#if you’re gonna cite history do it right. fucking. please.

[pacificgasandelectric]

love seeing goyische Takes™ about israel that conveniently and unsubtly ignore that the modern state of israel was founded in the wake of the holocaust

like, was european (and later american) states’ support of zionism an explicitly colonial project? yes. did european jews in the wake of the holocaust (and frankly before it) have a VERY GOOD REASON to want to have a nation-state controlled by jews? also yes. does that excuse the colonial way in which the nation of israel was founded and its national status enforced? no. is israel the only state involved and the only government at fault? also no.

[whomadewaffles]

Pjhazel incorrect qoutes Part 2!

this one feels more pj-centric so...sorry to the haters, but I think she's amazing so.

As last time, long post under the cut, sorry for not citing the sources, bad language and raunchy humour abound ect ect.. enjoy!

--------

Hazel: Pspspsps

Pj *walking over to her*: What are you doing idiot, trying to call a cat?

Hazel *frantically taking notes*: Holy shit it worked

*note: to me, Hazel is dog coded, and pj is very cat coded*

-------

*Hazel has a date with a girl at school, and pj is having a normal one about it*

Josie *gasps*:...You're JEALOUS!

Pj *clearly jealous*: I am NOT jealous. And I'll tell you why I'm jealous - Because I'm not jealous!

josie: You're not making any sense.

Pj:  - Oh and all of a sudden you're the President of Things that Make Sense?!

-------

Pj *talking to Mr .G with the club about the next meeting or something*

Pj: Cool, thanks, dad

*everyone staring at her*

Pj: Why is everyone staring at me?

Isabel: You just called Mr .G “dad”.

Pj: *scoffs* No, I didn’t, I said thanks, man.

Mr G: Do you see me as a father figure, girl?

Pj: No! If anything, I see you as a bother figure cause you’re always bothering me.

Josie *not one to miss out on messing with her best friend a little*: Hey! Show your father some respect.

Pj: I didn’t call him dad!

-------

Hazel *carves "pj + Hazel" into a tree*

Pj: What a nerd.

Pj *adds "4ever"*

_______

Hazel: We should get you to a doctor for a check up immediately. What if it happens again, and there isn’t anyone around to help you? What if it’s congenital? Oh my God! Was it me? Did I hurt you?

Pj: …You realize any other person that made their partner pass out in bed would simply feel really proud of themselves, right?

--------

*Hiking*

Hazel: Mother nature is beautiful

Pj *panting trying to catch her breath*: MOTHER NATURE IS A WHORE!!!!

-------

Pj: relax, Principle meyers won’t be able to trace this back to us.

Josie: Are you for real? He traces everything back to us! He traces things we haven’t even done back to us!

-------

Pj: You're wearing make-up.

Hazel: Oh, it's just eyeliner. Do you like it?

Pj: ... Looks okay... I guess.

*later*

Pj *freaking out to josie later*: she looked so good.

Josie: I know.

Pj: I'm so gay.

Josie: I know...

---------

Pj: Being horny 24/7 and a virgin is not for the weak.

------

Hazel: Do you even have a self-care routine?

Pj: "Keep going bitch" said to myself in different accents.

--------

Pj : Going overboard is basically 75% of my personality.

Pj: I'm a gorgeous hot mess.

--------

Hazel: Sometimes I worry I'm being awkward, but then I remember it's half my charm, so I redouble my efforts immediately.

--------

Hazel: Things look a little tense.

Pj: Don't worry, I'm gonna open with a joke.

Hazel: Please don't.

-------

Pj: But now they come for my girl?

Pj: My sweet, defenseless hazel?

Hazel: ...

Hazel: …I know how to make bombs.. I have 16 taekwondo medals, and I'm the best fighter in the club?! I killed someone with a football helmet?!

------

Pj: Good news! I didn’t screw up!

Hazel: …

Pj: I screwed up less badly than usual!

Hazel: …

Pj: Screwed up with less immediate consequences than usual

---------

Pj: *drunk and hitting HEAVILY on Hazel*

Hazel *blushing*: Usually, I would love to take you up on the offer, pj, but you're too drunk to consent...

Stella-Rebecca: Aww, that's sweet, Hazel. I'm sure pj appreciates that you don't want to take advantage of her.

Pj: THE HELL I DO!

---------

*pj driving with hazel in the passenger seat*

Pj: I'd be really lost without you, Hazel.

Hazel: Pj! That's so sweet, I'd be lost without you aswell.

Pj: No, no, literally, where the fuck are we.

--------

Pj: Would you still love me?

Hazel: ...If what?

Pj: *voice cracking* No, that was the question..

*note: its pj's abandonment issues coming through*

_______

Pj: the power of women's history month is coursing through your veins

Mr.G: Women's histordeez nuts!

-------

*Warning: this is an ANGSTY one, my friends- don't worry, they work it out. As a sidenote; watch the scott pilgrim show if you haven't already. It's so good*

Pj: the truth is, I was too afraid to face you and my feelings

Hazel *angrily*: So you left without a word?!

Hazel: You made me feel like nothing.

Hazel: You we're afraid? Good for you!

Hazel: All I ever wanted was for you to see me.

Pj *holds back tears knowing she fucked up badly*

-----

Hazel: No, I'm not tired of being nice. Yes, I still just wanna go apeshit. These things can coexist, stop asking me.

------

Hazel: my kink is saying something incredibly corny and watching you speed run the five stages of grief as you realize with horror you still want to fuck me.

Pj *pillow over her face*: I am begging you, Hazel, please get a new kink…

------

Pj: Hazel figured out she can sneakily stick a note on someone’s back.

Pj: But she doesn’t know they should say things like “kick me”, so they just have cat facts on them.

------

Hazel: You idiot!

Pj: I’m sure you’re right, but why?!

------

Brittney: Can you come collect your freak of a girlfriend please, she's doing things

Hazel: No.

Hazel: I set her loose on purpose, she needed enrichment.

-------

Isabel: Ever since you started dating, you've become really nice and kind to Hazel. It's sweet

Pj: Well, duh, I'm not stupid. You don't bite the hand that fingers you, or whatever the saying is.

_______

Pj: I need bitches, how to I get bitches wise one 🙏🙏🙏

Rhodes: Well, first off, you gotta stop calling them that, girl.

---------

Pj: It's nice to see you again.

Hazel: Are you talking to my cooch?

Pj: Yes.

---------

Pj: Vulnerability is like so hard. If I told you anything sappy, Hazel, please know that I had to do hand to hand combat with seven layers of embarrassment, regression, and abandonment issues.

--------

Hazel: Pj, people love you and care about you whether you like it or not. I love you whether you like it or not. And no matter how hard you try to push me away, I'm not going anywhere. So just get used to it, okay?

-------

Pj: I guess I’m just a bad person.

Hazel: No, you’re not a bad person. You’re a terrific person. You’re my favorite person. But sometimes you can be a real asshole.

_____

[derangedhyena-delphinidae]

numerous issues with “The Aftermath of Seaworld”

When I get time to do so (aka when I’m done with the documentary), I’m likely going to make a video version of this going into the details. 

But for right now, I’ve made this. Both as a guideline for me and so everyone can begin to get an idea of the severity of issues involved.

Researching things is time-consuming and can be very difficult - believe me, I know. But I’m of the mind that if you’re making content with the intent of educating people, you have a responsibility to perform a certain level of due diligence. It IS okay to express uncertainty or doubt if you have it. It is NOT okay to confidently assert things that you do not know with certainty.

The video has an anticap slant, and I’m obviously not disagreeing on that front. But again: if you’re gonna go through the trouble of teaching people something. Bare minimum... please make sure it’s actually correct. *** 1) x ‘founded in 1964 and based out of Florida’ -  ???? Seaworld definitively began on the west coast, in San Diego, CA. And given that the first park opened in early 1964… things came together before that. Uh? 2) x ‘four people founded Seaworld [...]’ For one… it wasn’t originally conceived as a restaurant, it was originally conceived as an underwater bar/lounge. Two… calling the four guys involved in founding the place “frat brothers” is fucking ridiculous and completely overlooks a) how each was actually involved and b) the overall significance of their contributions to the field as individuals. Hint: like it or not, they were important and did a lot! 

3) x If one is going to bring up SWBGCF/rescues while talking about the literal founding of SW, it gives the impression that it’s been around for that duration. It hasn’t.  It’s actually a bit unclear when SW started an organized rescue program, but the Fund itself and all that it did came about much later. The rescue information and how it’s presented is actually INCREDIBLY complex, nuanced, and has a fascinating history (from a “bad company behaving badly” perspective). Oversimplifying this, to this degree and in this misinformative way, does the facts of the situation an INCREDIBLE disservice.  

4) x [assertive statement about what the name Shamu means]  ….Uh actually there’s several explanations for the name Shamu, and the most likely one IMO seems to be the “she-namu” one, not the “friend of Namu” one(? What is this even based on.) 4b) It’s not quite clear if she’s saying “Namu was the first ever orca to be displayed and perform shows” or or Namu was the first to be displayed and, like Shamu, performed shows. Either way, Moby Doll was the first to truly be displayed to the public, not Namu.

5) x ‘Namu died after one year in captivity and you’d think that this might deter Seaworld from doing the same thing again…’ Seaworld truly had nothing to do with Namu. And they leased/took possession of Shamu before Namu died. ‘Again’? What?

6) x “Now, PETA paints a pretty disturbing picture…” [while showing Okura’s artwork] This video segment is, and this is putting it nicely, a pile of poorly-researched BULLSHIT.  -Yes, PETA talks about Shamu’s capture, re: the harpooning of her mother. This Youtuber cannot apparently be arsed to look more than 1 Google search into this, as she proceeds to dismiss the information as potentially fabricated. There are two detailed accounts of Shamu’s capture that I’m aware of - in books - and though they have some slight conflicts, it’s absolutely NOT in doubt that the female who was very likely Shamu’s mother was 1) harpooned, 2) died from her injuries and 3) this had been done to make her easier to catch/locate because there was a fucking buoy attached to the harpoon. Which she dragged around for at least 24 hours prior dying.  So maybe don’t dismiss that as PETA hysteria, maybe TRY to determine the truth of the matter, which would inform one that it is both true and completely horrifying.  -In addition, Okura is an awesome individual who has worked very hard to create a variety of informative artwork for our cause. Okura is NOT associated with PETA and it’s borderline libel in my eyes to use their artwork in this dismissive manner when the primary sources of it can be easily identified online, with full explanations and everything. Do I take special offense to this because of the misuse of artwork? Absolutely. Artists get disrespected enough online. I’m tired of it. This kind of laziness IS NOT acceptable.

7) x ‘timeline is fuzzy about when Shamu died’ …………… it’s…. It’s really not … newspapers are pretty clear about it…..

8) x [complete and utter oversimplification of the lifespan issue, which is not acceptable for anything published in 2020. It just isn’t. If you’re going to bring it up like this, either do the legwork and get into the weeds or stay out.] 8b) [same for reproductive ages. sigh]

9) x if we’re going to talk about when Cornell was involved with Seaworld it’s very important to specify when Cornell was involved with Seaworld and not make it seem like it’s present tense.

10) x “both were rescued by Seaworld” - uh? no. Zero orcas have been rescued by Seaworld. Literally none. The infected-jaw orca was Sandy, whose story is complex and certainly does not involve Seaworld until much later. And many of the orcas in that time period had bullet wounds, often only identified post-mortem because they didn’t seem to hurt the animals much. Also, unflinchingly blending 70s captivity ethics with modern ones is also complete nonsense? 

11) x [tilikum coming from sealand] inhales I am going to make an entire video centered on this fucking subject because it’s one of the single most profound arguments for Seaworld being garbage as assessed by US government agencies in the 90s yet everyone utterly fails to mention this. Why?!

12) x what on earth is this nonsense re: quoting a quote from Zimmerman’s article - which has already been removed from its original context, so the original context is not available - and then penalizing the quote for existing as if Zimmerman’s article were the context? That is offensively disingenuous. I honestly don’t know what the original context is, either - but it’s wildly inappropriate to act as if the Zimmerman article is.

13) x this is relatively minor but ‘Paul Sprong’? You literally have his name on the screen. And then mis-reading his age too? While asserting it from a static article published years ago? Effort? Where is it?

14) x ‘another trainer, Peter’ ….. Ken Peters…. 

15) [weirdly glossing over the widely-available list of orca-trainer injuries/aggressions, despite it being central to the point.] 16) x This pilot whale outrage certainly happened but it was pretty clearly Blackfish that started the cascade of woes for Seaworld. Who has ever asserted this?

17) if you’re gonna just rehash blackfish, tell people to go watch blackfish.

18) x I’ve already gone over the context issue with Seaworld calling out Howard’s statement in Blackfish here (point 23). Which is to say, IN CONTEXT in Blackfish it’s clear what Mr. Garrett is talking about but, divorced from that, it sounds incorrect. But this Youtuber AMPLIFIES the issue by doubling down on the assertion with “no record of a killer whale doing any harm to anyone in the wild.” The surfer event should always be mentioned. Yes, there’s absolutely room for doubt. But there’s also a clear demarcation between an accidental attack (eg mistaken identity, as was likely for the surfer) and intentional one (eg the incidents at marine parks.) Why do people kneecap themselves on this point 18b) please stop acting like Luna represents orcas in general.

19) x “Howard, for all of his research…” … while referring to David Duffus’ b-roll and statements. Uh. 20) x Apparently this Youtuber has single-handedly resolved the dorsal fin issue. You know, the thing that hasn’t been properly researched ever, that has been subject to a ton of debate, that isn’t 100% settled for a variety of reasons, and almost everyone talks about in terms of theories and likely possibilities.  21) x Alexis Martinez wasn’t “torn to shreds.” In a space where even moderate exaggerations are often penalized harshly by the opposition, this kind of blatant nonsense is not welcome. Plus, the reality’s bad enough… you don’t have to make anything up!

22) x *sighs. points at own webpage*

23) Talking about the shows stopping without acknowledging how that’s a bit of a farce is something else. In addition to apparently just flipping to buying what Seaworld’s selling re: its ‘improved image.’ 

*** Tl;dr video is so unrelentingly full of errors ranging from small to egregious it makes me seriously concerned for the veracity of the rest of this person’s content. The maker of the video provided a list of their sources in their video description, which I will have time to look through in detail later. The above is solely a response to the information they present IN THE VIDEO - which, is very important because let’s be real: a lot of people are not going to look at the list of sources. People don’t even do it when citing papers (no really, you’d be surprised, fml.) For anyone who wants to whinge that I haven’t linked or asserted any sources of my own for my claims… well, remember what I said about time-consuming and ‘I’m busy’? Yhea. Getting all of that together will be part of making a video. So if you want to shrug loudly at my list here… you can, that’s your prerogative, I’m happy to say I DGAF if that’s your takeaway. 

What I hope, is that if there’s anything I’ve made clear over the While of running this blog, it’s that I don’t fuck around when it comes to sources and information and do my best to provide what information exists, all of it, not just cherrypicked bits and bobs. Anyways. Here’s step 0 at least. Please don’t share that video. Pretty please.

[heyheydidjaknow]

Three cheers to publishing on time. Can I get a what what? Anyways, here’s the next chapter. The previous chapter is at the bottom of this chapter. Go figure.

Chapter 3

“Okay, I think I got it.” It is possible you are going stir crazy. You would not be surprised if you were, but you have more pressing matters that, ridiculously, involve the timeline of fucking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2012. You had not just stood the headassery of season four and five, but conquered it, tamed it, if you will. You do not remember the last time you ate. “So the only way I’m going to survive this series is if I somehow, through some sort of spiritual bullshit, get to become at least somewhat adept at ninjitsu.” You sigh. “But the only reason he trained her is because of her psychic bullshit.”

You stumble towards the kitchen to eat for the first time in days. “Actually, you know what? Fuck that.” You open the refrigerator, salivating at the food. “I’m just gonna buy a fucking gun. Dodge bullets, bitch.” You pull out a large slab of meat, tossing it on the counter. “If they aren’t going to actually incapacitate people, I will.”

A sudden thought stops you in your tracks. “Wait, so, what timeline am I on?” You feel your heart drop. “Because if we’re doing the whole thing…” You shake your head. “You know what? Prepare for the best and accept—that’s backwards.”

You put the meat back. Something about the existential dread kills your appetite. You crawl back into bed, close your eyes. ‘How long have I been in here?’ The time had admittedly swirled in on itself, your brain completely fried from all the contemplating death. ‘At least long enough to be in the no-man’s-land where I’m not hungry.’

You freeze up at the sound of knocking on your window.

Your eyes slowly pan over to the covered glass. You rise to your feet.

You shake your head, trying to remember to think rationally. ‘This place is very high off the ground for a stalker.’ Despite yourself, you quickly go to the kitchen, grabbing the largest frying pan you can find and slowly approaching the window.

‘There isn’t even a proper ledge out there. You’re being paranoid.’ Slowly, you reach for the curtain, yanking it open.

You scream at the sight of the hanging figure, only realizing you recognized said figure after a couple seconds. Thoroughly embarrassed— ‘Yeah, I could never be a ninja.’—you slide the window open, face red. “What do you want, Raphael?”

He wears a shit eating grin. “What, scared?”

“Of a shadowy figure in my window? Yes.” You sit back down on the bed, voice cold. “You gonna just hang out there or what?”

He climbs inside. “Alright, so here’s the situation.” He sits on the windowsill; you feel the secondhand vertigo. “Donnie—first of all, where have you been?”

“Binging the most traumatic part of your lives so far on my phone so you and your brothers don’t get killed by swole Shredder.”

His face went pale. “Shredder?”

You blink, a factor you had admittedly completely forgotten becoming apparent. “You don’t know he intends to come to the city,” you remember. “That’s—”

“He what?”

You sigh. “He is the least of your concerns at this particular moment. What about Donatello?”

“No, back up.” His smile was completely gone. “When is he getting here?”

You shrug. “I dunno.”

“You don’t know?”

You put your hands up at his obvious rage. “Dude, it is honestly not that big of a deal right now. He doesn’t even get close to killing your dad until the end of season two.”

You are decidedly not helping matters. “He gets close to—”

“Are you gonna repeat everything I say or are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m gonna—what?” Raph is quite clearly not taking this news well.

You try to calm him down. “Take a deep breath, alright? It might not get to that point, but you have to tell me what’s going on first.”

He growls in frustration but follows your instructions. “Mikey found out that he can apparently talk to people online, and he found this site where he can talk to—”

“I’m gonna stop you right there.” You pick up your phone, typing away. “You can’t, under any circumstance, let him go talk to Bradford.”

“Well, I know it would be bad--”

“You misunderstand.” You get up, starting to grab your things. “Bradford is working for the Shredder.”

This seems to be news. “He’s what?”

“Working for Shredder.”

“But he’s—how?”

“You have bigger concerns than the how, currently.” You read the page you had pulled up again. “How long ago did he find this guy?”

“Yesterday, I think.”

“Then… hold on.” You read the summary of the episode in question more thoroughly. “Okay, so we aren’t totally fucked, but we gotta make sure he doesn’t see him again.”

“Wait, hold on.” He walks after you as you try to find your jacket. “Why? How could Shredder—”

“If he goes, he’s gonna talk to him about general shit, right?” You slip it on. “At some point, in return for learning his secret bullshit, he’s gonna want info on you and your dad.”

“Then the Shredder will know where we are!” The horror in his eyes is apparent.

“Exactly.” You pull on your shoes. “That, and you’ll have to confront foot soldiers, which isn’t good for anyone.”

“Wait, is Mikey gonna be alright?”

“I mean, he gets kidnapped, but—”

“We’re going. Right now.”

“Awesome.” You were already one foot out the door. “Close the window on your way out.”

You rush down to the first floor of the building, nodding acknowledgement to the door man as you look up and down the street. ‘He has a dojo or something, right?’ You try googling his dojo, only to find that, not only is it a chain, but that they are all incredibly spread out. ‘It’s at times like these,’ you contemplate, running towards the closest one, ‘that I wish I could drive.’

It takes you about 10 minutes of running to get to the place, only for it to be closed. You feel tempted to throw your phone.

‘Wait, when does it—hold on.’ You already hate timelines. You sit down on the curb, pulling your phone out again to find some clips. ‘So, Chris and Mikey meet up some time after patrol, order pizza, and then it’s sunrise.’ You look up at the slowly lightening sky. ‘Okay, so that means they’re currently ordering, right? Because it was clearly dark in that last scene.’ You put your head in your hand. ‘I mean, it is, right? Because those are just wall separator things, not windows, since the sky was very clearly green in that next scene.’ You get to your feet. ‘So I just need to find that billboard with that specific graffiti and main message and we’re good to go, right?’ You groan. ‘But there have to be a thousand billboards in fucking NYC.’

You stop, smiling slightly at the graffiti. ‘Is that not a purple dragon?’ You grin, going back to running. ‘I just need to get to Chinatown, right? Is that their territory?’ You swallow, turning a street corner. ‘I guess we’ll find out.’

The buildings tower around you as you wander the streets, the quiet desolation ringing in your ears with the force of a gong. The pounding of your feet against the pavement does little to stifle the silence. The gang in question may not be a challenge or concern for vigilantes, but to you? You are barely a flower now, bright and beautiful and oh so easy to crush. But you cannot and will not stand still for long. The walls of the alleys you run crush your sides and the darkness strangles you, but despite the beating of your heart begging you to stop, you cannot. How can you?

You can stop what comes next. That is what fuels you. Never mind the fact you must stumble to a halt to vomit into the nearest dumpster who knows how many times, the taste of acid staining your tongue. You can rewrite history.

But you cannot.

You walk around for approximately too long before correctly citing that this is, in fact, futile. You start to panic.

You turn back around. ‘He goes back to talk to his brothers, right?’ You feel your body start to shake. You keep your phone to your ear, pretending to talk to someone as you run around like a headless chicken so as to not get bothered, hopefully. ‘Then I still have a chance to catch him before he leaves, right? At least he won’t get kidnapped.’ You look around quickly, slipping into an alleyway and prying off a manhole cover, climbing into the sewer. You pull the cover back into place and start running along them, the smell nauseating in the darkness suffocating. ‘Please tell me I remember where this stupid lair is.’

You laugh in relief when you see the abandoned subway, sprinting down the tunnel. ‘I can catch him,’ you promise yourself. ‘I can catch him before—’

You slam into someone. They grab your wrist before you fall. “Yo, are you alright?”

“Mikey!” You feel your whole body relax, but the relief is quickly squashed. ‘Thank fuck.’ You grab his shoulders. “You can’t see Bradford again.”

“Wait, what?” He groaned. “Did Raph set you up to this?”

“What? No!” As the adrenaline and panic start to wear off, you feel your body begin to falter at the excessive strenuous physical activity, panic, no food or water for two days and sleep deprivation. You dig your fingernails into your palms to try to keep yourself grounded. “He just said that you were friends with him or something and I went looking for you!”

“Look,” he sighed, letting go of you and not noticing the obvious slur in your voice, “I get it, alright? Not all of us can have a super awesome friend like Chris—”

“He’s working for Shredder, dipshit.” You feel the ground spinning as your skull rips itself apart. “Coolness be gone, that bitchass Dogpound fucker.” You have no idea what you are saying. ‘Huh,’ you muse, struggling to stay on your feet. ‘Usually, it takes longer than this to shut down.’

“Shredder?” You cannot feel things, so you have no idea what his actual reaction is. “He’s here?”

“Yep.” And with that, you collapse.

--

Suffice it to say, when you wake up, you feel like absolute shit, with a pounding headache, extreme fatigue, and an obvious desire to not move from the bed in which you lay.

Thinking hurts. You decide against it for the time being.

You hear typing, soft muttering, the scratching of pencil against paper. You do not want to open your eyes; whatever you are laying under is warm. You try flexing your fingers. You can, but it is barely worthy of being called a twitch. You feel sick and gross and sticky and like you are eating yourself from the inside out, but you are also very aware that moving will not help matters. Besides, what small part of you is not covered is absolutely freezing.

You let out a soft groan from a particularly egregious pound from your head. You hear the typing stop.

“Y/N?” Donatello’s voice is incredibly soft. “Are you alright?”

You do not answer. Your throat feels like it is filled with sand.

“Oh, right.” You feel the mattress shift under you. “You—right.” He clears his throat. “You, uh, probably want to know what happened, right?”

You find yourself in between sleep and consciousness. You do not exactly understand what he’s saying, but his voice is pleasant to listen to.

“Mikey carried you back,” he explains. “He said you started talking about Chris Bradford working for The Shredder and collapsed.” A pause. “Leo thought it would be a good idea to go take him down since he already spilled the beans.”

‘You aren’t helping.’ “Everyone got out alright.” He is writing something. “We don’t know how much Shredder knows or how he found us; Master Splinters said that the war has just begun or something to that effect.” He pauses again. His voice is almost hesitant now. “If you spoke, I’d ask how…how this ends, who wins the day.” He chuckles dryly. “Now that I say it out loud, I guess it’s pretty clear that you wouldn’t tell me, would you? Rightfully so, I guess; I don’t know exactly how that sort of information might change things. Still,” he sighs, “it is so… so frustrating, having information just out of reach, especially for someone like me. But you—… you probably know that too, don’t you?”

It is not as if you can refute what he says.

He clears his throat. “A-anyways,” he rambled, voice tight with awkwardness, “sorry for ranting. This would be totally embarrassing if you weren’t so clearly incapable of coherent thought.” You hear the shuffling of paper. “As far as your health is concerned,” he continues, “without being able to take a blood test for obvious reasons, I can only conclude based on a totally-not-creepy physical exam that you’re just incredibly malnourished and exhausted. I don’t really have anything to actually prescribe you, but ya know… eat. Drink, too; just perform basic bodily functions.”

He looks down at you from his seat at the foot of his bed, your eyes having fluttered shut again. “I…” he took a breath, starting again. “Remember what you said the other day? About me being able to kill you with my bare hands?” He looks back over at the line of code he is working on, ignoring the minute shaking in his hands. “I remember… do I kill someone?” He swallows, eyes focusing on the letters in front of him. “I can’t really imagine it, why I’d want to.” He covers his face with his hands. “I know I’m a ninja, but it’s just—” He feels his voice start to rise. His eyes focus on your sleeping face; he calms back down for your sake. His words are slow and deliberate. “I always thought that we were doing all this for a fight we’d never have, that we would never have to do something like that, because… well, I don’t remember why, but I just—…” His voice dies in his throat.

‘Staring at her like this is creepy.’ He stands up, gathering his things. ‘You can’t get yourself worked up over something like this. You just met her, and your hesitance is not anyone’s problem but yourself.’ “Just…” Despite himself, he mumbles out a soft plea. “Please, don’t let me do something stupid.” He does not know who he’s talking to

He slips out of the room.

You would not remember this happened.

He would.

Table Of Contents

Chapter 2

Chapter 4

[tiefighter]

hi! do you have any tips on how to get A star essays? as I always get B's I don't know what I am doing wrong...

While I can’t give you targeted advice about your essays, what I can do is give you general advice! alright so (apologies, this is gonna get long) all essays follow a familiar format. You have your essay subject, which you need to turn into a thesis sentence. However, a thesis sentence doesn’t have to be in the very first line of the essay. Say you were talking about fictional world war two novels influencing the media. You could start with something like “As a subject for fictional depictions, be it in video games, movies or even novels, world war two is not only popular but a proven draw-card (you’ll need to prove this within a paragraph of your essay, probably citing numbers of downloads for battlefield games, box office scores for war movies, that sort of thing. Book sales). Movies like Dunkirk, video games like Battlefield and novels like the English Patient (references, blah blah blah) all depict, using fictional hooks, either real or fabricated events during a well-documented war that involved much of the globe. Discussing this, and by showing evidence, we can separate the fiction from reality, and in doing so come to an understanding of how the media is influenced, and in turn influences, our beliefs about our own history.”  So you break it down. You explain what you’re going to do, you make a thesis statement to hinge your essay on, and then you follow through.  A basic paragraph structure is like a mini-essay in itself, and the first paragraph sets the tone for your entire essay. Don’t include anything you’re not willing to include or can’t back up in your essay.  Structuring your paragraphs, and making sure you can back up EVERYTHING you say with references is going to mean your essay gets a better score. I know you’ll be tempted to include colloquialisms and heresay, but don’t. Don’t use phrases like “Everyone knows” or “as they say” because who the hell is they, and everyone don’t know jack shit. Back all of your shit up.  -- okay, so a paragraph. You need a topic sentence, supporting sentences, a conclusion and then, if you’re going to lead onto another paragraph, a linking sentence.  Your topic sentence starts at the beginning.  “The movie Dunkirk, which made $50, 513, 488 at 3720 theaters on its opening weekend (boxofficemojo.com, 2020), is both a demonstration of the sheer selling power of historical movies and the storytelling abilities of fictional accounts. Movies with a similar budget that were released on the same weekend blah blah blah blah blah” This is what you’re going to talk about during your paragraph. the underlined parts are your topics for this paragraph, You’re gonna want to take all your supporting factors for this, and slam them right in here like peanut butter and jelly between two soggy pieces of bread.  next, are supporting sentences. Go to reviews, or go to anything you can get that can support your essay thesis question: that these movies are often what people understand as the truth of world war 2, and the media is both an influencer and influenced by the same accounts. You need at least two, preferably three or four, supporting sentences, each of the sentences with references, each with evidence. This is true of all essays, not this one I just pulled out of my ass.  What your professor/teacher is looking for is your understanding of the topic, what you’ve gotten from the subject that you’ve been studying and how you apply it in a contextual manner. Don’t deviate from your topic. If your topic is “jesus christ is a fictional figure and has been used to brainwash the masses for decades via ever shifting goalposts and dictatorial leadership” then fucking stick to it. Find your sources, back your shit up.  An ideal essay isn’t documented by pages, but by sheer volume of your research, and your ability to apply it. By bringing in box office numbers, you’re supporting your previous statement about the movies being a drawcard. If you can, you could reference it against other movies that opened that same weekend that made less money, therefore attracting less people to see them. (or opening in less cinemas because, reasonably, cinema executives were willing to bank on a movie by a known director, etc etc) Your concluding statement is going to go over all the evidence you’ve gathered, and you slam it all into the ending of your essay that concludes something like “blah blah blah I’m right and this is why I’m right blah gimme an A” just back everything you have to say up with evidence. That’s all they’re looking for. They want to see how you apply your understandings you’ve learned in class, and the topic question will absolutely tell you what they want, if they don’t tell you directly.  There are several essay questions that use similar language Discuss: gather evidence to support your understanding of the topic, and apply it. compare/Contrast: gather evidence of both sides, and compare/pit them against each other in a bloody battle to the finish.  Explain: gather context, via evidence, and explain what your conclusion, after reading everything you have on the subject, is.  advocate: gather positive evidence, and apply it to your point of view/a particular stance.  Each of these has the same basis. Evidence. Back your shit up. Make sure you reference everything. This isn’t to say half your word count is made up by references (references aren’t included in the word count) but any conclusions you draw as a result of your essay must be researched, and thoroughly explained in your own words.  That said, if your professor/teacher isn’t being explicit about what they want out of an essay, you are absolutely allowed to ask clarifying questions. If you can, get together with classmates and break down what they want from you together. Examine the language, and make sure you do exactly what the question is asking. The marking rubric they have will definitely have columns regarding your understanding of what you’re writing, and how well you applied various principles.  That said, there’s such a thing as a grading curve, and sometimes what separates a B student from an A student is half a fucking point. Grading isn’t fair, I think homework is a waste of time and I’m fully willing to stand by that remark with data, lol.  Honestly, good luck. If you have any other questions, or want clarification for anything I’ve said/explained, please feel free to contact me again! 

[severusdefender]

Scribbled this out for the Werewolf!Lily AU Thing, both a scene and devnotes

A/N: Haven’t posted this anywhere, but scribbled out a scene thing. Tried to strike a balance between normal amounts of teen self-centeredness and a little smidge of self-awareness but not enough to be too unrealistic? Maybe some unreliable narrator things (isn’t everyone technically an unreliable narrator?)

Untitled Werewolf!Lily AU Scribble: Sometimes Lily Evans stares up at the ceiling of her dorm not feeling like much of a Gryffindor.

She never tells anyone of these feelings of course, not even her friends; the teen gets up to pace the room, abandoning the open potions’ text and a half-written essay on her bed.

Why just this past afternoon she’d cancelled another after-hours’ meeting with Severus, citing some House busyness she couldn’t afford to miss, because what is she supposed to say really? ‘Hey, your so-called ‘well-bred’ arsehole friends probably want me dead or worse, can you not kiss up to them by parroting them, pretty please? Oh by the by, I can’t tell if you’re actually being serious when you parrot their beliefs? It scares me, would you stop?’

Lily should probably say that, she really should, but she doesn’t and she hasn’t; and Severus either hasn’t noticed or has and doesn’t care, and Lily wants to avoid thinking too hard about which of those options hurt the most.

…

All of a sudden, the room and its cheerfully-decorated walls feel too small.

Mary, Marlene and Ava weren’t in for the night yet, somewhat fortuitous that Lily hadn’t even gotten ready for bed yet, still clad in her day clothes she slips into her shoes and pockets her wand before slipping out for a walk that is sure to break curfew; passing through a largely empty Common Room into an equally-abandoned hallway.

A few lost points is better than stewing in her thoughts all night, sleepless and unable to move without waking her housemates.

Lily is going to fucking scream if she doesn’t find a window soon.

The redhead walks with a purpose, chest tightening and shoulders heavy, hands pressed hard in her robe pockets, before finally turning a corner to a hallway with a wall that was nothing but big open windows, just as a familiar head of dark hair and secondhand robes turn the far corner.

Severus.

A strange mixture of relief, apprehension and guilt bubbles in Lily’s throat before she notices a strange glinting on the floor near an alcove opposite to the windows; she approaches it quickly before realizing what it is.

It was a knife.

Neatly folded into its shiny but nicked handle, glinting softly in the light of a quickly-setting sun, it wasn’t a secondhand knife for potions’ ingredient prep, no, but a switchblade the girl remembers well and fondly; stolen from an older boy back in Cokeworth. The day had been cloudy; Lily had eaten sausages for breakfast; Sev had been wearing a grey shirt, not the one with bloodstains but the one with inky oil stains on it.

‘Sev must’ve dropped it.’

Images of her friend’s bruised face, her scuffed shoes and their bloodied knuckles flit through her thoughts, the nostalgic ring of victorious laughter while huddled in an old library. The knife had been like a trophy, Severus had kept it with him from then on.

“It’s something we won together, o’ course ‘m gonna keep it.”

Lily’s mouth twists pensively, and her heart races, and thinks that she could still catch up with Severus if she ran. They still haven’t talked about it, and she’d be a liar if she said she hadn’t missed him and doing things together, but his friends were swotty, arsehole, Death Eater-wannabes to be polite.

That wasn’t polite but Lily doesn’t care.

But best friends are supposed to talk to each other, tell and keep each other’s secrets, not avoid each other and hope the problem goes away. The knife disappears into her skirt pocket, and Lily jogs to catch up.

This was going to be the end of their friendship, huh? Years and years of little magicks and giggled secrets, surprise family dinner buffers, magic projects over the weekends or afterhours, it was all going to end tonight, right? Not with a bang, but a whimper?

…

Lily can’t believe she’d already forgotten how unfairly quick Severus’ lanky beanpole legs made him. She always would just barely manage to catch sight of him too far ahead, and the lump in her throat always catching before she could call out. And soon she’s outside, having followed him down some stairs and only caught up enough to see him disappear into the rooty base of the Whomping Willow.

This couldn’t be end of them.

Lily stops, apprehensive to approach the temperamental tree and then there’s a bit of shame, is it always going to be like this? Always stopping and never as brave as she’d like? The grass swishes quietly beneath her sneakers, switchblade burning a hole in her pocket, as a girl of fifteen approaches the open entrance her still-friend had disappeared into as the willow’s branches sway almost-serenely.

The teen remembers hopped tracks and gates, running afoul of miscreants and grownups both, and shared meals and library books. She and Sev have history, that has to mean something in the end, doesn’t it?

The tunnel entrance was small its darkness thick and earthy, and Lily hates it immediately even as her lit wand only wards off a tiny portion of said darkness. She plods forward, ignoring the slight constriction of her chest and feeling braver than she’d been a few minutes ago.

So Lily plunges into the dark of the passage, barely noticing the last of the sunlight completely disappear from behind the foreboding line of the Forbidden Forest; she has a knife to return.

OOOOO

NOTETHINGS:  So I haven’t written anything else but this was the scribble that came the easiest to me at the hour of our lord 3am. Also Lily’s is claustrophobic if you couldn’t tell (remember some old asks about the cupboard punishment coming from somewhere thing, I dug it back out for some juicy angst). Basically I needed an introspective scene and then this thing happened. What’s supposed to follow would be a POV switch to Severus. 

I haven’t quite choreographed the action scene too much but it’s supposed to go something like: Severus runs facefirst into Werewolf!Remus and Werewolf!Remus lunges but Sev falls but is prone, Lily bursts in with a spell to Werewolf!Remus’ face and he goes after her instead. Another spell from Lily, but Werewolves are pretty spell resistant so he charges her and chomps on her shoulder and neck (since werewolf heads, even unhealthy teen ones, I hc are p large) lifting her up about to shake (which according to me, would’ve broken her neck and killed her). Remus is currently in the middle of crushing her wand arm’s shoulder, so her wand’s dropped, and she can’t move it anyways. Using her good arm, she takes out Severus’ knife (the one she’d been wanting to return), and stabs Werewolf!Remus in the face (no he doesn’t die), and so he drops her.

This all happens in the span of like, less than ten seconds, generously?

Sev is finally unfrozen and casts quickly somehow blasting Werewolf!Remus back and trying to get to Lily’s side trying to drag her up to run back through the tunnel. But trying to do so with another person and scared as hell is harder than it looks, bc before long Werewolf!Remus is back up and catches Lily by the leg, dragging her out from her lean on Severus, chomps said leg and shakes her by it, breaking it, before letting go and she goes flying in the opposite direction of the Whomping Willow <<->> Shrieking Shack passage exit, and suddenly Severus is faced with the decision between fleeing himself and going through Werewolf!Remus to get his mangled friend.

But of course, this is when Stag!James finally fucking arrives to Kool Aid Man Werewolf!Remus. Yes Severus didn’t have to make the choice right now, but it’s foreshadowing or something for later maybe, although technically he could go save himself now but the immediate threat is being distracted by a fucking deer. Severus has to grab a bleeding, half-mangled Lily and run tf away and to the infirmary, though after crossing the threshold into said Hospital Wing though, he stumbles and hits his head, thus knocking himself out. Yes he did the suboptimal thing by not using magic to levitate her because he was Panicking, which would be addressed in a (hopefully) future scene or something.

James is fine btw.

Thoughts? Percolating ideas?

It’s perfect. Their friendship is deteriorating, then Lily sees something that reminds her of Cokeworth and she follows Severus into the Whomping Willow. Holy shit the description of the attack sounds horrifying. 

[ibsymptoms]

Essay Writing Advice

Okay, so some of you know I'm no longer in IB and am in college now and let me tell you right now: all of those IAs and EEs and stuff help so much with writing essays and staying up late. AP classes can help a lot, but I’ve found there's a big difference for essays between the 8 AP classes crowd and IBDP crowd. 

Now, give me some leniency cause yesterday I stayed up writing for 14 hours for political theory (7 page paper arguing Burke’s and Rousseau's theories of history - yeah not fun) so I'm still kinda tired and messed up. 

Pick a topic you like

I hate this piece of advice because obviously you would if you could. Moving on. 

Create an Outline

If you’re like me, this helps sooooo much. I know what I want to say, and this helps me dump it out of my brain. Don’t make it difficult for yourself. When I create my outlines, it looks like I decided to throw bullet points and page numbers everywhere like I’ve got a billion dollars to throw at people on the street. Don’t force yourself to follow a format even if you think its more pleasing. Just get it down and then edit it from there. (My outline was 12 pages for a 7 page paper, I had a lot of ideas that I needed to cut but I was also passionate about my topic). 

Write what you want

It'll help you get interested in the topic. Fuck a start, fuck a ending, writing is writing. Two pages of nonsense is better than nothing. You’re more inclined to keep working if you’ve already started.

Write like you’re writing to a friend

Literally, just write how you talk. You can go back and edit it later, but if the ideas are down that's 1) a big weight off of your chest and 2) it'll force you to reread it and find better ideas alone the way. “But I’m short on time” - how short? If you’re writing it at lunch, the class before its due (we’ve all been there) then obviously get off Tumblr and get to writing. But if it’s due in like ten hours, I promise you, you’ll fair better if you split your time into idea time and grammar time. Don’t force yourself to multitask to sound more “academic.” Just go back through and use https://onelook.com/thesaurus/ to carry yourself. WAY better than theasurus.com or whatever it is. 

Do what feels right to you

I’m gonna say this once: I don't give a fuck what your friend did on their essay. Most of the time people talk before turning in the essay and everyone pretty much has similar ideas. If you're COMPLETELY LOST, then yeah, go with the flow and keep yourself save. Teachers and TAs are people too... sometimes they just want originality. Every single time I’ve been writing and been like “damn, I’m really wildin’ out here but lol it’s due in four hours and I don’t give a fuck,” I’ve ALWAYS gotten comments about originality or something and it helps boost my grade. Be creative and “wild” with your essays. You're young and you won’t fail if you follow the rubric or stay moderately on topic - let yourself go on those rants or (RELATED) tangents. Who really cares? 

For the love of God, learn how to cite

You know that you can google it. Don’t be too lazy for a 5 minute search. Know how to do it and do it properly. 

Also, fuck easy bib and all those other sites - just use word’s automatic bibliography. It’s automatically in your document and so much easier. Plus, it automatically excludes any sources that you don’t cite so you don’t lose points if you cite a source that wasn’t in your paper (yes, it happens, and it definitely makes you learn your lesson). 

STEM brain? Have someone good at writing read your paper

I don’t have this problem as much cause writing and arguing and shit is easier for me but try to give yourself time to have someone who is good at it read your paper. 

I will gladly do it for a couple bucks over Venmo if any of y'all want. This isn't a business or anything I do but I would be down to help people out. Y’all can message me for info about why I think im good at English if you want since I know this post looks like a hot mess (I woke up in a dead heat at 4am and started writing this okay give me a break). 

Uhh I think that’s it

There’s no secret to writing. It just takes practice. Plus, I can’t give more specific advice without knowing what types of papers you’re writing. You can always message me for advice. One last note: if you’re doing a math paper, I am SO sorry, and I KNOW it’s a waste of time but chug your Red Bull, remember you’re a bad bitch, and keep going.

- Nikki 

[pandemicthestory]

1: introduced

The love story of a teenage girl trapped inside during the end of the world. Daily chapters during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Neon orange nails tap at a laptop, chatting with someone across the internet. This manicure is fresh, except no one has left their house in weeks, so we know she did it herself. 

ADMIN_E: just sent your essay back. Gonna be 300 bc of the works cited 

GUEST48: oh come on 

ADMIN_E: i need the money, and you have more money than you need

GUEST48: ugh pls just tell me this is gonna get me an A in AP US history, i need this grade to get into duke 

ADMIN_E: lol, you’re actually worried about getting into college?

GUEST48: uh yeah, aren’t u?

ADMIN_E: Sweetie the world is ending. Who the fuck cares

*buzz* 

She looks away from the computer and down at her cracked iPhone 7. Another thing she’d like the cash to upgrade. The bigger issue: it’s basically impossible to scam in peace with her group chat constantly blowing up. But what are your best friends for, if not to provide human contact during an infinite quarantine? 

Madison is a self-proclaimed burnout, who used to be the carefree athletic type until a soccer injury sent her spiraling into an emo-grunge moment. Zoe is probably going to run for president and also be a doctor at the same time, unless her weird senior boyfriend convinces her to leave on a weed farm (which he would totally do, wow Gabriel sucks). And Olivia is sort of the one who keeps everyone together, obsessed with being a friend. She’s the one who religiously decorates your locker on your birthday even if you insist that it’s not necessary and that actually you’d prefer if she didn’t because it’s embarrassing. That’s Olivia.

MADISON: holy shit did u hear 

OLIVIA: I was just about to text you guys. My mom just told me. R u ok?? 

ZOE: wait what’s going on?? wtf tell me rn !! 

*knock knock*

The bedroom door opens without waiting for an answer.

“Emma?”

Emma Bradford, a skinny 16-year-old wearing an oversized hoodie and boxers, slams her laptop shut with way too much force. Hopefully it isn’t broken, she’d have to find a different way to cheat the school system for money. 

“Mom, what happened to our deal? If we’re going to be stuck at home together, you have to pretend I’m AT school. As in don’t speak to me before 3:25 PM.”

“You can’t say I didn’t knock. I knocked.” 

“It’s not about knocking, it’s about--wait why are we even having a conversation? See you at dinner. Or not. Just go please.” 

Emma jams in her air pods and pulls up her hoodie over her head so you can’t see the top of her face. She’s used to hiding her identity, and even in quarantine, old habits die hard or whatever.

Mom sighs, she doesn’t want to be here either. Out of all her kids, Emma is the truly difficult one. The smart one who uses her brain for all the wrong reasons. And wow those nails are intense. Traffic cones. Kids these days. 

“I just came to tell you that...well we just got a phone call from the school district. It looks like classes are going to be canceled for the rest of the year. Zoom classes too. Everything. I’m sorry.”

Emma’s stomach drops. Canceled? Like, wait, canceled? Canceled. But...how will she earn hundreds of dollars doing writing assignments for her fellow dumbasses?

“Seriously? How is that possible?! Don’t I need like, an education and shit?”

“Government spending is affecting everyone in strange ways right now. And wait a second, I thought you’d be happy. You always tell me how much you hate high school.”

Mom raises an eyebrow. Emma hates that. If her mom starts digging around in her personal life again, she’s going to find some weird shit. Not just forged essays, but, well, let’s just leave that all buried for now. 

“I do hate school. And I don’t care if I never go back. But I do need some boundaries, so please get out.”

Her Mom closes the door. We can’t see, but that eyebrow is definitely still raised. Something’s up with Emma. Her mom just has no idea of what it is, or how big it’s about to get.

Emma examines the group chat, having missed over 80 texts since she last checked it five minutes ago. 

EMMA: i don’t have time to read all that but, school, right?

ZOE: How can this happen? I already have a prom dress and it was final sale!!

MADISON: u don’t HAVE to go to prom this year zo- when gabriel goes to school next year u guys will prob break up anyway and then you’ll be free to go to like 10 more proms w guys who haven’t been arrested

ZOE: He was not actually arrested and we are doing long distance we already discussed it! 

MADISON: you don’t think they’ll cancel prom do you? if i have to do prom over zoom i’m legit done 

EMMA: So, prom is what you’re all worried about?

A brief pause. 

OLIVIA: Well what are you worried about Em? Or aren’t you

EMMA: Oh well idk. I mean i’m not that worried

EMMA: I just mean like it could be worse

As soon as Emma sends this, she doesn’t know if she actually believes it. She doesn’t know what’s coming. 

ZOE: Sure, I guess...

MADISON: UR BEING RLY WEIRD EM 

EMMA: Ah you’re right sorry, it’s just a weird time. I love u guys btw 

Everyone sends their signature heart emoji. Zoe: pink with sparkles. Olivia: yellow. Madison: small red with red dot underneath. And Emma sends the black heart, because she really needs to start acting like her normal self as people are getting suspicious. Her best friends know almost everything about her. Almost. They don’t know about what she’s doing on the side, or what she plans to do with the money. 

Emma takes a deep breath and reopens the laptop. No school is going to be a problem. No school, no assignments, no college applications, which means: no income. And no income means no leaving...no running off with...him. 

Him, the eternal problem. Him who won’t get out of her head no matter how much she curses the day he was born. Him from that other school that’s annoyingly far yet still too close for her own good. Him who knows her favorite candle scent. Him who rests his hand in the space between her hip bone and her belly button. Him who lied. Him who was forgiven. 

Him. 

She stares at the interface of her ghostwriter page on the screen. This was good while it lasted. She’ll just need a new plan to get to Him. 

Emma is about to shut the computer when: 

*Ping* 

New Assignment.

What? Every student at Harrison Ford High School got the same announcement today that she did. School’s canceled. No more class, no more losing sleep over getting into Duke. What a random life goal. 

Seriously, what the hell could this be?

Emma clicks the link to open the new assignment, to learn that it isn’t a new assignment at all. It’s a drawing?  

Circular lines, deflated shapes encircling each other. Like oil in water. The picture could almost be, well it looks somewhat like...a map. Holy shit, this is a map.

The lines of the map are messy and hand drawn. As if someone made this in a rush. Or maybe they were confused about where the path leads. But underneath the twists and turns, there’s a note: 

before you run away, come find me

[piracytheorist]

My brain fucking hurts with all the nationalistic shit going on lately in my country.

There are about 22 cites/towns/whatever named Athens in the USA. Didn’t see any of y’all worry or fight about that (please don’t).

But when it’s our own fucking neighbors, oh no, how dare they take the name Macedonia!

... and we only complain like 60 years after.

How dare there be people who grew up calling themselves Macedonians, right? How dare they not ask themselves at 3 years old “But Macedonia is what part of another country is called”. How dare you not know the entire history of your and our country at the age of 3!

And the problem is, I see young Greeks get all upset about this. Jesus Christ. How can you not see it’s the right-wing’s efforts to build up nationalism in us and make us their pawns if it comes down to us vs. them? How can you not see they’re trying to make us hate an entire country and its people just because of a fucking name?

And like, what is there to be proud about? Alexander? A man who attacked, killed, raped and stole from other, perfectly built civilizations?

In school I was taught that Alexander (and no I’m not gonna call him “great”) didn’t really “fight”, he only spread Greek culture. But then I grew up and asked myself, to whom? To people who already had their own, equally (or more?) developed civilizations. It’s not like he passed over and taught them how to human - he was just as big of an imperialistic shit as any other conqueror. And because we’re Greeks, we gotta be proud of him, right? War is right when it’s to the benefit of our pride, right? /sarcasm

And it hurts my mind that people don’t see that, and go all angry and upset because of a fucking name, when we’re already facing a ton of problems.

It’s just the right-wing doing its job, even when we supposedly have a left-wing party ruling the country. Misdirection. Don’t think about how you barely make a living, don’t think about your horrible work conditions, about how your children may not find a job to sustain themselves, no. Above all, don’t stand up against the big powers that have all this control over you, no. Fight with another developing country over a fucking name.

In case I didn’t make myself clear and you’re Macedonian, you have my full support calling yourself however you feel like. Technically, I’m not “Greek” either - I’m 1/4 German, 1/8 Vlachan, and 5/8 Hellene. But that’s a mouthful so I settle for Greek. Also I don’t fucking care about what blood runs through my veins. That’s all imperialistic/nationalistic shit. Call yourself whatever you like, as long as there’s no nationalism hidden behind it.

[helltore-a]

tea of the day:   writing on tumblr ,   hell even just existing or breathing ,   really offends people no matter what you do and even if you’re right while saying the truth and perspectives to be heard by open minds and ears ;  plus life is too short to argue pointlessly to close and narrow - minded people and try to adapt their beliefs as yours even if it’s wrong so that you can be in a clique ,  so guess what ,  you mind your shit and i’ll mind mine ,  and we can both be civil and respectful about it.  

     no strict enforcement of ideas on one another because that’s dictatorial.  surprise ,  we have free will and self - expression ,  but don’t abuse your free speech to force someone to have the same beliefs as you.  no commanding people to go socialize with their peers instead because that’s segregation.  how the fuck do you think people grow up ?  what sort of role models will they look up to if the minors can’t even breathe at the adults’ direction ?   history repeats itself ,  i’m not gonna even cite how world war one started ,  and the shit happening in america right now with the cages and inhuman oppression , you know that.  everything you do in this hellsite is a catalyst on real people beyond writing fictional characters.  real people are not fictional characters and vice - versa.  it’s tumblr rp.  

               be kind ,  do no harm but take no shit.

     you can’t expect people not to fight back bullshit ,  bad behavior ,  toxicity ,  emotional manipulation ,  etc. if they see one ,  and this is what starts drama.  just please be respectful and nice ,  it’s free.  i’ll be in my funville and enjoy life because for me ,  tumblr is supposed to be an escape from the real shit and be creative ,  not to be oppressed and abused.

[catsnuggler]

Difficult vent below.

Warnings for: mention of racism, ableism (a lot of talk about autism), violence (violent thoughts of my own re: my ableist, racist dad; not anything that’s happened), and overall, some serious negativity. 

Not addressed to anyone here, but getting angry enough to pointedly ask if “autism is the new (n-word)” in response to your son asserting that he isn’t autistic, not out of prejudice but simply out of being sure that the case is that he isn’t autistic, is definitely not appropriate behavior. If it seems like someone’s being bigoted in some way - in this case, ableism, though I was not being ableist - the thing to do typically isn’t to fight it with another bigotry, like racism. Typically, you confront that bigotry on its own terms. It’s a pity he’s about 50 years old and doesn’t seem to get this, yet I’m the one who needs to learn not to be so anal. Gods, I hate that phrase.

I mean, granted, I’ve had a shoddy history with my autistic brother, unfortunately, so for a time, yes, I was prejudiced. And that’s bloody shameful, nothing shameless about it. But it isn’t about that anymore, it’s just that simply, nothing wrong if the case was otherwise, but I happen not to be autistic. Do I have ADD? Yes. Depression? You betcha. Anxiety? I haven’t got an official diagnosis, but I mean come on, take a gander at me and you don’t have to be a psychologist to see that. C-PTSD? Pretty sure. And possibly, though I’m not sure, but possibly avoidant personality disorder, as well, stemming from the C-PTSD. I’m not gonna say I do, because I feel self-diagnosis can only go so far, and my symptoms are already contained in the disorders mentioned prior to avoidant personality disorder. But AVPD is possible, I’ll just take that position. 

Anyway, I’m definitely not neurotypical, and I’m definitely not mentally healthy. But the fact is, I’m not autistic, and though one professional diagnosed me with it once, a much more experienced professional said she was sure I’m not autistic, but didn’t challenge the diagnosis for the sake of social services that would help me with my ADD that wouldn’t be offered if that was all on my record. One could say, then, that K-12, I was in essence “pragmatically autistic”. I took away the special services in grade 10, though, so it was more K-10 than anything else. I match some symptoms, but the symptoms I match are pretty much things like “has anxiety”, which have outside causes, rather than things like “naturally has a hard time reading sarcasm” - I actually use a lot of sarcasm, even to my father’s chagrin. And - treading on thin ice here, so please, if I say anything wrong, call me out on it - autistic people obviously aren’t emotionless beings, but they do tend to focus more on reasoning in their thought processes. As much as I think and overthink things, isn’t it obvious I’m much more of an emotion-driven guy, even to extremely unhealthy ends? That, in itself, should speak volumes.

The evidence he cited was bullshit, anyway. He likened being extrasensory, something I’m not, to being extra sensitive about a certain word - yes, he implied that being too sensitive about the n-word means that I’m autistic! What bullshit is that? If you try your damnedest not to be racist, you’re autistic, apparently, because you’re too sensitive. Yet I’m the one who hasn’t tried over the years to get rid of his biases, and he’s the one who’s proud of his autistic son, even with these ableist-racist double whammies. Whoop-de-fucking doo! And he talks badly about Republican racists - and, to be fair, fuck Republican racists, I’m sure as fuck not on their side - but also fuck him for being racist in his own ways and deluding himself into not improving simply because he’s better, or thinks he’s better, than they are.

Agh, by my oathlords Odin, Loki, and Thor, how I’ve lived more than 19 years under the roof of such an ignorant man is beyond me. I’m by no means a good guy here. I admit that I had prejudices growing up, and the relationship between my brother and I is still distant because of that. Nor do I view myself as a good person in general, either. I’ve done some shitty things that can never be undone, and I’m not just talking about this subject when I say that. So as arrogant as I can be, I don’t put a lot of stock on my own importance here. But, credit where it’s due, I don’t pull out the n-word just because the relationship with my (hypothetical, obviously, since I don’t have one) son is strained, so obviously he’s autistic because he cringes at my usage of the n-word like any decent person trying to be not racist should. Because it’s a racist word except when you’re mad at someone and want to make some crude, backwards, irrelevant, and wholly incorrect point, right father dearest? I don’t care if it’s a never-missing spear, a short-handled hammer, or a dart of fucking mistletoe - no, actually, I won’t finish that sentence, horrible things happened as a result of a somewhat similar situation last time. But what I will say is that I feel if someone is going to throw such slanderous bullshit out of their mouth, perhaps they should be beaten specifically in their mouth until they no longer have teeth or an un-mauled tongue with which to make comprehensible utterance, for their diction is insensible and utterly knavish. I’ve worked to get rid of my biases, so when I say I’m not autistic, I’m just saying what I’m pretty damn sure is the truth, no hate behind it - no need to get racist about it, by gods.

Unrelated, we later had a conversation about my mental health - not contingent on autism, but on my emotional well-being. He mentioned how it seems I put too much stock in what others think of me, and I agreed, saying that I view my worth solely as how much others value me. Immediately after saying so, I remembered that wasn’t my entire view - that it’s also what I do for others, but the two concepts are obviously strongly linked. Didn’t say that part to him, though. He then had a long talk with me about how I should love myself, and that people’s opinions change with the wind. All well and good a talk, that one, I suppose, though it isn’t quite simple as that remembering, ehm... anyway, it’s funny he’s the one who said that, when often through my youth, in his anger, he’s called me worthless and useless. I didn’t bring that up with him, but I remembered how his advice was a gods-damned riot to hear. Kept my peace, though, or what peace I can manage. A ceasefire? Good word for it.

Little wonder I’m the rageful bastard I am today, behind blue eyes.

[ta-ether]

So You Want to Study the Middle Ages

A Few Disclaimers: I am not a medievalist yet, but that is the path I’m on at the moment with goals to go to grad school for Medieval Studies. Also, this is mainly if you want to go into European Medieval Studies. I will only be limited help for outside of Europe, but I am more than willing to ask around for help if you want. Also this will probably best work for people going into college or already in college.

This sucker’s just over 4 pages with 12p Times New Roman and 1.15 spacing, so the rest of this is under the cut. 

My sweet summer child. You are in for a ride. Buckle up, because this is gonna be hard. (Not the best words to start out on but this is not for the faint of heart, trust me.)

First thing’s first. Choose a region. Just one. For me, it’s England. Now if you’re scared that choosing one region will not let you learn a lot about the general world at that time, you’re wrong. England interacts with France, who interacts with the Holy Roman Empire/ Germany, who interacts with Italy, and they all have contact with the Near East, and then they all interact with Iberia. And when I say “interact” I mean “fought.” Trust me, it will cascade, and if you don’t have a “home base” you will get far too overwhelmed.

This is where it goes into what I personally have done. After I chose England, I went into the Renaissance there – specifically Elizabeth I. It’s useful to start in the Renaissance because there’s more accessible knowledge about that period. I started super young, so I also read a lot of historical fiction at this point. This isn’t reliable for facts, but it’s not bad if you’re just starting out and want to dip your toe in the water.

From there I took a brief hiatus into Classics. This is helpful because with this you can go down from Classics and up from Renaissance and meet in the middle. Also this is the part where you’re going to want to learn at least a little bit of Latin. It’s honestly invaluable. I had the amazing fortune of taking Latin since 7th grade, but if you’re going into college, you can probably take the gen-ed requirement for language and you’ll be fine. You only need about 2 years of good Latin, because Medieval Latin is… how you say… not that complicated. The hard part is mostly the vocab, and you have dictionaries for that.

Now that you’ve made yourself at least familiar with Classics and the Renaissance, you can actually dive into the Middle Ages! Why don’t we do this earlier? Well I’ll tell you. There’s so much bullshit about the Medieval Period online, and even in books. Seriously, Sturgeon's Law is a THING with Medieval Studies online – 90-95% of what you find at first is going to be false. This is why you wait, so you don’t get bamboozled. Personally – I’d start with a “pop history” book. These are books that you can find in like, Barnes and Noble in the “History” section. Now, these books are not well regarded in the academic communities, but fuck em look, everybody needs to start somewhere. Personally, I read Dan Jones’ The Plantagenets super early in my “Medieval career” and it gave me an overview of the period and new places to look for things I was then interested in (The Anarchy!). Also, it had a family tree. Never underestimate the usefulness of a family tree.

So now you hopefully have a place you want to focus on, and also a rough time period, event, or person you want to focus on. Now, because academic books are expensive, you’re going to go to the primary sources, which are free online. You don’t need to panic! Primary sources are hard but not impossible, and I believe in you! You’re gonna go to the Medieval Sourcebook from Fordham and you’re going to poke around a little and look for your little niche. You don’t need to spend a ton of time on this. A day or two should suffice.

Once you’ve read some sources you should pretty much know if you still want to go into Medieval Studies. If you’re not having fun with the sources, you may want to reconsider. Trust me, from here on out if you don’t love it, you will not be having a good time. I respect your decision if you want to bow out. This is not for everybody.

If you had a blast with the sources, congrats! You’ll probably have fun with everything else. Maybe. Next you’re gonna go and look at the academic side of things. Don’t worry if you don’t have access to databases. You can survive – I know I did. My suggestion: go to Google Scholar and type in what you want to see and poke around. If you’re young, you may not understand their language, but that’s ok. You can learn. If you’re really into it, you can look at their sources and dig in further! Bibliographies and work cited’s are a fucking gold mine. Google Books can also be amazing and always check to see if they have a book you find. If the book’s old, archive.org might have it in full. So Google’s mostly free and easy to access, but you can also use JSTOR a limited amount. With a free account you can access 3 papers every 2 weeks or something. Yeah, it’s kinda bullshit but it’s not bad. If you’re scared of wasting your free papers on something you won’t like, feel free to message me and I can look for you as well, and download papers for you or something. I’m not an amazing resource, but I’m willing to be a resource.

I haven’t talked about libraries yet, which is so typical of me. Part of how I work is that I’m likely to check the internet and forget the library, which is stupid. Pro-tip: check the library. Always check the library. Your local library will probably not have academic books, but they might have databases. Look at your local library’s website to see if they have databases for patrons to use, and if you’re up to it, ask the librarians. This may be hard if you have social anxiety (trust me I know), but librarians are up there with teachers as being underrated, underpaid helpful people. 85% of them will be more than willing to help, and they might even ship a book in for you or something. If you can use them, do. Also, if you live in a college town and can physically get to the college library, you can look around there. If you’re local you should be able to check books out, but even if you can’t you should be able to look at the books there or make copies.

This basically marks the end of what you can do on your own, and believe me I wish you could do more without help, but the truth of the matter is to do anything further you’re going to need to go to college and take classes.

There are more schools with medieval programs than you think. Big schools, small schools, rural schools, city schools – I go to a super small rural women’s college and we have a MARS (Medieval and Renaissance Studies) program, but I’m pretty sure we’re an exception. Point is, you can find a school. From there I suggest you get in contact with a professor there and try to get a meeting with them, which is what I did. Try and wow them with your tenacity and what you’ve done already or something. If you can’t get a meeting, just email or perhaps call. (*shakes fist* Networking!) Then take some classes.

Once you take some classes and you still want to go into this… you have incredible fortitude. Congrats. Now, this is where I am now, so I can’t help beyond this, but I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to. This summer I was able to get an Summer Honors Research fellowship at my school where I am being paid to do my own research with my professor. I’m studying 14th century English Coroner Rolls, am learning Medieval Handwriting, and am beginning to work with actual Medieval documents. Seriously. I’m living the dream. (If you want pictures of my documents ASK ME I love showing them off they are my babies. My lovely, wonderful, unreadable babies.) In the coming years I am planning to try and get my ass to England.

Some words of encouragement: Look, it’s notoriously hard to get into Medieval Studies. It’s just not accessible and I hate that about it. You have to want it. You can’t wander into being a Medievalist. It’s hard and a slog and it’s so easy to be discouraged, and everyone will tell you that what you’re doing doesn’t matter, and somehow you have to just keep going.

I’m writing this essay with tips on how to get into Medieval Studies because I wish I had more guidance before I hit college. I was flying in the dark for a while, and I basically bumped into doing useful things by accident.

If you want to go into Medieval Studies, I want you to know that I’m rooting for you and if you’ve read this entire thing, you probably do want to try at least. Know that I have access to a pretty damn good college library with inter-library loan privileges, a scanner, and a really smart professor. If you need a book or an article and you don’t have the means to get it, please message or ask me. If you just need a place to start, ask me! If you’ve read this entire thing, message me. I love to talk Medieval with people and I have like… one person to talk to, and she’s my professor. I would include a list of books I read that were helpful, but this essay is starting to become a novella at this point so you can ask. I sound super lonely – “ask me, message me!” Ha! You would be right. I am lonely.

<3

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

A Brief (haha jk nothing about me is brief) History of Angels

Okay, so what the everloving fuck is up with all of the angel books that I’m reading??? Like seriously, when did angels go from this

To this??????

And the problem just seems to be in books.

The majority of books I read about angels features a fallen angel or an angel that’s basically described as a just being 280 lbs. of angelic beefcake. Nothing else. No personality. Just beefcake. According to this hilarious video, a lot of it has to do with Paradise Lost, but I’m not going into that right now.

I just find it weird that things like Supernatural and Constantine, etc. have no problem accurately representing angels, and yet most of the angel books that come up on my Goodreads recommendations list are sappy love stories.

Like??? Hello????? I want to see some angel badassness and not a dramatic love interest for a Mary Sue/ Gary Stu of a protagonist.

I’m currently writing a book with actual badass angels, and have consulted many sources, so I hope you consider me trustworthy enough to tell you about this stuff. If you don’t believe me, you can research it for yourself, but I’ll try to cite as much as I can.

So sit back, get a snack, and buckle up, because here is

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANGELS FOR THOSE WHO THINK THEY NEED IT AND ESPECIALLY FOR THOSE WHO DON’T

Okay, so I’m going to start by saying that angels are in most, if not all monotheistic religions that feature capital ‘G’ God. They’re not just reserved for Christianity.

From Islam to Judaism to Christianity, there is at least a brief mentioning of angels in every one of their religious texts.

The major conflict when it comes to angels in different religions seems to be “which angels are Archangels?”

So, if you don’t know what an Archangel is, I’m gonna tell u now.

Archangels are basically the head honchos of angels, and they’re pretty badass.

I’ll go into them later when I’m actually into the history.

So basically, different religions have different Archangels, or at least, they recognize different Archangels.

(Note: Please correct me if my research is wrong! I do not mean to offend ANYONE at all, so please tell me as soon as possible if there are any errors)

Islam:

- Jibra'il (Gabriel)

-Israfil (Raphael)

-Izra’il (Azrael)

-Mikail (Michael)

[Source]

Judaism:

-Michael

-Gabriel

-Uriel

-Raphael

[Source]

Christianity:

Roman Catholicism:

- Gabriel

-Michael

-Raphael

-Sometimes Uriel but I get mixed reviews from everything so I’m just putting a question mark (?)

[Source: I’m Catholic]

Eastern Orthodox:

-Michael

-Gabriel

-Raphael

-Uriel

-Barachiel

-Saeltiel (sometimes Selaphiel)

-Jegudiel (sometimes Jehudiel)

[Source]

Protestant:

There are different kinds of Protestant and if I included them all we’d be here for a week, so I’m just going to say that most, if not all Protestants believe in at least ONE Archangel

-Michael

-And a lot believe in Gabriel as well

[Source]

Okay, so you guys are probably seeing a trend here.

“Whoa, Maddy!” you cry, throwing yourself upon the fainting couch.  “Both Michael and Gabriel are in all of the lists!”

“I know,” I reply.

“But what makes them so special?” you beg. “I must know!”

Chill. I’m getting to that.

So, before you get to know the Archangels, you first must know their history. There are many, many versions of this story, so I’m not going to write them all down.

I’m going to tell you is what I learned in Religious Ed, so therefore what you’re hearing is the Catholic version of this. I’ll try to make it more entertaining than how Mrs. Berry taught me.

Feel free to reblog this with your religion’s own version of this, and note that I’m putting various gifs from pop culture into this because I can’t resist myself.

Okay, so it starts off in Heaven, where God just Created The Universe™. It’s gonna be a long time before those bitches Adam and Eve show up, and so He’s just chillin up wherever He chills. And suddenly He gets this great idea and creates this Archangel.

Now, in different versions this angel is Michael, but like I said, I’m telling you the version that I learned.

So as I was saying, He created this Archangel, and guess what his name is?

LUCIFER!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!

Now, I know what you’re thinking: OH NO, LUCIFER CAN’T BE AN ARCHANGEL????

In fact, in a lot of versions, he was said to be God’s favorite, at least in the beginning.

He was described as being the most powerful and beautiful of all of the angels that God ever created, and naturally, God put him In Charge ™ .

So God’s like “Hey I’m pretty good at this I should make more of these little winged creatures”

And so next He creates

Gabriel

(Who’s been portrayed as a guy and a girl on various occasions, even in religious texts)

Gabriel is the messenger. He’s the one who came to Mary for the Annunciation as well as to Muhammad in the First Revelation.

Raphael

Raphael is the healer and is into like medicine and knowledge and music and literature so basically hes like a total nerd no joke.

And last, but certainly not least,

Michael.

(Sometimes the last is Lucifer, but obviously not in this version)

So he’s like the little bro, and everyone thinks he’s smol and lovey but he’s like “looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you”. This Archangel is also a saint (and I’m pretty sure Raphael is too). So he protects humanity from the forces of evil and also defeats Satan but that’s not relevant right now. He is one of the most important Archangels in religions that believe in God.

Okay so these bros are chillin and being bros.

And so to put things short, Lucifer had like a huge ego. That was his one flaw. (Fun fact: this is the reason why people say pride is the root of all sin).

He thought he was better than everyone, and like I’m not saying he wasn’t a solid 10, but it kinda lowers your attractiveness if you rub it in everyone’s faces.

And so while God’s creating all of these other littler angels, who aren’t as great as Archangels but are still pretty cool, Lucifer begins brooding and wondering why he isn’t the cosmic ruler.

He was like “hey???? I’m like?? 10/10??? and this guy??? Is telling me what?? to??? do????”

And so he begins to rally 1/3 of Heaven (bc at this point there are like A TON of angels)

And so now all of his little bros are gettin a bit worried.

Like “Is You okay??”

And so naturally Lucifer is Not Okay ™

Basically the Book of Revelations tells us that none of the Archangels were fit to fight Lucifer (but why I don’t understand that really) so naturally it has to be the youngest, Michael, that has to fight him, because everyone likes a good underdog story, even ancient Christians/Muslims/Jews.

And so this whole fight goes down in something called the War in Heaven, where it’s 1/3 of regular angels and Lucifer versus 2/3 of regular angels and Michael (and the other Archangels sort of help but seriously they were dicks for not teaming up with their lil bro).

Now, you think there would be no contest, but Lucifer is like crazy powerful, even compared to Michael, and he has a lot of angels on his side even though Michael has most of them.

And so this whole angelic smackdown ensues and by the end, Lucifer is bound in chains and tossed into Hell. He’d like turned into a huge nine-headed dragon during the fight, so it was kind of hard to do that, but Michael managed.

So yeah, that’s their history, and I don’t understand why writers, unless they don’t research at all, see this and think “Oh I’m just going disregard this and write my angel character as one-dimensional and make it all about their looks and their wings and include no background information about their kind”

And I’m not saying that you should follow this story word for word, but PLEASE GIVE YOUR ANGEL CHARACTERS SOME DIMENSION PEOPLE!!!!

With love and hoping that this helped,

~Maddy

[nothingbutaspaceman-writings]

Bipolar [lyrics to the 2016 EP]

by popular demand....

maybe I’ll post the lyrics to the uncompleted actual final track one day.

deserteclipse.bandcamp.com/

I yearn to recall simpler times When suicidal thoughts were comforting An occasional hobby

When I found Shakespeare’s tragedies funny And superfluous his comedies “I cried to dream again”

Saccharin’s no honey Marie shared her cake Comfort Eagle and pretty ribbons of pink upon guillotines

It’s the artificiality It’s a fissure to me A trap sending monsters to their grave

Sacrificing sanity’s a must

Sumaria or bust!

“But you’re healthy, you’re writing, You’re in a band, The one you love, you have their hand You don’t have it bad!”

Everything is relative Eloquence and artistry are semantics Brain and mind appreciate diversity Their feuds devastate the body (Hypersomnia is so tiring)

If being happy wasn’t dependent on chemistry, My blood polarity would be blasphemy (Nothing promises pleasure) Records/stories are spun every night Framing means nothing I’m just biding my time

Tommy, You warned me Gold medals in the rain

Tommy, They left me Autodidact in pain

Tommy, I forced me My legs hurt from dancing

—-

Tipitty tip tapping Tapping tapping Tap tap tapping Tipping Tapping Because if I don’t, The bees, they will escape!

I feel them in the, in the, in the pockets of my joints Knuckles pop, poppity-pip-pop to extend their prison-stay-stay-stay Stay Stay STAY! STAY!

The keys clickity-clack, clickity-clack (Moo! Ha) making words and words and words and words and words…….. Moo! HA! WORDS! HA!

(NOBODY CARES)

My foot’s a’movin’ And feet’s a’groovin’ Up and down and down and up and up and all around Because if I don’t, The worms will crawl into my eyes The ankle-breaking heel-gyrating toe-spanking do-si-doing Keeps them a’shakin’ Below my clanking knees

I’m crying Please. I can’t stop writing My soul is overfilling my body And leaking From under my tongue and tear ducts

(NOBODY CARES)

It hurts So badly (I just want to sleep.) I can’t even catch my breath I’m going to start hyperventilating It hurts So badly (NOBODY CARES) My soul is leaking Spilling onto the floor And I just cleaned! (I think my teeth are bleeding From smiling much too hard) Please, forgive me (You can’t argue with chemistry In this box, I am suffocating)

(NOBODY CARES)

I slept most of days away this week And now I can’t find time to blink

I hate sleeping I hate waking

There’s no in between There’s always thinking

Pour me a drink, please Give me paresthesia

Everything tastes like coffee You can’t argue with chemistry (NOBODY CARES)

My sleepless identity Is my disordered personality I am my pathology My sickness defines me

—–

Passion: noun A powerful, compelling emotion or feeling usually associated with love or hate; Also an enthusiastically consuming fondness for an object, act, habit, etc. Its origins lie in ancient Greek and Latin, as well as Middle English from words meaning “to suffer, submit, or endure”

I trust you. Here’s a confession, Please know I don’t trust easy, but as long as I do, I’ll keep confessing Oh, I’ll keep confessing:

I was four when I first considered suicide I wanted to jump into a deep pool though I couldn’t swim Some would call this feeling of wanting to jump “vertigo” I don’t have a word/phrase for it Most times, I think “missed opportunity” At the moment I had no concept of afterlife or oblivion I hardly understood “drowning” But it sounded right Still does in hindsight

Assimilation into what gives life Knowing escape is impossible Knowing escape is incomprehensible There’s probably a word for that

But I guess… I just don’t… I don’t know it yet

—–

Cognitive dissonance is my constant, isn’t it?

Intentionally unintelligible Screen fed Scream dead

I want to be heard Not just heard

Fuck, fucking fuck Rewrite More blood Learn to fucking write More blood Fuck fucking fuck Rewriiiiiite

Ignite the cathartic hemoptysis Lowly fucking plagiarist There’s not enough blood Rewrite Fucking fuck Learn to fucking write What the fuck is wrong with you?

Try try again There’s not enough blood Rewrite

Do it again, get it right Fuck You’re better than this

Needs more blood Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite Needs more blood More blood, more blood, more blood Needs more blood Fuck!

—–

This apathetic anxiety is conflicting within me My suicidal ideation is misplaced reciprocation With its Psychomotor agitation conflating insomnia-fueled deliberations Thoughts and veins in a race; pumping red cells and neurons as I Pace, pace Pace, pace I don’t care, but know I should I would care, but know I can’t

Nihilists have the righter idea And the solipsistic to an extent: Life has no inherent value Conscripted shepherds are buried at sea

I’m drifting from shoreline

Fear and boredom cannot cohabitate I’m so numb… Existential spacial awareness fleeting I’m so numb… Gnawing nails, spitting blood Luring sharks in the flood I’m so numb…

Tying cement shoes as I slip into seabed Inhaling a wife worth of salt, Lot’s Lungs filling like the Exodus plague Entrenched by an excessive weight That snaps my necklace Experiment intended to fail Though if I had kicked myself beyond the pale… Who is gonna argue with the results?

Since when was my end something you could contend? Who are you to tell me how I feel?!

I’m aware of my mistakes Don’t remind me! I’m aware of my mistakes They taught me knotting I’m aware of my mistakes They haunt me, pushing Don’t remind me

A forsaken toxic desert, sandstorming a dry drowning

The sharks are… (they’re just fish) The sharks are… Surrounding The sharks are… (they’re just fish) The sharks are… Devouring The sharks are… (they’re just fish) The sharks are… Expounding

Somewhere beyond this sea My angel stands on golden sands Beyond stars, beyond the moon My heart will lead me there soon Happy, I’ll be And never again… Never again… Will I go sailing

-----

BONUS TRACK

Factories of plastic produce society's static Routine after routine, spick and span The children are laughing with eyes and ears shut Schools and parents pass doctrines of Grow The Hell Up No time to play, no time to lose Week after week, plights and plans Sell your soul, make a quick buck American dream? You’re shit out of luck No honor for a military losing their lives Being fodder for an American Reich Money is king with no change to back it up Plutocracy thrives off the worst of us Silence is key in this gilded age Reject the dissenters Sound Drowns Sound Bounds Hear them come a-marching Beating a drum of rotten rawhide Look at the puppets, see how they dance, They look like little people with little pairs of pants Watch them speak, watch them pray, gaze at The scrambling when they haven't been told what to say Isn't it cute, isn't it neat? Isn't it such a fucking treat?! Isn’t it fun, isn’t it rad? How could something publicized be any bad?! A house divided surely cannot stand They cite century old manuscripts To justify their intolerance Slavers seeking asylum Unbeknownst to industrialization History is catalog of predictable ironies Morality is but a fleeting zeitgeist Occupy the cities, blood up to our knees Tear down these walls, chop down cherry trees Taking back what was stolen We smile as Big Brother’s watching Violence begets violence Reciprocated gouging leave us blind Real men fight real fights, They don’t piss themselves over petty gun rights The second revolution won’t be fought with arms Come and keep your comrade warm Power to the people but people are yet to be found Power-hungry steeples point to abstract nouns Power-outlets breed disinformation Plug in your eyes, unplug your mind Unpopular opinion is on the rise Feed them your lies, dispose of our lives [Unpublished opinion will be your demise] The Binary State The only thing we love is our right to hate One on one You against us Tyrant or patriot? Only prying eyes judge Become the narrative of complacency Bow to your corporate masters Alone, we are nothing Together, we’re a swarm “If a plant cannot live according to its nature, it dies; and so a man”

[lymanjosh]

do you have any tips on bringing up ADHD to a therapist? I desperately need help for it but I don’t want my concerns dismissed because stuff like adderall is heavily misused :(

i had like two pages of an answer for this (and it was coherent, even, if you can believe it) and then i refreshed the page like a dumbass so this is take 2, which is Less Coherent and im sorry but theres nothing i can do about it

so im not an authority on the subject or anything, and i don’t know your situation, and also ive been diagnosed for like 2 weeks, so you can pretty much take everything i say with a grain of salt. what im gonna do is im gonna run through my own experience / what i wish i did differently / what im doing now, and i hope it helps, and you can totally feel free to come back if you wanna talk more at all once im finished!! and i really hope that at least something i say here is of help to you

also this is gonna be rambly and im sorry about that but i don’t know any other way to be. im gonna preemptively forgive myself because youre like me so you get it but im sure it’s not easy to read so for that i apologize.

tldr: know concretely why you think you have ADHD and what treatment options you want to pursue, do like 3 times more research than you think you need to do, write down all your symptoms in advance, cite your past history of mental health treatment if you have one, and try not to worry too much. if your therapist is any good at their job they’ll know you’re not just drug-seeking, and they’ll recognize the symptoms and problems you discuss when you bring them up in the context of ADHD. probably you’ll be okay, and you’ll get the treatment you need.

so i spent most of my teen years in a drug-addled haze. i was depressed and anxious because i couldn’t Fucking Do Anything, and my parents were worried so they took me to the doctor, and the doctor was worried so she sent me to another doctor, and this continued for a long time and i was on like 4 different antidepressants and 4 different antipsychotics and also some anti-anxiety meds between the ages of like 15 and 16. it was heavily traumatic and also not fun, and the reason all this happened was that nobody stopped to think that maybe i might share some genes with my dad, who has been diagnosed inattentive since before i was born.

right off the bat i should have been way more up in arms about self-advocating, which is something you’re clearly doing, so that’s awesome and you should give yourself a pat on the back because that’s really difficult in the mental health industry especially when you’re already fighting your own brain on most things. 

hopefully you haven’t been through a wringer of false diagnoses and nonsensical prescriptions, but if you have, then you can guilt your doctor a little bit. “i was traumatized! i was given dangerous psychoactive drugs during a critical phase of neural development! you have to give me stimulants to atone for your sins!” phrase it exactly like that, it’s like a silver bullet. in all seriousness if you ahve past diagnoses of anxiety or depression or anything to do with emotional dysregulation that can help your case, because you can point out that a) these things are common misdiagnoses for adhd, and b) the symptoms for these things logically emerge from things like emotional hyperarousal and rejection-sensitive dysphoria. 

what i should have done, and what i think you should do, is write down your symptoms in advance, because then you won’t have to spend an hour hemming and hawing and trying to thnk of them all in the doctor’s office. i did not do this. it didn’t prove to be a problem because my doctor was kinda irresponsible but i really should have done this, just for my own benefit.

when i actually brought it up to my doctor that i might have adhd i had a couple different things going for me. i was talking to my GP, and not my therapist; im not in therapy (which you can probably tell) because therapists creep me out, but i think physicians are probably more inclined to throw drugs at it than therapists are. my GP was also brand new to my case– i had never even met the guy before. i mentioned my history of mental health treatment, and i also mentioned my dad being diagnosed, and im also a girl (girls are chronically underdiagnosed and extremely likely to be misdiagnosed with either anxiety or depression), so i had some concrete facts to support why i had suspicions. i had also done a shit ton of research beforehand, so i advise you to do that– know concretely why you think you have adhd and what treatment options you want to pursue.

you might benefit from talking about it with your doctor before your therapist, but idk that might just be my fear of therapists talking. i think a doctor is less likely to want to taco bout it than a therapist but that may just be my specific experience– you know your situation better than i do. and admittedly a therapist is more likely to, like, Know You and know what you’re talking about when you say (for example) that you’ve always struggled with emotional dysregulation, or whatever.

something else that might help you– i wish i had done this not because i don’t want to look like a drug-seeker but because i Miss Coffee– is to bring up non-stimulant treatments like strattera (for adults) or kapvay or intuniv (both for children but sometimes prescribed to adults) because it’ll show you’ve done your homework and it might be a point against writing you off. stimulants are usually the first resort for adhd, so it’s highly likely you’ll end up on adderall or another stimulant, but it’s good to bring up as an option. might also be good to research it as a serious course of action, especially if you suffer with anxiety, because stimulants are likely to make you more anxious.

i would also advise you not to fixate on adderall? idk enough about your situation to know if you’ve done that but it’s good to be open to other medications and treatment plans bc if adderall doesn’t work for you it doesn’t work and there’s not a ton you can do about it. you should for sure read up on other treatments– you might find one that sounds more appealing, or at the very least you’ll know what to think if your doctor brings up another one unexpectedly.

so i brought up to my doctor that i might have adhd and he immediately plonked a questionnaire in front of me. i filled it out (spoiler alert most of my answers were “often”) and he was like “oh this is textbook, let’s get you on adderall” which like WHAT. i didn’t even ask about adderall. like im not gonna argue with you but let’s talk about this first before we break out the stimulant medication. but i’ve been on it for a couple days and no major side effects yet so maybe he was right who knows. anyway he was super irresponsible don’t let your doctor just prescribe you meds at random go through the side effects. always ask about the side effects. i get such bad headaches after it wears off. i have one now and its Bad. 

but as an addendum you should for sure be prepared to use other coping mechanisms. i’ve started using a bullet journal since i was diagnosed which i’ve found works really well, and youtube channels like howtoadhd are really helpful to me!! i try to use the meds sparingly because i Don’t Like taking pills and also bc adderall can be habit forming, and because i hope to eventually be able to function without it, and i advise you to think of it the same way. drugs don’t have to be a permanent fixture in your life– you can use it as a temporary tool while you build up the necessary coping mechanisms and mental pathways to function without it. adhd isn’t broken brain, it’s just brain on hard mode, if you know what i mean. i try to think of the meds as training wheels– i learn to function with it, and then i gradually learn to function without it. so idk if that’s a useful way to think about it for you but to me it feels more hopeful than resigning myself to a lifetime on more drugs. idk. 

but even if you’re okay with that, adderall isn’t gonna make you functional (it might. kinda feel like you’re magically functional. that’s how i feel right now, that is to say when im not headaching.) so you have to have systems in place to make it easier for yourself. some kind of productivity app might help ig (i used ike for like 3 days and then my phone died and i forgot to charge it for a week because that happens to me sometimes, but i liked ike!) but i like analog todo lists. feels good checking stuff off. either way is good though. 

also get your phone to send you alerts. also rearrange your stuff. like, make the world around you conducive to your functioning. do your best to create and live in a space that enables you to do the things you need to do. get accommodations at school if you need to (i haven’t done this and can’t tell you how but there are a ton of online tutorials and you can probably just google your school + accessibility, or something, and that’s assuming you even go to school)

but yeah i hope any of that was helpful to you and im sorry to make you do 1 million hours of deciphering my shitty informal writing style and i love you and i want to help you please come back and let me know how everything goes bc im gonna worry about you otherwise

[nightcoremoon]

Looool just in case no one ever explained the meme "don't you hate it when it's 9 in the afternoon and your eyes are normal sized" to you here it is; 9 in the after noon is a song by panic at the disco and it goes "nine in the after noon, eyes are the size of the moon" So the joke is that their eyes aren't the size of the moon, it's more of a reference I'm by no means pretentious but I saw ur comment on that post and thought just incase no one had told u yet I would lol x

bruh.

i own fever you can’t sweat out, pretty odd, the deluxe version of vices and virtues, too weird to live too rare to die, and the nightmare before christmas soundtrack, and i’m gonna buy death of a bachelor and the suicide squad soundtracks as soon as i have the money to. i regularly listen to nine in the afternoon; the original, the acoustic, a live version, i even downloaded the fucking stripped a capella version. i get the joke, i get the reference, i get the meme.

but. look.

this ask, right here, is the literal definition of pretentious.

just in case no one ever explained pretentiousness to you, “attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.” is what you get from googling the word. in layman’s terms, if you take delight in having information other people don’t have and then turn around and make fun of them for it, or attempt to condescendingly educate them about it, even if in this instance they probably didn’t listen to baroque pop on alternative rock radio in 2008 because of, gee i don’t know, various other chart toppers such as miley cyrus, avril lavigne, britney spears, justin timberlake, taylor swift, lil wayne, rihanna, katy perry, flo rida, kanye west, beyonce, lady gaga, t.i., the jonas brothers, nickelback, coldplay, fall out boy, linkin park, avenged sevenfold, the offspring, and michael jackson (posthumously), then you are being pretentious, especially if the person you’re speaking to already knows. panic is american so i’m going by all the artists that had songs that were in the top 40 and not the obscure gems that you can’t find on mainstream pop radio, which is what the majority of people listened to during the time of the song in question’s popularity. oh look i just gave you information you probably already knew in a feeble attempt to make myself look better than you by comparison even though that probably wasn’t my original intent. oops.

regardless, my original point, the post i made in the first place that prompted this ask (i literally scrolled for ten minutes trying to find the post in question and i did not post this within several days on account of i haven’t posted at all this week), still stands. art history nerds are one level of pretentiousness, but the fucking overzealous “emo trinity” fanboys and fangirls hold the crown. the superwholocks, weeaboos, terfs, and egalitarians are all close seconds but they’re more annoying and misinformed than pretentious. i cited the nine in the afternoon post specifically because if you don’t listen to 2008-era panic! at the disco, which a fuckton of people didn’t, then you’re probably not gonna get a post that just reeks of absurdist surrealism that blends in with the rest of the nonsensical bullshit on this demented hell site. it pisses me off when people sneer and snicker, circlejerking, pointing and laughing at the people who actively don’t inform people asking questions. “i don’t get it, someone please explain it to me so i can understand” “WOW WHAT A FUCKING DUMBASS, LOL, NOBODY TELL THIS JOKER WHAT THE REFERENCE IS” it just leaves potential newcomers to your fanbase with a bad taste in their mouth. they just might end up becoming one of the “haters” that are spawned from caricatures and misrepresentations about your group. trust me as a brony, a metalhead, a weeaboo, and a handful of other media demographics that get marginalised by the majority of the internet, annoying stunts and displays of elitism don’t do anybody any favors. it’s the embodiment of pretentiousness, which is why i referenced that specific infamous post.

if my deconstruction of snobbish asshattery in turn makes me a snobbish asshat, then that label doesn’t bother me because i know i am one and the shoe fits.

but now you know why i made the joke that i did. Looool