#calvin��s creations

[craigtowens]

Links & Quotes

Some links and quotes that caught my eye this week.

Psalm 133 tells us that in order for us to sharpen others—and for us to be sharpened by them—we have to be around other them. Christian saints put a high priority on spending time with others. I have lots of new content every week, which you can check out on my YouTube channel. From Desiring God’s Here We Stand series comes this great snippet from the history of the Reformation: “[John] Calvin…

[bellaireland1981]

1k Celebration! Summer Pool Party Playlist

Details: 

I just hit 1000 followers!!! THANK YOU!!!! This is truly mind blowing and humbling and I am eternally grateful to all of you who follow, read my stories, interact and just like to geek out over these Top Gun hotties with me! I cannot even thank you enough for all of your support and encouragement. I have met so many incredible people on Tumblr and in this fandom. I know we recently hit some dark days but even in the not so great times, it’s important to remember that there are still awesome people here and it’s not all dark days. SO…. to celebrate this milestone and to hopefully bring back some fun, happy, bright, and sunny days…. I am hosting a Summer Pool Party Writing Challenge! Let’s kick off summer with our favorite aviators! 

Rules:

You can sign up for as many Songs as you’d like! 

Message me with your song choice and who you’re writing for!- I will update the list so everyone knows what’s still available! 

18+ Only! Minors DNI

You can submit for a series, one shots, mood boards, drabbles, etc… The point is to HAVE FUN!

Must be appropriately labeled (Smut, Angst, warnings, Fluff….etc)

HAS to include SONG in some shape or form (i.e. in the title, included in the story, lyrics in the story, etc.) 

General:

Your creations are due by July 31, 2024! Tag me @bellaireland1981 and #1kPoolPartyPlaylist  in your work so that I add your link to the Challenge Page! 

Playlist: (Note: If you have another summer/pool party themed song in mind that isn’t on the list– message me! We can add it)

Walking on Sunshine- Katrina & The Waves

Margaritaville- Jimmy Buffet

Dance the Night- Dua Lipa

I Don’t Want This Night to End- Luke Bryan

Summer- Calvin Harris

Party in the USA- Miley Cyrus

I Wanna Dance With Somebody- Whitney Houston

One Margarita- Luke Bryan

Southbound- Carrie Underwood

I Ain’t Worried- OneRepublic

The Sound of Sunshine Going Down- Michael Frani and Spearhead

Made You Look- Meghan Trainer

Summer Days- Martin Garrix - ( @bellaireland1981 - Bradley x Reader)

Shut up and Dance- Walk the Moon

Summer Love- Justin Timberlake

I Was Made for Loving You- Oliver Heldens

Can’t Stop This Feeling- Justin Timberlake

Let’s Get Loud- Jennifer Lopez

Addicted to You- Shakira

1999- Prince

House Party- Sam Hunt

Hot Stuff- Donna Summer

Good Vibrations- Beach Boys

Love Shack- B52’s

Cake by the Ocean- DNCE

Sweet Home Alabama- Lynyrd Skynyrd

Dancing Queen- ABBA

Heat Waves- Glass Animals

Toes- Zac Brown Band

Summer Girls- LFO

Under the Boardwalk- The Drifters

California Gurls- Katy Perry - ( @startrekfangirl2233 Phoenix x Reader)

Kokomo- The Beach Boys

Watermelon Sugar- Harry Styles

Cruel Summer- Taylor Swift

Hot Fun in the Summertime- Sly and the Family Stone

Summertime Blues- Alan Jackson

(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay- Otis Redding

Summer in the City- The Lovin’ Spoonful

Hot in Here- Nelly

When the Sun Goes Down- Kenny Chesney and Uncle Cracker

I Don't Know About You- Chris Lane

Let's Have a Pool Party!!!!!!

[newspecies]

HI this is my thousand word ramble about Rocky and his relationship with other characters and my thoughts in general. I'm normal about Lackadaisy I promise.

Calvin

Calvin and Rocky are cousins that grew up together, with Rocky being 5 years older. The mini comics all make it seem like he spent most of his time there and later he says “it was home more than home was.” (Lackadaisy Breakdown). The cousins wrote to each other while Rocky was traveling around and Calvin kept them all inside a box instead of throwing them away. Aunt Nina tells Rocky "[Calvin]'s the only one in all o’ creation who'd follow you" (Lackadaisy Somersault) so they're clearly extremely close. Calvin lies to his mother several times to keep Rocky out of trouble, even when it's about something illegal. Despite his moral compass and the fact that he almost went into law enforcement, he's working with Lackadaisy and regularly shooting at people presumably just because Rocky wants him to (and because Ivy's there... but in the beginning it was for Rocky). They strike me as having more of a sibling relationship than a cousin one due to growing up so close.

Aunt Nina

Nina does not have a very high opinion of Rocky and she makes this very clear. She trusts him not to get Calvin into too much trouble but she doesn't let him stick around when he stops by. He’s under no illusions that he’s welcome at her house (Lackadaisy Somersault) and he tells Ivy that “[his face]’s only abided in small doses” at Nina’s house. He starts telling Ivy there was a small family tragedy and "it had an author... and with already ink-stained hands, i signed my name on it" which means that something bad happened and he either was to blame or took the blame and that is the reason he left Missouri, "so time could dull my fresh reminder face." (Lackadaisy Breakdown). My guess is that this family tragedy had something to do with his mother because his father was alive at least a little bit after he left because he was sending letters and stopped (Lackadaisy Correspondence) his mother is only mentioned once, in Lackadaisy Breakdown, described as “chasing Red Death” Red Death is not a real sickness and its instead from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death. This could mean that his mother had some sort of bloody sickness. My guess is tuberculosis. It was one of the biggest causes of death in the early 1900’s and one of its most well known symptoms is coughing up blood. Sorry this is supposed to be about Nina and I kind of went off the rails there. Anyway I don’t think Nina hates Rocky at all; she still does his laundry and lets him visit and lets him drag Calvin around. But she doesn’t trust him and makes sure he knows that.

Mitzi

Some people seem to think Rocky has a crush on Mitzi, and him threatening Wick certainly gives the impression but I heavily disagree and I think he sees her more as a mother figure. He clearly looks up to her and seeks her approval constantly; he goes out while extremely injured and hiding that injury from her (Lackadaisy Deliria) presumably because he realizes that the pig farmers' attack on Lackadaisy was his fault and he really wants to fix it. His behavior towards Wick strikes me more as a child really not wanting a step parent. As the audience, I know that Wick is basically incapable of evil (he has killed once and it was a duck and it still haunts him) and Mitzi is the one taking advantage of their relationship, but from Rocky's perspective Mitzi is just an innocent widow looking for companionship and Wick is a weird rich sleazeball. I honestly don't think Rocky is aware of Mitzi's own sleaziness, and if he is he’s ignoring it to the best of his ability. but Mitzi likes having Rocky around. Every time she's upset over something and Rocky starts joking around she immediately starts smiling more (Lackadaisy Proposition, Lackadaisy Haggersnash). She’s undeniably fond of him, despite his many shenanigans.

Mordecai

Okay this one is a little bit more out there. “But Rotten!” You may argue, “Rocky doesn’t actually know Mordecai! They only interact like once outside the mini comics!” Yes dear reader but consider this: they have so many parallels. They are opposites on the surface; Rocky is silly, Mordecai is serious. But looking closer they have a few things in common. Mainly: TRAINS!!!!!!!!! They both have recurring train motifs and it makes me insane. For Mordecai he met Atlas on a train (Lackadaisy Thaumaturgy), and for Rocky he has a drawing of one on one of the letters he sent to Calvin (Lackadaisy Correspondence) and he said his father worked on the railroad (Lackadaisy Breakdown). In relation to the trains, they both left home at a young age and wrote letters home. They also both seem to have a habit of gaining enemies; when Atlas met Mordecai he was running from people (Lackadaisy Bookkeeper) and Rocky’s… everything makes making enemies extremely easy for him. These two have PARALLELS and I need everyone to know!!!!!

Rocky

This last section is about Rocky himself! First off, to state the obvious: Rocky is extremely impulsive, he doesn’t seem to think about the consequences of his actions whatsoever and it gets him into all sorts of trouble all the time. He’s not oblivious though; in Lackadaisy Posterity he immediately jumps to the conclusion that he ruined something, he just didn’t remember it. Rocky puts on a show of being confident and sure of himself but the moment his walls are torn down in the Posterity and Breakdown pages he’s calling himself a horrible person. He is extremely aware of how other people feel about him; even though his exclamation of “they tolerate me” in Lackadaisy Palaver is framed as a joke, it feels pretty real. A lot of people don’t like Rocky and he knows this. I don’t remember where I was going with this. Just know that I’m obsessed with Rocky and I’m thinking about him always.

In conclusion

[wesleyhill]

On “Things Above”

A homily on Colossians 3:1-4 preached at the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Birmingham, Alabama on the Friday after the second Sunday in Lent 2023

Yesterday I spoke to you from the third chapter of St. Paul’s letter to the Colossian Christians in which he tells them: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

I wonder how you think about that exhortation. What exactly is Paul asking believers to do? What does it mean to have your mind focused on heavenly realities, rather than this-worldly ones? A hymn that we used to sing in the church of my childhood spoke of “the things of earth [growing] strangely dim” in heaven’s overwhelming, eclipsing light.

But has that ever really been your experience? For myself, as soon as I start trying to tear my gaze away from my house, my family, my job, my concrete experiences in this life and attempt to focus on God and heaven and eternity, I can quickly experience one of two things. The first one is sheer confusion: a kind of blank, inscrutable screen.

Cicero, the famous Roman statesman who died a half century before the birth of Christ, tells a story in his treatise On the Nature of the Gods of the tyrant Hiero who demands that the lyric poet Simonides tell him about what it means for the gods to exist. Simonides begs for a couple of days to come up with an answer. When the two days pass and Hiero asks, “Well?” Simonides responds by asking for two more days. And this keeps going until finally Simonides confesses, “The longer I think about it, the murkier the answer seems.” And Cicero, the one telling the story, concludes that the nature of the gods — who or what and how they are, if they are — is a “very obscure question.”

The Protestant Reformer John Calvin, commenting on this story from Cicero, says that as soon as we begin to try to use our imaginations or instincts to picture God, we will “hold nothing certain or solid or clear, but [will] be so attached to confused principles as to worship an unknown God.”

But this experience of a blank, gray, faceless god can easily transition into a second experience, and that is the experience of fear. Onto the gray canvas there can start to seep, Rorshach-inkblot-like, disturbing images of a God who is cruel, vindictive, mercurial, capricious. Not just God as cosmic Santa Claus but God, as C. S. Lewis said he experienced him in the wake of losing his wife to cancer, as cosmic Sadist. God as not just obscure, but terrifying. Not just as One to be baffled by, but One to flee from.

Here, I think, it’s vital to read Paul’s exhortation in context: “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”

Notice: Paul isn’t urging us to try to cultivate some vague, ethereal kind of heavenly mindedness. He’s directing us to think about a particular person — “Christ,” the Messiah, Jesus, the one who died and is now alive with the one he called “Father,” who will come back and heal and restore us and the whole world. It's as if Paul is saying, “When I tell you to think about heaven, I’m telling you to think about that Jewish man named Jesus, who is now alive again and always lives to intercede for you.”

Paul spells it out in more detail in the great poetic passage with which he kicks off the whole letter:

He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers — all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

To “set your mind on things above,” rather than on earthly things, is to think about Jesus. And not just to think about Jesus in some general way but to allow the life of Jesus to affect and shape and define the way you think about God.

This is — we need to recognize — a claim that should sound more shocking to us than it probably does. Rowan Williams reminds us:

Paul is roughly the same age as Jesus, perhaps a few years younger; and twenty or so years after Jesus’ execution, Paul is saying that this person, his contemporary, somebody who was well known to people Paul knew well, is the image of God — that in him, as he just as startlingly puts it 1 Corinthians 1.24, is the power and wisdom of God; or that — as he says in 2 Corinthians 4.4-6 — in his face shines the glory of God, what the Jews called the shekhinah, the blinding radiance of God’s presence. In Hebrew Scripture, this presence is described as radiating so powerfully that it throws people to the ground; it’s like a dense fog of light that you can’t breathe in and you can’t stand in… And that glory, that stifling intensity of presence in holy places, is what you see and sense if you look at Jesus, so Paul claims: a strong claim, to put it mildly. Imagine for a moment what a leap of imagination would be involved in thinking of someone of your own generation and background in terms like that.

There are, it seems, two directions we could go at this point. One would be to think through what it might mean to say about a first-century Jewish man, whom we Christians believe to be now alive forever, never to die again — what it might mean to say that in this one individual human person “all the fullness of deity was pleased to dwell.” That would be to ask the question of “Christology,” the Christian understanding of the person of Jesus of Nazareth as God’s Messiah.

But the other direction travels from the ground up, so to speak: What does it mean now to talk about God (to “set our minds on heavenly things”) if we say that this particular human life and death and resurrection, the existence of the man Jesus from his birth to his exaltation to the right hand of the Father in heaven, tells us the true meaning and essence of what it means to be God?

How would it change the way you think about God, the way you pray, the way you worship and seek to obey God, the way you try to put God’s commands into practice in your Christian life, if you really believed that God is knowable ultimately, finally, climactically in Jesus?

The late Reformed theologian T. F. Torrance worked as a chaplain during World War II. One day on a battlefield in Italy, a dying soldier, only twenty years old, grasped Torrance’s arm and said, “Padre, is God really like Jesus?”

Isn’t that a terribly poignant question? And isn’t it also, ultimately, the question of life? Is the God whom I’m about to meet face to face, the One who made me and will judge me and determine my ultimate fate — is that God really going to turn out to be the compassionate Father Jesus said he is and showed him to be in his healings and his pronouncements of forgiveness and his assurance of mercy? Or am I going to find some more sinister character lurking behind the curtain of Jesus’ life and ministry?

Torrance said it was the great privilege of his life to have spent the rest of his theological career spelling out the answer he gave to the dying soldier on the battlefield that day: Yes. Yes. God is like Jesus.

There is… no God behind the back of Jesus Christ, but only this God whose face we see in the face of the Lord Jesus. There is no deus absconditus, no dark inscrutable God, no arbitrary Deity of whom we can know nothing but before whom we can only tremble as our guilty conscience paints harsh streaks upon his face. No, there are no dark spots in God of which we need to be afraid… There is only the one God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ in such a way that there is perfect consistency and fidelity between what he reveals of the Father and what the Father is in his unchangeable reality… God really is like Jesus, for there is no other God than he who became man in Jesus and he whom God affirms himself to be and always will be in Jesus.

Or as Archbishop Michael Ramsey once put it much more concisely: “God is Christlike; and in God there is no unChristlikeness at all.”

Jesus is, as Paul says in Colossians, the image of the God we cannot see. He is the perfect self-interpretation of God. He is the face of God turned toward us in love.

So, friends, set your minds on things above, not on earthly things — earthly idols, false images, distorted pictures of God. Seek the things that are above, where Jesus Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

To him be the glory, forever and ever.

Amen.

[selfindulgentsillinessbracket]

Why Each Character(s) Were Chosen, or, Why These Sillies Are Special To Me - CHAPTER 1 of ??

This is a series of posts documenting why each silly in this bracket is in this bracket & why they're each special to me.

These will be getting fairly personal & I may ramble on too long but I want to be sincere so I won't hold back my overly silly manner of typing if need be.

These will be covered in order of appearance on the brackets from first to last contestant(s).

#1. Wario & Waluigi

Wario is straight up my favorite mario character. No cap. He's number 1. His character, his games (Wario Land is peak 2D platformer with the only series beating it in existence being Donkey Kong Country), his moveset. He's a king if you ask me. Waluigi is by all accounts my other fav. I'm so mad they refuse to use him in the Wario land games. The one series he SHOULD be in. I demand they treat him better. Anyways love these two goofballs & they've always struck a chord with me. I'm all about the goofy rivals. Wario & Waluigi are just pure fun. Love em. Also play Wario Land 4 because it's literally peak. I promise you it's worth your time.

#2 Calvin & Hobbes

Back when I was a wee lad, the thing that made me wanna do art in the first place? That was comic strips. In particular, Calvin & Hobbes, & Garfield. These two series are why I'm an artist. I owe it all to these two along with that fat orange cat. But we'll get to Garfield later, for now, let's focus on Calvin & Hobbes. They were the first ones I was introduced too. I didn't read Garfield til a few years after I met Calvin & Hobbes. I loved these two. And their comics are timeless. The writing is just out of this world with how smart & hilarious it is. It doesn't matter that it's from the 80s or 90s, they still ring true now. They're still God damn hilarious. These guys made me wanna make my own comics. Which led to me making my own characters. Which led to me becoming an artist. Thank you Calvin & Hobbes. Thanks for shaping who I am today.

#3 Squeek

Ok so there's not much to cover here. Squeek here is from a game called Oddworld: Squeek's Oddysee. Never heard of it? Yeah of course not, it was canceled. Like many Oddworld games sadly are. See the teason I have SO MANY oddworld reps on this bracket is 1. Yeah oddworld is extremely special to me. But 2. I'm hoping it'll cause more people to give the oddworld games a shot. They're so underrated. Legit my favorite story, world, lore & narratives in all of gaming. Squeek is a character who from what little we know, he's got so much potential. His lore is tragic and depressing but that makes you want to see him beat the odds like how Abe & Munch did. Squeek was meant to be our third protagonist. And maybe someday he'll get that chance again. Anyways please I implore you guys to give this series a shot. They're not perfect, but there's so much to love.

#4 Zoey

Ok Zoey is a character who I need to get personal to explain why she was a special enough OC to be in this bracket. So this is gonna be a long one. Zoey has been around for a while now. I mean like a while. She was created back in March of 2016. Yes I actually remember the exact time she was made. So yeah, that's her origin. The very first artwork of Zoey ever made has the original time saved on the upload date. Lucky us, bc we know her time of creation.

Zoey was officially created on March 3rd, 2016. Here was the first drawing of her. Comparison to her current look included :)

Now I know what you're thinking, yes this does look awful. I was not nearly as good at art back then. 2016 was a terrible time. But after that Zoey was just left forgotten, never had a real idea what to do with her. Until this past year, I uncovered her. And with a new design and finally having a solid personality to give her, she was given life. My life. Because the personality she ultimately found was just mine. She is quite literally the definition of a self insert. When I write Zoey I am literally just writing myself. Or to be more accurate, I'm writing a very cartoonishly exaggerated version of myself.

The fact people vote for her at all, it genuinely got me to cry more than once. It means so much to me. Bc Zoey means so much to me. So, thank you. And Zoey thanks you all too, she's humbled & would hug all of you if she could (and if we both were more open to physical contact but autism yknow yeah)

Next Chapter of this coming idk anyways Polls are still open so voting is still here for group 1 & 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[nothingneverforever]

Stuff I’ve just watched and almost completely did not enjoy

First, Superstore (2015-2021): I watched this show mostly while getting ready for work in the morning or brushing my teeth at night, really just moments where I’m not focusing much and needing to wind up/down, but there were probably only 5 minutes of all the six seasons that I enjoyed even remotely. I know it seems to be a sitcom must-have but really, does every character have to be unlikable? Is that really the only way to depict realness? And I don’t think they were intended to all be insufferable but then again, how could the characters not intentionally have been written that way? Were we actually supposed to feel endeared to their irritating qualities? Which never changed from start to end btw

Did I cry from being utterly moved in the last 10 minutes of the very last episode of the sixth season, yes. Does that mean anything, absolutely not omfg in fact as I’m typing this I’m reminded more and more of how irritating this shit was… and why do Americans only know how to write about or talk about or involve themselves in sex? Can fucking grow up or not seriously

Ok fuck this shit too I’m sorry I am not anywhere near invested enough to find a better or more effective or astute way of conveying this complaint. When this film first showed up on my home page, I was okayishly-interested since I find Gabrielle Union likeable enough (also thinking of her makes me think of her husband who makes me think of LeBron which is an ever-pleasant experience naturally) but also the male lead Keith Powers is someone who bring such nostalgia, I remember being in my teens and following the fashion world quite closely for whatever nonsense reason and specifically keeping up with the models and runway shows for the sake of saving the pictures as inspiration for my then-“art” creation (OGs remember howmanybrothers…). Anyway, I remember Keith from this era so well : https://black-boys.tumblr.com/post/89627223362/keith-powers-calvin-klein-ss-15/amp

And of course, I excused or perhaps even allowed the ridiculous age gap the leads have (IRL as well as in the show which is about 20 years) because ummmm feminismmsms and reverse sexism ain’t real right gang 😂😅 but anyway yes obviously I was entering into my viewing ready to enjoy a joke of an experience but

Bruh

Fuck this disgusting shit dude

Yes, the leads are talking about sex and yes, the male character wants to ruin and destroy and demolish the female character in this context …. Shocking!!!!!!!!!

We really can’t have one single fucking romance movie that isn’t pornified in language or imagery or reference huh

Anyway I stopped the movie at that point obviously cos I fucking died

And then again obviously I continued about 3 hours later when I’d run out of cat videos to watch and I need constant constant feed of media input lest I pause and think about work or the rest of my life and add to my alter act overwhelming amount of stress….

And the movie got worse guys she got preggers and they stayed together also she is his mom’s age in the show and they are long-time nemeses so yea 😂😂😂 this is the society liberals want?!!!??!!!??

May my next Netflix watch be something lovely and warm and real and no freaking stupid idiot sex references or scene or whatever boring unimaginative shiat pls…

Anyway I rewatched Haunting of Hill House recently and it was the best ever hehe!

[rainbowdelicsunshine]

do you have a favorite calvin and hobbes comic(s)? I personally love the spaceman spiff strips and his morbid snowman creations

OOOOOO THERE ARE SO MANY ITS HARD TI CHOOSE!!

Well, there's the one where Calvin attempts to teach Hobbes what his version of "cool" is. I just LOVE the outfits Hobbes rocks in this arc, makes me go hoppity hoppity!

Also love the sadder story arcs, like the Raccoon Story Arc always grab at my heartstrings and teach the best philosophy you can find!

There's also the arc where Hobbes gets invited to Susie's Birthday Party and not Calvin, God Hobbes just gets the best poses and faces ever, makes me get so hooked!

Man I can just go on and on forever, but then this would take WAYYY too long to write XD

Thank you soso very much for sending in this question, God I just LOVE talking about Calvin and Hobbes so much I'm so happy I got to here!

Please come back here soon and have a wonderful and awesome evening!!

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"THIS IS THE ALBUM THAT SENT A SHOCKWAVE OF EMPOWERMENT THROUGH THE NATION'S CULTURAL UNDERGROUND."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on the 2001 CD repress of "Beat Happening," the debut album by American indie rock band BEAT HAPPENING, self-released in November 1985 by the band's own K Records. The album was released as a compilation of material originally released on the first Beat Happening album, their first 45, their "Three Tea Breakfast" cassette, the "Let's Together", "Let's Kiss" and "Let's Sea" compilation cassettes, combined with a few previously unavailable recordings.

MINI-OVERVIEW: "This is the album that sent a shockwave of empowerment through the nation's cultural underground. In 1985, Olympia, Washington band BEAT HAPPENING released their eponymous debut of lo-fi pop songs on K Records and challenged every conception held about music. At the center of the group was the enigmatic Calvin Johnson and his revolutionary vision of artistic creation. His foresight and industriousness allowed him to recruit to the K Records roster other free-spirited artists like BECK, MODEST MOUSE, and BUILT TO SPILL long before they gained widespread acclaim."

-- BRYAN C. PARKER (author), "33 1/3 -- Beat Happening" by BEAT HAPPENING

Sources: www.discogs.com/release/3547757 & https://shop.theheartworm.com/products/beat-happening-beat-happening-33-1-3.

[automatismoateo]

How do you counter the Calvinist argument for god's goodness? via /r/atheism

How do you counter the Calvinist argument for god's goodness? I don't have much time rn but I'm digging for feedback so I'll keep it light. as possible. My sister is a reformed protestant who believes in calvinism. Yeah, she's a holier-than-thou judgemental dick who always messages me bible verses when I post memes with "bad words" on it. And has chastised me for being bisexual and being an independent career woman. But that's not the point. We got into one of those cringe debates. When she brought up the "god's love" bullshit" I used the typical atheist arguments giving examples as to how the abrahamic God is a vindicative, egotistical bitch who has genocided, murdered, endorsed slavery, and basically treats his creation as play toys. What did she tell me? Something on the lines of "You see God as a jerk because that's a humanistic view. But he's God so he has the right to pick and choose who goes to heaven and he can do with us as he pleases. " So, my rebuttal to that? That's circular logic. What god says is right because god says so. If you apply the dynamic of God and his creation to a person and another person, you'd call that abusive. Why does it stop being abusive just because we're dealing with a god? I thought of the analogy that during the 1860's white people thought they were superior to african-american people. Should black people have just put up with the slavery and abuse just because white people claim to be superior and claim that they can do whatever they want with those who are "below" them? And even in asserting that the biblical God can do whatever he wants- you have to prove to me the assumption that this specific God is real in the first place. What do you guys think? Honestly, from my experience calvinist arguments are a bit more difficult to disband. Submitted January 29, 2024 at 01:54PM by Nitro_youth_energy (From Reddit https://ift.tt/yLDVgNZ)

[zooterchet]

The Bridgewater Triangle (Dighton)

The Garfield Presidential Society (The Hague):

The Bridgewater Triangle, is a federal base home, for living and retired FBI, VFW, NSA, and CIA agents, plus civilians in low incomes of federal rent, as criminals, for test and study; children, to be raised, as soldiers, in elite income units.  It is policed, by special forces veterans, run out of libraries, by media professionals.

My specialty, is diamond hedges and bets, and my day job, is COIN, the FBI's media array through the Lucianos, the Italian Mafia; the National Crime Syndicate.  We get a defector, due to low pay, not morals or conscience, to print or script their program, if we find it immoral; someone has died, in public, by their hand, as a martyr.  The Joker, is dead, in DC Comics term, if it's a show or a film.  

The diamonds trade, is gems, gold, and bearer bonds.  Gems are exchanged to breed African workers to produce labor systems, gold is exchanged to support beet, a spice substitute for any meat on the planet when mixed with lard from the proper animal in a fry kettle, and bearer bonds are an international exchange of the "Queen is On the Money", the Ben Franklin signal for deported citizens from German deputy unions, at any point in American history.

This supports marriages on loan of labor to invest in overseas stock, superconductors for battery sciences, and the vodka tobacco trade that the exports of America rely upon under Madison's rules, the sole source of American trade to finance the poverty of the foreign worlds, through FBI counter terror teams assisted by military forces on bases striking those syndicates that prevent their hire.

My job, is to intervene, when such a trade, interferes with the lives of police, the children of soldiers.  As the Phillistine Celt, the Voudoun Man, I am solely in charge of those impoverished of service by tragedy of parent, my own trade's stipends above.

By myth, a casino, merely my skill and trade to support my proper finance; the assassination of politicians that engage in social breeding of police.

My family, down my direct line, has assassinated:

Kaiser Wilhelm, the pogrom of sewage and farm irrigation workers in favor of horse breeding (the construction of the Maginot line, dividing the French equation).

Calvin Coolidge: the changing of New England police codes to draft Puerto Ricans as Irish Catholics outside of proper military pedigree (the elders policy of removing parents from assisted care if they act in accords of forced servility of child through court's lawyer to grandchild outside of wedlock).

George H. W. Bush Sr.: the induced homosexuality of the children of soldiers to produce works of art through Alcoholics Anonymous and Convents to win elections in the first place to produce works of music that produce serial killer nervous tensions in world intelligence services of the band's target through lyrics (the creation of the Lifetime Network, so DSS attempts to divide marriages that should happen on screen divided on the series, therefore soap operas disfavor the children of police), and of course, mine.

Elizabeth II: the breeding of the Falklands Wars to produce the "Brown" series, to create chess pawns as Ted Bundy, breeding Jeffrey Dahmers to follow Bundy, the Brown, after Dahmer has raped Bundy with fellatio, hence therefore they are a children's tail-on-the-donkey pattern, and then the production of "Bloom County", with Dahmer's victims as "Opus", with Hunter S. Thompson advising as news reel and Bundy dying in Arctic conditions over MADD after forcing someone into poverty for driving on Christmas, the last panel of the comic where Reynalda closes a white empty door, the little black girl, Ted Bundy's geosyncretic fantasy of a daughter (the production of the Quds series of CIA, out of Hamas logic, through Cherna Gast, the EON ops commander, creating new child rearing methods out of media).   

[vacantgodling]

Nonfiction and classics for the genre ask game? - @void-botanist

thank you so much for asking!!

Classics 🎻: a scene that is so timeless you have kept it in your latest drafts in some way shape or form

tbh a lot of tcol’s plot hasn’t really deviated from my initial creation of it like 10 years ago; the world has just gotten bigger and more in depth to make the plot make more sense. the “retrieval arc” (which PFFFF calling it that) where piper and san get stuck in the labyrinth and are forced to work together (cuz up until this point they’re ALWAYS clashing) while forte, deux, and clear have to save them along with the help of others (and clear’s dark hunting is revealed) has been a thing since forever and i am never ever ever getting rid of this whole arc in the story. like. never.

Non-fiction 📔: something in your wip/s that are a part of real life events? (Doesn't have to be historical events, maybe something that happened in your life that you've added to your story)

well the only wip that has any real life events of my own is purple haze. i’m not really working on it rn but tl;dr it’s a wip with ocs i’ve had since i was young (like 8-ish they’ve grown up with me) and it’s a way for me to explore the kind of traumatizing time that was my very early 20s and come to terms with it. so the irl events that inspire each half of the story:

calvin’s half-> the entire girlfriend subplot he has—being with someone for a good amount of time and then them suddenly breaking up with you and kind of having a meltdown about it. he doesn’t really lose his friends like i did tho he just runs away from his problems pfff

jake’s half-> the mental health struggles of feeling depressed (jake has it worse than i do bc i was never particularly actively suicidal—just like… i didn’t take care of myself at that time to the point of yknow shit i still struggle with now and that’s what rubbed off in the story as well) also the people pleasing to the point of self sabotage and the strained relationship with a parent (though for differing reasons than mine)

[maxwell-grant]

You have done an (excelent) post on how to reinvent Batman as a Pulp Hero. Do you think you could do one to Superman as well? Or do you think it is impossible to do this with the progenitor of the Super Hero genre without transforming him in a totaly diferent character?

Well, you saying it as impossible only makes it seem ever more tempting of a challenge, but yes, it is a bit harder. I'm gonna link my Batman post here as a reference point.

Partially because Batman's a franchise I've thought extensively about for a long time in regards to what I like about it or how I'd like to approach if given the opportunity, which is not something I can really say for Superman until more recently the Big Blue to start orbiting my brain. I don't have years worth of redesigns or fan concepts saved on my galleries and files to comb through to pick and choose here, and my experience with Superman as a character is considerably different, in some aspects more deeply personal, and not really something I'd like to go into in this blog, at least not now.

Part of the reason why it's harder is also because Batman and Superman have very different relationships with their pulp inspirations. Batman was, ostensibly, a pulp character adapted to comics, a dime-a-dozen Shadow knock-off who picked up and played up diverging traits from other characters and gradually ran with them to gradually forge a unique identity. Superman right from the start was rooted in a much stronger conceptual underpinning: the Sci-Fi Superman and Alien Menace who, instead of being a tragic monster or a tyrannical villain, becomes a costumed adventurer and social crusader. Even the name Super-Man was taken from an early story of Siegel and Shuster about a telepathic villain who ends the story lamenting that he should have used his powers for the good of mankind instead of selfishness. I hesitate to call what Siegel and Shuster were doing “subversive” because that term's picked up a real negative connotation, and it's not like Siegel and Shuster were out to upend their influences (they were pulp aficionados themselves), but rather putting a more positive, new spin on them.

Which is why it also becomes a bit harder to do what I did with Batman and align Superman with some of his pulp-esque inspirations, like John Carter, Flash Gordon or Hugo Danner, without just making it "Superman but he's John Carter", "Superman but it's Flash Gordon", and "Iron Munro / Superman but everything sucks" respectively. It's harder to create a character that wouldn't feel reduntant and derivative at best, and actively contradictory to Superman at worst.

I guess if I had to come up with a "Pulp Hero Superman" take I liked, well first of all I'd have to take steps to distance it from the likes of Tom Strong or Al Ewing's Doc Thunder, those two are as good as it gets in regards to Pulp Supermen. I stipulated for Batman a "No Guns, No Murder, No Service" policy partially to distance my takes on Batman from all the "Pulp Batmen" that just add guns and murder and take Batman back to the barest of basics. Likewise, I'm adding a "No Depowered Science Hero" rule here, which means it's a take that's likely going to veer off a lot more into fantasy and probably enough tampering with Clark's character that it does risk becoming a different character.

Frankly I don't think I'm gonna succeed at doing these without just making it a new character entirely, because with Batman you can get away with just upending the character's aesthetic and setting and even origin and still keep it recognizably Bruce Wayne (in fact Batman does that all the time), which isn't really the case with Superman, who needs those to remain recognizably Superman as he goes through internal changes and character shifts. I guess what I'm gonna do here is more taking the building blocks of Superman/Clark Kent and see a couple new ways I can rearrange them to create a Pulp Superman

Perhaps something we can do is to scale back or recontextualize the "superhero" parts without diminishing Superman's role as a superpowered fantasy character.

One way we can start is by picking on that connection between Superman and the sci-fi supermen/alien monsters of pulps I mentioned earlier and play it up further, to create a Superman who's deeply, deeply alien in a way that no mild-mannered disguise or colorful outfit can really disguise, something so dramatically powerful and alien, that instead you could get tales about the kinds of ensuing changes and ripple effects this has on the world upon the The Super-Man's arrival. And for that I'm gonna have to quote @davidmann95's concept for Joshua Viers' absolutely stunning Superman redesign on the left side of the image above

The red, the goldish-orange and white, the alienness, the angelic, sculpted feeling, the halo, that innocently curious expression: it’s genuinely beautiful. Superman as a redeeming science-angel from beyond our understanding, as much past the uncanny valley of limited human comprehension as a Lovecraftian monster but tuned to the opposite key - you could spend an endless procession of human lifetimes trying and failing to understand this being, but all you’ll ever know for sure is that it is beyond you, and it knows you, and it loves you.

Superdoomsday from Earth 45, healed and transformed into the savior it was originally envisioned as? Some descendant of his, or a future of the man himself? An alien who picked up on a broadcast of Superman from Earth, and so inspired reshaped itself in his image to spread his ‘gospel’ to the stars?

Alternatively, to come back to Earth a little, many, many pulp characters and series were built off the antics and personalities of real people, celebrities getting their own magazines or serials or fictionalized takes on them, so perhaps one way to make a "pulp" take on Superman would be to emphasize a bit more of Superman's real-world roots, trends that inspired his creation directly or indirectly at the time. The Jewish strongman Sigmund Breibart and Shuster's interest in fitness culture, Harold Lloyd's comic persona, the rising "strongman" film genre in the early 20th century, actors Clark Gable and Kent Taylor that supposedly named his secret identity, Clark Kent being a socially-awkward journalist based of Siegel's own school experiences.

Maybe one start to an authentic Pulp Superman, who would still be Superman, would be to just ask the question "What if Superman was a real person and/or a celebrity, and they started making pulp magazines and serials dedicated to him? What would those look like?". You wouldn't even have to restrict it to just a story set in the 1930s, in fact you could even play around with the rise of new mediums over the decades.

This third one is a little closer to some plans I have for my own take on a Superman character, not necessarily what I would do with Superman proper but one of my ideas for a Superman analogue. Superman's a character I'll always associate strongly with childhood and childhood fantasy, and to tap into that I would emphasize the other end of the fiction that influenced Siegel and Shuster: comic strips, in their case specifically Little Nemo and Popeye.

In my case I would bring additional influences from some of the comic strips I personally grew up reading like Monica's Gang and Calvin and Hobbes, and I already talked a bit about Captain Fray in terms of how he’s a Superman character despite being a villain. I guess you could call this one "What if Superman was a public domain comic strip character, stripped of the importance of being the founding figure of a super popular genre or extended universe, and also was kind of ugly?".

He's not "Sloth from the Goonies" ugly, I swear I didn't actually have Sloth in mind when typing out this idea, I've never watched that film nor did I know until now that he actually spends the film in a Superman shirt. That's not really what I'm going for. Visually I was thinking of modeling my take on Superman heavily after Hugo from Street Fighter and his inspiration Andre the Giant, to really emphasize the “circus strongman / freak wrestler” aspect of Superman’s inspiration, particularly in regards to how Hugo’s SFIII version strikes a really great balance in making Hugo ugly and both comedic and fearsome in battle, as well as lovable and even a little dopey (without being outright stupid, like his IV self) in his victory animations and endings.

He's still Superman, he still goes on fantastical adventures to help people, he's still a deeply loving and compassionate soul whose face beams with joy and affection and who's got wonderful eyes and a great smile. It's just that this smile has a couple of mismatched stick-out teeth or some missing ones, and he's got a crooked smile some people take as smug or malicious, he’s got a strongman’s gut instead of a bodybuilder’s abs, his nose is a little busted (maybe he’s had too many crash landings), and his hair is a little wild or greasy, and he doesn't exactly have very good people skills because of how others usually react to him and, y'know, he doesn't get the kind of publicity Superman would get despite doing ostensibly the same things. He’s not deformed, he’s incredibly intelligent and capable, but in comparison to how superheroes are usually allowed to look, he might as well be Bizarro in the public eye.

It becomes a running gag that people tend to assume some nearby fireman or cop was the one who rescued the hundred orphans out of a burning building single-handedly, meanwhile he's getting accosted off-panel by police officers who think he set the building on fire, or think they can bully this weird man dressed funny. He goes to rescue old people in peril and occasionally they yell at him that they don't have any money. He doesn't get asked to lead superhero meetings or teams even though many in the community advocate for just how much he does for the world, he gets censored out of tv broadcasts or group shots (even his face is sometimes pixelated when they do show him), people invite him on talk shows and don't really let him talk or assume they got the wrong guy. He goes to rescue a woman dangling off a building, and then he gets attacked by like three different superhero teams who assume he must have kidnapped the poor damsel. He was the first superhero, he is the strongest of them all still, but he never really gets credit for it, it nor does he even want to. None of this at all stops him or deters him, except for some occasionally funny reactions.

This never really changes for him, he doesn't really earn people's approval nor does he have to, instead the stories, outside of the gags and adventures you’d expect from a comic strip, veer more towards others learning to be less judgmental and him learning ways to better approach people. He isn't any lesser than Superman just because he doesn't look like most people would want him to look and he doesn't have to look like Superman. Really I think we could use more superheroes that don’t look all so uniformly pretty.

Again, probably not a take that would work for Clark proper, but it’s one way I would take a shot at doing Superman with my own

I have other stuff in the works for this character but I'd like to keep them to better work on them for now, but yeah, these are three of my shots at developing a Pulp Superman.

Alternatively here's a fourth idea that's more pulp than all of these: Join up Nicholas Cage with Panos Cosmatos again, or whatever weird indie director he decides to pair up with next, and let them do whatever the hell they want with Superman. Give us Mandy Superman. Superman vs The Color Out of Space. Superman vs Five Nights at Freddy's. Superman’s quest to find THE LAST PIG OF KRYPTON. Anything goes.

[deadpresidents]

Which President knew the most presidents, past and future?

I've always thought that the answer was clearly John Quincy Adams and that no other President came close because of the length of JQA's political career and the positions he held. But I wanted to be sure, so I actually did some research on this question and while the answer does seem to be John Quincy Adams, it's much closer than I thought between him and the runner-up, Herbert Hoover.

From the research I did, I'm pretty certain that John Quincy Adams met at least 14 Presidents: 1. George Washington 2. John Adams 3. Thomas Jefferson 4. James Madison 5. James Monroe 6. Andrew Jackson 7. Martin Van Buren 8. William Henry Harrison 9. John Tyler 10. James K. Polk 11. Millard Fillmore 12. Franklin Pierce 13. James Buchanan 14. Andrew Johnson That's basically ever President from the ratification of the Constitution and creation of the Presidency until the Civil War with two exceptions. I found no evidence that Adams ever met Zachary Taylor despite the fact that Taylor was a career soldier. Taylor actually visited Washington in 1826 when Adams was President, but President Adams and Vice President Calhoun were both out of town when Taylor visited. The other exception is actually more of a question mark. It's very possible that Adams met Abraham Lincoln, but there's no definitive evidence to prove it. Adams and Lincoln actually briefly served in the U.S. House of Representatives at the same time -- from March 4, 1847 until Adams's death on February 23, 1848. It's entirely possible -- and probably even likely -- that they crossed paths and met during that time. But there's no record of it. So, JQA met 14 Presidents for sure, and Lincoln was possibly number 15.

As for Herbert Hoover, I'm certain that he met 12 Presidents: 1. Benjamin Harrison 2. Theodore Roosevelt 3. William Howard Taft 4. Woodrow Wilson 5. Warren G. Harding 6. Calvin Coolidge 7. Franklin D. Roosevelt 8. Harry S. Truman 9. Dwight D. Eisenhower 10. John F. Kennedy 11. Lyndon B. Johnson 12. Richard Nixon It's possible that Hoover met Gerald Ford since Ford was a rising Republican leader in Congress during the last 15 years of Hoover's life and Hoover remained plugged into GOP politics for most of that time and continued making appearances at the Republican National Conventions until his last Convention speech in 1960. There's also a possibility that Hoover met Ronald Reagan since both were frequent attendees of the Bohemian Grove gatherings. I believe Hoover's last trip to Bohemian Grove was 1961, but I'm not sure if Reagan was there. I couldn't find any definitive evidence that Hoover did meet Ford or Reagan, but it's a possibility. So, Hoover definitely met 12 Presidents and is much closer to John Quincy Adams's number than I realized before doing some research.

Interestingly, there's someone else who is tied with John Quincy Adams and has met 14 American Presidents: Queen Elizabeth II!

The Queen's first meeting with a President was actually while she was still Princess Elizabeth. In 1951, Elizabeth and Prince Philip traveled to Washington, D.C. to represent the ailing King George VI, meeting with President Truman, and staying the night at Blair House where the Trumans were living while the White House was undergoing extensive renovations. While John Quincy Adams and Herbert Hoover's meetings with Presidents often took place before (and sometimes after) those people became President, Queen Elizabeth's meetings all took place with incumbent Presidents -- except for her meeting with Herbert Hoover which took place in 1957, nearly 25 years after Hoover left the White House. Lyndon Johnson is the only President during Elizabeth's reign that the Queen never met. The 14 Presidents that Queen Elizabeth II met were: 1. Harry S. Truman 2. Herbert Hoover 3. Dwight D. Eisenhower 4. John F. Kennedy 5. Richard Nixon (the Queen met Nixon in 1957 when he was Vice President but met with him against in 1969 when he was the incumbent President) 6. Gerald Ford 7. Jimmy Carter 8. Ronald Reagan 9. George H.W. Bush 10. Bill Clinton 11. George W. Bush 12. Barack Obama 13. Donald Trump 14. Joe Biden

[the-shiftshop]

With The Right Tools

Today is the day I, Calvin Gander, have finally gained my motivation to make art. I’ve been stranded in this quarantine for too long that I already did everything that I can think of in my house. I’ve been wanting to make sculptures again ever since I saw tons of available limestones in my garage, but I couldn’t find my old tools so I decided to buy online. I found came across these carving tools from a shop that sells a variety of products ranging from clothes to gadgets, and they even sell food online, although it seems like nobody had came across with this store yet and I couldn’t see any reviews. But anyway, I bought them and they just came in the mail today.

Without hesitation and in pure excitement, I ran to my art studio where I have already moved my limestones to. Removing the packaging, I was surprised to see that it came with its own toolbox, a wooden box generously detailed with fantasy-like carvings that are shaped like vines, dried land, and small silhouette of men. I opened the toolbox, pulled the tools out and immediately went to work.

I used the hammer and chisel to chip off the limestone to form a shape. I have already planned out what I will be making starting today. I wanted to challenge myself in making a detailed sculpture of a man.

Throughout the whole day, I formed the limestone to a specific pose. Surprisingly, it went much easier than I expected. The tools were good in making  specific grooves and curves. Although my project still looks rough, I was able to make the specific pose that I want. All I need now is to put on the details. Most of the time when I make sculptures, it would take me a week to finish, but doing this project has been somewhat easier, having that I haven’t done something this big before. I have done the pose in just one whole day. It’s probably my artistic side kicking in, or maybe because I was just super bored, but I guess I might need to rest for a bit as well.

I left the sculpture and called it a day, but I quickly went back to work immediately as soon as I woke up. I used the smaller tools to create noticeable and very accurate details on my sculpture. I gave my sculpture a ripped musculature. It’s privates were a tucked between its legs because of the pose, but I also focused on giving it very realistic features. On its face, I made it looks like he’s breathing in air though his nose with his eyes closed and his head falling back I added bulging lines on my sculpture to give his some realistic veins, then finally I smoothen the sculpture out and finally finished my project in just a day and a half.

I took a look at my creation. Satisfied. I felt so proud that I have created this masterpiece. I never had made art this detailed. The tools really is high quality. It almost seemed like the tools had a mind of their own. I might need to give the store a great review.

As soon as I turn around to get my phone, I heard a loud crack. I rushed back to my sculpture to check where it came from. I noticed a large crack forming on its cheeks.

“Oh no!” I rambled. I touched the crack in panic, only to cause it to spread.

A chip of limestone fell off and revealed a pale, flesh-like texture inside. Is that... skin?

The cracks grew bigger and they appeared in almost every part of the sculpture, on its legs, torso, and arms, before finally covering the whole thing. The limestone gave off and all fell out, but instead of my sculpture just disappearing into crumbs, like a skin of a snake, it revealed something else inside.

“Holy... shit...” I whispered under my breath. That’s a man. A real man inside my sculpture. I moved closer to it but with extreme caution. He’s breathing. I can see his chest move in every intake of air. Like my sculpture his eyes were closed, smiling as he bask under the light entering my open studio. I moved closer and his head moved forward to face me. His eyes opened and looked at me. He lowered his legs and sat on the podium properly. I got a glimpse of his flaccid shaft and hefty balls.

“Bath” He said, in a low but monotonous tone despite him smiling.

“Huh?” I stared in confusion.

He stood up in front of me, he was struggling to stand up so I took a hold of his body. He was heavy. He was also covered in powder which made my feel somewhat dry, but damn, have I never been this close to a naked man.

“Bath” He repeated as he try to take a step forward.

“Oh.” I guided him to the bathroom in my bedroom. I did all my best to not stare at his swinging package. When we arrived, I let him go in, but he didn’t budge.

“Come” He said, pulling me with him to the bathroom.

“N-No, I don’t..”

“Help.” He said, I sighed.

I went in the bathroom with him. I let him sat down on the toilet bowl for a while. I opened the shower and tested the water, but when I asked him to get in, he pointed on the bathtub. I once again sighed and turned the shower off. I started filling up the tub with water. The room was filled with nothing but the sound of gushing water on the tub. We were silent, but he was obviously staring at me. When I looked back, he pointed to me.

“Name?” He asked.

“Calvin.” I said, moving my eye away.

“Calvin...” He went quiet for a while, then he pointed at himself. “Name?” He asked again.

“You?” I asked.

“Yu?” He said, confused.

“No, you.” I explained, pointing at him, then went quiet when I realized that this was somewhat similar to that movie. “Oh. You want me to give you a name?”. He nodded.

“No. I’m not calling you Yu. I think Shawn is better.”

“Shawn...” He went quiet again.

The tub was finally full and he immediately stood up. I caught him in my arms before he accidentally take a fall, guided him to the tub and slowly help him sink into the water.

“Help” He said.

I lifted his head and help him position himself sitting on the tub. He wasn’t really moving that much in the bath. He was just staring at me, looking like he’s waiting for me to do something.

“Help” He repeated.

I stared at him in confusion, then I got what I meant.

“N-No! I’m not gonna bathe you-”

He grabbed my arm. He was strong, but after that strong grip, he carefully moved my hand into the water.

“Bathe” He said.

I had no choice. I poured out water on him with my hands, then rubbing the powder off his body. I was touching a stranger’s naked body. More importantly, I’m giving him a bath! I continued though, washing off powders off his head and shoulders. My hand went down to his thighs, carefully avoiding his shaft. Although submerged in water, I still had to rub off the powder on his skin. I also went in between his toes, then back to his upper body. I washed away the powder on his back, feeling his heavy breaths. I grabbed his hand and guided it to his crotch.

“You clean that.” I said, he followed.

After staring at him innocently rub his shaft and balls, I tried to get it off my system by patting  his shoulder.

“You’re done.” I said. He looked back at me.

“Done.” He followed.

I drained the water before helping him carefully stand up, making sure he wont slip. I helped him step out the tub and gave him a towel. Without letting him ask for help once more, I already started drying him off. I moved away and stared at his body.

Fuck, I’m getting a hard on just by looking at him. He was once just a lifeless sculpture, now he’s a real human, naked in my house, asked for me to bathe him, and now...

I walked out the bathroom. I need to calm down. I shouldn’t be overthinking these things. I might be dreaming right now. Come to think of it I just realized that maybe I was dreaming. This must be a dream for sure, but I really need to wake up by now.

Cutting me out of my thoughts, I felt two cold arms wrap around my hips then to my chest. 

“Thankful.” He whispered.

My cheeks are burning. My cock is hard. My heart is beating too fast and I don’t know what to do but to moan. His hug went tighter.

“Reward.” He said as I feel his hand move down to grab my hard on. He was licking my neck now. My legs almost gave up as I feel the extreme pleasure go through all parts of my body.

“Shawn- S-Stop.” I said.

He really did stop, he was stuck holding my bulge and his tongue out, touching my neck.

“Let me go!” I said.

He followed, standing straight behind my back. I moved away from him and stared at him from a short distance. He’s frowning like a kid, as if he did something bad to his parents. I popped my tongue and looked at him annoyed.

“Fine. Come here and touch me again.”

His eyes lit up and walked close to my once more. His hands moved inside my shirt with his tongue licking my neck once more.

“Wait!” I commanded. He moved away from me and looked at me. “Let’s take it slower, okay?” I said.

“Slower...” He processed, then went full slow-motion in moving his arms around my body.

I laughed. “No, not like that.” I made him stop again. “Let me do the moves, okay?”

“Okay” He said.

“First, let’s sit down on my bed.” I guided him on my bed. We sat down beside each other. “Look at me.” He followed.

I moved my face near his, still hesitating for a bit, but that didn’t last long as I dive in. I my left hand moved to the back of his head and I pulled him in for a kiss. He followed suit and opened his mouth for me and out tongues touched. My right hand moved up to meet his chest. Pinching his nipples time to time. He gave me satisfying moans whenever I do this. My right hand moved down and I felt his cock rising. I grabbed on it and started stroking him. I broke the kiss for a while and looked at his face as he moan.

“You might want to remove my clothes.” I said.

“Clothes.” He reached both of his hands to my shirt and removed them. I let go of his cock first to help him, then I went back to it. He started copying me. He touched my chest, massaging them well, then had his other hand down to my bulge. I removed my hands from him and undid my shorts, pulling them off both my legs.

I pulled him on top of me. Both of my hands on his butt, guiding him to grind his cock against mine through my underpants. He continued it by himself as I place both of my hands on his face to pull him in for a kiss once more. I removed my underpants and let my cock out. I guided his his butt above my waiting shaft, then finally I pushed in.

He didn’t flinch. Instead, he gave me a long satisfying moan. He broke our kiss and straightened his back. He pushed himself down to my cock and did the rest himself. I stroked his cock as he bounce up and down, teasing the tip of his cock with its own precum. He already had released a lot and its coating the head of his cock. We switched positions. He’s now lying on his back while I do the work on fucking his ass. I moved faster as I feel myself reach my climax.

“A-Ah, Shawn. I’m gonna cum!”

“Cum...”

I grunted and moaned as loud as I can and Shawn followed suit as we finally came together. He blew his huge load on his torso, then slowly it came to stop when it nearly coated all of it. I pulled out and lied down beside him.

“Thankful” He said.

“Me too.” I replied then went in for a kiss.

[autismlou]

the neurodivergent nightmare: RUBY SPARKS (2012)

TW! mention of abuse

,,have you seen my other shoe? i`m always losing things“ -ruby

after 10 years i found my way back to ruby sparks, written by lead actress zoe kazan.

this movie placed itself in my subconscious and didn’t fail to remind me of it every 5 years in very cryptic ways. i start remembering a tenseness, hiding behind a glowy haze, maybe even milliseconds of a scene. but rarely enough for me to jump in the euphoria of remembering something u tried hard not to forget.

that changed yesterday.

while watching a youtube video from maia c. ,,how the Manic Pixie Dream Girl romanticizes mental illness, quirky or autistic?``, the background visuals showed zoe kazan in the role of ruby. i instantly felt the familiar tenseness but also a wave of glowy, hazy memories of this movie. as it turns out i really loved it as a kid and watched it multiple times.

that i couldn’t quite comprehend everything, shouldn’t be a surprise for everyone who knows this film already.

,,why do you look at me like that?´´-ruby

summary:

calvin is 29 years old and a famous writer with his first bestseller gaining popularity when he was only 19 years old.

you can tell that he feels disconnected, even though he attends therapy sessions regularly.

he doesn’t really speak about his internal world neither intellectually or emotionally, he just exists in his luxurious but sparsely decorated home with his dog scotty. but not even scotty gained the role of calvin’s best friend. nobody has.

isolated and alone, calvin also lacks the creativity to start writing again, until he one night randomly starts dreaming about a mysterious but intriguing women. this sparks (lol) a creative flow and he starts writing her into existence night and day, literally.

the imaginary women, ruby sparks, one morning stands in calvin’s house, fully realized and whole.

this twist of events scares calvin and he freaks out but starts realizing that ruby now isn’t only a product of his imagination.

she is a sentient human being. he falls in love, hard.

calvin experiences emotions in ways he cant really comprehend, but he is happy. they are happy.

until ruby´s antics and quirks start to hinder calvin’s day to day life. he gets annoyed by her singing uncontrollably, by her joy over small things. he gets annoyed by the traits that he doesn’t share with her up until the point where ruby was ready to leave.

and even though calvin told his brother, after ruby’s appearance that he will never write about her again, he does and changes her. again and again, until he realizes that she isn’t herself anymore, which he also doesn’t like.

so he changes her back to default ruby but therefore, all their struggles come back with the original version of her.

calvin is disconnected from his own creation, even though he can change everything about her. this sends him spiraling in the last big fight they get in. this results in him showing ruby the manuscript that ´´birthed``her.

ruby is in absolut distress the whole fight but also can’t believe what calvin is telling her so he starts writing in her presence.

he makes her unable to leave the room, talk french, act like a dog, sing and strip for him until she is made to tell him that he is a genius while uncontrollably jumping up and down. it seems like calvin snaps and makes her tell him that she loves him and will never leave , while banging on the wall,sobbing. he makes her stop. she falls exhausted to the ground, panting.

as he tries to touch her she runs into another room and locks herself in.

calvin sits back down and starts completing the story of ruby sparks.-

,,as soon as ruby left the house, the past released her. she was no longer calvin’s creation. from that moment on, only ruby could determine the course of her life. she was free.´

´-calvin

this sadly isn’t the end of the movie, but i wont talk about it right now. such quirk and fun🤡

pt.1: the idea

i liked this movie a lot when i was a child, as previously mentioned. so after regaining memory of this film and hectically looking for a website where i can stream it, i was in utter shock when it came to an end.

the idea of creating something/someone out of your brain is truly fascinating, and it always was to me. my brain is a chaotic place filled with characters, memory’s and things that could never be and that always was my reality. nobody could ever relate to my experiences and what went on in my brain, and it was the same way around. the only thing i could relate to with neurotypicals was and is, trauma. it has been lonely, but never really hindert me in trying anyway. mostly because i didn’t know about my neurodiversity until my 21 year of life.

still, media that depicted neurodiveristy always had a special place in my heart, and know i understand why. just like this movie. but i would never recommend anyone watching it without knowing what is actually going on, which is fucking hard because nobody on set knew themselves.

that’s why i have tumblr now for the first time. that’s why im here. so lets get fucking stared!

pt.2: the behind the scenes

,,how do you know he’s one of the greatest novelists who ever lived? have you read every novel ever written?´´-ruby

the problem is very easy to find, but probably because we neurodiverse peeps are pretty good problem solvers. we know how to view things rationally and solve them. because most things are pretty simple if you look at them rationally, but everybody struggles with this of course. but neurotypicals struggle with it way more. we on the contrary lean to struggle with the many emotional aspects a nt´s brain uses to get to their own conclusion.

because i know this, i can understand how this movie came to be. even though its pretty fucking insane to me still.

so, now that we found each other here, im going to start with a few comments from zoe kazan herself.

she tells us in an casual interview on the searchlight pictures youtube channel from 10 years ago (and i´m paraphrasing here):

that the trope of the manic pixie dream girl is just the idea of a girl and nothing more. a idea of someone can’t be real. that’s why she tells the interviewer that she thinks its a demeaning way to characterize ruby, because she is a fully fleshed role. she in generell critiques the MPDG but not in this film.

in an interview on the rotten tomatoes coming soon youtube channel, she told the interviewer (paraphrasing again):

zoe wanted to tell the dangers of having an idea of a person and holding them to that. that reducing someone like that is an own form of violence.

all of this is true, sadly. you can see these narratives in the movie. still, im telling you not watch it. why?

it’s insensitive and fucking clueless.

zoe tells us that ruby is a fully fleshed character, which is true. i actually really saw myself in her. i know the highs and lows of being different, and ruby did too. but that’s all she was, different. even though her difference was a clear depiction of autism.

pt.3: the problem

,, That’s a lot of pressure.´´-ruby

the problem with this is so apparent. at least it should be. but it clearly wasn’t.

ruby sparks could have been the perfect metaphor for the abuse of neurodiverse women in relationships. im not sure if this is a surprise for you.

calvin is a fucking villain.

i dont want to be insensitive. i know that this could be seen as polarising, if anybody cares or even finds this.

as a fellow autistic its hard for me not to think in black and white, because nearly everything could be that simple if people just were honest with each other and themselves.

and i think, if we really going to be honest here (which im almost always), we can say that categorizing this movie as comedy and romance is fucking twistet.

i never remembered this movie as being funny or romantic. it was ominous and still is. u are watching the creation and breaking of a neurodiverse women and its heartbreaking.

calvin is 29 years old, white, abled bodied, cis men and comes from a wealthy background. he accumulated wealth of his own in the past 10 years. he is in therapy. he even has a dog. calvin has everything right at his fingertips. but he isn’t happy. he carry’s himself like a wet grey sock. no hobby’s. no happiness. also a dead dad but we never really explore if he was close to him, he isn’t really close to his mom neither.

this is our protagonist. a basic bitch. there is no way i could feel bad for him. everything he could need to change his life or at least his outlook on it are already a part of his life. of course he is afraid of people just wanting to be with him because of his fame but he never even takes the leap. i understand social distress and and how scary it is to meet new people. i mean duh. but i can’t really change anything about it. he could, but won’t. he lurks in the shadow of his own success and isolates himself, but keeps feeling miserable. calvin all in all is a pathetic excuse of a human and the reason why i don’t like men.

then we have ruby. a spunky artist that is confident in herself and her abilities. a person that would rather risk sounding crazy then silencing herself. she sings and dances and just radiates live when she is happy. she is unapologetically herself. wearing a bright red dress with purple tights and green shoes. who wants to and convince me ruby is a neurotypical hmm? nobody could. but she also feels the pressure of calvin relying on her to keep him happy. she can define that her melancholy stems from her being lonely, from her not being able to do what she loves.

zoe is right when she tells us ruby is a full human even though she was the miracle in this film. calvin was just the idea of a depressed intellectual that can’t find connection in the regular, in the unspectacular. that’s why ruby was so different. so that she could carry him on her cloud of special.

and even though zoe herself said that reducing people is violent, why didn’t calvin suffer like ruby? calvin just regularly got critiqued for his lone wolf attitude.

calvin just was in the privileged position to shrug it off because he believed that he was smart enough to realize his flaws if he had them. in his eyes all his problem stemmed from not being in a relationship. but then when he was in one with ruby, all his flaws lead to them being incompatible because he wouldn’t recognize them. so he found all the flaws in ruby just being different.

i hope everybody can get on what im critiquing here.

calvin, the creator, was even less of a character than the one he literally wrote into existence. he created a person that was in her way of creating a fulfilled live and as soon as he realized that she didn´t need him for it, he got scared. and isn’t that just pathetic? he couldn’t keep up so he changed her and made her miserable.

but the clinging, her being emotional and dependent on him, was too much. so he changed her again…..

so now….. how do we feel seeing a perfectly fine character getting changed in their core because their partner isn’t satisfied…. what does that sound like to you ?

pt.4:the end

,,have you read it?´´-ruby

- calvin releases a new book about his incredible experience with ruby. she now is gone and he hopes that she won’t read it. the only thing that she took with her after the fight, except her own clothes was a ´i love you´ note he had left for her.

in the end calvin goes on a walk with scotty and they meet ruby, laying on a blanket in a park.

reading his new book. she does not remember him even though she feels a familiarity. they start talking and the movie ends with ruby and calving looking each other lovingly in the eyes.

WTF!!!! when i tell you that my heart dropped. i sincerely hoped until this last part that the genre listing for this movie was just wrong. but it really was meant to be a romcom , and i literally felt sick to my stomach.

he got a happy ending. why??

my immediate thought was : ,,why in hell, was it ruby?? couldn’t it just have been some random new woman??´´ just imagine, he meets a new woman. this could be such a good way of showing that he in the end still had a great enough time with no big need of recovery. you see calvin crying only on the night ruby left. than he starts writing, running, cooking. its like he himself starts a new life and works on his flaws.

mind you, after he broke ruby.

what does that tell us? ruby got emotionally abused out by this person, just so that he can transition into an adult that’s MAYBE more in touch with his emotions. for the first time at 29. and stills gets the girl. again.

and the way that the absolutely traumatizing scene where calvin made ruby do what he wanted, never got spoken of again. as if a men making a women do absolutely everything he wants while she clearly does not want to do it. bending and breaking into the molds that he creates for her isn’t fucking scary, should never happen. still, i relate to that. this kind of abuse happened to me.

i was 15 years old and my boyfriend of the time who always has been 2 years older , manipulated me right from the start so i could be whatever he wanted me to be. for 1 1/2 years. this was 2016 and i didnt realize until 2021.

i got tought that i have to be exactly the way everyone wants me to be. so did ruby. they can tell that u wont leave, they can tell that you would do everything to do your one big love right. ruby didn’t had another choice, but neither did i. because nobody ever told me. i had to crack, bend and break more than ones in this relationship before just being so done that you have no other option then leave. but ruby never really did. she still owns that note even though she doesn’t have all the memory’s.

i don´t have all the memory’s, i don’t want them but i will forever know that in this time of my young life, i was used miserable. and maybe its good that ruby does not remember, but he does. and he still longs for her to kiss him again. maybe my abuser also longs for me, the perfect girlfriend, to be back in his life. but thankfully we are not the protagonists of this severely and sadly misguided movie.

in the end calvin gets a happy end with the literal girl of his dreams, even though he is the only one remembering every detail, it wasn’t his trauma. and that makes him the winner either way…

did you like it?-ruby and me

[historymeetsliterature]

April 13, 1598 - édit de Nantes

On this day, April 13th, in 1598, the Edict of Nantes (édit de Nantes) was signed by king Henry IV of France. In this edict, Henry granted the French Calvinist Protestants, know as Huguenots, substantial religious liberty. Meanwhile, Henry IV converted from Huguenot Calvinism to Roman Catholicism. This edict came to be after a long and violent period in French history. (Want to read more? Natalie Zemon Davis, ‘The Rites of Violence: Religious Riot in Sixteenth-Century France’, Past & Present (59), 1973, 51-91.) This edict stems in a longer history of religious edicts, for example the earlier Edict of St. Germain, promulgated by Chatherine de Médici, that granted limited tolerance to Huguenots and the Pacification Edicts during the reign of Charles IX. (Want to read more? Jérémie Foa, ‘Making Peace: The Commissions for Enforcing the Pacification Edicts in the Reign of Charles IX (1560-1574)’, French History 18 (2004), 256-274.) The Edict of Nantes would be revoked by the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1658, during the reign of Henry IV's grandson Louis XIV.

Religious war and peace in early modern Europe is one of the most difficult, but interesting subject in history. People often think that the story of religious wars serves as a kind of creation myth for the modern state; claiming that religion was just an excuse in the forming of modern states. This idea ignores the importance of understanding the religious dimensions of early modern Europe's wars. Religious motivations should be understood not as independent variables, but rather as catalysts that could exacerbate already existing tensions. (Want to read more? Barbara Diefendorf, Were the Wars of Religion about Religion?, Political Theology (2014), 15:6, 552-563.)

Religious war and peace might not be the most happy thing to learn about, so I looked for a more happy note. There are examples for religious coexistence in a confessional world, like the township of St Maria-Horebeke, in what is now Belgium. Here you see a picture of the 'new' Protestant (Reformed) Church in St. Maria-Horebeke, built in the 1870's to replace the older 'hidden' church behind it. (Want to read more? Wayne Te Brake, ‘Emblems of Coexistence in a Confessional World’, C. Scott Dixon, Dagmar Freist and Mark Greengrass (ed.), Living with Religious Diversity in Early Modern Europe, Ashgate, 2009, 53-79.)