#which is why even if I like a guy physically online I often end up not liking them in real life at all

[rusalkarusa]

Meeting people on dating apps is so profoundly unsexy and unromantic

[lowkeyrobin]

Hawk x sensitive!reader where even after he becomes all "tough" and "badass" he's still gentle with reader. I just need fluff and everything is so sickly sweet like I want my teeth to rot.

- ♠️

(again i forgot which one it was)

YES OMG ☹️☹️☹️☹️ ; I'm screaming and crying were gonna fight wtf ; thank u for requesting some cobra kai stuff love u bae ; also sorry ab this cause I had no idea what to do here

HAWK MOSKOWITZ ; the one i love

summary ; while hawk is off becoming mean and badass, he's still nice to you, knowing you're kind of sensitive, and he doesn't want to lose his s/o

warnings ; language, talk of physical violence

track ; dedicated to the one i love, the mamas & the papas

word count ; 849

masterlist

Eli, these past few months, had changed. A lot. You didn't know whether you liked it or not either. He wasn't even Eli anymore, he was Hawk.

He'd taken on karate, got a new haircut, and completely changed his demeanor and personality. You couldn't lie, he looked cool, especially while showing off his moves, but what wasn't cool was him getting into unnecessary drama.

You'd seen some things online, though you tend not to stick around for any of it. You were caught up by Eli himself, considering you did online school. The bullying from Sam LaRusso and her friends had gotten too bad long ago, forcing you to hide away for the rest of your high school career.

You considered this transition good for Eli, as he was turning a new page in his story. He was able to defend himself, he was confident, and he wasn't being bullied anymore. But, at the same time, he was unrecognizable.

It wasn't in a bad way, not yet, at least. But this "Hawk" guy, wasn't your boyfriend, Eli. You fell into the arms of Eli Moskowitz, not Hawk.

Thankfully, he knew how to retain his relationship. Thank God his standards didn't raise, nor did his ego, as he changed.

You were slightly sensitive, you'd say, kind of emotional, mentally thin, maybe.

You had a bad day, though. That's all that mattered in this second.

You were trying to deep clean your room because it was nasty, and you were already mad. Nothing was working how you wanted it to. Your grades were dropping because you were becoming depressed and unmotivated, and you just wanted to see your boyfriend again. But of course, he'd been busy with karate and working out.

You yell out of pure frustration as you throw a pillow across the room toward your door before crashing onto your bed.

"Ow"

You quickly look up to see Eli standing in your doorway, having been hit by that pillow.

"Fuck, sorry" You mumble, proceeding to hide your face in another pillow that lays on your bed.

He slowly and cautiously steps in your room, picking up the thrown cushion. "What's wrong?"

"...Bad day"

He frowns, "What's wrong?"

You look up at him, spiky hair immediately catching your attention. "Can you wash out the gel before talking to me? You're intimidating looking like a badass"

He chuckles with a nod, "Yeah, I'll be right back"

You couldn't stand the mohawk. It intimidated you, like you were gonna be the next victim of his karate moves. He understood as you'd been honest about it long ago, and would often wash out his hair in the sink and use a towel to then dry his hair.

Now, his roots were dark brown, while the midsection to ends were bright blue. You'd helped him dye it, the reasoning why the bathroom sink was just barely stained with blue in the bowl.

He re-enters the room, his hair now damp, but un-styled. He sits on the bed beside you, allowing you to sit in silence with a pillow pressed against your face.

You slowly pull it away, looking up at him. You flop your back onto your mattress, staring at the ceiling.

"What's up?" He asks, his eyes gazing upon your tired and stressed expression.

You shrug, sitting up. "I hate online school, I have essentially no friends or hobbies, my proctors are shoving thirty assignments on me while I'm depressed and I need to do a million fucking other things-"

He quickly pulls you into a hug, silencing you. You accept his hug, arms draped around his shoulders as you rest your head on one of his shoulders. He does the same for you, his arms slung around your torso instead.

You groan, hiding your face from the light.

He lightly rubs your back, just trying to show you some comfort.

He speaks up after a solid minute of silence, letting you calm yourself down. "Do you want to get into karate? Or at least meet my friends? A lot of them would really like to meet you"

You shrug, unsure.

"It's okay if you don't want to"

You shrug again, your words mumbled from between his shoulder. "What if they don't like me cause I'm not like them?"

He smiles, a light chuckle escaping his lips. "Trust me, they're not gonna make fun of you or not like you in any way unless you give them a reason. And that in itself is pretty much impossible"

You nod, "Thanks"

"Is there any way I can help with your school stuff? What needs done? What can I do for you?"

"Calm down, Eli. I'll be fine. It's just when there's a lot on my mind, I stress out for no reason I guess. Like, I know everything'll be okay but... I dunno" You shrug, pulling away from his arms. "But thank you"

He nods, laying down on the bed beside you. "You tired? I am"

You nod with a smile, pulling him close to cuddle with him.

"Agh- your grip is insane!"

"Sorry"

[tryslora]

On Writing Combat and Sex Scenes

Today I want to talk about writing sex and combat (and no, I do not mean combative sex). This post is inspired by a few recent events:

Once, a long time ago, I read a blog post that said “if you can write a combat scene, you can write a sex scene” and that was mind-blowing for me because while I was well-versed in writing erotica, I couldn’t write combat to save my life.

More recently, at Boskone, I participated on a panel about writing combat, and the research involved there-in.

Even more recently, I had someone look at me say, “You’re not a gay guy. How do you write gay sex scenes?”

So. Let’s begin.

I get it—sex and combat aren’t interchangeable. But at their core, they have some strong similarities which can be leveraged while writing. Both are intense, high drama, and can involve a lot of anxiety and quick thought. Both tend to narrow focus down to the moment and the current feeling and action. Both are heightened emotion and physical reaction. Both can involve actions that lie outside the author’s personal experience.

I started writing erotica when I was a freshman in college. I posted it online (does anyone remember rec.arts.erotica?) and was surprised (and pleased) by the compliments I received. Turned out my readers were not expecting the idea of emotion being entangled in their erotica. They were invested emotionally in how the stories went, and how my characters felt. Since I was writing from the point of view that made sense to me at the time, they were het stories from a female perspective, and they were very focused on the emotional connections and how the physical events heightened those emotions.

Male readers were surprised by the intensity of the feelings that these stories gave them (as opposed to pure arousal). It got me thinking about how I wrote, and why I wrote, and I tried to talk about it some at the time. I was eighteen. I was still a new writer. The internet itself was new. I wasn’t entirely certain how to frame it, but I remember getting one comment where a guy was surprised at how struck he’d been by the moment in the scene where everything shuddered to a halt due to an event in the story that interrupted the action, and I replied that that was because I wasn’t writing about the sex. I was writing about the character’s reaction to the sex.

Which has always been how I write. At the time, that was my only tool: put myself in the character’s mind, and write what they feel. If that’s affection and attraction and physical reaction, write that. Tangle it up, and hope the reader feels that entanglement.

Now, fast forward several years, and take a little side trip onto a tangent wherein I learned something very important about writing craft.

I was reading Syne Mitchell’s End in Fire, I think it was, and I kept having panic attacks. Now, I did most of my reading late, often when I woke in the middle of the night due to stress, or just because my brain refused to rest. I was in a rough place in life in general, with a lot of external work stuff going on and very small children. I wasn’t sleeping well. And it took me some time to figure out why I was struggling to read a book which I actually loved (and when I read it later in life, I enjoyed it greatly).

It was the sentence structure.

In order to induce the emotion of the scene, the sentences were short. Sharp. Quick. There was no time for the reader to breathe, much like there was no time for the heroine to do anything but act. The reader was caught up in the rising tension, to the point where my anxious, sleep-deprived brain, caught a panic attack from it.

The technique was brilliant.

Now back to our original timeline, wherein I read a post about how if you can write combat, you can write sex scenes. This post assumed that more people felt comfortable writing violence than sex. I was the reverse. I’d been writing about sex for over a decade when I saw this post, and it made a light bulb go off in my brain.

If writing sex was like writing combat… was the reverse also true? Could I improve my skills at writing battles by analyzing what worked when I wrote erotica?

So I tried doing just that. Back then, I found combat overwhelming. There was so much going on, and I was trying so hard to write good description that I lost all of the intensity. I was focusing on everything that was going on at the same time.

Thinking about how sex scenes were all intense emotion and narrowed focus, I applied that to my combat scenes. I wrote only what the point of view character experienced, and tied everything to their actions and reactions. I thought about how they breathed, how they moved, how they thought. I used those short, sharp sentences as they processed the scene. 

That doesn’t mean I forgot about everything else going on in the scene. That’s impossible. After all, in any story the things the character doesn’t pay attention to might be as important as the things they do focus on. Stuff still happens, and there is still fallout. I needed to know what else was happening so that if the character moved from one place to another, or did something that put them in the path of a different part of the action, I could have them start processing it.

But it also meant that on the page, out of sight was out of mind. Everything narrowed down to the now. The immediacy. Suddenly my combat scenes snapped into focus.

During the panel at Boskone, all of the panelists had experience with different fighting styles (fencing, street combat, and of course, me with taekwondo). I spoke about how for me, that narrow focus is very real when I spar. I know there are some people who naturally see a move or two ahead while fighting; I don’t. I am stuck in act and react mode. Can I kick them now? Can I attempt a head shot? Oh, no, circle back and away or they’re going to hit me… that’s how my brain works during a sparring match.

It’s not like a total blackout—there should be a vague awareness of things around the character. Sounds in particular, or sometimes flashes of movement. Something distracting can catch the attention of the fighter, but the personal fight will always pull the character back.

Combat feels easy when I’m writing like that.

Of course, there’s still the question of writing about something if I’ve never experienced it. As someone did point out to me: I am not a gay man, so how does that affect writing sex scenes? I’ve also never fought with a sword. Brawled. Fought from horseback. I have, however, held a blade, shot a gun, shot an arrow, rode a horse. I have a vague idea of how these things work, much like I have a working knowledge of sex in general.

So yes, research gets involved. Sometimes research is observational, sometimes it’s reading (there’s so much good stuff out there). I highly recommend video for combat scenes—find things that have the feel that you’re going for, then put yourself in the place of the character you want to write about. Practice. Work through the ideas of how things fit together, and what your character will (and will not!) know during the fight.

If you need to, stand up and block the scene by thinking about how you would experience it. What can you see, and what is out of sight? If someone is coming at you with a blade, what are your options? How do height differences affect you? Yes, I have asked friends and husband to help me block scenes. 

“Stand right there and show me what it looks like if you punch me. Okay, so if I do this then…” Yeah. It’s a thing. But it works.

When doing your research, remember that movie fighting (and hell, movie sex scenes) isn’t realistic. It’s meant to look good. For combat, if you can find re-enactments, or sparring videos, I highly recommend taking a look at those. 

Anyway, the point is: I don’t have to have shot someone, and I don’t have to have had gay sex in order to write about them. What I do need to know is how it feels emotionally to do those things, and I can extrapolate that from what I do know. I need to know enough about the details so I can get it right, and that’s where research will help me. Also, use language to create emotion. Because emotions are where we grab the reader, and how we pull them into the scene.

Combat and sex aren’t so different when it comes to writing, and the personal experience. Now, go forth and write!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Idk if the emoji thing works but 🐺

AITA for ignoring my friend's relationship and waiting for it to end?

Background: I (20F) have known my best friend (19X) since we were 14. We've gone through a few different friend groups (nothing dramatic, just fading relationships) but have always stuck with each other, partially because we are both autistic. I know them very well and they have said that I am their main support system. They have BPD which causes them to get obsessed with someone, which normally I would not think is my business, but they have a history of getting obsessed with people who hurt them, and I've always tried to warn them if I felt someone had bad intentions.

They've recently escaped their abusive household which is really exciting but I worry might make them feel lonelier because they've been getting into more of these situations recently. There were a couple minor relationships where someone broke a boundary causing them to have a breakdown, but neither affected their safety. And a few months ago they were talking to an older man online who I got weird vibes from but only mildly hinted to them he was creepy, which made me feel guilty when it ended up being way worse than I thought and became a disaster.

About three weeks ago, they started roleplaying with some guy on twitter, which I didn't think much of since they mainly just talked about what a good writer he is and he seemed fine. But then they asked what I would think if they started dating him even though he's in his 30s and I kinda thought they were just looking for a reason not to do it, so I said no he's too old for you. But then they started trying to convince me it was a good idea which only made me more hesitant. Their evidence in favor included that he used to be in the military (they know i hate the military so I do not know why they admitted this) and pictures of him (I am gay so this would not convince me regardless). They seemed surprised by my negative reaction, I said sorry but you asked for my honest opinion, they understood and I thought this was the end of it.

But now they're legitimately online dating and they talk about him all the time, they don't seem to understand that I am not a fan of this relationship and expect me to react positively to everything he does. I don't react negatively or completely ignore them I just go "ok" or "cool." They might not notice this because I often have times where I can't speak much so it's unfortunately normal for me.

I haven't noticed any other red flags from this guy other than the age gap and the military thing, but those seem a lot worse to me because of my friend's history and penchant for ignoring red flags, so I feel like if something worse was going on I wouldn't even know. Apparently he's going to come visit them in August (it's January as I send this) and I feel like that's enough time that the relationship will either die out or end horribly before he actually has the chance to physically be around them.

I feel torn in two different ways. On the one hand, I know that I'm paranoid and overprotective, not to mention scared of men, so I could just be overreacting to the situation. I don't think he's going to murder them or anything, but they're sensitive and I don't want them to add someone to the long list of people who traumatized them. They ARE a legal adult so it technically shouldn't be a big deal but they're the first person to be creeped out by legal age gaps, they just don't seem to apply this logic to themselves. I'm also not super experienced in relationships, I've only had a few short casual ones so I am not at all an expert.

On the other hand, I felt like shit when the situation with the other guy blew up even though they never blamed me for it. I feel like I should be doing more to dissuade them but they didn't seem to care when I warned them before so I feel like it's a lost cause and I don't wanna be pushy, I want them to genuinely understand why it's not a good idea.

I feel like I'm damned if I do damned if I don't, so I've kinda just settled on passively not really giving them feedback on the relationship in the hopes they'll figure it out themselves? As always I check in on them, try to give them positive attention so they're not desperate for it, and if the relationship actually lasts til August I'll make sure I know their location so they can tell me if they feel unsafe.

I feel like an asshole no matter what I do, so what I'm asking specifically is AITA for basically just ignoring the situation hoping it solves itself? Either because I should be supporting it or because I should bring up my concerns with them again.

What are these acronyms?

[gender-trash]

like the grand innovation of ros is that actually now 1) you don't have to rewrite your MESSAGING FRAMEWORK from scratch every time and you get a bunch of debug tools for free and 2) theres a bunch of prototype grade components you can probably plug together to get a demo if you know what you're doing

it's great but it's not like. whatever's going on in webservices world. and the webservices people and vcs who are used to it HATE this!!! i interned for a really crappy startup once whose entire concept was "hey, why is robotics not like webservices? clearly we need to reimplement ros but worse and dockerized lol what's hard realtime" and it so clearly had only survived as long as it had because it was The Baby of this VC guy who tried to sell me on javascript like it was an abusive boyfriend i should give ~another chance~, and right after i left they hired a new ceo and pivoted to having an actual product. theres ALLLL these guys coming from webservices land who want to pretend really hard that a malfunctioning robot is exactly as disposable as a malfunctioning docker container, and that gluing together preexisting robotics components (largely research-grade code developed on a completely different robot from whatever your product is) is exactly as easy as gluing together APIs, and it ends so badly for them every time. it's adorable.

relatedly my dad has this theory, which i think has a lot of predictive power, about how a company Makes It Big doing one thing (SAAS, or online ads, or B2B software, or like. making computer chips) and then that product cycle cadence/approach is baked into the company culture so hard that they completely flub it when they try to make something that necessitates a different approach. intel fucking sucks at making software because they inevitably drop support after 18 months because when you make a chip you design it and you send it to the fab and then it's out of your hands and there's no real way to "fix bugs" (you just maintain an errata sheet and add more tests so you can catch the bugs in the next chip you design). webservices companies who do continuous deployment or bust are often really really bad at coping with the sales and maintenance cycles of Big Businesses that a lot of b2b software is for. and software people in full generality have a ridiculously hard time with the concept that you can't exactly continuously deploy improved suspension for your robot chassis, because you have to actually crack the robot open on a workbench and swap it out.

in microservices world one of the baked-in cultural attitudes is "cattle not pets" -- your herd of docker containers is like a herd of cattle; when one of them malfunctions you take it out back and shoot it and spin up a new one, you don't waste energy on failure recovery. when you bring this approach to robotics land it inevitably fails! you have spent 4 or 5 figures minimum on a robot, that thing's a fucking pet! and also, when it malfunctions, it's flailing around potentially doing damage out here in the real world, which is... generally considered to be bad. there have to be layers and layers and layers of safety systems and fallbacks and failure recovery logic and everything needs to be designed to fail into a state that won't maim anyone, or it inevitably will fail, and maim someone. even just "if something goes wrong stop moving immediately" has some complexity to it.

webservices people are also big on "eventual consistency" and almost nothing in robotics is physically safe to do on an eventual consistency basis or else your robot will eventually (but consistently!) destroy itself and/or anything around it. the closer you get to low level control the more important it is to have hard timing guarantees and that's generally sort of antithetical to the philosophy that hardware should be as abstracted away as possible

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Off to London tomorrow, then to Edinburgh. Middle of the night, I can't sleep, I'm re-watching those ACMS 2019 videos to try to mentally prepare myself for whatever's going to happen when I go see ACMS this year.

I listen to a lot of audio-only comedy, I think it's often the best way to enjoy comedy if you can't physically be in the room. An audio recording with nothing cut out from the beginning to the end, I can close my eyes and feel like I'm there more easily than I can while watching a video special that's been edited and keeps interrupting the flow with changes in the shot or cuts to the audience (or, more egregiously, things like commercial breaks or swear words getting censored). Not to mention the knowledge that I'm seeing an edit, even if they haven't cut out much. Livestreams like what you get on NextUp can get around this nicely, I like those much better than a special that's been cut up for TV, because at least I know that what I'm seeing is exactly what happened on the night. But still, I find audio versions more immersive in some ways. As I said some time ago, if you can't be in the actual room where stand-up is happening, the way to go for experiencing it has to be the two Bs of audio-only comedy - Bandcamp and don't worry about the other one.

Obviously the exception to this is comedy with a lot of visual elements, which will be better in video form than in audio-only. There have been times when I've heard an audio comedy recording, thought I didn't miss anything because I didn't hear any cues that suggested an important act-out was happening, but then I've been able to see a video of that show and realized there was a lot going on with facial expressions and things that I'd missed on audio. So I guess video does help, even with straightforward storytelling comedy. But it definitely helps with less straightforward stuff, anything with more physical comedy.

I've seen videos of clowning-type comedy, and I often don't get it, though that's not universally true. I liked Laid and Nate by Natalie Palamides. I definitely did not get everything out of them that a person with a proper understanding of theatre would, but I'm not a complete Philistine, I could see what she was doing and that was fun. Then again, last year I watched the NextUp stream of that guy who falls over on banana peels and could not for the life of me understand where the comedy was. I did try. I made myself watch the whole hour of Elf Lyons' Swan, in case you need to see the whole thing for it all to come together, and by the end still did not get it one bit. I'm sure she's very very good at what she does, but I don't understand it.

I wonder, for some of the really physical things like that, if the issue is that to get those, audio-only isn't nearly enough, but video-only isn't really enough either, you just need to be in the room. Maybe if I were physically in a room with a guy falling on banana peels, I'd understand exactly what it's funny. That is why I have booked a ticket to ACMS this year. I figure I'll go be in a room with lots of different types of comedy, some accessible and some experimental clown things, I hope no magic or puppets that night I go because I really struggle to get on board with that but I'll do my best to have an open mind, and I'll see what it's like to actually be in the room. Surely a basement room (I don't know if it's actually a basement, sure looks like one in the videos) room that seats 100 people, at 2 AM at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has to be the best way to see experimental physical comedy. If I can't get into it then then I'll accept I just do not have the theatre kid background for this.

Anyway, I'm re-watching bits of the videos from when they streamed ACMS online from Edinburgh 2019, and I like John-Luke Roberts (hey there's some experimental comedy that I'm into, I've seen a few of his solo shows and enjoyed them, though to be honest I didn't get much out of the physical setup in those shows and I mostly just laughed at the words he was saying in a way that would have been just as good on an audio-only recording) and Thom Tuck, but I have been reminded, by that one night where they both had to use stand-ins, that Alice Fraser and Andrew O'Neill are a great double act.

I was going to cut out of a bit of their co-compering to make this point, but then I realized I didn't have to, I already had the above clip cut out. Which I cut out a while ago so I could post it on Tumblr and say it made me want to get a tattoo on my forearm that says "If Daniel Kitson were here, I'd be trying a lot harder." That's a good rule for life.

That, of course, led me to re-watch some of the other videos that initially sparked my unaccountable obsession with Chocolate Milk Gang-era Edinburgh Festival history, the time about two years ago when I accidentally came across these two videos in the middle of the night and vowed not to rest until I find out everything related to whatever the fuck was going on in them:

I've just watched that second video - entitled Cowgate because it occurred in the rebuilt venue after a fire in a Cowgate neighbourhood and also because there's a cow in it - to check and see whether I've built its weirdness up in my head too much, and on watching it back it's not a big deal. Nope. Still the weirdest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life. I still feel just as much of a need to understand it. I have more questions than ever.

I did almost buy tickets to Adam Hills this year, just so I could say I'm going to the UK and seeing everyone involved in Cowgate that I can (I'm seeing Kitson in London, DO'D in Edinburgh, John Oliver and Demitri Martin and Flight of the Conchords have moved on with their lives, but Adam Hills is performing in Edinburgh this year). And not just for that, I did watch several hundred episodes of The Last Leg and all of Adam Hills' previous stand-up specials because I like the guy. But I also stopped watching The Last Leg last year because I couldn't take their pro-monarchy stuff around the queen death and coronation, Hills in particular got really annoying about it, and there were a few other things that added up to make me go off him, and I can't use up Edinburgh time on a guy I've gone off just because he sang the wrong Eminem song while some guys tore apart a facsimile cow in 2003. I mean, you can't live your life that way. Maybe I should get that rule tattooed on my arm too.

I still don't think anyone has ever looked happier about anything, than Daniel Kitson did about David O'Doherty accusing him of lying about having a stutter on stage in 2003. It's the happiest anyone has ever looked.

I've gone down a small rabbit hole of other old Edinburgh YouTube clips that I found when I first fell down that rabbit hole 2 years ago. Falling down it tonight was far easier because I don't have to search YouTube for it, I've got them all saved now. I'm a big fan of the moment in this video where you can see Andy Zaltzman look like he's suddenly realized where he is and no idea how he got there or why he would have appeared in the middle of this crowd:

There's an extended version of that clip in the Late 'n' Live Guide to Comedy, a 4-part BBC Scotland documentary about the show that I was also re-watching bits of tonight, in which you can see the set-up before they started that song. There's a hilarious moment where Adam Hills is yelling into the room that every comedian needs to come on stage for the big finale, and while he's yelling this, Daniel Kitson is conspicuously walking across the stage and disappearing into the wings, not to be seen again during that song.

This post started out being about one thing and ended up being about other things. That happens sometimes. All things I've posted before, but the night before I fly to the UK seemed like a good time to go over them again. There are a million more things, but I don't need to post them all again. There's a lot of stuff in the YouTube rabbit holes.

[hoodedboy79]

SFW Alphabet: Roman Bellic

Why is this the only Roman GIF I can find?? 😭

-(GN Reader)-

==============

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?)

- Roman's love language is physical touch, so he's a massive fan of giving and recieving affection.

- Roman would show you affection in a multitude of ways, whether it be through spontaneous make out sessions, getting takeout after work so you don't have to cook or just lazing in bed with you on his days off, he'd make sure to show you how much he cares everytime his schedule (and wallet) allow him to.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

- The friendship would probably start either online or in a club.

- If it started online, Roman probably found your profile while he was mindlessly scrolling through LoveMe.net, looking for his next hookup. Or perhaps you befriended Brucie first and then he introduced you to Roman later on (after you completed a job for him).

- If it started in a club, Roman definitely was the one to approach you, either to dance or to get you a drink (that he's sorta hoping you'll pay for, if you're a guy) and you two just hit it off from there, not that it's partically hard to get on with Roman as long as you can tolerate his eccentric nature.

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

- If you want to cuddle, Roman's down.

- You will spend a lot of time smacking his hands away from certain areas though. Roman can't help himself.

- Roman will probably end up falling asleep or getting bored and wanting to do something else after a while.

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

- Roman's never really gave much thought on settling down, he's been encouraged over the years by his aunt and now Niko but Roman's having too much fun fucking around right now to worry about commitment.

- Instant Noodles is as far as Roman's cooking abilities go and in regards of cleaning, it's left up to Niko or whoever is forced to share a space with him at the time.

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

- Procrastinate's so much. Generally will avoid doing it for a while.

- He'll complain about wanting to break up and just you in general to Niko, Mallorie, Brucie and just really anyone that will listen but when asked why doesn't he just do it and get it over with? Roman avoids the question.

F = Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

- Roman is the textbook definition of commitment shy.

- He can barely stick to the same group of girls to get him off, nevermind dating and marriage.

- But that doesn't mean it would never happen, it would just take a while for Roman to tire himself out with his current lifestyle.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

- Roman is gentle, especially emotionally.

- A stark difference to his cousin.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

- Roman loves hugs. It's one of his favourite ways of showing and receiving affection to/from the people he cares about, both platonically and romantically.

- He doesn't hug you for long but he sure does hug you tightly. Making sure to give you a squeeze before letting you go.

- The type to jokingly pick you up while hugging you too.

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

- It would probably take a few months for Roman to say it and mean it. He let's it slip after a few drinks and he's feeling tipsy and loosed lipped, que both of you suddenly sobering up just a tad and staring at each other in shock for a moment.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they're jealous?)

- Extremely jealous.

- Roman seeing you even talking to another man a bit too enthusiastically will send him off in a sulk, which will most likely turn into a drunken sulk.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

- Roman's kisses are all over the place. They range from quick, chaste ones, usually slapped on your cheek, as he's rushing out the door to work to longer and more passionate one's when you two get some more time together, alone.

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

- Around kids that aren't his he can be a little awkward at first, not use to being around children, but if they're left with him for an extended amount of time then Roman becomes their new found 'fun uncle' type figure.

- With his own children, as babies Roman is pretty useless to begin with, he has little to no knowledge on how to properly care for infants and is just all over the place with nerves but with some help and reassurance eventually Roman will get it. He will happily leave the nappy changing up to you though.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

- Most mornings either consist of Roman being hungover or him begrudgingly getting ready for work (or both), so it's not too eventful.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

- There's an obvious answer here.

- But other than that, nights where he's not dragging you to a club or bowling alley mostly consist of watching crappy late night TV and eating whatever takeout Roman could afford, sometimes Niko joins you two too.

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

- Roman's pretty upfront but also a bit of a liar.

- So while he may tell you things about his life very early on in your acquaintance a lot of it with be fabricated or exaggerated.

- But once you become close to him, a friend or more, and learn most of what he told you at the start was bullshit to make himself sound better, Roman would tell you some things about when he first came to America and may or may not let some things slip about his and Niko's life back in Yugoslavia when he's drunk and feeling sentimental.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

- Gets pissy very quickly, especially when drunk but getting Roman actually angry is a task.

- He doesn't stay angry for long though, he'll either forget when he sobers up or, if it's actually annoyed him, a genuine apology should get you and Roman on good terms again.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

- Roman's weird when it comes to remembering things. Especially, in terms of smaller things, is he going to remember the exact way you like a certain type of food prepared? Probably not. But will he suddenly remember some random item you mentioned wanting a month ago while walking past a store front? Yep.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

- The first date. The way you two just clicked and managed to have fun together even with the limited options of entertainment available fully convinced Roman to pursue you properly.

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

- Roman's protective but not the best at protecting, if you get what I mean.

- He'd be the first one to jump in and act the tough guy if someone was bothering you and if it's just a verbal altercation then Roman could hold his own but if it turned physical...Niko's getting a panicked phone call.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

- He really tries when it comes to anniversaries and gifts. I mean you're his partner, you deserve the best ofc.

- Will probably try and take out another loan to buy you something extravagant (please stop him).

- In terms of dates, Roman either leaves it up to you or just drives around till you two spot somewhere interesting looking.

- Everyday tasks is something Roman gets pretty lazy with. He's not a complete slob that never cleans but he definitely leaves it till the last minute.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

- His fear/lack of commitment.

- His forgetfulness. He's doesn't do it out of malice or lack of care, Roman's just a bit scatterbrained at times.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

- In his day to day life Roman doesn't actually put too much effort into his appearance, fresh clothes and a quick finger brush of his hair will do him.

- Not because he doesn't care enough but because Roman's convinced he's attractive no matter what, so what's the point?

- He will fuss though when he's going to the Maisonette 9 with you or Brucie, he knows to get out his suit when it comes to that.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

- If your relationship is at the stage where Roman is generally in love with you, then yes, he would.

- Contrary to what some might believe Roman doesn't fall in love easily so if, for whatever reason, you leave, he'd be devastated.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

- If you invite him to do something he doesn't really want to do Roman will probably make up some excuse to say he's busy but send Niko in his place instead.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn't like, either in general or in a partner?)

- Roman wouldn't like someone that's uptight.

- Like would Roman enjoy someone who's a bit more prepared and responsible than him? Maybe. But would he like someone who's too uptight to relax and have fun every once in a while? Definitely not.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

- Roman's sleep schedule is pretty inconsistent due to his work and nightly endeavours so when he finally does get home, whether it be morning or night, Roman's out for the count as soon as he's off his feet.

==============

I'm back from procrastinating again 🙌 (This sat unfinished in my drafts for over 3 months 💀)

I still do write for GTA 4, to the person who asked me to write for Packie, I will do eventually when I've finished some other things I'm working on.

Hope this wasn't too bad!

[doxiedreg]

I still have so much school trauma to work through and come to terms with. In general I accept what happened happened and I can't change the past. But on the other hand I'm so fucking angry at the system that failed me and even neurotypical kids. The educational system as it is now is not good. It's just test after test, essay after essay, constant deadlines, constant homework it's just not healthy. Learning should be fun. I loved learning new things as a kid, I was a hard worker. But then school just overworks you, just keeps demanding more eventhough you are at your limit. Even though your mental health is already shit because you are bullied like hell and nobody does something about it. Already shit because you don't have any close friends because you don't even know what to do anymore together with other people your age because you aren't really interested in most teenager stuff. Already shit because you are constantly suffering sensory overload from out of control loud classes, crowded hallways, people invading your personal space and purposeful scaring you by popping lunchbags and drink cartons. Some teachers are just 0 fun to listen to and make the subject they are teaching the most boring thing ever. Dreading whenever it's someone's birthday because it means there will be balloons everywhere which you are terrified of. Having to explain to teachers over and over why you can't do certain assignments or why you need more time. Physical education being the most shitty thing ever as I can never keep up with the others and it makes me feel pathetic. Also the exercises are often not fun for me at all. Just.. school did so much damage to me.. they denied for a very long time just how stressed I was because I still had good grades and behaved in class. My parents kept telling them how stressed I appeared at home. That my hair was falling out, that I was trembling that I didn't want to eat that I was struggling. But they just shoved the concerns away. It wasn't until I had a panic attack in class at school that they assigned someone to me to help me. But it was too little too late. I started going home early because I was just too mentally unwell. They started to question this as me slacking off because I was lazy or something even though I was grossly overworked. In the end I became suicidal and extremely depressed and stressed and hit rock bottom and stayed home. At first this was meant to be temporary but in the end I just dropped out because I couldn't take it anymore. It was a very dark time..and it took a lot of therapy and time to crawl out of it...school had destroyed my self image. I thought of myself as stupid and lazy and not good enough, never good enough no matter how hard I tried. I wondered if my classmates missed me, it they even noticed I wasn't around anymore. I never got closure on that. But luckily I made a new support system for myself online. There were some toxic friends in there at first but it's been a few years now that I've kicked them all out and I feel loved and cared about and seen. In may this year it will also be a year that I've lived on my own, in my own studio apartment without housemates and it also did wonders for me. I mean it's also been tough and brought new stressful things to deal with but I like being in control over my environment..I hope to get a dog in the future to help me with emotional stability (I miss having a dog on my lap and petting them the most I'm so touch starved but I'm not fond of touching people) and getting out more but I'm not ready yet. For now I have my lil fish guys and snail guys to look after and that's already nice

Anyway.. sorry for rambling..I just had to let that all out, it was building up too much. Ever since the sun started shining I feel like my brain is processing so much stuff in the bg i guess the book post triggered some of it to come outward

To my friends: even if we don't talk much, I love you all so much and I'm so happy to have you all in my life. You make me feel loved, appreciated and supported. You make me feel seen. I am so grateful to have a loving support system, even if I'm a lil shy to reach out sometimes still.

Just you guys are all great, remember that

[firespirited]

Aside from looking and feeling drained, I've had a nice week.

Still enjoying chilling with Stargate Atlantis even listened to a couple of episode commentaries (the writers have early aughts typical broey vibes though so that's off-putting).

Found a pair of shoes to wear this late autumn as my "vintage" vans mannaz fell apart. After I'd talked about the difficulty of finding shoes that fit me and how many I'd tried that didn't work out, Mum dug up a pair of hiking boots she'd forgotten to send back to dad and said he'd always had the same problem: wide feet with height just behind the toe area as the arch starts. Apparently getting work shoes for his teacher job that didn't hurt was quite a quest. They fit great except for the length so I went online, found the same brand "Queshua" and looked at their hiking shoes of the updated but same series/range. Ordered a male and female model in my size. Only the "guy" shoes fit and they don't have any spring in them like sports shoes do but sports shoes often end up too narrow. I can't risk buying them without going to a physical shop or doing a dozen returns. Queshua from decathlon have a free return from your post box and refund policy. Fantastic.

So basically, I'm elated to have been able to toss out the vans and stick the pastel gradient laces into my new all terrain, waterproof trainers. I'm going to look at their winter models for colder weather. It's reassuring to know there is a brand that tends to fit. I'm hoping to try the thrift store on the outskirts of town one day when the carer isn't too busy but that could be a while (why thrift? Because I generally don't fully know a shoe's problems before I've 'road tested' them) .

I also tried crochet again (every few years I try to knit or crochet from tutorials and it hasn't gone great, you all know I can't think in 3D, so like for the keyboard, it has to be muscle memory and mnemonics) This time I had two different youtube tutorials on half speed and could sort of 'get it' but for the life of me could not properly hold the yarn in the left hand. Mum was around so I sheepishly asked what I was doing wrong. Her first answer was "well have you practiced?" 🙄 (she forgets I'm not the 7 year old who gives up as soon as the dopamine runs out or gets distracted by shiny - i mean i am but I've learned to go back to practicing even if I have to make myself angry or use bribes and limits.) I dutifully produced my series of messed up lines and sat down to show her and she went "oh OK! you're doing it wrong, Here's how auntie Grace taught me" and wrapped the yarn around my little finger, using the middle finger as the main yarn holder and index+thumb to pinch the crochet. Then I had to leave because she kept telling me to "relax my shoulders relax your hands RELAX", I love her but I do not control the muscles when trying to practice a new hard (for me) skill for an audience.

That hands on tip was what made it actually 'take' this time even though I might end up using the ring finger instead. I haven't had much time to practice and made quite a mess of my first attempts at rows with a 3 ply yarn.

Today I was able to proudly show off a 5*30 stitch parallelogram (still haven't got the tension down) of thin cord, it took three tries... but not bad. I'm really hoping I'll be able to grok some more stitches and have something to keep the hands busy that's less taxing on my shoulder. I also need to ask her about auntie Grace, she's probably part of the deaf adult community mum grew up in.

Slowly working towards listing more dolls. You get stuck on junk decisions about whether to bundle, whether to dress them or one of the photos is too blurry and the whole thing stops because there's a missing step or piece. Plan derailed.

I've got incoming which helps with motivation: Elle eedee!!! I didn't click with her the first time then really missed her but now I know how I want to do her eyes. Twilight teens grey for Nicole Steel head (aliexpress 11.11 sales $5) and white.

A Catrine and pink haired Howleen. Catrine is a design I just love and was always put off by the yellowing. Now that I know more about straight peroxide bleaching, I really want another try. I also want to see what happens to that lilac turned grey hair and if it fries or just turns lighter grey, she'll be bald. Their cleaning will be top priority in general but not top on the project list as I have Barbie Marnie who needs just a few more lines of hair to be perfect, a 1/6th BJD to string (need to practice rotary tool sanding and buffing on a damaged barbie before I touch her resin) and probably switching out Jewel Richie's eyes, they're beautiful with the green shimmer details but the visible bevel on the 'baddie' eyes makes them hard to photograph and distracts from looking like a cohesive face. Oooh I might try a line of black acrylic paint first to see if that fixes the issue.

Voilà, big blurb. Not many photos they're all on the desktop. The dogs are happy and well, Lily is a bouncy frolicking 15yo, Talia is learning to be less afraid of the big world and other dogs specifically Gargouille and Elliot.

Talia also threw up in almost every room in the house today, with for her grand finale some raw hide bone she swallowed whole to concentrate on hoarding the other two from Lily. Chihuahuas either have Tardis stomachs or they are mostly stomach because the dimensions of all that came up don't make sense.

Highlights were sharing popcorn with sis and mum on Sunday just chitchatting. Long hot bath to warm legs cold from the inside out. Stunning sights as the sun comes out from behind the mountains:

[randomclam24]

Getting kind of bored of a lot of things. The shills aren't hard to see through - in fact it takes a minute of thinking about it to find a contradiction in motives. I don't know why they want to push certain things. It's very annoying, and yet the majority of people still contribute to these conversations online.

I finally continued my run of Hell on Earth Starter Pack and just deleted the saves which were still early on for Doom II - so we're going to do this run instead. This is being run with Death Wish spawning being the default now, on Painkiller difficulty. I haven't beaten Doom episode four on this mode, but that came out after Doom II.

Update Given the oversaturation of boring shills, the whole Internet by the sheer overshadowed speed of the stupidity going around at any given moment in time seems like the movement of tectonic plates

I want a place to post things that not everyone will see or something

One thing I know that I can just tell anyone is that if anyone wants to further the use of the word "mid" - there's one instance I know of that that applies to for sure, and that is Sonic the Hedgehog 4, which doesn't even have the original Genesis physics remotely intact. The fact of it being "mid" is on account of the fact that the very team that conceived of such a thing couldn't even get their motivations straight, so ultimately there just ends up being a gross amalgamation of mixed - what do you even call them?

If something has a determined direction - even in the case of Sonic '06, I can see the fact of that - there isn't a place to call it "mid", because even in the case of something being fundamentally flawed, that still is applicable to its *execution*, not to its origins themselves, as in the case of Sonic 4, where nothing great was *ever* going to come from that.

I don't buy either of those games by the way.

Update This world, with its expectations, is at foundation an antipathy to a world, supported only in that it continues society's previous values on the *surface* "I know, I'm just not going to [respect you] is all...*laughing noises*"

Update High-tier freemasonry - every time you appeal to logic on any level, you're appealing to a God that failed hundred of years ago - sorry ******fam******

Update Listening to get caught up to Common Filth a bit more, we have the trope that people thought blacks and gays were the same thing - equity, guys! I'd logically agree in any situation, modifying the slogan a bit, we're all one species, the human species

Hell

Update Race relations - to have race relations without - what exactly do you call it? Equity, Tikkun Olam,

9/15 Okay, so I've eaten good this morning. If my feelings that everything is pointless were in any way caused by hunger, that should do it.

I just feel like whatever I would choose to do, it would be more like coasting than actually actively doing anything anymore.

Update About now, I'm feeling like the dog that someone once said could just go run off wherever it wants because he doesn't really care if it comes back at all or not or if it dies. I don't see any reason to think any more of human life than that, because it's so pointless. I'll keep fending for myself when it comes to these crunch scenarios which seem so prevalent that life itself seems like a showcase for these damned things and nothing else, given how much of a barren wasteland the sheer expanse time is compared to how often they crop up just like it's nothing. But aside from them - granted that there can be any moment where I truly get to relax for an extended period of time, not cut short - it's hard to even get back to what I was thinking, but - I was thinking life itself is fundamentally meaningless, not worth the time of day. I can't say anything *bad* about these people, so there's no free will left of my own self in this world. There's no other opportunity because the risk of being fired would be too astronomically high at every given moment. Just think about the little guy for a second. It's not worth it, dumbass, dipshit. Implying you would actually think - hence, dumbass, dipshit. Dumbass, dipshit. Don't know what else to call you. You're a - midwit. Oh right, we already called you that.

The modern employers are brutes!

I keep wrestling with the reality against my natural thoughts. Look, at the scale we're at, when it comes to conspiracy theories as a proposition, it really is true the fact that I have to redact any attempt at self-expression as it relates to other people really has preceded any event of being shown conspiracy theories at all in my life. I just don't like human beings. I can't consider myself one, technically, because my natural thoughts just keep drifting off the deep end of what everybody else cuts short on instinct. So - human instincts aren't *mine*

I already posted what I'd be watching for a while somewhere else. I can't even muster the focus necessary to watch anything right now. I just feel like going to sleep.

Update I felt like just wandering around wherever for a while in hopes of getting a palate cleanser, and so I took a relatively long walk. Now that I've rested a minute but am still too tired to go do it again, that's the exact same sentiment I have now. Let's go eat food (and possibly get drunk later)

I feel like contributing nothing to evil old mankind today. It feels like a good day for that.

Update Up until the moment there was the major lapse in judgment on the part of whoever in the upper ranks in New Mexico with the self-declared-emergency gun laws, the entire zeitgeist that the right wing won't do anything was quickly realized to be projection. Now, with that established, and with all of this crap done, I don't feel like there's really anything left to be anxious about, not on my part. Now all that's left is - well, a complete lack of anything.

It's like if you were all to die trying, that wouldn't affect me so much because it was due to factors that are now entirely out of my control. But really, I don't relate to any of these groups.

Update In any case, if I'm not focused on making any personal breakthrough and just intend to truly live aimlessly, I have an obligation to hang myself for reasons that are beyond my concern.

Update There's no reason for doubt: if Silent Hill 2 didn't represent a finalization of consensus against the kinds of people the government wants to target, being such a strong psychological game, in 2023, they wouldn't make it.

So inasmuch as I said the deal's over, with people finding out that it's projection when shills keep parroting the, "you won't do shit", in reality it's only the people doing the effective bidding of the mainstream against its dissenters that have any organic motive for action. Just because they don't want to carry this out on the forefront with violence means they're *smart.* You won't do shit.

Going back to continue Silent Hill 3 might be in order, but at the time being, I really just don't care. I feel like laying in the dust to die.

9/16 I've *already* admitted conspiracy theories are a sham, start to finish.

I honestly still - well now more than ever - don't see why murder would be considered so heinous and in religion be the foremost sin when human lives are so altogether wasted in their very conception. I have it from experience that my own human life is not *worth* much. Otherwise, you could do something with it *It's like I'm living in an alternate reality. No one else considers their life cut off from everyone else like me.* (So, what - that itself is in an alternate reality)

The "merit" of human life is a *sham*, and everyone should see through it - it's not hard.

Update I had a run going of Silent Hill 2 where once at the prison, I basically stopped picking up any items, but at first I was still killing the enemies. This time I started up a while earlier than that but also stopped killing the enemies once there too. Now for some reason I had a ridiculous migraine, and now I can't stop having a recurrence of this headache. I can't do anything anymore.

Update Okay, finally. I usually forget what I'm even doing when login requirements get to this extreme point. So the last time I tried to take pills for a severe headache, my bitch *mom* espouses her usual typical spiel that I'm (I don't care) - this time I'm in so much pain, I've already cycled through considering hanging myself to stop the pain. I took the pills - since they had already left.

Update I finally heard enough talk about Ukraine for it to jog in my conscious awareness - all these people saying they support Ukraine, the money being channeled there which is against our will in the first place even *without* said consent is for a fiasco that didn't need to happen, if anyone ever really wants to pay attention, or at least to the extent it's been taken to at this point, where so many people out of the population are being used of out of Ukraine that they're allegedly having to kidnap old people out of wheelchairs now just to keep the forefronts fed. Is it the Ukranian people you support? If only it could have been America instead of a people that have nothing to do with the modern world's sins.

Update Existence sucks. Pull all funds It's too bad we're not any of us major financial donors, so that doesn't make any difference?

Update I don't know why. I'm making slow progress through Hell on Earth Starter Pack (with the mods, including my modification of a music mod) - but even then, a lot of the time I stop, it's just because I feel like I can't be bothered. I feel like sleeping more often now. I never actually get to doing that.

9/19 Honestly, if there's wisdom to be passed down from generations by the *modern* era, it's only that everything that gets passed out as reasons, from people living at the ground level all the way up to modern sciences, is post-hoc in nature.

From that, you should already be a recluse. I'm not saying you have to right away.

Well, I looked up the actual definition of "post hoc", and for people looking for the definition with my meaning removed for reasons that are post hoc in nature, the official definition isn't very serviceable for me, trying to convince them back - not at all. It never works.

What I'm trying to say is that these things passed out in the modern day as reasons are in fact more accurately known as rationalizations after the fact that a decision is already made in the subconscious. Science, in paid-off disingenuity, is just the same in this respect as the people influenced to then say "it's okay" and try it themselves at the ground level with their *own* dismissive bullshit. There isn't any value in listening to other people, even in recorded content with a deliberate purpose in mind (although when most people speak, there's a purpose they have in mind in the conversation also, but that just kind of proves the fact that that in itself doesn't *mean* very much), that is more than cursory in nature. If you're thinking with pangs going on over it, oh, those exceptions that I saw that had me so hooked prove what you're saying is a ton of bullshit, you're thinking too hard. Good things are the exception to the rule, and the exception proves the rule.

So what do you do? You become a recluse.

Really, you can listen to other people saying things of a deeper nature in *their* concerns, and in that instance maybe you'll scrape a few bits of meaning off of what is to them merely the surface of their real underlying point, since some things are more widely applicable regardless of the context - beyond that, all interest is lost. I don't relate to other people hanging on listening. Doesn't make sense.

I don't exactly *know* - at this point, it doesn't really matter if 2030 agendas actually play out, because there is the truth underlying agendas such as simply taking farms off the people's hands: people making their own individualistic attempts at higher reasoning doesn't pan out anything in the modern day, where people are already lesser than they were before the modern existence. By this point, by the fact that it's proven to be most effective just to listen to and believe the shills when they're talking like evil henchmen on the internet to understand the higher nature of the world around us, we know that higher knowledge lies - soundly - in the hands of the few

Honestly, though, it's not just ritualistic - people aren't worth their salt

If it was only 4chan - people there are actually actively trying - there it sounds like a fixed response to say "we'll just take this off your hands" for your better good - although it's *true* - listening to and believing the shills is the only way to know *concisely.* I was going to say, look - those aren't the scope of mankind, and with the same words turned around, mankind is a separate entity from the exception to the rule.

So, basically, it comes down to: if you're looking for answers in life as to its meaning, entities like the WEF and Blackrock already have the answer, and the shills of such entities gladly dispense that truth in a backhanded kind of way with, "and you can't do anything about it because you're broken and demoralized"

Wait - that's still assuming that we can't make our own way with our own answers - but again, I'm thinking too hard. This is to be considered as in a classroom setting in which we're conditioned from a young age: there's a right answer to every question, and we're just trying to align ourselves with it as a fundamentally separate entity from ourselves. That is the truth. That is correct. Something like, in the modern world, every question already comes with an answer deriving from past studies

I know that's fine and dandy as a world order for everyone else, but for me as the exception that proves the rule, you realize quickly it takes in fact an IQ *low enough* to process without being drawn on its own to broader subjects, which defeats the point, when just anyone else with a midwit IQ would be already all up in that. They would already be making six figures, not enthralled with anything *I'm* thinking on my own - I've missed the boat.

I don't know why I'm even talking, but I guess the agenda of higher entities like WEF and Blackrock of taking farms off our hands into a more definitive system just derives from the long-standing mindset that all our knowledge is now derivative of studies which are only helpful in that they have been collectively accumulated.

I thought about that once before, and it would seem to contradict the idea that evolutionism as a mindset arose from the direct relative of Luciferians: it says that, unlike this system which *denies* people at the ground level doing their own thing just to take the farce off of their hands, all forms of life originally came into being entirely *because* random generation eventually panned out winners.

You know how leftists are always calling it water-under-the-bridge when called out succinctly for doing what they made into the end of the world in their accusations of the other side? This might be in fact a case of that, on display in a more esoteric sense.

Honestly, I don't think we have any real upward mobility, even when it comes to trying to figure out matters of a higher nature on our own. The best you can hope to do is take the shills already out and about and try to *bait* them with some talk like this so they get enraged with it over the knowledge they already have and correct you, saying it's obviously this, this, and this. I've heard someone use a better term for it, but there isn't a time where the shills *aren't* or don't have the answer such that they're not the baseline for opinion, where the buck stops there for any given purposes. If I had to guess, these are established from top-level Masonry, where the agendas are formed organically, but not in a way that seems intuitive to us mere mortals on this pointless child's play-pen earth relative to the reality.

It's pointless. We're all going to live our lives as they were before we were conceived. I'm just going to lay around a lot.

And then the shills come out and say, this guy isn't a "part of it" - there's *really* nothing wrong with it (the WEF agenda, etc.)

And it's *true* - I'm really not a part of it when it comes to regular human people's processing of thoughts or any motivations or anything - shills don't even have to do a *job*; they are tasked only with the basic switching back on of people's suspended judgment based on that fact, and (really) they aren't needed to do that. It's just kind of like pouring salt in the wound, their being there, being that.

Update Well, anyway, I'm not an evolutionist. I don't believe that random generation can actually lead to the entire history of living creatures. (Honestly it gets off point to go on about this, but evolutionists will win the argument based on the fact that micro-evolution is demonstrable, creating a consensus such that they only need be obtuse to uphold it when presented with the question about the lack of evidence of macroevolution even in amber fossils, because with that consensus, that's neither here nor there.)

People tend not to find more profound results unless they were explicitly looking for something along those lines and then were essentially surprised by reality. People toiling at the ground level rarely produces these results. Plus, people that casual are just going to get bribed with external funding to skew the science to meet the producer's preconclusions. As usual. What do you expect? Science? That's been fundamentally defunct for however many several years.

Honestly, whether you're listening to a paid-off nu-scientist or the ramblings of some random person who may not really know much, we are mere mortals compared to the baseline-of-opinion online shill

[akaraboonline]

10 Sexless Locations To Find Love

Everyone has read about the elaborate displays of affection. On jumbotrons, boyfriends make proposals, or they hire planes to carry banners. Exotic holidays and pricey restaurant dinners are planned by lovers. I've been a dating coach and advice columnist for many years, and even now I'm still astounded by the number of men and women who lament their dating woes. The best dating advise I can give, in my opinion, is that both sexes need to learn how to communicate openly with one another without making snap decisions or destroying potentially positive relationships out of ingrained anxieties. However, it can be simpler said than done. Lack of originality in figuring out how and where to meet new people in their quest to discover true love is one difficult issue that both men and women deal with. Pew Research found that while the number is greater for the LGBTQ community, only one in ten Americans started a committed relationship with someone they met online. According to a 2015 Mic article, "more 18 to 34-year-olds met their current significant others through mutual friends than through any other way, including dating apps. Nearly 39% of respondents said they met "through friends in common," closely followed by 22% who said they met "out in a social setting." But in what social contexts should you look for a love relationship?

Where to look for love (hint: not in bars or clubs)

10 Sexless Locations To Find Love The bar and club scene is often the most obvious option, but no matter how you look at it, this is "one night stand" territory. There will always be the odd person who meets someone in a bar and falls in love and commits to them, but in general, it's a short-lived situation. Most people rarely contact the number they still have in their coat pocket from the previous night when they wake up the next morning. Alcohol abuse and a lack of trust in one's ability to make the call are the main causes of this. Meeting in a lounge or restaurant is preferable, but requires more creativity because there isn't any dancing to entice or seduce people. You must genuinely converse with others. Alcohol is generally a terrific relaxant for many women and it works brilliantly for guys searching for something more physically intimate, which is precisely why the bar scene becomes a repetitively fruitless cycle for so many dissatisfied people. Everybody believes that they will be the exception to the norm, but it is readily available on every corner. Unfortunately, it's usually the same old scenario every weekend when trying to meet quality ladies or men in a pub - everyone wakes up upset and lonely. Here are a few dating tips to keep in mind when meeting new men or women: - If you are using online dating services or apps like OkCupid, Match, Tinder, Bumble, or any of the others, pay attention to what they say they're looking for. Are they looking for love or a relationship? If they don't say so, believe them. - Pay attention to the groupie types who only date or sleep with a certain high-profile type of person. - Opt out of being the constant mistress. Being someone's number two forever ... who would want that? - Watch out for people who only date the perfect and beautiful types. What keeps you looking for love in all the wrong places? True love should not be expensive or painful to find. Establishing a habit will prevent you from exploring other possibilities that might ultimately be successful for you. You won't allow yourself to develop to your full potential if you categorize yourself as one certain "type," and you'll end up stuck. And that's why it's so difficult for you to find love. Be aware of any patterns you may be developing that prevent you from having love in your life because you are terrified of the unknown. Fear may be a potent suppressor. Start small while confronting your demons.

Here are 10 unsexy places to find true love:

1. A driving range or golf course It would be best to play on an executive par-3 course because less serious golfers will use it. 2. Tennis courts Take advantage of the back wall where other lone players will be practicing. 3. The gym Be cordial and attentive to those around you. Say hello, remove your headphones, and keep your distance from anyone else wearing them unless they initiate contact. A strong "I'm not wanting to make friends" signal is wearing headphones. 4. The airport Speak to individuals at eateries or in the holding area. 5. Hiking trails or a beach/park with high foot-traffic If you're an active person looking for someone active — go to active places! 6. Sporting venues Attend a hockey game, soccer match, or golf match. 7. Any social event where people can mingle Never close yourself off in a booth; always keep an open space. As you pass by, smile at the people. 8. A meet-up group Find one of the many groups in your region by checking around, or start your own! It's a fantastic chance to connect with others who share your interests. 9. A course or lesson Discover something fresh. There will be individuals there with shared interests with you. 10. Speed dating events and online dating sites or apps Find the finest dating apps and websites that suit you and your ideals by doing your research. If you lack the fortitude to escape tragic circumstances repeatedly, try watching some of your pals who might have more strength than you and take their lead. Never be embarrassed to ask for assistance or to employ a professional for a brief period of time. To increase your chances of meeting a quality date, switch up your dating routines and locations. Each and every person is worthy of love. Read the full article

[psychicpeachpanda]

10 Benefits of Online Dating

The trend will probably continue to rise even after the pandemic owing to the distinct benefits of online dating. You can get started by tapping the Dating button in the shortcuts section of the three-line menu on Facebook. I'm sure I'll get to it eventually. I never get jealous of that. נערות ליווי בהרצליה Nah, but I get off the couch on a semi-regular basis, though. This sounds awfully cruel, completely robbing you of your right to find out why you have been dumped so that you can get some closure and move on. Have you ever felt this kind of intense pain - pain so deep that it physically wears you out? The problem is that sometimes it's not super easy to figure out for some of us. Super Like/Swipe up: This is a term derived from Tinder’s “super like” feature, which allows you to highlight your profile to a user that you’re very interested in. If you’re often wondering, “where are the senior singles near me? There are many people that love to do mental math whenever they see a set of numbers.

Meeting new people can sometimes be more difficult when you are dealing with a disability. Not too well, but meeting them went well. So well! I've even hung out with them without my partner. Every few days I make sure they are doing well. If you've never been 100% sure what makes you a sexy guy, or if you're already pretty sure you know what you've got but want to see how well we are at guessing this sort of thing, then just take the quiz and show us who you are. Then we'll contact you. 1. Customer valuation - Gordon (1999) describes how to value customers and categorise them according to their financial and strategic value so that companies can decide where to invest for deeper relationships and which relationships need to be served differently or even terminated. If this is not achieved, you will start to see your customers churn.

What's sexy to one person will be the exact opposite to the next. Make sure that one person is designated as the leader -- this person is in charge of keeping everyone on track and thinking about the next steps. Make a wonderful night beneath the stars for him. I play on my phone during date night. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it's both true and not true. Some shapes and designs are just more pleasing to the eye than others, and it's very scientific. There's evidence that a symmetrical face, no matter what face it is, will be perceived as more attractive than others. If they seem really cool, I will. What attracts one person will not attract another and, in fact, might repulse them. But rest assured, there is something in everyone that attracts others. But within that objectiveness, there is plenty of room for subjective beauty.

This job boasts bags of variety, plenty of new challenges and a very healthy wage at the end of every month. We have planned things a month in the future. We have planned things for six months in the future. It's also important to remember that this relationship does not define you and that you can build a future where a healthy relationship is possible. I guess anything is possible. I shop for them a few times a week. I shop for them on holidays. I shop for them all the time. I donate my time to napping. Dr. Walsh says that if your relationship goals are at odds, this could be a sign that it’s time to walk away. I love going for a walk with them. Hormone levels and pheromones and all sorts of different chemical reactions are going on when you meet someone you find attractive, and all of those affect the biological functions that help move this whole love thing along. While the therapist stereotype in many people’s minds is someone who displays unconditional positive regard and simply draws out the answers that already exist inside each patient, the reality can be a bit different. It's hard to forget about Bambi's sidekicks and family who supported him when he needed it most.

[preyforthewicked]

21.

I dated Eli for about a year and a half. It was fun for a college relationship. He was deeply insecure about a lot of things (he was over 21 years old without a driver’s license because his mom was a crazy neurotic hellbent on keeping him at home forever because she couldn’t stand the thought of not being needed by her kid anymore) and though I tried to be the best girlfriend, I was fucked up and got a lot of things wrong, too. Still, it was good until he made a sorry attempt at a sexual joke (“I wish you’d grab your ankles more!”) and out he went. This abrupt goodbye happened in July of 2015 and I never regretted it. He thought he’d bagged a good thing and I felt I could do much better. 

What followed was a sloppy summer fling and then a tightening of my physical boundaries. Once Senior year had begun, I entered the online dating sphere, went on a few dates, got ghosted by a guy I really liked who ended up getting back together with his ex (whom he of course swore up and down to me was crazy and he was beyond over her), and by March of 2016 had given up on boys. The ones around my age all seemed to be immature, uninteresting, or have psychological problems.

Then, serendipitously, I met the man I would later marry at a psychology conference in New York. 

From the very start, he was nothing like David. When we first saw each other in that huge conference room full of people, he looked at me and really seemed to see me, not just my physical form but whatever me was on the inside, too. We talked for four hours about music, movies, books, religion. I got his phone number and within a week, we decided to give dating a shot.

Whatever I had thought was love before was a pitiful shell of what I felt for Joseph. It was heady and almost overwhelming in its power. Being so deeply in love with someone is like being possessed or tripping on acid 24/7. I was overcome. It felt so good to connect with someone so deeply, so passionately. We told each other we were not only on the same page, but the same letter of the same word on so many things. Joseph told me I was the female permutation of his soul. We were so in sync and in harmony it was hard to believe it was real.

We married in September of 2017, a year and a half after meeting. Joseph was and is so incredibly amazing as a life partner; he loves me for everything I am. He appreciates my body, sure, but he also loves that I’m a writer, a fellow gamer, a Lord of the Rings fan, a lover of music. He knows my ambitions, interests, desires, and fears almost as intimately as his own. He takes care of me like I never imagined a spouse could. He loves me for me, all of me, not just the fleshy vessel I happen to occupy and what it might be able to do for him. 

We do have phenomenal sex, though, in case you’re wondering. I’ve never been eaten out and overall pleasured so much in my entire life.

The seeds David sowed did not stop growing after Joseph entered my life. I never had the desire to reach out to him again, but he still haunted me. On paper, my life was fantastic. Great marriage, stable full time job, owned a house, was physically the fittest I’d ever been, had a couple books published and worked on writing nearly every day. But in my head, I was never good enough. There were always things wrong. I felt attacked by my own thoughts, startled by their harsh negativity. My body, though in the best shape ever, was still nowhere near perfect. 

Alcohol became easier to acquire, my drinking easier to hide. Whenever I felt bad, which was more often than not, I drank. It got bad enough that I was drinking at my full time job just to get through the day. Just to cope with living inside my head. It was not a nice place to live. I was not kind to myself. I was not happy, and I couldn’t even articulate why.

It was not until 2020, 3 years into my perfect marriage with alcohol abuse and depressive thought loops in full swing, that it occurred to me David had never been in our relationship for love. That I was a victim of his abuse, something very far from a consenting party. 

This was 7 years after I ended it.

10/12/2020

A letter to my oppressor.

I loved you

(Or whatever it is a 15-year-old girl thinks is love).

I trusted you.

I sacrificed sleep

And friends

And time for you.

And you abused my naivete with relish

For years – 4 to be exact – 

And all that time I never knew

I was dressed as the victim in this play.

Did you really love me? Or was that just a leverage word

To pry my top off?

To peel open my legs?

I never questioned it, but now

7 years later,

A moment of bitter clarity.

After everything you took from me

I want nothing 

Except the apology you owe

Not only me

But my family, then and now.

You tricked me. Ruined me.

Fucked me in more ways 

Than one.

And all I want now 

is to know –

Are you sorry?            

(I never heard you say it.)

Did you know what you were doing

All along? Preying on innocence

In a time of vulnerable isolation?

Spinning stories about a future together

To a gullible girl with stars in her eyes?

From the bottom of your soul,

Trembling at the judgmental feet

Of Old Testament God, 

Are you sorry? 

Do you think that’s enough to save you

From the gates of Hell?

It was not until now, 2022, 9 years after I cut ties, 24 weeks pregnant with mine and my loving husband's first child, a daughter, did it dawn on me that David had abused me. Taken full advantage of me and abused me. Not by force but coercion and pressure. With “I love yous” and smiley emojis and promises of marriage. Yes, I was a precocious teen, a “wise for her age” fifteen-year-old girl. And it is true I agreed to everything he asked me to do. But he never really had my consent. 

[bao3bei4]

fan language: the victorian imaginary and cnovel fandom

there’s this pinterest image i’ve seen circulating a lot in the past year i’ve been on fandom social media. it’s a drawn infographic of a, i guess, asian-looking woman holding a fan in different places relative to her face to show what the graphic helpfully calls “the language of the fan.”

people like sharing it. they like thinking about what nefarious ancient chinese hanky code shenanigans their favorite fan-toting character might get up to⁠—accidentally or on purpose. and what’s the problem with that?

the problem is that fan language isn’t chinese. it’s victorian. and even then, it’s not really quite victorian at all. 

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fans served a primarily utilitarian purpose throughout chinese history. of course, most of the surviving fans we see⁠—and the types of fans we tend to care about⁠—are closer to art pieces. but realistically speaking, the majority of fans were made of cheaper material for more mundane purposes. in china, just like all around the world, people fanned themselves. it got hot!

so here’s a big tipoff. it would be very difficult to use a fan if you had an elaborate language centered around fanning yourself.

you might argue that fine, everyday working people didn’t have a fan language. but wealthy people might have had one. the problem we encounter here is that fans weren’t really gendered. (caveat here that certain types of fans were more popular with women. however, those tended to be the round silk fans, ones that bear no resemblance to the folding fans in the graphic). no disrespect to the gnc old man fuckers in the crowd, but this language isn’t quite masc enough for a tool that someone’s dad might regularly use.

folding fans, we know, reached europe in the 17th century and gained immense popularity in the 18th. it was there that fans began to take on a gendered quality. ariel beaujot describes in their 2012 victorian fashion accessories how middle class women, in the midst of a top shortage, found themselves clutching fans in hopes of securing a husband.

she quotes an article from the illustrated london news, suggesting “women ‘not only’ used fans to ‘move the air and cool themselves but also to express their sentiments.’” general wisdom was that the movement of the fan was sufficiently expressive that it augmented a woman’s displays of emotion. and of course, the more english audiences became aware that it might do so, the more they might use their fans purposefully in that way.

notice, however, that this is no more codified than body language in general is. it turns out that “the language of the fan” was actually created by fan manufacturers at the turn of the 20th century⁠—hundreds of years after their arrival⁠ in europe—to sell more fans. i’m not even kidding right now. the story goes that it was louis duvelleroy of the maison duvelleroy who decided to include pamphlets on the language with each fan sold.

interestingly enough, beaujot suggests that it didn’t really matter what each particular fan sign meant. gentlemen could tell when they were being flirted with. as it happens, meaningful eye contact and a light flutter near the face may be a lingua franca.

so it seems then, the language of the fan is merely part of this victorian imaginary we collectively have today, which in turn itself was itself captivated by china.

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victorian references come up perhaps unexpectedly often in cnovel fandom, most often with regards to modesty.

it’s a bit of an awkward reference considering that chinese traditional fashion⁠—and the ambiguous time periods in which these novels are set⁠—far predate victorian england. it is even more awkward considering that victoria and her covered ankles did um. imperialize china.

but nonetheless, it is common. and to make a point about how ubiquitous it is, here is a link to the twitter search for “sqq victorian.” sqq is the fandom abbreviation for shen qingqiu, the main character of the scum villain’s self-saving system, by the way.

this is an awful lot of results for a search involving a chinese man who spends the entire novel in either real modern-day china or fantasy ancient china. that’s all i’m going to say on the matter, without referencing any specific tweet.

i think people are aware of the anachronism. and i think they don’t mind. even the most cursory research reveals that fan language is european and a revisionist fantasy. wikipedia can tell us this⁠—i checked!

but it doesn’t matter to me whether people are trying to make an internally consistent canon compliant claim, or whether they’re just free associating between fan facts they know. it is, instead, more interesting to me that people consistently refer to this particular bit of history. and that’s what i want to talk about today⁠—the relationship of fandom today to this two hundred odd year span of time in england (roughly stuart to victorian times) and england in that time period to its contemporaneous china.

things will slip a little here. victorian has expanded in timeframe, if only because random guys posting online do not care overly much for respect for the intricacies of british history. china has expanded in geographic location, if only because the english of the time themselves conflated china with all of asia.

in addition, note that i am critiquing a certain perspective on the topic. this is why i write about fan as white here⁠—not because all fans are white⁠—but because the tendencies i’m examining have a clear historical antecedent in whiteness that shapes how white fans encounter these novels.

i’m sure some fans of color participate in these practices. however i don’t really care about that. they are not its main perpetrators nor its main beneficiaries. so personally i am minding my own business on that front.

it’s instead important to me to illuminate the linkage between white as subject and chinese as object in history and in the present that i do argue that fannish products today are built upon.

--------------------

it’s not radical, or even new at all, for white audiences to consume⁠—or create their own versions of⁠—chinese art en masse. in many ways the white creators who appear to owe their whole style and aesthetic to their asian peers in turn are just the new chinoiserie.

this is not to say that white people can’t create asian-inspired art. but rather, i am asking you to sit with the discomfort that you may not like the artistic company you keep in the broader view of history, and to consider together what is to be done about that.

now, when i say the new chinoiserie, i first want to establish what the original one is. chinoiserie was a european artistic movement that appeared coincident with the rise in popularity of folding fans that i described above. this is not by coincidence; the european demand for asian imports and the eventual production of lookalikes is the movement itself. so: when we talk about fans, when we talk about china (porcelain), when we talk about tea in england⁠—we are talking about the legacy of chinoiserie.

there are a couple things i want to note here. while english people as a whole had a very tenuous knowledge of what china might be, their appetites for chinoiserie were roughly coincident with national relations with china. as the relationship between england and china moved from trade to out-and-out wars, chinoiserie declined in popularity until china had been safely subjugated once more by the end of the 19th century.

the second thing i want to note on the subject that contrary to what one might think at first, the appeal of chinoiserie was not that it was foreign. eugenia zuroski’s 2013 taste for china examines 18th century english literature and its descriptions of the according material culture with the lens that chinese imports might be formative to english identity, rather than antithetical to it.

beyond that bare thesis, i think it’s also worthwhile to extend her insight that material objects become animated by the literary viewpoints on them. this is true, both in a limited general sense as well as in the sense that english thinkers of the time self-consciously articulated this viewpoint. consider the quote from the illustrated london news above⁠—your fan, that object, says something about you. and not only that, but the objects you surround yourself with ought to.

it’s a bit circular, the idea that written material says that you should allow written material to shape your understanding of physical objects. but it’s both 1) what happened, and 2) integral, i think, to integrating a fannish perspective into the topic.

--------------------

japanning is the name for the popular imitative lacquering that english craftspeople developed in domestic response to the demand for lacquerware imports. in the eighteenth century, japanning became an artform especially suited for young women. manuals were published on the subject, urging young women to learn how to paint furniture and other surfaces, encouraging them to rework the designs provided in the text.

it was considered a beneficial activity for them; zuroski describes how it was “associated with commerce and connoisseurship, practical skill and aesthetic judgment.” a skillful japanner, rather than simply obscuring what lay underneath the lacquer, displayed their superior judgment in how they chose to arrange these new canonical figures and effects in a tasteful way to bring out the best qualities of them.

zuroski quotes the first english-language manual on the subject, written in 1688, which explains how japanning allows one to:

alter and correct, take out a piece from one, add a fragment to the next, and make an entire garment compleat in all its parts, though tis wrought out of never so many disagreeing patterns.

this language evokes a very different, very modern practice. it is this english reworking of an asian artform that i think the parallels are most obvious.

white people, through their artistic investment in chinese material objects and aesthetics, integrated them into their own subjectivity. these practices came to say something about the people who participated in them, in a way that had little to do with the country itself. their relationship changed from being a “consumer” of chinese objects to becoming the proprietor of these new aesthetic signifiers.

--------------------

i want to talk about this through a few pairs of tensions on the subject that i think characterize common attitudes then and now.

first, consider the relationship between the self and the other: the chinese object as something that is very familiar to you, speaking to something about your own self vs. the chinese object as something that is fundamentally different from you and unknowable to you. 

consider: [insert character name] is just like me. he would no doubt like the same things i like, consume the same cultural products. we are the same in some meaningful way vs. the fast standard fic disclaimer that “i tried my best when writing this fic, but i’m a english-speaking westerner, and i’m just writing this for fun so...... [excuses and alterations the person has chosen to make in this light],” going hand-in-hand with a preoccupation with authenticity or even overreliance on the unpaid labor of chinese friends and acquaintances. 

consider: hugh honour when he quotes a man from the 1640s claiming “chinoiserie of this even more hybrid kind had become so far removed from genuine Chinese tradition that it was exported from India to China as a novelty to the Chinese themselves” 

these tensions coexist, and look how they have been resolved.

second, consider what we vest in objects themselves: beaujot explains how the fan became a sexualized, coquettish object in the hands of a british woman, but was used to great effect in gilbert and sullivan’s 1885 mikado to demonstrate the docility of asian women. 

consider: these characters became expressions of your sexual desires and fetishes, even as their 5’10 actors themselves are emasculated.

what is liberating for one necessitates the subjugation and fetishization of the other. 

third, consider reactions to the practice: enjoyment of chinese objects as a sign of your cosmopolitan palate vs “so what’s the hype about those ancient chinese gays” pop culture explainers that addressed the unconvinced mainstream.

consider: zuroski describes how both english consumers purchased china in droves, and contemporary publications reported on them. how: 

It was in the pages of these papers that the growing popularity of Chinese things in the early eighteenth century acquired the reputation of a “craze”; they portrayed china fanatics as flawed, fragile, and unreliable characters, and frequently cast chinoiserie itself in the same light.

referenda on fannish behavior serve as referenda on the objects of their devotion, and vice versa. as the difference between identity and fetish collapses, they come to be treated as one and the same by not just participants but their observers. 

at what point does mxtx fic cease to be chinese? 

--------------------

finally, it seems readily apparent that attitudes towards chinese objects may in fact have something to do with attitudes about china as a country. i do not want to suggest that these literary concerns are primarily motivated and begot by forces entirely divorced from the real mechanics of power. 

here, i want to bring in edward said, and his 1993 culture and imperialism. there, he explains how power and legitimacy go hand in hand. one is direct, and one is purely cultural. he originally wrote this in response to the outsize impact that british novelists have had in the maintenance of empire and throughout decolonization. literature, he argues, gives rise to powerful narratives that constrain our ability to think outside of them.

there’s a little bit of an inversion at play here. these are chinese novels, actually. but they’re being transformed by white narratives and artists. and just as i think the form of the novel is important to said’s critique, i think there’s something to be said about the form that fic takes and how it legitimates itself.

bound up in fandom is the idea that you have a right to create and transform as you please. it is a nice idea, but it is one that is directed towards a certain kind of asymmetry. that is, one where the author has all the power. this is the narrative we hear a lot in the history of fandom⁠—litigious authors and plucky fans, fanspaces always under attack from corporate sanitization.

meanwhile, said builds upon raymond schwab’s narrative of cultural exchange between european writers and cultural products outside the imperial core. said explains that fundamental to these two great borrowings (from greek classics and, in the so-called “oriental renaissance” of the late 18th, early 19th centuries from “india, china, japan, persia, and islam”) is asymmetry. 

he had argued prior, in orientalism, that any “cultural exchange” between “partners conscious of inequality” always results in the suffering of the people. and here, he describes how “texts by dead people were read, appreciated, and appropriated” without the presence of any actual living people in that tradition. 

i will not understate that there is a certain economic dynamic complicating this particular fannish asymmetry. mxtx has profited materially from the success of her works, most fans will not. also secondly, mxtx is um. not dead. LMAO.

but first, the international dynamic of extraction that said described is still present. i do not want to get overly into white attitudes towards china in this post, because i am already thoroughly derailed, but i do believe that they structure how white cnovel fandom encounters this texts.

at any rate, any profit she receives is overwhelmingly due to her domestic popularity, not her international popularity. (i say this because many of her international fans have never given her a cent. in fact, most of them have no real way to.) and moreover, as we talk about the structure of english-language fandom, what does it mean to create chinese cultural products without chinese people? 

as white people take ownership over their versions of stories, do we lose something? what narratives about engagement with cnovels might exist outside of the form of classic fandom?

i think a lot of people get the relationship between ideas (the superstructure) and production (the base) confused. oftentimes they will lob in response to criticism, that look! this fic, this fandom, these people are so niche, and so underrepresented in mainstream culture, that their effects are marginal. i am not arguing that anyone’s cql fic causes imperialism. (unless you’re really annoying. then it’s anyone’s game) 

i’m instead arguing something a little bit different. i think, given similar inputs, you tend to get similar outputs. i think we live in the world that imperialism built, and we have clear historical predecessors in terms of white appetites for creating, consuming, and transforming chinese objects. 

we have already seen, in the case of the fan language meme that began this post, that sometimes we even prefer this white chinoiserie. after all, isn’t it beautiful, too? 

i want to bring discomfort to this topic. i want to reject the paradigm of white subject and chinese object; in fact, here in this essay, i have tried to reverse it.

if you are taken aback by the comparisons i make here, how can you make meaningful changes to your fannish practice to address it? 

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some concluding thoughts on the matter, because i don’t like being misunderstood! 

i am not claiming white fans cannot create fanworks of cnovels or be inspired by asian art or artists. this essay is meant to elaborate on the historical connection between victorian england and cnovel characters and fandom that others have already popularized.

i don’t think people who make victorian jokes are inherently bad or racist. i am encouraging people to think about why we might make them and/or share them

the connections here are meant to be more provocative than strictly literal. (e.g. i don’t literally think writing fanfic is a 1-1 descendant of japanning). these connections are instead meant to 1) make visible the baggage that fans of color often approach fandom with and 2) recontextualize and defamiliarize fannish practice for the purposes of honest critique

please don’t turn this post into being about other different kinds of discourse, or into something that only one “kind” of fan does. please take my words at face value and consider them in good faith. i would really appreciate that.

please feel free to ask me to clarify any statements or supply more in-depth sources :) 

[sugar-petals]

Hi Caro! How are you? I hope you're good and in a place where it isn't very hot (my friend living in England had a very rough time). I'm just here wondering why my type is cute subby twinks, and why is close to impossible to find them in Argentina (I still remember the day I took one of those online test about the type of men you like and the answer was twinks and I was like WELL DAMN I FEEL ATTACKED). My name is Victoria, idk if I ever told you, but everyone calls me Vik or Vicky (usually the first one, I guess it's more gender neutral so it fits me better). Sorry that I'm ranting, I really enjoy talking to you.

more than glad to answer, vic! 💙 hm... a philosophy on twinks and why they're appealing. time for a little essay.

first off, i wish there was a bi and straight term as well, they're not 100% the same as e.g. pretty boys or femboys — those categories are even more particular to a certain femdom aesthetic. pretty boys are defined by face, femboys by clothes hair and body, twinks by both.

my suggestion for a word would be "prince". it's positive, people get the gist intuitively, and it's derived from the groundbreaking artist who invented this whole game to the fullest after greek culture laid the foundation, shoutout to apollo. before leo (90s) zac efron (00s) and taemin (10s) paved the way, there was prince in crop tops, heavy makeup, heels, and poses few guys dared.

so, a prince, they're usually the anti-jock/bear, right. more petite in frame, often fashionable like an it-boy (see lucky blue smith), frequently gnc, and found in a 20-30 age group with some exceptions. but i think that's why they are appealing to us, it's a generation thing. just like t. chalamet, lil nas x, and troye sivan hit it big among gen z by sheer exposure, or the eboy/softboy fad in hetero media, although that one wasn't really femdom in spirit and just another brand of manipulative nice guy syndrome.

princes don't come across as physically imposing, they're more tongue in cheek and seductive or cute, the link to your zelda. that caters to somebody with a taste for subs/bottoms who'd rather have them sat on their lap than getting choked out by them which is almost treated as a given, same with spanking or rough sex. so, that notion of twinks has opened the door to something less compulsive gladly.

a prince can come with an edge, twinks and brats may have some overlaps depending on the guy, but at the end of the day, they're subs, both hard and soft. jonghyun has set quite the tone for it artistically, major credit due. he's broken the mold to say that it's so boring and restrictive to be a dominant guy and there's more out there than what the societal landscape offers.

thank god taemin has carried that on and continues to inspire others.

in recent times, the word also becomes more and more open to guys who are tall / fit or conventional-looking. i see this in how european football is received on tumblr where calling your favorite club `#twink fc (affectionate)´ is a thing on here 😆 and it's true. you haven't seen more collective prince energy as in the german national team. the gorgeousness is real and the ladies who date them... lucky af.

(^kai havertz - plays for chelsea fc)

(^joshua kimmich / leroy sané - play for bavaria fc. they both have 2+ kids with their gfs lmao you don't have to be a DILF or daddy, twinkness cannot be concealed 🤘)

the whole idea is not to be conflated with power bottoms, see aquaria on drag race who looks like a twink but tops, by the way. which is why taemin generates so much traction, he plays with switching and walks the line but always winds up with a submitting conclusion. ten, or yoongi, they’re mysterious to people in that regard, too. or wonho, who follows a jock aesthetic but offers himself as a fantasy with an 'open mind' and a cute personality in the mix, neither gentle giant, himbo, nor a skinny short king, just doing his own thing.

a twink or prince is easy on the eye for anyone who likes androgyny and is usually in favor of being gnc themselves, or is bored/turned off/disappointed or even frightened by the mainstream. argentina hasn't had that scope of pop culture industry to inspire trends, and prevailing structures of machismo and chivalry prevent androgyny in dress and behavior, especially outside larger cities as is also the case where i live (southern germany where christianity rules — you can imagine, it's not berlin).

where binaries, monosexuality and hypermasculine/homophobic/biphobic conduct is exaggerated, you won't find a twink able to do their thing or getting attention. sure, gnc people are always there and the world is slowly catching up in some places, although it feels like we're going ten steps backwards as a backlash these days which is unacceptable. that's why k-pop is such a refreshing element in the way that male performers present concepts and a female pov is embraced. nobody deems it punishable or strange if you walk up like this, in fact it's celebrated.

it also bursts the bubble of twink/prince = white and goes even further than just one specific aesthetic. it changes constantly and incorporates actual elements of kink culture rather than leaving men's submission unspoken as an ultimate taboo. it may be commercial, but it is also literal and encourages nonconforming styles and body types as the rise of shinee, skz, or nct exemplifies. the next generation prince/twink trailblazer is sure to be found there, my bet is on taeyong or felix, they're really owning the princeliness.

[felassan]

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development