#i forgot that the subtitles on the websites are like… Bad

[viatrix-glow]

watched road to show for the first time

[mangi-is-struggling]

How i self-study

This is by no means a method of its own nor is it a guideline. This is simply what works for me and gets the brain juice boiling. It's been a lot of trial and error to get to a comfy place where I feel able to retain informations.

Audio!!! Most of the time, the language I've chosen is extremely auditory pleasing to me so it's a win/win situation : I get to listen to my target language w/o visual distractions and my brain soaks up the speech patterns, the flow and the overall expressiveness of the language. I love starting the day with a podcast while I make my coffee and get ready. Even if I only understand about a bazillionth of the whole thing.

In that same vein, any kind of audiovisual content. Movies, dramas, series, documentaries, News channel, ytb vlogs etc. I turn on the subtitles and try to figure out basic patterns. My latest game has been "Spot as many 是's, pronouns and 不' s as you can" when watching chinese movies. I never hesitate to pause the movie and go back a few seconds. It's literal hell for the people watching with me but I don't care. Furthermore, I get an insight on the different speech patterns (the news anchor does not speak the same way as the main character does in the sci-fi movie...). Audiovisual media does take up more energy to process so i usually save it for the evening, when I know i can use up the remainder of my brain power and go to sleep right after.

Learning-specific content. And by that I mean textbooks I bought, free online courses, websites and YouTube teachers, for the most part. I take notes on another notebook. I try and make my notes as simple as possible. I rephrase everything and try and make it as palatable as possible. I keep in mind that my notes should make at least a tiny bit of sense to someone who has never tried to learn my target language. I tweak the phrases around to make them really easy to understand, as i am not the best with grammar.

I stick vocabulary post-it's on my belongings. My bed has 2 post-it's. One has 침대 on it and the other has 床 [chuáng].

I'm not comfortable with the whole "keep a journal in your target language" spiel yet so i usually stick to parroting sounds i like, even if i don't understand what i'm saying. A while ago i learned how to say "my cat is small" in mandarin and i've been saying it out loud a lot since.

I must also be transparent with you guys : I am very bad at consistency and long term effort, so my progress is slow and i'm nowhere near fluent. I actually have no idea how good of a learning method this is.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to realize right after posting it i forgot about something very important but it's okay. I'll just edit the post.

Hope this helps !

See ya ★

[an-spideog]

this is a more general question that may have been asked before, but do you know of any resources or combination of that would help with learning in a similar way to duolingo? the easy access, repetition, and spoken word was extremely helpful with the beginnings of russian, italian, & irish for me but then they fucked everything up

Sorry for the delay on this one, I don't really have a good answer for you. In general there's a lack of high quality resources available for Irish. I made a post talking about why not to use duolingo and what you can use instead, but they're not really equivalents as much as other paths.

I'm not aware of any good apps which provide comprehensive teaching of Irish along with good pronunciation, but some of the stuff in that post may be helpful.

Oh this is gonna sound like such cheesy self promo but honestly I forgot I made this until someone reminded me of it today lmao. I made an anki flashcard deck for Irish, it features nearly 1000 of the most common words in Irish, if you like flashcards and anki you might find this helpful since it does have the repetition and the spoken word aspects (and unlike duolingo it has recordings of native speakers, not their bad TTS).

Anki is kind of annoying to use for some people, it's a bit confusing and has some setup time, but it's really powerful and can be really good for helping you get that initial vocabulary to move on to watching tv and reading books. (Also you can use it on mobile, the iOS app is expensive but the website works fine on phones).

For this deck I picked the words from a dataset of TV subtitles, so the words are actually common in everyday speech (I've seen a lot of Irish word frequency lists which just don't line up with speech), and it has recordings of each word along with definitions, example sentences and recordings of the example sentence. I also ordered the deck in such a way that the simplest example sentences are near the start and you should be able to understand the examples sentences (mostly) with only the words you've done up to that point.

The deck specifically uses Galway Irish, which I don't actually speak myself, but it's more common on the tv show Ros na Rún (and a lot of Irish TV in general), so it was easier to get clips of it.

There's a load more notes about how I made it on the deck page

[starberry-skies]

As someone whose friends haven't heard of his hyperfixations half the time,

SPEAK, MY SON

LMAO that post is abt typography and i have no idea how to communicate my thoughts on it. it's just. so cool. actually i'm gonna go through some fun facts even tho it's veryyyyy unlikely anyone would. idk gain smth from it but anyway !!!

ok so comic sans. we all know it,, probably the most infamous font out there. so one of the reasons it looks so bad was bc it was drawn with a computer mouse and not a tablet. you can see the wobbliness of the letters esp on the legs of the m and n, and at the top of the c:

so in the 90s/early 2000s, apple made its own version of comic sans called "chalkboard". this was actually drawn with a tablet, so it looks much better:

like look at that. it's night and day. still not a great font, but its at least tolerable.

ok so !! another font that u might be familiar with is futura !!

like the screenshot says, it's extremely geometric. Every letter is based off of a circle or a straight line. everything is so beautifully angular i love it sm. but it's kind of awkward to read bc this is a display font. ok if there is one (1) thing i want ppl to walk away from this post knowing is the difference between display and text fonts. futura's a bit of an in-between example, but it's generally best for display. a display font is exaggerated, bold, and eye-catching. like for shop signs, newspaper headers, and website titles. a text font is easy and pleasant to read at small sizes. some examples !!

this might be obvious to some, but i stilllll see this mistake all the time. even in big operations (cough avatar subtitles cough cough) people mistake a font for "looks good everywhere" when it's actually "looks good as a store sign". there isn't really one way to tell whether or not a font is for display, besides just... looking at it. shrink the font down, smaller than what it'll print as if you do print it. time how long it takes to read it against a basic font, like helvetica or arial. if it takes much more time to read whatever font you're testing, then yeah maybe not great. oh also pleaseeee use fontjoy.com to decide on a font set it's literally such a lifesaver.

ok there issss more but that's most of my fun facts w/o getting too technical ! ik typography is a bit of an unconventional hyfix but man it's so cool to me lol,, tysm for inviting me to infodump (even tho idk how coherent this was lmao ToT)

edit: wait i forgot to mention !!!! most of this info comes from linus boman on youtube plsssss check his channel out it's been feeding my graphic design spinterest for a month lmao

[hailsvvanronson]

I was annoyed at the attack on titan ending at first, but it was for different reasons than everyone else (i thought he teased a sequel), and after the full chapter came out and i read it again, I was basically okay with it.

Now, with the anime adaptation of the ending, I am MORE than okay with it.

Dunno why I'm trying so hard not to be a spoiler...satute of limitations is about to expire...but hey, it's an ending for cynics of which I am one.

MAPPA stuck the landing.

Now, DON'T TAKE ANYMORE SHOWS.

I don't know what anime I am watching until Steel Ball Run is greenlit. I DO kinda have to catch up on My Home Hero and SpyxFamily, but I got sidetracked by MONSTER.

I was looking through Netflix one day over the summer, and saw that they got fuckin' MONSTER.

I always said I was gonna watch that show eventually, even with it being so bloody long but I forgot about it. Come to find out, up to now, if I would have gone to try and watch it it would have been a pain in the ass. The home video release was CANCELLED IN THE MIDDLE. THEY NEVER FINISHED RELEASING THE DAMN DVDS/BLU-RAYS! Even after running the entire show dubbed in English on cable! It was in license limbo, and even now Netfkix DOESN'T HAVE THE ENGLISH DUB! (Which is allegedly very good) HOW IN THE FUCK?!

You can find the english dub on random websites, but whatever, I watched it subtitled on Netflix and I actually BINGED that fucker. I can't remember the last time an anime captivated my attention like this. It might really be Psycho Pass 1. . . . No....Jojo 4. I finished MONSTER in 2 weeks. 74 episode show.

It is the WIRE of anime.

(i had said True Detective, but that's Psycho Pass because everyone will tell you only the first season is good, but it's actually only the second season that's bad).

Not only that, the sadly recently departed Sakurai Atsushi of Buck-Tick could have totally played Kenzo Tenma (dammit I knew i forgot something that post the other day)

This show has probably ruined anime for me now, because i know they'll never make a show like that again. It's not otaku pandering enough (it's not otaku pandering at all). They couldn't even get a decent studio to do My Home Hero. They should have pitched that to Netflix, Netflix would have tried and got Production IG or somebody like that. It gets compared to Breaking Bad for fucksake. You can't go wrong, Netflix!

I think Monster was after I saw Psycho Pass Providence in the theater. That movie was pretty fucking good........but man......i fucked up....I saw the announcement. I was basically waiting for streaming or whatever. I didn't look into anything about it really. Also, I haven't rewatched season 3. What I'm saying is, somehow I completely missed the fact this movie takes place BEFORE SEASON 3 🤣😂😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

I know, like, what?

So all lf that combined made the ending a big a shock, and i kinda enjoyed it more because of that. 🤣😂🤣😂🤣

I guess I know what I'm watching next, season 3......which is now on Crunchyroll. Eventually they will do a dub since Amazon didn't 🤣😂.

(side note: I'm the guy who was always saying "why did they make Akane sound like Mila Kunis?" but I do tend to forget she's barely 21 when the show starts. 🤷🏿‍♂️)

Lastly, I loved Stone Ocean.

I hope David Studio get the fuck away from Netflix though, eh?

I think that's all I gotta say. I could have a ball dragging the FLCL sequels, but what is there to say? FLCL should not be a franchise not everything needs to be a franchise. Not even Psycho Pass (that's right, it could have just been one season LIKE EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US EXPECTED. Don't lie. That show is not otaku pandering enough, or they would have confirmed that stupid Akane/Shinya ship they keep teasing 😂🤣).

I guess I'm posting again now. Hi.

I am changing the username eventually.

[camycritics]

YOUNG ROYALS 2021

Before I start, I feel like I need to preface this with some context. It is Tuesday, 16:01, I am listening to Yot Club and wishing I hadn’t finished my juice so quickly. Last Friday I decided to finally break my stupid TV-series-watching order and indulge in Young Royals - a show I had heard quite a bit about. As a queer teen with two bisexual close friends, this year already I have been pulled into the Marauders fandom. That went well, so I’m not sure why I put Young Royals off for so long, but honestly? The timing was perfect.

This show was so good, I feel like my brain chemistry has been altered. I’ve known about Wilhelm and Simon for five days, and for five days, they have been occupying most of my brain activity. When they said.. “good mlm representation”... I didn’t know they meant good mlm representation. Coming from the point of view of someone watching Riverdale right now-- which I should have talked about earlier and I will definitely not be able to do season-by-season -- it is change, it is a breath of fresh air. Young Royals stands apart from most teen-focused shows at the moment by default, not only because it is centred around a gay relationship, but the biggest thing I noticed, watching from my Riverdale-infected headspace is that they seemed so real. Everyone did. Those were teens my age, and they had struggles, and they had bad skin and petty remarks and stupid decisions and drugs they didn’t know the name of and school and sisters. It was beautiful.

I don’t know much about the creator of the show, but from a quick scroll through her twitter I can tell that she is sunshine on a winter day. That matters- that is why this show is so good, and even though I would’ve bet money that Wilhelm was written by a woman, it was nice to confirm it. This much and I’ve not even started on the show - this is my preface. I adored the show. I laughed and I quietly screamed into my hands and I re-wound the show. I have seen many a first kiss on Riverdale, (and I apologise for continuing the comparison but this is what is relevant to me right now), but none of them have quite got me invested like watching Simon steal two (two!) brave kisses from Wilhelm in Episode 2.

The acting was beautiful. Omar Rudberg impressed me in the same way Jung Hoyeon did in Squid Game - I would never have guessed it was his first time acting. Simon was not, and I cannot stress this enough, just a love interest. It is fair to identify Wilhelm as the protagonist but Simon stands as a main character with or without Wilhelm, in the same way that August, Felice and Sara do. He has his own story, he is not an “emotional support poor” (I’ve read a few blogs on this website already), he is multi dimensional and interesting. He is so interesting. He is- and this will probably be clear- my favourite character. The girls who recommended this show to me are both Wilhelm stans, so I enjoy having something to debate about. (Debate? I cried for both of them, but you know what I mean.)

I’m no film student, but I can appreciate cinematography increasingly these days. I loved the close up shots, the focus on their imperfections. They were not air brushed, they were real. They felt real. (And this is a good side note-- I felt this way when watching Parasite too, but I at times forgot? that they weren’t speaking English. I was far too invested in what I was watching to think about the fact that what I was reading on the subtitles wasn’t what I was hearing. Again, I hope you understand me, it makes sense in my head >_<.) I loved the shots of their hands- I really loved the hands. There is something so intimate in the way that two people hold hands, and it tells a million stories. The kiss choreographing was beautiful. The shot of the boys lying on Wilhelm’s bed, Simon holding in laughs as Wilhelm called through the door to his bodyguard... that was one that stuck in my head.

I could go on forever and I’m really going to.. I am going to cut myself off. I will say more, at some point, I’m sure, but the other essays on this blog are nowhere near as long, so I will try to match up. I know season two is coming, and it is rare I have so much trust in a creative team, but I truly have nothing but excitement for the next season. I hope this show gets more attention, because it deserves that.

Oh, and I forgot-! Another shot I loved was watching Simon and Wille, twice, enjoy a moment together while August was actively fucking things up for them. It may have been more.. (?) But I remember most clearly the sex tape video being taken and then uploaded when Simon and Wille are together. It was such a strange feeling to watch that, the elation I felt from seeing the pair happy contrasted so cruelly with the horrible gut feeling as I watched what August was doing. Really nicely done. 10/10.

[demi-shoggoth]

COVID-19 Reading Log, pt 18

Man, this past month has been a heck of a year, hasn’t it? I’ve still been reading books, but my pace has ebbed and flowed, and I forgot to update this for a while. So here’s my thoughts on ten of the most recent books I’ve read.

91. The League of Regrettable Sidekicks by Jon Morris. I had no idea this book existed until I was doing image searches for this project for the other “League of Regrettable X” books. This one covers the sidekicks, minions and goons of comic history. Unlike the other books by Jon Morris, the spread is more even of Gold/Silver/other ages of comic books. After all, the 70s is when Jaxxon the green rabbit appeared in Star Wars, and the 80s had a shape-shifting penguin named Frobisher in the Doctor Who comics. It also feels like it’s a little looser about what makes a character “regrettable”. Some of the sidekicks in its pages, like Woozy Winks and Volstagg the Voluminous, are legit great characters.

92. Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were by Michael Page and Robert Ingpen. I wanted to like this book; I really did. For one thing, it was recommended to me by @listmaker-lastcity​, who I was working with on commissions. For another thing, it was fairly pricy used. Thirdly, to its merit, it is gorgeous. Michael Page, the illustrator, is credited first, and rightly so. But for an “encyclopedia”, it makes up a lot of stuff. It opens with a disclaimer that “the creators of this book have… unlocked their own fantasies”, which means that it invents Arthuriana and Greek myths wholeheartedly. Several of the entries do not exist outside this book, and others are so distorted that their actual folkloric origins have been clouded and obscured by people using this as a source. For material I’m not familiar with the primary sources of, like Gulliver’s Travels, I have no idea if it’s reflecting the source material accurately, or making things up whole cloth. As a fantasy, it’s intermittently fun; some rather nasty misogyny does sneak in and the book is wildly anti-science. As a reference work, it’s useless to the point of actively harmful.

93. Solutions and Other Problems by Allie Brosh. I was a huge fan of the “Hyperbole and a Half” blog back in the day, and knowing Allie Brosh’s history of mental health problems, I was worried when she seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. Her release of a second book was a pleasant surprise, but also showed that some worry was appropriate. This collection of essays, cartoons and heavily-cartooned essays is sadder than the first collection, as it was written during and after a series of family tragedies. It is still very funny in parts, however, and has an overall message of self-care and love that turned out to be extra relevant in the nightmare year that is 2020. It’s the only book for this project that I read in a single sitting. Highly recommended.

94. Mozart’s Starling by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. This book is half memoir, half biography. The composer Mozart owned a starling during some of his most productive years as a composer, and even wrote an elegy to it when it died. The author used this as a launching point to adopt her own starling, and to examine how this invasive species is seen in American birding culture. The writing is humanistic and charming, and very self-aware (the author worries that her starling is going to die, because that’s what always happens in “this animal changed my life” books). The message is one of respecting all other creatures and of valuing the lives of animals, which is not much of a surprise from the author’s other books (I covered The Urban Bestiary earlier in this project.

95. The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris. The subtitle says it all; this is a biography of Joseph Lister, focusing on his research into antisepsis and promotion of sterile technique in surgery. It takes ample digressions to talk about other major surgeons of the time, the state of hygiene and disease theory in Victorian England, France and the United States, as well as things like labor conditions and women’s rights. These bits and pieces are woven in successfully, so they feel like appropriate context setting. Fitzharris is empathetic despite the often grisly subject matter, but readers with a sensitive stomach and a low tolerance for gore might want to skip this one.

96. Twice the Thrills! Twice the Chills! by Bryan Senn. This is a big book, 400 pages in full sized paper. It is an overview of the horror/SF double feature, covering every movie released initially in that format between 1955 and 1974 in the United States. As such, it reviews more than 200 movies, with behind-the-scenes anecdotes, critical opinion and box office, and general coverage of trends and themes in genre cinema at the time. I enjoyed this book greatly, especially since it covered some movies I’d never even heard of. The timing is perfect, too, as I read this book just before @screamscenepodcast​ covered the first entries in it, Revenge of the Creature/Cult of the Cobra. My one complaint is that the author seems biased against Japanese films. He discredits the special effects and monster suits in kaiju movies compared to even movies like Attack of the Giant Leeches and The Killer Shrews, and complains about acting and scripts in Japanese films much more than he does for other dubbed films. He also consistently refers to Ishiro Honda as “Inoshiro Honda”, which is how his name was misspelled in the 60s. That level of disrespect for some of my favorite genre pictures is a constant low-level irritation in what is otherwise a fine resource.

97. Cursed Objects by J. W. Ocker. This is a fun catalog of objects said to be cursed, including the whys, supposed effects and current locations of these artifacts. The book is sorted into categories, like “cursed objects in museums”, “cursed furniture”, “technological cursed objects”. It takes a skeptical, folkloric look at the topic, being more interested in the stories than in any legit supernatural powers. It even talks about things that “should” be cursed because of their odd appearances or eerie provenances, but aren’t, like the Crystal Skull forgeries. The book is a pleasant and breezy read, and the author has a good sense of humor on the topic. He curses the book itself with an epigram against thieves, and buys a cursed dog statue on eBay that sat on his desk throughout the writing process.

98. Death in the Garden by Michael Brown. This book is wildly misnamed, being light on both the “garden” and the “death”. It’s supposedly a social history of poisonous plants, but is more interested in English herbals specifically. It refers to the authors by name extensively as if we should have all of these memorized, and the only place where the prose has any energy is in the biographical section for these herbalists. There’s very little information about the actual plants and their poisons. I would use the word “doddering” to describe the prose style, which is simultaneously rambling and boring. The photography is pretty, though.

99. Ripley’s Believe it Or Not! 1929-1930 by Robert Ripley. IDW puts out lovely volumes of vintage American comics, and this is no exception. Being a kid into weird facts and trivia, and an adult who is still into them, the Ripley franchise was a major part of my childhood. This is the first modern collection organized chronologically, covering the first two years the strip was in national syndication. The strips cover the typical Ripley mix of sports trivia, weird facts, word riddles and puzzles, misleading statements and the occasional outright lie. The book has a warning about the racial attitudes of the time, which is fair, but it’s not nearly as bad as I feared. Ripley’s habit of drawing from photographic references means that people in ethnic minorities look like real people. But the language is decidedly “of its time”, with slurs used to identify foreign ethnicities (particularly Asian ones). So be warned.

100. Unlucky Stiffs: New Tales of the Weirdly Departed by Cynthia Ceilan. I’m ordering material to pick up from my local library again, which is great! This book was actually recommended by the library website based on the morbid slant of some of the other books I was putting on hold. Unfortunately, this book sucks. It’s pitched as a “weird deaths” book, something like a more literary version of the Darwin Awards. But the deaths are often not all that bizarre, instead being typically sad accidents or murders. It just comes off as mean spirited and misanthropic. Not recommended.

[amisbro]

Let’s discuss:  UtaPri and “factions”

So this is something that I feel has been long overdue but I held off on it for the longest time (and no not just because I couldn’t figure out the issue with my dash on this website either) but I threw my hands up and went “Screw it...WE’RE DOING IT NOW!” With that let’s discuss UtaPri and the “factions”

So we can look at this subject any # of ways and we can use the Anime in a way (especially after Season 4 which people in the fandom can’t fucking let go of to the point I still gotta hear about it) OR We can discuss this in a way with how there is becoming factions where it feels like there are more and more people wanting to have HEAVENS in the game but there is a sharp adversary to this and that causes issues OR We can discuss how ,for a year and a half, there were people like me that just wanted to see the main story updated to get more songs added (and also because the fact that the game was legitimately blocking people from finishing tasks on the missions segment) Things like this are things that have been going on now since AT LEAST 2016 and ,in my opinion, has gotten WORSE once SL became a Global game.  I genuinely believe that Broccoli has unknowingly (or possibly knowingly) done things that would splinter the fanbase and KLab got thrown into the mess once Shining Live came out.  It’s gone from something that has been one big family to factions of people wanting one thing but being told to basically “Shut the fuck up” by the other group Let me give you an example Shining Live came out in 2017 in Japan and then Globally in 2018.  Now is the game called “Shining Live” yes but I think that was a big misstep by KLab and Broccoli because I knew in a way (and its bared out that I was right) that this was going to cause problems Why? I have felt that one of the best things to do with UtaPri was to continue the Music series in some way.  We had ended on the A-Sides for QN and STARISH for season songs and then the Group songs for them.  It made sense that ,when the next game came out, that we would have the continuation of that and NOT a complete reboot People forget that had there been a “Proper Music 4″ that we would have gone through the S3 B-Sides and then moved on to Season 4 and it would have more than likely started with the Duets and then have had the solos in the next Music game.  The point here is that they were going to have enough songs that were “publicly available” that “Broccoli’s Rule” wouldn’t have had to come into effect. Nonetheless we got Shining Live and for the first year + we had a lot of content for the people that liked to play the events and then still please those that really...probably knew better than to play the events so we just played the main story and chilled out.  Keep in mind though this was also before they instituted the “Points Shot” and the mission that maxed out at the # 50 so for a while it was a bit weird...but you understood it! Then October of 2018 happened and because of that the Collection event and the halt of “Main Story” content and I remember mentioning in the comments of one of the KLab Game Stations that I would have liked to see more “Main Story” content and that resulted in an argument with someone and that was my first real realization that there were going to start to become more “camps” like this in the future. The biggest problem is always this one with SL Again is the game called “Shining Live”?  Yes it is but that doesn’t mean you should get the right to exclude content from the game JUST BECAUSE its not from “Shining Productions”!  Remember kids:  “Shining Live” is a “Subtitle” of a game but “Uta no Prince-Sama” is the main part of the title...excluding one part of the series literally becomes a problem then! Now one could say “Well HEAVENS doesn’t have enough songs” And yet they get new songs released (and mentioned in tweets) and yet we can’t put those songs in SL...right! I think sometimes people forget that SL doesn’t exist in the universe of UtaPri like I think you do.  Like they could have literally said that HEAVENS was canonically a part of Shining Productions in SL and that would literally solve everything...now they DON’T so we go into this whole thing every time they tweet out something that involves song releases.  Like you all DO realize that there were 3 groups at Maji Love Kingdom right?  So therefore there were SIX songs performed outside of “Maji Love Kingdom” right?  I’m making sure you are aware of this because the way KLab has marketed this game (poorly in a way) is such that you genuinely forgot that HEAVENS IS a part of the UtaPri Universe! Here is another one Here in the States we had screenings of Maji Love Kingdom.  I went to the one in NJ and it was literally like walking into a morgue!  Now a big part of this is that Sentai fucked up royally and didn’t send out anything to theaters that this was to be treated more like a CONCERT than a MOVIE but they didn’t so what you ended up with was a lot of people not really singing along to the songs and it was literally so DEAD that I walked out before “Encore” finished! Now one would think that ,if you had a bad experience and you wanted to talk about it, people would be more sympathetic...problem is that didn’t happen! Here is what DID happen! Apparently there was this one cat that felt they needed to do PR for Sentai and anyone that genuinely complained about it on twitter were being told by this one individual (no I will not name them but I bet you they know who they are)  “Maybe your next experience will be better” Alright shut all the way the fuck up! The experience that I had (and some others apparently) LITERALLY SUCKED!  I get that we were in the minority but still...if there are people that had a bad time you don’t get to act any kind of way towards them...point blank period! The reality is that yes the camp of people that had a bad time was small...we got that but at the same time those people deserved to be heard and if you negate those people that’s a problem because how do theaters get to fix their issues then? But these are things I’m talking about.  We get to the point where the series here starts to get divisive because of different things.  HEAVENS not being in SL is a big one because...shouldn’t fans of the group be allowed to get cards of their faves too? The other big thing we can get into is the fact that it was recently announced that there are going to be an “Animated Concert Series” starting in 2022 and first is STARISH.  I think we all know (based on past performances) that they are no doubt going to give STARISH and QN this treatment and that’s fine...but you have to be lying to yourself if you think for any amount of time that Broccoli gives any fucks about HEAVENS...they don’t...they literally DO NOT CARE! If you say they do then answer me this question “Why didn’t HEAVENS get a stage event like QN and STARISH?” Or answer me this one “Why didn’t they get to perform their solos but STARISH did at 6th stage?” I mean...ANYONE with a clue knows why and its obvious.  When Agematsu tweeted out a photo from the Movie of course he tweeted it out specifically of STARISH but HE don’t get put on blast for his bias?  HE IS LITERALLY HARUKA’S PROXY FOR FUCK SAKES!! Let me assure you all of something:  You know damn well that a lot of you really hate the fuck out of HEAVENS because if you didn’t then for FOUR YEARS (soon to be 5) you all wouldn’t have harped JUST on what happened to Otoya...nah you’d have given a fuck about Eiichi but we get it cos you all hate his guts right? Y’all love to still post your Eiichi hate and I still get to see it SOMEHOW but don’t worry cos I got a spot on the bench for all of ya That is all I needed to say here...talk to all you lovely people again soon

[purplesurveys]

747

Have you ever worn those Drunk Goggles? Uh no. I’ve never heard of those either. Which decade before the 90s had the best makeup trends? I’ve never really paid attention to makeup. I do love how actresses looked like in the 40s and 50s though, if that counts. Can you agree to disagree, or usually get upset over conflicting views? I only get upset if someone’s views implies impinging on basic human rights, like saying that women can’t get abortions or if drug addicts deserve to die. Otherwise you do you dude. Does it bug you when long socks are constantly falling down? Yeaaah I had a pair of loose socks in high school that would constantly fall down whenever I walked and I hated them. I always forgot to stop wearing them completely. Rodeos -- entertaining, or cruel? I can honestly tell you that I don’t know what goes on in one of them. I’m not even sure if rodeo refers to a sport, a physical area, or an event.

Why can't politicians debate politely? Because most of them aren’t even supposed to be fucking politicians, if you’re also from where I live. Who is the best female rocker? Why? Joan Jett, partly because she’s one of the very few female rockstars I know but also because I know she’s the best one out of all the ones I know of. I love her work both for The Runaways and the Blackhearts. Can you even taste a difference between Cheez Its and Cheez Nips? I’ve only had Cheez Its. What about between Pepsi and Coke or Sprite and 7Up? No, all soda tastes nasty to me. Do you care what kind of toilet paper you use? Not really. What color of roses do you find the prettiest? Gonna go the basic route and say red. It just feels the most romantic. Which celebrity has the cutest butt? I don’t go looking at their butts and thinking which one is the cutest D: Do you still have any decent arcades nearby? Yeah we have an arcade chain called Timezone and all of the ones I’ve been to are really fun and entertaining. Gab and I will sometimes go to one after school for some stress relief. After a holiday, do you go to the store to get candy on sale? No. That doesn’t happen here and eh, I don’t really like candy. Did Marilyn Monroe look better before or after cosmetic surgery? I didn’t even know she had surgery, but I’ve always thought she was attractive. Bullfighters who get gored kind of had it coming, right? Yes. I’ve never really felt bad for them even if I see them being tossed around like fucking paper. Don’t they agitate the bulls on purpose? I get stressed out just thinking about it. If you make surveys, do you care what people rate them? Have you ever accidentally found porn when looking for something else? Maybe once or twice in the past, but it was unremarkable enough for me not to remember them until today lol. Ever run into those 'celebrity lookalike porn' blogs? No? If you're not religious, is the Bible basically just an old collection of short stories? Not all are short stories. Some are psalms, songs, prophecies, etc. But they are short stories, psalms, songs, and prophecies that I don’t believe in. Do you think religious leaders just like to manipulate people? Yes. At least the ones I come across do. The amazing priest from today’s mass livestream was bitching in his homily about why liquor stores continue to be open but masses couldn’t be held. Uh genius, maybe it’s because masses are public gatherings, and because you never see a hundred people at a time gathered in a liquor store? Couldn’t resist an eyeroll when I heard it. Why do so many fans with OTP's insist that their ship is real? Oh my god OTP, I haven’t heard that term since 2013... sometimes they just like the idea of their ship being together forever and ever and it makes them happy so whatever, let them fangirl/boy. This was me with AJPunk many years ago hahaha; we were just lucky enough to witness them become canon in real life. Even when the writers (or real people that they ship) tell them it isn't? ^ Same reason. Some people are happy from simply fantasizing their OTPs. It should be ok as long as it doesn’t strain the relationship between the shipped people, which is exactly what happened to Louis and Harry of 1D lol. Do you draw fanart of anything? No. Do annoying city kids ever loiter outside your library and harass people? No? That’s so specific lmao. Do you like to hang out at your local library? We don’t have local libraries because our government has never prioritized public spaces such as those, and parks. We only have malls. On that subject, do you like the smell of books? New ones, yeah. I can’t stand the smell of much older books. What's on your Reading List, so-to-speak, right now? Read any great non-fiction books lately? No. But thanks for reminding me I downloaded a bunch of wrestling autobiographies last year that I completely forgot about until this moment. Maybe I’ll start on one of those one of these days. What do you like on your burger? Caramelized onions, special sauces, brioche buns, sometimes jalapeños, sometimes bacon. What do you NOT like on your burger? Tomatoes and lettuce. Do you like 'loose meat' sandwiches? I’ve never heard of those. Have you ever heard of the restaurant Maid Rite? Never have. What is the best thing to put in a grilled cheese (other than cheese)? I don’t really have grilled cheese sandwiches. Homemade tomato soup, or just out of a can? Hate tomato soup. Favorite thing to see in museums? Artifacts. I love all museums, but I enjoy and appreciate history museums more than any other kind. Have you ever seen an unwrapped mummy in person? I haven’t. What things have people shamed you for? Liking wrestling, mostly. I was also shamed for my name and the way I looked (I had really short hair) as a kid, which is why I struggled to like my name until I got to college which was the first time people didn’t make a fuss about my name and even told me how much they like it. Do you always reply to private messages? (On any website) Not all. If I don’t recognize who sent it, I wouldn’t bother to reply. What device do you seem to always be buying batteries for? We don’t really go out to buy batteries anymore. Most of our gadgets are rechargeable. What's worse -- snow, or all the mud after it melts? Can’t relate. Are there any 'adult stores' in your area? I don’t think so. If there are, they’re hidden enough that I don’t know about them. Have you been inside of them/shopped there before? Yeah we went to one in Metrowalk. It was fun but I mostly felt uncomfortable hahaha. Do you watch The Masked Singer? Any theories? No. Favorite Alfred Hitchcock film? Haven’t watched any. I tried watching Vertigo once but if I remember correctly, I stopped because my copy didn’t have subtitles and I couldn’t follow the plot lol. Do you like Funko Pop figurines? Sure. I’m much less enthusiastic about them now for sure, but back in high school I used to want to start collecting them so bad. If so, do you have any? Which ones would you like to have? No but I’ve bought one as a gift once. I got Gabie the Funko figurine of Dana Scully from The X-Files for Christmas 2015. Which ones do you think they should make (but haven't yet)? I dunno if they’ve made ones for them but the cast of Queer Eye should definitely get their own.

[tessatechaitea]

Justice League #34

If Doom wins then how come this issue isn't subtitled "Doom Risen"?

Ugh. How long has this Doom event been fucking going on?! My advice to Snyder: next time, make Lex Luthor smarter so his plan comes to fruition quicker! Some of the Justice League are in the past hiding in Atlantis with the Justice Society as a captured Poseidon tries to destroy it. They need Vandal Savage's help to get the totality to the future so John Stewart convinces him by yelling, "Oorah!" Hourman and Alan Scott jizz their jeans over his masculinity and decide that maybe a negro member of the Justice Society wouldn't be such a bad thing. You might think I'm letting my cynical view of the world reinterpret the scene in a fairly unforgiving way but I assure you it doesn't come across much better than that. I wonder how they'd feel if John Stewart had convinced Vandal to help them using architecture metaphors?

Did I accidentally pick up the extra-gay version of this month's Justice League?

I think I accidentally stumbled into a new way for DC to make money. Forget variant covers and foil card insert. Why don't they put out extra-gay issues?! They could call one version the "Extra-Straight" version and the other version the "Extra-Gay" just so we don't get into the weeds arguing about why one is called the "Normal Issue." Although I think if two comic books existed that were slight variations of each other and one was the "Extra-Straight" version and one was the "Extra-Gay" version, it would totally be more gay to buy the "Extra-Straight" version. It sounds like that one is going to be full of shirtless men wrestling in totally non-boner inducing ways that are actually super boner inducing. If DC won't take my super great moneymaking idea that will wind up selling a billion issues of Harley and Poison Ivy #1 (Extra-Gay version) then maybe I can trademark the idea of "Extra-Straight" comic books and sue all the Comicsgaters producing comic books. Do Comicsgate comic books have copy on the covers in huge fonts that say things like "No Gay Characters!" and "If a Character is Black, It's Totally Plot Related!" and "This Won't Pass the Bechdel Test. AT ALL!"? I think I'm making Comicsgate comic books sound more interesting than they really are! I bet most of them are boring super hero punch ups where characters occasionally reference Pepe the Frog and fly through the air in a pose like they're heiling Hitler. Back to the plot, is Barry Allen really interested in wearing his hair long? Why am I suddenly finding him interesting? I almost wrote "more interesting" but, you know, it's Barry Allen. The most interesting thing he ever did was appearing out of nowhere during Crisis on Infinite Earths and disintegrating. Unless Barry was actually asking John if John thought he could rip Vandal's hair off of his head. Although that interpretation makes Barry more interesting as well. What I'm saying is this is the most interesting panel Barry Allen has ever been a part of. Meanwhile in the future (if that makes any sense at all), Kamandi has gathered up heroes from various futures to RRHAAAOOOR! I'm told by editorial that "RRHAAAOOOR" means "kick some ass" in panther. How come it's usually okay to swear in a foreign language in an all ages comic book?

One of the "heroes" he brings is Lobo. So Brainiac is fucked.

An easy way to tell if a comic book fan is a psychopath is to gauge how angry they get at two things I love to write (largely for that reaction): Deathstroke is a pedophile and Lobo is the most powerful and most fuckable and greatest character to ever come out of DC. Along with websites that track known pedophiles in your neighborhood, I think we should also have a database of people who get irate at the idea that Deathstroke is a pedophile. They go fucking crazy defending a fictional character's reputation over something not worth defending! I might agree they have a point that using the term "pedophile" is misleading at best. He's more of a statutory rapist! But even that gets their Quixotic gears turning. Yes, I'm comparing myself to a majestic windmill. The Lobo thing doesn't get people so incensed but it does bring out a lot of actually nerds who don't understand how much fun I'm having with my hyperbolic love of such a one trick character. My favorite thing about Lobo is that he looks cool in a way that doesn't look cool at all. How did they do that?! He's a hot clown! He's a MILF: mechanic I'd like to fuck! He's so over-the-top that I can't understand people who try to take him seriously. He's the greatest joke DC has ever played on their readers and I love him unironically. Also, you know Lobo leaves you satisfied after he fucks you. And I don't think it matters if you're female or male or space dolphin. He's gonna give it to you fucking good.

Twelve year old me would totally jerk off to this picture.

The pieces of the Totality are secured and all the Starmen throughout time are linked together psychically. It's their last chance! Perpetua is about to be defeated! I will ignore the cover and pretend that everything is going to work out and that Hawkgirl isn't going to fuck it all up with her desire to bash Luthor in the back of the head with her mace. Hopefully J'onn J'onzz will finally assert his will and get her back on track. Or else the multiverse is doomed! You know. Like Luthor has been trying to explain for forty-five issues. Welp. Kendra fucked it all up. Perpetua is risen. All hail Doom. Justice League #34 Final Thoughts: Okay, fine. The big plan failed and Doom won and Perpetua can now manipulate the multiverse however she wants. But there's one thing she forgot to do before declaring victory: she didn't kill Batman. What a fucking amateur move! The first villain to actually begin by killing Batman will be the first villain to completely take over everything. I guess that's why The Joker is the smartest villain in the DC Universe. He's doing the real work.

[4k3minsblog]

https://youtu.be/EC-4bMHdKW8 These videos are shot during a short camping trip near Saint Malo, to find out exactly where, search Google Earth for “chevrets beach”. I went shooting with the drone at dawn, during the day and at night. And really, one morning the weather was bad, the pictures you see in the second chapter, the next day it was fine but I forgot to charge the drone batteries and on the last day I didn't wake up to time! Why did you choose the subject of orgasm? To tell the truth, at the start, I saw more of a “camping” episode with our setbacks in assembling the tent and all that stuff. Then, I found the subject a little empty. And the idea of ​​ogasm jumped into my mind. Not long ago I also discovered a wonderful website, https://www.poemhunter.com/, where strangers post their poems, like us, here or elsewhere post our videos. I found two poems there that I included in the videos. So, ultimately, humor, but also sensitivity. Still doing better and more than overdosing on bullshit. And a subject, finally little approached because probably taboo, but so important, finally. The 4K3mins links are as follows: https://vimeo.com/4k3mins MIKE ME, your favorite VLOGGER HERE, https://www.youtube.com/c/4K3mins (in English, subtitles Spanish and French) CONNECT with 4K3mins? https://www.facebook.com/4k3mins/ Instagram, PICs and more https://www.instagram.com/4k3mins/ Telegram, the NEWS, https://t.me/fourkeysthreeminutes Tumblr, the BLOG, https://4k3minsblog.tumblr.com/ LIVE? https://www.twitch.tv/4k3mins Patreon, why you have to DONATE here, https://www.patreon.com/4k3mins https://www.instagram.com/p/CUV5cHYtuwa/?utm_medium=tumblr

[kkaebsongstudies]

Hi! I was wondering if you could give some tips on learning korean? I have learnt the alphabet but i don't really know how to continue now... Do you have any tips for this? (I know you say you're a beginner but let's be real you know more than i do) Thank you!

 Hi anon~! Thank  you for your question!

I assume there are more people who have this question, so this will be a long post. Please do keep in mind that I am not an expert in learning languages or Korean for that matter, and I learn languages as a hobby so these will just be my personal tips and recommentations!

Where to start?

So as you mentioned you already taught yourself Hangul, the Korean alphabet. To those just starting out I would recommend starting with Hangul as you did, because many have said it before me, but I will say it again: learning Korean through romanized text only is very difficult. You will sabotage your own progress by doing this, because romanization of Korean is very variable and confusing at times. Please take a couple of hours in your first week to fully master reading and writing the script before you continue learning. It will help you a lot!!

Together with this you’ll want to work on pronunciation. Don’t worry or feel bad when it doesn’t sound well the first few times. Just keep trying. I recommend listening (see a little further down for some resources): pausing after sentences and repeating them. Imitation after all is one of the most important ways in which a human learns!

When it comes to theory, I think it’s best to follow online courses or buy textbooks that fit to your way of learning. You can also learn from separate resources but generally books/websites have a set order in which you learn things - and these orders are there because you need to know certain things before you can understand other things, so I recommend you just follow a series of lessons.

 Online Theory Resources

I personally use the website howtostudykorean.com. It is completely free (except for the PDF files and exercise books, which go for a couple dollars a piece - which is still cheap AF tbh) and I really like the way and extend in which concepts are explained. The concepts are explained in such a way that you always understand WHY a piece of grammar works in the way it does, which I think is one of its strong points. I strongly recommend this website for learning Korean and I personally feel like this site as pretty much everything you need to get a good theoretical grasp. It starts on complete beginner level and extends out to hanja lessons even, so 10/10 points to them.

I have also tried Talk To Me In Korean (TTMIK) which seems to be really popular amongst most Korean learners but personally, I think the concepts aren’t explained very thoroughly and the way they explain the material makes me feel like a small child. BUT I am really positive about their YouTube channel so make sure to check that out!

Talking about YouTube, there are loads of interesting channels that can help you out! Some of my personal favorites are the TTMIK channel and the ever-sweet and funny Korean Unnie!

I think these are the most popular websites for learning Korean and I am about 99,99% sure that you won't need any textbooks if you use these, really.

Tumblr is also a really nice source of vocabulary lists andpeer-teached grammar lessons, and there is also a nice amount ofcultural lessons if you search good enough. Do pay attention though,because these types of materials are more likely to contain mistakesor typos. Besides that Tumblr is a really nice community to come intocontact with lots of other (Korean) language learners!

So. Besides getting your share of theory you will need practice. Especially if you don't live amongst Koreans (which I assume you don't) you will need to fill that up.  How do we do that?

Listening

For practicing listening there are a couple things you can do.

Listen to Korean radio and/or K-pop

Korean radio is a good source of naturally occuring speech. Make sure you put on a station that has a DJ that talks (some stations just play music). You get commentary, interviews, conversations and as a bonus you get to listen to Korean music.

Korean listening exercises

You can find plenty of listening exercises on YouTube. Maybe give these a try:

- Korean Class 101

- TTMIK Listening in Slow Korean series

- TTMIK IYAGI - Natural Conversations in 100% Korean

Korean videos/TV/dramas

The internet offers access to loads of Korean video material. You can check out Korean TV programs (Running Man is very popular) or dramas (try Viki.com). Another way I like to incorporate listening practice into my learning is by watching Korean youtubers. The more popular channels are likely to have both English and Korean subs so that might help you out.

Speaking

The best way to learn to speak Korean naturally, fast is of course to talk to Korean speakers. Finding someone to chat with if you have no Korean friends can be somewhat of a challenge. My university organizes monthly 'language cafe's' that bring together students  who are learning another language. Try searching for something similar in your own neighborhood. If you really can come into contact with native speakers, I recommend trying apps such as HelloTalk. I personally really like this app and have already earned a new friends because of it. It allows users to come into contact with others who are learning another language, and are willing to teach their own language to others. It is chat based but if you want to, you can also send voice messages or call.

Reading 

As someone who doesn't have English as a first language, I canconfirm that reading is one of the best ways to gain proficiency in alanguage. It provides you with lots of vocabulary and makes youfamiliar with sentence structure, grammatical rules and more. Trystarting with simple texts such as children's books and slowly try towork your way up to news articles, short texts and ultimately actual(simple) books. A simple google search quiry will get you to loads ofKorean news pages and  downloadable kids' books.

Other tools I use

Website: Naver English Dictionary

Basically the holy grail for Korean language learners. Gives you excellent detailed definitions and translations for both korean-english and english-korean. It also provides you with tons of example sentences, common word combinations, and my personal favorite: V-LIVE subtitles that have the word you searched in them. This function is AMAZING because you get to see how a certain word is being used in real, actual conversations. You can even click a link to go to the original video so you can hear the pronunciation and the context (conversation) in which it was used. Actual gold.

App: Rieul Korean (Android)

My go-to dictionary app. Has a link to four different online dictionaries (DAUM English, Naver English, DAUM Korean and Naver Korean), a vocab lookup section with hanja testing function, a conjugation section, pronunciation section, numbers section and a section on Korean idioms.

App: K'way and Grammar Haja (Android)

Both apps that explain grammar theory. Not recommended for learning but very handy to have as a reference.

App: TOPIK ONE (android)

Lets you take a fake version of the TOPIK I exam. Gives simple feedback. Very handy to keep track of your progress and to practice for the TOPIK exam if you plan to take that.

App: 라디오 한국 FM (Radio Hanguk) (android)

Just a very simple app with a list of Korean radio stations. I like listening to NCT Night Night on SBS Power FM!

These printable handwriting sheets - for giving your handwriting a fancy boost

Tips & Tricks

I like to set devices and applications to Korean to get some more exposure to the language. You can set sites like Google to Korean. The nice thing about this is that you learn new words that are used mostly online such as “닫기” (close) and “구독” (subscribe).

Try keeping a language journal. It is a fun way to bring your knowledge in to practice. I am actually making a post on that right now so keep an eye on my blog if you want to read it!

Get a study buddy. Nothing motivates better than a healthy dose of mutual support and a slight dose of pressure, hehe.

Study regularly, daily if you can. Even if it’s just half an hour a day, try to keep your study sessions consistant. Adapt the amount of time you put into the language based on your schedule and the goals you want to achieve. Want to keep up a decent conversation within a year? Plan on at least 8 hours a week.

Posts by others

List of free Korean resources by @onestopkorean

Nice lil’ list of resources by @elkstudies

I probably forgot to mention a TON of stuff but I hope this will help you on your way~! Lots of success and happy studying! 열심히 공부 하자!

[just-come-baek]

Falling Playbook 1

Subtitle: Sealing the Deal

Pairings: Jeon Jungkook x Reader (Seol)

Themes: smut | college!au | friends with benefits!au

Word count: 11.3k

Summary: After a night spent together, Jungkook wants to be friends with benefits with me.

Masterlist | 01 | 02 | ...

“You should have some fun; you just sit at home and watch the TV series.” My friend, Hoseok, spoke, as he nudged my shoulder. “You’re in goddamn college; when was the last party you’ve attended to, huh?”

“Last weekend,” I replied quickly. “There were music and booze; I had such a great time.” I retorted, and folded my arms across my chest. I wasn’t necessarily fond of huge club parties, but I liked hanging out with my friends at somebody’s place or in a pub in a friendly atmosphere. “We actually emptied a whole bottle of vodka by just the two of us.”

“Still,” Hoseok carried on, and I just rolled my eyes, “you really should go with me to that party. Everybody is gonna be there. It’s the event of the month! It’s the international women’s day! Besides, you look like you’re in a need of hookup.”

I sighed, slowly giving into that idea of his. Even though I didn’t want to admit it, it’d been a lot of time since the last time I had sex. One night stands had been never my thing, and relationships hadn’t been, either. Right now, I’d rather find myself a friend who I could fulfill all desires with, and at this point, a hookup seemed like a good start.

“I’m being serious here. You either attend that party with me, or I’m signing you up on Tinder. Your call,” he challenged, and I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if he really meant his words. Knowing Hoseok, he’d let me go if I kept rejecting his offer. For me, both solutions to my ‘problem’ were equally terrible. I despised the dull and monotonic beat of the club music which blasted through the speakers for the entire night, which you could only dance to when batshit drunk. Finding a date or a hookup online through a mobile app didn’t seem right, either. Call me old-fashioned, but I had always preferred meeting people in person.

“Why are you my friend again?” I asked, as I really didn’t want to choose. However, the real question was how the hell Hoseok obtained the authority to make such important decisions regarding my schedule? He was my friend, and he had no right to boss me around like that. He had always been a little bit persuasive, but right now, it was getting out of hand. I’d only go to that party if I wanted, and I didn’t. Wild horses wouldn’t drag me there. Perhaps, it was about time I should try to reason with him and prove him the world didn’t revolve around him and many meaningless lewd hookups.

“Which one is it?” Hoseok asked again, completely ignoring my previous statement, and I could only roll my eyes at him. This guy was incredible! “You have to live, get out of your comfort zone, get laid–whatever you call it!”

“Clubs are not my style.” I announced as if he didn’t know that already. I always repeated it, yet his simple mind didn’t seem to ever catch that. Sighing, I looked at him. He was smiling at me, as if he was hoping for me to agree to this idiotic escapade. I really wanted to turn him down, I really did. Unfortunately, no matter how strong-willed I thought I was, I’d never be able to reject his wide and gleeful smile. “Ugh, fine. I’ll go, but I’m coming back home if I don’t like it. Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

***

The party was held the next day. It was definitely too soon. I didn’t have any time to mentally prepare myself for it. Hoseok made sure I didn’t chicken out, either.

Hoseok came to my apartment about two hours prior to the party. We agreed he’d help me find the best outfit and drink a glass of wine or two before the event just to get in the mood and, in my case, loosen up a bit.

“I didn’t know you had so many dresses in your closet. Why aren’t you wearing them?” Hoseok asked, as he threw a few dresses on the chair beside him. “These are sexy! You really should put them on more often.” He added, as he scrutinized his eyes, trying to picture me dressed in the skimpy piece of clothing he was holding in his hands.

“I’d love to, but in case you didn’t notice, it’s still winter.” I answered him, as I took a gulp of my rosé. Although it was March, and the weather was rather nice, I hoped he’d buy my excuse. “Besides, I hate the attention. Especially when I receive it only from whom I have zero interest in.” I added matter-of-factly, focusing my eyes on the computer’s screen.

“This piece of art will make everyone turn their heads toward you. I guarantee you that.” Hoseok spoke, throwing a skimpy dress at my head. I had a hunch he would choose this one. It was short and tight, emphasizing every single curve of my body. Moreover, its flowery pattern made me look more chic than slutty; and subtle cleavage was leaving enough space for imagination.

“And that’s the exact opposite of what I want,” I retorted, and tossed the dress on the bed beside me, as I focused on the website I was browsing. “Don’t get me wrong, but I don’t really fancy strangers rubbing their dicks against my ass to get my attention in the middle of the dance floor. That’s disgusting, and it’s the preeminent reason why I hate clubbing so much. Even if I tell them to fuck off, another one will approach me.” I groaned in hope he understood me.

Hoseok was speechless. He must’ve had nothing to say to prove me wrong. God, how much I loved being right. Satisfaction filled me, and I grinned, taking another sip of the wine.

“What about we buy another bottle of this, and stay at home, huh?” I proposed, but Hoseok wasn’t really enthusiastic about my idea. He must’ve really looked forward to going to that party; I almost forgot he was down to that party to get laid, too. He wasn’t dating anyone at the moment, so he must’ve seen this party as his opportunity to find someone to ease his sexual frustration with. He obviously wouldn’t be getting anything from me, so maybe I could’ve given this idea the second thoughts. It could be fun; I could be his wingman of some sort.

“Come on, don’t be like this.” Hoseok whined, as he approached me with a pout upon his face. “I rarely ask you to do things for me. Just go, it’s gonna be fun, and if it’s really going to be that terrible, I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

“Of course it’s gonna be terrible! It’s not my first, and thanks to you, definitely not last.” I started, trying not to look at his now bright and gleeful face. At this point, I couldn’t really turn him down. He was a human being with needs, and I couldn’t bail out on him, no matter how tempting it was. He was my friend, and I’d go to this awful party to make him feel a little better. It’d put me under some discomfort, but with some alcohol in my system, I’d endure it. Or at least, it’s what I’m thinking right now due to the wine I’ve already drunk. “Fine, I’ll go. I’ve already promised that, haven’t I?”

“Cool,” Hoseok spoke, and smiled brightly at me, obviously overjoyed by the fact I was actually going to that stupid party. “Now get dressed, I don’t want to be late.”

I sighed, and rolled my eyes before I sat up, grabbed the dress, and headed to the bathroom.

It took me slightly over thirty minutes to get dressed, do my hair, pick accessories and put the make-up on. By the time I was finished, Hoseok was on his phone, chatting with his friends. I knew them, and we got along, but I only hung out with them when Hoseok was around. The same applied to my friends and Hoseok; they had never met up when I was absent.

When Hoseok noticed my presence, he stared at me from head to toe. I looked definitely better than normally, since I didn’t doll myself up every day, and Hoseok must’ve really been impressed. He didn’t say anything until I cleared my throat, wanting to get a comment from him. Knowing Hoseok, he wouldn’t let me go out unless my outfit was approved by him.

“I should definitely change my major; fashion is running in my veins.” Hoseok commented, as if I was attractive only because of his input. “You look fabulous,” he started, waving his hands a lot, trying to express himself better. “We still have some time left, and no more wine. Do you want to hit the bar before we go to the club?”

“God, yes,” I spoke with relief. There was definitely too little alcohol in my system to endure the party. I didn’t want to be a wet blanket and ruined Hoseok all the fun. Attending the party with him was the least I could do.

***

When we arrived, some people were already partying; even the ones in the queue didn't seem to mind the chilly wind outside, as they tapped their feet in the silent rhythm of the music, and smoked cigarettes.

As expected, they also had hit a bar before; nowadays people my age wouldn't be able to hold a decent conversation with an opposite sex without a drink or two; sadly, myself included. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as everyone tends to be more honest when spiced up with some booze. It was fair, actually; there was a chance that men and women, for once, were on the same page; seeking for an easy way to release their sexual needs.

Hoseok and I were standing in the line. I was sighing, staring at my shoes, while he was looking around, trying to find some friends who would probably help us nonchalantly cut in the line. Although I was fine with waiting for our turn, Hoseok seemed really impatient; he was tapping his foot and looking at his wrist watch every thirty seconds.

"Calm down, we'll eventually get in there." I chipped in, sending Hoseok a smile. It was fun to see him all eager for whatever he was going to do once we were inside. It had to be stopped, though. The girls would interpret his impatience as desperation, and only a psycho would be turned on by that. I had to cool him down if he wanted to pick up somebody to hook up with.

"Jin texted me that he and Namjoon are already inside." Hoseok said matter-of-factly before he hid his phone back into the pocket.

"So...?" I asked dully, raising my eyebrow at him. "We're the cool kids, and cool kids always come fashionably late." I added, nudging his shoulder.

"I guess you're right." Hoseok shrugged, and smiled at me sheepishly. "Shall we go through the rules?" He proposed, and I couldn't believe he just said that. I wasn't a baby, and it wasn't my first time partying with him. I knew the procedure, I didn't have to be reminded of it every single time we went out. Was he serious? Hoseok was my friend, and he truly cared about me, but I used to think I had proven myself to be responsible.

"You're ridiculous." I commented, and shook my head, hoping I misheard him. He had made me recite the rules so many times, I'd be able to list them even when woken up in the middle of a night. "I really don't understand how come we're friends." I carried on, but Hoseok continued giving me the look. I knew he wouldn't let the topic slide until I cooperated. "Ugh," I groaned, and licked my lips, hoping no one was going to overhear me. "Always keep an eye on your drink. Never leave the club without informing your friends about it. Always use protection. Never do drugs. Hoseok, for fuck's sake, was it really necessary?" I yelled at him, the embarrassment showing upon my cheeks.

"Absolutely!" He answered quickly, as he placed his hand on the small of my back, as the line finally moved a little.

We showed our student ID cards to the doormen, and after a few seconds he returned them to us, and stepped aside, granting the entrance.

As fast as it was possible, I took off my coat and headed to the cloakroom, Hoseok following just behind me.

"Namjoon says they're waiting for us by the bar." He mused, and with a smile lead me to their meeting point.

"Good, another drink is definitely going to be useful." I retorted, observing my surroundings.

The club was packed with people. A lot of girls created smaller groups where they sipped on their drinks, probably gossiping about other women who had decided to dress a bit more slutty than they thought it was adequate. I was guilty, too. I immediately judged the girl whose shirt was so short, everybody could see her thong when she straddled a man in the corner. I understood the lust, but they could've at least some decency to go somewhere private. Men, on the other hand, if they already didn't have their eyes set on a particular girl, occupied the bar nonchalantly lurking for their prey.

Hoseok quickly found Namjoon and Jin. Squeezing between dancing people, we reached the bar, and I sat on the stool which they had managed to reserve. Right now, I was the only girl in the group, and it only seemed right. Unlike the feminism activists who were pretty damn annoying these days, I had never minded having some privileges.

"Where the fuck have you been? We were waiting for like thirty minutes already!" Namjoon screamed, since otherwise we wouldn't be able to hear him. The music was awful and way too loud for my own liking, but since they kept me company so far, I hoped I'd focus on the conversation instead of the monotonous beats.

"Blame her," Hoseok pointed at me, "she was taking too long when dressing up!" Hoseok yelled into Namjoon's ear, the both of them staring at me.

"In that case, I don't really mind! She looks even prettier than usual." Jin shouted, and smiled at me.

I leaned in a little and thanked him. People rarely complimented my looks, and it was really nice to hear it from time to time. Besides, if I interpreted Jin's words correctly, I was always pretty, but today I outdid myself. Moreover, such words coming out of someone as beautiful as Jin himself was incredibly rewarding.

"We should order something." I suggested, and reached for the menu, staring at over-priced drinks. Hoseok looked over my shoulder, but I knew he was going to go with beer. The drinks were always diluted, and consisted of way too much sugar. Not to mention the three fourth of the drink being just ice. No matter how ridiculous it sounded, he knew he'd get wasted sooner if he remained faithful to his beloved beer.

"This round is on me." Jin hollered just when I was about to pull out my money.

Normally, I'd feel bad about it, well... maybe 'indebted' was the proper word, but since I knew such an expanse wouldn't be a bothersome for him, I agreed. I wasn't going to use his generosity, though. He was nice, and one drink was enough.

As I predicted, Hoseok went with beer, and I ordered Mojito, while Jin and Namjoon both opted for whisky with coke.

When our drinks arrived, we sipped on them, and chatted. Actually, they did most of the talking. They were gossiping about people I didn't know, so I was just drinking my alcohol, nodding my head from time to time. I didn't really pay attention; instead I tried to find my other friends. Hoseok had said it was the party of the month, so finding some familiar faces was bound to happen. So far, I only saw two other girls from my major. Unfortunately, they weren't really my friends; just some people I knew but didn't talk to.

My companions finished their drinks rather quickly, but being the gentlemen they were, they waited for me. Although they didn't pressure me into doing anything, I gulped down my drink, so we could finally hit the dance floor.

Once we were in the middle of the crowd, we started to dance. Hoseok, being the one who wielded the dancing kind title was in the center of attention. His moves were amazing, and it took a lot of self-restraint to not gawk at him. He danced flawlessly, and in comparison, everyone looked like they just learned how to walk. Namjoon, on the other hand, was a complete opposite; he danced as if he was trying to dodge bullets which were targeted at his legs. Jin and I were mediocre; we could feel the rhythm, as we swayed our hips from side to side in the right tempo, but it was evident we weren't pros like Hoseok, especially when he started to show off some complicated dance moves.

When the beat dropped, everyone began jumping up and down with their hands thrown in the air. It was actually fun, given all the alcohol I had consumed. I ran my hands through my hair, pushing them off my face. Suddenly, I felt like closing my eyes, losing myself completely in the melody. It was really fun, at least until I felt somebody hands on my sides, pulling me closer against one's chest. I quickly turned my head, and looked at the stranger. He was smiling as if he already knew I was going to leave the club with him and fuck him till the sun peeking through the blinds very early in the morning.

"What's your name?" The man whispered into my ear, while I tried my best not to show him how much I wanted to cringe.

"Sorry, I came here with my boyfriend." I replied, and pulled the man who was the closest to me. Thankfully, it was Hoseok, and he immediately caught my unspoken message. He could sense I wasn't comfortable with that man, so he quickly wrapped his arm around my shoulders protectively and pulled me away from him. Hoseok led me somewhere, and before I noticed, I was standing on a platform with him, where everybody was able to stare at us. Much to my dissatisfaction, Hoseok rescue mission appeared to be an out of the frying pan into the fire kind of help.

"I'm glad you're having fun." Hoseok shouted into my ears, and on cue, we started to jump again as the beat dropped.

I danced with him for like two more songs before I needed a break. Unfortunately, I wasn't as athletic as Hoseok.

Rather clumsily, I made my way toward the bar where I sneaked into a vacant stool. Thankfully, the bartender was currently busy, so I had time to catch my breath and decide on my next drink. The music was starting to sound shitty in my ears again, and I needed some poison to immunize myself with.

"I must say I couldn't take my eyes off of you." A handsome man spoke when he approached me, and propped his body on his elbow, leaning against the bar. I scoffed at his words, staring at his face. He was good-looking, perhaps out-of-my-league kind of good-looking. His eyes were as black as his hair, his ear piercings reflecting the club lights. He was wearing a simple black T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. A thin silver necklace hung around his neck, making me focus on his beautiful collarbones. "What's your name?" He asked, and I panicked for a brief moment; Jin and Namjoon disappeared somewhere and Hoseok was still dancing on the platform.

"Hwajeong." I spoke the first name that came to my mind. "Yours?" I inquired, trying to make him do all the talking. I always hated breaking the ice, so if he could keep me interested for more than five minutes and try not to immediately get into my pants, I wouldn't blow him off. He was attractive, so I didn't see a problem in giving him a chance if he played his cards right.

"Jungkook." He casually replied, and smiled at me. "Will you have a drink with me?" He whispered into my ear, each syllable tickling my skin.

"Sure," I smiled back, and he raised his hand to obtain the bartender's attention.

"What do want, Hwajeong?"

"I think we should do shots." I suggested, and Jungkook seemed positively surprised. He mustn't have expected me to go with such strong alcohol. Actually, I'd have ordered a fancy drink, but knowing how little alcohol and how much sugar the drinks had, shots were a safe bet. "I recommend you the ones with red bull. They kick, but they're sweet at the same time!" I shouted, staring at the menu.

"What can I get you?" The bartender asked, as soon as he approached us. Jungkook leaned forward, and ordered us the shots I proposed.

"What brings you here, Hwajeong?" Jungkook asked, emphasizing my name, as if repeating it wouldn't make him forget it. He had to be one of the men who felt wrong when they didn't remember the name of the girl they had spent the night with.

"I'm my friend's wingman, and I think I did an amazing job." I spoke proudly, turning around in my seat, pointing at Hoseok who was still dancing on the platform, but this time, he had two girls accompanying him.

"Whoa, I'm impressed. Can I hire you for my roommate? He didn't want to go with me to that party, while he obviously needs to get laid. He's helpless, but with such a talented wingman, he would be able to find someone." Jungkook jested, and quickly turned to the bartender to pay for our shots.

"I'm not sure he can afford my services. My friend is always going to be indebted to me." I retorted, and accepted three shot glasses which Jungkook slid toward me. Jungkook must've had some serious plans for me if he wanted to get me drunk this badly. Perhaps, I should've noticed the red flags around him, but I ignored them. We were still in the club, and if he suddenly became odd, Hoseok or Jin or Namjoon would come to my rescue.

"He's gonna be doomed without you, but fine. It's his loss he didn't want to come." Jungkook shrugged, and raised the glass, ready to make a toast. "To you who didn't blow me off the second I approached you." He spoke, and clinked the glass with me before we drunk it in one go.

"What about you? What has brought you here?" I asked, placing my right leg over the left one. My dress slightly rolled up, and Jungkook's eyes immediately noticed it. He didn't even try to be discreet about it.

"Dancing." He simply answered.

"I don't see you dance, though." I teased and smirked while running my forefinger across the brim of my shot glass.

"I'm waiting for you to teach me your moves." Jungkook talked back, and I smiled, starting to lose my hope of ever out-talking him.

"I'm impressed, you seem to know what to say what every woman wants to hear." I blurted, wishing that Jungkook could comprehend my incoherent blabber. "Even if it usually works, I prefer honesty. We both know why the majority of people are here; are we any different?" I asked, cocking my eyebrow at him, while Jungkook tried to figure out if I really meant my words.

"To honesty, then!" He hollered, and raised another shot glass, encouraging me to have another round with him. I knew he must've done this to omit answering my question. Unfortunately, I was aware that he, like the ninety percent of people in the club, was down to fuck. Even if I hadn't tried it myself, I understood how it worked.

"But seriously, honesty is the best policy." I continued, sensing that Jungkook didn't like the direction this conversation was headed. "Even if you think this will ruin the sweet illusion you tried to create, it won't. It won't with me, at least. Besides, it takes a pair of balls to be frank."

"Okay," Jungkook hesitantly said, slowly rethinking my proposition. "I really want to kiss you." He confessed, staring down at my red lips.

"Right now?" I asked for clarification, my mind clouded with the strong vodka. Jungkook nodded and I smiled. "Don't, I'd push you away. I wouldn't walk out on you, though. How easy do you think I am?" I jested, and Jungkook smirked at me, sensing that I was teasing him. "Just relax, we're having fun."

"God, you really are something, Hwajeong." Jungkook spoke, and emptied his third shot, while staring directly at me. His eyes felt as if they were drilling in mine, but I could only focus on his Adam's apple when he swallowed the liquor. Such a simple gesture made me wonder why, on Earth, I was playing hard to get. He was obviously in the club to find somebody to fuck, and he chose me. I found him attractive, so if he wasn't going to insist on banging him, I'd leave the party with him. I had never done this one-night-stand thing, and Jungkook seemed like an ideal candidate.

"Let's dance." I quickly said before I drank my shot and slammed the glass against the counter, pulling Jungkook to the dance floor a moment later. His hands were big and dry, but his grip was rather gentle, so overall it felt nice. I stopped just a second before the beat was going to drop. I sent Jungkook a faint smirk before I and everyone around me started to jump.

Smiling at me, Jungkook danced with me. Although he had stated he wanted to learn from me, his moves were better than mine. He was almost as good as Hoseok. Shaking my head at his poor lie, I brushed it off, and just focused on the music which surprisingly didn't sound like crap. I threw my arms into the air, trying to lose myself in the rhythm, but it was difficult with Jungkook's eyes undressing me. It wasn't bad, though. I was glad that he respected me enough to not turn me around and rub his sex against my bottom.

"Liar," I whispered into his ear when he was really close to me.

"I'm a fast learner," he replied, and smiled at me. Unconsciously, I mirrored his actions, his playful smirk ruining my defence against him. I just couldn't keep my straight face and pretend his facial expression didn't affect me at all. I was giving in, and he, without any doubt, could sense that.

Dancing with Jungkook was great; he wasn't too bold, and he respected my personal space. He must've applied my previous advice; he danced for the sake of dancing, not of showing me he wanted to fuck me. Very few people would be able to do that, and I was impressed.

In the middle of the second song, I needed a break. Due to the shots and all the jumping, I felt really dizzy, almost as if I was going to collapse in the middle of the dance floor. Having noticed my state, Jungkook approached me and rested his hands on my sides, pulling me toward him. "Everything alright?" He asked, and I nodded my head. I was fine, I just had to sit for a minute or two. "Are you sure? Do you want to go outside?"

It was very sweet of him to care so much. It was really endearing.

"Meet me out front in ten, okay?"

***

Having used the bathroom and lied to Jin that I was taking a taxi back home, I collected my coat, put it on, and exited the club. Perhaps, it took me more than I had promised to Jungkook, but thankfully, he didn't ditch me for another girl. He was leaned against a brick wall, his hands in his jeans pockets. He looked very nonchalant, the leather jacket thrown loosely around his shoulders.

As soon as he noticed me, he smiled, and pushed himself off the wall with his foot.

We met halfway.

"My place, or yours?" He asked bluntly, and I started to laugh hysterically at him. If other girls would give in, I didn't plan on going easy. We were complete strangers, and I wouldn't come over to his flat knowing so little about him. His name and the fact that he has a roommate wouldn't suffice.

"Neither." I replied when my laughter died down a little. Normally, it wouldn't be so funny, but given the alcohol I had consumed, I'd giggle at almost everything. "Come on, at least I have to pretend I'm not easy." I jested, and nudged his shoulder with my elbow. "It's barely past midnight. We still have a whole night ahead of us. Let's do something fun."

I knew I said it only because I was afraid. It was going to be my first one-night-stand, and I must've unconsciously tried to stop myself before I reached the point of no return. Jungkook was hot, and he'd make a perfect person to have meaningless sex with. It was still new to me, and I was scared. Unfortunately, the alcohol didn't seem to help me with this kind of fear.

"We can—"

Jungkook wanted to propose something, but before he managed to finish his sentence, I grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him down to kiss him. At first, I just pressed my lips against his, but the second his shock died down, he started to move his mouth against mine. The kiss was messy and passionate with a lot of tongue and our teeth clicking. It was amazing, and I couldn't remember the last time I was kissed like that.

Instinctively, his hands rested on my sides, pulling me closer to him.

It felt good but wrong at the same time. For Jungkook it must've seemed odd, too. One second, I had told him to take it easy, yet a moment later, I had pulled him into a heated kiss. I still had mixed feelings about the one-night-stand concept, but now, having tasted him, I thought I was willing to try.

I was pressed tightly against Jungkook's firm body, as he continued kissing me. He was sucking on my tongue, biting on my lips, while I miserably attempted to dominate the kiss. He was in charge, and he showed it quite emphatically. We wouldn't be having it any other way.

"Whoa, that was nice," I spoke as soon as I pulled away. The kiss was amazing. We couldn't carry on there, though. I had always hated couples making out publicly, and I wasn't a hypocrite to do exactly what I truly despised. "I'd eat something." I said out of the blue, looking at him.

"There's a fast-food diner on the way to my place. I think it's still open." Jungkook answered, and smiled at me. The kiss we shared was a promise; he knew I wasn't wasting his time. My heart was beating heavily in my chest, and at this point, I didn't know whether it was because of the stress, or the chemistry I felt for him. Although we only kissed, I was sure he would take good care of me, even if it was going to last just until morning.

"Thank God, I've barely eaten today, and I'm starving. Lead the way!" I replied enthusiastically.

"This way." He spoke, showing me the direction.

Since he said it's gonna take us about five minutes by foot, we walked. I didn't really mind. The cold wind would help me clear my mind and hopefully put my racing heart at ease. It wouldn't be anything to brag about if I did or said something embarrassing which would make him completely lose his interest in me. The silence we were engulfed in wasn't a good sign, either, and although it took two people, I felt as if it was my fault we couldn't hold a decent conversation. Didn't he feel uncomfortable? I did, and it was barely bearable.

"So..." I dragged on, "what's your favorite movie?" I asked simply, hoping it'd break the ice and make him speak.

"What?" He inquired, as if he didn't hear me. "Favorite movie? Hmm... 'Iron Man', I guess." He answered with a shrug, staring at me. "Yours?"

It was going to be a long night.

"I guess it was alright." I replied with the exact interest he showed which was really close to nothing. "But I think I could name at least one hundred better films. Don't get me wrong, but it didn't really stand up. Just one of a bunch of Marvel movies."

"So which film did stand up, huh?" He asked, sounding almost offended. I had no idea I could pull a nerve with such a simple question, but right now, I was genuinely interested how it might've turned.

"It's really difficult to pick one, actually." I started, as I stared at my shoes, as I strolled slowly beside him, cold wind kissing my cheeks. "I don't have a favorite one, but I like 'White Chicks' and 'Shrek 2' regardless my humor. They always crack me up and make me feel better." I could hear him snort, but I decided to let it slide. Getting into a fight before sex wouldn't put me in the mood.

***

In the restaurant, he was a complete gentleman. He opened the door for me, bought me food, and even glared at an old man in mid-forties who was staring at me inappropriately. Although he didn't put a lot of effort, I was glad. I wasn't being treated like a princess, but he still was one of the nicest guys I had ever met.

Whatever tension or stress I had felt, it was gone when we were seated in a booth. We conversed casually, no one would be able to tell that we met each other an hour ago. Unfortunately, due to my alcohol intoxication, I couldn't really catch what he was saying. I could hear him, but I didn't listen. I felt like a goldfish—I couldn't even tell the topic we were discussing when he jumped to another one. On top of that, somewhere along the way, I forgot his name. It was embarrassing, but remembering names of people I just met had never been my forte.

When we finished eating, him, binging on his portion and two third of mine, I offered him a spearmint chewing gum and he accepted.

"You really have a beautiful smile." He said as we exited the diner. I didn't even know I was smiling, to be honest. I must've had a really fun time with him. Slowly, I started to regret that I was going to part ways with him before the dawn.

"Thank you." I replied, trying not to giggle. He was going to be a one night adventure, and nothing more. I shouldn't have raised my hopes, especially when I didn't seek for a relationship at the moment. It was ironic, meeting a great guy when wanting to focus on self-development. "How far is your apartment? My shoes are killing me."

"Why? Do you want me to carry you?" He asked, as he stood in front of me, bending a little almost as if wanting to grab me and throw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. It was ridiculous, so I took a step back, trying to signalize I wasn't comfortable with such treatment. Thankfully, he understood the message. "We're almost there. Two more minutes."

He didn't lie. He wasn't honest, either. His flat was located on the fourth floor, and it was a real deal breaker. Especially, when the lift was out of order.

"What about your roommates? Won't they be pissed that you bring a girl over?" I asked, when he was fighting with the lock.

"Don't worry about it. Jimin is still at that party, and Yoongi is a heavy sleeper. No matter how loud you're gonna scream, you won't wake him up."

"Wow!" I voiced, as I couldn't believe what I just heard. He was surely confident; hopefully, it wasn't just hot air. "Now, you better live up to my expectations because you set the bar really high."

"You won't be complaining." He answered cheekily, pushing the doors open for me to enter first. Quickly, he followed me inside and turned the lights on. "Do you want something to drink, Hwajeong? Beer? Coke? Coffee?" He asked, as he kicked off his shoes, and hung his jacket on the rack in the corner.

"Anything from the fridge would be alright." I replied and took off my shoes and coat.

Whilst he was in the small kitchenette, I took a chance to study the interior. They kept it simple; a couch and two armchairs in front of a decent flat screen TV. It seemed quite spacious with an open kitchen and a kitchen island being probably their dining room. Behind me there were four doors; three rooms and a bathroom. I was slightly envious; this flat must've been really expensive to rent, but at least they didn't live with their parents, like I did.

"I didn't know which one you'd want, so I got you both." He said, as he set both beverages on the coffee table.

"I think I've had enough alcohol tonight." I answered, and reached for a can of coke, trying to remember how much I had drunk in the last few hours; a rosé back at home, a mojito with the guys, and shots with him. It was way too much for me, but due to all the dancing, I didn't feel any discomfort.

I sat on the couch, and he took a seat beside me, his muscular thigh brushing against me.

"It's such a nice place," I started, complimenting his apartment.

"Yeah, it is. Only when Jimin's out. I swear I'd kick him out if I could." He spoke, hopefully joking. I heard a lot of stories about annoying roommates from my friends, and I hoped that he wasn't living a nightmare with that Jimin. "We really should take an advantage of him not being here." He added, and I wanted to question him what he meant by that, but before I opened my mouth, his lips were already on mine, gently nipping them.

He tasted like a mint and beer, and I felt intoxicated almost in an instant.

I let out a soft whimper, and he used it to slide his tongue into my mouth. He kissed me slowly, and I placed my hands on his jaw, pulling him closer. At first his hands were running in my hair, but as we lost in the heat, they wandered down to my sides, hauling me onto his lap. I straddled him, and he leaned backward, leaning against the backrest.

Eagerly, I pulled my hips down on his crotch, the fire burning within me already. I was excited as never before. With just a little bit of his touch, I was set ablaze with passion. He squeezed my bottom, encouraging me to rub myself against him, and I couldn't refuse. I completely lost my mind for him, as I only cared about him and how we were going to please each other.

"You're so hot, Hwajeong." He moaned, when I pressed my sex against his boner. With the hard-on, his pants seemed way too tight, so I undid the button and pulled the zipper down to bring him some relief. "Shit," he cursed, when I didn't touch him. I leaned forward and sucked on his bottom lip. "Please... touch me." He spoke, but I wanted to tease him a bit more. It was just a one time thing, and I had to make sure he'd remember me.

I didn't fulfill his ask, but he didn't make a fuss about it. His hands slid under my dress, and pulled it up to my belly button. His fingers dug in my ass cheeks, forcing me onto his throbbing cock. I'd lie if I told this didn't turn me on. I was already dripping wet for him. He looked perfect, almost as if sculptured, and he wanted me.

"God, you're driving me crazy, Hwajeong." He confessed, raising his hips, rubbing himself against me, desperate to find any kind of friction. I stopped my actions and smirked at him when I heard his words. Slowly, I sat on his lap, and stared into his eyes, as I grabbed the hem of my dress and pulled it over my head, tossing it onto the floor. "You're... beautiful." He mused, gawking at me with admiration. "I need you, Hwajeong."

"I need you, too." I replied, and crushed my lips against his into another passionate kiss.

He was losing all his patience, and I almost didn't have any, too. Everything about him, the way he kissed and touched me was making me crazy, and I couldn't wait any longer. I needed him as much as he needed me.

When he realized I wasn't going to make it easy for him, he knew he had to dominate me. He had let me tease him, and I was taking too much time he was willing to offer. With me still straddling him, he slid his right hand under me and tugged my panties to the side, rubbing his thumb across my sex. He barely touched me, but the pressure was enough to get me moan.

"Nope, I can't wait." He spoke, and before I managed to react, he hoisted me up, and I squeezed my legs around him instinctively. Rather quickly he approached the entrance of his room. "You got me too worked up." He commented, as he gently put me on his bed, instantly hovering over me, my thighs caressing his sides.

"What can I say? I couldn't help myself." I answered cheekily, and pulled him down by his T-shirt to kiss him. He reciprocated immediately, swirling his tongue around mine. My arms touched his tensed shoulders before they slid down his chest right to the hem of his shirt. I was only in my underwear, while he was fully clothed—something was definitely wrong. "Strip." I ordered him, and he glared at me. It meant no harm, but I knew he didn't like taking orders. "What? Hurry! You didn't get me scream yet."

"Don't worry about it, Hwajeong. You'll be moaning my name so loud you'll lose your voice." He said, and I cursed under my breath.

Fuck.

Although I tried my best to disguise my mistake, he could sense that something was off. It was dark, only street lights, giving some light into his room, yet I still could see that he raised his eyebrow at me in a questioning manner.

"What's the matter?" He asked, halting his actions. With his cock pressed against my folds, he stared at me, waiting for a response.

"Nothing. Everything is alright. Let's fuck." I quickly blabbered, pulling him down again.

He pulled away instantly, and scrutinized my face, as if trying to see through my lame lie. "Oh my God! You totally forgot my name!" He yelled, both offended and amused. It must've been the first time it happened to him. "Oh my God! I can't believe it!" He hollered, and dropped his head, so I couldn't see his expression because of his fringe. Slowly, I wanted to start to panic. It was so embarrassing, but it looked like he was more red-faced. "Wow! You are really something, Hwajeong."

"Sorry, I'm not really good with names. It's nothing personal. It's all on me." I began to blabber again, but I stopped when I heard his laughter.

"This is ridiculous." He shook his head, staring at me, being propped on his elbows. "It's Jeon Jungkook, and don't you dare ever forget that." Jungkook said, sounding a little threatening. Of course, he wouldn't do anything to me, I didn't want, but he'd be pissed beyond words if his name slipped my mind again. "I'm really tempted to punish you now."

"Oh, trust me. I'm gonna make it up to you." I announced, as I smirked at him, my hands sliding beneath the waistband of his boxers. He thrust his hips when he felt my cold fingers gently running across his skin, striving my touch. Slowly, I wrapped my digits around his length, giving him a few light strokes. I could tell he wanted me to go harder, but he had to be patient.

"Just suck it. I bet your mouth's damn amazing." Jungkook urged me, and although I didn't really like his bossy tone, it turned me on even more. He didn't even wait for my consent; he must've sensed I wanted him so much I'd probably do anything to please him. Rather eagerly, he lay on his back, and entwined his fingers behind his head, waiting for me to take care of his pulsating dick.

Licking my lips, I threw my legs over his hips, straddling him. "God, I can't believe I'm doing this." I confessed, as I pulled his jeans and boxers down to his knees, staring at his erection. He was impressive; long, thick and throbbing for my attention. He was definitely bigger than any of my exes.

"You're not a virgin, are you?" Jungkook asked, and I totally understood his suspicion.

"No, it's not like that. It's just my first time with a complete stranger." I explained, and sent him a reassuring smile that everything was fine. More than fine, actually. At this point, I didn't even know how to voice my excitement. Although I had many doubts about it, it was amazing. "I should've tried it sooner. I can't believe what I was missing out on."

Jungkook smiled. He must've really liked the fact I enjoyed his company so much.

"Oh, you have no idea. The best is yet to come. I'm gonna fuck you right." He spoke, and sent me a mischievous smirk.

"I hope so. You've promoted yourself so vividly." I said slowly, each word rolling off my tongue. My hands were on his shoulders, leisurely splaying across his toned chest, as I placed delicate kisses all over him—his neck, collarbones, abs, and crotch. Yearning for my touch, Jungkook kicked his jeans off his legs, and forced his hips against my hand. He was impatient, and I couldn't blame him.

I gently squeezed my hand around the base of his cock, making him hiss. He sounded heavenly, and I wanted to discover all sounds which could escape his mouth. Slowly, I was stroking his length, staring at his face. His eyes were closed, he was smiling, his chest moving up and down as he breathed. Jungkook was handsome, but right now, completely bare under me, he was perfect. Not even a single flaw. Even his little scar on the cheek was gorgeous, making him look even manlier.

Spitting on my hand, I rubbed my saliva in his cock, using it as a lube. He let out a quiet whimper, and bit on his bottom lip when I began pumping my fist up and down his cock faster. He didn't even do anything, and I was already throbbing for him.

A little bit of precum oozed, and I quickly smeared it across his length.

"Use your mouth, scatterbrain." Jungkook groaned, and I let out a sigh at the nickname. Of course, it wouldn't let it slide, the label nailed to me, remaining until my departure. "I know you want it." He added, and I looked away. He was so confident and straightforward to the point I felt intimidated.

Staring at his cock and muscular thighs, I gnawed my bottom lip before I ducked my head, and gently licked the tip, sliding my tongue down to the base.

Jungkook tensed up due to my touch, and I smirked, looking up at him. He was staring at me, as if he couldn't wait any longer to see his cock disappear in my mouth, as I swallowed him.

"Yeah, just like that." Jungkook encouraged me with his low voice, as I started to suck on the tip. With hollowed cheeks, I took more of him at a time, my left hand holding the base, the right one squeezing and massaging his balls. "Look at me when you suck me off." Jungkook spoke in an authoritative tone, as his hand sneaked to touch my chin and tilt my head, forcing him to look at me. He urged me to maintain eye contact with him, but at the same time, he was gentle, delicately caressing my skin with his thumb.

My head bobbed up and down his length, as I swallowed him as much as I could. It wasn't enough for him, though. His right hand slid across my cheek to my hair, as he grabbed a handful, and forced me onto his cock to deep throat him. A single tear formed in my eye, but strangely, I wanted him to continue. I felt dizzy, and I couldn't wait to get fucked, just as he had promised.

"God," I moaned, as I pulled away with a loud pop. "Jungkook, please, fuck me already." I begged, staring into his eyes, hoping the way his name rolled off my tongue would convince him. He looked at me, smirking, as if planning something sinister. I was tired of playing games, he had to stop teasing me.

"How bad do you want me?" Jungkook asked, as he raised his thighs, making me fall onto his chest. I was lying on top of him, trying to prop myself on my elbows, and Jungkook only smiled at me. "Come on, coyness aside, admit how much you want my cock." He whispered into my ear, nipping the shell. Admittedly, his low voice did send shivers down my spine.

"Ah, you have no idea, Jungkook." I moaned quietly, hoping my voice would excite him at least half as much his voice excited me. "I'm all wet for your cock. Please, don't make me wait." I purred, grabbing his earlobe between my teeth, tugging at it playfully.

"Jesus Christ," Jungkook panted before he jerked up, turning us around. "You're so damn hard to resist, you know that, right?" He said, and ducked his head down to suck on my neck. I didn't want him to leave a hickey, but once his lips were on my skin, it felt too good to push him away.

Jungkook hand slid under my bra, as he cupped and squeezed my left breast. "Ah..." I moaned, and unconsciously pushed my hips, seeking for any friction as he deliberately refused to touch me. I rubbed myself against his erection, while pulling his head against my neck. "Jungkook, please." I cried out, but Jungkook was taking his time slowly unclasping my bra, tossing it onto the floor, the same leisurely movements when he took off my panties.

"You know nothing about patience, do you?" He asked, even though he already knew the answer. What did he want to prove with that? I thought we had already established how needy I became, striving for his touch.

"Ah..." I bit back a moan, when Jungkook lowered his hand to my sex, rubbing my folds with his long fingers. Instantly, I replied to him, lifting my hips up to grind against his palm, seeking more friction. "Jungkook..." I breathed out, pressing my cheek against his pillow, my eyes shut close.

"Yeah, that's more like it." He spoke, as he pushed his forefinger inside of me, and I immediately responded, trying to ride his hand. "You like that, don't you?" He asked, and with his free hand, he made me look at him, at his eyes burning with desire. "You're so beautiful whimpering beneath me." He confessed before he leaned down to attack my lips, while he added another finger, pumping it in and out mercilessly.

"J-Jungkook, please, fuck me. I need more." I panted, as he started placing moist kisses across my jaw and neck.

"God, you're so tight." He gasped, as my words must've really urged him to go further. "You barely fit around my fingers, are you sure?" He asked, and I nodded. I was dripping, and I knew I could handle his thick cock without any more stretching. "Fuck," he cursed, withdrawing his hand to reach into his nightstand in search for a condom.

"Let me," I said, as I snatched the small package from him, wanting to roll the condom down his erection.

The tip of his cock poked against my entrance, and I couldn't help but let out an excited moan. This was really happening, and I was ready like never before. This was amazing, and if Jungkook kept going like that, I was sure it was going to be the best sex of my life.

He pushed his hips forward, filling me completely with his throbbing cock. At first, he slowly slammed his length as far as he could, but gradually he picked up his pace, setting for faster rhythm. I no longer cared to keep it down; with each thrust I moaned and whimpered under him, encouraging him to pound his cock harder. My breasts were bouncing as he rocked his hips, my fingernails digging into his biceps.

"Oh, God. Just like that! Fuck, Jungkook!" I screamed, but he kissed me, trying to muffle me. His tongue sucked mine, and I completely gave into the kiss. His hips thrust with the exact speed, and I was so close to reaching my orgasm. "Can I ride you, Jungkook?" I breathed out, as he pulled away only to slam his lips against mine again.

Instead of giving my a verbal response, Jungkook stopped moving, and gave me a gentle peck, as he pulled out and lay on his back, waiting for me to climb on top of him. I quickly threw my leg over his thighs, straddling him. "Did I tell you how beautiful you are?" He asked, as his hand reached out to my breast, fondling it gently.

Smiling at his compliment, I grabbed his cock, and positioned myself to sit on it. He slid right in, and I couldn't help but moan when he filled me, throbbing. Gently, I placed my hands on his muscular shoulders before I started to ride him. I moved my hips back and forth swiftly, instantly setting a fast rhythm.

Although I wanted to be in charge for a while, Jungkook wouldn't let me, as he began thrusting from beneath me. My breasts bounce in our pace, and Jungkook couldn't tear his eyes away from the view in front of him. I couldn't blame him, I was staring as his tensed abs and thighs.

Almost as if he heard my inner thoughts, his hand ran down to my sex and started to rub my clit.

"Ah... fuck, fuck!" I shouted, a heat of pleasure hitting me, the sign of my approaching orgasm.

"Yeah, come on my cock." Jungkook moaned, his hand massaging my clit.

"Ah... Jungkook!" I cried out, my nails digging into his skin, as I felt closer and closer to my high. "Come with me, p-p-please." I moaned, feeling my walls slowly clenching around him. Millions of tiny explosions erupted in my heat, waves of pleasure running to every cell in my body, as I finally reached my orgasm. I threw my head back, my eyes tightly closed, as I continued to ride him, knowing he was close, too. "J-Jungkook!" I screamed on top of my voice, a freeing sensation ripping me into pieces.

"Fuck!" He hollered, as he tensed, filling the condom with his sperm, as he came. "Ah... Hwajeong. You're fucking amazing." He moaned, while panting as the orgasm overwhelmed him. He looked heavenly handsome with his pleased face. Especially when I knew I made him that way. It was so damn rewarding!

When my orgasm started to fade away, I joined him on the bed, breathing heavily.

"Fuck, that was incredible." I panted, as I closed my eyes, savoring every second of my high. I had never been fucked this way before, my exes hadn't felt even half as good as Jungkook did.

"I kept my word." Jungkook simply said, and although I had my eyes shut, I could feel he was smiling. "Though, I am not sure if it felt so good without your input. Girl, you're fucking amazing." He confessed genuinely, and I smiled. It felt nice being appreciated. "Give me ten minutes. I am so into round two."

I hummed in consent, as I snuggled closer to the pillow, the last bits of my orgasm still perceptive. Jungkook was panting beside me, and the sound of him lulled me to sleep. I didn't even realize when I gave into the embrace of the night.

***

I woke up, when I felt his body shift beside me. It had always taken me a lot of time to accommodate to a new environment, so when I fell asleep, I was hyper aware of his presence. Even the slightest movement would stir me awake. Although I had no idea for how long I was sleeping, it couldn't be long. Long enough for Jungkook to doze off too, but definitely not longer.

He was close to me, his arm thrown over me. Carefully, hoping I wouldn't wake him up, I sneaked out of the bed, searching for my clothes which must've been scattered all over the floor. Without any major trouble, I found my underwear and quickly put it on. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate my dress. At first, I looked under the bed, thinking it got there somehow, but then it occurred to me that we started off on the couch, and the missing article of clothing must've still been there.

I really didn't want to bump at any of his roommates, especially wearing only a pair of panties and a bra, so I checked the time. According to Jungkook's clock, it was 4:30 a.m.

The apartment was silent, I could only hear Jungkook breathing. Assuming, no one would walk on me being half naked, I twisted the knob, and exited the room, carefully closing the doors.

The lights were turned off, so either someone had been awake when Jungkook and I had been having sex, or Jungkook had switched them off when I had been sleeping. Personally, I'd prefer if the second option was true, but unfortunately, it didn't change the fact that I didn't know where the light switch was, and I didn't want to wake up anyone at this unholy hour.

I could see the outline of everything, so I carefully moved toward the couch. Thankfully, despite my clumsiness, I didn't trip.

The dress was sitting right under the coffee table. Sighing in relief, I picked it up, and put it on.

I had no idea what to do next. I couldn't really come back home in the middle of the night; especially when I couldn't check the bus timetable. It was still late, and if I walked out of the apartment, I would wait for one for at least half an hour. I didn't have enough money to take a taxi, either.

Besides, it would be rude of him if I left Jungkook without saying goodbye. The sex was great, and that was the least I could do.

I looked around the apartment, and I noticed frosted glass doors slightly open. Without any doubt, I could assume it must've been the bathroom. Quickly, I made my way toward it, switched the lights on inside, and closed the doors behind me.

I saw my reflection, and shook my head disapprovingly. My makeup was ruined; the red lipstick gone, the mascara and eyeliner smeared around my eyes, the fluid almost completely wiped off. My hair was a total mess, too. Swiftly, I twisted the faucet, and took some soap on my hands. I'd rather show myself without any makeup than having it all flaking. Moreover, if I had to take my first walk of shame, I'd try to look the most presentable I could. Hopefully, people would assume I'm going to work, not going home after amazing sex with a stranger I met in the club.

Having washed my face and combed my hair, I walked out of the bathroom. The digital clock on the cooker showed 4:49 a.m. I didn't really want longer than necessary, but waking him up didn't seem right, either. I really had no idea how to kill some time, so I just sat down on the couch and heaved a sigh. Not knowing what enticed me, I reached for a remote, and turned on the TV, instantly reducing the volume.

I flicked through channels, but nothing interesting was aired at such hour. After a while, I settled for a 'Family Guy' rerun, and placed the remote on the coffee table. I had already seen that episode, but it was fine, since it was an exceptionally funny one. Unfortunately, I only managed to watch five minutes of it before it ended.

My stomach started to growl, demanding food, and although I didn't want to, I walked to the kitchenette and opened the refrigerator.

Suddenly, I heard someone fighting with the lock by the entrance doors. I panicked, and quickly shut the fridge close, before whoever tried to get in managed to catch me red-handed. Not knowing what to do, I just leaned against the cooker, and stared at the intruder who switched the lights on.

He immediately noticed me, and I smiled at him sheepishly.

"Hello, you. Yoongi or Jungkook?" He greeted me and asked, as he kicked off his shoes and threw his jacket on the couch. I answered him truthfully, and he smiled as if he could figure it out himself. "I'm Jimin." He introduced himself, as he approached the doors of Jungkook's room, and slammed his fist against it a couple of times. "Jungkook! Wake the fuck up!"

I couldn't believe in what Jimin just did. I had tried my best to be considerate and quiet, yet he just barged in, yelling at the top of his voice.

Although I didn't say anything, Jimin turned to me, and sent me a smirk, tilting his head toward the refrigerator. "Top shelf, suit yourself." He spoke, and winked at me before he disappeared into his room.

When Jungkook didn't leave his room within two minutes, I assumed that Jimin didn't manage to wake him up, so I quickly opened the fridge to look around. I examined the top shelf, it was almost empty; a can of whipped cream, a half cube of butter, a jar of blueberry jam, and a few slices of cheese.

Sighing, I reached for the whipped cream, and took a mouthful straight from the can.

I snapped my head when I heard a noise; it was Jungkook, coming out of his room, wearing only a pair of grey boxers and a white T-shirt. His hair was a mess, yet it looked hot when he ran his hand through it. "What the fuck do you want, Jimin?" He asked, his eyes were still closed, so he couldn't see that Jimin was back in his room, and I was rummaging through his food stocks. "Oh, Hwajeong, it's just you." He said, staring at me, his eyes slowly focusing on the can I was holding.

"I've overstayed my welcome, haven't I?" I asked, when I swallowed the whipped cream, gawking back at him.

"You think?" Jungkook asked rhetorically, as he raised his eyebrow at me.

"Sorry," I smiled sheepishly, "I just wanted to properly say goodbye. Besides, I don't know what time my bus leaves." I explained, while he walked toward me, sitting on the top of the kitchen island, as if waiting for me to continue. "If I appear clingy to you, please know I am really not. I didn't mean to."

"You can act however you wish if we get to repeat the previous night." Jungkook confessed casually, and I didn't think I understood him correctly.

"What?"

Jungkook smiled. What did he mean? It was just a one time thing, and the vital point of it was that it happened only once. Besides, I really didn't want to date anyone at the moment. It was fun when it lasted, but it was over now. We both had got what we wanted, and now it was time to part ways.

"Back in the club, you said that honesty is the best policy." Jungkook started, and I nodded, being willing to hear whatever he had to say. "We really don't know each other, so I don't think we have a lot to lose. I'll be frank with you, Hwajeong. The last night was amazing, I think it's the best sex I've ever had, and I'd like to repeat it sometimes. I'm not really good at dating, but I guess, we could try something else."

"Something else as in friends with benefits?" I asked, making sure I followed his reasoning. Jungkook looked me in the eyes, and nodded. "Well... the problem is, we aren't friends, Jungkook." I pinpointed, and he didn't know how to answer me. My argument was pretty critical to that arrangement.

"But we can be." Jungkook fought back, but I wasn't having his argument.

"Yeah, but we may not click. We might be compatible in sex, but we can be complete opposites in other aspects." I spoke, enjoying the conversation with him. I really liked to argue with people, especially when the argument itself didn't necessarily hurt any of the parties. Moreover, it would be really fun if Jungkook and I continued what we were doing. Unfortunately, I was afraid we really weren't made for each other to be friends. I didn't know him, and I had no idea how good of a friend he'd be.

"I'm willing to try; how about you?" He asked, and I wanted to smack him for playing with my feelings, pressuring me to do something I didn't want. He was like a terrorist right now, pushing all the blame on me. Ugh.

"Yeah, I guess." I answered meekly, not sharing his enthusiasm about it. "We could hang out for a week to see if we can be friends, and if everything goes smoothly, we could try this whole friends with benefits thing." I carried on, and he nodded in consent, complying with my proposition. Frankly, he didn't have any other option, since he was the one who wanted us to keep seeing each other. "And my real name is Kim Seol, sorry for lying to you." If we really decided to be friends, he couldn't keep calling me Hwajeong.

"Wow!" Jungkook exclaimed, looking rather confused. "Is that all? Are there any other lies?" He inquired, and I shook my head. We couldn't build a friendship on lies, and I'd come clean with everything, but there wasn't any. "Should we seal the deal with a kiss, then?" Jungkook said in his low morning voice, as he jumped off the kitchen island to approach me. He leaned forward and closed his eyes, but I only raised my hand with the can of whipped cream, and sprayed it into his mouth, laughing.

***

[son-of-a-duck]

February 28, 2017

I forgot to mention a funny story from yesterday.  An old man came by the desk and he had a big bruise across half of his face.  The cataloger was at the desk talking to us about a book and the old man knew her so he stopped.  She commented on his face and wanted to know if he was okay.  He said he was, that he was just auditioning for Phantom of the Opera.  It was pretty funny.  He then said that he had been walking down the street, watching a cop give someone a ticket, when he tripped over a root and fell down, hitting his head. He said it much of been karma for minding someone else's businees. Another good line.

Today at work I did things.  This morning I started making a list of non-fiction books for my green books display.  Sadly there were only a few Ireland books that had a green cover.  But there are plenty of books in our collection with green covers, so I should be good even if the display does well.  Later on in the day I was able to pull books and it made me so happy be walk around with stacks of green books.  My cart looks so good right now, stuffed with green books. And I'm really looking forward to seeing the card catalog when I get my display set up.

I struggled to renew my membership to KLA today.  Their website is awful.  It took me forever to get my email and password combination. I ended up figuring it out by trying multiple times to reset my password.  This involved them emailing me but they only send the email to the primary email on the account.  Turns out I have at least two, possibly three secondary emails on the account, because it kept telling me the email address I had typed in was associated with an account but not the primary address on the account.  I eventually figured out that I had used my old school district email to register last time.  Who knows what I was thinking.  Once I had the email address logging in was easy enough.  But I couldn't change my email address because I couldn't figure out how to get to my profile.  It felt like no matter what I clicked on I ended up in the middle of nowhere on their website.  It was frustrating.

I then registered for the conference that I'm presenting at with my former practicum supervisor, which is the whole reason I fell down the rabbit hole of trying to renew my KLA membership.  I ended up paying about fifteen dollars less for registration because of my KLA membership.  Hooray.  It only cost me sixty dollars to save fifteen dollars.

I made a tentative layout for how I want my tutorial to look.  I made the image using Canva and then managed to turn it into a ten second video using VLC and uploaded it to YouTube.  I was then able to play with annotations and I think they will allow me to do what I want with the table of contents and directional arrows.  I also briefly looked into creating a subtitle file to upload with my video.  I think there is potential there.

I updated the webpage for the class today.  I got rid of the registration button, added in the survey button, and added in the resources for the class.  I don't know how often the pages get used but I'm glad they are an option.

When I was on desk this afternoon I typed up a list of books for my display.  This morning I just wrote the books down on several small scraps of paper but I wanted a more permanent document.  And something that was easier to read than my handwriting.  I was also able to update the attendance and feedback information for the class when it was over.  They had eleven people show up, which is not bad considering the cap for the class was fourteen.

And we'll say that was my day because it is all that I wrote down throughout the day, and all that is coming to mind at the moment.  

When I got home I roasted vegetables and made rice.  It's been too long.  It's easily my favorite meal that I have made, and it turned out really good tonight.  I'm looking forward to eating the leftovers.

I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos and clicking around the internet.  I am really tired and I kind of feel like crap. My throat hurts and I have the faintest hint of chills.  My throat started hurting yesterday and I hope I wake up tomorrow feeling better, not worse.  I can't really afford to get sick at the moment. Especially because I need to record my tutorial.  Fingers crossed for a miraculous recovery tomorrow morning.

It is just after ten o'clock right now and I'm going to record my audio journal so hopefully I can get to bed by eleven.  I would have liked to go to bed even earlier but I've been moving a bit slower. Which is saying something.

[isisisak]

sleepy anon speaking, yup I made it! And first of all THANK YOU?? I was literally joking about you writing something, and then you just did it?? It was absolutely perfect, the cuteness made me go all mushy and oohhh and I still can't get over it you wonderful brilliant person. What a nice and lovely thing to do, that and the clip made my night

(2) and I thought Oh wow I guess I HAVE to watch it, subtitles are probably taking a bit. And then the website crashed and I was like are you KIDDING me rn (just like old times I'm tellin ya, completely forgot the sheer agony that comes with watching sth you really care about live). After an eternity (like one and a half minutes) passed, it finally loaded and the first shock was the 16 FUCKING MINUTES. I was like whoaaa okay buckle u p it's gonna be a ride. And it absolutely was!

(3) The Opening was so iconique with the colors omg! My Italian is sadly quite shitty and I got a lot of things wrong, I thought the voice messages at the beginning were from Martino's family and that Italian Eskild (I LOVE HIM) told Ele that a certain Niccolò would occupy her room while she's in England (I deadass died here, I was hyperventilating so hard until the subs came through and I was like...oh.) And I thought the boys really wanted to go to Argentina haha that got me a bit confused :D

(4, last one I'm so sorry for spamming your inbox) All in all, it was a solid clip. I'm also not happy about the Mahdi thing but at least Elia wasn't as homophobic in s1 than the other elias-characters. And ngl, I still don't know about Edoardo, he's not THAT bad I guess but Imo he could still be a bit nicer. But Idk he also gets the benefit of doubt for now. Things I also loved about the clip were Martino answering the fucking phone and saying I don't live here and the Gio-hug in the end! 

YAAAY you made it!!! im glad it was still something you liked even though i didnt deliver on the juicy end of it

i dont mind at all!! rant away 

1. yeah it wasn’t geoblocked for me either which was kinda surprising but who knows maybe its an EU thing .. or where are you from? 2. god yeah! when it was finally up it didnt load for me and skdjskdjsd i remember that vividly from skam s4 and it sucked both times! RIGHT?! 16 minutes was so long i looove it i hope they continue to make these clips looong af 3. i dont understand a word italian (thats a lie i know pronot ciao alora and dificile ... im basically fluent) so i thought it was martinos family too and when i saw what it really was oh man ... its crushing and heartbreaking and so horrible and just reminded me just HOW important this season and its message will be I LOOOOVE italian eskild!! i love how we all instantly knew when he appeared who hes was gonna be he has the energy (also that hair works on him for some reason, as does the shirt! ... was his name filippo or did i dream that?) 

hahaha i thought the girl (it-emma) was names argentina so you know ... were great at this hahah 

4. TRu! to be fair elia made a comment but nothing that other characters in og didnt do too so he wasnt as bad as elias (god remember when we shamed s1 elias of og skam in all the fics? Good Times) and yeah agreed about the casting choices - i do very much see the negative points as i said before and its nothing to neglect but im excited for the next decisions theyre gonna make and hope its gonna go uphill from here heh 

i dont know about eduardo either i mean ... haaah im decidedly NO FAN of dickhelm (im sorry if that offends anyone but i wrote first william and then willhelm and thats just not his name for me anymore) but i do agree that the remake versions of him seem nicer or more human ... idk eduardo feels like he COULD become nicer but i want a better redeeming arch than just one nice comment to vilde which arguably had an ultirior motive .. so i remain testy but hopeful ig? 

martino crossfadingly answering the phone was so great hahah 

the huuug uhghnnnn i hurt from that hug! i loved it but it hurt! bc it felt like martino just fellt a lot of !!! .... and idk maybe not bc hes still in love with gio or attracted to him or whatever but just bc he feels so raw and on the spot and aaargh i hurt 

anyway! thank you for your recap of it and i hope to see you again with further thoughts my sleepy friend (im gonna stick to that tag if youre ok with it!) 

[unrealshadowsss]

Story

2000-2010

I was born on March 2000.  I was always a quiet child. I liked to play alone and could spend a lot of time just doing that. I lived in an apartment with my parents. My dad has a truck and travels a lot, so he wasn’t always home. I have memories of me daydreaming at a young age.

When I was 6 I began primary school. I did very well at school, and the teacher always chose me to read aloud in school events, because I could read fairly well for my age. I didn’t have friends. At age 7 I entered second grade of primary school and still didn’t have friends. It didn’t bother me, it’s something I didn’t even think about. On the recesses I liked to walk around the whole school alone. I would start in one place, move through the school, and end up in the same place, it was like a circular movement. Then at the end of this school year, some girls from my class started talking me. They asked if they could borrow me a pencil, and I told them they could. After that, those girls started talking to me and wanted to be my friend. They said they had avoided me before because someone else had told them I was a bad person and they should stay away for me. So, from that moment on, I was friends with them. I remember there was this girl, and she was like the cutest and most popular girl in the class, and for some time I became sort of her best friend. But, I knew that I would be transferred to another school the next year, so I had to tell them we wouldn’t be together for too long.

In 2008 I moved to a house. I had my own room now, where no one could enter without knocking. and I began my third primary school year in the new school. At first I constantly asked my mom why she had to transfer me to another school. I’m not sure how much this feeling of missing my old school lasted, but it eventually stopped. I didn’t make any friends there, but it was something that didn’t bother me. I have a memory where I’m playing a video game and suddenly start feeling sad about that group of friends I left in the other school, and start crying.

Around this time we had a desktop computer at home which I eventually was allowed to have in my room, but I didn’t have an internet connection. I would play games such as GTA, Monkey Island 3, Motocross Madness 2, and others.I also remember that around this time there was a very popular website in Argentina, Fotolog, where people would upload their pictures. There was a subculture known as Floggers, they had a particular fashion style, you can search it on Google. Anyway, I wanted to have a profile on that website and start uploading my pictures and become popular. I started daydreaming about it. There were some famous people on the site who even went on to appear on TV, magazines, newspapers, etc. and I wanted to be like them (I cringe now when I think about it) So I created my own page, which nobody knew I had except my aunt who was a teenager at the time and used that site a lot. Then my mom found out I had one and was surprised, and my aunt told her she shouldn’t worry about it, because everyone had one. We didn’t talk about it again, but I kept thinking about being Fotolog famous. I wanted so badly to have my own photo camera and my own notebook. But I knew I wasn’t going to have it anytime soon.

In 2009 I started getting really into Disney celebrities like Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, Selena Gomez, etc. I watched Disney TV shows a lot, and eventually I forgot about the flogger thing. When I was 9 I used to go an Internet café (they were popular at the time) and I searched information about those celebrities. I also played The Sims 2. When I first heard about The Sims (I think I was 8), I was fascinated by the concept, because that way I could put in the game what I imagined as my adult life, like what house I would have, how many children, etc. When I found out about it, I was going through a period in which I daydreamed a lot about my life as an adult. My cousin told me about the game, and we would discuss together what our adult life would be like, everything we would do.

I have a memory around this year of me sleeping in the same room as my mom. I had been watching a movie on TV and was daydreaming about it, and I was saying words aloud, as if I was talking to someone (not too loud but in a silent place they could be heard), and my mom asked who I was talking to. I think in that moment I understood I had to be more careful with acting out daydreams.

By late 2009 (I think it was around October), my cousin had his first Notebook computer, and also my aunt, and basically since they were all getting their own notebooks, I was supposed to be the next. So my parents bought me one. I didn’t have an internet connection in my house but my neighbours, which were my aunt and uncle, had one. So I had to go the room that was nearest the Wifi. What I did was basically search everything I could find about the bands I liked. I watched the concerts, video clips, etc. I even read fanfics. But I hid all these things from my parents. I don’t know why, I just felt like I had to. And they didn’t ask what I did on my computer.

I remember asking my mom if she could buy me the CD of one band, and she refused because she said she didn’t know their music. After that I sort of stopped asking my parents to buy me CDs or DVDs

.My cousin showed me some videos of songs translated into Spanish, and since that moment I started watching a lot of those videos. I think that was my first contact with the English language (except some video games that were only available in English and the usual English words you see everywhere) I would memorize the lyrics in Spanish but didn’t pay much attention to the English words at first. I learned how to make videos on Sony Vegas and made my own Youtube channel where I translated songs. They weren’t my own translations because at the time I didn’t really speak English, all I did was using some translations I found online. I didn’t show this channel to anyone but my cousin. But one day he decided to show one of my videos to my dad without my consent. I remember feeling embarrassed and betrayed in that moment, I don’t remember what my dad said but basically he didn’t like it very much.

I started talking to other fans online. Mostly it was people I met through Youtube. I created my own Facebook account that was dedicated only to those celebs. I also used Messenger to chat with people. My parents didn’t know any of this either, I don’t think they would have allowed it.

My parents didn’t know I liked all these bands and singers, and I didn’t know how to tell them. Believe it or not, this was a huge problem for me. I remember asking the people I talked to online, which were other fans, if their parents knew they liked those celebs, and how did they tell them. For everyone it was normal, but I didn’t know how they did it, how to tell them. I wanted to go to one of their concerts in Buenos Aires, but since my parents didn’t even know I was their fan, I couldn’t ask to go to a concert either. Looking back, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have allowed it.

I watched a lot of documentaries about my favorite celebs and interviews in Youtube. Gradually I started visting more websites in English. I used an online translator at first but soon, without realizing it, I had learned the language. I don’t really know how, but I guess, being so young, it was easy for me to learn new languages. I remember (around 2011) watching an interview without subtitles and thinking “wow, I can understand this” and realizing I no longer needed subtitles.

I had created a Twitter account, which I used during 2010-2011. There I could connect with other fans. And, once again, I hid all of this from my parents. I spent most of my time in my room in Twitter, and when I was not on Twitter I was serching more information about my idols in other websites.

I was a fan of a boyband, and one of the members started disappointing his fans. There were “bad” rumours, and I didn’t like any of that. I’m not sure exactly what happened, but I started feeling really bad, I got into a very bad state, where I had suicidal thoughts. All of that was caused by fanatism for the band and my daydreams. I guess I thought the guy was disappointing his fans and that conflictd with the idea of them being the best band, or at least, having very united and loving fans? I don’t know. In fact, to this day, I don’t really understand it. But I was feeling very bad. I’m not sure how much it lasted. I would listen to sad songs while pacing around my room, daydreaming and crying. I remember being at school crying, and no one cared. I remember being at school and thinking “if I had a gun right now, I’d kill myself” I saw no point in living anymore.  I think I would have been capable of that if I had had a gun. Of course, I didn’t tell this to anyone, probably because I didn’t know how to explain it, or maybe I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone? I don’t remember, I don’t remember what my thoughts were about other people knowing about it, I think at the time I just assumed it was something I should deal with alone and telling others didn’t even cross my mind. Then it stopped. I simply stopped feeling that way.

I continued using my Twitter account, and I would spend a lot of time daydreaming about the band I liked. I basically imagined what their tours would be like, what they would say in their interviews, and things like that. I watched interviews from other people just to add to my inspiration. Let’s say I watched an interview. What I would do was just pause after every question and imagine what they (the members of the band I liked) would answer, things like that.

There was also a period where I wanted to be famous. So I imagined what a documentary about me would be like. But it wasn’t something very elaborate, more like random scenes about that documentary film. I also imagined being in a concert while listening to music with headphones and pacing around my room. I had planned I could become famous by uploading my videos singing to Youtube, sort of what Justin Bieber did. But then, at a certain age (when I was getting close to 11, I think) my daydreams stopped focusing on me as a celebrity, and started focusing only on other people.

I spent most of my time in my room with my notebook. I only left my room for eating, showering and going to school. My parents started worrying about this, but they didn’t really do anything to stop it. They would tell me it was bad for me to spend so much time on my PC, and I found that annoying. School was really easy, so I didn’t even have to do homework (maybe only once in a while) I learned how to torrent movies, music, etc.

 I remember one time my computer had had some problems and I had to sent it for repairing. I tried to delete everything I had on my pc about my celebs, all the images, videos, etc. I just felt like I couldn’t show that. And I also remember one time where my mom saw my computer, I had to show it to her because it was broken, and there was a file of a concert I had downloaded on the desktop. I think it was a Madonna concert. I was panicking, because I didn’t want her to see it. I didn’t want her to know I downloaded things from the internet.

2011-2016

In 2011 I stopped caring about the Disney celebs I liked before, and started having an obsession with The Beatles. I think I discovered them when I  found one of their movies, and then started investigating more about them. I had now found another band to daydream about. I listened to most of their albums, watched a ton of documentaries, and was always looking for information about them.

Around this time I also discovered Tumblr and made an account.I also discovered other rock and metal bands, but didn’t listen much to them, I only really cared about The Beatles.

There was also a period where I started getting really interested in astrology. I can’t really place this correctly in a timeline, but I think it was in 2011. I remember discovering bands like The Sex Pistols, and watching some documentaries about. Sid & Nancy was I movie I liked, and I daydreamed about it, I imagined myself in the place of a punk musician in the 70s. And I would pace around my room listening to some Sex Pistols songs.

During 2008-2011 I was pretty much alone in school, and didn’t really care about others. In 2011, I was in sixth grade, and I remember some people thought I was weird. In fact, some children said I talked and laughed alone, so they started calling me crazy. I had some teachers talk to my mom saying I had some sort of psychological problem, and that I should be taken to a psychiatrist. Why did they think that? Probably because of what the other children were saying about me talking alone, and because they saw I was always alone and didn’t show much interest in being with other children. One of the teachers told my mom “In the USA, children like that end up shooting schools” But my mom didn’t pay attention to them, she thought I was simply an introvert and they were exaggerating. I was probably so immersed in my daydreams that I made gestures or said some words corresponding to what I was daydreaming. I can understand people at that time thinking I was crazy, but I could distinguish perfectly between dreams and reality.  My teacher’s comment about shooting schools is interesting, because I remember that at 11 I found out about the Columbine Massacre and watched a documentary about it. I daydreamed for some time about this, imagining myself in the place of someone who suffers bullying and shoots up a school with one of his friends. Of course, I would never really do that in real life, it was just something I daydreamed about.

I basically stopped talking to my cousin after 2010, because he had his own group of friends, and he was also 3 years older than me. He was very interested in music and in 2012 had his own band. In february of that year I went to his birthday. He was playing with his band. That day I saw a guy, the bassist, and thought he was good-looking. After that day I would sometimes think about the guy I saw, but I knew nothing about him. Then my birthday came, in March, and my cousin invited that guy. It was the first time I talked to him. Some days later I went to Facebook, which I never used because I preferred being in Twitter/Tumblr, and searched his profile. He posted a lot about himself, so I had an idea of what he was like. I started daydreaming about dating him, and forgot about my previous daydreams.

That guy was 16, so I knew that was a big age difference and it probably wouldn’t work, but I still hoped maybe it could happen. I knew I would be considered ridiculous if I said I was in love while being 12 years old, and that bothered me. And yet now, looking back, I think it was the only time I was actually in love with someone. I started seeing in Facebook not only his profile, but also basically anything related to my cousin’s group of friends. They were metalheads. I would see the photos of the concerts they went to, and imagined myself being with them. I wanted to belong to that group, but no one ever invited me to do anything. And I also knew my mom wouldn’t let me go to concerts, and wouldn’t want me to listen to that music, to wear those clothes, etc. I knew I couldn’t really be what I wanted to be.

So I spent 2012 daydreaming about being with those people and dating that guy. I remember in July of that year I was invited to go to a sort-of-concert where my cousin was playing with some people in another city. He was part of a music school, and it was the end-of-year concert, I think. I knew most of his friends would be there, including that guy, so I was excited to go. I went with my aunt.

None of his friends were there at first, but then I saw him arrive, just in time to see my cousin in the stage. He sat behind me. I wanted to see his face so badly (the only time I had seen him before that was in my birthday) but knew it would be too obvious if I stared at him. Then the song ended, he and another friend went to talk to my cousin. They decided to go to eat somewhere, and I wanted to go with them, but I wasn’t invited. I think they didn’t even talk to me. So, instead I had to go with my aunt to eat somewhere else. And meanwhile I was in the restaurant with my aunt, I would imagine I was there with the guy I liked, that we went out together to eat. We had dinner and then we headed back home.

I remember sitting in the car with my aunt, looking at the window and crying, crying because I knew I would never be with the guy I loved or with that group of friends, because I knew I would never be part of any of that. Maybe it was because I was too young, but I had tried to be invited, to be with them, but I was ignored. I hated the limitations of being 12, I didn’t like that I was considered so immature by everyone. Looking back, I think I actually had the mentality of someone who’s 14-15, I’m sure I would have gotten along with the group of friends, even if they were older than me.

The year ended, and in 2013 I started secondary school. At first, I didn’t have any friends and sat alone like always, but then a girl sat next to me and we started talking. We became friends, but we were never really close. She was my friend and the person I sat next to during 2013-2015. I remember thinking I was glad to have found someone who didn’t require me to go out with her or talk to her a lot. I think we saw each other outside school only like once or twice a year.

By the end of 2013 I stopped caring about the guy I liked. He changed and disappointed me, and I stopped caring about the rest (my cousin and all the group of friends). I had now discovered a new band, and I also started getting interested in languages. Russian was the language I wanted to become fluent in. 

One day I was talking with my mom, and she mentioned I seemed to like learning languages, and asked if I didn’t want to learn a new language. I told her I did, and she mentioned she had always wanted learn Russian or German. Those were exactly the languages I wanted to study, so it was a bit surprising. We started looking for courses in our city, of both German and Russian. My dad said it didn’t make sense for me to study Russian, because it isn’t a popular or useful language here, meanwhile German is more popular. I felt like I couldn’t justify my desire to learn Russian, and ended up just choosing German, even thought I actually wanted Russian.

In 2014 I started going to German classes, and I studied Russian on the internet. Nobody knows I studied Russian because as I said, my parents don’t really know what I do on the internet. During 2014 and 2015 I had very good grades at school and in the German class. I was very motivated, I wanted to have the best grades, and could spend a lot of time studying.

I spent most of my 2016 summer holidays (December of 2015 to March of 2016) studying Russian. It had started to become like an obligation for me. I mean, I liked it and I knew it was not something I HAD to do, but I had the goal of becoming fluent, and so I felt like I needed to spend all of my time learning. If I spent much time doing anything else, I thought I was “wasting time” But I also couldn’t help getting distracted sometimes, and instead of all the time I could have dedicated to it, I only dedicated a few hours. Despite that I actually managed to learn a lot, I’m not fluent but I have a big vocabulary, I understand like 70% of what people say/what I read in most situations. If I had to speak or write, though, it’s much more difficult.

Around march of 2016 I decided to simply stop learning Russian. It was sad for me to stop, but I couldn’t see any use for it in my life, and it was very difficult to become fluent, especially because I had no one to practice with, and there aren’t many resources on the internet, at least not much compared to languages like German or French. It was very difficult, I was dedicating too much time to it and I thought I wouldn’t get anything from it because Russian isn’t such an important, and the only language I really needed was English. So I sort of gave up. And I remember feeling sad about this. In a way, I hated the fact that the Russian language wasn’t given as much of attention as other languages, and the fact that English is the lingua franca of the world.

In March of 2016 I started my fourth year of secondary school, and things changed. First of all, I now had to go to school in the morning (7 to 12 aprox.), and I discovered I really hate waking up early in the morning. Before that I went to school in the afternoon (13-18 pm) I wasn’t used to going to bed early (used to sleep at 12 or 1 am), and I think for most of that year I couldn’t go to bed early.

I also had new classmates now. Only 5 people from my previous class were there. This wasn’t a problem for me, I didn’t really care. I remember my friend talking about her expectation for this new class, if it would be better or not compared to the last, but I didn’t have any expectations, I thought I would feel the same in whatever class I went to, because people were always the same to me.

I now had to go to German class in the afternoon, and it was getting really difficult for me because when I got home from school all I wanted to do was sleep. So I started hating having to go to the class, and I wasn’t studying as hard as in 2014 (in 2015 I didn’t go to German classes because of schedule problems) I still did well, had good grades but lower than I used to.

I don’t know why but studying started to become really difficult for me. I couldn’t study for too long. I suddenly couldn’t understand how I used to be able to study for hours. It’s like in 2013-2015 I had an “alarm” that, whenever I remembered I needed to do something important, would make me stop focusing on any distractions and start studying. I started feeling that alarm no longer worked. It got to the point where I knew I had to do some important homework for the next day but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I still managed to get good grades, though. They were lower than in the previous years but still one of the best in my class. School here is quite easy, teachers give you a lot of opportunities to pass, and students aren’t expected to study much. So nobody realized how things had changed for me, I felt it was harder for me to concentrate, to study, but it didn’t reflect on my grades, and my family thought I was studying as always. My friend started hanging out with a guy and another girl of our class, and so we became a group of friends. I’m not sure when I started having the feeling of loneliness. Probably around July.

I remember going to my German classes and feeling like I wanted someone to be with me. I guess started to feel more distant from my classmates and my friends in the class. I knew that in July we would receive exchange students in our school, and I started daydreaming about it. At first, I imagined I would have a girl best friend who was an exchange student. I especially wanted her to be from Germany or Russia because I wanted to practice the languages I was learning. So I was very excited about it. I daydreamed more and more about having a best friend who understood me, someone I could really trust and like. Then the day came. An Italian girl and a French guy came to our school. The Italian girl went to my class (the 7th) and the French guy to the 1st. My first reaction to the guy was the he was really good-looking. And from the gir, well I was curious and wanted to get to know her more to see if we would become best friends or not.

The Italian girl became a part of my group of friends. In a way, I had gotten what I wanted, because I wanted any exchange student that came to the school to belong to my group of friends. It was with us that spent most of the time, she sat near us, and eventually ended up sitting next to me. At first it seemed like we were going to be great friends, but it never really happened. I think we spent some months sitting next to each other, I sometimes helped her, explained the meaning of words, etc. But our relationship never evolved. She knew I thought the French guy was cute, and soon my other friends found out. So we would often talked about it. I was never in love with him, though. I only thought he was good-looking and wanted to get to know him more, but, the more I found out about his personality, the less I liked him. For some time I tried to get an opportunity to talk to him, but it didn’t happened. We would sometimes see each other in recesses and we would greet each other because he knew I was the Italian girl’s friend.

Around this time (August) I started going to nightclubs for the first time. I never really felt any interest for it, but since I now had an Italian friend, and there was the French guy too, I wanted to start go, mostly because I felt curiosity of how they would react to the parties and stuff.

In October I went to the nightclub. My friends were supposed to go too. But they didn’t, I don’t remember exactly why, but they ended up not going. People usually make a party in someone’s house before going to the nightclub, so I went to the party, I knew there would be people from all of the 4th year classes from our school. When I got there, I was alone. There was no one from my class (I think I will call it division from now on, that’s how it’s called in Spanish. There are 7 different divisions for 4th year (16 year old) students) There were only people from other classes. But I found a girl that I knew from previous years and started talking to her. Then my classmates arrived, but they weren’t really the people I talked and, since my friends weren’t going to come, I decided to just stay with this girl.

Then the hour came to go to the nightclub. The girl and I called a taxi, most students went walking (the place was quite far, though, so it was a lot of walking) When we arrived to the nightclub, the girl met with a guy. I understood there that they were going to spend most of the time together. We entered, we were dancing and soon they started hugging and kissing. I felt kind of weird just standing there next to them (I wasn’t used to dancing, so at the time I would mostly just stand) while they were together, so I told the girl I would go buy some drinks. It was just a way of finding something to do and get out of the situation, not because I actually wanted a drink. So I went to the bar and there was a lot of people there, most of them men, so I knew I would have to wait there a lot.

All of the students were supposed to be able to get free drinks until 3 am, so I was expecting to get my drink for free. Then, as I was waiting, some guys started talking to me. It was full of guys, I was probably the only girl in there, so I was started to regret the decision of going to buy the drinks, but I was already there and decided to stay. A guy asked if he could buy a drink for me, I told them no and showed them the seal in my wrist (I’m not sure what’s the correct word for this in English) so he knew I was a student and could get my drinks for free. He went away. I really didn’t want to flirt with anyone, so I was really hoping that no guy would try to buy me a drink again. A lot of time passed, it was almost 3 am and there were still people before me to buy drinks. Then finally it was my turn. I asked the guy for a drink and he told me I could only get the free drinks in the bar that was upstairs. A guy was near me, he started talking to me and he offered to go with me to the bar upstairs. I accepted although I really wasn’t comfortable with the situation.

So we went upstairs but by the time I could ask for the drink, it was already 3 am. It was maybe 3:03 but the barman said no, I had to pay. I was kind of angry at this, how was I supposed to know I could only get the drinks upstairs. The guy used this situation to offer me the drink, and I accepted. I think I paid half the drink, though (I don’’t remember) It was not something I really wanted to do, but I didn’t want to reject the guy. Then he continued talking to me and kissed me. It was my first kiss ever. And, if I have to be honest, it was quite disgusting. I don’t if it is because he was a bad kisser, because I didn’t know how to kiss, because I didn’t like him/didn’t feel anything, but I really disliked the feeling of lip contact. It was nothing like I expected kissing to feel like. We continued talking for some time, but then I guess he got tired of me, said he was going to the bathroom and left. At first, I didn’t know what to expect, if he was actually going to come back or not. I waited for like maybe 20 minutes in the same place and then realized he was not coming back so just went downstairs again. Just to give you an idea, there are different floors in this nightclub and there’s people dancing in all of them, but the ground floor is an open place. There was a lot of people. I went to the ground floor, tried to dance for a while, but I was alone, and then another guy appeared and tried to kiss me. I accepted, and, again, I didn’t like it at all. The guy gave me his phone number but I never texted me. By this time I was already tired of being there, I didn’t like the music, I didn’t like anything at all and didn’t want any guys to keep flirting with me. So I asked my mom to pick me up, and left early. So, as you can see, it was a pretty bad experience.

Around this time I was quite obsessed with reading books, and learning about literary theory and philosophy. I basically transferred my obsession with learning Russian to an obsession with reading. I guess my desire to find someone grew more and more. I started daydreaming about finding a boyfriend, particularly.

2017

In January of 2017 I traveled to Brazil with my family. A part of me wished I would meet someone in that travel. It was another daydream, another fantasy. That didn’t happen. It was a nice trip, but I was getting kind of annoyed of being with my family, constantly having to go where they wanted to go. I really wished I could travel with a person I liked, just me and the guy I liked. I think it may have been around this time also that I started daydreaming frequently about having a family. Like, I imagined traveling with my children and my husband/boyfriend (in the future) And also imagined traveling with a boyfriend in a closer future/present. I felt quite limited, like I couldn’t go to the places I wanted to go.

I remember that, while being in a shopping, I saw they were selling a magazine about philosophy. It was in Portuguese, but I already knew some of the language and, since it’s similar to Spanish, I knew I could read it with the help of a dictionary. This was a time where I was very interested in learning about philosophy, so I really wanted to buy it, but I didn’t know how to tell this to my mom. I felt like my interest for philosophy couldn’t be justified. Of course, she didn’t know I spent a lot of time o the internet searching about philosophy or literature, she didn’t realize I had developed this new interest, except for the fact that I said I wanted to study Literature as a university career. So, I didn’t ask her to buy me the magazine. I couldn’t do it. I wanted to go to see more libraries, but every time was saw one, my mom and the others would say “what’s the point of seeing the books there if they’re all in Portuguese” They didn’t think that, maybe, I wanted to read books in Portuguese.

So during this travel I spent a lot of time parallely imagining in my head what it would have been like if I had travelled alone or with a S.O.

In February, before school started, there was another party in a nightclub. A party that students who had just entered the fifth and last year of high school went to. It’s supposed to be a celebration of the fact that you’re in the last year. I decided to go. But the only reason I wanted to go is because I had this crazy idea, this hope, that I would find the person I was looking for there. I even thought that I could wear a ring, that this would serve as a symbol for the other person to find me. And maybe he would wear one too, and we would find each other. Two people looking for each other. For a moment I believed it could happen. But I went to the nightclub, and it was a disappointment. I didn’t find anyone. Of course, no one was wearing the ring or any other symbol I had expected from the fantasy on my mind. It was dark, but I tried to see if I could recognize someone. How would I recognize him? Because he would also be looking for me. I planned that we would both separate a bit from other people, we would be alone for some minutes, and we would start looking at everyone in the party, and everyone else would be too focused on other things to notice, but we would be looking for each other. And we would recognize each other. That didn’t happen, another disappointment.

I also had the idea that I could maybe find this person in my school library. If we both were on the same school, then maybe we would both go to the library and could find each other there. That also didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because that person doesn’t exist. And I would soon learn that.

It was in 2017, I don’t remember exactly in what month, that I went to one of my friend’s house. Well, it was not actually his house, it was his aunt’s apartment but he was allowed to stay there alone for some time. Something I haven’t mentioned until now, is that my mom is a person that cares a lot about cleanliness. And I’m also this way. We have the custom of taking our shoes off at the door, we don’t wear the same shoes we wear in the street inside the house. And we also don’t have pets inside the house, because they would bring dirt into the house, and would shed hairs on the bed, sofa, etc. That’s how I live and that’s how I want to live always. But that’s very different from what people are used to where I’m from. Most people don’t take their shoes off, they don’t have any problems having their dogs/cats inside the house and sleeping with them.

So I went to the apartment, and this guy (like most people) has very different customs to the ones I grew up with. He took the blanket from his bed and placed on the floor. Then people walked on it with the same shoes they wear on the street. It was a bit disgusting to me to have sit on that (we were about to watch a movie and we were supposed to sit on the blanket) but I decided to ignore it. Then, when the time to sleep came, I was allowed to sleep in the bedroom. The bed was full of dog hair, which I also found uncomfortable. I didn’t want to sleep there, at that moment I wished I could have been at my home sleeping in my room, with my cleaning standards. But I couldn’t mention any of this to them, they wouldn’t understand, they were raised in a different way.

Then, at school, the conditions were really bad. The classrooms are dirty. This is something that has always bothered me, but it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else. If you take a white paper and rub it on the school benches, it comes out black from all the dirt the benches have. The chairs were also dirty. And people constantly placed their shoes on the chair, which, of course, made them dirtier. I’m probably the only one here who thinks it’s disgusting to place your dirty shoes on the chairs. But no one cares, everyone finds it normal. Then there’s also the problem of trash. People throw trash on the floor and don’t care about it. And the bathrooms are super dirty too.

I hated having to go everyday to such a dirty school. But no one else cared. I knew I was alone on this. And I had to pretend I didn’t notice, I had to pretend it didn’t bother me. The only person that understands what I feel is my mom, because she shares the same opinion, she raised me this way. The schools conditions in this city are terrible, and they will continue to be terrible if people don’t care about it. It’s not only the dirtiness and general bad conditions of the place, the quality of education is really bad, and students often misbehave. I saw classmates break chairs or benches just because they thought it was “fun”.

So all of this was very depressing to me, and I started wishing I could meet someone who had similar opinions to mine, someone I could rant to about the school conditions and that would actually agree with me. I daydreamed that I would find someone, meet someone at school, slowly start talking and realize we both thought the same. I dreamed about having the joy, the surpise, of finding someone similar to me, the feeling of having a “connection” with someone. Never happened. There is no one like me. I was alone. In my school, in my city and, probably, in the world. I could never relate to any of my classmates, to anyone I met. They were all so different to me.

I think it was around this time too, or maybe before, around 2016-early 2017- that I was feeling quite annoyed with my parents. My mom constantly yelled at me and it made me feel angry. For some time I wanted to live alone and become independent from my parents. I wanted to have the freedom of having my own money, being able to buy whatever I wanted, go to wherever I wanted, and not having to hear my parents’ complains. I wanted freedom. 

Things started to get worse and worse for me, the idea of finding someone and having a family on the future, started to become stronger. I even had the idea of going to live somewhere on the countryside, isolated from everyone else, just with my husband and children. My idea of happiness was having a boyfriend that understood me, agreed with me, and raising my children.

In may of 2017 aprox. I started having joint pain. Then I was diagnosed with Lupus and started taking corticosteroids. I never cared about it, and I always thought it wasn’t Lupus because I didn’t have any of the symptoms except joint pain and hair loss. No rashes and it didn’t get worse with the sun. 

On a day of September 2017 I went to a family reunion. I would sometimes daydream, when going to family reunions, that I took my boyfriend with me, I pictured being together with someone. That day my cousin and his girlfriend (they’re together since 2013) were present. I stayed there until late afternoon. Then I went back home. When I got back home, I started crying. That’s when it began. I realized nothing of what I was imagining was real, I was never going to meet that person, that person simply didn’t exist. There was no one for me, there was no one like me.

I tried searching on Facebook. I had once created a fake profile, I tried searching for other profiles similar to the one I had created. I wanted to think that maybe someone went trough similar experiences to mine and had also created an account like that. But had no succes. I tried going to Goodreads and seaching for the people online, but found no one from my city. I tried looking for clues, for signs that there was someone else looking for a person like me, someone who had gone through nearly the same. But no.

I’m an asexual person. I don’t feel sexual attractions towards anyone. I don’t understand the world’s obsession with sex, it’s something that made me feel even more alienated from everyone else. Most people seem to think that a relationship without sex is impossible, I’m tired of constantly hearing people talking about how important and great sex is. So, what are the possibilities of finding someone like that? Someone that also thinks this way but that wants to have a family. Someone that agrees with my views about cleanliness, that accepts living in a house in the same way I want to. The possibilities are really low.

I had believed I would find someone with the same mindset, someone I could feel a connection to, someone that I could trust enought to talk about my daydreams, someone with whom I could rant about the things that bothered and be validated. I dreamed about finding someone who would have (almost) the same opinions as me. What a fool I was.

Everything inside me sort of broke. I was probably never going to find the person, I would have to be forever surrounded by people I can’t relate to. What was the point of living?

 In September I was told by my doctor that I didn’t have Lupus, that it was what they call a “phenomenon”, sort of like an isolated episode. So I stopped taking the medications and I haven’t seen her (the doctor) again. I still occasionally have joint pain but nothing too bad. This was after I had started having the suicidal thoughts. 

When I’m with other people, I can’t help but notice how different our life experiences have been. Most people haven’t spent so much time on the internet. They don’t speak English, and that’s crazy to me, because I feel like it has been such an important part of my life. I’m always searching things in English, I have always resorted to Google to search and find more things about what I was thinking, about my daydreams, investigating about different things. I can’t imagine my life without doing this. And to think only very few people here know or use Reddit; I would constantly get results from Reddit when searching on Google. Not knowing about its existence sounds crazy to me. And yet most people don’t know about it. Most people don’t know about asexuality, daydreaming, and so many other concepts I learned from the internet. But when I see other people, I notice their experience with the internet is very different. They definitely didn’t experience what I did. They don’t understand. It’s not that I think it’s a bad thing that people can’t speak English or don’t know as much of the internet as I do. But it’s something that makes me sad, it makes it harder for me to relate to anyone.

Sometimes I think, how different all of my life would have been if I had met that person in 2016, for example. Everything would have been very different, I probably would have gotten more motivation to study, I would never had gotten into this amount of emotional pain, I wouldn’t even know the horrible feeling of loneliness. And I would be a happy person. But I didn’t get that. Sometimes when I see certain couples I feel a bit jealous, not in a bad sense; I’m happy for them, but I also feel sad that I don’t have that.

I just wanted to meet someone who was “on the same level” as mine. With this I don’t mean to say I’m on a higher level than other people, I’m talking about people who’ve had a similar life experience, someone that knows pretty much the same things I know, because they’ve also spent all that time on the internet, in the same way I did.

So, since September I entered a very bad mood. I became suicidal. Actually, after that day of family reunion where everything started, I stayed really sad for some days and then I recovered for 4 days. Yes, four days in which I thought “I will find that person, I don’t have to focus on that right now” and was feeling ok.

I thought the bad mood had been something temporary, I thought I could recover and feel “normal” again. But, on the fourth day, I woke up in the afternoon after a nap and was feeling a bit down. I went with my mom to a bookshop. I was reading Harry Potter at that moment, and I wanted to buy a Harry Potter coloring book and the 6th book too. I didn’t. Why? I don’t know. I thought my mom would ask why am I choosing the 6th one instead of the first, and I would have to explain I read the other books on the internet. And I didn’t like the idea of having to tell her I read books I download from the internet. It means admitting I have access to a lot of information. And, I don’t know, it makes me feel uncomfortable. There were also other books I liked; books about politics. But I felt like I was not allowed to buy those type of books, that I couldn’t justify my interest in them. I felt that my mom would probably say “why do you want to read THAT, what made you get interested in that” I started crying in the shop but I managed to control my tears so that my mom wouldn’t realize. When I got back home I was crying again, feeling suicidal again. And from that moment on, I don’t think I’ve recovered.

Since that moment, I’ve been suffering. There were days in which I cried SO, SO much. There was a period in which I cried almost during the whole day, from morning until the evening. I couldn’t tell anyone about my pain. They wouldn’t understand. If I tell them I feel lonely, they would probably just advice me to meet more people. But they don’t understand; my problem is I can’t find anyone I can relate to, I’m so different from everyone. Now, if I tell people that, they would probably think I’m exaggerating, that I’m trying to make myself look special or something like that. And there are things I couldn’t really say to anyone; there’s no one I trust enought to talk about certain things. My daydreams, for example. My asexuality, too. The cleanliness part (most people wouldn’t understand or would maybe get offended since they do all the things I consider dirty)

During these 3-4 months, I’ve been suicidal most of the time, I’ve suffered so much. I would cry and felt like I needed to scream. I would sort of scream silently, because I can’t let people hearing me screaming. I felt like I just wanted the world to be over, I wanted to never see that school again, I wanted everything to disappear. I was so tired of everything. So tired of the pain. So tired of the bad luck I had had, knowing I hated the world I was in. Almost 4 months of living like this. It feels like it has been more. After the extreme pain started in September, I’m not sure if I can say I’ve been “living”, I feel almost like I’m dead.

 I started visiting subs like /depression or /suicidewatch. However, I could never really find anyone in a similar situation to mine, and that made me feel more alone and alienated. Even among the people who suffer, I was still alone on my suffering, it seemed. I could only relate to some things people posted there (suicidal thoughts and feelings of sadness, not wanting to hurt your parents), but there were so many other things I couldn’t relate to at all. I sometimes see people posting “sad memes” on Facebook. Or the “me_irl” memes on Reddit. Can’t relate to most of them either. Same in Tumblr, if I tried searching “sad”, most of the images/texts are not relatable.

 I mentioned before that at one point I wanted to move out of my parent’s house and become independent. I thought that would make me happy. But then I found out that not even all that freedom would make me happy, it wouldn’t eliminate the feeling of loneliness, it wouldn’t eliminate all the pain. It would help maybe, to have more freedom, but not much. 

 They were months of pretending too. The only reason to keep living was my family. I wouldn’t want to hurt them. And, yet, I couldn’t tell my parents about it. I don’t have enough trust. As I said, they don’t know what I do on the internet, I never tell them; they know few things about me, actually. They have their own spiritual beliefs, they believe in reincarnation and that things happen to us because of karma. My dad says that if you fear something, it will manifest in your life. It’s basically The Law of Attraction. They both believe that you can heal illneses by positive thinking and more things like that. I don’t believe in any of that, and I also think the idea of karma and of The Law of Attraction are kind of contradictory, but I never tell them my true opinion because I wouldn’t want to argue with them, and I’m not sure if our relationship would be the same afterwards. I wished they thought differently. It’s not nice having to deal with your family having such differnt beliefs from yours. And I’m pretty sure if I told them I was having suicidal thoughts or told them about my problems they would probably come up with an explanation about how karma affects our life, and that everything happens for a reason. And also my dad looks down on suicidal people. 

When I was at one of my worst moments, I tried imagining having to explain to my mom my pain and my suicidal thoughts. There are so many things I don’t think I could tell her. Me having suicidal thoughts at age 10, the fact that I don’t share the same beliefs at them, all I did on the internet plus the fact that I ended up talking to people online, my asexuality (I’m not sure if she would understand it, maybe she will think it’s not real or that it’s wrong). She would be shocked, and I don’t think I could ever be tell her. Same with my dad, but it’s actually more difficult to me to trust him, I’d rather tell my mom. 

 So I was trapped. I was suffering so much in life that I didn’t want to live anymore, but I also couldn’t die, I couldn’t do that to my family. What if I had to suffer during years without them ever finding out? Even if they did find out, they wouldn’t understand.

I used to think that I could talk about those things I can’t talk with my parents or anyone else (the daydreaming, the asexuality, my beliefs, everything I’m saying here basically) with the person I was looking for. That way I would never need to let my parents know about who I really am.

Sometimes I like to think that maybe in a few years there will be a person  in a similar situation. Now that children grow up getting computers and phones at a such a young age. The chances of someone ending up on a similar situation are higher. Maybe. Maybe it won’t happen. Maybe there is someone like me but that hasn’t gotten to the period I’m currently at. They haven’t yet discovered the feeling of loneliness, that’s why they’re not looking for someone else yet. I mean, in 2015 I still wasn’t aware of all of this feeling of loneliness and being different (I actually did feel it but not as strong as I would later on) I hadn’t yet posted any of this on Reddit, Tumblr or whatever, I didn’t look for anyone yet. Maybe there’s someone like that out there. Maybe. But probably not.

Sometimes I look at my (now ex) classmates, I look at all the other students, I look at all the people I know and think “I’m the only person here who’s gone through this, who’s experienced all that, I’m the only one who’s posted on subs /offmychest, /depression. Probably the only person in the whole city who has done this” And I just… I can’t believe it. What kind of horrible gene combination and life situations ended up making me like this? Why. Why did I have to be like this? Why can’t I be just like everybody else? All of them are happy, they like their school, not like me, most people my age just like to go out and drink and be with their friends, and they have no idea of the things I know/I’ve experienced, we’re basically in different worlds.

 What if I actually found that person I was looking for and he/she dies? Wouldn’t I be destroyed, wouldn’t I feel lonely again? Should I really depend on someone else to be happy? But this is just a supposition, because I don’t even know that person. What if I managed to form a family and my children died? What if I died? They would be left without a mom. Life is a cruel thing, full of tragedies. Anything can end at any moment. How am I supposed to look at life as a good thing?

My parents already have their own problems and having their only child die would only make everything worse, I think. I don’t want them to suffer. My mom has frequent headaches and if she gets nervous then she gets physical symptoms. My parents argue with each other every now and then. My mom’s told me if she had enough money she would go live somewhere else away from my dad. But at the same time, I know that when they’re not fighting they do enjoy each other’s company, and I think she would maybe feel lonely if she truly went to live alone. I wished I could have enough money and give it to her so that she can live wherever she wants. But I can’t get a job, I’m pretty sure my parents would 100% prefer for me to study at university than to get a job. And yet I think studying is harder.

So all those thoughts ran through my head on December 26-28. The “why did I have to end up like this”, “why can’t I be like everyone else and make my parents happy”, “There’s no solution for me, I’m trapped” I was trapped because I was dying inside but I knew I couldn’t tell anyone else, there was no solution for me. I imagined trying to tell my cousin about it, also felt like I couldn’t do it. I imagined that, for whatever reason, I died. It made me sad. What would my family feel. I was tired of the feeling of hopelessness, tired of suffering so much, I just wanted it all to end.

 Then on December 30 or 31, I don’t remember exactly, I started feeling I was on a higher mood than usual. I didn’t feel happy, but I was calmer. The intense pain and feeling of hopelessness and despair was gone. I’t’s January 3rd now and I’m still on this mood. It seems like it has been a bit longer. Every day feels like many days for me. I’m so grateful that I have the chance to feel calmer, even if my problems aren’t over. There are still things that bother me and tnat I worry about; the feeling of loneliness and of being different is not gone, it will continue there. And there’s the fact that it’s going to be very difficult to find someone compatible with me if I really want to form a family with someone. I’ll probably be single for a long time, if not single my whole life. Unless I meet someone I actually like and with whom things can work just fine. I don’t know, though. I still worry about all of these things, but at least it now doesn’t affect me much at an emotional level. I really don’t want to ever go back to the pain I felt, to the intense feeling of hopelessness and anguish, to all those hours of crying. I hope I don’t ever come back there. If I can stay in this mood, then maybe I can survive, I can continue with life. But on my previous state it was pure torture, I don’t think I could live like that for too long.

Now I don’t what is going to happen with my life. I feel that I’m living because I don’t want to kill myself. But is there any point in life? Can I ever be truly happy? Well, I should enjoy this moment of emotional peace and try to keep on living and see what happens. A scary thought recently occured to me: maybe I can’t have a fulfilling relationship with anyone, maybe I’m unable to have (true) friends or a couple. Maybe I’m just unable to be with people. Maybe I’m unable to truly be happy. Those thoughts threaten to send me into an episode of suffering again, but most of the time I feel calm, luckily. Calm but, also, in a way, lost. What will be of me? What am I doing? I don’t know, I hope the calmness continues, I hope I can feel an even higher mood, of course, I hope everything improves.