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morganwrites12672 · 2 years

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'Opposties'

Billy hargrove x FEM!reader

Warnings/tags; bullying, soft!billy, Eddie Munson x reader (platonic), Jason's an asshole, billy hargrive x reader (romantic), smoking, Neil, mentions of abuse, blood, minor violence

You speed into school in your 1982 Dodge Coronet. A nice navy blue that complemented the leather seats.

You notice a muscle car next to you. It's a nice shade of blue. You didn't realize anyone else at Hawkins high was into that type of car.

You get out and lean on your car as you light a cigarette. This place was fucking intolerable unless you were at least a little high.

You notice there is a guy with sandy blonde hair doing the same. You walk around the car before heading to smoke by the building.

It has a Cali plate.

"Hey, Beautiful," the guy says, leaning next to your locker. You don't have to look at him to see his stupid smirk.

All you heard was other girls trying to get in his pants. But then again, most of the girls here were total assholes. Mainly carol.

"Hey, imbecile," you reply as you slam your locker shut. You did not have time to flirt, you had class.

"Wow, nice manners," he says, "I'm Billy, Billy hargrove. I didn't catch you name?"

"I didn't throw it," you say as you walk off. You are in search of your best friend, 'The freak'. Having been friends since freshman year, and branded as the town satanists, he usually waited at your locker .

You frown as you go to the parking lot and notice his van pulling up. He's always late, unless you have something to do with itm

He smirks at you and waves, "I'm not late am, I?"

You playfully shove him, "You are going to graduate this year, 86 baby. Remember?" Eddie was going to graduate, you were going to make sure of it.

He laughs at the memory. He had always said he was going to graduate in whatever year it was. This year's it was going to happen. But you couldn't give him to much trouble, you were held back in seventh grade and your last senior year.

"Hey, 86 Baby," he promises. He still has that stupid smile. His smile was addicting, but everybody likes seeing their dorky best friend happy.

"Eddie you need to graduate, " you remind him.

"Does you think its, like weird for us to hang out?" He questions. Of course he was avoiding the question.

You smirk, "If you're not trying to get in my pants it's fine," you reply as he laughs.

"No, I'm taking you to Cali, and you are going to see the beach. And we are doing it in '86 when you graduate," you scold'

"You are always mean to me," he remarks as you walk towards the school.

"How late should we be?" You question unaware billy is spying. The teachers would get worried if you both showed up to early (before third period).

Billy knows you are both dating (you're not).

He thinks his theory is confirmed when you sneak off in the woods together.

"Hey freaks," Jason yells as you and Eddie converse in front of your locker. God, you couldn't wait until you could punch his stupid face without getting expelled.

"Hey assholes," you reply as you and Eddie give him the tongue and horns. Jason was just a typical high school bully. Every school had one. Or several.

"Freak 1 and his girlfriend, freak 2," another one of the boys scoff. It would be better if they could come up with insults better then a third grader.

"Were did you get your insults? Bullying 101, they teach it now?" you tease.

This hit a nerve he aims a punch for your face. You move and he slams his fist into your locker.

He grabs his fist, groaning in pain. You were going to regret that.

You kick one below the belt and grab Eddie's hand to make a run for it.

Getting in class, you both make it just barely.

After class Eddie ditches for a deal, but you have a pop quiz, every friday. God, you hated pop quizes.

"Let me take you out, unless you dating munson," billy says.

"Look. I will let you take me out. But if you try to get in my pants, it will be the last thing you ever do," you let him think about your terms.

"I will pick you up at 7,"

"I live across from you," you yell as you run to World History class. You might be a little excited.

7pm comes and you are sitting on your porch with a cigarette.

He pulls his car into your driveway, and walks over.

"You're parents know you smoke," he mostly teases.

"Moms gone mental, Dad's left a while ago," you state.

You swear you could see a flicker of sympathy as you slide into the passenger seat and stomping out your cigarette.

"Where you taking me?" You ask.

You doubted anywhere public. This was a dars to get in Munson's best friends pants.

You dressed similar and this caused issues. Mainly because no one I'm indiana accepted someone who was different.

You only joined hellfire in your spare time, most of the time you just join as a side character. You were to busy with keeping up with grades to play every week.

"The diner a little past the high school," he says as he lights his own cigarette.

"Wow so public," you scoff. That was definitely shocking.

"Why, not?" He asks.

"Face it, you're a jock I'm a freak," you explain.

"Well I think you have a great personality," he laughs.

"This might not be so bad," you muse.

And that was the story of how you started dating Billy Hargrove.

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You were shocked when he shows up at your door. Busted lip and bruised. Blood dripping from his nose.

You usher him in and to your room, careful not to wake your sleeping mother. Not like she would wake up either way.

"What the hell," you exclaim setting him on your bed and getting the first aid kit.

You start cleaning up the blood. It looked bad, maybe a few punches.

"My dad," is the only reply he chokes out.

"Every day?" You ask. In complete disbelief when he nods his head.

"Not anymore, my mom won't care," you say not allowing him to protest and when he does, "That or I go there right now and give Neil a piece of my mind,"

Billy sighs before saying yes. He couldn't escape Neil for forever, but tonight would have to do.

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Requests are open. My pinned post has request details and everybody I write for

Please reblog if you enjoyed, it helps writers a lot

#soft!billy hargrove #Eddie Munson x reader #billy hargove x reader #billy antis dni #billy hargrove fanfic #billy hargrove #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove fic #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove x reader #billy hargrove x female reader #stranger things fanfiction

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overallsonfrogs · 7 months

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Foxes as types of color guard performers (for the like 2 people who live in this part of the venn diagram with me)

Kevin:

- Parents & older siblings did DCI

- Will name drop shows from like 20 years ago and act like you should know them

- Needs direct validation from the director or they’ll take their frustration out on everyone else

- DEFINITELY a JI (derogatory)

- Pissed that they’re not captain even though they’re not a senior

Neil:

- Feral unknowingly queer child who needed an after school activity to avoid being at home (😅😅😅)

- Stays in the gym after practice to learn cool tricks

- Channels anger into conditioning workouts & gets super strong out of spite

- Isn’t naturally talented but works really hard & makes rifle line

Andrew:

- The sabre prodigy that thinks they’re too good for flag & that everyone low-key hates bc they’re jealous

- Always gets a solo & makes the choreo harder without asking bc it was “too easy”

- Never knows the counts for the choreo when asked but is always in time

- Silently counts every drop they see in other shows

Nicky:

- The first out kid on the team who sings along to the pop girlie warm up music

- Saw the Flaggots at Philly Pride and decided to join despite having no prior athletic or musical interest

- Has watched Light Brigade’s Madonna show like a billion times on youtube

- Technique is just okay but they bring ~the dramA~ when performing

Allison:

- C*nty former competition dancer who hated all the drama but still wanted to perform

- Helps underclassmen with their hair & makeup

- Hosts the “summer sectional that’s really an excuse for a pool party” every year at her house

- An absolute beast on rifle

Renee:

-Upperclassman career flag who *could* make rifle line but simply doesn’t want to

- Helps all of the flag newbies not be too scared to let go

- Unofficially in charge of team bonding

-Bakes cookies related to the show theme for show days

Matt:

- Also plays an instrument and is therefore friends with everyone

- Knows all of the cheerleaders & football players & convinces them to come to a band/winterguard competition

- Runs the guard insta & makes the section t-shirts

Dan:

- Guard captain who is very supportive but also wants to WIN

- Very strict about conditioning days, but will always chill out if someone is on their period

- Organizes a ton of sectionals even when it’s cold and no one wants to go, but always buys pizza

Aaron:

- The straight STEM girlie who somehow ended up there

- Instead of practicing, they just complain about how hard their classes are to justify not knowing the choreo

- Got in trouble with the director for being homophobic, but the team was too small to make them quit

Seth:

- Only wants to spin rifle bc he thinks flags are “for girls”

- Refuses to try during dance warmups

- Never goes to optional sectionals

- Skips band parties for “real” parties

Bonus:

Jeremy:

- Former baton girlie who’s really good at sabre & can do a bunch of cool tricks under tosses

- Always the first to point out when someone shy/new does well

- The “GET IT!!”/“You got it!!” girlie, depending on circumstance

- Organizes bigs/littles for show day traditions

#no I’m not projecting onto neil 😅😅😅#I was in HS guard 2013-2017 #which might be important context #no one ask me about college guard ☠️#our director left us in ohio #the foxhole court #aftg #the sunshine court #color guard #all for the game #winter guard

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dollarbin · 1 month

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Shakey Sundays #33:

Silver and Gold

I've periodically lost interest in Neil Young.

A teenage summer spent living in a trailer next to a tepee that contained a poor dude going through an alcoholic spiral with Young's rambling, late 90's Crazy Horse record Broken Arrow as his soundtrack turned me off Shakey for a spell. So did Neil's seemingly endless run-in with Promise of the Real Pancakes.

But I always get lured back in, and Silver and Gold, Young's even later 90's bookend to the decade-opening Harvest Moon, has often served as powerful bait.

It was 1999 and my buddy Matt told me he'd build my wife and I a desk. We spent a weekend in his almost beach-front office, drinking beer and molding plywood together, Neil's fairly jubilant Buffalo Springfield Again swelling with encouragement.

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And it was 2006 and I had my very first IPod, a hand-me-down chrome job from my hipstress sister-in-law, and only a few things were loaded into it for an overnight drive to Las Vegas and beyond while my wife and two young kids slept the drive away in our old Volvo. The dawn funneled through spiraling canyons of adobe and sandstone; it was good to hear Neil Young again.

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And it was a year ago now and the brooding remnants of a Pacific hurricane were hurling down all around us in an altogether different car as we cautiously approached the airport: my daughter was heading back to her last year of college and, apparently, flights had not been cancelled. It looked and felt a bit like the apocalypse outside but my daughter played us a new Adrianne Lenker song and wanted me to explain the Neil Young reference within it.

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And so that led to hearing Razor Love, Neil's under-the-radar epic, as we worked with care through floods and wind.

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And it was just this morning, and I was standing in the street at 4:50am, looking up at surprising stars and an overhead moon while I waited for my son to emerge from our house. We were on our way to the airport once again, this time for his sophomore year. I felt sad; I felt anxious; I felt at peace; I felt the planet rotating with me on it.

And I remembered my best friend dying when we were just 26 years old. I got to his hospital room just moments after his passing and found his body where he'd left it, flat on the bed. But he was gone; he had up and left. Right then, in one of the saddest moments of my life, I was filled with conviction. I was filled with awe.

Like Neil says,

This I can't deny I know that you can fly 'Cause I'm here on the ground without you.

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Like visitors from space, it's hard to find a place, to blend in and go unrecognized. But we do, don't we?

And a year, or three, or ten, from now I'll be in some record store and I'll stumble upon a used vinyl copy of Silver and Gold for the first time in my life. Something will be wrong with it - Daddy Went Walkin' might skip or maybe it won't even have a cover - but I'll grin and claim it all the same, eager to drop the needle into its shakey grooves whenever a transition is coming and I want Neil to help guide my way.

Because that guy in the tepee? He made it through. And my wife and I mapped out our shared future on that desk. And we saw Yellowstone in that Volvo, surviving a baseball-sized hail storm along the way. And the plane pulled easily through those hurricane skies and took my daughter safely back for her senior year, just like another plane is doing for my son as I write.

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#neil young #shakey sundays #adrianne lenker #Youtube

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not100bees · 1 month

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Actually I just remembered I read Eleanor and Park for my novel reading. Not quite a class. It was more of a okay so in my high school we had a block schedule which was for a semester. You would have like four longer classes and then the next semester you would have four different classes instead of like periods where you go all throughout the year you know? But my senior year they added a fifth class and they had like cut 15ish minutes from all the other classes to make this one so it was like 40 minutes and we had it all throughout the year instead of just one semester and I decided to go with the novel reading class because you know I like reading and I figured it could be a chill 40 minutes ish. I don't remember the exact length and it mostly was, but also a lot of insane stuff happened in that class like each member of the class it was like four people and we met in the library picked like four novels and then we all voted although the teacher rigged the election against me I really wanted to read A Single Man because I loved the movie but I had to pick like three others so I was like I'll pick some other stuff but I'll be like hey this is the one I kind of want to the other students one of the others was Neverwhere by Neil gaiman which was okay at the time because it was 6 years ago and neverwhere I ended up winning but I asked everybody what they voted and two people told me they had voted for a single man with me and one of the person was like I'm not going to lie. I voted for neverwhere. And I was like this is homophobic riggory but actually upon reflection I think it was because a single man is a novella and it was a novel reading class. But anyways, Eleanor and Park wasn't great. We also read a curious incident of a dog in the night time, which I read all in one day when we're supposed to read it in chunks but I got engrossed and I read it all in one day. We also read All about Love by bell hooks which actually isn't a novel so it probably wasn't a novel reading class but A single man was probably too short. Sad. Although I did like that class, although the teacher was a Johnny Depp stan but it only came up like once and she also got mad at me during that one time because I spoiled the end of murder on the Orient Express which was crazy because she was an English teacher I don't know how she didn't know that.

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freezegirl · 2 months

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THE BIG CANON MASTERPOST* [note: if you write any of the characters mentioned, i just want to reiterate that you do not have to comply with anything written below, this is just for fun and because i love world building*]

(originally written: 17-01-2022 / version 1: 16-02-2022 / version 2: 17-12-2023 / version 3: 21-7-2024 / @theskyuniverse)

khione hima goossens (iman vellani) has lived in maxville her entire life. as have her parents. though her paternal grandparents and their ancestors came from europe and her maternal grandparents and their ancestors came from surinam, india and pakistan, respectively. khione grew up in the richer part of town, in the same neighborhood as gwen grayson, and spends her time at the maxville ice arena and ice slash snow sculpting.

her dad, leander (neil jackson) is a cryokinetic. he used to be known as the superhero permafrost but has since gone inactive - or so he clains - to focus on his acting career. he's been tapped for the 'darkstar' franchise, playing the titular character. in reality, an altercation with barron battle forced leander to hang up his cape for good.

her mom, saraswati, who's more commonly known as sara as per her insistence (jameela jamil) has hydrokinesis abilities and is a retired superhero - in solidarity with her husband - turned tv personality, being known for the fabulous lives of superhero wives. and, yes, khione has been on the show too. multiple times, in fact. it's all over tiktok and youtube and it's in the top 10 on netflix, much to her despair.

khione has inherited both her dad's cryokinesis and her mom's hydrokinesis, which means she's got a big family legacy to live up to. much like will stronghold, khione is a she's a third gen.

leander and saraswati never should have been allowed to name their only daughter. aside from huge expectations for their daughter, a tendency to manage her life, a huge dose of haughtiness, as well as loftiness and a remarkable hatred for pyrokinetics, whom they deem "beneath them" as well as "dangerous" and "destructive", leander and saraswati are a normal couple.

well, as normal as two retired supers can be.

especially if one of them has a secret.

khione may be an only child, but saraswati has another child out there: zach braun-springer (noah lalonde) who possesses photokinesis and an immunity towards the cold that people thought was just sheer dumb luck on his part.

this secret comes to light during zach's freshman year and khione’s sophomore year at sky high, a few months after royal pain’s rampages have largely been forgotten. the super community can change like the wind, at the drop of a hat, or a coin. it goes from loving to vicious. from soft to sharp and back again. it ruptures the marriage of khione’s parents (though they stay together instead of divorcing), and does the same to the marriage of zach’s parents as well. khione tries to keep her head above water by focusing on her classes and her friends.

sometime during her senior year at sky high, nurse spex passes away, rendering her grandson valerian - laser eyes kid - effectively an orphan. his parents died on the job and nurse spex, his grandmother, took him in. in her opinion, she’s raised the finest boy in maxville. no one had the heart to tell her that her grandson was behaving terribly. after nurse spex’s funeral, laser eyes kid takes out his grief on everyone around him, khione included. but he finds a home with mr and mrs timmerman, who end up fostering him alongside jolene hamilton (and they adopt both of them down the line).

khione manages to make it to graduation. her parents don’t show up as she walks the stage because they’re both in europe for their jobs. shortly afterwards, khione gets accepted into sky u.

in the transitional period between high school and college, the superhero world is shaken to the core when josie stronghold (nee demarco) dies. khione attends the funeral with her parents - who fly back from europe for this - and does her best to be there for will in the aftermath when his paternal grandparents fly into town.

during her first year at sky u, disaster strikes again: warren’s father, barron battle, escapes the maximum security prison. people speculate it’s an inside job. the downtown area of maxville gets turned into a disaster zone made of smoke plumes, flames and screams. khione, warren, will, layla, zach, magenta (brianne tju) and ethan are deployed to put a stop to barron's battle against the citizens of maxville.

things turn from bad to worse, however, when barron gets away and kidnaps ethan banks (jonathan daviss) who is, by far, the smartest member of khione’s friend group and it takes far longer to get ethan back than khione would have liked.

enter katherine "katie" baxter shortly after khione's second year of uni has started. she and her twin michael “mike” baxter have sound based powers. while barron has escaped prison, mike is still locked up and katie is hurt and enraged about it. she and mike have gone through some shit and now they don’t quite know how to exist without each other. katie kidnaps khione, thinking that if she presses the right buttons, the stronghold seven (or six, in this case) will pull some strings to get mike released. khione is gone for about a week and the squad gets video updates. khione's parents are informed as well and they fly back from europe immediately (though whether they are truly concerned for their daughter's wellbeing or for everything they've invested in her so far is truly anyone's guess).

while she has her, katie excessively uses her sound powers on khione who tries her hardest to fight back until she’s exhausted. when it becomes clear that khione has received training when it comes to dealing with sound based powers to the best of her ability (because of course khione’s parents would do so, even though it hurts like hell), katie realizes that she needs to press harder. so she does, promising to wean khione off of all her friends when it becomes clear that they're not going to help her get her brother back.

the stronghold seven (or six, in this case) find khione locked up inside maxwellness, a wellness and beauty centre ("for maximum wellness!”) located somewhere in maxville. katie left khione in a sauna booth with the settings way up high. after she gets out of there, she faints and it's a race against the clock to try to get her core temperature back down before she dies. this whole experience exerbates khione's existing case of claustrophobia too.

ethan and khione hang out more afterwards. they bond over their respective experiences. ethan comes out as queer. khione tells him she’s pansexual. they bond over that, too, and magenta organically adds herself into the mix when she comes out to them as bi.

both of them spend the majority of their time catching up on the stuff they missed in regards to schoolwork as well. ethan and khione also end up training together (and seperately) so that neither of them get taken against their will ever again.

khione's third year is filled with pro and anti super sentiment across the board. after supers are forced to go public when mr medulla's particle accelerator explodes, the general public has a lot to say. turns out, he hadn't really "gotten rid of that horrible weapon, forever" like he said so many years ago and kept tinkering with the reversed pacifier behind the scenes. he just couldn't help himself. medulla was certain that he was doing a good thing here: he was going to bring about advancements in (mad) science, physics and advancements in medicine. still, the consequences are long-lasting. and never before had the debate on whether supers need to hang up the cape or not, on whether "their secret identity needs to become their only identity" been fiercer.

after graduation, khione officially takes up the mantle 'skadi' amid the pro and anti super discussions and enters the field alongside the others and officially becomes part of the stronghold seven.

#long post /#freeze girl / about.#headcanons; metas; world building.#death mention /#death of a loved one /#queue.

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catullus0525 · 3 months

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Chapter 1: Dim And Remote The Joys Of Saints I See (1869-1895) -- Part III

No one really knew exactly when or how did Robbie meet Oscar Wilde. Frank Harris claimed that Wilde had told him that Robbie had ‘importuned’ him in a public lavatory in the 1880s —— a common practice amongst Victorian gay men. Montgomery Hyde also recorded that Frank Harris had told Alfred Douglas in 1925 that Ross had boasted to him that himself was ‘the first boy Oscar ever had’ back in 1886. But Harris was a notoriously unreliable storyteller. It was more likely that they met through Robbie’s mother’s Irish connections, or through the literary associations of Aleck (Robbie’s older brother), or through Frances Richards (a Canadian artist who painted both Wilde and Ross), or in 1887 when Robbie moved into Wilde’s Tite Street home as a paying tenant when attending a crammer school in in preparation for his Cambridge entrance examination.

The story famously has it that it was then and there that Robbie initiated Oscar Wilde into homosexual practices. The 1997 film immortalised the story with an exquisitely beautiful rendition. This famous story was ‘remarkably well-supported’ given the fact that the incident was ‘private, covert, and illegal’. For one, both parties (allegedly) attested to it. Reginald Turner recalled in 1935 to A.J.A Symons that Wilde had once confided that it was ‘little Robbie’ who had first ‘seduced’ him. And Christopher Millard, Ross’s secretary later in his life, recorded Ross saying that he felt responsible for Cyril and Vyvyan’s welfare because he held himself culpable for leading their father ‘astray’. However, despite this ‘body of evidence’, Matthew Sturgis noted that there have been ‘periodic attempts’ to suggest otherwise. Some had speculated that Wilde must have had other homosexual encounters prior to Robbie Ross, and others raised that both Wilde and Ross often preferred telling a good story to boring truths. In any case, there is no way for us contemporaries to conclusively ascertain what really happened in historical figures’ bedrooms, beyond the fact that they had an affair in 1886-1887.

Despite such uncertainties in the facts, biographers nevertheless have a curious tendency to declare with certainty that it was Robbie, then a teenager barely seventeen years of age, who seduced Oscar Wilde, a thirty-three year old married man with two kids and a successful literary career. For instance, Rupert Croft-Cooke denigrated Robbie as a promiscuous ‘invert’ whose ‘feminine willingness’ in the bedroom Oscar soon found ‘facile’. And Neil McKenna maintained that seventeen-year-old Robbie was ‘polymorphously perverse’, had extensive experience ‘taking the receptive role in anal sex’, and was ‘extremely sexually sophisticated’. Thus, he must have known ‘exactly what he wanted out of his sexual encounters’ and ‘dazzled’ Oscar with his sexual precocity. This narrative logic is baffling: how does one infer from Robbie’s sexual experiences that he must have been the temptress in this instance? The only plausible answer, it seems, is prejudice. The age-old Madonna-Whore Dichotomy so pivotal to patriarchal orders dictates that any woman with sexual experience must be promiscuous, and her promiscuity definitively renders her a temptress. Similar logic seems to underpin these incriminations of Robbie Ross. Although it is not impossible that Robbie knew what he wanted and actively seduced Oscar (and by all accounts he was certainly in love with Wilde at the time), one must not forget that he was, after all, a schoolboy falling for his de-facto guardian fifteen years his senior.

Moreover, many took Robbie’s affair with Oscar Wilde in 1886 as one of the biggest turning points in Robbie’s life. In this version events, 1886 was the tragic beginning of Robbie’s lifelong unrequited love for Oscar which eventually consumed him. Ironically, one of the most beautiful versions of this tragedy was told by Rupert Croft-Cooke, whose hatred for Ross was only bested by Alfred Douglas himself. He wrote that:

From the time Ross first met Wilde he had no other serious interest. Wilde, in triumph or prison, alive or dead, was Ross's life.

That:

Little Ross ingratiated himself at once with Oscar and there was a brief affair between them which was not very serious as Ross was not Oscar's 'type. Oscar actually preferred heterosexuals who were merely vicious and mercenary and he found Ross's feminine willingness facile and not at all like “feasting with panthers", as he described his associations……Ross longed, in an obliging, flattering and unassuming way, to appropriate him. Oscar was indulgent and if he was also a little patronizing it was with such affectionate good-nature that it only excited Ross to a more Boswellian devotion.

And that:

[After Oscar met Douglas in 1891] …There were no more gatherings at which Oscar scintillated for the benefit of Robbie……He now watched while Bosie as by natural right was taken everywhere, introduced to everyone. Ross had been petted but patronized, Bosie was not only adored but revered. Ross had been a useful amanuensis, Bosie was a fellow-writer. Ross found himself taken for granted while Bosie walked over a universal red carpet laid by Oscar. While Bosie was introduced to the most distinguished people Wilde knew, Ross, to whom such things were of urgent importance, found himself being offered by Besant the unpaid sub-editorship of the house organ of the Society of Authors. While Bosie was to be given the distinction of translating Salomé into English, Ross was reduced to making himself useful to Edmund Gosse and receiving the anxious confidences of Aubrey Beardsley's mother. He cannot have been much pleased to receive from Oscar that summer a letter from the Royal Palace Hotel, Kensington saying, "Bosie is quite like a narcissus-so white and gold. He lies like a hyacinth on the sofa, and I worship him…….Ross was too shrewd to remonstrate or even to show the smallest sign of resentment. Perhaps he believed his day would come again and that the highly publicized friendship would blaze itself to ashes in a month or two.

This would make a heart-wrenching tragedy for the stage, but alas, it is woefully inaccurate and unworthy for a book which claims to be non-fiction.

Though Robbie’s encounter with Oscar Wilde was undoubtedly a fateful one in the grand scheme of things, I personally dispute the idea that the 1886 affair was in and of itself a critical turning point for Robbie, for it is a very Wilde-centric narrative which blows the initial affair’s importance way out of proportion. Instead, I am of the view that at least until 1895, Robbie’s life did not, in fact, revolve around Oscar, and thus that famous romantic tragedy exemplified by Croft-Cooke’s narrative should be relegated to the realm of fiction. There are three key reasons for this. Firstly, though we really cannot know whether they were each other’s ‘type’, Fryer had a point when he contended that the 1886 affair ended in mutual dwindling of romantic interest in one another. From the scarce evidence that we have, it was even possible that Robbie lost romantic interests in Wilde first and not the other way around. Not long after Robbie entered Cambridge, around December 1888, Wilde (lightheartedly) complained to Robbie’s supervisor (whose homosexuality was semi-public) that he hardly ever heard from his young boyfriend except for the time when Robbie sent him a kitten as a gift for the kids. To me this hardly seems like one-sided ‘Boswellian devotion’ on Ross’s part. Secondly, as argued in section II, and as agreed upon by most biographers familiar with Ross’s life, at the time, Robbie had many other personal and professional concerns beside Oscar Wilde. Indeed, Robbie himself confided with Adela Schuster in his letter on 23 Dec 1900 that ‘I am not alas a Boswell’, and that ‘there were long intervals when I never saw him and he never corresponded with me regularly until after the downfall’. Thirdly, and perhaps most interestingly, Alfred Douglas himself alleged that in those days before Wilde’s imprisonment, Ross was romantically interested in him (Douglas) and ‘professed devotion and admiration’ for him in terms ‘as extravagant […] as those used by Wilde’. Although, to my knowledge, this was not corroborated by anyone (including Croft-Cooke who knew Douglas in person), it nevertheless goes to disprove many Douglas biographers’ theory that Robbie was irrevocably consumed by unrequited love for Oscar ever since their encounter.

The less dramatic reality is that we simply do not know very much about what the initial romance between Wilde and Ross was like. It was possible that, as McKenna postulated, Oscar fell ‘violently in love with Robbie’ for a while and vice versa, but the love was driven mostly by lust, and neither made serious attempt at monogamy, so the affair gradually faded into ‘a creative partnership’. It was also possible that, as Fryer suggested, Robbie saw in Oscar a ‘father figure’ which he had long desired whilst Oscar sought homoerotic inspirations through Robbie, so the affair was more mutual dependency than romantic attraction. Or it could be that Robbie had loved Oscar deeply but it was more love for Wilde the artist than Wilde the man. It could even be that their intimacy back in the 1880s was more spiritual than physical. In the absence of evidence, history can only give way to fantasy.

There are, however, three things we could ascertain about the Wilde-Ross relationship in the early days from the surviving evidence. Firstly, Robbie recognised and admired Oscar’s immense artistic potential. Oscar was undergoing a low period in his artistic career when he first met Robbie. Over the past few years, despite the success of his America tour, his poetry collection was refused by the Oxford Union on grounds of plagiarism, and his first two plays fared rather badly in both London and New York. By the time Robbie went to live at Tite Street, the Wildes were on the verge of struggling to maintain the ‘House Beautiful’ itself. Yet young Robbie at once worshipped the underrated genius and became his loyal disciple. He not only inspired and refined Wilde’s art but also ardently defended it. A few years later he was even willing to defend Wilde’s Dorian Gray at the expense of straining strain his professional relationship with his boss at work.

Secondly, Oscar took Robbie to be his first boy muse. This petite seventeen-year-old’s lithe body awakened in him the hitherto-repressed homosexual libido, whilst his precocious mind helped him to sublimate his desires into art. When Robbie lodged at Tite Street they probably talked day and night, weaving theory after theory about literature, philosophy, and sexuality. The conversations were so delightful that Oscar missed Robbie dearly when the latter had to go up to Cambridge and lavished praises on his charm, taste, and knowledge to Robbie’s college supervisor. Thus, as McKenna remarked, it is ‘no coincidence’ that the affair with Robbie marked the beginning of Oscar’s creative golden age. For one, Robbie undoubtedly inspired The Portrait of Mr.W.H., that daring historical fiction speculating on Shakespeare’s fascination with one of his boy actors. In July 1889, referring to the story recently published in Blackwood’s Magazine, Oscar told Robbie that:

…… the story is half yours, and but for you would not have been written.

And implored his ‘dear Bobbie’ to write him letters, for:

Now that Willie Hughes has been revealed to the world, we must have another secret.

Young Robbie was probably at once Oscar’s Erskine and Willie Hughes: at once the disciple of his theories and the object of his erotic fascination. The inspiration did not stop at The Portrait of Mr.W.H. William Rothenstein, a close friend of both Wilde and Ross, recalled that ‘Oscar Wilde was never wittier than when at Ross's parties’. Moreover, biographers from Hyde to Ellmann to Lee all agreed that behind Oscar Wilde’s greatest pieces such as The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest lied conversations with the young Robbie. Perhaps, as Neil Bartlett imagined, over alcohol, cigarettes, and cheap dinners, Wilde and Ross fantasised an entire history of the theatre and together created an imaginary tradition, mixing eroticism and erudition, to justify and ennoble the love and desire they shared. Without putting too fine a point on the analogy, then, Robbie was almost the Heloise to Oscar’s Abelard, the precocious student and sensuous paramour who catalysed the master’s philosophical originality by capturing his body and soul.

Thirdly, neither was committed to exclusive romantic relationship with the other. Between 1888 and 1890 Oscar changed his boy lovers at dizzying speed. As he later admitted himself, during this period he ‘used to take a boy, love him “passionately”, and then grow bored of him, and often take no notice of him’. He shared many intimate details of his dalliances with Robbie, who seemed to have taken no issue. In 1889, for instance, he wrote to Robbie praising one of Robbie’s Cambridge friends as ‘Willie Hughes in reincarnation’, and wrote again after one week telling Robbie about his one-day reunion with a former lover at Ostend. Moreover, the very limited textual evidence we have indicates that Wilde, Ross, and Douglas may well have engaged in a polyamorous relationship before 1895. In 1892, shortly after his first night with Alfred Douglas, Oscar wrote:

My dearest Bobbie,

Bosie has insisted on stopping here for sandwiches. He is quite like a narcissus - so white and gold. I will come either Wednesday or Thursday night to your rooms. Send me a line. Bosie is so tired: he lies like a hyacinth on the sofa, and I worship him.

McKenna read the letter as a ‘coded reference to oral sex’, for ‘worship’ was likely a euphemism for fellatio. But even if one disagrees with his reading, the erotic undertone of the languid hyacinth on the sofa and the promise to ‘come […] to your rooms’ is undeniable. From what we know, this somewhat-polyamorous arrangement lasted well into 1895. In January that year, from Algiers, Oscar shared with Robbie in great details the beauty of the lovely ‘Kabyle boys’ and the exquisite delight of hashish, whilst Bosie confided that he was ‘held fast by the lassoo of desire to a sugar-lipped lad’ who was but fourteen years of age.

But alas that delightful decadence was not to last, and the ‘peace and love’ in the Algerian sun was but a fleeting moment of calm before the storm. As André Gide wrote in late January after meeting Wilde and Douglas in Algiers:

Wilde! Wilde!! What more tragic life is there than his! If only he were more careful – if he were capable of being careful – he would be a genius, a great genius ... I am happy to have met him in such a distant place, though even Algiers isn’t far enough away for me to be able to face him without a certain fear; I told him so to his face ... If Wilde’s plays in London didn’t run for three hundred performances, and if the Prince of Wales didn’t attend his first nights, he would be in prison and Lord Douglas as well.

These words turned out to be a fateful prophecy.

#history #queer history #victorian #victorian england #oscar wilde #robbie ross #literature #literary history #de profundis #lgbtq+ history #andre gide #alfred douglas #Portrait of Mr W.H.#picture of dorian gray

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craigawalt · 13 days

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This bank tested 90 uses for AI before choosing the top 2—and they benefit customer service and productivity

Citizens Financial Group has explored more than 90 different use cases for generative artificial intelligence. Only two have gone into production thus far.

“We really work to make sure we have the appropriate guardrails and security in place for our general use cases,” says Michael Ruttledge, chief information officer at Citizens Financial.

The Rhode Island–based bank says it has taken a thoughtful approach to generative AI, including the creation of a steering committee to ensure employees aren’t going rogue and developing their own projects. The two generative AI use cases that Citizens Financial says will go live this year include an enterprise search tool that helps customer service representatives answer questions and a GitHub Copilot, developed by Microsoft and OpenAI, to help improve the productivity of the company’s software engineers.

A vast majority of bank organizations are either in production or have gone live with generative AI use cases, often focused on client engagement, risk and compliance, information technology, and other support functions.

“Financial services is a technology-led business,” says Neil Pardasani, a managing director and senior partner at Boston Consulting Group. And while financial services starts ahead of many other sectors, he says the industry can also be “a bit more cautious in terms of really making sure you get it right and the use cases that go into the market always have got a human in the loop.”

Many early wins for the industry have been in adopting generative AI tools to assist customer service. “It is an easy place to make the business case work, because of the power of the tools,” says Pardasani.

At Citizens Financial, the new generative AI tool that’s helping customer representatives doesn’t directly reach clients, as the bank wants to continue to test the responses that are given and is still keeping an eye out for hallucinations, which are responses that an AI model can produce that are misleading or outright false. “We are going through those guardrails, but for now, we don’t feel that we’re ready to go out directly to a customer,” says Ruttledge.

With major players like Google and Amazon launching AI solutions, as well as thousands of startups, Citizens Financial says it took a safe bet by leveraging the company’s existing relationships with Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, the cloud providers the company works with as part of Citizens’ hybrid strategy that also includes Amazon Web Services. “We were able to build upon that as we already had a lot of the infrastructure installed,” says Ruttledge.

North America banks are leading in AI innovation, according to a recent report published by Evident Insights, which says JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, and Royal Bank of Canada are at the forefront of AI innovation. Banks on the continent were responsible for more than 80% of all AI research published by the sector last year, while Capital One and Bank of America dominated the AI patent landscape and were responsible for two-thirds of all patents filed in the 12-month period ending in June 2022.

“There’s a lot of scaffolding for us to build on,” says Prem Natarajan, chief scientist and head of enterprise data and AI at Capital One. “We are in a great position to build on that history. But let us be humble and recognize that this is now a new technology which, appropriately given its power, deserves its own respect in terms of first taking a test-and-learn approach.”

In March, Capital One announced a partnership with Columbia University and committed $3 million to invest in an AI innovation center that aimed to accelerate research, but do so responsibly. “This transformation is going to be so big and the benefits are going to be so large,” says Natarajan. “That’s okay. They’re going to be around for a while. So let’s take our time figuring this out and do it right.”

Natarajan says Capital One’s approach is to first understand the various use cases the company can explore with generative AI, then determine what data it can control that goes into the models. From there, Capital One figures out what it can construct to test and learn, as well as mitigate any unforeseen outcomes.

“We want very deliberately to do a human-in-the-loop kind of approach to start with, so that you’re never actually quite exposing things outside,” says Natarajan.

Visa recently unveiled three new AI-powered risk and fraud prevention tools meant for the payments company’s business customers. The company blocked $40 billion in fraud activity last year, nearly double from the year prior.

The new products are launching in the first half of 2024, Visa says, with tools including Visa Deep Authorization, which is a new risk-scoring solution aimed to better manage payments that are made when a physical card isn’t present.

“We’re applying deep AI learning models, and we’ve literally trained that model with millions and billions of transactions,” says Anthony Cahill, global head of value-added services at Visa. “We’ll give an informed view of a good payment or, actually, is it a payment that needs closer inspection?”

Last year, Visa announced a $100 million venture fund for generative AI startups, with chief product and strategy officer Jack Forestell saying that while much of generative AI “so far has been focused on tasks and content creation, this technology will soon not only reshape how we live and work, but it will also meaningfully change commerce in ways we need to understand.”

Mastercard also has invested deeply in fraud prevention, spending $7 billion on cybersecurity over the past five years, including the acquisition of new technologies and developing AI tools that make it easier to identify fraud. Mastercard has also invested in around 20 different startups to get a first look at emerging security tools that the company may want to use to support future readiness in combating fraud.

“Security pervades our business, from protecting the systems themselves to new capabilities that we’re bringing out for our customers,” says Ed McLaughlin, chief technology officer at Mastercard.

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andreil-fic-stash · 2 years

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Back to the Start by fuzzballsheltiepants

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 29,277

Time Period: Neil’s senior year

Summary:

Andrew has been on his pro team for 6 months when he takes a ball to the head. Neil flies to Boston to see him - only to find that Andrew doesn't remember him.

Comments: Hands down the best and most realistic amnesia fic I’ve read. Also, I liked reading how Andrew’s relationships with people like Aaron may have changed in the years after canon.

#word count: 20 to 50k #rating: teen #time period: Neil's senior year #pov: neil #pov: andrew #genre: hurt/comfort #themes: amnesia (andrew)#established relationship #themes: fandom/media #themes: coming out #personal favorite #themes: injured!Andrew

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l8in · 2 months

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Ten months after the arrest of Neil Foden, parents and governors still have little confidence in cyngor Gwynedd council to stop any future abuse.

At last weeks Education and Economy Committee, the representative for Arfon's parents and governors expressed her concerns and asked for an 'interactive infographic' to be made to ensure that everyone knew how to report abuse. But the safeguarding procedures are well known - it is written on the back of many staff key cards. The policies have not failed rather the officers whose job it is to ensure childrens safety have failed...

It is a concern that the governor's rep has little confidence that things have improved. She may be aware of the new governing body that has been appointed at Ysgol Friars and one wonders if she has confidence in them also.

The new chair of the governors is councillor Dafydd Meurig. Other members appointed by the council are Elin Walker Jones, Gareth Mark Parry, John Wyn Williams and R Medwyn Hughes - https://www.ysgolfriars.cymru/en/the-governing-body

Councillor Medwyn Hughes sat on the previous board and his re-appointment does not inspire confidence. Nor does the appointment of Elin Walker Jones, the present cabinet member for children, who has remained silent on the SS department's revelation earlier this year of historic complaints from 2013/14 concerning the Arfon social workers team.

Dafydd Meurig, was the deputy leader of the council and also cabinet member for the Adult SS department when they were being hauled over the coals by the Ombudsman for Wales for maladministration and bad behaviour towards the disabled under the last administration. One case featured in the PSOW's human rights casebook - it was that bad.

This case should have come before full council and a review undertaken of the social worker(s), their manager and the care home involved. Meurig did not present it to full council...

The public outrage prompted the Plaid MS for Arfon, Siân Gwenllian, to ask questions of the council. https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/gwynedd-council-review-vehicle-policy-19777848

Over a year later, there had been no update from Gwynedd council nor the MS... Local elections were held and Plaid Cymru increased their majority. After the election, the leader of the council shuffled his Cabinet and Dafydd Meurig was replaced by Dilwyn Morgan, who was the former Cabinet member for children and families.

Morgan's tenure was also overshadowed by controversy. The PSOW finding maladministration and bad behaviour by his department also. A reminder that Dilwyn Morgan refused to answer questions of the Care Scrutiny Committee after one 'damning' PSOW investigation. It is also claimed that Morgan failed to take action against the senior safeguarding officer after allegations he misled councillors and the public.

In the reshuffle, Dafydd Meurig became Cabinet member for the Enviroment.

In September, 2023, the MS for Arfon was sent an email asking for an update on the vehicle misuse and mentions Gwynedd social workers using the cars for 'extra curricular activity'.

Her office replied that Ms Gwenllian only asked about the Waste and Recycling department and passed on a message that she had received from Dafydd Meurig - A letter and email was sent to officers who had the right to take vehicles home as part of their working terms, on 29/03/2023. The letter stated that the consultation period has ended and that no officer from the Waste and Recycling service is now exempt from the new policy - 'Use of Council vehicles for commuting'. In accordance with the procedure, a period of notice must be given to staff and the period of 90 days has started on 31/03/2023 and ends on 29/06/2023. So by the end of June the exercise of using the council's vehicle for journeys between home and work will come to an end.

At the time of the protest, there was a perception that some officers of all departments considered the vehicles their personal property to do with as they pleased - including using them for trysts away from the office. So it is surprising that the focus was on one department only.

Perhaps Aled Gibbard, the former senior operational manager and now head of resources, should have dealt with the matter. He would have far more knowledge of the affair than any councillor. For how long has it been considered normal practice that officers use these vehicles (and the fuel) to commute between home and work? All staff or just senior officers?

Dafydd Meurig did not bring this case to full council, either...

To outsiders, the perception is that many senior managers within the council and schools are incompetent and that a toxic culture of cover up has allowed many to get away with actions and behaviours that would not be tolerated in the private sector. The attitude of many senior councillors only adds to this perception...

In other news, it is reported that cyngor Gwynedd have suspended two staff members at a school. A spokesperson said - We can confirm that two members of school staff in Gwynedd have been suspended from their posts and that the council is conducting internal investigations. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgm8my77kno The school has not been named but it is reported that the council are conducting an internal investigation. There is no trust in those undertaking Gwynedd council's internal investigations and in light of Neil Foden it may be more appropriate for councillors to insist that officers of another LA to be tasked with investigating the matter.

Something is so very wrong within Gwynedd council...

youtube

#cyngor gwynedd #gwyneddcouncil #neil foden #dilwyn morgan #bala #ysgol friars #bangor #elin walker jones #dafydd meurig #richard medwyn hughes #ombudsman for wales #psow #sian gwenllian #arfon #caernarfon #north wales #plaid cymru #Youtube

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travel-with-bihari · 3 months

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Scuba Diving in Andaman: Are Videos Included in Your Package?

Scuba diving in Andaman offers an unparalleled underwater experience, drawing adventure enthusiasts to its pristine waters. Renowned for its vibrant coral reefs and diverse marine life, the Andaman Islands are a top destination for divers worldwide.

Among the various diving spots, Neil Island scuba diving stands out for its exceptional visibility and rich aquatic biodiversity. Whether you're a seasoned diver or a beginner, scuba diving in Andaman, particularly at Neil Island, promises an unforgettable exploration of the underwater world.

Experience the Best of Scuba Diving in Andaman: Shore and Boat Diving Adventures

Scuba diving in Andaman offers a range of options tailored to different preferences and budgets, with a focus on providing exceptional experiences through Universal Adventure. For Shore scuba diving in Andaman price is ₹3499 per person. This package includes videography with marine life, a safe and secure dive led by PADI-certified instructors, 25 minutes of thrilling underwater exploration, and complimentary 2 to 5 minutes of Go-Pro videos. It's important to note that personal expenses, travel costs, and items not specified in the package are not covered. Before diving, participants are required to complete a medical questionnaire. The minimum age for scuba diving in Andaman is ten years, and for safety reasons, pregnant women and senior citizens above 60 years of age are advised against diving.

Alternatively, Boat Scuba Diving is available through Universal Adventure for ₹4249 per person and spans 2 hours. This package includes a 20-minute boat ride to the dive site, videography with marine life, a safe and secure dive with PADI-certified instructors, 25 minutes of underwater diving, and complimentary 2 to 5 minutes of Go-Pro videos. Similar to the shore diving package, personal expenses, travel expenses, and anything not mentioned in the inclusions are excluded. A medical questionnaire must be completed before diving, and the same age and health restrictions apply.

When considering scuba diving in Andaman, the price is a crucial factor, but so is understanding what each package includes.

What is the Best Season for Scuba Diving in Andaman?

The best season for scuba diving in Andaman, particularly around Neil Island, is from October to May. During these months, the weather is calm, and the water visibility is at its peak, making it the ideal time for an underwater adventure. The Andaman Islands experience their dry season during this period, providing stable sea conditions and allowing divers to explore the vibrant coral reefs and abundant marine life without interruptions.

Neil Island, known for its stunning dive sites, offers an unparalleled scuba diving experience. The clear waters during the best season reveal a mesmerising underwater world teeming with colourful corals, diverse fish species, and other marine creatures. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced diver, the favourable conditions from October to May enhance your chances of encountering exotic marine life and enjoying safe, enjoyable dives.

In contrast, the monsoon season, from June to September, brings rough seas, strong currents, and reduced visibility, making it a less suitable time for diving. Heavy rains and unpredictable weather can lead to dive cancellations and limit underwater exploration.

For those planning a trip to experience scuba diving in Neil Island, choosing the best season ensures a memorable and breathtaking adventure in one of India's most beautiful diving destinations.

Is Andaman Good for Scuba Diving? Exploring the Pristine Underwater World

Is Andaman Good for Scuba Diving? Yes, Andaman is an excellent destination for scuba diving. The islands are renowned for their crystal-clear waters, vibrant coral reefs, and diverse marine life, making them a top choice for both novice and experienced divers. With numerous dive sites, including the popular Neil Island, Andaman offers a unique underwater experience that is hard to match.

The Ultimate Scuba Diving Experience in Andaman

Andaman is a premier destination for scuba diving, offering a remarkable underwater experience that attracts divers from around the globe. The island's clear waters, thriving coral reefs, and rich marine biodiversity create an ideal environment for both beginners and seasoned divers.

With a well-developed diving infrastructure and favourable conditions from October to May, scuba diving in Andaman, especially around Neil Island, promises an unforgettable adventure. If you're seeking an exceptional diving experience, Andaman should be at the top of your list.

#scuba diving in andaman #neil island scuba diving #scuba diving in andaman price #scuba diving in neil island

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maximumphilosopheranchor · 4 months

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Hatton consciously adopted a more statesmanlike style as he grew older and more senior. It has already been argued that as Hatton progressed up the ranks of government, he took active steps to prepare himself intellectually, probably including a conscious effort to develop his oratory. He also changed his behaviour: he stopped jousting at a relatively young age, and he participated less in general court frivolity. He changed his dress too: when he became Lord Chancellor, Robert Cecil reported that he had ‘left his Hat and Feather, and now wears a flatt Velvet Cap, not different from your Lordship’s’. A document of September 1587 shows him signing an order for velvet and satin, ‘the softeste and gentleste in hande that may be found ... the best that possibly can be made ... and all theise silkes to be blacke for myne owne wearing, the purest that maye be had, whatsoever the pryce be’. Clearly he wished to dress more soberly, if not plainly. Hatton did not cease to be a courtier. Indeed as Vice-Chamberlain, managing the court was a major part of his job. He continued to spend a great deal of time with the Queen, as well as those who visited her. The Spanish ambassador Mendoza, for example, describes a visit to Whitehall, when he was greeted by Hatton in a gallery overlooking the river before being joined by the Queen and the Earl of Sussex. Nevertheless, and perhaps surprisingly, Hatton was consistently a very diligent attendee at Council meetings. During his fourteen years as a privy councillor, he is recorded as attending more meetings than Burghley, and in some periods attended more sessions than any other councillor.

Neil Younger, Religion and politics in Elizabethan England: The life of Sir Christopher Hatton

#Neil Younger #non-fiction #Christopher Hatton #Elizabethan England #Elizabeth I #Elizabeth's council

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essay110us · 1 year

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How God Is Seen Through the Golden Section The First Academy

Essay学霸团队今天给各位留学生带来一篇英语essay代写范文，内容讲的是黄金分割是在许多植物中观察到的一种有趣的自然现象。人类在建筑中也经常使用黄金分割。然而，没有多少人想知道黄金分割和基督教之间的关系。本文旨在探讨黄金分割与上帝的关系。本文以《圣经》中建筑、植物和人体的黄金分割为例，论证黄金分割是上帝的创造，通过植物、人体和建筑的黄金分割可以看到上帝。它建议人类应该保持谦虚，与自然和谐相处。人类也应该通过反省自己来欣赏上帝的爱。上帝是万物的创造者，人类的建筑只是模仿上帝。

Author’s Note

This paper was prepared in fulfillment of the senior thesis graduation requirement under the guidance of Mr. Neil Harrison, Mrs. Susie Taylor, and Dr. Scott Tornges.

Abstract

The golden section is an interesting natural phenomenon that is observed in many plants. Human beings have also used golden section frequently in architecture. However, not many people have wondered about the relationship between golden section and Christianity. This paper aims to find out the connections between the golden section and God. Using biblical references and examples of golden section in architecture, plants and the human body, this paper tries to prove that golden section is the creation of God, and God can be seen through the golden section in plants, the human body, and architecture. It suggests that human beings should remain humble and live in harmony with nature. Humans should also appreciate the love of god by reflecting on themselves. God is the creator of everything and the architecture of humans is only imitation of God.

Zhiyi Zhou

4th Period English / 5th Period Apologetics

30th Jan 2020

How God Is Seen Through the Golden Section?

The golden section is also known as the golden ratio, its value is roughly 0.618. The golden section is common in people’s lives and objects designed by the golden ratio are often appealing to the viewer. More than 2,500 years ago, Pythagoras, a famous mathematician in ancient Greece, was the first person recorded to discover the golden section. During the Renaissance, the famous Italian painter, artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci named this proportional relationship as the "golden section" and it is still in use today (Dolly, 2009). Teenagers in China believe that The Golden Section was created by an unknown mathematician in ancient times. However, there is no book that proves The Golden Section was invented by human. People all over the world considers that The Golden Section as a nature phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is impossible to have so many coincidences. The golden section is a familiar mathematical relationship, but its meaning is not so simple. If it was discovered and not invented by human beings, then who invented it in the first place? I believe that God is the creator of everything and controls them to make world a more beautiful place. God can be seen through the golden section in plants, the human body, and architecture.

First, God can be seen through golden section in plants. Plant is the source of life for many creatures on earth and an important link of nature. In Genesis 1:12, the land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. According to the description in Genesis, although God created mankind in his own image, mankind belongs to the same world as other creatures in the Garden of Eden. Here the first human ancestors Adam and Eve lived in harmony with the trees and flowers, birds and animals in the garden. They used to be naked and not self-conscious at all, living in harmony with nature. As the creation of God, plants are naturally the design of God. Therefore, the observation of plants will help people appreciate the intentions of God when he first created the plants.

The growth of plants observes the rule of the golden section. The leaves and petals of many plants are arranged from 0.618: 1 in ascending order. They are all designed to maximally receive the sun’s rays, keep ample space for breathing, and are more conducive to receiving moisture from rain. In this way, the plants can grow better. For example, when leaves grow in a new branch, if people look down from the top of the branch, they can see that the leaves are arranged in a pair of spirals, and the distance of the leaves on the spiral line just fits the golden section (Meisner, 2018). Coincidentally, sunflower seeds are also arranged according to a specific logarithmic spiral arc, and their distance on the spiral line also obeys the golden section law (Meisner, 2018). As early as medieval Europe, Fibonacci found that the sequence of plant leaves, petals, and pinecone petals are all close to an approximate value of 0.618. Therefore, the composition of the natural world, the birth of all plants on earth, are inextricably linked to the golden section.

The presence of the golden section in nature is perhaps the way for God to tell people the interconnectedness of living things and the divine laws of creation behind everything. God gives lives for everything on Earth. They are in a particular order which is very complex. According to Geisler: "Any slight deviation in any one of a number of environmental factors would preclude us from even existing. The extent of the universes fine-tuning makes the Anthropic Principle perhaps the most powerful argument for the existence of God" (Geisler, & Turek, 2004). Such “coincidence” make us humans feel humbled in front of the creation and design of God. With the decline natural environment caused by human beings, we should be reminded that we are only part of this world, not the master of this world. Therefore, it is important for us human beings to live harmoniously with nature instead of destroying nature arrogantly.

Second, God can be seen through Golden Section in the human body. According to Genesis 1:27, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him male and female he created them”. Genesis allows us to see that not only the heavens and the earth are created by God, but humans are also created by God. In addition, humans are created in the image and style given by God. Genesis allows us to see that God created man in his own image and style when he created them. Why is this important? The answer is that if there is a similarity between man and God, then we should look at our own images and find characters of God. Man has God’s image means that human can have the features of holiness, goodness, justice, fairness, love, and faithfulness that God has given us. This is shows that although human and nature are both created by God, humans have more complicated nature granted by God.

The evidence of the golden section is found in many places in the human body. The heart is the engine of life, and the center of the heart is at the golden section of the chest. The navel is the point of the golden section of the entire human body. The position of the navel is equivalent to roughly 61.8% of the height. For the whole body, the navel is the dividing point between distance from the top of the head to the plantar, and for the part, the throat is the point which divide the distance between the head and the navel (Ili?, Stefanovi?, & Sadikovi?, 2018). In addition, the weight percentage of water in the human body is also 61.8% (Meisner, 2018). If the above-mentioned proportion of the human body meets the golden section law, it will appear coordinated and symmetrical. One of the main reasons why Venus with a broken arm has a timeless charm is that the proportion of the body structure fully complies with the golden section law.

The golden section in the human body shows the love and mercy of God for humans. God not only creates the bodies for human, but also makes it complicated. Jesus died for human, and human lived for his glory. God created man to live holy and comfortable lives. When the earth was created, it was perfect and there were no signs of sin or decay. It is only human who disobey the law of God, that brings them sin and suffering. But in the sufferings of sin, God’s love is revealed. Although the nature of the human world is sinful, God still showing mercy by bringing salvation to the people, and having his own son sacrifice for people’s salvation. Therefore, the golden section in the human body are also reminders of the goodness of people. When humans learn to reflect upon themselves and observe the goodness, they will also discover the love of God and find salvation from the sinful life.

Architecture is the third way to see God through golden section. According to Genesis 11:4, it says that "Then they said, ’Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.’” Apparently, the complexity human beings is not only for self-reflection. God created man in his own image, so the relationship between man and God is more than ordinary nature. Humans have more complicated tasks than just living in harmony with nature. Instead, humans assume the mission of the intermediary between God and nature. Because of the ability to learn and to change the world, people can perceive the existence of God by creating things on their own. In this process of creating or changing, humans will begin to understand the divinity of God through the things they create.

The golden section is in countless famous architecture of the world. The Parthenon in ancient Greece has a plane structure with a rectangle of 1: 1.618. The center is the hall and the main hall, surrounded by pillars. Its marble columns are 0.618 of the height of the entire temple (Meisner, 2018). The temple is magnificent and harmonious because its height, width, and column spacing all conform to gold section. The Taj Mahal in India, a masterpiece of Islamic architecture, is one of the seven major architectural wonders in the world. It consists of a palace, a bell tower, a minaret, and a pond. The entire cemetery is rectangular, it is known as the perfect building for its golden ratio (Meisner, 2018). The Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, is designed for French bridge engineer Eiffel. It is made of a staggered structure, 300 meters high, and made of more than 1,500 giant beams. It is also built according to the principle of golden section (Meisner, 2018). The examples show that the golden section is not something invented by humans. Instead, it is something natural for different cultures in the world.

On the surface, the reason why golden section is seen in so many architectures is because such designs are beautiful to look at. However, describing them as beautiful seems not enough to get the essence. When we look at all the cases together, we discover something more than beautiful: “although God is invisible, he delights in the material world and uses it to reveal himself and to reach out to us” (Diedrichs, 2019). The grand architectures are merely the clumsy attempt of human beings to replicate the sunflower seeds patterns, the creation of God. According to Pseudo-Dionysius, “the Super-Essential Beautiful is called “beauty” because of that quality which It imparts to all things severally according to their nature” (Areopagita, 1920). The eternal beauty people find in the golden section is not only because of the intentions of the architects, but also because God let the architects build the structure by connect with him, and at the same time to make them eternal beauty. Similarly, when the viewers are looking at the architecture, they are able to perceive the eternal beauty because they are channeling God at the same time to truly appreciate the golden section.

The golden section is a familiar mathematical relationship to many people, but its meaning is not so simple. The golden section has a very broad meaning in nature and society. Its presence in plants reveal the interconnectedness of all things and the need for humans to remain humble. Its presence in the human body reminds us the love of God for the humans. Its presence in architecture shows the attempt of human beings to follow the guidance of God and make the world more beautiful. Although there are several religions all over the world, Christianity is the only way to follow and glorify God’s honor. Father created everything on the Earth. From plants in the natural environment, to human beings, to the architecture of human beings, no matter what things are in the world, His control is always shown through the golden section. Science was made to discover Him and let the living conditions become better. So, God can be seen through golden section by plant, the human body, and architecture.

References

Areopagita, D. (1920). The Mystical Theology. The complete works. Retrieved from: http://www.hoye.de/theo/denistxt.pdf.

Diedrichs, D. R. (2019). Mathematics Reveals Patterns That Reflect the Orderly Character of God. Perspectives on Science & Christian Faith, 71(2).

Dolly. (2009, September 28). 1.618 Phi, The Golden Ratio, God Creator of Heaven and Earth [Video File]. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/0hvD5kLqjuw.

Geisler, N. L., & Turek, F. (2004). I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist (Foreword by David Limbaugh). Crossway.

Ili?, I., Stefanovi?, M., & Sadikovi?, D. (2018). Mathematical determination in nature: The golden ratio. Acta Medica Medianae, 57(3), 124-129.

Meisner, G. B. (2018). The Golden Ratio: The Divine Beauty of Mathematics. New York, NY: Race Point Publishing.

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freezegirl · 9 months

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khione hima goossens (iman vellani) has lived in maxville her entire life. as have her parents. though her maternal grandparents and their ancestors came from surinam, india and pakistan. khione grew up in the richer part of town, in the same neighborhood as gwen grayson, and spends her time at the maxville ice arena and ice slash snow sculpting.

her dad, leander (neil jackson) is a cryokinetic. he used to be known as the superhero permafrost but has since gone inactive to focus on his acting career. he's been tapped for the 'darkstar' franchise, playing the titular character.

her mom, saraswati, who's more commonly known as sara as per her insistence (jameela jamil) has hydrokinesis abilities and is a retired superhero turned tv personality, being known for the fabulous lives of superhero wives. and, yes, khione has been on the show too.

khione has inherited both her dad's cryokinesis and her mom's hydrokinesis, which means she's got a big family legacy to live up to. much like will stronghold, khione is a she's a third gen.

leander and saraswati never should have been allowed to name their only daughter. aside from huge expectations for their daughter, a tendency to manage her life, a huge dose of haughtiness, as well as loftiness and a remarkable hatred for pyrokinetics, whom they deem “beneath them”, leander and saraswati are a normal couple.

well, as normal as two (retired) supers can be.

especially if one of those two has a secret.

khione may be an only child, but saraswati has another child out there: zach braun-springer (agastya nanda) who possesses photokinesis and an immunity towards the cold that people thought was just sheer dumb luck on his part.

khione manages to make it to graduation. her parents don’t show up as she walks the stage because they’re both in europe for their jobs. shortly afterwards, khione gets accepted into sky u.

during her first year at sky u, disaster strikes again: warren’s father, baron battle, escapes the maximum security prison. people speculate it’s an inside job. the downtown area of maxville gets turned into a disaster zone made of smoke plumes, flames and screams. khione, warren, will, layla, zach, magenta (brianne tju) and ethan are deployed to put a stop to baron's battle against the citizens of maxville.

things turn from bad to worse, however, when baron gets away and kidnaps ethan banks (quincy fouse) who is, by far, the smartest member of khione’s friend group and it takes far longer to get ethan back than khione would have liked.

after graduation, khione officially takes up the mantle 'frostbite' amid the pro and anti super discussions and enters the field alongside the others and officially becomes part of the stronghold seven.

#headcanons; metas; world building.#queue.

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ameliterature · 3 years

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for the pairing drabble thing could i ask for chameron + 14 🥺

“Hey, I’m with you, okay? Always.”

Sorry this took FOREVER-- it-- it STOPPED BEING A DRABBLE AND TURNED INTO A FICLET HELP--

Always with you - Chameron

Cameron's always been that type of student to go the extra mile. He was always trying to do his best for everyone around him, especially his parents. As a Welton Honors Scholar, he had to be.

Welton was kind enough to offer several scholarships to kids like Cameron, the price was just to make Welton look good as well as keep your grades exceedingly high. Unlike the other students here at Welton who were born into a wealthy and sophisticated family, Cameron's family was decidedly as middle-class as you could get at the time. Sure, his dad got compensation from the army but it wasn't enough to get all his 5 kids into schools. Luckily for him, Richard, his eldest son, was able to get a High School scholarship from Welton. Sure, Cameron didn't choose to become a scholar, but he was one nonetheless.

This, however, made Cameron think his only purpose was to uphold the honor of his family, raking great grades and mingling with the right people in the upper crusts of society. Without this responsibility, Cameron was, in his eyes, nothing.

Cameron worked hard to get where he was, maybe that's why he hated Charles Dalton the moment he laid his eyes on him. Charlie was only in Welton because he was the only son of a crazy rich family. He was bred for this, he was born for this, he was the heir to another one of the wealthy gatekeepers of society.

Sure, Neil and Meeks were just as rich, maybe not to the same extent, but at least they worked for their grades. Charlie would opt to cheat or copy from Neil or Meeks just to pass a semester. Could you believe it? Passing a Subject rather than Excelling.

Cameron was working his ass off, and Charlie was being an ass.

That's what it felt like, at least for a while.

They became roommates for the next 2 years, more than enough time to get to know each other. Charlie's seen Cameron's true self over this period. Cameron's not really good at hiding stuff that made him happy.

Charlie always played random instruments in their room, be it the bongos, the saxophone, or a recorder. He'd expect Cameron to hate it all the time, he did hate that time he brought a kazoo, but surprisingly Cameron never told him to stop playing his instruments.

This was one of the few things Cameron let slip through the cracks, past his scholarly persona. Cameron liked jazz, he liked sweets, he enjoyed the smell of rain, he hated the cold and so on.

So Charlie played him music while he studied, gave him his leftover pies, opened the window a bit during storms and gave (more like, aggressively tossed) Cameron his cable knit sweater for Christmas.

It seems as though Charlie had grown attached to Cameron without knowing it, without admitting to it either. He resorted to crude bullying against him to deflect any of his admiration for his roommate. Though, it was horribly easy to tell because Neil told him off.

Everyone applied for college courses they want by the start of their Senior Year-- Neil and Todd had long since runaway to New York, so it was up to Charlie to apply for Julliard himself and meet up with them there.

One evening he spots Cameron in their room with no light on except for the lamp on his desk.

"Cameron?" Charlie asked, the way his voice sounded wasn't like something Cameron heard before.

"Oh... Hi Charlie." His voice sounded raspy, hoarse, even.

"Somethin' the matter?"

Cameron looked up at him with a sniffle. "It's nothing. You can turn on the light if you need to." He said, shuffling into his blanket. He was wearing the sweater Charlie gave to him. He must've been so cold.

Charlie sat by the edge of Cameron's bed, sucking in his ego and tried to comfort Cameron for once.

"Tell me what's wrong."

Cameron shakes his head. "You wouldn't get it."

"I could try?" Charlie didn't lean in, he waited for Cameron to face him, he waited for Cameron to unhide himself from the world.

It took a few seconds, maybe a minute, before Cameron's sheet fell of his face and he sat up to look at Charlie.

"... I got into Harvard." Cameron said almost wryly.

Charlie's knee-jerk reaction was to playfully jostle Cameron's knee. "What's wrong with that? That sounds fucking amazing!"

"I also go into Yale, Dartmouth, and Columbia. A bunch of other ones too but I can't remember them all right now." Cameron muttered.

"... I take it... that's the issue? That you can't choose?"

"N-No... it's... It's stupid--"

Charlie, shook his head. "Cam, come on," Cameron's reacted to the sudden nickname. "Nothing you've ever said was stupid. Not even when I say it is."

Cameron mustered singular laugh through his nose.

"So? Will you tell me? Please?" Charlie's eyes were soft, softer than what Cameron was used to.

"I... I didn't get into Julliard." Charlie held his breath. "See? It's stupid--"

"N-no no, it's-- You wanted to go to Julliard too?"

"Yeah... Whatever-- It's--"

"Cameron! It's not whatever, it's great that you wanted to go there! I didn't really expect you to wanna go there but-- Why did you?"

"I... I dunno, I just figure to apply, I wasn't planning to go but I just wanted to try-- I wanted to major the clarinet and-- Forget it-"

"Clarinet? That sounds a lot like you, Cam." Charlie said in a positive tone, Cameron caught it. "It would suit you."

"No, it's just a tiny whim, I've got the other Universities to--"

"Cam... It's not a tiny whim if you cried over it."

Cameron rubbed his eyes and wiped his nose. "W-Why do you care?"

Charlie stayed silent for a bit, knee bouncing as he tried to come up with a lie. "I-- I think you deserve another shot at least-- Maybe try Berklee? Any other colleges? I'm sure Clarinet isn't hard to come by as a degree." He chuckled.

Cameron's face softened and Charlie's heart pounded. "I... I don't even know if I can go, Charlie, my parents would want me to take a Medical Degree or something. No one's gonna take me seriously--"

"Hey, I'm with you, okay? Whatever you wanna take for college, I'm all for it. I'll help you get it, just say the word, I'll be there when you need me." Charlie's eyes were serious. Oh my God, Charlie meant it.

Cameron wasn't used to seeing his roommate this way, he wasn't used to seeing Charlie care. He wasn't used to his face so concerned for him and he wasn't used to Charlie being this close.

"What are you saying, Charlie?"

"I... I wanna be with you-- when you go to college. I mean--" Charlie clarified, clearing his throat. "I- I'll make sure you get into Julliard or any music degree you want. I'll handle your fees and your family, just-- Don't let yourself give up, alright?" Cameron nods just to let the awkward air dissipate.

Charlie was willing to do whatever it took to make Cameron be happy and it showed. Cameron never once experienced getting help from someone this way, let alone from Charlie. Charlie never tried this hard to do something his whole life either. It was a perfect exchange.

Cameron and Charlie shared a wanton smile between each other, Cameron finally letting his shoulders relax while Charlie stands up to stretch.

"Anyway, you coming to the study group later?" Charlie asked as he opens their door.

"Yeah, I'll be with you in a bit."

Little did Charlie know, he'd be with him more after that. Always.

#chameron #drabble turn ficlet oops #chameron fic #chameron dps #dps #dead poets society #dps fic #fanfic #fic

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theluminoussunflower · 3 years

Text

charlie and amelia have lunch

tw: disordered eating (kind of, sort of) and mention of death

amelia has a thing about eating in front of people

it isn't the eating thing that bothers her, she eats just fine

she doesn't like eating with other people

all her life, she's eaten in the bathroom or the corridor at school

she never eats out at restaurants, she feels like people are staring, judging

todd's aware of this, of course, and he's done his best to help her

they started with little cafes and muffins

upgraded to sandwiches

but they have yet to eat at a restaurant, a proper one, with a waitress and stuff

however, at welton, during lunch period, students are required to be in the dining hall, they can't make students eat technically, but it's noticeable if they don't

mr dalton notices

so one day, he asks if amelia would come by his classroom before lunch to talk about something

and when she gets there, he's got food there for the two of them

(which is against the rules, but when has charlie dalton followed the rules)

amelia reluctantly accepts

she mostly talks while he eats

gets really awkward when he asks how her mother is and she says "well she's dead"

charlie gets really quiet for a moment "i'm so sorry, i had no idea"

she didn't know that he didn't know, she assumed that because he knew todd, that he knew her mom had died

it was wilson's

wilson's, then cancer

amelia was eight, and her mom was sick her whole life

she still remembers little aspects of her mom

her laugh

her jokes

her hands

her eyes (todd says amelia has her eyes)

she's unfortunately forgotten a lot

her voice

the way she dressed

her hair color

her hugs

all the things she lost out on in the last year of her life

"but it was sort of relieving when she died," amelia says, "because i knew she wasn't in pain anymore, dad and i would beg for her to be relieved of her pain, and it turns out we had to let her go for that to happen, so we did, and she's not in pain anymore, and that's the greatest thing i could have asked for

"dad didn't speak for days after, when he finally did, the first thing he said to me was 'sorry you lost your mom' and i said 'sorry you lost your wife'

"dad and i were always close, but when she died, it was like... our grief bonded us forever, no matter how mad i would get at him or how much i could disappoint him, we would always come back to her"

after amelia's mother died, todd didn't have much of a choice except to start sending her to boarding schools

he really didn't want to, because he grew up with those, and he didn't want to isolate her further

but he couldn't stay at home, he had to keep himself busy at welton so he didn't completely collapse under the sorrow of losing his beloved wife

charlie was at their wedding

it was small and rather private

todd and his bride didn't have huge families, so it was just parents, siblings, and friends who could make it

all living poets made it

and todd looked so happy

charlie heard of amelia's birth, and it sounded like (according to knox) that todd was over the moon

it was nice, that after all these years, maybe todd anderson could finally have something to be happy about

todd lost contact with the other poets pretty shortly after, between being a father and a writer AND a teacher, he didn't have much time for outings anymore

with the exception of cameron, he just didn't talk to the rest of the poets

that's why charlie hadn't heard about his wife, he knew she had underlying illnesses, but never heard of her death

anyway

amelia starts eating in mr dalton's room, actually eating

it's in the third or fourth week of these meetings that she finishes the whole meal

she's still not ready to eat in the dining hall in front of the student body, so mr dalton says she should bring one of her friends in

she invites stephanie

then lacey

and pittsie, and evan, and richie

one day, the students ask mr dalton about his time at welton

charlie stops short of what happened with neil, but lets the students look through his senior braden annual

it's amelia that looks at his extracurriculars and laughs and says, "what was the dead poets society?"

taglist!!! (please lmk if you want to be added or removed)

@chloe-octavia

@aedan-mills

@regina-della-poesia

@justarandompjofan

@sapphicnoel

@iguanamuppet

@maisietheweltoncow

@finding-an-angle

@srj901

#dps 2: electric boogaloo #dead poets society #tw disordered eating #tw death mention #uh oh spaghettio #the way neil's death tore todd and charlie apart but amelia feels bonded to todd forever bc of her mom's death 🤟🏻😔#also please let me know if there are triggers i should add to any of my posts #i do my best but i don't want to upset anyone yknow

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