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readyplayerhobi · 4 years

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Flower | 30

; Hoseok x Reader

; Genre: Angst, fluff

; Warnings: Discussions of sex, questions of consent (no rape, don’t worry), body issues, body weight issues, self-esteem problems, self-confidence issues, brief mention of self-harm thoughts, mentions of bullying

; Word Count: 4.2k

; Synopsis: You finally decide to take a dip into the world of online dating and find the Flower dating app. One of the top matches for you proves to be a guy who looks to be your complete opposite; tattooed, pierced, a metalhead and oh…incredibly handsome. What happens when you throw caution to the wind and reach out to him?

; A/N: This chapter is one pretty close to me and might be tough for anyone else who’s also overweight or has been overweight during those tough times in school! Don’t worry about the MC, she’s okay. There’s no rape, the consent thing is briefly mentioned as a question. Please reblog this if you enjoyed so others can read, leave me comments or asks so I can know what you think :) only 10 more chapters left...

; Flower Masterpost

Giggling quietly to yourself, you scroll through the pictures on your phone carefully. It takes you forever to finally move onto the next one as you feel the need to carefully scan over each one in depth to catch all the little things. There’s so much to find in each picture and you spend as long as you can looking them over in amusement, grinning at the odd fashion choices.

“What are you laughing at?” Hoseok asks, coming over from the kitchen with a fresh glass of water for you and a cup of peppermint tea for himself. He’d only been home from work for about ten minutes while you’d been home for over half an hour now. Taking a sip from your glass, you smirk at him slightly as he sits next to you with a deep sigh.

Tiredness is etched into his face today, the dark circles under his eyes a little deeper than usual. He’d been struggling to sleep lately for some reason, waking up repeatedly apparently. Reaching over, you gently cup his cheek and stroke his skin softly, enjoying the welcome smile he gives before you turn your phone around to let him see.

“Interesting hair. How many jars of hair gel did you go through when you were a teenager?” You tease him, watching as his eyes widen when he realises what the photo is. It’s of Hoseok when he was a teenager; maybe fourteen or fifteen and with what looks like a bucket of grease on his head. The spikes of his hair turn quickly into an overly long hairstyle in the next picture, straightened but with a distinctive fringe covering one eye.

“You had an emo phase! Look at you! All that eyeliner and those neon streaks. I never had an emo phase, you know. I don’t think I had any phase to be honest. Except for a horse phase when I was really young.” Hoseok goes to grab for your phone, his mouth pulled into a cringe as you scroll to the next picture and reveal yet another emo looking Hoseok with an abundance of sweatbands, colourful wristbands and more. He looked distinctly drunk, even though he can’t have been more than sixteen.

It’s so strange seeing Hoseok with slightly chubbier cheeks, his body gangly and lean in that teenage boy way as it went through the process of puberty while his face still maintained such a youthful look. Despite that, you can see the template for the statuesque face he’d end up with already in the pictures. The elegant slope of his nose was still pretty, even if he’d not quite grown into it at that point and a jawline that’s not quite as strong as it is now.

“Mom sent you this, didn’t she?” He groans, rubbing at his eyes before peering back at the phone through gaps between his fingers. Chortling softly, you shake your head before looking back at the screen.

“No, actually. She put them on her Facebook. Apparently she found the pictures while cleaning and scanned them in. Reminiscing about your wild years.” That makes Hoseok make the strangest noise, a combination of a groan and a shout. He’s looking at his own phone instantly, face palming when he sees the pictures.

“Moooom,” He whines pathetically, looking through them. You place your phone down on the coffee table and shuffle closer to him, letting yourself see the photos through his screen. Glancing at his face, you take in his slight frown and the pout of his lips, hoping he’s not too annoyed that his mom has put them up.

“Are you angry at her?” Shaking his head, he sighs deeply before letting his phone drop onto the table too.

“Not really. Just...it’s more embarrassing. Though, isn’t that her job at this age? As you can see through; I’ve always been good looking. Maybe not always with the best style admittedly but...at least the music is still great. My Chemical Romance remains one of the best bands in my opinion, even if they’re not as heavy as what I listen to now.” Rolling your eyes, you pull your legs up and rest a hand on your knee.

“I mean...it was certainly a style.”

“So come on then, I’ve shown you mine. Where’s your embarrassing teenage pics?” Hoseok teases, sticking his tongue out at you playfully. The silver ball of his tongue piercing catching the light momentarily before it disappears into his mouth once more.

Awkwardly, you smile back at him before shrugging slightly. The sudden change in your behaviour is obviously noticeable as Hoseok frowns, tilting his head in a silent question at you. Licking your lips, you realise that you’re playing with your fingers. A nervous habit.

“I don’t have any,” At the confusion Hoseok shows, you clear your throat. “I mean, outside of graduation photos. I...I wouldn’t let myself be photographed back then.”

“Wha-, seriously? Like...none? I don’t think my parents would have let me, even as grumpy as I was to them all the time.” You can understand why he doesn’t understand. There’s not many people you can think of who have near enough zero pictures of those years. For many teenagers today, the very idea of not having a million pictures might be unthinkable.

“Have you ever been overweight?” You ask quietly, the question seemingly random as you lean into him until he has to wrap his arm around you to make it comfortable. For a moment, he doesn’t respond. Being with him for well over a year now means that you’ve come to understand him, the knowledge that he’s not ignoring you but considering your question carefully.

“No. Can’t say I have.” He finally answers, running his fingers along your arm slowly.

Twisting your lips, you sigh heavily and let your head fall back against his shoulders as you let your mind wander back to when you were younger. Back to where your insecurities began, all those years ago. Swallowing hard, you decide to go ahead with it. You’d alluded to it enough and now felt like the right time to finally talk about your formative years.

But your breath stutters, throat closing tighter as you realise it’s hard to go back to then. To when you were so easily hurt and affected by everything. Even in the safety of Hoseok’s embrace, you felt the tremor of fear and anxiety as your memories came back tainted.

“I have. I mean, when I was a little kid, I was like a stick. I could eat whatever I wanted and I used to spend so much time running around having fun. We don’t have too many pictures from back then; my parents couldn’t really afford a camera. Occasionally they’d get a disposable one but that’s about it. But...when I hit puberty around twelve or thirteen...I just kind of, ballooned? I don’t think I even realised it at the time, but it’s like my metabolism just plummeted or something. And before I knew it...I was the fat kid in class.” The heat in your eyes tells you that you’re on the verge of crying and you take a moment to breathe, blinking hard before looking up at the ceiling.

Hoseok remains quiet, letting you tell him without interrupting or anything.

“I mean...no one outright bullied me or anything, you know? It wasn’t like in the movies where you’re getting beaten up or shoved into lockers. It was more...the comments, the looks and just the general knowledge that you’re not attractive. Teenagers are really good at making those sly comments that are so hurtful, especially when you’re so young and still finding yourself. It’d be like...we’d be watching something and a pig would turn up on the screen and somebody would snicker and say it was me. Or someone else would joke about dating me and...I could just tell that it was an insult. And that their reasoning was my weight.” The arm around you tightens suddenly, as if hearing the casual cruelty you’d endured had ignited Hoseok’s protective instincts.

Memories flit by in your mind as you recall incidents; someone in your class finding out your crush and spreading that you liked them. Their disbelieving snort as they looked you up and down, their eyes falling heavily on your stomach before saying it would never happen. Without even realising it, you’re cradling your stomach now. Still not flat like you’d always fantasised, but not like it used to be.

You didn’t hate it now at least. Never loved, but not hated anymore.

“That...that sticks with you. Something I’m not too sure people realise is that, like, when you’re overweight...you’re constantly aware of it. It’s not just your body, it’s your life. It is you. There’s this weird mentality that people think overweight folk don’t know it, that you’re oblivious. You’re never oblivious. You’re not allowed to be oblivious. People make sure you’re aware, you know? The people telling you it’s unhealthy or it’s ugly and stuff. If you’re overweight, you’re well aware of these issues. But trying to resolve them is just as hard. You go to the gym and you’re aware of all the fat rolls, the way you jiggle and roll. How you’re out of breath doing the simplest thing while super fit people are probably watching you in disgust, even though you’re there to get fit,”

“If you eat, then you feel uncomfortably aware that you’re not just eating. That you’re fat and eating. So you become self-conscious over food. If it’s something healthy like a salad then you just think everyone is laughing at you. ‘What’s she bothering with that for?’. If it’s unhealthy then it’s more like, ‘of course she’s eating that, the lard ass’. You’re hyper aware of every aspect of your life and that’s the worst thing. Just...being so aware. You’re convinced that everyone is judging you, staring at you or talking about you. I felt so many times when I was like, fifteen or sixteen that I just...took up more space than I should.” Wiping at your eyes, you sniff before looking at Hoseok and giving him a watery smile.

The concern on his face for you makes your heart swell, the knowledge that he’s listening to you openly. That he cares. Even if you’re exposing a part of you that you’ve never let anyone see. Not even Chungha or Soyeon. It had felt far too personal, something that they couldn’t understand.

“It’s like...everyone has a certain amount of space they’re allowed to have, but when you’re fat, you realise that you take up more. And you become so aware that other people don’t like that. That they’re disgusted by the idea, and you become afraid of things like...sitting on a seat in a bus because you’re terrified of spreading past your ‘space’. Or sliding through a small gap and the panic that you’re just being...too much. I’d always try and run to the school bus when class finished so that I could find a seat first. And I’d always let the other person sit next to the window so that I could hang as close to the edge as possible and get off quickly. Then I’d panic that I’d look disgusting to others, half-hanging off the seat. I just...it affects you. Mentally. You just do things differently because you’re always aware of your body. In negative ways,”

“I’d never go swimming with anyone else. Mandatory swim classes left me panicked because it meant people would see me. See all the lumps and the bumps, everything I hated. I’d never look at myself naked in the mirror, or even in my underwear because I hated it. I was disgusted. I used to fantasise about just...slicing off bits of me to make myself nice and thin. I don’t even know if that’s normal.” Your voice breaks slightly, going slightly hoarse as you recall the pure hatred and revulsion you’d felt for yourself back then. The way your body felt like a cage you were trapped in.

Sitting up straight again, you take a deep breath to fortify yourself before smiling at him gently. Taking his hand, you squeeze it for reassurance and feel comforted when he squeezes back.

“I hated myself. Didn’t ever think I was going to be anything amazing. Or that I’d ever fall in love. How could anyone fall in love with me when I hated myself, right? When I was seventeen, I finally took the plunge and joined this free gym. Started eating healthier. It was really hard. I hated it so much. Vomited everywhere from the exercise, cried a lot. I wanted to lose weight healthily though, not too fast otherwise I’d end up thin but with skin flaps. So it was gradual. I wasn’t hugely overweight thankfully, but I only felt finally happy when I was nineteen.” Now you laugh at yourself, rolling your eyes and poking at your stomach in amusement before kissing Hoseok’s cheek playfully.

He doesn’t laugh back, causing you to kiss him gently. A silent way of letting him know that you’re okay, that it’s okay for him to laugh and smile too. When you pull away, he hesitates for a moment before giving you a slightly awkward smile. It’s enough for you.

“That’s why I didn’t have any experience until college. I was nineteen when I met Chungha and Soyeon in class. They were like...these ridiculously beautiful girls who were so confident and full of life, you know? Partygoers and everything. And I wasn’t. But somehow, we found things in common and it’s like...they knew I needed encouragement. So, it was slow but...I did stuff. I went to the parties...hated them just as much as I thought I would. Finally kissed a guy; wasn't as good as I thought it’d be. Lost my virginity to a random guy at a party in some house when I was twenty. Also wasn’t that good. The extent of my dating life was a few guys who didn’t last long. Both in terms of relationship and sex.” You grin at Hoseok, wiggling your brows and causing him to chuckle in amusement.

His chest gets a little bigger as he pushes it up, a smug look on his face. “All those memories obviously pale in comparison to my amazing kissing and sex skills.”

Snorting, you push at him playfully before reaching up and pulling him down, hand resting on the short undercut hair on his neck as you bring him into a kiss. Hoseok obviously wants to prove his skills, kissing you a little more intense than you’d expected but you just laugh into it before pulling away and smiling at him happily.

“Well...I’m not going to say you’re wrong. It did kind of depress me a little that it seemed guys were only interested when I was a bit thinner but, I also felt a weird sense of pride. That I’d finally done it. Gotten what I thought I’d wanted. Until I realised I hated that whole scene and wanted nothing to do with it. So...I just kept myself as in shape as I could over the years and tried to come to terms with myself. As you know...I’m not quite there. But I’m better than I was, I promise. I just feel a little bad that I was convinced being thin would change things. It changes some stuff but...not everything.”

You can tell that Hoseok isn’t entirely sure what to say. It isn’t surprising really, you wouldn’t have any idea how to respond to someone telling you all these sad things they’d experienced either. But then again, you were just generally useless when it came to anyone else’s emotions and feelings.

When he does finally speak again, his question surprises you completely as it seems to have nothing to do with what you’d just been telling him.

“Did you drink alcohol back then? I know you don’t drink it now because you don’t like the taste but if you went to parties…” He trails off, his face twisted in question as he considers what you’ve said. It was true that you didn’t like the taste, hence why you never drank it. You also just preferred to drink something like water as it was much healthier for you.

“I did. Too much. When I started going to them, I threw myself into the alcohol as it helped me to overcome my shyness. A drunk me is apparently very outgoing. I also have very little inhibitions when I’m drunk. Pretty sure the only reason I first kissed a guy was because I was completely fucked. And I’d drank a lot when I lost my virginity; there was no other way I was going to get naked in front of a guy.” You don’t notice the instant concern on Hoseok’s face when you say that, your gaze far away as you stare unseeingly at the TV screen.

You’re too busy remembering those wild years in college. Or what you can remember anyway. Another reason you hated alcohol was the way you didn’t feel in control of yourself and your emotions while inebriated along with the way you often end up forgetting parts of a night. Why anyone could possibly enjoy that all the time was beyond you.

“You...I hate to have to ask this but...you did...consent to it. Right? It wasn’t like...forced on you?” Hoseok sounds intensely uncomfortable as he asks the questions, causing you to frown as you look back at him. “I just...if you were really as drunk as you say you were, then I mean, well, I just...I wouldn’t have been comfortable sleeping with a girl who would only sleep with me if she was completely inebriated.”

He shifts in position on the couch, bringing a knee up so only one foot remains on the floor while taking your hands. The look on his face is completely earnest and filled with worry. For you. And you finally click as to what he’s talking about. Hoseok is concerned that you may have been raped for your first time.

Smiling at him gently, you squeeze his hands and shake your head. “No, no baby. Please don’t think that, I swear. It was consensual. I wasn’t that drunk. Just...enough to let me get over my worries. I needed the alcohol for the confidence and the lights off. I remember it all though. He wasn’t good but he wasn’t mean or anything either.”

His worry seems to decrease a little, shoulders lowering as he lets out a deep breath and you marvel for a moment that you’ve found someone who gets worried about things like that. Things that you hadn’t even bothered to properly consider. If you hadn’t been completely sure in the knowledge of your first time then you’d be concerned as well.

Leaning forward, you kiss his cheek affectionately before grinning at him and cupping his chin. “Thank you for being concerned about me though. I promise, I’ve never been forced into anything like that. I may not have enjoyed a lot of sex but I did it openly in the hopes of it getting better.”

Hoseok’s cheeks flush ever so slightly and you laugh sweetly, kissing his lips quickly before shifting back. Leaning against the couch sideways, you let your head flop onto the back and smile at him.

“So, yeah. That’s why I have no pictures of me from being a teenager. If you thought I don’t like being photographed now, then you’d be shocked to see me back then.” There’s a moment where Hoseok is stiff, unsure of what to do before he smiles back and shifts into a similar position, his head closer than you might have anticipated.

But you get the sense that he’s a little uncertain of how to proceed now.

So you make the move for him, gently pushing at him until he’s laying on the couch. The L-shape means he’s at the point the two halves connect, one half completely free except for Kasumi stretched out. But you want the safety and security of his body. Not only for yourself, but also to comfort him. Even if he hasn’t said it, you can tell he’s a little unsettled by your negative feelings towards yourself.

Hoseok let’s you move him with ease, smiling happily when you get yourself settled and comfortable. His natural scent is strongest at the base of his neck, and you inhale it happily while your arm rests over his waist. Even if you’d talked about your deep and painful teenage years as willingly as you could to him, it was still traumatic to remember. And you needed your own comfort to assure yourself that those years were over.

“Well, I don’t think you’d have wanted to meet teenage Hoseok. So it's probably a good idea we never knew each other.” Humming, you recall all the times Hoseok has told you about his own teenage years. Unlike you, he was much more open about them. Mainly because he acknowledged how bad he’d been.

“I doubt it would have mattered anyway. From what I’ve learnt from you, teenage Hoseok wouldn’t have given me one look. Nevermind two looks.” There’s a brief pause and you feel Hoseok’s chest rise as he goes to respond. He stops though and you chuckle, running your fingers along the soft material of his shirt over his stomach.

“...you might have got one look. I mean, I’ll be honest. I wasn’t exactly picky but that’s not a good thing. Just means I was an out of control teenager. Besides, it sounds like you were very shy and quiet. I was...not. Loud, brash, abrasive. Often drunk and high. God, I was terrible. I don’t know how my parents put up with me, honestly. I wouldn’t have wanted you to meet me. I’d have just hurt you even more.” Humming, you wiggle against him slightly and kiss his neck gently.

“I’m glad we met when we did. I think we’d both had enough time to grow and accept ourselves. There’s no way I would have reached out to you if I was still like my teenage self. And I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t have said yes if you’d been like you were.”

“True. Three cheers for maturity! But on a more serious note; I’m glad you’ve told me. I figured there was something along those lines after all these months but...I understand more now. I hope I haven’t made you feel uncomfortable or embarrassed.” Closing your eyes, you nuzzled closer to him while shaking your head.

“You haven’t. At least, not through anything you’ve done. It’s mostly been in my head. If anything...you’ve helped me to grow and become more...loving of myself. Just you accepting me has helped so much for my mind to understand that...well, I’m not ugly or anything. That you’re not judging me. And that you actually find me attractive. It’s a slow process.” You feel the press of Hoseok’s soft lips against your forehead, their warmth resting there for a few moments while the arm wrapped around you gently runs along your arm.

The very fact that you can talk with him like this is pure proof of the growth you’ve experienced over almost a year and a half with Hoseok. Just his welcome acceptance and love of you has created a safe space for you to explore yourself and grow comfortable in your own skin and mind. It was nice.

“I’m glad. And if I ever do anything that’s wrong, then please tell me. The last thing I want is to be an asshole by accident. Or remind you of a bad time.” Laughing gently, you smile and nod before tightening your arms around his waist fondly.

“I mean...I’m still considering the whole lingerie thing. Especially those super revealing ones. I’d love to wear one but I just...don’t think I look sexy in them.” Pouting, you shift as Hoseok moves until he’s looking at you with wide eyes that quickly become stern. Poking your cheek gently, he tuts.

“I’m not gonna push you into that, but there’s literally no way you wouldn’t look sexy wearing black lace lingerie. Oh god. Just the thought of you in it makes me hard. But for now, I’m content with my mind for that.” The way he presses his hips against you lets you know that he’s being truthful, the mental image of you in the lingerie you’d bought on a whim the other month causing the erection that presses against you.

Grinning, you push at him until he’s laying back again and crawl on top of him, raising your brows. “I think you just get horny at the thought of sex full stop.”

“Well...duh. I’m a man. With a beautiful girlfriend. Whom I enjoy sex with.” Laughing loudly, you lean down and kiss his nose playfully. The whine he lets out when he tries to follow you for a proper kiss causes you to grin as you press at his shoulders, holding him in place.

“Glad to hear it.”

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snovaness · 4 years

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A Letter

A letter part two

Part one

You should have kept in touch with him. It’s not like you didn’t want to but life got really busy and if you were being honest the time zone difference didn’t help at all. Eventually the messages grew scarce until there were no messages at all. The only reason you knew anything about him was through social media. His Instagram had gotten a flood of new followers ever since he joined MSBY team. People thirsted after him which you thought was strange considering you still saw him as college friend Usa-Chan. His life seemed so exciting while you had graduated school over 3 months ago and still hadn’t found a job.

You felt your phone vibrate and saw it was a notification from Instagram. Opening up the app you see a message from a guy named Atsumu Miya. His messaged read: hey I know you don’t know who I am but I’m Sakusa’s teammate. I am messaging you on behalf of the MSBY Black jackals team because as you know Omi’s birthday is in a week. I’m sorry that this is really short notice but we only recently found out about you being Omi’s best friend two days ago due to the drunken state Sakusa ended up in. The team is willing to purchase your ticket from where ever you are currently and fly you out to Japan. The team has a party planned for him but when we found out that you haven’t seen each other in over 2 years we thought that bringing you out to see him would be a great gift for him. Plus it would be something he actually would like compared to anything else we could get him. Please let me know as soon as you can so our manager can book your ticket. I hope you’re able to join us.

Seeing Kiyoomi again was something you hoped you’d be able to do the first few months after you left Japan but ever since the two of you grew apart you assumed it wouldn’t happen. Would he even be excited to see you? I mean a free trip to Japan sounds nice plus you could visit some of your other friends that you made there. You didn’t really have anything going on currently besides the occasional nanny job. “Fuck it I’m going to accept!”

Hello Atsumu,

I really appreciate this opportunity and I would love to take it but I have to be honest with you, Sakusa and I haven’t really talked to each other in over a year so I’m not too sure if he would be excited to see me. If the offer still stands despite this I am prepared to go at any moment. If not I still appreciate you reaching out to me. I wish your team the best of luck and it was really nice to meet you!

You didn’t expect a reply right away yet again your phone began to vibrate but this time it was from a video call. Well now you knew Atsumu was bold because he was about to video chat with a complete stranger. Without really thinking about it you set your phone against the cereal box and answered the call. You noticed a tuft of orange hair I’m the background as Atsumu sets the phone down. You panicked slightly when you began to hear their fast paced Japanese. Of course you knew they would speak Japanese but considering the message that was sent to you was in English the thought escaped your mind.

“Sorry if my Japanese isn’t the best also I’m in my pajamas because it’s currently 8 in the morning for me.” “Oh no worries! We just wanted to kinda meet you so that way you feel more comfortable around us.” A confused look settled onto your face but then 2 other guys came into the frame. “Hi! I’m bokuto!” “I’m Hinata!” “We’re all teammates with Omi Omi” you let out a slight snort. “You guys call him Omi Omi? I bet he hates that. I can just image the look on his face of pure disgust.” The guys chuckled “that’s the exact look he gave us at first but he’s use to the name now. Anyways I read your message that you guys aren’t really in contact anymore and we know that. He was really drunk a couple nights ago after we won our last match of the season and he mentioned how he wish you guys had better communication but the time difference made things difficult. Our manager will probably contact you tomorrow morning Tokyo time which I’m sure will probably be evening for you. But we’re thinking flying you out two days before Omi’s birthday which gives you one day of traveling and another for resting before the party. We want to see the face he makes when he sees you at the party, which is semi formal by the way.” You spoke to the guys for about an hour going over the details of the trip.

You felt the excitement bubble up in your chest as you saw the familiar scenes of the Tokyo airport. Atsumu himself had come to pick you up with the other two volleyball players. “How was your flight!” Hinata questioned. “It was amazing! You guys didn’t have to get me first class seats! I slept for about half of the flight it was so comfortable. I’m really grateful that you guys did this. Sakusa really has some amazing friends.” You had gotten to Japan the day before the party and even though you have bought enough clothes for a week your craving to shop for Japanese fashion took over. “I’m sure you guys are probably busy today but would any of you like to join me? I want to go shopping.”

You had an enjoyable day with Hinata who was the only one that could join you for your shipping trip. You had even picked up a few gifts for Sakusa himself. Staring at the gift bag that help the pink plush you smiled to yourself. Tomorrow you would be attending the party and would be seeing Kiyoomi after two years. A mix of excitement and fear began to rise in your chest similar to how it did when you arrived at the airport.

The party was in full swing by the time you arrived with Atsumu. Your hands slightly sweaty from the nerves. You noticed the tuft of black curls across the room and Atsumu warned you to hide from Sakusas view until it was time. “Omi Omi! Happy birthday! I’m glad you actually decided to come to your own party. I got you the best gift you could ask for!” Atsumu handed him a decorative bag that held the plush you purchased the day before. As Sakusa pulled out the bunny you made your way to stand behind him. “Sumu why did you buy me a pink bunny?” You put your hand on his shoulder “Now don’t tell me that you forgot all about your nickname Usa-Chan” the look on his face was pure shock.

“I- is this real? How did you know about all this?” He pulled you into a hug “Atsumu actually messaged me on Instagram and said it was a team gift for your birthday to invite me since you know it’s been a little over two years.” He gave you a big smile “well your Japanese has gotten better. Plus your hair is different now but I won’t lie I already knew that from Instagram. Looking at you is like I’m in a dream right now because I never expected you to be in front of me again.” He placed a hand on your cheek “well you know me I’m a sucker for romance so I had to come back after that letter you wrote me” his face turned into a light shade of pink “ahh yeah the letter I wrote you when you left... we never talked about that so I thought you never got it”

For the rest of the party you hung around Sakusa and his teammates, Komori even spoke to you for a while. As the night went on all you could think about is how everything felt like it was normal, it was as if nothing had changed. Unfortunately, many things had changed since those college years. You still haven’t found a job while Sakusa was successful volleyball player. The two of you were on different paths in life. Your smile began to fade into a frown. Many thoughts burned into your mind ‘You shouldn’t have come to Japan’ ‘Sakusa forgot about you there was no reason to be here’.

“Hey what’s eating you up?” “I just feel a little out of place with all these successful people around me” Usa-chan’s laugh vibrated through the room as you spoke to Atsumu. “What do you mean? Omi Omi said you were studying to be in sports medicine isn’t that pretty successful?” You let out a sigh “It would be if I could find a job but it’s been a rough few months since I graduated. I was supposed to work with a soccer team in Spain but that didn’t go through since my Spanish wasn’t advanced enough. My only option is going to be in English speaking countries I guess.” You noticed a grin grow on Atsumu’s face. “You know I happen to know a team that is in need of a physical therapist. Hey Omi! I think I found the perfect person for our little Japan team problem”

You sucked in a deep breath when Kiyoomi made his way over to the two of you. “What Japan team problem?” There was a wiggle in Atsumu’s brows that looked troublesome. “We aren’t supposed to say anything yet but last week we got selected as official players for Japan’s Olympic volleyball team and I heard that the usual physical therapist they hire is retiring. I’m sure Omi and I can pull some strings.” “Wait did you even give her an option? You don’t even know if she wants to move to Japan. You can’t expect her to just pack up her life and move to a whole different country especially when a stranger is asking her too.”

“I would be willing if you asked me Kiyoomi. If you told me right now to apply for a visa for the Japan olympic team I would.” Pink began to tint his cheeks but you weren’t sure if he was blushing or if the alcohol had finally begun to take its affect on him. “Y/n we haven’t seen each other in 2 years it would be stupid for you to do that. I mean I’m sure you have offers back at ho-“ “No I don’t have any offers. I’ve been a part time nanny for my parents neighbors for 3 months now. Usa-chan… do you still feel the way you did when you wrote me that letter? I need to know if coming back here was a mistake.” There was an awkward silence which was Atsumu’s cue to leave the two of you alone on the balcony of the ball room that was rented out. “I thought I moved on. I even went out on dates with other people but I just kept thinking about that time we almost kissed in my car. I haven’t been able to escape from your grasp. Listen if you really want to move back to Japan… if you want to move here for me I can talk to the teams management.” He placed his hands on both sides of your face “I regret not keeping up with you I hope you know that Y/n” you nodded slightly “I regret never kissing you that night in the car.”

“I can fix that if you want.” Your eyes fluttered shut as the feeling of his lips began to graze over yours. All in one swift movement he pulled your face towards him to deepen the kiss. His mouth tasted of champagne and it began to feel intoxicating. He pulled away but you kept your eyes shut a few moments longer. Finally when you opened them you spoke. “ I never wanted to leave Japan in the first place. If I have the opportunity to stay here with you and find a job I would take it in a heartbeat. He smiled down at you. “Stay at my place tonight and I’ll make the call tomorrow morning.”

The next few days felt like an alternate reality. There you were in an interview for your paperwork to live in Japan with the lawyer of the Japanese olympic volleyball team, next you were heading back home to pack and great rid of somethings you would no longer need, and finally you were moving into your own apartment near the gym for the Olympic Games. With Kiyoomi’s hand in yours you walked into the gym together greeting all your new coworkers who would quickly become some of your best friends.

#sakusa #haikyuu sakusa #sakusa kiyoomi #sakusa x reader #sakusa x you #kiyoomi #kiyoomi sakusa x reader #hq kiyoomi #kiyoomi fluff #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyū!!#haikyuu x reader

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hauntedbythefanficsofmypast · 4 years

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Raise Your Voice Against Liars

By BeeTeeDubya14 & Naruwitch On Archive of Our Own

@thebigpapilio asked me if I accepted submissions and I do! This is a Miraculous + Persona 5 crossover, that they have been working on with their friend! While I don't actually know Persona 5, I read over the first chapter and found it very interesting! I thought for sure you'd all enjoy it as much as I did! So here is the first chapter! If you like it please go on to Archive of Our Own and give them some love!!

"We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin."

-Andre Berthiaume

Chapter 1: L'Interrogatoire

Sae leaned back, puzzled by what the prisoner just said, “So the Phantom Thieves only stole the heart of Futaba Sakura…? And Medjed was in turn defeated by her real-world hacking abilities…? Well, this does correlate to the facts as we know them…”

Sae grew quiet, and her next sentence was mostly to herself, though she said it aloud. “If he’s telling the truth, then Wakaba Isshiki didn’t commit suicide… did a third party target her life with the goal of destroying her research? Wakaba’s death was two years ago… that also coincides with when the incidents started occurring… does this other Metaverse user that Madarame and Kaneshiro mentioned… really exist…?”

With a frown, she shook her head before turning her attention back to the captive, “Earlier I mentioned those psychotic breakdown incidents that have alarmed the public. All of a sudden, people will lose consciousness, or become violent… A situation as incomprehensible as that can’t be explained away as ‘troubled social conditions.’ I suspect that these cases are all connected to a larger, man-made plot. The method involved always muddled the explanation, but your story has virtually confirmed its viability. Although, I wouldn’t have expected a new criminal to come to light from your testimony…” Sae leaned closer to the prisoner, “What did your group think of this other Metaverse user?”

“You mean the true criminal?” he questioned.

Sae scoffed, “How self-centered of you. The Phantom Thieves tamper with people’s hearts without asking consent. How is that different?”

Sighing, Sae then continued to focus on the prisoner. “Well… no matter how you thought of them, there can be no doubting your resolve. Are those incidents because of you or someone else…? Either way, I will get to the bottom of this.”

Sae shook her head, and pulled out her briefcase again, “Now let’s move on to your next crime.” She pulled out a folder, just as she had the last four times and laid it in front of the teenager, “Lila Nikenna Rossi. An Italian student who was studying at Collège Françoise Dupont in Paris, France. This is the first known report of the Phantom Thieves targeting someone outside of Japan. Your testimony regarding this incident will be serious. I’m sure you understand why. Not only is she your first foreign target, but also the youngest target out of all that the Phantom Thieves have changed the heart of. Answer me carefully. Why did you go after her?”

Despite all the grogginess afflicting him, Akira Kurusu managed to faintly grin.

“We owed some good people a favor.”

Chapter 2: Wake up, Get up, Get Out (Of) There

"Are you sure you're going to be okay in Hawaii, Marinette?"

"Yes, Luka, I'll be fine," Marinette smiled as she pulled her luggage off the security belt.

"Remember, if you need to talk, at any time, please do it, okay? I don't care if it's 2 AM over here. If you need-"

"Luka, you're treating me like a child," Marinette said bluntly, but no heat was behind it.

The guitarist gasped on the other line, "No, no! That's not what I was implying, I just-"

Marinette giggled. That's one of the things she really liked about Luka. "That overprotective attitude isn't going to change anytime soon, is it?" That said, although there were times where he went a little overboard, he usually knew Marinette's limits. It seemed that he needed a small reminder before she departed for her flight, though.

Ever since Chloe's stunt as Miracle Queen, she and Luka had been dating steadily for several months. After Adrien had made it official with Kagami, Marinette struggled to move on and accept that it was better to simply be friends with the model. She, of course, didn't want to use the older Couffaine as a fallback guy, and she had made that clear to him shortly before they made it official too, but… Luka had been there for her when no one else was. She had been in a dark place, and there seemed to be no way out. But Luka provided the light she needed to find the exit.

As for Chloe herself? Well… once word got out about Hawkmoth's near victory, and Chloe's involvement with it, many citizens and even government officials spoke out against the mayor and other members of his staff for action to be taken. The incident with the metro tunnel was also brought up, as Chloe was never adequately punished for intentionally endangering so many people. Mayor Bourgeois, to appease the masses, was forced to send Chloe away to a boarding school in Sweden, at least until Hawkmoth was finally dealt with. That's where she'd been for the past five months, and Marinette hadn't heard from the blonde since.

She shook her head, ridding herself of such thoughts before they could fester. She was going to Hawaii for crying out loud! And she was going to have a blast! Nothing was going to change that. Not Hawkmoth, not Lila, and her lies, nothing would get in her way of having a fun time.

The thought of Hawkmoth had her hand subconsciously wander to her purse, where Tikki and Kaalki were situated. She was so lucky (heh, that would garner a laugh from Chat) that Kwamis didn't show up on cameras, much less on airport security x-rays machines. She would have had a field day trying to explain that to a security guard.

Luka gave a breathy laugh over the phone, "Sorry, a force of habit. Sorry I couldn't be there to see you or Jules off personally."

Marinette smiled. That had been the original plan, but as luck would have it, Luka got called in for an emergency shift by his boss at the very last minute, and there were no other people who could fill in.

"No problem, sometimes life happens like that. Although, even on vacation, Hawkmoth's Akumas always have the worst timing."

She could see Luka wincing on the other line, "Yeah, considering that Hawaii is practically on the opposite side of the world, it looks like you're in for some long nights. So sorry, babe."

She had the news app on high alert at all times, so the second an Akuma alert went up, she'd teleport back to Paris to deal with the Akuma as quickly as possible. She was grateful that Luka would be on standby with Sass as well, especially when Chat Noir alerted her that he would be out of town for the weekend as well.

"Yeah…"

"Marinette! We're about to board! Please come and join the class!" Mme. Bustier called from the boarding gate.

"Gotta go, Luka, I'll text you when we land in Tokyo!"

"Okay, be safe! Love you!"

"Love you too!"

There were, fortunately, no accidents or disruptions as Marinette boarded the plane and found her seat. After buckling up, Tikki and Kaalki poked their heads out of her little purse. The bag was small enough that Marinette wasn't required to put it under the seat, so long as it stayed flung over her shoulder. The little red Kwami winked at her holder, and Kaalki nodded. Marinette smiled at her little companions and pretended to listen to the flight attendant give the safety instructions.

It wasn't long before she watched from her window seat the plane take off from the tarmac. Once the pilot said they were at cruising altitude, Marinette pulled out her MP3 player and headphones and leaned back with a smile, the soft melody of Luka's guitar strings lulling her to sleep.

o~o

Marinette was awakened by the thump of the plane landing.

As she traversed the airport "with" her classmates (they were all hanging around Lila and leaving her alone), she noticed a pattern in the dress of many passersby, most of which were likely Japanese locals given that they were in Japan at the moment. Black & red seemed to be a common staple at this airport, more than occasionally accompanied by the words "Take Your Heart" and a weird logo of a domino mask and top hat. The words "Phantom Thieves" were sprawled across many of the logos too.

Marinette wanted to ask around as to what it all meant, but she didn't know a lick of Japanese and had places to be, so she moved on. She'd just look it up at the hotel.

She sent a quick text to Luka to let him know she'd arrived safely and was on her way to the hotel they'd be staying at for the night. Then she switched to the web, typing "Phantom Thieves" into the search engine. She found quite a few interesting things in a place called the "Phan-Site." There was apparently a group of vigilantes out there in Japan - Tokyo, specifically - calling themselves "The Phantom Thieves" with the power to "change people's hearts" (which seemed to mean making said people confess their crimes. How that worked, Marinette had no idea). So far, the Phantom Thieves had only taken down four major targets, their names, and information listed on the site. Marinette didn't recognize any of them, but when she typed up the names, she was immediately glad that these people had had "a change of heart."

The first, theorized to be the Thieves' very first target, was a man Suguru Kamoshida. He was apparently an Olympic volleyball medalist that taught at a high school called Shujin Academy. The Thieves targeted him because it was revealed that he was physically abusing and even sexually assaulting several students at the school. One of them even tried to commit suicide right in front of the student body because of it. Thankfully, this student survived their attempt. According to separate reports, the school was well aware of the abuse but didn't do a thing to stop it. Then, about a week after the suicide attempt, Kamoshida confessed to everything! The abuse, the assaults, everything.According to reports, it was like he was a completely different person, almost like his personality had changed entirely. He was now being held on bail and awaiting trial. Marinette hoped he went away forever!

The second person was a former artist named Ichiryusai Madarame. (Now that she thought about it, she could have sworn she saw his name on some art pieces at the Louvre for a limited time Japanese exhibit). He cultivated his own fame and fortune by sacrificing the livelihood of children. He took young artists into his home, a tiny shack, and then stole and plagiarized their work, passing it off as his own. Apparently, one of his victims was his own foster son. Just like with Kamoshida, Madarame, shortly after one of his exhibits closed, confessed to these crimes, his personality having shifted completely. Even though he seemed to show remorse, Marinette hoped he got what he deserved. This man reminded her too much of Bob Roth, especially when he stole Kitty Section's music and her costume designs.

Next was Junya Kaneshiro. This target was apparently what really allowed the Phantom Thieves' popularity to take off. He was a mafia boss that even the local authorities were struggling to arrest, even though his crimes were common knowledge in the Shibuya area. Then suddenly, he one day turned himself into the police. This one didn't have as much information. The police apparently tried to keep the arrest on the down-low due to the circumstances. The only reason the public found out the Phantom Thieves were involved was because of an abundance of calling cards that were scattered all over Shibuya. Kamoshida and Madarame had received similar cards before they confessed as well.

Finally, and this happened about a week ago, a group of international hackers, under the name Medjed, attempted a cyberwar against the Phantom Thieves and Japan itself. They threatened to ruin Japan's economy through a cyber attack unless the Phantom Thieves surrendered and revealed their identities to the public. They had set a deadline and everything. Then, the day before the deadline would have expired, the Phantom Thieves apparently stopped them, as Medjed's website was hacked with the Phantom Thief logo all over the webpage. Whether that was done by the Phantom Thieves themselves, or an avid supporter, no one knew, but Medjed was stopped, and Japan's economy remained stable.

Despite being vigilantes, Marinette genuinely believed the Phantom Thieves were helping the public overall by exposing corruption like this. Who knew what would still be happening if these people were still allowed to roam free? She didn't know how the Thieves convinced these people to confess their crimes and had no clue what "steal your heart" meant, though she had a feeling it wasn't something natural. Their actions seemed to be non-violent, though. None of their victims showed signs of physical injury or torture when they confessed. That was likely another reason the Phantom Thieves were receiving so much public support.

Marinette had learned a lot about destiny from Fu (it still hurt a little bit not referring to him as Master, even in her head), and the fact she was temporarily in the place where something this momentous, something this clearly magical was going on… she needed to look into this. But how? Nobody knew who the Phantom Thieves were, much less what they looked like! You could supposedly communicate with them via a proxy on the Phan-site, but no one has officially met any of them face-to-face. They seemed to be masters of blending into the crowd, not to mention the police weren't getting solid leads either.

What was even more confusing was that Tikki and Kaalki didn't know anything about this whole thing either.

"I've never heard of "changing people's hearts" in the way it's described here," Tikki admitted, referring to the Phan-Site.

"Hmm… maybe Ziggy knows something? She's the kwami of Imagination, so she's the one most connected to the mind," Kaalki suggested.

"Alright, I'll talk to Ziggy when we get back to Paris," Marinette nodded. She hoped the Goat Kwami had a possible answer.

"Hmmm… I wonder if Kagami knows anything about them," Marinette wondered aloud, glancing over at Alix, who was snoring in the bed next to hers. Surprisingly, Alix had volunteered to room with Marinette, which shocked her. She and Alix were friends, but not like how she and Alya used to be. Now that she thought about it, though, Alix may still listen to Lila's stories, but it seemed to be more out of politeness than actual interest now. If anything, for the last month or so, when Alix and Lila interacted, the skater just looked bored with the Italian. Could it be that the skater was catching onto Lie-la's lies?

Deciding to check if her theory had merit, Marinette sent a text to the fencer, asking if she had heard of the Phantom Thieves or not. She got a reply a few minutes later. Kagami had heard of them, but she didn't know much about them either. She and her mother had been living in Paris for about a year and a half, and the Phantom Thieves had only surfaced only a few months ago, so she didn't have much information apart from a few Japanese news articles and some online searches.

Marinette sighed and began to put her phone away when an Akuma alert blew up her screen.

"Perfect timing, Hawkmoth," she muttered sarcastically as she got up and tiptoed to the bathroom. She turned on the light to make it look like she was simply using the toilet before letting the two kwamis slip out of her purse, "Let's deal with this quickly! Tikki, spots on!"

One magical transformation later, Ladybug stood in all her glory in the tiny Tokyo bathroom. She quickly pulled out Kaalki's glasses and slipped them on. "Tikki, Kaalki, unify!"

o~o

It was about thirty minutes later that Ladybug (Lady Horseshoe with both Miraculous active) stepped back into the hotel bathroom. By the time that she had gotten to the actual fight, Luka, clothed as his new hero alias Kobra, had managed to corner the Akuma and figure out where the item was. One Lucky Charm later, and two shots of Second Chance, according to the snake hero, the Akuma was purified, and everything returned to normal in Paris.

She was also equally grateful that Kobra seemed calm after the fight ended. There had been fights in the past that had left the hero shaking, eyes wide with barely masked horror. One fight had him clinging to Ladybug afterward for about two minutes before she convinced him to let go of her. Even after that, it had taken the night being alone, lots of tears, and cuddling for Luka to finally calm down and accept that everything was okay.

During these moments was when Marinette was reminded that the Snake Miraculous was sometimes considered the most dangerous of the Miraculous. Not only did it make the holder a problematic opponent in combat, but the mental load it carried for the holder itself could take its toll over time. Luka had seen some things as both Viperion and Kobra, some that took more time to process and work through than others.

It had taken Luka a while to understand that he could talk to someone about what was going on. Due to his own family dynamics, and his selfless nature, Luka wasn't used to talking about his own problems, and usually preferred to work through them on his own. Over time though, this wore the guitarist down, to the point that he couldn't hide it anymore. This was one of the factors that convinced Marinette, as the Guardian, to make Luka a permanent holder. Sass had been an excellent help for Luka to process the many 'bad endings' he was forced to witness as part of his power. However, there were sometimes days where talking to the little kwami wasn't enough, which was why the couple had the rule of calling the other whenever they needed to speak. Even if it was in the middle of the night.

Other factors contributed to this decision too, but Marinette was too exhausted to dwell on them for now as she snuck out of the bathroom. To her relief, Alix was still asleep and seemed oblivious to what had happened.

After grabbing a macaroon for Tikki and a sugar cube for Kaalki (both of which she picked up in Paris), Marinette quickly climbed into her own bed and was asleep within seconds.

#miraculous au #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #miraculous fandom #miraculous marinette #miraculous ladybug #persona 5 #marinette dupen chang

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motsimages · 3 years

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A list of Hollywood things that may be what real life is in the US and the equivalent situation in Spain. Feel free to add your own country. I’d love to know of other places :)

This is going to be long, so the TL:DR is there are many things I know about the US because of the movies, landscapes, hobbies, cultural things, everyday life things and sometimes they feel very normal or like something that happens in movies, no in between. They are neither and this is a list of differences I can think of in regards to Spain.

Click there to find out, there are pictures and all.

- Going to school by car, by bike or in a yellow bus: We either walk or your parents drive you (specially when you are too young to go by bus on your own or your parents are overprotective). Not really bike because bike lanes are a mess (in that they don’t exist) in Spain, it is dangerous. There are school buses if students come from places that are further but they’re average travel buses and once you are 16, you cannot use them. You have to go to school from 16 to 18 in public transportation because school is not mandatory after 16, it is understood it’s your choice. You may have a motorbike at 16 but I don’t know anybody who went to school in it. All of this is extra -fun- if you live in a village as in there may not be any bus service if it’s a small place or you live far apart from the village.

The picture is an average school bus with a woman in charge of picking up children. It looks like it’s in the country or maybe, the outside neighbourhoods of a city.

- Dating: we don’t date. If you like someone, you find a way to hang out with them and hope for the best. It may be more or less clear what is going on but it’s not a date, just a plan. You go to a restaurant/movies/theater... when you _are_ in a relationship or with friends. Not a date. The confusing hell it is to watch people saying things like “It’s a date! I’ll pick you up at 8!” Ok. Maybe they pick you up but still not a date. Also: not a problem if you have sex straight away or if you don’t feel like it (because there is no social obligation around it, no date). It seems to be a big deal when you are 30 and “never been in a date” but the first time I was in a date was with my current boyfriend _after_we started going out (I was 30 btw). I met him on a dating app, btw. Still don’t consider the first time we met “a date”. “Going on a date” maybe a thing but still probably based on movies.

- Prom: very confusing. Specially the part where you _have_ to have a _date_ (again, not something we do ever). If we do a ball (IF, also it wouldn’t be a “ball” as such but a “party”), it is actually expected to go on your own, with your friends. It would be a massive social pressure to go with the boy you like (with whom nothing happened prior to this) in front of people. Nah, you either go with your partner that you already have or with mates. But generally speaking, there is no “prom” or “graduation” in high school. In my high school, we spoke with a restaurant to have dinner, invited the teachers we liked and after that, went to local bars to party until the next morning when we went to see what grades we had received for the year. It was done like this so those who failed the exams could still party with the rest.

As for uni, maybe some other colleges do something but we didn’t (mainly because I studied translation and half of the people in my year were abroad that year). I don’t even have a picture of my graduation. People usually dress smart and then wear a band with the colour of their faculty.

The picture is graduation from Tourism (if I’m not mistaken). It shows a group of girls on a scene, all of them smartly dresses with an orange band on their shoulders. Their classmates are sitting on the grades of this “theater thing”, all wearing the same band.

- High School: in general, it’s very confusing. It seems to me like there is some kind of obsession with high school years given all the movies about high school and all the “childhood sweetheart” stories out there. For us, it is quite an irrelevant period of our lives, almost like school. You do it because you have to but often, life (and interesting things) happen AFTER high school. Our high schools don’t have lockers, you just carry 5 books in a backpack. But you have your class, only a couple of things take place in other rooms (maybe Science in the lab, or some optional subjects). Public schools close once the classes are over and all the activities you may want to do, you do them somewhere else (paying for them, most of the time). There are no School teams of anything, you don’t play against other schools either (maybe private schools do, I don’t know). In my high school, I remember for Spring we organised like a week of activities and you would sign up with your mates if anything. You and 2 others would make a basketball team to play in the Basketball league against other people in your class but it isn’t “The Official Team”. I remember there was a card tournament for the game of Mus (typical from Madrid). Also, we don’t have The Popular, The Band Kid, The Nerds, etc. clearly separated. There is bullying (but our toilets are not full of water so you cannot drown there) but either you are normal or you are the weird kid, so to say. I was a weird kid who suffered some light bullying and then I went to average, with no bullying. Overall, everyone speaks with each other and unless it’s a severe case of bullying (which there are), there are no underdogs or closed groups. We don’t have yearbooks AT ALL and this “Clown of the class” thing? I personally find it borderline problematic.

Picture of an average high school in Spain. It’s separated in two halfs. On the left, there is a couple of people carrying backpacks in a corridor. It’s quite dark, a window at the end giving light to the corridor. On the right, one of the doors of the corridor is open and shows a classroom. There are lots of green tables and chairs, all of them in pairs. At the end there is a blackboard. The light comes from the window.

- Alcohol consumption and other drugs: We can drink at 18 and it’s not a big deal if you get drunk. By the time you’re 18, your parents have seen you drunk more than once. You may have gotten drunk with your parents. You’ve seen them drunk more than once. Spain is quite an alcoholic society, tbh. BUT we do not like aggressive drunkards or dependant drunkards. You can get drunk but you have to be able to still be nice. Your friends will stop hanging out with you if you get drunk too often, too heavy or too badly (and you will find those who follow you, obvs). We do it to socialize and have fun, not to knock out. Weed is partially legal (I don’t really know the law, you can get fined for carrying but not arrested, you can buy paraphernalia in shops, there are cannabis clubs, people can smoke on the street in the open, you can grow it at home, it can be used for medical purposes or recreational). Other drugs are illegal though personal use may be allowed? I don’t know but I do know that it’s relatively easy and cheap to find other harder drugs, and so, they are commonly used at parties. The 80s were a complicated time in Spain because the heroine consumption was over the roof. It killed many many people in that generation.

- Houses: in cities, it’s more frequent for people to live in a flat. Depending on the time when this flat was built, the quality of the materials will be better, the flat will be bigger or smaller. Houses are something you see mainly in villages and they tend to be next to each other, no garden (maybe a patio). In the last 20-30 years, people started to show an interest in something that looks like “suburbs” from the movies (even though “suburbio” in Spanish actually means the full opposite of “suburbs”) but it doesn’t fit the weather nor the way we live and I personally hate them. And wooden houses are out of this world, everything here is made of stone or brick. Traditional houses here are made of stone with thick walls (up to one meter of thickness). I attach pictures of houses in the North of Spain. Southern houses are full white, no wooden structures to be seen from the outside.

A village in what looks like the North of Spain. There is a lot of vegetation, you can see some white and brown houses in a grass field. There is a tower at the back. We see a town square with houses made of stone, red roof and wooden balconies. Most of the walls are painted white, some aren’t and you can see the stone itself.

- Physical contact: in the movies, people rarely hug. It seems to me that maybe in the 80s-90s people hugged, touched more on screen. At some point in the 2000s it stopped and now you have people crying their eyes out and their best friend just standing there. We stand closer to each other and touch each other to show care, interest and affection very often. Some people in Spain are not very tactile (and thus, really like Northern Europe) but generally speaking, if someone cries, you hug them (unless you know they don’t want it, in which case you stay nearby). Heterosexual men also hug and also hold each other by the shoulder, for instance. I know this is a shock for some foreigners (don’t know if in the US it would be). From the times I’ve met US people, they’re not only surprised but sometimes actually scared that people touch them. Not even Asians react the way US people do to physical contact in Spain. BTW, when I say “touch”, I mean “the arm, shoulder” mainly. Other places require closer levels of friendship. However, you may kiss your partner/lover anywhere in the street, it’s ok, usually goes unnoticed by people. Even my parents grab each others asses occasionally in the street.

This picture is from La Torre de Suso, where 4 friends gather after 10 years of being apart because an old friend died. It also touches on drug addiction and the 80s. It shows 4 men in their 40s wearing a jacket and a tie, smartly dress, smiling and about to hug each other in the middle of the street of what looks like a small town.

- Welcoming someone to the neighbourhood: apparently, people bring cakes to the new comers. We don’t, you’ll eventually meet your neighbours. Or not. But you have to say hello to the people you see on the stairs of your flat, in the street you live. In small towns/villages, you have to greet everyone you know, at least say “hi”, ideally actually stop for small talk (I’m terrible at this but getting better now that I live in a small town).

- Church: it seems to be a big part of people’s lives. Very often, people are going to church, all ceremonies seem to be religious (marriage, death...) and they tend to be Christian (sometimes Jewish but they seem to be less involved in their religious life?, or maybe the movie is done by non-religious people?). In Spain, everything is Catholic and at the same time, it isn’t. Many traditions are Catholic and people enjoy them but they aren’t Catholic themselves. There are churchgoers, of course. There are Catholic cults with massive power in politics and society (Opus Dei, mainly). But we had a fascist Catholic dictatorship and many people got very tired of it. To give you an idea of how things usually go: everyone in my village eats the same meal (fish and garbanzo beans for lunch, potato omelette for diner) on Good Friday (even my family, where nobody has ever been religious willingly). Only old people and some very Catholic families go to church. Most holidays are related to Catholic Saints (this gives us lots of long weekends and days off during the year) and they are often celebrated with a town fair that lasts several days.

In theory, Spain has no religion. In reality, it is Catholicism. In schools/high schools there is a subject called “Religion” and almost always it’s about Catholicism (teachers of this subject, even in public schools, are related to the Church somehow). It is not mandatory but often there is no alternative if you don’t want to take it (I was the only child who didn’t attend and had my own homework during that time that my mother chose for me: Ethics).

The image is from El Rocío, an important religious fair that takes place in the South of Spain. Many local fairs look similar to this. Lots of people are gathered in a small temporary white hut, decorated with garlands (white and red) and the flag of Andalusia that is green and white. There is a bar with small glasses of white wine and some plates with food on them.

This said, it’s very frequent to get married at the Town Hall with a couple of witness and it’s also very frequent for burials to happen in the Tanatorio, where people can say goodbye to their loved one but it’s not in church.

And even many church goers are not devoted Christians, are open minded about LGBT issues or other, for instance.

- Prison: We don’t have death penalty but people can spend their life in prison if their crimes are massive and they add years and years to their sentence. Prisons here are public and as far as I’ve seen in Spanish movies, there are no uniforms, you wear your everyday clothes. You will only go to prison if you committed a serious crime or if you have several small crimes. Often, the first time it’s a reduced sentence that can be made into paying a fine. The second time you will go to prison. This happens even for domestic violence/rape which usually causes great controversy in society. You can leave earlier if you behave well (very earlier actually) and sometimes you can leave the weekend and the come back to prison, or leave for x hours and come back to sleep. It depends on the sentence and behaviour, etc. I’d say terrorism is the hardest charge and right now, they are using terrorism as an excuse to sentence activists (there quite a lot of political prisoners in Spain).

I mention crimes because you have to have LOTS of other offences to go to prison. They usually are just fined.

The picture is from the movie Cell 211 which is an excellent movie. Do watch it. It shows the main character, a bold man with a goatie wearing a sweater whose sleeves have been cut off. He looks serious. On the background, many men wearing everyday sports clothes cheer and look in the same direction as him.

- Laws: I don’t know Spanish law very well (it bothers me to say that I may know better what to do with the police in the US than in Spain) but it seems to me, from the movies, that many things are made into a massive deal in the US. Like jaywalking is apparently an offence of some kind? Here you can just cross the street wherever. People respect the crossing path for safety but it’s not a crime to not do it. People also don’t sue companies or other people as often and it’s usually not that big of a deal maybe? In any case, it’s a completely different legal system.

. The 50s: The 50s in the US are fancy and colourful. Society seems to have been thriving, everything was getting better. In Spain, the hunger years were starting to be over but many people were poor. We were in the worst of the Franco dictatorship, it was quite a rural society that had been destroyed by a civil war (the effects of which are still being felt). Rich people were fascist, poor people could be anything (many were actually communists, republican or other leftist). This is not a happy time in Spain. Many people had left to be refugees in other countries, many were leaving illegally to work in Germany or France. The music we listened to at the time was definitely not Elvis Presley (look for Lola Flores or Miguel de Molina, even though he ended up fleeing the country because he was openly gay and republican and they almost killed him once).

This image is from the movie Los Santos Inocentes, based on a book of the same title. A classic of Spanish modern literature and cinema. This is the way most people looked in the 50s in Spain. Even now old people look like this in villages.

It is like a family picture in front of a white house. Everyone is wearing black, dark blue, dark green or grey. From left to right, there is a boy sitting on a bench that is situated next to the door. Next, it’s a young girl wearing a long grey skirt and a dark green jacket. By the door, the mother holds a very thin boy who seems to be either deeply sick or dead. She wears mostly black and gray. The boy has the brightest green in the scene. Next to her, there is a man wearing a gray jacket and a bonet and finally, there is an older man that seems to be smiling (the only one smiling, everyone else has a serious and gloomy face).

And that’s what I can think of right now.

#hollywood #cultural differences #life in Spain #Spain #comparing movies #us life #spanish life

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bunnykass · 3 years

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INARIZAKI AS FEELING IVE HAD WITH GUYS IN HIGH SCHOOL

this was supposed to be funny but became very reflective and sorta emotional for me. therapeutic tho😌

TW: mentions of underage n*des, cursing, grammar and spell errors

KITA - the senior in my law class freshman year.

He was country, would wear cowboy boots to class and levi’s (i live in texas). He was a eagle scout. very sweet boy. always brought coffee in those cups to class,and he drove a range rover. i’d share sunflower seeds with him all the time and id make fun of him cause instead of breaking the shell and eating the inside, he’d just eat the shit whole. but like i said he was 18 and I was 14. more of crush we never really did anything, one time though he did argue with me on snapchat about immigration and the annexation of hawaii. He had a brother who was a freshman, and in the beginning of the second seamstress I would flirt with him but again me and never did anything.

OMINI - my freshman english teacher

(tw mentions of sexual assault, grooming, teacher-student relationship)

LMAOO. i had just gotten really into lolita (gross🤮) and so I would literally talk to older guys on the internet (one time i met up with marine even though I was like 15) ANYWAY, so when I started his class i was like damn we about to have a ezra and aria shit. he was super nice to “pretty girls” and “pretty boys” what I mean by that if you weren’t the beauty standard, he was kinda a dick to you. one time he pissed me off though cause he lost a assignment, made me re-do it but only gave me a 70, and i lost interest in him after that. he also accused me of defamation of character because i found his mugshot and was showing everyone.btw he was accused of SEXUAL ASSUALT??? but apparently the mugshot was fake or wasn’t him i don’t remember. he never counted me late or absent tho

ARAN - my best friend

been friends with this kid sense 8th grade. He was in love with this girl though that was leading him on all though out middle school but i really had a crush on him by the time high school started he had gotten over her. when we were freshmen’s he told the whole football team I was a whore cause i wouldn’t send him nudes (i know this sounds bad but i promise it wasn’t plus this was 3-4 years ago) so we didn’t talk to each other till summer going into sophomore year. me and him are still friends and we literally hang out almost every weekend, i love him and he’s loves me. he’s very thing i’d want in a boyfriend but because we’ve been friends for so long doing intimate things with each other like sex seems weird. While we both wish we could be in a relationship we both realstically know it wouldn’t work :(. <3

GINJIMA - my freshmen boyfriend

had fallen in love with me when like school started but like my best friend aran said, i was whoreing’ (not really tho cause i’m still a virgin) so when he asked me to homecoming I was like no. but eventually through out the school year me and him got closer we had like 3 classes together, 2 of them were back to back so we were jus cute like that. my first legit relationship, he was nerdy as hell and the biggest fucking dork. my freshmen year I was what the yt would call a hot cheeto girl and i weighed a lot more back then and he was 6’2-skinny white boy so we fucking looked like glora and melman from madagascar. were like discord moderator and daddy’s kitten shit. he was funny but he was really mean to me and because i was very insecure at the time i lacked setting boundary’s so i’d just take it. he also bought me a roku which i still have today, he was always buying me shit, and i taught him how to take dick pics. he was the first guy that didn’t just like me for my fat tits but i felt like the only way i could keep him around was by oversexualizing myself which ultimate let to him breaking up with me :( honestly no hard feelings though we were both like 15. him an his current girlfriend are so cute, and me and him are cool.

this is a conversation we had a few weeks ago.

SUNA - my yubo boys

my take away from being in highschool is guys do not give a shit about what you look like or how you’re built, unless they’re insecure, and also self-worth. I got on yubo my sophomore year and had it till my junior year. if you don’t know what yubo is its essentially a teen dating app. now i never went to meet these guys irl i have friends who did... and i just want to stay ted bundy would’ve had a field day with these hoes but would engage in online sexting. which ig is illegals cause i was still under 18. at this point in my life i was just so insecure and seeking male validation that i was throwing ass for people over the internet to people i would never meet. this isn’t one person either this is a collective of i don’t even know how many boys. i feel sick thinking about this but i cant take it back and i just have to encourage my sister and potentially future daughters about this.

Miya twins - my tower moments

these two, like the miya twins are very similare but different. I consider them both tower moments because after them two i change completely how i viewed myself and life. if you aren’t familer with tarot the tower card represents sudden and necessary changes usually the situation tends to me negatives and the outcome following is good. these two are also my most recent compared to the other and i’m still dealing with them today which is why i wanted to give a lil intro. idk if yall believe in astrology but those two have gemini in there big 3 and idk i feel like that has a lot to do with our situationship

OSAMU- my theater teachers son

so technically majority of our relationship was middle school but it carried into high school.he was so mean to me up until 8th grade like i said he was my theater teachers son, and he hated her class. at that time his family had so many issues and i think he didn’t have a outlet. my brother had died around the same time so i too was going through shit. while our issues weren’t the same he definitely confined in me a lot and trusted me with so many things, i don’t think a boy/guy ever just laid everything on me like that and it wasn’t in a “be my therapist” kinda way. he fucked up though, we were in musical theater behind the stage in a closet. his mom was just a couple feet away in the audiences teaching class. me and him were talking per usual, and without a warning he put his tongue down in my mouth. and tried putting his hand down my bra. i was so fucking scared i had never been touched like that. it was my first kiss and i didn’t even tell him he could do that to me. i obviously stopped taking to him after that until the summer going into freshman year when we started sending nudes back snd forth. i don’t like to blame people for my problems but i think i began to hyper sexualize myself because of him. when i wouldn’t send him shit he’d block me, ive finally outgrown him as i now my self worth know occasionally i’ll unblock him and hang out with him for fun but it’s nothing serious. he’s stuck on me like tic though and always bring up the fact he kissed me once in 8th grade 🙄

ATSUMU - my “twinflame”

he was a year older then me and i met him on snap chat that should’ve been a red flag. we started by sending nudes but eventually we started to develop feelings however as soon as things got serious he’d pull out. when his relations with other girls wouldn’t work out he’d always come back to me during that time together he’d love bomb me. take me on dates make out with each other in front of hobby lobbies on sunday, my happiness started to depend on if he talked to me or not and this went on forever. by the time quaratine happened he blocked me because he got a girlfriend? idk if that’s why he blocked me but i assumed that eventually he unblocked me because pussy that good. i gave this man so much power over my life that when i took it back i truly learned by self worth. i will never tell this man this but because of all the shit he pulled on me i’m actually confident. i don’t regret meeting him. occasionally he does try to pull his shit on me and i play along with him. i think the reason i can’t let my gemini boys go is because i’m too scared for a relationship but i know that no matter what they’re both their for fun 😌.

#inarizaki #tw #aran ojiro #kita shinsuke #osamu miya #atsumu miya #suna rintarō #ginjima hitoshi #haikyu

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deartaylorloveannissa · 4 years

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September 3rd, 2020

Dear Taylor,

My boyfriend Wesley and I have been together for about a year and five months now. It has been wonderful! I think we’re so great together. But there’s something that hasn’t happened between us that will occasionally weigh on my mind and heart..... he hasn’t told me that he loves me yet....

It’s funny because when we first met (on a dating app) he wanted to meet right away but dating apps are scary and I wasn’t comfortable with that. So we started by talking on the phone. Our phone conversations would last hours and hours and we would talk most every day. Then he was begging me to at least FaceTime and I was so nervous because I’m very insecure about my appearance so I put it off as long as I could. But then we did and like our phone calls, it was amazing and lasted hours. Then after about 3 weeks from our first message, we finally went on a date. He was so patient and so wonderful to do that. To understand my uneasiness and wait for me. He even makes fun of me now cause he said he hates waiting that long but it was worth it for me. Then after about a month of dates and hanging out every weekend, he asked me to be his girlfriend. I wasn’t ready to say yes. I had never had a boyfriend before, I truly thought it wouldn’t happen for me and while I loved spending time with him, I was still a little hesitant about him. And he understood that so we kept doing what we were doing. Then probably more than a month later I finally asked him to be my boyfriend and obviously he said yes and were official. He was always the forward one, always the one to jump right into things. I even remember thinking that he would say “the L word” way before I was ready, just considering our entire history of how we became official. Well, I was wrong. So wrong.

After our 6th month anniversary, I started to realize that I did love him and I was freaking out about it. I didn’t know what to with that information. I wanted to say something but I felt like I needed him to say it first. I even did ridiculous internet research about when people in relationships typically say it and who says it and feels it first. Usually, it’s around the 3 month mark and it’s the guy who feels and says it first. I also read that it’s important for the guy to say it first. Not because he’s the guy and that’s “tradition” but also because it means more to the girl if he does. And the girl saying it first could potentially ruin a very special moment for her. So I tried to wait because it couldn’t be that long right? Well one weekend, I was in a funk. I couldn’t get myself to be happy. And then I found an old notebook of his from college that he said I could look through. And in the back of it, I found all of these sad love quotes. There were so many of them and when I read them all, my heart shattered and I just started crying. They were so sad and so passionate. I couldn’t help but think that he wrote them thinking of someone in particular and I just couldn’t imagine him feeling that way about me. He’s not the most lovey-dovey in his feelings kind of person at all. Even though he’s goofy and fun, he has a very stoic personality as well and just doesn’t really get affected emotionally by a lot of things. So it hurt to think that he potentially was emotional about someone else. That night, he went to bed and I stayed up and just re-read all of them and cried four hours. It really hurt. The next day, I was in the worst mood and he kept asking me why and I just couldn’t give him an answer because again, I didn’t want to force anything out of him. But I eventually just had to tell him what was bothering me. I told him that I loved him and that I thought he didn’t feel the same way. And he said I was right. And girl, I can’t even tell you how much that hurt. I instantly started crying. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so bad. But he told me the reason was because he had never felt that way about anyone outside of his family and he just doesn’t know what that feels like. But he’s had previous long-term relationships with other women so when I asked about them, he confessed that he did tell some of them that he loved them but that he didn’t mean it. He might’ve thought he meant it at the time but looking back, he didn’t and felt obligated. So then I brought up the notebook and those quotes and he said that after college, he was seeing someone for a short time that he really liked but she betrayed him somehow ()2 was also being jobless) and wrote those quotes down because it was just a hard time in his life. He assured me that it wasn’t because he was in love with her but that he was just sad. And I believe him but a small part of me has a hard time accepting that. He could’ve been in love and just didn’t realize it. Anyways, I was so upset and I thought that it might’ve been over between us but he told me he still wanted to be with me. I took a day to be upset and to think things over but obviously we’re still together. When I was feeling better, I even made a goal to get him to fall in love with me lol.

We went back to normal for the next 9ish months but it’s always something I just kind of think about. Especially if something’s coming up, I’ll think “hmm... Valentine’s Day is coming up, maybe he’ll say it then” or “he will definitely tell me on our anniversary”, and “literally all I want for my birthday is for him to say it” but he never does. Near the end of May, I was going through one of my rough, sad weeks so I had a “check in” with him about it. I wasn’t hysterical this time and tried to make it kind of easy & casual. Honestly, I don’t remember much of that whole conversation but the gist of it was that he was still not ready to say it.

So that brings us to now. These last couple of days, it’s been all I can think about and I feel like I might have to have another check in with him. But I’m so scared to. Whatever happens, I just wanna make sure that we’re still together. He’s so sweet and I know he cares about me so much! He’s always interested in everything I do. He encourages me in all of my weirdness and has helped me stay positive during these last couple of months of unemployment whereas last time, I was deeply depressed. He gives me a wake up call every morning and an afternoon call when he’s done with work because he wants to. He’s not the most romantic person but he makes up for it in smaller ways. He’s the only person in the world that I’ve told absolutely everything to and without hesitation. He’s never judged me for any of my interests or hobbies or anything. It’s cliche but he is the greatest, most loyal and bestest friend I have ever had and that’s a big deal for me. I grew up thinking no one really enjoyed my company but he does. I can’t loose that. I’m just nervous that if I bring this up again, he might start to think “well, it has been awhile and I still don’t love her and clearly she needs to hear that from someone but that can’t be me so I have to breakup with her”. And I’m even more terrified of if we do breakup that he’ll meet someone more beautiful and more confident and someone who is just better than me in every way and fall in love her and actually tell her that. Then it proves that I was the problem all along. That the assumption I’ve always thought about myself being unlovable is true. And I don’t know if i could recover from that. I’ve always been a very insecure person so validation from anybody has always been important to me. I’ve just always wanted someone that’s not a family member to love me. I need it.

So, extremely long story short, I think I might tell him again this weekend but I’m so scared to. I love him so much and I can’t loose him, and I don’t want to ruin our relationship.

I really needed to vent about this so thank you! I love you so much Taylor, and I hope you have a great weekend!

Love, Annissa

@taylorswift @taylornation

#taylorswift #taylor swift #folklore #taylurking #swiftie

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electric-sugar-darling · 4 years

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“Other”

For as long as I've known, I've been "other."

I am "other" in the eyes of a dominantly white American census. They see my brown skin (though sometimes, they claim to not "see color.") They see my smaller, almond-shaped eyes. They hear my speaking voice that, while occasionally quiet and stuttering, but firm when it comes to things I am passionate about, seems to blend with the American standard. Not a "foreign" accent anywhere within earshot. Though when I would go back to visit the Philippines in the past, I'd occasionally get poked at for sounding like an "American boy." But hearing how I speak now, it is assumed the colonization has worked, and that I am relatable from an American perspective. Yet when I speak of the cultural dissonance and assimilation I have faced in this country as a first generation Filipino immigrant growing up stateside, I'm told I just need to "work harder" and "be more confident," but assured that I am "beautiful" regardless. Honey, you don't know the half of how hard I've "worked," and what exactly I've "worked" on, to make my supposed "confidence" what it is today, to bring it to an acceptable level for me to play whatever functional role I am meant to play in this modern American society. But thanks for calling me beautiful, I guess. I am "other" when it comes to Filipino ethnicity and culture, because even though I am Filipino, I still struggle to fully connect with it, beyond reading up on histories, cultural norms, and current events of my home country as an adult, but never got to fully absorb and internalize as a child because I moved to the States when I was four years old. As such, I was too busy in my childhood attempting to fit into the white American standard to which schools are subconsciously defaulted in this country, under the guise of the United States being a "melting pot." The concept of a melting pot is so colorful, and attractive, and appealing, and almost comforting to a little brown child born in one country, but brought to an entirely new country, before education and social interactions could really even begin for that child ("that child" is Me, if I've lost you.) But the problem with the idea of a melting pot is that when things melt down, the individuality of the different flavors lose themselves when they all attempt to come together. And while visually, everything seems to have combined into one, it is still incongruous. Certain flavors overpower others or cancel them out completely, especially when there's too much of one, and only a pinch of "other." The idea of melting implies that everything has amalgamated into one, to make it easier to digest for the mass palate, specifically the status quo. The cost is that celebrating genuine individuality and uniqueness is (literally) lost in the mix, under the guise of "unity." But thanks for tagging me in your post about lumpia, I guess. I am "other" as a gay man, in a sea of image-obsessed, chiseled bodies, meant primarily for the white porn star standard of 'beach bod 5'9".' There's no room for overweight. There's no room for too tall. No room for stretch marks. No room for extra skin left over from weight loss, even though I was under the baseless assurance that losing weight would equal me being supposedly more "desirable." No room for being "too masculine looking" for guys that prefer their bottoms to be more feminine, twinky, and submissive. No room for not being masculine ENOUGH, as is the general dominant desirability factor in the endless swipes of hook-up app profiles, over which my thumb has all but burned itself off. Masc4MaskedToxicMasculinity, bro. No room for not being confident in yourself, even though you were picked apart for all those things on dating websites, until my outward physical appearance started to try and fit into these "desirable" niches and archetypes. There's plenty of room for Asians, apparently. Until they find out I (literally) don't fit in their fetishistic image of small, meek, petite Asian. I also get the occasional gem of "Man, I'm usually not into Asians, but..." or "Man, you're exotic looking." Big fucking yikes, bro. Yes, I am probably looking for gratification in all the wrong places. But even though I am gradually becoming more accepting of the parts of me that I previously hated, tried to hide, or distance myself from because I was made to believe they were ugly, the past emotional pangs still scratch at me, and I find myself going back to square one when I default to re-opening that dating app when I get that carnal urge, to try and feel better about myself. But thanks for sending me a wink, I guess. I am "other" in a society dominated by heteronormative romantic prospects. Soulmates, getting married, having kids, having one true love, love at first sight, true love's kiss. From a very young age, all of this is pushed onto us as something we had to strive for. An ultimate goal that we are meant to pursue, otherwise we are viewed as crazy, as spinsters, as eccentric and lonely old crones, as if any of these things were the most horrible things in the world to be viewed as. As a child, I had little playground crushes here and there. And as I got a little older, when I was faced with the possibility (turned reality) of being gay, I had crushes on boys, too. But I also had to push that away from my mind, because gay was that taboo thing no one ever talked about, or else it would be either vilified or mocked. But all these crushes were just fluffy, meaningless, outward attractions. I never felt any sort of romantic attraction. And as I got older, the idea of romance was a concept that never clicked with me. I've had exactly two boyfriends in the past, which, at the time, I considered "love." But was it really? Or was it because I was in the standardized view of a two-person mutual relationship with this person, that I instantly equated it as "love." I've never been able to fully make the connection of what exactly "romance" is. I take a very long time to open up to people. But when I do trust somebody enough, I tell them everything about me, the secrets, the ins, the outs, the whispers and screams of my heart, my dreams, my hopes, my despairs. But is that romance? Maybe it can be, but it wasn't for me. Because my closest friends and family are also people I've told all those private things to. Is it love? Sure. A platonic love. But I don't equate it to being romantically attracted to my friends or family. Is romance hand-holding and kissing? I've gone on dates and "seen" guys in the past, where we've kissed and held hands, even had sex. But did I consider any of it romance? Not in the slightest. Is romance sweet, thoughtful gestures? I do my best to show my friends and family I care with gestures whenever I am able, or sometimes, simply listening or offering words. But again, does that mean I am romantically attracted or linked to them? No. And so for a while, I thought I was some sociopath that simply was not capable of romantic love. Until I read about the spectrum of aromanticism. People who feel intense platonic love, and value these many important platonic relationships in their lives equally, but have never related to this idea of finding one specific fulfilling "love" above all others (the romantic kind) as something different than the other platonic relationships they have in their lives. I've never subscribed to the notion of ONE soulmate, because anybody that has made a profound impact in my life with whom I've shared a meaningful and long-lasting connection, and who fully understand me and accept me as I do them, I consider them a soulmate. I have many I consider "soulmates." And honestly, I'm tired of being told I "just haven't found the right one yet," when I have plenty of the "right ones" in my life right now. But thanks for suggesting that rom-com to me, I guess. I have lived my entire life in constant dissonance (which might explain why I like abstract 20th century composers.) Not necessarily because I WANTED to live in dissonance, but simply because any time I was simply trying to BE, there was pushback, or criticism, or questioning, which in turn, made me push back, criticize, and question myself. I have lived my life as perpetually "other," but for a time, believed it was a terrible thing to be anything "other" than what everybody else was doing or being. But I have lived through enough dissonance to realize that living against the grain is essentially what has gotten me this far in life. And although it was a difficult and uneven road to self-acceptance (and I still occasionally struggle with lingering pangs of insecurity to this day), this road is mine and mine alone. And without me on it, there would be no other.

#other #being different #immigrant #filipino immigrant #filipino #gay #queer #dissonance #aromantic #self love #self acceptance #confidence

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sybcritics-blog · 5 years

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( lee jooheon, cismale, he/him, 24. ) — CHOI JUNGWOO, better known to the authorities as VULCAN, has been working for the kumiho for around SIX YEARS as a JANITOR. rumor has it, they can be DARING & KALEIDOSCOPIC but also IRASCIBLE & SYBARITIC which is why blood-stained hands, all black wardrobes, crooked smirks, and weaponry makes me think of them.

hey demons, it me, ya girl, gem ... back at it again, only this time my character is worst than the first one. which is saying something because oof minwoo was an absolute disaster ! so if that gives you any idea as to how this shithead is gonna be, that should be a clue !

again, his whole backstory isn't completely figured out but i have what i've already figured out below the cut, as well as his basic information, personality & some wanted plots i have for him !

if you want to plot with this lil pyro, smash that like button & i'll come to you ! or of course, if you like d*scord better than tumblr feel free to add me on there ( @𝕨𝕚𝕟𝕂𝕃𝔼𝕍𝕠𝕊𝕊!#9330 ) & we can plot from there !

BASIC INFORMATION.

full name: choi jungwoo. nickname(s): jun, woo. age: twenty-four. date of birth: october 31st. birthplace: daegu, south korea. current location: seoul, south korea. ethnicity: korean. nationality: korean. gender: cismale. pronouns: he / him / his. orientation: pansexual. crew position: janitor. occupation: instagram model / youtuber. ( eboy basically ig ) language(s) spoken: korean, english, chinese, japanese, spanish, greek, thai & french.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE.

face claim: lee jooheon ( joohoney ) of monsta x. hair color: changes frequently, currently dark brown. eye color: brown. height: 6 ' 1 ". weight: 175. build: athletic. tattoos: far too many to count. piercings: multiple in his ears, a tongue piercing, nipple piercings, a scar on his right brow from an old brow piercing.

HEALTH.

physical ailments: alcohol abuse, drug abuse & lactose intolerance. neurological conditions: back pain & occasional migraines. allergies: pollen, mold, dairy, shellfish. sleeping habits: 3-4 hours a night, restless. eating habits: mostly junk food, fast food & take-out but he does enjoy going to fancy places every once in a while as well as cooking meals at home. exercise habits: jogs every morning, is in a boxing group that meets every week. body temperature: hot natured. addictions: alcohol, tobacco, drugs & sex. drug use: frequent. alcohol use: frequent.

PERSONALITY. ( PT 1. )

label: the cataclysmic. positive traits: daring & kaleidoscopic. negative traits: irascible & sybaritic. fears: large bodies of water. hobbies: boxing, card games, video games, reading, cooking, comic books, jogging. habits: tbd. quirks: tbd.

FAVORITES.

season: fall. color(s): black, red, green. music: isn’t super picky, doesn't care for country. movies: mostly action, suspense, horror & comedy. sport(s): watches baseball & hockey. beverage(s): anything but sparkling water. food: fast food. animal: dogs.

FAMILY.

father: tba. mother: tba. sibling(s): younger sibling, nineteen. children: n/a. pet(s): german sheppard puppy. family’s financial status: upper class.

EXTRAS.

zodiac sign: scorpio. mbti: entp-a. ( the debater ) enneagram: type eight. ( the challenger ) temperament: choleric. hogwarts house: slytherin. moral alignment: chaotic neutral. primary vice: lust. primary virtue: pride. element: fire.

BIOGRAPHY.

born in daegu sk to a lawyer and a police officer, jun's life was always pretty strict.

they always made sure he was living like they wanted him to, cracking down and making sure he was behaving & that his grades were at the top of his class.

little did they know that their son found ways around having to obey everything they said, sneaking out of his bedroom window to roam the streets of daegu in the middle of the night & things like that.

that's also where he first found his interest in fire, seeing people mess with small bonfires / fireworks all the time caused him to grow curious.

so one night on one of his adventures, he approached a group of kids that were probably only a few years older than him and they allowed him into their group & allowed him to start messing with the fireworks himself.

it was from that moment on that he started to rebel a little bit more with each day that passed, eventually sneaking out & staying gone the entire night only to sneak back up through his window, get 2 hrs of sleep and then head to school.

parents never figured out about it though, he was good at lying to them & anyone with any sort of 'authority' so he was able to continue pleasing them & pretending to be this pefect son all while living the life he actually wanted to live.

the only thing that came as a shock to his parents was him moving out at the age of sixteen, getting his own apartment and whatnot so he'd stop having to hide how he wanted to live or have to sneak out of his own home.

however, to them, they just thought he wanted to become more of an adult & so they never really questioned it or checked up on him without warning.

he had just turned eighteen when he was approached by the mastermind after getting into a fight at a bustling club, leaving the other person laid out on the ground while jun barely had any injuries whatsoever.

the mastermind offered a job, keep people quiet or clean up after the ones who can't and you'll get paid shit tons of money... who was jun to turn that offer down?

a few months after that is when his instagram persona started forming, posting his outfits on the app started to cause people to follow him & ask for more... n before he knew it, he was getting agents messaging him offering to be HIS agent & allow him to make even more money just by posting the simplest of things on a daily basis.

again, who was he to really turn down the offer? especially considering the fact he'd already grown a taste for all things expensive.

& thus, jun's double life began once more, though this time, both sides of his life were things he truly enjoyed.

PERSONALITY. ( PT 2. )

the Worst...

short-tempered as heck, will snap on people for breathing in his direction wrong if he's in one of those moods...

loves violence... it's a problem. will be that asshole who starts bar fights just so he can fight someone ksfjghsdf

.... if you haven't figured it out, the boy loves to play with fire. constantly burns stuff, always tries to take things of other peoples to burn them. also likes to ... possibly set empty buildings on fire only to watch them burn down. yike.

can be extremely goofy & joking one moment and then the biggest grumpy asshole the next. all really depends on his mood at the time.

when he's in a good mood though, he loves to mess with people & joke around or just go explore the area. day trips are his favorite thing in the world even though he won't admit to it.

however, when he isn't.... don't mess with him bc he will probably try and snap ur head off or yell at you for the dumbest shit. probably figures out he's being a dick a little too late but will still own up to it and apologize eventually.

a bit of a wild card, honestly. you never know what mood he's going to be in or what's going on in his head at any given moment.

a heaux, shock shock... but like actually really bad abt it, constantly has some new hook up or something like that.

this is a work in progress as well so that's all i've got atm

PLOT IDEAS.

someone from his past who knows that his father is a police officer & constantly gets on his ass for all the stupid shit he does bc they don't want him getting caught let alone his own father finding out.

his go to person for all things stupid as fuck. getting high on the roof? check. getting drunk & dancing on the bar? check. walking around seoul at 4 in the morning? check.

the fire & ice combination we all want for our muses, they fight, bicker, try to throw hands w each other even but at the end of the day, they actually care about one another.

someone who's able to see the softer side of jun, either by just being around for his 'down' days, or finding out that a sleepy / just woke up jun has a tendency to be soft and a tiny bit needy.

the jokester friend who's always pranking jun & jun tries to one up them & get his revenge.

the LOATHING plot... idk what it would be for but they just literally can't stand each other & they make sure it's known to the world.

someone who puts up with his instagram persona and goes on shopping trips & appears in the dumb videos he uploads to both instagram & youtube.

speaking of,,,,, the 'dating' rumor. basically they're really close friends & are seen by the media together a lot so people just assume they're a thing & start getting hashtags about them trending as well as all the other fun stuff that goes along with that.

will add more as they come to mind !

#kumiho.intro #“ ━━ ◤ big dumbass energy. ┊ out of character. ◢#look i finally did it !!!

5 notes · View notes

unimpressedperson · 5 years

Text

ishin-denshin

(I found that picture in @seoulicons . Thank you for posting that)

Genre: Fluff, Angst

Warnings: I mentioned Expensive Girl and sex, so yeah, nothing here is pure. Also, there are mentions of self-harm, so please, if it’s triggering tell me and I’ll change it :) Your mental health should always come first :)

Pairing: Min Yoongi x @emerson-moonchild, Min Yoongi x Reader

Word Counting: 6.2k

Synopsis: Min Yoongi and Emerson had a profound connection, so deep and supernatural that not even themselves understood it. However, nothing is pure bliss and flowers, when everything seems wrong and the connecting fades with time, then their love shall be proven with no otherwise.

A/N: Hey Em!! It’s finally here! I finished your oneshot + poem. Yes!! I mentioned The Chaos Club and paired them with BTS, but tried not to focus on them. Even though it finished with over SIX THOUSAND WORDS, I had to stop myself and not include random and unnecessary stuff, like interactions between characters without the starring roles presence (Yoongi and Emerson). Oh, before I continue, I changed the band’s name, it’s shitty, but I even wrote one verse of ‘Clarividencia’ (the BTL song mentioned). Hope it’s good! You deserve the best Em, or should I begin calling you ‘cutie pie’? Lol Sorry for my bad grammar and hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing :)

- x - x - x -

Min Yoongi took a long sip on his coffee, dark and, ironically, sugar-free. He enjoyed small ironies and always drank from them, maybe it worked as fuel to his personality. Despite from the cute face and artistic name, Yoongi enjoyed how people were amazed about the personality flashed: rebel, serious, sarcastic, a human with a stone cold heart pumping blood and rage to his organs.

Well, that's how outsiders saw him, reality was insanely different. Emerson knew it, she dig down so deep in Yoongi's emotions, finding a butter heart with so much love stored. Whilst drinking tea from a ridiculously adorned cup, she analyzed his soft expressions and occasional wrinkling nose whenever the bitterness hit his taste buds.

– Tea is just leaf juice, you know, right? - Yoongi asked, not glaring straight at Emerson.

– So what? It's delicious. - Emerson answered, taking a long and loud sip from the salmon and cream coloured cup, raising her pinky. - Coffee is just juice from beans. Water is juice from ice cubes.

– You are so british sometimes. - The man said and turned to look at Emerson, grinning slightly at her cuteness and rosy cheeks.

– Well, my identity backs you up on that. I'm british, living in London, drinking tea in a british coffee shop, listening to british news on television, presented by a british journalist, graduated in a british university, working for a british television broadcast channel. You are the foreigner here, love. - She said serious, but smiling, fingers stuck around the cup, steam warming her face.

– I know. Everything is so british. Even our songs are getting british. - Yoongi said and finished his cup of coffee with a short sip. - Yesterday Taehyung sang with british accent, even the verses in korean. We were surprised and Namjoon almost collapsed cuz one of the words sounded like 'yadong', which is porn in korean.

– I'm surprised one of your songs never mentioned 'yadong', since it's a rock band with pretty explicit musics. - She giggled remembering the first time Yoongi allowed her to listen 'Expensive Girl', their first song that exploded in SoundCloud, and as soon as Bangtan Lads made a career outside Korea, the track was deleted, only officially existing in personal files from every member.

– Don't you throw 'Expensive Girl' at me, it was Jin and Namjoon's idea to release it. - Yoongi said and raised one of his eyebrows slightly.

They were sitting on a table close to the window, sun shining bright outside, breaking through the typical whitish smoke accumulated all over London's atmosphere. The cafè was one of those overrated places, charging abusive prices for a cup of plain coffee, walls painted in a very dirty shade of cream, matching the fancy cups (the owner would never admit it, but Emerson knew they were bought in Walmart, part of a special edition paying homage to Duke William and Duchess Kate wedding), wooden floor well polished, and secondhand machines.

– Why do we insist in coming here anyways? There is nothing special or marvelously tasty, and the prices are salty, even for my rich ass. - Yoongi said, listening the annoying creek sound from the old, and possibly thriftshopped, brown chair.

– Because it's small, quiet and mainly because your fans won't flash boobs outside the window, since they would never imagine rockstar Min Yoongi having a coffee with his girlfriend in a place like that. - Emerson said, staring the street along with Yoongi.

– Yeah, that day we went to Starbucks was insane. Who would imagine someone is actually willing to lift the blouse and get arrested in exchange of an autograph? - Yoongi said and chuckled.

– That day was intense and weird. Her boobs were beautiful, though. Round and symmetrical. Your face tattooed on the nipples also looked good. - Emerson said and smirked in a dorky way, leading Yoongi to chuckle even louder. - Who would ever guess that your nose has the exact shape of a nipple? The fan was a genius, we got to admit.

Yoongi left all the weight from his upper body heavy on the chair back, staring at the ceiling and inhaling deeply, exhaling and repeating. He swallowed a puddle of spit pooling on his tongue and looked back at Emerson, finishing her tea with a short sip and folding back the napkin.

– Fame is so good sometimes. Don't take me wrong, I love making music, being rich and travelling around the globe, but the occasional harassment bothers a lot. - Yoongi said tapping his fingers on the table.

Emerson reached his arm and caressed lightly the skin covered with a sweatshirt. Yoongi inclined to the side, laying his head on table, feeling his girlfriend's fingers petting his black hair. Sometimes words weren't required, silence had a lot to say, loud, actions could hold even more significance.

– I love you, cutie pie. - Yoongi mumbled, cheeks squeezed against the wood, but words still bright and clear.

– I love you too, Yoongles. - Emerson replied, still feeling his smooth wires against her skin. Soft touches coming from both sides.

Whoever saw Min Yoongi up spitting on a microphone, saying raw words about political struggles, sex, mental health, life and a few songs based on stories, possibly thought of him as a rough person. No one would ever imagine his soft side, everyone always glanced over and focused on Suga, not Yoongi. The opposition between personality shown and stage name enchanted and intrigued.

Yoongi only allowed a few people to witness his actual personality.

Opening up and letting someone unknown in his personal space, oh it always represented a problem to Yoongi. A lonely soul that hardly had friends, only close to a few people. Bangtan Lads represented friendship and family.

Namjoon, Hoseok, Jungkook, Seokjin, Jimin and Taehyung flew from Korea to England with him after achieving worldwide success, for the sake of their fame moving to a place rather connected to alternative rock sounded as a clever change. Seven korean boys, carrying a bag with worn-out clothes, instruments and golden discs. Simplicity and luxe. Millions of fans, artists and new faces, yet Yoongi only felt truly comfortable around his bandmates.

After a few months living in England, conceding daily interviews and working like horses in new musics, Yoongi decided to try and join a dating app. Hoseok met a few women through Tinder, but happily found Taylor, friends with benefits at first, but a few months later his girlfriend. Witnessing one of the lads glad in a relationship inspired Yoongi, he even paid for Tinder Gold, regretting immensely after two dates and realizing sex could be good, but lacked connections. He needed to connect with that person, deeply to a point where her heartbeat felt like music.

Lonely and slowly giving up, Yoongi felt his heart flutter when Emerson appeared like a butterfly on his eventful yet boring life. Emerson emerged from a calm life working as music critic for Rolling Stones, to the love of Yoongi’s life and his main inspiration.

Everything began when Emerson went to work and received the task of interviewing a korean band. Apparently someone was sick and everyone else had more important stuff to do. She accepted and decided to use the original agenda, adding a few questions and studying every member.

Those who believe would say it was love at first sight, a connection between souls. Not even a word flew across the room, but Yoongi felt butterflies on his stomach and heart beating faster. For a single moment, he even considered the idea of end having a heart attack, because in years no one ever made him feel like that. Emerson lost words and suddenly, there were only Emerson and Yoongi in a room, not the whole Bangtan Lads.

That same day they had dinner together. Chatted, danced and traded cellphone numbers. Instead of going back to his place, Emerson took him to her home and they watched a movie.

For the first time in a almost a whole year living in England, Min Yoongi felt a connection.

- x - x - x -

– I swear that Zeus’s nutsack is the best position ever. - Namjoon said and threw the notebook in Jungkook’s direction, watching him grab it and read all lyrics written down.

– And why should we sing about that? - Seokjin asked raising one eyebrow, expression deadly serious, grabbing his can of Coca-Cola and sipping from the white straw. - I love doggy style, but would never write a whole goddamn song about it.

– I agree with Jin, the world doesn’t need to know what you and Bárbara are up to. I never wanted to know. - Taehyung said and nodded in Jin’s direction, whilst curling a lock of brown hair on his fingertip. - Honestly, I think you need vacations, your ideas are getting cornier, hornier and grossier.

– Let the man live, you guys! - Hoseok said and took the notebook off Jungkook’s hand, being punched in return. - I don’t even know how the fuck is Zeus’s Nutsack, but if our smartpants wants to write about his experience, allow him to do so. - He gazed down at the lyrics on his hands and chuckled. - Sorry Joon, but this time I’m with Tae and Jin, I won’t sing it.

– Please guys! We are an alternative rock band who has three songs about sex, we need something to bring sexy back during the concerts or fans will feel bored. It’s been two tours since Jimin showed his abs during ‘Clarividencia’ for the last time. People are commenting on Twitter. - Namjoon said and pouted.

– Let’s vote. It’s a democracy, isn’t it? - Yoongi asked, emerging from his big and fluff chair and bending down, his upper body supported by the elbows firmly planted on his skinny thighs. - I vote to burn that shit and never mention it again.

Everyone in the studio laughed, except for Namjoon, he shrunk on his spot and turned the page, sketching and randomly drawing circles, looking for inspiration in something other than intercourse. Yoongi watched everyone leave the studio and sat beside him.

– Remember when we first recorded a full-length album and korean managers wanted us to become a pop? They saw potential in every single one of us, but wanted a profitable artist. - Yoongi laid his head on Namjoon's shoulder. - Thankfully we took our content and moved to an indie recording studio. Can you possibly imagine us as Bangtan Sonyeondan? BTS not BTL? We discussed the idea, and the first sketch of success wasn't the right one. Maybe that song is like BTS, a bit more of thought and time may turn it into BTL.

– Are you saying that I should focus less on the movements itself? The song is pretty explicit, so should I use better metaphors? - Namjoon asked, still not looking at Yoongi, but the older man saw a sparkle run through his eyes, like a lightbulb shining with new ideas flowing through his synapses.

– We can work on it later, right now I want to prepare a surprise to Emerson. Can you believe we've been together for 5 years already?

– Yeah, half a decade. - Namjoon said, sighing deeply. - What do you have in mind?

– I'm gonna propose. - Yoongi smiled, a gummy grin with feelings running off the edge. - I've been planning it for two years now. When we completed our third anniversary, Emerson wrote a post on her personal Tumblr about our relationship, mentioning a few situations and funny moments from day to day. That same day I wanted to make a song, but it's easy, within hours I could finish a masterpiece and the effort would be almost none, so I decided to step up my game a little and began writing a book. Poems about her, our partnership, my feelings, everything.

– It's really thoughtful of you, Yoongs. - Namjoon wrote a few random lines on his notebook and turned to look at his friend. - And some folks still dare to claim you are not a romantic guy.

In fact, not even Yoongi saw himself as someone surfing on romance, usually writing about politics and books. Focusing in feelings and matters related to relationship never appealed. He became responsible for most tracks talking about issues of immigrating from Korea to England, emphasizing that fame changed how they saw him, but xenephobia still existed. Bangtan Lads received a Grammy Nomination for ‘Golden Borders’, a whole album shoving in people’s ears how shittily they treated immigrants, but still wished from heart to live in USA.

Using ‘Golden Borders’ as the soundtrack, Emerson made researches and released a documentary about immigrants, showing the ridiculous racism and highlighting double-standards in how right-wing parties treated foreigners victims of war and those just running from economic crisis, but still wealthy. She also reported how politicians like Donald Trump vertiginously changed the meaning of “immigrants”, not differing someone legal from the illegals.

Yoongi was possibly the proudest boyfriend ever accompaining his significant other during the premiere of ‘Invisible: The Truth on Immigrating’. Emerson invited a few famous people who immigrated from their home-countries, along with “common” folks.

Maybe he wasn’t the most romantic boyfriend ever, but still knew how to encourage Emerson. During their relationship, Yoongi convinced her of writing two books, one script for a movie, produce two documentaries and demand her own column on Rolling Stones site. Whilst she inspired and gave ideas to two albums which earned them four Grammy Awards, abetted him into trying something solo, and produce for different artists aside from BTL.

Even though both of them worked massively with media, Emerson and Yoongi never thought about conceding interviews as a couple. Daily invitations for appearances in shows together popped up on their e-mails, but without discussing it they already knew the answer: No.

When asked the reason, Emerson and Yoongi agreed to keep their personal life, well, private. They already shared a few cute moments on Instagram and Tumblr. Why would someone want to dig more into the relationship? Snooping isn't good.

- x - x - x -

– In conclusion. Communism wasn't planned for over populated countries, or planets. - Jade said and chopped in two the turkey sandwich she was holding, taking a bite from one half of it.

Emerson shrugged her shoulders and nodded, agreeing with Jade. Accompanied by Shmailah and Zariah, they were waiting for the reunion with some other journalists from Rolling Stones. The weekly meeting for coming up with ideas to articles, reportages and new ideas for photoshoots to use in scheduled interviews, was about to happen, but only a few professionals were already there.

Usually, the boss bought some goodies to complement and cheer every meeting, but that day in question had food and sandwiches provided by a new diner across the street. They were lolling on burgers, sandwiches and chips, also milkshakes and cherry fizzy drinks.

– My article about nigerian culinary is going smooth. - Zariah said and took a sip from the vanilla milkshake in front of her. - That restaurant I contacted to ask for primary informations, the old lady sent me fried yams. I’m totally sending her a Christmas card and gift, and candy canes for her grandchildren.

– Great! It's so nice when someone values our work and spoils us with small, yet adorable gifts. - Emerson said and dipped one chip in the ketchup sauce. She was sitting curled up, knees touching her chest, not very excited. - By the way, mine about Bollywood is almost done, but I need some new informations. Can you help me, Shims?

– It's not right to assume I know a lot about Bollywood, only based on my bangladeshi heritage… But yes I’m a fucking Bollywood nerd and would love to help. - Shmailah grinned perversely, caressing Emerson's cheek with love, noticing that she seemed a little down lately. - What's up, Em? You don't seem very happy, not even surrounded by your best friends and a whole lot of free junk food.

The parallel conversation between Zariah and Jade quit, suddenly all three pairs of eyes were gazing at Emerson, who felt her cheeks getting warmer. She took another chip and started talking, whilst shaking the potato around, like a wand, before taking a bite and continuing.

– I don't think Yoongi loves me anymore. - She sniffed, swallowing the growing knot in her throat with chips. - We've been together for five years now, but in the last few months he's been a little distant. I know, I know, Yoongi sometimes loses himself inside his own brain, but not distant like that. Far, you know? We used to be so connected, now that connection seems a little faded.

– Oh Emerson. I don't see that happening, ever. - Jade said, bending over the table to grab her fries-less hand. - Yoongi seems so passionate about you. Whenever we go out in group, he only has eyes for you. Like, when Yoongi notices you barely had the opportunity to speak, he always tries to bring you into the conversation. Jimin already witnessed your boyfriend getting distracted and spend several minutes staring at his lockscreen, which is you.

– Totally agree with Jade. Not even dead Yoongi would stop loving you, he would probably find his way back into our spiritual plan only to make sure you are aware of his love. - Shmailah said, watching a shy tear run down Emerson's rosy cheek

– It's so complicated. In the past two months he spent days without showing up at our place, and not caring to tell where he is. Whenever he is around though, the office's chair receives most attention, since Yoongi locks himself there and if I try to get in, he scouts me outside saying it's something related to work. - Emerson tried to swallow the knot again, but now not even milkshake worked, and she sobbed. - Why couldn't I see if it is about work? When he was recording and producing his solo mixtape, I slept on the studio's couch for four days straight, trying to support him. I'd never do anything to ruin whatever he has been working on. We had coffee today at a cafè, but the experience felt so shallow. Small, verging insignificant, talk.

– I’m so sorry to hear that, baby. What if he’s been working in something for you? Like a gift and doesn’t want you to see and spoil the surprise? - Jade asked, raising one eyebrow. - You shouldn’t conclude always the worse, sometimes it is just something you can’t put immediately put together. Consider it and give time to time.

The conversation silenced in the moment everyone else invited to the meeting showed up. Seven other journalists gathered, including the boss, whose appeared holding another tray full of cookies and cupcakes.

– For what it seems like, that diner also has bakery goodies. - Jackie, also know as The Boss, said pushing the tray up on table. - I love so fucking much my job. Whoever don’t can totally stand up and leave, more cupcakes and chips for me, há!

- x - x - x -

Emerson had no time to think about her situation with Yoongi during the afternoon. Work consumed every disposable piece of brain cell, fulfulling a whole week of articles for her column and completing one reportage about self-made millionaires.

However, after leaving the building and heading home, the empty apartment made her shatter out and cry, sobbing and feeling a sudden urge to destroy something. Not only a random object like a glass cup, but something stiffier and harder to fix, like herself. In years working, dating Yoongi and being friends with so many great people, she never felt that need again, honestly, considering the idea of hurting her own body sounded weirdly appealing, after so much improvement, going back felt like a failure.

Maybe the past years left her brain so occupied with every new information, that negative thoughts had no actual space, a little tab in the corner that was muted by Yoongi’s voice. Now, without his presence and strong connection, Emerson silenced all other tabs, only listening to the one where haters were loud, depression and self-harm spoke freely.

Years of self-improvement faded within a pinch, a thin drop of blood coming from her thigh stained the beige pants, and Emerson left the small, yet painful, piece of skin go from between her long nails.

Weak and sobbing, she reunited all forces and stood up from the front door, walking slowly in bedroom’s direction, wishing only to lay down, curl up inbetween the duvets and sleep, ignoring any bad temptations, observing them disappear along with conscience.

Old monsters, some she saw as teenage ghosts, showed up. Emerson felt stupid for harming herself over such a small reason. Independent woman, smart, successful, amazing close friends, and yet the major breakdown in years was happening because of a man. What kind of mean joke could that be?

She wished so hard to pull herself together again, living happily and not getting to precipitated conclusions over small situations. That's it, maybe she was only overreacting. What if she is not? What if the connection between them is, indeed, fading? What if? What? What?

What was their mistake?

What was her mistake?

Was there a mistake?

Cruel trick her own brain was playing. Blackjack with sanity. Poker with happiness. What did she had to bet? Of course, Emerson conquered a lot in years, how much of that could she lose? Golden Globe? Literature prizes? All had her name embedded in wood. Friendships? Weekly night-outs proved that their bond didn't change within years. Why then only Yoongi seemed to slip through her fingers? The only thing she would miss the most, fading like smoke on the water.

Sometimes, the smartest, strongest, toughest people can go through menaces with delight and peace. Though, their inner monsters exist, and can seem small for whoever witnesses from outside, but a spider is a huge matter to a fly. Struggles and fears, perspective changes them.

Judging someone's feelings and fright isn't up to us.

- x - x - x -

That night Yoongi meant to crash down at the studio, but Namjoon showed up close to midnight, accompanied by his girlfriend, a small and chubby woman with wild brown hair, and also followed by Jimin and Jade, Jin and DiLayla. Their Instagram revealed that everyone had dinner, sponsored by a fancy restaurant trading food for audience.

– Why is everyone here grating me with the grace of your presence? Is there a party happening in my studio and I'm not invited? - Yoongi asked sarcastically, saving the new poem written before anyone could ruin it.

– Cut it out, Yoongi. - Jade said taking her thick beige coat off, leaving it on the black couch. - Don't you think you've been spending way too much time working? Stuck in your office or studio?

Her tone seemed mysterious, as if she meant something more than what was actually voiced. Yoongi felt intrigued watching everyone getting comfortable. Were they intervening?

– What is that? An intervention? I don't do drugs. - Yoongi joked, only him laughing, everyone else seemed morosed.

– See Yoongs, we were having dinner and suddenly Emerson became a subject of discussion. - Jin spoke trying to look chill, but very tense. - Jade mentioned that Emerson has been feeling a bit… Ignored lately. Bárbara and DiLayla agreed...

– Let me speak, love. - DiLayla touched Jin's shoulder and stood up. - Emerson mentioned to us that you’ve been working way too much, even at home, and she thinks you don't love her anymore. Basically, she feels like your connection is slowly vanishing.

– Namjoon told us what you've been planning for proposing to her, and honestly, I will take note and use a few of your ideas someday. - Jimin gave a side grin to Jade, watching how she blushed and continued. - But maybe, just maybe, you focused so much on something to her, that kind of forgot her? Not literally, we know you love Emerson with every beat of your heart, your maeum [마음, something like feelings], but you know, you can't starve a man before feeding him…

– What? Emerson is feeling neglected? - Yoongi asked, chocked and feeling his heart breaking.

Yoongi turned the chair around when tears verged to fall, not wanting to face his friends whilst crying. Jin, Jimin and Namjoon only saw him emotionally shattered in two situations. Feeling raw and vulnerable always made him uncomfortable, mainly being stared by people he had no intimacy, like his friends’s girlfriends, they were cool, but not close enough to watch him with guards down.

The young man hated this aspect of him. He despised how inadvertently his mind let things pass without noticing, facts around that could vastly affect his life, personal or professional. Having Emerson always picking up on him about unhealthy habits made it easier to don't die after spending three days living off hard liquor and olives, and overworking.

He wasn't someone mindless, or easily distracted, but Emerson helped him to focus in more than one thing at once, like working, but still resting enough, or channeling the best from every situation. Hiding something from her, avoided the warnings. Without realizing, Yoongi evicted his girlfriend from working aspects of him.

Maybe Jimin was right. He focused so much in doing something for Emerson, that he forgot to live with Emerson.

Goddamn it, Yoongi!

Namjoon looked around and politely asked everyone to leave the studio for a moment. He pulled a chair and sat beside Yoongi, caressing his trembling shoulder.

– I don't think I ever saw you crying over something so simple to solve. - Namjoon whispered, still petting his friend's shoulder. - You know nothing is lost and what to do is actually easy. The solution may ruin a huge surprise, but it is going to soothe a small injure caused by itself.

– What if Emerson has been considering to break up? Oh fuck, Joon! What if I ruined it all? - Yoongi used his sleeves to dry off his tears. - What if everything is so lost that not even all poems I wrote could fix it?

– See, a few weeks ago me and Barbs were talking about couples that gathered together along the past years. - Namjoon said and stopped caressing Yoongi's shoulder. - First, Hoseok and Taylor, then you and Emerson, Jade and Jimin, Di and Jin, me and her, Zariah and Jungkook, and Shims with Tae. I think we created an equilibrium in universe. Everyone is such a great and right match that if at some point one these couples break up, a new Big Bang would happen, cuz the mutual decision could ruin the universal balance.

“I'm not being far-fetched, I swear in the name of Stephen Hawking. - Namjoon spoke and made a cross in his chest. - Sometimes a long-term relationship can go through challenges. Two different people sharing a life of experience cannot live without occasional fights, bickering or arguing. We are human, even the most rational ones can be stubborn. All you have to do is insist. Although, it seems like Emerson loves you as much as you love her, so the only struggle here is distance.”

– You are right, but I’m still feeling like a sucker. - Yoongi snuffled, cleaning the coryza from his runny nose. - But as Emerson already told me, I should learn from my mistakes, then use it on an inspirational song, making my fans wander on what actually gave me the idea to it. - He grinned passionately and turned his cellphone screen on, staring at the lockscreen: a stunning picture of Emerson in Japan, smiling, using a flower crown and surrounded by cherry blossoms. - I love her so much.

Next thing processed by cameras around the building was a very hurry Yoongi grabbing his stuff, leaving a group of friends behind. A determined face, quick steps and then driving fast through the parking lot, tyres screaming like Robert Plant in the beginning of ‘Immigration Song’.

- x - x - x -

Emerson woke up in a startle after hearing the front door banging loudly. Still sleepy, she had no energy to stand up and check what was happening. Sleep whilst crying is exhausting, you wake up psychologically weary. After a few minutes and heavy steps, she heard someone calling her name, more specifically, Yoongi calling chanting her name.

She stood up, bringing one of the duvets along, and walked to the room, where Yoongi was crouched down, sitting on his calfs, typing something on the laptop he settled on the coffee table. When the man side glanced Emerson, he got up on his feet and hugged her, feeling his heart shatter with the small, yet present, dot of blood staining her beige pants.

– I’m so sorry. Forgive me, please… - Yoongi whispered, trying not to cry again, not before actually accomplishing his new goal for the night. Also, his mind was worried about the blood on her leg. - Did you hurt yourself, baby? Oh fuck, did you?

– Why? What did you do? - Emerson questioned feeling his arms around her, resisting before letting the duvet down and hugging him back. - I pinched myself a little too hard, but I swear it wasn't serious. Sorry...

– I was distant and absent from your life, and now you are convinced I don’t love you anymore. - He swallowed the knot on his throat, still trying not to cry. - It’s so dumb, because the only thing I love more than you is my music, but you are the inspiration for my work, so you are my music… And I made you hurt yourself.

– No, please Yoongles, it was a small relapse. Not worth of a fuzz. It won't happen again. - She felt his uneven heart beat against her ear, touching his chest. - Who told you that? Who told you how I was feeling? - Her arms quit hugging him, a tension running through both bodies.

– I don’t know, today I was finishing a project for you in my studio and Namjoon, Jin and Jimin showed up, they were accompained by their girlfriends. They told me how you were feeling and made me realize how far I’ve been, and how cold I acted earlier. - He seemed uncomfortable revealing his sources of information, but the truth would end up appearing anyways.

– Wait a second… - Emerson dried the single tear left running down her cheek and stared Yoongi. - Have you been working in something for me? Like, a surprise? A gift?

Yoongi shrugged his shoulders and nodded. His mind was hazy and the urge to just kneel and propose to Emerson without previous background was slowly taking over his guts. He couldn’t predict her reaction, since every brain cell were occupied on finding the right words. Fortunately, the woman grinned shyly and blushed, gazing down on the laptop.

They sat down in front of the open laptop, his arms around her shoulders. Yoongi sighed and pressed the ‘enter’ key, watching Power Point opening and a clear book cover appeared, mint coloured like his hair.

The book Yoongi worked for two years was almost ready. Whilst looking for good names and aesthetics a japanese word loomed from his pre-teenage memories: ishin-denshin (以心伝心) and his book title fitted like a glove. A compilation of poems and the last one, in Yoongi’s humble oppinion, the most majestic one was named after the piece itself. He planned on proposing whilst reading to Emerson.

– You asked me nothing, but I feel the need to explain what’s in front of you. - Yoongi cleared his throat, watching Emerson’s eyes scanning the screen. - My gift for our fifth anniversary was a book. I’ve been planning it for two years now, and in the last two or three months I reached the final details, which were cover and last poem. I never allowed you to see it, because I wanted it to be a surprise. I guess old habits never die, because during the time spent working on that book, I isolated myself from you and gave a wrong impression. Sorry.

– It's so beautiful, even though I don't even know what the title means. - Emerson said and sobbed, smiling through tears. - If the whole book is in japanese, then it would be good if you taught me how to read.

– Oh, cutie pie. I love you so much. - Yoongi snorted and kissed the top of Emerson's head, whose felt so loved, more than she felt in months. - It's, indeed, in japanese. Ishin-denshin, it's a kind of interpersonal communication, unspoken, but the understanding is still mutual. Something like, heart transmits what mind thinks. That word was a trend back in my pre-teenage years, never thought I would use it.

Emerson turned to look Yoongi. His eyes were watering, but no tears falling. She smiled, happily and kissed him. In months, they kissed plenty of times, but none of them had the same meaning as this one. It wasn't sexy or teasingly, if we are going to be honest, the kiss was salty with tears and, well, coryza. Emerson and Yoongi were slowly reconnecting.

The kiss stopped when their lungs claimed for air. After a few smooches, they got back to stare the screen.

– I love you so much, Yoongles. - Emerson felt a magnetic force making her back look for support on his chest, diminishing the space between them. - I know it's dumb, but I firmly believe we are soulmates, there is a supernatural connection between us, and considering the idea of losing you… it made me so desperate and sad. I know I would keep living, but my soul would never feel completed again.

– I know baby, I feel the same way, but instead of voicing my feelings, why don't you read a few poems I wrote? -Yoongi leaned and wrapped one of his arms around her shoulders again, smiling passionately whilst seeing skinny knees touching the chest, covered by a fluff light pink sweatshirt with ‘Treat People With Kindness’ written in a plain white font. He remembered the day they bought the piece of clothing after a Harry Styles concert in London. What a fun night, hanging around with him after the event. As Yoongi said earlier, being famous has its perks.

Emerson felt immersed in deep feelings, some of them not even voiced during their relationship. Yoongi wrote small poems about every aspect of her: from her cute moles, to how he loved petting her hair before sleeping, or how her voice was sweet like honey and face cute as a mochi. Everything, he wrote inspired by moments they shared, like the trip to Japan during spring, or New Year’s Eve in China. The first time Emerson tried kim chi and how her nose puckered when the spicy taste finally hit her taste buds. When she first attended to Bangtan Lads concert and fanchanted along with ARMYs, taking a few of them to backstage. Travelling to Brazil and messaging Bárbara instead of using Google Translator.

They lived so many precious moments together. Yoongi made sure over 100 of them became art through emotional poems.

The last one, named ‘Ishin-denshin’. She took a deep breathe, still sobbing with happy tears running down her face. The silence only broken by occasional snorts and chuckles. However, Yoongi was getting more tense, staring at her eyes.

Ishin-denshin

Once upon a time in the far land of England

A woman gave birth to love impersonated in flesh, blood and gold

No one knew how important she was and how lucky they were

Until chaos from Korea arrived and trapped her in maeum.

Connections can cross the border of space and time

Voices and signs

Touches and sights

You and me, hands holding tight.

Love is a matter of ishi-denshin

Ability to communicate from mind to heart

Open up on a gaze

Not a sound to be heard from mouth.

Thankfully chaos and peace mingle and complete each other

Yin and Yang united by their differences

Perfecting what was already sculpted with dust and water

Remodeling and always improving, resulting in brand new peculiarities.

Love and connections are the result of fighting

Nothing good comes easy

Nothing easy is good

Once you find balance, universe rewards you with love.

Continents separated us for most part of our days on earth

Wandering uneven, looking for the half that best fit our soul

Happily odds were and allowed what resulted in balance

Only imagining myself without you, even my brain in plain conscience feels afoul.

Don’t you dare saying you are not good enough

Cutie pie, you are unique like flakes of snow

Every drop has its own shape

Unique, you never see two looking the same.

My heartbeat is in sync with yours

Slow like when we sleep

Or when we kiss after a long period apart, tumbling in ribcage, rhythm vigorous

I thank everyday for finding my soulmate in a sweetheart like you.

Stay for as long as you want

I feel lucky only by having in my life as a constant

Luckily it won’t change much

When I finally make you a Min like me, everything mine will be ours.

When Emerson finished reading ‘Ishin-denshin’, Yoongi didn’t quite gave her time to think broader and stood up, pulling the woman together. Standing side by side, he kneeled in front of Emerson and proclaimed, among tears and sobs, holding one hand whilst looking for something in his back pocket.

– Emerson, after all those words you’ve read, would you give me the honour of becoming my Mrs.Min?

– The only possible answer is yes.

- x - x - x -

P:S I purple you <3

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jixiani · 5 years

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I’m Fat and that’s OK.

Several years ago I restricted my caloric intake to a point that I gave myself gallstones. I’ve had disordered eating since I was young, as happens when you grow up fat. I remember dieting when I was in middle school, joining gyms with my mom and aunt in sixth grade, eating nothing but a glass of milk and an apple until dinner in an attempt to be acceptable to the kids that teased me. I’ve dieted, tried exercise routines that I took too far because I’m super competitive and obsessive, counted calories and ended up memorizing caloric content of certain foods. I got helpful advice from people that cared about me: drink a glass of water before every meal (which turned into only drinking a glass of water instead of eating a meal), eat less, substitute celery for a snack, dance while standing in line to burn extra calories...I spent a good year as a middle schooler doing the Slimfast thing, or using the same concept but with milk when we couldn’t afford actual diet drinks. I spent my entire high school career never eating lunch, only occasionally snatching fries from my friends or skipping lunch to go to an elective with them followed by a few times a year staying after school for stage crew and conveniently not eating dinner either. I was always fat. I was nicknamed Miss Piggy in grade school, tormented by bullies, left out, beaten up a few times. Once one of the boys threw a bottle of glue at me so hard that I had a bruise the size of a melon on my hip for a month, coincidentally on the same side I get ovarian cysts, I’m sure it has nothing to do with that...When I almost died of Salmonella at ten I was happy not that I had survived but that I had lost thirty pounds. I alternated not eating anything with binging on junk food. Still to this day if I can’t bring myself to eat anything else I know I can eat ice cream or some sort of fried potato or chocolate. The summer before my senior year of high school I rode my bike eight miles every day it wasn’t raining. Sometimes I rode twice that. I rarely brought water with me, it was summer but I figured that it just meant I would lose weight faster. I did lose weight, I dropped five or six dress sizes and suddenly I was acceptable, I was cool, I was desirable. I was also terribly damaged and needy and threw myself into a series of really bad decisions and relationships because I had zero self esteem. I eventually gained all the weight back. In college I almost fainted during a theater rehearsal and was forced to eat a bag of pretzels, it was the only thing I had eaten that day because I had been busy. I learned that I could replace a meal with a candy bar, something to keep my sugar up. I can’t stand people seeing me eat, I would buy things out of the vending machines and hide in little used spaces and eat my candy bar or poptart. Under the stairs, in the garden, in the basement break room...I knew where all the vending machines were and would avoid them if there was someone else there. I kept dieting, I downloaded apps to help track calories and exercises. The machines at the gym gave read outs of how many calories burned. I was congratulated on every bit I lost, every hour spent at the gym, I fed on praise instead of food. My app said I could have 3000 calories, I barely ate 1200 on a regular basis and that was when I was actively trying. But then I’d look at that 1200 and think, I can do better. The hours of exercise built up and I competed with myself to see how little calories I could log. Each teaspoon of sugar is 15 calories (I didn’t have to look that up, I’ll probably remember it when I’ve forgotten my own name), milk is 125 but black coffee is almost nothing, celery is also almost nothing. 1000, 900, 800...the human body burns something like 800 calories just to keep you alive, so if I eat less than that I’m bound to lose weight, right? Well, yes, I did. After a few months of that I had lost a lot of muscle, my body burning itself up to keep me moving, out of breath walking up stairs, obviously I was out of shape despite the diet and exercise…See, when you’re skinny and you do this, people worry about you and you have an eating disorder, but when you’re fat every pound and inch lost is a victory. According to a doctor I was seeing around that time “Fat people don’t have eating disorders.” I was seeing them because I started having gallstone attacks, I had no insurance and couldn’t afford the surgery, they suggested that I “Just stop eating McDonalds” I insisted that I didn’t eat McDonalds, that I didn’t actually eat much of anything, that I had cut out junk food, that I was dieting, that I thought that maybe I was dieting too much and had a problem. This was met with skepticism and I was told that if that was true then I should keep up the good work. For the first time in all my turbulent history with food I was actually afraid of eating. The wrong food or food at the wrong time resulted in pain. Not eating had also resulted in pain. I had done this to myself, I gave myself permission to eat but I was terrified of putting food in my mouth. Finally after twenty one attacks, some lasting over 9 hours I went to the ER. I was developing jaundice, they gave me the option of surgery. It was elective, they were very clear on that, I could go home, of course I might need a new liver, but it was my choice.

After that I stopped dieting. I eat junk food, I eat good food, I eat because I enjoy it, I walk, again because I enjoy it. I gain weight, I lose weight, I have stretch marks, I still remember calories and I despise that everything has calories on the label now. I’ve gone to therapy, I found out why I am obsessive and restrictive (obsessive compulsive personality disorder) and have tools to help. I still sometimes survive on poptarts although that’s being poor/convenience/I genuinely like them not because I’m afraid that people will see me eat real food. I eat salad because I like vegetables almost as much as chocolate not because I’m supposed to in order to be seen as a “good” fat person. I eat fast food and chips and give zero fucks what someone might say about it and know that I’m allowed to eat what I want, just not to over do it. I am still self conscious, I still worry about whether someone will find me attractive, I still have days where nothing fits right and even my own skin feels wrong and I probably always will. To be fair, I had those days when I was a size 12 too. I found doctors that don’t harp on my BMI (which is a bullshit measure, how could I have the same BMI when I was a size 18 as when I was a size 12 and you could count every rib and take out an eye with my hip bone?), I’m not looking forward to finding new ones but hopefully I can find one that won’t try to make me lose weight before treating my strep throat (totally something that happened).

But the thing is, I work with a lot of women and they are always comparing diets. They eat their salads and talk about how much they hurt from the gym and how no, they can’t have that bread it’s all carbs. And I have a few girls (it’s always the girls) who come through my lunch line and ask for sandwiches without bread because they’re trying to lose weight (although I would have sold both my arms to be as skinny as them when I was their age) and I just want to shake them. I want to tell them about how I starved myself for most of my life, how I hid in my bedroom to eat and hated every moment that I ate with other people and never wanted to be the first in line for food, how I made myself sick and how I’m probably heavier because my body wants to hold on to every calorie I begrudgingly gave it. How those “Recommended daily calorie intake” things are low balled and growing kids should be getting more like 3000-3500 calories a day and the unknown damage I’ve done to myself by only getting half that for most of my life. I want to tear down the whole system that makes money off making us feel bad about ourselves and assure them that none of it matters, that you only have one body and one life and you can’t put off living until you reach some unattainable and unsustainable goal. I want to rip those little signs off everything that says how many calories are in things because it has taken me YEARS of purposefully ignoring them before I can eat things without thinking of how many hours I’d have to be on an elliptical to justify eating something. Because there are little girls looking at themselves in mirrors and hating themselves, because there are women that are painfully aware of how many calories are in those things and don’t need a little sign to remind them, because there are women that are still waiting to be thin enough to love themselves and do all the things they want to do but don’t think they can because they’re too fat. Because there are doctors that would rather we die while they treat our fat instead of our illness. Because fat is the worst thing you can be when there are so many worse things. Because you can’t hate yourself into someone you can love. Because the things we pick up from the world around us and the scars that are left from cruel classmates and behaviors that we develop are insidious and last a lifetime and I’m still self conscious about the way I look. No assurances that “a few hundred years ago, yours was the ideal body type” or “boys may not want to date you now, but someday men will want to marry you” or “Real girls have curves” (which excuse me, but all girls are real girls, curves or lack thereof notwithstanding), or encouraging words from lovers will ever change or erase that damage. I still have bad days. I read something in a story the other day about a chubby, older woman from the male character’s point of view and how he liked the way she looked and I realized that I had never considered that someone could be attracted to me. I always figured that people liked me despite my weight, or that they might like it but in a probably creepy, chubby chaser sort of way. It hadn’t occurred to me that my weight might not even be a factor, or that I might be beautiful (I’ve been told I was, but figured that people are just being nice or just saying that because they wanted something) I had honestly thought that everyone I have ever interacted with just put up with my weight or were willing to overlook it. I had to close my kindle app for a while, I couldn’t process anymore of the story because I had been struck momentarily dumb but the realization that people may well find me attractive. It’s incredibly hard to get past those hang ups but I’m getting better and I want everyone else to get better too.

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tech-specialist98 · 3 years

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Poco X3 Pro review: More power to you

📷

📷📷 Poco X3Poco hasn’t been around for long and yet very quickly this Xiaomi spinoff brand has built a reputation for itself launching multiple products with “world’s first or India’s first” technologies. Starting off with the illustrious Poco F1, it went on to launch the Poco X2 (first phone under 20k with 120Hz refresh rate display) and Poco X3 (first phone with Qualcomm Snapdragon 732G system-on-chip). The freshly minted Poco X3 Pro, likewise, is the first phone with Qualcomm Snapdragon 860 SoC. More than the chip itself, it is the price of the phone that is grabbing headlines. It starts at just Rs 18,999 (6GB/128GB).Then again, if you know a thing or two about Poco, this is business as usual.Unlike the Poco F1 or Poco X2 or even the Poco X3, the Poco X3 Pro isn’t technically a new product so to say. As the name suggests, it’s a turbo-charged Poco X3. If the Poco X3 was a race car, the Poco X3 Pro with its more powerful hardware should be a rocket ship. That’s expected. But that’s not all that you probably expect from a phone launching in 2021, even if its costs so low. You also expect a little bit of polish and a little bit of promise of futureproofing to go along.High performance, delivered Like the phone itself, the chip inside it is also not completely brand new. The Snapdragon 860 is a Snapdragon 855 from 2019 with a slightly overclocked CPU. Think of it as a refurbished Snapdragon 855 Plus. Considering how fast Qualcomm keeps refreshing its portfolio these days, some might take that refurbished badge with a pinch of salt. Some might call it dated. But when you put a chip like that inside a budget phone like the Poco X3 Pro, all your preconceived notions are instantly blown away. Suddenly, things start to make a lot of sense.Make no mistake, this is the most powerful phone under 20k in the Indian market today. Period. As if it wasn’t already enough, the Poco X3 Pro also comes with UFS 3.1 storage, another first for any phone in this price range.The Poco X3 Pro story essentially revolves around this hardware combo. It is perhaps the only Poco phone worthy of being called a “spiritual” successor to the Poco F1, perfectly aligning with its “everything you need, nothing you don’t” formula which is probably why the brand is going all out on marketing it that way. For good reason. Next to the Poco X3, the Poco X3 Pro is a whole new beast. Like I said, it’s a rocket ship.And it performs like one, for the most part. There are two parts to this story.This is the only phone under 20k that can play a graphically intensive game like Genshin Impact (at medium setting) or Call of Duty: Mobile (all maxed out) effortlessly, which is to say that your experience would be very, very satisfying. The Adreno 640 GPU holds up well. Though it throttles from time to time, this phone latches on and gives you a steady 60fps in many supporting games. Something like this was not possible before. It opens new opportunities, the Poco X3 Pro, for those looking to get some sort of headstart into the world of competitive gaming without breaking their bank. But it is not perfect. The Snapdragon 860, like the Snapdragon 870, and even the Snapdragon 888, is prone to heating, sometimes alarmingly when stressed. There is a cooling system inside the phone — called Liquid Cool Plus — but it seems lifted as is from the Poco X3, a phone that came with a far less powerful chip in comparison. Whatever it is, it can’t hold the beast for long as the Poco X3 Pro gets warm quickly, and near toasty during extended gaming sessions. At this point, it can become uncomfortable to hold.Basic day-to-day tasks are handled well by the phone though. As an everybody phone, this is as slick as it can get at such a low price. Poco gives you an option for up to 8 gigs of LPDDR4X RAM. Storage is capped at 128GB, but the phone supports expansion by up to 1TB. This is via a hybrid slot.Beyond gaming Rest of the Poco X3 Pro is familiar territory. Be it design, display, or battery. Even the cameras. That is not to say there are no changes, but those changes have got more to

do with subtle refinements than anything else. Some choices work, some not so much but you can tell Poco has tried to add a bit of polish to the whole package. The Poco X3 was rough around the edges.This starts with the design itself. The dual tone look is being carried over, which is to say that the Poco X3 Pro — like its predecessor — is also unapologetically bold and flashy. There is a new bronze colourway if you’re into that sort of thing. The pill-shaped massive camera module stays put too. So does the recessed side-mounted fingerprint reader which is, expectedly, fast and responsive. The only change here is the slightly tweaked Poco branding that’s more “3D” than before, but still difficult to unsee — and in my case, difficult to get along with.One of the big concerns with the Poco X3 was its heft. It was big and bulky. A part of this was because of its huge 6,000mAh battery. Poco has tried to address those concerns by reducing capacity — the Poco X3 Pro has a smaller 5,160mAh battery — but the results are nothing to write home about. The Poco X3 Pro is still an all-plastic phone that’s almost 215 gram in weight and nearly 9.5mm in thickness. Not to mention, that watered-down battery means the Poco X3 Pro can’t last as long as the Poco X3 (battery life on average is good though). It’s one of those rare instances where Poco has backed itself into a corner.It’s barely touched that screen though aside from bumping up the protection which is Corning Gorilla Glass 6 now. The Poco X3 Pro has the same 6.67-inch IPS LCD display with 1080p resolution and dynamic 120Hz refresh rate (240Hz touch sampling) as the Poco X3. It works in the same way also which means it is good but not best in class. The panel does not get very bright, colours appear muted and viewing angles could be better. The phone can’t play HDR10 content off streaming services like Netflix despite support. Ghosting or random stutters are common across some UI elements from time to time or when you are browsing through a page that involves diverse elements like text, images/GIFs, or videos. Next to a phone like the Redmi Note 10 Pro Max, or Note 10 Pro, the Poco X3 Pro looks seriously underpowered in this regardThese Redmi phones also give the Poco X3 Pro’s cameras a run for their money. The Poco X3, even though it was a performance-oriented slash gaming phone, had a competitive camera setup. For some curious reason, its “Pro” version takes several steps back. It has a 48MP main (this was 64MP in the X3), 8MP ultra-wide-angle (13MP in X3) and two 2MP cameras, one for depth and another for macros. Output is just about serviceable.You can take good-enough shots with the primary camera (Sony IMX582 sensor) when lots of light is available, but the level of detail and dynamic range could be better. Colours are mostly true to source, which is nice. The ultra-wide camera lacks colour parity with the main camera, but it does a decent job offering a wider perspective when lighting is ideal. Details are still amiss in these photos, but it is what it is. Portraits shot with the Poco X3 Pro come out nice with good subject separation and creamy background blur. The macro shooter is a hit or miss affair. Low light photos (even with night mode which is also available on the ultra-wide) are disappointing, in part due to the aggressive noise reduction algorithm. Video recording tops out at 4K@30fps. The 20MP front camera is same as the one on the Poco X3. It takes decent selfies when lighting is good with occasional smoothening even when beautification is manually set to off.Software has always been Poco’s dark horse and while that’s largely true about the Poco X3 Pro as well, MIUI for Poco is clearly showing signs of ageing, already. It does not show any pesky ads like its other Redmi siblings which is well articulated and appreciated, but Poco needs to do more than that to justify its existence as an independent brand now. MIUI for Poco needs to be more than just MIUI with a Poco launcher to differentiate itself. With Xiaomi borrowing many of its features including the

hallowed app drawer and Google feed on the minus one screen, MIUI for Poco doesn’t really stand out anymore. If anything, it has become buggier by the day. The amount of bloat or unwanted apps has gone up. But the biggest problem is the lack of clarity on future updates. My review unit is running MIUI 12.0.5 (with the April security patch) when an even cheaper Redmi phone like the Redmi Note 10S has been updated to MIUI 12.5.4.An ode to a classic I write this review as I install Battlegrounds Mobile India Beta on this phone, and I can’t help but think how far Poco has come. How the Poco F1 turned the industry literally upside down. That phone was far from perfect. It had a wonky design and terrible cameras. The thing couldn’t even stream Netflix in high definition initially. And yet, here we are, three years later, still asking Poco to launch a successor. Not a lot of phones have commanded so much respect and adulation from fans and critics alike. It was truly one of its kind, the Poco F1, and I think it’s befitting it stays that way. Some things are just not meant to be replacedBut you can always have a product or two that could take you back in time. Something like the Poco X3 Pro. It is the only phone that has been able to recreate some of that lost Poco F1 magic for me.There are phones with better design, more colourful display, significantly better cameras, and longer battery life under 20k, but none of them can play Battlegrounds Mobile India Beta the way it is meant to be played like the Poco X3 Pro. If that is what you are looking for, the Poco X3 Pro comes highly recommended.But here’s the thing, nostalgia and power will take Poco only so far. Considering how a lot of people are still holding on to their Poco F1s, it would have been nice had Poco offered a 5G option (it’s possible since the Snapdragon 860 is compatible with an external X50 5G modem) even if it came at a cost.Pros: Most powerful phone under 20k, 120Hz display, Loud dual speakers, IP53 rating, Good battery lifeCons: Big and bulky, Cameras could be better, Slow Android update rollout

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footmantravelagency · 3 years

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5 Reasons Why You Need A Travel Agent - More Than Ever

Want to rent a villa in Tuscany and do it on your own? It’s simple. Just type “Villa Rentals Tuscany” into Google, then wade through the four and a half million responses - most of which look the same, whether they are good or bad, legit or bogus. Spend just 10 seconds each vetting sites, and you’ll be done in a year and a half - and still won’t have rented anything.

Good luck with that - or even with much simpler planning, like searches for “straightforward” airfares. The major search sites routinely leave out flights (lots of them) and even entire airlines. A lot of the flights they do show are ones you don’t want, starting with “basic economy” fares that hit you with tons of restrictions and fees, so the price you see isn’t the one you end up paying, along with connections way too short or way too long, ones that no responsible travel agent would let you book.

Travel agents are even more important to luxury travelers, who ironically often think they know a lot about travel and rely on their own misguided sense of expertise. But while a good agent is so vital that it is simply foolish to plan a high-end trip on your own without one, they can also help travelers of all budgets.

The reality is that while it was widely predicted that the internet was going to kill off travel agents when digital tools were placed at every traveler’s disposal, that just hasn’t happened, for several good reasons.

Shannon Compton Game writes on money saving travel tips and budget travel for Outside Magazine, not the publication I’d expect to praise travel agents over DIY. But last year she wrote a column about his subject and opened with, “I’m a big fan of travel agents, even though I could technically book all my trips through websites and apps.” She then listed the specific pros of using an agent: “They can find crazy deals”; “They will be your advocate”; “They’ll take care of the little things”; “They’re true experts” and “They don’t usually cost extra.”

True, true, true, true and true. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I have been writing on travel and related tips for over a quarter of a century. I’m an expert on the subject, and I get interviewed and publicly speak about it. Do I sometimes use a travel agent? Absolutely. When friends ask for travel advice, and they do, all the time, one of the first suggestions I always make is to get a good travel agent. My tech savviest friends use travel advisors, and so does every major corporation - because it is the smart thing to do.

“Yes, the travel landscape is changing,” said Chad Clark, principal of Chad Clark Travel Ventures in Phoenix, an expert I have known for years. “Information overload, thousands of new hotels on the scene, all sorts of new cruise ships, passport and visa issues, weather, transit strikes, political unrest, natural disasters, travel insurance, travel providers going out of business, it’s never ending. How does one navigate all of this? To avoid the travel landmines that lay in front of you, you need to get a great travel advisor! You’ll be glad you did. After all, do you cut your own hair?” Good question, but his metaphor is a little off because you pay someone to cut your hair, while a good travel advisor can often save you money.

I wrote a feature about this topic here at Forbes eight years ago, and I still get thank you comments from people who took my advice. A lot has changed in those eight years, and a lot has not, so if anything, there are more reasons than ever to use a travel agent (for the record, good travel agents prefer to be called travel advisors, or sometimes travel consultants, and those are both totally accurate, but since most people still think of the industry in terms of travel agents, I’m mixing and matching).

Clark explained it to me this way, “Travel agents are a thing of the past - they primarily booked tickets and beds. Travel advisors have taken on a much more complex role - part psychologist, life coach, executive producer, concierge, fixer, dream maker, and ‘Blink Blink’ genie, with the multitude of services that they provide.”

Whatever you call them, I could go on and on about all the reason to use one, but here are the 5 biggies.

Emergencies: This is the one most applicable to the average occasional travel. Stuff happens, and whether you believe in climate change or not (spoiler alert, it’s real), big weather events have become more commonplace, widespread and unpredictable, and sooner or later Mother Nature is going to bite you when flying. But there are plenty of non-weather events disrupting flights, cruises, trains and destinations, from civil unrest to volcanic eruptions to disease outbreaks to massive wildfires to labor strikes. And just about every year you read about an airline that went bust and shut down suddenly, stranding all its passengers. Just a week ago I traveled with owner of a large New York based travel agency who has been in the business for 40 years, and he told me they recently stopped selling their customers tickets on Norwegian because the airline has had too many cancellations and became, in their view, unreliable. But cheap flights still show up in internet searches, and you probably would not know anything about it without expert advice.

Anything that causes cancelled flights (or cruises, etc.) means hassles, but the people who get through this process the most smoothly and the ones who get rebooked first and get the few available seats out of Dodge are usually the ones who used a travel agent. It’s that simple. First off, you actually have someone to call, versus long lines at banks of airport phones masquerading as “help desks.” But good agencies are constantly monitoring their clients’ flights and they usually know about your problem before you do - and often have a resolution before you even call them. They also have direct access to airline GDS (global distribution system) and don’t have to wait on long phones holds to get ticketing changes made. It’s worth noting that according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, nearly two percent of all domestic flights were canceled in 2019, a significant increase from the previous year and the highest rate since 2014. Midway through the year, MSNBC reported that passengers were being bumped from flights - involuntarily - at a rate three times higher than a year earlier.

I’ve known Anne Scully for years, and as the President of high-powered Virginia-based agency McCabe World Travel, she is perennially ranked one of the world’s best travel agents, sits on advisory boards of major luxury hotel brands and cruise lines, and is an industry legend. She told me that, “Anyone who travels should have the clout of a top travel advisor in their pocket. To start, if the client’s flight is cancelled while they are waiting for take-off they could have us rebook and protect their journey before they depart the plane. No waiting behind 300 other passengers! We can have clients met at the plane door at a large number of airports worldwide and whisked through customs, either on to their tight connecting flight or simply faster to baggage claim - where they are given help with their luggage. Most clients don’t even know that service exists, but they only need to use it once to always request it on their itineraries.”

Expertise: No one knows everything about travel, no matter how deeply they are involved in the industry. I am an expert on ski travel, and I know the ins and outs of every major luxury ski hotel in this country. So, I wouldn’t call a travel agent to help me choose a ski hotel. But I know nothing about the hotel scene in Manilla or Sri Lanka. Some travelers cheat their way around this by sticking to brands like Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton wherever the go, but in many tourism hotbeds like Fez, Morocco, all the best hotels are ones you have likely never heard of. This is where a travel advisor’s knowledge cannot be beat. And while even the best travel agent can’t know everything either, the good agencies parcel things up, so they have a safari expert, a cruise expert, a honeymoon expert, and so on, and they all work together.

Walter Brownell first escorted 10 guests to Europe in 1887, and 133 years later, Brownell Travel has 150 advisors. Sorry, but there’s no amount of research you can do or number of travel magazines you can read that can match that kind of institutional experience and collective expertise. That’s the knowledge base you want. Let’s go back to the 4.5 million villa hits - any good travel advisor will be able to tell you off the top of their head who you should be renting your villa in Tuscany from - and why. That just saved you eighteen months, and probably got you a better house.

Chad Clark believes travelers should, “Experience the extraordinary, not once in a lifetime, but every time!” and to showcase the knowledge base advisors bring to the table, he created a program he calls “Chad Clark Certified,” personally giving his stamp of approval to special hotels, restaurants, tours and experiences around the world. To date he’s certified nearly 700 different things his clients (or you) can reliably consider doing.

It is important to remember that these advantages are not just for luxury travelers. Good travel advisors do not just know what the best hotel is, they know what the best hotel is for you and your budget and can help you find the right fit. As we will see shortly, they can also save you a lot of money, no matter what style you travel in.

VIP Connections: Whether you are trying to book space at a coveted 8-villa safari lodge in Africa or get a room in a top Paris hotel during Fashion Week, most hoteliers keep emergency inventory and guess who gets it? The travel advisors they have known for years who book a lot of guests and send them a lot of business. It works this way with lots of things in the travel industry, from hard to get dinner reservations to the resort’s best ski instructor to a city’s top art expert as a private museum guide. Anytime there is scarcity, there is no substitute for personal connections, and the best agents have built these over years or decades. Plus we are living in the age of “experiential travel,” and good advisors create one of kind experiences most people would never have imagined in the first place.

“I had a client touring Russia who not only played piano well, but also took lessons from one of the best teachers in New York,” said Anne McCabe. “As a surprise, I arranged for him to visit the apartment of the great Russian composer Nicolai Rimsky Korsakov, and the curator invited him to play the composer’s piano, while his teacher listened over the phone his wife was holding. You cannot create those WOW moments if you do not get to know who your clients are, and what would make their holiday most special.” You also need to know the curator. Try booking that on TripAdvisor.

“This is a key point,” stressed Clark. “Travel advisors provide our clients with access: access to people, places, and experiences that could never be replicated, much less imagined. A great travel advisor has invested time and relationships in creating their ‘black book’ of contacts and relationships, so that when their clients travel, they are treated as a VIPs, not just a credit card number.” In my experience, everyone likes being treated like a VIP.

Seemingly simple things often annoy even the most seasoned travelers, but these irritants can be smoothed out by good advisors. One biggie is having your room ready to check in when arriving in Europe early in the morning after an exhausting overnight flight. I’ve seen lots of travelers, including myself, told to go walk around for hours and come back at two or three in the afternoon, even at the finest hotels. Do you think they tell that to Anne Scully and her peers?

Another one of the most frustrating recurring problems I hear in the industry - even at the top luxury hotels - is a notorious refusal to guarantee connecting rooms in advance for families booking multiple rooms (and paying a lot for them). But when your travel agent books hundreds of room nights with a hotel each year, the GM (or sales manager) will move heaven and earth to give that agent’s client - you - guaranteed connecting rooms. For the same price. Often with a room upgrade. And late check out. And a free food and beverage credit.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Extras: When you get more than you expected for the same price, that’s a great deal, and with travel advisors this happens all the time. The cruise industry is a perfect example of very large inventories that fluctuate in supply and demand each week, with a large audience of repeat customers who cruise again and again for years. The cruise lines do not want to lose the loyalty of those customers - or the agents who steer hundreds of them each year to particular brands. Yet it basically costs the line no more to have you stay in a deluxe suite than a basic room if that suite is available, and with the size of today’s ships, it often is. But who gets these upgrades? Advisors. Professionals who specialize in cruises have enormous volume clout and are legendary for routinely getting clients one or two class stateroom upgrades, free shore excursions, onboard credits and all sorts of things - for the same exact price you pay going direct. I would never book a cruise without using a travel advisor - it’s just foolish.

But it’s not just cruises.

“In an age of automation, it may come as a surprise that many of our new clients skew on the more tech-savvy side, and come to SmartFlyer for the first time seeking guidance on their honeymoon,” Michael Holtz, founder of extremely successful global travel agency SmartFlyer told me. “The millennial generation specifically may have seen their parents use a travel advisor, but don’t feel like they need one - until they are deep in the spiral of research. By shifting gears to planning with an expert, they feel liberated from the immense pressure of choosing the ‘best’ resort - because we’re cutting through the noise of all the conflicting opinions they’re seeing online. Our team has actually been to the properties first-hand - not to mention has personal relationships with the General Managers. For example, we just had a couple fly to Canouan, a remote island in the Caribbean that they had no idea even existed before we recommended it. When they arrived at the Mandarin Oriental, the GM double upgraded them thanks to SmartFlyer’s close relationship with the property. At the end of the day, it’s all about personal relationships translating into exceptional experiences for our clients.”

One of the biggest shortcuts to freebies and extras is Virtuoso, a network of top tier travel agencies, most in the luxury realm. While agencies belonging to Virtuoso are independent and free to recommend and book anything they want - and often do because they have strong opinions - the network has specific relationships with over 1,800 travel partners (cruise, tours, airlines and 1,400 individual hotels in 100+ countries) with which it negotiates exclusive (and contractually obligated) benefits. Why are travel suppliers so eager to work with agencies and advisors that belong to Virtuoso (advisors can join by invitation-only based on their track records)? Because last year Virtuoso members booked $26.4 billion in travel for their clients.

So in addition to the extras for personal connections you can get via people like Michael Holtz knowing the GM, anyone who books through a Virtuoso agency gets automatic perks like complimentary daily breakfast, room upgrades, early check-in, late check-out, complimentary airport transfers, spa credits and so on (specifics vary by hotel). According to Virtuoso, just the hotel benefits are valued at an average of over $500 per stay. Complimentary cruise benefits can be even bigger.

But having covered the luxury travel space for years, it seems that virtually every top advisor and agency I come across, the ones my friends, family and colleagues recommend, belongs to Virtuoso, as do all of the agencies mentioned in this piece besides the one in Travel Leaders. I just visited an amazing new luxury hotel in Italy, and they were quick to boast about having been admitted as preferred Virtuoso property - to them it was a mark of quality like earning a Michelin-star.

“The thing I love about Virtuoso is not just the quality of the advisors, but the strength of the entire network and the supplier partners they use around the world,” said travel writer, award-winning broadcaster and author Michael Patrick Shiels. “I decided to do this segment on running with the bulls in Pamplona and I had never been to Spain, so a Virtuoso advisor connected me with Made For Spain and Portugal, a partner ground supplier that does all the behind the scenes magic. They know everyone and totally set up an amazing itinerary and I ran with the bulls. In Italy, Virtuoso has an amazing local company called IC (Italian Connection) Bellagio that is totally wired into all the kinds of local things travelers say they want these days, special experiences, the best restaurants, art tours of private villas. When you ask your Virtuosos agent to plan a trip to Tuscany, it’s not just them, they have all this expert support behind them, down to the micro level. I’ve been all around the world, and before the first time I worked with Virtuoso I didn’t think I needed a travel agent’s help - now I can’t imagine not using one for anything complicated or specialized.”

Air: If you are trying to buy the cheapest round-trip economy ticket from New York to Dallas, even the best advisors probably can’t get it for less than you can buy it online, though you still have to deal with all the pitfalls of the online travel sites and you will lose the safety net advisors provide when things go wrong. But in a couple of other cases, buying your air through an agent can actually save you money, or miles, or both.

One case is when you are buying premium class tickets, Business, First or some of the even higher new classes. I have an extremely tech savvy friend in San Francisco who wanted to fly First class to Hawaii for his honeymoon, and even though he could afford it, he was shocked how much the airlines wanted. I suggested he call McCabe World Travel, and he was mystified how they could purchase the exact same tickets for about two thousand dollars less -each - than the best price he could find online, by calling the airline, or through the American Express Platinum Card travel desk. I don’t care how rich you are, if you can get the same tickets and pocket four thousand dollars that’s a good deal - plus you get all the peace of mind that comes with the advisor’s safety net. Not surprisingly, years later he still uses McCabe for all his travel. Consider this: the agency has three advisors in its air travel department who do nothing else, among its roughly 50 affiliated advisors.

When it comes to using miles, or miles and money, or just paying to fly in pricier premium classes, you might have trouble believing the miracles these specialists can work. As Largay’s Klimak told me, “I was working with a couple last year traveling to Australia and New Zealand for their dream cruise. They wanted to use frequent flyer miles, and I knew that they also had Dubai on their Wanderlist. I was able to change their flights from Business class on Qantas to First Class on Emirates - for half the mileage. We were also able to add a stopover with a wonderful desert and shopping experience in Dubai, checking two destinations off their list for a fraction of the cost.”

I use SmartFlyer for tricky tickets. Despite its name, it is a well-known, full-service luxury travel agency that does everything from safaris to cruises, but where they are better than just about everyone else is creative ticketing. I hear endless complaints from frequent fliers about the difficulty using miles, but I have found that is not the case - if you use a mileage and ticketing expert. I did a story on skiing in Japan, and SmartFlyer was able to get me to Tokyo in Business Class and back in First for $1,500 and 100,000 United miles. This was less than a third of the miles United directly quoted me for the same trip when I called the MileagePlus Elite desk, and I ended up getting more than three times the dollars per mile that most experts value frequent flier miles at.

On another trip recent trip to Bali, SmartFlyer found me flights on Cathay Pacific - one of the world’s best airlines - in Premium Economy to Hong Kong and then the five hour leg to Bali in Business class, for less than Cathy was selling the trip on its site just in Premium Economy the whole way. It just doesn’t seem possible, but it is, real tickets, same airline, better seats, less money. I don’t know how they do it, and frankly I don’t care, but if you know who to call this happens all the time (if you are not a client of SmartFlyer booking your vacation or business trip, they will charge you a fee to do the legwork and find you great deals on premium and mileage tickets, but in almost every case I’ve seen, it still saves you money).

“In terms of value, what we can do is unparalleled to anything clients will find elsewhere,” SmartFlyer’s Holtz told me. “Our negotiated air contracts, along with our in-depth knowledge of the carriers and actual aircraft, means we can advise travelers how to reach their destination at the best possible price and in the most comfortable configuration. Sometimes, this means hundreds of dollars in savings per ticket.” Or more.

Better Trips! At the end of the day this is the bottom line, the big win you get with a good travel advisor. They know more than you do, they are better connected, they have access to benefits you can’t get yourself, and they can match and often beat any prices you find. They plan a better trip and then provide a safety net. Having a top travel agent can make you an instant VIP, certainly will save you time and hassle, and quite possibly money.

Amanda Foshee is an advisor at Brownell Travel, and she summed it up nicely: “What everyone needs these days is more time and less stress, and that’s what we’re here for. Travel advisors take the overwhelming amount of information out there and distill it into the key points that apply to you - the best hotel/destination/tour for your interests, your budget, and your time frame. A client shared that going through all the information online to plan a trip would be a second full-time job for her, and I told her that’s why it’s my full-time job instead!”

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ezatluba · 3 years

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Face recognition isn't just for humans — it's learning to identify bears and cows, too

By Rachel Metz

November 22, 2020

It's hard for the average person to tell Dani, Lenore, and Bella apart: They all sport fashionably fuzzy brown coats and enjoy a lot of the same activities, like playing in icy-cold water and, occasionally, ripping apart a freshly caught fish.

Melanie Clapham is not the average person. As a bear biologist, she has spent over a decade studying these grizzly bears, who live in Knight Inlet in British Columbia, Canada, and developed a sense for who is who by paying attention to little things that make them different."I use individual characteristics — say, one bear has a nick in its ear or a scar on the nose," she said.

But Clapham knows most people don't have her eye for detail, and the bears' appearances change dramatically over the course of a year — such as when they get winter coats and fatten up before denning — which makes it even harder to distinguish between, say, Toffee and Blonde Teddy. Tracking individual bears is important, she explained, because it can help with research and conservation of the species; knowing which bear is which could even help with problems like figuring out if a certain grizzly is getting into garbage cans or attacking a farmer's livestock. Several years ago Clapham began wondering whether a technology typically used to identify humans might be able to help: facial recognition software, which compares measurements between different facial features in one image to those in another.

Clapham teamed up with two Silicon Valley-based tech workers and together they created BearID, which uses facial-recognition software to monitor grizzly bears. So far, the project has used AI to recognize 132 of the animals individually. While facial-recognition technology known as a tool for identifying humans — and a controversial one at that, due to well-known issues regarding privacy, accuracy, and bias — BearID is one of several efforts to adapt it for animals in the wild and on farms. Proponents of the technology, such as Clapham, say it's a cheaper, longer-lasting, less invasive (and with animals such as bears, less dangerous) way to track animals than, say, attaching a collar or piercing an ear to attach an RFID tag.

Building a grizzly data setFor Clapham, who's also a postdoctoral fellow at the Unversity of Victoria, this interest in combining bears and AI has been in the works for years. In 2017 she joined Wildlabs.net, which connects conservationists with those in the tech community. There, she quickly met Ed Miller and Mary Nguyen — two tech workers in San Jose, California (who happen to be married) who were interested in machine learning and watching grizzlies via live webcam at another popular bear hangout, Brooks Falls in Alaska's Katmai National Park.

The trio has since gathered thousands of bear photos from Knight Inlet and Brooks River to create data sets, and adapted existing artificial intelligence software called Dog Hipsterizer (used, naturally, to add silly mustaches and hats to pictures of dogs) to spot bear faces in their images. Once the faces are detected, they can also use AI to recognize specific bears. "It does way better than we do," said Miller. So far, BearID has collected 4,674 images of grizzly bears; 80% of the images were used for training the facial-recognition system, Clapham said, and the remaining 20% for testing it. According to recently-published research from her and her collaborators, the system is 84% accurate. The bear you're trying to recognize must already be in the group's relatively small dataset, though.

So far, BearID has collected 4,674 images of grizzly bears.

Facial recognition on the ranchWhile BearID is putting names to faces in the wild, Joe Hoagland is trying to do likewise on cattle ranches. Hoagland, a cattle rancher in Leavenworth, Kansas, is building an app called CattleTracs that he said will enable anyone to snap pictures of cattle that will be stored along with GPS coordinates and the date of the photo in an online database. Subsequent photos of the same animal will be able to matched to the earlier photographs, helping track them over time. Beef cattle, he explained, pass through many different people and places during their lives, from producers to pasture operations to feed lots and then to meat packing plants. There isn't much tracking between them, which makes it hard to investigate problems like animal-based diseases that can devastate livestock and may harm people, too. Hoagland expects the app to be available by the end of the year."Being able to trace that diseased animal, find its source, quarantine it, do contact tracing — all the things we're talking about with coronavirus are things we can do with animals, too," he said.

CattleTracs, an upcoming app for monitoring cattle, uses facial recognition technology to tell the animals apart.

Hoagland approached KC Olson, a professor at Kansas State University, who brought together a group of specialists at the school in areas like veterinary science and computer science in order to gather pictures of cattle to create a database for training and testing an AI system. They built a proof-of-concept system in March that included more than 135,000 images of 1,000 young beef cattle; Olson said it was 94% accurate at identifying animals, whether or not it had seen them before.

He said that's far better than what he's seen with RFID tags and readers, which can work poorly when cattle are densely packed."This is a major leap forward in accuracy," he said.

Gold for poachersAlthough facial recognition for animals isn't fraught with the same privacy, bias, and surveillance issues as it is for people, there are unique issues to consider.

For example, while surveillance technology could help protect animals, it may also be used against them. Tanya Berger-Wolf, co-founder and director of Wildbook.org, which is an AI platform for wildlife research projects, stressed the importance of controlling access to animal data to those who have been vetted.

"What's great for scientists and conservation managers is also gold for poachers of wildlife," she said.

That's because a poacher could use images of animals, coupled with data such as GPS coordinates that may be attached to the photos, to find them.

There's also the difficulty of collecting a large number of images of individual animals — from multiple viewpoints, in different lighting conditions, without obstructions like plants, taken repeatedly over time — to train AI networks. Anil Jain, a computer science professor at Michigan State University, knows this better than most: He and his colleagues studied how facial-recognition software could be used to identify lemurs, golden monkeys, and chimpanzees — the hope was to help track endangered animals and halt animal trafficking. They released an Android smartphone app in 2018 called PrimID that let users compare their own primate photos to ones in their database.

BearID software spots the face of a bear in an image.

Jain, who is no longer working on that project, said gathering sufficient animal photos was particularly tricky — especially with lemurs, who may bunch together in a tree. Facial-recognition networks for humans, he noted, may be trained with millions of photos of hundreds of thousands of people; BearID has relied upon just a fraction as many so far, as did Jain's research.

Clapham said she has more images of some bears than others, so her team is trying to get more of the bears that are less represented in the dataset. The researchers also want to stfart training their AI system on footage from camera traps, which are cameras equipped with a sensor and lights and placed in the wilderness where animals may wander by and trigger video recordings. They're considering how BearID could go beyond bears to other animals as well."Really any species we can get good training data for we should potentially be able to develop this type of facial recognition for as well," Clapham said.

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fridgejury36 · 4 years

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Finding the Most Effective Purpose for Every Social Media Application

It's truly relaxing to find a young adult's opinion on the level of popularity of each unique social application. find this check my source Gives you a unique meaning from the statistics associated with each program use and exactly how is being used each and every day. The following content material does not decrease the objective of every social media app, just delivers a particular point of view, an adolescent daily use guidebook, if you will. I do believe the easiest way to tackle this could be to break it down by social media and the findings and opinions I have accumulated year after year. Facebook Simply speaking, Facebook is older news for most adolescents. Facebook is an app most of us got in school since it was cool however now sometimes appears seeing that an embarrassing family dinner party we can not realistically abandon. It's strange and can even end up being frustrating to have Facebook sometimes. That being said, if you don't have Facebook, that's even more weird and infuriating. Strange because of the cultural pressure and annoying because you'll have to solution that to just about everybody in classes you fulfill who makes an attempt to be your friend or find you on there.

Facebook is typically utilized by us primarily because of its group features. I trust a lot of classmates who only continue Facebook to check the groups they may be part of and then without delay log off. In this component Facebook shines-groups do not have the same complicated rules behind them that the news headlines feed does. It's very easy to just see the fresh information posted around the group without having to sift through a great deal of articles and advertising you don't really value. Messaging on Facebook can be extremely popular among our generation, generally because they offer the means to talk to those people who you were not really more comfortable with asking for their number but relaxed enough to send out them a friend request. Facebook is often the jumping-off point for many people to try to come across you online, simply because everyone all around us has it. Whenever I found you one time at some party, I'm not going to make an effort to check Instagram to learn who you are. In its place, many opt for the simple Facebook and the powerful search capability that gives you results of people who you truly have a potential for understanding (unlike Instagram, whose search functionality, although it improved somewhat in the last update, leaves much to become desired). Snapchat Snapchat is so quickly getting to be the most utilized social media app, specifically using the advancement of appending your Snaps to a history feed. If I can break down a party for you in social media terms, here's how it could pan out: You post yourself planning for the get together, heading to the special event, having fun in the dance, leaving at the end of the party, and getting up in the morning after the dance on Snapchat. On Facebook you post the cute, posed images you took with your friends at the party (definitely zero alcoholic beverages in these images). On Instagram you select the prettiest one of the collection to post to your profile. Snapchat is where we can really end up being ourselves while being attached to our social identity. With no constant sociable pressure of the follower count number or Facebook close friends, I am not continuously having these random people shoved before me. Instead, Snapchat is definitely a somewhat seductive network of close friends who I don't treatment if they observe me at a celebration having a good time. No other social media (except Twitter maybe) it is appropriate post a bored picture besides Snapchat. There aren't likes you have to be anxious about or feedback, it's most taken away. Snapchat includes a lot less public pressure mounted on it compared to almost every other popular social media marketing network out generally there. This is what makes it so addicting and free. If I do not get any likes on my Instagram image or Facebook post within a quarter-hour, I'll erase it. Snapchat isn't like that at all and really targets creating the storyplot of a day in your daily life, not some cleaned, modified, handpicked spotlight. It is the genuine you. One more quick apart about Snapchat, I only know a handful of people (myself included) that consider Snapchat does erase your pics. Everybody else I understand believes that Snapchat has some secret database someplace with all your photos in it. While I'll save that debate for a later date, it is safe to say that when photographs are expose or when there might be controversy about security for the application, we truthfully do not really worry. We aren't mailing photos of our cards here; we are sending selfies and photographs around having 5 chins. Twitter To be honest, a lot of us simply do not understand the point of Twitter. There is always a key group at every single high school that uses it very frequently to tweet and a second clique that works with it to simply watch or retweet, but besides that many avoid it. It also isn't incredibly no problem finding friends on the website and many just utilize it to complain about school in a environment in which their parents or family members (definitely not managers) are likely never to see it. Twitter is a place to follow or be accompanied by a bunch of arbitrary strangers, but still have your identity end up being attached to it, this difference can be valuable later on on. Your tweets will also be instantly searchable on Twitter which is good but not good if you wish to be yourself and not have it follow you around when you're trying to property a job. Hence, to others Twitter is used like Facebook, you post with the assumption that your company will discover it one day. You will find after that three main sets of Twitter users: the ones who utilize it to complain and go to town, the types who tweet using the assumption that their would-be recruiter will ultimately see whatever they are saying, and the ones who merely take a look at other Tweets and do the occasional retweet. Instagram Instagram is the most used social website app outlet for teens. Please be aware the terminology right here, it is the most used social networking app outlet. Meaning that, even though many people are on Facebook, we in fact share more on Instagram. It positively is captivating if you ask me to visit a friend with fifteen hundred close friends on Facebook only get 26 wants on an image yet on Instagram (where she gets seven-hundred followers) she draws 284. I now have a couple of hints as to the motives this may happen. I'm not really worried whenever I like a specific thing on Instagram that it will show up in someone's news feed and they will either screenshot which i liked it or research it later. The same goes for writing comments. I am not as pushed to check out an individual back in Instagram, indicating my news are normally made of content I actually want to have a look at. That said, I will go back and browse through an app that has content I take pleasure from instead of those where I need to discover the occasional gemstone in wait. This content on Instagram is more often than not of superior level of quality. Many people remember to manage their photos with filters, use varied brightness and contrast settings (it's even one of the methods to publishing a photo), etcetera., to make the photos seem the best they possibly can. This suggests that the content on Instagram is normally considerably better (photo-wise), therefore i am more likely to go back to the application. Instagram was not inundated with the older era yet (not everybody has an Instagram) that means its new and great to the younger group. Nevertheless, it is popular enough that when you have a cellphone it's nearly unheard of to suit your needs not to possess Instagram, if never to take photos, though to perhaps label people in pics. An extra benefit: tagging. I need not constantly open Instagram to be sure I had not been tagged in virtually any awkward or awful images. That's simply because you cannot very easily spot them within your feed, designing the whole experience look way more personal. Am I looking weird in an image you uploaded? Who cares. I may just delete the label if I really am that annoyed about any of it without fear that my close friends from another online circle (who don't follow you) will get to it first. I am aware Facebook has the capability to enable you to check every single image labeled of you before it shows up on your account, nevertheless a number of people I know don't have that enabled or know it even exists. Users do not post ten thousand times per day on Instagram. The majority are much more considerate about posting, often doing daily, several times weekly, etc. This means that there isn't a frequent flow of content material getting shoved down my throat every time I open up the app, which is possible to become swept up with my Instagram newsfeed. You can find no links on Instagram, which suggests I'm not being frequently spammed from the same marketing, horrendous gossip updates, or news posting about the "35 Fresh Accessories for Your Family Pet You Had No Clue You Wanted". Those are a few points why most of the people my age have a predisposition to use Instagram more than they in fact use Facebook. All things about the software makes it significantly less commercialized and more centered on this content, meaning more adolescents are inclined to check it out. When we can open the application, it is a more alluring experience so we are even more predisposed to Like and connect to the threads even more. That boosts our interaction with the program, meaning we will use it much more. Facebook takes all of the images we shot, the very good one, and the nasty one, while Instagram just gets the one that really sums up the festival we visited. It is much more picky, and truthfully people spend more time over the captions to make them relevant or cute. In Facebook we simply provide almost everything we got so people can tag one another and display our friends that we are still aboveground. A lot of those younger than myself (10-15 years of age) who I have spoken to about this situation don't even have a Facebook profile. Instagram is everything that they need. The Ok Ones Below are other social apps that some teenagers employ still that may not actually call for a full length discussion. LinkedIn: We should grab it, therefore we have it. A number of people wait around until university to understand this (as they most likely should, it isn't for this target market anyhow). Pinterest: It's primarily female-dominated and it is for those who have an art type or folksy focus. Very few users discuss it. Kik: It is a messaging program that is generally utilized for texting users in Twitter, I assume? I don't know any individual who is using it. WhatsApp: You download it when you go overseas, you use it there for a bit before going back to Facebook Messenger and iMessage, you then delete it. I know plenty of people who use it to talk to friends they made in other parts of the world, but I feel like Messenger is certainly beginning to overshadow it. For international college students, however, WhatsApp is usually a pivotal tool that I have heard is honestly practical. GroupMe: By far the most used group messaging app in college. Absolutely everyone seems to have one, uses it and enjoys it. GIF support, the capability to like others text messages, even trivial things such as having the ability to switch your name between group chats all make this both a good and stress-free app. GroupMe also works for literally any phone or device like a personal pc, iPhone, Google Android, and can work over text as well for those who may not have got a phone.

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