#Humans are the only animals that harm ourselves in an attempt to hurt others

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I couldn't stop thinking about this 😂. Feel free to ignore, respond, or turn into BSD meta, but I had to rant about this to someone:

So, everyone talks about the Dazai/Fyodor parallels, but have you ever thought about the parallels with Dazai and Ace? They're actually really interesting?

Basic similarities: both were PM executives, used and manipulated by Mori. Both ended up turning on him. And, both engaged in gambles with Fyodor. But then you start to see the divergence (I hope I can articulate this well).

First, in the distrust:

They both push people away for different reasons Ace doesn't attach himself to anyone because he's protecting himself from bodily harm. He doesn't believe in loyalty. Just self-preservation. Meanwhile, Dazai avoids making connections to protect his heart from harm. Dark era!Dazai went through the Oda thing, saw what happened to Ango-a guy who let himself get attached just once and suffered for it-sees that and went, “yeah nope, it’s not worth it.” His lack of loyalty stems from wanting protect himself from pain.

Then, the dog thing:

Dazai only talks about making Chuuya his dog, but ends up humanizing and empowering him instead. Whereas Ace actually does make people his dogs-treats them like animals, even gives them collars to wear; he renders their humanity into monetary objects.

And the s*uicide parallels:

Ace's story ends with him apparently committing s*icide. He took the worst parts of Mori's leadership (using fear and intimidation to foist loyalty onto his subordinates) without ever bothering getting to know them as people. In the end, he loses the battle of wits and dies alone, having fallen to his hubris.

Dazai lets himself get attached, and yeah, he gets hurt. But in the end he becomes more human for it and finds himself surrounded by people. He keeps winning the high-stakes games because he believes in people and makes some attempt to understand them. And yeah, he talks about s*icide constantly...but funny how he still chooses to live.

You know, this is not a parallel I ever would've drawn myself but I really like what you've laid out here op. Hey people should read this!

Isn't it so cool you can take literally any two characters from this series and find this genuinely interesting contrasts? It's all due to the fact that the characterization is structured around the themes of the story - life, how we live it, choosing good, humanization of ourselves and others. Fascinating stuff :)

[aspoonofsugar]

Your Power...Your Theme

This post is born because of @waywardtravelerfart asking about a comparison between Semblances (Rwby) and Quirks (BNHA).

In general, I am not a hardcore BNHA fan, though, so I decided to drag other magic systems in this comparison.

So, I will be comparing...

1) Semblances:

2) Quirks:

3) Nen (HxH):

4) Abilities (BSD):

5) Magic (WHA):

Body and Soul

1) & 3)

Pyrrha: Aura is the manifestation of our soul. It bears our burdens and shields our hearts. Have you ever felt you were being watched without knowing that someone was there? With practice, our Aura can be our shield. Everyone has it, even animals.

Nen and Semblances are very similar ideas. Both have their root in the concept of aura aka life force and are trained through specific exercises that are based on martial arts.

More importantly, they are manifestations of a person’s soul.

This is why in both series they are linked to one’s individuality:

Ren: A common philosophy is that a warrior’s Semblance is a part of who they are.

And both Nen and Semblances grow and evolve with the person.

At the same time, both stories focus not only on the soul, but also on the body.

In HxH Gon and Killua must train their bodies just as much as their nen. No matter how much stronger their auras become, they would still be left defenseless if they forget about basic training and if they do not take care of their bodies.

Similarly, Huntsmen and Huntresses in Rwby have both Semblances and Weapons:

By baring your soul outward as a force, you can deflect harm. All of our tools and equipment are conduits for Aura. You protect yourself and your soul when fighting.

Weapons are linked to personalities just like Semblances are:

Ruby: Just weapons? They’re an extension of ourselves! They’re a part of us! Oh, they’re so cool.

It is only through the combination of weapons and semblances that one becomes strong and whole.

In order to experience humanity to its fullest, one needs both a soul:

And a body:

In short, Semblances and Nen are representative of the Soul. They are a physical projection of it. Moreover, they need to be completed by the Body to properly work.

4)

BSD abilities are similar because they clearly symbolize characters’ coping mechanisms.

They are linked to people’s personalities and their effects are highly variegated and impossible to explain through biology alone (for example, a character is able to materialize a whole room in another dimension).

At the same time, they seem to have some physical properties.

For example, it is possible to create artificial abilities and to implant them into people. The process has yet to be properly explained, though.

This can be compared to the research on aura made in Rwby.

That said, this specific research is framed negatively by the narrative because it is an attempt to control what it should not be (a person’s soul).

Similary, in BSD, such experiments are criticized as well because they violate human rights and are an attempt to weaponize abilities, which is an ongoing topic explored by the story.

2)

Quirks are instead framed as the result of biological evolution. This creates an interesting inversion compared to the other stories. Quirks are not simply physical representations of a character’s psychology, but they are a part of the reason why that character develops a specific coping mechanism.

Toga is attracted to blood because her Quirk is about drinking blood, so she naturally likes it.

Shigaraki’s destruction traumatizes him because it leads to his family’s death.

Touya’s weak constitution makes his power difficult to use, hence he develops self-hurting tendencies.

5)

Finally, Magic in WHA is something that exists outside the characters.

It is not something people are born with, but an art they can master through study and dedication.

Its origin is still unknown, but it is explained that it works thanks to specific materials:

And even human blood can be used to strengthen it:

In short, Magic is a human art that makes use of specific natural resources and a specific knowledge to create several effects. In a sense, its logic is similar to both art and programming. It is similar to art because the witches need to exercise on drawing and to be creative on their approaches to things. It is similar to programming because they must use what is basically a specific language made of symbols to create different effects.

So, Magic is not linked to a person’s soul in the way other magical systems are, but a character’s personality still emerges from the kind of magic they specialize in. This is something unavoiable... after all this is how personality works in real life as well... we all have different approaches to problems and beliefs that will emerge in our art and in our jobs.

In conclusion, all these magical systems are connected in different ways to characters’ personalities, to their flaws and to their symbolic roles in the narrative.

In these metas, there are some examples of how this happens for HxH, Rwby, BSD and WHA.

Power and Privilege

3) & 5)

Nen and Magic are similar:

With enough training, both powers can be used by everyone.

However, both HxH society and WHA society choose to keep them secret because the damage that could come from sharing this knowledge is potentially devastating.

That said, both stories also show how there is hypocrisy behind this stance.

HxH does so in an indirect way.

Nen is supposed to be secret, so that dangerous people can’t use its power for wrong reasons.

However, many hunters are not really moral people. If anything many are violent and ready to kill. The exam itself encourages these tendencies since it does not punish murderers. Moreover, it turns out that very dangerous people already know about nen:

WHA explores this theme more directly:

The secret behind magic creates inequality. Magic could be used to help much more people, but it is limited by the law that imposes witches to keep the secret and forbids them from using magic to heal.

The result is an unjust society and a paradox. Isn’t there another way to use magic that it is less elitarian?

2) Similarly, quirks create inequality in BNHA. However, the mechanisms behind it are slightly different.

Not only people without quirks are discriminated, but also people with specific powers are considered less than others.

This happens either because the power is considered weak or lame or because it is considered a villain power.

In other words, BNHA society nurtures a simplicistic and black and white vision of quirks and people. This leads to some being discriminated for their quirks and to others being excused of everything because of their abilities.

4) In BSD, we have a similar yet partly opposite situation.

Ability users are mostly dehumanized and weaponized by society.

Basically the series explores how society makes use of its more vulnerable members and objectifies them.

So, in BSD having an ability is not really a synomim of privilege, but it is rather something that can set you apart and make you a victim of your country or your organization.

Because of this,the characters struggle to both accept their powers, but also not to be defined by it.

1) Finally, the case of RWBY is interesting because even if society is founded on privilege and inequity, semblances are not really a pivotal part of it.

It is much more common for people to be discriminated because of their bodies (like the Faunus) or their social status than for their semblances. Surely, cases like those exist, but they are not particularly explored by the story.

This might be because semblances are just one of many factors that determine a personal’s stance in society. Moreover, it is not even that clear how much common people know about semblances and aura. I would not say it is exactly a secret, especially because semblances can manifest themselves in a variety of situations. Still, it seems to me that they are mostly aknowledged and accepted by common people, but not exactly pursued or studied.

Symbolically, semblances are linked to an ancient magic that has been forgotten by people. This could tie with why some people, especially in Atlas, have been dismissive of them to an extent. Whitley dismisses his own and is not interested in developing it, while Watts is one of the few characters who fight without a semblance.

It might very well be that human technology and dust make so many different effects possible that a semblance, even if important for a warrior’s own strength and individuality, is not really the only factor that determines the place of a person in society.

In conclusion, all these power systems are linked to privilege in different ways. They are used to explore social inequality or parts of the society that are either repressed or not aknowledged.

Choices and limits

1) 2) & 4)

Quirks, Abilities, Semblances and their limits are not chosen. You are born with them and the most you can do is to try and overcome the limitations or to come up with clever ways to use your power.

You can train your Quirk, so that it becomes stronger.

When it comes to Abilities instead, characters usually must train to control what are potentially dangerous powers.

There are also abilities that help other people to control their powers and modify how these powers work. For example, there is a character whose ability is about summoning a fighting avatar. However, to do so, she needs to be called on a specific phone and it is actually the one calling that commands the avatar. Still, thanks to the influence of the above mentioned ability, she becomes able to summon the avatar at will and does not need the phone anymore.

Finally, in the case of Semblances, you need to meditate and to train your semblance, so that it can evolve. At the same time, though, semblance evolution can happen also because of specifical psychological conditions.

For example, Ren’s Tranquility both activates and evolves not because of physical training, but because of stress (the first time) and emotional growth (the second). This is fitting because his ability has mostly to do with emotions, so it is telling that it evolves as he grows emotionally rather than physically.

Ruby’s semblance is instead a physical one since she is super fast. So it is fitting that it mostly manifests and evolves with her training at using it.

Finally, when it comes to semblances, you do not really choose how they evolve and what new effects you gain. They are mostly an unconscious part of yourself that grows with you.

3) & 5)

The kind of magic you specialize in and the nen power you are gonna have are things one chooses.

To be more specific, they are influenced from one’s talents, but then they evolve according to a person’s choice.

For example, the protagonist Gon has an aura which is particularly good to strengthen things, so he chooses to use it to strengthen his punch. Moreover, he really likes Jankenpon, so he comes up with a power that uses this game. It is a technique that creates different effects depending on what he chooses to “play” (scissors, rock or paper).

Similarly, Coco is good at drawing straight lines and this makes her good with basic magic, that she uses in original ways because of her thinking outside the box. Her teacher Qifrey instead specializes in water magic because he used to be scared of water when he was little and wanted to overcome this fear.

At the same time, both nen users and witches must face limitations.

Nen has limitations that are self-imposed and decided by the users.

Magic has limitations that are imposed by society and codified through law.

Nen works with the idea that the stronger the limitation you set, the stronger will be your power. Similarly, if you sacrifice something, you can obtain a more powerful effect.

For example, another character called Kurapika creates chains with different powers. One of his chains has the limitation to only work on the members of a specific criminal group. Moreover, if Kurapika breaks this rule, he’ll lose his life. Since the sacrifice Kurapika has decided is pretty extreme, that chain is basically impossible to break.

Of course, limitations do not need to be so extreme. The protagonist’s jankenpon is limited by the fact he says out loud the name of his technique and takes time to use it (both goes against him, since it gives his opponent time to prepare). In this way the power gets stronger.

Magic is a very dangerous force, so it is prohibited to use magic on people’s bodies. This includes the idea that you can’t heal bodies directly or that you can’t change the way you look. It also forbids people from using blood to make magic stronger and to put glyphs on a person’s skin.

These limitations challenge the characters and force them to think outside the box. For example, Coco wants to save her mom who became a stone. The best way to do so is  to use magic on her, but this is prohibited hence Coco keeps brainstorming about how she can do it and even thinks about breaking the law multiple times.

In conclusion, powers are often linked to the self and the degree of control and choices characters have on them is symbolic of which part of the self we are talking about.

In the case of semblances and abilities, they mirror an unconscious part.

A Quirk is a biological factor that influences one’s self instead and that everyone can try ot develop in a way they like.

Finally, nen and magic are a conscious part of the self that still mirrors unconscious tendencies.

Not only that, but abilties have limits that come from either outside the person or inside them.

POWER SYSTEMS AND THE FIVE KINDS OF CONFLICT

In stories, there are at least five types of conflict.

1) Man vs Self

2) Man vs Society

3) Man vs Man

4) Man vs Nature

5) Man vs God

The magic systems we explored are linked to at least three of these five types.

Man vs Self

Supernatural abilities are linked to a person’s interiority and personality. Often they are representative of the character’s flaw and their limits can be overcome only by the person’s growth.

Man vs Society

Power systems end up being influenced and influence fictional societies.

They can represent privilege or some wrongdoing in society itself.

Alternatively, they can be limited by society’s rules and imposed laws.

Man vs Man

It is not uncommon to have special powers used in fights. In this case, they become symbolic ways to explore characters’ relationships, themes and different value systems.

This is something that BSD, HxH and Rwby do a lot. WHA has had less fights as for now, but it is definately something that has come up and will come up more in the future. Finally, I am not too much into BNHA to comment on the series, but I would be surprised if it is not the same there as well.

In conclusion, I do not really have much to say on the onthology of powers in different narrative worlds and tbh I do not think this is really what many writers think about when they design them. I think what writers focus on is how to make interesting powers that convey a character’s personality, can be used to explore the world and give life to entertaining fights.

[herstarburststories]

You Have A Home

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Reader

Summary: After a call from Y/N, Sam comes back town to help -- and brings Dean with him.

Requests: N°1 heyhey, could you do a Sam x reader where they went to college togehter and later meet again and they realise their feelings for eachother...xx + N°2: can you do a college sam headcanon with medicine student reader

A/N: This was fun! The monster here is mentioned in season 6, when the boys ask Bobby for advice on how to kill it. This is my first Samgirl long imagine, with Dean being the flirty he is. I wrote this almost one year ago, so it's more crude and I'm nervous to be posting it! And my piece for @cajunquandary 's 600 challenge, my prompt was monster of the week. Dividers by @talesmaniac89!

Dean's eyes remained on the road when the bitter statement left his body, tangled with a wry chuckle, “I can't believe you are still in touch with those people.”

“Those people?” Sam arched elbows, slightly skeptical by his brother's tone, “They were my friends, Dean.”

“Sammy, all our friends? Dead. They all die. Or worse.” He glanced at him for a moment, pursing his lips together. It might not be an easy assignment, but was part of the job. Sammy had tried to run away plenty times and always came back, when would he understand? “We don't get to have friends. You should've learned that.”

“They are not our friends, they are my friends. Also, they don't know about the hunting life, they aren't in harm.” Sammy hissed once the other locked his green eyes on the road again. Dean sighed, moving one hand away and up from the steering wheel in a rendition gesture.

“Whatever you say, man. I'm just warning you, this doesn't usually end up good for them.”

Sam scoffed, Dean could get on his nerves sometimes, “We saved many people that got to have a good life.”

“Yeah, but those people didn't know us before that. I told you when you left Stanford--”

“I didn't keep contact, okay!? I just... I just still have a phone that they have the number of. No social media, no calls on birthdays.” Nervously gesticulating, he added, “I know how to keep them safe, Dean.”

“So, old friend?” The eldest Winchester asked after the few minutes of silence that followed Sam's outburst, “Female old friend?”

“Yes. (Y/N) (Y/L/N).” Dean smirked, and Sam to rolled his eyes at his behavior, “Keep it in your pants.”

He'd let out a malicious laughter before turning on the radio, the first guitar sounds of AC/DC playing in the background.

“I think you'll be the one not keeping it, Sammy.”

“Hello?” The woman in nothing but a towel who had opened the door greeted them with a question, her brown eyes glaring at the two men with clear confusion.

Dean had no shame to check her out, innerly celebrating that she was still wet from her shower. Perhaps visiting Sam's friends wasn't that big mistake. “Hey, you.”

She grimaced at Dean for two seconds before turning her attention to Sam again, sudden recognition written on her face.

“Sam? Sam Winchester?” He nodded, smiling that light-hearted boyish grin at her. Not caring about her dressings, she just threw herself at Sammy, hugging him tightly. “I missed you!” She pulled away only to hit his shoulder. Her short stature didn't match Sam's, but he'd still make a grimace at her attempt of slap. “Why didn't you call? God, your hair grew a lot. Listen, I have some scissors.”

“Tried that, didn't work.” Dean interrupted their reencounter, trying to get in the conversation. An usual lopsided grin on his face, “Dean Winchester, Sam's brother.”

“Layla, Sam's friend.” She gave him a friendly smile in return, opening space for them to pass through the door before closing it, “Come in, I need to change in clothes.”

“I wouldn't even dream of that. Seriously.”

Layla would just wiggle one of her brows at Dean's comments, not impressed by it, “Ele é sempre assim? (Is he always like this?)”

Thankfully, Sam still remembered a bit of his friend's native language. He just chuckled, managing to apologize for Dean's typical Dean behavior, “Unfortunately. Sinto muito. (I'm sorry)”

“(Y/N) is in the kitchen. I'll be right back.” Her accent was thicking stronger duo the comfortability around Sam. Excusing herself, the caramel skinned girl leaded upstairs.

“What did she say?” Dean asked, side glancing at the path Layla had just gone on, not even sure of which language she'd just spoken, much less what was said. Sammy didn't bother replying, satisfied to grin at his obvxion brother. “Dude, come on!”

“Sam!” A well-known voice filled the room as the image of (Y/N) appeared in front of them, dressing your loyal cook's avental. You didn't think twice before jumping on Sam. “I missed you, giant!”

He, like always, caught you with a light-hearted laughter, “I missed you too, cupcake.” You two spent a few moments like this, enjoying each other's warm and long lost touch, until Dean cleared his throat. You finally went back to the ground, embarrassed by having a stranger to see that level of intimacy between you and Sam, “This is Dean, my--”

“Handsome brother. Hello, cupcake.” Dean was so going to tease Sam for the rest of his life for it.

“You really live up for Sam's description.” You giggled, heading towards the kitchen “Come in, I'm baking.”

“So, you and Layla still live together?”

“Most of the time, yes. You know how she is, comes and goes. Never wanted to stay in a place for too long and got a job that supported that.” The boys followed you, Dean examining the kitchen and trying to discover what you were cooking through the smell, while Sam couldn't take his eyes on you, “Apparently, just like you.”

Even though your back was facing them as you checked the food, the bite didn't pass unnoticed, “I had to leave, (Y/N)”

“I understand that, Sam. But you never called or texted. It was like I--” You quickly corrected yourself, “We never existed for you.”

“It's not like that.” Sam sighed, how could he justify? He knew you wouldn't buy a simple excuse. You were smart, and knew him too well to swallow a 'I went on a trip with my brother and just decided that college wasn't my deal' and leave it for that.

“I'm here!” Layla declared, arriving into the room with an excited smile, it was good to have the gang back together. Although, the tangible tension almost made her go back to the shower, “Am I interrupting something?”

“A sitcom DR.” Dean answered with sarcasm, spreading his figure on the chair when you turned around with an apple pie in your hands “What about we talk about the ca-- Is this pie?”

“We heard a scream followed by a loud roar and (Y/N) stayed near the camping part because there was still a signal and I went looking for who it was. When I got there, the thing ran away. Jorge's body... No human did that. His chest was cracked open irregularly, as if it was done by an animal and his heart looked weird. Like it was squeezed and drawn on up somehow?”

“We got a Samia.” Dean stated, relaxing on his spot. Some sault, rosemary and fire would do the job just fine, “Let me guess, it left a clawn near the body or inside it?”

Layla nodded, “Right in the chest or what lasted of it.”

“Are you okay? Finding the body in that state.” A comprehensive manner englobed Sam's question, whom noticed the normality with his friend described finding a shattered body.

“Just some guts.” She shrugged, a grimace was all the reaction they'd get. Crying wouldn't help, neither being terrorized as they expected her too. “I've seen Grey's Anatomy enough not to care about it.”

“Well, I'm literally a medicine student and I am still not okay with that. Especially after you made me go and check the body.” You argued, glaring at your best friend who'd only roll her eyes in response.

“I needed a professional to say if he was dead or not!”

“You need a therapist.”

Dean got up, looking straight at Layla. Time to play the hero in shining armor, “Don't worry with that, we will take care of it.”

Frowning, you were the one to respond, “Do you work for the police now or?”

“Are implying that we investigate it by ourselves?” Your best friend added.

Dean couldn't believe his brother. How the fuck did he let them get inside without saying they didn't know about the hunting business? It was a luck shot that they didn't think much when he said Samia.

“Nope. Not you two. We will do it.” The blonde one said, pointing at them with a smirk.

“I agree, we will do it.” Layla replied, matching his taunt smile.

“Sam, I'm not letting you and your brother do it by yourself. Jorge was my professor, I knew him. Besides, we found the body.” You got on your feet and crossed your arms, waiting for a response. Sam always had a sort of hero complex, ready to help no matter what, but there was no way you'd be letting him go into danger with his brother. Getting in your dormitory to kill a cockroach back then or facing an idiot during a bar fight to protect one of your friends was something, but this? They were talking about looking for an assassin. What if something happened to him? You were the one who called. All on you. The thought of Sam getting hurt for any reason was unbearable, but because of you? You weren't willing to do that.

“You would be in danger, (Y/N). You both.” He tried to explain, internally hoping you'd accept his reasoning and let it go. Sam didn't want you to become one of the friends who knew about this life, you deserve more. He already lost one woman he loved in this city, he couldn't lose another.

You huffed in frustration, “Just like you will!” 

“It's different.” As he was terrified of, you insisted. Arms crossed still and eyes locked with his, determined to get something from him. Sam was smart enough to know that you would keep it going. Perhaps he could give you a short explanation, “Me and my brother, we are used to this. We hunt things like that.”

Layla tilted her head to the side. The way Sam talked remembered her of animal hunting, although she highly doubted that was the case, “Little more explanation?'”

“Monsters are real. Vampires, werewolves, spirits. The list goes on. Call us crazy. Roll the credits.” Sarcasm saltered every word of Dean's as he gestured up and down with a cocky smile. Everyone glared at him, a special furious look from his brother, “What? I thought they knew what we did and that's why she called.”

“Sam?” Your voice was fragile when you said his name, a demonstration that you would believe him through the fear of the truth, but that he had to say it.

Sam laid his hazel eyes on you. God, how he wished he didn't have to confirm anything, to break your vision of world so abruptly, “Dean is right. Supernatural things are real. I know it sounds--”

“Unbelievable? Problematic? Scary?”

“Yeah, all of them.” Sam offered you a humorless smile, then holding your hand the way he used to when you were nervous about an exam, “But I wouldn't lie to you, cupcake.”

The silence was broken by Layla opening a bottle of Whiskey, pouring them for the three people in the room besides herself. You rolled your eyes at your best friend, while Sam wore a tiny smile and Dean was astonished.

Noticing the eyes glued, the latina just shrugged “What? If you are gonna tell me that Dracula is real and you are a sort of Buffy's apprentice, then we will need some alcohol.”

“Why did you call?” Sammy asked, his brows knotted together, mouth slight open as he waited for your response. “You didn't know what I did. And he wasn't my professor at Stanford. Then why did you call, (Y/N)?”

You could make up a hundred excuses. Lie and say he was the one friend besides Layla that you had somehow a way to get to. Appeal to the excuse of 'I felt something weird about the death and you said I should call if I ever had a problem of any kind'. But for as much as you felt horrible for using a death as a pretext for calling him, that was partially the truth. You already had put yourself into a mess of monsters and a drained heart, it couldn't be scarier than being honest to Sam and to yourself.

At least, you hoped so. But your heart was rushing like when you saw Jorge's body. Jesus, when did love become so morbid?

You took a deep breath, oxygen barely achieving your lungs, and then started to talk.

“I wanted to call you the minute that you left, Sam. I almost did a million times.” You answered, looking down at the bottle of a sort of plant that he was putting in a dark green bag. “I thought about what you could be doing, what was so important that you couldn't send me a message. But you just didn't want to call, I guess.”

“I wanted to call, of course I did.” You scoffed at his statement, looking up to match his eyes, “(Y/N), I'm serious.”

“You didn't even come to Jess' funeral, Sam. Layla said that maybe you needed to leave to clear your mind, that was too much to deal with. But I was so worried, and sad and confused and I wanted to talk to you because you would understand, you always did. About anything. And I wanted to give you some sort of comfort, but--” You lifted your hands and shrugged your shoulder, a broken chuckle leaving your body. “But you weren't here.”

“You stopped leaving messages after two weeks. Calling was gone when it made a moth.” You sniffed. Sam's lips curved into a pure, cautelous grin. God, he was always so sweet. “The emails took two months.”

“You were never good with dates. I gave you a calendar in your freshman week.” Your teeth met your lower lip. He didn't answer, only nodding at your affirmation, omitting the fact that he still had the calendar between latin books and pieces of newspapers, “Yet, you remember all of it.”

Sam leaned forward, holding your hand with all the delicacy you would expect from a sculptor. It had been too long since he hugged you, and his touch made all your skin tickle with warmth. “I missed you too, (Y/N). I thought about you all those years.”

“So, Cupcake?”

"Let's focus on the case, Dean."

“Then you can go back and eat your cupcake?” He remarked with a grin. His brother just huffed, pointing the flashlight through the trees, “So, Layla…”

Sam rolled his eyes, like he usually did when Dean started being too Dean for his liking, “Dean. The case.”

Before he could make another teaseful comment, a roar invaded their audition. The hunters gave each other a quick glance before heading towards the direction of the noise.

Shaking the salt and rosemary mixture in his hands, Dean smirked, “That's it. Time to shine, cupcake.”

“I have to admit. Being patched up by a doctor is better than by Dean.”

A surprised, half relieved laughter came out your body as you finished another stitch on Sam's arm. That boy was unbelievable; openly talking and making jokes about his brother, who was also being patched up by your best friend in company of a bottle of whiskey, while he spoke about Layla's name being a rock song. You were working on a large wound on his shoulder-- which you were sure that was full of dirt from the forest.

Medicine student, but I'll take that complement.” You winked at him, gaining a soft grin from Sammy, “I was expecting more blo-- Why are you smiling? I'm touching a recent wound. It doesn't look dangerous, but I'm sure it is supposed to hurt. A lot.”

Sam's answer came out easily, the bare, vulnerable truth: “I'm happy you are here.”

You looked at him, his hair longer than before, but the soft simper remained on his face. You bit your lip to hold a giggle; her heart dared to hope. What he expected when he said things like this? A quiet contentment spread through his expression while he watched your reaction.

“You should have come home sooner.” 

His mouth formed a line, “I don't have a home, (Y/N). It's just Dean, me and the road now.”

“No, Sam.” Shaking your head lightly, you intertwined your fingers with his. His life was dangerous, you couldn't afford the luxury of waiting even more to share what you had finally admitted to yourself in the moment he walked through the door. It didn't seem like the easiest, simpler situation. But the only hard thing you couldn’t go through was to be away from Sam Winchester. He lingered on you for years, you were done letting him run away. It was time to hold his hand and walk together. “You should've come home sooner. To me.”

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[unessay-doofenshmirtzisinnocent]

Framing Doofenshmirtz

It has become a trend in recent years to come to terms with things not appearing as though they once seemed. Through childhood we were fed stories through the likes of consumerism that presented a plain take on the characterization of certain fictional characters. Specifically, what made a protagonist righteous and what made the antagonist so vile. The media fed off the simple minds of children and in our innocent, developing minds beginning to decipher the aspects of the other separate from ourselves we all conformed in agreement that doing something wrong makes you the bad guy and fighting the bad guy makes you the good guy. 

In my youth I will admit that I fell victim to this. There were plenty of television shows and movies that I watched that were feats for my generation (generation Z) a majority of those being disney related. The feature films where I saw villains taking voices, keeping princesses in captivity, attempting murder with poisonous apples. However, one there was one Disney Channel cartoon in particular that made me question the notion- what made a villain truly villainous? The show Phineas and Ferb centered around two boys trying to live their summer to the fullest, the show consisted of an A and B storyline every episode. Storyline A would show the boys and their friends concocting plans to build their fun for the day while storyline B let the audience peer into the double life of the boys’ pet platypus Perry, who would travel to the laboratory of his arch nemesis Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz and foil his plans to take over the “Tri State Area” using one of his evil inventions (that humorously always end in “inator”) 

Throughout the show we as the audience were presented with the B storyline to showcase the virtue of Perry and his organization’s intentions in keeping the world safe, but at the expense of Doofenshmirtz and his plans always being foiled. Perry’s agency named O.W.C.A (Organization Without a Cool Acronym) is an intelligence agency run by a man named Major Monogram who recruits animal agents to keep the Tri-State Area safe from crimes of evil scientist masterminds. The threat being so grave that these animals are to assume secret identities with their host families in order to spare their livelihoods.

Dr. Doof while making a spectacle of himself and his inventions, I believe never had the intent of really hurting anybody in the way Perry’s organization thought him to be. We learn in increments his torturous backstory. He as a boy was born and brought up for most of his life in the town of Gimmelshtump, Drusselstein to parents who didn’t show up to his own birth. His family consisted of a mother who always wanted a daughter but bore two sons, a father that never saw him as man enough and a younger brother that outshone him in the eyes of everyone around him. 

Essentially the typical nuclear family that despised him enough to cast him aside in the woods as a young child and leave him raised by a family of ocelots. No explanation given, but from the likes of it his family must have been desperate and under a lower socioeconomic status than they presented themselves or they simply didn’t care for him. Fast forwarding, as an adult he faced the trials and tribulations of marriage that left him with nothing but a broken heart and a daughter, fresh from divorce he worked to cohabitate with his ex wife and make sure his daughter’s life is better than his was. He took parenting to great lengths yet as she grew he became estranged and distant in attempts to join the in-group amongst her peers. 

In obvious human nature his past piles up to make him the person that he became. In this case it is a matter of deciphering which direction it led him. While he does make evil inventions, that doesn’t necessarily define him as socially deviant. The degree of his crimes are not with the intent to end lives or cause harm upon others deliberately, he only has one true goal and it is brewed within the parameters of conflict theory. He wants to take down his younger brother who he believes has stratified himself as higher than his brother all his life. His brother who has been elected mayor who has never taken his job as seriously as he should but gets by on the fact that he is handsome. Pretty privilege has run his life and in the midst, left Doofenshmirtz at a disadvantage in the equality of the outcome. There was always something fundamentally keeping Doofenshmirtz from the chance of equal opportunity. 

While I will agree that his methods of achieving equality or at least a semblance of what he was denied all his life is a bit unethical, his intentions are built on self preservation and not out of malice. That should not mark him as a super villain, it should elicit that someone listen to what he has to say and air his grievances out in a healthier way. His whole life has been trading one form of abuse to another. Whether that be being outcast by his own kinship, or falling victim to his brother’s exertion of hegemonic masculinity to get into higher politics he doesn’t deserve the further abuse that O.W.C.A inflicted on him. They invade his privacy by spying on him and instead of taking the necessary measures to ensure the “violence” they have deemed him constantly guilty of stops, they barge into his own home (warrantless) , beat him and damage his intellectual property that also simultaneously ends up almost harming the lives of the children in the A storyline. 

Rather than villainize Doofenshmirtz, we should see him as a victim of circumstance. He needs outlets that O.W.C.A should provide instead of taking such violent measures to stop him since it clearly doesn’t work. How many times do they do the same process of Perry being called and sent to Doof’s home to find him in a predicament with one of his inventions, tricks him and ends up beating him up and destroying his invention. It’s the same song and dance, and they as an agency should see that the repeated approach is clearly not solving their problems. Doof is troubled and needs help, since his inventions are always backfiring it’s also clear he’s never going to actually succeed with his plans anyway. 

[jonthethinker]

Together Or Alone?

Since I finally have a few days off work, I want to get weird and really dig deep into why I personally enjoy the Mighty Nein and its particular breed of found family so much, and why the dynamics between its members are so satisfying for my heart in particular. Let’s get unnecessarily deep, shall we?

You may not completely understand why I think this would be weird, but you’ll understand fairly quickly as I get started.

I’ve been on a sort of spiritual journey, in a way, over the course of this most eventful year. A small part of me feels bad that while so much suffering is going on, and so much of the world feels like it’s falling apart, I’ve been making positive strides in determining my place in the grand scheme of things. But a larger part of me is just really grateful to finally find a bit of internal peace after years of not having it, of finally having some bit of quiet in a mind that’s never been able to still itself long enough for any such thing.

I haven’t exactly found religion, but I have given more shape to how I best want to imagine our universe and my humble place in it, and I’ve finally started asking the right questions.

One of those questions stands above the rest, and it’s the question I’ve decided the Universe Itself is asking; Together or Alone?

I started seeing attempted answers to this question everywhere. In the universe bursting outward, yet huge masses of it clinging together to form all we know and can perceive. I see it in wondrous solar systems forming and spinning in a rippled field of mutually affected gravity; and I see it in the black holes that can form, and tear and pull all that beauty into nothing. I see it in incredible ecosystems where the life and the land combine to form what feels like its own organism, larger than just the sum of its parts; and I see it in the environmental devastation caused by our own actions, killing that organism, and in turn doing irreparable damage to the very spirit of our world.

I see it in humanity’s natural inclination for cooperation and concern for others; and I see it also in our inclination to be blinded by power and in that blindness, inflicting unspeakable harm on each other in order to hold onto that power. I see it in our bodies, organs one by one relying on each other in a perfect act of faith to form something greater than a liver or heart or brain could ever be on their own; and I see it in cancer, single-minded in its pursuit of self-replication by all means, all memory of belonging to something greater stricken from its damaged DNA. I see it in basic elemental particles, most of them ready and able for their eventual combination with other particles to build wonderful compounds with entirely new properties, adding untold dimensions of complexity to how our world works; and I see it in those small rogue particles the neutrinos, that can shoot off from a star for eons without interacting with a single thing.

The question and its many answers, and the dialectical relationships those answers have, are what I feel can really undergird all of our interactions with each other, all progress and all regress, all friendships and all rivalries. It’s there in all our stories and all art we create; Together or Alone? What’s your answer?

For me, the answer that felt like it escaped the singing lips of an angel, was, “Of course, together. Always together.”

It shapes my politics heavily. I’m a lefty, but its not just because I believe we’re all equal as individuals; it’s because I believe we are all a part of the same thing. We are all a part of that same great organism, that same great body. The Universe. God. Whatever you want to call it, though it needs no name. We are in this together because we are one thing from many different things, whether we like it or not.

But I’m not just blindly optimistic about this. I don’t think it works like this all on its own. It takes work and time. It took billions of years for solar systems to form. For single-cell organisms to band together into colonies and then evolve into multi-cell organisms. It took a while longer for creatures to stick together as families, for the mutual dependencies of ecosystems to form, and even longer for the first tribes and societies to form. It took time, and an incredible amount of energy and effort, and so much failure. We’ve hurt each other so much, that’s true. But it’s only by coming together that we’ve ever been able create anything new, anything Good.

The universe has a bias towards entropy; things tend to fall away and apart. So there’s a beauty in the struggle for togetherness. I’d argue that it’s the only source of beauty in the first place; the unity of forces interacting. The quest for togetherness gives my life meaning, drive, and purpose. And for someone who’s struggled with depression for so long, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have purpose, especially for something bigger than me.

And by this point, you’re probably wondering when I’m going to stop sermonizing and actually talk about Critical Role. so here we go.

The individual members of the Mighty Nein are some deeply flawed and deeply troubled people, at least when we first met them. Some of them have done awful things, sometimes against their will. They’ve all been the victims of powers much greater than themselves, and as a result, have been left feeling frayed at the edges. They’ve all had hurts and been shaped by those hurts; whether it was loneliness, unfair expectations, or just being unfortunate enough to be different in all the wrong ways. Damaged is a word that carries unfortunate implications, as does broken; but it’s undeniable that you’ve got seven people who have all felt like Sisyphus when the boulder rolls back down the hill.

Some have taken this fate better than others, but it’s undeniable that these people have suffered, and in that suffering, gained nothing.

But then they met each other.

It wasn’t all roses from the get-go. You throw these people with underdeveloped social skills and an untold amounts of personal baggage, and you’ve got yourself some friction to say the least. But when they all met each other, they had nothing but their bodies and their hurts. They were total equals. Even when the Mighty Drei met Caduceus, they had just felt like they lost everything, and they were meeting someone who had no one. They all started together at their foundations, and over time, built something I think is truly beautiful.

This process hasn’t been perfect. Beau, for instance, can still be totally rude and abrasive to strangers and outsiders (and I love that about her), and still has a hard time swallowing her pride long enough to ask for help. Caleb is very much struggling with his trauma, and that path is never a straight line of progress for anyone. Jester for the longest time still didn’t really want to feel any negative emotions around the others, and her own pride has gotten in the way of owning up to how new she is to all this. Yasha bears a great deal of guilt for a great many things, and while she’s making strides, it’s still left its mark on her. Veth has come so far, but doesn’t know how to reconcile the contradictions between the two lives she wants as both a mother and an adventurer. Fjord has a deep desire for answers, answers that may open up a lot of wounds that have started to heal in the Mighty Nein’s care. And Caduceus refuses to share his troubles, his doubts about how much his time with Nein has fundamentally changed him from the boy his family knew all those years ago.

That’s a lot of hurt, and some of it will never go away completely. But it’s like how our bodies have all of these vestigial functions that no longer serve any purpose to it, and make our daily lives in office chairs or standing in one place all day harmful to our health. Or like ancient seas whose waters are long since gone, but have left their undeniable mark in the shapes of canyons and mesas, in the colorful layers of sedimentary rock they leave behind. The past is an unavoidable factor in how everything in the universe gets to take shape, but the present finds a way to adapt. And we people get to choose how to adapt. And the Mighty Nein chose caring about each other as their method of adaptation.

And the thing of it is, I don’t think its just having people finally caring about them that has allowed them to come as far as they have. I think it’s also the act of caring, the act of serving others, considering how the path you wish to take will affect someone else, that has really pushed them to this great place we currently find them in. I truly think there something inside of us that wants to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and that in the moments we feel emptiest it isn’t because of what we lack on the inside but the connections we lack on the outside, and it’s the systems we inhabit that make us think otherwise. I see this so clearly in the Mighty Nein. If left all on their own, in the cruel worlds we first found them in and have learned they came from, I see seven people going on seven unique paths of self-destruction; but together, they can build something greater than themselves, that thing being the Mighty Nein.

I really do think the Mighty Nein is like its own entity. They are something totally different when they are together, like seven different elements that came together to form a compound with entirely different characteristics. It’s why the work so smoothly together in combat. Why, when the pressure is on, they tend to work as a relatively well-oiled machine. Why they hurt so much less when they are with each other. It’s like up-scaling from an atom to a cell, a cell to an animal, an animal to an ecosystem.

This togetherness is why I love the Nein so damn much. It’s reaffirming at a deep level for me. The story that they are telling, and the one forming without their active intention even being involved, is a wonderful thing. Stories about togetherness are my bread and butter; it’s why I’m a sucker for a good romance or found-family narrative, because I love it when people come together to make something more than them, making one plus one equal three. There’s nothing quite like it. And Critical Role has it in spades.

And it’s not all about the depth of answering some spiritual question. I enjoy the potty humor and the eight people just trying to fuck with each other and make each other laugh. I enjoy the silliness and joy and endless pop culture references. But also the act of eight friends coming together to make a show where they create a beautiful, silly, heartfelt story together has its own sort of spiritual resonance with me.

I also want to establish that I understand that this is a company selling an entertainment experience to me. They aren’t just doing this in the spirit of togetherness, they are doing this to strengthen their careers and incomes. I get that. But in the end, it’s all a part of the dialectic. It’s all motivation for me to continue working towards building a world where people can make wonderful art like this without worrying about building a career out of it or paying the bills. It reminds me of how much work there is to be done, but also of all the work that’s already been done.

Critical Role has its flaws, but it is a wonderful thing and I’m happier everyday I’m reminded it exists. The Mighty Nein are probably my favorite found family ever, and lately, a very powerful affirmation for my own journey. I do wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences, with this artwork or others like it. If so, I’d love for you to share them with me.

[robbiekaysfavoritelostgirl]

The Hybrid: Part Three.

Part One    Part Two

Pairing: Jacob Black x Jessica Cullen

             Edward Cullen x Jessica Cullen

             Edward Cullen x Bella Swan

Plot: You are the last witch of your kind, you were turned after you vampire father decided to get back at your mother. In a effort to throurt him your grandmother transferred the magic of the entire coven over to you, so that when you woke a vampire you would have access to your magic but had the speed, heightened senses and immortality . After a century you meet Carlisle and agree to join his family. Everyone thought that you and Edward were going to end up married until he met Bella. You were left heartbroken until you meet a certain wolf.

Fandom: Twilight

         “You will have to forgive this Edward at some point darling. After all it seems he had little say in the matter.” My mother said softly. I frowned, fully aware that she was right but still hurt enough to flinch away for the idea of forgiving him. After all, he had only proposed to me two months before she showed up. By rights I should be planning my wedding, preparing for the big that I had dreamt of since a child. 

   “I know, I just don’t think I’m ready.” I sighed, smiling sadly at her. 

   “I know my love, I can feel how badly this boy has hurt you, but remember that is his family.” Mama sighed, reaching out to cup my face. Moments like these when I could not only see her but feel her as well, made me forget she was dead and the only reason she could touch me was because of the spell I had cast once returning. 

    “Well I am all for killing the boy.” Papa huffed as he calm floating into the room. “The fact that our Nina is not enough for him is the highest of insults.”

   “I am with papa on this one.” Nik announced, ignoring the glares that our mother and grandmother had sent him. “He hurt her and we can’t just let that one slide.”

    “Honestly you two.” Grandma huffed, rolling her eyes playfully at them. “I have never seen two men more overly protective than you two. I am amazed that you didn’t have her locked away in a tower somewhere to insure no one ever hurt her.”

    “I wanted too but Mary said no.” Papa sighed. “Though I am sure she agrees with me now.” 

    “I do not and do not even think about it Niklaus. You are not locking your sister up in a tower.” 

   “I wasn’t going to lock her up in a tower. I was going to lock her in the attic so papa can help me.” 

   “You are not locking your sister up anywhere.” Mama warned, giving him the “I mean it” glare that always put an end to anything. 

   “Alright, alright I get it.” Nik huffed, raising his arms in surrender. 

   “That goes to you as well Jeremiah, you will not lock Davina up anywhere.” 

   “Fine. But we can’t..”

    “They boy is hurting enough, you heard him on the phone when he was trying to convince Nik to let him speak to Davina. This is torture to him, give him a break.” Grandma, as usual, had a point. Even I could hear the pain in Edward’s voice as he begged Niklaus to let me talk to him. Heck even Nik seemed about to give in before he looked at me. 

    “As it should be.” Both Papa and Nik mumbled, ignoring the groans from mama and grandma. We all fell silent then, not sure what else to say when my cell phone rang. It seemed so loud in the sudden silence that I jumped a little before answering it, breathing a sigh of relief when it proved to really be Rose on the other end. 

   “We need your help. An army of newborn vampires are coming and we can’t fight them ourselves. Alice thinks there is at least 20 of them.” She explained the moment I said hello. At once I turned to Nik, my eyes wide in panic and fear. 

   “Why is a newborn army coming? Jasper says they tend to stay in the south?”

   “It’s a long story. The short version of it is that Edward pissed off a vampire named Victoria when he killed her mate James in order to save Bella. Now Victoria plans on getting back by killing not only Bella but by trying to take us out.” 

    “We will be right there. I’ll cast a portal spell.”

   “Wait! We have a party being held here, Alice’s idea naturally, so people will be arriving soon. You know how temperamental those portals can be so wait until I call you back.” Rose said quickly. I paused, looking at Nik with wide eyes before nodding. 

    “Alright but call the moment the last human leaves.” I begged, breathing a sigh of relief when she promised that she would before hanging up the phone. “Looks like we have to go back and stay there. Obviously this human is determined to destroy our family.” 

   “I am sure that is not true.” Mama scolded, frowning when Nik began to laugh.

    “Are you kidding? Before Edward’s human entered the picture the only thing we had to worry about was being to close to a human while the others hunted. Now it seems like every other month a new threat is coming to our family and she is behind it. First James, then Edward runs off to the Volturi in an attempt to kill himself and now we are facing an army of newborn vampires.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

   I stopped short of the clearing, my eyes growing wide as I let out a small snarl of shock. Standing on the other side of the clearing, listening as Carlisle explained what was going on, were Shape Shifters, the biggest threat to vampire kind. Seeing them standing silently across from my family scared me more than I could put into words. 

   “Shape shifters.” I breathed out, my voice still so full of complete shock that I barely noticed as Niklaus stepped behind the tree line until his clothes were suddenly at my feet. I shock my head, trying to clear my head before I leaned down to gather his clothes, tucking them under my arm. As I straightened, I turned to see a over sized black panther slinking out from the trees where my brother had vanished moments before. 

   “Alright I’m going, calm yourself.” I huffed, rolling my eyes as Nik rammed his head into my shoulder. He huffed, rolling his panther eyes at me. The moment we walked into the clearing there was a change in energy. Everyone turned around to stare at us, their faces turning from thrilled to panic as they noticed the giant panther at my side. 

    “What is it? What’s wrong?” Carlisle cried, rushing across the field to pull me against his chest.  

   “What’s wrong? Carlisle there is a group of shapeshifters standing across you! The whole family is in danger!” I hissed, glaring at the group on the other side of the clearing. They had taken the form of wolves and all of them were staring at Nik. 

   “Relax both you, no one is danger. They are friends of Bella and have agreed to help us with the army of newborns. They mean us no harm.” He explained, smiling widely at us. “It’s okay.”

   “Of course the very dangerous creatures are friends with the human. Nik it seems we can’t return home. We will have to stay to insure that Edward’s human doesn’t get everyone killed.”

   “That is a bit harsh.” Carlisle whispered. 

  “Perhaps but it’s true. We leave for just a few months and next thing you know your hanging out with shapeshifters.” I pushed my hood down, shaking out my long brown hair. “Let’s just drop it for now, the way Jasper is looking at me means that he wants to get started. Niklaus and I will go stand over there.”

    Carlisle nodded, clearly not impressed but let us go without a word. Nik followed me silently, sitting down on the grass beside me, leaning into my side with a huff. He was glaring at the wolves and I looked across the clearing at the wolves. One stood out, a large reddish brown wolf that was staring at me. The wolf walked forward, ignoring the snarl from the panther at my side. 

   “He believes he has imprinted on you.” Edward said softly, chuckling at my cry of shock at his sudden appearance. I turned to look at him, my eyes narrowing at the small delicate human he had tucked in his side. She was staring at me, her eyes soft and sad. I huffed at her, and turned my attention back to the wolf. 

   “He thinks he what?” I said, trying hard to keep the anger from my voice. 

   “Imprinted on you. It means that you are the center of his world.” Edward answered his voice so full of relief that it actually hurt. “His name is Jacob and he would like to sit with you, in his human form, but he afraid that Niklaus will attack.”

    “Nik won’t hurt you. It’s not you that he hates, you can join us if you wish.” I spoke to the wolf, smiling softly at him as he nodded before rushing off. 

   “Can we talk.” Edward asked, his voice so soft that I could barely hear it over the snarl from the panther laying beside me. 

   “No. I don’t want to talk. Thank you for translating but Jacob, Nik and I will be fine by ourselves.” 

   “I’m really sorry. I never intended for anything like this to happen.” Edward sighed, shaking his head softly before rushing off with Bella. 

  “So what did the blood sucker do to hurt your sidekick there? Also how is he a panther?” A tall, very attractive young man asked as he came to sit down beside me. 

   “He’s my brother as for why, it’s a bit of a story but I am more than happy to share it. You see Niklaus and I are twins, we born in 1601 to a very powerful coven of witches. When our grandmother found out that a vampire named Demetri was hunting us with the intention of turning us into a vampire. To save the two of us they went ahead and transferred the magic of the full coven to us. Before only Nik could turned into an animal, like I was the only one able to do magic but that changed when our grandmother transferred the covens magic to us. There is a bond between us, that got so strong with the magic from our coven that it changed, it allowed us to share our powers. Now he can use magic as easily as I can and I can turn into an animal. We rarely do though, it still feels odd to us, Nik being able to do spells and my turning into a wolf that is.” 

   “So you are a vampire?” Jacob asked, leaning forward to sniff at me delicately before shaking his head. “No your not are you?”

   “No I’m half vampire, half witch. When the coven gave us their powers, it kept us from turning into a full vampire. Thanks to them I was able to continue using magic, as could Niklaus. However we still have some of the powers of a vampire, mainly in the fact that we are super fast, have heightened senses and will never die.”

   “Well at least your not full on bloodsucker.” Jacob chuckled, smiling when Nik lifted his head to let out a huff of a laugh. “Can you tell me a bit more about the shapeshifters?” 

    “Why you are one?” The shocked look on his face told me that he wasn’t aware of that. “At least a type. There some shapeshifters that, like you and your friends, can only turn into one type of animal. We aren’t sure as to why, only that the shape usually is the most effective for not only destroying the vampires but keeping to help keep from drawing to much attention. After all a panther would draw much more attention here than a wolf.”

   “Huh so we are witches?”

   “Again a different type but yes.”

  “What can you do?” He asked, leaning against me as I shivered at the sudden gust of wind. 

    “Well with the extra magic from my coven, there isn’t much that I can’t do. I can control the elements, freeze time and then restart it. I can also keep Edward out of my mind, which is wonderful. It’s really a long a list now that I think about it.” I chuckled, surprising myself as I leaned into his side. Like Nik was when he was full human, Jacob was really warm, which was a nice change from my always chilly companions. 

   “So what about you and Edward?”

  “Before the human we engaged. We spent about a 100 years together. Seeing him with his human, hurts more than I can ever describe.”

   “I’ll add that to my list of reasons to hate him. I am really sorry though.”

   “Don’t be. I am learning to deal with it. Can I ask you something?”

   “Anything, there is nothing I wouldn’t tell you.” He answered, the complete serenity in his voice causing me to smile. 

  “What did he mean when he said I was your imprint?”

   “Oh that. Well it’s like a soulmate only more intense. It means that you are the center of my world. I won’t do anything to hurt you or that would make you unhappy. I will be whatever you want me to be. Friend, brother, protector, something more.” He finished softly, smiling at me as I moved so I was able to curl right into his side. As I looked at him, really looked him I mean, I felt something shift. While I still love Edward, would probably always love him, I found myself picturing my life with the man beside me. Knowing already that I would happier than I ever was with Edward. 

    “I think, maybe, we should try for something more.” I whispered, laying my head against his chest. He hummed, wrapping both arms around me. 

   “That sounds like a great idea and I was really hoping you would suggest it. Also your brother isn’t going to kill me? He won’t stop staring at me.”

   “He won’t. Nik is just happy. He can feel it, that your telling the truth I mean. It makes him really happy to know that you won’t break my heart.” 

    “Oh well good.” He laughed. “Are you going to fight the newborns?” At that Nik snarled, his lips pulling back over his teeth to prove just what he thought of that idea. 

    “No. I will be tucked safely away in a tower where they can’t hurt me. Or at the very least at the house with my guard panther on duty.”

  “Add me to the guard duty list, only I’ll be like this if you don’t mind.”

   “I won’t. Though I warn you now, Nik won’t me out of his sight, not with a threat this big hang over us.”

   “Nik and I have that in common.” Jacob laughed.

   “Oh yay more over protective men.” I laughed, smiling widely up at Jacob. “It’s a good thing I’m use to it.”

   “That it is because I may be worse than your brother.”

   “Doubtful. Nik has been protective of me since the day we were born.”

[buzzdixonwriter]

My Five Most Influential

Someone asked:   Who are the most influential writers in your life?

Good question.

The broad answer is that one gets influenced many different ways by many different sources.  I enjoy poetry and song lyrics because they find ways of conveying the strongest emotional content in the most concise manner, music brings a sense of dramatic rhythm and fulfillment, the visual arts suggest ways of subtly adding many insights to a single strong idea, etc., etc., and of course, etc. (and that is also an example of a creative influence in my work).

But…to boil it down to those whom I most consciously made an effort to emulate, we find ourselves facing five creators that primed the pump.

This is not to say others whom I began following after them didn’t wield a lot of influence (thanx, Ernie, Bert, Jack, Bob, and Hank!) but these are the foundation of everything I’ve done in my career.

(And to those who notice a lack of diversity, I know, I know…but to be honest I have to acknowledge the truth, and the truth is for whatever reason, by chance or by choice, by fate or by fortune, these five dominated my sensibilities.  I trust that I’ve grown and expanded my horizons since then, but they’re the hand I got dealt.)

. . . 

Carl Barks

I loved ducks as a kid and my grandmother and aunt would always bring me a passel of duck-related comics when they came to visit.

There were some Daffy Duck comics mixed in there but while I know I looked at and enjoyed them, none of them stick in my mind like the Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories of Carl Barks.

Typically my grandmother would read these comics to me and I’d imprint the dialog and captions in my brain, replaying them as I looked at the pictures over and over again.

Barks never wrote down to his audience, and his stories covered a vast array of genres, everything from straight domestic comedy to oddball adventures to screwy crime stories.

Donald and his nephews encountered dinosaurs more than once (another big favorite of mine), and Uncle Scrooge setting out to explore the asteroid belt in order to find a new home for his fabulous money bin was another tale I loved literally to pieces, but A Christmas For Shacktown remains my all time favorite graphic novel.

I’ll concede there are better graphic novels, but none of them warm my heart the way that Christmas story does.

Barks showed it’s possible to combine heart (not to be confused with sentimentality or =yuch!= schmaltz), vivid characters, and strong, intricate narrative.  His plots where typically filled with unexpected twists and turns but his characters were always deeply involved in them, not just along for the ride.

He’s one of the greatest storytellers in the 20th century, and his work remains timeless enough to last for several centuries to come.

. . . 

Ray Bradbury

The first Ray Bradbury story I remember encountering was “Switch On The Night” in its 1955 edition, read to my kindergarten class towards the end of the school year.

This would place the event sometime in the spring of 1959.

“Switch On The Night” captivated me because it was the first story I’d ever heard that showed what could be seen in the dark that couldn’t be seen in the day.

Even as a child, it made me realize the night wasn’t scary, but contained wonders and insights we miss in the harsh glare of day.

I don’t recall if the kindergarten teacher told us the name of the author, and if she did it didn’t stick, but boy howdy, the story sure did!  Did it open the doors of the night for me, or was I already inclined to be a night person and it simply confirmed that as a valid identity?

I dunno, but I’m typing this right now at 12:24am.

And the thoughts Bradbury planted in little Buzzy boy’s brain stayed and grew and flowered, as you can read in my poem, “The Magic Hours Of The Night”.

The next time I encountered Ray Bradbury’s writing was in grammar school, certainly no later than junior high.  I was already interested in science fiction by that point, and had read “The Pedestrian” in one of my school English books (we weren’t taught the story in class; the teacher skipped over it for whatever reason but I read it anyway then re-read it and read it again and again).

Anthony Boucher’s ubiquitous 2-volume A Treasury Of Great Science Fiction was in my grammar school library and in it was Bradbury’s “Pillar Of Fire” (which I would later learn was one of his alternate Martian Chronicles and a crossover with Fahrenheit 451) and in that story he offered up a veritable laundry list of outré and outlandish fiction to be tracked down and read, authors to dig up and devour.

Oh, man, I was hooked.

So of course I began looking for all the stories and writers Bradbury listed in his short story but I also began looking for Bradbury’s own work and before you could say, “Mom, can I get a subscription to the Science Fiction Book Club?” I’d read The Golden Apples Of The Sun and A Medicine For Melancholy and R is For Rocket never once dreaming that at some point in the future the roadmap Ray plopped down in my lap would eventually lead to us being co-workers (separate projects, but the same studio at the same time) and friends.

There is a beautiful yet deceptive simplicity to Ray’s work, and even though he wrote his own book on writing (The Zen Of Writing) that has lots of good insights and professional tricks & tips, he himself wasn’t able to explain how he did it.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good Ray Bradbury parody.

I’ve seen parodies that clearly are intended to evoke Ray Bradbury, but only in the same way a clumsy older relative might evoke Michael Jackson with a spasmodic movement one vaguely recognizes as a failed attempt at a moonwalk.

But, lordie, don’t think we didn’t try to emulate him, and while none of us fanboys ever came close, I think a lot of us did learn that less is more, that the right word carries more impact than a dozen paragraphs, and that there’s magic in even the most ordinary of things.

And of course I discovered the film and TV adaptations of his work, and in discovering them I also discovered that there are some things that just can’t be translated from one media to another, and that the light, effortless appeal of Ray’s work on the page (paper or pixel) can at best be recaptured with a good audio book reader but even the best dramatic adaptions -- even those by Ray himself -- are cold dead iron butterflies compared to the light and lively creatures flying about.

So eventually I stopped trying to write like him, and instead picked up the valuable lessons of mood and emotion making an impact on a story even if the plot didn’t make much logical sense.

Decades later I would become a fan of opera, and would learn the philosophy of all opera lovers:  Opera doesn’t have to make logical sense, it just has to make emotional sense.

Ray Bradbury, opera meister.

. . . 

H.P. Lovecraft

As noted above, Bradbury’s “Pillar Of Fire” tipped me to numerous other writers, first and foremost of which turned out to be Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

Okay, before we get any further into this, let’s acknowledge the woolly mammoth in the room:  H.P. Lovecraft was a colossal asshat racist.

He was a lot of other terrible things, too, but racist is far and ahead of the rest of the pack.

It’s a disillusioning thing to find people one admired as a youngster or a teen later prove to have not just quirks and eccentricities and personal flaws, but genuinely destructive, harmful, and offensive characters.

I’ve posted on that before, too.

How I wish it were possible to retroactively scale back that hurtfulness, to make them more empathetic, less egregiously offensive (in the military sense of the word), but that ain’t so.

We have to acknowledge evil when we see it, and we have to call it out, and we have to shun it.

Which is hard when one of its practitioners provides a major influence in our creative lives.

Here’s what I liked about Lovecraft as a kid:  He was the complete opposite of Ray Bradbury.

Bradbury’s instinctive genius was in finding the right word, the simple word that conveyed great impact on the story, drawing the reader into the most fantastic situations by making them seem more familiar on a visceral level.

Lovecraft achieved the exact opposite effect by finding the most arcane, bedizened, baroque, florid, grandiloquent, overwrought, rococo verbiage possible and slapping the reader repeatedly in the face with it.

If Bradbury made the unreal real, Lovecraft made the weird even more weirder.

And let’s give this devil his due:  The Strange Case Of Charles Dexter Ward and The Dunwich Horror are two masterpieces of horror and serve as the bridge between Edgar Allen Poe and Stephen King, not to mention his creation of Cthulhu and other ancient entities existing beyond the ken of human knowledge…

…oh, wait, that’s where the story simultaneously gets messy yet provides a convenient escape hatch for fans.

While Lovecraft created Cthulhu, he did not create the Cthulhu Mythos.

That was primarily the invention August Derleth, a writer / editor / agent and H.P. Lovecraft’s #1 fanboy.

Lovecraft had some loosely related ideas in his stories and several themes he revisited repeatedly (in addition to racism).

He also had a circle of fellow writers -- including such heavy hitters as Robert “Psycho” Bloch and Robert E. “Conan” Howard -- who picked up on his ideas and, as way of a tribute, incorporated them in some of their stories.

Derleth took all this and Lovecraft’s unfinished manuscripts and short ideas he jotted down and turned it into a whole post-mortem industry, linking all of Lovecraft and other writers’ tales.

And he did a damn fine job of it, too.

So much so that the Cthulhu Mythos has taken on a life of its own, and pretty much anybody can play in that cosmic sandbox now (including Big Steve King and a ton of Japanese anime) and so Lovecraft’s works have an enormous influence on pop culture…

,,,but Howard hizzowndamsef can be -- and is -- cancelled.

Derleth and various biographers downplayed Lovecraft’s virulent racism for decades, and I don’t think Ray Bradbury was ever aware of the scope and tenor of Lovecraft’s bigotry when he name checked him in “Pillar Of Fire” and other stories.

In a similar vein Bradbury didn’t know -- because thanks again to overly protective literary executors, nobody knew -- just how big a racist asshat Walt Whitman was, either.  It is one thing to call shenanigans on a Bill Cosby or a Harvey Weinstein or a Donald Trump because their egregious behaviors were noted long before they were held accountable, but quite another to do so on a creator who died while hiding their most awful behavior from thousands if not millions of fans who felt inspired and uplifted by their work.

It’s one thing to call out a contemporary bigot and not support them by not buying their work, it’s quite another when their bigotry has been shielded from view and fair minded, decent people have used their work to draw inspiration into their own creativity.

Of course, I had no way of knowing all this when I was in junior high and seriously began tracking down Lovecraft’s work.  

He possessed a flair of the horrific and unearthly that to this day is hard to match (but easier to parody).  He was a tremendous influence on my early writing (truth be told, I zigzagged between Bradbury’s stark simplicity and Lovecraft’s overarching verbosity, giving my early oeuvre a rather schizophrenic style) and the ideas he sparked still reverberate to this day.

If only he hadn’t been such a giant %#@&ing asshat racist …

. . . 

Harlan Ellison

In a way, I’m glad neither Harlan nor his widow Susan are alive to read this.

I cherished Harlan as a friend and greatly admired his qualities as a writer.

But damn, by his own admission he should have been thrown in prison for aggravated assault on numerous occasions (he was courts martialed three times while in the Army).

We’re not talking about arguments that spiraled out of control until a few wild punches were thrown, we’re talking about Harlan by his own admission stalking and ambushing people, knocking them unconscious or causing grievous bodily harm.

We’re talking about sexual abuse and humiliation.

We’re talking about incidents he admitted to which if true put people in life threatening situations.

And yet ironically, in a certain sense Harlan (a bona fide Army Ranger, BTW) was like the U.S. Marine Corps:  You’d never have a greater friend or a worse enemy.

I became dimly aware of Harlan in the late 1960s as I started diving deeper into literary sci-fi, transitioning from monster kid fandom to digests and paperbacks.  Harlan first caught my attention with his macho prose (years later a similar style also drew me to Charles Bukowski) in stories like “Along the Scenic Route” (a.k.a. “Dogfight on 101”) in which Los Angelinos engaged in Mad Max motor mayhem but soon it became apparent the macho posturing was just a patina, that the heart and soul of much of the work reflected great sensitivity and often profound melancholy (ditto Bukowski).

Harlan was a fighter, and again by his own admission, he acknowledged in his later years that he was not a fighter because his cause was just, but rather sought out just causes because he knew he would be fighting regardless of his position, yet possessed a strong enough moral compass to point himself in the direction of a worthy enemy…

…most of the time.

He hurt and offended a large number of innocent and some not-so-innocent-but-certainly-not-evil people.

He also helped and encouraged a large number of others, people who had no idea who he was, people who had no way of adequately reciprocating his kindness and generosity.

He defended a lot of defenseless people.

He also mistakenly defended a lot of terrible people.

If someone tells me Harlan was a monster, I’ll agree:  Monstre sacré.

What made his writing sacred was that no matter how outlandish the situation, Harlan dredged up from the depths emotions so strong as to be frightening in their depiction.

Skilled enough not to lose sight of humanity, outlandish enough to conjure up ideas and emotions most people would shy away from, Harlan hit adolescent Buzzy boy like an incendiary grenade.

Unlike my first three literary influences, Harlan was and remained active in the fannish circles where I was circulating at the time.  He regularly wrote letters and columns for various fanzines, including a few I subscribed to.

In a literary sense he stood, naked and unashamed, in full view of the world, and that willingness to go beyond mundane sensibilities is what made his work so compelling.

He certainly fired me up as an adolescent writer, and proved an amalgam of Bradbury and Lovecraft that got my creative juices flowing in a coherent direction.

I don’t think I ever consciously tried to imitate him in my writing, but I sure learned from him, both in how to charge a story with emotion and how to fight for what’s right regardless of the blow back.

I loved him as a friend.

But, damn, Harlan…you could act so ugly...

. . .

H. Allen Smith

Who?

Most of you have never heard of H. Allen Smith, and that’s a damn shame.

I’d never heard of him either until I stumbled across a coverless remaindered copy of Poor H. Allen Smith’s Almanac in a Dollar General Store bin in Tennessee in the late 1960s (it was a memorable shopping expedition:  I also purchased Thomas Heggen’s Mister Roberts and Let’s Kill Uncle by Rohan O'Grady [pen name of June Margaret O'Grady Skinner]).

Reading Smith’s editorial comments (in addition to his own essays and fiction he edited numerous humor anthologies) I realized I’d found a kindred soul.

Smith had a very conversational tone as a writer; his prose seemed off the cuff and unstructured, but he slyly used that style to hide the very peculiar (and often perverse) path he led readers down.

He sounded / read like a garrulous guy at the bar, one with a huge number of charming, witty (and delightfully inebriated) friends in addition to his own bottomless well of tall tales, pointed observations, and rude jokes.

Of all the writers mentioned above, that style is the one I most consciously tried to emulate, and one I seem to have been able to find my own voice in (several people have told me I write the same way I talk, a rarity among writers).

Smith was hilarious whether wearing an editor’s visor or a freelancer’s fool’s cap.  If you know who H. L. Mencken was, think of Smith as a benign, better tempered version of that infamous curmudgeon (and if you don’t know, hie thee hence to Google and find out).

Compared to my other four influences, Smith didn’t need to add the fantastic to his fiction:  The real world was weird and wacky and whimsical enough.

A newspaper man turned best selling author, Smith became among the most popular humorists of the 1940s-50s-60s…

…and then he died and everybody forgot him.

Part of the reason they forgot is that he wrote about things that no longer seem relevant (TV cowboys of the early television era, f’r instance, in Mr. Zip) or are today looked upon askance (and with justifiable reason; the ethnic humor in many of his anthologies may not have been intended as mean spirited, but it sure doesn’t read as a celebration of other cultures, viz his succinct account of an argument following a traffic accident between two native Honolulu cabbies rendered in pidgin:  “Wassamatta you?”  “’Wassmatta me’?!?!?  Wassamatta you ‘Wassamatta me’?  You wassamatta!”).

I’m sure I picked up a great many faults from Smith, but Smith also had the virtue of being willing and able to learn and to make an effort to be a better person today than he was yesterday, and better still tomorrow.

I’ve certainly tried applying that to my life.

Smith’s style was also invoked -- consciously or not -- by other writers and editors, notably Richard E. Geis, the editor of the legendary sci-fi semi-prozone, Science Fiction Review (among other titles).  Smith died before I could meet him, but while I never met Dick Geis face to face we were pen pals for over 40 years.

Geis certainly sharpened specific aspects of my writing style, but the real underlying structure came from H. Allen Smith.

Smith’s work is hard to find today (in no small part because whenever I encounter one in the wild I snap it up) but I urge you to give him a try.

Just brace yourself for things we might consider incorrect today.

. . . 

So there’s my top five. 

With the exception of Carl Barks and Ray Bradbury, none of them are without serious flaw or blemish (though Smith seems like a decent enough sort despite his fondness for X-rated and ethnic humor).

In my defense as an impressionable child / teen, I was not aware of these flaws and blemishes when I first encountered their writing (primarily because in many cases efforts were made to hide or downplay those aspects).

The positive things I gleaned from them are not negated by the negative personal information that came out later.

I can, for the most part re the more problematic of them, appreciate their work while not endorsing their behavior.

Ellison can only be described in extremes, but his fire and passion -- when directed in a positive direction -- served as a torch to light new paths (his two original anthologies, Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions, pretty much blew the doors off old school sci-fi and belatedly dragged the genre kicking and screaming into the 20th century).

Lovecraft I can effectively ignore while finding entertainment value in the Cthulhu Mythos.

But I must acknowledge this isn’t the same for everyone.

For example, as innocuous as I find H. Allen Smith, if a woman or a member of a minority group said, “I found this in particular to be offensive” I’d probably have to say, yeah, you’re right.

But I can still admire the way he did it, even if I can no longer fully support what he did.

. . . 

By the time I reached high school, I’d acquired enough savvy to regard to literary finds a bit more dispassionately, appreciating what they did without trying to literally absorb it into my own writing.

I discovered for myself the Beat generation of writers and poets, the underground cartoonists of the late 60s and 70s, Ken Kesey, Joseph Heller, Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. LeGuin, and a host of others, some already alluded to.

Some, such as the Beats and Bukowski, I could enjoy for their warts and all honest self-reflection.

Yes, they were terrible people, but they knew they were terrible people, and they also knew there had to be something better, and while they may never have found the nirvana they sought, they at least sent back accurate reports of where they were in their journeys of exploration.

By my late teens, I’d become aware enough of human foibles and weaknesses -- every human’s foibles and weaknesses, including my own -- to be very, very cautious in regarding an individual as admirable.

While I will never accept creativity as an excuse for bad behavior, if a creator is honest enough and self-introspective enough to recognize and acknowledge their own failings, it goes a long way towards my being willing to enjoy their work without feeling I’m endorsing them as individuals.

It’s not my place to pass judgment or exoneration on others bad behavior.

It is my place to see that I don’t emulate others’ bad behavior.

Every creator is connected to their art, even if it’s by-the-numbers for-hire hack work.

Every creator puts something of themselves into the final product.

And every member of the audience must decide for themselves if that renders the final product too toxic to be enjoyed. 

    © Buzz Dixon

[dropintomanga]

Inferiority - A Bigger Threat Than a Titan

In order to get by in life, we look to others to guide us. At the same time, we also compare ourselves to said others. We place ourselves in a hierarchy to see where we stand. While it’s important to know one’s place in the world, this can hinder someone when it’s apparent that the place may not be the right one for them. With the 1st part of Attack on Titan Season 3 finished up, the anime finally showed a key information dump that brings up issues of inferiority and envy that hurt us. It’s something that we can learn from today due to how people perceive things to be zero-sum. 

Right after an uprising to overturn a corrupt government and before the expedition to retake Wall Maria for good, Eren Yeager wanted to know more about his father, Grisha. He learns from absorbed memories (due to Titan inheritance) that an old instructor of his, Keith Shadis, met and saved his father at some point. Eren, along with the Survey Corps, confronts Shadis. Shadis then tells the group about how he met Grisha as a member of the Survey Corps. He also goes on about his insecurity over being an average person who couldn’t save anyone compared to Grisha. That insecurity would lead him to try and sabotage Eren’s attempts to be a member of the military way back in the beginning, only for the strategy to backfire on him and confirm his own belief that he was powerless to change anything at all. 

What Shadis goes through is pretty normal. Social comparison is a big part of how we live our lives. We want to see how we’re doing among other people. We want to see if we can copy someone to improve our lives. We all want to show that we’re better than someone who is worse off in certain areas. However, we may want love from those who may be worse off. You can say that love and envy can go hand in hand.

Shadis liked Grisha after rescuing him. He was fascinated by his lack of knowledge regarding life inside the walls. However, he begun to see Grisha’s successes as a doctor and his ability to start a family with a sense of inferiority. During Grisha’s wedding, Shadis straight up left after seeing him. At the same time, he wasn’t fulfilling his role as Commander of the Survey Corps. Shadis would later by replaced by Erwin Smith, whose creativity in setting up expeditions with minimal human loss made him a better choice for commander. He would take out his frustrations on Eren’s mother, Carla, about what it means to be an average person versus a great person.

Shadis made endless comparisons with others to the point to the point where he felt useless. As a young recruit, he was envious of his superiors and wanted to prove them wrong. But in the end, nothing changed for Shadis. Shadis was obsessed with the word “special.” Grisha once said Shadis was special for even attempting to go outside the walls. That compliment made him feel special people can change the world. Endless comparison leads to a lot of unhappiness. You can see this with regards to social media and the issue of FOMO (fear of missing out).

It’s possible that Shadis was very afraid of being disliked by others. That’s why he wanted to feel special. We want to own up to nice things people say about us. But sometimes, compliments are just meant to be compliments. Reading through Shadis’ flashback again makes me think about praise. There was a study in 1997 on a type of praise that can backfire when you use it. Basically, if you’re saying something like “You’re so smart,” “You’re amazing!”, “Good job!” to someone, that person ends up feeling pressured to live up to those labels. This is what Grisha told Shadis when they were getting to know each other.

“You’re wiser and braver than anyone else inside the walls. The existence of the Survey Corps is living proof that the human imagination and soul are free. You’re the pride of humanity.” The first part of this statement is fine and the praise is indeed genuine, but Shadis had low self-esteem from the beginning. In one flashback sequence, Shadis saw his superiors making snide comments about the Survey Corps and shows his desire to be Commander to show people up. So after hearing the words “pride of humanity,” it empowered him. It seemed like Shadis always wanted to live to Grisha’s ideal of him. When Grisha decides to transfer his Titan powers to Eren in order to avenge Carla, Shadis asked Grisha why Eren as he didn’t look special. Praise can have an unintended effect of forcing someone to live by another person’s vision of them and not their own. This in turn leads to self-loathing and possible harm to other people. Praise works in some cases, but for anyone who’s felt neglected and desperately wants to be liked, it may not be the best solution. Hange Zoe criticized Shadis for not saying anything about Grisha’s last moments to the Survey Corps, as that information was important to the fate of humanity, due to his obsession with being special. Though as Levi and Eren wanted to point out, it’s not exactly his fault. There were no signs of encouragement for Shadis to challenge himself or re-think his way of thinking .

We treat life as some competitive game where winning is the only thing that matters. But as Carla once told Shadis about being average, “Do you really have to be special? Do you really need people’s recognition? I don’t think so. At the very least, not when it comes to this child (Eren), he doesn’t need to become great. Why would he have to be better than anyone else? Just look at him. Don’t you see how cute he is? He’s already great. Because he was born into this world.”

Attack on Titan is all about spreading the wings of freedom. But as time goes on with the series, it’s also about having the courage to be disliked. Without that courage, like Shadis, we’ll be nothing more than bystanders.

[ccfurryguy]

What I learned about God

Since I was neither a pastor or a philosopher, my take on God might seem unprofessional. As a layman thinker my take on God will seem simple to some, but since many who might read this may also be of similar learning, perhaps my insight on the Almighty might have some revelation.

In this world of diversity, we see a lot of people who have different views on God as well as names they believe are his name. Just as there are so many different cultures and races, we also have an assortment of beliefs or lack thereof.

The God I believe in is the one that comes from the Bible; his living word. Some skeptics are willing to say that the Bible is just a fabrication of fallible men and shouldn’t be taken as holy scripture and written through inspiration from God to man. It shouldn’t be a surprise or a shock that people should doubt the bible, despite the fact that it is one of the oldest, most accurate, and best selling book in all of history. Despite this, many still will say that the word of God is nothing but human imagination.

I find that odd cause when I often tell people how the Bible to me is also a source of earthly wisdom, they scoff at the notion as well. When one reads the Bible, even if they are not a believer, the words are alien to our form of thought. There is a great deal that scripture conflicts with what we think or believe such as the concept of forgiving those that hurt us. Jesus himself said, “for if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” (Matthew 6:14, Mark 11:25, John 20:23 NIV). Scripture tells us that instead of being bitter and hateful to those who are against us, we should, in fact, forgive them. How on earth can an earthly man consider such a thing? How could fallible men write about something that other fallible men couldn’t comprehend or consider ridiculous? Such a contradiction should be obvious to anyone who tries to read the Bible: If it is not wise to us, then it must be of God. For is it not written: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom…” (1 Corinthians 1:25 NIV). So if the bible contradicts human wisdom, perhaps it is of a wisdom not of this world, hm?

The truth of the matter is that we all believe in God. Deep down there is that part of us that acknowledges something greater than ourselves. Even an Agnostic or Atheist believes enough in God to attempt to dismiss him. The problem is that our beliefs are as diversified as the cultures, races, nationalities and gender orientation this world carries. We still, however, carry that one tidbit that is ingrained into your psyche: We all acknowledge in some degree to a creator.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that what everyone perceives God is true. Our various religions and beliefs all differ and how we see the world beyond us ranges from the sublime to the strange. Some people believe we all just become reunited with some abstract godhead and become one with the universe. Others believe we just reincarnate and how we lived our past life determines what our new life becomes.

As for me, I see my faith in God a bit differently. Like I showed before when I compare what the bible says about how we should worship God and conduct our lives, some will see that as stupid. The reason why so many people can’t or won’t understand the bible is cause it doesn’t follow our current way of thinking in this earthly world. Maybe that’s why I feel like the God of the Bible is true—because maybe God, who sees all and knows all, thinks in ways we can’t fathom in our earthly intelligence. Maybe cause God is something more than just an abstract force or being, he might know something more than our linear thinking minds can grasp.

God’s Holiness

A lot of argument can be heard regarding certain subjects in the bible. For instance, there was a story in 2nd Samuel about a man named Uzzah. Now according to the story, King David was taking the ark of the covenant, which was the holiest relic to the Jews. Now while they were transporting the ark, The cart it was carried in started to wobble and the ark was about to fall. Uzzah, reached out to grab the ark and kept it in the cart; however, God was angry with Uzzah and he smote him dead for touching the ark. David didn’t like that either and this story tends to see God as rather petty and mean for smiting someone who was just trying to prevent the ark from falling off and being damaged. So why did God do this?

The answer that came to me in my walk comes in the power of God’s holiness. Holiness describes the aspect of God where he is the ultimate embodiment of moral and physical purity. You can wash, disinfect, bleach and scour yourself until your raw and bleeding, and it would not be close to the level of purity that God contains.

Think of Holiness as the sun, a massive burning ball of churning hydrogen in the middle of space. The sun’s light and heat warm and illuminates the earth with life-giving power, which symbolizes the holy energy from God. However, That light and warmth when you get to close to it can wind up both blinding and utterly destroying anyone or anything that comes too close. God is so holy and pure that coming in contact with anything that possesses a shred of that holiness would be destroyed by it. This, in my opinion, is why Uzzah died, not because of his concern for the ark, but because God’s holiness could not be handled without being killed by it.

Moses’ interactions with God are a good example of God’s holiness and its effect on sinful mortals. When God first visited Moses as a burning bush, God told him, “Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” (Exodus 3:5). God openly warns Moses not to come near because his holy presence would do Moses harm. Further on, when Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments, God himself was to come down to write on the stone slabs. When Moses seemed excited to see God face-to-face, God warned instead, “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.” (Exodus 33:20) Another proof that God could not be seen by mortal eyes without being consequences.

So many would imagine God is being arrogant about not being seen or touched by others, that not being able to see him didn’t make him feel real. The reality of it shows that God is actually doing it for our benefit; rather than having us destroyed by his presence. Of course, that would change somewhat later on, as I will talk about in the next chapter.

God’s Omnipotence and Omnipresence

Omnipotence basically means “All-powerful”, which states that he can do anything. If you really sit back and think of what that means, It really makes you think about who God really is.

As a student of animation, I see God as an artist, and the canvas he paints on is our existence. God exists outside of the canvas and paints upon it, creating and fabricating a beautiful work of art. He is not bound to the confines of that canvas, and the Canvas cannot dictate to God what he should or shouldn’t paint.

“In the Beginning, you laid the foundations of the earth” (Psalms 102:25) Which tells us how God was the creator of the Earth. However in the book of Job “For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings.” (Job 34:21). Also in Proverbs, “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord…” (Proverbs 5:21)

The same goes for God in our universe. He exists outside of the scope of time, space, and existence—primarily because he created them. Because he created it, he can tell it what to do and not the other way around. We cannot dictate to God that we should have been born as Brad Pitt anymore than a fly can tell God it wants to be a man. If God can do whatever he wants to what he creates, then that gives me a good idea about what makes God all-powerful.

This also has the benefit of his Omnipresence, which is the concept that he can be everywhere and anywhere in the universe. It falls back to the same analogy as the canvas. Since God created all of the universes from his perch in heaven, it stands to reason that he also sees and exists in the same space. He can look at that canvas and see the stars and planets, even the minute details of Earth and the creatures that dwell on it. Every brushstroke that he made is there for him to enjoy.

God’s Omniscience

Time to us seems linear and static. We currently exist, and we remember memories of the past and look towards the future. Sometimes we see the future with uncertainty and dread. We are born, lived and eventually die. Such is the nature of Time to us.

As I mentioned in the previous section, I describe as best I can how God sees existence like an artist paints on a canvas. God, in the same way, sees Time somewhat differently than we do since he exists out of time—I mean, he did create time after all. “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ says the Lord God, ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.’” (Revelation 1:8) Through this, we see that God states that from the beginning of creation to the end, he is always going to be there since he exists outside the time he created.

Imagine if you will a flipbook: one of those old paper books that when you thumb through them rapidly, creates the illusion of movement. Now imagine that flipbook as depicting your entire life, from birth to death. We as finite beings in that flipbook can only perceive them now and remember what was. We cannot look forward to the end of the book. God, however, existing outside of that flipbook, can. In fact, he probably sees it more as taking the flipbook apart and laying out the individual frames all in a neat orderly set and can see everything from beginning to end.

God once spoke to the Prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee…”(Jeremiah 1:5 KJV) This can only be possible that God would have an awareness of time that only a being that exists outside of time could have. And if God could do this for one of his children, that means he knows all of us before we were born—He loved us even before we ever were born, and he knows when we will live and when we will die. One who meditates on such a statement must also wonder what an intimate depth God knows about us, as well as makes us aware that God knows what we are going to do in our lives. That is why God loves us so much.

Since God who exists outside of time can see the flow of time in our lives, can he not see the beginning and the end of our world? Though my analogy may seem simple, It makes me think of just how different God perceives all of existence from his God-eye view than from our short-sighted senses. “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

[despairforme]

     It had been a while since he fed. He was... Hungry - or, rather - starving. At least that’s what it felt like. Nnoitra was a big shark, who needed a LOT of food to stay healthy. He had been aimlessly swimming around, hoping to come across some prey. Then, a light on the horizon. A scent of blood! This didn’t just mean a meal, but an EASY one! Some injured animal was here somewhere. With Nnoitra’s keen sense of smell, he would hunt it down in no time! Finally, he would get to EAT!

     But - when he arrived at the place where the scent was the strongest, and therefore, this HAD to be the source, he couldn’t detect anything in the water. No fish. No seal. No turtles - nothing. If there had been any sharks following the bloodtrail, they would’ve backed off once they sensed him. There weren’t many sharks who dared come near a big predator like himself. But, why was there nothing to eat here? It puzzled him, and he tilted his head from side to side in question. That’s when he spotted it - 

     It was so bright and SPARKLY! While his experience told him that things that sparkled were usually NOT tasty ( in fact, almost all his facial scars were caused by him eating said sparkly things, including his blind eye ). But--- BUT HE JUST COULDN’T HELP HIMSELF! What if it WAS food this time! He hadn’t swam all this way for nothing! His mouth opened, and the next moment, he had closed his jaws around that shiny thingy. It took only a second. The shiny thingy made a sharp tug inside his mouth, and then he could feel something force its way through his cheek. The taste of blood filled his mouth, and he tired to swim away, but this only made it THAT much worse! The sharp HOOK had now dug its way all the way through his flesh and skin - and he was trapped. It hurt a LOT. Especially when something started to PULL at it. Nnoitra didn’t want to join in on the trip towards the surface, but trying to jerk away was incredibly painful! He thought it very well might rip a fucking HOLE in his face! This was what had happened when he lost his eye too, so that made him extra paranoid. With shaking hands, he attempted to remove the hook, but since he couldn’t see what he was doing ( he could only sense it with his electroreceptors, but right now, that just WASN’T helping! With slight panic, Nnoitra attempted once more to use sheer, brute force to pull free. Immediately, the pain in his cheek intensified tenfold, and he had to give a small whimper. It hurt! It hurt SO MUCH! His eye(s) squeezed shut. The pulling at his cheek was getting stronger now, and he could tell that he was being brought towards the surface. NO WAY! Angrily, Nnoitra struggled against the pull, eye(s) still squeezed shut against the pain, which was making him feel almost dizzy. The taste and scent of blood numbed his senses. Nnoitra was strong. His body was heavy. It would take more than THIS to take him to the surface! Nnoitra KNEW what was happening - he had seen it happen to other sharks before. While he, himself, had never gotten fished before ( thanks to his hands, he had always been able to get the hook loose ), but he couldn’t remember eating one THIS big in the past, nor had one ever gotten THIS stuck. Nnoitra was also afraid of harming his one good eye ( this would mean he would be unable to hunt, and ultimately starve to death ), so that kept him from trying too hard to pull himself free. His hands were helplessly trying to get the hook out of his mouth, but no matter how hard he tried - it was just STUCK, and whoever was trying to fish him was just pulling SO hard that the fishing line was as tight as a string. Nnoitra tried to bite it with those sharp teeth of his - but it wasn’t like any other fishing line he had encountered. This one appeared to be made of steel. 

     Two hours of torture later - Nnoitra was exhausted. Fighting against the constant pull was getting tougher and tougher. His fingers were stiff and the insides of his palms were bleeding a bit from trying to PULL at the line. His body felt weak and heavy. Even his breathing had gotten uneven. The surface was much closer than it had been an hour ago. Not exactly an uplifting fact. He could see the beams of sunlight break the surface, shining down in dancing beams. Was he actually going to get fished? Like - for real? Wasn’t he going to get himself free? Never in his life had he felt THIS weak. He sure as hell didn’t feel like the apex predator that he really was. The pain in his cheek - or rather, his whole face was hurting by now, was so bad that it was making his vision go blurry every now and then.

     One more hour passed before Nnoitra’s dorsal fin popped up over the surface. He could hear excited calls from the boat. The last fifteen minutes or so, he had gotten all dizzy, so it wasn’t easy to tell what they were saying. He had a small hope that they would actually let him go. Despite how they had invested hours in pulling him up. Nnoitra knew that most people fished in order to eat the fish that they caught. Others - only a few - appeared to just found it exciting to go fishing. Nnoitra would’ve loved to tell them that there was absolutely nothing exciting about having a steel hook slice through your cheek. It was only thanks to his thick skin that he hadn’t ended up cutting his cheek open all the way to his mouth. However, all the tugging had made an upwards gash.

     With another forceful yank, Nnoitra’s head was pulled above water. Nnoitra took a deep breath, knowing that his gills didn’t work that well on land. He could probably survive for what? Thirty minutes? There were more excited yells now. Nnoitra placed his bleeding palms against the side of the boat, and pushed, in one desperate attempt to get himself free. With his blurry vision, he could vaguely make out people looking down on him in the bright sunlight. With his head now above water, it hurt a lot MORE when the fishermen pulled at the line. Nnoitra couldn’t help but squirm. Like an actual FISH. 

     ❝ Look! This is sensational! ❞

     ❝ Quick! We have to get it onboard! ❞

     ❝ It must be, what? Sixteen feet? ❞

     ❝ We’re going to get world famous! We’re going to get rich! ❞

     ❝ Hurry up already! We can’t lose it! Use the gaff, but don’t hurt it too much! If we can get it alive we’re set for life! ❞

     Nnoitra felt ANOTHER sharp pain when something new and MUCH BIGGER dug through his skin. This time, at the very base of his dorsal fin. It felt like his fucking spine was going to snap! 

     ❝ Connect it to the winch! There is no way we can reel this one in ourselves, it must weigh almost a ton! ❞

     Slowly, and INCREDIBLY painfully, Nnoitra was lifted up by the hook in his dorsal fin, and the one in his mouth. The whole time, he was struggling like crazy. He seriously thought something in his body would just break. He could hear the humans laugh in excitement, clearly thrilled about the scene. They had definitely never seen a creature like him before. Gasping for air, like a fish out of water - Nnoitra was almost thankful when his body hit the deck of the boat, and the pain eased down. His eye(s) had watered over - something which was completely new to him. He attempted to push himself up using his hands, but there was no strength left in him, and being out of the water for so long ( it HAD taken a while to lift him up ), he knew he had to conserve his oxygen. Who knew if these crazy people had the brains to know that HE WAS A MARINE CREATURE AND HE NEEDED FUCKING WATER TO SURVIVE! The answer came a second later, when a big bucket of water was thrown at him. Nnoitra could see some blood being washed away from the deck. His mouth and fin was still bleeding, though not as much as one would expect. 

     ❝ Call your friend at seaworld! ❞

     ❝ Yeah, do it! Imagine how much they’ll pay for it! We should sell him before some animal-rights assholes show up! I mean - we’ve discovered a new species! The HELL if we’re gonna get robbed off our money just because some assholes! ❞ 

     ❝ Good idea! Let seaworld deal with all that nonesense, while we get rich! ❞ 

     Nnoitra had NO idea what the fuck these people were talking about, in any case - he was way too occupied with trying to figure out what to do now. It was becoming clear that they were not going to let him back into the ocean. On land, he couldn’t really move all that much, but he was still a large carnivore, and those jaws of his could kill a man. He just had to get to one! But... He felt so weak. His arms were shaking, and his mouth ached. Another bucket filled with water was emptied over his head. His gills fluttered, trying to absorb as much oxygen as possible.

     ❝ I’ll go make the call. You can try to remove the hook. We want it in the best possible shape when we sell it. ❞  Oh - an opportunity! Nnoitra lay still, appearing to be close to passing out. Even if his vision was still blurred, he could clearly see one of them approaching, leaning down, reaching for the hook and --- In the blink of an eye, Nnoitra’s jaws SLAMMED shut around the man’s hand. A disgusting, and surprisingly soft chewing noise followed, as Nnoitra BIT off the man’s hand in ONE bite. A scream rang through Nnoitra’s head, and blood gushed onto his face.

      ❝ No! No! Don’t SHOOT it! Don’t hurt it! ❞  Nnoitra didn’t know what happened next. He was overwhelmed by all that blood, and then - something hard it his head, and everything went black. 

[massistocchifontana]

The Art of Attractiveness

The Art of Attractiveness

The word “attractive” always makes me think of classic pinups and beauty queens, but when I really enquire into the word, it holds far more essence and depth to the point where each and every individual on this planet can embrace this one word and change their lives significantly. Not only will this induce change, but lead you towards manifesting abundance in your life.

I believe that one of the goals in this life is to become a more attractive person. What this doesn’t mean, is making the word sound superficial and focus simply on looks… Essentially looks fade and we all age, whereas attractiveness transcends all superficialities and is timeless.

So what makes YOU attractive?

I have named a few categories which I feel are necessary in making you more attractive.

Personality:

We have all been conditioned to believe we have one personality type and this is something was we have to live with for the rest of our lives. I believe that because we are social animals and we have learned mostly everything through socialisation, our personalities are one such example. What we have been shown (usually by a person who is a secure base for us), is to believe that we have strengths and weaknesses and because there is no “handbook for parents”, our folks just go on instinct and advice and attempt at equipping us with the best tools for living in a quite tricky and at times dangerous world. What happens in this instance is that they strengthen and reinforce our qualities or ‘natural’ abilities instead of focusing on strengthening our weaknesses and assisting us into working on our shortcomings to become well rounded individuals. This aim for balance in our personality can be achieved by anyone willing to work on their weaknesses. I guarantee you, spending half an hour a day on personal development will help you achieve this.

ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND: that the reason why we go back to using old behaviours is because we haven’t invested enough time on introducing new behaviours and thinking patterns for them to become second nature and ultimately becoming muscle memory.

Attire:

I absolutely love fashion. I love the fact that the canvas that we are adorning with beautiful things is the human body. Its fascinating to see how people use this either to their advantage in the game of attractiveness or decide to opt out completely (usually because they need some education here too). Style is something that needs to be worked on, to the point of knowing how to dress your body and achieve a look that you feel confident in, which represents your personality. Remember: style is an expression of individualism mixed with charisma, whereas fashion is something that comes after style.

Manners:

Impeccable manners have historically been a sign of good breeding. Pease forgive the quite bourgeois statement, but this is true in my opinion. Manners are not prescribed only for the rich. On the contrary, good manners should be upheld in a public and personal space at all times. This should be a representation of who you are as a human being. If you feel this is a skill you have not mastered, DO SO! This is not meant to inflate the go and make you sound pompous but instead the intention is to enhance the individual to flow with grace and uphold a poise of absolute attractiveness to others around them.

Etiquette:

The general use of the word applies to ones ability to adapt themselves and their behaviour to the conventional requirements of society or a particular environment. This is an art unto itself. The ability to read your environment and the people in it allows you greater access and opportunity in being completely present in the experience and interaction. This can only play to your advantage, as you will experience complete acceptance from others and be remembered as being flexible enough to adapt to any situation. Ones relational ability is a key ingredient to being successful in this world. Take note of your persona, style, thinking and manners of being and adapt them where necessary. In strengthening each skill and mode of relating you will develop yourself into a fully rounded and complete individual.

Responsibility:

Every individual on this planet has a choice. And with every choice comes a set of consequences of which we need to take responsibility for. Although there are certain events in this world that we cannot control (e.g. Sudden Death), we always have a choice in how we want to relate to the event. For a moment think what our world would be like if we were all held accountable for all the transgressions that each and every individual in the world made… if that is not enough of a deterrent, think that each and every time you did something morally wrong the closest person to you would be beaten or caused severe harm… No doubt this would make you think twice about doing anything other than leaving a person in a better off position than when you met them last! Making yourself accountable creates an inevitable situation where you will grow immensely on five levels: spiritually, physically, emotionally, financially and socially.

Respect:

Respect begins with oneself. Unfortunately many of us do not respect ourselves and we develop an underlying belief that we are DESERVING of all the heartache and pain that is inflicted in our lives. The essence of respect is founded on knowing how to soothe and be kind to oneself. Don’t fool yourself… This is not a process of being wrapped in cotton-wool, instead this is knowing and feeling exactly what is needed in your life at that particular point. If you need more stringent boundaries you know how to solidify them or activate strategies to keep you contained, all the way to knowing how to spoil yourself with kindness and goodness when you need it the most. Respect begins with the self and is then applied to others.

Appreciation:

Instilling appreciation in your life is one of the most simplistic yet most effective means of creating abundance and converting yourself into an attractive individual. Start each morning the second you wake up with the phrase “thank you for being alive”… Open those curtains and regardless of what the weather is like, take a few minutes to watch in marvel at the magnificence that is our world. Rain or shine this doesn’t matter, the essence of the process is finding the beauty in everything. There is an opportunity to do this in every scenario, because part of this process is learning how to appreciate that even the worst case scenarios have been placed in our paths for us to learn something very significant and life changing. Embrace everything wholeheartedly and we then learn how to face both pleasure and pain in a balanced way.

Being in the moment:

When we live in the past we are prone to depression, when we live in the future we induce anxiety and when we live our lives in the present we are at peace. A motto to live by on many levels, but the most important part is realising that one of the hardest yet most life changing experiences is being able to live in the moment in your entirety. Buddhist monks don’t practice for years because the process is simple, but practice with the intention of reconditioning themselves with the belief (developed from their realisation) that they can be completely in the moment and nothing else matters other than the experience they are having.

Forgiveness:

As a therapist I am often asked about forgiveness and the mechanism of forgiveness. Please do bear in mind that there is a massive difference between someone being out right stupid in remaining in a situation because you have forgiven their partner/family member/ friend for the transgression or event that has caused you harm, Versus the belief that because you have forgiven them it means you have to stay in the difficult situation. It is essential in being able to trust that YOU have made the best decision for yourself. Forgiveness is an art of letting a painful event go which takes us off the metaphorical hook that often keeps us stuck. We want justice when we are hurt by another, we want soothing and we want things to be made better… Usually from the person that has caused us harm.

I have hurt and been hurt by my own actions and the actions of others and the experience of being hurt is never nice to encounter. But one thing I know for sure that the worst thing I can do is hold on to my pain and resentment and not allow myself to move on. Wish the person well with love and kindness. This is especially difficult when the person has hurt us to the point of wanting to throttle them… Metaphorically that is. MEDITATE on your ability to forgive and embrace techniques like loving kindness meditation to assist you with this, as it can be rather repulsive to meet someone with a well of resentment and bitterness towards others.

Boundaries:

I think of boundaries as being particularly applicable to others and in relation to oneself. If we have developed a solid set of boundaries we always know where we stand in relation to others and ourselves, but more importantly, if we are transparent with these boundaries, others very seldom find themselves in conflict with you. Instead what begins to happen, is that you’ve provided others a key bit of information in knowing how to get on with you and engage more intimately. This makes one immensely attractive because there are no longer any games played and if something seems obscure, it can always be clarified because the person with a thought-out set of boundaries will be able to explain themselves and relate in a more effective manner.

Reflect on how your boundaries are and how they differ in each and every context, because, in essence we are not the same in every context and we change, adapt ourselves and often hide who we really are.

Via Con Dios

[lillovespells]

“‘Mother’... is the name for god , on the lips & hearts of all children... “

MEN HAVE HEARTS. WOMEN HAVE WOMBS.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL THE KIND , NURTURING , LOVING , CONSISTENTLY PATIENT COMPASSIONATE / ENCOURAGING TEACHERS... ¡! you are Angels on Earth & your energy is the kind of beauty that melts me entirely... honestly. i’ve never seen a sexier side of a female than the calm resilient strength that sighs in the souls of dedicated Mothers... Mothers who refuse to let any parts of a Heart go unprotected or spiritually unhappy...

💐💜😽💐💜😽💐💜😽 we’re doing all this talking about ‘Mother’s’ , but we’re not talking about MOTHERHOOD. & that’s horrifying... b/c wombs are the key to this world...

i love to see people’s mother’s day pictures. where they come from always makes perfect sense... you always see the core of a person’s energy in their mother. b/c that’s all a womb is. energy’s incubator.

people always attempt to pick-at me & bully me & side-eye me , b/c i’ve made it so clear that i had a shitty ‘mom’ i had to psychologically mother & actually take care of... but , that’s literally 90% of the population. so i’ve never been embarrassed about it... & when people try to use it against me , it only clarifies who’s the same type of Heartless.

& Heartlessness is actually what i’m about to go in on... b/c to BE A MOTHER IS TO BE A HEART... to be the very energy that feelings come from. that Power is being completely disrespected... by all ages of females - in America - ... & it’s too clear that the Womb being the Root of Birth , needs to be reiterated for today’s female who may have lost touch w/ that reality & lives like less than a vessel of Life.

maybe it would help the recent Feminine to comprehend that the overall Masculine ONLY SEES THEM AS ‘ HOLY - DOORS ‘ ... literally. i promise you... the Masculine is only responding to how you’re treating your Spiritual Duty to shape their seeds. from overprotective , to disrespectful , to evasive , to disappearing... ALL those things men get accused of doing out of their ‘insensitivity’ ; are actually behaviors that come DIRECTLY from their Vulnerability... no matter how the masculine treats you , don’t be upset... b/c they’re only reflecting YOUR behavior... if they see you disrespect what they see as Holy ; they’ll disrespect it twice as harmful as you do. & if that doesn’t wake you ; then obviously you’re enjoying whatever it is you do... if you’re unhappy ; it’s always about some mismanagement of your emotions... b/c , if you ASK A MAN A DIRECT QUESTION ; HE WILL ANSWER YOU... & as long as you’re not lying to your Self ; you’ll accept their Rational / Answers... & yeah , that does take Responsibility... but ; it’s a FUN responsibility. to be in touch w/ the Masculine’s / Honesty. & so what...? what’s to be afraid of ; ask how they feel & what they want ; & if it’s not you... you don’t have to waste your time... it might not even be an insult... ( & if you can control your insecurities long enough to continue the conversation ; you could maintain a plug & the answers your looking for... )

if you’re not afraid to be all these other dramatic things y’all love to describe yourselves as; why are you afraid of Honesty ? it’s this absence of honesty / awareness within a female’s heart , that brings forth equally empty children that cause others their searching pains instead of growing alongside everyone else... cycles of the exact same sadness ; recreated by the ones who aren’t ready to devote their whole lives to someone else , creating more who’ll do the same... the ones who think money buys love but leave their family’s emotions as unattended to as their own ; & create the sociopaths that seek destruction instead of connection to soothe themselves.

‘Womben’ , bring Life forth... literal Life Force... & there is nothing more sexy than what sustains life... more & more men even release their Masculine naturally , to attempt to embody the vessel of the Purity / Feminine. the beauty is incomparable ; even in the animal kingdom... & the beauty of ‘mortal’ / human females is said to have brought ‘Gods’ / extraterrestrials / entities from all elsewhere to touch them...

TO BE THE FEMININE IS TO BE A HEALER. to be all Heart & Cleansing & Cultivating... to Be a Source for Growth & Evolution & Safety... but , now everybody wants to be prided on being the exact opposite while still getting praise for those attributes they’re rejecting... the confusion is at an all time time ; w/ rage being used as a tool to bring awareness to the lost happiness of women that they’re trying too hard to blame on men... but ; we all ask ourselves ; what is a womb that doesn’t Grow...? & we know the answer is stagnation. b/c the matter comes down to how you use your Heart / Love. do you use your Self to hurt or heal your environments...¿? if you truly have Motherhood in your Heart , you WILL nurture especially the worst situations , instinctively.

i know i’m archaic af... dumb ‘old-fashioned’ for these new school viral hookers... lol. we don’t ever respect each other & that’s a part of life i’m more than fine w/... b/c i’m greedy actually... & i don’t mind hoarding all the legitimacy for me... b/c , i’ve always loved to be the best thing by a man’s side , like a loyal friend or dog or watch... lol. a part of a legacy / Family... a ‘King’ that matched my ‘Queen’... so , call that ‘traditional as you will... i’ve never seen the problem w/ being looked after like an object ; but now that’s incredibly offensive , most females say... meanwhile they’re nude & chasing every handout they can ungratefully demand , as they sell their souls to their insecurities & emotionally abuse anyone who won’t immediately give them what they want...

so honest question , wtf happened to the female standard...? our power of ‘CHOOSING’. since the dawn of feminine culture , we’ve primped our lives in order to ‘pick’ what suits / surrounds us... now there’s so much self loathing , the settling for nothing & complaining about everything is the trend... other females literally won’t even accept me b/c men make me happy... lol. b/c i’m not confused & angry or dishonest / slutty. females refuse to befriend me b/c they know i won’t tolerate the spiritual disloyalty... but they’d rather hate happiness to excuse their irresponsible trauma , than have a friend that could change their life... & they’re the same egomaniacs in their relationships as well. choosing who they can dominate instead of who they can Evolve w/. comfort over productivity unfortunately. & then they wonder why they end up alone , or emotionally alone...

nobody even comprehends the difference between being sexual for attention / ‘slutty’ or being sexual for satisfaction / ‘freaky’... & that was always something only your mother could proper instill... so we lost it decades ago ; when females decided that respecting themselves shouldn’t be required for their strength or creativity... so , now everything is the same thirsty over exposed attempts at understanding themselves , before they even understand what they’re exposing or who they want to be. just spiritual infants , born from the emotionally unavailable girls who don’t know what love is to teach it to someone else yet.

what kind of ‘Love’ do you give...? what kind of Love lives in your Heart...? how do you feel about your self...? b/c that’s exactly what your love feels like... your heart is actually what you’re feeding your children... BELIEVE THAT. what you put into their Heart is actually what sustains them their entire lives.

a father’s presence is meant to instill the masculine traits a child requires... like emotional acceptance / balance , positive attitude / rationality , strength / backbone / integrity... the resilience a heart needs , is meant to be observed from a more masculine / protective force... lack of emotional control leads to all the confusion children go through. & all the confusion leads to them being nothing but the social burdens that are insecure / egomaniacs & prey on instead of Love others ; b/c their hearts did not grow w/ Love as an ingredient... a father can discipline flesh & mind ; but only female can make the Heart vulnerable enough to be taught... soft enough to allow lessons to be absorbed. without the female threshold of Vulnerability , a child begins to die spiritually...

our nurturing is supernatural. that’s why our vulnerability is our juggernaut power...

please don’t have kids until you understand what kind of souls you want to bring into the world... what kind of hearts are you adding to our Collective...? what pieces of your Self would you be putting your children together w/...? i heard the most heart wrenching beautiful quote that always stays w/ me prominently... it was basically , ‘ having children is deciding to allow a piece of your Heart , to run around outside of you & have it’s own life without you ‘ ... & that’s a principal so astounding when you level w/ the fact that so many kids are being born from heartlessness. but , admitting that , explains every aspect of depression in the world...

i wish we could go back to understanding wombs. be aware of their healing properties & miracle energy... Connect to the actual source of our beauty / Vulnerability... we poison our temples w/ too many things... spiritually mentally & physically.

motherhood is a level of womanhood that cannot be faked whether you have kids or not... your emotional mind will be reflected through the attitude intelligence & integrity of your offspring... think of yourself as a farm, what do you produce...? is what comes from you, safe for the world to consume ? you’re having kids but you might be setting traps ; or becoming one yourself...

knowing what kind of mother i wanted to be , changed my life.

we become our mothers. every single one of us. undeniably the composition of our mother’s emotions at the time we were growing in the midst of them. i’m the same ferociously unchangeable sharp tongue & laser observation skills, ocd & vanity of mine. all the fury she had, i embody. channeled into the exact opposite directions. but definitely equal parts Armageddon... just Focused.

i’m actually Grateful... pressure is Diamonds.

& speaking of Mother’s ; y’all got ass shots posted beside your mother on mother’s day & it is cracking me up & proving my point... &&& your half-nudes are posted beside your kids... & you don’t even understand the respect that comes w/ supporting another life... much less nurturing one. because your mother never taught you that your mind mattered more , or she wouldn’t be letting you have - much less post - the insecurities you have. &&& to personally go as far as to not even consider your kids futures & how they’ll grow up in a social media determined society ; w/ their own mother next to nude beside the other public photos of their personal life... to disrespect the CHILDHOOD of your own children ; by not only exposing them to your own nudity... but then directly involving their personal lives in it. so every time someone sees them , they’re associated w/ you flaunting your body for social media. that’s horribly selfish. & almost as sick as hiding your children like your shame.

( & if that’s you... congrats , you guys are single handedly supplying the worlds psychopaths... growing into their disassociation skills they’re learning from your ‘cold’ / ‘nice-for-what’ / ‘boss / bitch / bad’ dime-a-dozen washed-up empty attitudes... as the embarrassment that turns to ptsd , evolves into apathy & surfaces when they become another cliche serial killer focused on unsuspecting / ignorant / friendly females... & not to mention , adding more empty zombie fury of lowerminded females to the mix of already unhappy masculine energy... )

look ladies... yeah , you’re an instagram model that has to post near nudes to stay relevant in the clubs you turn out... we get it. but contract some social management that can explain to you the marketing importance of separating your family & their lifestyle from your own... maybe starting w/ having a separate page for your ‘modeling’ or professional things or business endeavors... save your kids for the people most intimate w/ you... & that creates a healthy environment for everybody’s personal growth... ( your kids don’t have to be ridiculed or judged or excluded or discriminated against , for your public choices... when you could be protecting them from that scrutiny. )

moral of the story of Female Culture is ; THINKING ABOUT THE GOOD OF OTHERS IS WHAT MAKES YOU A WOMAN & IS THE HEART OF A ‘MOTHER’... birth , has nothing to do w/ Motherhood. & we all know that inside.

the fall of the Collective occurred when bitter females decided they wanted to compete against the mental strength of masculinity , w/ the confused / emotions of femininity... when females got jealous of the emotional freedom of the masculine rationale... instead of being responsible / straightforward as males; their insecurities made them see men as reckless... & so they only pretended to be heartless & only wounded themselves too deep to trust...

THE BRUISES ON THE COLLECTIVE FEMININE EGO , ARE WHAT DETERMINE THE RULES OF AMERICAN SOCIETY... &&& THAT NEEDS TO BE STOPPED... basing the standards of life on the ever changing insecurities of estrogen’s instability ; is destroying EVERYTHING. it’s already made everybody too sensitive to be themselves or be comfortable w/ acceptance.

ITS BECOME A WAR ON MASCULINITY. THE WAR AGAINST RATIONALITY. a fight to suppress emotional strength & mental responsibilities & societal integrity.

— & now... females base ENTIRE RELATIONSHIPS ON SOCIAL MEDIA STATUS... & you can’t even ‘date’ / discover a female legitimately / respectfully... b/c , having a mate has to be comparable to paparazzi. & most base EVERYTHING on social media display before actual emotional relevance. girls will pursue & tolerate & hate based upon an imaginary standard of strangers egos, instead of their own souls. & it’s worsening day by day. even exploiting their children for donations or likes or simply attention.... it’s disgusting. & my heart has been shattered by females posting selfies after the suicides of their sad husbands, as if attention is all they ever wanted; even before grieving. shallow is basically the only option.

& what happens to this world once Wombs have all shallowed...? once there’s no discipline left to restrain emotions & create solutions / productivity instead of more emotions...¿? look around you , if you’re ready for the answer , you already see it...

one more question... what kind of ‘mother’ or ‘woman’ or ‘female’ or ‘feminine’ are you , if you don’t even have the strength to accept & nurture & grow & heal & soften the most brutal aspects of our world...? that IS our ‘Power’ , to soften , NEVER TOUGHEN. that is the Magik within our majesty... Vulnerability. so if you cannot be welcoming understanding & encouraging , solve those issues for the sake of everything.

( even the strongest / toughest men have to kneel to the sacredness of Vulnerability... & the most intelligent ones embody it as a protective mentality. )

don’t kill the strength of the Masculine , then wonder why your disrespectful distractions are killing you.

— &&& that DOES go for MEN too.

( &&& DEPRAVITY ; ONLY COMES A STEP BEFORE YOU’RE DEAD-INSIDE. so never stop respecting your Seed. don’t forget your Power to Create / Soul itself... )

& if y’all don’t STOP treating your children like your personal little trained-pony / ego-valets to assist in your manipulations... & / or , earn your checks... & using your innocent daughters , like your last chance to be slutty... & abusing your sons emotionally , like they’re your last chance to get a man’s affection... i’ll hafta’ start hexxxing y’all worse than karma ; w/ the permission of Source... b/c you’re worse than all evil. b/c , aware you’re fully aware that you’re intentional abusers... you’re suffocating others w/ your hell... you are not Spiritually ‘allowed’ to use the life of an innocent to feed your ego... & I WILL CALL YOU OUT. no doubt.

[thinkingagain]

“Oh, I get it.” The Second-in-Command’s jaw tightened furiously. “With the woman you claim—or is it pretend?—to love right in front of us, not to mention these ridiculous animals, you’re going to try to make me look like the problem. You’ve never ordered anyone to kill or hurt anyone, have you?

Sir Sleepy of the Bunny Nest (A Novel of the Revolution) Book Two: Empire Chapter 46

The Commandant took a step forward towards the Second-in-Command. “I want an explanation, right now, of what’s gone wrong here.” It stared furiously at the six armed Beasts. “Do you understand who you’re aiming at?” it shouted. The young Beasts, grim and inexperienced, looked around anxiously.

The Commandant looked back at the Second-in-Command. “Did I or did I not tell you to treat our guests with the respect they deserve?”

“You can be sure I treated them like they deserved.” The Second-in-Command bristled. “The same way they would treat us.” His mouth was a flat line.

“Your Second-in-Command here,” the Madam said wearily, “thought he might get a little information out of me. I suppose I should have guessed you have torture experts in your pay.”

Muffin loped up out of the darkness and stood beside the arrogant rabbit. “Actually, there are several less torture experts here than an hour ago.” He sat on the ground, long limbs gathered in a plump ball.

The Commandant looked around at the various faces of animals and Beasts in the ring. “What I’m hearing,” it looked at the ground, though its voice was directed at the Second-in-Command, “is that you tried to extract information by torturing my guests?”

“As you wanted,” the Second-in-Command said.

“When did I say I wanted that?” The Commandant’s tone was sharp and bitter.

“Are we going to sit here and banter words,” the Second-in-Command said, “or are we going to take these creatures down, like we planned, when we have them right in front of us?”

“We?” The Commandant’s voice was cold and removed. “Why don’t you tell me what ‘we’ planned?”

“Oh, I get it.” The Second-in-Command’s jaw tightened furiously. “With the woman you claim—or is it pretend?—to love right in front of us, not to mention these ridiculous animals, you’re going to try to make me look like the problem. You’ve never ordered anyone to kill or hurt anyone, have you? Do you really think you’re going to make them believe you just want to help them? They’re not that stupid. And they’re not here to help you either. Your precious Lara admitted as much. We’re all killers here. Let’s just say so. Rifles!”

The armed Beasts put their fingers on their rifle triggers.

“There’s going to be no shooting,” The Commandant said. “Anyone who keeps their hand on the trigger a moment longer is out of a job.”

The armed Beasts moved their fingers off their triggers.

The Second-in-Command pulled out a pistol and waved it around. “You’re going to try to lay all this on me? Make yourself look like a misunderstood hero? I want you to tell these pathetic little animals what your real goals are.” It waved its pistol in the Commandant’s face.

The Commandant looked away and its body hunched inward. “I’m so disappointed. Nothing you’re doing is what I asked.” The Commandant made no attempt to get out of the way of the pistol barrel being waved in its face. It put its hands in the pockets of its uniform blazer and stared at the Second-in-Command sadly. For a moment, the Commandant looked like it had no arms.

“No? You won’t speak even with a gun to your head?” The Second-in-Command moved its pistol closer to the side of the Commandant’s face.

The Commandant closed it eyes, as if indifferent to danger, then opened them again. Its shoulders, with hands still in the blazer pockets, tightened a bit.

The perfectly round hole that opened in the Second-in-Command’s chest became a larger splatter in the middle of its back. Then came the crack of the gun and a sound of rushing air. The Second-in-Command’s arms and legs collapsed, lifeless.

All the animals stepped back, shocked and alert. There was a small hole in the Commandant’s blazer. “Is it clear now who you work for?” The Commandant asked the armed Beasts. “Put those rifles down at your sides.”

The armed Beasts, trying not to look frightened, did as they were told.

The animals said nothing. Then the Madam spoke. “You just killed a man.”

Frustration passed through the Commandant’s eyes before it managed to make them more placid. “In case you missed it, he had a gun to my head. I hope you recognize that he wasn’t the sort who would have failed to use it.”

“How many other people have you shot?” the Madam said.

“How many Beasts, you mean?” The Commandant arched an eyebrow at her ironically. “How nice to humanize them when convenient.”

It looked at the armed Beasts and at the wary, fight-ready animals. “Honestly, I’m sorry this happened. I’m not interested in fighting you, Sir, and I won’t. I want to help you, and I’ve told you why. How can we talk when we’re standing here ready to kill each other? Isn’t that exactly what the powers-that-be among Beasts would want? What I would like—and which would be happening if it weren’t for my very mistaken choice of help—is for us to finish the conversation we were having. I will dismiss these guards if you dismiss your troops. I want us to walk together as proud and free animals who have decided to take on a great responsibility.”

The arrogant rabbit looked disdainful. “On what grounds should I grant you the privilege of talking with me, now that I’ve seen, again, that you cannot be trusted to share my deepest values?”

“What values are those?” the Commandant said. Its smile spread from a smirk to benevolence almost too quickly to see. “The grounds, I think, are that there really is no other way for either of us to succeed. What we intend to do is more important than the life of the unprincipled killer who I have just relieved of the burden of his existence. Will you take the risk, with me, of saving the world of animals in the best way we can, even if it means putting ourselves in danger? Give the word, and I will send these guards off to do something useful.”

The arrogant rabbit’s face hadn’t relaxed its disdain. “I wouldn’t be afraid of you and your guards even if I was the only one here.” He turned to the other animals. “My friends, I must talk with this Beast. I hope you will forgive me if for the moment I cannot invite you to be part of the discussion.

“However,” he looked back at the Commandant,” the Madam stays by my side. She sees through you more than others, and I trust her council. I will assume for the moment that you didn’t intend to harm her. But don’t mistake that for my believing you didn’t.” He reached out a paw and put it on the back of the Madam’s leg.

His other friends vanished back into the sooty darkness. Seeing that, the Commandant waved off the guards.

[muka-nita]

KINSHIP AND PERSONHOOD.

Within our modern western culture, we live by social conventions that limit harm to other rational and autonomous beings based on an empathic system of rights and values.

Human rights exist based on the idea that as a species we are highest on this hierarchical scale of “importance” due to our apparent rationality, self-awareness, and empathic natures. We don’t like to hurt others because we can (for the most part) relate to and understand that hurt.

But in doing so we allow ourselves to view other things and beings as less valuable, absolving us of guilt when we harm them.

We designate personhood as the tip top excuse to treat others good.

This country of so-called Australia has a shocking track record of human rights abuses so it’s honestly a bad example but today I want to focus more on Indigenous systems of kinship and personhood.

Where we as First Nations people assign value and rights.

I can only speak for my own people, the pakana of lutruwita/Tasmania but I know other mobs have similar philosophies.

We see country and connection to it, as most important.

A large part of our cultural longevity here on this island is attributed to community-wide responsibility for ecological health and conforming to the needs of the environments we occupied as self-aware and active parts within it.

We named the land our mother and assigned it intrinsic and familial value, giving it a form of personhood even higher than our own. We cared for country because we knew it would care for us in return, it was our responsibility as beings that depended on it.

This included understanding its natural cycles, seasons and moods to best care for it.

This puts us, as humans, on the same level as all other beings that depend on country for survival. The trees, the birds, the snakes, the insects, the kangaroos, marine life, everything. We all had a right to exist freely and happily on the land.

Then to protect these beings, we engaged with a system of totems and kinships.

My people, the trawlwoolway, for example viewed the Black Peppermint Gum (Eucalyptus amygdalina, which is only found in lutruwita) as our kin. They were a part of our tribe, to be protected and connected to in the same way you would your own brothers and sisters.

Most plants and animals that held important ecosystem functions had a tribal group or nation assigning them personhood. Meaning that across this continent existed a complex and finely-tuned network of thousands of tribal groups working together to conserve and protect all beings and cycles within country. This knowledge was carried in ancient songlines and dances tied to geography and language, that explained the importance of kin and country to the children through ceremony.

So when the British arrived with bayonets, canons, and small pox, it wasn’t just us that suffered. The whole system of kinship was put out of balance. Not only was there attempted genocide, but ecocide (which is honestly the same thing) as well.

Invasion, the great death, that began in the early 1800’s continues today. Our kin are cut down for the logging industry, land cleared for agriculture and mining industries. Our mother raped and abused for economic gain.

This doesn’t just impact us as Indigenous people, but non-indigenous people too.

Yes we as humans are special, we are self-aware, for Millenia Indigenous people have used that self-awareness to care for and heal country.

Climate change is a natural response to humans forgetting their place within the system. It’s caused by the dispossession of Indigenous knowledges and cultural practices leading to sick and out of balance country. It’s the planets natural cycles not being able to cope with the added pollution and waste from colonial practices.

It’s industry and economy being given a higher value than the ecosystem that keeps us alive.

I hope to see these ancient, finely-tuned systems of conservation be implemented again, for the sake of our land and kin going into a very uncertain future.

(The photo below is of a stand of Stringybark Gums Eucalyptus obliqua on Bruny Island, the the local nuenone/nununi called kin)

[raudskegg]

Ooghie, Honorary Dwarf

Quick note: This is not my work, but from a 4chan greentext on Reddit, but I thought it was too perfect to not be shared.

Let me regale you with the tale of my parties beloved Oohgie, Honorary Dwarf.

Our party consisted of good friends that had known each other, a reformed That Guy, and Lucas the veteran. We had a pretty decent group, consisting of a Dwarf Warrior, Human Paladin, Human Warlock, Tiefling Rogue, me playing a Half-Elf Ranger, and a Human Mage.

We were in the relatively early stages of an epic campaign, and had been greeted by a sudden surge of slightly stronger enemies. What made these enemies slightly sturdier? Well, according to our DM, they had been gifted with what could only be described as ‘slap-dash metal riveted together by clumsy hands’. This led us to a few leads in town that culminated in hearing of an Ogre that had taken up residence in an abandoned forge and begun crafting rudimentary armor and weapons for the local minions, and of course this led to our first quest; Kill the Ogre, stop the attacks.

After what felt like an hour of minion stomping and quest cruisin’, we found the forge, and killed a few of the outlying minions to prevent an unwelcome intrusion with the upcoming boss fight. We prepared ourselves (No cleric, had to be especially careful with potion rations, added some fun to the game), and had the Tiefling sneak in and make sure we could sneak up without any trouble, or annoying traps going off. She gave us the all clear, and we shuffled inside, praying our sneak checks held up.

Inside the large forge, we followed the sound of clanging metal and deep grunts. Lucas took the lead, preparing to call in a few favors from Bahamut, with Raj the Dwarf following closely behind him. When we turned the corner, the DM informed us we saw the large shape moving around the anvil and smelter, which we all knew meant the Ogre. I asked to roll for initiative, to sneak in a shot and perhaps swing the battle to our favor, but Lucas had another plan.

Lucas rolls for a diplomacy check, and takes the lead by speaking with the Ogre.

“Why are you making armor for evil?”

The Ogre stopped and turned around in surprise. The DM apparently was surprised we didn’t flat out attack, and he asked us for a moment to pen something down. After his pen stopped, he cleared his throat.

“Make armor here. Ogre’s no like make armor, so make armor for gob-gobs. They like.”

The Ogre then went on to tell us about how he discovered a book about crafting, and decided to try making some himself. Judging from the simplicity of the story, our DM hadn’t expected us to be diplomatic and just threw together something to explain why an Ogre would want to spend his time with a hammer and anvil instead of hunting adventurers and eating goats.

As the story dragged on, and we learned that the Ogre had been kicked out for finding a book from another culture, we slowly kinda silently agreed to avoid killing him, since the image of this 9 foot tall Ogre tinkering away at an anvil to make small-medium sized armor was too funny to pass up. When the Ogre got to the part where he revealed he couldn’t read the book (which was a Dwarven guide apparently) and was just following the pictures, Lucas decided to chime in.

“Why don’t you come with us? We have a Dwarf who can translate the book for you, and you can learn to make better armor.”

The DM looked a little confused, but decided that the Ogre would be allowed to be a friendly NPC in the party if we all allowed it.

And thus we were joined by Oohgie the Crafting Ogre.

First thing we did once we went into town was calm the mob that had appeared and attempted to kill Oohgie. Five diplomacy checks, a bluff check, and almost a third of my gold later, the town relents and lets us stay with him for the night. Oohgie was really excited by this prospect and asked if he could visit the blacksmith, which Lucas had to explain was probably not a good idea. Since there wasn’t a room in town big enough to hold him, we told Oohgie to sleep in the stables.

“Oohgie understand. Oohgie try not make hummies mad.”

That night, before ending the session, we joked about how silly this all was, taking in an Ogre that didn’t want to fight. We told some jokes, made a few jabs at how we thought the Ogre was going to bite the dust, and called it a session.

Next session, we woke up, paid for food until the next town, and left the inn, picking up Oohgie from the stables on the way out.

During the journey, Oohgie kept bothering Raj, the Dwarf, and asking about 'Crafty-Smiths’ and 'Clang-clang tools’. Now, Raj is my Dude-bro I’ve known for years, and even though this is obviously bothering him answering every question, he at least tries to be nice to the insistent pestering. In hindsight, this was probably our DM’s attempt to leave Oohgie behind so he could get back to the focus, but we managed to persist and kept him with us to the next town.

This time, deciding that we cannot afford to argue Oohgie into town every and spend half our income. Being a ranger, I offer to set up a camp just outside the town’s borders that we can keep Oohgie and hunt some pelts for extra income. Raj offers to stay in camp with me and Oohgie, with Lucas heading into town for the temple and the Rogue, Wizard and Warlock will search for quests.

As we set up the tents, I ask if it’s possible to use Oohgie as a deterrent against mobs in the local area. The DM allows a roll, and with a 17, says that Oohgie’s natural 'musk’ alerts the other monsters in the area to stay away. Raj stayed behind as I pick off some local wildlife for our dinner.

While I hunted, Oohgie asked Raj more questions about the book.

“How Oohgie make?”

“You can’t. That needs a bar of iron and a forge.”

“Oohgie make forge?”

“I, uh, don’t think there’s enough materials around here to do that.”

The Wizard returned to our camp, letting the Rogue and Warlock threaten a local mayor for a better reward. The Wizard proposed he make a temporary forge for Oohgie using some spells and his fire magic. As for iron, the group has a bag of holding full of old weapons we had earned from defeating a minor demon. Oohgie, who was ecstatic at the idea, asked if he could make armor for his 'Dwarfy friend who read Oohgie book’. Not seeing the harm in such an idea, we agreed and Oohgie set to work.

In the morning, when we had awoken, Lucas, the Rogue, and the Warlock had also returned to camp. After we explained the plan for the newest quest, we gathered up our things and decided to wake Oohgie. Turns out the poor bastard had spent half the night banging away at the old pile of scrap and made a chest-piece, aptly titled by the DM as 'Oohgies Chess Peace o’ Protect’, which was described as a hodge-podge of metal sheets roughly slapped together. Raj, being such a Dude-bro, offered to wear it despite it having one less protection point against slash. As the DM described Oohgie’s dumb smiling face, I felt a pang of guilt for making fun of him.

Many quests continued on with Oohgie the Crafting Ogre, who had the neat ability to craft a priece of armor or weapon every 1d4 nights, and the DM would use 2d20’s to determine the item he crafted. About two months of in game time passed, and Oohgie had made us some slightly less than useful items, with no sign of improving. Sometimes we’d sell the things he made, other-times we wore them for Oohgie, just to make him happy. By the fifth quest, I had an 'Oohgie’s Wristy Gerd Gloves’.

When we finally located one of the main storyline quests, we also happened to pass by a temple of Moradin, which had two dozen forges surrounding it for his followers to craft weapons for Paladins. It was like trying to hold a 9 foot tall child back from a toy-store.

“Oohgie see Crafty-Smiths! Maybe one teach Oohgie make better armor!”

“Best not rush them, Oohgie,” Raj said, rolling for a diplomacy check to calm Oohgie down.

“But Oohgie want make better armor for friends.”

That hit us hard, and Lucas, being the de facto head, took the lead.

“Oohgie, you can’t enter the forges. They’re only for Moradin’s craftsmen.”

“What mean?”

“Only Dwarves are allowed in.”

Oohgie seemed a little confused, before whimpering like a hurt animal. We decided to drag him back to a tent outside town and let him calm down there, but not before he made a decision looking at those forges.

“Oohgie will become Dwarf.”

The next few sessions were filled with a mix of heartache and heartwarming. Oohgie tried extra hard to make better armor, and Raj now found a full time hobby teaching Oohgie to read Dwarvish script. Every now and again, Oohgie’s efforts paid off, and his armor would be as good if not slightly above what we were wearing, but it still was terribly built and barely held together. Just a result of something so big not having the dexterity to make the fine tuning of professionally crafted armor. Every now and then, Oohgie would ask the group, specifically Raj, how he was doing.

“Oohgie Dwarf now?”

“Not yet, I don’t think. Maybe if you try harder.”

“Oohgie can do.”

Oohgie seemed to become more determined every day, clanging away at his magic forge, combining what little scrap we found for him to throw together. He also began asking Lucas for help with contacting Moradin to become a Dwarf. We tried doing what we could in our spare time, but we also had to focus on the BBEG of the setting, since we didn’t want to derail the whole thing for our DM who had been a pretty chill dude up to this point about the whole thing.

We told Oohgie that we had to fight a big bad guy, and that we needed to focus on saving the world. Oohgie seemed to understand, and asked for a little bit of metal, promising to stop asking if we got it for him. We relented, and turned over the last pieces of metal for him in exchange for him helping us on the quests. The DM told us that Oohgie isn’t designed for the combat levels we were at by this point, but he could help a little if we were careful. Worst case scenario, we pull him back, Lucas performs Lay On Hands, and we’re good.

We slowly uncovered a conspiracy that ties to an ancient forgotten god, one who was worshiped as the god of destruction and undoing. Pretty sweet stuff as we kept getting closer and closer. The armor from Oohgie stopped showing up, but it was okay, we found cheap armor. We made an effort to save the pieces that Oohgie had crafted for us, out of loyalty to our curious, big Crafty-Smith friend. Oohgie never seemed to ask for metal anymore, but we heard him clanging away every night before we would fall asleep.

The lessons continued, with Raj teaching Oohgie more and more about Moradin, but he couldn’t answer the most spiritual of them, only being a warrior who happened to be a Dwarf. For the questions about the gods methods, Lucas was there to answer his questions.

“How Oohgie talk to Moradin?”

“You pray, and ask for guidance.”

“Moradin show Oohgie how make better armor?”

“If he sees fit to, he shall guide you.”

“How Oohgie know?”

“You won’t, but you have to believe.”

“Oohgie believe.”

After awhile, Oohgie began splitting the time between speaking with Lucas about Moradin, which he thought was the quickest way to becoming a Dwarf, and practicing his rudimentary Dwarvish, which he used to read his first book. He faded more and more into our groups 'project’, a background character. We still cared for him, but we just couldn’t afford to baby-sit him as we leveled up. He also insisted on having Lucas ask Moradin if he was a Dwarf yet.

“Moradin make Oohgie Dwarf now?”

“That is not my place to tell, Oohgie.”

“Oohgie pray but Moradin not talking. Did Oohgie do it wrong?”

“It is not my place to tell, but I believe the gods work in mysterious ways.”

“Oohgie understand. Make better armor soon for friends.”

As we cleared out more and more dungeons, we started to realize that we had made a mistake dragging Oohgie along. He just couldn’t keep up to our leveling, and he couldn’t get any useful perks. He started to become a hassle. By the time we were at the final stretch of the quest, facing the ancient cult summoning the god, we had a silent agreement to leave Oohgie behind, lest he get hurt.

We executed the play perfectly. The last town before the invasion, we told Oohgie to stay with the magic forge and practice alone for a few days, and that we were going to get him more metal to work with. Oh course the big lug agreed, and after casting a spell to keep the fires going for a week, we set out, Oohgie clanging away happily. We didn’t look back. But you can be damned sure we didn’t leave with a smile.

Two hours into the dungeon, and we knew we had messed up.

First off, we failed one too many sneaks and bluffs, and that meant the cultists had finished their mission in summoning the god of undoing. He was essentially an Orcus without the secrecy. Pragmatic as hell, he immediately begins to cast a bunch of seals and spells that trap us in the room, and then debuffs our armor to the point it’s unraveling back into scrap.

Our Warlock was protecting our Wizard with a low level demon, our Rogue was stealthily trying to pickpocket the dead cultists for anything that might help, Raj and Lucas led the attack, and I was firing a volley every chance I got, rolling for anything that might break his ungodly armor. We were using everything, and had run out of potions. Lucas had no more Lay On Hands available thanks to a dozen cultists cutting off his prayers to Bahamut. It was only now that we regretted not having a cleric.

The god approached Lucas and Raj, and without a hint of a monologue, proceeds to wreck their shit. He breaks Raj’s armor, shatters the divine shield Lucas was using, and then readies his next round of spells.

And then, the DM rolled for initiative..

From behind me, a large metal sphere flew out and thumped the god. Not enough to hurt him, but it was a high enough roll to disrupt his spell.

“Oohgie done crafting.”

From behind us, standing in the large doorway, stood an Ogre, clad in a terribly mismatched set of armor emblazoned with a hammer of Moradin on it’s chest piece. In his right hand, an enormous hammer the size of a stone column and made of the same dented metal. Suddenly, all the nights of clanging made sense. Oohgie wanted to help, and we just thought he was a burden.

Oohgie charged forward, rolling a 17 on his first roll, and with the god suffering from 'stupefication’ because of his entrance, landed his first hit. It was the most damaging hit we had done to the god, and it had been dealt by an Ogre that was wearing what looked like the rejected arts and crafts project of a preschooler.

We sat there for a moment in stunned silence, as the DM described the armor and hammer he carried, calling it a crude mimicry of the holy hammers and suits of armor worn by paladins of Moradin.

“You no hurt-”

Clang

“Ohgie’s friends!”

Clang

“No more!”

Clang

hree hits, each one doing a little less than the last, but still doing something. During this affair, the Rogue finally hit a natural 20, and found the cultist leaders emergency reagents to shut the whole spell down on his corpse. She rolled for the toss to Lucas, who had enough armor to take another hit if he needed to get close. Oohgie roared and attempted a grapple, using his natural modifiers to hold him, a god of destruction, for a brief moment.

“Oohgie palydin now, too! Help Moradin, help Lucas! Like real Dwarf!”

We felt a pang of guilt .

We had left this guy behind so he couldn’t bother us with his quest to becoming a Dwarf, but here he was, wearing that stupid smile, wearing that stupid armor, and pulling that stupid move. Lucas sighed heavily and we all rolled for our respective abilities. There was a brief moment where we thought that we had this thing down, until Lucas and our Warlock stopped and realized the flaw in the plan.

“Oohgie still isn’t high level.”

With that, our turn ended, and the DM rolled for the god’s attack versus Ooghies grapple.

I wish I could say Ooghie had a natural 20. I wish I could say that his modifier gave him just enough to hold the god down. But I can’t.

The god rolled 14

Ooghie rolled 5

The DM then informed us that not only did the god break the grapple, but now had stunned Ooghie long enough to cast a spell of 'Destruction’.

Point blank at Ooghie’s chest.

As I said before, very rarely did Oohgie craft armor that matched the level stats of armor we bought in town.

He was wearing armor that was almost 2 levels below his current level. And his current level was lower than any of us.

Oohgie collapsed in a heap, and the god turned to face us.

For those that don’t know, our Warlock was once That Guy. He had a major falling out with the DM and Lucas, and reformed himself. He never got along with Lucas, but he was willing to not be a jerk as long as Lucas didn’t call him out on stuff again.

This was the only time I saw our Warlock look across the table and ask Lucas for help.

“I need a favor. And I need it now.”

Lucas moved to cover the Warlock, who charged forward with a series of demons in tow. Our Warlock may have been a jerk a tad, but he was a jerk with a good amount of demons on call for favors.

He called every single one of them in.

The DM, knowing what this meant to us, didn’t bother to ask for our rolls. Every demon snuck in a hit, and with a Dwarf at his heels, a Wizard freezing his balls, and a ranger firing arrows into every square inch of flesh exposed on his hide, it was no wonder the god never saw our rogue behind him with the sealing amulet and scroll of desolation from the cultist leader.

Before the god even returned to the astral plane, we rushed to Oohgie, who was managing to hang on by the merest thread of life possible. Lay on Hands was next to useless, and with no potions, we all knew what we were watching. We were watching Ooghie die, and even after we had killed a god, conquered dungeons, and leveled evil kingdoms, we couldn’t even save our friend.

“Oohgie sorry he got in way.”

“You didn’t, you did great-”

“Oohgie sorry he not make good armor like Dwarf.”

“We love your armor, big guy, don’t think like that.”

I had never seen Lucas try so hard to call in a favor from Bahamut, or roll so desperately for a miracle. Even the Warlock was searching his sheets for a demon who might help without too hefty a price, no no avail.

Oohgie know why Moradin no talk to Oohgie. Oohgie hands too big n’ clumsy, so Oohgie not make small armor nice and pretty.”

“It’s fine Oohgie, just hang on, we’re going to save you.”

“Oohgie knew he not good Crafty-smith when he saw Dwarf temple, and Crafty-smiths look at him funny, but Oohgie try anyways.”

I’m a touchy-feely guy, and I know Oohgie was a figment of our imagination, but when you see Lucas, a veteran who lost his left leg to a bomb before he was twenty five, holding back tears, you know it wasn’t just me being blubbery when I say that we were tearing up.

“Oohgie not good Crafty-smith with armor and weapons, but Oohgie good crafty-smith at something. Oohgie can make good story.”

At this point, our Rogue hid behind her screen, and the Warlock just stared down at his sheet, having stopped searching for his demon to deal with.

“Oohgie think Dwarves make good armor and stories, which why Oohgie wanted be Dwarf, but Oohgie understand he not Dwarf, and he not be Dwarf ever.”

Oohgie’s breathing began to slow, and Raj grabbed his hand, holding it as best he could

“You could be a Dwarf, Oohgie. You could be the best Ogre Dwarf in the land.”

Oohgie closed his eyes and smiled

“Oohgie like that. He go sleep now.”

And like that, our party lost Oohgie the Crafty-smith, and we all think a little something died with him inside all of us.

We looted the dungeon, killed the remaining cultists, and made our way back to the nearest village, one that happened to have a temple and forge for followers of Moradin. When we entered the town, we all took notice that the forges were louder than ever, and half the town seemed to be gathered around the temple. Naturally curious, we moved closer.

At first, we were rolling to push through, until Lucas used a favor from Bahamut to project a holy shout and clear the path. We got closer and closer to the entrance, we saw more and more Dwarves, some wearing the emblem of Moradin, others in the attire of his sacred blacksmiths. As we reached the entrance, knowing we weren’t allowed in, we asked a priest if he could tell us what the fuss was. The priest asked us if we had been involved with the destruction of a god of undoing.

Of course we were, so he led us inside. Deep inside the mountain, past the pillars, and past the gorgeously carved hallways and stone arches, and into the deepest parts of the forge’s sanctums. We witnessed dozens of Dwarves mill around, throwing around orders and commands in ancient Dwarvish. The priest pointed to what had been causing the ruckus.

“We received divine word that Moradin the Creator has ordered a statue to be erected to honor the fall of the god.”

The Dwarves tugged out a large, metal and marble stature from a crafting vault.

“And the appointment of a new Apprentice to his mighty forges in the halls of his domain.”

There, crafted by the finest Dwarven artisans, was an enormous, thirty foot tall statue of Oohgie, complete with a golden hammer, a silver book of Dwarven crafting, and a beard befitting a Dwarf.

'Oohgie Good-Crafter, Honorary Dwarf of Moradin and Crafty-smith of the Forge.’

That was the first time I cried playing D&D.

After a year of sessions in D&D, I elected to have my hero, the Half-Elven Ranger, retire into God-hood as a Deity of Honorable Hunting. Upon ascension, I asked for a favor. As great as my weapons were in the mortal realms, the fact was that I needed something more suited for godly duties, so they needed to be reworked. And I knew exactly who I wanted to remake them.

Moradin welcomed me into his forges, obviously happy to have his apprentices practice with their skills in crafting weapons fit for gods. When I asked if it would be possible to have someone specific work on it, he knew exactly who I wanted, and led me to a grand hall where dozens of Dwarves were gathered around a large figure clanging away happily at an anvil.

There, wearing his iconic slap-dash armor over an enormously enlarged Dwarf robe, was Oohgie, wearing the biggest, dumbest smile you could ever imagine. He looked up, smiled, and picked me up, laughing and hugging as I tried not to cry. When he finally put me down, I showed him what I had wanted to show him ever since he left our group. I held up my hands, and showed him what I was wearing for celestial armor.

There, on my hands, were 'Oohgie’s Wristy Gerd Gloves’, battered from years of use and adventures, and raised to the level of a god’s armor.

And that is the story of Oohgie the Honorary Dwarf, and Crafty-smith of the Forge.

[animalsandtrees]

Full: What Animals Taught Me About Being Human

"I wasn’t just finding out what animals looked like, but testing my capacity to navigate that perilous space between harm and care that was partly about understanding how much power over things I might have and partly how much power I had over myself, knowing that I could so easily hurt them.

Rescuing animals made me feel good about myself; surrounded by them, I felt less alone.

The deepest lesson that animals have taught me: how easily and unconsciously we see other lives as mirrors of our own.

But our minds still work like bestiaries. We thrill at the notion that we could be as wild as a hawk or a weasel, possessing the inner ferocity to go after the things we want; we laugh at animal videos that make us yearn to experience life as joyfully as a bounding lamb. A photograph of the last passenger pigeon makes palpable the grief and fear of our own unimaginable extinction. We use animals as ideas to amplify and enlarge aspects of ourselves, turning them into simple, safe harbors for things we feel and often cannot express.

None of us see animals clearly.

They’re too full of the stories we’ve given them. Encountering them is an encounter with everything you’ve ever learned about them from previous sightings, from books, images, conversations. Even rigorous scientific studies have asked questions of animals in ways that reflect our human concerns.

You cannot know what it is like to be a bat by screwing your eyes tight, imagining membranous wings, finding your way through darkness by talking to it in tones that reply to you with the shape of the world. As the philosopher Thomas Nagel explained, the only way to know what it is like to be a bat is to be a bat. But the imagining? The attempt? That is a good and important thing. It forces you to think about what you don’t know about the creature: what she eats, where she lives, how she communicates with others.

The effort generates questions not just about how being a bat is different but about how different the world might be for a bat.

For what an animal needs or values in a place is not always what we need, value or even notice. Perhaps this is why I am impatient with the argument that we should value natural places for their therapeutic benefits.

It’s true that time walking in a forest can be beneficial to our mental health. But valuing a forest for that purpose traduces what forests are. They are not there for us alone.

These days I take emotional solace from understanding that animals are not like me, that their lives are not about us at all."