#i need to learn georgian

[sotiriabellou]

not a polyphonic technically but i love this song

[salvadorbonaparte]

Revised language learning plan for the rest of the year

[batri-jopa]

It's either some high level mathematics...

...or I can never trust Google Translate again

[buckets-and-trees]

Title: Fire Burning from a Cedar Tree

Fandom: MCU

Characters/Pairings: King!Steve x Royal!female!Reader, brief appearance from Natasha

Word Count: 3.4k

Summary: Georgian-but-quasi-American royal AU. You came into the betrothal with no illusions to the situation – yours was a marriage to ensure the continuation of many generations of alliance and peace between your respective kingdoms. Very early, however, you learn what your royal union truly means to you both.

Content Warnings: politically arranged marriage, reluctant pining, SMUT (rough fucking, p in v, oral – female receiving, fluffy fucking, nipple play)

Additional Notes: The eighth and final offering in my 2022 Holiday Extravaganza. Just a smutty one-shot here with a smattering of situation painting/plot and relationship development. Did I think we were going to end up with this much Steve for the HE? Nope! But here we are, yet again ahaha. I had closed my laptop and gotten up to go to bed, had this idea while brushing my teeth, and sat back down and typed for an hour, then have been feverishly returning to it as I had the time. So I hope you enjoy, dear reader.

Music Ficspiration: Big God by Florence + the Machine, I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face from My Fair Lady, Better Love by Hozier, Movement by Hozier, So Real by Jeff Buckley, Lover, You Should’ve Come Over by Jeff Buckley

“Your Majesty,” one of your ladies in waiting enters your bedchambers and sweeps into a curtsy.

“Yes?” you prompt, turning in your chair to look at her directly instead of through mirror of the vanity.

“His Majesty the King has returned.”

You nod, “Thank you. You may retire for the evening.”

She curtsies again, bowing her head, and then leaves, closing the door softly behind her. You sigh, turning back properly in your chair so your lady in waiting, the Duchess Natalia, can resume taking down your hair.

“Your Majesty?” she prompts, noting your sigh.

“It’s good to hear the king is back.”

“He will undoubtedly request an audience with you tomorrow,” she says. She is far too observant and already knows you too well.

She is also mercifully diplomatic, discreet, and a confidant who listens and doesn’t needle you or pry, so she continues letting out the braids, letting you muse on your own and only speak further if you want to.

You don’t want to.

The product of a long-arranged betrothal to bring peace between two countries, you had accepted your fate, resigned to be a good and dutiful queen. You were not to inherit a throne in your own country, had known that from birth with two older brothers, and you had grown up ready to embrace duty and opportunity. On arriving in the kingdom of Brooklyn as the future queen, your interactions with King Steven had been limited, but pleasant. They had been sufficient for you to be secure in your hope that it would be a good union, no need to worry about him being either cruel or moronic.

You had expected to be wedded and bedded. What you had not expected was to actually fall for him after the wedding ceremony and royal festivities when the two of you had taken the custom ten-day royal honeymoon to the palace in the north of his country by the lakes. The first night, of course, you’d consummated the union. The first few days you had been tentative in each other’s company. But with few staff, few interruptions, no royal obligations, only time really to yourselves – dining together, walking in the gardens, riding in the forest, in your bedchambers… you had grown close, and you had dangerously started to lose your heart to him.

Then you had been sent back to court while he had to depart directly to attend to matters in California in Stark’s kingdom. Two weeks had stretched to three, and the longer he was absent, the more you missed him, spurring you to grow more irritated at your naivety for developing more tender feelings for him than just that of the dutiful wife and queen you were supposed to and had intended to be.

No, here you sat, hoping your husband would summon you on the morrow, as you could not simply turn up in his royal presence, even though you were queen. Indeed, you could go anywhere else in this kingdom, had the company of many – some only because they had to or were courting your favor, but enough warm and developing relationships throughout the court – but not the one person you now yearned for.

You had been prepared all your life to marry a king and not to grow sentimentally attached to him as your husband. You felt like such a fool, pining when you had been perfectly fine and content in your life a mere six weeks ago.

There are voices outside your bedchamber and you and Natasha exchange perplexed looks. Just as she turns toward the door, it bursts open, the king entering without hesitation. He takes in the scene then quickly strides forward.

Natasha quickly drops into the customary curtsy. “Your Majesty,” she says.

You should have risen from your spot and greeted him as well, but your heart has jumped into your throat, and you are momentarily frozen.

The king is across the room and standing next to you by the time Natasha rises back to her full stature. He reaches out for the brush in her hand, and you catch the nearly imperceptible lift of the corners of her lips in a smile as she gives it to him.

“Duchess, you may go, I will take over.”

“Yes, your Majesty.”

She makes to curtsy again before exiting, but he waves her off. “Go,” he commands, impatiently but somehow without any irritation, and she heeds his wishes and departs immediately.

Wordlessly, he steps right up behind you. You suppose you shouldn’t have been surprised he came to you. You belong to him, and he’s been denied by proximity for three weeks. He pulls all your hair into his left hand, then, holding it, works the brush through it with his right hand, starting at the bottom, moving up a little at a time. You marvel at how gently and methodically he works through your locks, almost reverently. Neither of you speak as he brushes your hair. You study him in the mirror. He’s concentrated fully on his task. Coming to a finish, he finally meets your gaze in the mirror, and the look in his eyes is intense. He sets the brush on the dressing table and sweeps your hair to one side, exposing your neck and he leans down to press a long, heated kiss to your delicate skin. You shiver as he follows this with shorter kisses trailing down your neck to the juncture where it meets shoulder, and it’s a sensitive point that draws a sigh from your lips.

He stands up straight and urges you to turn in your chair and face him. His fingers possessively trace along your jaw, tilting your chin up. “Did you miss your king?”

You couldn’t say you missed your husband and not your king, not yet, so instead of mincing words or spinning together something else true enough to say, you bring your hand up over his, and turn your head to press a kiss into the palm of his hand.

You try to move to kneel before him, but he says, “Oh no,” instead insisting on luring you up and pulling you into a kiss, fully flush against his body, and he leads you in no uncertain terms to the bed, shoving you down to sit at the foot of the mattress. He draws back and both of you are panting heavily. He stands between your legs, and he doesn’t take his eyes off your as he pulls his tunic up over his head and drops it to the floor. His breeches quickly follow, and his cock springs free, hard, and ready to take you. Already breathing heavily, you’re able to hide your reaction somewhat – which is a confusing mixture of both excitement and trepidation.

He urges you to scoot back, crawling up to join you,

Midway up the bed, he presses on your shoulder, “Lay back for me. “

He rucks up your nightgown around your hips, and crawls over you, using one hand to guide himself into your already slickening folds before caging you in on either side of your head and thrusting deep inside your cunt, filling you completely with the first thrust.

He adopts a frenzied pace to fuck you. It’s hard and fast. He’s no longer looking at you, his head dropped and buried into the crook of your neck. You can’t catch your breath. This isn’t what you wanted.

He holds your thigh up around his narrow waist, spearing into you again and again, his fingers digging into your flesh with a bruising force. You let out a quiet sob and he abruptly stills, raising his head to look at you, but you can’t look at him.

You’re not fast enough to brush away the tears though, and you know he sees them slowly rolling down your cheeks, tears you had fought to keep at bay.

He utters your name as if in pain and draws away completely, sitting back on his heels.

You turn away, rolling to your side, feeling so much more of you has been exposed than merely your naked body before him.

After a moment that stretches on between the two of you, his fingers tenderly caress your calf. He murmurs your name tentatively this time, a question.

You sense him shift on the bed, and suddenly you feel him behind you. You are wrapped in on yourself, but his hand brushes softly from your elbow to your shoulder. He lingers there for a moment, then you feel him shift behind you again, and he props himself up, so he can look down at you over your shoulder, and his hand moves purposefully now to your cheek to wipe away your tears. He plants a kiss on your shoulder. Then he brings his hand back to your shoulder and softly urges you to roll toward him so you’re on your back again and he can look directly at you again.

“That was too rough. You are a queen and deserve better treatment from a king.”

You turn your head away. “No, it’s not…” You bite your lip. Even the way he apologized was too detached and it made your heart ache.

“Not what?”

More hot tears spill silently over your cheeks. How can you explain? You hardly understood the tempest in your heart yourself.

But then he cups the side of your face, brushes his thumb over the apple of your cheek, and when he draws your gaze back to him, there is something in his eyes so searching and raw that your heart longs for more of that version of him. “It wasn’t that you were too rough, it was that I don’t want to be merely used and discarded.” Your admission is out in a rush before you could second guess your words or their consequences.

He frowns. “Far from it.”

He moves closer and plants a kiss on your forehead, then rests his forehead against yours. Eyes closed, for a moment you both simply breath each other in being that close, one of his hands still cupping your cheek. At length, he speaks again. “I was desperate for you.”

“Desperate for me?”

He breaks away and laughs softly, but there’s a pang of bitterness to it. “Yes, desperate.”

He sits up, facing away from you.

You sit up next to him, smoothing your nightdress down, unsure how to proceed, you don’t want to lose him in the present. “Steven?” you try to coax him for more.

He sighs. “I’m afraid you will find me to be a fool.”

You wait for him to continue, needing to hear what he means.

“I was serenely independent and content before we wed, and inexplicably in a matter of days you somehow seem to have seeped into my bones, because from the first of your absence my mind turned so often of you. I found myself wondering what your opinion would be, wanting you to try some of the delicacies alongside me, wishing to see your smiles and your frowns throughout the course of the day. When I returned to my chambers each night, they were empty instead of peaceful and solitary. I’d grown accustomed to your voice, accustomed to your face, accustomed to your place at my side.”

He pauses again for a moment, and his expression pained. “But it was more than accustomed – I truly yearned for you and was angry to feel so much unlike myself when I’ve ruled for more than a decade without you, lived a life I thought was very much complete before you, devoted to the crown and happy in my reign, and now…”

The sentiment lingers in the space between you. Surely, he must hear your thundering of your heart in your chest. Finally, you say, “If you’re a fool, I’m a fool.”

His head snaps to look at you.

You take a deep breath and expose your soul to him, too. “I was born and raised for our royal duties, to marry and become a useful and reliable queen. There was no question of your deep commitment to rule this kingdom dutifully as its king. In the days before we married, it was evident we had the same expectations of our union, no sentimental notions. It made sense, and we were well-matched. At our wedding, we became king and queen. Away from our royal expectations, alone with each other, I think we both fell into becoming husband and wife. I’ve yearned for you these past weeks as well, and I couldn’t abide how impossible I thought my situation was, so sure and confident I would make for a good queen but discovering I wanted more. It was only when you went away that I felt the lack of something – an affection as I’d never had before, both for you and from you.”

He turns fully toward you and kisses you again, and instead of the demand and hunger, as he kisses now it’s driven only by the unrestrained yearning he confessed and that you admitted in return.

He pulls you into his lap, and you straddle him. He breaks the kiss to rid you of your nightdress entirely now instead of only pushing it out of the way as before, and then his lips immediately seek yours again. Your arms wrap around his neck, and his broad, warm hands are splayed across your back, pressing you flush to him, and you are just as eager to feel every inch of his skin seared against yours

He pauses his kiss, both of you utterly breathless now. You put a hand on his chest over his heart. He looks down and smiles at the gesture before looking up and beaming at you, but his small falters a fraction at the concentrated look on your face.

“What is it?”

You speak the notion that’s newly bloomed in your chest. “We are the only two people in the world with whom we can be totally ourselves, husband and wife, not the king and the queen, just a man and a woman.”

He nods fervently. “A new vow then between us: to both guard and embrace this as a true and unfettered love.”

You kiss him, but he only returns it briefly before pausing it again. “Do you swear it?” he asks.

You bob your head eagerly, seeking his lips, but he grips your chin, holding you back. “Words.”

“I swear it with everything I am.”

“As do I,” he affirms, then captures your lips again with his, moving you both again, this time lowering you worshipfully to the mattress. His mouth begins moving slowly down your neck, and you shiver, one hand coming up to tangle in his hair, the other clutching his muscled bicep. When he reaches the base of your neck, his tongue laves at the sweet spot he discovered there in your first precious days together, making you whimper. He then mouths at the spot and plants one more kiss there before moving lower. His lips skim lightly down your chest, kissing over where your heart is thrumming. He kisses the swell of your left breast, and then moves to mirror that action on the right. He brings his right hand up to palm one of your breasts as his tongue flicks across your nipple. He works to bring both to stiff peaks, licking and sucking the right while his hand plays with the left. Your back arches in pleasure at his ministrations.

He moves his mouth back to the other breast, and before you can think to miss his hand there, it’s confidently parting your thighs, seeking your now extremely wet folds.

“Steve.”

“That’s it, my love, let me make you feel good,” he says, and you whimper again. His fingers stroke your labia slowly. Your eyes close as he stokes your pleasure. He slips a finger into your core, pumping in and out. When he adds another finger, you can’t hold back the little noises that escape you. He presses his thumb to your clit, rubbing circles, and those little noises morph into a moan. Steve moves up now to hover over you, watching your face as he works you up to your first climax that night. You would feel too exposed if he had studied you this way during your first days together, but your confessions tonight to each other leave you now feeling safe being so intimately on display. When you cry out, hips bucking, he continues to stroke, working you through the orgasm.

He removes his fingers, and you need the moment, but lament the emptiness. His eyes are still on your face, and when your breathing is close to normal, you open your eyes and look back at him. Then you glance lower to see he’s pumping his hard, thick member with the hand that was still glistening with your slick of arousal. His eyes are aflame with his need, and he moves in to kiss you again. You welcome it, parting your lips and sliding your tongue between his. He opens for you, and as your tongues tease and delve, you roll and hungrily push him back on the mattress.

Steve grabs your hips with both of his hands and moves your body to straddle him. In place just where he wants you, chest to chest, you drop down to your elbows, planted on either side of his head. As you continue to kiss, he presses his hand down to the base of your spine and brushes his cock temptingly against your entrance. You push your hips back against him, and his chest hums with approval.

“Please,” you plead.

He doesn’t make you ask twice, using his other hand to guide his length into your quim. He doesn’t rush this push into you, but it’s not slow. Once fully sheathed, he moves his arms to circle around your chest, holding you close to him as he sets a steady pace thrusting up into you. He swallows your moans of ecstasy. When it begins to overwhelm you, you have to break off the consuming kiss to gulp lungful’s of air. Seeing you desperate like this above him drives his voracity.

Still buried inside you, he rolls to bring you beneath him once more. You cling to his shoulders, and he continues to advance toward release for both of you. He shifts the angle of his hips, and he’s rewarded with a pure keen from you. He continues to hit the spongy spot up against your pubic bone. You sob, so close, and this time the tears are pure pleasure. He grasps at one of your hands, and your fingers twine together. A few more thrusts and your walls flutter around him and then he your orgasm hits. Your spasming channel is too much, and with a groan he spills inside you right after.

He collapses against you, and you welcome the weight of his body. You’re both quiet in your moment of satiation. Your free hand draws lazy patterns over his shoulder blade as your breathing returns to normal. You wonder if he’s going to drop off into sleep, but then he repositions slightly, and asks, “Are you comfortable?”

“Mhmm,” you respond. You’re comfortable physically and intimately in this moment with him.

He brings your joined hands to his lips, and he kisses the back of your hand, then tucks it close to his chest and begins conversing with you – about the mundane, the important, things from the past few weeks apart, and from your lives apart before. There’s more kissing, followed by more pleasure, pulling each other apart in turn, and no sleeping until long after midnight.

You groan when he wakes you at what seems to be daybreak. You close your eyes again swiftly, and open your mouth to protest, but he cups your jaw and his thumb brushes over your parted lips. “I know it’s early,” he murmurs, “but I want to have you once more while we’re alone and unbothered.”

And when he says it like that, with such tenderness and longing, you wouldn’t dream of denying it for either of you. You hope to grow accustomed to many more stolen mornings over your lifetime together now.

COMPANION/PREQUEL PIECE: The Thrill of Knowing How Alone We Are

READ THE NEXT PART: A SHIFT IN THE MORNING ROUTINE

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My askbox is always open.

[pomefioredove]

Heyyyy if you are still open to some more matchups can I request a romantic one? You can pick anyone Students, Staff, or RSA/Noble Bell college people, i don't care either way. I really just want to know who you think fits me personality-wise best lol. 

Ok, so I guess I’ll tell you my appearance first, I’m 169cm so like 5’6, I’ve got very very curly reddish brown hair, and blue eyes that look purple to gray depending on the light. I have a lot of tattoos. Started with a stick and poke piece when I was 13 and have kept getting them even years later. I joke that instead of a sleeve I have a pair of pants, both my legs are covered in tattoos, one side black and the other color. People always tell me I'm incredibly easy to spot in a crowd. Pronouns are She/Her and my voice is kind of low and monotone maybe a bit husky.

As for hobbies... I love Boxing and MMA, I’ve been doing it competitively for a few years so I can comfortably say I can kick most people's ass. food is a bit of a love language for me so I cook pretty often and try a lot of different cuisines (current fav is Georgian, you have to try Khachapuri it's soooo good). I used to sing and play the drums though it's been a while so I'm probably not too great anymore. You know how some people listen to music for the lyrics while other people listen for the beat? I definitely listen more for the sound, I don't care what the song is about just how the sounds flow together... which is why I mostly listen to music in foreign languages, don't need to understand to lyrics to enjoy the beat.

My interests are mostly low key I like to study languages but I don't really try to become fluent just conversational i guess. I'm more inclined to learn about the aspects of a language than the grammar and stuff. Reading horror and what I like to call weird fiction. I love finding books that are a little odd the best example of this that I can think of is "House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewsk. I really like weird things, normal things that have been a little twisted and made up in new ways if you get what I mean.

As for my personality... ugh I think I'm probably an acquired taste... it sounds bad but like I'm a really difficult person to get close to. I just don't trust easily and I'm not someone who entertains too much small talk without reason. An example is the fact I've known people for five+ years and still don't really consider them friends. Sure we hang out but like they don't know me and I don't know them. I'm just kind of prickly, with a major resting bitch face too. Though to make up for this I'm incredibly loyal. Once we've actually become friends there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. If they need help hiding a body I'm not gonna ask questions just gonna bring a shovel, take out for two, and tickets out of the country.

Oh and a current project of mine is to reverse-engineer a printer so that i can stick it to shitty corporations who think its reasonable to make you pay a subscription to use a printer that I ALREADY PAID FOR!! That last bit was mostly because i need to print out an essay of mine and I had to dust of the printer i haven't used in forever only to be met with a error message saying i had to pay my subscription to use the thing ugghh. So now i need to actually learn how to a soldering gun.

Sorry if my ramblings don't make much sense, I really don't think about myself too much so trying to describe myself was like insanely hard. Thank you!!!!!!!!! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

I match you with 𝐑𝐮𝐠𝐠𝐢𝐞 𝐁𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐡𝐢

The First Impression:

Okay. His honest, true, first thought? You smell good. You smell like spices and warmth, so much so that he forgets what he's doing to turn in your direction.

Why He Fell:

"Prickly" and "hard to get close to" aren't terms in Ruggie's dictionary. He would crawl into a sewer if he thought he'd get something worthwhile out of it, and, hey- to him, you're pretty worthwhile!

He may or may not trail behind you like a lost puppy for a little while, at least until you take pity on him and give the poor thing a good meal. But, like with most stray animals, feeding him only brings him back.

Over time (and a few meals), Ruggie starts to bond with you on a more personal level. He'll ask about each of your tattoos, let you ramble to him about whatever it is you're working on, and take little notes on how sharp and crafty you are in the meantime.

The Relationship:

Ruggie has absolutely no shame. Will gladly eat every single thing you make him without even asking what it is, all while dousing you with compliments about it. If making people food is your love language, then eating food is his.

You're just really nice to have around, right? And hey, your beat-em-up skills definitely don't hurt! He's a scrawny guy, he can appreciate standing behind some muscle. He also finds the way you understand sound, in both music and language, to be fascinating, especially considering how sensitive most beastmen's ears are. He can relate to how you describe it.

He's never one to judge, either, so take your time getting comfortable around him! He'd never admit it, but he's pretty much the same way- it takes a lot to actually get his walls down. You can do it together, huh?

[mywifeleftme]

363: R.E.M. // Murmur

Murmur R.E.M. 1983, IRS

Some Short, Disconnected Statements on the Matter of Murmur

1. Insert the following into Waring blender

The Velvet Underground, Pylon, the Byrds, Gang of Four, Patti Smith, the Feelies, Joy Division, the Method Actors, Big Star, the dB’s, the Monkees. Press “Blend” button. (I’ve never owned a blender; I don’t know what the buttons say.)

2. Easy formula for a great band

Having one temperamental genius songwriter guy sounds kind of hard to maintain. Have you considered simply getting four people who are really excellent and distinctive at the respective things they do (at least three of them great singers), who all write well, get along, lack substance abuse issues, have good taste, and modest egos? Why don’t more bands do this?

3. Notes on the early discourse

A lot of the things people wrote back in the early ‘80s to champion this band were dumb as hell. R.E.M. weren’t good because they didn’t use keyboards or synths; pop music didn’t need to be returned to its "honest" folk-rock roots; giving them a thumbs up for not wearing flashy clothes and makeup is dork behaviour.

They were good because they made weird music that derived organically from their time (early ‘80s), place (a college town in the South), and selves (bright, independent, adventurous, sincere, ¼ gay).

Anyone who listened to Chronic Town or Murmur, with their post-punky murk and lyrical references to Laocoön and Marat, and thought to themselves, “As yes, the second coming of Roger McGuinn, this will put those effete new wavers to flight,” was an idiot.

4. Veteran of the psychic war

Somewhere around age 22, R.E.M. took over the mantle Metallica had held as My Favourite Band in the World Forever and Ever, and I proceeded to be almost as annoying about them as I had been Hetfield and the boys. I posted a lot about them; rigged “best music” polls on random message boards I didn’t even post on in their favour; cornered people at parties; crowbarred them into playlists; grumpily chose to dislike bands I saw as stealing their shine; etc. etc. Some (some) of this is maybe cute in retrospect, but really: don’t be like this about music. If you love a band this much, learn how to play their songs on an instrument; write a few poems; paint something. Worst case: review them.

5. Learning nothing, 2024

6. Athens: Lyrics & Enunciation

The matter of what exactly Stipe was singing on the early R.E.M. records was a subject of intense speculation, and eventually, parody. Some of the mystery’s in the mixing, some’s in his Georgian accent, and some’s in his enunciation (never quite as mushy as people claimed, but not exactly Ella Fitzgerald either). But most of it’s in the arbitrary decisions he makes with regard to syntax that cause even accurate transcriptions to seem implausible. Stipe is probably a little bit autistic, which goes some way to explaining the impressionistic intuitiveness of his words, and also went to art school, which fetishizes that sort of thing, but he was always shy of people seeing the words to something like “Sitting Still” on the page because he thought he might be exposed as a nincompoop. “Up to par and Katie bars / The kitchen side, but not me in / Sitting top of the big hill / Waste of time sitting still,” goes the chorus, according to at least one gnostic sect, but the important passage is the one everyone agrees on, when the stream of impassioned babble releases into a howled “I can hear you / Can you hear me?”

Later on, when he would sing more clearly over airy arrangements, with the lyrics neatly printed in the booklet, he’d occasionally try one of those old sound-over-sense moves and embarrass himself (“Leaving New York was never my proud” still rankles). But Murmur’s eternal elusiveness is in the way fragments of sense catch your ear from out of its sleeptalk glossolalia:

“The pilgrimage has gained momentum” “Conversation fear” “Lighted, lighted / Laughing in tune” “Hear the howl of the rope / A question” “A perfect circle of acquaintances and friends / Drink another, coin a phrase” “Shaking through / Opportune” “Take oasis” “Heaven assumes / Shoulders high in the room” “Did we miss anything?”

7. Permission to be arbitrary

I remember sitting in the basement of my college house with my old hometown buddy Brad (mostly a metal/classic rock guy), playing him “Shaking Through” and explaining one of the things I love about old R.E.M. is that it’s great music to yell to. I don’t know how much he really got it, but we were drunk and it’s a catchy song, so we howled and made keening, wordless, Stipean noises along with it and the next few until one of my roommates came and asked us to keep it down.

Also: one theory for why cats purr when they’re injured is that the vibrations somehow reduce pain and encourage healing. From many experiences humming these songs while wrapped up in headphones and bedsheets in the middle of a day that’s passing like a kidney stone, I can confirm.

8. Note on the modern discourse: Influence?

Black Francis, Kurt Cobain, Bob Mould, Steve Malkmus, Bob Pollard, and Thom Yorke loved R.E.M. So did, to his own apparent consternation, Metallica’s Cliff Burton. Still, you sit down with someone and listen to those musicians with the goal of showing them the R.E.M. influence (don’t do this, why would you do this?) and it’s honestly pretty oblique. Most of the bands who directly aped aspects of R.E.M.'s early sound were at best pleasantly minor (see Captured Tracks’ Strum & Thrum comp), and the ones who seemed to be listening most closely to their ‘90s efforts were not who you want.

Their ultimate influence was probably simply showing what an art-first, indie-adjacent rock band could accomplish by sticking to their guns and bending the system to their desires instead of being bent by it. They were like a Velvet Underground for the college rock era, except everyone talented who heard them was inspired to start a band that didn’t sound much like them. They always used their spotlight to introduce people to other bands and, when they really got huge, they modeled how to deal with success. There don’t seem to be many R.E.M. stories, Peter Buck’s airplane incident aside, about them being anything other than kind. That’s a fundamentally less exciting type of influence than most other “great” bands have. But I do think it’s kinda cool they were the wise old heads for an entire national movement of alternative music.

8b.

Of course, it still bugs me people don’t think they’re cool. Murmur at least, should be considered cool. And Reckoning, mostly. Chronic Town for sure. Some of Fables. Am I crazy for saying some of Monster and New Adventures even? I’ll stop. I’ll go on.

9(-9). The music

They were a pop band, they were an art band; they sounded like children, and like craggy old men buried in kudzu weed; natural and pretentious; date-stamped and timeless. Decide yourself. Happy 41st birthday Murmur.

363/365

[batmanslemontea]

Introduction to Georgian Language

Georgian 🇬🇪 (ქართული ენა) is the most widely spoken language in the country of Georgia or საქართველო ('Sakartvelo') as we call it. This language is spoken by ~3,5-4 million people worldwide.

Georgian language is agglutinative, one verb may have several different prefixes and suffixes attached at the same time.

Additionally, its also a polypersonal language, meaning that verbs, more often than not, have both subject and object markers attached. For that reason, we often drop subject and object pronouns both in spoken and written language.

A single verb can be a full sentence:

გითხარი [gitkhari]- I told you(singular); გავაკეთე [gavakete]- I did/made [something], etc.

(both blessing and a curse tbh)

There are no articles in Georgian, nor grammatical genders. We also dont have gender specific pronouns. 3rd person singular is 'ის' which can mean he/she/it. (we also don't separate animate/inanimate).

In Georgian language, there are 7 noun cases

Let's demonstrate with the word კაცი['katsi']-a man , in singular and plural:

Nominative (სახელობითი) კაც-ი კაც-ებ-ი Ergative (მოთხრობითი) კაც-მა კაც-ებ-მა Dative (მიცემითი) კაც-ს კაც-ებ-ს genitive (ნ���თესაობითი) კაც-ის კაც-ებ-ის Instrumental (მოქმედებითი) კაც-ით კაც-ებ-ით Adverbial (ვითარებითი) კაც-ად კაც-ებ-ად Vocative (წოდებითი) კაც-ო კაც-ებ-ო

To turn a singular noun into plural , the suffix 'ებ' is used. This suffix comes right after the root of the noun, and before the case suffix.

Georgian language doesn't have a strict sentence structure; Because the verbs and nouns are already so complex and informative, It is possible to be somewhat flexible with the word order, while maintaining the same meaning.

e.g კაცმა(man) უთხრა(told) ქალს (to woman). კაცმა ქალს უთხრა. ქალს კაცმა უთხრა. ქალს უთხრა კაცმა. უთხრა კაცმა ქალს. უთხრა ქალს კაცმა.

All of these sentences are grammatically correct; All of them have the same meaning: The man told [something] to the woman.

There are some structural rules for sentences, but I'm not going to get into too much details in this post.

So, you would have already noticed, that Georgian doesn't use Latin alphabet. It's because we have our own, called მხედრული ['mkhedruli']. Well, actually we have three , but only places you might come across ასომთავრული or ხუცური are religious( orthodox christian), or old Georgian texts. I wouldn't necessarily recommend them to beginners, but if you feel like learning them anyway- go nuts. Just don't expect to see them in daily life.

Let's focus on მხედრული for now.

There are 33 letters in modern მხედრული alphabet- 5 vowels and 28 consonants, and its 100% phonetic. 33 letters represent 33 sounds, no exceptions- so once you learn these letters, congratulations , you can read and write pretty much anything you want. *also note that there are no uppercase or lowercase letters. I can make a separate post about the alphabet if you want, but this video covers pretty much everything you need to know, and here's a video demonstration of writing them by hand. you can also download practice worksheets from this site. Some of these consonants might be tough to pronounce for foreigners, but please don't be discouraged, you will improve over time, after getting some listening and speaking practice. I will try to update regularly, and in the meantime, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Happy Learning !! <3

[anothercrisis]

/Hides their face inside their elbow and violently coughs/

Guess who's back? Back again. Tamo's back. Tell a friend.

Anyway, I'm back with Nikolai thingy..? Yea.

I believe he learnt a language at school. Of course english, every school teaches english, and maybe it started with french. Honestly? The hardest language I'm learning rn but he was so good at it, the best ill correct myself, and got invested in it. Who needs sports if there are so many languages out there. Then he found a german, georgian, polish, spanish, ukrainian (his favourite in sounding, truly beautiful language, i can recommend some songs if you want). He can't speak all of 'em but knows enough to understand.

AND PRICE IS A WHORE FOR THAT. ALL OF THOSE DIFFERENT TONGUE'S MAKE SMT INSIDE CPT GO WILD

Your lungs okay..?

(I’m learning French too but it’s not that much of a pain in the ass for me. But then again I don’t usually struggle with languages—)

But Nik? Nik, who knew early on in his life that he was different and could feel the way it was altering the path of his life. Nik, who could see, hear, and feel the disappointment his parents had in him when they figured out he was gay. Nik, who took to hiding in literature and languages to escape and dream of somewhere else. Nik, who had a real talent for languages and the time and care to learn them. Nik, who isn’t as good at speaking them as he is at reading and understanding them, because he learned most of them on his own. Nik, who was able to list them all as skills when he went to join the military. Nik, who joined the 141 as an asset because of the long list of things that other people saw as skills: the languages, the piloting, the craftiness. Nik, who spent so much time alone and hiding that he figured out ways to care for himself, figured out how to learn things on his own, how to get ahold of the things he needed.

Then there’s Price. Price, who was always shit at languages, which royally sucked because of his profession and the vast variety of people he worked with. Price, who meets Nik and is immediately enamored by him and his language talents, even if Nik’s German is stunted it’s still passable, even if his Spanish doesn’t flow right. Price, who’s interest and fascination was completely innocent at first, but then Nik starting flirting with him in Russian, in French, and he was a goner.

[gayscifi]

Thoughts on My Own Jewishness and the Palestinian Genocide

FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸

(very long post)

My name is Tal, it's a Hebrew name meaning morning dew. I'm transgender and picked my name over 10 years ago because I am proud of being Jewish and wanted an obviously Jewish name. I'm 27, poor, disabled and a transgender man in a gay relationship with a cis Muslim man. I want you to have all of that context before I tell you how I feel about the current genocide of the Palestinians, the State of Isreal and my relationship to these things as a Jew.

I didn't know I was Jewish until my grandmother died when I was 12. After she died my brothers, cousins and I were put in charge of sorting through her things. We found her menorah, shabbat candle holders and kosher dishes. We were young and frankly uneducated, it was years of my eldest brother and others putting the pieces together and finding records of our family when we began to understand who we were.

Our great grandparents, on both my grandfather and grandmother's side were smuggled into America from Germany and Poland through the Houston port by a Rabbi near the beginning of WW2, the port that I've lived next to for most of my life. My grandparents were born in the Houston area and were, as I understand it "Catholic outside and Jewish at home". My grandfather's father returned to Poland after the Holocaust to try and find members of his family, he killed himself with a shogun through the head shortly after returning to the U.S, when my grandfather was still a teenager.

My grandmother had almost a dozen siblings, most of her sisters died in mental institutions and several of her brothers had killed themselves or died of overdose, my grandfather also had a dozen siblings, they had similar fates. My grandparents were alcoholics and are now both dead.

My father and his 3 siblings grew up going to Catholic school not understanding the language his parents spoke to each other or why his family was so different from the others around him. Not until my grandmother died and all the secrets began to pour out.

By the time I was 14, everyone was starting to put the pieces together. My grandparents had bought a piece of land miles away from any town when I was a baby. They hoarded films, art, music, world history books, encyclopedias, several freezers full of food, pantries of non-perishables, more guns and ammo than I ever thought anyone could use and liquor they would knock back every day with cartons of cigarettes that made the house smell like a chimney. That was their way of coping, shut the world out, be ready for the next Holocaust. Of course all of this would lead my family to believe that we were Ashkenazi Jews.

My parents had gone on a trip to Turkey before I was born and fell in love with it. My entire life it was their dream to return and raise their family there but between my father being a plant worker and mechanic and my mother a substitute teacher. It wasn't until I was 17 that we finally moved, not because we had the money but because my mother needed to be the primary source of income since my father had begun suffering from cancer. Selling most of our belongings and my mom getting a job as an English teacher finally brought my family to Turkey. My dad got to spend some of his final years there before he died.

We moved to a port city on the Black Sea near the Georgian border named Trabzon. Strangely, I felt at home immediately. I had learned Turkish enough to go out, make friends and get a part time job within 6 months. My father and I didn't read as foreigners to the locals at all, in fact many elder people would come up to me speaking Lazca, the language of the Laz people, one of the many small Caucus tribes in the region, assuming I was Laz myself and could help translate for them to Turks in the city.

There were very few foreigners in the city and most of us knew each other since most of us taught at the foreign language schools. One of the teachers I was friends with was a boy, now a man, my same age, who was born and raised in a refugee camp in Jordan. His father, Palestinian and his mother, Cherkess(another Caucus tribe who had been displaced). He spoke 4 different languages and taught Arabic and English at the same school I worked at.

We became fast friends, being the youngest(only 18 at the time) at the school. Both his parents and mine were wary of our closeness but we genuinely didn't understand their issues with our friendship.

He told me about growing up in the camps in Jordan, he told me about being Palestinian and Cherkess and not being able to go to either of his homes. I told him about being Jewish and how my identity was kept secret for generations for the safety of my family.

He asked me what I thought about Isreal and to be honest this was my first time thinking of it, since I'd only been to a synagogue a handful of times and hadn't been subject to Zionist propaganda in American Jewish spaces. He told me about Zionism from a Palestinian perspective, how he had watched the news for years hearing about his cousins and other family members dying at the hands of the IDF.

I found it appalling, how could Jewish people, my people, be doing such atrocities to others after what I known we had been through. The Holocaust, the genocide of my people had left scars on every member of my family that had made most of them unable to continue living.

That conversation, just months into our years long friendship has shaped me into the person I am today. He gave me a Keffiyeh that night and I told him that I would never go to Palestine until we could go together. We cried for a long time that night, sharing stories.

After living in Turkey and learning more about the different Caucus tribes in the region my eldest brother and I determined the origin of our last name. A Turkic name, not German or Polish, meaning that my family was not entirely Ashkenazi but instead from the Black Sea Region, most likely the small Jewish Crimean tribe called Krymchak, the majority of the whom died in the Holocaust and I had been unknowingly living the closest to home that my family had in generations. In Turkey, on the Black Sea, not in Isreal.

I am proud of being Jewish. I love how I have found my identity and am part of the first generation of my family since the Holocaust to be authentic in my ethnicity. Zionism will never take that away from me. Zionism is a lie, an evil, manipulative, murderous political agenda. I have not and will never be a part of it and it will never take my Jewishness away from me.

I have found more in common with Palestinians I have met through protesting Isreal, more in common with ethnic minorities protesting U.S. imperialism, more in common with other displaced minorities than I have ever found with Isreal.

The genocide of the Palestinians is always on my mind but I feel no guilt as a Jewish person. I know I am not to blame nor have I ever been complicit in this genocide but to my fellow Jews, who are in pro-Zionist, pro-Isreali spaces, I am calling for a radical change in those communities, wake the fuck up.

Fuck Isreal, fuck Zionism, fuck American and European Imperialism and fuck antisemitism. I have a particular hatred for these so called "Pro-Jewish" actions happening in North America and Europe. German civilians knew of the death camps during the Holocaust and did nothing. Now their children and grandchildren are saying that Palestinians are anitsemites while they live on the wealth and land they extracted from dead Jews.

The rise of global antisemitism is in part because of the State of Isreal, because of Zionism, because of the atrocities committed by Jewish people, their twisted, evil and cruel treatment of Palestinians for years that has led to genocide. Supporting Palestinians in their struggle against annihilation is not and will never be antisemitism and to say it is shows how little you understand Jewish or Palestinian history.

Recognize Zionism for what it truly is; a way for powerful nations to rid themselves of their Jewish populations and use them as cannon fodder for control over land and resources in the Middle East. Joe Biden said it himself "If Israel didn't exist, we would have to invent it." This is not a war for a "safe home for the Jewish people", it is an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to claim power and control.

Palestinians have every right to resist annihilation. My heart aches, knowing deeply what genocide does to those who remain.

I will continue to support the Palestinian cause in every way I know how.

From the River to the Sea,

Palestine will be Free 🇵🇸

[sotiriabellou]

naninaninaninaonaninaninaninaonaninaninaninaonaninaninaninao

[redundant2]

Mystery Solved! Pippa Middleton and James Matthews have purchased Sir Terence Conran's previous estate in Berkshire: Barton Court.

Reports about the Princess of Wales' sister Pippa's new estate in Berkshire have been quite vague, but today I finally found the planning permits.

The Matthews paid £15 million for Barton Court, located in Kintbury, Hungerford, Berkshire.

"Barton Court was built in 1772 for Admiral Lord Dundas: a typical, red-brick, early Georgian house of five bays with a projecting central open-pedimented entrance front, enhanced by round-headed windows in the upper storeys."

The top yellow star in the right part of the above map is the estate where Michael and Carol Middleton live in Bucklebury, and the solid red dot on the left is the location of James and Pippa Matthews' new estate. Close enough for a short car drive to visit, but far enough apart to allow each family some private time.

The planning permit request is for "Relocation of an outdoor swimming pool and construction of a tennis court within the walled garden, and conversion of a potting shed to associated changing room and plant room."

Below is the celebrated walled garden that will be replaced with tennis courts and possibly a very large swimming pool:

Sir Terence Conran was a famous British designer who passed away in September 2020. He founded the Habitat and Conran shops. He was also renowned for designing restaurants, office buildings and stores. Conran ran several restaurants and wrote more than 50 books about design.

House and Garden UK did a nice feature on the property with many color photos taken by Princess Margaret's ex-husband, if you're curious about the interior of Pippa's new home.

From the article: "In earlier days a stone-flagged hallway ran from the door to the stairway between the enclosing walls of adjacent rooms. These rooms have now been gutted to provide a combined hall and living room of vast area: over a hundred feet in length." Looks like the original tile is still in place.

Apparently, some of the family of Sir Terence Conran was very upset that his estate was sold, as it was said to have been his dream for the estate to remain in the family.

"Both the house and the estate, according to one visitor, were to be 'overseen by the Conran family'. But no longer: I can reveal that the house has been sold for £15 million, despite Conran's vision, which included selling fruit and vegetables from greenhouses and a massive walled garden.

Members of the family appear to be in the dark about quite why the sale has gone ahead. One tells me that it is the executors of Conran's will who are selling the property, not his widow, Lady Conran.

The interior designer Vicki Davis married Sir Terence in 2000 at Chelsea Town Hall. His children — Sebastian and Jasper by his second wife, Superwoman author Shirley Conran, and Tom, Sophie and Ned by his third, cookery writer Caroline Herbert — only learned of it later.

That was no accident: Conran's children, it was playfully said, needed an appointment to see him.

The executors of his will decline to comment. But I can disclose that Vicki has already left the house and a new family has moved in."

Little did we know in June 2022 that it was Pippa Middleton and her family who bought the estate!

But here is another article interviewing Conran's widow, Vicki. She felt the house was too much for one person to maintain, and that none of his many children would want the upkeep. Conran apparently did not die of Covid either. It's a good article, detailing his vast collections and giving you a better idea of what he was like. After living there 50 years, Conran's widow was given 8 weeks to pack up everything and move out by the new owners...

Here is the planning application map showing the property outline:

Interestingly, the large buildings to the left of Barton Court are actually a very large custom furniture workshop and retail store. The owner, Sean Sutcliffe, "met Terence Conran and a firm friendship was made over a shared interest in making, wood, design and sustainability. They founded Benchmark together and our workshop and showroom are situated in the grounds of Terence’s country home."

That should prove very interesting for Pippa and family - perhaps those who are royal watchers might plan to do some furniture shopping in the near future! I'm sure, however, that the Matthews family will have plans in place to secure the perimeter of their new estate - or perhaps Mr. Matthews will just buy Benchmark Furniture outright and have its premises moved. Pretty sure he can afford it, since they recently sold their Chelsea mansion for £22.5 million, £5.5 million more than he paid for it.

[batri-jopa]

Here's an interview with Levan Gelbakhiani (2020) and I only have one question about it...

...where's to sign or who's to be bribed to make it happen!?🥺 Levan Gelbakhiani is sooo obviously in Wes Anderson's style, with his face expression and mustache and all his natural charm on the top if it, absolutely no less than Adrien Brody!!!🥰

[chelsabel]

full name: chelsea odette abel

age: thirty-two

pronouns & gender: she/her, cis female

sexual orientation: very much bisexual

hometown: atlanta, georgia

star sign: leo

occupation: hair stylist & bridal makeup artist

(+) passionate, generous, disciplined

(-) egocentric, begrudging, opinionated

time in aurora bay: a little over a year now

neighborhood: aurora bay drive

bullet points

chelsea grew up in a very traditional southern household with two older brothers and one younger. church every sunday, etiquette lessons, you get the gist.

her mom made her participate in pageants (her dad on the other hand couldn't have cared less) and she ended up winning miss atlanta's outstanding teen. she probably could've gone further with it but nearing the end of high school she was well and truly over it and there was nothing her mom could do to change her mind.

she always found it a little bit harder to rebel against her parents since she's the only daughter and was definitely the center of their attention. she did nearly get in trouble for shoplifting as a teenager but it never even went to court so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

she went to georgia state for psychology originally but was kind of just flitting from day to day without much motivation or passion for her classes. eventually she became the designated hair braider & makeup gyal for her sorority sisters and realized how much she lived and breathed for it!

her parents forced her to see her degree through to graduation but obviously she hasn't used it since. immediately after college she landed an apprenticeship in cosmetology and got to work learning as much as she could!

chelsea fell deeply for someone during her studies and probably would've married him right out of college if her parents hadn't been so opposed to the match. this led to her ghosting him right out of graduation but she'd be lying if he still didn't cross her mind now and then. see her wanted connection if you're interested in learning more or potentially snagging him up!

desperate to start a family and have her fairytale, she ended up marrying someone she wasn't truly in love with and it crashed and burned quicker than she cares to admit.

she moved to aurora bay after her divorce for a fresh start and a new perspective on life - and also to get away from her overinvested parents. as much as she loves them, she's definitely more liberal with her values and views and started to clash with them a lot, so the space is good for their relationship.

it didn't take her long to get hired at stunning styles and grow a substantial client base, which doesn't leave her much time for other gigs, but she still takes on bridal clients for makeup application as well to keep her skills sharp.

she hasn't given up on her dream of opening up her very own salon one day and at present is very much focused on her work, and less so on securing her romantic future since that crashed and burned but it doesn't mean she isn't constantly thinking about it.

headcanons

first things first this woman does not get through life without having at least three cups of coffee per day so... if you ever wonder how she can get to one end of the town to the next so fast and do it all over again the next day that would be why!!

the grumpiest ''morning person'' ever and truly believes that the quality of her outfit when walking out of the house is directly linked to the kind of day she'll have

she does have a heavy southern/georgian accent (i tried not giving in but i just don't think it's possible)

she's a blonding specialist in the salon (so if you need that perfect platinum hit her up) and a makeup artist that specializes in bridal clients. making brides feel beautiful on their most special day is her life blood fr

works more hours than she should but it keeps her busy and helps her avoid thinking about the things that aren't so hot in her life!!

SUPER minute and organized down to the last detail, which makes her the natural choice to plan your bachelorette party but also a nightmare to invite over if you're not keen on decorating -- she will be judging your wallpaper if it's unsavory but she'll at least keep it to herself !! (unless wine is involved)

the best girlfriend to have in your corner truly (▰˘◡˘▰) loves to gossip & spill tea, offer her unsolicited advice (which tbf is usually valid) and is so fiercely loyal to her friends, she would help them hide a body fs. once you break her trust though it's very rare that she can come back from it :/

a bit of a commitment-phobe nowadays in the romantic department but what can you do........

hasn't ever really wanted for anything in her life which can make her a bit unaware of the larger issues sometimes but she's incredibly generous and a giver at heart

she's a yapper BUT also a good listener and genuinely interested in peoples' lives so she likes to think it evens out <3

potential connections

best friends / good friends

neighbors

exes — as i mentioned she's very skirty with commitment at this stage in her life but i could see her having been in a few relationship stints that didn't last very long

one night stands/hookups

general will they won't they/flirty dynamics are fun~

previous, present and future clients

maybe like a older sister / younger sister dynamic?? chelsea only has brothers but she maintains that she would've made an amazing older sister so (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

enemies — tbh she does tend to put her two cents in and has quite a big presence so absolutely could see her clashing with some folks!

so open, pls don't be afraid to suggest whatever comes to mind!

current connections

close friend of @priyaxdesai / hype and wingwoman all in one

friends with and occasionally babysits for @themeixhuang

the biggest headache for @caleb-majhi / has him on speed dial for car troubles / lowkey loves to pry into his affairs

almost got hitched to @silascody in vegas after one too many cosmos

slept with @bazhowletts and absolutely no one can know about it

self-proclaimed favorite client and regular of @santiagodeleons

fixed @mackmontgomery's hair out of the goodness of her heart (still charged him) / easily amused by his antics / close friends

almost took out @ulyflynn on his bike / personal chauffeur and unsolicited advice-giver / the older sister he never asked for

takes all her social media advice from @cricketcampbell / cool older sister (milf but hold the m??) vibes

worked miracles on @atticuscortes' damaged hair / flirtationship she doesn't know what to make of

has a work partnership with @delilahcarreno / close friends

drinking buddies / friends with benefits / gossip queens / can be seen hitting the town with @rominacortez

awkward tension with @jordanmitchell thanks to he who shall not be named

close friends with @selindogn / did her bridal hair and makeup

flirtationship / experiencing gay panic with / regular of @maevexallen

co-parenting a 6'5" menace with @marsmoran

has a blonde bombshell bestie in @cvrdelia / met during a pageant

slept with @castellcnos after a night at the bar / would do it again tbh

honorary older sister and role model of @madiiscn / will petition to be her manager when she makes it big / neighbor

neighbor and close friend of @hcnter / basically a younger brother

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Two

On the first freezing day of Autumn, I zip my coat all the way up to the top and shiver as I exit the apartment building, a huge, converted Georgian house that opens onto Fitzwilliam Square. My hands are stiff as I try to wrangle my bicycle loose from the iron railings out front, my condensed breath floating over my face to warm up my nose and cheeks. I swear under my breath as the key gets stuck, again, and then stand there jangling it madly for a minute before it releases and the heavy chain pools onto the concrete at my feet. 

I’ve learned quickly that the trick to owning a bicycle in Dublin city is to get the cheapest bike you can find and then make it look even cheaper. Shane and I spent an evening destroying it in the bin yard a couple of weeks ago, stamping the pedals until pieces broke off, using spray paint in lurid colours to obscure the brand name and shiny red coat on the metal work. We wound duct tape around the saddle and the handlebars, which doubled as an anti-theft method, happily enough. It was a cathartic experience. Claire had come along with a sticker book and helpfully dotted the body with flowers and hearts and rainbows too, insisting that all thieves are men, and none of them will want a girl’s bike. I then went to the nearest bike shop and bought two locks, the most hard wearing and expensive ones they had, because nobody is going to pick two massive locks for the pathetic reward of a dinged up bicycle covered in stickers. 

“It’s a rite of passage to have a bike stolen in the first month.” Shane had said with some sympathy after I cried at the college gates having discovered my brand new bike gone, only an easily sawed through lock pathetically coiled around the stand left as any evidence that it existed. “Sure, bits off my bike get robbed all the time. I had to cycle home from town without a saddle the other week. We’ll get you another one, I know a guy who deals them out of his ma’s garage.”

“Isn’t that kind of like contributing to the negative cycle?” I whimpered. “I bet all those bikes are stolen too.”

“Yeah probably, but, ah, sure. They’re only sixty quid.” 

That’s how I ended up with this ‘new’ bike, and luckily, nobody has stolen its saddle yet. We made sure that it’d be so inconvenient that even the most hard-up, desperate thief wouldn’t come near any part of it, but as a payoff it’s so uncomfortable. It squeaks, the back brake doesn’t work and sometimes when I go too fast I feel as though I’m going to slide off it and bash my most private areas onto the crossbar, but it gets me where I need to go. In the cold, early morning in the mist and smell of turf I throw my leg over it and manoeuvre it out onto the road, my bag and drawing tube strapped across me, and zip up towards Baggot Street, then skirt around Stephen’s Green, the new, cold wind throwing icy daggers at my face as I weave in and out of traffic, eluding busses and taxis and pedestrians who keep crossing the road before it’s their turn. Rust coloured leaves drop onto the pavement before my wheels as I pass the flats along Kevin Street, children in tiny uniforms walking to school hand in hand with their parents. 

“Use your arms!” A taxi driver screams at me as I swerve to the right ahead of him, and I ignore him, already used to men screaming at me on these streets, whether it’s because they think I’m cycling them wrong or because they have an opinion about my body that they’d like to share. 

Dublin isn’t awful, but it’s harsh in ways I’m still unused to. When I visited it I saw it as more beautiful than it really is, but back then I only saw the shops, the parks, the huge Georgian houses, and now I see the back alleys too and the places that don’t feel all that wonderful. I’ve seen the yellow pallor of the people at the back of the bus, the men in alleyways who dare you to look in and see them so they can shout at you for doing it, women climbing into sleeping bags in the sheltered doorways of department stores for the night, battered paper cups set out hopefully in front of them as they curl up to sleep on the cold pavement. 

I get shouted at a lot here too. By bus drivers, for not knowing how to use my Leap card properly, and by the people on said busses for standing or sitting in the wrong places, by taxi men for crossing the road at the wrong time, by screechy women in windows for throwing my chewing gum in the wrong bins. I apologise a lot more than I ever have now, which is really saying something. 

I swerve down a bumpy, cobblestone side street and through the gates of NCAD, taking the time to chain my bike onto the same rack where its predecessor was nicked from, giving the locks a hard, intentional look as if I could intimidate them into staying put. Then I hurry inside and up the stairs, the central heating blasting over me so intensely that by the time I stumble into the studio I feel like a piece of ham wrapped in cling film. I drop my bag and drawing tube onto the floorboards by one of the drawing tables and start ripping my outerwear off in a frenzy. 

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[nakibistan]

Inspirational Queer Muslims you need know about them

Tuways

Abu Abd al-Munim Isa Abdallah al-Dhāib was popularly known as Tuways. He/She was a famous Mukhannath individual in earliest days of Arabia. He/She was born in 632 AD in Medina, the same day when prophet Muhammad (PBUH) died. According to several scholars, he/she is typically described as the leading mukhannath musicians of Medina during his lifetime. He/She was first great singer in Islamic Arab. He/She was a mawlā of the Banū Mak̲h̲zūm, being in the service of Arwā bt. Kurayz, the mother of the Caliph ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān. Tuways first attracted attention by singing melodies that he had learned from Persian captives, & rose to fame as a celebrated musician during Rashidun Caliphate, first Islamic Caliphate in Arabia.

al-Dalal

al-Dalal was a Mukhannath poet & musician in Medinah. Not much is known about his life. Tuways was his master & he was one of the favourite pupil of Tuways. al-Dalal is often portrayed as a witty but sometimes crude male who "loved women" but did not have sex with them. He was a bisexual, had sexual encounter with both woman & her groom.

Abu Nawas

Abū Nuwās (also known as:Abū Nuwās al-Salamī, Abū 'Alī) was an openly gay poet, and the foremost representative of the modern (muhdath) poetry that developed during the first years of Abbasid Caliphate. He also entered the folkloric tradition, appearing several times in One Thousand and One Nights.

He attended a Qur’an school and became a Hafiz at a young age.His youthful good looks and innate charisma attracted the attention of the Kufan poet, Abu Usama Waliba ibn al-Hubab al-Asadi, who took Abu Nuwas to Kufa as a young apprentice. Waliba recognized in Abu Nuwas his talent as a poet and encouraged him toward this vocation, but was also attracted sexually to the young man and may have had erotic relations with him. Abu Nuwas's relationships with adolescent boys when he had matured as a man seem to mirror his own experience with Waliba. Abu Nuwas wrote poetry in multiple genres; Abu Nuwas’s diwan, his poetry collection, was divided by genre: panegyric poems, elegies, invective, courtly love poems on men and women, poems of penitence, hunting poems, and wine poems. His erotic lyric poetry, which is often homoerotic, is known from over 500 poems and fragments.

Mahmud of Ghazni

Yamin-ud-Dawla Abul Qasim Mahmud commonly known as “Mahmud of Ghazni” or “Mahmud Ghaznavi”. He was known as a great sultan of Ghaznavid Empire. But he is also controversial for his invasion in indian subcontinent & treatment of non-muslims. Besides, he is regarded as icon of queer love.

Mahmud was a bisexual muslim. Mahmud had 9 wives and innumerable concubines as well as male slaves. Mahmud of Ghazni's name is often associated with a man named “Malik Ayaz”. Malik Ayaz was a handsome Turkic-Georgian slave brought by Sultan Mahmud. He was a very close companion of Mahmud; was very devoted to the him and fullfilled his all wishes.

The relationship between Mahmud and Ayaz is highly celebrated in Persian poetry and literature.There are a set of 6 poems by Farid al-Din Attar that are inspired by this relationship. Sa'di, a 13th-century poet includes 2 stories about the lovers in his best-known work, Bustan, a collection of reflections on human nature. The chapter “Concerning Love” describes someone complaining that Mahmud’s favourite slave “possesses no beauty.” Upon hearing this, Mahmud responds, “My love, O sir, is for virtue, not for form or stature.” The second story depicts the king travelling with some of his men when an overturned chest of pearls is discovered; all except Ayaz go after the pearls. Questioned by Mahmud about the possibility of gaining riches, Ayaz explains he wants nothing. “I walked in haste behind thee, I do not occupy myself with riches away from thy service.” Nidhami-I-Arudi, a 12th-century Ghaznavid court poet describes the well-known and famous love of Sultan Mahmud for Ayaz, though he explains that Mahmud, being a “pious and God-fearing man,” wrestled with this love. One night after drinking a lot of wine, Mahmud couldn’t ignore Ayaz’s beauty: “Thereupon love plucked the reins of self-restraint from the hands of his endurance, and lover-like he drew him to himself.”

Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad (Babar)

Zahīr ud-Dīn Muhammad commonly known as Babar or Babur. Babar was the founder of the Mughal Empire. He was a Bisexual & was also the first queer ruler in Mughal Dynasty. Babur's religious and philosophical stances are characterized as humanistic. Babur was an acclaimed writer, who had a profound love for literature. His library was one of his most beloved possessions that he always carried around with him, & books were one of the treasures he searched for in new conquered lands. During his 47-year life, Babur left a rich literary and scientific heritage. He authored his famous memoir the Bāburnāma, as well as beautiful lyrical works or ghazals, treatises on Muslim jurisprudence (Mubayyin), poetics (Aruz risolasi), music, and a special calligraphy, known as khatt-i Baburi.

He married multiple times but had little attraction towards women. Babur had an affair with his male slave named Baburi Andijani (also known as Baburi). Babur rescued him from the Uzbek camp market in 1499. Babur mentioned his lover's name several times in the "Babarnama" and expressed his feelings towards Baburi without fear. Babur even wrote several Persian romantic poems about same gender love. It is also claimed that Babur built Babri Masjid as a token of love for Baburi Andijani (well, I am not pretty sure)

Maryam Khatoon Molkara

Maryam Khatoon Molkara was a well-known transgender rights campaigner, broadcaster & volunteer in Iran, where she is widely recognized as a matriarch of trans communities. Maryam was later instrumental in obtaining a letter which acted as a fatwa enabling sex reassignment surgery to exist as part of a legal framework. After the Islamic Revolution, Maryam faced intense backlash due to her gender identity. She underwent arrests, and death threats. She was fired from her job at the Iranian National Radio and Television, forced to wear masculine clothing, injected with male hormones against her will, and detained in a psychiatric institution. Later she was released by the help of religious leaders.She also fought for legal recognition of trans people in Iran.

In 2007, she founded the Iranian Society to Support Individuals with Gender Identity Disorder (Persian: حمایت از بیماران مبتلا به اختلالات هویت جنسی ایران) the first state-approved organization for transgender rights in Iran. Before this, she used her own property in Karaj to help other transgender people receive legal advice and medical care, including post-operative care. She continued advocating for other transgender people and bailing them out of prison after they were arrested, even knowing she would likely face violence for doing so.

Sally Mursi

Sally Mursi was an Egyptian transsexual entertainer.She was most controversial figure in Egypt for her sex reassignment surgery.Sally was born in a religious muslim family.Sally was a student of Al-Azhar, which is renowned as one of the world's most prestigious universities for Islamic learning. She completed her sex reassignment surgery in 1988. When Al-Azhar's Medical School for Boys came to know about her sex-change operation, they refused to accept her as their student.

She was also accused of trying to get out of military service and was ordered to report for induction into the army. Army doctors examined her, and finding that she was a woman, concluded that Sally was not medically fit for military service.Sally was refused a transfer to Al-Azhar’s Medical School for Girls. So she filed a case against Al-Azhar Medical School later which stirred a nationwide controversy. Despite going through many problems, she didn't stop her fight for her rights.

At that time Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, Grand Mufti of Al-Azhar, issued a fatwa that Sally's change was necessary for her health but that before the operation she should for one year dress, behave and comply with all obligations of Islam for women (except for marital obligations).This fatwa was the first Sunni ruling on sex reaffirmation surgery. Eventually Sally won 2 legal rulings against the Al-Azhar school, but it ignored them, and also blacklisted her at other medical schools.So she completed her education from Cairo University on literature.Sally also legally married with a man in Egypt. But still transsexuals like sally faced discrimination & harassment in Egypt.

Bülent Ersoy

Bülent Ersoy is a popular transsexual singer and actress of Turkey. Often nicknamed Diva by her fans. Ersoy's some of the famous hits are "Ümit Hırsızı", "Geceler", "Beddua" , "Maazallah", "Biz Ayrılamayız" and "Sefam olsun". Ersoy Ersoy began her career as a male singer, in the genre of Turkish classical music.Her grandparents played classical Turkish music and she first took private lessons and then studied at Istanbul Municipal Conservatory. Already one of Turkey's most popular singers and actors, she gained international notoriety in April 1981 after having sex reassignment surgery in London by a British plastic surgeon. She kept the name "Bülent" even though it is a typically masculine name. After the operation, Ersoy found herself in opposition to 1980 Turkish coup d'état of Kenan Evren. In a crackdown on "social deviance," Ersoy's public performances were banned along with those of other transgender people. To circumvent the ban, she petitioned the Turkish courts to legally recognize her as a woman.The petition was rejected in January 1982. Days later, she attempted suicide. In 1983, she left Turkey in protest of the Evren regime's repressive policies and continued her career in Germany. Along with her musical career, she made several Turkish movies in Germany.Later Ersoy came back to turkey when Evren left office and many of his policies were rescinded.

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Aflutter

Ten x Rose | 790 words | silly fluffy historical AU

I listened to a podcast about Georgian courtships and here we are.

The original Language of the Fan leaflet

*

1828

“I’m telling you, Jack, there’s this whole secret language every woman knows about,” the Doctor said, brandishing The Language of the Fan.

“Let me see that.” Jack plucked the leaflet from the Doctor’s hands and read out loud, “Touching tip with fingers means I wish to speak to you. Carrying in the right hand means you are too willing.” He scoffed. “You don’t need that.”

Easy for him to say, just walking down Main Street in his uniform girls and boys alike sighed dreamily, their longing gazes following him. The Doctor was good looking, if he said so himself, but paled in comparison to his American friend.

“Where are we going anyway?” the Doctor asked.

“Right here.”

Jack stopped in front of Lillington's, the modiste. He opened the door, gesturing for his friend to enter first.

“Here? Why?”

“I need to buy a gift for a special friend.”

As soon as they entered, the gazes of a dozen women turned to them and muted gossips filled the room. The Doctor blushed, but Jack perused the shop confidently. He stroked silk ribbons, fine cotton gloves and straw bonnets, before settling on a pair of mauve garters. He had Mr. Lillington wrap the present with indications to deliver at the provided address. Jack added a note: “Think of me, when this you see.”

“It’s as easy as that. Why don’t you pick something for Miss Tyler?”

“I wouldn’t presume…” the Doctor sputtered.

“No, you’d rather wait for her to place her fan by her left ear.” Jack rolled his eyes.

“No! That means ‘I wish to get rid of you’. Or does it mean ‘wait for me’?” He read through the leaflet again, walking behind Jack.

Of course, this whole fan language business was probably a load of rubbish. The leaflet was published by Duvellroy, a fan maker, with a vested interest in seeing the accessory rise in popularity again. But there was a dance tonight at Kelmscott Hall, and the Doctor was desperate to have an edge over other suitors, especially Miss Tyler’s suitors.

He’d treated her father after a carriage accident. She would come in the room while the Doctor bandaged Sir Tyler’s leg, inquiring about biology and medicine. Her curiosity and sparkling smile won him over. Unfortunately, he’d not had a chance to talk to her again since then. On every social occasion, her attention was monopolized by Messrs. Smith, Stone, Mitchell and many more. But if she were to carry her open fan in her left hand— or was it the right hand?—he would know she wanted him to come talk to her.

*

Kelmscott Hall brimmed with music and cheer. Under the rafters, a group of men and women danced a Scotch Reel, their energy fogged the windows.  The Doctor adjusted his cravat and brushed down his waistcoat.

As if he had a whole sixth sense devoted to her, the Doctor immediately spotted Rose in the crowd. A lovely bundle of petal-pink taffeta and dance-warm cheeks. The song ended, and she fanned herself, sending blond curls in a halo around her pretty face. She met his gaze across the crowd and smiled, wide and happy. She touched her fan to her chin— bloody hell, what did that mean? He pulled the leaflet from the inner pocket of his coat, unfolded it with sweaty hands.

“She’s smiling at you, just go,” Jack said.

He pushed him with two hands, propelling the Doctor to the middle of the dance floor, right in front of Rose.

“The Language of the Fan,” she read from the paper he was holding the wrong way.

“Ah, yes, you see, there are several excellent and important reasons why one must… one must…” He was too distracted by her tongue-touched smile to finish his sentence.

“Do you know there’s a whole flirtatious glove language too?”

Just his luck he’d learned the wrong one.

On the stage, the musicians picked up their instruments again. The violinist tested a few quick notes which promised a vigorous quadrille.

Rose touched her gloves to his hand.

“What does that mean?” he asked, enthralled by this indirect caress.

“It means: run!”