#it’s like having an epiphany every time i realize these are normal things that everybody else does that my ass just clued into in 2020

[littleminnowswimming]

Avengers as Taylor Swift Songs

Okay, hi, hello, I have seen many posts detailing the Avengers as Taylor Swift songs, and they are usually written by either Swifties or Marvel fans, which causes some… problems. For example, I saw one list that said "illicit affairs" was Peter's because it said "don't call me kid" even though the SONG IS ABOUT CHEATING AND DOESN'T FIT HIM HELLO. Anyway, given that I have been a marvel and Taylor fan for at least a decade each, I have decided that I have enough expertise to create a definitive list. I think it is very good, though I'm sure there will be corrections. I know I didn't use songs from all of her albums but that is because I only wanted to use the songs she owns, and the songs that fit were more populated on her more recent albums. Also Tony, Peter, and Steve get two because I'm indecisive :)

Tony Stark: Epiphany or Anti-hero

Song Link:

Taylor Swift – epiphany (Official Lyric Video)

Taylor Swift - Anti-Hero (Official Lyric Video)

Most fitting lyric:

"Only 20 minutes to sleep/But you dream of some epiphany/Just one single glimpse of relief/ To make some sense of what you've seen"

"Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism/Like some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time)/I wake up screaming from dreaming/One day I'll watch as you're leaving

And life will lose all its meaning"

Explanation: I feel like this one is pretty self-explanatory, but let me crack at it anyway. Many people might label Epiphany as Steve's song because of the military references, but Tony holds more guilt for the evil he's done and the harm that the avengers have done. This is most easy to see in the five years around Endgame, where Tony is haunted by the fact that they lost and tries desperately to avoid having to work to make a difference. Tony just wants an answer to everything, but feels as though all he can do is dream without an answer. As for "anti-hero"… lets be honest, this one is pretty self-explanatory. Tony is harsh on himself and likes to hide himself behind fake narcissism. That's what we see.

Steve Rogers: "coney island" or "Right where you left me"

Song Link:

Taylor Swift - coney island (Lyric Video) ft. The National

Taylor Swift - right where you left me (Official Lyric Video)

Most Fitting Lyric:

"Were you waiting at our old spot/In the tree line, by the gold clock?/Did I leave you hanging every single day?/…/And when I got into the accident/The sight that flashed before me was your face"

OR

"Everybody moved on/I, I stayed there/Dust collected on my pinned-up hair/They expected me to find somewhere/Some perspective, but I sat and stared"

Explanation: Both of these songs reflect Steve's inability to leave the past as the past. He is still watching, waiting, looking for his opportunity to go back to the 1940's. There's also a reflection of his love for Peggy, which is his main goal, beyond what he is currently facing.

Bruce Banner: "peace"

Song Link:

Taylor Swift – peace (Official Lyric Video)

Most Fitting Lyric:

"But there's robbers to the east, clowns to the west/I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best/But the rain is always gonna come if you're standing with me"

Explanation: I was realllllllllllllllllllllllll close to using this song for Peter, but I think at the end of the day, it fits Bruce better. He worries throughout the movies that he can't have a normal life because of the whole whole Hulk thing. He seems to crave it and fear it at the same time, as does this song.

Thor: "The Lucky One"

Song Link: Taylor Swift - The Lucky One (Taylor's Version) (Lyric Video)

Most Fitting Lyric:

"And they'll tell you now, you're the lucky one/Yeah, they'll tell you now, you're the lucky one/Can you tell me now you're the lucky one?"

Explanation: This was not an easy one for me to label. I wanted to get something that fully encapsulated his grief and depression while also giving him something that showed off his past. I would say that this song gives off this impression, as he is realizing that he has everything he was supposed to want and nothing like he was actually aiming for. Feeling a little meh about this, but it's what I got.

Natasha Romanoff: "the archer"

Song Link: Taylor Swift - The Archer (Lyric Video)

Most Fitting Lyric: "Combat, I'm ready for combat/I say I don't want that, but what if I do?/…./'Cause all of my enemies started out friends/Help me hold onto you/I've been the archer/I've been the prey/Who could ever leave me darling?/But who could stay?"

Explanation: I know, I know, everyone wants to put Nat in her rep era because they think it sounds badass, but simply labeling her as a badass feels a little… deeming, don't you think? That's why I refuse to give her either "The Man" or any old revenge song, because she's cool! And deep! I have to give her something cool and deep! She, like Bruce, wants a family and is instead perched for a fight. She doesn't know how to trust as fully as she would like to, and struggles with who to let in the Avengers.

Hawkeye: "Sweet Nothing"

Song Link:

Taylor Swift - Sweet Nothing (Official Lyric Video)

Most Fitting Lyric:

"'Cause they said the end is coming/Everyone's up to something/I find myself running home to your sweet nothings/Outside, they're push and shoving/You're in the kitchen humming/All that you ever wanted from me was nothing"

Explanation: Hawkeye. Is. A Soft Dad. He don't wanna fight, he wants his fam.

Bucky: "This is Me Trying"

Song Link:

Taylor Swift – this is me trying (Official Lyric Video)

Most Fitting Lyric:

"I didn't know if you'd care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that/Pulled the car off the road to the lookout/Could've followed my fears all the way down"

Explanation: Bucky is trying his best, and still feels like he's slipping, which is pretty 'this is me trying' of him. Honestly I don't need to put more here, he's sad, the song is sad, that's what I got.

Wanda: "Bigger Than The Whole Sky"

Song Link: Taylor Swift - Bigger Than The Whole Sky (Lyric Video)

Most Fitting Lyric:

"And I've got a lot to pine about/I've got a lot to live without/I'm never gonna meet/What could've been, would've been/What should've been you"

Explanation: Wanda has lost so much throughout her past, her brother, Vision, and of course, her kids. That one relates most to the first song, as she is dealing with her grief of what should've been the life she wanted. I thought about putting 'delicate' here too, but I think her reputation and falling in love with Vision is much less important than her kids and her grief. Could also do with 'Vigilante Shit' for the sole purpose of Multiverse of Madness'

Vision: "the lakes"

Song Link: Taylor Swift - the lakes (Official Lyric Video)

Most Fitting Lyric:

"Take me to the lakes where all the poets went to die/I don't belong, and my beloved, neither do you/…/I want auroras and sad prose/I want to watch wisteria grow right over my bare feet/'Cause I haven't moved in years/And I want you right here"

Explanation: This one was also not easy, though unlike the Thor problem this is because Vision has barely over 100 minutes of screen time throughout the Marvel movies so far. So yeah. Less than two hours didn't really give me much. HOWEVER you know what I do know about him? He likes Wanda. And he wants to hide away from the crazy of it all. And 'the lakes' reconciled those two facts. I also liked giving a sentient robot a song about poets. Heheheh so fun. This is also quite fitting for Wanda, but she's busy with her not-alive kids.

Peter Parker: "You're on Your Own, Kid" or "Eyes Open"

Song Link: Taylor Swift - You're On Your Own, Kid (Official Lyric Video)

Eyes Open (Taylor's Version)

Most Fitting Lyric:

"'Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned/Everything you lose is a step you take/So make the friendship bracelets/Take the moment and taste it/You've got no reason to be afraid/…/You're on your own, kid/You always have been."

"The tricky thing is yesterday we were just children/Playing soldiers, just pretending/Dreaming dreams with happy endings/In backyards, winning battles with our wooden swords/But now we've stepped into a cruel world"

Explanation: OOOOO BABY PETER TIME THE WHOLE REASON I MADE THIS LIST. Peter is. A child. Or at least he was for the majority of his plot line, and I wanted to make sure the song that I chose reflected that, which both of these do. I also wanted to reflect the coming-of-age that Peter goes through, and the fear that he is put through in his plot lines. And yet, at the end of it, he still doesn't know what he's up to. He's still lost, and he's still scared. WAY BETTER THAN GIVING HIM ILLICIT AFFAIRS JUST BECAUSE IT SAYS DON'T CALL ME KID.

Thus ends my Swiftie and Marvel fan rant. Hope you enjoyed. Let me know if you want me to do more characters below because I just did my faves :D

#taylor swift #swifties #marvel #taylor nation #the avengers #mcu

[apolohgy]

.

#an emptiness today ! #i just here everyday and do nothing w my life huh. #and this can’t be imposter syndrome but i haven’t done anything in the first place to warrant feeling like a fraud ahshbsnsnsn #also i’m... trying to lose w****t and today my mom went to the store and before she left she asked me if i wanted a juice (that store has a #juice bar) and i said sure if it’s mango or something. they didn’t have that flower so she brought me a veggie/orange juice combo and i #tasted it and it was fine but i didn’t like it enough to finish so i said no thank you! someone else can drink it #there’s 5 people in our house so finding someone to finish it wouldn’t be a problem #but my older sister asked me if i wanted to switch w her (she had a diff flavor) and i tasted it #still didn’t like it and she was being a little pushy about it and i was like ‘why do you want me to drink this juice so bad’ and she goes #‘bc ma paid for them’ in a kinda defeated tone and i just ... UQWNNNSS!!!!! #i know it wasn’t her intention to ... bring up one of my sore spots about food but bc we were poor our whole lives this is what eating #was like!! not being allowed to leave the table until i finish - getting my plate cleared by an adult before being able to throw it away #being guilted for wasting money and food when we had so little and honestly i get it! my mom did the best she could raising 2 girls alone #but like... it’s taken me 24 years to realize i shouldn’t eat food if i don’t like it? that i’m allowed to not finish food if i’m full? #these are all normal things that i’m just now having to consciously remember when i eat #it’s like having an epiphany every time i realize these are normal things that everybody else does that my ass just clued into in 2020 #i know it’s not my mom or sister’s intention to guilt me that’s shit i have to work out on my own. but damn when does it end 😭 #i feel guilty when i eat or cook in front of my family. i feel guilt when i don’t finish. when does it stop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #anyways my eyes have tears now. it’s been a bad day. goodnight 😌 #i know this is riddled w typos Welcome To My Twisted Mind #won’t be tagging this as m*** bc i don’t want any memories of this fuckass post!

[tobiosmilktea]

the love club — miya atsumu

twenty one: temporary nothing

masterlist | prev. | next

a/n: here’s some 2k+ words of badly written angst or whatever the hell this shit is ✨

atsumu pondered until his heart punched against his rib cage. his conversation with megumi was stuck within the confines of his psyche even in the early morning. he should be enjoying the last bits of peace and alone time with you before the rest of the team would eventually wake from their slumber and join the two of you for breakfast. 

furrowing his brows, atsumu’s gaze flickered down to you phone that was faced down upon the table.

furrowing his brows, atsumu’s gaze flickered down to you phone that was faced down upon the table.

furrowing his brows, atsumu’s gaze flickered down to you phone that was faced down upon the table.

usually he isn’t the type to invade someone’s personal space, but ever since last night there was a growing feeling of guilt within his gut. he hated the fact that he let megumi consume so much of his heart that he was even second guessing you out of all people. you were the one who didn’t even want to get close to him, yet here he was not minding his own business and possibly tarnishing it.

besides, he had caught on to how close in timing the vibrations were to when he would send messages. his suspicions and curiosity was practically eating him up.

atsumu flips over your phone. his eyes skimmed over random texts and notifications until he landed on a familiar message. it was then he felt his entire world plummet before him. it was as if his heart slowed and his mouth ran dry when he saw familiar words at the top of your phone screen.

[theloveclub] 10 new messages from miyatsumu

“what are you doing?” your familiar voice rang as you placed both of your breakfasts down on the table. confusion melted upon visage until the thought presented itself in your mind. it spread like spilled wine, making your pulse quicken and your reflexes to jump as you snatched your phone out of atsumu’s hand.

“rule number four to never break: to keep our identities safe,” you recalled the memory akaashi’s voice through a phone call from when you started the hotline, “always turn tlc notifs off whenever you leave your phone unattended.”

and you just broke it.

a shakey breath left your lips as you turned the app’s notifications off as if it were to undo the damage that had already been dealt. your eyes that were as wide as saucers looked back up to atsumu whose usual aura of borderless hues was dim and unreadable.

you open your mouth to speak. you weren’t exactly sure what you were going to say—maybe an excuse or a plain white lie, because surely lying can’t dig you a bigger hole right?

“atsu—”

“maybe megumi was right,” he spoke all hushed. he couldn’t even look you in the eye properly as he stared off into the distance, “i really don’t know anything about you.”

your expression contorted into confusion, trying to ignore how your gut coiled at the mention of his ex. “what?” you say, but it only came out in a mere whisper.

the setter pursed his lips as a beat passed. his shallow eyes finally meeting yours, almost hesitant to press any further knowing he was going to get hurt either way. “how come you never told me it was you?”

“you weren’t supposed to see that, it’s supposed to be anonymous.” you answered, trying to get this over with as much as possible.

“is it because you’re trying to get information to blackmail me or something, is that it?” atsumu suddenly accused, the ardor of fury mixed with betrayal and sadness mixing all into one concoction that made his fists clench beneath the table.

a scoff leaves your lips. you were almost offended to even think that of you, “why the hell would i do that?”

“the shit i talked about in those dms, y/n, were private.” explained atsumu, “who knows whether or not i could trust with that information knowing that you’ve hated my guts for so long.”

“i would never—” you tried to explain, but he cut you off.

as unnerving as a sharpened knife cutting through the air, the tone of his voice had changed severely when he spoke. “who else have you told? your boy toys that don’t even live in the same city as you?”

it was then something had struck within you. a splitting precipice between right and wrong, from sadness and confusion to annoyance and anger. boy toys, his words repeated themselves within your head and how badly you wanted to slap him across the face. how dare he call your friends that? “i don’t even get why you’re so angry. it wasn’t like your break up with megumi was a secret.”

“i literally talked about you in those dms, y/n.” the boy before you deadpans, “the girl i talked about each and every time i asked for advice was you and you didn’t say jack shit.”

the hurt was evident in his face and all you wanted to do was to close the space between the two of you, to hug him in one of those warm bear hugs that you rarely found yourself in. yet there was a chasm between you and atsumu, one both mentally and physically as your body couldn’t even move an inch.

you sighed, “i swear, atsumu, i didn’t know.” you tried explaining without avail, however it was the truth. you weren’t the type of person to assume something about yourself, in fact, you were way too modest and far too humble to even think someone as high of a caliber as miya atsumu would even look your way. not to mention he wanted a friend, not some second choice. “if anything, you made me sound like a rebound.”

“you’re not.”

a huff leaves your lips, refraining yourself from rolling your eyes into oblivion. “you and megumi broke up a month ago and you’ve already moved to to have feelings for someone else... doesn’t that sound like a rebound to you?”

atsumu tried to swallow down the forming lump in his throat, his adam’s apple bobbing as he noticed your burning iries and jaw tight in fury. “no,” he states as if it was a fact.

“no?” you repeated to question his sudden authority.

“because i’ve come to realize that i was never in love with her in the first place.” atsumu concludes, butterflies suddenly fluttering within the insides of his gut as he hesitated to say his next words.

he almost shut his mouth, yet he forced the words at the tip of tongue to be said because if he didn’t, surely things wouldn’t change.

things wouldn’t be the same as it used to be now that the peaceful dewy aura of tokyo mornings were filled with misunderstandings.

“it’s because the one i like is you, y/n.”

it hit you like a complete hurricane, like a downpour of such feelings filled you to the brim of the many unspoken epiphanies about atsumu you wanted to burst out saying, yet your breath hitched in your throat. this feeling—of stampeding heart rates, blazing hot cheeks of crimson that spread like a wild fire towards your ears, to the very feeling of the soaring bloom of monarch butterflies tickling at your lungs—this feeling wasn’t new, yet it certainly wasn’t familiar.

it almost felt euphoric. someone like miya atsumu, the guy you once hated to the infinite ends of your soul bad affected you this much, you didn’t know what do to. your feelings had never been so sure, yet so confused at the same time. however that euphoric feeling was forced to be lodged down your throat as you snapped yourself back into reality.

how could you feel as if you’d been kissed by a thousand suns knowing that atsumu loves you, but only found out through a fucking argument?

as fast as you were greeted by the suns, you were immediately burnt.

“get real, atsumu.” you finally spoke a bit shakey as a thin, glossy film threatened to cover your eyes. “you said it yourself, you barely know me.” your voice was no longer it's syrupy monotonous hum, the one that's usually hushed in deadpan was cradled in irritation instead.

the setter shook his head when he inaudibly scoffed. he ran his hand through his messy blond locks as his eyes, those goddamn eyes that could literally melt you in a puddle if you let your guard down for once, met yours again. “did it ever occur to you that i was always interested the moment we met? and that megumi was just some dumb obstacle that stopped me from doing so?”

that’s a stupid reason, you wanted to say but you held yourself back. this entire argument was idiotic, but here you idiots were: arguing in public.

“then why’d you let her?”

“because she confessed to me first and for once i felt like i wasnt hated by everybody.” atsumu explains, his shoulders slumping as he thought back on the memory. “... it was my first confession ever and honestly it came out of nowhere. megumi never talked to me in middle school, so having her suddenly say that she liked me felt like i was finally part of the normal crowd.”

atsumu paused for a second, eyes flickering over to read your expression that only softened once hishaze met yours.

“i was never really liked much in middle school because i became super arrogant due to volleyball,” he continues. “and at first i didn’t really care, but over the years i found myself desperate for everyone’s approval. and knowing how popular megumi was i thought dating her was going to change my reputation. and it obviously did... to an extent at least.”

so that explains it, you thought. as with most things, everything is always so complicated that even a year of running an advice hotline certainly did not prepare you for something like this.

silence fell between you like a wet blanket. it weighted you both down that the brught morning felt too gloomy to enjoy. even your breakfast was left resting upon the table the gentle hum of the morning rush continued to flow around you two.

atsumu believed that everything was practically falling into place now, but there was one thing he wanted to know. “why do hate me?”

it was a desperate question, no doubt, but he wanted so badly to know why he had fallen for someone so out of his reach.

“i don’t hate you, atsumu.”

he shakes his head, “no, you know what i mean. i want the real reason.”

you felt a lump form in your throat, hesitating to even swallow your pride and just say it. but it was strange how your body swears to not say something that you haven’t been able to even explain to your closest friends in years because of this.

“i hated you cause you were a fucking bandwagon.” you finally confessed, cringing at the way your words had immediately impacted atsumu despite preparing himself for the worse. “megumi and her friends hated me in middle school for no reason. the fact that you let her start manipulating you into not talking to people without fully knowing the truth made me hate you even more.”

atsumu had it coming for him. he really did. karma definitely got the best of him knowing that he let those terrible things happen to not only you but to others, and he didn’t do anything about it.

he knew it was going to hurt, but he didn’t know it was going to be like this.

it felt like a knife to the heart, yet this type of pain hurt more than whatever break up he went through with megumi because this was different. you were different.

because in the end everyone hates you, megumi’s words haunted atsumu and he just wanted it all to end. i get it, already. stop!

“but don’t hate you anymore.”

no it’s not the same.

you waited for atsumu to respond, but silence followed one after another. after a few missed beats, you decided that there was no avail that this could be the very last time you two were to talk to each other.

“i guess things are different now, so understand if your feelings for me have changed now that i’ve ruined your trust.” by each passing second, you felt your voice struggle to leave your throat. that lump within your larynx was growing bigger and bigger the longer you stared at his hurt expression.

you couldn’t believe that it ended up being you who caused that pain. and oh, how badly you wanted to fix it. but now wasn’t the time or will it ever be. this was all you had and it was gone within a snap.

“i’ll make sure to delete the dms and take you off the love club’s client list,” you began after you cleared your throat. “we can act like nothing had ever happened.”

atsumu’s eyes widened in saucers as he looked at you in surprise. end it?

no this wasn’t what he had in mind. sure, he was furious but he definitely didn’t want it to end like this. hell, he didn’t want it to end at all.

he wanted to badly to stop you from continuing before you said something you’d both regret, yet his thoughts were too jumbled up in his jungle-like mind that the words at the tip of his tongue appeared and disappeared before he could even say them.

“once we’re back in hyogo, we can stop associating with each other.” you began gathering your things before placing a few bills upon the table to pay for the food.

gaze falling upon your hand, atsumu wanted to badly to grab and tell you not to go, yet something was stopping him. his subborness was working against him.

“i’m sorry for wasting your time, atsumu.”

fun facts! —

atsumu ended taking y/n’a uneaten breakfast to go and planned on dropping it off at her hotel room, but decided you didn’t want to see him so he gave it to suna instead

on the bus ride back to hyogo, y/n sat with aran instead

the tlc boys don’t know what happened because y/n never told them, so they primarily found out through osamu telling tanaka

even then, they don’t know the whole story besides the fact they had an argument

taglist: (closed)

@kitsunetea @bftsukki @gyubit17 @katxsuki @alyssasteaparty @angsty-microwave @pleasemelafook-outta-ere @katsushimaa @dinonerdsimp @sakusakymi @deimmortales99 @nerumiz @evphology @atsunflower @noeminemi @chaelysian @lunebiscuit @hanbinplanet @crimsonrose720 @differentballooncollection @iwaizluv @90s-belladonna @terushimasbitch @apollochjld @shephard17895 @tremendousglitterthing @kara-grayson04 @clowninfortodoroki @gra-hamcrackers @bloomkings @highlyanxiousintroverted @verymuchbabey @miyaosamoo @achly @randomidksomeone @newborn-weeb @mx-minxx @callums-keith @lumiriai @unstableye @lovedanii @kritiiiii @ushisama @kitakure @gaychemicalwater @akakuzumo @noiramor @tsumu-core @stardustanni @ikemenweebo @veenusvalkryie (continued in comments)

#haikyuu!! #haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu smau #haikyuu x reader #atsumu x reader #atsumu smau #atsumu imagines #atsumu scenarios #atsumu hcs #atsumu headcanons #miya atsumu #atsumu miya #hq atsumu #haikyuu atsumu #atsumu fluff

[youareshauni]

2, 21, 22, 27 for the character questionnaire! - leiwritess

It took me some time to decide which OC I should write about, because I kept switching mid-answer.

2. You know how your character looks, but why do they look like that? Why do they wear their hair like that, or choose those clothes?

I was inspired by horror stories. Then I’ve an epiphany when I remembered stories about people who are cursed not to be perceived / to be forgotten. A warning for that because of implications.

One, Seawolfe (different name then) was a normal, probably white woman - she doesn’t remember anymore - and a huge jackass. What happened was that something punished her for her actions by turning her into a being without shape or appearance or memorable presence - with a loophoole. When she wears clothes or something else that covers her entire body, including her face + eyes.

Once she’s covered from head to toe, she’s capable of controlling her appearance completely - size, height, weight, numbers of limbs, shape, etc. She’s able to shift the things she wears to a much smaller degree. For example, she’s unable to shape her clothes into important cultural pieces of clothing and objects of other cultures like sacred dresses, kippah, etc.

She can appear as an average human or something like Enderman.

Every time a person meets her, she’s looking at least slightly different, even if it’s the same person within the span of an hour. What might be consistent are style, certain articles of clothing or even entire ensembles, only details differing, if she’s close to somebody.

She chooses her appearance depending on whether or not she wants to blend in or be conspicuous, if she likes or dislikes a person or a group, etc. Though more often than not she seems to forget was ‘blending in’ means. She loves attention too much.

If she wants to be ‘invisible’, she removes a glove or folds up a sleeve so her hand’s skin is in the open, and she stops being perceived. Given the history how she came to be Seawolfe, she avoids doing that as much as possible.

If she really hates somebody she’s haunting, she often chooses a monstrous appearance to put the fear into them.

As for the ‘haunting’, that’s a related part of the curse to the shapeshifting while independent. She punishes people who are like what she used to be like, abusing their power, influence, and position.

21. Does this character generally avoid offending people, or do they tend to cause upset? By accident, on purpose, or in spite of their best efforts?

When she wants to upset somebody, or rather, scare them, she does her best to achieve that. That’s part of the purpose of her curse, after all. Punish those people who abuse their power and position like she used to do. That part of curse plus character development stops her from abusing her new-found powers.

At the same time she can be pretty bad at realizing what is acceptable behavior around people, then is confused when they start crying or get angry at her because she said or did something casually cruel. She gets better over the years.

22. This character is throwing a party. What is it like? How do they generally behave at parties?

A party woman through and through. It’s a leftover from her old life and one of the vices she indulges in, because she likes to be the center of attention. It  reaffirms for her that she still exists somehow.

Her parties are always spontaneous. Instances of opportunity. She dances with everybody, sings loudly, offers food and drink, accepts compliments...

27. What kind of sense of humour does this character have? 

Morbid humor about existence, ghosts, monsters, and death in relation to herself. She tends to go really dark when it comes to the people she haunts.

#long post #my oc #creative writing #my writing #leillee

[haberdashing]

What A Tangled Web We Weave (12/?)

TMA AU diverging from canon at the end of episode 92. Jon is forced into an arranged marriage by Elias; Martin does what he can to help.

on AO3

A few more days came and went without much happening. Martin kept waiting for the fallout from what he’d shared with Melanie, whether that was an emotional reunion with Tim or (much more likely) Tim cornering him in the hallway and insisting that they would never be friends again, but Tim just kept half-assing his archival work and taking every opportunity to leave the room and never actually talking through things.

Not the best possible outcome there, certainly, but perhaps not the worst, either.

Melanie and Basira kept to themselves for the most part, too, and Jon kept spending all his time tucked away in his office, though Martin made sure to bring him tea every day, partly in the hopes of improving his mood and partly just as an excuse to go in and see Jon again. Most days he was dismissed with a soft “Thank you” or a simple hand gesture, but that was enough.

Hyperaware as he was of any changes in this fragile status quo they’d established, Martin noticed that on this particular day Jon went up the stairs to the rest of the Institute and didn’t reappear down in the Archives for some time afterwards, but he tried not to think too much about it, didn’t breathe a word of what thoughts he’d had on the subject as he arrived in Jon’s office with tea in hand (hands, plural, really, as he held one mug off to the side for himself as he carefully placed the other onto Jon’s desk).

“Penny for your thoughts?” Martin tried his best to keep his voice upbeat and calm, to make it sound like just a casual inquiry that Jon could reject if he didn’t feel like talking through things with Martin.

Jon looked up at Martin and let out a low sigh, and for a moment Martin thought that that was all he was going to get out of Jon, and while that wasn’t ideal, he could live with that, just as he’d lived with similar dismissals for the past several days...

“Apparently they’ve decided who my future spouse will be.”

Martin was suddenly very glad that he had yet to touch his own mug of tea, because otherwise he most certainly would have spit it out at that comment.

Then he realized what it meant that not only had the decision been made, but Jon had been told about it, and Martin’s blood ran cold.

He’d thought he had more time, was the thing. Martin thought that in time maybe he could try to drop subtle hints here and there about his new alignment, perhaps soften up Jon’s opinion of spiders a bit while he was at it, but now all those plans went out the window.

And yet Jon was looking at Martin as he always did, with an expression that was difficult to read but seemed to fall somewhere between curiosity and annoyance. Not disgust, not horror, not betrayal.

“And?” Martin did his best to keep his voice level, to sound calm and collected, to stop his hand from shaking too badly as it held a still-full mug of tea he hadn’t really wanted in the first place.

“And Elias won’t tell me who it is.”

Martin let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He still had time, then. It wasn’t over just yet. “Ah, I- I see.”

“Rather frustrating that he called a meeting just to not tell me the most important bit of information, but then, what else is new...” Jon shook his head and Martin tried not to stare, tried not to look too closely at the long strands of hair now scattered across Jon’s face, black and silver intermingled. “He did say he thought I would be ‘pleasantly surprised’, though. And then gave me that smirk he has where he knows something you don’t and he’s just lording it over you, you know the one...”

“Y-yeah, I know the one.” Martin’s head was reeling. Did Elias really think Jon would be pleasantly surprised by finding out that he’d be marrying Martin? Was he right in thinking that it’d be better for Jon to marry a spider person he knew than a spider person he didn’t? Or perhaps that was sarcasm on Elias’ part, sarcasm that had flown over Jon’s head because he didn’t know any better...

Martin didn’t plan on speaking up again, really, but he found himself doing it just the same.

“Well, think about it. Who would you be pleasantly surprised to have as a marriage partner?”

“I... I don’t know.” Jon closed his eyes briefly as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I just stopped being wanted for murder, it’s not like I have a blossoming social life outside of this place...”

There was a conversation to be had there about how Jon had adapted to life on the run, who he had lived with (was still living with) when his own flat was suddenly off-limits, but it wasn’t one Martin especially wanted to have right now.

“Well, what about here at the Institute, then?” Martin scrambled to add more. “Tim, maybe? You two were always such good friends...”

“‘Were’ is the operative word there, I’m afraid. I think Tim might actually kill me if the alternative was us having to get married now.” Jon paused for a moment before adding, “Besides, I rather doubt Tim’s got any connection to the Web.”

“Right, well, uh...”

Two other options to ask about then, if he was sticking to Institute staff Jon interacted with regularly (Elias himself was not an option in Martin’s mind). Martin wasn’t exactly the best judge regarding women’s attractiveness, but he figured it was probably a safe bet to go with the one who could actually carry on a conversation with Jon without it inevitably turning into an argument.

“What about Basira? She seems nice enough...”

“I’m not- why does everybody seem to think...” Jon massaged his temple for a moment as his speech trailed off before looking back up at Martin with a strange expression on his face. “Wait... is this about what I think it is?”

Martin’s stomach lurched. It was probably a miracle that he had managed to avoid spilling his tea during this whole conversation, that his hands hadn’t shaken enough to send the mug’s contents flying. “What d’you mean?”

“Martin, are... are you jealous of my future spouse?”

There was no compulsion to the question, but Martin wasn’t actually sure whether that was a good thing. Part of him wanted to explain, to spill his guts without even having to think twice about it, but instead he just stood there, trying to muster up the courage to respond as he felt his face rapidly heating up.

“What? N-no, that’s, that’s not-”

“You are!” Jon made it sound like this was some sort of epiphany, using the sort of tone he usually only employed after a major research breakthrough. “Look, Martin, you don’t have to- to be jealous of the person I’m getting married to-”

“I’m not jealous! I-” Martin took a breath and tried to keep his voice steady as he spoke again, though he wasn’t sure that it worked. “I am not jealous of your future spouse.”

“If you say so.” Jon didn’t sound convinced; apparently, Martin was better at lying than at telling the truth these days. “Either way, Elias did tell me a bit more about what to expect with all of this. Did you know he’s married to Peter Lukas?”

Martin blinked a few times, the urge to further deny his jealousy fading as he parsed what Jon had to say. “Peter Lukas, the- the guy who runs the Tundra?”

“That’s the one.”

“No, I, I didn’t know that.”

“Apparently it was a similar situation, more about connecting their patrons than about them specifically--and also Institute funding, maybe? They’re married, but they barely interact with one another, and whatever deal required them getting married in the first place must not have stopped them from getting divorced... several times over, in fact...”

“Elias said all that?”

“Well, the marriage and divorce part I already knew, actually, but... the point is, I don’t know what my relationship will be like. Maybe it’ll be like Elias and Lukas, where one of them’s not even around the other one most of the time... or maybe that’s because Lukas’ god is big on isolation, it’s hard to say. But it probably won’t be quite like a normal marriage, at any rate.”

Martin knew that Jon was trying to comfort him, in a weird, roundabout way.

Martin wasn’t sure exactly how he felt about Jon being so nonchalant in discussing his upcoming marriage (their upcoming marriage), but it was pretty far off the mark from comforted.

“Don’t worry too much about it, Martin. We’ll see how things go soon enough. If we’re lucky, it won’t be long before...” Martin waited for Jon to finish the sentence, but instead, Jon just let it trail off into nothingness.

“Jon?” Martin prompted.

“Sorry, I... I was going to say ‘before things are back to normal,’ but what even is normal here? Is dealing with Prentiss normal? Is having a monster as an assistant and not knowing it normal? Things haven’t really been normal for a while now, have they?”

“R-right.” Martin’s stomach lurched at the mention of Prentiss, and lurched again at the mention of one of Jon’s assistants being a monster. He meant the thing that replaced Sasha, Martin knew that, but... “J-Jon, I-”

“Yes, Martin?”

Martin looked at Jon for a moment that seemed to last for an eternity, took in the bags under his eyes, the scars both old and new, and the way he was looking up at Martin with interest, his dark eyes wide as he waited to hear what Martin had to say next...

Martin gulped. He couldn’t do it. Damn his cowardice, but he couldn’t make himself follow through with what he had meant to say, not when Jon was looking up at him like that, clinging to his every word.

“I, er, think it’s probably time I get back to work. Hope your tea hasn’t gone cold yet after all my yammering...”

Jon nodded. “Of course, of course. And I wouldn’t worry about that, though if it’ll make you feel better-” Jon paused and picked up the mug of tea that Martin had deposited on his desk, took a sip in a motion that Martin couldn’t tell if it was actually exaggerated on Jon’s part or if he was just imagining things. “It’s still fine. Thank you, Martin.”

“N-no problem. Any time.”

When Martin closed the door behind himself, still holding his own mug of tea that he hadn’t even wanted to begin with, he felt the mad urge to chuck the mug at some piece of furniture nearby, watch it shatter against a file cabinet or see its contents slowly stain the contents of a bookshelf.

Instead, though, Martin just sighed, clutched his mug even harder, and went back to work as if nothing had happened.

#tma #tma au #tma fic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #the magnus archives au #the magnus archives fic #the magnus archives fanfic #web martin #web martin blackwood #personal #my writing

[huilianwrites]

7 Things I Learned Making Summary Sheets

In the six years I went to middle and high school, I made summary sheets for practically every single test. (Excepting the ones that don’t need the summary sheets, like math or physics. And even then when the physics is theoretical, I still made them.) Then, I shared those summary sheets to everyone in my class. Everyone. And then everyone basically only studies from that. People keep asking me why I want to share those labour filled summary sheets to all of my friends. They asked if I got money for it. I don’t, but here’s what I did get. 

1. I learned how to learn

Everybody learns differently from each other. From making these summaries, I realized that my learning style is to take everything I have learned, and make it into something with structure. I received information in a very unstructured way. I could learn something, and connect it with something completely different. It’s good for receiving information, I can memorize a lot by doing that, but to utilize that information? Not so much. So I need to create structure so that I can retrieve that information, and use it to analyse things, to answer questions, and everything else. That structure is created in my mind when I make these summary sheets. People keep asking me when I got the time to create them, but usually, what they don’t know is that making these summary sheets is studying for me. It’s pretty effective, too. I understood, like, at least 75% of things when I finished the summary sheets. It’s just that 25% left. 

2. It costs nothing to share knowledge

You literally have nothing to lose by sharing your knowledge. Literally nothing. People ask me why I want to share this thing I made after a lot of hard work and time, but I lost literally nothing. Not even time, because even if I didn’t share it, I would have still made it. I made it for me first, then I share the finished product. It just so happens that my friends thought that my summary sheets are neat and they can study from them. It costs me nothing to share them. Everytime I think of this, I think of the illustration of a candle giving light to other candles. It costs the first candle nothing, because it would still have the fire even after it gave it to others, but it meant everything for the second candle. It costs nothing for you to share your knowledge, but it can mean everything to the person receiving that knowledge. 

3. Typing

Because my handwriting is horrendous when I write for prolonged periods of time, I ended up typing these summary sheets. I started  with a truly depressing typing speed. I can spend around an hour typing a page, and that’s just typing. Not counting the searching for information and wording it. Now, I can type pretty fast, around 50 words a minute. It’s well above the average. Pretty good for someone who has a typing speed not even 20 words per minute when I started. Besides, now typing is a very valuable skill, and I’m glad I learned how to do it well before I even started my career. Plus, because I learned it by typing things for hours and hours, it’s free of charge! (In money, anyway. Not in time.)

4. How to prioritize

Prioritizing is a really important skill that everybody should learn. And I especially learned it while making these summary sheets. This is the kind of work that can't be done the night before the test, because then I won't be able to study them, and neither can my friends. And besides, it can take hours to make one summary sheet, especially the biology one, with all the diagrams and pictures. Aside from prioritizing, I learned how to divide things to bite sized pieces, because when I can't spare several hours at once to make these summary sheets, I normally would say to myself, okay, on Monday I do it until subchapter 3, then on Tuesday until subchapter 5, and so on. It's a very frustrating thing to be asked about my summary sheets whenever finals come around, especially when I'm done making them but haven't gotten around to sharing them, but it really helped me learn how to prioritize things.

5. Kindness will make friends for you

I have lost count how many people became my friend because I shared my summary sheets. And I have lost count how many times I turned to them for help. Kindness does make friends. It might seem a bit transactional, but I didn’t start to share my summary sheets to get favors from other people. I just felt comfortable asking for them because these people, in retrospect, have become my friend. I had an epiphany on my graduation ceremony, because I realized that I have so many friends that are close to me. A very far cry from my childhood self, who had a period in time where she does not have any friends she could call for help at all. Now I have a plethora of them, and I would be very happy to help them too. Kindness is a basis for trust, which is a basis for friendship. It’s a lesson I valued very much, and had changed my life, definitely for the better. 

6. If you are to be known for something, it’s best to be known for something good.

When I graduated high school, my graduating class made a special tribute for me. They signed a huge canvas with the words ‘Thank You’ on top of them. They also managed to sneak in several mentions of me making summary sheets on the graduation ceremony. I won’t lie, it felt amazing. To be known for making these summary sheets that has helped a lot of people, instead of being known for other rather unsavory things. I’m very blunt and sometimes can be very confrontative. But that was not what my friends at high school will remember me for. They will remember me for being the one who make summary sheets, and to be honest, it’s good to be known for that. 

7. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well

I’m actually very proud of my biology summary sheets. It has everything in it, from the materials, to the diagrams that I redraw, then scan to put it on the summary sheets. Even my biology teachers (plural!!!!) ask for it when I graduate. It was so nice, that my friends say that I could sell it. I didn’t sell it in the end, but I did learn that if something is worth doing, then it’s worth doing well. I can do the summary sheets half-assedly, but I don’t, because if I do it half-assedly, then I myself would have trouble studying. It’s a lesson I learned after I did make one of the summary sheets half-assedly because I was short on time. The result? I struggled to study from that summary sheet, and I struggled on the test as well. Thankfully, this happens in the first year that I made my summary sheets, and I learned this lesson early on. 

So, that’s all the things I learned from making summary sheets. Will I continue making them in university? Probably yes. It has helped me so much in high school that I will probably continue them. Let’s see, shall we? 

#x things i learned #lian writes #reflections

[judythemoonicorn]

I’m 33 years old. That’s over three decades of being alive on this planet. More than that, I grew up throughout a major technological revolution - which in turn resulted in major world-wide cultural evolution. The internet changed a lot. A lot a lot. More than people even ten years younger than me may realize.

But that’s not me bragging, that’s me marveling at the amount of change I’ve experienced both personally and socially. 30 years ago my neighborhood was primarily white with a peppering of latinos (Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc.) I lived (and continue to live) on the edge of the border between the North and South sides of my area (Northside is/was primarily slavic/baltic; Polish in the majority, Russians, and a peppering of others and Southside is/was primarily black and latino).

I didn’t see an Asian person in person until I was past 10 years old. Or at least I don’t remember seeing one before then. The only reason I remember that specific meeting is because I was running a lemonaide stand with a friend and a group of chinese (?) people randomly passed by, asked what we were doing, then laughed at us and walked off.

Anyway.

If you were to come to my neighborhood today things are vastly different. I now see asian people on a daily basis. There are germans, french, italians, indians, koreans, japanese, chinese, taiwanese, and god knows I don’t know all the possible places people have come from. My neighborhood is so diverse and busy now I don’t think my younger self would know where she was.

I emphasize this because, again, back then I wasn’t exposed to a great amount of non-whites. I could probably have counted on my hands how many POC classmates I had throughout gradeschool in my tiny, tiny school (my graduating class was 5 students including me). When I moved areas and went to High School, that school was primarily white (Italian) as well.

It wasn’t until my life went to shit and I moved back to my hometown with my mom and I switched schools (for the 4th time) I ended up in a primarily black/latino high school just a few blocks away from where I lived. Which, I should point out, a black child services woman didn’t want to send me to to begin with and acted like I’d be missing out or something if I went there or that I somehow “deserved better” than that place.

It was the first and only high school I went to where no one bullied me. People were kind and deeply interested in me and my drawings that I’d work on all day. I didn’t make any deep friendships; I found people treated me more like a curiosity all things considered, but people were amicable with me. Even if they weren’t always with each other (a LOT of fights broke out in that school, and it was the first one I’d been to that had students pass through a metal detector every morning).

Then it happened. The day came when a bunch of people were looking through my sketchbook and marveling at my work, and the girl holding the book turned to me and said something along the lines of “you don’t draw black characters?”.

I can’t say exactly what I felt at that time. Kind of shocked, kind of embarrassed. The thought had honestly never once occurred to me. Was I even allowed to do that? I’m ‘white’ after all. There’s a lot I’m not allowed to do, or I’ve always been told I’m not allowed to do, when it comes to POC. My father was/is pretty damn prejudice against just about everybody. I never saw the need to be, but my exposure was also very small to black families and their home and social cultures and the like. How could I, a Polish/Lithuanian girl who at that point in my life had practically no friends or real social relationships and a still blossoming access to the internet, be allowed to draw a black character?

Did I even have the right marker colors? (I only seriously took up digital art after I turned 18, before then I colored with alcohol-based markers like Copic and Prismacolor.)

It felt like a door opening. I was given permission to draw a black character. Someone had asked me why I wasn’t already doing it, and now I felt I had to. I remember very specifically buying a magazine where it had a photoshoot of some kind in it of Beyonce - who I felt and still feel is extremely beautiful. Plus she was the current hotness at the time so she seemed a natural fit for reference. I was studying for the GED at that point in my life, in a small ramshackle classroom where I was one of two total white kids surrounded by mostly latino guys and gals. People constantly asked me why I was there. I used “big words” (I still can’t believe someone said that to me...) and I was “really talented”. Life doesn’t really care what color your skin is.

Anyway, so I picked a picture I liked and went to it. I was nervous. Drawing the actual figure of the character wasn’t the hard part. Coloring her skin was. I didn’t have many brown colored markers, and markers were expensive for a young woman with no income. I’m talking sometimes $5 a marker. Prismacolor was cheaper and easier to get, but the color quality varied. I had tons of light-skinned colors. Only one brown I felt suitable for a black person.

Long story short on that one I created a character I really quite liked, and I was met with approval from my peers as well. It felt good. But I still felt I was missing the grand picture.

What did it mean to be ‘black’? In a physical sense, I mean. If I was meaning to portray the physical then surely it was more than just a skin color. Even I knew back then that I couldn’t just slap a darker skin color on a random face and call it a day. Half the time that’d just be a really tan ‘white’ person. I was so worried about not having the right marker color back then perhaps in part because it would be the only thing that distinguished the character I was creating as black. I was only drawing generic anime faces back then. What made the character read as ‘black’? There had to be more to it.

I think after that I started to take it as an observational fascination. There was a teacher at the GED program who was a tall, lean black man who played in a jazz band as a saxophonist, and I would stare at him the whole lesson (probably a little too much). He was perfect in my eyes for what I was looking for and what I hadn’t been exposed to growing up. The shape of his nose, his cheeks, his eyes, the gloss of his dark skin under lights; the way the palms of his hands were lighter than the rest of his skin struck me as romantic. I wanted to hold them and stare at them and study the lines I could so clearly see compared to my own pale hands. I never had a crush or anything like that despite the way I tell it, it just felt like an epiphany. Here I had someone to actively study. A model. Someone who was a mentor to me and I didn’t have to go through the social hoops of being a family friend or something.

Color was important. Absolutely important. But so was structure, attitude, body language, the shape of the face and the joints of the hands. The whole body had quirks to it that rang him as human just like me, but different unlike me. It’s hard for me to fully put it into words when I’m trying to describe it from a purely artistic sense. In the normal freaking world people are just people. But like I said before; when you want to recreate or portray the physical in a drawing/painting/whatever, there’s a whole other layer to it all. It’s like the real world is a photograph - very exact and to its own point. An illustration needs to capture the soul of a moment and all the elements that come with it.

There is a way to draw a woman that portrays her as a woman. To give hints to her personality and all else that she is. It’s like that. I needed to know what made a POC what they were beyond picking the right shade of red-brown.

And I say all this, I emphasize all this, because oh my god I see so many posts on Tumblr calling out ‘white people’ on their lack of ability to properly color black or brown characters. Or they call out whitewashing, or they call out characters being ‘too ashy’, and the accusations fly because holy shit a white person who’s been white all their life doesn’t know how to draw black people. Can you even believe?

I’ve literally seen images that feature extremely, purposefully washed-out color schemes getting railed against because one of the characters is dark skinned but the wash-out makes them look ‘white’. I remember that time Beyonce did a photo shoot and the lighting and makeup made her look very light-skinned and people called her out for whitewashing herself.

Maybe I don’t understand. I fully admit that. I’m only a simple, not-that-professional artist trying to understand the world. But I do want to believe there’s a lot more to being who you are than how you were born, who you love, or what color your skin is. When I see someone like Beyonce I see Beyonce. I don’t see a black woman. I see a woman who happens to be black. But maybe this, too, is ‘privilege’... And maybe there are things I can accept for the sake of artistic expression without the weight of racism or bigotry weighing on my mind and soul. I have to acknowledge that, too.

I sure mentioned Beyonce a lot. Jeez. Her and Rihanna are like the two most beautiful women in the world in my opinion though. And I often have Naomi Campbell on my mind too because she was a muse for Naoko Takeuchi when doing an illustration of Setsuna/Sailor Pluto. So.

ANYYYYbutt... As a closing thought, I have to wonder how different my thinking would be if I were a young artist today with all this access to resources and tutorials and every color under the sun with digital art. And a lot of people talking down to me about how awful I am as a white person for not knowing how to shade darker skin. There’s a lot of posts like that. Hm. Tumblr is a weird place.

#personal #art talk #clipped for length #judy goes on about drawing POC #and being old

[ddcassiere]

That’s exactly what happened

Jesus surrounded by tits - cheap chinese acrylic on cheap chinese A4 paper - Porto, April 2018

During my 2017-2019 busking, hitchiking, gigging, world tour, I couldnt help but painting most of my mornings away. 

(As I write, right now, I am hangover from few glasses of wine I had yesterday with my friends, I hope you accept the randomness of this post. I am 33 and it gets harder in the mornings..)

I had prepared other topics to talk through but I just realized that I would rather write this blogs on feelings of the moment rather than on a detailed plan. And that to me, this principle could be applied to anything. 

It’s not by chance that in one of the songs from Multipolar Vol. 1 I sing:

“..con l’aspettativa di non averti piu’, cara Aspettativa..” - Un Di-Di.

(with the expectation of having you no more, dear expectation)

song here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gjYCJLvxe1I

full album here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xksf6hpuLlA&t=5s

At the moment I write this post, I am listening to Johnny Cash. Even though I cant say I have listened to him for more than just 5 years or so, I can tell you that this guy has had as much influence to me as any other huge icons of mine.

On a gloomy day of November 2016, I was resting in bed, having a free day from my then “normal’ job. I was so heavily depressed about not having time for playing that I could no more smile. 

I felt a fucking heavy weight on my chest and I started to consider seriously the idea of killing myself and goodbye everybody, goodbye stupid job, boring days and conversations, my time was dead anyway.

From times to times I would bring the guitar at work and after finishing the shift I would go to the main square of Wroclaw, Poland, open the case, throw in some of my own coins, expose my first album and start to play.

Me as a very happy employee - pic by friendly pic machine in Rome Tiburtina, right before leaving to Wroclaw, August 2015

I cant describe how happy you can be, to do something like that and just earn enough to keep you sheltered and fed. It sends you to space, seriously. You start levitate as you walk back homeward. Butterflies in the stomach. 

I would earn more in a hour than I would earn in the same time doing a shitty job. And the shitty job provided me with a rented apartment that, even though it was cozy, I never had time to actually enjoy, and with money that barely fed me and got me drunk on weekends to forget my shitty fucking boring life. That was it. 

I was earning money enough to keep me alive to go to work. Just like a slave. Just like pretty much everybody.

So I did start thinking it would have been a cool idea to try my life on the street. But I was never serious about that. 

Will I survive? Will I end up cold and hungry on a dark corner of a far away city? Will I this and will I that?..

It takes several kilos of balls to drop everything.. every comfort, every goddamn warm bed and new clothes, every new pair of shoes to follow your forever dreams.

And I didnt think I had those balls back then.

In the previous weeks, before that day laying in bed, I met and hosted few couchsurfers who encouraged me to do it. But that still wasnt enough.

Some calls it law of attraction, some call it fate, I think in my case it’s about planting seeds and wait for them to grow as spring comes through. So when that day I heard “I walk The line’ by Johnny Cash and precisely the first sentence, I felt like I had heard that song for the first time in my life. 

It was an epiphany of my whole being: “I find it very very easy to be true”.

A bit tired after the flight to Tehran - Jan 2017 - Pic by I forgot the name

In my belly I felt something was planted, some kind of flower of hope that would have grown and I just had to be careful enough to protect it from storms. 

Then few days after I had a dream. It was a very long dream and I will try to make it short. I had killed Tom Waits and I was in Jail with Michael Stipe from the R.e.m.

All my friends and colleagues were in jail with me. Nobody seemed to mind about being in jail. They all acted as if it was allright to be in jail.

I woke up earlier than usual and kept writing the dream on my little notebook as I was going to work with the tram. I felt very strange.

The day after I catched a fever. Violent fever that forced me in bed for a week. 

I listened to Johnny Cash again. Then something happened that I wouldnt know how to describe. Because I wasnt fully conscious of what it was by then.

Tow days earlier Leonard Cohen died. Two days after Trump was elected.

This is the amount of tobacco I smoke when I hear new like those - Tbilisi, Georgia, March 2017. 

I can just say that in a half an hour I found myself, as ragged and dirty and feverish I was from a week spent at home, right in front the door of the HR department of my job. Waiting in line to be received.

Then signing my resignation papers. Then going back home like a sleepwalker.

Then booking a flight to Tehran. Then booking a bus to Italy. Then throwing 3/4 of my clothes out the trash bins right outside the block. For the joy of the now very sharply dressed homeless guys.

Then packing. Then drinking an ice cold beer. All in all it took 3 hours to change my life. 

All I hadnt given away from the apartment in Wroclaw. And that was now coming to Italy with me. - Wroclaw old bus station, 2017 - Pic by Katarzyna Peukart

A month later I was a free man (as free as you can be in Iran) playing in Tehran and in Shiraz street Afif Habad. I will come back home in a moment I would say.

Sleepwalking in Rome, going to take my flight to Tehran - Rome 2017, pic by Nicole Simoncelli. 

Ready to leave? Pic by Nicole Simoncelli

But it went on and on. I hitchiked my way back to Europe and it took me two years. I slept out in on benches a couple of time here and there. In Greece, In Chech Republic, in Portugal. I travelled more than 20 countries mostly by autostop, I gigged wherever needed. I washed my clothes everyday in the hostel showers, by hand and by feet, I ate what I could eat and I tried to stay warm. Even though that wasnt always possible.

Playing setar in Esfahan. Creation by Sofya Zeinilava

Now I am tired of writing. I need to come back to my music. I promised a dear artist friend to send her some ambient music for her exhibition in Prague.  And tomorrow is Fat Jesus day so I need to work also on that. And there are so many other projects going on.

Posing with the clear blue sky of the smiley city of Tehran on the fucking I forgot the name of the bridge. Tabiat I think, yes I googled it and its Tabiat- Pic by Fatemeh A. - Tehran 2017

Johnny Cash still plays here in my flat in Italy. And I feel he is planting more seeds in me, and that I strongly feel the hitch to come back on the road.

And I feel things are changing inside of me. But I dont plan. 

Well I do, but in the end, if there is something I learned from these two years on the road, is that it’s not me that decides, but the music. As it has always been and as it will always be. Amen and see you next friday with “Naked Songs”

.Love, Courage and Joy to each and every one.

D.

[circlesandsoundwaves]

Inner & Outer Portraits: Cory Castro (Free Throw)

Photos and interview by Molly Louise Hudelson.

This piece is a part of an interview series called Inner & Outer Portraits. Inner & Outer Portraits features in-depth conversations exploring personal experiences and the connections that we all feel with music, in combination with photographs of the subject. The goal? To showcase who they are from all angles, both inside and out.

When you write or create something personal, there's often a bit of hesitancy in putting it out into the world. Suddenly, you're revealing some of your deepest truths to the world. Once it's out there, it can feel freeing, but the biggest relief of all comes when you find someone who connects with what you wrote or created. Cory Castro of Free Throw (lead vocals and guitar) says he tries to write songs in a way that listeners can "take their own meaning from it" because "if they relate to it that means I'm not alone."

On May 26, Free Throw released their second full-length album, Bear Your Mind, on Triple Crown Records. From the opening track "Open Window" to the closer "Victory Road", Castro bears his mind for the world to hear, exploring topics like anxiety, family issues, body image, and loss. While Bear Your Mind dives deep, it remains completely self-aware; it’s introspective and personal while also being relatable.

Free Throw's recent headlining tour stopped at the Foundry in Philadelphia on June 24, where I met up with Castro for this piece. In our conversation, he talked about some of the bands he connected with immediately, and how powerful that immediate connection can be. If a flurry of social media posts are any clue, plenty of people have felt this immediate connection with Bear Your Mind. Our conversation got deep, but Castro seemed at ease as we talked, and when it came time to take portraits, there was a lot of laughter as we both joked around.

From why music is important to him to the meaning behind the album title Bear Your Mind, read on for the Inner & Outer Portrait of Cory Castro.

CIRCLES & SOUNDWAVES: What music have you personally connected with?

Cory Castro: There's a lot of it. Music's always been my thing since I was younger; even before I started playing music, I just loved music. I skateboarded a lot and skateboarding and music go hand in hand. When I skateboard, I've always got something in the headphones.

C&S: Which came first- a love of music, or skateboarding?

CC: Love of music, for sure. I've loved music since I was probably 4 or 5 years old- [that] was when I first realized, "oh my god, music is the coolest thing in the world"- but I didn't start skateboarding till I was about 10 or 11.

But as for bands that I've really, really connected with emotionally over the last few years, there's a band that used to be around called Grown Ups- they're from Indiana and the singer of that band is now the singer of Cloakroom- and they have an album called More Songs that is basically one of the hugest influences on what Free Throw does now.

Lately I've been really connecting with Hall & Oates for some reason. I think I'm just getting older, really- getting in to the things that my mom and dad would listen to. The first time I ever heard The Get Up Kids, that was a big one for me.

C&S: What was it like the first time you heard Grown Ups or The Get Up Kids?

CC: It's that moment of epiphany- like you just finally found something that captures inside what you were thinking of, I guess. It was a glorious thing. And some bands that doesn't happen immediately, it takes a little bit to listen to and then it happens- but Grown Ups was definitely a band that it immediately happened for me. Brand New, obviously, was a band that it immediately happened with. When I was in high school in the mid-2000s, Taking Back Sunday and Brand New and bands like that were really popular and so I immediately was like, "Oh man, everybody likes this kind of music that I like"- and a little bit off the topic, but Iron Maiden is a band that I absolutely love for some reason.

C&S: It's interesting- when I was in middle school and high school, it was Taking Back Sunday, Good Charlotte, blink-182 was a big one for me- and for a while I thought, "Well, I don't want to listen to anything else, because I listen to this and there's a stigma of liking anything else"- I don't know if stigma's the right word...

CC: Sometimes you get trapped into a certain scene of music and you find yourself only listening to that kind of music. I definitely went through phases where that was the only kind of music I listened to. Even when I was listening to Grown Ups, the only bands that I was listening to were, like, Algernon Cadwallader, or Snowing, and Grown Ups- all these bands that, outside of Philly, no one really listened to that much. Or they did but not, you know, normal everyday people.

C&S: Philly is the place right now for music.

CC: I love Philly. I love it. Every time we come here I have so much fun and I get to see so many friends- the music scene here is just wonderful.

C&S: What is your favorite song?

CC: My favorite song- like of all time?

C&S: Yeah.

CC: Oh man, I don't know- that's a hard one. I have a favorite song of right now which is probably "If This Tour Doesn't Kill You" by PUP. I love PUP, that band is an amazing band. But of all time? That's a really hard one. We'll go with something funny- the Space Jam theme song. I love that song.

C&S: As a follow-up to that, can you tell a story about a moment or a time when the PUP song really connected with you?

CC: Oh, yeah- every day of my life! [Laughs.] You know, when you're in a van with a bunch of people for a month, month and a half, two months at a time, of course little things start to get to you and you have these moments where you're just like, "Ugh"- but in a real sense, I don't have too many of those true moments where I'm like, wishing death upon someone. Our band is really a group of best friends. We hang out at home; we all- with the inclusion of Kevin over the past year and a half to two years- are just a group of best friends. You know, we get in to our spats, and then we listen to that song and everybody feels better.

C&S: Why is music important to you?

CC: It's my outlet. It's my saving grace, I guess- without it, I don't know what I would do. I don't know what I would be doing, I don't know what my career would be. I have no idea what life would be like, and it's honestly the most therapeutic thing I've ever had in my entire life. 

I've struggled my entire life with mental health issues and anxiety disorder- I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder when I was I think 4 years old.

C&S: I honestly did not realize that they would diagnose someone so young.

CC: I was starting school and every time my parents wouldn't show up on time, I immediately started freaking out and I was convinced that they were dead and those kind of things. I ended up going to therapy and my therapist was pretty sure from a young age that I was suffering from anxiety disorder. And not being able to cope and handle situations the way I should- I freak out way too easily. So I've been dealing with that my entire life and have found a way to express it through music; even if it's not about that subject, playing music in general is something that takes my mind off of it.

C&S: For someone who hears Free Throw for the first time, what do you want them to get out of your band?

CC: Most people immediately establish that we're a drinking band, which is funny but I try really hard to write the songs in a way that is relatable and that people can insert themselves into the lyrics and into the situation and take their own meaning from it…. I want the band to be relatable- I want people to relate to it because if they relate to it that means I'm not alone.

C&S: So it's a circular thing, in a way.

CC: It is, it helps me just as much as it helps other people to realize that they're relating to something- to realize that they're relating to it helps me. It's very much my therapy process and my way of making it through life.

C&S: You put out a new album, Bear Your Mind, about a month ago- tell me about the album title.

CC: Oh, wow- it actually was the last thing to come about. When Kevin tried out for the band, "Weak Tables" was the first song that we wrote for the album. He flew from Boston to try out for the band and we wrote two songs and we were like, "Well, we guess we wrote these songs, so you're in the band now." Immediately after we wrote that song, I knew what I wanted to write the album about- cuz I had been struggling about what I wanted to write the next album about, because the first one was about a very bad relationship that I had.

C&S: And this record is very- what I said when I wrote about the record was that it's very introspective but without being in a way that you're stuck in your own head.

CC: Without being too specific, you know- I wanted it to be introspective and broad. When we wrote [Those Days Are Gone] it had this distinct thing behind it, this distinct event that made me want to write the whole album, and this time around I was like, "I don't want to write another break-up album"- recently I was in a serious relationship for two years but up until that point I hadn't had any kind of break up to want to write about. I'm not just gonna make up things.

I wrote "Weak Tables" about my struggles with social anxiety and sometimes not wanting to leave my house, but I wrote it in a very broad spectrum. As soon as we wrote that song I knew exactly what I wanted the record to be about. I knew that I wanted it to be about my personal struggles since that relationship, and how at first I blamed it on the relationship but then I realized that maybe it was me all along.

It's kind of a journey through my thought process, my brain- the album is basically picking my brain, and that's how the title came about. We were looking for album covers and Cody from the band Alaska had taken some photos while they were in the UK that he sent to us. That picture came up, the one with the mannequin with the TV sitting on its shoulder. Kevin and I were going back and forth trying to come up with album titles and we weren't getting anything great, and I was like, "Dude, I really like the idea of that mannequin holding the TV on its shoulder and not having a head- it's almost like it's carrying its head…. I say 'Bear in mind' a lot on 'Andy And I, Uh...'- what about the idea of if you had to carry your brain around, you had to carry your thought process around? I feel like it fits the record"- and so that's where Bear Your Mind came from.

C&S: You were talking about how "Weak Tables" dives into your struggles with social anxiety- is it hard to talk about that? 

CC: It gets a lot easier. Especially after putting the record out and opening myself up to everybody- it's a little bit easier to talk about. There are a lot of songs on the record that I was worried about putting out cuz you start getting hesitant about actually putting yourself out there like that. Especially "Better Have Burn Heal"- I got really, really hesitant about putting that song out because it was such a struggle for me to admit that I was having these problems and that I was struggling with myself- I didn't even talk to my parents about this! And I knew that everybody was gonna hear it and I was gonna have to talk about it, but I think putting it out there and being able to talk about it was part of the healing process.

Now with the social anxiety thing- yeah, it's kinda hard sometimes; sometimes you wanna clam up and go inside your shell.

C&S: "How do I talk about the fact that I think everyone hates me and I'm just gonna mess up this social situation?"

CC: Mhmm! I have that same thing happening all the time. I always think that people think I'm annoying, for some reason, which is a very strange thing to think about because I don't really think that I'm that annoying of a person, but I get it in my head that everyone thinks that I'm annoying.

C&S: Right!

So you said that you were hesitant about putting "Better Have Burn Heal" on the record, but you did.

CC: Well, it also came with help from those guys. They liked the song and said, "We should put it on the record"; I was like, "I don't know if I wanna talk about really personal things on this song."

Growing up my whole life, I was a bean pole- this small, skinny, somewhat athletic person- I played basketball and I rock climbed and stuff- and then I decided to try a new medication for anxiety. I had been going on and off medication my entire life and I was going through a really bad time for my anxiety, so I tried to go on a new medication- and one of the side effects was rapid weight gain. And I didn't know that at all- the doctor hadn't told me at all.

C&S: All the side effects are like, "Well, it might be this...".

CC: Yeah. And I was also hitting my mid-twenties around this time, so as a growing adult my metabolism was starting to slow down, and then with the side effects from that medication, I gained so much weight so fast. I had also quit smoking cigarettes around the same time- a side effect of weaning yourself off tobacco is gaining weight as well.

I went from about 175 to approaching 250- so I gained well over 50 pounds in a small amount of time, and I freaked out. You get used to yourself as one way and then you have to…. I started doing all this other stuff- dieting and trying to work out and none of it was working the way I wanted it to. Then going on tour, it started to be harder because I couldn't work out or diet on tour. So I started finding little ways to try and make myself feel better about it- and I've lost weight since then but I fluctuate, it's kinda hard- and in a way I learned to accept myself for who I am, which is really nice.

I tried to write the song in a way that people who struggle with not only that but things like gender identity, or anyone who struggles with their identity in general, could insert themselves into that song and realize that it's okay to be who you are. It's cool to be who you are. And sometimes, yeah, it's hard to look at yourself in the mirror or whatever, but then you realize you're here for a reason.

C&S: Every couple of days, I see someone post "Better Have Burn Heal" on Facebook or Twitter saying, "Oh my god, this song hits me." I'm sure you have people coming up to you and telling you what either that song or any song on the record means to them; what's it like when people say, "Wow, this means a lot to me" or "I relate to this"?

CC: It means the world to me when people tell me that. Because- like I said earlier- I wrote the record because I was putting myself out there and I like when people relate to it, because it makes me feel better to… Whenever I used to hear songs that I related to, it made me feel so much better because even if it was a song about something that I hated going on in my life, I heard someone else having the same problem and it was like, "Okay, well at least I'm not alone."

C&S: Were you someone that would ever go up to your favorite band and be like, "Hey..."?

CC: Absolutely. Well, I don't know- I get shy and nervous sometimes. Actually when I first started meeting a lot of the bands that I'm friends with now, I would catch them at a time when we were just all kinda hanging out and be like, "Hey, so, uh- I hate to be a fan right now- but this song did a lot for me, thank you." You know- I still do it from time to time.

But I love it when people come up and tell me that. I know that some people don't like when people like approach them randomly, but it doesn't bother me at all. Even though I have social anxiety, I feel like doing music is kind of my purpose in life, so it kind of forgoes it sometimes, if that makes sense.

C&S: I get that- this is where you feel like you're meant to be.

CC: It's still there, but it helps to know that people are relating and it makes them feel better, too. That definitely helps.

C&S: You have a song on the record called "Dead Reckoning", which you wrote about losing your grandfather when you were 13; when you wrote the song, were you thinking of where you were in your mind then, or how you feel about it now?

CC: When I wrote the song, the music had been written for a while and I knew what I wanted to write the [lyrics] about, I just really couldn't get the words out. It was one of the last songs I finished the lyrics for. One night while we were at the studio, I was sitting there drinking whiskey and just looking at the bottom of the glass, thinking about how I wanted to write this song. I wrote it about my entire thought process from that moment; it's written in a very real-time aspect- that's why it says, "Reflections from the bottom of the glass." I spent the whole night thinking about the idea of losing someone close to you and how it affects you, and I knew that I wanted to include the loss of my grandfather in it, because it was the first loss in my entire life that I experienced that truly destroyed me.

The song is about me sitting there thinking, looking at the bottom of that glass and remembering what it was like. The memory of when my mom told me about my grandfather's passing is so vivid; I have a photographic memory. When I listen to that song, it brings me back; it's kind of hard to listen to. I was downstairs at my other grandparents' house, on my mom's side- this was my dad's father that had passed away. [He passed away] in a car accident actually, which is one of the reasons why I have vehicular anxiety so bad now. My mom had gotten off the phone and I was standing there, wondering why she was so upset, and she told me to sit down. I sat down on the stairs and that's why- even that part is in the song, "I sat there on the steps and did my best to take it in"- and I remember when that had happened I was trying to think of the last thing I said to him, the last moment that I had with him, the last time he gave me a hug, and I couldn't think of any of it and it just overwhelmed me.

I knew when I started writing music that one day I'd write a song about it, I just didn't know when and then it finally happened for this record.

C&S: This is your first official headlining tour; being on a headlining tour vs. supporting another tour, do you feel like you have a different connection with the people there?

CC: Yeah, sometimes- absolutely. When you're headlining and you're the last band there every night and you see all those people still there, you know that they're there for a reason- even if they like the bands before you that have played, the fact that they stuck around means that they're at least interested.

So yeah, I definitely feel a little bit more of a connection with the people, and especially since we're playing longer sets- doing a headlining tour, you go from playing 25 to 35 minutes to playing 45 to 55 minutes. You go to this longer experience of being in front of these people and honestly- starting this headliner the day that the record came out, it's been really, really cool to watch the progress of the crowds learn the lyrics to the newer songs. The first day, they knew the singles, and now people are singing along with songs that I never expected them to sing along with, which is really cool!

I kinda miss being a support band because it's a little bit easier- being a headlining band, you're the first band to arrive and the last band to leave, and there's a lot more to do all the time- but I definitely think the connection with the people is a lot stronger. You're no longer playing for someone else's crowd, I guess, if that makes sense.

C&S: That totally makes sense.

CC: You're playing for- hopefully- people who are there to see your band, which is really cool.

C&S: What does music mean to you?

CC: Absolutely everything. It's- like I said, it's my life. It's my therapy. It's my entire existence, really, I've 100% always been a musical person [and] I don't see that ever changing. 

It means everything to me because all the connections I've made in life have mostly been through music- all the times I've had to deal with my own problems and get over them, I've done it through music. I've seen the world through music now. I've seen Europe and the UK and all of the United States and Canada- I've gotten to do everything I've ever done because of music. So- it is most definitely my everything. It comes first for me.

C&S: Is there anything else you want to say?

CC: Thank you to everybody that got us to this point, whoever has ever supported our band or listened to any of our records, our EPs- even the joke ones, even the "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" song that we did for Christmas once- thank you. From the bottom of my heart and I know from the rest of the guys' hearts, too- it means the world to us. And I hope that people can relate to the new record and enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it and making it.

Bear Your Mind is available now here and streaming on Spotify here. Read Molly’s thoughts on the record here and see photos from Free Throw’s show at The Foundry in Philadelphia on June 24 here. Keep up with Free Throw on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and their official website.

Stream More Songs by Grown Ups on Spotify here. Stream “If This Tour Doesn’t Kill You” by PUP on Spotify here.

#free throw #molly #interview #inner and outer portraits #inner & outer portraits #bear your mind #triple crown #triple crown records #grown ups #more songs #cloakroom #pup #music #band #band interviews #music blog #anxiety #anxiety disorder #body image

[putris-et-mulier]

I had a hard time growing up with my father cause he does what we'd call tough love I guess, but I'm pretty sure a lot of it was abuse. But I always wanted to have kids and I am really good with em, people always point it out cause theres this idea guys arent supposed to be good with kids, that is ridiculous. But I think I just wanna prove I'd be a better father than him... All the discussion here about abortion and reasons to be a parent and wanting to be kinda savior to your kids it really 1/2

it really made me reconsider why I want to have kids. I don’t think proving I’d be a good dad is enough reason and also seems like a burden to put on the kid… idk if this makes sense. I wouldn’t ask a girl to abort cause thats her decision and I’m bi so I also think a lot about adoption. If I happen to have kids I will try my best to be a good dad but now I think I will wait and try to work out my issues first… that I don’t anything to my father and I dont have to live to prove him wrong.

Firstly, you definitely need to work on those issues before you have children in any fashion, especially adoption, because not wanting disability doesn’t protect your children from becoming disabled

Secondly, you might want to consider adopting older NTAB children because so many don’t get adopted and if they do become disabled they will still have NTAB conditioning so it won’t be like raising a child from a foreign culture but even then you have to make sure it’s the right choice for you

Thirdly, you don’t have to prove anything.

As someone who has always been in and out of hospitals and doctors offices for 30 years I can tell you that male nurses are by far the best and most any female nurse that has worked with one will tell you the same.

There is this misconception that men can’t be carrying or compassion or safe but men who go into that line of work or just sincerely want to be fathers like mine are the absolute best. I know it takes a unique person to be like this, male or female, but in this case I think masculine conditioning is actually beneficial.

Cis women are expected to bear pain better than cis men despite what the social rhetoric says and because they are conditioned to hide pain so often they have less empathy for other people in pain. They are also expected to be in those positions so they tend to be there because it’s expected, not because they actually care.

For anyone out there male or non-binary who is interested in becoming a nurse or caretaker or aides in classrooms and at disabled camps or special ed teacher, or anything involving disabled kids, please pursue this interest!

I have MD and it’s very rare in females so when I went to MDA camp there were just a few of us girls in a cabin but many other ones for the male children. Before McDonald’s bought it and used it as a way to make money off of experimenting on disabled children (I haven’t mentioned that in a while so a lot of you may not know the story) anyway, before that the counselors were all teenagers. There was an adult staff but they were there to supervise all of us, having teenage NTAB counselors be the only ones that took care of us or live with us was absolutely amazing.

We didn’t feel like we were being monitored constantly because everyone was a teenager which meant they were young and cool, everybody wants to be a teenager when you’re a kid. They also treated us like we were just kids, not disabled kids. We were cute and we were just there to have fun around our own people so they were there primarily as counselors, no one had formal training or anything so they hadn’t been taught not to listen to us yet. They all knew first-aid and were told about the conditions but they didn’t know what to do to take care of us so they asked and they listened. It was like this magical place until McDonald’s House™ bought us but things weren’t quite as good for my male peers. But let me put my epiphany in context.

Every single night the teenagers had a huge party. They took shifts on who would stay with us at night so everyone spent at least half their nights getting absolutely wasted and having casual sex in the woods.

There was always one night when the campers all had a “dance” and the counselors were always excited to give us a good time because we were so adorably excited to have our own party with them. And the counselors off nighttime shift those nights partied heavier than ever and those who didn’t want to were more than happy to just sleep with us. They weren’t buzz skills, they were helping people party.

It was the closest thing to a utopia I’ve ever experienced.

None of this would be allowed to go on anymore and it wouldn’t have been at that time either if the adults knew what was going on but we were all in it together, we were all technically kids. Even though our counselors were also kids we were always the safest when they were running things. The type of person who is going to even be interested in doing something like this let alone doing it to that extent is still that type of person even if they are away from home. They partied hard, really hard, and since they had the freedom to do so they took responsibility. Everyone had equal time at the parties and none of them resented us because we weren’t a responsibility, we were just too young to party so everyone who actually wanted some sleep was happy to be there in the cabins with us at night, it was especially fun for us in the girls cabin because each night we had different counselors telling us all the gossip so we ended up knowing everyone’s dirty laundry.

There were a very few teenage campers but they were “allowed” to go to the parties because they weren’t crippled kids, they were other teenagers. This also encouraged the older kids with MD to feel like capable human beings and so they would help look after all of us kids which is an experience every disabled child should have. They were cool because they were teenagers but they were also one of us, they weren’t one of them.

None of them did this because anyone was trying to socialize them or “make them feel important” by giving them “responsibilities” they did it because they wanted to. Everyone was in on it together and everyone wanted to have the best time possible so they chipped in during so they could party harder at night. It probably goes without saying that it was an amazing example for those of us who were younger.

We were observant so we always knew when someone was being forced or “assigned” to look after us but these guys weren’t, they treated us like little brothers and sisters because our bond came organically. We actually had role models that were one of us, going to the camp was one of the first times that a lot of kids realized that they could have the chance to be actual teenagers.

It’s kind of funny, they were young enough that they didn’t have a hard time bouncing back from a night of drinking or going without sleep but it made mornings easier for us children because a lot of them were waking up with something that felt like a bit of chronic illness themselves so they couldn’t have forced us to use all of our spoons first thing in the morning even if they wanted to.

But one night a party had gotten too hardy and so there was a shortage of capable counselors the next morning and the shortage was in the male cabins, the girls could always hang. Our counselors split up to go help get all the kids up which took a lot of time. The counselors that were best taking care of us physically split up amongst all of the cabins and that morning we had some of the female counselors from the male cabins come to help us instead of all of our usual ones.

I got a girl I eventually got an innocent childhood crush on, she was always “one of the boys” but she was so confident that no one would have described her like that, she was just herself and that made her a badass. She was also beautiful but I did have legitimate non-shallow reasons!

I was a lot stronger then so I was taking off all of my pajamas as quickly as I could because we all knew about the situation so I was trying to get undressed as quickly as possible so she could help one of the younger kids but she stopped me from taking my shirt off.

She said that I could keep it on while she was helping me into my pants so I wouldn’t be completely naked. I laughed to let her know it was no big deal and told her that I didn’t mind. That’s what I learned to say to the nurses throughout my life to make them a little less resentful about me but it didn’t work on her.

She looked extremely frustrated and I realized years later she wasn’t frustrated with me, per se, she was frustrated with what I had said. She said, “there’s no reason you have to be completely naked in front of everyone, most people don’t do that.”  I didn’t know what to do because I only learned to make “normal” people feel as comfortable as possible so I tried to tell her it was fine but she cut me off and said, “You know that I work in one of the boys cabins even though I’m a girl? It’s because there aren’t a lot of guy counselors so none of the boys get any modesty. I only help change one thing at a time so the boys don’t feel completely embarrassed and they still get to feel like boys.”

That was language I understood even if the concept blew me away and it’s something that comes to mind quite often.

I suddenly noticed that there were usually only people around us that had vaginas. That had to be weird for the guys. I then noticed that that they were treated like girls, not like NTAB boys. I’ve always wondered if it was any different for the boys who like other boys, because I figured that must make them more uncomfortable.

Disabled people are conditioned to be asexual but a heteronormative asexual. We are expected to get “crushes” and it’s completely safe because we can’t have sex. Why medical professionals think you can’t have sex because you sit down a lot I have no idea.

Imagine how little representation or participation socially that  gender and sexual minority children get, it’s a million times worse when they are disabled. There has been and always will be a huge need for people to work in caretaking positions that aren’t cis women.

#Anonymous #Signal Boost™ disability #abelism #actually disabled #civil rights #Dear Christy

[ganymedesclock]

What are your thoughts of Steven and Peridot trying to get the latter to befriend Lapis in "Barn Mates"? I know that they had good intentions, but considered what Peridot did to Lapis, I didn't blame Lapis for the hostility. And I was a little angry at Steven for giving Lapis a minor guilt trip for not giving Peridot a chance, even though Lapis told hi why she didn't want to be friends. I mean, what do you think?

My thinking here is that I think that there’s a dividebetween the young generation and the old guard. Steven, Peridot, andAmethyst are on one side, and Lapis, Garnet, and Pearl are on the other.

Part of Barn Mates is that Steven’scharacter flaw from Sadie’s Song is rearing its head again.Steven has an idea- only good intentions- of what will be good and he’s missingthe signals that the other person doesn’t feel the way he does.

And part of the reason why he’d be extra unwilling to backdown is… both Peridot and Lapis have relatively recently started to settletowards feeling safe and in control of their situations. He really doesn’t wantto take a side and force either of them to leave and stay somewhere other than theplace they chose for themselves. This is, I think, what the “oh boy…” atthe end of Same Old World was: Steven realizing that he’sunintentionally offered the same space to two people. 

Unless he wants to evict Peridot for Lapis’s comfort- ortake Peridot’s side and force Lapis to move somewhere else- at least workingout some way for them to cohabitate on less than a hair trigger is basicallythe best solution. It’s imperfect and he knew that going in, but, it was theleast uncomfortable option for him that didn’t require him actively “takinga side” and feeling like he was betraying the other person.

But the other part- getting back to the divide of younggeneration vs. old guard- I think that it’s really hard for people like Steven,Peridot, and Amethyst, who are knew to so much of this, to understand why theold guard is being so obstinate sometimes. Because there’s ahuge amount of resentment, hurt, and feeling like the victim on both sides, andthat’s hard to parse for someone who wasn’t there. Who didn’t feel it.

This is something Steven is starting to come to terms with,I think, in the recent episodes and his investigating the fate of Pink Diamond.He’s starting to be able to see other perspectives besides the one that he’sgrown up in, and realize that there are actually valid reasons why someonewould be wary of, or even hate the Crystal Gems. And as anepiphany that can’t be understated as difficult- the Crystal Gems are hisfamily. He’s literally been fed this from day one that they’rewonderful, Earth is wonderful, the Crystal Gems are the saviors of humanity.

And yes, there’s a lot of truth there. But everybody who’sever complained that Homeworld Gems are being manipulated or misled about wherethey come from?

So was Steven.

The Crystal Gems very much, on numerousdifferent topics, cherry-picked what they wanted to tell him of their history.There’s so much of it that’s sordid or unpleasant, there’s a lot that some ofthem are even keeping from each other. If Steven hadn’t disobeyedthem and taken Lapis out of the mirror, how long would they have beencomfortable never telling Steven the monsters they were fighting- the monstershe was already helping to fight- were actually hurt, scaredpeople, some of them former allies, that they didn’t know how to help orrescue?

And I think there’s a reason why that revelation wastriggered by Lapis. Because a lot of the fandom at this point seems to reallyoverestimate how much Steven understands Lapis, and I think the biggest part ofthat is… Lapis is tied, intimately, to some of that dark history. That isn’tpretty or clean-cut or unambiguously frames the Crystal Gems as the good guys.The parts that, for understandable reasons, Garnet and Pearl, and even Greg arereluctant to talk about.

And at this point there’s still a lot of her that Stevenstill hasn’t uncovered. Thanks to the beautiful voice of Patti freaking LuPonewe have insight into what the “average” Homeworld Lapis does, but if ourLapis is basically a construction worker, it raises a lot of worrying questionsof why she was in the middle of a battlefield a long ways away from water- whyher powers are as alarming as they are to people like Jasper and Pearl whoshould know what a terraformer would be capable of- and why Lapis is not onlyable to effortlessly take out every Gem we’ve seen her fight besides Bismuth,but specifically knows a way to kill humans that wouldn’t be effective on Gems.And isn’t afraid to use it, even on someone who she was at that point at least sortof fond of.

Because that’s the thing. A lot of people try to split hairson my Lapis theories and argue that Lapis must just be a common Gem, or maybedecently rare but not that uncommon- but they ignore how the narrativerepeatedly does not treat her asnormal. Pearl is incredulous Lapis could be as powerful as she is in Mirror Gem- and this is Pearl, who spenta long time around Rose “unreasonably overpowered” Quartz. It’s alsocorroborated by Jasper, who is in tune with modern Homeworld- which shouldn’tbe relevant here because Lapis is hardly modern herself, she’s at least as outof touch as Pearl is- and neither Jasper nor Pearl are the people to beincredibly baffled by the capabilities of what would amount to a vintagebulldozer.

But… getting back on the topic of Barn Mates, Steven and Peridot both are very optimistic about their ability to get along. Because they’re both emboldened by their success with each other, and Peridot’s success with the Crystal Gems. But they don’t really totally take into account it was easy for them. They don’t have long-held grudges and hurts that they’re nursing that would make it hard for them to accept even someone unrelated to all that.

And both of them completely fail to understand that Lapis isn’t that way. That there’s a huge amount already on the table for Lapis. 

#Steven Universe #Steven #Lapis #Peridot #Barn Mates #theory #readmore

[popentertainment-interviews]

Siddharth Dhananjay

Playing Patti Cake$ with Film Stardom

by Jay S. Jacobs

Siddharth Dhananjay has had one of the weirdest rides to the big time in recent memory. The young Indian/American actor has recently done his first acting job ever, co-starring as best friend Jheri in the critically acclaimed new film Patti Cake$.

Not bad for a guy who hadn’t even imagined being an actor just a few years ago.

As often happens in this crazy new entertainment world, it all traces back to YouTube. As just a normal college student, for a giggle he made a clip portraying a mock Indian “rapper” he called Dhananjay the First. The rest, as they say, was history.

“Me and two of my friends were making these spoof rap videos,” Dhananjay recalled to me recently, a couple of days before the Patti Cake$ premiere. “We were just doing them for fun and loved it. Everybody around us loved it. We didn’t really think about it too much. We just put them online, and the response was so funny and great that we thought we should keep doing them.”

However, this was not some sort of big epiphany for the young man. He was just having a good time.

“We did not expect anything out of it,” Dhananjay recalled, “especially someone reaching out to me to try to be in a movie project of theirs. It was definitely a crazy thing!”

The call truly came out of left field. Even though he was enjoying making his clips, the idea of music or acting as a career choice didn’t even occur to him. It was just something he was doing for fun.

“I was going to school for philosophy and economics,” Dhananjay said. “I didn’t really know what it was that I wanted to do in life. I was still trying to figure it out, but in a way, it came at a very convenient time for me.”

He chuckled, remembering his surprise at being contacted by Patti Cake$ producer Michael Gottwald, most famous for making another out-of-nowhere critical smash, Beasts of the Southern Wild.

“He sent me an e-mail saying he was working on a project: ‘would you like to get on a call so we can talk about it?’ That’s where it started. That was back in 2014. I thought it was fake, but I was like ‘Yeah, let’s see what happens. Let’s see where this leads,’” Dhananjay laughed.

Where it led was a starring role in his first movie. It was no joke. Siddharth Dhananjay was headed towards a real live movie set.

“It was such a crazy opportunity that I knew I had to give it a try; that doesn’t happen every day,” Dhananjay said. “While working on the movie, I realized that I’ve never felt like this doing anything else in my life, so it was a fateful turn for me. It really showed me what it is that I want to do, or be involved in.”

Still, even though YouTube made a huge difference in getting him noticed, Dhananjay admitted that it cannot be relied upon to be his generation’s version of summer stock; a good way for an actor to learn his craft and get noticed and a springboard to stardom.

“I wouldn’t go as far as saying that,” Dhananjay laughed. “Even in today’s world with the internet, it’s still extremely hard for actors to get noticed, randomly for that fact. I guess it was just a lucky thing. I was ready when they came knocking. It was quite bizarre, almost.”

In certain ways, the character of Jheri seems like his YouTube character of Dhananjay the First, so the actor did have a partial fix on the role. However, as a non-actor, it was still a challenge to connect on some parts of the character.

“The flamboyant, crazy rapper aspect of Jheri was the easy bit for me,” Dhananjay said. “I’ve done that in the videos, so I knew how to pull that off. The challenge for me was trying to find the human beneath it all. Trying to find the guy who really loves his best friend and coming up with a balance between those two. That was the real fun bit; trying to work that out.”

The character of Jheri is also interesting in the fact that no matter how bad life gets, he is a really optimistic guy. In fact, in the movie, in his one major fight with Patti he tells her she really had to get over her negativity.

“I don’t know if I have his DJ Khaled level overconfidence,” Dhananjay admitted, “but I definitely think I’m more on the positive side, for sure. People tell me all the time that I’m always looking at things from a good angle. I can totally relate to him in that sense. Also in the sense of his fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude, because that’s what I was doing while doing this project as well. I had never acted before. You should really trust yourself, trust your judgement. Go with it, and see where it leads you.”

Dhananjay is not the only person learning his craft in the trenches. Co-stars Danielle Macdonald and Mamoudou Athie have had a little bit more TV and film background than Dhananjay had, but neither of them had played a lead role either.

“It was really, really fun working with them,” Dhananjay said. “They knew a little bit about how things work on set because they’ve done it a couple of times before. It was nice to have them around me. Maybe wouldn’t have felt so comfortable doing it for the first time.”

He feels very gratified that the producers were willing to trust their passion project on actors who had so little experience. They believed these three could carry the picture. In fact, the whole cast and crew had a team spirit.

“What’s so special about the movie is that everyone is so out of their comfort zone in some way,” Dhananjay observed. “Danielle has never rapped before in her life, and is extremely unmusical. Mamoudou is so far from his character as possible.”

It was not just the kids, though. Writer/director Geremy Jasper had never made a film. Even the more established show biz players – like Raging Bull co-star Cathy Moriarty and Inside Amy Schumer comedienne and singer Bridget Everett – were called upon to try things they had never done before.

“Cathy is aged 20 years, which is something she has never done,” Dhananjay says about the 50-something actress, who is playing the wheelchair-bound grandma in the film. “Bridget, this is her first dramatic role. Geremy, this is the first movie he has directed; his first screenplay, and first movie.”

However, this sense of adventure and risk just made everyone more determined to make the most of the opportunity.

“It felt great because everyone knew that everyone was going through this,” he said. “It was a very supportive atmosphere. Everybody just loved each other so much, wanted everybody to do their best, wanted to help each other as much as they could. It never felt like work coming into set. It was more like we’re all having these incredible experiences. It was just great.”

Moriarity, who with classic films like Raging Bull, Analyze This, Kindergarten Cop and Cop Land on her resume was the closest thing to a “Hollywood” name in the cast, made sure to take the younger cast members felt secure.

“She instantly became the mom on set. She’s just the sweetest person and we love her so much,” Dhananjay laughs. “She was out there taking care of all of us and making sure that everything was working well. She walks in and you instantly feel how much of a star she is. Then she starts speaking to you and you realize that, wow, she is just this beautiful human. It was so great to have her around.”

She took a special interest in Dhananjay.

“Once she found out this was my first movie she was like ‘that’s it, you’re under my wing. I’m going to make sure everything goes right for you. We’ll figure it out.’ She was definitely the glue to all of us. I had a lot of fun just hanging out with her, even if we weren’t in many scenes together.”

Pretty cool, particularly for a guy whose previous biggest show business productions were DIY videos, mostly made locally with a few people. Even a small independent film like Patti Cake$ takes a huge amount of people and work to get it off the ground. And now, he was in one of those shoots.

“It was crazy,” Dhananjay admitted. “I’ve always been a huge cinephile; I’m really into movies, but this was another level. I just learned so much being there on set. Like, I had no idea that there’s another who holds focus and it’s not just one guy holding the camera.”

He laughed, remembering how little he really knew about the process. “Just small things like that. Because I’m so interested in the process of making movies, it was such an incredible experience for me to watch what happens. Who are all these roles? Just the whole structure of it. It never felt intimidating for me. It was almost like I was a kid at a candy store going ‘wow, this is so cool.’ It was blowing my mind every day.”

A little more par-for-the-course in his life were his performances in the film’s rap productions. While he is not sure if he wants to pursue music professionally as a separate career, he did enjoy the ability to use his skillz as an actor.

“I’m musical and love music and have some experience doing it, but I’ve never really considered myself a musician, per se.” Dhananjay admitted. “In terms of the movie, all of the music was really fun and exciting for me. With the acting I was nervous, because I had never done it before, but going into the studio to work on the music and performing all the tunes together, all of the numbers; with that I felt really at home. It was very natural. It was really fun.”

Another thing that was really natural was his relationship with co-star Danielle Macdonald. On screen they play besties, good friends who know and understand each other so well that they can finish each other’s sentences. That kind of connection can’t be faked, and often on screen you can tell when two actors don’t connect.

“When we first met it was the summer of 2014, so it has been a while since we’ve known each other,” he said. “Instantly the first time we met, we gelled so quickly. She keeps saying that she was so nervous to meet me, because she had only seen the videos and she didn’t know if they were a joke or not, or if I were just that guy in the video. Then she met me and was like ‘Ha, that’s it he’s just like my little brother.’”

The connection was instantaneous and lasting. The two of them felt comfortable together from the start and are still friends.

“It was really easy. Since 2014 we’ve been really good friends. It never felt awkward. We never had to go through some ice breaker process for us to get comfortable with each other. That’s why it was so easy to work on all these scenes with her. It felt right. While watching the movie you can really see the chemistry. It was very effortless to say what I wanted to her, or push her around, and vice versa.”

Now, three years down the line, the film is finally being released, to critical buzz. Macdonald and Dhananjay are being pointed out as potential breakout stars. Not bad for a guy whose last premiere was on social media.

Which led to another new experience for Dhananjay. After seeing himself streaming online multiple times, he has finally had the opportunity to see himself on a big screen. It was a surreal experience, to say the least.

“I’ve seen it now four or five times,” Dhananjay said. “The first time was really powerful. I was just ‘why is my face doing that? Why am I doing this?’ It was really weird to see myself. And to watch the movie. I still can’t really watch the movie excessively. I look at it as all of those fun times we had last summer shooting this and all the people involved. I’m still getting used to watching it as a movie. I don’t know if that’ll ever happen or not, but it’s really cool when other people come up to you and talk to you about how much they loved the movie. I'm so glad you guys enjoyed it as much as I did and it’s not just something that was in my head.”

Sadly, as an immigrant living in the United States, particularly in this current political climate, there are some other barriers in his way. It was dramatically exposed when Dhananjay wanted to travel with the cast and filmmakers for the film’s performance at the Cannes Film Festival in France, only to learn that he could not get a travel visa to make the trip.

It was a shame, but not a complete surprise to the young actor.

“For me I have to be here on a visa,” he acknowledged. “When we did Patti Cake$ they got me an O2 visa, which is an actor’s visa. Usually what you need is an O1 visa to act in America, but because I had no prior experience, the only way to make it work was to latch me onto Danielle’s O1, because she’s Australian. That worked out, but now the problem is that I need to get the O1 visa to continue working as an actor. Basically, that’s what I’ve been working on for the past few months.”

Right as his career is starting to come together and start a buzz, he is in a bit of a bureaucratic quagmire to stay in the US. However, Dhananjay does not think the new anti-immigrant wave in Washington is necessarily the cause. It is tough to do, he realizes, because it must be.

“It’s a complicated process and they ask a lot of you,” Dhananjay said. “As much as I would love to blame it on the new administration, in terms of the O1 itself, the process hasn’t really changed; it has always been like this. I’ve always been here on visas that you get when you get certain types of jobs, or certain types of situations. When I came here as a student, I had a student visa.

“As a person with an Indian passport, it’s just something that I deal with all the time. Anywhere that I want to visit, I need a visa to visit. Be it France, when I was trying to go there, anywhere. Even on vacations with the family, we have to figure out the visas before we can plan to go. It’s a thing that I’ve realized is just a part of my life at this point. It wasn’t as frustrating or depressing as it sounds, because it’s not like I didn’t know it was going to happen before it started; I knew that I had to figure out the visa. That’s just the reality that I have to deal with.”

Unfortunately, that unsure status has been making it impossible to get more work until everything is worked out with immigration. Dhananjay was offered a role in a film called A Name Without a Place with Patrick Fugit and Elizabeth McGovern, but it does not look like he will be able to do the film.

“I guess, technically I’m not in that movie, just because I can’t actually be in another movie until I get the right visa,” Dhananjay explained. “Who knows? They gave me a deal, they said they wanted me to be in the movie, so I can use that contract to try and get the O1 visa, but that really shouldn’t be on my IMDB, I don’t know why that’s there.”

Dhananjay also does not rule out the idea of returning to his home country, which has a thriving film industry. However, he’s not quite ready to abandon the dream of Hollywood for Bollywood.

“I grew up in India and I follow that scene as well as I follow the one here,” Dhanajay said. “It definitely is a dream of mine to work in the movies there at some point. I think right now having Patti Cake$ as my first movie and it is getting all this buzz, I want to take this very seriously and see what jobs are here while I can. Maybe even joining an acting class, taking acting seriously and trying to work on learning how the Hollywood business works. I’m not even thinking about going back to India and working there. In the future, hopefully, but right now I feel like I haven’t even had the time to sit back and think about all of the crazy stuff that have happened so far. It has just been one [thing] after the other and I’ve sort of had to roll with the punches.”

Copyright ©2017 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: August 20, 2017.

Photos © 2017. Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures. All rights reserved.

#Siddharth Dhananjay #2017 #Actor Interviews #Patti Cake$ #Jay S. Jacobs

[babaleshy]

Gonna bitch about how creepy my dad is here, too.

My dad is a tight-wing Trump supporter who likes to play the victim-card. I even fell for it because he fell for the propaganda used against Serbs to make them think that the world hates Serbs because they simply exist. (That’s another rant for another time.) So my dad believes he’s always in the right. He will spend more time making excuses than uttering a single “I’m sorry” if he’s confronted with an obvious wrong he’s committed.

That being said, he literally sees nothing wrong with some of the stuff he’s said to me that I immediately thought of when I’ve heard what Trump has said about his daughter.

As passionate offspring do, I used to go on about how I’d love to cosplay as certain superheroes and such when I was just starting college. My dad would tell me (and even try to convince me) that I should see a professional photographer about taking a pic of me posing as different characters to make into calendars and sell them at conventions because he says I’m good looking enough to pull it off. And no matter how many times I kept telling him no, I don’t wanna do that, he would not drop it and kept trying to convince me ultimately asking, “Don’t you want to make some money?”

Another one is how he thinks I’d look good in certain clothing styles, and he keeps pressing this fucking sash bullshit on me because “you could be a trend-setter!” And he wouldn’t shut up about how good I’d look in certain clothing styles.

One time he told me and a childhood “friend” back when we were in 5th grade that we could totally pull off dressing up as Sailor Scouts because we “definitely had the legs for the look.”

There was a high school photo I took for picture day (I can’t remember what grade) and he says, “Do you know what your bottom lip says?  Sexy.” When I complained not to say that, he went, “Why? It does!” Like, he didn’t get how I was uncomfortable about it. I kept telling him to stop, but he interrupts my plea saying, “No, no! Listen!” He demanded that I listen to him further make me uncomfortable.

So... that was the second most creepiest thing he’s ever done. Know what the first one is? Here it comes:

I’m attending the community college in Pittsburgh and I”m waiting in line with my then-boyfriend (now husband) and my dad since my dad was there to pay for my semester with a credit card. We were in line... in front of a lot of other students... And I felt comfortable to wear a push-up bra and my low-cut Rob Zombie shirt. I’m so close to the ideal cleavage I want and I was just feeling awesome that day. And do you know what my dad says? 

him: Oh my... Annie!

me:  ...what?

him:  You have cleavage!

And he’s trying to be slick by pronouncing it as “clay-vajh”... but everybody is fucking staring at me. Again, I show discomfort, vocalize it, though not as assertive as I probably should have, but he tries to pass it off as, “I’ve just realized you’ve grown into a young woman!”

Like.. really? You just realized that? I’m beyond the age of 21 at this point. And he just now vocalizes such an “epiphany” by talking about my boobs? In front of so many other people?

My husband didn’t say anything because he was afraid of pissing my dad off at the time (especially since we were... I think just engaged at the time?), but my husband and I are so sick of my parents’ shit, especially my dad’s, so we’re not quite so sheepish anymore.

But yeah, my dad was creepy. I need to talk to my mom about this. I’m not sure she’s aware of this. And I did talk to my counselor about this and he agreed that it is creepy. But confronting my dad about this won’t do anything except piss him off and make him play the victim-card, maybe he’ll spout some free-speech rights bullshit as an excuse or something. I don’t know.

Now.... I told you all of these times my dad was creepy in the name of him seeing that he has an attractive daughter... At the same time, throughout my life, on more than one occasion, my dad has also pointed out a lot of fucking things that made me feel so fucking insecure that it just confused me and made my mental health growing up worse. I’ll make you a list and follow it up with a story of one particularly cruel incident.

I was in kindergarten and had my lower lip tucked under my teeth in a picture for picture-day, and my dad asked me, “Are you a clown?” When I said no, he told me, “Then don’t smile like one.”

Anytime I had a bad hair day, he won’t shut up about how it’s shaped, what it looks like, etc.

When I had my first zit between my eyebrows, my dad told me that if I don’t watch what I eat and drink (he was the one with the purchasing power, he was the one willingly buying me soda all the time) then I’ll end up with more zits and then “all the kids at school will call you pizza face! Hey! Lookit pizza-face! How are ya, pizza-face! You wanna be called pizza-face?”

I couldn’t exactly have a normally closed mouth because of how big my teeth are, and I can’t remember the occasion, I just remember him going, “Come on! I know you can stretch those lips over those big teeth!”

“We’re gonna get you surgery to take care of that over-bite of yours by taking out a bit of tendon on your inner thighs and stuffing them behind your jaw. Then you can do splits!”

Anytime I wore shorts, my pale skin would show, so my dad would, in an overly dramatic way, shield his eyes and go, “I’M BLIND! PUT SOME PANTS ON!” Then wonder why I don’t wear shorts.

If there was the slightest bit of stubble on my pits that he saw, he would be overly dramatic in his verbal accounts of how I need to shave them, with his expression being similar to as if he could smell filthy armpits.

Called me pinecone legs when I didn’t have ultra-smooth legs.

Anytime I had food on my big teeth, he won’t shut up about it and made a big spectacle about it.

Anytime I had ANYTHING in my nose, he’d do the same, too.

Ah, the most cruel thing he’s done regarding my appearance and insecurities. I need to tell you this particular story. It’s just, the cruelest thing he’s done to me psychologically.

So, I’m in 7th grade. Obviously, I’m going through puberty... And a massive zit shows up on my forehead. I go to excuse myself saying I gotta go pop it after being asked where I was going, and my dad said, “No! NEVER pop zits!” I can’t remember if he like, gave an explanation or what. But how he delivered that was just.. Enough to make me go, “Oh, geeze. Maybe I shouldn’t.” I figured it would go away on its own. It didn’t. The fucker got bigger and had three pinhole-sized scabs in it because I wasn’t allowed to drain it when it would burst on its own. It was so nasty it was becoming blue-grey. Amazingly, I wasn’t picked on for it in middle school. But of course, that’s why my dad exists. Because being a teenager wasn’t hell enough.

We go to my baba and jeda’s to visit, especially since my uncle Pete (dad’s brother he’s like, obsessed with or some shit) and his family were visiting. *shrug* Okay, so we go and visit. I figured the rest of my family isn’t going to judge me. They were never like how my dad was. They never made me feel insecure about my appearance.

We’ve been there a while, and we’d all just sat down at the table for dinner, and that’s when my dad points out to everyone, “Just look at the size of that zit on her forehead? Have you ever seen one so big before?” I don’t remember what all he’d said, but he brought shameless attention to it while everyone looked uncomfortable. I don’t remember what family member it was, but they managed to change the subject real fast while my dad maintained that entertained, amused grin. And I had trouble eating because my stomach was in knots.

Ever since then, I wore a ballcap when not in school (because we weren’t allowed to wear hats in school, though I did try to wear bandanas to “hold my hair back” as much as possible to hide the fucking zit). My mom got me to stop by lying and telling me that people who wear hats all the time end up going bald. She thought that was amusing, and when I brought it up to her when she started wearing a ballcap when mowing the lawn, she laughed and told me she was just kidding to see what I’d do.

That zit didn’t fucking go away for WEEKS. All because I wasn’t allowed to pop and/or drain the fucker.

So I’m being told I’m attractive while at the same time I’m told all this other shit becoming a ball of anxiety and depression from the same asshole who has no business being this fucking creepy to me and will spend every second of the conversation on the subject making up excuses while not once uttering a sorry whatsoever. Because his freedom of speech or some bullshit.

What’s worse is if I was underage, and I’ve said some shit before like talking about wanting a tattoo in the future when I’m old enough and he wasn’t having it and saying “but it’s my body,” he told me, “But you’re mine.” Like I’m property. It’s so fucked up.

He’s part of the reason why I wore hoodies, baggy shirts, and baggy pants throughout all of my teenage years; I tried to disappear and hide in large-sized clothing to try and minimize some of the shit he’d tell me. My dad has a habit of saying any and all things on his mind without stopping and thinking about how he’d be making the other person feel. Because he doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a shit.

#personal #rant #I ought to have the tumblr app on my phone so I can really recall this all to my counselor