#imagine if i was attracted to people with good personalities and not an arbitrary set of physical features possessed by one in a thousand

[cithaerons]

physical attraction is so funny like this seems… non-optimal from an evolutionary standpoint

[kiruuuuu]

More BB/Goyo in which Goyo is slowly going mad. On several accounts. (Rating E, fluff/humour/resolved sexual tension + smut, ~5.2k words) - written for @kiruuuuu​ seeing as she continued obsessing about these two after this piece.

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Blackbeard is slowly but surely driving him insane.

One big part is the physical aspect, Goyo isn’t denying it – and if it were only that, he’d be as far from complaining as he could be. If his biggest problem was Blackbeard's attractiveness, he’d live in an almost ideal world with most of his dreams coming true, but as it is, the deep-seated desire burning low and slow in his groin merely ensures Goyo doesn’t forcibly eject Blackbeard from his life again due to all the other reasons the American is personally raising Goyo’s blood pressure. He should’ve expected this outcome and largely did, yet imagining having to combat vague incompatibilities while cruising high on happiness hormones which are released in laughable quantities every time he receives a friendly text over the holidays was somehow decidedly easier to stomach than dealing with actual issues face-to-face.

Goyo knows himself, as does Amaru, which is why he doesn’t disagree with her suggestion of meeting in public the first few times. He’s always been weakest right at the beginning of a fancy, daydreaming of scenarios that leave him short of breath and having to adjust his trousers, hoping they don’t betray him if he happens to be in a public space. Despite knowing better, he’s dived head first into physical relationships and paid the price for it, and after having slept with a married man once (without his knowledge, though the blame of hastiness lay upon him regardless), he vowed to improve. Besides, he suspects Blackbeard hasn’t dated a lot of men, so he should take it slow anyway.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t prepared for the change in wardrobe following a throwaway comment about camouflage patterns because not only did Blackbeard take him seriously and dressed differently for their dates from then on (which is a turn on already), his shirts are also very tight. Not unacceptably so, but entirely too tight for someone with pecs this pronounced. In moments when it was hard to deal with Blackbeard's personality, Goyo reminded himself as to why he was still around by eyeing up Blackbeard's chest and Christ. He would love to grope him for hours. Maybe suckle on those puppies. God.

It doesn’t help that he’s changed his aftershave as well. Goyo felt genuinely bad complaining about so much right away, even if it was done through careful euphemisms and half-jokes he practised beforehand, and promised himself to compliment Blackbeard elaborately should he act on it – but never did he expect for Blackbeard to dip into the nearest shop with him to try and find a fragrance Goyo liked. He claimed he was tired of his old one but hadn’t found an excuse to switch so far, and offered his own opinions additionally to Goyo’s, meaning the entire thing felt organic and constructive instead of passive-aggressive or, worse, blindly compliant. As a result, Goyo stands that tiny bit closer whenever he can. Prolongs their hugs. Inhales consciously whenever they kiss. He loves a good-smelling man, and Blackbeard has turned from handsome to painfully sexy.

He makes sure Blackbeard knows, too. He might be picky and demanding, but he would like to think of himself as appreciative, so whenever he notices the American looking or smelling exceptionally good, he remarks on it. And the delighted expressions he reaps are worth feeding this inflated ego. He doesn’t think the other man has been complimented on his appearance much, certainly not by fellow guys.

.

The very first thing they fight about is punctuality. As inevitable as death. It turns into a recurring theme as they simply can’t agree on anything and Goyo’s laid-back attitude towards time sparks nothing but disbelief in Blackbeard – he does learn by setting their meeting half an hour before he actually arrives, but whenever he’s meant to pick Goyo up by car, he shows up on the dot and paces impatiently around the flat without taking his shoes off while Goyo finishes whichever task held him up. Blackbeard calls him rude, Goyo waves him off, and the whole drama repeats the next time. They even have a long talk about it, with Goyo stressing the importance of enjoying life at one’s own personal pace, and Blackbeard calling on politeness and prioritising others over tasks such as washing the dishes.

Related to this, Blackbeard always requires an exact plan while Goyo prefers adapting vague ideas to actual circumstances. There’s no spontaneity in most of Blackbeard's actions, he’s rigid and inflexible and it drives Goyo absolutely nuts. After having agreed on watching a film that night, they walk past a fantastic-looking restaurant Goyo instantly wants to try out, and Blackbeard flat out refuses. Just says no. Claims their original plan was superior simply because it was made earlier, and when Goyo points out that literally nothing is stopping them from having dinner together instead of sitting at the cinema for a few hours, Blackbeard is having none of it. He’s hungry, he agrees with Goyo’s assessment that the place looks inviting, and yet he won’t budge. How did he get to where he is now with this attitude?

Also, Blackbeard is loud. And by this, he’s not even referring to his deafening voice – he’s a pitchman manqué – but rather his behaviour as a whole. Nigh everyone can tell his country of origin due to him constantly approaching perfect strangers, which Goyo finds exceedingly rude. People just want to mind their own business, as does he, and he wouldn’t appreciate being accosted by some random dude on the street. Blackbeard has the gall to call him rude as a result and defends himself by pointing out he leaves the grumpy ones alone and has a lovely chat with the rest who seems to enjoy their talk. Blackbeard has no qualms cursing in public and calling out unacceptable behaviour, and Goyo preferred the ground to swallow him whenever his companion starts an argument with a line skipper or someone parking like an idiot.

What, am I supposed to just tut and walk away?, Blackbeard scoffs, his tone making clear what he thinks of the British nation as a whole.

There are countless other details: Blackbeard's apartment is messy. He can’t cook for the life of him, yet is an utter baking snob. He leaves the toilet seat up. He loves the worst kind of cheesy patriotic action films and accepts no criticism on this. The music in his car leaves Goyo’s ears ringing for the rest of the evening. He seems to think kissing is the only worthwhile public display of affection. He’s ignorant about most other cultures yet fancies himself open-minded because his best friend is Korean – this only means he compares anything and everything either to the States or Korea. Getting him to eat anything he hasn’t tried before is an uphill struggle. Except if it’s Korean.

Vigil seems to get a pass on nearly everything, and Goyo is beginning to think Blackbeard either had or still has a crush on the man. He’s empathetic and understanding as can be with Vigil, and almost seems to enjoy arguing with Goyo. It’s getting old fast.

.

And then there are those other moments. The ones so sharp and vivid they linger in Goyo’s mind long after the fact, bright and warm like a sip of good alcohol, and almost as intoxicating too. They end up eating in the restaurant after all, and Goyo is mentally preparing for the backlash if it turns out to be rubbish – not that he thinks it will be, but he’d rather outline his defence already. In the back of his mind, he’s wondering whether he’s the stubborn one in this case, with his insistence to get his way showcasing his own inflexibility. His mother taught him to be kind whenever he can afford it, yet past experiences and an underlying pessimism usually convince him he can’t. He knows she’d be disappointed with how often he chooses the less compassionate path.

“I’m not good at this”, Blackbeard announces out of the blue, throwing Goyo off once more. This happens regularly, him spiralling and conducting a whole other conversation in his mind, and Blackbeard interrupting his thoughts with something outlandish. Most of the time, Goyo is relieved about it. He tends to get lost and is glad whenever he’s brought back to the present.

Since there’s no indication as to what he means, Goyo needs him to clarify. “At what?”

“Just… this.” And Blackbeard gestures somewhere between them. “Compromising. Letting someone else into my life. Listening.”

I know someone else who’s terrible at all three of those, Goyo thinks and doesn’t say.

“But I like you. And I want to get better. So please be patient with me and talk to me. Okay?”

Blackbeard likes him.

Idiotically, hearing it out loud makes him giddy as if this was a new revelation, but then his brain latches on to the much more important implication of Blackbeard wanting to communicate, being willing to work on himself and on the both of them, admitting faults. It’s a beacon of hope and one he didn’t expect – Blackbeard has never struck him as particularly introspective, not with how he values arbitrary rules above creative thinking, yet it seems he underestimated him. He’ll have to correct his mental image and allow Blackbeard to improve.

“Yes. That sounds good”, he replies after mulling over Blackbeard's words for a bit, prompting a sigh of relief. And, to throw him a bone: “You’re doing good.”

A scoff. “Am I though?”

“You are. Why else would I say it?”

“I don’t know. You just…” Blackbeard lowers his gaze, searching for the right thing to say. “I’m nervous around you.”

Goyo laughs. Can’t help it, he bursts out with a brief laugh turning into a hearty chuckle because – Blackbeard gets nervous? He dreaded being in the same room as the American early on and never managed to settle down in his presence, and now he’s learning it was reciprocal? Had he known he could’ve scared him away, he might’ve confronted Blackbeard earlier, returned the sass, threw his weight around a little. Instead, they were watching each other like hawks for ultimately only marginally different reasons. Nothing about Blackbeard is adorable, but this is the closest thing to it: him being bashful, admitting his crush, relinquishing power and inviting himself to be mocked. Goyo is delighted.

“You don’t need to be”, he reassures and runs his fingertips over the back of Blackbeard's hand, a gentle gesture he seems to appreciate.

There are these moments which remind Goyo why he gave Blackbeard a chance in the first place, and they are what keep him going whenever Blackbeard starts arguing in favour of one of his ‘life principles’.

.

“I made a mistake”, Goyo states, not bothering to hide his fatalistic tone of voice.

Amaru is instantly entertained. Her optimistic and easygoing attitude is part of the reason why she got along so swimmingly with Goyo’s mother, and also why he’s endlessly grateful for her presence in his life: she helped him get past failures whenever his mum wasn’t available, and provided encouragement and support whenever he needed it. It’s also why he keeps bothering her with his problems. “Does it have anything to do with your new relationship?”

She watched from a distance as he made his first few questionable choices in his dating career, ready to pick him up and dust him off whenever he’d fallen down. He learned to accept and value her advice once he realised she was never wrong, so he’s hoping she can assist him with his current predicament. “How did you guess?”, he sighs, not requiring an answer. “They’re showing a documentary I’m interested in on TV this evening, and I mentioned it to Craig.”

“So now he wants to watch it with you?”, his aunt surmises, making him nod. “Which means you’d have to spend the evening with him without falling victim to his manly wiles.” He nods again, looking pained. “And you want me to give you the go-ahead for making up an excuse so you don’t have a bad conscience when you cancel on him.”

Well. Maybe she was the wrong person to approach about this. “When you put it like that, it sounds… bad.”

She raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Don Goyo, you’re old enough to not need my approval. Which you’re not going to get anyway, before you ask.”

“I have a feeling I know what you’re about to say to me.”

“Just tell him. If you’re not ready, he needs to know. He deserves to know, César.”

It’s not that he isn’t ready. If it was for him, they’d have fucked in the nearest public stall on their second date, he’s been dreaming about strong arms and an insistent tongue for almost the entire month that they’ve been dating. He’s overripe, and still – it doesn’t feel right somehow. Like he should wait a little longer. They’ve gotten to know each other much better, anticipating each other’s moods, making small gifts here and there and texting daily. Even so, there’s just something.

“Don’t brood. Go and talk to him. Either he respects your boundaries and everything’s good, or he refuses and you can launch him into outer space. No matter the outcome, you’ll be off better than before.”

She must sense his hesitation as she tries to instil her wisdom a few more times before giving up and wishing him a pleasant night. He leaves, conflicted – he doesn’t want to hurt Blackbeard's feelings by rejecting him before even anything happens, and at the same time he’s not comfortable actually reaching below the belt yet.

He’s hoping Blackbeard simply doesn’t try anything. It’s the best case scenario.

.

About eight hours later, all Goyo can think between different versions of God this feels so fucking good is: this didn’t go to plan at all. Blackbeard is buried up to the hilt and Goyo is grateful for being momentarily distracted so he has an excuse not to think critically about what’s happening right then.

And it started out so well.

Goyo arrives only fifteen minutes late, which he thinks is more than reasonable even if Blackbeard doesn’t comment on it, and takes note of the slightly less messy flat – it’s not even that bad normally, some dirty dishes scattered around and pieces of clothing, but at least they give the otherwise relatively barren apartment some character. They kiss as a greeting, briefly, as Blackbeard is busy heating up something to eat, and then sit on the couch with plates on their laps, chatting about their day while waiting for the program to start.

It’s domestic. It should be relaxing and pleasant, not nerve-wracking, but after sitting next to Blackbeard for ten minutes of serious introduction and noticing how his sweatpants don’t really do a good job at hiding anything, Goyo knows he won’t do anything to stop him should he make a move. In a way, it’d be a relief: get it over and done with, don’t dwell on it, move on. The anticipation is putting him on edge, keeps his hairs standing up and his breaths measured. He’s hyper-aware of his knee brushing against Blackbeard's, the broad chest next to him rising and falling, the thumping of his own heart.

He can’t concentrate. Images flash on the screen, a soothing narrator recounts past horrors in a deep voice and historical photographs take turns. He’d actually been looking forward to watching this programme, and should’ve known doing it together with Blackbeard would end in disaster, yet wasn’t prepared for himself being the culprit. Blackbeard has beautiful arms, oozing latent strength and tanned nicely, the dark hairs making them even more appealing. Maybe he doesn’t shave his chest. He probably doesn’t, would consider it unmanly, and with how lush and full his beard is -

“Can I get you a beer?”

Goyo blinks. It’s a commercial break, he hadn’t even noticed. “No”, he says, and thinks: and I’d rather you didn’t have one either. The taste of it is revolting to him.

“I’ll just get one for myself then”, Blackbeard replies, already risen from the sofa, and makes the mistake of leaning down for a quick, once again domestic kiss. It’s reciprocated just a tad too enthusiastically, so Blackbeard pushes back and after a few more seconds they’re tongue wrestling with an uncomfortable height difference between them. The angle is awkward but the feel of it amazing – and this is something Goyo has openly admitted numerous times: he loves the way Blackbeard kisses. Adores it. Can’t get enough of it. It’s intense and deep and wet and leaves him panting every time, with this being no exception.

He drags the other man in, forcing him to steady himself with one knee on the couch, one knee right between Goyo’s legs and both hands cupping his face. This, too, is shockingly sexy, the way Blackbeard keeps him in place to take him apart. Goyo reaches out and runs his fingers over Blackbeard's body and dear God his thighs are like stone, and his back muscles pronounced, and his abs too. He’s tilted far back now, the bear hovering over him, solid and threatening and like a rock set in motion. Soul-crushing. Inevitable.

They kiss until the break is over, until at least one of them is making these embarrassing little noises, until Goyo’s lips feel swollen and his cock is harder than it’s ever been in his life, until Blackbeard breaks off, flushed, sweating and dishevelled, and Goyo wants to suck his dick or he’ll die. Making out has always been Goyo’s weakspot, and making out like this is guaranteed to leave him weeping and ruining his underwear, and he knew Blackbeard was gonna try something. He just knew. They wouldn’t have snogged like this without purpose, without an ulterior motive, without the intention of moving on to more sinful things now.

“We should”, Blackbeard starts and has trouble focusing his gaze, “let’s – I mean -” His sweatpants really don’t let him get away with anything. Unbelievably, he disengages and plops down next to Goyo. Apparently he wants to keep watching, which is the sensible thing to do.

Yes. A good idea. Getting caught up in the moment isn’t what Goyo wants anyway.

Blackbeard is radiating heat. His confident persona has crumbled, revealing a passionate yet considerate lover, a man torn between doing the right thing and doing what feels right. Right now, his upper brain seems to be winning, or maybe he figures if he behaves, Goyo will reward him regardless, or he’s hoping Goyo will stay the night and they can fuck later, or he’s playing hard-to-get. The last option would be hilarious, since Goyo isn’t interested in buying what Blackbeard is selling for now. They should really go back to watching TV, and when it’s over, they can talk a little, and then Goyo’s going home.

Two minutes later, he’s straddling Blackbeard's lap while shoving his tongue so far down the other man’s throat it’s a miracle he’s not choking, and nearly coming in his own pants from the bit of friction he manages to get between his dick and Blackbeard's taut stomach. He’s a fucking magnet and an oven with how hot he is, mewling into the kiss like someone who’s desperate for any kind of attention, like a starving or drowning or poisoned man, like – like Goyo. His beard is soft and smells good, and when Goyo’s hands stray below fabric, he finds more hair on a broad chest and buries his fingers in it. The rugged edge Blackbeard visibly sports continues where the normal gaze doesn’t penetrate, Goyo is relieved to discover, and he can finally feel up these gorgeous tits. Get his hands on them and massage them however he likes.

His nipples are delightfully sensitive and Goyo spends too much time teasing them while sucking deep purple bruises just below Blackbeard's collar until he’s worried about Blackbeard exploding under his merciless ministrations. Frotting has been knocked down in priority now that he can twist strangled moans out of the hard body beneath him, but when his cock throbs almost painfully at a gasp, he knows they can’t go on like this.

“Please give me a moment”, Blackbeard gasps out, cheeks rosy and eyes unfocused.

Again, a reasonable request. He should listen.

“Bedroom”, he snaps and it’s not even a suggestion. He can feel his hole pulsing with the irresistible desire of getting plowed and when Blackbeard, after a second of disbelief, picks him up to carry him through the flat, Goyo is thankful for his foresight to bring condoms and lube regardless of his intentions. He had a hunch Blackbeard would try something.

They only shed what’s necessary (and the shapely legs are somehow only improved with socks on, but Goyo has been told before that it’s a sock fetish at this point) and preparation is an unceremonious affair except for the fact that Goyo sucks on Blackbeard's nipples until they’re raw and too sensitive while fingering himself open. The American has a great body, he has to admit, well-developed muscles, some scars here and there, coarse black hair adorning tanned skin and an upward curved cock beautiful enough to have Goyo’s mouth water, so sitting down on it feels predictably mind-blowing.

He does most of the work, which is fortunate as he can experiment with angles until he’s found one that actually makes him go cross-eyed, and once Blackbeard draws the connection between his blissful groans and whatever’s happening between their legs, he starts thrusting up and dear Lord.

This isn’t what Goyo had in mind when coming over, and yet he can’t find the brain capacity to regret or even care right now, not with how urgent his lust is tugging on his nerve endings, forcing him to ride towards exhaustion and cramps and an impressive muscle hangover the next day. Being able to steady himself on Blackbeard's torso is surprisingly sexy and the sheer barrage of pleasure bursting through him every time he slams down his hips keeps him from touching himself, effectively prolonging his sweet suffering.

Moving in unison has never felt this good and for once, they’re on the same wavelength, exchanging devoted gazes and trading the odd kiss. It’s akin to a reunion instead of a first time, like they’ve rehearsed this song and dance to perfection in the past and, despite a certain rustiness, are quickly finding back into their old routine.

When Goyo comes, his vision goes colourful with how tight he’s squeezing his eyelids shut. He shakes violently while balanced on Blackbeard's hips and gasps for air, overwhelmed by the elation accompanying his release and shooting his sperm all over Blackbeard's mangled chest, over the lovebites and the red marks his hands left behind from carrying his weight. His relief is crushing, and so he slumps down bonelessly, allowing the other man to pump into him a few more times before announcing his own climax with a low moan. Instinctively, it seems, Blackbeard’s palms travel over the back of his sweaty t-shirt, petting him reassuringly.

Goyo doesn’t like it. It feels like too much, like overstimulation after a long, satisfying session even though his was hardly long but certainly satisfying. He shakes the hands off and climbs down, trying to catch his breath. Next to him, blue eyes snap to his face, too attentive. Blackbeard looks like he’s not sure what to say. Goyo could lighten the situation, compliment him, make a joke, or be sincere about how much he enjoyed himself. Because he did.

Even with the afterglow fading fast.

“I’ll go shower first”, he announces and leaves with a quick kiss that seems unsubstantial. He’s gone before Blackbeard has even taken the condom off, and the sensation of dirtiness clinging to his skin seems to go beyond bodily fluids. Scrubbing himself with the only loofah (and isn’t that a surprise) wouldn’t be right, so he uses his own fingers to wipe off the odd feeling.

Blackbeard is sitting on the edge of the bed when he returns, and now he can finally place the source of the awkwardness between them: he’s not babbling. Normally, he’d have commented on Goyo’s stamina, maybe how great his arse looked, recounted an anecdote of some sorts, or even attempted a lame joke, yet all he’s doing is watching. He looks a little lost. Silvery droplets are caught in his chest hair and when they kiss again, Goyo deflects a hug with the excuse of wanting to remain clean, demands that Blackbeard go shower as well.

The bed is large and tidier than the rest of the room, as if Blackbeard had anticipated them ending up here. Despite the general lack of colour in the apartment, the duvet is beautiful with a dark turquoise pattern. The cushions look fluffy, but not too soft. It looks inviting. Goyo did bring a spare pair of underwear, knowing their shoe and therefore sock size is the same, and he briefly pictures waking Blackbeard up by sucking him off. It’s unlikely to happen, with how different their morning routines are – what little he knows anyway – and still, the image is most tempting.

He gets caught in the hallway with one shoe on his foot already, the other in his hands.

His stomach drops and speech evades him out of shame as Blackbeard leans against the door frame, tight briefs highlighting all his best assets. Oddly enough, he doesn’t seem disappointed or hurt, which does nothing to quell the burning feeling of being a disgrace eating away at Goyo’s insides.

“What are you doing?”, he asks, no reproach in his voice. Patience is one of his virtues and one he displays right now – if there was ever a moment when Goyo expected an outburst, an indignant rant, it’d be now. Instead, he picks up on a hesitant disquiet, an uneasy curiosity. Blackbeard doesn’t know what’s going on, but he knows it’s important, therefore he treats it with the same mindfulness he does any serious issue.

Goyo owes him this. If there’s anything he owes this man, it’s an attempt at an explanation. Since he’s formulated it before, talked it through with past partners, he’s not unprepared yet dreads bringing it up nonetheless. “I have… commitment issues”, he replies softly.

The answering silence is one of racing thoughts, he can read it on Blackbeard's open expression. “Do you want to talk about it?”, he eventually wants to know. For a guy with no idea of how to deal with this, he’s faring remarkably well.

“I am talking about it.” Defensive. He inhales deeply before continuing. “I have trouble opening up to others. I prefer keeping most of me to myself. I can’t trust easily.”

A nod. It hurts; it means Blackbeard has noticed but didn’t dare bring it up. Always the same thing. Goyo fights down a pang of annoyance – part of his mind tries to convince him they don’t deserve him: either they mention it, which makes them whiny complainers not ready to give him time, or they don’t, which means they don’t care enough. It’s bullshit and pops up in the back of his head every time. “Am I suffocating you?”

He almost laughs at the ridiculousness of the notion. Blackbeard, who maybe suggests a quarter of their dates, who never complains about Goyo taking some time to reply to messages, who always accepts when Goyo wants to go home, seriously thinks he’s clingy. If anything, Goyo would like for him to be more overbearing, insert himself into Goyo’s life more aggressively. “No. You’re giving me all the space I need.” Too much, at times.

“Am I doing anything wrong?”

Well. What isn’t he doing wrong. Goyo’s heart melts a little over this brute trying to figure out why his lover is sneaking out on him, when it’s nothing but Goyo’s ugly side finally showing. He’s being unfair. “I didn’t want to sleep with you”, he says and knows instantly it was the worst possible thing he could’ve said, with how Blackbeard gains a look of horror, paling immediately, arms dropping by his side, slack, mouth working out an apology before the meaning has even reached his brain. Bad with words. This one he can’t really chalk up to bad timing. “No, that’s not what I meant. I wanted it and I liked it. I really did.” He’s flustered, flailing now, in unfamiliar territory, allowing the first thought to drop out of his mouth without scrutinising it first, and feels like it only gets worse. “But I – I had myself convinced I didn’t want it. Because, I don’t know. I’m -” Scared, he can’t bring himself to say. He knows it’d tear a wound which might not heal so easily. “Look. I’ll go. You don’t have to deal with this.”

No one should have to deal with him like this, sputtering and ashamed to the core, cheeks hot and composure non-existent. He wants to go home and hide for the next century and if Blackbeard told him now he’s not worth the trouble he’s causing, he wouldn’t even object.

“Don’t.” A plea. Heartfelt, for what it’s worth, but any other way and Goyo would already be putting on his second shoe. “I don’t know what to do, or what to say. I don’t know what you’d like me to do or say.”

Neither does Goyo. That’s the whole problem.

Blackbeard must be cold, nearly naked and standing in the faint draft coming in from under the door. He shifts his weight uncomfortably as they stare at each other. Please, Goyo thinks, unsure of what he even means by that. But when the next words hit his ears, he knows it’s what he’s been hoping for: “Just… come back to bed. Okay?”

The shoe hits the ground with a sharp sound cutting through the tense atmosphere between them.

.

Unsurprisingly, Blackbeard prefers being the big spoon. They fight over the blanket since Goyo needs it to sleep whereas Blackbeard insists it’s entirely too warm, and the familiar back-and-forth calms his racing heart. As does the gentle hand rubbing vague circles into his chest while they cuddle. After a few soothing moments, he asks the dreaded question of when Blackbeard's first alarm will go off, resulting in even more bickering.

“I really wanted to watch that documentary”, Goyo mumbles regretfully against the arm he’s cradling like a stuffed toy, partly because it’s wonderfully warm and partly because the skin-on-skin contact does funny things to his stomach. Being pressed against the length of Blackbeard's body is magical. He hasn’t felt this safe in a long while.

“Don’t worry, I recorded it.”

The reply, half lost in his hair, gives Goyo pause. If they could actually see anything in the impenetrable darkness Blackbeard requires to sleep peacefully, he’d turn around in indignation. “So you expected something like this to happen?”

He can feel the smile against his scalp. “Call it wishful thinking. Doing nothing but kissing did take its toll.”

Huh. Seems like he was right.

Blackbeard really did plan on trying something.

[introverts01]

Just how to Go From Introvert to Exhibitionist

As a youngster I was very withdrawn, usually spending my time on the computer system, reading, playing video games, or seeking other solo leisure activities. I 'd hang around outdoors biking, exploring the neighboring areas and also hills (which today are filled with homes), or capturing hoops, however I 'd usually favor doing these points alone or with people I recognized extremely well. I never felt as well comfy around strangers, and I never took care of big family members occasions. Psychological examinations like the Myers-Briggs secured me directly as an autist. Any individual who recognized me would have explained me as an autist without a reservation. Like several introverts I was pushed by others to mingle more. Yet I mainly resisted this pressure, partly due to the fact that I enjoyed being an introvert. I typically checked out characters as doing not have in intelligence and depth, and also I can't state I intended to count myself amongst them. However, over a long period of time, I eventually found myself ending up being a growing number of extroverted. I embraced hanging out with other people, headed out of my method to satisfy brand-new individuals, could easily present myself to strangers, and also really enjoyed it. The Myers-Briggs test now identifies me an extrovert To the people that recognize me today, this wouldn't be unexpected. I'm not the sort of extrovert I imagined as a youngster though. I feel I have actually done a good job stabilizing the autist and also extrovert parts of myself, such that I take pleasure in both sorts of tasks similarly. I really feel equally as comfy staying at residence reading a book as I do mosting likely to a brand-new social event and introducing myself to people I have actually never ever fulfilled. I enjoy both group as well as solo tasks, each for different factors. Some weeks I'm even more introverted as well as mostly stay home with my family members. Other weeks I have a full social calendar with an occasion virtually every evening. I enjoy both just as much.

introvert extrovert ambivert definition In order to end up being an exhibitionist, I found that I needed to get rid of a number of blocks to being more extroverted Possibilities are that if you're in the exact same watercraft, you have some of these blocks also. Blocks to becoming an exhibitionist. * Underestimating extroversion. Spending quality time alone as well as with individuals are equally important. If you're extremely shy, you might underestimate the positive role people can play in your life, such as understanding, relationship, development, laughter, and so on. The ideal outcome is to strike a balance between the two. You do not have to give up the autist tasks you enjoy. In fact, when you balance them with more social tasks, you'll most likely find them much more gratifying. After several nights of being around individuals, I really eagerly anticipate an evening by myself to review, practice meditation, write, and so on. And after great deals of time alone or with my family, I'm itching to go out as well as be around other individuals.

hobbies for introverts * Underdeveloped social skills. Social abilities can be discovered like any type of various other skill set. One factor autists shy away from social activities is that they do not feel comfy due to the fact that they don't know what to do, specifically if the unexpected were to occur. Being able to start up a conversation with a complete stranger AND feeling entirely comfortable doing it is a learnable ability. The even more you do it, the better you get at it. Accept the fact that you're a novice, as well as don't contrast yourself to others. * Picturing yourself as the wrong type of exhibitionist. If you locate the extroverted individuals around you superficial and perhaps also frustrating, why would you wish to be more like them? You would not. When I was a child, I really didn't want to be extra like the characters I understood. Also as a grown-up, my vision of a character was an in-your-face salesman that just intended to develop a shallow partnership with you so they might sell you something. It seemed really phony as well as bogus to me. As well as naturally that vision stopped me from ever before wishing to be like that. Yet you needn't pick such a minimal vision for yourself-- you're totally free to develop your own vision of a favorable means to be much more extroverted. * Associating the wrong individuals. Why would you wish to spend more time with people you do not such as? If ending up being much more extroverted means spending even more time with people you prefer to avoid, you'll have no motivation to do it. Once more, you're totally free to damage this pattern as well as create a social team that you 'd like to be a component of. * Overvaluing on-line interacting socially. Online interacting socially has its place in your life, yet it's a pale darkness compared to in person, belly-to-belly interaction. Voice and also body movement can connect a whole lot greater than message, as well as emotional bonds are easier and also faster to establish personally. I feel a lot closer to the neighborhood friends I have actually understood for just a few months than I do to the people I have actually known online for several years yet never ever fulfilled personally. It's just not as fun heading out to supper with a laptop. You don't need to get rid of online socializing, but don't allow it to crowd out conference individuals in your area. If you do that, you'll only cause your social skills to lag even more behind. If you have some of these blocks and intend to surpass them, the very first step is to recognize them as well as consider how they're holding you back. Then start to service them just as you would any type of various other challenge in your life. Focus your purposes, set goals, make strategies, as well as begin acting. It might be uncomfortable and awkward initially, but just approve that, and also obtain relocating anyway. Suggestions for becoming much more extroverted. Right here are some extra recommendations for exactly how to end up being more extroverted: * Envision the sort of exhibitionist you would love to be. What's your optimal outcome? If you feel as well withdrawn and wish to be extra extroverted, start by working with your vision of your end result. Chances are that if you have actually been making little progress in this field, you have a somewhat adverse vision of extroverts. When I developed a positive vision of being an extrovert that consisted of structure real connections with smart individuals I respect (in contrast to arbitrary, shallow interacting socially), I soon began attracting those partnerships. Being a "stupid jock" kind of exhibitionist still has no interest me. * Consider relationships in terms of what you can provide, not in terms of what you can get. If you look for to develop new relationships based on common offering as well as obtaining, you'll have no lack of pals. Recognize individuals with whom you would love to develop a connection, and start by providing. I've discovered that my geeky understanding is actually a significant strength when it comes to interacting socially due to the fact that there are a terrible great deal of non-geeks that had actually like to comprehend geeky things better, and also I can describe it to them in means they'll understand. For instance, I have actually been teaching some regional speaker good friends about blogging and also web marketing, and in return I'm discovering a lot from them regarding speaking, wit, etc. There are lots of intelligent people available that 'd love to have a nerd as a buddy. What can you offer a connection that will be of benefit to somebody else? When you identify what that is (and also it's probably various points), you'll have a simpler time bring in brand-new pals right into your life. * Discover the right social group for you. Purposely think about the types of people you 'd want to have as friends. There's no policy that claims this has to be your peers or associates. I in fact find myself much more curious about making buddies with people who are much older than me instead of individuals my very own age or slightly younger. Individuals around my age (34) often tend to be extremely profession- and family-oriented, but commonly in a somewhat brainless, socially conditioned manner in which isn't focused around any kind of knowingly chosen life function or idea system. And also people in their 20s, while commonly extremely energised, tend to be largely unfocused ... or focused on trivial pursuits that simply aren't that vital. So it's been hard for me to find people near my age where we have sufficient alike for a lasting friendship. I seem to have an easier time making friends with people in their 40s, 50, as well as older. They generally have higher understanding and experience, more fascinating stories to share, extra sources (info and also concepts, funds, get in touches with), and also a much better sense of that they are as well as what they intend to perform with their lives. Commonly I discover myself going to get-togethers where I'm the youngest individual in the space, however that really feels really comfy and typical for me. Don't hesitate to extend past one of the most obvious peer group as well as hang out with individuals from various ages, areas, cultures, nations, etc. You might find the range to be a lot of fun. * Play from your strengths. It's fascinating that lots of introverts have no difficulty interacting socially online. Because environment they're able to play from their staminas. But you can additionally utilize your strengths knowingly as utilize to branch out into even more face-to-face socializing. As an example, after I graduated university, I met a female on a regional BBS (before there was much of a World Wide Web). We got to chatting online over a duration of weeks. Ultimately we met in person as well as became buddies, as well as I soon fell under her pre-existing social team with osmosis. My social calendar went from empty to complete almost over night. That female, incidentally, has actually been my wife for the previous 7.5 years. If you mingle on-line, see if you can not make use of that toughness to develop new regional relationships. While people have actually done this in international forums like on the internet video games, I think it's much easier to try it in local online forums. As an example, there are message boards for people who've recently relocated to Las Vegas. * Join a club. It's old guidance, however it still functions. The advantage is that you'll locate people who share comparable rate of interests, that makes it easier to construct brand-new relationships. One excellent club can fill your social calendar. For example, with my membership in Toastmasters, I obtain invites to lots of other local gatherings. I do not most likely to everything, yet it's nice to obtain those welcomes. Plus belonging to a worldwide company with 200,000 members worldwide creates social inroads around the planet. If you sign up with a club and also find that it's not right for you, give up as well as join something else. My spouse as well as I have actually both been through a variety of regional social teams that just really did not resonate with us (also monotonous, as well slow, as well disorganized, way too many problem drinkers). However one great group is all you require. * Establish your social skills consciously. You can learn to become better at developing rapport, presenting yourself, keeping a conversation going, asking somebody out on a day, feeling socially comfy instead of anxious, and more. You don't need to be superficial and also manipulative regarding it, but truly develop these skills because it will significantly improve your life. One technique I locate exceptionally effective is to ask the various other person exactly how s/he got going in his/her current job. 80-90% of the moment the individual will certainly state something like, "Well, that's a fascinating tale ..." And I genuinely like listening to these stories. A tiny fundamental set of social skills can go a lengthy way due to the fact that you'll reach reuse them each time you meet someone. Whatever skill you would love to create, attempt doing a Google or Amazon search on it, and you'll probably locate lots of articles and also publications. Realize that when you hold on your own back from interacting socially, you're not just depriving on your own-- you're additionally depriving other individuals of the chance to learn more about you. How much longer do you want your future partner or friend to stay alone? Here are some follow-up messages that additionally explore this subject: 1. Improving Social Abilities 2. A Concern for Introverts 3. Risk vs. Compensate in Human Relationships

[thepropertylovers]

Feature Friday with Matthew Chaffee

Happy Friday, friends. Though the weeks are running together and what day it is means almost nothing anymore, we’re so happy it’s finally the weekend. The last few weeks have been some of the busiest for us (feeling grateful for that) and we’re looking forward to relaxing just a bit this weekend. Do you have any fun plans?

This week’s Feature Friday is Matthew, who shares what it was like growing up in a conservative environment, the response he got from his senior high school class when he came out in front of them by reading an essay (!), and his advice for those struggling to come out. We enjoyed getting to know Matthew and we think you will, too. See what we mean below…

What is your favorite place you’ve ever traveled to and why? Unfortunately, my answer to this question isn’t very exciting. Growing up, my family never had a lot of extra money to spend on traveling, so most of our vacations consisted of road trips around the Midwest. Don’t get me wrong, I got to see some fascinating places and make great memories with my family, but I haven’t been anywhere particularly exotic. I have been to New York City twice, both times for a music department tour in high school, and I’d have to say that it’s probably my favorite place I’ve traveled to. It was so much bigger and so much more cosmopolitan than anything I had ever seen or was used to, so it was quite overwhelming. The sheer vibrancy of it all – the lights, the smells, the languages – was intoxicating. Attending a performance of Phantom of the Opera on Broadway would probably have to go on my list of top ten life experiences thus far. It’s definitely not somewhere I could live for any length of time, but for somewhere to visit, it was phenomenal. 

Where did you grow up? What was your environment like? I’ve spent the entirety of my life living in West Michigan, which, as you may or may not know, is pretty traditional and conservative. More specifically, I’m from Grandville, which is a city of about 16,000 located in the Greater Grand Rapids area. Dutch heritage and Reformed (Protestant) Christian values play a big role in shaping the culture of the circles I grew up in. I attended a Christian Reformed Church, and I was educated in a private Christian school where my graduating class consisted of approximately seventy students. My family consists of myself, my mother, my father, and my brother, who is five years younger than me. I am very close with my parents, and I’d say my relationship with my brother is typical of siblings with our age gap. Family and faith have always been central parts of my life, and I don’t foresee that changing. 

How did your environment growing up shape who you are as a person? Growing up in a pretty conservative area definitely had an impact on my younger years. I remember in elementary school, like many children, I would parrot my parents’ political views when “discussing” politics with my peers. However, with the growing revelation about my sexuality that came with puberty, my views slowly began to change. Another catalyst for my shifting views occurred in middle school, when a good friend of mine was deported to Guatemala due to an error in her parents’ paperwork. The injustice of it all really impacted me and opened my eyes to a world that before had been largely hidden. High school gave me my first opportunity to connect with international students. As I have always been interested in learning about different cultures, I quickly befriended them and even helped start my high school’s International Club, which provided opportunities for American and international students to interact and attend various cultural events. Finally, my Aunt Dawn and Uncle Tim have played a major role in exposing me to issues concerning social justice. Although both of them grew up in West Michigan – just like my parents – their life circumstances have provided them with opportunities not experienced by most of my other family members. Because of this, they have always stood out to me as being somehow “different”, more engaged and more vibrant and passionate than most people I know. As I grew older and began paying more attention to the things my Aunt and Uncle would talk about, I began to realize the value behind the causes they were advocating. When taken together, my friends, my family, my sexuality, and my desire to continuously learn and expand my horizons have shaped me into who I am today. 

What’s one interesting fact about you? Besides English, I’m speak conversational Spanish and basic French and Korean. I also can play piano and trumpet, and I love to sing (though I don’t know if I’m any good or not, since I’m too shy to sing in front of anyone). 

What is one thing you love about yourself? Learning to love myself hasn’t been easy; it’s a process, and definitely something I’m still working on. But one thing I’ve always been proud of is my imagination. I’m a dreamer, and my mind is a wild place. I keep a running note on my phone of all the random, crazy things I think up so that maybe someday I can make them happen. 

What brings you the most joy in life? Oh boy. There are so many things I could talk about here. I love being outdoors. In particular, I love to bike. Bike trails are plentiful where I live, and Grand Rapids has begun to install bike lanes, so getting around and finding new places to ride is a cinch. My favorite ride is from Grand Rapids out to Lake Michigan, which I do a few times every summer with my best friend. Other outdoor activities I enjoy are hiking and hammocking. I firmly believe that everyone should own a good hammock. In addition to outdoor activities, I love to cook and bake. My specialties are ice cream and gourmet mac & cheese. Someday I hope to write a mac & cheese cookbook and title it “MAC: The Complete Guy to Everyone’s Childhood Favorite” (M-A-C are my initials). I also make a mean hummus. I love to learn. I’ve spent countless hours on Wikipedia reading about the most arbitrary topics. Whether it’s German political parties or the Japanese folklore, I’ve probably read about it. Nothing is off limits. As a result, my mind is a veritable treasure trove of random and mostly useless facts. Finally, I find joy in spending quality time with friends and family. Whether it’s playing ultimate frisbee, exploring a new city, dumpster diving at Krispy Kreme (a tradition at my college), or having late-night campfire talks, I’m down for just about anything as long as I’m with the right people. 

How old were you when you came out? What was your experience like? My coming out experience was a rather long process. Pretty much as soon as I began to have romantic feelings toward people, I realized that I had them for both guys and girls. This was around fourth or fifth grade, and I told myself that it was normal, that I wasn’t actually attracted to guys, but that I just knew that some guys were really good-looking. Once I reached middle school, I started to come to terms with the fact that maybe I was attracted to guys. But I continued to tell myself that I was more attracted to girls. I did the whole “percentage” thing, where I was like, “okay, I’m eighty percent straight, twenty percent gay.” I first came out as bisexual to my friend Carly. Freshman year of high school I told a few more friends that I was bi, and it went over pretty well. Sophomore year I briefly dated a girl, then junior year I began dating another girl. That lasted for about a year until we broke up early spring of my senior year. The breakup gave me a lot to think about, but even while dating her I realized that something never really felt right; I could never really imagine myself with her – or with any girl for that matter – for the long term. After much soul searching, I finally accepted that I was gay. One of the last big projects senior year was the “Where I Stand” paper. This was an essay written by every senior for English class, and it was basically an opportunity to say whatever you wanted and to be really open and vulnerable and reflect on your life leading up to that point. I decided to incorporate my coming out into my paper. It wasn’t the central focus, rather more of a side note. Thankfully, my English teacher, Mrs. Hoeve (now Dr. Hoeve) was extremely supportive throughout the process. On the day when everyone shared their papers, I concluded mine to thunderous applause, which was especially remarkable considering the fact that most of my classmates came from the same conservative, Reformed Christian background as I did. On the whole, I couldn’t have asked for a better coming-out experience at school. 

How did your friends and family take it? Did you face any backlash? How did/do you deal with that? I waited to come out to my parents until after my graduation and open house in order to not burden them with the news. Finally, after the celebrations had ended, I let them read my paper. The fifteen minutes or so that I waited in my room while they read it downstairs were the most agonizing of my life, because I knew how earth-shattering the revelation would be to them. When they finally came up to my room, their expressions were pretty much what I’d expected – reassuring, yet somehow disheartening at the same time. They assured me that they still loved me, that they were proud of me, and that they were glad I had told them. Since that time, we have only discussed my sexuality on a few occasions. When I first told them that I was dating a guy, it was almost like coming out all over again; I think that revelation finally made my sexuality real to them. In the intervening time, I have seen my mom making definite strides in becoming more open-minded not just toward me but in general, which is great. My dad, though he accepts and loves me, is very set in his ways – though, to be fair, I have had fewer conversations with him regarding my sexuality. My dad’s parents disowned me when I came out to them, though that hasn’t had much of an impact on me due to the fact that I was never very close to them. My mom’s parents, on the other hand, have always been incredible grandparents to me, so coming out to them, especially knowing their stance on other issues, was pretty nerve- wracking. Incredibly, the news didn’t seem to affect them at all, and their treatment of me since that time hasn’t differed in the least; they are still the loving, generous grandparents I’ve always known, and for that I’m extremely thankful. My friends have all been very accepting as well, though this was to be expected considering I have always associated with my more relaxed, open-minded peers. 

What did you learn about yourself in the coming out process? One of the most meaningful lessons I’ve learned about myself in the coming-out process is truly understanding what I value and stand for. I was raised as a Christian, and my faith is still very important to me. If anything, it’s actually become stronger as I’ve navigated the ups and downs of my journey with my sexuality. I’ve talked with numerous gay men who, at one point or another, renounced religion for various reasons, but often those reasons involved the church’s negative treatment or exclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals. To me, this is heartbreaking. As someone who identifies both as gay and as a Christian, seeing the false dichotomy that has been constructed around these two identities is challenging and frustrating, because I personally don’t believe that such exclusivity has any place in either institution. At its core, Christianity is about love. Sure, there are endless theological arguments to be made, but I don’t believe that these are necessary in order for a Christian to be accepting of another’s sexuality. Indeed, many of my friends are Christians; these are the same friends who accept my sexuality and wholeheartedly support me. Furthermore, the professors at the private Christian university I attend vehemently assert that Christianity and social justice go hand- in-hand, and that this includes advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights. Seeing this kind of support coming from within circles that are often viewed as hostile toward the LGBTQ+ community has been so incredibly encouraging. Not only has this served to reinforce my identity as both a gay man and a Christian, but it has also provided me with confidence when speaking about these issues. 

What would you tell today’s LGBTQ youth who are struggling to come out in fear they won’t be accepted by family, friends, society? You just might be surprised. People you’d never expect to support you will rally around you and love you. It’s also possible that people who truly care about you, but who may not be supportive right now, will have a change of heart when they find out. Sometimes it takes time. Case in point: my own parents, who are still processing and learning about what it means to have a gay son. Know, too, that family can mean more than one thing. Friends are the family you choose, so seek out and surround yourself with people who will love and accept you for who you are, especially if your actual family doesn’t. As cliché as it sounds, it does get better. Sometimes you just have to put in the effort to make it better for yourself and accept the challenges along the way. 

What is a difficult or challenging obstacle you have overcame in your life, or hope to overcome? By far the most difficult obstacle I’ve had to overcome in my life has been my struggle with mental illness, namely anxiety and depression. I was extremely anxious as a young child, to the point where I would induce vomiting before any sort of performance or sporting event so that it wouldn’t happen while on stage or on the field. Looking back, I think my anxiety was to blame for a lot of missed opportunities. For example, I don’t view myself as a particularly athletic person. But is this actually true? Or did I just never really try for fear of failure? Anxiety also manifests itself in my relationships. Elementary school friendships were rocky at best, and college presented its own challenges with meeting people and putting myself out there. More recently, depression has been a major struggle in my life. As I mentioned, I struggled initially to make friends at college (though this has since changed), and as I result, I became very depressed. I saw all the people around me getting settled into their friend groups while I felt alone. There was a point where my loneliness led me to seriously contemplate suicide, and I believe that perhaps the only thing that stopped me was when a friend checked in on me and gave me a hug. Since that time, I’ve been working on slowly but surely moving my center of identity to within myself, rather than placing it in other people and their judgements of me. I am focusing on pursuing my hobbies and interests, taking time to care for myself, and accepting my emotions as valid while simultaneously analyzing them through an objective lens. By doing this, I have become less worried about maintaining relationships and instead have been able to be present and actually enjoy them while also feeling more comfortable in the times when I’m alone. 

Who is your biggest inspiration and why? My biggest inspiration is my mom’s sister Dawn. She is one of the wisest, most thoughtful, and most gracious people I know. I actually came out to her before I told my parents; due to her close relationship with my mom, I knew she would have some good suggestions for how to break the news to them, and that she would be able to help my mom process the news after the fact. To give an idea of the type of person Dawn is, here’s a little anecdote: When I worked as a Resident Assistant in college, I had a resident come out to me. I was thrilled and honored to have him entrust me with such a significant part of his identity, and I really valued the opportunity to walk alongside him in his journey. I mentioned to him the role Dawn had played in my own coming-out process, and he asked if she might be willing to offer some advice to his mom. I reached out to Dawn, and she willingly agreed. I came to find out later from this resident that his mother and my aunt had talked for over an hour on the phone. I don’t know very many people who would go so far out of their way to help and support a complete stranger. 

Where do you see yourself in five years? Oh boy. Honestly, I try not to plan too far ahead, because that can be dangerous for an overthinking dreamer like me. But if I had to say, five years from now I actually hope to be doing exactly what you guys (PJ & Thomas) are doing. I joke that my dream is to have my own HGTV show, and while the odds of that happening are slim to none, I’d be happy to flip houses and develop property even without a TV show. I also hope to meet the man of my dreams, get married, and start a family, though this might take a little longer than five years down the road to happen. My greatest fear is actually never finding love. I know it seems a little ridiculous for a twenty-one-year-old to be worrying about that sort of thing, but it’s hard when you have friends who have been in serious relationships for years or who are getting engaged. I have to keep reminding myself that people find love at different times and in different places, and that I shouldn’t compare my own journey with others’.

Any last words you want to leave people with? Feel free to share! Feel free to message me! I always love getting to meet new people and hear their stories.

Thank you so much, Matthew! You can follow him on Instagram here. Hope you have a great weekend, friends!! xx

P&T

[architectuul]

Solidarity - On - Line

How does the time of isolation affect on the work of different initiatives and communities when the public space access is defined with social distancing and lines. We discussed how three cases of the Future Architecture are continuing in solidarity, beyond lines. The three projects are reinventing the existence of space for commons and connecting individuals to overcome solitude and isolation on the fringes of the society. 

Epirus region in northwestern Greece is an area of many mythical topologies and multi-cultural identities, ranging from the Venetian influence in the coast to Ottoman villages in the interior. | Photo © Christina Serifi, TiriLab

TiriLab, an initiative and an open platform, explores multi-cultural heritage related to local technologies, gastronomy and culture specifics from rural communities in northwestern Greece. It is a joint venture of collectives and individuals, practitioners and researchers with focus on architecture and territory, local ecologies and digital technologies, circular economy and sharing models, initiated by Christina Serifi and Juan Chacón | Zuloark. 

TiriLab focus on building techniques, food research and production as well as territorial research and design through workshops, encounters, research and built prototypes. | Photo © Juan Chacón |TiriLab

At the Epirus region in northwestern Greece they have identified a variety of self-organised initiatives mostly by women. All these cooperatives, associations, informal or formal organisations achieved to survive during greek economic depression and kept these villages alive by producing local products, bartering and organising social events. Christina Serifi explains that “we recognize these initiatives as rural commons sharing multiple resources, such as food and gathering a community around them, by re-using abandoned public infrastructure and creating open kitchens. We are inspired by and wish to learn from real life practices and critical human interventions, leading the way in building alternatives locally and globally.” 

TiriLab aim to merge formal, non-formal and informal learning models through rural commons to create encounters with artists, local institutions and inhabitants from and for the region. | Photo © Juan Chacón, Bea Abbott

Mapping the margins would be a series of maps and documentations, identifying, for the first time, all the women associations, local agriculture cooperatives as well as abandoned buildings starting from Thesprotia province in Epirus, in order to create an active platform where many cooperatives can find a space to grow. 

Alkistis Thomidou and Gian Maria Socci are observing the way “world went into an unprecedented lockdown, exposing the fragility of a lifestyle resulting from decades of neoliberal policies and individualism” and bring an attempt in 35 Meridians of Radical Rituals to imagine how architecture can reinvent itself to support this venture, learning from non professional practices that are already making a change in our cities. “Shortcomings of public services, migration mismanagement and the failure of addressing climate change demonstrate the need to revolutionize the way we manage and envision our communal space.”

Map of the current research 35 Meridians Of Radical Rituals that looks at Europe as a place of diversity and cultural crossings beyond the usual centres of cultural production. | Photo © Forty-five degrees

An itinerant survey along the 45ºN parallel, a path crossing climates, geographies and borders marked by socio-economic and geo-political struggles, where movements of people, knowledge and goods formed the hybrid place we call Europe. This arbitrary line separating the south we come from and the north where we live and work, is a symbolic space that shifts notions of centre and periphery and invites speculation on a different understanding of borders as spaces of threshold and diversity.

In the proposal for the Greek Pavilion at the Venice Biennale forty-five degrees explored the idea of beekeeping as practice of transnationalism and solidarity. | Photo © Forty-five degrees

Bees become ambassadors of a metaphorical cross-border pollination of the Biennale’s Giardini. If we were producing honey at the Giardini, would this be a Greek honey, an Italian one, or something else altogether? | Photo © Forty-five degrees

Forty-five degrees are convinced that “everyday people's responses to the extraordinary crisis of our times show the power of community in inventing new modes of thinking and making. Although we often overlook or miss them, they show great potential to meet the ecological, economic and societal challenges of today. We are collecting exemplary practices and regard them as rituals, because of their power to create ties of kinship, foster inclusion and spatial identity while strengthening the capacity of collective action.” These take the form of community self-organization, informal gatherings and spontaneous actions that mainly survive through maintenance and care. They point towards an unexpected ressurenge of the commons, encouraging new forms of citizenship and new types of care for life forms. They show how radical innovations, new traditions, memories and technologies can generate alternative futures of living together across physical and digital space.

Forty-five degrees is focusing on mapping and recording informal acts of care that are already making a change in our cities. Here the example of containers. | Photo © Forty-five degrees

Lemonot is a design and research platform, founded by Sabrina Morreale and Lorenzo Perri, interested in iconographic gestures enabling the mutual immanence among objects, bodies and rituals. In particular, their work attempts to define peculiar architectural settings for updated gastronomic ceremonies: food preparation and consumption construct a privileged ground to enact symbolic behaviors. Their research focuses on contemporary folklore – as a trigger for unconventional spatial languages, between geometrical abstraction and material figurativism.

A totem of miniatures to re-enact the Mesa de la Challa, AAVS 2018 | Photo © Lemonot

They researched Mamani’s buildings, nicknamed “cholets,” a portmanteau made of the high-class “chalets” (as in, Swiss cottages with eaves) and the derogatory “cholo” (as in, racist slang for an indigenous person). They are build manifestation of folkloric andean rituals. The spacial languages characterizing them are rooted into a procession, traditional mass, mythological characters. 

Cultural Assembling, the AA Visiting School El Alto 2018 led by Lemonot.| Photo © Lemonot

Cholets are more than just outlandish buildings with zany colors; they come with the promise of financial returns. In a typical cholet, the ground floor contains stalls that can be rented out to businesses; the second and third floors house a party venue; and on the upper floors are residential apartments. “For me, of course it represents the colors of our culture, but mainly it’s the result of hard work,” says Joaquin Quispe Condori, a restaurateur who co-owns a cholet with a salon called El Crucero del Sur, with his siblings, “I believe that we are really hard workers, and all the effort, it’s [shown] here.” Every owner of the cholet becomes a tycoon, who works and organizes community parties and feasts. Everyone turns to him with condescension and admires him. The colors are in fact inspired by Andean traditions but as well on the owner’s choices. 

Drawing a collective tapestry to represent the characters of the Diablada, AAVS 2018. | Photo © Lemonot

Controversies 1 (social) Owning a cholet is a powerful status symbol that announces the attainment of wealth. The cholets constitute new markers of wealth inequality in a city whose emerging cholo bourgeoisie increasingly contrasts with, for example, the poor street vendors who set up shop right outside their front doors.

Controversies 2 (commodification of traditional rituals) Three days a week in the city of El Alto, cholitas dressed in their traditional outfits battle it out in the ring in an event that’s a hit with locals and a top tourist attraction. These women are theatrically performing for tourists, betraying the values of their traditions. 

Controversies 2 (commodification of traditional rituals) It is not the only exaggerated event or ritual to entice tourists to come. The preste, which is a folloric moment for the aymara, becomes today an electronic party with international djs and sponsors that takes place inside the cholets, once a year. Traditional dancers, masks and cholitas are dancing covered in led lights. A form of celebration or gentrification?  

Controversies 3 (political) The rise of Freddy Mamani’s architecture and the government of Evo Morales is strictly linked together. Evo won with 53.7% of the votes, an absolute majority, unusual in Bolivian elections.

Controversies by Daniel Runnels (2019) Cholo aesthetics and mestizaje: architecture in El Alto, Bolivia, Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 14:2, 138-150, DOI:

***

What is the purpose of your community?

Forty-five degrees is an architecture and urban design practice dedicated to the critical making of collective space. Our particular interest lies in Europe, this hybrid place in constant mutation, where we are investigating emerging transcultural traditions, memories and technologies and their potential to shape radical practices of commoning grounded on spatial justice and environmental awareness.

TiriLab is a joint venture of collectives and individuals, practitioners and researchers with focus on architecture and territory, local ecologies and digital technologies, circular economy and sharing models. We work closely with women cooperatives, associations and rural initiatives in Thesprotia province in Greece, aiming to create an active knowledge network, in order to empower them, give them visibility and foster their multilayered identity. Our main objective is to visualize the territory as a whole, as a shared cultural space and add a plural voice to the urban-rural dichotomy discourse, raising awareness of their interdependence by reorganizing relations and practices, through a culture of solidarity.

Cholet El Crucero del Sur, site visit with Freddy Mamani Silvestre. | Photo © Lemonot

Lemonot: The AAVs El Alto was held for the first time in January 2018 as an educational programme in La Paz, Bolivia on behalf of the Architectural Association in London. It takes the form of an intensive workshop - everyday full-time for two or three weeks in a row - involving students of architecture, art, fashion, film-making and anthropology. The programme explores through different media the relationship between architecture, cultural identity and rituals in the Bolivian Altiplano, with particular emphasis on the understanding of the cholets constructed by Freddy Mamani Silvestre. International students from all over the world have the chance to work collectively with local ones, experimenting together with heterogeneous sets of references and teaching methodologies.

How do you create a community network (digital, personal, combination)?

Forty-five degrees: Since we started collaborating, we often happened to be physically in different cities, countries, continents, time zones etc. To sustain our community we make use of digital tools but also meet physically when possible. Through research and design, on-site workshops, collaborative and educational formats in multiple scales, we try to understand the locality of each project and seek for moments of entanglement and empowerment of the local community, aiming at creating collective and inclusive spaces.

In Rhodes we proposed to turn a concrete plaza into a community garden organized according to the natural ecology of an oasis, recuperating winter rainwater for summer refreshment. | Photo © Forty-five degrees

TiriLab: TiriLab was born with the aim of creating, participating and being part of communities, trying to gap binary concepts of roles and contexts: urban and rural, face-to-face and digital, expert and community. Since we are in a very early stage of community engagement we are working on different levels of approaching. On one hand, we are mapping the territory, through the project “Mapping the margins”, for possible partners, associations, local administrations and civic society groups to create a local network for developing activities. This is an ongoing project and has brought together very interesting groups and initiatives. We have started creating encounters and workshops will local women associations through cooking, prototyping and discussing. All these local informal or formal organizations achieved to survive during greek economic depression and kept their communities alive by producing local products, bartering and organizing social events. We value and identify these initiatives as rural commons sharing multiple resources.

Masks from ordinary moments, AAVS 2019. | Photo © Lemonot

Lemonot: Students are recruited mainly online, through an open call on the AA website. However, especially for the ones coming from La Paz and El Alto, the word of mouth is quite important: we always try to advertise the workshop firsthand in different Bolivian universities, getting to know students in person as much as we can. Indeed, before launching the Visiting School, in 2017 we lived in La Paz and it was not only an amazing experience, but also an essential opportunity to familiarize with the daily realm of such a peculiar context. This coming May we are organizing Tales from the Altiplano: a series of Instagram lives with artists, photographers, architects and anthropologists. We are collecting materials to take stock of our experiences about New Andean Architecture in La Paz and this will set the basis for a series of publications concerning daily practices and rituals, highlighting how they often come with a spontaneously rich iconographic apparatus that should consciously inform the production of spatial languages.

How and which people do you involve?

Forty-five degrees: Our projects and research are based on collaborative work. We are very interested in the acts of spontaneous appropriation as a means of co-authorship and agency. Therefore, in all our projects we include final users by providing open frameworks for them to reinvent their own urban experience. Most of all, we are interested in discovering impactful urban practices that often fly under the radar of professional recognition. Therefore we try to uncover the hidden actors who run and maintain the city as active participants in our decision-making processes. These might comprise retirees, street-sweepers, gardeners, and in general citizens who are not normally included in the conversation, a temporary community of "city heroes".

TiriLab: On a second scale, we also invite every year (Summer of Nothing), mostly international professionals who have developed projects with different communities around the globe in rural or urban areas. Together we enjoy, discover and research the region and its secrets in a profound  way in order to bring another perspective in the local context. Our aim is to initiate the creation of a digital platform, relating it to a shared transitional territory which is inhabited in a non-binary way. What if we consider just one environment with digital and physical capabilities?Digital connection and internet are very recent arrivals in several communities in Thesprotia. In TiriLab we are starting to plan how some of the groups operating in the area could be more engaged with the digital world, to gain visibility and also to have the opportunity to exchange knowledge with the groups operating further away from them, if they are willing to.

Crafting ceramic pieces is the studio of Mario Sarabia, AAVS 2018. | Photo © Lemonot

Lemonot: In addition to the students that change every year, we created a network of academics, architects, artists, film-directors, photographers, theatre actors and various artisans. In La Paz and El Alto we found a community of creative people really open to collaborate and this led to fascinating and unexpected interactions: last year we were fabricating props for a spatial performance with a brilliant crafter that usually repairs pieces for airplanes!

Portable Cholets, the AA Visiting School El Alto 2019 | Photo © Lemonot

[tiergan-vashir]

What about a cis woman who has androgynous features and hates it and herself for it? I'd give anything for a more feminine face and not look so flat chested. Is this dysphoria too? Do you have any resources for this sort of problem? It seems silly, but when I see trans women having things like facial feminization surgery or going on hormones and getting breasts that are nice, I wonder if a cis woman who experiences the same pain over her androgynous features is in the same boat..

Aww, anon. I’m so sorry to hear that you’re struggling this way. I wouldn’t say this is gender dysphoria as gender dysphoria is involves a persistent sense of unease and conflict between a person’s physical or assigned gender and the gender with which he/she/they identify.  You are a cis woman who identifies as a woman, but wishes she looked more feminine, which is very different.

I would assess how strong your feelings are and if it’s extremely severe, to the point that your distress causes you to be highly preoccupied with it and it is impacting your school, work, home, etc or and you find yourself hiding away, I would consult a therapist. You may have body dysmorphic disorder.If it’s not quite THAT extreme, the I would say that what you’re feeling and struggling with is still totally valid and far, far more common amongst folks than you might think.  Whether you realise it or not, as a woman you are bombarded all the time with powerful systemic, societal pressures to look, dress, and behave in a certain manner every day - and all of that can really destroy how people feel about themselves.

Shoving the rest of this under a cut for length.

Let me just tell you right now - my breasts are fuckin’ tiny.  I know I literally just asked for advice on binders a few days ago, but I’m an A cup at best. Probably smaller.  The slight, itty-bitty ‘cup’ shape on my flimsy bralettes probably give these non-existent knockers more shape than they really have.  Even though I’m buying binders and what not, on a lazy day, I could honestly just slap some pasties on these nip-nops and call it good. They’re that small.

This is amazing and awesome now that I’m busily trying to minimize their existence as much as possible.  I consider myself genderqueer/genderfluid so some days I’ll be crushed over the fact that I can’t be this tall, jacked, majestic Tiergan-shaped dude, while other days I’ll be fine and dandy with looking like a woman, while MOST days I just want to be the purest manifestation of Gender Confusion Inducement™ in other people.  Me wanting binders over my itty-bitty nublet tiddies is just me wanting to go that extra mile to be flat as a fuckin’ wall.

But when I thought I was a cis woman? I felt crushingly ashamed by them.  

Back then, I didn’t really like myself or how I looked. I didn’t like looking at myself in the mirror. I HATED looking at myself in pictures. I rarely took selfies, because I thought I was not very attractive.  I thought I was bland and ugly looking.  Society had told me again and again that attractive women looked a certain way, were shaped a certain way, dressed a certain way, etc, and that clearly my unhappiness was based upon the fact that I did not conform to that mold.I thought to be happy and to feel better about myself, I had to double down on the womanliness and become more conventionally attractive. So I’d buy things like massive push-up bras that never felt good, comfortable, and I hated in a desperate attempt to conform. I’d buy these really specific types of shirts and clothes that I didn’t like at all, but thought was what was ‘pretty’ for women. I’d fumble through learning make-up, not because I was interested in the colors, the expression, the creativity, and accentuating my features the way I wanted, but because that’s just what adult women were supposed to do.  I’d buy certain shoes I didn’t really even like, but knew pretty women were supposed to like and wear.

I was trying so damn hard to fit the mold and in the end, it only made me feel worse.  I felt like I was wearing this awkward, uncomfortable shell. People would tell me I was pretty, but I didn’t feel happier. I just felt more miserable, because all this extra emotional and physical labour I was putting into myself just to fit this arbitrary bullshit notion of what an ideal pretty lady was supposed to be like was EXHAUSTING and I didn’t even really like how I looked. I didn’t want to do it all every. single. day of my life.

Realising I was nonbinary was absolutely liberating for me, because I thought  “Well… if I’m not a cis woman and none of the old ‘rules’ matter anymore, …what does handsomeness or beauty actually mean to me?” 

And for the first time in my entire adult life, I defined for myself what beauty and handsomeness truly meant for me.  It was wonderful and liberating.  The first thing I realised was that I didn’t really give a fuck about how big my boobs are. Society did. And BOY HOWDY it was GREAT not giving a flying fuck about that anymore.  I still keep a few bras around for costuming/cosplay purposes, but you could not catch me fucking dead in one otherwise.

I used to hate make-up and find it to be this long, cumbersome chore that I would lose interest in doing every day, but once I got to sit and experiment on how I personally actually wanted it to look on my face - I fucking loved it. I like experimenting with colors and want to play with more. It appeals to the artist in me to play on a canvas even if that canvas is my face.

Fashion as a whole became a wild new experience. I stopped thinking about what I felt pressured to buy because it would make me look a certain way and what I really, really wanted.  I made a pinterest board of fashion goals and pinned every single thing I could find that I liked - regardless of whether it was a man, woman, or theater major dressed up in costume wearing it so I could identify what I actually wanted.  I dyed my hair pink, but got it cut in a more masculine manner and I fucking love the way I look now.

You might be thinking “Yeah, ok, Tiergan, that’s great and all, but I’m not nonbinary.”

But the funny thing I realised was that even though embracing that I am nonbinary led me to this understanding that I could take back my own power and define for myself what attractiveness truly means for me - this was a thing I could have done at any point in my life if I hadn’t been so buried in all those signals from society on what beauty was supposed to be.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you “just accept ur natural self! Don’t change a thing! Body positivity!!!!!” Because: 1) I know when you’re in a place of feeling super down on yourself, that shit doesn’t help at all and just feels extremely inauthentic. 2) I changed A LOT about myself until I was happy with my appearance. I just didn’t change it in the ways that I previously thought I was ‘supposed’ to.

So instead what I’ll say is that if you’re willing and able, I would set aside an hour or two each week to clear your mind, dig deep, and try to visualize a universe in which nothing anyone else thinks about your appearance matters anymore, because YOU are God.  You have a blank slate.  

There is no pressure to look a certain way to be considered beautiful, because you’re God. You decide what is beautiful..  No one in this universe gives a fuck if you have big tiddies, little tiddes, medium tiddies or any kind of tiddy, because right now the universe is a blank slate and all tiddies are created equal in a blank slate.  No one in this universe cares whether or not you have the perfect heart-shaped feminine face or not, because you’ve not told anyone yet what is considered attractive.  You are the decider of beautiful things.

Now imagine that you, as God of this World, descend down to hang with the mortals.  You can’t really change your body without going back to your old weirdo universe back on Earth, but what you can change is your clothes, your hair, your make-up, etc.  Knowing that this universe is yours and you get to decide what beautiful is for yourself, what would you change?  

Remember, you’re God in this universe you’ve made - so you don’t have to impress fucking anybody.  Anyone who says shit to you gets smited or yeet into the sun.  As a god, you get to wear what makes you feel powerful, majestic, and appropriately godlike - what does that clothing look like?  Can you imagine it?  If it’s hard, maybe pull up pinterest and surf around for your god-clothes.  Would you get stylish sneakers or thigh high boots?  Would you get a lady’s power-suit or a lolita dress?  Would you get some neat unique godly jewelry? (If yes, I recommend Etsy. That site is gonna destroy my fuckin’ destory my wallet.)

What’s your make-up like?  Is it tough to imagine?  Pull up another pinterest. Use it to find your god-makeup.  And hey - are you putting this make-up on because it makes you feel GOOD and POWERFUL like the goddess you are, or to impress the mortals? Because again - you’re god. You don’t have to impress jack shit. This make up is for YOU and what makes you feel GOOD and POWERFUL and GODLIKE.

Do you still care about having bigger boobs? (Did you know a fuckload of actual supermodels and Hollywood actresses have small tiddies? So even in THIS universe, you don’t need big boobs to be beautiful!)  Do you still feel unhappy that your face is kind of androgynous according to the dumbasses back in the vastly inferior universe you originally came from?  Or do things in your universe where you’re god feel pretty great?  I hope so, because gods don’t really have time to worry about the funky assumptions of mere mortals. You’re too busy being fabulous and doing godlike shit.

Hope this sort of helps!

[incarnateirony]

Thoughts.

So I finally watched Good Omens. First of all I know some people were waiting for me to like, do breakdowns on the use of lore, sigils and whatnot -- I’m sure I’ll poke at it eventually, but so much of it reads of typicality, alongside strong artistic liberty, that when it comes to actual sigils there’s very few and I’ll need a good screen of them.

But that isn’t about that. This is actually about Good Omens and the audience response to queer content and queer coded content. I’m going to warn you, some of this shit is going to incense the fuck out of woke tumblr. It’s going to be a lot of hard pills to swallow, mostly in regards to parts of the LGBT community -- of which I’m a part -- moving around our own goal posts, inconsistencies in the placements of our goalposts, and the impacts of het culture. If you come into my mentions screaming away at me expect an ignore or a block.

No, this isn’t anti-Azri/Crow. It’s very pro Azri/Crow. And yes, I’m going to drag other fandoms I’m in, into it. But I’m also gonna drag general discussion into it.

First I’m going to source a link to a recent set of tweets someone made that I consider very insightful (x) and then highlight a bulk of it.

“When we call something queerbaiting, we're essentially saying: "source material X doesn't count as real or valid queer representation." Here is a thread on why we need to be cognizant about which real-life queer people & stories we're erasing when we expand our use of that term. First: actual queerbaiting, in which art-creators hint at queer representation in order to attract viewers and then insist their art was 100% hetero all along, sucks a lot. I am not advocating getting rid of the term. Nor am I saying it's not valid to feel jerked around when a show uses the promise of a specific queer relationship on their publicity circuit, and then doesn't follow through on it in the actual source. (Or follows through only to write out a character, a la #TheMagicians) However: when we narrow our definition of "real and valid queer representation" until the ONLY thing that counts as queer rep is on-screen queer *romance* or on-screen queer *sex*, we are telling a significant portion of the real-life queer community that they don't count. When we use the "queerbaiting" label to describe a millennia-long, loving asexual same-gender relationship (aka #GoodOmens) we are telling asexuals in loving life-long relationships that they don't count as queer. We are also telling sexual queers whose primary, life-organizing relationships are queerplatonic (me, this is me) that their queerness is defined only by who they fuck, not by who they choose to build a life with. I want a space where ALL kinds of queer stories get told: romances yes, but also stories of queer friendship; queer mentorship; queer animosity; queer competition and cooperation; queer found family; queer provocation and queer mistakes. None of that happens if we tell everyone whose queer content doesn't fit into the narrow box "Lead A & Lead B kiss and/or fuck onscreen" (even if A&B make a life together; even if A&B kiss & fuck other same-sex people) that their art is exploitative & doesn't count as queer rep. “ 

Why am I choosing to highlight this while implicatively mentioning my adjacent fandoms? Well, because blogs I follow that either haphazardly dismiss, say, Destiel as valid until (personally met goalpost, generally when arguing with the hetnorm or anti community wanting a kiss) are all on the Azriphale-Crowley bandwagon.

And let me say, I adore the Azriphale-Crowley bandwagon. I’m ON that bandwagon. Holy shit am I on that wagon, but we need to inspect our dialogue for people who are on one but not the other.

We can say, for example, “Well, Neil Gaiman and the actors have been supportive! So THAT’S why it’s fine!” I mean -- aren’t people always banging on about post-affirmation not being enough, or just vague support being enough, or this-or-that not being enough? Like people don’t flame Rowling over that? I mean, even if we handwave away that Neil Gaiman had literally uncontested authorship instead of 203492 hands in the author and ownership pot top-to-bottom which the average show doesn’t have -- which gives the liberty to say whatever the fuck he wants because it is wholly his product and under his contract and design -- do you notice that it’s actually a very, very small audience crowing about that? And rarely if ever the same ones that do about other pairings that could be considered similar? Like we haven’t gotten those moments from authors in other shows (Robbie Thompson “Destiel isn’t canon?” comes to mind) that we yell queerbait at then and decide isn’t enough. Because someone else moved a goalpost out.

Ah-- but they’re... confirmed asexual and agender and immortal! Okay... and... so is, for example, if we’re going to tilt this way, Castiel. And ace people can have queer relationships with bi or yes, even straight people. Mindblowing, I know, but that’s it, that’s reality.

So why on gods green earth am I seeing this disparity between blogs about the same content, banging on at different volumes of what we expect?

It’s something I’ve written about before, the loudest example being my Problem With DreamHunter post. Before any DreamHunter fans pick up the pitchforks, don’t worry. It, also, is in support of DreamHunter, but simply addresses the cultural problem in there not being a problem with DreamHunter. The blend of intersectional issue disparity between MLM and WLW, and also the simple fact that the fandom wasn’t positioned to have antis or rival ships screaming at it: het culture and shipping culture.

I’ve banged on about this before: in our race for representation, we often trample over content that’s perfectly good and valid and great in many ways, because we want to be able to win an argument against an asshole, we want to be able to bludgeon the gay so inarguably into somebody’s brain that they yield to the might of it, or at least, we imagine it reaches that point. Anti-shipping culture can be so loud that even slow burn het pairings that kiss will have antis explaining their way around it (eg, Mulder and Scully, off the top of my head). Anti queer culture will talk down men or women even making out on screen as experimentation. This cycle will continue.

So again, let me state: Good Omens is a masterpiece. I am utterly enthralled by it, but it does leave me sitting flummoxed about the uneven bars we put out there as marker posts based on trying to race to the finish of arguments.

I’m sure some hack job that doesn’t know how to rub brain cells together beyond “it’s straight” and, beneath the surface, “I don’t like it so I’m going to piss and moan about more expansive methods of thought than hard niching the complexity of human relations” is going to roll in here, thinking yelling “Jensen Ackles thinks it’s straight!” in supreme reductionism of things like authorship, be it intent OR death of the author, or whatever else is out there in this medium -- I’m sure they’ll show up, make the same repetitive ass of themselves as always, and roll on, completely missing the point that I’m not obligated to your arbitrary bullshit, and that nobody is. 

I don’t HAVE to point out every single time a dickhat on a loop yells that, that Jensen Ackles himself spoke of the intangibility of the deepness of their connection with Castiel as an angel, and that a cishet dude from texas probably doesn’t understand the finest details of LGBT identity complexity despite being an ally while fumbling over talking about the difficulty of putting a label on it. I don’t have to explain that the actor doesn’t actually get to determine that. Viewership or author, take your pick. I don’t have to explain the “it’s never happening and wasn’t intended” never came from the authors every time some bumblefuck says it -- that it came from one account with a blurb that said he doesn’t speak for that writing room whatsoever. I don’t have to review the times that Jensen Ackles has almost verbatim mirrored the Good Omens creatives about the beauty of it being you being able to make your own interpretation even if it wasn’t his, and encouraging that. I don’t fucking have to, you entitled sniveling shits.

And no, it’s by no means about, say, Dean and Cas. It’s just about the dialogues I’m tired of seeing tilt unevenly even between typically well grounded and centered people. 

So anyway Azriphale and Crowley are EternityMates and that’s the fucking tea. Call it queerplat or call it queerromantic I can see either, even if I do tilt towards the former. Destiel is queerromantic and you can fight me. Come at me. Except nobody really will over Good Omens, just Supernatural, because like magic, Good Omens isn’t geared for a fuckton of other bloated ships or antis who hate either of them by structure alone. And that, itself, is a point to be made, too.

And before some doodlefuck trolls along, no, there’s no such thing as incestromantic. Spare us the time and block me now if your knee jerk counter-troll is going to be subtextually along those lines, because I promise you’ll just get blocked when you try to roll into town with it. Since the Supernatural fandom seems to house corners of douchebags that don’t know how to control their primitive douchebag impulses and they do come into address in this post.

Moral of the story: Stop listening to homophobes, antis, or people with agendas. Listen to the content and what has actually been said. On all sides. 

If you consider, for example, 

the Ineffible Husbands canon with no admission of anything beyond friendship, with the hets loudly banging one scene over with “well the others are ace or whatever” as your reason (fair), a few lunches, basic dedication and a few well placed songs, and a few supportive notes from the general creatives,

But the Hunter Husbands not canon with talked-around love yous and need yous, intentional deletion of Castiel’s agender ace aspects, in spite of there being no evident banging or kissing in the show that hasn’t been a highlight of a problem since like season what six?; talk arounds of their meals together, infinite longer and classic romantic crafted dedication, innumerable well placed songs and yes, a few supportive notes from the creatives that are buried by yourself or others beneath intentionally obfuscated arguments and spun context,

You are, whether you want to gullet it or not, part of the moving goalpost problem. Whether it’s you running to meet a phobe or an anti, or just being coded into it by the screaming around you, there is no world in which one is representation and the other is not. It’s just fuckin’ not. 

It’s not.

I don’t care what you yell and scream because it’s popular in your circles. It’s fuckin’ not. 

It’s not.

Either both are rep or neither are rep. Personally, I adore both of them, and anyone that has a problem with that can eat me.

Good Omens is not a goddamn motherfucking breakthrough in representation. It’s the same very valid very real form of queer coding half this site screams at because someone got loud enough to scream about it early on, generally inspired by antis riding their ass, just it’s the first and second lead instead of second and third lead, and there’s no ‘rival’ in first and second leads as being intentionally dragged into vaguery. It’s. Fucking. Not. It’s literally. The same. Fucking. Level.

Now, I HAVE been banging on that it’s the level our content SHOULD be acceptable at (well, almost; frankly I’d consider Destiel better, as the show’s overall intimacy threshold is far lower while Good Omens has parallel overtness to the coupling in the actual canon, meaning Good Omens’ playing field, for fair treatment, would be indebted to matching volume -- not saying sex since ace but louder admissions and engagements that are just as clear.)

Unpopular? Good, I don’t care. I’m tired of people screaming about completely conflicting crap.

It’s where we SHOULD be taking ownership of our content. So if there’s any breakthrough, it’s the LGBT community themselves having some sort of spark of awareness that they can and should be able to own content at that volume, largely because the fandom isn’t swamped by asshats on the other side all yelling for their own crappy agendas clogging up your heads. There’s a few queerbait shouters. And you laugh them off, by and large, and accept it as canon and rep. Funny how that works without antis up your ass.

Sincerely,

A tired queer and newborn Crowley stan.

[voidsung-icefire]

Is shipping ok?

I’m sorry if this might evolve into something really different about half way through. I am very frustrated by things I have been seeing for a while now and I just want to get it out of the way.

So shipping. Yes. Taking fictional characters and imagining them in relationships of various sorts. There are so many different reasons to ship, from thinking that the pairing has a lot of potential in canon, to simply thinking the two characters look attractive and wanting to enjoy some spicy art of them. There are as many different reasons to ship as there are ships. So...is shipping ever a bad thing?

It can be. It can definitely be in certain situations. The first being using it to taunt someone. If the only reason for your ship is so you can shove it in the face of someone you know doesn’t like it, then this is wrong. An example of this would be some people who ship Tracer with Soldier76 only so they can “fight back” against the LGBT community by annoying them with their art work. These shippers are not good. The second situation is a bully shipper, a person that goes and imposes their ship as if it had supreme value over others. Attacking people with different ships online, going as far as to attack creators of the original work because they believe their ship is somehow more important than what the original creator of the characers feels. An example would be certain Lapidot shippers who bullied a Steven Universe writer over the internet relentlessly because the characters were shown to be only friends in an episode she had a hand in writing. These behaviours are unacceptable.

But are their ships the same?

No. Of course not. The reason behind these specific shippers shipping, and the behaviour they had towards others are wrong, cruel and entitled. But others may like these pairings for different reasons and behave in a well mannered, polite and kind way towards others. It is not wrong for them to like these things. It is not the ships that are bad in this case, it is the behaviour of the people that is wrong.

Overall, shipping is ok. It is not canon. It is a fan creation. One can recognize the canon, appreciate it, and still make art of a different ship on the side for a multitude of reasons. And that’s ok. Maybe a canon pairing wasn’t to your taste, like how Katara ended with Aang in the Last Airbender. Maybe you would have liked her to be with Zuko more. You know that Aang was the one to get the girl in canon. You respect that. You can still make art and AU fanfiction where Zuko gets her in the end.

What about McHanzo? Big Overwatch ship. Entirely non-canon. The two characters have never met. McCree displays a very seductive personality with several lines particularly directed towards women. And although he can be bi, he himself stated one of the reasons Ashe was never his type is because she’s rich. And Hanzo is very much rich. And even has that rich kid snooty attitude. Nowhere near a canon ship. But it’s everywhere. And it is allowed to be. People are not doing anything wrong by making their own worlds where these characters can be together.

Maybe Widowtracer? Widowmaker was brainwashed and no longer feels most emotions, including love. Tracer currently has a very lovely girlfriend in canon. So Widowtracer is very much non-canon. But it is still ok to ship these two. For a number of reasons. Some just find them hot. Some want a Widowmaker redemption and see Tracer as a way for her to move on from her past. Some want the three ladies together as an OT3. You can write up various scenarios where Emily leaves Tracer for various reasons, and that is completely fine because that’s what fanfiction is all about. It’s your take on the scenario presented for you.

Maybe Pharmercy? Ah. An interesting one. Also entirely non-canon, but for a reason some more..distasteful people...seem to ignore. We have a bit of a Lapidot situation here, because, you see, Mercy is intended to be with Genji in canon. The two write letters to each other in the Christmas comic (the same comic that revealed Tracer to be gay, first showed Torb’s wife Ingrid, had Jack holding a picture of his ex Vincent, showed Ana’s ex Sam, showed possibly Reyes’ daughter he had with his ex, showed Widowmaker at her late husband’s grave...) and were intended to get voicelines during Valentine’s Day where they would exchange chocolates. A very romantic gesture. Well...some Pharmercy shippers threw a fit, bullied the creators and now those voicelines have never been pushed to the live game. But they still exist. So these specific shippers had bad manners and are thus wrong, but Pharmercy as a ship is still completely fine. If you recognize the canon, respect it, but still want to make art of these two ladies together for a number of reasons, that is completely acceptable.

And what about intercanon pairings, pairings that go as far as to break the boundries of fictional universes to bring characters together. Like Jack Frost with Elsa, or Merida with Hiccup. Characters that will never meet because they are from different worlds made by entirely differnet companies. And those are also ok. Completely fine. Go express yourself. Make art.

Now here’s why I was upset enough to write this. I have long been witnessing immense levels of hypocrisy in the shipping community. Where some ships are put on holy pedestals and considered to have some sort of moral superiority. And all other ships are somehow inherently wrong and the people who ship them, terrible people.

So here’s the question: is it ok to ship a canon gay character in a straight relationship?

And to that I answer...is it ok to ship a canon straight character in a gay relationship?

If you answer no to one but yes to the other....why is that? Why is it okay for one way but not the other, when both are exactly the same. Yes, canon, breaking canon...most shipping is breaking canon. All fanwork is breaking canon in some way because only what the creators create and declare is canon is, well...canon. So why is some canon breaking considered ok when others are not?

I’ve heard the justification that you can’t ship a gay character in a straight ship because that is just a too important trait in a character to break. But why would the other way be ok then? Why is it ok to break the sexuality canon with straight characters but not gay ones? What about genderswaps? Would all rule63 fanart be inherently wrong because you’re breaking an important canon aspect?

What about all the reboots with different looking people in the lead? So let’s say...should Miles not exist because Spider-man was originally white? All the films that cast a woman to play a character that had always been established as male? These reboots have a right to exist. It’s artistic expression. It’s remix. It’s perfectly acceptable. Of course, there will be some backlash, there always is when you reinvent an established character that already has a sizeable fanbase. But ultimately, it is a matter of opinion on if someone likes the new version of the character or not. The new version its self is not right or wrong. It just...is. It just exists and does its own thing in its own way.

There are people who act like certain characters are inherently a certain way because a certain group somehow has....ownership...of the character. That Spider-man can only ever be white because he was white and belongs to white people. That’s not how that works. A character does not...belong to whatever arbitrary group because they have certain characteristics in common.

A character...is personality. It is actions. It is feelings. A character...is someone anyone could potentially relate to. That anyone can potentially like and dislike. It always just...baffles me when people act like they can only like and relate to a character if that character is an exact mirror of themselves. When I was a kid, I liked to watch Danny Phantom. And I thought he was cool. I liked how he had super powers. I liked how he fought the ghosts. I never once thought I couldn’t like him because he was a boy and I’m not. In Overwatch, I main Reaper. He’s an older latinx American man that I headcanon as bisexual. I am literally none of those things. He’s still my favorite. Soldier76 is gay. I’d say since most of the population is straight, it’s safe to assume most Soldier mains are straight. Should they stop playing this character because he’s gay and is somehow now off limits to straight people? No, of course not. Everyone can like or dislike any character.

Everyone can ship any character with any other character.

And some people don’t like that. Some people think...that certain groups...should have different sets of rules.

That’s not how it works. That’s not how equality works.

We are all human beings. If it works one way, it has to work the other way in return. A white character can be reimagined as black, a black character should be able to be reimagined as white. A male character can be rebooted as a female character, a female character can be rebooted as a male character. A straight character can be in a gay ship, a gay character should be able to be in a straight ship.

Some people think that certain groups should have different sets of rules. And that is unacceptable. You are not inherently better or more special or more important than others based on arbitrary traits you have had since birth.

If you think that certain people should have fewer rights based on the color of their skin, you are a racist. If you believe that certain people should have fewer rights based on their gender, you are a sexist. If you believe that certain people should have fewer rights based on their sexual orientation, then you are some form of bigot.

We are all human beings. We are all equal. We have the same rights, we play by the same rules. And if you advocate for something other than that, then you are not advocating for equality, so stop using that as your excuse.

Like the only group that should have special preferential treatment is people with disabilities because they simply cannot function properly if everything was left the same as it is for the majority of people. People in wheelchairs cannot use stairs. They need better access. That’s a given. But even they have the same laws, the same rights.

If you really still think that you deserve special treatment, that you should have additional freedoms, that certain people inherently deserve less than you and should have more restrictions placed on them, based on arbitrary traits they were born with and had no control over, then you are a terrible person. If you are going through a whole load of mental gymnastics and reaching out to find justifications for why you somehow deserve more than other people based on these traits, then you need to get out, talk to some real people and reevaluate certain things. If you can justify giving less freedom to others based on these arbitrary traits, you are opperating on the same mindset as genocidal tyrants.

And freakin read Animal Farm. If you haven’t, I’ll give you the TL:DR

Human farmer is an oppressor to the animals. The animals kick him out and establish equality. The pigs, after some convoluted stuff, decide that they deserve preferential treatment. The pigs thus become the oppressors over the other animals. The cycle continues, implying the pigs will be one day driven out and some other group will find some bs excuse for why they deserve more rights than the rest. Featuring the iconic line:

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

[pamphletstoinspire]

Why Growing Up with Relativism Has Millennials Searching for New Rules for Life

Written by: Isaac Withers

How growing up with ‘you do you’ without ‘practical wisdom’ has left young people searching for rules for life:

‘They try to accuse people like me who believe in empiricism and the enlightenment of somehow what they call moral relativism, as if its some appalling sin, where what it actually means is thought’. This was a statement that Stephen Fry made in the 2009 Intelligence Squared debate entitled ‘The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in the World’ and it captures well the cultural conversation around relativism and truth. Is relativism a damaging and destabilising thing, or is it in fact just free thought?

Well, before we get in to it, a definition for the term would be helpful. The Oxford English Dictionary defines relativism as ‘the doctrine that knowledge, morality, etc, are relative rather than absolute’. Put simply it’s the belief that your morals are not universal truths but are in fact more personal opinions ‘relative to’ or ‘related to’ your upbringing or class. At first that may seem like a totally inoffensive idea but it is a debate that has continued passionately over the decades between liberal and conservative thinkers. Paul Ryan, four years before he became Speaker of the House said, “If you ask me what the biggest problem in America is, I’m not going to tell you debt, deficits, statistics, economics—I’ll tell you it’s moral relativism.” How could this idea possibly be that important?

How Prevalent is Moral Relativism and Why?

Across the generations we can see a statistical rise in the idea that morals are relative. In their research, ‘The End of Absolutes: America’s New Moral Code’ the Barna Group found that over half (51%) of millenials were moral relativists compared to only 39% of the pre Boomer generation of Elders. It is then perhaps not surprising that in Barna’s more recent study of Gen Z (those after millennials) found that only 34% thought that lying was morally wrong. Jonathan Morrow, one of the researchers stated, ‘When only 34 percent of Gen Z can agree that “lying is morally wrong” – that’s a big problem. Not only is our culture deeply confused about moral and spiritual truth, gender and sexuality, but we are getting to the point where no one will listen to someone else’s point of view unless the completely agree with them.’

Young people will also be aware that society has held too collective moral norms that were wrong not too long ago, with Jim Crow segregation laws only ending in 1968 and with marital rape only being made illegal in 1993 (both in the US). Clearly, we have collectively been morally wrong before as a society, which would suggest that morals are relative to the time period.

The Greek Response and the Moral Animals

An interesting counter to the idea that diversity encourages moral relativism however comes from Dr Norman Doidge (author of ‘The Brain that Shapes Itself’). Doidge writes ‘When the ancient Greeks sailed to India and elsewhere, they too discovered that rules, morals and customs differed from place to place, and saw that the explanation for what was right and wong was often rooted in some ancestral authority. The Greek response was not despair, but a new invention: philosophy. For the ancients, the discovery that different people have different ideas about how, practically, to live, did not paralyze them; it deepened their understanding of humanity and led to some of the most satisfying conversations human beings have ever had, about how life might be lived.’

Doidge’s comparison of the ancient response of philosophy, to the modern response of relativism, is really fascinating; that cultural differences in the ancient world did not get rid of long held truths but encouraged comparison and philosophical conversation. That certainly sounds like more fun to me. Doidge continues that, ‘Aristotle argued that though specific rules, laws and customs differed from place to place, what does not differ is that in all places human beings, by their nature, have a proclivity to make rules, laws and customs. To put this in modern terms, it seems that all human beings are, by some kind of biological endowment, so ineradicably concerned with morality that we create a structure of laws and rules wherever we are. The idea that human life can be free of moral concerns is a fantasy.’ Doidge goes on to describe humans as ‘moral animals’.

How has Moral Relativism Affected Young People? All the above quotes from Norman Doidge are actually from his introduction to Canadian clinical psychologist Dr Jordan B. Peterson’s ‘12 Rules for Life: an Antidote to Chaos’. This book rose to be a number one Sunday Times and International Bestseller, and Peterson has been called ‘one of the most important thinkers to emerge on the world stage for many years’ (Spectator). His lectures have been watched on YouTube sixty-four million times to date. His rules for life are ‘traditional wisdom’, presented through the collective stories and religions of many cultures, calling people to unifying human truths and to live responsibly in order to find meaning. Why would this become a sensation – especially among the young audiences he attracts?

Doidge, in his introduction, presents his theory about Petersons’ millennial audience. ‘They are, I believe, the first generation to have been so thoroughly taught two seemingly contradictory ideas about morality, simultaneously… The first idea or teaching is that morality is relative … the additional claim that one group’s morality is nothing but its attempt to exercise power over another group. So, the decent thing to do – once it becomes apparent how arbitrary your, and your society’s, “moral values” are – is to show tolerance for people who think differently, and who come from different (diverse) backgrounds. That emphasis on tolerance is so paramount that for many people one of the worst character flaws a person can have is to be “judgemental.” And, since we don’t know right from wrong, or what is good, just about the most inappropriate thing an adult can do is give a young person advice about how to live. And so a generation has been raised untutored in what was once called, aptly, “practical wisdom,” which guided previous generations. Millennials, often told they have received the finest education available anywhere, have actually suffered a form of serious intellectual and moral neglect.’

When I read that, I totally understood why a book that was just ‘rules for life’ had become a phenomenon – because to progress your life in the right direction, you have to believe there is a right and a wrong direction – a relativistic society would never offer that to young people. But it goes deeper than that too. Peterson believes that without these foundations it is impossible to find meaning in life.

‘In the absence of such a system of value, people simply cannot act. In fact, they can’t even perceive, because both action and perception require a goal, and a valid goal is, by necessity, something valued. … We are not happy, technically speaking, unless we see ourselves progressing – and the very idea of progression implies value. … We must have something to set against the suffering that is intrinsic to Being. We must have the meaning inherent in a profound system of value or the horror of existence rapidly becomes paramount. Then, nihilism beckons, with its hopelessness and despair. … So: no value, no meaning.’

But this is not merely intellectuals making statements about young people; this is what Peterson says young people tell him all the time.

‘They say one of two things … a quarter of them say ‘when I listen to you talk it’s as if you’re telling me things that I already know’. It’s like yeah well that’s exactly right because that’s what archetypal stories are … the other thing that people say and this is more like three quarters of them is ‘I was in a very dark place, I was addicted, I was drinking too much, I had a fragmented relationship with my fiance and I wasn’t getting married, things weren’t going very well with my family, my relationship with my father was damaged, I didn’t have any aim, I was wasting my time – some variant of that. I’ve been watching your lectures, I’ve decided to establish a purpose, I’m trying to tell the truth and things are way better. … People stop me on the street all the time and tell me exactly that story, which is just wonderful! … It’s like the lights are going on.’

New Rules: Guilt vs Shame

And yet, Peterson is not the only sign of a secular reawakening to objective morality. We are seeing this come through on the political scene too in America. In ‘How the American left is rediscovering morality’, you have former Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders saying ‘It’s hard to imagine why anyone would be involved in politics if one didn’t have a moral sense of right and wrong, of justice and injustice’ and newly elected New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying ‘Everyone’s going crazy about socialism and democratic socialism. For me, that’s not my seat. My seat is a moral seat.’ Whatever you think of their policies, those are interesting things to say.

In some ways, we are seeing a new emerging culture of moralism, but perhaps in not as healthy a way; David Brooks, in his piece ‘The Shame Culture’ for The New York Times, claims that, ‘College campuses are today awash in moral judgment. … Those accused of incorrect thought face ruinous consequences. When a moral crusade spreads across campus, many students feel compelled to post in support of it on Facebook within minutes. If they do not post, they will be noticed and condemned. Some sort of moral system is coming into place. Some new criteria now exist, which people use to define correct and incorrect action. The big question is: What is the nature of this new moral system?’

Andy Crouch writes compellingly that we are moving from a culture of guilt to a culture of shame. Crouch draws this from anthropologist Ruth Benedict who wrote about her discovery of shame culture in Japan in her 1946 book, ‘The Chrysanthemum and the Sword’. This book, ‘popularized the idea that Japan was a “shame culture,” in which morality was governed by “external sanctions for good behavior.” In other words, you know you are good or bad by what your community says about you. By contrast, in a guilt culture such as the West, you know you are good or bad because of an “internalized conviction of sin”—by how you feel about your behavior and choices.’

Crouch thinks that Benedict’s statements about Japanese culture are ‘sweeping’ but that the insight ‘that some cultures place a higher priority on preserving honor and avoiding shame—has remained.’ Crouch points to the online mob that manifests on social media as proof of this, as well as how university campus controversies egnite so fast. He also claims though, that whereas the opposite to shame in Japanese culture was honour, we are not evolving into an honour-shame culture but ‘are starting to look something like a postmodern fame–shame culture. Like honor, fame is a public estimation of worth, a powerful currency of status. But fame is bestowed by a broad audience, with only the loosest of bonds to those they acclaim.’

Of this theory, Brooks remarks,‘The guilt culture could be harsh, but at least you could hate the sin and still love the sinner. The modern shame culture allegedly values inclusion and tolerance, but it can be strangely unmerciful to those who disagree and to those who don’t fit in.’

How do we help young people in this?

It’s a messy issue, but perhaps the most helpful things the Church can do for young people is offer them a space for the existential conversations, and to offer them that strong guidance on right and wrong whilst engaging their search for meaning.

Bishop Robert Barron sums up the classical morality versus modern morality debate humorously. ‘The modern approach is boring. I say it because it locks the subject so much into himself, there’s no thrilling adventure of discovering formal truth or discovering finality and purpose. All that matters is my little world of my desires, my identity, my sense of myself. I think classical morality … is a much more thrilling, much more adventurous project.’ The Church might first have to convince younger generations that truth exists, or even potentially exists, but when it does that, it also needs to provide a space to explore the different truths in that philosophical tradition. Something like the Alpha course springs to mind here, just the space to thrash the basic ideas out and not be told you are wrong, just to have the conversation of meaning that people are starving for.

Essentially the Church needs to hold to its guns on morality, though it could do with some explanation on the term sin. Again to a generation scared of judgement, sin sounds awful, but its Hebrew origin comes from the archery term for when an archer missed the mark, meaning in a moral sense that sin is a misdirection of our truest desire. An important emphasis too would be that the Church has these morals to protect people from harm. When Jordan Peterson was asked why people are responding positively to his message, he replied, ‘well I’m actually on their side.’ Young people need to be able trust that the Church is on their side, not moralising for no reason, that in the words of Saint John Bosco: ‘Enjoy yourself as much as you like-if only you keep from sin.’

Ultimately, a society without a belief in sin has no need of a saviour, and even Jesus in his famous ‘do not judge’ teaching says ‘why do you observe the splinter in your brother’s eye and never notice the great log in your own?’ (Matthew 7:3) There He’s calling for a deep knowledge of our own flaws first to enable our interior transformation, but He is not refuting that there are things in life that are damaging, as His core teaching was ‘repent and believe in the good news’: that balance of the two.

Peter Kreeft, professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King’s College, says it well in his book ‘A Refutation of Moral Relativism’:

‘What do you think Jesus meant when he said “judge not”? Do you think he meant “don’t judge deed, don’t believe the Commandments, don’t morally discriminate a just war from an unjust war or a hero from a bully?” He couldn’t have meant that. He meant “don’t judge the motives and hearts, which only God can see.” I can judge your deeds, because I see them. I can’t judge what your motives are, because I can’t see that.’

In all this we have to remember though that it is not just about rules and morals, that that is not the primary reason for Christianity. As Pope Benedict XVI put it so perfectly, ‘Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.’

[margoslxix]

OKAY so I was tagged by @autisticmob and I think these things are fun so here we go!

Rules: Choose any three fandoms (in any order), answer the questions and tag 10 people you want to get to know better.

So, obviously I gotta pick:

1. Homestuck

and 

2. New Albion

But I legitimately don’t know what third fandom to pick. I’m going to go with.......

3. Magic the Gathering

Because, I don’t know, I like it and I don’t get enough chances to talk about these characters.

First Character You Loved:

1. “First” is tricky, because I loved most of the characters pretty right away. I guess Calliope? Not that I hadn’t loved anyone before Act 6 or anything, I just remember liking her right away after meeting her, and also thinking she was my favorite character for a while.

2. Again, this is a hard one. Annabel is probably the obvious answer, but it’s true. I think she’s everyone’s first favorite, though. Her songs are just so good, plus she’s the first character you really get to know.

3. Hmmm. Liliana? I loved her aesthetic right away, for sure. I mean, be honest, how can you not at LEAST think she’s pretty goddamn cool.

The Character You Never Expected to Love So Much:

1. Caliborn, full stop (heheh). He’s my son and I would die for him. My very, very first initial impression of him was “god, what a douchebag.” But he’s MY douchebag now and tbh I relate to him a lot. He’s got a lot of problems, he’s definitely not an easy person to like. But I think he has so much narrative potential, and even most of his awful qualities (mostly the misogyny, let’s be honest) could honestly probably be dealt with if he was actually properly socialized. Which I’m still not 100% sure isn’t canonically possible. Too bad the comic’s mcfucking over.

2. Lloyd Allen. He definitely comes across as a dick, but he’s got a lot of hidden depth. He’s just such a good guy? Like, once you learn the lengths that he went to and the danger he put himself in, just for the chance to make his boyfriend happy again, I just... I can’t, I’m getting very emotional. I love Lloyd Allen, okay?

3. Gideon MOTHERFUCKING Jura. I hate Lawful Good, usually. I think it’s often just an excuse for characters to be stupid as hell, rigid, and incapable of understanding moral ambiguity. But honestly, Gideon is one of the best Lawful Good characters I’ve ever seen. He is legitimately heroic, and the fact that he’s not 100% rigid in his alignment, choosing Good over Law every time, is honestly cool. I just... he’s a character type and trope that I usually can’t stand, but done very well, and that’s impressive enough that I honestly love him.

The Character You Relate To Most:

1. If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you already know it’s Caliborn. He’s stubborn, determined, unyielding... and I’ll admit, I’m much the same. I think I approach problems in a similar way to him, and get confused/annoyed by similar, arbitrary things. Also, he’s absolutely autistic, and I’ll fight anyone who says he isn’t. 

2. Uncle Raven, aka David Adams. I mean, there are a lot of things about him that I can’t relate to. A lot. Like being extremely attractive, for one thing. But he is Aesthetic Goals. He’s a sad carnival man, and I’m a sad man who loves carnivals. He also copes with loneliness and abandonment about as well as I do, which is to say, not very well at all. Also the whole, “sad businessman who lost his mind and gained superpowers” thing is somehow also relatable. Now where the fuck are my reality-bending powers?

3. Vraska, probably. Gods, I fucking love Vraska. If Gideon hadn’t been my answer for the last one, it would have been her. The Ixalan story really hit me hard, and I love her a lot. Just, she’s been through a lot of shit and it’s made her hard and cruel, but who she is around Jace, now, with her memories intact, just... aaa, fuck, I love Vraska. I really hope they beat up Nicol Bolas soon. Fuck that guy.

The Character You’d Slap:

1. Cronus, probably. He just needs to stop. Not stop anything in particular, just stop in general. And the thing is, I don’t even completely hate him. I just hate a lot of his bullshit. Hussie once called him “the worst character in Homestuck,” and honestly, I can see it.

2. Okay, yeah, the “correct” answer here is probably Edgar or Sarah. But I’m still gonna go with Connor. I just, I don’t know, I have this weird, irrational hatred for Connor. I find him incredibly irritating. Almost every problem he’s ever had has been his own damn fault, and it’s obnoxious hearing him cry about it. I mean, “Connor” is still a gorgeous song and all, but as a character, I just wanna tell him to suck it the hell up.

3. Nicol Bolas? I mean, he deserves way more than a slap. But it seems like he’s literally behind every bad thing that happens lately and he needs to knock it the fuck off. Amonkhet was particularly like.... DUDE, not cool. You can’t just turn an entire world into a zombie factory, what the FUCK is wrong with you? I hate this fucking dragon, and this is coming from a guy who loves dragons, and also villains.

 Three Favorite Characters (In Order of Preference):

1. Caliborn, Calliope, Dirk

2. Raven, Lloyd, Han Mi

3. Vraska, Jace, Chandra (this list subject to change at literally any time)

A Character You Liked At First, But Don’t Anymore:

1. Okay, so this is going to sound incredibly harsh, so let me preface it with, it’s not that I DON’T like him, it’s just that he annoys and vexes me, and I’m sick of seeing him, and ALSO that I used to like him more than I currently do. In FACT, I do sometimes have feelings about him that I would normally have mostly for characters I like more, so it’s not that I hate him, okay? But it’s Jake English. Fucking... he’s so goddamn stupid and self-absorbed. And yeah, I get that it wasn’t his fault. I get that he’s been through some serious shit that no one should have to go through. Yeah, okay, just like every other character in this comic. But like, come on dude. But it’s less about him, I think, and more about how the fandom treats him. He’s not just an accessory for Dirk, for one thing (and I’m sorry, you can NOT convince me that they get back together in the end, that’s stupid, they had literally no chemistry whatsoever). And anyway, I’ve ranted way, way longer than I need to. But I have to set the record straight. I don’t HATE Jake English, I just think he’s dumb as a bag of teeth and I’m sick of seeing his face.

2. I’m actually having a hard time thinking of anyone specific. The more I learn about most characters, the more I like them. Seriously, I’m trying to think of a character that I like even a little bit less than my first impression of them. Maybe Connor? But I wasn’t really super crazy about him from the beginning, so I feel like that doesn’t count. I guess I’m going to have to go with Tristan from A Pirate’s Tale (even though that doesn’t technically count as New Albion but FUCK IT, I’m counting it) because like, “Ride the Hemp” is my jam and an awesome song, but when you actually read the script, he’s just kind of a dick. So yeah, I guess that’s it.

3. Again, there’s no one in particular. I think both Liliana and Nissa fall under “I used to love them a lot, but now I’m feeling a bit more ambiguous about them”--Liliana because DAMN getting a look at how she’s treated Jace all this time from Vraska’s perspective was some SHIT, and Nissa because I don’t particularly approve of her leaving the Gatewatch after all that shit about realizing that Chandra was her friend and all. I don’t know. I don’t hate either of them. Heck, I don’t even dislike either of them. But that’s one thing that’s cool about the constantly shifting perspective in the Magic stories. I just know I’m going to see something from their perspectives that changes everything before too long. Hell, Dominaria is already giving me a lot of Liliana feels.

A Character You Did Not Like At First, But Do Now:

1. See, I actually kind of liked everyone in Homestuck right away. And I’m not even counting Caliborn here, because I never really disliked him, I just never expected him to be my favorite character. I guess maybe Eridan? It’s not even that I particularly like him that much now, I just don’t dislike him as strongly as I did at first. I’m not even sure why. I think that one fansong (”Ugly Story”) kind of increased my affection for him. But he’s still not even in my top 20, so I don’t know.

2. Rachael. I’m not going to lie, the first time I listened to The New Albion Guide to Analogue Consciousness, I thought she was obnoxious. I mean she did lowkey try to get herself killed while singing a big, dramatic song for the sole reason that this guy that she was convinced was her destined love match turned out to be gay. That’s some fuckshit, right there. But the more I listened and the more I thought about her... with all the shit she’s been through, it makes sense. And it’s not like her assumption was totally irrational. Plus, Connor told her that that was the case because Connor’s a fucking idiot. So I’m blaming him for this one. So yeah, Rachael’s actually pretty cool. Plus “The Show No One Saw” is a bop.

3. Hmmmmmmm, I don’t know. I’m honestly drawing a blank. Vraska, maybe? It’s not really that I didn’t like her, but I’ll admit, I kinda was late to the party with a lot of Magic stuff. So I was just like “Wait, isn’t she just that gorgon assassin from Ravnica?” but then Ixalan happened, and she’s my daughter now. So there’s that.

Three OTPs:

1. ....Do I even have to say it? Dirkborn is my real, true OTP. I’m utter trash for this ship. Their whole dynamic is so much fun, and honestly, these boys could be extremely good for each other. Plus, they actually have canon chemistry, so there’s that. Davekat is a real close second. It’s one I actually wasn’t 100% sold on when I first saw it, but now I can’t imagine the comic without it. I’m so happy that it’s canon. I guess third would be Roxy/Calliope, which is funny, since I really didn’t used to like that ship very much. But I’ve come around on it, it’s honestly adorable.

2. Lloydven (Lloyd/Raven) is the obvious one here. I mean, I feel like it’s lowkey the most common OTP in the fandom. But like, damn. I honestly almost cried reading The Ballad of Lloyd Allen. They’re just so in love. Second is probably Leedrian (Lee/Adrian), just because. Honestly, it’s not even that deep fam, I just think they’re cute and also I love Adrian in general. HelMi (Helen/Han Mi) is a very, very close third, if not second. Like if you cry every time. Seriously, just.... FUCK.

3. Vraska/Jace. They had BETTER get that fucking date on Ravnica! If they don’t I will scream! That’s the best ship Magic has right now, I’m sorry, that’s just how it is. Now, I will say, I’m at a bit of a loss here. I used to ship the Gatewatch as an OT5 (Gideon/Jace/Liliana/Chandra/Nissa) but I feel like that’s been complicated by a lot of other feelings I have about individual members, so I’m not sure I really ship it anymore, leaving me kind of adrift. Honestly, though? Saheeli/Huatli had better fucking sail, so I’m going to call that #2 for right now. Please let them make a robot dinosaur together! And Chandra/Nissa is still fucking quality, I don’t care what happens.

OKAY so now I have to tag people. Since KC didn’t bother tagging 10 I’m not gonna, either. Just, any mutual who wants to can take it. For the sake of actually tagging people though, let’s say.... @draconicmentalist @stokerbramwell @gearydigit @the-cheese-hive-mind @swiftyscreativitycorner @vadvivon @humanmosquito And tbh there’s a lot of other people I would want to tag but I don’t remember everyone’s URLs and tbh I’ve already spent enough time on this post so, PLEASE DO THIS IT’S FUN

[21stcenturymen]

You Are Not a Nice Guy

RATING: Teen

No, you are not a "nice guy." Or a "good guy." I mean, neither am I, so I want to make that clear. This week, we're going to discuss the myth of the “nice guy.”

Men believing themselves entitled to attention from women and dubbing themselves Nice Guys™ is so culturally pervasive that it has its own page on Geek Feminism Wiki, Urban Dictionary, Wikipedia, and numerous other aggregate and news sites. In other words, it's not a unique phenomenon or invention by your neighbor's very pleasant but girlfriend-less son. Lots of guys think they're entitled to female attention based on some mythical metric of niceness.

*I’m going to come back to this abomination.

First of all, there's the belief that nice guys finish last. I'd like to point out that this comment was actually coined by a baseball coach to describe a next-to-last last place team. It was not intended to describe how bad guys always "get the girl." That usage came later. But fine, let's say that women do, in some way (though nothing that's ever been provably demonstrated) prefer the Bad Boy® over the Nice Guy™. What do we expect beating them over the head with "I'M A NICE GUY" to accomplish? Seriously, what does the second half of that interaction look like in your imagination?

"Oh, you're a nice guy?! Well shit! Sign me up!" said no one never.

And how does telling women, "You're idiots for not dating nice guys!" demonstrate you're a nice guy? I hate to break it to you, but a nice guy wouldn't say that. But fine, let's say there are Bad Boys® and Nice Guys™.

If you know women prefer Bad Boy® types, I can't imagine why you insist on them relaxing that standard to date a nice guy. You claim not to live by other people’s standards; why should women pre-cognitively live by yours? So then, that means you have to find the specific women who don’t want Bad Boys® which means you must learn to predict which women prefer which type of guy. Seeing as how that’s not really possible, that leaves you with the alternative of becoming a Bad Boy®. But, of course, that’s ridiculous. By becoming Bad Boys® we relinquish the cudgel with which we can judge women for being interested in literally anyone else but us. As nice guys, we want sex from women just for being nice, the right to judge them for withholding that from us specifically and as a Nice Guy™ monolith, and the authority to maintain competing standards of what other people are allowed to find attractive.

Real Talk: I don’t want you to be or not be anything. Rather, I want you to focus on one thing: you're not a Nice Guy™. You don't have to adopt a Bad Boy® persona. Just admit you aren't a Nice Guy™ to begin with. Because, let's face it, anyone who has to announce how good they are at something is really just profoundly insecure about how good they are at it.

As the saying goes, “Real ganstas don't flex nuts, 'cause real gangstas know they got 'em..." except that's not the real phrase, and you probably sing the real phrase, sans editing, in your car with the windows up when you know there are only other white folks around. Does that sound like something a truly "nice" guy would do?

PURPOSE: Being a Nice Guy™ or expecting women to prefer Nice Guys™ is a false expectation a century of bullshit pop culture has indoctrinated us with, but it's not real. You being a Nice Guy™ means you're attempting to live up to someone else's expectations or standards; to fit yourself into a mold you didn't create, and that Nice Guy™ mold isn't you. It isn't anyone, really. Sure, it's Cameron Fry, Ronald Miller, and a host of other “nice” qualities squeezed into sexless Hollywood white guy characters, but it's not a real person. There’s no mask you can put on to make women like you, and you certainly should never judge women for failing to swoon at such a mask anyway. Because, even if it works, they’re falling in love with something that isn’t really you.

If you’re trying to date someone who doesn’t like you for who you are, thank her for her time and move on. You shouldn’t be with that person in the first place. She’s not wrong for not liking you, just like you weren’t wrong for being you. That one woman doesn’t speak for all women and it’s a waste of your own energy and time to blame all women for the fact that one person was just interested in other things.

Your loneliness isn't unique. Happily-coupled people can be crushingly lonely, too. Loneliness and being alone aren't the same thing, and it's important to decouple your expectations of personal time from your expectations of contentment. If you just want to be coupled, then niceness is irrelevant. If you want to be content, then you must give up on someone else's standards of what you should be or what other people want, and accept that you create your own niceness and compassion for your prospective partner. They won't be impressed by how well you fit an arbitrary set of expectations (holds the door for her, beats up bad guys, mansplains board game rules... etc.) but rather by how well you communicate your intentions and listen to theirs.

Don't try to be a nice guy. Nice Guys™ suck because they're too hung up on proving they're "nice." Just prove you're honest. Prove you actually want to hear what other people have to say. Everything else is posing.

Next Up: About Those Activists...

*"Give the good guys a chance to help you be less afraid of the world" That image made the rounds last year and again this year, and is probably the quintessential example of Nice Guy™ apologia. Essentially, the entire missive boils down to, “Bad boys don’t care what happens to you, but nice guys do as long as we get to decide what it is and when.” Whoever wrote that is an Asshole®.

[moderngirlinthedas]

Why are there so many MGIT fics that have their MGITs paired with Solas? He's an emotionally abusive racist with a superiority complex, yet so many in the fandom find him attractive. He barely registers Dalish as elves so he wouldn't find human MGITs attractive or even consider them real people. So why do so many of you want to pair off with him? It wouldn't be a healthy relationship, even if you end up as an elf. Can you shed some light?

First, I want to say that I’m extremely sorry for how long it took me to answer this.

I had so many directions I wanted to take when answering your question, Anon (far too many, really). I started and stopped many times in a separate word doc, trying to address this in as complete a manner as I could.

But I had too much to say, real life responsibilities got in the way, and suddenly it had been so long that my brain went yikes and shoved it in the back of my thoughts, ever present but easier to skip over.

So I’m going to give this a new shot and hope that my tardiness hasn’t soured you on the whole Asking process because I do love answering questions and opening topics for discussion.

[Disclaimer: The following is an expression of my own opinion, based on my experiences and perception. I will try to present it in an unbiased manner, but I am human and entirely fallible.] 

There are so many MGIT stories with Solas in the main pairing because, to put it simply, he is a fascinating character. (Note: I say fascinating, not morally infallible or intrinsically superior to the other characters).

He is an intelligent, compassionate character who offers a refreshing perspective toward mages, the Fade, and spirits. From the very beginning, he proves to be a font of knowledge for the Inquisitor. He appreciates inquisitiveness and self-examination in a way that is scarcely seen elsewhere.

And yet.

For all his open-mindedness, he can be exceedingly narrow in his views once he has reached a conclusion (i.e. the Dalish, other elves, etc.). He has made mistakes. Catastrophic ones. He believes the ends justify the means in his quest to “correct” his past mistakes. Worse still, he has the knowledge and power to deliver.

And this, all of this just makes him so fascinating. To see what could drive an intelligent, compassionate person to such terrible lengths, to see the limits of such compassion when “the Greater Good” is at stake.

His character is interesting and flawed, repentant even as he manipulates and schemes. A hero and a villain in turns.

But perhaps I’m getting sidetracked. This isn’t about proving why Solas is interesting or dissecting his flaws. That would be another post entirely. This is about why so many of the MGIT writers and their Modern Characters are interested in Solas.

So, let’s take a look at who Solas is:

someone who is from another time

someone who possesses and withholds knowledge about the world, magic, and etc.

someone who struggles with the relative ignorance of the people around him (ex: magic, spirits, ancient Elven society, etc.)

someone who struggles with feeling more “real” than the people around him

someone who attains a position of power/rank in the Inquisition as a valued source of knowledge

someone who uses hidden knowledge to alter events

Now, who else does this sound like?

The Modern Character in Thedas.

Think about it: this trope, particularly when anchored in the Inquisition timeline, tends to feature these key elements:

the Modern Character is from another world/time

the Modern Character has played the Dragon Age games and withholds knowledge about in-game events (and other characters)

the Modern Character struggles with the relative ignorance of the people around her (ex: racism, sexism, unsanitary practices, primitive technology) 

the Modern Character struggles with feeling more “real” than the people around her, in the sense that she is often painfully aware that Dragon Age and the people therein are constructs of a game or potentially figments of her imagination in a coma-induced dream

the Modern Character attains a position of power/rank in the Inquisition, usually as the Inquisitor herself or as a valued adviser

the Modern Character uses their foreknowledge to alter events

Barring some exceptions, Foreknowledge and how one uses it, is one of the biggest themes in the Modern Character in Thedas trope.

Using foreknowledge to alter events, however good the intentions, is a form of manipulation. Every choice is but a ripple in a greater wave. Inaction is a choice in itself, so even if the Modern Character refrains from actively altering events, they can still be held accountable for “allowing” events to proceed unimpeded.

These are real struggles that both the Modern Character and Solas face as people who possess world-changing knowledge and the ability to spark change.

“When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t…and then the bad things happen, they happen because of you.” -Peter Parker

Does this ability always yield altruistic superheroes like Peter Parker here? No. With great power comes great responsibility, not necessarily good choices or a moral compass.

So why is this important?

Because with so much power, forced to hide their origins in a new world that fears and often hates the different, the magical, how alone would the Modern Character feel?

Who else could understand what it’s like to bear that kind of burden? Who else might be willing to even entertain the idea of another world/reality, much less accept someone so different?

Solas.

The Modern Character is playing chess on a whole other board than the rest of Thedas, but so is Solas.

It’s not the same, of course. But it’s enough. Enough to help the Modern Character not feel so alone.

And if that’s not enough, consider this: if you were stuck in another world, desperate to find a way home, who might just have the means to help you?

Phew. That was long-winded.

Now for your questions about attraction!

“He barely registers Dalish as elves so he wouldn’t find human MGITs attractive or even consider them real people. So why do so many of you want to pair off with him?”

It is my understanding that one of the main reasons (if not the only reason) Solas is both gender and race-gated in the game is due to time constraints. His romance was written in the span of a weekend, late in the development of the game. It is easier and less time consuming to write and animate a romance for one specific gender/race (i.e. female/elf), especially for a last minute addition.

There aren’t any moments during in-game dialogue wherein which Solas displays a genuine romantic or sexual preference for a particular gender or race. The flirt options simply aren’t there when the player isn’t a female elf.

This is important to note because this is not the case for the other characters’ romances. Both Dorian and Sera express a genuine romantic/sexual preference for one gender. You have the option to flirt with both Dorian and Cassandra as a female. They both turn you down. You have the option to flirt with both Sera and Cullen as a male. They both turn you down. Cullen, who is also race-gated, will turn down a female-dwarf.

So, in the absence of in-game dialogue that denotes an actual preference, it isn’t unreasonable to think he might not have one.

And thus, it is entirely possible that Solas would find a human from another world romantically and/or sexually attractive.

On the Subject of Realness:

Solas’s perception of “realness” is relative to the people of Thedas. 

[And here we get a little meta]

He considers the people in the present canon to be less real, due to the fact that his actions in his original timeline (the canon’s past) had, in part, caused the current worldstate, which he views as not only a mistake, but a mistake he’s going to rectify.

The people of Thedas, in the present canon, are less real to him because he likely has plans to revert the world back to a previous state, thus erasing the people in the current timeline (much like the Inquisitor does with the Red Lyrium future in the “In Hushed Whispers” quest).

So! Since the Modern Character isn’t a native to Thedas, that perception of “unrealness” doesn’t really apply to them. In fact, in some ways, Solas might even perceive them as more real, if not just as real as himself.

“It wouldn’t be a healthy relationship, even if you end up as an elf.”

How healthy or unhealthy a relationship is depends entirely upon the characters themselves and the way they’re written/portrayed. There’s nothing intrinsically unhealthy about the pairing of the Modern Character and Solas.

Now, if Solas or the Modern Character are depicted as emotionally and/or physically abusive to the other, then you’d be right, it wouldn’t be a healthy relationship.

Not because of who they are, but because of their behavior.

So, to sum up–because I have rambled so much here, wow–

Why are there so many Modern Character/Solas stories?

because Solas is a fascinating, flawed character

because Solas’s experience makes him relatable to the Modern Character

because Solas could make a good ally for an Otherworlder

because arbitrary game mechanics shouldn’t dictate a character’s love life

because “realness” is relative

because the pairing of Solas and a human isn’t inherently unhealthy

And the bonus: Because the Solas romance was extremely popular among Dragon Age gamers, and many of those gamers set out to write a story

And there we have it. The end of a long-winded spiel from me. 

I hope I kept things relatively objective. I appreciate dissecting characters’ motives and exploring their flaws, even when I love them.

You can love or hate Solas (or something in between) and still note his flaws…as well as recognize his more redeeming qualities.

And always remember: to love a character is not to condone all their actions.

[rationaromanceblog]

Dating 101

There is something to be said about unremarkable first dates. I tend to distrust great first dates, and luckily I rarely have disastrous ones. Whenever I happen to be in the middle of a disaster date, I take solace that the story will at least make an interesting anecdote for later rendezvous. Great first dates, I find, rarely go anywhere. I don’t quite understand the phenomena; except that maybe the people who are great at dating from the get-go do it for fun, and therefore aren’t looking for a prolonged thing. These people make great casual sex friends, if they ever do return your texts. Unremarkable first dates, however, generally turn a profit. Hence my Three Date Rule (patent pending). Three dates are my minimum requirement for any potential suitor. The only exception being if the first date was an aforementioned ‘disaster date’, I have no set definition for what characterizes these dates but they tend to be obvious, trust your gut. 

Unremarkable first dates are common. Too often people will not go on second ones, holding on to hope that the next person will be everything they want immediately, or take it to mean there was nothing to be explored further. This is a fatal flaw. It takes three solid meetings for people to get comfortable around each other. That is when you let someone know who you are, and when you will truly know anything.  Even if you have been messaging for a long time and you think you have a good idea who this person is, interacting in person is a vastly different experience. I have been on numerous first dates I presumed would go nowhere. Because I was not deterred by the first date fallacy, many led to meaningful connections I couldn’t have imagined. In the way you can’t judge a book by its movie and you shouldn’t judge a show by it’s pilot, you can’t judge a relationship by it’s first date. 

The key is to have an open mind. If you begrudge date number two because of an arbitrary rule, you will miss out on the potential in front of you. Dare to believe that there could be more here, even if they don’t meet most items on the checklist you’re keeping in your pocket. Believe that date three will be when that fuller picture comes into view. There’s a good chance you will find something about someone you like. Something that never occured to you to put on your list. 

There are plenty of dating tips I could throw out there.  Don’t judge people too harshly on their pictures, would be one. Don’t text for longer than a week before meeting each other. Vary what you do on your date; don’t just move-dinner-drink every date. Walk, do an activity, laugh. These would all be sensible advice to follow based on solid evidence. But my third date rule is the rule I am most adamant about. It is the rule I see so many of my friends ignore looking for that “spark” that will be the magic signal to their eternal happiness.  This is the rule that has led me to my most significant loves.

Personally, I love dating. Once the initial trauma of a relationship ending has subsided, I thrill at the opportunity. I think it has to do with my introversion, ironically. Being an introvert I can’t just go out and interview potential friends over the internet with obvious intentions. (I’ve tried, nobody buys it.) But I can absolutely do that with potential partners. With the added benefit that they already find some aspect of me appealing enough to be there. I become my most charming on dates. The prospect of wanting to impress someone with all that I am becomes a fun game. I find there to be great  excitement in possibility. One of these strangers could become someone important to me soon. The suspense is killing me, who might it be? Not a lot of people stuck around if we didn’t click romantically, but my favorite unforeseen outcome of this way of dating were the ones that turned into friendships. They became such pleasant additions to my world. 

 I think another crucial error people make is not enjoying dating. Dating can become a chore, and if it is for you, please stop doing it or take a break. There are ways to enjoy it, and you will be much more likely to be successful at your aim if you are. If not you will at the least stick it out longer.  I learn so much about myself when I date, every date is an opportunity to see which version of me comes out. Will I be quick and quirky? Sarcastic and challenging? Fun and flirty? Only the evening knows and I find it great fun to find out. 

When you’re on a date you have a choice. That choice is all about where your attention focuses. It is easy to approach a date listing all the ways they are not someone you can see yourself with. If you look for those reasons you will find them. Don’t date with expectations to be dazzled while you cross your arms and judge. Everyone has something to offer. Have you thrown away that list yet? I know you have it hidden somewhere. It won’t matter anyway we both know you have it memorized.  You don’t actually know what you want, because you don’t actually know what’s available. There is no perfect, there is no ideal. Everybody sucks and everybody is epic. Whatever attitude you bring to your dates is what will be proven true. 

Quick public service announcement: I understand I am quite privileged as a girl dating on the internet. Aside from callous ‘DTF?’ messages, crude pick up lines, the bombardment of messages and potential unsolicited dick pics, I personally think I have it easier compared to my male counterparts. Not to gloat, but I like being the one with the inbox full and not the one being ignored because the guy in the message above you said “How are you?” not just “Hey.”  Regardless, I always make a point to reach out to men first, the same way I make sure to ask guys to dance when I am at a club. I’ve never been one to remain passive, if I complain about gender roles I also find it my responsibility to break them. The amount of arguing I’ve had with men that will not let me pay on a date is surprising. I assume they think I am testing them, or they feel an obligation to. Even splitting it will elicit raised eyebrows, no I won't mark off points if you let me pay, but I suppose there are women out there who will. If that’s you please stop, equality is not always convenient. 

Eventually I just put it on my profile that I want to pay for dates too. I found that the degree of man I started to attract changed. Ones that shared my value systems probably. That is another crucial dating tactic, the tried and true: BE YOUR GODDAMN SELF. It’s harder than you think to be you. It’s a lot easier to be who you think they want you to be, since that will certainly elicit much less rejection ultimately. Rejection fucking sucks. It’s like we’re biologically hardwired to avoid it or something. But rejection is an inescapable part of dating for everyone, and the faster you learn not to take it personally when someone doesn’t like you, the less painful this process will be. Self esteem, I’d say, is a prerequisite to healthy dating. But since you can’t currently buy the stuff on the internet, it’s not that easy to come by if you haven’t already found some. Let me just say that, when you already like yourself, it matters a lot less that the cute girl you day dreamed about walking on a beach with stopped answering your messages because you made a hilarious yet dark joke and how could she not think it was funny. It might still be a bummer, but it won’t drive you into a dark spiral. 

Last and not least, learn to fill your every need. I struggled with this one most of all. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what a partner was for if I was just going to fill my own needs  anyway. Dating for this purpose is a doomed prospect, you will find yourself playing a game with the person. Each of you will either change who you are so that the other can be happier, turning into a stranger. Or resent each other because they cannot meet your every need just right. So you end up leaving, for the eternal search of someone who can. If you don’t believe me try it for yourself and come back when you realize I am right. At some point we all inherited the notion that partners complete us. But what if we are already complete? Now what? Being with someone is your opportunity to love. That’s it.  Loving someone feels amazing. It is fulfilling, fun, and it can add dimension to your life. Being with someone will also be stressful, terrifying and put you at a giant risk for heartache. That’s the deal. Have fun.

[gainyourprofile-blog]

Tiktok lovers booster 2019 -- How to get lovers on Tiktok.

Tiktok lovers booster 2019 -- Some methods to hasten your Tiktok fame.

Reaching the achievement of Musically, Tiktok has been exploding in the last couple of months. Tiktok actors are amassing countless fans weekly. If you're wanting to obtain some fame on the program but do not know how to, then do not worry, we have you covered. Below are a few suggestions which could make you a Tiktok celebrity. But, getting fame from scratch may take quite some time. We highly recommend you utilize our Tiktok lovers booster to jumpstart your vulnerability and work your way from there.

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It is hard to generate a correct video if you are recording yourself if having the telephone at the corner of this area. Apparently, not all of angles are equivalent, and of course light. Test different angles and light preferences, see what match your style then stay with this. Be consistent and you will have your own Tiktok fans grow in virtually no time. You will find products which make getting a fantastic angle simpler, namely tripods or soda sockets. Alternately, ask your friends to picture for you.

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More tips for the Tiktok lovers increase you deserve

Number 5: Post in the Ideal time Imagine if I tell you submitting video at arbitrary moment is wasting your own potential? Statistically, publishing your movie when folks utilize Tiktok the most will provide you more perspectives the majority of the time. Based on researches, individuals use social media (like Tiktok) the most at 11 am -- 12 pm, 5 pm-7 pm and 9 pm-11 pm. Thus, save your movies, print them above time frames when customers are active and see the difference.

Number 6: Be patient and consistent on your Tiktok fans grow In fact, there are thousands of people uploading movies on Tiktok everyday. Internet users today have a brief attention span and memory to get items on social networking. Quit uploading for weekly and individuals may forget you ever existed. Therefore, attempt to incorporate a movie once every day or two every 2 days at the least. Plus, do not give up if things are slow, one viral movie can get your accounts a massive boost. In case you missed it, then utilize our Tiktok lovers increase tool to begin and shorten the path to fame.

Number 7: Harmonize with all the lyrics That is something a good deal of Tiktokers overlook. We often concentrate on the tune of this tune but not the lyrics. Dancing, making gestures which match the lyrics may create a synchronizing effect which makes your operation more attractive. Try to be flexible, particularly with for wrists and palms and jam into the lyrics.

That finishes our hints to your Tiktok fans growth desire. For your benefit, here is the URL to our tiktok buffs booster instrument . With programs like Tiktok, everybody can be famous on the internet. Having the ideal mindset and plan will allow you to far. But don't overlook the #1 factor while utilizing the stage: Have fun. What is the purpose of being famous for those who do not have fun doing this?

[georgeavillart]

Visual and Cultural Hierarchies

Noel Fielding

Fielding claims that he could never make a choice between fine art and comedy, it was always his ambition to make comedy with an art-school slant, and art that could be funny instead of po-faced. His work resembles that of someone who’s subconscious is very close to the surface, reality and imagination is constantly the same. Fielding’s artwork was the first contemporary paintings I ever really understood, they ultimately drove to me to start making my first serious pieces of work- by serious I mean completely ridiculous morphs of my friends and blocks of cheese as I’s imagined in a dream. Fielding is extensively important as a reminder that art doesn’t always have to be quite so serious and political, it can be themed by nothing other than spontaneity, it can be whatever you’ve got knocking about in your head right at that moment.

Martin Parr

Martin Parr is one of Britain’s most significant photographers, best known for his sharp eye and sense of humour. Over his thirty-year career he has focused on capturing ordinary people doing ordinary things – at the seaside, in supermarkets, at village country fairs or on holiday abroad. Often highly saturated and brightly coloured Parr has become known as a commentator and recorder of Britain’s finely nuanced class system. His series ‘Signs of the Times’, based on the TV series of the same name, directed by Nick Barker, is a vintage look at personal taste in the British home, exploring the extraordinary range of emotions that lie behind our household decor. Parr's photography complements Barker’s survey of contemporary perceptions of good and bad taste.

Grayson Perry

Grayson Perry is an English contemporary artist who is known for his ceramic vases, tapestries and cross-dressing, as well as his observations of the contemporary arts scene. Perry's vases have classical forms and are decorated in bright colours, depicting subjects that juxtapose with their attractive appearance. There is a strong autobiographical element in his work, in which images of Perry as "Claire", his female alter-ego, and "Alan Measles", his childhood teddy bear, often appear. Grayson Perry has been cross-dressing since he was a child, using it to step into a fantasy world where he felt safer. He describes himself as a transvestite and for him cross-dressing has an exciting, sexual aspect but he has no desire to become a female, nor to dress as a woman full-time. After many years of experimenting with cross-dressing and wearing conventional female clothes, Grayson became dissatisfied with the lack of reaction he provoked. In response, he developed the persona known as Claire, as her he can dress in an outrageously flamboyant way and enjoy the reaction she causes. Perry represents the important comedic element of drag, it is an art form but it shouldn’t always been taken seriously. Drag is a safe space but also a production of femininity, whatever you want femininity to be. Perry has inspired my future drag project greatly.

Nadia Lee Cohen

Nadia Lee Cohen's photographs and films, heavily inspired by Americana and Britain in the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, are veritable visions of saturated, surreal dreamscapes. Drawing upon the duality of the female form, fine art photographer and filmmaker Lee Cohen locks our optics upon the twisted paradise that lurks within her mind. She explores the paradoxical standoff between strength and fragility within womankind. Lee believes in living within her work and has gained notoriety through her quirky colourful online presence on social media; in which she plays dress up and curates interesting imagery of her day to day inspirations. My own work with film photography and photomontage is most notably influenced by Lee Cohen depictions of confused domestic scenes in her short films.

John Waters

John Waters is an American artist best known for his satirical and raunchy movies. He is also a visual artist, Waters’ photography, sculpture, and installations pieces humorously recontextualize art and popular culture. Born in 1946 in Baltimore, Waters briefly attended NYU for film but was kicked out for what he claims was the “first ever marijuana scandal on a university campus.” Waters then returned to Baltimore in 1966 where he began collaborating on films with his long-time friend and muse Harris Glenn Milstead, also known as Divine. He gained a cult following in the 1970s with his transgressive films Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974), as well as the box office hit Hairspray (1988). In his 50-year career Waters has accrued an enviable array of hideous honorifics, all worn with pride as he mocks those who look to certain subcultures with vulgarity, by presenting them in the most grotesque ways imaginable.

Linder Sterling

Linder’s photomontage aesthetic lent itself to the DIY philosophy of Punk: layering images, body politics, feminist discourse and the referencing of historical events. Her work draws on influences from Dadaism, Surrealism and Old Master paintings; and from fashion photography to performance art. A radical feminist and an active figure of the Manchester punk and post-punk scene, Sterling is known for her photomontages which combine images found in pornographic, fashion and interior design magazines, as well as from print documentation of ballet and film. Sterling's works often highlight the cultural expectations of women and the exploitation of the female body as pure commodity. When she first started creating these photomontages, many of her works were published in the post-punk photomontage fanzine 'The Secret Public'.

Martha Rosler

Martha Rosler's biggest contribution to the art world lies in her ability to present imagery that spotlights the veil between facade and reality, comfort and discomfort, and the myriad ways we keep our eyes wide shut or wide open. During the Feminist art movement of the 1970s, she explored the imposed versus exposed injustices of being a woman. As a member of the Pop art movement, she highlighted the media's targeted seduction of people into a more consumerist-driven lifestyle. Today, she continues to focus on our still inbred aptitude for replacing dire global realities such as war with fluffy faux-reality distractions like reality television and advertisement-driven personal entertainments. Her work often focuses on political issues such as war or injustice but in a way that challenges us to bring these topics into a more personal sphere, not just relegated to the pages of a magazine or a prime time news report. She asks us to pay attention to what is happening even if it is not occurring within our own environments and to consider the role that the media has in controlling how we perceive world events. Rosler became a leading figure in the Feminist art movement because much of her work revealed the divide between how women were portrayed as individuals whose only place was within the confines of home, marriage, kitchen, and motherhood and the way they actually felt by being pigeonholed into said domestic roles. She also used brave new technologies such as video to differentiate herself from the male art stars and their traditional mediums that had come before.

David Lynch

David Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style which has been dubbed "Lynchian" and is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound design. The surreal and, in many cases, violent elements to his films have earned them the reputation that they "disturb, offend or mystify" their audiences. What Lynch sees, and then puts on screen for viewers to see, is one of the great enigmas of cinema, one that has launched a thousand film studies PhDs. When he looks at a manicured lawn, his mind’s eye tunnels beneath it to hidden mystery, mysticism and depravity – visions he has turned into mind-bending television and film. It’s an oeuvre people tend to love or detest, and even devotees don’t claim to fully understand.

Amanda Charchian

Amanda Charchian creates work with a feminine sensuality that is simultaneously epic and intimate. In 2018 she exhibited a new body of work at Fahey/Klein Gallery entitled "7 Types of Love" which presents mediations on the seven categories of love as described by Canadian psychologist John Allen Lee based on Greek ideas. Her photographs create visual narratives on romantic, spiritual and dutiful love through a feminine lens.  Charchian captures intimacy and the connection between herself and the women she photographs translating the subtlety of the moment. I most value the delicate and warm nature that she presents women in along with her view that inforcing themes can be restrictive and arbitrary; her photography is about capturing vivacious characters, the charm, the mystery, the strange thigs that make these women individual.

Ellen Von Unwerth

Unwerth is one of the most noted fashion photographers in the industry, pushing the limits of female sexuality. The model turned photographer has now shot for all of the of top fashion publications including Vogue, Vanity Fair, Interview, The Face, Arena, and i-D, and published dozens of books of personal work from exhibitions around the world. Unwerth has an innate ability to capture female sensuality in any setting by relating to the model’s state of mind and her confidence in female playfulness and sexuality. I am hugely appreciative of her role in the fashion world in making women feel comfortable with their sexuality thus confident in themselves and their talent. Unwerth is consistently using her voice to help further the stature of other females.

[the-royal-courier]

The Legalities of Vice

Op Ed by High Magistrate Theodore Bennas

(Editor Note: This editorial opinion was written and submitted in response to the Op Ed written by our reporter Dunnedin Stratford on February 26th. Neither express the opinions of the Royal Courier.)

As an attorney of the Kingdom of Stormwind, I took my practice of the law extremely seriously. As High Magistrate, I have made it my life’s goal to remedy the ills I have seen through the scope of Stormwind law. It is easy to imagine then, my surprise, when I read Dunnedin Stratford’s opinion on the current events of Stormwind. This opinion inquires whether or not that the establishment of an exclusive club that utilizes prostitutes in a foreign land alongside a licensed gambling hall in the Kingdom of Stormwind marks ‘the beginning of a legal shift in our city’. It does not.

First and foremost, the elite club mentioned is in violation of the Laws of Stormwind Part 6. Section 31 which states that “[a] citizen shall be guilty of Pimpery, if they should organise, manage, or materially assist in the selling of sex for money or goods in a public and open venue here forth referred to as any street or open location within the realm of Stormwind” and Section 28 which prohibits “knowing possession of substances, literature, or any other items considered contraband by His Majesty”. Or such a club would be in violation if it was within the realm of Stormwind. As the writer of the previous opinion himself noted, this is permissible on Alteraci soil due to the lack or unenforceable of any Alteraci law illegalizes prostitution or drugs that would be considered illicit in Stormwind. In conjunction with the fact that the Alliance has not placed a prohibition on these behaviors, Stormwind is inhibited from acting on this known club.

It would be a gross violation of the purpose of law and an unprecedented disrespect of sovereign authority for an agent of Stormwind’s Judiciary to hold a foreign aristocrat or any foreign citizen culpable for actions illegal under Stormwind law but not under Alliance law that occurred outside the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Stormwind and in a region where the action was itself legal. As such, so long as the behavior remains relegated to territory outside of Stormwind, the hands of Stormwind’s judiciary are thus tied and I, despite being morally repulsed by prostitution, cannot act to cause the club to cease.

The esteemed writer next addresses the King’s Cut Gambling House, a rather amusingly named gambling house that I personally licensed. Here, the writer makes a slight misstatement of the law by describing the main section of the heading but not including the subsection which reads “[a] citizen shall not be guilty of illegal gambling if they are within a licensed gambling house established within the kingdom proper or any territory owned by the Kingdom of Wrynn.”. As such, the power to authorize licenses for gambling houses lies with me.

I spoke with Mr. Hudson at great length about his proposed gambling house, I gained a deep understanding his goals, and I made my decision accordingly. The license I wrote for him was not a blank bank note for which he could do as he wish. I had severely limited Mr. Hudson to a single type of game in a single building and subjected his business to all the due taxes and regulations expected of such an establishment. I gave provisions that would allow agents of Stormwind to inspect the premises once every six months. To all these provisions, Mr. Hudson assented. If he so wished to expand, as the author claims, Mr. Hudson would require my consent and likewise my scrupulous attention to his plans.

Similarly, I, and I presume many of the Royal Courier’s readers, have not forgotten Darkshire nor the trouble it has undergone not merely during the past few months but in the previous years. In my days as a younger knight, I faced the dangers of Duskwood first hand. I had heard the people of Darkshire grumble about the apathy of the Crown in the precarious position the townsfolk found themselves it. Though relief comes in more forms than the blue and silver of Stormwind footmen. I am of the belief that the rebuilding of business and establishment of means to attract others to Darkshire will help revitalize the economy and will lead to a safer and more prosperous Darkshire if supported by the military of the Crown.

I will set aside the issue of the discrimination of the Illidari for the time being as it is not explicitly related to the rise of vice. Though, I am deeply concerned and I am well aware that there are far too many in this kingdom that suffer due to the arbitrary basis of their race. This cruelty can be plainly seen in the treatment of half-elves by many but it does not stop there. I have seen elves of both varieties, gnomes, dwarves, and pandaren discriminated against in Stormwind. I will be drafting legislation that will punish racially motivated crimes and forbid discriminatory hiring practices in the civilian context in the Kingdom of Stormwind.

In the writer’s final three paragraphs, the writer questions whether the Lady Treasurer and I wish to be remembered for our authorization of this gambling house. While I cannot speak for Lady Holt, the answer is yes from me. I wish to be remembered as a man who carried out the duty he was chosen for. I wish to be remembered as a man who, after careful thought, analysis, and reason, that he believed would strengthen and protect his kingdom, looked at a controversial issue and made a decision. I want to be remembered as the man who authorized a perfectly legal institution despite his own personal distastes on gambling because it was consistent with the law he has been entrusted to uphold.

The writer also wrongfully suggests that by some means, I and, I presume, the Council of Ministry are somehow personally profiting from this. This is grievously incorrect. The only beneficiaries of the King’s Cut Gambling House, outside of those involved in its operations and its patronage, are the Royal Coffers that receive revenue in taxes. None of the Council members receive any sort of personal financial benefit from the establishment of this gambling house.  As for this Silk Road? There is no profit to be had for any member of the Council as we simply have no stake in it.

Similarly, the House of Nobles is not funding either of these two establishments. The very notion of this is simply laughable. The most money that the House had spent in regards to the gambling house occurred with the ink and parchment used to draft the license. Even further, the House of Nobles has not even addressed the Silk Road. While it is possible that some of the constituent lords and ladies of the House have attended the club, it is not officially endorsed, supported, or even acknowledged by the House.

Though, I take issue with the distinction between the two establishments that the writer mentions here in his opinion and his excusing of adult entertainment in Booty Bay. The esteemed writer is quick to condemn an elite club run by the aristocrat of a foreign land and a Stormwind exile that offers the services of prostitutes in far off Alterac but declares that adult entertainment is acceptable in Booty Bay. This dissonance is puzzling to me.

The House of Nobles seeks to act in the best interests of the Kingdom of Stormwind and her people, noble or otherwise. Human or otherwise. The decisions we make may not always be popular but they will always come from a place of careful, nuanced reasoning and a true desire to do what is right by the people of the Kingdom we love so very dearly.

@theodorebennas