#everything was very explicitly stated and it spent a lot of time establishing things that... didn't need establishing for an adult

[mikimeiko]

The Sea Beast (Chris Williams, 2022)

[donghyuckcuyhgnod]

ADVENTURE.

boyfriend!park jisung x afab!reader

18+ ONLY — MINORS DNI

genre » smut, fluff

warnings » fem bodied reader (no pronouns mentioned!), established relationship, swearing, inexperienced jisung, implied experienced reader (but not explicitly stated), service top jisung, corruption, use of petnames, praising, dirty talk, brief mommy kink moment, oral sex (fem receiving), finger sucking, fingering, overstimulation, edging (accidental), multiple orgasms, hair pulling, squirting—jisung is practically pussy crazy, and it’s kinda filthy.

wc » 3.8k

a/n » hello, readers! i finally feel comfortable writing smut for jisung!! if you are not comfortable reading, that’s completely understandable! however, please refrain from making any unnecessary comments. just don’t interact. anyways ~ this is probably the filthiest thing i've ever written, so read with caution. i hope the readers enjoy, and happy (belated) birthday, our dear jisung <3

“okay, jisung. i have one more gift for you,” you say, turning away from the television to speak to him. with the ghost of a smile on his lips, he mumbles a bewildered “for real?”

in jisung’s opinion, you have absolutely spoiled him for his birthday, way more than he ever anticipated. it started when you made him breakfast in bed, ready for him as soon as he woke up. the waffles were so delicious, and jisung thought that alone was his gift. but after a day filled with expensive activities and costly souvenirs of your day trip—all paid for, by you—jisung realized that he was practically being pampered.

in your defense, it’s jisung’s first birthday with you as a couple. sure, you‘ve gotten him birthday gifts in the past, but you were just friends back then. it was different this time around, and you wanted to show him how great of a year it’s been, spent with him.

“what. . . what is it?” he carefully asks, feeling a bit bashful after reminiscing on how much you truly spoiled him today. your eyes light up in excitement at his question, eager to tell him what you have in mind.

“you recently told me that you wanted to start being more adventurous, right? well, i figured we could do something adventurous together! something neither of us have done before. like. . . climbing a mountain, or something! or skydiving, maybe? anything you want, let’s do it!” there’s a spark of mischief in your eyes, ready to take on whatever it was jisung wants to cross off his bucket list.

at first, jisung was starting to get excited at your proposition. but after the mention of climbing mountains and sky diving, jisung realized something. you had completely misunderstood him a few weeks ago, that’s obvious in his mind. of course, he vividly remembers saying those words to you, “i think it’s time we start being more adventurous together.” but he realizes now that maybe he should’ve been a bit more clear. although, saying those words just seconds after sucking on your nipples seemed to have given better context in jisung’s mind.

jisung was very inexperienced in the sex department, so taking it slow seemed only natural. he was the one who made this clear at the beginning of your relationship—so he doesn’t necessarily blame you for taking his words the way you did, for the two of you have been going on more hikes (and bike rides with jeno). but. . .you know what else you’ve been doing a lot lately, too? making out, with the occasional soft touches; and of course, those two times that jisung was given the honor of having your boobs in his mouth.

jisung is snapped out of his thoughts as soon as your dejected voice reaches his ears. “whatever it is, do you not want to do it with me?” jisung assumes that his prolonged silence was, once again, misunderstood by you. he quickly shakes his head, his eyes wide as he assures you, that is definitely not the case.

really, it’s quite the opposite—everything that jisung wants to do involves only you. you are the only one he wants to be adventurous with, and you’re the only person that’s ever made him feel this way. it’s a new feeling, and even after nearly a year of being with you, he’s still not used to it.

“i do have one thing in mind, but it’s. . .” you begin to notice how nervous your boyfriend looks. you furrow your eyebrows, patiently waiting for him to finish his thoughts.

“well. . . it’s not that sort of adventurous. . .” jisung says, scratching the spot behind his neck out of nerves. he’s having some trouble elaborating any further than that, and the confused look on your face only makes him feel worse. is this a bad idea?

“what did you mean, then—?” suddenly, an image pops into your head. the moment he made that statement, just weeks ago; his glossy, doe eyes looking at you. panting, hands gripping your sides, lips swollen and pink from mouthing at your chest, hair a tousled mess due to your own hands.

“—oh. . .” you mentally slap yourself on the forehead. how could i not understand such a clear sign!?

jisung realizes that you caught on to his original thoughts, and his cheeks instantly flame a burning red. it’s silent for a minute, the realization still processing in your head. and jisung, well—at this very moment? he wants to run away and never look back.

“okay. so, what adventure are we going on for your final birthday gift?” you speak casually, as if your boyfriend wasn’t dying of embarrassment just an arms length away. your body shifts towards him on the couch, his eyes wide as he looks at you.

now, jisung is the one confused. really, he can’t tell. why are you so calm right now? are you asking that question in a sexual way, or. . . are you asking it as the original and just trying to change the subject to something that’s not sexual at all? shit, i’m rambling in my own mind. but before he can even knock himself out of it, you notice his inner monologue and decide to help him out.

“we can do anything you want, baby,” you lower your voice to a sultry tone, luring your boyfriend in like a kid in a candy store. he just can’t resist. the smirk on your face, the gaze you hold and the tone of voice you use—it tells jisung exactly what he needs to hear.

brirelfy, he thinks back to the times he was able to taste your skin, past your neck. the pretty faces and sexy sounds you made in reaction just made you taste so good. and truthfully, he can’t help but wonder—

“can i eat you out?” how good your pussy tastes.

at first, your eyes widen at his bold question. but once you register his blushing cheeks and nervous stutter, you break out into a cocky grin. almost immediately, you lean back on the armrest of the couch. you hook your fingers under your pants and panties, slowly pulling them from your body. you exaggerate the wiggling of your hips as you pull them off, purely for your boyfriend’s entertainment. which he seems to enjoy based on the way he clears his throat and quickly averts his eyes; the ghost of a shy smile forming on his lips.

another second passes, and jisung hears the discarded clothing hit the floor. he wants to look so badly, but his nerves are holding him back. he’s never done this before, and you’re just so perfect that he can’t help but feel a bit nervous (in a good, exciting way).

“sungie, are you ready for your final gift?” you say sweetly, gaining jisung’s attention as he finally makes eye contact with you. swallowing the lump in his throat, he begins to nod, breath quickening in anticipation. with your knees bent to your chest, you slowly part your legs, keeping your eyes locked on jisung. the way his mouth parts in shock, eyes zeroed in on your pussy makes you clench around nothing. “so pretty,” he whispers. wasting no time, he brings himself down on his stomach, face between your legs.

despite his red cheeks and shaking hands that grip your thighs, jisung seems more than eager to dig in. he looks at you with glossy eyes, “i don’t know how to do this. will you teach me?”

the question makes your heart flutter, a joyful smile playing on your lips as you reach down and rub his cheek. “of course i will, baby. just do what you think will make me feel good, and i’ll guide you from there. sound good?” you part your legs just a little wider, inviting him even closer to your body. jisung nods, diverting his attention from your eyes to your pretty pussy.

he releases a breath of preparation, his hands gripping you even tighter as he leaves a loving kiss on your inner thigh. although a little unsure of himself, he licks a long stripe up your core and between your folds. his tongue just barely brushes your clit, and a shiver runs up your spine, your body sensitive to his touch.

he marvels at the taste of you, already wanting more. he prods his tongue near your entrance, lapping up the arousal that’s practically dripping out of you by now. the boy between your legs closes his eyes in bliss, sucking up your juices like a starved man as a satisfied moan is muffled against your heat.

the feeling of his tongue against your entrance makes you impossibly horny, his hot breath fanning against your skin. his nose lightly nudges your clit, and you’re quickly reminded of the most sensitive part on your body.

“jisung, fuck—lick my clit, baby,” you say, watching closely as he obediently begins to lightly tongue your clit. you gasp at the feeling, a quiet moan escaping your lips. in all honesty, you didn’t expect him to know where the clit is. but nonetheless, he continuously proves himself to be full of surprises (he also may have done some factual research on the female body, but no one needs to know that).

he pulls away for just a second to meekly ask, “am i doing okay?” however, he’s immediately back on your clit, loving the way you feel on his tongue. you respond with a groan, nodding your head with a hum of approval. you close your eyes, sighing in ecstasy as jisung does as he’s told. your small moans encourage him to experiment more, lapping his tongue on your bundle of nerves at a faster pace.

with this new pace, your mouth opens wide and your head falls back against the armrest. “oh, my god. you’re a quick learner, baby boy.” your hands clutch his arms that are wrapped around your thighs, spread wide open for the boy between them. god, he feels so good. who knew that jisung, your inexperienced, shy, innocent baby boy had this in him? he listens to your body and your praises so well, letting your small reactions guide him on how to please you.

“you’re doing so good for me, baby. making me feel s’good.” afterall, it isn’t long before he has you moaning. going from prodding at your entrance and licking up all your juices to sucking on your clit just the way you love, he’s quickly catching on. practically making out with your pussy, watching you with curious, lust-filled eyes from between your legs.

jisung is moaning nearly just as much as you, the sight above him so incredibly hot, it has him grinding his hips into the couch. the vibrations send you into a frenzy, a particularly hard suck on your clit causing your back to arch and a loud, breathless moan slips past your lips.

“fuck, jisung! just like that,” you moan out, jisung’s grip on your thighs tightening as he continues his ministrations. you curse, warning him of your oncoming orgasm. and in no time, you’re cumming on his tongue with a loud moan, your hands gripping his hair. jisung begins to slow his movements, letting you come down from your high before he pulls away and looks at you.

his eyes are wide with lust, cheeks a rosy red, his mouth and chin covered in your cum. marks on your thighs from his grip, chest heaving up and down. your hands, their hold now loosened from his hair, pull him up just inches from your face. you smile at him, giving him a sweet kiss, tasting your own essence on his lips. you slide your tongue into his mouth, messily making out with him, and jisung thinks he could cum in his pants right now. it can’t get better than this.

“finger me, sungie.” well, maybe it can.

jisung nods without a second thought, “h—how?” he asks curiously, his lips in a pout as he pulls away from another kiss. you smile at his need to please, letting out a breath of relief as his fingers make contact with your clit. you’re simply baffled at jisung and how attentive he’s being to your pleasure. it excites you, really. with a little practice, jisung would surely be the death of you.

you take his hand in yours, bringing it up to your mouth and wrapping your lips around his middle and ring finger. without breaking eye contact, you slowly suck on his digits. jisung gulps, eyes watching intently as you moan around his skin. “use these two fingers, m’kay?” you say, and then explaining further how your boyfriend can make you cum again.

following your orders like an obedient little puppy, his long fingers covered in your spit slowly move down, feeling how wet you really are. jisung releases a deep, gutteral groan when he looks down at his hand covered in your cum, a mixture of his and your spit coating his digits. your core clenches around nothing as the tips of his fingers prod at your entrance. you’re so desperate to feel his touch that you can’t seem to stop your hips from lifting off the couch, closer to his body.

you’re absolutely elated when you finally feel his fingers slip through your entrance, gliding past your walls as he feels around for that spot you just told him about, moments ago. the deeper he gets, the more speechless you become. nothing has ever felt this good in your pussy, and these are just his fingers. you can’t even begin to imagine how good his—

a gasp leaves your lips as he finds your sweet spot. he immediately gets the hint, massaging your pulsating walls as he slowly loosens you up. you’re so wet that jisung barely needs to give you any preparation, immediately picking up his pace. he’s completely entranced by the way your walls suck his fingers in, your pussy absolutely drenched and dripping with your arousal. you whine and moan beneath him, turning your boyfriend on to the max as he watches you. one hand around his shoulders, the other on his flushed cheek.

“yes, baby! just like that,” you encourage him, using his lips as a distraction from how embarrassingly fast you’re approaching a second orgasm. you kiss him with fervor, his pace quickening. you can feel your arousal spilling past his fingers; you can hear the squelching of your walls. jisung pleasuring you so well, it’s as if he already knows exactly what your body likes, what it needs.

your legs begin to tremble, thighs automatically squeezing together around his arm as you near the brink of another orgasm. this one feels more intense than the first, his fingers hitting you so deep and so hard that it has you moaning loud and unhinged.

“finger fuck me just like that, jisung. don’t fucking stop, you’re gonna make me cum again,” you squeal, jisung’s eyes widening at your dirty words. he’s impossibly hard by now, desperate to see and feel you cum on his fingers. you do so with a loud curse, moaning in jisung’s ear like a pornstar. your walls tighten around his fingers, the squelching sounds of your cum getting even louder.

jisung is so mesmerized by your pussy that he barely seems to register your orgasm. his fingers continue at a relentless pace, addicted to the sound and feel of you. you look so pretty like this, and jisung feels so overwhelmed with the need to make you feel as good as he can.

you cry in a pained pleasure at the overstimulation, bucking your hips into his hand as you tightly grip his wrist. you chant his name like a mantra, and jisung is drunk on the sight of you. he still doesn’t let up, continuing his ministrations with glossy, lust-filled eyes. even after your orgasm, jisung is simply lost in his own world, paying close attention to your aching core that’s locked tight around his slender digits.

he leans down much to your surprise, attaching his lips to your clit in the same way he learned in round one. the added stimulation makes your mind fuzzy, and now you’re telling him to add another finger, baby. jisung listens well, adding a third finger while keeping his pace.

your hand flies to his head, tugging on his hair so hard it emits a groan from your boyfriend’s lips. the vibrations on your clit, mixed with his mouth and fingers practically makes you see stars. you’re so overwhelmed, so overstimulated but it feels so fucking good and you curse at yourself for waiting so long to do this.

your core is on fire yet you’re desperate for more. you’re quickly becoming obsessed with the way his fingers stretch you out as they glide smoothly against your slick walls. your body is shaking by now, mouth agape as you head towards your third orgasm.

you close your eyes in bliss, succumbing completely to the intense pleasure you’re feeling. a pained whimper escapes your lips as your body tenses up. your hands pull his hair impossibly harder, and he groans again, eyes closed while his hips grind into the couch with desperation. he doesn’t let go even for a second.

before he can control himself, he’s cumming in his pants with a moan of your name that’s muffled from your bundle of nerves. his cheeks flare up at the realization, but you don’t seem to mind when you tell him how good of a boy he is, just for you.

“my pussy alone can make you cum in your pants, hm? is it that good, baby boy?” you speak to him breathlessly, sounding nearly out of breath as you caress his scalp. he’s quickly pulled out of his thoughts, nodding at your words with a whimper. the movement of his head adds just that more pleasure and it has your mind spinning.

you can feel it coming. it’s so intense—nothing you’ve ever felt before. your insides feel like they’re twitching and turning, body on the verge of immense pleasure, a scream on the tip of your tongue. you’re so close; it’s coming, it’s coming, it’s—!

“what the fuck!?” you nearly scream as your orgasm is snatched away from you in the blink of an eye. you were so close! why would he do that? you quickly try and regain your senses, calming yourself down as you look at him. clearly, jisung is in distress. he’s looking at you with wide eyes, worry evident on his face.

“why’d you stop?” you quickly ask, your hips twitching with need as they grind upwards, nearly stuffing his face with your cunt again.

jisung quickly furrows his eyebrows, “why are you crying?” his voice is worried, eyes shaking as he searches your face for any sort of pain; all he can see is lust. truthfully, you don’t even realize that your eyes are leaking with tears. but at his words, you begin to feel the wetness on your temples and your cheeks, the slight taste of salt on your tongue. all you can do is giggle, and it confuses your boyfriend even more.

“because you’re making me feel so good, park jisung. better than i’ve ever felt. your fingers feel so fucking good and i was about to cum for the third time, baby. so why’d you take it away from me? i thought you were a good boy for mommy, hm?” jisung freezes at your words, already hard again as he whimpers at your last sentence.

“i am a good boy, i promise! i thought i was hurting you,” he shyly defends himself, and you can’t help but coo at him. your good boy, so eager to submit to you, to please you. . . to be ruined by you. you’ll learn soon enough, park jisung.

“then be a good boy and make me cum again,” you demand, jisung’s fingers immediately invading your walls and finding a fast pace. he suctions his lips on your clit, his own body reacting to everything you do and every noise you make.

you’re moaning his name so loud and your hips are bucking up against his fingers and his face, his own hair being pulled by you. your thighs begin to tremble, attempting to squeeze them together for relief. instead, jisung takes his free hand and firmly pins one knee to your chest. as soon as your folds spread even wider for jisung’s mouth with the new position, you feel the coil in your gut snap—and it snaps hard.

you’re cumming harder than you ever have in your life. mind fuzzy, vision black; honestly, the pleasure is so intense that you can’t even tell if you’re screaming or not. as if that’s on your mind right now, preoccupied with the dizzying pleasure of jisung’s mouth and fingers.

it doesn’t take long before the feeling becomes too much, and you’re hastily pushing your boyfriend away as the overstimulation makes you cry out a whimper, “ji— ‘s too much.” your body is trembling, mind still in a haze as he pulls away.

it takes a moment for your vision to clear, chest heaving up and down as you’re trying to catch your breath. you look at him, and you notice two things: his soaked shirt, and his stained pants. jisung, looking just as fucked out as you do, came in his pants. again. your poor baby. not only that, but his shirt is . . . soaked?

“oh my god, you just—“

“did i just squirt?” you ask in disbelief, still out of breath. your heart begins to pound in your chest at the thought. “i’ve never done that before,” you say. jisung is dumbfounded, and his previous thoughts on how uncomfortable his pants were has wiped completely from his mind. his cheeks blaze red at the realization. he made you cum so hard, it made you squirt.

taking in his appearance, jisung’s outfit is completely ruined (and the couch, but that’s a bigger issue for another time), hand and lower face soaked with your juices. hair a mess, face burning up. suddenly, you feel a sense of pride swell in your chest. your mouth morphs into a pleased smile, pulling your breathless boyfriend’s face to your own and planting a wet kiss on his lips.

“you did so good for me, baby boy. made me cum three times. made me squirt.” your praise forces a shy, timid smile to appear on his face, hands gently gripping your hips, clinging onto you in submission. you smile, attaching your lips to his once again as you’re anxiously left wondering:

when will your next adventure be?

all rights reserved, © euphoriclele 2022

[lilacsociety]

So I’ve been thinking a lot about s2 of ofmd and where (if it gets renewed) the story is going to go. But FIRST, I wanna state the obvious by talking about where we find stede at the end of s1:

Stede

* Wrapped up loose ends with his wife (this would effectively end that storyline as his wife has no interest in the sea and is pretty content where she’s at)

* Is separated from Ed and is presumably trying to find him to make amends

* Has no money after explicitly telling his wife that he wants to give everything up and start over

* Is a fugitive of the crown after both he and Ed ran away

So my prediction for where season 2 is going to start off…

* Where do we start?

I highly doubt we will pick up where we left off. This show messes with time and distance constantly and getting into the logistics of the number of people that can fit in that row boat, how stede even found them, where they plan on going next, or how he would’ve even known to look on a random deserted island need not be addressed. I think stede giving up his fortune will be a plotline that will 100% be explored (more on this in the next point). If they DO pick up immediately where we left off, I’d expect a comedic scene where everyone breathes a sigh of relief until stede casually drops that he is flat broke and that they’re on their own to start from scratch. It is more than likely this initial episode will feature a time skip that displays a more unhinged Ed and a Stede that has to spend the season learning what it truly means to be a pirate without someone holding his hand through it.

* Where does Stede’s character go from here?

So while Stede undeniably resolved one of his major plot lines in the first season (abandoning his family), there are still two major plot threads that are viable for his character. The first being his departure from the “Lilly-livered rich boy” archetype to becoming a clever, self-sufficient pirate, and the second being his romance with Ed and overcoming their separation. While both were jump-started in the first season, Stede still needs to prove that he can command a crew without the compulsion of pity or money. I think by giving up his fortune, this season will be Stede’s opportunity to self-actualize independent of Ed. This will involve actual (likely comedic) acts of piracy that stede has never done intentionally since he never really HAD to. This could also manifest in a treasure hunt (unlikely, due to the fact that we had a failed treasure hunt in s1) since stede and his crew will be strapped for cash. I put this theory forward since Stede seems to be so fundamentally opposed to the act of thievery (even when they “pillaged” that ship he would still switch out books he’d read for books he hadn’t - and I’m not sure that would entirely change about him) that he would stubbornly try to drag his poor crew to the site of some famed treasure to get the cash they need. This could be a driving force for the plot as well as a way to introduce other, new pirates competing for the same treasure. While Ed is established to not care about such things, we never know!

* What about Ed?

Ive tried to think through Ed’s personality as both Blackbeard and Kraken. He doesn’t really seem to go into an altered state when committing horrific acts (at least so far as we know). The shot of him crying at the end of the season shows that he still feels very deeply about Stedes departure when you would assume that his complete transformation was a way to protect himself from those feelings. Regardless, I do agree with the widespread theory that the season will likely include a tense swordfight between the two (sign me up). Like Stede, Ed has two major plotlines that can be explored: his romance with / separation from Stede as well as who he is outside of being Blackbeard. I would not be surprised if they spent the first couple episodes apart as a way to build tension for their eventual reunion. While Stede will likely spend that time becoming better at swordfighting, the “art of fuckery”, etc., Ed will become a shadow of his former self. That decline will probably be done in such a way that the audience will wonder if Stede can win him over again (otherwise what’s the point of it all). However, I do think that they will make up and it’ll happen towards the end of the season — either after a drawn out conflict between the two of them or a threat that makes them have to join forces (don’t forget the English are still after both of them).

Those were just some of my predictions — I would’ve done some for other characters, but they’re pretty basic and I’m too tired to go through everyone right now. (I’ll just say that Lucius is definitely alive)

[vickyvicarious]

Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

[lil-lycanthropy]

How to write an essay (especially when you struggle with writing essays)

[Image Description: A graphic titled “BASIC ESSAY STRUCTURE”. There are 3 sections. The first section is regarding the introduction, labelled “Agonize for an hour”. The second section is regarding the body, labelled “oh hell yes i can do this no problem i got stuff to say i’m on a roll”. The third section is regarding the conclusion, labelled “I am going to walk into the sea”. /End Image Description]

I saw this post about essay writing with this as the structure and I just. Screamed a bit. The outline above (imo) makes a very boring essay that is UNNECESSARILY DIFFICULT to write. I was gonna just add onto the post, but I thought I’d make my own because I have a LOT to say.

So, to start off, I have spent far too long making this handy-dandy graphic with an essay structure that I find to be a lot more helpful.

[Image Description: A graphic titled “ESSAY OUTLINE”. There are 7 sections. They include the outline for the Introduction, Body, and Conclusion, along with tips for all three, and then a section for General Tips. /End Image Description]

There’s some pretty lengthy explanations under the cut, and I spent way too long on this. However, I’m passionate about writing and hate seeing how much people struggle to write simply because they haven’t been given the right tools.

Without further ado, here we go!

Introduction (1 paragraph)

Opening Statement: This is your intro/hook. With an effective opening sentence, you want to introduce the main topic of the paper, and make it interesting for the reader to draw them in. The introductory sentence should be somewhat objective; your thesis will be your arguing point, but we need to know the general topic without the bias. As for the hook part—your prof/TA/teacher/whoever is grading your paper has read the same paper 600 times. Your paper probably won’t be entirely unique, BUT you can still make it stand out. This is where the “hook” comes in. An easy way to do this is to simply start with a verb. Reading papers that all start with “the” or “a” can get really repetitive and boring, so an action word can be a good way to grab the reader’s attention. You don’t want your opening statement to be too long; a sentence or two should be your goal.

Allude to Thesis: Right after the opening statement, use a sentence to briefly allude to your thesis (the stance you’ll be taking on the topic). This way, you can state your argument points without having to worry about wording your thesis correctly right away, or risk your thesis getting lost within the introduction. This is kinda a segue to your points rather than its own official “section”, so keep it brief. 

Outline Supporting Points: These are the points that help support your argument. Avoid using a list form for this by using things like semi-colons or commas; each supporting point should have its own sentence. Saying that, definitely use transition words to help the sentences flow together so it doesn’t just seem like a laundry list. Don’t limit yourself to three points unless that’s explicitly part of the assignment. At least two is good if you can expand on them enough to do the paper, but don’t be afraid to use four or five if you’re still able to stay within the limits and expand on them enough to be individual points. However, sometimes too many points can make it hard to expand, so see if you can group some together if you have too many. 

Thesis: Your thesis should be a statement, subjective, demonstrable, and specific. It therefore should not be a question, objective, hypothetical, or vague. This is because your thesis is a definitive stance on a specific issue or topic that you can prove with evidence. As for placement, I always put my thesis at the very end of the introduction. I would say it’s up to personal preference whether to put it at the beginning or the end, but please never put it in the middle. When it’s in the middle, it’s very likely that it won’t stand out as a thesis, and then you’d have to come up with both an opening and closing statement, which is hard. I like putting it at the end because I find that if I do it at the beginning, it can be REALLY hard to balance having a clear thesis while also introducing your paper and making it interesting. Plus, if it’s at the end of your first paragraph, it still stands out, you don’t have to do a concluding statement, you don’t have to balance any other aspect of writing (like an intro or hook) with it, AND it creates the perfect transition to your supporting points. Limit your thesis statement to one or two sentences—you want it to stand out to the reader as the thesis, and you don’t want to muddle the message by being too detailed. You’ll have the rest of the paper to expand.

Body (2-10+ paragraphs)

Introduce Evidence: For each piece of supporting evidence (your main points), make sure you introduce them clearly before actually explaining everything about them. Don’t be afraid to word it in an interesting way (although remember, you still want your message to be clear!). I also want to give you an incredibly important tip: the amount of supporting points you have DOES NOT have to correspond with the amount of body paragraphs you have. They drill the five-paragraph essay outline into you for years, and it’s BORING—for you and whoever’s grading your paper. It’s also bad writing, because then you get unnaturally long paragraphs that take up a page and a half. So, unless your assignment rubric says otherwise, don’t be afraid to get creative with the paragraph amount. Always start a new paragraph when introducing a new main point, but definitely consider splitting the main point into two or three paragraphs if needed. Disclaimer: sometimes if you have to split a point into multiple paragraphs, that means you might want to consider splitting the main point into multiple main points. On the other hand, sometimes combining two main points into one can help make a paragraph more substantial.

Expand: For each point, expand. Explain any extra details. Relate the explanations back to your main point so you can stay on target and not go on tangents that take up half the page. 

Connect to Thesis: After you expand each point, as a concluding statement, relate the main point back to the thesis (the whole point of the paper!). Anyone can list evidence—show that you understand why this evidence is connected and how it proves your stance. If you can’t connect the point to your thesis, it’s probably not relevant or you need to do more research. By making the connection between the evidence and your thesis, 1. This is how you get bonus marks, and 2. It makes for an excellent concluding statement/transition to the next main point.

Repeat: For each main point, follow the structure of introduce-expand-connect.

Conclusion (1 paragraph)

Restate Thesis/Main Points: Rather than coming up with another introductory statement, restate your thesis and the main points that helped to prove your thesis. Please try to reword it so it’s not repetitive, and it’s best to keep the restating brief. You’ve already established all of this in your paper, so you don’t need too much detail. A sentence or two is fine. Another tip is to avoid basic concluding words. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but definitely avoid the ones that involve the word “conclude” or its derivatives (e.g. “in conclusion”; to conclude”, etc.). Keep this part to one or two sentences to avoid the dreaded repetition.

Explain Relevance/Make Connections: Here is something I NEVER see in the common essay templates, and honestly, I feel like it’s one of the most important things with essay writing. It’s the difference between just another essay in a pile of 200, and one that stands out as exemplary. SO. We know your thesis. We know your evidence. You’ve even briefly restated it in case we forgot. Now, WHY is your thesis (and by extension, the paper you just spent a few hours on) actually important? Why is it relevant? Who cares? You don’t want to give too much “new” information, but you really should be able to find some connection as to why your paper matters. Because if you don’t see the point in it, how are you gonna convince the reader that your paper is worth reading? Essays are about arguments, yes, and convincing people that You’re Correct and You Know Things, but you need to be able to connect with other things to see the true relevance. Make connections, folks!

Concluding Statement: Truly the bane of anyone’s existence. A good tip is to look at it as your Mic Drop moment—your time to wrap it up, drop the mic, and walk offstage. Tie your thesis, evidence, and connections together into a sentence or two with a little pizzazz and sense of finality, leaving no room to argue. 

General Tips

Know your audience: This can sometimes help with finding the balance between over- and under-explaining things. With essays, the person grading (the audience) is probably a bit above your current level, unless it’s being marked by another student or something. So write at your level—or the average level of your class/group. For example, if you’re in a second-year university biology class, you probably don’t need to explain what photosynthesis means. But if your essay is on a little known technique to measure chlorophyll levels in plants, you might need to explain some things that you already know, but others might not. Remember, your goal is neither to dumb yourself down nor put yourself on an academic pedestal—your goal is to communicate a message in an effective way that can be understood by the appropriate audience.

Pick a relevant topic: Sometimes this doesn’t apply, as you have limited choices. But, whenever possible, choose a topic that you actually know something about and/or are willing to write about. Sometimes even asking your teacher/prof if you can choose your own topic is worth it. The main point: picking something you find interesting makes you more willing to put in the work to write a good essay. Pick you favourite topic out of the options (or, at a minimum, the one yo hate the least).

Experiment with the writing process: Some people swear it’s easier to write the conclusion first, while others absolutely have to write the essay in chronological order. Some people need to finish what they start, some people need to flit around and add things as they think of them. Ultimately, the order you write things is very much a personal preference, and something worth experimenting with if you’re struggling!

Cater to your writing needs: Writers will tell you that they need to set up a space to write. Some people like writing on their bed or in a cafe. Some people need absolute quiet while others can’t focus without background noise. Some people need frequent breaks for the best results, others need to sit through until they’re done. The time of day can affect your writing—writing in the morning might be really difficult if you’re most alert at midnight. Lastly, experiment with different media. Maybe writing on a laptop just doesn’t work for you, and pen and paper is the way to go. Typewriters are fun. Microsoft Word might work better for you than Google Docs. Find out what works for you and gets you into a writing headspace.

Repetition and word choice: To avoid sounding like a broken record, make sure you use a different first (and even last) word for each paragraph. I always notice when an essay writer only starts paragraphs with the word “the”. Another helpful way to vary your word choice at the beginning of paragraphs is to use different types of word, preferably words that aren’t articles (a, an, or the). Using a noun, verb, or transition word can keep things interesting and help your writing flow.

Write with an active voice: Writing with an active, positive, and resolute voice fortifies your writing. An active voice is when the subject is the focus rather than the object, whereas a passive voice is the opposite. Example: “Sally ate a grape” is active because Sally (subject) ate a grape (object). “A grape was eaten by Sally” is passive because the grape (object) was eaten by Sally (subject). Essentially, if the sentence includes (or could include) “by [Subject]”, it’s passive. Even if you wrote “A grape was eaten,” that’s still passive. An active voice includes the subject doing the action, whereas a passive voice includes the object having something done to it. It’s a wishy-washy way of writing, though it’s sometimes inevitable in formal writing because you can’t use subjective pronouns. As for a positive voice, it doesn’t mean your essay has to be happy or perky—it means your writing, when possible, should focus on the positive part (what did happen or was added) rather than the negative part (what didn’t happen or was taken away). Example: “Sally didn’t eat an apple” is negative, because it just says what Sally didn’t do. “Sally ate a grape” is positive because it said what she did do. Lastly, use a resolute voice. Be concise and to the point without muddling the message with unnecessary words. Example: “Sally just a grape” is tentative. “Sally ate a grape” is resolute. Word like “just”, “maybe”, “really”, “perhaps”, “necessarily” are not resolute and can weaken your argument. Definitely take this advice for your thesis. 

Communicate clearly: Using long or complicated words can improve your writing—but if they’re overused or used unnecessarily, it can actually weaken your argument because no one understands what you’re trying to say under all that academic jargon. If you can’t explain your argument in an understandable way, you probably don’t have a good grasp of your argument. This isn’t to discredit people who have a hard time articulating while writing or people who need to use complicated words—but the whole point of a paper is to communicate a message in an effective way. If you’re too caught up in using big words, it’s very easy to lose the actual focus of the paper.

Fortify your opening/closing statements: If the person grading your paper has a lot of other papers to go through, they’re not gonna read every word you write. Focus on strengthening your first and last sentences of each paragraph to perhaps improve your mark with the graders who skim.

Proofread: PLEASE read through and edit your work. You don’t have to completely rewrite your paper (who has the time???), but definitely proofread it when you’re done. If possible (I know it isn’t always, but it really helps), give yourself as much time as possible, then do another read through. Even waiting an hour or two and then going through it again can help you catch some last-minute mistakes. When you’ve been staring at the same paper for three hours, you kinda just ignore the mistakes because they’re burned into your brain. Going back can help you catch them and fix them before handing it in. Double check the assignment requirements, including formatting, sources, grammar, etc.

Kudos to you if you made it to the end! This took me 4 hours? 5? I hope it helps some of you in school. Essays can be a really fun thing to write if you’re passionate about the topic, and they shouldn’t be nearly as hard as school makes them. Even if you didn’t read this whole thing, I hope my graphic can be helpful! The original essay structure from the other post made me mad because no wonder some of you guys struggle! When you don’t have the tools, it makes life difficult.

Here’s a pic of my cat and dog for making it this far!

End note: I’ve never done an image description so I apologize if it’s not perfect!

[icykalisartblog]

Notes on Cardassian Courtship

A running theme in all my DS9 fic has been explorations and interpretations of Cardassian courtship. I’ve spent a lot of time devising a system that I think makes a lot of sense and that I reference in all of my fanwork. At the request of @evenmyhivemindisempty​ I decided to share it! In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are my headcanons, featuring canon and non-canon ships alike! Also on AO3.

Cardassian courtship tends to be vitriolic and rife with arguments from all participants, whether it is flirtation in the leadup to a one-night stand or a lifelong romance. However, established romantic relationships tend to be more openly sappy and calm. See how Tekeny Ghemor spoke about his late wife. This isn’t a universal thing—in fact, a relationship retaining its argumentative qualities could be seen as admirably energetic and youthful—but a calmer future is most common. Quark and Odo (though neither are Cardassian themselves) met on Terok Nor during the Occupation and seem to be in some sort of established Cardassian courtship but never reduced the level of vitriol.

The main principle behind these vitriolic courtships is the intimacy of anger. It involves hashing everything out to get to the heart of your love. Part of the reason this seems so sentimental is because of how repressive Cardassia’s State can be, and much it limits free speech. To share one's true, differing opinions passionately with someone is very intimate, as is the ability to annoy/be annoyed or even absolutely excoriate one’s love/be excoriated with no hard feelings. In addition, the intimacy of anger isn't limited to disagreements. It also involves the ability to explode with rage around one's love with the shared trust that no one will be hurt. “A Time to Stand” features a scene of Weyoun presenting an amiable mask before suddenly exploding at Damar, revealing the stress he is actually under. 

Elements often found in these courtship arguments are insults and challenges, normally involving whatever field the object of one's affections specializes in or cares about. Gilora Rejal’s insults regarding O’Brien’s engineering are a very good example. Insults may also contain a hidden compliment or confession embedded within them. See something Garak tells Bashir:

GARAK: I can’t believe that I actually enjoyed eating mediocre food and staring into at your smug, sanctimonious face. I hate this place and I hate you.

Really, at the heart of these words is the fact that his time spent with Bashir is the light of his life, but this romantic confession is couched in terms that make it sound like that's all a sign of his degradation. This confession of “hatred” is really a Cardassian confession of love.

Courtship challenges can be similar to romantic insults, but they more directly call upon the object of one’s affections to grow/improve/be honest. Here is Quark providing an example, challenging Natima Lang: 

QUARK: All right, then say it. Let me hear you say there isn’t a spark of love left in you.

NATIMA: There isn’t a spark of love left in me.

QUARK: I heard that.

NATIMA: What?

QUARK: You hesitated. Admit it, you still care.

Sometimes the challenge is phrased in a less obvious fashion. Here is Weyoun, challenging Damar: 

DAMAR: I wouldn't trust a Cardassian that didn’t enjoy a glass of kanar every once in a while.

WEYOUN: Tell me, Damar, when you’re alone, do you even bother with a glass, or do you just drink that swill directly from the bottle?

DAMAR: Depends on my mood. 

This exchange contains insults from both parties, but Weyoun’s double as a challenge to reduce the drinking. Meanwhile, Damar both compares Weyoun to a Cardassian while simultaneously implying that he has reason not to trust him. This exchange would be a very typical one for Cardassian courtships in general, and overall the interactions between these two characters would be extremely ordinary for a Cardassian romance. 

When individuals from different cultures engage in Cardassian courtship, it is common for their arguments to involve each other’s media or traditions while also taking cues from them in private. This characterizes practically all of Bashir’s and Garak’s debates.

Generally, flat-out insults, particularly regarding one's intelligence, tend to be viewed as more feminine, whereas boasting, swaggering challenges tend to be viewed as more masculine.

Dukat’s behavior should not be considered typical of most Cardassian courtship because he tends to be interested in and prey on Bajorans, and not treat them as his equals. That being said, Kira’s disgust and insults toward him probably feed into his fantasies because he can pretend she has a flirtatious motivation.

Shows of strength are a final element involved in Cardassian courtship. Power and survivability are traits considered highly desirable among Cardassians, possibly due to the oppressive conditions in which they’ve lived, or perhaps for older, more mystical reasons. Responding to one’s love’s stubbornness by using a show of strength to overpower them for their own good is considered one of the most romantic gestures of all, and may often involve shooting one’s lover. See Bashir shooting Garak or Natima shooting Quark. In the case of Bashir, that instance was particularly romantic because he later recited Garak’s own words in order to resolve the situation, indicating that he had listened intently and valued his stance despite disagreeing with it heartily.

A method of expressing affection that is a clear declaration and acknowledgement of romantic love is pressing palms together. The depth of the affection can be indicated by the strength of the contact and the length of time the palms remain flush. Brief contact may be more cheeky and potentially platonic, but a sustained, firm hold is as clear as a romantic profession. Garak and Bashir share this sort of touch in “The Wire” when Garak asks if Bashir will forgive him and Bashir agrees. Curling one’s fingers around another’s during a pressing of palms, or interlacing them, is even more romantic. 

Pressing foreheads together is a sign of deep, unconditional love in Cardassian culture. It is a gesture normally reserved for family members and partners who plan to be or already are married. 

Key episodes: 

“Profit and Loss” explores reconnecting with an old flame in a Cardassian respect.

“The Ascent” when viewed through the lens of Cardassian courtship rituals, centers on a couple in a life or death situation giving their all for each other to the very end. 

“Our Man Bashir” can be analyzed as an example of picking at one’s love interest to relieve tension, as well as for a romantic show of strength at its climax. 

“Destiny” involves a cultural miscommunication and explicitly states that arguing is how Cardassians flirt. 

[kitkatopinions]

Why didn't Salem simply take over a kingdom during her and rule as a dark god ages ago? This would keep humanity fearful and divided. But I guess under this logic Ozpin wouldn't be able to keep her a secret in his background shadow war. It's not like Ruby revealing her existence to the world made things worse than they already were.

Compare Salem to Nemesis from Fire Emblem, the Kishin in Soul Eater, Kronos in Percy Jackson, or Voldemort in Harry Potter. All of them started out confined in some way, needing to be released or resurrected by other forces - sometimes their own cults or followers and sometimes by random people looking to release them for the power they assume they’ll get from it. Some of them have the ability to influence things even in their highly contained state like the Kishin still affecting people who get near their prison with madness or Voldemort using Quirrel and eventually making it to a state close enough to life that he has a physical form in some way.

But there was a reason they didn’t still have power. Nemesis was locked away and needed resurrecting, so you don’t ask why Rhea was allowed to establish the kingdoms she wanted and the Church of Seiros while he dissolved into the history books and his cult was forced to operate only in the shadows. The Kishin was locked up securely, so Lord Death has a world wide DWMA established while the Kishin had nothing and his history with Lord Death was unknown. Kronos had to be resurrected in a very specific way and could only communicate through dreams (if I remember correctly, it’s been awhile,) so it’s no surprise that the gods have more control of the world and Camp Half-Blood hadn’t been constantly attacked. Voldemort was barely existing through the means of his Horcruxes, so it’s no surprise that everyone thought they were in a time of peace and Voldemort’s supporters were either in Azkaban or pretending they’d never had anything to do with him. But with Salem, you don’t get that.

More than that, Salem is immortal, immortal and desiring death. That’s not to say there’s no merit behind her having learned that being careful and working more in the shadows is going to help her get her goal of gathering the Relics. But it doesn’t make sense that she’s the stuff of the most ancient myths that very few people actually even know about.

Assuming she’s squared up against Oz a number of times opens up a lot of questions. Like why don’t more people know about her? Why hasn’t Oz already run out of his special Grimm killing power in his cane? Why isn’t Salem’s group bigger? Why aren’t their legends and whispers about Salem still being passed around even if it’s not explicitly Salem? Why is it that no one has found and documented the existence of her castle or the Grimm pools? What does her hunt for the Silver Eyed Warriors look like and why aren’t more people aware of that? How come she doesn’t have some position of power or at least some influence over actual governing bodies instead of just one headmaster of a Huntsman school? What happened to her desire to replace humans with magical beings? Is that something that she just gave up when she killed her own children? Did she play a part in the wars in Remnant?

Assuming she’s never squared up against Oz opens up a lot of questions as well. What has she been doing all this time? Why is this her plan? In thousands of years, she couldn’t come up with a better plan? How has she managed to recruit anyone? Again, how has she managed to keep her castle and the Grimm pools secret? Why has she never tried to take over before? Why does she want to destroy all the Kingdoms? How much does she know about the gods and the relics? Why throw out her secrecy just for Atlas if she’s learned it’s better to work in the shadows? Why not focus more on destroying Amity if she wants to remain in the shadows? Has the ancient and very smart magical immortal lady who’s spent the last several thousand years plotting and building up to this decided to just... say ‘fuck it’ and do whatever? Is that why she’s been letting Cinder get away with everything? Is that why she doesn’t care that Watts is dead? Is that why she landed her whale on the farmlands instead of in the city? Is she just fucking around because she doesn’t actually care in the end?

We don’t know. We know very little about the reasons behind anything to do with Salem. We don’t know why she’s gone into hiding. We don’t know why she’s let Ozpin amass this power. We don’t know why she’s dropped her ‘in the shadows’ actions to suddenly make a big debut where she wages open war. This isn’t easy to fix while keeping with the start of the show where she’s a threat in the shadows that only Oz and his inner circle know about... if you keep Salem as is.

I think @why-i-hate-rwby-now suggested this awhile ago, but if Salem had started out being locked up somehow in some extra prison Oz had built using some of his remaining magic, that he’d kept secret for the last couple thousand years, that could work. She could be more involved in legends, but considered a myth by most, with a remaining cult being the thing that Ozpin and his (very small btw) group of defenders have been fighting. The group looking to free her could succeed in volume 3, maybe, prompting the more extreme tone and measures that the show takes. That would at least make more sense as to why she hadn’t made a move before, but now seems to be acting so recklessly.

[forevercloudnine]

new 52 scarebat ship meme

(I had @heroes-etc​ give me more questions, but for scarebat this time, since we talk about it 24/7 but I never post about it. These are from this ship meme.)

4. Their favorite physical feature on each other?

There’s only one feature of Bruce’s appearance that’s scarier when he’s not wearing the batsuit, and that’s his creepy blue eyes. Especially the way Greg Capullo draws them where they’re sickly pale and have ridiculously constricted pupils.

So his eyes would definitely be in the running for Jonathan’s favorite feature, even if seeing them would require Bruce’s mask to be off, which is something New 52 Scarecrow explicitly avoids. Yes, that character trait only exists to justify why Batman’s identity is still secret after Scarecrow mind controls and subsequently institutionalizes him in “Gothtopia,” but I think it’s interesting so I’m going to pretend it’s not shoe-horned in there for meta reasons.

Actually having to see Bruce without the cowl on would definitely permanently break the illusion of Batman as a nightmarish inhuman bat demon, which I’m sure is a large part of the appeal for anyone as obsessed with fear as Jonathan Crane. But Bruce’s creepy eyes would be a serious consolation prize. 

Bruce’s favorite of Jonathan’s physical features is rough, because Jonathan is famously not great re: physical features. I’m going to say his mouth, because a) that’s where the snark comes from, and b) the New 52 establishes that in one of their earlier encounters, Jonathan had sewn his own mouth shut, so it’s one of those things where a bad first impression turned positive later on leads to more fondness than if you’d made a good impression in the first place.

I just looked up the panel where he does it and I DID forget how incredibly gross his lips look here, which makes the fact that I have chosen it as Bruce’s feature seem really funny in retrospect. But I do think that seeing Jonathan’s mouth healed and unmutilated would be a reassuring reminder of how he’s stabilized since their first encounter, at least to the point that he isn’t hurting himself anymore. Also, Bruce buys him a lot of chapstick.

Bonus alternate answer that did not make it into the Google Doc:

9. How open are they with their feelings?

Bruce and Jonathan are both pretty competent deceivers in the New 52; Bruce always, Jonathan depending on how the writer is feeling (though you could argue that Bruce just has a stronger grip on reality, while Jonathan’s skill at obfuscation varies with how lucid he is).

...I was going to use Detective Comics #23.3 as an example of Jonathan being a good liar, but actually upon re-reading I’m realizing that only 1/4 rogues buy his attempt at manipulation. So maybe he’s considerably worse at hiding his intentions than he thinks he is. Regardless, he doesn’t ever attempt to disguise his obsession with Batman.

Whether or not he’d express romantic feelings or try to hide them is debatable. There’s no Masters of Fear equivalent in the New 52 establishing that he was ever mocked or punished for expressing romantic feelings for someone, though there is a flashback panel in his origin emphasizing that he was always lonely in this regard (and coincidentally doesn’t specify that his interest is in women, which is fun).

In Green Lanterns #17 he has some internal monologue about how fear is his romance and he needs Batman to feel it, but it is an INTERNAL monologue, so it’s not clear if this is something he would express to Bruce or keep to himself. Or if he’s even fully processed it himself, given how incredibly out of it he is in this comic. Most of his spoken lines are just kind of screaming incoherently. Bruce gets pretty snippy with a Green Lantern at the end of the issue for suggesting that Jonathan should be punished for his crimes as if he were in control of his actions. 

Bruce is a similarly complicated answer, since for all his deceptions and shadowy mystery he pretty much wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to romance. It’s just that his heart doesn’t express or process emotions the same way as anyone around him, which can create conflict. His (seriously underrated) love interest during Scarecrow’s origin arc, Natalya, spent most of her time dating him thinking that he didn’t care about her for this reason. He was trying to express that he loved her, but he mostly did so through complimenting her skills, which she never took as serious declarations of affection because he wasn’t being straightforward and she was insecure.

Jonathan does not himself seem like someone who would be especially secure in the idea of another person having romantic feelings towards him, so I assume that while Bruce might THINK he’s being open with any romantic feelings he develops, he would in reality just be really confusing.

13. How do they react to being away from each other?

I actually think that in general, Jonathan is one of the few people who would have no issue dealing with Bruce’s tendency to unexpectedly go AWOL for long periods of time, given that he himself has a tendency to fixate on his work to the exclusion of everything else.

But New 52 Jonathan specifically probably has pretty serious abandonment issues due to his father putting him in “the pit” and dying before he could take him out, meaning that Jonathan was waiting for his dad to come back for him for God knows how long, until Jonathan Sr.’s employers finally sent the police to investigate. 

So while in general I think he wouldn’t be very clingy, any impression that Bruce had died or otherwise wasn’t coming back for him would probably be incredibly triggering. If Bruce could assuage this reaction by occasionally sending updates that at least indicated he was still alive, then I doubt Jonathan would have any problems with his absence.

(@heroes-etc​: bruce sending like a checkmark emoji once a day. jonathan hears his phone ping, looks at the screen, and goes hm. good. and doesnt respond.)

Bruce meanwhile has no problem ditching literally any love interest at any time if something crime-related comes up, unless he’s considering quitting the cowl for them (as Joker probably accurately fears will happen with Catwoman in Prelude to the Wedding). But I don’t think he’d stop being Batman for Scarecrow, nor would Jonathan ever want him to — he’s interested in Batman, not necessarily Bruce Wayne.

But even though Bruce wouldn’t have an emotional problem with distance, I think he would get similarly paranoid if they went too long without contact, though for different reasons than Jonathan. Unlike some other villains (*cough* Joker and Riddler), Scarecrow has machinations that don’t require getting Batman’s attention, so if he decided to continue with his less legal experiments, he would not feel compelled to get Bruce involved. While the “World’s Greatest Detective” would probably not have an issue keeping an eye on Jonathan while he’s in Gotham, he’s considerably less capable of that in space. And Jonathan is definitely a rogue he would be obsessed with keeping an eye on, even if he reformed. 

Batman & Robin Eternal established that Dick’s first supervillain conflict AND first mission leaving the country was chasing Scarecrow across the world for an entire summer, which is kind of insane considering how early it was in Batman’s career. Like, he did not have an army of children to watch Gotham for him while he was gone. He had one child, and he took that child WITH him. He left Gotham undefended for months, JUST to catch Scarecrow. Sooo that in of itself implies he wouldn’t be great at keeping his distance.

15. Does their view of themselves differ from their partner’s view?

Well, Jonathan occasionally sees Bruce as a giant bat demon, so yes.

Outside of that very obvious differing view, Jonathan in general sees himself and the rest of the rogue gallery as more vital to Batman’s identity than Bruce considers them; the extent to which he’s right varies depending on your interpretation of Bruce’s character, but it’s definitely not something Bruce would ever consciously think or say. 

This is related to something that’s definitely a misconception of his, though, which is that the majority of Batman’s job revolves around supervillains like him. In Kings of Fear, when Jonathan blackmails Bruce into letting him come on patrol with him (which is a whole thing in of itself), he’s shocked at how boring most of Batman’s work is. Which probably goes along hand in hand with sometimes seeing Bruce as an almost mythologically inhuman figure. 

In his defense, it’s not like he has a lot of context for what the minutiae of Batman’s job is like. He’s either fighting Batman, hiding from Batman, or imprisoned by Batman in Arkham, a place where everyone else also spends all their time fighting or hiding from Batman. Which would really skew your perspective.

Interestingly, Bruce and Jonathan are both people who pride themselves on being extremely self-aware. Both of them probably inaccurately. You can rant about how you have a perfect understanding of your troubled mental state all day long, but if you’re still dressing up like a monster at night to indulge the power fantasies you created as a traumatized child by scaring the hell out of people, there’s probably a level of self-realization you haven’t gotten to yet.

Bruce however is at least self-aware enough to regularly be able to analyze his way out of fear toxin induced hallucinations, which Jonathan is unable to do — when he’s not depicted as having become immune to his fear toxin due to overexposure (as he is in Green Lanterns #17), he can be defeated with the same formulas that Batman regularly manages to resist (like his honestly embarrassing breakdown in Nightwing #50). 

Which ties into the difference between how he sees himself and how Bruce sees him: Jonathan obviously visualizes himself as a “master” of fear. He actually has the same internal monologue about fear and trauma that Bruce does in Batman: The Dark Knight #13: “Make it your own... run to what you fear... stare it in the eye... until it whimpers and backs down.” But Bruce doesn’t see Scarecrow as conquering his fear; he sees him as addicted to it, to the point of his own detriment.

Which is interesting, because Jonathan clearly sees his Scarecrow persona as a way to regain control after being victimized by his father’s fear experiments throughout his childhood. I guess Bruce’s perspective would be that Jonathan’s father instead got him addicted to fear as a child, so his attempts at agency as Scarecrow are just a) reliving his trauma over and over and b) compulsively inflicting his own trauma on others. There’s probably some truth to that, even if overall it’s probably an oversimplification (and coincidentally pretty much EXACTLY what Riddler argues Bruce is doing by “funding” Batman in Batman Annual #4, so there’s that).

20. Did either person change at all, to be with their partner?

The obvious answer here is yes, because Jonathan is a supervillain with no regard for human life while Bruce is a superhero who has dedicated his life to protecting people. So presumably one or both of them would have to make serious compromises to be together. HOWEVER. Scarecrow’s primary motivation is to research, understand and inflict fear, while Batman’s modus operandi is making his enemies afraid of him. So despite their contradiction in morals, they’re uniquely positioned to advance each other’s goals, were they to ever join forces.

Bruce never has a problem using fear toxin on Scarecrow, presumably partially out of an “eye for an eye” sense of poetic justice, but also because Batman is practical and it’s a nonlethal weapon that’s always available to him while fighting Scarecrow. If he could have fear toxin customized for his own use, it’s hard to imagine him being unwilling to use it. In Gothtopia he actually advocates for using what’s leftover from Crane’s new formula on all the inmates at Arkham, which seems about as insanely morally ambiguous as it gets. Arguably, putting fear toxin in his smoke bombs would be considerably less wrong than drugging mental patients out of their mind when they’re supposed to be receiving therapy (this is also the issue where he illegally releases Poison Ivy because she did him a favor, which is both morally questionable and relevant to the current topic).

Jonathan obviously already thinks Batman is the most interesting possible case study in fear; it’s why he keeps coming back to Bruce and Gotham despite being one of the more independent villains in Batman’s rogue gallery in the New 52. So though he would have to give up actively kidnapping people (which would be a huge sacrifice, I’m sure), teaming up with Bruce would give him unrestricted access to his favorite test subject. Unfortunately, it seems very possible that he would fall back to old tricks if he ever felt that he’d gotten everything he could out of a partnership with Bruce. Fortunately, that would probably take a VERY long time.

[scripttorture]

Do you have advice on portraying mental disorders to the public in a way that makes sense? How does one portray multiple disorders at once while making it clear they’re the result of torture? Do you usually name them in the story? I can portray disorders + symptoms that come with mental health problems resulting from torture, but I feel like I’m battling public ignorance before even getting to debunking myths about torture. I have the information, but I don’t know how to portray it organically.

I can tell you what I do, but I think that whether that will work for you or not partly depends on how you approach writing.

 If what I say doesn’t fit with your writing style that isn’t a failing and it doesn’t mean you’re ‘doing it wrong’. I don’t think there is one sure fire way to write a complex topic well. And honestly the fact that you’re putting in the time to research and practice is probably more important then any advice I have to give.

 I don’t always name mental health problems in my stories. I appreciate that some people think you always should. Usually because they say if you name a disorder the readers can’t deny it or pretend it’s something else.

 I have a friend in one of my writing groups. He’s writing a wonderful adventure story with a Deaf protagonist. He repeatedly describes the character as Deaf and all of her communication is in sign language.

 He has still had feedback from people six chapters into the story saying they did not realise the character was Deaf.

 Here’s my take away from this: While it is important to try your best with anything you portray it is also important to accept that some people just Will Not Get It despite your best efforts.

 Shout out to the person who thought I was discussing trans people when I spoke about historical pre-pubertal eunuchs.

 Start by thinking about who you’re writing for. What does your ideal reader look like? Whose feedback do you hope for?

 Because I think there’s a big difference in how we approach the story/conversation when we’re expecting to talk to people with experience vs people without.

 Most of the time I’m writing for trauma survivors. I hope I’m writing stories that other people will enjoy. But I accept in the writing that a lot of people without experience of these things might not… quite connect the dots.

 It sounds like you want to write for people who aren’t survivors. To educate. That is just as valid and valuable. It’s a very different approach though.

 When I think about naming a mental health problem I think about how that name fits into the story. The main character in my current story is about 11-13. She’s spent a fair amount of time with two adult survivors. But I’m not sure if she has the knowledge or vocabulary to label what she’s seeing and I’m not sure if anyone else would say it to her.

 So I put those mental health problems in to the way these characters behave and the way their daughter talks to her friend about her parents.

 That approach may not work if the majority of your intended audience have no knowledge about mental health.

 And for me in this story that’s part of the point. I expect that a lot of readers will be taken aback when they find out what these characters have lived through and realise that what they’ve seen up to now are symptoms not ‘quirky character flaws’. I expect that to prompt some thought and questioning*.

 Linking these illnesses to torture was easy in this particular set of stories because the readers will (eventually) see the characters before and after torture. The change happens in front of them.

 Generally I think that’s a good way of establishing the link: explicitly showing the character before and after trauma and highlighting the changes. That can be directly as part of the story, but it can also be done through other characters talking about the past (which can help establish relationships and characters) and by having the survivors themselves reminisce about ‘before’.

 It’s also important to remember that you can show symptoms developing without showing torture itself. There’s nothing wrong with choosing to show quiet moments with the character in a cell, even if we’re told they’re cliché. Use every moment that you can make powerful.

 There’s also nothing wrong with jumping around in the time line and telling a story in a non-linear fashion. My general point here is that there are a lot of ways you can bring up the character’s past and how they’ve changed.

 You can also have a character explicitly state that these symptoms are expected, normal responses to a horrendous situation. Any characters who are doctors, mental health professionals or some types of social workers would be good fits for that. Depending on how you structure the story religious figures (who may be involved in anti-torture work or helping survivors) could work.

 If there are other survivor characters then having a discussion between them about what it changed could be a good organic way to bring that up while bringing the characters closer together.

 Circling back to writing mental health problems- I do think sometimes a lack of an explicit label can help communicate the experience. I think sometimes people get so caught up on the diagnosis and what they think it means that they don’t engage with anything that goes against that preconceived notion. But… whenever you don’t make something explicit in the text you’re leaving it up to the reader to decide how to interpret it. You’re taking a risk to trust this stranger who picked up your story.

 I get the feeling the main thing here is writing it all organically and the fear of messing up.

 That’s understandable. Any writing already asks that we juggle. Adding in torture and mental health problems and committing to doing them well adds a lot more implements into the air.

 And I guarantee that practice will help. It always does.

 Personally I’ve been writing mental health problems for so long that a lot of it has become instinctual. It’s an ingrained part of how I write (for better or worse). Making symptoms an organic part of the character is about making them a part of every aspect of a character’s life.

 Which sounds harder then it is. It’s about thinking things through and filtering them through the character’s personality/motivations.

 Because as much as we can hope to get a message across primarily we are telling stories. And everything needs to serve that.

 Let’s have some examples. I’m going to use two characters from two different stories, Kibwe and Ilāra. Kibwe made a full physical recover from torture. Ilāra ended up with a single below knee amputation. And while there is some overlap in the symptoms I chose for them they’re very different people.

 Kibwe’s long term symptoms are memory loss, intrusive memories, hypervigilance and chronic pain and I’m toying with the idea of adding in inaccurate memories as well.

 His memory problems are an integral part of his character arc and motivation through the stories he’s in. Despite knowing intellectually that they are a normal response to trauma Kibwe sees them as a personal failing. They made it impossible for him to bring charges and that fed into feelings of guilt and self-blame.

 Which is what drives him to stand up for other people.

 Every heroic action he takes in the story, every time he puts himself between someone else and harm, is coming out of his own experience of memory loss and possibly inaccurate memories. It’s all because trying to do the sensible thing and report what happened to the police left him feeling useless, powerless.

 His intrusive memories feed into this as well. They serve as constant reminders that strengthen his resolve.

 In the parts of the story from his perspective all of these memory problems and the effect they have are obvious and there inclusion is natural. Because they colour every single thing he does.

 In the parts of the story that are from other perspectives it’s less obvious what the problem is but there is still clearly A Problem.

 His intrusive memories are pauses in the middle of doing or saying something. They’re the moments when he screws his eyes shut and breathes deep and has to ask the other characters to repeat themselves. They’re the way he flinches at ordinary things and the way he flies off the handle anytime someone brings beer into his workplace.

 His chronic pain is in the days when he can’t do his job. When his hands shake and he snaps. When he takes his frustrations out with the wrong words to the wrong people. And in the distant, awkward way he tries to make amends afterwards.

 Internally he barely acknowledges his hypervigilance. But externally he always positions himself so that he can clearly see anyone else in the room. He can always see the exits. He twitches, he turns his head a lot to keep other people in view. And if he can’t see everyone, can’t see a way out then his speech starts to get biting, his anger leaks through.

 In contrast Ilāra is very very aware of their own hypervigilance.

 They track the people around them and the terrain and rationalise it as sensible. As a precaution. As keeping themselves and others safe. So a portion of any part of the narrative from their perspective is about that: Ilāra's internal paranoid risk assessments.

 They also have learning difficulties, which are more obvious from outside perspectives. Because Ilāra has a proud streak; they’re not stupid, they can get by just fine. They’re just letting their friends/found-family help out because it makes them happy. Ilāra does not actually need help.

 Contrast with the perspectives of the other characters who are very aware that Ilāra can’t manage a budget. Without help they really can’t manage their own money well enough to keep themselves fed, housed and clothed. Because they never learnt how.

 And again this comes up organically because it’s a big part of Ilāra's relationships. There’s a strange push-pull: Ilāra's hypervigilance internally rationalised as protecting these few valued people and those same people stepping in to do the things Ilāra can’t.

 They also experience chronic pain. Though I’m unsure whether this is primarily because of torture or because they lost a limb. And in a way the distinction doesn’t matter. Regardless of the cause it is there.

 They’re actually a lot better at dealing with it then Kibwe, because they’re much better at lying, acting and disguising their own distress.

 Ilāra's other symptoms are less immediately obvious in the narrative but again, they underpin everything.

 Ilāra struggles to relate to people, to really value them as people and they are incredibly socially isolated. Their entire social circle is essentially their family and their work colleagues and there is a lot of overlap in that Venn diagram.

 They don’t know how to honestly relate to other people. They play parts, putting on masks to get by.

 And this comes into the story with every interaction they have. It’s the contrast between their attempts at calculation around outsiders (and how often they’re rejected/dismissed) and their incredibly intense attachment to this small circle of people.

 I’m not sure what the end point of Ilāra's character arc is yet. But one of the things that keeps coming up is the question of who they are away from this small circle of valued people. And whether they can value their own life when they can’t ‘protect’ the people they love.

 Writing all of this out has made me realise something: it’s a lot easier to bring up symptoms organically when those symptoms become an intrinsic part of the character.

 And that can be difficult to grasp at the first attempt. Or the tenth. Or the hundredth.

 We are taught to assume health, be it mental or physical. That people have two legs and functional pancreases and don’t relive violent attacks every time they smell beer.

 Part of writing these things organically (for me anyway) is breaking that internal image. It’s… building a mind that’s a different shape.

 For both of these characters their symptoms are tied to important parts of the long term plot as well as their everyday experience.

 Kibwe would be a different person without his memory problems. They inform what he values, how he acts and the ethical lines he draws for himself. His intrusive memories impact his daily life and so does his chronic pain and hypervigilance. And this in turn impacts his relationships with the other characters, some of whom are more forgiving/understanding of his ‘moods’ then others.

 Ilāra is driven by their isolation and struggle to connect to others. It leads to them putting incredible weight and value on the few relationships they do have. And that drives them to act, to take risks. Fundamentally they fear loss and however calculating and cunning they can be that fear makes them do some idiotic things. Things that effect the plot and every other character.

 Hypervigilance and learning difficulties are their everyday experience. The tension they feel in crowds. The way they assess unfamiliar environments. The way they’ll hand over their pay check to a daughter-figure with a joke and tell themselves that she’s just fussing. The way they’ll get up in the middle of the night and count every item of food in the house.

 Writing mental health problems in an understandable way is like writing any other disability. It’s making it part of the character without it being the whole of the character. It’s recognising how any condition limits a character and having a clear view of when those limits are internal (ie the condition itself) versus external (societal, behavioural expectations, other people etc.)

 Including these things naturally means constructing scenes that are working at multiple levels. If symptoms impact how the characters relate to each other then they fit naturally into any important relationship moments. If symptoms impact the character’s everyday life then it’s natural for the character to consider them before taking an important action.

 When symptoms are related to a character’s long term motivation then it doesn’t feel jarring that they’d come up over and over again. In the same way that bringing up a character’s big-brother figure feels right when you’ve established they have an important, character defining bond.

 It takes practice. Writing is work and it takes a lot of skill to make it look effortless.

 Right now I think the most important thing to take away is this: keep trying. Write and write and write. Don’t let the fear of getting things wrong stop you from getting better.

 I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

*Yes I expect a lot from my readers.

[mcousland]

nobody asked for this at all, the dummies have just become my comfort zone and i love them so a fool filled out a whole meme for them for the fun of it. dietrich belongs to @darlingicarus​!

— SHIP QUESTIONS

PRE-RELATIONSHIP —

how did they first meet?

dietrich saved both maeve’s and carden’s lives while he was making a run in the city. saving carden was pure coincidence that came from killing a few of the dead that had been blocking his own path, but maeve was intended as he kept her from meeting a terrible end when one of the dead got hold of her skirt while she tried to run past. as everyone is prone to in those early days—dietrich was fine with protecting maeve and even bringing her back to whatever group there was at the time, but didn’t mind one bit if carden got bit somewhere along the way.

what was their first impression of each other?

maeve thought he was a bit too Blunt about everything that was going on and wished he would stop looking so damned serious all the time, it made her nervous about danger being around every corner and she was already scared enough. she also thought he was a bit handsome underneath that scowl

dietrich had a bit of a hard time seeing her past carden’s [annoyingly] large presence but thought she wasn’t taking things seriously enough, too many witty one-liners and worries about dirtying her hands and clothes. probably worried about the brightness of her clothes attracting too much attention too tbh

did any of their friends or family want them to get together?

family, that’s a good one. ohhhh, i’m sure a few of their friends wanted them to sort things out and just admit to themselves whatever was going on between them, because oh boy did they Ignore a Lot of things for quite a while but a good 80% of the group could spot how close they had grown through all of the things they endured together.

who felt romantic feelings first?

we already know that it was maeve!! we know this, how silly it is to even type it out!!! we know that she woke up one morning after an evening of fwb activities, spent a minute gazing at him while he remained asleep beside her and there was a frightening Oh No realization when she found herself reaching out to touch his cheek without thinking.

did either of them try to resist their feelings?

both of them! big time!! they were fucking terrified. on top of their own already established issues with Feelings, there are the obvious shared fears that come from the world they’re living in. it’s difficult to accept that you’re becoming attached to someone when you know that you could lose them at any moment with so much violence and darkness surrounding you at every turn, especially when you’ve already lost others along the way. (dietrich definitely held out his resistance for longer, though that's a given.)

if you had told one of them that the other would be their soulmate, what would they think?

would depend on the timing, i suppose. early days they’d probably both scoff at the thought, but later on maeve could be convinced. there’s that whole “soulmates can be made” belief and yes it may be cheesy, but maeve’s a romantic at heart and she’d like to think it’s true enough. soulmates are people who understand each other deeply, are connected at the mind, and know without doubt that the other will always be there at their side—consider maeve Convinced.

GENERAL —

who initiated the relationship, and how did it go?

maeve did! technically twice if you count a difference between the beginning of their fwb agreement and then the relationship proper faaaar down the line. i believe the first hook-up came about from maeve making a Very convincing argument for them to find some pleasure and relief from their steadily growing stress while they were away from the group, given that they had become somewhat of a default duo for supply runs and spent so much quality~ alone time together. considering that you could hardcut to five minutes later and find maeve on her knees unbuckling dietrich’s belt, i’d say the proposition went pretty well 😌 the relationship itself came along quite some time down the line, when maeve accidentally slipped up mid-makeout and let the love she has for dietrich Shine through her eyes while looking at him. naturally his instinct was to book it out of there because Feelings Hard, but maeve decided to risk baring her fuckin' heart ((after some months of Pining and a particularly Traumatic series of events that led to them clinging tighter to each other than before)) by asking him simply to "stay" before he could get out the door. arguably that moment was scarier than most of the times they've gone out into the world beyond the safety of their group, but ultimately worth the leap of faith!! because he stayed, and though it was never explicitly stated, they both understood that that night spent together was them putting an end to the fight against the feelings they both knew were there and finally taking the next step in their relationship.

did they have an official first date? if so, what was it like?

they did, but it was purely because maeve labeled it as such and no other reason. a few weeks after their relationship was Confirmed, maeve up and decided that their run into the city would be their first proper Date because they hadn't had some actual alone time in a good while, and it sounded like harmless fun which they didn't get enough of. nothing really Changed from their routine of clearing and scavenging, she just changed up their usual dialogue to asking the "typical date questions. oh, you know! what's your favorite movie? your weirdest fear? the dumbest thing you spent far too much money on?" just a silly excuse to get to know some of the little, random things about each other that popped into their heads or that they'd been curious about for a while.

what was their first kiss like?

tentative and oddly gentle, maeve went for a slow approach in every aspect while testing the waters to see if her last few minutes of attempting to Seduce the bastard into a fwb arrangement had panned out. it was almost Immediately followed up by another kiss and some touching that bordered more along the lines of desperate and eager as they wanted to get to the fun bits, but it was still one of the first notable moments of maeve taking that first step for them and waiting to see if he’d follow suit.

were they each other’s first anything (kiss, relationship, etc.)?

probably first relationship after the world went to shit, but in general nah they’ve both got some prior experiences.

what’s their height difference? age difference?

dietrich’s 5′10″ and maeve’s 5′0″. he’s in his early-to-mid 30s, she’s probably at the end of her 20s?? somewhere around there. who needs solid numbers anyway

what’s their relationship with each other’s families?

😔✌️ new fam found in the group, who dis??

who takes the lead in social situations?

100% maeve baybee. whether she’s talking circles around somebody to keep them distracted, trying to diffuse a situation or just comforting somebody through a difficult moment, we all been knew that maeve’s better suited for almost every kind of social situation. she’ll let him handle any of the ones that rely on intimidation tho, that’s all leitner right there

who gets jealous easier?

ohhhh, that’s another maeve claim. she has Zero reason to worry because dietrich is oblivious to so many attempts at flirtation from others, but it’s still a gut instinct in her to get a little ticked off seeing some rando trying to make moves on him. that’s Her bastard that she spent untold months charming the defenses away from, take a step back and show some respect.

LOVE —

who said “i love you” first?

everybody knows it was maeve, i hardly need to say it. we know she was the one brave enough to say it first, even if it Did take a scare of losing dietrich to tell him. they both already Knew, in that ways of theirs that they have where things are simply Understood between them without having to be mentioned aloud, but she needed him to hear it from her lips at least once. just in case

what are their primary love languages?

i’d say they’re both pretty big on quality time because of them both being naturally inclined to it and how they drifted into becoming partners for supply runs and other action, they spend so much time together it’d be Wild for it not to be their shared #1. not a single doubt in my mind that acts of service is dietrich’s other big one, while maeve’s kinda 50/50 on words of affirmation and physical touch being her runner-up.

how often do they cuddle/engage in PDA?

i’ll out them on main for being cuddlers in bed or just generally when they’re Alone. they’re not very big on PDA as a result of dietrich’s whole “if there’s affection exchanged in public i Will learn how to teleport myself halfway across the planet to escape the embarrassment” deal and maeve respecting that. HOWEVER. it’s still maeve and she sneaks in little things when she can, like hand-holding or winding an arm around his waist while they walk. has been known to sneak in a quick kiss to the cheek if he’s sitting down and she can snatch it while he’s not anticipating it. i think hugs are The Most affection that people would frequently see from them in public ((aside from the soft expressions as they watch each other but those don’t count, don’t @ them about it)). the amount of times people in the group have seen them kiss in public can be counted on Maybe one hand if they’re lucky lmfao they keep that shit locked down

what are their favorite things to do together?

this question deserves to be banned from memes because it immediately erases all creative braincells from your mind. dietrich likes to watch maeve tell stories and she loves to ramble those stories, so that’s a win/win for them. sitting on rooftops to watch the sunrise/sunset together. going out of their way to look through any abandoned antique stores or book shops because they’re both Nerds and willing to put in the work of clearing them out so that they can browse. i imagine their favorite is reading together in some comfortable silence, whether that’s separately or with her curled up into him on a couch so they can read the same book. wait also i think maeve thoroughly enjoys any time they’re on watch together because it gives her the opportunity to freely Tease him (and also Gaze at him while he’s focused on the perimeter but that’s entirely too soft so don’t talk about that)

who’s better at comforting the other?

i don’t think either of them are particularly Better at it than the other?? purely because in the beginning, there’s a balance there between dietrich being reluctant to accept maeve’s comfort when she offers it & her taking a hot minute to understand his attempts at comfort. but then they reach that point where dietrich doesn’t tense up when she pulls him into a hug, and maeve finds the consolation she needs in his quiet assurances. on the surface it’d appear that maeve’s better at comforting dietrich purely because she’s more openly physical with her attempts, but the amount of security and solace that she finds in his words or touch means just as much.

who’s more protective?

dietrich takes it with this one. on top of his already there inclination to protect someone if they manage to get close with him, dietrich’s simply the one with better combat skills. maeve can? kinda?? handle herself, if the danger isn’t too pressing and she can find an opening to take advantage of, and she Does have some very strong protective instincts when it comes to dietrich, but he for sure comes out on top for this one. he has the stronger drive and better skills to back the protectiveness up.

do they prefer verbal or physical affection?

physical for both of them! a lot of their communication lies in the unspoken anyhow, it’s no surprise that most of their affection is expressed physically instead of verbally. dietrich’s preference coming from the fact that he might just actually implode on the spot if maeve showered him in too many compliments and expressions of love through words, and maeve’s from learning to appreciate and bask in the meaning and emotion behind the physical affection that he does engage in. also she’s just,, a slut for any kind of affection to begin with, but it’s definitely a whole Thing with being touched when there’s genuine care and love behind it instead of some other ulterior motive.

what are some songs that apply to their relationship, in-universe or otherwise?

[sweats in Having An Entire Playlist Dedicated To Dummies In This AU]

sunlight by hozier — (video essayist voice) the conclusion: maeve is the sunlight to dietrich’s raincloud, thank you. the vibes for this one are just off the charts, lads. it’s about finding Warmth and Light in this love amidst the horrors of the world and in spite of the initial reluctance to let each other get close.

safe & sound by taylor swift — another one with vibes out of this world, this song is Top Tier for a big part of their dynamic in this verse, which is them finding safety and comfort in each other while the rest of the world goes to shit around them. everything may be going up in flames outside, but they know that they have each other and they’re not Alone in anything they do.

what kind of nicknames do they call each other?

maeve’s the queen of petnames, unfortunately for the easily flustered bastard. her favorites are naturally dear and darling, but she also enjoys an occasional use of lover. has called him baby once or twice just to get the reaction out of him. oh wait she also likes calling him an old man when he’s Like That and doesn’t get her references or grumbles too much.

i mean,, it’s dietrich, he uses Sommers more often than her fuckin’ first name and i don’t think he’s out here using petnames/nicknames on the reg At All, they’re opposite ends of the spectrum with this one. he called her sweetheart once to throw her off and it sent her out of wack for at least the entire rest of the day. so good on him, mission accomplished.

DOMESTIC LIFE —

if they get married, who proposes?

no marriage! dietrich’s not quite keen on it and maeve’s not the type to push him into anything he’s not comfortable with. if anything she might?? bring up the idea of rings if they ever come by some while out and about and they’ve been together for a hot minute, for the sentimental and sappy reason of having little reminders of each other to keep on their persons, but she’s not Insistent about it and is content with what they have.

how many kids do they have, if any? What are they like?

no kids! world too scary, no thank you!! they’re also just Not in dietrich’s wheelhouse, which may have been a Problem for them if they weren’t in the midst of an actual fuckin’ apocalypse where nearly every day is a fight for survival and maeve can Clearly see every downside of bringing a baby into that.

do they have any pets?

don’t think so, but maeve’s probably made a whole Deal once or twice about leaving a little food for any dogs or cats they see along their treks because she has a soft heart.

who kills the bugs in the house?

dietrich!! he’s in charge of doing away with those Creatures because maeve will most certainly not be going anywhere near them if she can help it. which is,, pretty funny. you know considering their Big Picture circumstances. zombies? she’s fine with them after a point, only truly terrifying in medium-to-large numbers. a spider or cockroach skittering across the kitchen counter?? Horrifying! leitner do your job and protect your woman from the hellspawn

how do they celebrate holidays?

generally just by,, Acknowledging them?? at the very least. maeve has her entire Thing that is keeping track of the date with a day planner that she has had with her from the very beginning (though it’s been lost once or twice, always found its way back), but she doesn’t demand anything happen on holidays because they’re usually a bit Busy making sure they aren’t Dying to whatever’s threatening them that day. on the occasions where they have the free time, maeve insists they spend quiet time together without having to worry about any of their daily responsibilities and that’s holiday enough. maybe slips in a small tradition if applicable and not too over the top

who’s more likely to convince the other to come back to sleep in the morning?

maeve is a very ;) persuasive woman ;)) it was more difficult and had a less frequent success rate back during the fwb days, but he’s completely fucked after they’ve been #confirmed. stands not a single chance to resist those eyes and the idea of lying in her arms for just a little while longer before they have to start their day.

who’s the better cook?

😔😔 dietrich by far. maeve couldn’t cook for shit before the apocalypse began when she had access to all sorts of appliances, recipes and helpful tutorials, there ain’t no way in hell she stands a chance at beating him Now. she’ll gladly take up other duties, but he’s their chef unless somebody else in the group has made a big dinner for everyone to share.

[jessread-s]

Rebel (Legend, #4)

Book Review: Rebel by Marie Lu

Rating: ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ (4.0)

The following review is spoiler free.

Review: I first read the Legend series back in middle school around the release of Champion in 2013. I remember being absolutely devastated after the series conclusion, my soul crushed under the weight of my favorite ship being teared apart. Over time, I came to appreciate the way Marie Lu brought Day and June’s story to a close. I moved on. Then Rebel was released in October. I bought it the day it came out... but I didn’t get to it until now. I guess I was skeptical, as I didn’t see the need for a fourth book. I didn’t want my love for my absolute favorite series to unravel if things didn’t turn out the way I wanted to with this fourth book. After finally getting to Rebel, the fourth book in my beloved Legend series, here are my thoughts. 

What Worked:

01. The return of June and Day. Rebel takes place ten years after the time period established in the novel Champion, so I was eager to see how all the trauma they experienced with the fall of the Republic would effect their adult lives. I was especially curious about how June and Day would cross paths again, as Champion ends with the duo parting ways. I was not disappointed. Marie Lu did an astounding job capturing the moment June and Day reunited for the first time in nearly ten years. My heart ached as Lu described Day piecing his memories together to discover how June played a role in his life. The numerous amount of times my heart beat against my chest as I had to watch the two start from scratch to become comfortable with each other, trying to serve as each other’s support system to calm the inner demons plaguing them from their time under the rule of the old Republic. It was almost as if I was witnessing Day fall in love with June all over again and that made reading Rebel all the more worthwhile.

02. In this novel, we got the perspective Eden, Daniel’s brother, which I thought was very interesting. In the Legend series, we know Eden to be the brother who was struck down by the plague, later allowing the Republic to experiment on him to find a cure for the very plague he was infected with. Eden’s perspective allowed me to get a glimpse of how he himself was effected by the revolution that saved the Republic of America. I had been so focused on June and Day’s storyline, that I hadn’t even considered how Eden might have felt after the dust settled. Like Day, he lost a brother to death by firing squad and witnessed his mother’s murder. He was on the brink of death after catching the plague and had to worry about his only remaining family member, Day, who nearly died due to the Republic’s tampering with his brain. Marie Lu shed light on Eden’s struggles with fitting in, the constant nightmares about the death of his family, and living in his older brother’s shadow. This perspective really added a lot to the novel and helped me to better understand his relationship with Daniel. 

03. Rebel’s ending. I intend not to give away what happened at the novel’s end, but I will say that it was extremely satisfying. It was everything I had hoped it would be and more. 

04. The relationship between Daniel and Eden. I thought the Daniel and Eden’s dynamic was very interesting. Lu characterizes Daniel as overprotective brother figure. This makes sense to me, as Daniel nearly lost his entire family at the beginning of the series. For him to constantly keep watch over Eden just goes to show how afraid he is of his past. Naturally, Eden views Daniel as a “helicopter parent” who will not allow him to do anything on his own. What caught me off my guard was Eden’s annoyance with being in his older brother’s shadow. I thought that was an interesting concept to explore. Rather than being referred to as Eden Wing or Eden the extremely intelligent individual who is at the top of his class, many simply call him “Day’s brother.” This is what actually creates the divide between Eden and Daniel. Eden believes that his legendary brother has moved on from the past and does not experience the same trauma that he does. Daniel, however, does not confide in his brother about the hauntings of the past in order to shield him from dangers in the possible future. I love how Lu built up the conflict between the two and how they eventually let their walls down. 

What Didn’t Work:

01. Rebel didn’t offer anything new to the table. Sad as it was, the ending to Champion was beautiful, dare I even say perfect. Day and June meet again in the epilogue after ten years spent apart and we are left feeling hopeful. Though it isn’t explicitly said that the two will have a happily ever after, it’s something we can infer. We are left on the edge, fighting for more even though we cannot have it and I love endings like those. Endings where things aren’t neatly tied up in a perfect bow. What bothered me about Rebel was that it practically repeated everything that had been established within Champion and even Life after Legend with the addition of a predictable storyline and the perspective of Eden. To make matters worse, the ending to Rebel was nowhere near as powerful as Champion’s epilogue. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful for the book, but I think it would be better suited as a spin-off than an actual novel in the series. 

02. Eden’s story is just not as compelling as the stories of June and Day. When Lu announced that she would be releasing a fourth book in the Legend series, it felt as if my prayers had been answered. I had always wondered what happened to my favorite couple after the conclusion of Champion and I was hoping for a happy ending to their story. As the release date drew near, I discovered that Rebel would be primarily Eden’s story, not June and Day’s. It pains me to admit this, but I was saddened by the loss of June’s perspective in the novel. Eden’s point of view could not live up to June’s. I found myself completely ignoring Eden’s side of things in favor of focusing exclusively on June and Day’s side story. Therefore, I have to agree with many fellow reviewers who have stated that Rebel should have been a novella. I would have enjoyed the story a lot more if Rebel had been a spin-off rather than an actual book in the series. A spin-off would have allowed for Lu to strictly tell Eden’s tale in a manner that would have been short and to the point, without my mind rushing through Eden’s chapters to get to Daniel’s. 

03. Eden’s perspective. What baffled me was Eden’s behavior. Being a twenty-one-year-old, I did not expect him to to act so childish. He would purposely get himself into trouble to punish Daniel for being overprotective and lash out at him for not understanding what he was “going through.” I will admit, that there were aspects of his story that I really enjoyed, but some of the justifications for his actions did not make sense to me, thus painting a picture of an annoying little kid. 

04. The plot. Rebel just did not have the most complex, interesting plot. It pales in comparison to its predecessors. It pains me to say this, but I was not impressed by the villain, nor was I impressed by the predictable storyline that had me frustrated at times. 

Jess Approved?: ✓ Review posted to Goodreads

Buy on Amazon: US | UK

[jasminewilson143]

6 Things You Shouldn't Do When Dating

Utilizing an Old Picture.

Alright. I was out on the town off of Craigslist, this was the absolute last thing that could be tolerated and I never dated anybody off that site agai.. Everything appeared to be working out in a good way on the discussion and character front so I continued to request her photos. Anyway, my AsianDate date sent me an old image of herself guaranteeing me that is what she looked like. She didn't disclose to me it was a more established pic. My advertisement, that I posted, did explicitly request an ongoing picture, as you may have guessed. So when I got the image I thought she looked decent and I was prepared to meet this individual... face to face.

Mythical serpent Halitosis Breath.

I dated a young lady numerous years prior who was referred to in our hover as having 'Cook Breath.' It began guiltlessly enough with us. We went out to see a film and made out. Basic yes? Not exactly. The principal kiss was practically identical to eating a chicken and b-ball elastic paste sandwich. I felt like all the breath was drained out of me; even punched in the stomach and losing your breath is progressively precise. The smell of elastic paste is as yet distinctive right up 'til today, people.

Welcoming Your Date to Hang Out With Your Friends on the First Date.

This is one situation I'm hearing progressively about from fellow companions of mine. Part of the gang will meet a young lady he's into and make it a point to spend time with her. Not cool! There's no down to earth motivation to do this. A young lady may feel awkward and she encircle herself with her companions and expects the person come hang with her. I went on a couple of dates with young ladies where they were not the only one. Quickly I got the vibe that this young lady was not intrigued... It was a misuse of my time, truly. The time spent was only clumsy, just like the discussion.

I can't state that I follow the rationale on this one. Right off the bat, when you meet your date just because it's tied in with finding a workable pace date and afterward finding a workable pace. Also, your date asked you out in light of the fact that they need to spend time with YOU and find a workable pace better. Acquainting your date with your ocean of companions serves simply to occupy your date and give them, possibly, an inappropriate impression.

Having a Scythe in Your Garage.

You most likely don't have one of these so this wouldn't concern you. However, I have a flat mate that has one... Which implies that I HAVE ONE, as well... Um, definitely. There's not very numerous approaches to clarify that one away. Is it an odd blend? Sure. It's about time I put a spread on that; I'm worn out on cracking my dates out when I take them back to my place. They believe they will get hacked up!

Getting a Telemarketer...

I'm certain there are individuals who have would do well to encounters dating an irregular telemarketer than I have... I used to hit on basically every telemarketer that called my home. Why? One could make the contention that I'm somewhat of a jolt and I like disturbing individuals. Correspondingly one could likewise point out that I'm agonizingly desolate and should be held...

I can possibly disclose to you that my date was a catastrophe when I struck gold and found a telemarketer who lived nearby to me. Amusingly she worked for Greater Expectations; and I was immediately helped to remember the Mad TV satire of this administration. People. I'm not going to mislead anybody. This was a dreadful encounter. As I was approaching the café I saw an, uh, "gallantly" manufactured lady of monster stature. This was unmistakably more lady than an insignificant human man was intended to deal with. I could have left now, however I didn't... Not a chance. I met my date, gave her an embrace; fairly endeavored to.

Try not to date telemarketers. It isn't so clever.

Discussing Exes... A Lot.

Discussing your exes and how they all live in Texas is just fine... in case you're George Straight, that is...

The thought here is that your time out on the town ought to be utilized to find a good pace, not destroying or romanticizing about your ex, paying little heed to how things finished. Nothing takes the wings from your new date like plainly discussing your ex... You don't frame associations with your future perfect partners on the off chance that you can't let your past go. There's a fitting time to discuss exes; the primary date isn't one of those occasions from AsianDate.com

 The Take Away?

Um, I don't generally have the foggiest idea what you were planning to get from this disaster of a dating blog. The main chunk I can offer, that would assist you with keeping away from the above circumstance, is that an individual needs to regard themselves and furthermore they have to comprehend what they can and can't acknowledge and manage. When an individual chooses what they won't acknowledge the above is probably not going to occur... Except if you like chicks with ceaseless awful breath. Hehehe... Net.

[itsblosseybitch]

It’s Never About Disney Tickets

About a year ago, I went to Disney with my brother, sister, and her boyfriend. Before we left the house, it came up that one of us didn’t have a ticket. More specifically, that person was my brother. Despite the fact that my brother is 34, he has never learned to master his finances. Like my 56-year old father, he’s notorious for borrowing money left and right, and rarely paying it back. These are things the family discusses when neither gentleman is around. From people who have, more than once, let these fiscally irresponsible men borrow their money and then bitterly complain about getting screwed. 

So, the idea was that my brother would borrow money from someone for a Disney ticket. I don’t go to Disney often, and I don’t know the exact price, but tickets are in the $150 range. That’s a lot of money to let someone borrow, regardless of how financially savvy they are. And somehow, everyone else in the room (my sister, her boyfriend, mom, and stepdad) decided that that person was going to be me. 

Why? I’m not sure. 

Knowing his track record, and the fact that he’s shown no improvement in this area, I refused. So my brother offers, with no sense of irony, to pay me back in Chick-Fil-A. Now I’ve told this portion of the story before with people completely floored by this part. Yet this is 100% in character for my brother, and this didn’t surprise me. I still said no. 

I thought I made a wise and fiscally responsible decision. But everyone else in the room didn’t seem to think so. 

Both my mom and sister brought up my savings account, which I was working hard to reach towards a certain number (and did, shortly after this incident). They brought up how I had more than enough to spare (which I did), and should just give to him. I still said no.

I finally pointed out to my sister, “He’s not good at paying people back.” And knowing that my brother was financially in the red and that my mom and sister let him borrow money recently, I asked her point-blank: “Did he pay you  back?”

After a pause, she angrily replied: “Jordan, I’m not taking you. I’m not even kidding!”

I ended up leaving the living room and going out to the car. After a few minutes, my sister emerged and said that they “handled it,” though I can’t remember if she elaborated on that or not. She then berated me for “not listening to Reason.” I mentioned how he offered to pay back $150 in Chick-Fil-A, but I don’t remember that giving her pause. Regardless, I went to Disney that day, with my bank account intact. 

A few weeks ago, I had one of those arguments with my mom and sister where a bunch of past grievances came up, and my sister brought up this incident. My mother said that it was “hurtful” that I called out my brother’s lack of fiscal responsibility in front of everyone, and she kept insisting that it was hurtful even after I pointed out that this was a fact everyone in the room at that time knew about. I’m not a Ben Shapiro fan by any stretch of the imagination, but he’s right: facts don’t care about your feelings. 

My sister was continuing to give me shit about it, when I pointed out he offered to pay me back in Chick-Fil-A. 

This time, it gave her pause. But then she angrily replied: “Well, you should have just given him the money anyway, because you had so much of it.” 

I walked away from that argument completely baffled by my mom and sister’s twisted logic. There’s no way  they thought that letting him borrow money was a genuinely good decision. Their pauses told me I had a point. So why did they keep insisting that I should have done it anyway?

I was still baffled about this last night when I was watching a YouTube video about gaslighting. I posted in the comments section, “I don’t know if this is gaslighting and don’t use that phrase lightly...” and launched into my story. 

Almost immediately, I got a reply from another user, who said:

“They probably wanted something that you giving him the money depended on. It’s not quite gaslighting, it’s more like turning butthurt and throwing insults at someone that does not give you what you want. Immature and childish, using the appearance of hurt feelings to gain control over you. A grown man should have more pride in his money. Maybe the money was for something other than a Disney ticket.”

I replied back with a simple: “Now that I think about it, it probably was.” 

The more I’ve thought about it today, the more I’m almost certain it was. 

On its face, this situation makes absolutely no sense. Even if we went with the narrative that my mom and my sister are the dumbest people to have ever lived on Earth (which they aren’t), their reactions to this situation still  make no sense.

But if you add the possibility that the money wasn’t  for a Disney ticket, then things start adding up.

As I’ve already established, my brother was financially in the red at this point. More than usual. I knew he was on some sort of plan to borrow money from my mom and stepdad, and to pay them back. As far as I know, this plan had mixed success. I also knew my sister let him borrow money. 

I sat around at dinner conversations where all three of them complained that he hadn’t paid them back. Surprise, surprise. 

I remember a few years ago, when my dad had an explosive breakup with his ex-fiancee, how he moved in with my eldest sister (not the one already mentioned) and her then-husband and daughter. My eldest sister was letting him borrow so much money, that she was borrowing from my mom and stepdad to let him borrow money. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. After a point, my mom and stepdad put a stop to it, and my eldest sister had to tell my dad that she could no longer let him borrow money. My eldest sister at one point complained about how our father reveled in “how good it felt to buy stuff again” and how she just nodded along, obviously full of suppressed resentment. To my understanding, my mom and stepdad gave her this money, knowing what the situation was. I guess that’s just what family is for. When I was with my siblings, I made the radical suggestion that we shouldn’t let our father borrow money from us. I can’t remember if this was explicitly stated, but the attitude towards my suggestion was that it was heartless. It hasn’t happened (yet), but I’ve had my “no speech” rehearsed for when my dad asks for me to lend him money since this time period (7-8 years). 

Now that I look back, there was no moment where we all went around the room and decided who was going to give my brother money. The idea that that the person was going to be me was more implied, almost as if it was decided beforehand.

Call it what you will. Conspiracy, intervention, or collusion. My immediate family also has a history of coordinated group effort, usually spearheaded by one or both of my sisters and my mom being the accomplice. 

Almost exactly ten years ago, I was the center of one of these group efforts. In a sleazy condo rented out by my dad’s adoptive mother (now deceased), both of my sisters and my now former brother-in-law told me that we wouldn’t leave the condo unless I told them everything I did with my on-and-off boyfriend at the time. This was the summer, and one of our “off” periods, and I was reeling from what would be the first of many of our micro-breakups. Even though I was 13 at the time, we had unprotected oral sex. It was irresponsible, and I was too young to be doing that, but thankfully I got no STDs from it. I should add that this was consensual. I felt horrible about being forced to give very intimate details about what I did with a boy I was crazy about at the time and still thinking about despite our “off” period. 

I begged them not to tell my mom, which they said they wouldn’t. Not only did they tell her, but they told her before  that night in the condo. They already knew everything from the detailed journals I kept. I don’t remember exactly how I found this out, but it was months later in the car with the sister I’ve mentioned most frequently, and by that point my then-boyfriend and I were back to business as usual. When I brought up that they forced me to tell them really private stuff, my sister said “we didn’t force it out of you.” I’m pretty sure I pointed out the part where our eldest sister said “We’re not leaving unless you tell us what you did.” I don’t remember my other sister directly or indirectly responding to that. 

I think there’s two types of naivety. There’s personal naivety, when you’re not good at reading another person’s character. And then there’s social naivety, when you’re not good at reading a situation for what it is. I think I’m good at judging a person’s character, but I’m not always great at reading a situation. My emotional intelligence scores seem to think so, as well. The EQ tests I took measure emotional intelligence in four different areas: self awareness, self management, social awareness, and relationship management. I’ve taken this test twice, over a year apart. Even though all my scores have improved, the pattern remains the same: my highest skill is self awareness, and my lowest is social awareness. Now’s a good time to mention that I have Asperger’s, and was even diagnosed as having moderate-to-severe Autism as an infant. 

I’ve spent weeks, months, sometimes years fixating on social situations that absolutely baffled me, and I’ve realized that I took most of those baffling situations at face value. I never looked at these situations with nuance until it was usually too late. Once, I was completely baffled as to why the best friend of my high school crush would try and call me at 4 AM. What kind of person calls at 4 AM?  Three weeks later, it dawned on me that those were Peak Booty Call Hours. Thinking about my social life sometimes feels like the equivalent of watching The Office, and realizing you’re Michael Scott.

Now I realize that every time someone tried to manipulate me, whether it was for sex, money, or information, my lack of social awareness was usually the thing they were preying on. Consciously or unconsciously, they were banking on me to not recognize the subtext of a situation. And if this attempt on their part was unsuccessful, it was usually because I found a minor plot hole. 

It was never about the Disney ticket, I’m sure now. I don’t know exactly what it was about, but I’m bound to find out sooner or later. I always do. The Disney ticket was just a fairy tale that was made up to convince me to do something that I wouldn’t have agreed to in a million years. 

I’m sure the writers of this fairy tale thought that I loved food so much to the point that I would risk parting with a significant amount of money just to get Chick-Fil-A. Hell, my brother probably wouldn’t have been timely on those payments, either.

 I’m sure they thought that guilt-tripping me would work, even though none of us were raised Catholic. I’m sure they thought that making me feel like I’m crazy and stupid (and saying as much) would spur me to action, but they’ve used that plot point so many times that I’ve learned to turn it on its head. 

My only question now is why they couldn’t be honest with me.

[demisexualnathanvuornos]

Nathan is straight!!!😡

I’m sure the writers intendedhim to be (like every character who isn’t explicitly stated not to be, becauseheteronormativity), yet here we are.

Before I go any further, I’lljust say, Anon, that I thank you for this ask, because it gave me theopportunity to talk about all these things I’m going to talk about. I wasn’tangry or upset when I got your ask, only somewhat amused that someone would beangry at me for daring to have a demi headcanon for Nathan. Especially since itwas something that was going around the fandom before I even watched Haven.This post will have very little to do with you and your angry face Anon, but Iappreciate the inspiration.

Another point is, Anon, thatI’ve never claimed that Nathan being demisexual is somehow canon. Sadly, I knowit’s not. I know that Nathan is supposed to be a straight white guy with abuse,bullying and emotional neglect background, with some issues with social skillsand a magical condition/Trouble that functions as a disability.

Rest of this will be under read morefor length. Here’s a summary of my thoughts anyway:

Except for all hislove interests being women, there’s nothing that says that he’s straight. AndI’m semi-serious about that. That’s heteronormativity. But I’m also not givingHaven some brownie points for accidentally writing a character who to me isvery demisexual. It’s not canon rep, but I’ll take it.

So, like I said, I know Nathanis a character that is assumed straight. But if we look beyondheteronormativity, aka the assumption that everyone is straight (and cis andallo/non-ace/aro, not intersex etc), Nathan’s love interests being womendoesn’t mean he has to be Straight TM. In fact, one can be a demisexual maleand be interested in women! Maybe only women! It varies! Being demi takesnothing away from his feelings for women, if you, Anon, are so intent on himbeing straight/only interested in women.

All my demisexual headcanonreally says about Nathan is that I don’t think he was sexually interested inAudrey until he really got to know and trust her. Is that somehow super out ofbounds with what we saw on screen? (OK, I kinda think he has a bit of a sexualawakening moment with Audrey wearing the clothes he got her in 1x4, but theyhave known each other for a while now, Nathan is opening up to her, it’s a bitearly but it still tracks, to me) It took a while for Nathan to developfeelings for Audrey, and even longer to really realize that he had developedthem (‘I don’t know what this’ is to ghost!Garland). Then there’s his finalspeech to Audrey about how he ‘never felt anything until’ he met Audrey, andhow he can’t move on from her (something Jordan knew and Nathan said in 5x26)which is a really demi thing to say, although it’s not enough to make thisanything above a headcanon. He just loves her very intensely, and is very demiabout her.  

And about his otherrelationships, Nathan was uncomfortable with Jess and the pace of therelationship, partly because of his Trouble, but there can easily be more to itthan that. Especially since it was established that he wasn’tbothered/interested enough to figure out how having sex with his Trouble works,even after being Troubled a few years. It just wasn’t something he was reallyinterested in until he met someone who made him view the Troubles, and himself,differently. He said Jess was interesting, he didn’t say she was hot (that wasAudrey).

And as far as Jordan goes, hisrelationship with Audrey was rocky at that point, they had a build-inconnection through their Troubles and touching, yet they never slept together(this show is really blatant about when m/f couples have sex together for thefirst time, Nathan/Jordan doesn’t get that scene). Their relationship waspartly pretend on Nathan’s part, although I do think he cared about her to anextent. But trust was a big thing between them, which they never quiteachieved, no matter what Nathan said. OK, trust is always important inrelationships, and there are other reasons for why they had issues trusting oneanother, and having trust issues doesn’t mean someone is demi, but still. And Imean, I do think the ‘no sex’ thing was as much on Jordan and her traumas as itwas on Nathan’s reasons for not going there. So, the Jordan relationship doesn’tscream demi! the way Nathan/Audrey does, but it still fits within that reading.

OK, I admit, Sarah is a bit ofan issue, and it is the most straight/allo behavior he exhibits on the show,but there was a lot going on with him when he met Sarah, maybe there wastransference from his feelings and attraction from Audrey, trying to take morerisks because he did just die, and his time with Audrey was running out andSarah also talked about that, taking advantage of the time they have. It needsa bit of fudging, but you know, demis can also make weird sexual decisions. He hada chance to be with someone who reminded him of Audrey (why do I always go forthe shy ones), who wanted to be with him, someone who he was also interested in forher own sake, and he took it.

Now, someone might go, “OP, ifyou accept sleeping with Sarah on the first day being possible while stillbeing demi, how about his reaction to Lexie? He wasn’t interested in *her*.” AndI’ll go, *context*, dear reader. When and how Nathan met Sarah and Lexie weretwo very different situations, with two very different characters who behaveddifferently. What I mean by that, is that Sarah was into Nathan almostinstantly, they spent some time together, getting to know each other and Sarahwasn’t going to let a hot guy go without making a pass at him. (Note, Sarahwasn’t planning on staying in Haven when she slept with Nathan. I know somepeople think Nathan lead Sarah on, but that’s not what was happening, Sarahwasn’t expecting a relationship with Nathan) Nathan was attracted to Sarah, ina different time (where he thought he might have to stay in) and decided to gofor it.

With Lexie, everything was sodifferent. Nathan had spent 6 to 7 months in self loathing, letting people beathim up and call for his death/try to kill him, and he accepted that, because heknew he fucked up, that one moment of letting go of his control lead to a wholelot of pain and death and he had a way to fix it all. He thought him dying wasthe right thing to do, and what he deserved for his fuck up. He was depressedand suicidal, and had made peace with the fact that he should die. But that’snot what happened. Instead, as far as he knew, the person who came out of theBarn wasn’t Audrey, but Lexie. But not the real!Lexie, but a version that wasfiltered through Audrey and one that Audrey specifically wanted to makeoff-putting to Nathan (hence disgust at pancakes and racy talk). So, Nathan wasdepressed, his self-sacrifice had just been denied (meaning, there was nothingthat could fix the Troubles short term) and the woman in front of him wasspecifically unlike Audrey and Sarah, so of course his reaction to her isdifferent, even hostile. And after he knew that Lexie was Audrey, he was thenthinking of the fact neither of his sacrifices was working, aka 1) he killedHoward so that Audrey didn’t have to lose herself, yet there she was, having tolife as someone else and 2)she refused to end the Troubles by killing him, evenwhen it was becoming clear that it might be the best course of action. So, no,Nathan didn’t like ‘Laudrey’/fake!Lexie as she was presented to him, but thatwas part of Audrey’s goal. So, having different reactions to Audrey’spersonalities doesn’t take away from Nathan’s demisexuality, if you look at thecontext.

I guess I could still mentionthat brunette he danced with in 2x8. You can dance with people you are notattracted to, and Nathan wasn’t very seductive or interested in anything beyonddancing (and the woman wasn’t either, probably, given Nathan’s dancing skills).

The above stuff are some of the reasons this is one of my favorite headcanons, because I do think itworks really well. Thinking of Nathan as demi doesn’t actually change anythingabout the show. Not because being demisexual is the same experience as beingheterosexual, because it isn’t. But because it fits with how Nathan falls inlove, how he reacts to flirting (can’t recognize it), and how he is inrelationships. It just fits really well. He never really shows any interesttowards people he doesn’t already have an emotional interest in.

Back to heteronormativity,Nathan never really says anything like ‘I am only romantically and sexuallyattracted to women’ or ‘I only like women’ or anything like that. He certainlynever says “I am straight”. Except for having women as LIs, his sexuality isopen to interpretation. It’s heteronormativity that says that isn’t the case(and possibly homonormativity, if you think that he can’t be non-straightbecause he does show interest in women). I identify with him a lot and I thinkhe shows quite many signs of ace/demi-ness, and there’s nothing that says I’mwrong. And like I mentioned, he did say “I never felt anything until I met you”,which is really demi thing to say. I mean, really. Not blatant enough to seemdeliberately demi (because I know it wasn’t) but still very demi. To me hisinterests in Audrey/Sarah/Paige, Jess and Jordan don’t even seem particularlypredicated on them being women (but that’s about my pan headcanon for him).That’s a weird thing to say, and of course a show like Haven has his Love Interestsbe women, but he never says anything about being attracted to them because theyare women. But I’m not even particularly against Nathan being heteroromantic,because that doesn’t take away from my demisexual headcanon.

For comparison, Duke says a lotof things about women being attractive and being interested in them sexually. Hell,Audrey has more lines about women being attractive than Nathan does (which iswhy I feel Audrey’s bi, how do you like that, Anon?)

Also, in case you think that Nathanbeing demi means ‘no sex’ or something, well, it doesn’t. It’s canon they havesex, and that Nathan wants to have sex with Audrey (and was willing to tryhaving sex with Jess) and I’m not arguing differently. At all. I just thinkthat Audrey is the only person he wants to have sex with, and he wants to havesex with Audrey because she’s the person he is emotionally bonded with and hasdeveloped sexual attraction towards. That’s what being demi means. Being demidoesn’t mean ‘no sex’ (even ace doesn’t necessarily mean ‘no sex’, it’s aspectrum of experiences).

Finally, there are anti-acecomments and moments in the show (‘you’re not a real boy’ possibly has a sexualsubtext; Mara calling him prude, saying he’s wearing a chastity belt and shouldevolve to see sex as just cardio; All!Crocker/possessed!Duke calling Audreyfrigid and Nathan the obvious choice for a frigid woman is acephobic towardsboth of them). I’d much prefer that if you are going to say shitty things abouta group of people, you’d also think to actually represent them. I know, I know,most people probably don’t think about those moments like that, and I knowNathan (or Dave Teagues, in the actor’s words) wasn’t written to be ace ordemi, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are anti-ace moments, and likeI have written about above and prior to this, there are moments during whichNathan does come across as possibly being on the ace spectrum, and getting those types of terms directed at him kinda strengthens that point. Like, it’s awful having thosemoments, but if it was combined with representation, or if I can readrepresentation into the show, it’s slightly better. At least to me.  

TL;DR: It’s not that I don’t know thatNathan is assumed straight, just like almost all fictional characters, but Ilike thinking of him as demi, because it gives me the rep I’m not gettingoutside of a few books. My headcanon doesn’t change anything about the show,and I’m not even sure you are even reading this, Anon, if Nathan not beingthought of as straight is so awful to you, you probably have me blockedalready. But I did enjoy writing this!

[thelonelytraveler11]

Is this really the best I can do?!

It's been three years since I've done any form of research. I haven't worked in almost three years. Just in case anyone's wondering, yes, I filled out job applications (a lot, like ~250 before I gave up). For the past couple years, I've been living off my savings, the little bit of money I get from my family, and the little bit of money I get from having part time jobs. My work experience since dropping out has been pretty dismal (on average), I haven't been able to hold down a job that gave an appreciable amount of money for longer than 3 months at a time without being fired or being so miserable that I just said "fuck it" and quit.

I understand the concern some may have. You may consider it my fault for being unemployed. Quitting a job that I'm miserable while doing may seem irrational or irresponsible, but speaking as a person who spent almost the entirety of his college years being miserable, I can say with all honesty that being broke is better than being miserable. I envy those that can’t seem to comprehend my way of thinking, because that probably means they have a very good life. I wouldn't want to work in an environment that negatively affects my emotional state for 4 decades anyways. Having disposable income isn’t more important than my well being. Having a job I actually enjoy doing is very important to me because I don't have many sources of happiness in my life.

I'm kind of a loner. I don't have a strong relationship with any of my relatives and I don't have friends anymore (and even more troubling, I don't care to have those types of relationships anymore). The only potential source of happiness is my job. I don't foresee me failing in love or developing a close relationship with anyone. If the current trend continues, I think its more probable that it doesn’t happen.

I feel numb most of the time and when I do feel something, I'm usually thinking about my college days and that something is usually anger. It honestly was my biggest regret, going to the University of Illinois. Sometimes I wished I never went to college. Literally the only thing that was even remotely good about my college experience was my grades, everything else sucked. Looking back, I wish I went back to working at CVS after I graduated from HS.

In the alternate timeline, I probably would have been better off in the long run (very little stress, no debt, live rent free at my mom's house for a couple of years after graduation while working a presumably full time job which would enable me to save up a fair amount of cash before moving out). Instead, I came away with nothing. My college education was completely worthless, I reaped no benefits from being a degree recipient. All I did was waste 7 years of my life and thousands of other people’s dollars studying stuff that ultimately wouldn't matter. If I were a benefactor for the UIUC department of chemistry, I would be pissed to hear my story because that means my money isn't being put to good use, especially if I added into one of the scholarships that was awarded to me.

So, I know what your wondering, why am I writing this post? Well, I was trying to get ride time with CFD and I called for a specific person that wasn't in. Someone took a message and wrote my name down as Joel Dennison. Dennison was the last name of the NMR guy at UCI. That got me thinking about my college days and how I hated basically everyone. I caught myself looking through emails and for the most part, the more I read, the more I remembered, the more enraged I got. Now that's one sure fire way to put me in a bad mood, get me thinking about the bad ol' days. I bet many of the people I went to grad school with are enjoying their careers, while I was completely forgotten (and if they're not enjoying them, well at least they have them).

I’ve always wondered why were the other students so complicit? Is racism really that prevalent? Is there something else going on? See, it's one thing to not say anything while they were still students because it runs the risk of them being treated like I was treated. But to not even offer a helping hand even after their careers were established, knowing what they know, is un-fucking-real.

I never really felt welcomed in chemistry. People seemed to be more in love with the idea of me. I noticed the longer I stayed, the worse I was treated. At U of I, it was .... kinda bad. I experienced a form a discrimination where I would have written essentially the same answer as my lighter counterparts but received lower grades (slightly lower, but still). People assumed I did well in certain classes because the professor "liked me" (pretty sure no one at U of I liked me much). People also made statements that are crazy racist and then tried to pass them off as jokes. I fucking hated life in Champaign-Urbana.

SIDE NOTE: the following story doesn't necessarily reflect the chemists, but it does represent a subset of the student body at U of I. So, I'm sitting in the cafeteria with three dudes I already knew and some guy from the next table looks over to me and says "Sorry, if I offended you". I calmly replied "what did you say?" And Oh....My....God.... the look of utter fear was plastered all over his face. I said, "What did you say?", again, calmly. I can not stress enough that I was visibly calm throughout this entire situation. And then I noticed he was shivering, I figured I would warm up a lil bit by using my hot ass breath, so I repeated the question louder and slower (you know, to give the guy's body time to come to thermal equilibrium), again.......calmly. He was still frozen in fear. So now I am mentally gearing up to jump across this table to snatch this little boy's neck out from under him. And then something miraculous happened, my tunnel vision broke down and I realized someone was calling me. It was Jon (one of the kids I was sitting with) telling me to drop it...so I did......so, yeah, that's the story of how I almost got kicked out of U of I for snatching the neck out from under some little white kid during sophomore year. 


But there was one instance of me being the butt of racist jokes in chemistry that I can remember. Then UIUC grad student, John Overcash (who I believed worked for Ken Suslick), made mention of me "cooking crack up in the kitchen" on more than one occasion. Apparently, since I was a black chem major (that specialized in organic chemistry) I must have been a drug dealer beforehand. Or maybe he thought I was a drug dealer then....who knows...

To make matters worst, people have used the stuff other people made up to put themselves a head of me. Senior year I had an interview with eli lilly. My interview was at 9 am and there was one person interviewing before me at 8 am. The 8 am slot was taken by one Joseph Cullen (a fellow undergrad). During the end of his interview , I could vaguely hear what was said, but it sounded like Cullen told the interviewers that I was a drug dealer. The door opens up, the interviewer shoots me a look and goes into the room where my interviewers were and talks to them. Meanwhile Cullen walks past me. I give him a thumbs up and he walks away chuckling to himself. These are not good signs. I can’t say for certain that these people really believed I was a drug dealer, but their behavior suggested it. It was their reaction to me saying the phrase "nice white crystalline product", that’s what suggested it. I was describing the physical characteristics of the product from a reaction I ran and it just so happen to be a white crystalline solid (...smh). What I want to know why were these people so quick to believe Cullen? Yes, what Cullen said could be true (which it wasn't) but couldn't it also be true that he's trying to give himself a better chance of getting a job by undercutting the competition?

I wish I got a job offer as an undergrad. I honestly didn't want to go to grad school, but I had no other choice. Visiting grad schools was a whole ordeal, I was told in one way or another that I wasn’t welcomed ... at every school. At Scripps I was told explicitly that I wasn’t good enough to be there by complete strangers (how exactly would they know given that they never assessed my ability to think ... who knows). At Indiana University, I was placed in a hotel room by myself because they heard I slept naked. At UCI, I was told that I wouldn’t make it pass my first year (again, by complete strangers). At Caltech, I was told I didn’t belong because I was a drug dealer (or that I look like a drug dealer, apparently).

Now, I ask you, how do drug dealers look exactly? What are they’re defining characteristics? I ask because if you asked someone who lived in Champaign-Urbana for four years to imagine what a drug dealer looks like, they might imagine a srcawny white boy in a frat (not someone that looks like me). What makes the Caltech visit even weirder was that Prof. Sarah Reisman was just standing by, staring at me while I was being told I didn’t belong (by the help, you know, the people who was serving drinks). It was like she was trying to read my facial expressions to get a sense of what type of person I was (or am). Or was she using the help as a proxy to express her own thoughts (I’m not sure)? Was she waiting for me to “defend myself”? 
How would I be able to do that exactly?

SIDE NOTE: it’s impossible to defend yourself when there’s no evidence for or against whatever accusations there may be. It all comes down to what people choose to believe. The help has already chosen to believe I’m a drug dealer (or at least look like one) and I’m willing to bet there’s really nothing I can really do about.

No matter how I analyze the situation, Reisman’s behavior does not reflect positively on her as a person. I’m not sure if she knows this, but she was the primary reason I had to not go to Caltech. I found her behavior to be very off-putting and I got the sense that she didn’t really want me to go to school there. On top of that there was talk of her wanting to have (oral) sex. 


DISCLAIMER: I am effectively asexual, I don’t have sex ... with anyone ... or anything (yes, I actually needed to say both).

Now, I didn’t believe the talk when I first heard it because I thought there was no way a self-respecting, competent professor would admit to wanting to engage in a sexual relationship with a perspective student ... this is what I choose to think. However, the more I heard of her desires to have (oral) sex, the more I believed it. But I never fully accepted the rumors as the truth until my first year at UCI. Reisman came to Irvine for a talk and as always almost all the Organic students showed up. Before the event, I was sitting at the small table with another grad student in my year, her name was Beth R. (I don’t know how to spell her last name and I’m not going to try to google it). Beth ended up mentioning how pretty Reisman looked .... I “mmmhmmm”ed her. I could hear the chatter going on behind me, Reisman seemed mildly disappointed that I didn’t agree. Beth soothed her ill feelings by saying that I didn’t disagree. After the event, I was talking to Prof. Scott Rychnovsky and Reisman came up in the conversion. This was the final nail in the coffin that made me believe the rumors were true. It wasn’t the fact that he said she would’ve blown me, it was the fact that he said it soooo enthusiastically. He was as enthused as a person could possibly be in a professional/academic setting. No one should that enthused by the thought of a man getting his dick sucked as much as Rychnovsky was by the thought of Reisman putting my dick in her mouth, no one. It was kinda weird. 


The thought this woman hocking loogies on my dick tip, and imagining the sensation of warm saliva slowly rolling down my shaft (as I quote lines from the movie, Shaft (the Samuel L. Jackson version...obviously)) as I knock my head back, praying to god that I don’t come away from this situation with paper cuts (she has thin lips) just to look back down after noticing she paused just so she could fill the waves from my pulsating erection and make eye contact as she goes deeper and increases the pace eventually moving to the point where she starts straggling my balls and moaning like Lady Gaga singing a lullaby to baby while stroking my hard cock until I cum for her as Nicole Nava sits beside her while taking notes shouldn’t be even remotely amusing.....TO ANYONE...EVER!!!!!! But apparently to Rychnovsky, it was. It was at that moment I never wanted to be affliated with Caltech as long as Reisman was there. If Caltech and Illinois were the only two places that offered me jobs after finishing the PhD, I’d have to change careers.


Okay, so here’s the thing. I don’t really view professors as people. When I was a student, they were more like encyclopedias that could talk to me. They simply took the form of a human, kinda like a barbie doll. They’re anatomically incorrect, they lack genitalia, so they don’t have a gender. I honestly, believed this. One time, during senior year, I walked in the third floor bathroom in RAL and I saw Prof Steven Zimmerman taking piss. My face immediately screws all the way up, my inside voice says “How is he standing up and taking a piss when he doesn’t have a dick?”.....I thought that....I literally thought that....I shit you not. Just so you know, it wasn’t just Zimmerman, it was every professor. The women are doubly dickless, in my mind Suzanne Blum was like —(Mia Khalifa) because she has negative two dicks inside of her at all times.

DISCLAIMER: just so we’re clear, I’m NOT alluding to the fact that Blum has to get people to agree to have sex with her. Nor am I alluding to the assertion she’ll probably be nothing more than an afterthought for literally anyone. I’m merely trying to stress the fact that I don’t think of professors as people, but as encyclopedias that can talk to me.

I was made to feel unwlecomed at every school I visited. Why? Well, you'll have to ask them. I can honestly say that by the time graduation (from U of I) came around I didn't believe that i would have a successful career as a chemist, but I put everything into this so I couldn't just leave...

Grad school was even worst because on top of being the black kid, I was also the social pariah. The other students did a real good of making me feel unwelcomed. So much so that after two weeks of living in Irvine I stopped trying to make friends. No one seemed interested in being cool with me (I'm basing this off people's behavior ... obviously). And if some of them were, the way they showed it was so unique that I couldn't even recognize it as a sincere attempt to get my attention.

I also experienced some the same stuff I did when I was at U of I. Namely, instructors not giving me what I earned. In Dave VanVraken’s class I always received the second highest score on the exams. The really curious thing is that no one knows who received the top score. Once, when I asked to see the printed out distribution, the TA refused to show me (why?). I'm willing to bet that single point ahead of me was a dummy point. In Liz Jarvo’s class, when the first exam came around, we found out the high score was a 83. Who got the high score?...no one knows, but when I received my test the number 38 was written on (Also note I just so happen to get the same score as the other kid from U of I). At first, I was puzzled and glanced over to Peg (the TA). She sees my score, turns to Jarvo and says "he knows he didn't get that low". While I don't remember Jarvo’s exact words, she stated in some way that I would come to her and argue my case for a higher grade. So, here's the thing. I shouldn't have to defend myself or argue with you to ensure that I'm treated like everyone else. It should be a given. 


From what I hear the reason why I was treated this way has something to do with them not wanting me to "talk stuff" to the other students. 


Okay, so where is this coming from? I ask because I’ve been me long enough to know their opinion of what I’m like isn’t actually based off me. If they actually talked to my fellow classmates, the most common thing you’d probably hear is that I’m quiet. So either these people are just making up stuff to justify treating me how they want to treat me or my classmates are liars. I’m not really the type to talk about my grades (or really anything) unless the topic is explicitly brought up in conversation (and this is assuming I feel like talking at all). You can dress it up however you want, but treating me like a second class student for any reason solely reflects poorly on you (it gives no indication as to what I’m like). There were instances like this in half the classes I took. Some, admittedly were a smaller deal than others. In Vanderwal’s class I got marked off once because I didn’t draw both arrows in a mechanism that included a homolytic cleavage. For those that don’t know, if a homolytic cleavage occurs and you show one electron going in one direction, it is assumed that the other electron goes in the opposite direction and therefore does not need to be explicitly stated (minor, but mildly annoying). In polymer chemistry (taught by Aaron Esser-Khan), we had one assignment where we needed to propose something that wasn’t in the primary literature. I proposed a polymerization based off a derivative of the Hiyama coupling. Khan’s critique was that since it wasn’t already in the primary literature, it probably wasn’t a good idea ... really?! And don’t even get me started on spec because that spec TA was sketchy as fuck. He intentionally told me the wrong due date for a homework assignment and I’m pretty sure he shaved a couple points off one of my exams...

Okay, so these experiences are only a subset of the shitty things I experienced as a UCI student. But do you know what made life at UCI worst than life at U of I? My research advisor (Suzanne Blum)....and to a slightly lesser extent my fellow group members. Over the years I grew to hate them. I was lied about, I had a homework assigns hidden behind water coolers (Darius Faizi), I’ve had the nitrogen lines removed from air sensitive reactions (Darius Faizi, Suzanne Blum), I had products from reactions switch out for reagent alcohol (it’s a mixture of ethanol, methanol, and isopropanol) (Josh Hirner), I’ve had septums removed from reaction mixtures (Josh Hirner), I’ve had people try to placate me with sex (Katrina Roth), I’ve had people try to use the fact that I was in an agitated state to get something they wanted (Katrina Roth), I’ve had people turn on the indoor lights in my car in an effort to drain my battery while I’m allowing them to use my car to practice driving so they can get a U.S. driver’s license (Muhammed Al-Amin), I’ve had people ask questions just so they can not listen to the answer (Chao Zheng, Drew), I’ve experienced asking people for help just so they can not even try to help brainstorm what the answer could be (Darius Faizi, Kim Tu), I helped others brain storm shortcomings for a proposal, just to catch an attitude when they realize I didn’t catch everything the first time around (Quinn Easter). 


SIDE NOTE: To provide context, Quinn asked me to look through a synthetic route in his proposal that he was intending to present in his advancement to candidacy exam. There was something I didn’t immediately see but did bring up during a group when he was giving a practice presentation. He became visibly upset and mentioned he thought I was trying to make him look bad. If I was really trying to make you look bad, I wouldn’t have told you anything, so that you would’ve made the same mistakes when it actually mattered. Quinn, you’re an idiot.  


l’ve had people call me after I already dropped out and given up on chemistry from a redacted telephone number claiming to be an official representative of UCI calling me in an effort to get my address (Suzanne Blum, Ashley Davis), and I’ve had the experience where I ask for information pertinent to group website maintenance and they act like I’m hitting on them (Adena).

SIDE NOTE: 
This is something that always amused/offended me, having  someone assume I’m attracted to them because I acknowledged their existence. It’s funny because because they have the audacity ... but it’s also offensive because the operating assumption is that I don’t have standards, which couldn’t be further from the truth. (They seem to make a lot of faulty assumptions)

What was this experience suppose to teach me? How was I supposed to become a better person or scientist because of my affiliation with the group/university? Me coming to Irvine and working for Blum was a total waste of my time. I’m not entirely sure what her deal was, but it seemed she had a preconceived notion of who I was. No matter what type of relationship we have (or suppose to have) this will cause problems where there shouldn’t be. 


Is the request that someone’s opinion of you is actually based on you too much to ask for? Because I feel it’s a basic request that most people should be able to easily do. The contemptuous treatment did subside with time (mostly because I avoided talking to other students when ever possible) but it never really stopped. Why did it start to begin with? I’m willing to bet the only things they don’t like about me has everything to do with me reacting to the way they treat me.  Again, I have to ask, is racism really that prevalent?


Then one day, I started getting so fed up with life that I decided I needed an escape, even if it’s only for a couple weeks. So, I started planning a trip to Europe. I worked hard in the weeks coming up to the trip. I was trying to finish my entire project before I left (sadly, I didn’t, but I tried). Things were looking on the up and up. Before I left, Blum even said I was meeting her expectations, that was the nicest thing she ever said to me (it was the nicest thing anyone at UCI has ever said to me). I went off on my trip, and during the middle of it I received an email essentially telling me that my time at UCI was finished. Why? I still don’t know. 3 years later and I still don’t know why my career was ended before it was even given a chance to start.  It’s hard to move on with your life when you don’t have closure. It’s really hard to move on when you still have to live with consequences of other people’s actions.

 SIDE NOTE: I got the sense sometimes that Suzanne Blum did not really care about her job 100% of the time. I’m not entirely sure what to make of it. It’s like, either she truly didn’t understand the importance of her role (as the leader of a research group) or she truly doesn’t give a shit. Either way, she doesn’t deserve to be in the position she’s in. 


I still remember my last day in Irvine. It was bitter sweet. I was so happy to finally get to leave but also a bit anxious because I knew that the thousands of hours I spent studying and doing research was time wasted and it would never amount to anything. I knew I wasn’t going to get a job with my credentials. I even saw Eric (the other kid from U of I) in the student center when I went over to get lunch. He was looking at me all sad and shit because he knew I didn’t have a future in chemistry. We didn’t talk, we just walked past each other and exchanged glances. I tried to conceal a smile as I walked by. By the time my Dad’s flight landed, I had moved most of the stuff out my apartment. 


Life at home was hard. Depression is a mother fucker. I liken it to  a less severe version of sleep paralysis. I felt like I was stuck in my own body. Kinda like how I felt in the early Irvine days when it would take me hours to roll out of bed. I would literally wake at 6 am and just stare at the ceiling for ~4 hrs before I could convince myself to get up. And to make things worst, no emotional support was offered by my family. Their assumptions that I’m somehow responsible for other people’s actions along with their snide remarks about me being lazy did the opposite of help. I regretted coming home, even more so when I found out I somehow failed the background check for CPD. 


Now, how in the holy fuck does someone without a criminal record fail a background check? The only reasonable thing I could come up with to explain this is that the work experience I listed (my research experience) doesn’t count as work experience because instead of working for a salary, I worked for credit hours or a stipend. I have to tell myself things like this to convince myself I’m not getting screwed over in every facet of my life. If this is true, then my college experiences are doubly worthless because not only can the credentials I’ve earned not be used to get a job I’m more than qualified to do, but they can’t even get me a job you don’t even need a bachelor’s degree for.  


I wish I moved to LA after dropping out. If I stayed in Cali, I’d be force to move on with my life because I wouldn’t be able to sulk in my mother’s house for months. What would I do for work? idk...but I’d find something, and when I get fired, I’d just move on to the next dead end job.

As time went on, I found it easier to move, I still have scars though. Scars that may never heal. What can I do from here on out? I’m not sure. Going back to graduate school isn’t an option (or any program that requires letters of recommendations) because after experiencing what I’ve experienced and allowing those that I depended on for letters of rec to learn about my experiences, everyone seemed to be complicit. Either they didn’t do anything to change the course of action or it seemed like they were trying to cover it up by telling me to take the site down. I lost faith in everyone, I don’t think I can trust any of the profs to submit a letter of rec on my behalf when they either have done something that goes against my interests, are complicit in the wrong doing of others, or seem as though they’re attempting to cover up what happened to me. Even if I could get in anywhere, I still don’t want to go back to school. I lost faith in higher education. I lost faith in people. Whatever I do, I have to be able to do it without a college degree.

Just in case you’re wondering, I can’t depend on my college friends either. Mostly because I wasted no time trying to make friends. I’ve come to believe that friends are a worthless luxury.

I honestly believed that if I studied hard and knew my shit someone would hire me. I was wrong. I learned the hard way that to the outside world you are not you. You are not the sum total of your thoughts and actions. You are your skin color. You are your hair texture. You are the clothes you wear on your back. You are what people choose to believe you are. You are not you. People don’t care to get to know the people around them, they just want to feel as though their justified in believing the way they do. So I guess in order to get by in life you just need to be everyone’s friend and present yourself in such a way that everyone deems acceptable. Having the skills needed to do the job is more of an afterthought, huh? You know, one of the corollaries is that you’re expected to exhibit a certain level of extroversion. Welp, it just so happens to be the case that I’m an introvert and if the previous statements have some truth then I can honestly say this system was set up for me to fail. The only way I can get by in life is because I’m better than the other guy. No one will ever choose me because I’m their best friend.

I believe that’s where some of my problems stem from. When people see my face, they expect an extrovert (or at least someone who is more extroverted than me). When they find out I’m not who they want me to be, the reactions can range from essentially nothing, to mild disappointment, to mild hostility. And I think this is because people are more interested in the idea of me than actually getting to know me. So when they meet me and actually get to know me after building me up in their heads they’re kinda like “...oohh, this is it?!”. I don’t understand people. It’s like people just assume that you’re going to conform to their world view while refusing to even bend to yours. Now, I’m totally opposed to the very concept of “fitting in” because of all that. I got the sense “fitting in” means assimilation, which may involve losing qualities that make you unique (ones you may actually like about yourself). I don’t see why I should change in any way for people I don’t like, that I don’t see the benefit of being associated with, or for people that never liked me to begin with. People even sometimes mock my behavior, presumably because I’m not what they want me to be and this is just their way of trying to get me to conform.


The most recent example of this is my cousin Sonia (she’s multicultural). I went to her graduation party during the summer. And as with most family functions, it pretty much consisted of me sitting quietly most of the time. So fast forward to when it’s time to go home. My mother and 2/3 of my brother’s children are making their way to the car, noticing the third one is missing I go back for her. As I’m making my way up the front porch, three of my cousins (one of which is Sonia) are in my path and I say “watch out”. As I walk past Sonia, she says something along the lines of “woah, he must be serious....” while laughing... I’m going to say this once, “Mocking my behavior because I don’t act how you want me to act will never help anything”...... unless you’re actively trying to get me to dislike you. I have to remember that Sonia is just a child. Maybe it hadn’t dawn on her yet that there’s more to life than what she’s experienced. She’s probably never met a person like me, so she won’t know what to say in order to get me to interact with her. But then I’m like, “But what makes her think making herself look like an ass would actually help her in any capacity?” How does this explain the behavior of grown ass men and women who do the same thing?”. I wonder if it’s a cultural thing, and these people just don’t realize how bad they make themselves look to people that aren’t like them. 


On the way home, I started thinking, “Is this really the best I can do?”.  Have I been doomed to live a life where I’m not really happy? No, it can’t be the case. I still have faith. I may not have faith in other people anymore, but I still have faith in myself. I believe I can make something out of nothing, even if no one else does.

After going through all I’ve gone through, all I want is to not suffer anymore. I just want to be insanely rich for no reason. This won’t solve all my problems but it will eliminate many. If I ever come into having an ungodly amount of money, I’d give some of it to my family so they can afford many of the things that they want in life. Then I’d disappear, never to be seen or heard from again.


I’ve become acutely aware of the fact that people want to learn useless knowledge without ever having to talk to me.

DISCLAIMER: the knowledge is useless because we won’t/don’t have a relationship of any sort. Why waste your time learning information that isn’t relevant to your life?

So I’m going to take this opportunity to answers some personal questions because the thing I hated the most about you people is your unique combination of arrogance, ignorance, and obliviousness. While I can’t help with the arrogance and the obliviousness, I can help with your total lack of knowledge. So, without further ado ...

QUESTION TIME

Did you ever like life in Champaign county?

I was excited to be there in the beginning, then I met the people and all that excitement went away quick.

What’s your fondest memory from college?

That one time when Chipotle was doing that 2 for 1 deal. That was cold.

So, what’s up with your sexuality?

I don’t have sex because I don’t want to take the risk of having children, also no STDs. People were oddly obsessed with my sexuality and I never quite understood it. Here’s the thing, I’m a little self centered and I’m like you in the sense that I don’t immediately acknowledge other people’s way of thinking all the time. I honestly don’t understand why there was as much “interest” in knowing what I’m interested in (I use quotes because if people were actually interested they probably would have try talking to me). My viewpoint is that your claimed sexual orientation is irrelevant, it’s not even worth bring up in conversation. The reason why is simple. If you see a pretty girl and you know she’s interested in men, it doesn’t necessary mean she’s interested in you (assuming your male) right? That’s why the only thing that matters to me is whether or not the person I’m interested in is interested in me. 

It’s funny because if you completely ignore the fact that not everyone thinks like me, it would seem as though there were ALOT of dudes that wanted me to fuck them when I was in college.

To the people “interested” in knowing my sexual orientation. Ask yourself two questions. Do you want a shot? Do you think you have a shot? Think hard about it. If the answer to one of those questions is “no”, don’t waste your time.

If you haven’t already figured it out by now, I don’t think like a normal person. I’m never going to adjust or change to make you feel comfortable, the best thing I can do is not talk to you at all. I don’t adjust to you, you adjust to me. Why? because fuck you, that’s why.

Are you ever going to have sex?

Maybe, maybe not. What’s it to you?

Do you think people like you?

I know they don’t. Based off their actions, they don’t want to like me either. They’d spend less time gossiping about the negative characteristics I could have and more time actually getting to know me if they did.

You don’t think people know anything about you?

It all depends on what you think it means “to know”. Personally, I don’t. I’m never around people long enough for them to be able to get a true sense of who am I as a person. All people get are snapshots. Sadly, that isn’t good enough. That’s something I don’t think most people realize, actually.

What if after reading this, people actually started trying to get to know you, how would you react?

My recommendation is that you don’t waste your time. You can’t undo the damage that’s already been done. I’ve already stopped caring.

If you could go back in time and pick another college, which would you pick?

Xavier University in NOLA. I’d pick this HBCU because I’m fairly confident some of the problems I encountered at U of I wouldn’t have existed there.

Why did you choose UCI?

Because they told me I wasn’t going to make pass my first year.  I knew what type of student I was. I knew I had what it took to make it through any program. But I was at a low point in my life, where nothing seemed to be going right. I figure If I go there and get forced out after a year, it wouldn’t be my fault. The devastating thing is they let me get so close to graduating before just booting me out like they did.

Why did you use the word “they”?

Someone easily could have stepped in and did something. The department just enabled her (Suzanne Blum).

What grad program do you think you should have choose?

Indiana University or Rutgers probably would been better for me.

What motivates you to do well?

Meaningful positive reinforcement. Don’t just give out compliments for the sake of giving out compliments.

What’s one thing you hate most about people?

Their stupidity. Before I was told I failed the background check fro CPD. I’d get calls from some sort of case worker for CPD who was suppose to determine my eligibility. This dude asked me if I “resigned” from the Blum group and acted like that was a perfectly valid question. This wasn’t a job, it was a component of an academic program. I WAS A STUDENT. There was no resignation. You don’t resign from school. You either graduate, drop out, or get expelled. I know some college education is required for employment with CPD, so it’s far more likely that this guy is an idiot. REMEMBER GRAD SCHOOL IS STILL SCHOOL AND THERE ONLY 3 WAYS TO LEAVE.

Did you ever consider taking legal action?

Yes, but I know the people I’m dealing with aren’t above lying. Since there’s no physical evidence (that I have in my possession) proving that wrongs did occur, I’m reluctant to believe I’d actually win. It’s not smart to get into a “he said she said” battle with people that are believed to be pathological liars.

Are there any common misconceptions you’d like to clear up?

I wasn’t doing the school shit to make friends. I only wanted to make money. That’s the only reason why I was there, to make money. Every time someone why I as getting a PhD, my answer essentially went like, “I’m getting a PhD because money.” I see no point in trying to make friends with people who seemed to have been conditioned to dislike me.

Also, just because I’m quiet it doesn’t mean that I’m stuck up. It is in fact possible to be someone who isn’t a big talker.

Contrary to popular belief. I am in fact a HUMAN BEING. I have emotions and sometimes something could happen in one part of my life that can affect other parts of my life (like how well I do in school or how productive I am in lab).

Why did you just give up?

What’s the point of playing the game when you know you’ll never win.

It seems like the college years were a hard time for you, did you ever do something to ease the pain, like drugs or alcohol?

No, I love myself too much to potentially set myself up for problems later. I gave comedy a thought, but I found really hard to want to be funny when all I’m thinking about is the depressing shit that inspired the joke. If I’m gonna do something, it’s gonna be something were I don’t have to live with the consequences of my actions. I was suicidal. I was planning to kill myself the night before my thesis defense.

Why then?

I was fairly confident that no one there cared to save me from myself. But just in case someone wanted to surprise me, I figure it would be best to do when no one would expect it.

How?

potassium cyanide. The night before my defense I was going to make it my point to get a bottle of potassium cyanide. a couple months before my trip to Europe, I looked up who had it. It was on the fourth floor (or maybe the fifth). Go all the way down to the last lab space on the right hand side. When you walk into the lab space go along the right hand side and go through the door on your right. After that go to the first door on the right hand side. I placed a bottle on KCN in the first column on the left hand side, top shelf. The bottle should be on the wall on the left side (assuming it’s still in the same place I left it). I figured it wouldn’t get much use due to its inherent toxicity so it would probably be in the same place I left it when I needed it. I wouldn’t be surprise if the bottle is still in that exact spot.


Did you ever think about getting help?

From who? When I did finally ask for help, the first thing I was told was that the department sided with Blum (mind you this is before any type of investigation occurred). As soon as I posted the email from Chris Vanderwal on this blog, his tune changed immediately. But his actions didn’t reflect the words he put out in the public space. He was of no use. He had no interest in helping me in any capacity. I’m sure of it. I’m all alone in this world, I don’t have a safety net so if I fall, that’s my ass.

What about the professors from UIUC?

My previous statement stands. I had no one.

Is that why you started the blog? You felt like your were all alone and just wanted someone talk to, even if that someone was actually a void in space?

Yes, that’s exactly it.

Is that why you’re still posting, you still feel alone?

yes

But what about your family?

With them I’m a dependent not a provider. They’d be okay without me.

So have you really never sought out a therapist?

I couldn’t find steady work. I can’t afford it. Depression is a rich people disease. When you’re broke you’re just labeled as lazy.

What’s one thing you want everyone to know?

You shouldn’t let your assumptions or the assumptions of others affect how you treat me. Remember, you don’t know me. I could come to be your best friend, your faithful and supportive business partner, or the love of your life and you’d just let me slip away all because someone told you dislike me.

(Also, please don’t waste my time talking to me about all the typos I made)

[anexplanationofunfortunateevents]

buzzfeeding frenzy

THERE WAS SOME WEIRD DRAMA WITH BUZZFEED NEWS LAST WEEK but the upshot of it is: Donald Trump is a criminal, and that is finally starting to sink in for a critical mass of people. 

While this one article didn’t dramatically change what we know about Individual-1′s ties to the Kremlin, it’s worth unpacking because it demonstrated a lot of what’s been hard to absorb about this story.

Most of us come across BuzzFeed as, you know, the website with all the “choose your favorite stadium food and we’ll tell you which Disney princess you’re most like” quizzes. Nothing wrong with that! But it can overshadow their often excellent longform reporting. Over the last couple of years they have been almost uniquely relentless about the Russian government’s years-long crime spree in western countries, from the mysterious deaths of Russians living in the UK to its apparent compromise of the US Treasury Department before the 2016 election.

BuzzFeed’s first big mainstream breakthrough in the Trump-Russia story came a little more than two years ago when they published former MI-6 agent Christopher Steele’s memos about Individual-1’s many ties to the Russian government. They emphasized that they couldn’t verify everything in the dossier, and justified the decision to publish it anyway with the fact that the memos had been circulating around the US government for months. Readers ate it up, understandably: people were confused and frightened by what had happened during the election and what would happen when President Obama turned over the keys to Individual-1, and they were frustrated about having been in the dark about the story until it was too late.

The mainstream press lost its fucking mind jumping all over each other to condemn BuzzFeed, and you didn’t exactly have to be a hardened cynic to question their motives. Mainstream political media bends over backwards to placate bad-faith Republican allegations of “liberal media bias.” After collectively donating billions of dollars in free ad time to the Trump campaign, they were eager for the opportunity to prove that they were not biased against him. Scapegoating BuzzFeed – an upstart competitor with an unserious reputation – was both useful and easy. 

Even worse, the performance had an unmissable stench of guilt about it. As it turns out, the memos had been widely distributed around media circles. Steele – an established expert – had flown in from London during the election to plead with them to take the situation seriously. They ignored him and rewarded the attackers. The same people who spent October of 2016 transcribing John Podesta’s risotto recipe had passed on the story of a century, and they were SUPER mad when someone broke the omertà. (Or maybe it was #ACTUALLY ABOUT ETHICS IN JOURNALISM????!? hahahaha, no.)

There were reasonable concerns about BuzzFeed’s decision to publish Steele’s memos. Major reporting on a legitimate national security issue – not bureaucratic posturing or bad faith partisan garbage, but something that could pose a genuine threat – almost categorically can’t be an easy call, right? If something is actually serious, and someone is bothering to keep it a secret, there’s usually a good reason for it. Even if the dossier itself was already out there, somebody leaked the fact that it was in a presidential briefing; we don’t know who they were or why they did it. Anything that gets as much attention as this did as quickly as it did should probably be treated with skepticism, because bad actors are so good at gaming the algorithms that capture attention. And there were questions about its accuracy.

On balance, though, I think BuzzFeed’s decision to publish the Steele dossier has been vindicated. A lot of the allegations have been verified. Repeated attempts to disprove any of it have failed; Congressional Republicans’ desperation to do so suggests that it’s even more credible than we realize. It goaded the rest of the media into reporting on the story, which has exponentially increased the understanding of the problem we all have on our hands. Most importantly, it helped people wrap their minds around a nebulous, intimidating story which was largely derided as a Trump-like conspiracy theory. The pee tape is the least worrying thing in those memos, and unlike a lot of the more serious allegations it hasn’t been confirmed yet – but you know exactly what I’m talking about.

That’s a long wind-up, but it’s generally useful to remember that most of the people who frame this story for us are unreliable narrators, and worth recalling the specific context for the news BuzzFeed has been breaking. Last year, they reported that Michael Cohen, who was Individual-1’s personal lawyer and is now a convicted felon, had been representing Individual-1 in negotiations with high-ranking Kremlin officials to build a Trump Tower Moscow until well into the 2016 general election. Cohen had lied to Congress about this, and then told the press what he had told the committee, which of course gave anyone else who would be questioned the chance to get their stories straight. This report was confirmed at Michael Cohen’s sentencing. 

So when they dropped another Cohen story late last week, people were inclined to listen. This time, they reported “sources [plural] in law enforcement” claimed that Trump had explicitly and directly asked Michael Cohen to lie in his Congressional testimony, he did it in writing, and that the special counsel’s office had “internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents” to prove it. 

It’s that last part that shook the world. Even if you’re paying just tangential attention to this story, you know that Trump has been directing his people to lie to law enforcement, Congress, and the public. But the claim that there was cold, hard, proof for the thing we all know, that even Senate Republicans would not even be able to feign denial about it, that would have changed everything – if true.

Late the next night, the special counsel’s office issued an extremely rare statement, saying that BuzzFeed had mischaracterized the evidence and testimony they had received. This was weird. Mueller’s office has never bothered to correct a news story before, nor have they ever waved a journalist off a story that they know is untrue. The statement isn’t even that the core allegation that Individual-1 suborned perjury (meaning, he encouraged or ordered someone to lie under oath) is wrong, just that they don’t necessarily have texts AND emails AND Google docs AND testimony to that effect.

So why did they bother? We don’t know exactly. The most optimistic interpretation is that it was a good faith reaction to the public response to the report. Members of Congress came out and said, basically, “if this is true, we need to know now.”  That was reasonable, because committing or suborning perjury is just about the only thing everyone agrees counts as a high crime or misdemeanor. Mueller’s office, also quite reasonably, didn’t want Congress starting impeachment proceedings based on a report that wasn’t 100% rock-solid, so they issued this very narrow statement to cool things down. Then there’s the suggestion that Mueller’s office thought that the report made it look like they had started leaking after running a famously airtight ship for a year and a half. (Cohen was convicted in the Southern District of New York, which is of course where Individual-1 did “business” for decades. Personally, I tend to think BuzzFeed’s sources are in New York federal law enforcement.) The most alarming theory is that the Department of Justice leaned on the special counsel’s office to push back on the story. The special counsel’s office specifically exists to protect an investigation from interference by political appointees at DOJ. 

Regardless of why it was issued, that statement did not calm the waters.

The BuzzFeed report prompted a round of press appearances by Individual-1’s “lawyer” Rudy Giuliani, who claimed that Trump had in fact been negotiating with Moscow to build his Russian Trump Tower at least throughout the election. He also claimed that he knew the BuzzFeed story, on which he could not comment, was not true, which he knew because he had “been through all the tapes” that he says do not exist. These aren’t lies calculated to make Individual-1 look less guilty. It is a bunch of nonsense cushioning the blow of an overt admission that Individual-1 lied a lot during the campaign about something that his previous lawyer lied to Congress to hide.

Then, as if to drive the point home, BuzzFeed posted the actual 2015 plans and letter of intent for Trump Tower Moscow. They were working with a local developer. They had picked out the site. They had a business plan and a building design, all ready to go. 

Individual-1 appears undeterred. Michael Cohen had agreed to testify publicly for the three relevant House of Representatives early in February, but he backed out this week after Individual-1, over Twitter and in live interviews, started threatening to have Cohen’s father-in-law investigated. I don’t know if Trump wants to open that can of worms, since Cohen’s father-in-law is actually an old business associate of Trump’s, but the point was clear: Individual-1 is willing to throw around the power of the United States government to shut this guy up. We just went through the WHOLE THING about whether or not he acted illegally to control what Michael Cohen said to Congress, and he responded by illegally attempting to control whether or not Michael Cohen speaks to Congress!

Since Individual-1 and his Senate Republican accomplices have ignored all House Democrats’ attempts to reopen the government, House Democrats have nothing to do all day but sit around and be mad at the Puppet-in-Chief. The chairs of the committees that planned to interview Cohen issued a joint press release saying that Michael Cohen will testify whether he likes it or not because they’re not going to reward these, and this is a real quote, “textbook mob tactics.” 

Look. I’m not saying my opinion is worth any more than you’re paying for it. But this episode made me think a couple things:

1. Reputable media outlets have to cut it out with the anonymous sources on this story. “Sources familiar with the matter” is not enough. Sources on Capitol Hill? Sources at the DOJ? Sources in New York? Sources meaning somebody’s defense attorney? This is infuriating.

2. Television news shows have to stop interviewing Rudy Giuliani live. He is using their air time for a disinformation blitzkrieg. By all means, they should keep him yakking away on camera. Give him all the rope you got, say I. But they should do it ON TAPE, in advance, so that they can pause the interview to fact-check him, and air his current lies back-to-back with last month’s lies so even casual viewers will grasp that he lies constantly.

3. It is appropriate that Robert Mueller is a professional who knows how to shut his piehole, unlike certain other 21st-century former FBI directors who shall remain nameless. It is also appropriate that public interest in this story is intense and unrelenting. And despite my many gripes about the media’s performance, it is absolutely appropriate that the press keep putting attention and resources toward this story. This is not a sustainable dynamic. It is unfair to keep the public in the dark. This happened to us as a country and as individuals, and we have an existential stake in the matter. As long as we want to know, we will be leaning on the American political media, which is an institution dominated by bullies whose vanity is outweighed only by their willful ignorance. Like Trumps and small children, they cannot focus long without a great deal more help than the special prosecutor’s office is equipped to provide. Our justifiable frustration is becoming an issue for the special prosecutor’s ability to the best job he can.

Fortunately, there is a way to break that loop: the Democratic House's real investigations. Subpoenas. Not just issued, but announced, publicly. Open hearings. Regular reports. Individual-1 has dug in his heels on the shutdown at least in part to obstruct the Democrats’ ability to do that, so it’s great that they have stopped giving him what he wants. 

Something is happening on this story. Even hearing people talk about it is different – they speak faster and louder. This guy is on the ropes. That’s not just Mueller, it’s not just the Democratic House. It’s people, it’s you, responding to an attack on our democracy, remembering Individual-1’s illegitimacy, refusing to pretend any of this is normal, insisting that we all deserve better.