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derangedhyena-delphinidae · 3 years

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numerous issues with “The Aftermath of Seaworld”

When I get time to do so (aka when I’m done with the documentary), I’m likely going to make a video version of this going into the details.

But for right now, I’ve made this. Both as a guideline for me and so everyone can begin to get an idea of the severity of issues involved.

Researching things is time-consuming and can be very difficult - believe me, I know. But I’m of the mind that if you’re making content with the intent of educating people, you have a responsibility to perform a certain level of due diligence. It IS okay to express uncertainty or doubt if you have it. It is NOT okay to confidently assert things that you do not know with certainty.

The video has an anticap slant, and I’m obviously not disagreeing on that front. But again: if you’re gonna go through the trouble of teaching people something. Bare minimum... please make sure it’s actually correct. *** 1) x ‘founded in 1964 and based out of Florida’ - ???? Seaworld definitively began on the west coast, in San Diego, CA. And given that the first park opened in early 1964… things came together before that. Uh? 2) x ‘four people founded Seaworld [...]’ For one… it wasn’t originally conceived as a restaurant, it was originally conceived as an underwater bar/lounge. Two… calling the four guys involved in founding the place “frat brothers” is fucking ridiculous and completely overlooks a) how each was actually involved and b) the overall significance of their contributions to the field as individuals. Hint: like it or not, they were important and did a lot!

3) x If one is going to bring up SWBGCF/rescues while talking about the literal founding of SW, it gives the impression that it’s been around for that duration. It hasn’t. It’s actually a bit unclear when SW started an organized rescue program, but the Fund itself and all that it did came about much later. The rescue information and how it’s presented is actually INCREDIBLY complex, nuanced, and has a fascinating history (from a “bad company behaving badly” perspective). Oversimplifying this, to this degree and in this misinformative way, does the facts of the situation an INCREDIBLE disservice.

4) x [assertive statement about what the name Shamu means] ….Uh actually there’s several explanations for the name Shamu, and the most likely one IMO seems to be the “she-namu” one, not the “friend of Namu” one(? What is this even based on.) 4b) It’s not quite clear if she’s saying “Namu was the first ever orca to be displayed and perform shows” or or Namu was the first to be displayed and, like Shamu, performed shows. Either way, Moby Doll was the first to truly be displayed to the public, not Namu.

5) x ‘Namu died after one year in captivity and you’d think that this might deter Seaworld from doing the same thing again…’ Seaworld truly had nothing to do with Namu. And they leased/took possession of Shamu before Namu died. ‘Again’? What?

6) x “Now, PETA paints a pretty disturbing picture…” [while showing Okura’s artwork] This video segment is, and this is putting it nicely, a pile of poorly-researched BULLSHIT. -Yes, PETA talks about Shamu’s capture, re: the harpooning of her mother. This Youtuber cannot apparently be arsed to look more than 1 Google search into this, as she proceeds to dismiss the information as potentially fabricated. There are two detailed accounts of Shamu’s capture that I’m aware of - in books - and though they have some slight conflicts, it’s absolutely NOT in doubt that the female who was very likely Shamu’s mother was 1) harpooned, 2) died from her injuries and 3) this had been done to make her easier to catch/locate because there was a fucking buoy attached to the harpoon. Which she dragged around for at least 24 hours prior dying. So maybe don’t dismiss that as PETA hysteria, maybe TRY to determine the truth of the matter, which would inform one that it is both true and completely horrifying. -In addition, Okura is an awesome individual who has worked very hard to create a variety of informative artwork for our cause. Okura is NOT associated with PETA and it’s borderline libel in my eyes to use their artwork in this dismissive manner when the primary sources of it can be easily identified online, with full explanations and everything. Do I take special offense to this because of the misuse of artwork? Absolutely. Artists get disrespected enough online. I’m tired of it. This kind of laziness IS NOT acceptable.

7) x ‘timeline is fuzzy about when Shamu died’ …………… it’s…. It’s really not … newspapers are pretty clear about it…..

8) x [complete and utter oversimplification of the lifespan issue, which is not acceptable for anything published in 2020. It just isn’t. If you’re going to bring it up like this, either do the legwork and get into the weeds or stay out.] 8b) [same for reproductive ages. sigh]

9) x if we’re going to talk about when Cornell was involved with Seaworld it’s very important to specify when Cornell was involved with Seaworld and not make it seem like it’s present tense.

10) x “both were rescued by Seaworld” - uh? no. Zero orcas have been rescued by Seaworld. Literally none. The infected-jaw orca was Sandy, whose story is complex and certainly does not involve Seaworld until much later. And many of the orcas in that time period had bullet wounds, often only identified post-mortem because they didn’t seem to hurt the animals much. Also, unflinchingly blending 70s captivity ethics with modern ones is also complete nonsense?

11) x [tilikum coming from sealand] inhales I am going to make an entire video centered on this fucking subject because it’s one of the single most profound arguments for Seaworld being garbage as assessed by US government agencies in the 90s yet everyone utterly fails to mention this. Why?!

12) x what on earth is this nonsense re: quoting a quote from Zimmerman’s article - which has already been removed from its original context, so the original context is not available - and then penalizing the quote for existing as if Zimmerman’s article were the context? That is offensively disingenuous. I honestly don’t know what the original context is, either - but it’s wildly inappropriate to act as if the Zimmerman article is.

13) x this is relatively minor but ‘Paul Sprong’? You literally have his name on the screen. And then mis-reading his age too? While asserting it from a static article published years ago? Effort? Where is it?

14) x ‘another trainer, Peter’ ….. Ken Peters….

15) [weirdly glossing over the widely-available list of orca-trainer injuries/aggressions, despite it being central to the point.] 16) x This pilot whale outrage certainly happened but it was pretty clearly Blackfish that started the cascade of woes for Seaworld. Who has ever asserted this?

17) if you’re gonna just rehash blackfish, tell people to go watch blackfish.

18) x I’ve already gone over the context issue with Seaworld calling out Howard’s statement in Blackfish here (point 23). Which is to say, IN CONTEXT in Blackfish it’s clear what Mr. Garrett is talking about but, divorced from that, it sounds incorrect. But this Youtuber AMPLIFIES the issue by doubling down on the assertion with “no record of a killer whale doing any harm to anyone in the wild.” The surfer event should always be mentioned. Yes, there’s absolutely room for doubt. But there’s also a clear demarcation between an accidental attack (eg mistaken identity, as was likely for the surfer) and intentional one (eg the incidents at marine parks.) Why do people kneecap themselves on this point 18b) please stop acting like Luna represents orcas in general.

19) x “Howard, for all of his research…” … while referring to David Duffus’ b-roll and statements. Uh. 20) x Apparently this Youtuber has single-handedly resolved the dorsal fin issue. You know, the thing that hasn’t been properly researched ever, that has been subject to a ton of debate, that isn’t 100% settled for a variety of reasons, and almost everyone talks about in terms of theories and likely possibilities. 21) x Alexis Martinez wasn’t “torn to shreds.” In a space where even moderate exaggerations are often penalized harshly by the opposition, this kind of blatant nonsense is not welcome. Plus, the reality’s bad enough… you don’t have to make anything up!

22) x *sighs. points at own webpage*

23) Talking about the shows stopping without acknowledging how that’s a bit of a farce is something else. In addition to apparently just flipping to buying what Seaworld’s selling re: its ‘improved image.’

*** Tl;dr video is so unrelentingly full of errors ranging from small to egregious it makes me seriously concerned for the veracity of the rest of this person’s content. The maker of the video provided a list of their sources in their video description, which I will have time to look through in detail later. The above is solely a response to the information they present IN THE VIDEO - which, is very important because let’s be real: a lot of people are not going to look at the list of sources. People don’t even do it when citing papers (no really, you’d be surprised, fml.) For anyone who wants to whinge that I haven’t linked or asserted any sources of my own for my claims… well, remember what I said about time-consuming and ‘I’m busy’? Yhea. Getting all of that together will be part of making a video. So if you want to shrug loudly at my list here… you can, that’s your prerogative, I’m happy to say I DGAF if that’s your takeaway.

What I hope, is that if there’s anything I’ve made clear over the While of running this blog, it’s that I don’t fuck around when it comes to sources and information and do my best to provide what information exists, all of it, not just cherrypicked bits and bobs. Anyways. Here’s step 0 at least. Please don’t share that video. Pretty please.

#seaworld #grumble

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volkshore · 3 years

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sinnoh league headcanons

these hc’s are very centric to my favourite characters so i apologize if most of them only revolve around a few characters (volkner, flint, cynthia, maylene, candice, dawn, lucas).

byron and volkner smoke and the rest of the league hate it. cynthia, maylene, and gardenia, being the biggest advocates for health and the environment in the league, constantly admonish them for it and pull the craziest things to try to get them to stop.

flint and volkner once stayed in the hotel grand lake together (the hotel near valor lakefront, renown as a honeymoon location for couples) and the tabloids caught wind of it, sparking an extreme amount of dating rumours. they still haven’t heard the end of it from the rest of the league.

the elite four all get along surprisingly well for the wide range of ages. flint and aaron occasionally butt heads due to their forward and loud personalities clashing, but bertha talks them down and lucian keeps them sane. the four of them together make quite the unconventional, tight-knit group.

candice and volkner act like brother and sister. they bond over their seclusion (geographically) from the other leaders and their love for complex puzzles, as well as their intense best friends (maylene and flint). their personalities mesh really well and they always protect each other from media rumours and general hate.

the last three gym leaders (byron, candice and volkner) tend to spend more time with the elite four than they do the other gym leaders (though they’re still very close with the others).

the gym leaders, elite four and champion are the closest sinnoh have to any real celebrities, and therefore they attract the most media attention. articles such as “volkner being the problematic gym leader for 5 minutes straight” and “10 times maylene turned a public meeting into a motivational speech” definitely exist.

maylene has a popular tiktok account and she always forces the other leaders to make videos with her.

dawn and lucas are like the adopted children of the league. they always make time to visit the leader of the cities they travel to and make occasional appearances at the battleground when the league decides to meet up there.

flint and volkner have especially taken to dawn and lucas and are the ones they visit most often. they jokingly refer to them as their dads — flint and volkner don’t mind.

even after dawn/lucas beat the league, cynthia stays on as the figurehead champion who takes care of the league’s affairs. dawn and lucas are still young and have so much more of the world to learn and explore before they deal with anything that stressful, though they do take the battles of the occasional challengers.

the sinnoh gym challenge isn’t taken on my many people which leaves the league with a lot of down time, and this is why they’re all so close. only they can empathize with each other regarding the leader experience and the league are the only family that some of them have.

though their most popular hangout spot is the battleground, a lot of the time, they also meet up at someone’s gym/the league building. having so many eyes on you can get exhausting, and they use these hangouts at more protected areas to just be themselves with the people they trust.

during the time of team galactic’s terror, the league often held meetings that turned into group therapy sessions. for the first few hours, they would intensively analyze team galactics actions, movements, and possible motives, but once their energy tanked and the sun went down, most of them would end up lying on the table or floor and they would lay out all of their insecurities to each other. they would often talk about how worried they were that cyrus’ plan would succeed if they weren’t strong enough, or if the region could tell how little control they had over the situation.

i don’t have hc ages for all of them, but here are some:

— cynthia: mid/late 20’s (27?)

— volkner & flint: 24

— candice: 21

— maylene: 20

— aaron: 19

— dawn & lucas: 16

(i know that pokemon has the consistent theme of their mc’s being 10-12, but i just never saw that as viable with the level of maturity needed to go through the situations that they do. read: this is my hc list and i do what i want)

most of the leaders are quite young and i figure that’s why i hc that they all get along so well. bertha, byron, and fantina are the only ones left from the previous lineup of leaders.

this is kind of a big one, but i hc that cyrus was the previous champion of sinnoh. he was very power-hungry and put way too much pressure on the gym leaders / elite four to perform at their highest capacity. it was a huge breath of relief for the whole region when cynthia beat him.

the previous generation of gym leaders / elite four all stepped down from their positions around the same time (within a few years of each other). much like the current lineup, they were all very close, and just couldn’t keep up when the new leaders stared to take on their positions. all of the current leaders are very forward-thinking and fast on their feet while the previous generation still carried the burdens of the league under cyrus’ rule, and decided it was time to let them take the lead.

bertha, byron and fantina all have their own reasons for staying.

bertha: she’s nearing retirement anyway and wanted to see the league be something good before she stepped down. all she knew was cyrus’ rule, and she wanted to end her career on a good note with some years under cynthia.

byron: he decided to stay because of roark getting the leadership position in oreburgh. roark always tells his dad that he shouldn’t stay just for him, but byron does still very much enjoy being a leader, so he stayed for that, too.

fantina: she’s still young and has a huge passion for battling. as close as she was with the past leaders, she still has so many years of her career ahead of her and found it easy to fit in with the new leaders. she also figured that someone with past experience that the younger leaders could relate to should stick around in case any of them needed guidance (being in the middle of sinnoh also helps for visitations sake)

even though dawn and lucas are still very young, they’re wise beyond their years. they’re both extremely empathetic and very good at picking up on other peoples emotions, so when the leaders are feeling off or down, they’re always the first ones to be able to notice what’s wrong and give good advice.

all the leaders feel extremely indebted to lucas and dawn, but all they ever ask for is friends in the leaders and a place to stay when they visit every once in a while.

the league always have a yearly vacation together with each other. it’s chaotic, competitive, and always ends up drawing media attention and making headlines for something crazy that happens during the trip, but they wouldn’t have it any other way.

i’ll stop this list here for now, and i’ll compile all the ones i think of from here on out into a part 2! this headcanon list also gave me the idea to make fake social media profiles for the league, so stay tuned for that coming in the future.

#pokemon #pokemon platinum #pokemon pearl #pokemon diamond #pokemon headcanons #pokemon brilliant diamond #pokemon shining pearl #sinnoh

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trutrustories · 3 years

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Okay, this will be probably long and with many errors (my english isn´t very good) But I saw several posts here on Lokius tag, talking about this ship as result of gay fetish, and about non existing chemistry and how this ship doesn´t make sense etc… And from what I understood there is tagged Lokius because of genuine interest to understand others point of view, so here is mine: I wil try to explain where my frustration comes from, and how I feel about Lokius, Sylkie, AND representation + some other things which I saw here somewhere. But first of all: I like Sylvie, I don´t hate sylkie shipers, and after so many years reading fan fictions, I don´t mind selfcest – I read weirder things. I have some issues with this ship (the mainlythe fact that it isn´t Lokius), but this is not one of them. Also, I am not about to tell anyone, they shouldn´t ship sylkie.Ship whatever. And I LOVED the show as a whole.

I just want to defend my standpoint, that Lokius does make sense, people shipping it does make sense and whether it will happen or not, (I don´t have my hopes very high, and I learned to be very skeptical in this regard ) it is more than just about crack ship, or fetish. I´m honestly blown away that people are still surprised that this ship became a thing :D First of all, let´s look at some romantic story telling and tropes: I mean the way they introduced them in the first two episodes set the tone for all series and how the heck this isn´t romantic? Somehow there are all these romantic tropes existing in a show. They´re just there. Just chilling between Loki and Mobius and large portion of audience can´t even see them. (and some of those tropes were used for Sylki as well, so you could actually see them side by side)

For example: 1) traveling to the apocalypsis 2) breaking law/rules for the other 3) literally changing for the better thanks to the other 4) arguing like old married couple 5) saying secrets, personal things to the other 6) sharing glances, touches, visibly being happy around each other - in case of Loki happier then we´ve ever seen him before 7) being completely themselfs around each other 8) One knowing everything (even the worst) about other and still accepting him completely 9) teasing, being comfortable and domestic around each other 10) one being literally enthusiastic FAN of the other 11) Mobius defending Loki whenever he has a chance 12) Freaking amnesia trope that they pulled of in the end??? (It could be different Mobius, but point is he suddenly doesn´t know him - and Loki knows more, in contrast with the beggining) 13) the jealousy in ep4 14) Misunderstanding - when Mobius thought Loki betrayed him and Loki (thanks to Ravonna) thought Mobius betrayed him... 15) witnessing death of the other and being absolutely broken afterwards 16) The goodbye hug with romantic music in the backround 17) Saving life of the one (even when it means problems for the other ) - like Mobius saved Loki´s ass at least three times when he was trying to stop others from pruning him. 18) sharing deep conversations about meanings of life, freedom and how it would be fun to make some chaos and ride that fucking jet ski!!! 19) Inspiring the other 20) looking for each other (Mobius didn´t believe for a second, that Loki would die in the Void and the way how in the last minutes of the series Loki run through all places they were together when he was looking for Mobius... and I could go on. Point is, even if they are not planning to make Lokius canon, all these things are used on a daily basis to describe romance in media and they are used here. On top of that it´s just very poetic and cute, that this drama queen and powerful god of Asgard who looked down on people would find his match in someone, who is so quiet, ordinary on the first sight, and basically is just human from 90s, who loves jet skis. Mobius can´t even fight. But is highly inteligent and he also happen to be as good manipulator, such as Loki himself. - That´s why they work together so well. Mobius sees right through him and once Loki understands that, he drops his evil persona. Almost nobody expected to ship it for real. But story itself and chemistry between them just made it probably the most exciting duo in the whole MCU. And I mean it genuinely. Third episode, even though it was beautiful and Sophie was great in it (and is literally dipped in bisexual colors), is the least favorite for a reason. And that reason being, there is no interaction between Loki and Mobius whatsoever. Lot´s of people though that series slowed down a bit. Even when in fact there was more action, then when we watched Loki and Mobius working at the TVA.

(and let´s just talk about evil!Mobius narative for a bit and how some people say he is manipulative and toxic for Loki: show itself explore heavy themes and one of them is in Loki´s line: no one bad is ever truly bad and no one good is ever truly good. And as a theme in a fictional world, it is working as it should, for the story. When Loki and Mobius meet, one of them just killed lots of innocent people and destroyed almost whole city. The other one is a part of fascist organization – and in the beginning of the series they both believe what they´re doing is right. They´re both bad, they´re both good, they´re both broken. And they are changing with the help of the other.) From all reactions I watched - and there was many of them, lots of people actually didn´t see dynamic between Loki and Sylvie as romantic in the third episode. So it´s not like Sylvie and Loki had unequivocally love story right from the start.

The only difference is that lots of people won´t see romantic tropes, when it comes to two men in a mainstream show – show that isn´t primarily about relationships and problems that queer people has to face. Because in super hero story and science fiction we have to warn audience, that they´re about to watch two man in love, right? At this point It´s just frustrating really. There were many M/M dynamics that used similar story line, as for example Lucifer, or X-files, or Bone collectors. - But unlike those M/M pairings, no one was making fun of people for shipping main characters in these shows. But when it comes to two men suddenly you´ll see from all corners of the internet: “why can´t it be just platonic?” “There is not enough platonic relationships” “why can´t two man just be friends?” (They can and they almost ALWAYS are) and “if you think there something romantic between them, you´re delusional” “fetishist“ “And for god´s sake just let them be friends, Loki needs a friend more then....” oh wait, but Sylvie is allowed to kiss him. Sylvie doesn´t have to be just friend. (And I must say, that I love Sylvie, I liked most of the interactions between her and Loki and I think she is a great character ((I hope we learn more about her in the future)) it just doesn´t work for me as well as Loki´s dynamic with Mobius. Maybe partly because of chemistry between actors, partly because combination of characters and they´re personality and also because I had two whole episodes to fall in love with the pair before Sylvie was even introduced.)

First of all: people can be friends and then evolve into lovers. Not only it is common romantic trope, but it is also the most realistic one. And those relationships are usually strongest. second: If people want to see Loki in a platonic friendship so desperately, why can´t it be a woman for a change? They were acting like chaotic siblings for most of the episode three anyway. The age gap aspect is also very funny. Owen is only about 12 years older (That is not that much. But I imagine, some people would get uncomfortable. But If it was man and woman, most of them wouldn´t even blinked. But two men, that has to be somehow automatically son and father figure dynamic) And If you want to dive into age of an actual characters, then good luck with that in a series about gods, variants and time travel. Almost nobody cares about age gap between Lucifer and detective Decker, or Bella and Edward. On top of that, it was heavily implied, that Loki slept with older, silver haired guy in Ragnarok, so it´s not like he would have problem with that.

Different standards are projected in a way how we see romantic dynamics between fictional characters depends on what we are used to, how are we perceiving world around us, what we are expecting to see and ALSO, what we would like to see, that much is true. When people are used to make no differences between heterosexual and homosexual pairing, then everything what happens to the characters is measured with the same meter. (Even though I experienced queerbaiting many times (( Once upon a time, Sherlock, Supernatural, Good Omens – the last one hopefully is not the case, but I guess we´ll see)) I also saw lots of lgbt shows like Queer as folks and Sense8.) And when we are not used to see it the same way, well… then it looks basically like that one comment under Castiel´s “I love you” scene on youtube, that said “what a beautiful friendship”.

If we forget about all that chaotic mess behind the scenes (all those articles and contrary messages) What is happening in a show between Loki and Mobius can be objectively considered romantic and what is happening between Loki and Sylvie in a series can be objectively considered platonic (until the kiss) and vice versa. And then to see comments about how absurd it is to even think they have chemistry, and about gay fetish - it´s hard to swallow. I read posts about absurdity of a ship and how there is absolutely nothing that would suggests romance. Well there is, actually. But whether creators are going to work with it or not, that´s something we can only speculate. They already made Loki officially bisexual. So why should it be so absurd to assume, that there is an actual possibility of romantic subplot between Loki and Mobius? Oh right… it´s Disney and Marvel we are talking about.

So on a subject of bisexuality: Bi people can date whoever they want. But It is a little frustrating, when there is so many heterosexual pairings in the mcu and disney but when there is a promise of lgbt character (speaking of endgame) we get one line about date from a man we´ll never see again. And when there is a promise of lgbt representation you can´t even blink during movie, or you´ll miss it (Star wars, Beauty and the beast). And then Loki said “A bit of both, I suspect the same as you”. And I won´t lie, I was happy. And I think creators made biggest step yet with this one line (which is honestly terrible, that “a bit of both” coming from Loki of all people, is the biggest step forward.) But they played it VERY safe. Obviously, both Loki, and Sylvie are bisexuals, and in three episodes, we had Loki flirting with female flight attendant, Sylvie talking about her relationship with POSTMAN and then they fall for each other. So the only thing that suggests they are really as bi as Lamentis 1 is that little sentence, that can be edited out, or easily overheard. It´s the bare minimum. And I think that frustration with how freaking slowly we´re moving into some progress is understandable. From all those great M/M dynamics I talked about, those, that could make great love story, nothing happened, because too many people “don´t mind gays but don´t need to look at them” or are scared for their children. In 2021.

It is not a fetish to wish for a gay love story in superhero movies/series. (But anyway, I don´t think there is anything bad about it. Some men like to watch lesbian porn, some woman like to read gay porn. AO3 wouldn´t be were it is today, without people reading and writing slash :D – but that has little to do with what we actually see on tv)

I´m not delusional. As much, as I love these two characters together, I know how little chance it has. I´m not delusional. I´m just in the future, old and tired, waiting hundreds of years for at least one of my OTP to finaly become a fucking canon.

#Lokius #loki series #LOKI AND MOBIUS #mobius m mobius #loki

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grittyreadsfic · 3 years

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hello my friends, one singular person asked for this weeks ago so i’m here with my most unhinged rec list yet: tk and nolan.

now, this one was hard to reign in, so i really didn’t. this pairing had maybe 230 fics in the tag when i first started reading hockey fic, and it’s now over 900, and i’ve read far too many of them, and that makes it so hard to parse it down. so i just...didn't!

so with that said, please enjoy so you want to get into tknp: a beginners guide to a classic case of idiots to lovers

i told myself that i couldn’t rec an author’s entire body of work but then i remembered this is my blog and i do what i want, so i did some consolidating. here’s a list of the quintessential authors for this pairing, you can start at any of their profiles and pick any of their fics at random, and it’ll be one of the best ones for the pairing, hands down.

therainbowsedge: i’d start with the summer camp fic, or the sex toys one, as both beautifully capture the true idiots to lovers nature of this pairing, but just top tier writing all around

manybumblebees: the wedding fic is so tender and port stanley is a classic, but literally pick any single fic and you’ll have a perfect tknp fic. i’m not kidding

jamesvanriemsdick: their tknp fics in their series are some of the hidden gems of this pairing (the tk heartbeat fic makes me LOSE it) but the delaware fic or the seattle fic…..there’s really something for every mood

catchascatchcan: start with era of gods because i could write literal essays on how it’s some of the best fantasy worldbuilding i’ve ever read, but then just read everything else on their account, including non tknp fics. you won’t regret it

hackysack: ao3 user hackysack has written one of two timeloop fics that i absolutely adore, and i thought about just calling that one out in particular, but all of their work deserves the attention

canary: nothing to prove was the first tknp fic i ever read and i was immediately hooked. all of their fics are a good starting place for the pairing, and just really give you a feeling for the pairing

and now, for the fic recs!

to be, despite it all by smudgedfreckles

summary: or, nolan patrick’s gender thesis, by travis konecny.

why i love it: there’s not a lot ofo nonbinary characters in media, even in fic, but this fic’s treatment of nolan and their path to figuring out their gender just feels so real and made me feel so seen. tk’s characterization is also just top notch, and it’s just a super sweet story about two people who love each other

last ones standing by makeit_takeit

summary: If you’re committed to finding your future spouse, reads the last line of the ad, and are ready to look at yourself and your love life in a whole new way, apply now.

At the bottom of the ad there’s a link, and Travis finds his finger hovering over the screen, lip still caught between his teeth.

“I mean,” he says very reasonably, speaking out loud to his empty apartment like some sort of possibly-crazy person, “just applying doesn’t mean anything. Maybe I just fill it out, and see what happens. It’s not like I’m really gonna get picked to be on TV, come on.”

He snorts out loud, just to show his apartment he hasn’t lost his grip on reality or anything; he fully understands how ludicrous that would be.

Then he clicks the link anyway, because yolo or whatever.

why i love it: what part of a married at first sight fic doesn’t make you want to immediately dive right in? the concept is fun, the execution is absolutely flawless, and it captures their dynamic so well while letting it develop naturally

motivation by connectknee

summary: Kevin knows when to back off, the article said. He knows just when to shut up and leave Patty alone, something Travis has never known how to do.

why i love it: the thing i love about this pairing is that tk is loud and in your face, and nolan’s more reserved, a little quieter, a little harder to read. this fic does a really great job of exploring how tk could feel like maybe he’s just a bit too much and is one of my favorites in terms of miscommunication

a tenderness grows by rusesdeguerre

summary: Nolan wouldn’t say that landing a job as the Philadelphia Flyers’ psychotic and probably clinically insane mascot was a childhood dream of his. Maybe tangentially: playing pond hockey in –30°C weather and pretending to be Sidney Crosby is practically a rite of passage when you grow up in Manitoba. That, and experiencing the distinct displeasure that is thousands of mosquitoes sucking your blood out when your father drags you on a father-son camping trip into the backwoods of the northern Canadian Prairies.

why i love it: this was the first fic i recced on this blog, and i stand by that decision. a fic where nolan is not only not a hockey player, but is in fact the person in the gritty suit? absolutely perfect, and so charming from start to finish

meet me at my window by springsteen

summary: Travis has lived in Philadelphia for a few years now, long enough to know there isn’t a major city in America where superheroes don’t destroy an entire city block trying to save humanity or whatever. He can deal with all the super-shit, but Travis did not sign up for getting woken up from a deep sleep because some fucker’s trying to break in through his window.

(5 times the super-villain known as "The Cat" breaks into Travis's apartment, plus 1 time Travis invites him in.)

why i love it: there’s a lot of things to love here, but the concept is just absolutely one of my all time favorite aus ever. it’s fun and charming and the perfect glimpse into a world where heroes and villains exist, and what it’s like just to be a run of the mill kind of guy existing in it. tk and nolan’s back and forth in this make it so engaging, and it’s such a top tier fic

body’s in trouble by cloudsandpassingevents

summary: “Oh, sorry,” someone says. “Didn’t know anyone else was here.”

Nolan freezes, then turns around very slowly. When he looks up, Nicklas fucking Backstrom is standing behind him in a hoodie and baggy sweats, holding the biggest bag of Swedish Fish Nolan’s ever seen in his life in one hand.

“Uh,” Nolan says around the pop tart between his teeth. “Yeah.”

What the fuck, his brain helpfully supplies.

why i love it: from nolan’s inner voice, to the way the author explores all the dynamics within the team, to the way they write the unexpected but actually, it kind of makes sense friendship between nolan and backstrom, is just absolutely fantastic. there’s a lot of moments that circle back and build on each other in a way that really just makes it super compelling

rhizomatic foundations by lighthousetowers

summary: Twenty days after he moves in with Kevin Hayes, twenty days – three months, five months, depending on how you look at it – after not talking to TK, TK shows up at the front door with a plant the size of a basketball in his hands.

TK grins. "Patty, meet Reginald." He lifts up the plant. "Reggie, meet Patty. He's going to be your new - caretaker."

"What the fuck," says Nolan, not moving a single muscle.

Or: That Nolan can hear the plant talk might as well just happen.

why i love it: this is probably my favorite magical realism fic just about ever. it’s fun and charming and a little weird, but in the best possible way. there’s such a wonderful narrative in it, and lighthousetowers always has such beautiful writing, and it really shines in this one. the dialogue and nolan’s characterization are also part of what set it apart for me as one of the best tknp fics

in the dark of any town by mengetpegged

summary: If the voice has an accent at all, it’s a flat prairie Canadian, with none of G’s French-Canadian softness at the edges. But mostly, the accent is just ‘pissed off,’ which TK believes is a default setting for ghosts.

“Who are you?” TK asks, and he doesn’t like how strained his voice sounds, doesn’t like the tinge of anxiety tinting the rise of his question. He tries to regulate his breaths—in through his nose, hold, out through his mouth—but it feels like he’s not getting enough oxygen, which makes him panic even more.

“Someone with a fucking migraine, dickhead,” the voice says. “So keep the lights off and shut the hell up.”

(or: Nolan Patrick, Hotel X Ghost)

why i love it: i’m usually not super into ghost fics, both the spooky kind and the nonspooky kind, but this one is a rare exception. it’s charming and fun and tender and it’s got some of, in my opinion, the best characterization of tk and nolan in any fic. the way the author writes their dynamic and their dialogue is just unmatched

lets_make_this_moment_a_crime.mp3 by honeydripping

summary: Travis meets Nolan at a Midtown show in 2002 when he punches Nolan in the face. He can’t help it, “Like A Movie” just goes off.

But he does feel guilty about it.

TK and Patty work at a bakery together. They go to punk shows to pass the time.

why i love it: idk if anyone asked for an early 2000s emo/punk/alt au but wow! i sure am glad it exists! really the vibes of this fic, as silly as that sounds, are absolutely unmatched. i love the structure with the music, the development of their relationship, and just everything about how the author wrote the setting (there’s this whole thing with tattoos in it that makes me feel absolutely insane)

you’re ripped at every edge by you’re a masterpiece by conformityissuicide

summary: “Ugh, look, this yoga teacher has it out for me, man. And I can’t go back there without at least having some of the basics down. I’ve got to win this battle.”

“Yoga isn’t really something you win at,” Hartsy starts.

Travis cuts him off, “You can win at anything if you try hard enough.”

+++

OR that time Nolan's a grumpy yoga teacher and Travis realizes he wants to bone him and prove him wrong about Travis' non-existent yoga abilities.

why i love it: listen, if you want tknp, at least one of them has to be an idiot, and this tk absolutely captures the obliviousness i love to see in him in fic. it’s such a great characterization of them both and such a great concept (and even better execution)

you form a terror pack (and i’m aware of that) by dalmatienne

summary: “Can I help you?” TK snarks, both eyebrows hiked up in a way that has earned her many elbow checks to the ribs.

The chick looks down her nose, long thick eyelashes fluttering. Red-bitten lips part to blow a florid pink bubble and TK can smell the chemical sweetness when it pops.

“Yeah,” she says in this monotonous voice that seems almost at odds with her bubble gum and neon skates. She jams her stopper into TK’s thigh again, literally inches away from where it’d really hurt. “Tie ‘em.”

why i love it: to be honest, i generally don’t read rule 63 within hrpf, but this one is just absolutely knocks it out of the park. the concept (i fuckin’ love roller derby), the characterization of nolan, the pacing, the rituals, the tone of the entire fic, it’s just all around a perfect read from start to finish

thrills and grills by bitter_leaf

summary: Travis can’t even begin to wonder what he did in a previous life to incur the wrath of this fucking cook. Travis thinks he’s a nice person, doesn’t conduct himself in any way that could be considered particularly dickish, and unless this guy has some sort of issue with hockey bros or people from the boonies, he’s not sure how he started shit without even knowing.

Patty has a vendetta. Travis just wants to eat his eggs in peace.

why i love it: honestly this is the enemies to lovers fic i’ve been waiting for. i remember seeing the reddit post when it first went viral and thinking it would make such a great fic premise, so stumbling across this one was just so wonderful. super engaging and fun and so hilarious to read!

nothing but room for you by fightingfuries

summary: When his agent tells him he’s going to be traded to the Devils, Nolan isn't sure how he feels about it. Might be easier if he was going somewhere farther away, like California or fucking Florida. Somewhere sun-soaked and foreign. Someplace so different from Philadelphia that he can forget he ever played for the Flyers, forget everything that happened there.

Or Nolan fucks up, gets traded, gets his shit together and falls in love. Not necessarily in that order.

why i love it: i cannot stress to you how much i love trade fics, and this one is one of my absolute favorites. the trade to the devils-so close to philly, still, but there’s more to distance than physical miles-was such an excellent choice and the split timeline adds so much to the narrative, and the emotions are real and messy and complicated in the best way

a couple of runaways (i’m glad you stayed) by overturnedgoal

summary: The person in the video he’s watching is super annoying. Some obnoxious holier than thou granola type who keeps talking about their environmental impact as if they aren’t driving a gas guzzler around, but the basic idea of living in a van, driving around wherever, camping all the time, just going hiking and swimming and seeing the whole country? It sounds pretty dope, honestly.

why i love it: i like to watch tours and conversions of vans/buses into tiny homes as a self soothing method, and this fic has the same impact that watching those do. it’s such a fun concept, and it’s so fuckin’ soft, and the dialouge between tk and nolan is just *chef’s kiss*

all candor and style in the crook of your smile by p3trichor

summary: It’s a photo of Nolan on his knees with someones’ fingers in his mouth, lips slick with spit. Travis flicks by it almost too fast and he’s only got seconds to decide if he wants to screenshot it, if he wants to just give up the ghost right then and there. Except Travis’s phone freezes momentarily and then the group refreshes, sidcros87, Bert59 and 14 others took a screenshot!

It’s gone before Travis even has time to process it and he already wasted his replay of the day on a stupid video of a stupid fish that Hayes caught.

Can you send me that screenshot Travis texts Bertuzzi before he can overthink it, his dick already stirring in his sweats. Tuzzi sends back the cry-laughing emoji and then the screenshot before Travis can be too annoyed at him.

Or, Nolan is being weird about Travis's break-up and TK is maybe not straight.

why i love it: i genuinely don’t think i have words for the amount i love this fic. it took me forever to actually read, but it’s absolutely one of my favorite fics, and it’s an absolutely riot to read. carter’s meddling and the presence of tyler bertuzzi both make it extra fun, in my humble opinion

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faunusrights · 3 years

Text

what is going on with all the bias on robyn hill’s wiki page, anyway? - an aside

As someone who uses the RWBY wiki with some degree of frequency - often because I’m looking for art references, or Semblance and weapon names - I’m used to... some amount of bias in the articles for different characters? Like, let’s be real, it’s not a perfect wiki! Community-maintained stuff isn’t easy to all keep on the same track! But, generally, it gives the facts well enough and doesn’t do too bad a job keeping all the balls in the air when it comes to new information from all four corners of this franchise.

Well, until you open the article for Robyn Hill, and realise it’s an absolute disaster. Like, really; the impartial voice just plain doesn’t exist for her, and almost all of her wiki is written in such a way that she reads as being an absolutely insufferable, hostile, hard-to-like character. Even if you aren’t a fan of Robyn personally, you have to admit that if you hadn’t seen the show yourself, you might very well come away from her article presuming she’s a major antagonist of Volumes 7 and 8.

Like, for instance, let’s take a look at the first paragraph of her Personality section:

Robyn has a direct and confident personality, having no trouble being confrontational with Atlas personnel, including the Ace Operatives. Robyn also seems to suffer from overconfidence and arrogance, shown in her encounters with Ruby and celebrating her election victory before it was verified. She is aggressive and hostile in nature, quickly jumping to conflict without thinking through consequences. However, she is also shown to be reasonable when the situation calls for it.

And, for good measure, here’s another paragraph from the same section:

In "With Friends Like These" Robyn displayed a rather impulsive side of her personality, when upon hearing that James Ironwood's plan to abandon Mantle and arrest those against him, she started a fight between herself, Clover Ebi, and Qrow Branwen onboard a Manta with Tyrian Callows in custody. Despite the fact, there was no order or her arrest. Her brashness led to Tyrian breaking free and crashing the Manta as well as her becoming unconscious.

(Taken from Robyn’s RWBY Wiki page. Bolding is mine.)

In every instance here, all of the “negative” aspects of her personality take centre stage; she’s confrontational. She suffers from arrogance. She is aggressive and hostile. She started the fight. Her brashness led to the crash. All of this is only compounded when her positive traits trail behind as an afterthought; she’s direct and confrontational, overconfident and arrogant, aggressive and hostile, impulsive and jumps to conclusions... but hey! As least she’s reasonable when the situation calls for it.

The way that this information is presented to the reader is quite literally on par with how the wiki presents the personalities of the actual literal villains who appear throughout the show. Let’s take, for instance, the Personality section of Cinder Fall:

Cinder is ruthless and sadistic, as demonstrated when she delivers a killing blow to a clearly defeated Pyrrha Nikos in "End of the Beginning" and when she throws a spear at a defenseless Weiss Schnee in "The More the Merrier." She is relentlessly driven to gain power and determined to cross any line to obtain it. Cinder demonstrates a cunning that shows in her successful manipulation of events and people throughout the first three volumes. Cinder is also arrogant and egomaniacal, and as such, relishes in dominance and gloating, displaying shameless pleasure in the misery she has caused others.

Or, the Personality section of Raven Branwen:

Raven is cynical, patronizing, selfish and stubborn. She believed her act of "kindness" of saving Yang's life from Neopolitan was sufficient despite having left Yang at a very young age and refused to protect her daughter when in need after that.

Raven is also very prideful and hypocritical, refusing to acknowledge her faults and always trying to justify her actions both to others and to herself, often putting the blame on others for them even if she feels real guilt about them.

It makes sense that for an antagonist, the primary faults and flaws of their personalities will come first, as to better represent them as the villains to clarify to the reader who they are and why they act as they do in their storylines. However, the fact that Robyn arguably has an even more caustic write-up then Raven, despite not being an antagonist, goes to show the lengths this writer has gone to present her in a significantly more negative light than she ever appears in the show.

If this doesn’t seem convincing, let’s look at a more direct comparison; what does the wiki say about Ironwood? He’s present in the same seasons, and has now become more of an antagonist in the latter episodes; is the wiki quite as blunt about his flaws?

Ironwood is courteous to his allies, as shown by his first onscreen interaction with Ozpin and Glynda Goodwitch. He is also far-thinking and tactical, wondering about the future, as seen when he speaks to Ozpin about Qrow Branwen's message. He also has a jovial, friendly, humorous and proud public persona, which he uses as a spokesman for the weapon manufacturers of Atlas.

However, as courteous Ironwood may appear, he can also be incredibly blunt, often preferring the direct approach. When he feels necessary, Ironwood is not afraid to bring the full might of his military command to bear, which sparked disagreements with both Glynda and Ozpin. Nevertheless, Ironwood is extremely loyal to his comrades, and however questionable his methods may be, he seems to have genuinely good intentions behind them.

Uh, no.

Instead, when his flaws are mentioned (for example, being blunt), it’s written in a significantly less... abrasive manner. It’s referred to as the direct approach, versus Robyn who is described as confrontational. Even then, his flaws are folded in to his (alleged) positive traits; he is not afraid, extremely loyal, and has genuinely good intentions, despite the fact that the show has now proven that Ironwood’s flaws greatly outweigh these. It reveals how thoroughly all of Robyn’s actions are presented as the work of an arrogant troublemaker, whilst Ironwood’s actions are presented as the efforts of a man working towards some greater good.

Also, I’ll add that in both examples, I used the first two paragraphs of their Personality sections. These are both the first two things you read about these characters, yet look at how differently they’re summarised.

What is interesting, however, is that despite this bias being extremely self-evident, the comments on her page generally chime agreement, referring to her as “overconfident, arrogant, impulsive and hotheaded to the point of being unlikable”, and claiming that she’s “literally the worse character in the show next to cinder, blake and yang”[1]. Someone mentions that Robyn has earned quite the hatedom... but why?

Broadly, my experiences of Robyn Hill’s writing in the fandom has been through a queer lens, and the vast majority of writers who’ve covered her and the Happy Huntresses have been women, or queer, or trans, or all the above... basically, the people who are usually responsible for a vast majority of fanfiction, let’s be real. These writers love Robyn, and have explored and extrapolated on her character to marvellous degree. Yet, at no singular point have any of these flaws ever been written quite as strongly as the wiki implies they are, nor have I seen much evidence of them myself in the show. For instance, let’s take one of the more serious points in her Personality section; she started a fight between herself, Clover Ebi, and Qrow Branwen [...] her brashness led to Tyrian breaking free and crashing the Manta as well as her becoming unconscious.

When we watch this scene again, Robyn did initiate the fight... because she was rightfully aware that Clover would obey his orders, even if they were wrong. Despite everything that happened prior in the entirety of Volume 7, when given orders to bring Qrow in alongside RWBY, it was clear that Clover fully intended to follow it through, which Robyn knows from prior experience with the AceOps:

[image ID: two images of Clover, Robyn and Qrow in the dark-grey interior of the Manta ship. Robyn has her weapon aimed at Clover as he stands in front of Qrow. Clover is saying “Only Qrow is under arrest [...] please don’t make me arrest you too.”]

Her knowledge of the AceOps means that she reacted accordingly; trying to stop him from taking Qrow in and obeying Ironwood’s plan the only way she knows the AceOps respond to. Her reaction isn’t unwarranted. However, my point isn’t to argue that Robyn was right or wrong, but rather that regardless of who started the fight, the way the wiki explains this specific incident is that it’s solely Robyn’s fault that Tyrian escaped and crashed the Manta, but we know this isn’t the case. Robyn and Qrow both fought Clover, and it was Clover’s good luck (or Qrow’s bad luck, depending on how you view it) that allowed for Kingfisher to break Tyrian’s bonds. Her brashness is blamed for the outcome, but in reality, this outcome could have been avoided together if Clover had not chosen to follow his orders and bring in an innocent man. Also, she didn’t crash the Manta! That was all Tyrian! The intentional tying together of these two events as her fault, however, are a neat package of blame.

In these instances on the wiki, Robyn’s personality appears amplified, focusing specifically on her flaws and exaggerating them to the extremes that, as noted earlier, matches the language used to define the very villains of the series. Yet, the people who enjoy her and the Happy Huntresses often perceive those same flaws to a significantly lesser extent, or even see those flaws as actually being boons of her character; for instance, reading her alleged arrogance as passion. So, why such division?

Before, I mentioned her “negative” traits, and I put this into quote marks because traits don’t always align nicely into good and bad. All aspects of a person can vary on how positive they are based on context - even the show proves this, with protectiveness becoming paranoia (Ironwood) or loyalty becoming subservience (Winter). Even a character that is broadly composed of more unfavourable traits can have this contextual shift; Cinder’s stubbornness to her goals makes her a fast learner and a tenacious opponent.

Yet, why did the writer (or writers) choose to highlight almost every aspect of Robyn’s character as a bad thing? Why did they frame her decisions as such? I have a suspicion it’s to do with her character at large; she’s a bold socialist politician who believes in equality and fairness for all, who refuses to stand for incompetence and obedience towards evil causes. She’s outspoken in her views, and reacts strongly to those who threaten to overturn her work. Also, she’s a woman, in charge of a group of other women, at least one of whom is canonically trans. To those who agree with her in real life, Robyn appears as a great character! We admire her work ethic and we support her ends. To those who may not... well, it’s not hard to see how they might perceive her as more of a cocky, authority-defying upstart. Of course, the core text of RWBY doesn’t quite believe the latter; RWBY has always placed Robyn as the direct counter to authoritarianism, whether it be Jacques, Clover, or Ironwood, and even the article admits that she is a potent voice for the people of Mantle. Still, it’s clear that there’s plenty of people in a vocal minority who are deeply dissatisfied by Robyn, and aren’t afraid to make their stance on the matter exceedingly clear.

So, what does this all mean? Well, here’s what we can say for sure; Robyn’s article is, and has always been, stringently biased against her character, and often misconstrues her motives and decisions. This is maybe the more obvious part, but how should her article be worded to make this less so? Likely, I’d rephrase a lot of it to be less damaging to her character; she isn’t hostile, she holds people accountable. She isn’t quick to jump to conflict, she is familiar with how Atlas responds to anti-authority with violence. She isn’t arrogant, she believes in the power of the people as being the right thing to fight for. Even this makes it clearer that her character is about resisting the oppression inherent in Atlas, and is a much clearer outline of her personality as a whole. People may disagree with this phrasing and summary also, but given her character is based on Robin Hood, it’s also not far from the mark in terms of what she should represent.

TL;DR: Robyn’s wiki page is written with a deep bias against her character and what she represents, acts upon, and chooses to do in the show; I have no doubt that in canon, this sort of language would probably be used by Jacques himself as a smear campaign, haha. Whilst I can’t speak for the author and their motives, I have a distinct feeling that this article was written, or edited, by someone who is either:

not a fan of Robyn

not a fan of a new female character

not a fan of a new female character in a position of power

not a fan of a character with socialist/communist/antifa ideals

all of the above and then some???

Even though I’m not going to edit her wiki page (I’m very shy and I’ve never done it before), I think it’s worth analysing this if only as a reminder of the inherent biases of an author even when people are trying to present a character’s information impartially. This isn’t the first wiki I’ve seen misconstrue - or even make incorrect assumptions on - facts about a character, and it won’t be the last. In the meantime, though, I leave you with this fact:

Robyn Hill slaps huge nuts and I love her.

[1] I’m not naming the users who posted these things here, because it’s unnecessary. You can find them for yourself at the bottom of Robyn’s wiki, but there’s no need to respond; some people just don’t like Robyn, and that’s fine - I’m just explaining how bias leaks into wikis like water into a sponge. It happens!

#rwby #rwde #robyn hill #murphy's thoughts and vibes on this shit (again)#is this a new tag #i haven't really written this well and it was sort of off the cuff so sorry if there's mistake #*mistakes #LMAO #i just wanted to lay my Thoughts out #i swear if even one person msgs me like 'but robyn DOES suck' im banishing you to the Spray Cheese Hell Dimension #also im tagging as rwde but its not rwde against the show (FOR ONCE??) so

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fruitquake · 3 years

Text

realizations pt. 2

part one

read it on ao3

Regulus Black knows he doesn’t like girls. He wishes he did. It would make everything so much easier. But at some point, you have to accept that maybe you aren’t just a late bloomer. Maybe it isn’t just that you “haven’t found the right girl yet”. Maybe it’s just who you are.

Aside from knowing he definitely doesn’t like girls, though, it’s all very confusing. It seemed like a logical conclusion that if he doesn’t like girls, he must like boys.

But then, James Potter kissed him, and he’s pretty sure that if he were gay, it would’ve felt… special. Or it would’ve felt like anything at all. But rather, it felt exactly the same as kissing girls: uncomfortably and wetly smashing your mouths together. He didn’t say any of this to James. He didn’t say anything, actually, just left with what he knows was a terribly transparent excuse. Now, he’s in his room, sitting on the floor and staring out of the window at the few stars visible through the clouds.

Is there something wrong with him? The question has been echoing in his mind since the kiss. Well, really, it’s been there long before, but he has managed to ignore it well enough before today. It was easy to push it to the back of his mind, and tell himself that he would figure it out eventually and it didn’t really matter.

But… He kissed James. James Potter, the guy who half the girls - and several guys - are utterly enamoured by. James Potter, who is objectively very handsome. And surely, if he were gay, kissing him would’ve felt… good? How is kissing supposed to feel? Regulus has tried it a few times by now, and it has never been the enjoyable experience that people make it out to be.

He is typing the words into google before he even registers having taken his phone out. Is kissing supposed to feel good?

Most of the search results are clinical, detached articles, explaining the biological and social reasons as to why humans like kissing. Until he stumbles upon a blog post on one of those ask-and-answer forums.

Anonymous: need advice!! my friends are constantly going on about their crushes and the people they’ve been with, how much they love kissing, all that stuff. and i just can’t relate at all. i’ve kissed a few boys, and once a girl too, and i don’t understand the hype at all? i’ve never really had a crush on anyone either, i think. all that kissing and dating and sex stuff just seem like a waste of time to me. is there something wrong with me? am i broken or something?

Regulus’s heart stutters as he reads the post through. He… relates to most of it. Is there something wrong with me? It’s the same question that’s been ringing loud and clear through his head since the kiss.

The comments are mostly stuff like “just wait til you’re older” and “you’ll get it when you meet the right person”, and Reg feels his stomach sink. Is that really it? He’s supposed to sit around and wait for “the right person” to come into his life and… fix him? He thinks about James again. James, who is kind and funny and one of his favourite people in the entire world. But kissing him didn’t feel right. It hasn’t felt right with anyone.

But then his eyes catch on another comment on the person’s post: you should look into the terms asexual and aromantic. i don’t think there’s anything wrong with you or that you are broken, but if you don’t have an interest in romance/sex it could be because you’re ace and/or aro.

Asexual and aromantic. Regulus googles both terms, spends hours reading through articles and blog posts and people sharing their experiences, and for the first time in his life he feels… seen. He hadn’t realized how lonely he felt, before discovering that he isn’t alone.

It’s a lot to take in. A lot of thoughts and questions and answers swirling in Regulus’s head. He really, really wants to talk to someone about all of this. But first of all, it’s 3 AM. Secondly, who?

James is… kinda the whole reason he’s having this sexuality crisis to begin with. He is certain he would’ve figured it out anyway at some point, but it’s thanks to James that he is up in the middle of the night, buried in research about his own identity. He doesn’t think he can talk to James about all this. At least not yet.

Then there’s Sirius. Regulus doesn’t know if he would understand. He feels some of that familiar loneliness creep up on him again. He and Sirius are finally close again. After years of division and hurt and pretending the other doesn’t exist, they have a relationship that’s actually good, and Regulus doesn’t want to ruin it. What if Sirius doesn’t understand or doesn’t accept him? He can’t lose his brother again. He doesn’t have anyone else.

Should he just… not tell anyone, then? Perhaps that is best, at least for now, he thinks. If no one knows, no one can judge him for it or tell him that it’s wrong or that his experiences aren’t real. He nods to himself, settling back into bed. It’s better if no one knows.

Regulus doesn’t get any sleep that night. Not that he really expected to. He spends the next day dozing off in class and avoiding James. Both are working out great for him until he starts awake, feeling a gentle hand on his shoulder.

He sits up straight on his chair and squints as he looks around. The classroom is empty, except for him and-

“Sorry, did I wake you?” James asks. He's standing beside Regulus’s desk, looking down at him with something like concern.

“S’fine,” Regulus mumbles, stifling a yawn.

James sits on top of the desk next to Regulus’s. “You look tired,” he says. “Are you okay?”

Regulus still doesn’t know how to react to people showing him genuine concern. It’s not something he’s really used to. “I’m fine,” he says, perhaps a bit too forcefully. He stands up, almost knocking over his chair in the process, and starts quickly packing up his things.

“Hey, uh,” James says, nervously messing up his hair in that way he does. “There’s something we should probably talk about.”

The kiss. Reg was desperately hoping James would pretend it never happened. He slings his bag over one shoulder and starts towards the door. “I’m sorta in a rush.”

James stands up. “Reg, please,” he says. “I… I really need to talk to you about it. Please.”

Regulus sighs, but stops in the doorway. “We don’t have to,” he says in an almost pleading tone, turning around to face James. “It doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t understand.” James looks at him with big doe eyes. “Reg, it matters to me.”

He regards James for a while, before nodding, signalling for him to say whatever it is he wants to say.

James takes a deep breath. “So, er… The thing about the kiss,” he begins, fidgeting nervously with the strap of his bag. “It sorta… made me realize something? About myself?”

Regulus has never seen him this nervous. He waits in silence for him to go on.

“Shit,” James mumbles, rubbing his face with his hands. “I feel like I’ve rehearsed this conversation all day, but now I just, like… Have no idea what to say.” He takes another deep breath. “Screw it, I’m just gonna say it, okay? I really fucking liked that kiss and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it and also I’m bisexual.” It comes out as a quick string of words with no pause for James to breathe - or for Reg to interrupt him.

James looks at him; nervous, expectant, awaiting. But Regulus really doesn’t know what to say. He feels a tight knot in his stomach. “Oh,” he finally manages.

“Ah, shit,” James says frantically. “That’s right, there was something else I was gonna say, something important. I, er… I completely get it if you don’t feel the same way. I don’t want this to ruin our friendship, because I really care about you and I don’t wanna lose you. I just… really needed to get this off my chest.”

He sounds so genuine. Of course he does, Reg thinks and feels stupid. When has James ever been anything but genuine, honest and loyal? When has he ever judged Reg or turned his back on him for anything? James knows him better than he allows most people to, and if there’s anyone Reg can talk to about this, it’s him.

“There’s something I need to get off my chest too,” Regulus says quietly.

James’s eyes widen. “Oh? What is it?”

Reg sets down his bag and goes to sit by the desk opposite James. He doesn’t look at him as he starts talking. “I’m aroace. I don’t experience… that kind of attraction. Romantic or sexual. It’s… not exactly that the kiss made me realize it. Or maybe it did. But I kinda already knew. I just… wasn’t ready to admit it to myself, I suppose? Also I didn’t really know the word for it. But… yeah, that’s who I am and I can’t do anything to change that, just as you can’t change the fact that you’re bi, so… I hope you won’t hate me now.”

When James stays quiet, Regulus forces himself to look up. James is looking at him with an unreadable expression, and Reg’s stomach drops. This was a terrible idea. He should’ve known he couldn’t tell anyone. He has ruined everything. James opens his mouth but before he can say anything, Reg has pushed out his chair and is walking toward the door with swift steps.

“Nevermind,” he says, ignoring the stinging of tears in his eyes.

“Reg, wait!”

“Forget everything I just said.”

James finds him rather quickly, at the area behind the school that’s nearly hidden with shrubs. It’s where he comes when he needs to be alone, and he knows it’s also where Sirius comes to smoke.

Regulus is sitting on the ground with his back against a tree trunk, not caring if his clothes get dirty. James sits down about a meter away from him, but doesn’t speak, so Regulus is the one to break the silence:

“Are you upset because of my sexuality or because I don’t have feelings for you?” he asks. His voice is harsher than he meant it to be, but at least it’s not shaking.

James draws in a sharp breath, turning to face him. “I’m not upset at all!” he exclaims. “What on earth gave you that idea?”

He’s… not upset? Regulus clears his throat. “Well,” he mumbles. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I’m sorry,” James says earnestly. “I didn’t really know what to say. And you didn’t exactly give me a lot of time to think before you stormed off.”

Now Reg feels like he’s the one who should apologize. He doesn’t, though. Just stares straight ahead at the shrubs surrounding them.

“I’m really sorry I made you feel this way, Reg,” James says softly. “I promise I’m not upset. I care about you. A lot. And I, er… I may not know that much about this stuff, but I’m gonna do research on it so I can support you the best I can, because I care about-” He cuts himself off. “No, wait, I already said that part,” he mumbles, laughing nervously.

Reg smiles at him. “You hate doing research,” he says. “You avoid it like the plague.”

James laughs again. “Shut up, you wanker,” he says, shoving him gently. “This is different!”

He scoots a bit closer, putting his hand on Regulus’s shoulder. “But really,” he says, his tone more serious now. “I support you one hundred percent. You’ll always be family to me. So if you want, we can just forget all about that kiss.”

“But…” Reg looks up at him. “The kiss did mean something to you, didn’t it?”

James considers this for a moment. “I mean… it was a good kiss. And it did sorta… force me to come to terms with my sexuality. But what really means something to me is you, Reg, and our friendship. I don’t wanna lose that, ever. So… do I maybe have a teeny tiny crush on you? Yeah, I think I might, but it’s honestly no big deal. It won’t change anything between us, I promise.”

He holds out his pinky finger, and it takes Regulus several moments to realize what he’s doing. He holds up his own pinky and laces it with James’s.

“I just realized, I’m kind of an asshole,” he says after a bit. “I practically dismissed your coming out because I was so worried about my own.”

“Oh.” James chuckles. “Mate, don’t worry about it. I completely understand.”

“If you want, you can tell me again and I will try to react better,” Reg offers.

James shakes his head, amused. “I… alright,” he says, grinning. “Regulus?”

“Yes?”

“I’m bisexual.”

Reg smiles at him. “Oh, okay!” he says, acting as though it’s the first he’s hearing of this. “That’s lovely. I’m very happy for you. And… obviously, I support you, and I care about you a lot, too.”

James’s grin grows wider. “Thank you,” he says.

They sit quietly for a while, before James speaks again:

“Do you wanna come over today? Mum is making pancakes for dessert. And we can play Mario Kart.”

Regulus groans, but can’t quite suppress a smile. “Ugh, I don’t wanna play Mario Kart against you. You always win. I swear you’re cheating, somehow.”

“How would I cheat at Mario Kart?” James asks with a laugh.

Reg shrugs, crossing his arms. “I don’t know, but I don’t wanna play with you either way.”

“Okay, well… You can play against Sirius? Or you two can team up and try to beat me together,” James suggests, nudging his shoulder. “Come on, it’ll be fun. And pancakes.”

“Fine,” Reg says, as if he wasn’t going to say yes from the beginning. “But only because of the pancakes.”

James nods solemnly. “That’s fair,” he says, and Reg tries not to smile like an idiot, but it’s hard not to because at least for now, all of the worries and doubts swirling in his chest have been driven away by a warm, relieved feeling.

“James?” he says.

“Yeah?”

He doesn’t actually know what to say, so he just wraps his arms around James and pulls him into a hug. James hugs him back tightly, and Regulus feels incredibly lucky to have a friend like him.

#regulus black #james potter #marauders #marauders era #muggle au #modern au #fanfiction #marauders fanfic #marauders fanfiction #bisexual james potter #aroace regulus black

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twdmusicboxmystery · 3 years

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99% Sure Leah is a Hallucination

Okay, I REALLY wasn’t going to post anything else. I know the two template posts I gave you yesterday were a lot to chew through. But something happened last night that made this come together for me and my buddies, and I just couldn’t sit on it. I promise I’ll keep this brief, though.

After watching the episode yet again last night, @frangipanilove found an article in which Norman says something interesting about this episode. Well, maybe interesting isn’t the right word. More like BOMBSHELL.

Remember how we at first thought she might be a hallucination? Well, we moved away from it because we learned that Carol knew about her. That, and I thought it was safer for us all to make our peace with the idea of Daryl having a relationship with this woman. Just accept it and move forward, you know?

But after watching the episode, yes, Carol knew about her, but only what Daryl seemingly told her. She never met Leah. Not a single soul in the world other than Daryl ever saw her. Hmm.

So, here’s the article @frangipanilove found:

I honestly wouldn’t have gone back to the hallucination theory, if not for reading this. But now Norman is saying that nothing in this episode is what it seems. And he’s specifically referencing Daryl’s relationship with Leah.

(P.S. I have to laugh that fans are asking him what’s wrong with him. Um...he’s not Daryl? He’s Norman. And he doesn’t write the show. The writers do. Lol. But also notice that he talks about staying true to Daryl, and we all know that this Leah thing is the opposite of that. Unless....)

So, let’s look at some weirdnesses in the episode. And @wdway deserves most of the credit for this. Once we started discussing the article and brainstorming, she came up with most of this.

1. When he meets Leah. My fellow theorists and I were actually talking about this before the episode aired yesterday. Why does he just run into her cabin? He follows Dog, but the funny thing is, Dog doesn’t run into the cabin. Only Daryl does. How does he know there’s not 47 walkers in there? How does he know there aren’t a dozen armed people? You’d think he would stop and observe and evaluate. But he doesn’t. He just charges in. And that’s very unlike Daryl.

And of course we could come up with some sort of explanation. Like maybe he heard Leah yelling while fighting the walker in the back bedroom and thought she needed help. Maybe, but the show doesn’t actually suggest this. There aren’t any subtitles or anything that give us any clue as to what his thought process was for just charging in.

2. When he brings Dog back to her, when his eye scar has appeared, if you listen to the dialogue between him and Leah, it’s a little bit odd. Maybe not quite as odd as him charging into her house at first, but still it leaves some questions. About the eye scar, she says, “looks like you got the raw end of the deal.” He just says, “yeah.” Well, that scar isn’t jagged or shaky at all. It’s very straight. Clearly made by a knife, not a walker. So, it’s a little strange that she doesn’t ask what happened. If she wants to be left alone, wouldn’t she be concerned that there might be someone else out there. Why doesn’t she just ask about it? Why doesn’t he just tell her about it? In a way, it almost sounds as if Leah knows more than she’s saying in this scene.

3. When she opens up to him about her family and her past, all the stories she tells are almost like amalgamations of Daryl and the characters on TWD. Obviously everyone noticed the similarities to Carol. That’s a big one. But the story of the blood and the running could be them running from the prison, or the deaths of a lot of different people Daryl has had to say goodbye to. When she talks about meeting and fighting with her squad and how they gave her hope? TF in a nutshell. And even that she hints at having an abusive family. Daryl. Carol, too. But mostly Daryl.

4. It’s still odd that no one else ever met Leah. Yeah, she said she wanted to live out there alone. And we talked about how this makes it an unhealthy relationship, because if she really loved him, she would want to go meet his friends and family and know about every part of his life. Into this, I’m going to lump the fact that she never seems to have gone with him to search for Rick. Once again, if you love someone, you participate in their lives. And she’s just alone at the cabin anyway. Why not go with him?

5. Outside the show Weirdness: Look at that top pic I used for when he met Leah. Remember when we discussed that there is someone kneeling behind her? I assumed it was her son, because spoilers didn’t reveal when or how he would die. But that’s not the case. This person looks to be a teenager or an adult (much older than Matthew was) and we never learn who it is.

People have said it might be a set person or a mic guy who accidentally made it into the shot, but I don’t buy that. They scrutinize these pictures and could easily have fixed that with the computer if they’d wanted to. I don’t know if we’ll ever find who it is. It might just be a hint that there’s more going on here than meets the eye.

But then I found this pic:

There’s someone lying dead on the ground behind them, and we didn’t see this in the episode. @wdway thinks it’s just Leah. That she was dead when he arrived, but he made up this story about how she was this strong, survivor woman and could have become his companion. I think that’s a super-viable theory, but of course we won’t know the details until they actually show us.

There are more weirdnesses than this, but I’m sure you get the idea. The more we think about it, the more sure we are that she’s a hallucination. And obviously that would make more sense anyway from the “why would the writers handle Daryl’s love life this way and piss off the entire fandom” perspective.

One thing we also noticed was that on TTD, the writer emphasized that this story is told from Daryl’s perspective. We’re seeing his PERCEPTION of it, and that’s important. I heard her say that, and wasn’t quite sure of what to make of it. Before realizing the hallucination thing, I thought she might be hinting that there was more we hadn’t see, or Leah might not be who he thought she was. Something like that. But if she’s not real, that makes way more sense, doesn’t it.

So, some things to consider. The strong parallels to Carol. The exact ones, actually, like spear fishing and all the identical dialogue. That’s because he’s taking those things from his time with Carol and incorporating them directly into Leah’s story.

Everything I said yesterday still applies. Mostly because that’s the symbolic template and here, we’re talking about the reality of what’s happening, so the two don’t affect each other directly. But while Leah’s personality is based on Carol’s (probably because that’s who he spends the most time with these days) the romance element is definitely molded out of his time with Beth.

Real:

Hallucination:

The cross that represents the grave? The one Chris Hardwick said would make some people think Leah is dead? Yeah, we think that really is her grave. We do think she probably really existed, and he met her, but she died relatively quickly, and the rest of the relationship didn’t happen. It’s all in his head. I’ll give you some more possibilities on that in a minute.

We think she’s the one who gave him the eye scar. If we’re right about that, I’m sure they’ll show it to us eventually. I mean, if she’s a hallucination, they’ll have to tell us that eventually, but probably not until S11. Think about the dialogue. “Looks like you got the raw end of the deal.” Daryl: “Yeah.”

This is also why the ending makes little sense. His argument with her about where he belongs is really him arguing with himself. That’s why he cries when she asks where he belongs, and he says he doesn’t know. But then later, we see him charging off to look for Rick, and not seeming at all sad or conflicted about anything. It’s because there is Leah. There never was. He’s just looking for Rick.

@frangipanilove also said something insightful about Carol. I think I took most of my mentions of the Carol flashback scenes out of my meta yesterday. Only because it was already so long and I wanted to focus on laying out the symbolic template for you. But while watching the episode, I actually felt kinda bad for Carol. Every time she came to see him, she seemed so upset. Like she felt as abandoned by him as he does by her. And I’m not saying she doesn’t deserve a taste of her own medicine, but I guess that sadness from her kind of surprised me.

But what @frangipanilove said is that maybe her worry for him really was warranted. Because he’d been out there on his own so long, it started to mess with his head and he really was losing his sanity. Carol might have been starting to see that, and she really was terrified for his mental health, which is why she kept trying to get him to come back.

And you know, it creates an interesting sort of irony for Daryl and Carol’s fight at the end in present day. He says that when things get tough, she runs, and he’s sick of dragging her back. And that’s true. We’ve seen that he’s right and Carol does do this, so I was 100% behind what he said to her. Was it harsh? Sure. But it still needed to be said.

But the irony is that during these 6 years after Rick, Daryl was doing exactly the same thing. Him staying out there to look for Rick, when after years, it would have become clear that he wouldn’t find the body, was him running away from the pain of what happened. Carol kept trying to drag him back, but he wouldn’t go with her.

Also, the two of them on opposite sides of the river here could represent the divide between reality and Daryl’s hallucinations.

The note. It’s a little hard to know exactly how to interpret the note from a PTSD perspective. Symbolically, I’d say the note he left was for Beth. Maybe he doesn’t even realize that in the episode, but with all the Beth parallels, it’s just about him wanting to belong somewhere. He wants to belong with someone who loves and needs him.

But I talked yesterday about how the cabin was trashed, and the picture was gone, right? By the time he wrote that note, Leah was long gone. Dead, I mean. The fact that the picture wasn’t there is especially significant. Why would the picture have disappeared, unless it wasn’t real to begin with.

Another thing I noted was Carol’s somewhat bizarre reaction when Daryl suggested they go down toward the river to hunt. She looked worried about that, but agreed. At the time, I was thinking she was worried because he’d spent so much time down there before looking for Rick, and she didn’t want the obsession to resurface. And that’s probably still true, but it’s even more interesting now, isn’t it? And maybe that’s why she’s always wanting to go out with him when he goes hunting or looking for supplies or whatever. She just doesn’t want him falling back into that mindset and disappearing again.

And it will make what I said yesterday about what will happen in the spinoff—her wanting him to stop looking for Rick and come with her—make more sense, too, won’t it?

Okay, I’ll stop now. I really haven’t covered everything we could possibly talk about with this. I’m sure you’ll all think of tons more. But you get the idea. And remember, this isn’t just my theory or our theory. I wouldn’t have come back to this at all if I hadn’t read that article where Norman hinted at it. And he would know, right?

And hey, if this turns out to be incorrect, I’ll be okay with that. I’ll eat my words (not literally 😉). But Norman is referring to SOMETHING here, and given how few characters were in this episode, and that he was directly talking about Leah in that quote, there really aren’t many things he could actually mean.

Special thanks to both @frangipanilove and @wdway. Honestly, they did way more work on this one than I did.

Thoughts?

#beth greene #beth greene lives #beth is alive #beth is coming #td theory #td theories #team delusional #team defiance #beth is almost here #bethyl

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isoraqathedh · 3 years

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Using notation to understand the world

This post was originally an article in my Gemini capsule. You can read it in its gemtext form here. Note that since Tumblr does not like Gemini links this actually goes to the HTTPS mirror.

Notation is the idea that an arbitrary object can be represented by some other abstract object. A specific type of notation, which is the one most people would understand in the conventional sense of the word “notation”, is when the object doing the representing is written. Commonly seen examples of notation include those that represent maths, music, electrical circuits and even lists of key-presses. In this article I discuss how notation has shaped my understanding of things, and also propose a notation-oriented way of understanding something.

How to understand something

There was an xkcd comic that goes something like this:

My hobby:

Sitting down with grad students and timing how long it takes them to figure out that I'm not actually an expert in their field.

In the end, the protagonist of the comic managed to find a field of study where he successfully made inroads into a community by producing words in the right order to pass for genuine knowledge.

This made me think about how someone would go about successfully fake knowledge of something. Eventually, I came up with this two-step process:

Understand the language, and how to recognise something as a correct statement.

Understand how to combine statements together to form a correct third statement.

I brought this up with someone, and he noted that by the time you have done both of these things, you aren’t faking knowledge of something, you now understand it.

In my opinion that isn’t strictly true, but it does come a lot closer than other processes. A studied reader might recognise this as reminiscent of a Chinese room, where someone can fake knowledge by reading in written text (i.e. a question) and responding according to a translation book.

While it may look like a Chinese room at first, a critical difference is that in a Chinese room, the translation book is something external to the operator, whereas the situation I came up with requires you to memorise it. While a rote memorisation would result in something almost entirely identical, a common occurrence with human minds is that it like to take shortcuts, and it is there where the situation becomes markedly different, as the shortcuts are now a form of understanding where you can now produce correct statements without memorising any translation book.

Additionally, a second form of understanding is to be able to generalise from the words you are given. A translation book can give you some rules, but when a human reads it the experience is that he will try to generalise from the existing rules and make up new ones in the vein of the ones he was given. This is expressed in a number of ways – notably some of them are quite distasteful – but the key here is that there is a point where a human would try to expand the rules that he was given and apply it to something unrelated just to see if it works. (Though, in some cases, “just to see if it works” is replaced with “and assume it works”, leading to all kinds of consequences that are beyond the scope of this article.)

Let’s now move away from dry theoretical explanations and show how this applied to me by way of example.

Making your own – the C. C. F. D. N.

The problem statement

When I was 17 I was very bad at Chinese. I am still fairly bad at Chinese, which we’ll get to later.

The main problem with writing Chinese is that sinograms – what the language is written in – are taught badly to me. I could not really understand any of the logic behind writing these unusual things, and what real information was given to me was not well-organised. What that means effectively is that I was stuck writing in a language where I have to reason about strokes from first principles, and just like trying to write a program in assembly language, it means that I missed out in understanding other parts of the language, particularly the things that are in the curriculum, which means that I failed many tests.

Then one day a friend of mine started learning Japanese, and then he had to deal with sinograms as well. But since I’m familiar with them already, I decided to help a little bit. This amounted to looking up the character in Wiktionary and then reporting on its pronunciation and its graphic etymology, both of which are helpful in understanding why a character is written and pronounced (some of the time) the way it is. However, looking up many of these characters realise that a lot of the information is repetitive and redundant. So I then built a little notation to condense it down into something that cuts away all of that.

The notation itself

The result is the Chinese Character Form Description Notation. The exact form of the notation is not needed to make my point, but we’ll discuss it as an aside here anyway. The notation describes the graphic etymology of the character by breaking it apart into its components. For instance, the character “to think” 思 is derived by combining a meaning-carrying component of “heart” 心 with a sound-carrying component of 囟, which was later simplified into the unrelated character 田. Putting that together, the notation would write the above sentence as:

思 = <心|囟→田>

Which summarises all of what I just wrote in an appealing string of symbols. Additionally, this separates it from an existing notation in Unicode called the ideographic description sequence, which instead describes how a character can be broken down in its current form.

Consider now another character, “small, narrow, fine”, which is 細. If I now provide its C. C. F. D. N., you would easily be able to figure out what its graphic etymology is, even without me spelling it out, if I mentioned that the meaning-carrying component 糸 means “fibre, rope, string”:

細 = <糸|囟→田>

But look now that 細 and 思 don’t look too alike, as their corresponding IDS would make explicit. I had not expected that the two are related quite like this – their pronunciations are also quite a bit different – and now that I have made that connection I realised that I had something in my hands that is valuable.

Ultimately, the notation I have invented for myself made everything click together in my head, and it cleared up almost everything that had been blocking me from being able to move away from focusing on what I write and instead focusing on what the writing means on a more abstract level. It wasn’t enough to eventually make me pass my exams, but I feared the language a lot less than I had before I built the notation.

(In a sense, while it was helpful it would never have come on time; reflecting on what I did in my secondary school years it was fairly clear to me that this was a thing that would have troubled me for as long as it did no matter how I did it, and I would have rejected this notation if it was handed onto me the same way that all those other explanations have.)

How the notation changed the way I think

The key to the notation’s success is, in my opinion, the following:

First, it is general. It can break apart a large number of characters and describe their etymologies in a succinct manner. There are very few sinograms where it cannot handle it at all, and in those cases it is typically because the character has an unknown graphic etymology and therefore can’t be described, though undoubtedly there is going to be a couple that would slip behind the cracks. I can’t take full credit for this one, as it is based on an existing method of classifying sinograms.

I will however say that the way I designed (?) this notation allows me to grasp the recursive nature of this classification and furthermore allow me to gain a foothold in scripts that use things that resemble sinograms but are not, such as Sawndip.

Second, it is manipulable. What you can change and in what ways are easily read out by looking at the notation. Whether or not it describes an actual character is another question, but you can basically always produce a valid formula for generating a character and hint at its meaning and pronunciation using the notation. This will prove invaluable if I were to build a script that has similar properties to Chinese characters, this is exactly how I would start approaching it.

Third, it is not clever. The key to a proper notation is that it represents the thing that it does straightforwardly, in such a way that allows one to verify that it is in fact representing what it claims to. This allows me to hook onto it and adapt myself into seeing the notation at the same time I am presented with the character.

Finally, it is flexible. Notice that in the above examples the sinograms are described in terms of other sinograms. There’s no particular reason why those sinograms are chosen. In fact, you can replace those characters with their descriptions, allowing a full drill-down of the character and describing how every little bit came to be in a simple manner. This property allows you to hide away details when such detail is not needed but still permit an exhaustive description if it is.

Reading an existing notation

In real life sometimes an existing notation is already available, and if it is it would probably be better than any notation that you would be able to make when studying it, as it is referencing the entire body of knowledge that it is built on rather than just what a student might learn as he builds it for himself. With that in mind, if one were to understand something by its notation it is prudent to understand an existing notation first before trying to make one’s own.

To this end, I would say that it is helpful to learn something by referencing its notation. Specifically, the question to ask is “how do you write this down, and why do you choose to write it this way?” This question can be asked in multiple contexts and expect multiple answers. What “this” in the question is differs depending on the exact thing you are studying, and the “why” could be surface-level “why this symbol over another” or a deeper “why arrange the symbols in this way”.

Once you learn the notation, the next step is, as hinted at earlier in this article, to learn how to combine two true statements written in that notation into a third one also written in that notation. In a sense, this task is much harder than the other two; if we apply it to, say, English, the first is “reading and spelling” and the second is the entirety of English grammar and literature. The key to this is not to complete the task, but instead to basically learn the subject “the normal way” but using the notation as a centrepiece to unify everything you learnt into it, so that you have a way to relate everything to everything else.

Consider how this can be applied to chords and music theory: you learn what notes correspond to which chords and how to write down changes to those chords, and then you can combine the chords together as simple letters on a page to form music. This is an iterative process: you learn what chords go together nicely based on existing theory, mirror it in the notation, and then generalise it in the notation before turning it back into notes and seeing if it appeals. Doing this correctly, you will both increase your understanding of music theory and also have a nice way of generating music.

Another example where the idea of learning by notation has been successfully applied (but not by me) is site-swap notation in juggling, where someone wrote down sequences of digits to describe how balls are thrown in. The inventor eventually discovered a new way of juggling (called “5551” in the notation) just by looking at the notation.

Shortcomings

It is only fair to discuss situations where notation-oriented learning is not the approach to take when learning something.

Sometimes there is no existing notation, whether because the experts have decided that writing bits of ink on a page is not sufficient for the field, or no one has thought of it, or even that all the existing ones have failed to gained currency because it doesn’t perform or there are too many competing ones. In most of these cases you can get around it by attempting to make your own. You can make this work if you know yourself well, and perhaps even present it to the community as as a way to understand the field itself.

Some people don’t take kindly to writing things down, especially in the more artistic field of study where notation might be perceived as constraining to a creative mind, and even knowledge of the existence of some notation is considered harmful because you’re always supposed to learn things “the hard way”, i.e. without any aid whatsoever, much less written ones. Whether one chooses to heed those warnings or proceed anyway is up to individual preference, but in a notation-averse community – for any reason – perhaps it would not be the best idea to show that community your new home-grown notation.

Summary

One of the ways that I have learnt something is to create a notation system for it. This involves figuring out how to write existing facts in that notation, and then how to create new things by altering the notation and seeing what the results in back in the original object that the notation depicts. I found this to be a greatly useful way to understand topics in general and a central point from which to handle unknown fields of knowledge from, while also acknowledging that there are some fields and probably some would-be learners that may not be suited to this way of learning.

#misc

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sparkerinparadise · 3 years

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rating every jack frost iteration that i can think of off of the top of my head rn bc sleep is a myth

SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI: i have never touched an atlus game but oh my god look at him. he’s just a little guy and it’s his birthday!!! i love his fun hat and how small and round he is, and his :D face with little fangs. apparently he’s also a demon??? that gives you a gun in one of the games?? that’s always a plus!! i don’t like the fact that he’s british though. 10/10 instant improvement to any game

FROSTY’S WINTER WONDERLAND: this movie is very much a product of its time w how it treats crystal and is VERY much trying to capitalize off of the success of the original frosty, but idk i still think it’s kinda cute. but this isn’t rating the movie. this is rating jack frost. here he is a silly little man!! his whole spiel is that he’s jealous that frosty is more popular than him so he wants to murder him. y’know, typical cartoon villain stuff. don’t worry though, he gets defeated by the power of friendship and a Kiss from a Cute Snowlady, and decides he’s going to make winter last forever for frosty and his new wife crystal bc they’re probably the first people to validate him in years. wow. what a guy. also his design’s excellent and his voice sounds exactly what u think it sounds like, it’s great. 10/10 i want to see him and smt jack commit crimes together

RISE OF THE GUARDIANS: here he is. the tumblr sexyman himself. i don’t remember anything from this movie except that no one can see him and he’s sad about it, i think. also he has a big magic stick and i have no idea what it’s actually used for. ice, i think?? but yeah, he is literally just some generic modern-looking white boy. with a big stick. i don’t understand the appeal, but then again i’m a lesbian and i don’t own an air fryer. 2/10 best and only anime i’ve ever seen /j

JACK FROST (1979): “wait a minute, u already put the rankin-bass one on here!! they’re the same character!!” shut up this is my list, i get to do what i want. anyways i literally just finished watching this movie for the first time and i thought it was cute. his outfit’s changed a little bit from winter wonderland and the colors here are a little too similar for my taste but it’s still a SUPER solid design. like, a pointy hat, tunic, boots AND leggings?? too much power. he is significantly less bastardly here but he’s still super silly and nice. we love to see it!! 8/10 i want in on that groundhog con deal

SANTA CLAUSE 3: i watched this movie several times as a kid, and i couldn’t tell u for the life of me why. i was actually kinda surprised when rewatching some clips of this guy on youtube! his design’s... okay i guess, but his lines are so corny and his acting is so over-the-top that he actually ends up being kinda funny. anyways he wants to ruin santa's life so he can…. travel into the past and sabotage santa’s backstory?? so he can be capitalist santa??? i don’t remember how any of that worked but it was bc of some weird magic law i think, because its the fucking santa clause. anyways uhhh.... he exists!! that’s all i can really say about him!! 5/10 eat the rich

FROSTY AND RUDOLPH’S CHRISTMAS IN JULY: gee rankin-bass jack, how come YOUR mom lets u have THREE designs??? i like what they were trying to go for by combining the first 2 designs they made, but oh my god i literally cannot stand to look at him. i don’t know if it’s just his absurdly long neck, but that head just does NOT look like it belongs on that body. what were they thinking. 0/10 u had one job

JACK FROST (1998): an irl friend actually told me about this one and all i gotta say is... what the fuck, sarah???? i’ve read the wikipedia article and like. this jack’s a regular dude who’s a musician w/ kids, right??? and uh... he just fucking dies. and comes back to life as a snowman to help his son move on from his death. and then he dies again. i don’t know how anyone could take something like this seriously. this movie doesn’t even sound real, it’s like someone based it off of a really fucked up fever dream or something. anyways 4/10 i don’t have anything clever to say about this

#bee.txt #long post #i feel like this is revealing way too much about my taste in media and i hate it lol

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hermeticimp · 3 years

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Why Social Media Should Actually Be Represented By the 12th House

Hello beautiful people! So, an enlightening conversation with my lovely mentor Ada led me to realize that social media, so often attributed to the 11th house, can be argued to actually be under the lure of the 12th. Shocking, I know, but let me give my reasoning first.

Ada wrote a brilliant article on redefining the 11th house, so please check that out to get a better understanding of what that house represents. I will explain a little about the 12th however. The 12th house represents hidden influences, secrets, escapism, fantasy, dissolution of the ego, and the collective unconscious. It is the yawning ocean that seeks to devour us all… Okay, so maybe not quite that last one, but close enough.

Either way, it is a place where our conscious mind becomes subsumed by our unconscious one. Not it the same sudden flashes of insight and resonance with the 11th house, but like a giant wave crashing over you and pushing you under, opening up a whole new world you never knew existed. Or at least, one you rarely acknowledge does. With that explanation out of the way, let’s turn our attention to social media.

Social media - the innovative method of communication that has entirely changed the way we communicate and express ourselves with one another. It’s where we go to be honest, right? To share our opinions with the world and find people who totally understand where we’re coming from? It’s technology and becoming social with known loved ones and strangers alike! How on earth could it fall under the mysterious, dissociated influence of the 12th?

Well, friends, let’s gaze into the abyss together.

I’ve been a part of the spiritual community for bordering on 4 years now. Tumblr, Twitter, and Discord have been my biggest spaces for finding people I have an affinity with, though Facebook is quickly becoming another niche for me. I’ve watched people come and go with the tides. It’s been bothering me quite a bit lately.

Two common reasons I see are losing the self and burnout. For all the personalization that social media provides us, it’s actually rather depersonalizing. Psychology has told us that social media can be helpful, but it often causes disconnection. From families sitting at tables using their phones instead of talking to each other to people checking their social media as soon as they wake up rather than taking the time to sit with themselves to prepare for the day, social media turns us away from the real world to become absorbed in the virtual one.

That virtual world leads to the creation of a “persona” or character - an avatar to represent us in the subspace. It then interacts with other avatars in this e-world. It makes me think of this scene from one of my favorite anime, Psycho-Pass. It’s this futuristic, cyberpunk world where everyone’s mental health is easily scanned and coded with a hue referred to as the titular “psycho-pass”. The clearer your hue, the better you are. The darker it is, the more likely you are to be taken into custody or even killed for the safety of society. I highly recommend it because it has a lot of amazing themes like justice, civil disobedience, the dangers of technology, and so on.

Anyways, there’s an episode where the lead character, Akane, participates in this online VR space where she and other people are projected into the e-world, dressed up as their respective personas, and interact with each other. There’s a sense of camaraderie...up until a murder occurs. As Akane investigates, she finds that people she thought were friends in this space quickly turn against one another.

While the example is a little extreme, my point is that social media is just like the online VR space - a place where we interact with a small part of a person and not their true selves. That’s not to say that online friends aren’t true or important - I’ve found plenty of great people online - but there is an element of role-playing here that suits the 12th house over the 11th.

The 12th house is ruled by Neptune, the planet of illusions, the arts, and spirituality. It’s a hazy planet that casts a mist over what it touches. Fantasy falls under the domain of this planet as does wish fulfillment. And what is social media if not a way of creating a fantasy where we can escape the outside world? Remember that escapism falls under this house. We go on social media to connect with others, sure, but we also use it as an escape from the reality of our offline lives.

However, Jupiter classically (and modernly co-rules) the 12th house as well. Jupiter is the planet of optimism, faith, expansion, and luck. Each of those is great in moderation, but Jupiter doesn’t know the meaning of that. Thus, overindulgence, grandiosity, greed, and blind faith can all become issues.

Finally returning to how that impacts people leaving social media, the planetary influences of the 12th better reflect what social media is like. People can lose themselves in their persona, being consumed by this side of themselves that becomes larger-than-life.

In the spiritual community, this can happen through people coming to think of you as a divination machine, constantly channeling the Universe to the point where it’s hard to see where the “diviner” ends and the self starts. That’s 12th house energy. Spirituality can consume us on this side of the internet until it’s our entire world.

(Of course, this applies to any community you join in. I’m just using the one I’m most active in.)

Ada, in her article, mentions “ego death” being something social media causes and I find that to be true. I’ve seen people lose themselves so much that they have to walk away to retain any sense of self and/or sanity. It becomes too much (Jupiter) and they have to retreat into themselves (4th house of privacy and getting back to one’s roots) to regain a sense of who they are. They lose themselves in the persona and not always for the better.

With burnout, the above applies, but a recent revelation provided by the lovely Brook Waldorf in her BTS Yoongi reading helped me understand that the issue here is fear and worship. People fight to maintain the perfection and expected output of their persona to the point that they are deathly afraid of disappointing others and losing their spot as the current desired person.

They fight against themselves, pushing themselves to the limit to avoid a fall from grace and to keep from letting down the people who look up to them. While it may work for a while, the lack of self-care can drive them to retreat (4th house) and leave that persona behind to live the life they truly desire. That last statement is where they move into themes of the 11th - the House of Resonance.

While that went darker than intended, I think that presents a good case for social being considered under the 12th’s domain rather than the 11th’s. Feel free to leave your takes below!

#astrology #social media #12th house #11th house #4th house #neptune #jupiter

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pocmuzings · 4 years

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hello hi , it is g , ur friendly local neighbourhood hindu indian ( as in south asian ) ! so a few people requested that i just make a guide-esque sorta thing on hindu indian characters ! im not really good at guides , so instead , these are just little things i’ve noticed or picked up on that could really potentially strengthen the next indian character u ( pretty please ! ) pick up !

disclaimer : i am writing this from my perspective and it is NOT definitive , nor do i speak on behalf of all hindu indians ! i am a 23-year-old bisexual cis female hindu indian , with one older gay brother, and a Train Wreck middle brother . my mother is from new delhi , and my father is from nairobi but has indian heritage ( not sure which part of india bc he’s an Engima ) . i have extended family in india and have visited india about 10-15 times throughout my entire life .

so firstly , im so glad u all are here and want to write more hindu indian characters ! please please do so ! i hope this helps , encourages u , and isnt too confusing !!

psa : i need everyone to know that this is a very basic ‘ guide ‘ and theres a lot it DOESNT touch on or address bc i didnt want to get too Extensive and Detailed and have people Turn off and not Read it . this is just written in the terms of hopefully helping build character / be relevant to characters a bit better that ive employed into writing my OWN hindu indian character creations ! but if u have any other questions pls reach out to me or any other indians in the rpc and im sure we’ll try our best to assist u !

FCS:

one thing i’d really like to say is that its great to see fcs like dev patel , deepika padukone and avan jogia picked up every now and then in rps , but there’s actually a LOT of other indian fcs you could be and should be using ! the main reason people don’t seem to know them is because they’re not ‘ hollywood ‘ stars per se ( it was a super big deal when pr*yanka broke out of bollywood and into bollywood but we don’t talk about her on this Blog ) . they’re usually bollywood stars and i don’t really see bollywood discussed that much in the rpc !

if you’re after MORE indian fcs , i have a tag of indian females here , and indian males here . the fcs on my blogs are also not ALL that exist . there are plenty of other blogs out there that post indian fcs , such as sonamhelps & bollymusings !!! there’s also some really great faceclaim directories out there that include a LOT of indians with resources !

unfortunately , i do not know of any trans indians or nonbinary indians but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist . indian cultures and beliefs are still quite Old School and not super progressive . india only just had it’s first wlw mainstream bollywood film released last year . lgbtqia+ issues are NOT really spoken about in india or within indian families at ALL , and if they are - they’re usually dismissed or reacted to Very Very Badly . ( again this isnt definitive and im sure and hopeful that some indians have had GREAT coming out stories and been accepted by their families but this has not been a common thing ive seen or witnessed from my cousins my age , indian friends , myself and my brother who are lgbtqia + )

FOOD :

we do eat with our hands and we eat like PROS with our hands . we can shovel it so easily and quickly . i don’t know how to describe it but you use the first three fingers of your hand to place the Food there , and then use your thumb to kinda scoop it off and into your mouth . this is NOT unhygienic because indians wash their hands very regularly and most of the time we aren’t actually touching our mouths to our hands !

indian food is MADE to be eaten with your hands for the most part . it is literally NOT practical to eat food with a knife and fork . here’s a really great article explaining things more in depth re: indian food and using our hands !

cows are seen as Very holy beings in hindu indian culture , and for that reason - there isn’t a lot of beef being eaten or consumed. sure , some indians DO eat beef but i don’t think its super common, but in my personal experience as a non-beef-eater this results in A LOT of me asking ‘ oh , sorry what sauce does that pasta come with ? ‘ ‘ oh those are beef sausages ? sorry i can’t eat them ‘ etc etc . beef is in a LOT of things , and this makes me very very careful and almost pedantic about what i do eat and ask about , food wise !

indian food is seen as stinky by a majority of white people . it has a very very strong smell as im sure u know , and opening ur lunch box as a little kid to a Curry or Dal ur mum has made u ? one way street to being bullied . i also remember a time a real estate agent continuously told my dad nobody was interested in buying our house bc it smelled too much like curry, despite my mum not having cooked curry in Weeks ( just say what u Really mean , bitch ! )

indian curry exists but so does dal / daal . this is curry-like dish that is usually made out of lentils . so if ur going to talk about indian food and u know curries and samosas . . pls also bring up dals . and sabji ! ( sabji is usually just boiled vegetables plopped together . a lot of potato usually )

desserts are what we call Indian Sweets . this is stuff that is usually very VERY sugary and a bit of an accustomed taste . theyre very colourful and LOOK beautiful but even i , for one , can not eat many indian sweets bc they are a Lot of Sweet and Sugar . examples of indian sweets that u can google : gulab jamun , burfi , rasgulla , jalebi etc . here’s a great link for more !

give me spiced food or give me death . literally . . put some cumin in . . put some garam masala . . put some chillies . . flavour ur Food for my Indian Taste Buds

FAMILY :

if you are the oldest son of an Indian Family . . congratulations . you are now the Head of the family and must carry every weight and burden alone . it is extremely isolating and taxing on you ( my dad is the oldest indian son , and also - so is my eldest brother , obvs ) . there is a LOT that is expected of you to do . you are expected to quite literally run the family and be the ‘ man of the house ‘ by yourself .

if you are a daughter . . . even BIGGER congratulations ! you are basically a maid to every male or guest who EVER comes over to your house . you must be a Hostess , you must be in the kitchen cooking , serving snacks, bringing tea , and then washing up and basically waiting on Hand and Foot . you will not be included into a lot of dialogue or engaged in a lot of conversation and TRUST ME ! THAT WILL GRIND UR GOD DAMN GEARS IN THE 21ST CENTURY !

if you are a boys’ boy ( aka straight and Sporty ) , then congrats ! you get it the easiest : you are the favourite of every social event . the uncles and cousins love talking to you and dude-ing it up with you , and the aunts fawn over you and think you’re the Best Thing since sliced bread . sit back , put your feet up , and expect to be treated like a God. you can do absolutely no wrong . ( my middle brother is this to a T and listen . . he’s been in and out of jail for physical violence and ab*se for over 5 years . and family still FROTH over him . my teeth are gritted to dust thinking of this again )

indian aunties are lethal . they gossip like teenage girls . they will find out everything . they will bitch behind your back . they can NOT be trusted .

everyone is ur uncle or aunt, sister or brother . literally everyone . ur cousin ? no. thats ur sister . ur dads friend ? no , thats ur uncle . you will call them as such . EVERYONE is family .

family is in general a VERY BIG THING in indian culture , too . ‘ what will it Look like to everyone else if we don’t all arrive together ? ‘ my dad usually asks dskjdfjn . it’s all about Looking Right and Standing As A United Front . that being said , indian family has undying and unwavering loyalty for one another , they just show it in a very Weird way .

FASHION:

female hindu indian formal clothes are usually really embroidered to hell and back and this makes them very scratchy , uncomfortable, and HEAVY . you aren’t running anywhere anytime soon in a full blown lehenga or saree

most ‘ modern ‘ hindu indian women do not wear full Indian Clothes all the time . some do , but usually it’s a lot of wearing a kurti tunic with jeans , or just normal everyday clothing . again , this is going to be different based on which parts of india your character is from , though !

usually , older women and married women wear traditiona hindul indian clothing quite often . i know my mum wore a sari AT HOME everyday when i was growing up, until i was like 13 and took her shopping with me to get something Else to wear .

bindi’s just stick right onto ur forehead but they do fall off a lot , especially when ur wearing makeup or sweating . again , you don’t need to wear a bindi everyday , unless thats ur preference . i usually only wear them for festivals . ( festivals means indian celebrations , not like . . coachella ((which u should not be wearing a bindi to , if ur not indian fyi )) )

male formal clothes are usually just literally anything Formal and buttoned up for the most part , and u can get away with that , or you can wear a really nice kurta

indians wear white at funerals , not black ( not sure if this should go in the fashion section but this entire thing is being organised into a Mess by now anyways ) . you CAN wear black to a funeral of course , but its common to wear white !

DATING ( tw’s for islamaphobia ):

modern day indian / desi fuck boys exist and my god they are Something Else . hasan minhaj did a really good piece about this and explaining them to a T ( starts at 1:43 )

( THIS IS THE POINT THAT WILL MENTION ISLAMAPHOBIA AND HOMOPHOBIA ! ) basically according to Older indians , , ur dating options in 2020 go like this ( if ur a cis female like me ) : hindu indian men are god tier , white men are Not Okay But I Guess So Bc We Have To Accept They’re Everywhere , females / being lgbtqia+ is not Taken Seriously , and muslims are literally not even close to being an option or Accepted . again this isn’t definitive but based on a lot of indian media i’ve consumed and seen how they portray muslims in general as well as Dating Options , as well as talking to other indians , both who are older / traditional and hold these ideals , whereas Younger gens generally do NOT hold these ideals / actively are Against these backwards ideals. i remember when i was in year 6 and had my first boyfriend . . he was a muslim and my dad FLIPPED the FUCK out . it’s not even that i was dating someone / young / his only daughter . . it was mainly because i was dating a muslim . again , this is a very OLD SCHOOL and traditional way of thinking and it is NOT CORRECT . pls don’t take this as a note to be islamaphobic if u write an indian character bc . . thats literally the opposite of what im trying to tell u here .

yeah arranged marriages are definitely still a thing for us , even now in 2020

YES if u are an unmarried / single indian ( ESPECIALLY if ur a woman ) about to enter ur 30s . . ur in DANGER and u are the black sheep and theres probably something Wrong With You bc why are u still single ?

TRADITIONS / BELIEFS / SUPERSTITIONS :

idk if its just me and my family but we are SUPER superstitious . if you say anything like ‘ he hasnt gotten sick in years !’ immediately , everyone knocks on wood or their head . if you were planning on leaving the house and sneeze ? thats bad luck , stand and wait for five minutes then u can leave . we have a strong belief in drishti , or alternatively : The Evil Eye , and making sure we don’t invite it into our lives . a lot of our prayers are about warding drishti away .

the evil eye is kinda Complicated but basically its an ill-wishing upon an unsuspecting person . if somebody is jealous of you or angered by you , they may wish upon you or cast upon you the Evil eye ( or even just glare at u whilst ur not looking and thats Big Bad ) .

a lot of older indians , like older people in general i guess , are not super progressive or Open . this isnt ALWAYS the case but older indians can be very very stubborn in their beliefs in what is Right and Wrong , Normal and Not Normal

theres a LOT of hindu indian festivals and events ! tbh too many for me to even keep up with . but without fail at least once a year ill say to ONE of my friends ‘ oh sorry i cant make it . i have an indian Thing on that day ‘ and its usually about a festival , so pls be aware that there are a LOT of indian festivals and if ur writing an indian character , its perfectly understandable and Relatable for them to say they can’t make it to a party or hang out with their friends that night , for that very reason !

the main / most popular ( ? ) festivities that i personally do celebrate every year without fail are :

diwali ( the festival of lights , celebrating goddess lakshmi roaming the earth . in my household this is usually turning on literally every single light and lighting candles and fireworks / sparklers and saying some prayers , and eating a formal dinner all together ! )

holi ( the festival of colours . celebrating victory and love . again personally for me , this was usually celebrated at the temple with all of us Kids running around throwing paint on each other ! )

rakhi / raksha bandhan ( a day of sisters celebrating their brothers . you tie a rakhi which is usually a bracelet / holy string around your brothers wrist , feed them some food , pray for their wellbeing and in return they gift you something . in my case, i usually get money from them ) .

navratri / durga puja ( 9 nights and 10 days of celebrations but tbh u don’t have to do all the days . or i mean . . i don’t . i fast one day from morning to night and then i slide on over to boogie and dance dandiya which is literally the MOST FUN dance ever bc its based off some Historical Fight and u go faster and faster and keep going until ur absolutely SPENT bc u dont wanna lose ur place in the circle )

there are SO MANY HINDU INDIAN GODS too . and so many prayers to all of them and to just general Life Wellness . chances are that ur character will know at least ONE aarti / gazal / prayer off by heart and have sung it at least 30 times in a monotone voice . the ones i know off by heart bc ive had to sing them 3000 times ? om jai jagdish hare , & the gayatri mantra

GENERAL LIL THINGS I DIDN’T KNOW HOW TO CATEGORISE ( tw’s for skin whitening , colorism and classism ) :

( THIS IS THE POINT THAT NEEDS A TW FOR SKIN WHITENING AND COLORISM ) lets hold indians accountable right now : we advertise SKIN LIGHTENING CREAM . i think they finally stopped that earlier this year / due to BLM ( i’m not entirely sure / could be wrong ) , but thats literally how bad it is , that we would openly advertise and encourage people to literally bleach their skin rather than look darker .

( THIS IS THE POINT THAT NEEDS A TW FOR COLORISM AND CLASSISM ) colorism is a BIG thing in india and usually linked to class . generally speaking , the people who are Darker Skinned are usually people who work outside / labourers or homeless even , and are therefore seen as lower class / bottom class . the lighter skin you have , the more privileged and advantaged you are bc ur seen as working a Good job out of the sun and having a home . it’s incredibly classist as well as just generally Fucked Up . why am i telling u this ? mainly so u understand the importance of using a dark skinned indian fc vs a light skinned indian fc which i know is hard , bc a lot of darker skinned indians arent in hollywood / have resources , but its still something to Think About .

i have a long Ethnic name . literally my first name is 10+ letters , which i know doesnt seem that long Necessarily but its also a Super Ethnic name with e’s and and j and n . it Flows and Sounds very clearly different from a christian name . it is VERY important to me that my name be said Correctly because i’ve spent so much time having it said incorrectly or Westernised . i also know a lot of indians my age who ( like me ) have had to dramatically shorten their REAL first name ( which is usually also pretty long . not always , but it is Common ) , to fit their name into white people’s mouths better . please put some thought into ur indian characters name !

not all indians speak hindi ! hindi is one of MANY dialects within india . there is also tamil , urdu , bengali , punjabi , telugu and SO many more , so pls research which part of india ur character / their family is from bc hindi won’t always be the default language for them !

not every indian is hindu ! of course ur character doesnt have to be religious at all , bc if im being honest IM barely religious but my FAMILY is and this is smth u should think abt bc religion is a pretty big thing for indians . so even if ur character isnt hindu , they were probably raised with SOME religious beliefs . have a think about which religions they would have been brought up with ! there’s a very large percentage of practicing muslims , sikhs and buddhists too ! and even christianity !

WRITING WISE / CREATING AN INDIAN CHARACTER WISE :

the first step should be to consume indian media ! listen to indian music . watch bollywood movies ! theres SO MANY out there on everyone’s netflix . if u want some recs , let me know and i can try my best to find smth for u ! if u want smth thats Hollywood-indian . . . Hasan Minhaj is great to watch , especially his episodes on indian culture / politics , and Never Have I Ever on netflix was rlly good / relatable for me personally as an indian growing up in a western society !

i would really really love to see more indian rep in general , but i’d also like to discuss the Stereotypes that ive seen indians portrayed as in mainstream hollywood media :

indian women as soft spoken and subservient beings who are abused by their husbands and have no say in anything

heterosexuality within indian relationships and indian dating

indian men as sleazy

indians in general not being seen as Sexy or Sexual beings with any sex drive at all

Stumbling , Stuttering , Nerdy awkward messes of men who don’t know how to interact with anybody they find sexually appealing

an indian character that everybody ( usually white ) finds Uncomfortable and Weird and is seen as usually the Butt of the joke .

i think those mentioned above could be helpful in how to plan your next indian character and think about how to SUBVERT a trope theyre often portrayed as , or create an indian thats not stereotypical !

so what and who SHOULD you write ?

an indian character who is proudly and openly gay , or bi

a trans or nonbinary indian ( PLEASE ! )

an indian character with really super accepting parents and family

an aromantic indian

an indian who is focused on their career first and not their dating life

a fuckboy / fuckgirl ( honestly . . i’d love to see it )

a indian character who is a party animal

an outspoken indian female who takes no shit and is strong in every sense of the word

a confident , smooth talking indian businessman who is Sexy and Lusted After ( not in a gross christian grey way but just . i’d love to see indian characters seen as Sexy . not in a fetishy way , either , but just because it’d be a nice change in pace ! )

a character who IS traditional / religious but also very progressive and forward thinking in their beliefs

honestly just any character that isnt whats mentioned above

#guide #writing help #rph #rpc #islamaphobia tw #colorism tw #classism tw #idk if this is any good and i was very uncomfortable putting in the part abt how a lot of older indians feel abt muslims #but i mean . . lets just call it the fuck out bc its Gross Behaviour so lets call it out and work to change it #anyways every trigger is tagged super clearly in every point that talks abt it #i kept those parts Brief and as Direct and Honest as possible #pls let me know if u need me to tag anything #and lastly . . . pls write indian characters !!!!

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phykios · 3 years

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honesty and promise me, part 3 [read on ao3] [co-written with @darkmagyk]

Several more weeks and hookups later, Annabeth thinks she should probably come clean. Some people might bury it deep, and for sure, Annabeth’s considered it, but, well. It is kind of embarrassing that she didn’t know Percy’s name at first. Stuff like that doesn’t usually bother her--she’s had nameless one night stands in the past, and despite Thalia’s ribbing, she knows that Thalia doesn’t really care either. It’s just that, you know, he’s Thalia’s family, and they’ve seen each other a few more times, and they are planning to continue to see each other a few more times in the future. Or more than a few times.

Anyway, she kind of feels like she owes it to him. Like he deserves this small nugget of truth, payment for all the times he’s fucked her blind. It’s nagging at her, and she hates feeling like she owes anyone anything.

Piper certainly seemed to think so, when Annabeth had told her over their monthly brunch date.

“It’s just common courtesy at this point,” she said. “Like, what if you guys end up married and then sell your story to Hollywood, they cast my dad as the male lead, and it comes out in interviews that you didn’t know his name for like a month? He’s gonna get the wrong idea.”

Annabeth wasn’t sure which part was more ridiculous: the movie, Piper’s dad being involved, or them being married.

Anyway, sharing some of her avocado fries, Piper had reminded her that being mean wasn't very punk rock, shutting her up effectively.

She’s out on site in the Lower East Side, taking measurements for plots of land, writing down sun angles and measuring the wind velocity between the brick buildings, when she gets a text from him.

I’m on a break and I’m starving 😩 Want to grab something to eat?

It’s 2pm on a Thursday and he wants to grab something to eat. If Annabeth didn’t know any better, she’d say that that sounds like a real, honest-to-goodness, bona fide date. (Meeting up at and subsequently leaving bars together does not count as a date, she’s pretty sure. Neither do the booty calls.) He’s been getting a little free with his texts, that boy, sending her selfies and memes and questions about her day, and now this? An invitation to their first, actual date? She should block him on principle, just for the sheer audacity.

sure, wya

520 8th, text me when you get here 😁

That’s another thing: Percy loves his emojis. If this is going to continue, they’re going to need to have a serious talk about that.

She doesn’t need to text him when she gets there; he’s already outside, leaning on the stone edifice of the building like a particularly jacked rent boy in his tight t-shirt and broody look, cigarette between his fingers. The sweatpants sort of ruin the image, though. He looks particularly comfortable in a way that warms Annabeth right from the inside out. “You know, when Nico said you smoked, I honestly didn’t believe it.” she says, not even bothering to say hi.

He looks up from his phone and smiles, the sun behind his teeth. “Hey!”

“Hey, yourself.” She doesn’t even hesitate--she plucks the cigarette out of his hand, taking a drag off it herself. “You been smoking for a long time?”

“Who do you think taught Thalia how?” He raises an eyebrow, bemused. “Is that a problem?”

It is, but it’s not like she can tell him that without losing some of her credibility. “Wouldn’t smoking fuck with your cardio?”

Percy shrugs, conceding. “A little. I used to be a lot worse, but I just can’t quite kick the habit. It’s mostly a stress thing, anyway.”

“Rough practice?” she asks, putting just enough effort into her lip wobble to make it abundantly clear that she’s making fun of him. “Were the other boys being mean to you because of your tights?”

He grins at her, saucy. “Annabeth Chase, do you really think that NYCB rehearses here? In the Garment District?” But he laughs before she can stammer out an answer (and thank God, she’s lived here three years and can barely keep the boroughs straight, let alone the neighborhoods). “I just wrapped up teaching a class. I don’t have to be at rehearsal until 5, I was thinking we could hang out? Bryant Park?”

A first date at the New York Public Library. She almost hates to admit it, but Percy Jackson might be kind of her dream man. “I believe I was promised food,” she sniffs, but she does hold out her hand, and when he takes it, lacing his fingers through hers, she’s sure that he can feel her heart beating, palm to palm.

Twenty minutes later they’re settled on a bench in the corner of the green, Annabeth halfway into a ham sandwich and Percy juggling a salad and an iced coffee. He’s been regaling her with tales from the more exciting side of ballet, a side she hadn’t even imagined could actually exist. “So by the time I land in Paris,” he says, taking a sip of coffee, “the guy’s foot has swollen up to, like, twice its original size, and when I finally managed to find some wifi to check my phone, there’s, like, eight missed calls from my mom and my agent, and an email from her that just says ‘READ THIS,’ in all caps, and of course the article is in French, which I didn’t really speak at the time, and I was so stressed that my ADHD made it so I couldn’t even read the Google translation, and I had to ask someone to translate it for me.”

“Oh my god,” she says, struggling to keep it in.

“And that’s how I found out that I’d been moved up to first cast in Le Corsaire, from the poor barista at a coffee shop in Charles de Gaule!” He laughs.

“That’s insane,” Annabeth says. “And the show was the next day?”

“It was that night! I had to haul ass to the opera house and get warmed up, because I was going on in about four hours. You should have seen the looks on everyone’s faces when I stumbled in, I’m sure that they all wanted to kill me.” Percy chuckles, taking a bite of leafy greens. “Now I wasn’t just the twenty-year-old upstart American, I was the twenty-year-old upstart American who skipped town when I wasn’t supposed to.”

“How did it go?”

“Killed it, of course,” he says, deservedly smug.

Despite her best efforts, she’s absolutely entranced; he’s a great storyteller. “I bet you break that story out at parties all the time, don’t you.”

He laughs. “Whatever gets the donors to open their checkbooks, right?”

“I can’t believe you lived in Paris. I’ve always wanted to see it.” She’d had a few chances to when she was in college, the semester she’d studied abroad in Rome, but she just never got around to it. Just another item on her long, long list of regrets, placed somewhere between the sketchy burrito from last week and not telling her mom to fuck off earlier when she’d had the chance. “If I were you, I’d never leave.”

Percy shrugs. “It was amazing, I won’t lie. But towards the end I just really, really missed it here. All my family is in NYC, you know? My mom, step-dad, and my sister live here, and Thalia and Nico and Hazel, too. I tried to come back and visit whenever I could, but being away from them was really hard.” There’s something soft and inviting in his expression when he says, “I’m really happy to be back home.”

“What are they like?” Annabeth asks. “Your family. Your non-mob family, I mean.”

He rolls his eyes, but he grins another one of those blinding grins, too. “My mom is the most amazing person you will ever meet. Not only did she support my dance habit, she did it as a single working mother who had to raise an angry, ADHD asshole of a son who didn’t always appreciate her. I don’t even want to know how many hours she had to work or how many scholarships and grants she had to track down in order to pay for me to go to SAB, but somehow she made it work, and managed to write her novel at the same time. She married my step-dad the summer I turned sixteen, and my baby sister was born the next year.”

Even Annabeth, cynical and black-hearted as she is, has to smile back. The love he has for his mom is so palpable, so tangible, she can practically see him glowing. “And the…” What had Thalia called them? “The ‘Cousin Consortium’?”

At that, Percy laughs, full-bellied, unrestrained. “The name was Nico’s idea. I didn’t really have many close friends when I was a kid, apart from my buddy Grover--he had to wear this really gnarly leg brace and I liked to dance, so you can imagine how much we got picked on--but we were all really close growing up, since our dads were all assholes. They may have left us emotionally scarred, but at least we had each other’s backs the whole time.”

This is a very Percy thing, she’s starting to realize: he can not and will not hold back on his feelings. He simply refuses to. Where most guys might try to hide or downplay their affection for their friends, Percy’s is written all over his face. Maybe it’s a byproduct of doing ballet, but he’s so unashamed of his love for his friends and his family and his art, that maybe Annabeth kind of wishes she could be included in that love too, if it always feels this warm and joyful.

“I think it’s amazing that you guys are so close. I only had the one cousin when I was growing up, and we didn’t really talk all that much,” Annabeth says, almost without her permission. Something about him, it’s just so easy to talk to him. He makes it safe to open up.

“The med school guy, right?”

Annabeth nods. “Magnus. Fifth generation Harvard student. We’re all very proud.”

Ugh. Even she has to wince at the false cheer in her voice. Percy gives her a half-smile, sympathetic and soft. “Harvard not really for you, then?” he asks, picking up the threads of a long and complicated story, and one that she absolutely does not want to get into right now. Or ever, if she can help it.

“More like I wasn’t really for Harvard.” Which wasn’t entirely untrue. She had been good enough for the university in Cambridge, Mass--good enough for two degrees and graduation with honors--but she had never been good enough for her mother’s capital-H Harvard. Never good enough for her mother at all, really.

Percy takes her hand. His fingers are cold from his iced coffee. “Hey. It’s their loss,” he says, with a sincerity and an intensity that makes her blush.

Every part of her wants to pull away. His thumb is rubbing against the joint of her finger, soothing and sweet, and she thinks she may break out in hives from it. “Damn right it is,” she mumbles.

He is so nice. So nice and hot and sweet. Objectively, what she’s about to do is a terrible idea, and might torpedo a really good thing that they have, but if she doesn’t come clean now her own guilt is going to drive her insane.

“Okay, I have a confession to make.” Percy raises his eyebrows, slurping the last dregs of his drink. “When we met… and then when we hooked up the first time… I may have… thoughtyouwereJason.”

He blinks. “Pardon?” he asks, mumbled around the straw.

Annabeth buries her head in her hands. “Please don’t make me say it again.”

“You… thought I was Jason?”

“Well,” she sputters, glaring at him through her fingers, “you were being all bro-y with Thalia!”

He is valiantly trying to hold in a smile. “You know, I distinctly remember telling you my name that morning.”

“I was really hungover,” she whines, “and you were shirtless and making breakfast so I wasn’t really… paying attention.”

“For a whole week?”

This is so embarrassing, why couldn’t she just keep her stupid mouth shut? “Yeah.” She slumps her shoulders, stuffing her hands into her jacket pocket. “Sorry.”

She’s not entirely sure what she expected: at best a couple of weird looks and a tentative promise to meet up later that would end up not working out, at worst she thinks he’ll just get up and leave her here at Bryant Park. Either way, they’d be doomed to months of awkward interactions, until eventually they wouldn’t be able to be around each other, and Thalia would have to pick a side--and Annabeth’s seen what Thalia does to people who cross her family. She’s seen Thalia beat a dude to pulp for calling Nico the f-slur. Picking Percy over Annabeth? That’s nothing.

So when he starts laughing, Annabeth is completely at a loss. Slowly, at first, then all at once, he’s laughing so hard his shoulders are shaking, and he has to put down his salad so it doesn’t topple over onto the grass. His head is tilted back in joy, the grey, late afternoon light adamant that Annabeth can see all of his features clearly, from his screwed up eyes to his bright, white teeth to the single dimple in his cheek.

Of course, even his laughter is hot. Asshole.

“You thought I was Jason!” He shrieks.

Annabeth crosses her arms, scowling.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I really don’t mean to laugh,” he giggles. Annabeth can feel her own giggle rising in response, and she ruthlessly quashes it. “I can definitely say I’ve never heard that one before. You do know Jason is blond, right?”

“As a matter of fact, I did not. Besides, you and Thalia look exactly alike.”

He scoffs. “No we don’t.”

“Uh, yeah you do. You, Thalia, and Nico are all basically clones of each other.”

“Okay, Captain Glasses, whatever you say.” He rolls his eyes, but there’s no heat behind it.

“I’m sorry,” Annabeth feels like she has to say again.

He cocks his head. “For what? For thinking I was Jason? He’s a pretty cool guy.”

“No, for,” she blushes again. All this blood rushing to her head can’t be good for her. “For sleeping with you when I still thought you were Jason.”

Percy scoots closer to her, throwing her a grin and slinging his arm over her shoulders. Without even realizing that she’s doing it, she settles in beside him like she’s been doing it her whole life, slotted up against his torso, tucking her booted feet beneath her legs. “I am choosing to take that as a compliment,” he says, smirking. “You couldn’t resist my charms, even when you thought I was a brogrammer.”

Annabeth can’t help herself. She kisses him, wiping that smug grin right off his face, and when she finally retreats, after what feels like hours, he looks so dazed she could probably keep calling him by any name she wanted and he wouldn’t even realize it.

After their lunch, they meander for hours, headed in a vaguely southerly direction, holding hands the whole time, a steady, uninterrupted flow that took them all the way from Midtown to Greenwich Village. He tells her about his first day at ballet school; she tells him about her favorite monuments. “There are two architectural environments in America,” she says, ranting, speaking with enough force that she might forget the feeling of his hand in hers, “endless dead suburbia, or cities where every single building is either a concrete or a glass block--and not even Brutalist concrete, just shitty, poorly designed, paint-by-numbers concrete. It is an absolute travesty of modern government that they don’t fund any public works projects anymore.”

“That’s why all the gardens and stuff?” he asks.

“Nowadays everything is built by the lowest bidder. At least I get to add some beauty back into the city.”

“I know what you mean,” Percy says. “Paris is practically overflowing with public works, you almost forget about it sometimes.”

She sighs. “You’re so fucking lucky. Paris is so beautiful and everything in New York is just hideous.”

“Aw, come on,” he says. “Not everything. What about the Empire State Building, or Central Park?”

“Well, obviously, those,” she says, just a teensy bit flustered, but she’s not about to give up the argument without a fight. “I just mean like, normal, every day buildings: offices and apartments and stuff. It’s all so samey and boring.”

He looks to her right, pointing at the building they are passing. “What about this one?”

She turns.

If she had known they were headed this way, she never would have taken them past here.

“It’s… okay, I guess,” she mumbles, staring up at the arched windows, pedimented doors, and Rococo details of Miss Minerva’s Private Pre-College Prep School. A shudder goes down her spine, like someone walking over her grave. “There are better Beaux-Arts buildings.”

Sensing her discomfort, he picks up the pace, and changes the subject.

Finally, he stops outside a nondescript building, turning to face her. “This is me,” he says, a little bit mournfully, squeezing her hand. “Are you okay to get home safely?”

This man is ridiculous; it’s not even dark out. “I think I can manage a few blocks,” she says, lightly swatting him. “Isn’t it kind of early for you, though? It’s only four o’clock.”

He flushes faintly, one hand coming up to rub at his neck. “Uh, well, I always give myself a little extra time--you know, time blindness and everything.”

“You baked in extra time in case I wanted you to walk me home, didn’t you?” She mock-gasps, secretly delighted. “Scandal!”

“Guilty,” he grins. “You’ve been to mine so many times, I was curious.”

She just barely stops herself from laughing out loud at the very idea of Percy coming to her apartment--as if. Thalia hasn’t even been to her apartment. Nobody knows where she lives, none of her neighbors know who she is, and this is entirely by design. “Cut me some slack; a girl’s gotta have some mystery. Can’t make it too easy for you, can I?”

“I have a feeling you’ll never make things easy for me,” he says, white teeth gleaming.

“You better believe it,” she smiles back. “Now that I’ve foiled your plans, are you going to be too bored?”

“Oh, I’ll think of something,” he shrugs. “I’m very resourceful when it comes to boredom.”

Inspiration strikes, and she grasps his hand, pulling him down the alleyway. She almost hates to admit it, but she has something of a Pavlovian response when it comes to hanging out with Percy. Annabeth has come to expect some really excellent sex whenever the two of them meet up, and maybe spending all afternoon with him has made her a little bit horny.

She presses him up against the brick wall, hidden from the street by the long afternoon shadows, and kisses him. His hands flounder for a second, before coming up to rest on her shoulders, this thumbs tapping against the base of her neck, fingers fluttering on her jacket. It’s an intimate touch, kind of chaste and very respectful, and he holds her with precision and grace. He wouldn’t do anything she wouldn’t want to. This is a date with no expectation of sex on his part. But Annabeth does not want grace right now, spooked by the ghost of her old school. She does not want precision. She just wants him. She just wants to keep him on his toes, keep him interested, blow his mind a little.

She just wants to blow him, to be honest.

He squeaks into her mouth as her hands fly to his belt, deft fingers practically ripping it off of him in an increasingly familiar motion. “H-hey,” he says, squeezing her shoulders, “this is--”

“Do you not want me to?” she asks, one hand playing at the top line of his underwear.

“No--I mean, are you sure? I’m-I’m okay with this, I just want to--”

“I know.” She kisses his cheek, then drops to her knees. “But we’ve got some time to kill, don’t we.”

Afterwards, when she’s finished with him, Annabeth wipes her mouth, and he whimpers.

“Ho… holy shit,” he pants, flushed and trembling.

She tucks him back into his boxers, doing up his fly. “There we go. That was better than being bored, right?”

He nods wordlessly, swallowing, shaking. His eyes are glassy and glazed, stupid like he’s just shot out his brain through his dick.

In the short time they’ve been together (though, honestly, this might be the longest relationship she’s ever been in before… and they haven’t even broached the “dating” conversation yet) Annabeth has been on the receiving end of several different Percy looks. His face will light up with joy when he first lays his eyes on her, so happy to see her (though she can’t really fathom why), glinting like the sun on the water. His eyes will narrow, glaring, even as he furiously tamps down on his growing smile when they start arguing over something stupid, like Annabeth’s affinity for olives. He’ll grin at her, knife sharp and slanted, licking his lips and looming over her after she comes down from yet another orgasm via his mouth or his hands.

Percy looks at her now like someone took a bat to his head, and instead of seeing stars, he sees little miniature Annabeths flying around.

He pulls her to him and kisses her, entirely too sweet for what she’s just done to him, but that is also a very Percy thing. And when she leaves him with a final kiss on his cheek and squeeze of his ass, she can feel that look burning a hole through her jacket, following her down the alley and around the corner, and she finds that she doesn’t mind the weight of it at all.

#my fic #percabeth #pjo #the rivalry ends here #ballet au #darkmagyk #woot!!!!

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neverdoingmuch · 3 years

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I just really love Two Person Love Triangles and Identity Porn. So, maybe a You've Got Mail AU? Or a superhero AU when one of them falls for both the masked hero and the secret identity?

because i love both of these aus i’ve written both!! but they’re pretty long bc i wouldn’t be me if i didn’t plot out an entire fic so the superhero au is here.

as for the you’ve got mail au, i went off and watched the movie for the first time and i am delighted by your taste anon,,, the au works so well!!

(okay for some reason tumblr won’t let me indent my bullets so idk how to fix that so big rip)

so we have lan & sons books, a company that prides itself on providing cheap books for everyone to read. think less evil corporation and more we wanted to provide easily accessible books for all people and ended up getting really rich off it

mr lan dadman was meant to be in charge but he ran off and lqr stepped up until lxc was old enough to take over and now lqr just kinda assists lxc when he needs help and does some other work

lqr is definitely the old guy who had a letter thing with this one woman who was enchanting but instead he was chatting to cssr and she was shameless

anyway lwj works as *random high up job that joe fox has* and his best work friend (and real friend) is jin zixuan

jin zixuan is the heir to some coffee franchise and the two families have a deal which is why you have the cafe inside the bookstores

we gonna give lwj some friends

as for wwx, his mother owned a bookstore, the burial mounds (why did she name it that?? idk she probably told bssr that she wanted to call it that as a joke and bssr tried to call her bluff so she ended up having to call it that a la suibian)

anyway he grew up with his mother and grandmother and they left the store to him (idk what happened to them?? maybe they just retired and are now travelling the world while wwx gets to have the bookstore)

now for the actual plot!!

lwj and wwx met on omegle an instant messaging site and now exchange emails. wwx goes by yiling patriarch and lwj goes by hanguang-jun bc we want that flavour

so they’ve been emailing for years and they never share any personal information - wwx knows that hgj has a pet rabbit but not hgj’s name or his job

as for the significant others?? idk let’s pretend they don’t exist.

wwx’s best friend nhs, who writes a column for so-and-so, always just comes over to his place and now he’s semi moved in and wwx isnt really sure why he’s here but he is.

lwj just vibes bc i can’t see him putting up with a patricia unless his uncle forced him to. even then he’d probably just be ~mysteriously~ gone while she’s home

maybe he has a really annoying pa who thinks its his job to come over and like make him breakfast. it’s su she,, it has to be

so wwx goes into work one morning and wen ning is waiting outside as he always is, ready for him to open and then like ten minutes later wen qing comes in and lastly granny wen comes in

why do they work together?? idk?? granny wen and bssr were close and so the wens and wwx kinda grew up as siblings? yeah i like that let’s go with that

so when cssr decided to go travelling wwx gets left with her store and he kinda knows how to run it but also he doesn’t have enough staff so he ends up hiring the wens (except granny who’s mostly there just to hang out with her family)

bonus: a-yuan always come to the shop after school and wwx gets to recreate the childhood he had with his mother with a-yuan. when the store closes wwx and a-yuan just twirl and twirl until they get too dizzy to stand up and then they lay on the floor and discuss their favourite book they’ve read this week. it’s very sweet

okay so the next day lwj gets to babysit his cousin/uncle/nephew/idk-how-they’re-related-person lan jingyi who is like eight or something?

they go out and hang at a festival and lwj does not buy him a goldfish bc i was very stressed by the way they treated the goldfish in the movie but he does get him balloons and a stuffed toy and plays all the games with him

eventually they’re walking back and see that the small bookstore near the new lan bookstore is hosting a story time so they go inside

lwj walks in and he’s immediately taken by the atmosphere of the store bc that place was absolutely beautiful and then he hears this voice and follows it around to the back of the store to see the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen in his life sitting on a kinda too small chair with a princess hat? cone? thing on top of his head

he’d planned to stay for like one story and then take jingyi home but he ends up staying for the entire book and it’s definitely not because the guy reading the book smiled at him once or twice

after the story time ends, lwj is reluctant to leave so he ends up letting jingyi pick a bunch of books and looks at a few fancy first edition books with wen qing

and maybe his mother used to love collecting books - the old ones with the yellowed pages and beautiful pictures - and that’s why lwj helps out with his family business,, bc he wants everyone to be able to have books like that (never mind that all their books are like mass produced and lack any sentimentality & the staff dont actually care about the books)

anyway he sees wwx help jingyi pick out books and lets him borrow his handkerchief when he sneezes and lwj’s like oh nooo he’s good with kids too so now he has to talk to him

so he goes up to buy the books and wwx’s telling jingyi about how much he likes daisies and lwj just blurts out “can i ask what your name is?” and wwx blinks but then smiles and is like i’m wei wuxian, but you can call me wei ying, and i own this store. what about you? and lwj is like wangji, you can call me wangji

wen qing takes one look at lwj and the way he’s staring at wwx and goes you’re going to come back aren’t you and lwj is trying so hard not to just run away so he just ignores her but then she mentions something about lan books and he’s Panicking and jingyi almost says that he’s a lan and lwj just kinda guides him over to a table and then goes back to flirt talk with wwx

anyway wwx ends up going on this big tangent about books and what they mean to people and the whole when you read a book as a child it becomes a part of your identity and who you’re going to become the way nothing else does (and lwj remembers his mother and her books) and then he apologises for going on and lwj is mentally going marry me, but he ends up calling wwx and his mother shameless

but it’s okay!! wwx & cssr are proud of it!

and then yada yada lwj buys the kinda expensive books and ends up awkwardly shepherding jingyi out of the store

cut to the next day when the lan book store opens properly and lwj ends up telling lqr about how he met wwx and lqr is like >:/ the son of that shameless woman,, how terrible,, it’s okay he won’t be a problem for long bc they’ll be driven out of business. which isn’t the response lwj wanted but lxc seems supportive enough if a bit concerned about how it would work with them as business enemies

business is already bad for wwx and it’s barely been a week since the lan store opened and he’s pretty bummed out but hopeful that maybe it’s a fluke

then nhs invites him to some fancy dinner with him bc wei-xiong they’re all so boring and smart and have opinions, please don’t make me have opinions so wwx gets dragged along

he ends up talking to lwj at the bar bc how could he not talk to the man who’s standing in front of all that fancy alcohol and getting some fruit juice. (he’d get water but lwj has had to put up with su she all evening so he needs something stronger)

anyway they chat and it’s pleasant but then after wwx gets approached by someone who’s like wow im surprised you’re talking to lan wangji and wwx is like lan?!

cue their passive aggressive argument around the food table complete with caviar and a turkey knife.

now bc it’s lan wangji,, instead of making scathing comebacks he just makes like factual and to-the-point statements that end up being really bitchy (or does he intend them to be that way? it’s a mix of both of them tbh but in this case he’s definitely being bitchy on purpose) and wwx is spluttering bc that boy does not stand up well against hot and mad people

nhs ends up coming over and defusing the situation but wwx makes a point of stealing the rest of the caviar off lwj’s plate before leaving

lwj ends up ducking out early as well to avoid su she and emails wwx that night at like 9:45 bc the guilt of being so rude kept him up late and yllz is like oh no that’s so sad ): but impressive! i wish i could zing people,, my brain just turns off the second i need to make a comeback

creative liberties,, wwx is good at teasing but not being genuinely mean? lets go with that

anyway now we get the delightful montage of wwx hiding behind cheese displays and lwj walking out of coffee stores with a newspaper covering his face as they try to avoid each other

when wwx gets in the wrong line at the supermarket lwj comes over and kinda glares the checkout woman into submission and gets her to let wwx use his card which wwx is really conflicted about bc why would he help me?? and once again angry lwj = hot lwj

a few weeks later wwx ends up asking hgj for help bc business isn’t getting any better but refuses to give any details and i refuse to have lwj watch the godfather so lwj just straight up messages him and is like tear that bitch apart

and so wwx decides to tear that bitch apart and asks nhs for help. nhs, fan of the arts and small businesses and local culture, is 100% down for it and writes a scathing article about lan books and how they’re destroying all the aforementioned things nhs cares about

it ends up getting a lot of traction and people show up to protest and wwx even goes on television

lwj ends up seeing the news coverage on the matter while he’s at the gym with jzx

jzx is 100% the guy who goes to the gym just to apathetically walk on the treadmill while lwj jogs

he sees the interview with wwx and lwj is like he’s not this nice in real life and jzx is like you met him?? and lwj is like mn. then jzx is like i bet he’s not as hot and lwj is completely silent but his ears are bright red and that’s how jzx knows that wwx is just that hot

also?? lwj goes on tv and says like three words and he’s kinda annoyed how the news decided to spin that but he also said like three words so what did he expect?

but, despite all the publicity, sales don’t get any better so wwx is like fine can we meet in person and lwj is like sure

he brings jzx along bc he doesn’t know the way there, it’s not because he’s nervous and kind of in love with yllz, it’s because he doesn’t know how to get to the cafe. (it’s two blocks from his apartment)

anyway jzx is like oof man it’s seems like yllz is wwx but he is that hot so not all is lost and lwj is like yikes no not happening im not going in but he also feels bad about standing wwx up so he ends up going in and sitting down in front of wwx

and lwj is like wei wuxian, all this publicity will do nothing to save your business and wwx is like lan wangji who do you think you are (or however that scene goes) but instead of lwj being asked to leave wwx decides he’s not gonna chicken out first so they end up spending like two hours having the most aggressive cup of coffee and chat he’s ever had

lwj is exhausted but he also refuses to give up

but then wwx spits something about how lwj is some cold, heartless suit who doesn’t actually care about or appreciate books so how can he possibly dare to think that he’s better than wwx and that hurts bc lwj had thought that he’d been doing exactly that so he leaves

anyway the next morning wwx is moping around the bookstore bc he didn’t get stood up, he swears. am i not cute enough he moans to wen qing and she’s like your hgj doesn’t know what you look like. but what about my personality? is that cute enough? and wen qing eventually manages to grit out that yes it is cute enough

wen ning comes in and is like are you okay? you got stood up? that’s good! your date might have been the rooftop killer xue yang! he got caught last night! and wwx is like i wish, i just got stood up like a chump

so they ignore each other for a few weeks bc wwx is very hurt and lwj doesn’t know what he’s going to say but wwx ends up caving and emails hgj about how guilty he feels and how even though wwx probably means nothing to lwj, he’s worried that maybe he did hurt lwj and also please hgj i still want to talk to you

now hgj never says a lot, he’s always really succinct and direct but this time he takes the time to write a proper apology. it’s not an explanation bc he doesn’t want to give this up, even if the yllz he thinks he loves is the wwx that he hates, but it is an apology

the next day wwx goes to lunch with granny wen and finally dares to ask her whether it would be okay to shut the store down. he doesn’t want, of course he doesn’t want to, but he doesn’t think he can afford to keep it open. granny just tells him that it’s okay and that if the time has come, the time has come

we don’t have to worry about wwx breaking up with anyone, so he just goes home and asks nhs if he can have some space and nhs quickly packs his stuff and goes home. as he stands in the doorway with his last box of stuff he tells wwx that he’s sorry and wishes he could help more and wwx sends him this tremulous smile but manages to hold it together until nhs leaves and then he cries and cries

the next day he goes back to work and tries to stay bubbly and cheery even as he sees all of his shelves slowly being emptied and people who haven’t stepped foot in his store in six months are telling him what a shame it is and how they wish it didnt have to come to this and wwx is internally screaming

he manages to stave off any actual screaming but when he closes up that day he ends up going to the children’s section of lan bookstore and just as he had thought, none of the staff care about the books, none of them know any books and he ends up recommending a series to some young mother

lwj, who’d spotted wwx and come over to see if whether he was here to pick a fight, comes to the awful realisation that maybe wwx is right about his store lacking heart

he goes home that night and su she tags along even though lwj just wants space and the elevator breaks. he’s sitting there on the ground listening to his neighbour talk about reconnecting with family and the elevator button pressing dude talks about getting engaged and su she is just there whining about his job and the inconvenience and lwj goes fuck this. when the elevator starts working again he grabs his rabbit and goes back down to the ground floor, ignores su she’s shouts, and goes back to his childhood home

wwx gets stuck closing his store down. he looks around at the shelves and tables he’d grown up with and sees his childhood and a-yuan’s and countless moments he’s had with people he’s loved and realises he’s going to lose it all forever. he grabs the bell, the last thing he has left of the store and closes up for the very last time

in the meantime, lwj is living the high life. he hangs out with his bunny, gets to read pride and prejudice for fun and actually manages to get all the way through it and then his brother comes to visit

apparently he’d broken up with jgy bc he was gold digger-esque and had decided to run off with someone richer and lwj is like oh thats so sad ): anyway nmj is right there and he fills your heart with joy and lxc is like have you ever had someone like that? and lwj immediately thinks of wwx and is like fuck

his first order of business is to buy wwx’s shop bc it broke my heart that she didn’t get it back in the og movie and he starts filling it with books again. he buys ten copies of his mother’s favourite books and places them on the shelf by the door and then he sees a book that reminds him of jingyi so gets some of them and he sees a book covered in daisies and thinks of wwx. and slowly, slowly he’s building up his own library, his own store, and this time every single book means something and for once lwj looks out across the floor with pride and satisfaction

his second order of business is to apologise to wwx for being a dick. he buys some daisies and goes to his place and comes in and cooks soup for wwx. lwj apologises and tells him it wasn’t personal and wwx is like that’s not true, it was personal to me and it’s personal to a lot of people and lwj understands that now. he remembers the way he’d filled wwx’s store and left his own touch and bared his heart through each of those books and he understands. he doesn’t actually say this and just tells wwx that he wants to be friends

lwj considers coming clean about being hgj but he knows now that he definitely loves wwx and knows that wwx currently hates him but damn is it hard not to say anything when wwx is telling him how much he loves hgj

anyway he’s like organise a meeting again with hgj

i’d say it’s ooc for lwj not to come clean but this is the man who pined for x decades and just didnt tell wwx that his son was alive so like not ooc at all

so lwj decides he’s going to woo wwx as best as he can and organises to meet up with yllz and then goes and meets with wwx and they end up going to hang out and for some strange reason, even though wwx keeps getting stood up, he doesn’t seem to care too much. he keeps agreeing to meet hgj and when he doesn’t show is more than happy to spend the rest of his day with lwj

and slowly, they start to get closer. wwx takes a sip of lwj’s coffee and lwj buys him daisies. wwx brings him an interesting book and lwj tells him about his mother. they chat freely about hgj and lwj is happy for the first time in a long time

eventually lwj organises the final meeting. wwx is really confused about the place he picked but he’s hopeful that maybe this time hgj will show. after wwx and lwj’s farmers market date ends, lwj ends up asking wwx if he could love lwj and wwx is like you put me in such an uncomfortable situation. ie stammering and blushing and eventually going oh no ill be late and running off

anyway a couple hours later wwx finds himself standing outside his old bookstore and he refuses to look at it bc he doesn’t want to see what it’s become but then, through the open door of the store, a bunny hops out and over to wwx

lwj comes running out after it calling out its name (bichen?? flopsy?? rabbit?? one of them) and wwx looks up and is like oh,, it’s you, i’d hoped it was you and he’s all teary and lwj has a handkerchief that he’d embroidered himself (with gentians of course) and he’s like dont cry yllz and then they kiss and it’s beautiful

bonus: lwj takes wwx inside the store and shows him everything and explains the meaning behind every book that they’ve picked and then wwx does cry for real bc there is definitely an entire two walls dedicated just to wwx

do they open the store as a bookstore again and work together? does wwx end up writing books?? idk up to you. i like the idea that they open the store for story time and sell children’s books but lwj still works with lan & sons to get some heart in their stores and wwx works on his own books in his spare time

#Anonymous #mdzs #modao zushi #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxian #cql #the untamed #asks #thank you so much for the ask i had a lot of fun making this!#let me know if you'd like anything else!!

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myblog37 · 3 years

Text

Why I don’t believe in God

Epilogue

Life happens. Coronavirus happens. Loss of substance and things happen. And we hold onto hope like it’s there- we give our 10%, we go to church, we make friends only in the Christian community, we save sex for marriage, we believe in a future partner, and we trust our leadership. Then what happens when it all falls down? The 10% you gave to avoid paying bills doesn’t do nothing but take your money- and then your account is overdrawn $300 by bills you didn’t even authorize. No one greets you at church unless you look churchy and aren’t covered from head to toe in tattoos and wear articles of clothing that show everything. The friends you made only love you when you’re Christian and if you make a mistake- be it cussing, cigarettes, drinking, or drugs they will judge you, tell you you’re in sin, that you’ve broken the law and God called on them to do it. They will always point out your sins, judge you, and say God sent them.

The Christian friends you made turn their back on you as soon as you’re going through something but you are constantly encouraging and helping them. As soon as you backslide, they will be the ones to say something and judge you. So you are helping them but when are they ever helping you? Real friends are hard to find but if all a Christian does is judge you for your cussing, what’s the point? You save sex for marriage until you’re 40 years old, being celibate and all you’ve been able to find are men in the church who use you for sex or try to get sex out of you.

The leadership you need won’t hold you accountable or mentor you, but they’re quick to judge and point out your flaws. And that’s all they do. As I said, they’re there when you jack up, but when you’re doing right, they say nothing. As you can probably tell, all of this is a recipe to blow your brains out and that’s itzactly what I did six months ago.

I took my father’s gun from out of his house, a rifle, and I proceeded to point it to my head and pull the trigger. I was tired of life, I was getting no encouragement, my husband left me and I was being told by all Christians that if I ever got with someone else, they would leave me because look at my track record. Funny because these were people that I did not even know, and when I reached out for help after my suicide attempt, there was no one to say anything.

No matter how friendly I was, kind, and caring, no matter how I poured into the Christian community, I received no help, no encouragement, no mentorship, no position in ministry- just a bunch of negative people saying negative things and they will continue to say negative things when they read this book yet when I blow my brains out where are they?

My father who is a pastor yelled at me profusely while I was in the hospital after TRYING to shoot myself saying if you don’t like being in there, you shouldn’t have done what you did. All the while I was being kept from calling my family or calling anybody, sleeping on a bed with no sheets sometimes the floor, being denied food, and other horrible and abusive withholding patterns. I could tell you about my life but you wouldn’t be able to handle it.

My mother was the only one left praying for me to her God who I gave a simple $300 to while I had $1000 in the bank and I found my checking account overdrawn the next day by bills, fraud, fakers, pretenders for money that I did not owe and should not have had to pay. Where did my money go, you onstar account was deactived from lack of payment, yet I just had $1000 in the bank where did it go? And you’re saying you overspent your money, you dumbass. But what happened was (and this is the honest to God truth), I got frauded $300 that I did not owe, bills I said I did not authorize and could not pay right now, the TITHE was over $200, I was charged 5 times for a Legal Shield membership when I should’ve only been charged one time if that because I cancelled it, and I stayed in a motel for 1 night, yet was charged 4 times for it. No matter how hard I went to the banks, I could not get rid of these transactions.

All this while I HAD FAITH and confessed and prayed and believed for hours and days that GOD was going to somehow work it out and mysteriously bless my finances by putting money in the bank and I don’t know where it come from. NUTS. Christians are absolutely nuts. We believe in this principle- if you just give 10%, God will pay all your bills. If you save sex for marriage, you will never get hurt. If you would just stop sinning, you wouldn’t be in the mess you’re in. So does that mean we go our entire lives without having sex? All the way up to 40, maybe 50? Yet if you enjoy sex, you’re in sin. If you don’t wait till marriage or do it with 1 person, you’re going to have your heart broke. But heartbreak is non-discriminatory, it happens to everyone whether you wait or not.

I’m writing this book because I believe I can help others to escape the LIES and live their life in peace, harmony, freedom, and most of all BLESSED. If God’s going to take your money anyway, there’s no point. If you hang out with a guy friend from church, and he tell you you have 3 holes you ought to use them and we’ve got to work on having a 3 some, there’s no point. If people in the church don’t even bother to encourage you when you reach out for help after trying to kill yourself, there’s no point. If friends are only there to be “friends” to tell you you’re messing up you’re in sin when you’re messing up and in sin, there’s no point.

There’s must be encouragement, love, support, and friendship out there right? There must be a decent man out there right? I’m telling you, not only is there no God, there is no hope. There’s no hope if you don’t work a job and MAKE money happen yourself, there is no hope. There is no hope if you truly believe this guy you saved yourself and waited your whole life for is going to make a difference, be a good man to you, and never hurt you. There is no hope if you believe women who’ve had abortions are going to hell. No hope if you only make friends with people who don’t really care and aren’t really there for you.

The hope, the trust that you have, is in yourself. You must believe in your capabilities to do things because no one is going to do it for you. You must stop hating and condemning yourself because you’re imperfect and have flaws. Most of all, you should stop being friends with the wrong people

This book is meant to help, encourage, and transform you into that person that can do things on their own and makes things happen. This is not for the Christian broke ass poor still believing God’s gonna come through. It is not for people free of sin, doing everything right. It is not for people that are going to judge me and say horrible things simply because I’m writing what I’m writing now. You’ll find there is more support, more love out there than with Christians and you’ll find that support and love does not come from Christians. The best thing you can do in life is love yourself and also be friends with people who will not judge.

I realize this book will get a lot of hatred and criticism from the Christian community. Bring it on.

CHAPTER ONE

As I’m writing this, I’m reminded of a suicide attempt I made months ago with my father’s gun. I don’t blame my father. He was hurt so much and he was just hurting me because that’s all he’d been given. But I thought surely if I do this, my family will finally love me and we’ll be a family again. Wrong. It got worse. It got worse because the way to get my family to love me is to sow love into them until I get it back and reap a harvest of blessing.

My father quit talking to me afterwards. Why? Because it hurt them so much to see their baby girl going through so much and it doesn’t end and she’s still going through things. What did they do wrong? What could they do? These were the thoughts going through their heads and they became angry.

A normal, human reaction. Yet if you believe in a God that doesn’t exist, you’re angry at God because they’re not giving you the love you deserve. Unrealistic expectation. People criticized my father for not loving and helping me more, but he was just being human. People tried to get me to turn my back on my father and mother. I never did.

Yet if you go to church, you’ll feel like you’re not getting something you missed out on. And you will get angry. Let’s try to think rationally and sensibly about this. Maybe your family is mad at you and put you out BECAUSE THEY CARE SO MUCH and want you to get it together. Maybe your husband does love you, but you’re thinking about him all wrong. We’ve got to change weird ideas and thoughts to believe that it is OURSELVES giving us this life and it OURSELVES giving us all we’ve been given. I hope this book helps you because it helped me.

There’s no God. There’s no devil. IT IS US. When you reach out for help and can’t find it, call me because that day will come. THIS IS meant to give others hope. I want to help you. And that’s why I’m writing this book. No one is perfect. We all have flaws and emotions. That’s called being human. So if they are not being a friend DELETE them, a logical mental explanation.

Not everything is spiritual or the devil, if it were we’d all be dead. IT’S US. What are you giving yourself? Are you giving yourself love? Are you loving others in a relationship? Are you with someone who genuinely loves you and living a good life? Most of all, are you working, going to school, making money happen? THIS is how to live a good life and give a good life to yourself, not this nutty God business that says everything is spiritual.

For some reason, when I pulled that trigger, the gun did not go off. I was still alive and it was the most miserable feeling that I had to live life on this earth and stay alive. Why? I believed in God. When I was 15 years old, I asked God to put me through the trials of Job and then bless me with the blessings of Job when I asked for it and had had enough later. Well, according to my mental mind, I went through these trials up to the age of 37 and no matter how much I begged, pleaded, cried, got prayer, fasted, worshipped, believed, prayed I NEVER GOT THE BLESSINGS just kept going through these trials. That was when I realized I’M NUTTY.

Everything bad in life that was happening was happening “because I’m a Job” and there was no end, no let up to my pain in life, the loss, the bad things happening to me. Why? I WAS MAKING IT HAPPEN MYSELF. My belief that I was meant to go through nothing but bad things came from Christianity. God wants you to suffer. That’s life. It’s just not time yet for you to be blessed.

I believed the same about a mate. Even up to the age of 37, I was mostly celibate because I did not want to use anybody or have anybody us me, yet everyone uses each other, married or not. I waited and waited but the man of my dreams never came and the praying did not end. That’s when I realized. I’M NUTS. I could be making this happen on my own, making life be good to me, and FINDING myself the man of my dreams instead of believing in a God that is magically going to do all this stuff for you. Life is not Lucky Charms and it’s not Burger King- you can’t have it your way.

Life is rough, hard so we must appreciate the bad times as well as the good times and we must have bad as well as good. People say “I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist”- well, maybe you should have faith! Faith in yourself that you can do things to give yourself a good life. So if you want the blessings of Job you go out and get it and make it happen. And if you’re still going through crap, that’s life just accept it, but give yourself good times too and good in life so that life is not miserable and shittty. Whatever life you have now, it’s because you created that for yourself.

Sounds simple enough right? Yet millions believe in this nutty spirituality that says it’s all God or all the devil. God is in control. God won’t let anything happen outside of his will. So if I get raped is that God or a person’s choice? So if my father and mother don’t love me, and my bank account is overdrawn, is that God trying to see if I’ll trust him and love him no matter what and still serve him, or is that NUTTY Christianity again saying we deserve to be punished and go through things and suffer because Jesus did.

I’m trying to help you and I think this book will help. CUT the Christians out of your life and things will get better. Your life is what it is because you made it that way. Now make it something else. Don’t be afraid of hell and the afterlife and what happens in the afterlife, if you go to heaven, you go to heaven, if you go to hell, you go to hell, it’s all God anyway right? WRONG. If there was a God that cares, he would’ve made my life easier when I pulled that trigger. He would’ve stopped people from abusing me sexually. He would’ve gotten me off the street.

Yet no matter how much you cry out, this God that you so delicately believe in is not there, he does not rescue you, nothing happens, nothing changes. So if there is hell, I welcome it. But I believed if I shot myself I would go to heaven. Why? I was a Christian and wanted a better, happy life. I did not turn my back on God, he turned his back on me. I knew that once I died, I’d finally be happy and be in eternity with him, and that was better than being on earth.

What’s the point? If all life is suffering? If God just wants us to suffer? If we’re here to suffer like Jesus and Job and just wait till you’re 40, 50, or your whole life is over to FINALLY get those blessings of Job or what if they never come? This nutty theology that God’s in control is NUTS. I was forced to live after my suicide attempt, FORCED. I could not buy a gun anywhere and because of my son and my mother, I was unable to kill myself and do that to them.

You just don’t believe in God enough. You just don’t love God enough. This is what we’ll hear from the Christian community. Yet if you want to buy or sell anything, you’ve got to take the 666 on the right hand or the forehead. Well I don’t want to be in an apartment broke, with no food, no man, no furniture, no money, no job, no gas, no car, and HOMELESS so what do I do? Most people will sleep with people for money BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE IN GOD SO MUCH or strip or whatever it takes to get money, get with a rich man, whatever. YET THEY’RE JUDGED WHEN THEY DO IT.

They’re sinners. They’re evil. Why? They’re trying to make life happen for them and weren’t given parents that gave a shit. SIN. Go on and judge me but I am here to help THEM not you. You weren’t there when I tried to kill myself and you won’t be there when I die. The reason I was spared is I’m meant to help YOU so that you’ll see the truth……………and finally to the best of your ability live a good and happy life, at least the best that you can make it because it’s in your control and your power ONLY. So if I’m going to hell, I welcome it.

Anything’s better than life being nothing but shit on this earth. So if me being friends with non Christians is a sin BRING IT ON. If me marrying somebody who’s rich and loving them the best I can for money BRING IT ON. If standing up to you on my facebook when you condemn me for my sins is sin BRING IT ON. Because I don’t want your strange, Jesus mafia life, that says suffer bitch and believe God-

even when it never happens, you just believe in God and don’t give up.

This lie that our lives are meant for suffering has gone on too long. Make life the best you can make it. God and people won’t love you. That is why YOU MUST LOVE YOURSELF.

CHAPTER TWO

This phony philosophy that there’s a God is just as crazy as there’s a devil. If something bad happens, it’s the devil doing it through you or to you and that’s with everything. Family. Finances. Relationship. We just have to pray and get rid of the devil. Yet what if the devil doesn’t go away and things stay bad? Then you don’t have enough faith or there’s something you’re doing wrong.

Just pray and keep binding and they’ll go away. What if they don’t? Then you don’t have enough faith. You’re not a good enough Christian. YET I BELIEVE if something goes bad even if it’s severe and all the time and trying to kill you it’s because you done fucked up or someone else did. It is your choices or someone else. GOD had nothing to do with it. THE DEVIL had nothing to do with it. They are not in control of life.

The only person that’s in control of our lives is us and it’s up to us how much we love and how much love we receive. There is no God looking out for us all and there certainly is no devil making it all happen. If that were the case, everything on earth would be bad and hellacious. I hate to tell you, but that little man with a fork is not that powerful. And there are not minions attacking you trying to stop you from what you’re doing. Shit happens because literally SHIT happens. It happens to everyone. And these are because of our choices or the choices of someone else. Blaming it on some evil force won’t work. It’s your life.

Yet people believe they can do witchcraft and the devil can give them what they want or they can worship the devil and finally have a good life. That is ridiculous. The devil doesn’t care anymore than God does and he’s not that powerful. You cannot do deals with the devil to make your life better. It only becomes better because you made it better.

You cannot do evil, witchcraft, or worship the devil in order to make things change or get better. If that were the case, we’d all worship the devil. We’d all do evil acts for him to do big for us. Anything ANYTHING to make life good. But I am telling you. The “devil” does not care. The “Lord” does not care. The only one who cares is you and others. And that is IT, my friend. So you can believe in the nuttiness all you want it isn’t going to change things. It won’t give you money, possessions, fame, OR the right choices and everything in life is made up of choices- yours or somebody else’s, so what choice are you going to make?

If all your life is made up of choices, the right choices will get you to the right things. The right CHOICES will make your life good or better or great. The CHOICES in others is what makes things happen or prevents things from happening. If something bad happens to you, it’s not God. It’s the choice of someone else. Abuse or mistreatment is because of a CHOICE. So get around and let happen to you the right choices from others.

Don’t allow the wrong choices in others to get to you or cause you mistreatment of yourself or someone else. There are some people’s choices we can do nothing about but most of the time we need to TRY to get around and make happen for us good choices from others, not bad choices from others. If you apply this to your life, you’ll see that I am correct.

Now you’re saying WOW the devil is going to attack you non-stop now (laughter) you won’t last long the devil is going to beat you down and take everything from you and attack you until you’re dead- you won’t last with that belief long! Well what if he does? I can either make life better for me or continue making it shit, continue believing God’s gonna save me, help me out, get me out of this? I can think I’m being attacked by the devil ALL THE TIME.

But that is not going to change anything anymore than a belief in God will. I don’t care if every devil in hell attacks me, it’s still my choice to make my life what it is. Nutty spiritualism and Christianity will get you to believe everything’s a devil. In fact, any bad thing that happens is the devil. This just isolates you even more, puts you through suffering, and makes life bad.

“God” can do nothing about people treating you bad. “God” can do nothing about your finances. You can. The devil can make 1,000 people hate you and make you hate you, but so what? Who really fucking cares about some devil and millions of demons? This theology is meant to bring you down, break you down, and again believe that life is suffering every second, every moment and there’s no getting out of it unless you worship him.

Yet even people that worship him have bad shit and even more bad shit happen. I’m famous and because of my witchcraft I’m famous. You’re famous because you worked hard, met the right people, and made the right connection. There ain’t no devil and no demons making you famous. If God is not the powerful, the devil is not that powerful. The only powerful entity is yourself. Yourself is your best friend or your worst enemy. It is important to love OURSELVES more than any person, job, business, or significant other. If you love yourself first, all things will work out.

But Christians hold a grudge that someone did them wrong, they were abused, that’s why this is all happening to them. Yet if you’ll think back to your life it is YOURSELF doing it. YOURSELF is itzactly why you are where you are today. Did you go to college? That means no money. Are you around healthy people? You will not be healthy. Are you in a healthy relationship? You will be unhealthy for others. Like duh Christians. IT IS YOU. Not no God, not no devil.

The last time I went to church, they talked over and over about how on the way there, the devil was active because the police wrongly accused them of almost running over a dude on a bicycle and they almost went to jail. Of course, it was the devil attacking them so they wouldn’t make it to church. Everyone talks about the devil and how he’s attacking. So easy to blame the devil instead of THE COP MADE A DUMBASS CHOICE and people are crazy and have psychological and mental issues. Instead of believing it’s PEOPLE there is some spiritual force at work.

This can make you crazy because if you’re around people all the time (who are ALL jacked up by the way) things can be jacked up all the time. Shit can be happening 24/7 and it’s not some “devil” or demonic entity. It’s people. The cop made a mistake or the bicyclist was nuts people are HUMAN give them some credit they are not perfect.

When they got to church, the sound system messed up for 10 seconds, and even though they fixed it it was the devil. Why? Why can’t you just fix the sound system (which only takes 10 seconds by the way) instead of giving attention to some devil that we now all got to think about and hear about instead of just ignoring it, fixing it, and move on? Why do we need to sit here and awknowledge to devil? What a waste of time! You could just fix the physical gitch and problem and move on.

Now you have a persecution complex that it’s the devil and every time something bad happens you’re thinking it’s the devil. So what if it is? Why give him any awknowledgment? Just makes life worse. If I’m able to fix it, move on. This is nutty to think that there is a devil all the time or even at all. There just simply cannot be a demon in the dishwasher. Fix the dishwasher.

It’s raining outside right now. I could say “That’s God making it rain now I can’t get my stuff- thanks” or I could say “that’s a demonic spirit now I have to pray” but it really is just rain. Just life. Accept it. If everything is a demon, we’re stressed out, worried, and suffering all the time. If everything is God, he gets blamed for every bad thing there is. God’s in control. He made it happen. NO. People’s choices are something “God” can do nothing about. He cannot change people. He cannot make them make choices.

Life is not all spiritual. It’s all mental. And it’s up to you to break the mental war. I recently had a therapist of 4 years and another of 1 year quit on me. They told me I was too dysfunctional and they could not help me. I could sit here and think that’s the devil or I could think well, more dysfunctional people on the planet, there’s so many people on the planet jacked up in the head. Thinking it’s the devil makes me have a persecution complex. NOW bad shit is happening all the time and you’re programmed to now accept bad all the time because it’s “God”.

Now it’s God doing it because he’s just allowing bad shit to happen in your life. This also programs you to where everything’s bad all the time. And this is the way of Christianity or any belief in anything spiritual. Instead of understanding that we as humans are ALL flawed and ALL in need of love and forgiveness and every last one of us EVERY LAST ONE screwed up, God and the devil get blamed for everything. This also makes life shit. If my computer messes up, is it the devil? Who cares! Fix your computer.

If everyone hates me and talks bad about me, is it the devil? No, there’s just that many jacked up people. If my father doesn’t let me in the house and I’m outside with my kid escaping an abusive relationship, is that the devil? No, your father is jacked up! And we’ve got to realize EVERYONE is jacked up and dysfunctional. There is not one healthy person on the planet. We all have flaws, have evil, have anger, and have mistakes. If you LOVE and FORGIVE and UNDERSTAND everyone your problems will go away. Try it sometime. They may not change but your life will.

We’ve also got to realize that there is no love in the world. The world is jacked up. If everything that happens is because God let it happen then again we are subject to God and how he wants our lives to be so if everything’s bad he must want everything to be bad and our lives to be bad so therefore our lives are bad and we just accept it ACCEPT A BAD LIFE and that life is bad. If everything’s good then God must want our life to be good and we are better than others. If everything’s good it’s because God wants it to be good so if he wants it to get bad again it can. More recipe for failure. Again. God and the devil get blamed for everything.

If everything’s the devil and an attack of the devil then humans are not jacked up or seen as flawed people with mistakes, problems, and mental difficulties- they are these superhuman, superspiritual powerless entities that anything can happen through. People are not that dumb and that powerless. People are PEOPLE. It’s because of our view of people that we think they’re these vessels God or the devil happen through. We also don’t give people enough credit.

We think they should always love us, always give to us, always be kind to us, never hurt us, never be abusive, and just these entities that operate in love all the time. Yet when we see people as HUMAN is the only time our lives change. NO ONE is going to always love you, give to you, be kind to you, never hurt you, and never be abusive to you. Human beings are incapable of such. So if that’s true that people will always love us, always give to us, always be kind to us, never hurt us, and never be abusive to us, we give people too much credit. Now we are mad at them and others or everyone and the world around us. More recipe for a bad life, so what’s the point of being on earth?

If ALL humans are capable of abuse, hurt, anger, lust, envy, greed we stop putting people on such a high pedestal and become realistic that we are ALL this way we are ALL human so forgive everyone. Love everyone. Be good to everyone. This is a recipe for a good life and all you really need to make your life good. There isn’t a human on the planet that hasn’t been abusive at some point.

You scream at your wife because you’re at your end and about to lose your job. You’ve never done it before but you have a moment where you snap – this is called verbal abuse and now you’re a bad person because you’ve verbally abused your wife. Yet everyone has yelled at someone and been pushed to their limit at some point or another. Everyone has gone off.

Have you ever got mad in traffic? You’re a human with emotions. Of course at some point in your life you’ve gotten mad. Now let’s take it a step further. Everyone is coming at you at all sides. You’re being bullied at school and beat up every day. No one will leave you alone. Everyone is rejecting you, talking bad about you, and mistreating you. No psychology is involved in this. If you shoot everyone and snap, you’re an evil murderer condemned to hell for eternity. Or if you snap and fight back, let’s say the principal finds out and you’re expelled- now what happens? You hate yourself. You now have a bad life. You lose all your friends and have to move and now you’re just angry all the time.

What has happened? This person was not given enough love. Instead of forgiving everyone, we say those that beat him up are evil when really THEY weren’t given enough love. Love is the universal answer to everything and every situation. It’s really quite simple LOVE LOVE LOVE the abusing attackers and LOVE LOVE LOVE the victim. Why? Because we are all humans fatally flawed and make mistakes.

To think of it any other way, you’re seeing life now as you powerless to do anything about it. If you’re the victim because those people are EVIL you’re still getting beat up. If you’re the abusers, you don’t change because you’re still able to beat on the victim and THINGS STAY THE SAME. Until our thought patterns begin to change. Anything else is a recipe for a bad life.

If you love and forgive both sides, you now have a recipe for the greatest life ever. Why? You walk in love and forgiveness. Love says we are both character flawed and make mistakes and are human whether we’re verbally abusive, physically abusive, or sexually abusive- we are just giving what we’ve got, we are character flawed imperfect human beings.

Let’s take it a step further. A man is physically abusive to you and you think he’s an evil piece of shit. Now you are angry and in an abusive situation and need recovery. Now life is shitty. A bad life. A bad mindset. Yet what if you believe he’s just giving to me what he’s got, doing to me what’s been done to him. We give humans some credit and understand hurting people hurt people and hurting someone physically is just as bad as the verbal yet we have scales of bad, good and worse this sin is greater than that sin this thing is greater bad or worse than that thing. Yet if it’s all the same from small to extreme extent of abuse, EVERYONE is flawed and now we’re not thinking a person needs to be judged by their actions. More healing takes place in these relationships because LOVE CONQUERS ALL and we don’t hold everybody by some global scale, realizing all humans make mistakes and are capable of giving pain as well as receiving pain. When you judge on a scale of perfection, you realize some people have it bad some people have it good. Some people are rich, some people are poor. Yet we can all have it the same.

We can all have it good. We can all be rich. It’s a mindset. You can think “this person is abusing me”, “I’m abusing this person” or you can think man, I need mercy and grace and forgiveness that’s the only way to end it. Hate breeds more hate. Love breeds more love. Lack of understanding creates more lack of understanding, anger breeds more anger, everything breeds itself whether good or bad, no matter what it is.

You give to someone love, you get love. You give to someone hate, you get hate. Eventually, you will get back what you gave. I’ve never seen hate end hate. I’ve never seen abuse end abuse. Have you ever tried it the other way? Have you ever seen a boxing match? Both are hitting each other. Yet eventually if one person stops throwing punches, he will get beat down and the match will end, somebody will win. This ends the match. Yet if both remain fighting, one person will always win. That’s the game we call life.

So what happened? One person decided they would let the other person win. What really happened. Well hitting is physical abuse. Not doing anything is love in any situation. To sit there and take it and eventually lose is love. The other person will give up and have to quit at some point. This is how we solve our life’s problems. If someone is abusing you physically, emotionally, sexually, or verbally and you do nothing, what happens eventually at some point it will have to end. It can’t go on forever. They will either begin to sow love or leave the relationship. Both are good things which just leads to my conclusion hate breeds more hate, love breeds more love.

What if you did nothing but act in love and kindness for 30 days, surely not everyone would react the same, but some people would love you back, they might even pass on the love. Now what if you do nothing but hate and act in hatred for 30 days (a character decision)??? A lot of people would hate you back, they might even pass that hate on to others, but some people would actually give up. They wouldn’t want to fight you or deal with you, they would just give up.

IT’S ENDED RIGHT THERE. Now you have a recipe for a great life. If love breeds more love and hate breeds more hate doesn’t it make more sense to love and not to hate? If everything is going to multiply itself, which would you rather have? The same is true with abuse. Abused people abuse people. Hurting people hurt people. Unabused people unable others. Love breeds more love. If you unabused, eventually it will go somewhere. If you make the choice to abuse, the other person will react the same way or spread it on to someone else. It’s so simple. Just do good and make right choices.

If something bad happens to you, you can’t do anything about it but eventually you will be powerless. Because we are fatally flawed humans with mistakes. If we judge off of mercy and love saying THIS PERSON IS A HUMAN BEING and ALL HUMAN BEINGS ARE THIS WAY it takes the standard of perfection, which is unrealistic and never works anyway because we have all been abusive at some point in our lives there is no perfect unabused or unabusive person on the planet we’ve all done it at some point, and GUESS WHAT love and mercy and forgiveness has been sown and you can’t do nothing about it. It’s there. It has to go somewhere. It has to either come back to you or spread so what are we sowing in our world? Hate or love?

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