#in this world capitalism is like huge and always losing miserably

[rapidreptile]

more vesper lore/world building: the company that made them was an independent rnd lab who wanted to make revolutionary weapons for profit. after vesper's escape, investors went "oh shit, I want nothing to do with a runaway DRAGON" and pulled their investments. the company was liquidated shortly after, and is now completely defunct. vesper does not have to worry about being hunted down and reclaimed by any sort of organization. but there are other hardlight wyvern prototypes, whose whereabouts are largely unknown. Vesper might unknowingly have a nemesis in one of them.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What if all the gifted Volturi randomly power-swapped?

I believe this question was inspired by the time the Cullens all gift swapped.

As always, to be fair, I've stuck Corin, Renata, Jane, Alec, Aro, Marcus, Felix, Demetri, Heidi, Chelsea, and Afton to randomly choose from a list.

Caveat

Before I begin, I should note that this won't make a huge difference. While changing up gifts means roles will shift around/Aro will be utterly annoying as he badgers whoever has his gift to now touch everyone's hand and tell him everything, the Volturi don't lose any gifts and they still function properly.

They're still the Volturi who can do what the Volturi must do.

They're just going to have a rough time for a while.

With that, let's begin.

Afton

Per the lord our god, Python's PRNG, Afton now has Chelsea's gift (Torgrim, you magnificent bastard, you always live to serve).

This is the best day of Afton's life. Not only is he Important (with a capital I), required on Volturi missions, and absolutely vital to the health of the organization, but HE CAN MAKE EVERYONE LOVE HIM. Everyone will respect him now! He'll be like Jonathon in Buffy.

Chelsea tells him this is great. This is wonderful, she's not upset or having an existential crisis. She is so glad that Afton now has a great gift that Aro will love him for. This is great.

Everyone else, for the record, thinks this is not great. Now, if there was ever a distant hope of getting rid of Afton, it's gone. He's not just Chelsea's mate, he is Chelsea. They're stuck with him forever unless they can learn how to swap gifts back.

And then Afton learns the terrible truth.

He's so unlikeable that, just like Chelsea, he can't make anyone like him. He's treated the same as ever. The difference being that Aro reluctantly calls him to the throne room "Afton can you... sigh... please do your thing?" or whoever he's out in the field with recruiting just gives him despairing looks.

Ugh. Afton.

Afton would like his old gift back, please.

Alec

By the divine will of Python, Alec gets Renata's gift.

He's utterly upset, now he doesn't have a badass power and has to hang around Aro, Caius, and Marcus constantly while everyone else gets to go cool places and do cool things.

(Renata is also very upset as THAT WAS HER JOB, DAMMIT)

He also never wanted to see this much of Aro in his life. Aro, for his own part, after centuries of hanging around Renata has no idea how to handle hanging around twelve-year-old Alec. Or the fact that Alec is now privy to many secrets that he is forbidden from telling his sister.

Alec's miserable.

Aro

Aro gets Heidi's gift.

This is one of the worst things that has ever happened to him. He's lost his gift that informed his very sense of self, he now has to rely on someone else to use that gift in his place with no means of knowing how much they're truly conveying to him, and in compensation he's now Extra Hot when the man he's in love with is miles across the sea and married.

This is a joke is what it is.

Well, Aro feels very very depressed for a while and then he gets over it. Alas, because he's him and in charge of this operation, he can't just take over Heidi's job. Instead, he tries to become Chelsea 2.0 since Afton is the new Chelsea (and can't rely on him for that).

"You know you want to join the Volturi," Aro says, lounging on his throne, looking... oddly alluring.

(Edward and Alice suddenly don't know what to say. He looks... oddly attractive and it's very hard to think of why they were so against joining the Volturi. It's kind of hard to think at all.)

Chelsea

Chelsea gets Jane's gift.

This is terrible. Chelsea goes from being the one everyone likes to being Miss Torture Queen and the bringer of pain. More, while she already got to hang out with Demetri a fair deal, now she's with him all the time as she has to tour around the world murdering people left and right (or whoever takes over Demetri's job, I guess we find that out later).

She's away from her husband (who has her gift and THAT'S FINE, THAT'S GREAT, GOOD FOR AFTON), people give her weird looks, and she's very very very unhappy.

Aro tells her that at least she didn't end up with the gift that's useless Hotness. (Chelsea would rather have that gift, she would love to have Heidi's job, GIVE HER HEIDI'S JOB).

Corin

Corin gets Felix's gift.

Gone are Corin's cushy days of hanging out with the wives, the only real people she's talked to much for centuries. Now, she has to pal Demetri's replacement, a very very very pissed Chelsea, and whoever is Alec now.

And she has to beat people up.

Chelsea at least gets to stand there, most of the time, Corin has to actually go in and get her hands very dirty.

She's having the worst time.

Demetri

Demetri gets Afton's gift.

Demetri dies, he just dies, not only did he lose a gift that he very much relied upon and has informed the course of his entire life, but he now has fucking Afton's gift.

What does he even do with himself now? He is the most useless being to walk the planet (Aro tells him he's very sorry, but at least he's not Hotness) Demetri would rather be Hotness because then at least he wouldn't be Useless.

I imagine Demetri keeps going around anyway. He has friends to visit, gossip to hear, and if he doesn't know where anyone is anymore then he can just pal around with the new Demetri and tell him how to use his gift properly. Demetri has a social network to maintain, thank you very much.

Felix

Felix gets Aro's gift.

He now gets hounded by Aro constantly, has to attend every single Volturi meeting, touch the hand of every single witness who visits, and sometimes go out and touch very specific hands. He's barely able to comprehend Aro's gift and then Aro demands he gives the rundown of these people's entire lives.

It's very overwhelming.

He'd rather be killing people.

Heidi

Heidi gets Demetri's gift.

Well, she'd rather be thinking up scams to lure humans into Volterra, it's what she's good at, but sure, she can go around tracking people with Demetri (who insists on coming). She also gets to hang out with a very angry Chelsea and Corin, which is less fun, but she figures there's not much you can do about this (and at least she didn't get the shittiest gift).

Though she does feel uncomfortable watching Aro shamelessly use her gift in any way he can. It just doesn't feel right.

Jane

Jane gets Corin's gift.

Alec may be stuck with Renata's gift but Jane is stuck with the getting high gift. She now has to awkwardly hang out with the wives and Caius, getting them high for days, bored out of her mind.

The only plus side is that she and Alec actually get to hang out with each other and don't have to go anywhere. So they commiserate on how bored and miserable they are.

This blows.

Marcus

Marcus gets Alec's gift.

Marcus would realize this is the worst day of his life except he's too depressed.

Instead, Aro tells him one morning, "Now Marcus, since you, ah, no longer have your gift, and appear to have dear Alec's, I'm going to need you to go out into the field. Often. Do you understand me?"

Marcus finds himself hanging around Chelsea, Corin, and Heidi, being told to subdue enemies with his new gift, and not having his sixth sense which was very innate to him at this point.

Now, Marcus doesn't particularly care, he's too depressed for that.

But it is... a day in the life of Marcus.

Weird shit happens to you.

Renata

And Renata gets Marcus' gift. She misses her own gift, dearly, but her role doesn't change much. She hangs around the big three and along with Felix informs Caius, Aro, and Marcus (when he gets to be around) of what's going on with whoever they're meeting with.

Renata does rather well in all of this.

[qqueenofhades]

Trump's SCOTUS pick scares the ever loving shit out of me. I'm trying not to have a full blown panic attack actually.

Sigh. I know.

I’m not going to say that picking someone literally, un-exaggeratedly out of The Handmaid’s Tale for SCOTUS, especially to replace someone like RBG, isn’t mother fucking terrifying. It is.  Especially since Mitch McConnell is trying to set her final confirmation vote for October 29, literally five days before the election. Yes indeed, that would be a third Supreme Court seat filled by an impeached president who lost the popular vote by three million votes, (possibly) confirmed by Republican enablers (some of whom are absolutely going to lose their seats in this election) who represent a sizeably smaller fraction of the US population than their Democratic counterparts, in a display of outright, staggering, truly breathtaking hypocrisy about the protocol of election-year vacancies on SCOTUS, which they themselves shouted about to no end with Merrick Garland in 2016. This is how tyranny by minority rule works, and... yeah. It’s bad. It’s awful. When is this going to end.

That said, however: we do not yet exist in this theoretical grimdark future where some dystopian 6-3 (or even 7-2) conservative SCOTUS strips us of our rights at every turn, with no recourse except for us to sit passively and take it, and there are a lot of things that we ourselves can do between now and then to make sure that it never happens. First off, House Democrats have proposed a bill to introduce 18-year term limits for SCOTUS justices, rather than it being an automatic lifetime appointment. This would also give every president the ability to appoint two justices per four-year term. Because SCOTUS has become such an instrument of partisan warfare, and because the obvious implications of having a partisan head of state pick the senior federal judges for a lifetime is part of what has fucked us up now, this would be a GREAT improvement. House Dems can’t make it into law right now, because Democrats do not hold a majority in both chambers of Congress and they do not hold the presidency. You know how this COULD be passed? If Joe Biden was elected with a blue House and Senate. That way, even if God forbid the GOP horror show snuck Coney Barrett onto the bench just before the election, this could be fixed.

Here’s another way to think about it. I myself have a HUGE problem with catastrophizing: a bad thing happens, and then it seems like an inevitable chain of nonstop bad things until everything gets irredeemably, unfixably even worse. This year, obviously, has not done much to help that, because yes, the bad things keep coming. But they’re still individual events and have not yet crystallized into some unbreakable, unavoidable future. History is made up of thousands of millions of choices, accidents, unforeseen developments, total random bullshit, and much more, as much or more as it is made up by the macro-scale actions of oligarchs. Obviously, globalization and capitalism have made us all more connected to each other, and thus changes to the system can ripple more broadly, but they are not the only people who make history. If there’s one thing I can tell you as a historian, it’s this: the future is just history that hasn’t been made yet, and it is subject to the exact same unpredictable bullshit that has constituted history throughout, well, history. Nothing is unavoidable and we have never existed in a world where we can’t do anything at all. Also, authoritarian regimes (especially those imposed without the consent of the people -- willing subjection to authoritarianism is one thing, but the other, yeah) have a relatively short shelf life, historically speaking. That won’t help all of us who could be hurt right now (though we can STILL fight back and speak up and help our neighbors), but it’s the truth. Authoritarian rule (especially when it’s not balanced by economic security, which sure as hell isn’t happening right now) can last for a while, sure. But it is always its own worst enemy, and it will always be ended. How that ends is a choice we can make.

This isn’t the “get out on the streets and Start The Glorious Revolution!!!” nonsense that the armchair internet leftists, none of whom are actually starting a glorious revolution or doing anything except bitching on Twitter about how Biden and Trump are alike, are fond of. This is an active choice to realize that there are always things you can do, that there are things you can do right now, and one of them, most obviously, is voting. This mess was all completely goddamn avoidable if people had voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. But well, they didn’t, and we get one last shot to fix this by democratic process. Trump is already openly setting up to contest the election results/try to invalidate them/throw out ballots. This is all old-school fascism. This is what is happening. He is counting on another razor-thin margin of votes that he can then contest in his hand-picked SCOTUS; he wants another Bush v. Gore very, very badly. The only way to blow away any legitimacy for anything like this is to vote in such overwhelming numbers that there’s no question of Biden’s victory, no need to wait for mail-in ballots (another reason the GOP has been trying so hard to destroy the post office) or anything else. At heart, Trump is a coward. He’s also an egomaniac. If it comes to stepping aside peacefully or being dragged out of the White House by the FBI for everyone to laugh at for the rest of time, hmm, I doubt he’s going to go for that. (And if he does, well, I will also savor the sight of him in handcuffs for all eternity.) However, that doesn’t mean the GOP machine won’t TRY, because Trump is not just Trump, but is his entire miserable cabal of enablers. I have written my fingers raw about how badly people need to vote. This is literally your last chance to do it.

I’ve seen a lot of the-sky-is-falling, we’re-doomed, they-have-the-votes-so-don’t-even-bother handwringing in the last few days. To some degree, yes. We all feel doomed. We have all been asked to find strength to deal with massive and unending waves of terrifying bullshit past anyone’s normal capacity, and we’re tired. We want it to end. But it’s SO CLOSE to ending, if we can all just get out and vote for Joe Biden in massive numbers on November 3 (or if your state has early voting, sooner; BANK YOUR VOTE). That’s such an easy thing to do. Nothing is set in stone. We can still fix things and make it so, you know, we’re not living in a fascist state ruled by Gilead. (And besides, all this Chicken Little rhetoric is super easy for the Russian troll farms to exploit. Don’t listen to it. Shut it down. Reject it.)

They want you to think you’re powerless. You’re not.

They want you to think this will never end. It will. We decide how.

They want you to think this is a foregone conclusion and you should just go back home and let it happen. You don’t have to.

They want you to think your vote doesn’t matter. It does.

They want you to think your rights are gone. They’re not.

They want you to think this future is inevitable.

IT’S NOT.

Hang in there.

Lots of hugs.

[fortunatelyhauntedblackcherry]

Moonshine - A Beetlejuice Fanfiction 08

Warning: ANGST. With capital letters. So much trauma, anger, crying and death you guys. It was so hard for me to write, it was emotionally challenging, so it might do the same to some of you by reading it. There's also swearing in it.

Beetlejuice floated right through the wall between Rei's and Ari's room. He stretched his back with closed eyes and a huge smile, his bones cracking like dry branches in the wind.

- Oh babes you couldn't possibly imagine how happy I am right now! I heard a genuine scream coming my way! Ah man I haven't heard any of those in a decade, it sounded so... - Beetlejuice opened his eyes. The room was almost empty, only Sirius was inside. Couple of sewing patters were scattered on the floor, next to the already cut-out parts of a cornflower blue dress. BJ blinked at Ari's laptop; the podcast she was listening to has been stopped. - ...kinky. - he finished his sentence in a lowered voice.

He suddenly turned his head to the open window as he realized that a muffled voice came from outside. Sirius scuffled for a bit when he heard the noise and growled when Beetlejuice moved past him. The demon climbed out to the roof, following the noises. Ari was sitting at the farthest end, wrapped in an oversized dark green knitted cardigan. Beetlejuice almost called out to her, scolding her for disappearing when he had such great news but he stopped himself when he realized what the voices were. Ari was crying.

- Babes? - asked Beetlejuice, as he lowered his raspy voice. - What's going on? - Ari quickly turned to the demon's voice's direction. She had a used tissue in her hand. She quickly tried to cover her face with her hair but Beetlejuice saw what she was hiding. Her emerald eyes were all puffy and red, her nose was swollen and full-blooded too, and her lips looked like she didn't drink any water in a week. Her voice was cracking a bit as she started talking.

- Oh, it's nothing, Bug, just... - she beckoned with her hand. Beetlejuice heard as she tried to pull herself together. She let out a huge breath. - ...it's just my mental health issues. They're acting up again. - Beetlejuice stepped next to her as she cleared her throat. - Just gimme a sec, I'll be alright and you can tell me what you have done to my poor sister.

- Nonono, there's something wrong here. - he sat down next to Ari. Her legs were pulled close to her chest as she has enclasped them. She put her chin on her knees, showing as little of her face as she could. - You had a bad day last week when your anxiety was thriving. This is not like that. - Ari smiled lightly. Her wet eyelashes juddered, which made them glisten in the beams of moonlight.

- You really got to know me in the past couple weeks, didn't you?

- Yeah, that... and you also made me sit through 13 episodes of Therapy, which is an awful series by the way, so I'm basically a mind-scientist now. - Ari snorted while she let out a small, sad laugh. - So tell Doctor B, what's going on here, patient number one? - Ari let go of her knees and huffed out. She let her legs dangle off of the roof. She didn't look at Beetlejuice's direction, she just watched the darkness pass by under her feet.

- I... I got to know why do I hear you.

Beetlejuice scrowled and shook his head.

- I'm not following, please explain why does that makes you sad? I thought you wanted to know... - he stopped as Ari rubbed her temples and sighed. She kept her eyes closed while she was talking.

- B., of course I wanted to know! I wanna help, don't think otherwise, it's just... - she clenched her jaw, swallowed her saliva then continued. - The memories. They make me so goddamn angry and sad at the same time.

- I don't get it. - Beetlejuice sounded clueless. He didn't really know what she was talking about. As Ari clicked with her tongue, Beetlejuice moved closer to her and leaned even closer to her ear. His voice was as raspy as always, but he sounded much more sweet and kind. Almost gentle. - Maybe... Talking will help. I don't know, Dr. Phil says it does a lot. - Ari opened her eyes and breathed out. Her breath was jerky.

- The podcast I was listening to, you know, the one about the extraspecial demons, well... - Beetlejuice looked down at Ari's hands. She was sinking her nails into her fingertips. She must have been doing this for at least an hour, since some already left dark purple marks on her fingerpads. Beetlejuice put his hand over Ari's. The cold air made the girl shiver a bit but it also made her stop. - The show started with the hosts talking about how they invited a parapsychologist into the show so he could tell the audience interesting things about demons generally before they start to talk about the different types. So the guy said really interesting stuff, hands down, it really was good, but then he said that after a certain type of trauma, some people develop a weird... "ability". - she used her hands to emphasize the word then let them fall onto her lap again. She sighed. - Do you want to hear the long story of why do I hear you, or the short version? - Beetlejuice flinched his eyes.

- I prefer long and thick things so give it to me, baby. - Ari didn't react to his joke. She'd didn't even smile. She looked like she was was collecting her strength. After a couple minutes of silence, she finally started to speak.

- Bug, have you ever seen how my abdomen looks?

That was a sudden question.

- No? - he said in a kind of shy voice. He didn't wanna upset her more. She seemed just as miserable as furious. - You said no croptops until it's at least 30 °C... Why? - Ari breathed in and layed a bit back. She started to roll her olive t-shirt up on her belly.

Beetlejuice gasped and held his palm before his mouth. The tips of his hair started to turn into red and purple at the same time.

- Who... Who did that to you?!? - Beetlejuice held his hand above the three scars that Ari had on her abdomen. They were shapeless, with rigged edges and at least 5 centimeters long each.

- They've been with me since I was 17. - she sniffled a bit as she let her shirt down. She pulled one of her knees close to her chest again, and put her elbow up on it. - Don't worry, I already got used to them. I don't love them, but they're stuck with me so... - she sighed and look at Beetlejuice's direction. - You sure you wanna hear this story? I might cry. I might get furious and start screaming. You wouldn't like either.

- It's true that nothing is sexier than laughing and screaming of terror, but I'd surely get hard, seeing you deranged with anger. - Ari snorted at the demon's arousing voice. He actually just tried to cover up the fact that all he wanted was to kill whoever did that, and then hug the girl tight.

- Get ready for a love story that is basically horror at best... The kind where the hero still... Gets broken in the end. - she sighed and looked up at the stars. - This fucked up story starts half a year before I got my scars. I started dating a guy named... - she gulped and closed her eyes. - Matthias. - she opened her eyes with a sigh. - Gods, I hate to say his name out loud. It makes me wanna gag. It was a teenage love, I didn't see or didn't want to see his faults and I totally fell head over feet for him. You know what I'm talking about, right?

- Totally. - he had no clue.

- So you know, it was fun in the beginning. He was older than me, so nice and funny. He escorted me basically everywhere, and it just felt so good to be with him. - she sighed. - I thought that he was just worried when he told me I shouldn't go to a party with my friends cause "the world is filled with creeps", but later I realized that he was just simply possessive. - she sighed, sounding annoyed, and looked straight into the darkness of the night. - I started feeling anxious because of him when he started to tell me where could I go and what could I wear. "That's too showing, you can show that much skin only to me!" - she said in a mimicking voice. Then her face turned so dark so quickly. - He told me that if I wasn't acting nice, or behave, or do exactly as he says, that would make him look bad before his friends and a good girlfriend wouldn't want that. Shit, man, we've been together for 4 months only but I was so unstable because of him and massive bullying in school that I turned out to be an anxious wreck. - she clicked her tongue, got up and started to walk up and down, her bare feet tapping on the roof. - We went out one day, and during our "date" he repeatedly told me how I was not smart enough, pretty enough, ENOUGH, and he was with me just because no one else would want me. After he dropped me off at home, I started crying my heart out to my mom. - her eyes got teary again, but there was so much anger in her voice. - Gods she's such a wonderful woman. She taught me how to be brave, how to be strong enough to be myself. And at that moment she made me realize how I'm starting to lose my badass, weird but awesome self because of this stupid cabrón! - she kicked the air. Her breathing was so fast, and her body was radiating so much heat it could almost warm Beetlejuice up. She breathed out with a sigh. - Shit, I must look like a crazy person. Excuse me. I sometimes use spanish words when I'm experiencing a strong feeling. Multilingual things. Cabrón means...

- Pendejo, fucker, asshole, I know. - that sudden cut-in brought Ari down back to earth quickly. She knitted her eyebrows. - I had an argentinian girlfriend who taught me a bit spanish. I can cuss just perfectly. - he tried to sound calm. He really did. But oh boy he was not. The way the emotions changed on Ari's face made him remember some of his past traumas, and that made him feel a lot of different things at the same time. And he was also furious at this asshole of an ex.

Ari sat down again. She breathed out to calm herself down. After a minute of frozen silence, the demon started to talk.

- This whole thing is fucked up, you know. The whole being told what to do and where to go and how to look... - said Beetlejuice in a low manner. His raspy voice sounded... sad? He cleared his throat, even though, being dead, he didn't have to, it just felt good. - I'll totally regret this, but since we're doing this overly honest heartfelt shit that I normally hate, and I'm very much irritated by it, let me tell ya... - he looked at Ari as his hair turned more purple. - I can relate to you. My mother did the same shit to me. She made me feel worthless, a piece of shit that didn't deserve any love. - he sighed and looked up at the moon. He chuckled a bit, his voice went back from soft to normal quickly. - Dear God slash Satan, your emotional bullshit is contagious, Ari. I gotta stop hanging out with you.

Ari smiled lightly.

- You couldn't. You love chilling with me. - the demon scretched his stubbles and let out a tiny laugh.

- True. I'm hooked on that fine ass of yours. - Ari laughed a bit. She looked where Beetlejuice's voice came from previously, and held out her hands.

- You know, I wouldn't really feel it, it won't exactly be a real hug, but if you want to... - Beetlejuice didn't let this opportunity go, he basically jumped into Ari's embrace instantly. He almost fell over her body, and he couldn't really wrap his hands around her, but being this close felt so good. Ari's body radiated so much heat and hearing her heart pitter-patter inside her chest made him forget how she didn't even see him. They both smiled. - Thanks for telling me a bit about your origin story. I know it's hard to talk about these kind of shits.

Beetlejuice let Ari go and sit back a bit, still staying close to the girl. She let her hands down.

- I'm only this honest with you cause you told shit to me too. - the demon lowered his raspy voice. - But if you tell anyone about my problems, even though we are bffffs forever, I'll skewer you like a pig. Understood? - Ari swallowed and blinked nervously while nodding. Beetlejuice continued like he didn't say anything threatening. - Anyway, I still don't know why do you hear me. Are we getting there soon? - Ari nodded again and rubbed her cheek.

- Yeah, sure, buckle up for the worse part of the ride, buddy. - she cleared her throat. - When the next day I went over to his place to break up with him and to tell him that I belong to no one, and he doesn't have the right to tell me what to do, he hit me. He slapped me so hard that my cheek ripped up a bit. - she pulled her hair back a bit, revealing a tiny scar on her left cheekbone. - The next day he called me, told me that he's sorry and he didn't want to hurt me. I hang up on him quickly and got a new number the same day. I wanted him gone. But it didn't take him much time to get my new number. He called me a thousand times. But since I didn't answer, he started to follow me. Watching from the street while I was at school. Creeping around the studio I sang at. - she sniffled as her eyes started to get teary, but she quickly wiped them with the sleeve of her cardigan - You know, I called the cops. I told them everything. And they told me they couldn't do anything until he hurts me. - she chuckled in an annoyed way. She fuckin chuckled. - They didn't have to wait for that for so long.

- WHAT?! - shouted Beetlejuice which made Ari jump a bit. He jumped up in anger, the tips of his hair shining in bright red. - THOSE GUYS SHOULD TAKE CARE OF PEOPLE, NOT TELL THEM TO "GET FUCKIN HURT THEN WE'LL TALK"?!? - he squatted down next to Ari. - Let me guess, that son of a bitch ex of yours caused those fuckin scars?!?

-...yes... - said Ari with bated breath. Beetlejuice scraffed his fluffy hair and unshaven face. - I was walking home late from a rehearsal, mom was at work, and when I was already at our street, he stepped up to me out of nowhere, started to tell me how he's gonna change and after I pushed him, and told him to leave me alone since I fuckin hate him and I don't belong to him... He said that if I don't wanna belong to him, then I'll belong to no-one. And he... - tears started running down her cheeks. - Stabbed me. Again. And again.

- THIS... MOTHER FUCKER... - he bit his fist and started to babble. - I mean yeah sure I kinda get it I'm a bit possessive too, also creepy, but I'm pretty sure he could get an another hot goth chick and...

- HE KILLED ME, MAN! - screamed Ari into the abyss. Beetlejuice froze in his movement.

- W...What? - Ari sat still, hands covering her mouth. Beetlejuice squatted down next to her again. - Babes did I hear that right? - she shut her eyes and sighed. She let her hands go and stared down from the roof.

- Yes. - she said. Her voice was so weak. - A neighbor saw what happened and called the ambulance. I got rushed into hospital and... I went under surgery. They had to remove a part of my intestines asap... They got damaged from the stabs... And while I was knocked out... My heart decided to give up on me. And I died.

Beetlejuice sat down at the brim of the roof. He was shocked.

- I... suppose that's why you have a fixation with death? - he asked calmly. Ari shrugged and lifted her hands up.

- Partly... Other than the fact I was born on Halloween so it's basically in my blood... I think what really caused my obsession is that I remember every goddamn second of being dead. I remember seeing my body, covered in blood, and as I realized what was going on, I started panicking about how much more I wanted to do and how young I was to die. - she sighed with a light, not so real smile. She sounded so damaged. The demon could hear the pain in her voice. - 🎶And so, being young and dipt in folly, I fell in love with melancholy.🎶 - she looked at Beetlejuice's direction after she wiped her tears off with a tissue. - I was dead for 4 minutes before they brought me back. More or less. Looks like that's why I hear you. Many folks who die and come back develop this... "ability" to see or hear creatures from other dimensions. My special power is to hear demons, as it turns out. - she looked at the demon's direction. - Good for you I winded up in this house.

- I'm so happy about that. I couldn't ask for a better breather partner in crime in my dreams. - Ari heard in his voice that he was smiling. Oh if she could see his lightpink hairtips too... - What happened after? - asked Beetlejuice. Ari lifted her eyebrows a bit. - I mean, I hope the fucker got what he deserved and someone killed him. - Ari bit his lips in frustration, and sighed.

- Not exactly... At least he didn't got what I think he would have deserved. - she stretched out her legs. - While I was in the hospital for 8 months, on full-time mental and physical therapy by the way, I filed a report against him and got him arrested. I was so relieved... Then I heard he only got 3 years. - she fumbled through her hair. - Seriously, he fuckin put someone in intensive care for months and all he got was a couple of years then adiós, go on your fuckin way my man?! - she let out an angry growl. - Just because, and I quote, "he was young and could have a bright future", yes, that's what the jury said... - she huffed. - But the good thing is, right after he got out, he violated the restraining order that I got against him. He came to the house that Sofi, Rei, my mom and I lived in. You know, they moved in with us after I got out of the hospital because... For the first 5 or six months, I was afraid to go out without company. So my sisters helped a lot. They even kind of made me forget how my friends left me, because "I was acting overdramatic and why couldn't I just forget and be happy". - Beetlejuice raised his eyebrows and shook his head.

- The fuck is wrong with people... - Ari let out an annoyed chuckle.

- Oh my man, most of them are awful fellas. After this, I didn't even care that I missed my prom. - she swallowed her saliva and leaned back so she could gaze the stars. - So yeah, back to the subject, that pendejo came to our house in the middle of the night and demanded my mom to take him to me cause he wanted to say sorry because he missed me so much and wanted us to start a new chapter. - Ari rubbed her temples. - The police acted quickly this time and put him into jail for 3 more years. - she sighed. - Not that I think that's enough... But it was enough for us to find a new home and move away from him, as far as we could.

Beetlejuice waddled closer to her, and layed down as well.

- You know what's the weirdest thing about you, scarecrow? - Ari chuckled.

- Besides the fact that my best buddy is a demon? - BJ laughed a bit too. - No idea, Bug.

- That you're so full of life, and so goddamn annoyingly positive. If you wouldn't tell me, I wouldn't know you had so much shit to deal with. - Ari put her hands up in the air while shrugging.

- Look, I already know how does it feel to die. By the time I turned 19, I decided I'd try how does it feel to be alive. And when I'm not a mess, oh boy, it's so much fun! - Beetlejuice turned to his side and looked at the girl.

- You’re not a mess babes, you’re a... spicy disaster! - Ari laughed. It was so nice to hear that adorable laugh again. BJ looked straight into her emerald eyes that were gleaming in the moonlight. - You know, doll, I'm really sorry for creeping around. If I would've known, I... - he shut up as Ari gestured with her hand.

- You didn't know. It's alright. I hate being followed, but you're so goddamn chatty that it doesn't feel creepy at all. Plus, you're not human, which makes me more comfortable. It's somehow nice to have you weirdo around.

For a couple of minutes, they just laid there, both watching the stars. It was so peaceful, but something still bugged Beetlejuice and he just couldn't let it go.

- Hey, babes? - Ari turned her head to his direction.

- Yeah?

- If he ever finds you, can I kill your ex-boyfriend?

[lovemesomesurveys]

What would you call your body type? Stick thin? *shrug*

Are you a morning person? Nooo, I sleep in late. I’m still crabby regardless of when I get up; though, and still feel tired and unrested and in serious need of coffee.

Have you ever been to Target? Countless times. I love Target.

Do you like iced tea? Sure. I couldn’t tell you the last time I had any, though.

When is the next time you’ll be at work? I don’t have a job.

Do you have a savings account? No.

Has anyone ever hacked your accounts before? Yes.

What color bedsheets are currently on your bed? They’re like an off white color.

Have you ever been to Disney World? If so, how many times have you been? Nope. I’ve been to Disneyland several times, though.

Does grammar and capitalization mean anything to you? It absolutely does.

Are you good at wrapping gifts for others? I’m not the best wrapper ever, but I do enjoy doing it.

Do you have a dirty clothes hamper in your room? Yes.

What would you say is your favorite television show? I have several.

Do you enjoy big holiday dinners? My family’s big holiday dinners got a lot smaller over the years, sadly. Now it’s just my parents, brother, and I. I love that, too, but I miss when more of my family was able to get together. Is your vision good? With my glasses on, yeah. ha.

Is there any piece of jewelry you’re constantly wearing? Nope.

What is one thing you desire as of now? To be able to fast forward through summer and also get back to some normalcy. I know things will be different now, but it’d be nice to get to a place where we didn’t have the fear of catching a highly contagious virus looming over our heads. Will it ever get to that point?

What kind of phone do you have? An iPhone XR.

If you could move anywhere, where would you choose? Somewhere with cooler weather year round. A place where you experience actual autumns and winters and not long, miserable summers.

Do you blog a lot, if at all? This is my blog.

Is your present hair color, natural? No.

What makes you the most angry when it comes to people? There’s a few things that come to mind, but I don’t want to get into that.  

Describe your current outfit? Black leggings and a black shirt. My usual attire. 

What was the last thing you ordered online? A couple of shirts for my mom and I. I want to order some of Bath & Body Works’ beachy scented hand soaps and body sprays as well. At least I can smell like the beach since I can’t go to one. :(

Have you ever felt as though you were drifting apart from a best friend? Yeah, and I did.

What color are your eyes? Brown.

Have you ever worn color contacts? Nope. I haven’t worn any contacts, just the idea of putting them in my eye and taking them out freaks me out.

What’s the best thing about a hug? They can be nice and comforting. They can also be awkward. It just depends. 

Biggest fear? Losing my loved ones, death, never getting better/getting worse, never doing anything with my life....

If you have a significant other, how long have you been together? I’m single.

Do you know any genuinely friendly people? Yes.

Do you buy your friends gifts? I bought them birthday and Christmas gifts. What was the last thing you plugged in? My phone to the charger.

How old are you? 30.

What color headphones do you own? They’re black.

Have you ever shopped on Urban Outfitters? Yeah, just a couple of times. They’re way overpriced.

Where do you buy the majority of your clothing? BoxLunch, Hot Topic, and Kohl’s. 

Would you rather wear necklaces or earrings? Earrings.

Do you consider yourself fortunate? I am in some ways.

Do you enjoy watching fights? Nooo.

Have you ever been in a physical fight? No.

Do you tend to talk badly about people? If I do it’s usually about people that have done stupid or ridiculous things that I hear or read about in the news. 

Where are your parents as of now? They’re in bed asleep.

Does your computer cooperate most of the time? Yeah, I haven’t had any problems. It’s only about 3 years old.

Does your family have any cheesy traditions? Sure, but I love ‘em.

When did you last go to a book store? Sometime last year.

What’s the closest book store where you live? Barnes & Noble. How much money do you have on you right now? None.

Favorite personal feature? I like my hair sometimes like after it’s been recently colored and styled. 

Are you wearing make up at the moment? Nope.

Favorite television channel? MTV, E!, The Hallmark Channel, ID.

Describe any piercings or tattoos you might have? I just have my earlobes pierced. No tattoos. 

Have you ever been fired from a job? I’ve never had a job.

Are you currently losing a best friend? No.

Describe the worst day of your life: Let’s not.

Do you play any video games? Yeah. Currently, I’ve been super into Animal Crossing: New Horizons.

Would you say you hate anyone? Apart from myself, no.

Do you think freckles are cute? Sure.

Last time you went to the mall? Back in early February. 

Name something that’s your favorite color: One of my favorite colors is rose gold and I have a really soft throw blanket that I love in that color.

Have you been to Red Lobster before? Yeah, several times. Haven’t been there in years, though. I’m not a seafood fan at all, but they had a delicious creamy cajun pasta. 

Do you judge by appearances? >> Judge what, exactly? There is some information I process through appearance, yeah – like, I assume that a person wearing a Behemoth t-shirt and black jeans with a chain wallet is probably a metalhead. Or that a person with impeccable hair and nails and makeup is probably really fussy about their appearance. The thing is, these are still things that I could possibly be wrong about, but it’d be harmless. <<< 

Do you follow a certain religion? Yes, Christianity. 

Who is your role model, if you had to choose? My mom.

Would you rather have nice hair or lips? Hair.

What are you most self conscious about? A lot of things.

Do you have any family members who live out of town? Yeah.

Do you consider yourself short? Yes.

What room are you in? Mine.

Hoodies or jackets? Hoodies.

Are you outside a lot? Ha, no. I’ve been a hermit crab years before the quarantine/lockdown this year, but that definitely has made it worse.

Have you ever been dumped via text message? Yes.

Do you like dreamcatchers? They’re pretty to look at, but I don’t believe they do anything. 

What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? I don’t have one.

Do you hate repetitive people and things? >> Er… like, not as a rule, I guess. But there are some repetitive things I hate, like certain sounds. <<< Yeah, same. And my life is also very repetitive.

Do you think autocorrect is a blessing or curse? It can helpful and annoying at times.

Do you believe in any particular curses? No.

Ever play a Ouija board? No. I don’t mess with stuff like that.

What movie scares you the most? There really isn’t one anymore. I love horror films. Some do still creep me out, but there isn’t one that has messed me up or anything. There’s no lasting effect after I watch them.

What was your bedtime as a child? Probably like 8 and then probably 9 and 10 as I got older. 

Reason why your favorite holiday is your favorite: I just love Christmastime.

Do you work with any close friends? I don’t have a job.

Do you consider yourself spoiled? You could say that. I hate that word, though. I feel it has such a negative connotation to it, like a spoiled brat. I was never Veruca Salt or something. My parents didn’t give me whatever wanted, but they always made sure I had what I needed and went above and beyond when they could. My brother and I were good kids and they rewarded us with nice things. I’m very fortunate that they still provide for me and I’m very, very appreciative.

Do you listen to any country music? Yeah.

Favorite high school teacher: My sophomore history teacher was really cool. He reminded me of Rob Dyrdek a lot looks and personality wise. I also remember that he was a huge fan of RHCP and had them playing everyday before class. 

Do you ever get drunk? Not anymore, but I have many times back when I used to drink.

Have you ever had highlights before? I had them for several years.

Favorite number: 8.

Do you still sleep with any stuffed animals? I have 4 that sit on my bed. What is your biggest regret in life? I don’t want to get into that stuff.

Would you say you think you have a mental disorder of some kind? I do have a some mental disorders.

Are you normally an independent person? I used to be more independent than I have been these past few years. I’ve been very dependent these past few years. 

Do you have any paintings? I do.

What is one clothing fad you wish never existed? I don’t care. 

Do you like to be organized? Yes and I used to be pretty organized, but that’s changed these past few years as well. 

Have you ever failed a class before? I had to retake a math course one in community college. Funny how I took it with a different professor and actually did really well.

Ever been judged because of your weight? I’m underweight and people have their own assumptions about it. What is your favorite breakfast cereal? The sugary bad ones, ha.

Ever had a wish come true? I don’t believe in wishes.

Do you regret meeting any of your exes? No. 

Do you own any coloring books? Yes. Adult coloring books became a big thing a few years ago and I got really into it. 

What’s the meanest thing someone’s called you? I’ve said the meanest, cruelest things to myself.

Have you ever bullied someone? No.

Do you ever watch Lifetime? Growing up my mom and I used to love watching Lifetime movies. We’d binge watch ‘em every weekend. Now we’ll catch a movie every once in awhile and kind of get hooked again, but not very often.

Ever tried to intentionally sabotage someone’s grade? Wow, no.

Do you own any brown clothing? I have a brown pair of leggings.

What color are your walls painted? White.

Last thing you drank: Starbucks Doubleshot energy drink.

Have you ever seen a tornado in person? Noooo.

Do you have an inground pool at your house? No.

What is the first digit of your phone number? What’s the prettiest town you’ve been to? There’s been a few.

Do you tend to sleep a lot? When I do sleep, yes. I have a messed up sleep schedule and it’s hard for me to fall asleep, but when I do I’ve been sleeping a lot. I’d nap a lot everyday, too, if I allowed myself to, but for some reason I rarely do.

Silver or gold jewelry? I like both.

Do you sometimes celebrate holidays early? Well, for Christmas we’ve done something the day or so before with family. 

Have you ever been in love? Yes. 

What’s the best gift you’ve ever received? Everything my family has given and done for me.

When was the last time you showered? A couple days ago.

Would you consider yourself attractive? No.

Has anyone made you mad today? Not as of now.

Favorite smell: Sigh, I’ve listed this too many times.

Are you afraid of insects? YES. ALL of them.

Do you have any children? Nooo.

If so, what are their names?

Would ever consider having children in the future? I don’t want to have children.

Have you ever lived on a farm? No.

Ever played any sports? No.

Do both of your parents have jobs? Yes.

Where is the best place you’ve been on vacation to? I love all the vacations I’ve been on.

Are you afraid people won’t accept you? That’s not something I’m concerned about right now. Haven’t been the last few years. And that’s not at all because I’m confident or something... very much the opposite. 

Are you, for the most part, an honest person? Yes.

Did you make prank phone calls as a child? My friends and I did that sometimes in middle school. :X So dumb.

Do you like to make donations? Yeah.

What is your current ringtone? One of the ones that came with the phone.

Meet anyone from your past lately? No.

Have you ever called a teen suicide line? No.

Have you ever caught something on fire? Yes. Food in the microwave and in the oven. Also the tips of my hair once when blowing out birthday candles... 

Ever been obsessed with a show? Yeah. That’s what tends to happen when I’m into a show.

What type of perfume or cologne do you use? A body spray from Bath & Body Works called Into the Night. I want to get some of their beachy scents now.

What’s the last book you read? I’m currently reading, The Girl and the Hunt by AJ Rivers.

Dream career: I have no idea.

Have you ever climbed a mountain before? No.

At what age do you plan to get married? I don’t.

Ever been in a car accident? No.

[awed-frog]

Idk much about uk/eu politics but I have a question.. is this correct: us "left-wing" = uk "left-wing" = eu "left-wing." What about right wing

That’s an extremely complicated question, and I’m not sure I can do it justice, but I’m going to do my best, because it’s a really important issue.

The joke answer is: the US left is not like the European left because the US doesn’t have a left.

The tl;dr answer is: politics depends on people and how they view the world, and those things are shaped by history and geography, so every country’s going to have a slightly (or very) different version of left and right.

For a longer and possibly boring answer, see below.

Leaving aside the fact academics fight about what left and right even are (personally, I think it’s like pornography: you recognize them when you see them) and that there’s tons of theories out there on what makes people left-wing or right-wing - in a nutshell, the main characteristic of a ‘traditional’ left like the European left is opposition to the status quo and a wish to distribute wealth more equally. After all, in their modern sense, political parties were born around the time of the French revolution, when those people who supported the king and the Church deliberately placed themselves on the right-side benches of the Assembly (right being, of course, a synonym for ‘honest’, ‘just’ and everything else) so that those standing with ‘the people’ and demanding change were forced to sit on the left.

Now - as far as I can tell, one big difference between the US left and the European left is that the European left was shaped by the unions and Communism in a way the US left wasn’t. 

See, in Europe you get two waves of ‘opposition to the status quo’: the first revolutions, like - arguably - the French revolution, were mainly middle-class people being fed up and demanding the same privileges the aristocracy had. Nobody really cared about ‘the people’; the question was, “How come we - the merchants, the clerks, the lawyers - the generally hard-working and generally educated and wealthy-ish people of this fine country, are still seen like second-class citizens because we haven’t got the right blood?”. Meanwhile, the ‘real people’, those at the very bottom of society, were too uneducated, politically unaware and scattered about to demand anything for themselves. 

All that changed when factories became a thing. Suddenly, instead of a bunch of exploited farmhands grumbling about their fate and being reprimanded in some village church, you had hundreds - or thousands - of workers crammed together and chatting about how miserable their lives were. That’s how you have the conditions to truly change something - bring about a lasting revolution instead of the disorderly, ultimately useless revolts farm labourers sometimes staged. All you need is a savvy political leader, and for various reasons, it was Communism who provided that.

That’s how the modern European left was born: in the factories, among the workers, supported and nurtured by union leaders, and later inspired and funded directly by the Soviet Union. In most countries, politics became a three-way street - privilege-defending right-wing parties which gradually shifted to fascism, a combative left with a minor split between anarchists and communists, and a Christian ‘middle’ desperately trying to stay afloat and losing its soul in the process.

(Religion is by nature conservative, but while many Church leaders sided - openly or implicitly - with Nazism and Fascism, many priests fought on the other side, forming an uneasy truce with communists. Today, this inner conflict is far from over, especially in the Catholic Church.)

And then, after the war, when the European left seemed so strong the US firebombed Greece and formed a plan to invade Italy if voters decided on a Communist government, disaster struck: the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, and we started to learn what the Soviet Union really was. 

It’s impossible to underestimate what a shock that was for left-wing voters, and particularly for those who’d fought in the Resistance during WW2 and had been calling themselves communists - with great pride - for generations. For decades, the Soviet Union had been an ideal - a nation built on the refusal of a murderous war, a nation of slaves butchering a corrupt and cruel royal family, a nation of new rights for everyone, of equality, of tremendous scientific and social progress. It was only in the late 60s that people in the West started to learn about the rest of it: about Stalin’s crimes, about the gulags, about the regime’s violence - everything. And at that point, everything just - collapsed. 

Roughly speaking, left-wing parties split between a majority of people who wanted nothing to do with Communism anymore and a minority who still defended it (and later turned to violence). There were many, however, who simply walked away, or started to vote for other parties.

The second death blow for the European left, which, as I said, had been heavily linked to the unions and the factory workers, was the closing of those factories. This was partly inevitable, I suppose, because globalization made it much cheaper to move production out of Europe, but right-wing politicians like Margaret Thatcher were publicly and privately over the moon about it, and the entire process happened in such a way that entire communities were literally destroyed. The left, of course, tried to fight back - in the UK, strikes went on for weeks - but for a bunch of reasons, they lost; and slowly but surely, they also lost their voters, many of whom never found a job again.

(In the UK and elsewhere, many of them took a sharp turn to the right when parties on the extreme right found an easy answer to their problems: those ‘bloody foreigners’ who’d taken their jobs.)

Finally, the European left got all but obliterated when some influential left-wing politicians decided the only way back was to move ‘to the centre’ (ie, to the right) and surrender to extreme capitalism. Left-wing parties had already lost most of their traditional base (factory workers) and when people like Tony Blair took over and preached the Milton Friedman Gospel, they mostly lost the other, smaller part of their supporters (students and intellectuals) without gaining all that much in return. That’s how in many countries today you find a left wing that can still command a sizable portion of the vote but is splintered among dozens of small parties. In some cases, like France and now Italy, voters are so fed up with the lack of clear values the left is almost gone.

In the US, on the other hand, things happened very differently. 

For one thing, the unions decided not to play a part in politics. For another, parties inspired by Soviet Russia were definitely a no-no. Then you’ve got the geography of the place - hundreds of small communities scattered here and there, all with different cultural values and political goals, the light of their ‘manifest destiny’ guiding them in a difficult and alienating environment. And the fact political parties in the US were born top-down instead of bottom-up. And, of course, slavery and its aftermath. 

(In a nutshell: since there are always more workers than bosses, the only way for bosses to control workers is divide them into prvileged and less privileged sections so they fight among themselves instead of collaborating and asking for better working conditions. This is particularly easy to do when the less homogenous your staff is. That means that in Europe, workers solidarity was much easier to achieve - though we still got tensions, even violence, because that’s nationalism and racism for you - while in the US it was much more difficult to integrate African workers with white workers and convince them to stand together, with people on various sides, and with different motivations, insisting that what divided these groups was too significant to be overlooked.)

That’s basically why you can’t exactly compare the Democratic party, which traditionally served the interests of rich land-owners in the South, supported slavery and was born more as a lobby than what Europe would understand as a party, with the European left. They’re two different animals. One of my university professors used to say Democrats and Republicans are not about left and right at all - they were shaped by other things, and serve more as geographical and historical markers than as parties - to the point were the left wing of the Democratic party would have more in common (and vote with) the left wing of the Republican party than with the right wing of the Democratic party. And while the Democratic party slowly became more similar to the European left (for instance by aligning with the workers and supporting civil rights) the transition was never complete. In fact, a new wave of fresh tensions is happening right now: there’s very little in common between people like Joe Biden and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and in Europe they’d probably belong to different parties. From what I read, many people (especially young people) are trying to pull the party to the left, but party leaders absolutely do not want that. That’s a huge problem, especially in a country with a two-party system, and may very well cost the Democrats the 2020 election.

As for the right: as I said in some earlier post, while the left splinters, the right simply - moves more to the right. That’s been a common trend for decades, and something you can see very clearly, especially in the US and the UK, but also in France or in Italy. 

(Germany seems immune - for now - but we’ll have to wait and see.) 

This happens, in part, because people on the right are generally motivated by concrete goals and are ready to stomach tons of unpleasantness to get there. The millionaires funding the Republican party may not like the prospect of a trade war with China, but they’re going to keep donating because they get tax cuts in return; and Christian extremists are not enthusiastic about a President who sleeps around with prostitutes, but if he makes abortion illegal, they’ll still show up for him.

The problem with all of this is that most people, everywhere, are sort of in the middle. And now the middle is disappearing - well, the big question is, where are they going to go? Every scenario is very dangerous, because from what we’ve seen so far, there’s only four bad choices:

People keep voting for their traditional party, but do it unenthusiastically and consider it the lesser of two evils. This way, party leaders are encouraged to stay on their path, and things get steadily worse (example: the Italian left).

People vote for ‘the new face’ because they’re fed up with ‘business as usual’. This is generally a disaster, because ‘the new face’ is either someone with a precise and hidden agenda (like Berlusconi or Macron) or someone with zero experience who’s going to fuck things up, because politics is complicated (like the Italian 5* Movement) or a combination of both (arguably, Nick Clegg and the LibDems in general).

People vote for the most radical thing they find, which is usually a party on the extreme right possibly masquerading as ‘the centre’ or ‘the sensible choice’. This is the ‘protest vote’ and partly how you get Donald Trump or Marine Le Pen.

Finally, lots of people just stop voting, which empowers the extremes because if you take those with doubts or uncertainties out of the equation, you’re left with the obsessed, the stans and the nutters. In fact, considering how many people don’t vote, extreme right parties like Salvini’s Lega don’t have a lot of support, but is this good news? They’re still at the head of the government.

So there you go. I’m sorry it got so long - I hope it made sense? In short, left- and right-wing parties of different countries are likely to have stuff in common, to the point where they often work together without too much friction (as they do in the European Parliament, for instance), but it’s problematic and incorrect to say there’s a ‘universal left’ and a ‘universal right’ based on the same exact values and goals. 

If you’re trying to understand whether you yourself are right-wing or left-wing, this test is always a good place to start - but you’ll need to have an opinion on a number of issues in order to answer it so that it’s truly useful to you. My advice would be to read up on the history of your own country, if possible from unbiased sources; to keep up with the news (from different sources); to discuss important issues with friends, teachers and family members - keeping an open mind and interacting even with people you don’t agree with; to accept political opinions are fluid and will change with age, or when you learn new facts; and take the time to listen to the candidates before elections so you know where they stand on stuff that matters to you (education? the climate? immigration? more jobs for young people? foreign policy? women’s rights? and so on).

[lligkv]

many are called, few are chosen

Until I picked up The Razor’s Edge on a sale rack at Moe’s Books in Berkeley, W. Somerset Maugham was an author I’d known only as a name. The book sat on my shelf for a few weeks after I bought it, too. I didn’t feel any particular pull to it, and the list of books I have to read always outstrips my capacity. But when I did finally start it, I read Maugham’s comment that “Even so subtle and careful an observer as Henry James, though he lived in England for forty years, never managed to create an Englishman who was through and through English,” and I knew I was in for something good.

The Razor’s Edge centers on a couple, Laurence Darrell and Isabel Bradley, who break their engagement over their entirely different visions of life. Isabel wants a conventionally wealthy one; Larry, a war veteran who watched a good friend die for his sake, aims to leave society to discover what’s truly meaningful. The narrator, also named Maugham, tracks them as they pass in and out of each other’s life trajectories in the years after. He also tracks others in Isabel and Larry’s orbit: Gray Maturin, son of the businessman Henry Maturin, who also loved Isabel and wins her when Isabel and Larry decide to part ways; and Elliott Templeton, Isabel’s uncle, the brother of her mother Louisa, a dilettante and social butterfly who’s also a friend of Maugham’s.

Elliott often comes off ridiculous or outright irritating for his sociality—say, his determination unto his death to be invited to all the gayest parties in Paris, London, and the French Riviera, far past the time others in his social circle are willing to grant him dignity—and the determination with which he cleaves to the mores of that circle, as when he continually steers Isabel toward Gray because Larry continues to refuse to get a job for reasons Elliott can’t discern, “loafing” and losing himself in books instead. Maugham nevertheless regards Elliott with real affection, because he recognizes that under Elliott’s trivial shell lies real kindness. One pleasure of The Razor’s Edge is just how perceptive Maugham as writer-narrator is, always seeing both sides of everything and everyone. Isabel often seeks Maugham’s counsel both before her split with Larry and after, when he returns from his long sojourns in Europe and India. And while Maugham’s ultimate judgment of her—as lacking tenderness—proves too much for her to take, she admits several times that what he thinks of her means a great deal to her.

Indeed, what to think of Isabel? Initially she’s young, loving, yet clear-eyed. She’s patient with Larry, gently pushing past Elliott and Louisa’s concern with the time he’s taking to commit to her, or to a job, or to anything. As it becomes clear that what Larry’s going through isn’t just a phase, and she won’t get the life she’s used to with him, she breaks the engagement. She’s not without ambivalence about it—as she tells Maugham, “I know that I’m not playing the star part in this.” She also knows she’s the one who’d suffer for Larry’s genius. What’s more, as Maugham points out, there’s no guarantee Larry’s desires will amount to anything:

Years ago, when I was young, I knew a man who was a doctor, and not a bad one either, but he didn’t practice. He spent years burrowing away at the library of the British Museum and at long intervals produced a huge pseudo-scientific, pseudo-philosophical book that nobody read and that he had to publish at his own expense. He wrote four or five of them before he died and they were absolutely worthless. He had a son who wanted to go into the army, but there was no money to send him to Sandhurst, so he had to enlist. He was killed in the war. He had a daughter too. She was very pretty and I was rather taken with her. She went on the stage, but she had no talent and she traipsed around the provinces paying small parts in second-rate companies at a miserable salary. His wife, after years of dreary, sordid drudgery, broke down in health and the girl had to come home and nurse her and take on the drudgery her mother no longer had the strength for. Wasted, thwarted lives and all to no purpose. It’s a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called, but few are chosen.

That last line haunts me. As a writer, I feel like one of the called. I fear I’m not one of the chosen.

And next to that, wouldn’t it be wiser to be an Isabel. Who does get what she wants when she marries Gray Maturin: the chance to travel, the chance to enjoy herself, children and a stable life. At least until the depression hits and Gray loses everything.

The years pass. In time, the five—Maugham, Isabel, Gray, Larry, and Elliott—reconnect in Paris. Elliott lives there; Isabel and Gray join him for a time to rally their funds and health; Maugham and Larry arrive at their bachelors’ leisure. Once there, the group runs into Sophie Macdonald, a childhood friend of Isabel, Larry, and Gray who, having lost her husband and child, has become utterly dissipated. Larry becomes determined to save Sophie. Isabel feels nothing but contempt for her, and fear Larry will be ruined.

It’s as though as Sophie’s star rises in Larry’s universe, Isabel’s star in the novel falls. She’s become crude. When she originally rejected Larry, it was because she simply wanted a conventional life, not because she felt contempt for those who didn’t lead such lives—in fact, she knew then Larry was one to admire. As an adult, on the other hand, she goes so far as to set a bottle of Polish liquor Elliott’s gifted her out in the drawing room specifically to tempt Sophie into drinking and falling back into her old life, out of Larry’s. Conventional culture coarsens people. It takes away their ability to make their own choices and to let others make theirs. You go so far into the role you play, like high-society wife, that you lose all self-awareness. Indeed, you have to bury any awareness of the nobler life to subsist in your social one. And Isabel’s has been buried so far she can’t see the spiritual valence of Larry’s attachment to Sophie. She’s no longer willing to dignify his desire or his choice. She can see only the social ruin—never mind that Larry doesn’t really have any social capital to speak of at this point; there’s no ruin to defend against. Whatever tenderness was once in her—whatever human feeling and spiritual sensitivity—is gone.

The sensitivity remains in Larry. Who’s something of a saint figure, if less like Christ than the stereotype of the Eastern sage that you could write about in Maugham’s day. As Maugham puts it, he’s possessed of a passion for self-sacrifice that “whirls the victim to destruction in the highest affirmation of his personality.”

He’s also, as you might expect, a figure of doubt. The question that occupies him is “a basic question, but an eternal one: “If an all-good and all-powerful God created the world, why did He create evil?” Why did God allow a war that took his friends’ lives; why did God create humans with spiritual voids that drive them as Larry himself is driven? And if God made humans to be capable of sin, like Sophie with her drinking, why does he fault them for demonstrating that capacity?

After the conclusion of the Sophie Macdonald affair, the drama of Larry and Isabel’s relationship falls away; the question of God becomes the novel’s most pressing. Maugham also tags the chapter in which he and Larry have their deepest conversation about God as nonessential—and indeed the novel could stand fine without it. But it’s Razor’s secret heart. Larry’s ultimate argument in that chapter, as he reveals to Maugham what happened during his five years in India, is:

In the West, the structures of faith are elaborate (e.g., the Catholic church) and faith itself is tortured and ambivalent. In the East—again, speaking broadly—faith is lived; its structures are woven into daily life. Essentially, history’s spiral spins, over and over, into all time; we’re caught up, we live and die, in its churn. We don’t contemplate the churn until something like war brings us face to face with its reality. When you’re confronted by the nature of life in this way, you can either fashion a philosophy in which there is a God in charge of it all and fear of this God and obedience to Him give you a door out of this world and into Heaven. Or you can live your life in such a way that you might be able to renounce earthly life and exit the spiral of reincarnation or repetition for all time.

It’s an age-old opposition, nothing new, and Larry’s foray into Hinduism does feel like an orientalist answer to the question of occidental faith. But I think it’s hard to deny the appeal that non-duality—the idea that the mind and the body, the self and the world that surrounds it, are not separate; that all that is is “awareness”—can have for philosophically dualist societies and belief systems predicated upon Cartesian conceptualizations of the mind and body: the materialist idea of a concrete, distinct self tied to each body, which interacts with a world outside of it, that persists despite it.

Larry’s contention seems to be that in non-dual traditions, questions like “why did God create evil, or make evil possible?” can be answered—the answer being that there is no God who creates this evil or can save you from an original sin that’s intrinsic to your being, and nor is there any such sin. There is simply an Absolute from which the stuff that is your eternal soul is descended, to live out temporal loops of incarnation—as many as it takes to live a life free of misdeeds. And it falls upon you, in your soul’s current manifestation, to live in such a way that you might earn an exit from these loops—a return to the Absolute.

How do I feel about Larry’s argument? I can imagine that the idea that no evil really exists is comforting when you’ve witnessed something that’s otherwise entirely aberrant, senseless, unconscionable, like a person you love being blown to bits in front of you. Even if the other possible answer—that evil exists, and you’ve just witnessed it—seems just as plausible to me.

And while I’m sympathetic to Larry’s desire for truth. I don’t know that non-duality is where I’d find it. Or traditional religion, for that matter. I don’t consider the question of sin in terms of the state of one’s soul pressing. I consider the question of sin in terms of wrongs and harm done to others pressing. And something about the former way of thought feels a little self-absorbed to me—as though you’re interested in spiritual truth because of what it might mean for you, as opposed to what it might help you do, how it might help you minimize the harm to others that you might commit if you didn’t think in terms of right or wrong and about what’s ethical and what’s not.

But I say all this as a product of my particular historical moment. As I read The Razor’s Edge, my own distance from essential questions of goodness and evil felt very clear. I don’t know that I could imagine a Larry Durrell type living in 2019. I came to wonder if living in late-capitalist liberal democracy, post-religion, has robbed me of a capacity for deep moral or spiritual investigation like Maugham’s (or Graham Greene’s, another very moral writer I’ve read quite a bit of lately). After all, I too live in interesting times, times whose questions are full of moral stakes. (E.g., you live in a world that’s capable of separating migrant children from their families, keeping people who are blameless for their own conditions penned in arbitrary borders and denying them the right to live where they please based on the contingent fact of their citizenship. Do you participate in this world? How?) But—and I realize how self-indulgent this sounds; what the times I live in mean for my art is hardly the most relevant question I ought to be asking about them—I don’t seem able to write anything of real depth about the times in which I live. Let alone come up with substantive answers to any of my moral questions.

After I finished this novel, I came to think: maybe religion gives you the terms for a moral understanding of the world. And when you’re shaped by conditions that don’t mandate a faith—when the structures of your world are entirely liberal-democratic, or commercial, and not moral in any way—and you live a pretty safely bourgeois life, and you are not driven through an experience, like the war that Larry Durrell survives, that sends cracks through those conditions and reveals how contingent they are and the depths of human suffering that their prosperity can obscure—you become complacent. No questions like the ones that inform this novel ever occur to you.

Or rather, by the time that the things you’ve gotten used to break down, revealing the questions that you thought the End of History had rendered moot, you’re left with no sense of what the answers to those questions might be, and only the most unfit tools to find them.

[llzehs]

RAW Thoughts (10/1/18)

Oh boy. So we got another Dean centric RAW last night and I cannot believe WWE is finally treating Dean like a royalty that he really is. For the first time I feel like they are giving him a proper storyline and actually trying to capitalize on the absolute unique talent/gift they have in someone like Ambrose. Dean is such a good performer, such a natural. There are very few in the business who can perform as naturally as he can. Also, from where he was never really taken seriously ever before to the extent to which they always consider Roman/Seth to be, its an absolute relief that for the first time they are pushing Dean as someone who’s special/admired/respected. Who is not someone to be looked over and not taken seriously. Who is on the same level as Roman/Seth. There is a huge change in the way WWE’s been building him since his return. Its easily noticeable.

Now, few points.

I know we are all worried bout Dean ‘betraying’ the Shield and turning heel. But I think we all missed something very important. I did not expect WWE to actually be this good with Dean’s booking since they never want to invest in him. But you have to give WWE credit here.

This whole episode was Dean telling the universe how he is expected to act a certain way, but he’s not going to. He was out there giving mixed signals. But if you really look at it, you would notice how Dean’s basically putting it out there how he’s got a certain option out there and anyone else would be taking it up the way this business works but he did not and he’s trying to make Roman/Seth realize that. He’s trying to show them without words how he’s always putting his family over titles/glory. How as much as he wants to say fuck you to Roman/Seth, he’s not being able to cuz family is everything to him. Shield is the only sense of family he ever had. Seth took it away from him cuz titles/glory was more important. Dean’s going through a mental turmoil. He’s too proud to let Roman/Seth know he’s hurt by their (mainly Seth’s) actions. He felt betrayed, he felt replaced, he felt not loved when he was out. All these frustrations, him looking like a ticking bomb, him dropping down hints that he’s not naive, playing mind games with Roman/Seth…Its a cry for help. He’s trying to express how much he’s hurting/not okay and Roman/Seth have done a shitty job in comforting him/making him feel loved/assuring him he’s loved/special. He’s rubbing it in Roman/Seth’s faces, ‘see? you only see me when you wanna see me. When you are all I see.’ Dean has constantly talked bout titles aren’t the validation he needs. But he sees his brothers thriving on chasing/acquiring championships, everyone pointing out how it makes them superior/better than Dean. So he shows them he can be hungry for glory too. But he’s choosing not to cuz family is more important to him.

Love hurts. Caring for someone hurts. Loyalty fucks you up. But these are morals Dean has built his legacy on. He’s out there telling ya all he’s fucking hurting cuz he’s the heart of the Shield. He’s trying to scream without really using his voice and get Roman/Seth to see how loving them has put him through so much anguish. How everyone’s trying to manipulate him, and he’s not an idiot. He wants Roman/Seth to know he ain’t naive. He sees everything, he feels everything, but he’s making a choice that might destroy his heart, and he wants Roman/Seth to SEE that. To notice that. To acknowledge that.

Here’s comes the best part. IF Roman/Seth fail to give Dean the comfort he is seeking right now, Dean’s gonna leave them. Its not gonna be a betrayal. Its not gonna be a heel turn. Its gonna be character development at its best. Storytelling at its peak. A guy fought through everything and everyone, kept loving where his heart was at. But in the end Roman/Seth’s hunger for glory over family made Dean snap and he decided to show them he can chase glory and put it above everything too.

Point to be noted, Roman/Seth, specially Roman has ALWAYS put family/Dean first. Always. He never failed Dean. But he’s more of a pride kind of guy. He’s so possessive/protective of his status as an Alpha Male. That might be the key to Dean’s problem with Roman. Cuz nothing else make sense for Dean to be angry at Roman. Roman costed him a match when he could have simply distracted Braun. His pride got the best of him. Dean was visibly pissed. Like an independent wife who’s husband would get involve in her business cuz he’s too proud, you know? Lmao, I know. My examples can be quite out there 😂 

Now despite all of those good things, there is this big ass plot hole. Roman/Seth, who both thrive on being defending champs, wouldn’t they be putting their titles on the line to erase Dean’s worries/insecurities? They love giving out opportunities left and right, you think they cannot handle Dean? Who they have both defeated one on one in the past? Roman KNOWS they can handle fighting over the titles without hurting their brotherhood. Seth looking kinda betrayed and shocked, then Roman looking kinda hurt/confused…it made ZERO sense. Its not like Dean’s stabbing them in the back. Its not like Dean’s playing dirty. Its Dean’s right to fight for any title and Roman/Seth having top titles doesn’t mean Dean can’t fight his brothers without some kind of betrayal being implied. That was extremely stupid in my opinion. 

So here’s the thing. I do not think they are gonna make Dean turn on Roman/Seth. And if they do, I assume it will be Seth. Even if Dean turns, its just gonna be matter of him snapping. No one’s understanding him right now. Making him feel secure/safe. Telling him what he needs to hear. He’s fighting a battle on his own. Whereas he needs his brothers telling him they’ll love him no matter what, they are out there telling him he’s needed for a show. Dean has every right to be pissed, and feel like he can be better on his own. Dean saying he could have gone to SD but didn’t was a clear example of him expressing how glory is not his priority. But Roman/Seth probably don’t feel the same and that would be the cause of problem for Dean. Not titles, not glory, but Roman/Seth having different goals/priorities than him and him getting sick of being a sensitive emotional mess which only causes his heart to hurt.

Also, Roman looked visibly upset. It was understandable considering he hasn’t done anything wrong. Maybe unintentionally he has given the World title more importance, but he defended Dean’s honor and was there for him no matter what. He knows he has never put glory/titles over Dean. Him getting mad and wanting to lay down some ass kicking was cute considering he was deeply angry at the shitshow that was ‘fuck up with Deano’s mind’ on everyone’s to do list. He was out there wanting to beat someone up cuz he’s so done with them messing with his baby boy’s psyche. He knows Dean can be vulnerable/insecure/crazy, he doesn’t blame Dean. But he’s confused, frustrated and want this bullshit to end. He genuinely thinks they are far too above this bullshit at this stage of their careers.

Seth, Oh Seth. The story and contrast between Seth/Roman is so amazing here. Seth instantly went all soft eyes/soft face when Dean was being a mega bitch to him. He wasn’t confused. He wasn’t angry. He knows he’s this close to losing Dean and he’ll have no one to blame but his own selfishness. He want to be there for Dean. He knows his past has scared Dean’s psyche but he still loves Dean and wanna put himself out there cuz not having Dean is not something he wanna think bout. Its stupid, but Dean’s worth it. He did replace Dean, he doesn’t know how he keep hurting Dean when he promises himself that’s the last thing he wanna do. But I think he’s made peace with the fact that he’s selfish and is immune to hurting the ones he love. But he’ll still fight for them, he’ll still want to keep them.

Also when Dean was lashing out, Seth didn’t back down. He didn’t even flinch. It was kinda cute. My ambrollins trashy heart was thinking he’s used to Dean’s moody bitch fits and he’s an expert at handling his moody ass wife lol.

Btw, Dean, once again looked pretty as hell in the opening segment. Shout out to Charly’s prettiness too while we are at it.

The look Dean gave to the medic, lmao he was being such a little bitch throughout the whole show. I love his moody grumpy ass.

Dean whump, all round…Good content.

I almost thought Dean wasn’t coming out to save Roman/Seth. But he did. Once again proving to himself/everyone else even though he’s aware he’s in for an asskicking, he’s gonna take it for his family. Its Dean’s pride that’s making him all angsty and sad and miserable.

Braun and crew complimenting Dean and still looking to be on the mission to court Princess Dean, lmao. Cute shit. Its a nice change of pace. I am still amazed WWE are not treating Dean as a joke like they always did.

Drew was all brooding…I bet ya all he was thinking bout ‘I don’t know bout these two idiots but Dean will definitely fit in VERY WELL in my arms’. Scottish Daddy detecting when a Baby Boy is vulnerable for the taking 🤭

Wow. I am off to write some angst folks. So much whump. So much drama. So many inspirations. The Shield drama has definitely awoken my muses and now they are all going wild.

[arcticdementor]

To be sure, this is a man speaking. But the fundamental quality of this kind of approach to art, culture, the public square, and the rest of it, is evidence of a disordered and out of control femininity. And an equally dysfunctional and abdicating masculinity. A comment left by Youngamconreader on another thread got me thinking about this. I think there is a direct connection between the sexual orientation and gender identity and "alternative family" topics that this blog often discusses, and what's going on in a story like this one, here. I think we are collectively experiencing a massive breakdown/derangement of sex, of masculinity and femininity, and the damage is felt in every single corner of our society and our politics. The "pink police state" (Poulos--check him out) that is coming into being is the product of a miserable and frustrated femininity, which holds the field almost without opposition due to the near-complete abdication of men, who are, sometimes I think almost "to a man," in today's society, nihilistic and disengaged. For those who would say Trump proves that this is not true, I would say look at how he stands alone--at least in America and indeed in the Anglosphere. Everybody agrees that he is sui generis; all of the establishment of his own party just wants things to go back to the way they were; there is nobody who even remotely resembles something like a successor. Also, it is telling that one of the major reasons he won is because he is an online troll, but rich and famous enough to do it under his own name; he is the stand-in for huge numbers of men who have nothing but contempt for today's world but who only reveal their views and feelings anonymously. In large measure, men are opting out. Our bourgeois and hugely wealthy and powerful nation is decadent and its people are soft and domesticated; and, what is worse, the men of sensitivity and intelligence, of taste and discernment, are disgusted by what they see -- a rotten culture of placelessness, hideous architecture and built environments, unbelievably bad art and culture, degenerate music, films made for lowest-common-denominator global audiences, films that are so much more hideous than what was being done for decades, even as early as the 1930s, that it boggles the mind (every single person involved in CGI production should be lined up and shot), universities that have destroyed their own liberal arts programs -- OK, I need to stop myself, but you get the point, they are disgusted by what they see -- primarily they are disgusted by the *domestication* of the people they are supposed to look up to and/or emulate -- and they withdraw. We know about the video game and pornography addicts, the shut-ins, the "incels," but there is very much more to it all even than that. In the meantime, there is relentless, endless, earnest propaganda directed at women like a fire hose, constantly telling them that the essence of their own womanhood is bound up with their bourgeois career success. Nonstop messages received during their schooling, on TV and the movies and the internet, from bougie parents, tell them that they should reach for the stars (by *working*, always by working) and never to settle for just being a mother or just a wife. This has been going on for a long time, and many Boomers are certainly true believers in it -- my Boomer mother certainly believes it like a religion, God bless her -- and it is certainly true that if you have no training or career you are going to be more financially dependent and/or more financially precarious, and the Boomers, who divorce at the drop of a hat, greatly fear that. But my generation and the generations after (I was born in the early/mid 80s) have been taught constantly and relentlessly that work/career is identity, is the *point* of life, and quite frankly women got it MUCH more than men did, since the idea was to correct or change the unfairnesses/biases/power imbalances of the past. And it has resulted in a huge number of women who are unhappy and unfulfilled. It turns out that a life of making PowerPoints or pushing papers or running workplace conflict-resolution trainings or whatever do not really fulfill people; those women who substitute career for family entirely, or who find themselves torn between the two and not very sure they are finding a balance that they will ultimately be very happy about when they look back on their life, know that something is not right. I think we all used to have a much saner approach back in the day, before "career" was a word much used, and before resume/CV culture was so widespread; people may have been a lot poorer, but at least they understood that a job was about doing something that somebody or other had to do, and putting food on the table and a roof over the head of their kids; at least people weren't being sold a bill of goods by their parents, their teachers, authority figures, and the culture as a whole about what the point of being human and living life really is. I don't blame women for being unhappy -- I think the way our culture *relentlessly* propagandizes women that their very femininity and their very identity is bound up in bourgeois career success is one of the very cruelest aspects of life in "late capitalism." It is worse for them than for us men. It is not just that there is nothing wrong with having and raising children -- an incredibly difficult and honorable job. It is that the vast majority of people are not going to find true purpose and meaning in a consumer capitalist society (or probably any other society) just via their work alone. Selling phones or cutting hair or writing ad copy or processing loan applications or playing the Pachabel Canon for the three billionth time at weddings might not be so bad, you might even like it OK most of the time, but it is not the same thing as, say, raising your child, at least not for most people, and certainly bourgeois career success should not be so incredibly inappropriately stressed in our society to the point where increasing numbers of women -- women who want kids! -- are waiting until they are 37 to start families and freezing their eggs and the rest of it. It is just cruel and it alone by itself is enough to make me strongly dislike this consumer capitalist system we live in. Women are unhappy and are sort of flailing about projecting their unmet needs and frustrated desires in numerous directions. They are frustrated with the aforementioned nihilistic and disengaged men, they are pissed that they work outside the home and inside it too and they still struggle to make ends meet and especially to find the time they need, they lose out because a consumer capitalist society constantly f***s them over by creating an arms-race situation for intrasexual competition. In a more conservative and traditional society, say a society that frowns on makeup, women do not have to compete in that sphere. But in a society like ours, if certain women have the money and time to do a lot with makeup, then suddenly large numbers of women have to spend the time and money on it too just to compete or keep up. This does not make women better off. A consumer capitalist society squeezes them constantly. A society in which the health-care system is a disaster -- and I don't care if you hold the typical liberal views about why it's a disaster or the typical conservative views about why it's a disaster -- hurts women more because they rely on it more for basic biological reasons. Woman carry a human being inside them for a significant period of time (if they have kids) -- nothing men have to deal with ever compares to that health/biological-wise. All that said, women today -- who are not being well served by our current economic/cultural/social orthodoxy, at all -- are playing a major/primary role in this disordered and I think semiapocalyptic woke politics. Chesterton was not afraid to write, and did write, about why he opposed women's suffrage, and he said that in human history, women *have* been queens (including some very good ones), have been monarchs, have certainly wielded power -- but it is precisely in the context of *democracy* that they have not had the vote, not in human history or at least Western history. And, indeed, as he put it, women have/had not been given the vote precisely because they are in some sense too powerful, they are absolute rulers in their bones in a way that men are not. There is something to this, even if in our age we cannot tolerate or hear it. One of the things that amuses me is the way -- and they used to do it more often than they do now, but perhaps you know what I mean -- conservatives often lament or attack depictions, in TV or movies, of the married couple where the man is a stupid shlub while the woman is the smart, knowing, sensitive, and competent one. I agree with the conservatives who see this as anti-male---sure. But to me, it really means something else. The reason we see men depicted this way and women depicted that way is because men tolerate it and women would not tolerate the reverse. What it means is that men give in, don't want to deal with it, don't want to fight, while women will NOT let it go, will do what it takes to make the man understand that it is NOT worth his time and energy to go there, to do X annoying or undesired thing, etc. So, we have men depicted as losers, and women depicted as anything but. There is a lesson here. This is *exactly* the same dynamic that we see with conservatives and liberals, with the Republican and Democratic parties! If, for example, Roe v. Wade was overturned, there would be an efficient, effective, organized, identify-every-single-pressure-point-and-*squeeze* response from upper middle class women that would bring the entire Republican Party to its knees within days. It would be a massacre the likes of which you have never seen. Every single HR and public relations department of every single company on the Fortune 500 list would tell the wholly owned and wholly craven Republican Party exactly what to do--stand now right now-- and that would be that. I don't mean to say that conservatives are all men and liberals are all women, but the conservative "spirit" of the current moment is very male (the natural law arguments! Good Lord!) and the liberal "spirit" of the moment is very female. And it is no contest, at all. Women understand that men are less socially adept (quick: what is the ratio of male autists to female autists?) and that men, while unquestionably stronger physically, are more conflict-averse and more predictable (as everybody knows, men want certain things and it's pretty easy to know exactly what they are and to use that information to one's advantage; whereas, as Freud so perfectly distilled, the question of what women want is itself so difficult to answer as to be a kind of female superpower) -- and women use this for everything it's worth. And today, in our democracy, we see the consequences, as a kind of feminine disordered or frustrated impulse holds the field basically unopposed. This idea that this mural -- to get back to the topic of the original post! -- needs to be torn down because "it makes the children feel unsafe" -- here we see a feminine sensibility both disordered and displaced but winning the field because there's hardly anything else with the will to stand up to it. The masculine counterpoint to this smothering mother has withdrawn -- perhaps to 4chan, perhaps to Pr0ntube. Conservatives used to love pointing out that in the inner city, the family had completely broken down to the point where the matriarch/mother was the only influence in childrens' lives and husbands and fathers had ceased to exist. Well, we see that now in our society/culture as a whole. Somehow, the mother alone, the feminine quality alone, does not yield great results, when not counterbalanced with the masculine.* Things become disordered and even monstrous. I am a gay man, and I can't help but think that, when I do this, when I write about this stuff, Camille Paglia (PBUH) should be my model and my inspiration, because she saw so clearly, and so strikingly, from the outside, so to speak, the great and immortal interplay and relationship between male and female that produces *all* of us, and that is essential to -- not only beauty and art, but order, form, and *lastingness*, things that do not die. We all and every one of us need a society in which the male and the female are counterbalanced and juxtaposed and brought together in a great tension and a great union. The disordered and indeed cataclysmic collapse of the male and female counterbalance is impacting us everywhere, and in ways we do not even realize -- I firmly believe that. There must be a return and rediscovery of the masculine force and the masculine will -- to connect this to the posts about open borders, to a masculine will that says "no, I am drawing a line" -- how many of you have read Sexual Personae, and the CENTRAL role that the idea of "drawing the line" plays in that book? Men "draw the line," which is why men have dominated almost beyond measure the realm of visual art in human history. There must be a return to this, or the nation will dissolve into the primordial swamp that Paglia says represents--not the feminine, but the feminine when outside of civilization, the feminine in a state of nature and crude and unformed.

Matt in VA

[jonsalways]

Dany is going to burn King’s Landing

I want to write about why I think the show is foreshadowing Dany burning King’s Landing next season. But I need to state some things first.

The fascinating thing about Daenerys is the fact she has immoral behavior, like almost every character in ASOIAF have, but the audience refuses to see her bad sides no matter what. It’s great to see how you can tell a history and place a character as a hero no matter what but at the same time it’s kinda scary that the public can agree with such behavior. She does a lot of terrible choices but people don’t think she has a big issue and shouldn’t be in a position of power, the massive reaction is just “hey, she has some minor flaws but nobody is perfect, okey? Leave her be”.

In the books Daenerys allows torture, which is a war crime. And at episode 5 Daenerys intentionally killed the Tarly’s, who were defeated in battle, were unarmed and were offering no resistance to the escort. The Tarly’s were in a  surrendering party resulted by a defeated in battle, and were intentionally killed by Daenerys. This is a war crime.  When Tyrion suggested to put them in cells, she declared “she would not put man in chains ” aka “not make prisoners” which is also a war crime. The offer she gave the remaining soldiers was “join me or die”. This is not a choice. This is a declaration that no quarter will be given and THIS IS  a war crime. When your enemies surrender you spare their lives and  take them as war prisoners you DO NOT execute them or demand them to fight against their remaining families and compatriotes cuz THIS IS NOT how a surrender works. The show makes Daenerys commits war crimes intentionally even after people tell her it’s a bad idea. And the scary part is: the audience think is fine. I’m pretty much convinced Daenerys is going to do a lot more than that in the future and the audience will buy it.

Since D&D have talked with GRRM about how the series is going to end, Daenerys tone in the series has changed a little bit. Since season 6, her “super badass” scenes turned into a “that’s nice but there’s something a little bit weird”. Her theme songs came from “I’m fighting to survive cuz I’m alone in the world and this is actually badass justice” to a more villain like kind of song, way darker and sinister. The camera angles and the points of view of her actions are different now, and the scenes that were exciting before became kinda sad and weird. If you rewatch the sack of Astapor at 3x4 and her battle against the Lannister army at 7x4 you will notice the huge difference of how they treated it.

So here’s where the tinfoil begins.

It’s about the Politics

I believe the Great War against the army of the dead will not be the final of GoT. GoT and ASOIAF are about the politics. The Night King wasn’t introduced till season 4 and he really became the major  treat only at season 5.. Daenerys’s dragons weren’t born till 10x1, they only had a real role at season 6 when Dany finally could control them and they were big enough to go to war. Many storylines still happen aside the whole magic. GoT is about the GAME OF THRONES. And that’s how the story will end. After the war is done, a political struggle will rise and things will get trick. The armies will be broken, Cersei will have the Golden Company at her back, Jon’s parentage will rise, the northerners will probably not fulfil Jon’s pledge to Daenerys, Dany may even lose one of her remaining dragons. Things will be very chaotic and chaos is a ladder.

The Great War is going to end at Winterfell.

Season 7 solved a large problem: how to destroy the army of the dead? Conveniently if you kill the Night King, the wights die and the war is over. Simple as that. Bran has been stated as a great threat to the Night King, almost as he’s the Night King true enemy. The Night King himself entered the cave to kill the last Three Eyed Raven and he seems to have a particular interest in Bran. The show has implied that Bran is waiting for him. And he’s waiting for him at Winterfell. Daenerys is leading her army and remaining dragons to Winterfell and Jaime is much likely riding to Winterfell too. Not only Sansa was featured preparing Winterfell for the war for the Dawn, but many characters have stated the importance of this castle.

Jon: “We can’t defend the north from the Walkers and the south from the Boltons. If we’re gonna survive we need Winterfell”

Jon:“If they breach the Wall, the first two castle in their path [before Winterfell] is Last Hearth and Karhold”

Sansa:“Every direction the threat comes this [Winterfell] is the best place to be.”

Jaime: “If Winterfell falls, we [King’s Landing] fall. Three days.”

The bulk of the living forces in Westeros will be at Winterfell, if Winterfell falls, it would mean the entire army has fallen and basically all hope is lost. The Golden Company is Cersei’s hope but seriously? She’s not a military person. I trust way more Jaime’s opinions and he said their fate depend on Winterfell. So I don’t think the WW will ever come near to King’s Landing because they will be defeated at Winterfell.

All The talking about King’s Landing and the Mad King’s Daughter

The safety of King’s Landing was a great concern to Daenerys and Cersei this season. They’ve talked about how many people live there, how they should attack it, how they shouldn’t, how the city would fall easily, how they should defended it. When they talk so much about an issue like this you can bet something will happen there. They talked a hundred times about the Wall, and the Wall fell. They talked 87439349 times Dany had THREE dragons, and she lost one. They’ve talked a million times how she can’t have children, so of course she’s gonna get pregnant next season. And they’ve talked a hundred times about King’s Landing. Something is going to happen there. Something bad. Here are some of the most notable moments.

Dany: “If Viserys had three dragons, and an army at his back, he’d have invaded King’s Landing already”

Yara: “We should hit King’s Landing now, hard, with everything we have”

and Dany’s response was:  “I will not attack King’s Landing. WE will not attack King’s Landing.”

Olenna said “Then how you mean to take the Iron Throne?”

And two episodes after she’s at rage because Tyrion’s plans have failed her and this was her visceral response:

“I have three large dragons.I’m gonna fly them to the Red Keep”

Tyrion:“We’ve discussed this…”

“My enemies are IN the Red Keep”.

And at the meeting at the Dragonpit she told Cersei: “Your capital will be safe, until the north threat is dealt with”

These are very interesting because we see Dany wants to take KL, but she haven’t done yet, because her advisors told her not to. But the thing is, Olenna told her not to listen to Tyrion and to be a dragon, and as the season goes she ignores him many times and even accuse him  of plotting against her more than once. The more Tyrion tries to make her listen more she ignores his advices. Dany always had problems with that. Her very “black and white” vision sometimes led her to have bad ideas she just didn’t turn reality because she had  advisors who convinced her otherwise. But now she’s not  listening to her advisors anymore, and maybe the show told us her future through Varys”s words:

Tyrion:“Daenerys is not her father”

Varys :“And she never will be. With the right counsel. “

Daenerys is not her father is also another phrase they said a lot this season. They keep calling her “mad king’s daughter” and they even told us more than once what the Mad King did to Brandon and Rickard Stark. It’s almost like the show  is saying “Her father was mad. Don’t forget that”

Important characters have fled King’s Landing

They did a massive reunion at King’s Landing this season. Tyrion and Davos visited King’s Landing in a rush. They showed the Dragonpit, the place where Balerion’s skull is kept and winter upon King’s Landing. It’s almost like the show is saying  “let’s make a scene there because this is our last chance”. Bye bye King’s Landing. And now aside from Cersei all the remaining characters we care left KL. Jaime fucking Lannister and even Gendry we didn’t know was alive left King’s Landing. The only important character left there is Cersei. Daenerys’ ultimate enemy. They quoted more than once the amount of people living in King’s Landing at episode 7x7. Why would they do that if it wasn’t important? The time is short this seasons and the lines mean something.

Dany’s Visions

One thing that really upsets me in the show is the visions Dany had at the House of the Undying. In the book she sees lots of things important as fuck but in the show she has three visions. THREE FUCKING MISERABLE VISIONS. But if you look at them now you’ll see they are important as fuck too. And it’s the first one I want to talk about. She enters at the Throne Room and there’s snow on the floor but the snow only starts to fall heavily when she looks up. And when she looks up and TA DAAAAAA, there’s no ceiling. The Throne Room is destroyed like something came from the sky and destroyed the whole thing. Like I said I don’t think the Night King will ever come close to King’s Landing because the battle for the Dawn will most likely to end at Winterfell so what or who could came from the sky and destroy the Red Keep like this?

In the books it’s clear to me she see things that matter to her, her visions in the House of the Undying are about her life and important events that could have, that have or will happen to her. Things that relate to her somehow. The visions are not meaningless. So why would she see the Throne Room but not the Night King destroying it? Probably because she was the one who destroyed the place. She sees the destruction she made.

Bran’s vision

Bran’s visions were actually the very first trigger to me. At episode 6x6, after Hodor’s death Bran is running with Meera and uploading the visions from the - RIP older -Three Eyed Raven. D&D said they spend hours to choose which scene would be there cuz they were fucking important. PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE. It’s was the first time we saw the Mad King,  there were some old scenes from the past seasons BUT there were some new ones that I don’t recall to see before..  

This one that features a single dragon in the sky.

And also this one that features a shadow of a single dragon over King’s Landing and there’s smoke in some places.

The tricky thing here is that these two scenes along with the scene where the Night King turns the Craster’s baby into a WW repeat 5 or 6 times. Only this three scenes repeat so much. 

For 3 times these scenes with the single dragon are followed by the scene of Daenerys with Drogon on her shoulder. No other dragon appears on Bran’s visions, only Drogon. There’s no other vision of Daenerys, only this one that always appears after the vision of KL burning.

If you ask me, the visions show King’s Landing burning by dragon fire and then who is responsible for that: Daenerys and Drogon.

Daenerys’s dragons are her advantage at war. In ADWD she even thinks she could never conquer the Seven Kingdoms without them. She already lost one to the Night King. What if she loses one more? She’d probably be desperate and hopeless. With only one dragon left she’d see herself with no better option to take the Iron Throne than to do what she already wants to do: attack King’s Landing. That’s why Bran saw this in his visions. He saw the Mad King wanting to destroy the capital, and he saw Dany fulfilling her father’s vision.

Bran sees Jaime but not Cersei. Jaime already tried to kill Daenerys this season, will he try again at season 8 after Daenerys attack all the people he lost his honor to protect?

Daenerys burning King’s Landing on rampage is something I can see happening. It would fulfil the “Mad Queen/Daenerys villain theory” and part of the  audience would even agree with her actions, and say she’s not mad, she’s just at war and that’s the only option she had left. Only Cersei is left at KL so people would not feel sorry how we felt when Tyrell’s died in the sept. Cersei has yet to lose everything to a more beautiful and younger queen. Her family is gone, all she has left is the throne, and Daenerys is coming to take it. When Cersei had lost everything then and only then the valonqar will kill her. She’ll probably flee KL during the fires just to be killed right after.

Daenerys have been accused of being a foreign invader by many people  this season, the Westerosi don’t trust her and burning King’s Landing would give the remaining Lords of Westeros more than enough reasons to rebel against her. I can think many ways this could lead to a Sansa x Daenerys struggle but this post is huge already so maybe another time.

[princess-megzie]

jfc could you maybe stop spamming all of us with your gofundme bullshit? we get it already. go get a job like everyeone else who has to work to pay there bills. your hats are crap and cost way too much. who the fuck is going to pay 20$ for something you can get on amazon for 3$? grow the fuck up and get a job.

Hi. I’m Rainbow aka Megzie’s wife. Megzie is currently out of the office and I gleefully announced that I would reply. Why? Because she has shit to do, and I just finished work. I also haven’t slept in over 24 hours so this is going to be extra exciting!

I usually attempt to be somewhat diplomatic when responding to comments like this. Thankfully we have had very few, as usually all of our accounts keep anonymous questions off. I find that cowards seek out ways to be nasty if given the chance and it’s best just to not give them a way to do that. If you’re going  to be a horrible piece of shit, it’s always better to use your name so I can ridicule you publicly, have others join in to point and laugh at the sorry loser and then block your ass! That way we all have fun.

I am at the moment very upset. If this had come to me my answer would have been “lol loser. Poor pathetic idiot has no life and wants to make everyone miserable. Sit on my sparkly dick and spin shit head!” HOWEVER. You did not send this to me, you sent this to my wife. So now, I’m fucking pissed. So allow me to express this in the best way I know how.

Fuck you.

Now! Since that’s out of the way, let me tell you why you are a small pathetic little coward that should really think about your life choices. I know a lot of you idiots are losing even more brain cells with those tide pods your sucking on, but do me a favor and drop the colored sack for five minutes.

1. News flash, I am currently working four jobs plus school. Megzie just got done with an internship and is also currently looking for something else. So right away, you assumed that A, we’re not working, and B, we’re not trying to find anything. Bless your narrow minded little soul, I WISH I was that fucking ignorant. The world must be as bright as those pods for you huh? I could just pinch that cheek if it wasn’t covered in soap.

2.Our hats are very nice thank you. I know it’s reeeeeeeeeally hard for you to understand how small handcrafted cottage businesses work and I wouldn’t dream of trying to make you put any REAL thought into it so I’ll just say that, A) lying about the quality of something you have never actually tried is usually frowned upon in the grown up world. B) We price our hats (and all the rest of our products) so that we can pay ourselves at least something of a living wage after the price of materials. Bu it still takes around two hours for Megzie to make a single hat if she’s focusing solely on it. I know you’re short on brain cells, so I’ll do the math for you-- despite the utterly EXORBITANT price tag, we’re still making just above minimum wage for each product sold. And lastly, C) a really amazing solution to not wanting to spend the money on a handcrafted item, would simply be to just…..(wait for it).....not buy it! SIMPLE RIGHT?! OMG EVEN YOU CAN DO IT! And the best part is……………..you can do it without being a fucking shit face! What a concept!

3. Sweetie. That wasn’t spamming. That was simply reblogging. Trust me. I can spam. Megzie can spam! But we are restraining ourselves. Lord have mercy if we actually start promoting something. But that comes to the best part! Guess what every tumblr user has on their page? Guess guess! That’s right! A ‘Follow/Unfollow’ button!!! I bet you already sort of know what that does. I mean you can sort of type so you must have some idea of what buttons do. But just in case you forgot! ‘Following’ someone on tumblr means that you LIKE their content and would like to see more. “Unfollowing” someone means that you are not interested in the content and would like to stop seeing it. CRAZY RIGHT!? WHO KNEW THE INTERNET WAS SO FUCKING SIMPLE!? So just remember, when you get on tumblr everyday and think, “HM...SHOULD I HARASS SOMEONE GOING THROUGH A TOUGH TIME BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE SEEING THIS POST!?” You can say “NO! I WILL ACT LIKE A PERSON WITH SOME VAGUE SENSE OF EMPATHY AND RESTRAIN MY SMALL BRAIN AND SIMPLY, UNFOLLOW.” Magic. Am I right? You don’t have to answer that. I know capital letters are hard.

So in conclusion little person. There is one simple fact here. And that fact is, we are currently going through a hard time. We are one of many people in this world that is facing poverty. We have over the years build up a strong group of support. We helped when we were able and hoped it made a positive difference in people’s lives. (Trust me, we have a huge stack of plush that we got when we donated towards projects from other friends). We find ourselves in a situation where we are in need of help, and our support system has been kind in ways that even I could never hope for. We are even the recipients of a food bank charity that lets us get groceries every week. (We qualify because we make enough money to show we are actually working and not just sitting around looking for a handout, you fucking dillweed) Anyone who graduated college will tell you that jobs are not easy to come by, especially around this time of year. Everytime I think about getting a fifth job (along with school) and working fast food or retail, I have to remind myself of the physical limitations that have prevented me from doing so recently, such as an autoimmune disease that is untreated due to no way to pay for medication and doctor visits. (Apparently because the drugs I need are the same they give to chemo patients, they need to test my blood every month which is like over $100 per test. Doctors. Am I right?) And that’s just the physical disability. I mean I could talk you ear off all the other things I have to deal with like ADD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, executive dysfunction, severe depression, so on and so forth. Megzie is even worse off than I am at times, and these times, have been very hard.

But you know what makes this amazing? They won't be that way forever. One of those jobs I have, is working on a movie where I will get IMDB credits, which in the entertainment industry, will go a long way. I’ve worked my ass off to make sure that I will succeed as a video editor, and when my searching finally pays off, I will be able to support us. Megzie is currently working to organize consulting work as well as other means of employment and we have more leads every day. One of them WILL stick. In the meantime, we have our small cottage business. It’s toxic green and full of work and a genuine love for what we do. One day, our hard work will pay off and we'll both be employed again. Have regular income, pay bills, make sure we can buy toilet paper, think about a retirement fund, buy clothes without guilt, take her to a movie every now and then, slowly start to pay off our mountains of student loans, help out those who gave us a hand when we needed it and relax after a long day at work knowing that we will not be homeless.

And you will not matter. Years from now, hell, maybe even month, you will not matter. Did you hurt Megzie with your cruel comment? Of course you did. It was meant to hurt. It was meant to be cruel. And it did it’s job. But that hurt is fleeting, and we get up the next day to do our best. Your spitefulness will fade from memory and eventually you will become to us, what you know you already are--nothing. Because when we are back on our feet, when we are stable and working towards the rest of our lives, you will still be nothing. You will be dirt that clogged the gears for only a moment before it was brushed aside and discarded. You will be a passing annoyance. You have to live with that. You have to carry that shame inside you. You are a cruel person. And that’s something you will have to have inside you for all of your days. And I take great satisfaction in that. Because this struggle we are in now? That’s temporary. You being a cowardly pathetic disgusting sack of garbage? You get to carry that around for the rest of your life.

And should you change your mind, I will still sell you a nice warm hat. :)

[theseadagiodays]

April 6, 2020

Travel at home

I have always been a passionate traveler, with an insatiable curiosity for new experiences, cultures and sensations.  But what also comes with all the titillation is a fair dose of unfamiliar, unsettling, and often challenging new circumstances every traveler must agily welcome if they are to thrive.  When you are served dinner with no cutlery in Kalkata, scooping sloppy curry with your hands has to do.  When you’re penniless and lose your companion, hours from home in Bangkok’s busy streets, you must ingratitate yourself to the kindness of strangers for bus fare to your hotel.  It strikes me that this same flexibility can serve us well as we navigate the unchartered territories of this new nation we all inhabit, called COVID.

But what moves me most as I wander the world is the way in which constant new sensory input elevates my present-minded attention so intensely.  My ears delight in a particularly evocative call to prayer in Morocco.  My mouth savors the sour sweetness of a Colombian maracuya (passionfruit).  And my nose even appreciates the cow dung furnaces on the side of the road in India. It is like meditation in motion.  After each journey, when I return home, I set the earnest intention to sustain such sensory focus at home.  But as the days pass, this consistently becomes increasingly difficult.  However now, with little opportunity to venture much more than metres from our door, we need new strategies to remain sane and stimulated.  So, I think we can all benefit from living like tourists at home. I believe there is a science to this. I’ve even coined a term for it. It came from a time when I heard education expert Ken Robinson define the word aesthetics.  Associated with beauty, most think of the definition as subjective.  But he simplified this by pointing out that the opposite of aesthetics is anaesthetics (that which numbs our senses).  So, aesthetics are those things which make us feel.  Since this revelation, I have come to call myself an aesthesiologist because I believe that all artists are in the business of making people feel.  And this is why I feel that sharing artistic resources on this blog is the best medicine I can offer as we all ride out this crisis together.

So, maybe today you can consiciously pay attention to some subtle new observation each of your senses notice in your environment.  The way the light hits your tea kettle at dawn.  The call of a returning bird at spring time.  The crunch of the potato chips that you’re binging on right now.  Lately, I’ve certainly learned to feel extra fortunate that I can taste or smell at all, because my husband completely lost his sense of smell 3 weeks ago.  Most have probably heard that this is an alarming and bizarre potential sign of COVID, particularly in people with no other symptoms.  So, having come thru full incubation period, we’re at least past the scare that it could have become worse or that he might have infected myself or others with whom he’d had contact prior to quarantine.  But he never thought he’d look so forward to the day he could smell my farts again.  (Meanwhile, I’m indulging in all the beans and garlic I want)

At any rate, if home sensations don’t tickle you enough, there is always virtual travel.  And while that certainly risks inspiring a vicarious longing that may not serve you, for others, it can elicit some of the same wonders as adventures themselves.  So, if you’re craving sensory immersion into other worlds, New York Times can help you do this with their 13 recommended travel podcasts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/travel/travel-podcasts.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage&contentCollection=AtHome

I know I have certainly spent many days in quarantine wallowing over my screensaver trip photos, longing for a time when I could journey further afield once more.  But I have also been swept away by the photographic brilliance of some of the work that the New York Times is featuring weekly, in their World Through a Lens column.  Marcus Westerberg’s shots of Zambian wildlife (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/31/travel/zambia-safari.html) were particularly emotional for me, having just had one of the most meaningful travel experiences of my life there, last year, when I served as resident visiting artist at a music school in Lusaka.  In fact, I arrived exactly one year ago, today, and can’t wait to return to those magical people.  A girl has to dream, after all...

April 7, 2020

Creativity at Home

If any of you are variety-mongers like me, seeing only the same person or people, day in and day out, can have you dressing up your spouse in wigs or Hawaian skirts or bear costumes just to mix things up a bit.    But largely, I’ve been hearing that many parents and siblings are embracing ways to capitalize on their excessive togetherness. I think it’s why the show Survivor has been so successful all these years. Forced into small spaces and “tribes”, we tend to do whatever it takes to get along with our fellow captives.  Cooped up together for days on end, there is no limit to the clever activities some families have created to keep themselves occupied.  

This crew took a simple tube and board of wood to create some exercise apparatus that has kept them busy for hours:  https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5518064

Others are taking vicarious travel to the next level with some Photoshop fun - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/travel/coronavirus-fake-travel.html

And the most impressive might be this 5-person brood, each with operatic quality voices, who belt out their rendition of One More Day, from Les Miserable.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-52106893/coronavirus-family-goes-viral-with-lockdown-les-mis-song-adaptation

But, if you happen to be stumped for ideas yourselves, here are a few ways you can kickstart your family’s creativity.  A bunch of resourceful theatre company’s have been commissioning playwrights to create short Plays at Home, designed for actors and amateurs alike to perform in their own living rooms.  Most are staged for 1-7 humans, with joyful themes, and participants are welcome to share video recordings of their readings.

https://www.playathome.org/?fbclid=IwAR3_Uib1GQV5134ZbF7IEI5F5lpt0HQdxYkd1HtiNeUFws1UKCvVV4_2KEQ

And right here in Vancouver, my friend Vanessa Richards is finding thoughtful ways to engage community in collaborative singing, by sustaining her weekly free choir sessions, now in Livestream, every Wednesday, from 6-7:30.  You can check out Van Van Song Society here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/togethersinging/

April 8, 2020

Quarantine Living - Al Yankovic style Some of you may be too young to recognize this reference to our favorite weasly moustached 80’s bard, who humorously bastardized everything from Queen’s Another One Rides the Bus to Michael Jakcson’s Eat It, with his own comic lyrics.  But lately, like our Les Miserable family, Weird Al Yancovic’s “wordsquatting” trend is spreading more virally than corona.

This original take on the Beatles, I gotta wash my hands is a classic.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxOJ7hh3H-I

For more potty humor, I adore this Philipino artists’ no-toilet paper campaign, I love tabo- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzb98tQp53I

And certainly, the most high tech example has come from Vancouver’s own Phoenix Chamber Choir, in their rendition of the hugely popular Queen song, Coronavirus Rhapsody- https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1720158275935?fbclid=IwAR3gEdqv95oX4KT_W4F4_naJyASRhUaGpr-T56Aux9k4tCStGvow9xgHIQw

April 9, 2020

Reading Respite Endless screentime has probably left many of us fatigued and squinting, with a need for stronger reading glass prescriptions that we can’t fill, because all the optometry shops have shut down.  So, these next suggestions are offered with that caveat. However, for me, the tactile experience of a book in my hand can still be a nourishing antidote to digital overload. Often just a page is capable of transporting my body, mind and soul away from news feeds, virus counts, and press conferences.  

Never a fan of e-readers, I have always passionately supported my local bookshops.  And thankfully, there is a current intiative intended to do the same, at a time when the threat of a certain Capital A behometh taking over global commerce is greater than ever.  So, you can actually feed your spirit and your neighborhood bookseller by purchasing any literary craving here. Thanks to the new site, bookshop.org, you can order what you’d like from the local bookstore of your choice, while this company acts as liason.  And the fair split allows your local vendor to keep 30% of total profit, when direct sales that are no longer possible for them may have only been slightly more (40-45%).  

As far as what to stories to consume at a time like this, it has amazed me how much films like Contagion and Outbreak have had huge resurgences. This tells me that relevance and resonance are key factors in people’s entertainment choices.  However, if you’re looking for something that relates to your current circumstances, but leaves you not with more fear, but with actual hope, inspiration, or tools for survival, here are a few better options:

Emily St. Mandel’s Station Eleven is, in fact, a post-apocalyptic tale.  But her narrative’s most clever survivors form a travelling Shakespeare troupe, demonstrating the power of art to heal in dire times.  

For some existential musing reaped in self-isolation, Thoreau’s Life in the Woods always still provides.

And if the new stressors arising from this crisis find you busier than ever, but you long to slow down, travel journalist, Pico Iyer, in his prophetic 2014 book, The Art of Stillness, makes a strong case for the fact that “in our madly accelerating world, our lives are crowded, chaotic and noisy. So, there’s never been a greater need to slow down, tune out and give ourselves permission to be still.”

April 10, 2020

How Might We Fill This Space?

Never before have Memes, Tik tok or Cat Videos provided such many needed lifelines for people all over the world.  But the video that most stirred me to action was this stunning dance collaboration that popped up in my Facebook feed, during the early days of self-isolation, before my first Zoom conference, before I’d seen my first collaborative musical Quarantine Song spoof. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3pFxsYPLgU

This global initiative to weave together dance gestures, while performers were entirely physically separate, seeded the idea for a community art and writing project that I have recently started with a few friends.

In an effort to connect artists during this physically distant time, we have launched Spool of Thought.  And all artistic contributions are welcome to the thread.  

https://www.instagram.com/spoolofthought2020/

On this page, we invite people to respond to the question, “How might we fill this space?”as we adjust to different rhythms of being. The idea is to weave together our thoughts, through the fluid form of cursive writing, in a non-linear narrative documenting this unique time on our planet.

The full instructions are below, for those interested and eager to participate:

1.Using Notes (iPhone) or Evernote (Android) and the digital pen, draw a continuous cursive line from the left to right side of the note (arranged horizontally) and write a word, phrase or sentence that responds to the prompt: How Might We Fill This Space?

2. Save it to your photos.

3. Then,send it by email to: spoolofthought2020@gmail.com, and we will add your text to the Spool of Thought Instagram page.

4. Please include your name, your location, your occupation, and your Instagram@ for the caption of your photo.

5. And feel free to share this invite with your community, along with these instructions.

6. Finally, enjoy watching the spool unravel on @spoolofthought2020, as the thread grows, and tag us wherever you choose to share: #spoolofthought2020.

[d00dt00nz]

Obligatory promo stuff at the top because it sucks and I hate it and let’s get it out of the way! follow me on twitter where I’m active, check me out on spotify for music, or like my facebook for sparse updates on music stuff. Thank you. The Cover art is by Ellie Tison

This one’s a lil bit long so I’ll put it behind a break

A while ago I posted about a song that was called The Howl that Lay the Canyon Bare. I mentioned that there were a few false starts on that song. One of those songs was a ripoff of Jackson Browne's The Pretender. Basically, while I didn't like the song, it became some kind of freakish mushroom creature. It budded its spores and they grew into their own creations. There was another song that came from it but it's not very good and I didn't use it. This song, however, did.

Basically it came from me wanting to write like, a fast paced and kind of old fashioned rock song. Not necessarily a standard blues rock structured song, but maybe something that was had the same force and power. My old song had some lyrics that I liked “I'm gonna get a good job in the city, I'm gonna buy a big screen tv/I'm gonna make a lot of friends and forget their names, 'cause they don't mean much to me”. Sometimes I think it's a shame for lyrics to go to waste because I always have a pretty tough time of writing them. A lot of times I'll just pluck lyrics from unused stuff, which is a little annoying because then I can never use that unused thing.

That lyric was written while I was still working at the RESP place and I was feeling pretty miserable and gross. I felt evil. I wanted to write something gross. More recently when I actually wrote this song proper, I was feeling a little less evil, but still very aware of those same evils. This was back in Febuary when my boss had recently laid off everyone except me. The amount of work hadn't reduced. He'd essentially used Coronavirus as an excuse to save a few bucks on his business. To this day, we don't have any masks, sanitizer, or gloves. The car the company gives me is literally falling apart. I have no right rearview mirror, the transmission is broken so that sometimes the engine just revs but the car doesn't move, the AC is broken, the winter tires are still on, the entire car shakes all the time, and up until recently it'd stall if you took a turn too sharply. If you can recall that time in Febuary, it was also when there was a whole asinine debate in the media about how many deaths were “acceptable” to keep the economy going.

Obviously I know that capitalism is “evil”. We all know that somewhere in the back of our minds, and saying it in that way (especially online) is pretty trite. At some point I started reading books about socialism in my spare time. I don't claim to be an expert, I couldn't make it through Kapital (that fucking thing is like a thousand pages and he spends the first 200 talking about a coat). I just want you to understand that it is something that I don't just invoke for cheap jokes. I think it'd be a good thing. Anyway, the evils that capitalism is based on really started to show their faces around that time. We had to let people die because we couldn't let the system slow down. A lot of liberal leaning people like to begin and end the conversation with “greed”, as if so many problems could be solved if we fixed the individual, personal problem of greediness. Maybe that'd go a long way if we could somehow magically shame people into good behaviour, but the way things are set up means you'd have to convince the people who make the rules to act against their own interests. The whole idea is silly.

The entire idea behind a neoliberal model of capitalism is a lack of true accountability. Kurt Vagnathghet (note to me, fix this spelling later when you have internet. Or don't and leave it in as a dumb hilarious joke) has a little part in Cat's Cradle where a brilliant engineer relinquishes his position as president because he is uncomfortable with authority – he'd rather be told what to do. The narrator wonders why until he begins delegating tasks to the engineer and realizes that the engineer has now managed to detach himself from his own humanity. He simply has become a cog in a system that sustains him. He is free of any real accountability because nothing is his own decision. He simply carries out orders because he must in order to maintain his own place in the world. That's kind of like the model we have today. Everyone is beholden to someone. Even CEO's are beholden to shareholders. Even shareholders are beholden to other shareholders. They cannot act against their own interests because there will always be somebody to replace them waiting in the wings. Yes, they make the rules, but they don't make the rules collectively, which means that if they stop “playing the game” then they'll lose what they have to somebody who is. I'm not saying I have sympathy for these people, I'm just describing the mental gymnastics that this system demands. I don't believe that people are inherently evil or selfish, but I do believe that we have a system that benefits those who are selfish and punishes those who are selfless. It's a self sustaining system where nobody is really in charge of their own life and the only real way to feel any control over your situation is to become vile – and the more vile you become, the more control you feel. It's not a question of staying true to your values, it's a question of how evil will you allow yourself to be.

Of course this only applies to people with that ability in the first place, as in people who are white, from a wealthy family, live in the western world, that kind of stuff. In my more unhinged moments I consider this about myself. I don't know if I could ever be in a position to take advantage of people, but what if I could? How much would I be willing to screw people? How immoral and wrong would I act if it meant a life of comfort? What if I just started scamming and hurting people? What if I “played the game”? How amoral would I allow myself to become before it wasn't worth it? These are questions I don't know if anyone can really answer. It's disturbingly easy to take an opportunity when presented with one. I'd like to say that I would stay true to myself, but would I? Would anyone?

Over the course of history, our ruling class effectively managed to replace the task of governing with a series of complex and often injust or imperfect systems. Over time, even the highest powers in the land have become beholden to something – something that is no longer even human. Something incapable of moral judgments because it does not think. It turns out we were living in the matrix a long time before computers were invented (That's really corny but let me have this one. I want to feel cool okay?). They created this system to absolve them of responsibility, and in doing so have rendered themselves powerless.

I wanted to outline this grotesque reality and my own personal worries in the most grotesque way possible. I didn't want to create nu metal, so I went to the second most grotesque form of music: 70s rock and roll. I wanted to have this angry frantic energy. It was really fun to record because I rarely get to just have straight aggressive 8th notes like I'm some sort of punk. It's also nice to just crank up the volume and the compressor and have a good time with distortion and different guitar tones. I love the dry sound that I was able to get. I do have to say, it's tough to keep that tempo and energy up for an entire song.

Vocally it's not the most difficult song, but a bunch of fun to sing. You get to be really aggressive with your delivery, and there's a bit of a showiness to the melody. For better or for worse, it's got that musical theatre kid energy to it with some old fashioned sounding musical phrases. I kinda like it for that. The lyrics are really unpleasant, so it adds to the fun where I can just say all this ugly shit and have this frantic energy behind it. At one point the compressor I was using did something weird on the vocal take, and it really jacked up a particularly deep breath I was taking. I decided to leave it in because it added to the vibe. I thought it'd be a weird quirk. Like the sound of somebody doing a big fat line of coke. Just getting fucked up.... Real twisted shit.

On the chorus I decided I wanted to add a little bit of variety and put in some sax backing. It was supposed to mingle with some vocals, which would have been a cool effect but the effect never really came through. I'm still not 100% on how to get a good sax sound out of a recording. At any rate, it does give this big echoy chaotic sound which I was pretty satisfied with so I left it in.

The solo section, I'm not so much a fan of. I think the guitar solo I did was pretty bad and amateurish sounding. There's this big buildup and then it's like this stupid meandering guitar solo that sounds like a 14 year old did it. I got my brother to record a guitar solo, which is technically a much better guitar solo, but honestly I wasn't a huge fan of the feel he went with in the context of the song. It felt a little bit too surf-y, and he didn't use any distortion. I kept it in and combined the two, which helped make things feel a little bit better, but I'm still not big on the part. There's also a harmonica bit. I kinda broke down and went back to my old standby of “well let's just make this part really noisy” which is a little bit of a crux, I admit.

In general I like the song. It's fun. It's fast, it's mean, and it breaks up some of the more introspective stuff. As well, I've just been feeling really uncomfortable with releasing an album of introspective naval gazy music. Like, I get it, I don't really have a platform. It's not like many people listen to me. Still though, there's so much awful shit going on in this world right now that I'm fortunate enough to be mostly sheltered by. I haven't participated in any protests either. I feel like I have to talk about it. In the end though I'm just busy with this self absorbed bullshit. I'm glad, then, that there's something political on this album that captures that feeling. I hope to be a little bit more worldly with my songwriting. I've done at least two very personal albums, and two high concept albums, I hope to maybe turn my focus outward into the world next time.

[samuelfields]

How to Make Money in Stocks in 2020

Investing in stocks is one of the most important financial skills you need to master. On average, stocks have given an annualized return of around 10%. At that rate, your money doubles every 7.2 years.

Let’s say you start with $10,000. After a 40 year career, that turns into at least $320K from doubling 5 times. That’s from a single $10,000 investment.

I’m going to level with you. You can’t get rich off just your salary. Savings and bonds won’t do it either, the return isn’t high enough to make an impact during your lifetime.

Stocks are the key.

No matter your income, you will get rich off stocks as long as you start investing early, keep investing, and never sell.

Anyone can do this. You don’t need to be a financial wiz, have insider access, or a ton of time. I spend a few hours per YEAR managing my portfolio. Time and consistent contributions will make you a millionaire.

That’s why I have compiled a list of easy things you can start doing from today to make money in stocks.

Let’s get right into it.

The stock market is not sexy

The quicker you realize that the stock market is not sexy, the faster you will start making money from it. For 99.9% of people, investing in stocks is nothing like what you saw in The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s also not listening to the so-called “financial experts” on news channels and buying their hottest stocks of the season.

All of that is noise. It won’t help you make money in stocks. Successful stock market investing is all about being patient and staying in the market for many years.

Which brings me to…

Stay invested in the stock market

It’s very easy to panic and sell stocks whenever there’s a big drop in the stock market. However, selling your stocks at the slightest fall or when they are down could be the worst financial decision you can make.

When the markets fall, everyone is talking about the next recession or how things are only going to get worse. I get it. Downtrends are scary. But remember that they appear worse than they actually are because of how much they are discussed and analyzed.

When you are panicking, first of all, take a deep breath.

Since 1900, we’ve seen some real disasters there have been many reasons for the market to fall and not rise:

The Great Depression

World War 1 and World War 2

Cold War

9/11 Terror Attacks

Asian Financial Crisis

Dot-com Bubble

The 2008 Recession

Through all this, markets have continued to grow at about 10% per year.

Here’s another fascinating stat that I love. In the months following a 10% drop since 1900, this is how much the markets have risen in the immediate future on an average:

1 Month: -0.1%

3 Months: 7.5%

6 Months: 11.1%

12 Months: 14.6%

What does this tell you?

The stock market has ALWAYS gone up every time it has fallen. So, don’t panic when it goes down. Trust how stock prices have always behaved. In fact, when they fall, try to buy more stocks.

Stop timing the market

My oh my, I have heard about people trying to time the stock market so many times.

“I’m just waiting for the next dip before buying in.”

“I wouldn’t invest right now because the stock market is too expensive.”

“I sold my stocks because the markets made an all-time high.”

Everyone is trying to buy low and sell high. Even Financial advisors are always trying to time the market.

Being able to consistently identify highs and lows is a very difficult skill. Even the people who have spent all their lives trying to master it are not successful at it. It’s impossible to do consistently.

Guess what the most likely outcome is when the stock market hits a new high? More highs! By waiting, you miss out on more gains.

Same thing happens when times are bad. The biggest gains come after the biggest drops. If you try to wait for the market to be “all-clear,” you’ll miss out on them. And you won’t get anywhere close to that 10% annual return.

Here’s something that very few people know about the stock market.

A study in 2020 released findings that will blow your mind. It found that if you were not invested in the market for the 10 best days (the days when the market rose the most) of the stock market between 2004 and 2019, your returns would have dropped by an astounding amount. For example, here’s how a $10,000 investment would have grown in that period if you had:

Stayed invested all days: $36,418 at 9% annualized return

Missed the 10 best days: $18,359 at 4.15% annualized return

Missed the 20 best days: $11,908 at 1.17% annualized return

Missed the 30 best days: $8,150 at -1.35% annualized return

Missed the 40 best days: $5,847 at -3.51% annualized return

Missing just the 10 best days cuts your returns by more than half. If you missed the top 20, you are just about breaking even (in fact, you are losing money because of inflation).

Trying to time the market can be DEVASTATING. Ignore the news and invest every month like clockwork. That’s how you make the most money.

The best way to invest in stocks

Index funds.

They are the best way to make money in stocks. Index funds put their money in indexes like the S&P 500 or the Russel 1000. Index funds are passive, their fund managers don’t keep buying and selling stocks to “beat the market”. In fact, their objective is to be the market.

A lot of research has shown that active fund managers fail miserably while trying to beat the market. In fact, more than 90% of actively managed funds fail to beat the index. So the index fund approach ends up earning a better return. They also have less risk since you’re exposed to the entire market. If some random company implodes and the stock goes to $0, it doesn’t matter.

They’re also a lot easier to run, so the fees are lower. The taxes are lower too since the fund managers aren’t buying and selling all the time.

Index funds really are a free lunch:

Lowest costs

Better returns

Lower taxes

No effort

Less risk

You can also diversify easily through index funds. By nature, they help in diversification, but you can go a step further. You can pick a few index funds across US stocks, international stocks, and bonds. A lazy portfolio like this gives you lots of upside and low amounts of risk that’s super easy to manage.

I recommend making at least 90% of your portfolio through index funds.

How to pick individual stocks

I understand you will have the itch to buy individual stocks.

But I am not going to sugarcoat it. Buying stocks is brutally hard.

The odds of successfully picking individual stocks are very low.

From 1926 to 2015, there have been 25,782 distinct stocks.

During these 90 years, the stock market rose $32 Trillion in value. Half of the gains came from JUST the top 86 companies. 86 out of 25,728! The remaining wealth was generated by the top 1000 stocks. That’s only 4% of all the companies.

The odds of success by buying individual stocks are very slim. Just 4%.

That’s why I recommend using only the remaining 10% of your investment capital to buy individual stocks.

I pick a few stocks myself but I keep it well below 10%. I get to scratch the stock-picking itch, eat plenty of humble pie, and then get back to my day.

Have fun with 10% of your portfolio, just don’t go beyond that. Keep the other 90% really boring. You’ll make a lot more money.

Automate your investments

I’m a huge fan of automating investments. Go into your investment accounts and set a specific amount to get transferred automatically every month

Automating achieves three purposes.

First, you are not trying to time the market. Investing each month allows you to average out the gains and losses. It also makes for smoother returns. When you invest each month, if the market is high, your portfolio still grows. If the market is low, you are buying stocks at a comparatively lower price which will eventually go up.

Second, you don’t forget to actually invest. By setting up automatic investments, you are truly embracing the “set it and forget it” strategy. You’re not relying on yourself to invest. We all forget to do things. With investing, forgetting to invest will rob you of more returns than any recession will. Don’t rely on willpower or your memory, get it automated so you never have to worry about it again.

Third, you can spend freely on the rest. By setting up an automatic transfer to trigger right after you get paid, it never feels like you had the money in the first place. Set up transfers for your investments and savings, set aside enough money for major bills like rent or a mortgage, then spend the rest freely until next month. You’ve done the hard work of taking care of your future by setting up the automatic investment, now go enjoy yourself by living your rich life. Automatic investments allow you to enjoy the present while securing your future. You can have it all.

The first step in making money through stocks

Armed with this new knowledge, you are in a great position to make money in stocks.

The first step is to set up a brokerage account to buy stocks or index funds. We recommend Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, or Fidelity. All are great options for opening your first account.

How to Make Money in Stocks in 2020 is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/make-money-in-stocks/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[kennethherrerablog]

How to Make Money in Stocks in 2020

Investing in stocks is one of the most important financial skills you need to master. On average, stocks have given an annualized return of around 10%. At that rate, your money doubles every 7.2 years.

Let’s say you start with $10,000. After a 40 year career, that turns into at least $320K from doubling 5 times. That’s from a single $10,000 investment.

I’m going to level with you. You can’t get rich off just your salary. Savings and bonds won’t do it either, the return isn’t high enough to make an impact during your lifetime.

Stocks are the key.

No matter your income, you will get rich off stocks as long as you start investing early, keep investing, and never sell.

Anyone can do this. You don’t need to be a financial wiz, have insider access, or a ton of time. I spend a few hours per YEAR managing my portfolio. Time and consistent contributions will make you a millionaire.

That’s why I have compiled a list of easy things you can start doing from today to make money in stocks.

Let’s get right into it.

The stock market is not sexy

The quicker you realize that the stock market is not sexy, the faster you will start making money from it. For 99.9% of people, investing in stocks is nothing like what you saw in The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s also not listening to the so-called “financial experts” on news channels and buying their hottest stocks of the season.

All of that is noise. It won’t help you make money in stocks. Successful stock market investing is all about being patient and staying in the market for many years.

Which brings me to…

Stay invested in the stock market

It’s very easy to panic and sell stocks whenever there’s a big drop in the stock market. However, selling your stocks at the slightest fall or when they are down could be the worst financial decision you can make.

When the markets fall, everyone is talking about the next recession or how things are only going to get worse. I get it. Downtrends are scary. But remember that they appear worse than they actually are because of how much they are discussed and analyzed.

When you are panicking, first of all, take a deep breath.

Since 1900, we’ve seen some real disasters there have been many reasons for the market to fall and not rise:

The Great Depression

World War 1 and World War 2

Cold War

9/11 Terror Attacks

Asian Financial Crisis

Dot-com Bubble

The 2008 Recession

Through all this, markets have continued to grow at about 10% per year.

Here’s another fascinating stat that I love. In the months following a 10% drop since 1900, this is how much the markets have risen in the immediate future on an average:

1 Month: -0.1%

3 Months: 7.5%

6 Months: 11.1%

12 Months: 14.6%

What does this tell you?

The stock market has ALWAYS gone up every time it has fallen. So, don’t panic when it goes down. Trust how stock prices have always behaved. In fact, when they fall, try to buy more stocks.

Stop timing the market

My oh my, I have heard about people trying to time the stock market so many times.

“I’m just waiting for the next dip before buying in.”

“I wouldn’t invest right now because the stock market is too expensive.”

“I sold my stocks because the markets made an all-time high.”

Everyone is trying to buy low and sell high. Even Financial advisors are always trying to time the market.

Being able to consistently identify highs and lows is a very difficult skill. Even the people who have spent all their lives trying to master it are not successful at it. It’s impossible to do consistently.

Guess what the most likely outcome is when the stock market hits a new high? More highs! By waiting, you miss out on more gains.

Same thing happens when times are bad. The biggest gains come after the biggest drops. If you try to wait for the market to be “all-clear,” you’ll miss out on them. And you won’t get anywhere close to that 10% annual return.

Here’s something that very few people know about the stock market.

A study in 2020 released findings that will blow your mind. It found that if you were not invested in the market for the 10 best days (the days when the market rose the most) of the stock market between 2004 and 2019, your returns would have dropped by an astounding amount. For example, here’s how a $10,000 investment would have grown in that period if you had:

Stayed invested all days: $36,418 at 9% annualized return

Missed the 10 best days: $18,359 at 4.15% annualized return

Missed the 20 best days: $11,908 at 1.17% annualized return

Missed the 30 best days: $8,150 at -1.35% annualized return

Missed the 40 best days: $5,847 at -3.51% annualized return

Missing just the 10 best days cuts your returns by more than half. If you missed the top 20, you are just about breaking even (in fact, you are losing money because of inflation).

Trying to time the market can be DEVASTATING. Ignore the news and invest every month like clockwork. That’s how you make the most money.

The best way to invest in stocks

Index funds.

They are the best way to make money in stocks. Index funds put their money in indexes like the S&P 500 or the Russel 1000. Index funds are passive, their fund managers don’t keep buying and selling stocks to “beat the market”. In fact, their objective is to be the market.

A lot of research has shown that active fund managers fail miserably while trying to beat the market. In fact, more than 90% of actively managed funds fail to beat the index. So the index fund approach ends up earning a better return. They also have less risk since you’re exposed to the entire market. If some random company implodes and the stock goes to $0, it doesn’t matter.

They’re also a lot easier to run, so the fees are lower. The taxes are lower too since the fund managers aren’t buying and selling all the time.

Index funds really are a free lunch:

Lowest costs

Better returns

Lower taxes

No effort

Less risk

You can also diversify easily through index funds. By nature, they help in diversification, but you can go a step further. You can pick a few index funds across US stocks, international stocks, and bonds. A lazy portfolio like this gives you lots of upside and low amounts of risk that’s super easy to manage.

I recommend making at least 90% of your portfolio through index funds.

How to pick individual stocks

I understand you will have the itch to buy individual stocks.

But I am not going to sugarcoat it. Buying stocks is brutally hard.

The odds of successfully picking individual stocks are very low.

From 1926 to 2015, there have been 25,782 distinct stocks.

During these 90 years, the stock market rose $32 Trillion in value. Half of the gains came from JUST the top 86 companies. 86 out of 25,728! The remaining wealth was generated by the top 1000 stocks. That’s only 4% of all the companies.

The odds of success by buying individual stocks are very slim. Just 4%.

That’s why I recommend using only the remaining 10% of your investment capital to buy individual stocks.

I pick a few stocks myself but I keep it well below 10%. I get to scratch the stock-picking itch, eat plenty of humble pie, and then get back to my day.

Have fun with 10% of your portfolio, just don’t go beyond that. Keep the other 90% really boring. You’ll make a lot more money.

Automate your investments

I’m a huge fan of automating investments. Go into your investment accounts and set a specific amount to get transferred automatically every month

Automating achieves three purposes.

First, you are not trying to time the market. Investing each month allows you to average out the gains and losses. It also makes for smoother returns. When you invest each month, if the market is high, your portfolio still grows. If the market is low, you are buying stocks at a comparatively lower price which will eventually go up.

Second, you don’t forget to actually invest. By setting up automatic investments, you are truly embracing the “set it and forget it” strategy. You’re not relying on yourself to invest. We all forget to do things. With investing, forgetting to invest will rob you of more returns than any recession will. Don’t rely on willpower or your memory, get it automated so you never have to worry about it again.

Third, you can spend freely on the rest. By setting up an automatic transfer to trigger right after you get paid, it never feels like you had the money in the first place. Set up transfers for your investments and savings, set aside enough money for major bills like rent or a mortgage, then spend the rest freely until next month. You’ve done the hard work of taking care of your future by setting up the automatic investment, now go enjoy yourself by living your rich life. Automatic investments allow you to enjoy the present while securing your future. You can have it all.

The first step in making money through stocks

Armed with this new knowledge, you are in a great position to make money in stocks.

The first step is to set up a brokerage account to buy stocks or index funds. We recommend Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, or Fidelity. All are great options for opening your first account.

How to Make Money in Stocks in 2020 is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

How to Make Money in Stocks in 2020 published first on https://justinbetreviews.tumblr.com/

[andrewdburton]

How to Make Money in Stocks in 2020

Investing in stocks is one of the most important financial skills you need to master. On average, stocks have given an annualized return of around 10%. At that rate, your money doubles every 7.2 years.

Let’s say you start with $10,000. After a 40 year career, that turns into at least $320K from doubling 5 times. That’s from a single $10,000 investment.

I’m going to level with you. You can’t get rich off just your salary. Savings and bonds won’t do it either, the return isn’t high enough to make an impact during your lifetime.

Stocks are the key.

No matter your income, you will get rich off stocks as long as you start investing early, keep investing, and never sell.

Anyone can do this. You don’t need to be a financial wiz, have insider access, or a ton of time. I spend a few hours per YEAR managing my portfolio. Time and consistent contributions will make you a millionaire.

That’s why I have compiled a list of easy things you can start doing from today to make money in stocks.

Let’s get right into it.

The stock market is not sexy

The quicker you realize that the stock market is not sexy, the faster you will start making money from it. For 99.9% of people, investing in stocks is nothing like what you saw in The Wolf of Wall Street. It’s also not listening to the so-called “financial experts” on news channels and buying their hottest stocks of the season.

All of that is noise. It won’t help you make money in stocks. Successful stock market investing is all about being patient and staying in the market for many years.

Which brings me to…

Stay invested in the stock market

It’s very easy to panic and sell stocks whenever there’s a big drop in the stock market. However, selling your stocks at the slightest fall or when they are down could be the worst financial decision you can make.

When the markets fall, everyone is talking about the next recession or how things are only going to get worse. I get it. Downtrends are scary. But remember that they appear worse than they actually are because of how much they are discussed and analyzed.

When you are panicking, first of all, take a deep breath.

Since 1900, we’ve seen some real disasters there have been many reasons for the market to fall and not rise:

The Great Depression

World War 1 and World War 2

Cold War

9/11 Terror Attacks

Asian Financial Crisis

Dot-com Bubble

The 2008 Recession

Through all this, markets have continued to grow at about 10% per year.

Here’s another fascinating stat that I love. In the months following a 10% drop since 1900, this is how much the markets have risen in the immediate future on an average:

1 Month: -0.1%

3 Months: 7.5%

6 Months: 11.1%

12 Months: 14.6%

What does this tell you?

The stock market has ALWAYS gone up every time it has fallen. So, don’t panic when it goes down. Trust how stock prices have always behaved. In fact, when they fall, try to buy more stocks.

Stop timing the market

My oh my, I have heard about people trying to time the stock market so many times.

“I’m just waiting for the next dip before buying in.”

“I wouldn’t invest right now because the stock market is too expensive.”

“I sold my stocks because the markets made an all-time high.”

Everyone is trying to buy low and sell high. Even Financial advisors are always trying to time the market.

Being able to consistently identify highs and lows is a very difficult skill. Even the people who have spent all their lives trying to master it are not successful at it. It’s impossible to do consistently.

Guess what the most likely outcome is when the stock market hits a new high? More highs! By waiting, you miss out on more gains.

Same thing happens when times are bad. The biggest gains come after the biggest drops. If you try to wait for the market to be “all-clear,” you’ll miss out on them. And you won’t get anywhere close to that 10% annual return.

Here’s something that very few people know about the stock market.

A study in 2020 released findings that will blow your mind. It found that if you were not invested in the market for the 10 best days (the days when the market rose the most) of the stock market between 2004 and 2019, your returns would have dropped by an astounding amount. For example, here’s how a $10,000 investment would have grown in that period if you had:

Stayed invested all days: $36,418 at 9% annualized return

Missed the 10 best days: $18,359 at 4.15% annualized return

Missed the 20 best days: $11,908 at 1.17% annualized return

Missed the 30 best days: $8,150 at -1.35% annualized return

Missed the 40 best days: $5,847 at -3.51% annualized return

Missing just the 10 best days cuts your returns by more than half. If you missed the top 20, you are just about breaking even (in fact, you are losing money because of inflation).

Trying to time the market can be DEVASTATING. Ignore the news and invest every month like clockwork. That’s how you make the most money.

The best way to invest in stocks

Index funds.

They are the best way to make money in stocks. Index funds put their money in indexes like the S&P 500 or the Russel 1000. Index funds are passive, their fund managers don’t keep buying and selling stocks to “beat the market”. In fact, their objective is to be the market.

A lot of research has shown that active fund managers fail miserably while trying to beat the market. In fact, more than 90% of actively managed funds fail to beat the index. So the index fund approach ends up earning a better return. They also have less risk since you’re exposed to the entire market. If some random company implodes and the stock goes to $0, it doesn’t matter.

They’re also a lot easier to run, so the fees are lower. The taxes are lower too since the fund managers aren’t buying and selling all the time.

Index funds really are a free lunch:

Lowest costs

Better returns

Lower taxes

No effort

Less risk

You can also diversify easily through index funds. By nature, they help in diversification, but you can go a step further. You can pick a few index funds across US stocks, international stocks, and bonds. A lazy portfolio like this gives you lots of upside and low amounts of risk that’s super easy to manage.

I recommend making at least 90% of your portfolio through index funds.

How to pick individual stocks

I understand you will have the itch to buy individual stocks.

But I am not going to sugarcoat it. Buying stocks is brutally hard.

The odds of successfully picking individual stocks are very low.

From 1926 to 2015, there have been 25,782 distinct stocks.

During these 90 years, the stock market rose $32 Trillion in value. Half of the gains came from JUST the top 86 companies. 86 out of 25,728! The remaining wealth was generated by the top 1000 stocks. That’s only 4% of all the companies.

The odds of success by buying individual stocks are very slim. Just 4%.

That’s why I recommend using only the remaining 10% of your investment capital to buy individual stocks.

I pick a few stocks myself but I keep it well below 10%. I get to scratch the stock-picking itch, eat plenty of humble pie, and then get back to my day.

Have fun with 10% of your portfolio, just don’t go beyond that. Keep the other 90% really boring. You’ll make a lot more money.

Automate your investments

I’m a huge fan of automating investments. Go into your investment accounts and set a specific amount to get transferred automatically every month

Automating achieves three purposes.

First, you are not trying to time the market. Investing each month allows you to average out the gains and losses. It also makes for smoother returns. When you invest each month, if the market is high, your portfolio still grows. If the market is low, you are buying stocks at a comparatively lower price which will eventually go up.

Second, you don’t forget to actually invest. By setting up automatic investments, you are truly embracing the “set it and forget it” strategy. You’re not relying on yourself to invest. We all forget to do things. With investing, forgetting to invest will rob you of more returns than any recession will. Don’t rely on willpower or your memory, get it automated so you never have to worry about it again.

Third, you can spend freely on the rest. By setting up an automatic transfer to trigger right after you get paid, it never feels like you had the money in the first place. Set up transfers for your investments and savings, set aside enough money for major bills like rent or a mortgage, then spend the rest freely until next month. You’ve done the hard work of taking care of your future by setting up the automatic investment, now go enjoy yourself by living your rich life. Automatic investments allow you to enjoy the present while securing your future. You can have it all.

The first step in making money through stocks

Armed with this new knowledge, you are in a great position to make money in stocks.

The first step is to set up a brokerage account to buy stocks or index funds. We recommend Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, or Fidelity. All are great options for opening your first account.

How to Make Money in Stocks in 2020 is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

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