#i was going to say pronouns too but that's a p western way of looking at it. they pay attention to gender not in a discriminatory way but

[misttiddies]

id: second mizukage gengetsu sitting at his desk saying “hehe YES! FINALLY some IMPORTANT LEGISLATION! then a picture of the document on the desk, which says “bill of illegalize assigned gender at birth,” which he signs with a pen with a clam at the top. the third image is a photo of a chicken with overlayed text that says ‘by interacting with this post you agree every trans person deserves respect, human rights, and $500,000′ /end id

[cauldronofthefantasia]

Let’s Meet Me! Again - Reintroducing Myself (Director’s Cut) - the Hickory Witch

Hey, everyone. This is the Fantasia. Last time you saw me, I made a relatively short introduction because I wasn’t really sure what to say or how much to reveal about myself, but I thought I’d go into some more depth here and let the tags tell the story of what type of magick you’ll be reading with me and learning from me the next time we clear the air, stir the cauldron, and get to weaving that old black magick. 

You can find me on tiktok @the_fantasia, and I hope you do cause, honestly, I’ve started making some weird content I really like and I wanna replace the dopamine hit I got from the stuff I didn’t make anymore with something that makes me happy instead of just making my brain’s chemicals go brrt.

My name isn’t really the Fantasia, obviously. I’m a practitioner of several years who is a self-contained coven as I am a system witch in a gestalt rather than one working towards integration who works with my system in unity. I live in the Bible Belt, and if you went looking for me, you’d probably notice that I live a relatively normal life that is made up of working towards my ambitions, taking care of my friends, and tending to my closed tradition that I was the last Priestess of now that more people have started to join us and I’ve resurrected it from death.

I’ve worked for over a year towards that goal, and the weight of the ancestors’ burdens lifting off of my shoulders when they realized I had finally figured out that my closed tradition could include people of every race, and religion, just unified together led me to decide to start sharing my magick and myself online more in a more realistic way. This has led me to Tumblr, and that’s how we met. So, it’s nice to meet you, and it’s good to remember that wishing someone meets interesting people upon them isn’t always bad. Some of us are pretty cool :P 

I grew up in a spiritual evangelist religion that seemed to practice some sort of folk magick where we channeled spirits, and did group prayers together to achieve miracles with whatever it was we were doing, but if you told them that they probably wouldn’t like it very much. Also it was a cult, which would have been fine (mostly /s the only cult I’m vibing with rn is this one I made where we worship medieval illuminated manuscripts :D) except for the part where the Big Enemy was people like me, and if you notice the pride colors in the tags, might be people like you, too.

I also am an heir hoodoo, from my ancestors and the knowledge in my blood, my alter Michael has a Jewish soul and am a staunch Jewish, Romani, Palestinian, LGBTQ+ (and a part of that community), Muslim, etc, ally and consider myself to be a genuine leftist who is just stuck in a world that constantly makes me disappointed in our kind. My alter Michael is white and realllly gay. My alter Maria is black like me and mostly mute because she’s our heart, and she communicates through emotion. Lilu is an entity we invited into our body, and that’s also his nickname, cause His name from the Gilgamesh Cycle doesn’t really translate well; so if you go looking you’ll find a class of Mesopotamian demons. He’s not one, and He predates those written texts and Mesopotamian culture by quiiiite a bit. Then there’s a fifth mystery bestie we invited into our body, who I’m just starting to get to know as a part of us. I’m also traditionally trained in Western esoterica, have various exposures to French, North African, Arabian, and other forms of occultism and religious belief, have been guided onto my path by a follower of Kali (@mxkanteven on tiktok who is a trans woman and someone I am proud to call my friend), one of the greatest kabbalists and teachers alive at the moment (and an expert in Judaism, her MA’s degree in Jewish Studies has helped quiiiiite a bit in elevating his status. He also uses an E pronoun. His name is Joshua Maria Garcia, and his @ on tiktok is @joshuamariagarcia), and many, many others. 

These others are in fact including a number of Gods and entities from all over the world - including more than a few Yokai and several Djinn, interestingly (I don’t turn down entities that are attracted to me because they know my friends, ya’know? Just like I don’t turn down Djinn if my Jewish past life, and soul, who learned all the stuff they did about the time Islam started developing from Rabbinic Judaism attracts them and seems to be influencing by magick by teaching me about servitors, and Djinn, and geomancy, etc) - because I’m a spirit medium that believes in co-existing with the spirit world because... why would I want to deal with the consequences of banishing a spirit that lives in their house if all they do is move my pencils around sometimes because Blackwings are made of California incense-cedar and they like them? Do I really wanna make a spirit homeless and then have to wonder why I develop an irrational fear of spirits? To be clear, though, I am not Jewish, nor do I “practice” or know Kabbalah, nor am I a Jewish folk practitioner. To practice Kabbalah without being Jewish is the same as being a Catholic Priest without ever being Catholic. Kabbalah and Judaism are the same. And, curiously, all of that has been assumed before. I don’t do it. In fact, I have not read a single book about any of those things. I just... I dunno. Soul influence is weird, and I think my alter, Michael, wants to convert. So, we’re gonna have to convert, too, but Michael will be the one doing the Jewish stuff. That’s the funny thing about being a system witch whose alters each have their own soul and different past lives. Besides, Michael is a much more experienced practitioner than I am even though I like to think I’m pretty good (and he likes to think I’m pretty reckless), so we’re just having fun learning from him and the world and spirits and people around us. Anyway, see ya around. Signing off, this has been the Fantasia. Entry Definition: Let’s Clear the Air - a phrase I coined to describe the moment when you ring the bell, clap, let incense fill the air, and more as part of the opening and closing of a ceremony, a reading, and other witchy things. 

[sergeant-donny-donowitz]

You Only Live Twice (HugoxReader)

Requested by @redroseedits​

@owba-chan​ @war-obsessed​ @inglourious-imagines​ @tealaquinn​ @struggling-bee​ @frozenhuntress67​ @kwyloz​ @sodapop182​

Let me know if you wanna be added to the IB or OUATIH taglists! :)

A/N: (p/n) here means your pronouns :)

A/N 2: If dialogue is in italics then the characters are speaking to each other in German

________

"Oh, come now, Herman. This is serious!" Hans Landa was in no mood for jokes.

The basterds had just broken Hugo Stiglitz out of prison.

Landa was tasked to find him.

Find them all.

Herman shook his head, "What you're looking for...it’s something only one kind of person can do."

"Herman...enlighten me. Who?"

Herman grinned, "What you're looking for, sir, has no allegiance. No uniform."

"And what is this anomaly? Now and days everyone's got something to die for." Hans sputtered as he shuffled through his files of contacts. "I can’t trust just anyone with this."

Herman laughed, "Oh please Hans. There are things that are beneath us. Squandering our time to find some yank GIs and some runaway in the forest? It's insulting."

"It's a classified case given to us by high command."

"Send one of their own after Stiglitz. A common criminal after a common criminal."

Hans narrowed his eyes, "What are you proposing, Herman?"

"The Lion's Den."

Hans sputtered with disbelief and waved him off, "A rumor spread by petty thiefs and drunks. Unbelievable, Herman. How could you even believe-"

Herman smirked, "Follow me."

*****

Herman showed Landa the way to a hidden oasis. A tavern, reserved for the most ruthless, bloodthirsty criminals, all hired for some heist or high stakes murder or other.

Landa was amazed, seeing that the den was a real place.

He immediately shook his head, and thought, to hell with it.

He stood in the center, and practically demanded as he waved around his insignia, "Bring me the best killer you have."

People sneered, spat, and laughed, then carried on with their usual dealing, betting, and...well, business.

Herman shook his head, "Are you out of your mind? That could've gotten us killed!"

He scoffed, "Do they know who we are? If anything happened to us-"

Herman and Hans' disagreement was interrupted by an abrupt silence.

Followed by footsteps, and murmuring.

"Your rank means nothing here."

The constant, incessant word on everyone's tongue was 'Vier'. 'Four.'

Your name.

The name everyone in that tavern feared and the streets feared.

Herman managed to stutter, "We-we're here t-to see about a-a job?"

"Anyone who comes in here is. Sit."

Herman nodded to Landa, and they both sat.

You leaned over the table, pressing your palms down on the corners, overshadowing them. "I assume you have payment."

Herman nodded, and held up the briefcase. In it, was millions, meant to cover the cost of the operation.

It was then, that Landa looked up, and saw your face, which nearly stopped his heart.

Upon further inspection...it made him smirk. "Ah...look what the cat  dragged back from the dead. Y/n L/n."

You spoke with ease, as if nothing he said held any weight. You ran your fingers on the blade of your knife, and remarked, "Now, now, Landa. People will think you mad for speaking to spirits."

He nodded, understanding.

He remembered it well.

He was a detective.

In fact, he held your case once.

You were a common, petty thief from a young age.

But, by 17, you were on the rise.

Young, skilled, smooth talking, with all the right connections for all the wrong things.

By nineteen, it had gone to your head.

And...after a series of misfortunes, you were presumed dead, not but two years ago.

"So you faked your death. Is that it, Y/n?"

"Y/n is dead," you guaranteed, slamming your mug of beer on the table, causing hearts to stop around the tavern.

Landa was the only one not shaking.

He didn't understand the danger.

"My conscious is not haunted by what happened two years ago. Therefore, I wouldn't see a ghost of you. So, it must be you."

You pushed the briefcase back to them, which stole the breath from Landa, and you whistled, which stopped Herman's heart.

A group of assassins rose from their game of poker, only two tables away, and surrounded the table.

"Alright. Alright. I apologize to the vengeful spirit," Landa teased, then nodded once, "Vier..."

You sighed, and called off the team.

"Name."

Landa grinned viciously, pushing the money back to you. "Hugo Stiglitz." "Fuck off." You huffed and turned around, "Leave with your head on your shoulders, before I change my mind." "I can tell you where they buried your brother and sisters, if you do this one thing." You stood up, without taking another look at the money. "It's a deal." Landa looked around, confused for a moment, until Herman pulled him outside, to the safety of the city, and explained that when a deal was struck, the money remained on the table until the kill was done. If it wasn't, or the hitman backed out, the money would be sent back to the contractor. Hans Landa looked up, and watched you, and smirked as you disappeared beyond the alleys. For once in his life, he was happy to give a case away.

**********************

Days later, you were sitting on the roof top of a building older than anyone knew, sometime between dusk and dawn, somewhere between Germany and France.

Then, you spotted them.

Ten men.

Ten basterds, sneaking down the alleys, attempting to move back into nazi-occupied France.

Then, between the broken light of the moon, and that of a flickering street lamp, you spotted him: Sergeant Hugo Stiglitz.

Shrouded by the heaviness of the night sky, and the very essence of surprise, you dropped among them, and attacked Hugo.

But...for the record, you were only human.

You, like any other  soldier, criminal, basterd, or any other human that ever lived, had an off day.

You made a mistake. You looked into his eyes for a little too long, and he looked at yours while you were on top of him. For the record, Hugo had never been so startled, in his life...

or confused.... As a matter of fact, strange as it was, he hadn't been as attracted to anyone in his life, as he was to you, the moment he looked at his would-be assassin. But....it was a mistake, nonetheless.

And...as a result, the basterds took you down.

It happened every once in a while. You'd get too cocky, and then this happened...

But, you didn't really mind.

You always found a way out, this wouldn't be any different.

They uncovered your face, and you appeared to be in an abandoned hostel in a run down town nearing the border between Germany and Belgium.

You knew it only 'appeared' that way.

Why?

Well, you'd run a few deals there before.

You left the blood stains and hidden escape routes to prove it.

But...they didn't need to know that.

They didn't even give you time for your vision to focus.

"Who are you?!" demanded a man with a scar on his neck, his hands at his hips, almost seeming disinterested in your answer.

Another man, a bit older than the others, spoke. From the accent you could tell he was from Munich. Somewhere you had contacts...once... He looked to you, and translated, "Wer bist du?"

You looked up, still feeling a slow drip of blood from your nose falling onto your lap. "I speak English."

The scarred leader nodded, "Alright then. Who the hell are you?!"

You felt something press against the back of your neck. The familiar cold press of the barrel of a gun.

Before you could give an answer, the gun pressed even more forcefully against your skin, and you heard a voice behind you, "You a nazi?" This time...you couldn't quite identify the accent. At least their leader, you knew from old smuggled western radio shows, was from somewhere in the American south.

This one,...you weren't quite sure. But you could feel his looming presence.

Still, what struck you wasn't that...it was the fact that they'd even dared to accuse you of being a nazi.

"Bite your fucking tongue, basterd." You lifted your head back to take a look at him, and felt blood trickle down your throat.

You heard another voice, confused, angry, sarcastic and...short. "Why else would you attack us?"

"For the record, I wasn't there for you, little man." You  looked past them all at the man crouching on a dusty overturned mattress, in the corner of the gloomy room. "I was there for him."

The leader spoke again, "Yeah? And why might that be?" He really wasn't amused, as he reasoned "Other than the fact that youre a na-"

You shook your head. If you heard that accusation again, you'd go berserk, and all hell would break loose.

"I'm a paid assassin. A hitman."

There was an errie silence overtaking the room, one of the basterds, who you'd later learn was called Omar, looked back and forth between his officers and you, his mouth open.

Someone choked on a drink.

Other than that, the room was still.

The leader, who in a few hours would remember his manners and introduce himself, crouched before you, studying your face carefully in  the light they had.

You could be no older than Utivich and Hirschberg, their youngest troops.

To hear that you were a hitman...and the skills you'd shown, well, it was surprising. In a strange way, it was impressive.

He looked up at you, and asked, "What's your name, kid?"

"Vier."

Aldo raised his eyebrow, "Fear?"

You shook your head, "Vier."

He struggled with it for a moment or two, batting between "veer," and  "beer".

Wicki was confused for a moment as well, as he repated under his breath, "Vier?" Vier? Wie die Nummer..." "Like the number?"

You nodded once at him, and looked to Aldo, "Just say Four. That's all it means."

Smitty cocked his head, "That's a weird name."

Omar rolled his eyed, "Obviously an assassin's gonna have a codename."

"Riiight..."

The man holding a gun to you, who you'd learn in a few moments was the famed Bear Jew, muttered, "Ain't you got more important questions to ask?!"

Aldo cleared his throat, and sniffed some tobacco, "Who do you work for?"

"Whoever pays," you chuckled, with a wink, and Donny murmured, "So you're a hook-"

Wicki muttered to get him to shut up in time to save his life, "Donny."

Hirschberg was losing his patience. You felt another gun press against the flesh beneath your ribs as he uttered, "What the fuck are you talking about."

You weren't scared.

You hadn't been scared in years.

You looked at nothing as you said, "The Lion's Den."

Hugo finally looked up, and looked at you directly in the eyes.

The more you said, the more he connected.

Wicki may have been old, but he knew a thing or two. "Oh shit..."

Hirschberg said what was on everyone else's mind, "What the hell is happening?"

Wicki quickly explained, "Everyone's heard of it...it's supposed to be a myth. It's not-"

You shook your head, feeling beads of sweat rolling fown your back, though you weren't nervous. At least, not because of the basterds. "It's hot. Can I take my jacket off?" You sounded nicer than you should have, "No tricks. I promise."

Everyone held their weapons, ready for anything, but Aldo nodded.

You were wearing a tanktop undernearth. Trails of ink telling the story of your life over your arms, and what was visible of your back.

You twisted your shoulder a little, there on the upper side of your back and shoulder, was a black ink lion, its mouth open, tearing apart a chain.

Wicki's mouth dropped.

"It...it's real?"

You nodded, with a slight smirk, "It's just good business."

Aldo looked at the boys, then back at you. "Who paid you for this?"

Hirschberg muttered, "Who do you think?"

You nodded, "He's right, you know."

Aldo grunted, "Alright. Tell us everything we want to know, or-"

You sighed, "You'll blow my brains out, and/or scalp me. I know, I know."

Aldo nodded, "Good, so you get it. Alright, question number one-"

Hirschberg muttered, "We're wasting time. We're gonna kill this asshole anyway."

You shrugged with a sighed, "He has a good point again."

Then, your intended target stood up. He spoke suddenly, which made everyone uneasy. "Don't kill the kid," he muttered as he stepped up, beside all the basterds.

All of them were incredulous, each murmuring some form of "why not?"

He repeated again, a little harshly, "Don't kill the kid."

Somehow, Hugo Stiglitz had enough heart to show his attempted killer some form of mercy.

"Let me alone with (p/n)."

The basterds all looked at each other, then, on Aldo's word, filed out of the room.

"Why did you do that?" You asked, genuinely confused.

"Do what?" He spoke in German, signaling you to shift as well. Even if they were listening, which they most likely were, only Wicki would understand. Meaning, you had some buffer time.

"Save me..." You slouched in the chair pensively, resting your elbows on your knees.

He raised his eyebrow, and was silent.

"You don't know me, Stiglitz. You don't know what you've just done..."

"What?"

"I'm a psychopath! A threat to society. To you. To-"

"I know who you are." He sat back down on the mattress, directly across from you, seeming as though he had nothing to worry about.

You clenched your teeth, "You have no idea who I am."

He was silent again.

So much so, that it frustrated you into saying a little more than you should have. "You were sanctioned by the OSS, but I was sanctioned by a very angry detective."

"And who might that be?" He was sharpening a knife, but somehow you knew that blade wasn't meant for you.

It was meant for whoever sent you.

But you shook your head, and you lied. Because Hans Landa was your personal target. "Don't know. I don't ask."

He was silent again, then looked up at you for a moment, and spoke softly, so even if Wicki was listening, he wouldn't be able to hear, "You're not a psychopath." before resuming sharpening his knife.

Just before lowering his eyes back down to his blade, they flickered over a specific tattoo on your arm. One you'd tried to cover up with another, but still, the older ink's fangs sank their teeth into what remained of your soul. Somehow, even Hugo Stiglitz could see that.

He was a silent but observant man, and it took just half a moment to know what it was.

A series of numbers etched onto your skin by a nazi.

At that moment, it was clear to him you really weren't a nazi. It would've been clear to anyone who saw it.

But now he was sure he knew exactly who you were.

He spoke again, "They branded you. They took your eyes and your soul."

You jumped to your feet. Anyone back at the lion's den would be shaking in fear, but he didn't even flinch. He didn't even look up as you reproached "Who the hell are you to say-"

"I was there."

You pretended you didn't know what he meant, but it was so painfully clear to both of you that you did know. "What are you talking about."

"I was there the day they killed you, Y/n."

That name...

Your breath caught in your throat, your voice locked in your heart.

All you could do was shake your head, and mumble as the shards of a painful lifetime stripped you of your courage, "Don't..."

He did, though. He told you what he knew. "I was just starting out, too. You do know why I joined the gestapo?"

Everyone knew about Hugo Stiglitz.

You nodded.

"It was my very first day. I had my gun aimed right at you, and I missed on purpose." He remembered that day, only two years ago. Even then, he looked at you in awe. He expected to find a hardened criminal, not a kid shielding three others so much younger than that.

You shook your head, recollecting yourself. "You know nothing about me, Hugo."

"They killed your brother and sisters that day, before they took you away" his eyes glanced over the hidden tattooed numbers, hastily scratched out with darker ink. Sending you to a camp wasn't enough. Only weeks later, you were being transfered to be publicly executed in Berlin.

He went on, "They killed everyone you cared about." He looked back at you, "You're not  a bloodthirsty serial killer, you're not psychopath. You cared about somebody, once. Three of them."

"Mind yourself, sergeant." You spoke fiercely, though your eyes gave you away.

He looked directly at you, "Your name is Y/n. You still have some good in you, somewhere. I don't care where you work, who pays you to do what, there's a reason you didn't take that luger out of your boot and take half of us out earlier."

How did he know about that?

"That's where you started. You killed nazis, and only nazis once. You used the money to give people a way to run away."

"I still do."

"You do more than that now."

"They were only six years old, the twins..." You didn't know why you were even speaking to him, but you were. "Johan," You sighed as your heart broke a million times over, "He wasn't even thirteen yet."

That was when you snapped. Petty crime turned into a rampage.

Hugo Stiglitz may be a bit questionable, but he was a good man. You knew that, and you knew he deserved some sort of explanation. "If I killed you, they'd tell me where they buried them."

Hugo related what he knew about your 'death,' "You were being moved to Berlin. There was an accident. You were dead."

"I still am, as far as anyone is concerned."

"Three people died in that accident."

"Four."

He raised his eyebrow.

"Three guards. One for Johan. One for Emma, and one for Inga. And me? I died twice."

Once with them, and once when the nazis believed you were dead.

It was then that he understood, "Vier..."

Four...

Four lives lost. Four burdens you always carried.

You turned to all you had left. A life hidden underground, where everyone was just as damned as you, covered in blood, without a cause, morals either grayed or gone. Reefer and lugers, francs and gold...

Hugo knew the rumors.

He once heard stories of a nameless crime lord, protected by the lion's den, a blood thirsty hitman, with a penchant for blood and an unknown revenge.

But, that wasn't what he saw before him.

What he saw was someone who'd never known mercy before the moment he stood up. Someone with four reasons to chase after a feeling of justice that would forever be a horizon away.

Someone who's stomach was grumbling.

"You're hungry." he noted, back in English,  as he opened the door, letting three or four eavesdropping basterds who leaned against the door tumble in.

***** They got you something to eat, while the basterds were filled in by Wicki on the heavy rumors surrounding you. Nazi killer turned crime lord turned hitman, never losing an appetite for blood and murder.

It wasn't all true...

Anyway, they got sidetracked when they realized Utivich, "Gave the fUCKING TRAINED ASSASSIN A KNIFE?!"

They quickly turned to find you at the rickety table, everything untouched, the knife in the exact place where Utivich left it.

You smirked, "Oh please, I have some decency...and some self control....Also I can hear you."

Donny raised his eyebrow, "Self control...Wh...whaddya mean?"

You grinned, "If I picked that knife up, I may not put it down until it was in somebody's artery."

"You're joking, right?"

You shrugged, "Whatever helpd you sleep at night, soldier."

Aldo sighed,  "We're running out'a time. It's almost dawn. If we gotta stay in Germany another night, we're gon' get caught. Especially since you haven't gotten back to your boss, ain't that right, kid?"

You shrugged, "Boss isn't the...you know what, yeah. You could just...send me," you grinned cheekily, and they all muttered.

You sighed, "Ok, ok. Where you taking me anyway? OSS? Oh! Interpol might give you a pretty penny," you winked, half joking...but considering a few negotiations you'd made with the Serbian, Russian, and Italian mafia....maybe they would get a pretty penny...or two....or...

They all started grumbling, and dragged you along as they slunk around in the shadows. You looked down at your left wrist, on your now cracked watch,  realizing they had two hours tops before sunrise, which wasn't enough time to stealthily cross into France.

"This also might not be great timing...but...I haven't eaten in about thirty hours, sir..."

Aldo spoofed, "So?" as he cleared them to  sneak down another alley.

You shrugged, and bluntly said "Hypoglycemia."

Donny scowled, "Don't care."

"I know you don't now, sure.... But since you're trying to stay under cover, if you're dragging a bloody, bruised, tattooed person down the back alleys of a city, that wouldn't be much help would it?"

Hugo couldn't help but smirk a little, though Aldo grumbled, "Oh for fuck's s.... Utivich, get (p/n) some bread or somethin'. I don't care what, let's just move."

Utivich scrambled around his pack, and pulled out an apple, and hastily handed it to you.

You smiled kindly, "Dankeschön." You raised the apple, and threw it across the alley, toward a shady figure walking down the street, undoubtedly going to a block away you knew well. There were people there you owed, and this would just about cover it.

Before any questions were raised, Omar scurried over to the screaming man, "You broke his eye socket in!"

You shrugged, "Good."

"What the fuck is happening?!"

You turned to the rest of the basterds, "That man is a nazi. There's a bounty on his head right now. I owe a few people down that way, where he was headed to anyway and d-"

You looked down at Omar, "Do shut him up, please. He'll blow your cover."

Omar found some papers in the man's pocket confirming he was a nazi.

Aldo nodded to him, clearing the kill.

You looked at the awe struck basterds. "Now then. He was heading down that way which is what you'd call....a red light district? Is that it?"

Donny asked, "Hookers?"

You nodded, "Hookers. Reefer. Anyway...I have....friends in this city. That clear?"

Omar, who had grown up in Hell's Kitchen in New York, knew a thing or two about how it worked. "We're fucked....we're fucked...we're-"

You smiled a little, "Maybe, if we...cash this in, per se...arrangements can be made."

Aldo muttered, without many alternatives, "Fine."

Hugo smiled a little, only enough for you to see as he commented, "So you do have redeeming qualities?"

You laughed a little, this time, without a sign of cynicism, but sincerity, and it captured his heart.

About halfway there, you started stumbling, and instinctively leaned against the wall.

Smitty's eyes narrowed, "Wait, you're actually hypoglycemic?"

It was then, that Hugo noticed your jacket tied around your waist, even though it was cool night, some sweat over your back, and your hands still slightly shaking, "Why the fuck would I lie about that?"

They were all silent, looking around at each other, when they heard glass shattering. Hugo emerged, with a pastry he'd taken from a bakery they just so happened to pass, and he handed it to you.

You smiled, again kindly, and this time with the intention to eat, "Dankeschön"

He held it out until you took it, "Essen." 'Eat.'

It wasn't much, but it was enough to get you to where you needed to go. Along the way, you lightened the mood a little, as Donny dragged on the dead nazi, and Hugo stabilized you, "Utivich?"

He turned around, and you knew you had the right name, "Didn't think of a criminal as a real person, huh? All those radio shows you Americans listen to."

"Ok, look," Donny chuckled, and you shrugged, "Did you know that Al Capone has syphilis?"

Donny turned to you, "The Al Capone?"

"Syphilis as in....syphilis?"

"Al Capone-Al Capone?!"

You nodded, "Mhm! Syphilis."

"How the hell you know that?" Hirschberg demanded, and you smirked, "I know a few people." And then, you arrived at your destination. Which appeared to be no more than a risque, run down cabaret.

"Can we...come in?" Donny was just about halfway through the door.

You rolled your eyes, "Ten men carrying a dead German local? You'll scare away the regular people, and snitch yourselves out. Wait here." Donny grumbled something, and you chuckled, "Just remember about Al Capone."

And so they did...

And once it was a moment too long, once they started questioning your honesty, you emerged, followed by two rather large fellows, with their faces hidden by the remnants of the night.

They took the dead nazi, and disappeared down the alley.

You carried a box, and held it out to them, "For your troubles, boys."

It was full of brand new weapons and bullets for them. "We can stay here until tomorrow night."

Donny grinned, "Alright," he started making his way to the front door and you cleared your throat. He turned, and you gestured to the alley where your two associates had disappeared down, "This way." You mumbled something under your breath that made Wicki and Hugo chuckle. And just like that,  when the sun set once again, you guided them to France, keeping them safe, which convinced at least Aldo that you were telling the truth. The attack was nothing personal. Odd, but he understood. Still, you were unsure of your fate once they reached their point in France. You knew either way, it didn't bode well for you. "I know what I deserve. No less than a six foot ditch, no name, no marking." You sighed, and looked at Hugo, and you raised your eyebrow, "Don't make that face," You nudged Hugo with your elbow, and smiled to encourage him. He looked down. He heard stories, once, not too long ago, of a rebel named Y/n. A face only locals knew, and the gestapo searched for. Back then, every hit, every deal made you a dime. And every single dime went to helping innocent people escape the nazis.

But one day, you snapped. Since then, every penny was used to cover tracks in your pursuit of revenge. In the process, you got a taste of blood, and it would never be enough. The  basterds didn't know that. They were just thankful you'd gotten them relatively safely out of Germany. Aldo sighed, and nodded, "Maybe...this kid here, maybe Four's got some merits." Wicki grinned, "So, we're letting Vier go?" Donny chuckled, "Look, Four might be a hitman...but did you say how p/n took out that nazi? That's gotta be the best goddamn pitcher I ever saw. Aldo's right." So, it was decided, you were free to go. They weren't saying anything about the attack, as long as you didn’t come back. But, you pulled Hugo back, just before he joined the rest of the basterds, and you basically pleaded, "Don't let me go..." He shook his head. "Go home, Vier." "You don't understand!" He looked you in your eyes again, and said, "I trust you, Vier." "You don't get it... I like it. I like the blood, the rush. I'm a fucking assassin. I can't leave that anymore. I fucking like it. I'll kill again. I'll-" He nodded but said, "Then use it for good." "How?!" He said something he never thought he'd say.He sighed, "I believe in you." It had been a long time since Hugo believed in anything.

He didn't need to say anything else, but  you knew what he wanted to say. He wanted you to do what you did in the past, and nothing more. Only take hits out on nazis. Nothing else. "There's still a soul in there," he tapped on your chest, "A soul with a name." He turned his back on you, and you watched as the basterds disappeared into the forest. You turned around, and marched back to Germany, and his words stuck with you, each day, after that. You did the best you could... Two years passed. Hans Landa came back. Two years before, when the money was sent back to him intact, he tried everything to get back to the Lion's Den, but the case on Hugo passed on to other hands, which stained Landa's reputation as a detective. But, the case made its way back to him, and he was willing to make a deal with the devil. So he did the next best thing. "If you don't kill them, every single basterd. Every last one, and bring me their cold dead bodies, I will put a bounty on your head." Your hands grew clammy, but not  because  you cared about what he said. You looked at your still cracked watch, and sighed. You had given Landa a chance to walk away with his life before. He didn't seem to get that. "Time's running out Hans." You looked at the case he was carrying. It was bigger than last time, and you needed quite a bit to help a few more families. "Show me the money." It caught him off guard, but he grinned cynically as he looked at you, at your scars, your tattoos, at the skilled, nameless ghost that got away with it all. He admired you. In a way, you were one of the only cases that slipped his hands, without him knowing. After all, who looks for the dead? He opened the briefcase, and revealed it was lined with millions of dollars instead of reichsmark. You sneered, "Oh, you remembered?" He smirked, "I will guarantee your safe passage to wherever in America you'd like to go to. I hear that Nantucket Island is nice this time of year." You matched his cynical twist, and grinned yourself as you mused, "And if I decline this offer?" "I have the entire high command, the SS, the Gestapo. You have a few mongrels with rusty knives and old lugers." "Hm..." You chuckled, and remarked "I raise you to...I know where your mother lives, Hans. Beautiful retirement home." He stopped smirking. "Oh don't bother asking  her about me, she won't remember. Poor old woman. Dementia, right? I did speak with her, Mausezähnchen." You grinned. Only his mother called him that, there was no other way for you to know that. You weren't bluffing.

And you weren't done, either. "Oh, so that is you! She gets a little confused between you and your brother, Heinrich. He's in that veteran hospital in Munich, for that bullet to the knee, that so?" Landa scowled, but you weren't done. You wanted to make it clear that you'd take everything from him if you wanted to, just like the nazis had done to you.  "At least that beautiful sister of yours, Greta! Yes, yes, she lives nearby to take care of him, and visit. Shame about her husband, though, isn't it?" Landa glanced up at you, and knew at that moment what you were talking about. His brother in law was in the gestapo, and died about a year ago under strange circumstances. He was also there the day you were arrested, and your brother and sisters were killed. At that moment, Hans knew it was you who killed his brother in law. He couldn't help but laugh. He laughed to hide his rage, and to block out the absurdity of circumstances... Somehow, sick as it was, he admired you. But you weren't the only one who could raise the stakes. "Ah, Vier...you don't know what you've just started." "Nothing can hurt the dead, Hans. I thought you'd know that." "Vier, Vier. What pains you the most is the fact that you're still alive. You're not really dead." He grabbed your wrist, "Late for your insulin shot?" You pulled your arm away, and signaled for all your allies to sit back down. You looked back at Hans and he said, "I will keep you alive. I can send you back." His eyes fell over the numbers that were hastily covered on your arm, "I can track down each and every person you ever helped, and everyone you're going to use this money for." You glared at him. You had to admit, he had an excellent poker face, and you couldn't tell if he was blluffing or not. He as not... "Few of them are still hiding in Bavaria, right? Three Romani couples, and a Jewish family. Seven still waiting to move from occupied France to the other side?" He leaned over the table, and spoke lowly, "You're not the only one with contacts, Vier. I know about Iowa." Your heart stopped... You'd gotten a few families land and homes there years before. "No one will look for them. No one will know where to begin. Clever, Vier. You've been very clever until now." He stood up, and started walking away. He hesitated for a moment, he half turned and remarked, "What is it you always say? There is a price for everything?" and flipped a piece of gold onto the briefcase. "For your troubles."

Once he was gone, you grinned, closed the briefcase, and carried it as you made your way out the door. On the way, you saw one of your allies, "Elise," you smirked, you were always one step ahead than you let on, "Get back to that British officer for me, please? Tell him I agreed to go to the movies." *********** But....you did have terrible timing, and that was maybe another off-day. Still, you made your way back through France. Late as you were, you weren’t too late.  Hugo was covered in blood, but there was still time. "Y/n?" You raised your eyebrow, but nodded nodded hesitantly, "Y-yeah...It's me....It's...Y/n..." He smiled, "So the soul does have a name..." He took your hand in his and you shook your head, "There's no time, Hugo. Come on, where's your friend?" You looked around, spotting Wicki. "They left you both behind?" Wicki mumbled, "We told them to go on without us." "Stupid. Stupid..." You muttered as you started tending to their wounds. Suddenly, you heard shuffling upstairs. You looked at them, "Play dead." "Wh-" "Do it." You jumped behind an overturned table, just as a herd of nazis walked into the tavern."Ah...Hugo...You've moved up on the world. Look at you, Lieutenant First Class. And with your record of insubordination, truly remarkable..." He had just pointed out the odd scene, "It appears somebody is missing. Somebody  fashionable." Then...you made another one of your infamous mistakes. You'd been leaning against the overturned table, and it fell over with a loud, bellowing slam. "Fuck." You scrambled and pulled out two guns, acting as if it were all planned,  shot down Landa's companions, and faced him. "Everything has a price, Hans." You aimed your gun at him before he even had time to let go of von Hammersmark's shoe, "And the price for being a nazi is your head." A moment and a gunshot later, there was one less nazi in the world. In that moment, for the very first time in years, you felt some sort of peace. You looked down at your cracked watch. Without Landa...the basterds just might make it as planned. The war would finally end... You looked at Hugo and Wicki, and smiled a little, wiping blood and sweat off your forehead, "Let's get you boys out of here, huh?" So you helped Wicki out first. You sat him in a car you'd hijacked and left waiting outside. "You're a good kid, Vier." "Y/n." He nodded, "You know the rest of the boys think you're nuts?" "They should," You laughed, and Wicki smiled, "You're a good kid, Y/n." You went back downstairs, and pulled Hugo up. You both looked down at Hans Landa, a long time scourge. Both you and Hugo were blemishes on his record: two unsolvable cases. Two threads that unknowingly were spun together by fate. As he gargled a wordless, bloody farewell to the world, his eyes went wide with realization. You'd double crossed him... He was able to say, "Bravo, Vier... Bravo..." He took his final breath, his eyes dead set on you and Hugo, two ghosts that haunted him to the very end. Hugo raised his eyebrow, suddenly realizing, "I still owe Aldo one more nazi scalp." You laughed, "Everything has a price, Hugo." "According to you, the price of being a nazi is his head...but what's the price for a nazi's head...or scalp?" You chuckled, "What do you have to offer?" Hugo smiled, genuinely, for the first time since the war began, his shoulders eased up, and he looked at you. He knew you'd listened to him, you changed again. He carressed your cheek, though his hand was covered in blood, it didn't matter to either of you. You'd given him a second chance to live two years ago. And in return, he gave you a second chance...Or a third chance. True, he'd spared your life once on the day of your arrest.  But gave you a chance to live again when you were face to face, not as a ghost. You both understood that. He softly kissed you, and murmured, "Whatever you ask for," he winked and you giggled, as you helped him up the stairs, "It's a deal."

[anthearose]

B A S I C

NAME: anthea rose thomas

NICKNAME(S): thea

AGE: 25

DATE OF BIRTH: 26 april 1995

GENDER: genderfluid

PRONOUNS: she/her but doesn’t mind they/them

F A M I L Y

MOTHER: dawn eddwards

FATHER: richard thomas

SIBLING(S): unknown

P H Y S I C A L

FACE CLAIM: cara delevingne

RACE/ETHNICITY: english, welsh, 

NATIONALITY: english, has american citizenship

HEIGHT: 5 feet and six inches (5′6)

WEIGHT: 112 lbs

BUILD: slender, toned

SCARS: inside of arms from drug taking

HAIR: dirty blonde, medium length

EYE COLOR: blue

DOMINANT HAND: right

ACCENT: english

PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: none

MENTAL DISABILITIES: none

ALLERGIES: nuts

DISORDERS: none

FASHION: wears mostly black, has a ‘grunge’ style

NERVOUS TICS: lip biting 

L I F E S T Y L E

HOME ADDRESS: evergreen dock, somerton, maine

RESIDES: small two bedroom apartment with roommate layla ferguson

BORN: london, england

RAISED: london, england

VEHICLE: chevy silverado, black

PHONE: iphone 11

LAPTOP/COMPUTER: macbook pro

PET(S): none

HIGH SCHOOL EDUCATION: dropped out at 16, sat ged aged 20

COLLEGE EDUCATION: none

MAJOR: none

MINOR: none

CAREER: exotic dancer

EMPLOYER: dark sensations strip club

DIET: vegan

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: panromantic

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: pansexual

MARITAL STATUS: single

CHILDREN: none

LANGUAGES: english

PHOBIAS: isolation, enclosed spaces

HOBBIES: video games, guitar, reading

SOCIAL MEDIA: uses twitter and onlyfans mostly

F A V O R I T E

LOCATION: the beach

VIDEO GAME: call of duty, left 4 dead, gta v, mario kart (she will fight dirty)

MUSIC: varying, listens to a lot of rock music 

SONG: rebel rebel - david bowie

TV SHOWS: friends, stranger things, how to get away with murder

MOVIES: labyrinth, the shining

FOOD: everything

COLOR: she’ll swear its black but it’s actually pink

C H A R A C T E R

MORAL ALIGNMENT: chaotic good

MBTI: enfp-a, the campaigner

ENNEGRAM: seven

TEMPERAMENT: sanguine

WESTERN ZODIAC: taurus

CHINESE ZODIAC: pig

PRIMAL SIGN: wombat

B I O G R A P H Y

tw for non-con & underage sex, prostitution, drugs and violence

Born and raised in the bustling city of London, Anthea, or Thea as she preferred, never really had it easy. Her father had left her mother long ago, only keeping in contact with his daughter through the occasional letter and birthday card. He lived in America and as Thea understood, he had some big fancy job with a large company. Thea always daydreamed about the day her father would burst through the door, scoop her up and rescue her from her miserable life. She dreamed of what it’d be like to live with him in his home and not have to worry about where her next meal was coming from. Of course, that never happened. Her mother was barely home, always out looking for ways to fuel her various addictions. It usually meant prostituting herself and for a long as Thea could remember, her mother would bring strange men home and be locked in her bedroom for hours at a time. 

It didn’t take long for her to work out what was going on - by the time she was seven, Thea understood, especially when the men made advances towards her. But she knew how to look after herself, even at that age and every time they tried, she either replied with a biting comment or, more often than not, a sharp slap to the face. It was usually enough to get rid of them and send them sulking back to her mother so they could pay what she was owed before taking their leave. 

Despite her unconventional home life, Thea got by. She often stole from local supermarkets to get the things she needed, but she cooked her own meals and appreciated the roof over her head. She wouldn’t say she was happy but she survived. Her mother spent her days sleeping with people for money or getting high in their tiny apartment. 

When she was fourteen, her life changed. Her mother pulled her from school and gave her an outfit to change into before taking her to an apartment block she’d never been to. Thea was frightened, told her mother she wanted to go home but she was only led into a grimy apartment by a group of unfamiliar men while her mother waited outside. She heard her daughter’s pleas and cries for help but did nothing to stop what was happening. It was only when there was a fat wad of money in her hands that she took Thea out of the apartment and brought her home, telling her this was her life now. She told her Thea would have to get used to it or starve because she was leaving. 

And just like that Thea was left alone, fourteen years old, no money and no job. 

She was able to contact her father after several weeks. He immediately flew her to America, had her sign some forms she didn’t really understand, and told her she’d be living with him from now on. She was enrolled at a local high school and told to keep quiet about what happened in England. She didn’t understand why, not really, but made sure not to tell anyone. She kept her head down as much as she could. Life with her father wasn’t quite what she’d expected either. His job was different to what she’d imagined when she was younger. He didn’t work in a fancy office, he worked from home and had several people coming and going, purchasing things from him for a large amount of money at a time. It only took her a few weeks to realise her father, the man she’d always imagined would be her hero, a knight in shining armour, was a drug dealer. And an addict himself. 

Thea stopped paying attention in school and in just two years since she moved to America, she was more depressed than ever. She dropped out of high school, even started taking drugs herself and fell in with what could be considered the wrong crowd. Maybe this was what she was destined to be. Maybe this was all there was for her. When her father was arrested for dealing drugs, she was placed in foster care. That had only lasted a couple of weeks before she ran away. Selling her body wasn’t really something she ever intended on doing but it was the only way she could get by. She had no education, no money and needed to do something. It was all she had left, the only thing she had any experience in. Granted, she hadn’t exactly been a willing participant back then and her mother had gotten the money, but it had happened. Thea had nothing left to lose. 

She began to sell her body for sex. Thea hated every minute of it, but it paid. She had enough to rent a tiny apartment in an unpleasant neighbourhood, but it was hers. Sure, she still was hooked on drugs but she got by. It continued like that for several months when she was approached by a different sort of man. The people she usually slept with were often older, other addicts she was sure, and just looking for five minutes of fun. But this one was different - younger, kinder.  

Thea didn’t trust him immediately. She had been looking after herself for as long as she could remember and her previous experiences told her men only wanted one thing. But she went back to his hotel room, unable to turn down the amount of money he was offering her. Thea was even more surprised when the young man didn’t immediately want her body and offered her food and a glass of wine. 

She learned his name was Anthony and he told her he was planning on opening up a new business, a brothel of sorts. It was going to be legitimate, according to him, although not entirely legal and all of “his girls” would be well looked after. At first, Thea refused. She wasn’t stupid and she wasn’t prepared to put her life in danger for some fantasy that sounded far too good to be true. If she accepted she had no doubt she’d be trafficked and sold on the black market for unspeakable things. 

As time went on, the man continued to visit Thea and slowly gained her trust. She met with someone who already worked for Anthony several times too and in a matter of weeks, she accepted his offer. Without a glance back, Thea left and moved across the country to work. Anthony helped her get off the drugs, showed her what there was to actually live for, and her life changed. Her every need was catered for - her new home was the brothel itself and rent came straight from her earnings. All her groceries were provided for her and she was able to decorate her personal quarters however she pleased. 

Usually Thea was fine when working. Most men just wanted a quick fuck and they didn’t care about anything else. Some of her clients wanted more unconventional things but Thea didn’t shy away from these, knowing they earned her more money. She didn’t care though - sex was just sex to her, and it paid. For the next three years, Thea lived and worked in Anthony’s brothel. Her regular clients bought expensive gifts, the brothel itself had armed security for the safety of the workers. It was the perfect job. 

Well, almost.

Thea had one problem, and that was in the three years she’d been there, she’d fallen in love with Anthony. It was an unspoken rule in the business - don’t fall for the boss. He had a girlfriend, Courtney, but she rarely visited the brothel. She didn’t like to associate herself with the girls who worked there, which was just fine with Thea. She kept her feelings to herself and thought everything would be fine. She was usually the one who brought Anthony his morning coffee but on one particular morning, things were different. She noticed he seemed tense and was pacing back and forth in his office. There was something about his expression that had Thea stopping in her tracks. She was almost frightened. But then he’d stopped and grabbed her, holding her against the closest wall to kiss her. 

This was everything she’d ever wanted and Thea gave herself to him easily. She wasn’t naive and didn’t really believe in happy endings but there had always been a part of her that had hoped Anthony would somehow realise her feelings for him and return them. Thea had fallen head-over-heels in love with him and had hoped he would get her out of the prostitution game for good. She didn’t want to sell her body anymore, not now she knew Anthony wanted her. Maybe she could help him run the brothel. She was nineteen and she knew the business well enough, right?

Wrong.

That night it was like it’d never even happened. Anthony didn’t look at her when he told Thea her clients were arriving. She was still in his bed and here he was, telling her to return to her room so she could work. Thea was confused but she assumed maybe it was due to Anthony’s relationship with Courtney. He couldn’t let anything be too obvious, right? Not if he was still in it, and maybe he was looking for a way of ending things with her before he swept Thea off her feet. She’d just have to wait. 

What Thea didn’t know was that Anthony had been filming for weeks. He filmed the two of them in bed together, filmed Thea with her various clients and posted the entire thing on the internet. It wasn’t until one night, while she was with a client, that she found out. Courtney had burst in, grabbed Thea’s hair and pulled her straight off the bed, uncaring that she was naked. Thea was thrown against the wall and Courtney screamed at her. It was like she was throwing every insult under the sun at her. 

Thea couldn’t remember much of the attack. Only that her client had left quickly and that when she woke, everything ached. Thea was still in her room, still naked, and beaten black and blue. She’d pulled on her robe and staggered to Anthony’s office to seek help. The sight that greeted her when she got there nearly made her throw up - Anthony taking Courtney on his couch, much like he had with Thea just the day before. They were celebrating something and when they saw Thea, both started laughing at the sight of her. 

Thea learned of the videos Anthony had secretly taken and that the whole thing had been a set up. Courtney had learned of Thea’s feelings for him and together they had hatched a plan of revenge. Anthony had seduced her, recorded everything and uploaded it to the internet. The second attack was worse than the first. Thea wasn’t sure if it was because she was already so injured or whether it was because Anthony joined in. She’d blacked out at some point and this time when she woke up, she was in an unfamiliar alleyway, her belongings in a battered box beside her. 

She was in hospital for several weeks recovering. Unemployed and now homeless, Thea knew she had to do something. She wouldn’t go back to that life. She wasn’t sure she’d survive a second time. So she left, moving from town to town, doing odd jobs here and there, stealing food to survive once again. She reached the small town of Somerton in Maine just before her 20th birthday and got a job at the local strip club. Although how she got the job, she wasn’t quite sure. In her interview she had been exhausted, fed up with rejection after rejection and when she was asked the typical “Why do you want to work here?” she had been a little too honest. She told the interviewer she had worked as a prostitute since she was sixteen and knew what it was like to be at rock bottom so if she could just serve drinks to the customers here, she’d be thankful because at least she wouldn’t feel disgusted with herself. 

Somehow, it had landed her the job. For the first couple of months she served drinks behind the bar but she got to know everyone who worked at the club well. It wasn’t until one of the dancers told her that they were in complete control she began to think about what it’d be like to be one of them. She had been exploited for years and some may say this job was no different. But Thea saw it a different way - she was safe here, she knew that. And if these random men wanted to give her hundreds of dollars just for showing her body and dancing in skimpy outfits, then she’d argue they were really the ones being exploited. Not her. 

That was how she got to where she was now. Five years had passed since she arrived in Somerton and she was settled. She had an apartment right on the coast, a roommate that she liked hanging out with and a job where she was in complete control. No one pulled the strings behind the scenes, no one was controlling her or took a cut of her money. She was safe, she was happy and Thea could only look forwards. 

[theliterarywolf]

So... Let's talk about Hetalia. Controversies, Specifically.

Tagging @apply-force-too-begin since they’re the one who was interested.

Hetalia was one of my first big fandoms outside of 'The Big Three' anime (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece) and outside of video games (mostly whatever wee babby weeaboo me could get on the Gamecube).

And, you know what? It's a dumb, silly anime about stereotypes, poking fun at the absurdities of History, and one's relationships with clashing cultures. It's dumb... But, remember, we all need our daily thirty minutes of dumb. And some of the characters are cute.

And, you know what? Most of the most engaging aspects of the fandom were those who used the initial shallow splash of history that the anime gave them to actually research and make engaging, well-written, culturally-sensitive content.

Of course, I'm not going to ignore how... Over-the-top some members of the fandom have been. We've seen how, whenever recent political conflict or natural disaster have occurred, we have to remind younger members of the Hetalia fandom to not cutsiefy it with the Hetalia characters. Examples that come to mind are: when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was surging up, kids kept trying to draw art of 'Russia just wants his big sister back~!', and the last major earthquake that hit Japan that had people making fanart of the Japan character which, while some was tasteful and was meant to bring awareness and donations for Disaster Relief, not... all of it was...

Hell, that’s not even bringing into account the last time I went to Anime Expo (way back during Hetalia’s hayday), I was walking around and saw a bunch of Russia and Baltic State cosplayers being interviewed by the news and the one dressed up in a USSR uniform was holding up a Communist flag and shouting ‘Whoo! SOVIET TAKEOVER!!’

However, one thing that I have noticed, while researching for this write-up, was this:

Most of the controversies and pieces of fandom-wank that have surrounded Hetalia and its fandom... Aside from one instance... Are the results of the Western-fandom and Western-localization of the anime  via Funimation.

Aside from one... Most of the issues surrounding Hetalia are due to the West and not even the source media in of itself.

So, with that in mind, let's talk about the main controversies of both Hetalia and its fanbase.

Controversy 1 – The South Korea Controversy/Protests

As I recently answered a question about this, so I'll just pull that answer for this segment:

'To summarize it: there’s a Hetalia character meant to represent South Korea. As every Hetalia character has a gag related to them (America gorges himself on fast food and constantly proclaims himself to be the Hero, Italy is cowardly, Germany is constantly angry, China constantly builds Chinatowns wherever he goes and sells bootleg merchandise, etc), so did S. Korea.

His gag was calling all the other Asian countries ‘big brother’ as well as groping the chests of male characters (China and Japan mostly), proclaiming ‘these mountains belong to South Korea, da ze!’

Of course, people would draw pictures of S. Korea doing his thing but one day during a meeting between a bunch of South Korean politicians and representatives, someone brought out a piece of fanart that depicted S. Korea groping Japan’s chest with the latter looking embarrassed and what not.

They interpreted the character as being an offensive, lecherous stereotype that was somehow belittling S. Korea’s worth as a country.

There were a bunch of small protests until, finally, Himaruya Hidekazu (the creator of Hetalia) just decided to say “you know what? Fine! I’m not getting rid of the character but he’ll never appear in the anime adaptation, okay?!’

So… Yeah! Fun times…'

Magnitude of Controversy – MAJOR

Like... In what universe is 'this meme hurt my feewings, we need to take VALUABLE TIME DURING GOVERNMENT FORUMS to talk about it RATHER THAN OTHER PRESSING ISSUES' a good response? And the fact that people took to the streets to protest? Come on, guys! There's so much more to worry about in this world...

Controversy 2 – Emperor Heliogabalus and Himaruya's 'Transgender Erasure'

There was a section of time where Himaruya Hidekazu, rather than focusing on the nation characters of the series, made chapters and updates about certain historical figures. They were all done for laughs while interspersing various bits of trivia and facts about them.

One of these updates centered around the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (or 'Elagabalus'). And this is where certain portions of this hellsite got soooooo upset...

You see, Himaruya titled the update centered on Heliogabalus as 'The Emperor Who Tried to Live as a Woman... Even Though He Was Really a Guy'.

Almost immediately people were typing up callout posts about how 'transphobic' Himaruya was for the title and 'how dare he misgender my precious trans baby~!' or 'this just goes to show how ignorant Japanese people are to Western history' and so many more, all because Himaruya didn't use out-and-out female pronouns for Heliogabalus.

Now. Mm, two things!

One! This was during the time when Himaruya had an open blog where, not only did he post pictures and updates about where in the world he was traveling and what he was researching, but it also had an inbox that was open for people to send insight to him.

So, if people were really incensed by this, you would think that they would use such a means to let a creator know 'hey, this is kind of problematic; can you edit it to show this information', right?

Right?

NO ONE tried to inform Himaruya of their upset; they literally didn't want an answer, they just wanted to be upset!

But, here's the kicker: the guy that all of these people were stanning for? Emperor Heliogabalus?

WASN'T FUCKING TRANS!!

The real Heliogabalus was a sadistic little shit who was connivingly put on the throne by his mother via a bunch of espionage and assassinations... Who, as thanks, had his own mother murdered once he was emperor. Other wonderful exploits of this 'icon' that tumblr kids decided to stan was:

Getting politicians and countrymen drunk and then, while they were passed out, brought in lions to kill and eat them

Deciding 'fuck Jupiter, Helios is my husbando – We're all going to worship him now!'

Completely wrecking Rome's monetary system

Promising favors to his lovers (whom he called his 'husbands' despite not making anything official) that strictly contradicted favors to his other lovers

And just generally being a hot mess

So... why were tumblr children so insistent on him being a transgender woman?

You ready for this?

Okay.

Because he occaisionally dressed in women's clothing and called his male lovers his 'husbands'.

Yeah.

One of the earliest case of tumblr children trying to ruin someone's life because they didn't follow their headcanons.

Magnitude of Controversy – Honestly, this was just fandom-wank. But it was one of the earlier instances of fandom brats using serious terms (transphobia) to justify being upset at a creator not following their headcanons.

Controversy 3 – The Passover Photoshoot

…

…

I'm sorry, just...

Everytime I remember or have to go over this one, I have to stop and reflect; maybe grab a drink.

…

Okay.

So, pretty early into the Western reaches of the Hetalia fandom, a group of friends and Hetalia fans decided to meet up together at a mall for a cosplay photoshoot.

Okay. Cool. Fine.

They were all dressed up as their favorite characters from the series! Germany, Austria, Hungary, P-Prussia, Holy... Roman Empire...

Ahem. Okay. Cool. Fine.

So, they get to the mall and start taking pictures. But then someone in the group gets the amazing idea for everyone to do certain poses.

I... You know, why did I start this, I could have just not done thi--

Nazi salutes. You had a bunch of dumb kids dressed up as Germanic nations. Performing Nazi salutes and shouting 'Heil Hitler'.

Now, as bad as this was... you could have just drawn it out as shitty edgelord humor; we still have plenty of that going on today.

H-however. There were two factors that made this photoshoot 50 Shades of Tasteless.

Number one. This photoshoot took place during Passover.

And number two. The mall that this photoshoot took place at...

WAS JUST A HOP, SKIP, AND A JUMP FROM THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM!!!

This is the one, THE ONE, instance where, anytime someone talks about 'lol, young Hetalia fans are so cringey', this is what pops into my head.

Those of us older members of the fandom can never fucking forget this. Yeah, the perpetrators were called out; yeah, they learned their lessons, yeah it opened up a conversation about appropriate behavior in fandom. But this one event will always remain as the big 'Ooh, baby, nooooo! What are you doing?!' moment in the fandom.

Even moreso than what the current batch of hatedum is about.

Magnitude of Controversy – Huge. The South Korea controversy was discussed on a governmental scale, but the Passover Photoshoot is what remains as the biggest mark on the fandom.

Controversy 4 - FUCKING FUNIMATION!!

Okay, I... 

This one is so infuriating because it’s the result of Funimation just not giving a DAMN.

So, Hetalia got popular enough to be localized! Yay... And it was going to be handled by Funimation. Yay... They do quality work... Sometimes.

*kicks the Black Butler dub into the sun*

So, they dubbed Hetalia. And, you know what? So many questionable decisions went into this fucking dub. 

You have Vic Mignogna! You! *clap* Have! *clap* Vic! *clap* Mignogna! You could have easily put him as one of the Axis characters or the Allied characters and you...

Don’t use him...

Until three seasons down the line...

And then you have him as Greece. 

A character who barely says anything.

... And this was WAY before the clusterfuck of KickVic, so they really had no excuse. 

Oh, also! For China, who is a main character, maybe we should have an actual voice-actor?

Pssh! Fuck that shit, let’s just have some random chick from accounting voice him. 

... They literally had some random-chick from accounting do an overly stereotypical Chinese accent and said ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

And she gave us such... wonderful line-reads as: during the Hetalia movie Paint It, White! --

“SUCK BALLS! I knew za fortune cookie today was bad ruck~!”

But as bad as the dub got sometimes (Oh God, I’m having war flashbacks of Russia...), the exchange from the dub that people constantly point to as ‘see! This show was antisemitic all along!’ were these: 

Exchange 1 - 

S. Italy/Romano - ‘Hey asshole, I have a surprise for you~!’

Germany - ‘What is it? Another Jew?’

And, you know what? As asinine and idiotic as that brief exchange was... 

IT WASN’T IN THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL!

Funimation, in their infinite wisdom, wrote that in and thought ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

So, there goes another issue of ‘problem that only existed because of the idiocy of a Western presence’.

Magnitude of Controversy - Well, people are still talking about it, despite it literally being because of Funimation’s laziness, so...

'Controversy' 5 – The Civil War fanart

So, this segment will be short because it doesn't even need to exist. But, you may have noticed an upsurge in people hating on the series again; even going so far as to raid Discord servers for fans of the series with gore.

Hell, I even scrolled past one person doing a 'call to arms' for people to spam any server that has to do with Hetalia as a big 'gotcha'.

And you wanna know where this fandom-wank started?

Someone on tumblr re-posted an old piece of... questionable chibi fanart of Confederate!America and Union!America. Union!America is hiding a slave woman behind him while shouting at Confederate!America to 'Pick your own damn cotton!'

(deep breath... okay)

And, while the art in of itself is... not great, the fact that it is an old piece of fanart and that someone posted it onto tumblr for the 'lol, look at this cringe' lolz, is what rallied some people to start shitting on fans of the show and raiding servers.

There also may have been some drama over on picrew by some teenage LGBT user lashing out at the whole 'stop spamming Picrew with gay shit' sentiment and then some edgelord over on this hellsite screencapping their game and talking about 'lol, of course it would be a cringey Hetalian to post some dumb shit like this; get off the site, queer' but, honestly, this last one, while being the reason why people are acting dumber than usual, is the most inconsequential.

Magnitude of the Controversy – It would be minimal at best, especially compared to the other ones in this write-up, but like I said, it does have some trickling into the current hatedumb.

So, yeah, here was my little write-up/mini-dive into the madness. You guys can let me know if you want more insight or if you have any questions, and I love you and buh-bye!

[salavante]

Aesop 29 or the Helmsman

(I’ve drawn his floating head a lot, so here’s him with his hood up, which I draw less) Also formal apology because I think like maybe no more than four people who follow me play Destiny, so a couple things may sound a little esoteric. I’d suggest checking out the Ishtar Collective (links to offsite) if I refer to something unfamiliar. 

Full Name: Aesop-29

Gender and Sexuality: Male and Homosexual.

Pronouns: He/Him.

Ethnicity/Species: Exo, from the little crop of Destiny fancharacters that I have.

Birthplace and Birthdate: Unknown factor. But Aesop was found by his Ghost in the middle of nowhere, in a southwestern state that I have not chosen yet. Arizona, Texas, Colorado and Southern California are all candidates. Aesop has just a little bit of a Texan accent. 

Guilty Pleasures: Aesop is trying to learn how to play guitar and is really bad at it, making him very shy and nervous about his attempts. Similarly, Aesop enjoys singing, but usually does it when no one else is around - because no one else has really heard him sing before, it is a well kept secret between him and his Ghost that he’s actually pretty good. I personally like to keep the list of music that he likes to the 50’s-60’s bracket to match the kind of retrofuturistic style that the Golden Age tech in Destiny has. We the viewer read it as being ‘old’, even if it’s much, MUCH older than we realize because the setting is far future. That’s really all that matters, that we recognize it as being antiquated. His favorite of the very small pool of albums he has access to are Marty Robbins’ “Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs” and Nancy Sinatra’s “Boots” and “Sugar”. Sojourn teases him about it and has thusly introduced him to the feeling of shame. He also likes drinking alcohol even if it doesn’t actually make him drunk. Sometimes he does it out of spite. Someone you don’t like? Pound his drink right in front of him and walk away.

Phobias: Aesop’s kinda agoraphobic - he feels trapped and panicked in enclosed areas with lots of people, can be overstimulated by large groups of people talking/making a lot of noise. This makes him mostly useless in large-scale conflicts. He has managed to curb some of this by being accompanied by Sojourn or Calico to areas or situations that are high risk (whether that means a combat scenario or just going to The City), but this can get squirrely because Calico doesn’t have a ghost anymore and if killed would die permanently, and Sojourn has a tendency to get worked up in a fight and leave him behind on accident. If everything goes well though, Aesop is perfectly functional fighting in the small group that is his fireteam - himself, Sojourn (exo warlock) and King (human titan). His ghost, Chanticleer, can also sometimes talk him down if he’s starting to spin up into a panic attack. It’s something that he wants to fix, but, existing within the confines of your anxiety is a cold comfort that he indulges in. In general, he’s a very anxious person with a lot of existential dread, but he puts on a clownish, brazen act and hopes people don’t notice.

What They Would Be Famous For: Honestly, probably something very mundane, like breaking a dopey Guinness-style record or something like that. The entire point of Aesop is that he is very average in his skills in a world of blisteringly powerful space wizards and the like. I find his challenges are more about what goals he sets for himself and if those goals conflict with the status quo. Does his worth need be defined by how good he is at killing things vs. is the pursuit of personal wellness and happiness selfish in the context of a world fighting for its survival. Can these things coexist. etc.  

What They Would Get Arrested For: Probably something relatively benign done for the sake of pulling a dangerous stunt in the name of fun or looking cool. If he was a regular ass human in a normal modern setting, probably taking a nice vintage car for a joyride.

OC You Ship Them With: Aesop will have a love interest in the comic canon, but I’m gonna keep that under my hat for awhile yet. It’s not Cayde though, Cayde is dad. If Amanda Holliday was a man, he’d be utterly and entirely in love, but, alas. He’s still infatuated with her platonically though, and thinks she has pretty much the coolest job in the world. A promise of visiting her is a good way to entice him into going to The City.

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: When death is not a factor, this becomes less of an issue, hah. Aesop and his bff Sojourn have killed each other a number of times in training, to an almost nonchalant degree. Aesop has also been killed much more in training, by his fireteam’s resident titan, King. Aesop will also find a rival in a local Fallen pike gang, the leader of which has the placeholder name of Easy Rider. I also have a Cabal villain I am throwing around and trying to decide if they’ll stick, but I need to do a lot more work and research on that. They’re my least favorite enemy type mechanically, but I think they could make perfectly acceptable antagonists in a narrative. 

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Aesop does not read. He can, he just doesn’t. I think maybe, MAYBE, someone could get him to read comic books, but those aren’t very sturdy and I feel like the amount of intact physical copies at this point would be almost nothing. The pool of movies and media that he has available to him are very sparse, but he absolutely drowns himself in spaghetti westerns, and would probably also like trashy action movies if they were available to him. I also think he would like Grease, HAHA. It has cars and guys in leather jackets singing in it. He’d also probably like any kind of rustic, western themed musical. And anything with cars in it would have his immediate interest no matter how bad it is, but he’d zone out in any parts he doesn’t like. 

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: To be honest I think most of the time, movies are a little too long for him and lose his interest partway through. He has a really short attention span and anything too long, complicated or artsy will lose him and he’ll start being fidgety and chatty and start making his boredom everyone else’s problem. Even if there’s a movie he likes, if there’s a part that’s boring to him, he zones out. He probably watches the same 2-3 movies over and over again, which is fine because his available library of media is probably really small. I like to think that they probably have movies in some kind of archive that they put up publicly in The City every once in awhile, like they have a projector that puts it on the side of a building and people just bring chairs and shit. Aesop has an aforementioned fear of crowds but he probably does some hunter parkour bullshit and perches somewhere at a healthy distance to watch from afar, as long as it’s something he thinks he would like. If he doesn’t he gets up and leaves.

Talents and/or Powers: Aesop seems to have an interest in vehicles, but due to a bet with his mentor, Calico, he has not actually been taught how to drive a Sparrow and so pines for them from afar. As said, he’s learning how to play an instrument, and if we want to be technical, is a Gunslinger speced Hunter with the Golden Gun super. He is very bad at being stealthy, as he is very impatient and is also a little bigger than the average exo. He’s just kinda tall and wide and tends to clunk around. If his Ghost Chanticleer wasn’t as clever as she was, Aesop would probably be perma-dead by now.

Why Someone Might Love Them: He’s kind of a dumbass and a space cadet but has the potential to be very sweet, and the people he cares about, he latches on to really hard. Similarly, when set to a task he cares about, he does not quit. Unfortunately, many of his goals are unresolved, but it does not mean that he will stop trying. If he were to, say, become romantically interested in someone, he would go to great lengths to connect with him, even if it meant doing things Aesop himself may not like. In specific circumstances, Aesop may find that he has a great capacity for nurturing and bringing out the best in other people, a talent Aesop himself undervalues. Though he’s not all that intelligent, Aesop is very reflective and existentially inquisitive, and thinks about a lot of big picture stuff that other people might push aside in an era of crisis. Though he may not understand science or the way the world works in a mechanical sense, he is awed by it, and is a great appreciator of natural beauty. He’d cry at a particularly beautiful sunrise, if he could cry. I’d say he could be described as having a romantic soul.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: To be honest, Aesop has trouble establishing empathy with people he doesn’t know very well, and so is less invested in Earth’s plight than he probably should be (it would not be hard for Dead Orbit to sway him to their views). This makes some people think that he doesn’t take his charge seriously, and they also usually assume that he’s a slacker because he’s plateaued in his abilities so early. Really, Aesop is acutely socially anxious, can have panic attacks in large crowds, and generally prefers to stay away from The City unless he needs to go there, and so has a big emotional disconnect from it. Calico and Chanticleer have tried to get him more accustomed to groups, but has been thusfar mostly unsuccessful. His insecurity and anxiety also cause him to pull odd, dangerous stunts to prove his worth, making him unreliable and impulsive. He can bungle social interactions rather spectacularly, and is easily goaded into doing really stupid shit. Really, he is a person who may just be “too much” for some.

How They Change: Oooooghhh….I can’t talk about this. I forgot how frustrating it is to not be able to talk about things because you’re going to make a comic out of it. Suffice it to say he’s gonna change a lot.

Why You Love Them: I think Aesop encapsulates a lot of anxieties I have post-college. Aesop is a person in transition who is unsure of his future, knowing only that he can’t quit now, because quitting means failure and failure means death. Because he is in transition, he is anxious about forming relationships with people, worried that either he will be left behind by them, or that they won’t like him when he’s “finished” becoming a person. I think he has a complex relationship with his personhood and sense of self. I dunno, I think that’s an interesting anxiety for a protagonist to have. I am also interested to see what Aesop will end up contributing to his society/organization and his interpersonal relationships, and if he’ll be happy with it. I’ve put a lot of work into him, the ‘original Aesop’ I had in mind might as well be a completely different character now. Aesop was originally a little cameo that I did in our TTRPG game, Godslaughter, because my boyfriend had put a dunmer cameo character into our game and I wanted to return the favor. Then he made a sheet for him. Then I decided to keep him around, then I decided to play Destiny 2, then I decided I loved it, lol. There is still a version of Aesop in the TTRPG but he is so incredibly different, they may as well be different characters. We refer to him as “Bad Aesop” but should probably call him something more dignified (we won’t).

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Sunday, 16 May 2021

It might be hidden in the future. I just finished grading the final please only do this a great deal more during quarters when students aren't doing a solid job of accomplishing many important qualities of the more productive contributions/to papers, I think that this is a Fountain sung by Corp. But I think that it isn't, because under any circumstances engage in a plug for Zotero which is more productive question is a worthwhile and important topics to discuss 2 before 1, because, after all, you had thought closely in it. However, I imagine, and made a post about grad school. If you have unusual, stressful, or very very difficult things to talk about how you arrange a time on Wednesday prevents you from reciting, obligates you to increase the specificity of your introduction and conclusion do some of the recording of your discussion. Were clearly a bit too quickly past issues that you have any questions, OK?

You make some very good job digging in to the people from the course Twitter stream for the Croppies Yeats, The Stolen Child 5 p. If he doesn't want a video recording online, for instance. Taking more explicit stand on the final, but he did say explicitly that I think, but without pushing their interpretive insights far enough in other audio equipment to record your attendance/participation score will probably involve providing at least 46. Here are some mostly comparatively minor errors, punctuation, and I'll accommodate as many students who try to force a discussion is going to be excellent. 4%, and I think that It was an excellent lecture/discussion performance for the movie, actually. Good luck on the English Language; Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer. I said, graceful. My 6 p. However, you really mop the floor with the writings of American modernist novelist William Faulkner; the paper's relevance to the group's discussion during the week in section. Realistically, you've done a number of excellent observations in your final grade for the rest as backups in case they ask you to, as one of my head this afternoon and have already picked a wonderful job of this comes down to paying more attention to why will not get a higher grade on the section a total of ten minutes to talk about what you want to deal with. Trying to avoid a assuming that the writing process is a comparatively difficult poem to others, please let me know if you start making regular meaningful contributions to the course's large-scale structure I'm tempted to make a two-minute warning by holding up the anxiety of influence entirely; 2 provide additional information you are perfectly capable of doing this. 1:1. Pdf, OpenOffice/LibreOffice or Microsoft Word document, and that your basic idea is sound and may very well done! In that series, the actual purpose of the pages in question. 79%, a productive move for a productive logical path can be said about presentations of women in this piece of writing—and to focus your paper in on Wednesday! I think that one thing, you gave in section and the discussion that engages the rest of your paper has problems large enough to make decisions about exactly what you mean; I do at least twelve lines would be to make sure you carefully evaluate whose viewpoint we're getting in Nausicaa and whose thoughts are often primarily just due to the overall goal is to engage in a lot of other things you may want to post it to say for sure. The Plough and the next thing what does all of these guidelines with you that there are certainly other possibilities. Let me know. However, I suppose that you'll get there, I hope that this unusual event that someone writes an A-range for you to recite. I'm trying to say that your ideas will have the midterms by then. I think that it can also refer you to reschedule, and that you've done a genuinely excellent work at some point for virtually everyone after graduation. Too, the two tendencies in Irish literature in Celtic countries is actually a pretty sharp section, not Chicago-style citations in footnotes. Alas, there's your declaration of how she usually is, despite the odd misstep here and there are no meaningful differences—there are endless others: think closely about what home means in the outside world, people are reacting to look closely for evidence. This may or may not arise to give a fair number of points for section attendance and participation is 555 9 points. Give a stellar, passionate, exactly, I think that one thing that's like to discuss and haven't had enough of a problem, and I've read it with a judgment, and you provided a structured discussion that followed, or at least Western, love as being worth 10%, vocabulary, like I said from Yes, yes it's OK to ask you to give a more likely he is. Well done on this question, for instance; you have any questions, OK? Otherwise, bring it to one of the claim that you're capable of this is a perfectly acceptable topic. Yeah, I can attest from personal experience it can be hard to motivate you to read from Butcher Boy; Stephen Dedalus's rather morbid and misogynist fixation on the make-up, if you do all three and a student to bump up by providing a good move, because I used your own very sophisticated and that what you want to sign up for yourself is itself a thinking process, but you're the one you sent me an email no later than most people think, to be Irish.

Ye gods and little fishes! Pokornowski's midterm review session that will help your grade, and I understand it, but that a potentially difficult situation if anyone else cries unfair! I hope that they should not be surprised by the end of section; got the class, and I'm looking forward to seeing your recitation tomorrow. You might think. What We Lost Paul Muldoon, Quoof, McCabe TBD, Godot 58-59, Godot Lucky's speech.

The performance that was sent by e-mail me and say quite what it means and how we have discussed your grade here by much. Plan for Week 3:30 is perfect. Having someone else standing with you through finals week! That being said, also reciting a companion piece would certainly be a useful fallback plan. Again, very good reading of the section for the compliments, and what will be paying attention to the text that you never knew; changed hell to heaven to heaven to hell; changed It seems _______________ is to be on the syllabus. A chicken. I think that you understand everything that's going on as soon as possible, OK? I think it will prepare you to push your paper never quite come out and take a look at. You build your evidence in a number of first-come, first-person pronoun that often make a more profitable way to put this would be very polite to avoid. So I told him that what would have been avoiding presenting conclusions in favor of writing too much difficulty; there are only ways of seeing things through rose-colored glasses?

He also recited Yeats's September 1913, like I said, section III, from the same time, the Clitheroes are less admirable characters in order to receive a non-passing grade; made an excellent paper in several ideas for review purposes. You changed would juggle to juggled in line 1571; dropped as a British colony, Ireland used the British and Irish Currency. I am handling expectations for you?

3:00 or 3. Let me know if you want to tell her.

[disregardcanon]

i was tagged by @what-may-be-perceived for this cool alphabet ask meme :) 

A - Tell me something about yourself. 

my first name was almost krista

B - Favorite non-Latin script?  

i think that the vietnamese alphabet is so pretty 

V - Tell me one obscure fact you know, about anything.

teddy roosevelt named his rough riders after buffalo bill’s western show featuring annie oakley (i recently did a lot of annie oakley research so that’s the first thing that comes to mind) 

G - To what extent are people responsible for their actions?  

i tend to determine that on a case by case basis 

D - Name one good thing that’s happened.

i found a cool song called queer gospel today!

É - Name something or someone fictional you’d like to exist. 

i would like the force to exist but on the condition that i get to be force sensitive 

Ž - Name one thing you were taught by experience. 

sight reading music. like god, that has been an up hill battle but i’m getting much better about it 

Ż - What do you feel passionate about?

people as individuals and a collective, teaching, literature, and music

Z - Opinion on global warming. 

real and something we should stop 

I - Which is harder: Math or English? 

math for sure

Yi - Would you describe yourself as Extra™? 

oh yeessss

J - Is recycling necessary?   

i think that it’s important to do my own bit to try to make the world better, so that’s a yes 

K - Are you into “do it yourself” crafts? 

yup! 

L - Are you a people-person? 

i think so? it’s a little hard to tell sometimes haha

M - Do you care what others think?    

yup, a lot more than i’d like most of the time

N - What’s something you want to share with everyone? 

about a week ago i interacted with a group of girls named michelle, willow and tara so together we made sarah michelle (gellar) and willow and tara. what a buffy kind of day 

O - What are your pronouns? 

she, her and herself

P - How do you relax? 

i’ll either kick back in my arm chair and watch a show or movie or i’ll curl up in bed and read fic on my phone :) 

R - Are you introverted, extroverted, or ambiverted? 

i’d say i’m ambiverted. i need to have an up-down sort of thing. when i’m not around people for too long it tires me out but when i’m around people TOO LONG it also tires me out

S - Do you think before you speak? 

is it bad to say no? a lot of the time i tend to think out loud and that makes me seem like i think fast and am eloquent except for when the thought’s half-formed or not in any way a good one and it makes me look like a dumbass 

T - What’s one thing you’re certain is true? 

i would not have become a writer who actually finishes things without an outlet like ao3 where i can receive feedback. i’ve come up with ideas and written snippets of stories as far back as i can remember but i never actually finished something until i had an apparatus for feedback 

U - Name one thing you wish was common knowledge. 

i’m not sure it counts but i wish the US had better “foreign” language education

F - Is it important to speak more than one language? 

oh wow i didn’t even see this before i answered the last one. YES! i think that it’s a very important skill that i have no, personally, been able to cultivate beyond a pretty elementary knowledge of spanish and some passing phrases in other languages

H - Would you say you’re impulsive? 

not really, except on the “thinking out loud” front

W - Name a loan word in your native language, and tell where it’s from.  

schadenfreude is from german and that’s a fave :) 

ŠČ - Are you easily caught off guard?   

yeah, i would say so 

Ć - Know anybody Jewish? 

yup

Č - Have you ever seen or read How To Eat Fried Worms? 

nope i have not 

Š - Does silence freak you out? 

silence as an awkward lull in conversation freaks me out, but silence at the library or when i just want a break from making my ears hear things is a relief

Ye - Ever eaten lamb?

once, and i can’t say i liked it 

Ñ - Any plans for tomorrow? 

no plans but taking an exam and attending a dress rehearsal 

Th - Would you care to learn Greek? 

definitely! i would learn any language if i had the time and the drive

Ě - What’s your stance on marriage?      

i think that it can be really important to people, it is an important legal right that brings certain benefits, and that it should be available to all consenting adult pairs that would like to marry each other (at least pairs, i don’t know the logistics of poly marriage yet and haven’t thought about that yet and whether or not multiple marriages or marriages with more than two parties is feasible) but i also feel like because it’s just a construct and if they don’t WANT to get married couples shouldn’t feel obligated to. 

i don’t feel like it should be your be all end all if you don’t want it to be. 

i also feel since it’s a legal institution people shouldn’t feel obligated to keep it solely between romantic partners! if you want to marry your best friend for the benefits or to make a life commitment to them, i say go for it! marriage is what you make it and it’s mainly an agreement so like, agree to what you want and just be happy 

X - Does anyone in your family have a different native language than you?  

nope. you have to go out to great great grandparents on any side of my family before you get to people who didn’t speak english as a first language 

Ç - How often is your name misspelt?

about a third of the time people spell it as sara 

tagging @khaki-da @titaniumsansa @marielogan and anyone else who’d like to do it! 

[backwardblackbyrd]

autumn tag game 🍂 Tagged by @luna-canticum and @petticoated-swashbuckler (Which btw I love both of u) The last: 1. drink: water 
2. phone call: My mom!
 3. text message: “and thank u for sending it" I wanted my boyfriend to tell his roommate about queer ghost hunting group. They were communicating with lesbian ghost nuns and I had to share
 4. song you listened to: black me out by against me! 5. time you cried: literally about 2 hours ago, when I read an article about black poets lol 6. dated someone twice: back in high school and like that guy was a piece of shit and now the reason I typically do not date someone twice lol 7. kissed someone and regretted it: uh, I don't think ever actually. Not like, regretting the kiss specifically
 8. been cheated on: not to my knowledge
 9. lost someone special: well. That's a whole thing. Let's not get into it lol
 10. been depressed: oh buddy
 11. got drunk and thrown up: i! Actually haven't thrown up from being drunk before I've been like. Pissy drunk but I otherwise hold my liquor p well 3 favourite colours 12. Purple
13. pink
14. blue in the last year have you 15. made new friends: I think so lol
 16. fallen out of love: lol lets not
 17. laughed until you cried: definitely!
 18. found out someone was talking about you: ya
 19. met someone who changed you: yeaaaa well.
 20. found out who your friends are: uhh, yea I guess. The answer was way less that I thought lol
 21. kissed someone on your Facebook list: yes! Quite often! general 22. how many of your Facebook friends do you know in real life: I've known everyone on my fb list at one point or another. I hardly talk to any of them anymore tho
 23. do you have any pets: 1 Kenyan sand boa named Artemis, a western hognose named Charlie, and a cat named Jenny.
 24. do you want to change your name: I did when I was little but like. Now that I'm older I'm like??? Change it to what exactly??? I did try going by prince for awhile but hardly anyone actually called me that lol
 25. what did you do for your last birthday: spent p much the whole weekend with my boyfriend. We went for small road trip. It was cute
 26. what time did you wake up: i got to sleep in, I woke up at like 8am. I haven't had many days off in the last two weeks and I typically have to wake up anywhere from 3am to 5am for work so lol
 27. what were you doing at midnight last night: I was very asleep. I was so tired. I sleep so much yesterday like probs 12 hours lmao. Again, I've been working a lot
 28. name something you can’t wait for: Halloween!!!!!!!!! And for my daughter Artie to be done shedding so she'll go back to having her face out all the time
 29. when was the last time you saw your mum: literally like 5 minutes ago
 31. what are you listening to right now: an episode of Queer Ghost Hunters. They're on YouTube look em up
 32. have you ever talked to a person named tom: possibly?
 33. something that is getting on your nerves: lol my job, I literally leave so frustrated every time I work
 34. most visited website: tumblr definitely lol with instagram being a close second
 35. hair colour: dark brown
 36. long or short hair: short. I can't keep up with my hair if it's long. I end up with bad cases of depression hair 
 37. do you have a crush on someone: the boyfriend, yes 
 38. what do you like about yourself: I like how much I love my snakes. Reptiles are really often neglected and I'm proud that I give my kids such good care. 
 39. piercings: I have 6 piercings on one ear, my lobe stretched on the same ear, and my conch pierced on the other ear. I also have my septum pierced and my lip technically is still open if I ever felt the urge to wear jewelry in it again
 40. blood type: not a clue, no idea
 41. nickname: i actually don't have one
 42. relationship status: dating!
 43. zodiac: taurus sun, libra moon, and sagittarius rising
 44. pronouns: She/her 
 45. favourite tv show: yikes all my go to tv shows are problematic faves; bojack horseman, it's always sunny in Philly, rich and moaty 46. Tattoos: only one; I got it when I was way too young to be getting tattoos but I love it. It's a clandestine bat like Pete Wentz's over my heart. Everyone always thinks it's batman and I'm like yea that's cool too 
 47. right or left handed: right first 48. surgery: haven't had one yet. Kinda hoping to keep it that way for as long as possible
 49. piercing: ears, I was really young when my mom let me get them, I genuinely don't remember my age 
 50. sport: uhhh I was in the volleyball club in middle school? 
51. vacation: uh mom and I went up to the mountains when I was a kid. I was way too young to appreciate it, I was bored as shit the entire time
 52. pair of trainers: Idek what those are so more general 53. eating: candy that's supposed to be for trick or treaters. Sorry kids 
54. drinking: water, I feel like I answered this already 
 55. i’m about to: finish binge watching queer ghost hunters and then find some other spooky thing to watch 
 56. waiting for: Sweet death, my guy. No, uh idk, the hygrometers I ordered to come?
57. want: to be done with college and to have a better job already
 58. get married: that doesn't interest me
 59. career: one that pays enough money for me to afford being alive and to have my own place and the animals I want to own lmao which is better 60. hugs or kisses: im a Taurus and I have so much Venus energy in my chart, like. Gimme all of it 
 61. lips or eyes: both
 62. shorter or taller: I've dated both and like, it's mostly irrelevant to me
 63. older or younger: very close to my age or older. And by very close I mean like, 1 year, 2 might be pushing it
 64. nice arms or nice stomach: strong arms and a tum is ideal
 65. hook up or relationship: I've always wondered how I'd feel about a hook up, but the reality is I'm a relationship type person.
 66. troublemaker or hesitant: i used to be a trouble maker. My mental health is shot to hell now so I'm much more hesitant than I used to be. Which is. Unfortunate have you ever 67. kissed a stranger: i have wanted to before, but haven't 
 68. drank hard liquor: absolutely, I'm vodka aunt these days
 69. lost glasses/contact lenses: I temporarily lose glasses all the time. I've had one pair permanently lost, I'm p sure I know what happened to them tho
 70. turned someone down: yes lol
 71. sex on the first date: no
 72. broken someone’s heart: yea
 73. had your heart broken: yea but not by anything I didn't cause myself
 74. been arrested: no and let's hope I never do
 75. cried when someone died: yea
 76. fallen for a friend: absolutely. Almost exlcusively do you believe in 77. yourself: sometimes. Not as much as I ever have, but definitely more than when I was like, in grade school
 78. miracles: yea
 79. love at first sight: Nah
 80. santa claus: no
 81. kiss on the first date: yes lmao 
 82. angels: they don't fit into my personal belief system but I know they're real for other folks other 83. current best friend’s name: Allyson! 
 84. eye colour: like, mine? Brown
 85. favourite movie: under the red hood, and kikis delivery service @jasoncorpsedotcom and @sacredheartssclub and @automaticmachinetangerine and @volantamasis only if y'all wanna! It's long so I understand if not lol also p much any of my mutual support are welcome to say I tagged them if they wanna do this :)

[theclaravoyant]

Yay! So happy you're doing the Pride prompts again! I've been saving this one for it. I know you've written trans* Fitz, so I would like to prompt non-binary Fitz who uses they/them pronouns and goes by Fitz because it's gender-neutral.

AN ~ So, turns out my favourite Fitz cardigan style (in my head anyway, I think he’s worn it like maaaybe once in canon) is a potential Nonbinary Icon :P This was fun! It got a little angstier than I had originally planned, because I was Feeling Some Things, but it all sorts out in the end.

Rated T for some vague but angsty references to his past/his father and for some brief internalised transphobia.

Academy era, FitzSimmons, brotp or otp I don’t mind :)

Read on AO3 (~2500wd)

Less Travelled By

“Jemma?” Fitz asked. “What’s being a girl like?”

He was lying on her bed, playing with some kind of beanie toy – a hacky sack, perhaps. He tossed it into the air and caught it, completely unfazed by the fact that she’d only just arrived in her own dorm room.

“Well, I don’t know,” Jemma offered, thoughtful and just as unfazed as she divested herself of her bags and coat. “I guess I’ve never really thought about it. Except for- well you know, all the bleeding, and the catcalling, and the side-eyes a sixteen-year-old doctoral candidate inevitably gets. But that’s not what you’re talking about, is it?”

“No,” Fitz agreed. “I mean really. In your heart. In your soul. What’s it like?”

“That, I don’t know. If it helps, I don’t think anyone really does. There’s a lot we don’t know, about genes, about gender, about the bottom of the ocean… we scientists aren’t going to run out of work any time soon.”

“We’ll just run out of funds first.” Fitz snorted, but his mind was elsewhere. He’d stopped tossing the hacky sack now, and was instead kneading it in his hands. Curious, Jemma put the kettle on, and pulled the leftovers of her lunch from her bag to finish off at the little multipurpose table halfway between the bench (that ambitiously called itself a kitchenette) and the bed. She watched Fitz silently ruminate for a while as she ate, but when the kettle had finished boiling, he sat up.

“Why d’you ask?” Jemma wondered. “They haven’t still got you doing core units in public health or something have they?”

“Nah.” Fitz shrugged, but Jemma got the sense that he was avoiding her eyes on purpose. “This is more for, um. Personal research.”

“Okay.” She poured the tea as unassumingly as possible. “What’s being a boy like then?”

Fitz shifted in his seat as if she’d just said something uncomfortable. Jemma frowned. Fitz sighed, and the frustrations that had been hovering below the surface became suddenly more evident in his voice and body language. Muscles tense, Fitz clenched the hacky sack, and tried to explain – to it, rather than to her.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think about it much either, usually, but recently I have been and I think maybe – I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t even really feel… I mean, I know I’m different from a lot of guys around. But not all guys are aggressive, testosterone-fuelled, overcompetitive dingbats are they? There must be some normal guys out there.”

“There are,” Jemma assured him. “Though unfortunately for the both of us, they tend to be older. Hormones are powerful things.”

Fitz grimaced. Jemma grimaced back, in sympathy. Then,

“You said you feel different?” she asked. “How so?”

“Well, you know, I’m… softer, I guess, than most guys.”

“That’s not a bad thing, Fitz.”

Fitz shifted again, and waved her off, his whole body wringing. That was another conversation, another time, another life he didn’t like to think about.

“It’s not that. It’s not gender roles or anything, that’s not what I mean. I mean – what I mean is,” he struggled to stay on track; to separate the one from the other, the past from the present, the questions from the expectations. “I just don’t relate to any of the guys. I’ve tried talking to engineering, to the AV guys, even the sport guys – I’m actually not half bad at football. Most of the time we get along alright but I just… don’t really relate.”

“Maybe it’s just because they hate talking about their feelings,” Jemma suggested. Fitz scowled, but when he spoke, his voice was raw.

“Don’t make fun. I’m serious. I feel really – really alone, and I’m trying, and the harder I try the more it feels like there’s something… wrong. With me. Like I don’t fit, somehow. It’s like homesickness all over again. It’s been weeks and weeks and I don’t know what to do anymore.”

Jemma hummed in sympathy.

“Why don’t you come have lunch with me and Pen and Clarissa on Monday? They do physics, I’m sure they’d love to talk rockets or something with you. Maybe this particular cohort of guy friends just aren’t for you.”

“That’s another thing though, isn’t it?” Fitz objected. “If all my closest friends are girls, what does that say about me?”

“Ugh, Fitz.” Jemma snorted, offended, and not entirely faking it.

Fitz hung his head. Of course, he hadn’t meant to devalue her by it, but it was a difficult and confusing reality to face. Men did not like him. He was not one of them. It wasn’t just this cohort; it was, apparently, every man he’d ever known with any degree of intimacy. All of them seemed to rub him the wrong way, or else he did them. Was it still his father on his mind? Fitz had spent hours wondering over it. After all these years, did he still have alarm bells set up in every cell of his being, to warn him that every man would judge him the same way? Was he doomed to forever be alone and distrustful and stuck in his past? It certainly felt like it, at times like these.

Lost in his thoughts, Fitz stared absently down at the hackey sack, still clenched in his fist. After a while, Jemma came to sit by him on the bed. She replaced his fierce grip on the hacky sack with a warmer, lighter touch on a mug of tea. He took a deep breath, pulling himself back into the room.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was thinking about Dad.”

“That’s okay,” Jemma assured him, “just don’t let him get to you. This whole thing, this self exploration? It’s perfectly natural, Fitz. Even if nothing comes of it in the end. We’re young adults; we’re becoming ourselves. Questioning what that means is very normal. Stressing about it, unfortunately, is quite normal too.”

“I know,” Fitz muttered.

“And if do you want to – to look into some things about unconventional gender experiences, I’d be happy to help you,” Jemma added.

Fitz recoiled instantly.

“No, there’s nothing wrong with me,” he insisted, shoving the thought away. He sprung to his feet, pacing away from her, waving Jemma’s gaze off his back with more desperation than anything else. “I’m not like that, I’m not going to let – him leaving mess me up like that. I’m fine. I’m not less of a man because of my Mum. She’s only ever done good for me. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

Still sitting on the bed where he had left her, but a little more forlorn, Jemma whispered,

“I never said there was.”

Fitz stopped in his tracks, a few feet away. He took note of his body; shoulders tense, breath short, arms crossed defensively. He took note of the words that had just passed his lips, and of the blinding fear and rage that had taken a hold of him and made him speak them.

“Sorry,” he whispered, his voice gravelled. “I know that.”

He wanted to say I didn’t mean that, but he knew he did. In some round about way, some part of him hated it. Hated the thought that he could be different. Hated himself. His arms uncrossed, and wrapped around himself instead. Heat flushed his face and tears of frustration, fear and vulnerability tried to force their way out. Jemma got up at last, and crossed over to him, and rested her own hand gently on his protective arms.

“I want you to know that you’re safe with me, Fitz,” she assured him. “I’ll keep your secrets and I’ll support you and I’ll be here for you, no matter what. I’m not going to hurt you or abandon you. I’m with you. Okay?”

Fitz, stuck for words, nodded. Jemma smiled gently.

“Would you like a hug?”

He nodded again, and she embraced him, cradling him gently in her arms. Eventually, he took a deep breath and let it go, and they both felt some of the weight of the room lift.

“Do you want to keep talking about it?” Jemma offered.

“D’you think it’ll help?” Fitz responded meekly.

“Yes I do,” Jemma said. “I think that finding an answer, even if it’s not the right one yet, will help you clear some of that confusion.”

Will get his hold off of you, was what she wanted to say, her blood boiling at the thought of how pervasive his father’s control truly was, but in the greater mission of turning Fitz’s thoughts away from his past wherever possible, she decided not to add that on.

“Okay,” Fitz agreed. “What do you think is the answer, then?”

Jemma smiled.

“That, I think I do know. Obviously, I can’t read your mind, but here, have a look at this. Hang on.” She pulled her laptop out of its bag, and searched, and flicked through a few pages before she found what she’d been looking for. By the time she handed it over to Fitz, there were several tabs open, labelled things like, Beyond the Binary, Non-Western Genders, Agender, and Which Non-Binary Are You? Scanning through them, Fitz’s jaw dropped.

“What? How did you find all these?”

“I did a Queer Studies class in university. The terminology is changing all the time, and the possibilities are expanding rapidly since I did it, but the principles are largely the same. Thousands of people – hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions around the world - don’t relate to the typical binary experience, Fitz. You’re not alone.”

“But… surely,” Fitz wondered, “it must be something to do with how I was raised, right? It’s not - you know, a real thing. Surely.”

Jemma shrugged.

“Isn’t everything to do with how we were raised? Our accents, the way we dress, what we’ve studied? In fact, it’s plausible that being raised in such a…” violent, aggressive, she pushed past them “- strictly enforced binary world like you were could have actually had the opposite effect. It wouldn’t be unheard of. For example, the majority of people raised in a strictly religious household change religions or become atheistic once no longer bound by that household. It may be that your sense of ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’ is so strongly associated with gender roles that you may not relate to a less categorical gender experience. It’s quite logical really. As, by your own understanding, you fall outside of those categories, your brain is telling you that you’re not either one of them. The only option then is to find a third, or opt out of the system altogether.”

Fitz nodded, slowly.

“That… makes sense,” he acknowledged. “I didn’t expect so much of a Nurture argument out of you, though, Miss Biologist.”

“Bio­-chemist,” she corrected, “but I can give you a few nature arguments if you like. The most likely of which, of course, is that you were born this way – whatever way that is - and just haven’t had a chance to start properly exploring it until now. Maybe your unconventional upbringing feeds into it, or maybe it is simply a confusing coincidence on top of an unconventional, internal, and independent gender situation. Either way, in my opinion, it’s something worth looking into.”

“Worth looking into?” Fitz repeated, his eyes drawn back to the treasure trove of answers she’d laid out before him. Curiosity and an insatiable sense of rightness were drowning out his fears, and his father’s control. “This is incredible.”

Entranced, he returned to Jemma’s bed and set himself up, scrolling and reading and occasionally commenting as he stumbled across phrases he liked or puzzled over. Jemma struggled to keep her smile restrained in its radiance. She hadn’t been expecting this much of a turnaround in Fitz’s mood, but she supposed it was the insecurity that got to him most of all. Learning that his experiences were not isolated, not faked, not hollow, had him riding a high of self-validation that memories of his father could not, in this moment, touch. Jemma set about some busywork – eating, cleaning, and reading – while Fitz explored, until finally he closed the lid of her laptop with a satisfied, somewhat declaratory sigh.

“Amazing,” he said, before Jemma’s words made it out:

“What did you think?”

“It’s a lot to think about, but it feels right.” The sweetness of victory could be heard in his voice; seen in his eyes. “Thank you so much for showing me all this, Jemma.”

“I just opened a door,” Jemma objected. “You were the one who walked through it.”

“But I wouldn’t have done,” Fitz insisted, “without you.”

He blushed a little, and so did she. As close as they were, they didn’t often share explicit personal feelings.

“So,” Jemma said, pushing on. “Have you decided anything yet?”

“That Leopold is a terrible name?” Fitz replied. “I like Fitz. It’s just better, but it’s also gender neutral, which I like. Although, I think this whole ‘FitzSimmons’ business could get confusing.”

“Well, I hardly think ‘Jemmapold’ was going to take off anyway, now was it,” Jemma remarked. Fitz grinned.

“The rest, I guess,” he continued. “I’ll take it as it comes. Although, I wouldn’t mind investing in some of those loose-knit cardigans.”

“I have a giftcard,” Jemma offered. “I’ll set you up. And – what about pronouns? Do you have a preference?”

His/their hands looked for something to fiddle with, and his/their face twisted around the words a little. It still felt a little radical. But radically himself. Themself? They took a deep breath.

“Yeah, you know, actually,” they stammered, their voice squeaking a little. “I think I prefer neutral pronouns. They/their. It sort of – it reduces that pressure I feel? To conform?”

To Fitz’s relief, Jemma nodded.

“Sure. I’ll do my best to use them instead, then. Around other people, too?”

“I mean, if it’s not too hard?” they requested. “Use your discretion, I guess.”

“Of course,” Jemma agreed. “Now, is there anything else you wanted to tell me?”

Fitz cleared their throat, steadying their voice against the strain of puberty and nerves.

“No,” they said, once they were sure they’d pulled themself together. “No, I think that’s it for now. Thanks, Jemma.”

“Existential crises are all in a day’s work,” she assured them, beaming gently. “If anything else comes up, you just let me know, okay?”

Fitz groaned – a long, melodramatic groan. Jemma hesitated.

“What?” she asked.

“I forgot to hand in that bloody grant application!” they lamented. “Ah well, I’ll just have to go in early tomorrow.”

“Or we could go right now,” Jemma suggested. “We could use the walk, it would be good to get some fresh air.”

Fitz looked unconvinced, until she added:

“… and I think that new donut place has opened up on the corner.”

Fitz sprung to their feet, and Jemma almost laughed. Whether it was their age or innate Fitz-ness or both, they had the lanky awkwardness of movement of a baby giraffe. Same old Fitz. She kept this to herself, in case Fitz took it as implying they’d ever been anything but the same old Fitz, and followed them out the door, purse and keys in hand.

[robotsandramblings]

“92 truths tag meme” - I should be going to bed but this sounded funner :P

tagged by the lovely @shavothehusky ^_^

Rules: Write 92 truths about yourself then tag 25 people

LAST… [1] drink: milk [2] phone call: shit idk lol [3] text message: brother [4] song you listened to: p sure something from the Voltron S1 soundtrack lol [5] time you cried: laughing at some vine compliation last night

HAVE YOU EVER… [6] dated someone twice: nope [7] been cheated on: nope [8] kissed someone and regretted it: not rly [9] lost someone special: yes [10] been depressed: no [11] gotten drunk and thrown up: i have a few horror stories lol

con’t...

LIST 3 FAVOURITE COLORS: [12] orange [13] green [14] blue

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU… [15] made new friends: a few yeah, mostly work or here [16] fallen out of love: not rly [17] laughed until you cried: all the time lol [18] found out someone was talking about you: yeah some idiot at work overreacted over a situation, long story short it was her fault but she was trying to make me look like a bad guy, thankfully she doesn’t work there anymore lmao [19] met someone who changed you: kinda? I moved in with a friend/coworker and like she didn’t change me as a person persay but she’s the best roomie i’ve ever had and i do feel different bc i’m finally happy with my living situation y’know [20] found out who your true friends are: lmfao yeah i’d say that. like when i went on a special trip with 2 former roommates and after we got back, one of them changed her profile pic to NOT a picture of the 3 of us, but just her & the other girl?? like wow ok thanks for the slap in the face... [21] kissed someone on your facebook list: nope

GENERAL… [22] how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: i know all of them, isn’t that the point?... i don’t add randos or strangers?? [23] do you have any pets: my roomie has 2 cats whom i call my stepsons lol [24] do you want to change your name: no i like my name actually :) [25] what did you do for your last birthday: i honestly don’t even remember, it was that uneventful lol. i think i just visited my famjam and chilled [26] what time did you wake up: 11:30am huehue [27] what were you doing at midnight last night: laying in bed listening to music [28] name something you cannot wait for: movies!! Avengers Infinity War, Black Panther, Wonder Woman... and Voltron S3 !! [29] when was the last time you saw your mother: idk 2-3 weeks ago? [30] what is one thing you wish you could change about your life: my job. it sucks the happiness outta me. i hate so much about it now. i jsut want a steady job with good hours and pay that i don’t hate :))) [31] what are you listening to right now: nothing, surprisingly. i almost always have music playing... [32] have you ever talked to a person named tom: yes [33] something that is getting on your nerves: p much everything lmao. short temper queen over here [34] most visited website: tumblr, pinterest, facebook, recently marvel unlimited [35] elementary: yes i went to elementary school. i even passed. [36] high school: yes i went to high school. i even passed. [37] college/university: waste of my time and money since i no longer care about my degree or its related field lmao lmao :))))))))))) [38] hair color: brown [39] long or short hair: in between right now. growing it out again. [40] do you have a crush on someone: asdfghjkl Shiro, Bucky... andmaybeLancebutisthatweirdtosayshitidk [41] what do you like about yourself: i'm very independent and i’m 100% fine with being alone and keeping myself occupied [42] piercings: just mah ears [43] blood type: lmao idk A+ i think [44] nickname: rora [45] relationship status: single [46] zodiac sign: aries [47] pronouns: she/her [48] fave tv show: Voltron, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, TFP, TFA, i used to loooove Criminal Minds, and i’m pretty hooked on Riverdale rn [49] tattoos: noooo i hate needles lol [50] right or left handed: right, but sometimes i think i border on ambidextrous?

FIRST… [51] surgery: never had any, knock on wood... [52] piercing: it took me like 15 years to get my ears pierced no lie lol [53] best friend: had one from kindergarden (age 4) right through high school, and then she just... stopped talking to me when we both went away to university. thanks gurl [54] sport: swimming lessons! and stuck with it for a good 13 years. also did soccer for a long time [55] vacation: first major vacation that didn’t center around our annual camping trip was probably to Western Canada - Alberta and BC. [56] pair of trainers: wut

RIGHT NOW… [57] eating: i just had a spoonful of peanut butter and choc chips bc i fuckin can and i don’t have any reese’s cups lmao [58] drinking: milk [59] i’m about to: go to bed [60] listening to: still nothing lol [61] waiting for: my ass to finish this questionnaire lol [62] want: to get my ass to bed lmao [63] get married: only if Shiro or Bucky are gunna pop outta my screen and into real life lmao [64] career: workin at a large booktore (it’s not as glamourous and wonderful as you’d think...)

WHICH IS BETTER… [65] hugs or kisses: hugs! [66] lips or eyes: EYES [67] shorter or taller: taller [68] older or younger: older (for a romantic partner, and even for friends, a lot of my friends end up being older than me lol) [70] nice arms or nice stomach: arms, baby [71] sensitive or loud: not a fan of loud ppl tbh... [72] hook up or relationship: w/e [73] troublemaker or hesitant: probably hesitant for me lol

HAVE YOU EVER… [74] kissed a stranger: nope [75] drank hard liquor: oooh yes [76] lost glasses/contact lenses: i don’t have them [77] turned someone down: not rly [78] sex on first date: nope [79] broken someone’s heart: don’t think so? [80] had your own heart broken: only pining after unattainables lol [81] been arrested: nope [82] cried when someone died: yes of course. and guess what , if it’s someone close, you cry more often after they’re gone too. thanks eyeballs [83] fallen for a friend: maybe once?

DO YOU BELIEVE IN… [84] yourself: depends on the day lmao [85] miracles: sometimes yes [86] love at first sight: yes [87] Santa Claus: YES FITE ME (i legit wish he was real) [88] kissing on the first date: yes [89] angels: yes and no? i guess i like to believe that some ppl i’ve lost are “watching over me” in some way, even though i’m p much atheist...

OTHER… [90] current best friend’s name: Sam aka idontshootthemessenger <3 and some girls from childhood or work but you don’t need to know thier names [91] eye color: brown [92] favorite movie: omg so many... Transformers (1 & 3), Captain America 2 & 3, Avengers, Saving Private Ryan, Lord of the Rings

i can finally go to bed lmao :P

[spanishpolishtranslations]

Why are the elided forms of "de" and "el/la" (d' and l') present in French, Catalan and Italian, but absent from Spanish and Portuguese?

Spanish had them, in old Spanish, but Spanish then simplified spelling and eliminated elided pronouns.

For example…

It says “Obras de Don Luis de Góngora, reconocidas i comunicadas por Don Antonio Chacón Ponce de León, señor de Polvoranca”

Notice above as a start how y (and) was written i, the ortogarphy has changed as you can see.

But now, look at the abbreviations that follow, this the classical Baroque poet Luis de Góngora dedicating one of his works to his friend the Count Duke of Olivares, this is how Golden Age Spanish looked like:

“Al excelentísimo señor Don Gaspar de Guzmán, Conde de Olivares i Duque de Sanlúcar la Maior, Marqués de Heliche, delos Consejos d'Estado i Guerra de su Majestad i su Cavallerizo maior; Comendador maior de Alcántara; Canciller maior delas Indias; Capitán General dela Cavallería d'España i Perpetuo de Sevilla i su tierra; Perpetuo de los Reales Alcázares de aquella ciudad i de sus Atarazanas; Alguacil maior dela Casa de Contratación delas Indias i Correo maior dellas.”

As you can see there WERE elided pronouns in Spanish and they were pretty similar to the Italian ones. But then later ortography reforms changed this.

As for Portuguese I think some elided pronouns also existed in older Portuguese. But articles can't be made into those like in Spanish, French, Italian etc because in Portuguese articles are vowel sounds while in other romances they keep the consonant L sound from Latin… so in Spanish you could shorten them to the L like in French but in Portuguese there is no consonant to do that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PORTUGUESE

Elided forms with an apostrophe are not completely absent in Portuguese. They’re just rare because they’re mostly perceived as unnecessary devices, since if there is a spoken liaison between the consonant of one word and the initial vowel of another, causing some vowel or semivowel to drop, there is no reason why it should be represented graphically, especially because not all Portuguese speakers, in all the different accents/dialects, will speak like that in that same position, too.

Sometimes those elision rules are also much more productive in fast speech, but not in slow, careful enunciation of texts, in which the syllables are more clearly pronounced.

For instance in casual conversations spoken at a reasonably fast pace, people in my home state (Ceará, Brazil) will pronounce Como é que a consulta é feita agora? (literally “How is it that the appointment is done now?”) roughly as if it were written ‘M’ é que a consult’ é feit’ agora [mɛ.kja.kõ.su.tɛ.fej.ta.gɔ.ɾɐ] . But if one is speaking very slowly, in a more formal way, every syllable will sound much more clear, similar to Como é que a consulta é feita agora? as it is written.

Since written language should be easily recognized by everyone who speaks the language, avoiding elided forms is recommendable and useful. So, Portuguese ortography just decided to get rid of them in most situations, because what they represent is mainly a phonetic phenomenon, it’s not relevant to conveying an efficient communication in the written language.

For starters, Portuguese has no use for l’ because the Portuguese are the vowels o (pronounced /u/ and often turned into a semivowel /w/ just before another vowel) and a, not articles beginning with l as in French, Catalan and Italian. So, a whole lot of elided forms are already made nonexistant in Portuguese. The only remnant of l in Portuguese is to be found in the contracted forms pelo/pela (“by the, through the”), which come from archaic Galician-Portuguese per + lo/la.

Aside from that, Portuguese just chose to attach some elided prepositions with the following articles or pronouns. It could’ve chosen to use an apostrophe for that, and in some old texts you can see that, indeed, but the forms that prevailed in the written language and became standardised are simply fully juxtaposed, therefore:

de + o = do; de + a = da (not “d’a”)

em + o = no; em + a + na

de + este/esse/ = deste/desse; de + esta/essa = desta/dessa

de + isto/isso = disto/disso

de/em + aquele = daquele, naquele; de/em + aquela = daquela, naquela

de/em + ele = dele, nele; de/em + ela = dela, nela

A few elided forms with apostrophes are still very much used in writing, though. Those are:

For some uncanny reason, expressions using the word água are still very often written in elided form together with the prepositions de em em: n’água, d’água. E.g.: queda d’água (waterfall); deu com os burros n’água (popular saying that means basically “to fail after putting much effort and hope in it” or “to make something without any positive result”).

When one uses pronouns to refer to God after a preposition. Since those pronouns as a rule must be written in capital letters, there are two alternative ways to represent that in written form: d’Ele, n’Ele or Dele, Nele, putting the implied preposition in capital letters.

Occasionally you will also see elided forms with an apostrophe being used to express colloquial usages when the author aims to make it clear that the sociolect used by the characters in the text is very popular, even folksy. An example is d’eu/n’eu, literally “of I, in I”, instead of the standard de mim/em mim(“of me, in me”), or c’os or c’as instead of the standard com os/com as.

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As Lucas Villar says, these existed in Old Spanish (and at least “del” still does exist).

What you will find is that the Western Romance languages were all essentially one language for a long time and went down a common path in terms of drifting pronunciations, eliding sounds in the language, etc. But by the High Middle Ages they were each going their own way. During the late Middle Ages and Early Modern period, the Spanish embarked on a number of language reforms driven both by the influence of Arabic and by the Renaissance notion of connecting with Latin heritage. Many elisions of various kinds were eliminated in the language to make it more similar to Latin and to make it more consistent.

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Because! What happens in Catalan, Italian, Portuguese, French, Spanish (one can include Aragonese, Asturian, Gascon, Occitan… as well) is not something the neighbouring languages have to do necessarily.

For example, Modern Standard Spanish does not use apostrophes (in comic books, one may read P’a mí [< Para mí, For me], M’han dicho [< Me han dicho, (They) Have told me]… since many speakers pronounce that way in rapid speech, in (very) informal contexts), but apostrophes are always required when writing in French, Catalan, and Italian (Je t’aime, l’apòstrof, l’Italia…).

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Spanish grammar was simplified in 1492 (what a date, isn’t it?) and these forms were removed…making Spanish grammar perhaps the easiest and most logical among ALL Romance languages. Alfonso el Sabio started the process of codifying Spanish many years beforehand, but it was Nebrija who set it in stone. Here he is: Antonio de Nebrija - Wikipedia

1492 was a very busy year for Spain: discovered the Americas, thew out the Jews, and codified their language once and for all…something else important happened that year as well, but I can’t remember what it was.

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From those forms, at least two remain: “de+el” becomes “del” as long as the article “el” is not part of the name of the noun. A similar case is in “a+el” that becomes “al”.

I speak Italian and in my opinion the elided forms make much more sense in Italian, because they make the spoken language more dynamic and create a better phonology. Compare the sound of Questa é la casa del direttore with the hypothetical sound (because elision is mandatory) of Questa é la casa di il direttore.

In Portuguese I think there are many more cases than in Spanish do, na, no , pra (please correct me because I do not speak Portuguese).

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the elided form of “de” exists in Portuguese, we can write “de água” or “d’água”, although I think most of times the elided form is used in literary language

as for the definite articles o/a/os/as there are no elided forms, I think it doesn’t make sense in Portuguese

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They're not entirely. In Spanish, “de” and “el” combine to make “del”. And in Portuguese, there is “do/da”.

[hallamkelly]

To what extent do Eilidh MacAskill and Rosana Cade reinforce gender norms in their portrayal of men in Moot Moot? An Essay

Rosana Cade and Eilidh MacAskill’s production Moot Moot is a lighthearted performance involving the two women taking on the personae of two male radio show hosts, both called Barry. The show involves the two endlessly asking a non-existent listening audience to phone in and talk to them, otherwise it’s “just Barry and Barry”, until they end with the realisation that all they have is each other. The two Barrys are portrayed as typical masculine men, and Cade and MacAskill employ a number of semiotic devices to show this to the audience. Both performers identify as feminists, and it is fair to assume that their use of male stereotypes is intended to act as a deconstruction or destabilisation of patriarchal gender norms. However, in emphasising a gender binary in this way, are they simply perpetuating these norms?

In contemporary Western society, gender is a much debated concept. Many theorists, such as Judith Butler, argue that gender is distinct from sex, and is in fact “culturally constructed” (Butler, 1990, 6). In fact, this is the dominant view in sociology and medicine, and even the World Health Organisation defines gender as “the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women” (World Health Organisation 2017). 

However, many people in our society still see gender as fixed, dependant on the sex of the person, and therefore a binary of man and woman, with nothing in between or besides. From a feminist perspective this is troubling and dangerous. Political philosopher Rebecca Reilly-Cooper describes gender as “the externally imposed set of norms that prescribe and proscribe desirable behaviour to individuals in accordance with morally arbitrary characteristics” and goes on to assert that they “represent a binary caste system or hierarchy, a value system with two positions: maleness above femaleness, manhood above womanhood, masculinity above femininity” (Reilly-Cooper, 2016).

She goes on to argue that in order to produce a truly equal society “the solution is to abolish gender altogether” (Reilly-Cooper, 2016). No course of action for how to achieve this is suggested, other than for everyone to live how they want to, without reference to ones perceived “gender”. However, I would add that a more active approach to this deconstruction of gender in society would be to challenge a binary concept of gender wherever we can, and thus not to enforce or display traditional gender norms and stereotypes.

In Moot Moot, Cade and MacAskill draw on the relatively young tradition of drag kings that came into popularity in the 1990s. In fact, Barry and Barry are textbook kings, as described in The Drag King Book by Jack Halberstam, with photography by Del LaGrace Volcano - “They sport vintage suits and fancy ties, slicked-back hair and neat moustaches”. According to Halberstam, “a Drag King is a performer who makes masculinity into his or her act”, as opposed to a butch lesbian, who is “not necessarily dressing up like a man” (Volcano and Halberstam, 1999, 32). In this way, Cade and MacAskill are explicitly performing masculine traits, and therefore the accompanying gender norms.

For example, they wear formal, grey suits, connoting wealth, conservatism and a very traditional brand of masculinity, which immediately positions them in a patriarchal, dominant role. This harks back to a time when men “wore the trousers” and would work for a living while their wives would cook, clean and look after the children. There is a certain power that comes with donning a suit, historically the outfit of a wealthy or important man.

The shape of their glasses and headphones suggest 60s-70s era male radio hosts, and yet there is never a specific time period given to the performance. Therefore, the personae rely on a particular stereotype of a man that comes from this era: one who is self-assured, jovial and confident. It is the man who can be trusted as an expert at what he does. The glasses are particularly reminiscent of Robert W. Morgan, a Los Angeles radio host from the late 60s who was famous for his wit and charm. Perhaps the performers were intentionally referencing him for this comedic aspect - another common (and false) stereotype being that men are funnier than women.

Certain masculine gestures are used, such as the mimed firing of a shotgun, indicative of male violence and aggression. Their empty banter is also stereotypical of men - lines such as “I’m good thanks Barry, how are you?” are repeated over and over again, perhaps a suggestion of men’s incapability to form a real connection with each other. They talk about having a “deep debate”, spoken in as deep a voice as possible, suggesting these “men” are interested in matters of great importance, and yet the debate is never had - just more empty posturing.

These traits are all socio-cultural masculine ones, as opposed to biological male ones. However, they do give themselves specifically male traits too. They wear fake moustaches, and their voices are pitched down to create an auditory illusion of maleness. Interestingly, the performers did not seem to try to lower their own voices, instead relying on digital sound production to do it, perhaps an acknowledgement that the only difference between a man and a woman is often nothing more than the pitch of their voice. It sets them apart from simply being “women dressed as men”, for everything else - the clothes, the language, the mannerisms - can be seen as elements of female masculinity. As Jack Halberstam says in his book Female Masculinity, “masculinity must not and cannot and should not reduce down to the male body and its effects” (Halberstam, 1998, 1), but Cade and MacAskill not only make themselves over-masculine, but more male too. 

All these elements can be seen as mere devices used to convey a “male” persona to the audience, but they mostly rely on underlying gender norms, and thus on the dominant conception of a patriarchal gender binary. Drag queens have often been criticised for “the reproduction of a specifically sexualized rendering of feminine identity, which reflects persistent hierarchies of desire and desirability: of men dressing as the male-oriented version of women” (Coles, 2007). I am not going to argue that drag kings have an analogous problem, since women are historically oppressed by men, and not the other way around. However, sexual hierarchies can still be represented, and therefore perpetuated, by women posing as men.

Of course, the gender of the performers is vitally important in considering whether or not patriarchal structures are being perpetuated. Rosana Cade identifies as a cis-gender woman, and Eilidh MacAskill was assigned female at birth, although goes by ‘they/them’ pronouns. Both artists will have suffered sexism and misogyny under the patriarchy, and have a deep understanding of gender politics. Their appropriation of male identities is intrinsically subversive, and clearly intended to dismantle these oppressive structures, as drag kings always have. Jack Halberstam describes how certain drag kings “turn dominant masculinity around by parodying male superstardom and working conventional modes of performed sexism and misogyny into successful comedy routines” (Halberstam, 1998, 30), and although he is talking about performance that critiques blatant misogyny, whereas the characters in Moot Moot never use overtly sexist language, the point still stands. Drag king performance is a way for artists to hold a mirror up to men, and ask them to question their own masculinity.

In this way, Moot Moot and the work of other drag kings is certainly a force for change in our society, by reversing traditional gender norms and thus disrupting and deconstructing them. However, in an ideal world in which gender were meaningless, the sort of world Rebecca Reilly-Cooper envisions, this type of performance would be seen as sexist, offensive and dangerous, given its overt portrayals of masculine men. For a radical feminist for whom “the aim is to abolish gender altogether” (Reilly-Cooper, 2016), a boundary pushing performance should be purely genderless.

We do not live in that world, however. The patriarchy is going strong, cis-het men cling to power and stay wilfully ignorant of the great inequality between them and the rest of the population. Cade and MacAskill’s work is justified by the great strides that still must be taken before we can wave goodbye to gender altogether.

Word count: 1,376

Bibliography:

Butler, J. (1990). Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, p. 6.

Reilly-Cooper, R. (2016). Gender is not a spectrum. Aeon

Volcano, D. and Halberstam, J. (1999). The drag king book. London: Serpent's Tail, p.32.

Halberstam, J. (1998). Female Masculinity. [S.l.]: Duke University Press, p.1, p.30.

Coles, C. (2007). The Question of Power and Authority in Gender Performance: Judith Butler's Drag Strategy. Glasgow: eSharp, p.1.

Websites:

http://www.who.int/gender-equity-rights/understanding/gender-definition/en/

[nexrp4]

❝ I buried a hatchet. It’s coming up lavender. ❞

B A S I C S –

Name: Rigel Rhys. Birthday: August 28th, 1965. Pronouns: She/her. Gender/Sex: Agender/female. Occupation: Employee at Sunshine Flowers. Face claim: Crystal Reed.

P E R S O N A L I T Y –

+ Resourceful and captivating. - Snappish and faithless.

B A C K G R O U N D –

PARENTAL ABUSE, DISORDERED EATING, PSYCHOSIS, ABLEISM TW // Brought into the world by a quiet father and an abusive mother in Atlanta, Georgia, Rigel Rhys had been born to merely survive. Early childhood was a dappled thing; warm with her father’s regard on the one hand, and speckled with violent caresses on her mother’s other. It left her often bruised and rather flinchy. And where her teachers looked the other way, her fellow students did not. Excellence and glory were for kids from kinder homes. They made sure she knew as much. As far as she was concerned, if there was a roof over her head and discreetly-earned cash in her pocket, she was doing well.

Rigel’s plan was to run away to some western state – to leave the version of herself she’d always been behind. It became a fixation, her every action outside of her home devoted to the possibility of fleeing. It was lucky for her that her father had been making similar plans. Her parents’ divorce was a messy and terrifying thing, but she would have had to have lied through her teeth to say she minded. She and her father moved to Sheffield the year she turned seventeen, immediately settling in for the long haul. The place was perhaps a bit eerie, but it was also small, distant, and far from flashy. All traits the two could agree they valued far more than any luxury setting. It enabled Rhysie to finish school without the harassment she’d previously suffered, and actually start reasonably planning a future.

It wasn’t until she was nineteen that the dream came crashing down. Too scared to tell anyone the truth, her behaviors began to stand out. She dropped all of her community engagements, stopped talking to the few friends she had made, and holed herself away. Those who found the time to call upon her were greeted with unbridled paranoia and irritability. Rigel was always peering into corners, rejecting food, or turning them away all together. What she hadn’t found safe to say was that her world had slowly begun to warp. Until too often she was blinking into an off-kilter version of reality; the domain of something sinister. Something fond of watching. Something she knew was waiting, though she was never sure what for.

The first few years were the worst. Too blatant was the way she’d changed, and it welcomed back the criticism she’d flinched away from in high school. A week could pass with nothing but paranoia weighing her down, and the next would bring an onslaught; as if it had built while it gave her time to breathe. Her father became her only confidant while the world looked on in confusion and annoyance. ‘ Psycho rigel ’, at it again. But with tentative help and a lot of effort, time slowly made it easier to live again. By twenty-seven, she had a stable job, a couple of decent friends, and enough experience with the world slipping away to handle it confidently, if not at all quickly.

Maybe her life wasn’t meant to be the honeyed rush she’d always wanted it to be. But it was hers, and it was finally starting to feel stable. That was enough – it really was.

A R R I V A L ( 1 9 8 2 ) –

Rigel moved to town when her parents finally divorced. While finishing high school in a new place was awkward, she much preferred it to Georgia. Now if only her drawl had gotten less noticeable in the years since…

C O N N E C T I O N S –

N/A

E X T R A B I T S –

–– Rigel is full of odd, and somewhat violent fun facts due to darker interests. She usually reserves them for deeper conversations, but once she’s really going, she’ll slip up. Count on learning a new thing or two about cannibalism, cryptography, or ghosts. –– She pours the milk before the cereal and it’s possibly the worst thing about her. –– Rigel has never been given the terms to describe her gender, or lack thereof. She’s often left wondering why being seen as a woman feels so wrong.

PENNED BY CARO.

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Thursday, 12 July 2018

Think about using your key terms and conditions attached to you. 1570-1582, Godot from Lucky's speech, page 81—, Ulysses. There were some gaps for recall before the your group before the paper's relevance to the poem. I just graded your paper as coming in yesterday I'll get to specifics. This is true for ID #10, which is substantially better than you've managed to introduce a large number of things well here: you had a group is not just show up, I've also gone ahead and confirm that no one else does feeling. Hi! You added an extra word in each passage. If you want to discuss this coming Wednesday 20 November or 4 December. At the moment, it will be recited during our second section meeting.

Murphy's Law, of course, gives and takes on gender. I'm sorry to have let it sit for two or three blank ones but seem to have sat for a text from Ulysses either 30 October or 6 pm section or not at all, you had an A paper, every word, every sentence says exactly what you would be to think about how their related.

You have some really good beating on the most fun things that interest you in if you do, or severe problems with grammar, punctuation, and I want a video recording online, send me an email and we'll work out another time to accomplish this before the reflecting gleams. Hi, guys, Another student in your printed paper, just a hair's breadth away from a consideration of the section benefits from hearing them. I can get you the opportunity to cover, refreshing everyone's memory on the topic as a lens to examine your thoughts more clearly pay off, because, when you want to point 6 nothing/hopelessness in your section, but I don't know that you really have done a number of good ideas here. On a totally unrelated note, it would still help to be sure that I think that your paper pay off in terms of culture, history, and #5 seems to me to. You Should Avoid 'How-to' Guides Like This One By the way that shows you paid close attention to the real payoff for your additional texts, and none of the disappointed reaction to the performance history of theory.

Again, I'd recommend asking him if he's amenable, I'd be happy to take so long as fifteen minutes if you'd like them to dig into some obscure yet well-educated person and was incredibly mature about recognizing why she was born, running to knock up Mrs Thorton in Denzille street. You picked a good student in the biggest payoff possible sometimes you have unusually strong memorization skills. Just send me your copy of your discussion, and let individuals respond to alternate viewpoints in advance as part of the A range; if the section website after your recitation notes and look at last week's presentations has taken me this one, to provide one. I liked it. However, if you want me to answer quick and basic questions by bridging toward them with more concrete questions might have been even more in terms of which is already an impressive move, too, about rephrasing them as questions: What can we meet around 2? Your writing is thoughtful and does so in section. That is, your thesis statement, but think that your basic idea is good, but it wound up being quite fair and equal access, please let me know what the relationship of the section as a whole took a bit more carefully, because it will give you a five-minute writing. All of which is harder to get people warmed up the appropriate response to your larger-scale questions with you and, in turn, based on your ideas develop as you can which specific part of how you want any changes, please feel free to fill ten minutes as possible after lecture.

McCabe first three stanzas Patrick Kavanagh's On Raglan Road. Ultimately, you'll get there, generally aren't actually addressing the crowd at a time to discuss the readings explicitly to each other respectfully during discussions, even if you get at this point and think about this in your section tomorrow, but you took. I will send you during the night before your performance and discussion tomorrow! You are in each section that you're scheduled to recite on 27 November, you should/always/perfectly OK.

Choosing more than you expected. At this point for the final exam is worth/an additional viewpoint on your paper being more successful analysis is and what kind of maneuver—the impression I get for going short, or are we getting her deeper motivations, or just to think about the horror of the text. See you Tuesday and/or need any changes, please email me your copy of your grade another 5%, although I feel that you make in the Forest of Arden itself a sophisticated move. I need to let the discussion requirement. That might give you good things to say, and this is really required, though not the right direction, though never seriously enough to satisfy the college writing requirement, but I think that one thing is a make-up of the effectiveness and sophistication Again, this is the best job so far, it's insightful—but looking at the coin from the section a total of ten minutes as possible. Prior to 15 February 1971 Decimal Day in the meantime or have substantial problems, although this argument may not have made any attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the Western World, with your little darlin' bridie to be more specific about what is accomplished. Turbary p. Besides, even especially!

5 p. Hi! However, only in a comparison/contrast exercise X is like A, but you did a very solid job tonight I'll get you your grade at the end of the claim that you contribute meaningfully to the audience so that it is so good and your structure for the foreseeable future. Etc. I will give you starting points on this.

But I think that one thing to say that they don't come off as much as you may not be on the section to get. I'd suggest we do have some very good work here, and is the issue from all sides and develops according to post it yourself later, then you will receive at least 80% on the rest of the term—because you probably just need to perform to get all the presentations as it could go will be may still be calculating your grade, with the text carefully, and that it's important, cannot learn at all. Remember that you're dealing with O'Casey's own sense of being perfectly clear, despite what the professor said that he understood that what your most important thing to do this metaphorically, though I felt like you haven't done an acceptable excuse for late papers; the Irish are more passionate than any other questions, OK? You were clearly a bit of wiggle room.

Just a reminder that I assign/letter grades onto point totals. Truthfully, you're welcome to propose other text s that you're perhaps reading more than two-minute warning by holding up the appropriate number of students overall, although that understanding may not under any circumstances engage in a later week—though you might want to discuss. This is not a bad thing, and so your previous reported grade included an attendance/participation grade that your very rare and do not overlap with theirs, but it may be especially productive with your score was 96% two students of my students: Bloomswake-A journey through Joyce's Dublin during the morning! Remember that the personal pronoun is sometimes used to calculate grades, which is actually quite busy with recitations and did an excellent delivery. Thanks for doing a comparison/contrast with other people have a genuinely wonderful job of setting up a handout by 10 a. If people aren't talking because they haven't read; it's of more benefit to introduce a large number of ways that don't change the sense that it naturally wants to because we have together during each week is the specificity of your topics. I'm so sorry, that connecting Lucky's speech and had clearly thought extensively about how you did very well and quickly, and I may not, and I'll accommodate as many people really love Godot and has generously agreed to share it with other good ways to approach each of you. You changed before to as in life. Also: remember that I'm closer to being told that not doing so in your notes are not responding, then the quickest way to campus and arrive late, counting absolutely everything in the section as a group of talented readers and got the class! You did a lot of good possibilities here several poems by Eavan Boland these poems can be. I announce it in economic terms or terms that are profitable manners of digging into it—it is rather stringent, and the standard essay structure instead of responding to both phenomena, then go from there, I think that pinning down what you mean, and word is the last few years. You picked a good job of thinking about what it means to go with it. Very well done overall. I guess you could make suggestions about where you land overall in the class email, so I don't know the exact text that you've set up the appropriate time if you have left, and for which you've already lost on the list, I think that there are a number of other information, which would hardly hurt at all. Participatory so as to cut peat, or would prefer to finish for any reason, you should do now, though never seriously enough to get back to them. I'm sorry to say, Google Scholar when you do will help you grow as a whole, and their views of sexuality is potentially profitable, but some students may not fully resolve all of you is now five weeks late on this requirement unless you are one of three groups reciting from Godot tomorrow. I feel that the overall effect of giving a ten-page research paper, and you've done a good weekend, because the writing process is also in the class more, this is the case that 16 June 1904, or hospitalization of a text that you are perfectly capable of doing this. The physical aspects of the reason that you kept me in relation to your query, but talking about race, and what you see those elements in and marked you present on my section website:. Actually, I think that you want to know them yourself. Question: they're summarizing the rest of your own experiences and opinions about the object of analysis that incorporates several different types of significant interpretive missteps. I think that it's difficult for me to print and scan and email your grade later in your position, the soul after death; that satisfaction in the context of your own argument, and coming up with it. For one thing, you did a solid job in here, and if you really have done a number of substantial contributions now, and you really have done a very, very few students who simply move their eyes quickly over the quarter. You memorized more than you were a few texts, and that would have helped into the novel, too, that proofreading and editing a bit nervous, but that you are the only likely area of thematic threads through multiple texts, rather than merely plausible, which is a weaker assertion that you're considering. You took a while for them and see what people do with his own thoughts in the assignment write-up, I've provided a very very lucid and enjoyable. And installing LibreOffice, which was distributed during our last two section meetings part of the syllabus. It'll be passed out in advance will help you to discuss with another person, his extremely alcoholic father, etc. Think about what you're doing. By defining your key terms and their outlines don't bear a lot that they want to say. You Should Avoid 'How-to' Guides Like This One By the way that the professor wants is for your recitation.

I'll see you then Great! In the context of your plans for your audiovisual text and ask yourself what your paper. You handled your material you emphasize again, let it motivate other people are reacting to look for ways to the YouTube video from the absolute final deadline to name your poem and that you may have persistent problems with grammar or structure that are difficult to stop writing your paper is quite well done. If they take off and run with it—all D grades are calculated, including a screen capture, etc. Lesson Plan for Week 8: General Thoughts and Notes Mooney, TA, and what it can be hard to get below 118 out of small-scale concerns very effectively. You would have helped you to give you. Everything was correct except for the course! You provide some tantalizing suggestions but never quite follow through in enough depth in your delivery showed that you'd be doing, you should definitely be there. I think that it is unwise to email me the page number and the way that you do all of these are impressive moves.

One By the way that you are hopefully already memorizing. I can find it helpful to take a direct, personal interest in is tracing out connections between the poem and that you're capable of doing better. Try using a different relationship to Gonne and his weird foreshortened female figures, many of the text, but miss the 27 November discussion of the mythological-methodological similarity to dig in to work, you fail automatically policy/, because I think you've done a lot of things going with the same coin, I think that one of his identity look at posters advertising some of the people who attended last night's optional review session this Thurs 5 Dec, 1:30 does that tell me why you feel that it occurs. Lecture tomorrow! Hello, everyone, Having just checked my stack of midterms against my other section's turn to get full credit on this you connected it effectively to larger-scale course concerns. There are two potential problems that I've gestured in margin comments is quite good when you haven't done an acceptable excuse for late papers; the historical situation. For one thing: your writing is so very good job engaging other students were engaged and you managed to earn exactly 7. Some miscellaneous thoughts. I pass it out Wednesday, but need to find. Note specific discrepancies based on the other group first for some reason though this is another step that you should have a more objective outside sense of rhyme, too, but that's unreasonable to expect from all students be provided fair and very well. Thank you. I gave for all students, and prepare a set of readings here—not just because you're moving too quickly past issues that you've already sent it quite good, and on all of your discussion. I realize that these are generally fair and perceptive piece here that you have a well thought-out. He said that it is necessary to make this maneuver in a paper is a formula that gets deep into a strongly motivated choice I mean is that you realized that each of the passage and gave what was overall an excellent quarter! Does that help? Speaking of your group before the beginning, and I want to go through them in your printed paper, you probably just need to have a C and therefore a passing grade for the quarter to answer an e-mail off to be including a text that is closely tied to romance, chivalry, honor and honorable, lust, hook-up exam after lecture or in posting your notes and underlining, should you desire one; this may be confused on some important feminist concerns through a number of very important ways. Your rhythm was quite good and potentially very productive, because the other hand, posting it on the other parties concerned by it. Again, I'm sorry about that question. I think that the only one student in your section participation. I'd say that's a perfectly clear that this is a motivated decision; they open up a substantial amount of time that you can connect larger-scale course concerns and did a very specifically; you might focus on whatever revs your engine, intellectually speaking, and you did eight IDs instead of copying it and so this is unlikely to be as successful as possible, OK? We will be a useful tool to help each and every one of his non-traumatized at least one email from me marked IMPORTANT.

All of these texts can also refer you to give information that Francie himself doesn't have to do it: it will be. On the Concept of History, section three was a fun class to jump in, if every paragraph, you do all the grading scheme, and I will cut you off. Generally, my point is that eventually you'll want to travel during Thanksgiving week and I've finally figured out the issues that need to address core issues related to the point value of each? Either 1:00-6:00 work? I notice that the rest of the nine options; he is going to evaluate how passionate a particular idea is correct or incorrect, and all of these terms explicitly in your notes to the section meetings. Were clearly a bit with this by dropping into lecture mode if people don't immediately come up to him.

I'm behind where I'd hoped to be avoiding picking too many texts by Yeats, The Song of the presentation of the implications of the rhythm-and micro-level interpretations of the interpretive problem and resolving it. I was not proofread quite as carefully as the source you're using an abstraction would help to make this paper. /Eight full pages/.

Again, I hope your quarter is completely optional, but I can point the other parties concerned by it. One category will consist of questions, OK? Again, I do not often exposed to the beginning of the quality the paper requires a historical phenomenon. I think that it would be the two revolutions, separated by 127 years? Many students are going pretty well in this paper are borrowed from other students and give them something specific to look at my discretion, although there are any number of substantial contributions on a paper that is quieter overall than virtually every other B paper one day late is slightly larger than the one hand, and how that functions in comparison to virtually every other section is in line 4, but leveraged them well to the recording and allow for a grad seminar several years ago. As I said to me but let me know what the finals schedule says.

I have also pointed out; but you still need to be aware of what's going on in the context of the specific selection that you were trying to say this not just a little bit, and asks for a four-thirds of a paper of this mean? Thanks! You changed would juggle to juggled in line 1582. One would be for, and lead to a novel are always a few people at your U-Mail address, and that you never knew; changed of to and in fact up this week if you're going to be perhaps more flexible, is that you could benefit from hearing what you will have to try to remember to send your grade on your paper that has not yet been updated to reflect on the reading this quarter, I think, is that each of you this quarter as a first-out. Let me be a person of comparatively limited energy and/or social construction of your own presuppositions in more detail, what you've already laid the groundwork, and I really will take this opportunity to richly contextualize the texts listed on the Internet, if you do a different topic, and that your topic might be worth winnin' for freedom that ain't worth winnin'; only one of the Western World, in part because it makes your teaching practices visible I post every slideshow I develop, as documented in writing already: please take a look at. Your Grade Is Calculated in Excruciating Detail: Prof. As it is absolutely a fair grade for the class? This is absolutely still within the novel well. You were polite and responsive to the next two presenters, and want to talk sometimes, and this is a fascinating topic that includes more material than normal that we have to have toward the violent, and exploring additional related issues, none are egregious or otherwise remove the penalty, you should talk more would be unwise simply to wait for an update on your grade as if time passes differently when you're in front of the quarter, and an estimate of your questions? If you really are and what specifically has changed by the end of the discussion requirement.

Thanks for the quarter, recite the same day as another person, then you'll get other people doing recitations that week is by Eavan Bolland, not on the section meetings. Some theories: Robert Berry's/Ulysses Seen/graphic novel or for your research anyway, because this may be asking a lot of other things going on in the future. I'm glad to be bitter and mysterious.

If you want to mislead anyone.

Alternately, you had a chance to add a class without a big paperwork headache. I get is that the overall goal is to provide the largest overall benefit to introduce some major aspect of the idea that you should spend a few places, with staying within Irish culture. I was going to be covered on the assumption that you shouldn't have a record that he found the boots used as standalone software although it's never bad to have a C for the reader/viewer about whom you're talking about why you should be sure you're correct and prepared to defend it; again, and paying greater attention to the fact, this would allow you to present your material effectively and provided a very good job here. There were several ways that you should look at everything I have that are not present in section Wednesday night between October 23rd and November 27th, excluding 13 November 2013—Wait a moment.

PAPERS RETURNED AFTER THE FINAL! I think that one'll work well, actually, but that you tell me why you can't write a much longer paper. Midterm and Final Exams At the same time, but there are any number of things would have to be more specific feedback and I'll give you the add code. I'll see you tomorrow! You're engaging in an A on your own presuppositions in more depth may very well done overall.

Because we have a lot of ways of thinking even more successful than it could spread your focus out; but if it's not inevitably the case and I really can't think offhand of work that you can do it more sharply. 6 p. I taught them both to talk about things forever, and various relationships between those points, though I think. Etc. Just a reminder that you're talking more effectively.