of a maternal transmission — how they came to Toni Morrison through their mothers, aunts, older sisters. I remember early edition hardcovers with bold plain fonts, laid out in different spots around my first home, protected in slick plastic, tucked under my mother’s arm or in the space between the driver’s and passenger’s seats for a return trip to the library. Morrison was grown-woman business and I burned to be let in on it. I’ll never know the force of what made my mother — born in 1943 to a woman born in Mississippi in 1906 — truly reach for those books and hold on to them the way she did. I’m lucky to have come of age with Toni Morrison fully formed, her books on the typewritten reading lists teachers pass around at the start of the school year, on Oprah’s show, in the glossies. We do not deify the pursuit of learning — we’d pay teachers and journalists more in money and respect if we did. When a person who reads for pleasure and reads for work, who takes the lessons of what they read to heart, who allows the lessons to wash over them is held up as an American celebrity, it is its own kind of coup. This coup made a different country possible. By being born and coming of age in the last years of the 20th century, I received the gift of the challenge Morrison waged on behalf of literacy, learning, and language, and, to some degree, won. 

  * * *

I finally read my first Toni Morrison novel, Song of Solomon, at 16. Before then I breezed through every book I read for school or fun with a haughty ease, memorizing names and dates and the facts of plots in order to recite them back for tests. I do not know that anything before made me stretch and reach for my intelligence. The village in which the protagonist, Milkman, comes of age, the circle of women who surround him, the language they speak to each other, all had the texture of home. But Morrison’s experimentation with narrative and her conception of time — the gaps and dynamism that make a reader slow down  — were too much for tenth grade me to breezily absorb. It got better the second time; I could understand enough to talk about it. “That, my dear, is called reading,” Morrison said to Oprah when Winfrey phoned about adapting Beloved for the screen. I hadn’t known before then that if something did not come easy, I could struggle with it until it changed me. That it would be meaningful; I could be made myself by the struggle. Not an egoistic pursuit of struggle, not a flirtation with martyrdom or self-deprecation. But a grown-woman struggle made of will and a desire to extend myself. Reading is re-reading, trying means trying again.

There would be other lessons. Sula sees possibility in a matriarchal upbringing and pushes me to recommit to my own women friends. “My sister? I need her,” Morrison told the writer Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah during their time together. I am thinking of black women like my mother who rushed the bookstores and signings when Toni Morrison began publishing her own work in 1970, before she’d won any of the awards that signaled her significance to white America. I am thinking of the black women she shared the New York Times bestsellers’ list with, like Alice Walker and Terry McMillian, who, together, created a renaissance of black women’s fiction. I am thinking of the poet Sonia Sanchez, one of the early instructors to teach Morrison’s work in the university. I am thinking of the 48 signatories of the January 1988 open letter to the New York Times, published shortly after the publication of Beloved and fresh off the loss of James Baldwin, whose defiance helped write Toni Morrison’s work into posterity. I am thinking of the black women she wrote alongside (“Some of us thrived; some of us died,” she writes in a foreword to Sula), with whom she dreamed:

I was living in Queens while I wrote Sula, commuting to Manhattan to an office job, leaving my children to childminders and the public school in the fall and winter, to my parents in the summer, and was so strapped for money that the condition moved from debilitating stress to hilarity. Every rent payment was an event; every shopping trip a triumph of caution over the restless caution of a staple. The best news was that this was the condition of every other single / separated female parent I knew. The things we traded! Time, food, money, clothes, laughter, memory—and daring. Daring especially, because in the late sixties, with so many dead, detained, or silenced, there could be no turning back simply because there was no “back” back there. Cut adrift, so to speak, we found it possible to think up things, try things, explore. Use what was known and tried and investigate what was not. Write a play, form a theater company, design clothes, write fiction unencumbered by other people’s expectations. Nobody was minding us, so we minded ourselves. 

Morrison’s passing is an enormous loss. She was a singular writer and editor with a complex body of work, a rigorous, unwieldy mind who wrote and thought us toward a more capacious humanity. She defies any impulse toward summary. She taught us what reading is, and will be teaching it into all the futures we actually have. May we also remember the witnesses who saw her early on. 

For more on Toni Morrison, selected profiles, interviews, and tributes: 

“Ghosts in the House,” Hilton Als, The New Yorker, 2003

“Toni Morrison’s Truth,” Postscript Hilton Als, The New Yorker, 2019

“The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison,” Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, New York Times Magazine, 2015

Toni Morrison, The Art of Fiction No. 134, Elissa Schappell, with additional material from Claudia Brodsky Lacour, The Paris Review, 1993

Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, Magnolia Pictures, 2019

Angela Davis, Nikki Giovanni, and Sonia Sanchez Pay Tribute to Toni Morrison, Democracy Now!; TruthOut, 2019

Toni Morrison and What Our Mothers Couldn’t Say, Doreen St. Felix, The New Yorker, 2019

Toni Morrison’s Cosmos, Jesse McCarthy, The Nation, 2019

Toni Morrison and Nina Simone, United in Soul, Emily Lordi, The New Yorker, 2019

For more of Toni Morrison, a short story and selected essays: 

Recitif, (a short story), annotated, 1983

James Baldwin Eulogy: December, 1987

“The Site of Memory,” Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, ed. William Zinser, Houghton Mifflin, 1987 

Toni Morrison Nobel Lecture , 1993

“What the Black Woman Thinks About Women’s Lib,” New York Times, 1971

“On To Disneyland and the Unreal Reality,” New York Times, 1973

The Black Experience; A Slow Walk of Trees (as Grandmother Would Say) Hopeless (as Grandfather Would Say), New York Times, 1976

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Former Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Lauren Jamieson has announced she will be returning to THE CAMPUS

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Former Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer Lauren Jamieson has announced she will be returning to THE CAMPUS, Europe’s newest five-star multi-sport and wellness hub at Quinta do Lago in Portugal, this week to host another series of fun and engaging dance camps. Lauren will host the camps for juniors aged 8 - 16 years of age, over the summer holiday period from 9th - 12th July and 15th - 19th July.

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Lauren is preparing to return after her dance classes at Easter proved to be a huge success, with youngsters relishing the chance to learn from a professional dancer who has worked with the likes of Dua Lipa and appeared on television shows such as Strictly Come Dancing and the Brit Awards. Children attending Dance Camp will learn a variety of dance styles, routines and tricks, and use their creativity to develop their own dances. The camp will conclude with a final dance show for family and friends.

Lauren says:

"I loved every second of my time at The Campus and can't wait to return to and work with more enthusiastic kids in July this summer. The ethos of the class is to have fun and develop their dance skills and the smiles on all the faces confirmed we found the perfect balance last time.”

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Sean Moriarty, Chief Executive of Quinta do Lago, says the dance camps are a great addition to The Campus as Europe's premier multi-sport and wellness destination for family sports and activity holidays.

Sean says:

"Lauren is a great addition to our impressive list of high-profile ambassadors at The Campus who partner with us to create incredible experiences for young people. We look forward to having Lauren back in the dance studio after the successful camps at Easter."

Lauren Jamieson joins a line-up of high-profile stellar sports stars partnering with The Campus to offer a world class level of sports coaching and mentoring. Also set to return is former England and Manchester United football legend Rio Ferdinand.

LAUREN JAMIESON DANCE CAMPS

Lauren Jamieson camp from:

-      9th to 12th July & 15th to 19th July from 10:00 to 12:00.

Dinah Josephs camp from:

-      22nd to 26th July & 26th to 30th August from 14:00 to 16:00.

-      225€ per children.

-      For children aged 8 to 16. 

CHILDREN TAKING PART IN DANCE CAMP WILL

-      Learn a variety of dance styles, routines & tricks

-      Create dances on their own

-      Work together to create a final show

-      Perform to friends and family

-      Get a free T-shirt size

TO BOOK

-      Call us now on [phone] to book

-      email us [email protected]

-      More info at - www.quintadolago.com/en/the-campus/summer-camps/

Follow The Campus on their Socials

-      Twitter  - https://twitter.com/TheCampusQDL

-      Instagram   - www.instagram.com/thecampusqdl/

-      Facebook -  www.facebook.com/TheCampusQDL; 

-      YouTube - www.youtube.com/user/TheQuintadolagogolf/videos

ABOUT LAUREN JAMIESON

Lauren began dancing at the age of 15 at a local dance school that purely focused on street dance. She quickly began competing and at the age of 17, won UDO World Street Dance Championships.  After spending some time studying in Glasgow, Lauren moved to London on acceptance to The Urdang Academy where she trained for four years.

In her 4th year of training, she was very fortunate to experience the dance industry as well as continue her training. She danced on the opening of Strictly Come Dancing and was cast in the pantomime, Peter Pan as Tiger Lily and a dancer alongside a celebrity line up. 

Just before graduating in 2016, Lauren secured herself a once in a lifetime contract with Celebrity Cruises and for 9 months, travelled to 25 different countries as a dancer and aerialist.

Since returning to London in summer 2017, Lauren has danced for pop artists such as Dua Lipa, Mabel, Not3s, Steps and more. She has appeared on The Brit Awards, a Bollywood movie and worked for companies such as British Airways, Adidas, Apple and Wella.

Lauren is still working as a professional dancer, plus she has started her own business, ‘The Wedding Steps Company’, teaching couples their first wedding dance. She is also a qualified yoga instructor.

Lauren is currently in Abu Dhabi working towards the opening and closing ceremony of The Special Olympics. Lauren will be performing with a number of well-known artists in the coming weeks before heading to The Campus for Dance Camp.

Please see links to some of Lauren's recent dance videos on Instagram.

-        www.instagram.com/p/BiPtkGkHQ6X/?hl=en&taken-by=laurenjamiesonx

-        www.instagram.com/p/Bhe05D8nSA4/?hl=en&taken-by=laurenjamiesonx

-        www.instagram.com/p/Bd0rJFLFmUI/?hl=en&taken-by=laurenjamiesonx

ABOUT THE CAMPUS 

Built in the summer 2017, The Campus provides training, coaching and wellbeing programme to Quinta do Lago residents and guests alike. The sports and wellbeing resort and high performance training center catering for adults and juniors as well as elite professional athletes and teams. The Campus welcomes everyone - from future Olympic Games competitors through to amateur, grassroots and families enjoying a family sports holiday.

The Campus is located just 15 minutes from Faro airport and the resort offers guests an unparalleled location benefiting from a year-round temperate climate. The resort offers a variety of lifestyle and sporting pursuits, a strong sense of community and offers residents, guests and holiday makers alike the chance to train, exercise and socialise.

What’s on offer:

-      Stadium quality DESSO GrassMaster hybrid pitch

-      Technical area

-      High performance gymnasium

-      Centre for active living and sports medicine

-      Recovery suite including hot/cold plunge pools and sauna and steam rooms

-      Studios for cycle and group exercise

-      Stadium specification locker room

-      Team rooms with high tech analysis capability

-      25m heated indoor swimming pool

-      Four acrylic tennis courts

-      Two synthetic clay tournament specification tennis courts

-      Four padel courts with shock pad features

-      The Bike Shed – a hub for cycling

-      Dano's Sports Bar & Restaurant

ABOUT THE MAGNOLIA HOTEL

Guests can stay at The Magnolia Hotel, situated on the doorstep of The Campus and Quinta do Lago resort. It has a range of accommodation including 74 boutique rooms, three suites and seven cottages.   The rooms have been recently been fully refurbished and the five-star service will help guests unwind and destress at the end of their day.

The Magnolia Hotel offers a beautiful heated outdoor pool and the pool area is at the heart of the hotel. Guests can also visit the spa and holistic rooms and reconnect with mind and body.

For guests that are feeling energetic and in need of a good stretch then there is a fully equipped gym with premium quality equipment. The experienced personal trainers are available to help guests work out. There’s a shuttle bus service to The Campus for all guests too.

ABOUT QUINTA DO LAGO 

Synonymous with elegance and privacy, Quinta do Lago is an exclusive golf and residential estate of nearly 2,000 acres bordering the Atlantic Ocean and nestled within the privacy and security of the Ria Formosa nature reserve.  

Quinta do Lago is one of the most desired resorts in Europe and allows you to live an active outdoor lifestyle all year round, offering real estate plots between deserted dunes, sheltered pines, breath-taking beaches surrounded by three award-winning golf courses.

Since its inception, Quinta do Lago has been at the forefront of European golf with three award-winning championship courses matched by outstanding practice facilities including

Europe’s only Paul McGinley Golf Academy and the only Taylor Made Performance Centre in Southern Europe. 

Among its recent accolades, the resort was voted ‘Europe’s Best Golf Venue’ at the 2015 and 2016 World Golf Awards. Quinta do Lago has enjoyed the honour of hosting eight Portuguese Opens as well as numerous other international golf tournaments and its world-class golf facilities are some of the best anywhere in the world.

Away from the fairways, Quinta do Lago now adds to its portfolio extensive state-of-the art leisure and racquets facilities guaranteed to keep families occupied with regular tennis and padel tennis events,  cycling tours of the West Coast, family bike trips, a wide range of water, beach and lake sports as well as cultural and nature trips. 

The resort’s stunning location by the beach offers the perfect place to relax and unwind while its wide array of restaurants, both formal and informal, take advantage of the fresh Mediterranean produce that the resort has become famous for. 

Sports, fitness and wellbeing activities

-      Padel - www.thecampusqdl.com/en/padel/

-      Cycling  - www.thecampusqdl.com/en/cycle/

-      Tennis - www.thecampusqdl.com/en/tennis/

-      Fitness - www.thecampusqdl.com/en/fitness/

-      Wellness - www.thecampusqdl.com/en/wellness/

-      Dano's restaurant  - www.quintadolago.com/en/restaurants/danos/

-      The Magnolia Hotel - http://themagnoliahotelqdl.com 

-      Quinta do Lago villas – www.quintadolago.com/en/rentals/properties-to-rent/

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