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#because the original video i have of it came up in my snapchat memories
thedragonemperess · 3 months
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Sometimes my online life and my real life intersect and it's always in the wildest ways possible
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milkdoie · 3 years
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where wayv would keep their pictures of you.
not requested!
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featuring — qian kun, ten lee, dong sicheng, wong yukhei, xiao dejun, wong kunhang, liu yangyang !
warning(s) — mention of children (parenting) at the end of winwin’s
author’s note — i got a lot of submissions on my google form saying that people wanted more wayv content, so here you go!! i love love love them so i’m super happy to introduce you all to my first ever wayv post,,, that isn’t ot23
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[ KUN ; he likes to keep a photo he took of you on your first date in his wallet!! it’s a little torn up and discoloured because of how old it is, but he likes to think of it as a prize he won that night. yangyang said that his dad would do the same thing, but kun loves how lowkey vintage the whole concept actually kinda was :’)
[ TEN ; he most definitely has albums in his phone dedicated to different categories — like his cats, scenery, food, and you!! the album is titled “my y/n <3” and it’s just filled with pictures that he’s taken of you; some without you knowing and also some where you’re posing. it’s filled to the brim with memories, the first few pictures dating all the way back to december of 2019 :0
[ WINWIN ; he has a shrine for you in his room… i’m just kidding, he has a drawer full of printed photos that he’s yet to put into the photobook he purchased two months ago. his original plan was to give it to you as an anniversary gift, but he decided to keep it so he could show your future children how good of a boyfriend he was, “back in the day.”
[ LUCAS ; every single picture and video he’s taken of you has been on snapchat, and so they’re all in his memories — or his “my eyes only” if you happen to label a few pictures as embarrassing. his storage is probably full with how many videos there actually are, but he needs the memories or else he’ll malfunction.
[ XIAOJUN ; keeps a polaroid of you hugging bella in the back of his phone,,,,, with a clear case. I KNOW I KNOW, he’s basic, but guys, he just loves you, okay?? cut the man some slack, he was so proud of it. got so excited to show you what he came up with <//3
[ HENDERY ; actually doesn’t have enough pictures of you to have a full collection, but he does have hour long vlogs that he will never post anywhere on the internet ever because they’re your little thing <3 he likes going on walks with you, and that’s when he’ll take the opportunity to FILM THE ENTIRE THING. his storage is full too.
[ YANGYANG ; he probably does those cringe couple things on his private tiktok account and he just spams pictures of you there with trendy songs over the videos (ie. body by megan thee stallion). his tiktok user is also “y/ns.boyfriend” so it’s kind of a fan account for you?? i have no solid idea to explain his thought process.
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saleintothe90s · 4 years
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399. The “Cats” round up
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This week was Halloween, and this year I went as Jemima from Cats. Why did I decide on this costume? Well, seeing the trailer (and H3H3′s reaction to it) for the scary 2019 movie with those basic b’s Taylor and James made me want to see the original Cats, the good Cats. 
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You can watch most of the direct to VHS 1998 edition on YouTube in parts. So far, its the only musical that doesn’t bore me to tears, even if the scenes where they perform a play for Old Deuteronomy makes no sense. 
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You know what Cats sorta reminds me of, that old PBS show Zoobilee Zoo, especially Victoria the white cat, she reminds me of the pink kangaroo lady. 
Cats came to New York City in October of 1982 after beginning a successful run in London. It was announced at the end of 1981 that the musical would be coming to New York:
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Anticipation was so great that copies of T.S. Eliot’s original work was selling out: 
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(I’m mad I can’t find this commercial)
Tickets for the show were sold months in advance, with many bulk orders: 
More than six months before opening night, the Fresh Air Fund had already bought 500 seats. The Arthritis Foundation purchased 300 tickets, the Archives of American Art bought 300, and the American Red Cross bought 500 seats. Then there was the Burden Center for Aging with 300, University Settlement with 200 and the Social Service Big Sister League with 500 seats. Those are just a handful among many, but by the time ''Cats'' opened on Broadway last week such orders added up to $6.2 million in advance ticket sales. Of that sum, $4.5 million had already been collected, with only $1.7 million in contracts still to be paid in full. This could be the largest advance sale in Broadway history, according to many theater analysts. Orders began to come in more than a year before ''Cats'' - a big hit in London - finally arrived in New York, and tickets are now being sold as far in advance as next May. 2
The musical debut was also supposed to be a cover story in Newsweek, but the Tylenol murders prevailed. 2 
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Someone defaced the copy at archive.org. 
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I somehow found the cover though. I wonder if this was for Canada? There are people on sketchy websites selling this as a print? The library bound Newsweek from archive.org has the Tylenol cover. I believe the woman on the bottom row, right is Janet Hubert, who played Aunt Viv the first on Fresh Prince. In Cats, she played Tantomile in the first Broadway cast. 
(I made screencaps of the Newsweek article and uploaded the screencaps to the mirror site on wordpress)
As you may have noticed these Cats from the early 80s are kind of scary looking. There are several videos on YouTube of the cast performing at the 1983 Tony Awards, and there is this cat that is absolutely terrifying: 
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It’s the one who sings “can you see in the dark?!”.  I think its Demeter, and Marlene Danielle is playing her? Marlene was an originally an understudy in 1982 and eventually played Bombularina until the end of Cats’ run on Broadway in 2000. 
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Here she is on Today in 1999 discussing the role and she also performs “Macavity”.
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The cats of Cats became so popular in the 1980s that they were even in a No Smoking commercial. 
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And a seat buckle/child seat PSA! This one is really dark, I mean Memory plays at the end. 
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In 1984, Rum Tum Tugger became the star of his own music video. 3 I don’t know how often MTV played this--maybe it played more overseas. I remember my choir teacher in high school, Ms. Forrest showing us a VHS once of music videos from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musicals, and she said that they were popular in the UK and shown on MTV over there. All I remember is a Phantom of the Opera remix and Requiem sung by his ex-wife. 
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By 1987, Celine Dion (who was still a music star in Canada, but not yet America, and sung mostly in French) sang Memory on TV. 
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In this clip from the short lived America’s Talking channel (later to become MSNBC) a reporter asks the cats what they did on their snow day during the 1996 blizzard. I can’t confirm this, but he says that it was the first time the show had ever been canceled. This reporter is peak 1996 in mens clothes with his bomber jacket and tie. 
By June of 1997, Cats broke the record previously held by A Chorus Line of longest running show on Broadway:
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Along the way to its longevity record, which applies just to Broadway shows, ''Cats'' has piled up some big numbers. It has provided employment to 231 actors, two of whom, Marlene Danielle and Susan Powers, have been with the musical since it opened. (Nineteen cast members have died.) The magical tire that carries Grizabella heavenward has clocked more than 114 miles in its nightly voyage to the Heaviside Layer. ''Memory,'' the show-stopping song that ends the first act, has been recorded by more than 180 artists. The New York production has used more than 1.5 million pounds of dry ice and 2,706 pounds of yak hair for wigs. It has sold 390,000 T-shirts, 130,000 sweat shirts, 147,000 lapel pins and 1.14 million souvenir books. 1
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Also, in 1997 an audience member because she thought Rum Tum Tugger was too aggressive with her. 
Related: 
Original review from The New York Times
Reading Rainbow segment on Cats
Another Reading Rainbow segment on Cats, similar to the first.
Stars of the Original Cats Share Their Favorite Memories
Los Angeles news segment series on the L.A. Production of Cats. 
Almost every time our boy David Letterman brought up Cats. 
The Cast of CATS (2016) Meets Shelter Cats | Cats the Musical
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EVENT CAPSULE CLEAN - Grumpy Cat Visits The Broadway Cast of 'Cats' Facebook | Etsy | Retail History Blog | Twitter | snapchat (thelastvcr) |YouTube Playlist| Random Post | Instagram @ thelastvcr | other tumblr | Ko-fi donation | Honey Referral
1, Grimes, William, “ With 6,138 Lives, 'Cats' Sets Broadway Mark,” New York Times, June 19, 1997. https://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/19/theater/with-6138-lives-cats-sets-broadway-mark.html
2. Bennetts, Leslie, “ HOW TICKETS TO 'CATS' BECAME A 'MUST',” New York Times, October 13, 1982. https://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/13/theater/how-tickets-to-cats-became-a-must.html
3. Kaplan, Peter W., “TV NOTES; BROADWAY FIRST: 'CATS' DOES ROCK VIDEO TURN,” New York Times, November 10, 1984.  https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/10/theater/tv-notes-broadway-first-cats-does-rock-video-turn.html
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lovemesomesurveys · 5 years
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Do you have a laptop or desktop computer? I have a laptop. Do you watch America’s Got Talent? Nope. If so, who has been your favorite contestant on AGT? What chore are you behind on? No chores, but I do need to go through and get rid of some things in my room. Which stovetop burner do you use the most? The front left.
What is the last online store you shopped at? Proverbs31 bookstore.  …and what did you buy? A book. How often do you do laundry? It usually gets done once a week. What color pants are you wearing right now? I’m wearing black leggings. Have you ever broke your phone screen? Not on my current phone, but yeah in the past. Have you ever broke your computer screen? No. Does your computer monitor currently have a scratch or dent in it? No. Do you wear glasses? Yes. …if yes, how old were you when you got glasses? I was 9. Have you been bored today? It’s only been today for about 40 minutes and so far I’ve ate, watched a couple YouTube videos, and now here we are. What type of milk do you drink? I don’t drink any milk, but I use almond or soy milk for things that need milk. I just don’t like to drink it by itself. Have you had a headache today? Not so far. What department store do you shop at the most? Walmart. Which grocery store do you shop at the most? Walmart. Do you normally use the self-checkout or the regular checkout? I use the self-checkout sometimes. Do you watch birth vlogs? Uh, no. Do you have kids? Nope. Do you know what you want to name your kids? I don’t plan on having kids. Which time of your life do you miss the most? My childhood. Which friend will be in your heart no matter what happens between you two? There’s a few people who are no longer in my life that I’ll always remember. Did you watch the first season of American Idol? Yeah. I watched until the original judges started leaving and when The Voice came out I got hooked on that instead. Is it sweater weather yet where you are? The weather is so annoying here because it’ll be sweater weather in the morning and starting around the evening time, but during the day it’s hot. It’s mid October now this hot weather needs to go. What is your most severe allergy? I’m allergic to tangerines and I have seasonal allergies. Do you like your middle name? Yeah, What is one thing of yours that is falling apart? My life, but that happened over the past few years. Do you hate anyone so much that you wish they were dead? Nooo. Have you ever been kicked out of a store? No. What was the stupidest mistake of your life? It’s a long list. Do you have any regrets? Several. Who is the most recent friend to have let you down? I was the friend who let their friends down. I feel like I’ve let everyone down, including myself. Have you ever unfriended a sibling on social media? No. Do you watch Niki and Gabi on youtube? If yes, which twin is your favorite: Niki or Gabi? Nope. What is a song that has memories attached to it for you? That’s a very long list. Do you wish you could relive your 20’s? Yes, but only if I could make changes. I wouldn’t want to relive it exactly the same way. What is your favorite thing about fall? The weather and ~spooky time. Have you had the same favorite food/color/holiday since you were a kid? Food has changed a lot since then. My favorite color isn’t the same. Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. What was the name of your first imaginary friend? I didn’t have one. What was your favorite book you had to read for school? A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.  Did you ever skip class because you hadn’t finished your homework? No. I always finished my work. What do you want for your birthday this year? My birthday passed. Do you like rock music? Yes. Do you enjoy camping? I’ve never been, but I know it wouldn’t be something I’d enjoy. At all. Would you rather sleep in a tent or under the stars? If I for some reason ever went camping, it’d be “glamping.” What is the best thing that ever happened to you? Building my relationship with God, and my family, which includes all my doggos. What is your most missed memory? Childhood. What is the most beautiful landscape you have ever seen? The gondola ride I took that went up 9000ft gave a breathtaking view of the city landscape. It was incredible. Have you ever witnessed someone else do something embarrassing? Yeah. Do you get motion sickness? Yes. What do you usually take for headaches? Nothing. :/ Aspirin makes me really sick, stuff like Aleve/Ibuprofen doesn’t help for my headaches at all, and Tylenol not only doesn’t help at all, but it has a same ingredient as my pain medication, which having too much of can cause serious problems. So, I’m left with nothing. All I can do is put a cold washcloth over my eyes and try to sleep. Have you ever switched doctors because of mistreatment? Not because of mistreatment, but I just didn’t like how they did things. It wasn’t a good fit for me. Do you film or record your doctor’s appointments? No? Which accomplishment are you most proud of yourself for? Blah. Do you feel like you’ve accomplished anything yet with your life? Blaaaaah. Do you dance in the rain? I have. What song do you have stuck in your head right now? “Bet On It” from High School Musical lol. What is your favorite scent for deodorant? I use the Secret brand in powder fresh. Were you ever a member of the site Meez? Nope, never even heard of it. Do you ever miss Myspace bulletins? Nah. I have Tumblr posts. What is your favorite app on your phone? YouTube, Twitter, Spotify, Kindle, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. 
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rapperkookz · 5 years
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Rush!BTΣ — college!au, borderline crack au w/ @cynoirsure
a story about three friends and their obstacles of relationships, academic probation, and figuring out that international kids aren’t all that bad.
3/35
word count: 1.2k
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Y/N’S POV
After the dinner, while Yoongi was up at the counter paying for dinner, you looked at everyone around the table, content with the amount of dimsum that you guys had ordered. Conversation between two people still ensued at different parts of the table, but nothing brought everyone’s attention together till Hoseok, Jimin’s Big, stood up, grinning at the table.
“Hey, why should the conversation end here? Let’s go back to our apartment!” Hoseok’s heart shaped smile sealed the deal, the other members of Beta Tau Sigma nodding or humming in approval. Seokjin only sighed, no doubt already defeated from the younger one’s sudden declaration to do something at their shared house. Hoseok’s energy was still so bright, even after a whole dinner of exchanging stories at the table, but once Yoongi came back to the table, everyone had made the move to get ready to leave. Jimin held a hand out to you with a smile, successfully pulling you away from the original trio that you had showed up with.
The way back was just as loud - maybe even louder - than the dinner table, but instead of the larger conversations that everyone had been partaking in, they were more of conversations with people near them, while some others chose to look at their phone. You were busy yourself talking to Jimin talking about your biochem class, Kevin talking with Namjoon about one of the core classes that Namjoon had taken last year, and Jinhee and Seokjin were laughing so hard that even if they were steps ahead, you could probably hear them from the next block if they didn’t stay behind to wait for you and the others.
Seokjin’s apartment was considerably a lot larger than you had imagined — You had only seen pictures of Seokjin’s apartment from Jinhee’s snapchat, but the 10 of you were able to sit in the living room around the coffee table without having to sit on each other’s laps (although Hoseok did offer… You weren’t sure if he was joking or not, but Jimin had given Hoseok the evil eye before you and Jimin sat on the couch, you hugging one of the throw pillows on the couch).
You checked your phone for any new messages while everyone took turns talking to each other, before Namjoon had called your name, drawing your attention away from your phone.
“So, y/n and/or Jinhee, how did you two get close to Seokjin and Jimin?” The other boys did hum in agreement when Namjoon raised this question, you and Jinhee exchanging looks before she cleared her throat and sat more upright, squeezing the plush in her hand.
“Well, I guess I’ll go first because uh. Why not? Me and Seokjin met last year in choir, and he was in chorale with me. Since we both go by Jin, someone called said name told us to come to the front. They didn’t really specify who, so when both of us came up to the front, everyone was confused…” Jinhee started, a smile cracking on her face from the memory. “At first, I couldn’t stand Seokjin because he just was super incompetent but time passed and I realized he was also a section leader, so we had to see each other quite often and we were always paired together because our voice parts compliment each other. He also sometimes showed up to do his homework while I was at work, so that’s always fun.”
“You’re forgetting that you’re the only person who would laugh at my jokes!” Seokjin exclaimed, obviously hurt that your friend would forget this seemingly crucial bit of information.
“Seokjin, anything is funny when you’re sleep deprived.” Jinhee shook her head, rolling her eyes at the older baffled one.
“Besides, this is a good mutual relationship, I know Seokjinnie’s angles for his pictures and we bake together… He also sometimes acts like my boyfriend if a creepy person is hitting on me.” She shrugged, looking at you and Jimin. “What about you two? You guys are surprisingly close considering y/n is a freshman.”
“Well y/n’s in my nursing biochem class,” Jimin said looking at you with a fond smile. You nodded as he put his arm around your shoulders.
“We’ve been in the same group since last semester,” You agreed, “There were four of us originally, but the other freshman in our group dropped nursing and the other sophomore barely does anything so oppa and I do all the work...fake bitches.”
“But! What really made us bond was midterms last semester, I’m pretty sure. y/n and I basically lived in the library that week and we had our daily 11 pm mental breakdowns together. By the time I’d walk her back to her dorm, it was like 3 am.” Jimin recalled.
“I’m really curious though,” Taehyung asked resting his chin on his palm, “Has Jimin ever like...hit on you?”
“He flirts with everything that moves,” Hoseok commented to which Yoongi replied with, “I wonder where he gets that from.”
“I can’t imagine trying to get in y/n’s pants, that’s gross.” Both you and Jimin shivered in disgust at the thought.
“I can imagine trying to get in your pants, y/n.” Hoseok said with a cheeky smile and a wink, earning a smack on the back of his head from Namjoon.
“Weird flex, but okay hyung,” Jungkook shifted around uncomfortably.
“I’m still trying to convince her to join WINGS,” Jimin said, “she’s not bad at dancing.”
“That way we’ll be an even number this semester,” Kevin agreed shaking your shoulders.
“Wait, backtrack, what is WINGS?” Jinhee tilted her head, furrowing her brows at Jimin. “Seokjinnie’s never talked about WINGS, so I’m completely clueless.”
“It’s a dance group, sometimes we participate in dance comps, but it’s also just an excuse for us to film some thirst trap dance videos in the nice studio for our fans.” Taehyung piped up, nodding a little. “Right now our members are Jimin hyung, Hoseok hyung, Kevin, Jungkookie, and me, but to pull off more big picture choreo we could use a sixth.” Taehyung grinned, nudging you.
“Jin, I literally mentioned when I had WINGS practice last semester,” Kevin said deadpanning her, “it’s nice to know you listen to me.”
“I...forgot okay! You know I have a bad memory! Besides, I was too busy dying in my STEM classes to pay attention to anything else,” Jinhee defended herself.
“You like to dance, y/n?” Hoseok asked changing the flow of conversation, his interest in you peaked even higher. You shrugged and replied with a shy I do it for fun sometimes.
“Bullshit y/n!” Jinhee shouted, “You literally made choreography for Yonce and posted it on your Twitter!”
“Jinhee showed me the video, that shit was sexy,” Seokjin said slapping Jinhee to pull the video up. You felt your face heat up when everyone crowded around Jinhee’s small screen, the familiar lemme hear you say ‘Hey, Mrs. Carter!’ coming from her phone. After a minute or so, the boys were ooh-ing and aah-ing in amazement.
“Well I think she’d be a perfect fit for WINGS,” Hoseok grinned, winking at you. Jimin nodded excitedly, his sweet smile falling on you. “Our first rehearsal is in a week, next Friday.”
“W-wait, shouldn’t I talk to the head of the team before getting accepted?” You asked confusedly, Hoseok’s grin only going wider at your question.
“Baby, I am the captain of WINGS. Consider this an acceptance.”
1-28-19
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dramaqueeenamby · 6 years
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4AM: Please
A/N: This.....turned into a whole damn oneshot that I really hope you guys like. 😭😭😭😭I am tired, so I will proofread tomorrow. 😭😭
Words: 3.6K
Warnings: Angry T’Chanos and Inebriated Horny Bashira
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Please
“Are you sure we shouldn’t have waited for T’Challa?”
Ode rolled her eyes as the two made their way through the boisterous crowd of intoxicated and dancing wave of individuals, her friend staying close behind, nearly holding onto the back of her denim shorts.
“Yes, mom.” She rolled her eyes and giggled when she saw Bashira glare at her. “It will be fine. We’re here to have a good time.”
Bashira wasn’t even attempting to hide her nerves. “You know that this isn’t my scene.”
“But it is when your big, bad fiance is here?”
“You did not just say that.”
Ode frowned. “You’re right. Bast, I have to stop accepting all of these missions in America.”
Bashira laughed as they reached the VIP section, courtesy of her being royalty, and also pulled up her top. “I swear, my breast are going to pop out of this thing at any moment.”
Ode raised a brow. “Let us not blame the top.”
She faltered with her response. “I…...do not like you.”
“Yes, well they sure seem to like you.” Ode snickered as Bashira looked over to see a group of men ogling her like it wasn’t a universal fact that she was literally engaged to the crowned Prince of Wakanda.
“The feeling is not mutual,” she rolled her eyes as Ode reached her a glass of what was probably an alcoholic beverage. “You know I don’t drink.” Ode pouted. “Ode, no.”
“It will help loosen you up.”
“You got me to go to a club, Ode. I cannot get any more “loose” than that.” She commented dryly as her friend gave up and shrugged.
“More for me.” Bashira watched the woman gulp down her drink and the one originally intended for Bashira. Before she knew it, she’d snatched the glass from Ode. “Hey!”
“Good Bast, woman, you have a problem.” Bashira shook her head and started to place the drink down somewhere but paused. She was a bit tense.  One drink couldn’t be too bad….right?
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“Who is that?” Sadiki asked his good friend as he brought his bottle of alcohol up to his lips.
Erik looked away from the ebony beauty he was trying to convince to come home with him in order to find out who his fellow War Dog was referring to. When he did, he smirked. “You know Bashira.”
Sadiki’s eyes widened ever so slightly. “No.”
Erik chuckled. “Yup.”
Sadiki raked his eyes over the princess frame as she danced with her friend. “You mean, Behati finally loosened the reins.”
“Something like that,” Erik shrugged. He truly was in no mood to go into the whole, she’d been chosen by Bast explanation. “Yo. Where you going?” He asked as he noticed Sadiki had discarded his glass and was moving to walk away.
“The princess came out to play,” Sadiki smirked. “Let’s play.”
Erik shook his head. He’d sent the video of Bashira to T’Challa just to fuck with him, but he was pretty confident that his cousin was on his way, if not already there. “Man, leave her alone. She’s T-” When the prince saw that Sadiki was long gone, he decided to go after the man but decided against it. Sadiki would have to handle the repercussions on his own.
“Princess?”
Bashira turned around with a smile that faltered slightly as she saw the man who she’d noticed was hanging out with Erik the whole night.
She hated to judge, but nine times out of ten, Erik’s friends weren’t the kind you wanted to have very much interaction with.
“Hello,” she mustered a small greeting. “Can I help you?”
Sadiki licked his lips. “I just thought I’d tell you how beautiful you looked tonight.”
It didn’t escape Bashira how his eyes were glued to her chest as he delivered his “compliment.”
“Yes, well, thank you.” She went to push her hair from her eyes, praying that he noticed the large engagement ring on her finger. However, she would have guessed that he already knew of her engagement to T’Challa and simply didn’t care. “I should get go-”
“A dance?” He moved in front of her, placing both hands on the counter of the bar. “Just one, your highness?”
Her smile finally dropped. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
His smile also fell. “Why?”
Bashira found herself growing irritated. “You know that I’m engaged, right?”
Sadiki’s face changed at that announcement….and not for the better. “Dressed like that?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“You look like a whore, princess.” Consumed by the small amount of alcohol that invaded her senses, she lifted her hand and smacked him across the face.
“Don’t you ever speak to me again,” she hissed, pushing on his chest and weaving her way through the crowd to get as far away from him as possible. Deciding to go to the restroom to check her makeup, Bashira was in the dark hallway that led to the restrooms when she was roughly grabbed from behind.
“Hey!” She shouted as she was shoved against the wall, her arms pinned above her head. “What-”
“You entitled little bitch,” Sadiki sneered as he stared down at her, his eyes gleaming with both lust and anger. “Who do you think you are?”
“Get the fuck off of me!” She grunted, trying to pull her hands free, only causing him to squeeze harder. “He’ll have you arrested for this!”
“You think I give a damn about your father?” Sadiki smiled sinisterly, bringing one hand to roughly grabbing her chin, applying unnecessary pressure as his other hand continued to hold both of her hands above her head. “You’ve certainly grown in terms of boldness,” his eyes fell to her heaving chest. “And other areas as well.”
“Please! Get off of me!” She again struggled, her eyes starting to water from how tightly he was squeezing her wrists. It was almost as though she could feel the bruising starting to form. “You’re hurting me!”
Sadiki said nothing, simply lowering his head to kiss her when she decided to use another method to get away. Collecting her saliva, she spat in his face, smartly using the second he used to pull away and wipe at his eyes to run away.
Not even looking back, she hurriedly made her way back over to the VIP section where Ode was talking to some guy, her eyes quickly falling over to her friend. “Hey, I was just about to come looking for you.” She studied Bashira’s flushed face. “Are you alright?” She pushed the guy over to the side to walk over to the princess. “You look-”
“I’m fine,” Bashira forced out, ignoring the unpleasant memories that were starting to return of Thom pinning her to her wall when she was a teenager. “I just-I need another drink.” She called over a server and took two glasses, dowing the shots in a matter of seconds.
“Are you sure?” Ode eyed her skeptically. Bashira didn’t even drink like that, if at all, yet she was taking shots like she was a pro.
She nodded, praying that her friend couldn’t see through her frazzled manner. “Let’s dance.”
------
“So what is going on with you and Bashira?” T’Challa looked at W’Kabi, his oldest and most loyal friend since they met as young boys in primary.
The prince’s face remained unchanged. “Nothing worth discussing.”
“Oh, come on now.” His other friend, Ishaq, smiled mischievously. “You spend almost all of your free time with her.”
T’Challa rolled his eyes. “Do not exaggerate.”
“Last week, you were supposed to hang out with us, but you canceled.” Obasi pointed out.
“I was busy.”
“You were with her,” W’Kabi smiled.
T’Challa was growing irritated with the conversation. “We had to go approve the wedding venue.”
The three men laughed. “Oh yes, because such a decision absolutely required your presence.”
“And what about two weeks ago? When we were scheduled to train together?”
T’Challa shrugged. “She needed a ride.”
“So call Uber.” Obasi said as if it should have been obvious, not even cringing at the ‘really?’ look that the prince sent his away.
“All I’m saying is that you sure have been doing a lot with a woman who you barely even acknowledged for a majority of your life,” W’Kabi noted. “More time than you ever spent with Nakia.”
T’Challa’s gaze darkened. “Nakia was never my fiance.”
“But you loved her, did you not?”
He shifted his shoulder at Ishaq’s question. “Yes.”
W’Kabi decided to take a chance. “Do you think that your feelings for Nakia have now shifted to her sister?”
Coincidentally, the prince’s attention was directed elsewhere as a message from his cousin came in.
“Is this your girl?” --- The captions read as T’Challa opened a video that showed a visibly Bashira dancing provocatively to YG’s “Pop It, Shake It” while adjusting the top of her skimpy top.
“Damn,” Obasi commented as she came over to see what the source of the noise was from. “Is that Bashira?”
“Wait, she’s already there?” W’Kabi questioned.
“Yes, she is,” Ishaq muttered darkly, his eyes glued to her sizable chest.
T’Challa sent the man a death glare before closing up the video and heading for the door.
“Where are you going?” W’Kabi called after his friend, all three jumping as the door slammed.
“I’m guessing the club,” Obasi said after a few minutes, earning hits on the arm from the other two. “Wait a minute….he was our ride!”
“Damn.” W’Kabi paused for a second before. “Challa’, wait up!”
“Should I call Uber?” Ishaq asked sarcastically, earning groans of complaints from the men. “I’m just saying.”
------
Bashira was standing on the balcony of the VIP section with Ode, both girls recording on Snapchat as they rapped and sang along to the Plain Jane remix. The princess had forgotten all about her encounter with the aggressive man, the alcohol doing its job both with pushing away the bad memories and allowing her to “let her hair down.”
“Rap bitches, they gotta check in with the queen,” they shouted loudly while laughing in the video. “I’m the alpha, the omega, everything in between.”
As the end of the verse, Bashira jumped as she felt arms snake around her. Fearing it was the man from earlier, she spun around and went to jab him with her elbow only to be met with a familiar smoldering gaze.
She let out a breath of relief and smiled shyly. “Hi.”
“I thought I told you to wait for me,” was the first thing he said as he took in her appearance. She truly did look magnificent, but he could literally smell the alcohol on her.
“Here we go,” Ode moaned and rolled her eyes as she set her gaze on Ishaq. “I’ll be right back.” She mumbled with a sultry smirk, strutting her thin but curvy figure over to the prince’s friend.
“We got tired of waiting,” she shrugged, turning back around to start up a new video, a small smirk playing on her face as she pushed her ass into him. “But I can make it up to you.”
Though T’Challa’s expression didn’t change, he couldn’t deny the massive amount of self-control it took to not allow her plump derriere pushing on his crotch to make him drag her to the back and show her just how much he wanted her to “make it up to him.”
She continued to twerk on him when his arms secured around her waist when the song went off and another one came on.
Bashira squealed, something that damn near pierced his ears. “This is my song!” T’Challa saw her lift her arm to get a better angle (one with him in it) as she started to rap and dance along to the tune.
“Stack my money, fast and go. Fast like my Lambo.” The prince mostly kept his poker face even as she looked over her shoulder to try to get him to react, which he did, as he lifted his arm across her chest, his large hand holding her left breast to stop the shaking and rip the view of her sizable cleavage from the viewers' eyes.
Bashira rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Too much, your highness. Too-”
“What is that?” T’Challa’s voice broke through her statement as she turned around in confusion.
“What is wha-” she stopped as he grabbed her forearm and lifted her wrist, showing her the large and dark bruise that was undeniable. “Oh….that.”
Fire filled the prince’s eyes as he looked to see that the bruise was on the other arm as well. “Who touched you?”
Her mouth faltered. “I-”
“Who fucking put their hands on you, Bashira?” He raised his voice, drawing the attention of his friends, Ode and Ishaq included.
“Wait. What?” Ode sounded, walking over to them as Bashira kept her head down, her eyes falling on the bruise. “Oh my Bast! Bashira, what happened?”
“It was-I don’t know his name, okay?” She said in a voice full of frustration. “He got upset with me because I slapped him-”
“So he fucking hurt you?” T’Challa hissed, none of his friends even bothering to say anything else as they realized there was no calming him down when he got like this.
“Wait. Why did you slap him?” Ode pressed.
“He called me a whore-”
“WHAT?”
“Bashira, either you point him out to me now, or I swear to Bast, I will have every fucking person in this club jailed tonight until I find out who.”
The princess gulped. She’d never seen T’Challa so upset. “I-I-told you. I don’t know his name. I just know he was with Eri-”
T’Challa lifted his eyes, immediately focusing in on the other side where Erik and his friend were.
That was all he needed.
“Wait, T’Challa!” Bashira called after him as he quickly sped off to make his way over to the culprit. However, when she went to leave, she looked back to see W’Kabi restraining her. “What are you-”
“It’s best you stay over here, princess.” He advised as she whipped her head in her fiance’s direction.
Erik sensed his cousin coming and slyly put distance between him and his friend, moving just in time.
“You son of a bitch!” Was the only thing Sadiki heard before being grabbed by the collar of his shirt and thrown to the ground. Screams were heard from around as the prince went to raining blows on the War Dog who had absolutely no chance to fight back.“You fucking put your hands on her?”
“Told ya!” Erik called out, wholeheartedly unphased at the vicious beatdown his cousin was giving his friend as he downed the last bit of his drink.
“T’Challa, stop!” Bashira shouted as she approached the violent assault, her eyes widened with horror as she watched him savagely beat the other man. “You’ll kill him!”
“I don’t care.” He replied darkly, a sense of fear taking over her as she watched him stomp on the man’s chest, most likely cracking a rib. Or two.
Ode slammed her eyes shut and shook her head. “Deal with him, please!”
W’Kabi decided to try and reason with his friend, trying an approach that would either work or exacerbate an already difficult situation.
“T’Challa, you are frightening her!” He warned in Xhosa, taking a sharp breath as she saw T’Challa pause mid punch, nodding toward Bashira who, thankfully, got the hint.
She walked over to him, grabbing onto his bicep, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “Please.” She begged, her heart thumping as he reluctantly ripped his eyes from Sadiki to look down at her. “Let’s just go.” She reached up to place her palm against his cheek, taking note of how his eyes closed at her touch. “Please.”
T’Challa stared at her, the sincerity in her eyes despite her inebriation. He didn't want to scare her. He never wanted to scare her, but the fact that he possibly was frightening her….it was enough to get him to stop before he truly did murder the man.
Bashira watched him carefully remover her arm from his bicep as he lowered his body to mutter something to a nearly unconscious Sadiki. However, she was unable to listen as she a nauseating feeling overcame her.
Clamping her hand over her mouth, she shook her head and grabbed her stomach. “I’m gonna be sick.” She managed to force out before turning around and dashing toward the restroom.
“Bashira!” Ode went after her as Obasi shook his head and watched Ode’s retreating form.
“Call me!”
------
“I think I’m done,” Bashira mumbled as she walked out the bathroom after brushing her teeth following another bout of vomit, hopefully, her last. “Maybe.”
T’Challa stood up from his seat on the edge of her bed and walked over to her, easily reaching out to hold onto her waist as she swayed.
“I don’t suppose I can take a shower…..”
He shook his head. “Not tonight.”
She pouted and then looked up at him over her lashes. “But I can get out of these clothes.” His gaze darkened as she purposely took her time to unbutton her jeans, sliding them over her ass, hips, and thighs before stepping out of them. Bashira brought her orbs to match his as she reached behind for the ties of her corset, prompting the king to turn around to give her privacy…..even though he wanted nothing more than to watch her undress.
However, she was drunk, and he would never take advantage of her like that. Or any other woman.
T’Challa tensed when he felt her front pushed against his back, her erect nipples stabbing into him, testing his self-control.
“I need a shirt,” she spoke into his skin, reaching for the hem of his top, tugging upward. He reluctantly lifted his arms, allowing her to commandeer his, shutting his eyes as he felt her hand on his shoulder, encouraging him to turn back around.
“I’m decent,” she shrugged, his shirt stopping right above her knees, her breast pushing against the fabric. “You’re staying the night, right?” Bashira didn’t necessarily give him a chance to respond as she pushed on his chest, toward the bed, her eyes glued to his as he fell back on the mattress.
He watched her trail her fingers down his bare chest, stopping her when she went for the buckle of his pants.
“Bashira….”
She rolled her eyes. “You can’t sleep in jeans.”
He relaxed but continued to monitor her, lifting his hips to help her help him remove the item of clothing. His eyes finally shut as she laid down on him, her head resting in the crook of his neck.
They rested in silence for a good five minutes before she spoke, his fingers lightly trailing across her body.
“I don’t think I should wear that top again.” She yawned. “It was….rather revealing.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You should and will wear whatever you wish to. No one has the right to put their hands on you or say hurtful things just because they do not like the word do.”
“You make a good bodyguard.” She smiled softly, tightening her arms around him. “Hopefully, the same will be said once you become a husband.” He started to say something when he saw her lift her head, her eyes glistening with something he typically didn’t see in her.
Lust.
“Bashira-”
“Shhh,” she brought her index finger to his lips and brought her mouth to the side of his head, her tongue gliding across his earlobe.
“Stop, Bashira.” He said in a pained voice, tightly fisting the blankets on the bed. Her soft lips nibbling at his ear, creating a strange but pleasurable sensation distracted him from her hands running down his chest, stopping when they reached the outline of his large manhood.
She gasped and lifted her head with a confused look. “Did it get bigger?”
“Bashira,” he released a shaky breath, grabbing her hand and pulling it far away from his growing erection. “You’re drunk.”
“And you’re hard,” she giggled, chewing on her bottom lip. “I can fix that.”
He shook his head and lightly pushed her off him, moving her to the side, ignoring her small groan of disappointment.
“I should go-”
“No!” She called out and crawled to the edge of the bed as he stood. “I’m-I’m sorry. I just….” her head dropped and her eyes watered. “I wanted a distraction.”
His eyes squinted. “From what?”
He watched her fiddle her thumbs, her eyes glued to the mattress beneath her. “Tonight….it scared me.”
His stomach dropped. “I truly did not mean-”
“Not you,” she quickly objected. “When he….when he grabbed me….I felt like that teenage girl who was stuck in a room with a man in his twenties, pinned against a wall, no one there to get him off me….”
“Stop,” he closed his eyes. Thom. She was talking about Thom. The prince suddenly had a burning desire to track down wherever the fuck Sadiki was a crack every bone in his body. “I’m-I’m sorry. I should have made it there sooner.”
She wiped at her eyes and reached out her eyes. “Just stay….please?”
He stared at her hand, not even thinking twice as he accepted her invitation back into her bed, this time wrapping his arms tightly around her as she buried herself in the safe confines of his chest. No words were shared between the two. They didn’t have to be.
T’Challa didn’t dare try to fall asleep. No, he waited until he felt the soft and consistent breathing pattern that indicated she was sleep. He looked at her face, her mouth formed into a slight pout as she rested in her slumber.
The prince couldn’t resist running his fingers over the hand that was on his chest, dropping down to the bruises that, though he couldn’t see in the dimly lit room, he knew to be ever-present.
Bruises he never again wished to see on her. He never wished to see her in any sort of position that even remotely hinted at there being danger.
He waited a while before allowing himself to sleep, finally joining her in her slumber, but not before W’Kabi’s question from earlier invaded his thoughts.
“Do you think that your feelings for Nakia have now shifted to her sister?”
He didn’t have an answer then.
But he did now.
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stephhannes · 5 years
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internet deadtiquette
i only keep up with a couple of podcasts, one of them being reply all, and the most recent episode resonated with me. in the episode, they speak with a dad who lost his son to an aneurism, and he goes on to talk about how technology has been entwined in his grief. and i found myself a) feeling less alone in the way that i’ve been grieving, but b) asking myself- how has the internet played a part in my recovery?
i never thought about it, but technology has been such an intrinsic part of my grieving process. so much so, that it’s felt natural and normal- even though looking in on it, there’s something hard and unnatural about it. how do i balance broadcasting my grief in a way that’s palatable in 240 characters but not compromising my truth? (spoiler: i’m very bad at this). 
things were simpler when my dad died, because i didn’t once have to consider things like: “what statement will i make on social media?” “how do i respond to messages from people  haven’t talked to since i graduated from high school?” “how sad is ‘too sad’ to appear online?”
from the beginning, since nathan’s died, technology has been right there. the day that it happened, while we were still making phone calls to family and close friends, i was thinking about what my “official” public statement would be. how do i concisely convey that the love of my life is dead when i haven’t slept in hours and barely know how to say a full sentence? i posted a picture of that one entry in teddy roosevelt’s journal from the day his wife and mother died. “the light has gone out of my life.” 
that was the only thought i could conjure up that day. i accompanied it with a few short sentences- “the last day, my brain has been on a constant loop of thinking about that quote from teddy roosevelt’s journal after his wife died- “the light has gone out of my life.” yesterday, i lost the light of my life. my best friend, my brilliant, incredible, kind, adjectives fiancé has passed away.” 
speaking of the whole ‘contacting family and friends’ thing, do you know how awkward it is to send a facebook message to someone you’ve never talked to asking for their boss’s phone number? at some point in the contacting phase, i realized that nathan wouldn’t be at work on monday and that people would have questions as to where he was, so i had to do some gymnastics to figure that out. the company that nathan worked for had a very generic name, so finding the correct office phone number was kind of off the table. i couldn’t find his boss on facebook- but i happened to remember the full name of one of nathan’s coworkers- so i found her on facebook and messaged her. “hi, this is out of the blue and i’m sorry, but i’m stephanie, nathan’s fiancee. nathan passed away this weekend and we’d like to get in contact with your boss. could you please pass along a phone number or other contact information so we can? thanks in advance.” imagine waking up one day and getting that message from a stranger. 
when it came to contacting people, i only needed to tell my mom and the four friends i have. but when it came to nathan’s friends i wasn’t sure who all to contact. how do you decide who gets to know before a public facebook statement? will there be people that are angry that i excluded them? 
and then after the announcement came the condolences. i hate that i live a life where i’m easily accessible by people i haven’t talked to in years. but still, i got messages from people i graduated with and got texts from numbers i had deleted years ago. 
i’ve always been skeeved out by the concept of people writing on the facebook wall of someone who’s died. thankfully, only a couple of people did it- but i hated almost all of it. i think the thing i hate about this sort of public display of grief is that it’s so transparent, but here’s a life tip: not everything has to be about you. when people post these outward, shallow reflections on facebook, it’s to become a grief vampire, to get a pat on the back for “doing a good deed.” 
i also hate that i had to watch people speculate, publicly what had happened to nathan. someone who we went to high school with made some sentimental post about him and someone commented asking “holy shit. what happened to him???” someone else made a post asking people to pray for our family and rip. once again, someone else commented asking what happened. i get that this is a pretty innocuous exchange, but seeing it written out in a facebook post, being discussed by people who don’t know us well just felt like i was watching two people whispering about me right in front of my face.
the worst part was seeing a comment that said “RIP. at least he’s with (his dead ex from high school) now.” 
when i first saw it, i was so upset that someone would say that…in public…where i can see it. i was almost angry, but i didn’t have the energy to respond, since i was busy planning nathan’s funeral at that time. i told my friends about it, and one of them confronted the girl instead: 
“hey, your comment about nathan was pretty disrespectful and it upset his fiancee a lot. would you please delete it?”
“actually, what’s disrespectful is you messaging me. i didn’t even know he had a fiancee and she just lost someone so she’s going to take offense to anything and everything. i didn’t say anything wrong. besides, everyone knows that (his ex) was his first love and if it wasn’t for what she did they would still be together.” 
not only is she shitty in public, apparently she’s also shitty in private. 
it was so apparent to me that she literally knew nothing about nathan and was just trying to cash in on some brownie points to look like a good person to everyone else- but i was so deeply offended. 
my friend had to contact the person who made the original post to just delete the girl’s comment and that was the end of it. 
the one post on his wall that i didn’t hate was from one of his friends. i had never met her before, but i knew of her, solely because she used to send nathan snaps of her cat all the time and subsequently, nathan would show me the snaps and we were both in love with her cat. she made a sweet post on his wall, and i sent her a message telling her that i appreciate her words and also that we loved seeing her cat. she offered to add me on snapchat and continue to send me pictures occasionally, and that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s done for me.
you know what i didn’t realize would happen? the first time i posted a selfie after nathan died, a few people made “it’s nice to see you smiling!” comments. i’ve never been conscious of my instagram feed, but after realizing that people were trying to use my posts as barometers to my happiness- i felt a lot more claustrophobic when it came to my feed.
+++
when my dad died, the grieving process looked fairly linear. i was sad for awhile, and with time, it got easier. his death isn’t something that plagues me anymore, and it stopped consuming me pretty quickly. part of that was because i was pretty removed from my home at that time- he died right before school started so i was living on my own, pre-occupied with not flunking out of undergrad, not surrounded by pieces of my father. the only digital footprint of my dad was a handful of selfies we’d taken together, but other than that, there was no facebook profile, no online connection to any of his friends. if i wanted to access my dad, i had to work for it.
though nathan was fairly private and didn’t have an instagram or twitter that he actively used, there was still facebook, and still vague traces of him across the internet. 
i can’t stop doing things that hurt me, and the internet provides more things that hurt me. when my dad died, the only things i could do that would really pain me were listen to voicemails, and listen to songs that made me think of him. with nathan’s death, i can sit and read through all of our texts. or read through all of our facebook messages. or check snapchat and have it tell me that it’s been 45 weeks since i last received a snap from him. or have a facebook “on this day” memory pop up with a post he made on my wall ten years ago. 
i have these moments where i am so desperate to feel close to nathan again. and i try to scrap together every trace of him i have. physically, there isn’t much. i have some of his old clothes, and a couple of tshirts that smell like him- but digitally i have years of things he’s said to me, i have pictures- ones of us together, ones i took of him sleeping, ones other people have taken of him- i have two voicemails, i have one video. 
there’s something about having digital access to nathan that brought out a desperation in me. 
when i got back to our apartment from the hospital after nathan died, my brain was shattered into a million pieces, each piece trying to answer a different question. however, at one point in the hours after his death, i got fixated on one thing: where the fuck was his phone? i tore the sheets from the bed and scoured every inch of the apartment and it was nowhere to be found. i don’t know why i wanted it so badly, but when i realized that it was gone i was so stressed out. the phone must have been in his pocket when he died, it must have gone to the hospital. it’s probably gone. i finally fell asleep, my brain reset by the time i woke up and the missing phone was no longer on my radar. eventually, i just resolved that i wouldn’t ever see it again and that was that. a couple of weeks later, his parents and i went back to philadelphia to clean out our apartment and his mom decided to follow the phone trail again. the hospital didn’t have it- they said the organ donation people probably have it- the organ donation people didn’t have it- they said the medical examiner probably has it- and finally we got a bag of nathan’s belongings from the medical examiner: complete with phone, drivers license, and one earring.
here’s the problem with a phone that’s been dead for two weeks: you need the passcode to turn it back on. i’m pretty sure my fingerprint unlocked his phone, but i had no idea what his passcode was. 
here’s the second problem: his passcode was at least 6 characters long. the only thing i knew about it was that it was more than four characters, and i know that makes it exponentially harder to try to guess or use a program to guess the passcode.
there wasn’t necessarily anything i knew i wanted off of his phone, but i wanted answers as to why he died, and i think part of me thought i could get answers from his phone. but a bigger part of me knew that i wouldn’t get any answers, so i gave up. 
i factory reset his phone. it’s no longer in my possession. 
cracking the phone case wasn’t the only technological rabbit hole i went down. the day i finally got into nathan’s laptop, i remember texting one of my friends, exclaiming “I DID IT! I HACKED INTO THE MAINFRAME!”
nathan had two computers, a laptop for personal use and a desktop that he used for work and gaming. 
once again, in my pursuit of trying to find answers, i thought that maybe his laptop would tell me something. i don’t know exactly what answers i thought his browsing history could illuminate, but maybe there would be something there. however, i had very low expectations as to what i’d find- nathan browsed the internet in a very strange way. he’d do this thing where pretty much every link he clicked on or everything he did he’d do in an incognito window. inherently i knew his chrome history would be pretty bare. nevertheless, i was determined to get in.
much like his phone password, i also didn’t know his laptop password. the only thing i knew was that his password hint was the same for both his laptop and his desktop. after setting this mystery to the side for a week, it hit me. the summer i moved to nyc he went away for a week, and when he left, he gave me the password to his desktop so i could use the big monitor to watch netflix or game to entertain myself while he was gone. 
i had to go through old SMS messages that had been saved on my macbook to find the text with the password. and i found it. and if the password hint was the same for both of his computers, then the password had to be the same, right? right.
i did it. i hacked into the mainframe. 
and like i suspected, i found nothing. nothing suspicious in his search history, no shady messages on reddit, no word documents, no weird facebook correspondences. 
the only thing i found was a snapshot of the last moments before he died. the last webpage he’d opened that night was at 11:02pm. i called 911 at 11:11pm. for some reason, gaining that perspective fucked with me. 
+++
i started this blog as a way to vent. i wanted to keep a record of what was going on in my life and how i was coping. i am a container of stories about nathan, and i wanted to make sure that i wasn’t forgetting things. i spent so much time in the months immediately following nathan’s death forgetting. i forgot what his laugh sounds like. i forgot exactly what his hair smelled like. i wanted to try to forget as little as possible, and by having a written record of the thoughts and memories i have of him i felt like i was gaining a little bit of control over the situation. but now that i have this audience, sometimes i find myself trying to make sure that i filter myself appropriately. i have to discern what memories i want to keep for just the two of us, and which ones i want to share. 
pretty shortly after nathan died, i started a note on my phone called “things that are too fucked up to tweet right now, but maybe revisit in a few months?” 
the list included such hits as: 
sarah just got me a “promoted to fiancee shirt,” do they make “downgraded to widow” ones?
y’all ever go from planning a wedding to planning a funeral? 
my fiance being dead means i now have two urns to take holiday pictures with
GREAT, now i have to change my emergency contact AGAIN
i used to have a ‘segment’ on this blog where i’d post the messages i had been sending to nathan’s facebook- and eventually i had to stop. mostly because i realized that the messages were truly just this very honest and raw expression of my deepest grief- i usually only send him messages when i’m feeling the most upset. that’s one of those things that needed to be kept for just us.
+++ 
it’s strange, the way the internet has become one of the biggest coping mechanisms for me. even though it’s introduced a whole shitload of inconveniences, it’s given me a lot as well. one of my favorite things that happened was a handful of his friends sending me facebook messages with either pictures of him, or a memory of him, that’s the one instance where i’m glad to be easily accessible. my favorite thing about having the internet on my side this time around is feeling less lonely. when i listened to that episode of reply all, i heard so many little things about someone else’s grief that i was also experiencing. sometimes you ask yourself if you’re grieving properly, if what you’re doing is weird, or okay- and hearing that i’m not the only one processing things in the way that i do gives me that little bit of reassurance that i’m doing alright. 
+++
you wanna know the worst thing my iphone has done to me? i was scrolling through my camera roll, and i accidentally swiped up on one of the pictures. apparently photos will now show you “related photos” to the one you swipe up- and for some reason the algorithm decided one of the photos related to the one i swiped up on was a picture i had taken of nathan at his wake. i can’t believe steve jobs’ ghost would blindside me like that honestly. 
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1dffsummerexchange · 7 years
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Boxing Day Unboxing Day
Written For: @ktrsss1fics 
Written By:  @mancerelle
Pairing: Niall/OFC
Word Count: 3,541
Warnings: language
Summary:
“I fell asleep on your couch after a party but you didn’t complain and made breakfast for the both of us”
Vanessa woke up with a hazy memory and a terrible headache. In fact, her headache was so bad she could barely keep her eyes open for too long before she felt like she was being blinded, or keep them closed for too long before she felt like the room was spinning. She closed her eyes once more and counted to ten before she decided she was ready to grab the day by its balls or whatever a day could be grabbed by and face it. But first she had to make co-
Wait.
Where did that glass table come from? Why was it filled with red plastic cups? And why was the TV still on? Is that what had woken her up?
Vanessa shook her head. She must have still been dreaming. She closed her eyes, counted to ten again and opened them. Nope. She was not dreaming. She really was in a stranger’s house. She shrieked and covered her mouth immediately. What had she done? She looked around for clues as to where she was. She had never been inside this house for sure. She must have come back with some stranger, but what was even stranger: her clothes were all on. They didn’t look or feel like someone had tried to rip them off. The only weird thing was her bra, but it was only misplaced because she had slept on it.
She turned around, careful not to do it quickly to avoid nausea or vertigo. She watched out for any indicators of whose house this was. And then she knew. When her eyes landed on the set of guitars in the far, unlocked room beyond the living room, she realized she had slept at Niall Horan’s house.
But how had she gotten here? And more importantly, why did she wake up here?
First things first though: her phone. Texts, Snapchats, Instagram pictures, anything, once again, looking for indicators as to why she was in Niall’s, of all people’s, place and why she had woken up there.
The first notification she had was from Sam, her sister, and it was a text.
02:05 am: Got home safe.
02:06 am: Will pay for the cab once I get paid.
02:07 am: Make sure to drink lots of water, young lady. That was quite the booze you got in your blood.
Vanessa tried calling Sam but she wasn’t answering. She tried three more times before deciding that she was most likely still asleep.
So she went on Snapchat, and sure enough her sister’s and Niall’s story was full of clips from last night. One where Sam and Vanessa did shots with their arms linked, like mates, as they chugged them in one go. There was another one of Vanessa and Sam singing at the top of their lungs. Another one where Vanessa received a shot of tequila right in her mouth from Niall, no less. And finally, the last clip of her featured her and Niall dancing so close together and mouthing the song that was playing word for word. Their mouths were so close together and Vanessa felt like barfing upon seeing it. She looked back and saw no one. Maybe Niall was sleeping up in his room and maybe it was fair for her to make both of them breakfast. After all, she woke up fully clothed and warm, wrapped in a blanket.
She decided to text Sam before doing anything else.
11:45 am: Why’d you leave me here?
She shook her head, locked her phone and went through Niall’s fridge like nobody’s business. She looked for something, anything that didn’t require animal produce to make a healthy breakfast for the both of them. She couldn’t find anything, so she went through his cabinets. All she could find was cereal, whole wheat bread (what?) and some hummus. Huh, she thought, I never took Niall for the hummus type. Whaddya know?
She toasted six sliced of bread and spread hummus on all of them. Then she found coconut milk way deep in the cabinets, and much to her surprise it had not yet expired. So with that and some bananas, she made a smoothie. Apparently, the noise the mixer made was loud enough to reach Niall’s room. That, or it might have been the fact that it was now 11:55 am in the morning.
“Good morning,” Vanessa said through a grumble. It wasn’t always a pleasure seeing Niall Horan, not in the wee hours of the morning (okay, she had just woken up with a splitting headache), and hungover. “Breakfast?”
Niall kinked a brow. He looked like he was either genuinely confused by Vanessa’s offer or by Vanessa’s presence in his home. “What are you still doing here?”
“Uh, making breakfast for the both of us?” Vanessa turned around to pour the banana smoothies on glasses and slid the hummus toast across the counter.
“I can see that,” Niall said through a chortle. “What I don’t understand is why.”
“Well,” she said as she licked her top lip to remove the banana smoothie, “it’s not every day one gets a sleepover invitation to a pop star’s house. Besides, I woke up fully clothed, I always look forward to that.”
Niall chortled again. “It wasn’t a sleepover, though, your sister was gone and I didn’t feel like sending you away in a cab.”
“Touching,” she said mockingly.
He rolled his eyes. “It was only a matter of time before you said something sassy.”
“Oh, shut up. It’s too early to start bantering.” She shook her head and sipped on more of her banana smoothie, after which she munched on the hummus toast. So did Niall. “So why am I in your house, again?”
Niall spat out a bit of his toast and choked on the other bits. “Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Vanessa stared at him, if looks could kill.
He wiped his mouth with a napkin and drank some of his smoothie. “Where should I start?”
“I don’t know, but I would like details. Besides, it doesn’t look like we could do much of anything,” she said, lifting her phone for Niall to see the weather notification. “Looks like we’re snowed in.”
“Yay,” he said sarcasm dripping of that simple word. “Well, remember that a while ago your sister directed a music video of mine and it went well and we haven’t stopped working together ever since?”
“Much to my displeasure, yes. Go on.”
Niall shook his head. He didn’t think Vanessa was actually a dick or anything. He just thought she could be a bit nicer. After all, she had just slept over at his house. “Anyway, one of those days she said she wanted to have a more British experience, and me, being Irish but having lived in London for quite some time now, I decided to throw a Boxing Day party. Secret Santa and whatnot, also quite American.” He chuckled. “But anyway, she thought it was a great idea and we started putting it together. I remember inviting you, actually.”
“I remember that, too. I just don’t remember why I agreed to come. I don’t even remember arriving at your party in the first place. Plus, why would you invite me? We hate each other!”
“I don’t hate you,” he said, shaking his head profusely. “And you don’t hate me either. You just enjoy pissing on my cheerios and I enjoy pissing on yours as well.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes and gagged at the expression. She had always hated that expression. Why would people ruin a perfectly good breakfast by peeing on it? Whether it was metaphorical, used as an expression, or an actual thing that British people did, she wished she could just wipe it off everyone’s vocabulary. It was disgusting.
“As I was saying,” Niall continued after swallowing his smoothie, “your sister was incredible. She helped me plan this entire thing without missing a bit. She tried so hard to get all my closest friends and family members to come. And then she had to convince you.”
“Wait. Why did I need any convincing at all? If there’s a party, I’m there,” Vanessa said, confused as hell.
“Yeah, well, apparently not if it’s my party,” he said, shaking his head. It was like all of a sudden he was remembering how much they actually hated each other. “As it turns out, usually with people like you-“
“People like me?”
“- you either completely forgot about it or you chose to ruin it for yourself.” Here, Niall took a deep breath as if preparing for the worst possible news. “Your sister asked me to go pick you up because she was busy setting up the decorations, and she knew I wouldn’t be super happy about it but she also knew I’m a good person.”
“Debatable.” Vanessa huffed.
“And sure enough, there you were, sobbing like a baby.” Niall started to chortle but it came out choked. It was the kind of chuckle you had to work to keep it a chuckle so as not to burst out laughing. “Poor Vanessa, drunk- crying over some lad who stood you up yet again, and you were stupid enough to agree to see again.”
“Excuse me, leprechaun boy, only my friends, my mom and my sister get to call me stupid,” Vanessa shot at him.
“No, no, these were your words, not mine, sweet tamal.”
And they were back to calling each other their nicknames. They could have come up with better, more original nicknames than stereotypical or traditional food names for their countries but let’s just say neither of them was great at bickering.
“Anyway, little Mexican, I was trying really hard to get you out of the house, and then Sam called and you were sold. I don’t know what she told you, though, so you’re gonna have to check on her for that. So, basically, in summary, you ended up at my house because some arsehole dumped you the day after Christmas and you got drunk to... for get him?” Niall noticed Vanessa’s creased forehead and quivering lip, her nose was flaring, too; and he wasn’t sure if she was going to cry or if she was going to punch him but he thought it would be a good idea to rub circles around her back. “Aw, don’t be sad, Vanessa… or whatever you’re feeling that isn’t happy. If it makes you feel any better you were the life of the party.” She looked up at him, brows lifted as if to ask ‘really?’ Niall grinned in spite of himself. “You suggested a whole bunch of drinking games, you swore to give me my present the next day, and you tore up your gift’s wrapping paper like an angry little toddler… let’s just say it all went down smoothly.”
“Wait. Who gave me the present? And what was it? Where is it?”
“It was an eye-shadow thing and Liam got it for you. I don’t know where you left it; I was only in control of putting you safely to sleep. By the way, you still haven’t given me my present.”
“Hey, I made you a perfectly vegan breakfast, I even included a smoothie. Your present’s been taken care of.”
Niall puffed and shook his head. This girl was impossible.
“Now what?” Vanessa asked. “I don’t have any clothes here, none of your clothes fit me, and we can’t get out of here, we’re snowed in.”
“Just our luck, right?” Niall said but she didn’t look too please, there wasn’t even a hint of a smile on her face. “Well, if you’re gonna act like that I think it’s best for us not to even be in the same room.”
“No, no, sorry,” Vanessa quickly added. “I just… I was really looking forward to get all my creative juices going for my plus size clothing line, but I’m stuck here with you and you don’t even like me and I’m wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday and it’s all a pain in the ass, really.”
“You need to work on finding solutions, wow.” Niall crossed his arms. “I think I have some things here that might fit you. If not, you can get them in the wash and wear a bathrobe or just not get out of the wash room before they’re done?”
“Huh, who would’ve thought. Niall Horan, hospitable and charitable. Never expected that from a super star.”
Niall rolled his eyes. He was tired of Vanessa giving him a hard time for that one moment when he was mean to her. But, in her defense, it was his first impression and he kind of blew it up. He could still remember getting angry and lashing out on her because she was grabbing all the chips, his favorite ones no less, from the bowl. She was supposed to be Sam’s invite, Sam’s guest, not the stealer of all good chips. Plus his girlfriend of two weeks had told him that she couldn’t do the whole date a super star gig. But Vanessa also had to admit she wasn’t that nice to him, either.
He gave her an Irish national soccer team jersey that she squeezed in, as well as some pants that were sure to leave marks for how tight they were. But she had no choice, she needed to get those clothes washed, she could worry about new underwear later.
Niall set up the Apple TV and tried to figure out what type of movies Vanessa was into, but after clicking on different titles, he decided to let her speak of herself. When she came back from the wash room looking like a one of the black men dressed as a girl in White Chicks, she looked positively furious.
“You don’t sleep with enough fat girls,” she said as she walked up to the sofa.
“Says who?”
“Please, you don’t think the girls you’ve slept with leave some of their things here so they can either come back later or just as a reminder of the wonderful fuck they were?”
Niall shook his head as he chortled. “Well, you don’t sleep with enough celebrities. I track their houses or leave them with a security guard in the corner. I can’t see them again.”
“What?! That’s crazy. I thought celebrities were okay with a promiscuous reputation.”
“Not this Irish lad.” At Vanessa’s eye roll, he patted the spot on the couch next to him. “Come on, let’s watch something. Any show you’re behind on or a film you’d like to watch right now?”
She grabbed the remote and surfed the Netflix feed. She decided to go to her favorite one, the one she always watched when she was in a bad mood and she needed a pick me up:
“How To Ruin A Wedding?” Niall asked, incredulous. “No offense but you look like the sort of girl who’s into action films.”
“Uh, the only action film I like is Die Hard and Fast and Furious, but just the first one. But if you don’t wanna watch this one, we can-“
“Eh, leave it. Kristen Dunst’s in it.”
Vanessa could not, for the life of her, believe that watching a movie would be a good idea. All Niall did was ask questions and laugh out loud and insert comments here and there. It was a total fail.
“It was so good,” he said, still cackling. Literally the only thing Vanessa liked about him was his laugh, so despite herself, she chortled.
“I can’t believe you talk throughout movies. You know how annoying that is?”
“I know how annoying it is to you.” At her eye roll, Niall angled his body to look at her more properly.
And then at the same time they both said, “Why do you hate me so much?” Without missing a beat, they both frowned. “I don’t hate you,” they said simultaneously. “Okay, you first.”
Niall chuckled once more and gestured with his hand. “Lady’s first.”
Vanessa took a deep breath and straightened up a bit. “I don’t hate, hate you, you know? It’s like kinda when people say they’re in like with someone else instead of love? I’m not in hate with you… it’s more like… dislike, I guess?”
“Oh, well, I’m flattered,” Niall said, touching his chest.
“I just think you’re a tad entitled and sometimes don’t use that privilege for good. Like the time I told you, when I first met you,  I was working with homeless women to give them more hygiene products than food and you made a very stupid, very sexist joke about girls’ periods. Plus you don’t take anything seriously.”
“I was just having a laugh.” He shrugged.
“I know. But period jokes suck, especially when all you mean is that girls are gross. That thing could have been a baby, you dumbass.” She tossed him the pillow that lay next to her and he tried to stop her but all he did was guffaw. “What about you?”
“What about me, indeed?” He looked at her the way he did James Corden when he hit that high note in Best Song Ever.
“Why do you hate me?”
Niall rolled his eyes so hard he even turned his head around. “I don’t hate you. You just gave me the wrong first impression.” He shrugged.
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Well, you were noisy and annoying and I was trying to get in the mood of the video.”
She stared. “You were singing a song about getting drunk because a girl dumped you.”
“Fine but it was still something I wanted to be proud of. And I was but it wasn’t because of you. Your sister is just great at what she does.”
Like clockwork, Vanessa’s phone buzzed in the counter. While she answered Niall heard the bell from the laundry and tossed Vanessa’s clothes in the dryer without thinking about it. When she came back from talking to Sam about how she hadn’t called her, how there were videos all over Snapchat, and how she just hoped her Twitter wasn’t blowing up with people talking about her and Niall as the new power couple.
“What? Where?” Niall asked as soon as Vanessa told him. She shook her head but decided to grab Niall’s laptop and typed Niall and mystery girl on Google.
Suddenly three articles popped up all of which included the same videos and the same adjectives to describe Vanessa: latina, curvy and spicy. She most certainly didn’t love the adjectives but she was way past giving them the attention and time and energy they didn’t deserve. Niall looked at her, his brows furrowed and his mouth open. He looked like he was going to say something but thought better of it. He scrolled through the videos, a sequence of clips from Snapchat of Vanessa and he dancing to Despacito, of them singing at the top of their lungs every single song the DJ played, of them almost kissing after taking a shot.
“What the hell, Niall?” Vanessa dropped the laptop next to her and stood up, fuming. “God, this is so like you, first you pretend to be all nice and warm and then you show your true colors. Just when I was beginning to think you were one of the good guys.”
“I am one of the good guys!” Niall bellowed. He was sick and tired of her judging him and accusing him of things he wasn’t. “You just won’t give me a chance. Why are you so angry, anyway?”
Vanessa looked at him like he was crazy. “You cannot possibly be serious. I was pissed drunk and you were grinding on me and getting me even more drunk and then tried to kiss me?”
“Okay,” Niall said before she could go on, but started laughing nervously. “You’re jumping to conclusions. I was pissed drunk too, all I remember from that night is picking you up and you telling me we needed more Latino flavor on the dance floor.”
This startled Vanessa; she took a step back like she couldn’t believe she was wrong. Niall Horan, famous, annoying, entitled, white Irish boy, had proven her wrong. And worst of all, she was wrong about him.
“I know right?” Niall said, lifting his brows with a hint of a smirk threatening to curve his lips. “Hurts to be wrong, doesn’t it?”
“I… I’m sorry?”
“That’s not actually an apology.”
“Ugh. I think I like you better when we’re wasted.”
“Me too. But I was thinking we could at least try getting along sober?”
Both of their lips began to curve, and it was nothing like any of them had ever experienced before. They used to only see those smiles when the other one got hurt, or when the other one made a really good joke about the other. They used to hide their smiles from each other when the other one said something funny or sassy. Without thinking too much about it, Vanessa nodded, reaching her hand for Niall to shake.
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itravelguides-blog · 5 years
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Top 20 Travel Bloggers You Should Already Be Following
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Just before I started my excitement travel weblog 9 in years past, I was motivated to explore the universe after browsing other people’s travel websites online. Travel blog certainly are a wonderful supply for great ideas & advice should you be planning a trip! Below you are going to find a number of my favorite travel blog, as well as many more I have personally discovered over time. I hope you like the variety of traveling stories, taking pictures, and movies these travel bloggers post from around the globe, as I include! Some Of The Best Travel blogger
Maptia
Maptia is known as a collaborative job with a different group of photography enthusiasts, writers, outdoorsmen, and conservationists, who deliver their viewers a world of inspiring and thought-provoking reviews. They are a volunteer-run travel and leisure blog spending hundreds of time over the past 5 years to self-publish significant travel memories in a 3rd party, ad-free environment.
Roads & Kingdoms
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soft-pages · 7 years
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Why It Is Fun To Hate Taylor Swift
1. She writes songs about her past loves that are not always so subtle about who they are about. 
     People see this as offensive to men in the media they are fans of or in general because it is an invasion of some sort into the private lives of the men. People also see it as “whiny” and “annoying,” and “can she please just write about anything else?” Those men she writes about? Most of them, if they are artists, write or sing about love and their own personal relationships themselves. That’s not an invasion? Also, Taylor is invading her OWN personal life in order to release pent up feelings, free herself, and also let her listeners know that she relates to them. The more personal and less subtle, the more we can relate. Secrets and songs that are not on a deep personal level from an actual real experience just aren’t that relatable, and in my experience, don’t really help me when I’m going through something deep and personal. Relationships are not all she writes about. She has written about friendships (Fifteen), her mother (The Best Day), forgiveness (Innocent), a dying boy (Ronan), and even about her being the one doing wrong in a relationship (Back To December). People like Adele (literally every album, but more explicitly Someone Like You), Ed Sheeran (also every album, but more explicitly Don’t), and Justin Bieber (Sorry) don’t get criticism in this way. Why is that? If she is whiny and annoying, why are you listening to her? More importantly, why are you talking about her? Focus on people you actually can relate to and enjoy listening to. 
2. All she does is date. She jumps from guy to guy like it’s nothing.
       This goes along with the first and I think this is a super silly and played out thing for people to say about Miss Swift. Find something original. But even my mother says it. The media, including something as simple as the morning news or newspaper, has drilled it all into our heads as a “fact.” It’s not, though: http://taylorswift.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Taylor_Swift%27s_ex-boyfriends. She is 27 going on 28. Eight seem like a very normal amount. She also has not dated one guy after another, unless you count Tom Hiddleston only weeks after her and Calvin Harris’ split, which I don’t, considering it’s one time and everyone has done something similar at some point. I am 21. I can tell you that I have dated much more than 8 men. No one is calling me out for it. It is NORMAL. More importantly, if all the men she has dated, and continues to date, obviously know about her reputation as a dater, then why do men keep dating her? If they know “she’s just going to write a song about them,” then why do they do it? Why are they not called out for it? Why is no one blamed but the woman the way women are always blamed? If it is just for publicity for themselves, then that is even more pathetic. Sounds like sexism to me. 
3. She’s fake.
       This really means “she’s too nice.” It’s as simple as that and you all know it. She acts humble when she receives an award, all of her interviews are her smiling and happy, she compliments people regularly, she donates to charity, she visits sick children and people in hospitals, she sends personal gifts to her fans, she defends everyone involved in the music making process and their right to be paid fairly, she is a supporter of all women and is open about this in all of her actions including her “squad,” etc, etc. She wants everyone to like her and she has cared about that up until her 1989 album. Her wanting everyone to like her has led her to mistakenly say things she didn’t mean. In a short twitter disagreement I’m sure some of you are aware of, Nicki calls out MTV for being racist and not including enough nominations or awards for those of color and different body types, and in the midst of this calls out videos nominated with slim women while the only other nomination including much women was Taylor’s. Taylor tweets Nicki saying “I’ve done nothing but love & support you. It’s unlike you to pit women against each other” and “If I win, please come up with me!! You’re invited to any stage I’m ever on.” Clearly she missed the point and later tweets Nicki “I thought I was being called out. I missed the point, I misunderstood, then misspoke. I’m sorry, Nicki.”  http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop-shop/6641794/taylor-swift-nicki-minaj-twitter-argument-timeline  If you’re not a fan of Taylor or even hate her, you might have seen this as her being just another white girl with white privilege who doesn’t know her place. Clearly, she is a white girl with privilege who, in this moment, was forgetting that she had this privilege, as many white people do. You forget that it’s not about joining someone up on stage, it’s about fighting for that person of color’s right to win and be the leader of the fight. You have to take yourself out of it and realize that if you are being called out in this way, it isn’t to be malicious, it is shine light on a problem in our society. Taylor missed this point because she is constantly trying to build up girls and women, and also in the fight against the media and haters who are always calling her out and hating on her for every little thing. I think her being called fake is purely because she has been in the limelight a long time and she is obviously trying to be nice to everyone at all times. That irks people. On a personal level, my own boyfriend told me that I irk people purely because I go out of my way to be nice: “your being too nice is frustrating and makes it seem like you can’t be a real person. A real person is mean sometimes.” Maybe that’s the same reason for Taylor, who knows.
4. She plays the victim. She lies.
       I’m putting these two together because I honestly barely understand why they are reasons. Is the victim thing because of her singing about being hurt in relationships? Is it because of the Kim & Kanye debacle or just all celebrity riffs? The only other riffs I can think of are with Calvin Harris and Katy Perry. Possibly some with women who were in her “squad” and now are not. I covered the relationships thing but the Katy thing? Seems kind of silly and the only one who has addressed it is Katy. She is the only one who has spoken semi-openly about it, as well as Calvin Harris. I feel Bad Blood is too strong of a song to be written about Katy. Plus, we all have had multiple friendships that have ended in a bad way but that doesn’t really mean we need to hate either person for it, especially since we are not even a part of that relationship and there were no actual confirming words on Taylor’s part. Calvin Harris is… honestly, I never cared for him. From his snapchats before dating Taylor Swift, he always seemed really immature. Taylor used a fake, Swedish name for “This Is What You Came For” just so that he would receive the spotlight alone and probably because he wanted to be immature and petty, she decided to say that she helped write it, which is rightful of her to do so. He was clearly petty like I thought he would be and went on a twitter rant while she sat back and didn’t say a word. Maybe that’s why she is viewed as playing the victim? Because she barely says anything and when she does, she apparently never takes the blame. This is obviously not true considering instances like her apology to Nicki. Also, her alleged song about Kanye (Innocent) with lyrics like “who you are is not what you did.” One more small example: Back To December, allegedly for Taylor Lautner with lyrics like “so this is me swallowing my pride, standing in front of you saying I’m sorry for that night.” Doesn’t seem victim-like to me. Next, she gets the trademark as a “liar” and a “snake.” This is because of ONE instance–the Kanye video where Taylor agrees to a line and later says she never agreed to it in Kanye’s Famous: “Me and Taylor might still have sex…I made that bitch famous.” Before I get into that, if anyone remembers, Kanye embarrassed and interrupted Taylor’s grammy win in 2009 because he felt someone else deserved it more. Whether he was wrong or not, that was extremely disrespectful and a really painful memory for her. Then at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards Taylor makes light of it with a joke, says kind words about Kanye, and graciously presents him with the Video Vanguard Award. Then came the lyric he wanted approved. If you’ve heard the video where she actually approves it (http://variety.com/2016/music/news/taylor-swift-kanye-kim-kardashian-video-snapchat-famous-lyrics-1201816146/), Taylor ONLY APPROVES THE LINE “Me and Taylor might still have sex,” NOT “I made that bitch famous.” Taylor found it extremely misogynistic and also unfounded considering, she was accepting a VMA when he interrupted her, so clearly she was already famous before then. Even if she did approve the entire line or whatever, it is still misogynistic and it is still a dumb thing to hate Taylor for. That is between Taylor and Kanye. Taylor wouldn’t have been doing anything cruel. The cruel part will always be on Kanye’s side. She just would have been helping that along if she approved all of it. But Kanye, as well as many rappers, is known for his misogynistic lyrics. For no one to call out this 40-year old as immature and cruel is ridiculous, while Taylor gets called out for lying. Really? We all lie. We don’t all bash women in songs that play on the radio for all of our children to hear. 
So, for all of you out there who want to and certainly will continue to hate Taylor Swift for whatever reason, please feel free to let me know what it is you hate about her that I didn’t mention above. 
As much as you hate Taylor Swift, realize that those powers of hate can be used for so much good. Maybe shift to hating white supremacists, racists, neo-nazis, homophobes, and misogynists. 
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Current Music Obsessions: August 1 - 16, 2017
Sorry for being late with this one. I've been so busy this past week and have been finding it difficult to get any free time. But I'm here now, so here we go with the honorable mentions!
Let Them Fall - Wintersun In the Silence - Beneath These Falling Leaves Absynth Aura - The Fire in My Eyes Soulspell Metal Opera - Super Black Hole To Shed Skin - B.P.D. Lumsk - Om Hundrede Aar Er Alting Glemt Cinnamun Beloved - Together The Anix - Vanished Victorians - Aristocrats' Symphony Widowmaker - The Nihilist Devilment - JudasStein Bloodparade - The Betrayal Loots to You Hey Violet - Guys My Age Yousei Teikoku - Kuusou Mesorogiwi Amorphis - Nightbird's Song Chelsea Wolfe - Vex feat. Aaron Turner (Isis) Leprous - Stuck Vulture Industries - Strangers Beyon-d-lusion - Binary Me Hollowstone - Battle Cry Adore Delano - Negative Nancy Aeverium - Hunted Almora - Tılsım Immortalis - Harbor Haven Enter Shikari - Live Outside Scenario II - Hysteria
Now here are the main obsessions.
1) Aura's Seers - Without Looking Back
I discovered this band through their front woman, Sara, since she was featured on The Autist's The Coldest Sun album. I love the blend of the djent and doom vibes in this track. Also the video is so pretty. Definitely give this a listen.
2) We are the Fallen - Tear the World Down
I rekindled my love for this track. It's so good and I forgot just how good it was. I really need to listen to this album again. It's been too long. The symphonic element blends so well with the instrumentals on this track and is so beautiful.
3) Sheer - Vultures
I've been following this band on Facebook for years and they have finally released their debut EP, The Vertigo of Icarus. They're a hard rock band with a bit of a symphonic metal vibe to their sound. I'm definitely looking forward to listening to the EP, because this song is amazing. Such a great song to jam out to.
4) Xandria - Queen of Hearts Reborn
This isn't one of my favorites off Theater of Dimensions, but it's still a great song. I love that it shows off some of the theatrical side of Dianne's voice. It's a wonderful track and the video is great. I've said it once and I'll say it again, Dianne's got legs for days. I REALLY hope I can go see them again in Atlanta in October.
5) Diary About My Nightmares (D.A.M.N.) - Vermachtnis
I rekindled my love for this track. This band is so good and so underrated. It's a bit of a bummer that they're no longer together, especially since I was finally starting to listen to more of their stuff. But this song here is an epic death metal ballbuster of a track.
6) Visions of Atlantis - Lost (2016)
This popped up on my Facebook memories and I fell in love with it all over again. Cleme is such a great fit for them. It has a new flare to it since they have new singers, but it's still just as good as the original. Even though Cleme isn't as dramatic of an opera singer as Nicole was, she's still an amazing fit for the band and I can't wait to hear their upcoming album.
7) Dawn of Destiny - Another Pain
I came across this track when they shared a live version on their Facebook and decided to check out the studio version. This song was stuck in my head for a couple of days, but it was only but a particular riff. It's such a great song and I'm glad that they're still pumping out music. I really need to listen to more of their newer stuff.
8) Myrkur - Ulvinde
I'm glad that I've decided to try to keep up with this band, because I am loving everything they've released so far in line of their new album. I'm loving the atmospheric black metal vibe with hints of folk metal intwined with it kind of sound of theirs. It's such a great song to just chill to.
9) Sonata Nocturna - Hatefull
I decided to check out more from this band, but there's not much out there. They only have a demo and an EP and are no longer together. But I did decide to check this song out and I really love it. It's gothic metal with a bit of doom vibe to it. It's not doomy enough to label it doom metal, but it's getting there. Anyways, I really like it and want to listen to the few other songs they have.
10) H.E.R. - Gone Away
I came across this song one day when I was watching my friend's Snapchat story and was immediately intrigued, so I checked it out and fell in love. It's a bit trip-hop-ish and I'm really digging it. Definitely am gonna check out more from them.
11) Empyrean Throne - Sed Nomini Tuo Da Gloriam
This band is quickly becoming a new favorite extreme/black metal band of mine. There's just something about them that's so epic. This track is definitely a ballbuster and the video is pretty cool. So hyped for their upcoming album.
12) Pentakill - Tear of the Goddess
I discovered this song through a Facebook page that I can't remember at the moment, but it said that it featured Noora of Battle Beast, so I knew I had to check it out. I'm personally am not a fan of League of Legends, but this track is really great. It's different hearing Noora sing a song in which she doesn't sound super crazy and a bit more chilled, but it's still very much her. Definitely digging this track.
13) Charli XCX - Boys
I stumbled upon this song through YT one day and became obsessed. It's such a simple and cute song that suits me very well as of late. Always thinking about boys. I also love the fact the video features a wide array of different kinds of guys. I probably won't listen to anything else from her, but I really like this one.
14) Dunderbeist - More Me
There's something about this song that is just absolutely epic. It doesn't seem very special, but there's something about it that I am in love with. Maybe it's the vibe of the chorus? I don't know, but what I do know is that this song is wonderful.
15) Exit Eden - Incomplete (Backstreet Boys cover)
Honestly, I wasn't expecting much from this particular cover, but yet again, they blew it out of the water and fucking slayed it! Cleme looks absolutely STUNNING in this video! I would say that I can't wait to hear more from the album, but I already have a copy and am absolutely in love with it. ANYWAYS, go check this cover out. It's so beautiful.
Hope you guys enjoyed this list! I'm excited to bring this series back to my YT channel next month. ANYWAYS, the list for the second half of this month is looking pretty good so far, so definitely keep your eyes out for it!
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zac-maya · 5 years
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Both Sides.
Part 1 - Their Side.
Based on the Jubilee YouTube series “Both Sides.”
Word count: 2,782
As always no proof read. Probably more things needed to be italized but ins midnight now and I need to be asleep so I just got the real important bits.
I hope you like it.
“Can you hear me?” Their eyebrows came together as they tried to see if she gave any sort of acknowledgement that she heard. “Van Gogh is the worst artist in the world.” The sentence was said in confidence, waiting to see if it caused a rise out of the blond across from them. Nothing. They started to laugh, the crew behind the cameras joining in. “Nope, she can’t hear a thing.”
Agreeing and being apart of this video series that the YouTube Channel Jubilee was putting together called ‘Both Sides’ was quite a shock for them. For one, they weren’t exactly the most outgoing, in front of the camera, type of guy. To their core, this was something completely out of their comfort zone, just sitting here was causing them to shake, to get that pinching feeling in the pit of their stomach. Across from them, she must have sensed what was going on because she was sitting straighter, a hand caressing their thigh, the first question wasn’t even asked yet, but it helped ease the tension they were feeling.
What was your first impression of each other?
“Oh man. My very first impression of her was that she was sort of obnoxious and mean?” It did truly mean to come out as a statement at first, but as they spoke, the first memory of ever hearing about Maya Hart playing in their head like an old movie. The first impression was based on what their younger brother told them about her and ‘obnoxious’ and ‘mean’ was what came to their mind. “I want to make it known, my first impression was all from something a third party told me. It was my second impression where I really got to know her, when she came over to our house for the first time later that year. We were just wee little middle schoolers than. And I thought that she was funny and kinda cute and a lot shorter than I expected.”
They watched as she titled her head at him, eyes narrowed slightly. Smiling, they looked over at the crew letting them know that was it before telling her to switch the music and soundproof headphones.
It was only seconds after they started the music that they were sure she was saying something snarky. “I don’t know what you just said, but I know it was snarky.” In response, her whole body moved in laughter. Smiling they shook their head but dropped their eyes to their lap. At the beginning of their relationship, way back when, only seconds would have gone by before illogical and idiotic thoughts would have passed through Zac’s mind. They’re very proud of themselves about the fact that it’s no longer the case, that the trust they have for her, the proof she’s shown again and again that they didn’t need to worry, kills those thoughts before they could even happen.
Maya tapped their leg to tell them she was done.
“Okay,” came the voice of the one conducting the interview, “now you share what you said to each other.”
“You mean I have to be mushy with them too?” A grown escaped her, eyes doing a full around the world.
They let out a chuckle, “I know, it must be so hard for you.��
“Excruciating. Okay, well, I told them when I first saw you,” she scrunched her face, “on your brother’s SnapChat story.”
“Wow, very millennial of you.”
“I know, that’s what I said.” Their laughter filled the small room.
“I just told them that at first I thought you were obnoxious and mean,” she let out a fake gasp, placing a hand on her hear, “I know! And than how when I first saw you you were just a lot shorter than expected.”
“I’m not that short.”
“Mmm, you’re short.”
When was your first date?
“Our first date I guess could be a little unconventional? I don’t know. Like it really wasn’t a date at first but it sort of turned into one?” They paused, thinking it over. “Yeah, I mean, it started out as this weird group date thing for her and another person, not me, and that sort of didn’t work and than we kind of ran into each other at the place her original planned date was supposed to happen, she ditched the people she was with, we got some snacks at this grocery store across the way and headed to this outdoor movie in the park thing. We sat in the very back, couldn’t even see what movie was playing - though I’m pretty positive it was E.T. - and just talked the whole night. It was like... September 15th, 2016.”
Only a couple minutes passed well it was her turn before they could remove the headphones again and they were back to sharing what they said well the other couldn’t hear.
“What’d you say?” They asked her, a small smile on their face.
“I said it was September 15th.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you mention how it didn’t start a date for us?”
They laughed, “Yeah. And that we ditched who you were with -“
“To get groceries across the way?” She finished, laughing.
“And the movie in the part.”
“What movie was it? I never saw.”
“Pretty sure it was E.T.”
“You would know.”
What do you like the most about each other?
There wasn’t even a second after asking the question before Zac was diving in, words spewing out. “She’s caring. So caring. A lot of people wouldn’t think it, but you’d only have to hear her talk about her friends for two seconds to know how much she cares. She has one of the biggest hearts I know. I mean, yeah there are times where she can be selfish, who isn’t, but in the end of the day she’ll figure out a way to do whatever is needed to make it right.” They stopped, taking a deep breath, smiling softly as she titled her head at him, sticking out her tongue, “What I love the most though is that she tries, she never stops trying. You knock her down and she gets back up to try again. And funny, but you can’t tell her that.”
As soon as her turn was over and they was taking off the headset, words came pouring out of Maya’s mouth. “I only talked about the superficial stuff. How you have pretty eyes and a great jaw line.”
“I do, though, don’t I?” Hand going to their jaw and stroking it, laughing all the while. Her humor was perfect for them, she effortlessly knew what to say to make them laugh.
“But really,” a softer smile appeared on her face, “I talked about how I think its really great that when you open yourself up to someone, you’re truly opened up. You’re not afraid to be a big goof, make weird noises at the most bizarre times. How your whole face lights up talking about things you’re passionate about.” By small words, their heart fluttered. It wasn’t abnormal that she would say nice things to him, but at the same time it always felt wonderful getting compliments from someone that meant so much to you.
“I said that you had a big Hart.” They smirked at her, giving her thigh a small jab.
“Shut up,” eyes rolled, but they could see the corners of her lips trying to fight turning up.
“I said you were funny. And caring.”
“I... might have said you were funny too.”
“Oh, really?!” Excitement written all over their face, “Oh yeah, lets go!”
“Okay, okay, calm down. Don’t go getting a big head.”
“Too late.” And than they booped her nose.
What about the other person bothers you?
“This is what’s going to get me in trouble. Thanks Jubilee team,” they joked, leaning forward to move a piece of hair that was hanging annoyingly in Maya’s face. “She sends to many memes in group chats. Particularly this one of like, an adult body and a crying baby face? She’ll send it like 50 times in one setting even if it’s inappropriate and I want to die ever single time.” Letting out a sigh, they scratched the top of their head before diving into another one, “Sometimes she’ll get a little to angry over things and it’s unnecessarily intense.”
When it was her time, they watched as this time, she was a lot more animated with her body and they couldn’t help but laugh because they knew exactly what she was talking about. Maya wasn’t afraid to be more intimate and touchy, and they know that has a lot to do with growing up with who her best friend is, well they isn’t really aren’t that much of a physical person unless they initiate it. And she always says they’re always a little “too over dramatic” when they try to avoid the physical touch of others. They disagree but no one helps back them up on their argument.
As soon as they removed their headset, laughing still, they just said, “I knew exactly what one of the things you were talking about was. About my weird thing with physical touch, as soon as you were like,” they proceeded to mimic her. She laughed in response, nodding.
“I also said that you sometimes live behind your camera lens instead of in the moment.”
“I said you were a tiny small angry person.”
“Nothing about my phone filled with notifications?”
“I could have but I didn’t want to seem like an overachiever.”
“No, we couldn’t have that.”
What was your biggest fight?
They let out a groan, feeling regret start to seep into their bones. It’s not that they didn’t know that questions like this wouldn’t come up it’s just that it’s hard for them to open up personally about this kind of thing. To them, stuff like this isn’t a thing you share over the internet where thousands of people can watch, but they’re here and they agreed to this. “Our biggest fight - not that it was anything with like, a big scene or crazy yelling or anything, just um, sort of tested us I guess - involved this old crush of hers.” They took a deep breath, and stared directly into the girl’s eyes across from them, giving them the strength to talk. “She used have this huge, and I mean huge, crush on this guy a couple years older than us, and it’s sort of understandable why he was a cool guy but I just always had this insecurity about them together. They had great rapport and similar personalities and humor and interests and the whole nine years and you might not be able to tell from my killer style,” they gestured to skinny fit khakis and almost wrinkle free tee they were clad in, “but I was, still am, the quiet kid in the back that likes to take pictures of moments than really be in them. And it was something I had to work through, that someone like her, as cool and amazing and beautiful even with her flaws, wanted to be with me when it seemed like someone who was perfect for her was right there.”
As they let her know it was her turn, their hands shaking from answering the question, the look of worry on Maya’s face. They know how lucky they were to have Maya in their life, to be able to still have her in their life. A lot of other people would have walked away after having to deal with someone who constantly thought they were going to be left or who knows what instead of trusting their significant other. They know how lucky they are to have someone who was willing to stick it out, to work through it, and try to understand why they were acting the way they were. That it had nothing to do with her and everything to do with them and what they needed to work on.
“Alright guys, time for the both sides.” The director person announced.
This time, they weren’t first. “I just, um, talked about when I was annoying and insecure.” Letting out a laugh after, feeling any pressure on their chest be released.
“I said the same,” the response came, her own laughter following, “just not in those words.”
“Oh, good.”
Why do you love each other?
Rubbing their face, they took a deep breath as words started to stumble inside their brain. “Is it weird that talking about what I like most about her was not even a problem but trying to put why I love her into words is so hard? Like, the movies make it seem so easy, you know? Grand gestures, fantastical lists, the whole freaking nine yards. I don’t... I don’t know. There’s so much, you know? It really is hard to put into words because she really exceeds everything I could ever imagine I would want in a partner. Not just as a friend but like, relationship wise. I love that she breaks me out of my shell, but never pressures me to do it if it’s to overwhelming. I love that when I wake up, every day, all I want is to be with her. I never really wanted that with another person.” They could feel their throat start to clog up, eyes water.
She was staring at them, questions in her eyes, but they could also see that glint of amusement in her eyes and knew, before the words came, that she was going to make a snide remark. “I have some tissues in my bag if you need them,” a smirk playing at her lips.
“Oh shut up,” they rolled their eyes, “Um, she’s not perfect in any way, but she’s perfect for me. I used to never believe in soulmates until I met her. She doesn’t... she doesn’t know that. But I always knew. You know? I knew.”
Watching her talk in response to the question was bringing a smile to their face. This was never exactly one of her strong suits, talking about her feelings for them, it always took coaxing from Riley and it was always in private and now she was doing this in front of crew members for a YouTube video that was going to be open to the whole wide world... of people with the internet. They couldn’t believe it. And when she covered her face with her arms, knowing her face was breaking out in a blush, they knew it was getting to her. Reaching out, they rubbed her thigh, an amused smile on their face, knowing when she saw it she told them to stop. That she had to stop, that she couldn’t go further and they were right.
“Okay, so, what’d you say?”
“That I love you because of your money.”
“You mean my Duck Tales inspired bank room?”
“That’s it.”
“Damn, this whole time I knew you were just after my coin pool.” They gave her knee a small tap, “And here I was spilling my guts about how you make me a better person and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner and you just want my shinning gold coins. The audacity of some people, I tell ya.”
“No I um, I said that it’s with the way you see the world and how you’re just like, this all around nice person, even when you can rightfully be an asshole. How well you love me for me, flaws and all, and how you help show me how much I can be loved. I don’t know... I guess you’re just God’s gift to man. Fu... fffft ridiculous.” They couldn’t help burst out laughing at that. Not just her sarcastic wit at the end but her horrible attempt to correct her swearing. “Sorry.” She turned to the cameras, “Sorry Jubilee.”
“You’re so bad.”
“Hey, I lasted this long without swearing, give me some credit.”
They let seconds pass, tilting their head, “No.”
“Whatever. What did you say, Golden Boy?”
“I told you what I said! Better person... better partner... blah blah.” She raised an eyebrow, “Okay fine. I also might have maybe said you exceeded all expectations I could have had on a perfect partner, you know, that you’re like imperfectly perfect for me.”
“Excuse you, I’m not any sort of imperfect.” They opened their mouth to reply but she got ahead of them, “You try and disagree you’re gonna be on the couch.”
“We don’t live together.”
“I know people. I can make that happen.”
Blinking, they let those words simmer before turning towards the Jubilee crew. “Alright, so we nailed this right?”
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lovemesomesurveys · 5 years
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1. What do you like to do in your free time? So what do I do everyday? Tumblr, surveys, watch TV, watch YouTube, eat, sleep... sometimes read and color.  2. Are you more of an indoors or outdoors person? I am an indoors person all the way. The only exception is if I’m at the beach. 3. Who is the most fascinating person you’ve met? Hmm. 4. What was the last book you really got into? Burying the Honeysuckle Girls by Emily Carpenter.
5. What are some movies you really enjoyed? There’s several. 
6. What amazing adventures have you been on? I haven’t really been on any. 7. What pets have you had? Dogs, fishes, hamsters. 8. What’s your favorite alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink? I don’t drink alcohol anymore, so none, but my favorite non-alcoholic drink is coffee.  9. What are you kind of obsessed with these days? My food obsessions come to mind at the moment. My appetite is all over the place and I’m either an endless pit or hardly eating anything at all. Each week is different in terms of that and what I’m into. This past week it’s been breakfast burritos, deli sandwiches, deli pasta salads, and ramen. I also had a really good pizza last week that I’m craving again. 10. Where have you traveled? To beaches, mountainous areas, Disneyland, Arizona, Idaho, Georgia, Mexico. 11. What’s your favorite international food? Italian. 12. Are you a morning person or a night owl? I’m barely a person. 13. What’s your favorite restaurant? Applebees. 14. How many siblings do you have? 2. 15. What would be your dream job? I don’t have one. :/  16. What would you do if had enough money to not need a job? Travel.  17. Who is your favorite author? I have a few. 18. What was the last show you binge-watched? Orange is the New Black.  19. What TV series do you keep coming back to and re-watching? I’ve seen The Golden Girls, Roseanne, and I Love Lucy countless times in syndication.  20. What hobbies would you like to get into if you had the time and money? Hm. I don’t know. 21. If there was an Olympics for everyday activities, what activity would you have a good chance at winning a medal in? Taking surveys. 22. What would your perfect vacation look like? Somewhere involving a beach house and private beach area. 23. Among your friends, what are you best known for? I don’t know. 24. What music artist do you never get tired of? There’s a lot. Well, at least their music itself I never tire of. I may not necessarily keep up with the artist.  25. What are some accomplishments that you are really proud of? I honestly don’t feel proud of myself for much of anything in my current state. It used to be getting my BA, but now not even that because I’m doing anything with it and I really don’t have any plans to. I feel like it was a waste and I’m a total failure and disappointment. 26. What are some obscure things that you are or were really into? *shrug* 27. What are some things everyone should try at least once? I don’t knowww. 28. What fad did you never really understand? There’s been many where I was just like, wtf, why??
29. What’s the best thing that has happened to you this month? Going to the beach last week was great and very much needed. 30. What would your perfect morning be like? I’d be in a house with a beautiful ocean view and I’d be out sipping my coffee on the balcony overlooking said view.   31. Is there any art or artist you are really into? No. 32. What are you always game for? Coffee. 33. What do you do to unwind? Listen to ASMR. 34. What’s your favorite app on your phone? I use YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Kindle app the most. 35. Cutest animal? Ugliest animal? Awwww I think majority of animals are cute.  36. Who is the kindest person you know? One of my nurses. 37. What’s your favorite piece of furniture you’ve ever owned? My bed. 38. Who are your kind of people? People with a good sense of humor. 39. Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever been? Uhhh. 40. What’s the silliest fear you have? I have a lot. Like for one, sometimes when I’m in the shower I get this scary thought about the pipes just bursting. That’s just one of many. 41. What would be the best city to live in? I don’t know. 42. What household chore is just the worst? I’m not a fan of any chore. 43. If you could give yourself a nickname, what nickname would you want people to call you? *shrug* Steph is fine. How original, I know. 44. What odd talent do you have? I don’t feel I have any. 45. If you could give everyone just one piece of advice, what would it be? Just try and be kind and understanding. 46. What would you like to know more about, but haven’t had the time to look into it? Hmm. 47. What country do you never want to visit? Any country where it would be dangerous for me to be in? <<< Yeah, I agree. 48. What wrong assumptions do people make about you? People think I’m “strong” and “brave” and give me way more credit than I deserve. I’m none of those things. 49. Do you prefer to work in a team or alone? Alone. 50. What has been the best period of your life so far? Childhood. 51. How have you changed from when you were in high school? That was over 10 years ago and a LOT has changed. Not for the better, either. 52. How techie are you? Uhh techie enough? I don’t know. I mean, I like the latest phones and laptops and stuff like that.  53. Where is the most fun place around where you live? Nowhere in my city, that’s for sure. You gotta travel out of town to do anything fun. 54. Have you ever joined any meetup groups? No. 55. Where would your friends or family be most surprised to find you? They’d be surprised to find me out at all at this point, ha. 56. What’s the most relaxing situation you could imagine? Lying out on the beach. 57. What is the most beautiful view you’ve seen? Ocean and mountainous views. 58. What’s expensive but totally worth it? For me, it’s my MacBook. 59. When do you feel most out of place? I often feel that way. 60. What’s the most recent thing you’ve done for the first time? I can’t think of something at the moment. My days are very routine and I do the same the things. 61. How did you come to love your one of your favorite musicians? Probably first seeing their music videos on MTV back when they actually played music videos. 62. How did you meet your best friend? She gave birth to me. 63. What small seemingly insignificant decision had a massive impact on your life? I don’t know. 64. Where would you move if you could move anywhere in the world and still find a job and maintain a reasonable standard of living? I’m not sure, but somewhere where it doesn’t get unbearably hot and has actual fall and winters.  65. Would you like to be famous? (If yes, what would you want to be famous for? If no, why not?) No. I don’t want that attention and focus on me. I couldn’t handle it. I hole up at home and have avoided people in my personal life, why would I want people all over all up in my business and judging my every move? No thank you. 66. What did you do last summer? Complain about how hot it was and was dying, mostly. What I do every summer. 67. If you lived to 100, would you rather keep the body or the mind of yourself at 30 until you were 100? What. 68. Before you make a call, do you rehearse what you are going to say? Oh god, yes. I HATE having to make calls.  69. What are you most grateful for? My family. 70. What’s the most essential part of a friendship? Being able to trust them and talk to them about things and enjoying common interests. 71. When was the last time you sang to yourself or to someone else? Yesterday. 72. If you knew you were going to die in a year, what would you change about how you live? I don’t like questions like this. 73. When was the last time you walked for more than an hour? Yearssss ago.  74. What did you do for (last holiday)? Or What will you do for (next closest holiday)? We didn’t do anything for Memorial Day. Next holiday is Father’s Day, and we’ll probably go to lunch and/or see a movie.  75. Best and worst flavor ice cream? What would make for an excellent new ice cream flavor? Strawberry or mint chocolate chip.  76. Who’s your favorite actor or actress? Alexander Skarsgard. 77. All modesty aside, what are you better at than 90% of people? It doesn’t have to be useful or serious, it can be something ridiculous. I don’t feel I’m great at anything. 78. What’s the strangest phone conversation you’ve ever had? I don’t know. 79. How much personal space do you need to be comfortable? I don’t want someone all hugged up on me. 80. What’s the most interesting fact you know? I couldn’t choose just one. 81. What fad or trend have you never been able to understand? A lot of them, honestly. 82. Who’s your favorite character from a TV show, movie, or book? I’ll just pick one of the many shows I watch, Riverdale: The main crew, Betty, Veronica, Judghead, and Archie. 83. What TV shows did you watch when you were a kid? Stuff on Nickelodeon, Disney, PBS, and WB Kids. Oh, and the Saturday morning cartoons that came on ABC like Recess and Pepperann. 84. What do you like but are kind of embarrassed to admit? I don’t feel embarrassed about anything I like. 85. What’s your favorite smell? When an attractive guy smells good, oh my. <<< That really is nice. And the ocean/beachy air, rain, patchouli, sandalwood, fruity scents, minty scents, cinnamon, coffee, freshly baked goods and the smells of my favorite foods... 86. What skill or ability have you always wanted to learn? I wish I took piano more seriously back when I used to practice. 87. What’s the best meal you’ve ever had? Recently, it was the pizza I had last week.  88. Where was your favorite place to go when you were a kid? Anywhere with my cousins. 89. What’s the most amount of people you had to present something in front of? Like 30+. Presenting in front of anyone is a nightmare. 90. If you could go back in time as an observer, no one could see you, and you couldn’t interact with anything, when would you want to go back to? Ooh. I’d have to really think about that. 91. What’s something that most people haven’t done, but you have? Hmm. 92. What says the most about a person? How they present themselves. 93. What machine or appliance in your house aggravates you the most? None, really. Unless it’s not working for some reason. 94. What places have you visited that exceeded your expectations? Certain vacation spots and restaurants. 95. If you opened a business, what type of business would you start? I wouldn’t. 96. What’s the worst movie you’ve ever seen? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a really bad movie. 97. What’s the best road trip you’ve been on? Trip to Idaho back in the summer of 2010. A lot of my family on my mom’s side went and it was really fun. We had no idea it would be the last time we’d see my grandpa before he died the end of that year. It happened really fast. He wasn’t even sick like that when we visited him that summer. At least, he didn’t appear to be. That trip ended up being even more special. 98. If you found a briefcase filled with 1 million in 100$ bills in front of your door, what would you do with it? Check for ID or if anyone has reported it missing. Otherwise, I’d keep it. 99. What’s the worst advice someone has given you? I don’t know. 100. Besides your home and your work, where do you spend most of your time? I’m always at home.  101. If you could have the answer to any one question, what question would you want the answer to? Hmm.  102. What are your top 3 favorite things to talk about? Common interests, celebrity/entertainment gossip, some current event type stuff. 103. What do you care least about? It would seem like myself. 104. Where would you like to retire? I’m not even thinking about that right now. I’m not even working. :X 105. Who is the most bizarre person you’ve met? Uhh. 106. What are people often surprised to learn about you? What happened to me that made me a paraplegic. 107. Would you rather live full time in an RV or full time on a sailboat? RV. 108. What would you do with the extra time if you never had to sleep? I really wouldn’t want that. I want my sleep. I need that escape. 109. When you were a kid, what seemed like the best thing about being a grown up? You think you can do whatever you want. 110. What’s the strangest way you’ve become friends with someone? I can’t think of any strange ways. 111. What’s your go-to series or movie when you want to watch something but can’t find anything to watch? If I can’t find something to watch on TV then I tend to just put it on the ID channel. 112. What were some of the turning points in your life? My accident, surgeries, graduating, health related things. 113. What companies made you so mad that you would rather suffer bodily harm than give them any more of your money? I’ve never been that upset with a company.  114. What small things brighten up your day when they happen? When what happens? 115. What sports would be funniest if the athletes had to be drunk while playing? I still wouldn’t care to watch sports. 116. What’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve done because you were bored? Just sleep. 117. If you could send one letter to yourself in the past without the goal of making yourself rich (no lotto numbers, stock picks, etc.), what age would you choose and what would the letter say? I’d go back to like...high school days and warn myself of some things and tell myself to take better care of myself. 118. How many other countries have you visited? Just one. 119. What’s your favorite band NAME (not necessarily your favorite band)? Panic! At the Disco. I just like the “Panic!” part, ha. And why at the disco? What happened? 120. What do you miss about life 10 or 20 years ago? My life wasn’t ran by my health. 121. What’s your favorite holiday? Christmas.  122. What’s getting worse and worse as you get older? What’s getting better and better as you get older? Worse: health and life. Better: .... 123. Where’s the best place in (your town or city) to have a picnic? I guess a park. 124. What’s your favorite thing to do outdoors? Go to the beach.  125. How often do you dance? Silly/ironic dancing counts. I may bob my head while listening to music. 126. What do you never get tired of? Coffee. 127. What habit do you wish you could start? Better self-care things. 128. What’s the best way to get to know who someone really is? Just spending time getting to know them. Oh, and seeing how they act in public situations.  129. What’s the last new thing you tried? A new type of pizza last week. 130. Who besides your parents taught you the most about life? I’d say experiences have. 131. When are you the most “you” that you can be? In other words, when do you feel most like yourself? At home in my comfort zone. 132. What’s the most spontaneous thing you’ve done? *shrug* I’m not very spontaneous. 133. What’s happening now, that in 20 years people will look back on and laugh about? A lot of things, I’m sure. Like how easily people get all up in an uproar about literally everything. 134. How much social interaction is too much? I can’t handle much. 135. How different do you act when you are with acquaintances vs. people you are comfortable with? I’m just more guarded and aware, I guess.  136. On a weekend or holiday, what’s the best time of day and the best time of night? All the days are the same to me.  137. What are you looking forward to that’s happening soon? Beach trip. 138. What really cheesy song do you love? There’s plenty of those. 139. What’s the worst or best job you’ve had? I’ve never had one. 140. What’s been the most significant plot twist in your own life? I never saw this downward spiral coming after I graduated in 2015. It really went downhill after that. 141. Where did you take family vacations to when you were younger? Disneyland and beachy, touristy places. 142. What’s your go-to funny story? I don’t know. 143. If the company you work for / the college you go to had an honest slogan, what would it be? I don’t work and I’m done with school. 144. If you could instantly receive a Ph.D. in any discipline including all the knowledge and experience that goes along with it, what would your Ph.D. be in? I don’t want one, though. I’m not even doing anything with my BA. 145. How well do you cope when you don’t have your phone with you for an extended period of time? I’m fine. 146. What were some of the happiest times of your life so far? Various times in my life with family, childhood, vacations. 147. Would you rather have an incredibly fast car or incredibly fast internet speed? Incredibly fast internet speed. 148. What are the top three social situations you try to avoid most? Any social situation? ha. 149. What friendship you’ve had has impacted you the most? The friendship Ty and I had. 150. What’s something you’re interested in that most people wouldn’t expect? I don’t know. 151. What’s your favourite quote or saying?
152. If you had the power to change one law, what law would you change? Uhhhh. 153. What’s the hardest you’ve worked for something? My BA degree. Ha. What a waste now. 154. What took you way too long to figure out? My stubbornness caused me a lot of problems. I didn’t think things could get the way they are, but they sure did.  155. What nicknames have you had throughout your life? Steph and Sis. 156. What do you do differently than most people? A lot of things, probably. 157. Where’s the last place you’d ever go? Space. 158. What fact floored you when you heard it? I can’t think, man. 159. If you unexpectedly won 10,000$, what would you spend it on? I’d want to travel for sure. Take me awayyyy. 160. Who is the best role model a person could have? That depends on you and what you’re aspiring to be.
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Context & The Most Famous Artist: Why the Boring Bro of Art Needs To Shut TF Up
A video has been circulating Facebook recently of Matty Mo, self proclaimed Most Famous Artist, and his Snapchat nudes project. Many of you will already be familiar with Mo as the guy who walked into a gallery and displayed one million US dollars, which he sold off as chunks for an inflated value, or perhaps you’ve seen one of his more innocuous projects such as Selfie Wall. 
The premise of the project is simple: Mo put a call out on Instagram, asking for people to Snapchat him nudes with the caption Happy birthday Most Famous Artist. In the video, Mo speaks at length about how he makes art for the internet age, an age where ideas of shock or shame are disconnected from daily reality and the act of sending nudes is a normal part of life. We see him setting up for his show and directly interacting with young art buyers who pay up to $1200 USD for a large size print (printed on “high quality art paper,” which is a technical term for “trying to compensate for the low resolution delivered by front facing cameras” by the by).
Understandably, the internet is critical. 
Firstly, many are understandably skeptical about how this constitutes Art, which admittedly is a debate held around the wider context of contemporary art and how it can often be difficult to read, appreciate or enjoy. Mo receives nude photos which someone else has composed, shot and edited, and has applied an opaque curatorial process in deciding which of the hundreds of photos he used is makes the final exhibition. Many are responding with questions about how Mo’s input has elevated the photos from snapshots into pieces of fine art. 
The artist defends himself by drawing heavily on the Duchampian concept of the readymade, which was birthed just over one hundred years ago and first defined in the Abridged Dictionary of Surrealists, published 1938. Interestingly, Duchamp’s best well known and most controversial readymade, Fountain, was first exhibited one hundred years ago in 1917, and in May of that year, the following text was published in The Blind Man, a magazine run by Duchamp and two friends: 
Whether Mr Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He CHOSE it. He took an ordinary article of life, and placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view – created a new thought for that object.
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Readymades were, and still can be, incredible pieces of art (although I suspect many viewers would disagree with me there), because of the Duchampian act of transformation applied to the object. This was often a simple twist - when Duchamp painted a fake name on the side of a urinal and placed it on its back, on a plinth, he was transforming it from simple commodity into objet d’art, simply by deciding it would become a piece of art. 
At the time, of course the public viewed his work with scrutiny, but the artistic merit of his work was also contextualised by other artistic movements and scientific developments in the world. The problem with the readymade now is that our nearest and most immediate contextualisation is the work of the YBAs - Tracy Emin’s My Bed (1998), for example. 
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My Bed illustrates the difference between a Duchamp readymade and a late 20th Century readymade, which is the theoretical and contextual framework which surrounds the work. 
Duchamp’s Fountain was made at a time when Dadaism was a huge force for change in contemporary art, and his practice of readymades was supported by the Dadaist tradition of lifting things from their original context and putting them into new ones, creating ridiculous and nonsensical objects and scenes. (Although, to be clear: Duchamp was not directly associated with the Dadaists and was careful of his use of the term.) The Dadaist movement was a forerunner of Surrealism, and made work in a specific time in world history - surrounding the First World War - when modernisation and industrialisation was happening before the eyes of the artists. 
Emin’s My Bed has been referred to as a readymade, but draws from a very different conceptual root from Duchamp’s Fountain. Emin made her bed in the heyday of the Young British Artist, in the 1990s, after years of postmodernist thought. Her work is inherently personal, and My Bed is allegedly a faithful recreation of the scene of a four day depressive episode. It’s impossible to read My Bed without putting it into perspective of the decades of feminist art which came before it - My Bed wouldn’t and couldn’t exist without the work of artists like Valie Export, Yayoi Kusama or Louise Bourgeois (although, please trust me when I say I have multiple issues with that era of feminist art).
To compare Duchamp’s readymades to Emin’s readymades forces us to ask what they really have in common - which is ultimately very little, other than the fact that they both come from pre-manufactured objects. 
This is what brings us back to Matty Mo and his use of Duchampian buzzwords to justify his work. He may say he draws from Dadaist thought on the readymade and the contextualising of items, but the problem is that his work exists in a hugely different context to Duchamp’s Fountain. When Fountain was first presented, the world was just coming to terms with its own modernity, and mediums like photography were still difficult to access for many. 
Now, photography is a staple of the 21st Century. We live in a more visually exciting and explosive time than ever before, and imagery floods our eyes and minds constantly in advertising, popular culture and social media. While the nude portrait has long been a staple of art, we now live in a time where the nude, as a medium, moves between Art and Ordinary. This is probably where Mo draws the link between the readymade and how he sees his “work,” but it is a lazy and shallow comparison. 
Today’s nudes represent a type of self portrait which has previously only existed within the art world. Now, anyone can be both model and artist, anyone can define the parameters in which their body is seen, consumed, transformed into an objet d’art. The power of the nude is in the ability to self define, which is removed by Mo’s clumsy curatorial efforts. 
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Look at the images that Matty Mo surrounds himself with - bodies which are traditionally aesthetically pleasing - generally white, generally slim, generally a reflection of the beauty standards applied to society. While Duchamp changed the world with his readymades, Mo merely reiterates oppressive power patterns which are already a part of daily life. As any young woman who’s ever sent or received a nude knows, those power struggles find their way into every aspect of our lives, including our sex lives. 
I fail to see the power or the glory in an artist upholding the same oppressive standards which the feminist artists above worked to subvert. In fact, I see this less as a genuine curatorial effort and more as a man’s way to make himself feel a sense of power and control, by selecting the bodies worthy enough to be transformed into “art”. 
(You’ll also notice a particularly gross moment in the video, where Mo sends a heart-in-eyes-emoji in response to a sexy picture and looks far too pleased with himself. Gross.) 
We don’t gain any conceptual ground from this rehashing of oppressive practice, because Matty Mo is unable to critically reflect on it. He deflects, pointing to Duchamp, pointing to the ephemeral nature of Snapchat, claiming his screenshotting of images is a crucially transformative act instead of a repetition of dynamics seen both inside and outside of the contemporary art circuit.  
Readymades no longer have any inherent value, which means we fall back onto the second most prominent element of Mo’s work: shock. 
The images are designed to be inherently shocking. Snapchat has distinct visual cues, the greyed out text bar or comically enlarged emojis, which feature in most of his images. The shock aspect of his work is broken down into two components: 
Firstly, the idea that people have volunteered to send their personal images to a man they do not know and will probably never meet. Mo banks on the controversy that he gains here, which is made apparent by the lengths he goes to in the video to explain how he gathered the images. 
Secondly, the images have been blown up to large size and hung in a prominent location. Mo speaks at length about how he managed to get a gallery space on Wall Street, which we see features large glass windows. A woman walks past and covers her eyes as she sees the sexualised imagery, emphasising the supposed horror felt by members of the public.  
Both of these factors are designed to shock the viewer with Mo’s brazen curatorial choices. But the problem is? I don’t find it shocking. I find it terribly dull and reminiscent of regular, daily life. Wow, a man asking for nudes which he’ll use for his own personal gain. Colour me surprised. 
Shock art only works where the normal is subverted, bastardised, turned inside out - and even then, you have to be willing to do some pretty weird stuff to be shocking in this day and age. Mo is trying to appeal to a generation who grew up linking each other to shock sites on the internet, he’s trying to market himself to young collectors who probably have memories of the weird stuff we used to send via MSN and AIM. But now? There is very little that can shock a desensitised audience, and children of the internet generation are our most desensitised audience yet. The idea that we are meant to be shocked by nude bodies is a weirdly Victorian throw back, considering the feminist movements of the 1960s and 70s, and today’s contemporary body positivity movement. Perhaps Mo intends for us to be shocked by their method of distribution - he does harp on at length about how he’s ‘subverting’ Snapchat and how humanity have used our base nature to turn it into a sex tool rather than for ‘ephemeral conversation,’ but I find that line of thought just utterly boring and unworthy of being followed up on. Wow, the consumer base has had a huge input in this app is used, humanity is so base and driven by sex, yadda yadda, some crap about the lowest common denominator, so deep, wake up sheeple. 
Besides which, shock art has been thoroughly explored. Artists have worked with shock for decades to disrupt conversations and turn them on their head. Hell, in 1961, Piero Manzoni produced 90 cans of Artist’s Shit and since then nothing has been off limits. We’ve seen artists pull scrolls of paper from their vaginas, tattoo lines across the backs of paid participants, crucify themselves on cars, and generally do anything and everything that has been seen as taboo or off limits. 
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Matty Mo’s work is inherently derivative, and he embraces that with open arms. A quick scan of his website, which I will not subject you to, shows work which is openly reminiscent of Yves Klein, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons and Roy Lichtenstein - that’s without even talking about the parallels between his Snapchat series and Richard Prince’s appropriated (and also gross) nudes. 
While there’s nothing wrong with being derivative, nor drawing on the work of artists who have inspired you in the past, Mo’s work shows a level of entitlement and a sense of ownership through his framing of his use of artistic trope as new, exciting and original. His personal branding as The Most Famous Artist reflects the privilege most white male artists have - repeating a pattern seen many times throughout history before - where a male artist commodifies and uses the bodies of non-men as “inspiration” or “muses,” all the while giving little respect, or financial renumeration, to his subjects. 
Frankly, I am not surprised or startled by Mo’s work. His “work” has the conceptual depth and agility of a first year art school student, which is probably ungenerous to first year art school students. He is the product of a long line of entitlement, an entitlement which does not invite him to critically reflect on his “creations,” but allows him instead to continue to push flat, boring and derivative ideas out while retaining media attention - and that’s without even fully exploring the ethics of the project, the issue of intellectual property, the way viewers and collectors have responded to it, but frankly, I’ve already devoted enough time and attention to him. 
If you’d like to take a look at a really interesting internet artist instead, check out the work of Darius Kazemi, artist and botmaker. I particularly enjoy the Bureau of Nice Stats project, which automatically sources “nice statistics” in a fabulously surreal and hilarious way. 
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haikyuuau · 7 years
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unromantic / kageyama x reader
[unromantic – one shot] //kageyama x reader// word count: 1886 words Honestly, you hadn’t thought about getting married, being with ‘the one’ since all you wanted to do was focus on your career of being an anchor at the moment. People easily labelled you as a hopeless romantic and to say they were surprised to see you together with Kageyama was an understatement (since most of them thought that he was gay with Hinata but back to the story). You were easily one of the best anchors at that point of time until today. Kageyama and you both. He was one hell of a volleyball player while you were a realistic anchor who seemingly reported everything with honesty and as one of the most successful anchors, told your colleagues that “we are to report the truth and the truth only.” Therefore, marriage never came to your mind but of course, being the unpredictable limited vocabulary and word choices person Kageyama was, he just had to do it, in the most unpredictable manner you could possibly think of. It was during your company meeting when you phone buzzed. All eyes were on you as you took a quick glance at your handphone. With a quick wave of your hand, you dismissed your colleagues after instructing them as to what to do while wondering how important this was for him to call you when you were at work. The minute everyone left, you picked up your phone and swiped the banner on the screen which read ‘♡Tobio♡’ with the snapchat logo at the side. It left you puzzled as your screen brightened for a moment signalling that it was loading. Why exactly? 1. Being the outdated person Kageyama was, you never thought that he will use the snapchat account you created for him (he asked you what snapchat was and you had to spend an hour teaching him how to use it since his fan on Facebook requested for him to do so). 2. He still didn’t know how to use snapchat and dubbed it as the useless app because he didn’t know how to take selfies (more like he would glare at the screen and get scared by his own face). 3. You two fought last night. 4. He was playing volleyball. 5. He was playing volleyball. 6. He was playing VOLLEYBALL FOR GOODNESS SAKE. Your questions were answered when an orange haired boy popped out on the screen, the other hand holding a peace sign with the caption saying, “Guess what (F/N)”. The next photo loaded with Hinata running while taking a video. You turned on the audio as the words were blurry. Frowning, you tapped the video as it replayed again, showing Hinata sprinting with your angry cinnamon roll running behind with his death face. You crossed your fingers placing your phone down before your hand morphed into the prayer sign, “Rest in peace, I will remember you.” God knows how you got into the newscaster family. The audio continued playing as Hinata shouted “Kageyama has a surprise for you. Let me give you a hint, he is pl-.” The video was cut off and Hinata was rolling while the phone was flying to somewhere else. 'I hope his phone doesn’t spoil. It was Daichi and the third years’ present to him after all.’ You thought before letting out a sigh. The files you were carrying seemed light as you were originally thinking about lecturing your assistant who probably went off to her cubicle to watch 'Kuroko no Basket’. But a thought was stuck in your mind, what exactly is this surprise Hinata was talking about. You sat on your office chair, letting out an 'oomph’. Thinking that you deserved a short break while the sky had darkened, you took a spin on your swivel chair while looking at the huge map of the areas you and Kageyama wanted to go. The blue pins were the areas your boyfriend wanted to go while the white pins were the areas you wanted to go. Your eyes landed on a particular photo of a rare photo of Kageyama laughing while recalling the memories both of you shared. It was during the summer as you were wrapped in a bundle of clothes, hoping it was a camouflage but obviously who in the right mind will dress in a black coat and sunglasses. Caption obvious right? The two of you hid in the photo booth, trying to escape from the clutches of your fans. It was only then you two bursts out laughing and a photo came out from the slot. Who knows why? Maybe it was magic? We will never know. “Ah young love,” A familiar voice snapped you out of your thoughts. You looked at your assistant and said sweetly, “About time you showed up. May I know what do you need?” Your assistant shuddered at the sweetness of your voice which everyone knew was laced with venom which left you contented with your actions. “Kageyama-san is downstairs. He has been waiting for you for almost 15min.” You felt your heart pounding into a chest and were shocked that Kageyama would actually interrupt his practice to visit you. Unknowingly, your lips tugged and morphed into a gentle smile before turning into absolute mortification when you realised that he was visiting you after your big fight last night. Taking a few deep breaths in, you felt your breathing becoming normal as you let out a sigh. With a wave of your hand, you inaudibly dismissed your assistant. “By the way, you should smile like that more often, you look so much prettier.” Your assistant complimented you and gave you a comforting smile, knowing exactly what you were going through. “Thank you,” You somehow managed to stutter out; more preoccupied with the thoughts in your head than anything else. “Well, it looks like it’s time to get drunk and fucked today. Kind of earlier than what I expected but as a bitch, what can I say?” You mumbled softly to yourself and began counting your footsteps until the lift to see how many steps it will take until your heartbreak. Jamming your finger into the button that read ‘first floor’, you wondered what you had done wrong in your current relationship. It was true, scratch that, a fact that your relationships never lasted and that you were obsessed with work and school but that didn’t mean that you didn’t have feelings. You had only five ‘external’ relationships in your entire 28 year old life time. One of which was your relationship with your best friend, two was friendships that never lasted for more than three days and the second last was a relationship which you tricked yourself into thinking to make yourself feel like a girl characters in shoujo manga who were as plain as plain jane. Not like you weren’t one yourself. Obviously, the last one was with Kageyama, the three year relationship you had with your college dorm mate, Kageyama. According to sources, specifically Tobio’s seniors who claimed to be love experts, Noya-senpai and Tanaka-senpai had been pushing Kageyama to confess to you, even Tsukishima, the cold hearted tall French fry was irritated by you and Kageyama denseness, causing him to play apart in the tragic play (a cliché play) to force your relationship to the next step. The elevator let out a short ‘ding’ interrupting your train of thought. You composed yourself, mentally preparing yourself for a soon to be single status. Leaving the elevator, you left a trail of tears behind. Making your way to the designated location, you puffed out your chest, hoping to leave at least a slight bit of dignity for yourself. Seeing the silhouette of the figure you were looking for, you mustered up your courage, waving to Kageyama while talking in a louder tone than usual to get his attention, “Tobio!” You watched him as he fumbled with a something and shoved it into his coat. His hand backed against his head as he attempted to act aloof, “Hi (F/N).” “Wassup man, Hinata sent me some kind of video saying you had a surprise for me and all that,” You spoke trying to contain the tear that was threatening to slip out any second. Kageyama noticed your unusual behaviour and asked with concern, “What happened?” It was as though everything you felt suddenly came loose and you began speaking at breakneck speed while crying, “I um… I… I just. I thought that you hated me. I thought that you didn’t like me anymore and that I was a mistake because I am so unromantic and I am not good enough for you. I’m so sorry that I can’t even be like those couples on Instagram who are like kissy kissy and like babe and honey. I just don’t know how to express myself because I am like a robot incapable of expressing emotions. Ithoughtthatyouweregoingtobreakupwithme.” As Kageyama watched you blabber on while turning round and round like a duck, he swiftly pressed his lips against yours silencing you. Gently, he used his calloused fingers to wipe off the tear streaks on your face. “When did I even say that I was going to break up with you? I love you so much (F/N). You are like the light of my life.” He whispered to your ear before saying, “Well originally I wasn’t planning on proposing here but fuck it.” You covered your mouth as you watched him kneel down in front of the glass panels that had fireworks lighting up the sky saying, ‘marry me’. “(F/N)(L/N), you have always been there for me and you have never once abandoned me. What I have in you is what every person in this world is searching for. Looking at you takes my breath away. You are so perfect but I would like to change only one thing… your last name. I love you so much and I would like to spend the rest of my life with you. (F/N) will you marry me?” He spoke while you teared up as every word left his mouth. Little did you realise that there had been a crowd beside you who begin cheering, “Say yes! Say yes!” “Yes, I would like to marry you!” You said while embracing him into a tight bear hug. While the crowd broke out into cheers, he slipped the ring up your ring finger before pulling you in for a passionate kiss. “You once said that you were incapable of emotions. But even robots deserve happy endings, so let’s be unromantic together.” [extra] “By the way, is there any chance that that line was taught by Oikawa-senpai?” No response. “Oh, Tobio-chan! How adorable! Back in the days, you would ask Oikawa-senpai to teach you how to serve. Hah, those were the good days. I should really write that down before I forget.” Absolute silence. “What did you say to him again? Oikawa-senpai, please teach me how to serve!” “Shut up you dumbass. Why did I even propose to you in the first place.” “Too bad, you told me you can’t get a refund just now lol.” “Shut up dumbass.” “Pft, Kei-kun was right, you really have a restricted range of vocabulary. Remind me to get you a dictionary for your birthday lol. Besides, is that the way you should treat your fiancé?”
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toomanysinks · 5 years
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How-to video maker Jumprope launches to leapfrog YouTube
Sick of pausing and rewinding YouTube tutorials to replay that tricky part? Jumprope is a new instructional social network offering a powerful how-to video slideshow creation tool. Jumprope helps people make step-by-step guides to cooking, beauty, crafts, parenting and more using voice-overed looping GIFs for each phase. And creators can export their whole lesson for sharing on Instagram, YouTube, or wherever.
Jumprope officially launches its iOS app today with plenty of how-tos for making chocolate chip bars, Easter eggs, flower boxes, or fierce eyebrows. “By switching from free-form linear video to something much more structured, we can make it much easier for people to share their knowledge and hacks” says Jumprope co-founder and CEO Jake Poses.
The rise of Snapchat Stories and Pinterest have made people comfortable jumping on camera and showing off their niche interests. By building a new medium, Jumprope could become the home for rapid-fire learning. And since viewers will have tons of purchase intent for the makeup, art supplies, or equipment they’ll need to follow along, Jumprope could make serious cash off of ads or affiliate commerce.
The opportunity to bring instruction manuals into the mobile video era has attracted a $4.5 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and joined by strategic angels like Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky and Thumbtack co-founders Marco Zappacosta and Jonathan Swanson. People are already devouring casual education content on HGTV and the Food Network, but Jumprope democratizes its creation.
Jumprope co-founders (from left): CTO Travis Johnson and CEO Jake Poses
The idea came from a deeply personal place for Poses. “My brother has pretty severe learning differences, and so growing up with him gave me this appreciation for figuring out how to break things down and explain them to people” Poses reveals. “I think that attached me to this problem of ‘how do you organize information so its simple and easy to understand?’. Lots and lots of people have this information trapped in their heads because there isn’t an a way to easily share that.”
Poses was formerly the VP of product at Thumbtack where he helped grow the company from 8 to 500 people and a $1.25 billion valuation. He teamed up with AppNexus’ VP of engineering Travis Johnson, who’d been leading a 50-person team of coders. “The product takes people who have knowledge and passion but not the skill to make video [and gives them] guard rails that make it easy to communicate” Poses explains.
Disrupting incumbents like YouTube’s grip on viewers might take years, but Jumprope sees its guide creation and export tool as a way to infiltrate and steal their users. That strategy mirrors how TikTok’s watermarked exports colonized the web
How To Make A Jumprope.
Jumprope lays out everything you’ll need to upload, including a cover image, introduction video, supplies list, and all your steps. For each, you’ll record a video that you can then enhance with voice over, increased speed, music, and filters.
Creators are free to suggest their own products or enter affiliate links to monetize their videos. Once it has enough viewers, Jumprope plans to introduce advertising, but it could also add tipping, subscriptions, paid how-tos, or brand sponsorship options down the line. Creators can export their lessons with five different border themes and seven different aspect ratios for posting to Instagram’s feed, IGTV, Snapchat Stories, YouTube, or embedding on their blog.
“Like with Stories, you basically tap through at your own pace” Poses says of the viewing experience. Jumprope offers some rudimentary discovery through categories, themed collections, or what’s new and popular. The startup has done extensive legwork to sign up featured creators in all its top categories. That means Jumprope’s catalog is already extensive, with food guides ranging from cinnabuns to pot roasts to how to perfectly chop an onion. 
“You’re not constantly dealing with the frustration of cooking something and trying to start and stop the video with greasy hands. And if you don’t want all the details, you can tap through it much faster” than trying to skim a YouTube video or blog post, Poses tells me. Next the company wants to build a commenting feature where you can leave notes, substitution suggestions, and more on each step of a guide.
Poses claims there’s no one building a direct competitor to its mobile video how-to editor. But he admits it will be an uphill climb to displace viewership on Instagram and YouTube. One challenge facing Jumprope is that most people aren’t hunting down how-to videos every day. The app will have to work to remind users it exists and that they shouldn’t just go with the lazy default of letting Google recommend the videos it hosts.
The internet has gathered communities around every conceivable interest. But greater access to creation and consumption necessitates better tools for production and curation. As we move from a material to an experiential culture, people crave skills that will help them forge memories and contribute to the world around them. Jumprope makes it a lot less work to leap into the life of a guru.
You can watch my first Jumprope here or below to learn how to tie up headphones without knots:
( function() { var func = function() { var iframe = document.getElementById('wpcom-iframe-7ade37d2a4ccf7dd75e53d3b1a73c88f') if ( iframe ) { iframe.onload = function() { iframe.contentWindow.postMessage( { 'msg_type': 'poll_size', 'frame_id': 'wpcom-iframe-7ade37d2a4ccf7dd75e53d3b1a73c88f' }, "https:\/\/tcprotectedembed.com" ); } } // Autosize iframe var funcSizeResponse = function( e ) { var origin = document.createElement( 'a' ); origin.href = e.origin; // Verify message origin if ( 'tcprotectedembed.com' !== origin.host ) return; // Verify message is in a format we expect if ( 'object' !== typeof e.data || undefined === e.data.msg_type ) return; switch ( e.data.msg_type ) { case 'poll_size:response': var iframe = document.getElementById( e.data._request.frame_id ); if ( iframe && '' === iframe.width ) iframe.width = '100%'; if ( iframe && '' === iframe.height ) iframe.height = parseInt( e.data.height ); return; default: return; } } if ( 'function' === typeof window.addEventListener ) { window.addEventListener( 'message', funcSizeResponse, false ); } else if ( 'function' === typeof window.attachEvent ) { window.attachEvent( 'onmessage', funcSizeResponse ); } } if (document.readyState === 'complete') { func.apply(); /* compat for infinite scroll */ } else if ( document.addEventListener ) { document.addEventListener( 'DOMContentLoaded', func, false ); } else if ( document.attachEvent ) { document.attachEvent( 'onreadystatechange', func ); } } )();
source https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/17/jumprope-how-to-video-maker/
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