#i started writing it in august 2022 so its just over two years old!!

[ask-alphabetboyluvr]

Holly we're in the last quarter of the year please end bd this year

there's only a couple chapters left so I'll try my best!

[drsteggy]

I posted 1,166 times in 2022

406 posts created (35%)

760 posts reblogged (65%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@unmaskedcardinal

@drsteggy

@transformativeworks

@zeldaelmo

@silverjirachi

I tagged 517 of my posts in 2022

#legend of zelda - 120 posts

#my midlife crisis is more fun than yours - 115 posts

#my fic - 76 posts

#breath of the wild - 61 posts

#answered asks - 59 posts

#cosplay - 53 posts

#legend of zelda fanfiction - 52 posts

#link cosplay - 47 posts

#my writing - 45 posts

#the legend of zelda - 41 posts

Longest Tag: 90 characters

#massive brilliant final installment of the series you didn’t think would ever be concluded

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I am feeling super frustrated lately so days must be getting shorter again.

I made this the other day because I had time to kill. This is two versions of my cosplay. Both were taken by pro photographers at cons. 2019 is by Ashton Williams. 2022 is Bryan Humphries.

I was very, very pleased with both versions of this cosplay. In 2019 I was at my third con in as many months. I’d made myself a shield and custom painted my sword. I was asked shortly after that image if I was gender bending Link or crossplaying and I didn’t have an answer for that, so I had to do a lot of thinking on the subject, and that’s been really interesting. I wasn’t wearing makeup or contacts yet.

That 2019 photo sits in my kitchen, where I see it all the time.

So yes, very pleased with it, but it wasn’t where I wanted it to be yet.

In the 2022 image, the wig is the same, though it’s better styled. The pants and gloves are the same (the 2019 photo was the first time I wore leggings with this) The belts, bracer and the sword are the same. I thrifted the boots, but the tops were recycled out of the old pair. I have colored contacts and started figuring out how to change my face a little, and to hold myself different,y (both works in progress). I’ve started to learn to sew and the tunic is the second version I made- it’s linen and it hangs to the right spot. I had to make my own to get one that went over my hips. I made the cape you can see, too. I’ve got arm wraps that stay in place finally, and that Shiekah slate I made holds my phone.

I love everything about this 2022 photo, too. I think I’m going to get it printed out to sit next to the other one in my kitchen. It’s still not exactly where I want it, but it’s all just little refinements. Well, I want to make my own pants because I could use some more pockets. Plus pants look like a challenge. I can’t wait to see where he’s at in another year.

I’m a very competitive person and when I started cosplay it was easy to see someone who had been doing it a decade and feel discouraged. I still sometimes do that. It’s better for me to see where I’ve been and where I’ve gotten. I sometimes see artists here who redraw an image a year apart to show their growth. I think this is the same

93 notes - Posted September 11, 2022

#4

See the full post

93 notes - Posted September 10, 2022

#3

See the full post

100 notes - Posted August 21, 2022

#2

I was out getting selfies with that guardian and several other Zelda cosplayers geeked out over my phone case. One of them asked if they could take a photo of me taking a selfie, so I obliged. Then they sent it to me.

I love this image, it’s pretty much a capture of my whole weekend

118 notes - Posted September 4, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I’ll throw all my photos of all the Zelda I’ve been seeing (so many koroks!) but this deserves its own post.

Low key terrifying to stand near

2,918 notes - Posted September 3, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[suzythelie]

I posted 6 times in 2022

That's 6 more posts than 2021!

6 posts created (100%)

0 posts reblogged (0%)

I tagged 5 of my posts in 2022

Only 17% of my posts had no tags

#abuse survivor - 3 posts

#complex ptsd - 3 posts

#bipolar 2 - 3 posts

#mental disorder - 3 posts

#mental health - 3 posts

#ptsd - 2 posts

#bipolar mania - 2 posts

#stranger things - 1 post

#mental illness - 1 post

#bipolar disorder - 1 post

Longest Tag: 16 characters

#bipolar disorder

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Recovering from narcissist abuse,and severe ptsd. Im bipolar and im just barely hanging on. Some days go by ok and some days I hide and cry all day. I scream on the inside so no one hears me, I smile because I dont want anyone to know how bad I feel. The sun doesn't shine on me and the darkness is not where I want to be. I never want anyone to know how bad I'm hurting, but sometimes its to much. I feel so lost and um looking for something anything that makes me feel better. I dont want sympathy, I dont want to blame anyone, I just want to be able to stand on my own two feet and feel worthy of life.

0 notes - Posted August 24, 2022

#4

Today I hate myself! I slept to long, I are the wrong food, im gaining weight when I need to lose. My head hurts from crying, my knees hurt from praying to God to help me find peace. I want to scream and throw something breakable. I want so much to be ok and stop feeling this way. How am I so old and still so stupid. Why do I always choose to care. I let him hurt me over and over so many times that when he left for good I just knew he would come back. I took steps to make sure he would never hurt me again. Steps that I knew he would not be able to accept, I didnt want him back. I was to scared that I would keep allowing him to hurt me until he went to far.i didn't know he was a narcissist for sure. The day he told me he was marring a girl half our age it was like he took all of the air out of my lungs and held his hand over my mouth so I couldn't get more. Now she is his victim and im living in a nightmare. Im scared of the whole world. I cant ever be with someone like him again but everyone I meet seems to be like that. So it must be me. So what do I do. I put on a smile and I pray to God above please don't let me fall in love today everyday. It would kill me.

1 note - Posted October 19, 2022

#3

I want to write a book and I need some help. I dont even know where to start actually.

1 note - Posted August 19, 2022

#2

I had never heard the word "narcissist " before and I really didn't know what it meant. About six months into my relationship with him my daughter said to me" mom he is a Narcissist and he will only hurt you" I kinda laughed it off and I didn't really think about it again. When he beat me up and threw me out of his car in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain only to come back and get me 45 minutes later, my friend at work told me he was a "narcissist " but I still didn't know what that meant. In today's society everyone has a label label. Im bipolar and i have ptsd, so saying someone is a narcissist didn't really bother me. Fast forward about 4 years. He had completely taken over my life. He gave me my medication because he had if locked in a box so I couldn't get it or even see what hd was giving me. I couldn't see my children unless he was with me. I felt empty and alone, but a narcissist? Maybe? Was he a narcissist or was I for wanting to have things my way for a day or two. Was it his fault or mine for letting him say whatever, do whatever and still believe he loved me. Whose fault was it? I honestly didn't know!

4 notes - Posted December 3, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Being a survivor means getting past the pain and hurt to a point that you can help people who haven't made it to that point. Hope and faith brings a person closer to living happiness again and never looking back to what happened wanting to go back. Its help you push forward and start over weather you're alone or not. Being alone is not a bad thing sometimes it make you strong so that you can let the person who is supposed to be in you life walk in and show you what real is.

7 notes - Posted November 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[saint-starflicker]

I want to add to the Chaotic Academia list of

Books:

- anything that gets hated on in a reactionary way only because it's trendy and popular, not because the book is somehow actually harmful but more so that joyless snobs can justify their snobbery in their oh-so-painfully superior angst-filled and serious dark academia or "seriously scholarly" tar pit (disclaimer: i pay property tax for a half acre of that tar pit) ...like...read and love those pulpy trashy trendy genre books out of spite to pretentious tar-pit people such as myself

- Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

This one's so quirky. Off the coast of Carolina is the island of Nollop, named after the inventor of the pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" and they put that sentence in iron letters over an archway because they worship the sentence. Due to age and bad weather, the letters begin to fall off and the townsfolk take it as a sign that they should not use any words with those letters. Then, more letters begin to fall.

It's a comedy about a cult, an ode to the English language, and the title character is one of the only voices of reason. It's also formatted as an epistolary, which I just think is neat.

- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

I also really enjoyed the 2007 movie adaptation, and I love both the book and the movie but I think both are good. It's the early 19th century and Catherine Morland is a gothic literature fanatic. While being a companion to the older Mrs. Allen to attend parties in the high society in Bath, Catherine finds herself in a tangle of treacherously false friendships, cozy/domestic murder mysteries, and the best most-underrated Jane Austen romantic hero ever. I do include Mr. Darcy in that consideration. Tilney is more Blorbo than Darcy.

- Turning the Storm by Naomi Kritzer

...is the sequel to Fires of the Faithful that is by itself intensely edgy in tone and subject matter, but the sequel is a mood-whiplash rollicking adventure of starcrossed violinist lesbian lovers. Read Fires of the Faithful first with its high fantasy dark academia vibes before you get into this mood-whiplash cannabis/shroom trip of a sequel. The whole series is only two books.

- Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

The aesthetic is sheer chaos, it's like Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan but with Bollywood references. Get the illustrated version of this if you can, if it's not illegal where you live. The main reason it would be illegal is because Rushdie wrote a different book that had some analysis of his religion, so... he's been living in hiding and then on the 12th of August last year (2022) he went up onstage to talk literature and an assassin stabbed him. Salman Rushdie is still alive! He's a-okay! t'was only a flesh wound. but seriously though Haroun and the Sea of Stories is so good. if somebody doesn't try to assassinate you now and then, what are you even doing with your life?

- The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett and Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett wrote this book when he was 17, and then he started writing the very popular Discworld fantasy comedy philosophy novels, and then readers started asking "what's this The Carpet People book by The Same Author?" and publishing houses got so sick of telling people that there was no demand for The Carpet People that they asked Middle-Aged Terry Pratchett for the rights to start publishing it again. Middle-Aged Terry Pratchett went like, "No! I wrote that when I was 17. It sucks." (Not actual quote.) So he co-wrote it with his 17-year-old self, that is to say he rewrote it.

It's a sword-and-sorcery subversion comedy set in a carpet.

- Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett, implied sapphic content

- October Daye (series) by Seanan McGuire, implied sapphic content eventually like the 3rd book onwards, I haven't kept up, but I respect this author's brand and being on Tumblr @ seananmcguire

- The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

The broadway musical operetta adaptation of this book is grand and melodramatic and gothic. The book is not really that tone...it's more like Scooby Doo solving mysteries but everybody's a theater kid...

- Zorro by Isabel Allende

...it's about zorro. you know zorro? romance adventure.

A Complete Guide To Chaotic Academia

bc its my fav aesthetic and there is not enough content about it

Outfits

most people say that chaotic academia is just dark academia but a little bit more messy, and, well, chaotic. the truth is, chaotic academia is A LOT more messy than dark academia. you can still use dark academia as kind of a "base", but you are going to replace your blazers with flannels, your turtlenecks with tshirts. as for pants, you can go with litteraly anything: cigarette pants, tailored trousers, ripped-up jeans or normal black leggings. i personally really ike ripped up overalls bc they give that "i dont really give a damn, im so misunderstood, my parents didnt love me, im a crazy lonely introverted teenage child" vibe...idk. whatever you wear, make sure you feel comfortable in it! even tho in chaotic academia there are almost no rules at all, here are some things that might help you!

colours: any earthy tones are fine, brown, caramel, dark green, dark red, white, etc etc

fictional characters that might inspire you:

-remus lupin

- any dpc character

- jess mariano

- sydney novak

accesories: flannels (a personal fav + they make even the most boring fit look better), cardigans, converse (bonus points if you draw/write on them or if you have them laced in a weird way), bracelets or necklaces that mean something to you, harry potter back packs, tote bags...

hairstyles: whatever you want, just make sure your hair is ALWAYS messy, looking like you just fucking woke up

Activities and Traits

ok now we're getting to the actually important part bc (repeat after me): chaotic academia is not about how you look, its about how you live and how you act. so here r some thing that might help:

- annotating books with the most unhinged random thoughts

- learning poetry or speeches word for word but not remembering most of the things for school

- studying in the (school) library and being besties with the librarian (optional)

- leaving notes (on trees, mailboxes or library books) for strangers to find

- "studying while listening to classical music" and then instead of studying you end up agressivly mouthing your favorite song

- im sure yall already heard this one, but yes, swearing and slag while discussing deep academic topics is incredibly important

- speaking of important topics: posting something important on social media knowing no one will read it

- doodles on your hands 24/7 (NO SUSAN, I DONT GIVE A DAMN THAT ITS BAD FOR MY SKIN)

- sarcasm. a lot.

- random thoughts

- random quotes

- knowing a ton of conspiracy theories that you dont even beileve in by heart

- listening to all different types of podcasts

- one day reading the classics, the next ya fantasy and day after that ao3 smut

- multifandom, multishipper

- tea/coffee addiction

- adding b.c. to todays date when writing it in school

- random thoughts and the weirdest annotations in your school notebooks, especially the classes that you find boring

- "going to the bathroom" and then spending half of your math class drawing/reading/smoking/crying/thinking/whatever the fuck you wanna do there bc ur tired of everything

- stealing random stuff from stores (tho it is not encouraged blah blah blah)

- watching gilmore girls every fall

- telling people ur favorite colour is green even tho it isnt just to let them know that ur gay

- reading in class, on breaks, at home, parks, meetings, aethletic events, and generally all the fucking time

- doing (mostly) everything last minute

- bad at photography, but you enjoy it

- cold tea my beloved

- wearing one item every day: it can either be a necklace, a flannel, a bracelet, a badge, headphones, earrings etc etc

- extremely messy handwriting, always writing with black pen

- crying at least once a day, but only when ur alone, being super emotional but never showing it

- hobbies include reading, screaming in your pillow, learning unique languages that you will probably never use, rewatching dead poets society, harry potter, enola holmes, end of the fucking world and gilmore girls

- massive bookworm, reads all the time, always has a book with them

- skipping class, not that often tho

- 💫anger issues💫

- hyperactive and lazy at the same time

- uses big words but makes fun of other people when they do it

- writes (rebellious) book quotes everywhere, every single one of their notebooks had IF WE BURN, YOU BURN WITH US written in them lol

- random useless powerpoints

- analysing taylor swift's folklore and evermore instead of sheakspeare because its just better

- retired almost-emo, had a phase when they wore black and acted all mysterious but were never really emo i cant explain it

- likes mcr. this one speaks for itself.

- gay and sad. no explanation needed.

Books, Movies and Music

Books:

- Harry Potter by you know who (WE DONT SUPPORT HER THO)

- The Secret History by Donna Tartt

- Night School by CJ Daugherty (is that how u spell it lol)

- The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

- Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

- Heartstopper by Alice Oseman

- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

- Emma by Jane Austen

- Hamlet by Do I Really Need To Say Who

- The Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

- The Picture of Dorain Gray by Oscar Wilde

- Frankenstein by Marry Shelley

Movies/TV Shows

- end of the fucking world

- heartstopper

- harry potter

- enola holmes

- dead poets society

- gilmore girls

- httyd (no kidding lol)

im not really a film girlie so if yall have any recs please lmk

Music:

- Mother Mother

- Taylor Swift (obviously)

- Lana Del Slay

- Conan Gray

- Olivia Rodrigo

- My Chemical Romance

- Lovejoy

also whoever sings the IMJUSTATEENAGEDIRTBAGBAABBYY song lol

hope that helps lol

[handsofdarkness]

WITHIN TEMPTATION Will Release A 'Few' More Singles Before Putting Out Next Studio Album

In recent years, Dutch heavy rockers WITHIN TEMPTATION shifted their focus from releasing albums to releasing a series of singles, enabling the bandmembers to indulge themselves in their creative processes thus delivering freshly inspired music. The group has released "Entertain You", "The Purge" and "Shed My Skin", singles that have all thrilled their fanbase, had great critical reception in Europe, peaked in the Top 20 of the U.S. Billboard Mainstream Rock Indicator charts and topped the official German charts. In July, WITHIN TEMPTATION also released the official Jeb Hardwick-directed music video for the band's latest single, "Don't Pray For Me". It is the fourth single of the band's independent releases and will lead up to WITHIN TEMPTATION's next studio album.

In a recent interview with Barbara Caserta of Linea Rock, WITHIN TEMPTATION vocalist Sharon Den Adel spoke about the group's new approach to making its music available. She said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "We already decided before we had the pandemic to do it this way. A lot of music scenes already do this — music genres, actually — but in the rock [world], we still do a lot of the traditional way of releasing albums. And we just wanted to try this out. And then the pandemic happened, and everybody started doing the same thing. Which is a good thing, because you live in the moment and you write something and you release it… So this is really how we feel at the moment, and it's what we re reflecting with our music, I think. It's a good thing."

Elaborating on the differences between recording and releasing singles and concentrating on making full-length albums, Sharon said: "We put a lot of time extra now into every single, where normally this is the maximum of singles that we release, and we're gonna release more. So I think there's more time spent to it. But it's scattered all over a time, so it's really sometimes difficult to get back into the flow of writing again; that's the negative side of it. So it has its positive and negative sides. And with a whole album, it takes sometimes two years when you've written a song that it finally gets released, and it already feels outdated sometimes. So now it's really [easy to give each track] a fast release."

As for when fans can expect to see a new WITHIN TEMPTATION LP, Sharon said: "I'm in America now — North Carolina — as we speak, and in a few days I'll be back in my home country, the Netherlands. We have one week to record a new song, and then I leave again for a European tour. And then I'm back at home in the beginning of December, and then we're gonna finish the rest of the album. So we haven't written the rest yet. So it's gonna take some time. Somewhere next year there will be a new album. But there will be a few singles also still first before we do the album."

This past August, Den Adel told EMP about the WITHIN TEMPTATION songwriting process: "The thing is we've been around for such a long time that we try to be inspired by new bands that we hear and implement it with our own kind of sound and try to stay updated with the sound that is sounding more modern nowadays and what is more 'in' nowadays. Not to be going along with new sounds but something that sounds refreshing and inspiring to us. And that keeps us going and makes it fun for us to make still music. We've been around almost for 25 years, even longer — now I really feel old — but, anyway, you need it; you need to evolve. So there's no formula, but it's more every time looking what inspires you. And it can be anything."

The remainder of WITHIN TEMPTATION's 2022 will be filled up the much-anticipated and long-delayed co-headlining European tour with EVANESCENCE.

WITHIN TEMPTATION's last album, "Resist", was released in February 2019 through Spinefarm Records, the specialist hard rock label of Universal Music Group.

"Resist" featured guest appearances by PAPA ROACH's Jacoby Shaddix, IN FLAMES' Anders Fridén and ARID's Jasper Steverlinck.

[lwt28brave]

LT2 masterpost

If it was up to me, we would get an autumn or winter EP. Since it’s not up to me at all, here, enjoy this post with everything we know so far of LT2, which is to say, not much at all. Everything here is hypothetical. I’ll be updating every time I see something relevant. A little disclaimer that while this is a masterpost (kinda), it could be read as discourse (duh, it’s also a theory), AND it’s also by me, and you shouldn’t expect me to be serious at this point.

Due to me restraining myself, there’s no reference to any of the times he’s mentioned his guitar skills and him improving but I hope you know I cried every single time.

I’m also linking my old pinned here. It was written before AFHF and around the free merch thing that didn’t lead to much, but I still think I made some good points.

Possible tracks:

Copy of a Copy of a Copy

Change

Faith in the future??

369??

Possible names:

369

Faith in the future

When is the album coming out?

Your guess is as good as mine

Friday 28th of January 2022. Almost two years after Walls. It’s a Friday. It’s a 28th. What else can I say?

Here you can find @want-to-be-loved timelines for every month.

Here you can find @berlinini’s timeline of what Louis has been up to this year (2021).

The rest is under the cut. And here you can find a PDF version where Tumblr can't tell me how many pictures I can add.

2020

He said back on May 2th 2020 he wasn’t writing anything new yet.

(x)(x)(x)

Interestingly enough, he’s said many times after that that the album’s not ready cause he has no new experiences to drawn from. I won’t call him out because he does it himself.

May 4th. He liked a tweet from DMA’s Johnny Took saying they had to go write together again. Louis has been credited as an influence for them and (kind of) participated in their previous record, so I’m assuming he meant for their music and not his, but you never know.

Nothing(literally nothing??? how did we survive) until 11th of July. We all know what happened that day. We all celebrated it. Nonetheless, that’s not what I’m talking about here.

(x) So, by the beginning of July 2020 he was working on concepts and ideas for the new album. That was fifteen months ago. I know perfection takes time but…

Brief summary of important things that happened from then until the next mention of new music:

Louis left Syco!!!! 10 days later he rescheduled the tour for the first time. He followed Matt Vines on Twitter, probably so we could publicly shame him into doing something. Also, the 10thanniversary. He followed more people I wish he hadn’t.

Then more nothing until September. Not even a single tweet. The first merch drop was on the 28th of August but he just RT’ed the tweet. He first mentioned Free my Meal on the 25th of September. Then on October 1st Walls hit #1 on a lot of countries and Louis was incredibly happy and excited about it ^^

And then, that same day, October 1st, 2020, he dropped this bomb:

(x)

He also said it was too soon to be sharing new lyrics with us (x)

And, obviously, this tweet which is actually what made me start this whole post. I would hope you know mate.

(x)

He also told us he was cooking "banger after banger" and that he was incorporating more social themes into his music (x)(x) (I believe any social issue is a political issue but that’s not the point rn).

COPY OF A COPY OF A COPY?!?!

These next paragraphs are brought to you by my mind not remembering things and me not having any links. I’m assuming COACOAC came from those writing sessions that supposedly happened in October. Or in LA but I have no idea if he actually was in LA at any point other than a Daily Mail article putting him there on December which would have been too late, but I do remember that someone said he was in the studio in LA last autumn???? A rumor. Maybe. IDK. Did I mention already all of this is very hypothetical?? Well, this is it. I can’t even remember if this was October or November or what. So, take this with a grain of salt.

I’m also… taking the liberty to assume, if you must, that Copy wasn’t meant to be a Walls reject because it sounds more mature and darker and it has a vastly different tone that Walls songs. I know he’s said that song probably isn’t getting into the album, but I want to have faith (in the future) that I’m getting a studio version. (But also, Louis, if you’re reading this, first of all GET OUT OF MY BLOG second of all, please don’t ever feel pressured again to add a song to the album because we have already heard it before. It’s your art and it should always be under your own terms).

So yeah, I believe that Copy is either one of those four songs (then imagine the other three??!!) or was written around the 1st of October date.

---End of the Intermission---

Then not much important (other than sharing more about Marcus Rashford fight against food poverty and the 2nd merch drop) until he announced the livestream on the 24th of November. (x)

It wasn’t until a few days before the livestream date we even thought again about new music (jk, I know we’re always thinking about new Louis’ music). So, December 9th/10th, 2020. Nine months ago. We got our first taste of new music!

He made sure we knew Copy of a Copy of a Copy isn't a cover! (x) (x)

(x)

Ok, so that’s it for 2020. (I feel like I’m missing something from September 17th because tweet was deleted but maybe he was still talking about cucumbers. We might never know. Unless I understand how Tumblr tags work). Expected, cause Walls was released in 2020. We needed to let it sit for a while.

2021

Another Summary: Louis third tweet of the year was telling the UK government off. So was the fifth. What a good beginning. On the 26th of January, he said he prefers pancakes over waffles. I hope he meant pancakes other than his own. More importantly, he tweeted the infamous “you lot read into things too much”. Don’t get me started, Tomlinson. Don’t. Then the 31st came around and Walls was one. He tweeted this. How wise. And Project Defenceless happened!!

15th of February!! Who cares about Valentine Day when the next day we got this? ♥

(x)

(x)

So…AN EP?? AN EP?? PLEASE RELEASE AN EP.

“I’m sure I will have something out this year but unlikely that will be the album”. Unlikely but not impossible. Also. A single would be good. This is the second time he mentions releasing something in 2021 and he sounds surer about it than the first time around.

He also said that he isn’t sure we will get a studio version of Copy. And that the best bridges from Walls to LT2 are Walls, OTB, KMM and Copy. Can’t wait!

Then we jump to March 6th when he announced he was going to create his own management company. “Sometimes action is needed first to encourage the motivation and belief”. As we can tell he was already manifesting some stuff which will lead us to the numerology stuff/Tesla… kidding. Or not. We might never know.

On the 22nd of March he answered some questions:

He told us music was still his main focus ♥ mwha. (x) I included this tweet to guilt-trip him into giving us music in case he’s reading this even after I told him to leave. ILY.

(x) I’d love to get a visual EP this autumn. Just saying. It sounds like a lovely concept.

(x)

…next (I will get into it, I promise. I’m just mad).

On the 25th he left for Mexico until April 10th. You could assume it was just for the documentary where we got ten seconds of footage or admit the obvious: LT2 its a Mexican baby!!

On the 26th (so, not so far apart from that first 369) we got the first Faith in the Future mention: (x)

Back then we were innocent people who had no idea what was coming upon us. We still have no idea because what the fuck does he mean with these. Please explain. I have one braincell and I don’t use it enough for this. I’m linking some theories.

On the 30th of March he confirmed he was already working on the documentary. So AFHF was already on the works. Will it take this long for us to get the Veeps numbers? We also got this tweet: "Got a decent chorus idea down" (x).

Same person that got the “something out this year” exclusive. If you know something share with the class. Also. Is this Change? I feel like this could be Change but I also assume he wrote Change after hanging out with his friends or being in Doncaster. But who knows.

(x) And the second mention to 369.

(x) 15th of April. The second "Faith in the future".

On the 19th of April he announced that he had something BIG for us later on the year which turned out to be the Away From Home Festival ♥♥ (x) I love him so much.

Then on the 28th he announced the 369 merch drop (which it’s probably the Walls drop? Except that the TOU and KMM ones were “drop 1 and drop 2” and this was drop 369 which, again, makes no sense) but we still don’t know what 369 means.

Into May’ 21 we go.

He rescheduled tour again. And dropped another bomb (x).

He announced he has signed with BMG as an independent artist by RTing this tweet on May 10th. The article also says that he’s already working on writing and recording LT2. The timing… we don’t know. What this deal involves… we don’t know either. Bear with me here because I have a lot to say about this.

I think the deal is only a distribution one, but that BMG are interested in Louis and what he (us) could bring to the table. They were either present at the festival or watching it, but officially they had no involvement at all with it (everything is credited either to Louis own company, 78 Productions, or Charlie Lightening’s company). That’s the case for both giveaways too; the vinyl one and the tickets for the festival.

I think it would be an unbelievably bad move not to test the waters with BMG now or soon-ish. At least a single, to see how it performs. Due to the circumstances, it’s obvious there’re certain limitations on place but I want to see how they push it, whether the radio play exist this time around and if the song is playlisted and promoted and all that… I would also love to know, since it says he signed with BMG UK, but it also states it’s a global deal, how things are going to go on the US and other countries.

Yes, yes. I know those are all questions and no answers. But I know the same as you, sadly. If any of you know more than you’re letting on… again, share with the class.

Where was I? Yes, on the 25th of May Louis had a great day writing (x). Since the first time he had mentioned he was officially writing to this date there’s almost eight months. And I believe he was writing before October’ 20.

He followed Robert Harvey that day and, on the 28th of May (why is it always the 28th???) he was spotted at the studio for the first time.

June was an interesting month for the fandom ♥. Lots of LHL content which I will love and cherish for the rest of times. On June 4th, June 9th, and June 10th he was spotted at the studio, but I believe he was there more days.

(x)

This was posted on June 6th and captioned Studio. Charlie also shared it with “Mega tunes being put down, can’t wait for this @louist91 #louistomlinson #LT2” as the caption. This gives me 2019 (Elton-Joint) vibes. I like it. Feels like we’re getting closer to something.

He added the Milano date on the 9th too which I’m mentioning because I’m going alone. Anyone wanna go with me please? I’m nice and I never eat anything before a concert so you can have my food. On other news. It didn’t come home.

During July he was at the studio at least three days too. Probably more. Feels like more with all the fan pictures we got. Or was that June? Anyway, July 1st and 9th we got some videos from Robert Harvey and wearesuperhi, which is who Louis has been working with the most, that we know of. I don’t know for sure they’re from that day. And on July 5th we got an article and lots of pictures of Louis looking really good outside the studio.

On the 12th of July the first fans started getting the free, 369 bucket hat and print. We still don’t know what the purpose was other than to thanks fans. Maybe that was it. I want answers and I still think it relates to a future project (see theories above), but it could also just be a bridge with the Walls breaking.

He didn’t tweet about anything interesting for a while, mostly because he lost his phone (he either throwed it in the air or smashed it who knows). Then on the 29th of July he announced the festival!

I’m glossing over it because there’s already been a lot of talk about it (rightfully) and while it was a wonderful thing, it doesn’t have much to do with LT2.

Let’s talk Change!

On August 3rd he tweeted this about the setlist.

(x)

And this (x) on the 28th! I can’t stand him.

We didn’t get it, obviously. Because who was going to get that. But we read too much into things. Alright.

On the 16thof August Dave Gibson shared this post tagged #LT2 with the eyes emojis 👀👀👀. I believe this has to do both with Change but also with whatever else came out of that Mexico trip.

(x) Last relevant tweet related to LT2 is this one.

So, on the 30th of August we got Change and we cried, and we know that Change is going in the new album. He said it. With those exact words. He also said he was “getting a feeling for it”. This has to meant he already has a general idea of the vibe of the new album and what’s going in it!!!!!! (Right? RIGHT?).

Anyway, let’s go back a few weeks because some other things happened on August. He was at the studio a few more times. Or it was suggested that he was there. On the 17th and the 18th. (Why was it so time-pressing to be at the studio instead of rehearsing for the festival? There was no studio at all on the documentary. Which makes sense, but again, then why?).

On the day of the festival we got another mention of Faith in The Future that made me feel part of a cult ngl. The words were flashing on the screen for less than a second. Okay.

And then he tweeted those words again after watching the livestream/documentary on the 4th of September (x). This is what makes me suspect it's either the name of the album or of the single.

On the same day, we got some interesting quotes about LT2 on the documentary.

“Soon I’ll have to think about me second album, which in my head I’ll get the tour out of the way and then I’ll address that. So, I hadn’t really given it much thought, to be honest”.

“When every day is the same is hard to feel creative and it’s hard to have any kind of proper inspiration”.

“As season started to come back, I started writing again and it was great and some of these songs turned out alright”.

And I think this is it. I might be overlooking some important details but that’s what we know and what we don’t know.

So. Conclusions. That’s what you missed on Glee. I do believe the album is, if not mostly done, partially there. And yes, this post is pointless and never-ending but it’s all in here if you need to tell Louis “Hey, you said this, mate”.

[concerningwolves]

This August marks 5 years that I've been part of the writeblr community and I want to spread the love! I'm going around prompting writers to share some old writing, side by side with newer works, so that we can all celebrate how far we've come.

Respond to this ask or tag me (@westywrites) in a post showing some old writing, and I'll reblog it to shower you with praise for the progress you've made.

And if you'd like, help me encourage others to do the same! 

Oooh this is very cool idea 👀 (also, same hat! August marks my five year writeblr/Tumblr anniversary too!).

I forever regret that I used to routinely purge my laptop of projects that'd been abandoned or on hiatus for too long. It was only in 2014 that I started keeping things, and even then I must've been really picky about what I kept, because there's only one piece of writing from 2014-2016 in there despite my being more prolific in that time period than any other :(

The old writing:

However, I do still have (almost) all of my old notebooks, so! Here's the opening of a story called Vultures Class, the first book I ever finished. I wrote it somewhere between the ages of 7–9 (while in first school, and also while obsessed with X-Men animated series and X-Men: Evolution). Corrected spelling and added paragraphs for readability's sake, but everything else is as written.

Chapter one: the Dream One night a young boy screamed and yelled in his sleep. Then suddenly he awoke. A voice in the flesh was saying "wake up". He immediately snapped awake startled and breathing so fast that it was like being in very thin mountain air. "Don't worry" Emma was saying for she was the young girl who owned the voice. "Ensiy what's up?" asked new team member Clara. "I ... I have no idea well er well yes I had this very scary dream" stumbled Ensiy (Ensiy is the young boy who starts this story) "Well well well we can't have a leader who's going to yell in his sleep" teased Clone. He had been going round teasing all the team members ever since he started two weeks ago which was very annoying because it was making everyone grumble about him to Professor White.

Bonus: this was an illustrated book

The new writing:

And for my newer writing, here's a snippet from a free-to-read low fantasy short story of mine, The Seal Daughter. I posted it at the start of 2022, but it took me about two years to write and polish so it isn't technically the newest thing I've written – I'm just very proud of it.

Briana’s new red boots flashed in the sun as she ran down the steep cliff path. She was four years old today, practically a grownup. Her whole world was the sea, the sky, the salty air, and all of it was open to her like a flower to the sun. Da was somewhere behind her, calling out for her to slow down, but Briana paid him no heed. ‎ The previous night’s storm had died away, leaving behind clear skies and ravaged earth. The path beneath her feet was still slick where the rain had washed across loose dirt, revealing small rocks that jutted from the ground like teeth. Her foot struck one of these rocks. Briana’s world blurred. Faster and faster she fell, until she couldn’t tell where her skin ended and the unforgiving stones began. She didn’t even have a chance to scream. Something soft broke the fall as abruptly as it began. For a long time, Briana could only lie there. Stunned. White spots danced in front of her eyes. She couldn’t make sense of what had happened, what was still happening: The fall was over, but something was very, very wrong. A thick stench filled Briana’s nose. Bitter, foul, almost coppery. She lifted a hand in front of her face. Something red dripped from her fingers onto her cheek. She stared at it, trying to make sense of the new, fizzing sensation churning in her gut. Its fizziness reminded her of excitement – but excitement had never made her feel sick before. Then her father was there, lifting her out of the gore. He hadn’t called her Briana then; he’d used her not-name, whispering it over and over as he rubbed her back. Looking over his shoulder through teary eyes, Briana saw dark shapes down on the thin strip of beach between the base of the cliffs and the waves. They were seals, but Briana had never seen seals lie so still and calm. The surf that swirled around them was pink. Da was walking fast, the beach swiftly growing smaller, but he wasn’t fast enough. Briana’s gaze locked on a patch of light amongst the dark, silent forms. A face. It was small and seafoam-pale, a single blue eye staring out from locks of matted hair. Briana felt that eye watching her for a long time after Da turned a bend in the path and the beach vanished from view.

Thank you for this ask, it was a lot of fun! (even though rereading Vulture Class always fills me with an indescribable yet excruciating emotion 😂)

[a-moth-to-the-light]

Songs of the Summer, 2022: Introduction

Even if we just think about music, a whole lot happened this summer. My Summer of 2022 playlist is actually divided into two parts, light & fluffy and dark & intense, to account for the wide variety of songs that caught my attention, and it took me a whole month after its release to finally listen to MUNA's new album, even though I've been a huge fan of theirs for years. (In the same vein, I still haven't had the time to listen to Key's album--there have been too many exciting releases for me to keep up with, INCLUDING A NEW CREEPY NUTS ALBUM OHMYGOD AND LUCYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY, and with this fall promising more new songs from Dayglow, who made my second-favorite album of 2021, I really don't know how I'll manage to process everything!)

This list includes 25 songs (and 3 honorable mentions) released between June 1 & August 31. I could have started the timeline with the day after my high school graduation in mid-June, but given the amount of amazing June releases that came out before then, I felt justified in fudging the dates a bit and just working with the generally accepted summer months.

As I stare, eyes glazed over, at the wall full of sticky notes I call my Songs of the Summer list, I'm having a really hard time finding a theme for it--there's a lot of dance music, but it's me here, after all, so that's not really news. Maybe the most interesting part is the variety of sounds and moods featured--my top two choices surprise even me with how frequently I listen to them, because they're quite far outside of the tastes I've established for myself in the past year or so.

I tend to blame this on my increasingly frequent habit of writing--the promise of jotting down my thoughts after listening to a new release, of perhaps writing a post about those thoughts one day, makes me far more curious about new music and willing to give it a full listen-through. It definitely helps that the better I get at articulating what I appreciate about my favorite pieces of music, the better I get at identifying those elements in other tracks, too, making songs instantly more familiar and far less tiring to absorb into my mental canon, no matter how new the genre is to me.

It also comes down to experience, I think--I only got really invested in the world of music in late 2019, and as the years have gone by, I find more and more jumping-off points through which to explore songs I never would have heard of if I were still my old self. For example, Garnidelia's lush pop music was exactly in my comfort zone when I first became obsessed with their music in 2020, but their rock tracks eventually led me to Aimer, who prepared me to love the j-rock bands that keep showing up on these lists.

As eclectic as this list is, each song on it summons equally strong visions of a busy summer that surprised me with how pleasant it was. Transitioning from hospitalization to college life, I needed music that kept me from disappearing too far into the past or the future, that allowed me to be awake and peaceful during seemingly endless preparations (and, as you'll see, my top choice definitely kept me awake). Come what may, these songs say. Today, the way it is, is enough for me.

[check back here for links to each entry as i post them!]

songs that grew on me

[theesteemedladydebourgh]

2021 in review: fanfic writer edition

thank you @missgryffin for tagging me! the past year months (since i started writing fic in August) have been crazy and wonderful, and i can’t wait to dive into 2022!

i’m pretty sure everyone’s done this by now, but if anyone hasn’t, feel free to consider yourself tagged! 🥰

BY THE NUMBERS *as of 12/30/21

words written: 370,993 

words published (AO3): 344,537

# of published one-shots: 2

# of completed multi-chaps: 2

# of one-shots in progress: 1

# of ongoing multi-chaps: 4

# of fic ideas waiting their turn: Oh...14

longest work: Jingle—Holy F*ck (130k+ words)

shortest work: The Last Sad Love Story Ever Told (6,410 words)

most chapters in a fic: 24 (Jingle—Holy F*ck)

highest # of kudos: 481 (Jingle—Holy F*ck)

highest # of hits: 15,454 (Jingle—Holy F*ck)

top 3 fics by kudos: Jingle—Holy F*ck, Good Old Fashioned Love Letters, When We Lost One Another

top 3 fics by hits: Jingle—Holy F*ck, Good Old Fashioned Love Letters, When We Lost One Another

BEHIND THE NUMBERS

most challenging fic to write: When We Lost One Another

fic that came easiest to write: The Tale of You & I

most true-to-the-outline fic: The Tale of You & I stuck exactly to its outline. my most well behaved child.

most unlike-its-outline fic: Jingle—Holy F*ck decided about 1/6 of the way through that it wanted to do something completely insane and i went along with it. (yes, it’s the sequel)

favorite reader freak-out: the fight scene in GOFLL 5, when everyone was screaming ‘James wtf are you doing???!!’

most controversial scene: not necessarily a scene, but basically jily’s entire 2008 breakup in JHF (so james)

hottest ask box topic of the year: people mad at 2008 JHF!James 😂

most loved OC: I think the only two true OCs I’ve written are Olivia and Roger from JHF, so by basis of least-hated...we’ll go Roger

most hated OC: Ms. Olivia Briar has several hit squads out on her currently 👀

favorite things about writing our heroes: getting to explore how these two fell in love. we know that they were in love and extremely compatible, but that’s about it, and it gives us so much creative freedom (and fun!) to explore all the ways it could’ve happened. 

favorite villain to write: I’ve got to say, I do enjoy writing Olivia’s scenes even when they’re super angsty for Lily and James 

favorite marauder to write: obviously the answer to this is James, because i (shockingly) love him to bits. if he’s out of the question since he’s 1/2 of jily, definitely Sirius. He’s just so easy to write with anyone, because he’s always got something to say 

most i've cried while writing a scene: well, the most recently I’ve cried is the ending bit of JHF ch 20, but there’s a scene quite a ways on in my jily Normal People AU to love, softly that just made me sob like a baby while I was writing it.

most i've laughed while writing a scene: all of the GOFLL scenes with Trelawney 😂i had such a fun time writing her chaos.

smuttiest smut scene: JHF Ch 9 (the car scene 👀). I had a moment while writing it where i was just like...wow this is rated E. like, so E.

favorite jily kiss i wrote: ohhh. probably the first kiss from to love, softly. I love this line: “All I know is one second there I stand there, seventeen years old, wearing a yellow sundress and un-kissed by James Potter, and the next second I’ve kissed my best friend.”

hardest trope/thing to write: anything drawn out! which is why i’m so surprised that JHF was super drawn out and long, because normally i like to skip over the waiting to get to the good stuff 😂

easiest trope/thing to write: smut is very easy to write for me, as long as i’m not thinking about it. as soon as i start trying to focus, it just won’t come. i also find love declarations/falling in love so fun and sweet to write.

proudest fic moment: finishing GOFLL, because i’d never finished a fic before and that was huge for me! (also...that i successfully kept The First Time Divorcees Club a secret until the last chapter of JHF)

any fic regrets? i don’t tend to dwell on fics once they’ve been published, because i feel like they’re out in the world and people have read them and i can’t do anything, so best not to panic. i think i might’ve liked if I’d waited to post to love, softly until it was all written because it’s a fic that goes best in one flowing piece and this long break wasn’t in my plan 

2021 fic habits to break: starting a million different things. 

2022 fic habits to make: finish things before i post them! i'm very good at keeping to deadlines once i’ve set them—if I post that something will be coming out on x date or x time i will definitely do it, but it causes me a lot of stress and there was a point towards the middle of JHF where I was midway through exams and i felt so mentally and physically exhausted keeping up with the chapters 😅preferably i’d like to do less of that. 

[thehopefuljournalist]

The List of Good Things

Hello everyone. I hope you’re all having a good day  ❤️ I know many of you are feeling pretty helpless and hopeless right now, but you should know that not everything happening is bad. This is a list of good news stories that I have been gathering for months. I wouldn’t be able to write every single one of them its own post, but I will choose a few of them and write about them separately. 

-  Bees Are Thriving As Pollution Plummets and Environmental Conditions Improve: as the world goes on lockdown, the bees are thriving. More so, people have started taking notice and are becoming more aware of nature and what’s going on in it.

-  Milan announces ambitious scheme to reduce car use after lockdown: Milan will introduce one of Europe’s most ambitious plans, changing street space from cars to cycling and walking, following corona-virus crisis. 

-  Humpback Whales Have Made a Remarkable Recovery, Giving Us Hope for the Planet:  Many humpback whale populations, previously devastated by commercial whaling, are making a comeback, and it has nothing to do with the corona-virus. 

- A global coalition of 42 faith institutions are divesting from fossil fuels, calling for a just recovery that puts people and planet at its heart. -  Oxford University will be divesting from fossil fuels and align to net-zero strategies. 

- Portugal is preparing several billion-dollar clean energy initiatives and projects for post-coronavirus future: Portugal is aiming to leap, rather than tip-toe, out of their lockdown initiatives by launching a series of clean energy projects that could generate 5.5 billion euro in European energy investment.

- Ecosia is planting trees for NHS hospitals: they teamed up with two tree-planting charities in the UK and launched #GrowYourLove, to plant trees around NHS hospitals up and down the country. (Haven’t heard about Ecosia? You should try it out!)

-  Community-funded energy projects put power in the hands of the people and are helping transform the UK energy market. These are five of the Thrive Renewables projects going on right now. 

-  Revolutionary food waste app ‘Gander' is a huge success: award-winning Gander app, created to reduce food waste, has transformed the spending habits of Northern Ireland shoppers with a significant soar in downloads and increased sales of yellow stickered foods since its launch last August.

-  White-tailed eagles, Britain’s largest bird of prey has returned to the English skies for the first time in 240 years.

- America’s renewable sources including solar, wind and hydropower generated more electricity than coal-based plants every single day for 40 days, a new report says. 

-  Trinity College‘s front lawns are set to be wild-flower meadow: after the public overwhelmingly supports bee-friendly proposal in an online vote.

-  Court blocked oil drilling in Peruvian Amazon: A judge in Peru has blocked a proposed oil drilling project in the Peruvian Amazon that threatened to damage the ecosystem and the health of isolated Indigenous peoples.

- Solar and onshore wind power are now the cheapest new sources of electricity in at least two-thirds of the world’s population, further threatening the two fossil-fuel stalwarts -- coal and natural gas.

-  Luxembourg is the first country to make all public transport free.

- 10 billion trees are to be planted in Pakistan with the help of 60,000 workers unemployed because of the Coronavirus.

- Solar power in India has just had a major boost. The country’s government has announced funding that will enable 2 million farmers to invest in irrigation pumps powered by solar photovoltaic arrays.

- Retired politician got 152 million mangrove trees planted in just 10 years: Ever since the scientific community began to encourage the planting of trees to ‘re-wild’ previously lost forest ecosystems to respond to climate change, some very determined members of the human race have rolled up their sleeves and produced remarkable results.

- Protecting trees, particularly old-growth trees in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, is a win for local communities and for the climate: federal judge rejected a sweeping logging plan that would have spanned a project area of 1.8 million acres in the Tongass National Forest in Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska. Those trees are “key to combatting climate change” and have been protected. 

- Consideration of the climate crisis will be front and center in all of New Zealand's major policy decisions. The new rule means that any new proposal before the government that aims either to reduce emissions or has a collateral damage effect of raising emissions will need to go through a climate-impact assessment before it can be considered, according to The Guardian.

-  UK’s CO2 emissions have fallen 29% over the past decade.

- More and more academic institutions are setting Ecosia as the default search engine across campus computers: Ecosia on Campus first started as an idea between three students in September 2018. Since then, student internet searches have financed the planting of over 135,000 trees. There are now seven universities worldwide that have made Ecosia the primary search engine on campus – a number set to rise as more motivated students join the movement.

- Coal from Guaíba, Latin America’s largest open-pit mine, will stay in the ground: 166 million tons of coal and 4.5 gigatons of CO₂ will stay in the ground. This is thanks to a partnership between climate justice groups, a local Indigenous association, 350.org Brazil, Arayara Institute and the Coal Observatory.

-  Seoul is putting solar panels on all public buildings and 1 million homes: By 2022, every public building and 1 million homes in the city are set to be powered by solar.

-  Food waste falls by 7% per person in three years in UK: The UK is making significant steps in reducing its food waste, with total food waste levels falling by 480,000 tonnes between 2015 and 2018 – a 7% reduction per person and equivalent of filling London’s Royal Albert Hall ten times.

-  Scotland is on track to move its energy sector to 100 percent renewables by t he end of this year. 

-  All new rooftops must be covered in plants or solar panels in France: Frances’s new “green roof” law is cooling city streets, cutting heating and air conditioning costs, reducing water and air pollution, providing local, organic food and ecosystems for birds, bees and hundreds of other species.

-  Madacascar is planting 60 million trees in ambitious drive inspired by its president. 

-  Scientists find extremely rare blue bee that was feared to be extinct. 

-  5 critically endangered Red Wolf pups were born at North Carolina Zoo.

-  Deserted Thai beaches lure rare turtles to build most nests in 20 years.

- These  23 Organizations are eliminating food waste during COVID-19 crisis.

This is what I have for now :) If any of you hear about good news and/or have something you’d like to share with me or with my followers and others, feel free to submit, or send a dm or an ask, I’ll always get back to you as soon as I can. Similarly, if you want to talk, share, or ask anything, if there’s something I can do to help, please let me know. I’ll do what I can. I hope this list helped some of you at least feel happier, or made you smile. 

Please stay safe and take care of yourselves. More stories and posts to come. 

[ms-m-astrologer]

Jupiter in 2021

Jupiter’s 2021 timeline:

Friday, January 1, 2021 - 2:47 Aquarius

Saturday, March 27 - Jupiter enters pre-Rx shadow, 22:19 Aquarius

Thursday, May 13 - Jupiter enters Pisces

Sunday, June 20 - Jupiter stations retrograde, 2:11 Pisces

Wednesday, July 28 - Jupiter retrogresses back into Aquarius

Monday, October 18 - Jupiter stations direct, 22:19 Aquarius

Wednesday, December 29 - Jupiter re-enters Pisces

Saturday, January 1, 2022 - Jupiter at 0:32 Pisces

Jupiter’s 2021 story really began on December 19, 2020, when it entered the sign Aquarius - and on December 21, 2020, when it was conjunct Saturn in Aquarius. Now, it will scoot through the entire sign of Aquarius, without stopping once, and venture a little over 2 degrees into Pisces, before stationing retrograde. Jupiter moves back into Aquarius at the end of July, and stays there until almost the end of the year, when it re-enters Pisces.

That’s just so illustrative of Jupiter. It gets carried away with the momentum of a new start, and barrels right on through, moving on to the next sign even - until it has to go back and do over roughly the last third of Aquarius. Whoops.

So, looking at the Jupiter-through-Aquarius piece: we’re supposed to recognize opportunities to expand and explore (transiting Jupiter) in Aquarius ways. What are those ways? Well, computers and electronics, definitely; I’m hoping that we’ll emerge from our COVID cocoons seeing that someone has found innovative ways to improve online experiences. I’m also (as an educator) hoping that the frankly disgusting inequality of broadband access will be addressed. Everybody needs the best internet access, just like with clean water and electricity.

There’s also a big piece of Aquarius that wants to dump all the cultural programming and blithely do its own thing. If you’re feeling pressured to conform, and you’re sick of it, this is a good chance for you to break away from the pressure. 

Socially, Aquarius goes two ways - either surrounded by crowds of people, or all alone. It’s important to make sure we aren’t going to harmful Jupiterian extremes in either direction. The extroverts among us may go overboard in socializing, after being denied it for so long; while the introverts among us (like the one writing this!) may go overboard with social distancing and not want to leave their bedrooms.

Anybody got anything else? It does my old heart a world of good when my followers share their knowledge with the rest of us!

As for Jupiter in Pisces - well, that’s only two and a half months. I would rather not write about it at all, because it’s basically a “mulligan” - a “do-over” - because Jupiter will retrogress right back into the final eight degrees of Aquarius. We’ll have some extra work to do with Jupiter in Aquarius, before we can properly progress into Pisces.

(The final third of the sign is the Libra decanate. Ms M is hoping for some social justice action.)

When Jupiter is traveling between 0:00 and 22:19 of Aquarius: if Jupiter will aspect one of your natal placements, it will be a “one and done” situation. For example, poor Ms M gets only one trine to her natal Sun, alas. (But she’s counting her blessings - she gets only one square to her natal Ascendant, too.) 

When Jupiter is between 22:19 Aquarius and 2:11 Pisces: Jupiter is going to spend most of his time in 2021 in this narrow 10-degree stretch of Zodiac. If he aspects any placement in your chart, during this time, that aspect will be a three-peat - three separate instances. The first one “just” makes you aware of a situation; the second one gives you further insights and information; the third one should allow you to resolve the situation.

Good Jupiter Days

A “good” Jupiter day is one in which the transiting Moon is in Sagittarius, Jupiter’s sign, and making either a sextile or a trine to transiting Jupiter. They’re “lucky” days, but they’re also times when it is possible to drastically overdo something. Maybe the best use of these times is to spread the good luck to the people around you? 

Saturday, January 9, 11:15 UT - 19:18 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

Friday, February 5, 17:16 UT - Saturday, February 6, 12:45 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

Thursday, March 4, 22:43 UT - Saturday, March 6, 05:07 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

Thursday, April 1, 05:59 UT - Friday, April 2, 22:17 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

Wednesday, April 28, 15:42 UT - Friday, April 30, 13:27 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

Monday, August 16, 03:12 UT - Wednesday, August 18, 01:43 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

Sunday, September 12, 08:34 UT - Tuesday, September 14, 01:38 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

Saturday, October 9, 15:24 UT - Monday, October 11, 04:30 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

Saturday, November 6, 00:52 UT - Sunday, November 7, 13:44 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

Friday, December 3, 12:13 UT - Sunday, December 5, 05:08 UT - Moon/Sagittarius sextile Jupiter/Aquarius

[stiltonbasket]

Twelve Moons and a Fortnight wrap-up Q & A!

(brief note that this post does contain spoilers, so don’t click past the cut unless you’ve finished reading!)

__

1. Hi Stilton! I love you and TMAAF! The way you write the letters really feels organic and like people writing letters to other people in a time where communication wasn't instantaneous and thats a pet peeve I have with some fics that treat letters like text. I don't know if you've been asked this but what's your inspiration for the letters? Did you just make them up as they are? Did you look at old letters and studied the tone? @iwillbetrash4eva

I made the letters up as they are, but it was essential for me to keep in mind that the characters are all highly educated, and that Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, and Nie Huaisang in particular are very accomplished in the arts. Letters written by someone who composes music and poetry in their spare time aren’t going to be the same as emails and text messages written for the sake of raw information transfer, so I made sure to incorporate that into the letters; they’re written on pretty paper, usually in the sender’s best calligraphy, and it takes time to sit down and write them, so there’s an aspect of aesthetic reflection there that we rarely notice in modern communication.

I also felt that the characters would include snapshots of their lives and feelings while writing; this was more important with Wei Wuxian, since he throws himself so deeply into his daily life, but I also had to remember how important the past is to all of the characters and how enmeshed it is with their relevant current events. Ultimately, each letter serves as an extra look into the characters’ state of mind, which is something the narrative might not give us. 

2. What was your favorite scene in TMAAF, and which OC was the most fun to write? @keela1221

My favorite scene was Wei Wuxian’s departure from Lotus Pier in chapter 46, especially the part when everyone chased after him! I planned it several months in advance (sometime last summer, I think?) so finally getting to write it felt amazing.

Surprisingly, my favorite original characters to write (besides the main additions of Xiao-Yu, Yu Zhenhong, and Li Shuai) were the Jiang juniors. They love their Wei-zongzhu so much ;~;

3. What made you think of writing this fic? And would you consider a special epilogue because I don't think 50 chapters were nearly enough for me.❤ @avezevin

I think I just wanted to speculate about what cultivation politics might have been like after Jin Guangyao died, and TMAAF was born! And I most likely will be posting an epilogue, since I realized that the Zhenqing wedding works best as a coda instead of as a fic of its own.

4. what's your research process for tmaaf? the worldbuilding is so detailed!!

I read posts on tradition and culture and use them as sources if the chance ever comes along. A significant portion of the lore was entirely made up, but @light8828 helped me with some of the language, and offered so much guidance on cultivation worldbuilding <3

5. I really like the way you write the dynamic between Wei ying and lan zhan with their kids in all your stories. Xiao-Yu is a very lovable character and his relationship with his parents is something I go back to read many times. What do you use as inspiration when writing his, or any of his siblings, relationship with their parents?

Real life, I guess. Some of my older friends have recently had children, and they’re very good parents. :3

6. Where will you be going with the series? I need to prepare myself for heartbreak if the end is approaching, (its ok if you dont know tho! Idk is an optimistic answer, its just that you seem to have many things plotting away in that brain of yours)

Up next, I’m going to finish all the fics in the series that are still in progress, and then I’m going to write Lan Xichen’s fic, maybe a fic from Wen Qing’s point of view, a fic focusing on a reincarnated Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, and a fic from Jin Yun’s POV focusing on his relationship with LXC and the latter’s death and ascension. This doesn’t count all the fluffy wangxian oneshots still bubbling on the back burner, so I expect this series to keep me busy well into 2022. *sweats*

7. TMAAF Q&A: when did you decide you were bringing wen qing back? what led you to making her return a result of the soul-summoning array, rather than having her have survived by some other method? @mischief7manager

I decided that Wen Qing would be returning sometime between chapters 12 and 15, since that was when I knew I wanted her to be the one to cure Wei Wuxian. And as much as I liked the idea of Wen Qing surviving, I didn’t want her to be imprisoned for the 16-year interim; it was important that she appear in TMAAF as she was before her death rather than having over a decade of character development off-screen. But she wasn’t a fierce corpse that could just be put to sleep for all that time, hence the soul-summoning.

8. For the Q&A: Stilton, how did you come up with such an adorable perfect little child like Xiao-Yu?? You write him so well it really does seem like it’s a child talking!! @whereisyourcahier​

He’s partly based on a real baby I know. :P It might sound impossible, but he’s even cuter than Xiao-Yu is.

9. Thank you for doing this Q&A! Was Xiao Yu always part of the story? (Ilhim so much!!)

He was! I always wanted Wangxian to experience parenthood together, so Xiao-Yu’s entry was planned long before he actually appeared in the fic.

10. how did you deal with any writers block that came up?

By reading comments!! I have all of you to thank for that <3<3!!!!!!

11. What was the process for plotting each arc of tmaaf? & when did you decide on what the storyline was going to be? Did you know when you started or did you incorporate stuff as you wrote?

I hashed out the whole plot at once sometime last May, and that was when I laid down the rough storyline. The overall plot was finalized by the time chapter 18 went up, though I did add further details as I went along. In particular, the mini-arc of Wei Wuxian investigating the Yangshuo plague was mostly written on the fly.

12. how long have you been planning the wen qing lang xiyan reveal? has it been something set in stone from the start?

I’ve been planning it since last April, though the exact circumstances weren’t clear until around August or September. Originally, Jiang Cheng was going to ask “Lang Xiyan” to marry him after her mourning period was over, only for her to reveal herself as Wen Qing before accepting, but I soon realized that this wouldn’t fit either of their characters. Wen Ning recognizing her was the only way the reveal made sense (both emotionally and logically) so I had to find a reason to bring him to Yunmeng at exactly the right time.

13. I just want to ask two little things (well three). Where we will be able to read the wedding of baby Zizhen and A-Qing? Will there be Chengqing? And with the last question, if it's yes, will you write a one shot, drabble or something like that?? 🥺🥺🥺

I’m going to post a 51st chapter to TMAAF with the Zhenqing wedding as an epilogue, and Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing are married by then! Wen Qing will most likely be getting a fic of her own, focusing on the time between her revival and her engagement to Jiang Cheng.

14. I just finished reading your fic and let me tell you it's one of the best I have ever had the pleasure to read :) For someone who wants to start writing, how did you start the story? Did you wrote everything with a little scheme or you just leave your brain to work in the document?

I wasn’t planning to write fic for MDZS/CQL at all, and then I randomly ended up outlining, drafting, and posting the first chapter of TMAAF within the span of around two hours. When starting a story, I think it works best for me to just let my brain work in the document without worrying too much about how it might turn out--outlines and schemes tend to come later, after I’ve gotten a feel for how the characters act and laid down some dead-basic worldbuilding.

If you’re just starting out, make sure you’re having fun and that everything you write is as self-indulgent as possible! Enjoying the process is the most important thing, worrying about all the specifics can come later. <3

[teacherintransition]

After Almost Three Years…Cautiously Optimistic

We last traveled abroad in June and July of 2019…

If travel was a big part of your life’s plan, things might’ve been a little frustrating recently…

Since taking off on my retirement journey in August of 2020, I’ve joyfully, yes joyfully, been able to embark on most of the “my time” goals I set for myself. Blog writing…CHECK; much painting… CHECK; setting up a small business to sell my art and Illustrations… CHECK; read voluminously… CHECK; spend more time outdoors… CHECK; start on a list of “honey-do’s”… CHECK; write a book… CHECK (in the process of); set up a PODCAST over the fine art of storytelling… not check per se …but making progress; volunteer work for animal rescue… CHECK; travel… CHECK (Sedona, Arizona & Chicago, Illinois). This is where it becomes tricky; when I originally made my plans, I saw myself spending time in Europe to explore the history, language, art, cuisine, the people of Scotland, Italy, Spain, France, Czechia, Germany and Ireland. Ok, with that little caveat added; travel… NOT CHECK. I am without question one of countless fellow travelers who have had to sit on their suitcases passport in hand… and wait…and wait…and wait.

At this point here, I’ve gotta say I haven’t been wringing my hands, ripping my garments and pounding my chest screaming, “why…why…why, it’s so unfair!” Well, maybe a couple of times as I’m only human my friends, but in light of the suffering and loss of life, which our family has experienced a depressing amount, I realize not being able to tour Prague is way, way down on the tragedy list. I hope you notice how I refrained from using the *****-19 term? Wait, what …DAMMIT! I’ve been adamant about not writing about IT as I needed, desperately, I might add, to remind myself and any other intrepid souls that read my column that the world of dreams still exists beyond *****-19. Wait, what… DAMMIT! That most certainly means my friends, travel in the near future… hopefully.

I’ve done everything possible to keep the travel option viable. I’ve quarantined, social distanced, been locked down, been vaccinated, been boosted, avoided disagreements about IT, kept perspective, been crushed by various variants, longingly viewed places I love on Google Earth, read a library of travel books and so on. It has been a poor substitute, but actively helping family and friends has been a soothing salve. This morning while drinking my necessary coffee, a Rubicon has been crossed; an act of faith performed or another aggravating false hope waiting to gut punch me down the road. I filled out my passport renewal form. We got this current version in 2012 before going to Mexico and it is due to be renewed in February of 2022; yes, I’m expediting the process. Since being in Italy in 2019, I’d hoped to have been to Czechia, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Lichtenstein and to have returned to Scotland and Ireland… it didn’t happen. Not in any way wanting to appear as the entitled, ugly American, I’ve helped where I could and patiently waited for a “sign” that things might change. Renewing the passport is a step, that as I take it, Omicron is rearing its head in the very destinations we are looking forward to exploring: United Kingdom, Germany etc. I’m blessed to have many friends who either are ex-pats or crave to be who have outlined the process that might be expected should we be able to travel. We can expect to be tested three days before departure, show our vaccination record and be tested prior to returning home. Not a problem for this rucksack dude…it’s just the uncertainty…ain’t that the way life goes? For almost two years, the whole damn world has been rocked with terrible, tragic uncertainty; it stands to reason that hope would also be as uncertain. Allow me to reiterate my practice of avoiding the darker side of life during *****-19; wait…what? DAMMIT! I’ll just take this as a chance to wax philosophically in a positive direction.

The bigger lesson to be learned here is that every single, solitary, good thing, bad thing, good times, bad times is an exercise in patience, perseverance and adaptation. Yes, this age old lesson that we humans would rather be hopelessly depressed over rather than learn. This change in my life I pointed out earlier seemed be a list of goals checked off and started, but truth be told, none of those things happened at all like I thought they would; uncertainty can be a pleasant surprise. I love and fear the Buddhist adage, “relax, nothing is in control.” Plan all you want…it matters not a damn; but if you can improvise and adapt you realize that life lived as a roller coaster is a helluva lot better than life lived on a straight road.

So, I filled out my passport renewal form with the plan and hope of landing in Edinburgh, Scotland on May thirty first…spin spinning wheel let’s see what happens.

[khalilhumam]

In the heat of political crisis, Belarus launches first nuclear power plant

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/in-the-heat-of-political-crisis-belarus-launches-first-nuclear-power-plant/

In the heat of political crisis, Belarus launches first nuclear power plant

Ecologists do not share the government's optimism about Astravets

Astravets nuclear power plant, Belarus, 2020. Photo (c): Hanna Valynets, used with permission.

Since August, Belarus has been rocked by mass protests and strikes. The authorities try not to pay attention, for they are preoccupied with a no less historic development — the construction of a new nuclear power plant. That is controversial in a country which suffered greatly from the 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe in neighbouring Ukraine. Concern at the state of democracy dominates Belarusian public life, but alongside it another urgent conversation continues — about the country’s past experience with nuclear power, and whether it needs a post-nuclear future. All eyes are on Astravets, a small town located near the Belarusian border with Lithuania. In recent years the town’s population has grown significantly: workers are badly needed, and new multi-storey apartments have shot up to house them. The reason for these rapid changes is that Belarus’ first nuclear power plant is located outside the town. Its construction is now coming to an end and it is nearly ready to be started up. As engineers often explain, it takes more than pressing one button to launch a nuclear reactor. That start-up will take place in several phases. The fuel has already been loaded; the plant is expected to generate its first electricity on November 7. This is a national holiday in Belarus, as it is the anniversary of the October Revolution — the revolution from which the Soviet Union was born. “I invite everybody. I think that on November 7, a significant day for us, we will be able to visit and say that we have received the first electricity from our own nuclear power plant”, exclaimed Belarus’ longtime ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka at a meeting with officials on September 16. The first of the two reactors is expected to operate at full capacity by the first quarter of 2021. The second reactor will be launched in 2022.

Haunting memories

But not all Belarusians are so jubilant. They remember the explosion in 1986, which released large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere. Belarus suffered more than anywhere else in the Soviet Union; a third of all the radioactive caesium-137 ended up in Belarusian territory. The authorities in Minsk have tried to assuage fears of a second Chernobyl, declaring that the likelihood of accidents is minimal, and that the Astravets nuclear power plant is a safe and profitable project. “We are the Chernobyl republic, we have experienced a lot and we know the consequences ourselves. Some US$19 billion has been spent on rehabilitating contaminated areas alone. Therefore, safety measures during the construction of the [Astravets] power station were like something out of wartime”, said Lukashenka in August, just before the presidential elections. In the public discussion about nuclear energy, comparisons between Chernobyl and Astravets are not so uncommon. These parallels are drawn by everybody, including journalists, politicians, ordinary citizens, and surviving liquidators from the Chernobyl catastrophe. They all deeply regret what occurred in 1986, but their opinions on 2020 strongly differ. Some strongly support the new nuclear power plant and hope for an increased standard of living, while others fear another accident. Belarusian state media and officials do not shirk from mentioning Chernobyl, either. “The memory of the events at Chernobyl is now being instrumentalised and used to legitimise the new nuclear power plant. On the 30th anniversary of the accident, a documentary film was broadcast which began with footage of the 1986 accident and ended with a hint that this time, everything would be alright,” writes Alexey Bratochkin, head of public history projects at the European College of Liberal Arts in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Once the nuclear power plant is fully operational, explained the authorities in the early stages of construction, electricity prices will fall. In 2014, the Ministry of Energy promised that electricity “will become cheaper for the consumer” by 20-30 percent. But some Belarusians seem to be sceptical about promises of cheap energy. They also doubt that the power plant will open at all, given that its launch has already been postponed at least four times. All these views can be seen in local community groups on social media: “I work on the construction site of the nuclear power plant, and [acquaintances] sometimes ask me when it will be launched. I think [the plant’s management] don’t even know themselves, they say within two to three years at a minimum”, says Alyaksandr, who was born and grew up in Astravets, in a Telegram chat with GlobalVoices. Does Alyaksandr expect a drop in electricity prices? He might be right to, given that electric vehicles are already under development and power engineers are modernising heating networks in newly-constructed residential buildings to be more energy efficient. “Logically that should be the case. But in Volgodonsk [a city in Russia] there’s also a nuclear power plant. There are more than two reactors, but after the plant was constructed energy actually became more expensive”, remarks Alyaksandr. He may be right, according to the results of a study conducted by the Belarusian NGO EcoDom this summer. The authors concluded that the electricity prices for Belarusian consumers will almost double in price. “The prime cost of electricity in the network as a whole will not decrease, but will increase from four cents to [US$]7.26; that is, 1.8 times”, concluded EcoHome.

A geopolitical gambit

There have also been geopolitical promises. Namely, that Belarus would lessen its energy dependence on natural gas supplies from Russia. Nuclear power is “part of our independence”, and its greater use would ensure “sovereignty and independence”, promised Lukashenka in September. Indeed, shortly before the decision to construct Astravets was taken in 2007, Russia accounted for some 85 percent of all Belarus’ energy imports. Much of this is natural gas, from which Belarus generates 93 percent of its electricity. In their quest to reduce their country’s energy dependence on Russia, the Belarusian authorities turned to an old partner — Russia. Moscow was happy to oblige, offering a loan of up to $10 billion for the new power plant. This loan must be repaid over a 15 year period, starting from 2023. Thus the Belarusian leadership tied itself to a massive financial obligation to the same country from which it wanted to reduce dependence. “The political meaning of the construction and launch of the nuclear power plant was associated with the goal of ensuring energy security for Belarus. It probably isn’t the best idea. The nuclear power plant is an ongoing economic and political miscalculation”, says Andrey Yegorov, a political scientist and analyst at the Centre for European Transformation and member of the board of the Green Network, a partnership of environmental organisations. In an interview with GlobalVoices, Yegorov emphasised that now Belarus will not only pay loans to Russia, it will still need to buy Russian energy resources. Only now it will import nuclear fuel.

READ MORE: What is Russia's endgame in Belarus?

Astravets could certainly cover much of Belarus’ domestic energy needs — in fact, according to the Ministry of Energy, the plant is likely to generate a surplus. All that excess energy must go somewhere, but where? Russia is well supplied by its own nuclear power plants. Belarus’ other neighbours do not intend to buy energy from Astravets, which they consider unsafe. Lithuania is a particularly fierce opponent both of the construction of the power plant and purchasing energy it will generate. After all, Astravets lies just 20 kilometres from its border. Vilnius has even passed a law on boycotting electricity from the new power plant. On October 26, Litgrid, operator of Lithuania’s national electricity grid, announced how it would react to the first receipt of electricity from Belarus, which is expected between November 1-10. “We will immediately set the capacity to zero megawatts for all commercial electricity flows from Belarus”, said Litgrid’s interim head Vidmantas Grušas in a press release. This statement is the consequence of Lithuania’s long-standing position. It was summed up by President Ginatas Nausėda on October 21. “The Belarusian nuclear power plant poses a threat to the safety of EU citizens. Therefore it is necessary to put a stop to the irresponsible launch of this nuclear power plant”, said Nausėda. Estonia, Latvia, and Poland have all announced their refusal to purchase energy from Astravets, partly out of solidarity with Lithuania’s position. Ukraine has also declined, stating that it has its own energy surplus. At a meeting of the Council of Europe in October, European leaders stressed that the degree of compliance with and implementation of safety requirements and tests at the Astravets nuclear power plant would affect relations between the EU and Belarus.

The ecologists’ revolt

In September, the Belarusian Green Party and several ecological organisations released a declaration against the nuclear power plant at Astravets. As they saw it, its launch was even more dangerous in the context of a political crisis. “Let’s start with the fact that the internal troops and security forces, which could be involved in mitigating the consequences of any crisis, are now busy with something else entirely — clashing with protesters”, write the ecologists. Indeed, police detain an average of 500-700 people every weekend during protests. And protests don’t just take place on weekends. Judging by the estimates of the Belarusian human rights centre Viasna, more than 16,000 people have been detained since August 9. As of early October, human rights defenders had recorded over 2,000 complaints of torture and violence during detention, according to the International Committee on the Investigation of Torture. Meanwhile, layoffs and strikes are also taking place. For example, on October 26 some factory workers, including those at chemical plants, did not turn up at work. On the same day, Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s Telegram channel noted that “the president, like all right-minded Belarusians, is at work today”.

READ MORE: Belarusian labour activists pressured as political crisis drags on

Yegorov, the political scientist, notes that in the current situation, being right-minded means sensibly assessing the risks: “A nuclear power plant can be highly dangerous and is very risky to operate. Putting one into operation amid unprecedented epidemiological, political and economic crises is risky”, he says. It must be added that at the time of writing, the COVID-19 infection rate in Belarus has peaked. It now stands where it did in May, during the first wave of the pandemic. “First and foremost, the danger posed by the nuclear power plant is not connected with the political system nor the epidemiological situation”, remarks Andrey Ozharovsky, an active participant of the Belarusian anti-nuclear movement. Ozharovsky believes that nuclear power is dangerous in any situation; Chernobyl exploded under socialism and Fukushima under capitalism. Nevertheless, the danger may increase if the launch itself becomes a political event: “Belarus’ atomic project has been a political one from the outset, as Lukashenka has said many times. If it is in his personal interests to rush its start-up, then in accordance with old Soviet traditions, the facility may be commissioned with imperfections. When it comes to a nuclear power plant, that dramatically increases the likelihood of severe accidents”, warns Ozharovsky. The long term future of the facility at Astravets also poses a key problem: the power plant will function for 60 years, but radioactive waste remains dangerous for several thousand. However, political realities can be far more fleeting. “If the ruling powers in Belarus change, the question will arise as to whether Belarus needs this nuclear power plant. Let me remind you that countries such as Germany have rejected nuclear energy. France has made it a political goal to reduce its independence on nuclear energy from 70 to 50 percent”, Ozharovsky explains.

Waiting for the green revolution

In the short term, ecologists see Astravets as a setback for Belarusian renewable energy. According to a 2018 study by EcoHome and the Institute for Technical Thermodynamics of the German Aerospace Centre, Belarus could close its nuclear power plant by 2040 and fully transition to renewable energy by 2050. Pavel Gorbunov, an energy researcher with EcoHome, calls the Astravets nuclear power plant an unprofitable project. He is convinced that it would be cheaper not to launch the plant, recognising the investment as a loss maker and starting to pay back the loan which Belarus took out for its construction. “In the medium and the long term, the Astravets nuclear power plant will compete with prices for electricity from renewable sources”, said Gorbunov in an interview. This is because Belarus is currently developing renewable energy alongside its nuclear sector. However, the launch of the new power plant and the surplus of electricity which it will produce are expected to reduce investor interest in developing industrial-scale renewable energy. This is the belief of Vladimir Nistyuk, the executive director of Belarus’ Renewable Energy Association, which includes about 40 organisations. The launch also threatens to reduce the opportunities for producers of energy from renewable sources to sell their electricity back to the national grid. It will also impact the “elimination of increasing coefficients”, which allowed them to do so at a more favourable price. At the same time, the expert notes that there remains a public interest in energy sources which allow ordinary people and companies alike to generate their own electricity. Biogas is being actively developed, he adds. “In general, even if the development of renewable [energy] sources slows down, it will not be for long. As Karl Marx said, one cannot live in society and be free from it”, Nistyuk told GlobalVoices. “There’s no getting away from that, because we live in a civilised world which has long since started to appreciate the benefits of renewable energy and its prospects. We are optimists”. This article is made possible through a partnership with Transitions, a Prague-based publishing and media training organisation

Find out more about the turmoil in Belarus here

Written by Hanna Valynec

[ronaldmrashid]

Ideas For Reinvesting Proceeds After A Home Sale

A large financial windfall can either be a joyous occasion or a stressful occasion. It all depends on how well you plan. Because it’s generally easier to spend than to save, I always recommend folks sit on their cash for at least a month before making any moves.

Holding a lot of cash is not a bad thing even in a raging bull market. A cash stash is only stressful if you suffer from an overwhelming amount of greed. Greed can kill your returns because you don’t properly think about the risks. All you think about is how much you could be making from a particular investment class without realizing how much you could lose as well.

In this post, I’ll focus specifically on what to do with the proceeds after a property sale. This post is applicable to any type of large windfall e.g. inheritance, year-end bonus, gift, etc.

The first thing you should do if you find a bag of gold inside an airport locker is to run some financial diagnostics to set up your investment framework.

Questions To Ask Before Reinvesting Your Proceeds

1) How much will the sold house be worth in 5, 10, 20 years? The goal is to come up with a baseline financial target to shoot for. Either use the asset’s historical annual rate of return over a 50 year time period or a risk free rate plus a reasonable premium.

2) What does your net worth allocation look like post sale? Once you find out, you can make a better assessment on where to allocate capital. After an extended period of time, your net worth allocation may skew more towards one asset due to outperformance.

3) How do you feel about the current economic environment? You are either bullish, neutral, or bearish. Make a best estimate of where we are in the cycle by studying previous cycles and extrapolating current data into the future.

4) What are your upcoming financial needs over the next 1, 3, 5, 10+ years? There must be a purpose to investing otherwise there’s no point. The biggest expenses include another home purchase, college tuition, healthcare costs, and retirement.

5) What is your estimated tax liability? There’s no avoiding the tax man. Calculate all the costs involved in selling your house (commissions, taxes, etc), the amount you spent improving your house, and any tax benefits such as the $250K/$500K tax-free profits to figure out your taxable profits. Put that money aside.

Once you’ve answered these questions during your one month+ cooling off period, you’ll have a much clearer sense of how to reinvest your proceeds.

How I’m Reinvesting The House Sale Proceeds

I’ve gone from having $2,740,000 of exposure in one asset in SF with $815,000 in leverage (mortgage) to having ~$1,800,000 in cash after selling.

Here were my initial thoughts after despositing the check.

1) Reduce risk by $815,000 by paying $1,800,000 cash for a different San Francisco single family home. But I’ve already got exposure in San Francisco through my primary residence, a rental condo, and a vacation property in Lake Tahoe. So I’m thinking this isn’t the best idea unless I can find another sweet panoramic ocean view home that has a clear appreciation path to $2,500,000 (39%+) over the next 5 – 10 years.

2) Reduce risk by $815,000 by investing all $1,800,000 in a portfolio of different real estate assets e.g. REITs and real estate crowdfunding projects to keep real estate exposure from falling by only 29%. This is the most sensible move since I’m bullish on real estate long term and I get to diversify from a single home to multiple properties around the country.

3) Find a dream home in Honolulu with a 10,000+ sqft flat lot near the beach. Unfortunately, these homes cost ~$3,000,000 – ~$5,000,000 and we’re not ready to leave San Francisco until its time for my little one to go to kindergarten in 2022. I’ve been searching for a couple years and haven’t found the ideal property at an affordable price.

I usually like to reinvest proceeds in the same asset class while I work on building up greater amounts in other asset classes to get to my desired net worth asset allocation. But after much deliberation, I wanted to focus on de-risking.

When you survive a financial crisis with a relatively large amount of assets that got pounded, you really appreciate second chances to take money off the table. Remember, I took a big risk in 2014 by taking out another $1,000,000 mortgage to buy another property while keeping my previous home as a rental with a $1,000,000 mortgage for three years instead of selling it.

Here’s how I’ve reinvested the money so far:

Municipal Bonds: $500,000 into various California municipal bonds with a 3% – 4% tax free coupon, which is equivalent to a 4.4% – 5.9% gross yield based on a 32% effective tax rate (federal plus state). I’ve always enjoyed keeping a good amount of low-risk/risk-free investments because it ironically allows me to take maximum risk in my life: moving cities, switching firms, starting a business, retiring early, etc. Target annual return (gross): 5%

Real Estate Crowdfunding: $250,000 into the RealtyShares domestic equity fund, which brings my total to $500,000 + a $10,000 Conshy, Pennsylvania commercial project. The fund made new investments in Virginia, Dallas, Seattle, and Utah. This investment is my way of reinvesting a portion of the proceeds in 100% passive real estate that hopefully has more upside than San Francisco real estate, which has started to slow. Target annual return: 8% vs. their 15% target return.

Stocks: $100,000 into an S&P 500 index ETF IVV and $50,000 into various large cap growth stocks. I used the small sell-off in August and early September to allocate capital. I’m not excited about the stock market, so this is more an asset allocation decision. I will be allocating $100,000 into the stock market with every 2% correction, with a belief the stock market won’t correct by more than 10%. Target annual return: 7%.

Snapshot of various buys of iShares S&P 500 ETF and a couple CA zero coupon muni bonds

529 Plan: $35,000 to my son’s 529 plan. I can super fund the plan with $70,000 in one year, but I’m not sure I’ll do so because these long-dated target funds are very aggressive. With an 18 year target date, the fund has a 90%+ weighting in stocks, so this 529 plan is really just a stock fund at this moment. Besides, I have 18 years to reach the limit of $359,000, which should go up in the future.

Contributed $30,000 to my son’s 529 plan in two tranches. Have $40,000 left to contribute for 2017

Debt Pay Down: $50,000 was used to pay down a 4.25%, 30-year fixed mortgage on my Lake Tahoe vacation property that can’t be refinanced into a 5/1 ARM for a lower rate. The goal is to pay this debt off completely by 2022 before leaving California.

Total Invested: $985,000 over three months

Total Cash Remaining: $815,000 from proceeds

Return Hurdle: 4% (I estimate the house I sold will increase by 4% a year on average for the next 20 years). $1,800,000 of my equity will turn into $3,944,000 in 20 years at a 4% compounded return, if I cancel out the cost of carrying the $815,000 mortgage.

Estimated Return Of Reinvested Proceeds: 6% (blended rate of return for investments excluding cash). $985,000 will turn into $3,159,008 in 20 years at a 6% compounded return.

Activity Difference: Going from semi-passive income to 100% passive income. Hallelujah!

Rating The Reinvestment Risk

It’s always good to make sure that what you are reinvesting in matches your risk tolerance and financial goals. Here’s my reinvestment risk assessment:

On a scale of 1-10, 10 being super risky and 1 being risk-free, I rate keeping $2,740,000 of exposure in SF real estate with a $815,000 a mortgage an 8. My rental property was valued at ~30X gross annual rent (crazy expensive IMO) after prices rose by 60% since 2012 and I’m already long three other properties in the Bay Area. If this was my primary residence and I had no other properties, I would assign a risk score of 5 for holding on, despite the surge in prices because I have to live somewhere.

I believe there’s a 50% chance the property I sold could decline by 10% ($2,500,000) over the next several years due to an increased supply of luxury condos, a small chance mortgage rates go higher, and a slowdown in hiring. Heck, I may have sold my property for $2,500,000 this year if the buyer threatened to walk away. But I also believe there’s a 70% chance my old SF property will simply appreciate at a rate of 1% – 4% a year forever, just like inflation.

I give my reinvestments a 3 out of 10 in terms of risk. 51% of my reinvestment is in almost risk free investment grade municipal bonds that will pay back their principal plus a coupon over the years. 25% of my reinvestment is in real estate crowdfunding in cheaper markets with higher yields. 20% of my reinvestment is in higher risk equity investments, while the remaining 4% of my reinvestment was used to pay down debt.

Why Still Hold So Much Cash?

Despite not wanting to own any more physical property, I just can’t seem to break my addiction. For 16 years, I’ve been combing the listings and going on open house walks every Sunday. There’s still so much upside for cheaper property on the western side of SF.

I believe there’s a 20% chance I can snag a property for 5% – 10% below fair value because that’s exactly what I did when I bought my current residence in 2014 from a 72 year old part-time realtor who didn’t live in SF. He was the seller’s childhood neighbor in the 60s so they asked him to do them a favor. There are inefficiencies in the real estate market due to out of town sellers, out of town realtors, bad listing timing, bad marketing, inexperienced sellers/realtors and so forth.

Visualizing Reinvesting The Remaining Proceeds

With whatever cash you have left, it’s important to clearly visualize how you plan to reinvest the proceeds in what time frame. You don’t have to exactly follow your plan, but you should write something out in order to have a good idea when opportunities arise. In my case, I’ve got $815,000 left.

1) Taxes: $100,000 set aside for April 2018

2) Physical property in SF: All $815,000 if a bargain can be had at a 10% discount to market. Need to have lots of cash to be competitive, unlike my buyer who had to take out a $2,000,000 loan and a $300,000 bridge loan to get the deal done.

2) Municipal bonds: $100,000 if the 10-year yield gets back up to 2.3% and $300,000 if the 10-year yield gets back to 2.5%. Minimum $10,000 a month no matter what happens to interest rates.

3) Stocks: $100,000 for every 2% correction in the market, and up to $500,000 if there is a 10% correction. Minimum $10,000 a month no matter what happens in the market.

4) Debt pay down: $10,000 a month without fail, and $100,000 in 12 months if the 10-year yield doesn’t get to 2.5% and stocks do not correct by 10%

5) Real estate alternatives: An additional $100,000 – $500,000 by November 2017 in the RealtyShares domestic equity fund because they’ve told me that’s when they will close the fund. I’m waiting until the very end because I want to give as much time as possible to see how their investments do before committing more capital.

Given all the fund’s investments are equity and not debt, it can take years to see any type of returns, which is exactly what I want because of my current high tax rate, especially since I just sold a house. Below is a snapshot of my account so far. I’m surprised there’s income already being paid out.

Total investment of $510,000 in various RealtyShares equity deals

It’s Worth Being Patient With Cash

Locking up $310,000 in a 4.1%, 7-year CD from 2007 – 2014 was a suboptimal financial move since the S&P 500 outperformed. But using $246,000 of the $400,000 in proceeds to buy a fixer upper for $1,230,000 in 2014 that has now appreciated to ~$1,650,000 (33%) or ~$2,000,000 (40%) if you include the $180,000 I spent remodeling, was a good financial decision so far. The $426,000 in equity for the downpayment and remodeling has grown to ~$1,160,000 (+176%).

There will always be great opportunities in the future if you have the cash and the courage to take advantage. Not everybody could have bought my house in 2014 because not everybody had a $250,000 downpayment or the desire to look west. When you have cash, you have options.

Besides providing optionality, cash also provides security. You don’t have to worry as much about losing your job, paying for an unexpected medical bill, or seeing your business go down the drain. With less worry, comes more happiness. And happiness is what having money is all about!

Readers, how did you decide to reinvest your house sale proceeds or any financial windfalls? How long did it take for you to deploy all capital? Where are you investing your money now?

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