#i still got a billion things to post... the problem is organizing it all | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ask-postcrash-curly · 24 days ago

Note

Hello there, my beloved stardust “reinader” brother! I’m not sorry. Possum’s right. That is better, even if it doesn’t have the same soubd as “horese.”

Sorry if this comes out a bit messy, I am sorta high right now and insomnia is awful, I hate insomnia, it is a horror movie, I wanna sleep but I can’t, what kind of creature other than a sentient human suffers from this awful experience?!

Also, brother… shall I show you, The Eltingville Club? Teresa showed it to me during our first hangout and I really liked it, ro the point she added me into a group that translates the pilot and the comics. I am on comic duty! (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)

https://youtu.be/mxFzRBQL2Ko?si=gKW0ayU0V4ACuzpn

Brother, don’t be mad at me for beeing high. ‘Tis a treat for me, for I cannot sleep!!! I am amongst the bleating animals, and I can only think of how horrifying it is to have a body. Not like body horror. Body. The body itself. Horrific.

Warnings are… blood, lots of it. Guts. … I don’t remember any other trigger warnings, but I will still say fire to make sure I don’t miss anything. I forget to warn you qbout it and it makes me feel bad.

https://youtu.be/j0fucPpR1K0?si=ggTFsI-jzwyC1_lK

Like, imagine moving your arm. Your arm… the many, many, many, many many many many cells that help you move your arm. Are billions, if not more. Like. It’s such a simple movement, but we don’t see behind the scenes of how the arm is moving. The cells.

I’m an absurdist, nothing makes much sense. At all! The air we breathe it’s actually poison, because every time we inhale, it destroys a bit of our organism, even if our cells try to fiz it. It’s like a time-bomb. My feet never really touch the ground, because the electrons repel, your body never really toches the bed, because the electrons repel, but the only reason we’re not floating it’s because of gravity. Isn’t that absurd?

Waah, I am thinking too much about existence and it’s driving me mad. Shoo, shoo, help!

But stardust, music cues are fun. I really love doing my music cues, they’re so fun. I like your judgements on the songs I send, it’s so niceeeee! (⁠つ⁠✧⁠ω⁠✧⁠)⁠つ

https://youtu.be/KlTNKOnfXFk?si=0Y1XHb2N3YegFN1d

Some fun facts about this fun: the song is four minutes and four seconds long, like 404 error. Depending on the timezone you’re in when it was released, it was posted on a Saturday morning, like old cartoons. She spells “don’t go” in flag signals during the chorus, the poses mean that. There are somany meanings that can be put into it, I can only tell you those three.

There will be a surprise on Monday. Day two. It’s my unlucky day, not because it’s a Monday, but because it’s something that I want you to guess.

Dude, why do I like reading romance-y stuff but I hate engaging in it? That feels so contradictory. I am aroace but it’s still confusing. Why do I like romance, like shipping Sifloop from ISaT or MaeBea from NITW? It’s so alien.

… brother, stardust, sweetpea, sugarcube, Cap’n, Curls, song-buddy, gaming-buddy, big brother. Have they yet discovered alien lifeforms, like plants or bacteria in other planets? Nothing big, just something alien? I wanna see aliens, I wanna befriend an alieeeeeen ot plant an alien!!!

I am here for you. Love youuuuuu!

[Memory of someone headpatting you is projected! Memory of Headpats! Yaaaaaaaaay!!! \⁠(⁠๑⁠╹⁠◡⁠╹⁠๑⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠♬]

So many things to talk about!!! That’s fun, stardust!

- Lumi!

Definitely agreed.

Insomnia's real rough. I know just how it is. Sorry.

Damn, what year is this from? Oh— There go the goblins. And his head— Oh. It's roleplay. Problem solved. I'm missing a lot of these references, jeez. Eugh... This ship's not going to crash, is it? This is fucking impractical. And... disgusting. Why?! And why am I on his shirt...? Kidding. And they're all friends again? That was quick. These guys are assholes. No wonder they get kicked out of everywhere they go. Everyone's an asshole in this town except for that poor kid who got run over. What the fuck?

I'm not mad at you for being high. Why would I be mad at you for that? I'm not in charge of you. Just, uh, do drugs responsibly, yeah? Be safe.

...Yeah I'm not a fan of this. Sorry. I've got enough going with my body already and I'm due for surgery in two hours, so... Not the best time. Ugh.

I think I probably have fewer arm cells than you.

Well, yeah, but it's not absurd. It's science. Sorry, sorry. ...But it is. And the air isn't poison. If the air's poison something's wrong with the air. Or your cells.

Wow. This is really brightly colored. The song's pretty fun too. Hello, cartoon Miku. Yeah, I did think it looked like an old cartoon!

...Okay. Go easy on me, will ya? Not sure how much surprise I can take. Is it your birthday on Monday?

I don't know, mate. Romance is weird.

Yes, something alien, but you're right that it's nothing big. Plants, bacteria, the like. They haven't taught you this...?

Love you. Please try to rest, yeah? I know it's hard, but Anya tells me that lying in bed with your eyes closed is better than nothing. And I can actually do that now, too!

#welcome to eltingville #curlyposting

3 notes · View notes

thetransintransformers · 2 years ago

Text

Megop week 2023

June 11th, Day 1

Loyalty

Optimus Prime grows tired of the constant questioning towards Megatrons redeemed nature.

Luckily, Megatron is there to remind him that they are nothing more than negative words.

Many a time, Optimus Prime had been asked:

How could he put his trust into Megatron?

After 3 billion years of conflict, even with Megatron’s grand gesture of taking an earth alt mode, abandoning his Cybertronian form, the question always came up:

How could he put his trust into Megatron?

This particular time, the question came up in a rather unpleasant surprise interaction with Agent Schloder. A lapdog to G.H.O.S.T as much as he tried to enforce the autobots as lapdogs themselves.

“It's a matter of concern,” the agent had started. “He cares too much about the wrong bots, after all.”

It was no secret, despite Megatron’s turned disposition, he was not viewed through the fondest lens by the organization. So much so, to scoff at his desire for rogue Decepticons to be treated with mercy; not that they weren't guilty, Megatron knew that. But even the smallest shred of mercy to those he felt he abandoned. Optimus could understand that well enough, even when he felt he had no power over such matters.

He began his own counter-argument. “There is no such thing as caring for the wrong bots. The last of the Decepticons, yes, are our enemy. But they are still Cybertronian.” He wanted to be harsher, despite his nature. Decepticons knew plenty well their risks. No place to go, except scavenge for Energon wherever they could, or come to G.H.O.S.T to be imprisoned. “You forget Shloder, Autobots, and Decepticons aren't wildly different species. Just different ideologies. All born from a scarcity on our home planet. Autobots–”

“--are the good guys. And the Decepticons are the bad guys.” Schloder interrupted, a gloating air surrounding him. “Yup, I pretty much got it all figured out OP.” He stretched his back, all but missing the eye-roll Optimus Prime had mustered. Hmm, perhaps Megatron’s bad influence was wearing off on him. “Cant even be bothered to get rid of his Decepticon insignia.” He muttered to himself.

Optimus spoke up at last, maintaining the last of the patience he had with the faux-pas agent. “I think I need to be going, Agent Schloder. Nice speaking with you again.”

Schloder was none the wiser to how irritated he made the autobot leader. “No problem, back to your post. There’s a hot dog in the cafeteria calling my name.” He said in passing by Optimus.

Finally, finally, he was free from this dread conversation. Now though, Optimus felt he really needed the comfort of the mentioned former Decepticon.

—

It was easy finding Megatron, in his same training routine. And it was just as easy to slip in undetected, as the room panels shot out to test the former decepticons skills.

Megatron seemed entirely unaware of Optimus’ presence in the room, and only made aware when an ax cut its way through the air into a turret poised to shoot the mech off his balance.

Megatron let out a brief chuckle. “I had that one, you know.” Before looking to the ceiling. “Module off.” It wasn’t often he quit midway through a training session, but for Optimus, he would make an exception.

Megatron walked his way up to the Prime, “though it is nice to see you have my back.”

Optimus smiled, “Oh always, you’re my voice of reason on the weekends,”

The ex-Decepticon rolled his eyes at such a silly joke, just like Prime. He chuckled and retorted. “Oh sure sure, the sand voice of reason who I recall, during the battle of San Marcos—“ his words paused, looking down at a sudden feeling on his metal skin.

Down below him, Optimus had grabbed his servo in his own, just holding it. Megatron, ever so tenderly, ceases his speaking and brought the Prime’s blue knuckles to his lips, delivering a soft kiss. Optimus, watching the kiss in a familiar awe, settled his helm against the ex-Decepticons shiny gray helmet.

Megatron muttered softly at such a gesture. “What happened?”

Optimus, almost distractedly, responded. “Mmm. Nothing.”

Megatron scoffed, “You get this touchy when something’s happened. I know you.”

Optimus leaned away, cupping Megatron's face in his own servos. “And I am grateful for that. I’m not so grateful that it would appear the agents here don’t quite know you.” He finished, a clear drop in his demeanor. He turned, walking out of the room.

Megatron was a bit taken aback, before coming to his own conclusion, a slight smirk on his face, following Optimus out of the training room. “If this is Schloder talk, you should really learn to tune that man out. I have.” He joked.

A sad smile returned to Optimus' face. “If it were that easy for me.” Megatron caught up with him, laying a servo on his shoulder. “A trip to the observation deck would help you, wouldn’t it?”

Optimus couldn’t help but nod, a grin now evolving from a sad smile. “Like you said. You know me.”

—

The sky outside the observation deck was beautiful. Whisper of dying clouds over a golden sunset. It truly made one appreciate the beauty of earth’s nature.

But it did little to soothe Optimus nerves from his talk with Schloder.

Megatron could see that well enough. “Do not fret Optimus. You know my loyalty is to you.”

Optimus winced fit a moment, turning away from the view to face Megatron. “And that, I believe is the problem. I know I can trust you. But G.H.O.S.T doesn’t. They only expect you to at some point revert back to the war days.”

He let out a heavy sigh. Not all of it was off his chassis, but enough so. He turned back, gripping the railing just a bit too firmly. “You should have heard how he spoke. Why a man like Schloder thinks he knows more about your loyalty than the leader you fought against for 3 billion years I’ll never know.”

It was Megatrons turn to since. The war was always painful to bring up. He slid just a bit closer to Optimus’ side. “I’ll be the last to defend Schloder, you know that. This is not a simple truce from the war days. I have no reason to turn my back on you.”

Optimus spoke, once more. Megatrons words were nice, but one thing itched at him. “He did bring up, well,” he placed a servo over Megatrons G.H.O.S.T insignia. “When we were given these new badges. You chose to have yours remain a decepticon insignia. Why not autobot?” A simple question, really. One treated with the utmost care.

Megatron’s smile faded, though his eyes held a tender fondness, placing his servo over Optimus�� once again. “I wear this symbol as a reminder, if anything.” He looked down, a dismayed tone taking on his words. “A reminder of how far I fell. I wanted to do something right and . . . it all went to my head, too quickly.”

Once again, his eyes darted back to Optimus. “But, every so often. When I look at this badge and this symbol. I think of you . . . And I know where my loyalty lies.” He brought his opposite servo up to cup Optimus’ cheek. “Right here by your side. Where you gave me your trust, despite how far I’ve fallen in the past.”

Optimus was simply stunned. Stunned at how deeply impacted he made Megatron feel. “How could I not?” He whispered, leaning in to close the gap and kiss his wonderful love. “I owe you just as much. For trusting me, despite the chance I would have simply turned you in.”

Megatron couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, that certainly never crossed my mind.” His chuckle became louder as the Prime smacked his arm. He settled once more, speaking lightly. “I will always be loyal to you, Optimus. It’s the least I can do.”

Optimus rested his head gently against the mech’s shoulder, staring out at the cooling light Sky.

“And I to you, Megatron.”

#megop week 2023 #megop #transformers earthspark

38 notes · View notes

wisteria-lodge · 2 years ago

Text

snake primary + bird secondary

Hi, I'm here to submit a SortMe, but take your time getting to it, it's no rush ^^ To start, I'm pretty sure I'm a Snake Primary with a Badger model. As a kid in school I was quite a stereotypical Badger, kind, openminded, helpful etc. but I was still kind of a spoiled brat (3rd and last child). My family bowed to my whims many times, and I threw many tantrums... in fact, I was very kind only outside the house, and quite selfish with my family.

It's kind of interesting that you had SUCH different presentations at home and at school, and are so self-aware about it. It's kind of making me think Actor Bird, because those personas are situation specific. School!You and Home!You.

Another note is that I never had a proper best friend(s) in school or anything, I was the type to be on the fringe of the social circles, knowing most people,

That also kind of makes me think Actor Bird: a different "you" for every group? And if you were a Courtier Badger, which is possible, I would have expected you to befriend *groups* more. But here it's all about individuals.

being friends with some, but never really super close. I was always jealous of that.

I see where you're getting Snake primary, this does sound like a primary thing.

Anyway, as I got older, depressed, burned out, my Badger burned and trying to help everyone in the world became too much. I thought at first I was a Burned Badger Primary, but I realise that while I do sometimes feel guilty about not helping every person in need, I get more satisfaction helping myself or my own friends. Genuinely the things I can excuse my friends for has sometimes lost me other friends. So I think I'm a pretty solid Snake Primary.

Yeah, I'll second that. Maybe at one point you thought you *should* be a Badger primary, or were *supposed* to be a Badger primary. But Snakes are practical, and you don't seem to be cut-up over any of that.

The Secondary gets hard. Depression and lack of purpose, motivation

... and People, I'll bet

made me burn and for a long time I didn't know what my Secondary was. Now I think I may be a little Bird/Badger, but I've associated that with studying/hard work so much it felt alien to me. But while schoolwork has always been a chore, for fandom stuff I can go nuts making quizzes and spreadsheets for innocuous things most people don't even care about. I run a video posting account and when I'm saving videos to post, I'll sort them into categories despite the fact that I usually don't go through the categories later at all?

You know what Bird secondaries like? Categorizing, organizing, preparing.

I've made a dozen different accounts for different fandom purposes—bots, roleplay, etc. I'm not sure if any of this helps actually, but I feel like it's the only way to see my Secondary LOL.

It's Bird :)

All those descriptions about Birds gathering a billion different skills for opportune times never resonated with me, though. So I was never sure if I was really Bird.

I think you're probably defining 'skill' differently than I am. To me, running dozens of blogs, knowing how to write bots, quizzes, roleplay, make spreadsheets... those are absolutely skills.

Maybe it's just Badger? I do like to have people around me to rely on, but that might be a social anxiety thing.

Or a human thing.

I suppose in a problem I tend to default to asking friends for advice before I google stuff. Okay so maybe I am a Badger Secondary? Damn did I just answer my own SortMe? Um... well anyway I hope you can help me figure it out/confirm it haha. Thanks for reading this far.

You're a Loyalist primary, and it sounds like you've got people now (which is good.) I would be surprised if you didn't talk with them. But the actual evidence and descriptions of problem solving... have all been Bird. Your secondary was Burnt, and I could see how that could make you distrust/devalue it. You might absolutely have a Badger model, or maybe the Bird is a model you built *because* you burnt out the Badger (that absolutely happens.) But I'm just saying what I see.

#sortinghatchats #sortme #wisteria sorts #snake bird #snake primary #bird secondary #burnt secondary #shc

20 notes · View notes

theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin · 4 years ago

Note

After that gorgeous sequel rant, would you be willing to share your thoughts on reylo?

Ugh.

Once again, that is the most succinct, easiest, answer I can supply. But it's so short, and that just won't do.

I mentioned in a recent post that Dramione comes in a myriad of disguises. Every fandom usually has at least one Dramione ship, you can usually guess which characters the ship will consist of, and while you might not be able to articulate exactly what about it makes it so damn similar to Dramione you will recognize it on sight.

Usually, to me, a Dramione ship features a strong, independent, female lead who may be varying levels of sexually empowered, varying levels of intelligent (Hermione loves to tell us how smart she is but it's not the heart of the ship), is strong, courageous, and noble who depending on the story du jour might slide into depravity. The real give away is her love interest, always a man, usually a young man of comparable age, who has the bad boy appeal that's not too bad boy where he often is redeemed to the good side for 'reasons' in the course of the story.

Reylo is such a Dramione pairing.

You don't believe me? Look at the authors who write it, I haven't done this too often myself, but I guarantee you that a not small majority of them will either write Draco/Hermione or will have it all over their favorites and bookmarks. It's the same damn pairing.

But worse.

Because Kylo-Ren and Rey aren't really characters.

"Whoa, hold up!", you say, "That's just slander and uncalled for!" Well, change my mind. Rey Palpatine and Kylo-Ren are a series of character tropes and archetypes thrown to us by Disney screaming "LOVE MY CHARACTERS".

Rey is our noble, very Luke like, hero who is a scrappy desert rat with overwhelming mystical powers only acknowledged when the movies feel like acknowledging them (guys, admit Rey kicked Kylo-Ren's ass every time they fought with 0 training, come on, it's not hard).

However, there is nothing underneath her surface. Her hero worship of the resistance feels dull and given to her because it's expected. Of course Rey likes the resistance! The resistance is great! Sign her up! Rey has been living in the desert at the edge of nowhere for presumably 15 years, I'm shocked she's even heard of the new republic let alone the resistance. Despite essentially starving and only having a home that's a broken down old fighter, Rey saves a random droid. We're not really given a compelling reason of why she would do this, that she has a deep respect for droids/is horrified by their use, really really really hates the random trader she sells things to, or really really really hates the empire (if she even realizes it's them behind the bounty). She does it just so that a) the plot keeps moving b) to show Rey is... noble... I guess?

Remember that even Luke (who I have some problems with as a character) started his journey with more backstory and personality than this. Luke loved the empire and desperately wanted to become a pilot. He was very put out that his aunt and uncle kept saying, "Uh, no, bad idea." Luke was ready to skip town and sign on up for flight academy, he just got distracted by pretty women, er, his sister.

So, Rey is never given a compelling reason to do any of the things she does in the series. Just vague feelings of hero worship. And, of course, the drama over her parents. Just... I feel like Disney took out a hat, put a bunch of pieces of paper with words on them, and drew out the one that said "orphan angst about parents" and said "See, now she's conflicted! What a character!"

So yeah, Rey is your cardboard generic hero who is so generic she's not even a person. She has no hopes, no dreams, no fears, just these vague things we're told as an audience she cares about but never shown in any legitimate manner. Rey likes the resistance and rando droids, Rey imprints on Han Solo as the father she never had, Rey has this thing about her parents, Rey is attracted to Kylo Ren.

And that last one, oh boy that last one. It sold me less on the attraction to Kylo Ren than... oh... I don't know... Palpatine's secret Sith planet of doom. I mean, we all saw it coming, The Last Jedi it was very clear where that was going and then Abrams went for it even harder. But what we had was a series of skype conversations where Rey went from "Gr, you killed my pseudo father!" and Kylo-Ren responding, "Yeah, well he was my real father AND HE WAS SO MEAN" to "Oh Ben, I will fly to you through space and we shall save the galaxy together!"

I am given no reason to believe Rey's change of heart. Han Solo's death just suddenly... doesn't really mean much to her anymore (the man was murdered by his son in cold blood so that his son could feel better about himself). She believes Ben Solo is good now because Luke is a dick (never mind that, no matter what a dick Luke is, Ben Solo still murdered dozens of children and then went on to gleefully massacre his way through the galaxy). We're told there's a Force Dyad, which is um... not this thing the writer's made up because they were too lazy to convince me that Kylo-Ren and Rey would end up together in any organic way.

So, yeah, why does Rey like Kylo-Ren? Because the Force told her too? Because it was somehow all Snoke's fault in a way that's never properly described? (Indeed despite us spending quite a bit of time on Kylo-Ren's decision to remain Kylo-Ren being a very internalized thing) Because we saw him shirtless in yoga pants this one time?

It's bad when that last is actually the most legitimate reason I can think of out of the whole lot.

Now let's go to Kylo-Ren. If Rey is boring and nonsensical then Kylo-Ren is a dumpster fire and non-sensical. The guy reminds me a lot of Commodus from the film "Gladiator", the man is cowardly, vile, and murders his father in despair that his father never will be capable of loving him/passes him over for the throne. Kylo-Ren's murder of Han Solo is extremely similar to the murder of Marcus Aurelius in "Gladiator". Han Solo is a flawed father, trying to make his peace with his son, who approaches him unarmed and Kylo-Ren decides to murder him in order to solidify his place in the dark side.

Only, the films never acknowledge that every action Kylo-Ren takes is horrifying.

We're told "oh, Kylo-Ren exists because evil Snoke corrupted him" but also shown repeatedly that Kylo-Ren chooses the darkest path again and again and again. He "struggles with the light" but I don't see it. His opening scene, he has massacred a village and is torturing a man for information (this is presumably a daily routine for him). In the same film he later tortures Rey for information. He serves on a Death Star which wipes out billions in an instant. He murders his father to feel good about himself. He dresses as a man who was reviled and feared throughout the galaxy, a man who murdered countless children, and a man who dressed the way he did because he was barely hanging onto life, because Kylo-Ren thinks it makes him look like a badass. Think about it, this is like if a fully abled Kylo-Ren is wheeling around in a wheel chair, perfectly capable of walking, because he thinks that Professor X is so cool. Now, replace Professor X with Hitler, this is what the movies gave us.

Yet, the films seem to take it for granted that Kylo-Ren is a redeemable character. He's just lost and misguided, he's really struggling with the light and dark side! They don't just tell us this over and over again (which they do) but also just assume we know it.

And base the entire Reylo pairing off of it. Reylo believed Kylo-Ren could be redeemed, they battle Snoke together, then Kylo-Ren stabs her in the back and continues the assault on the Resistance and asks her to be his Dark Queen (TM). Reylo is shocked and appalled, I'm just wondering what movie she thought she was watching, because that was coming a mile away.

Later, when Kylo-Ren is redeemed, we're never given a reason why it happens. Leia just gives him a nagging, one word, phone call and then Han Solo shows up to go, "Ben, are you going to do the right thing?" and Ben goes, "Mumble, grumble, fine" because there's only an hour left in the last film.

Kylo-Ren, like Rey, is the writers' desperate attempt to create a compelling anti-hero with all the anti-hero sauce we love. They just won't admit they made an overgrown genocidal toddler.

Wow, this turned into why I hate both Rey and Kylo Ren, but, uh, back to the ship. Basically, the films give me 0 reason to ever believe it, and even if I wanted to, even if I said "Alright brain, let's make these characters real people for once", I still wouldn't like it. Because the ship itself is just as flat as the characters. It's spicy but not too spicy bad boy gets together with strong female lead.

I know a lot of people enjoy this, and I won't say it's any less legitimate than any of the weirdness I ship, but I'm not one of them. And the whole thing just makes me go "ugh".

#ask #anon #anti reylo #anti kylo ren #anti rey #anti star wars sequels

180 notes · View notes

1ddiscourseoftheday · 5 years ago

Text

💙Fri 11 Dec ‘20◟̽◞̽

Louis' big show is TOMORROW but that may not even be all we have to look forward to from him! Producer Alex Oriet (half of the duo Saltwives, who have worked with Zayn a lot, and he got his start working with 1D) reposted Louis' “new song” tweet to his insta with a caption- “soon”. OMG. Billboard had a 'year in livestreams' feature and wrapped up with Louis', saying “the best is yet to come” and reporting that Louis' show is Veeps' bestselling of the year “in excess of $1 million” (so either over a mil so far or a mil over the next best, hard to say, but it'll be well over a million by the end for sure so either makes sense).“I can't wait for tomorrow!” Louis tweeted, SAME, and “feels so good to be back with the boys getting ready. Can't wait for you all to see what we've been working on!” He included the brand new special Live From London twiiter emoji (!), it's a really cute lil vintage TV with the xx smiley on it, and a pic-- it's him looking over the backstage prep (so many screens) and you can see his hair flowing free and long and lovely! You can also see a piece of paper in front of him with 20 lines on it-- even if it is a set list I imagine some lines say “banter with crowd” and such like (as we saw on Louis' tour set list) but that's still soooo many lovely songs :))). Charlie Lightening says “this is going to be special, can’t wait for people to see what we have planned” and LTHQoffical is hitting us hard with the hype, posting another rehearsal pic (he's holding a beer and they didn't even scribble it out! wow almost like there's nothing wrong with that), and a time zone guide showing 66 cities around the world, and a digital fan pack, and they said more merch will be out tomorrow (heeelllp), and there's a show day itinerary-- ticket sales cut off 4 hours before the stream but much more interestingly, don't reopen (for the 28 hours of rewatch) until TWO HOURS after the start time. While they could (probably should) be allowing time for technical difficulties I much prefer to believe it's because we're getting a LONG SHOW YES PLEASE! I like my Louis shows like I like his hair, as long as he can possibly manage!! So that's plenty that we DO know to be excited about at the moment but the mystery of Louis new label also remains a hot topic nonetheless, with the known high cost of a twitter emoji stirring questions of who footed the bill (not something we're ever likely to find out sadly). If his team really understood us in the least they'd set up a viral video style Q and A where every Q pulled out of the bowl was an intensely detailed bookkeeping or promo strategy type query- tbh the faces Louis (or any one of the boys) would make would be 100x more entertaining than they get from any tired trying-to-be-cheeky standard Q and the answers sure would be!

Harry's prerecorded (months ago!) Jingle Ball performance aired at last and OH MY GOSH! SO GOOD! I think we can all agree (I know right?? I can't believe it either) that the backing band, Free Nationals, were phenomenal, and Harry's performance was terrific, just simply next level versions of the songs and Harry's sound in general. What more could we ask? For me, not much. For the Jingle Bell Ball organizers, well, they might have liked something Christmassy I suppose, maybe a holiday cover song, or a “tour of his home and holiday traditions.” LOL too bad! Whatever, they DID get vocal variations all over the place and oh did they work, a little lyric change in Golden (“I'm hoping someday I'll open”?), Harry in a sunny LA backyard (whose? who knows!) and everyone in not remotely festive Gucci. There were some decorations though! Not xmassy though- they were, can you guess, yes that's right: sky blue. And there was TRUMPET! A horn section, like revenge, is best served cold apparently: all these years on we can only assume Julian Bulian is good and sorry for denying Harry his trumpets cause DAMN did that sound GOOD. Julian may not say it but I will: you were SO RIGHT Harry, trumpets on every song!! Please! In fact, if you just took that guy on tour with you... or any of those people really? He can just have a really BIG backing band how about, then we won't have to argue about whether wanting this to be his band is mean to the old band. Anyway I hope the fan who ran into him in LA this morning told him how much we liked the show-- she did take a distanced pic, Harry is in his running gear (mostly black but bright fruity shoes) and holding a beverage. Oh yeah and Fine Line is now available to stream in “3D audio” (there's a moving in a New Direction from 1D joke in here headline writers, have at it) which is something that apparently only works with an Amazon device and is strange because physicists assure me that all sound is 3D, but what do they know. Anyway I'm sure it sounds great to those who can access it but luckily for me the album sounds great in plebian unbranded sound as well.

In the wake of Liam's no-show livestream yesterday fans are full of theories about what could be going on to cause such a thing, except actually it's only one theory; everyone is quick to ascribe the glitch to management struggles. May I simply say: there are so very very many things that could be happening in a person's life, even in a 1D member's life, that could cause a missed event and reducing any of them to 1 Dimensional figures who only have work related problems does them (and rigorous theorizing) a disservice. I hope we can all agree on wanting what's best for Liam, and that that extends to supporting him even if things are going on that are less glamorous than management villainy. I will ascribe one thing to management though-- I do believe the guys do the bulk of their own tweeting etc nearly always, but @Liam's tweet that yesterday's live didn't happen due to “technical difficulties” and they are “looking to reschedule” is one that I will make the exception for, sometimes you can just feel the PR person behind the screen! Tik Tok said it was rescheduled for next Tuesday, but the tweet was after that sooo hmm. The Billboard article about Veeps of course also talked about Liam (his Halloween show had 3.7 BILLION chat messages my god) and Liam's prerecorded alarm content today is Roman teaching Liam to do a Harry impression. How come when Roman does it it sounds like Harry but when Liam does it he sounds like Roman? Tip to Liam, just call it a Roman impression and you've GOT it!

Meanwhile, Lewis Capaldi weighs in on Niall and whether he (Lewis) enjoys golf with uncharaceristic delicacy; ��we have different interests,” he says, and he sympathizes with a fan who said they'd slap him to meet Harry: “I understand.”

259 notes · View notes

causewealwayshaveeachother · 4 years ago

Text

CONFRONTING ALEX ABOUT HIS SECRET GIRLFRIEND?!?! 🤭😱🛑 LIVE! NOT CLICKBAIT

LAST VIDEO: We discovered Alex has been SNEAKING OUT to meet up with his SECRET GIRLFRIEND!!!!!

In today's exclusive livestream we confront him about the DECEPTION and BETRAYAL!!!!!!!! Going live at 12:30 PM today!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Mercer Family is one of many multi-million-subscriber family youtube channels on YouTube. It documents the lives of Diane and Charles, and their two children, Alex and Annabelle. They definitely don't have a third child who got a restraining order as soon as they went off to college, and while we're here, their son is also definitely 100% straight.

finally living up to the level of stupid to be expected from "it came to me in a dream" (not a joke; it did)

teaser trailer for an au that may end up just being a pile of plot summary but isn't that what aus are all about anyway?

ao3 tags: family youtube channel au, Crack, i think, it's legally crack if it's a ridiculous premise played straight right, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Panic Attacks, Gay Alex Mercer (Julie and The Phantoms), Coming Out, Bad Parenting

wordcount: 1109

Head-on shot centering a blonde boy in his teens lounging on a chair. He is looking to the side, head propped up on his fist, and seems bored and irritated. One of his arms is draped over the back of the chair, and his fingers fidget against each other. He is wearing a black snapback, zip-convert pants, a pink sweatshirt and a ripped jean jacket. (ALEX MERCER)

A voice comes from off-camera. (DIANE MERCER, ALEX'S MOTHER)

DIANE MERCER (OVER-ACTED AND DRAMATIC)

Alex, do you know why we want to talk to you?

ALEX MERCER (FLAT TONE)

No.

DIANE MERCER (OVER-ACTED AND DRAMATIC)

Do you have anything you might want to share with us?

Alex rolls his eyes slightly.

ALEX MERCER (FLAT TONE)

No.

DIANE MERCER (OVER-ACTED AND DRAMATIC)

This is your last chance to just come clean!

ALEX MERCER (UNDER HIS BREATH)

Okay.

Alex turns his head to look directly at the camera.

ALEX MERCER (FLAT TONE)

I'm gay.

Alex stands up and books it out of the room. A gasp comes from behind the camera and the feed abruptly cuts off.

Alex walked swiftly down the rain-slick sidewalk towards the studio, duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Raindrops fell lightly around him, dampening his shoulders and hat. His breath came quickly, and his hands shook, and his feet fell heavy against the ground. He tried to time his breathing to his footsteps, focus on the steady one-two-one-two-one-two and block out anything else. The studio was a 20 minute walk away. He had been walking for five minutes. The studio was 15 minutes away.

Alex being gay wasn't news to his parents. It wasn't even, particularly, a problem to them, on a moral level. He was welcome to run around kissing whatever guys he wanted, so long as it never made it back to anyone who reported on the goings-ons of the members of the Mercer Family Youtube Channel. Because having a gay son wasn't nearly as marketable to Family Youtube audiences as having a rebellious, straight, fuckboy son.

Alex stuck his free hand in his pocket, clenching the other harder around the duffel strap, and walked faster, trying to force the panic attack he could feel approaching down through the slap of his feet against the concrete.

The studio was 12 minutes away.

Alex could feel his jaw clenching, his brow furrowing, with anger. Because what the fuck right did his parents have to exploit him and his siblings, make them spend hours acting out "caught on camera!" clickbait videos until it looked just the right balance of perfect and unplanned, make up secret fake girlfriends and set up elaborate photoshoots and then fucking- try and make him pretend to admit to having a secret fake girlfriend who doesn't exist! Who they made up for him! On live camera, for "authenticity" like the fact that they're doing it live is gonna hide how fucking staged the whole goddamn thing blatantly is.

Running around the house with cameras all day filming him and his little sister just trying to live their goddamn lives, making them pretend to break rules so they could pretend to get in trouble so they could pretend to be being punished so they could post it on youtube. Who even knew what would happen if they actually broke the rules. It'd probably still end up on youtube, they'd just have to spend 6 fucking hours reenacting any part they managed to do out of view of one of the billion cameras they've got filming every goddamn room of the house.

Alex blew through the doors of the studio, past the chairs under the loft where Bobby and Reggie were tuning their instruments, past the couch where Luke was looking up at him from the song book, directly into the bathroom. He slammed the door, locked it, and sank down against it, directly into a panic attack.

Bobby and Reggie exchanged glances, putting their guitars down and crossing to sit with Luke on the couch. "What do you think happened?" Bobby asked, lowering his voice like Alex might hear them through his panic attack. Reggie hated this part of being friends with Alex - knowing he was just a wall away, hurting, but not able to help - knowing if he tried he'd only make it worse. Having to just wait it out and hug him after.

"Didn't his parents want him to do some youtube thing today? He said he'd be like an hour late." Luke glanced at the bathroom, then his gaze jittered over to the clock as his face twisted with concern. "It's been, like, 10 minutes." His knee shook up and down and his fingers tapped at his biceps. Reggie leaned his shoulder against Luke's, and on his other side he saw Bobby casually folding his legs pulling his legs up onto the couch and crossing them crossing his legs so his knee pressed into the side of Luke's thigh.

"It was a livestream," Reggie piped up. Now he remembered - Alex's parents wanted to do a livestream for "authenticity". Alex hadn't said what for, he didn't think. "Maybe he got- like, a surprising question he didn't know how to answer...?"

"Yeah, I mean, a livestream's gotta be pretty stressful," Bobby agreed. He leaned forward to look at Reggie. "Do you remember if he said what it was about?"

Reggie shook his head. "He just said it was a livestream thing." Alex had mentioned it casually as practice was ending a few days ago - "I'm gonna be like an hour late on Saturday, by the way. My parents want me to do a youtube thing? A livestream or something. More authentic if it's in the middle of the day I guess." Luke had given him a little light-hearted shit about skipping practice to be a hotshot youtube star, and Alex had snapped back lightheartedly enough. It hadn't seemed like Alex was expecting it to be a big deal, but then again, it never did, did it?

The three boys sat on the couch for another twenty minutes before they heard the toilet flush and the sink running in the bathroom. Then, Alex emerged. Shaky and pale, damp strands of hair hanging around his face, but brow set in determination. "Hey, bud," Luke began, probably about to attempt delicacy in asking what the fuck happened, but Alex spoke over him, staring fixedly at the Sunset Curve banner hanging across the room.

"I'm gonna sue my parents for emancipation. Because fuck this." He turned to them, a hysterical grin starting to pull across his mouth, chest beginning to shake with laughter. "I just came out as gay on livestream. Fuck everything. Can an emancipated minor take custody of an eight-year-old?"

#jatp fanfic #jatp fanfiction #jatp #julie and the phantoms #jatp alex #alex mercer #alex #my fic #km #mfyt au #fic

24 notes · View notes

gffa · 5 years ago

Photo

THIS IS A PRETTY STELLAR LINE TO END THE SCENE ON AND IT WAS ANOTHER MOMENT THAT HIT ME LIKE A GODDAMNED BRICK. One of the things that I’ve found myself asking a lot, as I go through more and more Star Wars content, is: “How do you solve the galaxy’s problems? How do you affect lasting change?” It’s a question that doesn’t always have a clear-cut answer, but I feel like boils down to two main options: - To stay with the system, to do your best to affect lasting change by making it better - To bombard the system from outside it, burn it all down, because you don’t believe it can be made better Star Wars is interesting because different moments can have different answers to this set of paths even from the same characters--ie, the Republic is worth saving, there’s still hope, Padme and Bail and the Jedi believe that you should make the system better, they work to do what they can where they can.

(Queen’s Shadow | E.K. Johnston)

(The Clone Wars, “Corruption”)

See also: the various ways the Jedi try to suggest better options (like Mace trying to get Palpatine to save the Zillo Beast, Mace suggesting that Boba Fett be granted leniency, Dooku as a Jedi addressing the Senate to ask for help for Outer Rim worlds, Obi-Wan suggesting negations instead of fighting to the Pantorans, etc.). That the entire reason they are part of the Republic and let themselves be put under Senate jurisdiction (aside from how the galaxy has repeatedly shown that Force-Sensitives are in danger just for being Force-Sensitive, because people don’t really get them, see them only as weapons, are afraid of them just existing) is because the Jedi believe that the only way to create lasting change is from within--that’s why it’s so important that it’s Ahsoka who delivers this message to the Mandalorian cadets. That’s why she speaks of how the citizens must be the ones to hold the government accountable, that’s why she speaks of how internal threats are often the deadliest, because that’s what Jedi are taught all their lives to do--look inward, face your fears, face the dark things about yourself, work through them, then let them go, change yourself for the better. Her final line, “Lasting change can only come from within.” is one of the core beliefs of the Jedi, on a personal level and a political level. And I’m incredibly inclined to agree--well, you know, setting aside that I’ve been making that very point for awhile now. Because I’ve looked at what happened with the Republic: The people didn’t want to fight the war themselves, so they agreed to fund a clone army, which tanked the economy, which made them so scared--as well as physically scared of the Separatists--that they exchanged basic freedoms for the security the Empire offered. Because I’ve looked at what happened with the Empire: The people didn’t want to fight back against the Empire, they were too scared or they were buying into the convenient scapegoats the Empire offered up instead of looking at the real evils, until things became too bad that people could no longer ignore the moral event horizons that had been crossed, that there was no hope of making the Empire better, because it had never been operating in any kind of good faith. Because I’ve looked at what happened with the New Republic: The people didn’t want to fight another war, so they ignored the signs of what was happening with the First Order, they ignored the people that were saying, “Pay attention to this shit!”, they literally stopped reading about the Empire’s atrocities because they were tired of it, their entire political set-up tried too hard to be Not The Empire that it became kind of nothing instead, and people across the board refused to stand up once the First Order destroyed Hosnian Prime, that there has been book after book after book after comic after comic after comic about this. In each and every instance, my conclusion about the question, “How do you create lasting change?” has come back to--the public at large has to be involved, it has to be the one that holds the people in charge accountable, because no amount of laser swords slicing through a problem will stop things from reverting back to the status quo by the people in charge (especially an organization that is literally 1 out of 6,000,000,000 people at best!) if the general public doesn’t step up and hold their officials accountable. This is why I agree with the Jedi being part of the Republic as an understandable and completely reasonable choice, that they’re trying to work within the system to make it better, they’re trying to put themselves in a better position to actually help people, because being part of something is what allows them to actually make any kind of real help.

(Obi-Wan & Anakin | Charles Soule & Marco Checchetto) (See also: Master & Apprentice | Claudia Gray, where Qui-Gon literally saves the day by using a Republic law about how hostages must be released in times of crisis, that it must be a representative of the Republic that makes this claim, because being part of this bigger system means it has the actual weight to carry this through and affect a permanent solution to this part of the problem.) This is something that would not have been feasible from outside the system (setting aside, again, that the Jedi were one in six billion and did not have the numbers to make sweeping galactic changes even if that had been a good idea, which it was not, because of [waves hands] everything in this post), not unless they wanted to be punished for years for it, like Padme was in Queen’s Shadow, where going around the Senate during the Blockade of Naboo got her set out the outs with them for literal years and it was her full time job to be a politician and work her way back into influence so she could do good, imagine how much harder it is for someone that people fundamentally mistrust because they seem strange and eerie and have weird mind powers that people don’t understand!

This is the system, which isn’t perfect, but one that these people believe in. Bail and Padme and the Jedi believe that the Republic has hope, that it can be made better. That working together gives them the means to help people on a far bigger scale than by going at things alone. That they can be put in better positions--in a Republic that, up until the late Clone Wars, was still largely acting on good faith--to help, that being part of the system does not mean that you approve of everything, but that you have hope to change it. Because lasting change can only come from within. That it must be the entirety of the public citizens, not just a small handful of people, who hold their leaders accountable and stand up for what’s right. No matter how many mountains the Jedi move, no matter how many times a Rebellion burns an Empire to the ground to build a New Republic, no matter how many times a Resistance tries to protect the New Republic, it all crumbles when no real change has been coming from within the public who are within these systems.

#ahsoka tano #padme amidala #bail organa #jedi order #meta #long post

970 notes · View notes

populus-tremuloides · 5 years ago

Note

Hey I noticed you linked the BLM website in a post but can you tell your followers not to donate to the organization

The donation link the website has is secure act blue and secure act blue funds democratic campaigns

So for the past 7 years all that money they collected over $1 billion probably none of that has touched the black community

Hoo boy so while I agree with the gist of this ask, there’s some misleading info here:

ActBlue is not giving BLM donations to the DNC, and this claim has been debunked multiple times by reliable sources. However, the BLM Global Network Foundation has faced questioning and controversy this year thanks to their nonprofit partnerships and a lack of transparency. I always advocate for donating as small-scale and locally as you can. I’ll put the rest of this analysis (with sources linked) under a read more, since it’s LONG (but it took me forever to put together so pls read thx ❤️).

ActBlue is an online fundraising platform that is not explicitly related to the US Democratic Party, but which only funds left-leaning and progressive candidates and organizations. It’s a tech company. It earns money by functioning as this service, so yes, your donations help fund it. Organizations and candidates pay ActBlue a 3.95% processing fee for donations, but the rest of the money donated does go to the organization or specific candidate. ActBlue is also registered as a PAC (political action committee) which is a whole can of Political Worms I don’t want to open, but that means it has to report to the Federal Election Commission/the IRS which is a positive because it results in transparency of conduit funding.

So...96.05% of the money you donate through the BLM website SHOULD go to the BLM Foundation. It does NOT go to the DNC. The person who started this rumor (from a since-deleted Facebook post which led to a viral video) is a member of a Students for Trump organization, and other conservative pundits picked up on it and posted it. It just isn’t true, and has been debunked many times.

HOWEVER there’s still a problem. It’s hard to say where the money donated to the BLM site actually goes, and that issue is directly related to tax laws and nonprofit organization status in the US. There were questions and lawsuits about this earlier this year. There is an interesting loophole in ActBlue’s policy that states that “contributions...which are not cashed or affirmatively refused will be kept by ActBlue and used generally to support its social welfare activities”. In other words, ActBlue will keep money that is not cashed by the organizations within 60 days and use it to “generally support its social welfare activities”. No, I don’t know exactly what that means--it’s probably used by ActBlue for program costs, or is reallocated to its general fund (which gives grants to nominee funds, the Flip the Senate campaign, etc) but it does mean that money doesn’t go to those organizations, even if it was donated to them, if the organizations don’t claim it. Then, in a Reddit AMA in June, a BLM Foundation organizer provided less than satisfying information about where the money they fundraise goes. It’s difficult to find that info online thanks to the way nonprofits function within American tax law.

It’s important to note here that the BLM Foundation and BLM Global Network are not necessarily associated with individual community activist organizations, protests, or the general BLM social movement. There’s plenty of discourse on this you can research on your own if you want. Google is free.

What’s important here is that the BLM Foundation operates as a nonprofit with a “parent” charity. From 2016 to this year BLM worked with Thousand Currents, which “fundraises grassroots groups led by women, youth and Indigenous Peoples”. In July they switched to a “working relationship” with TIDES, which is a “philanthropic partner and nonprofit accelerator dedicated to building a world of shared prosperity and social justice”.

I’m not going to get into my personal feelings about large scale nonprofit organizations and the oxymoron of conscious capitalism (because organizations like this are essentially venture capitalists for nonprofits imo), but personally I think the larger and more decentralized the organization (or parent organization, in this case), the less effective your donation. More on that later.

Essentially though, Thousand Currents and TIDES are organizations that focus on fundraising and infrastructure and then fund smaller grassroots groups that might not have the infrastructure or foothold to do that for themselves. This is not uncommon in the nonprofit world. I work for a nonprofit that ran though a university foundation and an established local nonprofit for ten years before we got our 501(c)(3) designation and started functioning independently. It’s not abnormal that the BLM Foundation works with an organization like that, given BLM is pretty decentralized by design and is also a fairly new organization (2013/2014).

Thousand Currents and TIDES have 501(c)(3) tax exempt status. It can be difficult for smaller and newer nonprofits (as well as nonprofits that function outside of the US but which rely on donations from the US or other countries outside of where they’re headquartered) to gain that status, so they often work under a larger organization. 501(c)(3) status means financial records have to be made public, which means anyone can access the financial records for Thousand Currents and TIDES. You can also find tax filings for the BLM Foundation, but it’s less comprehensive (the most recent I could find was Form 990 from 2017, but maybe I’m not looking in the right place). Anyone can request tax documents from 501(c)(3) nonprofits.

This is getting complicated, right? Welcome to American tax law and nonprofit organizational hierarchies functioning under late stage capitalism. i’m not trying to throw the BLM Foundation under the bus here, because honestly this is just how it goes with a lot of organizations in the US. I don’t think it means you shouldn’t support them. But it gets pretty twisted up. Maybe you made a $20 donation to BLM back in July and now you’re wondering where the hell it went. Here’s the pipeline: your donation goes through ActBlue (which takes 3.95%, or .79 cents of your donation) to TIDES, which then directs that money to BLM. They know how much money is coming to them for BLM because ActBlue differentiates fundraising campaigns--the BLM money going to Thousand Currents or TIDES is separated from the funds coming to them for, say, CLIMA or the Farm to School Network . However, Thousand Currents and TIDES probably take a cut to support their operating costs, too. I couldn’t find data on this, so this is conjecture and I’m not sure how much--this statement is just based on knowing how nonprofits and fundraising usually work.

So, the money stream from you to BLM is like this: You------> ActBlue (takes a 3.95% cut) ------> Thousand Currents or TIDES (probably takes a cut, then directs the money to)------> BLM -----> Whatever BLM uses it for. Despite that strange loophole in ActBlue’s policy, Thousand Currents appeared to be claiming the donations and directing them to BLM (as of 2018...will be interesting to see tax stats from this year since their move to TIDES after unprecedented donations).

BLM does have a huge grassroots organizing fund that began this June in response to overwhelming donations following the murder of George Floyd. The fund provides grants up to $500,000 to smaller grassroots organizations and activists, as well as educational curriculum and political platforms. Their grant campaign is supported by TIDES, which provides the infrastructure and tax-exempt funding conduit needed for such a large scale effort. I’m guessing most of the money they’re fundraising goes to that fund. A chunk definitely goes to paying employees, running their website, and funding outreach and education.

So ALL THAT BEING SAID, I would always say donate directly to bail funds, mutual aid funds, legal fee funds, and local activism organizations before donating to a larger, all-encompassing charity or organization. If you can Venmo someone you know and you know where that money goes, that’s always the best.

Venmo accounts, gofundme campaigns, cashapp accounts, paypal accounts...that’s often what smaller scale organizations and activists are using on a local level and it’s generally collected and distributed more directly. The BIPOC and COVID mutual aid funds where I live are active on Facebook and Instagram and operate based on requests for help from community members that are posted on Google documents available to the public. Here is a good example of a grassroots COVID mutual aid fund that is directing A LOT of money locally and transparently--there are similar funds and organizations like this worldwide for COVID, BLM, and beyond.

The biggest impact you can make always comes at the community level--you should do some research into figuring out what’s going on in your area. There’s almost always something nearby, even if you live in a rural area or smaller town like I do, and if there’s not, hey--you could start something! Engage in your community and put your money into that, or into other communities in need. Pay attention to stuff going around on Twitter and Instagram--a lot of community organizing is facilitated there.

I included the BLM link in the original post because the website is a good place to learn about actions around the globe, organizing basics, and has a lot of up to date news and educational materials. I advocated for donating to bail funds, mutual aid funds, water projects, and local activist organizations and I stand by that. I’m not saying you shouldn’t donate to the BLM Global Network or other larger-scale foundations, but the conduit of money to cause is usually not as direct. I still don’t think it’s a bad thing to donate to them.

But ALSO don’t spread straight-up misinformation like this ask does. ActBlue is a fundraising platform and it’s not stealing the money you send to BLM and giving it to Biden or the DNC. It’s a whole lot more complicated than that, and this is a great way to dissuade people from donating money to progressive organizations who use ActBlue because it’s an easy, accessible online fundraising platform. Funny how right-wing pundits latched onto this so quickly, huh?

Feel free to correct me or add more info. I’m white and operating within US-centric organizing circles. But PLEASE give some sources if you do have corrections or arguments and PLEASE do a google search before you spread stuff like this.

_______________________________________________________________________

TL;DR: ActBlue is a fundraising platform, it is not stealing your money and giving it to the DNC. The money you donate to BLM goes to that organization, though it is a meandering path from donation to impact. Donate to bail funds, mutual aid organizations, legal fee funds, local activism organizations, etc., over larger organizations. Invest in your own communities, and directly in black communities, and always do your research.

#us bs #BLM #mutual aid #activism #american politics #fundraising #donations #i really hope people read this i spent so long trying to write it out in a way that made sense and its so fucking long #but i rly want people to understand a) how nonprofit fundraising works because its fucked #and b) that the shit about actblue is total bs #and c) that mutual aid funds are the future #also #i hate this country #and i hate that i know this much about nonprofit tax law when fundamentally i do not believe that nonprofits are doing that much good #but that's the hellscape we live in folks #black lives matter #politics #answered asks #okay goodniGHT

39 notes · View notes

itsclydebitches · 5 years ago

Note

Is buying the new Harry Potter game supporting transphobes because I've been seeing a lot of that on twitter? Not playing it. Pirating is fine, but actually paying for it.

Hi, anon!

I’ve seen a lot of the same and had initially thought to post my thoughts on the issue… before I got a very angry ask condemning me for a post where I admitted that I thought the game looked great and was excited to play it. I can no longer link to that post because I deleted it: a late night, impulsive decision made in an effort to try and protect myself from further flaming. Thus, I considered ignoring this ask under the same justification… before realizing that it might not matter in the long run. The Harry Potter: Legacy trailer has been out for just a few days and already I have gotten that furious ask, been told off by a friend for mentioning the trailer, and was questioned (antagonistically) about why I had added a Harry Potter related book to my Goodreads list. They’re small and potentially coincidental anecdotes, but it feels as if any engagement with Harry Potter is slowly coming under scrutiny, not just the (supposed—more on that below) crime of purchasing the new game. Given that I will always engage with Harry Potter related media, if there’s any chance such subtle criticism will continue regardless of whether I make the “right” choice to boycott the game or not, I might as well explain my position. Especially for someone who asked politely! Thanks for that 💜.

Which leads to the disclaimer: Any anon hate will be unceremoniously deleted. This is a complicated issue and I intend to write about it as such. I ask that any readers go into this post with good faith and a willingness to acknowledge that this situation isn’t as black and white as they may prefer it to be. If that’s not something you can emotionally handle—which is 100% fine. Some subjects we’re simply not inclined to debate—or if you’re just looking to get in a cheap shot, please hit the back button.

Right. Introduction done. Now here’s the tl;dr: saying things like “Buying this game is inherently selfish/transphobic” isn’t the hot take people want it to be. Is boycotting Legacy one (very small—we’ll get to that too) way of showing support for the trans community? Yes. Is buying the game proof that you’re a selfish transphobe? No. This isn’t a bad SAT question. Legacy boycotters are to trans supporters as Legacy buyers are to ___? The argument that someone is selfish for buying the game is basically that you are choosing a non-essential video game over the respect and lives of trans individuals, but the logic breaks down when we acknowledge that purchasing a game has no real life impact on a trans individual’s safety, support, etc.

“But Clyde, you’re giving Rowling money. She is then using that money to support anti-trans organizations. Thus, you have actively put more harm into the world.” Have I? I’m not going to get into whether/how much/what kind of money Rowling is receiving from this project because the fact is we don’t know and we’ll likely never know. Suffice to say, she probably will get some portion of any $60/$70 purchase. The real question is whether those sales have any meaningful impact. Reputable information on Rowling’s net worth is hard to come by, but it seems to be somewhere between 600 million and 1 billion pounds. Or, to put it another way: a fuck ton. And money keeps rolling in from a franchise that is so, so much bigger than a single video game. It literally doesn’t matter how much money you might put in her pocket via Legacy because she’s already so goddamn rich she can do whatever she wants. If Rowling wants to give a million dollars to the heinous “charity” of her choice, she can. She will. You are not directly contributing to this horror because that money may as well already exist. Every person in the world could refuse to buy this game and she’d shrug, going about her disgusting life because it literally does not affect her in any meaningful way. You’re refusing to give the murderer a knife when they’re got direct access to a knife-making factory. Horrible as it is to hear, you can’t stop them from doing something horrific with that tool.

For me, this is the straw argument of the Harry Potter world. Not straw as in strawman, but literally straws. Remember how everyone was talking about plastic straws, swore off them, and subsequently deemed anyone who still used one to be selfish people who didn’t care about the environment? It didn’t matter if you had a certified “good” reason for using one (disability) or a “selfish” reason (carrying straws everywhere on the off chance you wanted a drink is a pain in the ass)—you’re a horrible person who wants the planet to die. Same deal here. If you can swear off straws, great! Do what tiny bit of good you can. But if you can’t or even don’t want to give them up, the reality is that your “selfishness” doesn’t make a significant difference in the world. The amount of plastic corporations are pouring into the ocean makes your actions inconsequential. It’s not like voting where every small, individual act adds up to a significant total. This is your lack up against others’ staggering abundance. It’s not adding a few drops of water until you have a full bucket, it’s trying to un-flood the boat with a teaspoon while someone else is spraying it with the hose. Have you, on the most technical level, made a difference by moving that teaspoon of water out of the boat? Yes. Is it a difference that holds any meaning in regards to the desired outcome? Not really. Now apply all that to Rowling. She is so phenomenally wealthy—with additional wealth coming in every day—that your purchase of Legacy is a teaspoon of water in her ocean of funds. It’s inconsequential.

“But Clyde, buying this game would support her and supporting her sends the message that what she believes is okay.” Exact same argument as above. JKR’s fame is so astronomical that no video-game boycott could ever make a dent in it. For every 100 people who swear off her work there are another 1,000 who continue to engage with both her writing and the writing related to her world because she is that prominent. Harry Potter is one of the largest franchises of all time, second only to things like Pokémon and Star Wars. This isn’t some indie creator who you can ignore into silence. The reality is that Rowling is here to stay and we have to take far more substantial acts to counteract that influence.

Even more importantly, buying the game is not evidence that you support her views and the black and white belief that it does is an easy distraction from those harder “How do we improve the lives of trans people?” questions. I started compiling a list of stories with problematic authors only to realize the number of incredibly popular texts with awful histories attached to them unnecessarily increased the length of an already long post. Everything from Game of Thrones to Dr. Seuss—if you love it, chances are one of the authors involved has a history of misogyny, racism, homophobia, etc. Which I don’t say as a way of excusing these authors, nor as a way to silence the justified and necessary call outs on their work. Rather, I bring this up to acknowledge that engaging with these stories cannot be concrete evidence for how you view the minority group in question. The reasons for consuming these stories are incalculable and at the end of the day no one needs a “correct” reason for that consumption (my teacher forced me to read the racist book, I only watched the homophobic TV show so I could call out how horrible it was, etc.) If fiction were an indicator of our real life beliefs we’d all be the most horrifying creatures imaginable. I may be severely uncomfortable with the queer baiting in Supernatural, but if a friend says they bought the DVD collection my response is not, “How dare you support those creators. You’re homophobic.” In the same way, someone purchasing Legacy should not generate the response, “How dare you support her. You’re transphobic.” There’s a miles’ worth of pitfalls in connecting the statements “You purchased a game based on the world created by a transphobic author” and “You yourself are transphobic.”

So if buying Legacy does not add additional harm to the trans community from a financial perspective, and it doesn’t make a dent in Rowling’s platform, and playing a game is not evidence of your feelings towards the group the author hates… what are we left with? “But Clyde, it’s the principal of the thing. I don’t want to support a TERF” and that is an excellent argument. Your morals. Your ethics. What you can stomach having done or not done. But the “your” is incredibly important there. People need to understand that this is their own line in the sand and that if someone else’s line is different, that doesn’t mean they’re automatically a worse person than you. For example, I have made the choice not to eat at Chick-Fil-A. Not because I believe that me not giving them $3.75 for a sandwich will make a difference in their influence on the world, but because it makes a difference to me. It helps me sleep at night. So if not purchasing Legacy helps you sleep at night? That’s a fantastic reason not to buy it. But the flipside is that if someone else does purchase it that is not a reliable reflection of their morals, no more than I think my friends are homophobic for grabbing lunch at Chick-Fil-A now and then. Sometimes you just want a sandwich.

“But Clyde, why would you want to buy it? Rowling is such a shit-stain I don’t understand how anyone can stomach supporting her—whether that support has an impact or not. Maybe someone eats at Chick-Fil-A because it’s close to them and they’re too busy to go elsewhere, or it’s all they can afford, or they don’t know how homophobic they are. There are lots of reasons to explain something like that. But you’re not ignorant to Rowling’s problem and there’s no scenario where you have to play this game, let alone spend money on it. So why?”

The reality is that I will likely be buying Legacy, second-hand if I can, but new if it comes to that, so I’ll give some of my personal answers here, in descending order of presumed selfishness:

5. Part of my work involves studying video games/Harry Potter and as a researcher of popular culture, my career depends on keeping up with major releases: good and bad. I often engage with stories I wholeheartedly disagree with for academic purposes, like Fifty Shades of Gray.

4. I find the “Just pirate it!” solution to be flawed. I’ve spent the last four months struggling to get my laptop fixed and I currently have no income to buy another if it were to suddenly develop a larger problem. I am not going to risk my $2,000 lifeline on an illegal download, no matter how safe and easy the Internet insists it is.

3. We’ve been told that Rowling has not been involved in Legacy in any significant manner and I do want to support Portkey. No, not just financially because I know many others have insisted that everyone good has already been paid. Game companies still need to sell games. That’s why they exist. There’s a possibility that a company with just two mobile games under its belt will be in trouble if this completely flops. Is my purchase going to make or break things? No. Same reality as whether it will put new, influential money in Rowling’s pocket to do horrific things with. But I’d like to help a company that looks as if they put a lot of heart and energy into a game only to get hit with some real shit circumstances outside of their control. Even if they’re not impacted financially or career-wise… art is meant to be consumed. I know if I wrote a Harry Potter fic and everyone boycotted it because they want nothing to do with Rowling anymore, I’d be devastated. Sometimes, you can’t separate supporting the good people from supporting the bad. Not in a media landscape where thousands of people are involved in singular projects.

2. I’m invested in reclaiming excellent works created by horrible authors. That’s fandom! We don’t know much about Legacy yet—this is pure, unsubstantiated speculation—but this new story could be a step forward from Rowling’s books, giving us some of the respect for minority groups that she failed at. That’s the sort of work I want to promote because Harry Potter as a concept is great and I think it’s worth transforming it for our own needs and desires. The reality is that as long as Rowling is alive she’ll benefit from licensed material, but if that material can start taking her world in better directions? I want to support that too.

1. I literally just want to play it. That’s it. That’s my big justification. I think it looks phenomenal and I was itching to get my hands on it the second the trailer dropped. And you know what? I’m not in a good place right now to deny myself things I enjoy. I don’t need to tell anyone that 2020 has been an absolute horror show, but for me certain things have made it a horror show with a cherry on top. Not a lot gets me excited right now because we’re living in the worst fucking timeline, so when I find something that makes me feel positive emotions for a hot second I want to hang onto it. I have no desire to set aside that spark of happiness in a traumatic world because people on the Internet think it makes me selfish. Maybe it does, but I’m willing to let myself be a bit selfish right now.

Which circles back to this issue of equating buying a game with active harm towards the trans community. It honestly worries me because this is a very, very easy way to avoid the harder, messier activism that will actually help the queer community. When someone says things like, “You’re choosing a stupid video game over trans lives�� that activism is performative. Not only—as demonstrated above—is purchasing a game not a threat to trans lives or ignoring the game a way of protecting trans lives, it also gives people an incredibly easy out while still seeming ‘woke.’ Not all people. Maybe not even a significant portion of people, but enough people to be worrisome. “I’m not purchasing that game,” some people post and then that’s it. That’s all they do, yet they feel like they’ve done their duty when in fact they’ve made no active difference in the world. Are you donating to trans charities? Are you speaking up for your trans friends when someone accosts them? Are you circulating media by trans authors? Are you educating your family about trans issues? Are you listening to trans individuals and continually trying to educate yourself? These are the things that make a difference, not shaming others for buying a game.

All of this is not meant to be an argument that people shouldn’t be absolutely revolted by Rowling’s beliefs (they should) and that this revulsion can’t take the form of rejecting this game wholeheartedly. This isn’t even meant to be an argument that you shouldn’t encourage others to boycott because though the financial impact may be negligible, the emotional impact for you is very real. I 100% support anyone who wants to chuck this game into the trash and never talk about it again—for any reason. All this is meant to argue is that people shouldn’t judge others based on whether they purchase this game (with a side argument that we can’t limit our activism to that shaming). That’s their decision and this decision, significantly, does not add any real harm to the world. Your fellow Harry Potter fan is not the enemy here. We as a community should not be turning our visceral on one another. Turn it on Rowling. She’s the TERF, not the individual who, for whatever reason, decided they wanted to play the game only tangentially related to her.

If Twitter and Tumblr are any indication, I can imagine the sort of responses this post may generate: “That’s a whole lot of talk to try and convince us you’re not a transphobe :/ ” For those of you who are determined to simply things to that extent, there’s nothing I can say that will change your mind. Please re-read the disclaimer and consider whether yelling at me over anon will benefit the trans community. For those of you who are still here, I do legitimately want us to think critically about the kinds of activism we’re engaging in, how performative it might be, whether it harms the community in any way, and (most significantly) whether it’s actually moving us towards a safe, respective world for trans people to live in. Personally, I don’t think telling Harry Potter fans that they’re transphobic for buying Legacy will generate any good in this world, for them or for the trans community.

At the end of the day only you can decide whether you can stomach buying this game or not. Decide that for yourself, but make that decision knowing that there’s no wrong answer here.

#harry potter #mymetas #Anonymous

33 notes · View notes

ratingtheframe · 4 years ago

Text

Why Armie Hammer’s Scandal Is More Than Kink Shaming

The 34 year old actor has had numerous allegations thrown his way this past month, from cannibalism to an obsession with BDSM. But do these allegations go beyond a widely accepted community of kink lovers and venture into deeply rooted misogyny?

Warning: this article contains mentions of cannibalism and sexual assault.

For those of you who aren’t aware of Armie Hammer’s presence on screen, you may be scratching your head and wondering what on earth people are talking about, seeing the cannibalism aspect to this all as face value without making the connection between Hammer’s past behaviours and current allegations. The actor who rose to prominence in Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher’s The Social Network (2013) playing both of the Winklevoss twins, has become quite the favourite amongst the film industry. His role Oliver in Luca Guadagnino’s Call me by your name (2017) has sent Twitter into a permanent frenzy as memes and daily adoration for Chalamet and Hammer’s on screen romance continue to thrive even 4 years after the film's release. As well as Call me your name, Hammer is known for roles in Sorry to Bother You (2018), Rebecca (2020), On the Basis of Sex (2018) and soon to be released, Death on The Nile (2021). He currently has another film due to be released and a Call me by your name sequel in development. Sounds as if he’s got a lot going for him and despite him not being the biggest star to be churned out of Hollywood today, the recognition is still there and with that, he’s still being paid.

The Allegations

At the beginning of the year, an account emerged under the handle of @houseofeffie, that was created to expose some lurid and unpleasant communication between several women and Armie Hammer. Some of which he had relations with whilst married to his now ex wife Elizabeth Chambers. The nature of these dms are incredibly disturbing and worrying considering that Hammer not only has children but as an actor, spends a proportionate time around women.

These are just a few of the messages that were exposed that led the media to brandish Hammer as a “cannibal”:

Hammer:

“You are the god damned standard I hold women to in terms of kink and enjoyment of fucking the[n]...”

“I need to drink your blood, why the distance?” “...thinking of holding your heart in my head and controlling when it beats”

“I am 100% a cannibal...I want to eat you....Fuck...that’s scary to admit..”

“I’ve cut the heart out of a living animal before and eaten it while still warm”

“You were the most intense and extreme version [that I’ve ever had]. Raping you on the floor with a knife against you. Everything else seemed boring”

“You [were] crying and screaming, me standing over you. I felt like a god. I’ve never felt such power or intensity.”

“You just live to obey and be my slave”

“Would you come and be my property till you die? If I wanted to cut off one of your toes and keep it with me in my pocket so I always had a piece of you in my possession?”

“I want to see your brain, your blood, your organs, every part of you… I would definitely bite it...100%”

...O-kay. Lots to unpack here. First and fore mostly, I’d like to address the kink shaming element to all of this. I personally don’t see any harm in kinks, BDSM, pornography, as long as people are consenting and aren’t inflicting unsolicited pain upon people. Therefore, kink shaming and finding Hammer’s taste in sexual preferences isn’t what we are here to discuss. In fact when I first read the allegations, that wasn’t even my initially thought. CNN posted an article two days ago titled “Armie Hammer May Be Disturbed, But Is Shaming Him the Answer?” an opinion based article by Aaron Weaver that explores the allegations and believes Hammer shouldn’t be shamed for his kinks. But this begs the question whether Hammer was actually being shamed? I didn’t see much evidence for this seeing as people were mostly horrified by his taste in human flesh than anything else, a kink that is uncommon in the BDSM community and is only practiced by the most extreme.

Kinks aside, the most worrying thing about the DMs above is the way in which he views women and their bodies. It’s clear to see that he might not have much respect for women seeing as he proudly states his willingness to cut them up and drink their blood. And funnily enough, the sexual objectification of women’s bodies for one's own sexual pleasure without considering their comfortability is classed as misogyny. A reddit user made an extremely good point on a thread about Hammer’s scandal stating:

“To me, the problem is not that he’s into rough sex, or that he has kinks some people find scary. It’s not about yucking his yum, so to speak. I’m more concerned that he may have ignored safe words and pushed his partners beyond their limits. I feel like the media is focusing so much on his kinks and sexuality as opposed to his ignoring of consent, which is a complete and utter inversion of priorities”

Past Relationships

Another example of Hammer disrespecting the boundaries of women and sexual pleasure would be his past girlfriend Paige Lorenze. Lorenze is a 23 year model and former professional skier who has shone a light on Hammer’s worrying behaviour and his involvement in BDSM activity. The sources of Lorenze’s allegations are highly unreliable, which is one of the most frustrating things about this entire charade. The BBC BRIEFLY covered the fact that Hammer dropped out of his latest film amid the allegations, without fully going into detail about the allegations or the abuse subjected towards his former partners. It just goes to show we’re rubbish at taking abuse seriously enough to the point where people are punished for their wrongdoings. Had a more reliable news source covered this story, then it’d make it more viable to the public. Even though this scandal is in its early days, that doesn’t necessarily mean it's unimportant or should be swept under the rug along with the hundreds of other scandals that Hollywood refuses to expose.

Only the Daily Mail, The Sun and Page Six seem to have gone in depth with the accusations, making the entire story rather murky for the reader. Anyhow, Paige Lorenze said to the Daily Mail that Hammer had carved an ‘A’ above her groin without her consent and licked it whilst it bled. He had also reportedly tied her up and hit her with paddles to fuel his BDSM obsession and sexual desires. Lorenze was quoted saying 'Any man who is fantasizing about crushing bones, eating them, having sex with female limp bodies is a danger to all women'. Hammer insisted to Lorenze that his behaviour was normal, and that there was an entire community of people that carried out the same things he did on her. This is partially correct seeing as the global sex play market is worth over $30 billion, with practices in such activities dating back to the mid 19th century. However, the one thing the BDSM community doesn’t condone is not giving consent, which is where the fine line is drawn in between Hammer’s sexual preferences and the BDSM community. His choice to carve that ‘A’ into Lorenze isn’t backed up by a wider community of people who enjoy a variety of sexual pleasure. Lorenze claims he also DMed nude photos of her being tied up to people without her consent, further perpetuating Hammer’s lack of respect towards people’s boundaries. This is a serious incident, that sees someone with more power (Hammer is 6’5 and Lorenze is 5’6 btw) assert their dominance and by doing so, degrades and harms someone else. We shouldn’t be kink shaming Hammer, but shaming him for thinking that this behaviour is acceptable.

Hammer’s previous relationships can also draw some light into his lack of respect for women. He and his wife Elizabeth Chambers divorced in July 2020 after a decade of marriage. Though it's unknown what triggered the separation, these recent allegations may have something to do with it. Furthermore, two other women have come forward to express their distaste towards Hammer and his questionable fantasies. Entrepreneur and ex-girlfriend of Armie Hammer, Courtney Vucekovich, told Page Six that Hammer wanted to “break [her] rib and barbecue it and eat it”. She also expressed how easy it was for Hammer to charm his way through into getting women, especially young women into doing what he wants through “active manipulation and making you feel like he’s never felt this way about anybody.” Lorenze was also subjected to similar retort after reporting that Hammer too wanted to barbecue one of her ribs because she “didn’t need it”. Writer Jessica Ciencen Henriquez took to twitter last summer after a lunch date with Hammer and expressed that she had blocked him on Instagram. She later went on to tweet this:

“If you are still questioning whether or not those Armie Hammer DMs are real (and they are) maybe you should start questioning why we live in a culture willing to give abusers the benefit of the doubt instead of victims”

Exactly my point here. There’s not much to this scandal other than the fact that several people were hurt and undermined and someone else caused it. Someone who is societally above everyone because of their race, class, status and gender, with a well connected and dominant family support system.

His background and past

Hammer comes from a very powerful and wealthy family. Hammer’s great grandfather, Armand Hammer, was the chief executive officer and president of the Occidental Petroleum company founded in 1920. Now if you’re wondering the exact scale of such a company that is still running today, they are the 4th largest oil and gas acquisition in the entire world worth over $100 billion. ONE HUNDRED, BILLION, DOLLARS. Not all actors in Hollywood can say that their great-grandfathers were worth that much, which gives me little hope in seeing Hammer be held accountable for what he’s done. He was also kicked out of UCLA after apparently not “being able to do it”. Just another rich white male with enough power, malice and money to work his way around any struggle.

Now that we’ve established Hammer’s allegations, it’s worth looking back to see whether the signs of such behaviour were already prevalent in the numerous interviews he partook in over the years. Complex highlighted an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert from 2017, where the host brought up Hammer’s obsession with knots, to which he laughed off and claimed that “knots make sense” that they are a “language” and referenced how man used knots before the wheel. Valid points but ones that are debunked in light of his interest in BDSM. during a 2013 interview with Playboy (appropriate) Hammer expressed that his “sexual appetites changed'' when he married his wife and that hair pulling used to be something he enjoyed but could no longer do now that he was married “even though he wanted to”. This is quite the backwards comment when we’re talking about respecting boundaries and it's clear to see it was only a matter of time before his desires could no longer be repressed.

Since this whole shit storm began to travel Hammer’s way, he has since dropped out of the film The Billion Dollar Spy, which would’ve seen him star alongside Jennifer Lopez. BBC News reported that this move was made as Hammer stated that “I cannot in good conscience now leave my children for four months to shoot a film in the Dominican Republic” following the ‘vicious’ online abuse he’s been subjected to. Hammer was again put in the firing line by Grand Cayman law enforcement for lying about a woman provocatively shown in a video was Miss Cayman of the Miss Cayman beauty pageant that’s held on the island. He and the woman were warned for their misconduct and had confirmed the matter is now closed.

Final Thoughts

There are enough red flags in Hammer’s behaviour to open up a flag store, and I would go as far as to say that this isn’t the end of it. For someone who’s grown up having the majority of things they want, it's easy to want more beyond morality and despite the discomfort of others. Hammer’s move to drop out of his latest film was an attempt to lessen the blow of hate being turned towards him as opposed to the benefit of those he’s hurt. So far, him and his lawyer have denied all allegations and further action hasn’t been taken against the Hollywood star. He’s apologised for the DMs and brandished his actions a “foolish attempt at humour”.

Wrapping his own behaviour up in humour is an attempt to detract from the severity of the behaviour itself, whilst excusing it, something he can get away with because of his status.

Major media outlets haven’t done much in even attempting to expose this man’s behaviour and have left it up to unreliable sources to piece together the true persona of Armie Hammer. Though innocent until proven guilty, common sense is widely available to the general public meaning we should be delving into the past a little and comparing it to these allegations. Along with Hammer’s character, family and unnerving Instagram posts of cutting up meat and eating raw steak, there doesn’t seem to be much in the actor’s favour.

All I would say is as a director, producer, writer or actor, would you feel comfortable in being associated with someone who believes they're a cannibal and marvels at the idea of drinking human blood? Or someone who goes as far to objectify women to the point where they become nothing but sexual fulfilment and pieces of meat?

That’s all I’ll say and those who do feel comfortable doing such a thing means that Hammer may still have a career at the end of the day. One point to Hollywood, no points to political correctness and respecting women.

#armiehammer #call me by my name #actors #hollywoodmovies #paige lorenze

14 notes · View notes

dreamcrow · 5 years ago

Text

fic writer tag game

thanks for the tag @babblish!! surely it's a cliché that writers are always glad to talk about writing while not actually doing any writing...?

fandoms: tales of arcadia! i've dabbled around through past fandoms but the first stuff i've ever really "finished" was for trollhunters.

where you post: ao3 or bust bay BEE. i crosspost links to my work on tumblr, but tumblr is...not built for archiving, lmao

most popular multi-chapter fic: in my sleep i dreamed of waking. i still can't believe how many hits it has—almost twice as many as my next most-hit work! v proud of my firstborn :')

favorite story you’ve written so far: oh no don't make me choose hahaha. i guess—for what it could be, probably nightshadefic; but for what it is, aa, dazzling dawn has a very fond place in my heart.

fic you were nervous to post: nightshadefic (left-hand florilegium), hands down. strickler is such a popular character and i was so anxious to put what is admittedly a very weird and self-indulgent biofic out there, but... well, like i said: that's everyone else's problem now!! ღゝ◡╹)ノ

how you choose your titles: usually it goes a bit like... untitled googledoc #5 > vague concept > codename > overtly pretentious metaphorical citation? sometimes (like for nightshadefic) i can come up with something original, but i'm a big fan of poetry titles lately. might relapse into my ancient sins and go right back to song lyrics though

do you outline: i try to. but i also know i'm prone to getting lost in the outlining weeds and never doing any actual writing, so...i'm trying to make peace with not knowing everything lol.

complete: technically yes lmao. in my sleep, dazzling dawn, my stricklake month collection, and the lil baby bellroc thing i did are all technically freestanding! how did that HAPPEN. (...feels good tho.)

in progress: ...let's not talk about my wip backlog. 😂prompts solicited from friends, prompts from followers, dazzling dawn sequel, conferencefic... like a billion stories about barb learning changeling... many ideas but few promises.

i've sometimes heard what i do—a sentence or two on a bunch of different wips at a time, so i'm technically writing, but finishing stuff takes forever—described as writing "sideways," which feels...accurate. but also not the most satisfying. then again i also categorize a lot of "in progress" stuff also as....

coming soon/not yet started: oh god so many. for diplomacy's sake, let's say... those lord huron prompts? i've got some preliminary thoughts on 2/4 of them.

i really do wanna get around to some arcane jerks sometime tho ;w;

do you accept prompts: i shouldn't but i do. 😂 in my defense: i've got some consistently awesome prompts from my followers (rebecoming! organized knowledge!), so... i've just become wise and try to open prompts only infrequently.

upcoming story you are most excited to write:

ancient unknowable eldritch horror being defeated by the power of social conventions vs. painfully domestic strickman... please. please

i tag: @megan0013, @nightrosebud, and... you!

#ask games #wip tag #long post #yes i linked all the fics i talked about in this post #bc i love validation and must share my creations with the world

8 notes · View notes

liquidcryptogold · 4 years ago

Text

Liquid Crypto Gold Review – Worth It or a Scam?

Introducing

Nowadays, the idea of making money online is one of the good ways to boost your income in industry 4.0. It catches a lot of people’s attention because it allows them to make money even at home or in their spare time quickly. However, it is a fact that not everyone can profit from this concept.

So, what is the best platform, and how to take successfully advantages of it to make money online?

Both are the concerns of all people including me. LUCKILY, I found a platform that has all we need now. It is called Liquid Crypto Gold.

I’m here today to tell you about Liquid Crypto Gold. It is an all-in-one platform monetizing the multi-billion-dollar commodities industry through its secret decentralized platform for generating commissions online.

==> Order Today: Click Here To View Pricing and Availability <==

What is Liquid Crypto Gold ?

Liquid Crypto Gold is a DFY cloud-based software and training that helps you auto-generate profits from the untapped Green Energy and commodities markets.

Inside you will be able to set up your DFY Hands-Off System with Liquid Crypto Gold, and get access to training modules to help you get paid in crypto & achieve massive success, including DFY Pages and real Case studies, with real proof of results for any newbie or advanced user to copy in matter of clicks, and implement for quick results.

Click here to know the latest Updated Season Sale Discount Price

Does Liquid Crypto Gold Software Work or Not?

Step 1 Access the DONE FOR YOU funnel inside our secret platform Everything’s Set Up For You

Step 2 Connect to the secret green energy crypto program at no cost! Set & Forget From Multiple Sources

Step 3 Relax as targeted traffic floods your DFY crypto, commission & lead-generating funnel Easily Scale With Built-In Commission Compounding

Liquid Crypto Gold Review – Features and Benefits

Let’s look at the detailed features of Liquid Crypto Gold and see what you can benefit from it:

♦ THE SECRET CRYPTO PLATFORM

This secret platform is what drives your commissions & leads whenever green energy is traded. You are getting in on the ground floor of an untapped, massive income opportunity. That’s already making early affiliates 4-6 figure monthly profits!

People will trade green energy inside this secret platform then you can earn commissions & free crypto. It easily converts it into cash or gold and withdraw whenever you want. Or you can reinvest and stake it for extra profits:

There is no risk when you get this secret Crypto platform.

♦ DFY COMMISSION FUNNEL

The automated funnels are all set up for you. Just by sharing a done for you info funnel on alternative energy, The DFY funnel converts prospects into buyers.

All you need to do is just copy and past the link shown inside. Then sit back & watch as this automated funnel turns free traffic into ongoing commissions payable in crypto, cash or gold:

Because this info-based funnel shares the latest green energy innovations with users. It converts extremely well which maximizes your commissions today, tomorrow and long term.

♦ AUTOMATED FREE TRAFFIC SYSTEM

No list? No problem! This custom beginner-friendly traffic methods are easy, fast & powerful. The automated traffic system finds you laser-targeted prospects on autopilot and make this a set & forget, 99% DFY business.

It sticks with 100% free organic traffic to start then optionally scale things up with low cost ads. Liquid Crypto Gold also helps you generate a lucrative CRYPTO BUYERS list at the same time, on autopilot when other people trade and buy green energy.

There is no need for: This product includes both methods step-by-step so you can start generating leads & free crypto FAST.

♦ COPY/PASTE EMAILS

You get professionally written emails to promote your funnel link to new users. Plus emails that welcome your new Liquid Crypto Gold subscribers and encourage them to start trading right away. So you don’t have to write a word, just copy, paste & send!

♦ DFY SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

These engaging & informative posts have been optimized to convert and because they provide valuable info about green energy & investing you can proudly share them to your network.

They work great for free traffic as organic posts, and as high ROI ads when you’re ready to scale. Just copy and let DFY automations do the rest!

(Limited Stock) Liquid Crypto Gold Now Today At A Special Price - 50% Off

Price & Evaluation: Front End

LIQUID CRYPTO GOLD FE: $17

For such a huge pack with training, materials and most importantly the money making opportunites, it comes as no surprise that it would cost you a large amount of money like other high ticket offers.

But wait! I have some good news. The front-end price for this package is only $17, just the same as a pizza pie. Honestly speaking, this price is super affordable compared with the huge chance to make big money.

Grab this product right now and see for yourself how easy it is to generate leads, commissions and free Crypto. Take advantage of this special offer before the price increases.

To ensure you will not take any risk in this investment, your purchase will be protected by 30 days money guarantee back policy. So if you are not satisfied with Liquid Crypto Gold, just let them know and they will refund your tiny investment on the spot. It doesn’t get more fairer than that! Bring this amazing product to your home and enjoy the results that you deserve.

THE UPGRADES

Besides, if you want to maximize benefits from this product, please consider these upsells once you check out:

OTO 1: LLCG 10X ACCELERATOR PROGRAM – $37

Inside this package you are able to 10X Your Profits, Free Crypto & Fiat Earnings In 90% Less Time With Zero Extra Effort. You’ve just got yourself an amazing deal on the world’s 1st CRYPTO-POWERED green energy affiliate platform.

The DFY automated funnel opens you up to recurring commissions, free crypto & passive income. As a new customer, you’re invited to a unique ACCELERATOR program to 10X your profits, to unlock truly life changing income in a fraction of the time.

It also includes “Insiders CheatSheet” to unlock the passive crypto-commissions Vault.

OTO 1DS: LCG 10X ACCELERATOR LITE – $27

With Accelerator Lite, you still get all the strategies for streamlining your acceptance into the 10X Profit Program. It includes how to set up and optimize your YouTube & social media accounts & best practices for creating compelling content.

But if you’re the kind of person who:

[+] Likes to save a bit of money

[+] Doesn’t need spoon-fed content & custom training

[+] Would prefer to create your own unique content

Then the lite version is the perfect balance between efficiency & affordability. You still get the most critical elements to boost your results, at a budget friendly price.

OTO 2: LCG UNLEASHED! DFY SUITE – $67

This package will fully automate your campaigns and put your results on autopilot. This is NOT one of those ‘kind of’ DFY upgrades where you get some swipes & content, then have to figure out what to do with them. This is a truly DONE-FOR-YOU package that eliminates all moving parts from your campaigns… so all you do is point traffic to a single link in order to profit!

You’ve just got yourself an amazing deal on the world’s 1st Crypto-Powered green energy affiliate platform. The DFY automated funnel opens you up to recurring commissions, free crypto & passive income.

As a new customer, you’re invited to a unique accelerator program to 10x your profits, to unlock truly life changing income in a fraction of the time.

OTO 2 (DOWNSELL): UNLEASHED LITE! – $47

It is limited time offer for new Liquid Crypto Gold customers. Even though the done-for-you upgrades can automate & amplify your results in a very significant way. It also makes the offer even more affordable for you.

You can get the best lead pages, email conversion sequence & contacts export feature at a reduced price. How would you like to receive a huge discount with a ‘lite’ version of the powerful Unleashed system?

Inside this lite version, you’re still getting:

[+] The 2 TOP-CONVERTING lead pages they have optimized to grow your list & maximize long term profitability

[+] The complete “leads” email campaign – sent on your behalf – to convert as many of your leads into buyers & crypto commissions

[+] The 1-click export functionality to upload all your contacts to your autoresponder and FB ads manager

[+] All the power of automation for higher conversions with just a few less DFY assets and integration to make the price a no-brainer.

OTO 3 – DFY TRAFFIC – $197

It fully automates your campaigns and put your results on autopilot. With Free Traffic, that will show up on our users funnel, which will be converted into real leads, which will be automatically followed up. All you do is just collect your commissions. Bonus Advanced Native Ads Training Included for even more traffic to your Downline links.

OTO 4 – LIMITLESS BUYER VISITORS – $497 FOR 3 MONTHS

You will get strategies to have 100 +Visitors per month for the next 3 months, to your subscribers links and downline pages. Included is a special Masterclass advanced Live workshop Once every week for 3 Months.

(SPECIAL OFFER) Click Here to Get Liquid Crypto Gold with an Exclusive Discount Price Online

THE BONUSES LIQUID CRYPTO GOLD VENDOR

To make sure you won’t encounter any hassles setting up, that’s why the vendor has added guides not only for set-up process but also for effectively deploying the product for maxizing profits. Let’s take a look:

Buy the offer from my link and send me the screenshots on this email ([email protected]) and I will send you the bonuses

👉 Click Here to buy

#Liquid Crypto Gold

1 note · View note

thehyperplane · 4 years ago

Text

Humans love problems

You’re here, reading this article, and I wrote this article on a cool rainy Sunday morning, perfect for a picnic. Why did we do that? I am writing this article because I just had an existential crisis and a career crisis and a financial crisis. You’re here probably because you got bored or you had one of your own crisis, that can only be resolved by reading random stuff. It can be anything, we’re here for a reason, however silly/smart it may be. We’re here to solve a problem, in my case the crises.

Why do we do anything. I mean, as humans, as a species, why do we do what we do? We could have lived our lives in caves, hunting and gathering whatever we can, living off whatever we had, but still we chose to settle down, grow our own food, create large communities, villages, towns, cities, countries. We are the only species which chose to go for agriculture, invent languages, write scriptures, create stories, create stories of creation, invent currency, manage accounts, run organizations, wage wars, discover America (whatever that means), discover science, discover inner self and so on. Why did we do all that?

Well, as it so happens, our brain’s frontal cortex is the culprit here. Humans were the first species to discover fire, which lead to us eating boiled soft food. This created an energy surplus and that energy went straight to our brain. One thing lead to another and now here we are, our brain is better (??) than every other species’. The frontal cortex (which existed even before discovery of fire, but now was even better) is the part of our brain which does the work of understanding language, creating sequences for multi-step tasks, working memory (Kinda like RAM), reasoning, judgement, organizing, planning, forming a personality, controlling social behavior and bunch of other stuff. This is the part of the brain that gets triggered when you see a problem, like when you get bored and feel like you should do something about it, or when you feel like being rich and realize you gotta do something about it, or when you see a hot guy/gal and can't find courage to approach them and feel like you should do something about it. And when it happens that the problem you’re facing is also the problem most/many other humans are facing and your brain decides to solve that, and it also knows how to scale the solution to possibly millions (if not billions) of other humans, we as a society and as a species make progress. This is the reason why we are where we are. I mean literally, me writing this article in a small room, somewhere in the middle of nowhere and you reading it wherever you are (on/near earth).

We have made most of this progress because we’re an aware species, we keep looking for problems and their solutions. As individuals, it may not be as apparent, but as a species we are far from where we started. But most of what we have achieved was achieved within last few hundred years. True, we’re problem solvers right from the time when evolution upgraded a bacteria into a conscious organism, but from then till the the scientific revolution in 1543, our pace was very very (if not very very very) slow. That’s when humans went on a problem solving spree and solved one problem after other. What inspired humans is a whole different story in itself, but look at it this way: Orville and Wilbur created their first designs of gliders in early 1900s and we sent first rocket to space in 1950 and first human in 1961.

We look at problems every day and take a decision to solve them everyday. It happens so unconsciously that we don’t even realize, most of what we do is hinged at a problem we strive to solve. Your job, your work at your job, studies, workout, reading, writing, scrolling through social media/blogs, drinking water, eating food, not eating food, even brushing your teeth, everything you do, is because you have a problem that each of these activities solve. Most problems today have existing solutions which we can apply directly. It’s the problems for which solutions don’t yet exist, that require high level cognitive and thinking skills.

Some people find a problem and see true meaning of their life in solving that problem, sometimes they succeed sometimes they fail. If they succeed and find a way to scale the solution, then they reach heights, make name, fame, money and what not. And if they fail, they pick other problems to solve, these are usually referred to as disrupters or change makers. And some (well, most of us) people can’t find such defining problems in life, and our brain, as filthy as it is, goes on to create problems out of thin air. Our brain has evolved to look for problems and solutions at all times and when it fails to recognize a problem worthy of its time, it sees that as a problem and urges us to work on that. Humans are probably the only species with a problem of not having a problem to solve. Maybe this is because of the belief that we all carry with us that we need to make impact, or maybe its merely because of our nature as a species that we constantly seek meaning in life, but problems and finding their solutions remain the core objective of our species.

Concluding: Humans love problems.

Endnotes: This is my first blog/article/online post/anything I’ve ever written. I apologize if there are any factual mistakes or if there are any grammatical errors. My writing goes here and there, it happens every time I start writing, I can’t stop that. Do excuse me for that.

And Thanks for reading. :)

Sources:

https://www.healthline.com/health/frontal-lobe#function

Some concepts from Homo Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harrari

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-has-human-brain-evolved/

http://users.clas.ufl.edu/ufhatch/pages/03-sci-rev/sci-rev-teaching/03sr-definition-concept.htm

https://www.space.com/39251-on-this-day-in-space.html

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/first-man-in-space

Photo by Rob Schreckhise on Unsplash

1 note · View note

ryzomeriseup · 4 years ago

Text

Apparently my 13-year old wrote this. It's fucking great!

Oscar was heading back to his home. He had just finished his day of Education System 7. He went back home with high spirits, knowing that his friends would have something interesting on their minds. Oscar had very individualistic friends. Likewise, he was strange and unusual. But his friends always made life interesting, with their points of view.

Oscar and his friends liked to always go to the Sitting Garden. The Sitting Garden was a place where people could go to have a nice time and entertain themselves. It had lots of trees, benches, beautiful landscapes, structures and fountains. And the shrine to the Government leaders. All of the Government leaders were very respected and a huge part of their society.

Oscar headed to the Sitting Garden. As he was passing through to his favorite opening, he noticed that the vegetation around one of the trees was turning yellow. He went to further investigate, and found his friend James Conducting another one of his experiments. This time it was a flying device. He saw that the flying device was an electric hover engine, using propulsion fans to fly.

“Tell me, just what is this supposed to be?” Said another one of Oscar's friends, Kate. She was just as confused as Oscar as to what this was.

“This is a propulsion system that I came up with. By spinning fan blades to make the machine fly, it stabilizes the mechanism and steadies out the torque anomalies. I also use the energy of our impending doom to help.”

“What is our impending doom?” asked Oscar.

“Oh, you haven’t heard of the Supernova that is coming? Our very star is going to go into its Giant Phase in just 9 years, and the Government officials have yet to say anything.”

“What? Why was I not told of this! My family literally works for the System Stability Corporation. Am I the only one who this is news to?” exclaimed Occar.

“Oh calm down, this crisis has only been going on for 40 or so hours. You are not the only one left in the dark here. Our star is enormous. It is very unpredictable and a crisis like this is something that we prepared for.”

The trio discussed this matter further in the Sitting Garden, until the late night came. Walking at night in the Sitting Garden was always a very fun thing to do. The reflections of all the lights had such a magic effect on the fountains, and all the taller vegetation. As Oscar, Kate James walked back, they thought about the star that they lived by, and the evacuation process that had been formed for situations such as these. Oscar thought about what system the species would travel to, and what all would be different.

“Do you think that we will still have something like the Sitting Garden at our new planet?” asked Kate. She was the one who showed them the Sitting Garden. On the first week of Education System 7, Kate found her friends and told them of the most amazing place she had ever seen. They walked down with their parents to the Sitting Garden Entrance, and walked around the vegetation, fountains, statues, brick pathways, and open areas that brought the Sitting Garden so much life.

“I will miss the Sitting Garden. I wish we could bring it with us to our new planet. Then it would feel just like we were home.” said Kate. She had that look on her face that she had when something was not going well.

“Perhaps if we got a warrant of code 12758, we could legally move the object from one planet to another.” replied James

This was true, but would not change now. James had always been one to look at things as if they were able to be changed. He had grown up like that, he excelled at looking at technology in new ways. Innovation was his specialty. He was the Smart One.

Kate was the person who could make you feel anything. She had that way of communication that not many other people had. She always wins arguments. But that is what they did.

Oscar, he was the one who had a million thoughts going in in his head at once. He rarely spoke out. He was the kind of person that would not let you down, except when he realises that you are the useless person in a group project. He literally has you lie down and take a nap, so as to not have the useless person interrupt.

On his way out, Oscar picked a flower from the Sitting Garden, put it in a containment bag, and went home. The Supernova would not take the whole garden from Kate.

A few months later the government officials announced that everyone was to board the ships. Everyone did, and the planet was evacuated. The ships had many rooms, 1 for each family. Once everyone was on board, the rumbling began. The Ground slowly got further and further away from the window. Everyone looked forward to the Captain. He Said that everyone was to stay in their rooms for the lift off sequence. Everyone did as they were told, and hoped for a better tomorrow.

~ 10 Years Later ~

Oscar looked out the window of his office. He saw the tall buildings, tens of stories tall. Almost all of them were painted a blue gray color. The pops of color in the new city were the luscious trees and light post filled streets. He focused back on his work. He was a worker for the manufacturing organization. He was placing an order that the company had requested. It was a very boring job, but it was his responsibility. He took a final glance at the window, and this time saw something intriguing. It was a small black dot in the sky. Just there. The atmosphere of the planet produced a light green haze, but here was a random black dot. He stood up to look closer. It looked like a meteor. This was odd. The moon base usually shot down all meteors. It seemed to be getting larger as well. Oscar realized that it would crash into the planet. He quickly grabbed his things and ran to the bottom of the building. He told the guards what was happening, and they said they would try to alert everyone.

Meanwhile, James on the moon base, looked at the supposed meteor, and told the officials to shoot it down. They aimed their weapons, and took fire. The object exploded, and a fire of smaller rocks rained down. The intercoms came on.

“Please take shelter immediately. We are experiencing some temporary meteor problems.”

Everyone did as they were told, and sought out shelter. On the moon base, James knew something was wrong. Usually the targets like that were shot down automatically. He and a team went to investigate. They entered the room, and 3 people lay dead on the floor. The system was sabotaged.

“Oh dear.” said one of the shocked guards.

“We seem to have an imposter among us.”

There was then a red alert. The alarms were going off. Everyone was rushing, falling down, trying to get to their station. A huge man made object was rushing their way. It then sent a message to every screen on the planet. It was only a few words, but everyone was aware of what it meant. It said:

“Did you miss us?”

Everyone thought back to the official day of evacuation. Not everyone made it onto a ship. There just simply was not enough room. Some people volunteered to stay behind. Some were just unlucky. Oscars parents were some of those unlucky people.

Back down at the planet, Oscar was rushing towards the nearest shelter. The huge gray metal object slowly loomed closer and closer. It was almost like a bomb of some sort. The planetary guard began to fire at the object, but it only made a small dent. The city was still in a panic. Oscar got caught up in a large crowd of people. The chaos of the crown overwhelmed him, and in their stampede, Oscar Tripped and fell. His arm got most of the fall, but it still hurt. He was not even angry, he just wanted away from the awful thing in the sky. A small pod came down from the large ship, and boarded. Oscar ws silent among the screaming crowd.

The shuttle then engaged audio on the screens it took over.

“Look at this. This is chaos.” said the speaker. The person's voice was calm. Void of all emotion at all. It just stated this, as if it was an average conversation.

“This wouldn’t seem familiar to any of you. All of you were able to board a ship, and escape your problems. Hmm. You all make me sick. Nobody here is coming to oppose this little visit of ours.”

Everyone was silent now. The children all looked, awed and terrified at this person's words.

“My message to all of you is simple. 1,700 people are still significant, even out of 12 billion. Now, my life is almost meaningless, so I have one last act.” He signalled to the ship. The ship responded. And then grew very hot. It then exploded. The ball blinded Oscar. He couldn’t witness the final moments of his life. The ship detonated with an incredible bang. So loud, it shook the doomed planet. Someone grabbed his hand. It was Kate. Oscar’s final act was giving a flower, the one he had picked 10 years ago. then it all went black

1 note · View note