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corkcitylibraries · 2 years

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Cork in Verse | Ana Spehar Interviews Noah Hamilton

Noah Hamilton was born in May 1987 in Waterford. He grew up in Thomastown, Co. Kilkenny and is a full-time artist.

Noah Hamilton studied Fine Art at the Limerick School of Art & Design. He graduated in 2009 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Fine Art. Noah then went on to focus on his drawing skills by undertaking a course at St. John’s College, Cork City studying Drawing (Level 5) and Web Design (Level 5).

When did you start writing? Is there a common theme, style, or structure you find yourself leaning to in your poetry?

I’ve been writing song lyrics since I was a teenager, drew comics since I was nine. Yet when I started really tapping away on the word processer it came from a certain purge, there are just some days where I'm in the mindset to write, a certain free train of thought, although when it comes to poetry, I have a few rules that relate to music theory. I focus on the rhythm of the syllables in each sentence, though every now and again I break my own rules on purpose. Usually with poetry I just type it into my phone. I went through a phase of writing haikus where you get 5 7 5 in the syllable count. It's good to consider the value of each syllable in length, it could have the value of a quaver, crotchet, have a different timing, a lot of music theory worth considering.

As a visual artist, musician, and a writer, you express yourself in many forms. Where do you seek inspiration?

I hop between mediums just to alternate my time. One day or night I could be drawing, painting, writing, then playing music or a bit of carpentry and so on, any creative project I have a go at. I used to draw compulsively in sketchbooks for years, I still have the ones I kept since I was twelve, lots of drawings of devils and war. It freaked out my art teacher. Once, he rang my mother about it, when she saw them, she said they were quite good, but she asked me to draw something else so then I discovered music. Nirvana was my favourite band, so I drew rockstars in my teens, picked up a guitar to learn as many riffs from tabs off the internet. Art and music were the two big things in my life, why not do both? I remember that I always said to myself if I go blind, I can still play guitar, if I go deaf, I can still draw. Fast-forward to these days when engaging in a creative project, I have different themes to each medium. Innovation is crucial for my work, I always like something new to potter about with. I've learned to be okay with having creative block every now and again. I find comfort in knowing the likes of Francis Bacon went through months without lifting a brush. I like to look at the lives of artists in biographies rather than their work, good to learn from history before pursuing it as a career, though if you enjoy making art for the sheer enjoyment is a great gift in itself.

Do you show your work in progress to anyone?

I do, maybe a bit too much I think, though a painting isn't finished until it's sold. Pieces develop over time, even songs over time where I would add a middle eight here and there with more development on the subject matter.

Would you look on writing as a kind of spiritual practice?

More like an exorcism. I write away my demons, you might say. I like having a go at the Sci-Fi genre, makes it lighter and more aloof. I find it a safer place to be in, a certain detachment from real life with elements of truth involved.

What book would you recommend to our readers?

You know the real page turner for me was The Diary of Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years by Sue Townsend. I once spent all night just reading that back to back as a teenager. Actually, I haven't read all of the Adrian Mole books, I must follow up on that, though it’s quite a sad thought as Sue Townsend, rest her soul, is no longer with us. Don't tell me how it ends but I’m expecting another cliff-hanger. My main recommendation, now I'm thinking seriously, is a book that I used to play as an audiobook while sleeping. I'll be frank that I don't read as much as I should as I predominantly just binge on audiobooks these days...Ten Books on Architecture by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio. It's very fascinating with instructions on how the Roman Empire was built. It teaches you about their knowledge of building, plumbing, painting, music theory, and geology to name a few of the subjects it covers. It was revived during the Renaissance and it's illustrated by the old masters at that time. I must root out the hard copy myself to see the illustrations.

Paintbrush

A madman with a paintbrush Saying he is an artist Still a madman with a paintbrush Though people are saying he is an artist They don't think he is a madman with a paintbrush They are betting on this madman as an artist as he says himself They know a bit that he is mad A madman with a paintbrush Saying he is an artist Though a paintbrush for a madman is a good idea nonetheless.

Rural I come from rural Ireland A place of cattle and horses Not too far from me Is where they bet on courses. I know a chap who can talk to cattle But not well with women Not that different from me But worse according to other sources In one pub there is gambling A place of many vices No one judges no one Even through their mid-life crisis They may stand, sit and talk shite The barman telling them that they are right His old friend calls him a bollox Just like Jackson Pollock Country life isn't so bad The pints are cheaper with a bit of trad Next day is not so sad Back again since one was a lad This is the frontline for an troubadour No pretense and vanity For those who do will not last long This town is better than any city Men are men here and the women same Hardly ones that aren't so tame Handy with an axe and saw The land will clobber if you break its law. Take heed of it's weather It's harshness and gruff No time for nonsense Faffing or fluff.

#CorkCityLibraries #CorkInVerse

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shemarmooresfedora · 3 years

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hi baby congratulations on 300!!!🥳 i’m so glad to be here ! 💗🤍💗🤍✨⭐️

you know i’m obsessed w ur fics so, i am gently begging you to write something w prompts “can i paint your nails” “i’m going to steal this from you” and “people don’t compliment you enough” (sorry i forgot the numbers :( ) pleeeease? 🥺🥺

(sorry if it’s too much) thanks, i love u <3

It’s a Love Story

Summary: It’s senior skip day and you’re determined to pull your best friend of 10 years (and secret crush) out of his comfort zone.

Pairing: High School Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader (but imagine Spencer is 18 so he is the normal high school senior age)

Content/Warnings: fluff, swearing, bullying

Word Count: 1.9k

A/N: this fic is very self-indulgent because my senior skip day was yesterday! :)

Masterlist

“Hey, Spence! Wait up,” you jogged down the hall to catch up with him.

“Hey, Y/N. How’d your math test go?” Spencer asked.

“I’d rather not talk about it,” you groaned, “Thank you for trying to tutor me last night but I think I’m a lost cause at this point. It’s too late in the school year to care.”

“Did you know that ‘senioritis’ can actually be categorized as situational depression? In 2009, 22% of colleges decided to revoke some admissions offers after students began to slack off at the end of their senior year,” Spencer stated.

“Oh, trust me, genius, I may not be as smart as you but I’m not dumb enough to lose my scholarship to UCLA. I did the math out and even if I completely bombed this unit test, I can still maintain my A average,” you replied.

“I never said you weren’t smart, I was just warning you. I don’t want you to lose your spot at your dream school,” Spencer explained, “People don’t compliment you enough for all the hard work you put in to get accepted there.”

“Well, thanks for looking out for me, Spence,” you smiled, taking a seat in the back corner of the classroom.

Spencer sat right in front of you and turned around in his seat, “Do you have any homework?”

“Nope. My study hall is wide open just as expected. The teachers are losing just as much steam as the students,” you grinned, unzipping your backpack and pulling out nail polish.

“Can I paint your nails?” you asked.

“Y/N, don’t you think I get made fun of enough?” he whispered back.

“Girls love when guys paint their nails and if any guys try to give you shit, I’ll personally kick their ass. I took a self-defense course but I’ll use those moves I learned however I see fit,” you said.

“Fine,” Spencer relented, extending his hand out to you.

Spencer was honestly sold once you said that girls love it. That must include you, right?

“It’s purple too. Your favorite color,” you smiled, shaking the bottle up and then beginning to paint his nails.

Spencer thought it was cute that you picked up on his habit of sticking your tongue out of the corner of your mouth when you were concentrating.

“Isn’t it pretty?” you beamed as you worked on the second coat of polish.

“Yeah,” Spencer replied, not looking at his nails but the girl directly in front of him.

You gently blew air on his nails to dry them, “All done!”

“Well, well, well if it isn’t the teacher’s pet?” Brad, the captain of the football team, smirked as Spencer passed through the hallways after his math team practice ended.

“Wow, nail polish? And to think you couldn’t become any more of a loser?” he sneered as the jocks began to encircle around Spencer.

“Spence, there you are! I’ve been looking for you all over. Let’s go, we’re going to be late,” you walked right into the crowd of boys, paying no mind to them and grabbing Spencer’s hand, pulling him towards the exit.

“Don’t look back,” you whispered.

“You know one day your little girlfriend there is going to realize what a pathetic nerd you are. I’ll be ready to show her what a real man is,” Brad called after you.

“Oh yes, Brad, a real man goes to community college to hang on to the scraps of his mediocre football career that is his only reminder of when he peaked in high school,” you laughed.

“Y/N, he’s going to kill me for that,” Spencer groaned after you exited the building.

“Relax, we have three days left and then we won’t ever have to see that dick again,” you assured him.

“We have four days left,” Spencer corrected you.

“No, three because we’re not going in tomorrow,” you walked into the diner and took your seat in your usual booth, “It’s senior skip day.”

When Spencer didn’t respond, you looked up from your menu, “Spencer Reid, please do not tell me you were going to go in on senior skip day.”

“Why would I want to miss school?”

“Because you already know everything they could possibly teach you and you can spend the whole day with your best friend instead?” you fluttered your eyelashes to persuade him.

“I don’t want to go to the beach with all the popular kids. I’ll get shoved in the sand,” Spencer grabbed some of the fries that the waitress dropped off for you and popped them into his mouth.

“That is why we are going all the way to Santa Monica. We’ll just get up a little earlier and drive a little further but then we won’t run into anyone from our school,” you proposed.

“Fine but you’re driving,” Spencer huffed.

“Well, I’m certainly not letting the guy drive who hasn’t driven since he got his license just to prove he could pass,” you giggled.

“Why do I need to drive when my next-door neighbor can be my personal chauffeur?” he grinned.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll pick you up at 7 on the dot tomorrow.”

You honked outside of Spencer’s house. He came scrambling out with a big canvas tote bag, a tan sweater, and lilac swim shorts that ended at his mid-thigh.

“Get in, loser. We’re going to the beach,” you rolled down the window.

Spencer furrowed his brow for a second before opening the door.

“It’s just a reference to a popular movie. I wasn’t actually calling you a loser,” you assured him.

“My mom made us blueberry muffins for the ride,” Spencer pulled a ziploc bag out of the tote.

“Oh that is so sweet of her! Please tell her I said thank you. She must have been having a good night then,” you smiled, accepting one of the muffins from Spencer.

“Yes, she has been having a good week overall,” Spencer affirmed.

“That’s so great to hear. Okay, we’re stopping for coffee but then we’ll get on the highway.”

The opening notes of Love Story by Taylor Swift began to play on the radio.

“Oh my god! Turn it up!” you screamed.

Spencer grinned and turned the volume knob up.

“Romeo, take me somewhere we can be alone. I'll be waiting, all there's left to do is run. You'll be the prince and I'll be the princess. It's a love story, baby, just say ‘yes’,” you sang.

You rolled down the windows as soon as you exited off the highway.

“Do you smell that, Spence?” you inhaled deeply, “Something about the salty air and sunshine just makes me feel alive.”

“You know it’s probably your increased exposure to the sunlight leading to an increase in vitamin D which can keep your energy levels up and enhance your mood,” Spencer stated.

“Well, whatever it is, I still love it,” you grinned.

You and Spencer made your way along the sandy coast. You parked in the beach parking lot and got out of the car, grabbing your mini cooler and chair.

Spencer grabbed the other chair and his tote and you headed down to the beach, walking a ways before settling on a spot in a less crowded area.

You took off your big t-shirt revealing your light blue bikini.

“Can we go in the water please?” you begged.

Spencer dug into his tote and tossed you a tube of sunscreen.

“Not until you put that on,” Spencer insisted.

“Fine,” you huffed.

“Sorry I don’t want you to be sunburnt for graduation,” he chuckled.

“Can you do my back?” you asked.

“I-um-yeah-yes I can do that,” Spencer scrambled to stand up from his beach chair.

His breath hitched in his throat as he applied the cool lotion to your back.

“All good,” he cleared his throat.

“Thanks, Spence! Do you need me to do your back or are you all set?” you asked.

“Nope, I’m all good. My mom did it before I left,” Spencer said.

“Can we go in the water now?” you pleaded.

Spencer gave a reluctant nod as you let out an excited squeal, grabbing his hand and pulling him towards the tide.

You dove right into the cool waves, instantly relieving your body of the southern californian summer heat. Spencer was a bit more hesitant.

“It feels so good, Spence. Trust me,” you smoothed your wet hair back.

Spencer inhaled deeply and then sunk beneath the water as a wave passed by him.

“Yay! He’s actually having fun, people!” you cheered as he emerged from underneath the water.

Spencer playfully splashed water at you and you gasped.

“Oh Spencer Reid, you are so on,” you laughed, splashing water right back at him.

Spencer shielded it from his face with his hand and then started chasing after you. You shrieked in a giggle fit as he lifted you up in the water so you could no longer splash him.

“I surrender! I surrender!” you laughed along with him.

You and Spencer were walking on the basically deserted boardwalk by this time of night, licking your ice cream cones.

Spencer noticed you were shivering and pulled off his sweater, handing it to you.

“No, Spence. I can’t, then you’ll be cold,” you said.

“I really don’t mind,” Spencer insisted, wanting to have your scent on his sweater forever.

“Thank you,” you slipped it over your head, “I’m probably going to steal this from you because it’s super comfy.”

A reminder alert buzzed on your phone, “Oh shit. We have to sign up for tickets to go to prom by midnight,” you spoke.

Spencer shot you a guilty look.

“You’re not going?” you sighed defeatedly, trying your hardest not to tear up.

“Y/N, I don’t dance. I’ll make a fool of myself.”

“And I’ll be right by your side making a fool of myself too,” you urged, “Spence, it’s going to be no fun without you. I was going to ask you to officially be my date, you know? I had this whole complicated equation that I was going to have you solve and graph and the line spelled out ‘Prom?’. It’s stupid thinking back on it now, I won’t make you go.”

“I was going to ask you,” Spencer smiled softly, “but then I chickened out.”

“How about this? You give me one dance right now and then we’ll decide if we’re going or not,” you opened your phone and started playing Dancing by Mellow Fellow.

Spencer extended his hand and you accepted as he wrapped his other arm around your waist. You waltzed around the boardwalk in perfect sync as the neon lights from food stands and rides were shining down on you.

Spencer twirled you around and caught you in a dip. You let out a shaky exhale as you both stared into each other’s eyes.

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered.

“Please do. I’ve only been waiting 10 years for it since I moved in next door,” you smiled softly.

Spencer leaned down further and connected your lips. You pulled him even closer with your hands cupping his cheeks.

“I’ll go to prom with you under one condition,” he grinned, pulling away, “we go as boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Absolutely,” you beamed and stood on your tippy-toes to give him another kiss that was long overdue.

A/N: i took a note out of my dear friend @samuel-de-champagne-problems ‘s book by naming the title after a Taylor Swift song

taglist (just ask to be added or removed!): @samuel-de-champagne-problems @g0lden-cth @spencerreid9 @averyhotchner @coldlilheart @k-k0129 @ickleronniekinsemotionalrange @harrystylesandthegoobs @cmily @rem-ariiana

#spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid #reid x reader #spencer x reader #cm fanfic #criminal minds #cm fic #dr spencer reid #spencer reid one shot

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makeste · 3 years

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I'd love to read some Naruto analysis by you!

lol I might not be the best person to ask about this, tbh. Naruto happens to be one of the series I mentioned last week where I eventually stopped reading because of things related to the timeskip. it basically got to the point where I realized I was forcing myself to keep reading it, and that everything I had originally loved about it was basically gone. it had all of the problems I mentioned about timeskips -- characters splitting up (AND characters staying together, but us missing out on their development); fights becoming boring; the series becoming way darker and killing off more than a few characters for shock value; and the clumsiest attempt at a romance plot I can recall reading in a manga. I stopped reading it sometime around chapter 400 or so, which would have been around 2009 I believe. the series ultimately went on for another 300 chapters and didn’t end until late 2014, and I have little to no idea what went down in those chapters, and no real interest in ever going back to finish it. I’m not saying it was objectively bad, because I can hardly judge what I haven’t even read. but it just stopped having any type of appeal to me.

regarding Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship, the best way I can describe it (and be warned this is gonna get kind of long lol) for someone who’s unfamiliar with Naruto but knows BnHA, is that it’s basically Bakugou and Deku’s relationship, if both of them were orphaned at a young age, and in Bakugou’s case he was specifically orphaned by his evil older brother who murdered their entire family in front of him. and so Bakugou basically grew up being all “the FUCK is up with that, I am going to KILL THAT DUDE,” and so he went to ninja school to learn how to be a badass so that he could avenge his family. and meanwhile Deku went to ninja school because he was lonely and wanted to be Ninja President when he grew up so that people would finally want to be his friend. and so they both learned to become ninjas, and then they graduated at the ripe old age of Twelve and started ninja internships under ninja!Aizawa’s tutelage along with a badass girl ninja whom ninja!Deku had a massive crush on even though she herself was not-so-secretly crushing on ninja!Bakugou.

and even though ninja!Bakugou and ninja!Deku didn’t get along at first, they started doing all of the usual Rival Things like competing with each other over who is better at running up trees sideways, and their relationship gradually got a little bit better. and then ninja!Bakugou all of a sudden saved ninja!Deku’s life OUT OF NOWHERE (like this boy really had his own “my body just moved on its own” moment all of 27 chapters into the series) and nearly died, and ninja!Deku went into rage mode because of it, and so that was awesome. and so it basically went on like this, with both of them continuing to do rival things like egging each other on to become stronger and talking about how much they want to fight each other and stuff. all that good shit.

anyways though, but where it started to go south was when ninja!Bakugou, much like actual!Bakugou, eventually caught the attention of one of the villain characters who started being all “HEY KID, JOIN ME AND I’LL HELP YOU BECOME STRONG ENOUGH TO KILL YOUR BROTHER.” and at first of course ninja!Bakugou was all “wtf, no”, which, good. BUT THEN it all really started to go to shit when ninja!Bakugou’s Evil Brother came back to town because he wanted to kidnap ninja!Deku, but ninja!Bakugou found out about it and was all “OH HELL NO” and went and found his bro to try to kill him. but seeing as ninja!Bakugou’s brother was one of the strongest characters in the series, and ninja!Bakugou was LITERALLY A CHILD, to make a long story short the Evil Brother basically kicked his ass and was all “nyah nyah nyah what’s up with that you’re still so weak” and subjected him to a little hypno torture session for good measure.

and so basically, ninja!Bakugou spiraled into a mental funk and eventually was all “I GUESS I’D BETTER GO FIND THAT VILLAIN FELLOW AFTER ALL” and RAN AWAY TO GO BECOME EVIL. and ninja!Deku found out about it and went after him and they had a HUGE DRAMATIC FIGHT, but ultimately ninja!Deku lost, and ninja!Bakugou knocked him out and spent some time staring at him sadly and longingly in the rain before shuffling off. and basically after that is when the timeskip happens, and ninja!Deku and ninja!Bakugou spend three years training and then at that point ninja!Bakugou’s character starts to go completely off the rails and he’s out here genuinely trying to kill all of his old friends for Reasons, and at that point I was basically done with him and it was a whole big “YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BRING BALANCE TO THE PLOT, NOT LEAVE IT IN DARKNESS” thing, and I eventually just quit out of annoyance lol. smdh.

anyway so yeah. and after that I don’t really know too much about what happens. they basically have a whole Star-Crossed Enemies thing going on where ninja!Deku keeps trying to turn ninja!Bakugou back to the good side, even after he literally declares war on their entire country and kills a bunch of people lmao. and it’s supposed to be inspiring I guess, because he never gives up on his friend no matter what. and I think eventually it does turn out all right, or at least bittersweet, from what I’ve gleaned.

but I’m not gonna lie, for me everything I loved about the series was in that pre-timeskip relationship that the two of them had. and honestly, BnHA is such a fix-it in so many ways that I sometimes wonder if Horikoshi (who also grew up on Naruto, millennial that he is) didn’t feel the same way about it. like, there are almost specific things about it that he goes out of his way to “fix.”

first and foremost, unlike Sasuke, Kacchan point-blank refuses to join up with the villains who try to recruit him. still one of my favorite parts of the series honestly. this one specific plot is so reminiscent of where it all started to go wrong in Naruto, and Horikoshi subverts the shit out of it. there’s all this buildup to it, and everyone is all “oh shit is Bakugou really going to turn evil??”, and then when the moment finally happens, Bakugou doesn’t consider their offer for a second. there is no doubt in his mind. he’s a hero, end of story. there’s so much conviction in him, so much determination. god I just love it so much.

Naruto and Sasuke also have their version of a Therapy Fight, pre-timeskip, in which Sasuke challenges Naruto to a fight because he needs to prove to himself that he’s not weak. Sasuke is clearly hurting during this battle (this is just after his encounter with his Evil Brother, and I mean the fight literally takes place on the rooftop of the hospital he was recuperating in), but unlike Deku, Naruto never takes any notice of this. and unlike Bakugou, Sasuke keeps his feelings all bottled up inside him, and so basically they both just get swept up in the Rivalry and wind up nearly killing each other. and again just like in BnHA, Naruto and Sasuke’s fight also gets interrupted by one of their teachers; but unlike All Might, Naruto and Sasuke’s teacher doesn’t give them any sage mentor advice or make sure that the two of them are in a good headspace afterwards. and as a result Sasuke leaves that same fucking night to go join up with the villains. basically it’s almost the exact same Shounen Rival Throwdown, but with completely opposite outcomes. it’s almost uncanny.

and last but not least, unlike Kishimoto, who gives Sasuke his “sacrificing himself to save his rival” moment barely half a year into the series and then basically never refers to it again, Horikoshi spends almost 300 chapters building up to Bakugou’s own version of that moment, so that when it finally happens, it feels earned. not to say that I don’t like the Sasuke moment in chapter 27 of Naruto, because twenty years down the line and it’s still honestly one of my favorite scenes. but I do think Horikoshi’s version of it was ultimately much more satisfying. when Sasuke saves Naruto’s life, you get the sense that he was conflicted as to why he did it. but when Bakugou makes the sacrifice play for Deku’s sake, he knows exactly why he’s doing it, because he’s spent the last 285 chapters going through all of that character development and realizing that Deku is important to him, and realizing that he wants to atone for how he treated him. and so to me that moment is all the more meaningful because of it. definitely a highlight of the series.

anyway, so I’m not sure any of that actually counts as analysis lol, but there you go. fwiw, pre-timeskip Naruto (pre-Shippuuden I should say, although the manga never really made a distinction like the anime did) was and is still one of my all time favorite series. but to my mind BnHA is an improvement on it in almost every way, and with the BakuDeku relationship in particular it’s almost wish fulfillment lol. finally I get to see this childhood-friends-turned-rivals relationship play out the way I always wished it had. that’s basically what I mean when I say it feels like therapy lol. anyways it’s good stuff.

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notebooknebula · 4 years

Video

youtube

Andrew Campbell and Multifamily Investments

https://www.jayconner.com/andrew-campbell-and-multifamily-investments/

Today, Jay Conner interviews Andrew Campbell about multifamily investments.

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Tune in to the discussion today to learn more about this with Jay Conner and Andrew Campbell.

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#RealEstate #PrivateMoney #FlipYourHouse

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Jay Conner (01:11): And I got cut off like the rest of the world in 2009, I was introduced to this wonderful world of private money to where you actually do business with individuals. And so I’ve got right now about 50 different private lenders investing in our deals. And I also coach and train and educate other real estate investors on how to get funding for your deals without relying on banks and mortgage companies and et cetera. So if you’d like to learn all about that, and how you can get plugged into the money and get plugged into funding, I’ve got a free trial for you to come join my membership, where I actually do live training twice a month, and you get all kinds of content and training inside the membership. It’s called The Private Money Academy and for you to come check it out for free for 30 days, get on over to www.JayConner.com/trial.

Jay Conner (02:11): Glad to have you in there. Now, another thing about the show is that I’ve had just some amazing experts and guests join me here on the show and today is no exception. My guest today is a native Austinite in case you don’t know what an Austinite is that someone from Austin, Texas, and he’s a real estate entrepreneur and he broke into real estate investing first back in 2009 as a passive investor. Well, in 2012, he transitioned into active investing and management as a personal portfolio that grew to 76 units across Austin and the San Antonio areas. Well, he earned his stripes if you will, building and managing his personal portfolio before moving into much larger multifamily buildings and deals. Well, the name of his company is Wild Horn Capital. Well at Wild Horn Capital, he’s focused on acquisitions, finding deals and maintaining investor relations.

Jay Conner (03:19): Also leveraging his marketing background to build long term relationships. Well today, his company Wild Horn Capital controls over $200 million in it’s portfolio. And they have over 1700 units in Texas. Well, my guest’s background is in market research and brand strategy, and he’s spending time in both advertising agencies and emerging technology consultants where he was most recently a partner and an award winning app developer. That’s pretty interesting right there. In addition to that, he received a BS in advertising from the university of Texas at Austin, and he has his MBA from Baylor University. With that! well, welcome to the show, Mr. Andrew Campbell. Hello Andrew.

Andrew Campbell (04:12): Hey Jay, how are you?

Jay Conner (04:13): I am doing fantastic! So you grew up in Austin, Texas, right?

Andrew Campbell (04:19): Yes Sir.

Jay Conner (04:20): Excellent. Well, my wife Carol Joy, she’s from Wichita Falls, Texas. And so we got a little bit in common right there. So you actually started in real estate back in what year?

Andrew Campbell (04:33): Kind of 08, 09 kind of move back to Austin around then right as the world was ending and thought it was a good time to jump in.

Jay Conner (04:42): Wow! Well, I tell you that reminds me of what I just shared. I mean not, from 2003 to 2009, I was relying on local banks for my single family house business and wow! With no notice I mean, I got like cut off with no notice, but you know what, for me, Andrew, it was a big blessing in disguise cause I learned about private money very quickly. And actually within 12 months of being cut off from my funding, our business actually tripled because I had access to the funding. So I was able to do, you know, so many more deals. So with you coming in back in 2008, 2009, what was your first year or two like?

Andrew Campbell (05:25): Well, I was probably you know one of the guys you might have been borrowing money from then. I think the first the first few years kind of based in passive investments or I was not real active, you know, kind of barrow lending money and admit it and as a passive investor in some ground up deals in Austin, some infill condo developments and kind of you know, got to see the business happen, got to see things be built, got to see returns come in and, and I think caught the bug a little bit. And really it was started looking for creating a little bit more longterm, passive cash-flows which led me into more on the active side, you know, buying duplexes, fourplexes, and ultimately kind of graduating and now we’re buying, you know, call it 200, 300 unit apartment complexes.

Jay Conner (06:07): I got you. So you and your company is totally focused right now on multifamily units, right?

Andrew Campbell (06:17): Right, yes Sir yeah. Austin and San Antonio, our focus is really kind of class B, B plus assets that have some sort of value add component but you know, good assets and good location. And the business plan is to hold them for five to seven years and you know, make everybody real nice return and just fortunate to be from a market that’s growing as fast as Austin’s growing.

Jay Conner (06:42): Well now, just to make sure our audience understands what is a, B, B plus project or property?

Andrew Campbell (06:48): So, you know, most properties, is kind of a subjective, you know, but ABC properties, maybe a D people might have D properties, which I certainly recommend steering clear of, you know, A-class is going to be typically brand new, highly amenitized, you know, might be downtown B class a little bit older, you know, I’d probably say stuff built in the eighties you know, or nineties, early two thousands, even it’s somewhat based on the asset type and somewhat based on the location.

Andrew Campbell (07:17): You know, but I think for us B, B plus, you know, that’s a good grade in school and that’s a good grade in the real estate world, it’s, we’re not trying to get top of the market rents, but we’re also, you know, we’ve got a good professional base of renters, young professionals, teachers nurses, that sort of thing that are, you know, good, good quality folks and looking for, you know, rental property, but you know, kind sort of middle of the market.

Jay Conner (07:42): What would you classify or list are the benefits and investing in multifamily versus single family houses?

Andrew Campbell (07:51): I think efficiency you know, as I started out kind of with some duplexes and fourplexes, you realize the more sort of shared units you have say under one roof you just it’s more efficient. So if your roof goes out on a single family, you know, you’re out $20,000 on an eight unit building, you know, it’s the same $20,000 to replace that roof or to replace that concrete you know parking lot or whatever the system might be. So I think that’s a big one, I also think as you get into larger,

Jay Conner (08:23): So, Scott I’ma need for you to come to the forefront and save the day for a moment because I just lost connection. And I think you all can hear me. I’m gonna sign out and sign right back in. So pick it up, Scott, I’ll be right back.

Scott Paton (08:39): I don’t know if we lost him or not, but continue on Andrew cause you’re live for us.

Andrew Campbell (08:45): Okay. yeah, so, you know, I think they’re just more efficient and, you know, as I saw you get better, I guess better management, as well as something I saw that you can afford and a property is big enough to support onsite management. You get a better quality of manager. You’ve got, you know, one, two, three, four people whose full time job is to oversee and over that, that asset. And also just logistically of us as the asset manager, having one place to go where you’ve got a collection of you know 250 units, I think it’s a little bit more efficient than you know, kind of if you had 250 single family homes, you’re trying to drive around and keep tabs on it’s just a little bit more difficult.

Jay Conner (09:26): Alright, I’m back with you Andrew, Sorry I got bumped up there for a quick second. So you were talking about efficiency and you know you got one roof and you know, it was $20,000 and you know, you got eight units versus, you know versus one unit. So, let’s talk about acquisitions cause you focus a lot on acquisitions in the company, right?

Andrew Campbell (09:45): Yep.

Jay Conner (09:46): Yeah, So how about help us out and understand, what’s your criteria when you’re looking for a deal? What is it that determines what a deal is? And I know that’s a Multifaceted answer to that question, but at least give us the 30,000 foot view on what’s your criteria on whether to buy or not to buy and what are you looking for?

Andrew Campbell (10:10): Yeah, I think the first thing for us is it’s gotta have some sort of value add component. You know, whether that’s an interior renovation play or it’s a land entitlement, but something that you we’re buying an existing asset and there’s a path, a very feasible path forward to increase the value of that asset. And then we’re going to look at location, you know, so we want to be in good locations. We want to be you know, where we don’t want to bet that the city is gonna make a left turn. This is going to be in a good area. You know we’re pretty strict about our rule of being kind of class B neighborhoods. And I think the final thing is just looking at what those investor returns ultimately become. You know, I think our job is very much to sort of pair you know, good interesting real estate plays with investors.

Andrew Campbell (10:54): And it’s gotta be something that we feel like is a good risk adjusted return that’s also competitive and that you’re gonna feel good about, you know, take into your friends and family your investor base. It says, Hey, this is a play that’s gonna double your money in five years or seven years or whatever that business plan is. So it varies a little bit into your point it’s very multifaceted, but it starts with having a good asset with good bones and then a business plan we believe in, and then, you know, is it, do we think it’ll make money?

Jay Conner (11:24): So when it comes to funding these deals obviously your company raises private capital for some of the funding. Do you use some institutional funding? Do you have some owners that will actually sell to you on terms or is it all the above?

Andrew Campbell (11:45): It’s all been kind of private individuals is where we get our funding. We don’t have any bunch of institutional partners. It’s been just relationships and folks that we know and folks that have heard about us that we’ve gotten to know, you know, based on our focal geographic focus, kind of our track record and, you just a lot of recommendations. So it’s, you know, putting those together and really focused on just helping people understand. I think there’s other alternatives out there to investing and you don’t have to you know, you can have a small piece of a large deal and if you like real estate, but you want to be passive that’s kind of been who our investor base is.

Jay Conner (12:26): Alright, So I know it varies, you know, what year are you in? It varies on the project, but what’s a ballpark type of return that your investors can receive these days.

Andrew Campbell (12:41): So we’re kind of on a typically thinking about things on a five or seven year horizon. You know, so again, that it taken advantage of where we’re located in Austin and how much the city’s growing. You know, we’re not looking to do something in 18 months or two years. So on a five to seven year horizon, typically looking for something that’s going to get you sort of a two X or a one eight X multiple on a five year investment. You know, it’s gonna have some cash on cash. I think that’s the advantage of buying an existing asset as we know kind of going in what that’s gonna look like, in Austin right now it’s been really competitive, you know that may be 4% in year one. But you’re going to get some initial cashflow and you know, looking for a total IRR of kind of a low teens maybe 12 to 14% somewhere in there.

Jay Conner (13:28): Say, if you can double your money or somebody can double their money in five years that is a whale of a return right there.

Andrew Campbell (13:37): Yeah, no it is. And I think that’s you know, when you pair the getting some cashflow with some of the appreciation and being you know, the advantage of leverage I mean we’re pretty conservative in our leverage about 68% across our portfolio, but the power of leverage really allows you to get some outsized returns in real estate.

Jay Conner (13:56): Yeah, for sure. So what are the what are some different ways that you can increase the value you know, of a you know multi-family you know, apartment complex property?

Andrew Campbell (14:11): Yeah, the most straightforward is just in improving it, you know, going in, we typically will buy an asset, we’ll rebrand it kind of change the story, update the look and the amenities, update the clubhouse, so it feels like a newer more modern property, and then we’re going to go update the interiors as well. If it’s a deal that was built in the eighties you know, update the cabinetry, knock out some walls, open up the floor plan, modernize it. When you do that, you’re able to raise the rents. You know, maybe you raise them $75 or a hundred dollars. But again, over 200 units, you know, that’s increasing the NOI quite a bit. We’ve also got some strategies, you know, parking, adding covered parking adding private pet yards, you know, or just, if you’re on a first floor unit, you want your own sort of private space for your kids to run around or a grill or anything.

Andrew Campbell (15:01): You can charge 75 to a hundred dollars a month for that. Amenity fees, package lockers. There’s lots of little strategies that you can employ and you know, add to the NOI. And at the end of the day, these deals are I think one big difference with single family is these are valued like businesses. So it’s based on a cap rate in the market. If you can improve the NOI on a property by a hundred thousand dollars, and the cap rate in Austin as a four and a half, or maybe sub, you know, maybe it’s a 4% you’re getting an outsized return on your value of the dollars you’ve spent. So that’s really the name of the game is finding ways to to increase the NOI

Jay Conner (15:39): Is your exit strategy typically to be in a project for five to seven years add value to it and then sell it?

Andrew Campbell (15:46): It is , and I think a lot of that is driven by you know, investors. I mean most investors want to recycle their capital. You know, my personal we’ve got some personal properties and the goal is to own them forever, you know, longterm cash flows but when you partner with investors, people want to recycle that capital. And the hope is they’ll recycle that and potentially might do a 10 31 with those investors but yeah, typically you’re going to sell it in five or seven years.

Jay Conner (16:15): Excellent! So here we are at least in today’s show we’re still in the midst of COVID-19 and the aspects of that. So is now and today still a good time to be investing in melded family with whatever consequences and ramifications of COVID-19 that’s going on.

Andrew Campbell (16:39): Yeah. You know, who knows what the world looks like? It changes by the day. We think it is, you know, and I think couple of reasons our investment thesis has always been you know, people need to live somewhere and offering that kind of B class property you know, It’s a good thing to do you know, people are gonna not pay their car payment, There’s a lot of things you’ll do to make sure you got a roof over your head. We’ve seen collections be very, very strong you know, over 98% across our portfolio since the beginning of cope. And so people have if they can pay their rent they are paying their rent. And so far they’ve been able to do that. I think when you compare it with other asset classes, you know, we feel like multifamily and industrial have been the two asset classes that are outperforming.

Andrew Campbell (17:23): Obviously office is a lot of concern about office space downtown across the country. The office space in the coast is people are kind of leaving the coasts retail, you know, a lot of question marks about how fast, how many of those businesses come back. So, you know, if you look at what your options are and kind of keep cash under your mattress or, you know, you put it in the stock market and kind of, how do you feel about where that’s going to be, or your multifamily it’s always been for us a pretty conservative play and not a business it’s get rich slow. You’re not gonna go we’re not trying to hit, you know, 30% returns on development deals we’re buying existing assets, conservative leverage, and they have good returns. And we think that thesis has held up so far in COVID. And certainly we’ll continue to look for the right opportunities. Obviously you gotta tweak your underwriting and some of your assumptions now with as the market softened some, but it’s still relative to your other options a very strong bet.

Jay Conner (18:23): Yeah. I’ve experienced the same thing here in Eastern North Carolina. We’ve got quite a few people that are purchasing single family homes by using our rent to own program. And we are at 100% collecting all the way through a COVID-19 and, you know, like you just said, a moment ago, people are going to do what they can do. You know, all they can do to keep a roof over their heads. One thing I’ve heard you say Andrew, is that in this line of, in this investment class, if you will, the way you offer people, you know, investing in your business and et cetera, really four ways to get returns. And, you know, you talk about cashflow, appreciation, amortization and depreciation. Can you talk for a minute about what’s the difference between those four and what are those four returns and what they mean?

Andrew Campbell (19:20): Sure, so you know, cashflow is just, it’s pretty simple. It’s kind of the, what’s leftover at the end of the month after we pay all the expenses. And again, a benefit of buying an existing asset, you know, we know how that’s performed, so there’s cashflow and that when we make those distribution to investors, that’s a pretty simple concept appreciation, you know, that’s us benefiting from being in a market that’s growing really quickly. And there’s new people moving here every day, there’s new jobs. So the values go up, you know, I think a lot of people talk about real estate as an inflation hedge, which is another thing, you know in today’s day and age where there’s lot of concern about inflation with the FED and their conversations and real estate, you know, if inflation runs people for paying, you know, tomorrow’s dollars for our assets.

Andrew Campbell (20:09): So it’s a nice hedge there, but that’s just appreciation. It’s the market saying that, you know, your house, you bought it for $200,000 and in five years later, it’s worth $250,000, that’s your appreciation. Depreciation and amortization are kind of based on the leverage and the tax structure. So we’re able to depreciate these assets. We actually had one advantage of large properties, cost segregation. So we can come in you hire an engineering firm and rather than taking a straight line, 27 and a half year depreciation schedule, they break down your property, you know, 200 lines on a spreadsheet and say well, your roof has as a useful value of X years, your appliances, your flooring, your mechanical, et cetera. We can depreciate about 80% of that property in the first five years which lowers your, you get a K1 that shows you, you made little to no money, even though you made got distributions. And then amortization is just us paying down the loan, you know, so every month as we pay our mortgage we own more of the property. And so you kind of combine those four aspects and it makes it’s another big advantage of really any real estate investing. But I think from a passive standpoint you know, what we’re doing multifamily it gets pretty powerful.

Jay Conner (21:26): Last question I’ve got for you Andrew, what are some of your favorite ways? I mean, you’re in acquisitions. What are your, some of your favorite ways to locate these deals?

Andrew Campbell (21:36): You know, we just are inherently focused on relationships, you know, so we’re born and raised in Austin. We’re focused on Austin and San Antonio. And so we pride ourselves on having really good relationships and being very plugged to the community, with the brokers and the other owners. And so we want to hear about every deal that’s coming out and we want to underwrite them and just see where the market’s going and trending. And, you know, we want to get the opportunity to buy stuff off market, which we’ve been successful three or four times, or you know, getting the first phone call if somebody’s gonna get a listing. It’s just been very laser focused on our market and building relationships here at home.

Jay Conner (22:14): I got you. Well, you can’t beat the network, you can’t beat the referrals. So folks you’ve been listening to my special guests today or watching, depending on how you’re tuning in to Andrew Campbell. And so Andrew final thoughts and comments.

Andrew Campbell (22:32): No, It’s been great. You know, I enjoy talking real estate and you know, mentoring people or talking through investing. And so if anybody is interested in reaching out you can see the website here, WildhornCap.com My email’s AndrewWildHornCap.com be more than happy to have a conversation, and I’m kind of a real estate junkie and love to have conversations. So it would be more than happy to reach out to anybody if they were interested in learning more.

Jay Conner (22:58): That’s great! So for those of you that are listening in, let me give you that website specifically it’s www.WildHornCap.com. That’s spelled WildHornCap.com One more time that’s www.WildHornCap.com and you can reach Andrew specifically himself. And that email address again Andrew, correct me if I’m wrong, [email protected]. Is that right?

Andrew Campbell (23:37): That’s right.

Jay Conner (23:38): Alright, Andrew, thank you so much for joining me here with the show today.

Andrew Campbell (23:42): Thanks for having me, I enjoyed it!

Jay Conner (23:44): Alright, very good! Well there you have It folks! Another show Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner. I am Jay Conner, the private money authority wishing you all the best and here’s to taking your real estate investing business to the next level. We’ll see you on the next show, Bye for now.

#Jay Conner #Private Money Lender #Real Estate Business #Real Estate #Real Estate Investing #Real Estate Investor #Real Estate Profit #The Private Money Authority

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2ya2yao · 4 years

Text

The Locker - Heechul (s)

Summary: Heechul is one of your most difficult students, he can be quite a sharp tongue and an idiot, but one night that bothersome feeling can turn into something else.

Pairing: Heechul!student x professor!fem reader AU.

Word count: 2009.

Warnings: oral sex (fem receiving), language and dirty shit as always.

I also support very much his relationship, this is pure fiction, written just for fun. Please don't take it seriously just like all of my fics lol.

The Struggle Masterlist | General masterlist

"I think that's it for today," you spoke, walking between the desks of your students. The classroom was in complete silence as you carried the book in your hands, not really paying attention to it. "Do you have any questions?"

Your gaze traveled to check on the students, some of them looked really lost and it concerned you a little bit inside. However, you felt tired due to work. Sighing after a few seconds, you had no other choice but to let them go since no one raised their hand.

"Alright then, class is over now."

They settled their things and packed up everything on their bags. Quickly, all of them stood up and left the place, just your figure remained in the empty room. Closing the book with a loud sound, you walked over to your desk to check the classroom making sure that no one forgot something.

However, when you made it to the first row, there was this pile of papers on the wooden surface. You knew who sat in here, it was this goofy, arrogant boy. Heechul. The mere though of his name made you shiver and gave you a slight headache at the same time.

He was, by far, the most irritating student you had in your career. He would sit down in front of you, not to pay attention or listen to what you have to say, no. He did it to bother you. He was very popular among everyone, his loud laughter and his stupid remarks in the middle of class were also common from him.

Not only with you, but with a lot of professors on the faculty. You were the only one that hadn't threat directly that issue with him, you ignored him all the time, and for sure it was tired, however you knew he wanted and needed attention. So you decided not to give him the benefit, unlike other people.

Coming back to your present, you took the papers in your hand. It was an essay for another subject, and even if you didn't like him, you found yourself leaving the classroom and walked around in direction of the lockers just to give his homework back.

It was late and almost all students left the place to go back to their rooms, some of them still looked for stuff on their lockers or chatting while walking down the halls. At this moment you hated yourself, because you were sure you knew where his locker was located.

You made your way near the meeting room, you saw Heechul there sometimes before going inside the room with your coworkers and professors. His figure was on on the empty hallway, his face covered by the metallic door, his blonde dyed hair unmistakable.

"Heechul, you left this in my classroom."

After hearing his name, the student turned his head, just to hit himself with the door.

"What? I'm sorry- I'm looking for something," he stuttered, closing it. Suppressing a laugh, you looked away from him. He wasn't that brave now, wasn't he.

"This?" you handed him the essay. He was kind of shocked.

"Yes, thank you," he mumbled. He eyed the paper in his hands.

"You don't seem rude at this time of the day, do you?" you remarked. After all he just embarrassed himself in front of you, with no audience to watch or someone else to relay on his mean jokes.

"I get tired sometimes," he said in a low voice, placing his work inside the locker.

"How could you be tired? You don't do anything," you leaned yourself on the locker beside his.

Heechul closed his locker, and his gaze was on yours, but not for too much. Now your arms were crossed, giving him an unconscious view of your cleavage trough your blouse.

"Are you stressed?" you inquired, his eyes moved to his feet and his cheeks blushed a little.

Straightening yourself you cleared your throat, you felt his gaze before. You thought he wasn't going to talk anymore.

"It's almost my last year, and I now I've been everything but a perfect student, but I really want to graduate with a good score," Heechul confessed.

"You can still do it though, just change your attitude and you'll see how things come well."

He let out a slight chuckle. Damn, that fucking laugh of his.

"It's not easy, you know. When you have your friends here, I want to do something to not die of boredom like eighty percent of the time," he said with a grin.

Blinking a couple of times, you sighed. "Well, then I can't help with that. I think you're not understanding."

"I believe you and me don't work with the same philosophy," Heechul replied, now he had his arms crossed on his chest, looking like he had authority over you.

"I'm not obligated to discuss that since you're not going to accept my advise, and I think is stupid," you snapped.

"Well I think you're attractive," Heechul casually said, shrugging.

"What?"

"Now you're deaf?" he teased. His grin appeared once again.

You rolled your eyes. Just when you thought you could have a serious conversation with this fool, now you were done.

"You know what, stop that," upset, you turned around to leave, but he grabbed your hand to stop you.

"No, no, I'm sorry," quickly he stepped in front of you. Apologizing two times now was a record.

"You're fucking asshole, move."

"No, listen I'm sorry-"

"I don't fucking care you're my student, move or I'll move you," you fumed.

The blonde haired stood there, he gulped. He never saw you this upset and swearing at him, at no one. He was surprised. But it was more surprising when he just closed the gap between you two and pressed his lips against yours.

You let out a short gasp, his hand found the back of your neck to deepen the kiss, which you gladly accepted. You didn't know why you followed him, but he was a great kisser. His tongue explored your mouth, and the kiss was heating up quickly.

You broke up the kiss and guided him to the meeting room. It was open, you locked the door behind your back and rapidly Heechul found his way back to your lips, devouring them with fervor, pressing your body against the door. His large hands roamed over your figure, unbuttoning your blouse.

A moan came from your lips when his mouth went down on your neck and your collarbone, to stop at the top of your breasts. You left your blouse somewhere on the place, and he helped you to take off your bra as well.

"I've been stressed, you're right," he panted, going back to lick and suck on your neck slowly. "I hope you can help me out."

You chuckled. "I'm half naked, don't expect me to stop right here."

"Good."

His mouth then moved to play with your breasts, squeezing them with his hand, his tongue making you moan and shiver against his touch. Slowly he knelt down in front of you, creating a trace with his tongue and hands against your body until he reached the hem of your dressing pants, taking them off along with your panties and shoes.

You were exposed to him now, his big eyes looked at you, his breath against your crotch. He teased you, licking on your thighs until he reached your heated core. His mouth devoured you, you could feel his tongue brushing your clit from time to time and all you could do was moan and stand against the door.

Your legs spreaded more for him, and your hand reached his long, soft hair. Moans and curse words were filling the room, and every time he moaned along you could swear you got even wetter just by hearing those sweetie sounds coming from him. His fingers caressed your slit carefully, pulling his mouth away from you.

Heechul looked back to you, he loved the sight of his teacher with eyes shut, panting and moaning because of him. Your hand loosened from his hair and you whimpered when he slided two slim fingers inside you, pumping them in and out at a quick pace. His gaze never left you, and a grin crossed his features every time you clenched your walls against his flesh.

"Fuck," you moaned with eyes closed. "I'm going to cum."

"Yes, come for me," he praised in a low voice. "You look so beautiful like this."

His voice was the last thing to bring you to the edge, releasing yourself around his fingers. He pulled them out and happily licked your juices, humming at the taste. Heechul stood up and took you over the only couch on the place, placing you on his lap. You felt his hard dick against your bare ass.

You helped him to get out of his clothes, his shirt was thrown on the floor and he took off his pants and underwear. When he was done, he took your hips and made you straddle him on the couch. You whimpered when his tip brushed over your core, your hands running on his shoulders and pale chest, until they reached his dick. You stroke him a couple of times before aligning yourself on him.

He groaned at the sensation of filling you up. Slowly you took him all inside until your ass hit his skin. Your eyes closed, you still felt a little sensitive after your first orgasm, but it felt so good. Heechul's hands on your hips guided you to move up and down on top of him. He breathed against your earlobe, moaning and groaning.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, and you rode him faster. One of his hands moved to your bouncing breast, squeezing it and playing with your nipple, your breath and moans hitting his skin when you hid your head on the crook of his neck. You could feel your skin getting sticky and sweaty along with his.

Heechul suddenly thrusted his hips, getting a whimper from you. His movements now made himself deeper inside you, occasionally hitting your sweet spot when your hips met his everytime you went down on him. The grip on your skin was harder, and you clinged into him, your nails marking him for sure.

His fingers traveled down your core and rubbed your clit. You moaned against his skin and felt that known sensation building up on your stomach. He increased the rythm of his thrusts, you gasped out loud as he started to poud into you senseless. A long string of curses and moans left his lips.

Your walls clenched around him and you came for the second time, moaning his name and clinging into him. Heechul's thrusts became erratic and pulled out from you quickly, he gave quick strokes to his lenght and finally released himself on your stomach with a loud groan.

Both of you stayed silent on the room, panting and coming down from your highs. After some minutes you moved off from him and sat down by his side on the couch, looking up at the ceiling. Suddenly, you felt a little guilty. He was your student and this wasn't right, but it felt so good. And being honest, you wouldn't want it to end.

The fabric running in your skin surprised you, Heechul was helping you to clean his mess and soon when he was done, the piece made it to the trash can. You stood up to look for your clothes.

"I'm not going to say anything," he said, getting dressed. You gazed at him putting your underwear on. "If that's what you think."

You stayed silent and he walked towards you with just his pants on. Heechul tried to study your features.

"Did you not like it?"

"Of course I did," you gave him a weak smile. He was standing so close to you, his big beautiful eyes looking at you and pecked your lips.

"Then it'll be our little, dirty secret."

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crescendonot · 3 years

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“ i get no answers, so the question still remains - am i ever gonna see your face again ? “

introducing dali stratford as crescendo !

gday everyone !!! just a little about myself first and foremost, my name’s vic, i’m a 19 year old soon-to-be journalism student, and i’m from australia - now onto the important stuff ! this is miss dali stratford aka crescendo - here’s a couple real quick links to her full app / isolated full bio which i’ll be doing my best to summarise, and also her playlist and pinterest - now, let’s get going !

QUICK STATS !

full name: dali eleanor stratford known as: dali gender & pronouns: cis female & she/her orientation: bisexual biromantic date of birth: april 18, 1984 age: twenty-two hometown: los angeles, california status: deceased

HISTORY !

dali was born the first and only unplanned daughter of jodie stratford, an aspiring costume designer who’d moved to los angeles from middlesbrough against her parents wishes in order to follow her dream. unable to contact her possible father, she decided to raise her alone in the tiny apartment she managed to make into a home.

even though she wasn’t conventionally ‘popular’ in school, she managed to get along with most of the other students, and spent most of her classes just talking to her classmates instead of working - mainly because she genuinely couldn’t do the work. she struggled with reading and writing since day one, but her teachers just sort of wrote her off as a disruption instead of trying to help her out - the root cause was visual dyslexia, but she never got diagnosed.

jodie, instead of forcing her to keep going with work that obviously frustrated and upset her at home, allowed her to relax and focus on her passions - one of which was the music that she’d been raised on. when the rolling stones came through california with the voodoo lounge tour, she managed to scrounge together enough money for them to get tickets, and it ended up being the hands-down best night of her ten-year-old life. october 19, 1994 - the night that she decided that one day, she’d be a musician.

her elementary school hadn’t had the funding needed for music classes, but her middle school did, and for the first time, dali was actually passionate about what she was learning. after experimenting a bit with each instrument, she finally settled on the electric guitar, and even though she couldn’t go off sheet music like everyone else, she dedicated all of her focus to memorising notes and chords through muscle memory. her mother bought her a second-hand guitar ( a 1972 competition fender mustang, orange ) for her eleventh birthday, and literally every spare moment dali had was spent practicing and memorising.

on the night of her first proper performance, doing guitar and backing vocal for her music class group’s rendition of footloose for her school showcase, one of their lead singers dropped out last minute, and so her teacher asked her to fill in. without really thinking, she said yes - and the experience was incredible. before then, she’d only wanted to play music, but from then on, she knew that she would.

forming a band was her biggest priority when she got to highschool - cadenza was an obvious choice, but it took a bit longer for her to properly ask ritenuto to join up. when they got to rehearsing, though, she knew her hesitation had been utterly unwarranted - killer conclusions, she knew for sure, was going to make it big. they were perfect.

she didn’t end up graduating with high enough grades to go to college, but it wasn’t as if she’d been planning on going, so it really wasn’t that big a deal - afterall, it left her with plenty of free time to work, both for money ( having a position as a cleaner at a local stadium ) and on music for the band. when she, cadenza, and ritenuto decided to move into their own place, leaving jodie behind was heartbreaking, and on her final night in their apartment she silently vowed that to make up for all she’d done for her, she’d buy her mother her own house as soon as the band got big.

the next few years of her life were solely dedicated to working, so when they finally got a call from someone at atlas, it was starting to feel like everything was paying off. the gig at club 2000 was more like a tech rehearsal than anything else, so when it went off perfectly, she came out of it feeling as if nothing could go wrong.

and then it did.

coming back felt like stepping onto a final stair that isn’t really there. it was a terrifying experience, but once she got past the shock, dali was just angry. angry at the other driver, sure, but mostly, she was angry at herself for not just sabotaging her future, but getting her two best friends killed. right now, she’s really struggling to move past the fact she’d dead, and is still harbouring a lot of that guilt and anger - moving on isn’t much of a priority, not yet, not until she can somehow make things right.

HEADCANONS !

dali was named after salvador dalí, but if she hadn’t been born a girl, jodie would’ve named her casper, a name that she’d loved since she was a kid - this would have been able to add a slightly ironic note of humour to the whole being-a-ghost situation, but tragically, chance doesn’t care for comedy.

she’d always wanted to get plenty of tattoos, but she ended up dying with just the one - an angry-looking gamecock rooster on the back of her left shoulder, designed by her mother and chosen in honour of her childhood nickname, ‘chook’.

bill & ted’s excellent adventure is the first movie she remembers going to see at a cinema, and it’s still her favourite to this day, though it’s closely followed by baz luhrmann’s romeo + juliet, which also served as her bi awakening.

though she probably could have upgraded at some point, the only guitar she’s ever happily called her own is her old orange fender mustang.

born on the 18th of april, 1984, dali’s an aries sun, sagittarius moon, scorpio rising.

when she first decided she wanted to be part of a band when she was a kid, she was absolutely set on the name ‘the billy goats gruff’, and though she did eventually change her mind, one of her favourite jackets did have an angry-looking goat patch on it in honour of what could have been.

jodie had a policy of total honesty while raising her daughter, so dali grew to be a very honest person - occasionally, brutally so. because of this, she never really had a need to hide her feelings, either from others or herself, so with only a minute few exceptions, she’s pretty no holds barred about how she’s feeling. though her honesty can make her very harsh at times, it also gives her a certain earnesty when she says how much she loves those around her.

when she was alive, dali was a genuinely good cook - she’d often have to make dinner for herself and her mother since jodie would work pretty late a lot of the time, and i like to think she would’ve cooked for the band when they got their own place.

tall queen at 5′10″

big on the warm colours - reds, oranges, yellows, give her all of it. in terms of her fashion in general, she’s pretty much incapable of going monochrome, and always liked to spice things like her jackets up with a decent few patches.

she doesn’t know who her father is, but with jodie being the incredible mother she was, she never really felt like she was missing anything. as of yet, she hasn’t been able to try and find out what happened to her mother.

dali’s favourite genre is, obviously, rock, with some of her favourite bands being ac/dc, squeeze, the rolling stones, and queen ( to name a few ) but she’s not opposed to a bit of pop - abba holds a special place in her heart, and if she’d lived four more years she would’ve been a huge fan of mika when he took off in 2009.

she’s always been a huge people person - whenever the band performed, she was literally incapable of not bantering with the audience at least a tiny bit.

#♫ / crescendo — about !#phqs.intro #tw death #THIS IS SO WORDY whoops im so sorry i just love my girl !!#proofread a few times but sorry if i missed any misspellings/grammar fuckups #anyway the main point im trying to get across is stan jodie stratford <333

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tungtuoitan-blog · 3 years

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Title: ENGLISH SPEECH | ELLEN DEGENERES: Be True To Yourself (English Subtitles)

Channel: English Speeches

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDth6cv5raI

Thank you, President Cowan, Mrs. President Cowen; distinguished guests, undistinguished

guests, you know who you are, honored faculty and creepy Spanish teacher.

And thank you to all the graduating class of 2009, I realize most of you are hungover

and have splitting headaches and haven’t slept since Fat Tuesday, but you can’t graduate

’til I finish, so listen up.

When I was asked to make the commencement speech, I immediately said yes.

Then I went to look up what commencement meant which would have been easy if I had a dictionary,

but most of the books in our house are Portia’s, and they’re all written in Australian.

So I had to break the word down myself, to find out the meaning.

Commencement: common, and cement, common cement.

You commonly see cement on sidewalks.

Sidewalks have cracks, and if you step on a crack, you break your mother’s back.

So there’s that.

But I’m honored that you’ve asked me here to speak at your common cement.

I thought that you had to be a famous alumnus, alumini, aluminum, alumis; you had to graduate

from this school.

And I didn’t go to college here, and I don’t know if President Cowan knows, I didn’t

go to any college at all, any college.

And I’m not saying you wasted your time, or money, but look at me, I’m a huge celebrity.

Although I did graduate from the school of hard knocks, our mascot was the knockers.

I spent a lot of time here growing up.

My mom worked at Newcomb and I would go there every time I needed to steal something out

of her purse.

But why am I here today?

Clearly not to steal, you’re too far away and I’d never get away with it.

I’m here because of you.

Because I can’t think of a more tenacious, more courageous graduating class.

I mean, look at you all, wearing your robes.

Usually when you’re wearing a robe at 10 in the morning, it means you’ve given up.

I’m here because I love New Orleans.

I was born and raised here, I spent my formative years here, and like you, while I was living

here I only did laundry six times.

When I finished school, I was completely lost and by school, I mean middle school, but I

went ahead and finished high school anyway.

And I really, I had no ambition; I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

I did everything from: I shucked oysters, I was a hostess, I was a bartender, I was

a waitress, I painted houses, I sold vacuum cleaners; I had no idea and I thought I’d

just finally settle in some job and I would make enough money to pay my rent, maybe have

basic cable, maybe not, I didn’t really have a plan, my point is that, by the time

I was your age, I really thought I knew who I was but I had no idea.

Like for example, when I was your age, I was dating men.

So what I’m saying is, when you’re older, most of you will be gay.

Anyone writing this stuff down?

Parents?

Anyway, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and the way I ended up on this

path was from a very tragic event.

I was maybe nineteen, and my girlfriend at the time was killed in a car accident.

And I passed the accident, and I didn’t know it was her and I kept going and I found

out shortly after that, it was her.

And I was living in a basement apartment; I had no money; I had no heat, no air, I had

a mattress on the floor and the apartment was infested with fleas.

And I was soul-searching, I was like, why is she suddenly gone, and there are fleas

here?

I don’t understand, there must be a purpose and wouldn’t it be so convenient if we could

pick up the phone and call God and ask these questions.

And I started writing and what poured out of me was an imaginary conversation with God,

which was one-sided and I finished writing it and I looked at it and I said to myself,

and I hadn’t even been doing stand-up, ever, there was no club in town.

I said, “I’m going do this on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson” at the time he

was the king “and I’m going to be the first woman in the history of the show to

be called over to sit down.” and several years later, I was the first woman in the

history of the show, and only woman in the history of the show to sit down, because of

that phone conversation with God that I wrote.

And I started this path of stand-up and it was successful and it was great but it was

hard because I was trying to please everybody and I had this secret that I was keeping,

that I was gay.

And I thought if people found out they wouldn’t like me, they wouldn’t laugh at me.

Then my career turned into, I got my own sitcom, and that was very successful, another level

of success.

And I thought, what if they find out I’m gay, then they’ll never watch, and this

was a long time ago, this was when we just had white presidents but anyway, this was

back many years ago and I finally decided that I was living with so much shame, and

so much fear, that I just couldn’t live that way anymore and I decided to come out

and make it creative.

And my character would come out at the same time, and it wasn’t to make a political

statement, it wasn’t to do anything other than to free myself up from this heaviness

that I was carrying around, and I just wanted to be honest.

And I thought, “What’s the worst that could happen?

I can lose my career”.

I did.

I lost my career.

The show was cancelled after six years without even telling me; I read it in the paper.

The phone didn’t ring for three years.

I had no offers.

Nobody wanted to touch me at all.

Yet, I was getting letters from kids that almost committed suicide, but didn’t because

of what I did.

And I realized that I had a purpose.

And it wasn’t just about me and it wasn’t about celebrity, but I felt like I was being

punished and it was a bad time, I was angry, I was sad, and then I was offered a talk show.

And the people that offered me the talk show tried to sell it.

And most stations didn’t want to pick it up.

Most people didn’t want to buy it because they thought nobody would watch me.

Really, when I look back on it, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I mean, it was so important for me to lose everything because I found out what the most

important thing is, is to be true to yourself.

Ultimately, that’s what’s gotten me to this place.

I don’t live in fear, I’m free; I have no secrets and I know I’ll always be ok,

because no matter what, I know who I am.

So, in conclusion, when I was younger I thought success was something different.

I thought when I grow up, I want to be famous.

I want to be a star.

I want to be in movies.

When I grow up I want to see the world, drive nice cars, I want to have groupies.

To quote the Pussycat Dolls.

How many people thought it was “boobies”, by the way?

It’s not, it’s “groupies”.

But my idea of success is different today.

And as you grow, you’ll realize the definition of success changes.

For many of you, today, success is being able to hold down 20 shots of tequila.

For me, the most important thing in your life is to live your life with integrity and not

to give into peer pressure to try to be something that you’re not, to live your life as an

honest and compassionate person, to contribute in some way.

So to conclude my conclusion, follow your passion, stay true to yourself.

Never follow anyone else’s path, unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost and

you see a path and by all means you should follow that.

Don’t give advice, it will come back and bite you in the ass.

Don’t take anyone’s advice.

So my advice to you is to be true to yourself and everything will be fine.

And I know that a lot of you are concerned about your future, but there’s no need to

worry.

The economy is booming, the job market is wide open, the planet is just fine.

It’s going to be great.

You’ve already survived a hurricane.

What else can happen to you?

And as I mentioned before, some of the most devastating things that happen to you will

teach you the most.

And now you know the right questions to ask in your first job interview.

Like, “Is it above sea level?”

So to conclude my conclusion that I’ve previously concluded, in the common cement speech, I

guess what I’m trying to say is life is like one big Mardi Gras.

But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain, and if they like what they see,

you’ll have more beads than you know what to do with and you’ll be drunk, most of

the time.

So the Katrina class of 2009, I say congratulations and if you don’t remember a thing I said

today, remember this, you’re going to be ok, dum de dumdumdum, just dance.

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purplesurveys · 3 years

Text

1172

survey by pandaphant

Who's your favorite comedian? Sindhu Vee, probably. But that’s only counting the fact that I’ve only seen two of her skits. Out of all the acts I’ve seen, she’s the one who’s made me laugh the loudest so far, though.

Aren't you sick of all the *Are We Alike?* surveys? I’m not sick of them. I just think they’re too easy and fast to take so I like elaborating my answers so that I can still get a little ~reflective~ while taking that kind of survey.

Do you think there's anything you did better, when you were younger? Physical activities. I had a better stamina for jump roping and running when I was younger, and I was also a lot more flexible; I used to be able to bend all the way backwards and also have my toes reach my head while on my stomach.

Would you take the advice you give others? I usually don’t. I find that I’m better at giving advice than actually following through with them.

What did you have for lunch yesterday? I just had my leftover sushi. I didn’t want to eat all 24 that I ordered from the other night in one go, so I saved a little more than half of it for yesterday.

What's one thing that you would change about yourself physically? I’d go for the obvious and have my front teeth straightened, so I can finally stop feeling conscious about it.

What song has made you cry? Life Goes On by BTS.

How would you define success? Accomplishment of something for which I could be proud of myself.

Who was the craziest teacher you've ever had? Ironically, it was my Christianity teacher in grade school. Crazy old man who flipped out and humiliated students who didn’t bring their own box of crayons to school, and he also made me feel sexually violated when I encountered him shortly after my high school graduation.

Do you think the Earth will face an apocalypse one day? I don’t think so.

What's the last thing you got paid to do? Work.

What's the one thing you could eat everyday? Sushi.

What do you hate about yourself? How frugal I can be, especially towards myself. Buy yourself nice things sometimes, @robyn hahahaha

What's your favorite alcoholic drink? Long Island Iced Tea. Or tequila.

Are you hyper today? No, but I was yesterday for Bang Bang Con haha. It was my first BTS event as a new fan and I had so much fun :(

Does Bzoink need an upgrade? I don’t mind what it looks like now. I don’t think they ever changed it ever since I first started visiting the site in 2009 anyway, and I’ve already gotten used to the layout. It’s easy enough to navigate.

Do you have a Millsberry account? No. I’m not sure I even know what that is.

Do you have a Neopets account? I didn’t, but I had an offline Neopets game on one of my old phones that I liked to play as a kid.

What's your life philosophy? I don’t really follow a specific one and let it serve as a guide all my actions. I just do whatever I think is right and what would help both me and the people around me.

What was the last thing you talked to your friends about? Angela and I were just talking about BTS lol. She was the one who reeled me in :((

If you are interested in going out with someone, what do you do? I simply like staying physically close to them and doing nice things for them. I’m not very expressive when it comes to this; I just let my actions speak for themselves.

Do you ever go to the beach? Yeah, of course. I love the beach. I’ve been aching for a trip for well over a year.

Would you rather have a cup of coffee, tea, or hot chocolate? Coffee.

How's your hair looking right now? I washed it last night, so it looks okay.

What's something your mother always says? Well these days, she always reminds us to spray alcohol and disinfectant spray every time a delivery for someone in the family arrives. Which is an understandable thing to nag us about.

What's something your dad always says? He doesn’t really have a catchphrase, though these days he does like sharing about the funny or educational videos he’s been seeing on TikTok.

What's your favorite thing to wear? Tank tops or airy oversized shirts.

Have you ever had a near-death experience? Nope.

What do you order at Starbucks? Grande iced caramel macchiato + whatever pastry they have that I happen to be in the mood for.

What kind of exercise do you enjoy? Taking a walk with my dogs.

What's the worst injury you've ever had, and what was it from? The infection/wound I got from when I went snorkeling without flippers and ended up grazing my left foot against coral reefs one too many times.

Do you still have any of your childhood toys? If so, what? Nope, my mom threw them all out as I grew up and when we moved in to our current house.

Did you have a Precious Moments colouring book? No, I’m also not sure what that is.

Don't you miss being 13? No, puberty wasn’t exactly a fun time as there was a lot of emotional turmoil happening.

How'd you react to receiving your very first pimple? I didn’t keep a journal entry or anything from that day but I would imagine I was surprised and horrified.

Are you spoiled? Only when it’s deserved. My parents have stopped buying things for me since I now earn for myself, but back when I was younger I will say I was the most pampered out of us siblings. That said, I still made sure I worked hard for whatever it is I was asking from them, like promising them straight As for a quarter or semester in class.

What's your favorite day of the week? Friday.

What room of your house do you spend the most time in? My own. I’m back to working there again since I’ve started to find the dining room noisy.

Do you believe in the death penalty? Only for extreme offenses.

Do you have MSN, Yahoo, or Skype? I don’t have accounts on any of these.

What is your biggest turn-on? Continued from...sometime last weekend? I think? Thighs or fingers.

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be? I’d rather be in a not-stuck-in-a-pandemic world altogether, to be honest.

Do you ever have any problems just *moving on*? At first, because I hate change and try to resist it as much as I can. Assessing myself in the last few months though, it looks like I’m much better at moving on with my life as I thought.

Do you collect anything? I collect BTS merch now...my collection is gradually getting bigger hahaha. I currently have all 7 of their Cold Brew Lattes, then I recently placed an order for their most recent album. Once I finish all the coffee I’ll move on to the Hot Brew ones, then I plan to buy 1-2 albums per month until I complete my collection, then move on to the DVDs, magazines, and other novelty merch. ZERO REGRETS

If you saw a shooting star, what would you wish on it? Sustained happiness.

Do you like rollercoasters? I’ve never ridden one and I don’t plan to.

What's the most romantic thing you've ever done for someone else? Get them a customized locket/necklace. Either that or make a video compiling greetings and photos with friends when I had no clue how to edit videos and had to learn from scratch.

How do you celebrate Halloween? I don’t strictly observe it, but when I do it’s usually because someone else organizes a party for it. Last year my company had a Halloween party, then the year before that Rita’s sister invited us to their college party, etc.

Who is your favorite villain? Gus Fring from Breaking Bad.

Do you have a favorite coloring book artist? I have a couple of Steve McDonald coloring books; I like his works because they’re gigantic and yet super detailed. Keeps me occupied (if I ever do color) :)

How many pairs of shoes do you own? Idk, I think around 10 would be a safe guess.

Have you ever wanted to model? I did, back in middle school. That was when VSFS was still a thing and I had wanted to be like those girls lol.

When you want to unwind, how do you relax? Light up a scented candle, take surveys, and, lately, watch whatever BTS content I feel like consuming hehe.

How do you react when someone you know's having a freak out? Try to calm them down as best as I can and make sure they aren’t hurting themselves.

Have you ever seen someone have a seizure? No.

Do you have a phobia? Cockroaches and any sharp points.

Who is your hero? I don’t have one.

If you were to commit a crime, what would it be? No thanks.

Have you ever used drugs? Nothing beyond caffeine, nicotine, pills I take for headaches.

How would you define what you want out of life? Self-satisfaction, I guess.

What's your favorite car? A Mini Countryman.

#survey #surveys

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funkyfreshramblings · 3 years

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A Story Twenty Years in the Making

CW: Swearing, sex, transphobia (Look, I'm not proud of who I was).

Shortly after I was born, a cousin of mine was as well. My mother took me to a store where she looked to buy a dress for her new niece to celebrate her birth. A woman stopped and looked at my mother, baby Devon in the stroller, dress in her hand, and curiously spoke up.

"Excuse me miss, but you know that you have a boy, right?" The woman shopping, presumably for her own daughter, had said to my mother.

"Of course I know I have a son. What about it?" My mother said in response.

"Well, that's a dress you're holding. Why would you be buying that for your son?" The woman puzzled.

My mother, quick as a whip and smarter than most people I know today, responded without a second thought.

"I'm letting him experiment with his sexuality."

---

At twelve (12) years old, I became aware of this really weird website. You see, everyone was talking about it, a schoolyard rumour we didn't dare to talk about in front of the teachers. The mythical status of this website was nothing to scoff at, students would huddle around and talk about their findings. It was like an ARG, a new puzzle added every day. The school was rife with these conversations, and everyone was hooked.

I'm of course talking about Pornhub.

Obligatory "don't go on Pornhub unless you're the legal viewing age in your country" aside (even though I'm aware those warnings stop nobody), I too became a curious mind. One day, when my parents had slipped out of the house and I was alone, I pulled it up on my computer upstairs. What I say fascinated me, women and men having sex.

Sex. Woah. Penises, vaginas, anuses. There was everything on this website. Everything. Including this one tab which I didn't dare click.

This one category had what appears to be two men on it. I assumed it was two men, after all neither of them had pronounced breasts like all the women had. And the title of the category? Gay. 'What the fuck does that mean?' twelve-year-old (12) me thought. I ignored it, thought it was weird, and continued on.

In the back of my mind, I was curious. A few weeks after watching straight porn and being mostly repulsed by how awful the women screamed in those videos, I tried it. I clicked on the category tab and was immediately hit with my first exposure to the gay community.

'Twink? Bear? Fisting? Now that's nasty.' I was curiously disgusted but clicked on anyways. "Twinks" looked cute, so I clicked there. Wait, cute? Did I really think these guys were cute? Like I thought my girlfriend was cute?

The video was, simply put, less aggressive than straight porn. Holy shit was straight porn aggressive. It terrified me how much those women screamed like the men were killing them by inserting their penises too far into their bodies. But gay porn looked softer. It was sweeter, with more love. After all, sex is about love, right? Forgive my younger self, you see. He clearly did not understand that nothing in porn is about love. But hey, when working with a half deck, you have to make the cards work.

So I watched gay porn over straight porn. That doesn't mean I'm gay! But wait, if gay porn is between two men, what is porn between a woman and a man. What's porn between two women? Never mind, I'm not that curious about two women together.

A quick Google search sent me down the most soul-searching adventure I'd ever partake in. At least, up until this point.

I soon learned what gay meant, what straight meant, what lesbian meant. You mean boys liking other boys was normal? Girls can like other girls? Wait, you can like boys and girls?

Oh, wait, you can also not be sexually attracted to anyone.

Asexual was a term I first read those years ago, and I soon thought that it described me. See, up until this point, women never interested me sexually. I was twelve (12). Sex really never crossed my mind, even when it was supposed to. But I was watching porn, I thought!

Doesn't matter. I didn't want to be part of those acts. That's what made me ace, I thought.

My lord was I wrong. (Not about ace people, but about my identity. This is where things get juicy. And chuddy.)

---

Okay, so cut to two years later. I'm fourteen (14), in grade ten (10) during Art class. One of my friends sat beside me, my ex across from me, and I hated Art class. Why'd I taken this god-awful course again? Regardless, as I sat there and thought, I thought about my bullying up until high school.

I filled out as a kid. I mean that literally, I grew tall and wide really quickly. No one fucked with me when I was in high school. No one wanted to, and I faded to the background.

But in elementary school, I was the new kid. Backing up to 2009, eight-year-old (8) Devon moved. I would celebrate my ninth (9th) birthday in a class where no one knew me or no one cared. Well, that's not true. One kid cared. Bless that kid. Regardless, 9-year-old (9) me had a target on his back. A big one, and it quickly meant I was being bullied.

My mother is terrifying. I use bold there because I don't think italics can describe just how terrifying mama-bear is when she's angry. After finding out that I was being bullied, she pulled into the school and chewed out the principal. And the parents. And the kids. Hell hath no fury like a mother who went through the shit mine did. So quickly the bullying died down.

Stopped? No, but quieted. My new friends surrounded me in a wonderful bubble of love, but that didn't mean they also didn't pick on me. The most common insult? Gay.

Gay? Like, porn gay? No no no, I said. I'm not gay.

Cut back to 14-year-old (14) me, thinking throughout Art class. I swear Ms. Taylor had it out for me. Oh, right, gay.

'Holy shit.' I thought.

'Wait. They're right, I'm gay. I like men. Holy shit I really like men. Men are hot, and I want to be with one so bad. But I live in this crap town of conservatives (my parents taught me right, conservatives are some of the shittiest people on the planet after all).'

Okay, so I'm gay. I figured that out at the very least! Now I have to tell people.

Oh. Fuck. I have to tell people.

Coming out. Hell, as I like to call it. First to my friends. My friends would understand, after all, I had a pansexual friend. What the fuck does pansexual mean? Never mind that Devon, focus on your own damn self for a second.

Oh. My. God. I have to tell people.

I pulled up my big boy pants and blurted out in the middle of class...

Nothing. What did you expect?

I waited 'till the next morning. That made sense.

---

"Hi, Sierrah!" I said to my colourful friend. Her hair was always a different colour every month and still is. I wish I had half the hair strength she must have.

"Hey, Devon!" She said, blue backpack on her back, meeting up with me to walk to school in the morning.

"I have something to tell you. I'm gay." She looked at me and squealed before wrapping me in a big hug.

"I'm so proud of you!" Okay, one down. A lot more to go.

My best friend in high school used to be someone who I absolutely despised. We bonded over our shared dislike of our shared ex. We became really close. Telling him was pretty easy. Okay, two down.

Remember that girl I sat beside during Art? Not my ex, the one I bonded with my best friend over disliking, I meant the girl sitting beside me. Well, let me tell you.

No one can give me a reception nearly half as good as what she did when I told her.

"Sara, I'm gay," I said. Less than five (5) seconds later, my face was buried in the tits of Sara. That was... fun. Not sexual in the slightest, it was fun. She was warm, and she loved me. I could tell that as a friend, Sara would become the most important person in my life. Thank you, Sara. Should you ever read this.

I hope someone reads this.

Anyone?

Moving on, I eventually told all my friends that day. None of them gave a shit! Cool!

My parents.

Oh no. My parents were next.

I'm skipping that part, it's no longer relevant.

Sorry. (Not sorry in the slightest.)

---

So I graduated the gay kid of 2018. Yay! Seventeen-year-old (17) me made it to grad!

But before I did, I need to preface this part of the story. I was, unfortunately, a fan of Soygon of Asskad. And Blairina Weiss.

Shame. Shame. Shame. Not a day goes by where I'm not sorry for my actions during this period of my life. I am so profusely sorry for the racism and transphobia I perpetuated during this period of my life. I was even homophobic. God damn it, Devon, what the fuck are you doing?

I am now a proud socialist. University helped. So did Vaush, and BadBunny (who's chat might be reading this. Henlo Nicole! Henlo chat!).

Scream at me about Vaush later.

Okay, where was I? Right, grad. University applications.

I made it into the University of Toronto Mississauga. Canada's best university. One of the best universities in the world. Holy shit, I should be more proud of myself for that. I am proud. I made it there, and as I write this, I'm on my last year.

Here's to me becoming a med student soon, I hope!

So school happened. I went to school as a shy gay kid with undiagnosed anxiety problems. That wouldn't last, and soon my anxiety was written in the prescriptions I was handed over the counter for Lexapro. This is where I met my first friend from university.

He will remain unnamed for legal reasons.

He introduced me to one of the most beautiful men I've met to this date.

S. (Name redacted for reasons you need not know. Not legal reasons. Personal ones. Please respect this decision.)

Woah, was this guy just... hot. He was an athlete, no way he'd like me. He probably also sleeps around, and I don't want that.

Boy was I wrong. I soon found out that S was very much into me. I was someone's crush. Wow!

That eventually turned into a... relationship. You get the gist. Affirmation.

I was very, very gay. S helped me understand that I was very very gay.

Okay, so eighteen-year-old (18) Devon was gay. That was very clear.

So that's the end of the story, right?

No.

We just crossed the halfway point.

---

Cut to twenty (20). I am gay, an active chatter in BadBunny's (Twitch streamer, not singer) discord, and really really confused.

See, progressive streamers like BadBunny typically have features to add yourself to a role on Discord that would tell everyone your pronouns when they clicked on your profile. This is a really good way to affirm pronouns of everyone, so I'm down.

Well, I do have one problem. Any/all isn't listed here. Wait.

Wait...

Any? All?

Why do I feel like this?

I'm cis. Let me make that clear. I am cisgendered. I identify as a man, I was born a man, and I think I will always be a man. I think.

But I know pronouns don't necessarily tell you someone's gender. They is a really popular pronoun for all sorts of non-binary identities, all of which are different from each other. So pronouns do not equal gender.

Can I really use they/them, she/her, he/him, fae/faer, fawn/fawn, etc/etc. all while being cis? I think so, let's try it! I don't know how to describe my gender, all I know is I'm apathetic to my pronouns.

Cut to a TikTok video. I learned my fucking gender identity from a TikTok video. This is why representation is important.

"Gender Apathy" we're the words coming from this person's mouth. She? He? Them? Didn't matter, they didn't care. I didn't care.

We didn't care.

Holy fuck.

---

Google has been a really important resource for me as an academic student. Wikipedia articles affirm my suspicions before I move onto Google Scholar to look up articles.

I'm fucking kidding.

Fuck Google Scholar.

But Google did introduce me to the world of fandom wikis.

Is gender wiki a thing? LGBTQ+ wiki?

As it turns out, it is.

Gender Apathy is an article there, as well as many many other identities. If you're question, do some keyword searches. You'll never know what you find.

Anyways, Gender Apathy. Cisapathetic, which I kind of interpret as someone who identifies as cisgender but doesn't really care? I guess? This is all still confusing, but whatever. Cisapathetic.

I quickly shared this with all my friends. I found something new out!

But we aren't done yet.

---

Cut to a little while later. It's Pride month, 2021. This month, if you happen to read this as soon as it goes up! Someone on TikTok is making Pride moths.

Fucking TikTok.

Moths were, at one point, a really popular meme online. Lämp. Gen Z humour will be the end of us all.

So naturally, people found a love for moths. Great, that's lead us to this point. I notice during these videos that these moths are pretty. I want one, or rather, two.

I want the modern Pride moth. The trans flag and a black and brown stripe were included on this modern Pride flag to signal that BIPOC are central to Pride, and need to be celebrated and that our trans friends need our help. Need our platform. Need our rights too.

And I wanted the Gender Apathetic moth. After all, it was something new I discovered! Well, I noticed something in the comments while I was requesting a Gender Apathetic moth from this creator (they were open to suggestions, so please don't heckle me about it). One commenter said the words "are you doing a Neptunic/Uranic/Saturnic moth as well?" What the hell are those?

To the LGBTA wiki!

Neptunic is described as a sexuality "attracted to women, feminine non-binary people and neutral non-binary people."

Saturnic is described as a sexuality "attracted to androgynous aligned non-binary people."

Uranic is the one I'm really curious about then. I'm attracted to men, after all. Uranic is described as a sexuality "attracted to men, masculine non-binary people and neutral non-binary people."

Woah.

So let me back up a little bit.

When I had access to Twitter (they suspended me for defending my sexuality from someone who was saying gay men all have AIDS, so thanks Twitter) I once made a thread talking about how I didn't feel comfortable with calling myself gay.

"But Devon," I hear you say, "the whole first half of this story was dedicated to you realizing you were gay! How can you say that after wasting so much of our fucken' time?"

Give me a minute, dear reader. Let me explain what I said in this thread.

As I type this out, I recognize the transphobia I had against trans-men even while typing out that thread. I want to say, right here, right now, that my sexuality is trans-inclusive. Men with vaginas are still men. I am still very much attracted to men with vaginas. But this thread still falls on transphobic remarks. Once again, I profusely apologize for my past. I am currently working towards being a better person to my trans friends, both online and offline. I am doing my best to be better. I love you all, and I thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this.

Oh, and U of T, if you're reading this, before you even think about kicking me out for admitting my previous bigotry, I urge you to think about your staff first. Jordan Peterson still has a job and makes the campus trans-exclusive as he continues to teach. Catch yourself before you come for me, a student doing his best to be better.

Okay, so back to the Twitter thread.

I essentially said something along the lines of this:

I really struggle with calling myself gay when in reality, I'm only attracted to people with penises, and who lack vaginas and breasts. I would have sex with non-binary people who have penises. So am I really just "gay?"

But in a lot more words. Before I continue, I want to take the time to explain how this comment is transphobic, and why I am sorry and why I want to explain that I no longer feel this way. Okay? So, here's the short of it:

I go by the term gay, but by saying I'm explicitly only attracted to people with penises while liking men, I was indirectly making the point that trans-men are not men if they too do not have penises.

This is not true. Trans men are men, and I have come to realize my attraction for trans men as well, despite genitalia. My sexuality encompasses men of all kinds, and non-binary people who are masculine aligned or neutrally aligned. Once again, I can only apologize and do better.

I am sorry for my previous transphobia. I hope I can make it better by acknowledging it and doing my best to avoid these implications ever again.

Okay, now that we have all of that out of the way, let's talk Uranic again.

Uranic really does describe me. I feel it in every bone of my body, that I really do find myself sexually attracted to even non-binary people.

So, gay is out, uranic is in.

Where does that leave me today?

---

When I started this post, I explained how I was a cisgendered gay man who was a liberal who almost fell down the alt-right pipeline. But as I type this post, not only has my identity evolved, but so has my political ideology. I am a cisapathetic, uranic man who still uses the term gay in casual conversation because it's easier even though it doesn't really describe me, socialist.

BadBunny/Nicole, chat, if you're reading this, thank you. You helped me a ton in discovering socialism and to reject ideas of capitalism that only serve to continue the systematic racism against black people, the systematic transphobia that kills trans people, and even the systematic homophobia I face as a "gay" man.

Wow, that was long. Really long. If you made it this far, give yourself a pat on the back. You just read the life history of a twenty-year-old (20) and how he came to understand his identity.

I love you all.

Signed,

Devon.

FunkyFreshHomo on Discord.

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werezmastarbucks · 4 years

Text

Whitmore Guy and the eternal studs

Part One Part Two Part Three Part Four Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

word count: 3158

warnings: language

As summer exams were approaching, the pressure on the students of Whitmore grew immensely. And Y/N was the one who felt it clearest of all. Each student, whether depressed, or just stressed, felt only their own weight pulling them down. Y/N had to be the anchor for all of them at once.

In the incredible fuss of early June she didn’t notice that a bunch of young people were very behind in their studies. When she finished filing out all of their graduate papers and closing documents for their rented apartments, she realized at least twenty people from the whole Whitmore did not show up for their preliminary sessions in the end of May. Three of them were missing, and the police already knew about it. A week later, after Damon had finally submitted the heads to the Mystic Falls sheriff, their identities were confirmed, and the college had a big wake for them. Their names were Sheila Bent, Christopher Harris and Taylor Whitaker. Y/N remembered them from her everyday work, and they weren’t unusual; all three, like the rest of the bodies dragged to Damon’s lawn, were Mystic Falls residents. Rebekah left the town for some time, led away by Klaus. Of course, her brother was defensive of her, aggressive, even, however, the pressure of the surviving town, the main core specifically, made it uneasy for him. Y/N was honestly baffled by how him being in love with Caroline changed his attitude. How easy it is to break you, and to manipulate you, when you’re into somebody. And how nasty it is, when this somebody is not entirely on your side.

The rest of the students, who were now in the danger of getting kicked from the college, swarmed her office for the whole first half of June; pleading, begging, crying hysterically, and throwing tantrums. Yesterdays’ mature young people transformed in an almost inexplicable way. There were some athletes among them; there was a brilliant science student Alana May, whom Y/N always liked for her reasonable attitude. All of them changed into these whining kids who did not know what to do now, that they spent half a month somewhere, and couldn’t cope with their deadlines. The situation got thousand times weirder after Y/N found that they all said one and the same thing when asked what the hell they’d been doing.

They said, we were having a party. Fifteen people from different faculties, studying different things, who have never been seen before, of different age and interests, were all having party for at least two weeks, all together.

It was Damon’s birthday, and he could not wish for anything better than investigating the college drama. Although, Y/N did not call it a drama specifically; she said it was more of a sinister mystery. Damon strongly advised her not to contact the failing students again before he gets his head in. When people go missing and then return, having completely changed their behavior, there can only be one explanation, that is – in his world. They’ve been turned.

“Ah-what?!” she yelled.

“When did they come in?” Damon asked knowingly.

“All at a different time – but in the working hours. Which are during the day”.

“Did you look for the lapis lazuli?”

“No, I did not. I’ve been more busy trying to calm down four people at a time. I don’t even have lunch these days, I have so much work”.

“God, the IT guy must miss you”.

Y/N snorted bitterly.

“Joke’s on you, Damon. He brings me coffee every morning”.

“Ew. Anyway, try something if you see any them. I’ll be there by three. Gather them all in one room and I’ll stake them”.

She pressed her fingers between her eyebrows, trying to pull the migraine out. How is she not screaming at him yet.

“You’re not going to come to Whitmore and stake fifteen people who you think are vampires”.

“I’m pretty damn sure gonna. I have a lot of things to do today”.

“Like what? Buy yourself a cake?”

Damon gasped on the other side of the line.

“What? You’re not getting me cake?”

Of course not, she thought. Cakes are traditionally on Caroline.

“Damon, you gotta have at least a picture of a plan before we do it. It’s your faint assumption. Maybe it’s something worse. Or something else. Maybe they joined a cult or something. Maybe they’ve turned into very normal human terrorists”.

“Good thinking, Y/N. Get them all together. By three”.

“Don’t you think it would make more sense to first talk to one of them if you want to check?”

Damon was silent for a moment.

“Yeah, good idea”.

He hung up.

She thought, standing by the window, as she looked out on the parking lot and the football field behind it. Why would Rebekah turn all these people? Was she bitten by the same family craving bug as Klaus once was? In what world all this turning, heads ripping stuff made any sense to her? The summer solstice was getting dangerously close, and Y/N had a bad feeling. There was always a massacre timed to a big cosmic or festive event in this god forsaken town. Every Founder’s Day – someone tries to butcher half of population. And she didn’t even want to remember the Halloween party back in 2009. Or the Perseids night four years ago. Some freak put a bunch of people inside of trees everywhere in the park using magic. They never caught him, of course… those were the weird times, when they failed, once and again, to prevent tragedies. Then it just ended. There were couple of strange cases in Mystic Falls, never solved. The greatest regret of the former sheriff Liz Forbs, before she died, was never solving the case of who killed her father and grandmother.

Thank God she didn’t live to see what happened to Matt.

Y/N decided to find and secure Alana May when Damon comes. She liked her the best, and she had a great hope to save her, if anything as horrible happened to her.

Y/N closed her laptop and left her office, walking to the teacher’s room to see Alaric and involve him a bit. His life has been getting far too boring lately.

She also discovered Mal together with him. The Occult Professor was sitting in his chair, looking into his computer intensely, and Mal clearly did not read the signs of his body – or didn’t want to. Standing right behind his shoulder, he pushed Ric’s back with his stomach, and spoke straight into the poor man’s ear.

“Huh, and then she was like, I don’t really believe that you’re already closing to thirty. I was like, ma’am, just because I’m clean shaven, like any other civilized individual… I mean, you know, not to say anything about your majestic beard, Ric, but I’ve never been able to grow anything like that. There are some people, you know…”

All the while his fingers were working on the keyboard disconnected from his brain completely. Ric’s face expressed misery, and Y/N chuckled, watching them, as she sat down behind someone’s unoccupied desk.

“Hey”, Mal smiled, looking at her briefly.

“Y/N”, Alaric stood up with a swing, almost hitting Mal in the face with his elbow. “I was just thinking about you. I need to talk to you. Can we…”

Mal looked up at them curiously, and a sly smile curled his lips. Half of the time he was pissing Saltzman just for the sake of it.

“Yeah, same”, Y/N gestured, inviting him to leave the room since Mal was working. Together, they stepped out into the corridor, which was sunny, smelled of summer, and stood half empty as it was morning.

“Heavenly God”, the man puffed, looking her in the eyes, “how do you stand that person?”

She was still giggling.

“Serious stuff, Ric. You remember I complained to you about those students who chucked on their studies and were running around on fire?”

A line lay between his eyebrows.

“Uh-huh”.

“Damon thinks they’ve been turned. It’s a bit soon to tell, but when I think about it, it makes sense. They all became like one: impatient, nervous, and very short-tempered. There haven’t been any killings yet… that I know of”.

She looked at him with a question. Saltzman shook his head.

“That’s a morbid picture, if he’s right. You think they’re connected with that massacre at the Salvatore mansion?”

“We don’t know if they are vampires yet. Let’see first. He’s coming over today at three”.

Ric put his palm on Y/N’s shoulder.

“Shall we give him his present then?”

The door opened, and Mal walked into them.

“Aw, my bad. The room’s free, if you want it. Y/N, you wanna grab a beer after work?”

“Not today, Mal”, Y/N watched him tilt his head musingly. “We got uh- a thing to do”.

“Oh, the hybristophiliac police gathering. Got it”.

He looked hurt though. Y/N understood very well what he felt at that moment. There they stood, two very different people, part of her outer world, and part of her inner dimension. Ever since Mal came round, the prose of her life became even more boring. Mal was like leaving your house on a fresh morning. You don’t really wanna do that shit anymore. You want to make lava lamps in his basement, listen to his favorite music, and watch Dr Pepper cans fall out of their slots.

“Not really, it’s…”

Ric was watching them both with mist in his eyes.

“Anyway, let’s do it tomorrow”.

“Whatever. Not like I wanted to tell you something super important. It’ll wait”, he smiled and waved them with his quick ringed hand.

“I’ll go get Alana”, Ric put his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “And you watch out for the rest of them”.

“Uh-huh”, Y/N said, still watching Mal walk away. Cindy/Sandy caught her eye. As he walked past her, the girl followed him with a glance, too, and then turned and looked directly at Y/N. Something was off about that look, more than just a “woah, we’re checking out the same guy”. Y/N brushed it off. Not now. Not fucking now.

“Alright, I’ll get her into your office by three”.

“Call me if something happens”.

All those phrases were rehearsed and vocalized hundreds of times. All that routine was suffocating. Y/N walked back to her place thinking about Cindy/Sandy. Maybe she should check her name after all, to finally memorize it.

Damon was there by two-fifty. At three straight, there was a knock at her door, and Alana, led by Alaric, came into her office. Damon’s eyes were highlighted by the sunlight penetrating through the windows like juice. All pale, with bright turquoise, focused and a bit frustrated already, he moved towards the girl without a word.

Alana didn’t have time to react. The vampire took her by the shoulder, as Alaric snapped the door closed, and looked at her like a doctor with at least a century experience.

Only, Salvatore gaze wasn’t caring or curious. It was examining the depths of Alana’s majestic dark brown eyes with cold concentration, and his hard hand never left the girl’s shoulder. Y/N stood next to her, a kind of a maternal instinct rising in her, to protect her from… whatever.

“What are you now?” Damon asked quietly. Alana was looking at him with confusion on her beautiful face. She eyed the man almost angrily, and then replied,

“I’m Alana. Who are you?”

She looked at Y/N for assistance.

“What’s going on?”

“Look at me”, Damon ordered quietly, but with great significance. Y/N got a glimpse of what attracted her to this individual long time ago; he was a very obvious alpha. He was also extremely irritated all the time, which somehow added to his charm. Maybe she just liked the mean type.

Alana stared at Damon, looking all the more lost, and suddenly he straightened up, his face going a dead mask, jaws clenched.

“She’s been turned”.

“What?” Y/N barked, leaning to the student. Alana was turning her head absently at this point, trying to gain someone’s attention, but afraid to stand up as Damon was towering over her.

“Who turned you?” Y/N asked. Alana looked at her, and her eyes went blank.

“What do you mean? What the fuck is going on here?”

Heating up, the girl tried to get up, but Damon pushed her back down roughly. Y/N took him by the shoulder, and he didn’t fail to catch her hand in his inescapable clutch.

“Look”.

He bared his teeth like a tiger yawning, and bit her wrist in a flash, so fast, Y/N couldn’t feel pain at first. She only felt stinging when the first thick, dark drops of blood started to fill on her skin. She could yell at him later, and roll her eyes, too. She looked down at Alana, whose gaze was now focused on her completely. Suddenly, the girl’s face grimaced in pain, and she pushed herself deeper into the armchair, crying out,

“I can’t! Please”, her mouth opened in horror, long fangs growing out of her gums; a familiar black web of swollen veins evened out under her eyes, but she looked at Y/N.

“Your blood, I can’t take it, I can’t…”

But her thirst was stronger. Shaking and convulsing, Alana jumped out, throwing herself over the armchair, just as Damon wrapped his arms around Y/N. It was all too fast, at the vampire speed which always made everything look like changing pictures. Alana threw herself back, right onto another human: Alaric. He was a bad victim, all with instincts and ready hands that never failed him. Y/N bumped into her desk, moved it with her body, pushed away by Salvatore. Damon wanted to step forward to Alana and pushed away the armchair she’d been sitting in, so hard that it collapsed into the bookcase, breaking the glass and scattering the pieces of it. Alaric was pinned to the door, head tilted down, and Alana was immediately pushed to him. She gave out a groan, all too familiar, for Y/N not to understand.

She balanced herself back to her feet, but it was already too late. Salvatore took the student’s body away from Ric, and, having checked that she was dead, took the stake out.

“Good reflexes”, he nodded, carefully placing Alana on the floor.

“Not her”, Y/N moaned. It was her mistake. She chose her to bring here, to Damon. This death was on her.

Y/N ran her fingers through her hair, thinking. She looked at her bookcase and the glass on the floor. Oh how she could’ve used that beer after work.

“God fucking dammit”, she uttered, taking the armchair and pushing it further, to the window.

“How many are there left?” Damon asked. Y/N thought about them with horror. Right now, there’s a group of young vampires, high on thirst and anxiety, getting their blood devil knew where, scattered around the campus. One of them could be flirting with Mal.

“So, we’re not gonna talk about it?” Alaric walked towards the body and then looked at Y/N. “A newly turned vampire, that’s unable to withstand the call of blood, manages to avoid biting you, because, apparently she’s been compelled. If that’s still Rebekah, then I’m completely confused”.

Damon turned to her and gave her the longest look. Y/N felt like the vampire was staring right into her, down to her every little bone, and a nasty feeling crawled into her brain. There was something to do with her. There was a thought, in the back of her mind, almost on the brink of subconscious, that she pushed away and couldn’t reach anymore. The only sensation left was guilt. Why did she feel guilty, like she was hiding something? Why was Damon staring at her like that? He was the third already, that day.

She was walking across the football field. Thank God they didn’t make her run around the campus and look for the remaining fourteen failing students. She was swinging Alana’s keys between her fingers, looking for her car on the other side of the road. She failed to find it in the parking lot and decided to check in the street. It was a normal thing now, deaths. People died pretty often in Mystic Falls and its suburbia. Weird things, awful things happened there. They knew about it even back in Seattle. So, technically, if you come to study or live here, you claim that you’re ready to take the risks. It just bothered Y/N that deaths didn’t bother her anymore. How much does it take off a person to become jaded? It certainly wasn’t that much for her, and yet, she was calm. She’s just seen one of the best Whitmore students die pointlessly; out of Alaric’s paranoid stake throwing. And all she felt was frustration. The new knot to untie, the whole new bunch of threads to pull on. And what if someone really important gets in the way?

She finally found it, a dark blue Honda. Y/N took it back to the campus, circling the building and stopping it at the back entrance. Damon came out with the body and put it in the trunk.

“Tha-ank you”, he clicked his tongue, taking the keys from her. Ric appeared next to him and looked at Y/N with the same silent question.

“You know, if they all were compelled not to feed on you, you’re going to lure them all by yourself”.

“I won’t be luring anyone”, Y/N protested, “we don’t have to kill them. I’m sick of this… favoritism. Either kill all new vampires, or save them all. Imagine it was Bonnie, who’s been turned yesterday. You wouldn’t have staked her”.

Damon puffed.

“Oh, sweet lord. Don’t tell her that. The idea of being a vampire makes her go suicidal this quick”, he snapped his fingers and got into the car.

“Damon’s going to take care of little Alana” he announced, letting down the window, “and you find the rest of their bunch and assess them”.

Ric’s phone rang. He answered it quickly, lifting his palm as if to say, wait a second. Then he looked at them both:

“Caroline’s asking if we’re still up for tonight, at the Grill”.

“Are we really doing the party?” Y/N inquired, morosely.

Damon hummed like he did when a very bad, murderous idea came to him.

“Make it Craze. And Y/N, let everybody know that there’s a lit party tonight. It’s going to be totally sick or whatever you kids say. Let them all come”, he winked, and started the engine.

“That would be dangerous”, Ric tried to reason with him.

“Young vampires won’t be able to resist an opportunity to party”, Y/N thought out loud. “Loud music, lots of hot blood, and excitement”.

“And piles of dead bodies”, Saltzman noted, watching as Alana’s car sped away from the campus.

#kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #vampire diaries #vampire diaries imagine #damon salvatore #ric saltzman #whitmore guy

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kainumbernine009 · 3 years

Text

I literally cannot do anything else until I get this out.

I’m... really not okay.

And when I say that, I’m not mentally unstable. I say that because I’m tired of waiting on empty promises, I’m tired of never having money in our account, I’m tired of living in a fucking city where half of the white people fucking worship the ground Trump walks on, and where most of the gay community has so much messy drama that it’s worse than middle school. And I went to a rough middle school.

I never talk about my past, because I don’t like to. It sucked. HARD. Being and only child in my family was nothing less than torture, especially as a closeted queer person. We grew up in the white Christian part of Nashville that dominated Music Row in the 90′s and early 2000′s. I played basketball with Alan Jackson’s daughter, and being around famous people was just no big deal. But, my parents decided to leave Nashville after my dad lost his job at TPAC, and we moved down south an hour to the town where the KKK got started (Pulaski, TN).

I had maybe two non-white people in my private Christian school growing up. I was never afraid of Black people, but my parents showed their racist asses quick when we moved there. The KKK has never left America, guys, no matter how many articles you read or studies you do. From 2005 to 2009 I saw a white town show its very worst to the Black community. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a march for “White Christians for Purity” the summer before Obama got elected. The disgust I felt inside was palpable. I had all kinds of friends in school, and I didn’t give TWO SHITS who they were or what they looked like... but I saw children my age, being brainwashed by their parents, that “white” is “right.”

Ever since then, I have been learning and growing about the issues of race. I remember my white classmates using the N word and getting away with it. I remember hearing about the principal at the high school punishing all the Black kids but not the white kids. I remember being invited to a church south of town that was a historically Black church, and how nice the ladies were to me for coming.

But I’ll never forget the racism that the religious groups promoted there, especially First Baptist Church and the 12 Tribes. I’ll never forget how FBC told me that my friend was going to Hell because she killed herself. I’ll never forget my mom telling me not to marry a Black man because of “impure genes.” I WILL NEVER FORGET THE INJUSTICES I SAW WHITE PEOPLE DOING TO BLACK PEOPLE THERE. NEVER.

And thank God, I have shaken the burden of religious guilt, but I still fight against this mentality. I live in a place that’s usually not even 10 minutes away from Trump-humping, sister-fucking, meth-addicted Confederate cunts in any direction. And we’re even closer to the rich white people who silently supported him, upset that their taxes would go up because of Biden.

And in the past four years since Trump got elected, I’ve gotten married, graduated college with honors, started my own photography business, and was making more than my husband there for a minute. I did my own taxes, marketing, editing, and everything. And then I came out as trans.

I lost everything.

I lost my studio. I lost friends. I had rumors started about me. I had people post hate messages on my wall. I had people at my drag shows tell others not to tip me, for whatever fucking reasons. I’ve had bosses give cis people jobs over me, and I’ve had government workers give me second looks when I hand them my license.

It. Fucking. Sucks. To. Live. Here. Like. This.

Oh yeah, did I mention I’m also a witch/medium? I’ve talked to dead people before and have told their relatives things I shouldn’t have known otherwise about their grandparents. Like, this information doesn’t even exist on Google. And I’m attuned to reiki. I’m always aware of what’s happening on at least SOME metaphysical level. This is a gift that I’ve had to go through life developing and learning about myself, with no one’s help but me.

I didn’t even know until I was an adult that I have autism and ADHD.

I’ve taken bullets from people who were about to kill themselves. I’ve yelled at 5th grade music classrooms for doing racist dance moves and appropriating Native Americans (I have a degree in Music Education K-12). I’ve consoled kids in classrooms who suddenly have panic attacks. AND I’ve told horny teenagers to stay in their fucking lane and respect the girls around them. I’ve apparently been an inspiration to those around me, but inspiration NOR exposure pays the bills. I’ve already had COVID, and so has my husband, but I knew that after graduating college that I would never have a fulfilling life being a music teacher in Tennessee’s public schools.

And now that we have COVID, and an orange, small-dicked, pedophilic, rape apologizing, dirty, crusty white president who STILL REFUSES TO CONCEDE, who is DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR HAVING HIS FOLLOWERS SEND DEATH THREATS TO MY FAMILY, I really don’t know what the fuck else to do other than go burn down all the houses I know of in North Georgia that belong to these Christian sex cult pedophiles and call it a day. My girlfriend unfortunately was born into one of those families, and I know just how bad it can get. In fact, her dad’s lawyer threatened me with blackmail earlier in November, so that was fun!

And now, on December 11, 2020, I’m still sitting here in the same fucking house, doing the same fucking things I’ve been doing all year - trying to get a job and failing horribly. I’M SICK AND TIRED OF THIS COVID BULLSHIT AND OUR INCOMPOTENT CUNT OF A PRESIDENT! And there’s only ever one other person I’ve ever called a cunt... my own mother.

I’ve lived in many places. I’ve met many different people. I’ve made mistakes, and have grown, but there’s one thing for damn sure that I always make sure to do, every single fucking day.

I ALWAYS try to do better.

In addition to this, I treat everyone with the same amount of respect, unless they have done something directly to me to negate that. If I know that someone believes in something that directly harms me or my family, I don’t even associate with them. I don’t spend my energy on things that don’t need it. And everyone else should, too.

The problem with some of y’all is that you care about the wrong things. Like will Becky text me back or did I get front row seats to that concert, or did I slave my life away to capitalism just so that I can own a Mercedes and have my friends jealous. I’ve had way too many dear death experiences to know that EVERY single fucking day is a gift. EVERY day.

I don’t want to be remembered first for the art I create. I want to be remembered for my character. I want to be remembered as the courageous person who never backed down in the face of adversity. But when you live in a place that already hates you and that is against you, that’s really fucking hard. Trust me. My marriage went from a cis straight passing couple to a white gay passing couple. I’ve seen how people’s attitudes changed around me as I transitioned. I know what it feels like to slowly lose a piece of your privilege you were born with.

So yeah, I kinda get a little fucking upset when I see people saying All Lives Matter, or when I see doctors refusing to treat trans patients in pandemics, or when I see cops YET AGAIN harassing Black people only a few blocks away from my house for no other reason than racism. And at this point, anyone who thinks they know me but only knows what people think they know about me can suck my entire ass and eat ten dicks. I don’t give a FUCK about who you are or what you’ve done. If you treat me or other people with no respect for no reason other than to be an asshole, you’re just plain shit. If you SERIOUSLY believe every little rumor and lie that someone tells about me before meeting me, fuck you AND the horse you rode in on.

What I can’t stand is people doing or saying things just to get a rise out of me or others. I thought we left petty shit in high school. Some of the people that “know” me really need to fucking grow up and grow a pair and either say what they want to my face, or stay mad. I’m tired of playing fucking petty games with y’all. We have a whole ass pandemic to solve.

So here’s the ultimatum... if you agree that Black Lives Matter and that queer people deserve basic human rights, EVEN THE ONES YOU HATE, then that’s the bare minimum to even be a decent person. If you can’t even do those things, then I don’t fucking know what else to say to you.

So NBC, maybe not have John Mulaney joke about my license debacle with my gold van on SNL, and Seth Meyers... maybe HIRE ME INSTEAD of Mulaney because clearly y’all don’t know about the south as much as I do? Oh, and that gazeebo joke with Lee University... I caught that. I may have autism, but I’m not a fucking idiot. I mean. I’m funny when I’m given the chance. And yeah, I’m on a watchlist, but who the fuck isn’t these days? At least all my secrets are out for the world to see, and I have a bangin’ tattoo.

I’m tired of everyone being like “omg, I’ve seen what he can do, it’s fantastic!” or “omg you’re so funny haha” and bragging on me and then NOT FUCKING HIRING ME. I’m TIRED of waiting on something that’s clearly at this point never coming.

I don’t even have testicles, and my balls are bigger than most of the cis men I have EVER met.

So, if you want to help me, or hire me, or get me out to an audition... I’ll be there. But until then, I’m so fucking MAD at some of these producers. Yeah, my mom is a cunt, but she worked in various forms of digital production from the 1980′s until she retired this year. She taught me SO MUCH about directing, writing, shooting, and more. I know how these things are supposed to run behind the scenes. I know what the fuck I’m doing, and I don’t take constructive criticism like a bitch. I actually WANT to be criticized, so I can do even better.

So PLEASE, for the love of Christ... y’all need to get your priorities together AND PLEASE STOP LEAVING ME OUT OF THE LOOP WITH THIS BULLSHIT. Grow a fucking pair and either call me, email me, or leave me alone. It’s really not that fucking hard. Looking at you, Lorne Michaels.

Oh and someone tell my husband what the fuck’s been going on because I’m tired of him gaslighting me about it.

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lifeisbooksandcats · 3 years

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Since posting on tumblr feels like just screaming into the void; where maybe someone might throw a glance your way to see if maybe you’re both screaming about the same thing, but at the end of the day, no one is really paying attention to you..and I feel like that’s what makes me feel like I can post this. Because it’s not something I can say out loud, not really, not yet. Except to my fiancée because it’s something we’ve talking about for a while. This is going to be long, I’m certain of it, and it’s going to be rambley because I’ve been trying to put my thoughts into words and those words into coherent...anythings...and it just isn’t going to be in any sort of order. I’m not expecting anyone to read it and I’m hoping the read more button actually works on mobile. If not, then I’m sorry, you’ll be scrolling for a while.

I don’t know how valid people feel self-diagnosis is, but I honestly feel like I fall somewhere on the autism spectrum. And that’s something I’ve thought about myself since my first year of college. Someone in a communications class I was taking did a presentation on autism, and throughout the entire thing all I could think was how much everything resonated with me. So that’s, since the fall semester of 2009, this has been something I’ve quietly thought about myself and wondered and honestly just been pretty sure of. That’s 12 years this fall, and I still can’t bring myself to say it?? And I think it’s a good bit because I’ve been asked so many times throughout my life if I’m autistic - by family members, by friends, by a college roommate, by people living on the same floor as me at college - and it’s ALWAYS been (or at least felt like to me) in some sort of negative way. And I don’t want to apologize for being myself, but fuck it’s just hard sometimes???

When I walk into a room, especially one I’m not familiar with, my first instinct is to look for the exits and figure out how I can get out of there if it gets too loud/too hectic/too EVERYTHING and I start to panic. And if I’m in a situation where I can’t leave, I have this little clear stone that I play with in my hand, just something to focus on to help keep me just a little bit calmer. When that doesn’t work, it’s like my mind just...goes. I don’t know how to explain it; physically I’m still there, but mentally...even if I wanted to pay attention to something, I literally could not. It happens the most when there’s too many sounds/voices/conversations happening at once, they all blend together, I can’t understand anything and after a second it feel like it’s all just muffled and I’m not there anymore, I feel so disconnected from my body, like there’s someone else controlling my brain and I’m just there watching. It happened at the zoo just recently, when we went into one of the restaurants for lunch. I was already panicked because of the number of people inside without masks on. From the second we walked in, everything from the number of people inside, to the volume, to the lights being too bright (but looking back, I feel like they were probably an appropriate brightness? It just felt too bright with everything else going on), to the lack of masks, everything was too much. My fiancée and I stood in line with one of our friends, waiting to order our food, and I stood there rocking slightly on my ankles and fidgeting with that little stone, just trying so desperately to calm my internal panic and to not “check out” mentally and to just appear “normal”. I stood there waiting for our food, rocking on my ankles, running my thumb along my fingertips, listening to the conversations all around me merging into one unintelligible mess and on the inside, full on panicking while hoping that from the outside, no one could tell. I got our food, set it on the table, and stepped into the bathroom to wash my hands, the quiet welcoming me like nothing else. I closed my eyes and just stood there, breathing, letting the warm water run over my hands like some kind of magic balm bringing me back down. I opened my eyes again, a woman with a toddler smiled at me like she knew - which made me worry again because it’s not something I want people to know because I don’t want to be different, I don’t want anyone to look at me differently. But at the same time, I do. I want to be able to stand up for myself and say “I literally physically cannot go into this loud, crowded restaurant because I’m autistic and it is so auditorily overwhelming in there.” And maybe that wasn’t even what her smile meant. Because I literally never know how people are feeling and I try to figure it out but honestly 90% of the time it’s just guesswork.

But it’s not just that. It’s not just the panic that sets in when it’s too crowded and the sounds are too much. It’s the fact that as a kid, I was never “just” a fan of something I liked. I either didn’t care, or it was an all-consuming obsession that basically became a personality trait. I was a fan of Aaron Carter, but god forbid anyone ask me a question about his music or anything — because whether or not you were interested (and unless you flat out told me you were uninterested, I literally could not tell), I was going to info-dump everything onto you. I could tell you what time he was born, how many minutes were between him and his twin sister, which concerts his sister Leslie sang at (because she also had a small music career), at what point in his career he actually started singing live instead of lip syncing most of the time...

And speaking of info-dumping. If I couldn’t info dump to someone, I would write it. As a child - second, third, fourth grade...- I wrote essays upon essays on things I was interested in just because I could. Just everything I knew on the topic, thrown out into words either handwritten as a younger kid or typed as I got older. When I was in about fifth or sixth grade, when Harry Potter was HUGE and all my friends were also into Harry Potter, I couldn’t tell everything I knew to my friends because they already knew a lot of it...and so as a kid, maybe a fifth grader, I wrote a six (maybe seven?) page essay - single spaced - with everything I knew about the series/the author/everything. Before the last book came out, I filled an entire spiral bound notebook with my theories for how the series would end and WHY I thought what I thought.

My first NOW That’s What I Call Music CD was Now 14. I was in 7th grade and I could tell you exactly what order the songs were in. That was something I did to calm myself down back then; listing the songs on that album over and over and over again, always in the right order.

From about 7th grade until high school graduation, I brought and ate the exact same thing for lunch every single day. I said it was because I liked it, but I really didn’t. I didn’t like the Oscar Mayer precooked bacon that I would put on my BLT. I didn’t like the texture, half the time I couldn’t bring myself to eat it and picked it off my sandwich. But the thought of changing it??? That wasn’t even something I would have considered because somehow in my mind, changing it was worse than eating it. Make that one make sense.

I love routines and schedules and things staying the same, and get annoyingly stressed out when things/my schedule changes. One little change or one little thing out of the ordinary and it’s like I forget how to function for the day. Everything seems off. And I hate it. Because I KNOW that it shouldn’t matter, but it does. Half days and two hour delays at school growing up?? Those stressed the FUCK out of me because the order of the day would be different. I loved school and loved learning, but those days I felt physically ill over the thought of going to school. Field trip days were okay though because I knew they were coming and I had plenty of time to mentally prepare myself. I remember as a child asking my teachers (on multiple occasions) for the itinerary for a field trip so I could memorize it and know exactly what to expect and when for the day.

There are times that my fiancée will turn on the tv for “background noise” while she watches videos on her phone, and I wish I could describe what I mean when I tell her that there’s “too many sounds”. Because between the tv, her phone, the hum of the refrigerator in the other room, the neighbors, cars driving by, the cats playing, the ceiling fan...I don’t know how else to describe it other than exactly that — too many sounds. And it gets to be too much. So I have to put headphones in and listen to music to drown it all out and refocus.

I’ve only just recently been able to put a word to what I now know is poor executive function. As much as I loved school, I could NOT do assignments until the day they were due. I could start on something days before it was due, but I couldn’t work on it. I couldn’t focus on it. I couldn’t get myself to work on it. But the morning it was due??? I could whip up a paper that I knew would earn an A just hours before needing to turn it in. I prided myself on that ability, but looking back it was most definitely poor executive function. If I couldn’t finish something that morning, which was a rare occurrence, I would lie - I’d look “everywhere” for my assignment and “panic” because I “couldn’t find it” and because I was a good student, I got away with it. Every. Single. Time. Even with the hard-ass teachers who no one could get away with things on. And magically by the end of the day, I would swing back by that teacher’s classroom to give them my assignment that I had finally “found”.

I remember sitting on the kitchen floor of our apartment as a kid and tracing my fingers along the lines on the floor where the tiles met. I remember the pattern was brown/white/brown/white, but there was one spot on the floor that made me so irrationally frustrated because two tiles were swapped; instead of the same pattern as the rest of the floor, this one spot was brown/white/white/brown/brown/white. I remember pointing it out and my mom asking me why I had even paid any attention to that. I didn’t know why, I just did. I remember her telling me that it was stupid to let it bother me and to just let it go, but I couldn’t. I stopped mentioning it, but right up until we moved out of that apartment, I couldn’t even look at that spot on the floor without getting frustrated by it. There’s more than that. But that was one of the first things I thought of.

I’ve been watching a lot of Yo Samdy Sam’s videos on YouTube, and especially her videos “Autism symptoms in GIRLS” and “Could YOU be autistic? (and not know)” and I just... I feel that. Everything she says, I feel that. I watch them just thinking “that’s me. That’s me.” the entire time. She mentions sucking on her hair as a kid, and I did that CONSTANTLY. My hair was forever in my mouth. And now that I’m an adult, I don’t suck on my hair, but my sweatshirt strings are always in my mouth. Obviously there’s more than that, but that was one that hit me hard because I didn’t realize that wasn’t just something everyone did as a kid. I didn’t realize not everyone couldn’t stand still and always had to be fidgeting or moving slightly, whether it was rocking on my ankles, running my thumb over my other fingers, crossing and uncrossing my toes inside my shoes. I didn’t realize not everyone had the same shitty executive functioning skills as me.

And it’s like... I’m so sure that’s me. I’m so sure that I am autistic. I know it. But it’s like...is getting a diagnosis at this point in my life going to change anything? I mean no, probably not, other than giving me that validation that I crave. I would feel valid when the world is too much/too big/too loud. I would have a reason for feeling the way I do and doing the things I do. So much of my life would make sense. But. I don’t know. I’m afraid I’ll try to get a diagnosis and have someone, some doctor or therapist or psychologist or someone tell me that I’m not. And then what? Then what is everything I’ve felt throughout my life? That’s what I’m afraid of, really. Because if I’m so sure of this and then some professional says “no that’s not it”, then what?

#personal #just venting I guess #not venting that’s not the right word #just throwing my thoughts on here and trying to make sense of them because it’s my blog and I can #autism #autism in adults #actually autistic

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lostinanimage · 4 years

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Do you mind me asking about your writing process? How do you get into the midst of the characters so well? I'm just asking because I really love your writing.

I don’t mind at all, but this might get long. (Spoiler alert: It got very very long. No one is ever going to ask me this again.)

I do have a very different process when starting something that’s fanfiction as opposed to something that is mostly or entirely original characters. (My checkplease fiction is somewhere in the middle but more toward the original fiction process because it’s almost entirely original characters.) I’m going to go with my fanfiction process because I’ve been posting 911:Lone Star mostly, but if you want more about my original stuff, let me know. I’m not sure which fandom you’re from. <3

First off, my fanfiction ideas usually come from gaps in the show or a changing something (like Carlos’s job) and blending from there. Because 911: Lone Star tried to cram so much into 10 episodes with way too many characters and emergencies on top of that, they *expected* viewers to mentally fill in some blanks. (Though they may explain those blanks later, it’s still something that’s expected at the time.) Filling in these blanks is what tends to inspire me to start writing fanfiction. (Which is why my checkplease stuff is mostly OCs. I like Jack and Bitty, but we knew so much of their story already. Telling Kent’s story gave me more space. Playing with how Jack dealt with switching teams gave me material for him.) For Lone Star (and some for 911), I honestly feel like I have a huge advantage when it comes to writing these characters. For Carlos (and Eddie), I’m a Mexican queer person from Texas. (For Eddie I did a big move away from my family—to California at one point even.) For TK, I have recovered from an overdose and I have mental health issues. I was relocated because of these things. I’ve lived in Florida (Majan) and Chicago (Paul) and I’ve spent so much time in NYC that I have 3 exes in the city. Someone from my Lone Star fic recently decided to read my checkplease fic as original fiction and quickly discovered that Lone Star is basically just a show made up of tropes and characters I like to write anyway. I also have friend who developed schizophrenia in his early thirties. (Sadly, he was a black man in the south so he was killed the way many black men with mental illnesses in the south are killed.) I still do lots of research, but definitely not as much as I would have to do without all these things. That said, I’ve watched so many parts of the episodes over and over again. Except for the failed dinner scene—which is hard for me to watch, I’ve probably watched every single Tarlos scene over 20 times to pick apart the way they look and move and interact with each other. It gives me a base to grow from. I’ve probably watched the entire series in full (muting that dinner scene lol) over ten times. For the My Salvation series and Tunnel Vision, I’d usually pull up the episode in the time I’m covering and at least watch pieces of it to remind myself what all the characters were doing. This also helps refresh me so that their voices stay in character. When switching between 911 and 911:Lone Star, I’d put on any random episode for at least a little bit to make sure I was back in the right mindset and not, for example, writing Bobby with Owen’s voice. The only character I don’t have to do this with is Judd. I lived in Texas for 18 years. I can write Judd’s voice immediately with no refresher. Jim Parrack (actor who plays Judd) grew up an hour from me and is only 2 years older than me. I’ve literally attended an event at the school where he went to high school while in high school at the same time. Thanks for hiring an actual Texan, Lone Star. Never met him as far as I know, but I grew up with people talking like that. I’ve been to Austin multiple times. I think one of the easy traps to fall into is misusing the advice to “write what you know.” Lone Star for me is a very good example for that because I just outlined how much I know about the facts surrounding these characters. But my actual personality and life history is not like any one of them. I’m divorced, but I don’t think Owen reacts to his divorce like I would. I’ve overdosed, so I was able to know how TK would feel physically, but I’m not like TK so it writing that meant asking “okay, how does *TK* react to this physical feeling. I’m a queer Mexican from Texas, but my personality is almost nothing like Carlos’s, so I can put in facts from my background, but I have ask how Carlos reacts to those things because he’s not going to react the same why I do.

Also, because it’s been a hot topic lately, don’t write what you don’t know. If you’re not Mexican-American and you can’t develop this very complex knowledge for how your use of Spanish changes according to your life situation, so don’t try to write it in. No one will miss it. I love writing Paul, but there’s a limit to what I can write about him being trans and black. That’s okay. I just won’t write him as well as a black trans man, but I might write Carlos and Eddie better than that person. And seriously, don’t write Judd and Grace with a Texas accent if you have no experience. People will only notice if you get it wrong. Still do a lot of research so that you have some ideas in your head! And then don’t actually try to use it. I know that sounds like super-weird advice, but if you’re writing a different culture, that’s my best advice. There are so many traits that make up each character. For example, I can put in aspects of my background when I’m writing Eddie, but I’ve never personally served in the military, so I don’t highlight that part of his character. Also, since I’m here, people who have never done sex work should stop writing it and stop using imagery around it when writing sex scenes. It’s annoying and almost always wrong. Stop. I don’t outline and I make almost no notes until I get to the point of a verse being so big, that I have to make a timeline to keep everyone’s ages in line. I’m not there yet for my Lone Star fic. All kinds of notes and character things do just kind of stay in my head. It’s hard to explain, but that’s how it is. I write almost entirely chronologically. To be fair, I started writing fanfiction at age 14, I graduated with a degree in creative writing. I published my first book in 2009. I’ve always done this many things in my head. My characters were likely not always this well-formed. However, a lot of the character work I do in my head can totally be written down. If you’d like, you’re welcome to pick a character and I’ll write out a full character sheet with what’s going on in my head that influences how I write a character. (For any of my OCs, I could do this. For 911/Lone Star, I could do Eddie, Buck, TK, Owen, Carlos, and Judd the easiest.) One of the things I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about while writing Tunnel Vision is exploring what my different back story would change about Carlos. He’s purposely less closed off because in my opinion he learned to shut off emotion even more as a cop. I think this is evident in the show not just in the police station scene, but also in the finale when TK sort of ends the relationship. There’s no way he’s that okay with it, but you can see that he’s prepared himself for that response. (As opposed to the dinner scene where you see more emotion because he wasn’t prepared for that rejection.) As a teacher, I feel like he’d be a bit more open and better at communication, so I’ve made those little changes. That said, I think it’s obvious that dialogue is my jam. This is why I have to stay so, so far ahead of posting to be able to edit my own stuff. I write quickly and I leave out words and my brain will correct mistakes unless I step away from a section for at least two weeks. I also envision things so clearly in my head that I need that time away to realize when I need more description or when I need to use names instead of pronouns, etc. Sometimes I’ll add dialogue in editing but usually nothing major. One of my favorite things about writing fanfiction is that I can put out all kinds of extra scenes and points of view. I actually have some of these things for my published works just sitting in extra files because I’ve needed to write other points of few to get the reactions right. Anytime I write half a phone call, I always have the other side written somewhere. Anyway, wow this got really long so I’m going to stop rambling. Clearly I don’t mind asks like this is. Lol. I’m still almost completely quarantined and my girlfriend is out of town. Send me all the asks you want. lol

#my fic stuff #begin again fic stuff #911 lone star #tarlos #ask me things

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allsystemsarenotgo · 4 years

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A friend and I were talking one day, and she shared this with me.

She was much like me, raised with a quarter between the knees, terrified of the things we were taught to avoid and trying to live reasonably noble lives. She wasn't allowed Birth Control for religious reasons (pro-life) as well as to prevent enablism. Her family was much more religious than mile, though I still went to church during my Sophomore, Junior, and Senior years of high school.

She married a guy 10 years older than herself, who was a long-time routine customer of her family's business. They married right after she graduated high school, long before she applied to higher education.

She is a nurse now. She has 3 kids, works long hours at a hospital, and her husband is a successful farmer as he always has been. She struggled at times, but she made it through.

She knows life would have been easier without the first child, but she was innocent and naiive and I think she realizes that she jumped in the deep end of the pool before learning how to swim.

I did the same thing.

All through high school I pledged to abstinence until marriage. I hated everything to do with sex. The topic, the drama, the action, the result. I wanted nothing to do with it.

But I also never dated through grade school at all. I never had a girlfriend. Plenty of crushes (M.S. above being one of them), but just as many denials. Because I didn't drink, smoke, do drugs, have FFA animals, or play athletics, I also wasn't a member of any social group. I was always the kid in the corner of the cafeteria scarfing food down in 5 minutes and sleeping the other 20, or asking to go to a teacher's classroom, where it was serene and quiet.

My freshman year of college, I even wrote an essay on abstinents for English class. That really didn't go over well in regards to having to read it out loud. There might as well have been fruit flying at me.

My dorm was set up such that we had 3 private bedrooms that shared a living space and bathroom. One of the roommates always had girls over, and he never tried to be quiet (or if he did, he failed...badly).

So those two things were my indoctrination to college life. Getting judged and leered at for writing an abstinence essay, and having to listen to a roommate multiple times a week.

Towards the very end of my freshman year, a girl from high school messaged me. We started talking, and she admitted that she had always had a crush on me and was too shy to ever say anything.

Error #1: For no good reason whatsoever, I agreed to formulate a relationship with this female

So when I moved home from the dorms, I hung out with the lass a few times, but my parents were moving out of the country and closer to my school, so I could live at home. That meant that this would now be a 1.5-hour-each-way medium-distance relationship.

So every 4th or 6th weekend during the remainder of that summer and into the fall semester, I would drive up and spend a day with her. Sometimes, I would drive her out of the country and into the city to give her a glimpse of escape (it was very impoverished where we grew up).

Error #2: Doing whatever made her happy

I really enjoyed the time that we spent together. She got me a purity necklace for Christmas that year. She said she understood that my preference meant something to me.

But then, something changed. She would start dropping enuindos and jokes and send me photos that I didn't ask for.

Error #3: Not standing up for myself

She said that I meant something to her, and asked me if she meant something to me. At the time, I did not comprehend that as a trap...but I wanted to make her happy, so I said "yes".

The next thing I know, she is booking a hotel for us for Valentine's day. Wherein, I learned a thing or two or five or ten that I really wasn't interested in learning in the first place.

-Provides Clorox to help scrub the thoughts from your mind-

After that, she wanted me to come see her more and more often. But I was tied up with school and life.

Mind you, we usually had a phone call every night, or at least every other night. Same time, right before bed. Sometimes we would fall asleep on the phone with eachother.

Error #4: Accepting anything as fact

Well one night, I called her, and she answered...but it was noisy in the background, like she was driving. But she never talked while driving, and wouldn't answer the phone with family in the car.

She said she was in a friend's car and they were going to the beach for the night, which was completely reasonable for the time of year and her group of friends. She cut the conversation short saying they had arrive, so we bid our greeting. But she didn't hang up, and something told me that I shouldn't either. So I didn't.

"Who was that?"

"Don't mind him. He was just calling to check on me. He's controlling like that."

"He sounds like a jerk"

"Enough about him. He won't do this."

-Provides more clorox-

And that's how I found out that her primal needs were more important than our "relationship".

Unfortunately, shortly after I broke up with her, I was sent a photo of her quite visibly pregnant. Fortunately, the timetable did not add up to Valentine's day (aside of the fact that it was physically/biologically 95% impossible).

That summer, I started a job at the student newspaper. Right off the bat, one of the graphic artists and I got along very well. We spent way too much time at work talking to eachother and goofing off, instead of working. Enough so that our boss took notice and things got tense for a bit with him. We still cranked out work no problem, but we were both too young to understand workplace policy and procedure when it comes to "dating but not dating", which is basically exactly what we were doing. We spent alot of time together. I would go to her dorm after class and we would watch movies and just goof off or do whatever. We enjoyed time together.

Error #1: So cliché. So, so cliché.

So Valentine's day rolls around, and she asks 'the question'.

So something in biology: There is a term called "Once an animal has the taste of blood, they will always hunt for it." Unfortunately, humans can sometimes be considered a sub-species of the animal kingdom.

Like the dumbass that I am, I accept to the terms and conditions.

And at the end of the night, she asks: "So are we officially dating now?"

"I...I guess?", I answered nervously.

Errors #2 to #457: Not escaping

And just like that, I was suckered into nearly 2.5 years of having a FWB while having to, very creatively at times, mask it as a legitimate relationship.

We enjoyed the time we spent together.

We enjoyed going places together.

My mum liked her, her parents liked me. (Dad was skeptical at best and thought I could do better)

The small issue: I struggled to communicate at times. I didn't know how to find my voice, so there were times that I would have to text her how I felt. Sometimes I would hide in a corner just so I could cry. (I later learned of my autism, and it all made sense and I learned how to resolve this)

The big issue: I was completely burned out on intimacy. After almost 2.5 years of emulating laboratory rabbits, I was done. My usefulness had expired.

The biggest issue: We were both suffering academically. We had no common interests at all anymore, and we had put eachother ahead of our own academics so much that we were both risking academic expulsion.

So we mutually agreed to break up.

She dropped out of university (and never went back or finished her schooling), and I changed majors twice before getting my Bachelor of Science.

My first relationship lasted from June 2009 to April 2010.

My second "relationship" lasted from February 2011 until May 2012 (Although we started spending time together in significant amounts starting August 2010)

I have not had a girlfriend since May 2012.

I had one friend in my senior year of college, who gave me some non-physical affection while also keeping me firmly locked in the friendzone. But quality time, by itself, only goes so far.

I have not had any physical affection since May 2012.

I have not spent quality time with a female since May 2013.

For most of that time, from May 2013 to August 2019, I really didn't mind it at all. I have been so tied up in working, hobbies, and life in general, that I completely ignored women.

But as my birthday loomed near in October 2019, it donned on me....I was on a crash course to being eternally lonely.

So I have tried online dating. I have gone on a few first dates, but no second dates.

Sometimes, I want to give up. The fight just doesn't seem worth the reward.

And honestly?

Sometimes I feel exactly like my friend's remarks at the top of this post. Sometimes I wish I would have been a little more rebellious, a little more care-free, a little more out-there.

But at the same time, ...

Sometimes I wish that neither relationship would have ever happened.

That I would have never learned the true definition of intimacy.

That I would have never done whatever it took to make the other person happy.

That I wouldn't have been such an easy push-over.

That I would have stuck to my initial pledge in life

That I would have spoke up more and defended myself.

All I am now, is damaged product.

I don't truly know how to love.

I don't truly know how to feel.

I don't truly know how to be myself.

I don't truly know how to be intimate.

I am human, I am male, so of course I have my moments. But I don't want that to be the reason for a relationship. I want it to be the least-important factor, or not a factor at all.

I want a relationship founded on trust, honesty, fortitude, common interests, personality, maybe even a little faith.

Not intimacy.

I just want to not be invisible, or to only have one attribute visible.

I want to be seen for all the other attributes.

I am not A-sexual. I still feel emotions and feelings. I just don't want to let them out of the locked box which contains them. Not without lots of context and preparedness.

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painterofhorizons · 4 years

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🖍️ When did you start drawing? Do you remember? ☕ Do you do warmup sketches before drawing? 🌈 Do you use more warm or cold colors? 🌊 What’s the hardest thing for you to draw?

:D Thanks for the asks! I talk too little arting compared to writing so lets talk arting this time!

This got out of hand so have the answers under the cut including proof of ancient times.

Anybody wanting to talk art, meme is here. Feel free to ask!

🖍️ When did you start drawing? Do you remember?

Technically, since I was able to hold a pen. I always drawed a lot, thanks to my mum. Art period one, age ?-11.

Then art period two started with drawing my first OC (Star Wars, if you’re curious) in 5th grade while sitting in music class. (See below for the master piece. :D A friend and I were hardcore into Star Wars (back at that time that was still considered very uncool, luckily, there was one guy in class who was even uncooler, because he was into Star Trek. That ranked below. You, young folks reading this, should appreciate the great these days, where any kind of nerdiness is mainstream and highly accepted. Didn’t use to be like that in my days!)) Followed by a very drawing intense about a decade, until I graduated secondary school. So much drawing. Very much fandom related of course, but I also was in afternoon art class for years while in secondary school and did a lot of different things there (a LOT od cypresses - don’t ask me why, but a friend and I drew SO many cypresses). (age ~11-18?)

Both from afternoon art class. I really like the planet! (Both from 2002)

That’s 2003. I remember me sitting in music class, middle row, second from front. xD (And yes, I did owe all those cloths. And I wore them. xDD)

(Damn, now I want to make a art period 2 post if anyone was interested. xD Good old days!)

The last I remember drawing was this portrait of a friend (I’m helly proud on that). That was in my first year at university, laying in the grass outside on campus in summer 2009.

Then there was like a decade of hardly any arting. Literally. None. I did get a graphic tablet in 2014 or something, but never really warmed up to digital drawing. I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand digitally drawing. And I lack patience to learn (see below different question).

Then maybe three years ago I decided I want to get back at arting and started to go to classes for adult education in the evening. Have been doing that ever since. Welcome to art period three. (so about age 27-today) See art side blog for all the stuff drawin since then. I still don’t draw too often, because my main hobbies still are writing and video games and then there’s not too much time left to draw, but thats why it’s cool to go to art class once a week to have a set date for drawing. And I always go to the same introductory class because it’s chill and I can do what I want. xD (So yes I basically pay to have time to sit in an art studio with others and draw something completely else from what everybody else is doing. And I love it!)

☕ Do you do warmup sketches before drawing?

No! And yes! I only read about warm up sketchings like couple of time ago and was like - wait what? That totally makes sense! So this monday in art class, I did my very first warm up sketches ever and I plan to keep that up before drawing because it totally makes so much sense. Never did that ever before. Ugh.

I do do thumbnail sketches though. But they don’t really fall in the category of warm up sketches but rather planning.

🌈 Do you use more warm or cold colors?

Depends! Also, the questions implies I choose colours, like, on purpose. Let me reassure you: I don’t. I don’t know what I’m doing when I art. I literally don’t. I dont think about theory. I just let my hand do whatever it wants to do. When we talk about watercolours I do have some favourites of couse (like indigo and prussian blue when we talk blue; a former not very liked art teacher of mine from two years ago once said to me (she is from russia): you used (I don#t remember if it was indigo or prussian blue anymore), right? And I was almost excited because she recognized it. But then she disappointedly said: I don’t understand why you Germans like that colour so much. Duh.) but it doesn’t follow any artistic rules. I’m too lazy for colour theory and stuff. I’m a simple person with a simple artistic brain: I just do whatever.

When we talk about art period one, I was very much into earthly tones (lets face it, because lots of lord of the rings), so much more warm natural colours. I still prefer more natural colours over bright, screaming colours - though I do like colour blocking. It totally depends on what I draw. I like realistic stuff and abstracts, so everything goes.

🌊 What’s the hardest thing for you to draw?

If we talk any kind of anatomy/humans, then it’s the other half of the face (you know, one is always easy, the other sucks, and when you draw traditionally you cannot just flip the sheet of paper) and hands. Ugh, hands! I love hands in itself, but hands on actual arms doing things? Ugh!

When we talk non anatomy, I struggle with anything that needs patience. Like very precise drawing. My adhd brain doesn’t like that kind of stuff. I got no patience to sit on one drawing for too long. Don’t make me do accurate stuff. Okay, I got no patience whatsoever. At all. None.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Man. If I could make more time for drawing, I would. But I love writing too much to actually do that. :D Priorities, right? Yeah, mine are writing. Unfortunately.

Thanks again for the ask! ^.^

#Painterofhorizons draws #this got out of hand #thank you for the asks!#Chyrstis

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