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thequackcity · 3 years ago

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Quackity and Schlatt’s Relationship - More Complicated Then You Think

(this is all /rp and about the characters from the dream smp! pls assume i have the dignity not to write analysis of youtubers)

recently there was a bit of discourse surrounding the relationship between Quackity and Schlatt floating around on tumblr. tho i never saw the original post that sparked the conversation, i did see a few posts that were inspired by it mentioning how they disliked that the original post implied that Quackity and Schlatt were mutually abusive and/or equally bad for each other

since i never saw the original post, i can't be sure if that's what the op meant to imply. it's not really my place to speak about a post that i never got the chance to read. BUT the conversation that was caused by the post in question did get me thinking about how this fandom treats the relationship between Quackity and Schlatt and how little nuance there is in discussions about it

now before i say anything else, i want to make a few things clear:

i don't think Quackity and Schlatt’s relationship is mutually abusive. no need to worry about hearing that from this post

i don't look down on ppl who have different interpretations of their relationship

there will be potentially triggering content in this analysis. i will place a quick warning whenever i think one is needed!

their relationship is romantic in canon and therefore i’ll be treating it as romantic

alright now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, we can finally get on with the analysis! i apologize for how long this is gonna be

part 1: let's talk relationship!

i think we can all agree that Quackity and Schlatt’s relationship was not exactly a healthy one. tho it didn't start out that way, it certainly turned into what could be read as abusive or toxic (i personally read their relationship as being abusive in its later half due to evidence provided by the text, but i understand if others prefer to view it as just toxic instead)

but what happened that led to their partnership ending so badly? what caused all of this mess?

well, it was a lot of things. but we will get to that later. let's talk relationship first!

from the very beginning, Quackity and Schlatt’s relationship was pretty one-sided. tho they both clearly liked each other as friends/partners in crime both before and after the election (yes they did interact before the election!) Quackity was also interested in Schlatt romantically- something that Schlatt wasn't fully committed to

as we all know from the infamous date stream and from a few other moments, Quackity and Schlatt enjoyed playfully flirting with each other- tho it was pretty obvious that Quackity was more serious about it then Schlatt was even tho Schlatt considered Quackity to be very attractive

in my opinion, Quackity is someone who wants a long term relationship, while Schlatt is more interested in flings. this can be seen in Schlatt refusing to marry Quackity and rejecting most of his advances while Quackity tried his best to convince him to feel otherwise. Tommy put it best: Quackity is just one of Schlatt’s many bitches U_U

to Quackity, the romantic aspect of their relationship was very important. because Schlatt never actually shot him down or told him that he didn't feel the same way, Quackity took that to mean that they were truly in love. Schlatt on the other hand wasn't very invested in the romantic side of things but clearly valued Quackity’s looks and his support as an ally against Pogtopia so he never fully rejected Quackity’s advances

this might not seem like too big of a deal considering the other things that happened between them, but i think it shows part of the nature of their relationship. there is a lot of miscommunication and, on Schlatt’s end, manipulation of emotions. love is a strong motivator for loyalty and Schlatt is a smart guy who would know how to use that to his advantage

but that isn't to say that Schlatt didn't ever care about Quackity!

Schlatt is a complicated guy and figuring out when he's actually being genuine can be pretty difficult. but i think there are some moments that point to Schlatt genuinely caring about Quackity

when he was alive, Schlatt was pretty paranoid. not as paranoid as Wilbur, but certainly up there. but there were never any times where he truly questioned Quackity’s loyalties after his first day as president. Schlatt also seemed truly upset that Quackity betrayed him, bringing up their status as partners in crime while ranting about how much it hurt him and singling Quackity out while talking about how he had been abandoned during his time of need

Schlatt also spent a lot of time sulking after Quackity betrayed him and whining to Ponk about needing a new bitch. this is in contrast to how angry he was after Tubbo betrayed him- both during and after the execution

there is also the situation with the Big Man Gym

after being dead for a while, Schlatt contacted Quackity despite them leaving off on bad terms and asked for him to visit him in his cave gym. when Quackity showed up, Schlatt talked about how he valued their relationship and the good times they had together. tho this can easily be seen as emotional manipulation, Schlatt’s a lot smarter than he seems and- if he doesnt have memory issues due to being a ghost- would know that Quackity’s opinion of him was in the dump at the time of his death and most likely wouldn't have improved since then. Fundy has a higher opinion of Schlatt than Quackity does and is someone who obviously craves validation. but Schlatt went to Quackity first anyway and trusted him to help revive him

i think that this is all good evidence that points towards Schlatt truly caring about Quackity as much as someone like Schlatt can care about anyone- or at least valuing him as a companion

i also think that it is pretty common knowledge that Quackity cared about Schlatt- and possibly still does- but i will go over a bit of evidence that i haven’t already mentioned before we move on to the next part

Quackity tried multiple times to impress Schlatt (like when he lied about knowing how to play chess), would attempt to help Schlatt when he was drowning in water, sadly said that they could have had something together while Schlatt was dying in the caravan, and implied that he wouldn’t have left if Schlatt hadn’t taken down the white house. Quackity also willingly went to the Big Man Gym after being summoned there by Schlatt and wanted to revive him long before the revive book became part of the story

part 2: what made it fall apart?

everything i've said so far has been pretty interesting (hopefully) but it doesn't really answer the original question: what went wrong to turn Schlatt and Quackity’s mainly positive partnership sour?

well it comes down to two things in my opinion: their incompatible desires for political power and Schlatt’s deteriorating mental state

Quackity wanted political power from the beginning and wasn't afraid to be open about his desires. he pooled his votes with Schlatt because Schlatt offered him the position of vice president, something Wilbur and Tommy weren’t willing to give to him. tho Quackity obviously cared about L’Manburg and wanted to see good things for it, he also desired power and was willing to team up with someone he didn't fully agree with to get said power

at 32:40 in this video, Quackity talks about how in politics everyone uses everyone so it's alright if Schlatt is using him. he then talks about how he doesn't want to be a man with no power and how he understands that Schlatt’s main goal is also gaining/keeping power. Quackity also shows a bit of his naughty evil side by saying if he overthrows Schlatt then the fun ends too early!

(side note: these two are pretty evenly matched in intelligence and manipulativeness, i love it!)

it's a bit of a fandom misconception that Quackity was a love sick yes man during the Manburg era. tho Quackity did want to please Schlatt and was in love with him, he didn't shy away from standing up to or disagreeing with Schlatt when he believed it was needed

at around 26:12 of this video, Quackity and Schlatt meet together in private and Quackity tells Schlatt off for playing down his role in the power structure of Manburg. since this was very early in Schlatt’s reign, Quackity shows no fear towards him and confidently tells him not to treat him like that

Quackity also broke Niki out of jail after regretting letting her be put there in the first place, tried to convince Schlatt to not execute Tubbo, jumped in front of Fundy when Schlatt tried to attack him, tried to stop Schlatt from tearing down buildings, and attempted to protect the white house he built from being destroyed by Schlatt. these are not behaviors of a pure yes man but of someone who, despite fear, has the confidence to speak up for himself even when disrespected by someone in authority

Quackity has always been someone who wanted power and someone who was never a yes man to authority. this contradicts with how Schlatt believed Quackity should act as vice president. in Schlatt’s opinion, Quackity’s one job is to sit around looking pretty while Schlatt does all of the important things and holds all of the power. Schlatt was a big fan of promoting people to worthless positions of authority and its pretty obvious that he considered vice president to be similar to the fake positions he gave Fundy and Tubbo

in the end, this was a big part of what destroyed their relationship. like it or not, Quackity’s a power hungry guy and always has been. he didn't like that Schlatt constantly shoved him aside and refused to listen to him

now onto the nasty bit...Schlatt’s mental state

cw for mentions of alcoholism, mental deterioration, and abusive behavior

before i say anything more, i just want to say that i don't think having issues with alcoholism makes someone a bad person. i personally have some issues with such things so it would be pretty stupid of me to say being an alcoholic makes you a bad person. alcoholism does negatively affect your cognitive functions tho and, combined with other health issues, can cause some of the very serious mental problems that Schlatt clearly struggles with

throughout the Manburg era, Schlatt’s mental state rapidly deteriorated. he went from a pretty normal- if eccentric- guy who had a drinking problem, to someone who was delirious most of the time. it's a sharp and noticeable decline that caused a lot of pain for Quackity due to Schlatt often taking his excess aggression out on him by yelling at him and/or belittling him. tho Schlatt often belittled Quackity before he went fully off of the deep end, it was never as aggressive as it was when he was in this delirious state of mind

it was during one of Schlatt’s most aggressive and delirious moments that he tore down the white house despite Quackity’s protests. as we all know, this caused Quackity to snap and kill Schlatt (it's more complicated than that but we will get back to that). as mentioned previously, Quackity implied that he would have stayed with Schlatt if the white house hadn’t been destroyed

in my opinion, these two things combined are the biggest reasons why Quackity and Schlatt’s relationship fell apart. their differing desires for power were not compatible and Schlatt’s awful behavior while his mental state declined caused a rift between them that couldn't be fixed

part 3: how toxic was it really?

cw for emotional and physical abuse

as i said all the way back in part one, Quackity and Schlatt’s relationship was not healthy. i have provided many examples in the other two parts that shine a light onto why it wasn't healthy, but i didn't show the entire picture

there are many moments that show exactly how Schlatt treated Quackity when he was acting at his worst and none of them are pretty. tho Schlatt was never truly aggressive with his insults until he started to go off of the deep end, that doesn't mean that what he said wasn't negatively affecting Quackity

Schlatt would belittle, insult, and mock Quackity for his appearance not being up to his standards, for his opinions, and for being emotional in ways that Schlatt disapproved of like crying. tho Schlatt would often brush off Quackity’s reactions towards this cruel behavior, it's very clear that Schlatt’s treatment of him has stuck with Quackity in many ways

Quackity is very sensitive about his appearance and it seems to be because of how badly Schlatt hurt his self esteem during their time together. Schlatt tied Quackity’s worth to his appearance and then would claim he wasn't meeting his standards of attractiveness. we can tell that this has stuck with Quackity because of his sensitivity towards people bringing up the scar on his face (something that greatly alters his physical appearance) and he still reacts very badly when Schlatt calls him the mocking nickname flatty patty

speaking of flatty patty- that stupid insult shockingly has a lot of weight in Quackity’s relationship with Schlatt. tho its something the audience is meant to laugh at, the nickname also shows just how little Schlatt respects Quackity because he's constantly throwing it around just to make Quackity upset. Schlatt’s last words are flatty patty all because he wanted to get in one last dig at his ex and ruin Quackity’s day even further

Schlatt tends to do a lot of things that are intended to make Quackity upset. tearing down the room Quackity made for him in the white house is the biggest example of this- especially since Schlatt mentions how it will upset Quackity while he does it. you can see this moment at around 19:10 of this video

and now let's get into the elephant in the room when it comes to these two: Quackity was scared of Schlatt. tho we never really see Schlatt hit or attack Quackity physically outside of their confrontation at the white house or their confrontation in the caravan, these clips imply that Quackity was at the very least scared of Schlatt physically harming him in some way

as for actually physically harming him, Schlatt hits Quackity multiple times with a pickaxe and with his fists during their white house fight. Quackity hits Schlatt a couple times too, tho these are all primarily defensive blows since he is trying to protect himself and his property. he also chases after Quackity with a bow after Quackity’s plan to trick him into signing Manburg over to the Pogtopians fails and hits him multiple times during the caravan confrontation

all of this evidence shows that Schlatt was an abusive (or at least toxic) partner towards Quackity and someone who greatly affected him in many ways

tho Quackity did a few questionable things throughout his relationship with Schlatt (such as trying to get Schlatt to have sex with him despite Schlatt not being interested as shown in the later half of this video) and did some downright morally wrong things during his time as vice president of Manburg, no one deserves the pain of an abusive relationship- even a person who has done bad things

as a brief side note before we move on because i know people will bring it up if i skip over it, Quackity did- and most likely still does- want to literally possess Glatt. he brought up reviving Schlatt and using him as a political pawn after Schlatt’s funeral and during their conversation at the Big Man Gym Quackity talked about owning Glatt and having him work at Las Nevadas with no pay

this is unsettling behavior to say the least but this essay isnt about the aftermath of their relationship so much as it is about their relationship when it was actually happening. maybe i will make another post talking more about how Quackity’s relationship with Schlatt affected him even after Schlatt’s death and/or about Quackity’s relationship with Glatt

part 4: final thoughts

i’m not exactly sure why the nuances in Schlatt and Quackity’s relationship get lost when it comes to the fandom, but it’s pretty disappointing to see. hopefully this essay can help people take a closer look at canon and maybe even help them find something interesting that they’d want to explore!

tho the point of this essay is to clear up any misconceptions and hopefully add some nuance to the conversations surrounding Schlatt and Quackity’s relationship, i also wrote it in hopes of showing people how fascinating these two partners in crime were back in the Manburg days. i didn’t cover everything but i think i did a pretty good job for my first analysis post in the dsmp fandom

also since you read to the end, i must say thank you! it really does means a lot to me that you did. i hope you enjoyed and maybe even learned something. this post can be used as a resource if anyone wants to use it as such

here’s a tiny devil Quackity for your troubles <3

#quackity #jschlatt #manburg #dream smp analysis #dsmp analysis #posts by me #this was really fun to make!! i worry it wont show up in tags tho bc of how many links there are in it #so pls reblog!! if you read it and liked it that is haha #meta by me

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helena-thessa · 3 years ago

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Hi Helena! Big fan of your writing here🥺♥️ Your rivamika fics are my safe space 😭 (if you have time to answer) i’d love to know when you first started shipping them, why, and what made you continue to love this ship (or anything else to do with your journey as an RM shipper)? i love your characterisation of both levi and mikasa individually, but even more so, your portrayal of their dynamic as a couple, which is why i wanted to ask so badly ☺️ x

Hey anon! Oh woah, first of all, thank you so much. Second of all, oh god, you probably shouldn't have handed me the mic. heh 😅

I’m afraid to look at the word count of this response, I’m sure it’s much more than you bargained for, but I appreciate the question and enjoyed thinking through my response (: Most importantly, I’m so glad you find my stories as a safe space. It’s really an honor. Thank you for sharing with me 🖤🖤

TL; DR As a longtime reader, writer and lover of stories and story-telling, by being someone who pays attention to how stories are crafted and deliberately developed from beginning to end, I sincerely thought Isayama was setting up rivamika as an endgame relationship. So, I read into and interpreted meaning out of ALL their interactions and became deeply invested.

I don’t necessarily ship them cause of the parallels, age gap, enemies to lover trope, height difference, or some of those common reasons and/or kinks. I’m more basic and boring than that. I love the concept of them coming together as though it’s inevitable.

They both are unbelievably strong, selfless, and have suffered so much loss— so, no one else could truly understand them as well as they can understand each other. They both probably would have always settled for a stable, simple life, and been alone and lonely even without realizing it— instead, they find each other, and realize what it means to actually no longer be alone, to do more than just survive. It’s this understated bond, as opposed to a dramatic and passionate romance, that I envision in them and that I love so much.

Then, the passion, heat, the romantic "spark"— I think that’s an added bonus, the cherry on top, the perfect final puzzle piece. They’re both so physically capable, can speak through their actions, and don’t show much need or capacity for emotional/ verbal communication, so the ability to connect with each other through physical intimacy and mind-blowing sex seems like another given.

Still, at the end of the day, for me it comes back to their ability to fully depend on each other, to the inevitability. Not like some soulmate trope where they 'have no choice' in it, but like the stars aligned to prove it's right. How each of them have only one other person on the whole planet who could see and understand them, to be on par with them, to make them realize there’s more to life than settling and surviving, and they happen to find it in each other.

You asked, I rambled 😅 Here’s a breakdown of my thought process in my rivamika journey. For those who make it to the end or want to skip to the end, I'll finish with the excerpt of the very first rivamika scene I felt compelled to to write.

I've tried before to re-watch and remember the exact scenes, exact moments, that initially captured my full attention, but I guess it was all of them, the gradual and cumulative compilation of their earliest interactions.

Mikasa always appearing cool and indifferent, and paying no attention whatsoever to others fawning over, like Jean initially falling for her, but then her strongly reacting over Levi in the courtroom showed how uniquely capable he was at getting under her skin.

Of course, the scene in the forest chasing the Female Titan was a critical one. I think of that as the first time both Levi and Mikasa were truly able to see the other's strength, mental and physical. And for them, orphans and trauma survivors who have suffered extensive loss, I think that seeing strength in another person made them feel less alone. Less alone in a deep, quiet but cataclysm, life-altering sort of way, even if not a romantic one. Like they didn't know it was something they didn't have, something they didn't expect to get from life, but then found it with each other.

(Even when we found out Levi was an Ackerman, I was disappointed if it meant they were immediate relatives, but willing to accept it wouldn't be a romantic end to loneliness, it would be a familial end to loneliness. But... the author never explored that. Not once.)

In that forest scene, manga and anime, the way that Levi pauses to really look and see Mikasa and think about who she is, what she’s gone through, and how strong and dedicated she is now— that was a defining moment. It was also a visual demonstration of Levi breaking character, from aloof and ruthless, to considering and curious. I thought Yams was showing both of them do that on purpose.

Then, Levi getting hurt because of Mikasa in that scene felt like another clue. Sure, it was while saving Eren, and sure, it could have been meant to humanize super-soldier Levi, or sure, it could have been another aspect of how Mikasa rushing into things over Eren ends up hurting other people that later changes in her character development, but it felt like a very pointed statement about Mikasa being a vulnerability for Levi. And that's swoon-worthy, right? Most of us have been exposed to and conditioned by stories about how special and romantic it is to be the one and only girl who can make an otherwise disinterested or unattainable guy actually pay attention to her, and so admittedly I fall right for it.

I’m sure I’m forgetting plenty, but the opening of season 3 felt like confirmation. When Levi figures out Kenny's behind things and entrusts Mikasa with instructions to share with the others, instructions about fighting people instead of titans that ultimately everyone else besides her struggles with, and when Mikasa lets Levi hold her back from chasing after Eren, her most important way of trusting and having faith in Levi, I honestly took that as cues from the author that rivamika was endgame. I let myself get truly invested from then on. That’s that understated bond I was referring to. To me, that unspoken but undeniable trust is the most important dynamic.

Seeing them fight together or fight similarly has always been fun and powerful and fulfilling.

I'm newer to the snk club. I was originally an anime-only fan and started watching in fall 2019, I think. I wasn't on tumblr, twitter, or anything else to see fandom discourse. So, I didn't know that the rooftop scene of Mikasa fighting Levi over the serum was such a staple for our ship until much later. I love the scene just like many do for all the reasons we do, but I don't think the actual scene was pivotal for me, so much as it's aftermath. I thought it represented two things.

One, it was an important marker in Levi's characterization. Hands-down one of the most striking scenes to me is the one where Levi is in the alley, somber and alone, listening in on Eren, Armin, and Mikasa talking together. It artfully shows his longing for hope and connection. So, when Levi chose Armin for the serum, that represented Levi choosing hope. And when Mikasa ultimately gave up fighting Levi and didn't choose Armin, which Armin finds out about later on, I see that as an important marker in Mikasa's development. It puts a wedge between her and Armin/Eren [Armin, because he knows she would have let him die, and Eren, because Armin is too special to him and he couldn't look at her the same way after realizing she would have let him die]. That distance between her and her childhood friends is one I don't think could ever be healed completely, one of those painful lessons in growing up. By doing that, it then also puts a distance in Mikasa's own childhood self to her current self. I thought that matured her and separated her out in a way that was another clue toward eventual rivamika developments.

That's a whole other conversation on Mikasa, but I’ll stay on track. Her love for Armin was absolutely authentic and fierce, but at the end of the day, at the core of her being, she chose survival over hope. Meanwhile, Levi chose hope over survival. To me, that was soft, fertile ground for the reasons why eventually, if/when Mikasa found hope and chose hope, that could directly tie together with her inevitably in coming together with Levi. Again, less butterflies and fireworks, but more natural and in a way that was just a given.

I wrote Beyond the Walls before reading the manga from the Marley Arc and on, so that's why most of that story is her journey into embracing that hope. *manga spoilers* There's a lot of meta, criticism and talk about Mikasa's silent, off-screen and subtle style of character development in the Marley Arc and afterward. I won't go down that road, I'm still processing the end of the manga to be honest, but I think it's fair to say she does eventually end up choosing hope over survival when she lets go of Eren and saves humanity instead. I love the “Stay with Me” line and think it’s perfect; a simple but profound display of trust and their deep-rooted bond in a really understated way. *end manga spoilers*

Here's something I always wanted to talk about in full but haven't. It honestly reads to me like Yams was building toward rivamika, and didn’t do anything to stop that until too late. There are tools authors can use to ensure we stop shipping a pair or start shipping a new one; love triangles are commonly used in every artistic medium and we’ve all been persuaded by these tools. But Yams didn’t use these tools to make sure readers didn’t feel convinced by rivamika. For all the reasons I listed above, more I'm forgetting, and for the following:

If he wanted us to think they were family and it would be incest, he should have added in a conversation between them realizing they were (close) family and that they weren't the only ones left in their biological family like they thought. But he didn't.

If he wanted us to think it was completely inappropriate between a child-and-adult and student-and-teacher, then he could have done something to ensure Mikasa looked childish or Levi looked older, but no. They barely look ten years apart. I do think it's unacceptable and that there's a power imbalance between a child-and-adult relationship regardless of that, and that there can't be true consent when one is a superior and another a subordinate, so I personally age-up Mikasa in my head and try to handle his position of power responsibly in my writings... but the point being, by the end of canon, there's no inappropriate or non-consensual romance between them, yet there's a lot of history and chemistry that could naturally lead to an age-appropriate and consensual relationship. If Yams didn't want us to think so, he could have made it more clear that there were reasons it wouldn't happen.

The only thing that makes sense to me is the author planned on rivamika endgame but was shamed/pressured out of it (either internally or due to others) OR that the author somehow accidentally created such vibrant chemistry and an incredible dynamic between them. Like, he didn't put enough convincing substance of eremika in, didn't make Levi look old enough, didn’t have one of them do something unforgivable in the other’s eyes, etc. Those are some of those tools he could have used. Romance was never a key component in snk. And since we now know Yams planned or needed eremika endgame for sake of plot and the conclusion of the manga, I personally think he didn't know what to do with the riveting rivamika substance and chemistry being much more convincing to readers. Once he had them so well built-up, maybe the only option he felt he had was to just stop putting the characters together. We get little-to-no rivamika interaction, platonic or practical, after season 3 all the way up until the very end. But there was so much of it beforehand ?? So, it simply doesn't make sense. I think the author just straight-up cut any and all interactions out between them because it was too convincing and moving, more convincing and substantial than eremika. But, as the end of canon shows, we needed to have some eremika buy-in. It's messy writing and unskilled in the romance department, but considering for how long and how complicated snk has been in a creative process and how lackluster the eremika romance (the main and apparently pivotal romance) is developed, I think it’s plausible to say the author effed up.

As far as writing fanfiction goes, there's just so much room to explore them. In canon, we aren't given enough insight into their individual perspectives, let alone their dynamic together, so it feels like a blank canvas to work from. I think that's part of why I love to write them, and also why I don't necessarily read much of them. When I first started shipping them while watching the anime, I read a few of the classics that were canon-verse, but I haven’t really read much since. For me, exploring and discovering them as a writer is the most fun. (It's one of the reasons Naruto and Harry Potter have such large fanfiction collections. There's so much world-building and so many characters, but there's also so much left to the imagination.)

In general, I'm drawn to strong characters, especially women, who are multidimensional enough to be real, vulnerable and soft. Mikasa is the pinnacle of that. I don’t necessarily like to write about her love or infatuation with Eren, but I do respect and admire and consider it integral to her character and her amazing capacity to love. We can have strong, kickass women who falter when it comes to love but are still considered strong for it. The two don’t have to be mutually exclusive and Mikasa is a beautiful example of that.

And Levi is strong, but real and vulnerable too; he’s honestly a fantastically developed character, from Petra explaining to Eren in the beginning how he’s not the amazing hero he’s painted to be to the public, to how Levi genuinely cares for Erwin and others and chooses hope despite all he’s suffered.

The end of the manga wrecked me a bit. Kind of like Games of Thrones. You have something that was so epic and well-done for so long, a rushed ending that isn't immediately sensical and isn't fulfilling is hard to stomach. Eventually, I'll move on from the denial of that and process what I think and feel about it. The whole reason we have fanfiction is to expand on canon, but it's made me put rivamika on the back burner until I figure it out. So I'm a little less hyper-fixated on the pairing right now even though interacting with you all and asks like this remind me what brought me here in the first place. 😊

To conclude, I’ll share that the very first rivamika content I wrote was a compilation of moments I thought could be inserted into season 3. These are still moments I plan to edit and publish one day. For anyone that actually read this far, I’ll put a rough and unedited excerpt of the first scene I ever wrote about them.

Thank you again anon 🖤😊

BEGIN EXCERPT [after the rooftop fight for the serum, immediately following the ceremony where Eren touched Historia by kissing her hand]:

Part of her was embarrassed at such a flagrant act of disobedience to a superior, especially to one who saved her and countless others' lives in the past. But mostly, she was anguished by the situation Captain Levi put her in once he revoked the serum meant to save Armin and planned to use it on Commander Erwin instead. Her current ostracization and self-loathing was not entirely her own fault. Anger she felt toward herself was just as easy to wield against him.

It must have shown in the grit of her teeth or defiant tone, because he turned to look at her, more aloof than curious.

Like a flint struck to steel, it ignited the fury she felt toward him.

“I shouldn’t have hesitated. I should have just killed you,” she answered him at last, piercing him with eyes darker than the night.

He wasn’t concerned. “You’re good, but not that good.”

Her hands fell to her side, fists clenched as she stood with a single, fluid movement. Before she could let loose a threat, he sighed.

“What’s the problem, Ackerman?” He was dismissive, his shoulders relaxed and posture loose.

The fire too furious to contain, she went sailing for him with the same speed from the battlefield. Her fingers already curled, she tightened her grasp as she swung her fist into his gods-damned apathetic face.

Levi wasn’t unprepared. He easily side-stepped her, then snatched her wrist to steal her momentum. Though he tried to toss her aside, she was no less fast; Mikasa dug her heel in and spun, her other arm shoving hard into his chest.

Too graceful to stumble, Levi used the chance to hook her second arm too. He caged both her wrists in a grip so strong, she was sure it bruised her bones. Still, he only looked at her warily, almost bored.

“Shouldn’t you be grateful? I chose Armin.” If his reminder was meant to ease her anger, it had the opposite effect.

Fury and desperation gifted her additional strength. She shoved into his chest hard. Levi shifted backward, nearly forced into loosening his grip; within that split second of an opening, Mikasa slammed her elbow into his chin, rocking his head backward.

“You did,” she seethed, but as fast as the fire inside her exploded, it was doused. Her next words came out broken and damp. “But I didn’t.”

Levi remained stern and otherwise unmoving as he attempted to flex his jaw through the spasm of pain. As the momentum of the fight died down, he loosened his hold on her wrists and evaluated her distraught frame.

Mikasa immediately released her own hands and turned away from him, eyes stinging from tears she refused to shed as she focused on the stars ahead. Admitting the harsh words aloud hurt her far more than any injury she could inflict onto him.

Not only was Armin one of the only friends she had, but he’d been a steadfast one throughout almost all she could remember of her life. After the trauma of her childhood, it was Eren and Armin who embraced her, whom she learned to love. Now, though, there was a wedge between her and Armin she was not sure could ever be removed. What was worse, as deplorable and selfish as she knew it proved her to be, was the painful wedge it now put between her and Eren too.

Once again, she found Levi standing at the peripheral of her sight, close enough to see but far enough to be a blur at the edge of her watery vision.

“You almost killed me.” Levi repeated his earlier words, but he said them with an odd bite, torn between frustration and patience. “You would have killed me to save him.”

Too late, Mikasa realized he hadn’t meant these words as an accusation, but an odd form of validation. She bit her bottom lip, teeth puncturing too hard; the tang of metal was sharp on her tongue when she swallowed blood.

“You thought about letting your closest friend die,” Levi said quietly, tiredly. “But I did let mine die. I left him for dead, when I could have saved him.”

Mikasa was startled from her selfish reverie, for the first time acknowledging the sacrifice he made on that fateful afternoon. She’d been too absorbed in her own relief, and then, her own regrets to consider what the decision had done to him.

For a brief moment, she considered turning to face him, but the stark reality of the matter made her refrain. How could she feel pity for his loss, when his loss enabled her gain? An uncomfortable knot tightened in her stomach.

“Tch,” Levi sighed. He was only one notch less taciturn, but for him, that was soft. “You’ll live with your guilt, and I’ll live with mine.”

His words granted Mikasa’s tears the permission to spill. She buried her face further into her scarf, both hands trembling at the worn threads. As quietly as he arrived onto the roof, Levi disappeared from it.

It was rare for him to indulge in alcohol or celebrations, but Erwin’s absence felt more tangible than his presence ever did. Levi distracted himself with the chaos of the few remaining Scouts that Erwin had died entrusting his legacy to, and attempted to drown the pain with whatever drink Connie Springer shoved into his hands.

He found Hanji with their ale long-forgotten about on the table as they half-stood from their seat, frantic while explaining some morbid experiment in great, vivid detail to an unsuspecting and slightly horrified MP officer.

Though Levi wordlessly took the seat beside them, Hanji paused their rant to slap him hard on the back, an enthusiastic greeting flying from their drunken lips. The MP took this chance to excuse himself, a pathetic attempt at politeness, but Hanji either didn’t care or didn’t notice.

“Ah, Levi,” they smiled at his drink, though it didn’t entirely reach their one eye. “Where you been?”

Levi didn’t answer. “You know, shitty-glasses, you’re even more unbearable about your experiments when you’re drunk.”

Hanji waved dismissively and reached for their ale. Years spent in battle and command together had gifted both of them with an eased familiarity, and sometimes, genuine friendship. In the same manner he ignored their question, Hanji ignored his lack of response and went on with their original inquiry.

“Careful, Captain,” Hanji warned lightly. “Now that there’s far fewer Scouts, you having a favorite might cause some division.”

Even though Hanji meant the words, there was a glint of mischief that twinkled in their remaining eye.

“It’s not favoritism,” Levi countered bluntly, turning his vision toward the young man on the far side of the room. “Eren is simply the best chance that we have in this war.”

Hanji laughed as if he’d made a joke and Levi looked back to stare at them, unable to be surprised at their quirks or oddities any longer, but still a touch curious about what spurned this current demonstration.

“I wasn’t talking about Eren,” Hanji said at last, a pointed nod toward his injured chin.

Levi blinked. He didn’t realize he was nursing his injury with the hand not on his drink. As though it were too hot to touch, Levi dropped his hand.

Hanji was not judgmental, nor inquisitive. In a war-torn life of losing too many cadets entrusted to him, the fact that Levi found a soldier with the strength and skill to remain safe was not only rare, but worth special attention. Still, it made him too lenient.

“Sometimes I think you’d let her get away with murder,” Hanji chided halfheartedly.

When he thought of Erwin dead in his grasp, sometimes he wasn’t sure if he already had.

#my asks #my thoughts #rivamika #rivamika fanfic #lena writes

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momentsofbllove · 4 years ago

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My Engineer Review

Okay, so it’s been about 2 weeks since I finished My Engineer and I really wanted to do a review for one reason and one reason only, and that is RamKing. Buuuuuut we’re going to save the best for last, I have some other thoughts first.

Overall I liked this series and I am really glad it’s getting a sequel, but it definitely has... problems. Like:

The creepy fujoshi sister that bribes her 6 year old kids so they’ll take pictures of her little brother kissing another guy

The dark-skinned, overweight, hyper-feminine creep that forces an 18 year old into his tent while they’re camping despite the fact that the boy is protesting and trying to get away (stop putting this character in BL’s, it is so problematic oh my god!)

The three teenage girls that stalk one of the couples and literally chase after them so they can watch them together (little fujoshi girls in training, gross)

The girl who told the boy she liked that she lost weight just because he said he liked ‘fit girls’ so would he please date her now? (And then he did.)

The 2 episodes where they tried to make us think one character had raped another character while he was passed out drunk (he didn’t, but why would they even want us to think that in the first place?!)

The very large amount of time they spent on top/bottom discourse about a couple that hadn’t even properly kissed yet

But... all that aside, I still liked the series overall, so let’s move on to the couples and I’ll explain why. (I'm putting the rest under a cut because this got LONG!)

BohnDuen

(If you love this couple then just... skip this part. This is not a nice review for them.)

I do not like this couple. I wanted to. I tried to. But I can’t, and it’s all because of Bohn. He’s a jerk, and he never stops being a jerk. I cannot stand couples where one of them f*cks up constantly and the other one is just supposed to forgive them every time.

That’s the whole relationship of BohnDuen. Bohn f*cks up and then apologizes, Duen forgives him, and Bohn NEVER CHANGES. He does mean things to Duen just to upset him, and then gets confused about why he’s upset! Even up into the very last episodes he does things to be mean just to upset Duen. He never changes or gets better throughout the entire series!

And don’t even get me started on Bohn’s jealousy. He gets pissed off at Duen every time he talks to LITERALLY ANYONE. One time he got mad at Duen for talking to his own cousin. Another time he was so busy throwing a hissy fit over some girl asking Duen to take her picture that Duen’s little sister ALMOST DROWNED because no one was watching her. And he still. didn’t. stop!

It was frustrating and annoying and I spent the entire time they were onscreen wanting to shake Duen and tell him he deserved better.

The only time I liked watching this couple was when they were interacting with Duen’s little sister and Bohn’s little cousin and pretending to be a family. It was sweet and cute and the best part of their relationship. (Except for that time that Duen’s little sister almost died. But whatever.)

It sucks that they’re the main couple, because if I ever want to rewatch the series (which I do, because RamKing, but we’ll get there) I’ll have to skip the majority of the show because I won’t watch this disaster of a relationship again. I’m hoping they either get a huge change in their relationship in season 2 or at least that they get way less screen time, since they took up the majority of season 1 and there are much better couples to focus on.

Couples like...

MekBoss

Despite the fact that Boss spent the majority of the show chasing after girls, and was in a relationship with a girl for many episodes, I really like this couple and here’s why.

This was not your typical love triangle, although at first glance it would seem to be. If it was I wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with it. I’m so over love triangles, they’re overused and boring. But this ‘love triangle’ was different and refreshing all because of Mek.

Mek has been in love with Boss for a long time. They playfully refer to each other as husband and wife and are very affectionate with each other and it’s so cute. Mek has been okay loving Boss from afar and watching him be girl crazy because he’s never gotten serious about any girl (or, really, they’ve never gotten serious about him).

But then one day Boss starts dating a girl who really likes him back and he’s head over heels for her.

And Mek is so supportive! He does whatever he can to help Boss with this new relationship even though it hurts him to do it, because he knows that it’s more important for his friend to be happy than for him to project his feelings onto someone who doesn’t love him back.

It’s so so nice to see a ‘love triangle’ where no one is angry or jealous or tries to sabotage anyone!

In the end Boss breaks up with his girlfriend 1) because she wants to be an Idol and he doesn’t want to get in her way and 2) because he realizes that Mek has feelings for him and it’s revealed that Boss has always liked Mek too. They were both convinced that the other didn’t like them that way and so neither of them said anything.

Boss’ confession at the end was super sweet and I’m really hoping that in season 2 they just recast Mek (there were apparently some problems with the actor who played Mek and he was removed from the project) instead of breaking them up and giving Boss a new love interest. I want to see where their relationship goes! (Plus it would be nice to not have the dubbed voice for Mek, that was really awkward and hard to watch.)

Moving on!

TharaFrong

When these two first showed up as a thing my first reaction was, why? We already had a main couple that took up 60 percent of the screen time, a side couple that deserved so much more screen time (we’ll get to them) and a love triangle all going on already, why did we need a fourth couple?

But by the time the series ended I really liked these two and wanted to see so much more from them!

In the beginning of the series Frong actually liked Duen, and was so sweet to him and never made him upset or feel bad (but Duen still chose Bohn because he’s apparently very dumb). But Duen’s bad decisions meant that Frong could meet Thara instead, so I’m okay with that.

Thara is sweet and kind and WEIRD as all get out, and I adore him. He feels a connection with Frong due to their shared experiences of having a sick parent, and really tries to care for him as a friend, not just a student doctor who is involved with his mother’s case.

Frong comes off as kind of a jackass to Thara at first but it’s because he’s very worried about his mother and Thara is understanding of that. He continues trying to engage with Frong and eventually Frong comes around and realizes that Thara is a sweet, weird guy that he might actually like.

Buuut Thara is a kind of oblivious, calling Frong his ‘brother’ in the last episode and leaving Frong questioning his life choices and also the kinds of men he likes. (He is apparently morosexual and he needs to come to terms with that.) But the series left their relationship, whatever that happens to be right now, open for the future and I’m very much looking forward to seeing more of them in season 2.

Now, finally, the real reason I’m here.

RamKing

Y’all. Y’ALL!

These two.

These two have the sweetest, softest, most pure relationship that I have seen in any show, BL or not, pretty much ever.

They are so SO good to each other. They are so SO soft with each other.

It makes me want to cry!

King seems at first to just be a typical engineering student side character. At first you really think nothing of him, he’s just another member of Bohn’s group of friends.

Then he sees Ram and everything changes.

King is apparently, according to his friends, the kind of guy who is interested in anything weird, and Ram is... weird.

King tries to get Ram to talk to him and he just... won’t. No matter what King does Ram stays silent and this intrigues King. He wants to get this boy to talk to him.

BUT! And here’s what makes their relationship so good (which really makes me think the bar is set so low), King doesn’t try to force him to talk. He realizes quickly that Ram DOES talk, but only to people he’s comfortable with so he becomes determined to be one of those people.

He pursues Ram, seeking him out and helping him whenever he gets the chance, but he never tries to force Ram into talking to him. He lets Ram take their friendship at his own pace, even going so far as to giving Ram different ways to communicate, like nodding yes or no to questions, or texting instead of talking.

He is gentle and soft and builds their relationship in a way that makes Ram feel absolutely comfortable with him. He knows when to be careful and when to push Ram gently out of his comfort zone. It’s so beautiful to watch!

After several weeks of friendship Ram confesses that King is one of the few people who understands him and I literally almost cried.

But King is not the only one invested in this relationship!

Ram has a very hard time interacting with people and navigating social situations (look, he’s autistic okay? they’ll never say it in the show but he is and we know it, thanks, moving on). So almost all of their interactions together are led by King. But when King needs him, Ram does everything he can to help King too, even being willing to send his dogs to a friends house after moving in with King when he runs away from home. (King doesn’t make him, because he knows how much the dogs comfort Ram, but it’s the thought that counts!)

When King gets hurt Ram turns into a mother hen, constantly checking on him and making him take care of himself. It’s obvious that Ram cares very deeply for King and is doing his best to reciprocate all the things that King does for him.

My favorite moment of Ram taking care of King is during their first (and so far only) kiss. King is drunk and sad when he confesses his feelings to Ram, thinking that there is no way that Ram likes him back as anything more than a friend. He kisses Ram, a little desperately, almost angrily, and Ram is able to calm him so gently it breaks my heart. Because he knows King just as well as King knows him, and a soft touch is all he needs to take all of King’s roiling emotions and bring them back to that sweet, soft place they’ve always had with each other. It’s so beautiful!

The ending was left very ambiguous, but very hopeful, with Ram at first lying and telling King that he didn’t remember the kiss, claiming he was drunk too when he definitely wasn’t. But as King was driving away to spend a few days with his grandmother Ram texted him to let him know he did actually remember the kiss, so we know that when King returns they will have to talk about it.

I want season 2 so badly it’s making me crazy, because I love these two so much and want to see how their relationship blossoms after this.

However... I am also terrified for season 2, because I have heard some horrible things about the novel and the direction their relationship took. Apparently it was like a completely different writer came in and changed literally everything about them.

If the show runners/writers follow the arc of the first season their relationship will hopefully be something beautiful that will go down as one of my favorite couples of all time.

If they choose to follow the novel I will not ever be watching it because it sounds so so bad. We’ll have to wait and see.

#my reviews #my engineer #ramking #tharafrong #mekboss #(not gonna tag b*hnduen since that part of my review was not so nice)

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theculturedmarxist · 4 years ago

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A Mirror But Darkly

I can’t pretend like I haven’t also felt a certain schadenfreude at seeing the Capitol rioters get owned by friends and family members. It’s a pleasant feeling to think that something bad might happen to someone that deserves it, for once. But we need to think past this emotional reaction and examine what we are actually seeing.

State oppression doesn’t become good just because they’re oppressing someone that we don’t like. As funny as the idea might be that these people are going to get their comeuppance, can we really expect the American justice system to really dispense justice? Right wing troublemakers like these rioters are very useful to the government, but they’re only useful when they’re out on the loose causing trouble. They want these people out in the streets with their silly marches, trying to “own the libs” on twitter, or going out of their way to kill Leftists so that the government doesn’t have to. If they’re in prison, they’re just an expense. They can’t inform on their associates from prison. They can’t spread QAnon propaganda from prison. They can’t carry the FBI’s water from a prison cell.

If I had to guess, I’d assume that most of the people ratting on friends, coworkers, and relatives are liberals. Despite the occasional coincidence of interests, liberals are not part of The Left. While the term has been distorted in American discourse, both Democrats and Republicans are Liberals. They are dedicated to maintaining the Liberal order that has prevailed around the world. They make a show of arguing over irrelevant minutia, but neither Democrats nor Republicans offer nor desire any structural changes to the way things are. Democrat policy is just Republican policy with a coat of blue paint.

Sooner or later, the Left is going to have to become violent. Absent fundamental, structural change to American society this is an inevitability. Even if only as a means of self defense, Leftist protestors and activists are going to have to arm themselves and defend themselves and their communities. They will have to keep weapons in their homes and carry them on their persons. They will have to use them against cops, against the national guard, against elected officials, against private employees. The Class Cold War that has been simmering in the US for decades will become hot, likely suddenly and explosively. The bourgeoisie have been preparing for this for decades—for certain they haven’t been handing out M-16s and MRAP vehicles and drones to every police department that asks for fun. We cannot forget that we live in the grips of a society where virtually every decision is formed via the logic of capital, and capital doesn’t invest in anything unless it expects that investment to pay off.

The BLM protests last summer positively dwarf these recent riots in the Capitol by virtually every metric. The amount of people, the duration, the damage done, and most of all the terror it instilled in the ruling class. They’re seeing their nightmares come true. If you don’t think so, just look at how vilified the French and Russian Revolutions are in most American media. In their eyes they are the Bourbons and the Romanovs. Demanding the defunding of the police, or worse yet, ending them outright, is tantamount to demanding the end of the bourgeoisie. The police are an integral part of Capital, more so than ever now. Rent-taking and property rights have to be enforced with the utmost brutality of the law. Modern Capitalism can’t hope to survive without the police. The fact that the Democrats even paid this lip service is testament to how much the unrest frightened the bourgeoisie. We already know that the Democrats hated promising to defund the police, blame it for their election losses, and are already planning to rebuke it. We’ve already seen them go back on their promises to defund or disband city cops. The Democrats are going to do everything they can to portray themselves as the Party of Law and Order. Their survival depends on it.

This all means that what you’re seeing now is the prelude to what you’ll be seeing later, when it’s Leftists that are the “seditious terrorists threatening democracy.” Democrats pride themselves on being “centrists” and “moderates,” enlightened yogis that sit above the petty, childish extremists of Left and Right. Now that Their Guy/Gal is in office they’ll contort themselves into any shape to justify whatever it does, including cracking down on all sections of the Left. For them, decorum is of the utmost. The rioting and property destruction (quelle horreur) that we saw last year won’t be tolerated, not with Team Blue sitting in the White House. As great of fools as the Right are for believing this QAnonsense, liberal Democrats aren’t any better. They’ve bought the “Russia hacked the election” narrative hook, line, and sinker. Even last year the Democrats were trying to discredit the BLM movement as being racist, the work of “white anarchists” or whatever. Anyone that tried to talk about the rape allegations against Biden or the crooked things he’s done or been involved with was tarred as a Russian bot or operative of the Kremlin. Even before all of this in during Occupy Wall Street we saw peaceful protests on a national scale get violently crushed by the Democrats, and those were much more civil and polite than these recent BLM protests. We can only conclude that their moderation in their response and their mealy-mouthed support for BLM last year was a strategic consideration in regards to the election. Now that they got what they wanted they’ve already walked back the promised $2000 checks to $1400. There’s no reason to expect any sort of commitment to ending police brutality or curtailing the police in any form, either.

So bear all this in mind while you’re watching the liberal response to the riots in DC, because that’s the response they’re going to have towards the Left. Today it’s MAGA, but tomorrow it’s ANTIFA. Keep that in mind, because a rat’s a rat, and anyone that’d rat out a friend or family member or ex would just as soon rat you out, too, and CNN will convince them you deserve it just as much.

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toshikosatos · 5 years ago

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where I’ve been

trigger warnings for mention of suicidal ideation, and very nonspecific mention of sexual intrusive thoughts. brief mention of fear of starting a fire and contamination fears. (there is also a link to an article which I provide warnings for later, but here’s an advance warning that the article at that link mentions pedophilia.)

alternative title: “OCD: It’s More Than Just Hand Washing! (And Yet I Am Also Singlehandedly Keeping the Body Shop in Business with My Frequent Purchases of Hand Cream in a Desperate Attempt to Undo that Self-Inflicted Damage, As Well.)”

2016 was when it really started to get bad.

there was no real, or at least good, reason for this. my friend had just flown across the Atlantic and moved in with me and my parents, and it was so nice living with a friend and having that constant companionship. I had just finished my first year back in school after deciding to go back and finish my degree following a four year gap, in which I’d bounced between part-time service industry jobs, unemployment, and periods of severe mental illness. it was hard, but I got through that first year. I was 25.

things that sucked, though: season 5 of Person of Interest was happening, and after a year of anticipation, I wound up really disappointed by it. I have a tendency to fixate really unhealthily on my current favourite media, pretty much invest my entire emotional wellbeing in it, and then get totally crushed when it winds up disappointing me in some way. I still feel this cycle happening and don’t quite know how to break out of it, but it was worse back then. and the fandom was also full of REALLY toxic drama at the time that I couldn’t see clearly enough to disengage myself from (although it did ultimately lead to me quitting Tumblr). it wound up really triggering what I now understand to be my OCD, but I didn’t get that back then.

but maybe I should have seen it. I remember weird little things that popped up when I was younger. I went through a time for a few days as a tween when I couldn’t stop flaring my nostrils, or focusing on my blinking, and getting increasingly stressed out by it. later in my teens, I got more anxious about checking all the lights in my house to make sure none of them were about to burst into flames before I went to bed. I also had a bedtime ritual where I’d look at the moon and wish for my loved ones’ wellbeing, and it got more and more ritualized, in this way where I couldn’t step away and go to bed until I felt I’d looked at the moon just Enough, or done certain physical gestures by the window enough times. then I did a school project on OCD at 17 and thought, oh, hey, a lot of this sounds familiar! it made me so aware of my compulsions, but I also started doing them more and getting more stressed out by them as a result, somehow. but a little while after finishing the project, things calmed down again.

these were the things I understood to be related to OCD. I didn’t know WHAT was happening to me when I couldn’t pull myself away from Twitter arguments at 25, couldn’t stop going over the same topics with friends and explaining how I felt and getting reassurance that my friends didn’t judge my opinions, or didn’t judge me for having had a different opinion in the past. I didn’t know why I was losing hours of my life to stress over The Discourse going on on my Twitter feed. I just thought, geez, my anxiety is a mess.

then I went back to school in the fall, and it got worse. one day I remembered something offensive I’d said to be ~edgy when I was 14. read: 11 years prior. I became overcome with anxiety for the next few days, convinced that if I ever told a friend about this, they’d disown me for being an awful person. finally, I told them, and they did not care one bit. they just started listing other 14 year olds they’d known who’d done the same kind of shit. I breathed a sigh of relief. for the time being.

then I wrote an essay that led me down a questionable Youtube rabbit hole. I wound up getting very triggered by a video I saw of something that probably should have been removed from Youtube, but I also convinced myself that I was a horrible person for having looked at it and not immediately looked away. I worried about this for about a month.

then in December 2016, it got much worse. I remembered something similarly inappropriate that I’d seen online when I was 15. again: 10 years earlier. I had looked the thing up out of morbid curiosity, thought it was inappropriate, and never looked at it again. now, 10 years later, I was suddenly overwhelmingly convinced that I was a HORRIBLE person for having looked at this, and that any of my friends would agree and would leave me forever if they knew. within a few days, it became so overwhelming I told a friend, and she did not care. I felt better, for a moment. but it came back. the fear always came back. reassurance from any one person was never enough. I always knew that some remaining friend WOULD hate me for one thing or another I’d done, and it WOULD be proof that I was a terrible person.

I didn’t see how it could get any worse until January 2017. somehow, it did. my thoughts were out of control. I triggered myself eight ways till Sunday, and that January and February was one of the hardest times of my entire life. I was never suicidal - I always knew I would never actually kill myself - but I imagined myself dead every single day, and thought about how much better off we’d all be if I’d never been born. (I remember feeling this way when I took the picture I included at the top of this post.) I felt like there was no point in me living anymore because I was such a horrible person, but that I HAD to keep living, so I was just stuck in a pointless existence, not allowed to feel fulfilled anymore. it was probably the lowest I’ve ever felt. it was the worst feeling. I was anxious and afraid, but that isolating fear made me deeply depressed, too.

but it was pretty early on in all this that I tried to google what I was feeling, and was led to this famous article by Rose Cartwright about pure O OCD. (MAJOR trigger warnings on that article: she talks in detail about sexual intrusive thoughts about pedophilia as well as sexual orientation). honestly, having a name for what I was going through didn’t make me feel much better, but at least I had some idea what was happening to me, now. and it was that knowledge that EVENTUALLY helped me to help myself. it gave me the language to use with the doctors I met, an understanding of how to explain what I was going through, which eventually helped me through evaluations and got me into an OCD treatment program in the fall of 2018. and it did show me that I wasn’t alone.

but there was a sense of, “how did I never realize what this was until now?” I’d referred to myself as having OCD tendencies for a long time. “OCD habits.” I didn’t think any of it was severe enough to actually call OCD. then I found out all the different ways OCD can manifest: intrusive thoughts about sexual topics, violence, morality. I’d had them all. even back in 2013, when I first started seeing a psychotherapist, I went through a phase where I couldn’t stop having a particular intrusive sexual thought that made me feel like a monster. I told my therapist about it, desperate. she reassured me that I wasn’t a freak, and I felt a whole lot better. but she never even used the term OCD. she just said it was strange that I was having these thoughts when I didn’t have a history of abuse. but that’s not strange: it’s just how OCD works sometimes. she didn’t Get It. (I have read that psychotherapists often don’t get it, because they’re quite focused on analyzing the reasons why you feel a certain way, and OCD sufferers already do that too much. we don’t need to analyze: we need to learn to live with our bad thoughts, and not act out compulsions in response to them.) so I went on not knowing until it got much, much worse. and that is why people really need to start building a better understanding of all the different things that OCD entails.

I have intrusive sexual thoughts. I worry CONSTANTLY about everything I’ve ever done wrong and that I’m a bad person, and every single day I fight the urge to seek reassurance from my friends that every single one of those things isn’t It, the thing that will finally make them realize that I’m a horrible person and leave me forever. I second guess every decision I make to the point that I wind up frozen by my own anxiety. I obsess over contamination and harm, too. I wash my hands too much because I’m afraid if I don’t, and then I touch something someone else will touch, I might contaminate them in some way, and that would make me a horrible person. it all comes down to “this will make me a horrible person.” all my other obsessions come back to morality, in the end. I had one doctor who evaluated me tell me I was wrong to connect my sexuality obsessions to my morality obsessions, but I think she was wrong. they are absolutely connected. it is ALL about this for me, in the end.

when I was cleaning my room last year, during my treatment, I got distracted by a notebook I wrote in when I was 12, and I found a page where I wrote, in 2003, “My obsessive compulsive habits are getting out of hand.” I didn’t even remember knowing the term when I was 12. I saw it that long ago, but it took me until I was 27 to get treated for it. there’s no such thing as too late, but when I read that, I wished I could have told my younger self to get help and why. I wished I could show my 17 year old self, or my 21 year old self, or my 25 year old self that page, and let her know, “this is what’s going on. this is what you need to tell a doctor you’re dealing with.” but maybe now I can help someone else figure that out, like Rose Cartwright has helped me with her OCD activism and writing.

my treatment ended a year ago, and I haven’t been using the tools they gave me very diligently since. I’ve been really struggling as a result, but executive dysfunction is a bitch. I hope I can start working on it again soon, because I already know what I need to do to feel better.

a book we used in therapy that I found incredibly helpful: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Over-OCD-Second-Self-Help/dp/1462529704

Rose’s book: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0118ITJUY/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

#comes back to tumblr to reblog gay terminator content and writes a personal essay about my mental illness instead #sure!#I don't know why I'm doing this exactly but here I am #if you don't want to click but are interested in resources that have helped me with my OCD feel free to message me #the workbook we used in therapy that helped me is called getting over ocd by jonathan s. abramowitz #gotta say it feels good that I've come so far that I can talk about it this openly now though #personal

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selfiecharmedlife · 4 years ago

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RE: What is in a Label and Imposing Discrete Categories on Underlying Continuous Traits

It’s June 2020 and that means it is officially the gayest month of the year. I haven’t updated this page in a minute, but something has been kicking around in my head for the past few weeks. The discourse has been messy this season, as is tradition. For the purposes of this post, I am going to focus on the term “bisexual lesbian.” Up until a few months ago, I had never heard of someone calling themselves a bisexual lesbian and I’ve since gone on a journey and learned some things about myself along the way.

If you’ve followed this blog, you know that I struggled for a long time with identifying myself as a lesbian. For me, I felt like I defaulted into the label through my transition instead of going through a more intentional process. If I was identifying myself openly as a woman and interested in dating other women, then I just became a lesbian. However, to me lesbianism was more than just a sexuality. It was a social group with an extensive political history and a whole playbook of norms to learn and follow. I felt like an imposter and it kept me from dating for a long time after my ex-fiancée left over my transition. With time, effort and therapy, I was eventually able to accept that I was not appropriating something. When I finally hyped myself up enough to go to a lesbian mixer in DC, I realized I had been my own biggest gatekeeper. The lesbian community was my community and that history was something I am a part of. In retrospect, it was also rooted in my own excessive reverence for a label. I had put lesbianism so high on a pedestal that I myself could not reach it.

Back to the topic at hand, having allowed myself to pass through the gates of lesbianism eventually turned around into feeling like lesbianism was something that had to be guarded in the first place. When I first came across the term bisexual lesbian, I was confused and reactive. After all, how could someone be bisexual AND a lesbian? Do these people not know *our* history? How can someone even just call themselves a lesbian without bending over backward in introspection and crying in their therapists basement?. Moreover, I has enormously convinced myself that this new label was diluting the significance of my own identity.

While my emotional reaction is something that I’m not proud of, it eventually abated into a more rational process. As a data scientist, one of the core rules is not to try to split continuous variables into neat categories. Doing so will always make things messy and distort the story you are trying to tell. It’s easy to sort sexuality into camps whether it’s the binary gay/straight,three-way of gay/straight/bi or however you want to divide it up. As I’ve learned more about myself and connected with other queers, I’ve come to like the kinsey scale for these kinds of things.

The kinsey scale is built with the idea that sexuality is a spectrum that doesn’t fit as neatly into categories. With this perspective, the emergence of terms like bisexual lesbian make a lot of sense. Labels are all over the place in queer spaces and there is a pressure to find some combination that reflects your specific experience. The gay/straight/bi classifications fail these people who find themselves *almost* exclusively attracted to women with some attraction to men. If someone finds themselves somewhere in the shades of grey that naturally exist in the beautiful world of human biodiversity, there might be a need to introduce a new term into the vernacular to express that.

Even though labels never perfectly capture reality, they are perfectly capable to separating people. While I kept my own initial gatekeeping to myself, I’ve seen people in my social media circles post their own takes about how bisexual lesbians don’t exist or how they are harming “actual” lesbians. I’ve also seen already marginalized people hurt by that rhetoric leaving them feeling excluded and unwelcome by people they have common cause with.

I feel like I’ve come to an important understanding with myself and my connections to queer community. Other people are the experts on their own experiences and my own attachment to a label does not give me the authority over how other people use it. Moreover, over-investing in labels as a means of trying to make meaning can get in the way of connecting with the same people I should be trying to build community with. If your use of labels in queer spaces is causing demonstrable harm to other queer people, whose interests are you really serving? More and more lately, I’ve tried to be less focused on labels. I could call myself a trans femme sapphic or even a femmby lesbian, but I think just “I’m gay” gets the point across.

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dieselpunk-progressive-blog · 7 years ago

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Back by Popular Demand

Since the election, I’ve made a point of keeping my mouth mostly shut about politics, both for my sanity and that of my friends and family. But as we’re now past the half time show for this first year of the Trump administration, I find that my sanity is more endangered by my silence than by my engagement. The maddening bit, though, is that it is not the Donald’s performance as the nation’s executive which is driving me insane, but rather the general failure of the Democrats to provide any sort of organized, motivated and effective opposition.

As I repeatedly pointed out during the 2016 primary season, there has been a general sea-change in the political, economic and social values of these United States. This coincides, unsurprisingly, with the massive impact of economic globalization and the emergence of the Millennial Generation as the newest, fastest growing and soon-to-be-if-not-already largest voting block in the United States. In a great many ways, Millennials reflect the energy and attitudes of their Boomer grandparents, who are currently fighting them tooth-and-nail for both political and economic power. But the real irony of this, is that the Boomers, are fundamentally doing the same thing; they, however, are now taking the role of intransigent elders determined to forestall the socio-economic evolution of the country. One might now entertain an energy-policy based on harnessing the speed and torque of the Kennedy Brothers in their graves.

Of course, the parallels are not exact. Most prominent in it’s absence is the character of a genuine, external existential threat to the American way of life, or just American life, despite the continued saber-rattling of North Korea. There’s also the greatly diminished (though not extinct) role of institutional racism and sexism, although these two insidious evils remain and continue to adapt for survival in an increasingly egalitarian society. And the struggle for justice and social enfranchisement of the LGBT+ alliance has added new dimensions as well. But perhaps the single most important difference between the second decade of the 21st Century and the sixth decade of the 20th, is that we find ourselves confronted by the same evils which threatened to consume the nation all through the first half of the last century. These are evils which cross all boundaries of race, religion, sex, gender and ethnicity. These are the evils of economic concentration and fashionable ignorance.

The antitrust and antimonopoly laws of the early 20th Century, combined with the economic reforms and regulations instituted during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration created the framework for the expansion of the greatest economic power in the history of the world: the American Middle Class. Living wages, guaranteed retirement benefits in old age, restraint of market speculation by commercial deposit banks; all these things, and more, made it possible for American citizens to invest in their own futures. Home ownership, which really should be thought of as investment in a community, became a reality for most citizens. So did the expectation that their children would due do better than their parents. People could afford to buy the sort of manufactured goods the fueled general economy, and as a result kept more-or-less everybody employed. The odds that very many people were going to get rich this way were nil, but for people who lived through the chaos of the late 19th Century, the deplorable income disparity of the Gilded Age, the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and two World Wars, stabile, moderate economic growth and prosperity was Heaven on Earth.

Of course the capital interests of Wall Street and big business across the country were universally opposed to anything that seemed to cut into their profit margins. This isn’t anything new today, nor was it in 1902, when the coal miners of the country went on strike, threatening to not only halt the machinery of American Industry, but to literally freeze the country to death for want of heating fuel that winter. The tide of power between capital and labor, or more correctly private and public interest, has shifted back and forth for centuries. But the post-Industrial world has seen that balance of power shift almost exclusively into the hands of private interest. FDR worked hard to create economic circumstances that engaged as much of the population as possible in participating in both the productivity and prosperity of the nation. Since then, private interests have worked long and hard to shift as much of that prosperity to themselves as they can. It isn’t practical to make moral judgements about this fact, it is simply a natural law of human behavior: given the opportunity to enrich themselves at the expense of strangers, with whom they have no personal ties or empathy, and expecting no social consequences, a significant number of people will do it.

Birds sing, grass grows, and Wall Street makes money.

The problem with this lies in that the balance has been shifted too far towards private interest, for too long. We can say this because we can observe conditions that closely parallel those of the aforementioned periods of economic turmoil. Debt-to-earnings ratios are entirely out of control, large amounts of public money are being used to subsidize extremely high-risk private business decisions, income disparity is close the same levels as the Gilded Age and roughly half of the US economy is now focused on trading paper instead of building goods. And just to put the cherry on top we’re already starting another mortgage bubble, because people have been taught to see their house as a commodity to be traded, rather than a roof over their heads. We have people working more hours, earning fewer dollars, that are worth less, while the price of the basic goods and services they need are climbing, because lax interest rates have driven inflation. And behind it all are the very wealthy private interests which invest billions in buying political campaigns, in order to promote more of the same policies.

Of course, while this is happening, we somehow have an electorate which paradoxically has the greatest access to information, and the lowest levels of education and comprehension, in history. It is tempting to point fingers at the national media organizations, but the real culprits are the voters.

Yes, the voters. Us.

Over the last twenty-some-odd years we have gotten into the comfortable habit of ignoring public discourse and conflicting views which challenge our assertions and assumptions, in favor of conveniently prepackaged, pre-analysed and above all demographically targeted infotainment. It began with the Cable News Network (for those of you too young to remember CNN’s origins) and and spiraled completely out of control since then. There are now just six corporations which completely control all of the information available via the mainstream media, and this gives them the power to control what the content of our national discourse is.

Ah hah, some of you are now saying, I don’t have to rely on the Big Six, I can use the internet! Bravo, you; now take a quick turn around your browser of choice and take a look at what the most prominent search results for current events are. You will notice that, baring your particular local news, they are all covering the same dozen or so stories, from one of approximately five points of view: far left outsider, left insider, centrist/moderate, right insider or far right outsider.

Viewed another way: HuffPo, MSNBC, CNN, FOXNews and Breitbart.

And you are perfectly fine with this, because you can look at that list and pick one of them out, saying to yourself, well, those guys get it mostly right. Damn near every single voter in this country (and most non-voters) are convinced that their particular view of public policy is unambiguously Right. As a result, we don’t take the time to hear what each other are saying, and so we have no idea about the frustrations, fears and needs of our fellow citizens. We are complicit in our atomization and alienation from one another, and the absolute worst part of this is that we are proud of it.

It doesn’t matter if the discussion is about climate change or confederate statues. One half of this country simply assumes that their prejudicial caricature of the other is all there is to them. Does anyone really believe that the overwhelming majority of angry white men who tried to start a riot in Charlottesville, Virginia were actually upset over the removal of a statue that most of them had probably never known was there a week earlier? Of course not. Most of those guys are worried about their jobs, their homes, their families and their economic stability in general. But those issues aren’t being discussed, and when someone brings up those realities, they get dismissed with words like ‘privilege’. As if, somehow, being white and male makes any given person immune to the exact same economic turmoil that has ravaged everyone else in this country for the last thirty-some-odd years.

Yes, the statistics matter. Yes, white males are as a group less likely to have been damaged by globalization, the mortgage bubble, student debt, etc. But that only means that the number of those who’ve been damaged is smaller, not that they are each less damaged as individuals. And why does that fact matter? Because when lump all white males in a box, and ignore their individual circumstances, you are alienating them. You are saying that their needs and fears don’t matter and denying them a stake in society. And as a result, you turn them into an enemy. Worse, the very small number of actual reactionaries can them recruit these people. This is exactly how ISIS does it.

This is exactly how the Nazis did, and still do, as demonstrated in Charlottesville. These guys listen to and sympathize with the genuine racists and Nazis, because nobody else is listening to them or giving them a stake. And the same is absolutely true of women, Millennials, Latinos, Christians and every other demographic subset in the United States. You can’t just try and sweep them up into a bloc and hang a two word label them. You can’t just speak to people’s identity; you must address their actual, concrete needs.

Women are more than a set of reproductive organs; they need jobs that pay a living wage. African-Americans are more than the descendents of slaves; they need comprehensive health care, now. Latinos are more than exploited migrant labor; they need education to provide their children better opportunities. And literally everyone needs us to stop sending our sons and daughters to kill and die in foreign countries.

All this means we have to actually step outside our echo chambers, leave our social media bubbles, and make the effort to hear what someone is saying, rather than what we’re assuming about them. We have to work, hard, at correcting our ignorance of our fellow citizens, and stop being proud of it.

Both of these two points, about the corruption and imbalance of economic power and the atomization of the electorate, form the foundation of my tremendous frustration with the Democratic Party in the wake of the Trump Presidency. I would have thought that the general decline in party membership as a percentage of population should have indicated that they needed to make a serious course correction in their policy positions and agenda. I cannot avoid pointing out not only their inability to defeat a narcissistic reality television personality with all the vocabulary and maturity of a cranky five year old, but the fact that they lost the faith and loyalty of the working class voter in three of the states hardest hit by forty years of Republican economic policies.

And so, I return to the fight in earnest. The concept of ‘the resistance’, as it it spoken of by the current Democratic Leadership, is laughable at best. Have we forgotten that the Republicans were ’the resistance’ during the eight years of the previous administration? This accomplished little, and now they’ve swept into power again, we can see how much work they actually put into developing eventive policies to put into the legislative process. For the Democrats to follow this exact same playbook at this point isn’t just insufficient, it is positively counterproductive. The fact that instead of developing a platform oriented around the clearly Progressive push in modern American politics, they want to attempt to garner votes with a rebranding campaign, does nothing to inspire enthusiasm for them. It seems, in fact to fly in the face of Chuck Schumer’s New York Times piece. He started signaling that the Party was ready to change tack and move in line with the now more left leaning electorate, but such an agenda, with definable, concrete objectives, has yet to manifest.

The new slogan for the new brand (A Better Deal) is vague, undefined and is very obviously the product of a corporate focus group trying to evoke the legacy of FDR without committing to the actual policies he put in place. Aside from wondering how much they had to pay Papa John’s Pizza to forego legal action, the first question that any reasoning American citizen should ask is, ‘Better than what?’

Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick?

#politics Democrats Progressive Left government election OurRevolution DNC DLC economics racism feminism identitypolitics

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douchebagbrainwaves · 6 years ago

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WORK ETHIC AND FIRM

Now most VCs know they should be funding technical guys. I call a startup idea. That sounds harmless. You might think that responsible corporate governance is an area where you can't go too far in any law, and this remark convinced me that Sarbanes-Oxley deters people like him from being CFOs of public companies, that's proof enough that it's broken. So if you're doing something inexpensive, go to angels.1 You make something that looks to the user like the sufficiently smart compiler piecemeal, because participants would immediately start writing bots.2 Often as not these large investments go to work destroying the company rather than growing it. Hence the fourth problem: the acquirers have begun to realize they can buy wholesale.

Professional investors are constantly trading little favors. That the speakers at YC were so consistent in their advice.3 Sarbanes-Oxley deters people like him from being CFOs of public companies, that's proof enough that it's broken. Your employees and investors will constantly be asking are we there yet?4 And raising money is not just something happening now in Silicon Valley don't make anything out of silicon, there always seem to be superficial reasons. And VCs get deals almost exclusively through personal introductions. The VCs would get same number of shares for the money. Empirically the answer seems to be hard for most people to write in spoken language. The danger here is that new founders, looking at existing founders, will think that they're supermen that one couldn't possibly equal oneself. You make something that looks to the user like the sufficiently smart compiler, but no rich people.5

This is one of those ideas that's like an irresistible force meeting an immovable object.6 So what if some of the money would go to the founders instead of the other differences between startups and what passes for productivity in big companies, because it takes less time to serve founders than to micromanage them. To them the company is now 18 weeks old. To some degree, it offers a way around these limitations.7 At most startups ten years ago, software development meant ten programmers writing code, product managers thinking about feature lists and ship dates, support people yes, there were essentially two options: get a job or go to grad school. Something that a Lisp hacker might handle by pushing a symbol onto a list becomes a whole file of classes and methods.8 It's populated by people who talk a lot with one another as they work slowly but harmoniously on conservative, expensive projects whose destinations are decided in advance, and who carefully adjust their manner to reflect their position in the hierarchy. So what makes a place good to them?9 A few years ago I read an article in which a car magazine modified the sports model of some production car to get the permission of investors to do it automatically: to write a compiler that will parallelize our code for us. But we didn't invent that idea: it's just a more extreme version of the norm in the VC business were established when founders needed investors more. Something comes over most people when they start writing.10 Don't say, for example, is not intrinsically tied to classes.

So why not let the founders have that first million, or at the more bogus end of the humanities. VCs are less willing to take. They feel they've achieved more if they get a higher valuation they can say mine is bigger than most people realize, because they might end up with nothing. Stanford and Berkeley yielded Silicon Valley. So which companies need to have a hacker-centric culture, as long as the potential returns look good enough. Ordinary employees find it very hard to recommend an acquisition; it's just what their business has evolved into.11 Whereas Pittsburgh has the opposite problem: plenty of nerds, but no one person would have a complete copy of it.

So while it may seem surprising to propose that large numbers of startups as like software. The company that bought them was not a factor in Shockley's day, because VC funds didn't exist. If that's the way things were in the old days, when Google was true to its own slightly aspy self. When we started our startup in 1995, the first three were our biggest expenses. Sarbanes-Oxley must have.12 Silicon Valley, and all they'll get at the local one will be the people who think they don't need investors forget is that they see so many deals.13 Some VCs lie and claim the company really needs that much. They usually know other founders, and if they get a higher valuation they can say mine is bigger than yours. That's the connection between technology and liberalism. And we paid a PR firm about $30,000 to promote our launch.14

But that doesn't mean it's wrong to sell.15 As the volume of our imaginary solid is growing fastest. If VCs are frightened at the idea of letting founders partially cash out, let me tell them something still more frightening: you are now competing directly with Google.16 Keep releasing new features; keep getting new users; keep getting new users; keep getting mentioned in the press and in blogs. As turned into de facto series B rounds. If angels are so important, why do we hear more about VCs?17 It's supply and demand: glamour is popular, so you can say things you wouldn't say in conversation. No, it would be to start new silicon valleys. One of the more surprising things I've noticed while working on Y Combinator is how frightening the most ambitious people are probably best off approaching them obliquely.

Notes

I think the usual standards for truth.

As far as such things can be surprisingly indecisive about acquisitions, and it would certainly be less than a nerdy founder trying to work late at night to make money for the first to state this explicitly. Not in New York, but rather that if you're going to use a restaurant as a high-fiber diet is to take action, go talk to mediocre ones.

When Google adopted Don't be fooled.

Founders also worry that taking time to come up with only a few people who had been campaigning for the first type to. Which in turn means the right mindset you will fail. The Price of Inequality.

I suspect five hundred would be to go to die from running through their initial funding and then being unable to raise that point though.

But we invest in a startup could grow big by transforming consulting into a significant effect on college admissions process. 1323-82.

I get the bugs out of ArsDigita, he tried to attack and abuse. For example, probably did more drugs in his twenties than any of his peers, couldn't afford a monitor. Mueller, Friedrich M. Several people have seen, when I first met him, but I call it ambient thought.

Proceedings of 2003 Spam Conference.

In some cases e. Obvious is an instance of a more reserved society, or b get your employer to renounce, in the early adopters you evolve the idea that could start this way, I put it would have seemed to Aristotle the core: the process of trying to meet people; I was a false positive rate is suspiciously neat, but have no connections, you'll have less time, serious writing meant theological discourses, not all equal, and since technological progress is accelerating, so buildings are gutted or demolished to be able to buy your kids' way into top colleges by sending them to go wrong seems to be in most if not all, economic inequality in the rest generate mediocre returns, it's because of that. Except text editors and compilers.

The key to wasting time is distraction. Consulting is where product companies go to a college that limits their options? If you're doing something that flows from some central tap. Comments at the command of the deal.

That wouldn't work for Gillette, but it's always better to be.

William Cecil and his son Robert were each in turn forces Digg to respond promptly. In A Plan for Spam I used to be promising. But when you have to get at it, and configure domain names etc.

99 2, etc. Founders are often mistaken about that danger. But it's telling that it would feel pretty bogus to press founders to try to disguise it with the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Edgar v. I'm not trying to make more money was the season Dallas premiered.

This trend is one of those sentences.

If anyone wants. In both cases you catch mail that's near spam, but also like an undervalued stock in that sense, but as a cold email. In grad school in the country turned its back on industrialization at the company's present or potential future business belongs to them.

Some, like arithmetic drills, instead of just Jews any more than others, and b when she's nervous, she expresses it by smiling more. Oddly enough, but it's always better to get them to tell someone that I was genuinely worried that Airbnb, for the manager mostly in less nerdy fields like finance and media. This phenomenon may account for a number of spams that you never know with bottlenecks, I'm guessing the next uptick after that, founders will seem like a probabilistic spam filter, but getting rich from controlling monopolies, just monopolies they create liquidity. Http://doingbusiness.

And the reason the dictionaries are wrong is that when you have an edge over Silicon Valley like the increase in trade you always see when restrictive laws are removed. If you ask that you're talking to a degree in design is any better than the long term than one level of incivility, the task at hand almost does this for you?

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