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kayliemusing · 3 years

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42: top 3s

1: Top 3 ice cream flavors - classic vanilla, birthday cake/birthday batter, bubblegum

2: Top 3 Disney Movies - Mulan, Onward, Soul (but this changes frequently lol)

3: Top 3 vacation destinations - I've never been outside of my home country so I'll say my top 3 DREAM destinations: NYC, Hawaii, a random countryside in either France or the UK

4: Top 3 places to shop - Dynamite, Sephora, Winners/Homesense

5: Top 3 subjects of study/classes to take - English/anything creative writing related, Interior Decorating/Design, Communications?

6: Top 3 make up products - YSL Touche Eclat Foundation, literally any Mac Lipstick but it has to be matte, & Fenty Beauty contour stick

7: Top 3 music artists - Taylor Swift - Of Monsters and Men - The Lumineers

8: Top 3 spices/herbs - Cinnamon - Nutmeg (literally tastes like autumn) - Paprika

9: Top 3 drinks - Diet Coke - Hot Chocolate - Vanilla Bean Frappe

10: Top 3 apps to use - Instagram - Pinterest -iBooks

11: Top 3 months of the year - May, October, December

12: Top 3 clothing items - My black/white turtle neck, high waisted jeans, plaid blazer

13: Top 3 binge perfect tv shows - Bones, Supernatural, Brooklyn Nine Nine

14: Top 3 romantic dates - (I've never been on a date but if I had, it would be this) Evening walk, late night drive, late night coffee date (tbh anything at night feels romantic)

15: Top 3 kinds of flower - Water lilies, cherry blossoms, roses

16: Top 3 christmas movies - A Christmas Carol (2009), Home Alone, The Polar Express

17: Top 3 OTPs - Nesta and Cassian from ACOTAR series by SJM, Manon and Dorian from Throne of Glass series by SJM, Casteel and Poppy from From Blood and Ash series by JLM.

18: Top 3 quotes to describe your life - "I write not to find, but to leave" by Scherezade Siobhan - "I want to be myself again. I want to be six. I want to stop knowing everything I know" by Catherynne M. Valente - "The truth is, I pretend to be a cynic, but I am really a dreamer who is terrified of wanting something she may never get" by Joanna Hoffman.

19: Top 3 characteristics you love about yourself - my kindness bc it's not surface level kindness, but actually something deeply rooted within me - my resilience even tho sometimes it doesn't feel like resilience - my loyalty bc it is a hard as steel kind of loyalty

20: Top 3 kinds of candy - Maltesers, Kit kats, smarties

21: Top 3 ways to exercise/ be active - Walking, dancing, mowing the lawn/shoveling the sidewalk

22: Top 3 spirit animals - wolf, hummingbird, tiger (i googled it bc i didn't know and i was scared it was a joke but)

23: Top 3 petnames - I like 'lovebug', 'love', 'sweetheart'

24: Top 3 books read outside of school - The Hating Game by Sally Thorne, A Court of Silver Flames by Sarah J Maas but viewers discretion is advised, Crush by Richard Siken

25: Top 3 most used websites - Youtube, Tumblr, Pinterest

26: Top 3 people you last texted - my mom, my bestie megan, and my sister bc they're the only people i text...

27: Top 3 hashtags you use - the only time i use hashtags is if i'm trying to promote some of my writing so I'll usually use writingcommunity, writersonig, poetryonig lol

28: Top 3 instagram accounts you follow - Trista Mateer, Griefmother, obviously taylor swift

29: Top 3 guilty pleasures - buzzfeed quizzes, early 2000s music, romance novels

30: Top 3 summer activities - Going to the zoo, long evening walks, campfires and s'mores

31: Top 3 things to draw/doodle - hearts, flowers, random swirls bc it's the only thing i can doodle...

32: Top 3 aesthetics - cityscape aesthetic, autumn aesthetic, rustic aesthetic

33: Top 3 things you'd buy if you gained three million dollars - a new car, a condo, another cat

34: Top 3 ways to treat yourself - facial, a large bag of maltesers, buying the makeup i really want but have been putting off

35: Top 3 celebrity crushes - Evan Peters, Matthew Daddario, henry cavill

36: Top 3 books from your childhood - Love You Forever by Robert Munsch, The Big Friendly Giant by Roald Dahl, and Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmens

37: Top 3 accents to hear - Australian, super poshy british accent, new zealand accent

38: Top 3 scents - Fresh rain, vanilla, sweet cinnamon pumpkin from bath and body works

39: Top 3 "Friends" quotes - "WE WERE ON A BREAK" -Ross, "Guess things were just going too well for me" -also ross, and "it's so exhausting waiting for death" - phoebe

40: Top 3 cupcake flavors - tbh I haven't tried that many cupcakes so your typical vanilla, chocolate, and Pink Lady Cupcake from Babycakes Cupcakery

41: Top 3 fruits - Pomegranates, Strawberries, Raspberries

42: Top 3 places you've had amazing pizza from - Pizzahut, Dominos, Pizza73

43: Top 3 sports teams to watch - i don't

44: Top 3 crayola colors - uh, i guess red, purple, and pink??

45: Top 3 things you hope to accomplish in college - Certificates/Degrees in Copyediting and Creative Writing, and I think simply just deeper critical thinking skills when it comes to writing and books

46: Top 3 fanfictions you've read - I read more books than fanfics, I've read a couple on tumblr but don't remember the names sorry :/

47: Top 3 people you miss right now - my dad, my best friend bc she's in vancouver, taylor swift bc she's not on tumblr anymore rip

48: Top 3 fears - Failure, Loss, not achieving anything in life/not reaching my full potential

49: Top 3 favorite literary devices - Foreshadowing is always god tier, cliffhangers although evil i love those too, symbolism

50: Top 3 pet peeves - People dragging their shoes on the floor when they walk, when you tell someone your fav hobby/music artist/interest and they immediately go 'oh I hate X!', and people who go 'you're so quiet!!!' but in a way that draws in more attention and/or makes me feel more uncomfortable like i would literally rather die

51: Top 3 physical things you find attractive - Hands, nice hair, defined jawlines

52: Top 3 bad habits - Nailbiting, picking at my blemishes oops, lip biting

53: Top 3 pets you've had/wish to have - Cats bc they complete me, I've always wanted a Samoyed, and I've always wanted a turtle

54: Top 3 types of foreign food - Chicken Chow Mein, deep fried shrimp, japanese chicken wings

55: Top 3 things you want to say to someone in your lifetime - 'I quit', 'I love you', 'you changed my life'

56: Top 3 dog breeds - Samoyed, german shepherds, collies

57: Top 3 cheesy romance movies - You've Got Mail, How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days, 10 Things I Hate About You

58: Top 3 languages you speak/wish to speak - French, Sign, and maybe Japanese?

59: Top 3 series (book, movie, television) - The Cruel Prince series by Holly Black, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas (but literally only for Cassian and Nesta), From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L Armentrout

60: Top 3 pizza toppings - Mushrooms, alfredo sauce, pineapple

61: Top 3 youtubers you're subscribed to - Game Grumps, Charlotte Dobre, Megan Batoon

62: Top 3 tattoo / piercing ideas - I want to get a tattoo on my wrist of the last thing my dad ever wrote me, a hummingbird tattoo right next to it, and then a cross on my index finger

63: Top 3 awards you want to win - National Book Awards, Nobel Prize, and maybe even Goodreads Choice Awards lol

64: Top 3 emojis - Laugh/Crying emoji, the please sir emoji that kinda gives off those puss n boots eyes, and the stars emoji

65: Top 3 cars you dream of owning - 1970s Chev Impala, tbh a cute little Hyundai Venue, and maaaaybe the 1964 ferarri 250 gt luso (idk if that name was totally right but i had to do tons of googling to find it. i don't know a lot about cars and i don't really have a top 3 lol)

66: Top 3 authors - Right now I'm really into Sarah J Maas, Sally Thorne, and Holly Black maybe?

67: Top 3 historical figures - Jesus, Anne Frank, Vincent Van Gogh

68: Top 3 baby names - Ryder, Leila, Gracie

69: Top 3 DIYs - Candles, refurnishing old furniture (i.e. my mom and i painted our wooden garbage can), and really just any type of autumn diy

70: Top 3 smoothie combos/flavors - Strawberry/Banana, Mango, Strawberry-Mango

71: Top 3 songs of this month - Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish, Biblical by Calum Scott, and Visiting Hours by Ed Sheeran

72: Top 3 questions of this post you want to be asked - I did them all bc I made it a survey instead of an ask meme ;)

73: Top 3 villains - Regina/The Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time, Cruella De Vil, and Moriarty from Sherlock

74: Top 3 Cities you want to see - Montreal, NYC, Vancouver (honorable mention: LA)

75: Top 3 recipes you want to try - different kind of salad and/or burger bowls, Stuffed bell peppers, and homemade lemon loaf

76: Top 3 dream jobs - Bestselling author, the person who runs a companies social media accounts, youtuber/blogger

77: Top 3 lucky items - tbh don't have one

78: Top 3 traditions you have - Christmas Eve Service and if I don't go to that at least incorporating reading the christmas story on christmas day or eve, idk if this counts as tradition but going to the corn maze every fall, and whenever it's easter/christmas/thanksgiving we always have a big meal w/ family

79: Top 3 things you miss about being a kid - reckless abandon, dreaming about growing up with hopefulness and no dashed hopes, experiencing holidays like halloween and christmas as a kid

80: Top 3 harry potter characters - I've never read or watched Harry Potter rip (ok well i saw the first and second (and maybe third?) movie in the sixth grade I think) but I think I really liked Hermoine, Harry obviously and Dobby

81: Top 3 lies you were told - i don't have 3, but this one has a story but basically when my sister and i were in elementary school my sister got hit by a car and so the insurance thing was that she would recieve 10k when she was 18 and as a child i thought that was unfair so my dad told me that my sister had to split it with me when we were 18 lmao obviously that didn't happen (i think i realized that wasn't true in middle school)

82: Top 3 pictures in your camera roll right now - Pictures of my cat, one of my sister in a hilarious filter, and a picture of my rocking my TS merch

83: Top 3 turn ons - Kindness, defined jawline, easy going

84: Top 3 turn offs - arrogance, unkempt, super loud and obnoxious

85: Top 3 magazines/news papers/ journals to read - I don't read much of those so I'll tell you some sites I love for writing purpose's: there's Wellstoried, justwriterlythings, springhole.net (which is filled with generators if you're stuck and also tons of infomation and advice)

86: Top 3 things you wish you had known earlier - that toad in Mario Party was wearing a mushroom hat and that it is actually not his head, that immaculate means 'clean' before i misused that word like several times over the years, and that the one turn i always take on my way to work where i thought everyone didn't know how to drive was actually bc i didn't have the right of way rip me

87: Top 3 spongebob episodes - the one episode where spongebob and patrick find a ghost ship, that one episode where they form a bikini bottom band and perform it at a football game in a little fish tank, and the one episode where squidward has his first snowball fight

88: Top 3 places to be in the world - I'd love to be in NYC, Montreal, or Hawaii

89: Top 3 things you'd do differently - I would not have applied for RDC, similarly I should have just paid the 500 dollars to the one certificate program I wanted to do instead of overthinking it, and I wish I wouldn't have ended a friendship the way I did

90: Top 3 TV shows from your childhood - Spongebob Squarepants, That's So Raven, and Hannah Montana

91: Top 3 meals you love - Turkey Burgers, Chilli, and Instant Pot Chicken Tortilla Soup

92: Top 3 kinds of tea - i don't drink tea

93: Top 3 embarrassing moments - one time in sixth grade I tripped and fell right on my face in front of my crush, this other time like a couple years ago i opened the door to my car and only realized much too late while i was staring at this random family that it was not my car, and when i went to the gas station to get gas and couldn't get my gas lid on my car opened and this guy had to help me which was already embarrassing enough but then the gas pump wouldn't work so i had to go inside to pay just to realize i forgot my wallet and had to shamefully walk back to my car and then run back inside the convenience store and then pay and then walk back to my car and finally fill my tank.

94: Top 3 holidays to celebrate - Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving

95: Top 3 things to do in the rain - have an existential crisis, pretend you're in a music video, walk through puddles like you're six again

96: Top 3 things to do in the snow - Sledding, Build a snowman, shovel it even tho you don't want to

97: Top 3 items you can't leave the house w/o - phone, keys, wallet

98: Top 3 movies you'd like to see - Jurassic World 3, Hotel Transylvania: Transformania bc i'm a child, and the animation of the addams family

99: Top 3 art mediums - Writing fiction/poetry, painting, music

100: Top 3 museums you've been to - Royal Tyrell Museum, Canadian History one in edmonton lol, and heritage park in calgary

101: Top 3 school memories - Middle school dances when the popular kids would grind to the song "Low" which was always an interesting experience, in the twelfth grade at winter formal when we all shouted "SHUT UP AND DANCE!" at the same time when they played Shut Up and Dance, and the day i left

102: Top 3 things you don't/Won't miss - School, my sisters ex, 2016 bc she was a rough year yikes

103: Top 3 pick up lines - "My name is Will. God's Will.", "I'd like to take you to the movies but they don't like you bring your own snacks", "are you from tennessee bc you're the only 10 i see"

104: Top 3 sports to watch - none of them

105: Top 3 taylor swift songs - all too well - exile - coney island

#survey

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medievalraven · 4 years

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tagged by a bunch of super lovely, awesome, amazing ladies - @briosgina, @gild-and-fire, @bourbon-ontherocks, and @missmaxime - thank you!!!

Get to know the writer-blogger tag

Name: lauren

Gender: she/her

Star sign: leo

Height: 5′10

Hogwarts House: i don’t know and i don’t care

Favorite animal: alligators and lions?

Average hours of sleep: usually somewhere around eight hours

Current time: 9:32 am

Blankets I sleep with: one comforter year round (god bless air conditioning) and then a weighted blanket in winter

Cats or Dogs: both! although i currently have two cats!

Dream job: i don’t dream of capitalism

When I made by blog: 2017 - i was in lax waiting for my flight and decided to make a blog to kill the time

Followers: you guys have followers?

Why I made this tumblr: well at that point i was in the once upon a time fandom and i made this blog to follow all my favorite fanfic writers (before i just had their blog names saved and checked it manually throughout the day haha)

Reason for URL: well part of the reason is that it’s also my ao3 pseud and i’m really bad at naming things so i just went with what i already had. medieval is because i studied medieval history for a bit (well more early modern history but earlymodernraven doesn’t have the same ring to it) and the ravens are my favorite sports team :) i lucked out then with rio’s ‘it’s all medieval darlin’’ line haha

tagging: @blainesebastian, @literaturethebestfriend, @tinkershar, @saveyoua-seat, @riosnecktattoo, @bethsuglywigs, @entwinedloop and anyone else who wants to do it!

#personal #tagged #my vendetta against harry potter is very long #and i refuse to know more about it than i already do

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achtung-attitude · 4 years

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CHAPTER 36: Weezer - Part 1

From his porch on Mulholland Drive, All-Kill sits, looking out across Los Angeles. The view is beautiful at night, but on this particular morning, it looks muggy and uncomfortable. “Yeon-in,” he calls.

At his summons, the wolf appears with a bottle of Korean soju held in its jaws. With surprising dexterity, it places the bottle on a small table next to its master. All-Kill pets his companion between the ears, then unscrews the cap, pouring the rice wine into a small glass and sipping from it.

“Little early for that, isn’t it?” T’onga says, stepping out of the house and standing behind the chair.

“I’m in a celebratory mood… Have you taken care of everything? The stragglers and loose ends?” the boss replies, keeping his eyes on the view.

“Yeah. Of course,” she says numbly.

“Good. Then the time to strike is now. Go to where Dust is and use HOUSE OF PAIN to eliminate him. No matter what you say or what it takes, do that above all else. It makes no difference what kind of ability Dust has. Once you get him into the room, he’s no match for you. I have every confidence. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve already won.” He punctuates his statement with another sip of soju and a smile.

“Right… Where’s Sang-ok?” T’onga asks.

“At his apartment. I’ll call him over when you’re done.”

“…And Sumni?”

At the mention of this name, there is a long pause between the two, as All-Kill places his glass down. “…She’s on standby, as usual. Why? What difference does it make?”

“Oh… it doesn’t. I was just wondering where everybody was. See you later, boss…” she turns a leaves, stepping back inside the house. All-Kill turns his head and keeps his eye on her until she leaves his sight. The wolf at his feet whines softly.

“Anaheim…” he mutters, and nothing more.

---

The Anaheim Convention Center and Arena! One of the largest gathering spots in all of Southern California, a stone’s throw away from the famous Disneyland, home to every sort of convention for every sort of event, from company-wide get-togethers, to the biggest sporting event, down to the most niche of fan conventions. And this time of year, it's home to the one and only...

TubeCon, the world’s convention for the no. 1 video-sharing network, VidTube! Here, everyone from video bloggers, pranksters, game streamers and the ever underappreciated animators gather to engage with their fans and celebrate their work.

They mill about like termites, some old, but most young, moving between stall after stall, buying merch, taking selfies. Among them are content creators, many of whom film themselves on their phones. Their voices can be heard clearly over the general din.

“EY ITS UR BOY MERCINATOR MEETING UP WITH SOME FANS!!!”

“EY WHAT UP GUYS IT'S YO BOY RATMATT HERE AT TUBECON!!!”

“WE'RE THE SLY BROTHERS AND WE'RE HERE AT TUBECON TO GET PEOPLE'S REACTIONS TO MEETING US!!!”

At the far end of the auditorium, three men in their thirties play video games on a couch under the scrutiny of over a hundred people.

“Julio,” one demands of his bearded companion, “would you rather eat a man or acquire a nice tan?”

“I don’t… What kind of question is that, Neil?” Julio splutters.

“Julio, answer the question!” demands the third.

“What is this place...?” Kilo mutters, taking in the atmosphere with distaste, having found himself and his friends beckoned here.

“This is probably what Hell looks like,” Moya remarks, with a thousand-yard stare. In the midst of this controlled chaos, she and Kilo stand protectively between Shizuka, who stares doe-eyed into the crowd, searching for something. For someone. Frowning, she reaches into her inside pocket and pulls out the message for the hundredth time.

I WILL MEET YOU AT ANAHEIM and a drawing of an impossible triangle, written in permanent marker, and three tickets to this very convention. Nothing else was in the envelope delivered to Jerome’s mansion. Shizuka turns the message around, but all she sees on the back is the marker ink bleeding through the paper.

“Whoever it was that sent that letter…” Kilo grumbles, peering over her shoulder at it, “ least they could’ve done is be a little more specific. So what now, cop?” he turns to Moya, “We just supposed to stand around here, waitin’ for somebody to walk up on us?”

“This is our best move,” Moya replies, squinting suspiciously into the crowd, “For now, we have to assume the worst and that this is a Congregation trap. They’ve been one step ahead of us this whole time, and even now they still have the advantage. But waiting around in C-King’s house won’t get us any closer to stopping them, so we may as well take the chance and handle what comes of it. And besides… if T’onga really did send that message, then I don’t know when we’ll get another chance to get this close to her. No matter what happens, we can’t get separated. As long as we stick together, I’m confident we can take anything that comes our way!”

“Hrrmh… I hope you’re right…” Kilo says. Shizuka says nothing during this exchange, but looks up from the letter, glaring resolutely.

“HEY, YOU GUYS!!” shouts a loud, raucous cry, directed at the three of them. Immediately, SATURN BARZ and WITCH MOUNTAIN come out, only to recede soon after. A man in his late 20s wearing mirror-shades suddenly stands right in front of Shizuka.

With painfully artificial exuberance, the man in sunglasses shouts, “You’re next in line, huh, bros?! Great!! Don’t be shy, I always have time for fans! Here, lemme get that for you!” He says, taking the paper from Shizuka’s hand.

“Ah…! Hey, wait…!!” she starts, but the guy soons hands it back to her, but not before scrawling chicken scratch on the back in red ink.

“Who the fuck is this…?” Kilo mutters. He then glances behind him and notices for the first time a line has formed behind them, composed of teenage girls and boys, the eldest surely no older than 14. Without moving from their spot, the trio appear to have become part of an autograph line.

“Now you got your autograph, how about a selfie?!” the shaded vlogger announces to Shizuka, already pulling out a smartphone and attaching it to a telescopic pole. “It’ll be legit, for real! You’re bound to get a ton of likes on your feed once people see me on it!”

“Ah… N-no, thanks,” Shizuka responds, taken aback, “I’m kind… of waiting for-”

“Come on, honey, no need to be shy!” he announces again, sidling up beside her with his selfie stick raised over them, “You’re talking a major boost in online cred if you get seen with me! I’m kind of a big deal on YouTube, in case you didn’t know!” Bearing over her, he reaches a hand across her shoulders, “And hey, if we hang out a little more, maybe I can give you a few tips on how to get your own channel started! I could send a few early subscribers your way, if you do me a couple favors. What do you sGGLKH!!”

He chokes, his tongue lolling out as Moya lifts him, one-handed, by the back of his t-shirt collar. Kilo, meanwhile, grabs the selfie stick out of his hand, breaks it in half over his knee, then pitches the phone to the other side of the auditorium. The teenagers in the line behind them gasp. Moya drops him, and they and Shizuka moves away from him, stepping around him like garbage.

“H-Hey! Wait up!!” The vlogger shouts, rubbing his neck and beginning to pursue them, “Hey! You guys! Who do you fuckin’ think you are?! Hey, I said--!!” Kilo and Moya turn at once, fixing him with furious expressions. “Yeah, what?”, they say at the same time.

The vlogger appears to forget how to speak for a moment. Then he scurries off to retrieve his phone, shouting back, “My followers are gonna hear about this, you hear me?!”

Shizuka hardly notices his departure, merely brushing lint off her shoulder. Kilo and Moya exchange a concerned glance.

---

The vlogger weaves his way through the crowd, eventually finding his phone lying on the ground with a cracked screen. Upon sight, he rushes to retrieve it, but crashes into a tall man in a hoodie from behind. “Hey! Watch where you’re going, jackass!” he berates before stooping to pick up his phone. The guy in the hoodie slouches, removing his earbuds from his ears and scratching his oversized afro.

Before the vlogger stands back up, he starts wheezing. He manages to release a few choked coughs, which go unnoticed by anyone, before his neck and face begin to swell up like a balloon and his face turns a shade of pale blue.

“Anaphylactic shock, huh? Nasty...” says Toto, and nothing more. By the time he finishes his remark, the vlogger is already dead and he has lost all interest in him. He peers over the crowd. His eyes fall upon the trio, then he slides himself into the back corridors.

Without a care in the world, he strides through the service hallways, eventually coming to the security control center. He opens the door with a stolen clearance card and enters the room, shutting the door behind him. Two dead security guards are propped up against the wall, their faces blotchy and swollen. Toto sits down at the surveillance desk and finds the trio on one of the monitors.

“They’re clinging to each other like…” he mutters to himself, keeping them in sight at all times. “Like… Like, uh… Liiiike… Oh! Like tar and feathers! … No, no, not like that, not like tar and feathers, more like…” he stops abruptly and furrows his brow deeply, searching for the correct analogy. “Flies on hot shit? No, no… Oh, yeah! Like atomic particles! Two little electrons orbiting around a neutron/proton center! That’s perfect!” He smiles, delighted. Then his smile drops.

“Wait, hold on, if the three of them are an atom, then wouldn’t splitting them up be totally bad?” he mutters, beads of sweat suddenly appearing on his forehead, “When you split an atom up, you get nuclear fusion, in other words a big fuckass huge explosion…! Applyin’ that here… Dust wanted me to separate the Joestar princess from her friends, but what if that’s a bad idea…?! What if the best bet is to take ‘em all here and now, together…?! No no no, fighting ‘em all at once is no good either, their abilities are too strong…!

“Aaagh, did I do enough, did I miss anything?! I been here for an hour and I made sure to touch as many people as I could, but what if it ain’t enough?! What if all the people I came into contact left already?! Uuuurghh…!!” he frets manically over this, pinching his temples as his thoughts race. Then at last he freezes, and his relaxed posture returns.

“Don’t be stupid,” he admonishes himself, “It’s just an expression, they ain’t really atoms. They just people. Caught in the flow of fate, just like everybody. Does no good to worry over how things’ll turn out. Split ‘em up, cram ‘em together… It’s all the same at the End of Time…” Fully calmed down, he reaches for the microphone and leans into it.

Affecting an officious, professional tone, he speaks into the PA, “Attention, all convention-goers, attention all convention-goers. The Paulie Paul panel event will be commencing in ten minutes. Please proceed to the cordoned area in Hall D in an orderly fashion. Thank you.” Finished, he watches with satisfaction at the silent stampede that begins, which slams into the trio, tearing them apart.

He reaches into his front pocket and pulls out a pre-rolled spliff. He regards it for a moment, taking in the herbal scent, before shaking his head. “No, no… No time. Gotta work…” he says, getting up and leaving the security office, heading for the exhibit halls.

#jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #jojo no kimyou na bouken #achtung attitude #shizuka joestar #kilo staples #moya pezzente #toto #ch36

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things2mustdo · 4 years

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Nature has given humanity a roughly one-to-one ratio of adult men to women, but the most attractive women are being taken out of circulation to either join alpha male harems or participate in degenerate lifestyle choices. This leaves the average man practically no choice in settling down with a mentally stable and cute woman in her prime.

In Islam, a man is able to marry four wives, which is what my wealthy Iranian grandfather did on his way to siring 24 or so children that included my dad (the exact number is a mystery). He took away three women that an Iranian man of lesser means could have married, creating a societal imbalance, but that’s nothing compared to what we have in the modern Western world, where a single famous man can command the sexual attentions of dozens—if not thousands—of women in their sexual prime, spoiling these women for normal men who don’t have the ability to tingle their vaginas with the same intensity.

How many actors, musicians, and sports athletes are trying to plow through as much prime pussy as possible? How many Hollywood directors and music producers are leveraging their positions for sexual gain? How many club owners, restaurateurs, Arab sheikhs, and politicians are doing the same? Each one is taking way more beautiful women out of circulation than men like my grandfather, all while elevating their standards to such an extent that no average man can ever gain their love, let alone two hours—or even two minutes–of their uninterrupted attention.

We also have to account for female lifestyle choices that are designed to delay or prevent pair bonding and marriage. The biggest is career. Most girls, while embarking on a career, balance out the boredom of working a meaningless job by hopping on the cock carousel and banging at least a few men every year. By the time a girl hits 25 years old, any man who meets her will have to deal with a walk-in closet of emotional issues and hang-ups from being pumped and dumped as much as a 1930’s brothel whore.

Then there is the Instagram and Facebook lifestyle that creates crippling dopamine addiction, which causes a girl to only be satisfied if dozens of men are actively thirsting for her every day. I estimate that if a girl has over 500 followers on Instagram, she is so used to attention from throngs of men that the love of one man cannot possibly satisfy her.

We must also throw in the growing “travel blogger” lifestyle where, instead of using only her body to get attention, a girl uses pictures and video from exotic locations to enhance her beauty. Other girls, with nothing substantial to offer the world, decide to showcase pictures of pets or their tasty overpriced meals, but even that puts them on a dopamine loop that ruins their future interactions with men.

By far, the most damaging lifestyle choice women make is becoming a sugar baby, a politically correct term for “prostitute.” For some easy cash, she whores out her body to the highest bidder (some women combine Instagram and prostitution in a seamless package). How can such an Instagram prostitute ever settle down with a man who has a normal salary? There are also the hundreds of women who enter porn every year, some from seemingly stable families. Sadly, men are so desperate for love that many would wife up a former prostitute or porn star, but it’s highly unlikely those women will make for stable families.

The Western world is a sinkhole for women. The prettiest of the bunch fall into the hole and get spit out years later an entitled #MeToo hag who can never be happy, making the Islamic four-wife rule seem downright egalitarian. The sad truth is that if you meet an attractive girl today, she was pumped and dumped by numerous sexy men, prefers to nurture her career than children, is addicted to attention via the internet, and has participated in some kind of scheme to exchange social status or cash for her pussy. She’s more than suitable for a bit of fun, but would it be wise to seek a relationship with her?

Even with the obesity and short-hair epidemic, I still see a bountiful supply of cute girls I would happily reproduce with. I would love them, let them caress my beard, and lay my seed deep within their vaginal guts, but the problem is that those guts are not for me—they are for the Chads who would never marry her, the beta orbiters who await her newest selfie as if it were a source of food, or the rich and lonely men who would sponsor her for thousands of dollars a month. They’re taking her out of circulation at the time I want her most, and by the time they are done with her, I no longer want her. I guess I’ll try to weasel in a bang or two when she is not yet fully degraded, and enjoy the fleeting pleasure that comes from it as much as I can.

https://www.rooshv.com/how-to-stop-the-fall-of-women

An acronym that you’ll often come across is AWALT, which stands for “all women are like that.” It is used in response to someone trying to point out that a particular woman is different than all the rest and more deserving to be placed on a pedestal of some sort when it comes to relationships. While that acronym is useful for newbies who are just beginning to de-program themselves from egalitarian ideas spewed by the establishment, it breeds a hopelessness among men that they can never extract more than casual sex from women.

Most men have seen firsthand how women change due to the presence of corrupting factors in the environment. If you give a woman an open bar, she will over-consume and make decisions that harm herself. If you give a woman a smartphone with social networking apps, she will become a narcissist in a short amount of time, falling in love with her own image. If you give a woman a liberal education, she will come to firm belief than men were born to bring pain and slavery unto women.

Only a woman with an exceptional upbringing can resist alcohol, social networking, and university brainwashing, and for the women who can initially resist it, she will surely succumb after enough time and pressure. It is in this way that AWALT is true: all women who face corrupt influences in their lives will become corrupt and behave in a similar way that degrades their virtue, making them unsuitable for long-term partnerships. But if AWALT is true in describing the universal fall of women in the presence of toxic influences, it must also be true that they possess universal purity in environments which lack bad influences that attack her virtue.

A reliable corrupter of a woman’s virtue is having plentiful male choice. If over the course of five years a woman in New York City has her choice of 100 alpha male cocks, she will be unable to resist the thrill ride that these men offer. She will begin to structure her life around a neverending alpha male sex party where she receives and expects fun, excitement, drama, and entertainment in exchange for willingly accepting her place on various booty call rotations. During this time, she loses most ability to be a suitable wife and mother, or even to be a good person, because the alpha males who use her for late night sex do not place demands upon her that make her more feminine, loving, or nurturing. She becomes damaged goods, suitable for nothing more than casual humping.

But now let’s imagine that instead of being born in New York City, this girl was born in a poor Ukrainian village that only has a population of 1,000 people. For whatever reason, she was unable to get out of this village and a complete blackout of internet prevents her from meeting thirsty foreign men. It’s quite easy to see how she marries a village man while still young because it’s a better prospect than suffering alone to earn her bread in a place where employment opportunities are few. The environment a girl is placed in will mostly determine her worth as a life partner.

Most women who are put in New York City will, within a few years, default to becoming a promiscuous slut. Most women who are put in a tiny village with no way out, with little choice in men, and with positive religious influences, will default to being a good wife and mother, possessing normal and acceptable human flaws like all men have. Women put in specific environments will act in specific ways, which is why looking for a unicorn in a Western city is fruitless, since she’s within reach of the devil’s workshop. He will get to her and make sure she experiences all manner of vice.

Western nations facilitate the “fall” of women from a state of purity and innocence to one of abject corruption. I don’t believe women are inherently born to be degenerate, just like how I don’t believe men are, but once we put a woman in an environment that enables, facilitates, and even encourages her corruption, she will certainly become corrupt. But what if you can catch a woman before she inserts herself into this environment and then shield her from it? What if you grab her at the time she is about to jump into the abyss, and through your diligence, power, and knowledge, protect her from Western influences that will destroy her? Would it be safe to give your time, energy, love, and commitment to this woman? It’s important to note that I’m not stating you save a corrupt girl, since by then it’s too late, but to prevent a woman from becoming corrupt in the first place.

It is completely your responsibility to create the environment of a good home, a good city, and a good country to prevent the fall of your women. It’s your responsibility to create the right environment where all women remain good instead of succumbing to an evil where within a short amount of time she becomes a useless, tattooed, overweight, and masculine slut. It should be clear to you by now that women absolutely can not save themselves, and have no inherent resistance to the pollution that tempts them in this world. It’s solely up to us men to shield their natural virtue so that they become the wives and mothers that allow you to fulfill your biological destiny while furthering the health of your society.

It’s not a matter of telling a girl that sleeping around is bad or that Facebook is bad, because by then the ship has sailed and her soul is likely long gone. It’s a matter of creating the environment where women are restrained from sleeping around, blocked from becoming addicted to taking selfies, and prevented from becoming brainwashed by social justice ideas. We must stop them from entering the environments that destroy them. We must guard the door of evil that they are hurtling themselves towards while resisting evil ourselves.

Before you raise your hands in despair and claim that this is an impossible task, that Western society is finished, I say this: what is a society but a collection of the people within it? What is a society but an assembly of living humans that include ourselves? We are a part of this whole, and it’s up to us to ensure that the truism of “all women are like that” serves in our benefit and our society’s benefit instead of being at the forefront of our most terrifying nightmares.[culturewar]

Read Next: Women Must Have Their Behavior And Decisions Controlled By Men

After a long period in society of women having unlimited personal freedom to pursue life as they wish, they have shown to consistently fail in making the right decisions that prevent their own harm and the harm of others. Systems must now be put in place where a woman’s behavior is monitored and her decisions subject to approval of a male relative or guardian who understands what’s in her best interests better than she does herself.

Women have had personal freedoms for less than a century. For the bulk of human history, their behavior was significantly controlled or subject to approval through mechanisms of tribe, family, church, law, or stiff cultural precepts. It was correctly assumed that a woman was unable to make moral, ethical, and wise decisions concerning her life and those around her. She was not allowed to study any trivial topic she wanted, sleep with any man who caught her fancy, or uproot herself and travel the world because she wanted to “find herself.”

You can see this level of control today in many Muslim countries, where expectations are placed on women from a young age to submit to men, reproduce (if biologically able), follow God’s word, and serve the good of society by employing her feminine nature instead of competing directly against men on the labor market due to penis envy or feelings of personal inferiority.

The reason that women had their behavior limited was for the simple reason that they are significantly less rational than men, in a way that impaired their ability to make good decisions concerning the future. This was eloquently described by German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in his important essay On Women. He described them as overgrown children, a comparison that any man who has dated more than a dozen of them can quickly agree to after having consistently witnessed their impulsive and illogical behavior firsthand.

Women are directly fitted for acting as the nurses and teachers of our early childhood by the fact that they are themselves childish, frivolous and short-sighted; in a word, they are big children all their life long—a kind of intermediate stage between the child and the full-grown man, who is man in the strict sense of the word. See how a girl will fondle a child for days together, dance with it and sing to it; and then think what a man, with the best will in the world, could do if he were put in her place.

[…]

…women remain children their whole life long; never seeing anything but what is quite close to them, cleaving to the present moment, taking appearance for reality, and preferring trifles to matters of the first importance.

[…]

That woman is by nature meant to obey may be seen by the fact that every woman who is placed in the unnatural position of complete independence, immediately attaches herself to some man, by whom she allows herself to be guided and ruled. It is because she needs a lord and master.

When you give a female unlimited choice on which man to have sex with, what type of man does she choose? An exciting man who treats her poorly and does not care for her well-being.

When you give a female choice on what to study in university, what does she choose? An easy liberal arts major that costs over $50,000 and dooms her to a life of debt and sporadic employment.

When a female lacks any urgent demands upon her survival, what behavior does she pursue? Obsessively displaying her half-naked body on the internet, flirting with men solely for attention, becoming addicted to corporate-produced entertainment, and over-indulging in food until her body shape is barely human.

When you give a female choice on when to have kids, what does she do? After her fertility is well past its peak, and in a rushed panic that resembles the ten seconds before the ringing of the first school bell, she aims for limited reproductive success at an age that increases the likelihood she’ll pass on genetic defects to her child.

When you give a female choice of which political leader to vote into office, who do they vote for? The one who is more handsome and promises unsustainable freebies that accelerate the decline of her country.

When you give a female unwavering societal trust with the full backing of the state, what does she do? Falsely accuse a man of rape and violence out of revenge or just to have an excuse for the boyfriend who caught her cheating.

When you give a female choice on who to marry, what is the result? A 50% divorce rate, with the far majority of them (80%) initiated by women themselves.

While a woman is in no doubt possession of crafty intelligence that allows her to survive just as well as a man, mostly through the use of her sexuality and wiles, she is a slave to the present moment and therefore unable to make decisions that benefit her future and those of the society she’s a part of. Once you give a woman personal freedom, like we have in the Western world, she enslaves herself to one of numerous vices and undertakes a rampage of destruction to her body and those who want to be a meaningful part of her life.

A man does not need to look further than the women he knows, including those in his family, to see that the more freedom a woman was given, the worse off she is, while the woman who was under the heavy hand of the church or male relative comes out far better on the other side, in spite of her rumblings that she wants to be as free as her liberated friends, who eagerly and regularly post soft porn photos of themselves on social networking and dating sites while selecting random anonymous men for fornication every other weekend.

Men, on average, make better decisions than women. If you take this to be true, which should be no harder to accept than the claim that lemons are sour, why is a woman allowed to make decisions at all without first getting approval from a man who is more rational and levelheaded than she is? It not only hurts the woman making decisions concerning her life, but it also hurts any man who will associate with her in the future. You only need to ask the many suffering husbands today on how they are dealing with a wife who entered the marriage with a student loan debt in the high five figures from studying sociology and how her wildly promiscuous sexual history impairs her ability to remain a dedicated mother, with one foot already out the door after he makes a reasonable demand that is essential for a stable home and strong family.

I propose two different options for protecting women from their obviously deficient decision making. The first is to have a designated male guardian give approval on all decisions that affect her well-being. Such a guardian should be her father by default, but in the case a father is absent, another male relative can be appointed or she can be assigned one by charity organizations who groom men for this purpose, in a sort of Boy’s Club for women.

She must seek approval by her guardian concerning diet, education, boyfriends, travel, friends, entertainment, exercise regime, marriage, and appearance, including choice of clothing. A woman must get a green light from her guardian before having sex with any man, before wearing a certain outfit, before coloring her hair green, and before going to a Spanish island for the summer with her female friends.

If she disobeys her guardian, an escalating series of punishments would be served to her, culminating in full-time supervision by him. Once the woman is married, her husband will gradually take over guardian duties, and strictly monitor his wife’s behavior and use all reasonable means to keep it in control so that family needs are met first and foremost, as you already see today in most Islamic societies. Any possible monetary proceeds she would get from divorce would be limited so that she has more incentive to keep her husband happy and pleased than to throw him under the bus for the most trivial of reasons that stem from her persistent and innate need to make bad decisions.

A second option for monitoring women is a combination of rigid cultural rules and sex-specific laws. Women would not be able to attend university unless the societal need is urgent where an able-minded man could not be found to fill the specific position. Women would not be able to visit establishments that serve alcohol without a man present to supervise her consumption. Parental control software on electronic devices would be modified for women to control and monitor the information they consume. Credit card and banking accounts must have a male co-signer who can monitor her spending. Curfews for female drivers must be enacted so that women are home by a reasonable hour. Abortion for women of all ages must be signed off by her guardian, in addition to prescriptions for birth control.

While my proposals are undoubtedly extreme on the surface and hard to imagine implementing, the alternative of a rapidly progressing cultural decline that we are currently experiencing will end up entailing an even more extreme outcome. Women are scratching their most hedonistic and animalistic urges to mindlessly pursue entertainment, money, socialist education, and promiscuous behavior that only satisfies their present need to debase themselves and feel fleeting pleasure, at a heavy cost for society.

Allowing women unlimited personal freedom has so affected birth rates in the West that the elite insists on now allowing importation of millions of third world immigrants from democratically-challenged nations that threaten the survival of the West. In other words, giving women unbridled choice to pursue their momentary whims instead of investing in traditional family ideals and reproduction is a contributing factor to what may end up being the complete collapse of those nations that have allowed women to do as they please.

I make these sincere recommendations not out of anger, but under the firm belief that the lives of my female relatives would certainly be better tomorrow if they were required to get my approval before making any decisions. They would not like it, surely, but due to the fact that I’m male and they’re not, my analytical decision-making faculty is superior to theirs to absolutely no fault of their own, meaning that their most sincere attempts to make good decisions will have a failure rate larger than if I was able to make those decisions for them, especially with intentions that are fully backed with compassion and love for them to have more satisfying lives than they do now.

As long as we continue to treat women as equals to men, a biological absurdity that will one day be the butt of many jokes for comedians of the future, women will continue to make horrible decisions that hurt themselves, their families, and their reproductive potential. Unless we take action soon to reconsider the freedoms that women now have, the very survival of Western civilization is at stake.[culturewar]

Read Next: People Should Not Be Allowed Unlimited Personal Freedom

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kyndaris · 5 years

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We Built this City on Rocks and Cats

After a night of interrupted sleep thanks to multiple mosquitoes harassing both my mother and I, I woke to find my face sporting two itchy lumps. Almost immediately, I began searching up symptoms of dengue fever. Though infection rates are considered low, many of the more immediate symptoms were similar to COVID-19. With paranoia rife, I feared that I might be detained if people thought I had the novel coronavirus instead of the actual reason why I might be sick.

(Edit: I am still as hale and hearty as ever as of time of writing up this blog. No symptoms of anything yet. So no dengue fever, no COVID-19 and certainly no Japanese encephalitis.)

Breakfast was brought to us at seven in the morning, by one of the hotel staff members. Just like dinner the night before, it was a collection of food items that were probably bought from the local Family Mart or 7-Eleven. Having got out of bed fairly early, I was eager for food and munched on my burger in relish.

After we had filled up, my mother and I ensured that our bags were packed and it was back into the van as we headed north to Hualien.

First, though, we stopped by Xiaoyeliu. Overcast, it was not the best day to visit the beach. Unlike the beaches of Sydney with its golden sand, Xiaoyeliu was very much a rocky beach. Our tour guide pointed out that many of these rocks were actually brought up from the ocean bed when Taiwan was formed. Some of it was old coral. As we clambered over the rocks, looking for the best picture, we took in these facts - staring in wonderment that so many plants could grow in such terrain. To our Canadian counterparts, I made a few snide observations and comparisons to how Australia would have kept the beach safely locked behind a fence and warning signs. Mostly because the government fears that many humans have little to no common sense and in the pursuit of the perfect photo would stand at the very edge of rock pools. And they have proven correct again and again when there are new reports of individuals being swept away into the sea.

That, however, did not deter them from climbing up as far as they could on the mountain of rocks and replicate classic Disney movie moments from The Little Mermaid and The Lion King.

After we had our fill, we briefly visited a place called ‘Water Flowing Upstream.’ Just like its namesake, the water truly did flow upstream. Our tour guide demonstrated this by tossing a leaf into the water. We watched in amazement as it defied the very laws of gravity and made its way up the hill. Following after it, we stumbled upon a plaque that provided no answers as to the phenomena.

Back on the road again, we stopped briefly for lunch and were visited by a host of feral cats. One tabby sounded most aggrieved that they needed to beg food from humans and constantly glared at me as we ate. Of course, my Canadian companion and I took plenty of photos and the occasional video. From there, it was a quick trek to Baxian Cave. Though tourists were previously able to explore inside, a landslide had seen the entrance boarded up. Despite that, we could still hear the waves of the ocean as we stood just outside it.

Then it was to the Tropic of Cancer Marker. As we explored the goods on sale, I spied one very inappropriate item on display. At first, I was aghast - wondering why a tourist shop would be selling such a thing. But the plaque on the side provided some additional information on what the object was inspired from. This was the ‘Male Stone’ and in the picture that was provided, it looked very much like male genitalia. Even if I had wanted to buy it, I wouldn’t have known what to do with it. Scratch that, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. Give it to someone else in a game of Dirty Santa.

Back on the van, we negotiated a set of tortuous mountain rounds in order to reach our next stop on the journey to Hualien: Eternal Spring Shine. Nestled in a narrow valley, the shrine was built as a memorial for the lives that were lost in the construction of the tunnel through the massive mountain ranges in Central Taiwan that would have connected the Eastern shore to the West.

Learning these little tidbits of information was particularly enlightening because most of the other places we visited did not always include a breakdown or explanation of their historical importance in English. And though I can understand Mandarin Chinese, the facts do not always stick very clearly in my mind.

Another hour had us arrive at the hotel that we would be staying in for the night: Just Sleep. I’m not sure who comes up with the names for Taiwan’s hotels but they really need to take a lesson in giving good names. Complaint aside, the hotel was quite impressive in its style and comfort. I can’t say as to why the toilet had it sown glass door but perhaps that’s exactly what the architect wanted it to look like.

Just Sleep also had a small library filled with all sorts of manga and a tiny art gallery just above it. In fact, it had many small quirks that proved quite endearing.

Once again, though, our dinner was meant to be purchased and enjoyed on our lonesome. Since our numbers were so low, we could not find a restaurant that would cater for our needs. It was not long before we found both a Family Mart and 7-Eleven (heightening its similarity to Japan) and I enjoyed some lovely pasta.

The topography and scenery of today’s drive up the east coast of Taiwan also put into mind the majestic mountains that dominated Hawaii’s big island. Especially with how prolific the palm trees were.

If there is one thing I can say about Taiwan in the short time that I was there, it is that it felt very much like a melting pot of cultures. Somehow or another, it works. And it is this very history that makes it so compelling to this humble blogger.

#travel blog #taiwan #hualien #eternal spring shrine #baxian cave #xiaoyeliu

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howtolistentomusic · 4 years

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Dear people that think the Goodwill wants to sell your Ziploc baggie of used crayons: it doesn’t. That shit goes directly into the trash, right on top of your broken furniture. Surely you mean well when you donate, say, an old dresser with a busted leg. But good intentions can’t magically transform a ragtag crew of temp agency employees into proper handymen.

If, however, you need an informed opinion on one of those homemade mixtapes that sometimes find their way into the warehouse, I might be your man.

Once upon a time I managed to con my way into the world of online music writing. As one might expect from a blogger haughty & naive enough to write under the banner How to Listen to Music, many of my insights have aged terribly. But I was constantly learning from the best critics, journalists and bloggers in the field and HtLtM was gaining steam before my fragile discipline collapsed under the weight of increasing visibility. I still believe deeply in the merits of the template I created to analyze songs on Youtube, which was unlike anything on the internet before or since. Maura Johnston seemed to like it, at least.

And yet I failed miserably at turning these creative endeavors into a sustainable career. So here I am, handling donations at my local Goodwill warehouse for minimum wage. Today old man Kenneth and I are inside the container, which is the detachable part of a freight truck the drivers dump on the dock for the roll-off team to unload. We’re placing the donations on the open edge for the guys outside to grab and toss into gaylords. Yes, the thick cardboard boxes with an open top we place on pallets to store donations in are called gaylords. And yes, my coworkers think this is hilarious. Death, taxes, and “they’re calling you!” from one roll-off laborer to another every time the term is overheard.

***

“You dropped this,” Kenneth says as he hands me a crate of CDs.

“If there’s no Justin Bieber, it’s not mine.” I say.

“You better cut that shit out!” David says.

“He’s joking,” Donald tells David.

I laugh.

“I know you!” Donald says.

“Dude, I’m a poptimist.”

“A what?“

Let’s start by pointing out that it’s a hell of a lot easier to be an "authentic” artist, as a certain orthodoxy of criticism dictates one should be, when your very existence isn’t under constant attack. You’re in luck, straight white dudes! Again. What a coincidence.

Poptimism basically says nay! to all the noise. The Beatles go to Jupiter to get more stupider. Gaga goes to Mars to get more candy bars. Or college, I suppose, if your childhood sucked.

“It means I listen to pop.” Among many other genres, to be very clear. “Top 40. All the stuff you guys probably hate.”

“Bullshit!” Donald says.

I don’t know who he thinks I am but it’s clearly someone much, much cooler.

“I thought you were smart!” David says.

“Am I no longer smart if I listen to Justin Bieber?”

“Nope!” says Kenneth.

“Oh shut up!” I say to the grizzled geezer. “Go jack off to Creedence.”

“I’d rather get gang banged by CCR than listen to that little homo.”

You heard it here first. Listening to Justin Bieber: gayer than being gay!

“Really? Justin Bieber?” David says. “Wow. You think you know a guy.”

“Any recommendations?”

“Marvin Gaye! Stevie Wonder! James Brown!”

What’s Going On. Songs in the Key of Life. Think. These are all stone cold classics. I have a healthy respect for these artists but they aren’t in my regular rotation.

“Those guys are before my time. If we move up a few decades, I’m totally there. New Edition, Boyz II Men, Soul 4 Real …”

“Now we’re talking!”

“Bieber’s better though.”

David throws up his arms in wild exasperation, as if his favorite sports team just botched an important play. He doesn’t seem to understand that I’m trolling him.

To be clear, I do indeed listen to Justin Bieber’s music. “Baby” is catchy as hell, and the song’s DNA can be heard in other notable pop releases from the era such as Katy Perry’s blockbuster Teenage Dream and internet darling Carly Rae Jepsen’s Kiss. I also like “Never Say Never” if only for hearing Jaden Smith say “No pun intended / was raised by the power of WIll.” And for an album created by a former child star falling apart at the seams, Purpose has no business being as good as it is. Stand-out track “Love Yourself” contains the immortal roast “My momma don’t like you and she likes everyone.” And with its heavy utilization of short, staccato notes and sudden, dramatic rests, the song is my favorite example of a distinct style of guitar playing favored by many male musicians. Such “cool pauses” give these songs a slightly broken, incomplete feel that mirrors the artist’s self-assured “deal with it” tone and I love it.

Even Carlos, my arch enemy, likes “Love Yourself”. A while back we were inside the warehouse creating pallets of our best furniture to be sent to proper Goodwill retail locations. Supervisor Anna miraculously felt like hearing some contemporary hits that day and had the building’s three radios tuned to Live 105.5, our local top 40 station. “Love Yourself” played.

“This is Bieber’s only good song,” Carlos told me. He tried to sing along but quickly lost the words. “Sing it!” he said. “I know you know it!”

I wasn’t sure if I should be offended by being stereotyped or impressed by his accuracy. Nonetheless, it was true! I did know the words! I picked up where he left off.

”‘Cause if you like the way you look that much / Oh baby you should go and love yourself / And if you think that I’m still holdin’ on to somethin’ / You should go and love yourself.“

It wasn’t a particularly strong vocal performance but Carlos, somehow, was awed.

“Daaaaaaamn!” he cooed. It was perhaps the only time I ever impressed him.

Carlos, in case it wasn’t clear, is an asshole. He’s the type of open misogynist that progressives, in our insulated internet bubbles, are shocked to realize still exist. My masculinity isn’t up to par with his standards and he likes to torture me because of it.

Carlos is off today but there’s a small part of me that wishes he was here. He’d have no trouble buying the fact that I listen to Justin Bieber. At the same time, I know I need to be careful. After all, Bieber is far from my favorite musician. But I can’t help it. Playing Bieleber is such a fun and easy way to rile up my coworkers.

“You need a lesson in quality, my boy!” David says.

“I’m all ears!” I say, but he just shrugs.

If I wanted to be really mean, I could point out that David just might be the true Bieleber in roll-off. See, David the Bieber-hating quality expert is the same David that sometimes drops me off at the bus station after our shift ends. More than once on these trips, a Justin Bieber song played on the radio. Did he change the station? Nope!

David seems to be harboring a lot of hate for a musician whose songs he doesn’t even recognize. This doesn’t surprise me, of course, because Bieber hate is barely about Justin Bieber.

Leonardo DiCaprio. Robert Pattinson. Zac Efron. Boy bands. The Biebs. Celebrities like these are cut from the same cloth in that they’re overwhelmingly attractive in a way that draws ravenous, predominantly female fanbases. In turn, this provokes intense contempt and ridicule from traditional dudes everywhere. This is bullshit. It’s retaliation against open female desire that, in an affront to their entitlement, isn’t directed towards Man McAverage.

Evoking “quality” is no exemption from these kinds of considerations. Many people treat the word as if it’s an objective and universal set of standards everyone intuitively understands but this is nonsense. Quality is more like a self-shaped hole we attempt to carve into the world, both encompassing and reproducing our ideals, desires, prejudices, etc. It sure as hell doesn’t explain itself.

I’ve been immersed in the world of music writing for a long time. My favorite publications tend to be ones that upend the very idea of quality. The Singles Jukebox gathers a variety of writers to weigh in and score the same song, and reading wildly different takes on what makes art good or bad is enlightening. One Week // One Band achieves something similar by inviting a different writer (sometimes a professional, sometimes not so much) to take over the blog for a seven-day deep dive into a musician they love, with “no rules and no canon” dictating who that musician can be. And then there was Hipster Runoff, the defunct but brilliant meta exploration of taste and identity that often delved into the ingredients of quality that we don’t like to talk about.

I think I ‘like’ them because they are differentiated from 'traditional music’ and 'modern indie music.’ When I listen to them, I exist on a higher plane of musical appreciation and consume products for 'all the right reasons.’

- Carles, the voice of Hipster Runoff, on Animal Collective

Quality shouldn’t be a Get Out of Bullying Your Co-Worker Free card. But after a lifetime of living with what is often considered bad taste, I’ve learned to be on the offensive just in case.

Try harder, fuckers.

#minwagepop

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wessonba · 5 years

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First, let me say that 5.01 “The Fiery Cross” was a masterful mix of old and new. It was recognizably based on the book but told with enough new and yet plausible surprises to keep me glued to my screen. It totally could have happened that way. And, although I love Diana Gabaldon, and her gathering, I’m relieved they didn’t feel the need to replicate it in this episode. Instead, they gave us the wedding of Roger and Bree. It was a wonderful and joyous reunion filled with the people I have missed during this long drought. As each face was shown on the screen, I found myself smiling somewhat tearfully. I really do love this story and these characters.

As usual, when I sit down to write after an episode, a blow by blow recap of what happened isn’t on my mind. There are lots of talented bloggers out there who do a great job looking at EVERTHING! I admire their ability to do so, but that just isn’t how my brain works. I find myself thinking about one or two things that stood out for me or an overall mood or theme for each episode. This week I couldn’t stop thinking about Jamie. The Jamie I saw on my screen this week was the charming, complicated, yet simple man I have been longing to see. As he stood before Claire wearing his plaid and his father’s coat, it felt like he had finally come into his own; laird, proud Scot, husband, father, grandfather. He is a man and “that is no small thing”. His tear-filled eyes throughout this episode revealed his soul and I found myself proud to “know” such a man.

Jamie and Bree

Matt Roberts writes with such love for this story and its characters. He holds all the previous episodes in mind when he creates and tends to the small and endearing details. In this episode, he called us back to the three conditions Jamie made when he agrees to marry Claire; a dress, a priest, and a ring. We are treated to Jamie trying his best to make sure his daughter’s wedding day is the best he can make it, just like he tried for her mother. I was charmed by Jamie making sure Bree had her “modern” wedding tradition of something old, something new (fairly raw whiskey, ouch), something borrowed and something blue and even a sixpence for her shoe. His obvious fatherly concern is compounded by the fact that their relationship is still so new. He just got her back and now he has to give her away.

As he turns the corner and sees Bree in her wedding dress, you can chase the emotions across his face; awe, pride, gratefulness, and finally a need to hold it all in check for this beloved and found daughter. He could never have dreamed of placing his mother’s pearls on his daughter’s neck. He is able to pass on a family heirloom to his own flesh and blood. She is his blessing. She is the embodiment of the fact that his sacrifices were not in vain. He is moved to tears by her confession that she needs him and will always be his wee girl and the gift of her knowing and repeating the Fraser clan motto, “Je Suis Prest”.

Jamie and Claire

Throughout the episode, we are reminded of Jamie and Claire’s deep, passionate, and abiding love for one another. The looks that pass between each, the unspoken language of couples who are so close they know what the other thinks and feels, added so much to this episode. Once again, the writers or actors took care to be consistent in how this couple interacts with each other like the “let’s do this” nod when Jamie goes off to do something dangerous. But, Lord the looks between Jamie and Claire at the wedding. He looks around at all he has wrought, the family he is surrounded by, and then back to Claire. Who knows. He is overwhelmed by all he has that he thought he had lost forever. He is a laird, a father, a…husband. I am constantly reminded of all they had been denied and wonder if Jamie feels like Job who was blessed in his latter days and given twice as much as had been taken from him.

Jamie and the Governor

I teach literature. When I help students analyze Shakespeare, we talk about foils. Governor Tyron was perfectly menacing and a perfect foil for Jamie. You couldn’t help but compare the two. Their motivations, their values, couldn’t be more opposite. The Governor has the care of a land and its people. Jamie has the care of a land and its people. The Governor is motivated by power and his own importance. Murtaugh has made him look a fool and must be punished publicly to restore Tyron’s pride and preserve the perception of his power. Jamie is motivated by love, honor, and duty. The knowledge of the future lays heavy on him. He knows who wins the war, but first, you must survive the battle. Instinctively he knows the best way to protect his men and their families is to assure their loyalty to him. He creates a clan from the remnants of their memories and Scottish pride. When he called Roger “the son of my house” and Fergus “the son of his heart”, he gave them a public affirmation of his acceptance and his love. Pledging their loyalty to him on bended knee with holy iron was one of the most moving callbacks of the whole series. I loved Roger’s initial confusion then Jamie’s surprise as the scholar moved from academic to real with alacrity.

Jamie and Murtagh

We began and ended the episode with these two. Murtagh pledges an oath to Jamie, a promise he gave his mother to always follow him and have his back. He gently reaches out and takes wee Jamie’s hand in reassurance. Men in this time are definitely defined by their word and once given it is a serious and binding commitment. Murtagh pledged his life to Jamie. We have seen him keep that oath. We saw Jamie’s joy at being reunited with his godfather last season. However, the real depth of feeling Jamie has for Murtagh could only be guessed at… until this moment. How much that oath meant to Jamie and his love for his godfather was revealed in this final scene. To save him, Jamie must release Murtagh from his oath and send him away. In true Jamie and Murtagh fashion, no gushy words are spoken in their final goodbye. Jamie is tearful when he tells him to go and attempts to smile as he tells him to make himself scarce. Murtagh’s response is to gently reach out and touch Jamie reassuringly, thinking first of Jamie’s feelings and needs always. He leaves and Jamie then collapses in grief emitting gut-wrenching sobs. I think having loved and lost is painful, but to gain that love back and have to let it go again is unbearable. Jamie is feeling fear as he never has before and that is saying a lot. He has a lot to lose and will fight to the death to preserve all that he loves.

This episode and Jamie’s tears caused me to reflect on my own life. I thought of how much more easily my husband and I are moved to tears. I believe, like Jamie, our age is a factor. We have a lifetime of painful memories and struggles, things that we have overcome to get where we are now. And, I often find I am now moved to tears by the simplest of things like watching our youngest granddaughters ride a pony or their obvious pride in catching a fish all by themselves, or watching the teens in all of their various sports and activities.or their inexplicable joy in a pair of gifted footed pajamas! Sometimes watching the looks of pride on our own children’s faces as they look upon their children moves me to tears and I will look at my husband and find that he too is tearful. Like Jamie and Claire, understanding, gratitude, and love will wordlessly pass between us and end in a brief kiss and a tremulous smile.

≈

The Jamie of the Ridge … a reflection on Outlander 5.01 “The Fiery Cross” First, let me say that 5.01 "The Fiery Cross" was a masterful mix of old and new.

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citizenscreen · 5 years

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This week marks eight years since Once Upon a Screen has been in existence. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime, and at other times it’s as though the years have flown by. Overall it’s been an enjoying ride thus far with periods of frustration strewn in for good measure. As I admitted a few years ago, I am at once both shocked at my stick-to-itivenessand happy I still enjoy sharing my thoughts on all things classic on this blog. It remains an important respite from all the negativity that surrounds us.

Before I get to my celebrations of 8, I must recognize the friends and bloggers who make it a point to stop in on occasion. You inspire me to keep going and to have fun at it.

As is the usual custom for these types of occasions, I begin this celebration with a presentation of gifts appropriate for the occasion. Gifts suitable for an eighth anniversary are either pottery or bronze. I’m happy to accept the following pottery items on my own behalf. You may notice the pottery is adorned by a movie star in each.

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88 years ago it was 1931. Here are 8 of my favorite films from that year:

Chaplin’s City Lights

Wale’s Frankenstein

Browning’s Dracula

Lang’s M

Brown’s A Free Soul

Capra’s Platinum Blonde

LeRoy’s Five Star Final

Brown’s Possessed

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Actors with 8 Academy Award Nominations:

Pacino

O’Toole

Page

Lemmon

Brando

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Eight this-n-thats:

Behind the eight ball: Behind the eight ball means placed in a difficult situation from which one is unlikely to escape. The idiom behind the eight ball was first printed in American newspaper stories in the 1920s and was derived from the game of pool. (Grammarist) Magic eight ball is another common term loosely related to the first. Here, we get to know the future.

The 8-track tape – A magnetic tape cartridge technology introduced by Lear Jet in 1964 as Stereo 8, although widely known by its 8-track moniker. The Stereo 8 was an 8-track version of the 4-track Muntz Autostereo, the first commercial music player for a car. Stereo 8 allowed two stereo recordings on the same tape providing a similar experience to flipping over an LP record of the era. The 1966 Ford Mustang was the first car with a built-in 8-track player, and aftermarket units became available. (pc.mag)

One over the eight – a British expression that is used to say that a person (or yourself) has had one drink too many. It is first served in the early 20th century and may have originated from the notion that having just one more than eight drinks will make you—drunk

A piece of eight – an old Spanish silver dollar, or peso, which once had the value of eight reals (dimes) and was therefore stamped with a large figure 8. In Colonial America, the piece of eight was adopted as legal tender, and it remained so as late as the Civil War. Its value was almost the same as that of the United States dollar.

Eight-hundred-pound gorilla: any formidable obstacle

The Beatles with Eight Days a Week

The Eighth Wonder of the World

My favorite sports #8 is Yogi Berra (May 12, 1925 – September 22, 2015). Berra threw right-handed and batted left-handed. His number was retired in 1972.

A mainstay for the most dominating teams in history, the Yankee that played from the end of World War II until the early 1960’s. Although he never led the league in a single major offensive category, he was just the third man to win three Most Valuable Player awards. Selected to play in 15 successive All-Star games. Played on 14 pennant winners and 10 World Champions, more than anyone in history. Led Yankees to the 1964 pennant as manager. Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972. (MLB.com)

Pitcher Don Larsen (r), of the New York Yankees, wraps his arms around catcher Yogi Berra #8 after the final pitch of Game 5 of the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Photo taken on October 8.

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8 1930s movies with Eight:

Oliver Hardy, Mae Busch, and Stan Laurel in OLIVER THE EIGHTH (1934)

Cukor’s The Women, there are 8 of them:

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With that I extend a happy anniversary wish to Once Upon a Screen! To ensure eight blessings to it, you and yours here are 8 Jimmy Stewarts. With him I send best wishes and heartfelt appreciation for your continued support.

Aurora

Celebrating an Eighth Anniversary This week marks eight years since Once Upon a Screen has been in existence. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime, and at other times it's as though the years have flown by.

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reneejuliet · 5 years

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If These Walls Could Talk

Welcome back.

I’ve wanted to make another post for well over the last week, but unfortunately that desire came while I was working 7 straight days in a row, 12 hours each day. So to say I was a little more than exhausted by the time I got home each day is an understatement. In addition, I’m once again switching to my night shift schedule, so my mind and body are all out of whack. HOWEVER. As I try to go back to sleep this beautiful rainy morning before returning to work tonight, I can’t. Because my mind is alive with everything I haven’t been able to share with anyone this past week, and it needs said.

It’s still a little strange for me to turn to my blog in these moments, and not my journal. As you can imagine, since I was never a very good blogger, I certainly am not a great journalist, either. But it was an outlet - is an outlet, still. Only, with carpal tunnel in my right wrist/hand, it’s become increasingly harder to hash out all the thoughts I want to on paper. Plus, my fingers have always kept better pace with my mind when keys are involved versus a pen; not to mention the legibility this affords me upon later reflection, as sometimes I’ll write so goshdarn fast and messy that even I, myself, can’t decipher what the hell I was trying to say.

So, sleepy and shivering, I welcome you back into the pit of thoughts.

I am going to be addressing some slight depression issues, “broken home”/family issues, self-harm, and anxiety issues in this post. Still not sure how exactly this whole thing works, so I hope this is enough of a warning for anyone sensitive to those.

Without unraveling the entire rat’s nest that is my childhood, let me just say that I’ve never really known a “peaceful” home. Brief summary: my mother was absent a lot due to her own depression, my father has quite a temper, and they both fought like it was their jobs. This is why I came to love Peter Pan - whenever the yelling came pounding through my walls, I curled up underneath my window with my suitcase packed and wished for nothing else than for Peter to come take me away to Neverland. Obviously, this never came to fruition, but it helped some part of my tiny brain cope. If you’ve ever read Peter Pan, you know each child’s Neverland is their own making - I cannot tell you how upset it makes me that every. single. version of Peter Pan never includes Wendy’s pet wolf. All the same, whenever I imagined my own, it was fantastic. Full of wonder and joy and happiness, just like in the story. Only, very unlike the story, I always came home. Here, however, my home was happiness. My parents didn’t fight, my sister didn’t hate me (of course, she didn’t really hate me, but I was the pesky younger sibling that she just couldn’t be bothered with), and no one was ever angry with me. This, I realize, is probably where my anxiety began to stem from - always wanting to please everyone, at any cost. It made for a very self-inflicted traumatic childhood on my end, because I quickly learned to silence a lot of who I was just to satiate what everyone wished of me.

And for a long time, I remained this person. It wasn’t until I was about 10 years old that the depression hit, though we hardly knew that’s what it was at the time. See, I had finally made friends with a group of girls that I could be myself with, and I was happy. But, we were considered weird. Or, at least, they were - they were still more free with themselves than I was, comfortable with making strange noises and doing strange things just because they wanted to. And while I indulged in those moments shared with them, I still kept fairly quiet and reserved when on my own. This led to bullying from my classmates, because of who my friends were. It wasn’t so much aimed at me personally, but at my choice of friends. And these girls meant the world to me - they still do, 2 decades later as our friendship remains as strong as those early days. I couldn’t grasp why someone would make fun of me, tease me, because of something that finally made me happy. There just had to be more that my little preteen brain wasn’t understanding.

There had to be something wrong with me, right?

I promise, this has a point.

My non-diagnosed anxiety (I didn’t even know what anxiety was, back then) only worsened as I began struggling with finding some reason for why these kids were picking on me. None of my friends seemed to care - why did I? Because I was a people-pleaser. It ate away at me to know that someone didn’t like me, regardless of the reason for it. I tried so hard. I let people say what they wanted to about me, I gave people second and third and fourth chances all because I was afraid of what would happen if I stood up for myself. I changed how I acted, how I dressed (a whole other can of worms we will probably never address, haha), how I lived, just to try and fit in with everyone. It was exhausting, and it wore me down quick.

It also didn’t help that by this point, my older sister had hit high school. She was pretty, she was popular, and she was damn good at sports. I’m pretty sure her track record at high school is still intact, and she graduated 16 years ago. This only served to create my inferiority complex.

Why couldn’t I be as great as my sister?

Going back to the family issues - my dad was my everything growing up. He did so much for our family, made sacrifices I never knew how to appreciate until I got older. All I ever wanted was to make him proud of me, to prove to him that everything he did for us wasn’t in vain. I could see that pride in his eyes when he watched my sister excel at sports. Field hockey, basketball, track and field. She had his love in a way I coveted. I played those sports too, while in middle school, but never nearly as well. Never well enough to see that shameless pride gleaming back at me from my father’s eyes. And that killed. Because no matter how I tried, I wasn’t her.

I was more like my mother. Interested in arts (though not art itself, I can’t draw to save my damn life), music, theatre. When I finally made it to high school, I was too damn scared of failure, of being compared to her, to really try anything I had once enjoyed. It distanced me from my father. You would think, then, that this would have brought my mother and me closer; it did not. That chasm carved between us by the lack of her involvement as I grew up was too wide to bridge entirely. I grew to feel isolated in my own family, unwanted and certainly unneeded. What did I possibly bring to the table?

When I turned 16, I told my mom I needed to talk to someone. Depression still wasn’t something anyone really talked about. A taboo in society, frowned heavily upon. Full of labels and judgments I wasn’t able to bear just yet. My mom understood, even if my dad didn’t. He never used to believe in depression. He was one that agreed it was all attention-seeking, an excuse. And here I was, drowning hard and fast in it, afraid to confide in him lest he think less of me as well. So I got good at hiding it. So damn good. Because how do you tell the man you idolize that you’ve started cutting when he’s made the statement of, “if you’re going to start it, you should just finish the job”?

It wasn’t until I was much older that I was able to tell my father much of any of what I suffered through back then. Now, he tries to understand. But he’s getting older, and more ornery, and sometimes that patience wears so thin it could snap in a light breeze. More so now, because I finally stand up for myself. And while he encourages that, he certainly never anticipated I would have to do it against him.

There’s still so much screaming inside these walls. Some of it is mine, now. I hate it just as much, hate how involved with it I’ve become. But I simply cannot shoulder the weight of the world anymore.

Atlas, I am not.

My father and I never used to have such blow-out arguments. I never used to have to scream until my throat burned, my lungs ached, and my chest collapsed. Not with him. Yet I’ll do it a thousand - a million - times over if it means remaining who I’ve become. This version of me may not be perfect, and I’m certainly not happy with her just yet, but it is so much better from who I used to be. Because the girl I once was would have been dead by now. She already very nearly was.

ANYWAY.

This particular fight started over something incredibly stupid - a statement. A belief I have that doesn’t necessarily align with my father’s. I have no political affiliation. He’s a strong Republican. I made the mistake of voicing a belief that apparently leans more liberal, and he just... lost it. Got super nasty with me, made hurtful comments, refused to hear me out. And I know it’s only because he’s getting older, and like his father before him, losing his temper more often because of it. My mom constantly insists I be the bigger person, that I understand the true reasons behind his behavior and brush it off. “You know he doesn’t mean it. You know he’s in pain, how that makes him lash out.”

Yes, I do know. That doesn’t make it okay.

All my life I’ve been the punching bag for this family. The therapist listening to every member complain about each other. All my life, I’ve tried and given everything to fix it. To somehow fit this family into the mould I had imagined for us. All my life, I have sacrificed more and more of me just to make things right.

When is enough, enough?

I called my boyfriend that night, shaking and crying. Trying to understand how a parent can talk to their child that way, wondering when my family became... well, this. He listened oh so patiently, let me just cry in silence until my body was spent. He will never know just how much I loved him in that moment. Because though Peter Pan never came to steal me away, I know exactly where my Neverland is. And it’s in my boyfriend’s arms.

My father still hasn’t apologized for how he spoke to me, let alone what he said. He’s not the type to. I love him with everything I’ve got, I wouldn’t be the woman I am today without him, but. I am done. I am done suffering for his - or anyone’s - sake. Sometimes, it has to be about me. As hard as that is for me to do.

If you have made it this far - if you have read any of this at all - know that you are worth so much more than you think. It isn’t always obvious, and it certainly isn’t easy, but there is meaning in your existence. I still have yet to find what mine is, but I know it’s there. Somewhere. Yours is too.

If these walls could talk I’m afraid of what they’d say The shouting they would echo The image they’d portray But I’m not afraid to hear it because I don’t know what was said No, I heard it all the first time It still rattles in my head

So give me all the silence All the quiet that you’ve got Enough to end the crying And drown out my own thoughts

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rahfelmahdi · 5 years

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Is Social Media Trolling Ever Productive?

Opinions are things that everyone is entitled to have. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about something and that is totally fine, what really matters is how they act upon the opinion. Some people keep them to themselves, some people spread them respectfully while listening to others, some people don’t harmfully act upon them, but some others do. But how far can the harm go? Can it ever be useful?

Over the past decade or so, people have expressed their opinions online more openly and often in much harsher and harmful ways than they would have if it were a personal interaction. That has been defined as trolling, or at other times, cyber-bullying. What’s the difference?

Trolling has been defined as creating discord on the Internet by starting quarrels or upsetting people by posting inflammatory or off-topic messages in an online community. Basically, a social media troll is someone who purposely says something controversial in order to get a rise out of other users. (Hanson J, 2019) Whereas trolls focus on being a nuisance to online communities, cyberbullies target individuals. Rather than post generally inflammatory statements, they post vicious things about a single person with a goal of shaming or intimidation. (Mcdunnigan M, 2019)

After looking at the definitions, is there really any difference between the two? They’re both hateful comments or actions thrown at someone, some are meant to be public and some are meant to be directed to the person to threaten or disrespect them. Either publicly or privately.

Now the question is, could trolling ever be useful? Let’s dig deeper.

A case to look at that kind of reflects both cyberbullying and trolling is a recent one that happened with a fashion blogger called Dina Torkia. She is a Muslim British blogger, born to an Egyptian father and a British mother, who has started blogging 10 years ago on YouTube. She was a full-time hijabi and started off her blogging career as one. She was exploring modest fashion and her main drive was to showcase how there’s more to hijabi fashion than ugly baggy clothes, and that it can be classy and there’s so much room for style and exploration. (Barr S, 2018)

With time, she started feeling differently about her headscarf and decided to take it off after wearing it for 20 years. The backlash she got was insane. She got cyberbullied by so many of her followers through her DMS and comments section on Instagram and YouTube and trolled by several “Muslim” channels on YouTube. Claiming that they are trying to expose her, or make sense of her decision, or claim things she never said just to stir up drama and evidently get more views and attention since she’s one of the top Muslim YouTubers with the most views. They basically added gas to the fire for the sake of their own exposure, which brought so much hate towards her than what already existed. (Nabbout M, 2019)

People’s reactions were inexplicable, and unjustifiable, and had no relation whatsoever with what Islam really is or what it preaches in any way. Modesty can be practiced in a thousand and one ways; her headscarf was only one of them. And while many people claimed that she was selling herself and her modesty, that she did it all for the money. Their actions if anything were the most immodest in this scenario.

She later posted a 47 minute long video called “The Bad, The Worse and The Ugly”. It was a video of her reading all the terrible hurtful comments people left on her videos after she posted her first photo and video online without her headscarf, and particularly increased after the video posted by the “Muslim” YouTube channel. It was a painful example of how disgusting humans can get because they’re hiding behind a screen. It was showing the true colors of certain people and how in no way they represent the modesty they’re defending nor the Islam they preach. It was an eye-opener. (Prideaux S, 2019)

It would raise a lot of questions. Related to societies, their double standards, their actual motivation for support, their harshness, their understanding of Islam and modesty and of course, how bad trolling and cyberbullying can get for something so... small. It’s just a piece of cloth on somebody’s head, it’s their relationship with God and their own journey. How can such an innocent act result in so much hate and pain for her and her family? How is that ethical?

Attached is the video she posted on youtube.

WARNING: This video contains sensitive language.

youtube

On the flip side, there’s another case that has struck much debate in the Egyptian society recently, and it is one that involves the football player Amr Warda. He was supposed to be part of the national team during the African cup of nations. He DMed a model through her story in a flirty manner and she exposed him for doing so because it was quite shocking since he’s not only in a position where he’s not supposed to be doing that but also should be focused on the mission he’s on for his own country’s sake. When she exposed him, people started spreading a lot of hate about him. A lot of others were defending him. There was even a hashtag that was made to support him because some Egyptians, which were particularly young men his age, thought what he was doing was normal. And that girls were making a big deal out of it; she was in fact “happy” she got that message that’s why she was “showing it off”. And so much more cr*p.(Douihech M, 2019)

More girls started exposing him, because they felt the need to show his true colors and that he does not deserve the support he’s getting. They even shared some voice notes of him forcing himself on some girls to come to his hotel room, and him getting angry and offended when they declined his offer. Sadly, but quite expectedly, the media for the most part were supporting him as well. And asking, ‘why did girls reply to his DMS on Instagram anyway??’. (Khalife L, 2019)

But due to Egypt being put under the spotlight, especially that it was the hosting country for the African Cup of Nations, and the issue getting more attention, the Egyptian national team management felt the need to suspend him from the team for a few games. But brought him back a short while later. Almost, like nothing ever happened. (Douihech M, 2019)

Did he get what he deserved, at least slightly? Yes. Did trolling and exposing him perhaps be of any good in this situation? Probably. He did receive a large amount of hate, which he deserved, but in my opinion, the word for this situation is exposing him and not so much trolling him.

In my opinion, I believe trolling, in general, is a terrible unethical practice that nobody should practice nor participate in and that is simply because it is based on harmful intentions and the motivation to do bad and cause harm. Which are all elements for destruction, and once our intentions as humans are ill or evil, it starts a cycle of chaos? It is the reason behind all the chaos in the world right now. Bad intention. This is why I mentioned Amr Warda's case was more exposing him than trolling him because the core intention was not bad. It was fueled by the desire to expose a bad that he has put in the world, to potentially make him get the punishment he deserves to make other people watch out from him.

It all lies in good intentions and the core motivation behind doing what you’re doing. Just don’t be bad to people man. Learn to respect them and respectfully say your opinion. Learn to fill yourself with love and have good intentions with your actions. The world would be great. Damn, what a world that would be.

List of References -

https://www.thenational.ae/lifestyle/i-hope-you-die-influencer-dina-torkia-shares-shocking-amount-of-abuse-she-s-received-since-taking-hijab-off-1.809869

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6554641/YouTube-star-reads-abuse-received-stopped-wearing-hijab.html

https://stepfeed.com/muslim-youtuber-received-a-bunch-of-hate-comments-after-taking-off-hijab-4766

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/dina-torkia-youtube-hijab-video-fashion-modesty-style-a8176081.html

https://itstillworks.com/difference-between-troll-cyberbully-5054.html

https://unlcms.unl.edu/engineering/james-hanson/trolls-and-their-impact-social-media

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/05/online-trolls-comments

https://www.thesundaily.my/sport/egypt-footballer-amr-warda-banned-over-sexual-harassment-claims-XD1027671

https://orangefootballclub.com/en/articles/amr-warda-scandal/

https://stepfeed.com/women-are-exposing-this-egyptian-footballer-for-sexual-harassment-2052

#MDA20009 #Trolling #cyberbullying

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differentworlds-fiction · 6 years

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30 (Part II)

TARIN

While shrouded in darkness, my lips went in search of his.

Contentment coursed through me when the smooth, plump flesh of his lips pressed to mine. The corners of my mouth hiked up, producing a meager grin as Hill nibbled and sucked on the fullness of my bottom lip. In an instant, I was rendered breathless, while, internally minimizing the dreaded moment Hill pulled away to rest back onto the herd of pillows, all at the same time.

In an effort to lessen the bit of space between us, I settled against him.

Words were failed to be exchanged as we delighted in the quelling silence pervading the suite. Nothing but the barest hints of his even breaths sweeping past his lips were heard when he pulled me close and sluggishly guided my head onto his damp chest. As our bodies remained sparingly covered by the wrinkled sheets Hill had enveloped us both in subsequent to his return from the ensuite, our fervent hands set into motion, exploring depths we’d just previously worked up the courage to touch; areas in which I hadn’t had the gall to roam on another individual in years.

Hill’s calloused hand moved toward my navel, inciting me to release a hollow noise that sounded more like a timid moan than a muffled breath.

The roughness of his fingertips teased me throughout the instinctive parting of my weakened limbs.

“You were my first,” my confession came out in a dreary sputter, “...in a really long time.”

Upon hearing my admission, his eager hand ceased from moving another inch; the pad of his fingers halted at the junction between my thighs.

“How long?” He prodded.

I gulped, and he snickered when hearing my long, audible swallow.

“Damn, Tarin. That long?”

“Before you, I used to dodge men like the plague.” I divulged, nibbling on the corner of my bottom lip. “It would be easier to base my actions solely on the fact that I’m a parent who has to be super critical of the people I engage with. And while that may be true, I had no desire to involve myself with anyone. Not sexually. Not emotionally, either. Up until recently, I realized my kid wasn’t the reason for me not wanting to date or to allow myself to get to know someone. I was.”

“Why?” Hill queried.

He shifted and maneuvered my frame on top of his.

“My heart still belonged to someone else, Hill.”

For a moment nothing but the sound of his breaths sweeping past his parted lips were heard.

“Ayla’s father.”

“Ayla’s father,” I confirmed barely above a whisper, “-- my love for him hasn’t minimized, after all these years. I’m not sure it ever will. If anything, it’s manifested into something I’m not sure I can even make sense of.” I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth and released it seconds afterward while further ruminating on my sentiments. “I think it’s unhealthy; carrying on that way -- the way that I have. Grieving prevented me from possibly developing relationships with men. I was scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Bearing another loss. Maybe even dealing with a little rejection, too. We’re all somewhat fearful of that, aren’t we?”

He moved a bit, guiding my tautened body coated with sweat along with him.

Hints of the earthy musk he sported wafted into my nose with every subtle shift we produced together. And soon, it resonated that the scent was as potent on me and the sheets we were encompassed by as it was on his skin. “To an extent, yes. It comes in different forms, under different circumstances. But, we have to deal with it in some capacity since it’s pretty much inevitable.”

I couldn’t see his expression nor fully make out his face, albeit, I lifted my head anyway and brought forth my hand that once idled below his waist.

Subsequent to resting my palm against his cheek collected with minimal scruff, Hill released an exasperated breath.

Within seconds, his hand latched onto my wrist and prevented me from moving it any further.

“My way of dealing with the loss wasn’t the healthiest, for me or anyone in my life for that matter. I’ve mourned in waves that have spanned over the course of several years.” I muttered, my voice hoarse. “And for that reason alone, getting close to someone has been pretty much an afterthought.” I rambled, releasing a hearty sigh while tugging the duvet over us both. “I wasn’t ready to put myself out there again. Maybe I was guarded and protecting myself from experiencing another heartache.” I admitted barely above a whisper. “The possibility of somebody else making an abrupt departure out of my life at any moment petrified me.”

“It still does. I can tell.”

“Of course.” I retorted. “I need to work on that though. I have to accept that there will be people who’ll not only enter my life but possibly leave for whatever reason.” A timid scoff swept past my bare lips upon further pondering on my words. “You’d think I’d be well versed in handling all that by now.”

My utterance was met with a prolonged lull; a silence that I begrudgingly chose to sustain due to my reluctance of being the first to speak.

Only briefly did my head remain planted atop his chest as it evenly rose and collapsed.

In the recesses of my mind, I couldn’t help but feel burdened by a sudden onset of apprehension -- worry that my recent romp in the sheets with Hill Dawson was nothing more than an impulsive act that would be going nowhere fast and he too would leave.

Under other circumstances, of course.

Pulling me out of those disparaging thoughts was the image of Hill standing by the door of my office, equipped with flowers in one hand and breakfast in the other. The mere memory of him flying across the country on a whim prompted me to lower my head back onto him.

I smiled meagerly against his skin and trailed over the spot on his chest riddled with bold, indelible markings I’d soon be able to examine once day broke over Nevada.

The hand that had previously remained enclosed around my wrist began to toy with my tendrils that were once woven into bountiful braids, lightly tugging them by the ends and allowing the shaft to straighten from the formed crimp they had been manipulated into. Fighting the incessant urge to give in and allow sleep to finally pervade me, I pursed my lips together and kissed his open palm; his fingers weakened against the timid peck.

The subtle gesture prompted Hill to stop toying with my hair altogether and caress my cheek instead, brushing over the embankment of my lips in light strokes.

“It’s been days since I’ve dreamed about him.” I whispered and tucked a lone strand behind my ear, “and, I’m not sure what to make of that. Usually, he visits me often. Some dreams are far more intense than others. Sometimes, I’m left dealing with a mix of emotions. Other times I wake up and just cry because I have to constantly relive that summer he left me all over again.”

“I remember you telling me about the last one you had...” He murmured. His palm continued to graze my cheek, swiping it in smooth motions that threatened to lull me to sleep. “You mentioned how different it was from the others ones you’ve had before. The communication between the two of you felt rushed, you said.”

“Yeah.”

The onslaught of nerves that happened to settle and resurge throughout the duration of the day had made its timely revival yet again.

This time they hadn’t stemmed from me pacing the bathroom of McCarran International minutes after hurrying from the jet bridge, nor was it the same flutter I felt in the pit of my stomach that rapidly developed the moment I wandered the halls of the hotel beside Bria Dawson in search of her brother’s room.

My current case of butterflies flourished subsequently to hearing him recount what I had divulged previously.

“In your dream, you called after him and that he kept walkin’ away. He left you standing by some house and headed in the direction of this corner store...without you.” Hill spoke in a low, almost hushed tone. After a few beats of silence, he shifted upward and spoke, “Do you know what that sounds like to me.”

“What?”

Subsequent to my inquiry, Hill guided my leg to drape over his.

With this tip of my finger, I trailed over the crook of his neck.

“That,” he paused to let out a deep breath and exhaled, “that sounds like closure, baby.”

***

Among the concise follow-up reporting of salacious happenings that had taken place over the weekend, and the recycled human-interest stories emblazoned by differentiating headlines, news of the Pratts’ over-elaborate nuptials infiltrated the news cycle. Throngs of bloggers took to their respective platforms to publish the cellphone images of the reception held at the Plaza Hotel from an anonymous source, while other credible pop culture pundits covered the lavish affair by citing guests’ recounts of the star-studded ceremony and reception.

While chewing the last pieces of my breakfast sandwich within the confines of the CS conference room, I perused the uploaded entries as they emerged by the dozens onto my social media feed, falling in awe of the glimpses of Mya Evans -- presently known as Mya Pratt -- clad in her gown, celebrating her union amongst the reported fashionable ‘it’ girls of the moment who were simply famous for reasons uncertain, famed recording artists, and industry executives who attended. As stated by various ‘close sources’, the Pratt wedding occurred without incident and was being prematurely considered to be the wedding of summer.

By the time I perused through the assortment of shotty pictures, I hadn’t noticed Cara nor Cheyenne take their seats at the table.

“Care to share what you’re so immersed with this fine morning?” Cara queried. The question prompted me to tear my eyes away from the phone screen.

“Nothing,” I retorted, “-- just these low-quality pictures from the Pratt wedding. Great job, by the way. From what I was able to see, you did well.” I added and offered a meager grin. “Another Cara Santos wedding for the books.”

At that, she too smiled and reached for the bottle of Fiji water set before her. I proceeded to engage in small talk with Cheyenne briefly, exchanging silly speculations of where the newlyweds were heading for their honeymoon.

How was Vegas?” Cara interrupted. Over the bottled water’s rim, the tiniest hint of a smirk played about her lips, threatening to broaden into a full-blown grin. Cara’s mouth settled, however, when she finished taking generous sips and placed the bottle beside a pile of papers she’d brought into the conference room and the leather-bound daily planner she toted everywhere she went. “This morning, I was scrolling through Page Six and saw you with the boxer,” Cara muttered, dragging out the reference of Hill in a peculiar way. Her neatly arched eyebrow rose, assessing the poker-face I maintained.

Quickly, she stood and removed her smartphone from her pants’ pocket, and reclaimed her seat at the end of the conference table before darting her eyes towards a confused Cheyenne.

For what felt like an eternity as opposed to mere seconds, I sat through the painfully awkward silence and made eye contact with Cheyenne a total of three times before Cara decided to put me out of my misery.

Sporting the same smug grimace, the encased cellphone around to unveil a clear snapshot taken outside of the MGM Grand Hotel. The image of Hill and I sharing an embrace while surrounded by suited security personnel idled the screen.

“Vegas,” I cleared my throat and averted my stare elsewhere, “Vegas was...alright.”

Fine furrows grooved along her forehead as her eyebrows knitted together. “I thought you were meeting with the singer this weekend, no?”

“Haneef and I met Friday afternoon after I left the office. I could’ve sworn we ran into each other on my way out and I told you that I wouldn’t be coming back for the rest of the day.” I aimlessly shuffled through the papers pertaining to a curated menu for a last minute celebratory brunch event she needed assistance with. Glancing downward at the list of pretentious dishes prepared by an executive chef Cara had reached out to personally seemed to hold more of my interest than attempting to continuing the conversation. Cara Santos was, in fact, teetering on the bounds of simple small talk and baiting me to discuss my personal business. “I plan on meeting with Haneef Parker again soon.” I remarked.

Yesterday, the R&B crooner departed to Miami to kick off his four-city tour. To further promote his forthcoming album and garner a bit of buzz surrounding his comeback, it had been rumored that Haneef and his team had put the last minute tour together for major cities his shows received the most revenue. Via an email sent to me by a member of Haneef’s management team, the singer would be returning to New York later in the week and planned to meet then. In an effort to make some headway with the planning of the baby shower, I sent photos of two potential venues to the private email Haneef himself provided prior to leaving the studio last Friday.

“Great...” Cara said before sifting through the small stack of papers resting before her.

Our morning followed with Cheyenne briefing us both on our separate schedules for the remainder of the week, as well as meetings pertaining the joined effort Cara and I were working on together.

“Notify the executive chef about the curated menu. And if that’s all Cheyenne, then we could get a move on it and…”

Eyes belonging to Cara peered longingly out toward the foyer.

Through the massive glass wall separating the conference room from the general area, a lone man stood, clad in a khaki uniform and matching hat. Cara’s eyes narrowed further, her scanty palms cupped the conference table’s sleek ridge.

“...Either of you expecting a delivery?”

Cheyenne sat forward, twiddling the ballpoint pen between her forefinger and thumb. “No.”

Their stares shifted in my direction.

“I’m not.” I said.

Cara glanced at Cheyenne, nodding in the direction of the receptionist area.

Without uttering another word Cheyenne departed swiftly from the room and returned just seconds later.

“The delivery is for you, Tarin. Don’t worry, I signed off on it for you already.”

I stuffed my phone into my jeans pocket, a peculiar glare etched its way across my face when I looked out toward the foyer just as the elevator doors parted; a team of men -- five in total -- stepped off the elevator, each of them carrying roses enclosed with purple wrapping paper and white bows. Lifting her hand, Cheyenne pointed in the direction of my office and, immediately, I rose from the conference table and gaited behind them in quick strides.

Floral arrangements comprised of vibrant red roses were placed around the room; on the end tables separating the two wingback chairs by the windows, on my desk between scattered papers and photos of Ayla, and, on the console table closest to the door. My fingers grazed the blooming petals; the softness of them brought a smile to my face; one that I couldn’t disguise in an attempt to conceal my slight embarrassment for the affectionate gesture. My bottom lip embedded itself between my teeth as I brought my hand and reached for one of the delivery men who’d failed to keep up with the others who were already ambling back down the hall.

“If you’ll stick around for just a sec, I’d be happy to give you guys a tip. Um, maybe you can call them back in here for me…”

I started towards my desk and felt a hand lightly tug at my forearm.

“Ma’am, that won’t be necessary.” The delivery guy expressed, sticking his hands into the khaki pants he wore. “Our tips were covered beforehand.” He explained prior to exiting the office subsequent to Cheyenne entering with Cara following closely behind. “Have a nice day.”

“...Thanks, you too.”

Upon the man’s departure, I rushed toward the stark white office desk and began removing the lavender wrapping paper from the bottom of the floral arrangement; the familiar fluttering manifested deep at the pit of my stomach, bringing me to pause altogether and clutch my stomach firmly once I discovered a small note card peeking between the roses. Heaving a sigh, I resumed with unveiling the vase and firmly grasped the card.

“The boxer?” Cheyenne inquired.

I bashfully confirmed with a hesitant head nod, allowing my stare to drift toward the floor as I twiddled with the notecard seconds before reading it.

I’ll be in town Sunday. Hope to see you then, beautiful.

-Hill

“Hmph,” Cara muttered and turned in the direction of the hallway, “how romantic...”

#Different Worlds #Different Worlds Fiction #Fiction

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scottspizzatours · 6 years

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INTERVIEW: Drew Rattray from Best City Pizza

Once upon a time, I could count all the pizza blogs on one hand. Actually, I could have counted them on two fingers. There was Pizza Therapy and there was Slice. Pizza Therapy is still kept up by THE O.G. pizza blogger Albert Grande but the Slice blog got scooped up by Serious Eats and stopped posted new material a few years back. (Founder Adam Kuban ran it under the Serious Eats umbrella but has since moved on to run Margot’s Pizza.) Thankfully times have changed and now there are MANY food-specific blogs, of which pizza occupies many. One of the tightest is BEST CITY PIZZA, the personal pizza journal of Drew Rattray. This guy is a SERIOUS pizza nerd and his blog is one of the best. We exchanged some emails and I’m proud to report the results in the interview below...

When and how did you start blogging about pizza? I started blogging about pizza in 2014. Pizza was a passion of mine and I thought blogging about it would be a fun hobby. As I live in Connecticut, I have access to some of the best pizza on the planet in New Haven so it was easy to get started. I used my background as a digital designer to create the blog bestcitypizza.com.

If you couldn’t eat pizza (not necessarily bread or cheese or tomato, just PIZZA as a unit), what food would you be obsessed with? First of all I would be a few pounds lighter if I couldn’t eat pizza. I eat a lot of pizza, at the very least twice a week! But if I couldn’t eat pizza I think I would be obsessed with BBQ, specifically anything smoked liked ribs or pulled pork. I love the sauces or the option to just enjoy the meats with a dry rub.

You’re from Bronx, but currently live in Connecticut. How has that affected your pizza eating life? Pizza is everywhere down here. When I was in grade school in the Bronx I remember going to the neighborhood parlor for a slice every weekend. I guess that’s when I fell in love with pizza. I would say easy access to excellent pizza has made me into a bonafide “pizza snob”. As much as I love all types of pizza it is hard for me to eat a mediocre slice, I’d rather just not eat the bad pizza and wait until I can get to one of the better pizza joints.

What’s the farthest you’ve ever traveled for pizza? In the United States the furthest I have gone is Hawaii. Italy is on my bucket list though! Along with NYC I frequently go to Boston, Philadelphia, and DC to try new pizza places and to go to some of my old favorites. You can read about some of these on the pizza blog.

What’s your biggest pizza pet peeve? Too little sauce! If I wanted a grilled cheese I would have ordered that. I know a few places that have decent cheese and crust but not enough sauce so I just order them with extra sauce and their ok pizza becomes a greatone.

Would you ever jump from pizza journalism to pizzeria ownership? I think anyone who is passionate about pizza entertains the idea at one time or another and I’m no exception. In my dreams when I retire I see myself owning a coal fired pizza restaurant that is also a top notch sports bar.

I can see you don’t like pizzas with too little sauce but do you ever eat white pizza, without sauce? Several people have recommended try the white clam pizza from Pepe’s of New Haven fame which I did. It was tasty but I got to have the red sauce man!

Why would you own a coal fired pizzeria? What is it about coal you love? A coal-fired oven definitely leaves a distinct, artisan, almost burnt flavor to the crust that is undeniably delicious.

Why do you blog about pizza and not some other food? There’s not enough hours in the day. Pizza is it. It lends itself to be the perfect food to debate who’s got the best depending on where you live.

I see some cool pizza shirts on your store. Did you design them yourself? Yes. I’m creative by nature and wanted to put my professional expertise to work. My goal was to design affordable pizza tshirts that are unique. Check them out here.

#drew rattray #Best City Pizza #pizza blogger

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awildhanmonster · 6 years

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More Ado about Characters:

Alright, now for round 2! The following characters are all more one-offs and have no direct relation to each other quite the same was as Nell/Leonora/Barnes do, so let’s see if I can keep this under novel length.

Remy Green, aka Remy: 17 years old in current canon, and still in the last leg of high school, Remy is, for lack of any better term, a reverse werewolf: perpetually stuck in the form of a gangly wolfdog monster on all nights save the brightest of full moons. Originally just a “normal” human kid just trying to survive through graduation, her entire life wound up turned on its head when an out of control werewolf attacked and bit her while out with friends one night. He was subdued and arrested, even later charged for the negligence and violent assault, but the damage had been done and the virus passed on— in the worst ways.

Remy essentially suffered the equivalent of a severe allergic reaction and anaphylaxis during the first shift, which took hours (normal were shifts should be minutes) and resulted in her parents frantically driving her to the ER in tears. She survived, though the diagnosis— for a fragile kid with shaky self esteem— was, at the time, seemingly a fate worse than death. Despite her form, she never seems to suffer the loss of mindfulness or weakened inhibitions of most werefolk during “peak” moon periods.

Remy has since started learning how to cope with life in a new form she didn’t really want or ask for, and she has the full, unwavering support of her parents, though it’s still a lot for a teenaged kid to handle. I’m pretty sure she wound up being pulled from high school and is trying to finish out her last year and a half or so at home, though she could really use some friends she doesn’t think are “obligated” to love her like her parents are. I think she’s pretty lonely and dealing with a lot of depression issues. Luckily she’ll fall in with Wayne at some point, who’s like a sweet (greasy stoner) older brother, and he and the rest of the Losers can adopt the hell out of her as a little sister and teach her how to not give a fuck about what humans think when you’re a weirdo. She’ll earn her happy ending eventually.

Rose Lund: Absolutely 100% a retooling/transplant of one of my dearest, most beloved, super shitty/earnest self-insert characters as a 12 year old on Neopets and I have NO SHAME AT ALL. Rose is a human mage (they do exist!) around 30 or so, a pale/skinny English-Caucasian mutt with green eyes, straight brown hair, and a penchant for fancifully extra looking dyed bang fringies because she’s stopped giving a fuck. She’s one of those rare people who can strike up a conversation with just about anyone, blessed by a very… unique way with words that’s unintentionally contributed to her internet fame as a slice of life blogger about the day to day trials of pet dragon (well, wyrm) ownership.

Rose has been passionate about rare and magical exotic creatures since she was a wee girl, and developed an obsession with dragons (‘wyrms’ being the correct term for all non-sentient varieties) before she was out of grade school. In college she double majored cryptobiology and spell artistry, then upon graduation, acquired a pair of rare pygmy wyrms— from temperate and tundra subspecies— respectively, as pets, both for personal reasons and to aid in her pursuit of a master’s degree in cryptobiological husbandy.

Pygmy wyrms, it should be noted, are generally terrible pets. While only growing to approximately the size of a house cat (10-12 pounds on average) and sporting the appearance of beautifully miniaturized mythological six-limbed dragons any fantasy nut would fall in love with, they are far from domesticated, exasperatingly precocious, and have the charming habit of expelling flammable gas from a myriad of orifices when startled. They have a distinctive, vaguely musky sulfurous smell about them regardless of cleanliness and are just clever enough to ignore training commands when convenient. Imagine giving a very ornery, very clever raccoon flappy wings with a several foot wingspan, feeding it rotten eggs, and strapping a flamethrower to both ends, then rigging it all with an excitable hair trigger. That is a pygmy wyrm. Rose owns two in an apartment complex: Ice Pack (Packy), who is a pale milk white/ice blue, and Sharky (Sharkbite), who is black and burgundy/red.

Needless to say they’re the loves of her lives and she revolves around them, having garnered a massive internet following thanks to her daily posts about their antics and the realities of exotic pet care. They’re harness trained now and reasonably polite, though this is only due to years of hard work and constant reinforcement. She hopes one day to breed more biddable specimens and help contribute to the conservation of the species worldwide. Also, they’ve made her very good at anti-flammability hexes.

Shun —: known only by her first name, a kitsune who moved into the apartment complex fairly recently with her pet pipe fox, Yuzu. It should be noted that kitsune are particularly long lived among mythicals, though how long exactly that is tends to be hotly debated and unknown by all but the foxes themselves. What is known is how they are extremely slow to age after reaching their peak maturity/fitness, with certain individuals reported over 500 years old and, apparently, showing very little of their age beyond a massive swath of grown tails (nine being the highest on known record). Kitsune typically grow to around 30-40 lbs, outwardly resembling a much large. leggier, more willowy silhouette than traditional foxes, and will begin life with a single tail that splits or “buds” and multiplies over time.

Neurologically they are fairly unique among mammals, possessing a kind of distributed intelligence throughout the body that can give the tails a “mind of their own”, so to speak, in much the same way as octopi or other related cephalopods do. In fact, due to the extremely slow rate of cell death/turnover, a severed kitsune tail will continue to move and attempt “functioning” for weeks, even years by some reports, under correct conditions. Which I’ll get into shortly.

Swerving back to Shun herself, she’s an artist by trade who zigzags between traditional and digital freelance work for a living. Conservation of mass is still in place for humanoid shifts— which all kitsune can voluntarily assume— with predictably small, delicate, androgynous bodies that rarely get above 4’5’’ or so in stature. Features like pointed ears or slit pupils/exposed tails can be morphed or shown as desired, though the chronic perception of being childlike or “cute” regardless of how old they are is a pretty common occurrence. Shun is no stranger to this either, and hates shopping for clothes at non-mythical-specific places because she has to do so in the *really* young children’s department for anything to fit.

Back on the subject of pipe foxes, though— Shun is a kitsune with 3 and 3/4 tails. She had an unspecified accident several years ago in which she lost the final quarter of her fourth tail, but managed to retrieve the piece after several weeks of searching, at which point it was already trying to become a pipe fox. Pipe foxes (at least in this world) are the result of a severed kitsune tail’s survival instincts going horribly wrong (or right) and attempting to restructure themselves for survival, and the amount of tail there (i.e. how much was separated from the body) will determine what becomes of it, though the “starting” process is pretty identical no matter what you do.

If a severed piece of tail has no food, eventually, with time, it will die. If, however, you keep it somewhere safe (like a drawer) and you present it with food (which could be, I don’t know, a chicken leg), it will sense it, and you will see the start of a small, gaping fanged mouth begin to grow from the stump. Once this has formed, the tail will wriggle itself to its prize and devour everything it can, sustaining it. Keep feeding the tail and it will continue to grow legs, organs, features, and a face— though not necessarily in that order. Eventually, you will have a small— usually mouse to rat sized— beautiful white magic fox, prized heavily by black market collectors for its splendor and apparent luck giving properties. A true quarter-tailed pipe fox will live somewhere between 5-40 years, unpredictably. The distributed intelligence of the tail will reform/conglomerate into a brain relatively on par with a modern pet dog, possibly smarter (or much dumber) depending on your luck.

If, however, there is MORE than roughly a quarter tail chopped off, with more of the nervous tissue and mass intact, the pipe fox resulting may appear larger and more robust. Many exotic buyers have been lured into purchasing these creatures from traders without realizing, and years later the unlucky recipient will find their precious fox’s skin suddenly flaccid on the ground like a shed cocoon, having erupted into 75 tinier pipe foxes that will summarily swarm the accessible property to spirit off with literally anything they decide is valuable, never to be found again, often raging like an infestation for days or WEEKS before vanishing forever.

Rumor has it that feeding an entire severed tail will result in 75 tiny pipe foxes bursting forth from the cocoon shell that will each burst into 75 more bug sized foxes each, resulting in a plague of nigh biblical proportions. But that’s never actually been confirmed on record.

Needless to say the kitsune have a lot of protocols for dealing with severed tails and will usually destroy half-formed pipe foxes of unknown origin on the spot. Shun keeps Yuzu as a pet due to being intimately aware of the little rat-sized creature’s origins, and she still had to sign SO many extra insurance papers and wavers before the complex would let her move in.

I am not good at keeping it short, am I? Wow. Well, there you have it! I’d be happy to answer any extra stuff I forgot too if someone has a question. I do love these nerds.

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stepphase · 3 years

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Make money writing and without being Stephen King!

Yes, as you have read, it is possible to earn money writing. Surely you are thinking that this is only achieved by those people who have published a book and have been successful or perhaps you think of a famous newspaper editor.

Well let me tell you that you are right… But not in everything. Indeed there are people who have achieved successful sales with their books and have earned many euros. But there are also others that despite not being number one in sales, have managed to earn money writing on the internet, they have not made a fortune but it has allowed them to pay some bills.

And what are the requirements?

Well, the technical requirements are: a computer and internet access, but you probably already meet this.

Another requirement is ... obviously ... that you like to write and that you do it well. Well, maybe it is not a mandatory requirement, but if your passion is writing, without a doubt you are going to enjoy this way of making money.

How much can I earn?

Honestly, you are not going to become a millionaire just by sitting down and writing. Few people have been successful with their first jobs, but hey, even if the odds are small, there are.

The payment is usually made for the number of words you have written, and it will depend on the project that you are commissioned.

So what are those ideas to earn money writing?

Here are 5 ideas with which you can earn money writing on the Internet. With any of them, you could start today🙂

1. Write a blog (how original!)

Yes, okay. It is not an original idea, but it is an idea that works if you do all the work correctly.

Although you probably already know. Earning money writing a blog is about creating content, articles on the subject you have chosen in order to provide new or complementary information to your readers.

To create your blog you can use tools such as WordPress or Blogger, with templates that save you time and money if you are not an expert.

To generate income with a blog, you can use these ways:

Put ads on your blog, for example through Google AdSense.

Recommend certain products or services from other websites, earning a commission for each sale produced.

Sell services or your own products.

A blog can generate high income, but this is achieved when it also reaches a high number of visits. That is why it is important that you publish content regularly, but not just anything is worth it. It must be original and quality content.

2. Contact other blogs and earn money writing content for them

Another option to earn money writing from the comfort of your home is creating content for other blogs.

You can contact other bloggers directly, through their contact form and propose your service to them. Also on the Internet you can find several websites where there are ads from bloggers looking for writers on different topics.

My recommendation here is that you choose or look for a theme that you already know or that you like, although this is not mandatory either. You can also write about a topic that is new to you or that you do not control too much, but perhaps it will take more time. In any case, the more possibilities you offer, the higher your income will be.

You can also propose complementary services, such as the management of social networks.

And very important, always meet the delivery times you have agreed.

3. You dare to write about sports, motherhood, beauty, etc. Earn money by writing to order

Yes, it is similar to the previous one. Although here I really mean to register on websites where you propose your services to different types of clients, which can be: blogs, companies, reviews or magazines.

On these websites you can also find ads from those who are looking for writers, and if you are interested in one, send a request. And according to the instructions they have given you, start writing.

4. Do you speak English? You speak french ?… Earn money translating texts

If you have good knowledge of another language you can translate texts and earn money for it. How? Register on a specialized website (I will mention some later) and complete your profile with your skills.

Obviously, to offer a correct and good quality translation you must have a wide vocabulary in your mother tongue and know a foreign language. So it is better to accept translations from another language to yours (mother tongue) and better if you accept translations on a subject that you already have knowledge or experience of, this will save you time and your translations will have higher quality.

Once you've built a reputation for quality translations, you can set higher prices and earn more.

If you are worried about not having experience, I recommend doing some translations for free at the beginning, as a volunteer translator for NGOs. You can look for example in the Red Cross or in other organizations, they will be good references and your first clients.

To expand your opportunities, you can offer your services on websites in the country of the language you speak.

And remember to always meet the agreed delivery deadlines.

5. “Once upon a time…” or “Complete guide to…”, etc. It can be the beginning of a good book, right? Earn money writing an ebook

We are not going to fool ourselves, writing a good book will take you more than an afternoon, it is not easy. But if you have more time and if you are passionate about writing, do it! You can also use tools like Amazon, Lulu, or Bubok to save intermediary costs and publish your book. But the work does not end here, you need to make yourself known and get people's attention to buy it if you are not a well-known writer.

I cannot tell you how much you can earn for a book, nor can I assure you that you will be successful. There are really very few cases of unknown writers who have succeeded in their first job.

On the latter, Franck Scipion speaks of Lifestyle squared, doing an analysis to know if writing a book to sell it is profitable or not. His main conclusion is that "writing books for a living is a pretty risky gamble," and he shows it with numbers. If you want to read the whole article, click here.

It's certainly quite risky, so don't think that writing a book is an easy task, or that it will make you a millionaire once you've finished it. If you decide to write something, I recommend that you do something original and different!

Have you decided to start writing to earn money?… Before you have to read these recommendations

While I was looking for information for this article I have come across several scams.

That is why my main recommendation is that you be careful if you come across websites that offer you a job as a writer in exchange for a sum of money. You NEVER have to pay to write.

The websites that I recommend here will not charge you for registering, they are free. DO NOT trust those websites that ask you to pay money to register.

If you need some tips to become a good writer, I recommend two good articles.

The first is if you are interested in being a blog writer and you want to learn 10 tricks to become a better writer and get the reader's attention.

And the second is an article with Stephen King's 15 tips to be a good writer, surely this name sounds familiar to you, right? Or perhaps you have read some of his books.

And what websites allow me to earn money writing on the Internet?

Remember me, 2010

I have made a list of 11 websites in Spanish, where you can register, publish or apply for jobs as a writer, translator, content editor, and more.

You can register for free. Normally the payment is made upon delivery of the work and the website applies a commission at this time. When it comes to orders, they will specify the delivery time and / or number of words, among other things that your client needs.

Artigoo. You can create content on different themes: articles, news, reviews, opinions, recipes, etc. You can earn for each click made to the advertising that will be in your publication.

Globedia. You can register as an editor or collaborator of this collaborative journal and you can win the donations made by the readers of your article.

Freelancer. On this website, you can also find freelance work writing articles.

Cloud it. (acquired by Freelancer) Find writing and translation jobs, every day there are new interesting offers.

Freelance work. We have already talked about this website in other articles. Here you will also see several ads in the category: Writings

Muobo (formerly Find a blogger). This website is focused on the blogging world. The offers you will find will be from both commercial and personal blogs.

Textbroker. You will find thousands of orders of different themes.

TextMaster. You find translation, writing, proofreading, and content marketing assignments.

Geniuzz. In the section: writings and translations, you can publish your ad, describing the service and the price.

Twago. You can find translation and writing projects.

Fiverr. This website is well known, you can publish your ad in the writing and translation category for $ 5.

Conclusions

If you are passionate about writing, this is a good way to take advantage of it to earn extra money per month, or make it your way of life, why not? But you will need many hours of work and perseverance.

Of the ideas that I have proposed the most risky without a doubt, is to publish a book, because you will need many hours writing, correcting, researching (perhaps) and nobody guarantees success, but neither can anyone assure you that it will not you're going to get.

If you don't think these ideas are for you, you can discover other ideas by clicking here, and don't miss the opportunity to earn extra money.

And you, do you have writing experience? Have you earned money for writing?

Feel free to share your experience in the comments. You can also use the contact form .😉

Also, Read

Tips for Writing Content - 17 Actionable Tips that Converts

How to get money on the internet

Content Writing Vs. Copywriting: What Will Make More Money

Top 16 Easiest Ways to Earn Money Online Without any Investment - Earn More Stress Less

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