#i have a 94 in the class right now

[wewontbesleeping]

ugh just finished my final exam and i'm already sick thinking about how much my grade is going to drop.

[abiwaif]

BREAKING: Straight A's Streak Continues

Fall semester 2024 is in the books and all my grades are back. In all my classes I either stayed even or improved my grades since midterms.

I know that those of you who have followed me for some time know that I went to college against the wishes of my overly dominating and legalistic mother. She told me that I would fail college. I was smart in High School so I had no reason to believe her. Thus far I have completed eight semesters and have straight A's. Yes, that is right, straight A's - a perfect 4.0. I do not say that to spite my mother. My mom has been nothing but a thorn in my side since I started. All I know is that it is nice to prove her wrong. I do not say that arrogantly. It just feels good to know I am not what she thinks I am (which includes such a choice moniker as "the Spawn of Satan").

One more semester to go for my B.S. and then continuing for my Masters and PhD (I am on track for a PhD but will determine whether or not to get it as I go).

Here are my final grades

Statistical Learning I (95% A - +1%)

Computational Physics (96% A - Even)

Partial Differential Equations I (96% A - +2%)

Soft Matter and Biological Physics (94% A- - +1%)

Mechanics (95% A - Even)

So I am smart and sassy and smol all rolled up into one tidy little package. Now I just want to be wild and engage in some unspeakable acts. 🤪

Thanks for all the encouragement from you my followers. I really do not know why you follow me, but I a grateful for you all and am glad you do!

[simply-ivanka]

My Long Road From Truman to Trump

I’ve been a Democrat since 1948, when I was 10. But I can no longer abide what my old party has become.

By Bartle Bull Sr. -- Wall Street Journal

I’ve been an outspoken Democrat since 1948, when I was the only student in my fifth-grade class to “vote” for Harry Truman. It’s been astonishingly difficult to disclose that next month I will vote for Donald Trump.

Like many, I will be doing so in the European way, voting for a party and its issues, rather than in the American way of supporting someone I like. When I have expressed my views—on economics, security and cultural matters—long-time liberal friends have said, “You sound like Trump, or some uneducated hillbilly.” Ignoring my schooling at Harvard, Oxford and the Sorbonne, these friends sound like well-meaning dilettantes, otherwise described as self-righteous, useful idiots or bien-pensant.

Such responses prompt me to compare my own liberal credentials with theirs. This makes me a difficult adversary, as I have long been an extremely useful idiot, overloaded with liberal credentials.

To name a few: In 1956 I helped coordinate Harvard Freshmen for Adlai Stevenson. Ten years later, I was arrested as a civil-rights lawyer in Hattiesburg, Miss., where Vernon Dahmer, the local head of the NAACP, had been burned alive in his house. In the same state, I later campaigned for Charles Evers for governor.

In 1968 I quit my job as a Wall Street lawyer to serve as Robert F. Kennedy’s New York campaign coordinator. In 1972, I organized the New York Citizens Committee for McGovern-Shriver. During this period, I was publisher of the Village Voice, a left-wing Manhattan newspaper. In 1976 I worked as Jimmy Carter’s New York state campaign manager, and in 1978 in South Carolina to support Charles Ravenel’s challenge to Sen. Strom Thurmond. My last Democratic Party campaign was in Harlem, backing Craig Schley, a young black reformer, in a primary against Rep. Charles Rangel. In 2008 I was chairman of New York Democrats for John McCain for President.

At the international level, in 1993-94, I volunteered in Bosnia with the International Rescue Committee to help Muslim refugees, spending Christmas Eve with Bosnian soldiers in a bunker in the mountains. In 2010, at 72, I worked in Afghanistan with the Initiative to Educate Afghan Women, going on foot patrols to girls’ schools. The Biden administration later abandoned these courageous women to the Taliban.

For a long time, like an old locomotive, I have been building steam inside when liberal friends, with the certitude and arrogance of the righteous, decry me as a “right-winger.” In a Harvard class-reunion speech many years ago, I said that “Harvard should stand up to the tyrannies of the left today the way it stood up to the tyrannies of the right in the days of Joe McCarthy.” But the progressive agenda doesn’t seem to include what Truman and John F. Kennedy considered liberal values, such as true political tolerance.

Now, as a lifelong Democrat, I am voting Republican for policy reasons, not because I like Mr. Trump. I believe my old party, as it abuses the powers of office and threatens to pack the Supreme Court and end the filibuster, now supports a government that is far too strong at home and far too weak abroad.

Mr. Bull is a writer living in upstate New York. His latest novel is “We’ll Meet Again.”

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

how are men victims when men are straight up so powerful, women feel inferior next to them

Well, first off, thanks for the compliment.

What you describe is actually part of how we got where we are today, because just as men evolved to be bigger and stronger than women, so we too evolved to put the safety of women (and children) before men. That's just how the human race adapted to best survive.

But women did not evolve to put the safety and well-being of men before their own. This turns out to be very important, so keep that in mind, because we'll be coming back to it later.

Once (a minority of) women began demanding the vote, more than a hundred years ago now, men - seeking to aid women in whatever way they could - gave into their demands, and women became more and more involved in political changes and lawmaking over the following decades. This resulted in laws that favored and gave special provisions and protections to women, all in the name of "equality", and usually at the expense of men, who, as before, went along with it because we are hardwired to want to aid and protect women over men.

With the rise of the second wave of feminists, around the turn of the 1970s, this massively intensified, leading to a relentless demonizing of one half of the human race as a class of, well... demons, essentially, and perpetual demands for more aid and special advantages for women. Any man who pointed out that this was not in any way "equal" treatment was tarred and feathered as a "misogynist" and never heard from again. The Marxists infiltrated feminism and the feminists infiltrated the courts, the media and the political and education system, and they all promoted the hell out of this agenda, and women en masse went along with it because of all the free stuff it promised them, and felt no innate drive to see that the other half of humanity was being cared for and treated as well and fairly as themselves.

So now, 50 years on, we live in an age in which 80% of the homeless are men, 80% of the suicides are men, and 94% of all workplace deaths are men. And no-one cares. Universities all across the western world are now 60/40 female/male, and it's common corporate business practice to refuse to hire people for a job simply on the grounds of them being white-skinned and/or male.

So, while I would not want to label men as a class "victims" (the pursuit of victimhood as a political goal and path to success and popularity is another of the biggest problems of today, and another one which likely attained such prominence due to women's increased involvement in political discourse), it's certainly true that men are now systemically disadvantaged in many ways that women are not, and women as a class have many rights, privileges and special protections written into law to advantage them, while men have none.

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 100

One hundred fuckin’ days. God. Actually happened. 

I spent 3/4ths of the year drawing more Junkan art than I think anyone else on the internet ever has. Which might be presumptuous of me, maybe i’m just looking in the wrong places y’know? I’m a solid second place bare minimum.

And like, that’s still pretty funny right? This whole event is something I’m gonna cherish forever, the memories, the art itself, the friends I made because of it. But like, c’mon. I drew 100 fucking pieces, learned new skills like digital painting, animation, all that shit, for a ship that I used to hate, and a ship that for the longest time I thought was gonna get me fuckin banished to the deepest depths of the internet just for drawing a poor sketch of them kissing. This ship has become more deeply entwined into who I am as a person that it’s passed up Tokomaru, the ship that literally made me realize I’m a woman.

It’s gotta be at least a little funny, right?

Ah but enough of that, I can talk more on that subject a bit later. For now I reckon I should focus on our art piece for today! Wouldn’t you agree?

Yeah it’s the Wedding. I’d say even before Day 60 I decided the final pic of the Project would be The Wedding, even before I decided to draw a comic of the proposal. Because like, c’mon, it’s basic but how the fuck else was I supposed to end of the project? With something that ISN’T a wedding????

And very shocking to hear after this entire project has gone by, but I did in fact scale back this pic massively. You wanna know what the original idea was?? 22 images, each one depicting different parts of the wedding and afterparty, including the kiss at the end. And the kiss at the end? I was gonna feature every character from the 3 main classes + Ruruka, Seiko, and Yasuke. Fucking why??? Because Excess is all I know people ITS ALL I KNOW.

However I had decided that I wanted this project finished and ready before October, because I wanted to do the Vampire Fic to coincide with Day 30. And again, say it with me here, “Jem was severely burnt out on the project!” 

So it went from 22 images, to “However many I can get done in time + the big group shot” and then that became “Just the big group shot,” and then finally, i cracked and just drew The Kiss. 

Speaking of which before I divulge some more info about the original plan, i’ll get all the fun things about the actual art I did go through with.

As you can tell I shaded this differently from anything in the project. I normally have two different ways of shading art, I don’t think these are the proper words but I call them Soft Shading and Hard Shading. If you need immediate examples, Day 95 was Soft Shaded, and Day 94 was Hard Shaded. Generally speaking I prefer to do Hard Shading, as I think it works better with the rest of my style, and also just looks better in general. Soft Shading is what I do for pics with like, a very specific tone and energy to them that I can’t really put to words. It’s also significantly easier to do compared to Hard Shading. 

A few months back for a commission of Kaede and Marceline from Adventure Time hanging out (yes this is relevant) I was trying to capture a very specific aesthetic that I’m obsessed with called Frutiger Aero. This mostly was in the background, however when lighting the pic I needed a very specific aesthetic that I didn’t know how to capture with just one of my shading styles. So . . . I fuckin did both. And in my opinion (which is crazy because this requires I compliment myself) it looked fuckin great. That said it was significantly harder.

I think I’ve done it only one other time after this, but I don’t remember what the pic was if it exists at all. But obviously as you can see, I decided that to really commemorate the occasion I’d go all out and do both shading styles again. It was very worth it, but fun fact! Doing this style on Roses is a fucking pain in the ass and if I ever have to do it again I will fucking SCREAM!

Anyway, the pic was definitely a lot harder to work on because of that stylistic choice, but the end result makes up for it by a massive margin. 

Hope ya’ll like the dresses because they were the hardest part of this! Fun fact, Val (She’s back!) did a chapter for her legendary Year of Love and Despair fic where the gals are in wedding dresses. And the designs she came up with are amazing! I still really wanna draw em when I get a chance! However! I woulda felt bad if I just yoinked em for this, so I had to do everything in my power to come up with completely different designs. And given that I am a perfectionist, that was significantly more difficult than it probably shoulda been. But I did it! I really like how Mikan’s dress turned out specifically, I thought giving her a fit that covered up more skin than a normal wedding dress would be fitting for her. Also I really like drawing Mikan’s hair in a bun, I never had a chance to say that so I’mma say that now. 

Wow fuck I just realized there’s probably a lot of random details or thought processes I have on this ship that I just never got an opportunity to talk about, either because I had a different topic to cover on previous posts, or I just forgot, or I just didn’t have a good segway! Crazy right? 

Also yes! Shading Junko’s hair was heavenly~

Okay i’ve run out of words on the art. Time to tell you about everything I cut! Now I’m sad to say but no, I didn’t actually cut 22 planned images. I never got far enough to actually figure out each individual pic. Only a small handful, which I almost speedily sketched out for this post, but I don’t have it in me, especially on my current schedule. So i’ll just do my best to describe what I had in mind!

First piece would have been Mukuro being on Security for the Wedding, because of course. She would have also enlisted the help of Mondo and his entire gang, because that combination in this context sounds funny. Don’t worry though they were well behaved.

Ruruka was gonna handle the Wedding Cake, with Teruteru on the rest of the food. Either Ruruka or Mukuro would have been giving him a death glare during the process of course.

Behind the scenes Mikan would be getting prepped for the Wedding. And by prepped I mean Seiko, Ibuki, and Sayaka would be trying very hard to keep Mikan from crying as a result of how happy and overwhelmed she is (Ruining her makeup). Seiko trying to blow air into her eyes to keep them dry while Sayaka and Ibuki desperately try to find an outlet to plug in a hairdryer in because that would be significantly more efficient.

On the reverse, Junko would be doing all of the work on prepping herself for the wedding, with Ruruka, Yasuke and Tsumugi standing in the background, questioning why they’re even there. Junko would yell at them that they’re morale support in this instance. 

Warriors of Hope would of course be there being scamps of course, Kotoko would be the Flower Girl because I play favorites. Toko and Komaru would probably be there trying to keep them in line.

I didn’t have anything in mind with the afterparty but I more than likely would have drawn the drunkest Junko I possibly could. Maybe even Mikan too!

For the Bouquet Throwing I was gonna have Syo jumping at it like a feral animal, and thinking about it now I’d probably also have Tenko jumping for it with killing intent in her eyes.  

And I think that’s it for ideas I had prior to cutting them. Which means it’s time for me to get sappy about the fact that the project is finally ending! Fuck! Usually when I write these I try to have a decent idea ahead of time of what I’m gonna fucking say, this time however I’m just gonna talk, and i’m gonna keep talking until I’m either struck down by nature or I run out of things to say. Sorry! 

This is going to get silly, sappy, and maybe even a little venty, jump in at your own risk. 

If you told me at the beginning of 2024 that I was going to draw 100 days worth of Junkan related art, including a gif and a music video, 2 comics, and also get back into writing to make gay fanfic, I’d be so god damn confused. Because what the fuck right? And that’s not even counting everything I drew AFTER I fuckin finished! Like hold on a minute i’m gonna count up how many times i’ve drawn these two, including the individual comic pages from the three i’ve made.

204.

Fucking, I. I didn’t even know we passed 200 by this point. 

And that’s not counting the sketches I’ve drawn on paper in my sketchbook. It’s also not counting unfinished pics. It ain’t counting the art I might draw WHILE writing this! It’s not counting the stuff I probably forgot about while searching my files cause I suck at naming the aforementioned files!

AND I’M STILL NOT BURNED OUT EITHER?

I got burned out on the project sure but the moment I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted I fucking IMMEDIATELY drew a Junkan pic for Halloween. And then I kept going, and then I didn’t fucking stop, and I don’t think I CAN stop! I don’t even WANT to stop but you’d think by now I’d be like “Well I don’t have any ideas right now-” NO I HAVE TOO FUCKING MANY IDEAS! I KEEP FUCKING THINKING OF MORE IDEAS, AND THEN I COME UP WITH AN AU AND THAT COULD HAVE LIKE 10,000 MORE IDEAS. JUNKAN IS A MENTAL HYDRA YOU DRAW ONE PIC 2 MORE POP UP IN ITS PLACE!

I can draw these pieces in like a few hours if not shorter, because I don’t have to fucking sketch them properly anymore. I feel like I shouldn’t be able to do that! This ship has done unspeakable things to both my mind and body! And i’ve said it before but i’m not trying to complain here, as you’ll see when I start talking about this ship like it saved me from falling into the grand canyon. But it’s just, so, absurd???

Danganronpa is only like my third favorite piece of media behind Bo-bobo and Fairy Tail and yet I’ve drawn more art of JUST THIS SHIP than I have of just general art of those series! That’s not even counting all the other ship art I’ve done! Like Tokomaru! Remember Tokomaru? The ship that is responsible for me being a woman and being able to find the happiness of being my true self? I think i’ve drawn that and Syomaru a combined like, 20 times across my entire life as a DR fan. ALL OF THIS JUNKAN ART SAY FOR LIKE, 5 OF THEM WERE IN ONE YEAR. 

And bare minimum for 2025, assuming I don’t make ANYTHING ELSE OF THEM (Which I will. You know I will.) I’m gonna draw 21 pics for Junkan Week, because you know I’m gonna just draw EVERY prompt from all three lists. And then 30 more for the Month of Junkan (Will try to have that prompt list up soon btw!). So that’s 51 I’m going to do. That’s over half of what I realistically was supposed to do bare minimum for this project. That’s so fucking much, and I’m gonna do it, because I love this ship, and also it sounds REALLY funny if I did that. 

I think genuinely the only other ships I could fucking do this for are like, Toko/Syomaru or Flarelu. Maybe Togachako if I did a reread of MHA to get me back in the spirit for that series. And even then i’m not sure I physically have it in me to go that distance even for those ships. I certainly want to draw a lot of them, especially Flarelu because that’s a ship so rare that it makes Soft Junkan (before I fucking flooded the tag on tumblr) look like a bustling city.

Speaking of tags, I still think about sometimes how like, the Junkan Tag maybe got like, a post like, a few times every month. The normal amount for a ship of this general Rarity. And now it’s like, for so many pages, just half of it is me. Because I was asked to bring something to eat to the function for the buffet table and I fucking crashed a Food Truck through the wall. I feel bad about it sometimes, sometimes. I’m imagining the scenario in my head where someone who likes Junkan but didn’t check the tag super often because it wasn’t like, a super commonly updated one, and then pressing it for the first time in a year and being like “What the fuck happened here?” You know what still shocks me? Not once have I gotten hate for any of this. I was so fucking scared for like half of this projects creation that I was going to get bombarded with people angry at me for shipping this, and NOTHING. I’m not complaining I’m just confused. I have to at least have had a few people block me right? It’s just so eerily quiet. And it’d be one thing if it’s just a thing of like “Why would people who hate Junkan check the Junkan tag” because yeah, that makes sense. But also I’ve been putting at least one Junkan pic in both characters tags every day for 3 fucking months, there had to be at least one Mikan super fan who is eternally fed up with my antics. Like, awesome that I didn’t get harassed over a ship, that actually gives me a little hope that nature is healing, just. Crazy right???

So like. Fuck.

I guess I’ll get to the sappy shit now?? I think I ran out of things to be confused about in terms of what I did this year because of this ship. So I guess I’ll just start talking about how much it means to me, both the ship, and this project. 

(trigger warning, mentions of abuse, nothing super graphic in my opinion but could be mildly uncomfortable. Either skim ahead or stop here)

2024 kinda, fuckin sucked for me to be honest?? I have like 2 good things I can speak for it in terms of major positive points (Obviously I had other good experiences but if I just said “Oh I read a I Love Amy and it was one of the greatest things ever” it lacks the same impact). Not counting getting this project to like, work, obviously.

I finished the 5 chapters of my webcomic that I wanted prepped so I could actually make a website and start posting (ignore how I didn’t make the fuckin website yet). And I started dating my darling Yves and Rivette. Who I cherish deeply. I made other friends this year, a lot of them in part cause of this ship. And I went through a lot of emotional change. 

But to get that change it required I unpack a lot. And by a lot, I mean one bag that was filled to the brim. Gonna try real hard not to like, talk about this in excessive detail or turn this post into some woe is me bullshit, but I feel like I should at least make mention of it.

At the beginning of the year, I asked Yves (who I wasn’t dating yet) about my previous romantic relationship. And she confirmed to me that, based on everything I had told her about it overtime, that yes, it was abusive.

During 2021-2022 I was in a relationship with a girl I won’t name here, you wouldn’t know her of course, it was a completely different community. It started out as friends, I got a crush, jumped at it because I was still inexperienced with feelings, and it didn’t work out. And that’s the simple way of putting it, and that’s how I viewed it till Yves opened my eyes.

From the getgo it wasn’t healthy. She was manipulative, constantly had outbursts towards me, and yanked me around emotionally constantly. I would later find out that she had a previous history of just, generally being an awful person. Even after we broke up we still stuck around each other, mostly because I felt guilty for breaking up with her, and was also just generally terrified of her. The abuse was all mental of course, it was long distance so she couldn’t hurt me physically at all. 

I of course, didn’t process any of that as me being abused, I even viewed myself as being at fault for a lot of it. The experience was so bad that I identified as Aromantic because just convinced I wasn’t able to feel proper romantic feelings for someone. It wasn’t till much later when I got another crush that I realized that I’m Panromantic, and me being Aro (and very briefly Aegoromantic) was basically just a coping mechanism to write off my trauma. I still feel guilty about that since it feels like I devalued the importance of people who do identify on the Aro spectrum, but that isn’t relevant here.

Point is, a lot of bad shit happened to me because of that woman, and even after a year and a half of us not talking because we both mutually decided it would be better for us to not stay in contact, she still found ways to worm her way back into my life. One conversation we had just by chance, to catch up, that’s all it took and I was thinking of her again. I never talked to her after that, and I have her blocked now, but I didn’t need to for shit to hit the fan.

So I asked Yves that question, she answered, and I now suddenly had to deal with the fact that I was abused, and that I was traumatized as a result. And like, I never really viewed myself as a traumatized person up till that point, I viewed myself as someone who wasn’t very smart but tried her best to do good by people who didn’t have too much baggage beyond some sucky school memories.

When I had to unpack what happened that kind of spiraled into severe Self Confidence Issues and even more Self Hate. I struggled to accept even the slightest compliment if it wasn’t directed at my art. The reason I even quit weed is because I used it almost exclusively to suppress all of the negative emotions I felt. 

I’m in a somewhat better place now, I’m trying to give myself more breaks from artwork, rather than overworking myself constantly just to feel something (and being fully open, I realized near the end of december that I pretty much used Overworking as a form of self harm). I’m gonna really try this year to like, actually let people be nice to me, and in turn try to be nicer to myself. And I have goals to work towards for this year. But I wouldn’t have gotten to this point without two things. One, my girlfriend Yves, who even before we started dating helped me through multiple breakdowns and has helped/allowed me to grow into a (I hope) better, healthier person. And even after I got over most of my feelings related to my Ex, has continued to help me cope with my self hatred. I cherish every moment we share and wouldn’t trade her for anything.

And the other thing, which I know will sound silly right after I talked about my girlfriend, is well. Junkan.

Let me say this, I didn’t get into Junkan to cope with my abuse. I have toyed with the notion in my head before and the idea of it pisses me off to a quite frankly irrational degree. I was into Junkan before I realized my issues. If you want my coping mechanism it’s Alex from Minecraft and no I’m not explaining that right now.

That said, it, like all the yuri ships I like, was a source of comfort for me. Originally I read stuff like Tokomaru fics just to help me reduce stress, back when I dealt with really severe anger issues due to the online spaces I occupied. And to this day reading a nice, fluff fic can calm me down a bit. But now they can serve a much deeper sense of comfort, away from all the bullshit, and obviously, gave me a way to distract/calm myself from the storm of negative emotions and memories that filled the brain.

I see myself in Mikan more than I’d like to personally admit, obviously not to the extreme, but in aspects. So it’s just, nice to see a better timeline for her with Junko, ones where she gets to be happy and maybe even heal as well. It just so happens that I also think there’s a lot of genuinely good potential for the ship from either a canon or non-canon perspective, and Junko’s just a really enjoyable character. 

Working on this project helped too. It gave me a way to dive deeper into my love for this ship, and gave me a sense of purpose and validation that helped me work through the rough. Whether it was the really bad mental health days, or just a shit streak of commission work that tore away at me because my job even if I love drawing can be a real drag at times, and i’m unfortunately a workaholic (Trying to work on it though).

I think i’ve said it before but even something simple as Val showing her excitement over the art pieces I was prepping could genuinely brighten my day even while I was at my lowest.

And then when I really started pursuing this as a project, rather than just a secret stash to satiate myself and one other person minimum, I realized I could do something good here. For the people like me who loved this ship but might have been too nervous about expressing it, the people who were just really craving it, and the people who had already made all of the fics and art that sent me into this spiral of obsessive passion in the first place! A gift to all of them, to make ya’ll happy. 

In hindsight, may not like, the healthiest mindset for setting off this whole project. But hey it all kinda circled around into eventually helping my mental health recover. So like, win?

And i’ve already spoken on how Day 60 allowed me to feel a lot more emotionally free as an artist even if I still have my struggle days. I’ve gotten better just in general as an artist as I improve more at stuff like expressions, posing, linework, etc. And I’ve even managed to make friends with some of the people I used to look up to as idols and can finally just view em as normal people now. (Even if I might still be a bit excessive in my praise, I swear I��m normal about ya’ll besties I just don’t have like, a middleground for showing my appreciation and affection for my friends. It’s maxed out unless I’m tired as shit) 

I find myself comedically terrified of how this ship has affected me over the course of 2024, and how it will likely continue to affect me through 2025 even as I try to move onto other projects not related to Junkan. I wanna show off my love for Fairy Tail on my main blog, and I really think that with a full years time and the first five chapters done I really can get my comic off the ground and focus on that for the foreseeable future.

But hey, 2025 at least we got two whole Junkan Events. And with Junkan Week I’d like to keep that going for as long as I can, unless someone else takes the reins way down the line. So this ol’ blog’ll keep going for a good while I imagine, even if it’s a lot smaller. Maybe I’ll find other ways to keep this place active, I’ve considered just making it a one stop shop for all things Junkan though I don’t think I’m really suited to manage that. Maybe someone’ll read this and try there hand at it down the line, maybe someone’ll do their own 100 Days of Junkan! 

Oh hey did I ever tell ya’ll I was gonna make a comedic video just making a guideline for how one could make their own 100 Days Project. It was gonna be like, pretty obvious points just framed in a very exaggerated and comedic tone. 

Alright anything else I should cover? Fun facts? Deep personal anecdotes? Sappy stuff?

Lemme check my files, maybe i got another dumb joke image- 

. . . 

Oh . . . Well there’s somethin.

Alright, don’t get to excited ya’ll, but just for a bit of fun, how about one last day in the project. I know 101 days doesn’t roll of the tongue as well, but I think this is vaguely interesting enough to make up for that! Tune in tomorrow. Same time, same place. 

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~

[double-features]

ALIVE - TATE LANGDON x READER

˙◠˙------ tate langdon x gn!reader

SUMMARY : after finding out the captivating boy they fell in love with was dead, no more than a phantom haunting their house, reader wants to join him in the afterlife. they needed to stay with him forever.

WARNINGS : (attempted) suicide, topics of death

GENRE : my crappy attempt at angst!!

───────────────୨ৎ───────────────

The little bottle of prescription pills should have worked its magic. But..

You were still alive.

Having lived in the so-called 'murder house', you figured your death would be inevitable; bound to happen whether you liked it or not. And frankly, you liked it. Being just another angsty teenager, you thought that maybe things would have gotten better,

And for the most part, they did. And who else was there to thank for that than Tate. The mysterious boy that drew you in like a moth to the flame. Maybe it was his cute dimples, or those intense near-black eyes that sent shivers down your spine every single time you looked at them.. Maybe it was the morbidity that seemed to follow him, how someone so angelic had so much baggage following him.. Whatever the case, you were both intrigued and smitten.

“I would never let anyone or anything hurt you” God, Tate had such a way of making you feel seen. Making you feel like the most special person on the planet, even if you thought of yourself far from such.

You were important to him, that's all that mattered.

'My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains', you were never one for poetry before you met the boy who seemed to pop up out of nowhere; but he sparked an interest in you like no other. Tate made you feel, he was the one who kept you grounded. Poetry ended up being one of the most important things in your life after he mentioned Keats once.

He was like a guardian angel sent from the skies to protect you. Whether or not the big man up in the clouds was real, you were certain that Tate was meant to be your savior. Your wonderwall.

Such an ironic choice of words, really. Oasis' frontman himself gave the explanation on what the hell a wonderwall was; an imaginary friend who could save you from yourself. There were so many layers to that, so many connections to what you were dealing with now..

Alas, you two had been so in love. Sappy, lovesick children who clung to each other like lifelines. Tate needed you, you needed Tate. His idolization of Kurt Cobain meant so many sessions where the both of you just sat together and listened to Nirvana, cuddled up on the bed. You were locked inside his heart-shaped box. All the comfortable sweaters he lent you to keep warm at night..

“I love you. I've never felt this way about anyone..”

You should have known it was all too good to be true. Someone who fits perfectly with you? Yeah right. You still couldn't forget the sinking feeling in your gut when you first read that news article that just so happened to pop up when you were looking for Westfield High's website--

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Westfield Highschool student Tate Langdon, age 17, shot and killed 15 fellow students, injured countless others. There is no motivation known as to why the boy went through with it- some speculate drugs and bullying might have been involved, but others claim he hadn't even dealt with much.

“I didn't really know who he was, I remember that he sat in the library a lot. Just sat there, like, me and a few of my friends would stop in there during our study hall and he'd just be seated, looking at whatever book he picked out for that day,” states one student we interviewed after the massacre.

Whatever led to such a tragic event, late yesterday evening, the FBI shot the class of 94' alumni and brought justice to the innocent students he murdered just earlier in the day. Was this an elaborate suicide act? We may never know the real reason behind the sickening actions of Langdon.

All we can say is, for the families of the lives lost at Westfield, don't give up. None of this is your fault...

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

It was all so sickening.

Tate. The boy you had clicked with, the boy you gravitated towards, quite possibly one of the first major loves of your life. This.. psychopathic monster was not the Tate you had grown so fond of. Sure, Tate was a little weird, there was obviously some sort of chemical imbalance, but he would never do anything so horrible.. Would he?

Every time you click on another article, the more dread filled the pit you feel deep inside you. All the glee that being with Tate had brought you so far since your move all seemed to crumble, along with the trust you had built. Tate was a ghost.

A ghost. Dead. Just a part of your imagination. At first, you believed that maybe you had heard the name somewhere before and created this delusion of a boyfriend. But that didn't explain how the pictures perfectly matched the appearance of the grungey blond.

That was your breaking point. The moment your seemingly recovered misery returned, it hit harder than ever before.

Tate was dead. He killed people. You didn't even notice the sting in your heart at first until you saw the prescription medication in your peripheral.

Maybe it was the need to be with Tate in the afterlife, maybe it was just the old ideations bubbling over, or maybe it was the guilt of 'dating' someone so damaged. Whatever the reason, the impromptu decision led you to where you are now; in the arms of the boy you loved, under the running frigid water of the shower.

You were still alive.

Feeling the wet, cold sleeves of a sweater wrapped around your waist, you leaned back into the person seated behind you. Curse Tate for being so strangely comforting! You weren't supposed to crave his touch anymore, you were supposed to hate his guts.. But you couldn't bring yourself to do that. You could never hate Tate.

Never.

... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...

Even hours later, not a single word was shared between the both of you guys. When he finally released you from the cramped tub and let you cope alone in your room, there was a strange pit inside of her, an emptiness that only Tate filled.

On your bed, you blankly stared at the ceiling and debated whether or not you wanted him there by your side in that moment. No matter which way you looked at it; he was the push factor for your failed attempt. Then again, it was worth mentioning that..

Tate saved you.

Contradictory, isn't it? The conflict is also the resolution. The usual pessimistic attitude you held would tell you that the negatives outweighed the overlying positive, but not this time. Your thoughts all led you to one need. Tate.

Weakly, you called out into your room, not nearly loudly enough to be considered a yell. “Tate..”

By your bedside appeared the tall boy, looking just as empty as you felt. He looked like the shell of what you knew him to be, there was no doubt that, just like you, he was affected by what happened. Why wouldn't he be? He loved you.

For what felt like forever, the two of you stared into the others dull gaze, searching for any sign of emotion to appear. It was quickly broken by him, voice shaky as he slowly sat down next to you.

“..Why would you do that..? Why would you hurt yourself like that..?”

For the first time in what seemed like forever, you didn't have some silly comeback. There was nothing funny about this at all. “I..”

“Is something wrong..? Was I not a good enough boyfriend..?”

“I'm still alive..”

The comment seemed to take Tate off guard, evident with the widened eyes and lack of a quick response. “You're-- Yeah. You're still alive..”

Alive. Because of Tate. For now, you decided to keep your awareness of what he did in his lifetime to yourself. Since, despite everything, he was still your savior. Misery loves company.

───────────────୨ৎ───────────────

≽^• ˕ • ྀི≼ ------ reblogs & likes are always appreciated, keeps me motivated to continue creating :)

A/N : first attempt at angst, totally rushed because it was my goal to just get something out before christmas. posting schedule is NAWT existent, sigh.

[acti-veg]

do you support a one or two state solution? what is the difference between the two?

The one-state solution generally advocates merging Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip into a single state. Some favour creating a single democratic country, where Arab Muslims would outnumber Jews, thus ending the Zionist project of Israel as a Jewish state. The other version involves Israel annexing the West Bank and either forcing out Palestinians, annihilating them or just denying them the right to vote or take part in civic life. A two-state solution is advocating that Israelis and Palestinians both have their own independent state, though the variations between different approaches on this one tend to be much wider. People argue over what the political arrangement would look like, where each state would end, UN membership etc.

I think that the ideal scenario would be a one state solution where Israelis and Palestinians were both represented, under a fair democracy, with wealth redistributed and displaced Palestinians return home. The problem is that with things as they are now, because of the western support, wealth and military power Israel enjoys, practically speaking, the ‘one state’ would be Israel. Israel would likely keep its existing power structures and prejudices, Palestinians would be second class citizens, poor, very likely oppressed and with minimal representation.

For that reason, I’ve always advocated for a two-state solution under the terms of a return to something resembling armistice lines that were agreed at the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. I’d also want to see the return of Resolution 94, which stated that Palestinian refugees who wish to return to their homes should be allowed to do so. Israel would also need to fund the rebuilding of a prosperous Palestinian state.

I'll admit though, it is difficult to see how this could be agreed in practice. With Israel committing genocide in the region, they will create a whole new generation of terrorists, freedom fighters, and militants of all political stripes, who have been radicalised, orphaned, disenfranchised or displaced by the genocide. The IOF have all but ensured another century of conflict, even if the West does decide to withdraw their support of the genocide.

I really don't know what the right answer is, I just know that an immediate and permanent ceasefire, is required to even begin to figure it out. Which ever 'solution' you advocate for, any reasonable person will agree that there can never be an end to the conflict while Israel continues to torture, displace, execute and starve the Palestinian people. And not until the West stops supplying the IOF with arms and political support, either.

[sweetbottletops]

Aya looks really nice here. The mug shot will be immaculate.

Ch. 94

Three gyaru spending the entire passing period in the bathroom, in retrospect, should not be a surprise. She's going to look amazing ripping them all a new one though.

Koga hardly made it past the doorway. Dropped her phone even. And it does look like a good chunk of the class are involved. Her body language is obvious, but none of them have put a stop to it.

Aya saw the lyrics. At least enough to *know*. The title is her own words. She looks right over to Koga who *knows* that she knows and looks particularly struck in that moment.

Aya seeing it seems to have really set her off.

"It's Koga-san's latest hit...such a great song (LOL!)" For anyone wondering, Japanese fans are interpreting him as mocking, malicious, and inexcusable. His behavior is clearly wrong.

Aya's gap is scary.

Read the room, buddy. You stole her private notebook and wrote her private feelings on the classroom wall.... AND sullied it with MTL!

I do think he was trying to give her a hard time because she went viral online and had the audacity of being good at English. She seemed like fair game when if he knew her he'd know she isn't looking to go viral, wanting attention, intentionally hides everything about herself like being fluent in English, and never intended sharing her song beyond Aya.

(Were those feet Koga running past Aya into the hallway where the other girls are? Those are her school shoes. I'm having spacial problems.)

Aya understands that music is where Koga is safe to feel things. Music is how they connected and communicated in playlists. Hidden in a song in a language Aya doesn't know is Koga's true feelings. Likely meant only for her to hear someday.

(Is Koga literally throwing up or is she having trouble breathing?)

Not now, Baldy.

Aya having a hold-me-back moment. She's going to get in trouble anyway so might as well go feral.

I'm not sure Koga has ever had anyone defend her so completely. She shields Joe from a lot of stuff and he can't be everywhere at once.

Last time she had a friend things went bad when faced with adversity, but she should know Aya dgaf about the crowd herself and won't ever ask Koga to either. Things won't go down the same way this time around.

I am almost expecting this will trigger a parents' conference. Maybe I just really want them to all meet. Aya's parents raised a gyaru kid so have to be pretty nice. And I want everyone to see how cool Joe and Kanna are. (And I wanna see that loser boy realize how out of their league he is vs them.)

[sergeifyodorov]

I’m curious because of how you rank Cale, who do you think are the top 10 players in the league? (We can exclude goalies because they’re such an entirely different skill set but would love to hear their separate ranking)

oooh ok this is. an inchresting question... under the cut bc dashclog Et Cetera.... the cody sergeifyodorov unoffishul players rankings at This Very Moment In Time. get mad at me if u want idk let's dance

number ten: sidney crosby. Old Man Still Has It, More At Ten

number nine: david pastrnak. arguably -- and i am going to argue it -- the best pure shooter in the league. the reason hes not like theee goalscorer of all time is bc he generally lacks puck carriers/space creators/isn't much of a puck carrier or a space creator of his own, but like. based off shot alone? hundredth percentile.

number eight: elias pettersson. two way centre... the usual vancouver oish% boost but also just a fantastic dual threat AND a legit lady byng candidate with a penalty differential big enough to severely boost his value just based off that. like imho there's nothing that petey is specifically Good At (like how pasta is a pure goalscorer) but he's basically got no weaknesses. and hes gay

number seven: cale makar IS very good. conn smythe norris etc but most importantly he did win a hockeyblr babygirl of the year award so theres that too. some crazy bobby orr pointgetter. real good defensive results too. like hes crazy good and they say hes crazy good for a reason

number six: ill concede. leon draisaitl

[GAP OF PRETTY SIGNIFICANT SIZE]

number five: quinn hughes. i don't know what fuckass magic this sad little man has. decent finisher. great playmaker. best power play quarterback in the league. makes anyone who plays with him appear to be "oh shit, this guy's a great partner for hughes!" (i have seen this with at least 5 diff players, not one of whom anyone would consider Quite Good on their own.) L + ratio + oish% + makar has devon toews + youngest captain in the league + you bet that conn smythe and norris combo is his soon enough

number four: nathan mackinnon. best dual threat in the league (no one who's a better passer than him is a better goalscorer, and no one who's a better goalscorer is a better passer.)

number three: nikita kucherov. i want you to do something for me. i want you to go to espn dot com. i want you to go to espn dot com slash nhl. i want you to go to espn dot com slash nhl slash team stats tampa bay lightning. it should be sorted by points for you. there's dearly beloved creepy eyes keeta right there in first. 94 points as of me writing this. crazy number for right now. wolfboy of all time brayden point should be in second. take a look for me rn at the difference between those two in points. what the fuck

number two: auston matthews. is this leafs bias? sure. im a leafs guy. im just saying that he's a better goalscorer than ovi in his prime, and he's a centre and great defensively too. i could tell you that he is fifth all time in goals per game, and two of the four guys ahead of him were born in the 1800s. i could tell you that he has 48 goals in 52 games right now, and 0 empty netters. i could tell you that if you only counted goals he scored when the leafs were down one or tied, he'd be in the top ten in goals this year.

[GAP OF PRETTY SIGNIFICANT SIZE]

number one: connor mcdavid. he has almost as many assists as the second-best in his draft class (mitchell) has points. he has 930 points in 620 games. he is the only player in the salary cap era to have a 150-point season. idk there's just fuckin . no one like him. like generally an untrained eye can't really see how much better or faster any given player is than the rest but like. you can with him. he just Looks a step ahead of the pack. top five all time, and he's in his prime rn!!!! lets go connie all my homies love connie

[seat-safety-switch]

Although retirement is out of reach for many of us, there’s one thing that we can all still get. Shitty old 90s Mustangs. As long as we do it right now, before the investors get over here and start driving up the price to as many as two thousand dollars, we can all have a little bit of anemic grand-touring hardtop in our lives. Unless we want a stick shift, a V8, or a convertible. Or a running car. You know what? Forget this whole thing, I just saw a Craigslist post for a wrecked ‘94 V6. Seller wants nineteen grand for it, abandon market.

There’s a lot of cross-class appeal to the Mustang, whose reputation has in a few short decades broadened from “attractive successful businessperson’s car” to the stick-axled understeer demon that menaces car meets and trailer parks alike. Unfortunately for all of us dirtbags, the price has continued to rise along with its demand. Nowadays, you can’t get one of Vanilla Ice’s prized 5.0s for less than one of those aforementioned trailer homes.

Some of you out in the audience are probably throwing things at your monitor, lashing out at the very idea of me claiming that the Mustang’s increase in price is proportionate to its increase in demand. It is true that Ford Motor Company has, since the fateful year of 1964.5, produced more total Mustangs than there are currently alive human beings on Earth.

We could all have one, if the economy were better managed and the means of production seized. Karl Marx himself did not write extensively about Mustangs, mentioning them only briefly (Engels was more of a Firebird guy,) but his intentions were clear. However, this analysis fails to comprehend the fact that virtually 95% of all Mustangs have been destroyed in low-speed single-vehicle accidents with stationary objects. Some scientists now believe there are as few as eight four-eyed Capris left in the world, and some guy from Topeka somehow ended up with all of them.

[hondafuckingodyssey]

X-men comic recommendations

The other day I went on a rant about how nobody should attempt to read all of the x-men comics in order because if the x-men have no respect for the spacetime continuum, you shouldn't have to respect reading their shit in order.

So here's a list of comics series, some that I've read and some that are on my to read list. Mind the authors and the dates, Marvel likes to recycle titles so sometimes you'll accidentally pick up something that's a completely different story from ten years later.

If you're going to getting your comics from the library and different sources (cough archive.org cough), or skipping around to different eras, I recommend an app like Comic Geeks where you can track which issues you've read. As a bonus, you get a satisfying little dopamine hit every time you check off a comic you read.

The original silver age comics from 1963 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby These are fun, but they kind of suck. I believe X-men was one of their worst selling titles for many years. They are campy fun though, like that island has a giant acme magnet on on top of it, I wonder if that's Magneto's secret base, hmmm? I'm kind of working through these when I just have my phone because they're easier to read on a smaller screen than the new stuff with full page spreads.

Chris Claremont's classic X-men run, starting in 1975. This is the classic starting point I hear recommended again and again. You start with Giant Size x-men number 1, and then go to X-men issue 94. This is where all the classic x-men are introduced. You got your Dark Phoenix saga, and Days of Future Past, and a lot of the storylines that were used in the 90's animated series. Everybody should read some of these. But Chris Claremont was writing the X-men for FOURTEEN years. Do not attempt to read all of these before you move onto the modern stuff.

The Dark Phoenix saga, 1980 Chris Claremont, issues 129-138 Ok, I just finished these last night and they're so good that I want to make a special call out for them. I jumped ahead to read them and I'm so glad I didn't wait. I can't figure out how the movies sucked so bad when they had this source material to work with. We could have had an epic moon battle? If you don't read anything else from this era read these. Pro tip: get the epic version of like a prayer stuck in your head right before starting on issue 137. Really adds to the atmosphere.

X-men Season 1 by Dennis Hopeless, 2012 This is a graphic novel (so published altogether instead of in individual issues) retelling of the original silver age comics. It's mostly from Jean Grey's point of view. It's very fun.

Children of the Atom, 1999 by Joe Casey, 6 issues Sort of a prequel, explains how Charles Xavier recruited a bunch of teenagers. This looks good, but it started out with mutants being lynched, and with the way I always compare being a mutant to being queer, and the election and project 2025 looming, I decided this one was too much for me right now.

X-men First Class, 2006 by Jeff Parker, 8 issues I read the first four of these and they were cute. Bobby is writing home to his parents about his time in school, Scott and Jean go to the beach. Lots of fun character stuff. Originally 8 issues but it looks like they immediately did another run of issues the next year.

New X-men, 2001 by Grant Morrison his run starts with issue 114 This is a great place to jump in if Deadpool & Wolverine got you interested in x-men comics, because it's got Cassandra Nova in it. She's doing her weird finger thing! Supposedly this is one of best places to jump into modern x-men. I've read about 6 of them, so far so good.

Astonishing X-men, 2004 by Joss Whedon This is supposed to be the best x-men run ever. It continues directly from Grant Morrison's run. I'm saving it for next time I have a mental breakdown a rainy day.

All-New X-men, 2013 by Brian Michael Bendis This is what I'm reading the most of right now. Cyclops is being an asshole, and Beast decides the best way to solve this problem is to go back in time and bring the original teenage x-men from '60s back with him to confront him. This works particularly well as a jumping in point because they keep explaining backstory through the kids finding out all the ridiculous things that have happened. Like, poor Jean asking how she died, and they're is like, um which time?

[gigglomancer]

To Antoine de Saint-Exupery,

I owe you many thanks: first, thank you for being born 93 years before me. Had it been 94 or 92, you would have been such a different person, and you and I would not share asteroid B-612. Did you feel it beneath your feet when you were born? Maybe not, but it was there in your 4th house that day in late June, just as it passed over you in the 10th in the African desert. While it was very noble of you to proceed me by almost a century, this unfortunately means you're dead now. Your sacrifice has meant a lot, and I hope you were not alone in your life. Somehow, I doubt you were. Second, thank you for being French. Bet no one ever thanked you for that, right? I read Le Petit Prince for the first time in my 5th grade French class. With the Collins French to English dictionary in my lap, your book and my notebook on the desk, I diligently translated my way through your story to search for meaning. And honestly? Initially, I was terribly afraid you were dry and boring instead of terribly condescending like most adults, but when the question of "the hat" came up, I knew your frustrated heart immediately, and I started paying real attention. Had you not been French, I would have had to read Jules Verne, and he was a wonderfully bright-hearted person, but he and I do not share B-612 - you see the problem? Who could have told me about the rose, the sheep, and the baobobs, if not you? Finally, thank you for teaching me the basic premises if magic, which my heart already knew, but was threatened to extinction in my mind.

I come from a long line of pirates, travellers by sea and sky. Long ago, my ancestors travelled from a distant point and landed in West Africa, thousands of miles from where you met the Prince in the Sahara, but closer than where either of us were born! They passed over B-612 once, long before the rose sprouted, and they saw your golden-haired Prince without thinking much of him. You see, pirates aren't just explorers, they're treasure hunters, only interested in the prizes that glimmer under sunlight. They abandoned their watery little planet in search of "something of value." They knew nothing about baobobs and the work it took the little prince to maintain his home, nor why it should matter, for B-612 is just another small asteroid, thus of no particular value. They met the man with his tallies and sums, and jealous were they indeed! "How smart was he, to think of owning the stars? We wish we thought of that first." But truthfully, "matters of consequence" were too troublesome; the pirates couldn't stomach the tediousness of just watching him count. Imagine if they had witnessed the Prince caring for his rose - they could not fathom such a thing at all. "Life grows from the ground to feed our bellies," they'd say, "not to make demands." As far as the pirates were concerned, the sun rose to warm and darken their skin; the wind blew to wick their sweat; and the ground rose up out of the ocean to bring them vantage points from which to seek new treasures. They know nothing of taming - that relationship to effort and time which gives things their importance - because pirates wish to steal even time. Earth is a place of great treasures, they tell me, where many things glimmer and shine, and no one has to work so hard as to count the stars, light the lamps, or weed the baobobs. "What is the value of working so hard?" But this is also what they said when Earths treasures were out of reach. They would declare something of value, then soon after say "but to work so hard for it? It's not so valuable." But if you listen to pirates, what's valuable is always meant to be sold or exchanged, is of no use to the self, and changes with every news cycle. How can anything truly be valuable? How can anyone who truly feels their own beating heart ask that? I come from a long line of pirates, so I have seen and come to know that nothing is truly valuable - nothing is truly anything, and frankly, nothing is true. Or rather, there is no singular truth: we are awash in a sea of subjectivity, the waters of our subconsciousnesses washing up against each other, shifting temperature and tide. Most only see what washes up on the shores of their minds; in the desert, you had nothing but endless shore. There, you discovered the first building block of magic, as I see it:

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

The only things of true value are the ones that glow in your heart; that which calls to us, again and again, the tantalizing and frustrating alike; that which you tend to daily.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

This is the love of oneness Virgo and the 6th House speak to, the asymptotic relationship humans have to perfection: if you tend to your beloved rose daily, maybe one day, you will cease to be separate.

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."

"Taming," as the fox puts it, is the art of familiarizing yourself with reality by spending time within it. One only understands that which one tames, and so one can only do spellcraft or energy work with that which is tamed by the self. Spend time in nature, with plants, animals, and stones, and one will find over time that each calls to mind different (although at times overlapping) sentiments - emotional flavours - that one can utilize creatively in their workings. I will never make spell lists; my spells will not work cast by anyone but me, they are made up of that which I have self-tamed. Likewise, so will your most effective spells - the spells of others are only worth studying for their composition and creativity, not because they can be robotically applied to your own circumstances. Beyond nature, all things in this world are tameable, from its sights (visual art, photography, sculpture, etc) to its sounds (music, speech, storytelling, etc) to its tastes (foods, candies, spirits, teas, nectars, etc), and so on. To tame is to know, and to know is a process of experiencing over time. Not all things we tame will be sweet to us; this world is full of spice and bitterness too. Taming is a two-way process, but most of reality desires to experience and be experienced by others - to turn away from that process is to turn away from life itself; those who do not wish to experience surely wish to not exist. Experience is all we ever do; for the aspiring magic practitioner, that experience demands more examination: life demands to be deeply felt, and each feeling in each passing moment tasted and considered. 42 sunsets in a day and never bored. We long to experience reality with the same attention to detail our bodies feel when the hairs stand up on your arms or legs, each felt individually. A tree feels like one big thing until, one by one, the leaves come flittering down. Thank you again for being the first of many friends, inspirations, and mentors that have lead me on this path. I'm sure it would bring you happiness to know you sparked a lasting sense of wonder in a young child and a hopefulness in my journey to find others like us, beings I might never have imagined had I not chanced upon your story. Perhaps, one lifetime or another, you'll chance upon mine too.

[thepolyamorouspolymath]

Fun fact to share with anyone who tells you about how they vote Trump because of prices or the economy, the "gas and eggs" lie that even leftists seem to believe...

Eggs have gone up in price around $0.70 since 1980 as has gas when adjusted for inflation.

So no it wasn't a choice between wallets and human rights -- because those prices haven't changed much.

It's taking more of your money to pay for essentials because of an artificial housing crisis (of Republican support), an out of date utility system (of Republican support), and wage suppression (of Republican support.)

You can check here

for prices on goods like gas and eggs and milk, adjusted for inflation every year.

The idea that Republicans are better on the economy is a lie. It's simply not supported by actual data. If we were in 1925, then we could debate the value of liberal and conservative economic policies -- they were both largely untried, simply theoretical math.

But it's been almost a century and every time conservative economics have been put in play, a market crash and recession inevitably follow. When liberal policies have been put into place, we rebounded from the biggest economic disaster in history to the longest period of sustained growth, created the middle class, funded not only our own part in WWII but a goodly portion of the UK's as well, paid to reconstruct Europe, increased education, created a safety net for our elderly (FDR post Hoover depression), had an economic and technological boom, a soaring stock market, ran a budget surplus, (Clinton post Reagan/Bush recession) restored industries, improved healthcare, came back with 72 months of sustained job growth (Obama post Bush 2 recession).

Now I will not blame Trump for the economic problems in his last year in office -- pandemics can happen to anyone and while better economic policies could have helped, that's theoretical which is up for debate, and I'm here to address FACTS. Hard data from unpartisan sources that is publicly available FACTS.

And Biden's "terrible" economy? Yeah we had the lowest inflation in the western world (EU inflation in 2023 was 6.59% versus US inflation in 2023 was 4.1% -- as of October 2024, inflation was at 2.6% versus Trump's 2.3% inflation rate in 2019) at a time when inflation is INEVITABLE (literally every pandemic has an inflation period after it, since forever -- look at the Black Death sometime), the highest GDP (21.43T for 2019 versus 27.36T for 2023) and GNP (21.73T in 2019 versus 29.03T for 2023) in history, jobs growth every quarter (unemployment rate of 3.7% in 2019 to 3.6% in 2023, which means we not only got back everything we lost from COVID, but then some), and an increase in the median wage from $35k per person per year to $59k.

For those of you who have some weird devotion to tax rates in 2019, the federal income tax rates were 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 37%. In 2023 they were... exactly the same. Your tax rates remained unchanged by Democrats at all. Also the largest budget deficit in history occurred under Trump's first administration. Personally I find these less than irrelevant (FDR put on a top tax of 94% and spent more than anyone knew you could spent and it paid off spectacularly.) But if you want to claim to be a fiscal conservative (tell me you don't understand history or economics without telling me...) then you should care.

The stock market is the worst indicator of economic health as its based on perception rather than value and has relatively little effect on daily life for most people. So how did it do under Trump (pre Covid number) versus Biden?

The S&P 500 value as of January 2020 was 3289.29. As of October 2024, 5705.45.

Again, those are all publicly available numbers.

STOP LETTING THEM GET BY WITH THE IDEA THAT THEY ARE GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY BECAUSE NO THEY ARE NOT. THEY HAVE LITERALLY NO DATA TO SUPPORT THAT.

Economics is a hard science. Data matters.

We can debate the role of religion or parental control or the fundamental nature of man. But basic arithmetic? No, sorry that question has been answered.

And anyone who tries to use it as a justification for supporting Nazis is wrong, lying, or both.

[dailyanarchistposts]

Footnotes, 251 - 300

[251] A bulky literature, dealing with this formerly much neglected subject, is now growing in Germany. Keller’s works, Ein Apostel der Wiedertäufer and Geschichte der Wiedertäufer, Cornelius’s Geschichte des münsterischen Aufruhrs, and Janssen’s Geschichte des deutschen Volkes may be named as the leading sources. The first attempt at familiarizing English readers with the results of the wide researches made in Germany in this direction has been made in an excellent little work by Richard Heath — “Anabaptism from its Rise at Zwickau to its Fall at Munster, 1521–1536,” London, 1895 (Baptist Manuals, vol. i.) — where the leading features of the movement are well indicated, and full bibliographical information is given. Also K. Kautsky’s Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation, London, 1897.

[252] Few of our contemporaries realize both the extent of this movement and the means by which it was suppressed. But those who wrote immediately after the great peasant war estimated at from 100,000 to 150,000 men the number of peasants slaughtered after their defeat in Germany. See Zimmermann’s Allgemeine Geschichte des grossen Bauernkrieges. For the measures taken to suppress the movement in the Netherlands see Richard Heath’s Anabaptism.

[253] “Chacun s’en est accommodé selon sa bienséance... on les a partagés... pour dé pouiller les communes, on s’est servi de dettes simulées” (Edict of Louis the Fourteenth, of 1667, quoted by several authors. Eight years before that date the communes had been taken under State management).

[254] “On a great landlord’s estate, even if he has millions of revenue, you are sure to find the land uncultivated” (Arthur Young). “One-fourth part of the soil went out of culture;” “for the last hundred years the land has returned to a savage state;” “the formerly flourishing Sologne is now a big marsh;” and so on (Théron de Montaugé, quoted by Taine in Origines de la France Contemporaine, tome i. p. 441).

[255] A. Babeau, Le Village sous l’Ancien Régime, 3e édition. Paris, 1892.

[256] In Eastern France the law only confirmed what the peasants had already done themselves; in other parts of France it usually remained a dead letter.

[257] After the triumph of the middle-class reaction the communal lands were declared (August 24, 1794) the States domains, and, together with the lands confiscated from the nobility, were put up for sale, and pilfered by the bandes noires of the small bourgeoisie. True that a stop to this pilfering was put next year (law of 2 Prairial, An V), and the preceding law was abrogated; but then the village Communities were simply abolished, and cantonal councils were introduced instead. Only seven years later (9 Prairial, An XII), i.e. in 1801, the village communities were reintroduced, but not until after having been deprived of all their rights, the mayor and syndics being nominated by the Government in the 36,000 communes of France! This system was maintained till after the revolution of 1830, when elected communal councils were reintroduced under the law of 1787. As to the communal lands, they were again seized upon by the State in 1813, plundered as such, and only partly restored to the communes in 1816. See the classical collection of French laws, by Dalloz, Répertoire de Jurisprudence; also the works of Doniol, Dareste, Bonnemère, Babeau, and many others.

[258] This procedure is so absurd that one would not believe it possible if the fifty-two different acts were not enumerated in full by a quite authoritative writer in the Journal des Economistes (1893, April, p. 94), and several similar examples were not given by the same author.

[259] Dr. Ochenkowski, Englands wirthschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters (Jena, 1879), pp. 35 seq., where the whole question is discussed with full knowledge of the texts.

[260] Nasse, Ueber die mittelalterliche Feldgemeinschaft und die Einhegungen des XVI. Jahrhunderts in England (Bonn, 1869), pp. 4, 5; Vinogradov, Villainage in England (Oxford, 1892).

[261] Seebohm, The English Village Community, 3rd edition, 1884, pp. 13–15.

[262] “An examination into the details of an Enclosure Act will make clear the point that the system as above described [communal ownership] is the system which it was the object of the Enclosure Act to remove” (Seebohm, l.c. p. 13). And further on, “They were generally drawn in the same form, commencing with the recital that the open and common fields lie dispersed in small pieces, intermixed with each other and inconveniently situated; that diverse persons own parts of them, and are entitled to rights of common on them... and that it is desired that they may be divided and enclosed, a specific share being let out and allowed to each owner” (p. 14). Porter’s list contained 3867 such Acts, of which the greatest numbers fall upon the decades of 1770–1780 and 1800–1820, as in France.

[263] In Switzerland we see a number of communes, ruined by wars, which have sold part of their lands, and now endeavor to buy them back.

[264] A. Buchenberger, “Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik,” in A. Wagner’s Handbuch der politischen Oekonomie, 1892, Band i. pp. 280 seq.

[265] G.L. Gomme, “The Village Community, with special reference to its Origin and Forms of Survival in Great Britain” (Contemporary Science Series), London, 1890, pp. 141–143; also his Primitive Folkmoots (London, 1880), pp. 98 seq.

[266] “In almost all parts of the country, in the Midland and Eastern counties particularly, but also in the west — in Wiltshire, for example — in the south, as in Surrey, in the north, as in Yorkshire, — there are extensive open and common fields. Out of 316 parishes of Northamptonshire 89 are in this condition; more than 100 in Oxfordshire; about 50,000 acres in Warwickshire; in Berkshire half the county; more than half of Wiltshire; in Huntingdonshire out of a total area of 240,000 acres 130,000 were commonable meadows, commons, and fields” (Marshall, quoted in Sir Henry Maine’s Village Communities in the East and West, New York edition, 1876, pp. 88, 89).

[267] Ibid. p. 88; also Fifth Lecture. The wide extension of “commons” in Surrey, even now, is well known.

[268] In quite a number of books dealing with English country life which I have consulted I have found charming descriptions of country scenery and the like, but almost nothing about the daily life and customs of the laborers.

[269] In Switzerland the peasants in the open land also fell under the dominion of lords, and large parts of their estates were appropriated by the lords in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. (See, for instance, Dr. A. Miaskowski, in Schmoller’s Forschungen, Bd. ii. 1879, Pp. 12 seq.) But the peasant war in Switzerland did not end in such a crushing defeat of the peasants as it did in other countries, and a great deal of the communal rights and lands was retained. The self-government of the communes is, in fact, the very foundation of the Swiss liberties.

[270] Miaskowski, in Schmoller’s Forschungen, Bd. ii. 1879, p. 15.

[271] See on this subject a series of works, summed up in one of the excellent and suggestive chapters (not yet translated into English) which K. Bücher has added to the German translation of Laveleye’s Primitive Ownership. Also Meitzen, “Das Agrar- und Forst-Wesen, die Allmenden und die Landgemeinden der Deutschen Schweiz,” in Jahrbuch für Staatswissenschaft, 1880, iv. (analysis of Miaskowsky’s works); O’Brien, “ in a Swiss village,” in Macmillan’s Magazine, October 1885.

[272] The wedding gifts, which often substantially contribute in this country to the comfort of the young households, are evidently a remainder of the communal habits.

[273] The communes own, 4,554,100 acres of woods out of 24,813,000 in the whole territory, and 6,936,300 acres of natural meadows out of 11,394,000 acres in France. The remaining 2,000,000 acres are fields, orchards, and so on.

[274] In Caucasia they even do better among the Georgians. As the meal costs, and a poor man cannot afford to give it, a sheep is bought by those same neighbors who come to aid in the work.

[275] Alfred Baudrillart, in H. Baudrillart’s Les Populations Rurales de la France, 3rd series (Paris, 1893), p. 479.

[276] The Journal des Économistes (August 1892, May and August 1893) has lately given some of the results of analyzes made at the agricultural laboratories at Ghent and at Paris. The extent of falsification is simply incredible; so also the devices of the “honest traders.” In certain seeds of grass there was 32 percent of gains of sand, colored so as to Receive even an experienced eye; other samples contained from 52 to 22 percent only of pure seed, the remainder being weeds. Seeds of vetch contained 11 percent of a poisonous grass (nielle); a flour for cattle-fattening contained 36 percent of sulfates; and so on ad infinitum.

[277] A. Baudrillart, l.c. p. 309. Originally one grower would undertake to supply water, and several others would agee to make use of it. “What especially characterizes such associations,” A. Baudrillart remarks, “is that no sort of written agreement is concluded. All is arranged in words. There was, however, not one single case of difficulties having arisen between the parties.”

[278] A. Baudrillart, l.c. pp. 300, 341, etc. M. Terssac, president of the St. Gironnais syndicate (Ariège), wrote to my friend in substance as follows: — “For the exhibition of Toulouse our association has grouped the owners of cattle which seemed to us worth exhibiting. The society undertook to pay one-half of the traveling and exhibition expenses; one-fourth was paid by each owner, and the remaining fourth by those exhibitors who had got prizes. The result was that many took part in the exhibition who never would have done it otherwise. Those who got the highest awards (350 francs) have contributed 10 percent of their prizes, while those who have got no prize have only spent 6 to 7 francs each.”

[279] In W¸rttemberg 1,629 communes out of 1,910 have communal property. They owned in 1863 over 1,000,000 acres of land. In Baden 1,256 communes out of 1,582 have communal land; in 1884–1888 they held 121,500 acres of fields in communal culture, and 675,000 acres of forests, i.e. 46 percent of the total area under woods. In Saxony 39 percent of the total area is in communal ownership (Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, 1886, p. 359). In Hohenzollern nearly two-thirds of all meadow land, and in Hohenzollern-Hechingen 41 percent of all landed property, are owned by the village communities (Buchenberger, Agrarwesen, vol. i. p. 300).

[280] See K. Bücher, who, in a special chapter added to Laveleye’s Ureigenthum, has collected all information relative to the village community in Germany.

[281] K. Bücher, ibid. pp. 89, 90.

[282] For this legislation and the numerous obstacles which were put in the way, in the shape of red-tapeism and supervision, see Buchenberger’s Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik, Bd. ii. pp. 342–363, and p. 506, note.

[283] Buchenberger, l.c. Bd. ii. p. 510. The General Union of Agricultural Cooperation comprises an aggregate of 1,679 societies. In Silesia an aggregate of 32,000 acres of land has been lately drained by 73 associations; 454,800 acres in Prussia by 516 associations; in Bavaria there are 1,715 drainage and irrigation unions.

[284] See Appendix XII.

[285] For the Balkan peninsula see Laveleye’s Propriété Primitive.

[286] The facts concerning the village community, contained in nearly a hundred volumes (out of 450) of these inquests, have been classified and summed up in an excellent Russian work by “V.V.” The Peasant Community (Krestianskaya Obschina), St. Petersburg, 1892, which, apart from its theoretical value, is a rich compendium of data relative to this subject. The above inquests have also given origin to an immense literature, in which the modern village-community question for the first time emerges from the domain of generalities and is put on the solid basis of reliable and sufficiently detailed facts.

[287] The redemption had to be paid by annuities for forty-nine years. As years went, and the greatest part of it was paid, it became easier and easier to redeem the smaller remaining part of it, and, as each allotment could be redeemed individually, advantage was taken of this disposition by traders, who bought land for half its value from the ruined peasants. A law was consequently passed to put a stop to such sales.

[288] Mr. V.V., in his Peasant Community, has grouped together all facts relative to this movement. About the rapid agricultural development of South Russia and the spread of machinery English readers will find information in the Consular Reports (Odessa, Taganrog).

[289] In some instances they proceeded with great caution. In one village they began by putting together all meadow land, but only a small portion of the fields (about five acres per soul) was rendered communal; the remainder continued to be owned individually. Later on, in 1862–1864, the system was extended, but only in 1884 was communal possession introduced in full. — V.V.‘s Peasant Community, pp. 1–14.

[290] On the Mennonite village community see A. Klaus, Our Colonies (Nashi Kolonii), St. Petersburg, 1869.

[291] Such communal cultures are known to exist in 159 villages out of 195 in the Ostrogozhsk district; in 150 out of 187 in Slavyanoserbsk; in 107 village communities in Alexandrovsk, 93 in Nikolayevsk, 35 in Elisabethgrad. In a German colony the communal culture is made for repaying a communal debt. All join in the work, although the debt was contracted by 94 householders out of 155.

[292] Lists of such works which came under the notice of the zemstvo statisticians will be found in V.V.‘s Peasant Community, pp. 459–600.

[293] In the government of Moscow the experiment was usually made on the field which was reserved for the above-mentioned communal culture.

[294] Several instances of such and similar improvements were given in the Official Messenger, 1894, Nos. 256–258. Associations between “horseless” peasants begin to appear also in South Russia. Another extremely interesting fact is the sudden development in Southern West Siberia of very numerous cooperative creameries for making butter. Hundreds of them spread in Tobolsk and Tomsk, without any one knowing wherefrom the initiative of the movement came. It came from the Danish cooperators, who used to export their own butter of higher quality, and to buy butter of a lower quality for their own use in Siberia. After a several years’ intercourse, they introduced creameries there. Now, a great export trade has grown out of their endeavors.

[295] Toulmin Smith, English Guilds, London, 1870, Introd. p. xliii.

[296] The Act of Edward the Sixth — the first of his reign — ordered to hand over to the Crown “all fraternities, brotherhoods, and guilds being within the realm of England and Wales and other of the king’s dominions; and all manors, lands, tenements, and other hereditaments belonging to them or any of them” (English Guilds, Introd. p. xliii). See also Ockenkowski’s Englands wirtschaftliche Entwickelung im Ausgange des Mittelalters, Jena, 1879, chaps. ii-v.

[297] See Sidney and Beatrice Webb, History of Trade-Unionism, London, 1894, pp. 21–38.

[298] See in Sidney Webb’s work the associations which existed at that time. The London artisans are supposed to have never been better organized than in 1810–20.

[299] The National Association for the Protection of Labor included about 150 separate unions, which paid high levies, and had a membership of about 100,000. The Builders’ Union and the Miners’ Unions also were big organizations (Webb, l.c. p. 107).

[300] I follow in this Mr. Webb’s work, which is replete with documents to confirm his statements.

[crimehunted]

— PEDRO PASCAL, HOMOSEXUAL, MALE & HE/HIM — well met ! as blood demands EZRAH GARCIA has answered the call ! they have been chosen and are now claimed as the CHILD OF ARTEMIS. while they have been alive for 48 years, the adventure has just begun. they must now train hard in the ways of the DRUID. while their RESOURCEFULNESS, DETERMINATION & RESILIENCE can be an asset to the god’s cause, their SHORT TEMPER, IMPULSIVENESS, CYNICISM could create some tension. only the fates will know in the end, but now their thread has been woven into the tapestry of myths and legends !

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME: [ EZRAH LÉON GARCIA ] NICKNAME: [ EZ, LEO, LEELEE ] AGE: [ 48 ] GENDER: [ MALE ] PRONOUNS: [ HE/HIM ] ETHNICITY: [ LATINO ] GODLY PARENT: [ ARTEMIS ] OCCUPATION: [ TEACHER DETECTIVE (HOMICIDE, UNDERCOVER, NARCOTICS) ] RELIGION: [ ROMAN CATHOLIC (WAVERING) ] LANGUAGE, IN ORDER OF PROFICIENCY PRE DEMIGOD AWAKENING: [ ENGLISH, SPANISH, DRUID, ITALIAN (B2), GERMAN (A2), RUSSIAN (A1) ] ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: [ CONFLICTED HOMOROMANTIC ] SEXUAL ORIENTATION: [ CONFLICTED HOMOSEXUAL ] SEXUAL TEMPERAMENT: [ SUB-SWITCH ] SEXUAL POSITION: [ BOTTOM ]

RELATIONSHIPS

SIGNIFICANT OTHER: [ PAULINE FRAZIER GARCIA || DECEASED. ] CHILDREN: [ LAYLA + LEONARDO GARCIA || DECEASED. ] PARENTS: [ BIOLOGICAL FATHER UNKNOWN + ARTEMIS ] SIBLINGS: [ N/A FOR BIOLOGICAL PARENT SIDE | OTHER ARTEMIS CHILDREN/BLESSED. ] FRIENDS: [ TBA. ]

PHYSICAL TRAITS

FACE CLAIM: [ PEDRO PASCAL ] EYE COLOUR: [ BROWN ] HAIR COLOUR: [ BROWN ] HEIGHT: [ 5'11 | 1.80 METRES ] BODY BUILD: [ ATHLETIC, BUFF, MEATY, LITTLE BIT OF A GUT ] FACIAL HAIR: [ LIGHT BEARD CENTRED AROUND THE MOUTH, EXTENDING TO THE SIDE OF HIS FACE + SEMI-SUBTLE STACHE. ] TATTOOS + PIERCINGS: [ SECRET. ] NOTABLE PHYSICAL TRAITS: [ STILL WEARS HIS BADGE, SCAR ON THE NOSE, SCAR ON THE RIGHT CHEEK BELOW THE EYE, SEVERAL BULLET HOLE SCARS SCATTERED ACROSS HIS BODY ]

PHOBIAS AND DISORDERS

PHOBIAS/FEARS: [ ATYCHIPHOBIA, HAVING TO WATCH LOVED ONES DIE AGAIN. ] MENTAL DISORDERS: [ DEPRESSION, IED, PTSD. ]

PERSONALITY

INTELLIGENCE: [ 129 IQ. ] MYER-BRIGGS: [ ISTJ -T | 81% INTROVERT, 72% OBSERVANT, 69% THINKING, 94% JUDGING, 60% TURBULENT ] LIKES: [ WORK, HIKING, ANIMALS, HUNTS/CHASES, BOOKS, GETTING DRUNK ] DISLIKES: [ KIDS, INSECTS, LAZINESS, UNRELIABILITY, CARROTS ] POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES: [ RESOURCEFUL, DETERMINED, RESILIENT, PROTECTIVE, THOROUGH, PERFECTIONIST, ORGANIZED ] NEGATIVE ATTRIBUTES: [ SHORT-TEMPERED, BROODY, IMPULSIVE, CYNICAL, OBSESSIVE ]

DEMIGOD LORE

GODLY PARENT: [ ARTEMIS. ] CLASS: [ DRUID. ] SUBCLASS: [ CIRCLE OF THE MOON. ] STATS: [ 13 | 17 | 14 | 16 | 20 | 10 ] SAVES: [ INT | WIS ]

AESTHETICS

AESTHETICS: [ BLACK AND WHITE. LOOSENED TIE. SHINY BLACK DRESS SHOES. RED THREAD. SCENT OF SOAP. INK ON FINGERTIPS AND HASTILY SCRIBBLED NOTES. DIRT UNDER FINGERNAILS. FUR ON DARK SUIT PANTS. MOONLIT OFFICE. SCRATCH MARKS ON THE WALLS. ] INSPO: [ CLYDE SHELTON. DON DRAPER. LUTHER. BIRDS BY IMAGINE DRAGONS. DIRTY DANCING BY GLOCKENBACH. ]

KINKS

KINKS: [ QUICKIES. PUBLIC. BREEDING. COLLARS. VERBAL FEMINISATION. CHOKING. PUBLIC. PRAISE. WORSHIP. HUMILIATION. CONSENSUAL SOMNOPHILIA. FACE FUCKING. AFFECTION. MARKING. TBA. ] ANTI-KINKS: [ VORE. SCAT. ]

BIOGRAPHY

[ BULLET POINTS FOR NOW BC BRAIN HASN'T BEEN WANTING TO BIO. ]

≫ born in los angeles in 1976

≫ bundled up & dropped off on the steps of st. vincent's girls' orphans asylum led by the sisters of mercy, spent a few weeks there

≫ transferred to the los angeles orphan asylum (mixed group, though mostly girls); operated by the daughters of charity of st. vincent de paul, a religious community of the roman catholic church

≫ named ezrah by the sisters with its altruistic implications clear as day; god is my helper. strong. everything they wished for him to become

≫ strict catholic upbringing & education overlooked by the daughters of charity themselves

≫ first time ezrah grew claws was age of six after being bullied by a group of older girls (he was the only boy there for the entire year), he was not the first special child they had

≫ first time taken to ogygia, though ezrah doesn't remember - he does however still have the amulet gifted to him there and, as told, always carried it with him

≫ regular summer camp trips, forging a bond with nature & earth

≫ graduation within the community

≫ two years in the army right afterwards (mandatory as per community rules/regulations)

≫ college: bachelor's degree + teaching certificate acquired

≫ worked as an english + social studies teacher at good shepherd elementary school in los angeles for 1 year

≫ engagement to pauline; ezrah's best friend (ezrah knew early on he was gay, but he couldn't possibly be, he was expected to marry one of the women from his church)

≫ 22 years old: married to pauline, moved in together as urged by community

≫ transferred to harmony elementary school, away from the church's strict control as he found his faith...faltering slowly

≫ work is good, but not satisfying - pauline urged him to quit and find himself, which he agreed to do

≫ 4 year training program to become a police officer (p1: aged 28 when done)

≫ ezrah finding confirmation he's got a knack for crime solving, making connections, the thrill of a good chase/hunt is everything

≫ promotion to p3 after 3 years "in the field" (age: 32)

≫ promotion to detective at 35; initially narcotics, though he's drawn to homicide -> transfer

≫ ezrah's still drawn to nature, regular camping trips with the wife

≫ first child (layla) born (daughter), second child (leonardo) born (son) 2 years after

≫ they were the perfect american family, but space issues; they move into a house - white picket fence and all that mumbo jumbo

≫ urged at work to sign up for sargeant position, but that would mean paperwork > being "out there", so request denied

≫ ezrah definitely has workaholic tendencies, but for his family, he fights them, spends as much time as he can home or taking his family to the franklin canyon where they own a little cabin by the lake to get distance to the busy city life

≫ during a very gruesome case, ezrah got caught by the one he was tracking & ended up part of the killer's livestream execution & while he got saved before it's his turn, his attire etc. inevitably became evidence, including the amulet he's worn under his clothes ever since he could remember

≫ the weekend that followed would forever be engrained in ezrah's memories; attacked by something at the cabin, ezrah's the only survivor (he shifted into a mouse to escape after being forced to watch his loved ones die), but his wife & kids (layla 8, leo 6) weren't so lucky

≫ grief made him turn to drinking & without anybody to pull him out of it, he quickly succumbed to his obsessive behavioral tendencies; workaholic alert. so all ezrah did by then was sleep, drink, eat, work, try find his family's killer, drink & sleep

≫ he broke the amulet out of evidence the week after the incident & started digging up what he could about it, went back home to talk to the nuns who raised him, which eventually led him to ogygia & the council, which brought him back to ogygia

≫ spent a few months at ogygia where he met other people like him (shifters, artemis children/blessed) & learned about being a demigod; he also found solace in the moon's embrace through other moon circle druids

≫ but life pulled him back into the real world (esp. because "monsters" as an explanation who killed his family didn't suffice) so he went back to LA to dive face first into work once more; branching out into different departments (narcotics, cold cases, undercover) to fill his days to the brim

≫ caught between what was & what could be, over the next few years, ezrah kept coming back to ogygia - if only for short periods of time (a month here, two months there etc), but the grief ran too deep to keep him there until a few months prior to now

≫ ezrah wasn't claimed by artemis until recently, he still drinks too much, though his self-destructive tendencies (other than the drinking) have diminished almost entirely

≫ he's still very much lost in the dark & struggling to find his way back into the light, but he is also quite determined not to die/give up until he got vengeance

≫ ezrah meant to leave again a few days after the great choosing, 100% sure he had no business even being there for it, but curiosity got the better of him ... then ended up getting chosen

POSSIBLE CONNECTIONS

THAT ONE FRIEND: [ CLEARLY, EZRAH'S IN A DARK PLACE AND COULD USE THAT ONE FRIEND WHO'S GOT HIS BACK, SEES THROUGH HIS AGGRESSION AND SNARK AND HELPS HIM HOME WHEN HE'S DRUNK AND DIZZY. WHEN HE'S SOBER HE'S ACTUALLY A GREAT FRIEND EVEN THROUGH THE GRIEF. THIS FRIEND WOULD BE ONE OF THE FIRST PEOPLE HE MET ON OGYGIA AFTER THE INCIDENT AND PROBABLY FOUND HIM A TOTAL MESS AND FELT BAD FOR HIM ] FRIENDS: [ EZRAH IS AN INTROVERT AND NOT THE MOST SOCIAL CREATURE, BUT HE, TOO .. NEEDS FRIENDS. HE'S VERY LOYAL AND PROTECTIVE EVEN THOUGH RIGHT NOW HE CAN BARELY PROTECT HIMSELF. ] THE FIRST/FLINGS/HOOKUPS: [ PRIOR TO LOSING HIS FAMILY, EZRAH NEVER ALLOWED HIMSELF TO INDULGE, BUT AFTER BREAKING OFF WHOLLY FROM CHURCH, HIS OLD LIFE ETC. HE COULD FINALLY BE FREE. ADMITTEDLY, HE'S NOT REALLY A CHARMER (CHA 10 WHAT CAN I SAY), BUT HE'S NOT ENTIRELY INCAPABLE. HE REALLY WASN'T LOOKING FOR ANYTHING ON AN EMOTIONAL LEVEL, THOUGH IT MIGHT'VE STILL HAPPENED. WE CAN PLOT THAT~ ] ENEMIES: [ HONESTLY, NOT SURE IF HE REALLY IS THE TYPE TO. OTHERS GENERALLY DON'T MATTER TO HIM, SO IF THEY DON'T BLOCK HIS PROGRESS IN A CASE/OBSESSION, HE'S CHILL WITH EVERYBODY. ] OTHER: [ I AM SO OPEN TO EVERYTHING; ANIMAL LOVERS (LMAO), OTHER NATURE PEOPLE, OTHER "MAGES" TO PRACTICE WITH, PEOPLE TO TRAIN WITH (HE'S NOT THAT GOOD WHEN IT COMES TO MELEE, HE ONLY HAS BASE POLICE TRAINING, WHICH DEFINITELY FALLS SHORT IN THE WORLD OF A DEMIGOD), OTHERS WHO LOVE BOOKS/READING ETC. ]

[secretswiftymarvelfan]

The Demigod From Asgsrd - Steve Rogers x Reader (Part 94)

Summary: JJ and Steve celebrate their birthdays and Steve clears the air between him and Sam and Bucky

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: Fluff! Light Angst! The Falcon and the Winter Solider Plot! Rogers: The Musical

Dividers by @firefly-graphics​

Series Masterlist / Masterlist

Chapter 94: Birthday Boys

You were leaning against the desk in the lecture hall, arms crossed a smile playing at your lips as you listened and watched your students fiercely debate whether gods were real or not. The class was pretty much equally divided with both sides having valid points. The debate was one hell of a tangent that had started when someone asked if Thor was immortal, but you didn’t mind, it was still relatively on topic and it was making them use their debate skills.

Glancing down at the clock you realised the class was coming to an end “Alright guys you’re gonna have to finish this debate in your own time” you call out clapping your hands together.

“can’t you settle this debate? You know don’t you?” one of your students asks.

“I do” you nod “and you’re both right,” you tell them, the entire class murmuring in confusion “gods aren’t a species, gods aren’t born they’re made” you explain “The Asgardian gods were aliens that visited earth thousands of years ago and humans at the time couldn’t understand why they had the powers they did and how they were thousands of years old, so they settled on believing they were gods”

“Like the Spaniards and the Aztecs,” one student points out.

“yes exactly like that, when people don’t understand something or have the tools like we do now, it only leaves the supernatural” you explain.

“so all gods are aliens?” a student asks.

“no, some are yes, but others have been mutants” you answer.

“and you’re half alien,” another student asks.

“yep” you nod “but I do prefer the term demigod” you smirk “gods are people just like you and me, they’re flawed, make mistakes and can be selfish, but they have given humanity and other species many great things, they have given something to have faith in, something to believe in and it’s the idea of them that is truly immortal” the students all hum in agreement “we can discuss it more next class if you want but we all have places to go and people to see so get on going”

As the students begin to filter out you pack up all of your stuff and follow them out, making your way to your office to make a dent in the essay marking you had to do before heading out to pick JJ up from school.

Later on in the afternoon, you were standing in the kitchen finishing up the dinner, watching Steve, JJ and Scout all run around the garden as they played. You chuckled as Steve lifted JJ up over his shoulders and swung him around, JJ screaming with laughter. It was a good thing they were doing this before dinner rather than after.

Pushing open the back door you called out to them “Dinner time boys”

Steve turns around, JJ still across his shoulders “Coming, c’mon bean” he says lifting JJ off his shoulders and holding him up just above the ground.

“Dad!” JJ laughs complaining as he tries to put his feet on the floor.

“what are you doing JJ, you’re gonna miss dinner” Steve chuckles as JJ wiggles in his hold.

“Dad put me down” JJ giggles.

“dinner’s getting cold boys” you laugh shaking your head at him.

“Sorry JJ, I’m heading inside, you’re gonna have to work this out yourself” Steve dramatically sighs, as he takes a step forward, carrying JJ inside with him who was laughing the entire time.

Once inside Steve lifted JJ up and sat him down on his chair, scruffling up his hair making JJ giggle as he tried to fix his hair. You smiled as the pair of them as you served out dinner, sitting down next to Steve.

“so JJ are you excited about your birthday next month?” you ask as everyone begins to tuck in.

JJ nods his head as he swallows his mouthful “Yeah, birthdays are the best” he grins.

“what do you want to do for your party this year? Got a particular theme in mind for your party?” Steve asks “We better start planning it soon so we have everything ready”

“Can I have a cars party again?” JJ asks hopefully.

“Are you sure, you had a cars party last year” Steve points out.

“yeah, but mommy wasn’t here” JJ reasons making your heart instantly melt, glancing over at Steve you could see he was feeling the exact same way.

“JJ you don’t have to have a cars party again just because of me,” you tell him softly.

“I know, but I still wanna,” he says shrugging his shoulders.

“Okay then, cars party it is” Steve smiles nodding his head “Pretty sure I still have all the numbers of the people we had last year somewhere”

“and I’ll make the cake, do you want it to be Lightning McQueen or Mator?” you ask him.

“McQueen please!” JJ exclaims excitedly.

“of course sweetie” you smile.

Later on in the evening, once you had put JJ to bed you and Steve were sat relaxing on the couch together. The TV was on in the background as the both of you started planning JJ’s birthday party.

“we’re probably gonna need to order more food than you did last year, the guest list has practically doubled” you point out as you look over the guest list you were in the middle of creating.

“Could we not ask some of the aunts and uncles to bring food?” Steve asks as he runs his hand up and down your legs as they rested over his lap.

“we can but we shouldn’t really rely on them, I wouldn’t put it past Bucky or Sam to just bring sweets” you point out.

“True, hey have you heard from either of them recently?” Steve asks furrowing his brows.

You purse your lips in thought “No not really, Bucky’s texts have been a bit sporadic and I haven’t heard from Sam since we had to cancel the trip to DC” you say.

You and Steve were supposed to go to the Smithsonian event where they put the shield into the Captain America exhibit but had to cancel last minute because JJ had picked up a nasty bug from school and you came down with it too. Leaving Steve to nurse the both of you back to health, it just wouldn’t have been right to head over to DC.

“you don’t think he thinks we cancelled on purpose do you?” Steve asks.

“no, I didn’t get that impression when he said it was fine and he’d see us soon,” you say shaking your head.

Just as you finish your sentence the TV catches your attention with the sound of a news bulletin. Both you and Steve sit up as you watch the news article of a new Captain America being revealed to the public, but it wasn’t Sam it was some guy called John Walker.

“or this is why we haven’t heard from them…” you mutter glancing over at Steve to see his jaw clenching “you alright?” you ask him, putting your hand on his arm.

Steve sighs before shaking his head “Yeah… I just… just wish the government had accepted Sam’s wishes and just left it in the museum”

“I know, me too” you sigh.

A couple of weeks had passed since the announcement of the New Captain America and you still hadn’t heard anything from Bucky and Sam. You had just gotten home from picking JJ up from school when you found Steve leaning against the kitchen island a stormy look on his face.

“hey what’s wrong?” you ask walking over, your hand running up and down his back.

Steve doesn’t answer he just slides his phone over to you, frowning in confusion you hit play on the video that was on the screen. You let out a gasp when you realised what was happening, your hand covering your mouth, looking away at the end unable to see anymore.

“he used it as a weapon, it’s supposed to protect people, not kill them” Steve spits out shaking his head.

“i-i-“ you mutter unable to think of anything to say “he’ll get arrested for this, and discharged from the army” you finally manage to say.

“that’s not going to bring that innocent man back” Steve argues his fists clenching.

“I know, but it’ll be justice” you sigh rubbing his back soothingly.

“yeah…” Steve sighs wrapping his arm around you and pulling you into his side, kissing the top of your head.

“Have you tried getting in contact with Sam or Bucky?” you ask looking up at him.

“yeah it’s going straight to voicemail, but at the end of the video you can see them chasing after Walker so I think it’s safe to say they’re dealing with it” Steve sighs as he runs his hand down his face.

“yeah they’ll do the right thing and we just have to wait to see how it pans out” you reassure him.

A couple more weeks passed before you saw Sam on the news in his new Captain America suit following the fight with the flag smashers. You both watched intensely as he put the government officials in their places, you heard Steve’s breath catch as he started talking about his reservations about being Captain America, how he knows there’s people out there that hate him for picking up the shield.

Once the broadcast was over Steve turned the channel over and ran his hands down his face “shit… I’m such an idiot” he mutters.

“Why would you think that?” you ask shifting closer to him on the couch.

Steve let out a long sigh as he looked over at you “I just never even thought about how Sam’s race would affect his decision to take up the mantle of Captain America, how people would view him it was so ignorant of me” he explains.

“me neither” you sigh shaking your head “I’m sure he doesn’t think ill of you though,” you say trying to reassure him.

“I need to talk to him, both of them but they’re still dodging our calls” Steve points out.

“well they both agreed to come to JJ’s party, so why don’t we ask them to come a couple of hours early and it’ll give you a chance to clear the air” you suggest.

“yeah I guess so” Steve sighs “thanks princess,” he says with a small sigh.

A week later you and Steve were woken up by JJ running into your bedroom and jumping onto the bed, shouting with excitement and asking for his presents. You managed to calm him down, promise to do presents once he had eaten his breakfast, which only result in him rushing down the stairs.

Later on, you were all outside, you and Steve beginning the set-up for the party, JJ playing fetch with Scout as you did so. You were just setting up the snack table when you saw Bucky and Sam arriving together, you grab Steve’s attention and give him a reassuring look before heading inside to give them some privacy.

“hey, guys thanks for coming over to help out,” Steve says as he walks over to the two of them.

Bucky clears his throat nodding his head “No worries, I brought Oreos by the way” he says passing over the packet of Oreos “Where is everyone?”

“the party isn’t for a couple of hours, I um just invited you guys over earlier so we could all talk about everything” Steve sighs rubbing his hands down his chest.

“Oh, yeah sure” Sam nods glancing over to Bucky.

“thank you, c’mon,” Steve says gesturing towards the picnic table you had.

Once they sat down, Steve leant forward fingers weaving together as he took a deep breath “I wanted to apologise” he starts, both Sam and Bucky looking back at him in surprise “when I gave you the shield Sam it was because I thought you were a good man, that you had the qualities need, I never stopped to think what you would think and I’m sorry it was ignorant of me” he apologises.

“no Steve I’m sorry I should never have given the shield away, it’s my fault Walker got it and did what he did,” Sam says shaking his head.

“no it's okay, I’m not mad about you giving it away, I meant what I said when I trusted you to do whatever you felt was right, and you felt it was right to put in the Smithsonian, it’s the government’s fault that Walker got it” Steve reassures him “what you said to those government officials was right, and I’m proud of you Sam and I hope you don’t think any less of me because of my ignorance on the matter”

“Thanks Steve, and I don’t think any less of you, never could I just didn’t want to let you down” Sam says with a lopsided smile.

“You couldn’t Sam, and Buck I don’t know why you’ve been dodging our calls but I just wanted to say we’re here for you,” Steve says turning his attention towards Bucky.

“I’m sorry Steve, I didn’t mean to, well not really I just- I knew you guys were struggling to adjust to post-snap life and I didn’t want to burden you,” Bucky says looking down.

“you’ll never be a burden Buck, yeah it was tricky for a while but that would never stop us from helping you and I’m sorry for making you feel that way” Steve apologises.

“It’s okay, thank you Steve,” Bucky says with a small smile.

“it's nothing, I’m glad we were able to clear the air, maybe we could all go watch a baseball game or something together?” Steve suggests.

“yeah that sounds great” Sam smiles.

“does it have to be the Mets?” Bucky huffs making Steve laugh.

“maybe a different sport then” Steve offers.

A couple of months later you and Steve were sat on the bleachers as you watched JJ train and play with his little league baseball team “you don’t think the fact he’s inherited the serum means it’s kinda cheating?” Steve hums as he shields his eyes from the sun as he watches JJ do some batting practice.

“um I don’t think so, it's part of his DNA it's not like he’s taken performance-enhancing drugs,” you say shaking your head.

“true could have a career in baseball with a swing like that” Steve hums proudly.

The practice soon wrapped up and JJ came running over to you and Steve “Dad! I know what to get you for your birthday!” he exclaims as the three of you walk back towards the car.

“you’re not supposed to tell the person what you’re getting them JJ” Steve reminds him gently.

“I know but I can’t buy the tickets” JJ explains making both you and Steve frown in confusion.

“what tickets JJ?” you ask turning around to face him.

“Tickets to Rogers the Musical!” JJ says as if it was obvious.

“What?” Steve choked out, coughing on air.

“They made a musical about you, all the other kids told me about it and it sounds amazing and I really wanna go” JJ explains practically jumping with excitement.

Steve uncomfortably rubs the back of his neck as he tries to think of a way to get out of it “Oh um I dunno bean… it sounds like it might be popular, we might not be able to get tickets” he says shaking his head.

“well um” you start making Steve look over at you, worried about what you were about to say “because it's about you then sent us tickets for opening weekend,” you tell him making his jaw drop.

“when’s opening weekend?” Steve asks after a moment.

“4th of July weekend,” you say making him groan.

“Can we go Dad please, Dad please?” JJ begs tugging on Steve’s hand.

Steve sighs running his hand down at his face before looking down at JJ to see him looking back up with puppy dog eyes “I’ll have a look into it” he sighs.

“yes! Thank you thank you thank you!” JJ exclaims hugging Steve tightly.

Steve sighs hugging JJ back, ruffling his hair gently “It's nothing bean”

That evening you and Steve were getting ready for bed together “I’m really not sure about this musical thing” he admits as he climbs into bed.

“I know, it’s why I didn’t mention the tickets when we were first sent them,” you tell him, putting down your book and turning to face him.

“but JJ seems so excited by it” he sighs shaking his head.

“he is, but look if you’re not comfortable with it then you don’t have to go, I could always take him” you offer.

“yeah but he wants to go for my birthday, I don’t want to let him down,” Steve says running his hands down his face “urgh why did it have to be a musical” he groans.

You chuckle gently, pulling his hands away from his face “because people love you, but look we can go, you can wear earplugs and keep your hood up or something, so you’re there for JJ but you don’t actually have to pay attention to it” you suggest.

“I guess that could work” Steve hums tilting his head from side to side.

“And your actual birthday is on a Thursday so you don’t have to sacrifice your actual birthday for it” you remind him “Speaking of which what do you actually want to do for your birthday”

Steve smiles gently “Nothing, just spending the evening with you guys is enough for me,” he says wrapping his arm around you and pulling you closer.

“Are you sure? We could have a BBQ and invite some people over like Sam and Bucky” you suggest running your hand over his chest.

“That does sound nice, Buck could bring his new kitten with him” Steve hummed in agreement.

“yeah Alpine is so cute, and it's good Scout doesn’t have an issue with her” you chuckle “They actually kind of remind me of you and buck,” you say making Steve arch a brow.

“How?” he asks with a light chuckle.

“well you’re practically a golden retriever and Bucky is very cat-like” you explain with a shrug of your shoulders.

Steve laughs lightly “Sure” he chuckles kissing the top of your head.

The 4th of July weekend rolled around much sooner than Steve had hoped. For the first time in his life he was hoping for some form of alien attack on New York, specifically Broadway so he had a good excuse not to go.

Yet here he was in a navy suit, his arm around your waist and his hand on JJ’s shoulder as you all paused outside the theatre for photos. Glancing down at JJ he saw the excited look on his son’s face and that was all the reminder he needed. He was here for JJ, to make JJ happy.

He was just glad he was able to celebrate his birthday the way he wanted on his actual birthday. A nice BBQ like you had suggested with all his friends and family.

Heading inside the three of you found your seats and got ready for the show to start. You passed Steve a pair of earplugs just in case he wanted them.

“Hey pal you ready for this?” Bucky says slapping Steve on the shoulder.

Steve glanced over his shoulder to see Sam and Bucky taking their seats behind him, a bucket of popcorn in hand.

“What are you guys doing here? And where did you get popcorn?” Steve asks shaking his head.

“At the bar right next to the merch stand, look I got myself a top too,” Sam says proudly holding up his brand new top that had Rogers: The Musical plastered across the chest.

“That’s so cool! I want one!” JJ exclaims looking back at you and Steve.

“Already on it, little man” Bucky grins passing JJ a bag that was full of merch.

“Is this all for me?” JJ asks in surprise.

“Yup,” Bucky grins.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” JJ beams as he leans over to hug Bucky.

“I don’t even want to know how much that all cost” Steve muttered under his breath.

“Just doing my godfatherly duties” Bucky smirks.

“Thank you Bucky that was very sweet of you” You smile, sending Steve a small pointed look.

Soon enough the house lights dimmed and everyone turned their attention towards the stage. Steve took a deep breath as he settled back in his seat and prepared himself for the longest 3 hours of his life. Glancing over at you, you give him a reassuring smile, reaching behind JJ to rub his shoulder soothingly.

The musical definitely wasn’t what he expected and he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. It was definitely one of the cringiest things he’s ever seen but any scenes that featured just his character and yours were his favourite. Especially the love song duet they did.

When the cast finally took their bows Steve was ready to get the hell out of there. But before he’d even stood up the writer and director of the musical had rushed over and was asking them to come backstage and meet the cast. Steve only said yes when he heard JJ’s excited gasp. He did make sure to drag Sam and Bucky with him, if he was going to have to endure it, so were they.

Backstage the 5 of you all met the cast, smiling and even signing a couple of autographs. You were taking photos of JJ with the various cast members, while Steve talked to and answered a couple of questions.

“I love your relationship so much, how long have you been married now?” The actress who plays you asks.

“8 years” Steve answers

“Nearly 3 years” you answer at the same time making both you and Steve look at each other confused.

An awkward silence falls between you and Steve realising that technically you were both correct. Your anniversary next month would be the 3rd you’d be actually celebrating, but it had been nearly 9 years since you got married in 2015.

“We um got married in 2015 but um we’ve only been able to celebrate two anniversaries because… you know…” you explain biting your lip as you glanced up at Steve.

“Yeah my parents have the same issue, all kinda confusing” the actress chuckles lightly trying to clear the awkward air.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way though” Steve says wrapping his arm around your shoulders.

Later that evening you were sat scrolling on your phone as Steve climbed into bed beside you.

“So our whole anniversary discrepancy got me thinking and I wondered if we were still legally married,” you say as Steve settles down.

“Are we?” He asks with a frown.

“Well I googled it and on the NY state government website it says: following the reverse of the blip, New York state is slowly working through nullifying all death certificates submitted as a result of the blip, however documentation such as marriage certificates that were nullified due to the blip will not be reversed and the documents will need to be re-submitted,” you say reading off the website “so if I had a death certificate, then we aren’t legally married”

“Oh… I’m not sure if we did, I think Nat sorted all of that stuff out” Steve mutters scratching the back of his neck “It doesn’t change anything between us though, you’re still my wife”

“I know and you’re still my husband, it’s just we haven’t got the paperwork anymore,” you say reaching over to take his hand, weaving your fingers with his.

“So what do we need to do? Just go down to the courthouse?” Steve asks his thumb brushing over your hand.

“Yeah…” you hum before an idea pops into your head “Or we could do a vow renewal ceremony?” You suggest.

“Like another wedding?” Steve questions.

“Kinda, but smaller and more casual, we said we might do one when we got Bucky back and now seems like a good time, everyone is in a better place and it might be nice to have something good to get people together” you suggest shrugging your shoulders.

“That would be nice” Steve hums, “I think I might still have my wedding suit somewhere,” he says thinking out loud.

“You don’t even have to wear that if you don’t want to, just a nice shirt and trousers would do, I could find a nice white sundress or something, it would be nice and chilled” you explained shifting closer to him so you could rest your head on his shoulder.

Steve smiles softly nodding his head “yeah that sounds amazing princess, we could have it on our anniversary, I know that only over a month away but I feel like we could sort it all”

“Of course, we can if we can handle a birthday party for thirty 7-year-olds we can handle a simple garden party” you agree.

“Perfect, I can’t wait to get remarried to you” Steve grins kissing the top of your head.

“I can’t wait to get remarried to you too” You smile lifting your head to look at him, smiling as he leant down to softly kiss you.

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