#sprinkles a bit of self projection on our judge... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hecksee · 4 years

Text

Stained Flowers

Hi this is angsty af but im struggling right now so imma project onto fictional characters

Sorry @lumosinlove I like making Leo suffer

this is my entry for the @hpbrokenhearts contest, i started out writing this when i was struggling, and tbh i still am, but it’s gotten a lot better.

Much thanks to the wonderful @iswearimnotanaestheticgirl for editing this monstrosity. You wrecked carnage on it, but it helped so much and I love this end result so much.

Thank you so much to @peggyrose19 and @marauderss-hp for looking this over and giving me suggestions!

This is probably inaccurate but I don’t know anything about hockey, and this is fanfic so who cares about the accuracy.

THIS COULD DEFINITELY BE TRIGGERING, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

TW suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, its got a TINY bit of spice sprinkled in (i would rate this teen probably, mature if i was being extra safe), major character death, stress, homophobia, one sided pining, hanakhai, vomiting, something thats sort of like a suicide note, and a shit load of angst

Read on A03 here

Leo knew he was screwed the moment he saw Finn O'Hara on the screen for the first time. He knew he was gonna fall hard. It didn't matter that they had never met or that Leo’s attraction was purely physical. He knew that he would want everything with Finn.

But then Leo started to fall deeper and deeper over time, time that was spent mostly spent obsessing over Finn. Only a few weeks after Leo saw Finn for the first time, it started.

Everybody knew about hanahaki. When someone felt unrequited love, a seed sprouted in their lungs. Nobody knew how or why the seed appeared but it was inevitable.

The victim would start coughing up flower petals, and if their feelings grew, the flowers would grow larger until the victim couldn’t breath because their lungs were filled with nothing but blossoms.

There were only three things someone with hanahaki could do. The main solution was to surgically remove the flowers but have all feelings of love vanish. And some said it was impossible to ever love another person.

So Leo knew exactly what was going on when he started coughing up small yellow petals a few weeks after he first saw Finn on screen.

But, over the next few months he learned to recognize the signs. The tingling in the back of his throat before he started coughing up the silky yellow petals. The itch in his left lung when people mentioned Finn O'Hara. The stabbing pain toward the left of his chest when his teammates threw around homophobic slurs and comments like beads at Marti Gras is nothing new, but now it's accompanied with a burning sensation in his lungs and bloody daffodils.

The daffodils. The fucking daffodils. He decided to look the meaning of the cheery flowers up one day. Unrequited love. After that Leo laughed humorlessly, and decided that hanahaki had a fucked up sense of humor.

Somehow, Leo made it through a full year while coughing up a mixture of blood and petals. He learned how to hide it, how to excuse himself from a situation, and how to choke the petals back down while playing. He made sure that nothing would impact his career, no matter how much longer he had left.

Leo feared that his time was almost up some days. On those days, he wondered Why was he alive? Why did only the left lung sting? Wouldn't it just be better to end it than to live through the constant pain?

He almost made it through a year keeping his hanahaki a secret.

Well, almost. His mom walked in on him cleaning the daffodils smeared with red off the floor, and he had promptly broken down in tears.

He had ended up telling her everything, how he was gay, how he hated himself for it, how he sometimes thought it would be better to just end it all instead, who he loved and why.

His mom had made him tell his coach, insisting it was for the best. There had been a major fight between the coach and him. Leo was yelling and crying but standing his ground about how he needed to play. How playing was the only thing he was living for, damn it. Leo had ended up winning, so he kept playing. And just like before, he kept the hanahaki a secret from everyone, especially his team.

But then, he found out why only his left lung stung. Logan Tremblay. The latest player that was drafted to the Lions. He was newly minted, fresh from Harvard university. Short, broad, brunet, green eyed rookie Tremz.

As soon as Logan stepped out onto the ice for the first time Leo felt that telltale sting. But it was on the right side of his chest for the first time. Fuck, I'm not having unrequited love from one person, but from two?!

His right lung had irises. Royalty, the Fleur-De-Lis, France. Leo didn’t know how those things related to Logan but he could take a guess. Logan was French Canadian born and raised, that had to mean something.

Leo’s life went on. Now he had double the work of fighting the flowers down. Two names instead of one. Leo could tell there was something between Fish and Logan. The intense stares they gave each other across the rink meant something. The tension between them one day had just disappeared. Leo saw something as Logan's hot temper reared up whenever Harzy got into a fight or got hurt.

The signs grew. Rainbow tape on their sticks, posting LGBTQ+ supporting messages on the team Instagram; small things you’d need to look out for, or know exactly what they meant to know the significance.

The real confirmation was when the official Lions Instagram posted the picture of Logan and Finn kissing at a pride parade, smudged bi flags painted on both of their cheeks.

The caption read “We are aware of the homophobia in the league, however, two of our players aren’t willing to hide their relationship from the public anymore. Both Tremz and Harzy have our full support.”

The moment he saw it, the feeling of petals started to itch in the back of Leo’s throat, but he gagged them back as he scrolled through the comments. They were filled with the expected bigotry and homophobia with the occasional biphobic comment. Yet scattered in were the kind comments, full of support, rays of sunshine on a raining day.

Leo started typing out a comment of his own, telling the happy couple how happy he was for them. But the lie was rancid in his head. The flowers Leo had been choking back came up in a wave of blood.

Before Leo got hanahaki, the few dreams he had were filled with a faceless man. One that would kiss him and fuck him, but now, now there were two men. And they had faces.

Finn O'Hara and Logan Tremblay haunted Leo's dreams in the best way possible, more nights than not. Sweet soft kisses, hands tangled in auburn or brown hair, gently worshiping the hard planes and angles that came from a lifelong dedication to hockey were commonplace in Leo's dreams.

In stark contrast, some nights were filled with sloppy, urgent kisses, nails scratching on backs, and a pure need for release. But the dreams would always end, and Leo was left with the burning pain of self loathing building up in his throat before the flowers would make themselves known.

During this dream, Leo had been on fire all night, and it was thanks to him that the team had been led to victory. So here he was with his boyfriends, celebrating.

Leo leaned up to give Finn a soft kiss before turning onto his side and beginning to kiss Logan's neck. Finn had started to ruin Leo and didn't stop until Leo had hit the peak of his pleasure.

However, the aftermath of Leo's pleasure was slowly but surely turning into pain. Suddenly the metallic tang of blood was clogging his throat and the familiar smooth petals were filling his mouth.

The flowers and blood were dripping out of his mouth, and seeping into the white bed sheets. Even worse was that Finn and Logan seemed unsurprised. no, they were almost happy. Their gentle murmurings of praise turned into cold raucous laughter. In between the harsh laughter they told him how stupid he was, how he was a nobody, how they would never love him.

As the flowers only got worse, coming up in waves and mingled with the tears that were rolling down his face, Finn and Logan vanished. Then he was falling, falling, falling.

He woke with a start, his heart pounding in his chest, lungs gasping for air in between choking sobs; lying in a combination of petals and blood. His face was sticky with tears and warm, wet blood, and a few stray yellow and white-ish purple petals stuck to his skin. The only indicator that Leo's dream wasn't all bad was the stickiness in his underwear. But the worst part was that he was alone, stuck with only fantasies, once again.

The next day, Leo knew that practice would be bad. Even though yesterday his team was idolizing the Lions, they sure as hell wouldn’t be idolizing them right now. Practice was full of his teammates throwing around a myriad of slurs. The locker-room was even worse, where the coach wasn’t there to monitor their comments.

Leo fidgeted with his bracelet, uncomfortable with the comments that were flying around, with the flowers edging up his throat. He didn’t remember what happened next.

One minute Leo’s fidgeting with his bracelet, the next he’s yelling. Yelling about how people aren’t judged by their sexuality, how hell, maybe there even was a gay person in the room! To that he was obviously asked if he was the gay one, to which, he responded yes. Leo stormed out of the room to a soundtrack, suppressing the flowers fighting their way up his throat as soundtrack of cruel laughter and biting words rang around the room, just like the ones in his dream.

The next day he dreaded going to practice. He knows he won’t be welcome on the team anymore, so what’s the point of going?

Leo ended up just texting his old coach that he was resigning. His team broadcasted the fact that he’s gay on their Instagram. Now Leo’s the target of the myriad of hate that Finn and Leo faced. It made him sick to his stomach. Seconds later, he was puking into the toilet. No flowers this time, but still unpleasant.

He still walked with dragging steps to the rink and practiced, of course. He didn’t want to lose his skills when he attempts to go pro. Trying to ignore the fact that he knows no one will take him now.

Out of the blue, three days after Leo outed himself, his phone rings shrilly. Marlene McKinnon. The Lions announcer. Why was she calling him?

Marlene asked him to play for the Lions because he had great potential. Leo hesitated. Did she not know that he was gay? He pensively inquired about his sexuality, how would that impact his place on the team?

To his surprise, Marlene told him it wouldn’t influence anything. Leo was shocked, but in the happy way. Then she asked if he had any health conditions. Just like the thing about his sexuality, Leo hesitated. Eventually he nodded and said yes.

It’s hanahaki, he told her in a slow voice, but it doesn’t impact my playing.

Fucking lie.

Marlene was silent for a moment but then put him on hold with some shaky words. 5 minutes later, she agrees to let him play, on the condition that his hanahaki doesn’t get worse, and if it does, he needs to have them removed. Leo agreed, and suddenly, Leo was going professional.

Sure, Leo was worried about becoming a Lion; his subjects of affection were there and they were in a happy relationship. But over time, and many, many practices filled with words thrown at O’Hara and Tremblay, he had learned to choke back the petals.

After a few months, the day came where Leo was leaving. With many tears, and a lot of goodbyes, Leo left for Gryffindor. After a couple long flights, and a short taxi ride, Leo stepped out of the car to Hogwarts.

Inside the rink, he was greeted with the signature smell of a hockey arena, he couldn’t quite describe it, but it was pleasant, and reminded Leo of home.

In a blink, he was bombarded with maroon and gold, hugs and welcoming words. When he turned his head from the excitement, he saw them. Finn and Logan, standing back with Pascal Dumais, who he was going to move in with.

After meeting everyone and flipping out while Finn and Logan give him a hug while swallowing down the familiar liquid and petals that up, Leo was informed that he won’t be living with the Dumais’ after all.

“You’ll be living with Finn and Logan, I hope that’s alright?”

Leo quickly excuses himself to the bathroom to let the mixture of flowers, blood, and bile out.

But Leo ended up moving in with Fish and Tremz. However over the weeks, he formed a close bond with both Finn and Logan. Of course, he became closer with the rest of the team, Loops especially. Hell, Leo has a feeling that Loops knows what it feels like to love someone who will never love him back.

But after Sirius and Loops get together, Leo knew that he’s the only one who will never get the privilege of having requited love.

Leo was glad that he had managed to keep it a secret from the team. Well, there were some people he had to tell. After all, Remus was the team medic. Remus was keeping it a secret from the team and the public. But Remus didn’t know who was triggering Leo’s love. The only people who knew were Leo and his mother.

Each practice where the two of them do anything lovey dovey, Leo needs to be excused while he chokes back the flowers that are bringing themselves up his throat. But his goalie face hadn't been developed over happy things, so he shoved his feelings back and forced himself to remain calm, pretending to support their relationship; which he did, of course he did, but Leo wished more than anything that he was there with them. Leo wishes he was there in between them, wishes he was the one holding hands with them, and sharing sweet soft kisses with them.

Hell, more than once in the time when Leo was with the Lions he considered ending it all. The thoughts weren’t new, no, he’d been struggling with them since he had realized he was gay. But now, with the objects of Leo’s affection so close yet so far, he didn’t know if it would be worth living.

But then one day, about three years after the hanahaki had started, Leo woke up with agonizing pain in his chest, like someone was squeezing a palm around his heart. He thought back. The aching had worsened every time he interacted Finn and Logan. Now the flowers were coming up almost every hour of every day. The tingling feeling is now always at the back of his mind. As soon as Leo thought about Finn and Logan he felt flowers coming up.

The flowers are accompanied with a burning pain instead of a small stab. All of the flowers are full blossoms, a few with stems and leaves. They’d be perfect and prim, beautiful, if they weren’t coated in enough blood to look like a murder scene.

This was it; this was one of his last days, if not his last.

With slow robotic steps, Leo stands up, taking some deep breaths. He fished a pen and a notebook from his cabinet, and started to write four letters.

The words to his family tell them how sorry he was at how bad he was at hiding his worsening hanahaki, how much he loves them, and how he wishes he could have said goodbye in person.

“I’m sorry for causing you pain.”

In the letter towards the team he apologized for hiding his disease and explained how thankful he was to be a part of his dream team. He told them how different the Lions were to his old teams, how they were a family and how they loved each other no matter what, regardless of their differences.

“Thank you for being like a family to me.”

In the one addressed to Logan and Finn, Leo explained how they were the subjects of his attraction, how much they influenced his life coming out by choice, consequences be damned. Through blood, sweat, tears and flowers, he found himself rattling on and on about how much he loved them, how he fell in love with them, and how much he valued the friendship they had; even if it was just friendship. Leo’s hand lingered as he thought about it. Would this letter cause the two of them to blame themselves? Should he really write it?

No. He had to. Leo added a note telling them not to. It wasn’t their fault, it was his choice.

He brushed away the crimson mess. With droplets of blood staining his fingers, Leo starts on the final and most formal letter.

Leo wrote vaguely in this letter. He told that he did have hanahaki, and how he had dealt with it for years before he joined the Lions. He publicly commends the Lions for being so accepting of him, even though he had hanahaki and he was gay. Finally, he thanked his fans for staying with him through it all.

Then, with all the letters finished, Leo sealed them in envelopes and wrote to whom they are addressed to. Gingerly, Leo placed them on his nightstand and prepared for his final practice.

During practice Leo told everyone how much he appreciates them, which wasn’t too unusual, so nobody took much notice. Otherwise, practice was uneventful. Leo blocked some passes as they prepped for their game with Hufflepuff next week.

Leo was coughing almost nonstop during practice but he chokes back the blood, bile, and flowers. He allowed himself to think that this is the last time he’d have to push it down. The aching pain in his chest doesn’t subside, if anything it only grew worse the longer practice goes on.

Leo walked into the locker-room, preparing to take a shower and stretch before heading home when the aching in his chest grew. He could hear the blood pumping in his ears and the world around him blurred. He swayed, unsteady on his feet, trying not to cry or scream. His breaths were labored, he was becoming lightheaded and his heart was pounding in his chest. The pain became too much to bear and Leo’s legs failed on him.

The team rushes over with concerned expressions on their faces. On his knees, the flowers, stems, and leaves start to come up, splattering all over the cold ground, no matter what Leo does to try and keep them back. The team became frenzied, calling for Remus.

It was too late. Leo knew that this was his end.

Once, when Leo was little, he asked his grandmother why people didn't just get the flowers removed. She smiled at him sadly and told him that, there might be a person you loved so much you couldn't bear the idea of not loving them. Even if you died for it.

At the time, he brushed it off as stupid but now, now as tears sqeezed through his blurry vision and the feeling of the cold tile floor disappears, he understands exactly what she meant.

The last thought that went through his mind, before the petals, flowers, and blood came up for the last time, was of his two loves. In an instant, all of his fantasies of Finn and Logan melted into the reality of their friendship and flew past his eyes. With one last satisfied smile, Leo closed his eyes. His grandma was right.

Some love really was worth dying for.

Just a quick reminder, this is my entry for @hpbrokenhearts so if you liked this fic or it made you cry/broke your heart, please put a broken heart in the comments, either in emoji form or not! Thank you so much for reading!!!

122 notes · View notes

3laxx · 3 years

Text

Built to Last - Chapter 1

Amity hadn't dreamed to spend her summer like this. She had just graduated from a prestigious private school and had hoped she could escape to her own little adventure until her scholarship at the college starts, but instead, her parents decide to pimp up her résumé and make her a supervisor at their newest little project, a mansion in the middle of nature. She would rather be anywhere else, yet as she meets Luz Noceda, she finds construction work very interesting, all of a sudden. And that's totally not due to the fact that Luz is all her gay dreams coming true.

Heya people! I'm back with a new story!

One of my bigger projects at the moment and one of the reasons why I haven't been uploading for over a month xD I started working in my new job! Also got my first paycheck already! And I've been writing A LOT ever since the start of September! So yeah, this is kind of inspired by my work and I've written quite a bit for this already. It's basically just Luz being hot, Amity being gay, and a lot of mad blushes x)

Ao3 / FF.net

---

As Amity’s car came to a stop, she sighed, before pulling the handbrake and looking up to the mansion that was standing in front of her.

Or rather, the structural work she could see. While the shape of the mansion was already erected, with the base and all the walls out of sturdy concrete standing, there was still a lot to do.

Her parents had decided to build a giant new mansion in the middle of a huge land they had purchased, full of forest and beautiful scenery, and it was on her to oversee the construction.

It wasn’t that Amity had any idea how construction worked.

Her parents were on a business trip, like almost all her life long, and her siblings were in the middle of their studies, and focusing on this was of the utmost importance in the Blight household.

Amity was twenty now and had just graduated from an expensive private school her parents had sent her to, to enable a scholarship at a very renowned university.

So, essentially, her summer had been meant to be free and be spent by maybe relaxing for once, maybe even traveling a little, but since her mother detested holes in her résumé, she had to be kept busy somehow.

This meant that her position in overseeing the progress on their new mansion project was registered as “construction project management” and she was required to at least show up once a day and stay for a few hours.

She knew exactly what her parents' plan was.

They believed workers worked twice as fast and neatly when the customer was standing right behind them and monitoring their progress personally.

In short, her parents believed in intimidation.

It really wasn’t Amity’s style to be a fearmonger and do nothing more than to annoy the workers and create tension in their workspace. It was an issue of trust, that Amity had in the companies her parents had hired, but her parents didn’t and she couldn’t understand why.

After years of being monitored down to the littlest detail, she knew out of experience that someone breathing down her neck wasn’t something that helped along with productivity, quality, or speed.

But her parents had put her name on the project, it was all over everyone’s plans and she was an official member of the board overseeing this construction.

It wasn’t mandatory for her to show up to the site in her job description, nor was it mandatory for her to oversee any progress. But her parents had made sure to let her know what they expected of her before they had left. Amity hated that she was so intimidated by her parents to fulfill their wishes even if they weren’t here, even if she wasn’t sure if they were still on the same continent, but she was and so she had driven up here every single day and seen the mansion be built up completely in a matter of a month. Well, construction had already started when she had still been in school, so she hadn’t seen all of it.

Her parents had done that, of course.

Sighing, she got out of the car and headed up to the mansion, located on a little hill, towering above the giant property. It was a holiday getaway, her parents had insisted, even if she believed it was more to house some high-ranking guests, maybe some politicians her parents paid, to get in their good graces.

She mostly had that theory because she couldn’t remember the last time her parents had taken a genuine break from their work. Granted, sometimes they traveled to some holiday homes or some luxury hotels, but even these were sprinkled by meeting someone, having a friendly round of golf to discuss business and such things.

Her parents never acted without their business in the back of their heads.

Shaking her head, Amity freed her thoughts of her parents. She didn’t want to think of them. Coming in a few months she would move far away from them, actually near where they were building this mansion right now, and start her studies. And then she would only have to deal with them whenever they cooked up another business thing and roped Amity in, or at family holidays to keep the illusion of a happy family. She was just glad her siblings would be there with her.

Today, the interior design team would start.

The structural work was done, as far as it went, as were all the systems in place like heating, water, and gas.

Now, they had commissioned a fairly small local company building luxury interiors to do all the decorating in the entire house with floors, walls, ceilings, doing all the interior design of the sanitary rooms and kitchen, as well as all built-in furniture and whatever else Amity could think of.

It wasn’t that Amity knew what was necessary for the installation of everything, but she had self-taught quite a lot of theory through videos online due to a personal interest of hers and at least had an idea of what they were talking about.

Not that she let them in on that.

Whenever she had been there overseeing construction of the structural work, she had done her best to make herself appear as clueless as she could without sounding dumb, so they would be able to relax a little more.

If someone was looking over your shoulder who had no idea what you were doing anyway, it’d always feel more relaxed.

She hoped to at least relieve some of the intended intimidation meant by her parents.

Approaching the estate, she already saw some of her colleagues looking in her direction, some of the actual project managers, and a new site manager that she didn’t know yet. She had long black hair and a relatively tall statue, as well as a rigid posture. She was wearing a suit, too.

Did someone tell her Amity was coming?

If so, and she had decided to wear a suit just for her, that’d be embarrassing.

She appeared to acknowledge her arrival but turned back to another site engineer that Amity hadn’t had the pleasure of being introduced to yet. She looked very similar to the other one, only that her hair was really long, gray, and in a rather messy ponytail.

She also wore work pants and a simple shirt with the name of the company printed on the back and, smaller, on the chest. Amity immediately recognized the symbol on the woman’s chest as the one printed on the van next to them as well, which was a stylized owl, and read Clawthorne Sisters beneath it.

Amity had been excited for them to arrive. Now that the concrete was in place, all the drywall installations were finished and all the necessary cables and pipes were installed, the interesting part would begin. Making everything look like a home, instead of a palace of concrete and ugly pipes.

Or, well…

A house. Make it look like a house, instead of a skeleton. This mansion would never become home to anybody.

Finally arriving at the front door, Amity greeted all the project managers, engineers, and architects she already knew, who didn’t show up every day but had only come here to oversee the start of the interior design, before turning to the tall woman with a clipboard and strikingly green eyes.

“Good morning, my name is Amity Blight.”, she started and held out a hand to the woman, whose eyebrows shot up at the mention of her last name. Apparently, nobody had told her that she would be coming and Amity felt relief flooding her veins when she realized that this site manager had not dressed up for her.

“Lilith Clawthorne, it’s my pleasure.”, she greeted back and they shook hands, before she turned to the other, an equally tall woman next to her.

“This is Edalyn Clawthorne, site engineer and master mechanic of our company. You may direct any questions you have about plans, time management and schedules at me, and any technical questions at her.”, Amity nodded to that and shook the other woman’s hand as well. They seemed to be the sisters after which the company was named.

“Alright, good to know.”, she said but didn’t continue any further, so she just listened to the project managers talk for a while, before looking around and finding the master mechanic missing.

The site manager seemed to notice this.

“If you like, Miss Blight, we can head inside and oversee the progress since this morning.”

To that, Amity nodded, although a feeling of dread pooled in her stomach.

This meant producing the stress her parents wanted. They had explicitly instructed the project managers to inform their workers not to address them or interrupt their tour in any way.

In Amity’s experience, this had always resulted in tensions.

But Ms. Clawthorne was already heading inside and everyone else stepped back to let Amity in first, so she followed.

Just after the door, they each took a helmet from a prepared stand and put it on, since there would be overhead installation going on and the Clawthorne Sisters company had insisted on everyone, without exception, to wear a helmet. That had just made them all the more attractive to Amity, while she already held them in high regard judging from their portfolio and versatility in interior design and luxury decorations.

As expected, the conversations between some workers installing a floor in the entrance area quickly died out and they hunched over, focusing on their task ahead. They stopped as Ms. Clawthorne began explaining how these natural floorboards would be imported for them, ground and finished to feel natural yet soft, while Amity began looking around.

There were a lot of new faces around here since the Clawthorne Sisters had brought all their workers and replaced the construction crew almost completely, safe for a few left-over workers who cleaned up the last of their work and deconstructed some equipment they had used.

Amity mostly noted how young most of them were.

The entrance area was manned by two boys, maybe even younger than her, who were doing some of the easier tasks, managing wires to be hidden by the floorboards by tying them together and treating some sealed pipes. Down the hallway she saw a girl, around her age, managing some wires in the walls and making sure everything was neat and orderly for the wall decorations to be installed on top.

Taking a few steps away from the planning team, she peeked into the main lobby and saw three more people, two boys, and a girl, rearranging some supplies and equipment they had brought to be stashed in the wide space and not be in anyone’s way, looking just a bit older than her.

“Huh…”, she felt herself mumbling, before turning back and feeling all eyes on her as she returned to the group, immediately feeling a blush rising.

“Is everything to your expectations, Miss Blight?”, Ms. Clawthorne asked and she was quick to nod.

“Oh, yes, everything is alright!”, she was quick to assure, but the piercing eyes of the site manager quickly realized there was a question forming, so Amity seized the opportunity, “Just… I’ve seen a lot of workers my age. Do you usually employ younger workers?” To her surprise, Ms. Clawthorne smiled at that, something she hadn’t expected to see today when she had seen the slight scowl she always seemed to wear on her lips.

“We’ve had a few workers leaving the company for their retirement lately, and my sister and I strongly agree to encourage and support the younger generations to get an education in handicrafts. We have assembled a strong team of young employees and trainees for our company and they’ve proven to be very reliable, you can be assured.”

Amity nodded at that and quickly jumped in to reassure that her question wasn’t meant as a critique or concern.

“Oh, I wasn’t worrying! I think that’s very progressive.”, she quickly said and earned a nod from Ms. Clawthorne, giving her the feeling that she had just risen in her respect before the group continued walking through the mansion. Ms. Clawthorne pointed out a few things, explained some others, and they gradually lost more and more project managers and architects to discuss plans in more detail, until just Ms. Clawthorne and Amity were left to walk through the upper level, talking about some decoration elements that would be installed up here in the master bedroom, their conversation having turned rather relaxed and almost amicable after they left all the workers and other project planners behind and had some time to get to know each other better.

Until someone came stomping up the stairs rather loudly.

Ms. Clawthorne, Lilith, as she had assured her, immediately stiffened up and Amity turned to locate the commotion, seeing a tall girl her age come barreling up the stairs with some boards on her shoulder, a wide grin on her face with white teeth that shone against her dark skin in the contrast, as she jogged up the last few steps.

The girl turned, the boards swinging around, and suddenly, Amity saw the boards coming her way, right at the height of her face.

Seemingly just before impact, the girl gave the boards a nudge while Amity was already ducking her head, and a cheerful voice that sounded like it was laughing a lot in her life, sounded.

“Whoops! Duck!”, she exclaimed and the boards went right over Amity’s head, bonking her helmet, before she dared to look up again, watching the girl stopping right in front of her, still turned sideways not to have the boards that she was balancing on her shoulder trying to decapitate Amity again.

“Woah there, that was almost bad! You good?”, the girl chuckled, her not-so-scrawny shoulders shaking in delight, before giving Amity’s helmet a knock with her knuckles. Her ears were almost ringing from the knocking and she ducked her head again, only then did the girl let off, “That’s what the helmets are for!”

Amity managed a nod but the girl was already walking past her, whistling a happy tune, while waving her hand back at them.

“Sorry again!”, she called, before rounding the corner and apparently finding a coworker of hers with which she began talking, her voice carrying away the further she went.

The young Blight was embarrassed to admit that she had stared after her toned forearms and biceps, her slim calves, and her back long after she had vanished behind a wall.

Slowly, Amity could relax her shoulders again and straightened back up, adjusting her helmet, and turning back to Ms. Clawthorne. To claim she was furious was probably an understatement.

Her entire face with a rather fair skin tone was flaming while she looked after where the girl had gone and she was shaking in anger.

Turning away from Amity, probably to shield her from her voice, she yelled after the girl, raising her fist.

“LUZ NOCEDA, COME BACK HERE RIGHT THIS INSTANT!!”, she yelled and Amity couldn’t deny she had flinched before the melodic voice with the slightest Spanish accent called back.

“Just a moment, Lily! Be right there!”, she faintly called, but Amity couldn’t focus. All she could think about was her name that she had just learned, and she swore she wouldn’t forget it.

Luz Noceda.

“You wanted to talk to me?”, the girl, Luz, grinned as she came back, this time without boards, and propped her hands upon her waist. Only now, Amity could get a proper look at her.

She felt her heart speeding up when she took in her whole appearance. Luz was wearing worn-out safety shoes, some loose-fitting shorts, and a dark pullover with the company’s logo printed on her chest with the sleeves pushed up to her elbows, as well as a toolbelt and a helmet on her brown, sweaty, and very messy hair.

Her face was cute and looked like she was a lot of fun to be around, her brown eyes sparkling with joy about something she had just experienced, maybe a joke with a coworker, judging from the volume at which she had been laughing downstairs and down the hall.

Well, Amity had known she was gay, but that gay?

Gulping, she took in the girl in front of her that was about half a head taller than her, then she flinched at Ms. Clawthorne’s voice winning in volume again.

“Luz Noceda! First of all, workplace safety! You know exactly to check your way when carrying big loads. And second of all, you apologize immediately! Do you know who-”

Luz seemingly shrunk more and more with each word her boss was yelling at her, and since she couldn’t bear watching that bubbliness being suppressed like this, Amity acted unthinkingly and cut into her tirade, holding out her hand.

“I’m Amity. Pleasure to meet you.”, she quickly exclaimed, a little louder than planned to interrupt Ms. Clawthorne, but her speaking up had an immediate effect.

The older woman next to her gulped the rest of her sentence and switched her gaze from Luz down to Amity, staring silently.

In contrary to her boss, Luz was apparently delighted. Immediately, her shoulders straightened again and she took Amity’s hand after taking off her glove, grinning.

“Luz. Sorry for slamming the boards on your head, I’ll take better care next time. You the architect’s intern or something?”, she replied while shaking Amity’s hand and she giggled, shaking her head, paying Ms. Clawthorne no mind while she started getting angry again, ready to make Luz three heads shorter.

“No, I’m-… Doesn’t matter.”, she laughed, waving it off, “A-And, uh, don’t worry about the boards, that’s why we wear helmets.”

Luz gave her the finger guns and clicked with her tongue, before pulling on her glove again.

“Alright then, have a lot of fun planning or whatever you guys do, I’ll do more interesting stuff.”

She winked and Amity could’ve sworn she was flirting with her. Which completely distracted her from the fact that Ms. Clawthorne’s eyelid was already twitching in uncontrolled rage.

While Luz sauntered off, Amity caught the attention of her boss again, eager not to let her be too mad at her employee. Trying a careful approach to change the topic, she softly clapped her hands together, winning back Ms. Clawthorne’s attention.

“So… I believe we haven’t talked about the bathrooms yet, am I correct?”, she inquired and Ms. Clawthorne immediately switched back to her polite way, nodding stiffly.

“Yes, Miss Blight, right this way.”, she offered Amity to walk ahead and led her down the same hallway Luz had gone, and she couldn’t stop herself from peeking inside the room Luz and a coworker of hers were preparing to work on, catching a glimpse of Luz’s toned calves flexing when she stood on her tiptoes to mark something on the wall.

Unfortunately, the door went by quickly and she couldn’t see much more of her when she had already walked past, before having to turn back to the topics her parents wanted her to discuss. Which was a lot drier planning and listening and trying to visualize complicated construction plans.

It really wasn’t that Amity wasn’t interested in learning all of this. She loved hearing about construction projects and planning where to put elements to create a harmonizing room.

But now that she had seen Luz?

Well, it wasn’t that Amity was overly starved of seeing attractive people. There were a lot of attractive people in her close environment, some of her friends for example and she couldn’t deny that most of her family’s acquaintances were fairly good-looking as well.

But something about Luz had fascinated her.

The way she moved, the way she was covered in dust and sweat and had still smelled kind of good. The way her eyes were sparkling and how she was so comfortable in her own skin, walking through her life as if she was exactly in the place where she wanted to be.

Amity was fascinated by the honest and self-assured way she was moving, behaving, and acting.

And, well, there was the fact that Luz was just ridiculously attractive to her.

She sure as hell wouldn’t forget the way her white teeth shone against her dark skin and how her muscles moved and-

“I’m afraid I must ask you to excuse me, Miss Blight.”, a firm voice suddenly interrupted her thinking and she looked up from the plan Ms. Clawthorne had spread on a nearby table, only then hearing the ringing of a phone. Mutely nodding, Amity took a step back to grant her some privacy and tried to look back at the plan, making some sense of what she saw. It was some kind of cover for the bathtub, she believed. Or was it for the sinks?

Internally groaning, she shook her head to herself. If she hadn’t spent dreaming about Luz the entire time she would have an idea of what Ms. Clawthorne had been explaining to her and she’d be able to work out what the plan was about.

But, as luck would have it, she got off her phone and turned to her with an apologetic face.

“I’m very sorry, Miss Blight, but I’ll have to cut our tour short here. Some of my workers have started laser measuring the walls downstairs and I’m afraid I have to join them and the architect to work out the plans for that. Do you need me to bring you back to the front door?”

Her chance!

Quickly, Amity shook her head and smiled.

“Oh, no thanks! I will look around a bit more and get back to you before I leave, thank you.”, she excused the woman and without missing a beat, the site manager nodded and left her to her own devices.

It wasn’t that Amity had wanted her to go, but now she could maybe sneak a peek at the attractive worker, Luz, again…?

Tempted to slap herself, she furrowed her eyebrows.

Spying on workers?

How shameful. She shouldn’t do that.

Humming, Amity turned to wander out of the bathroom-to-be and down the hallway again, hearing voices getting louder the closer she drew to the room where she had seen Luz starting her work. But instead of spotting the ridiculously attractive girl, she was met by her rather sturdy coworker with slightly chubby cheeks, a kind face, and dark hair, along with the dark-skinned boy she had seen in the entrance hall already. They both talked quieter when they noticed her wandering past and Amity picked up her pace to be out of their hair as quickly as possible again.

She wondered where Luz had gone.

Maybe she had gone downstairs again to get more boards?

Amity decided that checking it out wouldn’t hurt, so she walked downstairs, past some more surprisingly young workers and some of the management board nodding to her politely, before stepping out of the entrance area again into the fresh air and breathing through.

Behind her, the work was picking up and she began hearing a drill hammering into some concrete, as well as a saw somewhere around the mansion, but she didn’t think much of it, the air was feeling way too nice after walking through the dusty construction site.

Wait a minute…

She had seen Luz carrying up boards from below. Maybe she had cut them to length?

More out of curiosity than anything, Amity stepped off the porch and rounded the mansion, peeking around a corner, only to spot the very same girl she had found herself losing her concentration to upstairs, standing by some trestle legs on which she had placed boards, cutting them with a circular saw. She looked very concentrated and was wearing some ear protection now, as well as some glasses to protect herself from the saw dust.

Amity clenched her hand around the corner of the house when she felt her heart speeding up, licking her lips when she saw how Luz was leaning forward a bit more, the muscles on her elbow coming out.

She wasn’t overly muscular or anything, and Amity didn’t like bodybuilder types anyway, but it showed that Luz had worked in this field for quite some time already, and with being on constructions like this one, she probably got all the workout she needed just by working.

Humming, Amity finally decided to stop being a creep and pretend to be on her phone like a normal human, pulling it out to pretend and tap on it a little while walking out from the corner.

She did her best to appear busy on her phone, but Luz didn’t even acknowledge her.

Better for her, because she could keep staring.

Out of the corner of her eyes, Amity could see the saw dust covering Luz’s forearms, giving them a slight sheet of dust, and she wished she could be closer to watch her cutting those boards in more detail.

But this was getting really creepy. She should stop.

Shaking her head, Amity groaned and looked up to the sky, before shooting Luz one last glance and walking back to the entrance area, putting her phone away.

Maybe she could talk to her someday. Or just listen to her again.

Grumbling to herself, Amity did one last tour of the whole house, waiting and hoping for her confidence to build up again to talk to the cute girl, but when she had walked past Ms. Clawthorne a second time, she supposed she had to wave that wish goodbye.

Bidding her goodbyes to all the members of the project management board, she walked back to her car and sat in the driver’s seat, defeated.

Now she had had the chance to have normal conversations here, the entire mansion was full of young workers instead of moody old men, and she had blown it. She could only hope Luz would be there tomorrow.

Sending a last, longing gaze to the now-abandoned saw sitting on the trestle legs, she started her car and put it in reverse.

Either this had been it or she would have another chance tomorrow.

For now, this was enough for her. But this evening she would deeply regret leaving without having tried anything because when she lied down to sleep, the pictures of an unfairly attractive girl working at the site wouldn’t leave her mind alone.

---

“LUZ NOCEDA!”, a voice yelled from downstairs just before the evening and the young woman currently handling the last of the wires listened up.

“Oh, that sounded like Lilith.”, she noted and Willow snorted.

“Ya think?”, she asked and Luz grumbled when she got up, shooting Willow a look.

“I don’t need your sass right now, Willow.”, she shot back at her friend who just snickered, shaking her head before going back to drilling holes into the boards for tomorrow.

“COME DOWN HERE RIGHT THIS INSTANT!”, made both of them flinch, causing Luz to duck her head.

“You better go, she sounds seriously angry.”, Willow shooed Luz with a handwave, putting her drill into position again.

Luz quickly made her way out of the room and down the hallway towards the stairs, where she already saw Lilith standing at the base of them.

Gulping, she made her way down and Lilith glared at her, making her grimace.

“Uh, yes?”, she sheepishly responded, already scared of what she had done wrong when Lilith turned and waved her to follow. Oh, this was bad.

If she didn’t want to scold her in front of everyone, she was going to get the harshest yelling she had ever gotten. Lilith led her outside, before turning back to the young woman and holding out her finger, her face uncharacteristically red.

“Do you have any idea what you did today?!”, she hissed and Luz pulled up her shoulders, eyes wide.

“Did-… Did I, uh, what did I do?”, she carefully asked, but that only seemed to explode Lilith’s rage.

“You embarrassed us IN FRONT OF OUR CUSTOMER!!”, she finally yelled and Luz could already feel all eyes on her while her coworkers gathered on the windows to watch where the yelling had come from.

“O-Our customer?”, Luz ducked her head more when Lilith got redder.

“YOU SLAMMED BOARDS ON HER HEAD, YOU IDIOT!!”, she screamed and Luz’s heart dropped into her pants. So that fancy-dressed had been because she had been the customer.

Oh.

Oooooh.

She had… She had bonked boards on her head and then knocked on her helmet. On their… On their million-dollar assignment customer.

Gulping, Luz sunk into herself more. She had absolutely blown their assignment, hadn’t she? She had just lost the company a couple Million dollars, she had gotten all of her coworkers fired, she’d pay compensation for the rest of her life, she would-

“You’re lucky she wasn’t hurt!! This could’ve gone very differently! I don’t know what kind of guardian angel you blackmailed to look over you, but if this had been Odalia Blight you would’ve been dead and the company along with you!!”, Lilith got closer to her and her screaming suddenly dropped to a very dangerous whisper, “If this hadn’t been the daughter of our customer, I would’ve killed you on the spot. You’re lucky she’s a lot nicer than her mother.”

Gulping, Luz leaned back a little.

“I-I’m not fired…?”, she tried and Lilith finally found back to her normally pale skin color, adjusting her suit.

“Your mother and my sister would have my head if I fired you. Also, Miss Blight was very forgiving and didn’t cancel our assignment, yet. We’re allowed to continue working for now. Until that’s not clear, though, you better not step too far away from the hanging tree, because I will personally put the hangman’s noose around your neck if the Blights terminate that job. Is that understood?”, Lilith got dangerously close again and Luz gulped, rubbing her neck.

“Very graphically understood.”, she mumbled and Lilith glared at her one more time, before straightening back up and walking back to the construction site.

“If you speak to her again, it will be an absolute emergency and you will do so politely and with some respect and dignity. And now clear up your things, we’ll leave at five sharp and if you’re late you’ll sleep here.”

Grumbling, Luz patted her chest to attempt and soothe her beating heart, before running a hand through her dusty hair and shaking it out. This had been shorter than she had anticipated.

Once again rubbing over her neck, she then followed Lilith inside and sighed. She was looking forward to the days where the jobs would be mundane enough for Lilith to stay in the office and let Eda handle the coordination. Having Eda as her superior instead of Lilith was absolutely preferable.

Well, if she was lucky, she would have to focus on work so much she wouldn’t even have time to acknowledge Miss Blight anymore. Maybe she also wouldn’t come back tomorrow, after all, the rich and wealthy had other things to worry about, right?

Especially their customers, who were paying for this giant mansion.

Humming, she entered the building again and ignored all her coworkers looking at her, before starting to pack up the tools she had used and collecting her personal stuff, like her gloves and jacket.

Willow shot her a sympathetic glance and Luz clapped on her shoulder to reassure her that she was okay for now, then they all gathered around their bus to be taken back to the company so they could end the day.

The whole evening, though, Luz fretted going to work the next day, fearing the possible encounter with the Blight girl. Hopefully, she wouldn’t show up so Luz wouldn’t risk her head, her financial stability, and her dignity for all eternity.

---

Let me know what you think! <3

9 notes · View notes

afterourhearts · 4 years

Text

Eyeliner Tears

Why are Asian eyes so ugly? I thought to myself as I outlined their shape with the blackest liner I could dig out from the free Lancôme makeup samples Mom never used. This was my daily routine since I first discovered the beautiful black pencil when I was 12 alongside lip gloss, mascara, and blush. But eyeliner was my favorite – changing most dramatically what I hated most passionately. • Monolids are ugly because they make eyes look like slits. • Double lids are ‘mutant’ because, as my white medical professor once so aptly described, “Epicanthic folds are a prominent feature of Down Syndrome. If you don’t know what they are, Asians commonly have this feature.” Let’s face it: we can’t win, at least not in the beauty arena. But with my eyeliner adding the illusion of a larger eye, I felt halfway there. Not everyone, however, appreciated my foray into adolescent self-transformation. The Chinese beauty culture operates very differently than American beauty culture: pale skin, small mouths, soft bodies, and youthful innocence are prized over glowing tans, wide smiles, athletic frames, and sultry seductiveness. To achieve the Chinese beauty ideal of youthful innocence, heavy makeup such as eyeliner is unacceptable, and makeup at all is frowned upon for younger girls. Mom called them “raccoon eyes” and told me I looked uglier with it on but I never heeded her advice. She also said respectable girls did not waste their time on vanities like makeup, but rather immersed themselves in their studies. She especially hated when I wore makeup to church, a place where teenage girls are supposed to look extra pure. I rolled my raccoon eyes. One year, I met a new girl at our Chinese Christian Church. She was talkative, witty, similarly loved makeup and rebellion, and we became fast friends. This same year, a new youth pastor arrived at our church. He was funny, fluent, and finally our first youth pastor who wasn’t middle-aged. So how do they tie back to eyeliner? Prior to their arrival, I dreaded attending church, paranoid that the judgmental eyes of multitudes of Chinese parents hated my appearance and shared the Chinese cultural views held by my mother. Was it paranoia, or was I just observant? Adults would enthusiastically praise my younger brother’s handsome features and say nothing about my appearance other than, “She is tall!” Their smiles seemed disingenuous and their attitudes towards me distant. Or maybe I was just overly sensitive. Regardless, much of that paranoia melted away with the arrival of a new friend and youth pastor – two characters who seemed more attuned than the other members to the Asian-American dichotomy that was my life. I began to loosen up at church, smile more, and even happily greet the adults. I felt … safe. Maybe not enthusiastically accepted, but also not frowned upon with disdain. One might wonder why I was so concerned for approval from within my Chinese church. When you live in a country spearheaded by people who don’t view you as truly American, you cling onto the safe spaces that still might take you in and consider you a member. I wasn’t aware of how shaky my walls of comfort had been built, though, until one sentence caused them to tumble back down again. “He said he doesn’t like you because you wear so much eyeliner.” She told me. She being my new best friend and he being the cool and young youth pastor we both adored. “How do you know this?” I asked, disbelief and doubt at each other’s throats in the battleground that was now my mind. “Because he told my mom. And my mom told me that it’s not just him who thinks this way, but a lot of other parents. They tell their kids to stay away from you because you are a bad influence.” Bad influence. Me, the introvert who rarely speaks, a bad influence? I let that sink in. That night, I considered giving up my eyeliner. I thought all my fears about being hated by my friends’ parents were unfounded and paranoid. I thought my youth pastor would especially not judge me by something so exterior – actually, why would he judge me at all? Why would a grown ass man concern himself so heavily with whether a teenage girl wears eyeliner? Anger and sadness bubbled up around me. How did one of my greatest fears, one I thought had been pushed away and laid to rest for good, one which only my new friend knew so intimately, suddenly come to surface all over again? And that’s when it hit me: maybe she lied. The seed of thought that this supposed best friend might not actually like me at all was planted. And over the next few months, it thirstily drank up water and sunlight. I befriended other girls and began to uncover bits and pieces of the horrifying truth: she did hate me, and they had evidence. Screen captures and chat conversations were forwarded to my inbox. Not only did she tell others about how terrible I supposedly was, she also told them I disliked all of them and fabricated statements I had never uttered nor so much as thought. I could not believe it – why did she want to destroy my life and capitalize on my insecurities? What did I ever do but consider her my friend? Sometimes, you never get answers. Not too many months after, she moved again. We stumbled across each other’s Instagram accounts a few years later. She had dyed hair, tattoos, piercings all over, eyeliner wings bolder than I had ever applied, false lashes nearly reaching her thickly painted eyebrows, the same deceptively sweet smile as when we first met, and was surrounded by other Asian girls. I once burned with the anger of her betrayal, but all I could think about now was her new embodiment of the criticisms she claimed were the reasons for my rejection from our community and how ironic our appearances were now – me being the studious medical student who sometimes forgets to wear eyeliner and she being the girl who refuses to be seen in public without it - the pictorial epitome of the bad influence she once used to mark me for social abandonment from our only remaining community. Irony, Karma, or Hypocrisy? Today, I won’t know if sprinkled between her lies were grains of truth, and if her comment about my reputation was one of them. I won’t know if my eventual submission to certain Asian cultural values drew its main roots from my teenage experience of potential two-fold community rejection. I won’t know if she ever realized the extent to which she hurt me or if she continues to hurt in similarly sneaky ways our other Asian sisters struggling to find acceptance and self-love in a land which has subjected them to unwarranted rejection. What I do know is this: We All Cry The Same Eyeliner Tears Yes, we do. They trickle down from our unmistakably Asian eyes, glide along our sunscreen laden faces, and leave smudgy black streaks to remind us of both our perceived physical imperfections as well as our efforts to conceal the ugliness we feel inside.

Feeling ugly is not just some manifestation of low self-esteem as these American schools/media/counselors might tell us in order to erase from our mutual history and from their responsibility the ‘chink’ comments that we heard or the fingers-pulling-eyes-upward-to-mimic-us that we saw.

Our damaged self-esteem is not some personal mental and emotional disorder or a reflection of our weakness but a collective experience caused largely in part by the pervasive belief that some belong here but we don’t and that some are beautiful but we aren’t. Don’t think that just because dating apps are now asserting, “Asian girls are the most desired race!” that the girls who come after us are protected from the less-than we endured. The American dating scene did not just become more “accepting” of us – we changed to look more like them. But underneath the beautifully and extravagantly drawn eyeliner wings, the perfectly filled in eyebrows, the time-consuming application of fake lashes, the hours spent at the gym to avoid ‘Asian flat butt’ stereotypes, and the sharp cut of the surgery knife on our eyelids, we still cannot help but wonder: is this beautiful yet? And when he says, “Yes”, we still worry, was I not beautiful before? Do we really want to be with the ones who only want what is made-to-order, and overlook the ones who saw the original, in all its imperfections, as worth discovering? So while I have every right to be mad at my Asian sister for the hurtful actions she made against me as a result of her wanting to be more accepted by our community than I was, I cannot lose sight of the more formidable barrier to our collective inability to self-love: not the lies she told before, but the lies they still tell today. Why are my Asian eyes so ugly? I used to think to myself constantly. And if you’ve read this until the end, I think you know the answer.

_____________________________________________________________

Comments: Friends who have read this far or read my shared thoughts at all, I know my experiences are not isolated. My past shared posts related to familial pressures and relationships have shown me just how overlapping our experiences can be. The feelings of low self-esteem and self-image at some time or another in your life is probably a universal one. Experiences of betrayal are sadly quite common. Hopefully you enjoyed this short piece - it’s a bit different from the other posts I’ve written (a little more cleaned up and narrative when compared to my usual frenetic ranting) ... anyways, I wanted to share that I’ve been working on putting together some more shorts + poems in my free time (this is how I destress from school haha) and something I hope to achieve through writing with this project (and since day one) is unfiltered and unapologetic storytelling highlighting the Asian voice that is so often completely ignored in discussions of race and discrimination. I’m not saying our experiences are to be equated to the experiences of other minorities because noo, but I am saying we should at least be included in the discussion.

This brings me to my next point: I want to continue to share your stories too. If you have experiences you want to share related in any way to your identity as an Asian-American female, I want to hear them and with your permission, try to make prose or poetry of it. Text me, message me, or call me and let’s get in touch :) Thank you for being a part of this whether as a reader or direct contributor. Let’s shape our collective voice!!!

4 notes · View notes

simplysoriya · 5 years

Text

The Eternal Serpent

{Prelude, vibe }

Chapter 1: Decisive Discoveries

Legends are fickle things. While most reside in the imagination of a simpler time? There were always grains of truth embedded into the story of it all. Some stories were like a ball of snow rolling down a hill of the same. In our very nature there was always a spin, an addition, a subtraction, sprinkled with some embellishment, equaling a legend that had an easier flow or a more adequate lesson. There was nothing malicious about the practice- As was the truth behind all oral histories, they tended to bend over time.

Though, even as a rarity, some legends had more truth than others…

A busy desk was toiled upon in the humble two bedroom apartment in Silvermoon as raindrops pounded the glass sill beside it. There was some personality to it between scrawled out papers and hand sketched maps. A seashell here, a dream catcher there, decorated in all one would expect from a bubbly monk who loved the beach. But those personalized decorations were eclipsed by the obsessant project, looking every bit a detective's motive board rather than a delve into Pandarian lore.

A cork-board rested against the wall at the edge of her desk, each of the four corners used as a section for her stockpile of information. Pictures both useful and purely aesthetic were tossed about, both pinned to the board and lazily resting on the simple oak desk. A quadrant flanked one side labeled Eye Witness’, complete with three portraits pinned into them, two of which seemed to have notes skewed to the back of the sketch. Though under it had a similar portrait sketches, they seemed to be silhouettes of a head complete with a question mark over the face.

Adjacent her collection of interviews was a similar set up of information. This time focused on the legend itself. The Temple of the Eternal Serpent was written in bold letters above what looked like a transcript bearing a Lorewalkers seal. A text she had scoured over more times than she could count, to the point where she could comfortably recite the tale with little error.

Directly beneath the subject of her investigation, and the tale that sparked it, was geographical maps of the Pandarian provinces with locations both circled in red with some even sporting a cross through them. While the mainland of Pandaria was focused on in her markings, there were cutouts of the Isle of Thunder as well as a map of Azeroth before the Cataclysm.

Each section had a simple line of thread running from their corners into the center of the board where Possible Locations??? was listed…. Though the lack of anything concrete paved the way for a blanker looking space then the rest of her work, with naught but a picture of a full moon with more question marks scrawled on it out of frustration.

One section sat solitary in its own corner with no tether to speak of. Simply labeled Trials of the Serpent along with three sections representing the three tests written out beneath them. Strength, Spirit, and Soul. Perhaps the busiest of sections of board, this one in particular had scrawled out notes pinned with personalized reminders and revisions to the stories she’s heard. While it had the most information, it looked to be the least figured of the bunch- save for maybe the possible locations she lacked.

Burying her face in her hands as frustration at her own stagnation mounted. Desperately pleading to herself for a good break in unraveling the mystery of the Eternal Serpent. Not often did the chipper monk wallow in self-doubt, but a rare concession was made as she sat at her desk. Listening to the sound of rain against her window.

Right up until an impressed “Damn.” pierced the white noise as a voice came from over her shoulder. “You tryin’ to catch a serial killer kiddo? Cause I know a few.”

The mixture of silent footsteps and her focus elsewhere paved the way to Soriya’s miniature heart attack. Jolting forward in her chair as the familiar voice of her father found her ears. He did this near constantly- and yet every single time it never failed to scare her.

“I’m going to punch you one of these days.” The young monk replied in an aggravated tone. Or as aggravated as Soriya got, at any rate.

“Good. See? That’s good parenting right there. I’m teaching you how to get on that fight response instead of the flight response.” Kirollis added with the usual joking swagger exuded.

Turning in her chair to better face the rogue, Soriya sent her backhand toward Kirollis’ shoulder in a love tap. “Be that as it may…. I won’t be playing pocket healer that day.” She chided before poking her tongue out in his direction in teasing fashion.

Kirollis half-smirked, half-smiled, as he knew full well just how empty those words were. He let her have the moment in the end, instead shifting his attention back to the cork-board with an interested bob of his head. “So what’s with uh… all this?”

With a forearm the young monk cleared the notebook chalked full of tabbed pages. Shifting her gaze toward the corner of her desk as her lips contorted to one side. It wasn’t that she wanted to keep her little venture to herself, rather a sense of pride. She wanted this to be hers.

“It’s just this legend from Pandaria. You wouldn’t like it. It’s full of dragons and wishes and poor villagers and voodoo and stuff.” However she never was all that convincing of a liar.

Kirollis quirked an auburn brow as he gaze Soriya a questioning look that denied anything other then genuine intrigue. Eventually settling on the edge of her double bed both letting her know he wasn’t going anywhere and making himself comfortable.

Once more Soriya let out an exasperated sigh at the realization that he wasn’t moving anywhere soon. “You’re exhausting, you know that?”

“C’mon, tell me about it.” Pointing a finger toward the board in question Kirollis continued, “I know what that is. You’re lookin’ for an old legend?”

“No.” The monk countered. “Well… yes. But I’m really close to finding it!” She exclaimed, only to be met by an unconvinced audience.

“Right. So... a dragon? In Pandaria. Like a Cloud Serpent?”

Soriya gave a single nod of her head in confirmation. “More like -the- cloud serpent. Or well, the lineage of one.” Begrudgingly she relented to tell the tale. “So the story goes that the son of Yu’lon, long ago, neglected his duties and went to go live in a mountain. Basically he gave bad wishes to the villagers who lived close by, essentially like… bribing them to worship him. So eventually the villagers got a buncha bad wishes and they made a temple tomb for him.” The Mistweaver summed up as simply as she could.

The rogues eyes flicked toward the board once more, seeming none too phased by the rigid retelling of a tale that clearly had a lot more too it judging by the evidence right before him. It certainly wasn’t the strangest thing he’d ever heard, and that point was further drove home as he simply commented, “Neat. So, where do you think it is?”

A silence overtook the pair as Soriya blinked a few times before staring at her father. But a fleeting sense of admiration took her as Kirollis just seemed to believe her chasing after some legend as if it were true.

“Neat? That’s it? You hear about a dragon granting wishes and you’re response is ‘neat’?” Soriya questioned in a patronizing tone, despite the warm feelings a mere moment ago.

Kirollis took the jab well, simply shrugging, “Sori… our ranking government literally comes from another planet. A giant demon stabbed our planet baby last year. I’ve somehow managed to make it to almost two-hundred. Stranger things have happened.”

Soriya’s brow furrowed as she conceded. “Yeah… fair points.”

“So?” Pointing toward the center of her board he added, “Is your best lead really the moon?”

“Uhm… well…” She reached a hand up to rub at the back of her neck. “I’ve talked to a couple of peop-... well the families of a couple of people. Stories their grandparents used to tell them.”

“Oh!” As an afterthought Soriya swiftly added, “There was this one group that was said to have actually found it pretty recently. But I can’t find -any- of them, the last person I can prove saw them said it was on the Isle of Thunder, but I couldn’t find anything even close out there.”

Kirollis took a moment to take in the information offered, letting out a “Hm.” As he got to his feet and took a closer look at the maps drawn out. “Ya ever think about the outskirts of Uldum?”

“Uldum?” Soriya brushed off the random location. “Why would I go there? I mean, looking for this that is.”

Once more the rogue cast an incredulous look at his daughter. “Cause thousands of years ago Azeroth was all sorta connected? Pandaria probably connected somewhere around Uldum.” Squinting some he hesitantly asked, “Sori, did you not know that?”

“Why would I know that?!” The monk protested.

“...because it’s basic world history…”

A quick history lesson was given as the father and daughter duo exchanged ideas well into the night. While Kirollis educated her on the finer points of early Azeroth, Soriya filled him in on the legend she pursued. They had always got along and found common interests, but when it came to entering the others world there had always been a lack in joint projects. And while she was reluctant at first? Soriya eventually found herself thankful for the lucky break she was looking for.

#story #story arc #canon #soriya #Kirollis & Soriya #rp #plot

21 notes · View notes

sea-lilli · 3 years

Text

I’ve got some negativity to spew. I don’t feel it’s a lot, like last time, but it’s something I’ve been keeping in. My boyfriend and his daughter. I love him, probably. I’ve been waiting until all my parts are on board with saying it. One of the things holding back has been his daughter tho. I feel like if I said “I love you” to him, I’d have to also love her. And you know what, she is legitimately growing on me. I genuinely care for her. I appreciate how wild she is now, when it used to stress me out. She’s like my little buddy now. So parts of me do love her. Mostly all of my parts like her and some like her a lot. Idk about love yet.

The other day Jeremiah and I had a fight, a big one in terms of impact, but small in terms of fight management / relationship. Jeremiah wasn’t feeling well from his surgery, and so he was cranky. He was going off on a rant to me about how I am with Ramona. He said she will manipulate me, and doesn’t need to be coddled. Said that I was coddling her and teaching her to be sad when she wasn’t even necessarily sad to begin with. That she could get over her sadness.

So I took it in, and wasn’t going to say anything, but then something inside of me (Big?) was like, no! Speak your truth. It’s your responsibility and he needs to know now how you feel. Plus, Jeremiah had started, I think, to realize what a shitty thing that was, tho he didn’t get why, bc he started softening the rant. So I educated. I was so pissed I educated him on mental health and ended up telling him that Ramona could not express her feelings to him, because any time she gives him an emotion other than “happy,” he tells her she is faking it. I said it to be kind, because I really don’t think he saw it. But I said it mostly, because I was feeling frustrated he didn’t see it for himself. And I was frustrated that he is so much older, but still less emotionally intelligent than I am. But I was also angry at myself, because I know that’s a judgmental way to look at it- he didn’t have to go through the years of therapy I needed to.

He denied it very quickly, but I could tell it hurt him (in a good way) and made him think. And I think he’s made a change. He’s been.. kinder to her. He talked to me about how his parents treated him as a kid with his emotions and said that’s why he followed that path with her. Has made comments about knowing he needs to be careful about what he says to her when he’s in pain, because he’s cranky.

Anyway, that’s all resolved now. Our relationship is good. But then today. Ramona is sleeping over two nights in a row. So she will be here tonight, tmr and a little bit of Sunday morning.

I’m in a position at work where I’ve finally mostly adapted - but it’s still hard work. Even when my shifts are easy, it’s still stressful because it’s working with kids, and I’m not all the way comfortable with them yet. I don’t have much experience with them, because I spent my 20s (I can say things like that now) completely avoiding the shit out of them, other than a spare few. Anyway, I’m requesting a week where I can have two days off, but my supervisor is saying it will not be until next weeks schedule.

I’m worn out. I go to work, the kids need me. Specifically, Kiara needs me. She’s living in this potential DCS home mirroring what I went through as a kid. I see her multiple times a week. I’m the main support. I have to schedule massive self care to be able to support her. The parents need me to help them be better parents. My sister needs me. Ophelia needs me. My friends need me. My boyfriend has had major surgery and needs me. And Ramona needs me, hard, because I’ve been meeting needs of hers that her dad hasn’t been able to meet because of his surgery.

I just need some time alone where someone doesn’t need me. Where I can just take care of myself. *I* need me. And it was an incredibly difficult thing to do, to show up for myself first, because I ~do~ want to spend time with Ramona, and I do want to help Jeremiah, but I also… love me. I choose me first, always. I can’t pour from an empty cup. And my cup is 3/4 filled up but it’s still missing 1/4. I need my cup to be overflowing, if so many people need me. I can’t operate at a high level and be there for people in the way I want to be, if my own cup isn’t flowing.

There’s a part of me that doesn’t like Jeremiah. That says he just wants me there to basically babysit Ramona… to take off some of his responsibility. Because I can make Ramona just completely ignore him, she is so engaged with me. He can do whatever he wants to do and have freedom. He gets the benefits of having a kid, but not the hard parts if I’m taking the lead.

Which I also get. I would be the same way too. But also, I’m not a babysitter. I’m not the one who decided to have a kid. I listened to what people were saying about having kids and I steered clear. Also? It takes a shit ton of energy to take the lead always with her. Because i don’t have experience. Also, she just doesn’t… stop. It’s not my role to be a parent to her, or the favorite one at that.

I end up feeling resentful sometimes about the amount of energy I’m giving her. Especially now that I have to support all these kids, all the time. I feel like I need to ration my energy. It’s hard to keep up on my self care. And then I feel guilty about feeling resentful. For one, Jeremiah does it all the time. But also- he’s the one who had the kid, not me. I also feel the teensiest bit resentful because I’m not the main focus of Jeremiah when Ramona is around. It’s just the teensiest bit tho. But things change when she is around. I don’t get cuddled, touched, etc. We are like friends. Which is fine, but I miss that part of our relationship when she’s around. I also like that it’s almost like dating two different people in one. ❤️

Also, I made this choice, because, and I know this isn’t super healthy to hold onto stuff like this, and maybe an indicator it’s not all the way resolved, but the last time we had an argument, Jeremiah criticized the shit out of the way I interact with Ramona. He was judgy and mean, and tried to force me to conform to the type of parent he is. Which is a good type, but the stuff with emotions is not good. Also, my way is valid too, and I have never pushed that onto him (until pushed, and even then, just pointed out a flaw in his logic). I guess what I’m saying is that it wasn’t very fair, either. I also felt like he wanted me to throw away all of my years of therapy / emotional education, because of his opinions. He tried to put a lot onto me.

He’d also done it before, when we made pink sparkly unicorn cupcakes. I let Ramona dump the whole container of sprinkles onto the cupcakes, and he was angry. He’d walked away and let me deal with her by myself, instead of participating. So I guess a part of me was getting even with him for that, but a bigger part was like.. well? I bought them FOR her. They brought so much joy to do the sprinkles, and for so little money. Who else was ever gonna let her do sprinkles like that? She deserved sprinkle cupcakes. It was the best day ever with her. I’ve had fun with her before, but it’s always been stressful. This was JUST fun. I took a photo of them to save, because it was so great. It makes me smile each time I see it.

Anyway, on the way back from her mom’s house, Jeremiah was lecturing me and giving me all these rules about sugar etc. Started telling me to not undermine him, or break rules with her (she has specific sugar rules). He said because of the cupcake incident, that he could see me just feeding her sugar and being like “it’s okay! Just eat all the sugar!” .. which is totally not even related, and also not very fair. I always respect rules. He didn’t set any rules before he left me alone with her, so it was my rules. And I decided it wasn’t a big deal. He also said Ramona was manipulating me, because she knew her sugar rules, and that I didn’t know them. But she didn’t manipulate me. It was a conscience choice for me to allow her to do the sprinkle cupcakes. I will always remember it, and she probably will too.

So yah. That’s why I chose to not come back over tmr. I have to take care of me. + the feelings with him about that fight / him saying that stuff about me as a parent role.. without actually saying I would be in that role. Sometimes also I feel like he looks at me and sees a walking uterus. I know that’s also part projection tho. But it does bother me. I’m not a mom. I’m not a potential mom. I’m good with kids, but I don’t want them for me, and if Jeremiah didn’t have one, I probably wouldn’t have any more in my life than necessary.

He also made it very weird for me with Ramona now. Because I know he is judging me and thinking I’m too soft, gonna be manipulated by a seven year old.. etc. I just don’t wanna deal. It’s too much on top of others. I’m sorry Ramona has to feel the impacts, but also, 🤷🏼‍♀️. I need to value myself above others. Also, I feel that Jeremiah needs to reappreciate how much I help with her.

I feel guilty for saying that too. Bc he has been doing so much better since we had that fight. He’s been more taking the lead and more involved, less cranky, etc. I can see him being a good dad. But also, it’s the bare minimum to treat your kid okay (low bar for him to cross bc male). And I still have these feelings. I think it really hurt me when he was expecting all that from me and that maybe it was a boundary violation, but I didn’t realize until later that my boundaries had been crossed. Or that I crossed my own boundaries. But I’m not sure.

0 notes

bonbrizzle · 6 years

Photo

Here you Rise, Furiously and Fearlessly

Log Line: Labeling in Tattooing: Seemingly Disastrous or Actually Misconstrued?

For my lovely Tumblr followers, this piece is written especially for you.

To give a bit of info about myself to those who are new or aren’t familiar with the writer of this blog, I’m Bonnie, an undergrad at UC Davis. If you’re an OG here, you’ve seen me experience tremendous changes throughout the years I’ve maintained this blog. Due to a mish-mash of circumstances I’m unfortunately not as keen about writing long feel-fests as as often as I did in high school. Back then, days were slower, school meant less, and we all had so much more much needed free-time. As many of you may or may not know, I’m a first generation Vietnamese-American girl born and raised in the most ecstatically eccentric part of the country, the (San Francisco) Bay Area. While I was able to grow up in one of the most progressive areas in the world, my parents weren’t given this luxury we take for granted here. The rift between our two cultures forced me to grapple with a singular sense of “identity” throughout the majority (or entirety? actually) of my life. Many of you fellow Asian Americans are aware of the difficulty in regards to finding a comfortable medium between the lifestyles of both your parents and yourself.

Any-who, I am writing to my fellow tattooed folk in zealous hopes. I have a willful and fire-y desire to push you all to keep on fighting. Fight the stereotypes burdened upon us as a people. Fight to change the way we, society (as a whole), interpret labeling. If you haven’t already noticed, our culture is bizarrely infatuated with the need for identification. Let’s try to undermine this idea with a grand plan.

While I usually materialize just my subjective POV in this diary-like blog of mine, at this instant I’ll be tacking on a little something extra. This piece has the familiar anecdotal experiences that one is familiar with in reading my style, (mixed with subjective thoughts, etc) AND will have some interlaced informative/factual bits to provide you with some background info. If you are compelled, you’re more than welcome to investigate further...and or skim as you wish! I mainly chose to write about resistance and tattooing’s marriage with labeling because I’m enamored about tattoo as a culture. Don’t be alarmed! It is not a research paper. It is a branch of anthropology that requires me to provide some sort of anecdotal recollection of my experience(s) with resistance. In actuality, I haven’t updated in so long, I’m not even sure if anyone’s listening. “Posting into your Tumblr is like talking to your cat. You’re not sure if anyone is listening, but it feels good anyway.” To those who will continue to be loyal to my musings, I hope this piece leaves you with a sprinkle of new insight or a refreshed perspective.

You may or may not be familiar with the newfound anxiety that tags along with getting your first piece. Going into the shop on the day of, I was like anyone else...ridden with anxiety and feverishly wondering if this life-changing decision would alter the way I fit into the world. Would the modified version of me be rejected and outcasted by society? My cocktail of feelings was mixed with a variation of things. Some of it dismal, because maybe my parents would disown me. Others were optimistic, I finally was getting one step closer to the way I only dreamed to look. As I was being escorted onto the tattooing chair, I discovered my circumstances were changing everso quickly. Was I leaving my previous identity behind? Yes, this does seems dramatic, but to be frank, I didn’t fully realize the intensity of this horrifying possibility until the days to started to dwindle. Imagining my future around my family and wanting their acceptance seemed grim, but I stayed positive because I knew this was exactly what I wanted.

Maturing through the lessons of traditional Vietnamese folks meant I was constantly torn between accepting the traditional aspects of being a Vietnamese daughter, while also trying to navigate myself around what being American means to me. Pressure to fill the image of a traditional Vietnamese woman in the eyes of my parents surrounded many reasons behind my actions and plagued my subconscious. I feared they would judge their ability to raise a child by watching me grow into what they dreamed, while evaluating me by my qualities of submissiveness, obedience, and "normality,” But I didn’t want to blend into the rest of the colors and become a muddled brown, being arbitrarily mixed with everybody else. I am not only Vietnamese, but American. Being American means a plethora of things. To me, it is mainly founded upon the notion that you should always allow yourself to have an opinion. Not only in America should you be informed and form opinions from what you’re surrounded by, you need be unabashedly outspoken. In my specific case, being an American in the bay meant even moreso using these exclusive opportunities to fight courageously both for your rights and for what’s right. In an overall sense, this meant acceptance. Let yourself thrive, be who you want to be––without a care in the world––and bloom wherever you are planted.

Let’s take at a comparison between my brother and I. To someone like him, the identity route resembles straight line. My brother seems to lie on the side of the scale that’s on the complete opposite end of what I’m on. He is undoubtedly a gifted child. With that being said, he became simply a breeze for my parents to teach. Never to stray to committing anything outlandish, my brother willfully blended into the cloak of “normality.” I want to note that there is nothing wrong with the desire to be normal. So for my parents, he was a prize, a gifted student with not a single note of resistance; a child who was everso far from the idea of “troubled.” On the other end of the spectrum however, was little ‘ol me, a small Asian girl who started out as a little bit obnoxious and is still honking and tonking with confliction to this day.

It originated early on in my life but came to show it’s face in high school. The amount of worrying about my future my parents were plagued with increased every time I dyed my hair abnormal and kooky color. In high school I died my hair more than 30 times. Throughout the process of maturing, gnawing teenage angst hindered me from communicating the way I needed to with my folks. Because of this, my parents didn’t understand me at all, and thought even moreso that I was trying to erase my identity as a Vietnamese woman after dyeing my hair bright blond for the first time. “Are you trying to be white?!” My dad roared at me as he stared at my bright, freshly bleached blond hair in disbelief. This idea of me that I was running away from the idea of being normal was devastating to my parents. “Will she be okay? Will the kids at school make fun of her?” The idea of me being bizarre to hasn’t stopped there though, unfortunately. However, it’s started to take a change in direction.

After adding several new piercings to my ensemble of body modifications, I eventually broadened myself to a new and considerably “outlandish” form of self expression, the tattoo. Writing this now, I just wanted to say that luckily for me, my parents were able to find a a new meaning for my eccentric taste and childlike imagination. Going out of my way to receive this tattoo, a completely unfamiliar form of body modification meant I was changing myself drastically. This fear only translated to one thought: I would never be the same. Being tattooed meant permanent “disfiguration,” to my parents, and that frightened them immensely. With their somber fear riding on my shoulder, in moved in my old pal anxiety. Would I regret this? Would my family be ashamed to be seen with me, or even worse, reject me fully? Making this conscious decision to permanently alter myself opened a new door of unfamiliarity, something so scary but something I wanted so badly at the same time. I argued with this little voice in my head, the voice that kept telling me that I wasn’t making a bad decision, and would still of course, be a respected member in society. This dream of mine, looking and feeling the way I wanted to unapologetically and fearlessly, gave me the the courage to make the decision to finally make the change. This new drive to bravely make conscious decisions for myself gave me a sense of empowerment and even security. My skin was my own, and I can bravely defend that idea. In getting tattoos, I am forever altering my identity and resisting the labels primarily associated with being an Asian female in today’s world.

So first, what is it about tattooing that’s so special to this project about resistance?

The tattoo on my arm in Davis is a nouveau form of self expression. To the myriads of people around me, it might be perceived in many different ways, depending on the individual is who’s looking at it. Those of you who are familiar with me know that in me is an immense appreciation for art. So tremendous that I even applied to UCLA as an art major 3 years ago. This blossomed into the supreme desire to be inked, having a permanent form of art to adorn on my body forever. I dealt with bullying in the past for dyeing my hair the range of the rainbow, but nothing felt like what I was about to do to my skin. Hair is always able to grow out and revert back to the way it was. Skin, however, was not. But the possibility of bullying didn’t scare me. It never scared me because it always came from doing something I wanted, and loved. In this case, it was the same, but not...the new audience was my parents, my respected relatives, my extended family...not my immature classmates from school.

Tattoos can have a lot of stigmas behind them. Stigmas come from a variety of individuals who interpret something in a certain light. Here in reality there obviously is a plethora of different perspectives one can interpret the tattoo as. Because of this diversity, I must connect what I learned in my anthropology class this fall, to the idea trying to be expressed in this blog post, that there is a multiplicity of ways we as a people can digest the things around us, depending on who we are as people, whether be in groups like socio-economical or individually, like “Asian American,” for example.

On a personal scale, the tattoo on my arm to me is a beloved form of self-expression. It is an area of my body that represents, or shows some indication about who I am and the things I love. It is a form of my identity that gives me confidence and comfort in my own skin, it makes me feel more beautiful, special, etc. But to others, it can be taken in a completely different light.

To authoritarians, like my future employers, it may look entirely different. These authoritarians, based on the previous history of tattoos, may believe that I may be harboring some criminal tendencies, may not take school or my education seriously, or am frankly––even a “good for nothing,” individual. This all depends on many different things, however, like what environment the authoritarian grew up in, what kind of environment they are surrounded by now, what their personal views on “x” and “y” are, etc. Because of this dangerous tendency, individuals like me who like to wear tattoos may be slightly more secretive, and get pieces done that are easily hidden. In places like Portland, in Oregon, however, tattoos are very common and popularized by the rising modernity scene. You can easily see a bunch of tattoos individuals hanging out at multiple joints in the city, all without a care in the world. This is because the city of Portland is open to this form of art, and has gotten moreso used to it by now. In other places, say maybe more conservative states where tattoos are less popularized, like Philadelphia as a friend once told me, tattooed individuals can be shunned, stared at viciously, and even treated with disrespect.

To older-generations, tattooing comes off as taboo and an indicator of poor-morals. Because tattoos are constantly shown off on criminals, adorned by gang-members, etc. These stigmas in tattooing have been constantly perpetuated by tattoo culture in criminalized areas, or jails and prisons. Those who spend some of their time in these institutions typically get tattooed by non-professional “friends,” who don’t use cleanly measures like sterilization. Those who get these “homemade tattoos,” can give tattooing a bad rep, because the public views these individuals as a whole image, a criminal with tattoos, so a person with tattoos will most likely have some tendency to do immoral things. Because of this constantly breathed idea, the tattoo to the public can give a lot of citizens anxiety. They can be immediately threatened by this individual who looks like they’re up to no good, and if they were to assume who the tattooed individual is, they would probably not reach for the guess of say, a doctor or a lawyer.

Likewise to the Japanese, tattoos are an indicator of a troublesome individual who is associated with some type of Yakuza group, or “gang,” in Japanese. Those who are dedicated to the lifestyle of their respective gangs in Japanese culture prove their loyalty by getting big tattoos spread all over their body, because obviously if you weren’t a dedicated member why would you A) subject yourself to that type of pain B) be committed to permanent body art for the rest of your life? Because of this traditional idea, Japanese people, although conservative already, are not able to be comfortable around tattooed individuals, and even go as far as banning tattooed individuals at public bath-houses, the “onsen,” they call it.

To give an even more extreme example, take tattooing during WWII. Jews who were captured and wrongfully imprisoned by Nazi concentration camps during the war were not only cruelly mistreated and tortured, but were also branded like caged animals. Jewish prisoners had numbers etched into their wrists in order to mark them as prisoners but also label them so they were easier to keep track of. This marking gave them a huge sense of shame and misery, and was forever a reminder to them of a nightmare so horrible they wish it didn’t really unfold. Because of this, Jewish people, as I noted when browsing on Quora this one day, are not at all interested in getting tattoos. They may not be so critical of others getting ink done, but for themselves, would never because of the terrible past and memories associated behind it.

To tattoo artists, on another note, tattoos are a form of art that they create, but also prosper from. The tattoo on my arm may look like a mark of criminalization on me to naysayers, but to these artists, the creation of the tattoo on my arm meant they were able to eat dinner or have a roof over their heads for another day. After meeting a couple artists while searching for the perfect artist for me, I learned a little bit more about the tattooing scene in their perspective. Lianna deFleur, a floral specialized artist in San Francisco, noted to me that tattooing to her is a form of valuable and beautiful expression. Every time one of her clients leaves with a new piece, she feels like she is giving the world another beautiful piece of artwork to be loved and cherished, and that all those who are marked by her all share a beautiful piece of herself, that she worked so long and dutifully to create. Likewise, because of those who want tattoos, the industry has grown so large and normalized that you can now see cities like San Francisco, Berkeley, and Portland full of tattooed individuals. The rising scene has given birth to an abundance of careers, whether giving ink or tool shops more business, or giving an artist more fame. These artists give rise to individuals who are selling certain materials: ink, tattoo needles, sterilization tools, spaces for rent, etc. Such a new industry has also gifted communities with more openness and awareness to the trueness of tattooing, that it is an art-form that shouldn’t be feared. While I usually don’t support capitalism and the monetization of everything, the monetization of the process of tattooing has gifted certain individuals with a new way of life, while blessing others in the process.

To other tattooed individuals, my tattoo may be a source of common ground, another way to connect to a stranger that they’ve never met before, even without ever speaking to them. I know that when I go out and I see a fellow tattooed person, I feel a little more connected and comfortable with them, because they understand the way it feels to be marked and forever changed by ink. There’s a quote that I heard that I believe is exceptionally true. It is as follows, “The only difference between tattooed people and non tattooed people is tattooed people don’t care if you are not tattooed.” I think this quote represents our population pretty well. When hearing the quote for the first time, I am reminded of American politics. This is because a lot of individuals who fight against something sometimes fight for things that don’t relate to them. For example, I can speak about the issue of marriage equality when talking about gay marriage. A lot of conservatives who voted against gay marriage argue that it is to protect the purity of marriage between a man and a woman, and to allow marriage to be in a different form would be allowing the sanctity of marriage to be at risk. Although allowing gay marriage to exist may not apply to the person directly who is voting against it, it hurts those that want it. Similarly to how people who aren’t tattooed despise tattoos and don’t want others to get them, although it doesn’t directly affect them. I say if it’s not hurting anyone to let it be. However, in this case I am no way trying to equate tattoo culture to the need for marriage equality, for those who feel like I am being insensitive, I apologize, and wanted to use a simple example, although not perfectly appropriate.

There is a great deal of types of tattoo in the community. Because of this, many different genres of tattoos have developed over time. From the homemade, branding types that scare people away, to other more recognizable types like “Old American,” tattooing. I think all the people who get the same genre of tattoo also feel a strong sense of connection towards each other, the connection through mutual appreciation of the same artform. In my case, I especially love blackwork tattoos, a tattooing style that places special appreciation and priority for black and grey ink only, without color at all. This style of tattooing to me, as a form of art, looks very crisp and clean cut. Other styles I especially love are florals. The different genres in tattooing allow smaller groups to form from the overall larger group, and allows individuals like me to seek out other people who also enjoy the same art form, again a part of tattooing that specializes individuality but also the seeking of mutual common ground.

After announcing to my housemate about the subject on my final project, he asked what about tattooing am I trying to write about? I told him that tattooing has so many different genres, and sub-genres, and subgenres of those sub-genres, for example. He noted to me, “Actually, I was just going to mention that. That tattoos can have so many different meanings. A tattoo can represent a positive, happy thing, but also a terrible negative thing. Like if someone has an anti-semitic tattoo sprawled largely across their backside.” I think this is true. While I for one try to always see the positive side of tattooing, there is a stigma for a reason. I have to admit that this is true. The problem of the stigma arises because some individuals choose to get tattoos that are hurtful, and are negative, and this hurts the community in a general sense.

Likewise, you could get a tattoo that is both sad and positive. Some individuals get the date of their loved ones deaths tattooed. This is both to commemorative in the best, loving way, but also melancholic and can be opening up to a sad memory, a bad thing. Tattoos can be viewed in so many different ways, but to me I want to try to alter it to be more accepted as less of a bad thing and more of an individual thing, like dyeing your hair for example.

The enormous stigma behind tattoos have created a rift between people who understand and perpetuate the culture and those who resent and fight against the culture. Let me talk to you about how tattoos fit in our world and how we fit in the world of the tattoo.

My tattoo was produced by an artist at Black and Blue Tattoo named Michael DeMatty. He first drew up a drawing and presented it to me, asking me how I wanted it tweaked, trying to adhere to my taste as much as possible. This is a time-consuming process that he needs to get right perfectly in order for the tattoo to exist in the most positive light. The drawing may take a long time, need a considerable amount of retouching, and may have many opportunities to change into something else. Most often busy artists charge a fee for a drawing that they use as a deposit to the tattoo, because they only want committed clients who will not back out and waste their time. After my initial consultation with him, DeMatty drew up my design, then stenciled it onto special tracing paper. On the day of it was his responsibility to adhere the stencil precisely and accurately onto my bicep so all the lines would match up as accordingly. This was a tiring process because the horizontal lines wouldn’t line up much of the time, and the stencil had to be redone time and time again. Afterwards, when everything was stenciled on and placed correctly, DeMatty started tattooing me, a process that took multiple tattooing needles of different sizes, widths, and amounts. All these needles were stabbed a gazillion times into the skin on my bicep.

The ink involved in my tattoo is from a laborer that DeMatty has sought out himself, the ink supplier is a trusted laborer and that creates ink that went from their own production line to now inside my skin, for the rest of my life.

Tattooing history has come a significantly long way. It went from being a practice in villages in Southeast Asia and even the earliest Native Americans to being a common form of self-expression in many countries and the beyond, in this case, the US. Villages used tattooing as a form of marking, status, and symbol. In the past it has been traditionally done with needles tied around sticks, dipped in ink that was made from mashed up flowers. It has it’s dark history, however, as a means to mark Jews during WWII, in concentration camps.

Nowadays, tattooing has evolved, because mine was made through the effort of a tattooing needle machine, which is automatic, and electric. The creation of the tattoo happens primarily in the shop, it sometimes originates from the ideas of the individual getting tattooed, but after the action has been completed at the shop, the tattoo is generally maintained on the person.

After I got my tattoo, I healed it with special burn victim ointments, like bacitracin. I kept it covered for the first weeks, and now I maintain the color with sunscreen, everyday.

The tattoo originated and inked into my arm in San Francisco, California, but it’s traveled to a plethora of places. It’s traveled to my hometown in San Jose, the cities on the way to Davis, California where I go to University. It has even traveled to Los Angeles and all the cities on I-5 N and I-5, so the cities in between.

Here is a picture of myself, staring at the Seattle sky during a great weekend in May. I wasn’t reluctant to wear a tank-top here because Seattle is more progressive than other places, and I happily and gratefully noticed that there were other tattooed individuals scattered across this city as well! I think my tattoo is simple enough that people won’t judge it very much, and if they do, I wouldn’t know what they would really say about it anyway. The three band tattoo sitting on my right bicep pays homage to Native American styles of tattooing. One that places special emphasis on lines. The three lines represent each member of my family: mom, dad, and brother. I would assume no one would really know this by looking at it, which is nice. I think it also looks really aesthetically pleasing, which is a good reason to get a tattoo too if you like it!

A Wide Angle View

Tattoos are generally scrutinized as a categorization, one that links criminal or suspicious looking citizens into a group as a whole, unfavored by most of society. However, tattoos also can mean a plethora of different things. In this case, tattoos as a form of historical art are a form of self-expression, and continue to act as a visual culture to all those who love and adorn them.

Tattoos, in a historical sense, were meant to mark tribe members with important symbols to shine light upon them as special group members. This could mean adorning the leader of the tribe with the most detailed and beautiful ink, or even to brand criminals as those who need to be taken note of and feared.

The economy behind tattoos as a form of art has grown tremendously throughout the past decade, from being labeled as an illegal act in the state of Massachusetts previously to be a bustering new business in the city of San Francisco, where tattoo shops are in full demand. While tattoos before looked simply like a way to brand those who broke the law, there now is a whole new meaning to the act of tattooing itself, one could look at it in a whole sense as a form of resistance against society, but on a more personal sense––as a form of belonging, one that allows us to express ourselves, but also be a sort of rite-of-passage to those who are old enough to get it done legally.

I for one, felt like I was breaking the stereotype culture of Asian women as submissive and obedient when I went into Black & Blue Tattoo in San Francisco to adorn myself with new ink. I got 3 bands done around the bicep of my right arm, in thus paying homage to the Native American tribal style of tattooing, one dating back to as far as 2000 BCE. This style of tattooing was prominent when the natives were tattooed, becoming a religious ritual, usually during war-time. The band style of tattooing was usually present to distinguish different tribes from each other.

To me, it meant personally to rid myself of the submissive stereotype but also be there to remind me of my family’s permanent impact on me, with 3 bands being for 3 family members––my mother, father, and brother. My parents at first, were not crazy about me getting tattooed. I thought to myself, that this was a choice for me to make. I loved the artistic side of tattooing, and wanted to be a collector, but was also afraid of all the prejudices society already has set up for me. Tattooed individuals are not looked at with the most equal and honest eye by society due to the general criminal stereotype. I think personally, with the general introduction of good-mannered, kind-hearted individuals with tattoos being present in society, there will be at least a small shift in the perspective of those who still view tattooing as a negative categorization of criminals, with my existence being as useful as possible.

So what does this all have to do with labeling and resistance?

I feel as though these two aspects of tattooing go hand in hand with each other. Tattoos, on one side are a form of categorization. Those who are tattooed are lumped together as a group, judged collectively in a lot of time bad ways, and are stereotyped as a group accordingly. At the same time, the idea that tattooed individuals are looked as a group has its perks as well. I mentioned earlier that when I meet a fellow tattooed individual, I feel a little more connected to this person, even if I don’t know them personally. This is because I feel as though the person also experiences the same judgements placed upon them by society as me, and because of that we can be empathetic towards each other. Likewise, when we are grouped together as a collective, I feel as though we can resist the stereotype together, not while acting as a group, but changing people’s of tattoos on an individual scale, making it better for the group in general.

Tattooing as a group can be seen as a special thing to help individuals relate and understand each other. While we can be judged harshly as a group, the same group is able to help each other feel and understand each other’s feelings and experiences, which I deeply appreciate. Knowing the stereotype for tattooed individuals and then taking heed this information and changing it by not being the stereotypical “criminal,” or “suspicious,” person will make our group look less daunting as a community. These little steps to resist the stereotype together are what I think can be considered as a new way to interpret the verb, “tattooing,” and “labeling,” Labeling our group as a whole may mean categorization, but it also is a means to help our group come together and resist together.

There is this mutual experience with tattooed individuals about the dilemma about openly showcasing your tattoos. We bond as a group when we know the annoyingness of people who intrusively come up to you to touch your skin or ask you what your tattoo means. We have this silent agreement in the tattooing community that those who come up to you musn’t be intrusive, disruptive, or too invasive to you as they see you. If they do, it’s fine for you to ignore their interaction if you wish. I feel that this is true, and some people don’t have respect for others space when they try to inquire knowledge about another person’s body modifications. This is a way for the group of tattooed individuals to understand each other.

The visual culture surrounding tattoos gives a whole new meaning to the practice now, than it did before. Before, labeling could be seen as a harsh way to judge a tattooed person, instilling upon them stereotypes that they didn’t ask for that may not accurately depict them. Nowadays, tattooed individuals are now in a community that expresses new principles. The tattooed community focuses on the sharing of visual culture through self expression. Tattoos are meant to portray an artist’s best work that also physically symbolizes something a person values, loves, or wants to remember, all in the form of ink.

In tattooed culture, it is wrong to copy another artist’s work, stroke for stroke. There is however, welcoming attitudes to inspiration from another artist, but it is the new artist’s responsibility to make the new piece unique and in a style individually connected to them, therefore keeping the work’s integrity. It is also a very important point to remember that “tattoos are not for today, they are for forever.” This rings true to those individuals who knock down a couple of drinks in a sitting and want to get inked. Artists refuse to ink these people, one because they are making a decision without being sober and therefore have impaired judgement, and two because alcohol thins the blood, making the individual bleed more during the tattooing process, which is dangerous.

There are a couple of conflicts in the community, however, about certain things. A lot of artists scoff at trendy tattoos, while others don’t really care enough for them to reject them outright. This is true for trendy tattoos like: native American dreamcatchers, feather tattoos, infinity signs, Chinese characters, etc. These trendy tattoos can sometimes be harshly judged in the community when an artist refuses to do them, a lot of the reason because society doesn’t respect tattoos that are cultural appropriation, which they shouldn’t be anyway. Those who get tattoos that appropriate another individual’s culture usually make fools of themselves, this is because they usually don’t get the right word they were trying to communicate tattooed. I remember watching a YouTube video on Chinese character tattoos where one individual thought it mean, “bravery,” but when they showed it to their Chinese friend they soon learned that it meant “refrigerator,” which I thought was both humorous and tragic...humorously tragic. On this kind plane, it is easy to see why some people don’t respect tattooing. If you are going to get another culture’s language permanently etched into your body, why not go through some research to get the write meaning instead of making yourself look like a fool? This creates a negative image on those who get tattoos in general.

There is also a firm understanding in the culture that novices should not tattoo professionally. This is because homemade tattoos give professionally done tattoos a bad rep, and make tattoos look bad, or “trashy,” and not respectable. Novices are supposed to learn from professionals by being “apprentices,” and must be recommended and backed by a professional typically to get a permanent position in a tattooing group. There is a special gripe in the community about “tattooing schools,” that artist are insulted by. Tattooing schools serve to simply turn tattooing into a monetized means of production. That is, those who want to start tattooing others to make money can just apply for some generalized class to start their new career. This is dangerous to those who perfected their art and have taken special time to develop their own sense of style, go through hoops to secure a shop, and have learned through the help of fellow tattooed artists. Going to a school for tattooing that doesn’t really care about your work or you individually as a person is a joke to the tattooing community. You can see this easily by reading up posts about “tattooing schools,” on your own.

The fact that there is rules in this new community makes the whole thing so much more special. You can easily see the form of resistance to the stereotypical ideas of tattooing and strip away the previous label placed upon it. The tattooing culture has grown so large that those who love the culture have made strong rules to live by to practice integrity, respect, and mutual understanding of each other. To follow these rules means that you are giving tattoos a new label, one that can connote respect, sensibility, and cultural awareness.

Tattoos as a form of art, contrary to the belief of group categorization, are obviously a way to promote individuality. Many of us individuals who choose to get tattooed look for unique artforms to get adorned onto our bodies. Because of this, you can see in the tattooing world that often tattoos are not repeated exactly as they are, not only because copying another artist’s work is wrong in tattooing culture, but because you usually want a unique piece.

Snake tattoos are common in tattooing culture. Why would anyone get a tattoo of a snake, you might ask? This is a time for me to give you some cultural awareness of tattooing culture. Snakes can be interpreted as vile beings to be feared, but to some, they are beautiful. One point is that snakes have to do with religious texts, such like the inclusion of the snake in the story of Adam and Eve. Secondly, in some cultures, snakes represent healing and rebirth. When a snake sheds its skin and grows into something new, it is like it is being reborn, and healed again into something new. You wouldn’t have really thought about this if you didn’t get an explanation right? It does make sense.

Likewise, when people get tattoos of say, scary symbols such as skulls, this is sometimes an expression of their lack of fear to death. People who are not moved by death sometimes get skull tattoos because they accept that life has it’s unexpected turns and you should live it to its fullest potential. I see that skulls get a bad rep in tattooing culture because some people think it’s a tacky symbol, but it’s there in the traditions of tattooing for a reason.

People are nowadays also placing special emphasis on floral tattoo designs. I see that many individuals think that flowers are beautiful, so why not let them wear them in the form of permanent art? I too stand behind flowers being a beautiful thing to tattoo, and support this movement completely. I love it. The image of a flower is also less scary to people who don’t understand tattoo culture, and therefore can help resist the stereotype of scary tattooed people, one step at a time. I think this movement of including tattoos that aren’t super traditional helps us relabel the idea of tattoos as less of a way to label someone in a negative way, but allow people to think that some people just like the way things look and want to wear them permananently.

So how does this affect me on a more personal scale?

For instance, I noticed you wrote at length about 'labeling' - how others label you, how you sought to relabel yourself, how tattoos can be a way of (re)-labeling, and also how you seek to escape labels entirely.

When I started growing up and noticing the realities of life, I noticed that everyone around me will judge me without my consent, no matter if I like it or not. This is not necessarily a reflection of who they are as people, although it can be, but I think is a simple and integral part of what makes us human. With this being said, I remember in high school sulking and being hurt over the bullying I incurred do to my taste in hair color. I routinely mocked by constant whispers around me when I came into class, and I especially remember those who called me names such as, “Crayola,” and “carrot-head.” While my classmates at school chose to judge me on that part of myself I chose to reveal, I noticed that some individuals who judged me prior decided to still try to be my friend and therefore try to get to know me. My best friend to this day was one of the individuals who thought my hair made me “odd,” and somewhat unapproachable even, but she chose to disregard that for the most part to get to know me personally. Through this, she was able to understand who am as a person and discard her previous idea of me. I want to work this way continuously to escape labels entirely, person by person.

To convert my parents to my side, I first started to warm them up to the idea of me getting a tattoo by slowly hinting at it, and showing them designs that I liked. They didn’t believe me at first, because to them, it was such a preposterous idea. No one in my family has a single tattoo. It is not spoken about, ever, and no one has dared or desired to get one either. I think in Vietnam at least, tattoos are not popular at all, and are simply a part of the idea of a typical street-gang member or institutionally jailed individual. Because of this, my parents weren’t keen on me also “branding” myself and making a choice that I could possibly regret my entire life. Sure enough, I realized that they were going to react this way, and chose to try to educate them instead of permanently resist and do what I want. I started out by telling them how common tattoos are nowadays and noting what percentage of my classmates had big and small tattoos, and also showing them multiple Instagram pages of tattoos, so that they would see how wildly common they are. I also let them know that employers nowadays are more understanding of body art, if it is in moderation. At the end of the day, they just wanted me to be comfortable in my own skin and not bullied or mistreated for being a certain way. I understood this and assured them that this was my dream, and if it would help, I’d get it in an easily hidden place, just in case.

Sure enough, everything ended up alright. I guess my parents are more understanding than others, but I’m glad I was able to convince them from downright rejecting it and saying no, to giving me their blessing, as long as I do my research and get it done at a reputable shop. My extended family however, is a different story. I haven’t gone out of my way to show my tattoo to other family members, who I don’t know as personally, and who I feel won’t choose to accept me in a positive way. I am still taking my chances with these people, and choose to hide it, at least until I’ve gotten a secure job in the outside world. I know that I cannot convince everyone to see my side of the field, but I will continuously try to change people’s ideas of me personally by acting in a different way than they expect me to be.

I admit, to get to know people on a personal scale is extremely difficult. If I were to try to befriend everyone who judged me and get close enough to them where they would learn that I am not “weird,” in a bad way or odd, is too time-consuming, difficult, and honestly, just unrealistic. However, I do want to make it a point to come across to every individual I have an interaction with to change their opinion of me just a little bit, just enough to make me seem like less of a stereotypical person. I go about this in my everyday life, when I’m getting coffee, when I meet a classmate for the first time, etc. At the beginning of a relationship, I usually try to escape from labels by firstly, covering my tattoo. This may seem backwards because I shouldn’t be hiding it, but I find that it is a strength of mine if I can allow myself to be known first, as a non-tattooed individual, and then later, reveal it, to not make it as big of a deal as it usually would be if they just met me for the first time and saw it.

I have this dream that someday people who are tattooed will slowly change the minds of others who think tattoos are are indicator of a person with low morals, etc. I honestly think that this can be accomplished on a small scale, one step at a time. I know that it may take years and years to get to this point, but I feel that if we slowly show others that we are normal, loving, caring, understanding, feeling people like themselves, people will slowly understand

#personal #tattoo #tattooing #project #art #anthropology #paper #creative #seattle #washington #explore #travel

4 notes · View notes

tyqui11 · 7 years

Photo

Roots Picnic Summer 17 (06/03/17)

Previously attending the Roots Picnic 3 other times before, the 10th anniversary lineup was not only awesome because of the addition of some of the dopest artist out right now like (Pharell, Solange, and Thundercat) plus some hip-hop Originals like (Mobb Deep, Fat joe and Scott Storch) to name a few, but was a special day for us with the debut release of Brannew Entertainment’s (Isis Williams) and her single “Love Limit”!

A collaborative effort of me trying my hand at Music management of my Rapper/Singer-songwriter sister Isis Williams. Before we headed out I made sure when we showed up we were going to show out! My colleague Sufia (whom has a dope sense of fashion with a proficiency of make-up artistry to boot) spearheaded the Overall Styling.

Fi definitely helped Isis pull off this superstar makeover the right way. The end result of the makeover was a look I couldn’t even imagine! (Thanks Fi) Now we were good to go. So we started to make our way to Destination Roots Picnic! Festival Pier located near the Spring Garden section of Philadelphia had back street parking, posted up we hopped the L train and a few stops away and we’ve arrived!

The 10th anniversary of the roots picnic lived up to its hype, with the place being packed, Beautiful women and weather made the picnic all the more awesome. Leisurely looking at the ladies I had to get back to being with Isis (Business First). I then got some cool shots of Isis off guard along with some poses which made for a really good impromptu photo shoot. Everything was really coming together as I thought to myself...Self (Maybe I can do this Music thang).

Cue the loudspeakers with the voice of non other than the big homie (Black Thought) to introduce the legendary (Mobb Deep)! Which was crazy coincidental because 2 weeks later 1 half of the group “Prodigy” suddenly passed away (Rest in Piece). Before then I managed to get some really cool shots of their performance, which added an element of rarity to the photos. With the combination of Mobb Deep, the Roots and Scott Storch their performance was reminiscent of a time when life seemed simpler.

Makes me not only sound but feel old. Despite all that me and Isis were jamming out without a care in the world! Mobb deep was followed up by Fat joe and then Jeezy! After we vibed out to some exclusive Black thought remixes sprinkled with some classics, We then decided to relocate to another stage to see just who was performing next. As we walked we stopped for a little midway intermission. My gaming senses started tingling. And it was Just as I suspected, Alienware had a gaming booth!

I couldn't resist Dragging Isis with me growing up she knew I had to flex my gamer muscles! There was a monitor outside the booth displaying the Xbox One Fighting game “Killer Instinct” which was right up my competitive alley. After watching this kid continue a 20 game winning streak I decided to step up to the plate. Purposely acting aloofly my gaming strategy was already set in place. Acting like I’ve never played lured the kid into a heightened sense of confidence.

Just checking this kids demeanor it was as if he was convinced that it was going to be over before it started. Starting the virtual fisticuffs and a couple rounds later I dethroned the 20 game champion! The former champion looked a bit astonished while I walked away from the booth with my only win lol. I left hoping there was at least 2 lessons in life the kid could have taken away from his public defeat, #1 Never judge a book by its cover, and #2 Respect your elders! With Isis impatiently waiting for me to finish my gaming we got back to walking to the next stage. On the way we Met a lot of dope people! From Outlandishly dope dressed individuals to music industry people like producers, artists and personalities gave me and Isis the opportunity to network and introduce and spread the Brannew message. Networking was really starting to make me realize that the Music portion of Brannew Entertainment was really getting serious.

Fast forward a bit between walking back and forth between stages from performers like 21 savage to soulful songstress Solange Knowles! Way more excited than Isis was, I made a move to get closer to the stage for some dope shots. Solange’s most recent album “A seat at the table” was one of my favorite albums of 2016. With one of my most favorite rappers Q-tip playing a role in production of the album gave the project an added element of African American empowerment which made for some damn good R&B. Forgetting about how deep Solange’s fanbase was I couldn’t get as close as I would’ve liked, but I still managed to get a couple of good shots during her performance.

Next up was the Man, Myth and Music Legend (Pharell Williams)! What more can I say about the guy that hasn’t already been said about his genius besides he was and still is ahead of his time! I mean “Frontin” came out nearly 15 years ago, and could still be just as relevant as today’s music. “Frontin” was just the beginning of the long list of hits he would have to offer to the music world. Always staying true to himself despite coming up in a time when the idea of cool from trends all the way to the fashion of the early 2000’s was completely opposite of his own.

Growing up being scrutinized, teased or rejected for liking things that weren’t accepted amongst my culture or peers, I always felt like I could relate to Pharrell and N.E.R.D in more ways than I could count. So seeing a live Pharrell performance for the first time was something special for me. The Roots truly did save the best for last! With some surprise appearances from “Pusha T”, “Tyler the creator” and “Norega” Pharell Exceeded expectations yet again. With the perfect ending to our night me and Isis headed back home with not only another chapter in our journey to the top of the music business but with the satisfaction of just being lovers of music in its entirety.

Until the next blog always remember…Stagnation is Damnation, so just Be you…Be Brannew

- Peace, Love and happiness from us at Brannew entertainment

2 notes · View notes

thecelebritystatus · 7 years

Text

Aminata Schmahl-Pankey better known as Amina Buddafly, was born on April 18th, 1983 in Hamburg, Germany to a German mother and a Senegalese father. Being blessed with a multicultural parents produced a beautiful, unique individual.

Amina’s eyes opened up to a world of different opportunities which helped cultivate her values, culture and music tastes early in life. Amina did not come into the world alone. Amina shared the womb with her twin sister Safietou also know as Jazz. Amina also has an older sibling by the name of Sophie. The trio formed the group Black Buddafly. The three sisters gained success and worldwide notoriety. Soulful ballads, magical voices and endless beauty were contributing factors to the group’s success.

Amina is no stranger to the bright lights, big city and of course music. Amina is an accomplished vocalist and she also plays different instruments. Amina decided to branch out on her own and go solo. Opportunity knocked and Amina opened the door. Amina reemerged like a butterfly out of a cocoon and spread her wings. Amina is still soaring by leaps and bounds. Beautiful and talented, nothing but success awaited her.

In 2013, Amina Buddafly, joined the cast of Love and Hip Hop New York created by mogul Mona Scott- Young. While we all know Reality TV can bring aplethora of opportunity and stardom, it can also be emotionally challenging. Mrs. Pankey decided to roll with the punches.

Amina Buddafly entered the show as an artist/protege of rapper and fellow cast mate Peter Gunz, For those who do not know, Peter Gunz was part of a rap group in the 90s (Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz) Peter gained street and hip hop notoriety for the song DejaVu (Uptown Baby). While on Love and Hip Hop, the ratings soared while we took a bird’s eye view, watched from the outside looking in at Amina’s life. As many of the viewers may know, simple life situations can easily turn into a full-blown quagmire. Simple misunderstandings can turn into major fall outs. So, while Amina and Peter worked on music, working in close proximity, they also fell in love.

As the audience, some of us sat and judged, questioning motives and decisions, but at the end of the day the heart wants, what the heart wants and if any of us were in that triangular situation, who knows how we would have handled it. Once a week on Love and Hip Hop New York, we watched this young woman wear her heart on her sleeve and bare her soul, how could you NOT love Amina !? Amina is here for the Win!

One of my favorite songs that I am assuming was produced during that pivotal time in her in Peter’s relationship was ” Don’t Wanna Be Right” We watched their relationship grow and blossom, then fail, wither, then come alive again in full bloom, all from the comfort of our living room couches. Needless to say, the couple loved each other, got married, had drama with Peter’s other kids’ mother, Peter going back and forth between Amina and Tara, that produced more children, with both women! It was a roller coaster ride, but Bayyyybeee, I was there for it! I felt Amina’s rise and falls, her triumph and heartbreak. I wanted to dry her tears and break open and bottle of wine with baby girl. I wanted her to win!

The love, the lust, the infidelity, the torment. We can only imagine the trials and tribulations that Amina had to endure. Through it all, Amina, continued to put out great music. Life happens and continues after the cameras stopped rolling. Let’s take a walk with Amina, let’s see where this talented woman has been up to?

Hey Amina, thank you for the taking the time out of your busy schedule to interview. You look amazing as always. Let’s start from 2017 and work our way back shall we?

Cappucine- Ok darling, let’s talk abut your book “The Other Woman” that is currently available on Amazon. What prompted you to write a book? Will there be any jaw dropping, juicy tidbits for the readers?

Amina- My book came about because of my emotional state, I was going through a time where I was too pained to create music but I needed an outlet and writing my thoughts and my story became my own therapy. It was a great experience and something that wasn’t planned. I am proud of the outcome. Proud of how honest and open I was. I cannot read the book back without getting emotional and that is when I know i wrote from my soul. There are a lot of things in the book which will make people understand my moves, my decisions better. That was all I ever wanted to be understood.

Cappucine- Baybeee,I can’t wait to read your book. I know it will be a real pager turner! So, I came across one of your songs off the Music In My Room album called “Our Song” .What inspired you write that song?

Amina-That particular song was about an ex of mine. He inspired me writing it. The feeling of being in love. It’s a positive song unlike a lot of my others, yet it’s very heartfelt and sentimental.

Cappucine- Yeah, that song touched me, In my opinion, you make feel good music. Your voice is soulful. I truly feel the authenticity. Your music gives me a 90’s feel good, soul, jazz, r-n-b vibe with dopeness sprinkled all around the tracks, You know the type of music you feel from your head down to your toes. What and Who inspired you to be an artist?

Amina- Mariah Carey. Number one inspiration. I wanted to be nothing but like her when I was a teenager. Her vocals her arrangements and the delivery back in the 90s was just amazing to me.

But besides that here are tons of other singers and groups and writers who made me wanna sing. Too many to name…

Cappucine- Yes, I agree. Mariah can blow. I do my best sunging in the shower! LOL. If you had a chance to do a collaboration with any artist in the world, who would it be.

Amina-Robin Thicke, Sara Bareilles and Linda Perry

Cappucine- Good choices Amina. I just love Robin Thicke! Not only do you sing, I see that you have other talents. What instruments to you play? Are you self taught?

Amina- A hundred percent self-taught , I play guitar and keys

Cappucine- You go boo! What advice would you give anyone trying to break into the entertainment industry?

Amina- Same advice I give myself everyday.. (and need to listen a little bit more to , lol) Get on your game! Perfect your craft, better your skill. Be the best you can be. Then put it out there. Get out there. Whatever way possible. Social media is huge. But also go out, attend events, open mica, whatever the case… present yourself. And if you are good you will connect to people and with people.

Cappucine-Great Advice. I know you are of German and Senegalese descent, You grew up in Germany, have you visited Senegal?

Amina- I have never been to Senegal and it is on my bucket list. Tons of relatives I have never met!

Cappucine- I know when you finally go, it will be super cool. The food, the culture, What is your favorite German food? What is your favorite African food? (being a Ghananian woman, I love Jollof rice lol)

Amina- I don’t know much about German food. But the food in general is better out there in my opinion. Things like milk, bread, pastrys, chocolate, ect…African food , hmmmm, my dad never used to cook so I don’t know

Cappucine- No worries, next time I make some African food, I will give you some. You will love it, LOL What languages do you speak?

Amina- I speak German and English

Cappucine -Do you feel that being on Love and Hip Hop New York helped your career or hindered it in any way? What are the pros and cons of reality TV?

Amina- It helped.I have a much bigger fan base. Period. Nothing more needs to be said. People ask me this all the time. Yes the distraction was there with the tv show but like I said before when you’re good people will connect, no matter how you were introduced to the world. What matters is the real you.Cons would definitely be the judgement people pass on you every day. And dealing with that.

Cappucine- Will there be a Black Buddafly reunion? What are Jazz and Sofie up to?

Amina- We had a black Buddafly reunion not too long ago when we released our EP “we r” We will surely sing together again but right now they both are working on their solo projects just like me

Cappucine- Give me an example of a day in the life of Amina Buddafly?

Amina- Wake up. Feed my kids. Get them dressed. Head out to the park or school on school days, or to the gym (I take them with me)

Then make lunch, do my emails in between, do my endorsements for the day… clean up… sometimes do meetings/sometimes events… run errands.. take the kids out again…and at night I either try to work on music at home or sometimes go to the studio when I have a sitter it always depends there is not a typical day they’re always different. By my main focus is always to make sure my kids are having fun and everything they need. Then it’s me.

Cappucine-Talk to me about motherhood. Cori and Bronx are so beautiful How are you able to balance, motherhood, career and being a celebrity efficiently? Any tips for the moms out there ?

Amina- It’s hard. Very hard. I barely get to do stuff for me but that is okay. I have accepted that I am moving at slower paste. I just try to make sure not to forget about me. I take time for me like 3 days a week. I call my Sitter to take them and I do whatever I feel like doing. Most of he time something productive.

I always tell moms as long as you don’t stop, you’re good. It doesn’t matter how fast you move. Just don’t stop

Cappucine- You always look fit and beautiful. What is your secret? What is your regimen?

Amina-I just love being active. And the kids make sure that I am. I don’t even have to try… although I do go to the gym but twice maybe 3 times a week. I love switching it up… I do yoga!

I’m just not someone to sit at home all day… we are always out and that keeps me in shape.

Cappucine- Let’s Talk about Mr Pankey….

Cappucine- What was your breaking point with Peter? What made you stay with him after the infidelity?

Amina-You can find out what made me stay after infidelity by reading my book. That’s an answer that cannot just be answered like that. That is why I wrote the book. Because I wanted to know myself. And I got my answers…

Breaking point was when he had a baby on me.

Cappucine- What is your current relationship with Peter like? Is there a possibility of reconciliation?

Amina- Right now we are still married but separated.

I’ve taken my own steps to moving on. And they were real steps. I mean moving across the country is one of the biggest steps toward letting someone go and I don’t care what anyone says. There is the emotional connection and then there is the physical one. Even if one of them takes longer. I’m in process… and I decided that I needed to make a change like that to move in another direction. I can say that a year later we still love each other but it is “different”.

Cappucine- For the men out there that want to know? Is Amina single? What qualities do you look for in a man?

Amina- I am. I just need to like the guy. And he has to be able to teach me something. He has to know things that I don’t. That is a must. He also has to have something special. Whatever that may be.

I don’t have a type. I am into connections. Not a look.

Cappucine- Are you and Tara on good terms? Are you ladies successful at having a blended family?

Amina-We are on good terms and get together whenever we are in the same state!

Cappucine-Where do you see your career in the next 5 years? What are your goals?

Amina- I see myself continuing to put out great music.. make money… and being a great mom.

Becoming happy. That is success to me.

Cappucine- Any tours? Show dates?

Amina-A few spot dates as of now and a few book dates as well.. I always post on social media @aminabuddafly

Cappucine-Any closing thoughts?

Amina-I love my fans ️

Candid: Love & Hip Hop Star Amina Buddafly & Cappucine Talk Life Aminata Schmahl-Pankey better known as Amina Buddafly, was born on April 18th, 1983 in Hamburg, Germany to a German mother and a Senegalese father.

0 notes