#bronze thoughts

[opliscadumere]

A Gallery wishes to feature your most prized treasure in a month-long spotlight. Whether created or collected, what Art would you temporarily contribute, and as all Art bears a story, what would onlookers find themselves coming to know?

A gentle grip would lift the camino with a curious eye, the bronze flecked blue eyes taking in the beautiful jewelry as Coren rolled it in his palm. Ivory for sure as his thumb traced the outline of the beautiful visage upon it and circled it about to touch the fine black onyx stones tracing the outside. Exquisite craftsmanship even for a mortal as he let his mouth twitch into a soft smile behind his soft white beard. "Tell me your story beauty."

Sands within his orb would begin to shift and turn as he slowly lowered himself to sit cross legged upon the stone floor. His palm gently lifting as the bits of cosmic energy would float and coalesce into some other time and perhaps another place as well. Coren's soft smile never left his lips as he knew these characters all to well.

"Light, Ops. This thing is beautiful," whispered Zexx, his blue eyes looking up at the blonde haired woman straddled over him. Oplisca smiled sweetly to her dark haired rogue beneath her as she reached up to her chest and gently touched the jewelry resting against her skin.

"Oh so you finally noticed?" Tilted her head at him, Oplisca smile matching the usual wolfish grin of the young man she had taken a lot of fancy too. "Here I thought you were just staring at my chest all night."

The man had a cackle to shake windows, but fortunately at this intimate moment he'd managed to keep it at a low decibel as his chest shook. "Well can you blame me? I mean you did wear the dress."

"I did," Oplisca smiled wider as she shifted her hips, causing a soft sigh to escape her as much as a wince came to his face. The smile grew as she saw causing her to lean over him. "Did I hurt you?"

Depsite his wince, Zexx's grin could never fade with the beautiful girl on top of him. "No more than I asked."

"That's for sure," Oplisca giggled as she ran her nails along his chest before gently swinging her leg over to squirm off him. A true groan of disappointment followed her as she called over her shoulder. "Relax< I'm just going to put it away. You get to rough and I don't want it to break."

"I get too rough?"

Oplisca's thin fingers would reach behind her neck to unclasp the bronze chain that held the bauble, laughing again as she felt the hook release the weight. "Fine, we get to rough."

"That's sounds more like us," the rogue would call back as he laid back into the old mattress with a huff, his eyes never leaving her bare back as he followed the easy curves. "Where'd you get it?"

"It's an old family heirloom," the tailor's fingers would gently caress the ivory as she traced it.

Zexx could be heard muttering something as Oplisca did her best to avoid hearing it though she made clear the one name that could end their fun all to quickly. Kinowin.

Clearing her throat, Oplisca would gently set it on her night table and turn back to face him her hands coming to rest on her hips with a tilt of her head. "It was my father's actually. Well technically his first wife's but he felt that I deserved something beautiful to wear on the day of his wedding to my mother. She didn't want it of course, and he never asked it back from me. He said the likeness was actually Kinowin's mother."

"I take back what I said then," Zexx grumbled as he reached down to the floor near the bed. The green bottle of spirits following as he lifted it up to take a quick pull of the fine Alterac brandy. Oplisca was already padding back to the bed, her hand reaching out to take the bottle from him with ease as Zexx gave a look of disappointment.

Wagging a finger at him, the young woman would hold it away from the rogue as she smiled. "Easy pirate, I don't need you getting falling asleep before I'm done with you."

"You think I'm that easy?" Zexx laughed as he looked up at her with equal adoration and lust.

"Do I need to answer?" She shot back as she took a healthy drink herself before setting down the bottle and leaping to attack her lover with a greedy cry. The rogue would laugh as he engaged in their nightly 'duel'.

These were the good times.

Coren would close his hand again and slowly the sands would relax to gently seek their home within his orb again. He would lift the camino again to gauge the cut of the silhouette once more, nothing the soft elven features of the woman and note they bore no resemblance to Oplisca. But how those cheekbones and dainty smile matched another so well and had not been in his vision for so long.

"My poor Kinowin, if only you knew how much she loved you," Coren remarked softly as he closed his hand about it and felt the silent thunder of returning it to it's original place. His hand opening again to find nothing once more. "For you were so aware of how much he hated you."

@handhourgalleries

[ahagia-sophia]

Real Talk Time

So today a white guy is going to talk to you about the N-word, and how I came to really appreciate what it can mean no matter who says it.

Okay so, I lived in the hood when I was young, and when I would hang out with my friends I would say the N-word because they said it and we were all friends so it was okay. Except it wasn’t, and I carried the idea that it was okay with me for a large portion of my life. And it took me my whole life to understand why it wasn’t okay even if I had explicit consent from the POC around me (The infamous N-word pass), and I’m going to tell you how I came to that realization.

Now, I’m gonna talk about Islam and my problems for a second, but I promise that it will all tie together in the end. I’m an American and here in america (especially the rural south, where I currently live) Islam is, to put it lightly, frowned upon and one of the ways people degrade Islam and Muslims is by saying “Allah”. Now this slight might not be readily apparent, but I assure you that when you hear a white man say the word “Allah” regardless of your relationship you cant help but hear all of the insults that non-Muslims attach to the Arabic name for God (which is just an elision of Al-Illah, literally “The God”) every time I hear a non-Muslim say Allah I can’t help but hear, “That foreign dirty god, that different evil god, that god that I hate and every sane person should hate too.” Because that’s a consistent meaning that people apply to the word, so when my best friend calls God Allah I twitch, because I can hear the “foreign” on his tongue even if he cant hear it himself, and I hate it. So I make a point to tell everyone that I meet to not be culturally sensitive because its just easier for me if they call Him God.

Now. Back to me being white and the N-Word and ultimately white privilege.

Throughout my life, until my religious conversion, I never had a word that could be used against or around me like that. Ever. I mean, sure, cracker is a word I guess, but honestly its the linguistic equivalent of “stupidhead” I know its an insult, and I know that its meant to target a key point of my being, my race. However, as a white person race has never been a key part of my identity because it never had to be, I never had to defend it, and honestly I still don’t, its still “alright to be white” even now an attack on my skin color will never faze me, just because of the world I was raised in. But for POC its different, and I get that now. They’re always subtly under attack, always wondering if they have to justify their own existence to the white guy in the room. I used to hesitate in making such sweeping generalizations, but honestly if you deviate from the norm in a major way (such as being Muslim or Black) I assure you that consideration is always on the edge of your mind, and I’ve gotten a taste of it. You, as a non-Black person should never say the N-word, because it is a word with such deep cultural and societal and political meaning that no matter how lightly you say it to your black friend they’ll still twitch. And they’ll hate you for it. So don’t. There’s no argument, not even consent gives you a pass here. Nothing gives you a pass here. Ever. Full Stop. This goes for all such words really, don’t call the gay guy a F**, don’t call the lesbian a D*** don’t call anyone anything like that. I’ll call my best friend motherfucker until the cows come home, but that’s because while its a bad word, it doesn’t (and never will) apply to him, and that is the distinction that matters.

[bigbadgamer-blog]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeJI2VvEB2Q)

[aaronjohn]

My proudest LoL moment ever is at a late game. I was using Irelia and the enemy team had Jinx. I was going deep in their jungle when Jinx uses her ULT and it didn't do a single damage on me. OH MAN THAT WAS SO DOPE LOL