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scoopsahoy · 4 years

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i just read ur fic about getting pregnant with steve and was wondering if u could write one about the reader and steve struggling for a few years to get pregnant, and she has an emotional breakdown one night bc she doesn't feel like enough for him because it's been pushed on her that women's only jobs are to have kids and shes like "i cant even do that so how am i supposed to please you" and he comforts her and makes her feel better

ぺ word count ⋰ 2.3k

✰ tw ⋰ none :)

❍ cw ⋰ swearing, mentions of sex

✐ masterlist

⋆★⋆★⋆★⋆★⋆★⋆★⋆★⋆★⋆★⋆★⋆★⋆★

You sat on the toilet seat with your leg bouncing, anxiously waiting for the pregnancy test results to show up. This had become a new norm for you: getting pregnancy tests and anxiously awaiting the results. And you were sick of it.

It took a toll on you. Getting a negative result every single month for four years straight was stressful mentally and physically. You’d had a migraine for at least three and a half years, and no medicine helped. You were always nauseous and sick, which your gynecologist said was normal in your situation. You were always tired and sad, which affected your job and your relationship with Steve.

You knew he was just as tired of it as you were, and you knew he was probably exhausted from having to care for you all the time.

It had also taken a toll on your sex life. At this point, you two only had sex to reproduce. You rarely finished and always denied his offers to help you. You would always flip yourself upside down afterward to help the sperm enter your uterus.

You’d both been to the doctor multiple times to see which one of you was fertile. Steve was one hundred percent fertile, while you had less of a chance of getting pregnant that you should’ve had.

You’d been to multiple IVF appointments as well. It wasn’t Steve’s favorite thing in the world to go into a room alone and masturbate to porn to provide sperm samples.

At this point, he didn’t enjoy looking at other women to get off, so you had taken pictures of yourself to give him.

The first few times it was awkward for him afterward, but you assured him there was nothing uncomfortable about it.

You’d probably spent over ten thousand dollars on it, and it was heartbreaking each time it didn’t work.

At the end of the five minutes, you grabbed the test out of the sink, feeling a pain in your heart at the single line.

You tossed it back into the sink as you stood up, feeling tears slide down your face. Your back hit the wall and you slid down until you felt yourself land on your ass.

You pulled your knees into your chest, propped your elbows on them, and put your hands into your palms.

You couldn’t help but sob. You and Steve had been trying for four years to conceive. And, despite everything mentioned, none of it worked. This was one of your last straws, a wave of sadness washing over you.

You both desperately wanted kids, preferably two or three. But at this point, you’d be lucky to even have one.

Steve made it clear that in the end, if you couldn’t have children of your own, he’d be perfectly okay with adopting, or just not having any. And you agreed.

However, you had the longing to create your own child. Everything from the pregnancy, to giving birth, to raising that child from the moment they came out, until the moment they could care for themselves. You wanted that more than anything, but you’d be happy to adopt if you were infertile.

But sitting on the bathroom floor knowing that every effort you made — propping yourself upside down after sex, aforementioned IVF treatments, tracking your cycles, staying healthy, etc. — didn’t work, made your heart hurt.

You wondered if you were good enough for Steve, if you could really give him what he wanted. If he was genuinely happy with trying to have kids for years on end and being unsuccessful. You wondered if that was what he wanted, if he was still happy with you.

Your sobs filled the bathroom, making you glad Dustin wasn’t there.

Dustin was your younger brother, and currently, he was at the arcade. He knew about your struggle to have kids, and he usually tried to help, whether it was with the foods you ate, or getting you vitamins, making sure your mom didn’t keep her alcohol where you could get to it, etc.

You thought it was sweet how much he wanted a niece or nephew, always talking about babysitting them and allowing them into the party.

You always made sure he was gone when you took pregnancy tests. You loved him, but comfort wasn’t his strong suit. Sometimes it would work just because of the effort, but sometimes it would make you feel worse. So, you figured the easiest way to avoid that was to make sure he wasn’t there.

The rest of the party was also anticipating you getting pregnant. Max, Eleven, and Nancy all said they would help her with girl things like periods, dating, and other things boys didn’t understand.

And Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Will, and Jonathan all said they would indoctrinate him/her into their Dungeons and Dragons campaigns.

It made you cry the first time you found out how excited they were to have a new member of the family.

But you hated making them wait. Dustin and Robin were the only ones who knew how long you’d been trying, so the rest of them kept jokingly bugging you about them getting a new DnD member.

When Steve got home from work, he found you crying on the bathroom floor. He looked in the sink, seeing another negative test.

He sat on the toilet seat, placing his hands on your knees. He didn’t say anything, he let you talk at your own pace.

“Negative again,” you said, your voice stuffy.

He nodded. “I know.”

“What the hell is wrong with me?”

“Hey, look at me.”

You pulled your hands from your face, revealing your eyes bloodshot and puffy, your skin soaked in tears.

He stood up and held his hands out for you to take. You pulled yourself up and he cupped your face. He wiped your cheeks with his thumbs, before grabbing a dry cloth and cleaning your face completely.

“Come here,” he said, pulling you into a deep hug. You cried into his chest, leaving tear stains on his shirt. He gently pulled you to the bedroom a few seconds later. You sat against the headboard, resting your elbows on your knees. He sat across from you, only a few feet away.

He gripped your hands as you continued crying. It was silent for a few minutes before he continued the conversation.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Then why can’t I get pregnant?”

“You know that’s not your fault.”

“Is it enough for you? Am I enough for you?”

He furrowed his brows. “What are you talking about?”

“If I can’t give you a kid. If I can’t get pregnant, despite everything we’ve done, despite every effort we’ve made... will I be enough? Won’t you want more?”

“Don’t. Don’t even think like that. Don’t say that. Of course, you’ll still be enough for me.”

You softly shook your head. “I don’t believe that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you said that all you want in life is children. You want at least one son and one daughter. And you want to name one of them Dustin, and one of them Robin. And you’ve told me that you want to have a hundred grandkids so you can spoil all of them. And if I can’t give that to you-”

“Stop. Stop talking.” He gripped your hands tighter. “I don’t care. If you can’t give me that, that’s okay. More than anything, I want you. I want you, even if we don’t have a hundred grandkids.”

You felt more tears fall down your face, hitting your legs. He tilted your chin up to look at him.

“Why?” you asked.

“‘Why’ what?”

“Why wouldn’t you want someone who could give you that?”

“Because I don’t want just anybody. I want you. I’d live a thousand lifetimes without kids if it meant I got to be with you.”

“But you want a family.”

“Baby,” he chuckled. “We’re already a family. You and me, we are a family. We don’t need a child to be a family. Hell, we can adopt a dog or a cat if we wanted to. And that would still make us as much of a family as people with kids.”

“But we both want kids. I want kids. I want to be pregnant, I want to give birth, I want to hold the baby after they come out. I want to celebrate their first steps, their first words, their first birthday. I want to do that.” He didn’t say anything. “How am I supposed to please you if I can’t even get pregnant?” you mumbled.

He furrowed his brows. “What?”

“I mean, we’ve always been taught that in marriages, in order to be a good wife and please your husband, you should have kids.”

“Who the hell taught you that?”

You raised your eyebrows. “School, my family, everyone. I’ve grown up hearing that in order to be a good wife to my husband, I have to give him kids and that’s how we’re supposed to please you.”

He shook his head. “I’ve never been taught to only expect kids from my wife. They’ve been feeding you that bullshit?” You nodded. “For how long?”

“All my life.”

“I’ve grown up learning from my mom that, even if I don’t have kids with the person I marry, I should find someone that I can’t live without. That’s you.”

“Steve-”

“Y/N, you don’t have to bear a child to please me. I am so madly, deeply, stupidly in love with you. There is nothing you can do to make me not love you. You hear me?” You didn’t reply. “Why do you think I proposed to you and married you?”

“You wanted to start a family, but not outside of marriage. Isn’t that why every guy gets married?”

“Nope. Not even close. I mean, that’s a factor, but do you know the real reason I married you?” You still didn’t answer. “I married you to be with you,” he said as he poked you lightly on the chest. “I married you so I could spend the rest of my life with you. Obviously, I do want a family, but, like I said, I’d go a million years without kids if it meant I got to be with you.”

You were only crying harder now. “Steve-”

“I am so fucking in love with you, Y/N. Do you want to know how long it took me to get that ring-” He pointed to your engagement ring on your finger, which was joined by your wedding band, “after we started dating?” You shook your head. “Three days.”

Your eyes got wide. “What?”

“Yep. Three days into our relationship, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. You know why I didn’t propose sooner?” You shook your head again. “We weren’t eighteen. That was the only thing holding me back. I had to wait two years to propose to you because we had to wait until we were adults.”

You looked down at your ring. “They let you buy an engagement ring at sixteen?” you chuckled.

“I guess so. I got it, didn’t I?”

You smiled. “I love you,” you whispered.

“I love you, too.” You squeezed his hands.

“Tell you what. Why don’t we take a break from trying? I mean, we’re only twenty-three. We have time. I know it’s stressing you out. Your head always hurts and you’re always sick. Let’s just wait a little while.”

You nodded. “That would actually be really nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Maybe we can have sex just to have sex, not to make a baby.”

“Absolutely.”

You looked at him and he gave you a small smile.

“I don’t deserve you,” you said, your voice cracking.

“I think I’m the one that doesn’t deserve you.”

You laughed softly. “And if we can’t have our own kids, we can adopt,” you said.

“Absolutely.”

“Take a kid or two out of the system.”

“Absolutely,” he repeated.

You got on your knees and hugged him, the two of you squeezing each other tightly.

“Did I mention that I love you?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure? Because I do.”

“I’m sure,” you giggled. “I love you, too.”

When you pulled away, he looked at you. “Don’t blame yourself, baby. Seriously. It’s not your fault.”

“I know.”

“Okay.”

You pulled him in for one last kiss before heading to the kitchen to start dinner.

—

You, Steve, Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Max, and Robin all sat in your dining room. For dinner, you made chicken burritos. The kids were all joking around and talking about the arcade when you decided to get their attention.

“So, me and Steve talked today,” you said, clearing your throat. They all looked at you. “I think... we’re gonna stop trying to have a kid for a little while.”

“What?” Lucas asked. “Why?”

“We’ve been trying for four years. I mean, we’ve done IVF-”

“What’s IVF?” Mike asked.

“In vitro. It’s artificial insemination.”

“We’ve done that about six times,” Steve said. “And it hasn’t worked.”

“Nothing we’ve done has worked. So, for now, we’re gonna take a break. I mean, it takes a toll on us.”

They nodded. “Okay. Whenever you get pregnant, that just means we can have someone else to play games with and invite to the arcade,” Lucas said. “Even if we’re older.”

Steve rested his hand on your thigh.

—

Laying in bed and being Steve’s little spoon as he slept caused you to start thinking again.

You didn’t realize it before, but you were more okay with waiting than you thought you would be. Sure, you’d be slightly older when you were pregnant — if you wound up pregnant at all — but you were fine with it.

Knowing that you were with someone like Steve, who didn’t care if you couldn’t have kids, was a relief. You knew you married the right person, and you knew your kids would be right about you two being soulmates.

#fanfic #fanfiction #fluff #imagine #steve harrington #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x reader fanfic #steve harrington x reader fanfiction #steve harrington x reader imagine #steve harrington x reader fluff #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fluff #stranger things imagine

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sirpoley · 4 years

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On the Four Table Legs of Traveller, Leg 1: Mortgages

Mongoose Traveller's starship mortgage-payment-system is the most brilliant game mechanic I've ever encountered, as a DM. It's also the first rule I'd ignore if I wasn't consciously trying to play the game exactly how it's described in the book.

A Bit of Background

I've been involved in two Traveller campaigns in the past as a player (both with the same DM), and am currently DMing a third. All of them are using Mongoose's first edition. I've never played any other edition of traveller, and know almost nothing about the history of the game. I don't know which mechanics are unique to this edition of Traveller and which have been around for decades.

In the campaigns in which I was a player, I think the DM was continually frustrated with the rules of the game. He wanted to run a tight, story-focused campaign and picked up Traveller assuming it would be, essentially, D&D in space. For his second campaign, he chopped out huge chunks of the ruleset and replaced it with homebrew ones, removing space travel and Traveller's quirky character creation entirely. This worked for the game he wanted to run (he's an extraordinarily talented DM), but I think we all came away feeling pretty lukewarm about the actual rules.

Bored out of my mind in lockdown, desperate for anything to shake up the daily routine, I picked up the copy of Traveller that had been sitting on my bookshelf, untouched, and skimmed through it. In a mood of "I'll humour this weird rulebook," I followed the random subsector creation chapter to the letter, creating a surprisingly-well fleshed out chunk of space to play around in.

It was then that I realized I'd never actually played Traveller. So I dragged my partner along in an experiment: let's play Traveller, exactly how it is described in the book, no matter how flat-out insane the rules seem to be. I will only consider houseruling or changing a rule once we've both figured out what it's for. I learned a ton in this experiment, so, during my kid's naps (oh, right, I have a daughter now, that's where I disappeared to, Internet), I'll write about what I've learned.

(The Carlia Subsector. Not pictured: along with this map is a LONG word document describing the atmosphere, gravity, population, tech level, cultural quirks, government, etc. of the main world in each of these systems, plus a huge table of the price of dozens of trade goods on each planet. These, it turns out, are crucial game aids. I'll get into them later.)

Traveller, I've learned, is a table held up by four legs: Finances, Character Creation, Patrons, and Random Encounters. If you remove any of these legs, the rest of the game stops working. Following them, as described, gives you a rip-roaring swashbuckling adventure of fighting pirates, escaping bounty hunters, smuggling, jailbreaks, and all that good stuff you want in a campaign—but it happens spontaneously. I'll get into it more in detail, but for now, we're going to talk about finances in Traveller.

Yes, the Game Is About Mortgage Payments

The central driving mechanic of Traveller is making mortgage payments for your starship. The assumption is that the player characters are part-owners of an FTL-capable starship that's more expensive than any one person, or any ten people, could ever afford outright. The game (thankfully) provides a quick way to calculate your starship's mortgage payments (something like the value of the ship/240 per month), and for all of the example ships in the book, gives them to you pre-calculated. In the case of my solo campaign, my partner owed the bank a whopping 500,000 credits a month for her Corsair. For scale, that's the exact same price as the single most powerful gun in the game (the "Fusion Gun, Man Portable"), owed monthly. In D&D terms, she had to raise the equivalent of a +5 Longsword every. Single. Month.

(In addition to mortgage payments are smaller fees: life support (i.e., food and water), crew salaries, fuel, and ship maintenance, but the mortgage is by far the largest single expense, so that's what I'll focus on).

I started my partner out with a fueled up and fully-crewed ship (we used pre-generated NPC stats from the middle of the book for her crew, plus an NPC who was generated during her character creation, which I'll get into later). Character creation started her with 10,000 credits, and I told her she had until the end of the month to multiply that by fifty times.

Debt Leads to Trade

The fastest way by far in Traveller to make money is to interact with the very well fleshed-out trade rules. Each spaceship has a certain amount of tons of cargo it can carry, and each world has a list of trade goods for sale at various prices. So the clear way to raise that 500 grand was to speculatively buy trade goods, pick up passengers and freight, deliver mail, and so on. These rules are generous; by stacking modifiers, it's possible to reliably quadruple your principal every time you reach a new planet (which happens every week).

I think my old DM severely nerfed the trade rules (he also didn't enforce mortgage payments, leaving them on the cutting room floor like D&D's Encumbrance rules) due to this seemingly-unbalanced generosity. Again: the best gun in the game is 500,000 credits—so how on earth can a system that lets you make hundreds, even millions, of credits by trading stand?

Well, it turns out, the bank simply taking 95% of your player's earnings every month severely dampens potentially-snowballing nonlinear growth, so my partner and I never saw the kind of wealth explosion that looks inevitable from the rules as written, despite her scraping together everything she could do maximize profits. In all the time we've been playing, despite having already made millions of credits, she actually hasn't been able to buy a gun better than her starting laser pistol, or, in fact, any armour at all. I'll get to why in a moment, because the most important thing about the trade system is that…

Trade Leads to Travel

Garden worlds sell cheap food. High-population worlds buy food for a high price. High-population worlds sell manufactured goods that are in high-demand on non-industrial worlds, and so on. In a quest to maximize profits, the party was locked into a continual tour of the subsector I generated earlier, constantly moving from place to place. Staying put for any length of time meant letting time trickle away (time that could be spent raking in cash for crippling mortgage payments), so that wasn't an option. What wound up happening was that the party went on a self-guided tour of the subsector, stopping in at colourful worlds I'd generated earlier. This happened entirely without me, as DM, having to dangle bait in front of the party the way that I always have to in D&D. Travel is good, because…

Travel Leads to Conflict

I've already spoken at length on the subject of random encounters here, but Traveller really builds the game around random tables in an elegant way. Every time the party jumps from one world to another, there's a chance they'll get waylaid by pirates (the rulebook has a fun, albeit hidden, 'pirate table' that describes different tricks and hijinks that pirates use to attack). 'Pirates' in Traveller are spaceship owners unable to pay their mortgages by legitimate means, so turn to piracy. The fact that the party is always carrying their life savings in trade commodities whenever they travel around makes them a prime target for piracy, and leads to combat with stakes beyond "fight till everyone's dead." The pirates aren't orcs, and don't want to kill the players for no reason. They want to take their cargo and get away as quickly as possible, suffering the least damage as possible, and the players want the opposite. Thus: pre-combat negotiations, tricks, hijinks (my partner, carrying a cargo of "domestic goods," chose to have her crew throw individual toasters out of the cargo bay each in different directions to ensure that the pirates had to engage in lengthy EVA-missions to catch them each, thus allowing her ship to escape without suffering damage).

Traveller's starship battle rules are fun (and integrate into boarding actions that results in player-scale combat), and are triggered primarily just by moving around. Conflict is fun by itself (that's why combat rules are most of the rules in most games), but in this context, have the added advantage, as…

Conflict Leads to Tradeoffs

It became clear to my partner after her first run-in with pirates that her ship and crew were under-gunned. While buying powerful weapons and armour is trivially cheap compared to the amount of money she was raking in through trade (most weapons cap out at a few thousand credits, and she was moving hundreds of thousands a week), actually getting her hands on some was another matter.

Good weapons in Traveller are advanced ones, which have a high-TL (tech level) rating. These weapons are only available on high-TL worlds (each world has a TL rating generated in subsector generation). Making a detour from trading to buy 'adventuring equipment' wound up being an extremely costly endeavour, taking the party weeks out of the way of the most profitable trade route. The closest world in which these weapons exist also outlaws all weapons (various laws are generated procedurally as well) which means engaging in black market smuggling (which is fleshed out in the rules) and risks run-ins with the law.

Compounding this problem was that her Corsair took minor damage in the combat with the pirates, and the nearest world with a shipyard capable of repairing the ship was different from, and out of the way of, the high tech world with fancy fusion guns. Also, getting the ship repaired meant that it would be in drydock for days or even weeks, which incurs an opportunity cost of almost a million credits that could have been made during trade…

Tradeoffs lead to Debt

In her case, she wound up getting her ship repaired, forgoing arming herself and her crew, and skirting dangerously close to bankruptcy kicking her heels as her ship was patched up. There isn't an easy answer to what she 'ought' to have done, which was fun as hell. Further, as a DM, I wasn't annoyed that she was 'messing up the plot' by staying put (or frustrated that she wasn't going to my elaborately-plotted narrative that would occur when she tried to buy black market weapons) because there was no plot. Everything that came about emerged procedurally.

The 'Loop'

The beating heart of a Traveller sandbox campaign is this loop:

Without DM intervention (or Patrons, which are sort of procedurally-generated adventure hooks), this loop can sustain a campaign pretty much indefinitely. What this means as a DM is that any DM-interventions (i.e., adding in pre-written adventure hooks or encounters or whatever) can be attached to any of these steps to allow it to come about during play. It also means that if you don't have any pre-scripted content (to choose an example completely at random, let's just say your hypothetical one-year-old threw your notes in a toilet) you can just sit back and let the loop above take care of providing entertainment.

To bring this back to mortgages, if your players don't have the threat of having their spaceship repossessed by the bank hanging over them like the Doom of Damocles, then the whole system breaks down, and the DM has to do all the heavy lifting of providing character motivation to go explore new planets.

Next, we'll talk about how Traveller's patron system ties into all of this.

#TravellerRPG #Traveller #FourLegsofTraveller

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thegeminisage · 4 years

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O, Q, B

O: How do you begin a story--with the plot, or the characters?

PLOT. usually the first thing i know about a fanfic is the climax or the ending, and i just won’t write it if i don’t have something that Resonates with me that makes it worth writing the first ten chapters or whatever. actually one of the biggest reasons broken road rotted for a year as a little outline doc, aside from them killing mary and me temporarily divorcing supernatural, was that i didn’t know the climax/ending of that fic. once i realized what it was, i decided to go ahead and work on it again

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

SCENES, very few. i tend to move scenes instead of cut them if i can - i re-insert sliced dialogue if i have to, it drives cally nuts. STORYLINE/PROJECTS...oh man, a million. i had like literally a DOZEN one-shot followups to that teen wolf rarepair fic (that i still might write someday tbh), an original novel do not steal about a psychic a werewolf and a (shut up) dark angel. i also still want to rewrite my first ever fanfic someday (ocarina of time novelization), i’m slowly coming to grips w/ the fact that i’m probably never gonna finish my detroit become twink fanfic bc you can only write something like that while hyperfixated. the sequel to that merlin fic that i’m never gonna write.

oh also back when i wrote a pairing that will not be named here bc i don’t want to lose anymore followers (i DON’T anymore god stop cyberbullying me!!) i had this 1.22 canon divergent au where john died in the crash and dean survived, and so there was no hell deals and they still had the colt. and then dean got attacked by YED’s demons and put into a coma and was slowly dying, right, and he was a coma-ghost the WHOLE TIME, but bc the fic was sam pov sam/the reader didnt know until the twist ending. because obviously dean wasn’t gonna tell sam, obviously, he was just trying to make sure sam finished the fight before he kicked it. and he spends the whole fic being sketchy about what happened that one night he wouldn’t (couldn’t) answer his phone (getting mugged by demons) and trying not to let sam touch him and hiding their emf meter etc etc and then at the climax of the fic he gets some iron swung at him and he vanishes and sam realizes that he’s transparent and the cold isn’t just because it’s winter and he’s like YOU’RE DEAD?? AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME?? and dean’s like i’m only ALMOST dead. and so then they have to kill YED and also save dean’s life before his time runs out (and they do). anyway that fic was like 100k and i loved it so even though i’m never gonna do this i would love to rewrite/repurpose it to be a gen fic bc it really was so great

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience?

like, all of them lol. everything i’ve ever written is horrifyingly personal actually! gross. you just can’t see that unless you Know me. like, ok, jkr doesnt have rights and i can’t find the interview where she said it but one time when someone asked her which character was most like her she was like oh theyre all like me in some way or another...i put this part of myself into one and that part of myself into another. that’s a mood. i’d never write a fanfic about something i experienced exactly because that feels weird and way too personal to publish on the internet for hundreds or maybe even thousands of strangers to see. boundaries and privacy are good things! but i can change many small details and a few large ones and then i can get away with practically anything so it’s like free therapy AND super authentic at the same time with minimal embarrassment <3 i love fanfic <3

(FANFIC ASK MEME)

#liz answers asks #anonymous #liz loves writing #ASK MEMES #broken road #kinda #spn for ts

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theydontknowaboutusimagines · 4 years

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Nothing Will Ever Come Between Us - Harry Styles One Shot

Request:

I have an idea that I don't know if you are interested harry and reader being school sweethearts with people trying to separate them with telling to Harry to cheat on her or trying to tempt him but he always remain loyal to Reader.

You’ve seen in it a ton of movies or read it in a few books about how certain people find their person as soon as they were born or at least when they were younger. You are one of those people. It happened the day you were born actually, when your mother met another mother who had given birth to a son at the same hospital. They hit it off quite well and been friends ever sense. Since both you and the son were the same age, they loved setting up playdates and even having a few joint birthdays.

When you were ten, you actually lived in the same neighborhood, which brought you and Harry even closer. Going to the same school and spending time with one another as soon as you were home, everything was perfect. As the two of you got older, it was obvious that your friendship was moving into crush territory. It officially hit the mark one summer evening when you planted a kiss right on Harry’s lips at the age of twelve. His cheeks quickly turned red causing you to giggle.

“Uh, well, not that we've got that over with,” you said. “That means you’re my boyfriend now.”

“I-Okay,” he blushed though a smile.

Ever since then, the two of you were a bit inseparable. Nothing really changed other than you two would hold hands and give a bit of a peck on the lips ever now and again. However, when you both were teenagers, is when the relationship changed. You were falling in love and you were happy.

But then, something happened. Harry went to the X Factor and became the Harry Styles he was today. While, you were proud of him and excited for the future that lied ahead for him, you were also afraid of losing your best friend and your first love. He reassured you that everything would be okay and he promised to call you as much as he could.

Of course, that wasn’t very often given his schedule, but the two of you made it work. Many of your friends thought it was so cool that you are dating him, but some of them also made sure and tell you that he was most likely not being faithful. You knew he wasn’t capable of hurting you like that, but you also knew he was a typical teenage boy living in the limelight with hundreds to thousands to millions of fans, who were mostly girls you’re own age.

But you trusted Harry and he never gave you any reason to believe he had been unfaithful. Unfortunately, though distance was proven to be hard and you found both of you arguing about missed calls or visits, etc. But you did whatever you could to make it work.

As the years went on and both of you got older, more and more people couldn’t believe that either of you were still together. You had your own life at University, with friends and the chance to date other people. For as many people who were telling you Harry was most likely cheated on you, there were just as many telling Harry you were probably doing the same.

“She has her own life, a new life,” they would say. “Just like you. The two of you are young with your own life ahead of you, do you really think you should still be with someone you’ve with since you were twelve?”

“Yeah, I do,” he would respond. “Because I love her. She’s my best friend and I can’t imagine my life without her.”

“And do you think she feels the same with you?” they would ask.

“Yeah, I do. I know she does,” he said.

“How?” they asked.

“Because when you know, you know,” he said.

Now, you would be lying if you said there weren’t times where you two thought about breaking up, usually when it’s when you two were fighting, but as soon as the other said it, it never lasted long. You would visit on tour as much as you could or Harry would spend time with you on his off weeks, which helped a lot.

It was hard being out with friends or seeing other couples out having a good time knowing your boyfriend was thousands of miles away, but you knew he was living his dream, this once in a lifetime opportunity. You had him to yourself for sixteen years, you could share him with the world for a few years.

When it came time for the band to take a break and him to venture into solo projects, the two of you moved in together since he was home more and that was really when your relationship was put to the test. Since neither of you had been together for than a few weeks or months at a time, it was a bit of struggle getting used to be around one another most of the time.

There were a lot of annoying moments, but they were all worth it. Even after all the years you’ve together, a few people still tried to question if you two really should be together and if you were just settling. Especially, since neither of you had dated other people.

You would always say, “Why would I waist my time with someone else, when I know Harry is the one I’m supposed to be with. I know it’s cheesy and maybe a little weird, but we were born on the same day, only a few hours apart, at the same hospital, and our Mum’s met and the rest is history. If that doesn’t say meant to be, then I don’t know what it is.”

Which brings you to this moment, the one where you’re walking down an aisle to meet him, so that you two could officially be together for the rest of your lives. And after this, you two would then talk about starting a family. Harry wanted at least two or four kids, while you were okay with two or three. He always said if you have three, you have to have another one because then it’s even. Everyone will have their person and won’t be left out.

You couldn’t wait until the two of you were parents, and then grandparents. Techincally, you could wait for the latter, and wanted that moment to happen in like 20 or 30 years from then. But you imagined yourself sitting with him out in the backyard or around the fireplace and telling your children and grandchildren the love story of you and Harry.

From the first moment the two of you met in the nursery, to falling in love and saying I do. How the two of you made it work through everything even when others doubted you and someone would ask, how did you make it work?

“It’s simple, really,” Harry smiled looking down at you. “When you love someone so much that you can’t imagine your life without them, you don’t let anything or anyone come in between you.”

“Simple as that,” you nodded before pressing your lips against his, just like you did all those years ago.

Thank you for the request! :)

#One Direction Imagines #Harry Styles Imagines #Harry styles One Shots

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littlelightingstriker · 4 years

Text

Disclaimer: this post is not made to cause anger or to insult the Serbian government, it is simply made to report on the news what has been going this past days. Some of the information might be to strong, so please read on your own risk. People who are mention in this story will remain anonymous for their own safety.

#Serbia now:

On the 7th of July,2020, president Vučić announced that Belgrade will be closed and have a curfew between Friday and Monday and that more than five people should not be in the same space together. He talked about a lot of things like how many people are being tested, the possible 'lies' the government has been saying, Novi Pazar, a city located in south-west Serbia, who is in a critical situation because of COVID-19, respirators and many more. He talked about how people need to understand that this virus in not a joke in any possible way and people need to take more action and protect themselves and their family. The problem is half of the population does not believe the virus is either real or that it does not have the affect to enter the human body that fast. People are confused and keep asking the same question that nobody can answer. When he announced the possibility that people will have to stay the whole weekend in their homes, many people were frustrated with the decision and did not want to take his words for real. At the evening, massive numbers of people gathered at the National Assembly and started protesting. The protesting was not in anyway ' peaceful ' but ended being a disappointing vandalism.

Three cars and a police van were on fire. The damage was immediately posted. Hundreds of thousands of dinars are worth of damage.

Torches, tear gas, oysters and glass bottles were being thrown between the protesters and police.

Many people were injured and many police man were hurt. "It was a disaster. We tried stopping them but there were to many." said one policeman.

One of the protesters wanted to break in the National Assembly but were thrown out by the police.

Two men stopped an ambulance that was driving to the hospital with rotations. The two men were punished for their actions and many were disappointed with them.

Protesters DID NOT WANT any politician to join them and act like they care for citizens' rights.

Ana Brnabić was disappointed to see citizens' of Belgrade acting like 'h**li**ns'.

Kosovo was/is also another reason why people turned against Vučić.

Vučić was in the National Assembly but quickly evacuated with the situation going around.

A video of three men being hit and be*ten by the police after rejecting to leave the park was filmed and posted on different sites. The three men were laying on the ground in pain as the police left them.

A man, lost his father due to COVID 19 and blamed the government for lying about having enough respirators. He claimed his father was not given the treatment that was promised and was one of the most critical patient (and many other) in Belgrade. "This is for you, dad. I know you are watching and you are proud. I love you,dad. This is for you!" Said the man. After this video resurfaced the internet, everyone was angry that president Vučić lied about 'having enough respirators' and many left comments that they were not surprised and what a disappointment this country is for believing the words that come from the television.

Protesters are being accused of spreading COVID 19.

97% had masks but still did not distance.

Lockdown will be decided by the crisis staff.

The 8th and 9th of July,2020:

President Vučić has decided he will NOT make the decision about Belgrade. He admitted he has no right to make a decision he isn't to sure how to control.

Many faces were supporting the protest and they were not citizens' of Serbia. -Vučić.

Criminals were mention that they were the ones who were 'trashing' Belgrade.

COVID 19 has no connection with voting, football games etc.

Vučić kept bringing people down while making his people 'world leaders' and 'only hopes for Serbia'.

05.10.2000. is a wish protesters want to come true. ( The fall of Milošević)

Vučić is in shock why people keep bringing his country down while he is doing everything to make it 'grow'.

There will be rules for Belgrade no matter what.

Novi Sad, Niš, Kragujevac also started protesting.

Tonight (9th July.) protesters are peacefuly protesting and tend to keep it that way.

Politicians are calling out h**li*ga*ns and cri**na** after 'destroying Belgrade' and doing vandalism 'on purpose'.

Many people are angry that Belgrade is being in the situation where it's not safe anymore and being trashed by some idiots who don't even live there or came from a different city. They are accused of 'pretending to be Belgraders'. It is proven that they are more than 80% Belgraders in the world then in the own city. Belgrade is composed from all citizens' across Serbia.

Students are protesting after being told they have to leave their dorms for the third time because they need to be prepared for COVID 19 patients. "We don't feel safe. We want our rights!".

Protesters are being called out for fighting for their rights.

Politicians are calling protesters 'criminal slaves' for wanting to remove Vučić.

"We aren't allowed to stand for our rights. They tend to keep us locked when we thought everything is going undercontrol. They are playing for our rights. I lost my friend because she was told to stay home even though she had other medical problems. Instead of celebrating her birthday, I was mourning her name and crying. He (Vučić) doesn't care about us, he just wants the money. He has it. He is building Belgrade on Dunabe and he still thinks we care about some stupid project. How are we not going to protest? I do not like and I am against harmful and disgusting behaviour some people showed the first day and even now, but we can't just stand here and pretend everything is okay. He stole votes and as soon as he secured his seat, this country got even worse. How are we suppose to live here? How can we try and stay positive after everything he has done. My family lives in Kosovo. He gave it. He just sold that land like nothing. He doesn't care about people. He acts like a human but even the facade can't cover his personality. No one can look up to us and that's okay. We don't want '99 again. We want peace. We all want, all of us, we want to breath not to feel pressured. We tell our kids to get the hell away from this country and to never look back. There is no future here. We all know that. He always breaks his promises. Kids grow up and become adults, what children is he talking about?! Where is their future if he is only building Belgrade? What about the South? East? West? Where are their rights?! We are all equal and we all deserve so much more. We have to pray and hope for the best, but in this life we are always going to be left down. " a woman gave her thoughts about protesting.

Other reason's why people want to dismiss Vučić:

He promised everyone 100 Euros when COVID 19 became serious in Serbia. He realised his mistake and ended up giving the money to retired people and people with special needs. Other had to register. He went from helping to you have to do this so I don't embarrass myself.

People were paid to come and cheer for Vučić when he would give speeches.

He lied about the respirators.

People believe that the number of positive patients fell just so that elections could happen.

After elections, Serbia became the worst in numbers of positive cases.

Before elections 50-94 cases, 10-20 respirator patients, almost everyone is cured, Serbia is almost done with COVID 19.

After elections 300+ cases, 120-130 respirator patients, 1000+ in hospitals, 1000+ in isolation, Serbia the most critical on Balkan.

He knew Novi Pazar was going to blow up. He did not do anything.

Belgrade hospitals do not have respirators.

Belgrade has a population of 1 million residents and yet doesn't have the medical needs.

He doesn't have a full government. What kind of country is Serbia then?!

Something that cannot be answered:

Why do people who die from other reasons are COVID 19 victims?

How come the number of cases grew?

Did the government lied all this time?

Was professor Kon right all this time?

Why are people not in hospitals if positive?

How to isolate if you do not have your own bathroom and kitchen?

Why are there no punishments for not wearing a mask?

Is there really a vaccine?

Is the virus real? Is it possible to make it disappear?

Opinion:

Vandalism is not the answer. People have every right to judge Vučić. He is not that bad, but he is not a sweetheart either. Luckily people are peacefully protesting and want to learn to have manners. The police is trying everything to not fight the protesters. Punishing other people for the damage is not right. Being called disgusting names from politicians needs to STOP! We are all people with a heart, we say and do things we should not but that is not the point. Being called a cri**na* is disgusting. Everyone is frustrated with the virus going on but we have to be reasonable. If you are someone who lost a loved one due to COVID 19, my heart goes for you and everyone you love and care about. This is a scary year. It's breaking my heart so many people died not only because of COVID 19. The virus is not the main problem here. People are. This going on in Belgrade is eye opening. It shows people want a break. They want freedom. They want, like every other country, to feel safe. I totally understand the point of view from some people. I ,too, also know there is no future in Serbia until someone really comes and actually cares for people. If territory and fake promises are more relevant then a person breathing, my God save us.

Comment's about Vučić

We are a small country and we never were known for good things, but honestly, how can we have that if we don't have a leader?

Lies and lies. Breaking promises. Being disgusted with people that don't like your way of ''handling" a country. Manipulate people and bringing them down. Having politicians spit on your people?

Is that a joke or is Vučić going to take this seriously.

Kosovo is more important than people?

How cruel do you have to be?

How disgusting that sounds.

We are told people are dying for God's sake and yet you talk for 2 hours and that is it.

Tito is rolling in his grave.

Liar!

Why does anyone expect something good from Vučić?

Oh Serbia, poor little Serbia.

- comments from different sources.

For more information of these protests, feel free to look them up. I gave my personal opinion and I missed a lot of information about this protests but I shared the ones that needed to be put here.

If you are someone from Serbia, feel free to speak and to be free. If you wanted a change and did not get it, either run or keep blessing this country. You deserve much more. You'll get past everything. Keep running. Fight peacefully. Be normal and be mature. I wish everyone so much and pray everyday we get some peace and actually feel like people.

Don't look up to politicians. Nušić told us everything we need to know.

Be safe while protesting! Keep yourself safe and don't let a politician ruin your life. Bring back the rights and the light we all need.

Bring Serbia where she should be.

Not underneath.

#serbia #protesting #safe #people #equal rights #belgrade #news #hope

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inkedsoldier · 5 years

Text

AMOR VINCIT OMNIA - Chapter Seven

A/N: Here it is – chapter seven (already!) of the AMOR VINCIT OMNIA series! I’m still working on how to write action packed storylines, but I’ll figure it out. This is only the start of the whole adventure. I hope you enjoy & please let me know what you think about the series so far! Thanks for all the support!

Y/N = Your name.

Y/F/N = Your first name.

Y/L/N = Your last name.

Characters: Sam Drake, Nathan Drake, Victor Sullivan, Rafe Adler, Nadine Ross, Y/N.

Warnings: fluff, angst.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No copyright infringement is intended.

Masterlist

Chapter Seven Five Hundred Thousand

The brothers were about to make the climb, when you approach the huge estate. Over the centuries, the property has been owned by an important local family. The last two days you’ve been reading up on everything you had to know about the complex. The building was extended and refurbished in the mid 1700s and, besides the magnificent manor house, it features a number of residential terraced houses, one of the most spectacular Italian gardens you had ever seen, at least two buildings for servants, storage areas and a vineyard. All the reasons not to go on with the mission come flooding in at once, making you stop in your tracks. “What’s the matter, kid?” Sully asks. You look at him as if he were a radio and not a person who is there to interact with. His words slowly reach you, bringing you back to reality, “What if I screw this up, Sully?” From what he tells you next you know he is already way ahead with the strategy you had come up with. In his words are kindness and honesty. “You know, darling, you shouldn’t doubt yourself that much. You have saved my ass, and Nate’s, so many times already that I still don’t get where this insecurity is coming from. You’re the best for the job, Y/N. Let’s go inside and look for a room to send the signal from. We got this!” The music grew louder as you and Sully approach the entrance to the ballroom. People walk past you when you check for a way to the upper levels of the mansion. Once you manage to get upstairs without getting noticed by the guards, you find a room where Sam and Nathan can easily climb through a window without being seen. “Sully, send the signal.”

It took the Drake’s less than twenty minutes to reach the side of the building you were at. On their way over they spotted guards carrying some serious heat, making them doubt the whole no-guns rule. They climb up the balcony and walk towards the door after dropping the jumpsuits they were wearing for the climb. “How do I look?” Sam asked Nate before they enter the room. “Like four hundred million bucks. Let’s go!” his little brother replied. “Alright. I’m right behind you,” he said as they enter the darkened space. “Sully? Y/N?” the younger Drake calls out looking at a figure in the shadow. “Know what I love about partying with a bunch of crooks?” a voice asked. “What’s that?” Nate responded. “Nobody cares if you smoke indoors” Sully states as he turns on the light with a cigar in the corner of his mouth. “It’s been a while,” Nate laughs as he walks over to Sully and hugs him. “Too long, boyo” Turning around Nate gestures over to Sam, “You remember my dead brother, right?” Sam has a nervous look on his face, “Victor.” “I’ll be goddamned. Fifteen years…” the older man said. “Good to see you alive, Sam.” A smile appeared on your face as you step out of the corner behind the men. “Well, let’s try keeping him alive by getting this cross, huh?” Both men turn around in shock as they didn’t see you while entering the room. “Wow, Y/N, you look…” Nate starts, when Sam finishes, “…beautiful!” The sheath dress skimmed your body and falls straight to the floor below your hips. It was an effortless gown with lace; not to overpowering. You blushed as Sam came walking over to you, taking in every detail, before placing a gentle kiss on your cheek. “We have one little problem, boys” you said as you walk back towards the ballroom. “Take a look.” They had brought Avery’s cross out of the storage before you got here; the lot order was changed and only a big pile of cash could make that happen. “Okay, okay… we need a diversion,” Nate thought out loud and Sully looked at you. “The bidding will start in ten, fifteen minutes tops. We need to come up with something soon, but there is just a small matter of a few hundred eyewitnesses down there,” you stated pointing towards the guards and crowd. Sam started laughing, “What if they don’t see us? Jesus, you guys act like you’ve never spent time in prison. If you want something dirty done… then you wait…” – “For light out,” Sully and Nate said in unison.

Nate took the map from his jacket and started searching for the electrical panel. “It’s up there,” you pointed at a certain spot on the map. “It will only give us a few seconds of darkness to work with. One of us needs to be next to the cross to grab it as soon as the light goes out. We need to get close without being noticed.” A waitress came up to you and holds up a plate of appetizers. “A waiter wouldn’t get noticed,” you say when the waitress walks away to the other guests in the room. “Okay, Nate if you get to the breaker room and kill the power, Sam can serve us some drinks while we wait. Sully and I will keep an eye on the cross and enjoy the douchey European techno.”

When Sullivan returned from helping Nate and Sam get into the cellar, you took a moment to freshen up in the bathroom before the auction would start. Through the earpiece you could hear that Sully was talking to a woman you didn’t know. As you leave the bathroom, you quickly let your eyes roam the room to check for anything unusual. So far so good. There were only five minutes left for Nate to reach the panel and kill the lights when you return to Sully. “Last I heard, he settled down, got married,” Victor said to the woman you hadn’t seen before. “Well, then he might as well be dead, right?” a familiar voice responded behind him. “Victor Sullivan!” Rafe called out before he noticed you approaching. “Y/N?” You couldn’t believe your eyes. The last time you saw him was thirteen years ago; the day you left Scotland together with Nate. After the miscarriage you started working on the Avery job again, but when Nate dropped out you quit too. There was a time you thought, maybe even hoped, that the friendship between you and Rafe still had a chance. But when he started to ignore you, you were done. “What are you doing here? Wow, you look even more beautiful than I remember,” he said as he came closer to you, leaving a kiss on your cheek. “Hi, Rafe. Good to see you here,” you lied. “Sullivan asked me to come to the auction with him, and you know me, can’t say no to an opportunity like that.” He laughed, looking back at your partner. “Amazing! All these years gone by, here we are – we’re still haggling over dead people’s junk.” You didn’t know what to think of his statement. Was he on to you?

The auction was starting, but you hadn’t heard from Nathan yet. You tried to walk away from Rafe, but you got stopped. “Hold on. How did you find out about it?” he said as he came even closer. “It? Now what ‘it’ is that, Rafe?” Sully spoke. “Nadine, I think your partner here has had too many Bloody Marys…” Rafe was clearly pissed, “Cut the bullshit, old man. Now I don’t know how you scammed your way in here. But if you think… about bidding on Avery’s cross, I can tell you exactly how you’re going to be leaving. In a goddamn body…” You didn’t let him finish his sentence as you landed the palm of your hand on his cheek. “How dare you threaten us? After all the shit you put me through, you stand here behaving like you own everyone who ever entered your life. We were friends and you trashed it, you sick…” You couldn’t finish it as Nadine got in between you. “Well, you get the point,” Rafe chuckled with a painful look on his face when you turn away. Nathan’s voice finally sounded through the earpieces, “I made it. Had a few close calls, but… I need a minute to reach the panel.” Sully sighed, “We don’t have a minute, Rafe’s about to walk out of here with your cross.” Nate didn’t believe his ears when he heard what he said. Rafe already started bidding on the cross and had the highest bid. You had to come up with a plan to buy some extra time. “Guys, if we do not get this cross, I am as good as dead,” Sam whispered while standing close to the items. Before the auction closed, Sully held up his number to start a bidding war against Rafe. One hundred thousand. One hundred ten thousand… one hundred ninety thousand euros. It went well, until Rafe yelled “Five hundred thousand” through the ballroom. Sully laughed and made a gesture of defeat to your now pretty pissed former best friend. “Had me worried there for a minute, Victor. Thought I might have to kill you.” You chuckled and bumped Sully’s arm, “Let’s ruin this asshole’s evening.” Nate switched off the lights and Sam grabbed the cross without getting noticed.

It didn’t take long before everyone got into panic mode. Guards were running around, and every possible way out got closed off. “Y/N, where is our getaway?” Nate asked. “Come to the driveway out front. Follow the spotlights,” you answered as you make your way down the stairs. “Sully will bring the car around.” Suddenly, you could hear gunshots in the distance. “Nate. Sam. You doing okay?” you ask. “Ah, just met your friend Nadine Ross, Victor. She is lovely,” Nate responded, who was now on his way to Sam. “Sully, where you at?” you asked with a bit of panic in your voice as you make your way through the garden. They had cleared the place out the moment the word got out that a certain Drake was responsible for the heist. “I’m on the driveway. Hurry the hell up!” he said. “Almost there!” you replied as you jump over the wall, almost stumbling on the skirt of your dress. As fast as you can you run to the car and sit down next to Victor. The gunfire moved fast, from the ballroom to the fountain. There was now only one way possible to save the brothers from the chaos; Sully crashed the car through the wall to get Nate and Sam into safety. “Anyone call for a limo?” he joked. He handed you his gun and you started shooting at the approaching guards. Sam and Nate jumped in and you drove off on the quiet country roads.

Tag list: @kiara-arts @wintermuteway

Do you want to get on the list? Just send me a DM and I’ll add you (:

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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I’m regards to Bobby the-igniting his feud against Xavier, literally my whole thought process after reading Deadly Genesis and finding out about Gabriel and then about how Adult Bobby was like he didn’t want to be gay on top of everything else when he first came out, I literally thought that he had gone to Xavier about him possibly being gay back during the Silver Age and Xavier just went, nope nope not happening and locked it within his mind.

Oh yeah, someone put an additional block in Bobby’s head kinda...steering him away from coming out sooner. Its literally the only way the story works at all. They created a paradox and either didn’t see it soon enough or they just didn’t see it at all, so nobody at Marvel has so much as touched in and they probably never will and ugh that’s so frustrating.

When the story happened, everyone focused on why Jean’s actions in outing Bobby were wrong from like, an emotional/personal/HUMAN standpoint. Why it was morally wrong, etc, etc. Which is as it should have been, god knows I have plenty of criticism for the story when it comes to that particular angle too.

But problem is, what went largely unnoticed with all the attention on the above angle......Jean outing Bobby wasn’t just a matter of ethics.....it created a logistical issue too.

Okay, bear with me here because this will get long and rambly and I’m probably gonna repeat a lot of stuff twice, lol. Headache’s killing me today but I’m still up anyway because idk, its not the boss of me or whatever. Just saying, its a bit harder to concentrate than usual, and time travel is always a head-scratcher anyway, so to make my point super duper clear and be sure I’ve conveyed it correctly, there’s probably gonna be a fair amount of repetition here.

But there’s also a point! Don’t forget the point! I didn’t!

Okay. Getting into it. Let’s go. So its like....okay, multiverse theory posits at any given moment, you can make hundreds of different choices, right? Most of them tiny, but they add up. You can feel the urge to sneeze and decide in the span of a second whether you’re going to try and suppress it or let it out. A minute choice, but a choice nonetheless.....one which creates two branching timelines, one where you sneezed and one where you suppressed it. And on and on it goes, with both those timelines in turn getting further and further away from each other as that single choice creates different equally small ripple effects that grow as they expand outward.

Bobby coming out, is not a minute choice.

And the thing is, if you look at the timeline the original five X-Men traveled FROM to the future, like let’s call that the Original Timeline.....

Okay, so picture the original five X-Men back in their Original Timeline, like, ten seconds before Future Hank uses his time machine and appears in the room they’re all in.

At that point in time, before Future Hank arrived......there were millions of possible timelines potentially branching out from any and every one choice they each made.

But the SECOND Future Hank arrived......they became locked in to just ONE possible timeline. There was only ONE way the Original Timeline could go....the way that - from the perspective of the ‘present day’ X-Men. - the future had already gone.

The moment before Future Hank arrived....this was the last moment any of them had millions of potential futures ahead of them where they could have made any of dozens of different choices at any given moment. The moment Future Hank arrived....all those other choices went away. The futures they created were negated, they were off the table. From that moment on, the point in time that Jean kinda ‘reset’ them all to when they got back, by locking away their memories of everything they’d said and done and seen in the future, so none of that could influence the choices they MIGHT make away from the choices that in the Future timeline they DID make, like, from that point on, the original five X-Men were essentially following a script. A script of the ONE singular way things HAD gone for the X-Men in their future.

Its like okay, you’ve got the Original Timeline, and let’s call the moment Future Hank arrives the Jump-Off point. And let’s call the future they arrived in, the one Future Hank came from, let’s call that the Future Timeline. And the moment the original X-Men ARRIVED there, let’s call that the Point of No Return.

Eeeeeeeeeverything between the Jump-Off point and the Point of No Return, from the Future X-Men’s perspective....that was all set in stone. It had already happened. There was only one possible view of it, the way things could have gone. All those other choices they could have made at any given moment prior to that....they were irrelevant now because they HADN’T made them.

But all those same moments between the Jump-Off point and the Point of No Return, for the Original X-Men, were NOT set in stone, not irrelevant, any one of them could have led in thousands of different directions....

Until the Original X-Men returned to the Original Timeline at the Jump-Off point, and Jean locked away their memories of anything and everything that had happened from the point of two seconds before Future Hank arrived and changed everything. Because now, all those choices ahead of them in the Original Timeline.....they weren’t choices any more. They were locked in, set in stone, even though the Original X-Men had yet to MAKE any of those choices....because according to the Future, they already had. To create a firm, steady bridge across the In Between of the Jump-Off point and the Point of No Return, in order to ensure that the Original Timeline and the Future Timeline was a closed loop, one continuous timeline with no deviation.....the road from the Jump Off point to the Future had to follow one singular route.

Now, Jean locked away all their memories, because the basic theory there was well, without any memory of anything we experienced, without any information we didn’t already have at the Jump-Off point, if everything gets reset JUST to that and all knowledge or memories we SHOULDN’T have at that point are safely locked away in our heads to come out once we reach that point but with no chance of affecting our decision-making between now and then.....then, essentially, it will be as though we’re the exact same people we were when we left the Jump-Off point, with the exact same knowledge and information we had then, the exact same feelings, like....with all of that locked away, we will for all intents and purposes BE those people again.....which means there’s nothing to influence us to do or think or say anything that we DIDN’T already do or say or think had the Original Timeline continued past the Jump-Off point without Future Hank ever arriving.

But here’s where they fucked up. And man I get heated all over again every time I think about this.

Even with all of that, the story COULD have still worked without any other murkiness around it, if they’d done one thing differently.

If they’d written Future Bobby coming out on his own, like basically right before their arrival, THAT could have worked. But they did it backwards.

Like, if 16 year old Bobby Drake had arrived in the future and been shocked to find out in the future he’s gay? If THAT was what led to his coming out? Then that INFORMATION was something he didn’t have back at the Jump-Off point, it could easily be written that he was still deep enough in denial that to see himself as an out gay man would have been a shock, would have FELT like new information, even if deep down he was already aware of that.

And if THAT was all that had been locked up as part of the memories that had to be hidden to make sure the Original Timeline only followed one specific path to get to the Future Timeline....the path the Future Timeline had already followed....that would have been fine.

Because Original X-Man Bobby, as of the Jump-Off Point, would not have had any extra knowledge or information that might lead to him deciding to come out earlier. And thus there would have been no conflict with him for whatever reasons, deciding not to come out until way in the future, right before he met the Future version of himself.

Problem is, Jean OUTING Bobby in the future, fucks all of this up and makes the above impossible.

Because we have no idea when and for what reasons Bobby might have come out on his own, without Jean’s external push jumpstarting the process.

Meaning, that whoooooole In Between Time between the Jump-Off Point and the Point of No Return?

Ten seconds before Future Hank arrived, Original Bobby had millions and millions of possible opportunities and choices in that time, that could have led to him coming out a lot sooner or in different ways. Ten seconds AFTER they all returned to the Original Timeline from the future and all been ‘reset’ to know just what they already knew at that point, Bobby only had ONE possible future....the one that had just been locked in as the One True Path.

And Jean being the catalyst that changed things IS the logistical problem.

Because remember, even when Jean outed him, Bobby reacted with protests and denial at first....but then he subsided pretty quickly and admitted she was right.

HE ALREADY KNEW HE WAS GAY THEN, AT SIXTEEN.

He just wasn’t ready to FACE it yet.

Which, let’s be honest, is pretty fucking valid and normal. Even today, but let alone ten or fifteen years ago, which is supposed to be how far the Future Timeline was from the Jump-Off Point.

You see the problem?

When Jean reset them all, locked away any and all memories of everything past just before Future Hank arrived, making absolutely sure nothing NEW could influence them away from the path the Future X-Men had already taken after....

BEING GAY WASN’T ACTUALLY NEW INFORMATION TO BOBBY.

He was in denial, but it was already there, the awareness of it. That’s how Jean was able to read it so easily in the first place. She picked up on it not because she was doing a deep dive into his mind for whatever reason, like reading him down the bone, but just like....passing thoughts she picked up on clued her in that he was in denial and overcompensating for it. And yeah, she honestly thought she was helping by pushing him to come out, see in the future its not so bad, you can do it.

But tbh, that’s the absolute worst thing she could have done.

Because from that moment on, anything and everything Bobby knew or felt about himself and his sexuality that could be considered NEW information, that all got locked away during the reset at the Jump-Off point.

What was already in his mind, DIDN’T.

Which means......if Jean didn’t say anything to Bobby, if his coming out process, whenever it happened, was organic and up to him, he decided when he was ready to face that and wrap his mind around it, come to terms with himself....

We have NO idea what that could have looked like, if done ON HIS OWN. If his awareness was buried so deep in his mind it was honestly new information to him and thus got locked up in his head with everything else, and thus he did nothing different from what Future Bobby did.....then that would have been alright, because it would mean that Future Bobby really did just not come out earlier than that because of nothing but his own reasons and thinking and motivations.

But what we got was not that. Because even at sixteen, Bobby knew. It was made very very clear that he knew, in fact he was close enough that Jean felt all he needed was ‘a little push’ to know it was okay and that they would all still love and accept him.

Sixteen year old Bobby was already ON his journey of self-discovery. He just hadn’t gotten very far yet, but it was there. Awareness, realization, they were all there BEFORE Jean reset their minds.

And the characters and the premise of the story and definitely the writers.....they all engaged with it with zero awareness that the second they had this big life change happen to Bobby IN the future - thus meaning all awareness of it would have to be locked away - but based not on INFORMATION from the future, but simply Jean reading Bobby’s mind and finding out things HE’D ALREADY KNOWN.....

THIS is what took away all Bobby’s choices from the moment he was externally pushed to come out IN THE FUTURE.....based on information available in the past.

Without interruption, Original Bobby could have just been months from coming out on his own. He could have come out when he was eighteen. Experimented in college. Been inspired by meeting Northstar. There’s millions of ways he could have come out between the Jump-Off Point and the Point of No Return...if left to do it himself.

But he got STUCK with the ONE timeline where he just stayed miserable in the closet for fifteen years.....because the writers and characters all treated it as though Jean’s push was something good and necessary for his character....rather than something that disallowed him to make that choice for himself, when he decided it was time....which up until that moment, could very well have been any number of times in the fifteen years in between.

And this creates a logistical nightmare.

Because the flip side of all this, is when resetting her and her teammates, locking away everything that was new and potentially influential - the idea is without outside influence, nothing would get in the way of them making choices other than what they had in the Future them’s lives.

But JEAN was the outside influence in Bobby’s entire coming out process.

NOT new information.

So twist is.....she has absolutely no way of knowing if Bobby actually WOULD come out at any point in the next FIFTEEN YEARS on his own, if she hadn’t pushed him to do it during a time that was ultimately going to have to be locked away and made irrelevant for the time being.

BUT.

Timeline needs to be consistent, they need a solid bridge between the Original Timeline and Future Timeline or else space goes all fucky....

Which means things HAVE to go the ONE way they did for the Future X-Men. Which means they HAVE to do things the same.

Which means since Future Bobby hadn’t come out until then....Original Bobby COULDN’T be ALLOWED to come out until then.

And thus we get to the actual point, lol. Why for the story to make any sense at all, there HAS to be a second block in Bobby’s head, one that steers him away from coming out until the rest of his memories unlock. Of course, I prefer to think it was Xavier who put it there himself, once the Original X-Men returned with no memories of anything different, but Xavier still aware of what transpired, realized Bobby created a problem because of the WAY he came out....

Because his coming out process was hijacked, essentially. It wasn’t HIS.

And the second they returned and Xavier realized the issue, it had to have been clear.....just having no access to the knowledge of the future that might influence them in different directions, like, it would work with all of the other four. But that was never going to be enough in Bobby’s case.

Because as long as there was even a CHANCE that Bobby - who on some not that deep level already knew he was gay before Jean blurted it out in the future, and thus fully retained the same level of knowledge and awareness he had BEFORE that - as long as there was even a CHANCE that without Jean’s ‘intervention’ he might have in the Original Timeline gone on to come out by himself somewhere else down the line, maybe months, maybe years, maybe even a decade.....like, locking away everything they experienced in the future wasn’t the same guarantee they’d make the same choices when it came to Bobby’s turn.....because he didn’t get a choice to MAKE....

Which means, there was no pre-written script for him to follow when they returned to the past. Because they have no idea what Bobby’s path WOULD have looked like, IF it had continued past the Jump-Off point on its own, the path he was already on. They couldn’t be sure that just resetting his memories to that time would guarantee the same choices, because they have no idea what choices he was GOING to make on his OWN there......until he was externally influenced by someone else in the future, his coming out not prompted by someone, but pre-empted.

Jean beat him to the punch, basically. Which created the issue of having no way to know when or how he might have done that naturally, and thus no way of knowing if he WOULD make the same exact choices just due to not having any memory of coming out....but still being just as close or as far to coming out on his own as he already would have been by that point.

This isn’t a situation that existed for any of the other four. All their foreknowledge COULD be safely locked away and ensure no deviation from the choices they’d already made. But since Bobby’s choice was essentially made FOR him here, BUT in the future and thus locked away with all other knowledge of that.....Bobby’s ACTUAL choice, uninfluenced.....was a wildcard. It could look like anything.

And it had to look just like ONE thing. The thing that according to the Future, it already was. Fifteen years in the closet, because....

Someone had to remove that wildcard. It would have been the only way to actually keep the timeline consistent. Bobby’s ‘choice’ actually happened OUTSIDE the timeline, so to speak, and his memory of that was locked away, which meant his choice was still on the table. Still up in the air, because it had never happened yet as far as he knew, which meant he still felt he had a choice to make.

He just couldn’t be allowed to make it. Not if there was even a remote chance (let alone the millions of chances there actually were between sixteen year old Bobby getting to be thirty year old Bobby) that he might decide differently. Since he couldn’t KNOW Bobby would walk that same path if not steered around by anyone else, he had to MAKE SURE Bobby stuck to just that one path

Xavier HAD to ensure that his actions matched up with those of his Future Self.

Which meant he had to be limited to JUST the one choice, when that WASN’T something anyone could possibly predict, because there wasn’t a script for how that went. Because all of that off script, so to speak.

So Xavier had to MAKE it a script. And that meant taking away any and all possibilities of him coming out at any point before they arrived in the Future.

Anyway, yeah. So bottom line, Jean’s push didn’t push him further down the road, it actually hijacked him and confined him to one finite road that he never ever actually chose for himself. She ‘guided’ him to an exit off the road of denial he was on EARLIER than he might have on his own......but her directing him down that exit is what made ALL the future exits ahead of him null and void, even if he might have steered down the one just three exits ahead. Because we’ll never know what he might have chosen on his own. She’ll never know. He’ll never know.

And Xavier would never know. So once again, the choice had to be made FOR him. For the sake of the universe or whatever. That one road for Bobby HAD to be locked in, no matter what. No memories of that time wasn’t enough, there had to be an additional guarantee that no matter what, he never came out on his own BEFORE that time was reached. He had to be kept away from making any choice to come out at any time for any reason in the fifteen years In Between, as long as there was a chance that uninterrupted, his coming out process would NOT have followed the same script everyone else was reading from. Because he was already writing his own story but he never got to finish it. Because someone took away his pen and said here I’ll finish it for you, and then handed him back the story of his life and said now go live it, its all in there, do it just like that.

So yeah. IMO, Bobby’s real story of the past fifteen years in-universe, was that it wasn’t HIS story. He didn’t write it. It was written for him. And that one choice that he HAD to be kept away from is such a BIG one, such an epicenter of huge inevitable ripple effects spreading all throughout his life......it meant KEEPING him from making it inevitably would have created ripples all throughout his life.

Like, oh say, a mental block he’s unaware of, preventing him from making that final step and just coming out, just saying to a close friend ‘Hey, I’m gay, and I’m kinda struggling with that, ngl,’...essentially preventing him from living his life to the fullest, literally not allowing him to accept himself because coming to terms with his sexuality five years down the line was mmmm, that date is no good for the Professor, we’re going to have to insist on sticking with the one we set fifteen years from now. See you then!’

Anyone think a mental block that sweeping wouldn’t have drastic ripple effects on his whole personality? If it had to be capable of covering or blocking that many exits, constantly keep him corraled into one finite direction no matter how much HE, absent a real script of choices HE’D already made, really felt like going over here this way instead, and why wasn’t it okay that he do that again? Why can’t he make himself take that final step? Why can’t he trust his best friends with this? What’s wrong with you, Bobby probably asked himself, millions of people have done this and not even had superpowers to protect themselves. And why do you care so much about that part anyway? I’m USED to people hating me and trying to kill me, why is this so much scarier? If I was afraid of danger, I’d change careers, but I’m fine with what I do, I LIKE being a hero and helping people, so why do I freeze up when I so much as THINK about just blurting it out to Hank or Rogue, as if they of all people would ever actually judge me for this? Why do I keep going out with women I like and yeah even love in some ways, but knowing damn well the whole time that there’s no happy ending here because this isn’t what I want? Why do I do that to them, why do I put myself through that, why can’t I just do what everyone else says, what everyone else has done, and just GROW UP already and do the thing I know I have to do, know I WANT to do, that I just keep putting off because what, its hard? When has that ever stopped me from doing something before? What the fuck is the MATTER with me, I WANT to do this, I know I’m gay and I’m not even ashamed of it, I’m NOT my father and I’ve literally spent my whole life proving that, so why am I acting so much like him when it comes to this one part of my life? Was I really just kidding myself every time I swore to myself that I was done letting his bullshit have any influence on me?

And those are just a few of the ways that Bobby might be affected, every time he unknowingly bumped up against a mental block he was unaware of because he wanted to tell someone he was gay, he felt that THIS time it feels right, THIS is when I come out and just speak my truth FINALLY.....and he just didn’t know what was stopping him. Like something was just sitting there right in his way and no matter which way he tried to go it still managed to block him off. Because that’s what it was, tbh. That’s what it had to be, to KEEP Bobby from making any ORGANIC choice to come out on his own in the fifteen years between Past and Future.....because someone felt the road he was on wasn’t getting him there fast enough and so made him take an earlier exit.....and that meant the road he traveled from that point on wasn’t his, it wasn’t the one HE picked.....but because the future said it was, and because nobody knows what HIS road actually would have looked like if he’d gotten to pick it himself, and they couldn’t risk his TRUE road, the road of his wildcard choice, possibly taking him somewhere away from where they wanted him to go, said he HAD to go, even though it meant he was gonna be miserable and self-loathing for a decade and a half, with no chance whatsoever of enjoying a real, honest relationship with someone he loved and was loved by, meant he’d probably have related issues with his powers and exploring his potential there because the weird thing about insecurities and negative feelings of self-worth is they’re not really selective about where they hit you, and on and on and on....

Well, no matter how he felt about it, no matter what felt real or natural to him, no matter what decisions or choices he WOULD have made if he’d just come to terms with his sexuality in his own time, without anyone pushing or prodding him to do it on their timetable instead of his...all of that was irrelevant if it couldn’t be counted on to get their timeline where it needed to go, to match up with the future’s past. There had to be something keeping him on just the one road they’d mapped out, without consulting him on what destination he even WANTED, too many variables that could lead only god knows where, so something’s gotta keep your steering wheel locked in place, make sure you’re only going one way. Make you turn back every time you attempt to turn onto another offramp and say I like this road up ahead better, I want to merge with that one.

It didn’t matter what Bobby wanted. It didn’t matter what he’d decide. This was the way it had to be, no matter what, and Bobby’s life was just collateral damage to that necessity. Regrettable, perhaps, but it was for the greater good.

It was for the sake of the universe, after all.

Course, the funny thing is, when you’re talking about a kid who’s been putting his life on the line to protect total strangers even if they hate him and want him dead, and all of this since before he was even in high school?

Chances are, if you’d just laid out the stakes for him, showed him what the danger was and the proposed solution, messy as it was, if you’d even made that an OPTION for him.....

Bobby Drake probably would have said go ahead, if its gotta be done, then its gotta be done.

It was for the sake of the universe, after all.

Or you can have no faith in the heroism of a child more heroic than most people three times his age, and just hack his car’s steering with some GPS satellite connection fuckery, steer him to the road of YOUR choice while he tries to figure out what the hell is going on and why is the car doing its own thing, why won’t it take him where he wants to go, is he even driving this thing anymore? And since no, he’s not, not then and there at least, and you can’t be sure that left to his own devices, his own choices, he won’t try and course correct back in the direction he originally wanted to go, won’t try picking any of the off-ramps on THIS road and head somewhere else of his own choosing, well, guess you better just put some kind of auto-lock on his steering wheel so no matter what he does, how much he struggles with it, that steering wheel won’t budge, won’t take him anywhere but where its already taking him. And there’s no way out of the car, no chance to swap it out for another one that’s not possessed and actually goes left when he fucking tries to go left, and so he’s stuck. Just sitting there, being driven to an unknown destination he sure as hell didn’t choose considering its preprogrammed destination is a complete unknown to him, behind the steering wheel but driving in name only, since he’s basically a passenger on his own roadtrip here in his own car.....and he’s just. Stuck like that. Unable to do anything about it, not even sure what the problem is or what’s going on, just that something’s wrong and its like something inside him just won’t LET him be happy, even when its right there in front of him, would just require one conversation with one trusted friend and hopefully spread from there, but it’d be so easy to reach, he can see it so clearly.....he just can’t make himself reroute to that destination and so he just watches as it too fades into his rear view mirror and desperately wishes he could have any car other than the one he’s trapped in.

Of course, if Xavier was ever confronted about this, he’d be sympathetic for how difficult it made things for Bobby for sure. He’d talk about how he regretted the necessity, the needs of many, blah blah blah, actually all things Bobby quite agreed with and would have been the reasons he’d have said yes if given the opportunity to actively PICK this road and agree to whatever was necessary to make sure he stayed on it whether he liked it or not, cuz like, fate of the universe and all that right? It sucks but he gets it, and at least its not like its forever or anything..And at least then he could say it was all for a reason, that it wasn’t just fucked up for the sake of who even knows, its not like anyone ever gave him the script they wrote for this. He’s just along for the ride.

But that conversation never happened. Nor will that confrontation ever happen, I imagine. But if it did, I think ultimately there’s only one way it would finish. With Xavier defending his placement of an additional mental block once they returned to the past and he realized the problem inherent in having foreknowledge of every choice the 05 would make for the next fifteen years....except for this one specific choice whose trajectory had been altered WHILE IN THE FUTURE, meaning it was the ALTERATION from whatever it would have been that was all that was forgotten....but now there was a specific trajectory it HAD to follow and no way of knowing how closely or not it might have matched the trajectory it would have followed if not TEMPORARILY re-routed off course....before it was returned to.....its exact original trajectory BUT with a single specific target that NOW it HAD to hit....no matter what.

He wishes there’d been another way, Xavier would have assured him. He regrets how much it hurt Bobby, made him question himself, even hate himself. But really, he’d say at the end, all I did was make sure you arrived at a destination you’d already reached. I only steered you down the road your older self had already traveled, so ultimately it was your choices that led you there, I was just making sure you stuck with what you’d already chosen.

And Bobby just stands there even after he’s gone, looking at nothing off in the distance but mentally going over the same footage he’s been obsessing over ever since he found out about that second block: Watching the record of his own life, but not as a critic like he usually reviews his own past. This time just watching it as a viewer, through the eyes of someone who too often had very little to do with why so many things he’s seeing here went THIS way when he really wanted them to go THAT way instead.

Hunting through the archives of his mind for more kindling to feed the fire of resentment and bitterness simmering in the darker places inside, more memories of times that stand out in his mind because he’s never understood until now why he would have chosen to do that when he remembers how badly he wanted to do this other thing and just couldn’t. Having had no clue until now what could possibly stopping him, like something was blocking him, an invisible barrier in his way every time he went to follow through on something but COULDN’T. Because it was. Keeping so much of what he wanted to do from ever transforming from thought into action. Trapped in his brain, unable to leave even though that’s what he WANTED them to do, that’s what he kept TELLING them to do.

So many ideas, plans, wants, dreamed up and then organized and then sent out into the world - or at least that was the intention but for some reason he always seemed to stall at that final step. Find some excuse to just put it down, leave it where it was, never send it out into the world even though that meant over the years entire mounds of unrealized hopes and dreams had piled up around him because he couldn’t get the door open and he had no idea why. So much he’d wanted to do but never done. So much he’d wanted to say but never said. So much he’d lived without really living.

‘It was for the fate of the universe’ echoes in his head a lot. It helps, a little, because Bobby gets that. Of course he does. Its why he absolutely would have said yes, would have chosen this, would have accepted it if only he’d ever been given that opportunity, ever had actually been asked.

But then there’s that other echo too, the one that haunts, persists, mocks. The one where Xavier said ‘I was just making sure you stuck to what you’d already chosen.’

Because try as he might, turning every aspect of the situation around and around in his head trying to absorb it all, he keeps coming back to one single response to that last echo, the one that upends the reasonable sound of it with one simple sentence, and finally, there’s nothing in his head to stop him from putting voice to what he wants to say, there’s nothing cancelling his thoughts’ transformation into words at the last possible second.

There’s nothing but him now, the real him, the full him, the him that has no hand but his own steering him in his chosen direction. There’s nothing in the way of who he wants to be, and no more confusion about why he so often was someone he didn’t want to be.

Even if there’s no one but him around to hear it, there’s nothing but his own truth in his words, when he finally gets to speak it. Nothing holding him back or guiding him away from the truth about himself that he knows, will hold on to, will not be allowed to be stripped from him again.

‘I was just making sure you stuck to what you’d already chosen.’

It echoes and haunts and twists in the breeze around him, but Bobby now knows how to tell someone else’s lies apart from his own truth, he knows how to hear when the words resounding in his head are not actually said with his voice. He knows where to look to find it now, knows how to face that self-serving bullshit head on and see it for what it is. Because the one certainty he can no longer be misled from, the truth that puts the lie to every regret Xavier tried to paint his face with, is as simple as it is clear.

“But I never actually chose any of that,” he says to the wind. There’s nothing and no one else around to hear, but he speaks it loud and firmly anyway, because that’s the voice that truth deserves. He repeats it, again and again and again until its the only thing he can hear. Drowning out the echoes of the lies he’s been told, been led to believe were his own thoughts and choices. Chasing away the justifications of someone who’d condemned him so many times for not realizing his full potential, all while knowing full well the reason he couldn’t: how could he, after all, how could anyone, when that full potential, that full, realized self, had to include such a major part of him? And how could there ever be justification, for knowing the binding on that part of his self that wouldn’t let him ever say its name, knowing that this was your own work, and yet watching him break himself against it over and over again throughout the years, letting him believe it was he himself that was the reason that stood in his way.

The echoes try to answer, try to speak in their defense, try to lie some more, but he’s done listening. Instead he just repeats himself again and again, still louder and louder. His own echoes chasing the impostors away, further and further every time he shouts forth a new one, and he could do that forever, he thinks. He feels energized, buzzing with a familiar intensity he can’t remember ever fully feeling since he was sixteen. Small wonder.

He shouts his truth some more, makes the air shudder and reverberate. The lies are harder to see now, as far removed as they are. Each echo of his own pushes them further and further into the distance, all around him in every direction. Like his own echoes are ripples in a pond, pushing ever outward and sending them a little further away with each new ripple he makes.

Its not good enough. Not anymore.

He’s done making ripples. He wants to make waves.

He gathers his breath, calling it up straight from his lungs, freshly chilled and crisp the way it always comes out when he lets a little of the infinite sea that is his power leak into his voice.

That power that is enough to make a whole world go cold. Enough to break mountains, enough to freeze oceans. That power that is his and his alone now, like it always should have been.

Like every aspect of himself, all the things that make him him and that are now his and his alone. Like they always should have been.

“I never chose any of this,” he screams at last, shattering the air around him with the volume of the truth that’s lived somewhere inside him all along, knowing without knowing that something was wrong, that something wasn’t right, wasn’t him. Never voiced until now because someone else had chosen never to let him speak it.

It surges out of him now, all the more forceful from the energy its stored up with no outlet for so long. Reaches so much further than even every shout he’s made before. Its coupled with his power, the words cascading outwards from him in every direction and bearing with them his signature cold. Making the air snap and sparkle with the intensity of it; a few falling leaves being carried on the breeze are frozen through and fall to the ground like a gentle rain of ice.

All around him, in every direction, the ground is upheaved, a circle of frostrime surrounding him like a fairy ring comprised of winter. The air shudders, the last of his echoes finally reach the horizon and fade off into the distance.

His truth remains, and in the center of the circle, finally, there’s calm.

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searchingwardrobes · 5 years

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My Problems with Once and Adoption/Foster Care

Ya’ll know I love this show, and I love the character of Emma Swan. BUT . . . their portrayal of adoption and foster care - particularly the adults who care for these children - leaves much to be desired. The thing that especially saddens me are those in the fandom who buy into their portrayal without question. I recently started another fic that throws adoption agencies under the bus. I don’t fully fault writer’s. After all, the source material is flawed, and we all want to write Emma in character. However, I just hope I can give you another perspective.

Why in the world am I qualified to talk about this? Well, let’s see . . .

* My cousin fostered to adopt all three of her children, two of them brothers.

* My sister pursued adoption for several years before deciding to embrace being, as she puts it, “the best aunt ever” instead.

* My best friend waited ten years to adopt her precious daughter. She went through the heartbreak of caring for her first child - a son - until his birth mother changed her mind at the last minute before the adoption was final.

* We have a close family friend who is like an “extra grandma” to my kids and her adult daughter was adopted at birth.

* My sister in law and her brother are adopted.

* My husband’s youngest brother and sister were officially adopted by his dad after he married their mom.

* Another close friend of mine adopted her twelve year old daughter from The Philippines two years ago. She was born with her mouth fused shut, no feet, and no hands. I tutored this little girl for a year, and I love her to death!

* A friend of mine who is now in her sixties put her daughter up for adoption when she became pregnant at fourteen. The girl found her as an adult, and they have now forged a relationship.

* Another friend of mine is fostering her niece while her sister is in rehab. Right now, it looks like it may become permanent.

This isn’t even an exhaustive list of all the people I know who have fostered and adopted. These all span multiple locations as well. I know it’s not the same as going through it myself, but all of the above people are dear to me and it hurts me deeply to see their way of life misrepresented.

So here are just a few things that I want to point out concerning the plot on Once:

1. Domestic infant adoption in the US varies state to state, but it basically goes like this:

* If a birth mother decides to pursue an adoption while she is still pregnant, it is HER decision who gets her baby. If she goes through an agency (most common), she will get to look through profiles of potential adoptive parents. This is important to remember, PLEASE! The birth mother chooses the parents, not the other way around. If it’s a private adoption, she usually finds out about the parents through friends, family, or acquaintances, but the choice is still hers. Therefore, if Emma had decided to put Henry up for adoption before he was born, as the show implies, she would have been the one to pick Regina out as his adoptive mom.

* The birth mother can decide to meet the birth parents or never meet them. The birth mother has the right to ask for financial assistance for everything from maternity clothes to counseling after she gives the baby up. The only thing illegal is the mother can’t “sell” her baby. In other words, she can’t make a profit off the adoption.

* The birth mother also gets to decide if it is a closed adoption, semi open, or completely open. Even in a closed adoption, the child has the right to the birth parent’s medical records when they come of age. Open adoptions are on a scale. Some birth mothers attend birthday parties and have regular visitation. Others let the child decide on contact when they reach a certain age. Sometimes they send letters each year on the child’s birthday. There are dozens of arrangements the birth mother can come to with the birth parents, and it all gets spelled out in a legal document.

* The only time an infant is placed in foster care is if the birth mother decides after birth that she doesn’t want the child. This is always temporary. Infants are either returned to the birth parents or are adopted. THERE IS NO GROWING UP FROM INFANCY IN FOSTER CARE! Now, a child can be taken away from their birth home at a later date due to neglect, drug abuse, etc. But no kid is born into foster care. There are thousands of parents in the US waiting for an infant to adopt, more than there are babies to adopt. That’s why it took my best friend TEN YEARS to find her daughter. That’s why when a baby was abandoned at the Atlanta airport a few years back, hundreds of parents called family services wanting the child. The boy had a home (which became permanent) within 48 hours. There is no way a healthy, beautiful baby girl like Emma would have been put in that group home like we saw in season two. At worst, she would have been placed with foster parents temporarily until the waiting period was over. (See below)

* After the infant is given over to the birth parents, there is a waiting period. During that time, the birth mother can change her mind. This varies wildly from state to state. Here in Georgia, it’s two weeks. In Pennsylvania, where my best friend lives, it is an entire month. On day 30, my best friend had to give her son back to his birth mother. I can not convey to you the pain she endured. Having said that, I’m glad birth mothers have the freedom to change their minds. I would never want to go back to the 1950s when babies were ripped from the arms of their devastated mothers who were given no say in the matter. On a side note, some adoptive parents opt to let the baby go to a temporary foster home until the waiting period is over so they don’t go through heartbreak if the birth mother changes her mind. My next door neighbors chose that route when they adopted their daughter, but remember in Georgia, that’s only two weeks. With my best friend, she felt a month was too long and she was willing to love on that child even if it was only for a month.

* Even after the waiting period is over, the adoption is not official until the parents stand before a judge. Legally speaking, this is more binding than birthing a biological child. In other words, there is no going back. No returning the child. No exchanges. No refunds. Which brings me to . . .

THE SWANS GIVING EMMA BACK: If Emma was legally adopted, this would be impossible. She states that she was three when it happened, making it even less credible to me. The only way this would make sense is if they were foster parents who never legally adopted her. It is true that foster parents sometimes decide to stop fostering when they have biological children, but adoption? Nope. (Not to mention the show later claimed that Emma chose the last name Swan herself when she was 9 or 10, so . . . )

2. The cost of adoption:

* I don’t know where the idea comes from that it’s expensive for a birth mother to give her baby up for adoption. The adoptive parents pay for everything, as I stated above, or at the very least, they pay the medical bills. This doesn’t mean it’s EASY for a mother to give up her baby. Props to Jen for portraying Emma’s agony so well in season three! However, just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it isn’t the best decision for the CHILD. Obviously, my friend who is now in her sixties was unable to care for a child at 14, when she was a child herself! She was thrilled to hear her birth daughter tell her about the happy home she was raised in. Like Emma tells Henry, birth mother’s give their children up “to give them their best chance.” It is a selfless decision.

* It IS expensive to adopt - for the adoptive parents. There are legal fees, fees for home inspections (which expire and have to be redone yearly), travel fees, medical fees (not only maternity for the birth mother, but physicals for them, their children, and even their pets), and then additional fees if they are paying an agency. This is a simplified list, honestly. A friend of mine had a blog when she was adopting her sons from Ethiopia, and her list of paperwork that had to be filed was mind-boggling.

RUMPLE ARRANGING HENRY’S ADOPTION: Considering all of the above, it had to be an illegal, black market adoption. That does exist -however, it’s usually foreign, not domestic. Nine times out of ten, however, they just swindle couples who are desperate to adopt. But you know, Once writers . . .

3. The reasons parents adopt or foster:

* Inability to conceive - this has to be number one. It’s the reason my best friend adopted, and it’s the reason my sister pursued it for so long. One sad thing? The most common reason for infertility is a disease called polycystic ovarian syndrome. One of the symptoms is weight gain, regardless of diet or exercise. Yet guess what many countries require for you to adopt? A “healthy” BMI. Meaning women with PCOS have an even harder time adopting.

* Compassion for orphans - This is why my friends adopted their daughter from the Philippines. They have two biological children, but when they thought about the millions of orphans in the world, they felt led to share their home and family with a child who did not have one. I know several people who foster for the same reason. They aren’t doing it for a “check from the government.” (And fyi, the government gives them most of that “money” in the form of food stamps and other public benefits that often only covers the bare minimum.)

* A need in their family - My friend who took in her niece had just come upon her “empty nest years,” but she couldn’t look the other way when a three year old little girl was being neglected because of her mother’s addictions. She and her husband were then back to pull ups (the mother hadn’t even attempted potty training), preschool cartoons, and teaching the ABCs. Their niece also had spent so much time in an exersaucer that her legs were crippled and she still couldn’t walk. They had to pay for braces on her legs and physical therapy. But how could they turn away their own flesh and blood? (By the way, she is now five years old and thriving!)

REASONS TO ADOPT ACCORDING TO ONCE: To fulfill your own needs and soothe your own loneliness. I’m not saying there aren’t awful, selfish people out there who adopt for that reason, but I ask you: How many people would be willing to go through ALL the difficulties I described above for selfish reasons? It just doesn’t make sense. And frankly, it is insulting to the many adoptive and foster parents that I know and love.

4. Regardless of all of the above, adopted kids DO struggle at times.

* Mary Margaret tells Emma in season one that Henry has the same question that all adopted kids do: “why did my real parents give me up?” (I’m paraphrasing, but you remember this scene, I’m sure). This is actually true. Pretty much every family I know who has adopted, their kids have gone through this at some point. No matter how loving a home they are raised in, this question inevitably comes up. Some kids (or adults) meet their birth parents and find peace : they really weren’t able to take care of me, they really did want what was best for me, they did it because they loved me. For others, meeting their birth parents is painful. Yet none of that means the adoption wasn’t the best choice or that the adoptive parents were awful to the child (like Regina).

* Is the foster care system in the US flawed? Yes. There are too many cases and not enough social workers. Children fall through the cracks, some of them have tragically died. However, if you actually look into the facts in such cases, children are most often injured or killed not by foster parents, but by their birth parents. Usually it is the system’s failure to remove children from dangerous homes that is the problem, not cruel foster parents. There are also not enough foster parents for children who need homes, with older children being the hardest ones to place. Many of these kids are suffering from severe trauma and caring for them isn’t easy. Typically, the reason kids are bounced around in the system is because their parents keep regaining custody, loosing it again, regaining it again, etc, etc. By the time the parents either get their shit together or relinquish custody, the kid’s a preteen or teen. So my question for Once is:

WHY DID EMMA GET BOUNCED AROUND? She was put back in the system at three, but we don’t see her again until she’s eight or so at the movie theater. Do you really expect me to believe they couldn’t find a home for adorable, sweet, smart little three year old Emma? My sister would have adopted a little girl like that in a heartbeat! She wouldn’t have cared that she was three. We’re told that Emma kept running away, but at three?

No way little Emma was incapable of being adopted. I just don’t buy it. Since adopted kids have issues even in loving homes, why couldn’t that have been the writer’s narrative? Couldn’t Emma’s adoptive parents simply died at some point? In my opinion, the whole thing was just lazy writing.

#melanie rants #once critique

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theaterdisneynerdsunite · 5 years

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A (Controversial) Ranking Of 2010’s 10 Tony Winning Best Musicals

Remember when I thought this blog would be full of original theater content? Oops. Anyways here’s my list. Keep in mind some of these were incredibly close. I kept switching around 7/8, 5/6, and 3/4, but this is what I ultimately settled on. There’s a certain placement that I’m sure a lot of people are going to say is way too low, I’m not saying this is the definitive ranking or “correct”, just my personal opinion based on my individual taste. There are a bunch of musicals from this decade that I love that didn’t win the Tony, but that’s an entirely separate list lol.

10: Memphis

Tbh I know nothing about this show. It could be fantastic, but I’ve never heard the soundtrack, know nothing about it, and am unfortunately unable to listen to the soundtrack until 2020. Nothing against Memphis, I just don’t know anything about it which is why I put it at the bottom

9: Dear Evan Hansen

Put down your pitchforks. This is why I put controversial in the title. I’ve listened to this show multiple times, I’ve read the plot a bunch of times, I’ve had DEH Stan’s try to change my mind, I really, really wanted to like this show. The actors are incredibly talented and have great voices, no complaints there. I have anxiety and other mental health conditions and I was ecstatic at hearing about a show getting popular being about those things. I wanted to like this show. I wanted to connect to Evan, I really did, but the way the story is written makes me deeply uncomfortable with what it says about mental illness, and the music is fine but doesn’t distract from the story for me. It’s sort of generic music wise in my opinion. The way they portray both Connor’s and Evan’s characters makes me actively dislike the show, and it is really, really hard to make me actively dislike a show. I feel ambivalent sometimes, I have mixed feelings sometimes, but I actively dislike this show and that almost never happens. Also NPATGCO1812’s score and staging was phenomenal, Come From Away was sentimental and moving without feeling corny, and Groundhog Day surprised me by being better than I expected. I literally preferred every other show in the category from that year, I know a lot of people love it and that’s great but this is where it falls for me.

8. Once

I love the song Falling Slowly, and I think the actors dancing with instruments on stage was really cool. I think it was one of the first times it was done on Broadway, but I’m not sure. Other than the plot being a bit contrived and flat for me, there’s nothing I really dislike about this show. I just...feel nothing about this show. It’s fine, the music is good background study music, it just didn’t leave much of an impression for me.

7. Book of Mormon

So the songs in this show are absolute bops, and some of the wordplay is fantastic. I can appreciate this show for what it was trying to do. But ultimately, this show comes down to the humor, and you either like this style of humor or you don’t. I never personally found South Park to be my taste in humor. If you like South Park, you’re going to love this show. Even though I don’t find South Park funny, there were parts of this show I laughed at. But there were also parts that I cringed at and the cringe parts increased in hindsight. The songs are my favorite part: Hello, Sal Tlay Ka Siti, Turn it Off, Baptize Me, Mostly Me, I love those songs.

6. Fun Home

This show may have three Alison’s, which are all really good, but it felt like two plots to me. There is the story of Alison and her relationship with her father, and there’s the story of Alison’s self discovery and realizing her identity. These stories intertwine, but I personally find the self discovery and realizing her sexuality story much more interesting and compelling, and I also prefer the songs that are a part of that journey. Ring of Keys and Changing My Major are my favorite songs from the cast album. I read the graphic novel and it seems like it is really true to the spirit of the book. This and Memphis are the only ones I haven’t seen or seen a bootleg of, so I’m not really able to comment on the costumes, acting, choreography, setting etc, but for the most part I like what I’ve heard.

5. Band’s Visit

Another show that really comes down to taste. I liked this show when I saw it, the person who came with me didn’t. Part of the point of the show is rather than go to a big exciting city, they end up in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere in a desert where nothing happens. There are multiple songs dedicated to how nothing happens. And there are a bunch of mini story arcs with varying degrees of focus put on them, the focus shifts to much for anything to really happen. Which is the point, and it’s interesting, you just have to know what you’re in for. It feels like Waiting for Godot set to music, which if you like waiting for Godot like I do is a good thing. The romances are sweet. It feels like it should be in a more intimate off broadway setting, but I like it. The music is hit or miss for me, but the hits nail it out of the park. I like a lot of the songs but I love Omar Sharif, I could listen to it on repeat for hours.

4. Kinky Boots

This show is absolutely fantastic and I love everything about it. The fact that it’s at #4 for me was a shock, because this show is so good. This shows how strong the top of the list is in my opinion, because this show knocks it out of the park. This show has so much heart and sole. The costumes, especially for the drag queens, are stunning, the choreography like the boxing match and the conveyor belt dance are really cool, the acting is phenomenal, and the songs. The songs are so good. If they want to make you laugh they make you laugh, if they want to make you cry they make you cry, if they want to make you dance along belting out at the top of your lungs they are going to make you do that. Seriously, this show is so good.

3. Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder

This just barely edged out Kinky Boots, because I feel like most people like and appreciate Kinky Boots, and I feel like Gentleman’s Guide is severely underrated and ranking it higher is going to let me talk about it even longer. This show isn’t as deep as Kinky Boots but it doesn’t try to be. What this show is, and why I think it’s underrated, is pure comedy. There are a lot of comedic Best Musicals sure, but the comedy is only part of it, but this one is wholeheartedly a comedy, which I feel is kind rare. A lot of things have comedy but it seems like not many are straight up comedy anymore. And the thing is... I’m not usually a fan of straight up comedy, like there are very few straight comedy movies that I enjoy, so the fact that I love this so much when I expected to only like it makes it even better. And as much as I call it a pure comedy, it’s got beautiful love song, great commentary, and a couple of twists that are fun even though you see them coming. The murders are really creative and funny. The characters are great, I love the gag with the Dysquiths where all of the murdered people are played by one actor. The acting, costume quick changes, and everything involved in pulling it off is so cool. I love the songs so much, I don’t think there’s a weak one in the bunch. And one scene may have one of my favorite bits of choreography of all time. It only needs three people, a doorframe and a chair. It’s not flashy or involves a million moving pieces like the costume bit does, but it is ingenious in its simplicity and comedic timing. This show seems largely forgotten by people, maybe because it’s not trying to be deep, but it 100% deserves more love than it gets.

2. Hadestown

If Gentleman’s Guide is one of the funniest shows I’ve ever seen, this is one of my favorite modern cast albums. This also hits a lot of my personal interests, so that definitely helps. I love Greek mythology, I love the anachronistic but also roaring 20’s setting, I love the genres of music they pull from, I love the oral tradition storytelling feel it has, it hits so many of my stylistic favorites that I naturally feel pulled towards it. I love the music, if you asked me to pick my top five, no top ten songs from this show I couldn’t do it. The casting fits the characters perfectly, and the songs match the characters so well. The lyrics are fantastic and the themes are both timeless and incredibly relevant. It feels like it was written in the past year or two, especially the song Why we Build the Wall, but it was written way before ‘Build the wall’ was ever a thing. And the design of the show is so incredibly effective, everything contributes to the feel of the piece and the function of the show. Everything seems so well thought out and crafted, from the costumes to the choreography to the script to the music, there is so much attention to detail and is so intricately tied together even though it feels simple, earnest and straightforward. Which to me is an incredibly difficult needle to thread. Like the famous Dolly Parton quote “it takes a lot of work to look this cheap”, it is such a complex show that looks so simple. And it’s so immersive, you fall into the story. You know how it ends, it tells you from the beginning how it ends, but that doesn’t stop you from feeling exactly what they’re feeling, from believing wholeheartedly that it could end differently despite knowing how it ends, it’s a masterful piece of art.

1. Hamilton

I doubt this comes as a surprise to anyone, even if I did technically make you Wait For It. I feel like calling it a cultural phenomenon is underselling it’s impact. There’s nothing I could possibly say about this show that hasn’t been said hundreds of thousands of times already. This show is a piece of lyrical genius, of musical genius too but a lyrical masterpiece. This show was like Rent was in the 90’s or Wicked in the 00’s, not only an instant classic that permanently affected the modern theater world, but outside of theater as well. I have loved theater long before Hamilton, but this show spoke to so many people outside of theater, made so many people fall in love with theater that wouldn’t have otherwise. It might not be my favorite show by Lin Manuel Miranda, it might not even be my personal favorite one on this list to see live, but nothing else could possibly take the top spot of this list for me. Who would have thought a hip hop inspired rap musical about a relatively ignored founding father would become the juggernaut it is. I don’t know what else to say that other people haven’t said already. It’s Hamilton, what else can I say?

#theater #broadway #top ten list #best musical #memphis #dear evan hansen #deh #once #once musical #book of mormon #fun home #band's visit #kinky boots #gentleman's guide to love and murder #gentleman’s guide #hadestown #hamilton

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purplesurveys · 5 years

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686

1. What previews did you see at the last movie you saw in theaters? I don’t even remember dude. I do remember the last movie I saw in the cinema was Knives Out, but we were too late to see the previews and arrived exactly when the movie started. The movie I saw before that wasssssss Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but that was so long ago I definitely don’t remember the previews that showed beforehand – or if there were any, at all. 2. Have you ever washed your hair with mayonnaise? Ok I love mayonnaise, but that shit goes in my mouth and not anywhere else in my body lmao. 3. How many things are you a fan of on Facebook? I stupidly liked so many pages when I was 14 and new to Facebook...it must be in the hundreds. I think I still like most of them, but I’m just too lazy to unlike each of them. 4. Do you have more friends on Myspace or Facebook? Facebook is a sure winner here because I don’t even have a Myspace.

5. What generation iPod do you have? I don’t know...it’s an iPod from 2008, though. The really thin one that comes with games, and the screen is already colored.

6. What celebrities share your birthday? James McAvoy and Queen Elizabeth II are the biggest names I think. I Googled to confirm anyway and it turns out I share a birthday with Iggy Pop too. Pretty diverse group lmao. 7. What's your first and last name spelled backwards? Nybor, and that’s all you’re getting now. 8. What song is playing at the moment? No song, just two electric fans whirring loudly here in the first floor, and my sister watching a playthrough of some game she’s into on YouTube. 9. Do you clench your teeth when you're angry? Ugh no. I hate the feeling/texture/sound of grinding my teeth. I find it a little disturbing and I wince when I hear someone doing it in their sleep :/ 10. Have you ever been to a movie that sold out? Yeah, Killing of A Sacred Deer was surprisingly sold out when we watched it. Then again we were in the part of the city where people are more likely to watch films like that, so maybe it’s not that surprising after all. Other movies I remember being sold out was the entire Twilight Saga HAHAHA. I went to 4/5 midnight screenings and the cinema was packed every time.

11. Have you ever been to a midnight movie? ^ Just mentioned it. 12. It's 2010; are you gonna say oh-ten, twenty ten, or two thousand ten? I always say twenty-ten. 13. How many of your classes change next quarter? Next semester? I graduate next semester...hopefully. This virus is really ruining my life plans for 2020, especially as a graduating student who was expecting to graduate by June and get a job by like, September. 14. Do you believe in the paranormal? Only ghosts. 15. How old are the shoes you're wearing? I’m barefoot at the moment. I haven’t been outside in a WHILE, so I haven’t had to wear shoes in a while as well. 16. What's your state's weather usually like this time of year? The Philippines is a relatively tiny country so our weather from the northernmost to southernmost tips are uniform. That being said, March to June is our summer season so the *country’s weather is very humid and excruciatingly hot for now. Temperature usually plays around 34-37C, but the heat index can reach 42C. 17. Do you get those leg cramps in the middle of the night? I used to get them quite often as a kid - it would wake me up at 4 AM and I’d usually be crying by the end; I couldn’t scream because I never wanted to wake everyone up, so I’d just cry until it was over. 18. What movie last made you too scared to go to sleep? Midsommar didn’t make me too scared to sleep, but for a short time it made me terrified of flowers and the color white. 19. Do you have a Twitter account? Sure. 20. Did Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded? Oh he won it? That’s pretty cool. I dunno enough about his presidency other than he seems to be ~hipper than all the other US presidents and is generally more well-loved, but I don’t want to make a stand so hastily. 21. Is your cell phone a qwerty (full keyboard) or no? Yeah, touchscreen qwerty. 22. What was the last website you logged onto (besides the one you're on)? WWE Network!!! Just today they announced that they were gonna give free access to the Network, which means thousands of hours’ worth of pay-per-views, shows, and documentaries. I made a WWE account just for it and I’ve already downed two documentaries this morning. 23. What's your home page? It’s a Google Chrome extension called Momentum. I’m too lazy to describe the features so I’ll just show you what it looks like when I open Chrome/a new tab.

24. Put a line from the song you're listening to right now: I’m not listening to a song rn but I do have everything i wanted by Billie Eilish stuck in my head for a few minutes now. A lyric goes: I had a dream / I got everything I wanted / Not what you’d think / And if I’m being honest, it might’ve been a nightmare / To anyone who might care.

25. Music artists you listen to: Are they a little or a lot older than you? They’re typically close to my age, like maybe 4-10 years older than me. The oldest artist I listen to is probably Beyoncé? 26. What always has to be in the refrigerator? For us, eggs. 27. What was your favorite movie of 2009? The Proposal. 28. What do you want for Christmas? That’s sort of a long way from now, dude. By that time I’d have grown a bit and will probably ask for a vacuum cleaner lmaaaaao. 29. If you could go to three places in the world right now: UPTC, Feliz, and a Starbucks. I just want to be out of my actual village – I don’t even want to go anywhere far after this. 30. How many days until your birthday? I was too lazy to do math but Google says it’s 28 days away. 31. Who are you crushing on right now? (Famous or not, it's your call.) Gabie, Kristen Stewart, and Lee Joo Youngggggg. 32. Do you squish bugs or put them in a glass and let them outside? I squish them especially if they’re being annoying, soz. 33. Do you have split ends? I recently got my hair done, so no.

34. Isn't it ridiculous that movie theaters sell hot dogs and nachos? It is pretty stupid considering they’re messy food and you’ll have to eat them in a really dark room. Where I’m from they allow any kind of food in the theatres, so we aren’t restricted to hotdogs and nachos. My go-to food is Potato Corner french fries, since they’re easy to pick up and would never have a strong smell, or make a noise or a mess. 35. What school subject do you absolutely fail at? I don’t think I ever got past an 85 in chemistry in high school. 36. When you're on a laptop, do you hook up a mouse or use the touchpad? I have a touchpad. I’ve never owned a mouse. 37. When's the next day(s) off you'll get at school? Literally right now until April 14th. It’s a lockdown, dude. 38. If you're learning a language, what year are you in? I’m not. My curriculum doesn’t require me to take language electives. I did take Spanish and Korean in Duolingo in the past out of boredom/curiosity, though. I lasted a few levels into Spanish because of its similarities with Filipino, but they have like a million verb tenses and that’s when it got too much for me. Korean was pretty difficult right from the start. 39. Do you think you're done growing or will you grow a couple more inches? Nah, this is it I think. 40. What's your mom's mom's name? Agnes. 41. Do you replace "and" with an ampersand (&)? No, it looks so informal to me. 42. What do you usually get at school for lunch? I don’t have a usual lunch; it depends on what we have at home, because I typically just bring food from home to school. 43. Have you ever encountered a creepy neighbor? I don’t think so. If I did, my brain probably blocked the memory already. 44. How many texts can your phone's inbox hold before it's too full? As far as I know it doesn’t have a limit and just depends on my phone’s overall capacity. 45. Do you like the foam soap or the liquidy soap? I use a liquidy one, so I’ll go with that. 46. Do you like the automatic sinks or the ones with hot and cold handles? Lmao, first of all our country’s not even rich enough for this question. We just have a basic sink. We get whatever temperature is available and we need to turn a knob to have the water running. 47. What day did/does your birthday fall on this year? It’ll fall on a Tuesday, which suckssss because it’s a weekday and I have weekly Tuesday meetings for this semester. It’s also the first week out of the coronavirus lockdown, and I doubt people will even be paying attention to birthdays by then. 48. Do you tend to lean towards bright colors or more subtle colors? Subtle ones. 49. Do you use British spelling even though you're not British? No. 50. Name the farthest/weirdest/most unique place you've ever been: Farthest: Bali, Indonesia Weirdest: There was this park in Palawan that just didn’t fit with the city’s atmosphere at all lmao. Let me look it up... Baker’s Hill. It had tons of vibrantly-colored figurines, decorations peppered with cheesy pick-up lines, and Valentine’s decor (hearts, streamers, etc) spread all over the place. I couldn’t understand what it was supposed to be and it was a surreal experience overall lol. Most unique: Sagada. It didn’t feel like I was in the Philippines for the 3 days I was there.

#survey #surveys

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matinjapan · 5 years

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Partially sick

I was feeling a little under the weather this morning. I immediately thought I had (Wuhan) coronavirus. It’s definitely possible. The outbreak in Japan isn’t quite on the same level as Wuhan (and other parts of China). But it’s floating around for sure.

Last week there was the debacle with the Diamond Princess. The ship that was ‘quarantined’ in Yokohama for a fortnight. Japan is supposedly a first world country. But, fuck. They really screwed it up. The powers that be essentially sanctioned an incubation chamber; quarantine conditions were laughable. And then, towards then end, when infection rates skyrocketed, authorities just let everyone off to then catch buses, trains, and taxis. Nice work.

The marathon, which is supposed to be this weekend coming, was cancelled last week. This seems particularly nonsensical. Proximity for 38,000 runners (and admittedly, a lot of spectators) can’t be too different to the proximity of people jumping on trains every minute. If the virus really is enough of a risk for the marathon to be cancelled, then the rest of Tokyo is already completely screwed.

It’s hard to know just how bad this thing is. I certainly don’t know. The info I’m taking in are only snippets. And because of that, I’m susceptible to the fear that’s being whipped up. Whether or not it reflects reality?

To speak to that fear, I reckon one out of every two people are wearing masks (especially on the trains). Japan has just entered the beginnings of hayfever season, which brings about a rise in mask wearing. But the Wuhan strain (or fear of) has almost certainly up’d the wear rates. Expert advice (WHO) remains that you just need to wash your hands. A mask is only needed if things have turn properly pandemic’y. As per usual, there’s plenty that don’t bother with expert advice (everyone’s their own expert).

It’s kind of funny though. Because, I’ve definitely seen quite a few people come out of bathroom stalls recently, who only offer a token effort at hand washing. And sometimes not at all! Invariably, many of these people are wearing masks. Fucking useless. Would be interesting to see a study of hand washing times and mask wearing.

If the regular flu is anything to go by, I think I’m looking ok (totally jinxed myself, ha). And that’s because I don’t think I’ve ever had influenza. If I have, the symptoms have been indistinguishable from the common cold.

I think the US stats are something like 60 million people get the flu every year. About one-in-five. And about 60,000 people die. Which is pretty astonishing; the flu kills about one-in-a-thousand that get it. I think it is overwhelmingly vulnerable people though. The elderly; people with prior conditions, etc.

The flu shot definitely helps. It might not be the difference between life and death for the standard healthy person. But getting the jab keeps herd immunity high, which means everyone (including the vulnerable) are less likely to get it. And the only cost is that you just have to deal with a mild case of autism (it’s a bit sad that I have to say: I’m joking).

In contrast to the regular flu, Wuhan actually sounds pretty bad. Instead of one-in-a-thousand, it seems like it’s somewhere between one-in-a-hundred and maybe even one-in-ten that are dying. Which is ten to a hundred times more deadly than the regular flu. Yikes. Don’t quote me on this, though. I’m mostly just spouting uninformed recollections. Fear propagation to the max.

But yeah, beyond the health impacts, before all this was happening, Japan recorded a six percent economic drop (annualised) for the December quarter. Which is massive. There was a two per cent hike in sales tax, that a lot of pundits are blaming for the fall. But for output to fall by as much as it did, a bunch of things (beyond just a small hike in sales tax) have had to have not been going well.

May’ve just bee anomalous data (can often happen when there’s a series break; i.e. the tax change). But even if that’s so, this slowdown in this quarter is assured. Visitors are down massively. Trade with China has fallen of a cliff. To say nothing of the health impacts (of COVID), economic impacts are (and will be) bad.

It’ll be interesting to see how all of this continues to play out. Maybe the warmer weather will bring reprieve? But people are already catch phrasing Tokyo 2021, which is pretty grim (and admittedly, funny).

For now, I’m definitely a lot more thorough with my hand washing. Proper lather for at least 30 seconds. It’s like filming for ER. And I’m pretty good at playing don’t-touch-anything-and-try-not-to-breathe (especially on the trains). It’s a pretty sweet game. For the trains at least, the trick is to wedge yourself into a nook so you don’t have to hold a hand hold.

I don’t think I’ll ever bother with the mask. Not until it’s properly apocalyptic. For one, they look stupid. And that’s all I have. Ha. But seriously, I appreciate people who wear them that are unwell (for the benefit of protecting others from themselves). But more than anything, needing an artificial barrier to live your life is a shit state of affairs.

On that note, I’m out. Photos are mainly from Hakone. I braved the trains yesterday (the day after my birthday), and went hiking. It was a bit of a debacle. The final train that was supposed to take me to a lake with views of Fuji, wasn’t operating. There were buses, but I decided to walk instead. Was only a bit more than 10 k’s on the map. But there was an additional 1200 metres of vertical. Undulating vertical. On a century’s old rocky path. It was actually pretty cool. But was a lot more taxing than the trek I was going to take along the lake. Plus, I didn’t end up seeing Fuji properly. Next time, if I’m still alive.

#corona #fromwhereyoudratherbe #hakone

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zbickerstaff · 5 years

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An Unpretentious Plan for the Future Betterment of the Human Race and Planet Earth.

By Zach Bickerstaff

Clearly we are in trouble. I’m sure that few will disagree. Of course everyone has their own opinion of exactly what our problems are and many of these opinions conflict. But it is abundantly clear that the world has a great many problems upon which everyone can agree. I shall endeavor to concisely explain my long range plan to remediate these problems and endow the Human Race and Planet Earth with a long, prosperous, peaceful and happy future.

The Problems

More than seven billion people inhabit this planet. That’s enough people to fill up Yankee Stadium thirteen thousand times. If you snapped your fingers once per second seven billion times, it would take you 221 years, ten months. We haven’t stopped reproducing either. If anything, we are speeding up. By the year 2050 it is predicted that there will be close to ten billion people. The planet cannot stand up under such a biological load. Seven billion is bad enough. Can you imagine how much poop seven billion people produce? Climate change is a big concern despite the fact that many people deny that it exists. Many of the deniers are now coming around and are finding the courage to accept the fact that something needs to be done. People also argue about the causes of climate change but when you strip away all the scientific jargon and theories, what it comes down to is that there are just too many people on the planet – dirty, messy, inefficient people. The notorious garbage island in the Pacific wasn’t made by penguins and wallabies; it was made by human beings.

Environmental problems aside, the human race itself suffers greatly because of its own fecundity. A conservative estimate says that thirteen to fifteen percent of the world’s population is starving or undernourished. 3.1 million children die of malnutrition each year. Malnutrition is a terrible way to die. It’s not a quick death, it is slow and painful. Often parents will feed their children instead of themselves. When they die the children are orphaned and roam the slums, begging for handouts and searching garbage piles for scraps. Speaking of slums, overpopulation assures that there will not be enough wealth to go around. 36% of the world’s population, almost two billion people, lives in poverty. Vast slums exist in South Africa, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Brazil and India. People live in run down shacks constructed from whatever they can get their hands on; pieces of cars and trucks, packing crates, driftwood, bamboo, palm fronds, etc. There is rarely any running water and sewers consist of an open trench flowing with human and animal waste.

This “lack of wealth” or the unfair distribution of it is the root cause of war. Few wars have been fought over purely ideological issues. Acquisition of resources is far more often the case. In the 20th century alone an estimated 108 million people were brutally killed by war, far more were injured, and made homeless. Again, the root cause of this is overpopulation; too many people, not enough resources.

So now we have identified the problem. So how do we solve it? The big problem is that this is indeed a very big problem. People tend to be selfish and very uncooperative creatures so they are highly unlikely to go along with any solution. The first step is organization. No solution is going to be effective unless everyone, or nearly everyone, goes along with it. The world is divided up into nearly two hundred different countries. You might think that the United Nations would be a good place to start. No. The UN has no teeth and can’t control nearly enough of the population to be effective with, well anything. When was the last time they stopped a war? There are many people who understand the value of a world government. Realistically, it’s the best, fairest form of government; everyone plays under the same rules, it’s far easier to track criminals who break the rules and it will make war unheard of. It will be much easier to disarm the population to prevent armed revolt, war and mass murder. The immigration problem will be solved because borders will no longer be necessary. Once this achieved, good, solid, enforceable population growth rules can be put into place and there will be nothing that those who do not have the courage to cooperate will be able to do about it.

Another very important problem that I haven’t spoken of is the loss of jobs to robotics. Granted, this has been going on a very long time. Surely you have heard the term “Luddite”. It comes from an English mill worker named Ned Ludd who destroyed a new automatic loom in a fit of anger in 1779. He was angry because the new machine had taken the gobs of several workers, including his. Such a machine is a primitive form of robot.

Technology is advancing at an alarming rate. Think of a job, any job. Within fifty years, a robot will be able to do it. Artificial Intelligence is even replacing artists. There are advanced programs that can compose music. One was programmed to compose in the style of Beethoven. It wrote a piano sonata and a panel of expert musicologists was tricked into believing it was an undiscovered work by the master himself.

So, in the next hundred years or so the human race will be out of work. I seriously doubt that the robots will turn against us though, like in the Terminator film series, that’s just the stuff of science fiction. But it will be a very serious problem and the cause of much conflict; many people competing for a very few jobs. The solution is a government that will fairly and equally award what few jobs remain to those qualified and deserving and to divide up the wealth and distribute it equally to those who cannot be employed. The only other alternative is to outlaw advanced technology and / or provide “makework” jobs and that simply will not work over the long term.

But this still leaves us with the problem that the population is growing and there are not enough resources to go around as it is. Remember, fifteen percent of the population is starving. The simple solution is to simply grow more food. But that’s not as easy as you might think. I well remember driving across the state of Texas, hour after hour. Texas is really big and there are vast stretches of open, undeveloped land. I kept thinking: “why does nobody live here? Why does nobody farm this land?” I soon realized that it was because there is no water – or nearly no water – just enough to keep cacti and sagebrush alive. There is certainly not enough water to sustain the huge, sprawling suburbs of the Northeast US and not enough water to irrigate anything but cacti and sagebrush. And that’s the problem on a global basis too. There is a lot of water on this planet but the vast majority of it is salty. Only 2.5% is fresh and only 20% of that is usable by humans, the rest is locked up in ice caps or is polluted.

Even if we could figure out some way to feed a gianormous population of ten billion, that still leaves us with all the problems of garbage and human waste. Think about how much poop ten billion people produce.

The Plan

It’s obvious that we need to reduce the global population, not allow it to keep growing and try to deal with it. As I have stated in the preceding paragraphs, there are too many people right now, and we are looking toward the future – the far future. The long term goal is to have no more people on the planet than can live in comfort and relative wealth, be adequately fed and receive all the necessities of life; medical care, a fair government, diversity, inclusiveness and the freedom to feel safe from violence and intolerance. Experts differ in their calculations but the consensus is that the global population should be no more than two billion people.

So what do we do with the five billion people who are dead weight? Well for starters, they would need to be moved around. With a global government it will be much easier to move people into more efficient and environmentally friendly locations. Massive structures will be built covering square miles and rising a thousand feet or more. This might seem like it would use up land that could be cultivated but in reality it would free up cultivatable land by “putting everything in one place” - shops, theaters, hospitals, schools, recreation, sports arenas, etc. Perhaps a million or more people could live in one of these “mega-buildings.” In the United States, for instance, once the ideal population level is reached, it would only require approximately one hundred of these structures to be built and the entire population will be moved into them. All other buildings will be torn down. The mega-buildings will be built on land that cannot be put into agricultural use such as deserts, areas with poor soil quality and salt flats.

Travel will no longer be necessary except between one mega-building and another. People and goods will travel through underground tunnels or on above ground monorails in environmentally friendly, electrically powered rail cars. However, such travel would rarely be necessary because everything one could ever want will be contained within the mega-buildings. This would free the land for agriculture, solar farms, wind farms and other types of environmentally friendly types of energy. Fossil fuels will be rendered obsolete. People will no longer need to own automobiles and will be free from the huge expense of purchase, maintenance and insurance. The carnage of traffic accidents will be a thing of the past.

A birth control program will be established to stabilize the size of the population. Perhaps the best way to do this is to selectively administer certain chemical compounds during routine vaccinations which would prevent women from producing eggs and / or men from producing sperm. It would be simple and completely painless. No one would even know it had been done until they tried to have children. The selection process will be based on genetic characteristics in an effort to weed out the more troublesome aspects of the human condition such as genetic deformities, mental illness, intellectual disability as well as social issues such as diversity.

An extensive education program will be established which will contain curriculum to be sure that everyone is made thoroughly aware of the necessity and importance of the steps being taken to save the Human Race and the planet. It will also be used to educate people of the evils of racism, toxic masculinity, misogyny and other destructive behaviors as well as wean the population off of superstitious religious beliefs which conflict with various aspects of the program such as birth control. To this end it would be best to remove children from their parent’s sphere of influence. Schools now provide most meals for children and supervise much of their activity. It is a few simple steps to modify the school system to keep children under the careful and nurturing supervision of the educational system all of the time. Parents would be allowed to visit of course but the object is to prevent them from teaching their children falsehoods and destructive behaviors such as the aforementioned religious superstition, intolerance, bigotry and racism. It would prevent parental child abuse. Alcoholic, uneducated, poorly educated and mentally ill parents are notorious for abusing their children. How many times have you heard news stories about parents doing unspeakable things to their children?

Once the above measures are in place, the population has been relocated and the land has been cleared, agriculture will switch to plant production exclusively, becoming sustainable and eliminating the highly inefficient, wasteful, inhumane and environmentally unfriendly production of animal products. Fishing will be banned so that the oceans can recover. This is not to say that everyone would be forced to be a vegan vegetarian. That’s just not practical and many people would balk at the idea. Plus there is the aspect that a vegan diet holds many dietary deficiencies. Vegans have to be careful to find alternate sources of protein and the vitamins and minerals which are usually supplied by meat, eggs and seafood. This is not something that you can expect a large population to do. Our global government will have detailed records on everyone; location as well as age, height, weight and health status. Based on these factors and the ability – or lack thereof – to contribute to society in a useful way, individuals will be carefully selected for humane harvest. With modern technology a human being can be compassionately and painlessly euthanized and the body can efficiently be processed into many different wholesome and palatable types of food. There is nothing gruesome or morbid about this. This is not the stereotypical, cliché cannibalism of the Donner Party, Hannibal Lechter and Jeffery Dahmer. For instance, the head and hands will not be processed. This is for two reasons. 1. To allow the next of kin to have a funeral with an open casket. The head and hands will be mounted on a dummy body. Afterwards they will be removed and cremated. Burial will be outlawed; it is wasteful of valuable land which can be otherwise used for agriculture. 2. Many of the diseases associated with the consumption of human flesh are transmitted by brain and nervous tissue. The average human body contains between fifty and seventy five pounds of usable meat. A rate of one billion humane harvests per year will provide an adequate meat supply and pare the global population to an acceptable level within five or six years. This solves both the starvation and the overpopulation problem. It’s a win-win situation. Obviously only mature people will be selected for harvest. No one will be eating little kids. A minimum age, say 35 to 40 will need to be established. Of course a few people may object to this but over time it will become routine and people will accept their fate. Once the global population is stabilized and clean environmental practices are established, the practice of humane harvesting could be gradually phased out and we could once again begin farming cattle, pigs and other livestock. But we must be vigilant and not let things get out of hand again. We must be strict but gentle. The educational system is key to shaping the thought process so that a tolerant, diverse population is maintained which has the courage to make this plan successful.

Truly, we are in trouble and truly the plan I have set out here is neither that complicated or difficult. The outcome would be an Earth that could only be described as paradise. I have heard other plans. At best they are patchwork / Band-Aid solutions. Here is a plan that guarantees peace, sustainable, long term human happiness on a green, environmentally sustainable Earth.

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