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superman86to99 · 4 years

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Superman #84 (December 1993)

Superman takes a short Paris vacation! Like, one day short. What's the worst that could happen?

Oh, man.

So, for the past few issues, we've been hearing about children being abducted in Metropolis. Now we see that they're being kept inside a giant toy house by some creepy bald man in Quasimodo clothes who seems to be obsessed with toys -- a "Man of Toys," if you will. Side note: no wonder the children haven't been found... all the articles about them are just gibberish! (See clip below.)

The kidnapper thinks that these kids' parents don't deserve them, and that they're much better off here, in an underground hideout with a man who threatens to starve them if they don't play with him. (And I do mean literally play, with action figures and stuff.) Meanwhile, as these children cry for help, Superman is having the time of his life. While helping move a stranded ship with some huge-ass chains, Superman spots a sunken galleon with a treasure chest inside and fantasizes about keeping the booty...

...before turning it over to the authorities anyway, the big boy scout. Then, he wakes up Lois at 6 AM and tells her they should go to Paris right now, which usually means your significant other is having a mental breakdown, but in this case they can actually do it. And so, after deciding that he deserves to use his powers for fun every once in a while, Superman and Lois drop everything and fly to France with super-speed for the rest of the day/issue.

Anyway: back to the child abduction! Cat Grant and her son Adam attend a Halloween party at Adam's school, but there's a disturbed weirdo in a hideous costume lurking among the crowd. Yes, I'm talking about Jimmy Olsen in his Turtle Boy suit.

Shortly after that, a guy in a dinosaur costume (see, all the creeps are dressed as reptiles) lures Adam out of the party with the promise of "superb video games." What child could resist that? Of course, that turns out to be the kidnapper and Adam ends up in his hideout along with the rest of the missing children and, worst of all, not a single "Lextendo" console.

The kidnapper gets angry at Adam when he refers to the toys at the hideout as "old-fashioned junk" (he was REALLY looking forward to those video games), and even angrier when Adam tries to free the other kids. Adam is brave and puts up a good fight, but...

And those were Adam Morgan's final words. "Uh-oh."

Next, we have a pretty harrowing scene of Detective Turpin letting Cat know Adam’s body was found, and Jimmy and Perry White taking her to the morgue to identify the body (most people probably wouldn't bring their former boss to something like that, but Perry sadly knows more than most about losing a kid). As for Lois and Clark, they were gone so long that the Daily Planet had time to print a headline about the murders. The issue ends when the lovebirds walk into the office smiling like two people who just spent the night fooling around in Paris... only to feel like jackasses when they find out what happened.

To be continued!

Character-Watch:

And that's it for little Adam Morgan who, unlike the also tragically diseased Jerry White, didn't even get any post-death appearances. Adam went from a little kid scared of Superman, to a huge brat, to a character who was approaching likeability as of last week. That's why I hate it when DC kills off young characters like Adam or Liam Harper: in long-form storytelling, children represent potential. Look at how much Wally West or Dick Grayson evolved over the years compared to their mentors! Sure, there's a huge probability that Adam would have ended up disappearing from comics for 25 years anyway, but who knows, maybe we'd now know him as Teen Gangbuster or something. GangbusTEEN.

This issue also represents a turning point for the kidnapper, who is never named or seen clearly in the story itself but I don't think I'm shocking anyone by spoiling the fact that he's Toyman (it's in the cover, for one thing). In his last two appearances before this storyline, Toyman helped Superman save some kids from Sleez and looked genuinely sad to learn about Superman's death, so this is a pretty dramatic change for the character. We'll find out why he went from big softy to child killer in Superman #85 (but don't get your hopes up).

Plotline-Watch:

The most disturbing part of the issue, all things considered, is still the part where Toyman climbs into a giant crib and hugs a huge stuffed bunny. Look at serial killer Tommy Pickles here:

Don Sparrow says: “Even with the upgrade, Toyman is still just a man in a suit, a common complaint about Superman’s rogues gallery.” Funny you should say that, because I JUST shared an old Wizard interview in our Twitter in which Dan Jurgens talks about how Doomsday came out of his frustration with the fact that most Superman villains are dudes in suits (plus other interesting tidbits from the era, like how it was actually Roger Stern’s idea to bring back Hank Henshaw, so check out that link!).

Don again: “The entire Superman storyline of this issue feels like filler. Diving for buried treasure and soaring off to Paris -- it all feels like wasted time next to the Adam storyline.” I have a theory that the entire ship sequence is there as an excuse to put Superman in those big chains and make that Spawn joke (which I didn’t get until now, since I’ve always read this issue in Spanish).

Superman says that pulling that big ship was "a little easier than expected" -- that's either another hint that there's something going on with Superman's powers since he came back, or a subtle dig at the state of American ship manufacturing.

Another adorable "window tap" scene for the books, and this is the sexiest one so far. Is it me or has Jurgens started copying more than just Teri Hatcher's hairdo from Lois & Clark? (For anyone who thinks Lois has gotten implants, I refer you to this clip.)

While in Paris, Lois asks Clark if he's ever wondered what would happen if his rocket had landed in other countries. Don: “Clark’s conversation with Lois sounds like a bunch of concepts for Elseworlds stories. We eventually would see a Russian Superman, and a British Superman, but not yet the French Superman. (Hire us, DC!)” Yep, got my French Superman pitch ready, Jim Lee. Or just let us do Russian Superman again, since Red Son wasn’t even the first time you published that idea.

Don once more: “Another thing that makes no sense about the ‘new’ Toyman is his resentment of technological toys—when in previous appearances he himself had deadly high-tech toys to vex Superman over the years.” I especially resent his hatred of video game consoles. Incidentally, I wonder what types of games are available for Adam’s beloved Lextendo. Star Lex 64? Mega Man Lex? Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles & Lex?

No one is more upset at Lois and Clark for going AWOL than Whit. NO ONE. He's so furious that his usually grey mustache turned black.

Patreon-Watch:

As always, shout out to our patrons, Aaron, Murray Qualie, Chris “Ace” Hendrix, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Patrick D. Ryall, Samuel Doran, Bheki Latha, Mark Syp, Ryan Bush and Raphael Fischer! Last month’s exclusive Patreon article was about the recently unearthed sequel to Superman 64 for the PlayStation, featuring Metallo, Parasite, and Lois looking even hotter than in this issue:

Hot damn. Find out more at https://www.patreon.com/superman86to99!

And believe it or not, Don Sparrow has even more to say about this issue. Read his section after the jump:

Art-Watch (by @donsparrow):

I should start off my section with a big caveat: I flat out hate this issue. There were several weird decisions made in the post-Death-and-Return era (most of them along the same lines of making the Superman titles more grim-and-gritty), and this story was one of the worst of them. My theory is that, despite the praise and record-breaking sales of the Death and Return storyline, the Superman creative team felt pressure to have more extreme storylines, perhaps in response to the wildly successful Image books coming out at the time. Between this story, and the upcoming “Spilled Blood” storyline, the Super books take a hard—but temporary--turn into more violent and upsetting storytelling—even though these stories are by the same writers as the previous few years. While death has always been a part of comics, and Superman comics was no exception, there is a jarring glibness and unfeeling toward the way violence is handled in these pages that is quite different from the stories that preceded it. It’s made all the more jarring by the fact that well-established personalities suddenly veer wildly out of character, Toyman chief among them.

We start with the cover, and while it is technically well-drawn (by the familiar team of Jurgens and Breeding) it’s also a very upsetting visual. I think they should have gone with the pieta type pose with Adam and Superman, OR the scary badass bowie-knife Toyman (who apparently has a Cheshire cat smile now) but not both. But the cover is a good hint at the tonal dissonance of the comic within.

We open with a splash of the now-extreme 90s looking Toyman, with his serial killer shaved head and spooky cloak, ignoring the pleas of hungry kids he has locked up in a tiny jail cell for days at a time (if that sentence doesn’t ring alarm bells for how wrong this is for a Superman story, I don’t know what will). For much of the issue Toyman’s eyes are obscured by glare on his lenses, further de-humanizing a character who was once one of Superman’s more empathetic bad guys.

We cut to Superman tugboating a huge tanker with giant chains and it’s a cool visual (one repeated in the Batman V Superman film). It feels especially out of place to focus on, given how upsetting this issue is otherwise, but throughout the whole comic, Lois is drawn smoking hot, especially on the two page spread on pages 9-10.

The scenes depicting the actual murder, while still wildly out of place in a Superman comic, are well done, and give a real sense of darkness and menace, which I suppose is the intent. Perhaps my least favourite visual is the Big Bird stuffie, silently bearing witness to what’s about to occur.

The edges of the panels on get more slashy and off-kilter (to me, looking very much like the layouts more typically seen in Image comics of the day) and I suppose I appreciate the restraint of how little Dan Jurgens shows of the death of a child, showing only a bloody slash on a black background. This is still a pretty baroque image for a Superman comic, but certainly less violent than it could be, given what is happening.

Cat Grant’s silent horror is well staged, and powerful in its way. Lastly, Clark Kent bending in sorrow and regret is a powerful image.

While this issue is handled marginally better, and more maturely than other comics on the shelf at this time, I still believe it is one of the biggest mistakes of the era. Giving a long-established character an unceremonious death for shock value is gross on its own, but making it a child definitely crosses a line for me. Making it worse is that, while the Toyman is a criminal and a killer, he has shown in past issues (a similar kidnapping storyline involving Sleez) that he genuinely cares for the well-being of children. So for a long-time reader, this also felt like a betrayal of a long-established, fully developed character. Adding to the ugliness of this is that Adam dies heroically, trying to free the children who have been caged, unfed, for days, but even in that regard, he fails. The headline at the end of the issue confirms all the children are dead. Adam’s death did not buy the other kids enough time to get away. It was all for nothing. Had Adam died, but the other children lived, maybe this issue wouldn’t leave quite as bad a taste. [Max: It’s weird because it’s all told in a way where it’s told in a way where it would make sense, narratively and within the story universe, that the other kids survived, but then it’s almost casually revealed that nope, they died too. A scene of one of the kids relaying Adam’s heroism to Cat in a future issue would have gone a long way.]

Superman doesn’t come off well in these pages, either. It’s honestly the type of story they should just stay away from, because the more you think about all the calamity that is going on around the clock, the less defensible the whole Clark Kent persona becomes. Superman carving out time to romance his fiancée directly led to the preventable deaths of innocent children—how do you come back from that?

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

I’m always looking for hints that perhaps Jimmy or Perry know Superman’s secret identity deep down, and Jimmy’s anger at Lois and Clark on their return to the Daily Planet offices would seem to give that theory some credence, as he’s as angry at them as if he knew Clark really were Superman. Either that, or he’s ticked that it fell to him, and none of them to escort Cat into the morgue. [Max: Has this issue finally converted you to the “Jimmy is terrible” side now, Don?]

I don’t think I’m the only one who disliked the new Toyman—SPOILERS BE HERE: years later, in Action Comics #865, Geoff Johns retconned this whole story, reverting Schott into the criminal who over-relates to kids, rather than the child-killer of this story. Apparently the infantile Schott, who speaks to “Mother” a la Norman Bates, is a robot so lifelike it fools even Superman, and the “Mother” he’s constantly replying to was the real Winslow Schott trying to recall the malfunctioning robot. [Max: That’s one Geoff Johns retcon I really didn’t mind, even if it felt kind of derivative of his similar “all the Brainiacs are robots made by the real Brainiac” reveal.]

#superman #dan jurgens #josef rubinstein #toyman #cat grant #adam morgan #dan turpin #whit #gangbusteen #super luthor fighter ii turbo championship edition

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isthisthingeven0n · 5 years

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my number neighbour : part two

brief summary: after a few months of talking back and forth, it’s finally time to meet one another in person. and what a better time to meet than on new years eve in new york city?

word count: 2.4k requested: yesss by so many people! i’m so glad to continue this story :) warnings: literally none. i just love this so much

* masterlistin’ / masterlistin’ 2.0

(everything on my blog is my own writing. if it is shared on another page or website know it isn’t me. all rights reserved. - i have to start doing this as I had some shit on my other blog with plagiarism)

P A R T O N E

when this goes live i’ll be out at a party with friends so I hope you all have a wonderful new years celebrations whatever you may be doing! and thank you for such a memorable year. none of this would’ve been possible without you guys supporting and here’s to 2020 - maybe Ilya will finally notice me lmao. Love you all, stay safe. x

“Okay, so who is down for Miami?” David asks as he draws a line down the whiteboard, making a note of potential locations for everyone to go for New Year's Eve.

Looking around, David makes a note of those holding their hands up. “And those for LA?” Jason speaks up, and David copies down those names again with a small sigh.

“What about Hawaii?” Corinna suggests and a few voices cheer in agreement. “Or Vegas? New York?” Her voice pauses as she raises an eyebrow to David who clears his throat, making a small note at the bottom of the board for these new potential locations.

“Yeah, those sound good.” David mutters to himself, unable to shift his eyes from New York and it does not go unnoticed by the others.

“I think New York sounds like a good option.” Jeff states, smirking as he glances to Jason who gives him a knowing nod. “I heard there’s someone there too that would like to meet you in person.” He adds, and David smiles to himself as he continues to face the whiteboard.

Eventually, David turns around with a smaller smile. “Yeah, she, Y/n is wondering what my plans are.” David shrugs his shoulder, trying to play it off like it’s no big deal when internally, his systems starting shutting down when you asked.

“How long ago did she ask you this?” Jason questions, sitting upright as David focuses on his feet.

“About three hours ago.” David mumbles, unaware of the shared looks of excitement and adoration for his newfound interest in his number neighbour.

“Well,” Jason rises to his feet, standing beside David in front of the whiteboard. “we can’t disappoint Y/n, so those interested in going to New York?” Jason speaks up, and David lifts his eyes to see the majority of hands raised.

Jason pats David on the shoulder, trying to distract David from overthinking the fact he’ll be able to meet you at last. “New York it is.” David says with a smile as he turns around, rubbing off all the other potential locations and circles New York.

Rushing around your apartment, you kept swearing under your breath.

“What’s got you all flustered?” Nick questions as he leans against your doorframe, seeing your room having been turned upside down.

You remove your head from the dark depths of your wardrobe as you let out a long sigh. “I’m looking for this one dress. It’s that ivy lacy one, you know?”

Nick chuckles to himself, nodding. “Your slutty but not slutty dress?” He rephrases, watching as you rest your hands on your hips. “But super flattering and makes your ass look great dress?” He forces a smile, seeing you roll your eyes.

“That’d be the one.” You respond before returning to your wardrobe. “I just can’t find it!” You groan and Nick appears by your side.

“Probably because you lent it to your best friend.” He trails off as realisation hits you.

“FUCK!” You yell, collapsing down into the wardrobe in defeat. “Of course she had to go and move to Liverpool.” You shake your head, burying your fingers into your hair.

“Why’d you want the dress so bad anyway?” Nick helps you sit upright, removing you from the dangerous void your wardrobe is. You glance up at him, and watch as it clicks into place in his brain. “No,” He raises an eyebrow and your prolonged silence answers for him. “he, he’s coming to New York?!” He yells and you laugh happily.

“I think so?” You say with a hint of confusion in your tone. “Well, I invited him and his friends,”

“You invited the vlog squad?!” He yells once again, gripping your shoulders tightly. “If you don’t get me a chance with Corinna or Zane I’ll move out.”

You roll your eyes. “You have such a varied taste, Nick.” You joke, ignoring his rambles of how perfect he’d be for any of his friends. “But, he didn’t respond about it yet.” You add, and Nick’s shoulders drop in disappointment.

“He’s missing out if he doesn’t come. New Year’s at ours beats any shitty attempt LA has to offer.” He speaks proudly, ignoring the look you give him.

“Nick, you passed out two minutes after midnight and barely remember any of the party.” You remind him, chuckling as he glares over jokingly.

“Well, I’d remember more if David came so I could finally meet the guy who has you digging up a dress you’ve not worn in two years.” He states and you can’t argue back, knowing it’s true.

You didn’t intend for this to happen, but when you first FaceTimed him, he seemed like a genuinely sweet person. He was kinda shy which you liked, but as your conversation went on the more grounded you both felt talking to one another.

Since the first FaceTime you two had, it became almost daily. Eventually, he told you more about his line of work and it clicked where you knew his voice from. You introduced David to Nick, and Nick screamed down the phone which made you laugh hysterically. Since then, Nick has been a cocktail of love, support and amazement that your number neighbour is David Dobrik.

The sound of your phone pinging made your ears perk up as you resurfaced from old jumpers and darted for your phone.

You manage to narrowly beat Nick, and you squeal as you read David’s message.

“Well?” Nick asks eagerly as you type a response before turning back to face your flatmate.

“We’ve got just over a week to find me a new dress.” You say with a smile as you laugh, feeling Nick lift you off the ground as he hugs you tightly.

Fidgeting, you’re barely able to stand still as guests start arriving. You agreed to take a few shots with Nick to help your nerves, but your body seems immune to anything besides growing anxieties.

“Hey, he’ll be here soon.” Nick smiles softly to you and you nod in response, knowing if David would cancel, he’d have the decency to message you first.

A loud knock starts on the front door, and you remain blissfully ignorant as you stand with your back turned, talking to some old friends.

“I gotta admit, I blacked out last year.” One friend tells you, causing you to laugh remembering the whole ordeal.

Sipping your drink, you shake your head. “You and Nick were clearly shot buddies last year then.” You say, watching as she retells the events she can remember, hoping to not repeat them tonight.

As your friend reminisces on 2018 New Years Eve, Nick opens the front door to see David stood with a bright smile and camera in hand.

“Holy fuck.” Nick mutters as David chuckles.

“Hey, Nick.” David speaks up and Nick stutters over his own breath. “I brought some friends with me. This is Zane, Carly, Corinna, Matt and Jeff.”

Everyone waves politely as Nick barely manages to raise his hand to wave back. “It’s good to meet you guys.” Nick manages to force his words out, oblivious to David’s eyes darting around the room in search of you.

“Can we come in?” Corinna speaks up, smiling to Nick who chuckles under his breath before moving aside.

Across the room, your friend's attention is immediately diverted. “Hold on,” She holds your arm, staring straight past you. “you never mentioned him bringing hot friends.” She says with a humourous scoff as you remain cemented on the spot, too afraid to turn around.

“She’s just over there,” Nick moves to stand by David, able to fully compose himself. “you can’t miss her, she’s a stunner in that red dress.” Nick comments with a slight wink as David smiles.

“Thanks, Nick.” David says before Nick walks off in search of Corinna to try and swoon.

Taking a deep breath, David pushes back all the nerves that have built up over the past week. Now is his chance, he flew to come see you, just you. After all this time this is the moment he’s been waiting for since you replied to that first dumb message. Yet, it feels fake, but for once it isn’t a prank.

Walking toward you, David watches as you begin to turn around.

Mentally, you were psyching yourself up for the moment, not sure what to expect.

Neither of you was aware of the eyes pausing, having heard the stories about you two - the number neighbours whose friendship has the potential to blossom. You were the Twitter thread’s idea of fate working its magic.

Facing him, you opened your mouth to speak, but David mirrored your exact actions. “I, erm, hi.” You manage to force the words out, glancing out of the corner of your eye to see Nick facepalm.

David chuckles softly, realising you’re even cuter in person. “Hi, Y/n.” He says softly before bringing you into a hug.

Being in his arms, you began to relax your body from the tension you were holding in. It was comfortable, it felt right being close to him after almost two months of speaking through a screen.

“Oh my god if they don’t end up together I’m going to scream.” Carly comments as the others nod in agreement as you two walk-off elsewhere in the apartment, engaged in conversation.

Whilst talking to one another, hours passed by like minutes. You felt like you had known him your entire life, and the feeling was evidently mutual.

“I can’t believe you’re actually here.” You repeat for the tenth time, and despite your nerves having died down, there is still a small part of your system that is in a permanent state of shock.

His hand slipping down toward yours, David smiles to himself as you intertwine your fingers with his. “I’m glad you invited me. Otherwise, I’d most likely be in some bar in Vegas.” He comments, hearing you scoff lightly.

“How painful that would’ve been for you, Dave.” You joke, hearing him laugh in response.

“So painful. Having to accept free drinks and see Zane drunk,” David sighs heavily. “it’s a hard life.” He comments with a shrug of his shoulder before returning his attention back to you. “But I’m really glad to be here, really.” He squeezes your hand lightly, watching as a smile ghosts your lips playfully.

“I’m glad you came. I mean, I knew we’d meet eventually but, but I’m glad you came for New Years.” You lean against the kitchen counter, looking out from your windows at the hectic citizens thriving below.

David focuses on the features he couldn’t see crisply on video or through photos. He couldn’t see the small dimples or freckles dotted across your face. The iPhone camera never did you the full justice, you’re more beautiful in person than he could’ve anticipated.

“Well, if it means one less single for 2020, I’m all for it.” He comments but as he listens to the words leaving his lips, your hand drops from his. “Wait, I, I meant,” He rambles, but you shake your head.

“I didn’t wanna assume,” You start, both of you stuttering and struggling to find the right words.

“Oh god,” Corinna cringes, looking up to Nick who winces at the sight. “they’re hopeless.”

Nick rests his hand on Corinna’s shoulder for a second, a lightbulb moment occurring. “I’ve got an idea.” He says with a smile. “With Y/n, actions speak louder than words.” He states, glancing to his phone to see the time. “The countdown will start any minute.”

Moving through everyone at the party, Nick walks toward the pair of you. “Oh, hey Nick.” You welcome the interruption, breaking the awkward silence between you and David.

“Hey Y/n, David.” He says with a smile. “Okay, everybody!” Nick claps, offering his hand to you to join him on the kitchen counter.

As you stand beside him, David moves back into the crowd, finding Jeff who looks at him with excitement, only to see it quickly fade. “What happened, dude?” Jeff questions, seeing David looking like a lost puppy.

“I think I fucked it up.” David states, sighing heavily.

“I’m sure you didn’t, David.” Jeff says, patting his back lightly. “I mean, look at her, she can barely take her eyes off of you.” Jeff mutters, motioning up to you as you desperately try to not stare at him.

“So, it’s nearly midnight so everyone pair up!” Nick cheers and everyone rummages through the crowd whilst David nears you, helping you down.

His hands rest on your waist. “I, have you got a kiss at midnight?” David questions, slowly feeling his sense of confidence return around you as you smile to him.

“Is this your way of asking me, Dobrik?” You ask in return.

“If you say yes, that is.” He retorts playfully, watching as you nod.

“I’d love to.” You tell him before moving into the crowd as the countdown begins.

One minute left of 2019, of the decade.

“Do you feel like it’s been worth it?” David turns to face you, wanting to drown out everyone else and focus just on you. “Do, do you regret answering my dumb message when I sent it?”

You scrunch your eyebrows together. “Of course not.” You say as if it were obvious. “You, you coming into my life happened at an almost perfect time. I, I secretly look forward to our calls, knowing you will find a way to make me laugh at something stupid.” You ramble, feeling your heart hammering against your chest.

“After tonight, would you like to go on a date with me?” He questions, but the one thing he’s been wanting to ask you all night is drowned out by the countdown.

“THREE, TWO ONE.”

As everyone reaches one, you rest your hands on David’s cheeks, pulling him closer into you.

The sound of cheers and confetti surrounds you as David deepens the kiss, his arms resting on your wait pulling you closer.

“Happy new year love birds.” Nick yells to you both as you pull away, smiling like idiots.

“Hey, Dave?” You ask, looking up at him. “I’d love to go on a date.” You reply, before kissing him softly. “Happy new year.”

The rest of his friends walk over, joining in the celebrations as the party continues.

But all David can think about is how grateful he is to some dumb trend on Twitter, that he’s able to start a new year with you.

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mrwiseandshine · 4 years

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Roam as an Operating System

Why do people bother with emacs?

It's not like any given feature is better, in any strong sense. And yes, sure, it can do anything, but convincing emacs to do something new is rarely easier than just installing a purpose-built program. Reproducible configurations based on config files are cool, but the emacs design philosophy definitely puts a lot of setup work on the user's back, rather than the creator's.

But fans of emacs, especially heavily-configured emacs, are very clear that doing everything within one program is inherently valuable to them. Why?

Have you noticed we hardly have computers anymore? Computers compute data. We don't have data, these days. We have apps.

/Apps/ have data, internally, and sometimes even provide tools for manipulating it. A good notes program gives you control over the data contained within your notes. This is legitimate and valuable. But it isn't general purpose computation. The web is even worse. Most websites are apps that don't even provide an approximation of general purpose computing. They only contain the content created on them, with barely the most trivial tools for import and export.

Most social media has the same fundamental features. Post text, maybe slightly rich text, with attached images and videos. Yet have you ever seen someone share a screenshot of a post on another social media site? Tumblr and Facebook are effectively identical in the types of media you can post. And yet somehow users find it consistently easier to share from one to the other via taking a screenshot. My theory? Screenshots are a top level function that includes better source and attribution detail than copy/paste, and can function in a single action on both text and images.

Someone who takes a screenshot of a post to share elsewhere is trying to access their data with their computer, instead of with an app. They have to do so via silly convolutions because software actively fights back against that effort. Emacs doesn't fight you for your data. Emacs packages allow you to legitimately manipulate it. To store it, retrieve it, process it, edit it, post it, while operating within a single paradigm and without needing to play dumb games to retrieve it.

This is its true value. With emacs, when you have a piece of text you can trust that you can actually just treat it like a piece of text. You can select it the same way you select any text, your keybindings work the same way as for all your other text. You can perform arbitrary actions on it, like you actually own the text, cause you do. That action can be running a spellcheck, or a search, or posting to your blog, or to twitter, or filing to your notes, or creating a hyperlink, or any other action that you can perform on whatever text you like, once you set emacs up to be able to perform it at all.

And I feel that's what most people really want out of emacs. A lot of them would be fine with using multiple programs, so long as they all actually worked, and weren't siloed apps that prevent general purpose computation. But it's hard to find programs, these days. You just find apps.

Roam has the potential to go either way, at this point. Right now, Roam is an app, even though it has some good integrations. I use org-roam instead, personally. Mostly for privacy reasons, because I like to self-host my notes repository. Roam has enough extra features that I'll probably change over once they add encryption. But it's also significant that I can view my filesystem alongside org-roam, and I can interact with my notes as data, not as app-stuff. I think it's worth paying attention to how to architect these features early, and in particular making the fundamental choice of how and whether to integrate Roam with computation as a whole.

Broadly speaking, there are three choices available. The first is to ignore this whole problem, and leave import and export up to individual integrations. If the community building your integrations is passionate enough, this may even work fine. Second, you could expose full APIs, and hope someone else solves the problem. Someone could build a proper interface for computation, and Roam could be easily set up to take the content and metadata the interface pushes to it, and provide the data the interface wants when asked. Or third, you could do the whole thing yourself, and build Roam-the-OS, with combined filesystem/backup/sync/social/annotation support, where everything you do is already inside Roam and taking notes is a fundamental operation across the whole of your computer.

I'm actually inclined to think the second option is best. Do one thing well, and all that. It's more elegant to have the interface be the fundamental operation and have it merely connect your data to the filesystem/backup/sync/social/annotation plugins. That's fully compatible with everything Roam ought to be able to do, and it keeps Roam itself more pure.

But also, is anyone building that? It's not me, I work in finance and don't actually know much coding. Athens is aiming their sights a bit higher, and integrating social in a way that recognizes its status as an alternative to or overlay upon the whole of the web. But everyone working at building emacs-like interfaces is just working on emacs itself, not reinventing the concept of an operating system. And so Roam has the opportunity to remake the world in its image, by solving the fundamental problem of app-based computing.

We could have a program that treats websites you've read and emails you've sent and margin notes on books in the same way, archiving them and exposing them to search and fitting them into your knowledge graph. Notes should not be a separate data type than social media posts, that instantaneously destroys most of the available value. The tiny scraps left over are enough that people want them dearly, but the fact that you can't annotate your filesystem still represents a deep disconnect from the true promise of the memex. We can do better. We can go further. We can /win/.

#roam research #org-roam #emacs #motive

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dreampai · 5 years

Note

please don't use the term "high-functioning autism." or "has autism." "has autism" is often used by people who treat being autistic like having an illness and separates the person from the fact that they're autistic. "high-functioning autism" was coined by allistics to describe the autistic people they personally find the least disgusting. it's offensive and definitely not a term we like to use in the community.

I'm sorry, I used the term her mother and the police used and I didn't know better, I am ignorant on the topic and thought that was an alright thing to say and that's no excuse, I didn't look it up as it was my only intention to get her story shared as fast as possible because a 14 year old child has been gone for over a week and her disappearance is classified as an endangered missing. I am gonna be honest and say that I didn't even know what "high-functioning autism" means as there is no similar term in Croatian that I know of and I just copy pasted a Twitter caption. Sorry, it was my mistake.

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damnit-samnit · 6 years

Text

all might x fem!reader twitter thread [impreg kink][lemon]

here’s a long-ass transcript of that impreg kink twitter thread i was working on the past couple of days for you non-tweeter folks. i got you. i’ve just been copying and pasting, so be prepared for short sentences and lil errors. enjoy!

you volunteered to be a civilian that needs rescuing for a training sim at UA - a perk of dating a teacher

the kicker? you’re cast as a distressed pregnant woman in need of rescue. you’re definitely not pregnant, but they got one of those fake bellies you can pop on

it’s a big ol belly too — you’re HEAVILY pregnant and it looks like you’re gonna pop out a kid at any second

i’d like to think after the initial shock of seeing your pregnant self, you start purposely falling face first bc you got some cushion and it’s fun! (okay, maybe not for the observers)

anyway, you’re SELLING it. you got the waddle down, you’ve got the hand on your belly as you walk... you should get an award for how well you’re playing the part

aizawa has the kids begin even though all might is late

and, about halfway through class, the no 1 hero finally shows up

he’s off to the side observing, chatting with the kids who are waiting for their turn or have already gone

he knows you’re helping out, just not in what capacity

until you’re, literally, dropped at the rescue zone he’s by and he finally sees you in all your pregnant glory

and ya boy is thunderstruck

eyes immediately zero in on your big belly. he knows it’s not real but... it looks real. and it doesn’t help that you’re waddling over to him, rubbing your stomach

you’re talking to him, aizawa’s talking to him, students are talking to him…

and he’s just staring, sweat beading at the back of his neck, smiling teeth clenched so tight that they might actually shatter

you notice he’s very... tightly wound but you can’t ask about it - everything is being reset and you’re being put back to your rescue position

he’s trying to pay attention to class and do his job but you’re making it very hard to concentrate

he’s interacted with plenty of pregnant people before but seeing YOU pregnant is something else entirely

and he can’t help but daydream that it’s HIS baby you’re pregnant with

round and fat with the baby he put there

and he knows it’s all fake and it’s all for training

but, my god, if he doesn’t want to make it a reality

knock you up with his child—

or, better yet, children—

make you mother

and that desire just worsens every time he sees you

he knows he’s too old for kids and it’s irresponsible but the primal part of him doesn’t give a shit and just wants him to bury his cock as deep as it can get inside you and fuck you until you are, without a doubt, pregnant

meanwhile, you’re worried about how sweaty he looks

and there’s an extended break for repairs after a certain student goes ham on the course

you’re hanging with the kids, showing them your uncomfortable face-first falling trick

then you’re by a tense all might and, joking, you place his hand on your stomach and have him rub it

the pen he was holding in his other hand shatters when he tightens his fist, whimpering

he’s aware of how painfully constricted his suit feels, especially around his groin

not to mention he’s mortified that he’s in public dealing with these dirty thoughts and struggles

he’s a HERO and a TEACHER — he has responsibilities...

but it feels like the class is dragging on and it’s so stuffy. not to mention these repeated rescues of yours are awaking other fantasies of his where you’ve found yourself in trouble and he saves you and you ‘thank’ him

he’s daydreaming about fucking you in empty warehouses, on top of buildings, in alleyways, in his office at Might Tower, in an empty classroom

and in each scenario you’ve got your ankles up near your ears and he is just pumping load after load into you—

both of you unprotected

he hits a strange bargaining stage by then — he’s a good man, a selfless hero, can't he just have this one thing? you completely and entirely tied to him?

and he knows that you’d want a say

but what if you didn’t?

what if you left the decision on children completely up to him?

actually, there would be no real decision—

you would be pregnant. he would make you pregnant. no matter how many times it took, by the end of the day you would be round with his children

he knows that cooler heads would think differently but he can’t think differently

when class ends, an irritated aizawa, having noticed how distressed and distracted all might was during the entire class, assumes he’s pushing his limits and orders him to just go home and rest

he’ll take care of the rest

and all might isn’t sure if he’s relieved or horrified

you know something is up with all might - he’s all sorts of wound up, but at hearing aizawa’s orders you start to believe that his current state is because he’s low on time

and you offer to hang back and leave with him now that your part is done

so while aizawa and the students head back to the locker rooms...

you linger back with all might

and he tries to be good, honest. but you catch him staring and you smile at him and you’re pregnant and glowing and it’s his and shit—

next thing you know, you’re being picked up

he tells himself he just wants to sneak a kiss from you, ignoring the way his blood is roaring through his veins

just a kiss

if it was just a kiss though, why is he moving you both to an empty building on the cityscape, sheltering you both away from any possible voyeurs?

all might is groaning against your lips as his presses his mouth on yours, one hand firmly on your ass, the other in your hair

the fact that your faux belly is the way, sandwiched between you, is making his knees weak

that’s when you realized WHY he was so sweaty

you’re trying to calm him down but there’s no use — back against the wall, you try to reason with him between heavy breaths

but it feels like the man is barely breathing. he’s sharing them with you, not bothering to pull his mouth away, keeping it open-mouthed on top of yours

you’re reminding him you’re at SCHOOL. behave! what if someone comes by? what if there are cameras trained on you? honestly, you don’t think all might would survive a reprimanding from nedzu if it was over having personal... relations while on campus. you’d probably be banned!

and all might knows that he should be good, that he should listen because it all makes sense...

you’re already in his hands, though. already straddling his torso. and gingerly, as if he can’t quite believe it himself, he lowers you just a bit so your crotch is flush against his

although he’s wearing a cup in his suit, you can tell that it's being lifted slightly, dick straining against the plastic containing it

and he’s grinding against you, relieved to finally have friction but frustrated that it’s nowhere near ENOUGH

somehow, someway, he’s swept you up in his haze. and your mind is whispering to you that’s is alright, you’re adults, what’s wrong with a rare quickie? no one would get hurt...

well, maybe it was a little... lowbrow

but you were only human

your hands pass across his chest, thumb brushing against his nipple

he licks his lips

you suggest that, maybe, you should move a little deeper into the building? away from the windows?

and he listens, fingers pressed tightly against your body as he searches for a nook

there’s some closet... thing filled with busted hubcaps that blessedly has a door

once inside, there’s a flurry of clothes being discarded—

by all might, at least. when you go to undress with him, he stops you

“I’ll do it,” he growls, bare-chested and tense, reaching for you

he doesn’t — he stops rolling his suit down when it hits his waist and, instead of helping you shed your clothing, he’s hoisting you back up to straddle his chest, hungry mouth returning to yours

only after you break away for air does his hands, which have been mauling your ass, move up to tug at the waistband of your pants

when you go to help he stops you, repeatedly murmuring “let me” against your cheek as he wraps one arm around you while the other tugs off your pants

and then he’s kissing you *again* and you’re torn between appreciating all his affections and being frustrated that apparently he’s taking his time when, looking at the situation at hand, he probably shouldn’t

that’s when he drops to his knees, bringing you down with him

you’re basically a doll in his massive hands — he holds you up with such ease as he adjusts and further falls to his back and that’s when you know what he’s doing, what he has planned

carefully, he sits you on his face

the sight…

oh the sight is beautiful

he has to be careful that he doesn’t squeeze you too hard but everything about him is wound up and he knows his fingers are going to leave bruises against your thighs but he can’t help himself

because when he looks up, as his tongue and lips work their magic, all he can see is the swell of your stomach and your face peeking out from behind it, flushed and open-mouthed, and your hair is sticking to your forehead and you're making such sweet sounds

and you're divine

one of all might's THIGHS is about the size of your torso - everything about him is large and in charge and that extends to his tongue as well

it finally wriggles and buries inside you entirely, pushing through clenching walls with ease

and you're pulling your own hair

the man is kind, attentive and doting-

and that dooms you

because he wants to make sure, above all else, that you're absolutely, positively, utterly left satisfied

and his mouth and fingers are finding, pressing and stroking all the spots that turn you into jelly

and you tumble over the edge

repeatedly

and each time, after the bucking and squeezing abates, you try and pull away, begging all might through clenched teeth and breathless whispers that he needs to calm down and give you a break, that it's all TOO much and you can't take it

but he won't stop. watching you squirm because of him, hearing you sing out his name, knowing you're helpless in his grasp...

he's a selfish man

he loves when you're at his mercy

and that you willingly (happily!) give yourself to him time after time after time

he laps at your release each time it flows, strong fingers making dents in the fat of your thighs every time your quaking body tries to get away

for a moment he wishes that you neither of you had to leave this strange closet filled with dented hubcaps and other collected debris

but he catches himself before his brain segues into more melancholic thoughts and he forces his mouth away from your slick entrance

you’re relieved, closing your eyes as the muscles in your legs randomly fire off, taking the opportunity to catch your breath

and all might is decorating your inner thighs with soft and open-mouthed kisses, patting and cupping your backside approvingly

you notice then his hand moving, slithering from your ass to your legitimately plush stomach—

where he starts to rub gentle circles

even though the stomach is HUGE and juts out extensively from your body, it still feels so small and frail in his palm

and the intonement that he did this to you, he knocked you up, repeats in his head

the huff he releases barely disguises the whine that bubbles from his throat

a finger presses and slides back into you

you start to prepare yourself for more of his worshipping but he’s not subjecting you to more oral affections

he’s testing the slickness

although you’re soaked and his crotch is uncomfortably damp thanks to the steady weeping of his still-strangled cock, he’s not sure if it’s enough

he’s a well-endowed man and there are some shortfalls because of that — namely, lube is a requirement for your couplings

he doesn’t just... carry it around, though

and he’s trying to think on the fly of ways this could work, what he could do to save this moment

and an absolutely vulgar idea enters his mind

a blush stains his face and neck while his cock twitches approvingly

you’re both moving again — you’re on your back and all might is on his knees, rolling his costume further down

relief washes over his body when his cock is finally freed, throbbing and angry red at having been left to suffocate for so long

he hooks his arms under your knees

you’re being dragged and tilted up toward him, backside pressing against his lap

and after a few indulgent strokes, he lines his dick up with your entrance—

but he doesn’t push in

instead he dips the head of his member into you, sliding it up and down against your folds

eventually starts to pump his shaft, tight fist moving in tandem with the slight rocking of his hips

but when the head of his cock escapes from your lips, he doesn’t pop it back into place

he releases himself to grind against you, watching as his cock seesaws and parts your sex

he picks up speed, enchanted by how your body ripples each time the top of his thighs slap against your ass, which only makes him grunt and move faster

you’re torn between being incredibly turned on by the sight and feel of him rubbing his length against you—

and wanting more

you’re trying to tilt your hips to catch and guide him inside to fill and satisfy the noticeable empty

and he wants to

god you have no idea how badly

then you’re being dragged up higher so he can better press against you, your lower back complaining when he ruts against you harder

his normally upright bangs are beginning to droop, award-winning smile is gone entirely

he’s huffing and puffing, grimacing and grunting

haphazardly he transitions from grinding back to his original position — tip of his dick poised like he’s about to enter you, rough hand pumping his shaft wildly

you can tell he’s close when tightly clenched teeth finally part and loud, harsh breaths break free

he's whispering "shit" hoarsely under his breath, brows knitting together and you can hear the squelching of his cock in his hand

pretty soon you're goading him on, "that's it baby", "look at you", "come on babe, come for me"

how can he hold back after hearing that?

with a grunt he erupts in his hand and you feel his load coat your sex

even though there's static in his head at having flipped to the orgasm channel, with an odd amount of lucidity he's careful where his come lands and where it collects and pools against you

seconds later picture is cutting through the fuzz, the world returning to him

and he takes a few seconds to collect himself, waiting for the minor numbness to pass, staring at the mess he made-

*purposely* made

heavy fingers are dipping into the come, collecting globs of it and he catches your curious eyes

is he... playing with it?

he's not.

fascinated, you watch as he smears it against his cock, which is still mostly erect. and then he's scooping up more and rubbing it against himself and spreading it across you

and it's dirty and vulgar that he's planning on fucking a "pregnant" woman in a closet at ground beta using his own come as lube because you deserve SO much better

but at the same time, the obscenity of the situation has him horribly aroused

judging from the expression on your face and how blown-out your pupils are, you're not the least bit put off by what he was reduced to

ego pats him on the back when he strokes his once-again hard prick, proud of the fact that he, all might, can go for *rounds*

"look how lovely you look," he coos, petting your still-elevated calves and thighs and then his hands are on either side of your cum-soaked entrance, pulling you apart so he can catch another glimpse of the sweet pink that's waiting for him "look how ready you are for me"

under normal circumstances you would be happily eating up all his reverence but this was neither the time nor the place and, sensing you'd have to be the voice of reason, you reach up and lightly grab at his wrists

"please don't make me wait, toshi"

dearest, how can he deny you when you ask him like that?

as he presses into you, he's mumbling to you again about how beautiful you are and how good you are to him and how perfect you are

you try to coax your body to relax as a familiar stretching sensation starts up and he's doing the same

"good girl, that's it, you take me so nicely sweet one, almost"

and someone your size should not be subjected to a man like him but goddamn if you don't love it

he doesn’t really ‘bottom out’ on purpose for you to recognize, he’s thrusting in and out of you, slowly, not wanting to push you too far too fast

though sometimes with you it seems that he’s never moving fast enough

and that’s dangerous

cutting through careful focus is your breathy voice asking for more, demanding more, pleading for more

and that’s when it starts, your continuous desire for MORE because nothing ever seems enough when you’re with him

and his earlier rutting has left you on the edge and it’s far too soon but you’re already asking him to go harder, go faster, go deeper

meanwhile he’s trying not to get too caught up in how tight you feel, how perfectly you mold around him coupled with your warmth and softness

he’s shushing you, desperately trying to play the gentleman, trying to stay the hero, but that animal inside is awake again and its eyes are back on that belly of yours and how good you look and—

shit shit shit shit shit

all might suddenly pushes himself against you, still balancing on his knees but otherwise falling overtop of you

you’re being bent more than you should be

a tense forearm is beside of your head

a stinging hand is gripping your waist

by that point he’s stuffing the entirety of his cock inside you with each thrust, hefty balls slapping your ass with enough force that it feels like another hand is there, spanking you

with each completed motion your toes curl and back arches

“gonna make you a mother”

exclamation points spring up in your head at hearing him growl that, wide-eyes meeting his

he's so.... focused

he's panting, sweat starting to bead along his hairline and down his forehead, blue eyes *burning* into you

there's something very frightening about seeing him like this - feral, almost. if someone walked in on you, right now, would all might squirm away in embarrassment at being caught?

or snap at them to go away?

you feel something twinge within you: heart? gut? loins? soul?

*why are you so excited?*

the hand at your hip lets go and you didn't realize how tightly he had been squeezing until your body sings with relief

but the thudding, dull pain is vibrating right to your cunt

it makes sense then too, why he kept your shirt on. normally he was adamant about seeing every inch of you-

but he didn't want to ruin the illusion

of you being pregnant

later you'll have to reflect on whether this was a fetish of his or an actual desire

not now, though

when he places his hand on your stomach, it's comparatively nicer than before, gentler

he really is getting into the spirit of things

"look at you," he groans. "look at how round you are."

wonderfully round. perfectly plump. with part of him growing in you. his child that you'll have to dote on. raise. the perfect little mommy

and he shudders and you gasp at a particularly rough thrust and he knows he has to be pressing against your womb

"gonna keep you pregnant forever," he says, punctuating his declaration with another rough thrust, reveling in the way you sing his name

and he's deadly serious, hoarsely telling you in what ways and how many times a day he's going to fuck you to keep you filled with him

he'll have to leave school early, stop home during lunch and between classes, bending you over every surface of your apartment

no that's not true - he's going to have you on your back, just like this, so that every drop of his come safely collects in the deepest parts of you

soon he'll have to go and buy a big estate somewhere where you both will live happily with your perfect children

and there will be photoshoot after photoshoot released to the public of all might standing beside his eternally pregnant wife, both of your arms filled with his kids

this isn't the all might you know. the gentle giant who still blushes whenever you reach to hold his hand, who leans into every bit of affection you give him, who's 'surprised' you with flowers enough that they've become a regular occurrence

but damn if you didn't love it

he wants to see your breasts but he doesn't want to catch sight of the stitching of your fake belly-

and a cry catches in your throat when he rips at the neckline of your shirt, tearing a great gash from the top down, revealing the lacy bra you had hidden beneath

greedily he watches your contained tits as they bounce for him

then he's contorting his large body to lick and nip at the curves of your cleavage, tongue snaking down towards covered nipples

your stomach won't be the only bit of you that gets fatter after he starts to breed you

you're not surprised when you feel a sudden tug at your chest followed by a rush of cold air

he catches one nipple in his mouth, the other squeezed between unforgiving fingers as he mauls your other breast

"these will be heavy with milk soon, won't they?" he asks

you nod

it's starting to get too much for you. it feels like you're broaching your climax but you're just not reaching the summit

you can see the peak clearly but there’s just something missing

and under your breath you find yourself repeating "please" over and over again

and he's pulling his mouth away from your already sore breasts, making sure to burn the image of you like *this* in his mind forever

"you want to have my babies, don't you?" he almost snarls at you and your 'pleases' get louder as you start to just nod

and you keep nodding

"you know how easy it will be, don't you?" he asks

and abruptly he's not moving - and the please you were in the middle of whispering morphs into a deep-throated moan

he's fully embedded in you, his hips twisting from side to side

"feel how deep i am?" he asks

and you're still nodding but that's not what he wants - he wants to hear you

all it takes is a jerk against you for you to cry out a clear, 'yes'

"remember," he grunts, rocking his hips but not quite thrusting, "it'll only take one time. one time and i'll have a baby in you."

because he's all might. he is vitality personified. perfection humanized. one burst of his come in an unprotected womb and he'll have you stuffed with triplets

and then he's thrusting again and his thumb finally, *finally* finds its way to your clit and as soon as the calloused digit skirts across it you understand what you've been missing

you're sighing and mewling, pushing harder against his assault, the stars in your head aligning

while all might wonders how many kids is too many kids: 40? 50?

he's selfish. such a selfish man

but he's going to make sure you both are connected forever

mind, body and soul you belong to each other

and you're going to be a wonderful mother to his football team of kids

they'll be the perfect blend of you both

you come before he does - he hears it in your voice, feels the reverberations of your climax as it rocks through your body

normally he stops when you orgasm, relishing in the way your cunt grasps and massages every inch of his cock

not now though, not today

he has a job

he's not teasing out your climax, not subjecting you to the usual loving round of overstimulation

going full circle, the hand on your clit goes back to your hip, gripping it with enough strength that he might even bruise the bone

"dearest, i'm going to pump you full of babies," he's groaning and growling. "you'll be mine forever, won't you?"

he might break every bone in your body with the ferocity of his movements but you're too caught in that wave of pleasure-pain to care

all you feel is pressure

somehow he finds the ability to go faster and harder, babbling about how big he's going to make you, that you're going to be absolutely glowing with pregnancy by the time he's through with you

and in the back of your mind, you're wondering if you're going to walk away from this encounter knocked up, even with you on birth control

99% effective at preventing pregnancies...

did doctors ever account for all might when they were drumming up those odds?

then his muttering dies down, replaced by harsh panting as his world grows too suffocating and he's almost there, so close

shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit

he's picturing the internal scene in his head, of his endowment barreling back and forth across your channel-

the red, angry head of prick eagerly kissing your womb-

how empty it was at the moment-

and how much one of his loads would fill you

he's getting closer and closer

his tempo is falling apart

he looks desperate

like this is something he *has* to do

because god, it's all he wants

so focused are you on the show, on the sensations of him, that you can't gather enough presence of mind to sigh your praises to help tip him over the edge

you don't need to

"i'm gonna," he starts up before the warning falls apart with a hiss

and he tries to warn you again but that falls apart too

he pushes his body back up so that he's kneeling again

he's holding you by the waist

watching as he fucks you

"fuck," he whines. "fuck, darling, fuck. i can't. i have to-"

what he's saying doesn't make sense. he can't what? he has to what?

the statement is just nonsense falling from his mouth

then the ability to talk leaves him

thankfully, *thankfully*, there is a portion of his mind that remains cognizant when the sun behind his eyes explodes and the volcano in his groin finally erupts with force

that awareness is what keeps him from breaking your hips when he snaps forward with a breathless roar

and he's doing it, he's filling you, coming, seemingly pumping every bit of seed he has in his body directly into your womb

briefly, he throws his head back as his body convulses with each wave that radiates from his gut

all you can feel is warmth drowning your core

it's only a handful of seconds but it feels longer

you're panting, watching him

he's gasping, looking like he just ran a marathon, foggily staring at the wall directly in front of him

slowly, light returns to his face

bits of his personality is coming back

haggardly his face tilts down toward you

and what a sight he finds

you on your back, stunned, red-faced and wild-haired, clothes torn, knees bent toward your chest

he's still inside you, the overflow of his load oozing out from between your joining

all might swallows and, ignoring the jittering of his body, he starts to pull out

carefully he's setting your lower body back on the concrete floor as he falls back to sit on his ass

and your little room, your 'closet' crowded with your hubcap audience, is silent while the two of you try and collect yourselves

you throw an arm over your face as you continue to lay on the ground

all might is just breathing

slowly but surely, both your heart rates start to settle down

in the distance, an explosion rings out and the building you're in rattles

right.

right. you're still at ground beta.

when you remove your arm and look up, you catch all might staring

and you know him well enough to sense what he's thinking about, the dread that he must be drowning in as he reflects on not just his actions but the things he implied and said in the moment

like informing you that you're going to be the mother of his children

and his wife

you cough to clear your throat

when you sit up, you blink rapidly, trying to rid yourself of the strong lightheadedness you feel

and then, you're looking at him again

"so you like the fake stomach?" you hoarsely tease, revealing a large grin as you pat the stuffed belly

all might's entire body goes red

and he's crawling over to you, trying to stutter out so many thoughts at once that nothing is cohesive

he's absolutely distraught as he tries to smooth out your hair and eventually his first coherent statement breaks through-

i'm sorry.

and that's all he can sputter out, face contorted with shame and worry, even when you start to rock with laughter

you grab his face, pulling him down to you, covering every inch of it with kisses, and you cooing to him that it's alright, he has nothing to apologize for, it was wonderful, he was amazing, he was good, you liked it

"i didn't know you were so eager to be a father, mister yagi," you tease, eyes flashing with delight

and all might is certain he's going to combust

another explosion, closer, prevents all might from spouting out more incoherent thoughts at you

you two are no longer the only ones in the cityscape

with all might's help you uneasily stand, watching as the number one hero quickly moves to change back into his hero costume

with nothing to clean yourself up with, you're going to have quite the wet spot in your pants when you pull them back on

not only that, the good hero also broke your bra and ripped open a good portion of your shirt

when you point out your predicament to the hero, he flounders

mind working overtime, he cooks up a bumbling plan to protect you —he'll rocket both of you off campus before anyone sees. he'll take you straight home—

"you know," you say, interrupting him, relaxed and patting your stomach. "i'm supposed to return the belly to the school..."

you're grinning when you look back up at him, catching a slackened all might staring at your hand. upon realizing he had been caught starting AGAIN, he falls into a panic until-

"i think i'm going to keep it," you declare

all might freezes

and...

god

you really are perfect.

#holy shit this was so long

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jaredhollyheiditruth · 5 years

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Solicitation of Minors, Part 1 (Chai)

The second issue facing and affecting Jared Knabenbauer (whose name I’m SURE I’ve misspelled elsewhere!) are the accusations against Jared of seeking out minors to “groom” while using his star status and blogs as recruitment tools. While my blog on the Heidi/Jared breakup and fallout was as neutral as I could make it while still addressing the facts, I will be far more aggressive in this post because of the implications herein and the fact that this issue involves serious criminal allegations.

As someone that grew up with a child molester, as someone that was targeted by a rapist, I understand the importance of treating an accuser’s claims seriously.

It is my belief that all accusers should be taken seriously. They should be heard, listened to, and feel valid and safe in making those allegations, and the proper authorities should investigate all claims made to the fullest extent of the law.

However.

The accused has rights, as well, and no accuser is above scrutiny. There is a very bold line between taking an accuser’s claims seriously, and believing them outright without any doubt, question, or expectation of evidence. Our legal system is built upon the Presumption of Innocence, that any accused is presumed innocent of the accusations against them until they are found guilty. It is not Jared Knabenbauer’s responsibility to prove that the allegations against him are false, and his silence is not an indicator of guilt! The first thing a criminal defense lawyer tells you is to keep your mouth shut with regards to any criminal allegations because despite your best intentions, you may inadvertently say things that can be twisted and used against you in court. Sadly, in today’s social media-charged society where people share details about everything from their vacations, to their grocery shopping trips, to the contents of every single meal, being silent is often treated as evidence of guilt.

First, I want to make clear the allegations against Jared. Jared is being accused of swapping nude photos and engaging in sexual conversations with minors. This, in and of itself, is not a crime.

Yes, you read that right.

To elucidate, it is a crime to knowingly transport, ship, receive, distribute, sell, possess, solicit, or access any visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

In other words, if someone posing as an 18 or 19 year old sends you nude photos of themselves, but they’re only 16 or 17, you’re not guilty of a crime as the law is written, because you have to knowingly receive images of underage children, simple as that. The reason for this is because our legal system is based upon a concept known as Mens Rea, or “guilty mind.” It means that an individual’s intent has to factor into whether or not they deserve punishment for an act they’ve committed.

This is entirely different from the concept of Ignorantia juris non excusat, more commonly phrased as “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” Ignorantia juris non excusat applies when you are committing a crime but do not realize it’s a crime.

For example, you cannot fire a handgun at a target in your back yard and avoid legal penalties because you didn’t know it was illegal to discharge a firearm in a residential area. The fact of the matter is you did a thing that the law says you can’t do.

Jared’s situation is different, because the law itself requires the accused to know the age of the person they’re interacting with when they do it, otherwise you cannot prove they knowingly interacted with a minor. This is the reason Chris Hansen’s team on To Catch a Predator take care to explicitly make sure their targets see and acknowledge the “age” of the decoy, because they’re unlikely to get a conviction on the basis of “We thought the decoy’s age was obvious!”

Think about it. If the law didn’t require the recipient to know the images contained minors, a person could easily set up a blog with a bunch of “barely legal 18 year olds,” post pictures of 16 year olds, and then anyone that went to the website would be guilty of accessing child porn. Odds are, if you’ve spent any time at all looking at porn on the internet, you’ve probably stumbled across a picture or two of a late-teens minor that either lied about their age or just uploaded a pic from their phone without even caring about the legality of it. Do you think you should be charged with a crime just because you trusted an adult website to fully and carefully screen every single model and some slipped through the cracks?

And, before I go on to the allegations, I’d like to point out that there have been many people that have confirmed that Jared did, indeed, engage in age checking and state multiple times that he didn’t want kids in his blog.

There’s also the fact that people admitted to having to omit or lie about their ages because Jared was known to boot people that were underage.

At one point, a user by the name Brenn recalls a time where they revealed to Jared that several minors had been posting to his blog, and Jared’s response to finding out about that was to nuke the entire blog.

I should note that, when Jared was informed about minors posting to his blog, he only had two possible options if he wanted to avoid violating federal child protection laws.

1. Report the blog to the FBI and implicate the users as distributors of child pornograpy.

2. Delete the entire blog.

He chose the latter option.

Now, with all of that said, let’s look at the allegations. Rather than do this as a timeline, I will address each accuser one at a time. There are only three, so this won’t be hard.

On April 4th, an individual going by the Twitter name Chai sent an email to NormalBoots, a media company specializing in video game-related content with whom Jared worked, along with many other individuals, including Holly Conrad. In this email, which Chai titled “Regarding ProJared’s Sexual Grooming of Minors,” Chai detailed his interactions with Jared, which he further expanded upon with a full-blown statement to Twitter that reads thusly:

However, as is typical with Twitter, people pressed Chai. They wanted to know more. This was when Chai admitted outright that he had absolutely no evidence to back up his claims.

I apologize for the poor quality of these screenshots, but shortly after posting his statements, Chai went to great lengths to bury his statements, though archived samples and screenshots taken by others still exist.

In addition to admitting he had no evidence to support is claim, Chai took time to answer a few other questions:

Now, the fact that Chai has no evidence of his claims is, itself, no reason to immediately dismiss them. Not everyone keeps extensive screenshots of interactions they make online unless they’re planning on savoring or using them later. In fact, as I said before, the authorities should take those claims with absolute seriousness and investigate them, and we the public should be willing to hear Chai’s words openly. However, further digging has resulted in new information that makes Chai’s claims and testimony a bit harder to swallow...

On November 2017, Chai posted an extensive blog entry detailing a head injury he suffered on November 9th, 2015. This would have been just five days after he turned 16, his date of birth having been confirmed by an archived copy of his old Twitter profile, seen here:

In this blog, posted in 2017, Chai describes suffering a head injury during gym class, and the severe, terrifying symptoms he underwent - symptoms I doubt I would be strong enough to endure - in the months and years that followed. The blog itself is very extensive, taking up several pages, and would be cumbersome to quote or paste here in its entirety. However, the entire blog can be found directly via archive by going here:

https://archive.fo/CEpgE

A full-image snapshot of the blog can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/sIJ7FlY

According to Chai’s own blog entry, the sheer misery of his experiences during those first few months must have been excruciating torture.

It’s probably a blessing he claims he has no proper memory of that period of time.

Now, the experience Chai describes suffering from during that period of time is, without a doubt, something I would never wish on anyone, even my worst enemy. However, if you do the math, that means that Chai cannot properly remember anything that took place between November of 2015 and May of 2016. When did he claim to have sent Jared that first nude along with a tagline of “16 no more?” Oh, that’s right...

So, allegedly, the first nude image Chai claims to have sent to Jared, wherein he states that he’s 16, occurred during a period of time that he can’t properly remember, and what memories he has exist as “snapshots.”

However, let’s continue giving Chai the benefit of the doubt. Let’s speculate in his favor for a moment and say that sometime after he wrote this blog, he started to remember things from that period, and somehow, those memories were clear and unaffected by the significant traumatic brain injury he suffered in late 2015. Chai describes the life he was living between late 2015 and August of 2016.

He was in and out of the hospital, sometimes for days at a time.

He was in constant pain at all times, and would suffer from seizures every few minutes that caused incontinence, falls, and fainting spells.

Such severe fatigue that he was sleeping for 16-18 hours per day.

Such severe depression, pain, and spasms that he was effectively bedridden.

Hallucinations, both auditory and verbal.

Hearing voices telling him to kill people, which got louder and louder each day.

Severely bad short term memory and large gaps in long term memory.

Inability co concentrate

Loss of coordination that prevented writing.

Slurred speech and psychosis.

He states that in August of 2016, he was “somewhat better” and was able to stay awake for 8-10 hours per day, but that the psychosis (that is, the violent thoughts) was getting worse, to the point he told his mother that he’d kill her if she didn’t take him to the hospital. He spent several days in the hospital before having a massive headache that temporarily crippled him, and explains that after this headache, the voices had miraculously disappeared entirely, as had the spasms and headaches. From there, he explains that his life got better and his symptoms rapidly healed over the ensuing year or two that followed.

Now, I don’t tell that story to humiliate or embarrass Chai. If anything, anyone that had lived through these events deserves nothing short of praise for their strength. I tell this story because, when you think about it...something doesn’t add up. Regarding that blog, there are two possibilities:

1. That the blog is truthful, and contains a description that best fits Chai’s recollection of the events surrounding a very unfortunate and painful accident. If this is the case, it means Chai is a strong individual that survived pure hell and came out the other side with a smile.

2. That the blog is a lie, which would imply that Chai invented the entire ordeal in order to garner sympathy from those that read it.

Now, we can’t access medical logs or contact any hospitals due to patient privacy rights, nor would we have any right to pry into Chai’s private life, which is why I’ve limited my digging only to information that has been submitted to the internet by those it concerns. However, no matter which of these two scenarios is the truth, Chai’s testimony hits a brick wall.

If it is true, then it means Chai’s memories of most of the year 2016 cannot be considered reliable. By his own admission, he is only able to recall bits and pieces of events that took place during that time. Furthermore, I think we can all agree that if you were living that sort of life, it would be overwhelmingly difficult to find the mood and motivation to go online and start trading nudes and engaging in sex talk with someone, to say nothing of the difficulty of finding time to do that and study while you’re only awake 6-8 hours per day and spending much of that in and out of the hospital, and even if he did manage it, we can’t rationally place much (if any) faith in the integrity of his recollection of just how those interactions with Jared went, especially in the absence of any corroborating evidence what-so-ever.

If it is false, it means that the story - either in part or in whole - has been falsified for the purpose of garnering sympathy for Chai from those that would read the blog. While this act alone could simply be considered deplorable for the level of deception involved, it would also establish that Chai has a pattern of lying to the public in order to get them to feel sorry for him, meaning it’s not ethical to believe his claims without some evidence to corroborate them.

Either way, the blog does say one thing for certain: Chai’s claims about his encounter with Jared, based on the timeline of his cognitive injuries and the fact that he cannot provide a single shred of evidence to corroborate them, cannot reasonably be accepted as reliable, because either he wasn’t in any condition to participate in nude-swapping and sexting, or he’s remembering events that might not have happened, or he’s lying about the entire thing. We can’t prove which of these possibilities, if any, is the truth, but there’s far too much there to simply dismiss outright.

Update: Direct references to Chai’s surname have been removed from this blog at the request of third parties not directly related to these incidents.

#jaredhollyheiditruth chaiandcharlie

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scratchybeardsweetmouth · 5 years

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struggle between maturity and pettiness regarding fanwork sources.

over the years i’ve learned the importance of reblogging straight from the source, adding sources or adding credit to both original and fan-works, or as much as possible not posting a work at all if i cannot find the source. first, i’ve hurt a few before and got into trouble for being naive. second, for original art, well, it might catch the eye of headhunters, giving an opportunity for the artist to shine or heck make money possibly. one also realizes that when the news show footage they always mention the source especially if it is not theirs because they know exactly who to be grateful for in capturing an important moment they were not able to. most celebrities also credit fanworks when they share them on twitter or other social media because of the awareness in the labor behind creating something.

in tumblr it’s simpler really - most people create photo manipulations and gifs from copyrighted content. this copyrighted content more often than not is downloaded via torrent illegally (free!) than ripped from original DVDs bought online/offline. frames or screenshots are then obtained from these conveniently but illegally downloaded videos, edited, then posted as photo edits or gifs.

now sometimes i really want to rant going HEY YOU COPY-PASTED MY FRIGGING CREATION AND POSTED IT ELSEWHERE WITHOUT CREDIT, but also, i know i frigging obtained frames illegally in the first place. but then again, i know i spent a lot of time editing those to make them as pretty as i could at the time, in order to add aesthetics and possibly emotional weight to the final product. this is the same process for most gifmakers and photo-edit manipulators out there. STILL, I USED ANOTHER RESOURCE TO MAKE THEM THEREFORE I’M NOT 100% CREDIBLE.

it’s not like fanart and fanfic which are absolutely CREATED FROM SCRATCH by the artists, apart from being inspired by original content, so they are not really obtaining anything illegally to create their gems.

i’m torn in trying to reprimand people for not including the source but also completely aware how utterly hypocritical it is of me to tell people off when the only reason i was able ‘create’ is because my footage didn’t come from me originally. so really i should just ignore.

what spurned this nonsense? it’s the photo manipulation of dany and jorah lying down next to each other i did 7 years ago that i see floating in my dashboard once again. (SEVEN YEARS AGO GET OVER IT, SELF). the notes the repost received is now bigger in number than the original post. did the op meant any harm? no, because op is mentioning nothing but love for the piece and even states it was not the op’s work. on the other hand, the fact that a reblog from @coffeewithsugarplease showing that the latter found out it was from me was remarkable to see, and to this user i am in gratitude for the mention. am i glad the repost is getting love? absolutely! am i sad it’s not getting love the way i want it to? yes, pettily. very stupidly pettily. (this is even the better version of a repost. some users straight up repost without credit, without mentioning it’s not their creation, and will fight you to the death about still making the creation available in their blogs)

LIKE, THEY’RE ONLY SHOWING LOVE, YOU KNOW, SO SHUT UP SELF.

#personal #it's not that deep #let it go and move on...#useless rant that i do every few years lol #frustratingly something i always think about #hopefully one day i'll just go meh on this

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okayto · 5 years

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As a fellow adhd librarian, I can't help but ask....how do you deal with the lull times when you have maaaaaybe 4 patrons an hour, you have finished all your projects and there are NO at desk tasks to be done, but SOMEONE just blew it for everyone by being caught doing her homework and ignoring the ONE patron who wanted help, and now you have desk hours and have nothing to do and all computers and books are banned. *twitch* I might have a bit of an issue with boredom right now.

First, that sucks, completely. Curse that ~*~someone~*~ who ruined everything for the rest of you.

Second…can you not use your own computer, or is there not a computer at the desk? If there’s nothing at the desk at all, I am out of ideas and the only thing I can think of is having a chat with whoever makes the rules and being like, “Hey, we agree I’m a good worker, and I get my stuff done, but that means that sometimes I’m at this desk for literal hours with no projects and nothing to do.” Get them to agree that you should be able to do something, even if it’s “only reading magazines/books from the library collection” or something. ‘Cause otherwise, jeez that’s cruel.

If there is a computer at the desk, I have some go-to websites I can browse–nothing objectionable, makes me look busy if someone comes up (because I’m obviously working on the computer!), etc.

If I have a project (however tenuous it is), I can justify searching for resources for it. My projects include:

Bulletin board creation. I can trawl Pinterest and the internet for inspiration anywhere.And once I have inspiration, I need info on the topic…which could be poetry, or cooking, or gardening, or chickens, or whatever.

Helping with collection management for our young adult and graphic novel collections. I haven’t done much but hey, I should probably read these blogs about YA book reviews, right?

Posting to social media, so I look up articles on how to do that engagingly, and I look at other accounts for inspiration/things to share/hashtags to join/tweets to retweet

If using a desk computer is something feasible for you, some ideas for non-project fun things, moving from “okay probably anywhere that lets you on the computer” to “use your best judgement about whether this would fly in your workplace”:

Start with more academic resources (this looks better if someone sees the screen). At my library, I’ll browse our digitized archival collections because I think reading 40+-year-old student newspapers/yearbooks is interesting (and I can get ideas for #ThrowbackThursday posts).

Other university/library/museum digitized collections are also fair game. I have some links in my blog (tagged “link”) and I just save a bunch of stuff when I see something interesting. Places like the Smithsonian’s digitized stuff, or links I find on Twitter by scientists and archaeologists, etc.

Local/national newspapers. If you can get it approved, you could try reading physical copies at the desk, but at my library we also have a digital subscription of the local paper included. And through some library databases, I can read things like the New York Times (or specific articles) without using my “10 free articles a month” thing.

Also, NPR, BBC and other reputable news sites that will have stuff like book reviews, features, etc. On my to-read list is NPR’s “Reading the Game” occasional feature, which looks at video games from a literary perspective.

The Awful Library Books blog is fun and interesting

Mental Floss is also informative and fun

Ask a Manager is great, and directly related to work (in fact, I used it to help me figure out a firing last year), with all the intrigue and gawking you get with an advice column.

Other blogs that are safe for work. So, not The Bloggess because language and stuff that people wouldn’t like in my workplace, but Cake Wrecks and Epbot and Book Riot (maybe not technically a blog, but whatevs) are OK for me.

(IDK about anyone else, but once I’ve read enough recent stuff to know I like a blog, I then try to go back and read things in chronological order. I’ll skip/skim boring stuff, but otherwise, this is a good way to make blog-reading last a while.)

Ebooks! In your library, or Project Gutenberg’s online HTML pages, or through the Internet Archive, etc.

Fanfiction, but probably only if you’ve checked its tags/warnings/visual ahead of time. Like, save a direct link to a fic that’s the equivalent of PG. Start curating a SFW list. When in doubt, don’t browse or search for new fics at the desk. You’d hate for someone to come up behind you just as you scroll past something that’s warned for fisting.

Webcomics–most are colorful so this is really only if it’s completely okay for you to be obviously (to someone who can see the screen) not Doing Work-Work. There are ones like Hark! A Vagrant and XKCD (along with Explain XKCD, and the What If? blog) that are black and white, but most have color. You’d have to decide about contents and propriety. FWIW, I enjoyed reading Hyperbole and a Half (blog/comic combo, inactive), Adventures of Superhero Girl (complete), Girl Genius, and Gunnerkrigg Court (ongoing).

I hope you’re allowed to do something, Anon! Does anyone else have any suggestions?

#I have no idea what I'd do if I wasn't allowed to be on the computer--which I have to use when I have work--but probably I would die or just #links #working in a library #tumblarians #link #good information #website #webcomic #ask

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cherryyharryy · 6 years

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Show and Tell pt 3

Read part 1 here

Read part 2 here

ok this is the last part. It’s a little longer. Please let me know what you think!!!!

Part 3

Y/n’s apartment wasn’t tiny, it wasn’t big by any means, but she’d had enough room for a few parties and it took more than three seconds to walk from her kitchen to the bathroom. But having spent every second of the past week closed off from the world...the walls had to be closing in, they just had to be.

Her phone was nearly as bare as when she’d first bought it, all traces of an online social life deleted during a midnight sob fest, along with the constant flow of texts from her family and friends who were concerned. She had a list of excuses for her boss for whenever she could will herself to step outside her door let alone go to work. And then the crying ensues once more when she remembers that all she needs to slap down on their desk is a copy of this week’s Cosmopolitan.

“Who is it?” Her voice cracked as she unraveled from the thick blanket Harry had given to her for Christmas, stepping lightly towards her door with an angry fist on the other side.

“Your favorite sister-in-law.”

“Oh, God,” y/n murmured to herself.

“I have ice cream!”

Gemma was in fact, equipped with the typical girl-to-the-rescue essentials, rocky road ice cream included among other teeth-rotting treats. All things Harry would hiss at with a smirk.

Fucking Harry. She’d made it fifteen seconds without his smug face behind her eyes.

“I’ve already tried making myself feel better with food.” Y/n kicked the door shut while Gemma situated the mound of junk food on her kitchen island. “Doesn’t. Work.”

“I know it’s no cure, but just think about how annoyed he’d get if he saw all this shit.”

Y/n’s lips curled into a smile for the first time in a long time. “All right, you got me.”

***

“Ugh, I hate when Ross is with Emily.”

“I know,” y/n gushed, biting off the end of a twizzler. “They were so wrong for each other from the beginning!”

“Speaking of…” Gemma started, sighing when y/n rolled her eyes. “You didn’t think I’d come over here and not ask, did you?”

“A girl can dream, can’t she?”

The bag of twizzlers was snatched out of y/n’s hand and Friends was paused on a commercial.

“What happened?”

Y/n peeked out from under her lashes, swallowing against her dry mouth. “What—he didn’t tell you?”

Gemma shook her head. “He hasn’t said much to us other than he’s pissed, and he’s never buying candles again, whatever the hell that means.”

“I’m not even sure how it got to this point. We were fine, at least I thought we were fine...now I’m wondering if things weren’t as okay as I’d imagined.”

Gemma nodded, biting her tongue so she wouldn’t push her into anything she wasn’t comfortable with sharing. “Sometimes we have to take a step back before we get a clear view of the picture. When you’re around someone so much, especially someone you do care for, it’s easy to miss those red flags popping up.”

“I want to say it’s all his fault…”

“But…”

“But I can’t. I’m not exactly innocent here, as much as I’d like to be.”

***

The fumes boiling inside Harry didn’t settle so easily. Every time he checked Twitter to mindlessly scroll through late at night, there was always something about him, or rather her. Speculations were running wild, and he couldn’t stop his brain from succumbing to the same question across all the headlines.

Are they broken up?

Did his fame scare her away?

Are they in love?

A cycle of fear and guilt coursed through him daily, topped off by the pit of anger that was never fully sated. Deep down he knew, he knew he’d have to point his finger at himself, he just wasn’t ready to. Not when he hadn’t heard her voice or seen her face in weeks.

“Sooo, Valentine’s Day.”

Harry moved the chicken around his plate, shrugging his shoulders. “What about it?”

“Come on,” Gemma scoffed. “It’s the national day of love. How perfect would it be if you two—”

“Stop. I didn’t agree to lunch to have this conversation. We’re fine.”

“Oh really?” Gemma raised a brow, abandoning her soup to cross her arms over her chest. “Then please explain to me why you’ve been nothing but a pouting baby—”

“I have not!”

His sister rolled her eyes, chuckling under her breath.

“I mean it.” He sighed, dropping his fork against the plate and digging his palms against his eyes. “Okay. I may have screwed up. But so did she.”

“Mhm.”

“She—you just don’t get it. I...ugh!”

Gemma clanked her spoon against the steaming bowl. “Sooo, Valentine’s Day.”

***

Their first date wasn’t iconic. There was no fancy dinner or sweet picnic by the lake. No hungry kisses under an unexpected rain or shy goodbyes at either’s doorstep. But as more and more dates were added, the first one was long forgotten, and often lied about when their family asked or the few friends who were included in on their relationship were begging to know where Harry took her.

Which is why Harry was begging the universe to let things play out differently this time.

He tightened his coat around his neck and breathed into his clasped hands before stuffing them into his pockets for whatever warmth they could provide. His nose was a bright red and his toes were numb, and if he recalls correctly, history was already repeating itself.

It wasn’t until y/n strode around the corner, all bundled up, with the hood of her coat draped over her head that his nerves kicked into high gear. Her skates hung over her arm and her breath swirled in a mini fog every few seconds. Her eyes were bright though, standing out amongst the generous snow that had appeared overnight.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” He bit his tongue to stop the pet names from slipping out. It was too soon. “I’m glad you came.”

She shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”

I can think of a few reasons…

“I’m just happy to see you. S’been a while.” He sucked in the cold air, letting it fill up his lungs before his next words. “A month and nine days.”

“Ten. A month and ten days.”

“Yeah, yeah s’what I meant.” He cleared his throat and picked up his skates, nodding over his shoulder. “Shall we go?”

Y/n nodded and followed him towards the frozen pond. They sat beside each other on a little bench and slipped their shoes off, their eyes casually drifting to the side, and apologies were exchanged when their elbows bumped together. Once they were ready they stepped onto the ice, slowly. Y/n turned to ask him if he was alright, but his bare hands caught her eye.

“Harry, your hands are gonna freeze!” Y/n ripped her gloves off and held them out, face scrunched up in concern as he stared down at her hands.

“You steady?”

“Yeah.” Her giggles were music to his ears, the reassurance he needed that this date was going well. She was happy. And he was on top of the world. “I haven’t gone ice skating in years.”

They found their rhythm, a few laps around the pond with nervous glances and shy smiles. It wasn’t until Harry’s confidence molded into cockyness that things started to go downhill.

“Can you go backwards?” He slid up beside her, holding back the urge to tuck her hair behind her ear.

“I’m lucky I can stand up!”

“It’s not too hard, look.”

Harry did manage to make it three feet before his balance started to cave. He caught himself, sparing the embarrassment he would have endured if he’d fallen on his ass.

“See?”

Y/n dug her teeth into her lip, shaking her head but decided to try anyway—after all, Harry was a klutz on land, if he could do it, so could she.

“Okay.”

“Just take it slow, like that! Good! You’re getting it!”

When she looked up she had the biggest smile on her face, the last one for the night that would be molded into his mind forever. Right as Harry was about to congratulate her, her skate slipped and her body lurched forward. She ended in a suspense of wobbly limbs, the desperate search for her stable balance when Harry’s hand shot out to steady her. But he was wearing his new gloves, the leather ones that came with a heavy price tag, the ones with no grip.

He managed to grab her arm only for his hand to slide down the length of her coat, and when he tried one last attempt to link their hands together the only thing he accomplished was hauling her to the ice. Her body flipped and her screams sent chills down his spine.

“Y/n!” He dropped to his knees, ignoring the cold and the burn. “Sweetheart, darling, I’m so sorry! You okay? Say something, please, love! Say you’re alright!”

When he helped sit her up the only thing coming out of her mouth were groans and mumbles about her head. Harry tore his blasted gloves off and reached behind, pressing his hand against the back of her head to feel for any kind of a bump, but what he felt was wet, and when he brought his hand back it was covered in a bright, red blood.

“Oh my God, oh my God! We gotta go, gonna take you to the hospital.”

“What?” She groaned. “Why? I just fell?”

“Wait here.” As fast as he could move he raced to get the shoes she’d left near his. Her skates were pulled off and replaced, then he helped her to her feet. “Come on, go slow, easy.”

“Is that blood?” She froze on the ice, eyes widening at his hand grasping her arm.

“Yeah, yeah, m’takin’ you in. You’re gonna be fine—”

“That’s not—that’s not from my head!” She reached her own hand back, yanking it before her worried eyes. “Oh my God!”

“You’re gonna be fine, sweetheart. But we gotta get you to a hospital.”

He shook his head, swallowing the lump in his throat. “No thanks, m’fine.”

“Harry, please, I think these will fit. They’re wool, they’ll stretch.”

“You need them.”

“I have more.” She pulled a second pair of gloves from the pocket inside her coat and slipped them on. “Now take these.”

He slowly slid the gloves over his hands, careful not to catch them on his rings. They stretched enough, it wasn’t a comfortable fit, but it kept the bite of winter air from stinging his skin.

“Thank you.”

She nodded and adjusted her hood before skating away. Harry kept his eye on her as she rounded the pond, once, twice, and then the third time she stopped a few feet away.

“Why aren’t you moving?”

He shrugged. “Don’t feel like it I guess.”

“But this was your idea?”

“Yeah, it was.” His head dropped to his chest, and the familiar shake of his shoulders had y/n skating up to him. “M’sorry.”

“What are you sorry for? We can leave—”

“I miss you. I miss you so fucking much.” His eyes were filled with tears ready to spill when he looked up. They were a bright, glassy green, with the flecks of burnt gold on full display.

“Your eyes…”

“What about ‘em, love?”

“They’re...green…”

Harry chuckled and pulled the bandage further up her head. “Get some rest, darling. Y’keep fidgeting, your gonna push the bandage off.”

“And gold…”

“What?” He laughed.

“There’s gold in there, I see it.”

The lights went out as the nurse pulled her cart out of the room, reminding Harry she’d be back in half an hour to check on y/n’s head.

“Why don’t you try to sleep.”

“I am asleep.”

“No, love, just a little relaxer y’got in there. Loopy, yes, how about you close your eyes, hm? M’not goin’ anywhere.”

She did as he asked and let her eyes drift shut, humming a soft melody as Harry pulled a chair up to her bed.

“Y/n, go to sleep.”

“S’your fault y’know?”

“I’m sorry, I’ll shut up now, okay?”

“No.” She shifted in the bed, kicking the blanket away and pulling it back up to her chin. “When I fell. Woulda landed on my hands if you hadn’t grabbed me.”

“I—I was tryin’ to help.” His voice was a choked whisper.

“Best first date ever.”

She drifted off after that, which Harry was thankful for, thankful for the thirty minutes he had to break down in the corner of the room before he had to pull himself together.

“It’s just too much, being here. Thought it’d be nice but, but it’s not. I’ve tried so hard to protect you, and I can’t,” he cried. “I hurt you no matter what.”

“Harry you can’t take all the blame.” Y/n sighed and tugged on his sleeve. “C’mon, let’s go sit down.”

They ended up in Harry’s car with the heat on full blast. His eyes had dried up but neither of them had uttered a word. Three songs had run their course, and once the fourth started, y/n hit the dash to silence the radio.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I know you wanted to keep me safe...but I think things got out of hand. It wasn’t healthy...what we were doing.”

Harry’s eyes dropped down to the gloves resting in his lap. “We didn’t talk. I never knew how you were feeling...just assumed that keeping you hidden was how I could keep you happy.”

“I’m happy because I have you. You’re what makes me happy.” She reached her hand over the console and slipped her fingers between his, warding off the last of the cold. “I shouldn’t have outed us the way I did. I was angry, and hurt, and, I just wanted to have the upper hand. It always felt like you did...and I guess I wanted you to have a taste of losing it.”

“I never meant to control you like that.”

“I know, baby. I know you had good intentions.” She squeezed his hand, offering a small smile. “I should have spoke up,” she whispered. “It’s not fair that I expected you to read my mind.”

Harry’s shoulders relaxed back into the seat. He returned a broken smile and reached his hand up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I still love you, y’know.”

“I love you too.” His cheeks were a bright red when she pressed her lips against them, traveling to his mouth where they spent a generous amount of time together.

“We have a lot of time to make up for.”

“A month and ten days,” Y/n hummed. A moment later her face twisted into concern. She ran her tongue over her lips before speaking. “We don’t have to go back out there, do we?”

Harry laughed, leaning in to kiss her forehead. “Not if you don’t want to.”

“Did you really think it was a good idea to try and recreate our first date?”

Harry put the car in drive, keeping one hand intertwined with hers in her lap. “S’Gemma’s idea! Went on and on about Valentine’s Day!”

“Well I guess it worked.”

“We’ll have to let everyone know.”

***

hi thank you for reading! Let me know what you thought!!!

#i wasn't going to post this #i feel like its kind of a dud #the whole story i mean #but here we go #Harry Styles #harry styles writing

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wickedbananas · 6 years

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How to Win Some Local Customers Back from Amazon this Holiday Season

Posted by MiriamEllis

Your local business may not be able to beat Amazon at the volume of their own game of convenient shipping this holiday season, but don’t assume it’s a game you can’t at least get into!

This small revelation took me by surprise last month while I was shopping for a birthday gift for my brother. Like many Americans, I’m feeling growing qualms about the economic and societal impacts of putting my own perceived convenience at the top of a list of larger concerns like ensuring fair business practices, humane working conditions, and sustainable communities.

So, when I found myself on the periphery of an author talk at the local independent bookstore and the book happened to be one I thought my brother would enjoy, I asked myself a new question:

“I wonder if this shop would ship?”

There was no signage indicating such a service, but I asked anyway, and was delighted to discover that they do. Minutes later, the friendly staff was wrapping up a signed copy of the volume in nice paper and popping a card in at no extra charge. Shipping wasn’t free, but I walked away feeling a new kind of happiness in wishing my sibling a “Happy Birthday” this year.

And that single transaction not only opened my eyes to the fact that I don’t have to remain habituated to gift shopping at Amazon or similar online giants for remote loved ones, but it also inspired this article.

Let’s talk about this now, while your local business, large or small, still has time to make plans for the holidays. Let’s examine this opportunity together, with a small study, a checklist, and some inspiration for seasonal success.

What do people buy most at the holidays and who’s shipping?

According to Statista, the categories in the following chart are the most heavily shopped during the holiday season. I selected a large town in California with a population of 60,000+, and phoned every business in these categories that was ranking in the top 10 of Google’s Local Finder view. This comprised both branded chains and independently-owned businesses. I asked each business if I came in and purchased items whether they could ship them to a friend.

Category

% Offer Shipping

Notes

Clothing

80%

Some employees weren’t sure. Outlets of larger store brands couldn’t ship. Some offered shipping only if you were a member of their loyalty program. Small independents consistently offered shipping. Larger brands promoted shopping online.

Electronics

10%

Larger stores all stressed going online. The few smaller stores said they could ship, but made it clear that it was an unusual request.

Games/Toys/Dolls etc.

25%

Large stores promote online shopping. One said they would ship some items but not all. Independents did not ship.

Food/Liquor

20%

USPS prohibits shipping alcohol. I surveyed grocery, gourmet, and candy stores. None of the grocery stores shipped and only two candy stores did.

Books

50%

Only two bookstores in this town, both independent. One gladly ships. The other had never considered it.

Jewelry

60%

Chains require online shopping. Independents more open to shipping but some didn’t offer it.

Health/Beauty

20%

With a few exceptions, cosmetic and fitness-related stores either had no shipping service or had either limited or full online shopping.

Takeaways from the study

Most of the chains promote online shopping vs. shopping in their stores, which didn’t surprise me, but which strikes me as opportunity being left on the table.

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of independent clothing and jewelry stores that gladly offered to ship gift purchases.

I was concerned by how many employees initially didn’t know whether or not their employer offered shipping, indicating a lack of adequate training.

Finally, I’ll add that I’ve physically visited at least 85% of these businesses in the past few years and have never been told by any staff member about their shipping services, nor have I seen any in-store signage promoting such an offer.

My overarching takeaway from the experiment is that, though all of us are now steeped in the idea that consumers love the convenience of shipping, a dominant percentage of physical businesses are still operating as though this realization hasn’t fully hit in… or that it can be safely ignored.

To put it another way, if Amazon has taken some of your customers, why not take a page from their playbook and get shipping?

The nitty-gritty of brick-and-mortar shipping

62% of consumers say the reason they’d shop offline is because they want to see, touch, and try out items. – RetailDive

There’s no time like the holidays to experiment with a new campaign. I sat down with a staff member at the bookstore where I bought my brother’s gift and asked her some questions about how they manage shipping. From that conversation, and from some additional research, I came away with the following checklist for implementing a shipping offer at your brick-and-mortar locations:

✔ Determine whether your business category is one that lends itself to holiday gift shopping.

✔ Train core or holiday temp staff to package and ship gifts.

✔ Craft compelling messaging surrounding your shipping offer, perhaps promoting pride in the local community vs. pride in Amazon. Don’t leave it to customers to shop online on autopilot — help them realize there’s a choice.

✔ Cover your store and website with messaging highlighting this offering, at least two months in advance of the holidays.

✔ In October, run an in-store campaign in which cashiers verbally communicate your holiday shipping service to every customer.

✔ Sweeten the offer with a dedication of X% of sales to a most popular local cause/organization/institution.

✔ Promote your shipping service via your social accounts.

✔ Make an effort to earn a mention of your shipping service in local print and radio news.

✔ Set clear dates for when the last purchases can be made to reach their destinations in time for the holidays.

✔ Coordinate with the USPS, FedEx, or UPS to have them pick up packages from your location daily.

✔ Determine the finances of your shipping charges. You may need to experiment with whether free shipping would put too big of a hole in your pocket, or whether it’s necessary to compete with online giants at the holidays.

✔ Track the success of this campaign to discover ROI.

Not every business is a holiday shopping destination, and online shopping may simply have become too dominant in some categories to overcome the Amazon habit. But, if you determine you’ve got an opportunity here, designate 2018 as a year to experiment with shipping with a view towards making refinements in the new year.

You may discover that your customers so appreciate the lightbulb moment of being able to support local businesses when they want something mailed that shipping is a service you’ll want to instate year-round. And not just for gifts… consumers are already signaling at full strength that they like having merchandise shipped to themselves!

Adding the lagniappe: Something extra

For the past couple of years, economists have reported that Americans are spending more on restaurants than on groceries. I see a combination of a desire for experiences and convenience in that, don’t you? It has been joked that someone needs to invent food that takes pictures of itself for social sharing! What can you do to capitalize on this desire for ease and experience in your business?

Cards, carols, and customs are wreathed in the “joy” part of the holidays, but how often do customers genuinely feel the enjoyment when they are shopping these days? True, a run to the store for a box of cereal may not require aesthetic satisfaction, but shouldn’t we be able to expect some pleasure in our purchasing experiences, especially when we are buying gifts that are meant to spread goodwill?

When my great-grandmother got tired from shopping at the Emporium in San Francisco, one of the superabundant sales clerks would direct her to the soft surroundings of the ladies’ lounge to refresh her weary feet on an automatic massager. She could lunch at a variety of nicely appointed in-store restaurants at varied prices. Money was often tight, but she could browse happily in the “bargain basement”. There were holiday roof rides for the kiddies, and holiday window displays beckoning passersby to stop and gaze in wonder. Great-grandmother, an immigrant from Ireland, got quite a bit of enjoyment out of the few dollars in her purse.

It may be that those lavish days of yore are long gone, taking the pleasure of shopping with them, and that we’re doomed to meager choosing between impersonal online shopping or impersonal offline warehouses … but I don’t think so.

The old Emporium was huge, with multiple floors and hundreds of employees … but it wasn’t a “big box store”.

There’s still opportunity for larger brands to differentiate themselves from their warehouse-lookalike competitors. Who says retail has to look like a fast food chain or a mobile phone store?

And as for small, independent businesses? I can’t open my Twitter feed nowadays without encountering a new and encouraging story about the rise of localism and local entrepreneurialism.

It’s a good time to revive the ethos of the lagniappe — the Louisiana custom of giving patrons a little something extra with their purchase, something that will make it worth it to get off the computer and head into town for a fun, seasonal experience. Yesterday’s extra cookie that made up the baker’s dozen could be today’s enjoyable atmosphere, truly expert salesperson, chair to sit down in when weary, free cup of spiced cider on a wintry day… or the highly desirable service of free shipping. Chalk up the knowledge of this need as one great thing Amazon has gifted you.

In 2017, our household chose to buy as many holiday presents as possible from Main Street for our nearby family and friends. We actually enjoyed the experience. In 2018, we plan to see how far our town can take us in terms of shipping gifts to loved ones we won’t have a chance to see. Will your business be ready to serve our newfound need?

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vinnx24-blog · 6 years

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To all you current and future marketing students, here's a list of 20 things, under the umbrella of five key categories, of what you actually need to know before entering the professional marketing world. The list is a collection of advice from current members of the HubSpot marketing team -- including full-time marketing professionals who have graduated in years past as well as marketing interns who are graduating this year or in the future.

Academics

1) Don't be afraid of numbers.

I can't tell you how many students I've come across who tell me they avoid taking any classes that involve quantitative analysis or statistics. News flash: marketers need statistics.

You need to be prepared to analyze everything you do. Don't use the excuse that you plan on being a "social media marketer." When I was on the social media team at HubSpot, and I spent every single day looking at and interpreting charts and graphs. You need to be able to look at a spreadsheet of numbers, make the proper calculations, and analyze what they mean.

Otherwise, you're wasting a whole lot of time making decisions without proof that they work and/or benefit your business in some way. So pay attention in your stats class.

2) Don't obsess over the 4 P's or C's of marketing.

Whether your marketing courses preach the P's or C's of Marketing, it doesn't matter. While they can help introduce you to the core concepts of marketing, the chances of you brainstorming how you meet price, product, place, and promotion in the a real-life marketing situation is unrealistic. You need to be thinking about much more, which will come in later parts of this list.

3) Don't think your classroom experience mimics an actual job.

Simulate "real-life" scenarios as much as you want, but you won't actually learn to make important decisions in tight time frames until you're managing real dollars, working to uphold a real company's reputation, and investing your energy in real projects.

You can't practice it either. You have to be there and do it a few times, and then you'll learn. Use internships as an opportunity to do this, which takes us to our next section.

Experience

4) Having an internship on your resume isn't "impressive."

You had a summer internship at a marketing agency last summer? Great! So did everybody else. The fact that you had an internship isn't impressive, it's what you did while you were there that is (or isn't).

Students have accepted this false notion that even if you're just answering phones, the fact that you had some big company's name on your resume will get you a job. It might get you in the door for an interview, but if you can't share the benefit you provided to the company, you won't be seen as a valuable resource.

5) Having the multiple marketing internships isn't "impressive."

Okay, so we've already established that it's not just about having an internship; it's what you do there. A subcomponent of having great internship experiences is gaining diverse experiences and perspectives.

If you're interested in marketing, don't just apply to internships at marketing agencies every summer. Switch it up and test your skills in different marketing environments, such as at a company that executes its marketing in-house.

That way, you're staying true to your ultimate goal while also using your talents in different types of environments. Another great thing about this is you'll learn which type of marketing job you're best suited for.

6) Having endless extracurricular activities doesn't make you an "expert."

I get it -- you love being involved in every organization you can possibly be a part of. You think putting it all on your resume will show your great versatility and extensive experience.

But all it really does is confuse recruiters.

I've heard employers say they get turned off by students who seem too involved because they don't show any one true strength they can bring to the table. Instead of being an expert in one area, they just have their toes dipped in a bunch.

Employers are looking for something unique that you can do, not that you have tried everything -- that's what marketing teams are for. If you've participated in a lot of different activities in college, narrow down the few that you can actually say you've learned from, excelled at, and helped you grow.

7) Having a standard resume doesn't exemplify modern marketing.

Is your career advisor handing you a template for your resume to adhere to? Ignore it.

Marketing is changing. Buyer behavior is changing. That means your entrance into this evolving industry should be changing, too. Create your own resume template. One that highlights your uniqueness and is set up to show, not tell, what your value is.

While paper resumes will always hold their own value, you also need to be present where marketing employers are looking. In fact, 89% of all recruiters report having hired someone through LinkedIn, according to Herd Wisdom.

Beyond LinkedIn, think about other unique ways to present your experience: infographics, tweets, slideshares, or even ebooks (which is what I did).

Marketing

8) Marketing moves fast.

Chances are, whatever your professor taught you your freshman year of college no longer applies. Need an answer to a pressing marketing problem? You won't find it in that years-old textbook.

Effective marketing isn't about looking up the answer, it's about creating the answer. For example, social media wasn't taught in a classroom until recently, yet it's been around for years. Nobody taught professional marketers already in the business how to "do social media"; they had to figure it out on their own.

That's your future: figuring out marketing. Forever.

9) Marketing isn't about pretty pictures and viral videos.

Effective marketing campaigns focus on creating content that benefits your audience. You can't spend your marketing career creating humorous videos for the sake of bringing attention to your brand. You need to be prepared to think critically and analyze the needs of your target audience. What do they want? What are they confused about? How can you best serve them while serving your business? Answer one of these questions correctly, and your content will naturally become viral.

10) Marketing is not just about branding or awareness -- it's about making money.

Gone are the days of going to the marketing department for happy messages and to Sales for revenue -- today, the two must work together.

We keep talking about how everything you do should benefit your company, but haven't said what that benefit is. The benefit is simple: revenue. What is the return on investment of that email send? That tweet? That press release? Each of these efforts should be positioned to represent your company culture, but they need to fit into the sales cycle. They need to have a monetary value.

11) Marketing doesn't have to be evil.

The negative connotation surrounding "marketer," "public relations professional," etc. is pretty pervasive. But that doesn't mean it's okay to act out these stereotypes. Don't lose your morals and ethics when you graduate -- they need to be omnipresent in your marketing career. And yes, it is possible to create marketing that people actually like.

12) Marketing is more than big brands and agencies.

Yes, you can work at a marketing agency. And yes, you could work for a big brand like Nissan or Pepsi. But there are SO many more options. What about working in-house at technology company? A small business? A hospital? Just because your professors only talk about the campaigns big brands have executed, doesn't mean those are the only marketing jobs out there.

13) Marketing is a balance of art, science, and tech.

Many marketing curriculums focus on the art. You craft advertising campaigns, brainstorm billboards, and storyboard commercials. In modern marketing, this art is critical in visualizing calls-to-actions, writing landing page copy, and launching products.

But marketing is more than that. On the science front, we already discussed the importance of a data-driven mentality in point one. Beyond that, you need to embrace the infusion of technology in marketing.

In an article by Marketing Magazine, Jamie Kenny writes, "On the one hand, new technology offers marketing fresh and more efficient routes to market, along with exciting prospects such as the capability for personalised, one-to-one marketing at scale. On the other hand, the marketing department is having to learn new skills, take on responsibilities and build other relationships within the organisation."

As an emerging marketer, being tech savvy can help differentiate you from the crowd.

Personal

14) Don't be afraid to be wrong.

How many times have you said, "I thought the same exact thing ... but didn't say anything." '

Well, if you ever get to that point, it's too late. If you have an idea or opinion on something being discussed at an internship or on at your first job, speak up! Experience helps create proper judgment, not ideas. Anyone is capable of thinking of the next big thing; it's just a matter of not being afraid to share it.

15) Grow thick skin.

As a marketer, you'll have to deal with complaining customers, social media bashers, unresponsive sales reps, frustrating clients, the list goes on and on ... and through it all, you have to bite your tongue and let them feel like they are always right.

If you get too emotional over how people treat you, you won't last in the business. Take all negative feedback as constructive criticism, and spin it into something positive. I failed at this big time when I was interning at HubSpot -- but I learned from my mistakes.

16) Be your own best case study.

Prove your skills by marketing yourself. Don't wait for someone else to give you the opportunity. There's a number of ways to accomplish this:

Write content -- on your own blog or for an existing blog -- demonstrating your knowledge and writing ability.

Build your social media reach. Start conversations on Twitter or leverage LinkedIn to connect with other professionals.

Demonstrate your passion for marketing by properly marketing yourself. If you can't market yourself, how will you market for others?17) Never burn bridges.

You know that annoying teacher's pet who never stops talking in class next to you? She may end up being your manager one day. Or your co-worker. Or the woman who gets to decide if a company hires you.

You never know where people may end up. In fact, last year I received a LinkedIn message from a young man who wasn't the nicest to me in high school. All of a sudden he was a total sweetheart and asking for a job referral -- you can imagine my response was, well, nonexistent.

18) Network with everyone.

Yes, you've heard this before. But the important part of networking is doing it with everyone. If you decide you want to work at XX company, don't only find ways to talk to people from XX company. Maybe that random stranger in the corner from Y company will one day be an employee at XX company, and then you'll be bummed you missed the opportunity to tell that person why you rock.

Point is, you never know who could end up helping you out the future. Get to know as many people as you can.

Miscellaneous

19) Get familiar with HTML/CSS.

You don't need to be a full-on engineer, but you do need to understand the basics. What happens when your web designer goes on vacation? What happens when you need to make a quick fix on your website? Or even just need to talk to your web designer?

You don't want to sound like a complete doh-doh head. Understand how coding works and be prepared to make little tweaks. If you end up in a product marketing role, this will be even more critical.

20) Understand the difference between B2B and B2C.

I'm surprised I was never exposed to such basic acronyms at school, but most businesses are classified this way. B2B = business-to-business. B2C = business-to-consumer. Look up the difference; it'll teach you a lot about different forms of marketing, and possibly where you want to work one day.

#future marketing

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/from-saturn-pluto-opposition-2001-to-saturn-pluto-conjunct-2020-chaos-or-intense-creativity/

From Saturn/Pluto Opposition (2001) to Saturn/Pluto conjunct (2020): CHAOS? Or “INTENSE CREATIVITY”

By Ann Kreilkamp

I keep harping on the fact that this year presents the rare (once every 38-39 year) conjunction of Saturn and Pluto, the two most “karmic” planets in the zodiac. The conjunction was exact in mid-January, with the public spectacle of impeachment first, then the fear-based Covid psy-op with horrific economic disruption soon afterwards, then, this month, the “race war” psy-op . . . and now Covid appearing to return . . . Hmmm. What next?

All of these “events” present an increasingly wild and gyrating wrecking ball to the structures (Saturn) that inform both our civilization and the collective unconscious (Pluto).

This Saturn/Pluto conjunction process (which lasts all year), follows upon the last time a decidedly significant Saturn/Pluto aspect was operating, and that was . . . wait for it . . . you guessed it! 9.11.

Saturn and Pluto had moved to oppose each other in August 2001, and then, on September 11, at 8:54 AM when the first plane appeared to hit the first tower, that still operating Saturn/Pluto opposition just happened to fall exactly upon the Ascendant/Descendant axis of the U.S. chart.

Bingo.

Much that is being said about that time is also being said about this time, for example, that it was an event that reverberated around the entire planet; that its horrific destructive force set in motion unknown consequences that will unfold over many years, and more.

But, just like last time, this time also offers an unparalleled opportunity to move into the heart, and transform FEAR into LOVE. The results, if enough of us do this, will in turn be equally unfathomable.

I wrote about 9.11 several times in the Celestial Navigations newsletters I used to offer by subscription to astrological clients. Here’s an excerpt from the October 2001 newsletter, with a pdf of that entire essay below.

_____

Emergence 9.11 Emergency

Excerpt:

Though I was in as much shock as anyone, my belief that the U.S. was an arrogant, ignorant, brutal, self-serving bully, its karma long overdue, was buttressed by the attack. For if terrorism is terrible, so are its roots in injustice and oppression. “Finally,” I thought, “the day has arrived when the weak serve justice to the strong. Our 3000 dead are nothing compared to millions of people starved of their birthrights and put into low-wage slavery by corporate national policies which enslave the third world to serve America’s metastasizing greed.”

That was my first response. But then, as those early days crawled by, and especially the nights — oh those nights! — when my ideological guard was down, I was catapulted into the maelstrom of fear, grief, terror, fury, confusion, and chaos crowding the mass mind. I too grew afraid and confused. I could feel myself being sucked into the collective vortex, life force ebbing away.

Instinctively, I did the only thing I knew how to do, when threatened with extinction: I moved to center myself, to ground myself into Mother Earth. I practiced QiGong and Tai Ch’i daily, I climbed mountains, I rubbed the bellies of my kitties; I sat in silent witness to the sun and moon and stars as they rise and set in their courses, oblivious.

Within a day or so, rather than desperately fending off chaos with the armor of belief, I was able to invite a tiny bit of the chaos into awareness, and, while remaining centered, work to transform chaotic energy into loving kindness. I began to direct this compassion towards my “enemies,” the leaders of the U.S. — my scapegoats — the very ones who had made Obama bin Laden their scapegoat.

For weeks I made this my regular nighttime meditation: to notice where I was in judgment, where I felt separate, where I held hate in my heart, and to bring those who were the objects of my judgments into awareness, and surround them with compassion transformed from chaos. This helped. I could be of service. I no longer felt crazy.

Over the past few nights my nighttime meditation has been mutating. At first, I noticed that I was able to take in more negativity without overwhelm. That my capacity for transforming chaos into compassion had increased. One night I noticed that with each breath my chest was expanding, that in my breathing in and out I was opening and holding a space for all peoples.

At first, I was on the outside of that space, tangent to it, as if I were mothering the world, my arms around her. Then, gradually I found myself moving to the center of that space and sensing other people, hidden in the corners of ordinary life, also standing in their own center points, all of us collectively opening a vast space to include all living beings, their ancestors, their descendants.

This space which we are opening is alive. It shimmers with energy, its vibrations traveling at warp speed to bathe us all in divine light.

_____

Likewise, this year — especially mounting this past week as Jupiter retrogrades closer and closer to Pluto (exact for the second time on June 30) — I notice, feels alive, shimmering with energy. None of us here have never felt the earth’s natural abundance so overwhelming as we do now. Plus, in our little Green Acres Permaculture Village, individual personal creativity is off the charts.

Just yesterday, on the way to the bank I passed by podmate Chris working on his self-initiated and self-directed complicated project to transform all the paths of the gardens so that whenever rain falls on the paths, the water will be siphoned into the surrounding beds.

“How you doin’ Chris?”

“FINE! I’m being inundated with intense creativity!”

This remark was especially noticeable coming from Chris, who usually keeps a very serious, reserved manner. YES!

*******

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booklust · 7 years

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futurelit vol 3: starlit void

I knew for a fact that for volume 3, I had to cover a twitter bot. Come hang with me and starlit void for a while and see why---

The boom of Creative Writing Twitter is a natural extension of how we communicate today: quickly, constantly, concisely, urgently. But short doesn’t mean simple: following the ethos of writing (or subverting) formal verse poetry, the restraints of Twitter often produce the most creative content. Among them are many creative writing-oriented twitterbots. These clusters of code generate tweets following a certain linguistic--and sometimes also visual--structure a set amount of times per day. Some results are "better” (more beautiful, or more hilarious, or more surprising, or more mundane, or more....) than others, but it’s always enchanting to watch unfold. The dependable, structured presence of twitterbots--however unexpected the results---on our feeds makes them eventually feel like a friend---oddly human. One creative writing bot that stands out to me is starlit void’s quietscape--the bot pairs a colorful, randomly generated, geometric digital landscape picture with a short, fantastical suggestion/description. Each tweet creates an environment for thoughts to exist in, like a creative writing prompt. At least for me, it serves an essential meditative function within hectic internet space. I knew that my conversation with starlit void would be a rad discussion about writing and tech, but it bloomed into so much more: an oral history of bot world, seriously cool meditations on mental health, Soundcloud playlist suggestions, + more! Keeping with the futurelit tradition (and my own personal tradition), we avoided a phone call and did our chat over Twitter DMs this time:

what is your favorite environment to create in? (whether it's a certain physical space, listening to a certain kind of music/silence, etc.)

i typically like to be well-caffeinated, alone or in a cafe, & excited about getting something working.... there's a thin line between excited & stressed about how something is going to turn out. i used to go to "game jams" until i discovered it was actually really stressful for me. i'm trying to be more relaxed about my creative output (this is easier said than done) & trying to avoid equating prolificness w/ human value. i think i do my best work when the intended audience is very selective, even 1 or 2 people, or just for myself. i also listen to what i call "robot music" a lot, for example this sort of mix.

----continue below----

tell me a little bit about how you came up with your bot 'quietscape' -- what were your inspirations for it? as i believe you had already guessed, @quietscape was first intended as a prompt bot, for getting some creative thoughts limbered up. at first the output was text only, which was easy to do using tracery (TRACERY PLUG: tracery by @galaxykate along w/ http://cheapbotsdonequick.com by @v21 are hands down the greatest twitterbot making tools around, lowering bar to entry for many many people into the complex world of botmakery). i think at first i did use a few of them as prompts, but quietscape was ultimately too bland & not interesting enough. i added the raytraced images as a proof-of-concept & it's remained almost unchanged ever since. quietscape is still a work in progress!!!!! of course after adding images i came up w/ a huge complex system of how this takes place on a mysterious earth-sized artifact orbiting a binary star system blah blah blah but i felt it was more important to synchronize tweets to my own daytime schedule. i found some code to roughly calculate sunlight intensity & sunrise/sunset times at roughly my latitude for a planet that's roughly earthlike & that was "good enough"! the schedule is also in line w/ some of my thoughts on bot tweeting volumes. i like that quietscape only tweets 5 times a day (dawn, afternoon, dusk, midnight, & a daily "shrine" tweet), which i think helps keep xem from getting too familiar or overstaying xyr welcome. i love procedural generation but our minds can feel out the recurring pattern of a bot very quickly, even if there are 50 bazillion possible combinations, which sounds good on paper but doesn't actually provide human quality variety in the output. my partial answer was to make a terse bot. as far as actual inspirations go: quietscape owes quite a lot to tsutomu nihei's architectural renderings, @katierosepipkin & @lorenschmidt's collaborative work, and @edclef & @davidkanaga's game _proteus_. the daily "shrine" tweets are thanks to @trapitolina's @obelisk_bot, which got me thinking about adding more of a physical location feel to quietscape.

what do you love most about coding as an art/writing form, and how did you get into it? i see generative & algorithm-assisted creativity as a vast & mostly untapped field, where the product isn't really the product, but a wild & nearly organic factory that can make lots of weird & surprising things. i think @katierosepipkin said it best in their interview: "Here, the cartographer draws the cliffs that contain a sea of one hundred thousand artworks. And then one searches for the most beautiful piece of coral inside of their waters." this resonates w/ me, especially this feedback loop of curated generation (generate a huge number of results & then pick out the best ones). of course that's hard to do when making a bot that supposedly exists independent of human interference. there are a lot of successful procedurally generated experiences out there & yet i think there is much to be learned about how we can work hand-in-hand w/ computers to make more human accessible works. @emshort explores this a whole bunch in her notes following the text of "the annals of the parrigues" (see page 81), "the state of the roads", & it's really eye-opening & exciting. on the other end of the spectrum, it's exciting to me that there are several wonderful tools available for picking up rule-based creativity & just making it. i would love to make tools that help people get started down the road of algorithmic creativity. i would love to see more voices using these techniques.

I can't help but notice that your 'quietscape' website is hosted on neocities---were you into geocities when you were younger? and if so, do you have any cool memories about it? (or about any other piece of the internet that's not around anymore that you're nostalgic for?) sure!!! i had a geocities site & i'm still known to gawk in awe at mid-90s web aesthetics. but even more important than that, i think it's crucial we move away from centralized conglomerate based media platforms for our creative output. html remains a viable technology for sharing ideas & presenting them online, & to get started you just need to copy paste some nearly-human-readible code. returning to lists of url links & webrings & simple web crawlers as the means to discover other sites.... it's not democratic or equal in any sense, but in hindsight it seems better than entrusting your content to an algorithm w/ an intrinsic corporate bias. geocities was the era during which we were sure that the internet had come to free us all from ignorance & relying on centralized systems. 20 years later, 3 or 4 companies control almost everything you do online. the bleak cyberpunk corporate surveillance police state of the 80s is happening instead. i'd love to go back to those innocent days & work for a better distribution of technology. or breaking systems down, i don't know. relying on systems is killing us.

which projects are you currently working on, or would like to in the near future? the big theme of what it would be like to live in a weird endless megastructure has haunted me for about 15 years so i'll probably still find ways to explore that in future work. the two other forces that draw me kind of go hand in hand but they're also kind of opposite. i'd like to put more of myself in my work, & focus on some of the changes & revelations i've had over the past few years (gender, sexuality, identity in general). but also i'd like to address bigger issues, like stepping down & propping up marginalized voices.

post an image/images that feels like 'the future' to you (x) love mushbush's work & it feels out of time & futuristic in a playful way!

#starlit void #futurelit #booklust #twitter #twitter bots #botally #lit #interview #writing #literature #spilled ink #writers #media #coding

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zanytimetravelenthusiast-blog · 5 years

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StealthD Review Discount And Bonus

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