#it’s so clear that they’re not even saying this because of religion too like I’ve seen them treat things that are considered way more sinful

[shamelessshepherd]

The Muslims are being homophobic on my dash again and they’re attacking lesbian and bi Muslims 😑

[eugenedebs1920]

I don’t have kids. I don’t plan on having kids. I don’t want kids. Honestly, I prefer to not be around kids. Yet for some reason the future is important to me.

There has always been a sense of urgency to right the wrongs of the past, and to clear the way for future generations to travel. A drive to leave this rock in better shape than I found it when I left it.

That was a camping rule instilled in me as a kid. Leave the camp site in better shape than when you got there. I can remember as a kid, going around and looking for trash someone, at sometime had left behind. That way when the next person came to enjoy this little slice of nature, hopefully they would enjoy and appreciate it as I did.

There has never been an urge in me to reproduce. The thought of raising a child never appealed to me. Dogs! I love dogs, and have had a few since I was a kid. A little human though, just no interest.

People will ask, “do you want to hold my baby?” Not once have I responded a yes to that question.

Children, especially when they’re real young, they’re like weird alien things that just excrete fluids. Otherwise they’re loud, obnoxious, stinky (hey! I think people have used this same description for me! 😉) want to crawl all over you with their inevitably sticky hands. No thanks.

Yet their ability to live in this country with as much if not more of the same opportunities and liberties I had is invaluable to me. Even in my lowest of lows, in my worst of times, it was important to ensure my actions would not negatively impact those after me.

I smoke, I drink, I indulge, I’m not as young as I use to be. I’d say, at best I got another 40 years left in me, that’s what I’ve lived so far. If I’m being real, a little less would probably be better.

I’m not a deeply religious man. I’m not without my own thoughts and interpretations. I think religion can be a guide on how to live life morally and with compassion. Far too often it is not.

What do I think happens when you die? Nothing. You just cease to be. The chemical energy in you goes dormant and you are recycled back into the earth from whence you came.

The driving force to be the best person I could be was to see others happy, to see them prosper and to be content in their lives. That makes me happy, seeing others happy. Like a laugh, it’s contagious, you’re laughing because someone else is laughing and you have no idea what’s so funny to them, but their hilarious moment becomes your own.

Same with prosperity. When you see someone who worked hard and is proud to show you their new home, or their new car, whatever it is, you can pick up on that sense of satisfaction. Regardless if it’s your own.

Since the new deal we have inadvertently, or unwittingly, helped each other out. I pay into social security so that the widow down the street has an income to live on. Although I don’t have children I happily pay taxes for them to get an education, and so on. This is what has made our country strong for so many years. This selfless sense that we are in this together. That we are on the same team, going towards the same goal. When someone falls, you pick them back up, because that’s what you do.

Something has shifted in our culture of late. An overwhelming move towards I got mine, and you got yours. Not breaking from our comfort zones. Trapped within our own small circle. Eye contact is awkward, and common courtesy isn’t so common.

What changed?!

There is now the potential to reach out to strangers around the globe with the touch of a button, but half of us don’t know our neighbors names. We can see devastation clear across the world and feel sympathy for them, but we won’t let someone in during our commute.

When did this shift in attitudes switch in us as citizens in this country, and around the world? This notion that you are more important than, more entitled, more deserving than anyone else.

We are all just people going towards the same goal. We may not know each other but we should know that everyone has their struggles, everyone has pressures, we all are trying. Trying to make it another day, another week, to another paycheck.

Cant we relish in the thought that we are all fighting the same battles, we just fight our own demons?

This goes beyond letting someone in during traffic. It goes beyond opening the door for a stranger. This is about the ten billion of us yet to be born, who are barely born, and what their futures will be.

Every action, every decision, every choice and move we make will have impact in one way or another moving forward.

Will these be acts of greed and resentment?Acts of intolerance and animosity. Will they tear someone down, hurt them? Every action matters.

Or with the decisions you make, will they be that of kindness and care? Will they be accepting and understanding? Will the lift people up, help them out?

The choice is yours.

I know, just as I was taught when I was a child, camping in the mountains of Colorado, that I want to leave this site a better place than when I got there. So people who visit in the future can enjoy it just as I did. So that they have the same opportunity as myself. I hope you’ll do the same.

[chaifootsteps]

Studio Anon here, after a while of lurking/doing my own thing. Luckily my emotions are much more in check and I’ve strayed from Viv stuff for a bit to relax and hang out with my loved ones! Coming back and seeing Viv throwing a hissy fit, Raph wanting to look/act like Angel (my goodness-), and somehow people still defending episode four is… really comedic, actually.

Everything is awful but man, somehow it just keeps getting worse!

Anyway, just writing my own general feelings on this and the ideas I had for a rewrite long before everything went to hell. I never really was interested in HH until maybe Helluva Boss’ trailer dropped. I found it strange that HH wasn’t even out yet but somehow this ‘spinoff show’ was already made and posted in the public. I thought it was really weird tho, considering HH is owned by a company now, technically, while HB is sorta just there? I only watched since it’s animation and I felt like I had to support it.

Buuuut the longer I had to stare at HB’s ugly designs (and seeing the new ones for HH) I simply wasn’t interested anymore.

I guess I dodged a bullet because jesus it just gets worse.

I don’t know how, genuinely, Viv is a shit artist and writer? She went to a prestigious art school for as far as I remember and got her shows made and animated. I’m studying myself, and god knows I’d want my stories out there! It’s clear that Viv has some idea of what she wants to do, but that’s the thing-,

All she had were concepts (also publicly displaying her fetishes in the public, which is also its own can of worms).

I know in my right mind I couldn’t send people out to work on my stories since they’re heavily in development- even then my character designs are complicated as shit so I wouldn’t dream of anyone animating. Viv’s style being the way that it is + her general palettes being Just Red makes it hard to focus on or do anything with.

I also don’t know how Viv is able to just show off her rape fantasies out there and I’d rather not talk about it (sex-repulsed and all), but the general lack of focus and priority in gay ships is really disgusting.

So, as a writer, I made a general outline of what I’d make Hazbin Hotel and/or Helluva Boss be about.

Redemption is an easy theme to work on for both. ‘Sins of the father’ as a trope could work too. I’ll just use HH for now, as this post would be lengthy should I cover both.

General worldbuilding; due to Lucifer’s habit of toying with human life, comparing them to nothing more than insects, God punishes him and Lilith (who could’ve been some kind of angel too? I know she’s from a different religion entirely, so let’s say she was a random angel) by sending them to Hell to deal with the worst sinners. He and the princes of hell (how do they not address this in Hazbin?), scorned and disgusted by Heaven, try to be controlling over their own citizens. Mimicking/acting out their anger towards God by playing God in their own rings. They’re evil and horrible leaders. Lilith makes Hell feel like a home for her and Lucifer at least, bearing a daughter to restore some humanity within the Pride ring.

So Pride, at least, is less threatening now that Lucifer has a daughter.

The other princes could then ‘rightfully’ call out Lucifer’s behavior, maybe serving as some antagonists for Charlie as she tries to convince them to bring their sinners in for redemption.

So TLDR; the princes and Lucifer have internal problems that Charlie would try and resolve somewhat since she believes in redemption.

Going off to the main story, Charlie is told of Heaven being evil and awful for what they’ve done to her parents and believes it until she meets V (or Ex-Overlord Vaggie in this rewrite). V was recently cast out of the other Vs and was maybe slated to die in the extermination until Charlie unknowingly saved her from her fate. Maybe we could even get a hint of V being an angel/exterminator before with one hesitating to kill her off. The two talk and when Charlie mentions Heaven being an ass, V could tell Charlie about Heaven being good, eventually causing Charlie to start thinking about redemption, and start the hotel.

V is given more thought in the story as Charlie’s love interest and the gateway to her learning more about the two sides. Charlie is so used to Hell being the way that it is that she never considered redemption until she hears and talks to V more. The two try and kickstart some sort of redemption but V is hesitant in getting redeemed and asks that, since Charlie is the princess of hell, they could ask Lucifer for a sinner or two to redeem.

Very loose from here, but after some talk, Lucifer gives them a rundown hotel to make their own, the Vs find out and gets Lust Sinner Angel down to take them out, but is charmed by the idea of redemption. Nifty, Alastor, Husk, and Sir Pentious are all from different rings and it takes Charlie a lot to convince the princes and to try and reconnect them to Lucifer, who seems to be caught off guard with how much Charlie is willing to give this a shot. Lilith on the other hand gets suspicious of V, which could lead to Lilith exposing V of being an exterminator and, “Messing with our daughter’s head so she’ll get killed in the next extermination!”

So drama with the parents, the princes, and struggles with redemption.

It all crashes down on Charlie and the Hazbin crew as they’ve began to grow closer on one another, V especially. The other princes could then be more empathetic (they aren’t as prideful as Lucifer, and Lucifer might love his wife more than his kid tbh) and try to reconnect with Lucifer in the same way Charlie connects to the other ring sinners.

Slowly but surely, the crew better themselves, and before the next extermination, the Angel Gabriel (ain’t he the whole Angel with the flaming sword?) flies down to see Charlie doing her best. Drama here, tension there, V is the first to get ‘redeemed’. Uh oh, angst!

V, after all this time, doesn’t want to be redeemed if that means she can’t stay with Charlie, which is why she was hesitant. Lucifer and the sins come in, try to kill Gabriel or something and there’s signs of a war, but Charlie stands her ground and tries to find some way to get both sides to work together on something, at least.

So. Purgatory.

I haven’t been mentioning Lilith much but she very much loves her daughter, and having enough pride in her (Charlie) ideals to make things better, to give people a chance at redemption, reminds her of her angel days. That peaceful life.

So she agrees.

The Hazbin crew get to work with her in purgatory, V gets to be all happy and cute with Charlie, and everyone learns to try and be better.

There. That shouldn’t be too hard. Maybe a little complicated but those are my surface thoughts. What do you and the others think?

[gifted-loser]

The Grief of Having a Trans Child

I am mother to an amazing kid.

Assigned female at birth, but — cheeky as he is in all things — he let me know he doesn’t do assigned seating.

I’ve always been an ally. I’ve always surrounded myself with unique people who are authentically themselves, despite what the majority deems traditional. And though I am a cis woman with what may be deemed a very, um, basic aesthetic, I’ve never held much stock in fitting in.

I pride myself in being a mother who does not live vicariously through her children, or see them as an extension of herself. They’re autonomous human beings who I happened to manufacture, yes. But it’s always been important to me to lay a foundation not rooted in indoctrination, but in strong critical thinking skills.

For example, I haven’t been religious in many years. However, I am from Mississippi, arguably the most religious and ignorant and most definitely poorest state. I did not want to make my children’s mind up about what, if anything, they believed about religion.

I allowed them to attend church with family when THEY wanted to. When they decided they didn’t want to go any longer, I didn’t let anyone force them. I taught them not to make knee-jerk decisions, half-cocked on partial information, but to take in all sides of any argument and use logic to make up their own minds.

And damn, I did a great job because I can hardly win an argument anymore.

My long-winded point here is: it may surprise a lot of people to know how grief-stricken and conflicted I felt when my child came out to me as trans.

As an ally, I’d never had a fraction of negative emotion concerning anyone else’s preferences. You may wonder why, then — if I was truly an ally and as open as I claim — would I feel anything but happiness for my baby becoming who they were meant to be?

And this is the part that I think people should hear that I’m not seeing often made clear from a parent’s perspective. This is because, at first glance, it may appear transphobic in nature. In my case (I’m not saying every case), it’s much more complex.

So why would a non-transphobic, LGBTQ ally parent have such an adverse and upset reaction to learning their child is trans?

Explaining to the best of my ability, first and foremost I was hurt because I realized my child was hurting.

That this body — the body I made with my body, the body I rocked and held and dressed and kissed its fat cheeks — was so perfect to me.

Yet, to my child who means the world to me, this body caused grief. This body caused heartache and dysphoria and even suicide ideation.

Intellectually, I knew this had less than nothing to do with me. But emotionally, I was distressed.

Is this my fault, that my child hates their body? Did I fail to give my child confidence to love themself? Did I not instill enough body positivity, or possibly did I complain about my own form too often, causing my baby to question theirs?

How could my child hate what I thought so amazing and perfect, and what could I have done to make my baby love themself as I had always loved them?

It wasn’t just about the fact that I’d always seen perfection there; it was the pain and turmoil that my kid not only didn’t see perfection, but literally saw their physical body as their biggest obstacle in life.

It was the pain the body caused them, that also pained me.

Honestly, it still does.

The second wave of grief came not from what was, but what would never be.

All those images in my head of what our relationship would look like. Prom dresses and manicures and wedding gowns. If I’m being honest and had been paying attention, I’d have known none of those things were going to happen — not in that cookie-cutter way — regardless.

This grief was much easier for me to get over. This year I helped him dress in his matching white tux to go with his boyfriend to prom, and I bawled my eyes out. Not out of sadness, but with happiness that he was so happy, and because he is so freaking cute.

Now, I’m left with the third wave of sadness and grief. And it all stems from the fact that there’s a great big world out there that I can’t fix for him.

He’s in danger just by walking down the street. He’s in danger just by existing. And I live with the fear that some horrible person will attempt to end my child’s life out of ignorance and hatred. Someone who doesn’t know or doesn’t care that his favorite thing in the world is kittens. Or that he makes sure his little sister gets on and off the bus safely every day, even though he pretends he can’t stand her. Or that even though he calls me by my first name to his friends, when no one is listening he still calls me Momma.

Given the murky political waters of late, that fear isn’t going away anytime soon. It is growing.

So I hope sharing my own struggles with a child coming out as trans may help other parents in similar situations understand they’re not alone. It’s okay to have complex and even mixed, conflicting emotions to sort through. It is a process. For them, and for us.

And I hope any trans person struggling with understanding their parents’ feelings may benefit. Because not everyone will deal with difficult emotions the same. It may look like grief; it may look like denial, or even rage. But it also may help to know that sometimes those ugly emotions stem from softer ones. Not everyone is able to articulate or manage such a tidal wave of intense, deeply personal emotions.

You are worthy.

You shouldn’t have to deal with disrespect or rejection of your true self. That’s not okay. But if your parents love YOU, not their idea of who you SHOULD be, but YOU — don’t give up. They may need more time than you thought, but true love always wins.

As for myself, I’m an imperfect person just trying to do the best I can, like the rest. I don’t always get it right, and I have and will most likely fail my children again at some point — not intentionally, but because that’s the nature of being human. We’re prone to errors and mistakes. None of us, no matter how well-intended, are spared from that singular truth.

However, for anyone struggling with an unsupportive family, country, world — I want to let you know that YOU ARE WORTHY. And just like MY SON is still perfect, so are YOU. ❤

[sleepnowmychild]

The gods and shipping

Note: I feel like shipping isn’t the right term, given this is religion and not fandom. But I can’t think of another word that means ‘the act if supporting two (or more) people together as a couple’ so I’ll use it for now. And if I find something better I’ll edit this post.

This gets long so I’ll put it under the cut

So I don’t think it’s any secret the gods had many many lovers. Rarely did they ever have just one. Each of those lovers and their story plays some part into the deities mythology and the lessons we’re meant to learn from those stories. So I’ve never seen an issue with shipping the gods in their many established relationships. I mean, many couples are worshipped together. Hades and Persephone, Eros and Psyche, Ares and Aphrodite.

Some of the established relationships may not be entirely healthy ones, but again those myths exist for a reason. To share a lesson about love, relationships etc. or sometimes simply to give a god/hero two divine parents. But there’s a reason for every relationship established in myth.

So what about creating your own? Seeing two gods that don’t have an established relationship and seeing them as counterparts?

In my opinion I don’t see too much of an issue when it’s done with respect and acknowledgment of those gods ‘official’ consorts. I say ‘official’ in quotes because some gods have more than one marriage, or who that consort is depends on the myth. But you get the idea, the main established relationship for that god.

For example: when I first learnt of the Sisyphus myth, and how Ares had rescued Thanatos, I couldn’t help but think about how the two are linked in their domains. There is no war, without death. If you want the bloodshed and fighting of a war you need death to be present. War is a tragedy that can’t exist without senseless killing. Ares can’t do his job as the representation of the more brutal aspects of war without Thanatos there to take the souls and clear the battlefield of the fallen. I was rather surprised there was no one off myth that paired the two together as a couple, given how perfectly they seemed to fit together. So I admit, I kind of ship them.

While Ares is most often associated with his affair with Aphrodite, and she’s his main partner. The gods had so many partners I don’t see any issue with looking at the story of Ares rescuing Thanatos and thinking it’s kind of a cute concept pair them up. I acknowledge his ‘official’ partner is Aphrodite, but have to admit the symbolism in a pairing with Thanatos is a great concept.

Outside of a worship context: when it’s in the form of a myth retelling like TSOA, the Hades games, Hades town etc. since they’re merely retellings and the depictions of the gods in those stories are more akin to a fictional character, you can really do whatever you want with them shipping wise. I fucking love Zagreus and Hypnos together in the context of the hades games. But when we’re talking about the actual gods, I don’t even know if they’ve ever interacted so I can’t see them together. Retellings in the form of books, movies, games etc are free reign in my opinion no matter how wild the pairing is (yk as long as it’s not any illegal shit).

TLDR: I don’t see anything that wrong with shipping the gods, as long as it’s done with acknowledgment of their ‘official’ consorts and respect. You can worship two (or more) gods together and think they’d be cute, or enjoy the symbolism they’d represent.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

After death | Lost Gods

He looks at the skyline ahead of him, its famous shapes that tourists gape at like they’re observing a gorilla in an enclosure. It’s all grey to him, not just because of the looming storm but because the grids of buildings and lights have become boring in a way that seems fatal—this city is a dead thing on earth, he doesn’t care what anyone says. It’s all post-mortem—the blinking traffic lights, shafts of sunlight interrupted by high-rises, yellow taxis honking, honking, honking, like they’re shouting a prayer. He feels sort of like that too, caught in kitschy after death.

A little Harrison art <3 !! And an excerpt from the opening of Lost Gods!

4 years ago today I finished writing his very first solo novel, Moth Work, & I’m kind of in awe of how far we’ve come in that short time… 4 novels & 2 novellas narrated by this man who’s a little embarrassing and a whole lot profound (but you didn’t hear that from me!). A few more thoughts under the cut, but here’s a little note I made myself in 2020, the only note I’ve ever made after finishing a book (possibly because finishing this one changed my life a little).

TW for mentions of: mental illness, trauma in the mental health system, internalized homophobia

Technically I finished Moth Work at 2:34AM because I lived on the west coast at the time lol.

I don’t usually celebrate or remember the anniversaries of finishing books. But I wanted to celebrate this one because a) it’s Leap Day & I haven’t been able to commemorate what I was doing during the last one for 4 years, & b) because finishing MW was such a significant accomplishment!

I started MW in January of 2019 because I was struggling emotionally. At the time, I was racing to figure out “what was wrong with me” before flying across the country for uni in the summer (SPOILER I WAS JUST AUTISTIC LMAO), which led to a lot of stressful and traumatizing appointments with doctors. I desperately needed a book to cheer me up but a different one from my WIP at the time, especially because in 2018, I’d both discovered my voice and become really afraid of messing it up!

I also was taking a religion class at the time that was emotionally difficult for me because I felt reallyyyy alone and especially isolated in my queerness that I’d been hiding for a couple years at that point (& that I literally would not talk about at all, not even to people I trusted). When it became very clear I needed an outlet to explore my feelings (of being “unhelpable,” internalized homophobia, a general sense of aloneness/isolation) the decision of what I was going to write became pretty clear.

I’d written 3 stories in Harrison’s POV that predated MW starting in late 2018 (they were also my first explorations in third person present tense, which fun fact, I only tried in his POV because I’ve always written my notes ideas in that POV/tense combo, even when I only wrote first person!). I hadn’t written in a different POV character’s head beside’s Reeve’s since 2016, so it felt natural that the second character I felt closest to (Harrison!!!) could be a narrator. Funnily at this time Lonan was my favourite so I’m actually surprised I did not choose him but can we imagine how different things would be if I had???

I started Moth Work in my notes app (ICONIC) on January 16th 2019 at 11:37pm! The first chapter came pretty quickly, is actually quite non-linear for a bit, and was overall a lot of fun to write. I’d planned for the project to maybe be a short story or at the most a novella (does this sound familiar), nothing very long and definitely not a novel. I believe the goal word count was 5k which is so funny bc that’s exactly how Changing States & Lost Gods started!!!

And then the project stagnated, it wasn’t something I’d planned to write seriously, and I didn’t pick it back up until August of that year when my therapist at the time suggested I try to complete a “reach goal” as I was reaching Crisis and I guess I was so done with everything going on in my life that I was like okay fine!!!! I will write Moth Work as a novel!!!!

This book literally flew with me across the country… I wrote a lot of it late at night in my dorm with all the lights off after a long day on campus. I wrote a lot of it in my intro to sociology lecture LMAO. I wrote a lot of it on my phone. It was the first project (no literally) where I intentionally explored queerness, especially my own feelings as a (sort of?) catholic at the time. I explored atheism a lot! Something I needed to process my own feelings about faith & God. I explored what it’s like to be this completely unhelpable person because you’ve decided there’s no possible way to help yourself anymore (hiiii Lonan). I also explored (a bit like a premonition), what it’s like to care deeply for someone you can’t help (but that you very badly want to help).

And I almost didn’t finish the book! The imposter syndrome and insecurity went crazyyy when writing Moth Work. I didn’t feel like I was writing the First Person Retrospective Flowery Literary Fiction I’d deemed as the only possible “good writing.” (Still LOVE but I really was struggling seeing a very minor style shift, which is funnily much closer to my writing now than when I was writing the “best” way.) I deleted so much from this book. I couldn’t look at it. I was so embarrassed by it!! I made ultimatums with it!! I edited it so much but still couldn’t stand it! It was literally the safest space I had and I could barely be there a lot of the time!!!

SOOOO this is why I’m very proud of me for finishing it lol & while I would typically have celebrated the anniversary idk, in 2021, bc it didn’t exist until this year it felt apt to sit with those feelings now. I’m really proud of 17-year-old Rachel who was undiagnosed autistic & convinced I was a lost cause, who was sooo afraid of being queer I could only think of that through Lonan (& sometimes still do thx king 🫡) who literallyyyyy wrote a masterpiece in my collection that contains some of my best work (even if I only realized that 4 years later) & that’s been the start of EVERYTHING!

This is so much more than a book or an anniversary!! Somehow I made it through all the things I didn’t think were possible and now have written 2 books & 3 (writing the fourth) novellas allllll in this world. AND 2 additional novels in his POV!! Also thank you baby Rachel for Jeremiah. Like hello!!!! This is the only place I felt safe to be myself when I couldn’t be with anyone else! And there’s something priceless about that…

And it’s all bc of Harrison!!! Whoever I saw in that man in 2019… girl thank you!! Can’t explain what it’s like to grow with that character (who is sooo much more than that to me). Never would I have predicted where I am now. And IMO, that’s all thanks to him so ily fictional man in my head, this is soooo his day LOL.

& if you were here since the first MW update & made it this far… I MUST KNOW!!!!

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Had to share this with you because I was looking at the quotes on this post and this one gave me a big laugh. This is exactly how you describe how solos see their bias vs other members. And I don’t understand how they don’t realize how insulting this is to Jimin, the idea that he would be so loyal and affectionate towards people who, according them, treat him like trash. But this was seriously so funny. (Like even Jhope who they token stan now? 😭)

https://x.com/diorstear/status/1709969755115811065?s=20

***

Your link.

I mean, where do you even begin with people who are incapable of realizing the implications of what they’re saying? When I say solo stans literally lack ordered thinking beyond the 1st, this is exactly what I mean.

You know what I find most amusing though? I joined Tumblr in 2021, so just before Chapter 2 started. And the topics that dominated here were people speaking lowly of those “chart-obsessed ARMYs”, about those “infantilizing k-pop idols”, about how people should watch full unedited original content, about how k-pop fans shouldn’t have a saviour complex, about the privilege BTS have as Korean men, about how toxic fans lean into parasocial attachments in k-pop, about fans lacking boundaries, etc… This was the dominant discourse in this space always said in a tone where the people in these fringe spaces relative to the main OT7 ones, felt they were above all that. Only for Chapter 2 to start and almost every single one has done an aboutface.

Now practically all these people are significantly much more chart-obsessed than any chartmy I’ve seen ever, it’s like they picked up the tactics (the how) without any understanding of the why, when, and where ARMYs employed those tactics, and intensified it. These are the people now hyping up edits that victimize their fave, constantly wanting to play saviour and inserting themselves into the relationships between the members to assume malice, envy, or hate, all to further the idea that everyone in the group hates their fave, is using them for their own selfish needs, and only their fave is the most selfless sacrificial lamb for the ‘temporary experiment’ that is BTS. In spite of all the footage we have, in spite of what their supposed sacrificial lamb has said and keeps saying… in spite of everything, they choose to insult their fave all in a bid to justify their hate of the rest.

It’s amusing to me because everybody else can tell exactly what this is. We all know the types of groups of people, across various backgrounds, cultures, religions, times, who fall into these exact kind of thought patterns. I promise you, for solo stans it doesn’t just end in k-pop - their underlying beliefs extend to how they see the world at large. And that’s how I know there’s nothing to be done for people like this unless they completely detach. They’ve become too sucked in and are the sorts for whom k-pop will consume everything about them. But that same reason is why they won’t leave, and will only become more and more toxic, further poisoning their own experience within fandom and that of everyone who comes into contact with them.

I keep saying, for BTS, the people who think the least about their faves are their solo stans. And over the three-ish years I’ve been answering asks in this space, it’s clear PJMs are no exception.

Thankfully, Jimin remains fairly insulated from the madness that happens in fandom. He’s focused on advancing his career and all the guys constantly remind everybody that they are in fact in this together and they intend to keep it that way. Speaking of which, Taehyung hyping up 3D was so cute! The way he was saying he loved it almost made me rethink my initial view of the song. And while 3D is growing on me (tbf), I still want to hear more from JK, something that actually wows me. Fingers crossed at least one of the new 8 tracks has something there for me.

Lol anyway thanks (kinda) for sending me that, it did make me chuckle. I say kinda because while it’s a tweet that does prove my point about how akgaes view their fave, I didn’t feel it was worth it seeing the extent of their abuse of other members in the quotes. All of their talking points I’ve heard before and so I’m not sensitive to it, but it’s still kinda unpleasant to see these people be extremely abusive to the members completely unprovoked. It’s like entering a den filled with raving, unwashed lunatics looking for anything to tear apart.

Just unpleasant. So I’d prefer if next time, rather than show and tell with a link, you just describe what you mean without a link to that insanity.

**EDIT: I just realized I only talked about the quotes without addressing the underlying clip and someone who perhaps hasn't watched the original full clip could be wondering why I'm okay with the other six members 'ganging up' on Jimin...

I've actually talked about what happened in that clip on my blog before, and it was in the context of how Yoongi supports Jimin in BTS. For anyone who wants to watch the full thing to reach their own conclusions, the source is from BTS's Festa 2016 dinner. I've linked the Bantan Subs version with English subtitles here:

*

In my Masterlist post where I talk about hate in the BTS fandom, I refer to clips exactly like what PJMs are spreading now to victimize Jimin and incite hatred on other members. Every. Single. Member in BTS has clips like that about them, where they're being immature or cattish, towards the others. Including Jimin. It's an age-old akgae tactic to add up these clips into compilations to create a narrative about their chosen member, it's exactly what shippers do as well and taekookers are the worst offenders, and is also the reason why ARMYs keep insisting that new fans go back to BTS's old content and watch all of it in full. If you're educating yourself on BTS based on clips circulated by akgaes or shippers you've already lost the plot.

[littledreamling]

Tea and Books Asks

The Dreamling Nation server had the bright idea to turn this ask game into a tag game

Anyway, here’s mine! I’ve already answered a few of these and if you sent me an ask, the answer will be here instead. Sorry for the long post and thank you @firemandeanbuck for the tag!!

1. What period of history do you enjoy learning about?

I love learning about the Renaissance (roughly 1300-1700) in Europe, especially how science, religion, and geopolitics all tied together to shape and influence each other. A lot of that has been fueled by my love for Hob, so I wanted to know as much about the time period he would’ve lived in as possible, but I also fell in love with the interplay between Germany, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire during that time period, as well as whatever the fuck the Iberian Peninsula was doing. I’ve just barely started scratching the surface but it’s already so fascinating to me.

2. Who is your favourite fictional character and why?

Has to be Hob, without a doubt. I love his optimism and almost violently positive outlook on life. He’s not a good person, but he’s not a bad person either. He’s just a person, a true representation of humanity, and I find myself relating to him a lot.

3. What do you order at a café?

Something far too sweet and complicated. And probably a muffin or a croissant or something.

4. Libraries, botanical gardens, or art galleries?

All of the above, but I prefer aquariums over all of them

5. Do you have a favourite film soundtrack?

Is it weird if I say Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron? Because Hans Zimmer put his heart soul and bussy into that soundtrack and it’s full of absolute bangers. Also Interstellar and… pretty much everything Hans Zimmer has ever done honestly

6. What does your dream home look like?

Bright, filled with books and plants, with lots of textures and soft things. When I was younger, I had a dream (one that has been revitalized thanks to conversations in the dreamling nation server) of living in an old church, either Episcopalian or Catholic because I love the stained glass and architecture. Also, religious trauma lmao

7. What makes you feel better on gloomy days?

A good book, good music, walking in the woods, talking to friends, generally attempting to bring light back into my life in any way I can. I generally find that the days when I most want to crawl into a dark hole and be left alone are the days when I really need brightness and good company

8. What are your top three films? Books?

Films: The Hunt for Red October, Angels and Demons, and Stardust though I could list at least ten more very easily

Books: I haven’t been able to do a lot of reading lately, so I’m going to fall back on my tried and true favorites: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, The Abhorsen series by Garth Nix, and the Goblin Wood by Hilari Bell

9. Are you an organized person, generally?

My adhd forces me to be, if only as a coping mechanism. I alternate between states of disorganized chaos and meticulous order, usually corresponding to my stress levels and how much I’ve been procrastinating lmao

10. Do you have a favourite classic novel?

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I read it in middle school and fell in love; it’s the only assigned reading book I’ve ever finished cover to cover.

11. What character archetype or trope is your favourite?

I’m not really sure to be completely honest… I suppose I go in for tortured souls who endure, not despite, but because of. I like characters that have every reason to quit but continue anyway, even if (especially if) they know they’re doomed to fail.

12. Do you prefer baking or cooking?

Baking for sure. I’m a scientist at heart and while baking can be creative, it’s all about following clear instructions that (usually, hopefully) lead to a clear outcome without much variation. That’s the goal anyway

13. Which season do you feel at home in?

Autumn. I love the colors, the crisp air, being able to bundle up but still look nice (unlike winter, when I just look… kinda frumpy and perpetually exhausted). All of my favorite holidays are in the fall, including my birthday (which isn’t a holiday but should be) so it’s just a good time all around.

14. What is your opinion on poetry?

I love poetry. To me, it’s like a puzzle, seemingly so basic and straight-forward on the first reading, but each successive pass reveals new meaning. It fascinates me and I wish I was better at reading, writing, and analyzing it.

15. Do you speak formally when texting and emailing?

Sometimes? It depends more on the context and what device I’m using to write. On my phone, absolutely not, I almost never capitalize anything and grammar is… an afterthought at best. On my ipad and computer, though, I’m in the habit of using proper punctuation and capitalization because I use those devices to write fics.

16. How do you organize your music playlists?

Very haphazardly. Mostly based on vibes (on spotify, I have two folders called “Cool, Calm, and Collected” and “Hot, Violent, and Agitated”) but also by activity (“walking in the woods” and “writing” for example). My spotify is a mess that only I can ever make sense of, which works really well for the most part but can be very frustrating when I’m driving and my friends are trying to navigate my maze of music playlists

17. Who is your favourite author?

I think I’m contractually obligated to say Neil Gaiman…

18. Chai or hot chocolate?

Hot chocolate, all day every day. I have an incurable sweet tooth and hot chocolate is one of my comfort drinks, especially in the face of writer’s block or intense stress. In fact, I’m thinking about making some right now.

19. Do you prefer forests, sea shores, or meadows?

Forests. I love the unique quiet of a forest, a hush that isn’t a hush at all once you really start to listen. I’ve always felt very connected to nature and forests in particular and I could spend all day wandering between trees, listening to the sounds of life all around me.

20. If you were to cultivate a fruit orchard, what would you grow?

Pears. They’re my favorite fruit and I’d want to have them on hand as often as possible. I don’t know the first thing about growing pears (or any fruit, really) so I have no idea how hard it would be or if I’d be any good at it, but I’d definitely try!

I’m tagging @aquilathefighter @ghostboyjules @mathomhouse-e @sonata-ix @wizardofgoodfortune and @tj-dragonblade

Feel free to ignore if you’ve already done it or don’t want to!

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

Some may view it as entitled or being too sensitive but I can never get behind the idea of “I don’t hate you, I just disagree with your lifestyle”, not after what I’ve experienced, witnessed or had to learn about. It’s honestly infantilizing and so disrespectful and so many people use it to avoid criticism. My queerness is not a “lifestyle” or rebellious phase, it is not akin to being a hippie or beatnik yet that’s how people who act like it can be stamped out act so they can claim they don’t hate anyone. Same with everyone who rants about “gender ideology” or “transgenderism” to act like they’re fighting an ideology.

I’m going to tell a personal story. I’ve had teachers and peers like what I’ve described. They’d claim to love everyone and just disagree with certain “lifestyles” but then I’d hear them ranting about beating up trans women in the bathroom or said teachers making entire lesson plans ranting about wokeness and trans women. People who claim not being affirming will never lead to violence or abuse are kidding themselves. Not just because of what I described with bathrooms but also V-coding and no someone committing crimes does not make rape or sexual abuse like that acceptable, ever. A lot of these people were those I was expected to like or be friends with and yet if they knew the real me, they wouldn’t like it. I don’t care if people act nice to me and give me empty platitudes in public when they really think people like me are predators who want to go after their little girls and cheat them out of scholarships as well as supporting policies that make it more difficult to live or even survive.

Continuing on with that last thought, those who say that to placate people and avoid criticism will never know what it’s like to have people act nice to you while acting like you’re inferior or need to be coerced into being like them. I’ve had religious doubts before and people like my dad have said things about atheists that insist they are incapable of living fulfilling lives or all those times he had me watch stuff like God Friended Me or God’s Not Dead that presented any atheist as just angry, selfish and a bad person acting out of emotion. Lately he’s been awful since I’ve come out to him and insisting I still be friends with the aforementioned people or acting like I’m the problem if I say anything negative. If that line of thinking forces people to have to walk on eggshells then I don’t want any part of it.

I want to clear up some things before ending this. I do not hate religion nor am I an anti-theist, Reddit atheist or Christophobe as those who use activist language against non religious will say. Talking to other people and going to different places besides my parents church has helped me mature and appreciate religion as has reading people like Stephen Jay Gould who was against Dawkins’ worldview. But I hope people who read this will take something away from this as I do have mutuals who are Christian/catholic. Ask yourself, do you say “I don’t hate, just disagree” to convince the people you are arguing with or yourself. Do you really stand against injustice or hate when it comes to those people or is it to convince yourself you are a good person and that anyone who argues is selfish? Its easy to act like that until it’s someone you know and considered a friend or family, especially if it’s your child who feels like they have to hide or walk on eggshells around you.

[positivlyfocused]

Here’s How I Know What I Know Is NOT New Age Bullshit

A recent post on my other blog struck a nerve among my transgender readers. Some of those folks blocked me. Others claimed I was dangerous, “a moron” and more.

That’s interesting because none of those people have any experience with what I know. I know this because when I ask them what experience they have, I get crickets in response.

One trans person wrote me a while ago. She had some solo experience with this “you create your reality” business. She even produced evidence proving it worked for her. But because she didn’t have a tutor who knew what they were doing, she missed the evidence and thus concluded the “business” doesn’t work.

At least she tried.

Everyone else, especially those who got triggered by my last post, have no idea what they’re talking about when they lambast what I know. They’re literally speaking from ignorance.

In this post, I share the miraculous way I came to know what I know, and, because of that, why I’m so sure what I know is accurate.

Unless someone has done what I’ve done, they are coming at understanding the nature of the Universe fully uninformed. After reading this you’ll understand why I can say that with such certainty. And why I know, absolutely, that what I know is NOT “New Age bullshit”.

Where to begin

I could start with how I came into the world. But that would make this post too long. Suffice it to say I knew something about what was happening here well before my birth. It wasn’t until after a stint in Christianity, a decade as a Buddhist scholar, and four years as an esoteric martial artist that I really came into my own. It’s at that point I’d like to begin my explanation. That’s when things really got undeniably clear something was happening that was not of this world.

All my life I dabbled in books about this “you create your reality” business. So something obviously resonated in me about this knowledge, something beyond the major religions. 

Two authors stood out: Eckart Tolle and a woman named Esther Hicks. Again, many others came before these two, but these two really got the ball rolling.

In one of his books, Tolle expresses a skeptic’s view of his teachings. He takes on the role of a doubter asking “what evidence do you have that this is all real?” “You want evidence?” he responds. “Be the evidence you want to see.”

I took that response to heart.

After all, I already had a feeling that physical reality was 100 percent subjective. I also knew at the time that science wasn’t telling the whole story (it can’t possibly do that and for very good reasons). So I decided I would take Tolle’s advice and become the evidence I wanted to see.

It’s too bad more people won’t take that advice. If they did, they’d find themselves astonished at how real all this stuff is.

It started not-good-seeming

I, on the other hand, dove in. I upped my meditation game and started thinking more positive thoughts. Taking Tolle’s advice further, I focused more and more “in the now” and left the future and the past alone. My life did start improving. But not by much. Not at first.

Little did I know then, a person first starting out must clear away negative momentum born of negative beliefs before they can enjoy really obvious evidence things are turning. I should add that that clearing-away process IS evidence. But most of my clients have a hard time seeing that as positive. That’s because that clearing can feel awful.

That was my experience too. I created a lot of negative manifestations, including quitting my private sector job out of fear and losing my home. But looking back, I’m glad I traded all that for the life I’m living now. Letting those things go was more than worth it.

In my “clearing away negative momentum” stage, however, I inadvertently added more negative momentum to my path. A lot more. I chose to become an entrepreneur. That had me confronting even more negative beliefs. I blew through all my savings, and then added even more negative momentum by creating a company with the intention of “ending capitalism”.

And while that had a positive ring to it to me, it wasn’t aligned with my Broader Perspective knowledge about what’s happening on this planet. The more I focused on that business, the more crazy/interesting things happened. And it was right about this time that I encountered Esther Hicks.

When the student is ready…

Back then the idea that people could “channel” spirits, filled me with skepticism. But my Broader Perspective wasn’t going to let that keep me off this path. So when I took a business trip to Chico California to promote my business idea, I met a man. He was so impressed with what I was doing that he gifted me Esther’s book “Ask and It is Given”.

I knew about Law of Attraction back then, but thought it a little too woo for me. Still, I accepted the gift and when I read it, it resonated strongly. I guess I was ready for its contents.

So much so, I plunged headlong into it. That book introduced me to Seth. That introduction took me on a long detour. Seth’s material really resonated with me. Especially the analytical, detail-oriented part of me. I ended up reading every book Seth and their channeler, Jane Roberts wrote. The more I read, the more educated I got. And the more intrigued I got. When Seth said “you create your reality” I wanted to know how and how I could do it deliberately.

I’ve written this over and over too: When a person hears that they create their reality, if they’re not in a good place, then what they’ll hear is that phrase blaming them or making them at fault for their life. They won’t hear its empowering message. And….IT’S AN EMPOWERING MESSAGE.

But if a person has lived a mediocre, unsatisfying or victimized life, one born of their distorted beliefs and full of petty, chronic complaints about virtually everything, all they’ll hear is “I’m being blamed for something I can’t control.” Little do they know it’s that belief that is the basis of the reality they’re experiencing.

My experience was different. I guess I was ready.

Drawn to the work

When I read “you create your reality”, that filled me with curiosity. That curiosity had me read every Seth book. Seth focuses on dreams, detailed explanations of the totality of All That Is, how All That Is happens and our role in all that. It’s extremely dense reading. He also focuses a lot on extreme detail of how things go from vibration to physical reality. Again, it’s heady stuff. And the fact that it’s coming from a disembodied, nonphysical being, adds more hard-to-believe-ness to it.

But Seth subtly includes instruction in his writings the reader can put to use to prove what they’re reading. When they do, the proof is near immediate. The reader must know where to look to see the proof, however. If they don’t know where to look, they’ll miss it. And Seth doesn’t say where to look. 

I think that’s because of the collective unfolding represented by the continuity of information Seth and Abraham offer. Seth lays out the practical nuts and bolts, but Abraham offers broad strokes as to how those nuts and bolts fit into a cohesive process, culminating in direct instructions for how to deliberately create reality. Abraham’s messages are more instructional where Seth’s could be described as “academic”, or even “scholarly”.

^^A portion of my complete Seth Library

It’s no wonder I was drawn to Seth’s work first. And Seth’s work prepared me deeply to integrate what I was about to discover with Abraham’s assistance. 

By the way, this is why it’s crucial explorers of this material explore with help from someone who knows what they’re doing. Not only is it hard to see evidence in the beginning, it’s really easy to get off track by coming to distorted conclusions, or having strong reactions to the teachings.

Seth: My first teacher

For example, the material offers explanations for how we each exist in our own separate reality, apart from every other being. But reality looks like that’s not true. Seth handily explains why. The material also asserts that we invite every experience into our lives, including those humans might describe as tragic, even horrifying.

Reading such assertions can and usually does have people react with revulsion. Many of my clients are examples. They ask “if this is true, how can a baby invite experiencing being sexually molested? How do people create experiences where they die horrible deaths, end up homeless or addicted to drugs?”

It’s beyond the scope of this post for me to answer those questions. Suffice it to say those questions are easily answered. But as Abraham says many times “words don’t teach. Life experience teaches.” What they mean is as one moves down the path of self-discovery, their life will provide these answers in undeniable terms, not in words, but in experiences the discoverer can’t deny. And when that happens, those experiences are deeply convincing. So convincing they are, the discoverer becomes convinced. They know. Like I do.

^^Abraham making it plain.

Reading all of Seth’s material filled me with wonder, but it also stoked a fire within me. A lot of this I already knew. It was as though I was remembering what I forgot when I chose to come into physical reality. A powerful education was taking place. I was the student and Seth was my teacher.

And that education brought me right back to Esther and her book Ask and It is Given.

Getting ready again

But again, I faced skepticism. I wanted to believe what Esther, and Abraham, the being speaking through Esther, claimed in the book. But at the time I had a hard time getting over my resistant belief that “channeling” was fake.

Unlike many readers who spout their uninformed opinion when they read what I assert, I decided I was going to get evidence proving “channeling” was fake, or that it was real. This was part of me “being the evidence I wanted to see”.

I get most people may be too busy to take time to do what I did, but I put a high priority on all this. That’s because I knew if this stuff was true, it would mean a radically different life was available to me and I wanted that. I was open to it being real, but I also was skeptical, even as I signed up for my first Abraham seminar in San Diego, Calif.

My approach to becoming the evidence was serious and deliberate. I wanted to give it my all, which is what I encourage clients do too. I flew to San Diego and stayed in a quiet place where I could focus. There, a day before the event, I calmed myself. I also focused on three things I wanted to know, three things I figured only Infinite Intelligence would know. Abraham refers to themselves as Infinite Intelligence. Since I was going to meet Infinite Intelligence, I probably should have some profound questions…

My first direct Infinite Intelligence contact begins

An Abraham seminar typically happens in a large hotel meeting room. They also happen aboard cruise ships. The events are packed with rows of chairs and usually accommodate 1500 people or more. These events are always packed with no chair left empty.

^^Abraham seminar auditorium from a July 20, 2024 event. This is only one half of the room.

That first Abraham seminar was more than 10 years ago. I woke very early the morning of and meditated for an hour. I wanted to be in a strong vibrational focus so I could present the best possible evidence to myself.

At the event, I sat in the front row. I wanted a good view of what happened so I could see it all. As people filed in and took their seats, I didn’t notice anything special. No mystical buzzing filled the room, only people who were excited to be there. Some even knew each other. Obviously, some of these people had been to previous events and some even traveled around groupie-style from event to event.

Honestly, I was a bit put off by all the positive energy, which I think a lot of people would be. It was very New Age feeling.

But what happened over the next four hours turned that “put off” feeling into being totally “turned on”. 

The Hot Seat

During an Abraham seminar, Esther first comes onto the stage. She greets attendees from the stage and offers preliminary information about how the day will go. Event’s are typically three hours with a break or two in the middle somewhere. After that, Esther calms herself and allows Abraham to take her over, so to speak. She recedes into the background of her consciousness and Abraham moves into the foreground. 

Abraham and Esther have a strong connection. It’s highly likely Abraham is part of Esther’s Broader Perspective. What I discovered through what happened over the next several years is that Abraham is part of my Broader Perspective too. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

So this seminar got under way and part way through the first half, I noticed something strange. Once a seminar commences, Abraham looks out into the crowd and selects individuals based on their vibration. Those individuals come on stage and sit in what’s called the Hot Seat. It’s a chair on stage equipped with a microphone. There the person can ask Abraham anything they’d like. Abraham answers the question while also using it as a jumping off point to offer other information. Information pertinent to others in the room.

People therefore raise their hands in hopes of getting called to the Hot Seat. Of course, there’s only so many people that can sit in the Hot Seat in a three-hour period. Abraham can’t call everyone up. What I observed therefore, was even more strange.

It happened

What I observed was, each person who followed the person before them asked questions that were perfect segues from what the person before asked. I can’t recall examples, this was over a decade ago. Back then, however, I sat in amazement in that first hour. After the break, the second hour went the same. And, the people chosen in the first hour had obviously been in the Hot Seat before. Several of them mentioned it being their second and third time being called across many events.

The neat way in which Abraham called people to the stage, with each person’s questions perfectly dovetailing with the previous person’s, pushed my “bullshit” button. Something was up, I thought. Now mind you, I wanted to get on stage too. So while my BS meter had gone off, the pattern seemed to also heighten my desire to get on stage. But something happened in me that had me doubt being able to get up there.

Logic told me the only way this dovetailing thing could happen was if Esther had planted or preselected people invited to the stage. That’s the only thing that could explain it, at least to me. The more I watched as the day unfolded, the more skeptical I got. And the more doubtful I got that Abraham would call me. But my desire to get on stage must have overwhelmed my skepticism. And what was to unfold that is my life now crucially depended on what happened next. I know Abraham knew this. Because what happened next was a total surprise to me.

Abraham asked what was next. Time was running out in the seminar. I raised my hand and Abraham said, “come on up” while pointing directly at me.

^^The reservation confirmation for my San Diego Abraham event.

It begins, and begins again, and again 

Abraham called me as the last person. My questions were so profound, and so personal, I understood immediately why they called me last. My questions were the perfect conclusion to the entire day.

But them calling me last also showed me my logical conclusions were all wrong. After all, there’s no way I was a plant. I didn’t even know Esther and she or a member of her team didn’t approach me. I got no pre-event questionnaire to give my questions ahead of time. No one knew what I was going to ask but me….and Abraham apparently.

Sitting in the Hot Seat, my skepticism vanished. The experience also blew away my logical conclusions. Something more was afoot here. Something deeper. I got my questions answered in the perfect way. And I left the seminar astounded.

And that was just the beginning.

Over the next four years I attended one seminar each year. In the next seminar, held in Portland where I live, Abraham called me somewhere in the middle of the day. In the following seminar, again in Portland, they called me again, this time closer to the beginning of the event. The same thing happened in the third seminar I attended. During a break, an old friend I recognized came up to me.

She asked “do you always get in the Hot Seat?” 

“Apparently so,” I shrugged. I was as surprised as she was.

Each time my confidence in their teachings grew. I started listening to everything I could from them on YouTube. Their messages generally, and their personal messages to me specifically, resonated so strongly with everything I already knew, particularly from Seth.

It all affected me profoundly.

^^Yup. That's me in the Hot Seat.

Doubling down

So much so in between these seminars I totally changed the way I lived. I had become the evidence I wanted to see by challenging myself to become that evidence. I wanted evidence and I got it. Got smacked in the kisser with it. And the more I tried living by what Abraham suggested, while also putting Seth’s guidance to practice, the better my life got and the more evidence I got.

I doubled down then on what I knew and what I was learning. I became an “Abra-hamster” as people who follow Abraham call themselves. For me, Abraham and Seth represented the pinnacle of knowledge about how the Universe works. Their collective explanations were without peer in my opinion. Again, I didn’t just accept what they said and wrote. I put it into practice. And when I did, what they said would happen happened.

Little did I know that as I doubled down Abraham and Seth were clearly paying attention to my commitment. They were pulling something together they knew would be the perfect response to my commitment, an unfolding that would solidify my knowing and complete my understanding of how the Universe works, who and what I am, and how to communicate that to others.

That which they were orchestrating started with the next Abraham seminar I attended. Nothing like it had ever happened before, according to Esther and Abraham. Never in the history of the work Esther does with Abraham had this kind of thing happened, they told me. And it happened because of what I was doing….or rather what I was being: eager to align with all that I am.

I meet my lineage and expand into my knowing

The next seminar I attended happened again in Portland. It began as they usually do, with Esther coming onto the stage and getting the event started. However, this time, when Abraham came forward, they didn’t start the event as they usually do.

Usually, they’ll speak for the first 20 minutes about some things to warm the audience up. They’ll then look out into the crowd, say something funny like, “You’re all here ready for trouble”, then pick someone to come to the Hot Seat.

This time, they didn’t do that.

They came forward through Esther and spent perhaps half the usual time prepping. While doing so, they kept looking directly at me again and again. At the first break, people I know in the audience came up to me. They noticed too that Abraham kept looking directly at me. So I wasn’t hallucinating or anything like that.

The moment they finished their shortened introduction, Abraham said “Let’s begin right here” and while saying that pointed straight at me.

I took my place in the Hot Seat. Typically individual Hot Seat experiences range from 10 to about 15 minutes. But this time, I sat there, the first one called, for a full 30 minutes! Again, this had never happened before. When I returned to my seat in the audience I was floating in my body. I thought back through all the seminars, all the reading I had done, the wondrous experiences I had had across all these years and knew this was a special moment.

But Abraham had just gotten started.

It gets way better

At the end of every seminar, Abraham has some closing words. Then, they recede into Esther and Esther returns to the foreground of her consciousness. She’s always ecstatic in response to the time spent in the seminar, expresses how much she loves everyone, says goodbye and heads off stage, off the side of the stage and through the background curtains.

That’s not what happened this time. This time, she said her goodbyes and instead of leaving through the background curtains, Esther, stepped down the front of the stage, walked over to where I stood and ripped my name tag off my shirt. She put her hand on the back of my head and pulled my ear to her mouth. There she told me something I will not share. But suffice it to say it was ASTOUNDING.

A few days later, I got a call. It was Esther. She invited me to a personal 1:1 conversation with Abraham, which began over text message and moved to a phone call. Then, over the next 10 weeks, me, Esther and Abraham enjoyed personal sessions where I could ask anything I wanted. Abraham also taught me everything they could about how the Universe works, humanity’s role in all that, my role in all that, and about my lineage, which includes Abraham and Seth.

They then laid out how my life would go from there if I follow through with the commitment I made to myself, which, ultimately was something, according to them, I had committed to before I came into a physical body. They gave me all of this at no cost.

^^Recordings making up my library of 1:1 sessions with Abraham and Esther.

My direct experience

Nearly everything they told me in those 10 weeks has happened. Some things haven’t yet, but definite signs of their emergence are there. Everything can’t have happened already, because my life is still ongoing. But so much has already happened, I know the others things will too.

And this is why I know what I know, I say and write what I say and write and how I know what I say and write is 100 percent accurate. I consider Seth and Abraham not only my lineage, but part of my Broader Perspective, that part of me that continues guiding and assisting me in this life and the other lives I live as part of All That Is.

So when people call me a moron, or think I offer “dangerous nonsense”, I know they don’t know anything about what they’re talking about. When they say this stuff is pseudoscience I know they have done nothing to become the evidence.

This is why too when I ask such people “What have you done to prove it is, for example, dangerous nonsense, and under whose tutelage did you try to prove it?” I get crickets in return. Because such people are talking with no direct experience with All That Is or with Infinite Intelligence.

I have direct experience with both. And my life and my clients’ lives are unfolding accordingly. In other words, our lives are all improving. Because what I describe in my writings is exactly how the Universe works. 

This explains why I say people claiming it’s dangerous nonsense, or that it’s gibberish or gobbledygook, literally have no idea what they’re talking about. Because they literally don’t.

But I do.

[transamorousnetwork]

Dangerous Nonsense, Or Something Powerful That Works?

Last week’s post struck a nerve among my trans readers, causing some people to block me. Others claimed I was dangerous, “a moron” and more. That’s interesting.

It’s interesting because none of these people have any experience with what I know.

One trans person wrote me a while ago. She had some solo experience with this “you create your reality” business. She even produced evidence proving it worked for her. But because she didn’t have a tutor who knew what they were doing, she missed the evidence and thus concluded the “business” doesn’t work.

At least she tried.

Everyone else, especially those who got triggered by my last post, have no idea what they’re talking about when they lambast what I know. They’re literally sharing ignorant views.

In this post, I’m going to lay out how I know what I know, how it came to be and why I’m so sure what I know is accurate.

Unless someone has done what I’ve done, they are coming at understanding the nature of the Universe fully uninformed. After reading this you’ll understand why I can say that with such certainty. And why I know, absolutely, that what I know is accurate.

Where to begin

I could start with how I came into the world. But that would make this post too long. Suffice it to say I knew something about what was happening here well before my birth. It wasn’t until after a stint in Christianity, a decade as a Buddhist scholar, and four years as an esoteric martial artist that I really came into my own. It’s at that point I’d like to begin my explanation. That’s when things really got undeniably clear something was happening that was not of this world.

All my life I dabbled in books about this “you create your reality” business. So something obviously resonated in me about this knowledge, something beyond the major religions. Two authors stood out. Eckart Tolle and a woman named Esther Hicks. Again, many others came before these two, but these two really got the ball rolling.

In one of his books, Tolle expresses a skeptic’s view of his teachings. He takes on the role of a doubter asking “what evidence do you have that this is all real?” In reply he says “you want evidence? Be the evidence you want to see.”

I took that answer to heart. 

After all, I already had a feeling that physical reality was 100 percent subjective. I also knew at the time that science wasn’t telling the whole story (now I know it can’t possibly do that and for very good reasons). So I decided I would take Tolle’s advice and become the evidence I wanted to see.

It’s too bad more of my trans readers won’t take that advice. If they did, they’d find themselves far less abrasive about what they know so little about.

It started not-good-seeming

I, on the other hand, dove in. I upped my meditation game and started thinking more positive thoughts. Taking Tolle’s advice further, I focused more and more “in the now” and left the future and the past alone. My life did start improving. But not by much. Not at first.

Little did I know then, a person first starting out must clear away negative momentum born of negative beliefs before they can enjoy really obvious evidence things are turning. I should add that that clearing away process IS evidence. But most of my clients have a hard time seeing that as positive. That’s because that clearing can feel awful.

That was my experience too. I created a lot of negative manifestations, including quitting my job out of fear and losing my home. But looking back, I’m glad I traded all that for the life I’m living now. Letting those things go was more than worth it.

In my “clearing away negative momentum” stage, however, I inadvertently added more negative momentum to my path. A lot more. I chose to become an entrepreneur. That had me confronting even more negative beliefs. I blew through all my savings, and then added even more negative momentum by creating a company with the intention of “ending capitalism”.

And while that had a positive ring to it, it wasn’t aligned with my Broader Perspective knowledge about what’s happening on this planet. The more I focused on that business, the more crazy/interesting things happened. And it was right about this time that I encountered Esther Hicks.

When the student is ready…

Back then the idea that people could “channel” spirits, filled me with skepticism. But my Broader Perspective wasn’t going to let that keep me off this path. So when I took a business trip to Chico California to promote my business idea, I met a man. He was so impressed with what I was doing that he gifted me Esther’s book “Ask and It is Given”.

I knew about Law of Attraction back then, but thought it a little too woo for me. Still, I accepted the gift and when I read it, it resonated strongly. I guess I was ready for its contents.

So much so, I plunged headlong into it. It was through that book that I got introduced to Seth. That took me on a long detour. Seth’s material really resonated with me. Especially the analytical, detail-oriented part of me. I ended up reading every book Seth and their channeler, Jane Roberts wrote. The more I read, the more educated I got. And the more intrigued I got. When Seth said “you create your reality” I wanted to know how and how I could do it deliberately.

I’ve written this over and over too: When a person hears that they create their reality, if they’re not in a good place, then what they’ll hear is that phrase blaming them or making them at fault for their life. They won’t hear the empowering message contained in that phrase. IT’S AN EMPOWERING MESSAGE.

But if a person has lived a mediocre, unsatisfying or victimized life, one born of their distorted beliefs, all they’ll hear is “I’m being blamed for something I can’t control.” Little do they know it’s that belief that is the basis of the reality they’re experiencing. 

My experience was different. I guess I was ready.

Drawn to the work

When I read “you create your reality”, that filled me with curiosity. That curiosity had me read every Seth book. Seth focuses on dreams, detailed explanations of the totality of All That Is, how All That Is happens and our role in all that. It’s extremely dense reading. He also focuses a lot on extreme detail of how things go from vibration to physical reality. Again, it’s heady stuff. And the fact that it’s coming from a disembodied, nonphysical being, adds more hard-to-believe-ness to it.

But Seth subtly includes instruction in his writings the reader can put to use to prove what they’re reading. When they do, the proof is near immediate. The reader must know where to look to see the proof, however. If they don’t know where to look, they’ll miss it. And Seth doesn’t say where to look. 

I think that’s because of the collective unfolding represented by the continuity of information Seth and Abraham offer. Seth lays out the practical nuts and bolts, but Abraham offers broad strokes as to how those nuts and bolts assemble in to a cohesive process, culminating in direct instructions for how to deliberately create reality. Abraham’s messages are more pedestrian where Seth’s could be described as “academic”, or even “scholarly”.

^^A portion of my complete Seth Library.

It’s no wonder I was drawn to Seth’s work first. And Seth’s work prepared me deeply to integrate what I was about to discover with Abraham’s assistance. 

By the way, this is why it’s crucial explorers of this material explore with help from someone who knows what they’re doing. Not only is it hard to see evidence in the beginning, it’s really easy to get off track by coming to distorted conclusions, or having strong reactions to the teachings.

Seth: My first teacher

For example, the material offers explanations for how we each exist in our own separate reality, apart from every other being. But reality looks like that’s not true. The material also asserts that we invite every experience into our lives, including those humans might describe as tragic, even horrifying.

Reading such assertions can and usually does have people react with revulsion. Many of my clients are examples. They ask “if this is true, how can a baby invite experiencing being sexually molested? How do people create experiences where they die horrible deaths, end up homeless or addicted to drugs?”

It’s beyond the scope of this post for me to answer those questions. Suffice it to say those questions are easily answered. But as Abraham says many times “words don’t teach. Life experience teaches.” What they mean is as one moves down the path of self-discovery, their life will provide these answers in undeniable terms, not in words, but in experiences the discoverer can’t deny. And when that happens, those experiences are deeply convincing. So convincing they are, the discoverer becomes convinced. They know. Like I do.

^^Abraham making it plain.

Reading all of Seth’s material filled me with wonder, but it also stoked a fire within me. A lot of this I already knew. It was as though I was remembering what I forgot when I chose to come into physical reality. A powerful education was taking place. I was the student and Seth was my teacher.

And that education brought me right back to Esther and her book Ask and It is Given.

Getting ready again

But again, I faced skepticism. I wanted to believe what Esther, and Abraham, the being speaking through Esther, claimed in the book. But at the time I had a hard time getting over my resistant belief that “channeling” was fake.

Unlike many readers who spout their uninformed opinion when they read what I assert, I decided I was going to get evidence proving “channeling” was fake, or that it was real. This was part of me “being the evidence I wanted to see”.

I get most people may be too busy to take time to do what I did, but I put a high priority on all this. That’s because I knew if this stuff was true, it would mean a radically different life was available to me and I wanted that. I was open to it being real, but I also was skeptical, even as I signed up for my first Abraham seminar in San Diego, Calif.

My approach to becoming the evidence was very serious and deliberate. I wanted to give it my all, which is what I encourage clients do too. I flew to San Diego and stayed in a quiet place where I could focus. There, a day before the event, I calmed myself. I also focused on three things I wanted to know, three things I figured only Infinite Intelligence would know. Abraham refers to themselves as Infinite Intelligence. Since I was going to meet Infinite Intelligence, I probably should have some profound questions…

My first direct with Infinite Intelligence contact begins

An Abraham seminar typically happens in a large hotel meeting room. They also happen aboard cruise ships. The events are packed with rows of chairs and usually accommodate 1500 people or more. These events are always packed with no chair left empty.

^^Abraham seminar auditorium from the July 20, 2024 event. This is only one half of the room.

That first Abraham seminar was more than 10 years ago. I woke very early the morning of and meditated for an hour. I wanted to be in a strong vibrational focus so I could present the best possible evidence to myself.

At the event, I sat in the front row. I wanted a good view of what happened so I could see it all. As people filed in and took their seats, I didn’t notice anything special. No mystical buzzing filled the room. Only people who were excited to be there. Some even knew each other. Obviously, some of these people had been to previous events and some even traveled around groupie-style from event to event. 

Honestly, I was a bit put off by all the positive energy, which I think a lot of people would be. It was very New Age feeling.

But what happened over the next four hours turned that “put off” feeling into being totally “turned on”. 

The Hot Seat

During an Abraham seminar, Esther first comes onto the stage. She greets attendees from the stage and offers preliminary information about how the day will go. Event’s are typically three hours with a break or two in the middle somewhere. After that, Esther calms herself and allows Abraham to take her over, so to speak. She recedes into the background of her consciousness and Abraham moves into the foreground. 

Abraham and Esther have a strong connection. It’s highly likely Abraham is part of Esther’s Broader Perspective. What I discovered through what happened over the next several years is that Abraham is part of my Broader Perspective too. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

So this seminar got under way and part way through the first half, I noticed something strange. Once it commences, Abraham looks out into the crowd and selects individuals. Those individuals come on stage and sit in what’s called the Hot Seat. It’s a chair on stage equipped with a microphone. There the person can ask Abraham anything they’d like. Abraham answers the question while also using it as a jumping off point to offer other information. Information pertinent to others in the room.

People therefore raise their hands in hopes of getting called to the Hot Seat. Of course, there’s only so many people that can sit in the Hot Seat in a three-hour period. Abraham can’t call everyone up. What I observed therefore, was even more strange.

It happened

What I observed was, each person who followed the person before them asked questions that were perfect segues from what the person before asked. I can’t recall examples, this was over a decade ago. Back then, however, I sat in amazement in that first hour. After the break, the second hour went the same. And, the people chosen in the first hour had obviously been in the Hot Seat before. Several of them mentioned it being their second and third time being called across many events.

The neat way in which Abraham called people to the state, with each person’s questions perfectly dovetailing with the previous person’s, pushed my “bullshit” button. Something was up, I thought. Now mind you, I wanted to get on stage too. So while my BS meter had gone off, the pattern seemed to heighten my desire to get on stage. But something happened in me that had me doubt being able to get up there.

Logic told me the only way this dovetailing thing could happen was if Esther had planted or preselected people invited to the stage. That’s the only thing that could explain it, at least to me. The more I watched as the day unfolded, the more skeptical I got. And the more doubtful I got that Abraham would call me. But my desire to get on stage must have overwhelmed my skepticism. And what was to unfold that is my life now crucially depended on what happened next. I know Abraham knew this. Because what happened next was a total surprise.

Abraham asked what was next. Time was running out in the seminar. I raised my hand and Abraham said, “come on up” while pointing directly at me.

^^Reservation for my first Abraham event in San Diego.

It begins, and begins again, and again 

Abraham called me as the last person. My questions were so profound, and so personal, I understood immediately why they called me last. My questions were the perfect conclusion to the entire day.

But them calling me last also showed me my logical conclusions were all wrong. After all, there’s no way I was a plant. I didn’t even know Esther and she or a member of her team didn’t approach me. I got no pre-event questionnaire to give my questions ahead of time. No one knew what I was going to ask but me….and Abraham apparently.

Sitting in the Hot Seat, my skepticism vanished. The experience also blew away my logical conclusions. Something more was afoot here. Something deeper. I got my questions answered in the perfect way. And I left the seminar astounded.

That was just the beginning.

Over the next four years I attended one seminar each year. In the next, seminar, held in Portland where I live, Abraham called me somewhere in the middle of the day. In the following seminar, again in Portland, they called me again, this time closer to the beginning of the event. The same thing happened in the third seminar I attended. During a break, an old friend I recognized came up to me.

She asked “do you always get in the Hot Seat?” 

“Apparently so,” I shrugged. I was as surprised as she was.

Each time my confidence in their teachings grew. I started listening to everything I could from them on YouTube. Their messages generally, and their personal messages to me specifically, resonated so strongly with everything I already knew, particularly from Seth.

It all affected me profoundly.

^^Me in the Hot Seat.

Doubling down

So much so in between these seminars I totally changed the way I lived. I had become the evidence I wanted to see by challenging myself to become that evidence. I wanted evidence and I got it. Got smacked in the kisser with it. And the more I tried living by what Abraham suggested, while also putting Seth’s guidance to practice, the better my life got and the more evidence I got.

I doubled down then on what I knew and what I was learning. I became an “Abra-hamster” as people who follow Abraham call themselves. For me, Abraham and Seth represented the pinnacle of knowledge about how the Universe works. Their collective explanations were without peer in my opinion. Again, I didn’t just accept what they said and wrote. I put it into practice. And when I did, what they said would happen happened.

Little did I know that as I doubled down Abraham and Seth were clearly paying attention to my commitment. They were pulling something together they knew would be the perfect response to my commitment, an unfolding that would solidify my knowing and complete my understanding of how the Universe works, who and what I am, and how to communicate that to others.

That which they were orchestrating started with the next Abraham seminar I attended. Nothing like it had ever happened before, according to Esther and Abraham. Never in the history of the work Esther does with Abraham had this kind of thing happened, they told me. And it happened because of what I was doing….or rather what I was being: eager to align with all that I am.

I meet my lineage and expand into my knowing

The next seminar I attended happened again in Portland. It began as they usually do, with Esther coming onto the stage and getting the event started. However, this time, when Abraham came forward, they didn’t start the event as they usually do.

Usually, they’ll speak for the first 20 minutes about some things to warm the audience up. They’ll then look out into the crowd, say something funny like, “You’re all here ready for trouble”, then pick someone to come to the Hot Seat.

This time, they didn’t do that.

They came forward through Esther and spent perhaps half the usual time prepping. While doing so, they kept looking directly at me again and again. At the first break, people I know in the audience came up to me. They noticed too that Abraham kept looking directly at me. So I wasn’t hallucinating or anything like that. The moment they finished their shortened introduction, Abraham said “Let’s begin here” and while saying that pointed straight at me.

I took my place in the Hot Seat. Typically individual Hot Seat experiences range from 10 to about 15 minutes. But this time, I sat there, the first one called, for a full 30 minutes! Again, this had never happened before. When I returned to my seat in the audience I was floating in my body. I thought back through all the seminars, all the reading I had done, the wondrous experiences I had had across all these years and knew this was a special moment.

But Abraham had just gotten started.

It gets way better

At the end of every seminar, Abraham has some closing words. Then, they recede into Esther and Esther returns to the foreground of her consciousness. She’s always ecstatic in response to the time spent in the seminar, expresses how much she loves everyone, says goodbye and heads off stage, off the side of the stage and through the background curtains.

That’s not what happened this time. This time, she said her goodbyes and instead of leaving through the background curtains, Esther, stepped down the front stairs of the stage, walked over to where I stood and ripped my name tag off my shirt. She put her hand on the back of my head and pulled my ear to her mouth. There she told me something I will not share. But suffice it to say it was ASTOUNDING.

A few days later, I got a call. It was Esther. She invited me to a personal 1:1 conversation with Abraham, which began over text message and moved to a phone call. Then, over the next 10 weeks, me, Esther and Abraham enjoyed personal sessions where I could ask anything I wanted. Abraham also taught me everything they could about how the Universe works, humanity’s role in all that, my role in all that, and about my lineage, which includes Abraham and Seth.

They then laid out how my life would go from there if I follow through with the commitment I made to myself, which, ultimately was something, according to them, I had committed to before I came into a physical body. They gave me all of this at no cost.

^^Recordings making up my library of 1:1 sessions with Abraham and Esther.

My direct experience

Nearly everything they told me in those 10 weeks has happened. Some things haven’t yet, but definite signs of their emergence are there. Everything can’t have happened already, because my life is still ongoing. But so much has already happened, I know the others things will too.

And this is why I know what I know, I say and write what I say and write and how I know what I say and write is 100 percent accurate. I consider Seth and Abraham not only my lineage, but part of my Broader Perspective, that part of me that continues guiding and assisting me in this life and the other lives I live as part of All That Is.

So when people call me a moron, or think I offer “dangerous nonsense”, I know they don’t know anything about what they’re talking about. When they say this stuff is pseudoscience I know they have done nothing to become the evidence.

This is why too when I ask such people “What have you done to prove it is, for example, dangerous nonsense, and under whose tutelage did you try to prove it?” I get crickets in return. Because such people are talking with no direct experience with All That Is or with Infinite Intelligence.

I have direct experience with both. And my life and my clients’ lives are unfolding accordingly. In other words, our lives are all improving. Because what I describe in my writings is exactly how the Universe works. 

This explains why I say people claiming it’s dangerous nonsense, or that it’s gibberish or gobbledygook, literally have no idea what they’re talking about. Because they literally don’t.

But I do.

[nsk96]

Rant:

My mom went to our Hindu temple today (ours is like a two hour drive away [Palm Beach]). She wanted me to go and was upset when I got up this morning at 5am, not feeling well enough to go. She thinks it’s only because I went to bed late.

Long story short, I’ve exhausted all week and have been on my period all week with back pain, dizziness, and headaches. I’m on low dose birth control for endometriosis but when I have a breakthrough period, it extends how long I bleed for. Not to mention how dehydrated I am and the fact I stopped my topiramate so I’ve been getting rebound migraines and motion sickness.

I’ve been at rotation all week (retail pharmacy) so I was already exhausted when I got home, then had to not just find something to wear to temple, but also had to stand there for like 2 hours repairing the three big holes that somehow got there. Sewing by hand.

By the time I got in and out of the shower, I was exhausted and just wanted to scroll on my phone to recharge the dopamine because I’m burnt out. I had difficulty getting to bed early because I was too tired to get up.

She got back from the temple today and was yelling at me saying that I didn’t make any effort this morning to go. She said that “a lot of white people” were there and “white people are getting into our culture but it seems you’re running away from it”.

And she was saying I missed such a great opportunity to participate in prayers to “help clear my way”. Wait hold up…a couple weeks ago she said she wanted me to go to “network with people who share my culture.”

1) I don’t need to participate in my culture to be a Hindu. Religion and culture are two different things to me, because there are toxic things about our culture that contradict our religion’s teachings. I can live by my religion’s teachings and choose what culture to be a part of. I grew up in the U.S. with a Trinidadian-Indian background. So many east Indians don’t even consider me Indian so why would I try to be a part of something that I don’t really identify with.

2) “white people are getting into our culture”…yeah and I know black people who are getting into our culture too. The nearby temple had black people and the drummer was black too. Like was this statement about white people supposed to mean something to me? Is she thinking white people are superior to us so it’s a big deal that they’re at our temple? Which by the way, obsessing over white people is part of our culture as well it seems. Being white, marrying white, bleaching your skin to have lighter skin—I’m tired of the colorism.

3) she initially wanted me to go with her so I can “network” with people of “the same culture” because we “need a support system”. So yeah, can she make up her mind whether she wanted me to go for the spiritual benefit or if it was just to socialize. I didn’t have any energy to socialize and I know that if I didn’t, she would be upset about that too, which is another reason I didn’t want to go. I’m an introvert who’s been forced to be around people and do phone calls all week. The last thing I want to do this weekend is be around people.

Did I say any of this to her? No because she never listens. It’s easier for her to say “I don’t understand you” while never making an effort to understand me. After dealing with that my whole life, I got to the point of just being silent because it’s not worth the effort to explain how I feel or what’s going on in my mind.

I like how she came at me like she took it so personally that I didn’t go. I have a feeling she saw some guys my age there and just wanted me to mingle, because she’s always going on about how I need to start dating and she always talked about going to temple to meet guys of our culture.

I’m sorry to say, there are too many guys in “our culture” that are mama’s boys and too much misogyny going around. When my dad slapped my mom you wanna know what my grandmother told her to do? Pray…she told to her to pray. That’s our culture. Men like that, get away with shit and their wives are expected to stay and put up with it.

And that “support system” she was talking about? We are not going to find it with these people. They would be nice in front your face but then talk shit behind your back. They are not going to help us with our situation with my dad.

A couple weeks ago she was also talking about how my “godfather” who’s the pandit there, has connections that can help me with my career. All I can think about is how that didn’t seem to work out so well for my childhood friend who goes to the same temple (and also her godfather). She dedicated so much time every day at that temple, she and her family helping out with everything. She sacrificed study time to be there. But yet…where was her help and connections? She was right there beside me in college (undergrad) failing the same classes. Where was her help? Then on graduation day, no one showed up for her, not even her family. I shared with her what pictures I got of us and the video my parents managed to get of her walking across the stage.

It seems my mom will say anything to get me to go. I don’t need to be among people of my culture to find good people to befriend. She was all like “you can’t do everything alone.” Yes, I know that but I should be allowed to be picky about who I let into my life. Funny she’s always the one to say “be careful who you trust” and “don’t put yourself in any situation where you’re desperate for someone’s help” and “don’t owe anyone”. Which is funny because she’s encouraging me to do the exact things she told me not to?

Like, did she think showing up to this specific temple once after like 10 years, is gonna make my godfather want to help? She does not think he’d expect us to show up more often and help out too before he lends help?

And time is an issue because I’m on rotations and I have schoolwork to do along with projects my rotation preceptors assign to me. Not to mention all the onboarding stuff and orientation courses I need to do for every rotation. She said that the girl doing prayers at the temple is from Coral Springs (city close to ours) and she was there to pray for her studies.

Well, good for her. Can my mom stop comparing me to other people expecting me to manage my time or study the same way as them. 1) she doesn’t even know what this girl is studying. 2) I need 5x more time to study than most people I’ve met. While most of my classmates are out partying, I’m stuck at home studying with no social life because of my issues with attention/focus, memory, processing what I hear and read, fidgeting, motivation (executive dysfunction I think it was called) and so much more.

It’s hurtful that she keeps comparing me to other people instead of trying to understand me or help me with the issues I have. It’s hurtful that she always dismisses my issues while trying to give me advice that doesn’t work for me like “just do ___ like I do”. It’s hurtful that she doesn’t seem to take it seriously despite admitting that she always knew I “learned differently” than other people.

It’s kinda funny, that my closest friends turn out to have the same issues at varying degrees; a couple worse than me who dropped out of college because of these issues. Of course I lost some friends along the way though, making it difficult to trust any more people.

And I guess that’s why I felt so at home during my compounding rotation. They accepted me instead of constantly comparing me to other people, or other students. I felt safe to be myself there, even though it took a long time for me to finally start opening up.

[foxingpeculiar]

FF7 R&R:

Okay. So before I go to Shinra HQ there’s a bunch of stuff to do.

So first, there’s that moment that Barrett and Tifa share after the collapse of the pillar. It’s a tender moment between two characters that don’t get a lot of chemistry, generally speaking, so it’s nice to see that.

Sephiroth appears again, but it seems clear from this scene that he’s not actually present, he’s just a vision in Cloud’s head, probably because of the whole Jenova connection that binds them. Which makes me wonder—we’ve seen a couple of Jenova clones so far in the game, but the Whispers have that same kind of vibe: the sort of menacing, hooded quality. Makes me wonder if there’s a connection there, especially since they seem tied to Aerith and Sephiroth. I guess we’ll see.

Elymra’s memories of the war are poignant, and we briefly see Aerith’s birth mom in them (I should remember her name, but I don’t right now). Do we know what the war was about? Someone in Sector 5 comments at some point “Mako reactors—we’ve got em, they want em,” but surely there’s more to it than that. Maybe we’ll learn more when we actually go to Wutai, whenever that happens.

So Tseng, in that flashback, mentions “the scriptures” and I wanna know more about that. What kind of “scriptures?” Who wrote them? What role does religion play in this world? We don’t really get a lot of that.

Wedge isn’t dead! I thought he was. I wonder if he’ll come back into the story at some point.

What was the purpose of the Failed Experiment in the Shinra lab underneath the city? It must have something to do with Jenova, right? But they don’t really go into that, at least not so far.

When Cloud dreams of Aerith, is she really communicating with him? Is that in her power as a Cetra? She says “You can’t fall in love with me,” which doesn’t seem like something his brain would’ve come up with on its own. Because clearly he kind of has, despite still having feelings for Tifa too. Like, damn, my dude, you are in the mess of it, aren’t you?

Kyrie is an interesting character. When she first shows up talking shit about AVALANCHE, it’s like “who’s this bitch?” But then there’s the sidequest where she’s Mirielle’s granddaughter and clearly something of an accomplished thief in her own right. I wonder if we’ll run into her again—she did say something about getting out of Midgar, so it seems possible.

So it’s fuckin’ sidequest city at this point. I don’t know if I did em all last time I played this, but I did this time. A chance to kind of go back through most of the places I’ve been (that haven’t been destroyed). That Behemoth fight was fun. And none of them are that bad—an open world game this is not.

The whole thing with Leslie kind of threw me cos I’m like “am I supposed to know who this is?” But he has kind of a touching quest—Tifa being like “maybe she’s still out there somewhere” kind of made me tear up a little.

Corneo’s so cringe. He even does his whole “a villain only reveals his plans in a certain situation” bit a second time, like that’s a practiced line for him, a routine he does before he kills people. I’m excited to track him down in part 2 (or part 3–not sure how that’s all going to play out, but eventually).

But okay. Now I have the grappling guns, I’ve got my shit sorted. Now it’s really time to make for Shinra HQ.

It’s fascinating playing this again—how it’s familiar, yet so much more… I dunno, zoomed in and detailed than the story I know by heart. And I do—I got the original game when it came out, ran a Geocities page about it, wrote my own walkthrough and everything. This is a game I KNOW and is near and dear to my heart, so it’s interesting seeing how they’re spinning it in a slightly different way. I’m curious if that will expand in Rebirth—if there will be more deviation, or if it’ll follow a similar formula, where it’s kind of the same, at least in the major beats, but filling in so much more detail. But we’ll get there. Got a tower to climb first.

[foxbox23232]

Today I woke up and felt like posting mayhem. I wanted to know, is religion as deadly as people claim it is? As Christians we do believe every other religion besides ours is potentially satanic but besides that point.. I did research earlier trying to figure it out and this is what I’ve learned:

Catholics- referencing inquisition it’s kind of an unknown number because of plague but estimated around 150,000-? also very controversial hard to pin down a number. “However, most people today have no idea how this figure of 50 million was originally computed” …. Most likely many died from wars, crusades, and other events

Muslims- have murdered about 160,000 people so far since 1979 and still murdering to this day

Hitler- nazi, about 6 million people murdered

Stalin- atheist, 6-9 million people murdered

North Korean government- athiest, 300,000-800,000 people annually (not just murder but also starvation which is basically murder) but estimated full blown murder mid-value of 1,663,000

Chinese government- atheist since 1949, still murdering to this day. Estimated 30-70 million people murdered

Abortion, done by mainly atheist, 63,000,000 children murdered so far world wide. Some even claim that 73 million abortions are done yearly worldwide wide… (Not just US) based off of votes and belief systems. I say mainly atheist because you cannot tell me a Christian or anyone who believes in a God would get an abortion, and if they do, I don’t believe they really were ever a believer. I’m not saying they’re stupid, but it completely goes against most belief systems that believe in a God. Also most abortion is completely unnecessary it’s not because of rape or defects most times. It’s just because they don’t want the baby.

So could it actually be, atheists are not so full of love, light, and logic like they claim to be? How could it possibly be that they have gotten it so entirely wrong… Hmm really makes you think. I encourage people to listen less and do your own research and find this stuff out for yourself from reputable sources. I am afraid that Jesus was right, and many are just blind these days. I think claiming “Christians have killed the most people” is the greatest lie Satan could have ever possibly came up with.

Something you have to understand too about Muslims vs Christians is no, they aren’t the same. The quran was written poorly enough so that many people kill in Allahs name. The bible does not support murder like the quran also does not, but is written well enough to have not gotten that messed up. It’s pretty clear in the Bible we do not support murder at all. I can’t really say that though, for the quran. I’m not saying that Muhammad wanted people to do that, but it was written poorly enough to where that’s what they ended up doing. So if he was truly a divine source, how could it possibly be he f*ked up that bad??? This is only one of the problems I have with this religion.

As for Catholicism, the number could be higher, even if it was an estimated 50 million (which according to research is probably not) you got to keep in mind Catholicism ≠ Christianity. We worship completely different things and live our life a completely different way. I have never met a christian that has claimed we are the same as Catholics. Catholics tend to say that, I notice because they are confused and don’t even understand their own religion. To be honest, I’m not even sure if my grandparents made it to heaven which breaks my heart… 😕 but the Lord has personally revealed to me that catholicism is a false religion which if you know anything about the religion you can see that it is.

I’m telling you guys right now now is the time to start gathering nonperishable, bibles, and gather your guns cuz the world is going mad and just delusional. I swear I’m not a genius, I just know how to think for myself and use the internet. Like this information is literally accessible to anyone with a phone lol I also took psychology classes in college I’m aware groupthinking is an epidemic

[perpetual-fool]

Musings 1

(01/01/23, 1.1k) Thoughts on various subjects I've been thinking about. (cooking, Linux, language, music, religion)

I may have figured out a way to cook that works with my executive dysfunction. (I think that's what it is: difficulty starting or switching tasks.) First, it's easier for me to do tasks in bulk. Prepping an entire bag of onions or something is just as much work as prepping a single meal. So I should do the former, having ingredients ready to assemble into a meal. But secondly, even just assembly may be too much. Often I really want to just shove something in my mouth. Microwaving is manageable, but most things don't reheat all that well and the dish tends to get hot before the food does. Tangent: glass dishes are a lot better than ceramic for the microwave, but it doesn't eliminate the problem. I've made a couple foods that fit that need for me. One was a weird food bar thing, basically nutraloaf? but made to actually taste good. Though making food dry enough to handle generally requires starches, and I eat fairly low-carb. The other thing was soup, blended smooth enough to just drink. For whatever reason it's less effort to deal with 'generic food drink' than anything with recognizable bits. It doesn't look like much but it tastes like whatever went into it. The texture is a bit better now that I have a more powerful blender. And it makes for a great base if I feel like turning it into regular soup.

Diacritics on Linux seem to be borked. At least on this version of Mint. Specifically I can't seem to get "c^" to work. It's available on the international layout, but that's for an ISO keyboard and mine is ANSI (European vs American). There is a special option specifically for Esperanto characters but I can't find an explanation on how to use it. One post seemed to suggest you could set up a 'third layer' key and that would let you type the special characters but that didn't work. Knowing Linux, it's likely the feature might just be broken. Hypothetically I could make a custom keyboard layout, or change how the 'compose' key works. But that would entail hours of digging through incomprehensibly named directories looking for the incantations I'm supposed to use, and it still might not work for no clear reason. The only good solution here seems to be a programmable keyboard, assuming its software isn't borked too. Okay so it's just working now, stulta maŝino.

I'd like to hear what Klingon metal might sound like. Thematically something like Sabaton would be appropriate, but with Klingon's consonant clusters it might have to sound more like Rammstein. Are there conlang bands in general? or do the kind of people who learn languages for fun not generally overlap with musicians? Apparently there's Stovokor, either they're not very good or it's not my thing. I like the concept but with that style of vocals I can't make out what they're saying, largely defeating the purpose. And there's Kosmic Horrör, they're pretty decent. Although the bIHnuchpu' haven't fully committed to Klingon. The spoken stuff would sound better that way, I think.

Maybe I've never liked "screaming" because I've never heard it done well. The problem seems to be that the pitch is mostly gone, losing the melody, as are the lyrics, since it's incomprehensible. I feel that's a compromise too far. But then I heard Pisces, which is almost intelligible. Playing with the technique myself, there's no reason you couldn't enunciate the consonants more. You might need to add syllables to make it work, but it's workable. And the pitch issue sounds similar to tuning drums. Supposedly, they put out such a wide range of frequencies that it really isn't meaningful to tune them to any specific note. So possibly, "screaming" should be used like percussion, focusing on rhythm.

I shouldn't be surprised by this, I'm having the same sort of trouble learning vocal techniques as I was with cooking or sharpening. Broadly, any isolated explanation I found was generally either wrong or incomplete, and I had to look up a bunch of different versions to find something that worked. Sometimes they were all wrong and I had to figure it out myself. Specifically, I'm trying to learn 'growl': vocal distortion created with the false vocal folds (supposedly). One technique said it was like coughing (but polite, high in your throat) and that was wrong. A better technique, for 'blues growl', was to close off the back of your throat with your tongue (the Meatwad voice) and sigh through that. And you should feel the vibrations at the back of your tongue. I'm not sure if that's effective yet, but it doesn't hurt.

I'm considering alternate tunings for my bass. Switching doesn't matter at this point since I haven't built any substantial muscle memory. Why I might want to: intervals that are closer together are easier to play, but if they're further apart the instrument as a whole has a greater range. Sympathetic resonance and chord fingerings would also be a consideration but don't apply to my circumstances. Thirds tuning (each string is tuned four 'half-steps' apart) seems pretty great. It puts the chromatic scale (every possible note) straight horizontally across the neck, no shifting at all (sort of). I also tried tritone tuning (6 notes apart, the most dissonant interval in the system) thinking maybe that would cut down on the rumbling you get on strings you're not playing. But it didn't help, sympathetic resonance clearly isn't the problem. I need to map out the different tunings to get a better idea of what's going on.

And I found out that Mormons have their own version of the bible. I wondered if they omitted the curse at the end of Revelation regarding not adding or removing from the book. Apparently no, and the justification for changing things is insipid and boring. "I'm not changing it, I'm restoring it to its original intent!" And the argument for why that's acceptable is.. I don't have a word for it. There's just no actual position there. "I believe _" isn't an argument. But that's generally how religious people are, I should've expected that.

[geraldtarrant]

Our fandom is so lucky that you stumbled onto these books! Loving the reviews. 

Agree about the mix of contemporary/sci-fi concepts and fantasy being cool. Also sadly agree on the stuff about women, although in fairness none of this stood out to me when I was a teen reading these books in the late 90s. I’ve also recently watched some Star Trek DS9 and oh boy, I don’t remember that era as being quite that sexist. In hindsight lots of things haven’t aged well so I chalk this stuff up under “acceptable in the 90s.”

Yeah the Church’s plan stops making sense once you start thinking about it. There’s the whole ‘either there’s a god already there or we’ll create one' stance to begin with. I always figured that was a way to appease both the religious and non-religious audience of these books. But don’t those two Church approaches clash? If there already is a god then wouldn’t he know if there are humans settled anywhere in the galaxy just by virtue of being, you know, God? Or if his power only covers part of the universe then would he suddenly hear some humans out of his range if they start praying a whole lot, like a religious broadcast of Seti@Home? But okay let’s say he’s out there - wouldn’t he have an issue if Ernans also create their own homemade god via the fae? Because most gods tend to not go in for competition. And besides, would God help tame the fae? He didn’t do anything to fix the environmental apocalypse on future Earth so why would he interfere with human-made problems on other planets? Oh but he wouldn't fix it directly, it’s people believing in him that would fix it. Except then what’s with the deus ex in book 2? And why would you need god in the first place? I guess nothing speaks as universally and powerfully to people as believing in a god that they know doesn’t yet exist. 

Also the idea that this belief system calms the mind so its influence on the fae is less turbulent is pretty absurd considering that they’re creating the most judgmental god ever. I mean, thought crimes are a big part of this supposedly merciful religion. Half of Damien’s prayers are worrying that for a moment he thought about the wrong thing or was happy/worried about something he shouldn’t have been or that he’ll somehow become ‘corrupted’ via, er, it’s not exactly clear but it seem that thinking too much or too deeply also doesn’t meet with this god’s approval. Unless what one thinks about is feeling guilty over everything constantly and begging god for forgiveness. That’s all right to do in unlimited quantities.

Despite all this and even as a lifelong atheist, I ate up all the religious lore and took it at face value like with the magic system. That alone says a lot about the pull these books have on me. 

Andrys and Narilka, yeah, everything you said. I do remember my 17-year-old self being impressed that Andrys could make small talk with the Patriarch so smoothly. Teenage autistic life goals ftw. (I’m considerably less impressed by it now, for the record.)

Them meeting up in a bathhouse after - I’m pretty sure this exact fic exists on Ao3, though I can’t remember the name. The fishing rod - is that actually mentioned?? I completely forgot or I guess I glossed over it and now I can't stop laughing about the fishing shop image. 

Gearld overcoming his sexism by virtue of it being sucked out of him via alien sex is not the most profound character development arc, but points for originality. 

Amoril’s origin story is part of the short story Dominion, one of the 2 prequels. His interactions with Gerald have nice hurt/comfort vibes and are the better part of that story imo.  Do you read fic?? Because there are several out there that are so worth reading if you're bewildered by the ending and/or want more post-canon Gerald as well all do. @theobscurepotato has the perfect multi-chapter ending fix-it that’s now canon in my head, and did you know there’s even an AU ending fic by astolat! Happy to link more in the notes.

Crown of Shadows by C.S. Friedman

Genre: Sci-Fantasy Star Rating: 4,25 ⭐️

Plot: ⬜️ Plot holes big enough for a herd of elephants ⬜️ I think I’ve read this before. (Unoriginal to the max.) ⬜️ No plot, just vibes ⬜️ Enjoyable but not super memorable. ✅ You have my undivided attention. ⬜️ Mind = Blown

Characters: ⬜️ Mary Sue is in the house! ⬜️ These are cardboard cut-outs. ⬜️ Good main cast, but the rest is forgettable at best. ⬜️ Generally well written. ✅ Complex ⬜️ What do you mean characters? These feel like real people!

Personal Enjoyment: ⬜️ DNF ⬜️ Somebody free me from this hell (but also no, I won’t DNF) ⬜️ WTF did I just read??? ⬜️ I don’t like it, but I also don’t hate it. ⬜️ It’s a good book but I just never want to pick it back up. ⬜️ No strong feelings either way. ⬜️ Enjoyable read ✅ What a page turner! This is fun! ⬜️ I think I’m in love ⬜️ (new) all time favourite

World Building: ⬜️ This takes place in our world. ⬜️ Worldbuilding what worldbuilding? ⬜️ This feels like a TV set. ⬜️ Not super deep, but present. ✅ Detailed, believable. ⬜️ You bet every single ant has its own 100 page backstory!

Pacing: ⬜️ drags/is rushed in all the wrong places ⬜️ Inconsistent ⬜️ something undefinable feels off ⬜️ I don’t love it it but it fits the book perfectly. ✅ Good/no complaints ⬜️ Amazing! Could not put this down!

Writing: ⬜️ This is painful ⬜️ I’m cringing ⬜️ Not great, but not bad either. ⬜️ Neutral (Didn’t really notice.) ✅ Elegant but not overly flowery. ⬜️ So beautiful I actually stopped and noticed it. ⬜️ I’m not sure if this is just a bad translation. ⬜️ I’m not confident enough in my language skills for this language to comment on the quality of the writing.

Wow, I can't believe I've finished the series this fast! That alone says a lot about how much I liked it :) As usual, here's a bunch of rambly thoughts:

For the most part I feel like I did about the other two books - plot is fine but character work and world building take the cake. The plot was still fairly straight-forward, but I will say that it was a bit more complex with the dual plot-lines. A bit I don't think I've mentioned before that I love: due to the set up we get sorcery and sword type stuff but also tourism, instant soup, insurance companies, etc. (Did I imagine the aspirin?) The mix between modern and old timey things is great!

Unfortunately I also still feel the same about the treatment of women within the series. Sure, the argument could be made that maybe it's just Damien who's a bit misogynistic in his POV, and Gerald is just generally The Most Terrible Person ™ around, but it still doesn't sit right with me. Especially since we start the book with Gerald's lunch committing suicide. Was that weird bit about Damien's landlady necessary? Was there no other way to explain how Iezu perceive the world other than "Holy shit can you believe that middle aged lady dares to think of herself as attractive, lol what a hag" ?? But hey, Narilka is still alive! I suppose if you exist to redeem the Gerald clone you get to live. (I can't believe I forgot poor Almea in my last rant. The fridging that started it all! ...is it still fridging if the man murders her himself??)

As for the plot lines, on one hand I really, really enjoyed getting more POVs! ...maybe just not the ones we actually got xD The patriarch was probably my favourite, even if almost every second I spent inside his head was incredibly frustrating. Some of that may be due to Calesta's influence, but for the most part it's probably just him being the fantasy-pope. There's a reason I left the church xD That being said, I appreciate that he actually whole-heartedly believes what he is preaching. The thing that confuses me the most about the church is its stance on working the fae. As I understood it, it was designed to focus the fae, making it a bit less dangrous for the general population. And also providing humanity with the concentrated power of the beliefs and faith of thousands if not millions, which could eventually be used for space travel. (Or something in that vein.) Anyway, I thought it was very clear that they are still manipulating the fae, just on an enormous scale, and disapproved of private sorcery. But at times it kind of felt like the patriarch sort of forgot that (or deliberately repressed it?). All those "no, this isn't witchcraft, this is a miracle from God!" moments felt so odd because - of course its the same thing? You literally created your God yourselves by those exact same means??? Oh well, church is hypocritical, fork found in kitchen.

Andrys and Narilka I actually liked well enough, as long as they weren't on page together. Or thinking about each other. Actually, scratch that. I liked Narilka when she wasn't being compared to teacups or dolls! But then she had to fall in love with Andrys after talking to him...twice? Andrys... I mean he was there and relevant to the plot. I do feel bad for him, but there wasn't really that much to him other than (admittedly horrific) trauma and an uncanny resemblance to his great-great ....-great grandpa. And drugs to cope with all of that. Small pet peeve: the nickname Andri. WHY. You're literally just taking of one letter (and changing the other because....aesthetics??)

On to more enjoyable ramblings!!! The Damien-Gerlad dynamic in this book was just *chef's kiss* You can't just hit me with the "You changed me" speech that early in the book, I was not prepared xD The many ways in which we see the depth of their...friendship... were just sweet (especially post-hell), and such a contrast to the first book! (Well, Damien still tells us constantly how hot Gerald is, that hasn't changed at all xD My dude literally described his very platonic bestie as "aesthetic perfection". A few pages after Karril rerminds us of how very straight he is, of course.) Now maybe at this point my rose coloured shipper glasses are just glued to my face, but that moment when he tried to explain how Almea supposedly feels also slightly came across as him projecting just a bit. (Gerald is right, Almea (or the Almea-thing) has every right to be pissed, honestly she should have shown up with ghostly divorce papers. Or maybe Damien was right and she just wanted to see him jump into a volcano for a good cause, who knows.) There are some things I would have loved to see more of: - the mental link between Damien and Gerald was criminally under-used, imo. Did it change Damien physically somehow, since Gerald no longer felt cold to him? Is he now part vampire for ever xD (And dear god that whole bit about taking the Hunter into his body, whyyy xDD) - honestly I would have loved to see Gerald readjusting to being human (and being incredibly annoyed about it) a bit more. It's been 900+ years, surely there's stuff he's forgotten? I mean he spent the vast majority of his life being the stuff of nightmares! - Gerald honestly wanting and trying to redeem himself (sure, he was ready to sacrifice himself in the end, but it kind of struck me as a last minute decision. And you can't tell me being the first to kill a Iezu and saving the world didn't also appeal to his ego). But I get that that would take another 10 books, minimum

Damiens break with the church was a long time coming, and handled well, I think. Oddly enough, priest never struck me as a job that you can just quit.

I just remembered about Gerald's apprentice (Amoril?). What an idiot. I would have loved to know how he came to be the Hunter's apprentice though. Can you apply for scolarships? Anyway, trashing a library is unforgivable in my book ;)

Oh, and Hell! Hell was surprisingly meh to me, but I did appreciate the insight into how the Iezu operate (which was probable the main point of that scene anyway). Love that Damien could just reason with the literal devil. (But the concept of the Devil as a non-unified entity was actually cool though). How did it take Damien so long to understand what the mountain of dead women could possibly be. Neither he nor the reader are stupid enough not to get it. Friedman usually doesn't hold our hand and over explains in the series, why start now?? Shock factor? I doubt anyone cared enough about Sisa? Sasi? for that to work.

OK I promise I'm coming to an end soon but guys. Guys. The epilogue. The freaking epilogue. What a trip that was xDDD 1) The Wedding. Karril POV was... certainly something! We now officially know that not only women find Andrys attractive. (Take that, Damien "idk, he's probably attractive to women but also aesthetic perfection" Vryce. Did I need to know about potential Iezu sex that only benefits the (currently presenting as) male partner? No, not really. Also WTF was that scene with Andrys' ex lovers. I know we're supposed to see and rejoice in the fact that Andrys is no longer a playboy, but did we really need that "women hating women for the benefit of some hot guy" thing in here? I swear there were bits in the series where I could have sworn it was written by man (derogatory). At least Narilka remained unbothered. Presumably moisturised. Very happy and in her lane. Focused on her wedding, as she should be. She gets to live on to be compared to countless fragile things made of porcelain, whether she wants it or not. 2) Freaking Riven Forrest. I was cackling throughout that whole bit. Not only does he get to hunt and terrify people just like his father, he also runs a successful (?) fishing rod business on the side. (I know, I know, hunting supplies in general, the rods just kind of stuck out to me). The fact that the intelligent prey he looks forward to hunting the most is once again a woman (even if it is an abusive, horrible woman) tells us exactly what part the Iezu mother chose to take from the OG Hunter, huh. Which is great for Gerald, but a weird choice on her part?? But dear God the last bit. He keeps a portait of Gerald above his fireplace??? I finally completely lost it at "Here's to you, dad" xDDD 3) The "dark haired youth". Of course he survived. I was suspicious as soon as we didn't actually get to see Andrys kill him. As for the new persona - I suspected who he was, but the moment I was really sure was when Damien started describing him in loving detail. For an entire paragraph. That was half a page long. But the ending. WTF. I could have accepted Gerald's Death, but this? You're telling me after all they went through together, and after he basically just risked his life again by saying hi to Damien in the most cryptic way possible, they just...never talked again?! Nah, in my expert opinion they just met up in the next bathhouse. Also I wanted to see the guy suffer be annoyed a bit more because he can no longer Work to maintain his image. (I'd also have loved to know Geralds criteria for his new body, vain as he is. What was his thought process? "Oh no, the wonderful world of magical horse-breeding is now lost to me! Guess I'll just have to make sure that from now on I have the most majestic ponytail out there!"? Although, come on. He might be willing to risk his life for a horse.) My last words: I enjoyed this series so much more than I ever thought I would, and these idiots now live rent-free in my brain. Also how the f- are we supposed to read these books as an entirely platonic relationship? The most I'll agree to is some weird, slightly cursed QPR. But come on. COME ON. Even if they are both heterosexual (notwithstanding Damiens constant thirsting casual descriptions) they are definitely in love. Or just so deeply obsessed with, and at this point, sort of dependent on each other (Gerlad's words, not mine. sort of) that it makes little to no difference.

I know there's some prequels (?) I think I might check them out sometime.