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wistfulwatcher · 4 years ago

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Hello I saw your tag on that "im 25 and dying post" please tell us how it got better for you. Im 26, still living with parents, currently having a fight with my boyfriend, and i still have a year until I get my bachelors. The comparison to everyone younger than me is killing me.

I'm really sorry to hear that you're struggling, but I hope you can take some solace in the fact that that post has a lot of notes and you are absolutely not alone in feeling the way you do! I can certainly try and share my experience, but unfortunately I think the biggest factor is just time (and like, a buttload of self-reflection).

I moved back home after college and worked full time at an administrative job I was doing during school breaks. I majored in psychology and anthropology in college, and was planning to eventually go into forensic psychology, but wasn't interested in going straight into grad school. So I did that administrative job for about a year, and tried to find something that was a bit more stable and at least semi-related to my field. I did end up finding a new job when I was 23 - stable, semi-related to my field (a psych/research background was required), and decent pay (especially as I was still living at home). Exactly what I needed, since I still wasn't ready to start looking into grad school.

I was doing pretty well, until I started getting comfortable at that job, and then I started getting hit with the "I'm not doing enough," and "I need to look into grad school," and "will I ever find a boyfriend?" (friendly reminder that 23-year-old me thought she was straight, yikes), "how will I afford to move out, I have to save my money and do it soon!", "I'm not doing anything but watching TV, I'm wasting my life," "I'm lonely, but I'm too tired to try and make friends," etc., etc.

But it wasn't constant. I'd have a flurry of those questions and fears, and then days where I was just living life and doing my job and taking care of my dogs, without any of that. And I don't think I felt good or particularly comfortable those days, it was more like I just wasn't actively thinking about it, like when you feel "good" after a physical pain goes away and you're just normal.

Eventually, I started thinking about all of these concerns I had, and the fact that it felt like it was URGENT whenever I thought about them. It felt like I needed to get my shit together immediately. I also started to acknowledge that there was this big sense of guilt around those concerns; I was too old to be living at home, I was too old to be single, I was too old not to be starting a career. I felt like I was wasting my life (cue the guilt), and I realized that part of why I felt like I was wasting it was that I felt like I was missing milestones I wouldn't be able to do at a later time because the older I was past "normal" the more humiliating it would be to try (cue the shame and embarrassment, hard).

I also started to doubt that I wanted to go into forensic psychology. More importantly, I started to seriously doubt that I wanted a "career" at all. My job (as I kept that same semi-related to my field one) was absolutely a job, not a career. And I think this was a huge tipping point for me, because a career had always been a given in my life. I'm passionate about what I'm interested in, so it literally just never occurred to me that I would be content with a job. I also started acknowledging that I had some messed up associations about being content with a job meaning that I was lazy (because the only way to be ambitious is with a career and, more damaging, a lack of ambition is fundamentally bad).

Now, I need to clarify that all of the above occurred over the course of years. I was constantly seeing "friends" (i.e., of the facebook variety) go to grad school, start careers, get married, buy homes, etc. And with all of that alongside the entire mess I've outlined in the above paragraphs, it was really, really, tough. It gets hard to find a foothold in better thinking, I believe, when seeing all of these people (some younger) doing things "right" was really just compounding my guilt and shame. (I feel like it's worth mentioning, too, that I was always "an individual" growing up, march-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drummer, yada yada. I feel like that's worth pointing out for others who may be in the same boat, because I think it can lead to another layer of shame in comparing yourself to those around you - especially if it's a big part of your identity that you DON'T do that, because I think it's inevitable as you get older, and you're looking to reach these milestones that prove you're an adult.)

So, here I am, acknowledging that I feel guilt and shame about what I'm not doing. And suddenly I ask myself my first really important question: Do I want a career? The question hot on its heels is: Do I want to go to grad school? Honestly, my answer is no. There is nothing in me that's excited by the prospect. But what, does that mean I'm just going to work my job for the rest of my life? How is giving up going to make me feel better about Not Doing Enough?

As I'm opening this door (remember, years), three things happen: 1) I realize I'm gay, 2) I watch Dirty 30, 3) I start playing D&D.

First, realizing I'm gay. Woohoo! Not only was this exciting because girls are amazing, but it made me seriously look at myself. Realizing I had spent 25 years assuming one thing about myself that turned out to be completely wrong made me question everything for a while. I started to ask myself, "Do I really like this?" more often, which seems like a really obvious question, but I'm not convinced that it's one people ask themselves consciously all that often. But once I did, I realized how freeing it was to answer, "No," and move on to something I did like.

Second, I watched Dirty 30, the Grace Helbig/Mamrie Hart/Hannah Hart movie. It feels dramatic to say that it changed my life, but the older I get the more I honestly think it did. Mamrie Hart's character is a dental hygienist who is freaking out about turning 30 and feeling very much like that text post I reblogged. But (spoilers), at the end of the movie, she decides that she loves her job (job, not career!) because it's comfortable and she has fun at work, and that it makes her happy. She has other things going on, but the idea that a character in a film is content with her job and choosing to "settle" into her life as-is and she's genuinely happy about it? I honestly can't think of a single other time I've seen that happen on-screen. I still think about that ending very often. And after seeing it, I started to ask myself another question regularly: "Am I happy?" Again, this feels pretty obvious, but I think there is something incredibly empowering about making sure you are happy on a regular basis, instead of just assuming that you're fine until something hurts.

Third, I started playing D&D. This is not a plug for D&D! (Well, maybe a little.) One thing that happened to me when I started to get into the urgent-guilt-shame-confusion mess of my mid-20s was that I got very much into a routine of go to work, come home, sleep, go to work, come home, sleep, be totally brain-dead on the weekend, repeat. I found it very difficult to feel creative because I was just wiped, and as all of my creative outlets (gifs, fanfic) are self-motivated, it was really easy to brush them off. I ended up starting Critical Role (this is also not a plug for CR! well, maybe), and I wanted to give D&D a try myself. (I was VERY lucky - my best friend happened to be listening to the Adventure Zone at the same time I started CR, and she wanted to try to run a game. The stars truly aligned!)

I started playing, then DMing, and found that it was a great fit for my interests. I used to be a theatre kid, and I was getting to act again (something I didn't realize I was missing). I was getting to build and flesh out characters, which is what I love the most about writing fanfic. I was also discovering that I was stretching myself - world building and plot had never been my strong suit, but as a DM it became the majority of my creative effort. It gave me soft deadlines with people I didn't want to let down, and it made me truly social again for the first time since college. Essentially, it was filling in all of the gaps of what I felt lacking in my life. This isn't a D&D plug because it wasn't D&D specifically, but rather a hobby that satisfied what was missing in my life. For example, I didn't realize how isolated I was before D&D until I had regular interactions with friends, and that isolation absolutely made the urgent-guilt-shame-confusion worse.

D&D gave me that final push to realize that I was OK with having a job and being passionate about hobbies instead of trying to fit myself into a career, because I was getting out of that hobby what I had been convinced I would get out of a career. I started to really value that I could punch out and go have fun doing exactly what I wanted to do. (It feels so obvious as I type this, but it took me a long time to get here! Sometimes it really is that simple!)

The above is specific to my job vs. career struggle which may not be in the mix of things you're struggling with. But what I do think is universal/can be your take away, is that sometimes you just have to actively choose to let go of the pressure to be doing things. Which, I know, sounds so much easier than it is (and part of why I think it just takes time/is part of growing older). But I think it's something that can be worked at over time, by checking in with yourself about what you feel, why you feel it, and what you need to make yourself feel better in the present.

It's been 6 years since I started that semi-related job, and I'm still there. I still live with my mom. I'm still single. My circumstances have not changed since 24, but honestly? I'm OK. When I check in with myself about it, I do enjoy living with my mom and our dogs (even though I'm 30 and "real" adults move out). I am happy more often than I'm not (much more, actually!). I have a job that allows me to be done after 8 hours, and I have hobbies I look forward to doing each night (and the energy to do them, most of the time). My weekends are free to play D&D with my friends and laugh until I cry. That is what I've worked out as my definition of what I want life to be right now. You'll notice it includes none of the "milestones" that those younger than me have hit.

As I noted on that text post tag, I still struggle with this. I definitely have days where I think, I'm a mess, I'm not DOING anything. It's hard. But time does help, those days become fewer and farther between.

I know that was probably a hundred times longer than you wanted it to be, but I did want to illustrate just how much of a process it is. It takes time. My summary advice is to check in with yourself often, be honest about what you want and what you need, do not let anyone else define where you "should" be. And if you aren't living life how you want to be, identify what you can do (however small) to make yourself feel like you're getting closer.

#ask #me #personal #i am so sorry this is a novel #i hope that it helps you even a little!#can you believe i can write about myself for 2 hours? embarrassing lmao #long post

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kayr0ss · 5 years ago

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Welcome Home

[LWA, Diakko, domestic, family, baby?, cute happy shit]

Akko and Diana are still settling into this new life, routine, and responsibility. But coming home to this...? It was the best thing that ever happened to them.

—–

Diana clicked at the button of her retractable pen, eyes moving rapidly from left to right and back again. She paused, humming softly to herself while she appraised yet another essay on how ‘the advent of big data and analytics is a turning point in the synthesis of magic and artificial intelligence technology. She scribbled her remarks on the paper’s margin:

‘Revise – provide suggested guidelines and security measures for magic-infused data-driven machinery.’

Now, it may come as a surprise to many, but Diana never really considered herself a traditionalist. In fact, her on-going tenure at Luna Nova’s higher-education learning center is heavily decorated with progressive and future-minded research and perspectives. This idea, however, simply sounded a little too much like… Croix—and she wasn’t going to pretend that kept her at ease. But Diana also believed that very few people fall far beyond redemption, and Prof. Croix’s appointment as the Head of the Magical Engineering Ethics Board was the perfect example of redemption if there ever was one.

‘As we’ve learned historically, aggressive technological progress should be done under the guiding hand of ethics and humanitarian agenda,” she jotted down. She spared a quick glance to the office clock her before diving back down into the paper.

05:17:PM

Still early, she thought to herself, I could probably finish this stack before going home and—

“Quarter-past-five!” she suddenly exclaimed, forgetting that her former working hours of until well-past-eight were no longer applicable. Recent events had turned her entire world… upside-down.

“Grading will have to wait until tomorrow,” she hurriedly—but meticulously, of course—tidied the papers into her drawer; the pile on the left for marked papers, and unmarked papers on the right. Her keys jingled while she put her belongings back into her handbag, and the hurried clacking of her heels signaled the other professors of her early retreat back home.

Diana Cavendish rarely rolled her eyes, but by Jennifer the traffic was horrendous on the north-bound lane. Which she wouldn’t even be on, had she not forgotten the towels she was supposed to buy earlier in-between lectures. Akko reminded her thrice that morning (each time answered with an obedient, “yes, dear.”) Diana was once again reminded that one of the most surprising—and amusing—things she discovered since her marriage to the brunette witch was that between the two of them, Akko was ‘wife-zilla’.

06:13:PM

And there was extra-emphasis on the ‘zilla’ part lately. Traffic be damned, she was going to get those towels.

“Eep!”

The sharp whistling of a boiling kettle startled Akko out of the sports magazine she was so deeply engrossed it. Shit shit shit—she clumsily shut the glossy pages closed, darting towards the kitchen and—kami-sama, why did Diana think it was a good idea to have doors everywhere? “Stupid door,” she groaned, anxious to silence the whistling lest it disturb their special guest.

She lunged towards the stove, snapping the burner knob closed. “I could have done that with magic,” she flicked herself on the forehead, old habits from a magic-less childhood kicking in during the oddest moments. She blinked, scanning the kitchen counter for a small box before realizing that she left it back at the living room. “I’m almost as bad at this as I was at transmutation spells!”

About five minutes later, she was jogging back towards the dining area balancing a warmed tumbler in one hand, and several plastic utensils in another. She narrowly avoided tripping over the carpet (“Fuck!”), and was unfortunate enough to hit her shin across the low coffee-table, warranting an impressive parade of crisp, native-to-Japan curses. Thank Kami-sama it was Friday, she thought with relief. Diana would be taking over evening household duties by Monday and she damn well needed a break; even if a break meant more hours working.

She tipped the warmed tumbler over and let a few drops of its content spatter at the back of her hand.

06:37:PM

It was still too warm but should be just fine by dinner time.

[Capitalism is a predator, but I’m nearly home.]

Diana hit ‘send’, letting her wife know that she was around 2 blocks away while waiting for the last stoplight to turn green.

[As long as u got the towels lol. Tnx, luv u :-*]

Diana smiled at Akko’s reply, turning her attention away from her phone screen when she saw the soft glow shift from red to green. Yes, she had the towels—and maybe a full set of Reuven-Eilhart designer night pajamas. Or three.

She also brought home new ‘friends’—she saw that the store had recently released a set of ‘We There Bears’ themed products. Diana remembered Akko raving about them; they were apparently quite the in-thing as of late. She was immediately drawn to the pure-white polar bear with an interestingly unreadable expression. “That un’s ‘Nice Bear’,” the clerk supplied. “But if y’gonna get ‘im, you gotta get the whole gang else he’d be lonely.”

And so she did—because if Diana ever did anything she never did it half-way done. Frizzly Bear and Fanda sat snugly beside him in the backseat.

The blonde witch pulled up into their driveway, sorting out her belongings before stepping out to unload her shopping bags from the back. She opened the door and couldn’t help but laugh at herself.

“What has become of me,” she smiled, wondering how to bring three bears and several frilly-looking things into their house without painting herself as silly.

06:53:PM

Warm, yellow light flooded through the dining room curtains, and the familiar sound of their car alerted Akko to Diana’s arrival.

“She’s actually home on time,” she remarked to a little fellow seated at the end of their dining table, pulling on an exaggerated expression of being impressed. But Diana’s arrival always makes her smile, so she walks towards the front door so she can giver he wife a hand and—

She paused, taking a strong sniff of something which was coming out of the kitchen.

“Oh, no.”

The pizza! There was pizza burning in the oven! She bolted back towards the kitchen for some damage control, relieved to find that the pizza was only beginning to blacken at the crusts—easily salvageable.

“Mou, Diana’s gonna give me an earful,” she whined in defeat. She could hear the sound of their door unlocking, followed by footsteps through their dining area and the rustle of shopping bags being unloaded.

To her surprise, Diana had no drop of sternness in her voice. “I’ve missed you,” she cooed.

Akko broke into a grin, turning to face Diana. “Missed you to—”

She bit back her words, fascinated at the sight of her wife, looking weary from a long day, cradling their beloved Sara with all the fascination in the world. Their daughter giggled up to her mother, hands reaching for her face, prodding at Diana’s nose (which scrunched up adorably) and pulling at her platinum curls before squealing in delight.

“I may have missed you, as well.” Diana teased, tossing a smile to Akko’s direction.

“That’s hardly fair!” Akko tried to pout, walking towards the two people she loved most in the world.

Diana nuzzled against Sara’s forehead, running her fingers softly over the thin patch of light-brown hair beginning to grow longer. Sara perked up immediately when Akko came into her field of vision.

“I think she likes me better,” Akko whispered before kissing Diana’s shoulder. She wrapped an arm around the pair and tickled at Sara’s nose.

“Not a chance.” Diana leaned her head against Akko’s, watching as Sara grabbed onto Akko’s finger with a chubby little hand.

“Did you buy her another hundred sets of pajamas?” Akko raised an eyebrow.

“Only three,” Diana tried to hide her defensiveness. “And... several room accessories?”

Akko laughed, “pretty soon we’re going to run out of space in her room. This little lady has got you wrapped around her finger!”

There was no use denying it, so Diana simply rolled her eyes.

“Come here,” Akko smiled. “Welcome home.” She moved up to her tiptoes, and Diana turned her head to meet the brunette half-way for a small kiss. She appreciated the way Akko’s embraced tightened around her torso and warmed her chest; the way it made her family feel so... whole.

Akko pulled back, but Diana chased after her to steal another quick kiss, amused at the way Akko would still blush whenever she did that.

“So,” Diana gave her wife a look, “burnt pizza for dinner?”

“Mou, Sara! Your mother is such a bully!”

A/N: Woohoo finally churned another one out! I’m feeling a bit sick, and it’s early in the morning, so hopefully there aren’t that many typos/errors. Anyway I’m doing fine, hope you all are too! I’ve been re-reading Appointments over and over so I can get a feel of the writing style and flow I used to have for it and finally finish the next chapter. I do feel out of touch from how I was back in 2018; so I really need to do a lot of fanfic reading. You guys have any suggestions?

ALSO - meet Sara! Her name means vivid blossoms; it’s Japanese but also western-sounding so win-win for both moms. A homage to ‘Botany’, with the flowers and everything. She was originally meant to be Leia, because I’m a big Star Wars fan, but hey! I saw Sara and instantly thought it was the best fit. Hope you enjoyed. :) [Also, I’ve noticed I tend to switch between past / present tense a lot and I’ll be working to actively fix that moving forward!]

#Diakko #Dianakko #Diana x Akko #diana cavendish #atsuko kagari #kagari atsuko #Akko Kagari #Akko #LWA #Little Witch Academia #Fanfic #Yuri #Femmeslash #Fluff #Family #cute #wholesome #family fic

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aries-writingblog · 4 years ago

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Atlas (4)

Summary: After years of being imprisoned on the Raft, Tony negotiates freedom for his sister Tessa. When she’s free- so is her past, and it will never stop hunting her.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OC(Stark)

Chapter Word count: 1939

Warnings: PTSD (subtle ish), trauma, torture (in later parts), suicidal behaviors and thoughts, mentions of death, character death, injury, violence, angst, and a lil bit of fluff in there

Disclaimer: Atlas is my own, original work with characters belonging to Marvel (except Tessa and Dr. Clifton). Plagiarism is not cool kids.

A/N: this is my first work Im posting to this platform and I’m really excited and nervous about it. Hope you enjoy- constructive criticism is always helpful as well!!

Tony stared at the screen, wondering why he was God’s choice of boxing partners. He had been decoding the intel all night, only becoming increasingly concerned as the data rolled through. There was a surplus of data that encrypted with the title ‘Project Maelstrom’. From what he could tell, it was centered around Tessa. The head of the project was a Dr. J.R. Clifton- the one who was dicking around with things he didn’t understand and caused his baby sister a lot of pain.

What Project Maelstrom seemed to have as a goal was to create more of her. This time on purpose. There were samples of her blood that were torn apart. X rays and documents of medical visits labelled T. Stark. There was even detailed descriptions of the only two missions Tessa had been sent on before she was thrown in the Raft.

Tony would admit- he was curious, burning with the need to read every detail of why she was locked away. Tessa wouldn’t tell him. Ever. And the army never gave a clear reason, just that she was a danger and her whole squad had been killed on a mission. Nothing more, nothing less. When Tony threatened them with a lawsuit, he was told that Tessa would get the death penalty if it went to court. So, he had to play nice.

Instead, he called a meeting at the ass crack of dawn to decide how to play this. He was slightly wary of breaking the news to Tessa, as it was all based around her and her powers, but he figured if he had enough fire extinguishers on hand, everything would be fine. As long as she was contained on one floor. To one room. Maybe we should meet on the roof.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“So... what’s the move?” Tony asked, hesitantly. He was trying to gauge reactions around the room, mostly focused on Tessa. She seemed to lock down as soon as he mentioned the mission reports. She wasn’t surprised or fazed by much of the other intel.

Bucky had also instantly switched his attention from Tony to Tessa as it was brought up. She hadn’t spoken to him since the incident in her room- three days ago. She remained on her floor, although Wanda had convinced her to come down to eat with her, Steve and Vision every day at lunch. Wanda seemed to have that persuasion on her.

He noticed her clam up, keeping her eyes low while Steve began to form a plan, with the help of Natasha and Tony. Bruce was sifting through the medical records produced from the intel, gleaning information to research his own. He had been curious about Tessa’s enhancement but the woman wouldn’t let him near her with any medical or scientific equipment. So, he agreed to wait until she was ready for it.

“What about the mission reports, what do they say?” Steve asked, reaching for the papers. Tessa immediately leapt up, snatching the papers before he could reach them. She looked down at them, seemingly trying to confirm her suspicions before lighting them on fire, letting the ash fall at her feet. She swallowed harshly, meeting Steve’s shocked eyes.

“There’s nothing important in them.” She snapped, dropping the last of the papers. She turned to Tony, anger in her stance. “Did you make more copies of those?” He blinked and shook his head.

“There’s the original on the drive Wilson brought back.” He answered, already aware of what she would ask him to do next.

“Delete it.” She hissed, spinning on her heel and stomping out of the room. Tony nodded, even though she had already slammed the door shut.

“Anyone want to check on her?” Tony offered. There was a hesitance in the way Bucky stood up, pushing his chair back. Tony’s eyes narrowed and zeroed in on the hulking mass of a man. “Anyone else- cause, not to be petty but he’s already killed the rest of my family and I’d like to keep what I have left around for a while.”

Bucky’s expression didn’t alter but he felt the sting of the comment. Nevertheless, he sat back down, pulling his chair in, clasping his hands on the table and keeping his gaze on them.

“Tony...” Steve chided, anger and self righteous indignation in his tone. Tony rolled his eyes before turning back to the papers. None of them could refute the obvious. Everyone was aware of the obvious- the Winter Soldier responsible for the death of the Starks- and they were aware of Tony’s less than forgiving attitude toward the recovering soldier himself.

“Whatever- just let her go, maybe she’ll blow up the top floor and set fire to my belongings.” He responded, grumbling as he began the presentation again.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Days later, Tessa was still being temperamental. Bucky had not spoken to her, Tony had been locked out of her apartment. The only ones she let in were Sam and Wanda. Sam attempted to soothe her, trying to help her make sense of her head and emotions. Wanda ensured she was eating regularly and trying to help her make sense of her powers. She knew a thing or two about out of control enhancements.

Bucky had been upset, moping around his shared apartment mostly because he was unable to talk to the person he had feelings for. The one person who he felt actually wanted him around. Steve took notice after the umpteenth sigh and ensured him that he would try to set it up for him.

“What’s that supposed to mean, jackass?” Bucky’s nose scrunched up and a wrinkle presented itself on his forehead. Steve rolled his eyes and tossed his paper to the table.

“I mean, on the mission. I’ll make you two partners. Someone has to be responsible for her, a guardian when she’s on the field, and you two got... close.” Steve began folding towels, turning his back to his roommate. Bucky blinked twice before snorting. Steve turned back around to see him pouting. “Oh- what is it, you’ve been moping around for days now- what happened between you and Tessa that’s got your panties in a twist?”

“First off- what the fuck my guy?” Bucky’s hands flicked toward him before resting on the table he sat at. “And second, it’s none of your business.”

Steve almost called bullshit. He could see that Bucky was bursting at the seams, almost exploding with his problem. The guy was the best at sneaking around to find intel or perform his espionage but ask him about a girl he had a crush on and the man would spill like a can on a car. Steve knew just what to say to get him to talk- it would only take him asking once more and Bucky would spill his guts.

“Okay... all I’m saying is that you two were helping each other. The progress you made when you started hanging out was phenomenal- exponential almost.” Steve commented, nonchalantly and kept folding his towels. Only a few more seconds now and...

“She doesn’t sleep well.” Bucky started. Steve mentally congratulated himself on being able to manipulate Bucky into talking- the same way Bucky was able to manipulate Steve into doing his share of chores. “And so I’d see her in the kitchen at night when I couldn’t sleep and we started talking. Then she gave me her dog tags, because I said I never got mine back. And my heart exploded. Steve- I’d never thought I’d feel like this again. I just want to make her happy- I want to see her smile and I want to be around her- I want to talk to her.”

Steve knew the importance of the relationship when Bucky stressed that point. Bucky never went out of his way to join a conversation or even speak to someone. It always had to be initiated by the other party and even then it was one sided. Bucky hated talking to other people. So to actually want to talk to her... Steve felt that progress was being made.

“And then, after the mission... she let me touch her.” Bucky sat back in his chair, remembering how he held her tightly. Remembering how she latched to him, like her was her life line. In a way, he was in that moment. “She let me comfort her and hold her... then she fell asleep and had a nightmare and set my shirt on fire.” Steve’s eyes widened as he whirled around to face him. Bucky was quick to defend her. “It was an accident- she apologized but... I think it hit too close to home for her. She kicked me out and she hasn’t spoken to me in days. What am I supposed to do now? I’ve grown so close to her and now... she won’t even look my way. I thought she had the same feelings but, maybe I was just caught up in my emotions, remembering what it felt like to have feelings for a woman.”

“I don’t think it’s that, Buck.” Steve assured him. He’d seen the glances Tessa gave him. She’d greet him with a ‘good morning’ and already have his coffee mug down with coffee in it. “Maybe she’s just scared. She doesn’t have a good control over her powers and she set you on fire. She just needs time, you both need to be patient with the other. It’s not gonna be easy.”

“I know that... I just- I want to jump straight into this feeling but she’s holding back... and I don’t know how to help her.” Bucky muttered. Steve had seen this before- granted it wasn’t the same reason. It was when they were teenagers and a senior girl had been stringing Bucky along because he was the best looking in the sophomore class. Poor Bucky actually had feelings for the girl but she was just trying to prove a point to her friends. But he knew Tessa was holding back for a different reason. A selfless reason.

“Just try and understand her side. If she gives you the chance, explain how you feel.” Steve couldn’t believe that he was giving Bucky girl advice. It used to be so different went they were younger. “Maybe flowers- buy her flowers to show that you’re not pissed about catching fire.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Everyone suited up?" Tony asked, tossing his glasses onto the seat beside his iron man armor. Steve and Natasha were sitting in the pilot seats, switching buttons and levers, preparing for takeoff. Sam was doing last minute repair work on Redwing, while Bucky sat beside him trying to hold back on jamming his finger directly into Redwing’s circuit board- just to annoy Sam. Wanda and Vision were sitting together reading a book they had borrowed from Laura the last time they had visited Clint. Bruce decided to stay behind, as he usually did. Tessa was the last one on the jet, taking a seat in the far back, hooking herself in and just sitting quietly.

Everyone gave Tony a response- whether it be a grunt, nod, or a ‘fuck off, mom’ from several of the passengers. Tony spared a glance back to Tessa when he didn’t hear a response from her. She was wearing the design he’d made for her. Completely fire proof, black tactical pants with a long sleeved black spandex shirt and black combat boots. She wore a Kevlar vest over the top. She was also decked out in weapons- knives in her belt and boots, a hand gun on each hip and an AR- 15 sitting by her side. He’d wanted to go for the dramatic but Tessa practically cussed him out when she saw his first idea.

“Hey, kiddo.” Tony scooted in beside her, bumping hips as he buckled his harness in. Natasha had announced take off in two minutes so he settled in beside his loving sister for a pep talk. “How you feeling?”

“Did you read those reports?” Tessa questioned, forgoing formalities and small talk. Her dark eyes landed on his face, worry and irritation building up in her brows.

“No, I didn’t. I wanted to because you never talk about it but I didn’t.” Tony sighed as Tessa relaxed slightly into her seat. “I just want to be here for you and you don’t make that easy when you hide things from me.”

“If it makes you feel better I also lie to my therapist.” Tessa cocked her head to the side.

“Well that I can understand.” Tony scoffed, gently elbowing her. Tessa smiled, looking down at her fingers, playing with a string on her fingerless gloves. “I love you, you know that right?” She nodded. “Good. So, just keep your cool this mission, alright? Don’t be afraid of your powers. Don’t be afraid that you’re putting us in danger. We can handle ourselves. And you’re paired with Barnes so just... keep your head down and follow his orders- even though I’d personally like to jab his eyes out.”

“He’s a perfectly nice guy.” Tessa muttered quietly.

“That murdered your parents.” Tony pressured, trying his best to not throw himself into a tirade. “He’s responsible for so much death and destruction-“

“Well so am I...” Tessa shot a glance at Tony, shutting him up instantly. It was the first time she had ever admitted it to him. “He isn’t the only one here with blood on his hands- the whole team is morally grey when it comes to the lives saved and taken. Besides, he wasn’t in his right mind... he’s a good guy.”

Tony could see it- the light blush on her neck and ears. He felt a pit forming in his stomach- she wasn’t falling for the guy, was she? There was so much he didn’t know about his sister from the past six years. That made him feel even worse. She had gone through so much, too much for someone her age to deal with and she wouldn’t even talk about it. So why wouldn’t she fall in love with the first person that actually listened to her- that made time for her.

“Tell you what-“ Tony told her, unsnapping the buckles and standing up. “After this mission- we go to that pizza place you and your friends used to terrorize in high school. Just the two of us. Catch up on everything we’ve missed.” Tessa looked up, meeting his eyes. The dark brown eyes of Howard Stark, passed down to both of his children.

“Sounds nice, Tony.” She agreed. “Stopping for doughnuts on fifth?”

“As many as you want.”

“It’s a deal.”

#james barnes #james buchanan bucky barnes #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x oc #bucky x oc

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transfemininomenon · 5 years ago

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Hey, i'm actually a "truscum" i found out recently, but im a little confused on the whole ordeal. Im not even sure if i actually am truscum or not- because some posts seem to tie up with me being one but others dont, but i saw you were really against them, so i wanted to ask if you're okay with a friendly calm conversation about it? I am very confused and i just want to learn a bit more or find out if i'm wrong about the whole ordeal. Are you open to it?

i'll be honest im not sure how friendly i can be with this kind of conversation because i really truly genuinely, and i don't use this word lightly, Hate truscum and its hard for me to really be civil about the discussion. but for the sake of this and me giving you a lot of benefit of the doubt that this ask is in good faith i'll explain why i do not like the entire truscum ideology

1. i guess i'll start off with the Big One - the claim that dysphoria is Required to be trans. i'll preface this by saying that i am someone who has experienced, and currently Experiences in wildly different degrees depending on what is happening in my life, dysphoria throughout my entire life. i had my entire teenage and young adult years stolen from me by it. i won't get into details about it because that is a Very Very Personal subject for me, but needless to say dysphoria is something that was a very prevalent part of my life.

anyway. the notion that dysphoria is a Trans Requirement™ is something that i hugely disagree with. i used to think that me figuring out i was a trans woman was because i experienced dysphoria, but frankly the opposite is true. dysphoria is what made me refuse to believe i was a woman or could ever be one. it made me believe i was a man and that was all i would ever be. it wasn't until i really started experimenting with my gender and unpacking a lot of stuff i felt about myself that i started to finally realize the woman i was. i first started trying our she/her pronouns nearing four years now, and started using the name Alice a few months after that. being referred to as a woman & experimenting with different feminine things gave me such incredible feelings of euphoria that i still experience to this day whenever i discover something new about my identity.

and that is something ive heard from SO many other trans people i know. or different things too - i know people who are completely fine with their bodies, just certain words and terms never felt Right to them. because the thing with dysphoria is that it, like all things gender related, is a product of society. dysphoria only exists because transphobia exists - people are told that there are these two rigid things that you are and HERE is what makes you one of those things, and those things are drilled into you literally since birth. everything from colors to jobs to hobbies to cars to entertainment to clothing to Literally Everything is gendered, and when that happens then of fucking course there are gonna be people who don't fall in line with that, and when it's so instilled into people and seen as such societal norms of COURSE people are going to have trouble with that.

and that's not even getting into the subject of gender on a biological level. the fact of the matter is that the two sex system Isn't True and that biological sex is very complicated. intersex people exist, people with all kinds of different chromosomes exist, people of certain body types that have higher levels of different hormones exist, SO much goes into that subject that frankly narrowing it down to two things just doesn't Work

and that's the real problem at the end of the day. dysphoria only exists because of a fucked up gender binary that clashes with both biology and sociology. people are complicated on both a biological and personal level and having set binaries for things is bound to cause confusion & doubt.

like, people's identities are SUCH personal things in so many different ways. there isn't any Right Way™ to be trans. i know trans women with beards, trans women who have no interest in starting hrt, trans men who wear dresses and makeup, non-binary people who make no effort to be androgynous, i know SO many different identities and different people. because the fact is that there's no right way to be trans because nothing is inherently gendered including people's very bodies. people are themselves and there is no Right way to be themselves.

that's on top of the lack of education when it comes to the subject of gender. such a huge part too of me figuring out i was trans was literally learning that it was even a fucking option. i genuinely didn't know just Being A Girl was an option. reading up on gender stuff and researching the different idea of transitioning was intrinsic in my figuring out who i was because oh shit turns out there are people like me and that is Okay.

like, dysphoria literally could've been a non-issue for me. i could've lived in a world where i could just Exist and enjoy whatever i wanted without it being weird. i could've decided so much sooner that i wasn't happy with the way my body was growing and not spent my entire teen years being so confused why i was so sad seeing my girl peers. i could have from the start just gotten to be a girl and never have had dysphoria be part of the equation.

im not trans being i experience dysphoria. im trans because being a woman is rad as hell and it's what i wanted. im trans because changing my name to Alice was the biggest moment of my entire life. im trans because rebelling against the societal restraints of gender is fucking metal. im trans because my friends can't even remember me ever not being me now. im trans because im a great older sister. im trans because god nerfed me and i said nah thanks man but im not feeling it.

my identity and my gender are very personal and complicated things, and narrowing it down to "i experience dysphoria" is frankly insulting to me.

anyway, that's the big point out of the way, so here's some shorter ones

2. this is kinda expanding on the last point, but truscum both insisting non-binary people aren't a thing and them insisting "transtrenders" exist is hmm Bad

the sheer fact of the matter is the concept of being non-binary has existed from the oldest known records of human history on TOP of that concept being prevalent in many different cultures so what do ya know there's a healthy dose of racism involved in the denial of non-binary people. the gender binary is such a western concept and there are SO many different cultures where different gender identities exist.

and, frankly, going back to the above point that gender is fucking Fake and is a societal concept - again, of fucking course there are going to be people who see a rigid set of rules on gender and are like "well wait that doesn't fit me" so of COURSE non-binary people exist

on the subject of "transtrenders" i feel like i shouldn't even HAVE to get into this subject because of how inherently transphobic it is. the concept doesn't exist. there are people who experiment with their gender and then decide their assigned one is fine. there are people who go through all kinds of different identities. there are people who come out as a different gender and then revert back due to backlash. there are people who get told the way they present their gender is the Wrong Way™ and get branded a trender. it's a dangerous thought process that literally does nothing but serve the cis status quo and make people afraid to experiment and think about their identities.

3. the idea that Those Evil Trenders™ are stealing resources from the Real Trans People™ is, frankly, fucking bullshit. issues when it comes to trans people finding difficulty accessing healthcare comes from a transphobic society hellbent on denying us care on top of fucked up healthcare systems in general. hormones aren't some limited quality hard to acquire thing - when i started hrt transferring my prescription from my clinic to my local pharmacy was a non-issue because it's something basically any pharmacy will have for ALL kinds of different purposes. it's an issue because healthcare in general is a god damn Mess on TOP of inherent transphobia

and, frankly, truscum are directly involved in that transphobia in the medical field. unless you find an informed consent clinic you're going to have to jump through all kinds of hoops to prove you're Actually Trans™ by getting referrals from other (almost always cis) people and then get put on ridiculous waitlists to make sure you're not about to change your mind. that kind of attitude is only encouraged by truscum and it is one of the biggest source of trans people having such difficulty accessing healthcare.

4. truscum as far as im concerned are no different than any other transphobe. two years ago before i started hrt i was harassed by truscum multiple times, each time having them tell me i wasn't trans, that i was just a trender, and it genuinely boggles my mind that anyone thinks misgendering me because i disagreed with their ideology is Woke, actually. I've seen so many fellow trans women getting called men by truscum who disagreed with them. i was actively told i shouldn't start hrt because i "wasn't really trans and was gonna ruin my life"

i really hope all of people live in anger every day knowing ive been on hrt over a year and a half and am fucking Thriving

anyway that's all i got to say on the matter i realize my points became less thought out as it went on but frankly the first point is enough for me to not like truscum

(please refrain from reblogging this i don't want any clowns in my inbox)

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emeto-omo · 5 years ago

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I have a D&D player that is fucking driving me up the wall. I’ve kinda blown up today about it, and I feel bad on one hand, but on the other hand, I don’t. Mostly I don’t want him to quit playing, but to understand the consequences of the shit he puts me through every week. Because I’m tired fam. I enjoy playing with him, I don’t enjoy the OOC/meta bullshit.

I’m a brand new baby DM. Like, sure, I started playing D&D back in 3.5e...but I loathed it. Mostly, because our groups were less about the roleplay, more about being murder hobos...and I enjoy playing spellcaster classes which...if y’all know 3.5e...took a few levels because you felt anything of consequence. You could like..magic missle ones or twice and then you got to smack things with your staff until you got to rest, while everyone else could just do their shit because they didn’t have spells... So I REALLY enjoyed 4e because it was story heavy. Everyone hated it, I know, I know. God forbid we RP through a TTRPG, but I’m one of those people who THRIVE on a good story. Anyway...5e came out and it’s split the difference. Spell casters can CAST SPELLS FUCK YEAH CANTRIPS AND NOT HAVING TO TAKE READ AND WRITE MAGIC AS SEPARATE SKILLS...there was math, you could be a murder hobo, but I wasn’t stressing out and could still focus on roleplaying. But this player of mine...first off, I spent SO LONG trying to homebrew them shit (which y’all know...balancing homebrew shit when you’re not fully a new player but never been past 2nd level in spite of having played for years...it’s over-fucking-whelming) I found a better class for them. They decided they wanted to be an Artificer after reading an article about how much of a headache they will be for DMs because of how unbalanced (OP) they are. They enjoy power gaming, but don’t want to outwardly pointed out as a power gamer. As long as I’ve known them, they’ve always had to like, semi be better than everyone else. Smarter, more powerful, whatever it would be, they had to be MORE. But generally...did it without being an asshole. You could talk to them and they could tone it down, nbd. Okay, so like, we’ve been watching Critical Role and thankfully it’s sparked everyone to want to play. I explained to them...don’t expect Critical Role, I’m too shy and nervous of a DM to do that shit, no matter how much it is my dream. I’m like, I value story over mechanics, but we’re gonna keep the rules for balance and we can fudge them sometimes for killshots (much like Matt does sometimes for his players). So like...I asked my players what they wanted. Largely everyone just said ‘we want to play’. Cool, okay, fine. The player in question mentioned wanting to reach level 3 for once, and I’m okay, alright, we’ve got this. I found an adventure that gets you to lvl 3 by the end, and we set off. Now, we’re about to finish this module and this player has continually just kept tossing out /suggestions/ on what they think i need to do to better the game...unsolicited....when they’re less familiar with the game than I am and know how stressed I am. I field question and suggestions DAILY for them for our once a week game...including researching ways for them to go off book for their Artificer with some things (like doing a Captain America shield). Now they’re upset they’ve reached level 3 by the end of this. Now they’re wanting me to change things to make them harder (IM SORRY YOU PICKED AN OP CLASS IN A GROUP OF 7 PLAYERS IN AN ADVENTURE FOR 4). Now it’s all these things, and I’ve just finally had enough. Don’t tell me you want one thing and then complain when I give it to you. Don’t specifically pic a class because they’re overpowered and then complain things are too easy. But it’s my fault, I guess. I brought it up and instantly, they’re just trying to be helpful, I should know how they like to run numbers, ect. NO, goddamn it, you asked me for shit, I gave it to you, and you’re having buyers remorse. Don’t blame that shit on me. Literally, all our other players are happy as pigs in mud just doing what we’ve been doing. They get to play once a week, that’s it, they’re happy. But like, goddamn, the one picky player I have doesn’t want what they keep asking for and I’m just over it. Totally ruined my drive to DM.

#personal #long post #D&D #really tired of this bullshit

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maddieforrest · 7 years ago

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What Do I Want To Do?

I don’t know why at this point in my life I’m feeling a bit baffled. What will make me longterm happy? I feel like recently my brain has been stuck in this weird loop, thinking of all the things I could want to do and trying to figure out with one of them will make me the happiest, because to succeed at any of them, It seems like I have to either choose one to be really good at and get greater and greater at it and also post about it constantly.

I love indie comics! I love reading them and they feel like such a unique infinite artform where you can use so many beautiful techniques to make them and i love designing within the format of the comic, pushign panels into each other and having monsters lumber through one to another and talk to you and each other through this portal. I feel like I can create a world within them that my monsters inhabit and it could make me happy.

I love Jewelry, I looked at it as my true love and the medium was infinite and that I could design within the sculpted format and think three dimentionally, and my days, when I focused on that completely were so fruitful and fullfilling and I dreamed up such a life for myself and saw the end of the road as a famous jewelry maker and thought oh my what a thing to dress people up in costumes and let them see themselves as extravagant and otherworldly in my jewelry, it is the perfect life mission and one that I like all the steps of conducting. The mold making is such a fun puzzle and makes me feel like im really hands-on working, like i like. I love seeing each piece as it came out and seeing how the glitter concoctions i made came out. I loved buying all the materials and just surrounding myself with weird tactile beauty that never existed before i made it. I love the feeling of resin in my hands and making the organic shapes I did felt so rewarding to touch, like magical artifacts from a world that never existed inside my heart. Sappy I know, but I’m in a sappy mood right now, I’m trying to determine my stupid destiny, let me have this!!!!

I could see making beautiful illustrations and strange sculpted gallery-hanging things my real art and something even more precious. This used to be my main main longterm goal and I was so set on it for a long time but i don’t know how much i like the gallery world and focusing so much on one piece that goes away. plus the people that buy it are all rich and i don’t know how lovely that life would be, selling my stuff to rich people who life a life i don’t. who knows maybe i will be rich then. that seems unlikely but also i know im speaking completely about a world and people i don’t know.

why did i stop singing? Why am i afraid of that? I see people around me follow their singing dreams and i envy them but also see how there’s nothign in their way and there’s nothing in mine. Even if i don’t win the game and get followers and find people who want to pay me for what I’m making, even then. I think it would be fine because I would be doing it. Making songs is hard though. But i don’t even know if that’s really true, songmaking is just more nebulous, all the information is being made in my mind and i have to look at it in my mind and remember it and sculpt an invisible thing in my mind and that has frustrated me but maybe i just have to let myself play. That was my first dream, to sing for a living.

I heard about polymaths, who are people who are pulled toward many different avenues and collect those skills and just ARE many things. Many great people of history were polymaths, like Childish Gambino!!

I can do that, I’m already doing that with working as a hand model, which i like very much and it makes me feel important and necessary, and also doing stop motion which also makes me feel important and necessary and makes use of my visual eye and ability to make good art choices! I think as I take jobs and do things i learn more about mysefl and what I can do and all I can ask is to have fun along the ride of experiencing me. I want to just do that, have fun experiencing me and seeing what that’s like. Who am I? what can I do? What things define me, I don’t like being defined as one thing, but also my life is too short to be all the things I see, so i just have to work really really hard, but aslo have a life of leisure would be nice too how to do it all, I imagine if i work really hard now the future can be a little leisure but also i see so many people later in life where that never happens to them. Is the point just to ponder this into infinity till we die not knowing anything? I’m not happy just sitting and watching a movie, i have to be acomplishing something. building towards something all the time or taking a break from doign that for an afternoon or day but never does it leave my mind. i dont know. im figureing it out.

I love stop motion fabrication. It is the smartest option of all the art futures i can see for myself. I get to be around loving and beautifully creative people with weird perspectives and dreams and the same attitude towards life as i do, and i can see it being lucrative, no rich maddie future, but thriving maddie future. I am feeling more positive towards it and i am starting to get jobs in it and i am thrilled and nervous and frightened and in love but cautious. This next month of my life, starting the 20th, im going to be on my biggest stop motion job yet! It’s going to be hard work that I feel i can accomplish but that I know i have to really focus for because it could really jumpstart my career i think. it’s 18 days total and 5 days per week at $250 per day and i don’t know what’s going on. I was asked to do a stoopid buddy job and had to turn it down because i was already booked on a hand modeling job and I kindof feel crazed about that but i only remembered that that was true right now recalling it. Gosh. A while back, i got to talk to Jessica Dalva about her career, very briefly. I was thinking about this so much, as i seem to do once in a while, and she has a similar path that I have had i think. She was in stop motion and then went to just making what she really wanted to make, figures on a wall in the most elegant and haunting of poses. She explored beautiful emotions and surreal artifacts, but not full stories.

I suppose, if you think about it. I don’t need to lead the whole lifepath to appreciate the end goal, the object. When I look at some comics, i know i could never even get near making the majesty that they are, so I’m so glad someone else dedicated their lives to showing me how great a thing could be if you went all the way with it and learned everything about it and sought such perfection with the path. I know then that I shoudln’t try to go down every path maybe or I wont get to the end. but is the purpose in the end to have an end that is great or to have enjoyed the journey to your full ability to enjoy it, and the monotony of one thing is too boring even if it could give many people the feeling of complete awe for a very small duration of their lives.

in my research of this world and what it has to offer, i feel like im coming to a thought recently, that the best way to explain whats great in the world is through stories, those get to the heart of things, not object making but story weaving. Maybe? But i also feel like stories need support roles. the depiction of good emotions and the correct deep emotion weaving is part of good depictions of stories. What would a pixar movie be without every little part that one person added to the big puzzle. Individually, did each person feel the same amount of fulfillment from doing one of the more menial parts? I need missions. I need things to feel a part of, even if those things are things I just make up but also things that already exist. Like with mattel, i feel like im part of making something that affects children and tells them what’s good and lovely that they could play with and make believe with. toys are so magical and i really believe that. I puppet the dolls really well, i think and I take pride in my work, and it feels good that it pays a lot for such a task, it feels like they’re saying what I’m doign is so worthwhile. It just has increased my confidence a lot. which is so weird because i got the job accidentally kind of and had never thought of such a field as a way i would identify in any way and for a while i rejected it so much, but i think everyone is just themselves and who they are isn’t defined by the things that society has already made me feel they are defined by. It’s so hard to shirk that internal feeling that i am what I do. I am how nice i can be, how witty i am, how i feel about music, how i feel about other people’s beauty, and how i want to know you.

to be continued, i just typed until i was less confused and down, and now I shall continue to figure it out and shit.

#diary #art #artist #whatamidoing

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hidehidehideho · 4 years ago

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Everything About Botanica

So, if it isn’t obvious, I haven’t been keeping up to date with my blog. I guess that I felt I was more focussed on my studio class and how that has affected me. With the Grad show, the works I’m trying to make and the personal developments and reflections I have been doing that have stemmed from deep and heavy conversations from that particular class, I haven’t really been considering this project. A lot has happened this semester, its been crazy and at this point, I just want to finish.

But I want to talk about everything that has occurred with this project, my personal feelings, the good and the bad and how things have been resolved-- just everything. The previous posts were just details about our work and where different ideas came from, the artists that we have looked out an dhow our idea has taken form. But this post will dive into the nitty gritty.

The idea of having an interesting and though provoking work in a highly engaged festival really excited me!! I was keen on the idea of creating something that challenged my current practice and help me grow. As well as that, it would be pretty cool to have this festival attached to my CV as I feel that i am lacking in my artistic endeavours currently. Just something to keep me going and allow for me to attain new skills. I was keen to collaborate with out people genuinely. However, I feel that i was drawn such a short stick.

The first group I had, during the first 3-4 weeks when we ere doing readings was okay I liked the other visual artist and we’ve become good friends now. The other two in my group were dancers and although they were okay, I didn't like their superficialness. I know it’s unfair to say i don’t like something abut a person when we are brought together to collaborate on a work, and have to navigate ourselves to create something together, but I felt that things were so surface level and that there was a clash of personalities. I guess basically, there were comments made that I didn’t like. They were unfair things. It was really petty stuff and I had hoped form there I could be transferred into another group that would be better streamlined. But it just got worse. I really don’t and didn’t like the current group I am in. Environmentalism was my last or second last option and yet this was the group i was put in. I felt that the splitting up was redundant and that there was no consideration at all. I get the encouragement of cross disciplinary connections and ideas however there was a level of unfairness.

I truly have no idea on how we came to the current idea that we have. I don’t really like the idea that much and I feel that it was born through our divergence of ideas and lack of communication. I really don’t remember the idea ever being discussed until it was pushed to the point it was something we had to settle on.

I felt that there was no streamlining in the group at all. And there was no willingness to try new things. There were clashes int eh group. There seemed ot be an elitism within my group and I felt that i was on the bottom of it. Why? Maybe because of my degree, maybe its because of our privileges but it was just because of our different ideas. It felt a lot different than that. My parts got cut out, i was ignored for quite a while and because of that, i immediately checked out half way through this project. If I am honest with you, I absolutely hated this project and felt that there was no support whatsoever. i can’t deny that also falls on my lack of reaching out for help, but I don’t want to be reduced to overthinking or making things into something that aren’t. i remember when I had to make time to back to my hometown and telling my mother about my internals tress about the project and how i felt so sick and anxious. I talked through how things were going and she said “Darcy you should tell you project manager, it’s real what you’re feeling, say something!” and i just couldn’t. I felt that I had no support. I felt that what i was feeling wasn’t real or didn’t matter. I felt constantly invalidated. “Oh you’re just making it into something its not. Oaky then. Its fine. it doesn’t matter.

I dreaded coming to class every week. i didn’t like the way it was managed. One week I had (for lack of better word) a panic attack and didn’t go, just went to the city instead to have some time for myself. I haven’t had one of those kinds of days since high school. I acknowledge that it could’ve been other things and i could’ve said something but i will not go through finding the courage to say something to then be invalidated. I guess an answer to that is “well this is how collaborative work normally is” and I disagree with that in . the creative field. I can choose who i want to collaborate with and what were going to collaborate on. Its different in a business setting and sure, its something that you just have to deal with but feel that the response is lazy and weak. If there is no balance then there is no positive outcome.

Whilst I didn’t mind one of my the members, I felt that there was a lack of work ethic. I genuinely think that two members did a really good job on staying on top of things and Im thankful that they picked up in areas I did not. My work ethic slacked too with this class. I was more concerned about my studio class. But as much as I hated it, I at least tried to sort myself out so that the others could manage what they had to as well. The other two members didn’t have much that they had to do but were quite lazy and left things very last minute. Myself and the first two members didn’t appreciate that as it was a group effort .This is a small gripe, but I will admit that. But it is important to note it as a part of the overall process i guess.

We tolerated each other. Barely sometimes. There was a lack of communication in our group. I came to a point where I did not care at all and just did what I had to do. Personalities clashed. There were many passive aggressive message sin our group chat. Even in person. There were times where I, or another member, had to become stern to keep us on track with out idea, to try and keep it simple and not overcomplicate our final product. A particular member was adamant on having a dance performance included so we had to work around them. I know nothing about dance, so you know, it was a learning point. What I couldn’t stand was the unwillingness to learn new things, to integrate themselves into something that is out of their comfort zone. That we, as a group, had to make space for her because she couldn’t have a dance showcase. that she tried to leverage her privilege with complaining about minuscule things that have no effect on er life whatsoever but to come across as someone that was struggling. is this a personal dig? yeah, it looks like it is. But it’s so infuriating to be talked down to.

This sounds like it’s getting personal, doesn’t it? To be completely honest with you, I think it was. That we all knew that we didn't really like each other but we had to make something to pass. There was the collaborative work, but here was the underlining intolerance.

So how was all this resolved on my end? Well, I just took a step back and did what i needed to do. The ignorance and invalidation irritated me, so i just focussed on my efforts with the work. Did what I could when l could. if there was anything I did enjoy was the feedback that our idea had received during the first and second presentation since it was something that made me consider art again. I didn’t feel like I was making art anymore, it felt like I had to just bite my tongue and hope that the weeks fly by. And that was something I hated, that I didn’t enjoy this as much as I wanted to because it felt more personal. Something was not sitting with me right.

But what have i learned from this? Aside from the personal stuff, there were many things that i had learned, especially about the gardens. I was really interested in hearing about the meticulous management of the gardens, its history, the Indigenous connection to land (wish there was more of an emphasis on this), and even learning about spatial works too. It’s always really exciting daydreaming about making a work to be interacted with by the public in a way that is completely different than white-cube space interaction. I think even working through the technical trials and tribulations and having points that we didn’t think of being brought up was something that i enjoyed too. Much like how in a previous post, an audience member brought up the visual readings of our proposed idea. That was something that always excites me because it’s a point of reconfiguring a smaller aspect to make sure the idea as a whole is strong and clear. The art process taught me a lot in that large projects require a lot planning and fine-tuning so that the work is refined. We didn’t go through many issues with our proposed idea, it was pretty steady and straightforward. We knew to donate the clothes after we used them for our work and repurpose the frames or give them way to be recycled. The idea was straightforward, even with the tweaks and critique that was brought up. It’s hard with clothes since they’re complicated materials however, the research expands our options on keeping with our environmental theme. It was a simple fix, really. It went smoothly with the work, but underneath it didn’t feel so smooth at all.

I guess personally, I resented this class because of the lack of support. I wasn’t being heard or acknowledged. The collaboration, on the surface, looked fine. But underneath it was all just a tension in the room that we quietly overlooked. At the time I checked out, it just became a waiting game. I can understand that it’s difficult managing a project like this under the constraints that we, as a whole, were going through. Working with other is always an interesting experience but this felt like btichfest that I didn’t want to be a part of. In the end, whilst there were smalls things that i enjoyed, I’m more glad it’s over.

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kuriquinn · 7 years ago

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Hey Kuri. I just need a little life advice. How did you find your call in Teaching? I'm kinda struggling right now trying to find what I want to do with my life. Im going back to college soon but the subject I'm studying isn't what I'm interested in. I've tried to love it but its been difficult. I often times feel like a disappointment to my family because my siblings are all doing great and I feel like a loser not getting there yet.

Strap in, there, Anon, this’ll be a long one…

If I’m being honest, my call isn’t teaching - it’s writing. Even now, though I have a Big Girl Job and everything, which pays my bills and keeps my fur babies in food and toys, I consider my writing to be my real job. Even if, at the moment, it’s just writing fanfiction.

The first piece of advice I would give you for anything in your future is to do something you love. That way it will never be a chore and you will stick with it longer than five minutes.

Now, on the heel of that, the second piece of advice is: if you can’t pursue your passion, pursue something you don’t hate. And it might take you a while to figure out what that is.

I graduated high school with pretty decent grades, went to a good college and did well there (Liberal Arts), and I applied to university hoping to major in Creative Writing and Minor in German Language. My outside logic was: it would help me get into a writing field like journalism or translation. Inwardly, I figured I was just taking university courses while I was busy writing my novel and that before graduating I would be published and famous and rich.

Yeah, eighteen-year-old me was a bit of a naive idiot.

Cue life-experience:

My parents were kind of wary about the whole thing, they didn’t really believe I was doing a good thing, but it was my choice and they had to respect it. They knew what I didn’t, but would learn for myself. At the time I was also working in a bookstore, which while not my passion or anything, I actually enjoyed. Work never felt like work, and for minimum wage, that’s a good thing.

Flash forward to my first semester of university, in which I learned that a) my German skills were beyond what I could be taught at uni and I wouldn’t be able to take half of the courses I needed to fill my minor, so it was basically a waste of time to take and b) my Creative Writing classes basically centered around having a published author (and I use this term loosely to define a person who self-published one grungy, literary shock fiction and passed it off as literature) get up and talk about how to write. And not write actual good stories with decent plots and characters and such, but the gritty, sensory, detailed lyrical crap…and if you didn’t try to write exactly like that person, they flunked you.

So trying to follow my first passion didn’t exactly pan out.

I ended up switching my degree completely, majoring in Classical Civilisation and minoring in History. I figured, I love history, and I love research, maybe a degree in this could help me get a job in museum studies or as a researcher or something. The next two years passed quite nicely…and though my part-time bookstore job fell through because of crappy managers, I started to tutor a lot more (and my brother was in his last years of high school at this point, and needed my help getting through his classes) and I realised that I was actually pretty good at breaking down information and explaining it in different ways. Plus, I already had a lot of experience with learning difficulties due to my brother.

So, one year before I graduated, I get the bright idea to become a teacher. I had enough credits to switch majors, but the problem was, my university only offered Early Childhood Education…and while I dearly love little kids, more than five or six of them below the age of ten would probably drive me insane. I figured teenagers would be more mature.

(*pause* *waits for riotous laughter from Those Who Know Better*)

Anyhow, I had to apply to a whole new university program just to get into a high school teaching program. And that was the most miserable two years of my life, because teacher education is the most useless piece of trash degree you can take. You know when you learn? When they stick you in a school as a student teacher. I didn’t learn one thing from my second university degree except that sometimes the only way to move on to the next stage of your life is to sit through the boring shit and get a stupid piece of paper saying you sat through the boring shit.

And THEN…

I didn’t even get a job for another two years.

The thing people don’t tell you about university is that when you get out, there is almost no one hiring. The Baby Boomer generation is not retiring any time soon, the job market is flooded with so many newcomers that competition is fierce, and on top of that, your chances are reduces based on what field you go into. Science, Engineering, Computers, Medicine, Business and Law? Competition will be fierce, but you will definitely have a job at the end of your degree. Anything else? Unless you somehow become famous, every other job out there has a crappy percntage of hiring, and chances are you are going to have to get an average Joe job for a year or two before you actually get hired to do what you studied.

Me, I had one learning experience where I moved to England because there’s a huge demand for teachers (and learned why there’s a huge demand is because the school system there is complete shite), and then spent a year unemployed and basically acting as an unpaid domestic/caregiver because my mother was sick (I lived at home, though, so that’s why it worked out). I still tutored when I could, but I didn’t have as many clients as I had hoped for. Things were so bad at this point and I was so depressed I couldn’t even write…

I did finally get hired, but the way I did won’t make you feel better. I basically sent my resume to one of the schools where I did my field experience, telling them I was available for tutoring in the upcoming year. I got a call back (on my birthday) to see if I was interested in taking on an actual teaching job - they remembered me from my internship and remembered my brother (who once was a student there).

So I basically got the job because I knew someone.

And that’s the reality of it. You will not get a job (in certain fields, at least) unless you know someone. Networking and good interview skills are so important to getting hired these days, and your ability to be social (or fake being social) is key.

Even now, I’m not exactly secure in my job. As a teacher in the private sector, I don’t even have a contract. I literally spend every August sitting by the phone biting my nails hoping that they’re going to call me back for the year.

But it’s a foot in the door. You always have to think about it that way.

Contrast this to my brother - he finished high school, took a trade (auto mechanics), and had a job within a year. He now makes and will continue to make more in a year than what I will in two. He had his forever job at 19; I didn’t find mine until I was 27.

Now, if you’re still with me and I didn’t bore you with my life’s story, here’s the take away:

1. Pursue your passion. If you can make a living from it, you’re one of the lucky few. Keep doing you, and don’t let anyone tell you differently. Friends, family or loved ones, it doesn’t matter what they think.

2. If you can’t pursue your passion (full time, at least), do something that you don’t hate. Something that you are good at, a job where you can show up to and do your work happily and then go home at the end of the day and not stress about. Again, if anyone is telling you to do something you hate, DON’T. In five years, you’ll be burnt out, stressed and miserable. It is so not worth it. And if this is an Average Joe Job like working in a bookstore? Fine. Do that. It gives you more time to pursue your actual passions, and looks good on a resume.

3. Get a trade. Seriously, if you put off university for a year to get a trade, like real estate or mechanics or electrician or something, you not only give yourself the ability to be hired sooner, you can also support yourself throughout your academic career - and for those of you facing a future of student loans, this is so important!

4. If you pursue higher education, be prepared to change your mind A LOT before you graduate. You might find your are more interested or better at a certain subject that you thought, or a complete loss. There is nothing wrong with changing your major or minor until you find the right fit, just make sure you get all your General Education courses out of the way first so that you have that leeway.

5. After graduating, unless you’re in certain career fields, be prepared not to have a job right away. Get an Average Joe Job to keep you going, keep sending out CVs and going to interviews, and just hang in there - you will eventually get there, even if it takes you a little longer than your friends. And network! Make sure you keep in contact with people who might be able to help you in your career.

6. If you have the money and means, travel. Because chances are you won’t have the chance to do it once you join the rat-race.

7. MOST IMPORTANT: Do not let stress take over your life. You MUST find a way to balance your life while you worry about school/career stuff. Go out with your friends, travel when you can (even if it’s just a day trip to a museum!), write or paint or play music or build models or code or binge watch your tv show of choice, or whatever it is you do for fun - make sure you do it every day. Because your brain needs a way to unwind from the not so pleasant adulty stuff.

Anyhow, that’s the advice Twenty-Nine-Year-Old-Present-Me would give Nineteen-Year-Old-Me on the eve of starting university. I don’t know if she’d listen to all of it, but I wish someone had told me all that. Especially the parts about not getting a job right away. I thought I was a humongous failure because I couldn’t find work, when the reality was, I was just one of thousands of people seeking employment in an uncertain economic environment.

So, on that note, I hope that you managed to find some comfort or guidance in these words. Remember, you are not a disappointment and everyone moves at their own pace. Maybe you’re having a slow year and your siblings aren’t. Maybe next year you’ll be the one who has exciting new opportunities and they are stuck in a rut. Our lives are very static and you never know what’s coming around the next bend. Just keep on keeping on.

And personally? If I was struggling to love my college program? I would take a very good look at whether it was really for me.

Thanks for the ask :)

#advice #ask kuri #life lessons #the important thing is to breathe #career #school #passions #wish someone had told me this #the more you know

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goodnightwatch · 7 years ago

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AN (IM)PERFECT COLLECTION

An Horological Psychologist’s Magnum Opus, or How a Lowly Graduate Student Amassed a World-Class Collection of Fine Timepieces.

By: Andrew Lawrence Smith

Part 1

You might think it’s easy to collect watches, but I’ll have you know that even if you’re the richest person in the world, you simply cannot know what to buy and when and where and why to buy it until you have put in an insane amount of work. In some ways it really evens the playing field between the rich and the working class because it’s not about money, it’s about achieving a holistic collection that balances and harmonizes everything from wrist-time to occasion. Collecting is as much of an art as the watches themselves. Some people get lucky, sure, but then again some people win the lottery and if you’re reading this, that is not going to happen to you, probably ;).

Hi there. My name is Andrew and I am a 37 year old PhD student and Jungian Depth Psychology Consultant finishing a dissertation in Jungian & Archetypal Studies and Horology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Do they offer the horology part? No. I created that after being unable to separate my depth psychological research from wristwatches. This is what we deem a vocational call. When you spend hours observing the least and the greatest of watches under magnification to understand what “fine” means and when you press each watch against your ear to hear every tick and tone made by the watch, you’re just barely beginning to be on the path. My research discusses how timepieces, the wristwatch in particular, might function as a modern mandala, having a real connection to the unconscious archetypal Self, but that goes way beyond the scope of this essay. To understand some of the terms I use, you might need to dip into Jungian depth psychology, and for the most important definitions, they can be found here: http://www.psychceu.com/jung/sharplexicon.html

Many arrive at a collection that fits them by procuring countless timepieces and then throwing them back into the abyss in order to please their peers (fashion watches and status pieces) and have the experience that refines one’s taste, some of which I’ve done, but the serious collector will lie in wait like a dragon observing from atop a mountain of gold; the gold being serious knowledge, in the vein of attempting to acquire an horological and psychological philosophers’ stone. When all variables align—after months and years of reading and discussing and visiting boutiques and second-hand shops either brick-and-mortar or online—only then will one receive the full satisfaction of the perfect watch for them, the perfect complete set, and the perfect price to once again return to one’s perch fully satisfied with the catch/game of a lifetime. Needless to say I will not be discussing the auction world at all. Auctions are for rich people. Although the rich or super-rich should go through the process that I have gone through, they really don’t have to. Their loss. Then again, they hire guys like me to pick out their watches! This is a story for the ultra-conservative (no politics implied) watch collector. The metaphor of the miserly, yet punctilious dragon, represents the foundation of the composition of an horological psychologist. Horology is cool, psychology is cool, but I contend that it is only when the whole process of being an horologist is twinned with the knowledge and experience of depth psychology that one can truly enter into this deeper world of alchemical achievement, understanding, and appreciation.

Put another way, what I have found from studying wristwatches—as they relate to universal mandala symbols—is that the image of the timepiece, especially the wristwatch (in my own psyche) replaces every single religious symbol with a unified and integral symbol of the height of human consciousness and beyond. I’m more than just your average atheist, I am an horological psychologist who has integrated world mythologies into a knowledge and gnosis of being that connects the alchemically perfect timepiece and the supreme meaning of the individual and collective psyche; Jung’s notion of the archetype of the Self, the whole being of the individual. For more on that, you can hold out for my completed dissertation, and in the meantime read C.G. Jung’s “Memories Dreams Reflections.”

The image above was taken by me and is from C.G. Jung’s “The Red Book: Liber Novus.” It is one of many mandala images that Jung created to symbolize the whole Self archetype. A perfect watch on the wrist does not fall short of the feelings evoked through this depiction of presentiating origin: becoming fully integrated into the purest harmony of consciousness.

Part 2

It was by accident, or rather synchronicity, that on the 28th of June, 2012 I found myself attracted to a cheap, skeletonized mechanical wristwatch that was glaringly out of place amid items I was perusing to fill a few needs for my San Francisco apartment. I had been studying Nikola Tesla in depth and was possessed by the genius of his inventions and notions of free electricity. I thought that using/wearing a watch, which would need no battery replacement, was/is an ecologically responsible and very cool thing to do. At $120, it seemed expensive, but I was overcome by a strange feeling of passion and curiosity in the name of the great Tesla (best human who ever lived) and so I ordered it. Full disclosure, I sweat bullets on the MUNI back then thinking someone would mug me for that watch. Now I ride the bus with a Rolex hanging out like IDGAF x). But I digress.

Upon removing the watch from its box for the first time after it arrived at my door, little did I know that I would from that day forward never go another day without enjoying a mechanical watch on my wrist. Case and point, at this very moment I am wearing my Breguet 5327. Thus commenced hours upon days of winding, listening, and viewing the watch under magnification so that I could figure out how everything worked. It might’ve been a poor excuse for a watch, but I could not stop staring at all of the moving parts, which had me mesmerized as if I was flying through the clockwork at the train station in the film Hugo.

Even in this bottom-of-the-barrel movement that had been manufactured in a place with vastly lower standards than Switzerland, I could see motion and beauty that had/has me transfixed on a level that was/is far greater than any basic aesthetic, technical, or functional appeal. I purchased a few loupes—5x, 10x, and 30x—to get a closer look. Since I still have this watch, I do not have to imagine what it feels like to dive into the minute details of every stationary and moving part. I can gaze upon, and through, the synthetic rubies right now and see a universe of possibility in an instrument that is only meant to tell us where the sun in the sky might be at any given moment so that we will know when to perform certain socially agreed upon human rituals. That said, with each of my watches I often engage in Active Imagination (a Jungian method by which one re-members or discovers knowledge sourced from the collective unconscious) and the imaginal entities that animate in my own mind, inspired by the wristwatch, tell endless, fascinating stories.

Two years after encountering that initiatory watch, owning cheap mechanical watches of various designs and complications (my experience of horology exposure 101), I finally took the plunge and bought my first fine timepiece. Now to be fair, I must mention that I spent a lot of time during those years defending my cheap watches as if owning something that costs more than a few hundred dollars US would never be necessary, like some poor souls still do, but eventually I grew up and made the sacrifices necessary to possess something serious. You need a thick skin in the watch world in order to interface with other Modern Day Watch Enthusiasts who are worth talking to. Surviving your own ignorance to become horologically knowledgeable is a noble and brutal journey through the underworld. And as Jung would have it, emerging from this underworld is simply another stage of individuation; an expansion of consciousness improving the abilities and life of the individual.

My first fine watch was the Omega Speedmaster Professional ref. 3577.50 “from the Moon to Mars” purchased on the 2nd of January in 2014. Obsessed with Elon Musk’s dream to travel to and terraform Mars, as a byproduct of being equally obsessed with Nikola Tesla, this was a watch that not only met all of my horological desires but also instantly possessed a multiverse of meaning for me. I imagined that one day I would take this watch with me on a public transport to the Red Planet. Elon wants to die on Mars, and quite frankly, so do I. To me this watch was so expensive (for me at the time) and so perfect that there would never be a reason to own anything else. Again, little did I know that I would be very wrong about that. Enter the “Coke.”

The Rolex GMT-Master II 16710 Coke began to burrow into my mind as I continued to scour the internet for the best deals on fine watches of all kinds. Every single day I was on eBay, Chrono24, watchestobuy, watchuwant, Crown & Caliber, Jomashop, The RealReal… You name it, if the site was selling fine watches, I was keeping tabs. Apologies to anyone I missed. By this time I was reading magazines, blogs, and watching all sorts of videos that were giving me a fairly exhaustive exposure to what was out there and who was buying/selling certain kinds of timepieces in certain categorical brackets. My aim was/is to understand watches on a deep psychological level as they affect the experiences of others and of course my own Self. Not just to be a numbers guy who can flash the timepiecs but say almost nothing meaningful about them. I must confess that it is important to know that, in regards to my personality type (INFP), I operate heavily by listening to my own intuition, and I could not shake this watch; just as I could not shake the Mars. There was more than just the analysis and process of elimination, it was something like a powerfully religious magnetism. The Coke was coming to me in my dreams. I have the dream journal to prove it! However, that’s in my dissertation. On a number of occasions I placed offers on a Coke, but came up with nothing because either a) the seller was shady, or b) I just couldn’t get the price or set where I wanted it. Dealing with watch sellers can be tricky, unlike being face to face with your local AD, so it’s important to be patient and cautious; to not be so excited about that exact watch you’re hunting that you get taken for a ride.

Then finally the day came when I saw a great deal for a clearly authentic Coke (gotta have that paperwork) in amazing condition and I made an offer that stuck. Again, I thought I was going to be done forever. That this was the collection of a lifetime. I had unique Speedmaster that almost no one else had and I had a Coke, which is a highly respected and desired timepiece across the globe. I chose the GMT because I could use it to track 3 time zones more efficiently than on any other timepiece, including world timers, and this came in very handy with all of the traveling and international communicating that I do. Not to mention, the whole design of the watch and color scheme is unusually attractive and versatile (still my favorite Rolex, aside from material objections), but I had not ever seen one in the metal. On a flight home from Cyprus I ran into a guy who was wearing one. I asked him if I could see it and of course he obliged. I have pictures to prove it (see below). I was wearing my Moon to Mars and just knew that the Coke would complete the circle for me. The one thing that I did not really take into account until my own Coke arrived was the size, which didn't register on that agonizing flight back to the US from Cyprus, where I had attended an amazing conference on Time and the Psyche. The conference was a magical experience, but I do not recommend that anyone fly a cumulative 44 hours just to have 5 days on the ground, no matter where you are going.

I ordered my 16710 from 1989 at a great price in pristine condition with papers and when it came, I was bewildered. It seemed so small! Was it actually fake? Did I get bamboozled? Impossible. All of this time I had been looking at huge blown up pictures of the watch and assumed it had the same presence as a Submariner, but there it was, 100% authentic and smaller than I expected. I wanted that Submariner-style crown, big and chunky, but after a while the size of the 16710 crown began to make sense and the tasteful nature of this specific piece became clearer from one day to the next.

I spent so much time examining this Coke, to make sure that it I hadn’t made a mistake, that synchronistically every aspect of its charm became powerfully apparent and intoxicating beyond belief. I had been wearing obnoxiously large watches with Chinese tourbillons that dwarfed even my Speedmaster and now finally the curse was lifting. I saw the light. Praise the gods! Certain watches worked for certain wrist sizes and certain moments in life. Wearing a watch that is too big for you is simply childish and lacking in discipline and taste, just like believing that there is a god that is literally real. This Rolex functioned as training wheels for wearing watches that actually fit properly and looked correct for my physical build and personality type. I remember thinking that the bracelet was too narrow and that the case of the watch only covered the surface area of my wrist, which made it feel like there wasn’t enough watch there, but in reality it was a match made in mythological, alchemical heaven. To this day I still think that the textural design and character of that vintage Oyster bracelet is better than the new 904L iteration and that the 116710 is right on the line of just barely being not too big. Unless you’re deliberately trying to be a clown, a dinner plate on the wrist is no bueno.

In all of my idealism, I thought that the Coke and the Mars were going to be my life companions, but alas we never really do finish growing and developing. Especially when we finally meet that special someone! Enter the Kwan.

Part 3

It was my great fortune to synchronistically meet (a story for another time), date, and ultimately marry my wife, the magnificent Jane Kwan, who for better or for worse has supported me through this transformational journey that is watch collecting. She was kind enough to be fascinated at first, and is now at least tolerant, but when I began to show her how you could actually store value or even potentially make a little money with the acquisition and sale of certain timepieces, she started to pay attention. Chinese people, like those of my Jewish heritage, love a reliable investment opportunity. I made it my goal to abandon hunting “good deals” on a wide range of watches and began hunting the exact watches that I would personally want to own and wear (not just stick in a vault), but only if the price was extraordinary or unusually fair. The Internet has made this relatively easy, if you’re willing to put in the time, and so I scoured the entire visible market for what I felt would be the perfect watch. Long story short, I discovered and then began to obsess over and follow/hunt the Patek Philippe Calatrava 5153G-001. Believe me when I tell you that I have written many pages about why this watch is, to me, the perfect dress watch, if not the perfect watch all around, aside from not being as durable as a Rolex, but again I digress. To be honest, this watch was my holy grail (a subject that I have expounded upon in other places as possibly the single most abused horology term aside from “in-house”) and I thought that I would never get to see it in my lifetime.

One day I found the Calatrava for sale online at a price that was unbelievable. My wife is almost painfully patient, and so we watched the piece sit on the website for nearly a month, while I nearly fell apart with anxiety waiting for her to make a choice. In the end, her instincts were right because the price continued to go down. But I really could not comprehend why no one was buying it. When we made the phone call to see about a best offer, we were able to take the price down even lower and so acquired the watch well below value thanks to my wife’s belief and investment in me, your humble watch hunter. Blasting into the side of this mountain precipitated a landslide to follow.

Not long after that my wife wanted something that she could wear every day. I had been hunting the Rolex Datejust 116234 with black dial, because it is my favorite iteration of the DJ and was able to find that watch well below value also. I thought it might be a bit large for her, but when it arrived it was a perfect fit at 36mm. While the watch is very cool, and occasionally I’ll sneak it away from her to wear it for a little while, it doesn’t make the cut for a perfect collection for me. I needed my watch collection to devour the catalogue of essential horological functions and representations.

However, I was jealous of the almost white-gold looking oyster bracelet and thus I faced a dilemma. The call to adventure was back! I realized that I could own both my Mars and Coke or I could sell them and own the singular Rolex GMT-Master II 116710 BLNR as basically an even trade (at the time), a watch that I still think is slightly less appealing aesthetically than the Coke as it at that time pertained to my personality, but possesses the ultimate in materials ever released from Rolex. I needed some time to think about this. Rolex’s alchemy game had become massively stronger than where it was in 1989. A few weeks later, in Honolulu, I was flipping through one of the tour books and when I turned it over to look at the back, there it was: the BLNR. Synchronicity, as usual, was determined to prevail. Now, I know that this watch is heavily advertised, possibly more than Tag or Hublot if that’s possible, but at that moment I felt like I was looking at a picture of a long-lost friend. The time had come to pull the trigger. I had spent several lovely days swimming in the ocean with my Coke, and now it was time to let it go.

The beach I frequented during my stay in Honolulu. Anyone who has been there knows where it is ;).

A shot of my Coke in Honolulu on the way to get some Spam Musubi!

The rosary bracelt pictured here was acquired in Cyprus, gifted to me by the great Angeliki Yiassemides (author of “Time & Timelessness”), not long before I managed to acquire my Coke. The meaning is strong in this image…

The book in the hotel room demanding that I trade up.

Horology boutiques... Always calling me…

Impossible to find one with black dial in a boutique, I spent some time admiring this beauty in white before that time came when my wife made a dream become reality.

With a heavy heart, I managed to part with my first fine watch and my first Rolex, selling them for fair market prices. Finding the BLNR for a steal is basically impossible, especially if you’re looking to buy within a relatively tight timeframe (aiming to acquire the watch mere months before moving to Copenhagen), so I found the best deal I could with a complete set and as planned basically traded about the same amount of money for those two watches to buy the one BLNR. This was good enough for me and my wife because it is still holding around the same value I invested and I basically had the experience of buying a brand new Rolex with a complete set minus stepping foot inside of an Authorized Dealer, an experience that is not at all important to a watch hunter like me; at least not at this time of life, but maybe later when I have established myself and I can afford that level of treat.

I honestly thought that I wouldn’t be as happy with the BLNR, as with the Coke, because black and red is so much more “me” along with other reasons and qualities (yadda yadda yadda, as Jane is fond of saying), but when it came I was filled with excitement. I opened the box and there it was: my long-lost friend whom I had been missing for the gods know how long. Most call it the Batman, I knew immediately that this was to be my R2D2. It doesn't matter that so many others own it or that the adverts were drilling into my brain. Consolidating to this watch was possibly the best horological decision I’ve ever made because although there was still a lingering color objection, I suddenly had a monstrously better watch to wear every day that met every single other checkpoint I felt one could demand from a daily-wear: 1. 904L steel, which really does feel like wearing white gold, but not quite as heavy a. Something that can take the hits and scratches and will withstand polishing dramatically better 2. White gold hands and indices, which contrast perfectly against the black dial 3. Blindingly bright blue lume, which my wife prefers to her green lume and makes it easy to tell the time under any circumstances aside from maybe actual blindness 4. The blued Breguet overcoil hairspring in the tried and true 3186 movement, something I don't even need to see to appreciate 5. The 5mm comfort link, which is a huge design leap forward compared to the oversized and floppy comfort extension on the original Oyster bracelet 6. GMT aligned clicks, which didn’t really ever seem to line up perfectly with the 16710 7. And most important of all, the very first two-color Cerachrom bezel, completing, to me, the most wearable, useful, and legible timepiece ever made 8. When you consider that this watch not only embodies everything you’d want and nothing you don’t, it’s easy to excuse the blue and simply hope for the red to come through someday 9. Finally, in review, this watch contains the best of every Rolex white metal: 904L steel, white gold, and platinum. As such, it is an alchemical masterpiece; and it has that chunky Submariner-style Triplock crown! Now I like both crowns for different reasons.

People have been calling it the Batman, and I get that. I’m a huge Batman fan and wouldn’t try to change the moniker even if I could, but for me it is the R2D2 riding along with me as I pilot this time machine we call a human body. My consciousness is the Luke inside of this Incom T-65 X-wing Starfighter and my 116710 R2D2 is the choice navigator, always down to take a beating for the rebellion ;).

So now I had a BLNR and a Calatrava shared with my wife (plus her 116234 to enjoy when she isn’t wearing it), completing two out of four watches of a complete set that I call “a holy quaternity.” What more could a man ever hope for? Would I really ever need to break a sweat over more than these two watches to complete the ultimate collection? I even had access to my favorite Datejust when my wife wasn’t wearing it, even though it does not fit the bill for my personal living symbol of wholeness of Self. My little wrist R2D2 and our white gold Darth Vader seemed like a complete set all by themselves. And yet, there was more to come, and rightly so!

My wife and I moved to Copenhagen so that she could attend DTU to earn her MA in Architecture. Being the unreasonably lucky guy that I am, I got to tag along and spend my days exploring one of the coolest (and happiest) cities in the world whilst writing my dissertation on psychology and horology. Several months in, after spending day after day chatting with awesome folks on MDWE, a gentleman put a Speedmaster “Legendary Moon Watch” ref. 311.30.42.30.01.005 complete set in basically new condition up for sale. A discussion about how this boilerplate design was so perfect it’s boring was going around and so at first I wasn’t too keen on the watch. I remembered my Mars and thought that the original Moon Watch was too plain and too common. However, the more I looked at it the more I realized what it had to offer. So many guys were/are going in for that vintage chronograph with the running seconds and 30 minute register without the hour register, which is a great and classic and traditional watch concept/discipline, but I need the hours! Even if it challenges aesthetics and purity. Honestly, purity has never really been my thing ;). Authenticity is a whole other kettle of fish! So then what I realized was, this was not going to be a watch that I spent time looking at during the day. This was a Good Night Watch that needed/needs to be useful in the dark. What better watch for darkness and time writing/recording/chrono-scoping than a boilerplate Speedmaster?!

The price was fair and I could certainly get most if not all of my money back if I needed to sell it, so I figured, why not experience the moon watch as a complete package in all of its boring glory. Sure, it’s no Moon to Mars and the literature won’t come in Japanese with a dedication to one of the world’s greatest artists, Leiji Matsumoto, but it would still be qualified by NASA for space missions and there were lots of other very cool accessories that would be fun to explore. Not to mention the history, which I must say ought to be valued well above just one spectacular artist. I pulled the trigger and the watch and its enormous packaging were at my Danish door within a few days. Upon opening the display box, a feeling came over me that I did not expect. The watch was/is so much nicer than the Moon to Mars, so much more sober and less cartoonish (not really an insult, actually accurate), and it instantly felt like it belonged on my wrist and that it would blend in like some kind of chameleon-like symbiotic creature. Almost instantly I finally knew what this watch was for.

While the Speedmaster had been and is still being used for outer space missions, I would be and am using this watch for INNER space missions. I sized the bracelet, which was a joy because it came/comes with screw end-caps rather than the basic link pins, placed the watch on my wrist and then started the chronograph right before going to sleep. When I woke up in the middle of the night to journal my dreams, I knew almost exactly how long I had been asleep, which really helped me to prioritize my time so that I wouldn’t wake up so much that I wouldn’t be able to return to slumberland. After finishing my journaling, I started the chronograph again, went back to sleep, and when I woke up I could see that I had gotten the eight-ish hours I needed to be rested enough for the day. I’m sure some of you go through the process of sleeping for eight hours without even thinking about it, but my dream life is so active that it is easy for me to lose track of how long I’ve been asleep, so this watch became an instantly useful tool that I can’t live without, just like the BLNR. And because it’s manually wound, I don’t have to stress out the winding train of an automatic chronograph; plus I have the pleasure of winding a watch every morning as the third thing I do after photographing the dial and resetting the chronograph. What a sweet ritual for a watch enthusiast!

My collection was complete. Right? I had my R2D2, which would go with me everywhere during the day, and I had my Good NIght Watch, which would track my sleep intervals and follow me into my dreams. And when it came time to celebrate something special, the Darth Vader (Calatrava) would take its place on my wrist under a cuff. Who could ask for anything more? There was only one slight problem. A large part of my journey after receiving that first mechanical wristwatch was exploring RGM in depth, which led me to Breguet. While I wasn’t sold on the idea of spending big money for a tourbillon since the science shows that it essentially has no real effect on accuracy, there was an element to watchmaking that I had fallen in love with before I even considered owning a fine watch of my own: guilloché.

RGM makes a killer tourbillon (reminiscent of a Speake Marin/Hamilton hybrid), let’s not mince words, only paralleled by the likes of Breguet, Patek Philippe, and Greubel Forsey (honorable mentions, Louis Moinet and Jaeger-LeCoultre - that one’s for Tim Mosso), and does some outstanding guilloché work with their own rose machine/lathe in Lancaster, PA. However, if you’re going to really tighten the restraints on a collection that is meant to be perfect (a true holy quaternity), there’s really no other choice than to go with the godfather of the practice: Breguet; arguably the most important historical figure/alchemist in watchmaking, and the inventor of many components that even the so-called “holy trinity” (lame designation, because Christianity is for people who don’t want to read more books—funny/not funny) still benefit from today. Hence I controversially argue that Breguet completes the holy quaternity and in many ways is still on top of PP, VC, and AP as the senex manufacturer (Harlan MDWE, bless his heart, will of course agree–love you, mean it). By this time I had visited so many boutiques, Tourbillon SF being one of my favorites, that I was saturated with the knowledge of what Breguet and other top-end (not just high-end) watch companies had to offer. Out from behind the stormy clouds of tourbillons and Jacquet Droz and Blancpain and A. Lange & Sohne and De Bethune and Ulysse Nardin came a piece that on any other day I would’ve ignored.

The Calatrava that was/is already in our possession does in fact have a guilloché black sunburst dial, but I wanted something that had/has/emanates the vibrant, timeless energy of 18th century watchmaking tradition, radiating from its finely crafted alchemical masterpiece of a dial and case. I had the opportunity to experience the skeletonized Breguet perpetual calendar tourbillon, but there was something missing even with that watch. Again, size and money are meaningless and relative. It was when I finally had a chance to take a close look at the 5327 that I saw that in any class for any money, this watch had/has it all. It has one of the most extraordinary complications ever invented, the perpetual calendar. It has moon phase, which is hugely important in psychology as a principle of divine consciousness. It has power reserve, which is arguably unnecessary on an automatic watch, but with the layout of the power reserve, moon phase, and date register at six o’clock, the 5327 pays perfect homage to the notorious automatic (perpétuelle) quarter-repeating watch with dumb (à toc) repeater from the late 18th century. This was/is the Breguet to own! Sitting in an office piled with books, including volumes about Breguet and the lovely publication that was created for The Legion of Honor in San Francisco, when they had their Breguet exhibition and lectures, I found myself having a full experience of awakening to the truth of yet another wristwatch. Except this time it was THE ONE. The only... This time, without a doubt, it was THE watch to end all watches, for me. I had done the work. I had read the books, scoured the Internet, been to the boutiques, met or at least studied the people, and in the end the Breguet Perpetual Calendar Classique 5327 presented itself as the answer I was looking for from both the multiverses of horology and psychology: all of the craftsmanship, all of the technology, all of the meaning, and all of the enjoyment from wearing one could ever ask for. Period, paragraph, life mission accomplished. Except, I didn't have the money x). That solution, which came later, was the real blessing.

Before I get into that, on a more somber note, I would like to mention that compared to Breguet’s latest QP, the ref. 5447, Breguet made an unfortunate design decision that is not in keeping with the more traditional layout. Maybe it’s great for marketing, but it does two things: departs from the classique tradition in a way that is unbearably modern, and treads dangerously toward cheapening the name of A.L. Breguet. Swapping power reserve for retrograde month was a particularly unfortunate decision, almost as undesirable as the choice to switch the angle of the moon phase to a less interesting and, I would contend, invasive vertical position. While that dial might be slightly more efficient in terms of the flow of reference and legibility, it is far from an upgrade and has lost that original 18th century charm. I’d wager that Breguet himself might agree. As such, this specific reference, the 5327, continues to wear the crown (pun intended) as what I feel is the greatest Breguet QP wristwatch ever made. That being said, I have dubbed the watch my Holy Grail, together with the Speedmaster, the GMT, and the Calatrava, this completes my personal Holy Quaternity. However, there is always a “fifth element,” intentionally playing on a reference to the film of the same name from 1997. That fifth element (the eternal energy of love and passion) to me is the transcendent holy grail, which is a watch that is so extraordinary and so perfect for the individual that it doesn’t even exist yet. The super rich uber-collectors will know what I’m talking about: a subscription piece that perhaps one’s preferred watchmaker doesn’t even know how to make. For me, in all seriousness, this would be the currently imaginary and absurd Greubel Forsey Quantième Perpétuel Chronograph Grande Sonnerie in a 41mm platinum case. Although, I’d take a GF chronograph, as long as it’s hand-wound. Could it ever possibly get any better than that? I seriously doubt it. At least for an individual like myself.

And so recently I found this perfect Breguet at a ridiculously low price. I mean a price that normally only dealers get from other dealers. This watch needed to be procured. My wife was not about to invest another substantial sum into a wristwatch since she felt that she had already diversified in that direction far enough with the Patek. And so she suggested that I ask my father if he would be interested in making the investment. After lengthy explanations over email and handling some obvious objections that a non-horology scholar might have, he generously agreed to help me make the investment to both aid in my research and hold value that only presents itself once in a lifetime. Due to this generosity and collective cooperation, it is my privilege and responsibility to care for this Breguet as the final piece to my horological individuation puzzle. The mandalas to complete the supreme mandala of the current manifestation of my own archetypal Self have been assembled like Voltron. And now that the collection is complete, my mission is to take exhaustive photographs, engage in active imagination (alchemical hermeneutics) with each piece and the whole collection for my research, and to cook it all down in the vas alembic of consciousness to create my very own horological opus.

Here’s an example of what enters my imagination when I engage in reverie (Active Imagination or Alchemical Hermeneutics) around one of the watches (often including its literature), offering a lingering (reverie) around or daydreaming into the Breguet dial: The guilloché pattern for the power reserve looks like the waves of the sea or the ocean. I am reminded of the image of the solar barge in Liber Novus p. 55. Aptly placed, it is above the other complications, next to the moon phase, which is obscured by a hand carved cloud pattern: the essence of the imagination. So the heavens and the waters, forged in fire and carved into earth or metal. The pattern in the date register is that of a waterfall or descending cliffs, reaching down into the underworld. All of these being supported by the primary dial hand carved rose lathe or rose machined pyramids (clou de paris). The pyramids or sacred geometry of transcendent consciousness. Within the big mandala that is the watch dial are 5 smaller mandalas: the moon phase, which embodies our human-centric lunar story and mythology; the leap year, which makes it possible for me to see the accurate date for the rest of my life without adjusting the timepiece; the month, a centered indicator of the positions of the gods; the day, a de-centered indicator of the positions of other gods; and finally, the date, a concept invented by people who want to control time and other people, to no avail one hopes. Might be best to simply let go of that craving for control, let people be peaceful unto themselves and allow time to flow with the Force of Nature. A dream within a dream... The watch does have Breguet’s signature coin edge or fluted sides, so the watch is to be treated as a sort of super sacred coin. This coinage or coin edge appears to be symbolic of the archetypal pillar: the pillars that held Samson, the pillars of Rome, and the pillars of current modern civilization. However, even after this current human experiment is dust and rubble, the pillars of time will stand as strong as they always have and it will never have mattered that humans were a part of it. A testament from the Antikythera mechanism.

It is possible that I may actually have to sell the Breguet after I am finished with my research sometime next year, unless by some miracle I make enough money to completely own the whole thing by myself, but that is not important because all that matters is that for a time in my life I had, in my possession, a perfect collection. The Holy Quaternity! “For a few minutes, they were mine. That is enough.” https://youtu.be/c9O1VVeMzhc Charade (8/10) Movie CLIP - The Most Valuable Stamp (1963) HD.

It doesn’t matter how it got there and it doesn’t matter if I don’t get to keep it. What matters is that, since we can’t take any of this with us to the grave anyway, I have the priceless gift of the experience. This was a group effort. My sacrifices and investment were/are largely those of time, obsessive research, and unearthing opportunities, which in reality is just as valuable as the money others allowed me to use to assemble this project. From the depths of passion, love, and family, I have been made individuated and whole, for now. Through psychology and horology I have healed myself in ways most people cannot imagine and have had the great fortune to inspire others. Countering the cruel trick of the perpetual calendar complication (never being able to live long enough to see it need an adjustment), I am filled with gratitude for what I have had the privilege to do with the time I have been given. Through bringing all of these elements together, I have found true happiness and may for a time be with this imperfect, perfect collection to remind myself of the cost involved in striving to create something truly special: a genuine opus, if not magnum opus. No one can do it alone. We require relationships to individuate, as Jung said, and at the ripe age of 37, I know that my watch collection and my Self are at last in harmony.

Conclusion

Watch collecting is not just some silly thing men do with their extra money, nor is it about amassing a monstrous volume of different examples for the sake of becoming your own museum. Watch collecting is as much an art as is watchmaking itself or the creation of any sculpture or painting. It requires focus, dedication, precision of craft, and most of all it requires a determination to produce the best possible result from the knowledge that has been gained and the resources—people or otherwise—that have been procured.

I am continuing to work on my dissertation on psychology and horology while figuring out where I want to focus my career from here on out. It seems like Tesla, Inc. is the most logical choice, so we’ll see if they or a watch boutique will have me. As far as this collection goes, what I know is that I will always have my R2D2 because it is the one watch that I can’t live without that can go anywhere: land, sea, air, and space. Depending on what the future holds for me career-wise, I might have to live without the Speedmaster and just use a beater chrono until I rebuild my value strength, since it takes quite a bit more to hold a collection like this all on one’s own. The Calatrava will be here because it is my wife’s investment and my privilege to enjoy as part of our partnership. However, it is worth bearing in mind that none of these things are permanent and that any amount of time being in ownership of the completed holy quaternity set is ultimately more than enough of an accomplishment no matter how long you keep it together. It takes a lot of work to learn about all of these manufacturers and iterations and value propositions. It’s even harder to get clear which ones matter to you on a profound level to the point that you would choose four and exclude all others; especially when considering that owning these watches is a choice that was made at the exclusion of any other products, such as cars, houses, hoarding currency, and any other type of man-made creation. And then to have them all just sort of casually ticking away on your desk is a luxury that very few people will ever know/experience. For that I cannot thank the people who believed/believe in me enough. I am lucky, I am grateful, I have my wife and family to thank for everything, in addition to other friends and enthusiasts who were willing to engage my passion, and I hope that what I have learned and my story will be something that is paying my fortune forward: giving back to the collective community of folks who simply wish to be their best selves; to be good citizens, as Plato might’ve imagined it.

In review and in final conclusion, this is an imperfect watch collection that to me is perfect, in my estimation from the research I’ve done and the experiences that I have had:

It is my personal gnosis, based on my research in depth psychology and horology, that there are two kinds of quaternities (not trinities, because a trinity is really just an incomplete system, lacking the feminine principle, among other things) in the horological universe: 1. The top four watchmakers in the Swiss watchmaking industry a. Breguet b. Patek Philippe c. Vacheron Constantin d. Audemars Piguet 2. The top four timepieces in an individual collection a. The Good Night Watch i. A chronograph worn to bed to time sleep intervals ii. An instrument that centers one’s being between sleeping and waking b. The R2D2 i. The most essential and sturdy of all of the timepieces ii. A trusty companion for all of life’s terrains c. The Darth Vader i. The finest example of elegant simplicity with a touch of violence ii. A watch that possesses a seemingly invisible and powerful Force d. The Holy Grail i. The watch you will wear on your deathbed that will outlast you ii. The QP is a cruel trick because it offers a feature that you will never live to enjoy: not having to adjust the watch for over 150 years. iii. A watch that satisfies one from ever wanting to buy anything better, for now ;).

Quick note: I’ve mythologized part of this collection with Star Wars metaphors because that is the best story I grew up with: the futuristic mythological vision of Joseph Campbell only barely understood by George Lucas (as is evident in his prequel trilogy), based on his seminal “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.” One could easily substitute other similar archetypes for the designations that I have commandeered. Whatever gets you there. It’s all imaginal, but inarguably objective in terms of the archetypes.

As for the selected manufacturers, my opinion here is highly controversial. Breguet should be at the top, Swatch or no Swatch, because Breguet is the Grandfather of all of these other innovators. A Breguet watch lacks nothing in quality and discovery that these other companies are engaged in and in fact, in addition to the legacy/pedigree/history of invention, Breguet is still making timepieces that exceed the expectations of any connoisseur. Every little detail is given the utmost care and contemplation. This does not, of course, take into account watchmaking in other regions. Germany, A. Lange & Sohne in particular, is making watches that appear to be exceeding even the Swiss standards of excellence. This also does not take into account even conceivably more exciting independent watchmakers and inventors like Greubel Forsey, Roger W. Smith, nor even the late George Daniels.

Final thoughts, for now:

There’s a point at which, once you’ve hunted your favorite watch for it’s best price, you stop thinking about what the watch is worth and you begin to think more in terms of what the watch is. For example, I could stand outside in shorts and a t-shirt sipping a beer while admiring a watch that retailed once for $65-70k, but what I’m really thinking about is, 1. how does it fit my wrist? 2. how long will it last? 3. when will it need service? 4. how legible is this dial really? 5. do I like the weight and the fit of the band (strap or bracelet)? 6. could this have been designed better in terms of how it handles a diverse set of lighting situations? 7. was this really the right choice for the lug length? Cheers, Marc Goldberg ;). 8. could the moon phase have been tooled to be more accurate. 9. why isn’t the power reserve exact? 10. Are there any flaws in the guilloché? I’m looking at you, FPJ! 11. Why did they design the clasp like this as opposed to the Patek clasp method? 12. And sure, this dial is amazing with all of the guilloche patterns, but I can’t really see them without magnification because a) I’m getting old and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be and b) the beauty and contrast is only apparent under certain lighting, which makes the dial look washed out at all other times; not nearly as aesthetically pleasing as the Patek, which always looks good even when its sunburst guilloché pattern disappears into the black. 13. However, the most important question of all is four-fold: a. what did/does this watch and the work mean to the watchmaker? b. what did/does this watch mean to the manufacturer? c. what did/does this watch mean to the boutique collective? d. and what does this watch mean to the consumer in every sense: aesthetically, spiritually, historically, and depth psychologically?

What’s next?

There are many watches that I still find attractive and many watches to come from the various great houses that might cause me to fall in love with one watch more than another, but to be honest I seriously doubt it. I mean, the only watch I want more than my BLNR in its category is a Coke version. The only watch I want more than my Speedmaster in its category is another Speedmaster of far rarer origin and pedigree, a vintage example maybe or who knows. As far as the Patek and Breguet are concerned, there are no better iterations of those watches and there never will be. Finally, for the ultimate grail watch, I believe that it has to be something so amazing that it doesn’t even exist yet. It has to be a dream or a fantasy that one chases and pines over until one’s heart is so broken that one cannot even leave the house without wishing it was either already on the wrist or to finally acquire the watch. As mentioned before, for me, that would be a Greubel Forsey QP chrono with moon phase and grand sonnerie; or yeah, I’ll simply take a GF chronograph, because that is what would replace the super boring yet perfect Speedmaster. Yes, the only thing that will replace the Speedmaster for me is the currently non-existent, fantasy hand-wound Greubel Forsey Chronograph. Sadly, as far as I know, it’s just not going to happen and that hurts me deeply. I want, after I’ve amassed an impossible amount of wealth near the end of my life, well beyond having had the opportunity to help others, to fund what I believe to be the greatest wristwatch ever made and while I may not be the man to do it, it is the fact that I want this for the whole of humanity and my Self that I put this energy out into the world and wish it will happen to someone someday. What you buy is a vote. When you make a purchase, it casts a ballot. I vote for fine horology all day every day. Everything else is an accessory to horology and life, even psychology and fancy electric cars, in spite of my obsession with Tesla’s inventions and values.

The argument could be made that this is not a perfect watch collection because not all complications are represented. For example, I do not have a minute repeater, much less a grande sonnerie. To that I say, I’m not dead yet. At this time of life I can still see (you know, literally, with my physical eyes) and there is this amazing thing, lume, you’ve heard of it, that makes it possible for me to tell the time in the blackest of darkness, so sure, I would love to own a chiming watch, but they’re not only way out of reach, but I don’t have any real use for them in the same way that there is value and use for the watches that I have selected (see what is of value and of use in Liber Novus). Will I ever own a QP chrono minute repeater grande sonnerie, with all of the bells and whistles like power reserve, moon phase, and sunrise sunset and equation of time someday? I certainly hope so!

P.S. Synchronistically, after finishing this essay, I went downstairs and found this puzzle to solve for my horological and mildly intellectual enjoyment :).

Okay, I swear this is it:

Some might ask, “so then what are your values, exactly, spending all of that time, and yours and other people's’ money, on wristwatches?” Don’t you have a job, a house, kids, a car, money, etc.? The answer is this: 1. I’m courting the job that I want to do until my heart stops: Tesla, a watch boutique, or something like that. 2. Having a house is not important to me, but maybe someday we’ll have one. Until then, my time and value will always be dedicated to horology in some way/shape/form. 3. Kids are just more people. People die. Watches are forever. 4. Cars are for suckers, unless you own a Tesla or a really sweet mechanical car, as is essentially the same case with watches. I ride a bike, and not a nice one, a cheap one, because I’d rather spend the money on timepieces. 5. I’d rather have the watch of my dreams than any amount of money. Money is just an imaginary number. The right watch is an instant and immortal best friend. a. To further make this case, look at the gentlemen at auction who are spending more more money with reckless abandon to own the perfect watch for them. Money is essentially meaningless outside of holding value to acquire goods and services. A watch is a deeply psychological and spiritual enterprise for those who really get it, and so it makes sense that one would spend it all to acquire the ultimate alchemical composition that bridges one’s “I” with the Self archetype—via an horological mandala—through the chain of watchmaker, to manufacturer, to dealer, to owner; or as Patek Philippe would have it, caretaker.

Thank you for reading.

The super sacred Holy Quaternity in all of its gorgeous horolgical glory!

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groundramon · 7 years ago

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Its only been 15ish minutes but I’m still thinking about this post and I really like how instead of being offended about the outrageous displays of sexism in the exact field im going into, instead of being mad that a show I really enjoy was canceled prematurely/at a spoiler (? so I’ve heard, like I’ve said I’m only on season 3 so...), I’m just like “WHAT DO YOU MEAN TERRA WOULD’VE GOTTEN MORE SCREENTIME IN SEASON 6″

That says a lot about where my priorities lie. Like sexism in the children’s television industry and division in the toy industry are two things I’d love to work against once I get into the industry (I mean im not planning to change the world lmfao but I can try) considering both fields are close to my heart and I’ll probably be working with them extensively once I get a job (not sure how involved I’ll be in merchandising but I’d like to have at least some hand in it), and I hate enforcing gender roles on kids (do you know how fucked up I’d be if my parents didn’t let me play with “masculine” toys like dragons, Pokemon figures, ect-), but Terra is more important.

My obsession aside, I do wonder how much that’s changed in recent years.

Teen Titans aired from 2003 to 2006, and honestly I think sexism had the biggest grip on children’s television in that time period than any other time period. Sure other older shows would just...not show females in equal roles to their male counterparts, but in the early 2000s, either you did that too or you made a big deal about your female character being given equal treatment to her male counterpart. Oh boy, look at Rika from Digimon Tamers, it’s so WEIRD that she’s a GIRL and she’s SO GOOD AT TAMING AND THE CARD GAME, wOWEE. I give Digimon Tamers a lot of slack for that because it was extremely realistic about its sexism lmao (Henry never said anything about Rika being a girl, Jerry and Rika were both treated as equals in the overarching narrative, ect) but my point still stands. Teen Titans is really good about how it treats its female characters, but I can still see the fingerprints of this era all over it, from its character designs (DRAW RAVEN WITH A THICKER WAIST YOU COWARDS) to its choreography (if Starfire gets wrapped up by one more tentacle I s2g-) They also both have male-dominated casts but like...what show doesn’t? Steven Universe, and then shows specifically targeted towards females? And like, I’m not gonna sit here and yell at shows from the early 2000s because these were the better shows out there, they tried their best. I can find a more sexist show airing nowadays easily, and like whatever, plenty of shows have done just as bad if not worse and I’m just using those as examples because I’ll stan those shows til i die. I’m just sayin, it’s not surprising given the time period. (I also have no idea how ATLA survived and thrived in the late 2000s, seriously what the fuck, how did Nickelodeon do something right in those years)

Fastforward to nowadays though, and while male-dominated casts are still the...well everything except Steven Universe and female-oriented shows, there are so many shows that really don’t seem to appeal to a particular gender. If you made me pick, I’d say shows like Steven Universe, Adventure Time, and We Bare Bears are probably aimed at 7-10 year old boys. But honestly? They’re relatively ageless and genderless shows; SU and AT are both adventure-comedies, and We Bare Bears is about as gender-neutral as a Tom and Jerry cartoon. And I already mentioned that SU is like the only cartoon I can think of that doesn’t have a male-dominated main cast and isn’t targeted exclusively at girls.

One thing that the 2010s have brought that I really appreciate is ageless, genderless shows that aren’t just there to sell toys. Sure you can find merchandise for AT and SU (I cant find any WBB merchandise though :( i wouldnt mind an ice bear plushie but its fine...im fine...) but it was never their primary goal.

Green Lantern was canceled in 2013, and while that doesn’t seem that long ago, that was actually four years ago (jesus christ why am I so old). Young Justice was canceled the same year, but it was announced last year that it’d be returning for a new season. Legend of Korra was canceled in 2012, meaning it could’ve easily been part of the same sexism in the industry that killed Green Lantern and Young Justice. I did hear something about there being concern from Nickelodeon executives about Korra being a girl, but the writing team was allowed to proceed when a test screening showed that boys didnt care about her gender (surprise surprise! kids arent sexist assholes until you teach them to be. who knew? oh yeah I FUCKING DID) so...

Yes shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe were out or coming out around this time, but the industry hadn’t made the shift in mindset yet. Adventure Time was a hit at the time, but like Avatar: The Last Airbender, it was an outlier, a show that was picked up for so many seasons and just too big to kill when its contract was up. But with shows like Steven Universe, Clarence, We Bare Bears, ect...the cartoon industry has become a lot more gender-neutral in my eyes.

The group that networks are most concerned with appealing to now is 90s kids. The hip thing to do is play with nostalgia and reuse old properties, for whatever gender people you want. That’s why Teen Titans Go is still playing when it appeals to people of all genders, despite Teen Titans doing the same thing (in an arguably better show) a decade ago.

But one thing I dont understand is 90s cartoons. 90s cartoons - the original CN cartoons, the original Nicktoons, the original Disney cartoons - none of them seemed particularly...gendered. Like anyone could relate to Hey Arnold. Courage the Cowardly Dog was scary no matter your gender. Everyone loved Ducktales - altho I guess Disney isn’t behind any of the situations i mentioned before (it’s mostly CN and then a little bit of Nickelodeon, but I do know Disney’s done some...kinda shady shit and does have a tendency to gender its shows, but idk if it’s ever canceled a show for that reason) I dont know. I wish I had the motivation and resources to do more research, but I’m just some idiot on the internet lmao.

I guess my point is that Teen Titans, The Legend of Korra, and related shows would likely be much better off if they were airing in 2017.

#stormy speaks #i havent even seen like 75% of the shows i used to back up my case here and i dislike 25% of those 75% but shhh #also is it bad that im looking at the little bit of research I HAVE done for this and thinking #yknow everything kinda points to a possible sixth season for Teen Titans....#potentially on adult swim but idk about that #Young Justice was one of the shows that was canceled for a similar reason and its getting brought back #CN just started reairing Teen Titans - which is exactly what they did with Samurai Jack before it was rebooted btw #so //waggles eyebrows #then again i dont want to get my hopes up or anyone else's hopes up because...cn is...yikes #i just hope that if there IS another season of teen titans made they include the ideas about terra #because #cries #IM LOVE HER #SM

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loveshalifeworld · 7 years ago

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Copy of Why Do Women Hate Women...SO MUCH?

So I did a little research before writing this Blog. I watched a little Oprah, a little Iyala fix my life, little Love and Hip Hop Hollywood, ya know, the essentials 🤷🏽‍♀️ I can think of a million examples to start with from my personal experiences, friend's experiences, reality TV etc etc, but I'm going to use Cardi B as an example (just bare with me)

I am a super Cardi B fan! Boom, there, I said it. Not because of Bodak yellow, but because she has worked hard to get where she is right now, she just wants to help her family, she is honest about her life and who she is, and she is SO HUMBLE. This woman is still a super fan of every artist she was a fan of before she got her big break, and she is so appreciative of the people who support her music. She is just such a sweet girl, and it makes me proud to see her doing well! SO, Nicki Minaj had kind of thrown some shade at her by liking a negative comment a "Fan" wrote on a Cardi's IG, and then posting a negative tweet clearly aimed at the new rapper mentioning her boyfriend. Cardi was CRUSHED because she said she couldn't understand why someone she admires so much would go out of the way to tear her down.

Why do we do that to each other? After my very intense research, I think I've got a few ideas:

Social conditioning: we are conditioned as young girls that we have to be better than the person sitting in front of us and behind us. From sports, to clothes, grades, how many friends you have, who you sit with at a lunch table, how to impress a guy more than the girl next to you. It's all been programmed in our minds. The competition (and no I'm not talking about friendly competition, because that is always healthy) is engrained so deeply in us, that we often feel the need to compete in areas where a competition should not even exist. STORY TIME 🤗🤗 When I was in 7th grade I chopped my hair off because every girl in the 7th grade except maybe two at my new school HATED me because I "thought my hair was cute" (said the ring leader of the group) and because some guy had a crush on me that apparently was the hot guy of middle school. (Fun fact, I didn't start liking boys until summer of my 8th grade year, so their hate was ill directed.) I'm sure you all are wondering why I remember that alllll these years later. Well I remember it because there was an entire grade of girls who hated me lol I was new and out of the ordinary, those girls were conditioned to hate me and to try to annihilate me, you never forget an annihilation attempt! There was a girl who actually came to me at lunch one day and said "I like you, you seem really nice! but everybody else hates you soooooo yep." She apologized to me as stuck a huge piece of gum in my hair as all the kids at the other tables laughed. I was so confused and I cried lol I went home and cut my hair, told my mom I accidentally cut it. After a while of course, the girls realized I did not wish to threaten the social balance and they backed off...for the most part. I later ended up dating the guy most of high school and became amazing friends/frienemies with those girls. I now understand that they had no choice but to hate me. Though I understand it, I don't want to raise my future daughter to treat people that way. I want to condition her mind in a way that she knows, there is room for all of us here to be great. NOW THAT IM DONE CRYING ABOUT MIDDLE SCHOOL.... a more up to date scenario When I say unnecessary competition, this is what I'm talking about. Say we are in the gym, I don't know you, you don't know me right? I put my treadmill speed at 6.0 you bump yours up to 6.1, midway through I bump mine to 6.8 (because the app that I'm using tells me to,) you bump your up to 6.9 just to stay ahead of me, but now your halfway dead because you're trying to compete with me on something I've BEEN training at. I stop my treadmill to move on to something else and you're thinking "YES! I knew I could beat her 💁🏽" just before you fall off and pass out and get rushed to the hospital. Where as while you're dying, I'm not even aware of the fact that you exist, I'm just happy I was able to finish my run today for once, AND if you had asked me how did I train to to comfortable run for a certain distance, I would have been more than happy to tell you everything I know to help you out!! We are conditioned to feel as if we are in constant competition with each other. This usually happens in cases of an oppressed people. You get that mentality where "I've gotta look better and have a better body or I won't find a husband.""I've gotta be better, I've gotta get their first, or there won't be anymore left for me." "If someone Is better than you in anyway, you'll never make it out." That my loves, is the mindset of an oppressed people, and yes, women are an oppressed people. It's not your fault, we are literally trained to be better than each other by any means necessary. It's like Lord of the Flies up in girl world! (If you've never read Lord of the Flies, you HAVE to! That's a good book! It's about these boys who get stranded on an island and...well thats not important here I guess, but still go read it)

External Validation- Validation (n)- recognition or affirmation that a person or their feelings or opinions are valid or worthwhile. We have a constant need to be validated by the outside world, some women more than others, but we all need to be validated in some way. In the movie mean girls Cady (Lindsay Lohan) started off pretending to be a mean girl, but as time went on, she actually became a really mean person because her thirst for validation continued to grow. Her need to be known as the prettiest girl in school, her need to be popular, her need to have the best clothes, her need to have the best hair; all of this because she wanted to feel validated by the outside world. She did't care about who she hurt or made fun or walked over, because her need for validation caused her to not care about being mean to anyone. She was perfectly fine and interesting on her own, but because she developed that need to be accepted and validated, it changed her. We need to hear "omg you're so much prettier than her" "omg your hair is way cuter than hers". MY (insert whatever) has to be BETTER than YOUR (insert whatever) or my dopeness is not VALID. NO SIS you're dope, I'm dope, we are all dope. Thats all the validation you need.

Success- I'm going to break success down in a few different areas

You know the saying "misery loves company"? You know how you will be having a great, lively conversation with one of your friends, and then you spring some good news on her and it gets reaaaallll quiet and dry on the other end of the phone? Women do not like when other women are happy. Whether its a happy relationships, happy at work, or just happy to be alive. Your friend tells you OMG I'm so excited, I just bought these new shoes and they were on sale. She is clearly excited, but secretly you're angry because you wanted those shoes and couldn't afford them that day, so you tell her the shoe s are ugly and make her feet look big, out of "love" of course. Or you have a friend that gets into a new relationship and is very happy, you blow up on her for talking about her new boyfriend, telling her that you're sick of hearing about him (after she has only mentioned him once), all because you're upset that you aren't getting a "text back". You should want to see your friends happy. Whatever another woman is happy about, just let her be happy, and try to indulge a little bit in her happiness. Sometimes you just honestly, do not want to hear it, girl, I get it; that's not what I'm talking about. I am talking about if the only time you are enjoying a conversation, is if your friend is on the phone crying her eyes out about how her guy mistreated her or dishing about her awful day at work...that is what I'm talking about. I know people like that who are just eager to hear bad news about my life, soooo I don't tell them lol but if it excites you to learn about the low points in people's lives or to see another woman not doing so well, you really should take a look at yourself love. You need to ask yourself why the idea of another woman being happy makes you feel like the wicked witch being melted by rain on the inside.

Women hate to see another woman having a more successful career/business than her. You want to see your friends do well, but not better than you. In the field that I work in, there aren't always a lot of women around! So when I see another woman I'm happy like hey girl hey, lets be better than all these guys together lol It's not always like that, it's every woman for herself 🤷🏽‍♀️ Oh well. Ya know, I recently met a young woman who is pretty awesome! We clicked immediately, like we both just KNEW ok, this is my soul sister. We chatted as she was doing my hair and the conversation flowed onto the topic of our dreams and we both had a similar idea! In most situations thats a no go, that conversation would have stopped right there because I don't want you to take my ideas and run off and be better than me. We should have been looking at each other side eyed lolGuys, we both got so excited when we realized we had the same idea and ended it with "SIS we need to get on this together, lets set up a meeting and lets collab" !! You should WANT to see another woman doing well in a career, and if I can help you, or we can work together yesss lets do it. Women should Support women!

Women don't like women who they think are prettier or have a better body than them🤦🏽‍♀️🤔 I'm not even going to get into this one because it's self explanatory. This is a terrible reason to hate someone... you hate me because you think I'm pretty or my butt is small and round, and I hate you because you're pretty and your'e butt is big and round. Soooo we are all out here admiring each other and instead of complementing...ugh I digress. ALL WOMEN ARE BEAUTIFUL!!

A QUICK RUNDOWN OF other miscellaneous reasons women hate other women

Women don't like women because of hair,

their shoes

dressing too "slutty"

dressing too conservative

smiling too much,

having resting b*tch face

having a nice car

perfect makeup

waving

not waving

laughing too loud

she must have gotten a nose job

you stole my boyfriend in 3rd grade

I mean.....you guys get the point by now

I think that It all boils down to INSECURITY. We alllll have little insecurities, but just because I am unsure of myself in an area does not mean that I need to make myself feel better by tearing another woman down. Just because I feel there is an opportunity for another woman to be "better" than me in an area does not mean I should tear her down, talk about her, or discourage her, it just means that I need to make sure I continue to be MY BEST SELF.

Guys, we desperately need to stop comparing ourselves to each other, that alone eliminates a majority of the issue. There is no comparison to YOU. Stop comparing your love life and your body and your hair. There will always be a woman who has a flatter stomach than you or a better butt or longer hair or a taller boyfriend. We have to be able to recognize the beauty in other women while still appreciating and admiring our own undeniable beauty. I guarantee you while you are looking at her wishing you had something she has, she is looking at you wishing she could have something you have. know why?? Because Every woman is a piece of art work carefully crafted by God. There is so much power and beauty in being a woman, and the world already tries to ta take that power from us, we definitely should not do it to each other. Empowered women, empower women!! So, take your power back, by loving yourself. There is sooooooo much more that can go into this post, because there is some serious healing that has to go on in the girl's club ya'll, but I'm going to run out of characters lol. For now we have to stop being so nasty to each other! When you run into a woman wearing acute dress or a nice pair of earrings, just compliment her. Just walk up to her like "hey girl! your dress is the cutest thing I've ever seen." If you're going to compliment, might as well SUPER compliment.I do it all the time, like omg girl the way you slayed that ponytail is AMAZINNGGGG haha. Spread some love!Let me know how it goes! I hope you all enjoyed this one! Feel free to leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

PS: Don't forget to give yourself a compliment too 🌻

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loveshalifeworld · 7 years ago

Text

Why Do Women Hate Women...SO MUCH?

Why do we do that to each other? After my very intense research, I think I've got a few ideas:

Success- I'm going to break success down in a few different areas

A QUICK RUNDOWN OF other miscellaneous reasons women hate other women

Women don't like women because of hair,

their shoes

dressing too "slutty"

dressing too conservative

smiling too much,

having resting b*tch face

having a nice car

perfect makeup

waving

not waving

laughing too loud

she must have gotten a nose job

you stole my boyfriend in 3rd grade

I mean.....you guys get the point by now

PS: Don't forget to give yourself a compliment too 🌻

0 notes