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trojanteapot · 1 year

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i saw ur infinity train classpects & ive always thought of simon as a hope player (specifically prince of hope) & i was wondering why u classpected him as a mind player. idk if i had jst never considered tht possibility but he jst seems SO much like a hope player to me that it threw me off a bit

similarly, i read amelia as a prince of doom instead of a maid of doom (she destroys the rules of the train in an obsessive & need to try and destroy her aspect within the train and - as a result - create life [alrick] etc etc) & i was also interested on why u went w maid of doom when she seems to actively turn away from her doom & suffering to destroy it

ALL of that to say that i just wanna hear more of ur thoughts on infinity train classpects

Thank you for your question!

***First of all I want to say that classpects are designed to be like zodiacs or the Myers Briggs things are are meant to be very flexible and vague and open to interpretation.***

So I think that whatever you think fits the character, go for it!

I can of course expand on my own thoughts about what I decided. And obviously we can disagree. This is all just for fun.

So as I said in my post a lot of how I ultimately decided on the classpect was based on the characters' personal journey or character arc. And for me, the Maid of Doom felt the most in line for Amelia, and likewise Seer of Mind for Simon.

Both these characters are antagonists, one of them a reformed one, and the other one that died a villain, and that also makes them extremely complex and even harder to pin down with character arcs than say, Lake and their very clear arc that they have as a protagonist.

Amelia:

First off, I think you have a point! Perhaps we can read her actions as attempting to destroy doom, or create life! One of my friends were thinking Amelia could be a Sylph of Life, and that also makes sense for her. But what made me think that she is actually a Maid of Doom (or perhaps a Sylph, it's still up for debate) is because I think she needs to accept her own doom instead of reject it, and it was because of that that she started healing and moving away from her obsession with recreating her old life, which kept failing anyway.

It's possible that you could be more on point than me, we didn't see Amelia get her own season where she is the star of the show so we will never know.

Simon:

So I know 100% that I read Simon very differently from the rest of the fandom.

Everyone sees him as an egomaniac and a stubborn idiot who can't change his mind. And I agree that he was those things by the end. But he wasn't always those things! (Well okay he was always a stubborn idiot lol)

People tend to think that his Episode 10 personality was his "true self" but that wasn't how I saw it. I think that was more of him lashing out or having an explosive temper tantrum or meltdown, and not his real self. He was acting in a way that was almost a parody of Grace before her redemption, not as an exaggeration of himself.

Like I said before, because Amelia and Simon spent most of the time not understanding the Train properly and not learning from their mistakes, I believe that means their aspects need to reflect something about them that they wouldn't see in themselves or others might not see in them. And for Simon I feel that way more strongly than for Amelia.

Another reason why I sorta don't like classifying Simon as a prince is because it feels way too obvious. I blame Dirk Strider for this mostly, but the Prince class (and to a lesser extent the Thief class due to Vriska and Meenah) always gets assigned to villains. But I think any class can act in a villainous way. Seers can be just as much a villain as Princes can be. And Aranea showed that a Sylph can behave villainously too.

Besides I don't think Simon has a big ego, I think he has a fragile ego and is overprotective of it (like most cis men but that's a whole nother topic). And his actions in the last 4 episodes of season 3 really reflect that.

And I can also see why you saw Simon as having the Hope aspect because he was adamant in his belief in the ideology of the Apex and didn't want to change. But I would argue that wasn't due to his Aspect but due to his role as a Seer. His character arc isn't just about his stubborn beliefs but WHY he couldn't change his mind from his beliefs. And I think it's because he doesn't understand other people, and not only because he is super attached to his ideology. Grace was just as attached to the ideology of the Apex as Simon was at the beginning of season 3, but she was able to change her mind because she could understand others, specifically other denizens, whereas Simon failed because he couldn't. It was an empathy gap.

Another thing is that there are actually many parallels between Simon and the two canonical seers in Homestuck (let's not count Kankri he was a bit player). And I'm gonna get into more detail on that.

Simon and Terezi:

I actually made an entire PowerPoint presentation for my friends that had a whole section on inexplicable parallels between the two of them! And that was before I thought "hey wait a minute maybe Simon is also a seer of mind!" But basically these are the following parallels

Both of them have a rigid system for interacting with other people. For Terezi it's to LARP the role that her ancestor had as a legislacerator, and treating everything as some sort of crime scene investigation or court cross examination. For Simon, he wrote an entire manual on the best practices for the Apex when dealing with survival situations in the Train. As well as treating everything as a military engagement.

Both of them play with dolls. I think this is manifesting in how they try to gauge the movitations of other people. Terezi uses plushies to act out roles in an investigation to help her find out more about the motives of who she deems a "suspect". Simon also uses his figurines as units in a battle. He would have different figurines represent the Apex kids or denizens. Also in an attempt to understand the best way to deal with situations.

And this also means both of them can get carried away with their rules and games and miss the forest for the trees. As in, come to the wrong initial conclusion, and then stick to it until it's too late. People tend to forget that one of the pivotal moments of Homestuck was that Terezi didn't realize there were several murderers when the trolls were stuck on the asteroid and blamed it all on Vriska. That led to Terezi having to kill her, but it was the incorrect decision (which Terezi told John to fix with his retcon magic).

Both Simon and Terezi seem to really fixate on one image they have of someone they care about, and be unwilling to change how they see them. Even after a betrayal of trust both of them find it difficult to let go of their past idea of the person. (Simon and the Cat, Terezi and Vriska). Of course, it went a bit differently with Simon and his attachment to Grace, but that wasn't due to Grace having hidden motives (it was part of it though) but her changing her entire worldview.

Here's the thing, so Terezi was really really good at being a Seer so clearly that's why it's so hard to see Simon as having the same classpect as her. But lets examine a different seer, Rose.

Rose was terrible at being a seer at first, until she went god tier and was kinda forced to actually fulfill her seer role. She displayed a shocking amount of black and white thinking and stubbornness for somebody whose role was supposedly to gather knowledge and strategize. And here we understand why Simon can be read as a Seer of Mind, because he fucks up being that role just as much as Rose fucks up being a Seer of Light (initially).

Simon and Rose:

Like Simon, Rose had an entire idea about what the game Sburb was supposed to do, and what she and her friends roles must be by playing the game. But she was actually wrong about the game, since her session was never meant to be successful. But instead of accepting that and moving forward, even after prodding from Kanaya, Vriska, and the White Queen, she still refused to listen to them and kept doing whatever she felt was correct.

In fact, Rose's first death at the hands of Jack Noir kind of parallels Simon's own death. Rose was being very stubborn about the way she was doing things in Sburb, not making much progress as a seer, and refusing to listen to dissenting voices. She decided to look inside the white cue ball for answers even though she was told that it wouldn't be a good idea. She kind of got manipulated into doing so by Doc Scratch, and also to a lesser extent when Jade told her to try it not knowing what it would lead to. And that made Rose literally go grimdark when she saw her mom and John's dad were killed by Jack and then decided to go kill him as vengeance, despite being utterly outmatched.

This is similar to the situation when Simon couldn't understand why Grace was pulling away from him, and why she was so afraid of him after he killed Tuba (from his perspective, he and Grace have done this countless times before and she didn't react the way she did in those instances). And so he sought out a way to peer into her mind from the Cat. The Cat plays an equivalent role in Infinity Train as Doc Scratch does in Homestuck. They're both devious and conniving puppet masters with their own agendas. But the Cat is also familiar with Simon, and tried to help him but without full information, just like what Jade did for Rose. And that lead to Simon going "grimdark!"

Anyway those are just my dumb rambles. Honestly I'm sure that it has convinced nobody.

But hey, what we classpect characters as is less about the character themselves and more about ourselves really.

I don't think you would find this helpful but maybe you can just cringe at me instead!

Hopefully it was at least.... Entertaining?

#infinity train #classpects #classpect analysis #simon laurent #amelia hughes

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roostertuftart · 2 years

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This meta was sent to me during a argument, and while disagreeing with this opinion, I couldn't line up my thought to why. I want to hear ur opinion on this since you're a Kyle fan like OP and has a lot of meta posts about him. thank u for reading this post and sorry for my bad english! https://curiouscat.live/ginzura/post/1191543937

First of all, no need to apologize for your English, and it’s perfectly legible regardless! I’m going to paste the OP’s exact words here because I don’t know exactly how CuriousCat works and I don’t want to original text to get deleted so no one can see what exactly I’m arguing against, so here it is below:

Ask: What do u think about those ppl who say shipping kyman is bad bc you’re shipping a jew with a nazi 🧐

Answer: good question! if people really believe that then i can't blame them for not wanting to have anything to do with kyman, however my interpretation is different. buckle up cause this is gonna get kinda long though....

so first of all, cartman is without a doubt, a bigoted person. he's racist, he's classist, he's shown signs of being sexist too (though nowhere as bad as butters lol), etc. the thing is, his anti semitic remarks towards kyle for being a jewish person feel different than his other very backwards beliefs. i'll expand on this.

take for example the way he treats token, often alluding to the fact he's black, applying stereotypes to him and commenting stuff such as 'your people'. all this because token is black, nothing to do with token's personality or hobbies, it's just because token is a black person. when he shot token it wasn't because token did something to him, it was because token was a black person, and therefore, a threat to him, a white person. with this we can assume that the first thing cartman notes about token is his ethnicity above all else. he doesn't see him as a person but just part of a minority he looks down upon.

now let's address his relationship with kyle. he belittles kyle, calls him a 'goddamn jew', has threatened his life, etc. to the naked eye you would think it's exactly the same to what he does to token but that's where i disagree. he doesn't hate kyle for being jewish, he hates kyle for BEING kyle. is it cause kyle is smarter than him? maybe. is it cause kyle makes has things he doesn't have? maybe. but the point is that kyle's very existence annoys cartman so he has to put him down and the most obvious thing he could possibly remark about kyle is the fact that he's jewish because it's a low hanging fruit. but that's not the only thing cartman has had issue with concerning kyle. cartman tried to make people turn against gingers and emphasized that daywalkers were the worst type. who is a daywalker? kyle, of course. when he found out kyle was partly new jerseyite, he was against that too. he just tries to single out kyle as a menace as soon as he has an excuse for it. and that's why i don't actually think he's a nazi as much as he's a big fucking dick with an unhealthy obsession for kyle. i'm convinced that if kyle wasn't jewish, cartman would still find an excuse to get on his case

furthermore, and this is something that escapes fans a lot, cartman has pretty much stopped calling kyle 'jew' for quite some time now. the development started in s19 where he promised he wouldn't anymore after getting the shit beat out of him by pc principal. he still did in the ninjas episode, same season, but ever since that habit has died. so, in any case, i think cartman is mellowing out…

---

I’m not sure if this is the answer you’re looking for, but honestly, even as someone who really isn’t super fond of both-sided Kyman myself, I kind of agree with a lot of this take and I have for a while, though I don’t think it’s all because of Kyle either.

Cartman’s feelings towards Judaism seem extremely complicated to me, ranging from fetishizing the religion to outright hating it, and I think in large part this all does come down to his obsession with Kyle. Whether you believe the theory that Cartman is secretly in love with Kyle or not, it’s undeniable that he is obsessed with him and getting his attention. Maybe even having the envy of wanting to be like him in some aspects.

I’m not going to go into a deepdive into this because I’m not the most well versed about Cartman’s character as a whole, but I can go over how Cartman’s feelings towards Kyle and Judaism seem to work.

To start off, to say that his anti-semitism entirely comes down to how he feels about Kyle isn’t really true either. In early seasons, Cartman is already spouting out some pretty nasty stuff at Kyle about him being Jewish, and I would argue that this far back, he didn’t yet really hate Kyle or have any real obsession towards him. Not moreso than the other boys anyway- In fact, he even claims to hate Kenny the most, and there seems to be a genuine effort on his part to be liked by Stan and Kyle who tend to pick on him or show their outright hatred towards him- That’s not to say Cartman isn’t an asshole himself, but that seems like how he is towards everyone- He genuinely seems to crave their attention though, especially in episodes like Prehistoric Iceman. We’ve also seen that Liane seemed to have a pretty bad influence on Cartman at this time, teaching him some fairly bigoted shit. It feels likely to me that Liane probably had some if not full influence on Cartman’s opinion on Jews at this time, as she probably did with everything else he believes, leading to his general bigotry towards most minorities that he still holds today.

What I agree with OP about though is that if Kyle had not been Jewish, Cartman would not be so intent on his anti semitism. I still believe he would probably be in the same way he is racist towards black people like Tolkien, but I can’t see him being nearly as obsessed with it, nor do I think he would fetishize it as much as he sometimes does. Cartman’s hatred of Jewish people in large part is because of Kyle, not the other way around. Of course, this isn’t at all Kyle’s fault and is still extremely egregious on Cartman’s part, but I think it’s important in meta discussions of how Cartman thinks and feels towards Kyle.

One thing in OP’s post that does bother me however is the last part- Cartman “mellowing out”. I really don’t like the implications that Cartman’s antisemitism becoming more subtle is the equivalent to it being less, or even an improvement on Cartman’s behalf. Like, I do agree that he’s a child who has had a lot of bad influences and that he’s not beyond outgrowing his bigotry, but the show itself hasn’t really given us that just because Cartman doesn’t call Kyle “jew (derogatory)” anymore. We can’t get into his head obviously and see exactly what he thinks of Jewish people now but it’s pretty clear to me that he still holds a lot of antisemitic values and likes to torment Kyle in targeted ways because he’s Jewish.

Season 21 and the first episode of season 23 are pretty obvious signs of that. In S21Ep7, he straight up told Heidi conspiracy theories about Jewish people and basically convinced her that Kyle has been manipulating her simply because he’s Jewish, as well as even going as far as teaching her that Jewish people are always “trying to get ahead of everyone else”. This isn’t some micro aggression he accidentally dropped despite showing vast improvement most of the time, this is extreme Nazi rhetoric, and it’s just as dangerous and damaging as the shit he was saying before Season 19. In S23Ep1, Cartman uses ICE to have Kyle’s family separated and placed in detention facilities in an extremely targeted act of revenge. He knows what he’s doing, and it’s obvious. He’s not stupid, and I don’t know how anyone can fall for his very clearly fake act in the episode that he somehow suddenly forgot Kyle was Jewish and that this situation would be something Kyle would be extra sensitive to. I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt that OP just forgot about these episodes but this is NOT an improvement in his behavior. It’s just more subtle and manipulative on his part which is disturbing and dangerous in its own right.

And then to talk about Cartman in the recent specials, I think there’s a strong argument for his behavior towards Judaism just seeming really fetishistic and even disingenuous, so even if his hatred isn’t there he’s still pretty antisemitic.

So yeah, TL;DR, Cartman’s antisemitism seems to mostly revolve around his hatred/obsession with Kyle and he has not mellowed out in any positive ways since Season 19.

#kyle broflovski #eric cartman #kyman #tw antisemitism #south park meta #me talking #ask #anon

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ravenadottir · 3 years

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HEY!! i just wanna start by saying i love love LOVE ur stuff and I've read too much to calculate three hundred times and everything u write is so cool woohoo

and speaking of my boy Carl! i downloaded matchmaker recently, and after hours of cheating at candy crush, i found that apparently one of Carl's interests is anime??

i rly don't see him watching anything other than like, death note and spirited away, but i rly wanted to see what u think abt it!

thank you so much, it means a lot to know people like carl's story 🥺💙😭

sooooooo... i'm absolutely the wrong person to ask this, 'cause i don't watch anime so my answer will be lacking.

from the ones i've seen, i agree with you about 'death note' because it has such a dark storyline, i think carl digs that a lot.

'attack on titan' is in his list for the same reason. it's almost cathartic to him i would say. don't know where he stands with this tik tok trend though lol

i haven't seen 'spirited away' yet, so i don't know what's about and can't really agree or disagree (i want to stay away from the premise 'cause i like the mystery), so let me comment on the ones i think he might dig besides those:

he read 'demon slayer' mangas and is enjoying the anime now. the humor, sometimes acid sometimes goofy, can really represent his own jokes fairly, 'cause most of them are double meaning and whenever he catches one he's like "😝 haha i get it".

also, he might really like nezuko because of the duality she's trapped in. being a demon is not easy, especially if you're travelling in a box.

anime probably happened really early on, so 'sailor moon', 'dragonball' and 'saint seiya' ('knights of the zodiac') might've been part of his initiation. playing around while pretending to be one of them is probably the thing he did the most, especially because i think he had a lonely childhood. i definitely seem him playing as ami mizuno (sailor mercury) and the little dude in red (i think he's pegasus seiya?), because of the aesthetic they have in common.

and i don't think carl cared about being a female character at all. they have a lot in common and that's what matters to him.

"fullmetal alchemist" is one of those pieces of media that truly mature a child quickly, since a vital part of the story was really shocking (you know the one). now it feels nostalgic to go back and watch it, and cry over that part. given he was 10 when it was first published i reckon he grew up wth it, but it's so mature i think he watches it to this day.

he might've let animes like 'sakura' or 'naruto' slip because of the themes. carl strikes me as the type of kid who was born with an old soul, so naruto repeating himself for the 50th time in the same episode could've been jarring, despite having some other amazing characters like kakashi, gaara (the love of my life) and even sasuke.

i also headcanon carl being very passionate about sakura being wasted away in stupidity for so long. SHE WAS WASTED, OK? she was so fucking capable but somehow would turn into an idiot all the time, i hated that!

now, about pokemon. i feel like every kid had their phase, and sometimes pokemon doesn't even feel like anime because it's not as underground as others can be.

still, i can see little carl with a cap on his bowl cut and fingerless gloves while playing with stuffed toys, and later on gameboy.

it's possible he still plays it from time to time, including the TCG format and pokemon go. no one can change my mind he geeks out about legendary pokemon he has in his backpack in the app.

plus, i risk to say his favorite of all time is arceus or xerneas, and his initial was squirtle.

and i think that's all i can contribute! i haven't even scratched the surface with these suggestions, but i would like to hear your thoughts and anyone else's who digs anime and manga. i have probably seen less than 1% of what's out there, so i would love to hear from more people!

#litg #litg carl #love island the game #litg s2 #litg season 2 #queue

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gukyi · 4 years

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aaaa! i’m so excited ur doing drabbles i love ur works so much omg. can i request a kim taehyung e2l ceo!au (with a healthy amount of angst and fluff obviously) where they’re like the ceo of two of the biggest companies with the prompt “you confuse me” and “ok maybe i’m crazy but did i just hear you say that out loud?” (if u take two prompts if not whatever sounds good to you). ok that’s it!! thanks for doing this sorry for rambling jsldiwjspuehd

how to trick your friends and family: a guidebook | kth (770 words)

There are worse things to be doing than spending time with Kim Taehyung. For example: you could be bungee jumping into a lake, except your cord breaks. Or, you could be running from a flock of angry wild geese. Or, you could be just straight up dead. So in the grand scheme of things, being with Kim Taehyung isn’t the most terrible thing in the world.

But that doesn’t mean it’s still up near the top of the list.

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Don’t even start with me.”

You glare across the booth in Taehyung’s direction as he smirks at you. His eyes glance down towards your untouched bowl of pasta that is more expensive than you care to admit. Whenever you come to restaurants like these, you just order whatever and let your stomach do the judging.

“I thought you liked this restaurant,” Taehyung comments harmlessly, but he doesn’t need to say very much for his words to still send pinpricks into your skin.

“You don’t know what I like.”

“But isn’t that the point of this date? To get to know what the other person likes?” Taehyung pops a piece of steak into his mouth.

You frown at him. “This is not a date.”

“I think both your family and mine would have to disagree with that,” Taehyung says.

Yeah. That’s true. But of all of the people your family could have possibly set you up on a blind date with, they had to go and pick Kim Taehyung. You would have even rather gone on a date with one of your parents’ friends’ high schoolers. At least maybe you could help them with their math homework instead of listening to Kim Taehyung’s sickly sweet tone.

“Whatever,” you quip. “You weren’t my first choice for a date.”

“The feeling is mutual.” At least the two of you can agree on something. “At least you already knew me.”

“An unfortunate benefit,” you mutter to yourself. You’re not sure if already knowing Kim Taehyung is making this blind date better or worse. At least the two of you could skip past the awkward introductions and the fact that both your sets of parents are desperate for the two of you to get married.

“You know, maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all,” Taehyung suggests.

You quirk a brow. “What do you mean?” You can name plenty of bad things about knowing Kim Taehyung. For one, he gets on nerves you didn’t even know you had. For another, he’s stupid gorgeous and he’s perfectly well aware of that.

“Maybe we could use this to our advantage.”

“Excuse me?” You do not like the direction in which this conversation is headed. Nor are you particularly a fan of the glint in Kim Taehyung’s eye, either.

Taehyung grins with all of his teeth, lips turned upwards. He has something planned. You have this sneaking suspicion it involves you to some capacity. “Let’s date.”

It’s as if the words short-circuit your brain. “Okay, maybe I’m crazy, but did I just hear you say that out loud?”

Taehyung laughs at your reaction. “Think about it. Your parents and my parents both want us to start dating so that they don’t have to worry about our futures. We’re both sick of being set up on blind dates that go nowhere. So let’s pretend to date each other, thus satisfying them for the time being and ending our streak of shitty blind dates.”

You frown. Not because you think the idea is stupid, but because it’s actually kind of genius. If you and Taehyung start pretending your blind date was successful and the two of you are actually interested in each other, maybe your parents will finally hop off your ass about getting married.

Obviously, you are not marrying Taehyung. This plan is built on the foundation that it will eventually end. But a brief respite is convincing enough to you.

Narrowing your eyes, you look at him.

“What?” He asks.

“I’m trying to figure out if there’s a catch to this,” you tell him economically.

“I mean, you’ll have to put up with me,” Taehyung says. “A small price to pay for getting your parents to shut up about you dating someone.”

“What do you get out of it?”

Taehyung shrugs. “Same thing as you.”

You sigh. Never in a million years did you think you would be agreeing to a fake dating arrangement. Let alone with Kim Taehyung. You’re going to need to order another bottle of wine.

“I can’t believe we’re gonna do this.”

Taehyung grins. “So is that a yes?”

You nod. “Yes.”

please no more drabble requests for now, but i may open them again soon!

#ardenlovesyou #answered #taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #v fluff #v angst #v scenario #taehyung scenario #bts imagine #taehyung imagine #v imagine #bts au #taehyung au #drabble requests

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when-they-write-stuff · 4 years

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Idk if u take random prompts and u can ignore this, but if you’d be okay with it, I would love a fic where stiles knows Derek is weird about dating so instead of asking him out he just dares him to do stuff that “coincidentally” lead to date-like activities (go see the new horror movie, go on the biggest roller coaster, go try some spicy food etc.). It can end however you want, but ofc they would end up together :D I love ur writing & think u would write this great, but no worries if not!!

I do take random prompts! And I love this one so much.

- -

Stiles had a plan.

Okay, it was less of a plan and more of a ‘make stuff up as he went along’ type of thing, but he was going to call it a plan. And he was going to work the shit out of it until things came together.

See, his acclaimed plan™ consisted of an emotionally constipated Alpha werewolf and his stubbornness to ever let anyone close to him. But Stiles was nothing if not resilient and he’d decided to get as close to Derek Hale as humanly possible. Or, as werewolf-y possible, whatever.

Scott thought he was an idiot. But Scott thought a lot of things that Stiles didn’t always agree with it, so he’d learned to brush his best friends protests off. Stiles had a plan. And he was going to stick with it.

It started out with a dare. Stiles thought he totally had things under control from there on out.

He totally didn’t.

“Movie night is so not canceled,” Stiles protested, when the rest of the pack all conveniently came up with things they were supposed to do that Friday instead of hanging out and pack bonding. “We were gonna watch horror movies. It was gonna be great!”

“Sorry, man,” Scott said, actually looking a little apologetic. “Deaton’s got me working double shifts. I’ll be out until after midnight.”

“And we’re having a ladies night,” Lydia said, linking her arms with Allison and Erica’s. “Which involves lots of gossip, knife sharpening, and a total lack of boys. And don’t even get any ideas, Stiles, you’re not allowed to come. I don’t care how well you can paint nails.”

Jackson gave him a judgemental look. Stiles rolled his eyes.

“What? I have steady hands.”

Erica huffed out a laugh of amusement and Stiles resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. He turned to Derek’s other remaining betas, looking at them pleadingly.

“Come on, guys. We could have a bo—”

“Do not finish that sentence,” Jaskier said, baring his teeth. “Or I swear to god, Stilinski, I’ll rip your tongue out.”

“Asshole,” Stiles said, and Jackson smirked. Stiles turned to the other two. “Come on, guys, they’re horror movies! They’re great. And it’s either that or I’m stuck dog sitting my neighbor’s poodle, and I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s feral!”

“Sorry,” Boyd said, shrugging. “I’ve got a shift at the ice rink. And Isaac has one at the graveyard.”

“You’re all terrible people.”

“We’re all people with jobs,” Isaac said. “You should try getting one. Or you and Derek can have a movie night. Alone.”

Across the room, Derek straightened. Jackson barked out a laugh and Stiles glanced over despite himself, meeting Derek’s narrowed eyes. His heart sunk when the man shook his head. “I have… things.”

“Things?”

“Yes,” Derek said. “Things.”

“Like what,” Lydia challenged. Derek’s brows furrowed and he thought for a moment, but Stiles butted in before he could finish coming up with a good excuse.

“Well,” he said, and Derek shot him a warning look. “Now you don’t have things. Because we’re going to watch scary movies. Unless the big bad Alpha werewolf of Beacon Hills is a big chicken?”

Derek glared at him. “I’m not a chicken, Stiles.”

“Perfect! It’s a date!”

All the other betas groaned. Stiles winced, his face turning red.

“I mean, not a date,” he said. “Of course, it’s not a date. It’s an… occurrence. Between two friends. That will occur. This Friday.”

“Fine,” Derek said.

“Fine!”

Erica rolled her eyes and muttered something about ‘hopeless idiots’, whatever the heck that was supposed to mean. Stiles didn’t really care.

Because he had a new idea.

It turned out Derek wasn’t a big baby when it came to scary movies. Stiles was.

Though he’d never admit he was the one who spent most the time hiding his face in his hands, even if that was true. He could’ve sworn he caught Derek smirking over at him more than once, but the Alpha always looked away whenever Stiles tried to catch his gaze.

Whatever. Stiles was not scared of horror movies. He was just… expressive.

By the time the third movie had finished, Stiles may or may not have chewed his nails down to nubs and even though it was nearing midnight, he was not tired at all. Derek looked unbothered, lounging with one arm over the sofa, a bored expression on his face. Stiles thought that was terribly unfair.

“I thought you said horror movies were great,” Derek said, shooting him a smirk. Stiles rolled his eyes.

“They are,” he said. “Utterly fantastic. I love them.”

“You know I can hear you lying, right?”

“Oh, shut up, Sourwolf,” Stiles said, pushing himself up. He shook out his sweaty palms and put on his best grin, running a hand through his hair. “I’m just hungry. How does spicy food sound?”

“I don’t like spicy food,” Derek said, making a face. Stiles snorted.

“Dude, you would live off of raw meat and protein shakes if you could, of course, you don’t like spicy food. But we’re ordering it anyway.”

“Stiles—”

“Consider this is a dare, dude. Don’t be a chicken.”

“A dare,” Derek said with narrow eyes, looking unimpressed. Stiles thumbed out his phone and grinned over at him.

“Yes, Sourwolf, a dare. I know this place that does the best spicy noodle delivery. Don’t tell me werewolves are allergic to good food?”

“You’re obnoxious,” Derek said. Stiles waved a hand through the air and turned away, bringing the phone to his ear.

“Whatever. You’ll thank me later!”

Derek did not end up thanking him later.

In fact, when they were both racing for water and Derek was literally growling like a feral Alpha werewolf, Stiles realized maybe he should’ve avoided going up a few temperatures when ordering the noodles. At the time, it’d seemed like a good idea. Who didn’t love a good challenge?

But he didn’t even think what they’d just eaten was edible. Derek shot him a glare, red eyes flashing.

“What the hell was that, Stiles?”

“Noodles!”

“Those were not noodles,” Derek growled. “That was poison.”

“Wolfbane?”

“No, you idiot,” Derek said, tipping back the rest of his water. He swallowed hard and wiped his mouth, and the red faded from his eyes as he blinked a few times. “But there’s no way that was edible food.”

Stiles really wished he could disagree with him. But, rinsing his mouth out for the third time, he couldn’t. His eyes were still watering.

“Okay,” Stiles said, spitting the last of the taste from his mouth. “Whatever. That was a mistake, I’ll admit. But for the next challenge, I offer you ice cream and brain freezes—”

“Stiles,” Derek said, cutting him off. Stiles blinked at him.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

Stiles stared at him for a long moment. Derek’s face was flat and Stiles searched for a quick excuse, only to end up laughing nervously and waving a hand through the air. “What, me? I’m just trying to have a good Friday night!”

“You don’t like horror movies,” Derek said. “You tried to poison us both. And ice cream is only good when you’re not trying to actively hurt your brain.”

“Tell that to Scott,” Stiles muttered. “He’s the king of that challenge.”

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Stiles said stubbornly, crossing his arms. “I’m being a good friend, dude. Cause right now, I’d be dog sitting my neighbor’s poodle of a nightmare and you’d be… what, sitting in the dark? Reading hundred-year-old books? It’s Friday night, dude. That’s a crime!”

“Stiles.”

“Don’t ‘Stiles’ me.”

“Stiles.”

“Alright, fine!” Stiles said, throwing his hands up. He started out of the kitchen and then turned back around, giving Derek a dark look. Because he had a plan, dammit, and this was not it. “You don’t let anyone in, Sourwolf. You spend most pack bonding nights in your own little corner, reading your dusty books, and that’s so not cool. And— And— spicy food, dude! Werewolves cannot live off meat and protein shakes! You’ll get scurvy.”

“Werewolves can’t get scurvy,” Derek said. Stiles groaned, pacing the room again.

“And don’t even get me started on your sweet tooth, which I know you have by the way. It’s not such a bad thing, Derek. You’re allowed to eat ice cream. And people are allowed to care about you!”

Derek straightened. Stiles froze in his steps and considered those last few words for a moment, before turning around.

“People. Not me, but people. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You care.”

“No, no, I don’t care one bit. I’m just saying, Sourwolf, you can’t live in solitude and only go out at night. You’re not a vampire.”

“You do care,” Derek said, stepping forward. Stiles stumbled back, shaking his head.

“I do not! Stop putting words in my mouth!”

Derek came to a stop. Stiles froze too and tried to calm his pounding heart. This was still a way out of this, he was sure of that. If wasn’t like Derek actually cared that he cared. Unless he wanted to rip out his throat for being nosy or something. And that would be unfortunate.

“You do care,” Derek said, softly this time. Stiles still shook his head.

“Nope.”

“You know I can hear you lying.”

“That’s not fair,” Stiles said. “That’s playing dirty. I call party foul.”

“Stiles, you can’t—”

“Party foul!”

Derek clamped his mouth shut and gave Stiles a flat look. Stiles winced and wrung out his hands, shrugging. He could barely meet Derek’s gaze anymore. “What do you want me to say, Sourwolf? That maybe, just maybe, I do care? Is that such a bad thing?”

“I never said it was.”

Stiles looked up in surprise. Derek’s ears turned red and this time, it was his turn to look down at the floor.

“I can’t cook,” he said.

“What?”

“I can’t cook,” Derek repeated. “So it’s easier to just… not, instead of trying. And I don’t like getting in the way of pack night. And... Laura was the one with the sweet tooth. It just kind of rubbed off.”

Stiles stared at him, at a momentary loss for words. Derek wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“I didn’t think anybody ever cared.”

“I care.”

“I know,” Derek said quietly, looking up. “I can hear your heartbeat.”

“Oh my god,” Stiles muttered, hunching in on himself and running a hand through his hair. He felt his face turning hot. “That’s so corny, Sourwolf. Stop it, you’re making my skin itch.”

Derek rolled his eyes. Stiles thought that was a little better.

“Alright,” Stiles said. “Tomorrow night, an actual movie, good food, and… ice cream?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Stiles insisted. “A real date isn’t complete without dessert.”

“Oh,” Derek said, a smirk tugging at the edges of his lips. Stiles face his face turn hot again, wishing he could just melt into the floor. “And that’s what it’ll be. A real date?”

“I had a plan, you know,” Stiles muttered. Derek snorted.

“A plan.”

“Yes, Sourpuss, a plan,” Stiles said. Derek gave him a predatory look and Stiles narrowed his eyes, retreating a step back. “And no, stop looking at me like that. I’m not telling.”

“Hm.”

“Derek, stop it. I swear to god—”

The loft door suddenly opened and shut and Stiles squawked, spinning around. He heard the sound of the betas filing into the loft and deflated, breathing out heavily. Derek stepped beside him and Stiles nearly leaped out of his skin again as he felt warm breaths near his ear.

“Not scared after horror movies, huh?”

“I hate you.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

Dammit. It wasn’t. Stiles elbowed Derek in the stomach and grinned at the choked off noise he made, starting out of the kitchen into the main room. He could brush off the suspicious looks of the betas easily. After all, nothing had happened. Yet.

That was a dare another Stiles was totally planning.

It was gonna be great.

- -

(Support your overcaffinated (so much so) student writer? Seriously, I’d adore you guys so much). https://ko-fi.com/rh27writer

#sterek #prompts #asks #ficlet #stiles stilinski #derek hale #idiots in love #god i love fandoms

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arcticdementor · 4 years

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Oscar Wilde supposedly said George Bernard Shaw "has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends". Socialist blogger Freddie DeBoer is the opposite: few allies, but deeply respected by his enemies. I disagree with him about everything, so naturally I am a big fan of his work - which meant I was happy to read his latest book, The Cult Of Smart.

DeBoer starts with the standard narrative of The Failing State Of American Education. Students aren't learning. The country is falling behind. Only tough no-excuses policies, standardization, and innovative reforms like charter schools can save it, as shown by their stellar performance improving test scores and graduation rates.

He argues that every word of it is a lie. American education isn't getting worse by absolute standards: students match or outperform their peers from 20 or 50 years ago. It's not getting worse by international standards: America's PISA rankings are mediocre, but the country has always scored near the bottom of international rankings, even back in the 50s and 60s when we were kicking Soviet ass and landing men on the moon. Race and gender gaps are stable or decreasing. American education is doing much as it's always done - about as well as possible, given the crushing poverty, single parent-families, violence, and racism holding back the kids it's charged with shepherding to adulthood.

…

For decades, politicians of both parties have thought of education as "the great leveller" and the key to solving poverty. If people are stuck in boring McJobs, it's because they're not well-educated enough to be surgeons and rocket scientists. Give them the education they need, and they can join the knowledge economy and rise into the upper-middle class. For lack of any better politically-palatable way to solve poverty, this has kind of become a totem: get better schools, and all those unemployed Appalachian coal miners can move to Silicon Valley and start tech companies. But you can't do that. Not everyone is intellectually capable of doing a high-paying knowledge economy job. Schools can change your intellectual potential a limited amount. Ending child hunger, removing lead from the environment, and similar humanitarian programs can do a little more, but only a little. In the end, a lot of people aren't going to make it.

So what can you do? DeBoer doesn't think there's an answer within the existing system. Instead, we need to dismantle meritocracy.

DeBoer is skeptical of "equality of opportunity". Even if you solve racism, sexism, poverty, and many other things that DeBoer repeatedly reminds us have not been solved, you'll just get people succeeding or failing based on natural talent. DeBoer agrees conservatives can be satisfied with this, but thinks leftists shouldn't be. Natural talent is just as unearned as class, race, or any other unfair advantage.

One one level, the titular Cult Of Smart is just the belief that enough education can solve any problem. But more fundamentally it's also the troubling belief that after we jettison unfair theories of superiority based on skin color, sex, and whatever else, we're finally left with what really determines your value as a human being - how smart you are. DeBoer recalls hearing an immigrant mother proudly describe her older kid's achievements in math, science, etc, "and then her younger son ran by, and she said, offhand, 'This one, he is maybe not so smart.'" DeBoer was originally shocked to hear someone describe her own son that way, then realized that he wouldn't have thought twice if she'd dismissed him as unathletic, or bad at music. Intelligence is considered such a basic measure of human worth that to dismiss someone as unintelligent seems like consigning them into the outer darkness. So DeBoer describes how early readers of his book were scandalized by the insistence on genetic differences in intelligence - isn't this denying the equality of Man, declaring some people inherently superior to others? Only if you conflate intelligence with worth, which DeBoer argues our society does constantly. It starts with parents buying Baby Einstein tapes and trying to send their kids to the best preschool, continues through the "meat grinder" of the college admissions process when everyone knows that whoever gets into Harvard is better than whoever gets into State U, and continues when the meritocracy rewards the straight-A Harvard student with a high-paying powerful job and the high school dropout with drudgery or unemployment. Even the phrase "high school dropout" has an aura of personal failure about it, in a way totally absent from "kid who always lost at Little League".

DeBoer isn't convinced this is an honest mistake. He draws attention to a sort of meta-class-war - a war among class warriors over whether the true enemy is the top 1% (this is the majority position) or the top 20% (this is DeBoer's position; if you've read Staying Classy, you'll immediately recognize this disagreement as the same one that divided the Church and UR models of class). The 1% are the Buffetts and Bezoses of the world; the 20% are the "managerial" class of well-off urban professionals, bureaucrats, creative types, and other mandarins. Opposition to the 20% is usually right-coded; describe them as "woke coastal elites who dominate academia and the media", and the Trump campaign ad almost writes itself. But some Marxists flirt with it too; the book references Elizabeth Currid-Halkett's Theory Of The Aspirational Class, and you can hear echoes of this every time Twitter socialists criticize "Vox liberals" or something. Access to the 20% is gated by college degree, and their legitimizing myth is that their education makes them more qualified and humane than the rest of us. DeBoer thinks the deification of school-achievement-compatible intelligence as highest good serves their class interest; "equality of opportunity" means we should ignore all other human distinctions in favor of the one that our ruling class happens to excel at.

So maybe equality of opportunity is a stupid goal. DeBoer argues for equality of results. This is a pretty extreme demand, but he's a Marxist and he means what he says. He wants a world where smart people and dull people have equally comfortable lives, and where intelligence can take its rightful place as one of many virtues which are nice to have but not the sole measure of your worth.

…

I'm Freddie's ideological enemy, which means I have to respect him. And there's a lot to like about this book. I think its two major theses - that intelligence is mostly innate, and that this is incompatible with equating it to human value - are true, important, and poorly appreciated by the general population. I tried to make a somewhat similar argument in my Parable Of The Talents, which DeBoer graciously quotes in his introduction. Some of the book's peripheral theses - that a lot of education science is based on fraud, that US schools are not declining in quality, etc - are also true, fascinating, and worth spreading. Overall, I think this book does more good than harm.

It's also rambling, self-contradictory in places, and contains a lot of arguments I think are misguided or bizarre.

…

At the time, I noted that meritocracy has nothing to do with this. The intuition behind meritocracy is: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else.

The above does away with any notions of "desert", but I worry it's still accepting too many of DeBoer's assumptions. A better description might be: Your life depends on a difficult surgery. You can hire whatever surgeon you want to perform it. You are willing to pay more money for a surgeon who aced medical school than for a surgeon who failed it. So higher intelligence leads to more money.

This not only does away with "desert", but also with reified Society deciding who should prosper. More meritorious surgeons get richer not because "Society" has selected them to get rich as a reward for virtue, but because individuals pursuing their incentives prefer, all else equal, not to die of botched surgeries. Meritocracy isn't an -ocracy like democracy or autocracy, where people in wigs sit down to frame a constitution and decide how things should work. It's a dubious abstraction over the fact that people prefer to have jobs done well rather than poorly, and use their financial and social clout to make this happen.

…

I think DeBoer would argue he's not against improving schools. He just thinks all attempts to do it so far have been crooks and liars pillaging the commons, so much so that we need a moratorium on this kind of thing until we can figure out what's going on. But I'm worried that his arguments against existing school reform are in some cases kind of weak.

DeBoer does make things hard for himself by focusing on two of the most successful charter school experiments. If he'd been a little less honest, he could have passed over these and instead mentioned the many charter schools that fail, or just sort of plod onward doing about as well as public schools do. I think the closest thing to a consensus right now is that most charter schools do about the same as public schools for white/advantaged students, and slightly better than public schools for minority/disadvantaged students. But DeBoer very virtuously thinks it's important to confront his opponents' strongest cases, so these are the ones I'll focus on here.

…

These are good points, and I would accept them from anyone other than DeBoer, who will go on to say in a few chapters that the solution to our education issues is a Marxist revolution that overthrows capitalism and dispenses with the very concept of economic value. If he's willing to accept a massive overhaul of everything, that's failed every time it's tried, why not accept a much smaller overhaul-of-everything, that's succeeded at least once? There are plenty of billionaires willing to pour fortunes into reforming various cities - DeBoer will go on to criticize them as deluded do-gooders a few chapters later. If billions of dollars plus a serious commitment to ground-up reform are what we need, let's just spend billions of dollars and have a serious commitment to ground-up reform! If more hurricanes is what it takes to fix education, I'm willing to do my part by leaving my air conditioner on 'high' all the time.

…

DeBoer spends several impassioned sections explaining how opposed he is to scientific racism, and arguing that the belief that individual-level IQ differences are partly genetic doesn't imply a belief that group-level IQ differences are partly genetic. Some reviewers of this book are still suspicious, wondering if he might be hiding his real position. I can assure you he is not. Seriously, he talks about how much he hates belief in genetic group-level IQ differences about thirty times per page. Also, sometimes when I write posts about race, he sends me angry emails ranting about how much he hates that some people believe in genetic group-level IQ differences - totally private emails nobody else will ever see. I have no reason to doubt that his hatred of this is as deep as he claims.

But I understand why some reviewers aren't convinced. This book can't stop tripping over itself when it tries to discuss these topics. DeBoer grants X, he grants X -> Y, then goes on ten-page rants about how absolutely loathsome and abominable anyone who believes Y is.

Remember, one of the theses of this book is that individual differences in intelligence are mostly genetic. But DeBoer spends only a little time citing the studies that prove this is true. He (correctly) decides that most of his readers will object not on the scientific ground that they haven't seen enough studies, but on the moral ground that this seems to challenge the basic equality of humankind. He (correctly) points out that this is balderdash, that innate differences in intelligence don't imply differences in moral value, any more than innate differences in height or athletic ability or anything like that imply differences in moral value. His goal is not just to convince you about the science, but to convince you that you can believe the science and still be an okay person who respects everyone and wants them to be happy.

He could have written a chapter about race that reinforced this message. He could have reviewed studies about whether racial differences in intelligence are genetic or environmental, come to some conclusion or not, but emphasized that it doesn't matter, and even if it's 100% genetic it has no bearing at all on the need for racial equality and racial justice, that one race having a slightly higher IQ than another doesn't make them "superior" any more than Pygmies' genetic short stature makes them "inferior".

Instead he - well, I'm not really sure what he's doing. He starts by says racial differences must be environmental. Then he says that studies have shown that racial IQ gaps are not due to differences in income/poverty, because the gaps remain even after controlling for these. But, he says, there could be other environmental factors aside from poverty that cause racial IQ gaps. After tossing out some possibilities, he concludes that he doesn't really need to be able to identify a plausible mechanism, because "white supremacy touches on so many aspects of American life that it's irresponsible to believe we have adequately controlled for it", no matter how many studies we do or how many confounders we eliminate. His argument, as far as I can tell, is that it's always possible that racial IQ differences are environmental, therefore they must be environmental. Then he goes on to, at great length, denounce as loathsome and villainous anyone who might suspect these gaps of being genetic. Such people are "noxious", "bigoted", "ugly", "pseudoscientific" "bad people" who peddle "propaganda" to "advance their racist and sexist agenda". (But tell us what you really think!)

…

This is far enough from my field that I would usually defer to expert consensus, but all the studies I can find which try to assess expert consensus seem crazy. A while ago, I freaked out upon finding a study that seemed to show most expert scientists in the field agreed with Murray's thesis in 1987 - about three times as many said the gap was due to a combination of genetics and environment as said it was just environment. Then I freaked out again when I found another study (here is the most recent version, from 2020) showing basically the same thing (about four times as many say it’s a combination of genetics and environment compared to just environment). I can't find any expert surveys giving the expected result that they all agree this is dumb and definitely 100% environment and we can move on (I'd be very relieved if anybody could find those, or if they could explain why the ones I found were fake studies or fake experts or a biased sample, or explain how I'm misreading them or that they otherwise shouldn't be trusted. If you have thoughts on this, please send me an email). I've vacillated back and forth on how to think about this question so many times, and right now my personal probability estimate is "I am still freaking out about this, go away go away go away". And I understand I have at least two potentially irresolveable biases on this question: one, I'm a white person in a country with a long history of promoting white supremacy; and two, if I lean in favor then everyone will hate me, and use it as a bludgeon against anyone I have ever associated with, and I will die alone in a ditch and maybe deserve it. So the best I can do is try to route around this issue when considering important questions. This is sometimes hard, but the basic principle is that I'm far less sure of any of it than I am sure that all human beings are morally equal and deserve to have a good life and get treated with respect regardless of academic achievement.

…

That last sentence about the basic principle is the thesis of The Cult Of Smart, so it would have been a reasonable position for DeBoer to take too. DeBoer doesn't take it. He acknowledges the existence of expert scientists who believe the differences are genetic (he names Linda Gottfredson in particular), but only to condemn them as morally flawed for asserting this.

But this is exactly the worldview he is, at this very moment, trying to write a book arguing against! His thesis is that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among individuals, because that would make some people fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - but those voices are wrong, because differences in intelligence don't affect moral equality. Then he adds that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among ethnic groups, because that would make some groups fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - and those voices are right; we must deny the differences lest we accept the morally repugnant thing.

Normally I would cut DeBoer some slack and assume this was some kind of Straussian manuever he needed to do to get the book published, or to prevent giving ammunition to bad people. But no, he has definitely believed this for years, consistently, even while being willing to offend basically anybody about basically anything else at any time. So I'm convinced this is his true belief. I'm just not sure how he squares it with the rest of his book.

…

"Smart" equivocates over two concepts - high-IQ and successful-at-formal-education. These concepts are related; in general, high-IQ people get better grades, graduate from better colleges, etc. But they're not exactly the same.

There is a cult of successful-at-formal-education. Society obsesses over how important formal education is, how it can do anything, how it's going to save the world. If you get gold stars on your homework, become the teacher's pet, earn good grades in high school, and get into an Ivy League, the world will love you for it.

But the opposite is true of high-IQ. Society obsessively denies that IQ can possibly matter. Admit to being a member of Mensa, and you'll get a fusillade of "IQ is just a number!" and "people who care about their IQ are just overcompensating for never succeeding at anything real!" and "IQ doesn't matter, what about emotional IQ or grit or whatever else, huh? Bet you didn't think of that!" Science writers and Psychology Today columnists vomit out a steady stream of bizarre attempts to deny the statistical validity of IQ.

These are two sides of the same phenomenon. Some people are smarter than others as adults, and the more you deny innate ability, the more weight you have to put on education. Society wants to put a lot of weight on formal education, and compensates by denying innate ability a lot. DeBoer is aware of this and his book argues against it adeptly.

Still, I worry that the title - The Cult Of Smart - might lead people to think there is a cult surrounding intelligence, when exactly the opposite is true. But I guess The Cult Of Successful At Formal Education sounds less snappy, so whatever.

…

I try to review books in an unbiased way, without letting myself succumb to fits of emotion. So be warned: I'm going to fail with this one. I am going to get angry and write whole sentences in capital letters. This is one of the most enraging passages I've ever read.

School is child prison. It's forcing kids to spend their childhood - a happy time! a time of natural curiosity and exploration and wonder - sitting in un-air-conditioned blocky buildings, cramped into identical desks, listening to someone drone on about the difference between alliteration and assonance, desperate to even be able to fidget but knowing that if they do their teacher will yell at them, and maybe they'll get a detention that extends their sentence even longer without parole. The anti-psychiatric-abuse community has invented the "Burrito Test" - if a place won't let you microwave a burrito without asking permission, it's an institution. Doesn't matter if the name is "Center For Flourishing" or whatever and the aides are social workers in street clothes instead of nurses in scrubs - if it doesn't pass the Burrito Test, it's an institution. There is no way school will let you microwave a burrito without permission. THEY WILL NOT EVEN LET YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION. YOU HAVE TO RAISE YOUR HAND AND ASK YOUR TEACHER FOR SOMETHING CALLED "THE BATHROOM PASS" IN FRONT OF YOUR ENTIRE CLASS, AND IF SHE DOESN'T LIKE YOU, SHE CAN JUST SAY NO.

I don't like actual prisons, the ones for criminals, but I will say this for them - people keep them around because they honestly believe they prevent crime. If someone found proof-positive that prisons didn't prevent any crimes at all, but still suggested that we should keep sending people there, because it means we'd have "fewer middle-aged people on the streets" and "fewer adults forced to go home to empty apartments and houses", then MAYBE YOU WOULD START TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL ABOUT SENDING PEOPLE TO SCHOOL FOR THE SAME REASON.

I sometimes sit in on child psychiatrists' case conferences, and I want to scream at them. There's the kid who locks herself in the bathroom every morning so her parents can't drag her to child prison, and her parents stand outside the bathroom door to yell at her for hours until she finally gives in and goes, and everyone is trying to medicate her or figure out how to remove the bathroom locks, and THEY ARE SOLVING THE WRONG PROBLEM. There are all the kids who had bedwetting or awful depression or constant panic attacks, and then as soon as the coronavirus caused the child prisons to shut down the kids mysteriously became instantly better. I have heard stories of kids bullied to the point where it would be unfair not to call it torture, and the child prisons respond according to Procedures which look very good on paper and hit all the right We-Are-Taking-This-Seriously buzzwords but somehow never result in the kids not being tortured every day, and if the kids' parents were to stop bringing them to child prison every day to get tortured anew the cops would haul those parents to jail, and sometimes the only solution is the parents to switch them to the charter schools THAT FREDDIE DEBOER WANTS TO SHUT DOWN.

I see people on Twitter and Reddit post their stories from child prison, all of which they treat like it's perfectly normal. The district that wanted to save money, so it banned teachers from turning the heat above 50 degrees in the depths of winter. The district that decided running was an unsafe activity, and so any child who ran or jumped or played other-than-sedately during recess would get sent to detention - yeah, that's fine, let's just make all our children spent the first 18 years of their life somewhere they're not allowed to run, that'll be totally normal child development. You might object that they can run at home, but of course teachers assign three hours of homework a day despite ample evidence that homework does not help learning. Preventing children from having any free time, or the ability to do any of the things they want to do seems to just be an end in itself. Every single doctor and psychologist in the world has pointed out that children and teens naturally follow a different sleep pattern than adults, probably closer to 12 PM to 9 AM than the average adult's 10 - 7. Child prisons usually start around 7 or 8 AM, meaning any child who shows up on time is necessarily sleep-deprived in ways that probably harm their health and development.

School forces children to be confined in an uninhabitable environment, restrained from moving, and psychologically tortured in a state of profound sleep deprivation, under pain of imprisoning their parents if they refuse. The only possible justification for this is that it achieves some kind of vital social benefit like eliminating poverty. If it doesn't, you might as well replace it with something less traumatizing, like child labor. The kid will still have to spend eight hours of their day toiling in a terrible environment, but at least they’ll get some pocket money! At least their boss can't tell them to keep working off the clock under the guise of "homework"! I have worked as a medical resident, widely considered one of the most horrifying and abusive jobs it is possible to take in a First World country. I can say with absolute confidence that I would gladly do another four years of residency if the only alternative was another four years of high school.

If I have children, I hope to be able to homeschool them. But if I can't homeschool them, I am incredibly grateful that the option exists to send them to a charter school that might not have all of these problems. I'm not as impressed with Montessori schools as some of my friends are, but at least as far as I can tell they let kids wander around free-range, and don't make them use bathroom passes. DeBoer not only wants to keep the whole prison-cum-meat-grinder alive and running, even after having proven it has no utility, he also wants to shut the only possible escape my future children will ever get unless I'm rich enough to quit work and care for them full time.

When I try to keep a cooler head about all of this, I understand that Freddie DeBoer doesn't want this. He is not a fan of freezing-cold classrooms or sleep deprivation or bullying or bathroom passes. In fact, he will probably blame all of these on the "neoliberal reformers" (although I went to school before most of the neoliberal reforms started, and I saw it all). He will say that his own utopian schooling system has none of this stuff. In fact, he does say that. He sketches what a future Marxist school system might look like, and it looks pretty much like a Montessori school looks now. That just makes it really weird that he wants to shut down all the schools that resemble his ideal today (or make them only available to the wealthy) in favor of forcing kids into schools about as different from it as it's possible for anything to be.

I am so, so tired of socialists who admit that the current system is a helltopian torturescape, then argue that we must prevent anyone from ever being able to escape it. Who promise that once the last alternative is closed off, once the last nice green place where a few people manage to hold off the miseries of the world is crushed, why then the helltopian torturescape will become a lovely utopia full of rainbows and unicorns. If you can make your system less miserable, make your system less miserable! Do it before forcing everyone else to participate in it under pain of imprisonment if they refuse! Forcing everyone to participate in your system and then making your system something other than a meat-grinder that takes in happy children and spits out dead-eyed traumatized eighteen-year-olds who have written 10,000 pages on symbolism in To Kill A Mockingbird and had zero normal happy experiences - is doing things super, super backwards!

#scott alexander #substack #book review #fredrik deboer #public schooling #long #read the whole thing

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franeridart · 7 years

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are you going to draw more of that lovely erasermic? :o

Unless I find reasons to stop shipping them in the near future, then sure~ as I said, I really like that ship

Anon said:i love it when you draw chris and josh, you should do it more!! Your oc's are great!!

THANK YOU! I’m really really happy to hear you like them! I draw them just as much as I wish to, tho haha

Anon said:THANK YOU FOR BLESSING US WITH MORE CHRIS!!

Anon said:Honestly I love your ocs so much! I like seeing your fanart because you really flesh out characters we don't get enough development of, but I really love seeing your ocs. I can tell you love them and enjoy drawing them just by looking at it, and that makes me love them even more! You're a wonderful artist!

SOB thank you!!!!! holy heck!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;O; I can’t believe how much love my kids get hahaha I’m so so grateful aaahhhh!!!!

Anon said:Okay, so I was just going to tell you how great your comic is (and it is), but I just read your last ask to that anon, and I'm sorry, but deku didn't do nothing to gain his quirk? Like, what? He risked his life and almost killed himself trying to say his exfriend/then bully? That isn't just "being nice"? He didn't know all Might would save him? He risked his life even though he was powerless just to help another person? He earned the quirk, all Might said so in the second episode, like, what?

Since you don’t seem to want a polite and civil exchange of opinions on this, and are actually being incredibly rude here (whether you meant for it or not, I don’t know) I hope you won’t mind me keeping this as short as I can. All Might worked in the beginning of the bnha manga as a textbook definition of a deus ex machina, came around, solved an otherwise unsolvable plot point out of the blue bending the laws that had just been established for that universe, and Deku literally (literally) didn’t have to go through any conscious trial, soul-search or any other self-aware journey with the intention of fixing his own problem. All he did was to be heroic and to be quirkless, which for him are circumstances since those are innate traits of his character. And the only singular thing he has is that he’s quirkless, his heroic personality is shared by all of UA (Mina acted in the exact same way in Kirishima’s backstory as he did to save Bakugou, didn’t get any cool op powers out of it)

All Might was supposed to give OfA to Mirio, the literal most heroic character in bnha, a boy who had been working his ass off to become a proper hero since he was a child, but instead he found a quirkless kid and decided that he deserved a chance to become a hero too. I’m not saying that’s not true, or that Deku didn’t deserve it. I’m saying that he didn’t actively or consciously do anything to gain that power. He simply acted in a way true to his self, and that was it.

I’m gonna have to make present to you that the next time I get an ask with that tone in my inbox I’m blocking you without answering. I’m not here to be called an idiot by the first random stranger I find online, if you want a conversation with me all I’m asking is for you to be polite, that’s not too much at all in my opinion.

Anon said:Your last BakuShima comic was so cute!!! AAAAA!! 💖

Thank you!!! I’m super happy you liked it!!!!!! :O

Anon said:I love you. So much right now. Can I give you a virtual hug because I swear

I dunno what I did to deserve this but SURE *holds u back*

Anon said:do you think you'd ever sell any minajirou merch? (maybe like the one with the flower background) because if you do i would buy 20 (not literally but,, i think you get the point) Sorry if this sounds annoying or anything! im just curious

Not annoying at all!!! If I remember right the one I posted was a bit small tho, I’ll have to see if I can work with the size in a way that would fit the default redbubble dimensions... if I can’t I’ll be sure to make the next one big enough to fit, tho!!!! And thank you for wanting to buy my stuff!!!!! :O

Anon said:I'M NOT THAT ANON BUT I CAN HELP W MOMOJIROUS & yes we totally agree they're fuckin gay and canon there's no doubts here. SO anyway I at least see them liking in each other exactly what you said- they have what the other lacks (or thinks they do), and still find the other to understand them and be interested in them in every sense of the word, also tol and beauty and smol and cute are def the first thoughts about each other, damn maybe I should have thought about word limit I need more space

Awwww anon I thank you for trying to explain to me why they work!!! But that’s not the problem I have with it at all haha I understand the ship on a superficial level perfectly, that’s why I ship it! I just can’t seem to find myself in the relationship anywhere, so empathizing with it comes harder than it does when it’s MinaJirou haha

Anon said:you draw kirishima's eyes so pretty I can't look away from them

THANK YOU Kirishima’s eyes are super pretty in canon, I’m so so happy I can portray that in my style well enough!!!!! :O

Anon said:Ok, sorry for going through ur hq!! tag sjeow, oh gosh I love ur art and ur art style and I love the way I draw the boys !!!! Aaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!! Thank u for blessing my night!!!! I hope something makes ur day the way going through ur art *cough* again *cough* made my day!!! (Also a question: what's ur second fave ship from hq!! after bokuroo?? )

MATSUHANA :O and thank you so so so so much for liking my stuff!!!!!!! I hope you’re having a great day today too, anon!!!

Anon said:I love you Fran, but I completely disagree with what you told the last anon about the idea behind bnha. You had me with the positivity concept, and I would also love it if eri could fix mirio and nighteye, but the rest of that was just so far off to me; and probably for many other fans in this community. Like, first, a story does not have to be the level of snk or dgray man to have bad things happen. That is how all story telling has been since the beginning of time.

A good narrative story is never straight sunshine and happiness throughout, even if it doesn't involve death. People don't just enjoy the bad things that happen in a story because it's realistic or because it's sad, they enjoy it because that is how a story and it's characters grow. They make mistakes and learn from them; these moments help the characters change and pushes them forward through every new obstacle.

It helps drive them and gives their stories/actions/ideals meaning and gives the audience a reason to care. And that is where I wonder if we are even reading the same story, because this concept is shown throughout the entirety of bnha. It is no where near the "positive-to-a-naive-point" you seem to believe it is. The story starts off with a weak, defenseless deku being beaten by his once best friend?

Like, I really don't want to sound condescending, but I don't understand how you could come to this conclusion. Bakugou has an inferiority complex from hell and suffers constantly from his own inner turmoil, todoroki has an an abusive father with a horrid childhood, iida's brother/idol was paralyzed and almost killed, shigaraki unknowingly killed his parents as a child, toshinori may still be alive, but all might (the hero) is gone to the world forever,

eri was used and experimented on HER ENTIRE LIFE, believing she was a disease to the world and could only cause suffering. I could go on for pages about the suffering these characters have ALREADY gone through- but that is okay, because the story is better for it. Because we as an audience wouldn't have cared nearly as much for deku's gain of one-for-all, if it wasn't for the trials and turmoil he faced his whole life living as a quirkless child;

Bnha is a positive story, but it does not rely solely on positivity to get by. It is a story about determination; to push back against adversity, to go on even in the face of the unknown or impossible; even if fate itself is against you. It's about climbing your mountains and beyond that, dare I say, beyond plus ultra. It's is not trying to adhere to its genre, it's is trying to be everything the genre could be and more, and as succeeded thus far.

Which is why I can understand the disappointment from the last anon, because solving everything through friendship and "hand holding" has become a norm in this genre specifically- and bnha is anything but quick and easy ways out.

Sorry if this is long, and I really hope you don't take this as an attack against you or your opinion. If that is all bnha is to you, and if that is how you perceive the show, who am I to say you are wrong. But I hope you understand what I have said at least, because you still are a huge inspiration to me as an artist and in this community. Hope the rest of your day goes alright.

Alright, first off, if you don’t want to come off as condescending try and maybe don’t be condescending. I’m nearly sure you didn’t do this consciously, considering how you ended the rant, but going “are we even reading the same story” when you supposedly want a civil exchange of opinions is the worst thing you could do ever. You pretty much said “I don’t wanna disregard your opinion but here is a list of reason why you’re wrong and I’m right”, please next time you mean to keep it civil try and avoid that, because that sounds just as bad as you’d assume.

Second, I thank you for the recap of all the tragic backstories bnha gave us, but my answer was about conclusions to arcs, not beginnings. I literally never once said that bnha is a happy-go-lucky story from start to end, I only said it made an habit of reaching for the best possible conclusion it could ever go for by the end of every arc up until now.

“The story starts off with a weak, defenseless deku being beaten by his once best friend”, sure (aside from the “once best friend”, Deku and Bakugou were never friends to begin with, please do reread the second Kacchan vs Deku for Bakugou’s view on their relationship) that’s how the story starts, and it ends with Deku with the strongest quirk on the planet, mentored by his childhood hero, with a civil and friendly rivalry with his childhood bully, on his way to become the number one hero, happy and loved and respected. “”Bakugou has an inferiority complex from hell and suffers constantly from his own inner turmoil” again, sure, and he could have given in to it and become a villain or let his terrible personality just become worse and worse, every single bad thing happened to him could have made him closer to a bad guy or given him good reasons to go against the heroes, and instead he’s working to become better, is loved and cherished, has friends that will build him up and care for him and risk their lives for him, and is actually in a way healthier place than he was in the beginning. “Todoroki has an an abusive father with a horrid childhood” SURE and now he’s got his mother back, he’s learnt to be the bigger person and put distance between himself and his father to instead use him to reach his own goals, is happy and has friends and, again, he’s supported and loved and is in a way happier place than he was in the beginning. “Toshinori may still be alive, but all might (the hero) is gone to the world forever” yes, and in any other manga the reveal would have brought a whole damn lot of drama and people calling him a fraud and turning against him, but instead that scene is the most heartwarming one in the whole manga, the whole world supporting and loving him and yelling his name to cheer him on

I could go on, but I think I made it pretty clear? Every single arc, be it a character arc or a story arc, starts tragic to end up with the most positive outcome you can have for it. There isn’t one arc that has had a tragic conclusion yet. So is it really that weird for me to think it’s believable and not surprising at all that Eri’s story, for however tragic it might have started as, could also have a happy ending? That this manga never tried to present itself as one in which things can and will turn out for the worse?

I’m not even sure exactly what your incredibly long ask was about, man. What were you trying to prove to me? Which part of the answer I gave were you trying to disprove? You just went on about how sad everyone was at the beginning of the manga as if that proved somehow that Horikoshi isn’t actively working to give everyone the happiest future they could have.

A recap of my answer is: “I personally don’t mind Eri having a fix-it quirk because it fits well in Nighteye’s plot and falls perfectly in line with how every other arc has turned out for the best up until now”

And you came at me with an eight asks long rant that can be summed up in “you’re wrong because people in the beginning of the story were sad”

Listen. I’m always open to conversations about different opinions and takes on a story. But, again, I’m gonna need you to be polite about it and open to an equal exchange. Simply going at the end “I hope you won’t feel attacked” and “have a nice day” isn’t enough if for the rest of the rant you talked to me as if you were assuming I’m an idiot. And I’m actually gonna need you to properly read my answers before trying to follow up with them, next time. Please. I don’t have the time to rephrase my answers sixty times just because people keep answering without actually reading them.

#fran answers #i'm sorry about the tone of a couple of the answers i gave in this #being talked down on is one of the things that make it harder for me to remember im trying to be as polite as i can get #but well #that's the last time anyway #this is an art blog after all #i didn't make it to have this sort of arguments #we'll just stick to the doodles from now on shall we (=u=)#anonymous

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fanfictionlive · 5 years

Text

YMMV: When your fanfic is written by design, is there even room anymore for ConCrit?

This has two exhibits and a conclusion.

We are heading into a new year and exhibit A is the last time I will cite this review.

Exhibit A:

"U put me in physical pain. I suppose u are free to write whatever u like and I will support u in doing so but christ man ur...ur doing too much this is too much. Rape was mentioned far too many times the main characters are only really a very dramatized crude versions of themselves. + you said you don’t believe in trigger warnings which is like o_0 what was even the reason for that jiraiya icky ass scene?? these are valid criticisms tbr but hey u seem to be a talented writer I know some people love this type of writing so keep going ur not hurting anyone but me I guess...."

Exhibit B:

"I don't get Hinata she wants Naruto but yet when he tries to get her to hang out and or have a conversation she brushes him of or turns him down. Well of course anyone with some decency would stop as if it's always going to end the same well why try. Also her having feelings for Neji was really weird. Overall Hinata is acting very oc here. Canon Hinata would've never t be this negative or jealous she would keep trying to be her best for herself and try to get closer to Naruto. Also naruto has never chased down any girls except Hinata."

Comparing these two reviews:

Exhibit A was mad at me. I still don't know for sure if they're mad I made them feel bad feels (in which case, that's a win), or if they meant the writing was so awful it was painful. Even worse that this was one of those examples of when someone's (totally valid feelings) get thrown at you as some objectively awful thing you did. That comment was already their formal resignation of readership, so in the end there was no 'making it up to them', which is how I was initially left feeling at the time. (And then I had my anxiety spiral, and then I got better, and now here we are at the final evolution of this topic). Also, I did use: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings. Also also, my teen era angst was way too deep in the hopeless feels and I'm doing my damnedest currently to just stay above bittersweet.

Exhibit B was not mad at me, and I love them forever for it. Compared to A, B was able to explain themselves as well. And they were technically correct. The best kind of correct!

What makes both of these reviews the same on a fundamental level though is the fact that B's statements are not applicable because the fic is an AU and the fact that they didn't buy into 17 chapters of build up and backstory reveal, plus how they felt about the LI in the flashback having a childhood Cousin Crush, shows that this is truly a distilled example of YMMV because my other readers varied in reaction as well. Generally, B is the first to disagree with it. (I realize I neglected to ask them if they thought it was random weird (objective issue), instead I assumed they thought it was weird to them (subjective issue), so I didn't address it at all. Whups. :p )

In the end, I thanked B and agreed with them and then as briefly as possible (often a struggle for me), I explained my side of things, which is that quote-quote "... At least, that is, I like to believe that the backstory supports how she is currently".

In conclusion: I think I just need to set my own parameters of what kind of ConCrit I need or can benefit from.

If someone happens to tell me why so-and-so's actions didn't make sense and how, and I can't explain why it does make sense, then that means they're correct and I can learn from their observation.

If someone can let me know what's wrong with the technical aspects of the craft, ultimately the execution as a whole, that's also a 'Hell yeah, pour it on me bro! I wanna hear everythiiing!'

If someone can objectively tell me where the emotional build up fell flat or that the payoff did not pay off, then 'Woot! Gimme gimme!'.

But I'm finding certain things are just too subjective to be teachable observations, and I suppose these happen to be the most easy things for people to point out or have an opinion about. :p

Feel to answer to the header question specifcally, in case my perspective requires broadening.

submitted by /u/ninetypoundsof [link] [comments] from FanFiction: Where Magical Ponies battle Imperial Titans https://ift.tt/2ZnzXXV

#fan fiction #writing #fanfiction #tv show #series #movie #fan #write

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calvinlepesh · 6 years

Text

Purpose? Purpose.

My life was perfect til that day. I didn't even have a clue of how good off I was. Disrespectful, ungrateful, angry, but truly, sad. "From the beginning of my time or from the realization of the universe?" Very bold question I ask myself currently. How do I want to convey my knowledge? How do I want people to percieve what i will tell them? How will I word my stories and thoughts in a way that is too hard for normal people to understand? Can I? From the beginning it is! Now, Born Valentines day 1999 was chubby cheeked enthusiastically loved and cherished Lepesh. Born in Minnesota cold. Raised in Minnesota cold. Lepesh knew hot summer fun, running through the sprinklers, water balloon fights, Football, Basketball, Ice cream trucks, Chalk on the side walk/driveway, Biking with neighbors around our nitche. Biking by myself to the gasstation for candy. Waking up in the middle of the night to play video games in the basement, Getting caught waking up in the middle of the night to play video games in the basement. Lepesh knew winter fun. Snowboarding, Snowfuckingshoeing, Sleding, Snow tubing, Snowball fights, Huge snowmen, Snow forts along the cul-de-sac snowwall created by the huge cool snow plow! Wow! I thought to myself mouth wide open with a smile, as the large plow on the front of the truck bursted through large mountainous snow mounds with ease. Creating wonderous mounds of snow in every frontyard across the neighborhood. Building snow forts and then having a war with snow balls. The point is my childhood was filled with fucking joy and happiness. It rocked man and Im super happy that it happened. I couldn't imagine this shit happening to me before.. Well before it happened. Its 2008. Its december as I sit on the couch with my brother and my parents..... well wait here theres a little more first. February 14th 2008 Im nine years old today. Im in Mr.Larsons fourth grade class. I enjoy creative writing, recess and lunch. although I didn't write much. I really love football and sports around this time. I decided to be a cowboys football fan when my dad said I could choose cause hes too nice to force me into being a Vikings fan. My parents especially my mom but definitely my dad aswell. Let us choose what we wanted. Which I disagree with now and will certainly not allow my childeren to decide what is right. Although Im sure I will at some point definitely not in elementary what the fuck?! Anyways. Decieded to be a cowboys fan cause my dad hates them and loves the Vikings. Which I now love today. Anyways. Im in the car with my whole immediate family driving. I ask where we're going or what we're doing. While heading west in the car my dad tells me we're going to Wisconsin and we're gonna stay the night at a hotel. The entire car ride their my dad is messing with me and im furious. Im certain today if I was in the passenger seat during the exchanges between my father and I I'd be laughing my ass off. But almost at the same time sad and angry of how ungrateful and disrespectful I probably was to my father. Idk maybe I just pouted, which I did alot lol.. anyways We finally arrive after probably an hour or so drive west, not infact in the direction of Wisconsin to a large farm in eastern Minnesota. 'There's nothing here' I thought to myself. It wasn't a desolate farm but damn near close. Large housing for live stock aswell as people. My father then reveals that im going to be getting my own dog for my birthday. I immediately light with excitement and smiles. Joy pulsing in my heart. Ive always wanted a dOG' i think to myself as I turn to my brother with excitement. I can only imagine how wide and big my smile and cheeks were to this day. Entering into the large barn with my family. Me, my brother, mother , and father all enter the barn to the amazement of dogs and insulation lol. From the outside it almost looks like a overly large stereotypical red barn, however the inside has another side to the story. Carpeted floors off to the left held the petting area with already free roaming dogs. while the right side of the room looked as if they did paper work and forms and whatnot. Going right wasn't even a thought in my head. LEFT. Headed for the dogs im stopped by my mom who is greeted by the worker/farmer. Im not even listening to her. I want a fucking dog. Moments go and my patience already thin is thinner. It takes alot for me to blow up even as a child. The problem was the things building up my 'meter of rage' as a child shouldn't have been. Anyway. Finally I head over to the dogs climbing the little fence even a little small for me already tall for my age. Immediately I spot an adorable smaller black dog. I kneel down to sit with it and attempt to hold it. Only to kneel right into a huge carpet puddle newly accompanied by its main ingredient dog piss. Nice. As i tell my mom she just laughs and tells me to be careful. Its what I did worst and least often. Unfortunately that was one of my biggest issues. After looking for awhile. I now realize my dad was probably ready to leave after 10-15 minutes definitely longer than that but Understandable nonetheless. After probably 35-45 minutes of trying to find a dog that didnt shed and was actually good looking. My mom had been carrying this one dog in paticular for a decent amount of time. Asleep in her arms as if a child beautifully sleeps my savior..... The car ride home Hank held the dog the entire time. Almost sinisterly which him being an older brother. acceptable, however frowned upon. Uncharacteristically careful I am as I hold my new dog. Smile from cheek to cheek and thats a long distance lol. Still carefully holding her i slowly bring her and a blanket along with hank to the basement. Where I lay out the fluffy green blanket and set Katy ever so gentely down. Standing next to my brother stareing almost in a daze like trance. We have a dog!' We were so happy. Hank and Lep happy? Together? very rare nowadays. I would certainly come to forget of such times even now almost a foriegn concept of us being so happy together. Now back to the OG storayyy............ Holding katy close weilding her support almost as a weapon to defend myself from such an awful thing. Its happening' I feel it' i just know' its happening' We are able to create our own reality because we (humans) designed a very primitive (in comparison to the universe) way to communicate how we feel. Speech. Speech is very important. Its our first amendment here in the US. say whatever u want. Pretty much. our speech is primitive because it doesn't describe things that we are uncertain of. We have to choose in our speech whether to Have no Idea Agree disagree yes no. Now of course there are exceptions to that. But not to normal people. Normal people can't understand this. If you are reading this right now and are lost for words but think you're 'awake' so to speak. just listen. This is a huge secret to life. Huge. It may change ur life over night. The best part about it is you get to decide. Ask yourself. Am I going to be open minded to what this man has to say? Ask yourself do I want whatever he says to be true in my life?... Just so I can touch as many people as possible and help the (working class which im apart of} hear me out. You may think im fucking crazy or that idk what life even is either and you're right I don't but all you have to do IS ACCEPT THAT WHATEVER IS/WILL/HAS EVER HAPPENED, Happened because you decided it was going to happen. Before you were even born. Before anybody way born. The best part about it. Is that it is unpredictable and it is fueled and directed DIRECTLY from our speech. Whatever you speak out loud for example say I said and I have. I want to fucking die. and I meant it. I really mean it. If you don't mean what you say then learn to do that before anything. Before u start this really take the time to realize ur worth not as a person but as you. Cause you created everything in your world. The best part you created it that way cause thats the way it turns out best for you. I hope atleast. Think about it. You get through everything. most things people kill themselves over. You're trying to make yourself strong for some reason possibly? or maybe catching myself up to everyone else cause I had such a nice and spoiled childhood? Past karma current karma. Thats what gets me. Theres no way a god created this world. But i could've created this world. Maybe im evil just like the world a little bit deep down. I am. Definitely a little evil. Its apart of my soul. Its apart of everyones soul in my world maybe not as much on some people and Ill never know why that is and I don't need to cause, I trust my judgement. It may be wrong sometimes but im still alive today for some reason that I decieded. thats the beauty of myself I truly never know what im gonna do each day specifically. Ill know if im gonna be tired or up for another 5 hours. Cause I will be and Ill feel it. Ill know when i need to fucking pee. But I never know what mindset is right or true for me. partially cause i have shitty short term memory and bad hearing and vision and a bad liver. im 19 lol. Anyway. Basically the secret is speak what you want and mean it everyday. You'll know if you dont want it as badly some days. you might even miss a day. All you're trying to do for yourself by doing this is getting yourself into a routine where you put those '(vibes) or Speech and words/ Communication. Communicate with your universe. Speak how you feel. Speak what you want. Speak how you're going to get it. Even if you're thinking theres no fucking way thatll happen. Theres no fucking way im ever going to pass through college. theres no fucking way id be able to get through law school. I can't be a chef I've hardly cooked. are my common misfires. Misfires however very common after the first few days to weeks will disapate if you PUSH ON! Just like you always have! This is what you were waiting to find. You created the world it is today for yourself today to see this and reconize for yourself today. That you're doing this wrong. Since starting my program I live with partial contentment as a human being. However I personally keep myself open to negative thoughts and wishes periodically to balance my life. However as for most of u assume this is rather stupid but selfless nonetheless. The reason I hold dark as I hold light is because this is what I decieded and this was meant to happen. The decision made by the creator of my universe which is me to write this to you and share what I have learned to help better your lifes for the benefit of them I do not know what I or they gain from this because it is beyond my comprehension aswell as yours. It could be for something of the lines of in 200 years cause I told you these secrets and my experiences and helped you better your life over time and you benefitted and you passed onto your childeren. that no your family lives on in the future 200 years from now. and they're good people. maybe not all. But if taught correctly and this isnt a cureall for everybody. But it significantly helps better improve overall mood and life tolerance in your life. It doesn't work immediately. It isn't gonna take it easy on you just cause you know now. In fact. If you are not open minded currently do not read because this idea sent and recieved and read and processed by a closed mind. Blocks the process from ever having the ability for your mind to hear and read properly as an openminded individual would.

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