#no matter how good they are i need a specific combination of transcripts and good brain days

[drawnecromancy]

This year i'm going to try the re:dracula version of doing the dracula thing.

[fallenhero-rebirth]

Got asked for some writing advice

How did you improve your writing specifically beyond 'just writing more'?

The first thing is to read different things from different genres. Read an old book, and see how that is written. Read a genre you normally don't read. Read some poetry. Go to the library and walk to a random book, open it in the middle and read. Read on paper, and out loud. And then read some more. And when you read, try to think about why you don't like or likes something. Is it boring? Why? Is it hard to understand? Why? What is it in the words you like? Does it feel good to read out loud? If it doesn't, why not?

A tip is to take a book you think is interesting. Take a paragraph from the middle at random, and write it down in a word document. Pay attention to how it feels to write. How are the sentences? Do they feel different from your own? Close the book and continue to write a few paragraphs. Does your style change? What is the difference between your paragraphs and the one above? Sentence length? Comma use? Does it make it better or worse

Another tip is to write down a bit of dialogue from a tv show or movie you like. There might be transcripts online even. Take that dialogue and write a scene with it. Especially if you find dialogue hard to sound natural this might be freeing. Or, you might even find that what sounded good on the screen looks terrible on paper when it's not said by a charismatic actor.

A third is to write fanfiction and try to make it as good as you can. Try to make it real, as if it might have been from the original source. Think about what it was you liked about it, and then try to imitate that and make your own story. Fanfiction gets a bad rep, but it is a great way to experiment with writing without having to come up with characters and a world. That way you can just focus on the language.

Would you have any tips regarding writing interesting characters? Mine are always very flat and bland OR 'mary sues'

First of all, there is nothing wrong with a "mary sue". The way this is used these days, it might as well mean "protagonist". If Batman or James Bond can get away with their shit, your protagonist certainly can too. And your characters will be flat at the start because a story consists of so many parts. You have your language, your plot, your world, your story rhythm. And when you are starting out, there's simply too many things to focus on. You won't get depth in all of them, and the characters are what you spot being flat first, because that's usually what attracts us to a story in the first place.

My characters were terribly flat when I started out, but I wrote short story horror so it didn't matter. Nobody read that for the characters.

A trick I have to try to get my characters to feel alive is to write arguments. Take two characters you have trouble with and let them talk. Argue about something. Be stuck in an awkward situation together. Don't bother writing anything but dialogue, never mind the actual scene. Just write them talking, and after a while you might get a feel for how they feel different from one another. Maybe they start talking about things about them that you didn't even know. Explore. Have fun. Have them say something weird. Something hurtful. Write reactions. Don't bother thinking if it's usable or not. I've written pages of dialogue just to get a feel for how people talk.

I usually build characters by combining archetypes. I start with one people will know immediately, then add another, and a third. They will be uncovered one at a time, adding depth. Let's take Ricardo Ortega for example. The first archetype is "the sexy leading man/hero". Then, we get to know what I fondly call "the himbo". And finally, we discover "the clever, sneaky asshole". I didn't need to bring in all those things at once, as long as I got writing the first archetype, people would be interested and intrigued when they learned about the new facets.

Would you have any tips on writing humor/banter? You're pretty dang good at it but I could never figure out how to be funny lmao all the jokes I write are Extremely Cringe.

Oh I wish. I honestly have no idea. I was terrible writing characters and dialogue. I think something clicked when I wrote massive amounts of DA2 fanfic, because that was a game which consisted of nothing but banter, so I tried to mimic it the best I could. I have never liked comedies or really understood humor, so I never try to be funny. It's the one part of my writing I truly does not understand, some of my characters are just like that.

What's your plot planning process like, if you have a consistent one? I can only figure out the very generic broad strokes but it falls apart as soon as I try to come up with details.

All plots are generic broad strokes. Rebirth is basically just emo protagonist monologues a lot, meets up with some old friends and proceeds to beat them up. That's it. All plots will look flat and boring in your head, because what makes a plot cool and interesting is that you don't know what's going to happen. You do. You're the author. So of course it will look flat and uninteresting in your head. The hardest thing is trying to ignore this.

My workaround to this is only knowing the barest of broad strokes. I know where I want to go, who the opposition is, some basic scenes that needs to be there (not in detail) and then I write and discover things as I go along. That is the only way for me to remain interested in the plot, if I had planned it in detail I'd get bored. And oh, sure, there's a lot of foreshadowing and hidden things in my writing, but that's only because I know some big things that's going to happen. It's not like I have sat down and detail planned every chapter, what things I need to plant there, and so on. A lot of the times I forget things, and have to go back and add them, and so on. I would say focus on the characters before the plot. If you manage to figure out how to write fun characters first, nobody will care if the plot is bland.

[jaggedwolf]

air support, we need you (or: tscosi 2x09)

some bomb dropping, ofc, spoilers below duh

same game, top three things i had feelings ‘bout in reverse order

3. time skip time! Everyone could use a bit of a breather, even if it can’t live up to Arkady’s goat farm dreams

I thought all the planet assignments made sense, even if the completionist in me wanted it to differ more from the split that had already happened this season

ok ok the shipper in me was 50-50 but we’ll address that later

2. my man park!! is back!!! 

Showing up with an anti-aircraft missile launcher as a wedding gift. I kept joking that Park would keep up his finale trend of showing up as a surprise being cool (as cool as Park can be anw), and thought it wouldn’t happen till it did!

and him also quietly saying the defector wasn’t Shelly....Park...are you going to talk about this...

narrowly avoided extended crew singing for the third time, will he keep up this success rate?

I would take a mini-episode that just followed Park in the second half of the season (Park: I am an independent man who needs no crew)

1. Arkady attacking Krejjh because she thinks they’re an enemy, AND then McCabe pulling a gun on her to make sure she didn’t run away. Bro. Bro, that shit was a direct hit to the id. Do I even have words for how good that was

Knowing what was about to happen as soon as Arkady said “You” in that tone of voice, ugh

Krejjh saying Arkady instead of First Mate Patel in desperation, and then brushing it off with a :D after

But god, McCabe. They’ve been so compelling this season, and yeah, maybe they’re approaching everything like a nail with the hammer they’ve got that shoots bullets, but the point is, it fuckin works 

Arkady buys the threat (the promise of her crew’s safety?) more than she buys Krejjh’s reassurances 

(though reading the transcript, Krejjh specifically telling Arkady “Science Officer Liu will never forgive you”, not “forgive us”, is excellent too)

“the only authority figures yet to disappoint me” / “I’m not an authority figure” / “you don’t get to decide that” is just like. embedded in my mind. just McCabe going no, you don’t get to run verbally either.

Do you ever think about how Arkady and McCabe had like, different kinds of fucked up childhoods compared to the rest of the crew. Like obviously McCabe ending up an agent so young and the stuff about their family suggests a pretty secure background, but it feels like the IGR and Dwarnian war starting when they were 12 gives them a kind of cynicism that meshes well with Arkady’s, in a way that’s distinct from how Arkady and Violet’s morbidness mesh, or Arkady and Sana’s pragmatism

ok more character feels under the cut

don’t scandalize the grandparents

A married man! 

Impressed he made it through the season with no baddies wrecking his oxygen

Always ready to point out that Arkady is actually as much of a nerd as he is

AKA I didn’t realize it was a Mozart reference till he said so. Arkady defies the jock-nerd chart

okay who of Arkady or Krejjh is gonna tell him about MMA fight outside, or did they do a whole team debrief. For Arkady’s sake I’m hoping not the latter, though I guess everyone else would like an explanation for McCabe’s gun-pointing??

likes solving problems without guns, would prefer solving them by FLYING SPACESHIPS 

Krejjh watches McCabe’s gun strategy work on Arkady and goes “do you folks really live like this?? why???”

I do love that their first thought on what to do next is to run a bunch of supplies around, probably between human populations that are going to be a wary at seeing a dwarnian show up. (Eat it, Eejjhgreb)

Kinda wonder if their feelings about getting choked out by their buddy are in fact more complicated than “it’s chill dude, please don’t do something stupid”

The cutest vow

who needs to calm down your crewmates with annoying words when you can just point a gun at them

Seriously where is the human-dwarnian war AU where it lasts longer or happens later where McCabe is the baby sniper posted to Arkady’s unit and they squabble a bunch (and perhaps kiss? When I wrote my third ever ficlet for this fandom never did I anticipate actually being interested in that)

what % of their Mirzakhani choice was thinking “what if Arkady tries to run from the goat farm and no one’s around to point a gun at her” jk jk

Their exclusion of Park from authority figures that didn’t disappoint them is fascinating. Is it that he left hoping for Shelly when it probably wasn’t her, or that he isn’t an authority figure anymore, a combination there of?

Or worst of all, is it that when he didn’t kill Krejjh back in 1x10, that really was a disappointment, no matter how much it might’ve been mixed with relief, and you can’t undo that moment?

What if they and Park talked. But I don’t think Park is going to goat planet, so that seems unlikely.

Their apology to Sana for heightened Martineau security! And Sana reiterating the profound gratefulness bit, gah

mostly read other people’s words and yet sparked consideration of two different OT3s, her power.

you know what, everyone deciding Sana is the best person to read words makes complete sense

There was one specific moment this episode that sent my mind into a tizzy about V/A/S, and it was Arkady going FINE GO ASK THE CAPTAIN THEN at how firm Violet was that Tripathi would be the one driving her, not Arkady.

I need you to understand that my V/A/S OT3 opinions are such that my shipping feels were more set off by that than Sana and Violet telling Arkady they were proud of her for choosing goat planet or whatever, like I don’t even know what dynamic was so captured by that argument, rip at Arkady having to be systems apart from them again

Though ofc my heart was buoyed by Sana’s earnest “Kady, you do more than that”, I want these two to go do a job together again, I miss that

To shift gears, I cannot believe “Lenny” started out as Sana being absolutely furious at the people threatening her crew and has ended up a teasing in-joke between her and Park, my Sana/Park shipping feels were very content. (When does Sana learn that Park didn’t get to hear the long list of fake crimes the Rumor crew specifically confessed to Lenny? This must be fixed. Tell him about the diamonds!)

Campbell said “Park, let me show you where we’ve been sleeping.” and my brain went. Wait. This is actually a good OT3?? Park is already unnerved by Sana’s earnest captaining, he should get unnerved by Campbell’s default magnanimity, please consider this

this is also where I point out that all these major characters have very convenient names for indicating ships solely via letters. V/A! B/K! S/P/C! This may solve my ot3 tagging problem...

get off that cotton candy boat, vi

Haha I loved that line from Doc Robinson she’s so no-nonsense, love Violet agreeing to work with her

Doc also said menders and I thought about this post again and also the team split and ahhh

But no, I very much liked Violet gently crushing Arkady’s goat farm dreams, and the two of them awkwardly discussing the very awkward stage things are at while still getting a feel for how the other operates

These nerds are trying and I’m still fond of them

at some point I was gonna make fun of Vi for not being able to drive before realising 1. she probably didn’t want to deprive the others of a vehicle 2. that would be incredibly hypocritical of me

wait does the igr have excellent public transport when they aren’t bombing it i take back every bad thing i’ve said abou-

*ahem* same question about the MMA fight debrief I had for Brian, it would be so funny if the situation was so rushed that like, Arkady+McCabe explain to Brian on the farm and Krejjh has to tackle everyone else

tick, tock, walking bomb, when it stops, nobody knows

arkady is so whumpable, and this show knows it

Redundant, but love how terrified of herself she is after hurting Krejjh and how strangely reassured she is by McCabe’s gun antics. And how she doesn’t like thinking of herself as an authority figure on the ship even though she literally is as First Mate

is ready to monologue about all major life events and the crew frickin knows it

is trying to help herself and stuff, still grumbling about it. in worse shape this season than last - probably all the constant discussion of the inevitable war just kept building stuff up and she kept ignoring it because haha who wants to deal with this prickly mess of a person haha

did i mention she’s the best

hope she gets her full goat farm dream one day, even if it’s not on actual goat farm

[kevindayprotectionsquad]

I WAS trying to go to sleep, but I forgot my sleeping pills at home, and my brain won’t shut up about high school teacher/coach Kevin. So I’m finally getting this post done. I said I would, and now I’m doing it. Please enjoy my feral midnight ramblings.

I’m not saying Kevin doesn’t go pro and be the number one player in all of exy history, because he does. He’s dedicated so much of his life to not play exy for as long as he can. But the career times for pro athletes isn’t very long, and Kevin is no exception. He starts feeling the lingering pains of over use in his injured hand, and younger plays are starting to out run him, and he knows its time.

So here he is, a recently retired pro athlete, all the money and support he could ever want, and no idea what to do with himself. He’s got his hobbies, but photography, cooking, and reading can only fulfill so much. If he’s honest with himself, he misses exy. It was his entire life for so long, how could he just drop it one day and move on?

He thinks about coaching. The pro league loves that idea. It would make which ever team he signs with unstoppable, being coached by the son of exy himself. Kevin knows that’s what he should do. That’s what everyone thinks he should do, but he just can’t. It takes him a while to figure out why he can’t commit to just signing to a team.

Then it hits him: he doesn’t like pro athletes. They all think they know everything there is to know. They’re in it for the glory and not the game. (Not to mention most are former Ravens, and it’s always been hard for Kevin to side with them after everything.) That’s not why he plays, and it’s not something he can get behind.

So he starts to reevaluate everything he knows about himself, and what he wants. He knows he doesn’t want to be retired, and that he needs something he can really throw himself into.

It take him a little too long to remember he’s got an entire history degree, just sitting around not being used. That was five years of his life staying up late to do research and writing endless papers, just gone to waste so he could go pro.

If he didn’t work so hard on those papers, he wouldn’t be so upset it was a waste.

Kevin mopes around, reminiscing about his glory days, when it hits him. He could utilize both his passions. He worked his ass off to get his degree, and he worked even harder to go pro. Why not help kids realize their passions and teach them work ethic, at the same time teaching them both history and exy?

Kevin’s suprized it took him that long to come up with that. He just never realized his two favorite things, that seemed to have no correlation, could be combined.

He settles on the idea of teaching high school. High school kids are jerks, yes, but they’re minds are easier shaped than college or pro athletes.

He zooms through getting both his teaching and coaching certifications. The state doesn’t care if you’re Kevin Day, exy legend, you still have to be certified to teach/coach high school kids. It takes some time, but Kevin is happy to have something interesting to do.

Even though the state doesn’t care about his name, the schools sure do. He doesn’t go too crazy with applications, he wants to wait and see if he gets a good response before putting himself out there more.

He gets a reply back from every school he applied to, and being Kevin Day, he interviewed at all of them. And despite the face tattoo, he gets job offers from all. Being the son of exy, and having a high gpa on his transcript had its perks.

Kevin didn’t realize how hard it would be to pick schools. They offered him all kinds of benefits and salaries, but he didn’t care about all that. It was the kids that mattered, and which school needed him most. Perhaps he was getting to be too much like his father.

He finally decides on a school. It wasn’t the fanciest by any means, but it had the most diverse student body, and prided itself on providing equal opportunities for all students. That was something Kevin could get behind.

His first day finally roles around, and Kevin is NERVOUS. He can’t remember ever being so nervous in his life. So nervous to do well and make an impact on his students lives. He definitely calls Wymack on his way over, just freaking out and needing sound advice.

The coaching part didn’t scare him. He could handle that, he had a good influence. It was the class room part. He had no idea what to expect. It wasn’t like he went to a public high school and had at least seen it from the other side. This was his first time ever being in a classroom setting like that.

He gets to school early, like all teachers do. He’s still new and exciting to the staff, so as soon as kids start arriving, he books it to his classroom. He can only put up with so much small talk nowadays. He can hear kids talking excitedly to each other in the halls trying to find their first period classrooms, or talking about they did over summer break. He busies himself straightening up his desk and world history posters he hung around the room over the weekend.

The first bell rings to tell the kids to get to class, and they start coming into the classroom in little groups. Kevin has been around enough people to know which groups are the popular girls, which ones are the football jocks, which are the exy kids, and which ones would rather be alone but some how alway end up in a group together when the others take the desks to sit with each other.

There’s whispers among groups, and quick looks at Kevin. He lets them talk up until the late bell. It’s time for business.

He introduces himself as Mr. Day. He likes the sound of it. Sounds teachery and official. He thought about coach Day, but thought otherwise since he would be coaching all the students. Hands immediately shoot up, but others are less subtle.

“Are you really Kevin Day the exy player? My dad said there’s no way.” “Yes, I am, but now I’m Mr. Day, your teacher.”

“Why’d you quit playing? Jason said it’s because you broke your hand again.” “No, my hand is fine, I just thought it was time to retire.”

“Are you coaching the exy team?” “Yes.” “Good. We suck.”

Kevin lets them get their questions and comments out, he knows it’s exciting. When they’ve finally settled down, he asks them to introduce themselves and give him a fun fact about themselves. When they complain (because all students hate ice breakers), he tells them its only fair since they got to ask him questions.

There’s obviously some kids that want to try and be class clowns, and see how much they can get away with being heathens in class, but Kevin is well seasoned at the “cut it out” look thanks to being friends with Neil for so long. It doesn’t keep Neil in check, but it works wonderfully on the class clowns.

The rest of the school day flies by, going pretty much the same as that first period. Seasoned teachers come to check on him, though he thinks it’s an excuse to come chat with him.

After school means exy practice. Kevin hated that he missed the beginning of summer practice, but it didn’t take long for him to figure out the team definitely needed work, and it was going to be a challenge to get where he wanted them to be. The team had split into their own social groups, and severely lacked communication both on the court and off. There were arguments and unfair checks within the first few minutes of practice. Kevin couldn’t help but reminded of another team, and remained hopeful. The other coaches let him take the lead, and he could already see shifts happening in the team by the end of practice.

As the school year goes on, Kevin gets more confident in his teaching and coaching style, and becomes a quick favorite for students in the classroom and on the court. He has an open door policy and lets students stay in the classroom to study or vent or just hangout when they need to. He gives them advice and validation where they need it.

The students catch on pretty quick that if they bring up exy they can distract Kevin for the rest of the class period. He knows they’re doing it on purpose, but sometimes can’t stop himself. He’s working on it.

His favorite thing to do in the classroom is hands on learning. They’re constantly doing projects of some kind. He enjoys seeing what the kids come up with for projects, and is always impressed with their creativity. He’s glad they’re having fun learning.

But what’s most rewarding of all is seeing his kids come together and grow as young people. In the classroom, there’s no more specific social groups, all the kids talk and work together. He’s most proud of his introverted groups. On the court, his team is working together and winning games. They’re not perfect yet, and don’t get far into playoffs their fist season with him, but Kevin can see the improvement and is so proud.

(Sometimes Neil shows up to practices to get the kids excited about playing again. Kevin loses his flare with them over time. He’s no longer “Kevin Day Pro Exy Star”, he’s “Coach Day who makes us run laps when we’re bad but brings us snacks and tells us he’s proud after every game”)

Kevin doesn’t care what the press has to say about his team or his crazy new career choice, because he finally found something he truly enjoys doing. Making an impact and changing kid’s lives through exy as well as teaching, is way more rewarding than scoring the most goals in pro exy.

[rhythmic-idealist]

April 8th, 2021

We have an update! We made it past the first hurdle. Do you remember how there was a goal to keep O in his apartment past the start of April? That money was due on April 5th, all $3,000 of it, and between this GoFundMe, a few outside fundraisers, and support from friends, he made it. That means each and every one of you is a part of the reason O is still in his apartment, all this month. That’s an enormous deal, to him and to me. Thank you. Now that that April 5th payment is made, the rest of the payment plan has been made clear to us. The payment plan: 3k is due on May 1st. Another 3k is due on June 1st. Payment for each can be accepted as late as the 5th of the month. Then that’s it. The saga, after June 5th, is over; the post-COVID rent debt chapter closed. Raising $3,000 in under a month is a big deal, but not an impossible one. I want to make sure that all of you know that updates are something I write to keep you informed—they’re meant to be a thank you, a “here’s where your money went and what it did.” No one should feel obligated to give, especially considering how much everyone is struggling right now. With that said, could you help us share this fundraiser? If you know me personally, I’m entirely comfortable with you using my name to say I vouch for O. If you don’t, we appreciate everyone who trusts us and reaches out enough to share. This fundraiser wouldn’t have made it without friends and family, and it wouldn’t have without strangers.

If you do have the money to spare, especially if you're looking to redistribute some unneeded stimulus payment funds, I can tell you personally that O is a good bet and that the donation will matter.

Financials: We're aware of rent relief options, and they're complicated and likely not to be accepted. There are reasons to have tact in any situation involving one's landlord, but what matters to share with you all is that O is applying despite knowing it's a very likely dead end. If any amount of rent relief goes through, I'll post an immediate update. I’m setting the goal for $10,200, to account for the additional $6,000 of both months combined, plus $197.40 in estimated fees, plus the $4,000 we have already raised. That’s absolutely amazing, by the way. $4,000. I’m unbelievably grateful to all of you. If you see this on my social media or you know how to reach me, and you’d like to reach out for proofreading, video captioning, transcript writing, or English tutoring services, we can arrange that and send your full payment to the fundraiser. Reach out to me with the specific job and we can come up with a suitable donation, and I’m willing to charge on a sliding scale. Thanks so much, from the warmest part of my heart, for everything you have done for my friend O so far. It’s hard to do this right now, when he knows and I know that this fundraiser might not pull through. I want it to pull through. What that doesn’t mean is that anyone needs to give more money—what it doesn’t mean is that anyone needs to give money at all. Shares mean everything right now. Thank you for everything.

4,000/10,200

[fandammit]

Look how long this love can hold its breath (1/4)

Part Ben Gross character study, part slowburn adolescent romance. 

*******

I’ve hoarded

your name in my mouth for months. My throat

is a beehive pitched in the river. Look!

Look how long this love can hold its breath.

-Sierra DeMulder, “Your Love Finds Its Way Back”

The first assignment of their Freshman year Honors English class is to write a letter to themselves. 

“I want us to capture this very moment -- who we are, what we love, what we hate, what we want,” Mrs. Allen announces with a grand flourish, and he thinks that maybe she would be better suited for drama kids in Theatre than for neurotic, type-A students of this Honors class. “I want us to trap it in amber -- preserve it so that in four years, I can give you back those very same letters and we can marvel at who we were!”

He sneaks a glance over at Devi and can immediately see they’re both thinking the same thing -- it's ridiculous and cheesy, but they’re both willing to go along with it without any fuss.

English teachers tend to have some kind of corny getting-to-know you activity, and despite this overly sentimental first assignment, he’s only heard good things about Mrs. Allen’s class.

So, that night he loads up his printer with his 32 pound bond paper (to show that he takes this assignment seriously) and goes to work trying to capture this moment of his life in amber.

Even saying it in his head makes him want to roll his eyes (he thinks Devi must be thinking the same thing, then immediately thinks about how he can make his letter better than hers).

He knows what Mrs. Allen said -- that this isn’t really an assignment inasmuch as it is a time capsule; that it isn’t a resume, but just a friendly letter so she can get to know them.

But Ben Gross hasn’t gotten this far with his GPA and academic transcript because he’s taken teachers at face value.

He doesn’t lie  -- he honestly doesn’t need to, really. His list of extracurriculars and hobbies take up nearly half a page on their own, and his write-up about his pathway to becoming a diplomat is incredibly detailed and specific.

It’s only when he gets to the final question that he hesitates.

What’s one aspect of your life that you think would make a fun movie and why? Describe it to me!

He re-reads the question, then re-reads his letter and frowns. He clearly comes across as competent and confident -- which is what he was going for -- but also a little dry. This question is obviously designed to see if he has some personality.

Which, you know, of course he does. He’s just not sure how to put that on paper so that Mrs. Allen will see that he’s a well-rounded, intelligent but not overwhelmingly dull honors student.

He thinks about writing about his Bar Mitzvah and Blake Griffin -- that would be pretty cool to see in a movie -- but a voice that sounds suspiciously like Devi’s pops into his mind and calls him lame. He thinks about the time he sat next to Drake in first class on the way to Toronto with his dad, and this time an image of Devi rolling her eyes pops into his head.

He leans back in his chair and wonders what Devi is writing about. She probably has half a dozen stories to choose from, each one more exciting and endearing than the last, and each one bursting with the kind of personality that teachers -- for the most part -- seem to find charming rather than obnoxious (which is what it is).

He’ll never admit it out loud, but even though he knows that he can be charming when he needs to be, there’s an easy charisma to Devi that he’s never been quite able to replicate.  

He frowns at that thought, then scowls at the rather wide tangent his thought process has taken.

The cursor blinks at him as an idea slowly takes shape in his mind. He writes about the long rivalry between him and Devi -- the back and forth exchanges in class that became back and forth exchanges of first prize and first place and ‘best of’ certificates. The sixth grade disaster of their competing Oregon Trail projects, which almost got them both suspended and lead to a long enough truce for them to divide up any extracurricular and project they might ever take part in.

By the time he’s done with his fictional movie, it’s overtaken his letter; the answer to that one question as long as all the rest of his answers combined.

He reads over it and edits a word here and there, rearranges a couple sentences. Not to toot his own horn, but there’s now a buttload of personality in this letter in addition to proof of his competence, confidence and intelligence.

He ignores the smug-sounding voice of Devi in the back of his mind telling him that he couldn’t have done it without her.

*******

Mrs. Allen takes all their letters with a smile on her face and gathers them close to her chest.

“I can’t wait to get to know you better! Reading these letters is the best way to start my year, and in four years, you guys are going to love reading them back to yourselves.”

She turns and puts the letters in a filing cabinet, which gives him the chance to roll his eyes without her seeing.

She turns back to the class and claps her hands together.

“Now this second one -- it’s not everyone’s favorite, but I personally love it because it lets me see everyone in a different light.”

He groans inwardly, basically sure that she’s going to announce some kind of partner or group project, which he absolutely loathes. It’s way too early for someone to dull his shine in this class (or, in the case of Devi, threaten to eclipse him).

Unfortunately, the second assignment is much, much worse than a group project.

“This assignment isn’t for you,” Mrs. Allen says as she starts to hand out the assignment sheet. “It’s for your parents!”

Anxiety gnaws at the pit of his stomach the minute she says it.

“For homework, I need your a parent or guardian or uncle or aunt or grandparent to write a letter about you to me. It doesn’t really matter who specifically it is, it just should be someone who has helped raise you and shape you to become the person you are today. I give suggestions on that sheet about what I’d like them to write about, but really, those are just suggestions.” She smiles brightly at the class. “Basically, I want to see a different perspective on you. This helps me get to know you better and whoever takes care of you at the same time.”

The anxiety has eaten through his stomach and is now going to town on his liver.

“And I know that your parents are busy people, so they have until the end of the week to complete it.”

He slinks as far down in his chair without seeming disrespectful, trying to figure out a way to keep his anxiety from ravaging his lungs.

“What’s wrong, Gross,” Devi asks to the right of him. “Afraid your dad won’t be able to write anything nice about you?”

He shoots up in his chair and glares at her.

“More like I’m trying to figure out how to make sure my dad doesn’t go over the page limit because I’m so awesome.”

She rolls her eyes and turns back to talk to Fabiola, as he turns his attention back to the paper on his desk.

His parents are both out of town until Friday -- his mom’s at some kind of rejuvenation spa and his father is brokering a deal with some artist named Clairo -- so he knows he won’t be able to ask either of them. It makes sense -- they’re busy and this assignment is stupid, and he should really argue about it except that Devi doesn’t seem to care about it in the slightest and has already put the assignment sheet in her binder.

Putting up a fight about it would admit to a weakness -- his only one, really -- and he’d rather drop out of the class or fail than admit that to her. Er. To anyone.

For just a moment, he considers asking Patti, who does meet all the criteria -- she is someone who’s helped raise him and shape him to be the person that he is. He dismisses the idea in the next moment, because even if she technically fits the parameters, he can only imagine the kind of pity he’d get from Mrs. Allen when she reads a letter written by his house manager. He needs Mrs. Allen to be impressed by him, not feel sorry for him.

He thinks about that letter over the next few days and finally comes up with a compromise -- he writes it himself, but from the perspective of his dad.

He then emails it to his dad, who signs it, scans it and sends it back as an attachment with an email that says Couldn’t have written better myself! You’re so smart! Love you!

He takes that as confirmation that all those things he said about himself as his dad were true, and tries to tell himself it feels just as good as if his dad had actually written them.

*******

The following Monday, he overhears Mrs. Allen tell Devi that her father’s letter was so beautiful and heartfelt that it made her cry.

He doesn’t hear what Devi says in return -- some just-right mixture of pride and genuine gratitude, he’s sure -- just turns away and pretends to rifle through his backpack.

There’s a pang in his heart that he tells himself isn’t jealousy, and an odd sense of relief when Mrs. Allen passes by his desk without saying anything at all.

*******

That assignment is the second thing he thinks about when he hears about Devi’s dad and the orchestra concert (the first thought is something that can’t be put into words -- a kind of bottomless sadness shot through with a concern he doesn’t know what to do with).

He wonders if Mrs. Allen will give that letter back to Devi. If doing so would be an unbearable kindness or an unspeakable cruelty. If Devi would even open it if she did.

Mostly he wonders if Devi is ok, and what would make her feel better.

After hours of thinking about it, he realizes he doesn’t know. It makes him feel sad -- or useless, maybe -- that even though he’s known her for almost his entire life, all he knows is how to piss her off.

He briefly thinks about deliberately tanking a test this week to make her feel better, then realizes that he:

A. Is so smart that he probably wouldn’t be able to tank a test, even if he tried.

and

B. Devi would know -- she always knows when he’s up to something -- and it would do nothing but piss her off even more.

So he studies his ass off and gets a higher grade than she does on their Biology test. Her nostrils flare when she sees the grade on his test, and for a moment he really does feel bad -- maybe he should’ve tried to tank the test after all.

But then her eyes flash with something that isn’t sadness for the first time in weeks, and he’s so absurdly happy to see it that he doesn’t even come up with an insult when she lobs one in his direction.

He tells himself it’s because having a nemesis who’s all in makes him a better student, but when she gives a full-on victory cry in class a week later because she’s beaten him on their English test by half a point, that same absurd kind of glee is back with it.

A small part of him thinks maybe he’s just happy that she’s happy, in whatever small way she can be right now. The larger part of him ignores that, and studies twice as hard for their upcoming Algebra test.

*******

He thinks about that letter again on the way home from the Model U.N. trip, as he watches her freeze the moment an ambulance comes shrieking down the street.  

His mind is a jumbled mess of emotion -- anger at the way the conference ended, confusion at the way things have seemingly ended between him and Devi -- but all that fades away in a wave of concern as he sees Devi force herself to take steady breaths.

He almost wants to ask if she’s ok, but in the next moment she catches him looking at her and snaps a question, and he’s so mixed up and off-balance that he falls back on what the two of them do best -- insults and sarcasm.

It’s comfortable, but it doesn’t settle him, and for the first time (maybe not for the first time) he wishes he could be good at something that isn’t a way to hurt her.

*******

He thinks about that again when he’s sitting across the dinner table from Devi, her insults still ringing in his ears.

Now would be the perfect time to hurt her the way she hurt him, to make her as miserable as he feels right this moment.

But then he remembers that letter, thinks about the girl whose dad loved her so much that talking about her made a stranger cry, about the look of misery on her face as the ambulance went by and how awful it must feel every time she hears a siren.

He remembers the feeling of wanting to be good at something that isn’t supposed to hurt her.

So he swallows his bitterness at the way the Model UN Conference ended and swerves away from hurting her, makes some charming jokes about how good she is at diplomacy instead.

She smiles at him from across the table, and later even laughs when he tells her about his awkward pizza encounter (he won’t say it makes him feel better than he has in the last 24 hours, but something loosens in his chest at the sound of it).

It doesn’t take away the loneliness of the day completely or soothe all his disappointment, but even though the day still stings, at least he knows that he can be alright -- maybe even good -- at something more than just hurting Devi.

*******

He knows he’s had more grandma juice than is advisable when he finds himself staring at his reflection and telling himself that he didn’t throw this party just so Devi would come to his house.  

It’s his birthday, he reasons, and people throw parties on their birthday. It’s what his parents wanted when they left him, and he’s nothing if not a dutiful son. Plus, he has the house for it, and the money for it, and the friends --.

Well, he’s still not drunk enough to say -- even to himself -- that he has the friends for it.

But having parties is what cool kids do on their birthdays, and even if he can admit that he isn’t one of them, he’s at least adjacent enough to cool kids to be able to emulate their behavior.

So, yeah. That’s why he threw this party -- to be cool. Not because Devi asked him about throwing one. Not because seeing Devi look at Paxton like he was a goddamn chiseled marble statue come to life in the style of Pygmalion set off a hot spark of something that felt like jealousy in the center of his chest. His throwing this party had nothing to do with Devi, at all, in any way, shape or form.

He tells himself that a half dozen times as he looks at his blurry reflection in the mirror, as he splashes his face with water in the hopes that it’ll miraculously clear his vision, as he walks down the stairs holding his fourth cup of grandma juice.

Then he sees her come through the door and it’s like his vision clears up completely (if momentarily, because apparently emotions do not supersede biology) and he feels a warmth in his veins that has nothing to do with the alcohol currently coursing through it because Devi is in his house and she actually looks genuinely happy to see him.

He takes her on a tour of the house, pointing out the memorabilia from all his dad clients, showing her the game room and the gym and the two indoor pools (one chlorinated, one a saltwater pool), and she’s complimenting it all without even the slightest bit of sarcasm and laughing at his jokes and mocking him without the usual hard edge to her and he honestly can’t remember the last time he was this happy and --

Oh, fuck.

He totally threw this entire party just to invite Devi over to his house.

[dailyaudiobible]

01/01/2021 DAB Transcript

Genesis 1:1-2:25, Matthew 1:1-2:12, Psalms 1:1-6, Proverbs 1:1-6

Today is January 1st welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. Happy New Year. Welcome…welcome aboard. We are about to set sail on a journey that we will be on together for the next 365 days, a full year to allow the earth to move its way all the way around the sun, a full year to live into and live life together and a full year to insert the Scriptures into an important part of our day, every day, informing what the year is going to look like. And believe me, well, if this is your first go around, if this is the first time you're like, “yup. This is going to be my year. I’m gonna read the whole Bible.” You’re gonna find that it…if you do that it's gonna touch everything about your life. Sticking to this every day for this next year will be probably the most enlightening thing you've ever done in terms of learning about God certainly but learning about yourself and your context, and who God is and who you are and where this is all going. These things come from daily interaction with the Scriptures. So, welcome aboard. And welcome back to those of you who have been taking this journey each year for years. Today is day one of the 16th trip, the 16th year, the 16th time through the Bible in a year here at the Daily Audio Bible. And if you’ve taken more than one journey, then you know that there are similarities and there are profound differences in every year because we are different. We are growing. We are changing. And the Bible seems to have this way of being immediate and relevant and present and even pressing into and challenging some of the things that we do and say and think. And that's a good thing because the Bible…the Bible’s a book, right? It’s this written book. It’s actually a book full of books, a collection of books that span thousands of years. And, so, we’re gonna meet a lot of people and we’re gonna watch their lives unfold, some in very short fashion, some in very long drawn out fashion. We’re gonna get to know a lot of people and we will watch the choices they make and where those roads lead only to find out how things changed. Those roads still go the same place. That gives us so much wisdom for the choices that we’re making because even the inconsequential choices go somewhere. And sometimes they go somewhere big that changes things altogether. We’ll see that in the Bible too. So, here we are…like opening the cover and getting to page 1. And all books have a beginning. And…and since the Bible is a book of books…well…there's lots of beginnings. And every time we come to the beginning of a new book we’ll try to talk about what we’re reading, where it sits in history, what's going on, why it's going on, give ourselves a little bit of context because one of the primary things we’ll find about the Bible is that understanding it, interpreting it, applying it to our lives, making it make sense or have any kind of effect on today you need context. Without context the Bible can get confusing. With context the Bible can blossom and bloom into the best friend we have ever had. So, as we open to page one basically we find the words, “in the beginning.” And is there a better way to start the story of this year, “in the beginning.”

Introduction to the book of Genesis:

That’s how the book of Genesis starts, the first book that we will encounter in the grouping of books known as the Old Testament. And by the way, we’ll read a little bit of the Old Testament, a little bit of the New Testament, a little bit of the Psalms, and a little bit of the Proverbs each day as we make our way through the journey. But Genesis is famous for being the first book, “in the beginning.” And normally what we think about when we think about Genesis is that it…it tells the story of creation. Ironically, that's like only a small part of the story of Genesis. The book of Genesis covers more time than any of the other books in the Bible. So, after we read the origin story, we’ll still have another 2500 years contained within the pages of Genesis, which is more time covered then the rest of the Old Testament combined. So, the first 11 chapters of Genesis will cover a couple thousand years and a couple thousand miles before slowing down and we’ll begin to focus on several specific generations of people that will…that we need to focus on because they shape the rest of the Bible and they influence our world until this very day. And I was just talking about groupings of books. Like the Old Testament is a grouping of books and the New Testament is a grouping of books, but there are subgroupings of these books within the larger…within the larger context. And, so, Genesis is a part of a group of books known as the Torah or the Pentateuch. And these books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And by the way, if you're using the Daily Audio Bible app…and if you’re not, try it out. The Daily Audio Bible app is the portal into community here. It's the…in the palm of your hand all things Daily Audio Bible. But within the Daily Audio Bible app you can check off the days that you've listened to. And as you stack those up each and every day as we move through these different groupings of books when we complete them, we will be awarded a badge that tells us you’ve completed this particular section of the Bible. So, this is where you are. This is what you completed. This is how many percent are completed of the New Testament and the Old Testament and the whole Bible. All that is right there to show us, to give us the sense that we’re progressing through because we are. So, make sure you have that as we begin this journey. And we will have plenty…we will have more than plenty to talk about as we make the journey, but I think I’ve given us enough of a flyover for right this minute. We've come here and we come here each day for the Scriptures, and we make a habit of making that the centerpiece because it is the centerpiece. It's the reason that were here. And, so, let's dive in on this January 1st on the first day of the year. We will read from the New Living Translation for the rest of this week and we will rotate, we change translations each week. And I can talk about that a little bit the end, but we’re at the beginning of today. Genesis chapters 1 and 2.

Commentary:

Okay. So, in the book of Genesis today we read the story of creation, which is what Genesis is most famous for. But embedded in that narrative of the days of creation and what God was forming and fashioning we see over and over is that His intent was that it was good, that what He created was good. He looked at it and saw that it was good. And then when He created humanity in His own image. I mean that’s straight out of the book of Genesis, “let us create man in our own image.” So, when He creates mankind, He looks upon it and says this is very good. Like this exceptional, this is exceptionally good.” So, right from the beginning, right from the beginning of the story we are introduced to God and we are introduced to a God that creates good things and takes pleasure in good things. What we see is that this was the intent. This was the plan, that it is good, and that the creation was good even very good, exceptionally good. This is our starting point. But this needs to carry us forward, that God is good and what God does is good and just and right. And not only that, that God's intention was for us to be very good. We’ll have to wait a couple of days. It’s not gonna take that long for us to figure out what happened to that plan. So, we’ll stay tuned here in the book of Genesis for the next couple of days.

We also began the book of Matthew today. And I mentioned earlier that, you know, when we come to the beginning of a new book we’ll talk about each of these books. The fact of the matter is that this is January 1st and we’re starting four new books as well as a brand-new year so there’s a lot of ground to cover. So, we’ll talk about Matthew tomorrow and then we'll talk about the other two books, Psalms, the next day and Proverbs the day after that. Kind of getting ourselves moved in and just, yeah, unpacking our bags and getting settled in our quarters because this is gonna be a voyage that we’re on and we’re gonna sail out into the deep all the way across the year, but we’re just releasing the anchor, like we’re just getting out of harbor here. So, we are inside of land. We’re just getting settled in and we’ll do that over the next couple of days. But in the book of Matthew today we began reading the origin story of the birth of Jesus the Savior, the son of God, God made flesh. This God that we've read about in the book of Genesis, this good God with good intentions who had created an exceptional humanity in His own image…well…as the story goes, things get a little bit sideways and backwards and this God comes in person to make things right in the person of Jesus. And, so, that's the narrative we are beginning in the book of Matthew. And, so, today, you know we had this little section of genealogy. And what we were doing is reading really the names from the beginning all the way to the generations that that led up to Jesus. And we read a bunch of names and they maybe weird names, but we’re gonna to get to know all of those people. This won’t be the last time we read their names. Some of them we’ll get to know very well.

Then we turn the book of Psalms today and where just told “O the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners or join in with mockers.” Like right out of the gate we’re getting this profoundly simple but profoundly true advice. “Those who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate upon it, their lives are like trees planted along a riverbank.” Alright. So, that's a metaphor we can understand. A good source of water, a good source of nourishment and they bear fruit in each season and their leaves don’t wither. Like that’s a good metaphor. We’ve just gone through a year of withering challenges, right? If our lives are planted and rooted by a riverbank with life-giving water, then it’s sustained us through this. And, so, if that's not the case, then we've been withering, and we've stumbled and fell our way here to find some nourishment from the Bible to try to just keep going forward. And that's fine because this is day one of being planted by a riverbank giving life-giving water and our leaves will never wither if we will stay rooted in that place. And the Bible will continually challenge that and show us how to do it.

And then we turn to the final section of Scripture, the Proverbs, and we learned why we would want to read the book of Proverbs. And what we’ll find is that the Proverbs can speak volumes in one sentence. It can just cut to the chase, cut right through all the crap and get right to the heart of the matter immediately. And, so, we’re told today the purpose of the Proverbs to teach people wisdom and discipline, to help them understand the insights of the wise. Their purpose is to teach people to live disciplined and successful lives, to help them do what is right, just and fair, to give insight to the simple, knowledge and discernment to the young. I want that. My hands up. Like I'm on board with that. Are we not all on board with that? What would it look like to walk in wisdom this year, to be wise in the things that we say and think and do this year. That could be a profound game changer, to have wisdom at the ready instead of just reacting to everything that comes our way, to actually have foreknowledge and wisdom. And when things come flying at us we have the wherewithal to consult wisdom and understand we don’t have to get bowled away by this. We have choices and we’re going to make wise. And, so, this is day one and the Bible is already speaking about how to live this life as we go into the future. So, that's our day. That's our day one.

And I just want you to know I’m grateful. I'm grateful we have boarded this ship and we all are gonna…are gonna sail across the year together, and that over the next weeks, we will settle in and move into the year and settle into the rhythm of the Bible being a part of our lives every day and settle into the fact that this is not a solitary endeavor. We are not alone. There are tens and tens and tens of thousands of us who are taking this journey together and we’re gonna get to know each other. Surprising as that might be, we’re gonna get to know each other over the course of the year. So, many stories will unfold before us in each other's lives that it won't be too long before we realize we’re falling in love with each other because we’re a community centered around one goal and that goal is to go through the Bible together and allow it to shape our lives. So, we are a community that's moving in the same direction and on the same page, literally. We’re all going through this together. And the truth of the matter is we’re all facing challenges, all of us. All of us are facing challenges. We all got here and boarded on this voyage for this year for a reason. Some of us have been taking the voyage for years. And we know how profoundly the Bible can impact a year. Some of us are just here for the first time having maybe grown up in the faith of the having been believers for a long time but acknowledging the fact that like 98% of believers in the world have never read the Bible, not the whole thing, not even anywhere close. And, so, this is the year. This is the year to find out what it really says. This is the year to let it speak on its own behalf in its own context.

And then…then there are those of you brothers and sisters who don't even know why you're here. This isn't your thing. Religion is something that you’ve sworn off a long time ago. You don't really want any of this…you’re just super curious about what an ancient holy book like…like it's basically life’s not working out as it is, so there needs to be something else, and maybe that something else, who knows…who knows maybe that something else is in the Bible. Maybe there's something there. What does it really say? What does it really mean? Where does it really lead people? How does it shape people's convictions? Maybe that's you. Welcome aboard. We are gonna have so much fun exploring those questions and peeking into those motivations and understandings.

And then there are those of you who have crawled here…and…your fingernails are bloody from just dragging yourself across the new year just…just committed to trying to make it through 2020. And you’re just here on your hands and knees, you have no more energy. Welcome. You have come to the right place. You are no longer alone, and you will not be alone during this journey at all. We all had a rough time of it last year. And…and maybe it's not just last year maybe it's the last decade or maybe it's as long as you can remember, and this is that. Like, there’s…something's got to give, something's got to change. And, so, with all the hope that you had left your spending it here and saying, “I'm gonna give a shot to the Bible. I don't even know what’s's gonna happen or what's really going on but I’m gonna give a shot to it because everything else is hopeless and this is it.

I get it. So many of us get it. That's how so many of us got here just with nowhere else to turn. But that sort of sick feeling in our stomach that God is so angry at us. We’ve messed things up so bad that if He's even there He's mad. And how do you even find your way into some sort of relationship, some sort of understanding that He's there and that…that He is actually good in that He does actually care and that He might actually look upon us as very good creations. Just doesn't feel like that. Feels like He's angry and that He's mad and that we keep failing and we cannot get it together more than one day. Maybe we can hold it together for 24 hours but then we’re gonna fall down again in some sort of way, And, so, we live our lives believing there is a God and believing that He's mad because we are failures. That’s not who God is. That's not the God that the Bible will introduce and is introducing to us. That's not what's going on here. God, the Bible will tell us, is love. And love Jesus will tell us is how we are to be known, how the world will know that we are following Christ is by our love. And maybe you're here and you don't like even the name, the idea, the word Christian because that's the last thing you have ever witnessed out of Christian people. That’s not what you’re gonna find here and I’m sorry about that actually. I think we all are. I think we've all had those experiences at one point or another. And it's hard because it's a broken world full of broken people and broken people break things. And we’re all guilty, all of us. But the way of Jesus is the pathway of love, loving your enemies, loving your neighbor as yourself, loving your God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength.

And, so, I’m telling you, just hang out here for a while. Just hang out here. Just rest here. What you’ll find is that this becomes an oasis. The Daily Audio Bible every day becomes an oasis for us. We call it the Global Campfire. We all just come here to a safe place, a calm serene space in our lives that we can turn to each day knowing that the chaos may be happening all around the world, but we have a safe place to gather that’s virus free, pandemic free, but we’re all here together healing, mending, growing, becoming. And it is a joy, it is an honor, a true privilege to take this journey with you. And I’m telling you, no matter how you got here, this may be your 15th trip through. No matter how you got here. You may have crawled across the finish line of the year like I said. If we’ll let it love will find a way.

Song:

Find Our Way - Paul Alan

[kob131]

Oh and his ending, which is suppose to wrap all this up?

A. “They have the lamp that attracts Grimm, that won’t be masked by the Grimm! They’re so stupid!”

Fun Fact-When Ren and Jaune do their trick-It’s a split second so they can get in front of the Leviathan and Ruby can blast with her Silver Eyes.

“A pair of Manta aircraft are seen firing shots at the Leviathan. Suddenly, the Leviathan unleashes an energy beam attack from its mouth. It shifts the beam over to one of the poles powering the hard-light Dust barrier, destroying it. The Leviathan roars.

Ruby and her friends watch in horror from their aircraft.

Oscar: It tore straight through...!

Air Control: All squadrons, fall back to evacuation procedures. Disengage Leviathan! I repeat, disengage! Over!

Ruby: No, wait!Ruby runs up to the radio.

Qrow: Ruby!

Ruby: We can stop it!

Air Control: Who is this? Identify yourself!

Ruby: I'm a Huntress. My team and I are heading to the Leviathan and can weaken it for you to attack!

Everyone looks at Ruby in shock.

Jaune: We can?

Ruby: I can.

Maria: Ruby, when I said "trial by fire"--

Ruby: I did it at Beacon and at the farm.

Weiss: You really think you can do it now?

Ruby: I don't have a choice.

Air Control: Manta 5-1, your ship is currently flagged as hostile. You will receive no support, over.

Ruby: (picking up radio) Fine, we'll do it alone if we have to.

From her mech, Cordovin overhears Ruby's radio chatter.

Ruby: We can hit it while it's stopped at the next barrier. Ren, you're up!

Ren and Jaune proceed to combine their Semblances, masking the airship as it weaves between the air battles between Grimm and Atlas forces. The Leviathan makes its way to the next barrier and charges its energy breath again.

Qrow: We're too late! Pull up!

The Manta aircraft pulls up out of the way as the Leviathan fires its breath, destroying the next barrier and toppling a cupola off one of the buildings in Argus. Ren and Jaune collapse as their Auras are drained.’

The lamp wouldn’t matter. And it didn’t.

B. ‘Why is everyone shocked to hear Ruby suggesting to help? It’s sooo dumb!”

Wanna know why I gave so much context above? Because above- you see what FMF is referring to. ... Yeah, the shock wasn’t from deciding to help- It was from Ruby saying they can stall the Grimm.

So FMF just lied. Again. And used the commentary while misrepresenting the scene. Again.

C. ‘That’s what the Writers decide to remember? They talk as though the scenes Ruby referenced never happened!’

Yeah, remember what I said about FMF lying? Well, the commentary here isn’t edited over a scene from the show and look at the lines he choose-

‘I’m curious what the idea was, this is a pretty bold move right?’

“It came down to, they had to try.’

Doesn’t really should like they’re referring what was said right? And Kerry’s voice sounds different from how the other guy’s voice sounds like (as in, it’s as if Kerry’s voice doesn’t follow directly from what the other guy said). Considering that FMF has already lied in this segment- why should I trust that he didn’t just take a piece of the commentary out of context and sell it to an audience that buys outright lies?

Edit: Fun fact, I actually asked for a transcription of this part of the RWBY Volume 6 commentary and a user by the name of Changyuraptor did it for me.

Wanna see what was actually said here?

“Chris: "I'm curious what the idea was, like this is a pretty bold move right, like she had just not even 5 or 6 chapters ago talked to Maria about the concept of just using her silver eyes to begin with and she's looking at this massive Grimm."

Kerry: "It came back down to- there's actually some slightly different earlier versions of the speech that was a little bit different, but Miles was like (I think he's saying Miles' name here, not 100% sure) 'they have to try" you know, it doesn't look like anything else is working, if she can at least try and it works to any degree it's something you know, I think what was a bigger part of this message too is I think a lot of people probably would have told her not to do it but she needs to follow what she thinks is best."

They weren’t talking about Ruby’s idea specifically, nor is anything said here indicating they forgot anything.

In fact, he cuts off most of what was said (even cutting stuff said INBETWEEN what he used) JUST to make that point.

So yeah- definitive proof he lies using the commentary.

D. ‘Oh Atlas doesn’t want help after asking for help! How stupid!’

“Air Control: Who is this? Identify yourself!

Ruby: I'm a Huntress. My team and I are heading to the Leviathan and can weaken it for you to attack!

-

Air Control: Manta 5-1, your ship is currently flagged as hostile. You will receive no support, over.

Ruby: (picking up radio) Fine, we'll do it alone if we have to.”

Not what they said FMF.

Also he tries saying the group was surprised when Ruby said they helped when that’s NOT what she said. Again. So he made the same lie TWICE.

Also also, he misspelled Atlas as ‘Atlus’. As in, the SMT/Persona company. It would have even registered as an incorrect spelling when he made the spelling. This was a video in production over a YEAR.

E. ‘Atlas hates the idea of Huntsmen!’

*Shows Ironwood giving a bunch of teams the option to walk away from the Fall of Beacon*

That’s not even connected to anything here...well, here as in the review because this does reinforce the thematic idea the show presents that you should stand and fight.

... Did FMF just support Team RWBY’s stance in Volume 7?

F. ‘NO body would tell a Huntress to not save a town full of people!’

*looks over at the people calling Team RWBY stupid for trying to save all of Mantle in Volume 7*

Cool, now even his laziness is biting him in the ass.

G. “THIS FICTIONAL PERSON WANTED A HUNTRESS SO THE REAL PEOPLE WHO THE COMMENTARY IS REFERRING TO DON’T EXIST!”

Fuck, how does anyone take him seriously?

H. ‘DUr Atlas man being stupid!’

Oh so not backing up the STOLEN SHIP that was JUST IN A FIGHT WITH THEIR COMMANDER and NOT KNOWING THE PEOPLE ON BOARD PERSONALLY is stupid huh? He should just risk his men’s lives for an enemy that SAYS they can help but they don’t KNOW that.

Gee, what were you saying about logic again?

I. ‘Maria flies into a dangerous spot, so stupid!’

Gee, not like point blank range would be a good idea or that they were already on that course but that’d require FMF to not edit a scene to suit himself and we all know intellectual integrity is toxic to his very existence./s

J. ‘How do the shield generators get hit if the shields are up?’

*Shown: the shield generators NOT BEING BEHIND THE SHIELDS*

K. ‘Hey, why try to get it’s attention when you have lamp!’

*Episode 1: shows that a bunch of panicking people would attract the Grimm over the lamp*

L. ‘DUR, REN’S SEMBLANCE!’

*Shown: Ren’s AURA AKA SEMBLANCE FUEL SOURCE BREAKING*

M. ‘Ruby takes lamp despite distraction!’

Hm, gee, almost like her plan was to FREEZE the damn thing and it didn’t notice her even while flying around with the lamp.

N. ‘THEY FORGET LAMP WAS DANGEROUS BUT REMEMBER IT STOP TIME!’

*points above*

O. ‘DUR< MECH FIGHT ONLY STOPPED FINAL BATTLE FOR LESS TWO MINUTES!’

You know...and taking out the weapon made to kill the Grimm for a long period of time...and Cordovon’s actions SUMMONED the Grimm...and all the shields were down and the breath attack that could level half the city in one shot takes about five seconds to charge up.

Gosh, it’s almost like he relies on his audience not knowing any better...

P, ‘SALEM THINKS HER PROBLEM SOLVED WITH FLYING MONKEY WHICH COULD HAPPEN IN EPISODE 2!’

1. You cut out the WHOLE REST OF THE ARMY.

2. ‘Hazel: There's an old saying. 

he two notice Hazel Rainart enter the room and stand next to them. 

Hazel: If you want something done right... do it yourself. 

Salem looks up to the army of Grimm she has gathered, before turning around and using her magic on the black pools again, engulfing the entire scene...’

3. Salem’s problem is the news Ozpin lived...delievered to her in Episode 4. Not Episode 2.

Q. ‘THEY GO TO ATLAS LIKE BAD MAN OZPIN SAY THEY DO! THEY NO QUESTION ANYTHING!’

Question.

What the fuck are they suppose to do?

Can’t wait anywhere, you yourself admitted that they showed the lamp attracted Grimm AND you never stopped bitching about Volume 5.

Vale is out.

Mistral is out, no Raven.

Vacuo is clear across the other side of Remnant.

Can’t even talk it out because people wouldn’t stop bitching about the talking in Volume 5.

You act like there’s any OTHER logical choice, FMF. Or that Ozpin’s lies would change ANYTHING about his decision about going to Atlas being bad.

But then again, that’d require your brain to function in regard to RWBY.

Then he goes on to say some shit about how everyone is just back to the way they are and how the Volume was pointless. I’d discuss that...but I want you to look at everything he said here. All the lying he did. All the suspect shit he pulled. All the crap he ignored. All the positions he abandoned in Volume 5 to bitch about here.

All the piss he spewed for nothing.

Look at this and think to yourself: Even if I saw the whole thing and heard his reasonings-

Would you believe a word he says?

I had to stop myself from wheezing I laughed at him so hard. This is the video equivalent of that drowning meme

He CREATED every single bit of his situation. He CHOSE to see things this way even after it took mental gynmastics to see it so.

It’s hilarious he acts like he’s in so much pain that HE INFLICTED TO HIMSELF.

I gave FMF a chance. His first point and his last point to impress me even a little. What did I get?

 An ironic comedy routine that makes Beavis and Butt Head look like Steven Hawking. 

[tiesandtea]

Suede in Ray Gun (US), issue 45, April 1997

The London Suede... English voodoo Wherein we learn of the ecstacy of being Suede By Michael Krugman

RG: It's refreshing to not hear the "We're going to tour America and everyone will love us" lip service that most English bands spew about making it here.

B: I'm just honest about it. In almost every other country in the world, we've had quite a lot of success, and it just hasn't happened in the States. Maybe it's something to do with the basic make up of the band that just grates with American music. Maybe it's the fact that we haven't had a successful tour there.

RG: That's true. All of the tours here were troubled in one way or another, what with Bernard's father passing away, or Richard having just stepped in. In many ways, we've never gotten to see the real Suede.

B: No, you haven't really, which is a shame, cos you missed out on something good. It's kind of down to us really, it's our problem. But I think that's pretty much true about a lot of English bands. They fuck up in the States. It's nothing I'm going to lose much sleep about at the moment, though.

A in-depth interview with a US alternative music magazine Ray Gun, conducted in November 1996. Full transcript from Suede Scrapbook (sent in by Elizabeth) under the cut. Scans including photographs by Donald Christie can be viewed here on the Richard Oakes Fans fb page.

It seems an eternity (in pop terms, at least) since Suede were declared the best new band in Britain, one week before the release of their first single. Since that time, so much has happened, both from without - the phenomenon that is Britpop - and, more importantly, from within. Suede v1 were a heavensent combo of genius guitarist and larger-than-life flashboy in Bernard Butler and Brett Anderson. Together they led Suede through two magic records, the eponymous debut and their daring masterwork, Dog Man Star. Then, as quickly as they had arrived, they were gone, split in a burst of still-not-clear acrimony.

Or so it seemed. When Butler bolted, Brett, bassist Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert weren't yet ready to call it quits. They took the high risk of replacing the best guitarist of his generation with an untested 17-year-old with a gift for mimicry, both musical and physical. Young Richard Oakes had to put up with endless "Brett's Little Dick" jokes, even as he proved his abilities on the Dog Man Star tour, a surreal time on the road that saw the band come closer together as people than they ever had before. With the question of “what's the point?” still in the air, Suede went away again, this time to refigure out their purpose and place in the post-Oasis universe.

Two years later, they've finally returned, and, lo and behold, they're as special as ever. With Coming Up, Anderson & Co. have created a chrome and steel cityscape of broken hearts and souls, resplendent in youth and lust and the pursuit of Ecstacy. The sound is vintage Suede, glamtastic guitars swirling, though Oakes and new keyboardist Neil "The Lizard" Codling have substituted a more consise Pop! vibe for Butler's manic virtuosity. The record proves once and for all that Suede are still as vital and vibrant as ever.

Backstage at the Manchester Apollo, a distracted Anderson and Gilbert sit down to talk, their minds not on the inquiry but on the imminent first gig of a long tour. Once the conversation starts, Anderson, known to his bandmates as His Lordship, comes alive, the legendary haughty veneer replaced by a candidness and a big-chested pride that comes from knowing just how good his band Suede really are.

Ray Gun: I suppose we need to start with Bernard's departure. Is there a stock answer? Do we not talk about it at all?

Brett Anderson: I've got a sheet with the stock answer.

Simon Gilbert: There's not a lot too be said. That was three years ago.

Brett: It's ancient history. The only time we ever think about that whole episode is when people ask us in interviews. It's like this bizarre thing that was in the past.

RG: Well then, why don't we talk about Richard? How did he join up?

S: He actually wrote in when he heard Bernard had left the band. He actually wrote in to the fan club, sent in a tape. We heard it, thought it was amazing and got him in for an audition. By the first song - he played "Heroine" - it sort of clicked.

B: That whole period was pretty strange, cos we were touring an album where one of the members who had co-written it with me had pissed off. It was quite frustrating and quite difficult at times. Which I got through with a lot of good will and a lot of positivity, but it was quite hard work. A lot of people had sort of thought, "Awww, the band had collapsed." We had to tour the album. It's just what you've got to do when you're in a band. For one thing, I was really proud of the album. I thought it was a fucking great album, there's a lot of songs on it that I really wanted to play live. I spent seven months writing the fucking thing, and when you put that much work into it, I was living it night and day, you just want people to hear it.

RG: Dog Man Star fell between the cracks in a way. It was overwhelmed by the very public split between the band and Bernard, and more importantly, it is a remarkably adventurous second album that came out at the same time as Britpop began to get more and more generic. Do you feel it went over people's head?

B: Yes and no. Commercially, it did. It wasn't commercial for a couple of factors. Not just because of its musical obscurity or whatever, cos it wasn't that musically obscure-

RG: It was complex.

B: It was complex, yeah. It was a combination of that and losing the guitarist. A lot of people thought the band had split up. A lot of people had a lack of confidence in the band because of that. And it was unfounded because, you know, most people experience backlash because they've made a shitty record, or cos they're not very good anymore. In some senses, Dog Man Star is probably the best record we've ever made. So yeah, it went over some people's head, and it was a difficult record to sell, but I think it was quite a landmark record. I read various snippets of things and people talk about bands trying to make their Dog Man Star. The record has definitely got a character which can be translated to other people's records. It's got a very sort of serious, epic, complex sense, d'you know what I mean.

RG: No matter what tension was going on in the studio, it remains a very brave album, in that you were a relatively straightforward pop band and you made a record that the 14-year-old segment of the audience would invariably be baffled by.

B: That had always been the idea for Suede. We'd be pushing it all the time. We've always had a sense of adventure in the music. It's a very difficult thing for people to get their heads around, cos we tend to write in a very similar, what, when it comes to singles. Like, stylistically, there's not much difference between "Trash" and "The Drowners." They're heady, poppy...a rush. If someone just looked at our singles, they'd say, "Oh this band hadn't progressed at all." But if you listen to any of the albums, we always try to change stuff around. And making Dog Man Star just seemed like a natural progression from the first album. We wanted to do something that was really really out there. And that sort of spirit of adventure has been killed off by Britpop, in a way. I think the good thing about Britpop is that it readdressed songwriting, but I think the bad thing about it is that it promoted safeness in music. And at the time of Dog Man Star, we could've written an album of tracks like "The Drowners" and "Animal Nitrate", we just didn't want to. Cos, you know, you're given a power, you're given a platform, you might as well do something that'll fucking prick up their ears, d'you know what I mean.

RG: Suede were the band that kickstarted the Britpop thing, not unlike what Nirvana did in the US with alt-rock. That is, taking a previously indie sound to the charts. Do you feel responsible for all this?

B: Yeah, totally. If you look at all of this chronologically and historically, Suede were the first band to do that. The kind of things that are in early Suede songs, talking about specifically English culture, not sort of singing songs about, y'know, rockspeak, d'you know what I mean? Just sort of bad cliches. So, not speaking rockspeak, talking about specifically English culture, which we were definitely the first band to do. Before Suede, there was a real confusion about what being in a band was all about. I mean, we came on the scene, we were so specific about what we wanted to be. We wanted to be Suede. And all the other bands around were just without a clue, just a joke. There were all these awful bands that didn't know how to write songs. I don't want to slag a load of bands off cos they're a load of crap. Just these bands that couldn't play, couldn't write a song, had no focus about what being in a band was. And Suede came along, and that's why we stuck out like a sore thumb, cos we had a certain sense of style, which no one else had. I'm not talking about we bought our clothes from fucking Armani or whatever, but there was a sense of what we were. Which was something beyond crappy student hair and shorts.

RG: But then just as you released your masterpiece, you got lost in the wake of Blur, Oasis, etc.

B: Well, yeah, we did, because of the simple fact that we'd lost a member. It would have been a completely different story if he'd stayed in the band. At the time it was quite frustrating, but I think, looking back on it, it was the best thing that could've happened. Cos I don't think we are considered a Britpop band. The same way that you wouldn't call the Stone Roses a baggy band, even though they started it. They're kind of beyond it by doing it in the first place, d'you know what I mean?

RG: Did you feel a sense of competition in making Coming Up? A need to prove yourselves?

S: There's probably an element of that, but it wasn't something we consciously had.

B: One of our strengths is that we don't particularly get influenced by what's going on around us. Some people might say that's a failing, cos you're not taking stuff in. I think Suede have definitely always had their own sense of style, they always had their own direction. I think there was a definite desire to refocus what we're about, cos I think with Dog Man Star, it went very experimental, we went in all directions everywhere. What you want to do is bring it all back to the central thing, and refocus on what the essence of the band was.

RG: That's the thing about Coming Up. It's Suede distilled to down to it's very nature. There's no wanky bits on this record.

B: Yeah. It was really important just to cut out all the dead wood, not have anything that didn't work. I wanted to make the sort of album that would work the first time you listened to a band. You don't have to like Suede to get into it, d'you know what I mean? It would just work on its own terms.

RG: In a sense, it was your first album. For any number of reasons, this Suede is not the same Suede.

B: It wasn't 'til we started writing the album, and Neil came along really, and the second phase of Suede really took off. Cos then it was really a new band. It wasn't just like the same instruments and stuff like that. I did feel as though Neil and Richard sort of combined to take it into a completely new form. No one could say, "Oh, they're just trying to replace Bernard," or whatever, it was a completely new feel to the band.

RG: The record seems to be influenced by real things, by friends and family, by being a person and not a pop star.

B: Definitely. It wasn't something I did consciously, but I did definitely retreat from all that. I pretty much retreated from the pop star shit really. I just got completely disillusioned from it and didn't particularly feel like going to the Squirrel's after show or anything like that, d'you know what I mean?

RG: As the scene became more celebrity oriented, you were noticeably absent.

B: We have this image of being this band of blokes that are kind of like obsessed with our hair and like, the superficial side of it all, and there's nothing further from the truth. I'm just so disinterested in the Face side of being a pop star.

RG: You certainly know how to use it to your advantage, though.

B: Well, sticking it in front of a fucking camera, if your face is going to be on the cover of a magazine and 100,000 people are going to read it, you don't want to look like you're just woken up, do you?

RG: The characters on Coming Up are like a chronicle of the modern drug-taking lifestyle.

B: Virtually everyone in London, a huge section of the people I know, are just complete rave heads and complete weekenders. There's this whole culture, this weekender culture, where you work throughout the week and on the weekend they just go completely insane. They're just popping pills like there's no tomorrow. And there are a lot of those sort of people on the record, yeah.

RG: And yourself? You've got a reputation as someone who enjoys a bit of chemicals.

B: No more than anyone else, really. I've always had too much of a focus on what I'm doing to ever slip too much into it. I've always almost used drugs, in a way, rather than let them use me. I've used them, yeah, (A), to let off steam. Who doesn't? When you're thinking all day, you need to just be blank for a couple of hours. And (B), to sort of like stimulate your mind sometimes. But when you say something like that and people get the wrong end of the stick. You get headlines like "BRETT PROMOTES DRUGS TO WRITE." Which is absolute bollocks. I'd say quite the opposite. I'd say it actually deters you sometimes, it actually stops you from thinking. But, y'know, when you're taking drugs and fucking hammering yourself into the ground for 15 years, which I have been doing, you actually get a sense of how to use them. There's a total difference between some 16-year-old taking drugs, and taking fucking Ecstasy for 15 years now, d'you know what I mean? So I know exactly how my body reacts, I know exactly how my mind reacts, I know exactly how to use it rather than let it use me.

RG: To be honest about it. Too many people go, "Don't do drugs" or "Drugs are the greatest!" whether they mean it or not.

B: I'll tell you what. We're doing this interview for the States, and I think there's so much fucking dishonesty about drugs in the States. It's one thing that really pisses me off. It's fashionable to say that you used to do it and you don't do it anymore. It's fashionable to be in rehab. All you have to do is say you're in rehab and make the right sort of music and you've got a hit record. And it's got nothing to do with your music, it's got to do with this society of people who go to rehab. It's absolute utter fucking bollocks.

RG: It's the culture of apology, the idea of saying, "I'm better now."

B: Exactly. Especially when it's saying, "Oh, I'm a rock 'n' roll and cool because I used to do drugs. I'm not a complete square. But I've given them up now, so I'm a good guy." Why don't you be fucking honest about it and say what you do and what you don't do. It's a load of fucking lies. It's all over the world, but it's extremified in the States, cos, y'know, everything's extremified in the States.

RG: Seeing how you've been so honest on the subject, did Damon Albarn's much-quoted comments about you being some kind of junkie piss you off?

B: I just don't like people commenting on what I do. I'm willing to talk about anything, but when other people start passing judgement on me...

RG: I want to talk about the more common Suede images, things like electricity and diesel and the sea and so forth.

B: There's a definite language that I like to make my own. I like to use words - not repetitively, I've never overused a word or phrase. The most used one is like, "hired car," which I've used about three times. I quite like establishing your own kind of language, and almost like, putting a copyright on your language, so when someone comes along and uses a word like that, then you can go, "Ah, that's one of my words," d'you know what I mean?

RG: So if someone writes about, say, the motorway...

B: Then I'll slam them into court and sue their asses. Seriously, that's why as a lyricist I have a style, like I have as a singer. I think lyrically speaking, words are generally pretty barren at the moment, and I think it's important to have a bit of pride in what you do and take it seriously.

RG: The imagery you use creates a very vivid world, albeit one that is very modern and very cold.

B: I try to put a bit of warmth in it as well. I don't see the world as this pointlessly bleak experience. There's a lot of optimism I have for life. Living in London is really exciting every day. I like to write about things that have got a timelessness, that's quite important to me. I don't like writing about things that are just of the moment. I tend to choose things like electricity or something like that, specific things that are part of the modern age, the modern age being something that happened about 96 years ago and that'll carry on for another hundred.

RG: Is there are Suede tribute band like say, No Way Sis?

B: Yes, actually, in Canada. They're called Snide. They come from London, Ontario and they do Suede and the Sex Pistols, so that's really cool. That's the only one I know, though I think there's a couple in Australia as well.

RG: Does the singer try to look like you? That's always the funniest part of those bands.

B: Yeah, like a cross between me and Johnny Rotten, if there is such a thing.

RG: Do you really want to make it in the US? Do you care anymore?

B: Not really, no. To be absolutely totally honest. I've been over there three times, three big tours, worked really hard, and at the end of the day, maybe there's just something about Suede that just doesn't connect with the American mentality. If they like the record, then they like the record. Your role as a musician is kind of like being this conquerer, and I find that really unhealthy. Everyone's always talking about breaking territories like they're fucking Alexander the Great.

RG: It's refreshing to not hear the "We're going to tour America and everyone will love us" lip service that most English bands spew about making it here.

B: I'm just honest about it. In almost every other country in the world, we've had quite a lot of success, and it just hasn't happened in the States. Maybe it's something to do with the basic make up of the band that just grates with American music. Maybe it's the fact that we haven't had a successful tour there.

RG: That's true. All of the tours here were troubled in one way or another, what with Bernard's father passing away, or Richard having just stepped in. In many ways, we've never gotten to see the real Suede.

B: No, you haven't really, which is a shame, cos you missed out on something good. It's kind of down to us really, it's our problem. But I think that's pretty much true about a lot of English bands. They fuck up in the States. It's nothing I'm going to lose much sleep about at the moment, though.

RG: The thing with Suede is that you are pretty much a band of outsiders. In many ways, so are the kids that listen to you. Perhaps more so.

B: Totally. We do get a certain section of our audience that, you know, the Suede gigs they're coming to are the only times they've been out this year. They come in slippers, d'you know what I mean? Slippers and a dressing gown, rubbing their eyes like they just got out of bed. But yeah, we do attract a lot of people that are attracted to the band for unusual reasons, or are inspired by the band when they wouldn't be inspired by other people. It's not your run of the mill interchangeable "another band" kind of thing, and that's something I've always been determined not to be, "another band." It can sometimes be hard work, because you pretty much play on your own field, and you're pretty much cutting your own grass and making your own headway. It can be quite lonely, but it's a position we've always wanted.

[thorinss]

MAKING MONEY ONLINE

hey y’all. i decided suddenly to make this post because i know it could be super helpful to people out there who might be struggling for money, or even those who just want to earn some extra cash on the side. i’ve been doing this for about 6 months and while it’s not full time or even part time work, it’s extra money that you can use for food, hobbies, gas, etc.

a lot of these sites i am about to list pay very little (we’re talking pennies or dollars) but it accumulates over time if you’re willing to keep at it. in combination these are all good sites to just leave in an open browser or tab and just do the tasks passively as they come in or as you feel like it. half the time i’m playing the sims on one monitor and earning money on my other monitor.

anyways here we go! these are in no particular order; just in the order that i think of them. i will include my referral codes but don’t feel obligated to use them!

Prolific - this one is my favorite because i have had the most success with it. there are a lot of survey sites out there that will kick you out mid-survey after you’ve already invested so much time into them because you’re “not qualified” to answer the questions. prolific is the opposite. you sign up, fill out your profile, and the surveys that fit your demographic will come to you. most of them only take a few minutes to complete but the payout is better than most other survey sites out there. the surveys come from academic researchers who use your data anonymously for studies. some days you won’t get any studies, and some days you’ll get several. you can cash out to paypal once you reach $5. keep a prolific open in a tab and it will alert you when a new study is available!

Slicethepie (non-referral link) - i discovered this one recently and it’s one of my favorites. the pay is very little; i’m only making 4c per review right now but i’m told the pay goes up the more you review. all you do is sign up and get paid to write short reviews for clothing, get paid to watch movie clips or commercials, or get paid to listen to new music (whaaaaat). it’s one of the more fun ways to make money. it takes a couple minutes and you earn a  few pennies after each one. those quickly add up!

Usertesting - this one is really good if you manage to qualify for the tests, which can be hit or miss (mostly miss in my case). it requires a microphone and being okay with recording your screen and sending the info to a company. basically, people pay you to test our their websites and make comments about it. they’ll ask you to go to their website and look for something specific, and you have to voice your thoughts about the site out loud as you look for what it is they asked for. the pay is $10 per test which is amazing, but you have to take a pre-screener test to qualify for them. overall i’ve made maybe $40 total by working passively (not every day) in the last 6 months but hey - that’s a tank of gas.

more under the cut!

rev - if you’re a fast typer, a good listener, and have some time on your hands, this is a pretty good option. rev is a transcription service, so you listen to some audio and type out what the people are saying, and then get paid for it. some of the audio is garbage which is why they pay people to transcribe it, but if you have the time you can make a few bucks. just make sure you take it seriously because if you somehow appear to be “below average” at this, they will terminate your account. the amount of transcriptions that appear varied so you just have to keep an eye out.

GG2U (non-referral link) - this one is pretty dope. sign up for free trials, install and play video games, take surveys, watch videos, and earn points. 100 points = $1. within 5 minutes of signing up i had $7. just be certain to cancel any trials before the trial period ends so you don’t get charged. 

amazon turk - not gonna lie, i have not been able to achieve this one, but i have personally seen people make hundreds and thousands on this platform. if you don’t know already, mturk is where clients post microtasks for humans to do that robots cannot yet achieve. if you are willing to put in more work than me and figure it out, check our /r/mturk or do some googling before pursuing it.

Ibotta (non-referral link) - (get a $20 welcome bonus if you use my referral and scan your first receipt) this is an app that offers cash back for shopping at the stores listed on ibotta. you buy an item from the store listed on ibotta, can your receipt into the app, and boom you get cash back.

qmee - this one makes chump change but it’s worth it. you complete surveys for some change (50c or somewhere around that) and that’s it. there’s also a browser extension; i use this more than the surveys. the extension pops up on the side of your window whenever you search something on the internet - but only if it’s something that qmee is looking for. and occasionally it offers a few pennies if you click on the link. best part is you can cash out no matter how much you’ve made. i cashed out 32c the other day lmao.

inboxdollars (non-referral link) - i don’t know if it’s just me, but this website only works on firefox for me. my chrome hates it. but anyways, this site provides very passive income. i do not recommend the surveys; they’ll have you answer a bunch of questions and you think you’re going to finish it and get the $$$, but then it kicks you out because “you’re not qualified”. the ways to earn that i like are watching videos in the TV/videos tab and playing the games in the games tab. after you watch x amount of videos or play x amount of games, you get a scratch off ticket. i usually get about 15c from them, but it’s something. when i first started i worked my way about to $50. they send you a check in the mail.

redbubble (my shitty store) - y’all know about this one already i’m sure. if you’re creative and think you can make a design for shirts and accessories, go ahead and make an account! you might make zero money, you might make a few bucks every couple months, or you might make a couple hundred. it all depends so this one is really a gamble, but still worth looking at if you’re into that sort of thing! 

crowdtap - haven’t used this one in a while but i will be getting back into it. you take surveys and answer questions for brands and receive points in return. you need to accumulate 500 points before you can begin cashing out, which will take a while. after that, you can redeem the points for gift cards to amazon/sephora/walmart/etc, use the points for a subscription service, or use the points to donate money to a charity.

swagbucks (non-referral link) - this site is wild and just like mturk, i have yet to master it, but have seen others do so. it’s another typical survey site very similar to inboxdollars listed above. you can take surveys for swagbucks (points), watch videos, use their cash back feature, etc. 

vindale research (non referral link) - similar to prolific. it’s surveys from researchers that pay a few dollars for you to answer some questions. length of survey varies. each survey generally pays aroud $1. there is also a jobs tab that gives a list of jobs in your area.

submittable - this one is a recent discovery. my first article was rejected but i’d like to share this one anyways in case someone would like to pursue it! there’s a large list of writing and art contests mainly. a lot of them don’t seem to be offering pay but the ones that do offer a huge payout if you win the competition.

cambly - if you have any type of skill in teaching other languages, being a life coach, of just have any knowledge you think you can pass along, cambly might be for you. when you sign up there are two options, be tutored or become the tutor. if you want to tutor people, you need a webcam and microphone access. my connection never worked with cambly so i have not been able to personally try it, but i have seen people make a lot of money from teaching english to little kids.

ebates (non referral link) - another cash back option every time you buy something online. or you can link your credit/debit card and use it when you buy stuff in stores. so you get money for spending money. good stuff y’all.

lionbridge & appen - these two sites are basically the same thing just different companies. this is the ONLY two sites on my list that pay hourly. i believe it’s somewhere between $9 - $12? i could be wrong. but once you sign up, apply, and get approved, you could be doing a multitude of things, inducing: translation, transcription, social media evaluation, data collection, and more. 

TIPS:

minimum requirements are internet, a computer, and a phone. if you have an extra laptop or computer that still works, set it up and let videos on inboxdollars or swagbucks run in the background. this way you are making money without even thinking about it. you could even just open the videos in another window and mute them, which is what i’m doing right now. you still get the credit for watching them but you don’t actually have to listen to them.

this is not a get rich quick and easy deal. none of these jobs are simple and you won’t be pulling in hundreds per day. it’s hard, annoying work. so don’t expect to be rolling in the dough.

if you can, create a second email for all those times you get asked to sign up for something or subscribe to a newsletter. this way your actual personal inbox isn’t getting spammed with ridiculous things you don’t care about. just check the second email once in a while to make sure no one has sent you anything important. if you choose to get email notifications for new paid surveys on whichever site, i recommend letting those go to your personal inbox so that you may see them. or use the second email and check it daily. it’s up to you!

even though these sites don’t pay a lot, when you use them all together you can get a decent amount of cash. i’ve seen people work entirely from home, pulling $1000-$2000 per month just by using sites like this. but obviously that doesn’t mean it will be the case for everybody. i do this stuff on the side and am happy with just making a few dollars per day.

if it ever feels pointless because you only earned 30c or $1 just remember this - it’s more money than you had five minutes ago. it’s something. it might not pay the bills but eventually it might buy you a coffee or sit in your savings collecting interest. however you want to use it!

CASH OUT IMMEDIATELY. as soon as you are allowed to transfer your money to paypal or wherever, do it asap. there have been times where sites will shut down or glitch out and you are unable to get back all that money you earned.

be careful with some surveys. if they seem fishy or gimmicky or are constantly offering you to sign up for a bunch of bullshit, exit immediately. it will get you nowhere.

do not use VPNs. this usually results in getting banned.

OTHER RESOURCES:

i cannot possibly list every single way to make money online because there is so much! i listed my favorites but please check out these other websites that provide even more information and opportunities. they’re the reason i know so much and have been able to earn money on the side.

down the rabbit hole you go!

r/beermoney (wiki)

r/workonline

r/flipping

the work at home wife

i hope this helps someone out there. i have a job but i don’t get enough hours so i try to make a little extra on the side utilizing all these sites. and i have bad social anxiety so anything i can do to work from the comfort of my own home is my ideal situation. as i said, you won’t make a lot of money to begin with, or even later down the line, but as i’ve repeated - it’s something. it’s $5 more than you had earlier.

again, hope this helps and please let me know if it does! and if you have any questions i can try to help you!

[philosophicalparadox]

Demon Splicing and Why the Clones Failed.

This is more like a research paper than a fan theory, but hey, I had fun. I’ll try to improv some citations at the bottom, but I don’t guarantee that Tumblr will let me keep them there. 

Now, this is a HUGE, MASSIVE, LONG-ASS POST, and once more it is ultra-sciencey; so if you have any confusions, questions, or want to just look the other way and just go “eh, magic” then that is totally okay. I don’t, and won’t, claim to be any kind of authority on these things; I just needed an excuse to open my computer again and I guess do some intense research into etymology (that would be the study of anything with an exoskeleton, basically. I promise it is very much relevant to this theory.). 

Summary/TLDR: Demons need specific qualities in their hosts in order to suit themselves, ergo they modify their host’s bodies by using Mutually symbiotic viruses, akin to those of the Polydnaviridae ingroup which coexists within several genera of parasitoid wasps, to alter the human genome. What we explore here is how they do so. Also, because it is intrinsically connected, we will also be dipping our toes into why, exactly, the clones weren’t “suitable” in all instances, as well as how demons may or may not select their hosts. This circles back to my previous post discussing the Twin’s and Paternity, and specifically the topic of genetic expression, though you do not need to have seen or read that post to understand what I’m talking about here. Also discussed is the matter of genes that humans lack, but which would seem to find their way in during possession; the production of feathers, the formation of additional limbs, proteins,  and such which are simply not within the power of any existing virus we know of to alter . 

One thing must lead to another however, so before we get into the biological science, we need to get into the hypothetical, cosmological stuff that is quantum physics. Didn’t see that one coming, did ya?

Demons and DNA: 

We know from that one elusive panel of chapter 44 ( I think...) that demons have genetics - they have genes, which implies that they have, at the very least, DNA. The question then is how, but more so where - where did those genes come from?. Demons don’t have physical bodies, right...? Why would they need DNA? 

Because maybe some of them do possess actual, physical “bodies”, or at least cells, that preside in Gehenna. 

The Demon Kings are quite likely to be an exception rather than a rule, considering they were the first demons to have come into existence, or at the very least the first demons to have ever attained bodies -- which is precisely how demonkind may have obtained DNA in the first place, via a phenomena called horizontal transference. 

Now, I’m going to contradict, in a sense, my other post here, and tell you to forget what you were taught about viruses in high school. Virology is a complicated school of biology, and viruses are extremely simple, and yet extremely complex organisms. Now, viruses typically contain RNA which allows the virus to reproduce once it is injected into the cells of its host by combining viral RNA with eukaryotic (for the sake of simplicity) DNA. 

However, there are strains of viruses that contain DNA, not RNA. No one is completely sure how these viruses evolved, but one theory would suggest that these dnaviruses “stole” part of their genetic material from the hosts they evolved with, incorporating pieces of lipids and proteins to turn their RNA into functional DNA; this process of one organism “stealing” DNA from another is called horizontal transference, and it is how bacteria and other asexually reproducing organisms maintain genetic diversity and “evolve”. 

But, you ask, how the bloody hell does a Virus have DNA? How does it replicate?

 When most people think of viruses, they think of mobile ones, pathogenic ones - but dnaviruses are not usually pathogenic, instead highjacking the excretory or reproductive systems of their hosts and using their reproductive cells to spread genealogically from parent to offspring. One well-studied example of this is the polydnavirus found in Ichneumon wasps, which are themselves parasitoid. They reproduce by injecting their eggs into the bodies of paralyzed caterpillars, who then feed the hatching larvae with it’s living tissues. However, one problem the wasp faces with this method of reproduction is the caterpillar’s immune system, which could kill the eggs - were it not for the polydnavirus, which produces chemical signals that prevent the caterpillar’s immune system from destroying the precious egg that is it’s host cell. As the larvae develops, the polydnavirus is replicated into the cells of the larvae, and once it hatches it is literally born with the virus in it’s body. (I’ll let you go wild with the half-demon thing there, I’m here to talk about possession right at the moment.)

Ok, ok, but what does this have to do with demons? after all, demon possession is, in a way, “contagious” since demons can go from host to host. 

Welcome then, to the world of multi-viral mutual symbiosis - fancy way of saying viruses can work together to meet the ends of one another in a host if it benefits both viruses. Demons may possess some form of this event, being somehow sentient (by means perhaps of primitive, conductive cells not unlike what you would find in a jellyfish) but ultimately composed of or utilizing not only one, but several strains of viruses to fulfil their parasitic ends, one which allows them to infect the host and modify existing DNA, and one which can incorporate it’s own DNA into that of the host to bring about desirable conditions. To that, I must add as a courtesy that those primitive conductive cells which could, in a way, offer sentience, may in fact be what comprises the physical manifestations of demon’s hearts. None of this is, of course, to explain demon magic, which is a subject I do intend to breach one of these days - but not today. Today, we do science.

 This goes away to explain why Todou sprouted feathers, a phenomena that would not have otherwise been biologically possible given the constraints of human protein structure. That isn’t to say that it would be impossible for a virus to modify via RNA transcription keratinoid proteins to form hollow attachments, which is exactly what you find in polar bears and porcupines, but the structure of feathers is, I’m afraid, just too far off the mammalian path for it to be but a 0.03% likelihood via RNA transcription alone, meaning that it would have to have been the result of DNA that isn’t human. 

Speaking of statistical probabilities: 

Cloning and the Failure Thereof

Humanity has a hollywood-induced idea that cloning organisms is a fail-less system, when that could not be further from the truth. In point of fact, only about 3% of all attempted cloning experiments with everything from fish to sheep produce viable, healthy clones. This is because cloning is done, kind of ironically, in much the same way as a virus operates; by using the  DNA and RNA of the existing mother’s cell’s to complete the chromosomal pairing up that normally happens in the zygote during fertilization. Because of this, the RNA transcribes, ideally, the same exact DNA code that the “mother” has; but here again we get into genetic expression, because though a clone is genetically the same as it’s parent, it is exactly BECAUSE it is genetically identical that recessive (and often in the case of  some experimental animals, fatal) traits and gene combinations can occur, depending on exactly how the original, zygotic DNA is copied. Even when using the RNA of the same organism, transcription errors naturally occur -- and they occur so frequently, in fact, that very few cloning attempts are ever successful; that is, they either produce genetically weak, fatal-combination, infertile, or underdeveloped offspring that ultimately can’t be re-cloned or which can not reproduce, and therefore negate the incentive to clone an organism for it’s “healthy genes”. 

Connecting the dots: 

When a demon is cloned, it’s human DNA is cloned; but so are the genetic modifications of the dnavirus, which is why clones seem to have human superpowers. They are no loner 100% genetically human, and that opens the door to all kinds of genetic complications and probably meant that thousands, not hundreds, of clones were “discarded”, and hundreds died before they even lived. Simply put, it’s an absolute bloody miracle that the cloning thing worked at all, much less that Lucifer was able to remotely perfect the technique. 

How he did so is not so much a mystery though; unlike what you would assume, with mammals at least, the more often you re-clone a clone, the “cleaner” it’s genetic code seems to become by phenomena of natural selection and artificial selection; clones with good genes are re-cloned, clones exhibiting bad genes are culled or die on their own, and so on and so on until you get a good sized population of identical clones. With the added fuel of the elixir to make growth happen phenomenally fast, it’s not too surprising that he has a private stock of cloned bodies to inhabit whenever he likes. (Which gave me big Orochimaru vibes, just sayin’). 

As for the RNA virus body, I suspect that is retained with the demon at all times, which makes sense because once and RNA virus stops replicating it’s RNA into the host, the host cells re-fix the “broken” codes and eventually replaces the alien DNA created by the virus with it’s own; however, a dnavirus’ DNA gets worked semi-permanently into the system of it’s host, since it has it’s own completed code which is then, reversedly, transcribed over and over by the host’s RNA transcription, which is why dnaviruses went undetected by science until about 20 years ago, and why, God forbid, if there was ever a pathogenic dnavirus, we would all be royally screwed because even the best immune system on earth can’t detect a dnavirus because our immune systems rely on identification markers dependent on RNA viruses; oddly, however, so does every other organism, meaning there literally is not a single living thing, including caterpillars and spiders who are victims directly of “pathogenic” polydnaviruses, has an immune system that could find the damn things. They utilize the host’s own RNA to transcribe their DNA, and therefore go almost completely undetected by whatever they infect.  

Speaking of which, let’s talk about:

Immunity and Prions

If Demons rely on RNA viruses to primarily infect their host, then it would make sense why some people would be more resistant than others; however, there  is a compelling aspect of demon possession which makes me think that it is the other way around - everyone is resistant, until they are not. 

Demons typically possess bodies which have weak-minded and psychologically stressed individuals behind them. Stress weakens the immune system, but it does so in specific ways; and certain viruses in real life are programmed to take advantage of these specific measures more than others. 

Right now in the US, there is a nasty epidemic of CWD, Chronic Wasting Disease, spreading through native deer populations on the east coast. This “zombie disease” is a virus that infects the nervous system of the deer (along with cattle and sheep) and forms prions - folded proteins that are then replicated, and replicated, and replicated; and like cancer of the brain, they just keep on replicating and replicating, eating up the animal’s energy reserves and drastically impacting their behavior and bodily functions, starting by supressing and outright destroying their immune system. Mad Cow Disease is a more famous example of a prion disease in the same family as CWD, except that those prions migrate; they move into the soft tissues of the animal and make every single part of it impossible to eat without also contracting the prion, which contains the virus; and MCD is not remotely picky about it’s host, since it affects a very basic protein structure. Any and everything from birds to reptiles to humans can be infected by MCD and it is completely fatal. 

My point is, that CWD and MCD both primarily infect animals exhibiting high levels of stress hormones, which is why outbreaks happen primarily during the breeding seasons for these animals. Not only that, but the virus then directly attacks the animal’s immune systems and opens them up to every kind of secondary infection you can imagine. 

However, prion diseases and even just plain old viruses can do the exact opposite as well. HIV is a common virus that kills you by making your immune system hyperresponsive, not by shutting it down; it becomes so responsive, in fact, that it attacks healthy tissues. Prion diseases which affect insects also do this, creating folded proteins in the nervous system of the bug that trigger it’s immune system to continuously flood the body with antibodies until it is just too exhausted to do so, and the insect’s body decays as a result of secondary infection. 

It could be that this is the case of demons as well. Prions would be valuable in affecting the behavior of the host, though not necessary; they would, however, make the ingestion of a possessed person almost guaranteed to infect you, since most viruses just don’t have the defenses on their own to tackle stomach acid, but a prion virus does. 

To recap: 

Demons use DNA and RNA viruses to infect and modify their host to their liking, perhaps using the assistance of prions to aid in endurance and transmissibility. Because of this, cloning is a gamble of “what DNA will I pull out of the box today” since the DNA virus’ DNA, and possibly even any prions, is left behind even after the parasitic demon leaves; however, the RNA virus is inert once it leaves a host body, and therefore is retained by the demon within whatever primitive cells they may carry in their demon hearts, which may be taken from some immutable “form” or body that they possess on the other side of the divide (in Gehenna); these alien forms may be the byproduct of their first ever possession, using, perhaps, horizontal transference to absorb some of the DNA from their first (and possibly even subsequent) host and then re-incorporate it into subsequent hosts, which is how Amaimon would be reptilian in spite of having a mammal body; because he perhaps, first possessed or found genetic favor of a reptile of some kind and “borrowed” the DNA from them via horizontal transference, since it worked for him. This can then be applied in turn to all other demons, or at least demon kings. 

DISCLAIMER:

I spent literally a week researching this stuff, but I am welcome to criticism of my shoddy work. Also, I am in no way saying this is technically right; it’s just a theory after all, and you’re more than welcome to disagree. :)

If anyone wants to add on, feel free. :) I think I’m done for the week. 

[1000-directions]

hello, sorry if this is too personal but i remember you mentioning a few times that you dropped out of school? how did you reach that decision? was it hard to explain that decision to other people? i'm very struggling (i mean mentally not that it's too hard) with uni, i have been for years and this was supposed to be my final year but i don't think i can do it but i'm also very embarrassed about it (also if i'm wrong and you never dropped out please ignore this)

anon, you have come to the right place, because i dropped out of school not once but actually twice. no two experiences are alike, including my own, so obviously what you are going through is going to be very personal and specific to you, but i am happy to talk about my own experiences.

first of all, i am so, so sorry that you’re going through this. i want to make sure you know that no matter what decision you make, you have not failed, and this is not going to define your life or who you are as a person. your life is unruinable. you have not ruined your life, and you will not ruin your life, and you are going to get past this, and someday, it will just be something shitty you went through when you were younger. i promise.

the first time i left school was a combination of me dropping out and being kicked out. very soon after i arrived for my first semester of college, i had what has been described to me as a psychotic breakdown (i am not sure if i agree, but this is what i was diagnosed with at the time). because of this, i stopped eating and sleeping and showering and going to class and doing my work, and i failed all of my classes. they tried to kick me out, but my parents threatened to sue the school because at one point i had emailed the dean asking for help and she didn’t reply to my email, so they ended up placing me on medical leave with an option to return in the future, but i never went back.

this is probably not the same issue you are having, but that’s not what matters. what i want to share with you is how i handled the leaving of school and the returning to home. my family was extremely ashamed of this situation, and it made me feel very personally humiliated by my own existence, and as a result, i withdrew from absolutely everyone in my life. this is a bad idea!! don’t do this!!! look, not everyone is going to understand what you are going through or the decisions you make, and you are not going to have the energy to make everyone understand. but you can’t isolate yourself from your entire support system when you are going through a crisis, that doesn’t work! you deserve to be supported when you are going through a difficult time, just like you would want to support the people in your life who you care about. no one is entitled to all the details of your situation, but you are allowed to share as much or as little as you like with the people around you. lots of people leave school. LOTS of people leave school, for lots of reasons! people change their minds, they fail out, they leave to care for sick family members, they get sick themselves, they get burned out, they run out of money. people leave school all the time, and it is one thing about them, but it’s not the only thing about them.

i went back to school eventually, i lived at home and commuted to a state school. i started back with one night class, then two, then one night class and one during the day on the main campus, etc etc, but i was part-time for like the entire first half of my credits. going back was very hard. being a student is its own skill that has nothing to do with how smart you are, and it was a skill that i hadn’t used in a while, so i really struggled with time management and writing papers and how to take good notes and how to respond to criticism. it was fucking hard, but it got easier, and i did get my degree eventually.

the second time i dropped out of school was in some ways better and in some ways worse. i decided i wanted to go to grad school, so i was working 40+ hours a week and then taking night classes for prerequisites, spending hundreds of dollars on transcripts and applications, and doing some specific volunteer/observation work that was encouraged for application. i ended up being accepted to a very competitive program, and i quit my job and moved to an apartment right next to school. and almost immediately after getting there, it felt bad, but i had worked so hard and given up so much to be there that i just refused to acknowledge the red flags and i kept trying to push through. and i was fucking miserable, and i cried all the time, and i felt like a dumb worthless idiot who was never going to amount to anything, and it was horrible. i lasted a year there, and by the end, i was having panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. i felt trapped, like i had absolutely no options, and it was terrifying. realizing that i felt trapped is what eventually led me to drop out. because i fucking refused to be suicidal again, i refused to let myself feel trapped when there is always some way out.

so i dropped out, and it was very difficult for a while. when i started that program, i was the most confident, best version of myself i had ever been, but when i left, i was so broken and defeated and had no faith in myself. getting my mental health back in order was a huge struggle, and finding a job was also a huge struggle. i figured out both of them, much quicker than i did the first time, but it was just…really frustrating to go through that experience and to feel like a failure, like i’d backslid after making so much progress.

i will say that who i am now, today, is probably my favorite me i’ve ever been. i still have a lot of issues, there are still so many things i dislike about myself that i am never going to feel comfortable getting into, but i think there is a strength that comes from getting over a bad situation. you are strong enough. the first time you need to be strong is the worst. but any time after that, you get to tell yourself ‘i did this before, and i can do it again.’

anon, you will have to decide for yourself if you think you should just tough it out at school or if you really need to drop out. i don’t know what the best decision for you is. dropping out of school will leave you with a lot of debt. it leaves you with a giant gap in your resume that can be hard to explain. it leaves you without a degree, which you need for a lot of jobs these days. depending on your student loans, you might have to start paying them back sooner than expected once you drop out (or they might start accruing interest sooner). these are important things to consider, but they are not the only things to consider.

your mental wellbeing is important. if being in school makes you miserable, it is worth exploring other options. can you take a leave of absence? can you go part-time? can you take some classes online instead of going to a classroom? is the problem actually school itself, or is there a different or smaller issue that you can address more directly? is there counseling available to you (recognizing that student health counselors are sometimes Not Helpful, and that mental health care in this country is so expensive)?

there is a way through this. actually, there are lots of ways through this, and there probably isn’t one perfect way, just lots of different ways with their own pros and cons, and whichever one you pick, you will find yourself on a specific path, and then you just…deal with wherever you end up.

i don’t know if any of this is helpful at all, but i want to make sure you know that you’re not alone. no matter what choice you make, i’m proud of you. i understand feeling embarrassed about it, and i am always here if you want to talk or vent or brainstorm strategies. we’re all supporting you 💚💛💜

[thesydneyfeminists]

Joss Whedon and Vee: It’s Complicated

By: Vee H.

Here’s the thing, I have a confusing relationship with Joss Whedon. If we were “Facebook official” (does anyone still call it that, or have I just revealed my true spiritual age of 105?) our relationship status would be “it’s complicated”. It didn’t used to be like that; as a teenager, I probably would have said my favourite tv show was Buffy The Vampire Slayer, with its spin-off, Angel, in second place. I fell in love with a premise that Whedon certainly did not create (one girl in all the world, blah blah) nor was he the best at executing it. Whether it was the characters he’d created, the actors playing them, the witty scripts and storylines – or a mix of all of these things, I was hooked. I staunchly defended the show, and by proxy, Whedon himself, from any harsh criticisms, and overlooked anything that now, as a 32-year-old, stands out as (and I hate using this word) problematic. I followed him from Buffy; to Angel, Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog, Dollhouse (look, I skipped Firefly for some reason, I’ve tried dipping a toe in but space cowboys aren’t for me, it seems), and that’s not to mention the movies he had a hand in (not an exhaustive list) – The Cabin in the Woods, The Avengers and The Avengers Age of Ultron. I was loyal, if Whedon’s name was attached, most likely, I was all in. There was something comforting and familiar about his humour, the way he told his stories – all of them laughably simple but layered to make them more complex. Like Shrek and onions.

So maybe you’re wondering where I took a left turn, jumped off the Joss Whedon Fan Train, as it were. Admittedly, it was a slow process, it wasn’t just a running leap off into the unknown post-Whedon world. A few years after Angel ended, some things circulated in the Buffy and Angel fandoms, rumours of how he treated his favourites, and those who had fallen out of favour with him. One of those people being Charisma Carpenter. In 2009 at a convention, a fan asked her how she felt about Cordelia’s last story line in Angel and how the show changed after her departure. While she didn’t explicitly come out and say the exact reason, she hinted that Whedon had been mad at her for making certain life decisions that would directly impact the vision he had for his show. Rumours have long since abounded that, in short, he punished her for falling pregnant. Obviously, no one but Carpenter and Whedon know the true story and at the time of hearing it, I took it with a grain of salt, but that seedling sat in the back of my mind and began to grow. After all, it explained a lot about the fourth season of Angel, and why the character of Cordelia made a complete 360. It was here that my relationship with Whedon started to sour, I began to question how someone who was so outspoken and publicly proud to be a feminist, could treat a woman that he had worked with for nearly a decade like that.

With that knowledge in mind, it was hard not to view some of the dialogue and plot points in his media a little differently, this is only one small example, but looking back, there is way too much slut shaming going on in Buffy to the point where Faith (my favourite character in the whole series, don’t @ me, I’ll defend her until I die) is seen as a lesser person than everyone else, because other female characters (Willow, Cordelia and Buffy herself) have branded her as a “cleavagey slutbomb”. Sure, ok, she goes and kills a bunch of people but they focus on her being slut much more than a psychopath – and I feel the need to point out that we only actually saw her sleep with one person (Xander) by the time the slut shaming actually started, and not that we should count, but Faith only slept with three people (Xander, Robin, and Riley in Buffy’s body) in the whole course of the show. And she killed four humans. Which means in Joss Whedon’s world, if you’re a woman, having sex is a worse crime than murder. Not exactly a feminist message.

Cut to just last year, when Whedon’s ex-wife, Kai Cole, came out with a heartbreakingly honest account of just what went down in their marriage. Details of his infidelity, gaslighting and emotional manipulation came spilling out of her, and sure, you could argue she was an embittered ex-wife, wanting to hit him where it would hurt the most, but it’s interesting to note that Whedon himself has never actually outright denied or refuted these claims. And ok, infidelity does not strip you of the right to call yourself a feminist, but as written by Clementine Ford “it's about how he absolved himself in a letter sent to Cole after his infidelity had finally been exposed, blaming the women he cheated with, calling them "beautiful, needy, aggressive young women" who "surrounded" him.” It’s about how he used his feminist badge as a shield, claiming he was raised feminist so he just liked women better, or how he claimed in a letter to Cole, and I quote, “in many ways I was the HEIGHT of normal, in this culture. We’re taught to be providers and companions and at the same time, to conquer and acquire — specifically sexually — and I was pulling off both!”

With all of these things in mind, I started to see Whedon’s feminism as what it likely is; performative, a way to excuse his behaviour, a safeguard to hide behind as if to say, “oh no, I am not like other men at all, although I may act as other men do and fully accept my privilege as a cis-het white male, I’m different. Because I’m a feminist so when I do these terrible things to women, it’s ok, because I love, respect and support women.” Maybe he truly believes he’s a feminist, publicly, he flies the flag very well, and there’s no denying he’s profited from this label, heralded as a great feminist hero, an ally to women everywhere. It’s only when you start to scratch the surface, peel back the layers of the Shrek-onion, do you start to see him for what he (in my mind) really is. A dudebro playing at being the nice guy, someone who says all the right things but whose actions don’t quite match up, in fact, they crumble under any real scrutiny (for further proof of this, go read the leak of the Wonder Woman script, allegedly by Whedon. If you can make it through the whole thing, I’ll buy you a coffee – hell if you can make it through the first 10 pages).

Where does that leave Joss and I then? I admit that I’m conflicted, in a culture that has moved more and more towards “cancelling” people I’m the proverbial fence sitter. I acknowledge that there are people, media, etc that are problematic (the dreaded word) and I think everyone has the right to decide whether or not to consume said media. And for myself, personally, I endlessly flip between the two schools of thought. I won’t watch anything new with Johnny Depp, nor anything from Woody Allen, for example, but I have gone back (since Amber Heard spoke of her abuse at his hands) and watched some of Depp’s older movies. Some people have told me that they disagree, that even watching his older stuff is wrong, that I should ban all forms of Depp media from my life otherwise I am giving him my tacit approval, and that’s their choice and their right, but I suppose I’m still working out where I want to draw the line. I (maybe naively and incorrectly) believe that I can view a piece of media and know its flaws, or the flaws of the person behind it, but still somewhat enjoy it for what it is, or the story it’s telling.

Maybe that’s where I am with Whedon, somewhere in between, neither in the black or the white, somewhere in the shades of grey, because that’s how life is sometimes. I don’t think he’s a fully bad person, nor do I think he’s a fully good person. I think he’s human, and humans are inherently flawed. And maybe that feels like a cop out, but it’s all I have to offer right now. My view of him will never be as it once was, and thus my viewing of the media he has created and produced will likely reflect that. Re-watching Buffy and Angel has become a different experience; I’m no longer blindly swept up in the twists and turns, the witty repartee between characters, but instead viewing through a different lens, one where I question what message he's really trying to send, what his true intentions are. Instead of laughing at every single joke, they never quite land right with me anymore, my childish naivety gone, replaced with the simmering anger of a woman who wonders why sexist jokes and judgements are supposed to be funny, why the rape of a female character is an excusable plot device to teach men a lesson. It’s exhausting to second guess someone I don’t even know, but this is the brave new world that a combination of his behaviour and my own feminist journey has left me in. These days, I wouldn’t ever say “I love Joss Whedon”, like I would’ve back in my teenage years, more likely you’ll find me saying “I loved Buffy but God it’s weird to watch as an adult”.

Like I said, it’s complicated.

Sources:

http://oranges8hands.tumblr.com/post/117924895453/charisma-carpenter-transcript-on-being-fired

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_igTbXKPck

https://www.thewrap.com/joss-whedon-feminist-hypocrite-infidelity-affairs-ex-wife-kai-cole-says/

https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/clementine-ford-why-joss-whedons-treatment-of-exwife-kai-cole-matters-20170821-gy16lx.html

https://indiegroundfilms.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/wonder-woman-aug7-07-joss-whedon.pdf

Image sources:

Yahoo.com

tenplay.com.au

[imagemakingii]

Interview Transcript

R: So Skinny, you’re 19? 20?

S: I’m 19. September.

R: Is that Libra?

S: Oh my god no, I’m a triple Virgo.

R: What is it that you do in your own definition?

S: I feel like, I’m a jeweller, and I’m a designer, and a creative but also a maker. And I’m like the best DJ ever when people let me.

R: You’re a DJ?

S: Yeah, I’m the best DJ. But like, honestly, no one really lets me. No big venues.

R: What kind of music do you play?

S: I love all music, I really do. But I feel like acid rock is really cool.

R: So you’re a creative and a maker. Do you prefer the making side of things to the research side?

S: I feel like makers and designers a lot of the time are two separate things. Makers really understand materials and medium. Whereas designers can think of an incredible idea and give it to a maker. But I definitely relate to both, kind of jack of all trades, master of none.

R: Your own personal style plays a huge role in your designs and art, how important is curating a self-expressive style to you?

S: I feel like it’s important to think for yourself first of all, find inspirating from the past, and accept that your style will always be changing and evolving.

R: Especially nowadays, with fast fashion, people tend to buy trends rather than what they actually like.

S: Yeah, I’m constantly surprised by how many people buy into trends.

R: You came to New Zealand from Greece, how has your cultural heritage impacted your work, and your way of expressing yourself?

S: I feel like a combination of purity and religion comes out at uni, and reminds me that restriction and freedom can look so similar. My friend gave me the best quote, like, “the Greek Orthodox church has the best branding,” which I found was so cool.

R: So how do you weave that into your work?

S: I feel that I always think back on how much purity I had as a child growing up in a little Greek village and try to keep that mindset when making things when being influenced by so many things, it helps with all the voices in your head, and reminds you to keep that simplicity.

R: Does living in Auckland inform your work and self-expression in any way?

S: I feel like everyone in Auckland feels like they can be a big fish in a small pond. That gives kids the confidence that they can run the world, which is the best thing and the worst thing. That’s why we’re seeing so many kids from Auckland come out and go worldwide and start things, they take that confidence with them when they go overseas.

R: Take me through what you do in a day.

S: No matter what day it is, I wake up and put on really really loud music and I drink coffee.

R: What’s your favourite morning song?

S: Definitely like the Ramones, or the Sex Pistols. Something very loud. Then I’ll go to the studio. I don’t think in the past three years there has been many days that I don’t go to studio. Like 6 out of 7 days. And I’m constantly surrounded by people, and my friends, who are always the angel and the devil on my shoulder. I couldn’t imagine designing without people around me.

R: So you like the collaboration side of things?

S: Yeah. I feel like having people around you distracts you from spiralling.

R: So you live in the city?

S: Yeah I live in Central. I’ve had two apartments on High Street which has been super cool.

R: So you can pop over to uni really easily then.

S: Yeah I feel like AUT students, especially fashion students, are always in studio.

R: How does social media inform your process?

S: I feel like there’s so many different things to talk about with social media, like it’s really good for staring a brand and selling things. But I feel like seeing what’s happening and what’s hot will never inform your process. I feel like you’ll only ever end up making something lesser that what the other person is made. You should never find inspiration on Instagram, like go watch some old movies or something.

R: So your Instagram name is DJSkinny and has been for a while. Is that different to your real name, are they a sort of alter ego?

S: Everyone in central calls me Skinny, which is really funny. It might be easier to say than my Greek name. I feel like it’s only a persona in the way that you are with your friends versus your mum.

R: Do some of your friends know your first name?

S: A lot of my friends don’t know my first name. My closest friends probably don’t know my last name.

R: So in your jewellery and fashion business, is Skinny like your brand?

S: Yeah I’ve got the website and everything but I haven’t posted on it.

R: Who do you think is more the real you? Or are they both?

S: I definitely think they’re both the real me. But it’s an interesting concept, the person you are, the person you think you are, and the person people perceive you as. And I guess that Instagram is a whole another persona in itself.

R: I’ve always found your Instagram handle so interesting.

S: Yeah, I think the funniest thing said to me, probably two things, obviously I introduce myself like “Hi I’m Skinny, that’s what my friends call me.” And people are like “Oh my god, imagine calling yourself Skinny.” And I’m like it is what it is. What do you mean imagine it? I’m living it haha. And then another girl was like “she’s not even that Skinny.” And I just thought, it’s not even about that. Why are words so important. Words shouldn’t hold that much power.

R: How does fashion design change your views on the rest of the world?

S: Well I feel like I am constantly surprised by how many people still buy fast fashion and buy into trends. I think it’s so crazy. I don’t think I’ve not bought anything second hand in like two years.

R: Do you think fashion students at AUT are more sustainable thinking?

S: I think the cool people are, but I think there are some people that just want to get a degree to get a degree, that wear fast fashion, they don’t read anything on fashion, are not that passionate about it. There’s some people like that. The best people I see in fashion are really sustainable.

R: Who are your biggest influences, and why do you connect with them?

S: I’m going to try put no designers in this one. I really love Joseph Beuys, I think he’s a really good storyteller. I love Lee Krasner, she is the original girl boss. And Nancy Holt, they were both really influential for women in art. I’m really inspired by The Clash, they have great politics.

R: What sets you apart from other designers?

S: I think that first of all everyone is a great designer, and you need to figure out how to put it into a physical form., I have a love affair with metal, like I’m rally in love with metal. If you really love a material or textile, then you design to it, because you understand how it works. my first year was quite tricky for me because I just didn’t have that connection with fabric, so my work wasn’t coming out right, so when I started working with metal that’s when I could see my work better. At uni we have like looks, so I design my garments to compliment the jewellery.

R: You said you had an end of year showcase?

S: Yeah, we’ve got our grad collection coming up which is 10 looks.

R: Do you make the looks to compliment or showcase the jewellery?

S: Definitely compliment. I would never make something for the sake of making something. Something uni has taught me is that I really love a runway performance, so I’ll make 50/50 objects and garments, like a crazy headpiece that you wouldn’t buy or wear, but they’ll be a t-shirt underneath that you could sell. I think like. Margiella is the best at that, or like McQueen, he had the best pieces under things that are super wearable.

R: I feel like vintage archival fashion is really big now.

S: Yeah, there’s a lot of young people at uni that look at archive clothes, and now there’s basic archival shows, like “oh they’re just using early Comme des Garçons or early Jean Paul Gaultier.” Everyone is using them, so you’re considered lame when you use them. Fashion honestly has so much politics.

R: So at uni, you guys are already forming opinions on those politics and things. Do you think within your friend group you guys have different opinions on fashion, or do you become friends with the people with the same fashion politics.

S: I think the same politics, but not the same style. I feel like if you saw us all out together you’d know that we are like a gang, but if you saw our runway shows, they could be quite different.

R: What do you see yourself doing in the future, as in what path do you think your fashion work and jewellery will take in the future.

S: Well I have a flight to the UK coming up really soon in late January. My best friends live there, so they’re sorting it out. London is calling.

R: I feel like you’d thrive there.

S: Hopefully I can take everything and make it bigger.

R; I feel like you’d definitely have the space to do that there. In Auckland the fashion scene seems quite small and exclusive in terms of other people looking in.

S: That’s definitely what I saw, like the 50 coolest people in Auckland will have my ring and then what, you know?

R: Aside from your fashion design work and jewellery, how would you like yourself to be seen?

S: A great romantic DJ with great hair.

R: So you’re a hopeless romantic then?

S: Oh my gosh, everything I do has something romantic behind it. Like not even about a woman and a guy, a lot of my stuff is kind of just like femme fatale. And a create like a muse.

R: Who would you say is your muse?

S: I definitely have a specific woman in my head, a very tall woman. My current project is around gypsies, and carrying all your worth on you, as in jewellery and objects. I have this idea of a very free woman.

R: Yeah, its super interesting and satisfying when you have everything you need on you.

S: Exactly, and what that would mean to us, or to a nomadic person.

R: What is your favourite piece of clothing you own?

S: I need to answer this correctly. I have this really big wool, grey black coat that makes me feel really cool. It’s so long, and it was like $10 from an op shop I still can’t believe it.

R: I’m like itching to go thrifting oh my god, I’ve been scrolling on Depop.

S: Literally, TradeMe and Depop, has all my money. I’m not even joking, me and my friends got drunk and accidentally bought things on TradeMe.

R: What did you buy?

S: I bought the ugliest jacket I didn’t want! I was trying to bid on this other thing but I accidentally bid on this other thing. I’m so upset about it haha. What is your favourite footwear that you have? Because I feel like nothing makes you walk better than your best shoes.

R: I’m obsessed with anything that makes me feel taller.

S: Same.

R: Yeah I’m so short. How tall are you?

S: I’m like 5”10. But I love a heel, I love being the tallest person in the room.

R: Favourite pair of heels?

S: I’ve got this pair of cowboy knee highs that are really tall. They’re so sexy. Cowboys are sexy.

R: I wear platforms a lot too, because the pants I buy are too long for me.

S: Yeah, there is nothing sexier than a pant that just reaches the bottom of the heel. For me, that never happens, but anyway. The coolest thing about having large feet is wearing guys shoes home, to this day I have this guy’s cowboy boots.

R: That’s such a funny story. What’s your favourite piece of jewellery that you’ve ever made?

S: There are so many that I’ve got coming because I’ve got so many looks coming up. I made my friend a two tooth grill that is probably my favourite one so far.

R: I find the teeth rings so interesting.

S: I get so much hate mail about that, people think my rings with the teeth in them are disgusting. It’s such a social stigma, like it was in you mouth and now it’s on your hand and now you’re upset?

R: What kind of movies do you like?

S: I like movies, like the less people now about them – I don’t mean to be that girl – but the less people know about it the more I love it. I love old French films, the romance.

R: What is your drink of choice?

S: I love straight Jack Daniels or Straight Whiskey. I love dark liquor but it’s so bad for you.

R: Oh really?

S: I love natural wine. In central, natural wine is like the new hot thing. It’s so stupid but it’s so yummy. I love a $9 bottle though. And going to a really shit house party and drinking Nitro also.

[dailyaudiobible]

01/01/2020 DAB Transcript

Genesis 1:1-2:25, Matthew 1:1-2:12, Psalms 1:1-6, Proverbs 1:1-6

Today is January 1st welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian happy New Year everybody it's great to be here with you. Welcome aboard. We are about to set sail on a journey that will last a year. We will travel all the way around the sun, and as the earth travels all the way around the sun, we will make our way through the entire Bible and the Bible will invariably touch every aspect of our lives. So welcome, welcome aboard and for those of you returning for another year and another voyage, welcome back. I am so glad to take this journey again with you, it is beyond words. And for those of you who have found your way here somehow, whether somebody invited you or whether you just stumbled upon this, whatever the path you're here and in the coming days and weeks you will find out that that is that is meaningful. You are embarking on a journey that will in fact affect your life in a positive and profound way. That’s what the Bible does. So welcome, welcome, and happy new year and off we go. And every time that we begin a new journey, and this is the 15th journey through the Bible, so this is the first day of the 15th year the Daily Audio Bible. We have we been working our way through the Bible seven days a week for 14 complete years, seven days a week without stopping. So, this year will be no different, but this year will be very different because every year is very different. And I as we kind of settle into the rhythm that will take us through the year these first few days, we just kinda need to get acclimated to how this all works. So, I'll be sharing some different things each day for the next, I guess about, week until we get all those things covered and then we’ll be sailing smooth out into the deep beyond the shore. But today this is our launch day and we will launch at the beginning and the way that the Daily Audio Bible works is that we will read a portion of the Old Testament, a portion of the New Testament, a portion of Psalms and a bit of Proverbs every day as we take steps forward every day through the Scriptures. So, today is a rare day because we’re gonna be starting four different books - Genesis, Matthew, Psalms and Proverbs. And every time we encounter a new book we usually just take a step back, get a little context, understand what the story is, understand who the players are, who the voices are, what's going on, why it's being written - so that…so that we can put ourselves in the position of the early hearers of these writings and understand how they applied to their lives so that we can more adequately interpret how they apply to ours. So, we won't talk about all four of the books that we’re beginning today, we’ll take one at a time over the next couple of days and just get our bearings. And, so, let's begin at the beginning, which is the book of Genesis.

Introduction to the book of Genesis:

And the book of Genesis is famous because it contains the story of creation. And, so, often if you’ve never taken a journey through the Bible or read the book of Genesis before you think that's kind of what's in there. The…the very very early stories of early Earth, the early creation stories. But what's interesting but Genesis is that this book covers more time than any of the other books in the Bible, about 2500 years pass between the beginning and ending of the book of Genesis, which ironically is more time than the rest of the Old Testament combined. So, there's a lot more to Genesis than the story of creation. Like, the first 11 chapters of Genesis will cover a couple thousand years and a couple thousand miles before…before slowing down the warp pace and then beginning to focus on several specific generations of people who we need to know and we actually need to know well because they and their ancestors shape the rest of the Bible and continue to influence our world all the way till today. And Genesis is also a part of a group of writings, a larger group of books that…that encompass the first five books of the Bible which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And it’ll take us a minute to come carve our way through all those books, but this grouping is called the Torah or the Pentateuch. And we’ll discuss that more as we continue our journey forward through the next days and weeks in front of us. But we’re at the beginning so let's…let's go. We’re reading from the New Living Translation for the remainder of this week. And today, Genesis chapter 1 and chapter 2.

Commentary:

Okay. So, as you can see, we have begun our journey in the book of Genesis, and we talked about what the book of Genesis was going to tell us. But man, even in today's reading alone there's so much for us because we have a baseline now, we have an origin story. We are told that we are intentionally here, God created us in His image and allowed us to be here as His children upon this planet. And we have a rare view, actually a very, very rare view that can pretty much only be found here in the first pages of the Bible and that is a look into how things were supposed to be, like how this was supposed to go. Genesis has given us a little peek into a time when things were perfect, a time when things were as they were meant to be, a time that things and every life was whole. And obviously, you know, we don’t need to look too far to understand that there is brokenness everywhere, including inside of ourselves at the moment and that we can't look at the world and go, “oh, its as it should be, its whole.” So, this little view in the book of Genesis, at least gives us a glimpse into when things were as they were supposed to be. And this is what our hearts are souls deepest longing is after - wholeness, completeness. There’s a word, a Hebrew word that kinda seeks to…to say this and it’s a popular word, shalom. I mean, if you’re living in Israel and say shalom, that's a way of saying hello or a lot of times it's interpreted, peace, like peacefulness. But it's like the deepest origins. The deepest meaning here is, wholeness, completeness and the Bible has given us a picture of what that looks like. And it should call out to the deep places inside of us because we are longing for this. Like, we spend the majority of our lives trying to make arrangements for ourselves to feel, at least, to feel whole. So, like, we’ll rearrange all the furniture in our lives, we’ll get rid of people, we’ll bring people in, like we’ll change jobs, this that and the other, all in an attempt to make things more comfortable and better and more whole, at least in our view. And yet, we have to acknowledge there's a God view of what wholeness looks like and it's a bit different then what we think it looks like. And the Bible will do a really good job over the course of this year, poking and prodding and challenging and questioning and giving us continual opportunities to consider the path that we’re on because the Bible continually will bring us to a fork in the road. We will encounter so many forks in the road, I don't even know how many there are. Just continually, we will come to a fork in the road where we are given an illuminated path to destruction and an illuminated path to life and then we get to choose which path we’re going to walk on. And, so, right here on day one, we gotta get in our minds that what we do matters. And we will explore that a bit more tomorrow.

And then as we began the New Testament today, and we’ll talk about Matthew tomorrow as we get into tomorrow's reading, but we can see now that we read the genealogies of Jesus. And its funny.  Genealogies are like notoriously like glaze your…your eyes glaze over, your mind checks out, “what are all these names in the Bible about?” And we will certainly be talking about that as we go further, but these names are all people we’re gonna meet along the way. Many of them were kings of Israel and we will meet them when we get to the books of Kings, but Matthew is trying to establish Jesus genealogy for…for reasons, and we will see this as we go forward because the book of Matthew, the mission of this gospel is to show how Jesus fulfills prophecies that had long been foretold but I don’t want to jump ahead of ourselves. We’ll talk about that some more tomorrow.

We also began the book of Psalms today. And how's this for day one, in terms of advice for life. “Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners or join in with mockers, but instead they delight in the law of the Lord meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit in each season leaves will never wither, and they will prosper in all they do.” You see the forks in the road that I’m talking about. There’s one right there. You can follow the path to destruction by following the advice of the wicked and hanging around with sinners and joining in with mockers or you can follow a path that will allow you to prosper in all that you do. And that path would be delighting in the law of the Lord and meditating on it day and night. And become like a tree that's planted by a riverbank, right? The water source is right there. And, so, your bearing fruit and your leaves don't wither, and you prosper. It's right there, and it's worth just spending some time today silently or in prayer just asking, “God help me see these paths, help me know the way to walk, help me to delight in you, help me to be like a tree planted along the riverbank, that's…that's what I'm looking for, wholeness, fullness. So, there’s some things to think about there.

And Proverbs will, on a regular basis, give us like one sentence that says volumes if we will slow down and think about it. And we will talk about that some more as we move forward.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word. We thank You for allowing us to cross the threshold into a brand-new year and beyond that into a brand-new decade. This really is a fresh new starting point and everything that flows from here is going to be borne out by the choices that we make. And here at the beginning of this decade we are inviting Your Holy Spirit to come and lead us into all truth. This is what the Scriptures say You will do. We are told of a narrow path that leads to life, and few find that path. And we, Lord…Lord, we want to be one of them and we will never find it on our own. We were never meant to find it on our own. And, so, come Holy Spirit, be a light to our feet, a lamp to our path leading us a day by day forward in the name of Jesus we ask. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is the website and that is home base and that is where you find out what's going on around here.

And that is something that you'll hear me say just about every day because…because we are a community and we are wrapped all around the world and there are tens of thousands of us here. We actually kinda get to know each other and a feel connected in spirit as we go forward, but we’re still…were still wrapped all over the world in every conceivable time zone. And, so, dailyaudiobible.com is this portal, it’s like home base for a virtual community like this. This is where you find out what’s going on around here. So, check that out. I'll…I’ll talk about different aspects of it as we can move into the into the decade together, but that's a good jumping off point for today. That's a good thing to get familiar with and find out what’s going on there, but mostly I just want to talk about beginnings, new beginnings.

Yeah, this is the beginning of year, 15 but this is a new beginning for me. And you may have been here for the last decade or the last year. This is a new beginning for you. And you may have stumbled here today by accident or maybe just the last week, couple weeks, been thinking a little bit more deeply about your interior life. You know, your spirituality, what's actually going on inside of you because what's going on outside of you can be chaotic and…and…and confusing. And, so, when you’re confused inside and you’re confused outside then pretty much confused and that can lead into all kinds of really, really challenging and dark places. I don't know how you got here. You may have got here because you jumped off the ship yesterday and re-boarded for a new year or you may have just accidentally come here today. I just…it doesn't matter how we got here, we’re here right now and this is the first day of a  new decade and the next 10 years can be profoundly different than the last ten if we’ll want them to, if we’re willing to allow God's word to unpack us instead of us trying to unpack it. You may be listening today thinking, “oh my gosh, I cannot believe I’m going to listen to something religious. Like I…I can't. I don't like those kinds of people and I'm not so sure about their Jesus. I don't know. I think…I think what I'd like to say to you…I think what I'd like to say to everybody is, don't believe everything you've been told. We’re going to go through the Bible. We’re going to read every word of it together and we’re going to talk about it and at the end of this we’re gonna know what the Bible says and we will have wrestled through whatever we need to wrestle through, but my own faith journey is one in which I realized one day, “I don't…I have been professing my faith for a long time. I'm not sure I know God, because everything that I've ever been told about God is something somebody else told me.” And that is what brought me to the Bible all these years ago. I thought, “I’m…I'm…I’m searching…I'm searching for God and yet I'm…I've never read this book called the Bible that apparently my entire future hinges upon. I…I just know the famous verses that everybody quotes. I don't know why they were said. I have no idea what's going on in that book. All I know is every time I've ever tried to get into the book it's like, “what is going on?” And I just didn't understand but I decided I’m gonna read this book with an open heart and open mind and I'm in read this book as if God will speak to me. And if I read this whole book, and He doesn't speak to me, and there is no God, and there is nothing out there, then I read one of the most famous books in the world. Everybody should read it. But that’s not happened. What I found is that God created us in His image and never intended to be separated from us, and in no way desires any kind of separation from us and we will see the lengths He's willing to go to. And, obviously, you can go, “well, you’re just pointing to the cross, blah, blah, blah. That’s obvious.” Oh, you’re gonna see a lot more ways that God is incredibly intentional about staying connected. The reason we have a Bible, is because God was unwilling to be left out of our story. The Bible isn't the biography of God. If you take people out of the Bible there is no Bible. This is the story of God with us. So, it really doesn't matter how you got here. You are here and everything after this is what matters. 365 days from today we will be beginning a new year. What your life looks like when you begin that new year, 365 days from now is going to be made up of the choices and decisions that you make. The Bible can really, really help with that. So, I…I welcome you. I am thrilled to take this journey together. I am thrilled that you are here no matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter what time it is, no matter what's going on, no matter how it is that you got here. This is a new day. This is a new year. This is a new decade. Let’s live into this with all of our hearts.

Song:

Cold - Leslie Odom Jr.

You lost yourself on empty promises Broken on the way All you've ever known are dishonest men Who don't ever change

So you're keeping all your secrets By you wrapped up tight You're who I believe in So why say goodnight?

Don't listen to all you've been told You can come in from the cold And you know the safest place to be Is right here next to me Won't you come in from the cold?

Wanna help you ease the feeling Weighing on your mind You're looking for a reason Running out of time

You're keeping all your secrets By you wrapped up tight You're who I believe in So why say goodnight?

Don't listen to all you've been told You can come in from the cold And you know the safest place to be Is right here next to me Won't you come in from the cold?

I know your heart's telling you, "Run now" Run so far away (Run so far away) The self is trying to reach out (Trying to reach out) Shine a light into the grey (Light into the grey) I know how hard it is to take a chance when it calls your name So I pray (I pray, Oh I pray, I pray) I pray

Don't listen to all you've been told You can come in from the cold And you know the safest place to be Is right here next to me

Won't you come in from the cold? Won't you come in from the cold? Won't you come in from the cold?

[brittanyyoungblog]

How To Have Good Casual Sex

What are the keys to having good casual sex? 

This question is at the forefront of Dr. Zhana Vrangalova’s program of research. I recently interviewed Zhana for the Sex and Psychology Podcast and asked her to share some science-backed insights on having better casual sex.

Below is an excerpt from our conversation (you can listen to it in full in this podcast). Note that this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Justin Lehmiller: Good casual sex is all about communication. I’ve seen this in my research on friends with benefits—people often get into those situations without getting on the same page about what each partner wants. One partner might only be there for “no strings attached” sex, but the other partner is looking at it as an opportunity to potentially start a romantic relationship. When people go in with those really different expectations, I find that it often doesn't work out well.

Being aligned with your partner and communicating about expectations and desires is important. Also, if you're pursuing a long-term sexual arrangement, getting on the same page about the ground rules is essential, too. For example, are you allowed to have sex with other people? Are you allowed to spend the night? 

So, Zhana, what other advice would you offer people in terms of having good casual sex?  

Zhana Vrangalova: The communication around boundaries and rules and expectations is really important. And then, especially if you are also doing it as part of a couple—if you're hooking up with other people as part of an open relationship—it’s super important to make sure that it’s done in a way that's consensual and ethical and everyone's on board. 

But then there is the pleasure piece as well. We know that, especially in heterosexual relationships, there's a big orgasm gap: men are much more likely to have orgasms than women. And when you look at casual sex specifically, that gap is even larger than it is in romantic sex. You have something like 40 percentage points difference between men and women in whether they've had an orgasm with their partner or not. I always think of this large study that surveyed something like 20,000 undergrads from 20 different colleges around the U.S. and asked people whether they had an orgasm the last time they had a hookup involving penetration. These were all heterosexual students and 40% of the female students said they had an orgasm compared to 78% or so of the men. That's something that we need to pay more attention to. 

The norms around how casual sex happens and what hookups are like, especially in heterosexual relationships, really prioritize the pleasure of men and leave the female orgasms as sort of a nice bonus if they happen. It makes it less likely that the women walk away from these experiences feeling like, "oh my God, this was great."

So, one of my non-negotiable tips is to make sure you get pleasure and make sure you give pleasure. And of course, what exactly this means will differ from person to person. But I think it's really important for people who are going to be hooking up because we're hooking up with people who don't necessarily know us; some may not care as much about our pleasure. So it's really important to be assertive.  

Know what it is that you want sexually from that situation. What are the kinds of sex acts you want? Do you need oral sex? Do you need fingering? Do you need a toy? Do you need anal stimulation in combination with this or that? What positions work for you? What kind of setting works for you? You need to know that, and then you need to find a way to communicate that to your partner and assert these needs so that they can be met. Even if your partner wants to meet them, they're not psychic. They don't know. And very often we don't have the language; we don't have easy communication around sexuality. So, people are not necessarily going to ask us what we want. 

When we don't know what the other wants, we often project our own desires on to the other person. We think, well, if this works for me, it works for the other person. And unless we're told otherwise, we're just going to do that. So even when people want to be a good lover, they might not know how to do that. So sexual assertiveness is important, no matter what kind of relationship people are in, but it's extra important in casual interactions because of that lack of familiarity.

I also want to really encourage people to try to bring in at least some amount of passion and intimacy in casual interactions. I think our norms around what casual means suggests that there's no intimacy, at all. Like there's this complete emotional distance and it's just the physical act of having sex in these hookups. And what we know from research is that when there's somewhat more closeness and intimacy and passion, everyone walks away from it feeling like this was a better experience, a more satisfying experience. So for better hookups, I really want to encourage people to have some amount of that passion and intimacy. It can still be very casual. It doesn't have to extend beyond that hour or day or week-long period. But while we're with our casual partners, try to give and connect with them as much as we can. 

Justin Lehmiller: I think that's such an important point and great advice. It's true that people are often looking for more than just sex here. Justin Garcia at the Kinsey Institute has done some work on this where he's found that most people want things that aren't casual from casual sex—they often want intimacy, too.  So “casual sex” is kind of a misnomer in that it's not just about this act of pure physical pleasure

So don't be afraid to have a little intimacy in it. For example, it's okay if you want to cuddle afterwards. Just get on the same page with your partner about what this is and what it isn't. 

Zhana Vrangalova: I'm glad you brought up Justin Garcia's study because when you look at some of those numbers—where you ask people what they’re looking for and their motives for this hookup, including sexual satisfaction and emotional connection—we see that sexual satisfaction and emotional connection are often almost identical. 

I mean, sexual satisfaction might be a little higher in terms of what people were looking for, but emotional connection is not too far behind. And people often think, "oh, that's just the women. That's what women are after." No, men are after that, too. It's the other nourishing element of what a sexual interaction can bring into our lives. So don't skip on that. It's going to be a better experience for everyone involved.

Listen to my full conversation with Dr. Vrangalova here to learn more about casual sex and healthy hookups!

Want to learn more about Sex and Psychology? Click here for more from the blog or here to listen to the podcast. Follow Sex and Psychology on Facebook, Twitter (@JustinLehmiller), or Reddit to receive updates. You can also follow Dr. Lehmiller on YouTube and Instagram.

Image Source: 123RF

Check out more of my interviews with sex researchers and therapists in these posts:

Episode 20: How To Level-Up Your Sex Life

Episode 35: The Guide To Opening Up A Relationship

Episode 28: How To Have Great Sex For Your Entire Life

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