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vampireqrow-moved · 3 years

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um its my birthday so wait until 12:01am pst to block me if u hate this post 🥰🥰

long story short the pansexual label is redudant and actively harmful (its far from the worst problem bisexuals face but it is one issue) and i dont hate anyone who identifies as pan because A) those ppl are bi like me and B) i used to identify as pan myself.

if thats enough for you to block me and make a callout post for me then i cant stop you but pretty please either read this whole thing or just wait a few minutes for my bday to end 🥰🥰

anyways im kicking off this point with some personal experiences bc i love to talk to myself. i got introduced to the pan label at maybe 10ish years old, and started identifying with it pretty much right away. i heard about it before bisexual and it was pitched as attraction to all genders and of course trans people. i was of course a trans ally! i had trans friends! i was trans also but hadnt figured it out yet! the way i had heard of it, there was no bisexual, there was no need for bisexual, and identifying differently was excluding trans people, which I was certainly against. being bisexual was trans exclusionary and why would i exclude trans people? the 'hearts not parts' slogan was thriving around this time and i genuinely said it and meant it.

as i started to become more online, mostly through roleplaying websites and tumblr here, i started hearing of bisexuality. it was supposedly an older term, so older people still used it, but it was common knowledge that pansexual was the better, inclusive label and younger people should adopt the new inclusive language instead of the old and transphobic words like bisexual. /s

and then bi and pan solidarity was all the rage! pansexual wasnt erasing bisexuality, why did anyone ever think that? bi and pan were two separate and complete identities that were valid and had to be respected or youre a mean exclusionist. and an asexual person, hearing people labelled exclusionist always meant they were excluding people from the lgbta community who rightfully belonged, denying peoples lived experiences, and generally telling people theyre wrong about their sexuality because theyre too young. and all of those things were bad and had hurt me, so it would be ridiculous to change labels and support "pan exclusionists" because they were just as bad as ace and aro exclusionists, and they were all the same people. or so it seemed to me at that time.

then, 'hearts not parts' began getting called out for blatant transphobic by insinuating that pansexual was the only identity that loved people for their "hearts" and personalities instead of those gross gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and even straights who only saw people for their "parts". (STRAIGHT PEOPLE ARE NOT OPPRESSED. I AM MERELY POINTING OUT THAT PANSEXUALITY WAS SHOWN AS ABOVE ALL OTHERS.) many pan people, including myself, began to denounce the slogan and insist pansexuality wasnt transphobic, there had just been a coincidence that a transphobic slogan was everywhere and a huge part of people's explantions of and associations with pansexuality. hint: it wasnt a coincidence.

from my perspective, this is when i began to see people discussing dropping the word pansexual. that seemed to be a huge step from getting rid off a transphobic slogan, and these people were just meanies who hated microlabels. and i like microlabels! as a genderfluid person, and someone who has friends who use specific aro and acespec labels, ive seen how people can use them to name specific experiences while still acknowleging their presence underneath umbrella terms like aromantic, asexual, nonbinary, lgbta, and for some people, queer.

pansexuals dont do that. they dont label pansexuality as a specific set of experiences under the bisexual umbrella, they see themselves as a separate identity, and even if they started to, the history of biphobia and transphobic undeniably linked to the existence of pansexuality in enough to stop being worth using. but i digress. pansexualitys shiny new definition that many people cling to is that pansexual is attraction to all genders. bisexual is two or more genders.

which. frankly? doesnt make any sense. my guess is that its supposed to be inclusive of nonbinary genders and those a part of cultures who historically have not had a binary gender system in the first place. i cannot speak for the latter group, but as a nonbinary person, its not inclusive. anyone can be attracted to nonbinary people. literally anyone. theres no way to know if everyone you meet is nonbinary or not. whether or not a nonbinary person reciprocates those feelings and is interested in pursuing a relationship is completely up to the individual, regardless of the sexualities of the people involved.

bottom line is that you cant number the amounts of genders someone can be attracted to, thus rendering those definitions pointless. people can be attracted to all kinds of people regardless of gender, even if they are gay, a lesbian, or straight. all people can date thousands of nonbinary genders if all people involved are interested and comfortable with it. numbering the genders you can be attracted to diminishes the post of nonbinary, as it is not a third gender, it simply any experience not fitting within the western concept of the gender binary (if the person so chooses to identify as such. if you cant tell already, the nonbinary experience is varied between every single nonbinary person.) important to note also that no widely accepted bisexual text defines bisexual as attracted to exclusively two genders or even the "two or more genders". i know this is used a lot but please read the bisexual manifesto. its free online i promise.

some people also claim pansexuals experience "genderblind" attraction while bisexuals feel differently attracted to different genders. this is very nitpicky for whats supposed to be two unconnected idenities, but thats only part of the problem. this definition is also not in any widely accepted bisexual texts, and bisexuality has never excluded those who experience genderblind attraction. i am in fact a bi person who experiences genderblind attraction. this does not mean i am not bisexual. it simply means i experience bisexuality differently than other bisexuals, and thats wonderful! no broad communities like bisexuality are expected to all share the same experience. we are all so different and its amazing were able to come together under the bisexual flag.

last definition, or justification i should say, is that yes these definitions are redundant and theyre the same sexuality, but people prefer different labels and thats okay. i agree in principle. people can define themselves as many things like homosexuals or gays or lesbians or queers or even other reclaimed slurs, while still not labelling themselves under the most "common" or "accurate" labels.

but pansexuality isnt the same as bisexuality, which may sound silly but hear me out. it has been continually used as a way to further divide bisexuals, who are already subject to large amounts of lgbta discrimination. "pansexuality was started by trans people who were upset with transphobia within the bisexual community! it cant be transphobic OR biphobic!" except of course that it can and it is. to say that trans people cant be transphobic is absurd. transmedicalism is right there, but thats not what im getting at. all minorities can have internal and sometimes external biases against people who are the same minority as them.

pansexuality was started as a way to be trans inclusive at the expense of labelling bisexuality as transphobic when its not. transphobia is everywhere, and bisexuals are not exempt. instead of working on the transphobia within the community, the creators of pansexuality decided to remove themselves from it to create a better and less tainted word and community, and the fact that pansexuality is intended to replace bisexuality or leave it for the transphobes goes to show a few things. pansexuality and bisexuality are inherently linked because the pan label is in response to the bi label. due to its origins, it is inherently competing with bisexuality and it cant be "reclaimed" from its biphobic roots. pansexuality is not a whole, separate, and valid label. its a biphobic response to issues within the bisexual community.

to top off this post, heres something a full grown adult once said to me. in person. she was my roommate. "i feel like im pan because im attracted to trans people. trans women, trans men, i could definitely date them. but not nonbinary people because thats gross and weird." she saw pan as trans inclusive and defined herself that way as opposed to bi which is shitty!

also a little extra tidbit about my experiences identifying as pan. i saw myself as better than every bi person. all of them. even my trans and bi friends. whenever they brought up being bisexual i would think to myself "why dont you identify as pansexual? its better and shows people you support trans people." because i was made to believe bisexuality didnt and was therefore inferior. thats the mindset that emerged from my time in the pansexual community. i am so sorry to all of my bisexual friends even if they never noticed. i love you all and hope you have a great day. this also goes to any bisexuals or people who identify as bi in anyway, such as biromantic or simply bi. love you all.

ummm yeah heres some extra reading i found helpful and relevant. here and here. also noooo dont disagree with me and unfollow me im so sexy 🥴🥴🥴

#if u have follow up questions ill probably answer them 2morrow #if u ask something just be nice its my birthday 🙄🙄#anyways time to tag this lol !#pansexuality #biphobia #transphobia #q slur #long post #my post #ask to tag maybe??

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aredletterday · 4 years

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change da world. my final message

I believe it’s been about two months since the discourse surrounding Freemance vs. Freehoun started, though I don’t exactly have a great grasp on the passage of time right now. I’ve spoken on this a few times already. Many of my posts on this topic have been born out of deep frustration, and I even left Tumblr entirely for about a week to calm down and gather my thoughts. I’m going to try to lay out a coherent statement on the Freemance discourse and why it has completely changed how I interact with HL content.

I also know that at least one vocal anti-Freemance blog has me blocked, and there are probably many more (which I honestly don’t care about because I blocked many users myself today), which means this post will most likely fall on deaf ears. That’s fine. I just need to speak. EDIT: This also seems like a good opportunity to plug the Freemance charity zine that might be happening?

I was first exposed to Half-Life in late 2018, played the games for the first time in March 2019. So I’m certainly not an original member of the fandom, but I��m not “new” either, per se--at least, not relative to many of the people who have flooded in from the popularity of Half-Life But The AI Is Self-Aware.

It used to be so quiet around here. There was a new post in the tag maybe once every two or three days. When Half-Life: Alyx came out I had hoped it would revive older members of the fandom and maybe bring in some new ones, and it did--but was quickly overshadowed by the odd success of HLVRAI. I really can’t shy away anymore from the fact that I vehemently dislike most of the people in the HLVRAI fandom. I think a lot of these people are the ones who are starting and continuing unnecessary discourse because they’re young and don’t have anything better to do, or don’t know better (even though they should).

It is canon that Alyx was around four years old at the time of the Resonance Cascade. It is canon that Gordon was 27. It is canon that Alyx is 24 in Half-Life 2, and, get this, it is canon that Gordon is 27. During the gap between HL1 and HL2, Gordon was in a place that is outside of the normal flow of time, and, therefore, didn’t age at all during that time. This is supported by eli_greeting.ogg: “... My God, you haven't changed one iota! How do you do it?”

Because Alyx was a child while Gordon was working at Black Mesa, I commonly see anti-Freemance people using the idea that Gordon interacted with a young Alyx as a reason the ship is not viable. While this is definitely a valid headcanon to have, it’s just that, a headcanon. In al_imalyx.ogg, Alyx says, “... My father worked with you, back in Black Mesa. I'm sure you don't remember me though.” This would imply that Alyx was such a minor presence (if a presence at all) in Gordon’s life, he wouldn’t even have a reason to remember Eli having a daughter. It could even go as far as to imply that he barely knew Eli.

There is also a scene at the end of Half-Life: Alyx where Alyx sees the G-man and immediately mistakes him for Gordon. If she had met Gordon as a child, the fact that she can’t even remember what he looks or sounds like indicates it did not have any large impact on her. In fact, there are many instances in HL:A where Alyx speaks of Gordon like a complete stranger.

And, if you’ve played HL2 and the Episodes, you certainly remember many scenes with the Vances where Eli hints at the idea he would like to see Alyx and Gordon as a couple; several times throughout these games, Alyx also shows some degree of romantic interest in Gordon. I personally find this a strange and uncomfortable artifact of mid-2000s era heteronormativity, that’s something I’ll absolutely admit even as someone who ships Freemance. However, it’s something I think is worth pointing out.

So. Gordon isn’t a pedophile if he is characterized as being attracted to Alyx, because she’s a grown ass adult. Gordon isn’t preying on Alyx, because there’s no actual, canon basis for the idea that he was any more than vaguely aware of her existence before she was an adult.

It’s well within your right to dislike Freemance--I’ve met people before this who just had a distaste for it, it wasn’t their thing, and that’s okay. What I don’t appreciate is this campaign to get rid of all Freemance content because… you personally think it’s gross? Because you personally have decided based on fanon and not canon that it should not exist?

The thing I think that’s really bugged me more than the specific problem of Freemance is the wider implications of this discourse, one of which being the worrying amount of infantilization of Alyx. People have denied doing this, but will defend their anti-Freemance statements by saying they’re “protecting her,” when she’s a grown adult. She’s 24 and very clearly capable of taking care of herself--for Christ’s sake, she literally kills fascists. She spat in the fact of a dictator.

I also see a lot of people who hate Freemance turning around to ship Freehoun. Disclaimer: I love Freehoun. It’s up there equal with Freemance for me, I seriously adore the ship. The fact that it’s Freehoun isn’t what bothers me--it’s that people seem to look at a M/M ship of two white guys and go “this is progressive of me to ship,” but yet the M/F (notice how I don’t say “straight” because M/F couples aren’t inherently straight!) interracial ship is somehow gross, or heteronormative, or whatever other word has been thrown out there. Another thing I see is people casting Alyx entirely to the wayside in favor of Freehoun, or even going as far as to dislike her. That’s awfully familiar, isn’t it? The phenomenon of shippers hating a female character for “getting in the way” of their gay ship?

(Side note: I also am heavily bothered by the fact that I think a lot of new Freehoun shippers are coming over from shipping Benry/Gordon, and also the fact that a lot of people seem to think Barney and Benry are somehow the same, when they’re not, but I digress on that.)

The ongoing discourse has made being in the Half-Life fandom completely unbearable for me. I am tired. I can’t draw or write for it anymore. This was my favorite thing in the entire world, one of the only things keeping me going through quarantine, and now it’s just hardly worth bothering with. So this is most likely my final statement on this matter unless something drastic happens.

Freemance-critical and HLVRAI blogs will be blocked upon following me. I don’t care about being courteous anymore, I’m sick of interacting with you and gifting you my patience.

#ash rambles #freemance #ship discourse

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struwwelzeter · 4 years

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So I read your reply to Nyarisu's comment on Lionheart and I'm really intrigued by your comments about how people understand punk compared to what it was initially. Could I possibly ask you to expand on this? Pretty please?

Yes you could! This is a very (very?) personal point of view and I know a lot of people will disagree, but here goes nothing, I guess. If you disagree with me (and somebody will), that’s fine, but I will not engage with anything that’s not a constructively put argument. I’ve spend too much time thinking about this for a “I don’t like what you’re saying and that’s why you’re wrong” anon to change my mind. Just putting that out there - with love 💜.

The thing is, especially on tumblr but I think just in generally aswell, the idea of punk is presented as this ... Robin Hood kind of thing. Beat the system, stand up to bullies, live your own truth, all of that, but it always is presented as something that is supposed to come from a ... dare I say, nice place? Like those pictures of people in studded and sprayed leather jackets rescuing puppies. All of that, you know? And I don’t want to say that is wrong, because it isn’t, and I love the idea of that, it’s just not the entire truth.

Especially in the early to mid 70s, when arguably punk started, there was a lot of fatigue between an old and stuffy establishment and the lovey, dovey peace and love “let’s all be happy” movement of the hippie scene. I was at Force Attack in 2006, which is a punk festival (and possibly dirtiest place in the world) that got established in the early 90s and went on til 2008 (?), and even then some of the “death to hippies” sentiments ran pretty deep. And I know the counter argument to that will be a well meaning “well, that’s not real punk,” the problem is that I think it actually partly is. (Please keep the partly in mind for the rest of this argument.)

The problem with having the exact choice between “get a good job, built a nice house, think of what the neighbours will say, and don’t ask me about what I did in the war” and “we’re all a big part of one human family, and isn’t nature beautiful, lets all make peace, and btw we would have never done what our parents did” is that both models aren’t a sustainable life style for everyone. That’s why you get alot of people saying this is all fake bullshit, and they start being purposely offensive. This is why you get alot of Swastikas around the sex pistols, you get all these artists singing about suicide and incest and rape. It’s not that uncommon for some of those early acts to play with Nazi imagery, or claim that homosexuality is disgusting (despite the scene always being full of LGBTQ+ people), or idk, thinking it’s fun to piss on someone while they’re asleep. It’s alot of outcry, of saying life actually is this shitty and disgusting and I am gonna be that because in a way you will hate me either way. And it’s not always nice. Disdain and hate and petty selfishness are common human emotions and many of them are low and unhealthy, and honestly not nice or helpful or inclusive, but they are there, and I think alot of that early spirit was just about stopping to pretend that they don’t exist.

I think a reason for why we don’t think of the scene that way anymore is that many people very quickly outgrew that, and said “actually, we’re better than that, that’s not who we actually are. I sadly can’t find that interview right now, but Die Ärzte are actually a good exemple of that and they even admit it themselves, that there was a sense of “enough with the happy hippie bullshit, let’s disgust them” and then later going “uhmm - maybe that went a bit far.” I mean offensive or not, but ultimately a scene that is centered around artistic expression always ends with that question of creation, maybe like “if the world isn’t like what we want it to be, how do we make one we like?” - and then you end up with having to come up with answers that are more than just destruction. And then it turns into something else - something that I think is alot more like what tumblr seems to think punk is. And that’s a wonderful thing. Still - a side of punk, whatever that is, has always been what people like GG Allin (please read the wiki for context) have taken and pushed to the limits, and it just - isn’t nice. And here is where things get a bit tricky.

Because against that backdrop, things like John Lydon (Johnny Rotten) suddenly being a dirty old Trump supporter aren’t that surprising anymore. And then you get these 20 year olds “cancelling” the Sex Pistols, and I think there is just a bit of ... missing the point going on. I’ve read a comment on here recently, that basically said something like Richard should stop supporting the Sex Pistols (because he has that album in the back of the studio), and it’s just ... asking for a history to be erased that has rightfully been made obsolete but has still happened and was necessary at the time. You can take any of these early bands and pick their lyrics apart and find something that from our perspective now is disgusting, mean, exclusive, or outright racist. Songs about Fucking? Part of that record is a mysogynisy shitshow, something they were very aware of even at the time, and they still did it anyway because being disgusting was part of the point. The thing is though, the Sex Pistols were hugely influential, and alot of the positive things that grew out of that wouldn’t have been possible if kids like young Richard, or any of the bands you love that were influenced by them, wouldn’t have gotten that moment of “finally a place where I can put all of my petty hate”. It matters, and just because that moment is overcome, it doesn’t mean it should be forgotten, or stops existing in the people that lived through it.

I understand that the question of how much we should justify things with “it was the time” and how we deal with the result is an ever ongoing debate and their are many good arguments for why maybe we shouldn’t try to defend the wrongs of the past that way, and I want to point out that while I rarely agree on that in the first place (because I understand history as a natural learning curve where people aren’t perfect at the first try and it’s doing a disservice to humans just doing their best, but I digress and that’s a bit of another duscussion), I want to point out that I don’t want to defend anyone, rather I want to say “actually, being that horrible was often calculated, part of the point, and if you don’t like it, just leave it, fight it or debate it, but don’t pretend like it was a “missstep” or just a few black sheep of a scene that was never as nice or perfect as you want it to be.” You don’t get to erase half of a movement simply because you wish it wouldn’t exist the way it does - or well. I guess in this case mostly did - past tense.

The ugliness is part of the story to me, and it’s actually the bigger part of why I love this scene. I don’t need “punk” to define my politics, I need it to soothe my soul, and so did many, I think. The Sex Pistols breaking happened 20 years before my time, but I still feel connected to that world, and in particular the ugly parts of it. I often feel like I look at the world, and there are people that seem honestly shocked by the idea that maybe sometimes I find doing the right thing really hard, that I want petty, self serving revenge, that I don’t find it easy to not be selfish and unkind or sometimes want to hurt people because I am hurting myself and see an opportunity to do that. Obviously those aren’t nice things and I don’t want to be that way, but are you honestly telling me you don’t feel that? I find that hard to believe, and it leaves me with an ongoing question of if I am just worse than most people or if most people are just more fake. Both scenarios are equally shit. The ugly side of punk provides - not an answer to that - but maybe a partial solution, at least for me.

Another discussion we have all the time is about how what we consume or allow in artistic expression is influencing how we act as people in real life and how we want the world to be. Where do we draw the line? What is still ok? If I put me entertaining ideas about murder on a canvas, is that still good? what if it’s racism? What if it’s rape? We argue alot about how providing a safe space in art for those feelings is actually preventing us from acting on it in real life, how it’s an outlet of something we would never actually want or do, but then where is the limit to that? I am putting this intentionally controversial, but if we admit that most of us grow up with internalized racism and mysogyny, by that logic, why can’t I paint something that is blatantly hateful if I have those feelings? Maybe that is my way of fighting it, you don’t have to look at it? Not saying that’s what I am doing or would want to do, but what if? For some people Rammstein singing about not wanting to be Angels is crossing that line, for some of us that line is drawn alot later. Who is right? Isn’t that just personal sensitivity? Can you honestly rationalise that? Isn’t it just processing our different levels of petty hate in different ways? I don’t have the answers to any of that, it’s just questions I often have and that I think have to do with this, because alot of the nasty bits in punk will justify it exactly that way, as artistic expression. Alot of it isn’t as political as this scene is made out to be, it’s simply asking those things. I personally relate to that alot, as someone who arguably would draw the line of “we should stop doing this” in art very, very, very late - and certainly later than my own personal comfort zone.

I’m not sure if any of this makes any sense at all. I hope it does - and if it doesn’t it’s probably because I don’t know either, or because I don’t want to fully blow this up into an essay (sorry, too late?) or because I suck at making a point, or maybe because we simply disagree. All I know is that I sometimes see these posts of “what is punk and what isn’t” and it leaves me with this taste of “you’re describing a utopia and it’s cute and I want that too, but it’s not everything punk as I know it is, and it feels like you don’t want to see something that mattered too - even if it was brutal and disgusting.” And everytime I see it I feel alien, like something that mattered to me so much as a teenager and young adult gets taken away from me and made into something so sleek and pretty it becomes something unattainable to be that I simply don’t manage to live up to in the way I would like. I guess that is a petty, selfish way of looking at it too.

«It's a repressive society where you can't be horrible, I'm not horrible, they made me horrible, I'm just honest.»

- John Lydon

#sorry for this getting out of hand

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sylpphics · 4 years

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I’ve had it up to my head with the lesbian community. I am tired of it and I’m tired of being ashamed of being a lesbian. I am asexual and I am a lesbian, by all means of the words, but I have been dragged out of house and home and I no longer feel welcome in either of my own communities; specifically, however, the lesbian one. This post might be a bit off, and a few things might be wrong, but I have the right to be upset and emotional.

I will preface this, I try to stay off Tumblr for my own sake, but I have quite a few friends on here and TikTok, so it leaks through to me. I’ve seen my fair share of discourse. The rhetoric is disgusting.

The orange lesbian flag was initially created by an asexual exclusionist, full stop. Slap whatever word you want on it, it was never meant to include someone like me. You can cut as many stripes out of it as you want and rebrand it with a pretty bow but it will never, ever, ever be meant for any asexual lesbians, ever. And if you’re also an ace lesbian and you like it, good for you! I hope you see it as an act of reclamation, I don’t.

(Let me be ballsy for a moment. I don’t believe whatsoever the creator of the orange lesbian flag cares NOW about including ace lesbians in their flag. It would be extremely convenient for them if they started being an inclusionist after their flag gained traction.... And again, I may be wrong, I digress.)

On Tumblr alone we’ve seen a huge spike in harassment, stalking, death threats, rape threats, and all sorts of hatemail being sent to the asexual community. I see no one talking about it who isn’t asexual or a romantic themselves, and I believe enough is enough. Being a lesbian myself I primarily noticed it happening within my own community and it is absolutely abhorrent. To claim otherwise, at this point, would be naive.

I’m sure there are other communities and issues at play here, but don’t play coy with me. I see both sides of the problem, and I am no longer defending anyone. There are serious respectability politics at play, and they have gone unchecked and unchallenged for far too long. I am sick of it.

And the nail in the coffin? The “new, inclusive” lesbian flag doesn’t want me, either.

I ask you this— I am also transgender/adgender. Why should the issues with the initial lipstick lesbian flag override the issues with the new orange lesbian flag? The original was created by a transphobic racist, there is no denying it. It has to go. So why are we sweeping the issues with the orange one under the rug and forcing all of us under it, when either way it will still have issues? Why should we continue using a flag that excludes someone either way? If that alone doesn’t interest you— why are we using another flag that’s basically a copy of the old “problematic” one, only orange? To be identifiable? At this rate, no one outside of the LGBTQ+ community knows the pink one either!

It’s not funny anymore. I’m not included, whole groups of people aren’t seen or heard or included, and I certainly cannot be the only one unhappy. I’m abandoning the lesbian community and label altogether and distancing myself from the ace one. If I’m not welcome with open arms, I don’t want in. Perhaps one person is not much to you, but if it keeps up like this, I can imagine I won’t be the only one abandoning ship.

Let me emphasize: the flag is representative of the issue as a whole. I am hurt about the flag, very very dearly. I’ve identified as a lesbian for over five years now, I hurt deeply to have to even abandon the label. But I’m also not an idiot. There is unchecked respectability politics, aphobia, and biphobia absolutely everywhere within (online, primarily Tumblr) lesbian circles. It’s despicable and it needs to be addressed — if by no one else, than by me. I might not have a platform but I also have nothing to lose.

Change the fucking flag, or don’t. But at least acknowledge the issues that run rampant within the community and, most prominently, in your flag.

#fuck it. im abandoning tumblr #do with this post what you will. youll tear me to shreds either way #the truth could be written on your forehead and your mirror would still distort it

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aelinbitch-archive · 5 years

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You've probably said this before but what's your favorite aspect of the TOG series? I've only read like ten pages of the first book lol

aaaaa thank u for asking!! this sort of leads into something i’ve been meaning to talk about for a while so i hope you’re prepared for An Essay No One Wanted By Me. anyway this is a two-part answer, read below:

1. Aelin. Celaena. The main bitch, whatever you wanna call her lol. Without her I probably wouldn’t have cared about the series at all and wouldn’t currently be trapped in ToG tumblr hell reluctantly stanning a racist and homophobic series, but unfortunately when I was like twelve years old or whatever and read the first book I literally imprinted on Celaena like a baby duckling. To the extent that she became, like, the default avatar for all my maladaptive daydreaming and If I Don’t Project On Her At All Times I Will Die. It’s not like she’s the only thing I like about the series (I loooove a lot of the other characters, especially the gals, and the writing can be really great and engaging and cinematic) but Aelin has always been the supermassive black hole at the center of it all for me. I wouldn’t know how to even begin untangling her character from my psyche at this point. It’s honestly a little disturbing. Anyway.

2. Part two is a quality of the series that I feel was unprecedented in its strength in the first five books of the series (ToG-QoS plus the prequel novellas) and really really disappointingly weak in the last two books (EoS-KoA). Like I said above, Aelin has always been my main interest in tog so I read and enjoyed the last two anyway, but I definitely felt the loss of this - “this” being the detail and attention paid to all different types of relationships between characters, and how rich and unpredictable those relationships were as a result.

That sounds like kind of a broad, vague thing, but what I mean is that (in my opinion) rarely are romances and friendships and rivalries explored with such nuance, complexity, drama, and realism in most YA as they are in ToG. I remember reading Cassandra Clare’s books (lmao.) as a pre teen and loving those as well, but totally being able to predict who was going to end up with who, and finding the character dynamics to be pretty cut and dry.

In ToG that’s not the case at all. Like, you’ve got Celaena and Sam, a really complex example of enemies to lovers to….. Tragically Dead Boyfriend Whose Demise Fuels My Guilt and Self-Hatred For Seven More Books, Lysandra and Aelin, two girls pitted against each other by their abuser who team up a year later to unlearn their internalized misogyny and kill him, and Aelin and Chaol, who… how do I even describe the ups and downs (and downs. and more downs) of their relationship.

And that’s just three pairs! Pull the names of two characters out of a hat and I can almost guarantee essays worth of material could be written about them. Arobynn and Aelin? Aelin and Nehemia? Chaol and Dorian, as much as I hate both of them and feel that their relationship as been widely mischaracterized? All fascinating!!! No two people in those first few books are just friends, or just lovers, or just enemies. It’s always more complex, there’s always a history or tension or competing agendas or viewpoints that Fuck Shit Up.

And benefit of that is twofold: one, everything that happens between the characters just…. lands so well. The betrayals and triumphs and losses and victories of The Assassin’s Blade and Crown of Midnight and Queen of Shadows (especially TAB) are fucking heart-stopping. It’s great character-driven entertainment!! Gripping and engaging and vivid to the point of being painful.

And two, there’s no way to predict where a relationship is going to go. Aelin and Lysandra teaming up in QoS instead of returning to their rivalry? Who would have thought! Ansel and Celaena’s summer fling (they were in love. fight me.) ending like That? Holy fuck. Nesryn and Chaol breaking up in ToD? Oh shit! I fell for it again! Rowan and Aelin ending up together after everyone swore they were brotp in HoF? Hell yeah! Chaolaena seeming like endgame and then ending forever, with Chaol and Aelin realizing that the rift between them that began in CoM was something that would never sufficiently heal? Unprecedented. Fucking badass for a YA book to curve everyone like that. Tween me was shook out of her mind.

(Important to note, though, that the downside of this style was that SJM couldn’t tell where ~unpredictable relationships and characters~ ended and fridging began, and as a result, not one but two woc were killed off to make white characters sad and it sucked beyond belief).

Aaaaaand then QoS, the peak of literature, turned into EoS, and SJM just… gave up on all of that. I remember the first time Dorian and Manon met, and I was like oh, okay. So they’re going to end up together. And I was right. I remember that on this site, before EoS came out, before Lorcan and Elide ever fucking MET, people predicted the existence of Elorcan!! And they were right!! Like how fucking boring? Everyone is just paired off into completely predictable heterosexual ships and those are now the only relationships we get to read about (with a few exceptions, like Aelin/Aedion, Aelin/Fenrys, etc.).

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: my least favorite thing about Manorian is not that I find the relationship to be shitty (although I do, I really do). It’s that Dorian is suddenly the only character Manon gets to interact with in any meaningful way.

Like, are you kidding?! I want to read about Manon and Elide, Manon and Asterin, Rowan and Lorcan, Aelin and Lysandra, Aelin and Nesyrn, even if it’s not romantically (although some of them, like Manon and Elide, absolutely should have been, and the fact that not only was that ship very thoroughly sunk, but also they didn’t even get to TALK after QoS, felt like a real slap in the face to gay fans, but I digress), because those pairings previously had hella complexity and drama. But we don’t get to.

And this trend that’s so painfully present in the last two books Sucks for two reasons: one, every relationship that isn’t romantic (which were previously some of the most interesting ones) is abandoned so that more time can be made for The Hets™ and two, the relationships that are romantic, now the only ones left, are totally fucking boring and predictable!! If two characters are interacting at any point (if one is male and the other is female, of course) then you know for a fact that they’re not only love interests, but endgame.

And that makes me not care even when there is drama between them. Elide giving Lorcan the cold-shoulder for three hundred pages, and Manon and Dorian arguing, and Aedion being cruel to Lysandra weren’t compelling narratives to me like they should have been, because the whole time I was just thinking “but it doesn’t matter. I know it’s still endgame. There are no stakes here whatsoever; it’s a done deal.” Whereas Chaol and Celaena’s devestating breakup in CoM felt like (and was) suuuuper Real. An all-in bet on the wrong person. Crazy shit.

And not that I think two characters should never have a happy ending together (I really like rowaelin and nestaq and I would have loved malide!) but imagine how much cooler and subversive and entertaining it would have been if Elorcan, which seemed soooo totally cute and endgamey and borderline like fanfiction throughout all of EoS just ended forever right there and then on the beach, with Elide turning to Lorcan and saying “I hope you spend the rest of your miserable, immortal life suffering. I hope you spend it alone. I hope you live with regret and guilt in your heart and never find a way to endure it” - and BAM. She never speaks to him again. He’s dead to her.

I mean, talk about shock value! (See, Sarah, you can have shock value without killing of a person of color to make a white character sad 🙃). And I totally get that relational twists like that alienate fans more than just going the expected route and having them kiss and make-up does (I mean, the ending of Chaolaena in QoS certainly did, Jesus Christ) but I, Bella aelinbitch, personally live for that shit, and isn’t it only fair that all media cater directly and specifically to me? Lmao. But seriously, I do think it’s objectively more interesting, and that it keeps readers on their toes (I was on my ASS in EoS and KoA. Like. I was flat on my back sinking into the Earth).

And there are still sort of… glimmers of the old way she wrote in the first few books, but it just feels like a tease rather than something that’s really explored and indulged in the way it was before, and it just ends up being more frustrating (like what was the point of Manon and Dorian not getting married at the end of KoA if I would bet my life savings that in World of Tog it’ll be confirmed that they’re either married or still together) and sometimes downright problematic? Like to return to a previous example, I think all the drama between Aedion + Lysandra was a result of Sarah’s previous (good) instincts to shake stuff up and complicate the character dynamics, but it backfires because when they end up together, it’s not ever… worked out? Or addressed? If you create really intense drama between two people, then that needs to show up in their relationship, no matter how happy they end up together. It doesn’t just disappear.

And despite the fact that her understanding of that concept (that shit between two people doesn’t just disappear like magic) is one of my absolute favorite things about the first few books, Sarah even went as far as to use the last two books to retcon some of the original complexity away, which makes me want to rip out my hair!! Like Aelin at the end of KoA just going “Love you Chaol and Love you Dorian xoxoxoxoxox best friends forever!!!” instead of having, like, any type of mixed feelings about the way these boys treated her? I mean, come on! 100 pages earlier Chaol was openly saying she should die instead of Dorian! Why is everything just peachy-keen instead of fraught with tension!! (I know why. I know. It’s because she introduced way too many characters/POVs/storylines as the series went on and didn’t know what to do with them all besides sideline the nonromantic ones and pair off everyone else boy-girl boy-girl down the line). Or if it has to be peachy-keen, why is the peachy-keeness never critically examined as, perhaps, a repressive mechanism for Aelin to avoid dealing with painful truths from her past? Now that would be interesting.

(My ideal World of ToG would be just a transcript of the characters’ therapy sessions where Aelin realizes that her insistence that “Chaol and Dorian Are Her Friends!” is actually a way to keep herself safe emotionally and that she has plenty of reasons to hate them, and Lysandra realizes she should divorce Aedion lmao).

Anyway tldr: The variety, complexity, depth, and unpredictability of the relationships in Throne of Glass was simultaneously the most realistic (sometimes relationships of all kinds fall apart or veer off in unexpected directions and love is temporary and the boy you met in the first chapter isn’t actually your soulmate and it doesn’t mean he’s a villain) and the most gripping and dramatic (I would have been totally chill if maeve and erawan weren’t a thing and tog was just like a medieval soap opera, that’s how entertaining the character dynamics were) thing about the series, and to lose that in the last two books because of Heterosexuality (and introducing too many POVs and not knowing what to do with them all)…. kinda devastating.

This ended up being waaaaaay more complaining than it was talking about what I loved, but the only reason it bothers me so much is because it used to be so good!!! So just imagine the inverse of all the frustration I just vomited into this ask and you’ll have a good idea of how much I loved the series when things weren’t this way.

#im SO sorry for how shittily worded/ranty/emotional/long this is but *antoni from queer eye voice* a shitty YA series is actually something #that can be so personal...#greatest hits: hot takes

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killianmesmalls · 6 years

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I’m going to add onto an earlier post by @captregina discussing the idea that Wish Killian abandoned Alice, though I won’t hijack it as my thoughts are my own and all responses to the below should be responses to me and me alone. So, before I get started, this is likely going to get long and, I agree, likely uses some things that can be labeled as “headcanon” as it is not explicitly, 100% said in the show. However, there are some instances in canon that I believe are meant to be deduced based on our understandings of the character or seeing point A and point C and therefore having an idea of what point B should be. Under the cut for more (and, apologies to mobile users because Tumblr can’t figure its BS out <3)

To make this easier to breakdown, I’m going to go from what we understand about each character, then to the chronological order of their interactions together that we see.

Killian Jones

We as viewers of seasons 2-6 are supposed to understand—and are given multiple mentions of this throughout season 7—that both versions of Killian share exactly the same history up until around the point of the curse. Now, the precise moment is up for debate, but those few days to weeks are not necessary at this point. We know he was born to Alice (headcanoned with others as Ailis, but I digress) and Brennan Jones, is the younger brother of Liam Jones, and was in relationship with Milah. Both versions lost their mother, were abandoned by their father, were raised as indentured servants on a merchant ship, bought their freedom through Liam’s sacrifice to Hades, went into the Royal Navy, lost Liam, joined piracy, met Milah, lost Milah, sought revenge, and killed their father in an attempt to get it. If you’d like to debate any of the above, we certainly can, but I do feel rather comfortable in my stance.

We also at this point have an understanding of who this person is. He would sacrifice his life for two things: love and revenge. He’s self-sacrificing for those he cares about, and has repeatedly put himself in harm’s way for them. Now, this is the point where I can offer those who dislike s2-6 Killian to argue the above points, but I do feel that is another debate entirely and either we’d be forced to agree to disagree or it would otherwise be a very short discussion.

The only true argument I can see to the above is his abandonment of Baelfire, which has been agreed upon by many as his most regretted moment in the show. There is a lot to say about Hookfire, but I do think that both versions of Killian instantly regretted this decision and would vow to never commit such a betrayal again.

Alice, however, is not Baelfire. Sure, Bae was Milah’s son and someone Killian very much cared for, but there are some key differences here. 1) Alice came after Bae and after what likely was something he’d vow to never repeat. 2) While Bae was Milah’s son, he was also Rumple’s son, and the whole 2x04 incident was still very much a sore subject to Killian by the time they ran into each other. 3) Bae wasn’t an infant, wasn’t alone, wasn’t at risk of immediate death, and could be reasoned to take care of himself. Though the experiences between Bae and Alice are not unrelated, they are also almost polar opposites, and what he did to Bae should not be used as strong evidence for what he would do to Alice.

It is also this point where I’d like to mention to anyone who likes season 2-6 Killian and, for some reason, doesn’t like season 7 Killian that they were at the core the same person, and if you readily believe and love the fact that the person he is at his core is willing to sacrifice everything for a budding romantic relationship, why would this character also not be willing to sacrifice everything for an established familial one? You may not like the storyline of season 7 and this particular version of the character, which is your prerogative, but to believe this version would readily abandon his own child without exhausting every effort to get back to her strongly suggests that perhaps you do not understand the heart of the character. Killian Jones in any reality would do absolutely anything and everything for those he loves most.

Alice Jones

Even I am guilty of describing Alice of being pure sunshine, rainbows, cupcakes and all things perfect. I mean, she is, but she’s also these things because of her imperfections. She’s impulsive, often naive, and does have a slight hint of her father’s temper.

Which means, if she has imperfections, the very least she is capable of is responding in a human way rather than being Disney-princess level of compassionate and merciful. Again, human responses are not to be seen as flaws so much as we have this idea in our heads sometimes that, if a character is flawless, then that is equitable with being incessantly forgiving.

Alice is capable of anger, sarcasm, and frustration (see 7x04 and her introduction to Rumple, 7x13 when she says “you promised me” to her father, 7x14 with Robin, to name a few). It is also then not a difficult leap to imagine that she is capable of holding onto these feelings should the underlying issues not be resolved, say for instance her feelings toward abandonment with her mother both as Tilly and as Alice.

However, her actions toward Killian across the board show a complete lack of anger or resentment. Their interactions are never those of an abandoned child and a neglectful parent. We know, as stated above, that she is capable of these feelings and freely expresses her thoughts without a filter. If at any point she truly felt abandoned by Killian, I have no doubt she would have been shown to show negative, albeit understandable, emotions toward him.

Chronology

First, as he says in 7x07 when he decides to give up his entire life as he knows it and stay with Alice, “Abandoning people isn’t my thing.” Barring Bae (as discussed above), this has been shown to be the case. While we cannot use any of S2-6 Killian’s actions to back up this assessment, they are still at their core the same person, and have both shown that they are willing to sacrifice everything for those they care about.

And, in this timeline, the only person left to care about is Alice.

Most of us know the story now: he gives up his ship, life of piracy, revenge, and potentially even all the contacts he has in order to raise this newborn he was tricked into having. He is shown to harbor no resentment, merely full love and responsibility for this child.

While I do wish we had been given more glimpses into their lives in those almost 11 years from her birth to his being poisoned, I do think they believe they have given us enough clues to discern the kind of relationship they had and the kind of life they lived in that time.

The question then becomes what he did in that time between being poisoned and seeing Alice again in 7x08. As Gothel said in 7x13, the poison will corrupt his heart every time he gets near her. We see in 7x22 that this corruption not only means immediate pain, but long-term damage and deterioration, eventually resulting in death. Now, this is where this is somewhere between maybe implied and maybe headcanon: Killian had slightly aged in the almost eleven years between Alice’s conception and when he was poisoned. The rate at which he went from “silver fox” Killian to “Old Hook” is astounding.

True, very little is said about the time between his being poisoned and when he met Storybrooke Killian and Emma in 7x02. We do know from 7x16 that he had hoped to barter a valuable map for a cure for his poisoned heart, and in 7x02 we know he roamed the realms seeking true love because he knew true love’s kiss was a potential cure. It is heavily implied Killian made many, many attempts at reuniting with Alice, and we see the extent of his deterioration as a result with Old Hook. That is not a man that simply looked up at the tower where his distressed child was yelling for him just after he was poisoned and decided to call it a day. That is a man that repeatedly tried to find a cure or gauge how close he could be to her, his heart getting increasingly “corrupted” and, as a result, his body aging at an exponential pace.

When they reunite briefly in 7x08, as stated above, her reaction to him is not that of a child that feels abandoned. She’s happy, hopeful, and full of adoration for her father. Had he fully given up, I have no doubt that some of the frustration we have seen Alice show before would have been on full display here. We know from 7x19 and 7x20 that she’s capable of showing anger toward a parent that left. At no point is Killian the receiving party.

Of course, we know their bittersweet reunion in 7x08 was again to end in heartbreak thanks to Drizella’s lie and Killian’s still-poisoned heart. Still, in 7x08 and 7x14, we know she repeatedly tries to find a cure, and we know his whole reason for joining with Regina and Henry was to have help in finding a cure, himself, though they consistently come up empty-handed.

Regardless, she still desires to see him, especially on her birthday, and though she doesn’t make herself known, her, “You look happy, Papa,” and subsequent sad smile show that, again, she harbors no bad feelings for him. It bears reminding that, at this point, the writers have revealed the cause of his poisoned heart, and in the previous episode, no less. If they’re going to write her feeling abandoned, this is the episode to do it in. Instead, throughout this episode, she is shown only to miss him deeply and have great reverence for him, telling Robin some advice he used to give her about how “all the best people are mad.” Furthermore, she doesn’t distance herself from him by calling him by the more formal, often-used “Father” but rather keeps to calling him “Papa”.

In addition to knowing she looked out for him, it is established in 7x18 that he looks out for her. In spite of his poisoned heart, he gets as close as he can, keeps an eye out for her, and passes letters to her through the help of Robin (which I totally think was a matchmaking tactic, but...that’s a tangent that will end up being another 1000 words). We see very clearly that he’s willing to look after her even though she’s an adult with a budding relationship and a house to call her own, attempting to keep as much contact with her as possible. Why, then, are we supposed to believe he would abandon her as a lonely 10-year-old? He has the same problem in 7x18 as he does in 7x13: the poisoned heart. He’s willing to be as close to her as possible now that she’s an adult, therefore I truly believe he would have done absolutely everything to be close to her when she was just a child.

When the curse breaks, again we see absolutely no resentment or feelings of abandonment. She loves him, and he doesn’t hesitate to risk his life and endure agonizing pain for her more than once. No second thought, no regard for himself, just him supporting her and wanting nothing more than to keep her safe and happy.

So, while you may not be a fan of their story, saying he willingly left her immediately after his heart was poisoned is both ignoring him as a character and ignoring evidence to the contrary.

#knightrook #knightrook meta #alice jones #killian jones #long post #i have feeling sometimes

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justiceforvictimsoffocus-blog · 5 years

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Review of Focus Treatment Centers of Chattanooga, TN

My Google review was too long, so here is the whole post: (Yes, this was important enough to me to start a whole tumblr page just to raise awareness. It took me over a whole day to figure out how too make this work. Also, it helps bring me peace for such a horrible/traumatic experience. Also, please excuse any typos or weird wording. Tumblr did not copy and paste accurately for some reason. Not even close. So I literally had to word for word compare this post to the word document where it was saved and fix all the weird stuff it did)

(This is part 1 of 3 of my review) If I could give this place 0 stars I would. I have been to multiple detox and mental health facilities and this was the ABSOLUTE worst experience I've ever had. This place is TOXIC and should be shut down. My 7 th point is the most significant, FYI, if you decide to skip the rest.

Ok, so maybe if you have "stereotypical" body image issues with anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating disorders and do not know what's causing them, maybe Focus can be helpful. BUT what a lot of these sick people have yet to realize apparently, is that there are MANY forms of eating disorder that don't include those three disorders. (Specific example: My friend's 4-year old son has what doctors have called an eating disorder, because he has a hard time eating certain textures, etc. He's not over eating and he's certainly not undereating because he’s concerned about his physical appearance. He is in therapy for it. ALL eating disorders deserve help.)

I digress.

1.) I went to the facility to seek treatment for alcoholism and eating disorders. It took me three tries to get into this facility because they kept rejecting me on the basis that my BAC was too high. Ya think? I know I needed help and I was more than coherent so it's not like I was passed out drunk or something. By my 3rd attempt I could not even sign the documents because I was shaking/withdrawing so much as a result of getting my BAC low enough so quickly for acceptance.

2.) They consistently left me in the dark. They did not give me or my husband any information about the program, aside from financials (money hungry much?). They did not give me a tour of the facility. They did not explain how anything worked or where anything was. I didn’t even know where I could have gotten more water to drink. Yes, I could have asked, but I was shaking and so sick because I was also detoxing that I thought I might have been seizures, because they gave me basically nothing that helped me with my withdrawals. I was suffering so much and they blamed it on me for not eating. Well, no shit. I was having severe alcohol withdrawals and loss of appetite is a common symptom. Not to mention the food that they offered wasn’t appetizing at all. I already have difficulty eating, hence the reason I was in the eating disorder department in the first place. Not because I'm afraid of getting fat. I'm happy with my weight and trying to gain more weight actually. Their solution was to give me Gatorade.

I have a history of alcoholism and have never experienced any withdrawals like this in my life. (and I drank much more heavily for much longer the other time I went to detox) They gave me medication that seemingly had no effect on me. I explained the medicine did not really do much, but all they did was up the dosage which still didn’t do much. In comparison, the last facility I went to years ago gave me a medication that actually worked for me. I never felt sick the whole time I was there after that first dose. (I also wasn’t overly medicated and they lowered my dosage each day, not increased it) I have also weaned/detoxed myself off the alcohol with no drugs and still never experienced any withdrawals like what happened at Focus. (Part 1/3)

(This is part 2 of 3 of my review) 3.) They absolutely refused to speak to my husband on the phone. Maybe for some that’s the best approach, but my husband is my rock, my foundation, my everything and we have never spent a day in 12 years where we have not at least spoken on the phone and 99% (98.8% I literally did the math) of those days we are together physically. I told them I wouldn’t be able to make it if they didn’t let me speak to him. I told many people who adamantly refused, which is ridiculous, because I was going through the most difficult sickness of my life and I just wanted to hear his voice. Just for a minute, so I could find the strength to keep going. I made it very clear how important this was to me. My husband had even spoken with the facility and explained that he was afraid I’d suffer separation anxiety and wouldn’t be able to make it without his support and asked if an exception could be made to best provide for my mental health. They wouldn’t allow it and couldn’t accept that there was not "one right way" for everyone.

This facility needs to be more accommodating to the exact needs of specific individuals. DO NOT LET THEM MAKE YOU BELIEVE THAT THEY KNOW YOU BETTER THAN YOU KNOW YOURSELF. And as I mentioned before about being left in the dark, there was an EDA (eating disorder anonymous) meeting THAT evening which my husband could have attended. If I could have just waited a few more hours I could have seen him. But NO ONE told me about this. They told him, but of course he had no way of telling me directly and asked them to tell me to give me hope, but of course they neglected to do that.

4.) They could never give me clear answers on when I would get to see the doctor, therapist, or nutritionist. It was always just "well, you'll get to see them soon". It was so much uncertainty which is so difficult when I was in such a fragile state. As a side note, they told my husband I’d see the therapist the same day I checked in, but I only got to see her the next day AFTER I declared I needed to leave because the place was just too toxic for me.

5.) They wouldn’t let me brush my teeth. The nurse said it might make me vomit. Um ... I guess I don’t know about the average person, but having a clean mouth is going to make ME considerably less nauseated, so I had to sneak away to go brush my teeth. Something so simple and also important because I have a history of teeth issues. 6.) They go through your suitcase when you get there, which is understandable, but they took things out without telling me they took anything out at all. One of the things they took out was something called a Plexis Wheel. It's similar to a foam roller, just google it if you don’t know what it is. It helps pop, massage, and straighten out your back. First of all, why the fuck was I not allowed to have that? It's not dangerous in any way and I NEED it. I have chronic back pain from fractures I received a few years ago. Like 24/7 pain. They also took my yoga mat, because you know, that's dangerous. That's what I would have used to use the plexis wheel on, so I was in a panic when I realized I could not find them in my suitcase. I have so much pain and anything natural I can do to help with my pain I do it. (I don’t take any drugs or anything for it) A nurse also took away my fitbit off my wrist, because it "counts steps", which she assumed meant I was going to use it to lose weight, I guess. I was almost in tears, because I NEED know the time and date to stay in touch with reality, having this information keeps me sane. I don’t even pay attention to the number of steps most of the time. That was the worst nurse I had. She was such a pushy bitch. I wish I remembered her name. (Part 2/3)

(This is part 3 of 3 my review) This brings me to my last and most significant point. At one point during my stay I was asked: "Have you done any of the following things recently?":

· Had suicidal thoughts

· Had homicidal thoughts

· Binging

· Purging

· Restricting

· Exercising

So of course, I said "only exercising". She asked if I had exercised since I'd been there. Obviously not - I was lying in bed shaking and dying. I could barely walk much less do any kind of exercise. I exercise, because 1.) my stretches, yoga, and exercise are the most significant things I can do to fight my chronic back pain. When I tried to explain this, they basically rolled their eyes and asked me sarcastically how working out/exercising could possibly help my back pain. I explained that it strengthens muscles, improves posture, etc. It was literally suggested to me by my orthopedic doctor as the only thing that can be done to help my condition. In addition, building muscle helps gain weight and increases your appetite, (which I'd been telling them the whole time that I’ve trying to do, not lose weight, but again they didn’t believe me, because of stereotypes. I even have to wear my wedding ring on a necklace, because it won’t even fit my finger anymore because I’ve successfully gained weight.) The nurse gave me a look like "ok, yeah, whatever". They just could not comprehend how working out could help my pain and the fact that I was actively trying to gain weight. 2.) Exercise is good for you emotionally, as everyone knows it raises endorphins. And 3.) I HAVE OSTEOPOROSIS. Google anything about it and it will tell you that the most important thing you can do to strengthen bones is to do heavy weightlifting. Who normally has osteoporosis at 28? PEOPLE WITH EATING DISORDERS. A facility that deals with people with eating disorders should know the benefits of this. I can’t explain my eating disorders (besides the fact that my mouth gets really dry and my teeth hurt and if I don’t like the food enough, then I don’t salivate enough, which become painful and therefore causes stomach problems from not chewing it properly) and I would have liked to have gotten help in figuring out ways to combat it, but obviously they are not educated enough for my complex situation.

Needless to say, I had to check out after about 24 hours. This was one of the worst experiences of my life. And the fact that they left me sick even though I told them the medicine wasn’t working (and certainly not the Gatorade). However, as sick as they said I’d be if I left after just one day of detox, and as many times as they told me that once my meds wore off I was going to be really sick again and that I might have seizures and/or die - That same evening I was home and sober with my husband (who got me food I could actually eat) and my kitties and plexis wheel and I felt great. I just think the stress the nurses were causing me was just exasperating my withdrawal symptoms and lowering my appetite. Again, that place was just extremely toxic for me and I'm SO glad I left when I did and will certainly never be back. I suggest you take all of this into consideration before admitting yourself because this is a neglectful facility that honestly could have been sued for malpractice, because I could have died. (I didn’t eat anything the whole time I was there, which was very dangerous in my given situation)

Whoever from the facility/company is reading this, one size does not fit all. I was SO optimistic that your program would have been able to help me, and I'm very disappointed and discouraged that it ended so poorly. It's facilities like yours that give mental health care to bad reputation, which in turn discourages people from getting the help they really need. (3/3)

I have been to hell and back just trying to post this review using 3 different emails address, 3 different browsers, 5 different devices, multiple IP addresses (with no success) and hours and hours of my time. I have never put this much effort into posting something online. I say all of this to say, this has not been a quick endeavor, but again this experience was so significant to me that it was THAT important to me to make others aware and also for my own mental peace. Thanks for reading.

#focustreatment #mentalhealthawareness #eatingdisorders #alcoholism #substance abuse #chronicpain

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lynzuglyliar · 6 years

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Lynz Way & Chantal Claret: Stalking & Online Bullying, A Masterpost.

This post is intended to document and expose Lindsey Way and Chantal Claret’s bullying behaviour, which has been discussed a lot on this blog and on others. In this post we touched on some of this behaviour, such as Lindsey using her art to mock Lucinda Montano and testimony from Lucinda that Lindsey and Chantal online bully fans.

You may also want to read our previous post about Lindsey’s estranged sister and mother so that you have some background knowledge needed for this post.

To cut a long story short, Lindsey dropped her mother and sister, Amy not long after Bandit was born:

It looks like Lindsey has dropped her family- they’ve met Bandit once. When her mother was sick, Lindsey didn’t get in touch. Amy thinks Lindsey is embarrassed of them. Not nice, but then again, a lot of people fall out with their families. So, if Lindsey doesn’t want anything to do with her family, then why does she continue to monitor what they do? Why does she share this information with her friends?

Here is an extract of the court documents between Frances Bean Cobain, Courtney Love and Frances’s ex-husband (Silva v. Love et al.):

Here is a screenshot of the original text messages between Frances and Lindsey (Way):

We have highlighted the areas where Frances refers to Lindsey’s sister and mom.

First up “even her go fund me pic is with the papa roach guy. That’s some stalkerish dedication right there”. What is Frances referring to?

Well, Amy just happens to be a big Papa Roach fan:

Please note the date of the court documents as September 2015. Why was Amy setting up a GoFundMe page? Well, at this time, Amy was single, around six months pregnant and working full time to earn money for the arrival of her first baby, as well as supporting and caring for her ill mother single-handedly.

Frances Bean mocking Amy for setting up a GoFundMe is all the more disgusting when you remember just how much she is worth from her father’s estate alone.

Also, when Frances laughs at Amy being “stalkerish” for using a photo of her with her favourite band, is she not laughing at all of us who have ever been excited to meet their favourite celebrity?

Luckily, she’s never done anything embarrassing like that, right?

No matter what happened between Lindsey and Amy, whether she did drop her family out of embarrassment or whether it was something else, mocking Amy with her friends is not cool. It’s mean, it’s nasty and it’s just the kind of behaviour that Lucinda said she was was responsible for.

Ok, so how about “our bloodlines suck”. I get that Frances had a turbulent upbringing with the loss of her father and instability from her mother. Lindsey’s dad was also absent for most of her life, but that’s not what Frances is referring to here, she’s directly referring to Lindsey’s mom and sister. What exactly have they done wrong? They weren’t ‘cool’ enough for Lindsey’s L.A. lifestyle. That’s it. Does that make them the same as a drug addict mother or a father who (no disrespect intended to Kurt) killed himself? Is getting a picture with your favourite band really that bad? Are their bloodlines comparable, really?

To our final point, Frances says, “anyway let me know what info you get about ur mom and sis”. Not only does this look like Frances is fishing for more of Amy’s “stalkerish” behaviour to laugh at, but it suggests that Lindsey was actively researching what her mom and sister were up to and sharing it with her ‘coven’, despite taking nothing to do with them (by her own choice). Lindsey saw her sister’s plea for money to support her new arrival and help with her mother’s care and what did she do- laughed about it with her multi-millionaire friend. Classy.

So let’s take another look at that screenshot, because Amy isn’t the only one on the receiving end of their taunting:

Charlie is also being called out for her own “stalkerish dedication”- “it’s gonna be Charlie in 5 years”.

So, to Charlie. By now you’ve probably heard the Legend of Charlie. She’s famous in the MCR/MSI fandom (mostly for the wrong reasons). We believe that she was one of the first victims of Lindsey and Chantal’s bullying. Here’s a quick recap (of what we know, anyway) about the Charlie saga.

Charlie was an MCR fan. She had a popular blog and was well-known in the fandom. Like most MCR fans, Charlie became an MSI fan when introduced to them through Gerard and Lindsey’s marriage. At 14 years old, Charlie even met Lindsey during the 2008 MSI tour:

In 2010, (when Charlie was 16) Lindsey Way and Jessicka Addams announced an art show. Charlie, being a big Lindsey fan, booked her tickets from the U.K. to L.A., excited to meet Lindsey again and see her art show. Lindsey and Jessicka ended up moving the art show to another date, when Lindsey heard that Charlie had already booked her flight, she kindly invited Charlie to visit her at the studio during her trip, since she would be missing the show. Here are some pictures from this meeting:

Lindsey even gave Charlie this note after their time together:

But soon after this, things turned sour. We’re not exactly sure what happened, we don’t think anyone but Lindsey and Charlie know the full story. Some people speculated that Lindsey wasn’t happy that Charlie posted the letter seen above. Anyway, there was a backlash against Charlie. Her and her friends’ Tumblrs were hacked and their private conversations were leaked, including this one:

You can imagine just how much flack Charlie got after this message was leaked. Also, please note that ‘fandom mom’, agony aunt and Lindsey’s “lady-friend”, Anna posted this, despite being around 10 years older than then teenage Charlie. Nice.

We’ve tried to avoid mentioning Charlie on here and contrary to popular beliefs, such as this one:

.... it’s not because we think she’s completely innocent. Certainly, she did some problematic, ‘fangirly’ stuff. But so do most fandoms and it’s not like Anna wasn’t doing exactly the same thing. Mainly we’ve tried to leave her out of it because she’s not a public figure and because she’s had enough shit from the fans as well as Lindsey et al. especially from her BFF, Chantal Claret.

It has been widely speculated for years that Chantal has set up fake Twitter accounts to bully fans. So after we saw this Twitter exchange (below), we thought it was time to bring Charlie’s story to the forefront. Please note that Charlie is now more or less out of the fandom and this post is in no way intended to drag her back into this mess.

So why would Chantal be so intent on bullying Charlie, one of Lindsey’s biggest fans?

We did a bit of digging and we’ve traced it back to a Vimeo video that Charlie and her friend made when they were 16. We remember seeing it years ago, but we think it’s been deleted now. Here’s our best recollection of it: in the video Charlie’s friend (sorry, we don’t know her name) talked about how she was friends with Donna Way on Facebook (please note: at this time, Donna accepted most requests from MCR fans on FB). Apparently, Donna had taken a shine to the girls and invited them to stay with her in New Jersey. Charlie and her friend were talking fangirly shit about how funny it would be to be invited to Gerard’s old house and maybe even stay in his old bedroom. Not the most mature thing, but it was typical shitposting talk that you’d expect from a couple of excitable teenagers. It was a video for their friends, after all.

Unfortunately for them, Chantal was up to her private investigator work (much like when she made the nowaymikeyway blog with Lindsey) and set about making sure the video went public and everyone (including MCR members and Charlie’s then-boyfriend) knew about it:

As you can see, this is the account ‘morrisseystears’ that Charlie and @poisondwarfiero were discussing in the twitter exchange above. We can’t 100% prove that this was Chantal but knowing her behaviour, Charlie’s confidence that it was her and based on these tweets (below), we are convinced that this was one of her many sleeper accounts.

“#HiC” clearly means Charlie and “stay on the internet and stuck in their houses” refers to Charlie dealing with panic attacks and agoraphobia due to the fallout from her divorce from Lindsey and the MCR/MSI fandom.

Can we also talk about Chantal’s use of the term “skin wearers”? Does that sound familiar? It should. It’s what Lindsey and the rest of the spooky pie coven refer to their fans, fans like you, as:

So, if you’re a fan of Lindsey, be sure to know that this is what her and her friends call you. Cute. Wonder what other terms of endearment they have for fans?

Here’s some more proof from Lucinda that Chantal and Lindsey bullied Charlie (although Jessicka has since owned up to also being part of the group that bullied her). In our previous post, we blanked out Charlie’s name as we didn’t want to cause her any more upset. However, we now think that her story should be told as it is an important part of demonstrating how cruel and conniving the ‘coven’ can be:

Chantal’s bullying was so bad, referring to people (mostly teenagers) as “cunts”, “bitches” and “whores” that she’s now deleted all her tweets from before 2016/2017. She’s also fallen out with A LOT of people, including those who used to be her close friends. See this friendly twitter banter directed at Chantal from Giuliana Mayo:

Fast forward from February 2013 to September 2013 and we have this:

and this:

Also, notice Jessicka sticking up for Chantal and claiming that she is not a bully (lol). This is the pack mentality of the coven. But now they’ve dropped Jessicka and are online bullying her with references to her mental health.....

Anyway, we digress.... But it wasn’t just Chantal that bullied fans online. Christian Addams, Jessicka’s husband also got involved in the bullying of Charlie, a 16 year old fan (who is British btw) :

Considering that Lindsey followed all these people at the time - Jessicka, Christian, Chantal - there’s no way that she didn’t know that this bullying was going on.

It doesn’t end there though the @JOJrobot twitter account was also used to bully fans (along with another account @CourtneyThug- now deleted and owned by someone unrelated to this mess). Jessicka claims that she did not run the JOJrobot account but it has now been re-appropriated to the @JOJ_official account (that she ALSO says she doesn’t run... funny that). You can see that here:

So Chantal was @Morrisseystears, Jessicka was @JOJrobot, meaning that Lindsey was most likely @CourtneyThug as these accounts would ‘tag-team’ the bullying of fans, often interacting with each other. The JOJrobot account (as you can see is now @JOJ_official) was responsible for these tweets bullying teenage fans @ruthieforadream and @AyeraJeanGrey:

Notice that the JOJ account uses the same bullying tactics that Chantal implements, tweeting famous people that their target is fans of in order to embarrass them and maybe even get their idols to block them. This is a pattern of behaviour that can also be seen in CourtneyThug’s tweets. The @CourtneyThug account was equally as nasty and also targeted another teenage fan, all because they briefly followed an anti-MSI twitter account. They tweeted disgusting stuff about the people she/he was a fan of (another Jared Leto fan, not that that’s important though) and refused to back down, even when they unfollowed the anti-MSI account and begged to call a truce:

Not really related, but a bit of a lol, Jessicka the JOJrobot accounted tweeted to get self-promo for Jessicka:

and, even weirder, tweeted Eliza (Cuts) Siep (ex-girlfriend of Gerard Way and fanfic writer extraordinaire):

Since Jessicka has been booted out of the coven, she seems to regret her bullying past and is trying to make amends and distance herself from them:

So to sum it all up:

- Lindsey monitors the actions of her mom and sister despite taking nothing to do with them

- Lindsey and Frances make fun of Lindsey’s relatives

- Chantal is a bully

- Charlie isn’t the devil

- Jessicka was a bully, is now (hopefully) reformed

- Christian Addams was a bully

- Lindsey knew about the bullying and was most likely @courtneythug

These women in the ‘coven’ are still operating fake and sleeper accounts. To our knowledge (and we will update if anything changes) these are their current sleeper accounts-

Lindsey Way- @weirdtrufax on Tumblr and Twitter (previously @ratsinyourwall on Tumblr and @ceilingrats on Twitter) also @Vee00181 on Twitter.

Chantal Claret - @mcrIord on twitter

#lynz way #lindsey way #gerard way #chantal claret #mikey way #jessicka addams #msi #mcr #mindless self indulgence #my chemical romance #jack off jill

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sjw-or-nah · 7 years

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I’m not dead, but my blog probably is.

I’m not saying I’m never going to post again, but real life has snuck up on me and I don’t really have the time, energy, or motivation to keep up with politics right now, let alone to comment on them. Of course, I could turn around and start regularly posting again tomorrow; the world is a mysterious place.

I recently graduated college and I’ve been looking (with no success) for a professional job, which is a time consuming, spirit breaking process. I don’t have it in me right now to care about some mouth-foaming, self-righteous douchebags when I'm stressing about being a grade-A failure at real life.

When I made this blog, I never in a million years imagined I’d have 100 followers, let alone over 1,000. Y’all really know how to make a girl feel special, you know? I achieved a tiny sliver of Tumblr success, and it’s one of the coolest things that has happened to me in my life.

I’m not going to say my blog is 100% dead, but you can continue to expect more general silence with the occasional reblog/original post every now and then. Basically I’m just addressing the fact that I haven’t posted in forever, and will likely continue to not post anything for long stretches of time.

As a condolence, here is a little bit about me, as I’ve always been pretty vague about who I am, as I’ve always believed that my age, race, or gender doesn’t matter, rather that what I have to say is what should be the most important thing. But I digress.

I’m a moderately attractive 23 year old (single) white female who recently graduated college with honors, and finally lost their freshman 15 (or 30 in this case). I was a hairline away from being classified as obese, and over the summer I made some life changes and got myself back to where I should be. I can fit back into my pants from high school, which is awesome.

I don’t really align with any particular political party, and I don’t truthfully know where I fall on the political spectrum. I don’t care if you’re gay and want to get married. I don’t care if you are trans or declare yourself as some made-up gender. I don’t care if you get gender reassignment surgery or transition.

What I do care about it when children are allowed to transition, as it’s a major life change that should be carefully thought out once you’ve reached adulthood. You can ask me to call you “they” to “zee” or whatever, I don’t really care, but what I do care about is when legislation is being pushed to make it illegal or a hate crime to misgender someone. If I want to call Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson a female and only use female pronouns to describe HER, I should have the freedom to do so.

I believe in freedom of speech for everyone. I don’t like it when groups try to silence other groups or individuals. Everyone has the right to speak their minds.

I don’t personally believe in abortion, but I’m not going to hold it against someone if they’ve had one. I might be disappointed, but I’m not going to hate someone because they chose that option. I do believe there should be a more specific, possibly federal, cutoff date for termination. With technology advancing as quick as it is, the viability of a fetus gets sooner and sooner, depending on where you are in the country.

I support the second amendment, even though I don’t own a firearm myself. Yes the amendment was written when we only really had single shot muskets that took a while to load, but that’s all the government had as well. I don’t think the average Joe needs a fully-automatic weapon, but those are already highly regulated and mostly illegal to own. The purpose of the second amendment was for citizens to be able to protect themselves from government tyranny, which has been an integral part of the development of our nation.

I support Donald Trump. I don’t support the Republican party, but I support Donald Trump. I supported him during the general election, mostly because he’s everything traditional politicians aren’t, and I feel that’s what we need. I can’t say I’m up to date with everything Trump’s done in office, but I do fully believe he has the nation’s best interests at heart. I don’t believe he is this evil creature the media makes him out to be. He certainly is a character, and I appreciate how he calls out North Korea, since they are getting a little too full of themselves. He is showing that we are not afraid, and I think that is very important.

I think that about covers it. Cool. I will talk to y’all later I guess?

#about me #anti sjw #politics

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kuno-chan · 7 years

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I will say this last piece and then I’m done. So, I’m going to get it all out: (T;dlr in bold if you don’t feel like reading the entire thing)

As far as my responses to Irene Koh? I will apologize if my responses were abrasive. Even rude. While I didn’t ask a question, one of the people she responded to was a good friend of mine and I was quick to defend her when I felt she was being responded to in a sarcastic or rude way. Irene Koh gets hundreds of asks asking about the comics and at some point I get that you’re going to just be like “back off” but at the same time, I felt like the response we got was unwarranted.

That all being said, guys, I was still a teenager when this ship came out. I was eighteen. Maybe nineteen. Hence the -teen part after the number. I don’t quite know where this movement on tumblr came from where eighteen is grown because it’s not. It’s legal, but certainly not grown. When I was that age and I got into the ship, I wrote them in high school going into college because those were real world experiences I was facing at the time. Now that I’m older, the way I’ve interpreted kainora has changed. I hardly even directly write them anymore and write them more through being parents. I’m more interested in seeing them older, what kind of airbending masters will they be? Might they raise a family? Grandpa and Grandma Tenzin and Pema and what about a new, thriving generation of airbenders? Things like that. But people are now framing that like it’s a crime.

The kainora fandom hasn’t heard a peep about shipping them being wrong since the entire the ship came into existence. So, please forgive me and other kainora shippers for not understanding, considering the way kataang came into existence (atla even ended in a kiss) and how, even now, we’ve only ever witnessed them romantically involved with each other in their teen years (aside from the family photo in lok).

If this is the case then if you’re over 18 and are invested in Miraculous Ladybug ships (which is actually aimed at kids) or Star and Marco from Star vs The Forces of Evil or Mike and Eleven from Stranger Things (them as real people/kids/actors and actresses is an entirely and completely different matter) or, hell, even Eugene and Rapunzel (they’re eight years apart), then, shipping that because you’re over 18 is wrong by that definition. And don’t get me started on young adult fiction. Most of that is pretty much outlawed, then. But there’s this movement on tumblr where now we have to police every little thing and I’m not exaggerating. Some of ya’ll don’t want 17 and 18 year olds to date because one is legal.

If this is the case then forget Sukka or Tokka or basically ANY ship from Atla ever also is off the table. Maiko and Zutara are basically non-shippable.

“We saw them grow up though.”

Okay, but... I like writing them and headcanoning them growing up. And the only reason why most of the kainora fandom do this is because we’re filling in the gaps of what we kind of didn’t get in B4.

It’s disheartening and upsetting to have people in my inbox call me an idiot and strongly imply I’m a pedophile because of a ship i got into when I was a teenager. Some of ya’ll are picking apart my (and by extension people in the kainora fandom) entire moral character and who I am behind this computer screen because I decided to imagine, headcanon and write a teen ship at different stages in their life. You’ve never met me a day in your life. Never exchanged a word with me.

I’m not taking Dora the Explorer and super shipping her. That is actually creepy because that is actually aimed and is for actual children. I’m not a brony. I’m not preying on children. But you guys are taking it to this spectrum and implying that I’m some kind of predatory monster. I’m not taking things actually for children and getting super invested in them.

LoK was always themed with more mature themes for a more mature audience. So, is it so wrong to imagine a teen ship in a later part of their life? (let me be clear I basically never write them under 18 because that point-blank just doesn’t interest me.) What do you guys think people were doing before lok was even announced? Older Kataang and older Zutara was definitely a thing back in the day.

But, I digress, I ask that you please understand where I’m coming from and not pick apart the entire moral character of me or other kainora shippers because of a ship most of us got into when we were teenagers ourselves. Irene Koh is almost 30 years old. I get that and not expecting her to really care about kainora. When Kainora became a thing she was in her early 20′s. So, I get that she’s not into it and I respect that. But it was discouraging to see kainora being put down and kainora shippers almost being jabbed for liking it because that’s what the response felt like.

As for me, again, I apologize for how my responses might have came off. I’m willing to admit that it may have been hypocritical of me to respond abrasively when I was calling her out for being being rude and that’s on me. I own that. I should have responded in a more civil manner to get my point across regardless of how her response was. I responded out of frustration and defensiveness protecting a dear friend of mine.

#kainora #reference #my point still stands for most of it but i should have approached it more civil and diplomatically

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jswdmb1 · 5 years

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Old Man

“Old man

take a look at my life

I'm a lot like you”

- Neil Young

I seemingly have no skin in this dumb “OK boomer” thing, but I would argue that I have the most right to be offended by this generational nonsense. You see, no one has bothered to ask my opinion even though I, as a proud member of Gen X, am in the current position of what I like to call generation stuck in the middle. It’s like being on a bus in between two screaming lunatics who don’t even notice that I am there. Yet, no one is better equipped to help referee this dispute other than us in Gen X since we are the only ones who have actually talked among all of the current generations. If you talk to anyone from Gen X, I think most would tell you that we are actually OK being left alone. I mean, since we are the parents of Gen Z, bosses of Millennials, and the adult children of boomers, they all need us way more than we need any of them. Now, I’m not trying to start a fight here, my point is that every generation thinks theirs is the best when it’s always somewhere in the middle. Since middle is my game now, I am here to present the pros and cons of all our current generations:

The Greatest Generation: born before 1946

Pros: Sadly, this generation is leaving us more and more each day, and we need them more then ever. For me, this is the generation of my grandparents that was born in the 20′s and 30′s, lived through a depression and a world war, and then did their best to raise the next generation in a way that allowed them to succeed without ever having to go through what they did ever again. Their bravery and willingness to sacrifice were at levels we will never see again. We need to take as much advantage as possible of those that remain to gather whatever wisdom we can from them that can be applied to the troubles we face today and moving forward. We cannot also forget to thank them for everything we have and generations of the future will have because of their efforts.

Cons: The greatest title unfortunately comes with an asterisk. While this country fought oversees against bigotry, hatred and oppression so that all could live freely, many Americans were not so fortunate back home. People were excluded from the “American Dream” based on race, ethnicity, gender and/or sexual orientation. Often, this exclusion was carried out in brutal ways designed to oppress individuals of their rights not just as Americans but as human beings. I am certainly not suggesting that every member of this generation is a racist or intolerant, but the significant pain caused in this country during the time that this generation was in full power cannot be ignored.

The Baby Boomers: born between 1946 and 1964

Pros: The contributions that the boomers have made to our world are almost immeasurable. Where would we be without the technological advances that came along in the 70s, 80s, & 90s that set the stage for the world as we know it today. Boomers were on the cutting edge of social change as well demanding the generation ahead of them include all Americans in the nation as full and equal members. My parents were on the edge of the boomer generation, but I consider them a part of it and I identify now what they went through as a “sandwich” generation during the 70s and 80s. People make fun of it now, but those days had a lot of stresses and pressures. I would love to see how today’s world would react to the inflation and real unemployment of the late 70s or early 80s. What would you do if gas prices doubled tomorrow? They also took care of parents with many less resources and much poorer health than our older generation has now. They were truly instrumental in the massive transition this country made to get us where we are at this point, and that should not be forgotten especially as many like my dad are leaving us far too soon.

Cons: Boomers made a lot of mistakes. Even as kids, we knew it and wondered what exactly were they thinking sometimes. Personally, I don’t fault the boomers for all the choices they made nor do I think that all our current problems are squarely on them. What I think irks the younger generations is their general unwillingness to concede that they made mistakes which prevented them from learning how to help fix the messes they made. Our president is a perfect example with this, and he is just a reflection of the group that was largely responsible for electing him. The other issue with Boomers is that they refuse to step aside and give up the notion that this world is theirs forever. The most ridiculous thing I heard with this OK Boomer thing was that is was bigoted and would hurt the prospects of many boomers who plan to be around for a lot longer (living off of Medicaid and Social Security we can’t afford, but I digress). Boomers just can’t get that it is not all about them anymore. Remember though, that they were initially part of the “Me” generation in the 70′s so we can’t be surprised by their behavior. The problem now is that their unwillingness to cede power is hurting us. That is why I think their should be an age cap on running for political office of any kind of 65 years old. Agism you say? I guess maybe, but I call it self protectionism. It’s the same logic that sets floors to the age limits to prevent people from being too young to hold such important responsibilities. I say, if you are between 25 and 65, you can be in politics, and after that step aside and let the generation who has everything at stake drive for a while.

Gen X - born between 1965 and 1980

Pros: It’s hard to point to exactly what we in this generation have done so far, but I think as the current “sandwich” generation, we are doing our best to advance the concepts of inclusiveness and awareness of our impact on this Earth to the generations below us that we are either mentoring or raising. I don’t think history is going to look back at us as the “greatest” and we don’t have the same flair as the boomers did, but I think we will be remembered as the generation that quietly did our part to set the table for those coming up behind us to be successful. I also think many in our generation will gladly step aside much sooner than the boomers to let those we have nurtured take over. I envision being the generation that really provides the mentoring and support needed to hopefully get us to the point where hope is restored in our younger generations. Maybe the best thing we bring to the table is empathy and we can use that to bridge between a generation that seems to have lacked it and ones coming up that crave it.

Cons: Our cons are the same as our pros. We have been too benign and let the boomers get away with far too much when we had a chance to stop some of the nonsense they are spewing now. Protests and social activism were unheard of when I was in college in the early 90s and our focus was too much on being good students to get good jobs to become good corporate citizens when we needed to move out of our comfort zone more. I also think we are the generation who is to be blamed most for the current state of the climate. We are the main generation fueling the economy right now and have been for the past decade or so, yet we have not made the changes or demands to turn ourselves towards green practices. The barriers to green technology have come down greatly during this time period and we have been slow to adapt. We also didn’t put pressure on those above us when we were younger and science presented evidence that our earth was being destroyed, which they dismissed. That goes way back and we were asleep at the wheel on what arguably is the most important issue facing us today. That may stain our generation in a way that can never be repaired.

And the rest... - born after 1980 -

I know there are distinct generations within this group, but as an old fogey I get to lump them all together because those damn kids are all the same to me! Besides, kids don’t use Facebook or read long-form essays on Tumblr so they’ll never see this anyway. And, I’m not doing pros and cons for them because everyone gets the same grade in the post Gen-X generation: “meets expectations”. That last part isn’t a joke as if I were evaluating the generations behind me that is the grade that I would give them. I think they are doing a good job so far, but their immaturity and lack of experience holds them back from being great. I actually see many of them fitting more into an “exceeds expectations” category if they continue with their true embrace of inclusion of all people and their commitment to the environment. It is also a very service oriented generation, and I would argue far less materialistic than generations before them going back to the boomers. They need to work on communication skills for sure and definitely need to learn how to develop a bit of a thicker skin, but I see a lot of hope in this group. I am particularly excited to see them start taking control in politics and I hope it is sooner than later. We cannot afford to wait for their innovation as our future lies in the balance with little hope if the status quo stays in place. Let’s face it, whether I believe any of this or not, don’t we have to? I mean if this is a horse race, I’m certainly putting my money on these kids to get the job done over anyone else.

And, I guess that’s the conclusion that I have come to as I reflect on this particular essay. It’s that the youngest generation is always the most important as they have the most promise as well as the most at stake. At the age of 47, I don’t plan to sit on the sidelines or not help out, but I can acknowledge that even at that relatively young age the spotlight is no longer on me. Whether it be my music, or education, or technology skills (or lack there of), my opinions and tastes don’t matter anymore. The other day, someone gave me an “OK Boomer” in jest and at first I took offense. Mostly because I am not that old, but it initially stung to hear it directed at me even as a joke. I soon realized though, that it is just that - a joke and that brings me to the best thing I think Gen X has going for it - our sense of humor. So, if I have any advice for the Gen Zs or whatever they are called and the Boomers is to work together and laugh while you do it. And quit yelling over Gen X while you fight. I’m trying to watch Seinfeld reruns.

Cheers,

Jim

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violent-optimism · 5 years

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Revisit)

Long post below!

Hey everyone!

Because this semester is starting to really take a toll on me and I need some good escapism, I figured it would be a great time to revisit Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” trilogy (2012-2014).

Now, some of you might not know this, but when I first joined Tumblr I was SUPER into these movies since they were just coming out around that time. It was probably one of the first (if not the first) things I ever blogged about, which feels like forever ago!

I’m not going to pretend that everyone is crazy about these movies. I recognize they have issues. I recognize that not everyone enjoyed them. But as per usual these reviews are going to contain MY personal opinion and mine alone. I actually think that, for the most part, these films hit the mark pretty well, are pleasantly entertaining and have great re-watch value much like their LOTR counterparts.

I think enough time has passed since the trilogy’s release that we can talk about these movies more objectively and with more critical thinking, which is exactly what I intend to do!

Let’s start appropriately with the first film in the trilogy: “An Unexpected Journey” which came out in 2012, just a little more than 7 years ago.

So the main question that I want to answer with this film (and the other films in the trilogy) is this: Does the film still hold up today? Why or why not?

First things first, let’s look at what “An Unexpected Journey” does not do well. These are things that could have definitely been improved upon or should have been omitted altogether.

One major gripe I hear about a lot with this film is the pacing. Unlike some of the other complaints, I have to completely agree with this one. While I will do my best to not compare this trilogy to its LOTR predecessor (because I don’t see how that helps my review and it’s also downright unfair), I will say that for all the lengthy run-times that Frodo’s journey gave us, the pacing always felt consistent and smooth. Yes, the movies would go on for a long time, but the sequencing of scenes and fast paced movement at least gave the illusion that the story was moving along at a decent rate.

With “An Unexpected Journey”, this is unfortunately not the case. For a story that is built around the thrill of an exciting adventure, the film pauses at many moments to explain backstory, give exposition and slow the pace down in many other ways. With this being the case, the film feels very “stop and go” with fast and slow scenes spliced together which ultimately ruins the pace of the story, especially in the first half. For example, the White Council scene is fascinating and gives us a rare look at seeing the most powerful figures of Middle Earth in one scene together; however it’s ultimately nothing but exposition and does not drive the adventure forward whatsoever. Thorin’s Company leaving Gandalf behind could be a metaphor for how desperately the film needed to move along at this point.

Luckily, the last half of this movie (Overhill and Underhill onward) is rescued from this sluggish pace and actually manages to pick up quite a bit in the last act. It is also fortunate that this pacing demon does not chase after the other subsequent films and seems to only terrorize the first hour and a half of “An Unexpected Journey”.

What else doesn’t work in this film? Well…the humour is a bit strange for one thing. Despite having a PG-13 rating, the film can’t seem to decide whether or not it wants to make little kids laugh or older adults. There’s gross-out humour, toilet humour (there are Dwarves and Trolls after all) and there is even a ball joke. That’s right, a BALL joke in a film adapted from Professor Tolkien’s work (who I’m sure is rolling in his grave right about now). To be fair the ball joke is actually kind of funny, but that’s neither here nor there. I might have found most of the jokes in this film funny when I first saw it, but now I can only chuckle at a few things, one of them being the many hilarious facial expressions that Martin Freeman makes in almost every scene he’s in. The film does have some decent jokes, but for the most part they’re only the kind that 3 year olds or people with a gross sense of humour would genuinely laugh at.

Slow pacing and toilet humour aside, the film is actually quite successful in many other areas. Finally we get to the good stuff, the more positive stuff. Here is what “An Unexpected Journey” excels in.

Two words right out the gate: Martin F*cking Freeman (okay that’s three but you know he would approve of the swear word). Even after all this time, even after watching his performance again and again, I am still so amazed at how effortlessly and inexplicably Martin Freeman transforms into Bilbo Baggins. I wish I could explain this any better but he truly becomes the character of Bilbo. His body language, his mannerisms, the way he delivers certain lines, the authentic stutters and stammers, his FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. I could go on and on, and I am clearly a bit biased, but I think you would be very challenged to find anyone who has a problem with his acting. The casting for both LOTR and The Hobbit are completely perfect, but I think the team really deserves a pat on the back for getting the protagonist so freakin’ RIGHT; especially when you look at who they were also considering for the part *shudder*.

Speaking of other actors, I also believe that every single Dwarf was cast perfectly. Richard Armitage is absolutely fantastic as Thorin Oakenshield and contrasts beautifully with Freeman’s less rugged character. His best acting is yet to come but he still stands out quite a lot in this first installment. I’m pretty sure this is the role that put him on the map and rightfully so.

I’m not going to review every Dwarf actor performance (this review is already long enough!) but I will say that in a nutshell, they all play their role exactly as you would imagine. With 13 characters you can’t expect the character development to be all there, but Jackson and co do somehow manage to show every Dwarf’s unique personality in some small way, which I think is really amazing and could not have been an easy task.

Other aspects that might seem “lesser” such as make-up, costumes, production design and so forth are done extremely well in this movie. I will be forever bitter that “Les Mis” won the Oscar for best hair and make-up back in 2013 and “An Unexpected Journey” did not, when it was abundantly clear which film was more deserving of the award. I digress, this film looks amazing. Every actor, creature, set and animated pixel looks exactly the way it should. From Gollum’s eyes to Bilbo’s detailed buttons, the film shines from an aesthetic and visual perspective. It would also be a major disservice to write this review without mentioning the brilliant and soul-touching soundtrack composed once again by Howard Shore, a true genius of his craft. The “Misty Mountains” theme is unique to this film and serves very well as an ode to the adventure.

What I believe to be the most compelling and heartwarming aspect of this film is the relationship that develops between Bilbo and Thorin. It is the best story gem of the movie if not the entire trilogy as a whole. While at first disapproving and avoidant of the Hobbit, Thorin comes to accept and even care for Bilbo after having his life saved by the unlikely hero. The scene where he tells Bilbo he was wrong about him and gives him a heartfelt hug never fails to bring a tear to my eye.

Well folks, what more can I say? It’s certainly not a perfect film; indeed it has flaws that can make the viewing a little more than uncomfortable. On the other hand, I really do believe there are several things “An Unexpected Journey” gets very right. While the slow pace and odd humour is hard to ignore, it is equally hard not to fall in love with the film’s acting, visuals and a story full of heart.

I must say I am very glad that I revisited this film. It has always been my least favourite of the trilogy although now it seems like an unfair title to bestow. It is a charming tale and an inoffensive film. These days, that is a welcome find.

Upon revisiting this film, I am going to give “An Unexpected Journey” 7.5 out of 10.

#The Hobbit #An Unexpected Journey #My Review #Revisit

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amuelle · 6 years

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The third wheel date. PART 2: The worst part…

For all the details of this back story and how I got to thinking I was in the game with this shorty please read part one ‘The third wheel date. Part 1: The Fab story’ also on this tumblr. For the purpose of keeping this post palatable let’s cut to the good part. He was leaving for work that Saturday flying out from Joburg and where does the young sex pot work?? In Joburg! So what’s a girl to do when a prime steak lands in her lap??? We pounce!!

So the last time I had seen him he was wearing this incredible t-shirt with a scene from star wars. One of my favourite movie franchises EVER. He was giving me the shirt in exchange for a black affluence shirt, he was/is all about brands made in Lesotho. (In retrospect I should have pulled the shirt off his back when he dropped me off the last night we hung out and given him NOTHING in return. But I couldn’t have known the lengths I would ultimately have to go to for this stupid fucking shirt that I now house in my closet and can’t wait to wear with thigh boots and a smile on a wicked night out). I’ve digressed enough. Don’t forget about the t-shirt…

Getting dressed:

I didn’t want to be too slutty, casual or over the top. I didn’t want to wear my wig and a ball gown to only find myself at a braai in someone’s backyard sitting on a camp chair in six inch heels. So I asked Fab what kind of vibe it is, heels or sneakers? He said sneakers and I got excited because I had just bought my first pair of Jordan’s and as with all new shoes I couldn’t wait to wear them again and again….Took a shower and had the difficult debate with myself as to how much make up to wear. I didn’t want to wear too much make up but I also didn’t want to look like I didn’t try also didn’t want to be shiny or blah…blah blah! It took a while to decide and I had to be out of the house soon. He was already waiting at the restaurant with a friend and they were having dinner. I was like damn what if he is trying to set me up with his friend? I’m all for it! I mean I’m feeling him but he is leaving so it is what it is. I mean I just missed out on diner but let me get there, he wanted to leave at 11 coz he had plans for the next day…I pack the shirt I promised. BECAUSE IM A STAND UP TYPE OF WOMAN. The last thing I wanted to do was forget it and have it look like I was trying to pull a funny chick move. I FINALLY decide what to wear after a whole look book conversation with The Trinity. I call the uber and me and the butterflies in my tummy we were off to meet our destiny!!!(JAZZ HANDS FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT)

Thoughts in the cab...

I had asked myself a lot of questions about this outing “was it a date?”…”was it a dick offer?”…”was I getting ahead of myself thinking he wants to be more than friends?”…”had he even thought about the implications of making me overly comfortable?”…”why was he pressing so hard for us to meet up before he left?”…”could it really JUST be about the tshirt?”….”WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS REALLY MEAN??” tormented by anxiety and having thought about it 365 ways I finally decided to just play by ear….what’s the worst that could happen? Honestly….what’s the worst that could happen?

THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN…HAPPENED!!!!!!

So the restaurant is on the first floor of the building and you enter through a parking lot. I was trying to come up the stairs quickly in an athletic manner without losing my breath from the climb just really having over thought it. I came up the stairs finally and through the floor to ceiling shopfront I see where he is sitting in the restaurant. But that couldn’t be him because WHY would he be with another female….WHYYYYY????? I took a few deep breaths and tried to keep this feeling of disappointment, wanting to run away, lash out, scream and cry from overwhelming me. She could be any one,(RIGHT) a cousin, sister, a stranger who saw him sitting alone…ANYONE (I wanted to put a positive spin on it but already my gut was churning. Every single butterfly in my stomach had DIED).

I walked in and there, beautiful as ever, hair done, wearing just enough make up, smelling like sunshine, happiness and black girl magic was this incredibly gorgeous woman sitting side by side with Fab. (Lets call her Lucille) I was captivated by her beauty and her energy was just WARM…..(DAMMIT!!!!). After greeting them and giving hugs I made my way around the table to sit down. Of ALL the things this evening could be, a date it certainly was NOT. It’s not even two people who know each other linking up for a drink before one goes back to work. It’s a sad reminded that you never know another person’s intentions. I had over thought this to death, had I not over thought it I wouldn’t be sitting her deeply hurt I took a whole shower, untwisted my hair and used the last drops of the last perfume my Dad bought me to be here. (Dad hasn’t bought me perfume in 3 years…the perfume was a big fucking DEAL!). To make it super-duper much much worse…he forgot the fucking t-shirt. (I was thinking “BUDDY!!! I spent a week reminding you I wanted the shirt how you gonna forget AND make me a third wheel? Brruuhh….HOOOOWWW????”)

Now crestfallen and embarrassed I had to find a way to make my I’m available but not too available outfit less hochie coochie and more Friday night with the HOMIES. I buttoned up my denim jacket and pulled down my micro mini and remembered my bruised ego meant nothing in the long term. This poor woman thought she was meeting a friend of his, not some sex pot with a shining personality. (Just to clarify, I am the sex pot with a shining personality)….it was all around AWKWARD and this was before the vodka and patron.

Still in disbelief I decided to observe their body language. It would tell me everything I needed to know. From where I was sitting it looked like his hand was on his thigh but the angle was all wrong. So I went under the table pretending to tie my shoe lace to see exactly where this hand was. The final nail in my dreams of seizing the bae….the warm, soft but hard manly hand was nestled between her thighs. (BLACK HAWK DOWN….BLACK HAWK DOWN!) The tribe had spoken and my torch was extinguished. I was NOT the ultimate survivor. I got up and dashed to the bathroom to send out a smoke signal to The Trinity, the ship had sunk and there were no survivors. I was NOT seizing the bae or getting kisses….what I was gonna get was some liquor in me on his tab! He got me fucked up!

A few big girl moments….

Now sometimes you find yourself in situations in which you are totally out of your depth. This time I was put in a situation to make another woman not feel threatened and believe in the quality of man pursuing her. Sure hours before I was thinking to myself that I had seized the bae and was about to get flewed out for vacations. This ladies and gentlemen was not the case. I was just merely the third wheel…and like a real third wheel I played my position. It was too late to throw a fit and be hurt. I was already here so I engaged in conversation, asked them about how they met (mutual friends hooked them up). I spoke about my latest thirst trap and how he was stalking me. Also asserted my FRIEND status and really tried to get her number so we could hang after Fab was gone. I was trying hard not to let a painfully awkward situation get any worse but it did…it really did. I felt like I was on fire! However the moment was here and this was how it was packaged. All I could do was suck all the enjoyment out of it and boy did I ever.(I just mean I drank...I drank A LOT)

After the first awkward ego bruising hurdle and a few quick trips to the toilet to send The Trinity voice notes proclaiming how close to death I was (because I was). I was watching the guy I had been fantasizing about all week nibble another woman’s ear and grope her. He was groping her like he just got out of jail and was seeing her for the first time in 50 years. All of this was happening between great conversation and cold, cold double vodka and limes. I remember one instance where he was biting her shoulder and looking lovingly in her eyes. I felt like I couldn't move, like I was glued to the seat but my soul was trying to run away. I was MORTIFIED. I felt like awkward 17 year old Amu watching all the other girls except me get asked to slow dance at the disco and wishing to just melt away into the background...In a few hours this man had managed to bruise my ego, ruin my first Friday night back in Joburg AND forget the tshirt, which was what even brought me there. And he had the audacity to sit there and make me watch as he got his grove back?! (NOW! He got me really fucked up...LIKE REALLY!) Fab had put Lucille and I in the most awkward situation imaginable. I needed to tighten up. If I hadn’t fainted when I saw his hand between her thighs NOTHING could kill me that night….NOTHING….I was wrong...so WRONG

We are back next week for the final installment of this epic 3 part tragedy....bisou...bisou

#Summer2018 WorstDateEver ThisIsATrueStory ItReallyHappened

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dangerouscrusadefire-blog · 6 years

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North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

"North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

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What happens if you rent a car and decline any coverage? I was told that if you were involed in an accident you would have to make a claim with your own insurance company. What if you don't own a car and thus don't have an insurance company? Are there limits to the amount of responsibility of the renter? I mean if the car is totaled does the renter really have to replace the entire cost of the car out of his pocket as well as damage to the other car and injury to it's occupants? I know i'm not alone in declining insurance. But if I got into an accident I always assumed I would just be responsible for a deductable and not the total amout of damage to the cars and injuries. Serious answers only. I really don't need to hear yes, you need insurance or you're screwed That tells me nothing.""

Would you purchase this type of car insurance?

I wanted to test a business idea. 1 million people come together each paying 225.00 membership fee. This membership fee includes one years fully comp car insurance. In year 2, all of the companies costs are calculated and split between members. So if costs are 30m then each member pays 30 and this fee includes a years fully comp car insurance. My question to you is, if this business idea were proposed by a large brand (to give it credibility) would you purchase this style of car insurance? If no why not? You don't need any no claims (although you still accumulate them should you wish to leave), there is no excess to pay on claims, the insurance category of your car isn't relevant (inc make and model etc), and your insurance is fully comp.""

Whats the best car to get that's cheap on insurance?

i just passed my test (yippeeee) however only got a bit saved up whats the best cheapest to insure trying to get quotes so i know :) (im 24 by the way)

How much is car insurance?

I'm 17 and I need insurance for a car so I can own it. How much is it usually for an kinda old car like 2010 or older?

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

Switching insurance - will my accutane be covered??

In a weird spot - will be switching insurance within a month and a half... but i'm just starting accutane now... will the treatment be covered when i switch health insurance companies?! please help!

Are there any car insurance companies that you don't have to give your SS# and DOB to get a quote?

If I get a good quote then I will give all of my information to that company.

Would health insurance be valid in all states or just in the one you bought it in?

I am currently in Houston Texas and I wish to receive health insurance. I will be moving back and forth between Texas and Utah. I wish to know if health insurance here in Texas will be valid in Utah. I think this is a pretty uninformed question but that is why I am asking and I am only 18 so I do not have to much experience in this matter. If you know of a website I could look into to be informed then that would be very well.

More Better? Car Insurance Question?

We have 2 cars and currently 2 drivers on our insurance (my husband and I) and we were wondering if we add his mother on there will it be cheaper? The thing is his mother does not have a license and does not know how to drive, would it still be cheaper if we add her to our insurance?""

How much should i settle with insurance company?

My friend was involved in a car accident sometime in June 2010. The other vehicles driver didn't notice her red light, ran it and hit my frieds car. His vehicle was in the shop for 2 wks and during this time he had to get rides from others. His total med expenses (ambulance, er, scans, dr visits) adds up to about 9000, car damages 3000. The other insurance company is trying to settle for 11500 BUT they are saying that 8000 of that is to repay HIS insurance company. So he is left with 3500.Is this correct or should he ask for more? Please no rude responses.. thanks :D""

Why is it a requirement to have a car insurance in the UK?

i have just passed my driving test last week. i already have ford fiesta (its so loud). why would i want to insure my car against what. what is car insurance about? what/where is the cheapest company to go and why? what are the benefits of car insurance?

I'm 20 from London what insurance companies will let my 17 year old brother be on my policies?

Me and my 17 year old brother want to buy a 50cc gilera dna 1 for me and 1 for him. I have a full UK drivers licence and revived insurance quotes for around 400 a year......where as my brothers cheapest. Quote was 550 a year. He doesn't have any sort of licence but was hoping to get a scooter license this coming January's. So the question is would he be able to be put on my insurance policies I'm 20?? And what insurance companies will do that? Thanks ;).

Does driving school really decrease your insurance rate?

i heard that if u go to driving school and tell the insurance after getting ur license they'll give u a discount on insurance

Could you give me a rough estimate of my teen auto insurance?

I want to get either a honda civic or toyota corolla (those have best insurance rates supposedly) and I am 16. Great student, no record, no driving problems etc. Could someone give me just a really rough estimate. Thanks!""

How to get my stolen car's value back from insurance?

Hi, my car was stolen from a repair shop that I had left overnight for maintenace work. I say they are negligent for not securing the keys. I filed a claim through their insurance and through my insurance thinking mine would go after them and give me a fair price for what I payed, not the current market value. I heard about the arbitration. Any suggestions on steps I can take to recover more money? plus why should I pay the deductible? Shouldn't I receive money from both insurances? I also incurred other expenses, I had to spend money on notaries, lost time from work, gas money making all these trips for the investigators etc. Thank you very much for any advice.""

How much would car insurance cost for a 22 yr old male?

Im 22 yr old male, live in Florida and never owned a car. So how much would i cost for me to get car insurance? Im also a college student.""

Can i get insurance to drive any car?

My current insurance gives me third party cover on any vehicle i drive with permission from the owner. Can i get full insurance? (i am thinking of setting up a business which would require me driving other peoples cars) THanks

Where can i find affordable health insurance??

I am turning 23 in feb. and i loose my dependant status because my parents are military so i need to find some health insurance.

Car loan & insurance?

My husband & I applied for a car loan. We are both still under our parents insurance because it is cheaper like that for now. Neither one of us are listed on their insurance as policy holders. We are only listed as covered. If we plan on buying a car with our approved loan, does his dad need to be on the loan as well because the insurance is under him? If so, does that mean that I need to come off the loan and that he needs to reapply for a loan but with his dad? We live in California, I know some states have different laws about insurance. Hope that makes sense & someone can help. Thanks!""

Why is my car insurance ridiculously expensive?

I've been using go compare for a Peugeot 206 1.1 litre petrol, and have been given quotes of about 6-8 thousand pound! I know for young drivers (im seventeen) car insurance is expensive but I was expecting 2-3 grand, am I maybe using a bad site?""

Do all fully comp insurance policy allow you to drive other vehicles?

I have a van and car and just want to find out the cheapest option to drive them both, a friend told me most fully comprehensive insurance policys allow you to drive other vehicles, do anybody know any names?""

First time car insurance?

I passed my driving test on the 6th of December 2011 and got a car yesterday. It is a 1.0 litre peugeot 107 56 plate and I'm 22. Wondering where the cheapest place to go for car insurance would be or the cheapest way to do it? I've heard some people go on their Mum's, but you shouldn't do that as it's illegal to say they are the main driver when you are (not sure how this would be proved). I've looked on price comparison sites but they are all still so expensive and I still feel I can get a better quote. The best one has been from an independent insurer called Ingenie at 1300, so I know I can get cheaper on sites that aren't on price comparison ones, if that makes sense! The thing is there's so many was just wondering if anyone knew the cheapest?? Getting bored of typing my details in over and over :) Thankyou x""

How much would car insurance be monthly for an 18 year old girl?

Who's never gotten a ticket or pulled over. Had my license for seven months now and also has not took drivers ed....an estimate?

Can I turn my health bills from a car wreck into my health insurance?

I'll try to make this as short as possible. I was hit by another car, who fled the scene but I was able to get her license plate, made and model of her car. Her insurance is covering the body damage for my car but I'm having problems with the medical part of all this. In all, I have had two visits with my doctor and he sent me to the hospital for xrays. I have whip lash and nothing else. I live in Kentucky, which is a no-fault injury state (I have no idea what that means). The other driver's insurance company is not going to pay for my injuries since they are less than $1000. Which means I have to turn it in to MY car insurance company and pay my $1000 deductable or pay out of pocket, which will be about $800. Someone I work with mentioned that I can turn the bills into my health insurance company for them to cover it. Is that an option? I'm not at all familiar with any of this b/c this is my first experience having to deal with car insurances. I know it doesn't matter how I feel, but I'm really ticked that someone can hit my car, flee the scene, cause injuries to me, and then I am the one responsible to pay for the medical care. Does anyone have any experience with this? Can I turn this into my health insurance to avoid paying the $800 that I don't have? Thank you.""

My car insurance company raised my bill because my zip code changed.?

But I thought that in California they passed a bill called prop 103 that says that changing zip code should not be a base to raise the bill... I talked to the insurance guy on the phone who said that prop 103 never passed,yet when I'm reading about it in the internet,it says it passed..Am I missing something? Can I file a complaint to the consumers'affairs and the BBB in order for them to drop back my rate to my previous zip code? It's only a few dollars but it ads up at the end of the year..""

How do i get my car about half a mile without insurance?

I need to get a car from my house to my girlfriends, but I have no insurance on it yet. I have considered pushing it and asking someone's to tow it but i am unsure yet... I do not have insurance on the car. Any ideas?""

Do insurance companies insure a boat for its value or insure it for what you paid for it?

How much would it cost for a 20 year old male to get auto insurance?

I have been driving under my parents insurance on and off when I am on school breaks (because I go to college out of state and I don't drive) for 3 years. I have never had any tickets or collisions or anything bad. Roughly, how much will it cost for me to get insurance, and how to I go about getting insurance?""

Does my credit score affect my car insurance costs?

Someone told me it did... but that just doesn't make sense!

Insurance for young drivers?

Hey, i'm a young male who passed his test recently and the insurance quotes I have been getting have been eye popping. Just over 4,000 my quotes have been. I live in the city and dont have a garage or driveway etc and know that can effect the premium but I want a diesel which is insurance group 3, does that have major effect on the premium? I need a little advice on how to go about this""

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

Car insurance question for young drivers?

Im gonna be 17, insurance for me is gonna be 6,500, my mum doesn't drive so i cant go on hers. Would this work; could i get my mum a provisional licence, get her insured for my car, then could i drive it, its like 5000 cheaper for her to do it, would that be legal, if you know what i mean.""

Does school require health insurance?

I live in California, USA and my brother and I don't have health insurance. We are in middle and high school(public school). What are the disadvantages of not having health insurance?""

Car insurance policy and rates question?

My girlfriend is on my car insurance policy. Recently she got in an accident and now I believe our car insurance rates will be raised. Can I drop her off my car insurance policy and have her transfer her car in my name that way both cars can be insured in my name. If I do this can she still drive her car?

Insurance at sixteen?

How much would it cost for me to insure an irocz at sixteen its a three fifty five speed stock?

How do auto insurance providers calculate your payments?

I just got off the phone with my auto insurance to change my address. They informed me that my rate is going to be $16 more now because I moved to a different zip code. The problem is, I had previously had my insurance changed because it skyrocketed after my previous move. Which is strange because I had moved from the same city before and it went down about $20. I have since moved BACK to the SAME city I was in before and it's going up again?? This makes NO SENSE! I thought it was based off of your location (zip code). But now I just think these insurance companies are making up their own numbers and rules and we're all getting screwed!! Can someone please explain this insanity to me? My zip code is now and was before, 95608. The zip code I just moved from is 95628. Yes, I have moved back and forth 4 times within the same 2 cities if you're confused.""

Cheap car insurance for people under 25?

I'm trying to find the cheapest car insurance since i'm under 25 in new york. I'm looking to pay no more then 400 a month just don't know where to find a good deal. Please advise

How much (average) is health insurance for a family in America?

As I live in England where we have the NHS I was just curious how much health insurance is in America. Obviously I know that it depends on pre existing medical conditions, how old people are ect ect but let just say for average family of four, two parents and two children would health insurance cost. I was just wondering.""

17 Year old insurance on 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 1?

Im 16 years of age soon to be 17 and I am looking for a first car that would be of a classic sort. I hate all the usual Saxo's and Corsa's that all the other kids drive. My dad currently owns a Series 1 RS Turbo and were in the middle of restoring it. I looked into insurance as myself as a named driver and got quotes of 11k and that's way too much. Would the price be cheaper if i put myself as a second driver on my dads insurance? Im in desperate need of answers right now. If not then has anyone got any info on a Mk1 or Mk2 golf or even an Mk1 XR2 Fiesta. If all this classic insurance is too hard then has anyone out there got any ideas on what car I could get that has got cheap insurance, Looks good, Performs great and can be modded great. I don't want answers which involve astra's and clios's. More along the lines of newer better material. Thank you :)""

How am i meant to afford car insurance?

OK, Im working at island, earning minimum wage. Im at uni and Ive got to pay out 330 every term to pay my train ticket. Lucky Im staying at home so I dont have any rent. Nor am I going out drink anymore. Im looking to buy a car, to get around, get to work easier etc. How I cant see any way for me to afford this. My parents wont help, saying no one helped them. This is understandable as they are keeping me for free, although i clean the house as rent. Im just wondering if anyone knows anyway I can get insurance cheaper (I have pass plus). I just dont really want to get a loan for a car and insurance.""

Will my insurance get expensive if I don't pay it for a few months?

So I am 19 years old and I been paying insurance for 1 year now. But right now I am not working and I don't need my car as much and i feel that I am just wasting money on insurance. My policy will end in 9 days and I am thinking on ending my insurance and instead I am going to ride the city bus. Right now I am paying 96 dollars per month and the next six months will go down to $94. If I don't pay for insurance for 1 or 3 months will the price go up? How much? Thank you in advance.

Cheapest cars for insurance for a teenage boy?

This is what I know: 4WD and newer cars means higher rates. I know certain cars, particularly Honda Civics and Accords from the 90's were commonly broken into and stolen, and that raised rates. I think I'll be responsible for paying my own insurance and gas. (Unfortunately I do live in a snow climate, but we haven't had real heavy snows in a while) So, it would be VERY helpful to list some non-boring/decent, reliable cars, that would be best/good on insurance costs! Thanks!""

Affordable standard transmission car for teen?

Any suggestions for a cheap manual car for a 17 year old male? I don't mind if it's a 2 or 4-door. Anything that is known for low insurance so my parents could afford it.

""Cheap car insurance in Highland, CA?""

Um i live in highland ca 92346, im 18 male just got my license 1 month ago, jux bought a 96 honda accord, anniversary edition. 4 doors, 150 k, excellent condition, which car insurance is the lowest for a guy my age?""

What kind of insurance coverage should I get for my motorcycle?

I have pretty much decided to get an SV650S as my first bike. Right now I am reasearching insurance coverages but am pretty much clueless. I don't know what coverage to get. This will be my first bike and I have very little experience riding. I have taken an MSF course and live in Los Angeles Area. I guess I am not looking for a particular insurance carrier(although it will help), I am looking for an explanations of the coverages so I know what to get.""

Does any body know what is going on with Obama and the whole health insurance thing?

Okay so I live in California. I am young and can't afford health insurance rite now. Does any one know if Obama is going to follow through with this whole health insurance thing. If so when is it supposed to kick in? And how will it work exactly? Will every body have free health insurance? Some one please explain this becuase I am realy confused.

Best school to prepare for my life and accident/health insurance licensing exam?

I need to start my 52 hour training to get licensed in California for life, accident and health. Which is the best school to prepare me for the exam? There are so many online, however I want one with a high pass rate.""

Child custody in california?

my husband wants me to have full custody of child but is it possible for him to have visitation rights for child in summers? and the non-custodial parent doenst want to pay any child support? is this allowed in california?

What is the average price of car insurance for a Volkswagen gti mark 1?

First time driver soon and my mum promised to buy one for me as a first car

Auto insurance for a job?

I got offered a full time job delivering for dominos. I need to know what to do about my insurace. My boss told me to raise my minimums and thats it but my mom has been yelling at me about special insurance i HAVE to get blah blah. So what do i really have to do? My insurance now on my suv is 120 a month but the quote from progressive is 5700 a year for commercial do i really have to triple my insurance for this...

What is the most popular/best dental insurance in California?

Looking to invest in Dental Insurance, but I want something good, where I'm not paying so much out of pocket""

How much Insurance payments?

How much would the average cost of insurance cost me each month if im a 20 year old first time driver with a 2010, honda 15k dollar used car. I understand if its kinda hard to answer but any answer would be nice thanks""

""How are younger drivers supposed to afford car insurance these days, especially if you're a student...?""

Car insurance is so expensive it's ridiculous, not to mention the price of driving lessons/test and what not. The problem is, I need to be able to drive because of where I live, if I didn't live in a rural area I wouldn't bother about driving so much, but looking at prices to drive these days, it's ridiculous. How do they come up with prices such as 1,000 - 5,000 is beyond me!""

What happens when you pay your car insurance late?

i have to wait til my next paycheck to pay my car insurance but the due date for the bill is march 16 and i dont get paid til the 21st. what happens? i have commerce insurance if that helps.

So I'm looking into buying a Honda Element but I want to know how much insurance n gas n all that would be?

Help please lol and if overall if its worth it

Why are car insurance quotes on comparison sites so high?

I'm almost 17 and I'm hoping to learn to drive and buy a car, I was looking on some comparison sites to see what the insurance might be on some possible cars (ford KA, fiat sciento, nothing too fancy) but the quotes were ridiculously high? I know being 17 will mean expensive insurance but this was really expensive, they said the cheapest was around 6000 for third party. This is really high because I know loads of people who drive at 17 and their insurance ranges from 1800-3000. So, why is it so high and will it actually be this price when I come to pay the insurance?""

North Hollywood California Cheap car insurance quotes zip 91603

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