#if this fails to post again ill die /j

[autismnation]

Scare 2

Summary: Part 2 to this. You and Hobie get to know each other a bit more via a makeup session.

Pairing: Gender Neutral Reader x Scare Actor Hobie Brown

Warnings: Fluff. Gwen makes an appearance because I love her. British slang that may or may not be bad but I’m British and hoping it’s the second one. I’m not confident in this but it took me a month to write so take it my brain’s dying. Maybe abrupt ending? Like I said my brain’s dying. Comedy too (I guess? I hope you laugh.) 2nd Person POV with no Y/N. Hobie has fans. Hobie’s also a little less flirty this time. One (1) single mention of Pavitr because I also love him. Not a warning just wanted to say I love him.

Words: 1.3k

@miseries-mistress

An hour later, your mind’s sole focus was Hobie. You couldn’t think about anything other than Hobie, his scary makeup, his cool clothes, and the fact that you were standing right outside his break room.

“You can’t go in there,” the man standing outside raised a hand to stop you. “It’s for staff only.”

“I’m meeting my friend in there,” you protested, hands fidgeting with the ring said friend had given you, before quickly adding, “And he works here.”

The man only snorted in amusement. “Yeah, good try.”

You blinked a few times, frustration welling up inside you. Squinting at the man’s name tag, you tried to reason with him, “No, Greg, I’m telling the truth. His name’s Hobie and he—“

Before you could finish your sentence, the door to the break room opened, and the person you were talking about poked his head out.

“Ah, there you are,” Hobie chuckled. He grabbed your shoulder and tried to pull you into the room, but Greg stopped him.

“You know that’s not allowed.”

Hobie struggled to hide an eye roll. “Mate, come on, just do me a favor.”

Greg pursed his lips, sighing. “If I get in trouble—“

“You won’t. Promise,” Hobie said, and then he pulled you inside the break room.

Songs with a spooky theme played quietly, used as background noise whilst people chattered. Most were in scary costumes and the few that weren’t were in the process of getting ready.

Lights lined the ceiling, glowing red. There was a table pushed to the side and piled full of foods and drinks. A crowd gathered around it, playing a game of tossing bloody red popcorn into each other’s mouths.

The mood was light-hearted and joyful, despite the creepy decorations in the room.

Wrapping his arm around your shoulder, Hobie kept you pressed against his side as he navigated the room. You were glad for it. You were never scared of anything but you had to admit that all of these strangers in scary costumes were intimidating.

“Greg’s so bloody uptight,” Hobie scoffed. Then, he tilted his head to one side as he thought for a moment, “But he’s alright most of the time, and he keeps the creeps away.”

You arrived at what you assumed was Hobie’s space. It was a desk stained with paint and makeup, a mirror hung on the wall with bright lights around it. The desk was messy, rubbish strewn all over and makeup containers opened like he left in a rush.

“So, this is where the magic happens,” You grinned.

“Oh, oops,” was all Hobie said as he grabbed handfuls of the rubbish and tossed them in the bin.

You watched Hobie as he did so, studying the way his brow furrowed and his makeup creased. He was a unique individual, you had to admit. You’d never met anyone as confident or as fascinating as him; you barely knew the guy and yet here you were in his dressing room, wanting to know more about him. Hobie certainly stood out from the crowd and you didn’t understand why, but he had an energy about him that made you smile. Oh, and he was obviously hot as hell.

“You got a starin’ problem, love?”

“What?” His words shook you out of your trance and you found him looking at you, “Oh, no, your makeup’s just really nice.”

“Want me to do yours?” He asked.

“That’d be cool,” You admitted, eager to be turned into something frightening—and to feel his touch.

Smirking, Hobie grabbed you by your shoulders and sat you down on a nearby chair. One hand rested gently on you whilst the other grabbed products and applied them.

“So, how long have you been a scare actor?” You attempted to make conversation.

“Only about six months,” Hobie replied as he spread some sort of primer over your face, “I wasn’t arsed about it at first but my mate was really into it and didn’t want to do it on her own, so ‘ere I am. And it’s fun make people jump, innit?”

“I’m usually the one jumping,” You responded.

Hobie shook his head, “Nah, no way. You’re tough as nails. Your friend, though—their screams might’ve fucked up my ears.”

You laughed, “The whole reason I’m here is because of them, actually. You know, to make them less scared.”

“Where are they?” Hobie questioned, “Did they get too scared and went home?”

“No, no, they become obsessed with the skull cotton candy that’s here,” You chuckled, “I physically couldn’t drag them away from the stall.”

“Hell yeah, that stuff’s great, I always have it when I’m Hank Marvin,“ Hobie smirked.

“When you’re what?”

“Starving,” Hobie laughed when you stared at him like he’d grown two heads. Then, he did a double-take at his desk when he tried to grab another makeup product, “Where the hell—“

“Looking for something?” A younger kid—a girl with blue and pink tips in her hair—appeared out of nowhere and held out some colourful eyeliner.

“That’s mine, you plonker,” Hobie said as he ruffled the girl’s hair. Then, he uncapped the eyeliner and cupped the kid’s face, bringing her closer, “Hang on, Gwendy, you’ve mucked it up, mate.”

With a few quick strokes, Hobie fixed her eyeliner while she stared at you with wide eyes.

“Is this one of your groupies?”

“I’m not a groupie,” You said, unable to hide the annoyance in your tone.

“They’re a friend,” Hobie said and your heart warmed. He scoffed in response to the kid’s question, as irritated as you. Though it quickly melted away and he affectionately patted the kid’s shoulder, addressing you, “This is Gwen.”

“Nice to meet you,” You offered her your hand after telling her your name, but she ducked away from it.

“I’m messy, sorry,” Gwen said before grabbing a packet of wipes out of the mess on Hobie’s desk and scrubbing their hands with it.

“Those are mine when you’re done,” Hobie scoffed—though it was full of endearment. He clearly adored the kid and vice versa.

Even though Gwen’s costume was spider-like, it had many similarities to Hobie’s. The most striking ones were that they had the same makeup and Gwen was wearing a shirt that was clearly created by Hobie.

As Hobie continued to do your makeup, applying some eyeliner on you, he wrinkled his nose, “I don’t have groupies, Gwendy.”

“Tell that to the people who edit you on TikTok,” Gwen replied teasingly as she swept some makeup to the side and sat down on his dressing table.

“I would but that app is a piece of shit that destroys your attention span. I’ve told you that a million times, mate,” Hobie grumbled, “I don’t have it for a reason.”

“Wait, are you guys serious? People make edits of you?” Your eyebrows shot up and Hobie pushed them down with his fingers before continuing with your eyeliner.

Gwen nodded, “Yeah, people go crazy over him. His hashtag has, like, thousands of views.”

“Wait, seriously? Like, genuinely? Actually?” You found it hard to believe. Not because Hobie wasn’t worth it, he absolutely was; he was attractive and charming. It was because you hadn’t come across any of these edits.

“Yeah, and it’s bloody weird. They don’t even know me, and they pick the worst music known to mankind. They’re out of their goddamn minds if they think I’d like MSI.” Hobie groaned before turning to Gwen, “You and Pav need to stop sending me those edits. I already said I don’t wanna see ‘em.”

“You should be glad you can’t see the comments.” Gwen grinned.

“Wait, hang on, I wanna see this—” You began to say but she cut you off.

“You really, really don’t. The comments are the worst part. But the attention’s good for business, though,” Gwen pointed out.

“Yet my wage is still the same,” Hobie grumbled before stepping back from you and gesturing to the mirror, “Have a look, mate.”

Gwen shuffled out of the way so you could see yourself properly—and you broke out into a grin. You were wearing the same makeup as Hobie, matching with both him and Gwen.

Hobie clapped you on the back as Gwen grinned at you, “You’re one of us now.”

And you definitely felt like it.

[ultra-raging-ghost]

I reached post limit so im gonna write this and save it for midnight to post later 🥰

-10:30 EST

Richas made a reference/mentioned outliving forever and bad started screaming and sobbing for a solid 2 minutes and then started talking about how no no forevers probably fine cucuruchos probably taking care of him, richas asked if thats what bad tells himself to sleep at night, if he just lies to himself and bad said yes! if all else fails, simply lie to yourself and push your true feelings down to make it through this meaningless existence :D and richas said "so if we said the sky is pink at all times a day and just lie to ourselves its ok?" and bad said yes, we already lie to ourselves all the time we just need to think about how much lying we accept :3

richas thinks dappers colorblind

bad said his chats british 😭

time to read books!

-10:40 EST

bad is making fun of us for being sad because of angst(/lh/j) and sang a brief song about us being sad and mentioned "the sun is gone" just to torment us over forever being gone. He also went f5 said something like “if you think it’s sad now… anyway..... spoilers!!" implying it will get even sadder!! (terrified)

oh theres a letter for bbh and forever :((( this might be sad now that forevers. in his place. chats crying

-10:50 EST

Bad is screaming and crying because forever will never be able to read his letter, hes literally head in hands screaming and crying and hes letting the TTS read it out

one of the qsmp purgatory programmers wrote bad a letter saying he was supposed to die more and bad said hes a bug tester at heart and richas is bullying bad because of how many bugs he found and exploited LMAO bad said he'll fudging do it again

-11:00 EST

bad found ANOTHER wall bug to glitch thru, hes insane

-11:10 EST

someone said the word forever and bad is reduced to shambles on the floor, hes crying and whining forevers name in tears and agony and he made the dying "bleh" sound like 4 times

also bad mentioned that as soon as its confirmed to the characters like in-character that max is dead theyre having a funeral for him, like bad as the grim reaper knows but he hasnt told anyone, nobodys aware of him being gone, >>>>also he was ominous and said he needed to shoot max a message oorp and refused to elaborate. what the fuck was that about badboyhalo? <<<<<

-11:30 EST

Bad and richas and pomme wanna make an elevator death trap and then call foolish over to trap/murder him <3 chat is advocating for this idea. chat also wants to see the museum, bad said yes!!! Museum time!

before that, bad is being ominously silent again and is texting off screen. that max comment earlier + this makes me worried. MOVING ON THO BC HES SINGING HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO RICHAS AND POMME GOT HIM A PRESENT FOR HIS BDAY!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY RICHAS!!!!! (in brazil time) The present is Honey cookies! because richas got covered in honey and used as bait while they were away LMAO

Bad was talking about the 1k snow golems prank and was wondering if the cleanup team would be upset or love that, and richas said "lets say im part of that tio" and bad is now saying richas will take 100% accountability for that and will clean all of it up by himself LMAOOOO richas placed down signs saying "NO TIO I NEVER SAID THAT!! I DIDNT" and bad read them out loud as "Yes tio i agree i did say that ill do it!"

oh god bads spamming richas signs everywhere this is gonna fucking lag everything LMAOOOO richas crashed and bad kept placing until he got bored and said "yessssss richas will get in so much trouble hahaha! messing with the server!!!! bad then said "Richas always comes back" in the FNAF voice, didnt need to know you were an even bigger nerd BBH but okay /aff

-11:40 EST

Pomme is dragging bbh around on a lasso and is trapping him somewhere <3333 theyre climbing up the big ben and bad is taking SO MUCH DAMAGE he has his auto eat on

he accidentally said the word "forever" again and started crying again, his chat is in shambles.

MUSEUM TIME!!!!!!

HELP THE FUCKING ADMINS INCLUDED A DRAWING OF BAD LITERALLY STUCK IN A PADDED ROOM BASED ON HIS TIME IN JAIL, RICHAS SAID "natural habitat"

>>>>>>bad's crying again, and being horny because of how "cute" forever looks in the fanart, but mostly crying<<<<<

pomme started bullying bad because he called forever cute LMAO

tinas on!!!!!

-11:50 EST

Bad's crying again over art of him and forever in the pool he made in forevers base, the admins want to hurt him specifically/j

"treasure the wholesome moments chat, for they are just dust in the wind" -BBH 2023

bad took his totems out of his offhand again :)

Bad's crying again over another image of him and forever!!

[ao3feed-thor]

Thor Love and Thunder by Jivanjot Singh

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/lXYPAif

by Jivanjot_Singh

Thor is a mighty god. He has fought the dark elves, the Jotuns, brought peace to the Nine Realms and has saved Earth. He has fought armies, the Mad Titan Thanos and now travels around the galaxy to help anyone in need. However, after going through unfathomable loss of his family, do you think he is okay? Or within himself, hides the grief.

Jane Foster was a major scientist until her life changed. Cancer. Life altering moment of her life. Unable to cope with the mortality of her life, Jane seeks out an answer before failing again and again. As she slowly succumbs to her illness, she remembers a time when she saw a man die, and then come back to life. It was Thor Odinson, and the tool that brought him back to life, a particular hammer named Mjölnir. But Thor was a god and Jane's a mere human. Could it work? Jane puts the theory to test and low and behold, her cancer is gone. Not only that, she gains the power of Thor himself.

A being lurks in the shadows who thinks that the universe is too full of gods, and it is time he fixes that. With the corruption of the weapon he wields, he makes his life's mission to end the gods once and for all. For that, he would go to great lengths.

Words: 2786, Chapters: 4/4, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M

Characters: Thor (Marvel), Jane Foster (Marvel), Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), Korg of Krona, Gorr the God-Butcher

Additional Tags: Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Action/Adventure, My First Fanfic, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Thor and J

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/lXYPAif

[ao3feed-janefoster]

Thor Love and Thunder by Jivanjot Singh

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/0R1rMF6

by Jivanjot_Singh

Thor is a mighty god. He has fought the dark elves, the Jotuns, brought peace to the Nine Realms and has saved Earth. He has fought armies, the Mad Titan Thanos and now travels around the galaxy to help anyone in need. However, after going through unfathomable loss of his family, do you think he is okay? Or within himself, hides the grief.

Jane Foster was a major scientist until her life changed. Cancer. Life altering moment of her life. Unable to cope with the mortality of her life, Jane seeks out an answer before failing again and again. As she slowly succumbs to her illness, she remembers a time when she saw a man die, and then come back to life. It was Thor Odinson, and the tool that brought him back to life, a particular hammer named Mjölnir. But Thor was a god and Jane's a mere human. Could it work? Jane puts the theory to test and low and behold, her cancer is gone. Not only that, she gains the power of Thor himself.

A being lurks in the shadows who thinks that the universe is too full of gods, and it is time he fixes that. With the corruption of the weapon he wields, he makes his life's mission to end the gods once and for all. For that, he would go to great lengths.

Words: 2786, Chapters: 4/4, Language: English

Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M

Characters: Thor (Marvel), Jane Foster (Marvel), Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), Korg of Krona, Gorr the God-Butcher

Additional Tags: Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Action/Adventure, My First Fanfic, Minor Jane Foster/Thor, Thor and J

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/0R1rMF6

[annie-banks]

Adore You - Harry Styles (2019) // you’re wonder, under summer sky // All About That Bass – Meghan Trainor (2014) // every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top // Alone Again – Betty Who (2014) // when it rains it pours and you drown me out // Anything Could Happen – Ellie Goulding (2012) // letting darkness grow, as if we need it's palette and we need it's color // Bad Girls - M.I.A. (2012) // leaving boys behind ‘cause it’s illegal just to kill // Bitch Better Have My Money - Rihanna (2015) // your wife in the backseat of my brand new foreign car // Blank Space – Taylor Swift (2014) // darling I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream // Bloodbuzz Ohio – The National (2010) // I was carried to Ohio in a swarm of bees // Bo$$ – Fifth Harmony (2014) // boss. Michelle Obama. purse so heavy gettin' Oprah dollas // Boy Problems - Carly Rae Jepsen (2015) // I think I broke up with my boyfriend today and I don't really care // Boys - Charli XCX (2017) // I wish I had a better excuse like I had to trash the hotel lobby // Butterflies - Kacey Musgraves (2018) // I was hiding in doubt till you brought me out of my chrysalis // Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen (2011) // before you came into my life I missed you so bad // Call Your Girlfriend – Robyn (2010) // don't you tell her how I give you something that you never even knew you missed // Canyon Moon - Harry Styles (2019) // doors yellow, broken, blue // Chandelier – Sia (2014) // I'm gonna fly like a bird through the night, feel my tears as they dry // Cherry - Harry Styles (2019) // I confess I can tell that you are at your best, I'm selfish so I'm hating it // Circles - Post Malone (2019) // we couldn't turn around, 'til we were upside down // C’mon - Panic! At the Disco and Fun. (2011) // feels like I am falling down a rabbit hole, falling for forever, wonderfully wandering alone // C’Mon – Kesha (2012) // feeling like a saber-tooth tiger sipping on a warm budweiser // Cruise (Remix) - Florida Georgia Line ft. Nelly (2012) // she was sippin' on southern and singin' Marshall Tucker, we were falling in love in the sweet heart of summer // Daddy Lessons - Beyonce ft. Dixie Chicks (2017) // it’s your song // Dark Fantasy – Kanye West (2010) // too many Urkels on your team, that's why your wins low // Death of a Bachelor - Panic! At the Disco (2016) // the lace in your dress tingles my neck, how do I live? // Demons- Sleigh Bells (2012) // They're gonna stand em up six by six by six // Diane - Cam (2017) // And all those nights that he's given to me I wish that I could give them back to you // Diane Young – Vampire Weekend (2013) // you torched a Saab like a pile of leaves // Downtown - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Eric Nally, Melle Mel, Grandmaster Caz, Kool Moe Dee (2016) // neighbors yelling at me like, you need to slow down going thirty-eight, Dan, chill the fuck out, mow your damn lawn and sit the hell down // End of the Day - One Direction (2015)// I told her that I loved her, just not sure if she heard. the roof was pretty windy and she didn't say a word, party died downstairs, had nothing left to do just me, her and the moon // Fireproof – One Direction (2015) // riding on the wind and I won't give up // ***Flawless – Beyonce ft. Nicki Minaj (2013) // mayday, mayday, earth to bitches // Follow Your Arrow - Kacey Musgraves (2013) // if you save yourself for marriage, you're a bore. if you don't save yourself for marriage, you're a whore-able person // Formation - Beyonce (2016) // always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper // Forrest Gump – Frank Ocean (2012) // my fingertips and my lips, they burn from the cigarettes // Freaks and Geeks – Childish Gambino (2011) // I have worked all winter, I will not fail summer, in the back of the bush, like Gavin Rossdale's drummer // Gay Pirates - Cosmo Jarvis (2011) // and I hope they didn't tie up your hands as tight as mine. I'll see you on the bed of this blue ocean, babe, sometime // Get Lucky – Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams (2013) // the present has no ribbon, your gift keeps on giving // Glory - Bastille (2016) // and then you put your hand in mine and pulled me back from things divine, stop looking up for heaven, waiting to be buried // Good Grief - Bastille (2016) // caught off guard by your favourite song, I'll be dancing at a funeral, dancing at a funeral // Green Light - Lorde (2017) // I whisper things, the city sings them back to you // Grown - Little Mix (2015) // no regrets, it's a lesson learned 'cause what you think ain't my concern // Hayloft - Nickel Creek (2014) // young lovers with their legs tied up in knots // Holocene – Bon Iver (2011) // and at once I knew I was not magnificent // I Believe - Original Broadway Cast (2011) // and I believe that the Garden of Eden was in Jackson County, Missouri // I Like It - Cardi B, Bad Bunny, and J Balvin (2018) // I like those Balenciagas, the ones that look like socks // I Love It – Icona Pop ft. Charli XCX (2012) // you're from the '70s, but I'm a '90s bitch // Judas – Lady Gaga (2011) // I'm just a holy fool, oh baby he's so cruel, but I'm still in love with Judas, baby // Juice - Lizzo (2019) // I be drippin' so much sauce got a bitch lookin' like RAGÚ // Just Hold On - Steve Aoki ft. Louis Tomlinson (2016) // feels like you're standing on the edge looking at the stars and wishing you were them // Laura Palmer – Bastille (2013) // what a year and what a night, what terrifying final sights put out your beating heart // Lemonworld – The National (2010) // I gave my heart to the Army, the only sentimental thing I could think of // Love on Top – Beyonce (2011) // I can see the stars all the way from here, can't you see the glow on the window pane // Make Me Feel - Janelle Monáe (2018) // it's like I'm powerful with a little bit of tender, an emotional, sexual bender // Making the Most of the Night - Carly Rae Jepsen (2015) // baby I'm speeding and red lights, I'll run // Meet Me in the Hallway - Harry Styles (2017) // just let me know I'll be on the floor, on the floor // Menswear – The 1975 (2013) // well, who's this? going for the kiss, I'm probably gonna yosh in your mouth // Mirrors – Justin Timberlake (2013) // if you ever feel alone and the glare makes me hard to find, just know that I'm always parallel on the other side // Monster – Kanye West ft. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, and Bon Iver (2010) // you could be the king but watch the queen conquer // The Mother We Share - Chvrches (2012) // I'm in misery but you can't see, as old as your omens // My Church - Maren Morris (2016) // I just keep the wheels rolling, radio scrolling 'til my sins wash away // N****s in Paris - Jay-Z and Kanye West (2011) // Prince William's ain't do it right if you ask me 'cause I was him, I would have married Kate and Ashley // Oh, What a World - Kacey Musgraves (2018) // did I know you once in another life? are we here just once or a billion times? // Old Town Road (Remix) - Lil Nas X ft. Billy Ray Cyrus (2019) // cowboy hat from Gucci, Wrangler on my booty // Otis – Jay-Z and Kanye West (2011) // luxury rap, the Hermes of verses, sophisticated ignorance, write my curses in cursive // Pineapple Girl - Mister Heavenly (2011) // I am besieged by the vagaries of power. I'm all alone and lonely in this tower // Primadonna – Marina and the Diamonds (2012) // I know I've got a big ego, I really don't know why it's such a big deal though // Pumped Up Kicks – Foster the People (2010) // he's got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth he's a cowboy kid // Radio - Lana Del Rey (2012) // pick me up and take me like a vitamin 'cause my body's sweet like sugar venom // Raising Hell - Kesha ft. Big Freedia (2019) // hungover, heart of gold, holy mess. doin' my best, bitch, I'm blessed // Rivers and Roads - The Head and the Heart (2011) // been talking 'bout the way things change // Royals - Lorde (2013) // we don't care, we aren't caught up in your love affair // S.O.B. - Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats (2015) // I'm going to cover myself with the ashes of you and nobody's gonna give a damn // Satisfied - Original Broadway Cast (2015) // it's a dream and it's a bit of a dance, a bit of a posture, it's a bit of a stance. He's a bit of a flirt, but I'm 'a give it a chance. I asked about his fam'ly, did you see his answer? his hands started fidgeting, he looked askance? he's penniless, he's flying by the seat of his pants // Sex – The 1975 (2013) // and she said use your hands and my spare time, we've got one thing in common it's this tongue of mine // Shake It Out – Florence + the Machine (2011) // our love is pastured such a mournful sound, tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground// Shut Up and Dance - Walk the Moon (2014) // my discotheque Juliet teenage dream // Silly Love Songs - Darren Criss (2011) // how can I tell you about my loved one // Some Nights - Fun. (2012) // this is not one for the folks at home, I'm sorry to leave, mom, I had to go. who the fuck wants to die alone all dried up in the desert sun? // Someone Like You – Adele (2011) // we were born and raised in a summer haze, bound by the surprise of our glory days // Sorry - Justin Bieber (2015) // *dolphin noises* // Spaceship - Kesha (2017) // I knew from the start I don't belong in these parts. there's too much hate, there's too much hurt for this heart // Stars - Fun. (2012) // some nights I rule the world with bar lights and pretty girls, but most nights I stay straight and think about my mom // Stitches - Shawn Mendes (2015) // needle and the thread gotta get you out of my head // Sunflower, Vol. 6 - Harry Styles (2019) // *gasp* your flowers just died, plant new seeds in the melody // Super Bass - Nicki Minaj (2010) // and he ill, he real, he might gotta deal. he pop bottles and he got the right kind of build. he cold, he dope, he might sell coke. he always in the air, but he never fly coach // Take Me to Church - Hozier (2013) // I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies. I'll tell you my sins, and you can sharpen your knife // Thank u, Next - Ariana Grande (2018) // she taught me love, she taught me patience, how she handles pain // The Pachanelly Canon - Gentleman’s Rule (2012) // I'm getting pages out of New Jersey, from Courtney B telling me about a party up in NYC. can I make it? damn right I be on the next flight. payin cash. first class. sittin' next to Vanna White // The Wire - Haim (2013) // I just know, I know, I know, I know that you're gonna be okay anyway // Theme From “Cheers” - Titus Andronicus (2010)// I'm sick and tired of everyone in this town being so goddamn uptight, but don't you worry, I'll do all the talking when they turn on the flashing lights // Thieves – She & Him (2010) // I'm not a prophet, old love is in me. new love just seeps right in and makes me guilty // This is America - Childish Gambino (2018) // tell somebody, you go tell somebody. grandma told me, get your money, black man // Trouble - Neon Jungle (2013) // lights up let's have a toke, pour more whiskey in my coke .. Truth Hurts - Lizzo (2017) // you coulda had a bad bitch, non-committal // Uma Thurman - Fall Out Boy (2015) // and I slept in last night's clothes and tomorrow’s dreams, but they are not quite what they seem // Wetsuit – The Vaccines (2011) // with a cool, cool breeze and dirty knees, I rest on childhood memories // What a Feeling - One Direction (2015) // when the air ran out and we both started running wild, the sky fell down // Wilson - Fall Out Boy (2018) // I'll stop wearing black when they make a darker color // Wolves - One Direction (2015) // I feel the waves getting started, it's a rush inside I can't control // You Need Me, I Don’t Need You - Ed Sheeran (2011) // melody music maker, reading all the papers, they say I'm up and coming like I'm fucking in an elevator // You’re in Love With a Psycho - Kasabian (2017) // I'm like the taste of macaroni on a seafood stick

Songs that would have made the list were they on Spotify: We Can’t Stop - Bastille // I Love Clothes (Deadbeat Summer) - Childish Gambino //  G.O.O.D. Friday - Kanye West ft. Common, Pusha T, Kid Cudi, Big Sean & Charlie Wilson // Driving in Cars with Boys - Lana Del Rey // Blurred Lines - Vampire Weekend // a number of mashups (Office Musik, What Makes You Da One, Live While We Die Young, Brush Your Bittersweet Shoulders Off, We Are Complicated)

[nasanews-blog]

News Report

Apollo 11 placed the United States on the heavy hitter list for the Space Race against Russia. We finally made history with the spaceflight Apollo 11. The first manned mission landed on the moon, and it was made possible by the famous piolets Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. John F. Kennedy made his famous speech on the event 50 years ago. What led up to this moment of triumph has caused many trivial protests and disagreements between party lines. Space exploration not only united the country, but also broke ties within the nation’s classes. The 1960’s was a time of great social unrest, and for the United States a period of great financial expenditure. We spent $25.4 billion dollars in 1969, equating to $135 billion in today’s currency on space exploration alone. Our hunger for progress costed many human lives in the trials leading up to Apollo 11 as well.

Apollo 1 catches fire, and three astronauts die. The command module (CM-012) was set ablaze on a test run and training exercise on July 27, 1969 at Pad 34 in Cape Canaveral. The men who lost their lives were: Command Pilot Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White and Pilot Roger B. Chaffee. These honorable men were the first astronauts selected for the first Apollo mission. The failed test run was attributed to the lethal design of the command module. It had wiring flaws, pressure issues, flammable materials in the cockpit (Velcro), and an inward opening hatch that was faulty and didn’t open in a cause of an emergency. I am briefly going to list some of the failed missions prior to Apollo 11: October 31, 1964: Theodore Freeman was killed, February 28, 1966: Charles Bassett and Elliot See lost their lives in Gemini 9, January 27, 1967: Apollo 1, June 6, 1967: Edward Givens killed, October 5, 1967: Clifton Williams was killed in a T-38 crash, November 15, 1967: Michael J. Adams was killed after the vehicle departed from controlled flight and experienced an in-flight breakup, and December 8, 1967: Robert H. Lawrence, Jr. was killed in an F-104 Starfighter in a training run. The lose of life posed a question, how much was enough? People were dying one after the other, and we continued to put human life at risk, for what? For progress, what about at the expense of others lives. This was not the only turning point.

The 1960’s was a period of transformational change and bizarre contrast; idealism and alienation, flower children and murders, and great rebellion. Some say this post WW2 generation was both the best and the worst generation for the United States. Young people began to protest reform and separate themselves from the differing opinions of patriotism, drugs, and sexuality. The party line differences began to form and become prominent, and so the culture wars had begun. The liberals fought for the rights of all, and their momentum was swinging. For the conservatives this period was a time of technological breakthroughs. Keep in mind, that this period was also the biggest jump in college students into society, from 1940-1960, 3.6 million students entered into the highest educational system. This led to more high-minded/misguided activists with the enthusiasm to devote themselves to political and social issues. The Space race played a role in the militaristic spin off during the Vietnam war. Liberals were highly against war, and as many know, they protested peace and harmony. With Nasa behind human loss and at the leadership of the greedy, war crazed driven leaders, liberals fought united in protest.

We believe that with the loss of life only mounting and billions spent of something that will only serve as an issue of bragging rights, the Nasa missions were corrupted. Society needed that money for education and for other purposes. Those purposes were to put the people of that nation as the highest priority, not at a disregard. I don’t believe that the Apollo missions were worth the cost. Yes, there was a brief shining moment of glory, but 4 years later the Apollo program was cut short, and another man mission to the moon was never attempted again. Was it worth the cost? As for many blacks, they questioned the funds of the space race, while they were struggling to find a job. People were hungry, ill, and poorly educated in the black community. It could be said that the fathers of the nation would let a few thousand die from hunger, for the lack a “few” dollars for the sake of progress. The space budget increased tenfold in five years and the total amount of actual development didn’t even come close to our expenditure. When do we stop? Death, Money, and Greed, when will it really be enough to satisfy our insatiable leaders. 

[sonreiv]

i absolutely despise when ppl paint katsuki as an abuser when horikoshi doesn't even say he's an abuser. Bullying and Abusing has some similar aspects but they are different at the end of it. Katsuki is. a. bully. Izuku recognizes that Katsuki is a jerk and what he did was wrong/bad (and he actually has stated that he hates katsuki, twice) but still sees his strong qualities that make him admire him

(This ask has been sitting in my drafts for the longest time and I thought with the upcoming episodes it was the perfect time to stop procrastinating and finally finish it. Sorry for the wait, nony! I mostly agree with you, but I want to further discuss some points so I hope you don’t mind I got a bit lenghty. You got me an excuse to ramble up some meta haha.)

A TL;DR beforehand: canon analysis supports that Katsuki should not be interpreted as an abuser, but an early bully at most. I also did a little analysis on the early middle school chapter and how it shows BNHA’s society/the peers Deku and Katsuki grew up around set up a bullying enticing enviroment, and how bad translations have us interpret their relationship as more aggravating than it really is - Deku NEVER said he hates Katsuki, for instance. Not once.

I agree that Katsuki is not to be interpreted as an abuser. He does not want to pursue Deku in order to hurt him; instead, he wants to push Deku away from himself. There’s a difference between “I want to possess you, to make you stay around me and hurt you emotionally and physically” - and “I don’t want anything to do with you, go away, don’t interact with me or else”. The first one is abuse. The second one is what Katsuki felt about Deku for most of his life (albeit very simplified). At the times when Katsuki did hurt him - threatening him in middle school, getting out of hand during the heroes vs villains team trial, punching him during the end of the term exam, etc - was because he felt threatened; so his response was to push him away with violence, with an attempt at “teaching” Deku to stay away from his lane.

This is not to defend Katsuki’s actions; this is only a reasoning, not an excuse. His violent behavior towards Deku is still inexcusable. I only want to make clear there’s a difference between “I want to go out of my way to hurt you” and “I will smack you if you push me”, even if his concept of being pushed is distorted to his own experience and it still does not make his violent actions okay. He fears and despises what Deku did at those times: talking to Katsuki as if Katsuki isn’t on the pedestal he grew up believing he was on. This is the core of Katsuki’s feelings. He does not want to abuse Deku. He wanted him to go away, and he WOULD physically/verbally assault him if that meant pushing Deku away from him. And the rest of his threats/aggressive banter is just really how he talks to everyone else.

Even in canon it’s explicitly stated Deku was the one who insisted on following him because of his admiration, and that was what Katsuki couldn’t stand; he wanted him to be away.

And that was way before. The game is changing, and the development of their relationship is one of the core points of the series. Katsuki recognized him as someone who is not allowed to lose, someone worthy of All Might’s trust, and just very slowly started talking to Deku like he does to everyone else.

I also believe that affirming Katsuki would be an abuser in a romantic relationship with Deku misses the point if the person is okay with it if it’s a friendship/platonic relationship, or if they ship Katsuki with other people. Someone who is abusive does not isolate their behavior to one single person, nor does abuse happen only in romantic relationships. Abusive friendships exist. If one thinks katsudeku is okay as long as it’s platonic, if they believe in their growth and healing enough to believe they can start and share a healthy friendship, then the same should be applied to a romantic relationship. Also if Katsuki were to be an abusive partner to Deku, he’d be the same to other partners. If he were to be emotionally manipulative, possessive, constantly putting him down and hurting him while also keeping him - he’d do it to any other partners. The thing is people who ship katsudeku usually don’t ship it hc'ing that Katsuki keeps his ill behavior towards Deku in the relationship - we cherish the character’s growth and development. The canon Katsuki, the Katsuki with the bad behavior in the older chapters, as stated above, didn’t even wish to keep Deku around as a peer, let alone to form some kind of deeper bond. The romantic katsudeku ship I personally want is the kind where Katsuki grows and changes (as it’s slowly happening in canon) enough past his insecurities towards Deku to be okay with approaching him like he does to other peers. No possessiveness, no emotional abuse, because I personally don’t see that coming from him.

Since we got to this point, something interesting and relevant that I don’t usually see being pointed out is that in the very beginning of the story, it wasn’t only Katsuki opposing to the idea Deku could enter UA while being quirkless. The entire class laughed at him, and the teacher didn’t bat an eye.

This is not to gloss over the fact Katsuki did show unexcusable behavior towards Deku, but I think the scene was set up that way to show it was not only Katsuki’s isolated behavior, but the system, BNHA’s society is shaped to mock and discourage individuals who believe they can become heroes or achieve certain things despite the conditions of their quirk(lesness). The way the society is shaped was Deku’s childhood bully. He was mocked by his peers as young as 4, while at the same time Katsuki was put in a pedestal because of his quirk - which led to his massive ego complex. We can’t analyse their personalities and relationship without taking in account the context they grew up in. Many people frame Katsuki as the single-handed culprit for Deku’s bullying background without taking this whole context into account, while also casting Deku the role of a submissive, persecuted victim when he deliberately chose to stick around Katsuki, and just generally shows to be a character with a lot more agency than that.

And what’s interesting in this scene is that Katsuki didn’t laugh along with everyone else when Deku says he wants to apply and he might have a chance. Because Katsuki takes that seriously. He takes that as a personal offence. The whole point of Katsuki’s ill feelings towards Deku were always that he

feels as Deku is mocking his efforts by believing that himself, a quirkless boy who didn’t do any kind of physical preparation for a heroics course - has chances of becoming a hero as much as Katsuki, who is a born genius AND presumably prepared himself to apply to UA, with training and studying, going as far as scolding his colleague for smoking because he wanted a clean student record.

he feels threatened by Deku because ever since they were kids, as much as Deku admired him, he also saw Katsuki as someone who was able to get hurt and could have a hand offered to like anyone else; Deku saw him as superior in terms of skill, but an equal as a human being, while all the other kids did not. And that made Katsuki not stand him. Because he’s scared of being anything less than the very best, he’s scared of being someone who can be offered help - in his eyes, someone who can be pitied and looked down onto.

And that’s why he reacts with hostility. He wants to intimidate Deku out of even trying to apply to UA. It’s even stated by Katsuki’s colleagues he got out of hand this time, implying it’s not normal behavior for Katsuki (and I’ve seen people saying it was confirmed by Horikoshi himself, though I don’t have sources so don’t quote me on that). Again, he will only seriously smack Deku down if he feels threatened. He does not go out of his way to put him down on a daily basis because he doesn’t want to interact with Deku to begin with.

Also, Deku actually never stated he hates Katsuki. Not once. What he actually says is closer to “he may be a jerk, but-”, which is how the official english translation translated it, as seen above (stole the picture from this post by @kiraelric because it’s where I found it faster :P). Here’s a post explaining it, and I quote @sugarmagic who gently broke down the first panel - which FA translated as “I hate his guts” - for me:

Basically the word 嫌う, the verb form is “to hate” but 嫌な奴 is “unlikable/disagreeable guy.” So what I’m pretty sure happened is that they didn’t realize な was modifying the word to be an adjective. It’s not describing Deku’s feelings, it’s describing Kacchan’s character. The reading of the kanji is written as “iyana yatsu,” versus “Kacchan ga kurai” which really would be “I hate Kacchan”. Then again, even if they read it that way, the furigana explicitly shows the reading, so I don’t even know what they were thinking.

 The translation group Fallen Angels takes way too much freedom and completely distorts some lines, and the dislike of Bakugou/his relationship with Deku in the western fandom was heavily influenced by interpreting it via FA’s aggravated translations. I had people who know japanese tell me how gratuitously innacurate the translations are - as an example, FA translates Deku thinking Katsuki is difficult to deal with as Deku thinking Katsuki causes him to be aware of his own flaws (source). The translations paint Bakugou’s character and his relationships, specially with Deku, unnecessarily harsher than they really are. In fact, something the localisation usually fails to translate is how Bakugou’s “die!” and similar threats are not be taken as seriously in japanese as one would in english - but rather pretty immature and petty (source).

So! If you read up to this point and you’re interested in reading other meta on Katsuki and Deku’s characters and relationship, you should check @explodo-smash’s meta tag. They’re a pretty smart team and can explain/analyse things better than me - in fact their meta helped me a lot understand better their dynamics post my bloody Fallen Angel readings. That’s all for today, and thank you for taking the time to read.

[conflictedrabbit]

2* the AvPD

Conversation w/ my friend I mentioned earlier. With their name / identifying characteristics edited out and some chopping here and there. 

___: 

I made a post abt avod once tho and it got like A few rbs and I thought "if this isn't irony idk what is" Trje

66ccff: ekjal;kdjd;

___: 

me: why do, so many avoidants want to pay for being alive avpd Tumblr: hm . I relate

66ccff: ekleja;ejdl;k

___: me: I'm glad to know people relate but are we fucking ok

66ccff: 

LOL i mean mood tbh

___: HINESTLT like I noticed i do it cuz of you NFBNSBDKSBDKSS

66ccff: though do you mean pay as in like. pay the medical system or pay as in guilt

___: Guilt

66ccff: 

kejk;ldj;L yes ok that is definitely me me: i breathed 5 gallons of air within 3 hours i am so sorry world

___:

me: [realizes it's not entirely religious trauma and also probably just Guilt over taking up space and needing to help ppl otherwise Why Live?} 

Oh god me

66ccff: (this is not even ironic i get like this multiple times a week)

___: 

hdjhdjsd I've been having a bad ep lately actually and like I think I failed to look 5-6 people in the eyes today CUZ IM JUST [WALKS AROHND] WOW . TERRIBLE

66ccff: 

omg it's ok i nearly cried in class today b/c i didn't have a good eng translation for this jp sentence

i was like.... no.... don't....

i stabilized cuz the teacher went on a tangent for a second but like forcing myself to look in his eyes and act normal was so hard i looked away so many times i wa slike. oog my god. end m i love it when walking around where there's other people makes me really nervous and irritable agoraphobia is great!

___: 

GOD yea It's so awkward for me I'm fine if I have a safe person or I'm walking to class but like

66ccff: i came back from class today and took a 6 hr nap cuz of my shame and agoraphobia

___: 

Rip Wish I could do that...

66ccff: well i haven't done my homework so

___: 

I just. Cry a lot NDKSJDJDNSKDNS rip me: I'm strong Me: spent the last 5 days like crying over nothing

66ccff: 

dkjle;ajd i mean... i used to cry but then i got mad at myself for crying so now i just Repress (tm) and sleep and then. the joke is that sometimes it doesn't work self harms... oops... that didn't work either better nap again

___: 

zz Pillows keep u safe Idk what I've been doing lately but I thought I was getting better til I realized I was like Abstaining from feeding myself BFBJSBFSJJFD

66ccff: o h my god

___: 

And I was like "oh fuck I'm a terrible person bc someone told me I should eat and j Didn't Do It I Failed Them"

66ccff: 

ahahahahaahahaha i thought i was getting better too but it was actually because i was just forcing myself to study to give myself an illusion of doing my part and then i went to school and my actual performance is like bad b/c i avoid so many activities that would make me better and i just

___: samd

66ccff: 

Wow i want to die!

___: 

hdjsjdjs

I think I only managed to eat cuz my brother was expecting me to

66ccff: tavpdfw you want to be punished constantly so you don't have to have anxiety about existing

___: 

Cuz he bought me dinner like 6 hours ago but I didn't touch it til now BFJDJD MEEEEE

66ccff: dkja;eljd;

___: 

GOD me: ah I feel good today Me like 3 hours later: oh my God I shouldn't feel good abt myself that's so Selfish ? I am trash

66ccff: oh Mood

___: Avpd solidarity

66ccff: 

honestly i love my environmental soicology class but liek it talks about how we're all consuming and putting things back into the environment

___: Idk how I manage to have avpd and __pd but that's how it is on ths bitch of an earth

66ccff: and i was literally contemplating if death was the only way to take myself out from the cycle

___: 

Me Bhhjsfjd

66ccff: 

i was like holy shit. it's not just consumption i forgot i also put bad gases into the air with everything i breathe i am Bad

___: 

All day today I was hearing abt what happened in Vegas and we were like. Talking in my apologetics class abt the Nature of Evil

66ccff: the true environmentalist take is death

___: And I was just thinking "why must I, exist if all I am is bad"

66ccff: 

oh my god same! i looked over my abt page and i was like this looks fake tumblerina

___: 

apologetics: so mankind is basically evil Me: great! I'll die so there's less evil in the world

66ccff: 

me ME

MEMEMMEMEMEMMEMEMEMEME

___: HHDHSBDJSHD

66ccff: 

sometimes i have fantasies of like going backwards and apologizing to everyone i've ever talked to and to everyone who ever had to work to produce what i've consumed

___: 

M. E

m

66ccff: 

and then hoping that they forget about me and then like disappearing forever i jsut can't see how some people can be like oh yeah factories in china and mexico earn less than 2 dollars an hour to make our stuff and not jus twant to kill themselves

___: 

I'm just pathetic and compulsive if I feel bad about stuff I apologize til like 2 weeks after God. Yea

66ccff: 

the joke is that people hate if you overapologize so you jsut damned if you do damned if you dont :upside_down:

___:

me: uh sorry for being sad People: don't apologize for that Me: Avpd:.  They are mad that I am apologizing also that I am sad Hhhfjjejd

Me: 

ME WKJD;LKD "can you stop saying sorry" "sorry"

___: 

me: oh God I'm so miserable Someone: oh im sorry Me: I wish I could accept this but Pity is too much for a lowly worm like me

66ccff: "what did i just say"

___: MMSNDNBHHHHHHGGGGG

66ccff: 

:smile: :gun:

MOOD

___: avpd feel when you don't deserve to be pitied ?

66ccff: pity is too much kindness ___: 

God yea

LIKE probably just a conflicted feel but I prefer ppl being active than pitying me but then I'm like

"that's selfish I don't deserve that ?"

66ccff: 

someone tells you to watch where you're going feel like you're unable to go outside for the rest of the day

___: 

m. mebdbdhdhdjs

66ccff: oh yeah the joke is that i want people to like. be kind to me but also i don't

___: hell brain

66ccff: so i can't say what i want

___: GGG YEAH

66ccff: 

be kind to me except don't because i'll feel invalid either way so maybe just don't talk to me >feels worse anyway

___: 

Hhhhhhhhhhh me Me: talk to me ? But I don't know what to talk abt ? But I am also not good enough for pity you could just sit there maybe But then the presence of another person will overwhlem me and I'll go cry again/s

66ccff: feel free to entertain yourself, and forget about me, ___: 

Mebdndmdkskdjsja god [looks at all cluster c disorders] you are all bitches and I hate tou

66ccff: 

tavpdfw u gotta depersonalize to make it through the day of talking to other people and acting like ur a normal human bean MOOD

___: GOD yea

66ccff: 

i have a question though if im depersonalizing why do i still feel terrible even if i feel ilke im fake smh

___: God me

66ccff: 

me: i'm not real so heres me acting like i am chill and cool person that is interesting maybe or maybe not me, inside: this sucks and i hate this but im not real so it shouldnt affect me but damn i hate this when u feel separate from your auto-pilot but you still experience all the shame you would without it :thinking: avpd is stupid and contradictory and evolutionarily useless

___: 

__pd isnkind of the same but like if you manage it well you can get stuff done but you still breakdown over the TINIEST DETAIL I hate it And I waste more time thinking abt what I'm gonna do and not actully DOING MT SHIT

66ccff: cripes

___: LIKE A NORMAL PERSON

66ccff:

me in high school UGH i'm ahving that problem right now dude in high school i used to just waste my days reading manga and thnking i should do my homeworka

___: 

me: I'll spend this hour scheduling [2hours later] Me: [stressed nbdjdjjsjdjsjdks

66ccff: and then i'd like. start at 10pm and fuck myself over ___: rip 66ccff: have a crying session at 4am every time an essay is due the next day ___: I actually didn't do one of my assignments tonight 66ccff: bad coping habits ___: Rip me I got discouraged over something lame JFJSNFKSNFD 66ccff: oh mood

___:

relationship issues: occur Me: well, I can't, do anything ever again

66ccff: 

i shouldn't even be discouraged abt my classes bc i'm here to learn and i'm just like. i know nothing i deserve to die kejd;kakejd friend, disagrees with you on something you feel unsure about: WELL I GUESS I AM BAD AND THEY HATE ME NOW time to ghost them

___: 

me: [perceives someone not caring for me] me: and Now...what is Mine Purpose...what do I live for...my Friends....have all abandoned m MEEEEEE avpd sounds super dramatic when you separate it from yourself but like In the moment I'm always just [jdut starts Fucking Crying

66ccff: 

i just want to manage to some kind of social work, give my wealth to some impoverished family, and then kms before 30

yeah my therapists in the past are like why... so soon

___: Jfjdjfjdf 66ccff: and i'm just like "why not i need to minimize all my ills on the world and also on the emotions of my family" ___: That reminds me of like. One of my mutuals talking abt how early he sleeps and he was just 66ccff: this is the optimal time look my life plan

___: 

"why be awake longer than necessary"

Hdhdhfjsjfdjdjdband. I was just . Me

66ccff:

because you hate yourself too much sleep :^)

___: 

God yea That's true. Me rn

I should've been asleep like an hour ago but [plays secret of Mana and then mopes]

66ccff:

dude i used to have bouts of insomnia b4 i got drugs that knock me out (and help me w/ anxiety) like.... i would lay awake and every second of being awake was just making the situation worse

___: I feel like I should get meds to balance out my bipolar eps but

66ccff: but then i couldn't sleep anyway so it was a damned situation ___: my parents r so anti meds 66ccff: rrghbh

___: 

also like Internalized ableism That I don't Needthem and So Many people don't need them

66ccff: oh yeah, why do my essay when i can read an hour of garbage romo manga and feel slightly less bad during that time and then hate myself more

___: 

So I Can do it cuz I'm like Everyone Else and not like Those "crazy" people Rifp

66ccff: 

man i don't wanna encourage meds if your side effects r bad but honestly how did i get the fuck through high school other than triggering intense anxiety about all assignments

like... i was so nonfunctional i shouldn't have even been in school

.....

66ccff: 

all accessibility problems are solvable humans are so bad

___: caring ? About others ? What a concept 66ccff: except sometimes they are good but that is definitely not me

___: 

Me

Ok I try to overcompensate w good to make up for inherent badness THANKS RELIGION

66ccff: 

the US is like: here's a pricetag for your life pay up

___: AAAA

66ccff: 

yeah i can see how christainity wouldn't help there w/ the "original sin" and stuff that doesn't quite exist in other abrahamic religions iirc judaism doesn't even have hell

___:  it's really weird

66ccff: 

i'm guessing its bc of jesus like.... y'all binches killed him so now this is life - christainity

___: 

Like. Christianity makes the most sense to me probably cuz I grew up w it but fuck Man

66ccff:  o yeah i grew up w/ some christianity too ___: It's FUCKED!!!!!! 66ccff:  i actually have agoraphobia issues w/ going inside of churches ___: Oh same 66ccff:  :^) ___: I'm actually fairly anti-church just because the current state of them is very bsd 66ccff:  oh yeah

....

66ccff: 

how can someone like me, who is literally not deserving of life, raise someone else

scrumbles

___:

Me Hdjehdsk

66ccff:  ___ we are so fucked ___: 

It's true Life is fucked We, are fucked

66ccff: existence is violence

[the-coven-of-equilibrium]

A Place For My Head

Respects Be with the beautiful Souls Chester Bennington & Chris Cornell, two legends who shone brighter with love than the stars, May you be Eternal… My Love, Prayers and Strength go out to all grieving at this time.

This is for LP, Anyone who has had their lives touched by Chester and LP, The Kids that connected from Day 1 and their little brothers and sisters, this is for anyone living with mental illnesses. This is for anyone with the heart and patience to read this part of my story. Now, to clarify, I’m not here to give you a play by play on Chester Bennington’s life, career or mental health etc, you can research that on google. This post is about the perspective of a loving fan, the influence on my life and how I know he touched the lives of so many others of our generations. For when you look past the statements from us i.e. “He helped me through so many dark times” and “they made my teen years bearable” this is what we mean and this is my connection to one of the most inspirational artists of my and younger generations time, someone who has done a whole lot of healing us. Let this not be undone in his death, for then darkness will truly prevail.

Warning: Before you continue reading, if you are feeling vulnerable and easily triggered, for a start, make sure you reach out, I know it’s hard but sometimes you have to, because people are unaware, secondly let them know having company can sometimes be enough as I find people feel nervous as they are unsure how to help- personally, simply being there can help sometimes, even if it doesn’t seem it. If that doesn’t work for centring yourself and you know what does then do it. If reading this triggers you, take care of your mental health and stop reading, do the best you can and notify someone then find something proactive, physical and connecting to do; walk to a park and sit on a swing for a bit, check out some nature etc, do your hobbies, push through okay? <3 If this makes you feel you want to share your story Please, do not hesitate to write me!

I’ve lived with suicidal demons for as long as I can recall, for me, it comes in waves or sometimes a reaction to stress and other triggers I will not go into. I’ve learned over many years this is irrational but this does not ever change involuntary thoughts of my death, this is often too hard for me to express because well, who wants to burden someone with that kind of heavy info right? Plus people seem to panic, people mean well but the reality for me is that I have to know who I can share this with and I’ve learned “my reach out network”- that’s what I call it. I have steps I take when I see my signs and I do my best to push through and it’s not the elixir of life but it can help a whole lot from a serious dark hole to a being in a weird mood for a little bit.

My Name is Denise, I am 28, I am a Mother of 2, A singer in a band and a mind that never switches off.

I live in Sydney, Australia J

It was a brisk Friday morning, the usual morning school rush to get the kids in, I skim over my socials, Mama tagged me in a post, I opened it and saw Chester’s face, though I did not read the headline. I jet out the door with the munchkins to rush home for my online orientation at 9am for this new Bachelors Degree I just started, since I’ve finally gotten my headspace back together again, after a traumatic couple of years and getting my life back on track with my path. Racing back home with excitement about my course and thinking through my busy day and thereafter, building up my plans in my head. I arrive home, quickly flick on the computer monitor, put away my belongings, got myself comfortable at my computer space open my orientation and as it loads check my notifications on FB  to read the words “Linkin Park Lead Singer Chester Bennington dies at 41, Suspected Suicide”-… A moment of hesitation before this registered, immediately I think “this is a hoax”, but my heart knew it wasn’t, It was on what would have been the late beautiful Chris Cornell’s birthday I thought, this was no accident… not knowing how close they had been. I felt like a piece of me died at that moment. A disorientating wave of emotions rolled over my whole body as tears began flooding. Just as hard, all the memories I connect to linkin park began to flow in from day 1 when I was an 11yr old self to this day, “the soul that resonated through myself and a generation alike, inspiring and humble with an energy I have yet to see matched, the words that held my spirit through my darkest places, the guy who set the bar in my mind on performance delivery of my 14 year old self…” My skin was crawling, I couldn’t stop crying and I still didn’t want to believe it, to be quiet blunt I wanted to die myself. My mind had begun spiralling and I could feel the dark swirling in me, beginning to take over my mind loosing focus of my day of what was in front of me, my hands began to shake and tingle and I didn’t know what to do with them-I thought to myself: “I’ve never felt this way, ever, when someone famous has died.” I knew what my pain was asking me to do but I was there enough to come back, I looked at my keyboard, sobbing, I click open a tab and decided to just write:- which transpired to be this blog. My first post.

As I type Incoherent spurts and whirls of anguish, I tried to avoid the media like the plague, though I checked some of my favourite artists out to see who was feeling the loss. The Plea from the Rock Community taking such losses is so evident its not being taken lightly by artists who also live with these demons, They want it to be clear to the fans that this isn’t the answer and to the fact we basically need to wake up to the real depression around us and all the complacency going on all around us. I’m right there with them, It is the very truth we need to recognise; this shouldn’t have happened, but it did and we need to do something about it, as a community to make this world more aware and equipped. And why was he alone???Almost intrusive, the pain starts to sink in further…” How could you just leave like that?” I’m mad!  I mean, as a mother… dude, He left 6 children, friends, family and a huge vulnerable fan basis behind…but he doesn’t deserve to be crucified in death for being weak in a moment of misjudgement…  I’m angry… though not enough that I will allow it to over shadow the suffering of this beautiful man or the legacy that remains in Linkin Park. It broke my heart to know he was alone, for all the times his words, voice and energy stopped me from self-harming through my teens and all my life, all those times I was at the brink with no self-esteem… If you find you are there, DO NOT BE ALONE.

; Because of LP and bands alike,we found a safe place for our battered, confused and angry souls. For me, it was enough to stop me from acting on the intrusive thoughts, and still is.

Stumbling across a review of the new album, I realised, I hadn’t made the time yet to check out the new Album, the wave came crashing down inside me like a tsunami after the quake; I felt so guilty, I claimed loyalty and I heard the single, yet I was so caught up in other music this year, I had overlooked my boys album release, how could I? I felt I had betrayed Chester in a way. That I failed how I would usually pledged my loyalty. Further, to go open The Track List for “One More Light” … Tears and sobs were all I could muster, One Glance at the track list I felt like I was reading a hopeless indirect goodbye from my hero, my weirdo friend who held my soul when no one was listening, who is now gone. The 2017 release of “One More light”…. With endless scolding reviews that Linkin Park no longer embodied the teen angst it did when I was a teenager, Crucified for apparently-“simple” lyrics and ”soft singing” and “a lack of connection”- are you kidding me?Maybe as i am someone who has lived with a mental illness, it was easy for me (and i am sure many others) to depict the tone of the album is a point, a point of extreme turmoil, the point of healing and change and pressure…( A familiar feeling I have endeavored through many a time and currently trailing out of the most recent spiral). The album is full of silent screams of his state of mind, he was so sad, letting it out. Really, the music and artist features were progressive, Chester was always honest about wanting to explore into more pop music as well, he told us this like 10 years ago… so they tried something new, in the truest Linkin Park form. Honing in on the generations wave without a stylistic intention at that, how can one deny they would be able to resonate with our youth today, the level of depression going on in youth today breaks my heart, most of us deal with remnants of complex generational trauma we didn’t ask for but try our damn best to deal with…  Heavy Really is a good example, They teamed up with an awesome artist who was all up and coming with the youth, they were with the times, always, so why be so critical because they weren’t afraid to grow. It’s a fucking sad and beautiful album at the same time… my resonation with this album is insane as always, I wasn’t afraid to see them change… do you know what it feels like when you’ve been crying so much and you need a fresh break that touches your soul…

So let’s time hop for a few paragraphs shall we? As an impressionable preteen, I looked to my cousin (who is 3 years older than me) who showed me some of what heavily influenced my music taste and style to this day.  Having been brought up around an immensely eclectic variety of music and free spirited people, it was without a doubt I was curious to hear everything everyone listened to or had to offer. I mean, it was and still is my thing, since I could possibly remember or imagine, nothing on this earth is parallel to my passion for music, people and writing poetry, nor has it been easy for me to share with my peers with surmountable anxieties around expectations from myself of myself, vicious cycle. 

By gosh did I fall head over heels for Linkin Park from the first listen, I would have been about 11yrs old, at the time I already liked some pretty obscure music, which we can also leave for another time. One step closer;  the first track I remember hearing of Linkin Park, my eyes beaming with this hype of energy building in my core and as it moves into “SHUT UP WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU!!!” and the music just taking me over the bounce back between Mike and Chester and I remember smiling and this feeling of release.. straight away and every time since. Every track touched my heart.

My first memories when learning of Chesters suicide were of when I was 14 and my cousin bought me LPs “Live in texas” DVD & CD for Christmas, I played that DVD on repeat all summer and I was absolutely blown away by the whole band but as a singer I looked up to Chester, the way he commanded the stage with his multifaceted energy. The ability to be so raw, yet still so nurturing to their audience. I vividly remember “A Place For My Head” impacted me and stays with me the most, it became the level of expectation from artists from that point, Safe to say he blew me away and I hadn’t even seen them live!

Then the opportunity came in October of 2007 Minutes to Midnight Tour where I saw them live for the first time, and Chester was sick, he couldn’t scream and couldn’t give it his all, I remember feeling disheartened and felt bad for Chester, he didn’t have the best health. I was grateful they still played and I still enjoyed the show since it was so incredible and the band was so awesome and the visuals that show - wow. I never turn my back on artists on 1 sore performance though, so there was no hesitation when the next show came in December 11th 2010   A Thousand Suns World Tour.- I have to say I know any deep Linkin Park Fans will be mourning as deeply as I am, I know because I’ve felt it, discussed it and hear the respect and love we hold as fans for LP amongst my peers over the years! At School, random public awkward social situations and someone was repping an LP shirt and you felt safe to strike up a conversation, at parties they were the bonding point for so many of my scary situations,clubs, conerts,pubs,parks, Town Hall :P Just everything was that much more because of LP. In 2013 for Soundwave and Sidewaves They soared, Opening with faint a resonating crowd, singing to all the tracks, the heavy Linkin Park fans came out of the woodworks for tracks from Hybrid Theory and Meteora screaming and roaring along the lyrics while I’m being squished and people surging, with circle pits whirling next to me, as I’m centre stage 4 rows back, in my regular fashion, I found my kindred, losing our shit to every line, as well as our voices. Hanging onto every moment and following Chester back and forth across as hr owns the stage while the ever beautiful Mike Shinoda cradles Chester and the crowd with the rhymes that resonate through time and us in that moment, the energy, respect and love so true moving through the entire venue.  My Mama has seen some amazing shows in her time (My Music Guru) and she was blown away that the crowd response, still so strong and energetic for Linkin Park she said “Your crowd was so beautiful, You can see how much they love LP they sang every line of every song old and new and so respectful”  I gleamed a cheshire grin of pride at my mama..  

I could go through the entire track list and tell you how they correlate to my life and why, how each line, lick, scratch and scream resonates through my physical and spiritual being, to some they may have been just “an emo band” or “nu metal” but to me- Today My Hero Died and took a part of me with him more than I can still make sense of but I will instead explain something else. When I was 11 the worst time of my life began, things irreplaceable, things beyond my comprehension, to many things beyond control. It was at this time where I was lucky and found Linkin Park, as the years moved on, still passionately connected to LP and trapped in a private hell I shared with non but in outbursts of rage where my family would correlate Meteora to my mind frame, which is close but at the time I didn’t fully comprehend what I was hearing and why I felt so connected to Chester, I would later discover many obvious reasons why. I remember when Meteora Dropped, Oh man, My family remember when Meteora Dropped… everyone in my house ended up becoming a Linkin Park Fan after that… To me… What Linkin Park did for me sometimes as a teen who was dealing with a surmountable level of complex issues in her life (like most teens)… Linkin Park made things easier to face the world most days… a place for my head- exactly that- the anguish I felt was inadvertently at this peak of emotional drowning and I can easily tell you a better part of my youth had been Listening to LP alone or peers alike. Fast forward to 2017 and I am 28, only now have I woken up and begun to heal, only now just a mere 3 weeks ago did I begin my therapy to unravel the pain… To lose my hero… To affiliate on a confusing level and digress at the actions he chose.  Today… I sat in a taxi Blaring Linkin Park on my phone Balling my Eyes out and it was in waves over and over, At first i could bring myself to listen to a song, I opened the gate with “My December”… One More light…The song I would come to see significantly, every song broke my heart all over again. 

Learning more about Chester I discovered he was a fellow March Equinox baby, like me! J What some of the things he had faced were and how strong he was, how honest and kind he was. In all this, Chester was amazing, he was forgiving, loving and a beautiful person. He explored, experienced and conquered more than we can imagine, he sang with and is respected by timeless artists and became one himself. There is a void in my world knowing he is not on the planet anymore but I take solace in the beauty he left behind, even in death, a sad beauty of an unbearable loss amidst a riptide.

Chester,  So much more than just a singer, the inspirer, the honest humble soul, someone who has saved and touched millions of lives that span across entire generations. Reflecting with friends about Chester’s passing, people seem to feel stumped at the irony of the amount of people he helped in the world with sharing his pain with us.. the thing is as artists, this is our soul on show… a pain can be shared but not cured by this mere act, but to express the depth in which this turmoil revels. The Shadow is always there…

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_v1SLIt01Q0)

Imagine; You meet your hero, your idol growing up, you guys totally hit it off at a gig one time and become super close, so close you are gifted being godparent to their child. You abruptly loose this friend while on tour for an album which exploits depths of your mental illness which was misunderstood because it did not embody the angry teenager anymore but the healing of confronting your mind and the rage beneath the surface of the ocean… as an outsider if this is what I see, I couldn’t imagine how hard it was for Chester, He Lost His New Harmony in loosing Chris…

One More Light… The Last Linkin Park Album with My Hero I will discover, and its more real then i could have ever imagined, I can’t stop playing every song from the album, and i never will.

Such a fucking amazing band LINKIN PARK, such gifted beautiful unforgettable individuals, such resonating souls of one band who changed and touched the lives of millions all over the planet, who are timeless, I’m sorry for your loss, I’m so sorry and I love you all, every element of LINKINPARK is a masterpiece of contrast and raw beauty. 

To my dear fellow LP and Chester Fans, Please do not despair, we know rationally what is right, so don’t give in and lose hope, we need to suck it up and keep in touch. Don’t hide, let it out and make this world a more beautiful place for each other. Put those tracks on that touch your heart and never forget what we lost in Chester but never forget what he was a part of building, still remains. The side projects he was a part of, the opportunities he explored for growth like being the front man for Stone Temple Piolets! The amount of bands and artists who were inspired to start writing because of Linkin Park, The Love and Respect that he gained through being a true working musician and person who overcame so much in living world and taught us how to heal when nobody was listening. Fuck the Media and their negative breeding avoid buying into peoples crap and remember what you value, remember how YOU connect, who you love and stay close to them, remember the thigs that shift our focus to a productive healthy place of love.

The answer is not out, it is in, be unafraid to be real, keep it raw. Peace.

Chester, you will forever inspire my art as you already did, I will forever be motivated to heal. I love you for everything, thank you

-D'Amor Feroz

[arisefairsun]

@shakespunk replied to your post: Well meaning but self-serving

@giuliettaluce replied to your post: Friar Lawrence was the action of a peacemaker, while Benvolio was only in words (the part of when he interfered the servants in a sword-fight at the beginning), Lawrence took the action and did it with good intentions. Although it didn’t work at the end, I take Friar Lawrence as a man who only wishes the end of a war and to save the last souls of two warring families.

@letsgetabsurd replied to your post: my lit teacher at school said that technically Friar Lawrence was to blame not because he married them in secret and so on, but because he was incompetent profession-wise: he should have known that Death always takes what was promised and Death shouldn’t be fooled around with (Juliet tricking everyone that she was dead) Though I haven’t given him much thought since that so I don’t really have my own solid opinion. I��d like to know your thoughts about him

@the-princess-of-pirates replied to your post: He had the best in mind when he started but instead he helped solicit a death march of at least four children/young adults. Misguided hope.

Thank you guys so much for sharing your thoughts with me! What you said is really interesting, and here’s how I feel about him:

I think Friar Lawrence is an enigmatic character with a really intense development through the story. He is wise and ignorant, confident and appalled at the same time. His speeches are excessively long, filled with monotony and homiletic expressions. It’s ironic that he criticizes Romeo’s ‘love’ for Rosaline because it ‘did read by rote, that could not spell’, when his own language is limited to received verbal conventions and incessant rhymes. For instance, I always thought that his first speech contrasted entirely with the vivid poetry that Romeo and Juliet had shared only a few seconds ago in the balcony scene. He spends a huge amount of time giving advices to the lovers, especially Romeo, constantly using commonplace expressions. Both R and J rely on his wisdom, his ‘long-experienced time’, and his ‘art’ to find a solution to their problems. Indeed, he knows what people should do—he knows what his books say people should do. But when it comes to putting his own advices into practice, he fails chaotically just like everyone else. Zeffirelli made him trip and almost fall down when he warned Romeo, ‘Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.’ Romeo couldn’t help laughing.

I’ve been trying to find a text post which suggested that all the Friar had to do, after Lord Capulet sold Juliet to Paris (because that’s what he did), was simply say the truth to the Prince. I can’t seem to find the post again, but credits to OP! I thought this was very interesting, and I think the fact that he opted to fake Juliet’s death might prove how scared he is himself. Perhaps he is afraid of the consequences of having married Romeo and Juliet without the consent of those two violent, uncontrolled families that keep murdering people for the slightest of reasons. I think the Friar is just that—an old man who has been living inside his books and among plants all his life, who knows really well how things should be, but who underneath all the received knowledge has a trembling heart and a panicked mind. ‘So smile the heavens upon this holy act,’ he says in the wedding scene, ‘That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.’ He is also full of foreshadowing, just like the lovers. In Zeffirelli’s movie, he is about to stop Juliet from leaving his cell with the potion. He reaches his arm toward her, his mouth about to pronounce the first syllable of her name… but then he lets her go. He covers his mouth with his hand and closes his eyes frustratingly. In Luhrmann’s version, we see him fret and sweat as he waits for the time of Juliet’s awakening to come. He is desperate and vulnerable and not at all the long-experienced man whose ‘art’ could prevent any tragic outcome. The ferocity of the feud is more potent than any kind of wisdom—it prompts even the wise to make bad choices. ’Fear comes upon me,’ he says, ‘O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing!’ This turns him into a very interesting and pitiful character to me, because he is just as lost as Romeo and Juliet. The philosophy, the 'adversity’s sweet milk’ that he mentioned in 3.3 becomes completely useless. I think fear, more than irresponsibility or unconcern, is what makes him leave the tomb after Juliet’s awakening. He quickly comes up with a new plan for her: a convent, something that she rejects entirely. But then he is overcome with fear again: ’I dare no longer stay’. (I love how Zeffirelli made him scream these words over and over again as he ran outside the vault.) Away from his plants and books, he is devastated, drowned in despair, exposed. He has experienced the horrors of Verona and discovered that life is not as simple as his advices presumed, that things like dread and impotency can be really harmful. To me, one of the most heartbreaking lines of the play is what the Third Watchman says: 'Here is a friar that trembles, sighs, and weeps.’ And weeps. The Friar is crying. Perhaps he has realized that his books did not encompass the entirety of human passions. He had warned Romeo that 'they stumble that run fast’, but in the tomb scene he said, 'How oft tonight / Have my old feet stumbled at graves.’ Kenneth Branagh’s 2016 production made him fall on the floor overcome with tears after he delivered his last speech, and not even the Prince’s absolution seemed to have any effect on him.

So I agree with you—his intentions were good, but his handling of the situation was not. I’m really fond of characters who start out as confident and determined, but who are tragically, poetically defeated by chaos. I think expressions like 'I dare no longer stay’ or 'Fear comes upon me’ are really intriguing, coming from a character as resourceful as him and who seemed to be immune to imprudence. There are, on the other hand, other factors that thwarted his plans: namely plague. That’s what didn’t let Friar John deliver the letter to Mantua, and Shakespeare’s audience wouldn’t have found it odd that plague would ruin someone’s life. However, I don’t like reading the play as an unfortunate accident, though you can definitely interpret it like that if you want. I don’t think the real tragedy is caused by Friar John failing to send the letter or Romeo not waiting five more minutes to kill himself. I’m not actually sure Romeo and Juliet would have had their happy ending if they had escaped to Mantua. The Capulets were already planning to poison Romeo. (And, moreover, I think the essence of the play is the restoration of Verona and the triumph of love over hate. It would have been bittersweet to me if Romeo and Juliet had simply run away to another place, escaping from an endless chaos that would have never found a solution. I think the story is Verona’s society itself, and if the lovers had left it behind it would have become sort of pointless. Verona had to destroy Romeo and Juliet and their own destruction had to restore Verona in return.)

I like to compare Arthur Brooke’s prologue to his poem with that of Shakespeare. Both are sonnets and both give away the ending of the story. But Brooke elaborates on how they die:

Love hath inflamed twain by sudden sight, And both do grant the thing that both desire They wed in shrift by counsel of a friar. Young Romeus climbs fair Juliet’s bower by night. Three months he doth enjoy his chief delight. By Tybalt’s rage provoked unto ire, He payeth death to Tybalt for his hire. A banished man he 'scapes by secret flight. New marriage is offered to his wife. She drinks a drink that seems to reave her breath: They bury her that sleeping yet hath life. Her husband hears the tidings of her death. He drinks his bane. And she with Romeus’ knife, When she awakes, herself, alas! she slay'th.

Shakespeare, on the contrary, focuses on why they die. His prologue informs us of the violence of 'fair Verona’, and the 'death-marked love’ that ceased it. So what’s important is not so much how things happen but why. I tend to think of the sleeping potion as a device to situate Juliet in her grave, her 'wedding bed’, ergo allowing both lovers to react to each other’s death by consciously choosing death over life, which turns out to be the only way they have to claim their rejection of the feud. We can partly blame Juliet and Friar Lawrence and their death-faking plan, Friar John and his inability to deliver the letter, Romeo and his impetuous suicide, Balthazar and his too effective service to Romeo, etc. But I think it’s quite unfair, because none of them wished to do any harm. The Friar and Juliet were desperate and scared and Romeo had to 'shake the yoke of inauspicious stars / From this world-wearied flesh’ after the death of the only person who assured that his real identity did not depend on the Montague surname. To me, Romeo and Juliet’s death was not a mistake caused by the Friar’s undelivered letter, but rather it was R and J’s deliberate, individual choice because they could not stand the oppression of their environment. I think that’s more tragic than an accident and more complex than a mistake made by someone as excusably desperate as the Friar. Basically I love everyone and can’t blame them for anything.

That’s my reading!

[jthelmsdeep]

An election post-mortem. Don’t confuse me with the facts!

The US Presidential elections are long over, and from the rubble of the vitriol, deflection, and lack of substance during the debates has emerged the de facto President-Elect of The United States. Barring a catastrophic revelation such as, say, the late discovery that Donald J. Trump was born in Russia, he will be sworn in as the 45th President of these United States. To say this election was fractious might qualify as the understatement of the year. Relationships were sorely tested and many failed the test.

We are a culture of “adjectives,” and we’re terribly fond of labels. Our tendency is to classify people as one thing or the other, but maybe even more shocking was how so many Christians declared other Christians unfit to be Christian simply because of their political leanings. Facebook and its social media ilk became the unwitting arbiters of disseminating fake news more than truth.

And the mainstream media?

Well, completely out of touch with the masses, and focused on promoting their own agenda, they were shockingly reminded that the people and not they, control the cultural narrative as well as the impact of political discourse.

So now, on the eve of the inauguration of the 45th POTUS, is as good a time as any to perform a necropsy on the state of our country following the recent elections. Obviously (at least to me), the primary purpose of this exercise is to, in general, understand why our political differences caused so much dissension and vitriol, dissect the reasons for which Christians became as divided as we did; and in particular, to find out how Christianity has emerged from this erstwhile battle.

Let’s begin by reminding ourselves that Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote by a significant margin, while Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than two million votes (Yes, I’m aware that conspiracy theorists suggest that the popular vote was rigged, but that contention is hardly worth the rabbit trail built by such divisive and unproven theories). Whatever the case, this divided result points to a nation sharply divided evenly down the middle, at least among the voting populace.

Talking about voter fraud, let’s begin this conversation with the idea of fraud. What’s really fraudulent is this notion that our political system is a binary party system. That’s the biggest fraud of all, and I heard it perpetrated by Evangelical Christians numerous times during the election cycle. It became the primary reason for getting behind Trump in spite of all his, shall we say, inadequacies.

To excuse the stench of his blatant excesses which clearly reflected a departure from Scripture, the popular Christian refrain became, “I’m voting for President not for Pope.” But why were Christians willing to overlook his shortcomings when confronted with options other than his candidacy?

Seeing as how so many of us interpret our party system as a binary system, the answer to that can be explained by two primary ideas:

It would appear that, as far as Christians were concerned, Liberals and Democrats were assiduously working to ridicule and delegitimize their faith, while apparently seeking to cloak themselves in a garb of spirituality that was, at best, a pretentiously thin veneer of pseudo-spirituality. Hillary Clinton’s suggestion that the Christian faith was going to have to catch up with the current times, arrogantly demonstrated that—at least in her opinion—the Bible isn’t as authoritative and infallible as Christians hold it to be. She miscalculated the fact that many of the issues that Christians hold sacrosanct are indeed mountains-to-die-on, and so to dismiss them as cavalierly as she did rubbed many Christian Black, White, and Hispanic voters the wrong way. In that gross miscalculation, she fatally underestimated the power of the Evangelical voting block.

The Democratic Party has an ideological disconnect with Evangelicals. The manifesto of the Party would seem to suggest that only people with liberal and “progressive” ideologies need apply. As a friend of mine put it, “There is no room in the Democratic Inn for Conservative Christians.” This disconnect in large part gave rise to the “vote for a party platform even if you don't like the candidate” ideology.

While these two reasons would largely explain the Evangelical voters support for Trump, ultimately culpability for the vitriol surrounding the elections lies with ideologically and intellectually arrogant Democrats, racially prejudiced and misogynistic Republicans, and theologically illiterate and intolerant Evangelicals.

But were these reasons, in all good conscience, reason enough for Christians to vote for Trump? Weren’t there more than two political parties platforming candidates for the Presidency? The answer to those questions would be ‘no’ only if you believe that our system isn’t binary.

Truth 1: The Fallacy of a Binary-Party System

A so-called two-party system is a subterfuge that derives its strength from the lemming-like following of political ideology. How can it possibly be a binary system if there are five party candidates on the ballot sheet and a space to fill in any name your heart desires? While it’s true to say there are two major party candidates, if the majority of the electorate decided to vote for a third party candidate because they found  the two main party candidates ill-suited for the position of POTUS, then that groundswell of support at the polls would undoubtedly carry the third party candidate into office thereby making nonsense of the claim of a binary party system.

The truth lies somewhere closer to the fact that too many Evangelical Christians are inexplicably tied to a party platform more than they are to the qualifications of a given candidate. To read some of the illogical postulations expressing why “real” Christians must vote for a political party even if you aren’t particularly enamored by that party’s candidate, would seem to suggest that if Hitler, or even Satan himself ran on the platform of said Party, he would be a shoo-in for their vote based on the party platform principle.

Look friends, this tired rhetoric of voting for a party platform borders on the absurd. As Christians we don’t apply such logic to any other area of our lives, yet in politics it seems to hold sway against all wisdom to the contrary. Might I remind you that it wasn’t possessing the ten commandments—the platform upon which a Godly nation was built—that made Israel holy and righteous before God, it was their observance of said commandments.

They weren’t better off than the pagan nations because they possessed or believed in the ten commandments, they were better off only if they observed them, as succinctly pointed out in the Scriptures in Deuteronomy 11. After all, how many of us pick what church to attend based on the political beliefs of the pastor? In other words, how many of us have had conversations with a pastor about his political party platform before we make the decision to embrace the Biblical beliefs he espouses (which, unlike a political allegiance, are actually relevant to our salvation and wellbeing)?

Many Evangelical Christians would have us believe that supporting something as inanimate as a party platform determines whether or not one is a true Christian, but in the same breath they turn around and suggest to gun-control advocates that guns are inanimate objects and don’t kill people, other people kill people. But, much like a gun is an inanimate object—and according to those who support gun ownership—doesn’t kill people, the same must be said about political party platforms. A platform doesn’t govern, nor does it promulgate regulations and laws, people do…for better or for worse, regardless of what party they belong to.

Proof?

Truth 2: The Fallacy of Roe v. Wade and The Lesser of Two Evils

Republican appointed Justices have been a majority in the SCOTUS since 1953 and did in fact vote in support of Roe v. Wade by a majority of 7 — 2 in favor of the decision. Of the 7 Justices who voted for the decision, 5 were conservative Republican appointees with only one dissenting voice. That’s an inconvenient truth for Republican “party platform” Christians who’d much rather sweep those facts under the rug by deflecting attention to the Democrats as pro-abortion-baby-killers, even though there is an entire movement of Democrats against abortion. Again, party platforms don’t establish legislation or belief systems, people do.

Is it reasonably possible to believe that people can belong to a particular political party without subscribing to everything that the party stands for? Arnold Schwarzenneger was the Republican Governor of California, yet only his fiscal policies made him a moderate Republican. His social platform was more in line with liberalism (he actually officiated at the wedding of a gay couple). President-Elect Donald Trump, and former Florida Governor, Charlie Crist (among many others) have both switched political parties in recent years. Why? Did the party manifestos suddenly change, or did they wake up one morning and suddenly realize that, like a sail boat drifting in the undertow of the current, they’d drifted away from the party platform they once so strongly believed in? I think not my friends. I’d suggest that it’s simply political expediency.

But these politicians aren’t the problem that concerns me, we Christians are!

You see, it would be fine if we’d simply suggest that we’re supporting a candidate because we believe he or she will work to serve our best interests. But when we attempt to couch our support in spiritual garments and suggest that others who don’t see what we see are either not “real” Christians or not “hearing” God clearly enough, that is deceitful and monumentally arrogant at best. To imply, as has been done on numerous occasions, that one candidate’s sin is more grievous than another’s is selective morality. And make no mistake about it, a selective morality that suggests that going with the lesser of  two evils is the better option, is in itself deadly. It is the very definition of moral relativism, which evangelical Christians decry and detest in everyone else.

I like how a friend of mine puts it:

“It is this same moral relativism that conservatives condemn among liberals that made evangelicals support a thrice-married, serial adulterer with a precariously tenuous prior relationship with Scripture and wafer-thin pedigree in Kingdom issues over a well-qualified Methodist woman married for over three decades to one man and had no history of adulterous conduct.” ~ Gbenga X

While I don’t personally believe that Hillary Clinton would have made a better POTUS for the majority of Americans, I can’t help but agree with his contention that to point out one of the candidates’ shortcomings as being more egregious than the other’s—based primarily on the party platform they represent—is moral relativism, which, in a very real sense confers on Christians the self-attributed authority of ‘gods’ dispensing judgment and our own brand of justice as we see fit.

If Daniel and the three Hebrew Boys had exercised a choice between the lesser of two evils instead of restricting themselves to vegetables and water, they would have opted for some of the fare from King Nebuchadnezzar’s table—which the king had expressly requested be given to his servants—so as to avoid falling into disfavor with the king and possibly face death for repudiating his authority. If Daniel had opted for the lesser of two evils when Nebuchadnezzar instructed that everyone in Babylon bow down and worship the giant image of him, he would have kept the doors to his room closed and prayed to his God secretly so as to avoid the death penalty. Instead he opted to spend a night using lions as pillows.

If Joseph had opted for the lesser of two evils he could surely have justified acquiescing to the advances of Potiphar’s wife knowing that a good word from her to Potiphar would make life better for him and potentially elevate him to a position of authority so that his prophecy of being honored by his parents and brothers would come to pass (He was smart enough to also know that a negative report about him from her to Potiphar could potentially end his life). Instead he honored his covenant with God and opted for prison for two years under the unjust shadow of false allegations. I’m sure by now you get the point.

Truth 3: The Deceiving Allure of Political Power

I would boldly assert that we Christians hold political power and expedience above our witness as Christ followers to outsiders! Why else would we want to impose our beliefs and lifestyle on everyone else, especially through gaining political dominance? Why else would we think that imposing legislation against abortion would ever stop those who don’t believe as we do from getting abortions? There is grave danger in trying to build a “Christian” state by legislation in spite of the fact that not every American believes the way we do.

While one might argue that radical Islam is on a rampage globally, terrorizing the innocent and attempting to forcefully impose their beliefs on others, if we Christians attempt to impose our beliefs on others under the guise of political expedience, how are we any different? After all, history shamefully brandishes the terrible crimes against humanity that have been committed in the name of Christianity, all under the guise of protecting the faith. Consider the Spanish Inquisition of 1478 established for the following stated reason:

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella wanted an all-Catholic kingdom as a tool with which to Unite Spain. They did this by forcing people to admit to being heretics and then publicly killing them or imprisoning them for life. Those accused who did not admit to being heretics were still found guilty by a tribunal and publicly executed. The tribunal was established with authority from the Pope (by definition, a heretic was anyone who didn’t embrace catholicism). http://www.thenagain.info/WebChron/WestEurope/SpanInqui.html.

While you may be tempted to argue that radical Islam is still worse because, as a religion it is fundamentally violent, I would counter that logic by simply asking, is one crime more heinous than another because the perpetrator of one crime wears $5000 suits, lives in a Manhattan penthouse, and drives the car of your dreams, while the other is poorly educated, raised-in-poverty, and is a never-do-well petty thief who broke into your house and robbed you at gunpoint?

If the answer to that question is no—and I’m confident that it is—then we must recognize that we cannot impose our way of life on anyone simply because they view life through a different prism than we do. The only proven way to win the outsider isn’t by legislating and imposing our version of morality, but by loving them into the Kingdom.

So how does it look for the Church post-election?

I imagine the answer to this question will largely depend on how much humility we’re willing to model. Whether we consider the outcome of the recent elections a victory or defeat, we must resist the temptation to name call, label, denigrate, and deride other people’s interpretation of their faith, as if we have a monopoly on wisdom and are the only ones capable of hearing God distinctly.

All too often, we’re quick to unsheathe our verbal swords as soon as we perceive that our interpretation of faith is under attack, and this makes it difficult to listen to the other side of the story. I realize that abortion, gay rights legislation, immigration, terrorism, the economy and a myriad of other issues are all hot-button topics of the moment, but consensus will never be reached by any side attempting to insensitively impose its will on the other.

As Christ followers we must remember that our fight isn’t against “flesh and blood” but against “principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and wicked spirits in the heavenly realm.” If we can keep this big idea forefront in our minds, then we will ultimately always come back to the most important idea there is…Christ and Him Crucified for the sake of the whole world! After all, that is the Good News of the Gospel, isn’t it?

Finally, I’ll conclude this lengthy dissertation by reminding us that the Church always does better when we’re on our knees than when we carry arms (Acts 12:5). It’s time to faithfully and fervently pray for the 45th President of the United States of America, whether you voted him into office or not. That is what 1 Timothy 2:2 demands of the professing Christ follower. Just my Dos Centavos!

[olympus-summit]

VIII. Strength, Upright | Shinobu | Post-Trial 6.4 | re: Doctor, Izar

[ CW: Discussed suicide, discussed murder by cremation, blasphemic language (in the context of the councilors being seen as gods) ]

Shinobu’s happy with the compromise on the photos, judging by their nod. They’ll still have to make physical copies for when they finally cut ties with Monty, but for now making several backups should be enough. The same idea applies to all the other conspirators too, of course, but Shinobu doesn’t know if they have any digital mementos they’re holding onto.

And speaking of the long term fates of the team…

“…I don’t know if there is anything that will ever be penance enough. Not in life nor in death. So I… I just want them far away from anyone they can hurt again. Exile or imprisonment, I-I don’t… I think I might be okay with either of those, as long as we don’t leave them to die to a prison assassin or in the wilderness.”

Shinobu wonders if they should have a stronger opinion on this, of all things, and yet… Yet even with the metaphorical sword in their hands, they can’t find it in them to put down the people who either provided or enabled their suffering. Is this what their past life that lived though the 2000s had felt? Having all the power to ruin the people who had ruined them, and then just… not?

Izar seems to believe that’s the ideal they should all aspire to, and… Shinobu agrees with that part, they think, at least for themself. Shinobu thinks that given resources and security, they’d always opt for being lenient. But a lack of grace and leniency is not a moral failing, not in this context. The condemnation of the anger that many Councilors feel doesn’t settle right with them.

Shinobu would love to have the inner strength to just let go of all their bitterness so easily. They’d love to not feel so furious at just how profoundly they’d been manipulated and abused, and they’d love to not feel shame at their own emotions! But Shinobu’s got emotions and so does everyone else, and there is only so much detachment and repressing one can do.

They don’t comment on what most of what Izar says to the Doctor. It’s a very personal topic that would honestly do more harm than good to debate publicly. Nemesis’s rebuttal is also mostly personal considering who and what he brings up. Shinobu tries to keep their focus on only some of what’s said, first on clarification of some information.

“There a-already is organ-printing tech out there – that’s actually one of the predecessors to the Forge… and one of the inventions that makes Titan Productions so important to the world. I don’t want them monopolizing that anymore. I don’t want anyone monopolizing it. Either we steal info directly from Titan or we reverse-engineer it here. I don’t think it matters as long as it’s done. Ideally we’d get citizens all set up before hitting Titan, but… W-We’ll have to adapt as we go.”

But even when Shinobu tries to tune out the personal callouts… There is something not meant for them to hear that still stings. The insistence that everything Izar did that day was to seek information and confirm his suspicions about there being another floor.

“…I told you all during lunch I suspected there was a hidden area. I-It was buried by the arguing. But I still said it.”

Ultimately, Shinobu had been powerless throughout the meeting they themself had called. They could not stop the long-burning bridges from collapsing. They could not dissuade anyone from taking a reckless path. For a week now the ill-fated meeting has been festering in their chest, because for once Shinobu did everything right and it all still blew up in their face.

And then Izar told everyone in the basement that Shinobu had become part of a clique, as if they hadn’t spent 36 hours doing everything they could to salvage consensus out of the divide.

“I-If anyone, literally anyone had just – had just followed up after we cooled down, I could have explained myself. 'Things change' – what if that could have changed it further? I could have talked about the hampers! I c-could have snuck more items into them, o-or snuck myself into one… a-and it would have been a bad idea! We’d have gotten in a lot of trouble if and when the Fates caught us.

B-But it would have been better than a suicide pact for a plan that… that e-even you had doubts in, Izar. In chat, you were… in disbelief, a-about being alive. E-Even though you insisted in your letter you thought the others were alive…? I… I don’t understand. I’m trying, but I can’t.

…It wasn’t you putting information above everyone else that hurt me the most. I-It’s that you… you didn’t trust a-any of us to come up with another way.”

Shinobu shivers, sucking breaths sharply between their teeth, shutting their eyes to block out the vivid light of the tribute pyre. They don’t want to throw any further fuel into the tensions. They’ve finally admitted, to themself and to everyone else, just how much their brief but tumultuous tenure as council president had affected them.

There’s still something Shinobu wants to make clear, though. Frustrated and hurt as they are, they do not want to reject an offer of support.

“Yes,Izar, I still want you helping me w-with guard duty. Please. Neither of us should do this alone. And I’m not cut out to plan a… to plan all of this, cyber-attacks and revolutions and all that. I know there’ll be decisions that I… don’t know if I can make. I-I’ll stick to what I can do: Being a proxy to protect us from each other.”

They don’t just mean protecting themselves from Team Prometheus and vice versa, either. There are a lot of people who aren’t on speaking terms anymore, but Shinobu as a messenger provides a line of communication.

Shinobu doesn’t comment on the subject of who should process the raw footage. Several people have already volunteered themselves, and all that’s left is trying to figure out a combination of people that actually can work together, but not so closely that their biases turn into blind spots. Of course that’s what they’ll have the group feedback session for, but the fewer drafts they all have to watch, the better.

Besides, there’s the issue of retraumatizing themselves by watching the fighting, the murders, the executions, and… and there isn’t a good solution to this, is there? Regardless of who’s in charge of the first pass and who gets involved in the review sessions, people will suffer. A lot. With a resigned sigh, Shinobu notes down their own preferences on their tablet, pending change if someone raises another objection. The subject still weighs heavy on their mind, however.

“…I… F-For the footage, I only have one request. Actually, it’s not footage that already exists, I think. I hope. So I want to record something.

I want th-that camcorder in the capsule hotel and a tripod. I want to film the i-incinerator. I want the world to know exactly how our past lives have died.”

Suffocating emotions continue to swell in their chest. Guilt and catharsis and anger, anger that even Shinobu has been denying to themself. They have spent the past two months being scared of their own emotions, and now that they’ve vented off some of their frustrations it feels like their words just won’t stop bubbling forward – not violent and overflowing, but a gentle boil that burns all the same.

“O-Obviously it’s just going to just…  j-just be trashbags in there. But if they have the imagination to call us gods, they have the imagination to know how their gods burned to death.”

Even in their wrath they still cling to their aversion to violence and suffering – they won’t ask if there is footage of previous councils’ deaths, and they don’t want to know. Shinobu, personally, doesn’t feel like it’s their right to broadcast that even if footage does exist. (If others feel differently, so be it; Shinobu’s just gonna have to leave the room during that segment of the reel.)

…Is that enough? What about for the second broadcast, to discredit the councilors themselves? Is there more Shinobu can do…?

…There is one more request Shinobu can make. But not now. They need more time to prepare themself. There’s a story they have to tell, over a hundred years too late for it to matter.

They want to do something that matters. Something that no one – not the Titan Administration, not their fellow Councilors, not the whole world – can overlook and ignore.

(Shinobu doesn’t understand why they haven’t stopped shaking yet.)

[vsplusonline]

Coronavirus: Testing blunders crippled US response

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/coronavirus-testing-blunders-crippled-us-response/

Coronavirus: Testing blunders crippled US response

A series of missteps at the nation’s top public health agency caused a critical shortage of reliable laboratory tests for the coronavirus, hobbling the federal response as the pandemic spread across the country like wildfire, an Associated Press review found.

President Donald Trump assured Americans early this month that the COVID-19 test developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is “perfect” and that “anyone who wants a test can get a test.” But more than two months after the first U.S. case of the new disease was confirmed, many people still cannot get tested.

In the critical month of February, as the virus began taking root in the U.S. population, CDC data shows government labs processed 352 COVID-19 tests — an average of only a dozen per day.

“You cannot fight a fire blindfolded,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said at a recent briefing. “We cannot stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected.”

The Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, has begun an internal review to assess its own mistakes. But outside observers and federal health officials have pointed to four primary issues that together hampered the national response — the early decision not to use the test adopted by the World Health Organization, flaws with the more complex test developed by the CDC, government guidelines restricting who could be tested and delays in engaging the private sector to ramp up testing capacity.

Combined with messaging from the White House minimizing the disease, that fueled a lackluster response that missed chances to slow the spread of the virus, they said.

“There were many, many opportunities not to end up where we are,” Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the director of the Global Health Institute at Harvard, told the AP. “Basically, they took this as business as usual. … And that’s because the messaging from the White House was ‘this is not a big deal, this is no worse than the flu.’ So that message basically created no sense of urgency within the FDA or the CDC to fix it.”

Even as private labs have been cleared by government regulators to process tens of thousands of additional tests in the last two weeks, experts warn that the nation is still falling well short of enough testing capacity to keep ahead of the highly contagious virus. And it can often take a week just to get results back.

Trump last week rated his administration’s response to the crisis as a perfect 10. However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the CDC’s system wasn’t designed to test for and track a widespread outbreak, which he characterized as “a failing.”

In interviews with the AP, two federal health officials with direct knowledge of the situation said CDC experts don’t know why many of the agency’s test kits failed to reliably detect the virus. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about what went wrong.

J. Stephen Morrison, a health policy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, called the testing issues a debacle, contributing to what he described as a confused and delayed federal response to the crisis.

As a result, he said, the CDC has now been marginalized within the White House — a worrisome development.

“CDC has generally been regarded as the best in the game,” Morrison said. “I don’t think they anticipated the technical difficulty or the speed with which the virus has been moving. The virus was racing out ahead of them.”

FATEFUL DECISIONS

On New Year’s Eve, Chinese scientists informed the World Health Organization about a cluster of 27 pneumonia cases of unknown cause in the industrial megalopolis of Wuhan that they linked to the city’s wholesale fish market. Less than two weeks later, the Chinese had sequenced the virus’ genetic makeup and shared it with the world.

Within days, German scientists had developed a test that could identify a unique part of the virus’ DNA. The WHO quickly adopted the German test, publishing technical guidelines on Jan. 17 and working with private companies to produce testing kits.

As they have done with some past outbreaks, officials at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta decided to develop their own test, focusing on three gene targets distinct from what the WHO used. Over the decades, the headquarters lab had built a track record of being among the first to develop tests for new diseases and quickly making them available for disease tracking.

The CDC published the technical details for its COVID-19 test on Jan. 28, 10 days after the WHO. By then, the virus had already been in the U.S. for at least two weeks.

The 35-year-old man who would become the first American to test positive had arrived in Seattle on Jan. 15, following a trip to Wuhan. After swabs from his nose and throat were flown to the CDC lab, federal officials announced the results Jan. 21.

In an interview on CNBC the following day, the Republican president was asked about the risk to the nation.

“We have it totally under control,” he said. “It’s one person coming in from China. … It’s going to be just fine.”

With limited capacity at the CDC lab in Atlanta, the agency placed strict criteria on who could be tested: people with fevers, coughing or difficulty breathing who had also visited Wuhan within the preceding two weeks or who had close contact with someone already confirmed or under investigation for having the virus.

On Jan. 30, the day the WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency, Trump again assured the American people that the virus was very well under control.

Then he departed for a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he tweeted a photo of himself playing golf at his club in West Palm Beach.

“Getting a little exercise this morning!” the president wrote.

The following day, the U.S. declared its own emergency. Still, U.S. citizens returning from China who did not have a fever weren’t tested for the virus but were encouraged to self-quarantine at home for 14 days.

At that point, the CDC had confirmed just eight cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. The agency amended its testing criteria to include people with fevers who had traveled to China, rather than just Wuhan.

FLAWED TEST KITS

Four days after the U.S. declared a state of emergency, only 178 patients had been tested and 82 others were listed as “pending,” meaning they were awaiting final results, according to CDC data released at the time.

To help increase the number of people being screened, the Food and Drug Administration issued emergency authorization for CDC-certified labs run by state health departments to begin processing swabs, and they were provided with kits that could test 250 patients.

As the first tests were processed at the state labs, technicians reported getting inconclusive results, which the CDC has said could be due to the test looking for signs of generic coronaviruses, of which there are many, rather than the specific virus that causes COVID-19.

Whatever the reason, by mid-February, only about a half-dozen state and local public health labs had reliable tests. But still, CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield continued to insist his agency had developed “a very accurate test.”

“We found that, in some of the states, it didn’t work,” Redfield said earlier this month. “We figured out why. I don’t consider that a fault. I consider that doing quality control. I consider that success.”

The testing problems emerged just as the CDC broadened its criteria to include patients who were “severely ill” with COVID-19 symptoms “even if a known source of exposure has not been identified.”

As more sick people sought to be tested, many states were forced to limit access because of the flawed CDC test. Accounts began to emerge through social media of people with all the symptoms of COVID-19 who either couldn’t get tested or had test results delayed by days or even a week.

“I know of doctor friends of mine who have critically ill patients in the ICU, and we don’t know if they have COVID or not because we can’t get a test,” Jha said last week.

COMMUNITY TRANSMISSION

On Feb. 24, exasperated officials at the Association of Public Health Laboratories sent a letter to the FDA, basically asking permission for state labs to develop their own tests. Within days, the FDA reversed its previous position and said both public and private labs could conduct testing.

Trump continued to insist the virus would die out on its own. “One day, it’s like a miracle. It will disappear,” he predicted Feb. 27.

By then, experts say, the opportunity to halt the relentless spread of the virus within the U.S. population had been lost.

On Feb. 29, only 472 patients had been tested nationwide, with just 22 cases confirmed, according to CDC data. Of those, nine cases were not related to travel but had spread person-to-person within the U.S.

By comparison, South Korea had its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on Jan. 20, the same day as the U.S. Officials there used a test that focused on the same gene targets as the WHO test, according to the website of a test manufacturer. They then quickly permitted private-sector labs to run the samples. As a result, a nation with less than one-sixth the population of the U.S. mobilized to test more than 20,000 people a day.

South Korea also instituted drive-thru centers, allowing quicker identification of those who were infected but might not be displaying symptoms, thus slowing the emergence of new cases to a more manageable level.

Meanwhile, the rate of U.S. infections soared.

“The system is not really geared to what we need right now, what you are asking for,” Fauci conceded during a congressional hearing earlier this month. “That is a failing. Let’s admit it.”

SHIFTING BLAME

As public outrage over the lack of available U.S. tests grew, the FDA announced it would allow private diagnostic lab companies to produce new tests without preauthorization from regulators.

Trump and HHS Secretary Alex Azar visited the CDC lab in Atlanta on March 6, praising the agency’s performance and promising 4 million test kits would be available by the end of the following week.

That lofty number didn’t match the ability of U.S. labs to process tests, however. Private providers were just then ramping up, while CDC and state health labs processed about 25,200 COVID-19 tests in the following seven days, according to CDC data.

At the same news conference, Trump said he wanted infected passengers to remain on a cruise ship off the West Coast to keep the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. low.

“I like the numbers being where they are,” Trump said, shortly before departing Atlanta for another weekend of golf in Florida. “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”

Trump has also attempted to mislay blame for the testing troubles on the Obama administration. In 2018, Trump disbanded the White House directorate charged with preparing for and responding to global pandemics.

“I don’t take responsibility at all,” Trump replied when asked about the testing shortfall in a March 13 briefing at the White House.

Morrison said Trump appears to see the virus as a political issue rather than a public health threat.

“You can imagine a White House that said, ‘Do whatever it takes to test everybody for the virus,’” he said. “That wasn’t the mentality. It was the opposite mentality, and ultimately the responsibility to protect the American people lies with the White House.”

Trump and other officials have falsely said they declined to use the WHO test because it isn’t reliable.

“Quality testing for our American people is paramount to us,” Deborah Birx, who is coordinating the U.S. coronavirus response, said last week. “It doesn’t help to put out a test where 50% or 47% are false positives.”

“It was a bad test,” Trump chimed in.

Tarik Jaarevi, a WHO spokesman, told the AP last week that his agency had shipped 1.5 million testing kits manufactured in Germany to 120 countries around the globe, with no such problems emerging.

“The test has been validated in three external laboratories, adapted by WHO and manufactured in line with international quality standards,” he said. “It has shown consistently good performance in laboratory and clinical use, and neither a significant number of false-positive nor false-negative results have been reported.”

Over the past two weeks, U.S. testing capacity has surged, with private companies joining in. LabCorp began providing tests March 5, and Quest Diagnostics followed four days later. Tests also are being conducted at hospitals and other centers.

With the increased testing has come a skyrocketing number of confirmed cases, zooming from 43 at the beginning of March to 33,404 by Monday.

Only in the last few days has the United States finally begun testing more people each day than far smaller South Korea, according to data complied by Johns Hopkins University.

Jha estimates the U.S. should be testing 100,000 to 150,000 people per day — figures he said should be obtainable given the number of high-quality diagnostic labs in the country.

“We certainly have the capacity. It’s just we’re not doing it,” Jha said Thursday. “We are up to about 40,000 tests per day now — and so we are moving in the right direction. Still far from where we need to be, but moving.”

IndiaToday.in has plenty of useful resources that can help you better understand the coronavirus pandemic and protect yourself. Read our comprehensive guide (with information on how the virus spreads, precautions and symptoms), watch an expert debunk myths, learn about the first human trial of a vaccine and access our dedicated coronavirus outbreak page. Get the latest updates on our live blog.

Watch India Today TV live here. Catch the latest TV debates and video reports here.

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[psychotherapyconsultants]

12 Ways to Keep Going with Depression

About once a week I hear the same question from a reader, “What keeps you going?” The short answer is lots of things. I use a variety of tools to persevere through my struggle with depression because what works on one day doesn’t the next. I have to break some hours into 15-minute intervals and simply put one foot in front of another, doing the thing that is right in front of me and nothing else.

I write this post for the person who is experiencing debilitating symptoms of depression. The following are some things that help me fight for sanity and keep me going, when the gravity of my mood disorder threatens to stop all forward movement.

Find a good doctor and therapist.

I have tried to beat my depression without the help of mental health professionals and discovered just how life-threatening the illness can be. Not only do you need to get help, you need to get the RIGHT help.

A reporter once referred to me as the Depression Goldilocks of Annapolis because I have seen practically all of the psychiatrists in my town. Call me picky, but I am glad I didn’t stop my search after the third or fourth or fifth physician because I did not get better until I found the right one at Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center. If you have a severe, complicated mood disorder, it is worth going to a teaching hospital to get a consultation.

Be just as choosy with your therapist. I have sat on therapy couches on and off for 30 years, and while the cognitive behavioral exercises were helpful, I didn’t begin making real progress until I started working with my current therapist.

Rely on your faith — or some higher power.

When everything else has failed, my faith sustains me. In my hours of desperation, I will read from the Book of Psalms, listen to inspirational music, or simply yell at God. I look to the saints for courage and resolve since many of them have experienced dark nights of the soul — Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Mother Teresa. It is of great consolation to know that God knows each hair on my head and loves me unconditionally despite my imperfections, that He is with me in my anguish and confusion.

A substantial amount of research points to the benefits of faith to mitigate symptoms of depression. In a 2013 study, for example, researchers at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, found that belief in God was associated with better treatment outcomes.

Be kind and gentle with yourself.

The stigma attached to depression is still, unfortunately, very thick. Maybe you have one or two people in your life who can offer you the kind of compassion that you deserve. However, until the general public offers persons with mood disorders the same compassion that is conferred on people with breast cancer or any other socially acceptable illness, it is your job to be kind and gentle with yourself. Instead of pushing yourself harder and telling yourself it’s all in your head, you need to speak to yourself as a sensitive, fragile child with a painful wound that is invisible to the world. You need to put your arms around her and love her. Most importantly, you need to believe her suffering and give it validation. In her book Self-Compassion, Kristin Neff, Ph.D., documents some of the research that demonstrates that self-compassion is a powerful way to achieve emotional well-being.

Reduce your stress.

You don’t want to give into your depression, I get that. You want to do everything on your to-do list and part of tomorrow’s. But pushing yourself is going to worsen your condition. Saying no to responsibilities because your symptoms are flaring up isn’t a defeat. It is act of empowerment.

Stress mucks up all your biological systems, from your thyroid to your digestive tract, making you more vulnerable to mood swings. Rat studies show that stress reduces the brain’s ability to keep itself healthy. In particular, the hippocampus shrinks, impacting short-term memory and learning abilities. Try your best to minimize stress with deep-breathing exercises, muscle-relaxation meditations, and simply saying no to anything you don’t absolutely have to do.

Get regular sleep.

Businessman and author E. Joseph Cossman once said, “The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night’s sleep.” It is one of the most critical pieces to emotional resiliency. Practicing good sleep hygiene — going to bed at the same time at night and waking up at a regular hour — can be challenging for persons with depression because, according to J. Raymond DePaulo, Jr., M.D., co-director of the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center, that’s when people often feel better. They want to stay up and write or listen to music or work. Do that too many nights, and your lack of sleep becomes the Brussels sprout on the floor of the produce aisle that you trip over. Before you know it, you’re on your back, incapable of doing much of anything.

Although pleasing our circadian rhythm — our body’s internal clock — can feel really boring, remember that consistent, regular sleep is one of the strongest allies in the fight against depression.

Serve others.

Five years ago, I read Man’s Search for Meaning by Holocaust survivor and Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl and was profoundly moved by his message that suffering has meaning, especially when we can turn our pain into service of others.

Frankl’s “logotherapy” is based on the belief that human nature is motivated by the search for a life purpose. If we devote our time and energy toward finding and pursuing the ultimate meaning of our life, we are able to transcend some of our suffering. It doesn’t mean that we don’t feel it. However, the meaning holds our hurt in a context that gives us peace. His chapters expound on Friedrich Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a why can bear almost any how.” I have found this to be true in my life. When I turn my gaze outward, I see that suffering is universal, and that relieves some of the sting. The seeds of hope and healing are found in the shared experience of pain.

Look backwards.

Our perspective is, without doubt, skewed during a depressive episode. We view the world from a dark basement of human emotions, interpreting events through the lens of that experience. We are certain that we have always been depressed and are convinced that our future will be chock full of more misery. By looking backwards, I am reminded that my track record for getting through depressive episodes is 100 percent. Sometimes the symptoms didn’t wane for 18 months or more, but I did eventually make my way into the light. I call to mind all those times I persevered through difficulty and emerged to the other side. Sometimes I’ll take out old photos as proof that I wasn’t always sad and panicked.

Take a moment to recall the moments that you are most proud of, where you triumphed over obstacles. Because you will do it again. And then again.

Plan something fun.

Filling my calendar with meaningful events forces me to move forward when I’m stuck in a negative groove. It can be as simple as having coffee with a friend or calling my sister. Maybe it’s signing up for a pottery or cooking class.

If you’re feeling ambitious, plan an adventure that takes you out of your comfort zone. In May, I’m walking Camino de Santiago, or The Way of Saint James, a famous pilgrimage that stretches 778 kilometers from St. Jean Port de Pied in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The anticipation of the trip has fueled me with energy and excitement during a hard stretch of my life.

You need not backpack through Europe, of course, to keep moving forward. Organizing a day trip to a museum or some local art exhibit could serve the same purpose. Just be sure to have something on your calendar other than therapy and work meetings.

Be in nature.

According to Elaine Aron, Ph.D., in her bestseller The Highly Sensitive Person, approximately 15 to 20 percent of the population is easily overwhelmed by loud noises, crowds, smells, bright lights, and other stimulation. These types have rich interior lives, but tend to feel things very deeply and absorb people’s emotions. Many people who struggle with chronic depression are highly sensitive. They need a pacifier. Nature serves that purpose.

The water and woods are mine. When I get overstimulated by this Chuck E. Cheese world of ours, I retreat to either the creek down the street or the hiking trail a few miles away. Among the gentle waves of the water or the strong oak trees in the woods, I touch ground and access a stillness that is needed to navigate difficult emotions. Even a few minutes a day provide a sense of calm that helps me to harness panic and depression when they arise.

Connect with other warriors.

Rarely can a person battle chronic depression on her own. She needs a tribe of fellow warriors on the frontline of sanity, remembering her that she is not alone and equipping her with insights with which to persevere.

Five years ago, I felt very discouraged by the lack of understanding and compassion associated with depression so I created two forums: Group Beyond Blue on Facebook and Project Hope & Beyond. I have been humbled by the level of intimacy formed between members of the group. There is power in shared experience. There is hope and healing in knowing we are in this together.

Laugh

You may think there’s nothing funny about your depression or wanting to die. After all, this is a serious, life-threatening condition. However, if you can manage to add a dose of levity to your situation, you’ll find that humor is one of the most powerful tools to fight off hopelessness. G.K. Chesterton once said, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” That’s what laughter does. It lightens the burden of suffering. That’s why nurses use comedy skits in small group sessions in inpatient psychiatric units as part of their healing efforts. Humor forces some much-needed space between you and your pain, providing you a truer perspective of your struggle.

Dance in the rain.

Vivian Greene once said, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

When I was first diagnosed with depression, I was sure that the right medication or supplement or acupuncture session would cure my condition. Ten years ago, when nothing seemed to work, I shifted to a philosophy of managing my symptoms versus curing them. Although nothing substantial changed in my recovery, this new attitude made all the difference in the world. I was no longer stuck in the waiting room of my life. I was living to the fullest, as best I could. I was dancing in the rain.

References

Rosmarin, D.H., Bigda-Peyton, J.S., Kertz, S.J., Smith, N., Rauch, S.L., & Björgvinsson, T. (2013). A test of faith in God and treatment: The relationship of belief in God to psychiatric treatment outcomes. Journal of Affective Disorders, 146(3): 441-446. Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016503271200599X

Hildebrandt, S. (2012, February 6). How stress can cause depression [blog post]. Retrieved from http://sciencenordic.com/how-stress-can-cause-depression

Frankl, V.E. (1959). Man’s Search for Meaning. Cutchogue, NY: Buccaneer Books.

Aron, E. (1996). The Highly Sensitive Person. New York, NY: Carol Publishing.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/12-ways-to-keep-going-with-depression/

[theconservativebrief]

Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s next president, summed up his far-right campaign with the slogan “Brazil before everything, and God above all.”

Think of it as Brazil’s version of “America First.”

That campaign carried Bolsonaro to a decisive victory in the country’s presidential runoff on Sunday. He won 55 percent of the vote, easily defeating leftist candidate Fernando Haddad.

Bolsonaro appealed to Brazilians by promising to “break the system” and depart from the status quo after a tumultuous few years. Brazil suffered from a deep recession starting in 2016. That economic crisis was accompanied by political turmoil, as a massive corruption scandal unspooled in the country at the highest levels of government and business, leaving few high-profile leaders unscathed.

Against this backdrop, a rise in violent crime has left some voters yearning for order and security, which Bolsonaro — an ex-military officer — promised to deliver.

But his embrace of “law and order” carries alarming undertones, as he has expressed a fondness for the country’s past military dictatorship. His anti-democratic views are just one element of his disturbing rhetoric, though; the president-elect also freely spews misogynistic, anti-LGBTQ, and racist statements.

The presidential frontrunner has been compared to US President Donald Trump; both men share a reputation for incendiary rhetoric, have tried to build campaigns on promises to end corruption and crack down on crime and chaos, and know their way around social media.

Indeed, Trump tweeted Monday that he’d called to congratulate Bolsonaro on his victory. Bolsonaro also tweeted about their conversation, saying the US president had congratulated him on his “historic election.”

Had a very good conversation with the newly elected President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who won his race by a substantial margin. We agreed that Brazil and the United States will work closely together on Trade, Military and everything else! Excellent call, wished him congrats!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2018

Bolsonaro’s rise has roiled Brazilian politics — and the election of this polarizing figure could set the Latin American country on a new, unpredictable path.

Here’s what you need to know about the Brazilian candidate sometimes called the “Trump of the Tropics.”

Bolsonaro isn’t exactly a political outsider, though he’s certainly tried to paint himself as one. The 63-year-old is a former military officer and has served seven terms in Brazil’s federal congress. As Mike LaSusa wrote for Vox, the candidate has enjoyed strong ties to the military and rose to prominence as “a no-holds-barred conservative.”

He’s been a member of many different parties over the years, but Bolsonaro most recently joined the Social Liberal Party (PSL), and from there mounted his presidential campaign. His affiliation with the formerly marginal party has turned it into a political force that’s made tremendous gains in Brazil’s legislature.

Bolsonaro relied heavily on social media to promote his candidacy and get his message out. The candidate often seemed to be taking a page out of Trump’s playbook, whether it was bragging about his votes, blaming the leftist Workers’ Party for Brazil’s failures, or promising to “rescue Brazil.”

He also faced intense opposition and protests, particularly from women. Opponents have used the slogan #EleNão, or “Not Him.” In September, a man who claimed he was on a “mission from God” stabbed the candidate in the abdomen at a campaign rally.

Bolsonaro was seriously injured — but it helped raise his profile and gave him something of a “martyr” status. It may have also cowed his opponents, who didn’t want to be seen blasting a man who’d just survived a knife attack.

“I just want to send a message to the thugs who tried to ruin the life of a family man, a guy who is the hope for millions of Brazilians,” said Flávio Bolsonaro, Jair’s Bolsonaro’s son, after the attack. “You just elected him president.”

Oh, where to begin. Bolsonaro has a deep record of making offensive comments about women and the LGBTQ community and racist statements about Brazil’s black or mixed-race community.

He’s held these views for years, but his newfound popularity and presidential platform have amplified their reach. Guilherme Casarões, a comparative politics professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Sao Paulo, told the Washington Post that “five years ago, he was just another congressman with anti-gay views. Now Bolsonaro, like Trump, has become a larger-than-life figure.”

The candidate has even faced charges for his discriminatory comments. Here’s a sampling of some of the things he’s said:

He disparaged indigenous and Quilombolas communities, who are descendants of Afro-Brazilian slaves, implying, among other things, that they were lazy. “I think they don’t even manage to procreate anymore,” the candidate said.

He said that if he had a gay son, he would be unable to love him and would “prefer that he die in an accident.”

He said a fellow lawmaker in congress wasn’t attractive enough to be raped because she was ugly. “She’s not my type. I would never rape her. I’m not a rapist, but if I were, I wouldn’t rape her because she doesn’t deserve it,” Bolsonaro said in 2014.

Bolsonaro responded to a question in 2011 about what he would do if his son fell in love with a black woman by saying, “I don’t run that risk because my sons were very well educated.”

Some of his supporters seemed to welcome his rhetoric, while others wanted him to tone it down for fear that he would alienate voters. Bolsonaro’s opponents have protested against his offensive language, and have even compared him to Hitler.

In response, the president-elect tried to play off some of his commentary as jokes taken out of context, and during the runoff campaign, he tried to use more inclusive language by saying he’s trying to make Brazil safer and better for all its people — though his past stances seem to contradict that pretty clearly.

Some of Bolsonaro’s most controversial statements involve his laudatory remarks about Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship. The country was under military rule from the 1960s until the mid-1980s. In 2015, Bolsonaro went so far as to call it “glorious.”

In 2016, Bolsonaro voted to impeach then-President Dilma Rousseff — indicating that he did so in honor of the deceased chief of secret police in São Paulo, who oversaw the torture of hundreds under military rule. It was a disturbing act, as Rousseff herself had been imprisoned and tortured by the dictatorship.

For his presidential run, Bolsonaro chose as his running mate a retired military general who has also made disconcerting statements about military power, including that the return of military rule in Brazil could be justified under some circumstances.

Bolsonaro did not go that far in his presidential campaign — and he vowed that his government would be “constitutional and democratic” in his victory speech.

But his nostalgia for the days of military rule has alarmed many Brazilians. There are others, however, who sympathize with his position in the wake of increased crime and insecurity in the country.

One of the main reasons so many Brazilian voters supported Bolsonaro is his promise to fix the country’s ills — high rates of violent crime, a faltering economy, and endemic corruption.

A huge and sprawling corruption scandal has engulfed Brazilian politics in recent years, and that sense of dysfunction has made the population dissatisfied and disillusioned with its leaders.

Michel Temer, the outgoing president, is affiliated with a center-right party, and he’s abysmally unpopular. He took over after Rousseff, of the Workers’ Party, was impeached and removed from office in 2016 because of her connections with the corruption scandal. Rousseff was not implicated directly, but her party was in power, and she faced other pressures, such as the deepening recession.

Rousseff’s predecessor, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, served as president from 2003 to 2011 and remains extremely popular in Brazil, as his tenure was associated with economic growth and greater equality. Lula is so popular, in fact, that he was the frontrunner in the 2018 presidential race and was on his way to becoming president again — except he was barred from running because he’s serving a 12-year prison sentence after also being caught up in the corruption scandal. (Lula and his supporters have called his conviction dubious.)

With Lula out, Fernando Haddad, a former mayor of Sao Paulo, stepped in. Haddad tried to tie himself tightly to Lula’s legacy, and he made improving the economy central to his campaign. But he failed to drum up enough popular support to beat Bolsonaro, who successfully capitalized on Brazilians’ discontent with their government and its perceived inability to address the country’s economic and political ills.

Original Source -> 4 things to know about Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s new far-right president

via The Conservative Brief

[idksheepthoughts]

Conversations Me: you actually soft blocked me....                                   any reason why?

Her: lol the fact that you noticed this late   but it happened on accident actually and i went and unblocked               but at that point i was like lmao like she'll notice so i never mentioned it              

Me: If you hate me just say so. No need to lie.... I don't check shit like that every day but it's not that many days since I know it was maybe a week or less ... Whatever. I'm so splitting atm. So I'll shut up before I say something else             

Her: hate? when the fck did i mention that?         yes, better shut up before you stick your foot in your mouth as usual                 since i've done nothing hostile to you as if me feeling like i matter to no one and have the smallest amt of friends possible is somehow how an Attack on You.

Me: you blocked me... on "accident" how does that even happen.... i've told you tons of times that the amount of friends depends solely on yourself. and your willingness to talk to people and work past the anxiety and fear that talking to people causes. . . otherwise I wouldn't even have friends. because if i isolated and neveer talked to anyone ever first that nobody would talk to me in the first place. . . ugh whatever. i've said too much im just going to sober up and talk later i guess.... I can't always be here I try to be but like we said previously, i didn't know what to do between give you loads of attention and give you nothing at all...

Her: tumblr mobile? lol. if you can't believe me when i say that then i don't really want to talk to you since everytime i feel bad or have like, negative feelings regarding my own situations you always take it so personally (1) and then i have to dread these fcking conversations so when we've been talking normally on twitter                 it all goes to fcking shit because you can't accept that i get to feel bad and feel upset about stuff regardless of whether or not im taking actions to help myself in my own way at my own pace...doesn't mean you get to think that i hate you so i blocked you      because what the fuck how does it work when we've been chatting like everyday on twitter?                   and it was (what i thought) fine? good? (2) if it really was the case i wouldve blocked you here or just flat out deleted since then i'd only have one fucking follower :) so just. let me have emotions. and don't assume things. this is so funny because i remember you getting mad at me months ago for the same exact thing   and here we are, situations reversed  

Me: BECAUSE i have a huge fear of abandonment.... it was fine but this stuff even if its an accident just idk .... i guess you never saw how much abandonment even if its an accident sends me into depressive spirals??? have i ever left you no. i've been distant yes but i've never full on unfollowed or left... idk you block me a lot and delete and it hurts every time.                                    

Her: "even if" can you believe me????? first off???? (3) and no you havent god if it was such a problem just follow me and then ask me about it because why would i lie lol (4) i don't like friendships built on lies i'll never talk to someone like that genuinely   i have insecurities too. i have enough

Me: ok it was an accident.

Her: i didn't even think it was a problem first off considering all those people you put on your thanksgiving post. and then you never noticed/messaged me about so i was like k, so that's that! and just talked w/ you normally here  (5)           so let's just accept the fact that we've got our problems and there's better ways to handle this than assuming motives

Me: so you did change url because of that post??? like my paranoid ass thought???? i was right on that???? cause i noticed that and was like... maybe its not related but was it????? cause I just want to know... im not mad at that at all just... i want to not assume things atm.    and i notice stuff slowly because I try not to fall into obsessive traits. its not healthy to check who im following or who is greyed out or blocked every single day. . . I try to just let things be but when I do notice stuff i can't help but explode. I tried to be calm by just asking why.... but i clearly failed at that. its whatever. I followed back. if it happens again just like.. tell me please??? this stuff makes me so close to slitting my wrist                                    

Her: no, i changed my url because i was sitting on that url for a while and i wanted to use it              

Me: okay, it was just a paranoid thought.                             

Her: well, i really, really, really, don't like when you start assuming things even after i tell you or not believing me. we've been friends for how long? does it mean nothing? you'd think i'd lie at this point? x____x       (6) .those thoughts make me want to die      

Me: i'm sorry for thinking irrationally, but with how many people just up and leave, all the time even with being friends for long periods its hard not to jump to conclusions. I am in the wrong for falling into my own paranoid thoughts. You explained things and I don't believe that you are lying so its fine.                        

Her: oh, now you believe me                     after i have to hold your hand when i'm upset (7) whatever i'm probably not going to follow back because i hate that i have no friends and my mutuals ignore all my posts when i try to put myself out there     it's gotten to a point where i can't post stuff on tumblr anymore because i know no one gives a shit             like even as happy as i am about my commission i know if i post that on my tumblr i'll make the artist seem bad when no one likes my post  idc. i'm bitter and alone and probably always will be because i don't have any friends aside from you o/                           like, be grateful you even have that many people to be grateful for   (8)      i'd kill for it i feel like dying when i think about this and i think about it a lot     but ofc i don't moan about it anywhere except on this stupid fucking twitter account                   where you seem ot think i live a dandy life   (9)                                    it fcking sucks bc im trying my best!                                           anyways im done lol           oh and then you post shit like *Edit* (Screenshot of some tags where I said I always listen to people but nobody likes listening to me so I talk to my cats a lot which is true because I’m a burden and i hate bothering people with my problems so much)                    that when you damn well no i have no one else to listen to except you online      and we've been civil lately                         but ok! i guess i don't care!  because im living it up!       #sarcasm    (10)

Me: you havent followed me in probably over 10 or so months, whenever i remade, cause i don't think you followed me when i delteed either,  i didn't expect a follow back at all. i just expect us to be not mutuals but still friends? THEN TALK TO PEOPLE TALK TO PEOPLE AND TALK TO PEOOPLE thats all i did was work past my fears and talk to people and some stuck around some didn't. i dont know what else to say. some of those people haven't actually spoken to me in months either but im still grateful for them. I have nothing else to really advise on that other than you gotta put the talking in first. thats all i've done and its somehow managed to not fuck it up for this long??? i dont think i've had any friend longer than whenever we started being friends... so around 2 years...    

Her: no offense but just talking to people doesn't do shit :) but seriously, thanks :)       (Phone lagged) So I repeated my previous message by accident)                           

Her: yeah probably the only reason you havent fucked it up is because i dont want to be fucking alone and i dont give up easily so ive stayed with this even fi you make me feel like fucking shit when this happens   & since you said nothing to everything else i just said i guess im right :)             god im over this i dont want to fight and i dont want to talk to you becaus eim always explaining my problems and you just like. tell me the same shit each time as if it'll magically do stuff   liek the fact that im trying doesnt mean anything                 i dont wanna talk to you if its always going to be like this ill take the goddamn loss and be lonely while youve got your fucking harem of friends idc if its an exaggeration the point is everyone i considered a friend has just stopped talking to me completely and the only thing i get here is you telling me what to do like i need cold hard instructions for making a friend  

ME: Harem??? You know nothing about anything. Ya know what..... forget it. If it's better I don't say anything because nothing I says helps and  I'm a broken record. You want to assume because I tagged a lot of people doesn't mean I wasn't just fishing for validation. Me trying to help is just being a dumb mistake. I can't help anyone and why I try is also confusing because I am pointless. I'm keeping you in my note regardless you have been here and listened and that hadn't changed.  But if this is just going to explode it's going to explode. All I do is ruin everything and I don't even care anymore I'm going to buy a gun soon anyways. So what's the point in trying to make something work. I've always been a shit friend and it's just not worth it to you at this point. So okay.                   

Her: HERE let me qutoe for you something    "idc if its an exaggeration"                                      ^^^^^^^             unlike you im aware when im being irrational lmao    (11)     apparnetly you get to be and i dont                             thats how it always is            did you ever think about it feels for me   when my only friend does shit like this constantly    like lmao                                ofc not bc why would you consider anything from my point of view  this conversation is over until you want to stop fucking assuming i dont care       LOL     and acting as if me letting you go is the best thing that could happen to me       like we couldnt j ust talk on twitter and let it fucking be but you have todrag it all in at least i get to get stuff off my chest thats the only fucking good that comes out of this  like you dont get that you telling me the same thing hurts because it doesnt fucking work and i dont have any fucking friends  i have college to deal with and studies and that pressure but you dont know the half of it?    but you just want to assume, assume, assume   (12) i cried already out of anger    

Me: I didn't have friends in college either                                 

Her: big offense but i dont want to continue this conversation

ME: Okay

Her: unles syoure willing to admit to your bullshit       because ima lways doing that and im always getting the end of your shit      

Me: I am made of nothing but bullshit I'm nothing but a huge fucking shit storm and I always will be. You should have left a long time ago because I don't know how to not be toxic   It's not That I won't be upset by you leaving far from it but you deserved better people and maybe if you had left and kept trying as you have been things will turn around. Because literally everyone that has ever done that with me ended up fine and in a good spot. I hold people back. And that's all I can think of. I ruin other people's lives by being in it. And I've certainly made your life worse. And I'm just better off dead because I am a selfish fucking loser.     I'll shut up now.