#this was taken from my korea trip back in 2019 ! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jikookuntold · 3 years

Text

I Can’t Believe We Are Still Talking About This!

Disclaimer: The post you are going to read here, is my personal opinions, plus some evidence. A part of the incidents I mention in this post, is my own observation and the rest came from some trustable sources but yet I don’t claim to be 100% true because first, the sources can be wrong, second, the human mind is tricky and a long time has passed so I can’t claim everything I remember is true. Some of the incidents could get fact-checked, but some couldn’t because the receipts are gone.

First, I had no intention to write about this controversial subject because many people don’t like to bring this up, and I was with them, but it seems people have many questions about it, and they don’t know the details of the incidents. So, I concluded that maybe it’s not bad if we open up a little bit and discuss this subject from different points of view with more details.

But again, I have to clarify this post is not factual, it’s just the things I remember about the subject in a ranting way. This incident had and still has so many unclear aspects, and everything we say or claim is just a theory. I’m not intended to shade or hate anyone, therefore I’m not going to mention any full names here.

TW: Rumor, Suicide, Scandal, Conspiracy Theory

The Break

You all might know about the break the members had in summer 2019. When their Japan tour ended, and they did some shooting and interviews (like Summer Package), the LDF concert on August 11th was their last schedule and based on BH statement, they were free for 30 to 35 days.

At this time, the members posted updates about being on vacation, but there was not much coming from JK and JM, except JK posting on weverse about staying awake and eating ramen and JM thanking him for eating ramen because of him (it was interesting that JM answered JK’s post about ramen at the same week we had the run episode moment where JK told JM “This is my heart” while putting ramen in his plate). After that, JM posted the videos of Run bottle cap challenge on August 26th.

Anyways, it was pretty clear that JM and JK were together on their days off for at least two weeks since JK mentioned in Bon Voyage 4 (their first schedule after the break) that he didn’t meet any of the members except JM and JH in his days off and since JH was the resident of the same complex, this kinda approved the theory of living with JM. JM also approved this theory, but we will go on that later.

The Rumors

In late August (27th or later) JM’s photos in Paris leaked, and JK was seen in Seoul eating churros, and a photo of his knuckle tattoos started to spread. Everyone was confused, and it was too soon to believe anything. After JM coming back from Paris for JK’s birthday, and leaving for Hawaii the next morning (as he explained in his 12th October Vlive, that year) things started to get weird. I know I didn’t bring up the Paris incidents, and I don’t want to, because it has nothing to do with the subject.

I still haven’t mentioned the subject directly, but I think most of you have guessed it right. In early September 2019, the rumors of JK going to a tattoo shop in Seoul started to spread. At first, the majority of the fandom didn’t take it seriously since the tattoo shop denied the rumors of JK being there, and even the photo of someone backhugging a short-haired girl claiming to be JK got mostly ignored because the photo was low quality and the man in it didn’t look like him that much. This was the time we heard the news about JK going to Geoje Island for vacation, alone, after visiting his family in Busan.

The real deal started when he appeared at the airport on September 16th (the day they were leaving for filming Bon Voyage4 in New Zealand) when we saw his knuckle tattoos, and the rumors turned out to be true. At first, we were excited about him getting tattoos without even knowing if they are permanent or not. But on the same day, the storm came. A photo of JK (this one was clearly him) sitting with that short-haired girl, (LM) eating lunch broke the internet.

The photo was taken from an angle to make it look like they were together alone, but at least two other people (later we found out they were more) were already there, and it was nothing like the date the person behind the camera was trying to make it look. The hugging photo which was taken from the CCTV of a karaoke room resurfaced along with the restaurant photo, and at this time, almost everyone in the fandom started to believe that they are dating.

The Statements

The mess on social media was getting bigger, and everyone was waiting for an official statement from both sides. BH released the statement a few hours later, denying the rumors and no further explanation. Almost one day passed, and there was nothing from LM, not even a single word. Finally, she posted a statement on her Instagram account (which gained a crazy amount of followers, and she didn’t even go on private the whole time).

The statement was extremely shady and been deleted a few hours later. LM claimed that she wasn’t ignoring the situation, and she was afraid to say anything because she knew we won’t believe her. “I am not dating JK” she used this sentence twice in her statement, and at the end, she said “his “J M” tattoos are not our initials!” and made the situation way worse. But the funny thing is, this wasn’t even the shadiest thing she did.

As I said, she got lots of followers (nearly 100k) and interactions on her account and started to delete the negative comments as she should, but she liked multiple comments congratulating her, saying she and JK look good together and things like that. I heard she even liked a fan-art post, but it didn’t end here. When the member came back from New Zealand she posted a selfie with the caption “I have missed you”. At this point, it was clear that she was enjoying the situation and acting shady to make it worse and fuel the rumors and stay on top of the news. But this wasn’t limited to herself because her colleagues at the tattoo shop weren’t any better.

In those days, one of the close friends of LM at the tattoo shop told an ARMY that LM has a boyfriend and there is nothing other than friendship between her and JK. And guess what? The Tattoo shop manager fired him the next day. What was the reason? Were those rumors a booster for their business, and they didn’t want them to die down? The number of followers and attention they gained at that time can approve my point. They were getting the best free promotion, any business could ever have.

Don’t Forget Me!

A few days later, when the public, started to forget the rumors, someone from the tattoo shop (I don’t remember if it was LM herself or her friend) talked to the media about the harassment they were getting from the ARMY to play the victim role. This again fueled everything and made us think over the situation. Was it all a frame for JK? The evidence suggests that it could.

Let’s go back a few days in the timeline of the events. Why JK chose that tattoo shop? Because his 97liner friends recommended him to go there (apparently this line of friends, have matching tattoos either) LM herself is a 97liner, and she is friends with plenty of idols, male and female, so they sounded pretty trustworthy. At the tattoo shop, they (LM and her tattoo shop colleagues) recommended JK to spend his days off at a guesthouse in Geoje Island, and based on LM’s Instagram posts, they were there days before JK, waiting for him, to make it look like they run into him accidentally? I don’t know, but this is a stalker's behavior

After having lunch with LM and her friends at the restaurant (where Sasaeng were there, ready to take photos), they went to a karaoke room and JK, who was pretty drunk (based on what the karaoke manager said later) backhugged LM. But the Sasaengs couldn’t be there to take photos, so they (allegedly) bribed the karaoke employee to show them the CCTV footage and took a low-quality picture of it.

The biggest question is, if the Sasaengs weren’t there, how did they know there is something worthy in the CCTV to check? The answer is they weren’t the main culprit, and karaoke or tattoo shop employees or both were cooperating with them. I mean karaoke employees definitely cooperated with Sasaengs, but the tattoo shop benefited the most. So why not? Anyways, that photo and that moment was the most “intimate” thing they could capture to use against JK.

JK went on that trip with his manager (The guesthouse manager gave out this information later, the part that was lacking in BH statement which could close the speculations way easier and earlier) and stayed at that guesthouse for two days to rest, but everything went wrong from there. This incident has three sides, LM and tattoo shop, the Sasaengs, who were following JK as their full-time job, and the media/industry which was trying to ruin JK’s image. I’m going to talk about all these three but let’s continue with the first one, LM and the tattoo shop.

Almost one month after the incident, LM’s friend interviewed with Korean media and claimed that ARMYs keep harassing her to the point that she wants to commit suicide. This was another attempt to bring everything back on top, but this time, it was disgusting because she did this interview right after one of the famous faces of Kpop committed suicide (October 14th, 2019). She used the situation and the public’s emotions to play the victim role on a higher level. Before this, many believed that she was a victim of some crazy Sasaengs, and she had nothing to do with the incident (I’m clearly talking about the people who didn’t think the rumors are true) but after that, it was clear that she is an attention seeker.

But I think she wasn’t just an attention seeker. She benefitted a lot from the situation. Her business blew up, she became one of the most famous non-celebrities in Korea (if not in the world), and she was literally shipping with one of the most popular men on the planet, who doesn’t like that? Anyways, LM had several friends, foreign older friends who were interacting with I-ARMYs for some unknown reasons, and one of them exposed something very interesting. She said she feels sorry for LM because she thought she had a chance with JK and that chance is long gone. Besides, people saw some conversations between LM and her friends on her Instagram comments about finding an idol boyfriend for her. These conversations happened before the incidents but it’s interesting since LM has several idol friends.

LM had another comeback to the media at the end of October and the next and the last update about the situation, happened in early December when BH stated that they (BH and LM!) are suing karaoke for leaking the photo. But after almost two years, we don’t know how this ended up. The last and probably the worst thing happened in the final episode of Bon Voyage when JK unnecessarily apologized for his behavior. I know JK himself, wanted to do this apology but he didn’t have done anything wrong and didn’t owe any apology to ARMY or anyone else, even if the rumors were true.

A New Ship on the Shore

After that, LM did nothing shady except posting photos of JK’s arm tattoos or someone with similar tattoos in December 2020 explaining their meanings, which was a weird action. After the rumors, JK didn’t visit that tattoo shop ever, and now, an artist who works with BH does his tattoos (the same artist who has done JM’s tattoos). LM announced on April 2021, that she has a boyfriend and some of JK/LM shippers, quitted their beloved ship after that. But not all of them.

We believed that the rumors weren’t true from the day JK and BH denied them, but many people didn’t. They were strongly believing that BH is hiding the truth because it’s Kpop and in this industry, idols are not allowed to date openly, so they had no choice but to deny any dating rumors. But this wasn’t their only reason for their denial. The main reason was the way JK was misunderstood and misrepresented by this fandom (I have a post about it, you can check it here).

At this point, there are people out there, shipping JK and LM. They bring several “proofs” for them being real such as:

1. Having similar tattoos: LM had designed and done JK’s tattoos, so it’s pretty normal for them to have the same style, especially the hand tattoos since he hasn’t changed or added anything on that part. But his arm tattoos have changed a lot, and you can’t see a similarity in them. Besides, knuckle tattoos are very common among tattoo lovers.

2. Having eyebrow piercing: This is another common trend. JK loves piercings and tattoos, and it means nothing, literally.

3. Similar drawings: This one is a little bit tricky and it needs a back story and a conspiracy theory. On 13th May 2020, BH released a Bangtan bomb from MAMA 2019 backstage, where JK drew a sketch of the moon and stars on a whiteboard. On the same day, people started to make a fuss, because LM had a design on her Instagram, very similar to JK’s improvised sketch. The date of her post was 11th December 2019, but the day JK drew that sketch, was December 4th (MAMA ceremony), and this means LM posted her design one week later. So who copied who? Does JK saw that design somewhere in that tattoo shop and had it in his mind, and drew it subconsciously? I don’t think so. Because JK improvised it in front of the camera, and it was originally his idea. Do I think BH has some insiders who took the photo of that sketch and showed it to LM, and she took the idea and made it hers? This is exactly what I think because I trust JK, not LM, nor BH. And the timing of the posts and Bangtan bomb is on my side. Preach!

That’s it. These are the only proofs people bring to say something is going on between them, and the funny thing is, this hasn’t ended even after April when LM announced that she is dating (apparently she had broken up with the last boyfriend right after the rumors started, definitely not sus, lol) The only reason people made a huge deal of those two photos, was one word: Heteronormativity. If LM were a man, none of this would have ever happened. But since this fandom is obsessed with the idea of het-JK, they bought these rumors eagerly. Back to the subject, as I said earlier, the other sides benefitted from this situation. I mean Sasaengs and the media/companies who had a part in the incidents.

Sasaengs always follow their targets and collect photos and videos of them, but they barely share anything publicly because they are criminals, and if they get busted they will be punished by the law. They have their isolated communities and share their information inside those communities. Of course, there are many accounts on social media that claim to be Sasaengs and gain lots of followers, but most of them are fake, and the real ones don’t share information for free, they sell them for high prices. So, there are two possibilities, in this case, someone bought JK’s photos from Sasaengs and published them, or Sasaengs did it themselves because someone asked/ordered them. I can’t see any other possibilities. Sasaengs wouldn’t gain anything from publishing these photos, but other people would, and they are the ones who made this happen.

Who were they? LM herself and tattoo shop? The fansite who wanted to destroy JK’s career? Or BH, who wanted to punish JK for his boldness about getting tattoos and make him more obedient? Or the media and rival companies, who wanted a scandal for their enemy? Or the people who wanted to revive the idea of het-JK? All of these are plausible and I can’t prove or disprove anything, but you can read more about this in the post I linked before.

Did This Affect Them?

Here comes the most interesting part; how did this affect Jikook? Did it affect them at all? Let’s review the timeline of the events again, from this point of view. As I mentioned earlier, we believe Jikook were together until 27th August and then JM went to Paris without any plans and came back for JK’s birthday. On the selfie, he posted that night he had written: “I’m glad to see you after not seeing you for a few days” which confirms that they were together before JM’s unplanned trip. At this point, JK had started getting tattoos and had most parts of his knuckle tattoos done.

When JM left Seoul for Hawaii the next day, JK went to Geoje, and the incidents happened, but nothing was public yet. Then he got arm tattoos and added some new parts to his hand tattoos including J which makes an obvious JM on his ring finger (The part LM claimed that is “not” their initials lol). JK’s completed hand tattoos were not exposed until September 16th when they were at the airport to leave for New Zealand. It was the day all the theories and rumors started. But in Jikook’s point of view, it happened on the second day of their trip.

Now we can start to analyze their moments on Bon Voyage 4. Of course, this series doesn’t show everything, but it gives us some clues about the dynamic of their relationship on those days. The first day of the trip when they were at the airport and Thailand (?) was pretty normal, but after that, at some moments I felt a strange atmosphere between them which I decided to not read too much on. But I found out I wasn’t wrong when in the last episode, JK talked about the awkwardness he felt about the issue with the members.

Jikook had many cute and domestic moments in the first two episodes but the grand gesture happened on the third one when JK climbed a hill without telling anyone, to bring a chunk of snow for JM as a gift, and we all know how much JM loves snow. This was an undeniable romantic act, but do I think this had anything to do with the situation? I believe Jikook was unbothered by those rumors because they completely trust each other, but the image you make for the others is different from the things you know and believe. Maybe this was a grand gesture not just for JM, but for us either.

After coming back to Seoul, there was no news from them for more than two weeks, and then they left Korea for Riyadh. The remarkable moment in the Riyadh concert was related to JM’s birthday. The members had planned a surprise for JM on the stage (The concert was on October 11th one day before his official birthday in Korea) and when it happened, JM said that he was happy because he saw JK happy and JK played a big role in that surprise. Honestly, you have to be deep in love to be happy just because your significant other is happy, even if it’s your own birthday. Let’s not forget the vlive JM did the next morning, and some pretty obvious moments happened that I can’t discuss here, but I bet you already know what I’m talking about. And also JM exposed the things he did for JK’s birthday that year.

A few hours later, on 18:22 (1+8+2+2=13) on local time and 00:22 on Korean time (only 22 minutes after JM’s official birthday in Korea started), JK tweeted one of the most amazing birthday tweets of all time which is comparable to a love letter. I’m sure you know everything about these tweets, so I’m not going too deep on this, I’m only saying that this tweet also was a grand gesture. And let me make another conspiracy theory here. After the rumors started, every time we had a big Jikook moment, something was coming from LM the next day. For example, when JK made this historic tweet, the next day LM's friend was interviewed about committing suicide. Or when SYS Seoul concerts happened (one of the biggest Jikook feasts of all time) and LM herself was at the VIP seats with her friends, the next day she did another comeback to the media. These can be just coincidences, but… never mind.

I Never Thought I Would Fall for a Man

Let’s not forget about the most obvious statements JK made on his first public appearance after the rumors. On JH’s vlive on 24th September, JK said: “I never thought I would fall for a man”. He said these words about JH dancing at CNS music video, and it clearly had nothing to do with Jikook, but it had a deep meaning. We know JK is not a shallow person, and lately, he stated that he thinks a lot before doing anything. So this didn't come out of nowhere, he didn't spit this out without thinking, in THAT situation. You never say such a thing when the internet is exploding with your dating rumors with a girl, do you?

His words can translate to “Do you ever consider the possibility of me not being straight?” This is what I read from his words and his facial expression. Maybe you think I say this because I’m a shipper, and I have this shipping goggle that makes me see everyone gay and debunk any girlfriend rumors. Some people even ask childish questions like “if they are dating why they didn’t travel together?” There are 100 explanations for that, and any couple who have been together for more than two years can answer you. When you date someone, you don’t stick together 24/7. Everyone in a healthy relationship has individuality, and sometimes they want to spend time with friends or alone, especially when they already had a world tour together lol.

Anyways, maybe I have a different point of view as a shipper, but this is not the problem. I never have a problem with my ship not being real (which they have shown enough to know they are). In fact, I will be delighted if any of them announce their relationship freely and publicly, but they haven’t done it yet. JK denied the rumors and gave us lots of hints about the truth, and I’m not delulu for believing him. But if you think he has to be het for backhugging a girl or having an eyebrow piercing, you are the one who is delusional because you are living in a heteronormative world where boys and girls can’t be friends and everyone is straight unless they come out in public.

I really can’t believe this post turning to be this long, and I thank you for reading it all. You might ask why I cared enough to write +4000 words about some stupid rumors that happened two years ago. This is the main question. This had to be ended in September 2019, but many people didn’t want it to end, because they loved it, they enjoyed it, they gained from it, so they protracted it as much as they could, and heteronormative people supported it blindly because of their homophobia or Y/N fantasies or whatever reason they had. I can’t believe we are still talking about this!

35 notes · View notes

sarahlynnirl · 3 years

Text

Losing my best friend - Sugar Daddy culture is not empowering

I finally feel strong enough to talk about this and hopefully get some love, support, and reassurance from other women who agree that this is fucked up. I’ve never been “terfy on main” before so here goes. (TW child abuse + SA but no graphic descriptions of SA)

My mother is a narcissist who financially and emotionally abused my father and myself, with some additional physical abuse of me, for as long as I can remember. My dad made plenty of money but my mom controlled it all and made sure it didn’t go towards anything for me beyond the bare minimum required not to look obviously guilty of child abuse and neglect. I met Kiara (not her real name) when I was a junior in highschool and she was a freshman. Her mom was a single Korean woman doing her best to support Kiara and her 2 sisters while also running a Korean restaurant. My first jobs were a summer camp counselor and fitting room attendant at Forever 21. I would spend the last scraps of my paycheck making sure Kiara was able to order a full meal when our friends went out to dinner, buying her little gifts, and generally trying to keep us both as happy and healthy as possible.

When Kiara graduated highschool her mom drove her into Koreatown New Jersey, got her a room in the apartment of an acquaintance, and basically left her to fend for herself. Kiara spoke barely any Korean. She began working at a Korean salon where she met Ariana (not her real name). She had a NY cosmetology license, not an NJ one, while Ariana was an illegal immigrant from Korea so they were both overworked, underpaid, forced to work overtime, paid under minimum wage, and deprived of their tips. They couldn’t report or complain about this since they were both working illegally.

Kiara had to pay rent for the one room she occupied despite her land lady yelling at her, walking into her room while she slept, banning her from having friends over, and reporting to her mom if she spoke to a guy on the phone or a guy dropped her off. I was working at a restaurant in my college town on top of my classes and doing my best to keep surprising her with little gifts, but neither of us had enough disposable income to afford to visit each other. This was really difficult for me as she was my favorite person in the world and I was used to spending every second with her when we both lived in upstate NY. Ariana got them both to start using SeekingArrangement for one time meet ups with Sugar Daddies where they were paid anywhere from $200-2000 for sex. “The first time I ever did it I walked out of the hotel and just screamed because I was so disgusted and I was thinking about his wrinkly skin touching mine and all I wanted to do was get in the shower and scrub it off but I had $1000 cash in my hand for a couple hours of work which was so crazy and kinda made it all worth it ya know?” - Ariana to me

I was immediately skeptical and a little grossed out but Kiara genuinely seemed happier. She was buying new clothes for herself, ordering food to the apartment when she was hungry, and taking trips into NYC to have fun with Ariana and her friends. By the beginning of the summer of 2019, Kiara had found the Sugar Daddy who she would establish a long term agreement with and who ultimately ended up completely supporting her. I’m not going to say his name here but if people want to know it just ask, I am willing to share. He moved her into a much nicer much bigger apartment with Ariana as her roommate. He paid for me to fly up and visit her, and all of our activities during this vacation. I’m so sorry I’m so sorry I’m so sorry. I wish I shoved the money back in her hand before it was too late, I wish I worked harder and longer hours and got us an apartment in Florida and paid both of our rent. I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t listen to my instincts and allowed her to brush off my concerns. It was the most freedom we had ever had, I ran around NYC by myself while she was at work, and my ex took the bus to NJ from upstate NY and joined us for a few days. I feel so selfish but I also didn’t know how bad things would get.

One night Kiara and I went to NYC for dinner with her SD and she took the bus back to the apartment because she had to work early the next morning. It made sense for me to stay in the city because I was supposed to visit my friend at NYU the next morning. In the Uber to his apartment alone with him he was drunk and high and I very clearly looked scared shitless. At this point she was 19 (but she had looked that way since age 17 and I doubt he would have minded if she was lying about her age), I was 21 and he was 44. He seemed offended by my discomfort and was basically like “jeez relax I’m not gonna touch you, I really care about Kiara I think she’s so amazing, just go to the guest room and sleep, make a left to walk to NYU when you wake up.” I peaced the fuck out of there early the next morning.

After that summer Kiara and Ariana quit their jobs at the Korean salon and sugaring became their sole incomes. Ariana was still doing one time meet ups, not nearly as financially stable as Kiara, and got herself into a lot of credit card debt that to my knowledge she’s still in. At this point Kiara was flying down and staying with me in Florida so often that people at my college thought she went there too. I also wasn’t working at this point because college had gotten harder and my ex was fucking up my mental health real bad. He had given me a coke problem and Kiara sending me “grocery money” was enabling me to continue. I wasn’t honest with her about where all the money was going. During Halloween week we didn’t know that she couldn’t just snort molly (MDMA) with the frequency I was doing coke, she ODed, my guy best friend took us to the ER, it was so fucking scary, she got IV fluids for 2 hours and made a full recovery, she stopped doing molly, I kept doing coke. I’m so sorry :(

In November her SD paid for us to take a trip to Cancun Mexico. He was with us for the first part of the trip and this is where things started to get really bad. He tried to be my friend and act the way a boyfriend of my best friend who was my age would, but it was creepy and wrong and I was so uncomfortable. He asked about my drug use in a way that was gross and shamey and basically him seeing me as the “coke whore” stereotype...while continuing to buy me more coke. He also brought and gave us ecstasy pills. He asked really invasive questions about my relationship with my ex, why I stayed, my sex life, etc. It felt like an uncle asking me these questions, I did NOT wanna talk about any of this with him. But from what I did say it was very clear to someone with 44 years of life experience that I had an abusive mother, an addictive personality, and was in an unhealthy relationship. He offered to set me up with an SD friend of his looking for a sugar baby. I of course declined because I always knew this was a boundary I wasn’t willing to cross. No matter how bad my addictions got I would NOT give up that piece of myself in return for money.

In this part of Mexico, drugs that were only given with a prescription in the US were available over the counter. Kiara and I got a little box of 1mg Xanax with my money. My ex had given us Xanax a couple times in NY and we had fun with it, but at this point in time we did NOT have a problem with it. We had bought one bar, broken it in half, and each took half one night of Halloween week and called it “xanpires”, but this wasn’t something we were scripted or buying regularly from plugs. We went to dinner with her SD, we got up to go to the bathroom, and she immediately slipped and hit the ground. I was like woah did you take one of the xans and forget? Because we were supposed to tell each other if we were taking one so we could look out for each other. I was never mad at her! I never wanted money from her! I was just a little concerned, and once I determined that she was safe we thought it was kinda funny that she had taken a xan without realizing and started joking around about it. Her SD of course didn’t understand how a 19 year old and 21 year old girl joke with each other because he was a creepy old man, decided that we were “arguing”, and got up from the restaurant, walked across the street, bought a 90 count bottle of 2mg xans and gave it to me. This was honestly the most irresponsible way someone has ever treated me in my life, and this is coming from someone with an abusive and neglectful parent. Google “benzo withdrawal” if you’re not familiar with it.

We went to a different hotel, and Kiara and I both took xans and blacked out. I passed out on the guest bed, while Kiara was awake but in a conscious blackout. I woke up on the couch on the balcony (which was fine, it was comfy and I saw the sunrise over the beach. The gross part was that meant her SD had picked me up, put his hands on my body while I was unconscious and carried me out there). I remembered that at one point I had woken up, wanted to go to the bathroom or get something from inside, caught a glimpse of what I thought was them having sex, and went back outside. I mentioned it to Kiara and she had no memory of it whatsoever, she thought all she had done was gone to sleep. She was rightfully pissed the fuck off that her SD had taken advantage and done things with her while she was blacked, screamed at him, he gave us a half ass apology, and bought us more stuff (buying our silence). He finally flew home and we got to enjoy the trip with just each other, but I was careless with the dosage of a drug called tramadol, and I ODed with my head in her lap...I’m sorry. When I woke up I was hallucinating, hearing voices, crying hysterically and terrified. Kiara called my ex who asked how many mg I took, told us I was 100mg short of the amount that would require medical attention, made me laugh, and told me to go to sleep. I recognize how scary and unfair to her this was and I really do take responsibility for my actions. The day I was supposed to leave I did ecstasy, hooked up with a guy from Canada, and tried to skip my flight. She was mad because like yeah what the fuck. She got me on the flight, the ecstasy comedown hit, and there’s pictures of me crying in the airport because I hated when we fought.

I was supposed to stop in Miami, then fly back to my college town but while in Miami I texted my granny that I was “sad and really didn’t feel good and could she and my uncle visit me at the airport and bring my uncles dog?”. Her parenting instincts went off that something was very wrong, made me skip the flight, picked me up from the airport and took me to her house where I immediately threw up and ran an extremely high fever that night. She said it was one of the scariest nights of her life and she kept checking on me to see if I needed to go to the hospital. She drove me back to my college town where my guy best friend took me to the ER and it came out that Kiaras SD, in addition to giving me drugs, had also allowed me to drink Mexican tap water throughout the entire trip. I was treated for that + given chlamydia meds just in case since I’d had unprotected sex in a foreign country. I was fine, promised to do better, Kiara forgave me, things started to go back to normal. Except I had begun taking Xanax daily to deal with the anxiety of the illness...and she had a trip to Bali planned.

During that trip things managed to get even worse. She was there with her SD and another Korean friend and her SD was pressuring her and guilting her into sex, isolating her from her friend, going through her phone, and becoming extremely aggressive. She would call me crying and having panic attacks and I would walk out of class to try to comfort her over FaceTime. She did not have panic attacks before this trip. She begged to go home early because something was very wrong but he said it was a waste of money and kept her in Bali until the planned end of the trip. I think it was almost a month. She sent me a recording she secretly took of him screaming at her and her saying “don’t touch me, don’t grab me like that, leave me alone”. When she got back to the US I was begging her to stop. I was so worried for her safety. I said the money wasn’t worth it, we’ll get jobs, please just stop. I’m pretty sure he read those messages. We also had a suspicion that he had installed spyware on her phone but were never able to prove it. At this point I also reached out to my dad for help and his response was basically “I don’t care, not my problem, focus on school”. I reached out to my granny who absolutely cared, but her response was “I’m sorry but I can’t afford to support her, I have to focus on taking care of you, if she won’t stop this you’ll have to stop being friends with her”.

I went home to New York for winter break, suffered through my first round of Xanax withdrawal and was truly trying to get better but my ex manipulated his was back in my life and got me addicted again....but now this bottle of 90 had run out. I went back to my college town, got scripted, and was copping street bars when my script inevitably ran out early. What comes next is blurry for obvious reasons. We moved to the town in Florida my granny lived in and got an apartment together. The female friends she made in our town (my current home) she got most of them into sugaring and using SeekingArrangement. Things deteriorated super fast at this point. I was struggling hard, failing my online classes, and eventually got completely financially cut off by my parents. My granny was paying my half of the rent and my puppy’s vet bills but I was too embarrassed to admit I couldn’t afford groceries. Kiara was pressuring me hard to go on SeekingArrangement but I still refused. I would sit on the floor of the bathroom in a towel after I showered and just cry because the steam made me nauseous and dizzy since I wasn’t eating.

I met my current boyfriend and something just started to click: I didn’t wanna live like this anymore. The mom of a friend from this town who also refuses to sugar landed me an interview at the gym I currently work at, I fought for the job, and I got it. Now I knew I didn’t wanna be completely fucked up all the time anymore but I was still doing enough Xanax to keep me out of withdrawal. The 2mg that had blacked me out at the beginning were now just barely enough to keep me functional. Kiara and I were fighting frequently and bad by this time. She and her partner in sugaring, Mena (not her real name but pretty close to it, fuck this bitch fr) were expecting me to keep how they made their money a secret....from friends and guys that I saw every single day. They both very obviously did not work and were flexing new cars, designer clothes, and cash all over their social media. Kiara thought she could cover her ass by saying she dealt drugs but it was also obvious that she wasn’t putting the time into that to come up with the amount of money she had. The only one dealing drugs was me, and not enough to do anything flashy, just enough that in addition to my work money I was usually getting enough to eat. But there were still some times when the previous weeks paycheck had run out and I was having my first meal of the day at 3pm after someone had bought adderall from me. We had our serious serious fight where she threw my stuff in the lawn and I lived with my current boyfriend full time for about a couple weeks since my bedroom at my granny’s was getting refloored when this happened.

By January 20th he was concerned by my Xanax problem and wanted me to seriously try to stop. At the time I started tapering because I wanted the girlfriend title but I’m forever grateful for him giving me a reason, even if it was a shallow one, because I just needed to START. We tried to reconcile once, despite boyfriend and guy best friend begging me not to, and of course the same problems reappeared, we had another serious fight and haven’t spoken since.

Now the fog is clearing and today I’m 96 days clean of xanax, 16 days clean of all benzos, and 19 days clean of gabapentin (what was keeping me from having a seizure while quitting benzos). But it’s hard because being out of the fog means feeling all of my emotions, even the really bad ones. This past week I’ve been waking up and crying sitting in front of my mirror trying to put my makeup on for work and it just drips right off and I have to start over. She was my best friend for 8 years. My favorite person. My partner in life. I loved her more than anyone.

My boyfriend and guy best friend are pretty uncomfortable when they hear someone express an opinion of me that’s “Kiara’s side of the story” and I don’t correct it. Both of them saw exactly how bad it got near the very end and don’t get why I don’t defend myself more or tell people about her letting my dog eat dab (THC) wax while she was supposed to be watching her and having to be rushed to the animal hospital TWO separate times. (She’s a Pomeranian and the highly concentrated THC was super dangerous to her tiny little body). Yelling at me and giving me the silent treatment because less than 48 hours after my SA she expected me to drive her to a hair appointment in Miami and I woke up late and didn’t get her there on time with traffic. Me begging her to be there for me when it felt like everything was falling apart and I self harmed for the first time and her leaving me to go on a vacation to Orlando with a girl we didn’t even really like. Me not wanting to sleep in the apartment alone after my SA and her not letting me sleep in her bed anymore, her and Mena just dumping me at the neighbor’s so they could continue to sugar, party, and see guys our age at night (this sounds super awful but neighbors roommate —> current boyfriend. He kept me safe until I felt better, was really sweet and careful, and I was the one to make the first move). There’s more but I really don’t like talking about it, after the abuse she went through and I assume is still going through, I expect her to be pretty damaged and not have it in her to treat people right all the time. Not exposing every bad thing she’s ever done to all our mutual friends and acquaintances is kind of my last gift to her.

I also admit that sugaring wasn’t responsible for everything that went wrong. Loving an addict is difficult and exhausting and I went through it myself with my ex. I was also out bi and she was “probably straight, maybe a little bi-curious” in her words. But when she was drunk or on Xanax she’d kiss me first...we had done more than kiss but only during 3somes with a guy. I don’t know, I think I loved her more than I was supposed to and some of the stuff she’d say made me think she saw me in a way she really didn’t. When we first moved to this town I had a thing with a girl and expected it to be no big deal but things here were different than up north. I got called the d slur for the first time by someone who wasn’t joking. It was like getting slapped I was so shocked and hurt, I truly didn’t think that happened anymore. I think she saw what happened to me and kinda closed off that part of herself because she didn’t wanna experience that herself. She stopped making out with me at bars and parties after that and it made me sad and maybe a little jealous. But I really do blame her SD for basically “breaking her”, for handing me that first bottle of free Xanax, for a lot of other little things that I can’t possibly include because this is already way too long. This is my first time even saying this much. Feel free to add your own experiences or thoughts on this or anything you’d like. [I’m prepared to get death threats or called a SWERF or whatever but I don’t care, now that I started talking about this I’m not going to stop.]

#terf safe #terfs please touch #terfs please interact #radfem #radical feminists please touch #radical feminst #radical feminism #terf #swerfs please interact #swerf #anti prostitution #addiction #recovery #terfs do touch #sugardadddy

73 notes · View notes

thoughts-on-bangtan · 3 years

Note

This isn’t really an ask but I wanted to share something I was thinking about with you guys who show your sincere love/admiration for BTS in all you post —

Watching the past BTS Run episodes and the behind videos makes me feel a certain way not only because we get to see the boys relax and have fun (even if they get frustrated a bit haha *looking at HS and JM*), but also because I wonder how often they got to play around and do these kinds of things during the age most people do? I’d say teens and early-20s is the age when we do silly things like play mini games with friends, go to amusement parks for the first time, take a stab at cooking — and yet they were working their hardest and truly shedding blood, sweat, and tears during that time (thinking about JK makes me incredibly soft because he really started young). This show really just allows them to have fun. And it’s frustrating to see that others called the show terrible and said it was something the boys were forced to do and didn’t truly enjoy (the article saying otherwise was a blessing).

Watching “special guests” also be on the show I think highlights this feeling (of them enjoying doing these kinds of things) even more! You can see the excited ness and almost shy manners when they have others on (the voice acting, T1, and recent cooking ep come to mind). I’m looking forward to future episodes! Are there any things/games/themes you’d like to see the boys do on a BTS Run episode?

(Ah, sorry, I guess there is an ask — only if you two wish to answer it!)(Catch me listening to Young Forever now in my feels 😭)

I’ve been sitting on this ask forever and I’m really sorry for that! Especially since it’s such a good one, so thank you so much for sending it in. Maybe that’s why it took me so long, since I kind of wanted to think about it a little and offer something (hopefully) good as response.

RUN certainly offers them a bit of time in their schedules to just be silly together, play mini games and other things they normally wouldn’t really be able to do in their own time, like the zombie game episode or try a flower class. In one of the episodes of Break the Silence Yoongi spoke about how things that are mundane for us are special to them since they don’t get to do them without putting thought into how to pull it off; Seokjin spoke about how while his friends said that he’ll never have to worry about rent, he argued that while that may be true, they will never have to worry about something as trivial as walking down the street, or in one of the Bring the Soul (if I remember currently) episodes where Seokjin was apologetic about wanting to visit the zoo in Berlin since it meant that he had to take so many people with him since they were abroad, though it’s less of an issue while they’re in Korea it seems.

It’s curious how different that experience is for the members though, I mean, just look at their vacation in 2019 and how different it went for Namjoon and Jimin. While Jimin was quickly discovered and followed in Paris and Russia, Namjoon toured through Europe in a way that while ARMY from the respective countries knew about it, they kept it so low key everyone else had no idea until Namjoon posted about it himself. On the other hand, except for their finishing trip, we have no idea what Yoongi did during their vacation, or Hobi besides his CNS collab.

But, generally, it’s rather clear that none of the members would be able to just show up at Everland (an amusement park in Korea, the place where they filmed the America’s Got Talent performance of Dynamite) and have a good time without immediately being spotted, or having to heavily rely on disguises (and likely still worry about it not being enough and what would happen if they were discovered, therefore defeating the entire point of going to a place like that in the first place).

There are two sides to every medal. While yes they had and continue to have to give up on certain things, experiences and freedoms that seem so normal to the average person, something we don’t even have to think about much or can just do whenever we want (like going to the cinema at peak hours or go to McDonald’s (even one of the TXT members couldn’t do that without pictures being secretly taken of him and posted on sns and TXT isn’t nearly as famous as BTS)), they also gain a lot in terms of money but also experiences no one but them will have in such a way. They get to live their dream of being artists, of giving giant concerts all across the globe, of sharing their music with millions of people and bringing us happiness and comfort when we need it most.

More below the cut:

In one of the episodes of Bring the Soul Tae spoke about how they had the opportunities to go higher quicker, but they refused, wanted to do things their own way in their own time. It isn’t like they’ve lost control of their lives, like they wouldn’t be able to do things if they truly wanted—after all in the Bring the Soul episode where Seokjin went to the Zoo, Hobi could also walk around in the area close to the arena where they performed largely without being bothered (which might be due to his heavy disguise and security, but you get the point)—but there are limitations, and in a way, it really is a shame, but at the end of the day, many of these things are ones they’ll still be able to do whenever their fame will calm down, or fade away one day in the future. Cinemas and flower classes and amusement parks won’t just disappear, and they are certainly things you can still do once you’re thirty or forty years old, or even older than that.

But, going back to RUN, the show certainly offers them the opportunity to not have to wait until their fame passes, gives them a chance to experience and try things while also sharing that with us, work and pleasure at once. Though it’s clear that perhaps filming episodes isn’t always at the top of their priorities and I can imagine there are things they’d sometimes rather do—I mean episodes that we’ve seen being filmed in hotel rooms between concerts where I’m sure they’d rather spend the day relaxing, though they likely still prefer filming RUN over giving yet another boring and mindless interview in English, since let’s be honest, those aren’t…great, usually.

When it comes to guests on RUN, be it in form of people like the T1 members or instructors like the tennis players or the auntie teaching them how to make kimchi, it’s always so funny to me to see how humble they are about their own fame, how they get all shy as though they are meeting someone exceedingly famous instead of them being the most famous people in any room they enter. Looking at how they speak of their goals and achievements, it’s easy to see though that they’ve carefully worked on not allowing their fame to get to their heads, to remain grounded and as connected to reality as possible despite being them and how different their lives are from those of normal people. I mean, how many of us can say they were mobbed while trying to buy an iPad?

It's also so beautiful and remarkable to me how people who have met them spoke about them, like Isaac the florist who spoke about how interested they all were in the flowers and truly participated and listened, that they were extremely friendly, kind and polite, and if that doesn’t sound like Bangtan, I don’t know what does. I think this is also one of the reasons why they managed to get to where they are now, why they are so strong as a group, why they still enjoy spending time together, still manage to get even closer and deepen their friendships even after a decade has passed—they’ve remained human despite everything they’ve gone through, despite the heights they keep on reaching, despite all the awards and achievements, the number ones and sold out tours.

Tae said the following about V and his relation to Kim Taehyung in Break the Silence: Persona (the movie):

I think V can show parts of Kim Taehyung and parts of V, but Kim Taehyung can’t show V. Kim Taehyung is Kim Taehyung. Kim Taehyung is someone who’s still filled with a lot of curiosity and he’s inquisitive about a lot of things. There are so many things he wants to do. Also I think there’s so many things he is curious about.

This is the important stuff, and while I don’t have such quotes for the other members, I’m sure it’s true for them as well. Even after all this time Tae is still curious about the world, still has things he’d like to do, he’s still himself even while he stands on stage as V, hasn’t lost himself to the stage persona and the fame. We know Namjoon had a whole crisis about where RM ends and Kim Namjoon begins, and if they really are two separate things, if Namjoon even still exists or if RM has taken over his personality. I’m sure all of them had their respective moment of trying to determine who they are as people, who they are as artists, and who they want to be when they look in the mirror, how to not lose the person below the persona. We’ve also had Jungkook question his worth outside of being a BTS member, something I’m sure all of them also experienced in one way or another since it seems like such an inevitable question to ask yourself after you’ve been part of a group for so long, and yet despite it all, they all still want to stay together as BTS for as long as they can, despite mixtapes and thoughts of wanting to at least be able/confident enough to lead a concert on their own (Jungkook BE Weverse interview).

RUN gives them a chance to be them, to have fun, to be silly, to not have to constantly be on guard, to have fun in an environment where they can feel safe and are surrounded by people who have been with them for a long time and have their best interest in mind as well. There was a whole Weverse Magazine article about it, which I also wrote a post about. And yet there are people who want to take this away from them because they don’t like it while disregarding what BTS themselves want. I won’t call them ARMY since most of them are solos/akgae/mantis, and those are anything but ARMY, they’re not even fans of the one member they claim to stan, are merely caricatures of “fans” who want to “save” them, or rather take control of their lives so BTS would act exactly how they want them to. It’s obsessive and wrong, and it crosses every line and boundary of what it means to be anyone’s fan. As fans it isn’t our job to decide what is and isn’t good for their careers. We don’t know anything about the industry, while they’ve been in it since 2010, and we know nothing about their contracts or what happens behind the scenes.

As long as they are happy and have fun, who are we to question it? I don’t know about you but Bangtan have looked nothing but happy and like they were having a good time in the last couple of episodes, even when they were frustrated because they couldn’t pass a game. After all learning tennis properly and over a longer period of time was their own idea, not anyone else’s, but that’s something those people don’t want to hear anything about or will just twist somehow to fit their narrative. It truly is a shame, but also, it’s their loss if they’d rather make themselves miserable than spend forty minutes laughing along with Bangtan as they’re trying to play the harmonica or trying to cook something with less than stellar cooking skills.

As for something I’d want to see them do on RUN, that’s tricky since there’s so much they’ve already done, but something that comes to mind would be even something as silly as sitting them down and having them try to recreate all the members, or one they chose at random, in The Sims 4. It could be hilarious, and we could see how differently they’d tackle something like it. Or have them decorate a house in Sims, which would be especially interesting with our resident lighting fixtures enthusiast Yoongi. Or maybe something to do with painting, like them attending a class or just attempting to draw the same object or person. (A2: maybe given them a wall and spray cans and have them do graffiti or a mural, or have them do each other’s hair and makeup (taking it serious, of course) for a photoshoot or something like that) Or maybe a Bangtan book club where they’d discuss the same book since it would be so interesting to see what different things each of the members would find in a book and their opinions etc.

The possibilities are endless and just like you I can’t wait to see what the future episodes of RUN will have, and especially the tennis match we’ll see in next week’s episode.

#answered ask #answered ask by admin 1 #BTS #RUN BTS #bangtan sonyeondan #discussion #Namjoon #Seokjin #Yoongi #Hoseok #Taehyung

32 notes · View notes

missguomeiyun · 3 years

Text

❆ SEATTLE (ep1): arrival feat. diary pages!

HERE WE ARE! Finally starting my 1st post of my February 2019 Seattle-Vancouver trip!

For those who were wondering how I remember things. .. I actually keep a diary for every trip. The format of the diary is different from trip-to-trip depending on the length.

For example, for my short trips, I have ~5x7inch notebooks, & I spend time late in the night to write..... lol & then for my Korea trips, I actually don’t have a “notebook” but rather, I have a folder that contains my itinerary, & I modify as needed as I go through the trip :D eventually, the days kinda blur together but these help me remember what I did each day & it works hand-in-hand with my photos! A lot of ppl record digitally (ie: via phone) but I prefer writing. Every wrinkle, tear, or stain on the page is part of the trip :P

For the 1st time in history, I’m sharing some pages from my diary haha

I like sticking to black pen. The coloured ‘pens’ are Mildliners by the Zebra brand that my friend Clara got me years ago. I rarely use them but I brought them along on my trip.

My diary contains mostly writing but I have some illustrations as well bcos I like drawing. They’re very simplistic! I’d say about 85% writing + 15% drawings.

I also have stickers. Some are flat & later added when I return home), some are stickers I buy during my trip that I find nice/appropriate. .. I also have some washi tape that I use as borders as well.

In any case, let us begin!

Leaving for a trip is always sooooo exciting.

But little did I know. .. I was actually wanting to come back half way thru the trip.. .

Oh yeah! Did I mention this wasn’t a solo-trip?

I went for this 9 day trip with a former university classmate (I’ll refer to her as DL) since she had the same vacation slot as me.

A part of the Edmonton Int’l that I haven’t been to before- this was the US flights wing.

Our flight to Seattle was at 1335h (& yes, there was a delay); so this was like our light lunch since we both ate before heading to the airport.

When we looked at the different flight options, it was the cheapest (/worked out best) when we did 3 one-way flights for our 2-destination trip. Edmonton to Seattle, Seattle to Vancouver, & then Vancouver back to Edmonton.

1st time on Alaska Airlines~ DL & I weren’t seated together bcos we booked our flights separately.

(Edmonton in February 2019)

Took this shot when the aircraft was really tilted; it was weird. But the shot came out looking kinda cool!

After 1.5hrs: 1st glimpse of Seattle.

We didn’t have any checked in luggage so from getting off aircraft to going thru immigrations to finding the car-pool service parking lot area, it all went smoothly, & we united with our driver rather quickly.

We used a service called Lyft; DL had friends who used it & said it was good. It’s like Uber basically & she installed the app & everything before our trip so we were all set once we landed.

Leaving the SEA-TAC airport via the highways. Do you see the Space Needle? Our hotel was located just a few blocks away from it (<15min walk).

We witnessed rush hr traffic >.<

Our driver was an African lady named Africa. She was nice! She said she doesn’t have a lot of Canadian passengers bcos most are from British Columbia so they all drive down to Seattle due to convenience.

Made it to the downtown core. The driver told us the trip was shorter than usual... Some days, it takes like 3x our duration :O It took approx. 35mins & you know what I liked most about the ride? On the highway & merging into the downtown area, there was a “Special” lane where it’s for buses & 2-persons car pool :O it’s a weird concept but hey! It worked out for us. So normal vehicles & car pool vehicles carrying more than 2 passengers, they have to use ‘normal’ lanes. Buses & car pool vehicles with only 2 passengers can use the ‘special’ lane & travel at a higher speed limit!

Downtown street view 1

Downtown street view 2

Downtown street view 3

Passing by Amazon Spheres.

Almost there!

That’s “our” Walgreens. Our hotel was across the Walgreens.

I don’t actually have a front view of our hotel o_O but anyway, it’s called Hyatt Place Seattle.

Lobby 1

Lobby 2

We were in Room520: a standard room with 2 queen beds. For 4 nights, we paid $810 (CAD), so that’s essentially $100/night per person.

Room shot 1

Room shot 2

Room shot 3 (this last photo was taken from a L-shape couch, which I unfortunately don’t have a photo of but you can see it in the next video!)

That concludes the 1st arrival post. We did some unpacking, & then off we went for dinner & art museum!

#travel #travel blog #travel post #seattle

2 notes · View notes

sukifms · 4 years

Photo

* GET A LOAD OF THIS GUY . well , well , look who it is .... late and highly ashamed of it : it’s me , it’s kofi . as mentioned in my intro within the di.scor.d chat , i prefer she / her or they / them pronouns and i reside in the eastern tz . i’ll be introducing the too hot to trot sukanda baramichai , known affectionately around the world as suki . i already know i’m about to write a NOVEL so strap yourself in ladies , gents , and non - binary pals !

read all about sukanda ‘suki’ baramichai, otherwise affectionately nicknamed the prom queen. the twenty three year old model and podcaster is widely known for being scintillating, poised, bellicose, and vampish, and recently made headlines when they allegedly was seen vacationing on a yacht with an older man who is married and has children. apparently judas claims to be sitting on an even bigger story involving them - whatever the truth may be, i'm sure it won't stay hidden for long. & luxurious satin robes brushing against tan skin, crystalline eyes glassed with glittering tears, the lingering scent of peach vanilla long after she’s gone, and a practiced smile highlighted by bright stage lights. ◜ ⭒ ◞

trigger warning(s) : mentions of an eating disorder and poor parenting .

stars can’t shine without darkness .

name : sukanda baramichai .

nickname(s) : suki , the prom queen .

age + date of birth : 23 + may 25th , 1997 .

astrological sign : gemini .

myers - briggs personality type : esfp , the entertainer .

enneagram type : the individualist .

moral alignment : chaotic neutral .

gender + pronouns : cis female + she / her / hers .

place of birth : pathumwan , thailand .

place of residence : manhattan , new york city .

sexual orientation : bisexual .

romantic orientation : biromantic .

occupation : former beauty queen , sugar baby , model + podcaster ( suki & sage ) .

nationality : thai , obtained american citizenship in 2018 .

ethnicity : thai .

language spoken : english , thai , and basic japanese .

instagram handle : sukichai .

what would you wish for if you had one more chance ?

sukanda’s story begins in the beautiful district of pathumwan , where she was the second child of five . the first child in the baramichai family was her older brother phya , who was three years older and absolutely terrified of the baby that didn’t speak . by the time sukanda was three , the two had become best friends , and although sukanda couldn’t keep up with him and his friends , he always made sure to play with her once big tears collected in her eyes . after sukanda , the baramichai family was filled with three other children : two daughters named hansa and tulaya , and lastly with a son named daeng when sukanda was thirteen .

while growing up , sukanda lived in a world of wealth . her mother , kamlai was known throughout thailand for being one of the country’s best dermatologists and also owning chai cosmetics , a luxurious skincare brand . her husband , suran , is a highly respected cardiothoracic surgeon at one of the best teaching hospitals in their country . the two made a lavish living for their children , continuously taking them on trips around the world , educating them at the best schools , and never allowing them to leave with a hair out of place . for sukanda , though , her mother seemed to take more of an interest to her .

of course , sukanda was a little girl who liked to play with her mom’s makeup , and would ask for her mom to put lipstick on her while she was getting ready in the mornings . she appreciated clothes and shoes , and even formed a love for perfume when her mom let her wear it to school once . naturally , kamlai took sukanda’s interest and decided to run with it . when sukanda was four , her mother put her in her first beauty pageant . despite not being trained , it was evident that sukanda had a natural talent for pageantry , so that became her way of bonding with her mother . she also entered dance classes for her talent in the show , and naturally , sukanda was good at that as well .

as she grew older , though , sukanda’s mother began to take more interest in ensuring that she was the most perfect out of siblings . when they were playing outside , sukanda was kept in the house , running through her pageant routine over and over again until her eyes were heavy from sleep . during the school year , she did her homework , went to dance practice , practiced her routine , slept , and did it all over again the next day . sukanda’s love for pageants never changed , but she was beginning to resent how much she was unable to enjoy the things that her siblings and friends were able to .

oh , but you’re so pretty , the stars would cry .

start of trigger warning -- sukanda was fifteen when she began to train for the miss teen thailand pageant , and her mother changed for the worst . sukanda spent her days working out and dancing , and if she so dared to reach for something unhealthy during her meals , her mother would throw a fit and berate her . ‘ do you want to be fat ? ’ her mother would ask while throwing the food away . ‘ do you want to start losing because you can’t fit into your dresses ? ’ the constant belief that she would lose due to her weight made sukanda think twice whenever it was dinner time . she suddenly began to have protein shakes for breakfast and lunch , there was no snacking in her diet , and dinners were always small . workouts became most important , and her pageant dress in the closet continuously loomed over her head .

the stress of wanting to win continuously took over the young girl , and she wanted nothing more than to win , and she did . at the age of sixteen , sukanda earned the title of miss teen thailand , but she didn’t stop there . she continued on her journey , and it was unfortunate that food had become the enemy . she wanted nothing more than to remain skinny , to remain beautiful , and to remain a winner . her siblings noticed the change in sukanda , and would often try to sneak food to her at night , but were often caught by their mother . the punishments for natasha seemingly never ended , and it all came to a head when she was eighteen years old .

sukanda’s father , suran , had taken her out to have their annual father - daughter date . it was filled with fun and shopping , but when suran had taken sukanda out for lunch , he noticed how despondent his daughter was . she simply sipped her water and munched on small pieces of food , but she never ate anything more than that . worried , suran confronted his wife about sukanda’s eating habits , and was disheartened to know that she had been eating that way for a long time . suran was upset with himself for not noticing his daughter’s changed behavior or his wife’s , and when sukanda fainted from fatigue and lack of nutrients , it was the final straw .

she was sent off for treatment , as was her mother , and her health was instantly a priority . for two years , sukanda had to slowly relearn that food was not the enemy , and that she had to take better care of herself . it took months of struggles to eventually grasp with this concept , and she was able to place herself as a priority -- end of trigger warning . once sukanda returned home following a year of treatment , she decided that she wanted to continue with pageantry . although her mother was still working through her own treatment , sukanda wanted to provde to herself that she was much happier and healthier than she ever had been . she trained well and made sure to take care of herself , and when she was twenty , sukanda had won the title of miss world .

you smiled at the stars like they knew all your secrets .

sukanda’s life was finally back on track , and she knew that she needed to remain on that path , so she decided to move out on her own . she had gotten her own apartment , and gained even more recognition when she attended the show for michael kors spring 2019 . that same year , sukanda went on to participate in the miss universe pageant . although she placed as first runner up , sukanda was honored that she had gotten the chance . following the pageant , she was signed to img models , and her career soared from there . insert my talenti break here CFNJCBHVC . she appeared on magazine covers such as harper’s bazaar , allure , nylon , vogue hong kong , vogue korea , elle korea , dazed , and many more . she became the muse of celine in 2019 as well , and due to her growing demand , sukanda decided to leave thailand and make los angeles her home .

within a few months of living in manhattan , sukanda decided to rebrand herself under the nickname suki , and it aided in her meteoric rise . she soon decided to launch her own podcast , suki & sage , where she primarily talks about lifestyle & wellness with special guests every week . suki’s podcast is known for being frank about various aspects such as sex , relationships , and having ‘ girl talk ’ sessions . very recently , suki was named as the global ambassador for bulgari .

look among the stars .

as for suki’s personality , the only word that comes to mind is chaos . she lives for having good time , and it mostly stems from everything that she missed as a child . she can be very fun - loving , and she’s definitely the girl who doesn’t want to go home when the club is closing . she likes to laugh , and she loves to be around people who make her happy . she has a VERY strong idgaf attitude on the outside , but definitely worries about potentially relapsing on her ED , but she remains in therapy to help when those thoughts arise . she can have an over - inflated ego at times , so be careful when giving her a compliment ! she’s super provocative and nows how to use her sexuality in order to get something she wants . suki is not so secretly a sugar baby ( in relation to her rumor ) , and she mostly does it because it’s fun ! she likes attention , very much an attention hog , and even if the people that she interacts with are only paying attention to her in exchange for money , suki doesn’t really care .

i’m super late in terms of plotting , but i will definitely be posting a list of plots that i’d love to have for suki ! i want to try and get it done before i hop into doing some homework , but if there are some plots where suki could fit , please let me know !

#cross.intro #eating disorder tw #i'm posting this at 2am VCJXBVHCJX #but i promise to plot w/ everyone tmrw !

11 notes · View notes

fyexo · 4 years

Text

191115 Meet SuperM, the Team of K-Pop Superstars That Became One Big Family

SuperM has arrived. It’s late afternoon in Los Angeles, and voices can be heard floating through the halls of Capitol Records in L.A., muffled and low. They’re just out of sight, but if the video teasers for the K-pop supergroup’s debut are to be believed, the seven members will turn the corner burning with a smoldering intensity, walking with the confidence of an elite squad of K-pop assassins trained to vaporize the competition with a single look. All have been hand-picked for this mission from some of K-pop’s most successful groups: Taemin from the legendary SHINee, Kai and Baekhyun from the record-breaking EXO, Mark and Taeyong from the massive 21-member group NCT, and Ten and Lucas from NCT’s Chinese subunit WayV. Together, they are an industry team of aces, pairing powerful performance with immense individual skill in dancing, singing, and rapping.

But as they find their seats around a massive marble conference table, they’re more like a bunch of brothers at summer camp. Kai, an often blush-inducing dancer, has pulled the arms of his sweater over his hands to create soft paws and is hiding behind them as he whispers to giggling rapper Lucas. Baekhyun, the group’s leader and stunning vocalist, scrunches his nose in frustration as he struggles to open a water bottle. One by one, each member relaxes into their chairs and widens the gap between their slick onstage personas and their sweeter offstage selves.

Taeyong looks softer than his icy rapper persona as he yawns and stretches, the blinding silver highlight on his cheeks catching the sun as he adjusts the waves of his purple hair. Ten, usually a brooding dancer, is disarmingly friendly. When a part of the conversation strikes him as funny, he looks around the room to find someone else who is laughing and wrinkles his nose at them as if to say, “Isn’t this all so silly?” Mark, the youngest, is usually the excitable little brother of NCT. But as SuperM’s strongest English speaker (he’s actually from Toronto, Canada, originally), he matures into a calm and collected translator and only ages down again when caught in a fit of laughter.

The member with the biggest gap between onstage and off is Taemin, the group’s most senior member in terms of experience, who was selected from one of K-pop’s foundational groups, SHINee, and boasts one of the most successful solo careers in the history of the industry. When performing, Taemin is wickedly villainous, sensual, and sophisticated. In a recent interview, Taeyong went so far as to describe Taemin’s stage presence as “a bit immoral.” But offstage, in this conference room, Taemin’s small frame is almost swallowed up by his chair. He likes to hold water in his cheeks so that they puff out like a fish, and his big, round eyes, which are usually narrowed for effect when he performs, stare blankly from beneath his shiny blonde bob. He is so quiet that he sometimes appears to not be paying attention at all, but then one of the other guys cracks a joke and his entire face lights up.

The group is in high spirits, coming off of an intense October weekend of stateside promotion that included their first official appearance as SuperM, the debut of the music video for their single, “Jopping,” the release of their eponymous debut mini album, and a performance for thousands outside of Capitol’s iconic headquarters in Hollywood. SuperM carries on the legacy of SM, one of K-pop’s oldest and most-revered entertainment agencies. “If you ask me, I’d say what the world now considers K-Pop began with SM Entertainment,” says Taemin, through an interpreter, as Ten nods in agreement. “SM was the very first company to take musical influences from Western culture and incorporate Korean culture into that by rearranging and writing lyrics with our style.” When Taemin finishes, he turns to Kai in embarrassment and says, “I’m too proud of SM, huh?” But Taemin is right; the company created what is considered to be the first modern K-pop idol group, H.O.T., in 1996, and has been a dominant player in the space ever since.

The guys don’t show it, but they are under an immense amount of pressure. SuperM was conceptualized and produced by the founder of SM, Soo Man Lee, and their staff notes that curiosities are piqued, even within the company itself. “I think people are interested in this new attempt because we are not newbies. Each of us are from groups that are already well-established,” says Baekhyun, the eldest. Kai agrees, “We feel obliged to live up to their expectations.” They don’t know it yet, but in a week they will have the no. 1 album in the United States.

Despite looming expectations, the guys seem more delighted by the new arrangement than worried. “I’ve been in SHINee for 10 years, so starting a new team almost felt like getting a different job,” says Taemin. “I was excited; it felt so fresh, like a new start. To be honest, I thought the project was going to get cancelled when I first heard about it, so SuperM has a special place in my heart.” Baekhyun finishes, “Each of us saw it as an opportunity, a new challenge, and that helped…” Taeyong chimes in, “It united us.” “That’s right,” nods Baekhyun, “Now, we feel like we’re a family.”

That bond was formed quickly, over a handful of summer months in 2019. Though they all trained and worked under SM, most members had only ever seen each other in passing, like students in different grades at a large school. Despite this, the synergy between them is almost telepathic. After Baekhyun fails to break the cap on his water bottle, he silently pushes it towards Taeyong, who opens it for him with a twist of his wrist and without a single word. Members often finish each others’ sentences and exchange knowing looks across the table. Whenever Taemin isn’t sure about the meaning of a word in English, he leans over to consult Ten. At one point, Taeyong looks at Mark with pride and reaches out instinctively to stroke the youngest’s ear. This must be fairly normal, because Mark barely reacts.

When they return to Korea after this trip, each member will rejoin their respective group or solo promotions until they come together again as SuperM in November to tour the U.S. and Canada. Kai discloses that Lucas is already exhibiting separation anxiety. “This morning Lucas said to me, ‘Hyung, I wanna move in with you! Can’t we move in together?’” Kai says, using the Korean word for “big brother.” Lucas lets out a wild, guttural giggle as Kai snitches again, “Even Baekhyun said in the car that he would miss us after we all got back from the States!”

For these short two weeks in Los Angeles, they’re living together and having what sounds like the time of their lives. They’ve all taken roles around the house. Baekhyun is known for recalibrating the group dynamic, cracking jokes to lighten the mood. “I’m the reaction, I react to them,” Taemin says cheerily. “Mark and Ten are English teachers,” says Baekhyun, “Taeyong is the cook and dishwasher…” “and alarm!” chimes Taemin. “Taemin is in charge of dieting,” says Kai. Taeyong points to Baekhyun, “And he disrupts dieting,” he says, as they all crack up, “he’s the Diet Destroyer.” Baekhyun shrugs. “We’re the tall ones,” says Kai, pointing to Lucas and himself. “I’m in charge of getting things that are far away,” says Lucas, with a laugh that is almost musical. “He’s the biggest baby,” says Ten, smiling lovingly from the corner. “There are cups and plates placed high on the cupboard...” says Taemin. “And Lucas takes them out for us,” finishes Taeyong.

Like most families, they watch Netflix together. “We like zombies, especially Kai hyung. He likes The Walking Dead,” says Ten. “And Black Mirror,” suggests Mark. Taemin looks up at Ten with doe eyes and says “Stranger Things!” in a small voice, which Ten repeats at a volume everyone can hear. They go swimming in the house’s pool, play mafia and video games, and share meals, Taemin’s favorite. “I love that we eat breakfast together every morning. We wouldn’t do that if we weren’t close. We feel comfortable with each other’s company, it feels natural.” They’ve had everything from Korean meals and Chinese food to pancakes but, usually, they eat cereal. That is, until the diet destroyer gets involved. “We started off with Froot Loops,” says Mark, “and then we searched through the refrigerator and saw strawberry yogurt. Baekhyun was like ‘Alright, we’ve got to put the Froot Loops in the yogurt!’”

Between the seven of them, they speak five languages: English, Korean, Chinese, Thai, and Japanese, so “sometimes communicating gets very confusing,” says Lucas, switching into Korean for the last word, to underscore his point. Still, “we understand each other very well,” assures Mark, “and I feel like that's the true role of K-pop: bringing cultures together.” Ten nods in agreement. He can speak four languages and has remained alert throughout the interview, like a guard dog, leaning in to translate Korean or Chinese to English. “What’s cool is that we’re from different places, so when we talk we get to learn new vocabulary,” Ten notes, as Taemin looks on with cheeks full of water. “Sometimes I even teach them Thai,” he says, beaming proudly. “That’s the best part.” On cue, Taeyong presses his palms together, bows his head, and says the Thai word for “hello.”

SuperM has been focused on breaking into the United States, so many of the members have been learning English from Mark and Ten. Taemin, who is already fluent in Korean and Japanese, says “pronunciation” has been the hardest part. A few days earlier in an Instagram live stream, he playfully pleaded with fans of SHINee, called Shawols, to help him learn the language. When asked about that, Taemin smiles, shrugs his shoulders up to his ears, straightens his arms and splays his hands wide in discomfort, like a scared cat. With perfect pronunciation he says, “I hope to speak English well but...” and then makes a gesture that communicates, “I hope to get better.” Taeyong nods and says in English, “Step-by-step,” while Kai lets out a supportive, “Wow!”

In September, Baekhyun also took to Instagram to announce that he and Lucas were delighted and perplexed by the sound of one word in particular: awkward. The mention of this sets off a domino effect during our interview, as each member tries pronouncing “awkward” themselves. Then Baekhyun introduces a new word: turtle. He points to his mouth, which he has opened comically wide to get the sound just right, “Toooortle!” “The word turtle is so awkward!” summarizes Taeyong. Then they can’t be stopped—their favorite terms are flying back and forth across the table: Pronunciation! Positive energy! Level! Frog! Pioneers! Taeyong slowly sounds out “performances” and then claps for himself when he’s done. Over in the corner, Baekhyun leans back in his chair and crosses his arms matter-of-factly. “Turtle!” he says with confidence, one last time, as Mark bursts out laughing and Taeyong slaps him playfully on the knee.

The room is so warm with joy, so free from ego and pretense, that it’s easy to forget that these seven friends are some of the world’s most celebrated performers. Despite their differences—in age, language, culture, and experience—they function as a single solid, supportive unit, united by one goal.

For almost the entire interview, Mark and Taemin have been playing with two thick silver rings overlaid with heavy crosses. At one point, Taemin experienced a brief panic when Mark’s ring got stuck on his finger. “We got these as a gift from Mr. Soo Man Lee,” Mark says seriously, holding his up in front of his face. Each member’s ring bears a slightly different design, but they all “have ‘Super M’ inscribed on the back.” The accessory feels overtly symbolic: a physical reminder of the heavy expectations that unite them. “This is our Thanos Infinity Gauntlet,” Mark jokes, referencing SuperM’s branding as the “Avengers of K-pop.” As he laughs with Taemin, his face softens and he looks like the group’s little brother again. Then they both pick up their rings and place them back on their fingers, joining the rest of their team.

Source: Elizabeth de Luna

#exo #kai #baekhyun #t: interview #album: superm

111 notes · View notes

newstfionline · 4 years

Text

Headlines

Dueling versions of reality define 1st week of fall campaign (AP) On the campaign trail with President Donald Trump, the pandemic is largely over, the economy is roaring back, and murderous mobs are infiltrating America’s suburbs. With Democrat Joe Biden, the pandemic is raging, the economy isn’t lifting the working class, and systemic racism threatens Black lives across America. The first week of the fall sprint to Election Day crystallized dizzyingly different versions of reality as the Republican incumbent and his Democratic challenger trekked from Washington and Delaware to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and back, each man on an urgent mission to sell his particular message to anxious voters. All the conflicting messages carry at least a sliver of truth, some much more than others, as the candidates fight to navigate one of the most turbulent election seasons in modern history.

Love or hate them, pandemic learning pods are here to stay (Washington Post) Some love them. Some hate them. But nobody working in education today can escape pandemic learning pods: the increasingly popular phenomenon in which families band together and hire a private tutor to offer in-person learning to a small group of children. Teachers throughout the nation are sketching out schedules and pondering whether they can squeeze in pod tutoring after virtual school. They are weighing health risks, deciding on ground rules—should all pod students wear masks?—and asking parents how much they will pay. (A lot, it turns out.) Sometimes, they are quitting their jobs to lead pods instead. That is what Kendra Newton is doing: The 24-year-old first-grade teacher resigned from her job with Orange County Public Schools in Florida after learning she would have to teach in-person this fall. She is moving across the country to Oregon, where she will lead a pod of eight students—for a higher salary than she earned in Florida. “It gave me a way to feel safe working,” Newton said. “I will have guaranteed money coming in and a stable idea of what my life will be like because there won’t be a school district changing its mind every two seconds. For my mental health, it’s just a better option.”

Americans see skepticism of news media as healthy, say public trust in the institution can improve (Pew Research Center) Many Americans remain skeptical toward the news media, questioning not only the quality of journalists’ work but the intentions behind it. For instance, no more than half of U.S. adults have confidence in journalists to act in the best interests of the public, and Americans are more likely than not to say that news organizations do not care about the people they report on. Yet three-quarters also are open to the possibility that Americans’ trust in the media could improve.

With office life dormant, white-collar Washington is adrift (Washington Post) Greg Crist is a D.C. lobbyist who used to wear suits, and go to lunch, and spend his days taking meetings on the Hill, or in his nicely appointed office at 701 Pennsylvania Ave. Now that his office is closed because of the pandemic, Crist is a man who commutes a few hundred feet from his Alexandria, Va., home to his silver Audi, where he spends much of the day taking calls in the only place where the important people on the other end of the line cannot hear his toddler son scream. Much of white-collar Washington has accepted the reality that it may be a long time before it returns to the office, or the office-adjacent customs of the city’s glad-handing classes: the power lunches, the networking receptions, the comped sports tickets and day trips to New York on the Acela. “Initially I thought, ‘Well, I’ll be back at work by Easter,’ ” says Crist, the chief advocacy officer and head of external affairs at AdvaMed, a medical technology trade association. Easter turned into June, which turned into Labor Day, which turned into a big question mark. The politicos and super-connecters are achy, stuck at home, stranded on the other side of the work-life divide. The lobbyists are without their lobbies. The conference denizens haven’t donned a lanyard in months. That infamous D.C. conversation-starter, “What do you do?,” has a new answer: I sit at home, stare at my screen, fend off my kids, try to keep it together. You?

Mexico states run out of death certificates (AP) The coronavirus pandemic has hit Mexico so hard that the governments of several states ran out of death certificates. Officials said Friday the federal forms started running out about 15 to 20 days ago in at least three states—Baja California, the State of Mexico and Mexico City. Authorities say a million new forms have been printed and are being distributed. The certificates are printed with special characteristics because falsification has been a problem in the past. Mexico has suffered the fourth-highest level of COVID-19 deaths in the world.

Washington firm ran fake Facebook accounts in Venezuela, Bolivia and Mexico, report finds (Washington Post) When Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido declared himself the nation’s legitimate president in January 2019, an Instagram account, @FrenteLibreVzla, posted a video declaring him a “new leader” who would bring freedom to the embattled nation, according to a research report published Friday. Those watching the video had no way of knowing the account was based not in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, but downtown Washington, managed by a strategic communications firm with clients across Latin America. The firm, CLS Strategies, this week became the latest communications company to be chastised by Facebook for using fake accounts—including on Instagram, a Facebook subsidiary—to secretly manipulate politics in another country, in violation of Facebook’s prohibition on foreign interference. Facebook announced Tuesday it had closed 55 accounts, 42 pages and 36 Instagram accounts linked to CLS Strategies that targeted politics in Venezuela, Bolivia and Mexico. The effort spent $3.6 million in advertising across all three countries, a sum that Facebook executives said was notable for its size and reflective of what happens when actors with deep pockets mount a disinformation operation. The pages had amassed more than 500,000 followers. The operation by the public relations company is an example, the report says, of how Americans sow disinformation in foreign countries.

Coronavirus Crisis Shatters India’s Big Dreams (NYT) The hit that India’s dreams have taken from the coronavirus pandemic can be found in the hushed streets of Surat’s industrial zone. You can see it in textile mills that took generations to build but are now sputtering, eking out about a tenth of the fabric they used to make. You can see it in the lean faces of the families who used to sew the finishing touches on saris but, with so little business, are now cutting back on vegetables and milk. Not so long ago, India’s future looked entirely different. It boasted a sizzling economy that was lifting millions out of poverty, building modern megacities and amassing serious geopolitical firepower. It aimed to give its people a middle-class lifestyle, update its woefully vintage military and become a regional political and economic superpower that could someday rival China, Asia’s biggest success story. But the economic devastation in Surat and across the country is imperiling many of India’s aspirations. The Indian economy has shrunk faster than any other major nation’s. As many as 200 million people could slip back into poverty, according to some estimates. Many of its normally vibrant streets are empty, with people too frightened of the outbreak to venture far.

India and China agree to ease tension on border (Reuters) India and China said on Saturday they had agreed to work towards reducing tensions along their contested border, following a meeting of the defense ministers of the nuclear-armed Asian giants. Both sides deployed additional forces along the frontier running through the western Himalayas after a clash in June, during which 20 Indian soldiers were killed in hand-to-hand fighting. China has not released casualty figures for its troops. In the highest level face-to-face political contact between India and China since tensions first flared along the border in May, defense ministers Rajnath Singh of India and General Wei Fenghe of China met late on Friday on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Moscow. Both countries agreed that “neither side should take any further action that could either complicate the situation or escalate matters in the border areas,” India’s defense ministry said in a statement.

Super Typhoon Haishen aims for calamitous strike on Japan, S. Korea (Washington Post) Super Typhoon Haishen is roiling the unusually warm waters of the Western Pacific Ocean. The storm rapidly intensified on Thursday Eastern time, vaulting from Category 2 to super typhoon status with sustained winds of 150 mph or greater in about 24 hours. Super Typhoon Haishen is poised to strike the same areas as Typhoon Maysak, which hit South Korea early Thursday local time, to become the second typhoon to make landfall there and in southwestern Japan in just one week. The back-to-back typhoon strikes may worsen the damage, since infrastructure has been weakened by strong winds, heavy rains and storm-surge flooding, only to be hit again.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews clash with secular Israeli officials over coronavirus measures (Washington Post) Israel’s rapidly escalating coronavirus crisis is aggravating a religious divide in the Jewish state, with ultra-Orthodox leaders accusing mostly secular health officials of discrimination and fostering anti-Semitism by focusing on outbreaks in highly observant communities. As the government struggles to contain the outbreak, ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis, cabinet ministers and parliament members have resisted attempts to curtail activities in ultra-Orthodox areas, including many that have emerged as covid-19 hot spots. Facing particular ire has been Ronni Gamzu, the pugnacious former hospital administrator appointed last month as the government’s “corona czar.” Gamzu has clashed with religious leaders over his efforts to impose targeted lockdowns on neighborhoods with high infection rates, block a yearly pilgrimage to the grave of a revered Hasidic rabbi in Ukraine and compel virus testing for thousands of foreign students who have recently arrived to attend religious schools, or yeshivas. Gamzu said last week that 80 percent of the most recent coronavirus cases occurred in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. The government expects to enact targeted restrictions Monday in 10 hot spot communities, many of them ultra-Orthodox. The tensions have riven Israel’s coronavirus cabinet, the government body that sets policy. On Friday, one day after Israel recorded 3,141 new cases—the largest single day per capita increase in any country since the pandemic began—cabinet discussions grew heated over proposed lockdowns during the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur later this month.

Sudan declares state of emergency over deadly floods (AP) Sudanese authorities declared their country a natural disaster area and imposed a three-month state of emergency across the country after rising floodwaters and heavy rainfall killed around 100 people and inundated over 100,000 houses since late July. Flooding caused by seasonal heavy rainfall, mostly in neighboring Ethiopia, led the Nile River to rise about 17.5 meters late in August, the highest level it has reached in about a century according to the Sudanese Irrigation Ministry.

#headlines #news

1 note · View note

letamreviews · 4 years

Text

Top of 2019

With 56 films watched and 27 favorited in 2019, I composed a list of my top. By pure happenstance, the list is almost an exact third (18) of the total films watched. Be aware that I don’t have as much to say about some of these because I took no notes after.

Because I’d be biased towards them, I don’t count the National Theatre Live plays.

Since the list is likely to be altered between now and the end of February (to accommodate for films missed), check the Lettboxd list later on to see an up to date listing, but be aware that it intentionally lacks the details provided here.

EDIT (01/04/20):

Woke up this morning religiously re-reading this and caught some grammar errors. It’s almost like staying consistently well-rested is actually beneficial. While I’m at it, Blind Rating (BR) is how worthwhile the film is watching “blind” (or knowing nothing). The scale is 1 (worth it) to 5 (you must). ‘Eh is essentially a 0.5.

1. Midsommar (USA)

Saw the original and Director's Cut in theatres and discussed them with a group immediately after both times. I’m somewhere between really liking it and loving it. Still unsure. Hell of an experience with a lot to notice, debate over, and pick up on during the second viewing. Don’t even get me started on the Christian/Dani matter. Dat tension, tho. Blind Rating: 4/5

2. Us (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. I’m digging the allegories and the way (I think) it reflects on society. Dem reveals, tho. Blind Rating: 4/5

3. Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. Two things probably play a huge hand in this not being atleast 3 spots lower: my demographic and the fact that her older self constantly reminded me of my grandma and a certain middle school teacher. Regardless, it’s an entertaining, interesting, and lively documentary with its many personalities on-screen all giving their take on matters along with Ms. Morrison herself. Glad they managed to finish and release this 1.25 months before her death. Blind Rating: 0/5

4. When They See Us (USA)

Saw on Netflix over the course of a month. Y’all, this one hurt too much to watch again any time soon. Admittedly, part of the reason why it hit me so hard is because I could easily have been one of them. Dat ending, tho. Don’t forget to watch the Oprah followup When They See Us Now after. You’ll ball (again). Blind Rating: 3/5

5. Parasite (South Korea)

Saw an advance screening in theatres and watched a live post-film Q&A. I really like it. This hit me in such a way that it’s one of three films I’m writing an essay on. Planing on watching it a second time soon so I can finish with a sense of accuracy. This isn’t one that I would recommend looking at images for. There are some that will spoil the experience of the second half. Seriously, block the “Parasite” tag from your feed if you can. Blind Rating: 3/5

6. Luce (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. This was is so~ good as a thriller and especially in regards to being Black in America. Wanted to watch it a second time but never managed to squeeze it in before it left theatres. Dem performances, tho. Dat tension, yo. Dat score, bro. Blind Rating: 1/5

7. Them That Follow (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with someone immediately after. I love it. Blind Rating: 1/5

A drama influenced thriller about a religious and somewhat self-isolating community that's effectively blanketing a realistic romance. (snip) —Letterboxd review

8. The Souvenir (United Kingdom)

Saw in theatres (partially because so many movie peeps were shitting on it). I love it, but I didn't fucking love it. Was tempted to see it again, but didn’t get the chance. Dat ending, tho. While it was a movie peep telling me the whole plot that caused me to gain so much interest in it [Cabin in the Woods (2011) all over again, amiright?], I must say that the less you know the better. It’ll make for... a more immersive experience. Blind Rating: 3/5

9. After the Wedding (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. I thought I really liked it, but I love it. This was a trip down unexpected lane, le'me tell ya. The trailer is a spoilerful lie, but the Landmark's description is very accurate. People's experiences will have a heavy hand in how they react to it and feel about certain characters. The way they made this feel like a constant thriller was excellently done. Dat cinematography, tho. Go in knowing nothing more than what the previous link provides. Blind Rating: 1/5

10. Joker (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. I really like it. Blind Rating: 1/5

(slight spoilers)

This was difficult to watch at times, but hella captivating throughout. Arthur's reasoning is believable, his sanity is questionable, and his life is indeed one hell of a joke. Like watching an extreme example of what happens when people on the lower end lose access to social programs. This can very easily be taken as a commentary on mental illness kept unchecked. More than that, it's a story about a guy who accepts his "crazy" and transcends poverty, circumstance, and societal bullshit... at everyone else's expense. (snip) —Letterboxd review

11. Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with a group immediately after. I really like it. Captivating documentary in a very similar style to Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, but with Mr. Davis never joining the “talking heads” (as people like to call it) and instead being heard as a constant narrator of his own biography. Regardless of how I feel about him on a personal level, this shit was a great watch and the ending hit hard. Still need to get his autobiography, though. There’s a nostalgic factor for me here since I was partially reminded of my grandpa while watching it. Blind Rating: 'eh

12. Queen & Slim (USA)

Saw in theatres and discussed with someone immediately after. Fuck yeah, I enjoyed this one. Dat soundtrack and cinematography, bruh? 👌🏿 The throwback soundtrack, main characters’ racial group, and fact that they went to New Orleans definitely play a hand in why this one’s not atleast 1 spot lower. Blind Rating: 1/5

13. Dwelling in the Fuchon Mountains (China)

Saw in theatres during festival and attended discussion days later. I really like it. Was long, but in a good way. Similar to Ash is Purest White (2018) in that I kept thinking "please end here," but would be glad it didn't later. It's beautifully slothy and has absurdly long tracking shots. The cinematography during walking conversations is notable. Dat trick, tho. Blind Rating: 'eh

14. A Girl Missing (Japan)

Saw in theatres during festival and discussed with a group immediately after. Bruh~, this is a hell of a personal trial. Didn’t expect it to go the places it did. Blind Rating: 1/5

15. Dutch Angle: Chas Gerretsen & Apocalypse Now (Netherlands)

Saw on MUBI on phone. I love it. This goes over his childhood (for 8 minutes), career paths, photography of 9/11/1973's Chilean coup d'etat, the 6 months he spent on-set photographing Apocalypse Now (1979), and him as a person. What I didn’t expect was how much he would get into the details of things happening during that film’s development. Along with those details are interesting photos presented excellently in a way that’s reminiscent of manga at times. I like the way the photos take center point and are treated like the foreground. It’s like the director and editor forced themselves to remain aware that the documentary was showcasing 15% of the total slides housed in the Nederlands Fotomuseum’s archives in Rotterdam and that most of his Apocalypse Now photos were never seen. Dat score, tho [Ex Machina (2014) vibes]. Blind Rating: 0/5

BTW, it had its official (Dutch national) release by EYE Filmmuseum on 12/19/19 in the Netherlands, so maybe it’ll come to the USA soon. 🤷🏿‍♂️ Forgot to mention it’s been added as a special feature to the 40th anniversary 4K blu-ray disc of Apocalypse Now: Final Cut (2019).

16. Receiver (Ireland)

Saw on MUBI on phone. I really like it. A very interesting short film in three odd segments. First was disturbing; second was about activism, protests, and politics; third was about the person I assume the film was made for. All compose what I took as a film about the importance of having reliable sound and hearing. Needs to be watched alone with good sound quality (for immersion). Blind Rating: 'eh

17. Bacurau (Brazil)

Saw in theatres during festival. I really like it. This was some Most Dangerous Game shit with a hell of an ending. The whole game is an allegory of civilized people's obsession with hunting wild animals for "sport". I really like the portrayal of history here and enjoyed the racial matters it lays bare. I can only imagine someone watching this without knowing a thing. Kinda wish I didn’t even read the description beforehand. Digging the soundtrack. Blind Rating: 1/5

18. Little Women (USA)

Saw on 35mm and discussed with others on separate occasions. I really like it. This was just warming and sad. I felt for the main characters and actually felt satisfied with the way it ended. Considering the type of film, there are handful of typical things for me to complain about. That being said, the movie earned its stars back. I mean, did you not see their attic performances? Shit was dope. Blind Rating: ‘eh

#2019 #top of #favorite films #i love it #i really like it #Ireland #Netherlands #Japan #China #Brazil #United Kingdom #USA

3 notes · View notes

1dshortficfest · 5 years

Text

2019 1D Short Fic Fest Round Up

Down Memory Lane by flicker_album Harry and Louis have known each other since they were five. Now they’re in their senior year of high school and still best friends. Harry, as sentimental as ever, keeps anything Louis gives him in a box under his bed. He doesn’t anticipate Louis finding the box.

A Way So Familiar by yeah_alright Liam squeezes Zayn’s hand and presses a light kiss to his fingers. He freezes when Zayn stirs, worried he’s woken him. He’s not ready to wake him. He’s enjoying being held as he wades through the memories of that first night he’d held Zayn. Held him so properly and thoroughly that he had fallen asleep still holding him tightly. That night of pizza and beer and unadulterated flirting, when their playfulness had taken on a greater significance. It had felt revelatory. Like it was all finally – fucking finally – happening. Liam wakes up in Zayn’s arms and reminisces about some of their “firsts.”

an honest mistake by disgruntledkittenface “You look different when you’re not covered in come,” he blurts out, immediately regretting each and every life choice that has led to this exact moment. Elevator Guy is going to hate him. Louis has ridden the elevator with his neighbor all week. The first time they speak, there’s a misunderstanding.

nothing breaks (like a heart) by thelouistiti Such a good time, Louis believes it this time.

Heat by jacaranda_bloom Louis was smitten from the moment Harry had arrived a month ago. Long, curly hair which he mostly keeps up in a bun, and a sinfully deep voice. Cheeky too. Louis likes that the best. He gives good banter and laughs at Louis’ dumb jokes, adding his own woeful puns. When Louis had asked him why he was in this godforsaken dust bowl, he’d said something about a ground crew traineeship and fulfilling his visa requirements while experiencing the real Australia. Louis had been momentarily distracted by Harry’s plush, red-bitten lips so the salient details may have washed over him. OR Drinking beer in a blow-up pool, in a backyard, in stupidly hot temperatures, in outback Australia should be ridiculous, and it would be, if Louis didn’t have a curly-haired workmate to keep him company.

Fistiana by yesisaworld They met in the center of the ring and bumped their bare knuckles together.

All I See Is You, Lately by runaway_train Harry noticed him for the first time three months ago. He couldn’t not, really, what with the man being so pretty and all, and Harry remembers it well because it was three days before his birthday and he had joked to himself that seeing someone so gorgeous for three days on the trot must be an early present from the Gods. Or The one where Harry has a crush on a fellow commuter.

we’re right here in this room by flicker_album Shawn goes to the same cafe every Sunday. After he meets Niall, a friend of a friend, he can’t stop thinking about him.

Insomnis by FullOnLarrie Harry’s been having trouble sleeping. Louis makes everything better.

The Truth Of It or The Day That Changed Everything by Larryhasmyheart You are Louis, the son of a wealthy horseman. Your father has been trying to ingratiate you into his circle of friends and set you up with their daughters, but you just aren’t feeling it. Instead, ever since the new stable hand smiled at you, you have been drawn to the barn. Today, you come to understand why.

it’s only your imagination again by wreckingtomlinson “So,” Louis begins, curling up in one corner of the sofa. “Guess my secret’s out.” Harry nods. “The cat’s out of the bag,” he says with a completely straight face. ~ Or, Harry’s pretty convinced his new neighbor has a cat.

Pals and Confidantes by yeah_alright The Guys sit around the kitchen table sharing cheesecake and stories of bad dates. Golden Girls AU.

Soju (소주) by gettingaphdinlarry After a spectacular breakup he’d like to forget about, English language teacher Niall Horan finds himself in starting anew in Seoul, South Korea. He’s perfectly content being single, but when his friends try to set him up with Shawn Mendes, well… Maybe it’s time to give love another shot.

Was Sort Of Hoping That You’d Stay by Sasparella76 Last night, Louis Tomlinson hooked-up with a drop-dead gorgeous man who, right now, is sleeping contentedly in his arms. Sure, the sex was good - really good, in fact - and the guy was charming and funny, but it was just a one-time thing. The thought of having to engage in some awkward morning-after chit-chat with the lad makes Louis shudder. He needs to get up, get dressed and get out before his one-night stand wakes up.

the pain’s only temporary by wreckingtomlinson They call him The Phantom. He’s something like a myth in the industry—almost everyone knows of him, but real information is few and far between. But the one thing everyone seems to be able to agree on is that anyone who dares to make a deal with him becomes untouchably, irrevocably, successful. ~ or, Harry seeks out the help of a mysterious figure referred to only as The Phantom for help getting out of a contract, but is he prepared to pay the price?

Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now by allwaswell16 Louis is having a personal crisis, a third Valentine’s Day being single. Unless he meets someone this week at the high end department store he works at, he’ll be stuck going to Niall’s Valentine’s Day party–again. Or the one where Harry mistakes Louis for a mannequin.

please forgive me if my lips quake by disgruntledkittenface Hi ! Got your number from your cat Lou. Just want to make sure they’re not lost, only visiting Harry’s pet cat wing-womans her into a date.

sunbeams by ohsailor Harry is the new neighbour suffering from insomnia. Louis is the night nurse across the hall trying to find ways to help him sleep. They find one that works.

honey (you’re familiar) by hazkaban harry had always thought that if he stumbled into the wrong date, somehow, it’s just like him, honestly, he would come clean instantly and go find his real date. that is until he’s face to face with louis, who is very pretty and not at all the man he’s supposed to be meeting.

Fluro by silveredglass Doesn’t matter where you go to help you forget - symbols, and reminders, and good old heartache is always neon bright.

Screamin’ At My Face, Baby, Don’t Trip by runaway_train He’s been waiting at their table in the restaurant for thirty minutes now, already deep into his second large glass of Shiraz, when he checks his phone. No new messages. He clicks onto WhatsApp to check when Louis was last online; 3.34 p.m today. That certainly doesn’t bode well. Louis was always late, yes, but he had promised, he had sworn to Harry that he wouldn’t be late tonight. But he was. By thirty one minutes and counting. Or The one when Harry’s anniversary dinner plans don’t go quite how he hoped they would.

She’s Got Particular Taste by Miadotfi They eventually change topics but it’s still in the back of Harry’s mind. So naturally, as soon as they get home, Harry drops her coat on the living room floor and gets naked from the waist up. With her bra in her hand she turns around to face the door. Louis enters the room and freezes in the middle of taking off her beanie. Her gaze slides down in a heartbeat, mouth hanging open. Harry waits. And waits. She doesn’t know what she expected. She shouldn’t have just stripped down first thing when they arrived home. Harry has nipple piercings and she’s more than willing to show them to Louis.

Ticket To L.A. by Tomlinsontoes Fun little airport fic based on the song “Ticket to L.A.” by Brett Young. Harry is a musician who meets Louis in an airport when all of the flights are delayed. After accidentally hitting him with his guitar case, Louis agrees to get a drink with Harry as long as he doesn’t start playing “Wonderwall”

Back To Life by Laziam (MItCheLlInE) When a fun day out turns into a horror scenario for Zayn, a kind stranger turns his entire world upside down.

The Bet by jacaranda_bloom Louis Tomlinson never reneges on a bet. Ever. He may be many things - a joker, a sometimes-wayward student, a loyal friend, a Tony Award winner in the making, and a card-carrying member of the Chad Michael Murray fan club - but never, ever, a welcher. Louis makes good on his promises and does it with flare. OR The one where Louis misjudges Harry’s ability to do TLC’s Waterfall rap and finds himself having to put on a one-man show for his viewing pleasure. If Louis decides to go all-in and dress the part, then that’s just a bonus for his (very appreciative) one-man audience.

Calling out for somebody to hold tonight by cristalrush “I saw how you kept looking at me. I’m Louis, nice to meet you.” The raspy voice startled Harry. There he was. The guy he had been watching. He looked around discreetly to make sure Louis was actually talking to him. But there was no one facing them, so Harry thought it must be him. He offered his hand to Louis, “I’m Harry, nice to meet you too.” Or Harry has almost lost hope to ever finding his soulmate and just wants to have a fun night.

A Snapshot by haztobegood That one time Harry’s photo was uploaded to Louis’ instagram.

Drunk on summer by sweetsumerstyles Zayn and Louis are on a beach stargazing with a bottle of wine and a blanket wrapped around them.

Size Difference by FullOnLarrie Harry avoids confrontation until he can’t anymore.

Angels in the Airwaves Tonight by shiftylinguini Louis is between jobs. Niall is always along for the ride.

Beautiful Disaster by FallingLikeThis Harry is broken. Maybe Louis can help with that.

Harry’s Love Song by writcraft Harry calls Nick to let him know he’s coming back to London.

Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Cheese (who am I to dis-a-brie?) by EmmyLouWho The first time it happened, Harry had assumed that it was an honest mistake. The second time it happened, Harry thought it must have been a coincidence. Perhaps if he hadn’t been such an eternal optimist, the possibility that someone was stealing his food might have occurred to him a bit earlier, but Harry had a great deal of faith in the goodness of his fellow students, and so he continued to believe that it was an accident. But by the third time he had returned to an empty microwave, Harry was starting to realise that someone was stealing his mac & cheese on purpose.

A True Love of Mine by myownspark Niall’s peaceful afternoon at the beach with Shawn is interrupted by a group of strangers. One man in particular reminds him of someone special from long ago.

sweet, sweet fate by bottomlinsons Harry’s lived with a NSFW soulmark for almost twenty-five years now. When he finally meets the man responsible, he gives him a little piece of his mind.

As Luck Would Have It by Justalittlelouislove We’ve all experienced the trials and tribulations of technology. Louis is sabotaged by a bit of unhelpful autocorrect, but maybe luck is on his side after all.

It Could Be Sweet (like a long forgotten dream) by Harryskiwiposes “You did all this? For me? Even after I ignored you all week?” “I know why you’ve been ignoring me. If you had given me a chance to explain.” He paused, taking a deep breath before continuing, “I was never going to set up a dating profile. That was all Niall’s idea. He thought he was helping, but…it’s…it’s you, Louis. I just want to be with you. I was going to ask you out before Niall burst in and -” OR - the one where a miscommunication and a blackout lead Harry and Louis to admit their feelings for each other.

#1d short fic fest #round up

89 notes · View notes

jikookuntold · 3 years

Text

Jungkook Being Open about Himself

TW: This is a heavy analysis and contains deep theories and some conspiracy theories. If you don’t feel comfortable about gender and sexual orientation discussions, this post is not for you. I’m not going to talk about any ship in this post, it’s all about Jungkook and the image this fandom made of him.

Enough talking let’s get the bread!

The Wrong Image

After spending almost three years on ARMY-Twitter and other apps like YouTube or Instagram, I came to the conclusion that the majority of this fandom has this image of a masculine, bad boy, cold-hearted heterosexual Jungkook in their minds, something we can even consider as toxic masculinity. But is it true? Is this what he has tried to show us all these years? We can’t deny the fact that he wants to look mature and he doesn’t like to be called a baby, he made this clear many times despite doing some aegyo for the sake of ARMY’s satisfaction but his masculine and feminine sides are another story.

Masculine or Feminine?

Wearing makeup or jewelry on stage for an artist, can’t be considered as a feminine attitude but when someone does this on daily basis and recommends forgetting about the gender stereotypes it mean they don’t care about gender and “Not Caring about Gender” is a feminine attitude. Jungkook buys his clothes from local gender-neutral brands, he likes makeup and he’s called himself pretty many times. He said the great style is wearing what you want regardless of gender.

In Feb 2021 Elle Korea wrote: “Most of Jungkook's favorite fragrance products have sweet & lovely scents regarded feminine.” He is a sensitive and emotional person and he cries very easily. There are so many discussions about feminine body-language signs which all do apply on him but I don’t discuss them here because they are mostly not deterministic. Anyways, can we all agree getting tattoos or being buff doesn’t make you masculine? Jeon Jungkook has embraced his feminine side and he is far from toxic masculine qualities inside and out.

Sexual Direction?

I’m not in a position to discuss someone’s sexual orientation when they haven’t talked about it themselves but it surprises me how the majority of this fandom is so sure about Jungkook being heterosexual. In my opinion, this mindset comes from the image of him being super-masculine and being associated with girls in the early years after debut. We all know he had one (or two?) girlfriends before the age of 17 and he actually was open about it. In American Hustle Life he talked about how at some point he felt dating and not dating that girl doesn’t make any difference for him and he believes all girls are the same.

We all know how this industry works and idols never open up about their relationships, especially at such young age but Jungkook wasn’t hesitant, despite being a shy and introverted person. I’m not claiming to know him but I know him enough to believe what he says is the truth. This man never lies, maybe he won’t disclose every aspect of his life but when he speaks up he is telling the truth and nothing else. He could deny or ignore those dating rumors of early debut years but he wasn’t afraid of confirming them and showing his real self.

While I’m speaking about American Hustle Life, I should refer to another thing related to the topic. (I personally believe this AHS had such a big impact on all the members’ growth and not just Jungkook) When Jungkook was chilling near the pool with Yoongi, he told him about a woman he saw there who had a big tattoo on his back and he said he wants to get a tattoo. Yoongi believed this act will disappoint ARMY but Jungkook didn’t agree and said: “If they love us, they won’t mind.” Jungkook wants to be himself and shows his real self to us and believes if our love for him is real we would accept him as the way he is.

In my opinion, somewhere around Jungkook's 17th birthday something changed in him. This change has started earlier but at this period (Danger Era), it became more detectable. I'm not saying that he wasn't like this before, on the contrary, he was always like this, he was born with it but fully acknowledging it and embracing it took time for him. None of us had known or accepted ourselves in our teenage years and we tried and pushed lots of things to find our true nature. I believe the same happened for Jungkook and it was way harder for him because of the situation he was in.

Anyways, in late 2014 and especially 2015, the changes in his attitudes and manners were too visible to stay unnoticed by ARMY (I have to declare skinship and fanservice for the cameras are not my point, In this post, I have tried to draw a line between his work as an idol and his life as a person and my emphasis is on the latter part). He started to suggest openly gay artists’ works in his tweets. He even did cover those songs and used them for his G.C.F videos. If you have read the lyrics of the songs he suggests, covers, or uses for his works, you’d notice that all the pronouns are gender-neutral or male (he). The most interesting thing was when he eliminated the word "girl" from the lyrics of Savage Love but didn't do anything with the f word. He has used LGBTQ+ symbols several times, He has read gay novels, He named his flower bouquet “Various types of love” Now think about it again; does it make sense to consider him as a heterosexual?

Rumors...

Most of you know about the incidents when BTS had their short break in the summer of 2019. Jungkook started to get tattoos and when he was on a trip, two pictures of him got leaked and rumors of Jungkook and a girl (I'm going to call her person B) went viral. I'm not going to analyze those pictures or the rumors because BigHit’s statement did seal the deal for me, I knew Jungkook wouldn't lie or hide anything about it. If he had dated that girl or anyone else it was his business and when he denied it, I was 100% sure he is telling the truth but apparently it wasn't the case for the others. The pictures weren’t showing anything intimate or controversial, but since it was a boy/girl interaction they made a huge deal of it (Remember in a heteronormative world, boys and girls can’t be just friends!) The rumors haven’t died down after almost two years and they are using this to keep their fantasies of heterosexual Jungkook alive.

As someone familiar with this industry for more than a decade, I know they can’t let any of the popular fantasies to die, no matter it’s the fantasy of gay shippers or straight shipper or Y/N’s, no one has to be disappointed. Fantasy of Jungkook being straight was dying down in the middle of 2019. But how did that happen? Of course, any ship moments or interaction between members never been taken seriously. It would be interesting if you know the situation became serious just a few days before the person B incident. That day, an insulting and homophobic private conversation from one of the most infamous fansites of Jungkook got leaked and it almost outed him as someone who isn’t in the hetero world.

When ARMY called out this fansite for her toxic behavior and insult towards Jungkook, she threatened them to ruin his life and we knew she could do that because she had ruined other idols’ lives before that. Just one week after that the person B incident happened and the news of Jungkook having a girlfriend went viral. I’m aware the whole situation could be a coincidence but the timing of the events and many other facts prove it was a conspiracy to frame Jungkook and ruin his image and beside that, many people benefited from it.

Person B acted as shady as she could in this situation but I'm not going to go there because this post has become long enough already. Firstly we thought she is a victim of this conspiracy and pitied her but her subsequent acts proved otherwise. She did benefit from these rumors much more than anyone expected and did everything to stay on the top news.

Enough talking of person B, let’s speak about the fansite lady. Her actions were terrible enough to get blacklisted by BigHit but surprisingly she didn't and after that, she took part in Japan fan-meetings, Melon, and Mama (or other programs I’m not aware of) until the COVID19 made everything canceled. Many people know she is more of a saesang than a fansite, and saesangs have a close community and they know each other very well. On the other side, we know many companies hire saesangs for their idols to find out about their private lives and have more control on them without being strict. And this is why I believe BigHit can be the mastermind behind all of this.

Why am I so pessimistic about BigHit? Think about the statement they made to deny the rumors, I know this statement was made with Jungkook's permission but he didn't write it himself obviously and the wording wasn't the wisest. We heard months later from the guesthouse manager that Jungkook went there with his own manager but they didn't even mention it in the statement. Why? Let’s not forget the worst, when they made him apologize in the last episode of BV4. That was unnecessary either and brought back everything to the surface when it was about to die down. I know they support the members and they try to protect them in every way but that statement always makes me think of them as a shady and hypocritical company like any other company in Kpop. I know BigHit benefited from these rumors and I think BHxFansitexSaesang collab is a possible scenario.

What did Jungkook do after all of these incidents? Obviously, he had no choice other than to accept his fate but the fact is we failed him as fans. He loved and trusted us from the bottom of his heart, he showed his true self to us, he gave us lots of hints about himself but the moment he sat next to a girl, everyone forgot everything. We disappointed him and he came to the conclusion that no matter what he does, the fans will think what they want to think.

If you were patient enough to reach this far in this post I’m gonna salute you but you probably think I’m delusional and went too far in my theories (I had the TW at the beginning of the post and I had to get all this off my chest lol) but for the last thing I’m going to quote and analyze something Jungkook mentioned in JHope’s Vlive after the release of CNS.

“I never thought I would fall for a man”

This was his very first public appearance of Jungkook after the person B incident and managing to say these words in this situation was definitely meaningful and remarkably wise. What did he mean by this? Did he have to state he never thinks he can be gay at the exact time when the rumors of him being with a girl were breaking the internet? No, it doesn’t make sense at all. In fact, it was the exact opposite, he said that to make it more clear and chastise us for not getting him all these year. His face was very expressive while saying this and considering their conversation topic (watching JHope’s dance) I believe he had this statement ready for days and he left it to us to understand him or ignore him again.

The End.

#jungkook

46 notes · View notes

drtanstravels · 4 years

Text

We recently stayed in Tel Aviv, Israel for four days so Anna could attend a teaching seminar for the International Retinal Panel. During our stay we would take a tour of Jerusalem, travel along the West Bank while venturing into Palestine, visit the ancient village of Masada, and then float and get all muddy in the Dead Sea. All of the main events happened in the final two days of the trip so this will just be a relatively short post in comparison, covering the initial two days of our journey, both spent in Tel Aviv.

Friday, November 1, 2019 We had left Singapore at 11:30pm the previous night, took an 11.5-hour flight to Turkey, had a 90-minute layover in Istanbul Airport, and then took another two-hour flight to Tel Aviv. When we were in Seoul, South Korea recently we got chatting to some friends of mine who had traveled to Israel in the past and the nightmares they had faced going through immigration once they had reached Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. One of them even told us about how he got cavity-searched, so we were both prepared for the worst. Once we were off the plane and inside the airport I cringed a bit when the first security guard snapped on a pair of disposable gloves, but it turned out to be just for him to search through our hand luggage. After that the line at the passport counter was taking forever, but it turned out that the reason the queue was taking so long to move was because we just had a really talkative guy checking our passports and when he first saw my Australian document, he looked up, gave me a curious look, and asked, “Do you watch Home and Away?” I smiled and mentioned that my sister used to have it on every night back in the day and that was it. We had to ask for entry border crossing cards, a separate slip of paper to be put into our passports instead of a stamp, because having an Israeli passport stamp can cause quite a bit of trouble when traveling overseas. There are currently eight countries that won’t accept passports containing Israeli visas, the most notable one being Saudi Arabia, a country to which we may need to travel one day. There are also quite a few countries whose passport holders are forbidden entrance to Israel without official confirmation from the Israeli government, Malaysia being on that list, so one of Anna’s colleagues was unable to attend. In fact, if Anna hadn’t taken Singaporean citizenship after we got married, this journey would never have happened.

As has been a pattern over recent trips, we arrived in Tel Aviv early in the morning, well before our hotel room was available so we dumped our bags with the concierge and decided to have a look around town. We were staying at the Crowne Plaza, which had an attached shopping mall so that was our first stop, mainly for a much-needed coffee and a couple of pastries, and then we discovered that there was a park and shopping district nearby called Sarona, a place with an interesting history:

Sarona was a German Templer colony established in Ottoman Palestine in 1871. Sarona is now a neighbourhood of Tel Aviv, Israel. It was one of the earliest modern villages established by Europeans in Ottoman Palestine. In July 1941, the British Mandate authorities deported 188 residents of Sarona, who were considered hard-core Nazi sympathisers. By the 2000s, the area had fallen into disrepair and was a haven for drug addicts. However, since 2003, the area has undergone massive renovation, which involved moving and relocating historical buildings before their restoration. The area is now a popular shopping district, as well as housing museums, cultural artefacts centring on its history, and IDF complexes.

Walking around Sarona was really cool with its mix of shops, bars, and cafes, as well as the Sarona Market. When Anna was purchasing a ring in one of the stores she asked for some recommendations in the area and the first one immediately given was Anita, a boutique ice-cream store. We initially thought this was a one-off, but we ended up finding incredible ice-cream shops all over the city. Anyway, we ordered a cup with two flavours, Pavlova & Mix Berries and Salted Pretzel, before we continued walking around, visiting among other shops a handmade dreidel store called Draydel House, a place with some unique takes on the spinning tops, and then it was on to Sarona Market. The market had some great looking food and there were plenty of free samples, but as you will find out over the course of this post and the next, it wasn’t an accurate representation of kosher food. We walked around sampling different cheeses, pickles, and halva, possibly the driest substance on earth. Seriously, dust is more mouth-watering than halva. Another thing that Israel is known for is pomegranate juice, generally used for detoxing, so we ordered a large one each, a decision we would later deeply regret and one that would also put the pair of us off pomegranates for the foreseeable future, despite how nice it tasted. Once we were done with the market and walking around the gardens in Sarona, we were able to check into our room at the Crowne Plaza at around 2:00pm and take a nap for a bit. Our day up until that point (besides the awesome pickle store in the market that wouldn’t let me take photos):

Anna near the entrance of Sarona

The way Sarona is set up is really cool

Looking down a row of stores

A map of Sarona in Hebrew

Anna’s dreidel

The dreidel Anna would probably get for me

Some of the ice-cream flavours available at Anita

A few more

They also had a custom soft-serve yoghurt bar

Anna about to buy ours

Our sweet and salty combination was definitely a good mix

Halva inside the market

One of the food stall rows

There is a huge variety available in this market

Unfortunately, not all Israeli food is as good as this looks

Anna in the garden

Now in our room

After sleeping for a bit we caught a cab to the waterfront, which is split into two parts; Alma Beach, a modern seaside area, and the Old City area of Jaffa. Most modern beach areas are similar, whereas ancient cities are always fascinating so Jaffa was the obvious choice to spend some time exploring first. It would be nigh on impossible to summarise the history of a 3,800-year-old port city in the Middle East, but here’s the general background:

Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv–Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical stories of Jonah, Solomon and Saint Peter as well as the mythological story of Andromeda and Perseus, and later for its oranges. The city as such was established at the latest around 1800 BCE.

Modern Jaffa has a heterogeneous population of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Jaffa currently has 46,000 residents, of whom 30,000 are Jews and 16,000 are Arabs. The 2010 film Port of Memory explores these themes. Tabeetha School in Jaffa was founded in 1863. It is owned by the Church of Scotland. The school provides education in English to children from Christian, Jewish and Muslim backgrounds.

Our taxi driver was an elderly man who kept explaining to us along the way that Tel Aviv was a party city, that around 69% of people there were aged between 30-40, and that we’d be among the older people out that night. I wasn’t expecting that, but another thing we weren’t expecting was the fact that the sun sets in Tel Aviv before 5:00pm, it’s almost as if the city is in the entirely wrong timezone and is something that would throw our body clocks off for the duration of this trip. When it had been dark there for a few hours, you’d be led to think it was getting kind of late when in reality it was only about eight o’clock in the evening. So, despite the fact that we arrived at Jaffa at 4:30pm, the sun was already setting, but this just made the place that much more beautiful. We spent the evening wandering through the narrow streets and laneways of Jaffa, taking in all of the ancient buildings, towers, and structures, plus the major landmarks in the area such as Jaffa Lighthouse, Clock Square, and the coastal canons, all while the sun set over the ocean.

After all of that walking we were beginning to get hungry and the waterside restaurants at Alma Beach were supposed to be pretty decent so we chose one called Manta Ray for dinner where we sat outdoors with some drinks and feasted on some selections from their great meze platter, as well as a grilled fish. We were to meet the organisers and other attendees of Anna’s course at 9:30pm after everyone had arrived in town, but it was barely 7:30pm by the time we finished dinner so we found a nearby shisha bar for a few more drinks and a pipe. After a while we both began to bloat up, neither of us could stop farting, and I was burping constantly, feeling the need to vomit. It was too soon after dinner to be from the fish or the meze dishes we chose, I had already checked that the water was safe to drink so that wasn’t it, coffee, pastries, and ice-cream don’t have this effect on me, and nothing else we had tried had been a large enough sample to make us sick. Except for the pomegranate juice, that is. We had drunk about a litre (33.8 fl. oz.) each several hours ago and it now seemed like we were paying for it, however, we couldn’t be 100% certain. Whatever it was, we both wanted to go back to the hotel and let it all out, resulting in me violently throwing up for a few minutes once inside, but then we felt reasonably fine as soon as we were both empty.

We met up with Anna’s course-mates in the lobby of our hotel and we walked down to a pub in another nearby part of town where everyone chatted over some beers, while those who hadn’t eaten had dinner. It was a really fun night and Anna decided to ask one of the local organisers, Tamir, if it could’ve been the pomegranate juice that bloated us. He said it’s good for you, most people just take a small glass and share it. When she told him that we’d had a litre each he was gobsmacked. “That’s not detox, that’s just tox!” was the response. Here are a whole bunch of photos from around Jaffa that evening, plus a couple of our dinner and the shisha bar before we bloated up like a couple of non-embalmed corpses:

Hashan Square

Anna and and I on the peninsula

Part of Jaffa from a distance

Looking over the ocean

People washing their hands

One of the coastal canons, imported by the Ottoman government in the 18th century to protect Jaffa from Bedouin raids

Overlooking a mosque

You can even find cool bars in towns dating back to the bronze age

Walking down a wide thoroughfare

The sun setting over the ocean

A museum surrounded by shops

Walking down an avenue

Anna posing in an alley

One of many interesting sculptures in Jaffa

The view of Clock Square from a very narrow stairway

We were both wondering if this was the Jewish equivalent of leaving your tie on the door handle so your roommate knows you have a girl inside

Etzel House

Dinner is served

We chose a few dishes from this platter

Baked blue bream with Jerusalem artichokes

Smoking a shisha while we both rapidly expand

Saturday, November 2, 2019 Anna was going to her course so I was free to do my own thing for the bulk of the day, but there was one small problem — Saturday is the sabbath, also known as Shabbat in Judaism, and this would severely limit what I was able to do due to many actions being classed as melakhah and thus being prohibited on this day of rest or historically punishable by death! Here’s a better description of melakhah:

Jewish law (halakha) prohibits doing any form of melakhah (מְלָאכָה, plural melakhoth) on Shabbat, unless an urgent human or medical need is life-threatening. Though melakhah is commonly translated as “work” in English, a better definition is “deliberate activity” or “skill and craftmanship”. There are 39 categories of prohibited activities (melakhoth) listed in Mishnah Tractate Shabbat 7:2.

Some acts forbidden on Shabbat include:

Threshing/Extraction Definition: Removal of an undesirable outer from a desirable inner.

Dissection Definition: Reducing an earth-borne thing’s size for a productive purpose.

Kneading/Amalgamation Definition: Combining particles into a semi-solid or solid mass via liquid.

Cooking/Baking Definition for solids: Changing the properties of something via heat. Definition for liquids: Bringing a liquid’s temperature to the heat threshold. This threshold is known as yad soledet (lit. “A hand reflexively recoils [due to such heat]”). According to Igrot Moshe this temperature is 43 °C (110 °F).

Extinguishing a Fire Definition: Extinguishing a fire/flame, or diminishing its intensity.

Ignition: Definition: Igniting, fuelling or spreading a fire/flame.

Transferring Between Domains Definition: Transferring something from one domain type to another domain type, or transferring within a public thoroughfare.

Now, some of you reading this are probably thinking, “Why would you care, you’re not Jewish.” This is true, however, despite me seeing fewer Orthodox Jews in Israel than I did on any given day in New York City, prohibition of melakhah on Shabbat is enforced by law, although not to an extreme. Although no shops would be open, these restrictions would severely limit my food purchasing options. Because it had been powered down for Shabbat, I pushed my way through the revolving door to exit the hotel and hit the street. I was quite hungry due to the fact that I had vomited everything I had eaten the previous evening so I figured I might get lucky finding somewhere open to eat at Sarona. I saw a cafe with people all around it so that’s where I went and I ordered the egg white omelette on the menu, which came with some bread and a side salad. I guess the hotplate must’ve been kept burning from the previous day and eggs aren’t really a solid or liquid so changing their properties via heat would be fine. Salad was also okay because the form of the lettuce doesn’t change, only the size, and it was cut quite large so it wasn’t done to make it into a more usable, productive state. The bread had obviously been made the previous day and when it came to dissection of the food in order to eat, that was all on me, not the cafe. Juice wasn’t an option due to threshing/extraction, but it was when I ordered a latte that things got weird. The waiter told me that he could only offer me a “very weak coffee” which was the result of the water and milk only being heated to about 40°C in keeping with the law, a temperature that also isn’t really hot enough for the coffee to properly infuse the water, thus making it not very strong. It actually turned out to be infinitely easier to get a beer anywhere in town that morning than coffee. My order at the cafe was able to be brought from the kitchen to my table, and also to diners who were seated outside, without transferring between domains due to the installation of an eruv, described as:

An urban area enclosed by a wire boundary which symbolically extends the private domain of Jewish households into public areas, permitting activities within it that are normally forbidden in public on the Sabbath.

Although the Jewish community must strictly adhere to laws of prohibition on Shabbat, going to the effort of building eruvs and heating liquids to a slightly cooler temperature than normal seem like ways of pranking an almighty deity who is easily fooled by the loopholes in the rules he wrote. Then I remembered this scene from the documentary Religulous:

youtube

After eating I decided to have a look around the beach area, making my way there via the main shopping district en route, but obviously everything was closed except for bars, restaurants, and cafes and wouldn’t be opening again until late in the evening or within the next few days. I was also having trouble getting cash out of an ATM again and this time I wasn’t sure whether the machines weren’t accepting my card or were just unable to function in general. I arrived at the beach and it was quite nice with a bunch more seaside bars and restaurants, as well as plenty of entertainment, some of which was unintentionally funny. There was Israeli folk dancing that happens at Gordon Beach every Saturday, as well as a big outdoor gym area where meatheads could work out like in Venice Beach, California, all just grunting, flexing, and slapping butts. Instead, I walked out along the pier to a lighthouse, just taking in the sights. It was a nice walk, but I could feel myself getting sunburnt so I went back to a shaded area along the shore to sit down with a bunch of senior citizens for a bit and that’s where I got the biggest laugh of the day. There were three guys working out there, one was absolutely ripped and doing chin-ups and some other impressive feats on horizontal bars directly in front of us, another was doing push ups, all the while giving the third guy tips on capoeira moves. If you are unaware of what capoeira is, it’s a Brazilian martial art that combines acrobatics, dancing, and complex moves involving hand plants, kicks, and flips (that link is a video that will give you a decent idea). The only problem was that the guy trying to do it wasn’t particularly good at capoeira so I found myself sitting there with a bunch of confused older people who were innocently trying to figure out why a muscly dude was doing cartwheels in the sand in front of several other muscly guys. It was a hot day, a dry heat compared to the insane humidity of Singapore, but I had no cash for a drink so I had a sip out of the drinking fountain where people also washed the sand off their feet, and walked for forty minutes back to the hotel, passing a cheese shop that you could smell before you could see, despite it being closed, along the way. Once back I killed two birds with one stone, grabbing a bottle of sparkling water from the minibar and making an instant coffee in the room, which turned into mud when I added water, but it still gave me the caffeine fix I had been lacking. I also managed to get cash out of an ATM next our hotel and Anna was still going to be a while so I planted myself in a bar back in Sarona for a few hours until she was done.

My kosher Shabbat breakfast with very weak coffee

Walking into town

At the beach

Looking down the boardwalk and across the road

Some huts near the ocean

Now walking down the promenade

Was Banksy in town?

More art, this time honouring the older community

Israeli folk-dancing

Beanbags on the beach

One of many cafes along the promenade

Coming over a little cloudy

That’s better

Waves crashing along the pier

A lighthouse at the end

I’m still trying to figure out if this building had caught fire or was just art-deco

The cheese shop on the way home. I wish it was open

The bottom of my instant mud coffee

Anna was soon back from her teaching and we had a dinner that night with everyone else involved in the course. This meant taking a minibus with the International Retinal Panel crew back to a restaurant at the beach, Anna’s first venture into that area of Tel Aviv, so we had a look around the boardwalk and took a few photos first. It was nice to hang out with everyone while we were feeling 100%, they were really cool people and an interesting mix of nationalities, some local, others coming from Columbia, Italy, India, France, Argentina, China, and a multitude of other other countries. The restaurant we went to looked good, but the entire group, myself included, consisted of about 30 people, taking up two massive tables, and the platters we received, two per table, were to be shared. The problem with this system was that Anna, myself, and a few others were tucked away in a corner on the back table and our food and drinks kept failing to appear. Everyone else received a meze platter except us, we waited about 20 minutes and then had to ask for it, as well as remind the staff that we had also ordered drinks. When it finally arrived, the other areas of both tables were receiving a grilled fish that looked delicious, but when we finished our platter the fish never arrived, nor did the second drink I ordered. We asked about the fish and when it finally came ours was just what seemed like fish offcuts including several heads, all of which was deep-fried to the point that it was so crunchy it was pretty much inedible. We didn’t bother eating much of it, that second beer never came, and everyone that was there for the course had homework to do so we got back in the bus, the interior blue light making my Rick and Morty “Pickle Rick” shirt appear as if it were covered in turds, and we went back to the hotel, them to do group work and me to have a couple of drinks at the hotel bar until it closed.

Anna’s first stroll along this area of the beach

The boardwalk at night

All of the people involved in Anna’s course

A merry-go-round

Some of the food has arrived, but it also looks like others are asking for stuff that hasn’t

If our fish were pork, it would’ve been the parts that go into a sausage roll

Definitely looks like faeces

Tel Aviv is such a cool city and nothing like we expected, yet a completely hidden gem when it comes to traveling, but this was just the beginning! Stay tuned for the next instalment when we do all the cool stuff you would expect one to do while in Israel that in no way would fit into this post, like visiting Jerusalem and floating in the Dead Sea.

The first two days of our four-night trip to Israel We recently stayed in Tel Aviv, Israel for four days so Anna could attend a teaching seminar for the International Retinal Panel.

#beach #Jaffa #sabbath #Sarona #Shabbat #Tel Aviv

3 notes · View notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years

Text

John Bolton Is Out as National Security Adviser

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/us/politics/john-bolton-national-security-adviser-trump.html

🚨 🚨 Breaking News: President Trump fired John R. Bolton, his third national security adviser, over differing approaches on Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.

Trump: "I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore........I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week."

Bolton:"I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, "Let's talk about it tomorrow.""

Trump Fires John Bolton as National Security Adviser

By Peter Baker | Published Sept. 10, 2019 Updated 12:18 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted September 10, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — President Trump fired John R. Bolton, his third national security adviser, on Tuesday amid fundamental disagreements over how to handle major foreign policy challenges like Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump announced the decision on Twitter. “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.”

His departure comes as Mr. Trump is pursuing diplomatic openings with two of the United States’ most intractable enemies, efforts that have troubled hard-liners in the administration, like Mr. Bolton, who view North Korea and Iran as profoundly untrustworthy.

The president has continued to court Kim Jong-un, the repressive leader of North Korea, despite Mr. Kim’s refusal to surrender his nuclear program and despite repeated short-range missile tests by the North that have rattled its neighbors. In recent days, Mr. Trump has expressed a willingness to meet with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran under the right circumstances, and even to extend short-term financing to Tehran, although the offer has so far been rebuffed.

To his admirers, Mr. Bolton was supposed to be a check on what they feared would be naïve diplomacy, a cleareyed realist who would keep a president without prior experience in foreign affairs from giving away the store to wily adversaries. But Mr. Trump has long complained privately that Mr. Bolton was too willing to get the United States into another war.

The tension between the men was aggravated in recent months by the president’s decisions to call off a planned airstrike on Iran in retaliation for the downing of an American surveillance drone and to meet with Mr. Kim at the Demilitarized Zone and cross over into North Korea.

Mr. Bolton favored the strike on Iran and publicly criticized recent North Korean missile tests that Mr. Trump brushed off. After the president arranged the DMZ meeting with Mr. Kim via a last-minute Twitter message, Mr. Bolton opted not to accompany him and instead proceeded on a previously scheduled trip to Mongolia.

The rift between the president and his national security adviser owed as much to personality as to policy. The president never warmed to him, a dynamic that is often fatal in this White House. Mr. Bolton also clashed with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

At its core, the schism reflected a deep-seated philosophical difference that has characterized the Trump presidency. While given to bellicose language, Mr. Trump came to office deeply skeptical of overseas military adventures and promising negotiations to resolve volatile conflicts. Mr. Bolton, however, has been one of Washington’s most outspoken hawks and unapologetic advocates of American power to defend the country’s interests.

A former under secretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, Mr. Bolton, 70, never fully subscribed to Mr. Trump’s courtship of Mr. Kim and privately expressed frustration that the president was unwilling to take more meaningful action to transform the Middle East in the service of American interests.

Mr. Bolton was hamstrung in his ability to steer Mr. Trump in what he saw as the right direction. He also clashed with officials at the Defense Department. At one point, military officials expressed alarm at Mr. Bolton’s requests for contingency war plans.

While in office, Mr. Bolton sought to minimize his differences with the president in public. After Mr. Trump said he would be open to meeting with Mr. Rouhani and even to extending a line of credit to help Tehran get through its financial difficulties while talks proceeded, Mr. Bolton insisted that did not reflect a concession by the president.

“He’ll meet with anybody to talk,” Mr. Bolton told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “He is a negotiator. He is a deal maker. But talking with them does not imply — for President Trump, does not imply changing your position.”

Appointed in spring 2018, Mr. Bolton followed Michael T. Flynn — who stepped down as national security adviser after 24 days and later pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. — and his successor, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who never forged a strong connection with the president and was forced out.

In choosing Mr. Bolton, Mr. Trump appreciated his outspoken performances on Fox News and wanted a contrast to the current and retired generals who were perceived as running his foreign policy team. Mr. Bolton also had the strong backing of Sheldon G. Adelson, the casino magnate and Republican megadonor who is a key supporter of Mr. Trump.

Long before Mr. Trump popularized his “America First” slogan, Mr. Bolton termed himself an “Americanist” who prioritized a cold-eyed view of national interests and sovereignty over what they both saw as a fuzzy-headed fixation on democracy promotion and human rights. They shared a deep skepticism of globalism and multilateralism, a commonality that empowered Mr. Bolton to use his time in the White House to orchestrate the withdrawal of the United States from arms control treaties and other international agreements.

With Mr. Trump’s backing, Mr. Bolton likewise helped enact policies meant to pressure the Communist government in Cuba, reversing some but not all of the measures taken by President Barack Obama in a diplomatic opening to the island. Among other things, the Trump administration imposed limits on travel and remittances to Cuba and opened the door to lawsuits by Americans whose property was seized in the revolution in 1959.

But if Mr. Trump’s original national security team was seen as restraining a mercurial new commander in chief, the president found himself sometimes restraining Mr. Bolton. Behind the scenes, he joked about Mr. Bolton’s penchant for confrontation. “If it was up to John, we’d be in four wars now,” one senior official recalled the president saying.

Mr. Trump also grew disenchanted with Mr. Bolton over the failed effort to push out President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Rather than the easy victory he was led to anticipate, the president has found himself bogged down in a conflict over which he has less influence than he had assumed. The political opposition backed by the White House could not turn Venezuela’s military against Mr. Maduro and has been stuck in a stalemate for months.

The divergence between the two men was on display in May during the president’s first trip this year to Japan. After Mr. Bolton told reporters then that “there is no doubt” that North Korean short-range missile launches violated United Nations resolutions, Mr. Trump dismissed the concern, still eager to preserve his strained relationship with Mr. Kim.

“My people think it could have been a violation, as you know,” the president told reporters. “I view it differently.”

Mr. Trump likewise repudiated an idea of working to overthrow the government of Iran, a goal Mr. Bolton long advanced as a private citizen. “We’re not looking for regime change,” Mr. Trump said. “I just want to make that clear.”

After Iran was accused in June of damaging two tankers with explosives and then shot down the drone, Mr. Bolton favored a demonstration of force. He facilitated a recommendation by the national security team for an airstrike against Iranian radar and other facilities, which Mr. Trump initially accepted only to change his mind at the last minute out of what he said was concern over casualties that would result.

Mr. Bolton’s later absence from Mr. Trump’s trip to the DMZ and hourlong meeting with Mr. Kim seemed conspicuous. Mr. Bolton’s staff said he was only following through on his schedule by going to Mongolia, but right or wrong, it was taken as a sign that he was not fully on board with the president’s diplomatic overture to North Korea.

6 notes · View notes

heyamandahey · 4 years

Text

Remission to Mars

December 30, 2019

It can feel so trite to see another yearly round-up as 2019 comes to a close, and a new decade lies ahead. On the other hand, this isn't exactly my Spotify year-in-review, and considering I likely would not have celebrated my 34th birthday this summer had I continued to ignore my symptoms, I am doing a monthly highlights recap because I am alive to do it. My personal growth does not end at age thirty-three.

January — No noticeable breathing issues, but I do notice every backbend in yoga has been making me cough. I feel like it's been like this for the last few months. As an aside, I ask Gavin to be my boyfriend. He agrees!

February — I am sniffling essentially around the clock, but I presume this pesky symptom will go away. Gavin tells me he “doesn’t want to mess this up.” I meet up with some friends in Berlin over Presidents Day weekend.

March — One of my best friends, Samantha, gets married in Florida. I feel like my neck has aged two decades overnight from the sudden puffiness. I guess that anti-wrinkle cream doesn’t work. I regret choosing a strapless dress. As one of the bridesmaids, I am blowing my nose regularly from what feels like a post-nasal drip and insist to everyone I am not sick, despite coughing every four minutes.

April — It is getting difficult to breathe normally at night unless I am on my side. Inhaling steam and taking OTC meds are no longer sufficient. An x-ray leads to a CT scan to the ER and ICU. Later that month, I would meet Gavin's parents at his thesis presentation, and he would tell me he missed me.

May — My parents come to stay with me for nearly the entire month. After two biopsy procedures, I receive an official diagnosis for what all the medical professionals had suspected from the very beginning: mediastinal lymphoma or PMBCL. We delay starting chemo by a week, so I can attend my older brother's wedding in California, held the same night as the Game of Thrones series finale. That made it into my little brother’s best man speech, haha.

June — I start birth control and complete two rounds of chemotherapy. My hands fumble and drop an inordinate number of objects from the neuropathy, including my phone. My hair falls out even faster than expected, so we have a head shaving party. I am really so lucky to have such supportive friends and family through this entire process. Gavin indirectly tells me he loves me.

July — After my third round of chemotherapy, I am officially halfway done with treatment! Gavin breaks up with me very suddenly. I am devastated and confused. My magnificent friends and family continue to support me for a very different reason now. I see a therapist for the first time.

August — My little brother comes up to visit me for a few days over my birthday. I am very happy he's here to celebrate with me; we normally only see each other in the winter months.

September — My last round of chemo! I declare mouth sores to be the worst part of the entire treatment. Outside of that, one of my cousins gets married in San Francisco, which also gives me an opportunity to see my older brother. Beyond family trips, I speak with a third therapist. On our second appointment, she sees no need for me to come back.

October — I finally get the PICC line removed and am officially in the clear! A good friend and I embark on a weekend yoga retreat, and at long last I am able to unfreeze my gym membership.

November — A couple girls and I travel to Seoul, South Korea, for vacation. We had been planning it long before even my diagnosis, but it feels like there's so much to celebrate on this trip. Even if I am currently hairless and boyfriend-less, I know both states will be temporary.

December — All of my neuropathy is gone! I have been going to the gym three to five times a week, sometimes taking two classes in a row. My hair is growing back, and even my dad encouraged me to leave the house without a wig. What a way to speak familial love without using the three words.

What lies ahead now?

A routine CT scan has been scheduled for mid-January. I can't remember with 100% certainty if scans are to be done every six months or so for the next two years, but I believe I read something along those lines.

I still have four scars from my second biospy. Despite using lightening creams, it’s been slow to see much progress. I am considering getting a tattoo to cover it all up, and since I have never taken the time to get one, that would also serve as a new experience.

Despite all the awful things happening all around the globe and my propensity to brood over problems large and small, I am choosing to remain carefully optimistic and looking ahead toward a fresh start. As they say, change is the only constant. While good things may not last forever, neither do the bad.

___

#remission #pmcl #lymphoma #mediastinal lymphoma #new year #2019 #december 2019 #nye 2019 #nye #cancer survivor

1 note · View note

fluidsf · 5 years

Photo

Resonant Visions 7 Follow Up

Various Artists: The Warmest Hum (2019)

Artwork by O.R

Reviewed format: Digital compilation on VAAGNER

Welcome to this follow up to Resonant Visions 7, in which I reviewed Crosspolar: 51.2763° N, 30.2219° E (2018) released on the VAAGNER label. This follow up is linked to the label itself in this case as they suggested me to check out this recent new 2019 release as well. Once again we can find some lovely monochrome artwork on this compilation, this one titled The Warmest Hum and this is a Various Artists compilation featuring 20 different tracks by 21 artists (Alethe being a featured artists on one of the tracks) which (as I was told via Facebook message) is focused and based on the hiss and tangibility of music, to which this is an ode. Indeed this element of hiss is also directly visible in the compilation cover artwork by O.R, in this case in the Digital version. Especially when you watch the image at a large size you can see the grainy "hissy" and dotted texture of the image, which even on the digital format has a very physical "printed" feel to it. Showing plants and small flowers, the image has a very calm, peaceful ambience to it which also directly references the music on this compilation which has a very organic feeling to it, with many of the 20 pieces using either subdued electronics or electro-acoustic approaches that are very human in both performance and composition. The image has a "faded", saturated, almost overexposed brightness to it in which the small flowers look like little starts dotted through the image, the bigger leaves are almost fading into eachother and the small striplike plants create a dynamic in the photo like a circular movement. All in all, the cover image is more of a close up photo then Crosspolar's cover, but the warm, subtle but also "faded" ambience of the image definitely introduces the sound of the music on this compilation rather well too.

The Warmest Hum starts with the piece Septembermorgon by Isorinne. The piece features warm synth melodies over subdued low melodic patterns and a subtly droning bass. The piece features a lot of vinyl crackles and a whiny mechanical sound in the background. The ambience feels a lot like the soundtrack to living on a houseboat. The vinyl crackles like soft rain on the windows, while the melodies describe the calm tranquil feeling of daily life and the mechanical whine and additional high frequency twinkling sounds point towards a creaky but cosy structure of the houseboat itself, very nice. On the next track we have Thet Liturgiske Owäsendet with Varsel. A more minimalist drone piece that features quite a lot of tape hiss and some great deep kalimba resonances. This piece really feels like a continuous stream, a boat trip out on the endless sea, a journey into the unknown with the meditative qualities of the filtered drone and the intriguing scattered melody of the kalimba. Additional crackles and mechanical artifacts add to the ambience and give it a very "out in the open" feeling. Then we have øjeRum who features on this compilation with the piece Grenen På Traeet, Traeet På Bjerget, it's a minimalist piece in which a looped and heavily filtered and saturated melody creates a warm soft clouded drone ambience. Subtle shifts in melody and accentuation of the resonances happen overtime, again in a streamlike flow the music let's us dive into a meditative state of mind , making the fragile fuzz and hissy edge of the music almost reachable to physically touch and the ever shifting balance between ambience and rhythm of the melodies adds an intriguing progressive evolution within the piece itself. Korea Undok Group bring us a piece called The Spur that nicely reminds me of the 80's underground tape scene. Fuzzed out warbly drones accompany a repeating melodic pattern on detuned piano creating an eerie midnight ambience in which anything can happen, but while the ambience is mysterious, it's not "dangerous" so to speak. Then we have SPRRW's piece Find Me In The Pona At Night. It's a melancholic ambient piece featuring soft warbled melodies that are accompanied by various sounds of water and crackling which create the sonic Pond background from the title, combined with a whispering voice it definitely is a sweet introspective nocturnal piece of music. The next piece is Untitled by Mor. It's a piece with a very strong forest ambience which is especially enhanced by the nature sounds accompanying the deep and warmly glowing droning melody, a gorgeous melodic soundscape that has evokes a good meditative state and is richly detailed as well, very nice. Then on his track Became, Machinefabriek moves the compilation's focus into a more abstract Electro-Acoustic direction with plenty of subtly but sometimes sharp crackling, resonances, artifacts. What I love about this piece is the way two tones create a leitmotif in the piece that add a really nice, midnight quiet street type of sonic image in my mind. I'd say that The Warmest Hum does have a very nocturnal ambience about it in general too, the many artifacts, crackles and other sounds within the pieces or affecting the sound of the pieces also adds both a feeling of comfort and a nostalgic feelings to the general ambience of the compilation. After Became, Fortunes Brine brings us an eerie Twin Peaks like ambience in the piece Grytviken which features a spooky piano melody accompanying sharp phased synth drones. The rising and falling dynamics of the piece create some excellent tension and the saturated and subtly warbling pitch of the melodies adds a convincing feeling of unease to the music but the piece also still feels quite calming too. I love the sitar sounding resonance of the synth drone too, it adds quite a lot of richness to the textures of the music. Afterwards Moss Harvest amps up the drones with a more distorted and at times bordering Noise type of ambience that's blended with lush field recordings of what sounds like a river. The repeating melody evolves gradually overtime in its sonic colours and textures, rising and falling into subtle, then harsher sharper overtones and resonances. A really lovely Noise Drone piece that is both deep and tense in its composition and performance and the field recordings add some sweet details to the soundscape of the piece. Then on Crisis Actor's piece Untitled we have a single synth melody that evolves overtime using the filter to create new variations of the texture of the melody. It's the fuzziest track on the compilation, with its heavily compressed and saturated sound recalling older Clark tracks, but with a much more intensely lo-fi sound and tension to it and the sharp dynamic bursts of sound that occur throughout this short piece are spectacular and gripping. Crosspolar amps up the tape hiss quite some more with his piece Intermission 4: Tundra (Ambient Mix), which sounds like it's taken from the same set of tracks as the tracklist of 51.2763° N, 30.2219° E was compiled with. It's quite a subtle piece in terms of ambience and melody (at least in the mid and high end of the sound spectrum) but the bass is droning quite sharp in an intense warbling kind of texture. The shifting noises in the background recall the Industrial soundscape of aforementioned album, sounding like distant traffic or machinery but the calm melodic drones do give a very nice sense of peace to the music, making it sound a bit brighter in general, though the intense hiss and warbled saturated sound of the track does hint again at degradation. An intriguing piece. Afterwards Sequences follows with the track Molten Magnetic Material, which does indeed sound quite like its title suggests. It's an eerie Dark Ambient piece full of Industrial metallic sound and fuzzy resonances that sounds like the distant ambiences of a huge steel oven melting the subtance and metallic scraping and ominous drones sounding like other machinery within the complex. The many varying elements within the piece create an excellent intriguing evolving soundscape that feels quite dark and gloomy but also very captivating, quality music here. And I will Not Tire You (Feat. Alethe) by Venetian Roses is partially a feedback driven Noise piece and in its second half fades into a calmer Drone ambience backed by the sounds of rain. Its curious juxtaposition of feedback and mellow calm meditative melodies works rather well over its relatively short length and the feedback / Noise elements do add a welcome contrast to the peace of the Drone melody that enriches the various layers of the piece with extra harmonics and sonic details, very nice. Then in Perfume by Burning Pyre we have a peaceful and calm, almost New Age like piece of music featuring simple but pleasant melodies on (what sounds like) a guitar and a sampled choir, backed by an organ. A classy shorter piece of music and the synth effect swirling around the sound space adds a sweet bit of extra sound design to it as well. First Recital by Autumn Pool follows then. It's a mostly guitar based droning Ambient piece that has some lovely layering work in the track with various guitar tones smoothly shifting, sometimes also subtly scattering over eachother creating rich and interestingly fluctuating resonances that form a very warm melodic haze of sound. Traces of piano are also audible in the mixture and the piece has a curious subtly warbling Drone in its intro and outro that's accompanied by soft shifting and crackling sounds that adds the cinematic feel of the beginning and ending of a dream to the piece, very nice. Next piece Replacing the Memories is a very lush Ambient piece by Anthéne, again featuring guitar within the mixture, combined with slow waves of subtle drones and hissy foam surrounding the mellow and calm tones. There's a sweet melody that's slowly stretched out over the length of the piece and the gradual evolution combined with the calming field recordings make this piece an excellent meditative journey of a listen. Next piece Badkamerlicht by Stijn Hüwels is more sparse in its sonic density, being focused around a repeating melody in which the various resonances constantly shift in different ways over time, creating a warm glowing drone. Interestingly besides the drone there also seems to be a crackly manipulated music recording playing along with the drone, hidden in the mix somewhat. It's a warm flowing piece and nicely subtle in its evolving texture which embodies the title Badkamerlicht quite well in its nocturnal sonics of peace and rest. Midwest by Theodore Cale Schafer is a gorgeous deep Drone track that is filled with rich details in its awesomely evolving and "moving" warm "cloud of waves", the music has got quite a lot of depth to it and sometimes feels distant, othertimes moves more to foreground. Love this piece, it feels very organic, very good music indeed. Then we have White Stains with the track Illusions of Safety which indeed does have quite some tension within its brooding deep saturated drone and eerie shifting and hollow sounds that accompany it. It's a sweet shorter piece that with its nice evolving ghostly ambience feels like a perfect start of late night soundtrack filled with mystery. Lovely composition and sound design in this piece. Vöttev by Vera Dvale is the final piece of The Warmest Hum and also the longest. It's a rather minimalist composition based around a muffled low droning sound and flanged mid frequency pulsations that are filtered as well. Quite an odd piece to end with but it's intriguing and like the previous piece does have quite a spooky sound to it. It feels very alien with its strong repetition of tones and pulses combined with the very artifacted, saturated and fuzzy sound of the track which makes it sound almost like coded radio transmissions being picked up or other types of coded or indicative sound signals. Its introspective alien sound does make a bit harder to get into perhaps, but with the constant subtly shifts in sonic texture it's definitely a great piece of out-there underground electronic music that ends this compilation quite wonderfully.

All in all The Warmest Hum is a very consistent and varied compilation of underground Ambient, Electro Acoustic, Drone and Noise music with all of 20 pieces connecting with eachother really well and through the use of the theme of "hiss" and degraded sound the compilation sounds truly like one whole. The various approaches the artists take on the compilation, from lush droning Ambient, to Electro Acoustic experimentation, to Noise bordering textures and obscure underground electronics make this compilation both a very enjoyable and captivating listening and also of course a great introduction to the music of all these artists featured. Combined with O.R nicely grainy cover Artwork this compilation is definitely recommended for listeners into the aforementioned genres and underground electronic music in general. A great compilation, go check this one out.

Digital compilation is available from the VAAGNER Bandcamp page here: https://vaagner.bandcamp.com/album/the-warmest-hum

1 note · View note