#and the campaign itself too obviously I will always love and support campaigns for kids

[drysaladandketchup]

Leon Draisaitl || No Kid Left Alone Holiday Campaign

[logan-lieutenant]

goodbye to a world

reading between the lines of the various goodbyes and dismissals to logan sargeant

Pt. 2: Alex on socials

oh, alex albon. you beautiful soul.

it goes without saying that the social media presence of drivers is so important that it’s monitored and orchestrated by an entire group of people– but a team like williams? they’ve got that shit under lock and key. i’ve said this before and i’ll say it again: the shitstorm williams has been in puts an unbelievable amount of pressure on their drivers not just to perform well but to pick up the pieces. they’re at the forefront of the “let’s look forward! let’s keep pushing” optimism campaign that all backmarker teams have to put together for the sake of professionalism. logan basically doesn’t have a social media presence, and you see more of him on the official f1 grid photography dumps than williams’ own account. alex’s posts are more frequent, but the content itself might as well be autogenerated. in conferences, they’re both reserved, careful what they say, always swinging back inelegantly towards the same one-liner: “we’ll look at the data, reset, hope to come back stronger in [next race]”. and unlike teams like mclaren, mercedes, ferrari– the two teammates definitely don’t make posts to or about each other.

alex posts this three hours after the official august 27 announcement:

alex…

this is going to have to be a list again, isn’t it? one post, a few photos, and he’s already said and conveyed so much more than the williams “statements” ever even tried.

first of all, 12:20 exactly? that’s been queued. obviously. we also know that alex found out about logan being axed mere hours before the decision, and i for one think that was absolutely deliberate. they wanted to get logan out– like, physically out of their vicinity– as quickly and as discretely as possible. so are they going to give alex, who’s famously kind and compassionate and talks too much and pays more on-camera attention to logan than practically anyone else in that team… they’re going to give him a heads up? unlikely.

so is there a chance that this post was composed for him before they even told him? that’s actually almost a certainty, but the most important detail to mention is that caption. let’s go sentence-by-sentence.

“i know firsthand how brutal this sport can be…”

wow. okay. i said sentence-by-sentence but i can’t even get past this because… BRUTAL. what a word. this is clearly a reference to alex’s own replacement by red bull. 2019. not that long ago, but considering alex’s f1 presence has already been solidified as “adhd cat dad who can also outperform the SHIT out of a backmarker car” it’s not something that’s called back too often, that he had a shot in a front running team. it wasn’t really a fall from grace, was it? because even in a williams alex has continued to prove himself and put that car way further ahead than it deserves to be. so it was painful but not in a way that, like, max’s silverstone crash is still painful to some people. it’s pretty distant in the f1 public consciousness from what i can tell.

but alex is making a point to throw back to it. not in detail, not heavily, because he’s not making it about himself. the only allusion to the actual event is the word “firsthand”. high is the right way to go about it because saying anything about “back when i” would be going too far, reshifting the spotlight in the wrong direction. but he’s asking us all:

remember when i was a kid and i was trying to build myself up and they tossed me aside like i was nothing? remember when i got discarded by a team that’s burned through so many second drivers already, and left thinking my only f1 legacy would be “that disappointment”? remember how much that hurt?

brutal. what a word. because that’s what red bull is, that’s what they do. famously. but it’s definitely not the word you’d apply to a team that’s supposed to be The Underdogs and A Family and A Lovely Sense of Familiarity and Support what fucking ever.

so alex gets away with this by the way he’s planned out the last half of that phrase: “how brutal this sport can be…” because he says ‘this sport’, not ‘this team’ or ‘james vowles’. so he’s flipping a two-sided coin here:

side one, on the surface. what williams want to see from him and want to believe. the sport is brutal. it is what it is. life’s not fair. that’s just how it goes. no blame but the harsh reality of the sport itself.

side two, between the lines. not too far deep between the lines, too, all you have to do to see this side is not have a compulsive, ashamed, desperate desire to see anything else. this is brutal. what’s happening to logan is brutal. what’s happening is painful and humiliating and you’re leaving him in the dust like he was always disposable, like you never wanted him, like you can’t wait to forget about him and i know because that’s what happened to me.

he’s saying this right to their faces. he’s saying it to everyone.

“…it’s tough to see Logan leave the team mid-season.”

i have a feeling this is the part that was prewritten just because of the word tough. “this is, of course, incredibly tough on” et cetera, we know where that understatement came from. the emphasis is on the fact that the disruption, the replacement is happening literally during the season, which is Such A Mess For Everyone, not the fact that the disruption is logan losing his entire career in disgrace (because he’s already said that part). so this single sentence toes the line so gracefully it’s almost an art.

“You gave it your all brother and it’s been a pleasure being teammates with you.”

this is really interesting specifically for the fact that 1) shortly after james manages to say the same thing as a put-down and 2) he goes on to contradict himself. i’m going to pick up later on the “you gave it your all” part because we will definitely revisit that, but the second half is nice too. it’s not focusing on logan’s performance as a williams driver, or as an f1 driver. it’s about logan– and, to an extent, himself– in a light people don’t tend to see either of them in: as a teammate. when you’ve got a team like mclaren or ferrari where the teammates are so closely matched that their race craft, cooperation and competition is a direct talking point in their racing, we talk about that a lot more often. but alex and logan can spend a race more than half a grid apart from each other, and as a williams driver that’s been true for alex this whole time. so we don’t think of which of them is or isn’t a better teammate because they’re barely driving the same race, and they’re not being treated like they’re in the same team. but even bringing that up in a post is good to see, just another way to give logan an additional title. the williams’ failure, the underperformer, the disappointment, the backmarker, and– oh yeah, alex albon’s teammate. love to see it.

“I know whatever you do next, you’ll be awesome.”

WOAH. okay, talk about shifting the spotlight. what’s been the williams 2024 story so far? i mean, if you were going to use a sentence to describe “how we got here” and “where we’re going”? we would probably see something like: logan’s failure in 24 brought in carlos sainz for 25. the narrative from james vowles in particular is: whatever we do next with carlos sainz, we’ll be awesome. the williams narrative since jv took over has basically been “uhhh yeah we’re nowhere now but WE’RE GONNA BE!! UH! SOMEWHERE! EVENTUALLY!” all about the future.

logan, in contrast… his whole narrative since joining f1 and immediately tumbling has been “he had a chance for a future but it’s gone now.”

not. to. alex. albon. in the wake of this announcement everybody is fucking reeling, and in the context of williams people are buzzing all around colapinto and how he’s been rocketed into the limelight for the better or worse, and all the distraught logan fans are either throwing up or screaming to the heavens, “WHAT NOW??” logan is being pushed aside the same way you’d push some clutter off a desk. he’s evaporating into thin air, or at least that’s what williams are trying to make him do.

three hours in, and alex albon is there to remind us: logan’s story is not over. he’s acknowledging that logan’s future is wide open, empty, undecided and unprepared (“whatever you do next”) but he’s ACKNOWLEDGING THE FUTURE. and the change in tone from third-person “seeing Logan” to second-person “you’ll be awesome”… once again, it’s not about him. it’s not about alex being a nice guy and a nice teammate and showing the world how nice he is by taking pity on this other person who’s leaving. he’s personally telling logan and by extension us: you’ll be awesome. doesn’t matter where you go, what you do, you have the potential to be awesome and so you will be. it’s not even “have fun” “enjoy where you’re going” “i hope you do well” it’s <<you will>>.

“Just you fucking wait,” Alex is saying. “You wait and watch. He’ll show you.”

it’s not just a lovely goodbye, it’s a ferocious goodbye. it’s a statement. it’s a confident send off, maybe the only genuine vote of confidence he’s ever gotten from williams.

and we love to see it.

[papirouge]

Prayer circle ladies 🙏 that the balenciaga scandal wakes more people up to the world of pedophilia in fashion. Often they are higher up gay males in power with an agenda that hate women so they enforce rules to make women look as masculine/deformed for their fetish. They love to force straight men into gay shoots or gay sex (like the casting couch in hollywood) for their enjoyment too and these males are pedos into bdsm on children!! Obviously shown from that Balenciaga shoot with kids being surrounded by pedo propaganda. I want more women to burn these stores and brands down. I hope we do. We need to revive and support jobs of local seamstresses so they don’t have to work at these corrupt companies and protect anyone thinking modern fashion is a safe space. It never was

Unfortunately, nothing will change. Only normal people/normies are outraged about this, but fashion people know that in a few weeks everything will get back to normal....

Balenciaga eventually issued an apology

As a fashion graduate, I keep an eye on the fashion industry and groomers have never been remotely threatened by these scandals. And they've been MANY (Alexander Wang, Richardson, Bruce Weber, etc...). As soon as they are in a position of power, men (for the most part) abuse models. But since they aren't as mainstream as Balenciaga, normies stay unaware of that. Right now as stylist called Nusi Quero is getting exposed for sexually abusing models, licking & flashing them (without consent obviously), spitting on their mouth, and making them wear tights soaked with cat urine???

(btw side eye ing Diet Prada BIG TIME for being so wishy washy in calling out Balenciaga and being surprisingly factual on this one🤔 Weirdly enough, they went harder against Kim Kardashian (so did Candace Owens, probably to whiteknight her newfound bestie Kanye) when homegirl is nothing but a pawn but hey, she's an easier -and more visible- target than those pedo scrote hiding behind curtains... ) They usually aren't that much cautious when it comes to call out other (less known) designers for copying/stealing design, but I guess they can't go after Balenciaga like that since they probably line their pocket🤡 Like, I already knew they were sold out, but it's embarrassing how they aren't hiding anymore lol)

Oh and this predatory behavior doesn't only happens in high fashion, Abercombie OG Creative Director was known to be a creep (and OH SURPRISE! Bruce Weber photographed their campaign 🤡 I recommend you the documentary "White Hot" to understand the extent of the controversial legacy of this brand

Back to Balenciaga: there's a twitter thread exposing one of the creative of the brand's weird Instagram posts. If you're familiar with Pizzagate, you'll immediately understand there's a hole rabbit nest under this trash.

I wouldn't be surprised if internet sleuth find some other evidence of the utter degeneracy of this industry. But it's important to understand that like Pizzagate, it's not just individual, but a whole network. I'm absolutely not surprised to see Marc Jacobs commenting on her post and she mingling with Gosha Rubchinski...

Oh and while we're at it, I'd like to explain to the idiots thinking this

is a "clever" clap back, that it's not.

Regardless what delusional Conservatives think, PEOPLE (not company) are absolutely entitled to not buy products based on whatever reason. That's not "cancel culture" in and of itself. This always existed as a leverage for citizens to express themselves - that's the whole point of boycotting (were the civil rights movement "cancel culture" too?🤔) and I'm FRICKIN TIRED of idiots using this word for literally EVERYTHING. Actually, the same conservatives are actually those who called to boycott Gilette and Nike BECAUSE they didn't appreciate the statements these brands did. So how any of that any less "woke" than liberals refusing to give their money to a republican brand?

Banks...do not close the account of people whenever they get in legal trouble. This talking point I've seen many Kanye simp/Conservatives pull out is retarded. Kanye didn't get his bank account closed: the IRS froze his account over TAX EVASION. Actually Balenciaga has yet to be condemned about anything. Plus, there's also the issue of them using 3rd party for the shooting which makes harder to identify an actual individual responsible for this. Expecting banks to close the bank account of company because they got under public heat is PEAK cancel culture, so Conservatives should live up to their own standards and shut it down.

I want the fashion industry to be destroyed as much as the next sane person, but that's not the way to go. Weaponized such a serious issue for silly political catfights while spouting misinformation is NOT helping. We need to bring awareness about the network of people pushing a very specific agenda (and guess what? That's not Kim Kardashian). All of this overrides political parties and I'm SICK of seeing people using this very serious issue to shoehorn their personal grievances against Liberals. Disgraceful and Wrong.

[pynkhues]

Piggybacking off my earlier ask about Logan and the kids' SOs, how do you think he'll react to Connor and Willa's engagement? Thank you/curse you for feeding my Succ obsession as always. ❤️

(x)

You're welcome, and thank you/curse you for feeding my Succession obsession too, haha, I love your asks so much.

And mmmm, honestly, I think it's going to depend where Connor comes down in s4? Right now, it's actually hard to tell who he's set to be on the side of given so much of his focus in Kendall's intervention was on (justifiably) his birthright in the family, but also on wanting Kendall to stop going after their dad. At the same time, Roman was on the phone to him on the way to the failed meeting, and something I've noticed on my rewatch is that Connor's actually usually gone to his siblings before going to his dad. He went to Shiv for support on his political campaign before he went to Logan, and I think the fact that the three siblings were at the preview of Willa's play before Connor ever went to Logan for more money means he likely was talking to them about that first too.

I do think a part of that could be about getting his siblings onside as a way to get to his dad (as all of them do! Each of them wants to be the number one boy, but they also all desperately know there's safety in numbers), but given how hard s3 went on reiterating that Connor's been a surrogate father to all three of them, I think his loyalty could be to them first.

In that sense, I think Logan's reaction to Connor and Willa's engagement is going to be really dependent on circumstance. It's obviously a pretty big weapon in Logan's arsenal in terms of smear campaign ala Shiv's letter about Kendall, but I think the reverse could be true too. I think he could use cleaning up Willa's past as an incentive to pull Connor on-side (which could even be a parallel to Marcia's storyline? We don't know who cleaned up her past after all), or even as a faux olive branch. A gesture of fatherly love, even if it's really more of a manipulation.

His personal feelings though - - man, I don't think he disapproves as such (gosh, he was even taking Willa through his collectibles in the Thanksgiving ep), but I think he probably figures that there's a place for Willa, and I doubt that that place is as Connor's wife. I think if she was an eternal sidepiece, Logan might even endorse the relationship, but the engagement itself would be a similar sort of humiliating for Logan that Connor's presidential run is. The thing about Logan, I think, is that he can eat shit sometimes, but he never likes being thought a joke.

I wonder too if maybe there's an added layer of it too for Logan in terms of Caroline? I think Logan likes to blame a lot of the kids' faults on her, and we know that he loves it when the kids pick him over her. I think there's probably a part of Logan that really wants Connor to be seen as a success if only so he can further blame Caroline for any failings Kendall, Roman and Shiv have, if that makes sense? And given none of the kids have especially normal relationships, I feel like that could come into play even more?

Either way, I think it's going to be messy, haha, and I can't wait to see the fallout in s4. What do you think?

[ethereal-ineffability]

HELL YEAH, DUDE! INFO DUMP ABOUT YOUR OC, OR SO HELP ME!

eyyyyyyyyy. CW for discussion of violent fictional bigots leading to body image issues. Okay so here's the thing. My boy Curio a sweet, kind of shy, well-meaning, socially awkward 28-year-old wizard. Tallish, no muscles whatsoever, big round glasses, kind of stupid facial hair, your standard stereotype.

Except that's not what he looks like, really.

That image is missing a Hat of Disguise (grey irish flat-cap), which he wears constantly, even while sleeping unless he can be sure he's alone. His full first name is Curiosity and what he actually looks like is somewhere around these two pictures, except with broken horns and a helluva lot more faded-over-2-decades facial scarring.

That childhood scarring is the reason why he literally never takes the hat off, no matter what; not because of the scarring itself, but because of what it represents. He grew up with so much baggage attached to his identity as a tiefling because, apart from a very supportive but imperfect and over-her-head single human mother, he had no support network in a small town where he was the only tiefling and almost-if-not-all of the entire town were superstitious humans who were very not interested in examining their biases. The children his age and a few years older were the ones who gave him most of that damage. But there's a reason his mother named him Curiosity; ever since he was old enough to explore, he did so enthusiastically and constantly, and after enough of that (and playing mostly alone) he developed skills that other kids his age didn't have, and he essentially became a gifted child. His mom took advantage of that (and some favors with an old friend) when the bullying got especially bad and got Curio scholarships to send him away to a mage's college in a more open-minded area where he would be protected and taken care of, in exchange for helping with tasks around the college until he was old enough to become an official student. The college became his life. He threw himself into the study of everything having to do with magic - history, mechanics, culture, ethics, etc. - partly as distraction, partly as hyperfixation (I do imagine he's neurodivergent in some way), and partly, subconsciously, as a desperate way to grasp at some sort of explanation for why he exists the way that he does and why the world around him is the way that it is. The enchanted hat was something he got at some point during his time at the college, and it essentially became a comfort item for him, and even though he probably could have gotten by without it with *less* problems than he had in his hometown, he just refused to go without it for years after the fact both out of fear of what could happen again and out of what had become, at that point, a deeply ingrained sense that he was just *wrong* and that he needed to hide himself to avoid burdening others. And all of that is just background for his situation in the current campaign, as a 7th-level wizard who has been traveling with a southern sweetheart druid satyr, a young-looking and mysterious dreamfolk warlock, a puss-in-boots-esque tabaxi fighter, a sweet grandmotherly minotaur barbarian, and a tiefling sorcerer in his late 40's who has a lot of backstory commonalities with Curio, particularly being raised by a single mother, having bad experiences as a kid due to his fiendish heritage, leaving home young, and hiding his appearance when he was younger. (Side note, the sorcerer's player and I *did not plan this*. We both came up with backstories independently, we didn't really have a session 0, and we just now found out how weirdly similar our characters' lives have been, though there's obviously been some differences too.) I started out this campaign by letting all the players know openly that Curio was not human, because I knew I couldn't keep a secret. In the 9 months we've been playing (we had a hiatus for a few, so it's more like 6-7 months of weekly to bi-weekly sessions), the character that's come the closest to figuring it out has been the sorcerer, Turavel, because he has obvious advantages when it comes to picking out which things just don't seem right for a human wizard to do. For example, on top of the weirdness of Curio never taking the hat off, sleeping alone often, bathing alone often, etc., he barely (roll of 15 vs 14) caught Curio tearing up when Turavel was talking about where he came from, and he thought it was weird that Curio could cast things like Hellish Rebuke. (The player, actually, was the only one of us to call this out when it happened, so I made note of it.) At the time (months ago irl, about 2-4 weeks ago in game time), I as the player didn't think Curio's cover had been blown, because I was convinced that Wizards could cast Hellish Rebuke, and I

even informed the player that Curio has fake entries in his spellbook for Hellish Rebuke, Thaumaturgy, and Darkness, just in case anyone ever saw it who also saw him cast those things. But I discovered today while searching for level-up spells for him that I was wrong. As soon as I realized, I sent Turavel's player these messages:

"Looking through wizard-only spells and realized that I as the player made ANOTHER mistake, specifically about which spells would be natural to see a wizard use, which means Curio made another mistake because I'm not retconning anything I said about what he's done. Whoopsie Since you actually called it out at the time (not the latest nat 1, the one time Curio used it before that) I'll be clear with you: Hellish Rebuke is a 2nd level, Warlock-only spell. Curio has the Magic Initiate feat, which might explain why he knows Thaumaturgy which is a cleric-only spell, since his 1st level spell for that feat is Healing Word which is exclusive to clerics, bards, and druids... but if that were the case that wouldn't explain why he can also use Vicious Mockery, which only works with bardic magic. He would have had to have learned Healing Word in a bardic way, leaving Thaumaturgy unaccounted for, unless there's just some explanation other than fiendish heritage or magic initiate that Turavel has literally never heard of before. Maybe there's a bardic college that would allow for the learning of Thaumaturgy? Unlikely. In that case Hellish Rebuke would still be unaccounted for, unless Curio has a secret patron and is a multiclassed warlock/wizard. Occam's razor. And since Turavel's the only one who asked to see his spellbook [in return, after Curio asked to see the spellbooks of all the other spellcasters], help me remember and I'll let you contest me on arcana with advantage to put all this together when we meet next."

And that's where we are. Curio's about to get fully found out because of overthinking and overprotecting himself in ways that weren't necessary, after just casually and confidently trading spellbooks - for strategic study - with the one person in the party who was always leagues more likely than anyone else to figure out what was going on. The same sorcerer who is old enough to be Curio's father and knows almost *exactly* what he's going through, and who Curio would probably be the most ashamed to be found out by, because he would probably be worried that his disguising of his tiefling nature would be interpreted as an insult even though Curio has terrible anxiety about the whole thing and literally can't help it. And I just think it's extra fun that the reason this is happening so soon is because of decisions I made intentionally as a player to make it *harder* to find him out, while truly thinking about what he would actually do. And I swear to god if that roll at advantage doesn't work I'm giving him all the inspiration I've got, because this is too good. I'm excited for the ensuing cathartic drama and for this precious boy to finally start learning how to love himself. p.s. in case any readers haven't picked up by now it's a closeted-trans-youth meets open-trans-elder allegory. This is what happens when you play DnD with other trans people

[snowydaffodils]

Hogwarts!AU: Kim Namjoon - Gryffindor!

Kim Namjoon counted the days to his eleventh birthday, just so he can finally receive his hogwarts letter the second it arrived.

His father, a muggle lawyer, and his mum, a pureblooded Slytherin and a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Magic, always held the highest esteem for education. Naturally, Namjoon grew up to be knowledgable in both worlds.

As a kid, he was always so proud of the books his family owned. There were magical books on one side, some that moved on its own (one was even chained because it kept growling), and also muggle books on the other.

His excitement for Hogwarts is mainly based on the gigantic library he had only ever heard about.

Like this kid was the only one who was actually excited to study.

He's a big fan of the Minister of Magic - Hermione Granger - and wholeheartedly supported her campaigns for equal rights for all magical creatures.

In his first year, Namjoon was so astounded by the beauty of the Hogwarts castle that he leaned a little too far from the boat and fell to the lake.

Hagrid had to drag him out of the lake and back on his boat after Jung Hoseok screamed in horror.

McGonagall did a quick drying spell when he finally stepped into the castle just so he wouldn't embarrass himself during sorting.

But then he was sorted to Gryffindor, and people were confused. But when they finally got to know him, they finally understood why.

Rumors about his mum being the direct advisor of Hermione Granger and Harry Potter didn't go unnoticed, so the crowd had suspected him to be sorted into Ravenclaw.

He thought he was an obvious Ravenclaw, himself.

Jung Hoeeok, who he made friends with on the train, was sorted to Ravenclaw and Namjoon was already smiling ear-to-ear because he was so certain they were going to be sorted together.

Madam Hooch always had one eye out for him during flying classes. He's so clumsy that Madam Hooch made him fly no higher than three meters high, because no, she shall not risk a kid's death in her class. The broom just wouldn't listen to him!

Kim Namjoon's perception on justice and his knowledgeable traits made the Sorting Hat mumble to itself for five minutes straight, arguing for and against Ravenclaw and Gryffindor before eventually yelling Gryffindor in the proudest way possible.

He excelled in all his classes (all but flying) - it was a no-brainer to him. Namjoon could theoretically perfect every spell and charm to exist. That is, if he doesn't break his wand or accidentally slipped while performing a spell and thus ruining his magic coordination.

Namjoon kind of envies natural Jung Hoseok, who Madam Hooch was keen on recommending to the Ravenclaw quidditch captain effective immediately after the first flying class.

But soon he became Hoseok's number #1 supporter, and later added more names on his supporting board (namely Jimin, Taehyung, and Jeon Jungkook).

Is in the chess club and debate club since first year.

Got into rap music in second year when Hoseok brought an MP3 player to the train and showed some music to the group.

When Hoseok found out that MP3 players don't work in Hogwarts, Namjoon made an alternative that works under magic, instead.

He could've sworn Hoseok shed a tear.

"...Thanks, mate."

Kim Namjoon, who thinks that Hagrid's hut is the most comfortable place ever, loved dragging Jung Hoseok and Kim Seokjin down to the hut (sometimes Min Yoongi as well if he actually caught him out of bed), to have a cup of hot chocolate and listen to Hagrid's many tales of Hogwarts' students.

"You're welcome."

Later on, he dragged his juniors, Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook as well, and the hut became their studious escape.

His Hagrid's hut trips may or may not include curious questions about Hermione Granger and her two friends (yes, he knew of Harry Potter, but couldn't care less about him. Hermione was his star) and their adventures in Hogwarts.

He also loves befriending the magical creatures that Hagrid introduced him to, and is later on able to excel his Care on Magical Creatures subject without opening the monstrous book (although his mum had one at home and had made a non-monstrous copy).

All his peers respected him for: first, his extremely good grades; second, his unrivalled arguments on most values and campaigns that he promoted to his peers (and many students supported his campaigns because of his many speeches); and third, his membership as one of the notorious six at that time and later on seven that kind of ruled Hogwarts (also, maybe his good looks helped).

Also, by third year, he had broken three different wands.

By third year, Kim Namjoon had an unwavering leader charisma.

Some students made a rumour that Namjoon made a blood pact with some demon - gaining intelligence in exchange for living in clumsiness.

Kim Seokjin may be the oldest of the group of friends, and was prefect before him, but he listens to Namjoon like a house elf (albeit with a lot of nagging as he do as he's told).

Obviously, Kim Namjoon became a prefect in his fifth year, and later on Gryffindor's head boy.

Nobody had to ask if he was chosen for the role. He didn't need to even mail his friends on the news.

He just received seven owls all congratulating him on his newest achievement that summer before fifth year.

The same thing happened when he was chosen as Head Boy.

Somehow, even the usually indifferent Yoongi sent him a short note.

Yoongi somehow convinced Namjoon to let him use the prefect bathroom using his prefect benefits.

"The Slytherin boys' bathroom? You'd think they know where to shit."

"Oh."

He was the prefect that gives points for every single kind deed he sees, and gives massive deductions to bullies, no matter the house.

Also, the prefect that still breaks rules, especially to go out at night and stargaze.

Astronomy scores on top of his year.

Ravenclaws all look out for him in academic competition.

His elegance and eloquence (also his various choice of words that he use when he talks, especially on a formal occasion) made many others look up to him.

One of them was Jungkook, who eyed him with so much adoration when Namjoon helped him with the way to class on his first day.

He loves writing poems, then sending some of his works to the Daily Prophet.

By the end of fifth year, they offered to publish a book of compilation from all the poems he wrote.

Holds cyphers in the room of requirement with the rest of the gang, sometimes putting up posters that Jungkook designed and garnered up quite an audience.

Outstanding grades in all his OWLs and NEWTs.

Got a pretty good position in the ministry and eventually climbed up and worked close to Hermione Granger.

When he was on comfortable speaking terms with the Minister of Magic (a.k.a he wasn't frozen or stuttering), Hermione thought she was back in Hogwarts and was taking her NEWTs exams from the questions he keeps asking.

A teaching position in Hogwarts also intrigues him.

Prepares all the accommodation for his group of friends to watch the Quidditch World Cup.

Was sent by the Ministry to hold the International Wizarding Competition of Magical Skills (basically a non-leathal Triwizard Tournament) for the first Hogwarts' participation and the first time in Hogwarts during Jungkook's seventh year.

Somehow was able to find ways to let the group of friends watch the tournament after Seokjin's begging to watch Jungkook in action.

"Namjoon, please! It's Kookie! I can't miss it for the world! Besides, look at Jimin and Taehyung - they're bawling like mandrakes! Come on, just this once!"

Seokjin said that through a Howler.

Namjoon just sighed.

But Namjoon, the one who brought all sorts of justice and right equity to the wizarding world.

Stands tall on his stances and never wavered through his post.

Is the most active Ministry member, and folks could see all the results of his work clearly.

Kim Namjoon, who will fight for his ideals, without a single fear.

Kim Namjoon, courageous, full of chivalry, and is a man of justice.

Kim Namjoon, a candidate for the Minister of Magic.

[andersunmenschlich]

Episode 17: The Boneturner’s Tale

Ah, finally. It’s about time I got another episode listened to. Amazing how long that takes; so much to do. And still I have no bookcases. Oh well. This one’s the statement of a Sebastian Adekoya, and apparently it has something to do with books. I am pleased.

...Oh, I am very pleased.

It seems to me that Sebastian Adekoya understands books very well. I’ve said before (and will doubtless say again) that all books are books of magic. Just as this episode’s statement-giver says, opening a book allows you to enter the mind of someone who may well be long dead. In such cases, reading is a form of necromancy.

To read a book is to change your mind: to place thoughts there that are not your own, to see things you’ve never seen, walk through worlds you’ve never been to, that no longer exist or don’t exist yet, or that never will.

To write is to preserve a fraction of your own mind, freezing it in symbols which wait to be decoded by the incautious.

You don’t know what thoughts you’re inviting to live inside your mind when you settle down to decipher a lexical set. You can’t know what they’ll do to you, nor you to them (nor what they, changed, may do to you again). The promises in the titles, in the genres and the labels, can only tell you so much. What does this set of words contain? Have you even understood what is meant by the description—are you sure you know what it means when an old story is called a “romance,” or when a newer one is labeled “wuxia”?

Some thoughts won’t be able to live in your mind. Some you’ll never be able to get rid of. Personalities and people, scenes and scenarios, images and ideas... foreign things birthed in the minds of others; decode the twisting lines on the page before you, and they’ll spring to life in your mind as powerful as the day they were written.

Words can be wonderful—and dangerous.

Books are beautiful—and bewitching.

You should never read unwarily, because when you read you’re bringing alien thoughts to life in your mind, and you may not want them to make a home there....

Sebastian Adekoya says he used to work at Chiswick Library. As he describes it, it’s a local library very like the one I grew up with: cheaply furnished, full of battered paperbacks, open-feeling, and frequented by friendly, quietly chatting patrons. Probably the occasional Children’s Corner with a librarian who reads aloud well and a much-loved copy of, say, Matilda or Owl at Home, depending on the audience.

Our statement-giver says it was 1996 when the thing happened.

He’d been working for the library about a year at that point, and knew that the library bought its books new, when it bought them (though he didn’t know where they bought them from).

A patron returned five books at the front desk. One of them, he’d never seen before. It was not, however, new. “The barcode and ISBN,” Sebastian says, “both registered as being that of Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh, but the book itself was an almost featureless black paperback, with a title on the front in faded white serif font: The Bone Turner’s Tale.”

Confused, he calls the librarian (Ruth Weaver) over to look at it.

She also didn’t remember ever seeing it before, but it had the appropriate markings for a book from Chiswick Library, and the stamps on the lending label indicated it’d been in their collection for several years.

Weaver shrugs and says not to worry about it: they’ll get it put on the system properly. Sebastian, however, is bothered. So he does a bit of quick research.

The man who brought the book in, one Michael Crew, apparently only checked out four books, not five. Our statement-giver thinks maybe he’s a self-published author trying to get his book into the local library, and suggests this possibility to the librarian, who laughs and says that’s probably it—though why anyone would bother trying to get a book onto the shelves of this particular local library was beyond her.

Sebastian Adekoya notes that the book looked worn, “like it had seen decades of being read, with a line creased down the spine and one half of the cover faded from the sun. Nor, from what I could see, did it list any author at all.”

At this point, our fascinating book story is interrupted by the arrival of another character.

According to our statement-giver, this Jared Hopworth is, “not to put too fine a point on it, thick as mud.” He was also Sebastian’s best friend when the two of them were kids: inseparable. Hm. I must admit, I never had (nor wanted) anyone like that in my life. I suppose there was that other preacher’s oldest kid, from the church in the next church region over (it’s not called a diocese when you’re Protestant, but the effect’s much the same...). We were mostly friends in name, though, and never spent much time together.

In any case, Sebastian went to college and Jared hit the back alleys. For some reason, it seems, Jared Hopworth saw this as Sebastian Adekoya betraying him by being too smart, not him betraying Sebastian via being an idiot too stupid for college.

I do have to wonder how intelligent our statement-giver actually is, however, given that he apparently decided to just put up with what he describes as “a campaign of petty terror” for the sake of a memory of childhood friendship. Oh, sure, “he was always very careful to stop before he did anything that might get the police involved—but let’s be honest with ourselves, shall we?

You should only brush off malicious behavior from others if you’re enjoying it, and want to encourage them to do more.

...And now we get an even larger interruption. Excellent.

I do believe this is the very first time another character has actually broken into the middle of a recording. I don’t like it. Who is this Miss Herne, and why is her complaint so important that my story has to be disrupted?

I don’t even remember ever hearing her name before. I don’t know her, I don’t care about her—weren’t we in the middle of something?

...Oh, no, wait... I do remember her.

Naomi Herne, the annoying woman who doesn’t know how to appreciate a misty moonlit graveyard meadow. The one with the unusual attachment to that large piece of headstone. What’s she complaining about? I don’t remember that she had anything to complain about besides her own unfortunate lack of, as the children say, “chill.”

Well, whatever the case, it seems Jonathan Sims considers Naomi Herne’s statement a waste of time. It wasn’t, it was beautiful—but never mind. The interrupting messenger, someone named Elias (which rings a faint bell), tells the head archivist that the Lucas family gives the Magnus Institute financial support, so he shouldn’t annoy anyone connected with them if he can help it. Does Naomi Herne count as “connected to the Lucas family”? Her Lucas husband’s dead. She doesn’t even have the name. No children that I’ve heard of. No reason she should be connected that I can see. And they didn’t seem terribly interested in a connection at the funeral, did they? I think Mr. Sims can antagonize her all he wants without damaging future Lucas donations, frankly.

Our interrupter is also looking for Martin (the supposedly-but-not-apparently incompetent archival assistant). Mr. Sims says Martin is off sick with stomach problems this week, and Elias leaves.

...Wait.

Elias Bouchard? Jonathan Sims’ boss? Why is he running messages down to the archives? This makes even less sense than Rosie the receptionist being in charge of upkeep on recording equipment. Just how much disbelief is supposed to be suspended here? I’m asking seriously, because the Magnus Institute seems like a very badly put together organization if you think about it too much. Or at all.

Well. Elias Bouchard leaves, Mr. Sims expresses “blessed relief” at the fact of Martin’s being sick and thus not at work, and we return to the statement.

...Our main character really dislikes this particular assistant, and for (it would seem) no good reason. Is there history there? Did Martin do something especially bad to Mr. Sims at some point in the past?

Or is it just some kind of negative bias, like thinking a man will be no good with children because he’s a man, or that a woman will suck at math, or that a Hispanic cleaner will steal your jewelry because they’re Hispanic (you dropped your necklace down the back of the dresser, Grandma—I am never going to forget that unjust accusation, nor how plain you made it that your suspicion was based entirely on race).

In any case: back to the library.

Sebastian Adekoya notes that it’s typically a bad thing when Jared Hopworth turns up at the library, because it means Jared’s “bored enough to seek me out for harassment.”

This is apparently exactly what Mr. Hopworth has in mind, because he waits for Weaver to go back to her office and close the door, then knocks the returns cart over, spilling books everywhere. Which is a horrible thing to do. I can’t stand seeing books mistreated this way, I’d rather watch someone bash innocent children around (which, I realize, isn’t saying much given I’m the one talking—but still).

Despite obviously having done it on purpose, he smiles and apologizes.

I’m familiar with this particular method of annoying people. Deliberately doing something terrible, then acting as though it was accidental? Yes, indeed.

People have trouble dealing with this. You did a bad thing. You clearly meant to do the bad thing. This should give them the right to demand retribution. But then, instead of continuing in the “person who does bad things deliberately” role, you switch to “friendly mistake-maker,” and it throws them.

Really they shouldn’t give you the benefit of the doubt.

There’s no doubt!

Sebastian Adekoya bends down to pick the books up, and as anyone with a capacity for noticing patterns of behavior could have predicted, Jared Hopworth hits him in the back of the head with a book.

Which is, again, a terrible thing to do to a book. Human skulls are, on average, much sturdier than the covers of books.

This book, however, may be capable of taking care of itself.

“Behind me, Jared stood holding the book I had put aside—The Bone Turner’s Tale—and had apparently picked it up to hit me with. But rather than offering me a fake apology, or further violence, instead his eyes were locked on the book. We stood there in silence for a few seconds, until he said something about needing something new to read, turned around, and walked off.”

According to our statement-giver, Jared Hopworth isn’t much of a reader, “and the look in his eyes when he left had something in it not entirely unlike fear.”

Yes, I think this work might be able to handle that book-abusing felon just fine.

On his way home after leaving the library that night, Mr. Adekoya passes Mr. Hopworth’s house. Apparently they’re both living in the same houses they occupied as children, which is rather unfortunate for Sebastian, don’t you think? It’s late September, which is a nicely spooky time of year, and something’s moving in the pool of orange light under a streetlamp.

It’s a rat. A large white rat that looks as though it was once a pet. Something’s wrong with the back half of it, and its head seems to be turned around farther than it should be as it drags itself along by its front paws.

Which is also deliciously spooky.

Sebastian Adekoya stares at it until it drags itself off into the darkness and disappears from sight.

He notes that the lights were off in Jared Hopworth’s house. As someone who sleeps days, works nights, and routinely doesn’t turn the lights on as I go about my nightly affairs, I don’t find this particularly indicative of a lack of activity—but that’s me. I suppose most people, when their lights are shut off, don’t make and eat food, read books, do jigsaw puzzles, etc. Ah, how limiting it must be to have such weak senses.

Jared Hopworth more or less vanishes from the scene for a while. Weeks go by without him turning up to torment Sebastian Adekoya, who begins to feel worried. Almost a month with no torment? Surely something must be wrong!

...Hmm. Do you suppose our statement-giver might be just mildly masochistic?

Whatever the case, he’s not eager enough for unpleasantness to actually go to Mr. Hopworth’s house and check on him, so the Jaredless time rolls by until late October, when Jared’s mother turns up at the library with her arm in a sling, wearing an unnecessarily bulky coat and a hateful expression, carrying a familiar black-bound paperback book, which she flings onto the floor at our statement-giver’s feet before turning to leave.

Sebastian Adekoya asks after the health of her son, which arrests her departure and provokes a bit of an outburst: “She spun back and started to swear violently at me, told me I had no business with her son and that I—and my books—were to stay away from him.” This outburst also gives Sebastian a bit more time to inspect the arm... which reminds me markedly of the rat.

“As she spoke, I couldn’t look away from her arm and the odd ways it twisted as she gestured. How her fingers seemed to bend the wrong way.”

Well, well, well.

Before leaving, Mrs. Hopworth spits at Mr. Adekoya—and I find it interesting that, while she clearly has no problem throwing the book onto the floor like it’s a live animal and she wants to smash its skull, she avoids spitting on it.

Despite the absence of spittle, our statement-giver decides to employ paper handkerchieves in picking the book up, rather than touch it with his bare hands.

He sticks it in the book returns cart, locks up the library, and goes home.

It rains heavily that night and Sebastian Adekoya, in his converted attic bedroom, can’t sleep. He’s worrying about the book. He’s worrying that perhaps he shouldn’t have just left it there, unsupervised, as it were. “What if Ruth came in earlier than I did tomorrow and took it? What would happen to her?”

Frankly, that strikes me as an interesting experiment. What would happen to Weaver? Come to that, what happened to Hopworth? Was the idiot eaten by the bone book? Twisted beyond telling? Possessed, perhaps?

I’d quite like to know.

“Should I have destroyed it?” Sebastian Adekoya asks himself.

I’m not sure this question would even occur to me. “Should,” after all, presupposes some kind of ideal state for things to be in.

Should you do thus-and-such a thing? It’s an incomplete sentence. You’ve left off your goal. “In order to [X], should I [Y]?” That is a complete sentence. So—should Sebastian Adekoya destroy The Bone Turner’s Tale? It depends on what his goal is. If he wants to study it, then no: he definitely shouldn’t. If he wants to stop it from doing what it seems to be doing, then yes: he probably should.

Completely failing to define his goal for an ideal state of things RE: The Bone Turner’s Tale, Sebastian discards the idea of destruction on the grounds that he wasn’t sure he had it in him to destroy a book—”even one with such a strangeness to it.”

Well now. Thank you, Mr. Adekoya, for letting us know that you consider strangeness a helpful push towards destruction.

...Oh, I’m not really surprised. I do have a passing acquaintance with humanity, after all.

Sebastian Adekoya lies awake in bed until sometime around two in the morning, when he finally gives up and goes to get the book. He gets out of bed, dresses, grabs his gloves and a jacket, and walks twenty minutes to the library in the rain, where he unlocks the door, goes in, deactivates the alarm, and begins turning on as many lights as possible without making it too obvious that there’s someone in the building.

He tells us that part of him wanted to keep the library in its nearly pitch-black state, but he turned on lights anyway. I’m guessing this is due to his weak eyes, since he says “I had to half-feel my way through the foyer and into the library proper.” [with a complete lack of sympathy] Must be rough.

He also uses a flashlight—but not before he puts his bare hand on the book returns cart, catching his balance, and his fingers come away wet.

The books, it would seem, are all bleeding.

...That is very annoying. I think I would be very nearly angry. Blood-soaked books!? Have you any idea how difficult that is to clean? Frankly, it’s impossible! This had better be the type of supernatural blood that vanishes without a trace.

The Bone Turner’s Tale, meanwhile, is as dry as... well... a bone.

Sebastian Adekoya puts his gloves back on (which means, unless he washed his hands without telling us or this is the type of supernatural blood that vanishes without a trace, that the inside of at least one of those thick gloves is going to need some rather tricky cleaning done), and picks up The Bone Turner’s Tale. He puts it on the desk and—clumsily, because of the thick gloves—begins reading.

He doesn’t begin at the beginning, just opens it randomly, which I suppose is understandable given the current unwieldiness of his fingers, but still. I can’t really approve.

“It was written in prose, and certainly seemed to be a story of some kind. The part I read dealt with an unnamed man, at various points referred to as the Boneturner, the Bonesmith or just the Turner, watching an assembled group of people as they made their way into a small village.

“It’s unclear from what I read whether he is traveling with them, or simply following them, but I remember being unsettled by the details he observed in them: the way the parson would move his hand over his mouth whenever he stared too long at the nuns or how the cook looked at the meat he prepared with the same eyes that looked at the pardoner. It was only at that point that I realized the book was describing the pilgrims from The Canterbury Tales.”

You know, I’ve never read The Canterbury Tales.

“Now, this certainly wasn’t some lost section of a Chaucer classic,” our statement-giver tells us. “It was written in modern English, with none of the archaic spelling or pronunciation of the original, and besides that the writing itself was of questionable quality. There was something compelling about it, though.”

“I flicked ahead a few pages, and found the Bonesmith had apparently crept up to the miller while he slept. It described him silently reaching inside him, and… it’s a bit hazy. All I remember clearly is the line ‘and from his rib a flute to play that merry tune of marrow took’. And as for the rest, I don’t recall in detail, but I know that I almost threw up, and that the miller did not survive. This was on page sixteen, and it was a thick book.”

Funny, since he described it as a small paperback earlier. Hmm. Something like my paperback copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, maybe? 6.75″ x 4.25″, over 1000 pages long—a veritable brick of a book. Hmm. Could be.

It also gives a bit of a hint as to what might have happened to the rat (and the mother... and possibly the son).

I like it.

Our statement-giver is notably less pleased, and turns to the frontispiece to see if he can figure out where this book came from. Apparently he’s given up on the idea that Michael Crew wrote and self-published it? I don’t see that that’s entirely out of the question at this point. I mean—what, after all, do we really know about Michael Crew?

Peeling off the Chiswick Library label, Sebastian Adekoya discovers another library label beneath.

This label is not in excellent shape. According to our statement-giver, it says something like “Library of Gergensburg” (or “Jürgenleit,” or “Jurgenlicht”), which suggests that the last library wasn’t in Britain.

I wonder whether it was still written in English there?

Giving credence to my tentative hypothesis regarding masochism, Sebastian Adekoya prepares to return to reading the book that nearly made him throw up.

At this point, however, Jared Hopworth breaks in. Literally. Through a window. Sebastian Adekoya recognizes Jared via voice, which is one of the only ways I ever manage to recognize anyone. (Why, yes: I am indeed borderline prosopagnosic. I blame humanity’s insistence on all looking basically identical. Two eyes, two ears, one nose, one mouth—and all in the same arrangement, at that. How, I ask you, is anyone supposed to tell any of you apart?)

As far as visuals go: Jared has apparently decided to dress himself in baggy pants and a thick coat with a face-concealing hood. This strikes me as a very reasonable way to dress, particularly if both coat and pants come well-supplied with those deep and useful pockets I take so much for granted in my clothing.

Sebastian says that Jared is now “longer” than he used to be, whatever that means.

If he meant “taller,” I’d expect him to say “taller.” But “longer”? I’m not entirely certain.... Does he mean to say that Jared has, perhaps, been a bit stretched? That would seem to fit with the pointyness of his fingers.

His bones, I’d say, are longer than they once were.

Jared Hopworth is also “standing at a strange angle, as though his legs were too stiff to use.” That’s interesting.

If I were to guess (which I’m about to), I’d say that reading this book gives people the ability to manipulate bone inside living bodies. Now, I might hypothesize that the book simply warps things all on its own... but that rat really did look like an experiment, and Jared coming for the book strikes me as an “I haven’t mastered this skill yet, I need more practice, give me the manual” type of thing.

Sebastian Adekoya, declining to give Jared Hopworth the book despite the obvious tidiness of giving a strange thing to a strange thing, decides to punch Jared Hopworth right in the solar plexus.

Whereupon Jared bites Sebastian with, not his teeth, but his ribcage.

“...I felt his flesh give way and almost retract, drawing me in close. And then I felt his ribs shift, shut tight around my hand, as though his ribcage were trying to bite me. They were sharper than I would have thought possible, and at last, this was what actually started me screaming.”

Now, if that isn’t just perfect for late October, I don’t know what is.

Sebastian drops The Bone Turner’s Tale. Jared grabs it and runs off. Sebastian starts chasing him, but....

“I started to chase after him, until I saw how he was moving. How many limbs he had. He had… added some extras. That was the moment it finally all got too much for me; I stopped running. It wasn’t my book, it wasn’t my responsibility and I had no idea what I was dealing with, so I didn’t. I just stood there in a daze and watched the thing that was once Jared disappear out into the rain. I never saw him again.”

Uh.

Well, that’s probably all for the best so far as Sebastian Adekoya’s concerned, but does he really think things are going to stay that way? Jared Hopworth likes bullying him; I somehow doubt that gaining new powers will have changed that.

Our statement-giver, I think, is just as doomed as... huh. As pretty much all of the others seem to have been, come to think of it.

Somebody heard Mr. Adekoya screaming, it seems, and called the police. They turn up to receive the best lie Sebastian Adekoya can come up with on the spur of the moment, which involves falling asleep at his desk and being awoken by an attempted robbery. He can’t remember how he explained the bloody books, which seems to me like a thing that would take some explaining.

Hmm. I wonder how many strange things the police see in the Magnus Archives universe. Maybe Sebastian didn’t explain the books at all—perhaps there are some things the police in this universe just... leave alone.

The blood, apparently, was not the disappearing type. Mr. Adekoya says “it took weeks to get out,” and I assume he means to imply “out of the carpet,” because let’s face it: blood-soaked books don’t clean. Those books had to be thrown away and we all know it.

...I wonder what the blood type was.

Jonathan Sims describes himself as “deeply unhappy” about this statement.

“I’ve barely scratched the surface of the archives, and have already uncovered evidence of two separate surviving books from Jürgen Leitner’s library. Until he mentioned that, I was tempted to dismiss much of it out of hand, but as it stands now I believe every word.”

So interesting, the things he believes and doesn’t believe. I’m becoming more and more convinced that he stubbornly denies things until evidence actually forces him to believe—which might seem like a good way to remain sane in a universe like this one, but consider: is the denial of reality sanity? I don’t see that it’s even safety, since not knowing about a thing (germs, say) has never prevented the thing from killing you.

An interesting side note: Mr. Sims’ boss, Elias Bouchard, apparently has a very hands-off attitude when it comes to the supernatural.

“Record and study, not interfere or contain.”

Personally, I think that study and interference aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive... but that’s me. In any case, I do think Sebastian Adekoya’s either very dense, or that library label was very oddly written. Two separate words with two separate capitals (Jürgen Leitner) seem difficult to confuse for a single word! “Jürgenleit”? Really? Come, now.

Tim and Sasha, two of the three amazingly competent archival assistants, have done research which proves that yes, Jared Hopworth had a warrant out for breaking and entering and assault, but no, nobody found him and the case was dropped.

And aha!

About seven years after giving this statement, Sebastian Adekoya was found dead in the middle of the road, body so messed up they figured it had to be a hit-and-run.

Even though there were no signs of crushing or trauma marks.

That’s lovely.

I’d like a Leitner.

[lightsandlostbells]

Druck season 2, episode 2 reaction

Carmen might as well become the sixth ranger of the girl squad.

Episode 2

Clip 1 - Last-minute gift options

Mia’s reading in bed. Seems like a nice, relaxing afternoon. She checks her phone, where are messages from the girls. They’re talking about the meetup at Hanna’s place, which will include a Secret Santa. Mia is suddenly not relaxed, because she forgot to get a Secret Santa gift. D’oh! 

Making it even worse, she had drawn Kiki’s name! Better get her something good to make up for your fight, Mia.

She goes through her drawers and her books, searching for a last-minute gift that she can hand to Kiki. One option is The Little Prince. Another is “Eating decently” and ohhhhh boy, as much as I think Mia might want to give that to her, I’m sure she knows it’ll cause drama. (Also, another nod to Mia has dealing with eating-related issues herself.)

She goes to her computer and types in “printable gift cards for a friend” which might be kinda on the nose since I’d probably just type in like “(store name)” and find a gift card from an actual shop, but I get what she means. Desperate times call for desperate measures. 

I was kinda wondering why she didn’t haul ass to a store to pick out something quickly, so I looked it up, and most German shops are closed on Sundays, when this clip aired. There are eight Sundays a year when Berlin stores can be open on Sundays, including that Sunday (December 23) but they’re only open from 13:00 to 20:00, and Mia has to be at Hanna’s at 12:00. The more you know, for people from cultures where this isn’t the norm! Germans, feel free to weigh in or correct me. 

I actually loved this small scene, though. I like that we’re seeing Mia not on top of everything, since the Noora characters are so frequently presented as something like an ideal girl. In Eva’s season she’s the cool new girl that Eva’s desperate to befriend, in Sana’s season she’s the perfect pretty blonde Norwegian (viewed with frustration by Sana, but also supported by the narrative). In Noora’s/Mia’s own seasons, we’re obviously getting a look into their less perfect parts, seeing them from a different POV, but this moment with Mia feels very mundane, like I don’t recall Noora flubbing like this, just a simple common mistake. Other than forgetting to fix her lipstick after William make-outs. Speaking of...

Clip 2 - That lipstick’s gonna bite Mia in the ass

The girls are drinking mulled wine and doing their Secret Santa. Hanna opens her gift. It’s a stuffed camel. Carmen?? The legend herself???

Actually it’s Carmen 2.0! This one less used, which I’m sure Hanna appreciates. Hanna can’t climax when she tries to get herself off, she has trouble relaxing (a throwback to that S1 scene where the girls help Kiki relax before meeting with Alex, as is Carmen of course) so Carmen 2.0 is a tool to help her. Lmao, well, that’s actually a thoughtful present. Nice work, Sam! 

Kiki had drawn Mia for Secret Santa. She got her a nice red lipstick. It’s about three times as expensive as what they meant for Secret Santa, but Kiki just had to get it for Mia, it suited her so well. Mia protests a little, but Kiki says it’s also an apology for being so bitchy. Ouch. Just rub it in a little for Mia, making it worse that she forgot Kiki’s gift.

She puts on the lipstick and the girls approve. You know that lipstick is gonna come back to haunt Mia. I can see it happening: either Mia gets the lipstick smeared over her mouth after making out with Alex, or Alex gets the lipstick smeared over his mouth and Kiki sees it. 

Mia hands Kiki her gift certificate. It’s a generic shopping voucher for 10 euro. Kiki is polite, but seems disappointed at such an impersonal present. Should’ve gone with The Little Prince, Mia!

Kiki’s gift was more than the agreed amount, because she wanted to get Mia a present that was perfect for her. Mia’s gift was the minimum amount and showed the minimum thought. I’m sure if Mia had remembered to do Secret Santa ahead of time, she would have gotten Kiki something better, but from Kiki’s perspective, I wonder if she has doubts that Mia cares about her as much as she cares about Mia. Combine that with Mia clearly disapproving of some things Kiki is doing - even if Mia has good reasons for that, I can see Kiki perhaps not feeling that Mia likes her very much right now. Not that she hates her, but that Mia doesn’t respect Kiki or take her seriously. Which is never going to feel more evident to Kiki than when she learns about Mia and Alex, probably.

Clip 3 - Christmas Eve dinner

Mia sits on the couch as Hanna and her dad get ready for Christmas Eve dinner. Hanna’s dad is impressed that Mia seems to know a little about art, like wow, one of Hanna’s friends is interested in something besides Instagram! Well, I like Hanna’s dad, but I’m sure her friends can talk about other stuff if he asked them their thoughts.

Hanna and her dad get into a spat where he complains that she talked to him for five minutes but spent 3 hours looking at Instagram, and she snarks back that the food must have cooked itself. I love bearing witness to other families being passive-aggressive to each other, it doesn’t make me squirm at all! I’m sure Mia feels the same way! 

Mia brings up that the Banksy campaign that the dad mentioned involved posting people’s reactions on Instagram. So, a nice attempt to bridge Hanna and her dad’s argument. (She also said that she didn’t like to cook at all, and while that may be true, it also feels like trying to downplay herself to play up with Hanna did.) Hanna is happy, but pushes it too far by telling her dad he doesn’t know anything. Her dad meanwhile says that Mia used an argument and didn’t get offensive. 

I’ve been in this situation before, where a friend’s parents were far more polite to me than their own kids since I was a guest, and man, it can be so awkward, because you don’t want to offend the parents but you don’t want to hang your friends out to dry. Mia handled it pretty well, I think. Though this setup makes me think again of how Mia is the golden girl, loved by parents, too (except her own), much like that group chat where she was told she could be anything while her friends were all getting microaggressions from advisers. 

The tension worsens as the phone starts ringing. I think it’s the dad’s new wife who’s worried about the kid being sick? Hanna gets up and walks off. I’m on team Hanna’s dad here if a relative is is ill; however, I get why Hanna would react like this. She cooked and set up the meal apparently, and her dad instead goes to talk to his “new” family, which is already a sore spot. Dad follows her, leaving Mia alone as he and Hanna argue. Ohhhh my God, I have been in Mia’s position before and it’s the worst. I get that sometimes shit just happens but it always annoys me when people can’t save their petty, recurring arguments for when the guests leave. It puts everyone else in an uncomfortable position because mostly you sit there in silence, wanting to leave. Unless suddenly they want you to weigh in and take sides and THAT is the worst. 

Axel texts Merry Christmas to Mia. Mia doesn’t answer at first, but then looks at her phone again. It’s Axel in a red and white striped sweater, with Toilet Sam and his family. That’s a nice detail, that Axel is tight with Sam’s family rather than his own. I always felt we needed more of glimpses into the William/P-Chris friendship since honestly that seemed to be the best, most stable relationship in his life. And I know we didn’t leave Alex on the best terms, but the Waldo reference is genuinely funny, sorry.

Mia asks if he got adopted, and Alex says, I wish, which is a nice little hint at his shitty family. Toilet Sam’s family seem like a cute, happy bunch, by the way! 

When she explains her situation, Alex asks whether she’s a Christmas refugee, too. Again, a nice observation, that both he and Mia come from bad and negligent family situations. (One of my favorite tropes is when people who have crappy family situations manage to create a functioning home in each other. I don’t think Axel and Mia are going to scratch that itch due to the other drama with them and their overall dynamic, but I enjoy that concept).

Mia says if he says they should look for other similarities between them, she’ll report him for harassment, which I think is a nod to the singalong scene in season 1. Alex is like, should we joke about something so serious? He says they can find more serious topics to joke about on a date, Mia is like, nope! Hanna and her dad come back, with their argument resolved (for now) and everyone sits down to have a happy Christmas Eve dinner.

Why did Mia engage in this conversation with Alex? I mean, we know that despite herself, Mia is into Alex. Her disgust and irritation at parts of him are real, but you can’t deny that she’s also contacting him to continue their debates (the Israel discussion was continued via text message). And I think in this instance, her being an outsider in Hanna’s home, and dealing with this family argument she’s not part of, where she’s hungry, might actually push her to answer Alex just so she’s not sitting there bored and frustrated and starving at the table.

I have to say, if you take this scene alone, out of the larger context of Mia and Alex and Kiki and everything that goes with that situation, there are some good moments in their conversation. The Waldo reference is cute and we saw a point of connection between Mia and Alex both being Christmas refugees. But ... Alex is with Kiki at this point, and he’s asking Mia for a date. He’s approaching it easily, with flirting and jokes. That’s incredibly shady of him, it’s hurtful to Kiki. Even if he’s not obligated to have a serious relationship with her, he does owe her respect. There are some aspects where I think Alex has improved on William’s behavior, but this isn’t one of them; this is actually worse, because while William used his contact with Vilde to get Noora into the date, he wasn’t actually hooking up with her at the time. Alex has some sort of arrangement with Kiki going on and he’s still doing this. It’s very dishonest and shows a lack of respect for Kiki’s feelings.

And now Mia is engaging in this flirtation! She knows this isn’t right, she has to, but she’s not ignoring him. She can probably justify it in her head as innocent, but we know it’s not. This is wrong of her. Even apart from the flirting, she knows that Alex is willing to throw aside Kiki just like that. Shouldn’t that reveal enough about his character? If she thinks Alex is making Kiki’s eating issues worse, what about this proof in front of her face of just how easily he’ll discard her?

Clip 4 - Mia’s parents

The clip is called “Hetero Hans,” lmao.

I super dig Mia going for her phone and sliding across the floor in her socks.

She gets a video call from her parents. It’s friendly at first and then they start getting passive-aggressive.They guilt her about not being with them for Christmas, they complain about this becoming an argument again. You can tell this is a usual cycle for them. Kind of interesting how Hanna’s dad praised Mia while he and Hanna fought, and here’s Mia fighting with her own parents. That’s pretty typical for families, but I think Mia’s issues are more severe than usual. Obviously most kids don’t move away from their parents like Mia did unless there’s a big reason.

Mia tells them she spent Christmas with Hanna and her dad. When Mia has to remind them who Hanna is, Mia’s mom says, Oh, the chubby one! Mia gets upset and says Hanna isn’t chubby, but even if she was, what kind of statement is that? Things get tense again and Mia is going to end the call.

You know, Mia’s parents should probably know to be sensitive about this issue considering Mia’s ED. Unless they don’t know about it. Whatever the case, you can imagine that these kinds of comments perhaps encouraged Mia’s eating issues.

Mia’s parents complain that she always does this and attacks them. They said it was embarrassing when their friends or whoever learned they didn’t celebrate Christmas together. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it’s telling that they’re embarrassed because other people learned they don’t celebrate together, rather than being hurt about Mia not wanting to be with them. It seems more about their public image than their connection to their daughter.

Hans goes into the bedroom looking like Clark Kent. He does an Eskild-worthy pop round the door and flings himself onto Mia’s bed.

Hans had to dress “straight” to visit his family. He’s out to his family, but it’s too hard to be his usual self (flamboyant) in front of his older and right-wing relatives, so he’s “straightened” himself up. If he looks more stereotypically hetero, he can avoid the conversations about why gay people just can’t be normal. So there’s no stress. Hans has been delivering this in a more light-hearted way, but it’s clear there’s some sadness involved, that he’s out of the closet but still can’t be himself with his family.

Wow. I really love this detail. Not that it’s great for Hans, but that it’s a great observation about how one of the ways gay people have to deal with homophobia - he has to be a more “respectable” gay person who tries too adopt more “straight” mannerisms and style. It goes perfectly with Eskild’s Pride speech from S3, when Isak tries to do the same thing and distance himself from those super gay guys with their tights and mascara, although Isak himself has those hangups and with Hans it’s more about self-preservation - he clearly doesn’t want to do it. I already can’t wait to see Hans and Matteo interact more, I hope Druck gets to S3 so we can see Hans’ take on that speech.

Also, Mia’s parents asked who that was, which might have been because they didn’t recognize Hans in his hetero ensemble, but also maybe because they’re so out of the loop they don’t know the guy their daughter is living with.

Hans plays it off again, though, and he and Mia hug. Awww. Nice parallel to their family situations in this clip - Mia also has to “play nice” with her folks. They’re castoffs as well. I’m sure they’d rather celebrate Christmas with each other rather than their parents.

Clip 5 - Alex’s gift

The girls go shopping after Christmas. It’s almost comically picturesque how they walk together arm in arm. Sam and Kiki are even skipping!

We see Kiki looking in the lingerie shop window and gesturing, probably telling Sam about her plans to bra shop when she gets her breast implants, as it turns out.

Apparently the girls are going to Hanna’s grandma’s cabin for the week of New Year’s. Nice! I guess that’s how we’re getting the slumber party scene.

As they’re walking by the lingerie shop, Sam asks Kiki if they should go in, since she’ll be needing new bras soon. That gives the other girls pause. Sam thinks she might have given away Kiki’s secret. Kiki tries to go away and change the subject, but Amira grabs her arm and wants to know the secret. Little detail, but Kiki suggests they go to another store because “Alex doesn’t like her perfume.” And it just makes me so deeply sad, because on the one hand, stuff like this sometimes gets brought up in relationships, and if your perfume irritates your partner, it’s not entirely unreasonable to stop using it when you’re with them. But I also know how thoroughly Kiki values Alex’s opinion, how she wants his approval, so in context of everything else, it’s Kiki trying to change herself based on what Alex likes, not what she does.

Mia even jokes that Kiki better not be getting breast surgery, and Amira laughs with her. However, it’s no joke, as Kiki says that Alex got her a voucher for breast surgery for Christmas.

That sound you heard was the RECORD SCRATCH in my head. It reverberated internationally.

Mia is like … seriously? I can tell that Kiki really doesn’t want this conversation with Mia in particular. It’s telling that Sam was the only one she’s told; she probably knew the other girls might not be so receptive to the gift. She says that she and Alex were talking about body parts they didn’t like, and he said he wanted better beard growth, and that she’d like to buy new breasts. She forgot about the conversation until she got the voucher a few days ago. Kiki knows that the girls don’t seem cool with this, but she points out, it’s a little bit cute, right? Mia is like, sure, “cute.” When Hanna asks if Kiki is really going to do it, Kiki is like, “NO! …. Well, why not?”

Sam is all on board with this plan. Hell fucking yeah, that’s an expensive surgery, go for it! Kiki points out it’s even cheaper if you use your own fat and ohhhh fuck, that’s even worse. I bet that seems like a 2-for-1 deal to Kiki: get rid of the fat from somewhere else on her body, her stomach or thighs or wherever they’d take it from, and put it somewhere more “acceptable” like her breasts.

Mia has more questions, but Kiki says that she’s 18 and can make her own decisions, and that she’s not doing it for Alex but for herself. Mia responds that Kiki is doing it because men talk us into believing that big breasts are beautiful. Kiki says that women talk about it too, Mia says yeah, because men convinced us of it. 

Amira intervenes and says that she’s on the side of women, and if a woman wants to change something about her body, then it’s her body. Her cousin had lip surgery, for example, I guess because she had a complex about it? I mean, then you should ask why she had a complex about her lips in the first place, and where that dissatisfaction came from.

Mia says she doesn’t reject plastic surgery in general, but she wants them to see what Alexander is doing. Before Mia can explain more, Amira more or less cuts her off and is like, it’s cool he’s paying!

Hanna tries to put a stop to this argument and suggests they continue shopping, but Mia lingers behind as the girls go ahead. There’s a nice shot of her in front of the lingerie shop window, with the mannequin in the bra hovering over Mia’s shoulder. Kinda like a weird angel on the shoulder. Those breasts are prompting Mia to take action, basically.

Mia texts Axel and calls him out for the gift. Axel’s like, what’s the big deal? It was her wish and the doctor is his uncle. She yells at him to stop, she knows what he’s doing. (A Santa walks by behind her, lmao.) She says he’s only doing this to provoke her. Alexander replies with a 🤔 emoji.

After clarifying that Alex will end this thing with Kiki if Mia meets with him, she agrees to meet with him on Friday. Mia looks off screen, toward Kiki up ahead, before she types her decision.

Ohhhhh boy what to unpack here.

There was a lot of discourse and discussion following this scene. I’m not sure I can add anything that hasn’t been mentioned. When it comes to feminism and plastic surgery - and makeup, and anything else to do with appearances that mainly affects women and achieving the ideal, or at least a more appealing look - there’s this complicated mix of personal feelings and individual choices versus societal norms and patriarchal pressure. Because while Mia may be confronting Kiki in a way that’s unlikely to be productive, she’s not wrong about the influence of society on body image, particularly the influence of patriarchy on what women “should” look like. It’s not fun to think about our cosmetic choices being influenced by forces other than ourselves, but it’s a necessity if we’re going to talk about feminism and body image in a way that yields constructive change. I like to paint my nails. No one’s making me do it. But I also didn’t get that idea in a vacuum. And that’s a fun thing that I do to my appearance, not something I dislike but feel obligated to do. I also pluck or wax the hairs on my face. I inspect my chin multiple times a day. My tweezers get used almost as much as my toothbrush. No one is holding a gun to my head when I do this. But I know it’s not acceptable in society for a woman to have hairs on her chin or above her lip, and that I would be judged if I went out and had stubble. I could face negative effects in a professional setting. If I grew up in a society where women’s facial hair was seen as normal as men’s and they walked around with it, it’s doubtful I would go through the pain, or the time and money consumption, of plucking or waxing, because it wouldn’t occur to me that there was anything wrong with having facial hair in the first place.

And I get where Amira is coming from, because regardless of societal norms, we also have individual choices. Shaming or judging one woman for her choices, even if we think they go along with the demands of a sexist system, is not going to dismantle the patriarchy. Mia’s approach is not the best; she would be better off treating Kiki as an individual, asking her why she wants big breasts, rather than going at this from the more confrontational angle about societal sexism that’s going to likely make Kiki dismiss her comments and put her on the defensive. I mean, no one wants to be told they’re brainwashed by the patriarchy, lol. The way Mia reacted was probably exactly what Kiki expected and dreaded. But I also think Amira’s comments are on the simplistic side, overall. 

In the first season, Amira actually takes the opposite stance from Kiki. When Kiki sends nude pics to Alex, Amira objects strongly, and when Kiki says that women can do whatever they want with their bodies, attributing it to feminism, Amira says it has nothing to do with feminism. Now, you could take that as some kind of character progression (and I would hope that this isn’t the case, because there are some dodgy implications there) but I think maybe it’s just inconsistent writing. They might have needed someone to stand as a “voice of reason” besides Mia, taking the opposing side, and the other clear voice of reason in the group is Amira. I do appreciate the attempt to show the issue as nuanced, but I’m not sure how much I buy the execution. Getting one’s body permanently modified via surgery is even more drastic than sending nudes to a guy - I get that maybe there are differences in the situations that would lead someone to think the first is empowering while the second is foolish, but I’m not sure Amira would jump so strongly on Kiki’s side, other than to prevent a fight from breaking out in the squad. I hope that maybe later we can hear more of her thoughts on the issue, in detail. 

Also, Kiki has very specific issues regarding her body, that are more than just wanting breast surgery. Mia is not going to expose her in front of the other girls about her eating cotton pads and working out too much. Amira doesn’t seem to know about any of that; I wonder if she’d be so quick to say it’s Kiki’s choice if she was aware of the full context of the problem. 

Something else I want to add: Alex is the one who gave Kiki this gift. It’s a man giving the woman he’s hooking up with - but not dating - a voucher for breast surgery. You can’t ignore that it’s Alex’s gift in particular, and you can’t ignore the potential gender politics, which Mia is absolutely going to be aware of. Does Mia think Kiki will feel pressure to go ahead with the surgery, in order to keep Alex’s interest? Or the fact that he gave her such an expensive gift, will that add to the pressure? Does she think there’s something selfish behind the motivations, like Alex is giving Kiki a gift that he will end up, well, “enjoying”? What about the fact that Alex barely knows Kiki and they’ve hardly been dating, and he’s giving her this rather extreme present based on one conversation?  Alex is giving Kiki a very expensive, permanent body modification. It’s her choice to go through with it, but there’s still a lot of baggage attached to him giving it to her in the first place.

If I look at this from the most charitable perspective toward Alex, best case scenario is that he remembered this conversation, thought, “Huh, that’s something she’d like,” pulled some strings with his uncle, and gave it to her without thinking of any of the implications. Like he just thought it was a nice, normal gesture, and wasn’t thinking about anything more complex than that. And honestly, I feel like that was his canon intention. Because any other motivation feels kind of evil - it’s fucked up if he did that to piss off Mia, it’s fucked up if he did that for his personal enjoyment. I’m not a fan of his but that’s something that I don’t think they’d depict, no matter his other faults.

I wrote another post about this but, while I don’t approve of his gift, it probably feels to Kiki like Alex got her a voucher that was very personal, based on a conversation they’d had about their body insecurities, whereas Mia got her this cheap generic voucher with no thought put into it, like Alex’s voucher probably seemed even better on top on that. Mia complaining about his gift is not going to land with her when Alex seemingly put more thought into his gift than Mia did. I wonder if that’ll get thrown into Mia’s face. 

You know whose opinion I’m also kind of interested in? Hanna’s. Because while Hanna has not been shown to have body insecurity on the level of Kiki, we do know that she was apparently bullied for being “the fat girl” before she befriended Leonie, as she told Leonie in season 1. Hanna here also seems to have reservations about Alex’s gift. I don’t know if they’ll feature her take on the issue, but it’d be nice to know.

Clip 6 - The date

We see Mia has her own little slogan taped onto her wall, “Follow your heart but take your brain with you.” Which seems like it’s going to be a big conflict of the season for Mia.

Mia gets ready for her date with Alex, including putting on the lipstick she got from Kiki, yikes! I guess that’s a reminder why she’s doing it, or why she’s telling herself she’s doing it. We see her glimpsing at herself in the mirror but it’s not a good full view of her, it’s filmed so she’s not centered, which I supposed is to make us feel how off-balance and out of character she feels doing this, or how she’s questioning herself.

Just a side note, but I like how casually and comfortably Mia has dressed in much of the season so far. Here she’s in a hoodie and jeans. Maybe it was because Noora always looked like a style icon - don’t get me wrong, I loved her outfits - but I like that Mia dresses down so much and is not just copying Noora’s wardrobe. It’s another thing that makes her seem like her own character.

She gets a text from the girls, who are looking to hang out. Kiki mentions that Alex said he was hanging with his friends tonight. OK, so he lied to Kiki. Not surprising. Not great of him. (Not great of Mia, either, to be clear.)

Mia doesn’t respond. Not that lying is great, but just tell them you have cramps or a migraine or something. I think the og girl squad were setting up these Friday plans earlier during the week so it was harder for Noora to make up an excuse to get her out of these plans, but spur of the moment hangouts on Friday? You can just say you don’t feel well.

Hans comes in as he’s gotten word from Mia’s friends that they want to party, too. He asks what they’re doing, Mia says she has a date and stops Hans before he can ask Mia’s friends for more details.

Mia makes him swear not to tell anyone, Hans says he’s swearing on his mother’s life. Mia says to swear on something that’s important to him, and so he swears on his own life. Lmao. That’s funny, but kinda sad in conjunction with the “Hetero Hans” clip, you have to wonder if he has that bad of a relationship with his parents.

Mia mentions the guy Kiki’s having a thing with and Hans knows it’s Alexander immediately, so he probably heard alll about the guy from Kiki when they were partying last week, lol.

Mia explains to Hans how she’s going on this date with Alexander for Kiki, so Kiki doesn’t get hurt further, and Hans is like … but won’t she get hurt if she finds out about this? Mia says she’s not gonna find out, it’ll be one date with this jerk and that’s it. Hans laughs to himself like he knows better as Mia leaves.

Mia bikes to where she’s meeting Alexander. I wonder if maybe she didn’t want to meet him at her own place, because then he would know where she lives? Alex pulls up in his fancy car. They debate a bit because Mia doesn’t want to get in the car, Alex wants to take her somewhere far away, then Mia just wants to go somewhere near, etc. Not a great thing for him to pressure her to go somewhere with him!

Mia says, OK, but I drive. LMAO. That’s actually great. Though I was waiting for her to drive off with his car at some point.

It’s not a very scenic drive, which is fine. The music is a little eerie and the camera is focused on their faces, with some shots of the street that are focused oddly upwards rather than street level. It adds to the uncertainty of the situation.

They go to what looks like a random building? Mia wants to know why they’re there, Alex just wants her to come with him, Mia argues, he’s mad that she’s mad. Dude. You’re taking a girl to an undisclosed location when she didn’t want to go with you. Just give her the details already.

She asks him if they’re going to see his dealer, and he says nah, he lives somewhere else. Lmao, I think he’s kidding? I think.

Mia’s like, let me guess, we’re going to the rooftop and there’s an amazing view. Alexander’s reaction makes her think she is right. She’s like, aha, you thought showing me the city and the bright lights would make me forget that you’re an asshole! It’s funny and all but it’s kind of frustrating that this season is pointing out the bad boy romance cliches at turns while still indulging in them. (That was a problem in Noora’s season, too.)

They get in an elevator. Alexander is kinda grinning/smirking behind Mia, I guess because she figured out his plan for the date, but also because she still got in the elevator with him.

Sure enough, it’s a rooftop with a view. Alex offers her cocoa and she turns it down. I want to point out the full context of this gesture, which was ignored in the original Skam; that if you got pressured into going on a date with a guy (especially one who didn’t take no for an answer, as with William) and he took you to a deserted location and had a drink prepared for you, it would seem extremely fucking shady and you would not want to drink that. I wonder if that’s why Mia rejected the drink at first, or if she just didn’t take it on principle of rejecting Alex. (I’m not saying Alex, or William, is a date rapist. I’m saying that I think this fear would be completely reasonable to have. In fact the later part of S2 even suggests that maybe Noora’s drink was drugged by Niko, though it’s never confirmed, so it’s not an angle to dismiss, when that very topic comes up in the season.)

Alexander tells her about this house being built by his great grandparents. He drops in that his sister loved this place, but Mia doesn’t follow up on that (or the past tense, I guess) and grills him on him sharing this information with her, as if it’s going to change anything.

He has the audacity to call her mean, Lmao, shut the fuck up, dude. You told Kiki she wasn’t worth it. You pulled that shit with who knows how many other girls. You’re on this date while ostensibly having an exclusive thing with Kiki. And you’re going to call Mia mean with a straight face?

Mia says he’s blackmailed her into coming, and ugh, I hate to say anything in his defense when he’s pissing me off, but the thing is, while Alex did present this deal, he didn’t pursue her like William did, to where she was telling him no and dodging his texts and comments. He brought it up after she started contacting him. And from what we can tell, he didn’t start this thing with Kiki because he wanted to get at Mia (HOPEFULLY) whereas William was talking to Vilde again to mess with Noora. 

He brings up one semi-decent point, because Mia says he was continuing to hit on Mia behind Kiki’s back, so she had no choice but to go on this date, and he points out that she could’ve just told Kiki about him hitting on Mia behind Kiki’s back. And I do agree that this was also an option that Mia could’ve and should’ve taken. But also ... this is him blaming Mia for not telling Kiki about his own shithead behavior. ‘Gee, Mia, you could have just told Kiki that I’m flirting with you!” How about you don’t flirt with her in the first place? Creep.

Mia argues that she doesn’t want Kiki to be hurt. Well, she will be hurt either way, if Alex breaks up with her or if Mia shows her Alex’s texts or whatever. I think Mia doesn’t want to be the bad guy, to a degree. 

Alexander pulls the exact same bullshit that William did, about wanting to hurt Kiki before, about Kiki hitting on him and not giving her any expectations, about seeing it from his perspective because Mia was mean to him. About Kiki’s self-image not being able to be destroyed with one sentence. alsdjfalsdvaasdflkasd;f why why why must we redo this scene each time with the male love interest being such a defensive dong

I already complained about this scene when I reacted to Skam France’s take on this clip, and man … it makes me so exhausted having to repeat these same points, because they don’t fix the scene to be less infuriating. So I’m going to recycle a lot of what I said in that review, because it still applies here.

Alex is trying to get Mia to see his POV, but there’s a strong sense here that he doesn’t consider Kiki’s POV when it’s inconvenient for him to think about her feelings. The hypocrisy is all over the place.

Alex brings up that Kiki pursued him. This is such an asinine defense. He didn’t have to sleep with Kiki. He could have ignored her advances and let her down before anything happened. He’s not required to hook up with any of the girls who want him. What happened between them was consensual, and therefore he needs to take responsibility for his role in what happened. Like are we supposed to think Kiki put a magic spell on his dick and he was powerless to do anything about it? 

Alex did not owe Kiki a relationship. But he does owe her respect. He disrespected her by ghosting her and by making a cruel comment to her. Notice he didn’t start acting like a jerk until after he got what he wanted from her. Then suddenly he has to be mean to her, because he has to drive her away. Okay, if the problem was Kiki pursuing him, why couldn’t he be mean to her to drive her away before he slept with her? I mean, he was helpless to Kiki’s advances, right? Not that this would have been great, either, but isn’t it just so funny and coincidental that he became a jerk after they hooked up and not before? He’s trying to justify his actions when they’re as simple as the dude wanted to get laid, nothing more, nothing less.

Also, Alex being like “you insulted me in front of my friends, Mia” when a) there was one other dude, lmao b) YOU DID THAT TO KIKI. YOU INSULTED HER IN FRONT OF HER FRIENDS. 

Finally, this garbage about not being able to ruin Kiki’s self-image with one comment. I do agree that Kiki’s issues are much larger and likely started before Alex. But he’s dead wrong about one comment not mattering. One comment can matter a ton. One cruel comment can stick in your brain for years. It can make you hate things you didn’t know you were supposed to hate. It can drive you to do things that you wouldn’t have done otherwise, things that wreck you. Where do you think people get many of their insecurities? And just because it’s “one comment” doesn’t mean it’s okay to say it! What kind of jackass do you have to be to believe that? You’re implicitly excusing every terrible thing you could say to someone. I mean, it’s just one comment, so it won’t matter, right? And this is the guy who has the nerve to tell Mia that she’s mean. Lmao. 

By this logic, if someone throws an Islamophobic or racist comment at Amira, it’s not their fault if that affects her self-image, because she must have some deeper issue inside. If someone uses a homophobic slur around Matteo, it shouldn’t matter if it affects how he sees himself, it must be a problem with him, not the person using the word. This was enraging about Skam and William because we literally saw how the comments of others affected their self-image. It isn’t even limited to Vilde or Kiki. Sana gave a whole speech about how she was angry so much because she didn’t fit in anywhere! Isak felt insecure about being gay because of societal attitudes towards gay men and tried to distance himself from people he thought fit gay stereotypes! Eva was affected by people slut-shaming her to the point where she wanted to switch schools! Fuck, Noora had a previous boyfriend who treated her like crap and that contributed to her eating disorder. Mia likely heard all kinds of comments, like her parents’ casual fat-shaming, that ended up contributing to her eating problems. And yet we’re also supposed to believe Alex/William has a point here, as if we didn’t frequently see his argument flat-out contradicted? No thanks.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Alex/William necessarily has to be saying all the right things. But my issue is that his POV here is not challenged. It’s actually framed in a way that makes it seem like Mia concedes that he has a point, with her taking a sip of the cocoa she had previously turned down. Now we don’t know how this will play out with Alex, because who knows, maybe they’ll change the narrative so it’s not the same as with William. But if it follows the same path, William never comes to change his mind about Vilde after this point. He never reconsiders what he said here. That’s why it’s so frustrating, because it’s like we are supposed to think he’s right. 

GOD I HATE THAT MIA IS SILENT ABOUT THIS. I hate hate hate that we can’t get a Noora to point out the obvious flaws in his bullshit! And I get that characters don’t always know the right thing to say. But I am flabbergasted that we have to watch these outspoken young women be stunned into silence by this guy’s supposed logic and rightness, when nothing he’s saying makes any sense, nothing he’s saying is defensible, everything he is saying can be easily torn apart as self-serving apologia for his mistakes. 

And note again, nowhere is there actual remorse in his statement. With Alex it’s not as bad as with William, because Alex’s previous apology to Kiki wasn’t part of a bargain to get a date. So that seemed genuine, while William’s was rendered hollow by the deal and his lack of regret during this scene. But still, it would be nice if Alex had said that he wished he hadn’t approached it that way with Kiki, that he wished he could take back what he said, or that he was sorry, just to enforce that he learned from that incident and he’s not just standing here defending his ass.

Mia takes a drink of the cocoa, I guess as a conciliatory gesture. He asks if she wants a warmer cup and she says she likes it cold, and the way that it’s filmed, it’s kinda meant to represent this thing she has going on with Alex: she could have someone warmer but is going for this cold dude instead.

Mia asks the obvious question. If he wanted to get rid of Kiki so bad, why is he spending time with her now? But Alex is distracted by his text message, takes the cocoa and pours it out (lmao, let her finish the fucking cocoa, let her drink it in your fancy-ass car if you want to be a standup dude) and says he has to go, so that’s still a mystery for now. God, if the answer does turn out that he was trying to get Mia’s attention ... 

Mia says that she’s fulfilled her part of the deal and he says yes, she has. So basically, he better break up with Kiki shortly.

We get some of Druck’s awkward slow-mo at the end, lol. One thing they haven’t improved between seasons!

This is one of my least favorite scenes in the entirety of Skam and unfortunately, they didn’t change enough here. All I really enjoyed was Mia driving the car. Disappointed they had Alexander spew the same dumb points. Disappointed they didn’t incorporate more of the changes they’ve made so far this season. It’s too bad because I’m still on board with a lot of the other things they’ve done.

General Comments/Social Media

I really love Mia this season. Last season I started on the fence about her; I was on board with all the other girls, but Mia’s performance didn’t quite sell me on her at first. Noora is supposed to have a certain fierceness and Mia didn’t seem quite as convincing with Noora’s lines and actions. She ended up growing on me a lot based on the writing of the character. This season I’m totally on board with Mia, and I think the actress has been doing a solid job. I buy her having doubts and being torn over her friend. I think they leaned into her a lot as her own character, certainly having similarities with Noora and going down some of the same path, but also being her own person with her own beliefs and personality.

Also, the majority of the scenes have been different from the original S2 so far. Some of that is necessity, being set around Christmastime means they have to account for the holiday, and of course we’ve still gotten some of the big clips from Skam - Mia’s date with Alex was extremely similar to the original. But I love that so many of the clips are different and unique to these characters. It’s much easier to judge the story and characters on their own terms, and despite not being the biggest S2 fan (understatement), I find myself really engaged with following the story in real time, because I can’t quite predict what’ll happen next. I hope we keep receiving brand new scenes rather than copies of the originals. 

Sam and Kiki partied all night with Hans and had a great time, apparently. But Kiki was working out hardcore the night after the party … girl. Did Mia’s comments get to her, and make her want to push herself even further, as a kind of defiance?

The girls work out their New Year’s plans. Alexander is having a party, but Kiki asked him and he didn’t respond. HMMMM. Kiki thinks he must be super busy. I think he’s super shady. Which one of us is correct?

The girls talk about how this might be their last chance to do something before graduation, and don’t you DARE do that to me, Druck. I see those subscribers increasing, those views going up. Don’t stop when you’re gaining so much steam we’re all sweating.

When the girls make resolutions, like more sex and more pizza, Kiki’s is “more Alex” and AHHHHHHHHH no thank you. Girl. No.

She also brings up how it would take much shorter to get to Alex’s place than the cabin, and Amira is very tired of her Alex references, but Kiki tries to play it off like she’s joking. Pretty sure she’s not joking. Pretty sure this is a very bad sign of how things will go down once she learns about him and Mia.

Okay, Kiki’s issues run pretty deep, and having the validation of men is absolutely not the solution to her eating disorder or low self-esteem, but I’m praying for someone to dangle Carlos in front of her to distract her from Alex, much like you would distract a cat with a bit of string. Pls pls pls give up on this dude. Get the D from elsewhere.

Mia mentions that she could drive in that text so it was a little foreshadowing to her driving Alex’s car, I guess. 

Hans partied with the girl squad while Mia was out with Alex. He loves them! How sweet. And when he says, “Your girls are the fucking best!” Mia replies, “I know!” Awwwww!

There’s also a text between Alex and toilet Sam, where Alex says he wishes Sam repeated the year so Alex wouldn’t feel so lonely. There’s something potentially interesting in exploring Alex as the king as the school last year vs him repeating the grade without his friends, a loser, but I’m not sure we’d go into it. Like I’m already bleh with him, but I don’t mind more introspection into his character that’s not “he’s actually right with his dumbass excuses.”

Samuel says he saw someone named Björn at the kebab shop near Alex’s place. We don’t know who Björn is. I’m guess that’s either Alex’s brother or the equivalent of the Yakuza guy. I’d prefer it to be his brother. The Yakuza storyline has always felt awkwardly integrated into the story, detached from Noora’s perspective, and contradictory to the supposed values of the season.

There are a couple group pictures of the girl squad sans Mia, for various reasons, so I wonder if we’re going to focus on her being an outsider in the group as she keeps secrets about Alex, or later when Kiki finds out about her and Alex.

There were various Christmas posts showing the characters being merry and festive, it was fun! Perhaps my favorite was Jonas showing off his grandmother. 

Matteo continues to post mostly memes rather than anything personal. Matteo probably had a shit Christmas, too.

I’m not German so feel free to correct me on anything context I may have missed.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

[anctssia-blog]

hellooo once again everyone ! lenny again, here to bring you a brand new muse because i truly couldn’t resist sophie’s face. i am very excited for dear ana here and everything you need to know about her is right below the cut !! ( i apologize for the length ... ajksl ) if you like what you see, be sure to give this post a LIKE and i’ll come at you for all the plots !!

( sophie turner. twenty three. cisfemale. she/her. ) ❛ anastasia helders-trenet, an aries from london, england, moved into holloway three years ago. they are a fashion student that lives in apartment 4c and their neighbors don’t particularly mind them. some say they can be self-indulgent and temperamental but others say they’re ambitious and passionate. anyways, one thing is for sure: you hear lush life by zara larsson, it’s ana blasting it.

↘︎ 𝓫𝓪𝓼𝓲𝓬𝓼 !

given name: anastasia helders-trenet

nickname: ana

age: twenty3

birthdate: april 10, 1995

hometown: london, england

occupation: fashion student / model

↘︎ 𝓱𝓲𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂 !

born with a silver spoon in her mouth, anastasia was raised in the epitome of a posh, english household

her father is a successful ceo of a company she’s never really paid attention to, and her mother is a successful fashion designer. they’re far from ordinary parents ( i mean they named their children anastasia and maximilien.... cmon ) but ana has always been incredibly grateful for the life they provided her and her younger brother, max

you’re probably expecting some sort of rich kid sob story, huh? the whole boohoo my parents were never home, we were raised by nannies schtick but ana’s childhood was truly the opposite of that. sure, it was tough growing up with parents with such important, successful careers who often travelled for business, but ana and her brother never held that against them because they understood their parents were just incredibly passionate about their careers — plus, how could they complain when those careers paid for their designer clothes, music lessons, and extravagant vacays?

so yeah, anastasia lived an annoyingly spoiled, exciting, and picturesque life in london. her parents spoiled her and her brother with dream-worthy holidays and immersed them in so much culture, ana just drips of knowledge, passion, and curiosity now

they often travelled to france to visit her mother’s family so she speaks fluent french, learned italian after her first trip to italy when she fell in love with the culture, and can speak some broken german. she’s currently diving into spanish during her studies in nyc

she is quite honestly That Bitch.

for a bit more details about the helders-trenet household, you can check out evie’s intro for max!! she did a v good job of elaborating on their familial relationship

obviously she inherited her love for fashion from her mother. ever since she was little, ana has loved dressing up, picking her own outfits, and shopping through her mother’s closet. so it only seemed right that she ended up dreaming of pursuing her own career in the industry

when she turned 18, ana began modelling for her mother’s clothing line and fell in love with every aspect of the industry. for a year, she modelled for numerous campaigns and fashion shows until she eventually set her sights on working on the other side of the show. sure, getting her makeup painted on and hair curled was fun, but she yearned to actually create

when she was 19, she began studying fashion design in london. she may have learnt a lot from her mother, but ana wanted to make her own roots within the industry and not rely on her name for the rest of her life

for spring semester of her first year, ana decided to study abroad and travelled to new york city with a small group of classmates from her uni — and instantly fell in love with the city.

as an avid audrey hepburn enthusiast, ana’s expectation of new york city was quite high in her mind and she’d half been expecting to be let down. but, it was even better than she’d hoped and dreamed. she’d barely made it one step out of jfk before her eyes had lit up with her dream literally making itself a reality. by the end of her semester abroad, ana had made up her mind on moving to the big apple.

↘︎ 𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓼𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓵𝔂 !

after her trip was over, she returned to london to pack her things and say her tearful goodbyes to her family before returning to nyc as quickly as she could to start her new life walking the streets she’d grown up dreaming of walking through

obviously, she could have just asked her parents to rent her out a beautiful loft apartment in the heart of the city, but ana wanted to make her experience in new york her own so she found holloway on her own and moved in almost immediately after falling in love with everything about it

she enrolled in nyu’s fashion program and is now finally in her final year of schooling. at the end of the spring, she’ll be a graduate and finally be thrusted into the real world. she’s still a little unsure of what her future may hold for her ( mostly about whether she’ll stay in new york or return to london ) but she’s sorta just going with the flow right now

she still models on the side, mostly small shoots for local designers because she loves supporting them, but her mother often books her some bigger shoots here and there

↘︎ 𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓬𝓽𝓮𝓻 !

aesthetics: designer heels clicking against the pavement. a perfectly manicured hand waving down a cab. colour-coded notes and flashcards. late nights spent watching breakfast at tiffany’s. 

notable traits: ambitious, self-indulgent, passionate, creative, honest, temperamental, materialistic

best described as

her parents rooted a deep sense of confidence inside of her heart that often gets the best of her but who says you can be too confident? — probably lots of people but ana doesn’t care. her years of being pampered as the precious helders-trenet daughter prepared her for a life of getting what she wants, how she wants. she was taught everything comes at a price and to work hard to achieve her dreams, which is exactly what she will always do.

she definitely inherited her father’s determination, short temper, and ambition, but her mother didn’t fail to pass on her perfectionism, lust for life, and award-winning smile.

at first sight, ana can definitely be mistaken for a spoiled princess, the designer labels on her clothes and perfect make-up often turning heads and just radiating wealth. she’s been accused before of just taking advantage of her parents’ money and riding their coattails, but honestly she’s just making the most of what’s given to her while also striving to make her own name in the world. she doesn’t want to always be known as the helders-trenet daughter and that was part of the reason she dreamt of flitting off to nyc. in the city of anonymity, she was hopeful that she’d be able to surround herself with people who weren’t aware of her legacy and instead got to know her for her.

doesn’t easily let her guard down after years of priming to not be taken advantage of. she has a sweet smile and is so charming that you probably won’t notice that you know nearly nothing about her or her inner workings because she’s too busy distracting you with her sweet laughter and fluttering lashes

she truly is that Rich Friend™️ who will not hesitate to take you shopping when you’re sad or buy you celebratory drinks. she really cherishes her friends and, once you’re able to get through the trial run, you’re locked in for life. she likes to tell herself she doesn’t trust easily and is this stone-cold bitch, but she truly yearns for attention and love and constantly needs to surround herself with people

↘︎ 𝓼𝓾𝓶𝓶𝓪𝓻𝔂 !

once again, if you made it through all of that, you’re an icon. my intros are always Way Too Much

tl;dr: an english princess raised with a silver spoon between her rosy lips. all she’s ever known is love, excitement, and ambition and she constantly surrounds herself with it everyday. she traded in her precious london for her dream city three years ago when she set her sights on making a name for herself within the fashion industry. as a soon-to-be nyu graduate, she’s unsure of what her future will hold for her but is just excited to be on the ride honestly.

first things that come to mind when thinking of ana: clean marble decor, pink silk sheets, early morning jogs, melodic laughter, designer labels, afternoon mimosas, and careful sketches filling notebooks.

↘︎ 𝓬𝓸𝓷𝓷𝓮𝓬𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼 !

my wanted page for ana is a little under construction, i was able to write a couple connections that i really want for her but i’ll probably add more as time goes on ! i’m very open to anything though ok so just hmu

click right here to be taken to ana’s wanted page.

[ktaebwi]

[TRANS] 180128 Yonhap News Interview w/ BTS (1/3)

Source Part 2 | Part 3

① BTS “Our secret to success is not SNS but sincerity + ability”

20s, the age that eats and eats and still craves for more. At 5 PM, BTS opened up some treats and had snack time, proving to be hearty eaters. To the members (RM 24, Suga 25, Jin 26, J-Hope 24, Jimin 23, V 23, Jungkook 21), who have to split up their time small, with success comes the time they miss home cooking.

“Members whose houses are at Seoul can eat a meal and come back, while Jungkook and Jimin are from Busan, so they eat home cooking about 1-2 times a year.”

At Nonhyun-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, we interviewed BTS, said to be more difficult to meet than any other celebrity.

With 1-year worth of schedule packed already and a busy year waiting ahead, the members shared “We still sleep 6-7 hours a day. Only Jin and V sleep a little later because they play games”. Even with a small question, they didn’t answer sloppily.

Last year, BTS attained First·Best achievements in the Billboard chart, recorded 1.5 million in album sales on Gaon Chart and swept Daesangs at various award shows with ‘Love Yourself 承 Her’ album and ‘MIC Drop’ Remix version. With a year-long rapid leap, they became an ‘uncrossable wall’ group that will be the turning point in the history of Korean music, like Seo Taiji & Kids, H.O.T, DBSK, Psy.

During the one-hour long interview, the members expressed “It’s the beginning of a year with lots of thoughts” and laid out their feelings. They led the conversation with honesty, repeating the word ‘sincerity’, talking about the emotions when their sweat brought forth fruits, the anxiety and loneliness behind and how they overcome it.

Below are Q&As with BTS.

- Anyone would understand the swag in your ‘Mic Drop’ lyrics. You spent a year with ‘bags filled with trophies’.

▲ J-HOPE: It was a year of many achievements that I feel proud of myself looking back. All thanks to our fans’ enthusiastic support.

▲ JUNGKOOK: I wasn’t nervous at all, be it at award shows or American NBC talk show ‘Ellen DeGeneres Show’. It’s because I believed in our fans. At that time I felt that I made a right decision choosing to become a singer.

▲ JIN: Hmh, I think I became more handsome last year. I’ve been saying this for years so our fans would understand this, haha. We interacted with fans a lot last year too. We had more contents, interacted with fans in various ways and together made achievements.

- Many fields have analyzed BTS’ secret to success and economical value. Even in the politics world there were reports urging to learn your method of communication. It was summarized into many factors like refined music, contemporary messages that connect with the youth, synchronized choreography, friendly SNS interactions, but what do the members think is the key factor?

▲ RM: We have received this question countless of times and I think I have represented the team to answer more than 200 times. It’s finalized gradually with every answer and this is the newest version. I truly praise Bang Shihyuk PD-nim for his batting eye. We started as a hiphop crew but Bang PD-nim thought that there needs to be someone to talk about what is needed in our society. There were rappers like us who can realize that idea and other members who are skilled performance-wise. If we were to summarize BTS’ secret to success into keywords, I think it would be ‘Sincerity + Ability’. Our sincerity is visible in the public’s eyes, but people only focus on the point that we’re active on SNS. What’s more important is that we’re singers, so our music and performances’ quality has to be good no matter what. We have that and combining with the sincerity and messages we want to deliver and our frequent SNS usage, they’re envisioned and supported by Bang PD-nim. He provided us the freedom and we as players took high risk to get high return. We and the company have equal credit and in terms of a collaborative relationship between the company and the artists as business partners, I think this is a good model.

▲ SUGA: I thought a lot about this too since I was curious. It’s hard to sum up in one thing. What someone needs to talk about but no one did, I think that’s where I started. I took a look back to see how I made music before, since it was the beginning of a new year and I was feeling restless, and Bang PD-nim was like this from the start. He sat in the small studio and told us, ‘What do you want to talk about? Think about the subject for your beats.’ We said ‘Respect personal taste’, ‘Why does no one talk about schools and the society?’ and that’s how we started. Unfortunately, when others analyze us, they attribute our success to SNS only. Kim Saengmin sunbae-nim who hosted our fanmeeting not long ago praised us in his podcast that ‘Nothing can beat working hard at what they’re good at’. When I heard that I thought ‘He really felt what we do’. It took 5 years for people to know this, so I felt sentimental.

- Last year you were record makers. The most representative records were your Billboard achievements and album sales, which figures came close to you emotionally?

▲ RM: When we made it to No.28 on the Billboard main single chart ‘Hot 100’ with ‘MIC Drop’ Remix. Having our name on the ‘Hot 100’ that I have been seeing since I was small was shocking to me. Normally in America, the top 40 songs on ‘Hot 100’ are considered nationwide hits, so making it into the top 30 itself was a huge deal.

▲ J-HOPE: The album sales came to me. I felt moved how the album with music we made recorded a big sales number.

▲ SUGA: Actually I don’t dwell on figures or records. Many things happened last year but the performance at ‘American Music Awards’ was the most memorable to me. When I was little, award shows weren’t broadcasted live on TV so I had to watch on the Internet. Appearing on the show was thrilling already but getting to perform on stage right in front of Diana Ross, who received the Lifetime Achievement award, was unbelievable.

- You received fervent responses in American. Local fans arranged campaigns to request your songs at radio stations and helped with Billboard rankings. With ‘Mic Drop’ entered the ‘Hot 100’ for 8 consecutive weeks and ‘Love Yourself 承 Her’ on ‘Billboard 200’ for 15 consecutive weeks, your popularity doesn’t seem to cool down. In which aspect do you see the local fans’ enthusiastic reactions?

▲ SUGA: There’s barely any difference between the way Korean and American fans love us and how they express that love. If I were to choose one, I’d say they like when we’re together the most. They must have found it special how we’re always together no matter what we do.

▲ RM: In the same context, before fans become fans, they’re part of the public who consume contents. I believe they become ‘core fans’ because they distinguished what is not visible in the eyes. If we combine our chemistry and sincerity they felt through video contents like performance videos and behind-the-scenes, music and high-quality performances, I don’t think there’s any weapon more powerful than that. It transcended languages and became the catalyst powering fans to request our songs on radios.

- You appeared on 3 big American talk shows, was there any behind story?

▲ V: I remember these questions the most, ‘Why are your fans so enthusiastic?’, ‘How did you gain such great fans?’. (When asked how he replied) RM answered because he’s good at English. (laughs)

▲ RM: We originally planned to only perform at all 3 talk shows, but after the production crew saw the fanchant and reactions of the fans on set, they add corners like games and talk section with the MCs. There wasn’t supposed to be a talk section with Ellen but after seeing our fans, Ellen said ‘This can’t be it, we need to do more’ and arranged it. It was thanks to fans.

▲ JIN: We asked the translator hyungnim for cool words and sentences and memorized them to talk one by one, but we couldn’t quite understand the questions so we couldn’t answer. V even stayed up all night to prepare questions that would likely to come out but he couldn’t answer, it’s cute.

▲ V: (Searching for the memo note he wrote answers on) I predicted they would ask questions about the performance so I memorized all the answers, but Ellen didn’t ask. The translator hyung obviously said ‘There’s a good chance they’ll ask this question’... (laughs)

- Since your debut in 2013, you have faced the dreams and reality of boys and youth, and in Suga’s mixtape track ‘The Last’, you also confessed about the feeling of separation with reality, depression and compulsion when you dreamed of being an idol star. Looking back at your trainee days, how did you overcome the anxiety and how far do you think you have reached that dream now?

▲ SUGA: I think anxiety and loneliness are something that’ll come with us for the rest of our life. How we let then out matters much and we have to learn our whole life to know how to. I think life is thinking every moment, because emotions change so much with each situation and moment. Through this article, I want to tell people that “I feel the anxiety and so do you, so let’s find the way and learn it together". Never once have I not had a dream. All of my dreams came true. When I was a trainee, my dream was to debut as a singer, after I debuted, it was winning first place, after I won first place, it was winning the daesang and making it to Japan and America. To be honest, Billboard and ‘AMA’ were only far-fetched talks I couldn’t even dream of, but it came true. I don’t feel like I’m running towards a specific dream more than before, but lately my thoughts have changed, our values and happiness as human beings are also important, so I’m still far (from attaining it). I have achieved a lot as a single but last year was probably the turning point. I’m only 26 years old and even though I have been making music for 10 years, counting from pre-debut, I will continue for a long time. I’ve been having a lot of thoughts this new year.

▲ RM: I think humans are programmed to feel ambivalent emotions at the same time. They say it’s the motivation created for humans to dominate other worlds as the lord of all creation. We think about parting as we love and we think about fall and failure as we feel the success, it’s in our genes. It’s the same context with what Suga-hyung said, (anxiety is) like a shadow. To put it in my case, my father got tinnitus during his 25 years working at a company. He said it was hard for him, he got stressed when he concentrated on his work or did something he liked even with no symptom shown, and when he faced stressing situations it got so severe that it affected his life. The anxiety that shows as tinnitus to someone is like a shadow, it gets taller with my height and longer with the night. We can’t say we overcome the ambivalent emotions from the other side of our hearts, however, humans must embrace our inevitable loneliness and darkness, so we need a haven for ourselves. Before, music was the only thing to me and I was lucky to choose this path and meet good friends, achieving occupationally and financially. I made a few havens for myself so I could befriend my anxiety. I collect figurines, buy clothes that I like, go to unknown neighborhoods to see how people live.  When I take the bus and wander around unknown neighborhoods, it bridges the gap and makes me feel like I’m not far away from this world. It’s how I disperse my anxiety.

- Looking at the lyrics that harbor your experiences, there must be a lot of hard times in the past 5 years.

▲ JIN: I’m the type to avoid such moments so I try to live another life by playing games. When I play games, I get to live with a completely different personality. Recently I started gaming again and happened to meet friends I met 10 years ago when I played. We have never met in real life, just online friends recognizing each other from IDs. But I felt somewhat happy. It brought back old memories.

▲ JIMIN: Now is probably the time I feel lonely and tired the most. We always say we’re happy, but when hard times come we start thinking there’s no one who understands us, not friends, family, and it makes us feel lonely. Not long ago, I listened again to our songs and rewatched our live broadcasts and felt better.

[joemuggs]

Occupy the Dancefloor 2012

Been talking about politics in dance music a lot lately. Obviously the Bassiani protests in Tbilisi and Berlin have thrown it into relief, but there’s a lot of other vigorous discourse going on, both to do with the current age and in looking back 30 years to the “Summer of Love”. In thinking about it, I dug out this piece I wrote for Mixmag at the end of 2011, published in Jan 2012. I present it now without comment, except to say it’s pretty fascinating how much has changed in some ways and how little in others.

“The atmosphere was electric! I'd never felt such a concentrated positive energy before. People from every walk of life and background were united...”

It's the sort of quote you've probably seen in interviews with DJs a hundred times before, but this time we're not talking about the summer of '89 or any other hoary acid house reminiscence. This is Optimo's JD Twitch recounting his visit to the Occupy Wall Street encampment last summer.

2011 was a hell of a year by any standards, with conspiracies, scandals and crises at every turn. The Arab Spring and war in Libya, riots across the UK, Greece and Spain, Europe edging ever closer to economic collapse, the hackgate scandals, public services being cut to ribbons by a government of comically posh pantomime villains... it seemed sometimes we've had a decade's worth of news all in one go, and it shows no sign that things are going to calm down any time soon. Quite the opposite, in fact – by the time this issue hits the shops, we're fully ready for a couple of small nuclear wars to have broken out and the Euro to have been replaced as currency by peanut M&Ms.

But what's all this got to do with Mixmag? Ravers generally go their own merry way, right? Switch the news off, pull the curtains tighter to blank out the dawn, turn up the music and crack on – leave the politics to Bono? Well, yes and no. The Occupy movement, which sprung up in cities across the western world to demand accountability from institutions in response to the banking crisis that underpins much of the chaos in the world today, has not had much vocal support from the clubbing world – until more recently.

In December Massive Attack's 3D curated a show with Thom Yorke and Tim Goldsworthy (ex LCD Soundsystem), and has been putting up online a series of mix sets by the likes of Horsemeat disco, all in support of the Occupy movement. And a glance at occupymusicians.com shows a small but steadily increasing number of dance DJs and producers among the indie bands and experimentalists standing up and being counted. So is clubland developing a social conscience?

Maybe it's just that we're remembering that dance is not a bubble separated off from the world after all. Professor John Street, author of the new book Music and Politics, points out that “from the 1920s when US sheriffs would issue decrees about how couples could dance together, to rock'n'roll and the scandal of how teenagers reacted tot he music, and on through rave, the powers that be have been as exercised by the performance of dance in crowds as they ever have by the lyrics of songs.” That is to say, the simple self expression of dancing can be as much of a political act as any protest song, and indeed can have more effect.

Trance deity Paul Van Dyk, himself no stranger to political activity, is clear too that losing it on the dancefloor doesn't mean losing touch with wider realities; perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who grew up in oppressive Communist East Germany, he believes the freedoms we enjoy should be trumpeted from the rooftops. “People, artists, movements can be hedonistic and free spirited,” he says, “but also speak out and make a statement of the fact that this is a more tolerant and respectful group than many others in society.”

The author Tim Lawrence, who has closely studied the roots of modern dance culture going back to the start of the disco era, concurs. “I just don't accept that going out clubbing is self-absorbed,” he insists. “Sitting at home and looking in the mirror is self-absorbed. Going out with friends and engagement in a physical activity that only works if everyone participates and contributes is an act of socialising and community. If we stay at home and watch TV all the time we're saying one thing about the kind of society we want to be part of. If we go out dancing, we're saying another thing. Dancing is political.”

Matt Black of Ninja Tune founders Coldcut goes further, but sounds a note of caution. “Yes, people commune and collaborate through dance events,” he agrees, “and often they share an interest in making the world better, in social justice – but as with everything that gives people pleasure that culture is very easily hijacked by those who want to make a quick buck. Cocaine becomes involved, egos become involved, and very quickly you lose touch with the constructive spirit that was so inspiring in the first place.”

“But,” he continues, “that's maybe part of the natural cycle of things. The punk of today becomes the suit of tomorrow, the spirit of rebellion wears off somewhat. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though: I think there are probably a lot of people in ordinary jobs now who still carry the inspiration of acid house and rave with them, and when they see something like the Occupy movement, they think 'yes, that's something I understand and can get behind' because they know that feeling of being part of something bigger.”

It's not just old ravers carrying the inspiration of the past forward though. Many in the dubstep generation are aware of the power of dance music's communality, its deep roots, and the potential this has for social action. Loefah, as co-founder of Brixton's DMZ night is one of the most important figures in the growth of dubstep and all that's followed. His diverse Swamp 81 label is named after the police operation that sparked the original Brixton riots 30 years ago – but he stops short of making direct political statements, instead preferring to use the networks of art and music to deliver coded messages, not preaching but drawing people in and allowing them to make their own conclusions.

“When I was a teenager,” says Loefah, “pirate radio and white labels were everything, and as you got more and more into it, you began to understand the culture. Then when I went to the jungle raves, you'd become a part of this community, meeting the people you'd heard shout outs to on the radio, and you get something from it that's impossible to explain unless you're there but it's powerful and it's not controlled by any authorities. It might sound elitist, but it's not: anyone could be a part of it, but you have to make the effort to find out and understand it.”

Ben UFO, DJ and founder of the Hessle Audio label, is emphatic that the communities created in this way post jungle, garage, dubstep and grime are politically important. “Dance music in London especially,” he says, “has always provided a space for people from all sorts of different class backgrounds, different races, genders and identities to come together for a common purpose and communicate with each other - this is quite radical in itself, and I think it's easy to forget that. A good example of this is the multitude of conversations facilitated by music in the aftermath of the riots this summer, with my whole Twitter timeline dominated by the riots as they were happening and afterwards. Likewise a radio station like Rinse FM preserving and archiving a record of music made, presented and distributed by young, predominantly working class kids is a hugely significant thing in its own right.”

So club music IS political, even when it's not trying to be. But are we on the verge of it becoming more so, of ravers voicing resistance to entrenched power alongside the Occupy protesters? Don't count on it – after all, the instinct to close the curtains and chop out another line is still strong. US journalist, music business expert and Occupy LA campaigner Giovanna Trimble sadly points out that dance acts who may pay lip-service to anti-establishment views are slower when it comes to turning out for protests or organising benefits. “I have not seen any support from electronic dance music acts,” she says, “especially the ones who identify themselves as political beings.”

The opportunities are there, though. Trimble still holds out hope: “I feel that of all genres, EDM has the most space for activism as the demographic is far more open-minded and less 'corrupted' by corporations.” And veteran German house singer Billie Ray Martin sums up exactly why getting bodies out on the street is powerful just as “the mass feeling of possibility and power that the height of house in '88 and onwards” had produced for her. “We've lived in a time of virtual socialising,” she says, “and it's all very fake. it's easy to click 'like' on a post that says 'do you want to personally go out and change the world?' and then move on the latest video on there and not even ever think about why you clicked 'like'. I wish we would go out on the streets and shout it out – and that's where Occupy comes in. I hope it gains the kind of power it deserves. I'm there all the way. 'Like'!”

[aximili]

22, 34, a & e for your three fave characters?

oo its very hard to choose faves but i’ll go w 3 i’ve been doing the most work on lately!

aidan moss (my dnd character, human fighter, lawful evil), lily mulder (from my novel, minor character who’s making herself more major the more i think about her), ari minkowski (also from my novel, actual fave cause they’re a good kid.) 

How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)?

aidan: he’s sooo like... blatant and petty about it..... he’s super childish, like if he feels left out or if someone he likes is favouring someone else he just acts like a toddler and comes up and bothers them until they pay attention to him. very possessive definitely. he would never admit it but it’s completely transparent.

lily: she definitely becomes very distant. she’s the naturally passive-aggressive type who expects people to read her mind. she also finds it very hard to admit weaknesses. she’s definitely jealous of sol in an abstract way in the novel (sees her as the embodiment of the childhood lily never got), and she manifests that through keeping her at arm’s length bc it hurts and frustrates her to think about it.

ari: ari finds things like this confusing and difficult to put into words, even though they don’t like to be coy. it takes them a while to understand their own emotions, so like lily, they’re likely to be distant until they’ve figured out what’s going on. once they do know, though, they’d probably be very straightforward about the whole thing. like “hey, i felt super jealous of you that time”. and like that, they kinda work through the emotion and put it in the past. very healthy tbh. 

How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt?

aidan: aidan wouldn’t be functioning rn if he wasn’t capable of shaking guilt like water off a duck’s back lol. aidan barely feels guilt. he has a lazy fate-based view of the world; everything happens the way it happens, you can only control your own actions, the past is the past. if he got bothered by guilt.... he’d be a mess. 

lily: oh boy this is basically her whole character arc lol. lily feels guilt like any depressed/anxious person, aka, it fucking possesses her and never lets her go. she’s constantly reliving mistakes she feels she made 3 years ago. she really won’t talk about it, though - again, not wanting to show weakness. 

ari: ari doesn’t have anything to feel guilty about bc they have done nothing wrong, ever, in their life. lmao nah honestly i don’t think they feel guilty all that often. they’re a very logical person and they don’t get hung up on what-ifs much. like aidan, they feel they can only control their own actions. unlike aidan, they therefore try to do the best for themselves and everyone else. 

A) Why are you excited about this character?

aidan: i still have a bit of stuff to reveal in the campaign, which im sure will come up at some point but i know not when, so im super excited for everyones reactions to that. honestly, it’s really fun trying to get in the head of a bad person. what’s challenging is sticking to that sometimes, trying to be someone truly selfish and pigheaded while still considering his thought processes. i’ve had a lot of fun so far though, and i’d definitely play him again. 

lily: i’ve done a lot of development on lily lately and had a lot of thoughts & chats w myself about how im representing her as a trans woman in a YA novel. i don’t want her to be a ticked box for representation, to have no flaws and no personality, but equally each flaw that i do give her, i want to make sure it isn’t reinforcing existing negative stereotypes. i guess what excites me is that she’s a loving mother figure to a young teenager, and that’s not something that gets a whole lot of representation, i think. 

ari: ari is one of those characters that tutors were always like “well why are they nonbinary and disabled and autistic and jewish” and it’s like why do you think people aren’t all of those things at once. my real challenge with writing them is again, writing someone who’s fairly obviously autistic without it being... really icky. a line i’ll need a sensitivity reader to be sure i’ve trod correctly, but i love them as a character and getting to write someone who’s all these things and who is firmly a hero in the end while acting totally true to themselves. 

E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?

i would literally hate aidan so much omg i would like block him on all social media for being a toxic person 

lily is TOO COOL for me i think. i can see us being sorta chill friends in the same hangout group, but i doubt we’d become close. 

ari and i would definitely be buds even though we have like 0 interests in common. i’d love and support them and i’m nice and good at being straightforward so they’d like me. 

[flourishedandsunkissed]

A Film for a Fool Who Dreams

Obviously La La Land has taken the world and awards season by storm. I’ve only gotten to see it once so far, but I smiled through nearly the whole film, even when I was crying. But this isn’t a review of La La Land, and it isn’t about Mia and Sebastian’s romantic relationship, this is an entry explaining what it means to me as a dreamer, an artist, and as a little suburban girl.

Quick thought that’s always on my mind: When we say “Hollywood” we’re usually using the synecdoche for the film industry. However, I see it as the film industry, the music industry, and television–reality and fiction. This is the system that either creates or manufactures celebrities. 

I appreciated Mia and Sebastian’s deep investment in their respective aspects of Hollywood. Firstly because they’re able to teach other about what matters to them. Upon getting lost in San Francisco, my friend and I were discussing just that, film and music. He was teaching me about the intricacies of various genres and I shared with him what I think makes a film work. Additionally my brother has been trying to teach me about music my whole life. Some things I grasped and others I didn’t, but I appreciated being the student in someone’s passion. My brother doesn’t watch movies very often, but when he does I’m happy to engage in an enthusiastic dialogue. So simply, I can appreciate the dynamic because I’ve been a part of it and I think it’s realistic.

Secondly, they weren’t in it for the money. They weren’t looking for fame and wealth, that just became a benefit/detriment of pursuing their passions (well, I’m actually not sure if Sebastian was rich or famous in the LA area, but Seb’s seemed pretty popular). They were in it for the actual artistic value of their focus and the joy that it brought them. This is the way it should be. For the most part, I’ve been adamantly against the remakes and years-late sequels, and prequels studios have been spewing at consumers because they know they’ll do just that–consume the familiar. I’m not shaming you if you enjoy them, watch what you like. I’m shaming the studios for shunning creators of any age and background with big ideas and great stories to tell and opting for the get rich quick scheme that is piggybacking off of a story that was told well the first time and not even doing it justice. If you do care to end it though, stop watching those movies just because they’re there. The films I’m excluding from that tangent are those that have built a universe (Star Wars, Marvel, even DC, etc)–I don’t see them as exempt, but at least they’re working toward something. Even if it is about consumerism and capitalism to a degree, they’re bringing people joy and uniting nerds all over the planet! So back to the passion: that’s what should get anybody into it in the first place. That’s how you make good work. And honestly that’s what makes any effort worth it.

Thirdly, this was it for them. This was all they wanted. Deciding if sacrificing true love for your dreams is a different discussion that I’m not even sure of my stance on so I won’t go there. And I’m not saying having a back up plan is a cop-out, it’s a good idea. What I’m saying it wasn’t a hobby or a side hustle and then what do you know they made it! They didn’t settle. And I find that tremendously inspiring. We know it wasn’t without compromise or deciding at one point to give up, that’s more than realistic. And what’s even better is the support. Mia didn’t even want to go back to LA at first but Sebastian didn’t let her give up. And that’s what what kept it alive. She drove off on him and he crossed states to keep someone else’s dream alive. She endlessly supported him through his jazz dream even though it was her least favorite genre. I hope to have and to be that kind of friend.

And now to get specific with some songs…

Another Day of Sun Wowza. If you didn’t know already, by now you know I’m Californian. To open on a painfully crowded freeway was immediately hilarious because, again, it’s realistic here. Let me just add that this opening sequence is the most fantastic long take I have ever seen. Definitely a favorite of all time. The music itself makes me want to cry tears of joy because they’re stuck in the worst traffic ever and it’s so exuberant. I want to feel that way in traffic. Even more importantly: the lyrics. I’ve been on countless auditions. From Hollywood to my own campus. They’re awful. I’ve never had an experience as bad as Mia’s, but I’m sure her story is far from an exaggeration. I hate how they say “thank you” with no expression and look at you like Death when you’re giving it all your life. But this song. It encourages you not to fear rejection or take it as defeat. From the beginning it’s about following your dreams, being optimistic despite expressionless executives and endless auditions with no callbacks. It’s about getting back on your feet because the only way you’ll truly be defeated is if you give up on yourself. This is one of the toughest industries to break into and no one (without the advantage of marvelous connections) makes it on their first try.

City of Stars “City of stars / Just one thing everybody wants” Half the people you meet in Southern California want something to do with Hollywood. People from all over the world want something to do with Hollywood. That’s not a bad thing. I hope we all take it over and build it up to be what it should’ve been from the beginning. I want it, my friends want it, my brother and cousins want it. And just looking at LA driving in from the suburbs fills me and my friends with excitement from the beauty of the skyline and who we might overhear or see that day. It’s an interesting place. All the kids from the suburbs want to live in the city whether they want a piece of Hollywood or not just because we’re so bored with everything home lacks. So for me this song isn’t just about love and opportunity, but my love affair with LA and cities in general. Even though I’ve come to terms with the fact that I could never live in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Monica, or probably even San Diego proper, their lights, their history, their food, their beauty still has me.

Audition (The Fools Who Dream) Where do I even start. I’m forever filled with overwhelming appreciation for this song. I felt the excitement with Mia when she started working on her one-woman show, the anxiety with her when she finally executed the show, her disappointment with the turn out and lack of Sebastian, her defeat upon returning home, her dejection with the statement, “maybe I’m not good enough,” and her nerves upon entering into this last audition. I’ll always remember how the guest speaker at my high school graduation unceasingly praised the STEM students and seemed to render the artistic students useless. That stupid, painful, insulting Wells Fargo campaign. And just the way America treats budding artists in general. I’m a film major right now and sometimes undermine myself by worrying about how “liberal” I’m being. A film major with a minor in Italian studies? And an unofficial emphasis in creative writing? All of my roommates are STEM majors and they lament how much easier school is for me and I joke saying, “It’s okay! Because you know what? You’ll get a job!” I am a bit afraid. I shouldn’t have to be. Freshman year the popular question is “What’s your major?” and I always winced a little before telling everyone else film. But they thought it was fantastic. People have been telling me for years, “Don’t forget me when you make it on the big screen” after seeing me perform or reading my writing and you’d be surprised at how afraid I am of letting them down. I unfortunately consider myself a bit of a fool because of the way the system treats my mind and how part of me has bought into it. But look at me, I’m still dreaming. And I love working with people who are too. We matter. I admire people in STEM and business, but that’s not all there is. If everyone went off to be a scientist, who would write the music that relieves your stress, motivates you, and brings you and your friends together? Who would create your endless hours of entertainment on the plethora of streaming services you spend your hard earned money subscribing to? We matter. Don’t treat us like fools then praise us years later for diverging. “She told me / A bit of madness is key / To give us new colors to sing / Who knows where it will lead us / And that’s why they need us / So bring on the rebels / The ripples from pebbles / The painters and poets and plays” I always remember that speech when I hear that part. It feels like a call to action. And I plan to mobilize. 

Thank you to everyone that supports me, I appreciate you more than I can articulate. More importantly than remembering you “when I get to the big screen,” I’ll remember you whenever I dare think, “maybe I’m not good enough.” 

To the public school system who tries to program us and the corporations who want us to be their robots and ignore our skills, to the studios that are running out of ideas on their own:

You need us. Don’t forget.

[surelypovichjr]

Surely Waxes Brazilian Part III: Chip and Surely’s Legitimate Beef

This is part three in a four part series documenting my recent adventures in Brazil. Helluva time! Catch up with Part I and Part II before reading this sweet juicy peach! Zei Gezunt! 

Is this Arby’s located in Brazil or is it simply Rockville Pike? The correct answer gets a free curly fry on the tab of Yers Surely.

Part III: Chip and Surely’s Legitimate Beef

It was an unbearably humid morning just like the rest of them—February in Rio. The days had been like this for awhile now…business was good, but still, pushing Isabel’s cart up the steep, winding roads of the Morro da Babilônia favela, I could sense that something was off. I continue pushing the cart, up to where Isabel is standing at the top of a hilly mound; quickly, I brushed aside my ominous feelings, and stop to admire the curvaceous silhouette Isabel is cutting on a makeshift shack with peeling yellow paint. A small tidepool of sweat crept down the beautiful boob job I had gotten her just the other week as the Brazilian morning grew increasingly swampy.

Isabel was worth all the salt in the shaker! Living here her entire twenty-six years made Isabel not only street-wise but also endearing to everyone she greeted; a friend and trustworthy woman to the whole neighborhood, a brand of community cache no amount of money could buy. Chip’s business proposition that night had prompted Izzy to quit her library job and instead work for us…naturally, she still maintained her night shift at the City of Goddess, but at this point, it was just for some extra pocket change.

A weaker man might have wanted Isabel to quit that life but I prided myself on being a more enlightened individual. As my old friend Jeffrey Gildenhorn (RIP) once said, being a sex worker is a job just like any other. Reading up on the subject, I learned that workers like Isabel are far too often marginalized because of the broken way that our governments attempt to scandalize the occupation for political points with pearl-clutching constituents. Truly, if this world had any guts whatsoever, it’d realize that incorporating prostitution into the legal workforce would only increase communication between those in the industry and the people trying to stop slave-trafficking and other forms of heinous activity that ladies like Isabel sometimes run up against in their line of work. As Jeff said, cash for sex ain’t nuthin’ to sneeze at, unless, you know, that’s what gets yer dick off…and for me, it actually does, which is a pretty cool fetish, in my opinion. No judgment and no sneezeguards, is what I always say!

Jeffrey Gildenhorn was a Renaissance man ahead of his time in that the man both owned a diner AND ALSO advocated for the decriminalization and ultimate legalization of the sex worker industry in DC...in the early 1990s! A true visionary! RIP, my good friend.

Isabel was also now a sales associate for our latest business enterprise, Chip and Surely’s Legitimate “Beef”, a 501(c)(3) providing door-to-door food delivery services to the city’s minimally regulated outer boroughs. The whole shebang was paid for by the suckers at the UN in partnership with the International Olympic Committee, who were of the mind that feeding the country’s most at-risk citizens would be good for Rio’s image as the events approached.

Izzy was a great fit at CSLB; her wonderful customer relationships made her a natural pick to grace all of our company’s billboards and television commercials. Of course, I had hired my old photographer Trevor for these gigs. The guy had decided to stick it out in Brazil, and was doing good after a few recommendations with some of our business partners—and because of all the referrals, we didn’t have to pay him! As for Isabel, it cannot be overstated how good she was. Out of the 1,264 slums in and around the Rio de Janeiro, Isabel was Chip Rosenbaum’s top earner and the two of us became inseparable as we worked her old stomping grounds together, hand-in-hand. Still, she had her doubts.

“I don’t know what it is about this job,” said Isabel, having just made $25 selling a bag of grade D meat to a family of four, “but I feel like there’s something else I could be doing with my life. Surely, do you think I should go back to my job at the library? I know it’s less money, but it felt like I was making a difference.”

Isabel’s old job. Total snoozer.

For a moment I mulled this around in my head. The whole point of getting Izzy involved was to get her out of the library and onto the streets. There was more money to be made out here slinging hot beef than it was curled up inside the Biblioteca Nacional, collecting a steady, but below-average paycheck. A few more years of the illicit meat racket and the two of us could retire somewhere special, maybe even make it back to Rockville someday—of course, this would be after the statute of limitations on Ping’s child support runs out. On that day, I could see it all so clear. Me and Isabel, back in my North Bethesda duplex. I’d fit it up real nice with some quartz countertops and a tanning bed. We wouldn’t miss a beat. We’d be happy. Maybe raise a couple of children—maybe they’re even our children and not some random kids we see walking around Bethesda Row on Simchat Torah. Was it really so crazy?  

The Bethesda Bagels where I am no longer welcome. I still frequent the Dupont location.

“I dunno, Izzy,” I said, rolling a bucket of rancid tripe up an unpaved embankment. “I think Chip’s doing right by us. We’re making money. Way more than you were dewey decimalin’…more than I ever did selling ‘ticles to this place and that. Why change things? Besides, we’re in love, aren’t we?”

“Of course we are, Surely. I don’t know what I was thinking. I love you.”

“I love you too,” giving her a peck on the cheek.

“Come on Surely, this meat isn’t going to sell itself,” said Isabel, knocking on the next door. A woman opened up and Isabel started in with the usual spiel.

“Would you care for…some tripe?” I asked, not waiting for the answer before unloading some samples on her sweet lil kiddos.

While I was eating at Arby’s my pal Chip had been buying ‘em up left and right. Chip’s dad Leo had died and left him with the family fortune. Turns out, the old man was the silent partner behind J.Chow’s Chicken, Salad, and Ribs in the White Flint Mall food court, arguably the best restaurant in the entire shopping center, besides the Cheesecake Factory, of course.

The J.Chow’s establishment at White Flint Mall. RIP.

For twenty years, Chip was doing well as the franchise owner of 64% of the Arby’s Restaurants in the lower 48, that is until Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign got underway. This initiative had an almost instant and deleterious effect on the fast food business, especially Arby’s which had at that time not yet launched its market sandwich line of healthier meal choices, such as the Carved Turkey on focaccia, a personal favorite of my son Ping, before he would hit the pool for afternoon swim practice.

To make matters worse, Chip had a supply problem…he had too much beef and nowhere to sell it. His restaurants were now doing a quarter of the big beefy business they had done in the golden years of the Clinton Administration, especially when the fat, philandering fuck machine himself would stroll into the Rockville Pike Arby’s every other week. Yes, Chip was in trouble, locked into a series of futures contracts with the cattlemen, he had an oversupply of product and also could not take advantage of falling meat prices; you didn’t want to get on the bad side of a cattleman, as anyone who has ever seen Lee Marvin’s Prime Cut can attest.

Prime Cut…thought-provoking flick about sellin’ meat.

Archibald’s: A DC Institution 

Adding to his business problems was an embargo on sales of American meat to Asia, which made offloading the product nearly impossible for Chip. But just as things were looking their worst, my friend happened to overhear a conversation at Archibald’s, a primo titty bar not a stone’s throw from the White House. This was a deep conversation between some powerful people, men obviously, who were high ranking officials in the Brazilian government, United Nations, and International Olympics Committee respectfully. Fat knockers in their faces, the men were in discussions as to a public relations problem. With the Rio Olympics rapidly approaching, increasing scrutiny was being paid to the country by the international community. 

Already, Brazil was being ridiculed for the thing. After all, said the UN official, how could the country’s leadership deem it appropriate to host an Olympic Games, to spend billions in public money for volleyball courts and golf courses, while upwards of a half a million children in Rio’s favelas met the World Health Organization’s definition of malnourishment?! At this, one of the Brazilian politicians laughed, “Sure they are poor children today,” he said, “but in two years, when you come for the Olympics...they will be the ones flashing a fake police badge to rob you at a ‘military checkpoint.’ You’ll come back to us, to the bullet caucus, and ask...why were you not tougher on the children...why did you not throw the children in a prison? But today is not that day...on this day, you wish for the children to have what, an order of curly fries...perhaps, a Big Montana?” 

Better lucky than good, thought Chip Rosenbaum, turning around to introduce himself. Almost overnight, my friend’s business woes became a venture of formidable opportune...selling American products to a bunch of Latin American fascists...a tale as old as time. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen?

“Surely, aren’t you out of the sportswriting business? Chip asked. “I mean, these people are so corrupt, and no matter what you write, it’s 2016 man...literally no one cares. It’s just another blip on the rolling screen. Fuck man, ever since the Internet and that chucklehead Kornheiser yapping on ESPN...I mean...face it Surely, sportswriting is dead.”

Dad’s least favorite intern.

Chip had me on that. I was done writing. Even if there was no story, there was no one on the other end who would give the corruption story the respect it deserved.

And so, every morning for the past two years, Isabel and I have awoken in the same bed near dawn. I make us coffee as the two of us wait in silence for the large truck and the men. When the truck arrives, a burlap bag is placed over our heads and drives to an airstrip. The bags come off just as a large cargo plane touches down over the flora and fauna of the rain forest. Sometimes Chip is there but most days he’s nowhere to be found as Isabel and I are in charge of monitoring the unloading process. The plane emptied and the inventory accounted for, we’re blindfolded again, back to Rio, where the truckdriver takes us to the various drop zones. We continue to oversee the men, loading up all of the hot carts we own with curly fries and fresh-ish meats to sell throughout their respective territories. After that it’s around 9 am and time for breakfast…a nice spread at the small café down the road from our place…we take up our own cart a short time later.

Indeed, we were doing great things…not only in Brazil, but also back home, where I still could not return because of the whole extradition thing with Ping and Warren Wagglestein, Esq. Instead, we gave a bulk of our money to philanthropic causes back in Rockville and the DC suburbs. We started by making Chip’s brother Barry the head of our foundation, the Native Washingtonian Association. We had a lot of causes during this time, restoring the cafeteria at the Ring House was Chip’s pet project, as his mother was still there and he got a year’s rent free on account of the remodel. For me, it was two vanity projects. The first was the Danny Gatton Guitar School, a big honkin’ grant given to Montgomery College to teach inner city kids from Southern Rockville how to play smooth rockabilly. The second project was more ambitious. The NWA soup kitchen was created to mentor Washington’s next generation of soup masters. We endowed an entire school for the thing, out in Olney dedicated to the culinary arts of broth and balls. My hope…to one day recreate the BJ Pumpernickel’s establishment that Shirely Povich, Sr. had so dearly loved.

Danny fucking Gatton! (Image: © Clayton Call/Getty Images)

Even with NWA going great, I guess there’s a part of me that knew it couldn’t last. Chip and I were always getting into fights over petty stuff. Like when we ran out of imported meat from America and Ever had a burger made out of jaguar? All the Horsey Sauce in the world can’t do it justice. Believe me.

One day, I got fed up with it all.

“Chip, the product is getting worse. You can’t cut beef meat with jaguar and expect to get repeat customers.”

“They’re fuckin’ Brazilians, Surely. Besides, our profit margins have never been higher. What do you care?”

“We’re decimating the population of an endangered species.”

“We’re sourcing locally and reducing our carbon footprint. Isn’t that what you lib yahoos are all about these days?”

A Jaguar lookin’ regal on the Brazilian Fifty Dollar Bill. We fed their meat to people after the demand became too large for our supply chain of week-old beef comin’ from the United States. Members of the Social Christian party loved the idea back in 2016. Swell guys. 

I shrugged. At the end of the day, I was only a minority partner in the business. Chip was holding all the cards. And maybe he was even right about the thing. We were paying Arby’s for all this imported meat that had to travel thousands of miles to get here. That’s jet fuel and a pilot you have to pay for. If you just kill a jaguar, you only have to pay the hunter…and the reserve is only a hop, skip, and jump from downtown Rio. Besides, the kids were learning guitar in Bethesda. And more importantly, the soup was flowing out there in Olney.

Or was it? Even though I couldn’t get back to the States, I still managed to get updates from Chip’s brother from time to time. A few months after we opened the schools, Barry Rosenbaum came down to Brazil to meet with his brother. But first, he showed me a video of two of the kids at the guitar school.

“Classic Gatton,” I recognized, marveling at the young ingenues, soloing away on a pair of Fender Telecasters.

“And that’s not all,” said Barry, taking out a thing of Tupperware and placing it on the table. I recognized it instantly, matzoh ball soup straight outta the NWA kitchen. “Whaddya say, Surely…you got a stove?”

I jumped at the chance. All those months of tinkering, could it really be? Did we really perfect the BJ Pumpernickel’s recipe? Sure, Barry’s goons had paid off the previous owners for the world-famous recipe, but who’s to say if they gave us the real deal. With much anticipation, I lit the gas burner and set it to low, so that the icy block of soup would slowly revert to a beautiful, golden hue. I began to salivate.

Chip came in just then.

“Moment of truth, Surely,” he said. “What’re you waiting for?”

I ladled out the soup for the three of us.

“Gentlemen, I propose a toast,” I said. “To my old friend Chip, without whom, none of this would be possible.”

“Here! Here!” said Barry.

“Here goes nothin,” I said, diving in. Slowly I brought the spoon to my face. The broth was on point, thick but not too thick, and full of rich schmaltz…now for the balls…

“You backstabbing, lying, sack of shit,” I said, dropping the spoon.

“What?”

“Don’t play fucking coy with me, fuckface,” I said. I removed a pistol from my gray sweat shorts and pointed it at Barry Rosenbaum’s head.

“Surely, what the fuck?!”

“Both you and I know…these aren’t the Pumpernickel’s balls. “First the jaguar meat and now this…just what the hell kinda trick you think you’re trying to pull here, Chip?”

The look on Chip’s face faded from disbelief to that of a large grin. “Well, well, well,” he said, clapping his hands, “and here I thought you were nothing but muscle.”

So everything was a lie? In a moment it dawned on me.

“This is the Hofberg’s matzoh soup,” I recognized, almost choking on the words. “Chip, how could you?”

“It’s better…it’s always been better. I mean, BJ Pumpernickel’s…are you fucking kidding me, Surely. Do you know BJ Pumpernickel was not even a real person? Now Abe Hofberg….shit, that was a soupmaster you could set your watch to.”

“You disgust me,” I said, cutting the inferior ball with the side of my spoon. “My father would be rolling over in his grave if he knew the kids at our soup school were learning the Hofberg’s recipe. For goddsakes, he’d rather them learn the Silver Diner matzoh ball than the shit they made over there.”

“The Silver Diner never made matzoh ball soup. It’s a figment of your fucking imagination.”

“They did too. In the spring of ’78…you had gone to some special basketball camp because you were a bigshot athlete…I stayed in Rockville and had a barback gig at the Bethesda Yacht Club. Every morning, I’d kick a new gurly outta bed and head over to Silver Diner for a cup of the stuff. It was the greatest summer of my life.”

This stuff is on par with Hofberg’s, if you ask me.

“The same summer you fucked Sherri Epstein, right Surely? My girlfriend. Hey, no hard feelings pal…I know you weren’t…Sherri told me all about it. Besides, even if you wanted Pumpernickel’s soup, you couldn’t get it…only Barry has the recipe, and it’s all the way back in Olney, where you can’t go because of you owe for your biological son. Face it, Surely, those kids are going to learn the Hofberg’s soup backwards and forwards…and there’s not a fucking thing you can do about it…tell you what though, anytime you want a container of the stuff, I’ll have Barry bring it down for you whenever you want. Sound good?”

Smelling defeat, I lowered the gun from Chip’s brother’s temple. “From here on out, we’re not friends anymore…only partners.”

“Fine by me,” said Chip, ladling himself another round. “Not such a Mighty Mo now, are ya?”

I walk out and back to Isabel’s feeling worse than I had ever felt in my entire sixty-seven years. I had lost.

The next morning Isabel and I wake up for work. Same routine. The truck comes to our place and the two of us greet the two burlap bags that are placed over our heads. The truck starts up and starts to drive. Wrong direction. Gone are the sounds of the rainforest and the secret airstrip, with its black market planes and illicit cargo. Instead, we’re brought inside some kind of abandoned office building—through the blindfold, I make out the scant outlines of an old microfiche reader—we’re inside an old newsroom! Before I can break free and steal ancient office supplies, we’re ushered into a small enclosure with a familiar chemical smell I recognize must be the paper’s dark room. I can tell Isabel is scared but I tell her not to worry as the blindfolds come off.

“Surely…Povich…Jr.”

“Hello Trevor.”

 Stay tuned for Part IV of my amazing Amazonian adventure!

[samualkillough-blog]

Printing A Manual On Kindle.

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[soulinquest]

Major Changes

The past year has been one of the most challenging of my life. In 2013, my girlfriend of 5 1/2 years was killed in a tragic car accident during a winter white-out. I knew at this point, that the way I processed this and moved forward could go in one of two directions - a healthy rebound putting that pain into something positive, or a self-destructive lifestyle.

I spent around 6 months digesting things and just coming to accept what had been done. I was in a daze for a long time, and frankly, don’t really even remember the following month from being in that hospital room. But in that month, I got a bicycle.

I grew up riding bikes, dirtbikes, four-wheelers, mini-bikes, all of that stuff that an ol’ Indiana kid would be into. Cycling was something that my highshool best friend, and still thankfully current best friend despite living on the other side of the world, got me into. We exchanged hobbies - he bought a dirtbike, and I got a mountain bike when I graduated college. I LOVED my new bike - a 2013 Trek Superfly AL Elite. I may write more about my cycling life at another point.

But after my girlfriend’s passing, I ended up with a roadbike that was drastically beyond my abilities that I could grow into - a 2015 Giant Defy Composite 0 with a full electronic Ultegra Di2 component set. We got a killer deal on it, but again, I don’t fully remember the details around the time I got it.

Friends of mine said they could even say they saw it on me. I thankfully never got into a very destructive habit at that point, beyond the anti-anxiety medications that helped me move forward. Those with the combination of stress and PTSD symptoms lead to this blackout period.

From there, I racked up around 5,000 miles over the next few years. I dropped 30lbs. I was in the best shape of my life and happy. I loved that period of my life. I spent so much time biking alone, which was obviously lonely at times, but I loved the freedom and having a hobby as intense as this to spend my money on - roof racks, bike upgrades, kits and gear, and even more bikes.

When that best friend of mine referenced above graduated college and got a job, it ended up being in Florida. This was something tough for me to reconcile with because this guy was my best friend and directly responsible for the most enjoyable trips and adventures I had ever had. We have had ups and downs, together and individually. We grew apart, grew back together, and now have a long distance friendship that allows us to see eachother a few times a year maybe, but the quality of our friendship never changed, and I’m thankful for that. It’s hard to find genuine friends these days to connect with, that have the same interests in you, and that aren’t already married or in a serious relationship of their own which they understandably are putting an enormous amount of time and effort into.

The day my best friend, who I’ll reference to as Arthur (not his real name, but an inside joke between us), left to go to Florida, he stopped by my apartment on his way out for a going away/roommate birthday party. It was one of the best parties I’ve ever been to. I don’t typically love these ragers, but having so many close family and friends and the electricity in the air made it amazing. 

That night, I met up with a girl, who I will refer to as Liz (also not her real name), that went to my high school and I had been one date on. We went out and had an amazing evening together that night as I split from the party some. This eventually turned into a very intense, tight knit relationship that felt like it made my life complete.

The point of this post is to talk about that. My relationship with Liz went strong for a year and a half. We were happy, we did many things, I even got a passport and left the country for my first time. She broke down a lot of barriers in my life, showed me how to be vulnerable, and was nothing but a positive influence that I was so proud to have. We had our issues with communication that I think plagues many relationships, but that didn’t alter my opinion that we had something great.

The truth of it is this though, as this was all going on, I ended up being isolating myself and not allowing myself to be the full person I was or who I wanted to be. I didn’t treat her as well as I wanted to. Not in an abusive way, but I wish I could have made her feel special. The reason that I couldn’t was because I was living somewhat of a double life. One side was a successful young professional with a great salary, friends, hobbies, and seemed to have life figured out. The other side was someone who fell into a trap with opiates that I struggled with for around a year. 

A friend from college who I will refer to as Bill (not his real name), offered me heroin on the first day we moved in together in 2015 or 2016. I was told “hey man, this is just like the vicodins and percocets we have done in the past, it’s fun. Not a big deal. It has a stigma that I think is bullshit but I do it a few times a month maybe now, you should give it a try”. That exact moment is something I wish I could go back and change so bad. I enjoy drugs. I enjoy the experiences and mind altering effects. Opiates were always my favorite. I drew a line for myself at Cocaine and Heroin, knowing that I would probably enjoy either of those TOO much, and would have hard time not falling into the stereotypical story that the “not even one time” campaign refers to. That one time sparked something that I didn’t reconcile or identify for a long time.

I tried it. I loved it. I don’t think anyone could NOT love it. The chemical reactions that it causes in your brain would pretty much keep you from ever not enjoying it. We smoked it. It tasted good, like a roasted marshmallow. I did a small amount with him that night, which turned into a “let’s get more for tomorrow to celebrate our new apartment”. 

This post could go on forever, but I think the direction it’s moving is obvious. A special occasion turned into weekends which turned into weekdays, which turned into every day. I looked forward to it, but the first time we couldn’t get any, I suddenly realized that I had become physically dependent. It became a fun activity to what felt like a necessity that you could place in line with eating food, drinking water, and breathing air. I was a mess without it. Flu symptoms, depression, everything. 

This didn’t last long though. Even though I crossed that bridge, I realized how wrong this was. I substituted this for oxy and vicodin. In comparison, these are much better, but still was not great. It just allowed me to keep functioning.

All during this time, I was dating Liz. She had no idea. At first, all of this second life didn’t feel like a second life. It felt like something that just happened here and there and that I just wasn’t sharing with her. I became so upset with Bill for introducing me and convincing me “It’s not a big deal” and blamed him for so long. But this was a decision I made - I could have said no, walked away, he only offered. So despite Bill still being on that path and us not talking at all anymore, I was still stuck with this habit. 

I remember panicking at times, thinking “What the fuck did I do? How did I get to this place? This isn’t me. Am I going to be able to escape from this? Can I do this on my own? How does this story end?”

From there, I did months of research to quit, recovery help, vitamins and supplements to assist and make it easier to stop to prevent the possibility of a relapse. I was so angry at Bill and never wanted to bring someone else into this world with me. I would do anything I could to tell people to avoid that devil’s powder. I feel that people may be able to enjoy low level opiates on a responsible basis, but I think that the ability to do that with dope is nearly impossible. 

I had my supplements, vitamins, knowledge of what I was against, and had successfully tapered down from the worst of the worst, to just Oxys. “Just Oxy” is kind of a joke to say cause it’s still a monster itself, but at least it wasn’t the dope that I know Bill was spending $100/day on, previously was selling to me and ripping me off and taking from my portion, whatever. I felt like I was taking steps in the right direction. 

Liz never knew any of this. Turns out, she had suspicions all along by how I acted, looked, occasional money issues, or her wondering why I was leaving the house sometimes. Most of that was due to my second life. I kept this all from her because I didn’t want to pull her in. Having social support was something I always wanted, but I know the stigma, judgement, embarrassment for asking for help, and everything else kept me from doing that. 

I convinced myself I was going to do this on my own. That I’d fix this, and move forward with Liz without ever looking back. I had gotten clean 3 times for drug tests, vacations, and other things, but ended up right back in it because I may not have wanted it to stop and endure the shit of withdrawals at all so that I could continue functioning, and so that I could be the functional person I needed to be for my job, relationships, and friends.

But that second life ended and became my main life. I was caught. Liz found a stash and was pissed, with every right to be. I had fabricated stories to cover things up, lied about things, and probably acted a bit weird or messed up at times. She felt crazy convincing herself that she was overthinking things and that there was nothing to worry about, but she obviously knew for a lot longer than I thought. I thought I was so sneaky, that quitting would be easy, but I was wrong.

Fast forward to today. Liz and I are on an indefinite break or broken up. Kind of blurry there. She wants the best for me, but also won’t let her be with me for feeling like I lied to her to an extreme amount about something huge for a very long time. I don’t deny or disagree with any of that. This past Saturday, I was two weeks clean. She gave me the chance to fix things and work through it all. I was going through my camping supplies to prep for a surprise trip for her birthday in an effort for me to do more for her, and came across some lost old scraps. You know what happens next.

I fell back in. I didn’t think about it. I felt accomplished in my two weeks, but should have just thrown it out rather than enjoying it. She caught me there, and that was the last straw. She called my brother, parents, and next thing I know, my life is being flipped upside down and I was being driven to Fort Wayne for my parents to basically take custody of me until I was fixed. I hate that things ended up this way, but have accepted that it was probably needed. Doing this all on my own would have been much harder than doing it with support. Since then, I’ve come clean with my friends and family. Everyone was fairly stunned, but some were kind of just finally getting a confirmation that there was something going on when they thought they saw something weird. Arthur was one of them. He has had this plague a cousin of his and has saw the damage it can do. Beyond that, I practically trained him in safe drug use in college. He isn’t an idiot. He saw it in my eyes. He didn’t call me out, but even if he did, I probably would have denied it at that point.

Liz has decided to work on herself and become more confident and independent. I think that is great for her. I am without doubt scared of the idea of not being able to reconcile and losing her, but these are the consequences. I’m luckily still talking to her and we are civil, but she has drawn a line that she can’t fully trust me right now, and that if we were to ever get back together - it would be a long path of proving myself to her that I have changed. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I feel at one of the lowest points of my life. Second half of my 20′s, and am living at home, crying daily, scared, and accepting I fucked a lot of shit up. I don’t know if I could have avoided this in any way beyond never doing it that first time. One time is enough to suck you in. 

I’m doing a lot to address this moving forwards. I’m identifying my vices, reviewing my coping mechanisms with stress, rewiring my brain so that I’m 100% honest always (whether that hurts me or not), letting my friends know of what has happened so that they can support me, push me, and watch me. I’ve removed contacts and cut ties with negative influences. And now I’m starting a blog to externalize any struggles I have. I will be inviting a small number of my friends to this to be able to see this as part of my open and honesty portion of change. 

Since I feel like I’m typing to myself, I’ll be putting it all out here. Cravings, feelings of weakness, failures, accomplishments, all of it. I invite everyone to comment and join me on this journey.

First post of many to come.