K-Pop Fantasy @foreverfadinginwonderland - Tumblr Blog

nicostiel

Five Hargreeves + Text Posts Part 5

chanstopher

Zombie Felix for @geniaparadox

yonglixx

Felix ☀️ [SKZ-TALKER] Ep.48 ♡

thedaddycomplex

So, okay, fun fact. When I was a freshman in high school… let me preface by saying my dad sent me to a private school and, like a bad organ transplant, it didn’t take. I was miserable, the student body hated me, I hated them, it was awful.

Okay, so, freshman year, I’m deep in my “everything sucks and I’m stuck with these assholes” mentality. My English teacher was a notorious hard-ass, let’s call him Mr. Hargrove. He was the guy every student prayed they didn’t get. And, on top of ALL OF THE SHIT I WAS ALREADY DEALING WITH, I had him for English.

One of the laborious assignments he gave us was to keep a daily journal. Daily! Not monthly or weekly. Fucking daily. Handwritten. And we had to turn it in every quarter and he fucking graded us. He graded us on a fucking journal.

All of my classmates wrote shit like what they did that day or whatever. But, I did not. No, sir. I decided to give the ol’ middle finger to the assignment and do my own shit.

So, for my daily journal entries, over the course of an entire year, I wrote a serialized story about a horde of man-eating slugs that invaded a small mining town. It was graphic, it was ridiculous, it was an epic feat of rebellion.

And Mr. Hargrove loved it.

It wasn’t just the journal. Every assignment he gave us, I tried to shit all over it. Every reading assignment, everyone gushed about how good it was, but I always had a negative take. Every writing assignment, people wrote boring prose, but I wrote cheesy limericks or pulp horror stories.

Then, one day, he read one of my essays to the class as an example of good writing. When a fellow student asked who wrote it, he said, “Some pipsqueak.”

And that’s when I had a revelation. He wanted to fight. And since all the other students were trying to kiss his ass, I was his only challenger.

Mr. Hargrove and I went head-to-head on every assignment, every conversation, every fucking thing. And he ate it up. And so did I.

One day, he read us a column from the Washington Post and asked the class what was wrong with it. Everyone chimed in with their dumbass takes, but I was the one who landed on Mr. Hargrove’s complaint: The reporter had BRAZENLY added the suffix “ize” to a verb.

That night I wrote a jokey letter to the reporter calling him out on the offense in which I added “ize” to every single verb. I gave it to Mr. Hargrove, who by then had become a friendly adversary, for a chuckle and he SENT IT TO THE REPORTER.

And, people… The reporter wrote back. And he said I was an exceptional student. Mr. Hargrove and I had a giggle about that because we both knew I was just being an asshole, but he and the reporter acknowledged I had a point.

And that was it. That was the moment. Not THAT EXACT moment, but that year with Mr. Hargrove taught me I had a knack for writing. And that knack was based in saying “fuck you” to authority. (The irony that someone in a position of authority helped me realize that is not lost on me.)

So, I can say without qualification that Mr. Hargrove is the reason I am now a professional writer. Yes, I do it for a living. And most of my stuff takes authorities of one kind or another to task.

Mr. Hargrove showed me my dissent was valid, my rebellion was righteous, and that killer slugs could bring a city to its knees. Someone just needs to write it.

witch-without-gender

This is the first time I’ve seen this post but I know I’m gonna love reading it every time it shows up on my dash

dankmemeuniversity

rainie-is-seasonchange

Victoria and Albert Museum.

London, England.

aprillikesthings

Before I argued with a shit ton of landlords and wannabe landlords: I think we should strengthen tenant’s rights and enforce our existing tenant protection laws better, and increase our housing benefits.

After spending too much time arguing with landlords and wannabe landlords: Fuck it. It should be illegal to own homes you don’t live in. If you won’t sell to the people renting from you, people should forcibly take your property. All landlords are parasites.

aprillikesthings

"iF yOu DoN't LiKe ReNtInG jUsT bUy A hOuSe"

Houses in my city go for, like, $500k. I can't. Housing prices in the US have skyrocketed while wages have stagnated. That is in fact the problem--most people cannot afford to buy a house, and many people pay more than half their income in rent. Ever saved up for a down payment on a house while doing that?

"mOvE iF yOu DoN't LiKe YoUr LaNdLoRd"

Moving is expensive and stressful. There's no guarantee of finding another place within reasonable distance of where we work, where we buy groceries, etc.

"bUt If LaNdLoRdS dOn'T rEnT oUt HoUsInG wHeRe WiLl PeOpLe LiVe?!"

If landlords/property companies all were forced to sell every place they owned except housing they specifically lived in, the market would have such a glut of housing that prices would nosedive in nearly every city in the US, possibly to the point where normal, average working people could buy one. Houses and apartments do not blink out of existence because a landlord stops renting them out. Why do I see this dumbass line of logic so fucking often.

People literally cannot wrap their minds around the fact that landlords (and I include property companies--the kind that own multiple apartment complexes--as landlords) don't create or do anything of value. "But when I need the water heater fixed, the landlord fixes it." Except for some mom'n'pop landlord operations that insist on DIY'ing everything, your landlord is not the one who is fixing it. The person who physically comes to your unit and fixes it is the person who fixes it, and your landlord is just an expensive gatekeeper who decides for you whether you actually need your water heater fixed. If you owned the place you could have insurance against that kind of thing, you could put money in a co-op that pays for that kind of thing (like condo associations do), or you could just pay out of pocket for it if you have the money. If you did take on the risk of repairing it yourself, the only person who would suffer is you. But you wouldn't be at the mercy of some dipshit who tries desperately not to get your water heater fixed (even though that's illegal), or who hires the cheapest person they could find (who might suck ass and make it worse), or insists on doing it themselves (whether they know what they're doing or not).

HUMANS REQUIRE SHELTER TO SURVIVE. The modern standard for housing includes things like locking doors, ceilings and windows that don't leak, walls that aren't covered in mold, and working electricity, plumbing, and hot water at a bare minimum. On top of that, we need shelter that's near enough to our place of employment and places to buy food, etc.

Landlords do not provide housing. They hold it ransom for as much money as they think they can get, because they know we need housing to survive. They buy up as much housing as they can (reducing the supply of available houses for sale) and then rent them out at a profit (which means more than they're paying on the mortgage, if they have one). They are hoarding housing, creating a false scarcity, and then profiting off of it.

Landlords are parasites.

allthatdivides

went to the thrift store today there were so many textures there (affectionate)(derogatory)

allthatdivides

me, touching a shirt: hee hee hoo hoo texture :D

me, touching a different shirt: OH NO A TEXTURE D:

starcatching

yoongi: no

taehyung: …no? <3

yoongi: ok fine

weaponsofclairvoyance

i dont claim to be an expert on love but i think theres something to like… ok so my girlfriend got undertale on the switch a while back, right? and she’s definitely not a bad videogamer but it takes practice yknow, esp when youre doing a neutral route and actually fight stuff. so when she got to the hardest bosses i took the controller and beat them for her. not because she couldn’t, but because i love her. and that’s what my brother did when i was a kid playing sonic adventure 2 or whatever, not because i was dumb but because he was good at it and he loved me. and when i want my girlfriend to read something (a post, an essay, a novel) but she’s too tired to actually read so it i read it to her and i do silly voices and she laughs and we have more fun that way. when you hand a water bottle to your friend and they open it without you even having to ask. when you spent a million years fixing the flat tire on your bike and then your dad just takes the tools and does it for you. its not a judgement, it’s just a service. you could do it yourself, but why should you have to when you are loved?