#I don’t have too many strictly wholesome images

[catbreon-draws]

🐄 everyone saying cursed this, weird that. I want that good wholesome stuff.

[sashi-ya]

Yes please, SFW Day 8 for Luffy with a GN Reader. We need something wholesome<3

Hi!! thank u so much for requesting! It's a little bit shorter cause I didn't want to include spoilers but, I'm so happy on how it turned out that I hope you enjoy it! 💖 Merry Christmas!! 💖 ~

Chocolate Luffy x GN! Reader Day 8: A Christmas Miracle

Tw: none. It's about the events on Wano Kuni Arc. It's not strictly spoilers, we all know he is fighting against Kaido. Reader is waiting for him. If you are not caught up with the anime until ep 940 or Ch. 915 on manga, I suggest not to read if you want to avoid spoilers (or understand where is Okobore city)

Wc: 545 (Short this time so I don't include further spoilers.

Your country, your whole island, your family, your people. How many years has it already been? Torture, poverty, famine, despair is not something you wanna count. But that’s been your life since Kaido took over your land.

Yet, you are sure the sun is gonna rise with him. That boy, that gum gum guy. Monkey D. Luffy, the man who will become the pirate king.

Sitting over the arid soil of Okobore you watch to the south, there, where Onigashima is located. In the sky, he shines, even more than the moon. He is fire, he is light. His “Red Hawk” flames create comet-like images on a night firmament.

You bite your nails. You’ve known him for less than a couple of weeks, but your heart beats faster every time you think of him. Luffy represents hope, future, happiness. And now, he is risking his life for you.

“Go Mugiwara!!” everybody shouts and laughs hysterically… and you wonder when those laughs will come up naturally, that laughing that comes from their hearts and not from those defective SMILES. So many of your friends are fighting on Onigashima next to him, and so are many of his friends. Two huge dragons fight over the sky, a white wolf too. Blue gigantic bubbles form around Kaido’s castle.

Everyone seemed to forget tonight is Christmas eve, but you do remember. You wait for a long-expected miracle… a Christmas Miracle.

Time goes slow, minutes feel like months. Explosions. A ray of light that seems to be breaking the sky and the voice of Luffy resonating all over the island, and perhaps even further.

“Yes, you will” you whisper, feeling proud as if his dream were yours. “Yes, Luffy… you will be the king!”

The storm clouds disappear, one by one. Allowing the sun to slowly rise behind the hills of Wano. Once your country was called The Sun Rising nation, where bathed by the king of the stars, everything grew so beautifully and healthy. Where there was hope. Where there was life.

“Is it over, (Name)?” the little Otoko asks. “Has Luffy won?”. “Yes, Otoko. He won” you whisper with tears in your eyes, alleviate and proud…

Everybody went to sleep after celebrating Luffy had beaten Kaido. You, instead, couldn’t. You waited for him because you knew Luffy would come. You knew he will.

“How many wounds do you have? Are you tired? Have you eaten your meat already?” you ask towards the sky, whispering, allowing the warm rays of a brilliant sun bathe your skin.

“I don’t have any, I am a little tired and I did eat some meat… but do you have more?” he asks, sitting right next to you.

“Luffy!!!” you shout, hugging him so tight, crushing his gum flesh. “Thank you so much… thank you, thank you… thank you” you tell him, avoiding any crying cause you know how much he hates “crybabies”. Luffy smiles, and with his smile you feel the dawn on your soul. “Is it Christmas already? Merry Christmas” he says, falling asleep slowly with his face over your shoulder.

“Rest well, King… thanks for this Christmas Miracle”

[wynniewright]

In Harm’s Way (M)

→ This story is a part of the @bangtanshadowfamily “The Creatures of Moonlight Manor” Halloween collab!

→ Pairing: Taehyung x Reader

→ Word Count: 4.8k

→ Genre: grim reaper au, halloween au, smut, lots of fluff, bit angsty

→ Summary: After fighting with her grim reaper boyfriend, Y/N decides to throw herself into a dangerous situations to get him to stop ignoring her.

→ Trigger Warnings: Mentions of attempted suicide (it’s not dark, think of when bella tried to get edward to save her so she kept doing stupid shit - it’s that), one time mention of a past near-death experience (not detailed, it’s just vaguely mentioned in the fluffy part), reader attempts suicide via toaster bath (with the intention of being saved by her supernatural, soul-reaping boyfriend). Please don’t read if these make you uncomfortable! 

→ Warnings: dirty talk, unprotected sex, oral (female), bit of impregnation kink, tae just wants to be a dad, reader makes stupid decisions, cum play, possible impregnation?, sex with pants on, fingering, lots of fluff and all that good stuff

→ A/N: Hello hello! Finally found the time to squeeze in this story in the middle of my full-time school and part-time work schedule. Sorry it took so long for another fic to post but here I am! I want to thank my amazing bangtan hq sprinting crew who helped motivate me to finish this @purpletigertaetae @nightowls388 @shadowsremedy @wwilloww. This story was supposed to be a lot darker and a whole lot more filthy than it turned out. Wasn’t supposed to be fluffy at all and somehow it turned real quick so I hope you enjoy. I’d also like to state that I’m not promoting suicide or slightly toxic relationships, this is a fictional story and the reader hasn’t died, isn’t dead, and won’t die, so the suicidal scene in this is not meant to be disturbing. If you’re not comfortable reading, please don’t. Alright, I love you all.~ Hope you enjoy.

The biggest struggle of dating Taehyung was that no guide, tutorial, or advice blog post could’ve prepared you for what it was going to be like to be in a relationship with him. I almost wished there were some sort of ‘how to’ on dating a grim reaper because no matter how much dating experience I had, being with him was like being in my first relationship again.

It was a little unconventional, sure. Date nights were always iffy since, apparently, reapers don’t need sleep and therefore are technically scheduled around the clock. Boy, there was nothing like us setting up a nice, stay-at-home dinner date when he’d suddenly kiss my cheek and disappear into thin air, only to come back a few minutes later and announce he’d taken another soul. I’ll be honest, it was a slight mood killer. 

But aside from his job description, Tae was a kind person. He didn’t seem to know exactly how to deal with human emotions, as his kind were strictly prohibited from having human-reaper relations and never had the opportunity to learn from us. But just because he didn’t know what emotions were, doesn’t mean he didn’t feel them. He was a sensitive guy, too.

I remembered the first time he cried. We were watching Marley & Me and I cried at the end like any other sane human being. Tae didn’t cry at all, in fact, knowing I was sad made him sad enough to tear up, even more so when he couldn’t get me to stop. That memory was one of my favorites purely because it was too wholesome to forget: a grim reaper crying because a girl was sad that a dog died in a movie. 

But like every other person in the world, not ever emotion was positive. 

Being much older than I, Taehyung didn’t really have moments where he got angry to the point of exploding in a fit. There wasn’t a situation where he ever passed that threshold, at least, not in front of me. The feelings Tae couldn’t quite grasp were hurt and jealousy. 

From his own words, he never loved anyone before me, and something I knew better than anyone was that jealousy and love were very closely intertwined. 

The first year we dated, I tried explaining to him what jealousy was, that even I felt it too in an attempt to teach him that he didn’t need to act on it. It was safe to say that it didn’t really work.

Over four and a half into our relationship together and Taehyung still chose to disappear whenever we got into a small petty argument that involved him taking something out of context and then not wanting to talk about it like the century old being that he was. 

In our most recent example, my best friend, Sam, called and told me that she was expecting her first baby. We cried a little and then spent the rest of the conversation talking about whose eyes they would have or which parent they would most resemble. Tae and I never talked about kids nor a future together, we just lived in every moment the two of us were given, so indulging on a new topic with Sam gave me the image of tiny Tae-Taes waddling across the wooden floor, matching their father’s bright, boxy grin as they giggled. 

I made one comment - one! I told her how I’d love to have mini-Taehyungs running about the place and that I was so excited to meet her little Sam. Somehow, he took that and ran with it.

He didn’t bother letting me speak, pulling the usual disappearing act he always resorted to when he was upset and didn’t want to properly face his feelings in the moment. I thought it would pass like all the rest, but something changed. 

Hours passed and he never came to check in on me. Days flew by and I hadn’t heard from him. I wanted for him to come by, swallowing my pride and shouting at the empty air in hopes he was listening, to no avail. Nothing worked. 

After two weeks of being ignored and left without so much as a trace, I decided to do what any normal girl would do to seek out her boyfriend’s attention.

I needed to kill myself. 

I didn’t want to die, by any means. Tae knew how close I’d come to death a few too many times, but if I was going to get his attention back on me, I needed to attempt something stupid. Not only did it have to be stupid, it also had to be believable. I needed to convince him that I was going to die and hope he’d rescue me just in time.

I knew it wasn’t a good plan to start off with but it was the only thing I could come up with to get him to focus on me. The only reason I even thought of such a stupid idea was because I knew he’d never let me actually die. He saved me once and I was willing to bet he’d save me again and this time my life was actually on the line.

All that being said, I’ll regurgitate that it wasn’t the brightest idea I’d ever had. 

What if he’d decided to have someone else cover me? What if the one time he decided he didn’t want to see me again, he passed the job on to someone else and they just let it go?

I shivered with that thought fresh in my mind. To say I was scared was a gross understatement, the thought of all the ways this could go bad were enough to paralyze me with fear. There was only one reason I stood there in our master bathroom with a bath full of water and a toaster in my hands, already plugged in and ready for me to drop it in.

If I wanted him to talk to me, I had to force him to keep me out of harm’s way.

Nervousness nagged at the back of my mind, heart beating a million miles a minute against my ribcage, forcing me to take a deep inhale of fresh air, even if it was only to calm my nerves for a few seconds. A few seconds was enough to release my grip and pray that Tae would be there to rescue me.

With a last shake of my head, I thought up a quick “I love you” to the universe as if the universe would deliver my message to my friends and family if things didn’t go as planned. And with that, I dropped the small appliance.

The moment it slipped from my fingers, I clenched my eyes tight and waited for the shock to ripple through my body in powerful waves, but nothing came. In fact, time itself seemed to slow down as a large clanging against the wall forced my eyes open, right as a tall, dark figure wrapped an arm around my waist and yanked me out of the tub to press me against the wall adjacent. 

Taehyung stood there, fuming in anger as his gaze bored into mine, hands gripping tightly to me and keeping me pressed against the wall, though I’m not sure if he was holding onto me to keep me steady or if he was preparing to murder me where I stood. To be fair, if it wasn’t for his hold on me, I would’ve slipped against the tile floor that puddled with the water leaking from the bottom half of my jeans. I added a mental note to myself that next time I do something like that again, I should prepare for it to actually work and actually wear a pair of shorts or something. But another problem for another time.

The sheer force in which Taehyung’s eyes glared into mine would normally have made me cower. But knowing I had to do something that stupid just to get him to talk to me again filled me with a burning anger that I didn’t know I had within me. With that newfound anger, I pushed back against his chest, my hands rebounding off his chest without moving him in the slightest. He dropped his hold on me and I stepped forward, my foot catching a slippery tile and making me bang my back against the wall roughly. A sharp pain shot through my back and Tae softened for a  moment, reaching out again to steady me before I finally exploded.

“No. Don’t touch me! I don’t even know where to begin right now!” I defiantly shoved his hands away from my body and crossed my arms over my chest once I balanced out a bit. 

“You? You?! The fuck did I do?” He argued, waving his hands in the air as if his gestures were defence enough for his stupid inhuman reactions.

“Oh, so you’re going to play stupid now, is that it? Really?” I barked, taking a step forward and poking a finger right against his tight chest. “I don’t know. How about the fact that you just walked out on me and never came back? What happened to having a normal fucking conversation like an adult?” He received a poke to his clothed peck with every word to emphasize what he’d done wrong.

Annoyed with me prodding at him in frustration, he grabbed my wrist at my last poke, holding my arm away from him and resumed the glaring. “You’re making this about me now? Are you going to completely ignore the fact that you almost just fried yourself? What the fuck were you thinking?!” He raised his voice, something he didn’t do often, and I naturally shied away from the loudness of his voice to keep my ears from ringing.

“Well I wouldn't have needed to do that had you come back to talk! Of course I tried to get your attention. I love you, you fucking moron,” I grunted, voice cracking at the end as tears instantly sprang to my eyes. Willing them away, I stood my ground and met Tae’s heated gaze with an unwavering one of my own. I wasn’t the one in the wrong. 

“We did talk. Yeah I left, but I did that after I said things weren’t going to work out between us.”

He wasn’t wrong. He did technically say that but it was spoken like a passive statement made in anger, a second before he disappeared to wherever the fuck he went to whenever he was upset with me. So I was just supposed to accept that was it after four and a half years and no idea what broke the two of us. Fuck that, he meant too much to me.

“I don’t understand why you keep saying that. I made one comment - one! - about kids to Sam and now you’re dead-set on not being with me? Why are you so angry about that?” My words came out in a pained whisper as I pleaded with him. I just wanted a response back, to know what was hurting him so I could try and fix it. 

His eyes shifted from mine repetitively, searching my face for something before he mumbled out, “Because I can’t give that to you.”

I froze, all but my heart coming to a halt as I processed his words. He couldn’t give that to me… Kids?

I couldn’t help the frown that framed my lips as his face morphed into one of discomfort, grimacing at himself. A pang of guilt smacked me right in the chest as his face fell. All of it began to make sense and I wasn’t sure if I made things better or worse by doing what I did.

“Tae…” I started, mouth agape as I tried to form some sort of response but I couldn’t think of one at that moment.

He straightened himself out and all visible evidence of his emotional expression was wiped clean off his features. “I can’t give you kids,” he repeated clearly, seemingly more for himself than for me.

Pride swelled up in me and I reached out to wrap my arms around his midsection to hug him close.

“Baby,” I cooed, a fresh wave of tears threatening to soak into his soft cotton shirt as I smothered my face against him, taking in his scent and his warmth. He returned the embrace, tightly hugging me back with his nose buried atop my head.

“You’re not mad at me,” he mumbled thoughtfully.

I shook my head against him, squeezing him that much tighter to reassure him. “I figured it wasn’t biologically possible, but there are plenty of ways for couples to have kids when they otherwise can’t themselves.”

I imagined his brows furrowing as he turned his head, resting the side of his plump cheek on top of my hair. “I don’t understand.”

Pulling back, I tilted my head to look him in the eyes and smiled supportively. Our kids don’t have to look like either of us to be ‘little Taehyungs’ or little ‘Y/Ns’.” I leaned back further and pressed my chin against the center of his chest, humming as he readjusted his embrace around me. “I’ll see you in the way they smile or laugh, all those little idiosyncrasies they pick up from you that make them you kids.”

Tae blinked with a blank expression on his face, staring me down without so much as a response to follow up. The longer he went without responding, the stronger my heart pounded in my chest. 

We never had any serious talks like that before because everything about our relationship was too complicated. Marriage and families weren’t even on our mind, at least not on mine until Sam was getting her own, and suddenly I realized how I’d love to have a family with Taehyung, no matter how unconventional. But there’s a chance that could’ve just been me. Maybe it was too early to be talking about that so Tae didn’t really have an opinion since he couldn’t have kids. Maybe he was trying not to hurt my feelings? God, I broke him.

I cleared my throat and opening my mouth to talk when he cut me off. “So you’re not mad that I…. you’re okay with it?”

“Of course I’m okay with it. Sure, I’m a teenie but sad they probably won’t have your boxy grin or your cute little nose freckle, but our kids would be cute regardless.” The anxiety I had towards his response was no longer a thought in my mind as I suddenly grinned, punctuating my statement with a kiss on his chin, which he playfully returned. But he didn’t stop there. Strong hands gripped the back of my thighs and urged me to jump, forcing my legs to wrap around his waist as he pushed us up against the wall once more, chaste kisses littered across the length of my face. Each peck tickled, giggles pouring past my lips as I scrunched my nose up and took all the comfort he gave. Lips trailed down my neck before he buried his face in the crook of my collarbone, happily sighing against ym skin with a happy hum.

The smile on my lips pinched at my cheeks, making my face ache with the strength of my happiness alone. I never knew he’d have such a human response to something like kids. It made my heart flutter to know that’s where his heart and mind were, that he wasn’t actually mad at me.

With determination, he pushed us off of the bathroom wall and opened the door to our shared bedroom, carrying me to the bed where he motioned to put me down.

“Babe, my pants are still wet,” I reminded him, to which he nodded and set me down a foot or so away to stand in front of him.

“Well, we’re going to solve that,” he quipped, reaching down between us to fumble with the button and zipper on my jeans while I grinned up at him. It wasn’t what I had in mind when planning this out but I sure as hell wasn’t going to complain.

He had a few issues with the clasping mechanics of my pants, a regular issue he was faced with, and grunted in irritation. I giggled, brushing back the long strands of hair behind his ear before a loud ripping sound pulled my attention.

“Baby! These are my favorite jeans!” I screeched at Taehyung, lips pouting as I admired the fresh rip down the center of the jeans that paralleled the zipper. You know, the zipper he could’ve just undone.

Lips pressed to my forehead as a chuckle rippled through his chest. “Not anymore, they’re not.” He meant it to tease but I still glared at him, not finding it in me to laugh at the expense of my favorite pair of jeans. “Sorry, I’ll buy you new ones,” he offered in a light-hearted tone, making me roll my eyes and return the kiss to his chin.

Lean fingers dipped into the waistband of my jeans, tugging them down my hips until they passed the curve of my ass. But the material from the thigh down was still sopping wet and made it even more entertaining to watch him struggle to slide the denim down my legs, coaxing another giggle from me.

“Fuck, why is this so difficult?” Tae let out a soft groan, giving up on his quest of removing the wet article and instead closing the distance between us, lips meeting mine in a gentle kiss.

“What about my pants? Not going to rip them all the way?” I wriggled my eyebrows and laughed when he rolled his eyes back.

“Pants or no pants, I’m still fucking you into the mattress.” His voice dripped with heat, his tone comparing to sex itself, sensual and deep, which made the words shoot straight down to my core.

As promised, he stalked towards me until the back of my knees pressed up against the edge of the bed. He didn’t miss a beat, cupping my face with his large palms and pulling me into a deep kiss that took away what little breath I had after his sexy statement. His tongue skimmed over the seam of my mouth, canines digging into the flesh of my bottom lip as he gave me that final push back onto the bed, lowering me down with a steady hold on my back until I was flush against the mattress with him hovering above me. Mouths lavished over one another, pulling the other into each other as far as our bodies would let us until the lack of oxygen forced me to pull away for a moment.

I wasted no time in pulling the white shirt from his black dress slacks, untucking his usual orderly work clothes so I could dip my hand under the smooth material to feel his bare warmth against my fingers. Each little divot and bulge across his stomach only added to the arousal gathering between my legs, allowing my fingers to explore the clothed spaced with the image of him naked on my mind.

The thought of that alone drove me mad, thighs instinctively rubbing together to relieve some of the pent up pressure. But doing so only reminded me of the pants I still had clinging to the lower part of my legs, the tight and uncomfortable sticky feeling causing a slight bubble of irritation to well up within me.

“Bab-” I started, cut off by Tae’s lips roughly soothing over mine with a kiss deeper than the one before it. It was his mission to explore my mouth, delving deep inside to slide his tongue along mine in a dance for passion, not power. There was no struggle in the kiss, which was different - a good different that made my heart beat just a little bit harder for him.

“Sh, ignore the pants,” Taehyung whispered against my lips and I had to force down the eyeroll that almost surfaced at such a dismissive response.

As I was about to protest further, Tae parted from the kiss and pushed himself from the bed, kneeling down on the floor and pushing my legs up until they tucked up to my chest to expose my clothed core for his eyes to feast on. The tip of his tongue swiped across his lips before he dove down, pushing my panties out of the way to dip a finger shallowly into my sopping heat. I moaned softly, holding onto my ruined jeans with one hand and sneaking the other around to his head, intertwining my fingers in his soft, chestnut locks.

Without warning, Tae pushed his finger in to the knuckle and lowered his head to hungrily lap at my clip over my already soaked underwear, ripping a moan forcefully from my throat. He moaned in return, any noise that left my mouth only adding to his determination to work me up and get me as wet as inhumanly possible. He sped up his pace, curling the tip of his finger to stroke the pad of his fingertip along the rough patch at the top, the spot that made my mind go blank and left me a mumbling mess for him to please. He always knew how to hit the right place, each and every time together was spent as a new learning experience for him to map out and worship my body as I did his.

A few pumps later, Tae placed a sloppy, wet kiss along the inside of my thigh before adding a finger to the one already thrusting into my cunt at a moderate pace. The stretch burned despite how slender his fingers were, always filling me up nicely. Brushing against a particular spot deep within me, I was left gasping for air, tugging the strands at the top of his head as I attempted to buck my hips against his hand to meet each of his thrusts, my sopping pussy tembling around his fingers.

“Fuck, baby. You always take me so fucking well,” he praised, leaving a few stray kisses along my thigh to accompany the faster pace he’d set, working his fingers into me as if he could do it all fucking night long.

“Mmh, Tae,” I groaned, abandoning the grip on my legs to ground myself against the duvet underneath.

“What, baby? What do you want?” Rougher kisses were pressed into the length of my thigh and along my wet mound, tongue practically dancing everywhere but my clit to tease me.

“Tae-Tae, I want you in me. Please.”

Despite the urgency in my request, Tae peeked around my legs with a softened look, eyes kind as his body smile outshines the gloss of arousal painting his lips and chin.

“Yeah? Where do you want me, baby? Here?” He asked with a slide of his fingers across my g-spot, causing my thighs to quake as I fought off the softest hint of an orgasm. I nodded and begged him for his cock while he rubbed the remainder of my slick from his face and onto his sleeve, towering over me once again as he climbed up the bed once again, having stripped himself of his clothes. The heat returned to his gaze as he devoured my body with his eyes, not needed for me to be naked in order to let his imagination run wild. 

Leaving a soft kiss against my lips, he pushed back to sit on his knees and lifted my legs up until my feet rested against the top of his shoulder. The position we were in gave him the perfect view of my ruined panties, his eyes lit up with a heat unlike anything I’d ever seen from him before as he traced the material with his fingertip. 

“You want me to fuck a baby into you?” He asked, fighting the blush that creeped up his neck and into his ears as he stayed locked onto my clothed pussy. 

His words made me giddy, the thought of him fucking me and getting me pregnant with his child adding fuel to our very passionate fire. “Please, I want your baby, Tae,” I whined. He dragged his cockhead against my clothed core, earning a grunt from us both. With a push of my panties to the side and a gentle rock of his hips against my own, the entirety of his cock slid into me, walls protested the stretch his thick girth gave despite the prep, drawing a synchronized moan from us. 

“Oh fuck, babe,” I groaned, fisting the sheets beneath me as his grip aropund my legs tightened. He stilled when the last inch of his cock sank into me, the tremble in his breath telling me he felt the tightness in this position too. Without warning, he dragged his hips back, exposing everything but the tip of his cock before he quickly thrusted back in. 

He continued his languid pace while pressing open kisses to my foot just beneath the hem of the jeans, nails raking against the flesh of my thigh before his eyes flickered down to me. 

I gasped when he adjusted the angle of his hips and targeted my g-spot without miss, setting a punishing pace with his hips as he suddenly drove his cock into me roughly. I moaned out, teeth capturing my bottom lip to contain the sounds his actions were tearing from my throat. 

With a grunt, Tae switched our positions, lowering himself down until his shoulders nestled in the hollow of my knees, face ducking down to pull my lips into a kiss as he resumed his powerful thrusts into my aching pussy.

The new position had every part of my body humming in happiness, the surface of my flesh tingling with each thrust he gave until my eyes shut. Our lips danced together, tongues stealing tastes of one another as the little sounds we made were muted by the other. I fisted a hand in his sweaty hair, using the brunette strands to ground me against his assault against my hips. I tried to meet his thrusts, but the awkward position left me lying there, unable to move, as I took his cock as he gave it. 

I tightened around him, loving the way I felt every ridge of his thick length as it disappeared from my cunt and pushed back inside to hit me in all the right places. After so many thrusts against that spot deep within me, a pressure built up in my lower stomach that burned, growing in size with each pump of his cock until I whined, needing pressure on my clit to push me over that final edge.

Knowing exactly what I wanted, he snuck a hand between us and used the slick on my thighs to wet his thumb before swiping rigorously against my sensitive clit. I mewled in pleasure at the contact, throwing my head back and parting our lips as loud whines and moans leaked from my mouth. It was almost too much, the combination of his hand and his cock throwing me over the edge faster than I could ever get myself off, pushing me over that ledge and into my orgasm. 

I mumbled incoherently as my spasming cunt only drove Taehyung to ride out into his own orgasm, continuing his brutal pace until his cock twitched and stilled inside me, filling me to the brim with his seed.

We stayed that way for a few minutes, taking the time to catch our breaths and return to reality. My body protested him pulling his limp cock from my oversensitive hole, making me grimace. When he pulled back and released my legs from his grip, I groaned at the stiffness in my legs from being in that position for a while, but completely forgot about that as goosebumps fluttered over my skin and brought my attention back down to the soaked jeans I still had on my body. 

Taehyung noticed my shivering and gave a small laugh, deciding to help me out and finally rip each of the legs until the material wasn’t too tight to remove. Sticking to the stripping, I took off my top and unclasped my bra, flinging both across the room to deal with later as Tae stood at the edge of our bed, between my legs. His eyes locked onto the cum dripping from my pussy and he couldn’t contain a grin as he reached forward and swiped a drop up onto his finger to push it back inside of me. 

“Well, at least we’ll know for sure,” Tae murmured to himself. 

“Hm?” I hummed, reaching out with grabby hands for him to come join me on the bed, which he did with a soft smile and a peck to the nose.

“I’ve always assumed we can’t have kids. I guess now we’ll figure out whether I was right or wrong.”

[ohwereusingourmadeupnames]

It’s This Jealousy 

Pairing: Peter Parker/Tony Stark Rating: Mature (M) Notes: I got tagged in this post right here by @starkerscoop and couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get my hands on it. It got a little smutty at the end - hope you don’t mind! (& @send-me-your-hcs asked for a tag, too!)  Warnings: masturbation  Summary: 

It's this jealousy Oh, and I just can't believe In this jealousy This jealousy for you

At the ripe age of 49, Tony never imagined he’d be best friends with an 18-year-old. After all the mess with Steve and Bucky, things were a little strained between Rhodey and Tony. It wasn’t anything personal, there were just lots of things between them now, the leg braces he worked constantly to improve not even close to the only thing. With Peter, Tony could simply be. Their shared history wasn’t filled with anything other than a little tension and some misplaced control on Tony’s part.

The more Tony started to see Peter as the intelligent person he was and not the kid he always made him out to be, the more he wanted to have the younger man around. There was something in the way he tilted his head to ask questions and babbled incessantly that Tony just felt drawn to. Try as he might, there was no escaping the magnetic pull that drew him more towards Peter every single day.

It wasn’t subtle, either – the way they just seemed to fit. Peter moved into Avenger’s tower after graduating; the transition from part time to full time was and easy one, he fit right in with everyone – especially Tony. It didn’t take long for the two of them to break off and head for the lab together or be found in the living room pressed together from shoulder to hip talking quietly amongst themselves.

If someone was looking for Tony, they always pointed him in Peter’s direction. There weren’t many times throughout the day that they weren’t together. Tony appreciated Peter’s brain – he thought from all angles and wasn’t afraid to be wrong. There were many times when Peter taught Tony something new or made him go back and look at things from a totally different perspective.

Just the other day, Tony sat with his head in his hands, the nanotech and its housing unit he’d been trying to manipulate for the last hour sitting uselessly on the desk. A soft touch on his shoulder had him looking up, a smile overtaking his face for the first time all day. “Hey, kid,” Tony said in greeting, his hand coming up to hold Peter’s to his shoulder for a moment. “Training go well?”

He’d been trying to update his suit, so he stepped out of the group training for the day. The transition from the mechanism on his chest to the full suit was still too slow – he needed at least another second off of the total time. The headache didn’t seem worth it at that point, though – he should have worked the frustrations out. His head ached and he wanted to pull the freshly showered Peter Parker closer to him more than usual.

When Tony let go of Peter’s hand, he was surprised to find that Peter didn’t move his hand from its place on his shoulder. In fact, the fingers there dug in, the tips moving up and down the line of muscle. He tried not to move – the last thing he wanted to do was scare the kid away; the touch felt amazing. It was almost enough to make the collection of useless tech below him not matter. Almost.

“It did – the new adjustments you made to the aiming system did a world of good. I was moving so fast today,” Peter answered, his voice excited. Tony forced himself to settle on the slightest flash of a smile – Peter loved being a superhero, it was so insanely obvious. More often times than not, Tony found himself working on Peter’s suit just to see the astonishing smile on his face – the very one that was beaming back at him right now.

Tony picked up the small screwdriver he’d been using to mess with the back paneling, his face burning a little from the rush of affection that washed over him. It didn’t make sense, feeling like a schoolboy with a crush. But he couldn’t help it – Peter was so wholesome and filled with excitability and life; it was hard not to be drawn to it. “Bummed I missed it. I’ll pull the data from EDITH later – we can do a little data spec. I’ll see it in real time that way.”

He heard Peter suck in a breath, then saw the smile on his face grow wider. “That sounds like a good idea. I also brought some new ideas for the next evolution of web fluid. I’m so close to a breakthrough.” He went about taking his StarkPad and old-fashioned spiral notebook out of his backpack, excitement written all over his face.

Sitting down next to him (instead of across from him like not too long ago) Peter leaned into Tony’s space, looking over his shoulder. “I don’t think it’s this,” Peter remarked, pointing to the external structure. “The adjustments you made on the shooters was in the programming. I don’t think it’s a mass thing, either. I think it’s in the transition.” To Tony’s surprise, he opened his notebook and pointed to a couple different equations. “I ran these this morning when I saw what you were looking at yesterday.”

Peter’s cheeks were red, and his body radiated the kind of heat that shouldn’t have been natural. It made his entire right side warm, the bare skin of his forearms prickling from the contact. Letting his eyes roam over the work, Tony leaned into him – an arm wrapping around his shoulder. “This is good stuff, Pete. I think I know exactly where to go now.” He kept his arm there for a few minutes, the two of them still lightly discussing the numbers and what brought Peter down that path.

A week later, his suit was ruining faster than ever before. Every time he punched the mechanism and the nanotech did its thing, Tony felt a warm drip of pride in the middle of his core – the little bits of attraction he’d been trying to hide getting harder and harder to ignore.

Especially because Peter seemed to think that their friendship came with an all access pass – to him, to the never-ending stream of thoughts that ran through his head, hell, to Tony’s things. Many times, he’d come back from a meeting and find Peter passed out on the edge of his bed, the huge TV dialed in to some anime show he couldn’t force himself to get into. He never did anything about it – how could he? Most of his daydreams revolved around that very instance.

After a few weeks, Peter started to talk – like, really talk. He started with the story of how his parents died and the struggle it was to get used to living with May and Ben. Peter talked about the things he missed because he didn’t have parents in his life, no matter how much his aunt and uncle tried. 

The more time they spent together, the more Peter let himself be free with his words. Tony knew what type of shampoo he preferred, how many times May walked in on him naked or unclothed, and all the different fanfictions currently all the rage.

They were close – plain and simple. There were a few times when their closeness seemed like it might be something else, but neither man acted upon it. Tony didn’t want to apply undue pressure to a situation that only few people his age were interested in. He didn’t know much about Peter’s thoughts on that matter – it was the one thing they didn’t talk about.

MJ quickly became a topic that strictly stayed in the friend pile, Peter’s interest in her weaning significantly after some sort of mishap during their trip to Europe.

Tony spent most of his time holed up in his bedroom the entire week Peter was gone, his mind and body exhausted from all the work he managed to get done in the comfort of his king-sized bed. He didn’t talk to anyone, Tony keenly aware that his behavior was not appropriate for an almost 50-year-old person.

He could never admit that Peter coming back was the best day of the entire summer – the two of them quickly catching up on his use of EDITH and the different aspects of the new suit he wanted to start working on for his patrols back in the city. It seemed like nothing changed between them – but relationships or anything related weren’t brought up again.

The idea that he wasn’t approachable in that area made his jaw clench. His history didn’t lend itself to a positive image, he could admit that. There were a few years when things were so out of whack that only going from one thing to the next could satisfy him. After the cave, Tony figured the person closest to him when he got back was the answer. The try he applied to his relationship with Pepper wasn’t lacking, they were simply better off as friends.

It smarted a little – how perceptive Peter was. If the reason he didn’t approach Tony was because of his past, he couldn’t begrudge Peter one single bit. The kid was smart and understood that bad habits weren’t to be repeated. Too bad Tony’s history wasn’t anything like the way he currently felt and thought.

----

Walking into the kitchen in the common area of the tower, Tony quirked a brow at the congregation of Steve Rogers, Wanda, Bucky, and Peter – they all looked up at him when they realized he was in the room. Peter’s cheeks colored, his eyes drifting down to the hands knit together in front of him. The rest of the adults at the table were looking at him with looks of curiosity and interest – Tony almost certain he could feel Wanda picking around in his brain, or something.

“Tony!” Peter exclaimed, one of his hands moving quickly to cover his mouth. It would have been comical if Tony didn’t know the kid so well. Peter didn’t do so well with lying or bending the truth – his face and expressive eyes gave him away. Staring at him now, Tony wondered what kind of snake pit he walked into. He gave the group a swift nod but didn’t stop to join them – he didn’t need spider senses to understand the prickly sensation on the back of his neck.

He was quick to get the hell out of dodge, a water bottle in his hand – the thought of making a sandwich quickly abandoned when all of the eyes in the room followed his every movement. Settling onto the couch, Tony put a random Netflix show on and turned up the volume – his ears ringing from the overdrive of his thoughts. Whatever they were talking about, he suspected it might have something to do with him.

It didn’t stay a mystery long. Tony saw Steve approaching him from the laid-back position he let himself curl into on the couch. Queer Eye sucked him in, so he let his brain check out, his body relaxing with the rest of him. The second he saw Steve, though, he sat up – the prickly sensation returning to his skin. He felt like he might throw up all over his fancy shoes, the thought that maybe throwing up would be a little less painful than whatever Steve might have to say crossed his mind.

“So – “ Steve started, his arms folding across his chest as he settled into the empty part of the couch. “I had a surprising conversation with Peter. Or well, he asked some surprising questions. Are things okay between the two of you?” Steve’s voice sounded a little patronizing – the big brother act something Tony could never get behind. At least he was here talking to him, though – it didn’t seem right to begrudge him that.

“What are you talking about, Rogers? I don’t know what kind of questions he asked you to know what you’re referring to. The last time I saw Peter, he was smiling over a beaker of web fluid.” Tony pressed himself against the side of the couch, the softness of it aggravating. In that moment, he wanted weight – something to ground him to this weird conversation.

In another life, Tony would’ve appreciated the tilt of Steve’s head, the curious look in his eye not the worst thing to look at. He knew what it was like to take on Bucky, though – he’d never win that fight alone. Shaking his head of the thought, he focused on Steve and the words it seemed he was trying to find. “He was asking about pleasuring himself. We all assumed you two were good in that department.”

Tony sucked in a breath, his eye bulging. “Pleasuring himself – what? Steve, we’re not together.” The words felt weird coming out of his mouth, like they were trying their hardest to cling to the surface of his tongue and not be spoken; speaking them made it true. Running a hand through his hair, Tony wished that the couch would open up and swallow him whole.

The emotions that swarmed around him made it hard to pay attention to anything else Steve said – his head nodding, but his brain not really processing anything. All he could think about was the fact that Peter went to Steve Rogers of all people to ask about the most personal of matters. Tony was good enough for everything except carnality – what a joy that was to learn. Without much thought, Tony got up, not really giving two shits about the still talking Steve gaping at him from the couch.

He took refuge in the lab – the sight and smell of familiar things enough to calm him down slightly. “FRIDAY, play some classic rock, will you? KISS, maybe.” Tony said absentmindedly – music would drown out the bottomless pit of things that only made him angry. His understanding of how irrational it was to be as angry and jealous and upset about something that wasn’t even his business made it all a little worse.

A whoosh of the door opening a little while later brought Tony out of the trance that he blissfully slipped into. Not thinking was a lot better than the war of emotions that threatened to consume him. His eyes caught Peter’s, his exterior softening for a second – his presence was soothing, even now.

Remembering Steve’s mistake and the weird feeling of betrayal, Tony lowered his eyes quickly – it would take ignoring the soft look in Peter’s eye to keep firm to his resolve to be mad.

“Tony – I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Peter approached him like one would a wounded animal, slowly and with caution. He wondered if Steve was supposed to tell Tony about Peter’s questions – if he was betraying the kid’s trust to set the record straight. His blood felt like it was boiling – the direction of his thoughts not very productive in deactivating the bomb that was ticking down, each second a little closer to explosion.

He felt himself huff out a sarcastic laugh, his emotions getting the best of him. “Well, you found me. Now what?” Tony’s voice was harder than he ever wanted to use towards Peter – the pitch of it sending a shiver of shame down his spine. The subtle change in the room wasn’t missed – so he let the feeling take hold; what did he really have to lose?

“What? Tony, I – “ Peter spluttered, words not coming despite his demand for them.

“You what? You’ve told me your entire life story, every little intimate detail, but you seek out Steve Rogers for sex advice? I don’t get you, Peter – a little piece of me is licking a wound. It kind of feels a little like betrayal.” Tony inwardly cringed, his own desperation so very evident. The dam inside of him was broken – there seemed to really be no going back. “I’m good enough for everything but this?”

Peter’s face fell, his usually bright eyes clouded over by confusion that was swiftly mixing with hurt – it pained Tony on a molecular level, seeing that gorgeous face anything but radiant with happiness. “Steve’s such an asshole,” Peter muttered, his eyes dropping to the floor. Tony wanted to pick Peter’s head up and rub his cheeks until the red hue and shine came back to his face.

“I didn’t come to you because you’re the one driving me crazy – I’ve been so on edge around you and I can’t – there hasn’t been any relief. I thought I’d ask people who are just as souped up as me about it. I thought maybe there was something wrong with me,” Peter admitted quietly, his eyes peeking up to gauge the look on Tony’s face.

Shaking his head, Tony cursed himself for not being the stonewalled person he made himself out to be. The cracks in his armor were ones he couldn’t buff out – no matter how hard he tried. Words he longed to hear sat on his skin, his body trying to decide how to process the stimulus of actually getting the thing he wanted the most.

The few steps it took to close the gap between them felt like miles – Tony couldn’t get his hands on Peter fast enough. “I’m driving you crazy?” Tony mumbled; his hands grabbing Peter’s hips. “You walk into the room and I’m completely lost. I’ve thought about bending you over every one of these tables – kissing you breathless against the damn fridge you lean into and search for food that isn’t there.”

Peter wrapped his arms around Tony’s neck, his enhanced strength pulling Tony against him before he knew what happened. There wasn’t any space left between them, their noses brushing with every hitch of breath either man took. “You’re my best friend, Pete – I haven’t wanted to fuck that up.”

Their lips touched then, both of them leaning in to close the distance. Tony’s fingers clenched, the hold on Peter’s hips tightening. The t-shirt Peter was wearing rode up a little, a bare stripe of skin available for his fingers to touch. At first brush, the body against him squirmed, Peter pulling away to let out a soft gasp. “Fuck!” Peter grunted out, his eyes clenching closed.

Tony watched Peter’s reaction, a rush of heat collecting in the boiling pit of his stomach – his cock throbbed against the zipper of his jeans. He’d thought a lot about what Peter would look like in the throes of passion – the sight was exponentially better than anything his brain could dream up. The flush on his cheeks made them seem fuller, the globe of them looking tasty enough to pull into his mouth. Glazed eyes and a hanging jaw had Tony moving – his lips desperate to be pressed against Peter’s once again.

“We should move this elsewhere,” Peter babbled against Tony’s lips, his fingers fisted in the front of Tony’s shirt. “I want to feel your skin, Tony.” His hands were uselessly tugging at the buttons, the fabric of it starting to tear with the force of his grip.

Groaning, Tony forced himself to take a couple of steps out of Peter’s grip completely. It would take too many brain cells to get to the elevator and up to the floor his rooms were on if he were still anyway attached to Peter – his hands achy to touch, to finally feel the thrum of Peter’s heartbeat pulsing in his veins.

“After you,” Tony mumbled, his chest heaving as he watched Peter walk in front of him, the articulation of his step hitched a bit from the stiffness in his pants. His steps were quick and the view from behind was nice – a good enough distraction to get him from the lab, into the elevator, and then down the hall where he grabbed Peter’s hand and pulled him along.

The slamming of the door in his bedroom was more satisfying than he figured something small like that had the right to be. Peter’s breath hitched when Tony’s eager fingers slipped under the edge of the soft t-shirt covering the long limbs he’d been thinking about for months. It got caught on Peter’s ear as Tony pulled it off, both of them laughing. “I can’t believe this is happening,” Peter admitted, pupils blown wide.

Tony grinned, the tips of his fingers trailing down the hard planes of Peter’s sides – “It’s real – I’m real,” Tony answered, his hand grabbing Peter’s and placing it over the hardness trying to escape the confines of his jeans. “That’s for you.” He let a chuckle slip, the reaction of Peter’s hand tightening on his crotch surprising him.

They made quick work of clothes after that, Tony kissing him breathless between the unbuttoning of his shirt buttons and the fumbling it took to get shoes, pants, and briefs off. Peter ended up in the middle of the bed, Tony settled between his spread legs. “Touch yourself. Steve may be enhanced, but I know what it’s like to feel good,” Tony’s voice dropped, his eyes wandering over every single inch of Peter stretched out below him.

Peter didn’t wait to do what he said, long fingers wrapping around a thick erection before Tony even finished speaking. His grip was tight, Tony taking stock in the way he slid his hand from the head to the base, and the flick of his wrist on the upstroke. Dark eyelashes flickered, the edges of them just barely moving along the edge of Peter’s cheek.  

Without saying anything, Tony let the fingers of his right-hand trail along the inside of Peter’s thighs. He kept the touch light, the skin pebbling with his caress. “The best part of what you’re doing is the build-up. It starts with the littlest itch. You grasp on and try to itch, but the pressure you’re using isn’t enough,” Tony flattened his hand, his palm running down the front of Peter’s balls. They were slightly hairy and drawn up – the sheen of sweat on Peter’s skin telling him just how much Peter seemed to be enjoying the tease.

Gripping both of Peter’s balls in his hand, Tony gave a tug and rolled them between his fingers. “So, you grip a little harder and move your hand a little faster – it’s the sweet combination of pleasure-pain, the relief of almost curing the itch and the slightest dig of your fingernails into your skin.” Tony let his left-hand wrap around his own length, the tip completely drenched in precum.

Tony slipped his hand from Peter’s balls down his perineum and in between his cheeks, his finger tracing around the tight rim of his asshole. Peter’s hand was moving quickly over himself, his eyes wide as he tried to stave off an orgasm and catch every move of Tony’s hand that he could. “You should cum, Pete. Finally scratch that itch.” Tony’s finger pressed ever so slightly against the rim as he spoke, the tip barely slipping inside. “Cum, Pete.”

The clench of Peter’s muscles was almost enough to pull Tony over the edge with him – Peter’s hand was flying over his length, the start of his orgasm splashing against the bottom of his stomach, then pooling between the ab and pec complex up towards his chest. Tony’s name dripped from his lips, Peter’s free hand fumbling around until he grasped bare skin.

It took a couple more strokes for Tony to follow him over the edge, the sight of Peter’s cum coating his own stomach and the blissed-out expression on his face more than enough to fuel Tony’s fire for a long time to come.

Without much thought, Tony collapsed on Peter’s chest, their legs tangling. He didn’t care about the cum that smeared against his skin when he moved in to press a kiss to already swollen lips – Tony hoped to spend many days covered in Peter’s cum and sweat. Now that the dam was broken, there’d be no holding back the feelings he tried his best to keep under control.

Peter’s arms wrapped tightly around him, Tony feeling the boy’s sigh from his position against his chest. His skin was warm and slick – the softness of it a contrast that made Tony want to hunker down and be surrounded by it forever.

[donutcats]

H ey no, give us the zodiac colour essay

just for a touch of context, we’re talking about This Post, this image in the post and my tags about it;

so. ok listen. I don’t know the exact context of the emojis or where they come from, so I don’t know if the zodiac emojis are just conveniently colored like the rainbow and it’s everyone else that’s making it into a homestuck joke OR if the context is that whoever made the emojis really is trying for a hs reference

either way most of the colors are wRONG if it’s going to be used as a homestuck joke/reference. yeah yeah I understand that jokes can be a bit vague and subjective and they grow and they don’t have to be exact, whatever, don’t get on my case about that 

bUT SEE the thing about homestuck is we, as a collective, can spot small references Miles away and it activates some primal emotion inside of us. there are some innocuous words or items that are forever ruined for those of us who grew up reading homestuck. so the fact that these zodiac emojis are assigned the wrong colors to be a homestuck joke kind of bothers me. 

on the surface, at a quick glance, it gives off heavy homestuck vibes. but really when you look at them more closely, most of the ones in the middle just aren’t the right color to be an accurate homestuck reference. sure we have to take into account the coloring of the screenshot itself but. overall it’s still just not right. 

I Get that the whole thing is following the rainbow vibe and it has to blend all together, sure. from a design point of view it’s great, it’s seamless. but I want to point out I’m not looking at any of this from a design pov, this is strictly based on how Specific and Accurate to the homestuck joke it is.

aries and taurus are ok, decent enough. they should be darker but understandably emojis should have a saturated tone to them to stand out. acceptable. sagittarius though pisces are all good too. close enough to their homestuck colors to be recognizable.

the others? Could Be Better. 

gemini should be yellow. if we want to go hardcore homestuck I’d say it should be a more mustard yellow but again, emojis should have a brighter color quality to them. so, just plain yellow would be fine. it shouldn’t be some weird macaroni and cheese color. 

cancer. what can I say about cancer. easily, right off the bat, we can tell it doesn’t fit into any of the colors assigned to it in the homestuck canon. it should be either Bright Fuckin Red, grey to match the sign, or, and this would work better with the rainbow theme, a lime green to match the Lore from the extended zodiac test of cancer being some sort of mutation of the Lime Caste. instead it’s a weird orange yellow. 

leo is. a travesty. it’s the exact color gemini Should be. leo is meant to be green. it’s meant to be The Green. technically olive green but again, saturation and brightness, so I’d settle for just a nice foresty green. just a nice, wholesome fucking green. 

virgo isn’t Terrible but it could be better if we want that Good Homestuck Aesthetic. actually, virgo’s color could possibly be leo’s, and libra’s color could be virgo’s, just, move those colors to the left and it’d work. 

libra needs to be more of a teal. of a blue green and less of a That’s Just Green. That’s Just Fuckin Green. just make it teal and it’d be fine. just add a little more blue to it.

scorpio isn’t blue enough imo. it’s not that Scorpio Color. we all know what color I’m talking about. we all know that Vriska Color. it’s burned into our retinas. we see on the back of our eyelids. look me in the eye and tell me you Cant see that exact shade of blue when I type out ::::) or when I say “I have so many irons in the fire.” it’s the Specific shade of blue. and that emoji up there? has way too much green in it. not as blue as the sagittarius sign but it should still be more blue than whatever’s going on with it now. 

let me reiterate that from a design perspective, these emojis work. they follow the colors of the rainbow, and yeah, there’s a decent homestuck vibe coming from it. like the creator Wanted to give every hs fan a fight or flight reaction when first looking at them but they still had to stick with the guidelines of “you gotta make them look cohesive.” but, My Personal Point of this entire thing has just been that the colors weren’t accurate enough. 

and maybe I am a weirdly pretentious homestuck fan that just wrote way too much on the subject of homestuck troll blood colors, and maybe I remembered way too much about the Caste System without having to look it up. but listen. I had fun. leave me alone. 

thank you for coming to my TEDtalk. I hope you enjoyed it lmao 

[screeniris8]

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[thomaschattertonwilliams]

By Thomas Chatterton Williams July 20, 2018 LONDON — When the world first learned of Michael Jackson’s death, from an accidental overdose in 2009, the news had a whiff of unreality about it. This was in no small part because, for so long, it had been hard to remember that he was actually a person. A child prodigy who in adulthood became a genuine Peter Pan — fantastically refusing to grow old — Jackson was always more an idea than a human being in the flesh. Nearly a decade later, the shape-shifting body frozen in memory, his extraordinary image endures as if he never left. Now, an ambitious and thought-provoking new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, running through Oct. 21, seeks to measure the impact and reach of Jackson as muse and cultural artifact. “Michael Jackson: On the Wall,” curated by Nicholas Cullinan, sprawls without feeling bloated, occupying 14 rooms and bringing together the work of 48 artists across numerous media, from Andy Warhol’s instantly recognizable silk-screen prints and grainy black-and-white snapshots, to a vast oil painting by Kehinde Wiley. (Jeff Koons’s famous porcelain sculpture “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” is notably absent, though it is reinterpreted in several other pieces.) First the obvious: No artwork, however clever or pretty, that has been inspired by a talent the size of Jackson’s can compete with its source material. To get the most out of what this show has to offer it is best to acknowledge this at the entrance and move on, as the most successful pieces do, eschewing strictly aesthetic concerns and exploring instead Jackson’s conceptual possibilities. Consider for example one of the simplest works in the show, David Hammons’s 2001 installation, “Which Mike Do You Want to Be Like…?” The piece — full of wondrous pride even as it conjures a sense of depressing limitation — consists of three abnormally tall microphones and its title recalls the Holy Trinity of late-20th-century black American entertainment icons as set out by the rapper The Notorious B.I.G.: “I excel like Mike, anyone: Tyson, Jordan, Jackson.” (B.I.G.’s own guest feature on Jackson’s 1995 “History” album marked a crowning achievement in his career.) More than 20 years later, rappers still clamor for a Jackson co-sign. On “Scorpion,” his latest chart-topping release, Drake flexed the ultimate status symbol, having purchased the rights to unreleased vocals and scoring a posthumous feature with the King of Pop. Jackson, more than Tyson or even Jordan, so epitomized black excellence that Ebony magazine could unselfconsciously run an airbrushed image of him on the cover in 2007, his creamy skin and silky cascading hair framing a razor-sharp jawline, beside a headline reading “Inside: The Africa You Don’t Know.” A year after the singer’s death, Lyle Ashton Harris recreated that image on Ghanaian funerary fabric. It’s jarring to compare the real late-life M.J. with another imaginary iteration that Hank Willis Thomas appropriates in one of the show’s more shocking offerings, “Time Can Be a Villain or a Friend (1984/2009).” In this, we see an uncannily convincing, and wholesomely handsome rendition of Jackson with his natural skin tone, a pencil-thin mustache on his lip and an ever-so-lightly relaxed puff of hair on his head. Mr. Thomas explains in the catalog that it is simply an artist’s rendering from a 1984 issue of Ebony, a glimpse of what the magazine imagined Jackson would look like in the year 2000. Without any alteration, it is by far “On the Wall’s” most critical work — the image originally so full of pride and hope is now an indictment, and haunts the show like a scathing rebuke. In this post-post-racial, post-Obama era of resurgent populism and Balkanized identity politics, it really does feel as though it matters — and matters more than anything else — whether you’re black or white. It does make for a particularly fascinating moment to re-evaluate Jackson’s image as a fundamentally “black” but simultaneously racially transcendent figure, or a monstrous desecration, depending on your perspective. Indeed, there is a push and pull between these running through the exhibition and the catalog that accompanies it. In the catalog, the critic Margo Jefferson calls Jackson “a postmodern trickster god,” noting “what visceral emotion he stirred (and continues to stir) in us!” She anticipates, in the next pages, the novelist and essayist Zadie Smith’s castigating contribution. Ms. Smith writes of her mother’s initial preoccupation with the singer: “I think the Jacksons represented the possibility that black might be beautiful, that you might be adored in your blackness — worshiped, even.” But, she adds, “By the time I became aware of Michael — around 1980 or so — my mother was finished with him, for reasons she never articulated, but which became clear soon enough. For me, he very soon became a traumatic figure, shrouded in shame.” “It was as if the schizophrenic, self-hating, hypocritical and violent history of race in America had incarnated itself in a single man,” Ms. Smith concludes. This critique is at odds with the warmth with which many black people still hold the singer, particularly in the United States, where he remains enormously beloved. But it calls to mind the furious assault on Jackson’s racial credentials with which Ta-Nehisi Coates began a recent essay on Kanye West. “Michael Jackson was God, but not just God in scope and power, though there was certainly that, but God in his great mystery,” Mr. Coates writes. “And he had always been dying — dying to be white.” He continues: We knew that we were tied to him, that his physical destruction was our physical destruction, because if the black God, who made the zombies dance, who brokered great wars, who transformed stone to light, if he could not be beautiful in his own eyes, then what hope did we have — mortals, children — of ever escaping what they had taught us, of ever escaping what they said about our mouths, about our hair and our skin, what hope did we ever have of escaping the muck? And he was destroyed. Such criticism, however heartfelt and comprehensible, makes the mistake of reducing Jackson to the role of tribal ambassador in a society built on oversimplified and regressive notions of racial and gender identity that his own art and self-presentation never stopped pushing against. It occludes the far subtler and more interesting insights that a genius can provoke, and too confidently pigeonholes an individual who knowingly rejected the stifling limitations of his country’s artificial racial binary for a dupe. The man who wrote “We Are the World” and “Liberian Girl,” and proudly recreated Egyptian splendor in “Remember the Time,” had an idealistic and expansive view of our common humanity. His androgyny, too, helped shatter restrictive notions of black masculinity. One of the most counterintuitive and compelling contributions to “On the Wall” is Lorraine O’Grady’s series of four diptychs, “The First and Last of the Modernists (Charles and Michael).” Comprising blown-up found photographs of the 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire and Jackson striking similar poses and tinted in a variety of pastel hues, like many of the works here, these pieces deal inventively with the theme of mirroring. “When Michael died, I tried to understand why was I crying like he was a member of my family,” Ms. O’Grady explained in an interview at the show’s opening in June. “I realized the only person I could compare him to was Baudelaire,” she said, listing ambiguous sexuality and a proclivity for wearing makeup as commonalities. “But more importantly, they both had this exalted idea of the role of the artist,” Ms. O’Grady added. “If Baudelaire thought he tried to explain the new world he was living in to the people around him, Michael had an even more exalted vision: He felt that he was capable of uniting the entire world through his music.” In Ms. O’Grady’s view, Jackson didn’t simply try to become “white,” as his detractors would have it — rather he “crafted himself physically to appeal to every demographic possible,” she said. By the time of his death, Jackson had long been one of the most famous people on the planet, if not the most famous. The footage of his “Dangerous” tour in newly post-Ceausescu Romania, on display in an eerie loop, provides hallucinatory testament to his outrageous global reach. It is estimated that his memorial service at the Staples Center in Los Angeles reached at least a billion people worldwide. “The first of the new is always the last of something else,” Ms. O’Grady notes in the catalog. Baudelaire, she writes, “was both the first of the modernists and the last of the romantics.” And Jackson “may have been the last of the modernists (no one can ever aspire to greatness that unironically again) but he was the first of the postmodernists.” He was, perhaps, the first of the post-racialists, too. Yet in our hyper-connected age of heightened political consciousness and reactionary fervor, in which identity is both a weapon and a defense, that view of race can feel naïve. But this is a failure of our own imaginations and dreams, not his. As “On the Wall” makes clear, Jackson’s own face — through a combination of fame and relentless surgery — became a mask, reflecting our own biases and ideals while concealing a deeper truth. His art and lasting appeal, on the other hand, function as a reminder to consider our own disguises, and what we might gain by letting them go. Michael Jackson: On the Wall Through Oct. 21 at the National Portrait Gallery, London; npg.org.uk.

[theragamuffininitiative]

Christian Films and Misc Rambling Thoughts on the Subject that Might or Might Not be Actually Connected

@cogentranting​ At some point, years from now, when all else is turned to dust and the sun has set for the last time, a post for this reply, stating I will reply in a longer fashion later (which would actually be now) shall appear. I will likely delete it out of pure spite. Stupid mobile app uploads.

I haven’t seen God’s Not Dead. Or God’s Not Dead 2. I should. Not because I just want to, or because It Is The Inspired Word Of Our Lord™ (hahahah it’s not guys, ok), but because of my overall interest an involvement in the world of film. I should be informed.

Also, I appreciate the sarcasm. XD I hope that was sarcasm or now I look really stupid but you’re going to get an earful either way, so it works out.

So let’s get to it:

I hate the Christian Film Industry™

Whew. There. I said it. Pray for my salvation.

Why? So, soooo many reasons.

1. The Sacrifice of Art in the Name of ‘Message.’

I, for one, want to know why the Christian church is constantly smashing down on the creative outputs of their members for not being enough about God, or published by Thomas Nelson, or advocated by Willie Roberts. Why. We would rather squelch the heartfelt, beautiful, God-given art produced by our brothers and sisters for not showing a clear Conversion Experience rather than be amazed at the ability God has allowed us to have to make such fantastic, whimsical, thought-provoking, emotionally-resonant things.

This is point number one because it. is. my. biggest. issue.

“Message films are rarely exciting. So by their very nature, most Christian films aren’t going to be very good because they have to fall within certain message-based parameters. And because the Christian audience is so glad to get a “safe, redeeming, faith-based message,” even at the expense of great art, they don’t demand higher artistic standards.” ~ Dallas Jenkins, movie reviewer and director of The Resurrection of Gavin Stone??? (Imma have to check back with you later on this, but the quote still stands on its own.)

“We have the makings of a movement that can change this culture. I honestly believe this. But I also believe the first step toward establishing the groundwork for a vibrant, relevant cultural movement based on scriptural thought is to stop producing “Christian films” or “Christian music” or “Christian art” and simply have Christ-followers who create great Art.” ~ Scott Nehring, in his book You Are What You See: Watching Movies Through a Christian Lens.

“If we are trying to evangelize, the fact that most Christian-themed movies are torn to shreds by non-Christian critics becomes an issue. If, however, we just really want to see our fantasies validated on screen, then we will write-off these poor reviews as “persecution.”” ~ Andrew Barber, in his article “The Problem with Christian Films.”

On a similar note, I want to know what the Mormon church is doing that the Christian church is not. Every time I turn around, I discover that another of my favorite artists, whether it be in film or elsewhere, is a professing Mormon:

musicians Imagine Dragons, the Killers, and Lindsey Stirling

authors Brandon Sanderson, Shannon Hale, Heather Dixon, and Brandon Mull

animator Don Bluth

actress Amy Adams and actor Will Swenson (both formerly)

etc, the list goes on

Hi, my Mormon friends. What is your secret. What ways of encouraging art and artists do you employ that my Baptist upbringing, and the Conservative Christian community in general, is so sorely lacking in?

2. The Christian Culture’s Subsequent Villainization of Hollywood.

This past Christmas, my sister gifted me a book titled Behind the Screen, “Hollywood Insiders on Faith, Film, and Culture.”

I sat down after all the gift-giving was done and read the first three sections before the holiday meal was served. But let me quote from the introduction which had me “Amen!”-ing and punching my fist to the sky every third word:

“We obsess about “the culture” endlessly; we analyze and criticize. But we can’t figure out anything to do but point an accusatory finger at Hollywood... Blaming Hollywood for our cultural woes has become a habit... Casting Hollywood as the enemy has only pushed Hollywood farther away. And the farther Hollywood is from us, the less influence we have on our culture. We’ve left the business of defining human experience via the mass media to people with a secular worldview.... In pushing away secular Hollywood, haven’t we turned our backs on the very people Christ called us to minister to - the searching and the desperate, those without the gospel’s saving grace and truth?”

Btw, if this subject is something you are interested in, I highly recommend this book. Written by creatives and executives in the film world (including one of the writers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the producer of Home Improvement, and even the multi-credited Ralph Winters, among others), it’s a frank, beautiful, and challenging read for artists, Christians, and film buffs.

The point here is that the church culture says if it doesn’t come from Sherwood, or have Kirk Cameron or Ducky Dynasty in it, or have a conversion sequence, it isn’t Christian and therefore Christians should not view or encourage it in any way. This. Is. Crap. Pardon my French.

Beauty can come from imperfection.  Even unregenerate hearts still bear the image of the Divine and are capable of producing so much worthwhile and significant art. Which leads to...

3. Guess What? Secular Film Companies Make Quality Faith Films Too??!

Idk what I should even say here, but I’m just going to go with the one shining example I always think of: Dreamworks’ Prince of Egypt. It is purely a work of art from any standard, and that is the epitome of what Christians should be looking for in their endeavors to create good film. PoE is gorgeously animated, seamlessly directed, well-scripted, morally driven, more Biblically and historically accurate than you would believe (and where it falls down on direct representation, it remains true to theme and character), etc. etc. etc.

I could go on for ages about how much I adore this film. (Joseph, King of Dreams, is also noteworthy, but nearly up to par with the craftsmanship of its predecessor.

I mean

just look at

the art

4. I Do Like Some Films Made By ‘Christian’ Companies

Idk, I might step on people’s toes or surprise you by which of these I actually approve of, but here we go:

I like Fireproof. I have many issues with it, but overall it is a fairly well-made, Hallmark-style emotional flick. The acting leaves much to be desired, but it’s a decent bit of showmanship, story, and truth.

I do not like Facing the Giants. Give me Blind Side any day of the week, except don’t because... sports.

However, both Courageous (some actual real life dialogue and not a completely happily ever after, whaaaat???! Oh, but token conversion experience, of course), and the early-and-forgotten Flywheel (which, although low in camera quality and acting, is actually an enjoyable story), come in as films I would sit down and watch at least a second time.

Risen is well-made and acted and has some establishment of genuine Craft. However, as far as story plots go, a lot was sacrificed. The mountain-top encounter with Christ was, while perhaps the most generally cliche piece of story, to me the most heartfelt and provocative. After that...the film kind of ended in mediocrity. Like...what did the characters do after the credits rolled.

I actually really enjoy Mom’s Night Out. The manic theme almost kills me, but the quiet and the reveal at the end is worth sitting through to see.

And I appreciate Luther. I don’t watch it often, because I personally can’t stomach the more violent aspects (the reason I haven’t/don’t watch The Passion or End of the Spear.) But Luther is a great biographical film, and I would encourage anyone studying Catholic and/or Protestant history, especially Martin Luther, to watch it. This is a Film in both art, message, and class.

Tbh, I’ve been avoiding most of the other Christian films, which is why I won’t talk about them there.

5. You Don’t Have To Slap A Jesus Fish Bumper Sticker On It To Be Christ-Honoring

Walden Media is a prime example, I believe, of what Christians in the film industry should be doing. I mean, they’re not perfect at all, but they are not sacrificing art for message - or vice versa for that matter. While not strictly a Christian Film group, Walden is founded and run by a majority of Christian Conservatives who are actively seeking to make quality and wholesome films for people of all diversities. They’ve had a few flops and several more that just didn’t quite live up to their potential, but they also brought us

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as well as

Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, and the one I will never stop talking about:

Amazing Grace.

Well-crafted films, put out by *gasp* an assortment of believers and non-believers. Art. Good films. Not Messages dressed up in makeup with a classy Instagram filter and a 30-day challange booklet to get your revival outfit on.

In looking through this stuff, I just found this article, which is a superb read and really gets at the heart of what I feel, and am very badly trying to communicate:

Why Faith-Based Films Hurt Religion

So.

When Christian Films start being an actual representation of creative community and the artistic talents God has given to us as personal and spiritual gifts, rather than a cheap way to try to force morality on Hollywood and on our neighbors without ever leaving the confines of our Bible Boxes in case we might get soiled, I may start appreciating the Christian Film Industry™. Until then??? I’ll stand behind my fellow creatives and my fellow believers and hope and work for the best.

Lastly, two things:

Christians Can Enjoy Secular Film Productions.

I would even argue that they should. We were created by a Creator God, who takes pride and joy in making beautiful things, in making each of us. And we are made in His image. We are creators as well, we make art all the time. Scripture tells us to worship God in everything we do. The movement of making “Christian Films for Christian Audiences because of Christian Reasons” is missing the point entirely. We as creatives are not here to make God Art, we are here to make art that glorifies God

Christ Does Not Need Hollywood. However, Hollywood Does Need Christ.

“While many missionaries travel to remote villages in Africa or South America to spread Christianity, [Karen] Covell believes her calling—her mission field, if you will—is right here in Los Angeles, in an industry that many of her fellow Christians find immoral or even downright sinful, both for its on-screen depictions of sex and drugs and the real-life sex, drugs, and other temptations that exist behind the scenes. Covell, who was a film producer in the early 1980s, says "the church did not get how I could justify being a Christian in Hollywood, and Hollywood did not get how I would follow God. It was a divide." It was nearly impossible to meet other Christians working in the industry, let alone ones who would express their faith openly. "I said, 'The church hates Hollywood, Hollywood hates the church. There's got to be some way to bridge that divide.'" - in an article by Jennifer Swan.

As I said in my original little “about me” tag response, I have felt called to ministry in this world. Whether it be film or live theater, that world is calling to me, both in its creative endeavors, and in its desperate need for the hope, truth, life, and light of Christ. Actors and directors in Hollywood and on Broadway are in as much need of the grace of our Lord as the starving orphans in the unreached people groups on the other side of the planet - same as your next door neighbor.

If Christians continue to tie themselves down, and group themselves together, cutting themselves off from the culture and the culture off from them, then we are doing absolutely no heavenly or earthly good to anyone.

So, you see, it’s not just the artistry (or, so often, lack thereof) in the Christian Film Industry™ that gets to me.

It’s the fact that the film media culture is a people group that the church as a whole is ignoring. We are ignoring the impact Hollywood has on the world around us and still trying to be relevant to that world, which is counter-productive and just plain silly.

It’s the fact that I see actors, actresses, producers, writers, who are obviously searching for the Something that will fill the void in their souls, and their primary exposure to Christianity and Christ - the only One who can satisfy them - is the Christian Film Industry™, which is largely full of broad and meaningless substance because heaven help us we should talk about something real, and then just plain bad art.

I believe God has called us to higher things than this.

Higher art, loving to create as he lovingly created us.

High impact, going deeper into the issues of our culture and our nature to address and satisfy problems and needs felt be every human, not just the church-goers who will show up for Sherwood’s next big thing.

So, yes, my pet peeve cracked from its proverbial nutshell:

I have issues with the Christian Film Industry

[gladblackwoman-blog]

Self Control is not a result of Modesty

  As I grow older and mature, the root of many of my insecurities comes to light. Today I want to address my insecurity of my body and men. Because it is swimsuit season I know that many woman worldwide will be made to feel ashamed of their bodies or that their bodies may serve as obstacles to men seeking purity. I used to go along with all of the modest is hottest talks until these talks inched closer and closer to the definition of rape culture. Comments like "you know what you're doing by wearing that" or "you don't want to weaken or hinder his self control by showing too much skin." These comments made me fear men and my body. If I knew I was going to be in the presence of men that I didn't know or trust I would try to cover my chest and hide my curves as much as possible. 

  I have never truly worn a swimsuit since I went through puberty until this year. I almost always keep shorts or a tank top on over my swimsuits. Today I was at the pool by myself in a nice one piece bathing suit. It fits me like a glove and is so cute and comfy. I was hopping in and out of the pool with no fear of wedgies or anything popping out. Two females that I did not know later showed up and I continued to swim around and enjoy my time without worrying about my appearance. The second a male entered the pool area I was afraid to step out of the water. My mind shifted into hyper overthought of if my bathing suit really fit nicely or if it was too tight or too revealing. When I finally stepped out of the pool I kept my hands over my bottom and moved very swiftly to my seat out of worry that my body would distract the man or cause him to stare at me. Not because I think I'm all that, just because it seems like now a days swimsuits are thought to be worn for male attention and only that. This is not okay! 

  No one is responsible for anyone else's thoughts or actions. Everyone has a choice, everyone has self control. If that man sexualized me because of the bathing suit I was wearing, that was his choice and his own doing. If for some reason my bathing suit did bother him in any way he had the choice to not look at me. Whether I was wearing a G string or coveralls, if he would have touched me or said something out of the way to me that would have been his wrongdoing and in no way my fault unless I did the same to him first. 

  A woman should never fear her own body. Another thing that results from these "modesty talks" is the thought that a woman's body image is more powerful than a man's will power and that it can be used to manipulate a situation. I fall victim to feeling unwanted day in and day out. Because of this and always hearing that showing more of my body would grab a man's attention, I have tried to dress to please a man on multiple occasions. Whether I caught someone's attention or not, each time I was left unsatisfied because my worth is not found in what a man thinks of my body or how wholesome or skimpy I dress. Women are made in the image of God as men the same and are called to reflect Him in a dignified way. Women, if you believe you are carrying yourself with dignity and respect great. You should never be made to feel guilty about your body and how you dress it. Now of course I'm not saying walk around in the nude or wear a mini skirt and crop top to church because you feel like you should be able to. Please don’t break any public nudity laws or  straight up flash people. 

  A woman has the right to dress as she pleases without being verbally and/or sexually harassed by a man. Women are whole beautiful beings and should never be thought of as individual objects made for your sexual pleasure, especially strictly based on the way she dresses. Women, if you are purposely flaunting your body and your sexuality to men that you know are not interested and/or are seeking purity, I ask you how do you benefit from watching someone else struggle and if you would appreciate it if someone else did this to you? Would you respect them? Women, love yourselves, respect yourselves and others should do the same!!

 "If you don't love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?" -Ru Paul

[kaiba-fangirl]

Personal Perspective On Brothershipping... (aka Tabloidshipping)

[Please NOTE: This is not in reference to people who use ship names for just any kind of relation-ship & use these terms platonically. This is about the troubling romanticizing of incest.]

The thing that I have seen way too much of in my time is the unmistakable sexualization of Mokuba with Seto in art & fics. It used to be called Brothershipping, now it’s apparently called Tabloidshipping. Luckily, I don’t seem to have encountered any of that specifically anew around Tumblr. Still, I would like to address this topic, especially since I have been casually mistaken as having just such an inappropriate relationship. Now, I do love all the brother closeness. It’s how Seto captured my heart in the first place. My little brother and I started off the show both rooting for Yugi/Yami since he was the star. We both thought Kaiba was a dick, an easy Saturday-Morning cartoon side villain. But then, he broke into his hidden underground base, hacked into Pegasus’ system, and once that was done, flew straight to Duelist Kingdom. And along the way, he tripped that eldest protector switch in me.

Me: *cheers* Bro: ?_? “Are you rooting for… Kaiba?” Me: “Um, yeah, actually…” Bro: “But he [litany of crimes by ep9]!” Me: “Well, yeeeah, but he’s going to save his brother!”

He rolled his eyes and smirked and actually hasn’t brought it up specifically ever again. Though sometimes, he still likes to confuse people by hugging me & calling me “Big Brother!” in the most annoying voice he can. 😏 Mind you, I am a girl, and he’s since gained nearly a foot on me. Since leaving for college in 2006, and telling stories to people I meet around Philly, every so often I’ll get someone looking at me cockeyed. Some people flat out don’t believe in anyone having a good relationship with their siblings, that I should never take him in account, or that I should try to work against him. Others think that it’s too close quarters to have shared 1 copy of Pokemon Blue. And even a couple closest friends get to saying that we’re too close. *shrug* I dunno, we don’t live in a development and went to a relatively small Catholic school? So we just played together ourselves? Anyway, why would it be a bad thing to enjoy hanging out, playing, and working with your sibling? We also have a family business, and lived with our abusive grandmother, who in turn screwed up our dad, who in turn has been passing it on to us... It’s better to stick together. Now, I’ve been engaged since 2011, and he got engaged this past November. More than once, I’ve been seriously asked if he’s who I’m engaged to. Uhh, how many people around the world are married and also have siblings who are married? Why would someone’s first assumption be that they’re married to each other?! My brother & I have always shared, well, like 90% of our things. We will basically cuddle up on the couch watching TV or something - though I guess for proper comparison here it’s just lazy laying-on-top-of or leaning against. If either of us were “cuddling” with our S.O.s, it’d be a completely different picture. On family vacations in hotels we’ve shared a queen bed and kicked our sister to the pull out bed, cuz she ends up sticking ice cold feet all over you and sometimes sleeps with her eyes open - which. is. horrifying. 

It’s the CONTEXT. Just cuz you’re close, enjoy being together, work well together, and would do anything for each other, does not mean... THAT. And it’s seeing a sibling relationship taken too far that is really a betrayal of that very closeness. It’s a slap in the face of any notion of protecting. Once you sexualize a relationship like that, especially with any kind of difference in age or will, it becomes one simply taking advantage of the other. THAT is a form of abuse. Judging by the # of fics he’s the star of on ffnet, I’d say that Seto’s got just a bit more of a fanbase than the actual star of the show. However you slice it, it’s a lot. And strangely enough, Brother/Tabloidshipping can be tricky to avoid even when you’re say, just browsing Google Images or on Youtube, or DeviantArt specifically. An unedited screenshot of them together may be tagged straight up Tabloidshipping. One second there’s a great brotherly love hug, desperate not to lose each other - it may be described strictly as not any kind of romance. Next to that there’s one of them literally kissing, &/or literally disrobing one another - with or without explanation. And under that, another warm cuddling hug - only its text is ambiguous. Well... which is that one supposed to be??? Don’t forget, some people do use “Brother/Tabloidshipping” for platonic, healthy sibling relationships!  Now, how on earth are you supposed to take ANY pic of them? Are they sharing a bed cuz the kid is scared and they both have abandonment issues, or cuz someone doesn’t know how to treat siblings? And that mistreatment has always been sooo rampant with these 2. It is and has been so pervasive that every single pic, every single interaction comes under scrutiny. They’re fictional characters, so the fan creating for them could have either idea in mind. If you don’t want to support the incestuous taking-advantage-of angle, that leaves you with either a lot of research to do into random strangers, or a constant feeling of awkwardness and uncertainty. Perhaps we need a differentiating tag between the wholesome brotherly love Kaibas, and the incest. I simply use “Kaiba brothers” instead, so there can be no confusing it with a romantic “ship.” Well, til this is ever sorted out, here’s where I stand on this surprisingly confusing topic. Responses welcome. =) (Especially if you have a differentiation solution!)

[thexploreking]

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World?

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World?

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in the Digital World?

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World?

The SEO practices adopted by marketers can be broadly classified into two categories i.e White hat SEO and Black hat SEO. But what does each of these mean? let’s find out. Note- With The change In google Algorithms And as Other Search Engines The Black Hat SEO Won't Survive IN the Long Run. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); White hat SEO Quite clear from the name itself that White hat SEO refers to the most legitimate practices adhered by the marketers to gain higher rankings in the search engine result pages. The white SEO practices strictly abide by the Google’s guidelines for SEO. The White hat SEO is considered to be highly wholesome in its approach as it follows Google’s algorithms and does not aim at exploiting the loopholes in the same. The most commonly practiced white hat SEO techniques are publishing quality content on the website, HTML optimization and restructuring of the website, link acquisition campaigns supported by quality content along with manual research and outreach. The practices listed under the White Hat SEO techniques may be slow in giving results but the results-driven are much more lasting in their approach. Black Hat SEO As obvious as the name suggests, Blackhat SEO includes the practices that aim at finding weaknesses and loopholes in the Google’s algorithms in order to rank higher in the search engine result pages. These practices are against the guidelines provided by Google and overall Google’s algorithms. Thus, the practices under the label Black hat SEO are considered to be illegitimate. The wholesome level of Blackhat SEO is very low and if you ask a person who works as a spam cleaner on search engine result pages he would probably declare the wholesome level to be zero. The most common black hat SEO techniques include spam links, keyword stuffing, cloaking, hidden text, and hidden links. These practices aim at misleading the users and redirecting to the sites they didn’t vouch for. The traffic generated through these practices does not last nor are the rankings able to maintain their position on the search engine research pages. Thus, we can conclude that the rankings achieved through the Black hat SEO techniques are short lived.

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World? Gray Hat SEO Apart from a Black Hat SEO And White Hat SEO, there exists Gray Hat SEO as well that includes bits from both white and black hat SEO. The Gray Hat SEO mainly came into practice because of the pressure from the clients to receive results they have been paying for. The third party companies have an extra inclination towards these mixed practices forming the Gray Hat SEO. NOTE- The Various Types Of Click Baits Come IN the Black Hat SEO Techniques. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({});

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World?

What are the various types of SEO currently prevailing in the Market?

There are various types of SEO techniques adopted by marketers all over the world in an attempt to mark their online presence. However, the major types of SEO  that can be used to classify the SEO practices undertaken by the marketers include On- page and Off- page SEO. We have here divided the SEO practices into two categories: On- page and Off-page SEO. But what does each of these terms mean?

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World? On-page SEO and Off-page SEO On-page SEO and off-page SEO On-page SEO: Refers to the activities that are carried out on the page that is to be published. Simply put, the tasks that help optimize a given page such that it appears higher on the Search engine result pages. The On-page SEO activities primarily include infusing keywords in the right quantity, inserting internal links, meta tags, Meta description, building a customized URL structure, inserting the alt attributes, taking care of the image SEO and most importantly providing the users with quality content. Off-page SEO: Refers to the activities that are performed on a page after it goes live on the web. The activities included in the Off-page SEO include sharing the post, commenting on the post to build engagement, liking the post on the social media, giving the star ratings to the post, answering the queries of the target consumers are all a part of the tasks listed under the Off-page SEO. Types of on-page and off page SEO techniques Let’s figure different types of SEO techniques: On-page SEO Backlinking: By giving backlinks to credible sites, the authority of a site increases. A backlink refers to giving the source of the site that has been referred to quote a particular information. Giving a backlink to a site that has a higher search engine ranking enables you to have a better level of credibility according to the Google’s algorithms and even the SEO Yoast recommended by WordPress. Also, if you give multiple backlinks to an authoritative site, there are chances that you are able to convince them in the future to give your site a backlink as well. Such a reciprocative action would do wonders for your site’s traffic. Infusing keywords in order of priority If you are a Digital Marketer, you probably are already aware of what is meant by infusing keywords. But what do I exactly mean when I say infusing keywords in order of priority? well in the assigned keywords as well there are subcategories: primary keywords and secondary keywords. As the name suggests, both these categories are differentiated by the order of priority. The primary keywords must occur at least 8-15 times in a content that is 1500-2500 words long. At the same time, all the provided secondary keywords must occur at least once in the entire content. The Google’s spiders when crawl into the content posted by you gain knowledge of the context of the content through these keywords. Thus, as suggested in the Google’s algorithms, the primary and the secondary keywords must be infused accordingly in the content to help Google understand better what is the content all about. Meta tags, meta description, alt attributes The meta tags, meta description, and alt attributes are an important part of the on-page SEO. The meta tags mainly comprise of the secondary keywords in the content. The meta tags help Google to read the content better and lets the search engine know the context of the content that is been posted on the web. Whereas the meta description refers to the text that is displayed along with the title on the search engine result pages. The meta description is a crucial SEO element as it determines to a great extent if the searcher will click on your site’s link or not. If you publish your blogs through WordPress, you must make it a rule to include your primary keyword in the alt text of the images. The screen readers for the blind users use the alt text to read out what is in the image. Thus, it is must be noted that in the absence of alt attributes the reader may simply ignore the image or get stuck there. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World?

The types of Keywords in SEO

Search engine optimization begins with keyword finding and infusing those keywords into the content. Thus, there are various types of keywords that can be infused into the content. What are those keyword types, read on to know: Generic keywords:

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World? Types of keywords- Generic keywords This type of keywords are just like their name, these keywords are too generic in approach. These keywords are too general in outlook and are extremely competitive in approach. it is overall difficult to rank for. However, these keywords are included in the secondary keywords to cover all the possibilities. The websites that are able to rank for generic keywords are able to accumulate a fair share of traffic with these keywords. Also, it must be noted that a lot of marketers are not very keen on using generic keywords until and unless they are ready to invest enough in the promotions of the blog that it would finally rank at a notable position. Example- DSLR camera, red lipstick, etc. Broad match keywords

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World? Types of SEO keywords- Broad match keywords These keywords are a bit more specific in their approach like Mac peach red lipstick, Canon 1200d DSLR camera, and so on. Thus, these keywords are easy to rank for. Since these keywords are much more specific in approach. The broad match keywords are far more detailed so we know that a user who makes a search using a broad match keyword, what is he looking for basically. Thus, making a sale is not much of a hassle in this case nor is ranking that much of a big deal. Long tail keywords

How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World? Types of SEO keywords- Long tail keywords Long tail keywords have simply marked themselves as the love of every content marketer. These are the most specific set of keywords that leave no scope for guesswork. One thing the marketer can be sure of while using long tail keywords is that the user is already aware of what he is searching for and is looking for a specific result. This also concludes with the fact that the probability of making a sale is much higher. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); THESE ARE THE VARIOUS IMPORTANT FACTORS OF SEO IN WORDPRESS. ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND THAT SEO IS A PART OF BLOGGING NOT EVERYTHING. YOU MUST HAVE WRITE QUALITY CONTENT IN CASE YOU WANT TO GAIN  TRAFFIC. If your Content Is Good and There are no Traffic on your Website Or Blog Don't Worry. These Things Are Gonna Take Some time. These Things Will Work Slowly But surely. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({}); Types of SEO services offered by the digital industry The Digital marketing industry has units that comprehensively offer SEO services. Every business today is striving to mark its online presence as an attempt to capture their own set of Digital consumers. Let us take a look at some types of SEO services offered by the digital industry today. Keyword Search Many companies today outsource their SEO task of searching relevant keywords according to the theme of the business. The digital marketing companies employ SEO specialists to make keyword searches for their clients as per their needs. If you are a firm that is striving to mark its digital presence and have blogged on your SEO strategy, a keyword is an important element to be taken care of. In the absence of efficient resources, it is suggested that you avail SEO services from these digital marketing agencies or a hardcore SEO agency. Creation of landing pages The pages you redirect your audience to must not be misleading as that will reduce the credibility of your site. Thus, it must be noted that landing pages occupy an important position in the SEO of a website. To perform the task of creating the landing pages effectively, you can always take help of the agencies providing SEO services. Page Optimization There arises the need for page optimization from time to time in order to increase the search engine ranking for that page. Thus, page optimization must be considered every now and then. Technical audit A technical audit is a task that requires an in-depth programming knowledge. A company may or not have such a talent amongst their resources but that must not hold them back from having their website audited. your website needs a technical audit because Google and other search engines are computers and they need assistance in understanding your site. An SEO service provider who is aware of the overall functioning of the Google’s algorithms must be handed over this task. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || ).push({});

SOME EXAMPLES OF SEO TOOLS & FACTORS YOU NEED TO VIRAL YOUR CONTENT:--

SEO Yoast for WordPress After you are done with writing your blog, it is suggested that you must always refer to the SEO Yoast provided by WordPress to improve the overall quality of the blog. The SEO Yoast presents you the key elements that help you to optimize your blog such that it appears at a notable position in the search engine result page. Image SEO Image SEO is another way of optimizing the website or the landing pages in specific. An optimized image will appear in the searches made for images on Google. When the user clicks on the link to go to the original source of the image, the user is redirected to your website. Thus, gaining your website traffic. Images are an important component of any website, thus, must be optimized. Internal Linking The internal links are the links of the blogs previously published or the landing pages of the website.  The idea behind interlinking is redirecting the user from one page to the other page of the website. This is an attempt to retain the user. H tags Using the Heading tags ensure that the Google takes notes of the headings used by you on the blog. Thus, the H tags must be used to make your blog visible in the SERPs for those particular words. It is also suggested that you use the secondary keywords and the primary keywords in the sub-heads. URL structure You must adjust the URL according to the primary keyword, doing so would make the visibility of your blog higher. This works in a format that when a user makes a search with a particular keyword if the URL of your blog contains that keyword, the probability of Google showing your blog is quite high. Also, you must make a deliberate attempt to eliminate all the numbers from the URL that might just appear automatically. Off- page SEO As explained above, the off-page SEO deals with the promotion of the content post publishing. Some of the most important and most common off-page SEO practices include: Sharing If you think it’s ok to publish a blog and not share it on your social media handles or other connectivity apps that inform people what are you up to. Some of your friends might actually look forward to investing time in your work. Again you don’t know how many people the post may reach through your social media handle. And if the post appears relevant to them, there’s an even higher possibility that they may share it on their profile or the connectivity apps they use in their daily routine. Commenting As you might have noticed on Facebook, the posts that are been commented upon automatically appear in the news feed. Same is the case with search engines, the blogs or the posts that receive engagement in the form of sharing and commenting. Liking/ star rating Liking works just the same as commenting and sharing. The more the number of likes and star ratings on a post, the better is the credibility of that post according to Google. The star ratings especially work as reviews for a particular blog, for both the audience and Google, the star ratings are a means of reviewing the blog. Answer queries- be responsive Your potential consumer would put up questions every now and then. Putting up questions signifies only one thing that your audience is interested in what they are reading. So, there’s a reasonable chance that if you answer their questions you would be able to maximize their interest and crack a sale along with building engagement which is obviously very crucial to your online existence. Look out for what the user is looking for One of the most important aspects of off-page SEO is spending time on researching where the potential audience’s interest lies in. When you pick topics of interest to your audience, it is an obvious fact that you will be able to build more engagement. isn’t that what you want? Moreover, when you post after carrying out a little research, you are updated with what is prevailing in the market and would write on the trending topics that are of interest to all. Develop a personal touch with the target audience The off-page SEO has several elements that allow you to develop a personal touch with the users. While your reply to the comments and answer their queries over the social media or right below the blog itself, there is a scope for developing a personal touch with the audience. the more personally you connect with the audience, the more familiar the audiences would feel with your brand. These Are Some SEO Tips And Tricks You Must Follow If you Have a website Or a Blog Also Read- TOP 15 SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) TECHNIQUES I FORGET TO DO The 10 Most Important SEO Tips You Need to Know 9 Reasons Why You’re Not Getting Search Engine Traffic How Many Types of SEO Practices Exist in Digital World? Read the full article

[psychologofeducation]

psychology and philosophy - uneasy siblings

maximum of us who paintings in a few thing of philosophy have had the experience of trying to give an explanation for to someone that philosophy isn't always psychology. to the ones individuals of the philosophical set, the difference may additionally appear apparent, however any attempt to spell it out requires some cautious thought and mirrored image, that's what i try to do on this exercise.

is psychology a sibling of philosophy? certainly inside the past they were near siblings, members of the identical circle of relatives, philosophy. today the relationship between the 2 is greater complicated. does work in philosophy have any relation to the student's mental state? the answer also isn't always a straight forward one. philosophy can assist someone psychologically, however this isn't always principal to the function of philosophy.

some records:

historically in western philosophy, psychology turned into part of philosophy until the 19th century when it became a separate science. in the 17th and 18th centuries, many western philosophers did pioneering paintings in regions that later came to be called "psychology." eventually mental inquiry and studies have become separate sciences a number of which could be characterised because the have a look at and studies into the thoughts. in short, psychology have become identified because the science of thoughts insofar as its feature is to investigate and give an explanation for mental methods: our mind, reports, sensations, feelings, perceptions, imaginations, creativity, goals and so on. it is in the main an empirical and experimental technology; although the sphere of psychology does include the extra theoretical freudian psychology and the more speculative jungian psychology.

while we observe western philosophy, we discover a focused attempt to preserve a distinction among philosophical and mental considerations. however those have now not continually been kept separate. even today a few areas of philosophy stay intermixed with mental issues. it could be that some types of philosophy can never break away absolutely from psychological issues. . traditionally, philosophers in the western tradition did not continually have a look at a wall of separation between philosophy and psychology. as an example, baruch spinoza's fantastic work, ethics, consists of many observations and insights about our reasoning processes and feelings. the early works in epistemology (idea of expertise) via such thinkers as rene descartes, john locke, david hume, and immanuel kant consist of a exquisite deal of observations and statements about intellectual methods related with knowing and perception. in other words, these writings generally tend to mix mental statements (technique of knowing) with conceptual philosophy.

however there are variations among psychology and philosophy that are vast and should be discovered in careful writing in both area. in our reviews of these seventeenth and 18th works in epistemology, we try to split the philosophical subject (common sense, conceptual and propositional assessment) from the psychological factor (causes of notion, mental manner underlying perception). clinical paintings that seeks to apprehend and explain the workings of the mind and the neurological strategies which underlie notion and enjoy (viz., psychology) isn't like philosophical inquiry into thoughts, focus, knowledge and reviews. edmund husserl, the founder of phenomenology, takes exceptional pains to maintain his philosophy cut loose empirical psychology. but it isn't always clear that his evaluation (or other analyses) of the phenomenology of various stories remains some thing actually awesome from psychology.

however in large component the hassle remains, especially in such areas of philosophy of mind, of keeping philosophical work freed from psychology altogether. furthermore, we ought to not assume that in all instances these should be saved separate, as some paintings in philosophy without a doubt calls for attention of the psychological sciences.

even these days the scholar will probably be amazed by way of the quantity of psychological insights that spinoza gives in this awesome paintings, ethics, back within the seventeenth century and comparable mental observations with the aid of friedrich nietzsche in the nineteenth century. william james, the awesome american pragmatist, consists of much psychology in his philosophy. he has a lot to say approximately the circulation of focus and unique reviews, such as non secular reports.

present day concerns:

philosophy of mind: there is a sense wherein the mind is a psychological construct; there may be any other experience in which it is not. "my mind is such and such" may be restated as "my questioning is such and such." sometimes it is the psychology behind my thinking that is the issue; however different times we are interested by what may be called the conceptual-propositional troubles; and still other instances we is probably greater interested by the literary-inventive expression of thoughts, values, and perspectives. (on this latter connection, see walter kaufmann's book, discovering the mind.)

in epistemology we are worried with the concept of information; however our number one interest isn't always one in every of describing the psychology of knowing. our interest isn't always within the method through which we come to know something, however in the rationalization of standards associated with knowledge and belief; and within the common sense of propositions related to knowledge. protected a number of the philosophers who have interaction in the philosophy of know-how are bertrand russell, d.w. hamlyn, and richard rorty.

inside the region of educational philosophy, besides the big area of epistemology, we've philosophy of mind, concept of consciousness, philosophy of language, cartesian idealism, and the unfastened will issue. mainly those aren't seen as kinds of mental inquiry. they're greater directed to conceptual and propositional issues. blanketed among the philosophers who have interaction in work on know-how, language, and thoughts in this vein are ludwig wittgenstein, gilbert ryle, d.w. hamlyn, john austin, and daniel dennett

however psychology may be very much a part of those philosophical research of unique experience, inclusive of the spiritual revel in, the mystical revel in, and even ethical experience. a very good representative of this method is the awesome american pragmatist, william james. much of his work in philosophy does now not stray too far from his psychological hobbies.

some factors of philosophy are concerned with the nature of human idea. this interest is wonderful from psychological look at, description and idea. but to be good enough and credible it needs to don't forget the work of psychologists and the cognitive scientists. the subject of human thought is a big subject matter which may be approached from unique guidelines. any such is philosophy; some other is psychology and the cognitive sciences. nonetheless others are literary art, the first-rate arts, and history.

suppose i ask about spinoza's thought with regard to moral responsibility; how does he defend the thesis that morality and rationality are closely intertwined? as a scholar of philosophy, my pastimes can be strictly philosophical hobbies. i want to understand how he develops and defends his philosophical thesis. then again, i might be curious about the causes of spinoza's questioning; or maybe interested by feasible motives that he would possibly have had for adopting his precise philosophy. what activities in his early life or own family existence led him to embody the values of rationality and the ideals of the geometric approach? on this latter case, i would be proceeding as an beginner, folks psychologist.

there are exclusive ways of looking to understand the concept of someone, e.g. a author or a logician. we take one way when we ask about the causes and motivations in the back of the person's thoughts; i.e., we ask about the psychological 'workings.' some other manner is to do philosophical criticism and assessment of the character's thoughts. however the  (psychology and philosophy) may be blended in a unmarried study.

philosophy and the psychological properly-being of the individual:

every other way of thinking about the interplay of psychology and philosophy is on the non-public stage. do someone's meditation on philosophical questions result in (or convey closer) a few diploma of psychic concord? to the quantity that philosophical paintings and idea make a contribution to a person's sense of nicely-being and success, one ought to argue that philosophy is a form of therapy. is there a feel wherein philosophy may be therapeutic?

if the unexamined life isn't well worth living (socrates), then it is able to follow that the tested existence (the "philosophical existence") is really worth dwelling. this will be seen as suggesting that philosophical thought consequences in a shape of personal achievement and good psychological health.

opposite to this we have the view (by and large the triumphing view) that philosophy is an intellectual subject which has little or nothing to do with all people's striving to attain a few form of private, psychic fulfillment. upload to this the fact that most people who paintings in philosophy (e.g. academic philosophers or professors of philosophy) are not in particular noteworthy for lives of psychic well-being. on this regard, consider human beings like blaise pascal, s. kierkegaard, f. nietzsche and ludwig wittgenstein. how psychologically wholesome and well balanced had been they? they had been emotionally and mentally tormented, and may not be noted much as fashions of psychic calm and properly-being. moreover, a few philosophers are pushed to interact in philosophy, much like artists, poets, and composers are pushed to do their creative paintings. right here we've a form of psychological compulsion that doesn't appear to be a form of therapy. in reality, some human beings even seek advice from philosophy as a kind of disorder.

final mind:

the scholar of philosophy commonly is not a psychologist, but not anything says that the pupil can't continue as a psychologist of kinds. i imagine conditions in we try to get clear about our mind and values; and try and be sincere about our motivations for all that we do. human beings used to say returned inside the Nineteen Sixties era: i'm simply looking to get my "head instantly."

suppose that a psychologist can tell me about the reasons, the mental processes, and hidden motives that underlie my thinking and conduct. he may say that which will clearly recognize what i'm about i have to have a few expertise of these "psychological" things; i.e., i need to renowned and divulge them. if i were to accept his recommendation and try to do the ones things, might i be acting in accordance with the socratic maxim to "know thyself"?

the expert is worried with empirical, descriptive psychology and with research into neurological and mental techniques. but we, the amateurs, are primarily indulging a form of folk psychology: attempting to mention what i think about my personal questioning. or trying to deal higher with my psychic existence. on occasion i practice this 'people psychology' to myself (i attempt to figure out what i am about) or to others (i try to understand their reasons for announcing such and such or doing so and so.)

on a extra sensible stage, we can imagine someone asking: "what do i actually need in existence? how do i am getting there?" can philosophy help us right here? perhaps no longer, but then again think of  of our brilliant figures in western philosophy, socrates and spinoza. they're regularly mentioned as fashions of mental harmony and wisdom. in the end, aren't all of us psychologists to a few degree, even the ones of us who flounder approximately in philosophy? yes, we're to some diploma 'psychologists' insofar as we are wakeful, alert, conscientious, and sincerely interact in self-examination. this does not need to be kept separate from our paintings in philosophy.

dr. juan bernal phd is a retired mainframe programmer with ranges in philosophy and spanish literature.

juan is the a managing blogger & author at philosophylounge.com which covers diverse subjects from western philosophy, religion, and records. philosophylounge.com is a place had been human beings can have interaction, debate, and contribute to the topics that hobby them referring to philosophy.

take the time and visit the blog for extra exciting articles.

[yes-dal456]

Choices, Voices, And Veganism: Diet For The Many

As I write this, I am about to leave for Boston to speak at iV, the Ivy League Vegan Conference, at Harvard. Prominent voices will gather there and collectively, one anticipates, make the case for veganism.

The timing is a bit ironic. A paper was just published in the Lancet, describing the lifestyle and health status of the Tsimane. The paper generated considerable excitement, and widespread media attention, because the Tsimane, a population in the Bolivian Amazon described as living “a subsistence lifestyle of hunting, gathering, fishing, and farming,” were found to have “the lowest reported levels of coronary artery disease of any population recorded to date.”

The Tsimane, obviously, are not vegans, as the references to both hunting and fishing indicate. On the other hand, they are not hunting for meat in the supermarket, as I pointed out to one correspondent who sent me the study and asked if his penchant for meat was now exonerated. My answer was perhaps, provided it was satisfied by advent of bow and arrow and involved no cellophane.

The Tsimane, in common with our Stone Age ancestors, eat the meat of wild animals and fish they obtain the hard and old-fashioned way. Those animals, in turn, get their food the hard and old-fashioned way, too; they are not fed copiously in captivity. Consequently, their own bodies are lean, and represent the fats they derive from their food sources. The result is that the Tsimane diet has virtually no trans fat, is very low in saturated fat, and is quite low in total fat. The study authors report a diet that is 72% carbohydrate, 14% fat, and 14% protein.

Of course, this diet made up of foods direct from nature is very low in simple starches, and sugars as well. The authors note that the carbohydrate sources in the Tsimane diet are generally complex, and high in fiber- just as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds are. These, of course, are the plant foods all but universally recommended for health promotion.

While the inclusion of meat in the Tsimane diet, conjoined to stunningly low levels of atherosclerosis demonstrated by CT imaging of the coronary arteries, might seem a rebuke to vegan diet advocacy, it is a mild rebuke at most. The nutrient composition of the Tsimane diet is much more akin to high-quality vegan and vegetarian diets than to anything remotely like the meat-heavy diets that prevail in the U.S. and many industrialized countries.

But even a mild rebuke, born of evidence, may deserve respect and certainly warrants reflection. 

I have long noted, with all due respect to the ardent vegans among my colleagues, that we lack evidence to prove that any one specific diet is the singular “best” for human health. This should come as no surprise when you consider what kinds of studies would be needed to generate such evidence: randomized trials of optimized versions of competing diets in large populations over a span of decades with incident disease and mortality the outcome measures. The diet producing the greatest combination of longevity and vitality would be the winner. Such a study has not been done, and don’t hold your breath.

What we do know, from a veritable sea of confluent evidence, is the basic theme of the optimal diet for Homo sapiens. Famously described by Michael Pollan as “food, not too much, mostly plants,” it is just so: a diet of minimally processed, wholesome foods, mostly plants, in any balanced and sensible combination. The Tsimane diet represents such a combination. So do the Blue Zone diets, encompassing traditional Mediterranean, Asian, vegetarian, and omnivorous variants. 

Our species is constitutionally omnivorous. That makes it unlikely the kind of meat to which we are natively adapted, the kind of meat the Tsimane consume, would be “bad” for us as some contend. It does nothing, however, to exonerate the fatty meats of domestic animals and the processed meats that many eat under a “Paleo diet” halo. 

In fact, all it really means is that our species, by virtue of our anatomy and physiology, is endowed with a particularly wide array of dietary choices.

I can’t support the argument I sometimes hear from colleagues that a vegan diet is “best” based on human health considerations alone. In fact, we know that a strictly vegan diet is sure to be deficient in at least one nutrient essential to our species, vitamin B12. Supplementing B12 is easily done, however, and a well-balanced vegan diet is certainly among the contenders for best diet laurels.

There are, however, considerations other than our own health. The meat that feeds modern appetites is overwhelmingly the meat of animals raised not just in captivity, but relatively confined spaces. Often, it is the meat of animals not fed the diet native to, or optimal for, their own species. Animal husbandry may at times involve use of hormones and antibiotics, as we have all heard. And, there can be cruelty in the mix that most of us would find distasteful, if not disgusting, if ever we saw it. There are, therefore, arguments for veganism related to ethics, the decent treatment of our fellow species, and the avoidance of exposure to harmful food contaminants.

There are compelling environmental arguments as well for veganism and approximations of it. The domestic production of meat, and beef in particular, is associated with high environmental impact in every area of importance: water consumption, land allocation, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity.

I can imagine an anti-elitist rebuttal, protesting the high cost of produce- but that argument is specious. For one thing, the relative costs of foods reflect our cultural priorities, not natural law. If beef is inexpensive relative to kale, it’s because we direct subsidies to make it so, subsidies we could redirect whenever the will is mustered. For another, many of the best foods – beans, lentils, whole grains- are already exceptionally economical. And, if so inclined, we could enable the economically disadvantaged to afford better food in ways that would likely reduce health care costs into the bargain, as some are already doing.

This, then, is the message I am taking to the iV conference, as I add my voice to a chorus singing the praises of well practiced veganism. We are omnivores, and we have choices. A good vegan diet is not the only option for health promotion, but it is among the best. When the case is broadened from the health of people to that of the planet, too, the case for veganism is very much fortified. After all, the Tsimane are few; we are many.

-fin       

David L. Katz

Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center; Griffin Hospital

Immediate Past-President, American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Senior Medical Advisor, Verywell.com

Founder, The True Health Initiative

Follow at: LinkedIN; Twitter; Facebook

Read at: INfluencer Blog; Huffington Post; US News & World Report; Verywell; Forbes

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

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Choices, Voices, And Veganism: Diet For The Many

As I write this, I am about to leave for Boston to speak at iV, the Ivy League Vegan Conference, at Harvard. Prominent voices will gather there and collectively, one anticipates, make the case for veganism.

The timing is a bit ironic. A paper was just published in the Lancet, describing the lifestyle and health status of the Tsimane. The paper generated considerable excitement, and widespread media attention, because the Tsimane, a population in the Bolivian Amazon described as living “a subsistence lifestyle of hunting, gathering, fishing, and farming,” were found to have “the lowest reported levels of coronary artery disease of any population recorded to date.”

The Tsimane, obviously, are not vegans, as the references to both hunting and fishing indicate. On the other hand, they are not hunting for meat in the supermarket, as I pointed out to one correspondent who sent me the study and asked if his penchant for meat was now exonerated. My answer was perhaps, provided it was satisfied by advent of bow and arrow and involved no cellophane.

The Tsimane, in common with our Stone Age ancestors, eat the meat of wild animals and fish they obtain the hard and old-fashioned way. Those animals, in turn, get their food the hard and old-fashioned way, too; they are not fed copiously in captivity. Consequently, their own bodies are lean, and represent the fats they derive from their food sources. The result is that the Tsimane diet has virtually no trans fat, is very low in saturated fat, and is quite low in total fat. The study authors report a diet that is 72% carbohydrate, 14% fat, and 14% protein.

Of course, this diet made up of foods direct from nature is very low in simple starches, and sugars as well. The authors note that the carbohydrate sources in the Tsimane diet are generally complex, and high in fiber- just as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds are. These, of course, are the plant foods all but universally recommended for health promotion.

While the inclusion of meat in the Tsimane diet, conjoined to stunningly low levels of atherosclerosis demonstrated by CT imaging of the coronary arteries, might seem a rebuke to vegan diet advocacy, it is a mild rebuke at most. The nutrient composition of the Tsimane diet is much more akin to high-quality vegan and vegetarian diets than to anything remotely like the meat-heavy diets that prevail in the U.S. and many industrialized countries.

But even a mild rebuke, born of evidence, may deserve respect and certainly warrants reflection. 

I have long noted, with all due respect to the ardent vegans among my colleagues, that we lack evidence to prove that any one specific diet is the singular “best” for human health. This should come as no surprise when you consider what kinds of studies would be needed to generate such evidence: randomized trials of optimized versions of competing diets in large populations over a span of decades with incident disease and mortality the outcome measures. The diet producing the greatest combination of longevity and vitality would be the winner. Such a study has not been done, and don’t hold your breath.

What we do know, from a veritable sea of confluent evidence, is the basic theme of the optimal diet for Homo sapiens. Famously described by Michael Pollan as “food, not too much, mostly plants,” it is just so: a diet of minimally processed, wholesome foods, mostly plants, in any balanced and sensible combination. The Tsimane diet represents such a combination. So do the Blue Zone diets, encompassing traditional Mediterranean, Asian, vegetarian, and omnivorous variants. 

Our species is constitutionally omnivorous. That makes it unlikely the kind of meat to which we are natively adapted, the kind of meat the Tsimane consume, would be “bad” for us as some contend. It does nothing, however, to exonerate the fatty meats of domestic animals and the processed meats that many eat under a “Paleo diet” halo. 

In fact, all it really means is that our species, by virtue of our anatomy and physiology, is endowed with a particularly wide array of dietary choices.

I can’t support the argument I sometimes hear from colleagues that a vegan diet is “best” based on human health considerations alone. In fact, we know that a strictly vegan diet is sure to be deficient in at least one nutrient essential to our species, vitamin B12. Supplementing B12 is easily done, however, and a well-balanced vegan diet is certainly among the contenders for best diet laurels.

There are, however, considerations other than our own health. The meat that feeds modern appetites is overwhelmingly the meat of animals raised not just in captivity, but relatively confined spaces. Often, it is the meat of animals not fed the diet native to, or optimal for, their own species. Animal husbandry may at times involve use of hormones and antibiotics, as we have all heard. And, there can be cruelty in the mix that most of us would find distasteful, if not disgusting, if ever we saw it. There are, therefore, arguments for veganism related to ethics, the decent treatment of our fellow species, and the avoidance of exposure to harmful food contaminants.

There are compelling environmental arguments as well for veganism and approximations of it. The domestic production of meat, and beef in particular, is associated with high environmental impact in every area of importance: water consumption, land allocation, greenhouse gas emissions, and biodiversity.

I can imagine an anti-elitist rebuttal, protesting the high cost of produce- but that argument is specious. For one thing, the relative costs of foods reflect our cultural priorities, not natural law. If beef is inexpensive relative to kale, it’s because we direct subsidies to make it so, subsidies we could redirect whenever the will is mustered. For another, many of the best foods – beans, lentils, whole grains- are already exceptionally economical. And, if so inclined, we could enable the economically disadvantaged to afford better food in ways that would likely reduce health care costs into the bargain, as some are already doing.

This, then, is the message I am taking to the iV conference, as I add my voice to a chorus singing the praises of well practiced veganism. We are omnivores, and we have choices. A good vegan diet is not the only option for health promotion, but it is among the best. When the case is broadened from the health of people to that of the planet, too, the case for veganism is very much fortified. After all, the Tsimane are few; we are many.

-fin       

David L. Katz

Director, Yale University Prevention Research Center; Griffin Hospital

Immediate Past-President, American College of Lifestyle Medicine

Senior Medical Advisor, Verywell.com

Founder, The True Health Initiative

Follow at: LinkedIN; Twitter; Facebook

Read at: INfluencer Blog; Huffington Post; US News & World Report; Verywell; Forbes

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2ojSFMu