#just my opinion but yeah i feel like people misinterpret his goals the same as characters in game do

[agent-jaselin]

Why does every meta on Solas seem to misinterpret his motivations as remembering the empire as wonderful and wanting to bring that back? One even blamed him for not realizing that the empire’s fall to humans or something else was inevitable ?

He knows that, he tells Dorian that in the same party conversation where he tells Dorian that the elven empire fell before the humans even got there!

Like yeah I’m sure Elves being able to self govern themselves is a goal but it’s not the biggest one.

Because people seem to forget that the Veil was just slapped up there and is not supposed to be there. It’s a poorly made dam causing an ecological disaster. He wants it down for spirits sanity, for elves and others conscious connection to the fade, and the one thing these meta get right: elves immortality.

He does miss the beauty of his world from before, and the things people could achieve, he wants to see them do that again. But i don’t think it’s connected to the actual empire so much as it is to the nature of the world when it wasn’t barren.

[katyahina]

Bloodborne characters motivations rundown (note to self + headcanons)

Okay, so, since Bloodborne characters are so multi-faceted and open to interpretation, I often lose track in all my thoughts about what IS their point in lore as people! So uh, yeah, consider more like a self-reference to stop getting lost in multiple ideas, but I thought I’ll post here too.

The Nerds

Choir (in general): Seek guidance of the Stars that is somewhat blind and sheltered, they are only allowed to see and learn what they ‘must’ see for the ‘greater design’ they are not allowed to question as lower lifeforms. The faith is “salvation”, for transcending the filth and idiocy that humanity supposedly is.

School of Mensis (in general): Pursue objective truth of reality, without any interpretation. They are ready to forsaken any earthly attachments and human morality just like Choir, but for knowledge and autonomy, not for specific deity’s plans about “betterment” of humanity. If anything, they do and always will NEED the ‘cattle’ for sacrifices, so advancing all humanity is not in their interest.

Micolash: Is ready for the most desperate measures and to break every possible human taboo to escape the clutches of how the world works (even beyond just the corruption under Moon Presence’s reign). Ironically, despite being the leader of Mensis, he fails to truly deliver its spirit in the end, as someone wagging his tail before Kos no better than what Choir people do for Ebrietas. He sees his fanaticism as justified though because Sea provides infinitely more vast and morally-unaligned knowledge than Stars.

Imposter Iosefka: Turns people into Celestial Emissaries, effectively connecting them with ‘Stars’/Moon that means sacrifice of humanity and autonomy of mind, as means to save them from becoming beasts instead. A true new course Choir member.

Willem: Seeks knowledge from the Stars all the same but is willing to retain autonomy and instead cooperates on his own terms. His interest is way more to advance the humanity than to forsaken or “overcome” it.

Yurie/Julie: Doesn’t catch up with the new course Choir and is in much more agreement with the way Willem puts the pursuit for enlightenment. She is unwilling to rip the bandage with Rom’s concealment and gives Micolash’s madness fair benefit of the doubt because muted effects of the Bloodmoon through the concealment might slowly guide humanity to passively evolving. Like a sound that you can’t hear but is still causing a number on your brain. But more importantly - she refuses to harm or doubt Rom no matter what.

Damian: He saw the true face of the power behind the Stars, something everyone in the Choir either never faced or are in denial about, and can confirm Julie is wrong; Mensis Ritual will only make humanity suffer with hunt and beasts slowly and forever, so it is better to reveal it so everyone suffers abruptly but for at least the chance to stop Flora, even if it means many people will turn into beasts and Rom gets “killed”.

Edgar: He changed his opinions having spent a lot of time near Micolash and being able to acknowledge how limited Choir was. In his new mindset Choir is even more insane than Mensis since despite doing just as many sins they also pretend they have “good cause” and refuse to accept some harsh truths going against what’s sacred for them. However, he doesn’t swear blind loyalty to Micolash either and agrees with Mensis teachings on his own terms, nor he fully ditches Choir teachings he did hold dear and keeps some things (like Rosmarinus for example). I’d call him the case of an NPC awakening, but he never was an NPC, he is an individualist and a logician to the core.

Caryll: Feels strongly about human language being extremely limited and far too many problems caused by miscommunication. His goal is not to listen to the guidance of Great Ones, but rather to use the inhuman noises as the medium of creating a perfect nearly telepathic language that doesn’t allow misinterpreting. Hence why some runes he popularised are contradictory, or even “heretical” (ie Vileblood’s Corruption). Freedom of speech, baby!

Patches: Very Mensis-leaning. Nightmare Apostles basically were beta-Mensis! They never had the bright idea of suppressing the will of self, so most went crazy. Patches keeps learning more things but as someone that kept his identity free, he has enough fun and self-indulgence with it as well.

(Yeah, he did TURN into a monster, this bit is from interview ( x ))

Archibald: Believes that everything has a good cause to exist and if something is possible to utilise or learn more from - no religious or moral restrictions must serve the basis for rejecting it. Naturally, that brought him going against both Healing Church’s prohibitions and Choir’s taboos, so only in Mensis he could feel at home.

The Hunters

Maria: Seeing what terrible things humans end up doing for more knowledge, and what terrible things they become, she refuses to compromise (unlike Rom). As a helper in Research Hall, she had faith in “salvation” from the Stars since she was last alive even before Choir or Mensis, so she’d nudge patients to pursue Stars rather than Curse or Sea.

Brador: “Teaching fools doesn’t make them smart, it makes them dangerous fools”. Not brainwashed by the Healing Church, but rather blackpilled: in his opinion, exposing the Healing Church will not solve the problems but rather let a NEW corrupt system appear on its ruins, and there is no guarantee the new one will be as easy to navigate in and control as this one. Humans will be humans, everything is on its place, ‘lesser’ people can be just a mass and the tools in the hands of ‘knowing’ people, all that. He’s blackpilled, dude.

Simon: Believes that knowing the truth about their history and ideals will ensure that humanity can learn and do better. Additionally, after having discovered Hunter’s Nightmare, he thinks if people learn of true nature of blood “healing” and hunt they will stop the system, ie less people will end up getting blood-drunk and sent in Hell.

Djura: Came to believe hating beasts is pointless as they are simply what is found in every human and everyone could end up like this too, but realises that if everyone stops hunting then beasts will just eat people and society will end... He respects autonomy of choice and approves of hunting those beasts that are loose and dangerous, just don’t touch beasts that Just Exists and can’t harm anyone anymore.

Valtr: Believes everyone possesses the germ of evil in them, it is just a matter of when it will show up. Although many years of this approach led him to believe “nothing deserves to live”, at the core of it is just the wish to hold the world together with a firm discipline. Humanity can’t become pure, but all evil could be stopped in its core, before a person actually COMMITS it.

Gascoigne: What Valtr thinks, but less deep and complex. Destructive, if anything. Why letting someone live long enough to unleash the evil within, if they could be killed before they DID anything?

Alfred: Restless too, but targets evil that already had manifested itself rather than some complex ideas of ‘preventing’. The downside is that whether who he deems evil actually hurt anyone or not is irrelevant for him; he hunts to exterminate and not to actually protect or contribute anything. Note him not being able to sleep while Annalise, a helpless woman that can’t even spread religion that’s heretical to his church, is as much as alive, and him being the only summon in Old Yharnam where beasts that can’t hurt people above reside.

Henryk: Continues hunting very aggressively, wishing to die in battle and not from old age or, god forbid, from turning into a beast and hunted. Lurks around Byrgenwerth, having heard that a ‘secret’ in there could unlock some HARD EXTRA BOSSES!!!1! if slaughtered. What would that mean for innocent citizens? Shhhruuuuug. This one is also not my own conclusion, but a thing lost in translation ( x ), as localization instead picked the ‘his parthnership with Gascoigne led to his tragically long life’.

Younger Madaras: Loyal to Valtr and his vision of evil (the Impurity) like a dog. He welcomed civilisation and humanity as a concept through Valtr’s lense.

Yamamura: Something about his tender heart didn’t agree with Valtr’s ways, however, he is too stubborn to admit “weakness” so even after having not seen the League in a long while he continues to try and seek Vermin even if it’s driving him crazy. (He has courage and pride and sense of justice, but isn’t ‘dead inside’ enough for the Mission.)

Gratia: Fights for everything good and against everything bad. Nuff said. She has extremely well-developed intuition for good intentions though, so it is not as easy to manipulate her to be a weapon in the hands of injustice and corruptions as it seems.

Henriett: Honors the ways of Old Hunters and deeply resents what Healing Church became and how it forgot Old Hunters ways. Seeks to dismantle the system and bring the Hunt in the way Gehrman intended it, however is willing to release Laurence and Ludwig from the Nightmare from mercy alone. General Hunter outfit that is just bootleg Old Hunters wear is popularised by her.

Gehrman: At the core, is up to hunt everything that is not a human (anymore). He hates Beasts and Kin and ‘monsters’ all the same, however tangled his fate with Moon Presence only to win time for Laurence and the Healing Church. Having an immortal-for-the-night Hunter could help to sustain the beasts while the “nerds” (see above) seek for the way to advance humanity for good. He was sealed back in time of Willem’s approach (advance humanity, not erase it), so it seemed like a fair sacrifice. He keeps his duty still, determined to not let any other person to suffer this fate.

Eileen (and all Hunters of Hunters): Mercy-killing blood drunk hunters before they turned into a beast. Since very first HoHs, no hunter wanted to live long enoug to lose their humanity anyways.

Bloody Crow of Cainhurst: Like guardians of Annalise do, he seeks Blood Dregs within blood-drunk hunters for Annalise, and job of Hunter of Hunters is a perfect access to them. He is long unable to reach Annalise though, and their telepathical blood bond has faded, so he is simply committed to this duty out of habit. When you consume a Blood Dreg it gives you +1 Insight though, so I think he consumes them himself, aspiring to eventually reach the Vileblood hivemind through Insight alone. Not an impossible task though; he can swear he senses ‘something significant’ stronger and stronger with every next one. Inspired by this confusing bit:

Logarius/Rogeriusz: Having killed the King taught him that Vileblood royals cannot just perish and their wrathful spirit is unstoppable, hence he can’t kill Annalise and instead has to keep her hostage. Partially it is also because of forming an amalgam with the King (think of when Aldrich ate Gwyndolin). At this point he is aware of the Healing Church’s schemes to nourish hostility against Vilebloods to justify breaking in and taking Annalise’s child of blood (and establishing enough control), but believes simple people will benefit more by counting on a sweet lie and a honourable legend.

Ludwig: Has faith in the things smarter than humans like every other character in this darn setting, that slowly grows into fanatism. Unlike average Choir fanatics though, he is in the direct contact with the Moon without the Stars ‘filter’ before it, but it grew on him slowly and insidious enough to not let him get revolted and horrified before it’s too late to have ANY critical thinking.

Forgotten Madman: He heard about Ludwig’s discovery and ran off from Choir while they were not looking with his butler/servant/escort. To meet the power BEHIND their Ebrietas! He tries to do so by emulating the conditions in which Ludwig met the Guidance - by setting an analogical sword in Arcane light and staring intensely. What a great plan.

Izzy: Sympathises with ideas of Fauna the Great One Beast and is willing to bring beasthood within men UP to start the new era of humanity, instead of repressing it (like Healing Church), exterminating it (like other hunters) or transcending it (like Choir or Mensis or earlier doctors). In her eyes, it is the true form of the humanity, not the flaw of it!

Josef: Average successor of Izzy’s ways, tries to discover the true power and meaning of beasthood in Loran where it first came from. By the way, there is enemy variant of him that even shares the face data and existed prior DLC, that IS called  イジーの後継 (Successor of Izzy, localized as Izzy’s Admirer). So yeah. lost fanboys.

Queen Killer: A veteran of Cainhurst crusade that was still aching for the noble battle and had his power and vigour useful for Mensis to reach Queen Yharnam. Was left in the dungeons to die though. He is just surviving now!

Antal: He can’t simply dismantle School of Mensis, of course, but doesn’t have the heart to just run away despite not being able to take it anymore, so he simply helps whatever prisoners he can to run away.

Yahar’gul hunter in Church’s cells: Was someone who shared Antal’s mindset but he did decide to run with Yamamura to help him, Simon and Gratia to get to the bottom of some secrets as someone who heard a thing of two in Mensis but was afraid to let Yamamura run alone.

Yahar’gul hunters in general: Were glad to serve School of Mensis after the “normie” (blood ministration oriented) Healing Church started the blame of foreigners and they got under the rug (note how 5 out of 7 Yahar’gul hunters we saw are not white). Currently are okay to stay there working with residing Pthumerians. They forgot the meaning of the hunt long ago and are too caught up in rituals and alike, kidnapping more victims for Pthumerians to make The One Reborn from. Just can’t go back to normal beasts hunting after being in contact with so much insanity, but do acknowledge that they are fighters rather than scholars.

Bone Ash Hunters: They know exactly what brought doom in the very nature of Pthumerians and humans and set themselves in fire to cleanse from the ‘sin’ everyone that has blood has. As Pthumerian lore bits suggest, they guard the Great Ones so nobody messes with them again.

Other people

Laurence: Genuinely cared for humanity and thought there was a good way to advance it on humans’ own terms, and not by listening to Great Ones like Willem offered. Improving ‘broken’ humanity by using ideas of humanity that IS ‘broken’ and therefore offers ‘broken’ ideas by design, huh... He is quite machiavellian and acknowledges many sacrifices and immoral decisions should be made for the greater purpose. What he had to do to accomplish his goals reflected the EXACT cruelty and hubris that he wanted to save the humanity FROM though, so his descent into beast increased upon realisation and despair.

Adeline: She has always felt broken and insignificant, within heavy depression, and blood ministration, and soon - Research Hall - were seen as her lucky ticket to become someone ‘meaningful’. This mindset helped her to wade through all horrors of the Sea with eagerness and joy, nothing the Sea could show her about nature of the world or her own mattered if she could learn how things REALLY were and overcome it.

Amelia/Emilia: Removed whatever successorship there might be after her but doesn’t have any idea on how to improve the situation or face the backlash by trying to be truthful with people, as someone raised within Church’s walls and mentality. I mean, who can she ask how to change Yharnam to the better? Remaining fanatics that won’t listen, or people who are already hostile to the church? So she just awaits her end and hopes when Healing Church crumbles with her death, things will somehow solve themselves.

Iosefka: Not as radical as her twin sister, however, now forever feels strongly about drawbacks of the “healing” blood, so she makes sure to clean it from red and leave only parts that actually heal. Not as effectively as ‘true’ blood, but it is a blood clean of what causes beasthood or Frenzy. She just wants to treat people with clean consciousness as a true good doctor, no matter how much time and effort it takes.

Blood Minister: He insists that any newcomer gets transfusion of the healing blood before entering Yharnam, as it is virtually impossible to survive without any at this rate. Someone with ‘clean’ blood would attract aggression of beasts even more than any other human, and everything Arcane would cause insanity from the slightest impact. It is like getting a vaccine before entering a heavily virus infested place.

Afflicted Beggar: He survives, and used to be a bit more restricted and reluctant about such a life. He became a beast not over any transfusion, but because of ancient curse of his Loran descendance having manifested. Naturally, he holds a FAT grudge against Hunters (and society in general) for throwing themselves to meet such fate when he had no choice. The life of having to lurk and hide and be lonely because nobody will try to help him with anything but the bullet in the head taught him to even ‘enjoy’ this existance, and hunt more humans than he actually needs to survive.

Annalise: Pthumerians were seeking to conceive children of blood to stay in touch with the cosmos and magic on different terms than those who care for celestial larvae, and Annalise’s reign is around where Vilebloods rediscovered this practice. She lost one such child because of Executioners but doesn’t mind trying again.

Adella: Only kills Arianna if she gave Hunter enough of her blood, and only kills hunter in this scenario after Bloodmoon. So, what Alfred is, but much more tame, only snapping after a person fails their “chance”. Just an average brainwashed church person. with the knife

The Great Ones

Rom: She hides horrors of the cosmos, however leaves small penetration through her barrier for those with enough Insight (ie ‘you can seek the truth if you are ready or want it, but people who are not prepared should be spared and do their thing’).

Kos: She used to guide the bulwark between mortal world and cosmos like what Rom does now but without any influence. However, she has a lot of humanity for a Great One and wished to care and love rather than use, hence the village of people that became fish/slugs that worshipped her, and a half-human infant. Her echo lived through Micolash and Rom to offer true life and wisdom to those that are strong enough to seek the Sea and to curse those that inadvertently follow the design of Moon Presence (so, the blood-drunk hunters). She is very weak and wounded though, and even those that overcome horrors of the Sea to hear her will essentially get the “Go away to your precious Moon! :/” from her (that’s essentially the Milkweed and alike runes). It is massive trust issues even for those that believe they want to learn her wisdom - again, a very human trait.

Wet Nurse: She was one of the crowlike beings that lived on the Sun and descended to Pthumerians to give them pyromancy to withstand the beasthood. Having seen that mortals never learned and repeated the same sin, she collects Messengers appearing after every night of the hunt to make them into heads of Winter Lanterns, to spread the message about true nature of the Hunt and the Moon. They transmit ‘Hunt the Great Ones’ + ‘Three Third Cords’ on high Insight level, alas, in most cases, people just explode in Frenzy spears. Frenzy is uncanny understanding of what is going on with the world, as well as reaction of the blood to crystallise into weapons. As someone who lost blood by descending, she also never was able to have a child of her own, so she took Mergo.

Flora / Moon Presence: Oh boy. Ohhhhh boooy... She has been a corrupt and controlling Great One from the start, but the one willing to grant protection in exchange for autonomy. Her unborn infant was killed and consumed right from her guts with her, and at this rate grief and wrath ensured she is more cruel and insidious, she is a bit like a beast herself, even. She hides her true nature and motives behind the image of Stars.

Oedon: They WERE Flora’s unborn child! They only exist as the voice in the blood, and are the reason why upon touch of arcane and alike it has properties to petrify or crystallise (check blood gems, especially circular, and Frenzy spears made of person’s blood). This IS the sin that Bone Ash Hunters burn themselves for. Oedon urges the Hunt and the bloodshed deep on unconscious level of humanity as means to reconnect with Flora. Frenzy spears are both the person realising they must hunt Flora and Oedon screaming ‘MOM!!!’. Because, again, this Great One’s true nature is bloodspill.

(I talked about Frenzy a bit more in this ( x ) post! Also, yeah, apparently, Oedon’s pronoun is ambigious in JP original. Translator Last Protagonist uses it and Aruki Mania walks around to not use any pronouns.)

Ebrietas: The only Celestial larvae that lived to adulthood, and the greatest (no pun intended) tool in the hands of Moon Presence, however largely unaware of her true purpose and the horror behind her. Whatever she did realise she’d deny or didn’t care about enough. She weeps for humanity and wishes it salvation and advancement, whereas Flora benefits from the cycle of sin, hunt and suffering. There is an awful hypocrisy and uncertainty that leaves unclear whether the (reigning) deities are upset by wars and madness of humanity or feed off of it, as Flora, Ebrietas and Oedon are united like Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Ebrietas’ affiliation got shaken though and some of her blood, too, became red and not grey, when Rom ascending and being used caused her Grinch heart moment.

(Internal names source: ( x ))

Amygdalae: Children of blood and antipodes of celestial children, offering not salvation but “forbidden” knowledge, they are demons when celestial children are angels. One must be strong willed and capable enough to trade with them though, or else they themselves will become sacrifices, as Amygdalae eat people to grow stronger.

Fauna: Opposed Flora’s controlling design from the very start and rooted for the mortals to discover all opportunities and mysteries of the world and their own nature. He currently exists as just an echo, only sustained by ones like Beast-Possessed Souls and undead Darkbeasts. Bolt is HIS magic though - symbol of a light that can be used to find one’s own path, rather than cosmic light like stars or moon that has it’s own design in plan. Fauna is not a fanmade name by the way, but appreared as cut content! ( x )

That’s all I think! Missed just a few characters, but I think I won’t get confused by them. I mean, Arianna survives the way she can, Sceptical Man is being a boomer, all that. xd Thank you if you read to this point though!

[mitigatingacademics]

I was first introduced to Mr. Hopwood in Carrissa Byrne Hessick's Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining Is A Bad Deal.

My review of that work can be found HERE.

I was struck by the absurdity of Mr. Hopwood's heavy reliance on the idea that we all, seemingly without exception, go through some sort of 'felonious phase' during our youth.

That this is expected and relatable.

His entire worldview seems to emanate from the truth and acceptance of this supposition.

Accidentally stumbling upon his memoir on Kindle Unlimited and, owing either to a desire of wanting to give him a fair shot to explain himself, or just hating myself enough to feel the need to suffer through it, I couldn't pass it up.

Suffice it to say, I got what I expected.

I gave it a generous 3 stars on Goodreads. Would have gone for 2.5 if that were an option.

The storytelling, especially in the beginning was engaging and well written. He lost me in the latter parts, though.

Examples of what, in my opinion, are telling snippets, along with my commentary, can be found under the cut.

"…it is a fact that the men of our family surely bristle against authority when they are young, and I was no exception." (p. 37)

I mean, if we're going to claim genetic determinism from the jump, we should have known what we were getting into, right?

Boys will be boys, etc.

Without even attempting to explain the ridiculousness of the thought processes involved, Shon tells his readers that his ultimate reason for proceeding with the first of his five armed bank robberies was that he had failed to show for a court date related to writing bad checks and his arrest was imminent, anyway.

Might as well go big and go to prison, yeah?

"Every Friday night Ryan bought a large, expensive box of nachos with everything. And he was smoking weed with everyone, me included." (p. 75)

Prison sounds like hell.

Glad to hear you were seriously reflecting on why you were in there.

"…having a few black friends made me feel more normal, like the time back in the Navy and in the happy days of bank jobs. It also set me apart as someone a little different in prison, and I think I wanted that." (p. 78)

A somewhat eyebrow raising take on race relations, reflections on more enjoyable times on the run committing felonies, and admitting his own desire for exceptionalism. A lot to unpack there.

"When you think about it, the world is full of people doing good work because they never got caught doing that very stupid something when they were younger and crazier." (p. 101)

Absolutely not.

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

I'm not saying this statement is not EVER true, but the VAST MAJORITY of us DO NOT go on violent crime sprees in our youth that we need to repent for in adulthood.

The "stupid" acts of a young person =/= AGGRAVATED FELONIES.

Absolutely not.

Refers to what, in all other realities, would be a sexual assault experienced by his girlfriend as a "too-hot date" that "taught her a hard life lesson." (p. 137)

This made me feel a little sick, to be honest.

There is still a part of me that hopes I've misinterpreted his meaning, but I don't believe that's the case.

Attributes his assigned counselor asking him how he's doing as an indication that he was "on a different path than most"

"I always tried to talk to guards like equals. I used to tell them that we all had the same goal, which was to make it through our time as easily as possible and then go home." (p. 140)

"Humble" and "self-aware" don't seem to apply at all.

Despite earlier mentioning that the prison staff "weren't exactly helpful" in his jailhouse lawyer endeavors, the special treatment and exceptions to rules applied to others that he received from the prison to "help out" with the Fellers SCOTUS brief were nothing short of stupefyingly outrageous.

"The months and cases rolled by. I was cranking out documents like a print shop. I had lots of time to work on cases because my back hurt so bad that I was bed ridden on and off for six months. Basketball falls and weightlifting had seriously damaged my lower back." (p. 199)

So sorry about the recreational injuries you incurred during your hard time paying your dept to society.

He speaks ad nauseam (one too many times to be ignored) about the incompetence of attorneys that allowed for other inmates to end up in prison.

Where he also was.

And deserved to be.

For the CRIMES he had committed.

"Lock-downs were a respite from the multitude of legal questions from guys who regularly mixed up words like 'retroactive' and 'radioactive'." (p. 234)

Shon seems to be a person with enough intelligence to often come across as repentant, grateful, God fearing, etc. ...but the way he sets himself apart (and above) others always seems to make its way through.

Once released, he got a job at a printing factory working with Supreme Court briefs.

"They had already found a good candidate to fill the job before I even applied. They were about to make the phone call to complete the hire when my resume arrived." (p. 251)

...so he cost a qualified non-felon a job.

"The Cockles had long been trying to capture Seth's attention and a portion of his business." (p. 252)

...and that's why.

Because the the business was interested in a contact he never should have been able to make while practicing law from a jail cell.

"Later, I learned that a few of my friends with serious convictions who had gone to law school had also scored federal appellate clerkships. I don't think that would've happened had Judge Brown not said yes to me first." (p. 311)

...and why is that exactly? Because you're the only Felon, esq. exceptional enough to be a trailblazer?

Finally, almost more than anything else, I take issue with the hypocrisy of the religion he finds towards the end of the book.

He cites God for his ridiculous good fortune, but makes no explanation as to why God fails to bless so many others in similar ways.

Exceptional in God's eyes, too, I guess.

I could feel my blood pressure rising just typing up this review and I am ever so glad to be done with it.

[o-wyrmlight]

Lmao I agree with that anon about how the fandom would misinterpret u. Like u would say one sentence about how Affo is morally gray and has motives and his reason, they immedietly pounce cause NO HE CANT BE KORALLY GRAY HES OBVS MORALLY BLACK AND ABSOLUTELY EVIL like yeah he's a selfish brat but he also had a rough upbringing and yeah it Def wasn't the morally white thing to do but who tf cares I don't for sure he's my skrunkly now I'm gonna torture/take care of him

Seriously doe ur rlly cool and not aggressive. The fandom would call u aggressive cause u retaliated in self defence/ expressed distaste for something cause there's always some young people who can't tell between 'saying your opinion' and saying 'only your opinion is right'

U also draw rlly well, are mature and can stay cool in situations I can't XD

I aspire to be like you one day! Ur writing and drawing is amazing znd you can see from different perspectives!

I imagine u to be a grandparent sipping their cup of tea inside. Children yell at u from the yard, so you laugh and go back to reading the news. Only when children walk up to ur door and start banging and screaming do you retaliate.

Sorry this got really long... i was a bit stressed lately

I hope you can achieve your dreams!

Affogato is morally black and evil and manipulative and he's a little shit who deserves more of a punishment than just being essentially yeeted from Dark Cacao's kingdom /j

Honestly I just. I like talking about my opinions. I like commentating about things that I see, think and notice and I like offering my perspective and talking about it. That's fun to me! I genuinely don't mean to come across as someone trying to shove their opinions down others' throats. It's when other people either a) make the argument that their opinions are objectionably right or b) go out of their way to harass others that it bothers me a lot. Especially when it's a ridiculous claim that calls into question the morals of the person that they don't agree with.

For example, with the argument about Affogato and Pomegranate being the same character--sure, they're similar, but they have enough differences that they aren't the same character. One is not simply a gender-swapped version of the other. They have different personalities, motivations and goals, and I've seen people talk about how hating Pomegranate more than Affogato is 'misogynistic' because they are 'essentially the same character'.

Even if they were the same character, there's nothing wrong with just. Not liking a female character. It doesn't have to be inherently misogynistic in nature, and you don't need an excuse for why you don't like the character. 'The only excuse is if they trigger a trauma' is a ridiculously toxic notion that implies that simply not liking a character isn't a good enough reason. Pomegranate doesn't trigger me, but I don't like how she goes out of her way to trigger other cookies. And I don't like how her character solely seems to revolve around Dark Enchantress Cookie, either. And that's my particular opinion on that matter. And that's okay.

Then there's the drama over White Lily, which is a whole can of worms I don't really feel like delving into. It's essentially the same logic--'If you don't like White Lily or ship PureCacao but not PureLily then you're misogynistic'. It's ridiculous and immature and minimizes the consideration for why someone would prefer one character over the other or simply doesn't like that character.

Idk I have a lot of thoughts and I know you didn't ask for my perspective on this but I am fully willing to be an old man sipping my tea and watching kids play swords outside while shaking my head in awe at the fandom drama, thinking about how ridiculous it is sometimes. And if someone comes a-knockin' at my door or says something loudly near my window that I'm not very fond of, then of course I'm going to act.

And I'll admit that being 'calm, cool and mature' is kind of hard sometimes lol. It's something I have to actively focus on doing from time to time, and it's still something that I'm trying to work on--learning my limits and when is the best time to just step away. It's not always easy, but it's a very important skill to learn. And I'm only 23--I'm still comparatively young in the grand scheme of things. Of course I'm still learning. As an example, I know that sometimes I struggle with proper pronouns for characters/people because it was something I only started learning in the last couple of years, and it's something I'm working on bit by bit.

It really does flatter me that you look up to me to that extent! Just please remember that at the end of the day, I am a person just like you, and from time to time, I may slip up and make mistakes. Parasocial relationships in the long run can be somewhat damaging under the wrong situations. Instead of aspiring to be like me, try to aspire to be the best you that you can be with what you have right now.

I don't know how old you are, what situations you have experienced or are experiencing, or what resources you have available to you right now--but please take your time with yourself, and be patient. No matter how old you are, humans are always going to be a work in progress--we're always learning and always adapting, and I think that is a fantastic trait that we all share.

[tsukidrama]

i read your post about yelena and i agree with EVERYTHING. saying she’s misguided would be misundertanding her, she knows very well what she is doing, why she is here and how she got into that situation. the part about onyankopon is very true too, and i’m sure even zeke doesn’t even trust her 100%, he’s just counting on the fact that she’s obsessed with him (if we ever get a mini story about her like a new lost girls novel i’d love to know how that obsession started!). that moment when she killed a marleyan soldier (i think?) just because he talked shit about sasha was very hot but also very scary and it says a lot about her i think but it makes her very interesting.

i also think that some people misunderstand her on purpose so they don’t have to feel bad about liking her the same way everyone that loves eren forget everything that happened after s3 (and the non animated chapters) and only love fanon or modern au! eren (which are basically different characters from the og eren lmao). i don’t blame them though, i love yelena now and i love zeke too but i don’t forget what the characters have done in canon.

lara tybur makes me remember why i’m a lesbian, she’s so mysterious and very hot and her titan is probably one of my favourites, i just wish she didn’t die so fast!! but as you said it allows us to interpret her as we want! i read your sugar mommy headcanons about her and you made…...several good points. i haven’t thought about the dildo part before but now… i have many unholy thoughts about her ksjdahkd.

i’ve never seen that you’ve written for reiner before and as he’s my favourite it made me very happy and “enough to go around”... WOW!! very very hot!! i love porco and reiner as a duo, they’re always bickering but they can’t deny that they have chemistry and i think you did a very good job at portraying their relationship! and having them both at the same time... yeah <3

i also read “sweet like you” and aaah it was very hot and funny too and so sweet!! you are very good at understanding characters (especially in canon) because reiner was PERFECT and exactly as i see him!!

this ask is getting long so i'll stop but i can't wait to read the rest and i hope you had/are having a good day!!

-j

thank you j!! my days have been alright lately but i've been working a lot too. my bank account looks so beautiful that i could cry but I'm tired asf and I haven't gotten a day off for a while because of other people taking time off 😩 but its okay because I have the whole weekend off and day shifts all next week 💪😤

your clarity on Yelena is so poggers. being attracted to villains doesn't mean you have to warp their narrative to justify it. it's okay to have a point where you're like "love u honey but this is mad unhealthy/evil/straight up demented and I can only support you so far..." the moment being shooting the guy who insulted Sasha being one of them. like I'm pissed too but YOOO WHAT?! this is not the bad bitch moment yall seem to think! i also very much agree with you about how people choose to misinterpret Yelena and Eren. seasons 1-3 Eren and fanon Eren are totally different from what he becomes and it kind ruins his character for me in the end 💔 Yelena being so minor and mysterious makes her a little more likeable in my opinion. I hope we do get an OVA or something with her backstory, it's what we all deserve with the CRUMBS we were given as far as her character goes. personally I go back and forth with Zeke. I feel bad for him when he was young but God I hate him so much for literally everything he does in canon. HE KILLED ERWIN. also eugenics.

about Lara Tybur... you are so seen here. I will never stop being sad that she has one fight scene and appears in like what, all of 10 shots? my only relief is that it's the arguably most badass fight scene in the show as far as titan powers go (excluding the finale I suppose). WISMSNNW I want to write smut for her so bad, it would be WILD but also like the demand is so low that I've never had the motivation for a full fic

thank you much for your kind words about the Porco and Reiner fics!!! in general i'm really a lesbian and sex with men disgusts me but sometimes I have exceptions for anime boys if they are Being My Bitch. and I really really love Porco and Reiner to boot 🤧😍

"you are very good at understanding characters" is literally the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me 😭🥰 my biggest goal while writing is for people to clutch their chests in pain because I hit something so on the nose

[rockshortage]

*Cracks knuckles* Ow. Let's see, how about: A6, 16. B1, 12. C1, 2, 3, 5, 8. D4. E2, 3, 7. F2, 5, 10, 12 (Sorry, but also not sorry) I6. L1, 2, 4, and 9 :)

hoo boy that took a while

A6) Does your OC tend to assume their interpretation of events and reality is correct, or do they question it? I.e., “I’m sure that’s what you said” versus “It’s possible I misheard you.”

Ah, he questions himself a lot. Maybe he wasn’t listening well enough because he was too distracted by being anxious? Maybe he misinterpreted this event, because his background knowledge on it was lacking, he doesn’t know the full story and opinions from all sides, he’s not sure he can form a well educated opinion on this--

A16) Does your OC have to go through their own trials to learn a lesson, or do they listen and learn from observation and lecture? I.e., does your OC listen when someone tries to tell them the importance of budgeting, or do they have to go experience what happens if you don’t budget first?

Hector needs to do it himself for Science, because how else is he to truly know, if not from his own personal experience? Trusting what people tell you is good and all but gathering data yourself is better.

Unless we’re talking about raider politics, in which case there’s not really a good way for Hector to gather data without seriously endangering him and friends, so he’ll just listen to Gage.

B1) Do they believe you have to give respect to get it, or get respect to give it?

Generally, he believes it’s necessary to give people respect before you can expect it in return. He learns that many people do not in fact think the same way. He’ll still want to extend basic courtesy to them even if they’re assholes, unless they disrespect/piss him off to the extremes, or if their actions threaten his position and in turn the well-being of himself and friends.

B12) Your OC orders something to eat and gets their order done in a pretty wrong way, something they can’t just pick off or whatnot to correct, or something major is missing. What do they do?

Have a back and forth about it in his head – ah it’s not so bad it’s still fine, but then again he really wanted it differently… but he doesn’t wanna bother them and be entitled about it, but man… :( Might get close to pointing it out but chances are slim that he’ll actually get someone to correct the order. It’ll be disappointing but he’ll eat it.  

C1) Does your OC have a moral code? If not, how do they base their actions? If so, where does it come from, and how seriously do they take it?

Eeeh, not a super strong one. His baseline are general societal morals and norms, like… help person good, kill person bad. Most of the time he’ll base his actions on what feels right for him and for his friends. He’ll consider: will doing this make me feel bad afterwards? Will it have a negative impact on other people, who don’t deserve it? Is that consequence worth it because it saves my own skin or helps/protects my friends?

C2) Would your OC feel bad if they acted against their morals? If not, would they find a way to excuse themselves for it?

Bringing back the point about sacrificing for the greater good. He’d consider that the morally right thing to do because it impacts fewer people negatively. But making that sacrifice endangers his friends, whose lives for him personally are worth much more than an abstract crowd of people. So he chooses to not do the thing for the greater good and save his friends instead, and yes, he would feel very bad on the one hand, because oh boy. As far as most people are concerned, he did a horrible terrible thing and was extremely selfish and absolutely chose wrong. But on the plus side, and that’s a very big huge plus- he still has his friends. And still having his friends makes him feel less bad than how he would have felt if he didn’t have his friends anymore.

So uh… yes and no.

C3) Is it important for them to be with people (socially, intimately, whatever) whose major ideological tenets align with their own?

More or less. He can’t hang out well with people he completely disagrees with in every way, of course that’s not going to work. But Hector is… how to say… kinda boring when it comes to ideals and opinions and all that stuff. He just doesn’t have very strong ones in general. Which can make him a little bland and potentially spineless, but also pretty agreeable. As long as they don’t constantly shove their great big opinions in his face, they’ll get along well enough.

C5) Do your OC’s morals and rules of common decency go out the window when it comes to those they don’t like, or when it’s inconvenient? Aka, are their morals situational?

I think I kind of answered this in C2. Basic morals do get thrown out the window if friends are threatened, or if he gets pissed off enough. He’d have to be really pissed off though. As well as being post having-grown-a-spine(-at-least-partially). Hurting people bad but being insufferable to Hector also bad so guess what fucker

C8) Is your OC more practical or ideal morally? I.e., do they hold people to high expectations of behavior even if it’s not realistic for the situation, or do they have a more realistic approach and adapt their morality to be more practical?

Again a little tricky because I’m having trouble coming up with a scenario that would help me make up my mind with a definite answer. I’m leaning more towards a practical approach 1) because Hector is more of a realist/pessimist in general, 2) he doesn’t want to like… be overly demanding

D4) Would they like to be immortal? Why, why not? If they are immortal, would they rather not be?

The more he thinks about it the more meaningless life seems to get for someone like him. Solution: don’t think about it! Repress that shit because it’s not like you can do anything about it anyway. Also an involuntary solution but one that helps nonetheless: have shit memory so that you don’t feel like you’ve lived too many lifetimes.

If you were to ask him, the answer you get completely depends on the headspace he’s in at the moment. If he’s just vibing, going about his day and things are going well then yeah! Immortality isn’t so bad. If you catch him on an off day, things aren’t going so well, maybe he just thought about having to deal with losing his friends eventually… then you obviously get the opposite answer.

E2) Which of the nine types of intelligence is your OC strongest in? Weakest? (Linguistic, existential, naturalist, et cetera)

I know I talked about this before and I grouped them from strong to medium to weak but I can’t for the life of me find the post anymore (thanks tumblr for your useless garbage search and tagging features). So I can’t even check if I’m still on the same wavelength with past me :v

From strongest to weakest we have…

Logical-mathematical

Spatial

Linguistic

Bodily-kinesthetic

Musical

Naturalist

Interpersonal

Existential

Intrapersonal

E3) How many languages do they speak?

Three… and a half.

The half language being Swiss German, because I don’t know what the fuck it is even after graduating from language uni

The others: Standard German, English, and French, from strongest to weakest.

E7) Are they a good note-taker? Are they a good test-taker? Do exams make them nervous?

Yes, yes, and yes. He’s very good at taking notes considering most of science is documentation. And even now when he’s not doing a lot of Formal Science things, he still writes in his journal almost daily, summing up events and making notes of important things. He gets nervous with tests with all the self doubt if he really prepared well enough and the unpredictability of the questions that will be asked, but once the pen is in his hand, he just blazes through it.

F2) What’s their ideal home look like? Where is it?

Someplace underground, safe and sturdy like a vault. Industrial aesthetic is welcome and he wants to have plenty of space, but it shouldn’t feel huge and empty. Needs to be homey, even if it might feel a little rustic to the average person. Having it built into a mountain would be sick, so he still has the perfect protection from the sun, but he doesn’t have to crawl out of a hole in the ground like some kind of worm – instead he opens the door and gets the most amazing view immediately.

… and I promise, only after writing the above did I remember that he pretty much lives in a mountain already, just a plastic one. Close enough.

F5) How handy are they? Can they fix appliances, cars, cabinets, et cetera?

Quite handy indeed. He can fix most things, he usually just needs some time to (re-)familiarize himself with the object and its functions. A lot of it also involves trial and error, but he’ll figure it out eventually.

F10) Do they engage in any of the arts? How good do you intend them to be? Would they agree they are?

He’d actually be really good at pen/pencil drawing, what with making technical illustrations and blueprints of Science Stuff, but it’s not a skill that’s applied in an artsy setting. When the goal is to draw for the sake of drawing, evoking emotion, or paint with a brush, that’s probably when shit would fall apart. I can’t remember who the artist was, but it reminds me of this little comic about Paladin Danse – in which he’s extremely good at technical drawings but then he attempts to draw a dog and it just looks…wrong.

Now with music, he’s more likely to engage in it in an artful way. He likes to sing, even if he very rarely does it now that he has people around him more often than not. Before, he’d just be alone in his lonely place and sing and scream to his heart’s content, but now he’s too awkward to do it, because someone might hear him. He is pretty good at it though, considering how much alone time he’s had to practice.

F12) Would they enjoy a theme park?

The rides and junk food? Yes absolutely. But the giant crowd and every little consequence it entails, nope, no thank you, he’ll just leave it be.

You bet he’s gonna go on the rides at nuka world though once they got them back up and working, because the crowd isn’t as big as pre-war and he’s the fucking overboss and can skip lines and restrict access to others however he damn pleases.

I6) Could they eat the same thing they enjoy over and over and not get bored of it quickly?

He can, but that doesn’t mean he enjoys it. The first month or so at nuka world he almost exclusively lives off of some shitty nutrient bars. In some scenarios, food just exists as sustenance and not as something to be enjoyed.

In a preferable scenario though, it is to be enjoyed. And I think while he would get bored of it after a while, it’d take longer than for the average person. And even then, he’s just happy he can eat something enjoyable at whatever pace he likes instead of having to scarf down Compressed Nutrient

L1) How have your characters changed since you created them?

He stopped existing in a void, which is a pretty damn big change. Now he has a whole world and other characters to interact with, that contribute to shaping and developing his personality.

L2) What do you consider the biggest themes in your character, if any?

Oof, this is hard. Maybe… getting to know yourself? Accepting change, personal growth?

L4) Would you hang out with your OC if you could?

I’m actually not sure sjdfsdnsv

Like yes he is sweet bean who must be protected, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is a weird little old man. I guess if we can just chill listening to music and he can go off about crustaceans or something and we speak The Horrible Language, why the fuck not

L9) How did you come up with your OC?

Masks cool. Me especially like gas masks. Unhinged science characters also cool. Make generic but still sliiiightly unique design and make it a point to not have him be a young pretty boy character despite having immortality. Add lots of weaknesses to compensate for the immortality. Add science personality things and complete the picture with projections of my own personality. Boom, you’ve got yourself the beginnings of a Hector

[gg-astrology]

Jimin Season ASKS:  ‘Jealousy’ ‘Possessive’ ‘Clingy’ ?

Hey there! 💕 I got a few asks recently about Jimin, with regards to him being jealous/possessive/clingy. So I figured since I might as well talk about it 💕

Jimin Season Masterlist

*Note: This is my own interpretation/experience with the signs involved, please keep that in mind and view with your own discretion! 💓 Some differences in perspective/opinions might occur and thats cool too! 💓

So thank you for sending the asks in:

and:

First let’s talk about his Libra and Scorpios.

We always joke about Jeon not liking to lose (and Tae because he gets really fired-up about it) but Jimin doesn’t like losing either.

With Jimin, he doesn’t like losing (Libra Sun)-- but he’s willing to compromise. 

If it looks like the bigger picture is going into turmoil (i.e. if someone else is more ‘reactive’ about losing than he is) and is making a big deal out of it, he’s capable of shifting his position into a more mediative role immediately (emotionally, he might just suppress it temporarily to get the job done).

He also thinks a lot about how to say what he wants to say (before he does something-- Libra Mercury, can be a little hesitant but wants to have the best intentions/fair) and he doesn’t like his intentions being misunderstood (Libra/Scorpio) 

So if someone dismiss/doesn’t really get that he’s trying to care/look out for them he may become more frustrated and verbally pour it out afterwards (Libra/Gemini -- especially Gemini Moon, can just let out a string of self-expression about their frustration and then leaves it at that).

With Jimin, it’s more about setting precautions (loosely, like ‘I don’t think you should do that..’) but if it’s not listened to/appreciated properly his frustration/irritation can flare quickly as well 

(Gemini fueled by Scorpio/Libra’s indignation. However, he can also keeps it in until it’s a more private setting/he’s pushed to say it-- Scorpio)

It’s mostly about being listened to, and appreciated that he cares for others deeply that makes the direct effect of being dismissed/by passed something of a frustration to him. (Gemini- >Scorpio->Libra-- not being able to create a harmonious relationship with someone, based on something tactical error like miscommunication/mis-interpretation of his intensions.)

If someone misunderstood his intentions (caring for others) and gets really confrontational to him about it --- he can struggle with trying to re-think how he should approach/communicate with others to make them see his real intentions (good intentions/where he’s coming from/taking on a mediative role immediately instead of lashing back, because he wants to clear up the problem and not like, cause it. This is different depending on context though.)

Thus, the possessiveness part is more like a precaution thing. Like not wanting people he cares about to get hurt/be hurt by others (Scorpio).

He has to tell them somehow if he wants to be fair/think himself as a good person (Libra-- not telling them/having a back-up plan wasn’t an option).

Because he is much more perceptive than other people realize/get things pretty thoroughly. He tends to look out for others and warn them-- which is the cause of the problem sometimes.

As for the clinginess, it’s more about needing stimuli if we’re looking at his Moon (Gemini-- and his hella Libra). Those he’s close to he’s a lot more liberal about wanting attention/asking for it from them. 

He’s much more communicative and enjoys being around people, therefore with people he cares about he’s not so afraid of watching himself/holding himself back from asking for certain responses sometimes.

With those he’s not close to-- again, going back to the ‘thinking about what he wants to say/how to say’ part -- he tends to be cautious of how other people might misconstrued his intentions towards them. 

Most likely he doesn’t want to make it seem like something it’s not, or that he’s intruding on them. (Again, making his intensions clear part to avoid mis-interpretations.)

The clinginess part only extends to those he knows won’t misinterpret his intentions, he’s not naturally a clingy person he’s just responsive to those he trusts/getting stimuli from social relationships that he cares for.

I think some part of the ‘possessive/clingy’ narrative is an over-emphasis on Libra’s ‘romantic/relationship’ nature (associated with being Venus-ruled)-- which focuses on their ‘romantic relationship’ statues and the idea that ‘they have to be in a relationship all the time’.

Libra doesn’t trust easily, especially with their inner thoughts/depth. Scorpio gets a reputation for being ‘possessive’ but don’t they have a good reason to be suspicious of others with all that they can tell/see into their depth (perceptive/analytical/emotionally connective/intuitive)?

I honestly think he’s only possessive towards those he cares for and wants to look out for. His intentions aren’t to hinder them, it was more to warn them. His emotionality may be deep, but it isn’t something he trusts/burden others with easily (with a good conscious) most of the time.

With Jimin, he’s far more self-sufficient than we give him credit for. If he has a problem, he tries to work through it on his own before he relies on other people/let others know about it. The majority of the push-work comes from him, not from others.

Thus, his ‘dependency on relationship’ isn’t because he can’t handle his own emotionality/depth, his relationships are more like a source of joy/outlet for him to ‘refresh’ himself.

I also think he’s a lot more-- his social relationships are those he trusts/cares about. It doesn’t have to be romantic. There’s different levels of ‘trusts’ you can have towards others. You can see the way he treats the members that he gains energy from them because he cares for them (and this is itself, if he ever needs it, ‘fulfills’ the Libra’s ‘need’ somewhat).

Social relationships can be broader than just romantic or sexual,  the gratification from having a ‘successful’ relationship with someone doesn’t have to be romantic in nature.

It’s just as fulfilling to have intimacy/close-bond to someone you’re not attracted to to fulfill your needs/time of needs if you learn how to appreciate it.  

Being a Libra doesn’t point immediately to someone who is always looking for romantic relationships. Some Libras are shy, some don’t think they’re ready. 

(*In Jimin’s case, whether or not he’s in a romantic/personal relationship isn’t our business to make assumption like ‘oh he’s that kind of person who can’t live without a relationship’ or ‘oh he’s probably really really possessive and intimate with his partner because he’s a Scorpio’--- please make that clear!!! It CAN be damaging to the person so please don’t do that to them!) 

The one thing they are (that other signs aren’t) is being open about their inner desires to form bonds to others. It’s not about the mass or certain groups of people, it’s personal one-on-one relationships.  

They’re known for being somewhat picky for a reason. They don’t let others in easily unless they have time/not rushed into working through things at their own pace. At the same time, they know that every relationship will have an impact on the human person. 

Therefore, thinking/wanting any kind of personal relationships shouldn’t be something they should hide/suppress if they realize how important it is to basic human needs/desires.

And about ‘jealousy’-- the term itself is pretty broad, because ‘jealousy’ can work in a lot of different context. Some people have envy, some from greed. They all stem from a ‘feeling’ of comparing the self to others/desire somehow (loosely defined, there’s obviously more to it than just that but!! for now!! let’s touch on it with this first).

But if we’re looking at Jimin, jealousy is more to do with himself. 

Towards others, he’s not a ‘jealous’ person. If he did feel some kind of’ ‘jealousy’ -- it’s more like a mild admittance that he’s bad at something and the majority of the feeling is driven inwards towards self-improvement instead.

This isn’t about romantic relationships btw just in the context of himself, like I said he’s not jealous of others. If we’re talking about ‘oh but does he feel insecure when compared to others?’ -- yeah but everyone does? The main point is that it’s just like ‘oh you’re really good at that, im bad at it. I want to be good at it too.’

It’s not like--- imposing himself onto others because he’s insecure/jealous, if we’re contextualizing it to ‘possessiveness/clinginess’ (and ‘romantic relationships’)

I think most of the time people might think possessiveness stems from insecurity and clinginess is just the effect of being possessive of someone. 

It’s not.

Especially in Jimin’s case, possessiveness is a precaution (*looking out for others/not being misunderstood) and clinginess is conditional (*restricted to those he layers/lets in)

Jealousy, then. Is more about comparing himself to others but not emotionally exploding on them (again, doesn’t want to ‘burden’ others)--but rather admitting to them that ‘oh i want to improve on that because I’m bad at it’

 The energy (heavy-load emotionality) is more driven towards goal-setting, or actualizing the self into achieving that goal/over-coming that goal. (Scorpio Venus)

Because his Scorpio is in Venus, he notices things about others and the comparison thing sometimes can’t be helped. 

But the core of the energy is self-transformation/improvement. Not about ‘dragging the other down/controlling their movement’ -- but rather ‘pushing the self to overcome/accelerate to the pace that they should be’ (Scorpio)

Jealousy is more like a mild motivation for his self-improvement, not a controlling factor on how he should ‘possess’/exercise control over others.

Honestly, the signs aren’t one dimensional. Seeing the word ‘Scorpio’ and ‘Libra’ becomes keywords into ‘possessiveness’ and ‘clingy’.  But it’s not like that. People are more than that. 

They have so much more control over themselves and so many challenges they may have already overcame. They’ll continue to overcome challenges, continue to discover/learn more about themselves. 

See people for people. Especially with people who has signs that gets ‘bad reputations’ for something. They aren’t their signs because the signs become ‘keywords’ for something else. They’re them, and they’re way more complex that what we ‘know’ about them too.

I hope this soothes you worries somehow! And I hope this clears some ideas about Libra/Scorpio as well!! 💓Thanks for asking!! 💓💓  

[autobot-ratchet]

I’ve been wanting to do a character analysis thing on Drift for a long time and now that the comic is over I finally have time to sit down and think about his arc as a whole and how the fandom treats him and I have got some Thoughts and Opinions™

Alright so Drift. let's talk about Drift at his core, who he is and what he's like, which can admittedly be difficult to pinpoint because he spends like 90% of his time throughout the IDW continuity Working On It and figuring out for himself the answer to this question, but whoa hey it was a TRICK QUESTION the answer is ~*~inside him all along~*~*~

No seriously, it actually is. even though Drift goes through a whole lot of changes, including flipping his entire outward personality around like 180°, he doesn't change so much that there's absolutely nothing connecting him to his former self (though he'd probably love for you to think so lmao)

from what I’ve seen, fandom seems to assume that the most important aspects of Drift's character are that he started out as a street rat and that Deadlock was a Big Meanie Murderman and almost all of the fics I’ve read hugely reflect that, a lot of the fandom writes Drift based on their own personal assumptions (mainly assumptions of what they think a homeless drug addict would do and what they think a "Big Bad Decepticon" would do) rather than what Drift as a character would do. When writers don’t consider who Drift was as a person or why he was an addict/Decepticon and acted the way he did, it results in a lot of gross, insulting, boring, and out of character writing

This goes for current Drift too, with regards to his spirituality. Often he's characterized as a "stereotypical hippie", and fandom often doesn’t consider his motivation for being drawn towards it in the first place. Again, assumptions are made about what he is rather than what his actions are and it makes me yearn for death's sweet embrace so let's talk about the most important and consistent things to remember about Drift's character, like overall

There are at least a couple of things we know about him that are true, even through all the personality changes and emotional floundering:

1. When it comes to fight or flight, Drift is a solid fighter, he doesn't just take abuse lying down, he is more than capable of protecting himself.

2. He genuinely believes in justice, both as Drift and Deadlock. He can't stand when people with power abuse people without it.

Let's focus on street rat Drift and Deadlock for now since that's where a lot of people either didn't read or vastly misinterpreted, and also mtmte/lost light Drift is worthy of a section all to himself given how different he is

Point 1: times when Drift defended himself

That time when Gasket got killed and he wrecked the fuck out of the cops that did it in a fit of blind rage (COPS. Meaning he’s not afraid of authority)

That time when one of his Deception comrades told him he'd tattle on him to Turmoil and he shot him in the face (like. in front of everybody, not even trying to be subtle)

That time when Turmoil tried to execute him and he broke free and bailed (again. not afraid to disobey his superiors and get in trouble, cannot stress this enough)

That time when he did it to his own dang self!!! When the heart of darkness was controlling him

so yeah Drift is not one to sit back and let people walk all over him, if someone tries to force him to do something he truly is not okay with doing, he makes them stop and I swear by all that is holy if I see one more fic where he's a poor little ex-prostitute rape victim who just needs to be healed with The Good Dick I'm going to snap you in half like a kit kat bar

lengthways, bitch

point 2: times when Drift elaborated on or demonstrated his true motives (and how that motive is justice and not just rage, the rage is fuel for the justice, y’all)

literally the whole reason Drift became a decepticon was because *King of Town voice* GOVERNMENT AIN'T RIGHT like he was angry about the blatant inequality that led to starvation and death for no reason other than greed on the part of the higher-ups

Deadlock was not super cruel and did not take pleasure in killing autobots like "heehee look how weak they are I love tormenting things weaker than me" he quickly killed as many autobots as he could because he genuinely believed that wiping them all out would win the war and that winning the war would make sure that Cybertron could become a place where no one has to go through what he did in the streets of Rodion

he was never a sadist who enjoyed causing pain and torturing autobots to make himself feel powerful or take out his aggression on them, his goal was to quickly eliminate as many of them as possible and he did a very good job of it and that is why he was an infamous decepticon, because of his absurdly high kill count

now let's get into mtmte Drift and how all this still applies to him even though he's way different now

point 1: still defending himself even though he’s nicer now

yes he liked Rodimus and let Roddy get away with a lot of things he probably would not have put up with as Deadlock but Roddy never crossed that line into "genuinely uncool" and Drift would get real with him even before the exile, like I know Ratchet said Drift "tells him everything he wants to hear" but like. not really lmAO

and of course the whole discourse with the exile, Drift took the blame because he genuinely believed in the quest and his vision and that Rodimus had to be there to see it through, you could honestly argue that it had more to do with his vision than his friendship with Roddy, like yeah they're tight but Drift had his moments where he wasn't totally down with his antics (as shown above) and he really bet everything he had on this quest

Rodimus never abused him or anything like that. Took advantage of him, sure, but like I said, he never crossed that line into “genuinely uncool” and even if he ever tried to, Drift does have his limits and does know how to say no, it’s not an unbalanced relationship, Drift just prioritized the quest above all else and him doing so happened to work in Roddy’s favor (not that Roddy wanted it to since he came clean about everything later but that’s a whole other discussion for another time)

same with Ratchet and his jabs at this religion, Drift’s got his limits and Ratchet has seen them lmao

Drift is also still badass at fighting, let's not forget that

he also still gets angry like he used to, he's not an emotional pushover either

I'd also like to mention that even after his realization of self worth in Empire of Stone where he accepts that he's good for more than just being a weapon to be used by an ideal, he's still holding his own, but less lethally

Usin them hilts instead of the blades, good job honey

point 2: he still cares about justice and doing what’s right even though his mind’s been changed on how to make it happen

during his exile he went around saving mostly organics from decepticon attacks and tyranny, granted yes part of it was probably out of guilt since he no doubt participated in some destruction of organics when Megatron had him convinced it was to help Cybertron but all that's really changed is that now he realizes organics actually aren't detrimental to cybertronian freedom and they deserve to live in peace just as much as he does.

He didn't suddenly go from "whatever, organics aren't even sentient it’s fine to kill them" to "oh shit maybe they are sentient my bad", he went from "Megatron told me organics are trying to impede our freedom much like the autobots are, I have to wipe them out too if we want to win this war and live in peace" to "whoopsie doo it turns out Megatron lied to me and we're treating these organics just like the senate treated us, I have to stop this"

also the Lost Light’s quest! The whole point of the quest was to find the knights of cybertron so they could make the planet suck less, he’s still trying his best to take action to make things better on a large scale like he bought the ship and kickstarted the quest, he’s just lucky Roddy wanted to come with and charmed 200+ people into joining and being their crew for him lmAO he probably would’ve gone by himself anyway if Roddy had refused to help, he really believed in the vision he got that told him to find the knights more than anything

so yeah these two points have way more to do with Drift's character and looking over his whole arc with them in mind makes him much easier to understand, he’s a lot more than just “a helpless victim street rat who turned into a sadist to rival the DJD and then randomly became a hippie” he’s actually a pretty consistent character despite the outward personality shifts and hopefully this helps anyone having trouble characterizing him

[twelvedaysinaugust]

Yeah… He did do that.//

Idk how to feel about this mod. Louis did this last night. I'm not sure how we're supposed to ignore that. And this person isn't even lying. Their Twitter had pictures of that jersey, people said the same.

I don't get why he'd do this if it's just baiting tbh. Look at his face. He has the biggest smile on his face. It wasn't even a mere acknowledgement. He stood there and made sure they knew who he was pointing to. Like what am I supposed to do with that?

And if I'm not wrong, isn't this after he supposedly told your source he's uncomfortable with the speculation. Like you'd think maybe over break he'd think about how interacting with these signs isn't the best idea cause of how larries used that as proof during the NA tour. And don't tell me he isn't aware of that. Larries got a few of those trending and it's Louis. And he still does this. Like what am I supposed to take away from this?

I don't know how to feel about this either, anon. I agree with all your points. It seems clear to me that Louis has been interacting with Larry signs pretty regularly since the start of tour. And with the Styles 94 jersey and others, he's continued pointing until people realized what he was doing. He seems happy and even giddy when he's doing it - I've seen that with my own eyes. And like you said, he's very active on Twitter. At the very least, he can see the fan reaction at shows. If he felt like his aggressive pointing was being misinterpreted, I think he'd stop doing it.

You could say Louis feels like he has to play into Larry in order to have a solo career. But that doesn't really jibe with the notion of Louis finding Larry speculation disrespectful. And this is purely my own opinion, but if his goal is to maintain (or even grow) his fanbase, I don't think it's necessary to interact with Larry signs to this degree. I don't think anyone would stop being a fan if he avoided Larry signs altogether.

So I really don't know what to make of it. If I'm being honest, I lean toward Louis' actions on tour being genuine.

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Chapter 59: Sometimes I Can’t See Myself

Rating: T Fandom: The 100 Pairing: Bellamy x Clarke Chapter: 59/67 Word Count: 4473 Words

Chapter Summary: The one where Bellamy misinterprets a situation.

Also on AO3;  Start from the beginning on AO3

A few weeks after Christmas, Clarke realized Bellamy had stopped showing up unannounced. They still texted every day, but she could feel him pulling back. She didn’t understand. She missed him and it hurt.

Any time she tried to visit him at work, he was in the back of the café doing dishes. He couldn’t make it to any group events she tried to plan, claiming an insane amount of homework. While she couldn’t fault him for taking his education seriously, it was hard not to wonder if she should take it personally.

The only distraction she had was prepping for her next art show. It was hard to decide which paintings to include. She had moved the painting of Bellamy into her room where someone was less likely to stumble upon it. There were days she was tempted to include it, but she was terrified that she would be discovered. Everyone would know how she felt if they saw it. She wasn't ready for that.

Still, she took it to the art building to get a second opinion. If her art professor liked it enough, she thought she could play it off as a declaration of friendship. It was received with more enthusiasm than she expected, but then Lincoln walked in and Clarke panicked. She covered the painting quickly and made an excuse to leave so she could take it home. It went right back in her closet. She definitely wasn't ready.

The night of the show, she was more nervous than ever. Octavia swore Bellamy would be there. He swore he would be there, reminding her that he had never missed one of her shows. Clarke was still worried that he wouldn’t show up, but in a moment of optimism, she decided to put on the little black dress she never had an excuse to wear. It might be enough to make him regret his disappearing act. Maybe.

As people flowed through her section, she was grateful that she hadn’t included the painting. If she had included it, she would have been even more distracted. She was nervous enough as it was and half-assed most of her conversations as a result. She would have felt guilty about that if she spent less time searching for her friends. For Bellamy.

When she finally saw Raven and Octavia round the corner, her excitement bubbled up inside her. It quickly turned to nausea, but she also felt like she was floating on air, because he was right on their heels. There he was with his stupidly attractive messy hair, easy grin, and infinite freckles. She wanted to run to him, but she couldn’t leave her section.

And then Lexa appeared in front of her with a nervous smile. She had emailed a few weeks prior to apologize for how things ended. Clarke was less angry than she had been and had been feeling guilty herself, because Lexa had been... right. It was a strange thing to think, but it was good to know that while things would never be the same, they might be able to be friends.

“Lexa! I didn’t think you’d be in town until next week.”

“They switched up my schedule a little.” Lexa said as they hugged. “I’m glad they did, because your stuff is amazing.”

Clarke grinned and felt her cheeks burn. “Thanks.” In spite of her hope that they might be friends, the situation was still awkward. She had no idea how Raven handled her monthly lunches with Finn. “How have you been doing?”

“I’ve been great. I’m transferring to Polis next year and to start my master’s program, so things have been crazy. How about—”

Octavia and Raven barreled into Clarke from both sides and she grunted. Lexa actually laughed and Clarke realized how much… lighter she seemed. Things really had changed.

“It’s good to see you again, Lexa,” Octavia said, tightening her grip on Clarke’s waist.

“Let’s pretend I know you so I can say ‘it’s been a long time’,” Raven added, tightening her arms around Clarke’s shoulders.

Clarke grinned and slid an arm around them both, grateful for the save. They promised to set up a coffee date to catch up before Lexa left, not wanting to intrude. As soon as she was gone, Maya was there, clinging to Jasper’s hand and excitedly pointing out the brush techniques Clarke had used. It was hard to not be impressed by Maya’s knowledge when it wasn’t even her major.

When O and Raven went to study some of her newer paintings, Harper slid an arm around her shoulders to give her a squeeze. Clarke set an arm around her waist to reciprocate. They hadn’t seen enough of each other over the year and Clarke hoped that could change over the summer. Monty and Miller trickled in last, nudging each other with their elbows and whispering about something Clarke couldn’t hear.

Clarke’s grip on Harper’s waist tightened. “Wasn’t Bellamy with you guys?”

Harper removed herself from Clarke and walked to the edge of the crowd to stand up on her tiptoes. “Yeah. Where the hell did he go? I thought he was right behind me.”

Bellamy’s mind was surprisingly blank as he left the building. He barely registered the rain starting to sprinkle down. All he wanted was to get in his car, but once he had achieved that little goal, different emotions started to flood through him.

The first thing he felt was panic. As he turned the key in the ignition, he realized that he was leaving Clarke’s art show. He was leaving Clarke’s show. Even before they were officially friends, he had gone and he was pulling out of the parking lot without even looking at her new work.

The second thing he felt was anger. At himself. He was fucking leaving Clarke’s show.

For a second, he thought about going back, but then he thought about Lexa and the way Clarke had smiled at her and blushed. It was wrong and he knew it, but he felt oddly possessive of that blush. To see her look at someone else like that drove him crazy.

The third thing he felt was confusion. The way Lexa left had been bad. Clarke had recovered, but he knew she would always be affected by the way things ended between the two of them. There hadn’t been a lack of love, though, and if they got back together….

If they got back together, he would be happy for his friend. But his heart was falling to pieces in his chest. He thought they had been moving toward something, rather slowly, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Clarke felt inevitable. Whatever they could have had was being ripped away from him without a chance to become real.

By the time all of his unpleasant emotions had come back and settled in for the long haul, the rainfall had turned into a downpour. He had been driving for a few minutes with purpose, his only goal getting as far away as possible. Bellamy slowed his pace to accommodate for the heavy rainfall and searched the road for a street sign or somewhere he could pull over.

He wanted to turn around and go back. He needed to apologize for leaving and find some way to make it up to her. No matter what happened with her love life, he needed to be around her, and his behavior was inexcusable.

A sign finally appeared in the cone of light in front of him. Bellamy leaned forward to try and read it as another car blew through the stop sign to his left. He barely had time to register the oncoming headlights before the crash.

Clarke shifted awkwardly on her feet. No one had any idea where Bellamy had gone. Even after they adjourned to the lobby at the end of the exhibit, no one could find him. He was just gone. She stole Miller’s drink and tossed it back. Miller didn’t even protest. He just rolled his eyes and left to get a new one.

Octavia stormed up to the group and pulled Clarke to the side. “His fucking car is gone," she hissed. "If he doesn’t have a good excuse, I’m going to lose my fucking mind.”

Clarke’s heart sank. “Wait, he actually left?” She tried to say something else, but nothing would come out, so she closed her mouth.

Octavia frowned and tilted her head to the side. “Are you okay?”

“Um…. Yeah. He’s just….” Clarke hesitated and Octavia ran a hand up her arm. “You guys have been to all of my shows. I just can’t believe he left.”

“If he doesn’t have a good excuse….” Octavia trailed off with a growl.

“Is everything okay over here?” Raven slid up behind the two of them, causing them both to jump. “It looks like you’re about to murder everything Clarke loves.”

Before Clarke could say anything, Octavia interjected. “My brother is actually gone. He left.”

Raven chewed on her lip for a moment and then winced. “Wait, did he see Clarke talking to Lexa earlier?”

“Why would he leave because I was talking to Lexa?!” Clarke let out in a strangled shout.

Her roommates shared a look that left Clarke a little tempted to kick both of them. Raven opened her mouth to speak when O’s phone started to ring.

“Oh, shit.” Octavia pulled her phone out of her purse and silenced it. “I forgot to turn it off.” But then she glanced down at the screen and her glare returned. She swiped to answer the call. “I have to take this. Bellamy Blake, you had better have a fucking good—” Octavia cut off and went completely pale. Clarke reached out to steady her at the same time as Raven. It felt like Clarke’s heart was going to pound out of her chest. “Where is he?” Octavia gripped Clarke’s arm tightly. It felt like hours before Octavia hung up her phone and shakily deposited it back in her purse. When she looked up, her eyes were watery. “Bell was in an accident. We have to go.”

Clarke nodded and Raven immediately gathered everyone else. Wells sorted the group into carpools, putting Clarke and Octavia in Lincoln’s truck. Even when she protested, Wells insisted that neither of them would be able to drive.

Lincoln held O’s hand the entire ride there and Octavia let the story out in small doses. It was raining so hard that a car had hydroplaned through a stop sign and hit the driver’s side of Bellamy’s car. The only thing the EMT’s could tell her was that he was alive, but no one would know the extent of his injuries until he was done being checked out by a doctor. 

There was more, but Clarke stopped listening. It was too much for her to absorb. First, she tried to focus on taking off her heels and putting on the flats she kept in her purse, but that only took half a minute. Her stomach rolled suddenly. She leaned her head against the back of O’s seat, closing her eyes tight, willing away the nausea. Something brushed against her calf and she jumped, but it was just Octavia’s other hand. It was hard to tell which of them was gripping the other the tightest.

When they pulled into a spot, Clarke and O jumped out of the truck. Lincoln urged them ahead when they looked back at him and the two broke into a run immediately. They both practically slammed into the admissions desk.

“Bellamy Blake?” Octavia asked, winded. “Which room is he in?”

The nurse looked down the list in front of her and then eyed the two of them. “They're still running some tests. We can only have family back there right now.”

“I’m his sister.”

“I can take you back, but your friend is going to have to wait.”

Clarke inhaled sharply. Octavia glared at the nurse. “She’s our family.”

The nurse sighed and looked over Clarke with pursed lips. “I can really only take one of you back right now.”

“But—” Octavia started to protest.

Clarke stopped her by squeezing her hand and forced calmness into her voice. “O, go. Make sure he’s okay. I’ll wait for everyone else and let them know what's going on.”

Octavia hugged her tightly before she followed the nurse down the hall. Once they were out of sight, Clarke set her elbows on the desk and covered her face with her hands. It was hard to think. It was hard to breathe. The entire world was caving in around her and—

A huge hand closed over her shoulder and she forced herself to stillness. If she moved, she might start to cry. That was the last thing she wanted to do.

“Clarke, are you okay?” Lincoln’s question was cautious and the pressure of his hand remained steady.

She took a deep breath before she forced herself to stand up straight. When she turned to face him, his face softened. Before she could say anything, the rest of their friends came barreling down the hall. Lincoln stepped in front of her to manage questions as they all found seats in the waiting room. He rattled off the information O had given them in the car.

No, there was no new news.

Bellamy had a couple more tests to go through.

Yes, Octavia would probably be back there for the remainder of the tests.

No, no one else could go back and see him right now.

Yes, that explained why Clarke was out in the waiting room.

Clarke sat in silence between Wells and Miller. Wells had an arm slung across the back of her chair while Miller tapped his foot rapidly with his arms crossed, glaring into the distance. Jasper was kept distracted by the others, thanks to a deck of cards Harper pulled out of her purse.

Horrible things kept running through Clarke’s mind. Wells occasionally tried to engage her in conversation, but she was too busy imagining internal bleeding or a subdural hematoma to give him more than one-word answers. It didn’t matter that Bellamy wasn’t in the ICU. She was certain there was something fatal the doctors would miss.

An hour later, Wells had joined in on a particularly loud game of ‘Go Fish’ and Miller was still trying to tap a hole into the floor. It was starting to drive Clarke a little insane. She had no idea how he still had the energy in his muscles to do that. But when she turned her head, ready to snap, she noticed that the same expression was still glued to his face. Suddenly, she was grateful that someone else in the room was too worried to be distracted.

Clarke gently set a hand on his knee and the tapping ceased. He turned to look at her, his mouth in a tight line.

“Nate,” she said quietly, “he’s going to be okay.”

Miller rubbed his face, his nails digging in at the jawline. “We’ve just been here too many times the last couple years.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but words seemed to fail him.

“I know. This is—”

She was cut off as Miller jumped up. Clarke followed his gaze to see O striding into the waiting room and jumped up, too. Lincoln barely beat them both to her side. Octavia hugged him briefly before she stepped around him and smiled widely at the group.

“Bell’s okay.” Her voice was scratchy, like she’d been crying. Jasper cheered and Octavia grinned at him. “He’s got a sprained wrist, a couple broken—” Jasper booed and Wells snorted, which led to everyone except Miller and Clarke laughing. Octavia had to wipe her eyes before she could continue. “He’s got a sprained wrist, a couple broken ribs, a mild concussion, and he had to get a couple stitches. But the doctor says he’ll be okay.”

Jasper cheered again and Harper elbowed him. “When can we take him home?”

“They want to keep him overnight for observation, but we should be able to break him out tomorrow if the doctor likes what she sees.”

Clarke unconsciously grabbed Miller’s arm. He settled a hand over hers and squeezed.

“Can we go in and see him?” Jasper asked.

Octavia nodded and everyone started talking at once until Miller held up a hand. “Clarke goes in first.”

The others turned to stare at him for a moment before they seemed to shrug in unison and returned to their seats. Octavia jumped forward and linked her arm with Clarke’s before smiling at Miller. “You can come, too, you know.”

He stopped in his tracks and looked back. “Are you sure?”

When Octavia nodded again, he glanced at Clarke, silently asking for permission. She rolled her eyes before holding her hand out and he half-jogged to meet them. Clarke squeezed his hand and pulled him in so she could put her arm around his waist. She almost laughed when he tensed up before throwing his own arm around her shoulders. Miller wasn’t particularly affectionate, compared to their other friends, but she thought in situations like this, he needed it as much as she did.

The three of them didn’t talk much as they took the short walk down the hall. There wasn’t much to say. But if they had been talking, Clarke would have lost all ability to speak when she saw Bellamy in that hospital bed; the brace on his left wrist; the IV extending from the back of his right hand; the bruise blooming where she had kissed him on Christmas Eve; the butterfly bandage covering the stitches on his left cheekbone. Each new detail she noticed was another knife in her gut.

But then she met his eyes. They were clinging to her like she wasn’t flanked by his sister and his best friend. His breaths were coming in shallow bursts, his eyes tight at the corners, and she could see a little sweat on his brow.

“Clarke,” he exhaled.

Bellamy's voice, his voice was like music, she decided, and it broke whatever ties were holding her back. She practically flew across the room and threw her arms around his neck. He let out a groan even though his arms closed around her tightly. She whispered his name into his hair and tightened her grip.

“Oof. Clarke. That’s a little—” He inhaled sharply. “Broken ribs.”

“Oh, god.” She pulled back. He stopped her from moving back further by sliding his hands down her arms and gripping her elbows. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry. The pain meds just haven’t kicked in yet.”

Up close, she could count his stitches. There were seven. Suddenly, her chest felt hollow and she was flooded with anger. She smacked him on the shoulder with the back of her hand. “What the fuck, Bellamy?”

“What the fuck, what?”

“I think she’s trying to find out what was so important that you had to leave without telling anyone.” Miller’s voice startled Clarke. She gently extracted her arms from Bellamy’s grasp and stood up to include him.

Bellamy sighed. “I just…. I don’t know, okay?”

Miller carefully set a hand on Bellamy’s upper arm. Clarke waited for him to call Bellamy out, but it didn’t come. “Dude, I’m just glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks, man. And thanks for not punching me.” He glared at Clarke and Miller smiled for the first time since they got there.

“I’ll at least wait until you’re all healed up. And then you won’t get out of that explanation, by the way.”

It quickly became apparent that Clarke wasn't going to leave. Miller led Octavia out of the room to let a couple more of their friends go in. Clarke was too busy to notice, double checking everything from his chart to the stitches on his face. 

Having Clarke so far in his personal space was overwhelming, but he took the opportunity to soak it in. Tears pricked her eyes as her fingers danced along his cheek to count his stitches for what he was sure was the hundredth time. She murmured under her breath as she quadruple-checked the brace on his wrist.

Bellamy wondered how much she actually knew about what she was doing. There was the fact that she volunteered at the clinic regularly and had shadowed her mom at work since she was a child. Still, she had no official training, he couldn’t bring himself to protest the attention. Lincoln raised an eyebrow at him when he entered the room and Bellamy could barely even shrug. Between the pain and Clarke practically sitting in his lap, he couldn’t move much.

Everyone trickled in and out, except for her. At one point, O was out in the lobby saying goodbye to Monty, who had an early morning. Miller had taken her spot in the chair and propped his feet up on Bellamy’s bed after stealing his Jell-O. Raven snuck in shortly after and convinced Clarke that Bellamy absolutely needed some junk food from the vending machine.

At first, he was confused, but then Raven turned to face him with her hands on her hips as soon as Clarke left. “Dude, what the fuck?”

Bellamy groaned. “Why does everyone keep ‘what the fuck’ing at me?”

Raven plopped into Clarke’s old spot on his bed and tapped his wrist brace. “How are you going to take care of yourself at home, Blake? You’re a mess and you’re not going to have our favorite princess hovering over you every second to pick up the slack.”

“Hey!” Miller yelled, throwing the empty Jell-O cup at her.

“Yeah, I’m perfectl—”

“Fine. You uh, want to stand up and reach for something for me?”

Bellamy glared at her and lifted his arm. His victory was shortlived as the pain in his ribs increased and he dropped his arm too fast, wincing at the pain.

Raven patted him on the knee with a smug smile. “Told you. You’re going to be so screwed when you go home.”

“He’ll come home with us,” Clarke said as she popped back into the room, clutching a bag of Cheetos under her arm. She ducked under the spoon Miller threw at her and shooed Raven out of her spot. “I’ll sleep on the couch until you’re feeling better.” Bellamy could practically hear the jaws drop around the room. Clarke narrowed her eyes at all of them, mildly offended. “Why is everyone staring at me?”

“I can’t let you do that.” Bellamy wanted to go home with her. It would make his month, hell, his year. He wanted to say more, explain more, but he couldn’t stop staring at her. Every time she said something like that, he couldn’t believe his initial impression of her, because she was easily the most caring, amazing, beautiful person he had ever met.

“I do not want Bellamy living in my house for four to six weeks!” Raven half-shouted, breaking him out of his reverie.

“Thanks, Raven, you’re such a doll,” Bellamy said with a grin.

“I can get stuff off of the high shelves for him!” Miller shouted, standing up and crossing his arms.

The look on Clarke’s face, having missed the earlier exchange, was priceless, but Bellamy’s laughter was cut short by a stabbing pain in his side. Clarke jumped up to check on him while Raven almost fell over laughing at the other end of the room.

An hour later, he wasn’t entirely sure how, but Raven and Lincoln finally managed to pull Clarke away. Her leaving was less than ideal for him, but Bellamy was ready to go to sleep and he wasn’t sure if he could do that with Clarke in the room. When Octavia came back in, she looked like she was ready to pass out, too.

Bellamy frowned at her. “I thought you were going home with them.”

“I’m not letting you stay alone in a creepy hospital.” She was quiet as she moved the two chairs to face each other, chewing on her lip. “I just had to make sure Clarke actually got in the car.”

“What do you mean?”

“I caught her at the nurse’s station insisting that more than one person was supposed to be allowed to stay the night if it was family.”

Bellamy’s twisted that word, family, around in his head. The whole night had been a bundle of mixed signals and he hadn’t even gotten the courage to ask her what happened with Lexa. But Clarke had been there with him, not out with Lexa. He thought that meant something and it did. It meant that they were family and he didn’t know what that meant to Clarke.

When he glanced back at O, she was watching him carefully. “What?”

“Nothing, big brother. Just….” She trailed off, chewing on her lip again.

He hated when she did that. It meant she was plotting something. “Spit it out, O.”

Octavia scoffed. “Fine. I knew you had a crush on her, but I never realized it was this bad.”

“What are you talking about?” Bellamy fought to force down his panic.

“Please.” Octavia rolled her eyes. “I saw your face when Clarke walked in here. How long did it take for you to notice that Miller and I were here, too?”

He closed his mouth tightly, his cheeks burning, and he couldn’t respond. Octavia shot him a triumphant look from under the blankets in her makeshift bed.

“It took at least two minutes. At least.”

“It did not.”

“Did too.”

Before he could respond, the nurse popped her head into the room and switched the light off without warning. “Come on, you two. It’s time for you both to get some rest.”

Bellamy and Octavia stifled their laughter and he was grateful for the interruption. The last thing he needed was to try and explain everything he felt for Clarke.

“The EMTs told me you were delirious when they picked you up, you know,” O whispered in the dark.

“Get off it, O. Nothing I said while I was half-unconscious counts.”

“Okay, so it didn’t mean anything when you said you deserted someone and how this whole thing was payback for hiding your feelings. And you didn’t ask them to turn the ambulance around, because you needed to go back.”

Bellamy frowned, even though he knew she couldn’t see it in the dark. He stayed silent and she didn't push further. Once his mind was less clouded by pain meds, he might be able to convince Octavia to leave it alone. If she waited for everyone to leave before teasing him about that, it meant she probably wouldn't say anything to anyone else. That was enough to satisfy him for the time being.

[punkscowardschampions]

Ali & Ro

Ali: hey, what you reading? Ro: White Nights, the Dostoyevsky short story, at present Ali: Ooh, nothing like some Russian realism on a pleasant Summer's day Ali: cool you down better than any cheap fan Ro: Quite Ro: The sun is fiercer than my determination to finish this volume Ali: Let me know if it's worth a read myself Ali: Idk how you concentrate with Bea and Fraze going on Ro: I don't think you'd enjoy it, but of course, you're always free to make your own mind up Ro: It occurs so often it's essentially white noise, no? Ali: Valid Ali: Clearly I'm just nosy 😜 Ali: gotta know who I'm rooting for on this one, like Ro: Have you picked a side yet? Ali: from what i can ascertain Ali: Bea felt left out when Fraze and his friends went to the pub without her Ali: so, I can see that Ali: but also, when you're glued at the hip as much as they are, I also see the benefits of having some time apart, of course Ro: Oh Ro: How foreign it feels to align with Bea on, well...frankly any subject Ro: Of course I won't voice it and disturb the equilibrium Ro: Pleasant summer's day and everything, as you said Ali: Pity it can't be on something more happy-making Ali: Why not? They've got no problem doing so Ali: Add another voice to the conversation, babe Ro: Such is life, connected only in misery alas Ro: They barely want to hear what each other are saying, any contribution I made would only be lost in the fray Ro: Much like how Bluebeard has treated my kind offering Ali: Doesn't have to be, get in touch with your anger and there'd be endless bonding material Ali: He is a cat with very little manners Ro: That is one area I may never come close to competing with her and thus, shy away from the attempt Ro: True, not a faithful companion but a constant one nevertheless Ro: In so far as there is light coming through the leaves where I reside Ro: But I doubt anyone can compete with Rocky's loyalty this afternoon, talk about joined at the hip Ali: Fair, she's a pro Ali: Not enviable, really, but impressive nonetheless Ali: Who doesn't love a bit of komorebi? He's big into wabi-sabi too, VERY Japanese in his philosophy Ali: Bless, its so sweet, he's ALMOST being cute Ali: He might be a little demon but he does remember his Ps and Qs, nice one, Ma Ro: Fraze certainly is impressed by it. I however, don't know which is more abhorrent, when they fight or make up Ro: Though I am sure that if they insist upon kissing I'll have to take my leave Ro: Indeed Ro: Enviable of him, at least Ro: We can't accuse him of wishing Carly off your lap to take her place, that's years past his fancy, so he must like her without ulterior motives Ro: Tess is being rather well behaved herself, though it is undeniably problematic that she finds more happiness when you have a girlfriend instead of a boy in your life Ali: I think even they'll have the good grace to wait 'til after the festivities for that one Ali: Or find somewhere a bit more private 😂 Ali: Summer lovin' baby, can't fight that high note Ali: Right? Wouldn't be caught dead, nevermind if I got the pictures out to show how he used to let us dress him up Ali: that'd be a real brawl, take note guys Ali: Yeah, ain't looking that gift horse in the mouth though Ali: if she's happy so am I Ro: Well she certainly appears to be so Ro: Perhaps she'll take Rocky home with her, we'd have a solid few minutes before he was returned, I'm sure Ro: Less if you did get the pictures out and his mood took a turn Ali: He'd be buzzin' Ali: Endless supply of other kids on the site Ali: but I give it less than that 'til he wrecked their van, her parents would not be wid it Ro: She actually does live there then? Hard to separate the facts from the school lead fiction sometimes Ro: I mean, it makes sense but Ali: Yes she does but perhaps you're still working under other misapprehensions if that 'makes sense'? Ro: She has the aesthetic the sort of girl who would live in a caravan, or perhaps old van in times past Ro: That's all I'm saying Ro: It would make sense if her parents were travelers Ali: She isn't, though if you need her to have an exotic culture to get behind then feel free to labour under it Ali: I certainly hope we don't have the aesthetic of the sort of girls who live in the suburbs Ali: or the narrow mindset Ro: I don't need anything from her and I wasn't trying to give or take any traits for or from the girl Ro: Just making conversation Ro: I thought you'd appreciate me trying to discover more about her Ro: Now that she's such a presence in your life Ali: Now's your chance, whilst she's actually here herself Ali: even my perspective is still secondhand, if fairer, in my humble opinion, than playground gossip Ro: You know I don't listen to that Ro: I have my own first hand experience of the unfairness of it Ali: I know that, but I also know we're all prone to forgetting to be objective in the face of a bias we want to confirm Ro: Agreed Ro: But I know too that you yourself are bias and inevitably see what you wish to, when it comes to her Ro: To an outsider, which I am, she appears quite different Ali: Are you honestly worried about how my misinterpretation of her might affect me? Ali: An outsider, by your choosing, might I add Ro: Of course I am Ro: That's all I'm worried about Ro: Are you honestly suggesting that you wish for me to included when your actions suggest otherwise? Ro: In spite of your prior words, might I add Ro: Not to mention Carly's own. I very much doubt she would aspire to join me in a sewing circle or tea of an evening Ali: I appreciate your concern but its unwarranted, I can assure you Ali: I'm not loveblind Ali: and surely you see the possibility that because I know her better, I know things that negate appearances from the outside and first impressions? Ali: Of course I do! Trust me, none of us take great joy in you exiling yourself Ali: Just because she's different, doesn't mean you don't have things in common Ali: Being good people, one of them, but more than you are giving credit for, by the way Ro: I can see lots of possibilities, believe me Ro: But you do love her? Ro: Or have I made another wrong impression about that also Ali: I do Ro: Okay Ali: That doesn't mean you have to buy a nice hat and really lean in to getting along but Ali: she's going to be my friend now, whatever happens with the romance side of things Ali: so, you're going to need to learn to live with that idea, for your own sake more than mine but yes, it would be nice Ali: I don't like seeing you like this, 'nor do I like arguing with you Ali: At all Ro: I'm sorry Ro: I hate arguing with you too, more than anything Ro: Definitely more than any reservations I may have, misplaced or otherwise, about Carly Ro: Do you two have plans after the BBQ winds down? I'm willing to try and be more social if she is indeed staying Ali: I'm sorry too, not for being with Carly but that you're feeling this way Ali: I'd really like to rectify that so that sounds perfect Ro: Maybe we could read her tarot for her? Ro: Do you think that's something she'd like Ali: That'd be awesome, I've told her about some of our exploits Ali: We can teach her Ro: I hope not all! Ro: Her believing I'm offering tea to poison it is not the idea Ali: 'Course not Ali: We still have our secrets, Posy Ali: but I'm glad to know you're not scheming on the sly 😉 Ro: I would never Ro: She has yet to do me that wrong Ali: Did you know Laoise beat her up the other night? Ali: Over literally nothing, she's not learnt her lesson AT ALL 😒 Ro: Oh my god Ro: In that case we absolutely must teach Carly some things Ali: 😈 Ro: I try not to hold hatred in my heart for anyone but that girl is a test Ali: Loving her would make Jesus cry Ali: and not in the #goals way she reckons Ali: You're not that kinda bad, honey Ro: Who won the fight? Ro: I hope it was Carly Ali: Sadly it was more of a close call kinda affair Ali: gotta teach her how to land a decent K.O. amongst other things Ali: but you leave that one to me 🥊😘 Ro: Having a common enemy may not make her my friend but I'll admit to having more affection for her now Ali: See? I told you, more in common than you thought Ali: Not gotta be besties but its at least worth a laugh at Laoise's expense Ro: Yes Ro: And Carly really does seem very happy to be here Ro: with you Ali: I hope so Ali: Her life isn't filled with enough happiness, so whatever I can do Ro: And I promise I'll try to do what I can as well Ro: If only blessings on the sly Ali: Thanks, Ro Ali: it feels right having you back on side Ro: For me too Ro: Although I also promise that I always am when it comes to you Ro: I might be slightly put out of joint, sometimes, but never off side Ali: And the same is returned tenfold, you know that Ro: I love you, Ali Ali: I love you too

[love-takes-work]

Seems to be a lot of hatred for “Rocknaldo” online immediately after its air date. Some people are just pissed that a CN promo made them think we’d be meeting a new Gem instead of watching Ronaldo choose a Gem nickname (I didn’t believe we’d be getting a new Gem for a second, given the style of the tease). But most of it’s just Ronaldo hate in general. Ronaldo’s a jerk, etc. Well yeah. He’s a jerk.

But here’s why I think this episode is important. Not Ronaldo’s redemption / apology / stating outright that he was wrong, though that’s good too. Not Steven giving chances to people for trying to understand, though again that’s good too. It’s important because in a simplified way, this brought to light how people who claim to want to understand us and help us can frequently engage in self-serving, counterproductive behavior.

I can’t even count the times in my life that someone “interested in” one of the several marginalized communities I’m part of has committed to a poorly organized, cursory study of my outsider group and then confronted me with claims that they understand what I should be doing better than I do. This is how I should handle my activism. This is the way I should prioritize my goals. This is a behavior or perspective of mine that’s alienating “normal” people like them. They accuse us of hypocrisy or misguidedness because they think it isn’t working if it’s not designed to serve and center them, and then they claim they have a better grasp of my mission than I do.

But this is my whole life. These are our whole lives.

Perspectives from outside are usually welcome, but not at the expense of ours. Not in place of and prioritized over lived experience. They should be learning from us, not striding in and telling us as an ally, they know better than we do what would forward our cause and what would bring us all together for good. Ronaldo in this episode is the worst kind of false ally. He came into Steven’s life with a so-called interest in what the Crystal Gems do, but applied his own ideas of what they’re like:

Expecting to be “issued” a Gem

Telling Steven he should be proud and show off his Gemstone even though he had misgivings about it

Focusing on how “cool” he sounded with his new label

Challenging more established members as to whether they really belonged there

Explicitly accusing established members of having false and invalid reasons for being included

Forcing himself to conform to imagined standards of the group even though they weren’t natural for him (not sleeping), then bragging about how Real Crystal Gem it made him

Responding to challenges by telling an established member that HE needed to go think about his validity to the group

These are all fake ally techniques most of us have seen with people who aren’t REALLY here about forwarding the cause. They give it a cursory study (if that), they slap a star on their shirt and use a new name, and they seek to climb the ranks of legitimacy by knocking down people “above” them who have done their time. Are you sure you really care about this mission? Don’t I seem to have a considered opinion because I’m being critical? Aren’t you really being the hypocrites by claiming you want to help and protect humanity but not accepting ME as I twist your mission statement to fit my agenda? The agenda, of course, just like with Ronaldo, is making THEM feel good. 

If they truly understood, they would apprentice themselves to those for whom THIS IS THEIR WHOLE LIFE, and they would listen FAR more than they would talk. This is not only a way to offer respect and deference to their expertise; it is EFFECTIVE. It is the best way to get an education about what actually helps in a cause. Your ideas may be valuable and your questions are worth asking, but as a person who is perhaps trying to enter a movement alongside those whose very lives are consumed by it, you must listen hard, and listen first. 

Ronaldo still doesn’t totally get it at the end. He thinks the real problem is he’s just too much of an outsider, even for outsiders. At least he’s closer to the truth now and isn’t actively spreading harmful lies, but well-meaning allies who don’t listen can still be more hurt than help. He seems happy emphasizing the imagined mystique that comes with being the “ultimate outsider,” but really, he’s a person who wants a cause more than he actually cares about any causes. 

The Ronaldos of this world want to have done but don’t want to do. They want to skip to the part where they’re the hero of the battle, but not have to be humbled by the long hours and days of injuries, practice, concentration, and dedication. They want glory, and they have the mainstream perspective that they must be aggressive, confident, and competitive against others on their same side before they’ll come out on top. If you are an outsider to a movement and you truly want to be an ally, you must know why. Ronaldo couldn’t have answered the first question about what the Crystal Gems fight for. He never demonstrated that he could be trusted with the answer, though Steven was tolerant enough to keep giving him the benefit of the doubt.

A good lesson I took from this episode is this: If a Ronaldo is trying to infiltrate your inner circle and he’s already billing himself as an expert above people with more life experience, keep in mind that he is there to make everything about your movement conform to an ideology that serves HIM, and if necessary he will warp it and turn it against the people who are living it. And even if you’re part of a movement but have some similarities to Ronaldo—like Steven sharing Ronaldo’s experience of having an organic body and not being trusted on missions at first—don’t let a superficial similarity be misinterpreted as a substitute for authentic lived experience on the axis you’re examining here. 

Invite new allies slowly, with caution, the way Steven and later the other Gems began to welcome Connie into the fold after she demonstrated solidarity, respect, and patience. If they show up on your doorstep with a suitcase and they’re asking why THEY don’t get your mother’s sword within a day, that is a red flag. They will divide and damage your core team in search of personal glory, and if you can’t get them to curb this behavior and sit down, you may have to turn them away for your own safety. Don’t let them take the glory from you, and if you do that, they will find a “better” cause that serves their REAL agenda soon enough.

[ytsthepodcast]

Going Beyond Face Value (#26)

 In this episode, Larry and I go into the essential character of a relationship between facts, theories, and conspiracies. What differentiates our understanding of politics and why does it even matter. The truth is what I want to know and why aren't we hearing about it. That means looking at every avenue of ideas and considering all possibilities. Acknowledging that we are all raised within an identical society-under law, conditioned to follow in the suite to a higher power.

 Now here is where problems start to rise, when we're unable to grasp who's authentic, also misinterpretation about misrepresented information. Which leads to accepting the truth. Its a back-and-forth debate over how we should interpret what's being presented to us as factual when we have no clue if there's an agenda behind what's presented. Even if we compare the different contexts and how the different contexts influence our interpretations- always leads into ambiguity, biased because no matter how it's interpreted there will always be a flaw-In all cases, there's always agenda behind the presented argument.   

 Political thought contains interchangeable concepts, defining this universal reasoning that's plastic within our mechanical mechanism.

Enjoy!

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    Did you listen to the episode Habitual Resentment Invariably Leads To Self-Pity (#14)? When our own resentment is reinforced, we begin to search and look for injustices. Emotional reinforcement of self-pity leads to your personal self-created resentment.

          LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE

  Larry Oliver

Greg Favazza

Used Cars (1980)-IMDb

JoeBiden

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      SHOW NOTES

The difference between motivation and manipulation (The intent)

Our value proposition and how our delivery matters.

Try to picture how the outcome of a conversation between a healer, surgeon, doctor, and chiropractor. I wonder how that would play out. 

What makes a leader?

And much more.

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Defying Problems, How to Solve Through Refinment (#25)

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  Transcription

  You just never know how the day's going to turn out. Exactly. And that's why it's important to make sure you get that foundation because. I feel like once I have that in the morning, I can just face anything. Exactly, And without it the day, even if the day goes really well, it still seems a little out of order because for that morning ritual that morning habit, whatever we do, it's. [00:10:32] It's important. It is. And I'm trying to get the lady that I just started seeing the get on one of those. I think her life will be a lot less hectic. Absolutely. That's very true. I understand. And relate to that perfectly. Yes. What else has been going on this last week or so? Other than that. I [00:11:00] just, I had a lot of interviews actually. [00:11:03] I interviewed, somebody in Tokyo, Japan, I had one in Canada. However, she had to cancel and re Oh my God. I'm having a lot of these tongue twisters or these blank moments. Yeah. Reschedule. [00:11:25] And, so then there's that, then I have another one today, which of course with this guy, Jimmy Rex, you John entrepreneur guy. He also rescheduled on me and where's he out of? he is out of, I want to say, Los Angeles, huge. author slash entrepreneur and I just reached out to him, just winged it and he's sure, we can do that. [00:11:52] So rescheduling, have you ever, followed in your cat Lynn's stuff? [00:12:00] And Flint. Flint. Yeah. Pat Glenn. Yes. Yes. Smart, passive income. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting guys got a lot of, a lot of really good tips, hints, for entrepreneurs as well as people in general. Yeah. I followed him for quite a while when I don't like about his information. [00:12:28] It's. It's so damn good that it keeps you wanting more. And then that's where the free stuff is over with and you gotta start forking money out. Exactly. Exactly. He delivers a lot of. Real value-packed, free stuff, if you will, but it's, it's, like the heroin dealer on the corner. He gives you that first fix free. [00:12:54] Cause he knows you'll be back and then yeah. Gotcha. Yeah. That's exactly right in a [00:13:00] positive way. Not, but a lot of the really good, people that deliver information. Operate on, on that same, model, because one, it works too. It's, a great marketing tool, not only for them, but you can transfer that virtually to any type of business or service, provide value at no cost. [00:13:29] And then people will naturally come to you because they look at you as a resource. once you're a resource and that person feels. Hey, that guy understands me and I feel comfortable with him. You probably have a client or customer for life unless you screw it up like 18 PS and spectrums and the large communication companies in the world, the large [00:14:00] insurance companies of the world. [00:14:00] I think they play Libby take liberties with their longterm existence. Customers. And that's my opinion for today. One of them now that's, it's interesting. I don't understand it though. As far as marketing and how to real people in. Cause I feel like it's almost manipulative in a way, but I know it's, something I need to adjust because I put a fine line between my character as far as. [00:14:32] Doing the right things. It's I took it to heart as far as following orders in away. And now I'm starting to see the gray areas and where it's acceptable and where it's not acceptable. What do you think? what do you think the difference is between manipulation and motivation? Motivation will be to inspire and motivate somebody [00:15:00] because it's for their own good. [00:15:03] They're just, they don't see it because it's, bigger than them. And you can see it because you have more experience or more knowledge and manipulation. that's. I think a monster in itself, but that's just to take advantage of them for your own benefit. Interesting. in, I think whenever I hear the word manipulate, I think of some sort of negative connotation, but sometimes when you really look at, the difference between motivating and manipulate it's to a fine line. [00:15:44] It's a fine line. Some of the motivational techniques aren't far off of manipulative [00:15:56] ways. We try to persuade people. [00:16:00] I think, but you hit it the most important part. I think you hit on the head in that motivation is for the benefit of the other person. Whereas for, the best of the other person, whereas manipulation may or may not take into consideration that other person or the other party or the other entity more selfish. [00:16:26] I want to get this person to do that for me because of my interests. Wait, are you saying, wait, what if it's the exact same thing, but it's just a perspective and how you look at it. what we talked about last time. It just depends. people, tend to feel that, and this is a generalization, but I believe, people tend to feel old school salespeople. [00:16:58] Picture of the used [00:17:00] car salesman with the big plaid sport coat and a white patent leather belt and shoes to match, or the big cigar in his mouth and a gold chain around his neck and backslap, and then, Hey, come on, okay. People tend to when you get that negative connotation of a salesperson and you might think manipulation versus. [00:17:23] Really professional salesperson that kind of asked a lot of questions, does a whole bunch more asking than telling. And then once he really finds out what your pain is, where your needs are if he's got the product or service to solve them. He'll propose those to you. And if everything went really well, you as the customer or the potential client will ask him, Oh, that's really cool. [00:17:54] What's the next step? How do I get that? What do I do now versus the [00:18:00] old school manipulation techniques were, these people were trained and here are the five best closes, and they spend a little time getting to know the person but spend an immense amount of time trying to close it, the person versus. [00:18:17] My little triangle works like that. And here at the base, the great big, broad base is you ask a bunch of questions. You get to know that other person, what are they need and how, what I offer fits into what motivates them, what helps them attain their goal. And then, that pyramid gets really small. [00:18:39] So when you get to the top, instead of worrying about closing you as the offer of services, don't have to close because. The person says, yeah, what do we do now? And I want him, I want, that. That's what I want. How cool is that? But then if we will look into the type of mindset that a car [00:19:00] salesman would have, a lot of them are working off commission. [00:19:03] So I think that's our ideal goal is to close the deal. I can see that. I just, I can't really see and wanting to help anybody but themselves, but that's, coming from me. Cause I grew up with a father who was a car salesman for over 20 years. yeah. And what I'm saying is even when, and I use a car salesman because very, almost everybody can relate to that picture. [00:19:32] I'm an old, funny movie is used cars. And, it's all built around this, generalization, the guy described because so many people can relate to them, whether it's on the car lot, or whether it's a door to door, high pressure, one call salesperson, so on and so forth. But professional salespeople are in every industry, [00:20:00] everything from, and this may shock some people, doctors, lawyers, Accountants engineers, all these people have to sell to get business, ultimately your marketing. [00:20:15] And then when you meet them because of effective marketing, whatever that marketing maybe, even if it's only the best marketing, which is word of mouth. Yeah. Susie said you designed their addition on their house and they really want it to be okay. That's that marketing that positioned the architect. [00:20:35] To get this potential client in front of them. And then he asked him a bunch of questions. He got to know them, or she got to know them and then built his or her presentation around their needs. So it's still if somebody [00:21:00] tells you they don't sell their line, Everybody is selling every day. The guy at the bar with the clever pickup line to the attractive gal is selling her on come home with me tonight. [00:21:15] The doctor that says, Hey, the only way we can fix your back is, I got to fuse these two lower discs. Really cause the chiropractor would say, there's no surgery necessary. And he would sell you on coming into adjustments three times a week. And then the natural healer would tell you, need to come to my yoga studio. [00:21:39] And then I got these special herbs and teas everybody's and I'm not saying anybody is in it for themselves, but the surgeon has no other way to heal somebody than to slice them open and do whatever he's going to do. And in order for him to stay in business, as much as we might want to [00:22:00] think that he's not in it for the money. [00:22:03] if you look at his house and his country club dues and his Mercedes, in his $500 shoes. Yeah. He, money is part of the motivation for him. There's more hopefully esoteric stuff there, but I really believe, selling is just communicating. And in motivating and some of the higher pressure salespeople may manipulate. [00:22:30] If in fact, you want to look at manipulation in, a negative connotation. So it's just, it's interesting. I would love to see those three in a room. I think that'll be interesting to a healer, a doctor, and or surgeon. And a chiropractor. I think that'll be a really fun conversation and listened to, but also the surgeon, as far as wearing the $500 shoes, that could be his own definition of [00:23:00] success as far as his work ethic. [00:23:02] And then we backtrack on everybody that's selling themselves. I think we're talking about their value proposition as far as we may work for a company that may be our profession. But ideally, we tailored our being around this type of delivery where accountability is number one. So when we were to look at a playbook and we go down the stats and see, Oh, we know Greg is sometimes late to his interviews. [00:23:33] He's usually five minutes short, but however, he is a nerd, he is consistently refining. We can count on him for that. I think, and what I've found life happens. So it's okay to be late every now and then, Yes. life happens. So you can't ever be too hard on yourself. Oh yeah. [00:24:00] That's very. [00:24:01] Hard to even fathom right now. What is it about why we as people are our most severe critics? Because we overestimate what reality really is. We catastrophize in our head the worst possible outcome, and none of that happens in reality. It's so true. And then what we perceive our reality is our perceived reality. [00:24:36] I think everyone's reality is their perception of this moment, of this situation. and many times their preconceived perception or notion is what causes procrastination or causes, whatever. Is causing them to face whatever the situation is. [00:25:02] [00:25:00] knowing you're not a news junkie, there was an interesting piece of news yesterday that go on the, almost for sure. Democrat nominee for president of the United States, Joe Biden announced his vice-presidential running mate. and that is Kamala Harris. Are you familiar with her at all? Neither would let's first, before we go any further, what, how do we, how do you feel about Joe Biden one? [00:25:46] And is he somebody. That's inlined with the type of character we were looking at last year or not last year. Last episode with, [00:26:00] John Lewis. [00:26:03] Yeah. I would say he's much more in line with John Lewis, then 45 is. Biden. It has served the country for 50 years, 45, 50 years in one capacity or the other, he, my thought on Biden. [00:26:29] Okay. To be real, to be really open and honest during the primaries. Before it was pretty much him. His vice-presidential Harris was my pick for the presidential candidate, even though it would be a real long shot for her as presidential candidate to win the presidency with Biden. As what I believe will be the [00:27:00] nominee for the Democrats. [00:27:05] Biden before he named his running mate offers the country and the country. Cause that's all it gets to vote on him. a very, direct change from what we have now. From chaos and narcism and no values and I'm in it for my own. Good. My own benefit in screwed the rest of you to somebody that has some humility, admits mistakes, is a leader, has leadership qualities. [00:27:55] has, has ethics [00:28:00] puts a few things before him or at least even with him, and, he knows his way around the international political realm also. so I'm happy with his knee as a person. I'm happy with his choice Harris. Harris has an incredible history. In the time she served the government. [00:28:31] She's an Indian black Senator of California. Prior to that, she was the first-ever female and black attorney general of the state of California, which. the trivia fact is that's the largest department of justice. She ran outside of the federal [00:29:00] department of justice. that's such a huge department of justice. [00:29:08] The only thing that tops it is the federal department of justice. No other state comes close to what she was in charge of. Oh, and she's very astute. If you watch, I know you probably didn't, but any of the hearings that she's participated in as a Senator, there's only, a couple of female senators, a few female senators, and she's, there's only, I think been one other black woman, female Senator in the country's history. [00:29:42] So there's, a lot of history being made right now, B because of his choice. And I think together, they offer a really strong team. And if Biden wins the election, if, [00:30:00] because of his age, that when the second term rolls around, Depending on his physical situation. If he were to step down, it would be easy for him to step down and hand the key to Harris. [00:30:16] And depending on what happened during those four years, she could very easily then become the first female. Okay. To be president of this country. What, for whatever. I think that's cool. is it important? I suppose from the standpoint that yeah, even you, the young lady can be president of the United States, even though some people now don't aspire to that because of what's happened in the last four years, opine, it's interesting that see, there's, a lot of things that are running through my head [00:31:00] is we have. [00:31:02] An upcoming election with a new individual and as any person would look in, say a dating world, you pattern recognize from previous experience experiences not to run into our date. Somebody that was a huge pain in the ass in your past. Now we have so much trauma in our heads that we have to. Really just dig into this individual who might seem like they have a hundred percent positive intentions. [00:31:41] And I think that's, I don't know. I don't, know what's going to happen with the outcome of that. And it does make sense as far as with he's choosing. I don't remember her name [00:32:00] to be his running mate. That is, that looks good. I said, but it just, seems to, it just seems like it's too good in a way, as far as what we have to that it's's like the ideal image of what America would want. [00:32:25] I agree with you. and I think there's a lot of people that are ready for that. When you look at the way the world looks now versus the way it did three and a half years ago, it looks a lot different in, many respects. One of the things here in our country that we've seen. w without trying to put a judgment on it and trying to stay as objective as I can, we've seen a lot of chaos, more chaos than ever. [00:32:58] And if you ask the [00:33:00] Democrats, they'll tell you it's the cause of the Republicans and Trump. And if you ask Trump in his. Followers, he, and they will tell you it's all because of the Democrats. and, that's part of the chaos is this crazy divided nation that we're in. And I don't really believe we've been this divided since the civil war, the division is deep. [00:33:28] It's hate kind of division. It's not. where two people can sit down and talk about their different opinions and why they support this person versus that person. It used to be, you could have those kinds of discussions. Nowadays, people lose friends and stop talking and seeing relatives because of, where they are on this, fulcrum, cause it's the crazy Seesaw thing. [00:34:01] [00:34:00] It just seems like it would be really nice to have some integrity and honesty and leadership, as honest as politicians can be, recognizing that there's a whole bunch of lying going on in politics. I get that, but not everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie. not everything that goes wrong is. [00:34:29] Because of the other team, not everything that goes right is because of me, my administration, I did this, this is the greatest economy in the world, no one would have foreseen it and just makeup stuff. 45 said I think it was last week. It might've been the week before. So if I've repeated this, it's just because it's so awesome. [00:34:57] Not in a good way, but [00:35:00] he was on the tarmac of the Cleveland or Cincinnati airport and was talking about Biden and how he's going to hurt this country. If Biden's elected, he will hurt the country. He will hurt the Bible and he will hurt God. he said those three things, the president of the United States. [00:35:23] Said that a potential candidate, because technically Biden's not even the candidate, but a potential candidate for the United States presidency will hurt God. Yeah. Whether you believe in God or not historically God's omnipotent. you'll talk to some people who will tell you, there's nobody more powerful than God yet Biden can hurt God. [00:35:51] Wow. I gotta tell ya if he's that powerful. Maybe we need him to calm everything down, and then [00:36:00] we'll deal with God later. I don't know. That's interesting. Are we looking at a shift in the type of presidential character? Like I believe with Obama, he is a peacekeeper. And then when we've had that, now we need somebody who's. [00:36:19] More towards war than now. Are we rolling? Rotating back down to peace. And then we look at the division between the Democrats and the Republicans and how much there's so much hate pointing at one another, but nobody's willing to take ownership and their own faults. To me, it just, I'm just, looking at this from a third person, as far as they're projecting their own past. [00:36:48] Failure's on to them as they are the reason, but it's just like history repeats itself. fuck. Yeah. cause we're we have this old school mindset. this is the industrial [00:37:00] mindset that we still have yet to adopt. And now we have AI happening. We have so much going on just a mass amount of knowledge yet. [00:37:10] Why are we still doing these primitive little. Just Pat. It just, makes me angry. It's just what are we doing? It's a waste of time. And not only is it a waste of time, especially when you take into consideration AI artificial intelligence is, really making so many decisions for politicians. the way they run their campaign is based so much. [00:37:40] If you run a good campaign, you're going to have a lot of data that you mind by way of algorithms. it's AI making all these huge decisions that people go around like this like it's not, but AI is getting more and more, [00:38:00] Into a situation where the amount of control it has is phenomenal. [00:38:08] And, I'm not, there's no judgment there, to a large extent based on the algorithms, of course, but AI doesn't lie. AI doesn't have, have to deal with scandals. and so there's a whole bunch of advantages to AI. but I think used in con right now where we are technologically AI combined with the human mind in human emotions can be pretty powerful. [00:38:42] Use powerfully use power. It's powerful, both, for the good of people or anything. That's powerful. It can be used. in a negative connotation for control and anarchy and so on [00:39:00] and so forth or for the good of people, the good common cause, which I think we need. I think the world's continuing to miss a lot, that it's a little esoteric, but I'm a leftover hippie. [00:39:15] And I firmly believe that what the on Warwick saying about. 40 50 years ago, what the world needs now is love. Sweet love. yeah, but with the AI, as far as that being good or bad, I want to know is who's actually programming it. What type of character an individual is. Yeah. What did they build into these algorithms from which AI will continue to get smarter and smarter No, that's interesting. even with the [00:40:00] scientific method on just proposing a hypothesis, it's still not even free of that bias. [00:40:07] Not even free of. Just leaning on what the individual's testing towards their favor, rather than against their favor. There's always something that's going to impact the end result. And I still feel like it's going to be the same thing every time unless there is a drastic change in something huge. and see that's where this old guy sees a huge benefit. [00:40:38] To AI in that, regardless of the bias, that was part of any, and all of the algorithms that were built for the AI as AI continues to advance and it's consuming all the data that's available because [00:41:00] AI, at some point will be able to consume. Every bit of data, it won't need new algorithms because the algorithms that it was given as part of this AI works like our mind, except on a scale that we can't begin to understand how, it can gather all this information and make unemotional decisions, make decisions based on the math, the zeros and ones. [00:41:33] No. so, I think from that standpoint, it won't take stuff into consideration that human emotion takes into consideration. if I make the decision to do this, how will I look in the eyes of those people? AI, I don't think AI can, maybe, I don't think he considers that. It says, based on this information, it's [00:42:00] B. [00:42:01] You know next. so it's interesting. It's we live in a world that's, it's extremely interesting. And I, think to a large extent, we're at a very interesting point, for, certainly for the country and for the world, what's going to happen in this election, for the country and the world is pretty damn important regardless of the outcome. [00:42:31] Oh, it's frightening. How much towing is going on relative to the election and the procedures and the election and the setups coming into the election. As far as methodology, mailing ballots, no mail-in ballots, one side says, Hey, The [00:43:00] election's rigged. It's terrible. It's just going to be rigged. [00:43:03] the Democrats are doing all are going to have all this fraud and Malin. Do you think that's gonna impact the people actually wanting to vote versus not? not necessarily the impact comes from when the results are presented to the. To the world, depending on who wins. the 45 is apt to say if he's not victorious, I told you it was rigged. [00:43:40] And so we're going to redo the election. That's what we're going to do. We're it. I have the power to shy. Am I the most powerful guy here, regardless of what the constitution says, regardless of this coat, these three code branches, I think we need to have another election because this is all fucked up. [00:43:59] We can't [00:44:00] even try to recount, we don't know what's fraud and what's not, and I'm not leaving office. What are you going to do about it? the Supreme court comes and says, you have to leave office. Or, and he's got a couple of high level military people that choose to side with him and, they secure the white house. [00:44:25] And yeah, he's our president. Who's, hadn't been a new election and he said that this selection wasn't valid, he's our leader. So I'm going to follow, there, comes into that play that, something we talked about from the beginning, and that's, ethical in value standards that military, I gotta report to the commander, gotta follow his wishes. [00:44:49] What point do you say, dude? Mutiny on this ship. You don't have a clue as to how to get, us out of this hurricane, the ship's going down, [00:45:00] we're taken over theoretically, That would see that play out. Cause I have a weird outlook on life. I always, I want to say catastrophize, but just analyze possibilities of what-if scenarios and. [00:45:20] Just the paint, the picture you painted for me, that is a possibility because from how my understanding on how he made office, it's like he had friends over in Russia or he, I feel like there was something with the relationship with that country that helped impact. His success as far as he was saying, Oh, I'm for them, I'm against them. [00:45:50] I'm not talking to them. I don't know if you're familiar with that. If you can shed some light on that. Are you talking about all the Russia, Russian interference, and his [00:46:00] relationship with Putin and yes. Yeah. first of all, to, just do a little positioning, recognize that before he was president before he was elected president, I think, before he ever publicly decided he was going to seek that office, Putin spent a lot of time together because the two of them together wanted to put a Trump Tower in Moscow. [00:46:34] Interesting. Yeah. And that's pretty well established. In a fact, they had conversations about a Trump tower, a luxurious Trump tower in Moscow. That's one of the reasons I believe, and this is opined. okay. I believe that, The United States. [00:47:00] Congress is so curious to get a full financial trail of Trump and all his organizations to see if there are any financial ties to Russia and, or the powerful Russian people leaders. To what degree does this influence decisions that. 45 has made and will continue to make, because all of the, excuse me, the 17, intelligence agencies here in the United States, way back when all agreed. [00:47:37] There was no question in their mind. That there was interference from, Russia. To what degree you can say this vote was because of their interference. Nobody can prove that, but when all 17 of our intelligence agencies agree on one fact to say that they're all corrupt, there might be a [00:48:00] handful of corrupt ones. [00:48:01] there's corruption all over at the highest levels of our government. We've seen corruption as we've never seen before. From a guy that was going to clean the swamp out. Yeah. What is your definition of corruption? it could come back to manipulation almost really when you stop and think about what's cropped. [00:48:27] corrupt is when. You are a leader of a country and you're supposed to be making decisions one within the constraints of the law, the constitution, and you go outside the constitution, because, your daughter is trying to get patents with China. that's corrupt. I think when you have other heads of state from other foreign countries, stay at your hotel. [00:49:00] [00:49:00] In Washington, DC when they visit, I think that's pretty fucking corrupt. I think when you go and play golf at one of yours. Country clubs and it costs, I don't know how many tens of millions of dollars to take your entourage. Cause you got to have your security detail. You gotta have your fucking, motor escort. [00:49:23] You can't rent from, enterprise and get a Cadillac. You need that great, big, heavy Bulletproof piece of shit, and all that, any need 83 security service guys serve secret service guys, and. When he became president, I think it's corrupt that the dues to your country, to the country club, that he hangs out, that he owns the dues, doubled the day after he was president. [00:49:51] Cause you want to hang with me, you gotta pay dude, and his, big deal, the way he's handled [00:50:00] COVID there's is there any fact to this? I don't know. Probably not, but I can draw. Lines and inferences. He doesn't like the economy shut down. Not because of what's happening to the working guy, the common guy, because nobody's traveling is fucking Trump towers, his moral Lago, his all his shit. [00:50:23] Nobody's going to cause nobody to travel. You want people that are traveling are politicians and people that absolutely fucking have to get on a commercial airline, Some of that is real corruption. it's when you're doing something for, to, advance your personal goals at the expense of others and, or it's absolutely unlawful. [00:50:53] you can find a law that says, no, you can't do this. And. [00:51:00] Be in this position, whether it's a business guy taking payola under the table, or it's the president of the United States taking income from his properties because his position in the office gives him the ability to have foreign dignitaries. [00:51:20] Yeah. You just stay around the corner here at my hotel. We'll take care of you there. No. that's pretty fucking corrupt, I think, but I'm just before he was running for president at like even announced, I think I have seen this, I was like on the Simpsons as far as they just show like him running. I don't know what year this was but just projected him going. [00:51:51] Up as president. And that was like maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago. It's been a while since I've seen the symptoms and it's like, where do they [00:52:00] get that information from? is that just a coincidence? Because at the time he was just a bizarre character. So they like who is the most outrageous individual we can play as running for president on this episode. [00:52:14] And they choose him well, way, back with him and. 15 years, 10, 15 years, certainly more than 10 years. he had interviews with many talk show hosts and radio show hosts, and, they would, and I don't know why they would ask a business guy in a pretty non-successful business guy. [00:52:41] when you figure he's taken six of his companies, all of which are basically one main corporation, bankrupt, I, I don't know how successful it is. but, and he'll tell you, he has nothing to do with success. He was playing the system. The laws are set up for [00:53:00] me to fuck people, and it's not the big wealthy banks that he fucks when he goes bankrupt. [00:53:06] But it's a little contractor that, painted the inside of the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City that presented him with the invoice. When he said, no, I'm not going to pay you. I don't have any money. And then that puts a lane on his, his, what did he be? His LLC or, just him in general. And over time, if it doesn't get paid off, they don't really get their money. [00:53:31] They never do because again, the LLCs or corporations or trust, whoever ultimately is, the entity that has it. There are no assets, there's no money. and another judgment, he doesn't give a shit. He's probably the most, this guy is probably leading a gate litigated more stuff than, anybody ever. [00:53:55] he still has hundreds, if not thousands of [00:54:00] currently filed lawsuits against him for the fraud, he committed relative to his university. Those are still pending and he can play with those people forever. Cause he keeps paying as attorneys. just keep it in court a little bit longer, it doesn't go away because they don't have the financial resources that he has. [00:54:21] And that's the other thing. Valarie says he's done a successful businessman and I know intuitively that he doesn't have near the wealth. He tries telling you he has, if he did, he'd show you his fucking tax return. There's no reason for them not to show his tax return unless he's fucking hiding something. [00:54:42] He tells you he's one of the richest guys in the world. Okay. Show me all the rich guys, show me where I can go find their shit. the only thing that makes you rich is you had this big foundation that you stole money out of. And the state of New York made you shut down your [00:55:00] charitable foundation because your family was living out of it. [00:55:05] God it's like, where does it stop now? Is all this true? supporters will tell you no, it's just shit made up from the other side. No, it isn't, I don't know, show us your fucking tax return and prove it, innocent people will prove their innocence after some period of time. [00:55:29] Yes. And it's a really easy way for him. The easiest thing in the world for him right now, if all this bullshit that the Democrats and the liberals are making up about him and how he corrupts the country and all these business interests that could be convoluted. Show us your fucking taxes. There's not a president in our history in contemporary history. [00:55:52] It has not shown us our taxes. You promise Mr. President, God, that sounds terrible. I didn't him. [00:56:00] 45. You promised you were going to show your taxes after you were elected. Oh, but you're being audited. IRS doesn't care who you show your taxes to, whether you're being audited or not. You can show your taxes anytime you want. [00:56:15] Show them. Prove it let these fucking accountants go through. Probably his return probably is this thick, he's got I dunno, 63 different entities, and all this shit, but let these accounts plow through all that shit. And then tell the American public, know this guy's clean as a whistle, his fear. [00:56:39] And I agree with this. If you put some investigators on mulling over paperwork, they're going to find shit wrong. we all have done stuff wrong, so he's, I'm afraid they're going to, find something wrong. Of course, they're going to find in with him, they're going to find a lot of shit wrong. [00:56:59] Cause [00:57:00] he did it on purpose. it wasn't an additional, a mathematical error, But I think having a complete financial picture of the guy could show the country, show the world financially, why he does some of what he does. Decision-making as a leader of the free world. And it'll be interesting. [00:57:27] Then to caveat when you were saying, we could also see where the corruption is actually taking place. As far as it he's done certain things that certain departments should have covered. That is where we can start backtracking and start eliminating the corruption from the ass, end out the mouth. Exactly. [00:57:52] And that picture I just described. And in that picture that you just described, that the scary thing is [00:58:00] where does the corruption end and how do you end corruption? Because a lot of the people that would otherwise have responsibility for ending corruption and going after the corrupt, they are indeed part of the corruption. [00:58:17] And so it's that, it's a circle and it's a tough circle. If anybody heard the interview between 11 on, Fox Life, Liberty and Levin when he interviewed attorney general William Barr earlier this week, most frightening interview I've ever heard. William Barr truly, I believe, truly believes that he is 40 fives, personal attorney. [00:58:53] And his job is not to head up the department of justice of the United States of America. His [00:59:00] job is to make sure that 45 is reelected and that he can offer him as much protection as possible. And if you listen to this interview, if you never heard any news ever about Trump and bar and the Mueller report and Russia, and. [00:59:20] What's going on with Senate hearings, congressional hearings, and just listened to this one interview. And it was Fox interviewing him. this guy is scary. He and Trump together. If they have one corrupt high level, military guy can take over, this is conspiratorial. I know that, but it's, that frightening. [00:59:47] W when you see those levels of, governmental officials, all line for each other. at some point in time, Nixon's closest [01:00:00] advisors said, dude, we got you, they got you, your cookie hands in the jar, your hands in the cookie jar. You got to come clean and Nixon looked at everything and said, yeah, you're fucking right. [01:00:17] My best stance is to resign. And hopefully, forward my vice president who will now be president will pardon me, which he did. And he deserved it. the man was he, was punished enough. I really believe, that term you use conspiracy Tutorial. Do you feel like that term has, is a bad taste in people's mouths when we're really trying to analyze different avenues of how this could play out? [01:00:55] When we start, I just feel like when that term gets thrown out there, people. [01:01:00] Just dismiss it automatically because it's associated with things that happen in the past or are projected into the future that is least likely to happen. But I don't understand why nobody wants to even consider that as a possibility. [01:01:19] Yeah. And that's, I will tell you, Not terribly long ago. in the last five or six years ago, I looked at conspiracy ideas and theories and thought, Oh, those guys are off their fucking rocker. And then I realized, fuck, we all have conspiracy theories because all of our theories, if they don't go with the mainstream, Are conspiratorial, aren't they? [01:01:51] if you walk down this way, but everybody else is going this way and I tell why you shouldn't be going that way, because based on my thoughts, [01:02:00] it's a conspiracy. when you look at our country today, it's so divided that almost everyone is conspiratorial. To one extent or the other, you got the people on the right side of the aisle. [01:02:17] just making up bullshit. And the people on the left side of the aisle are making her bullshit every now and then each side grabs a fact and distorts it hardly any, but most of the time, all the facts are distorted quite a bit. Cause they want to be manipulative or motivate us to get out and vote. [01:02:39] They come back to the beginning of our conversation and it's really key. that's why I asked that question. When you mentioned those two words, manipulation in motivation, manipulate, motivate. We see so much of both of those going on, [01:03:00] regardless of how you perceive it. And it comes back to, I believe in my conspiratorial theory, another yet another one media, because most of the information we consume is presented to us by media, by social media, by the major. [01:03:25] News outlets by all the talk shows all of this media. And we have so much of the media to consume. It's not like when I was growing up. we had three television shows, no rotary dial telephone. Okay. She knows where the no, in, a radio for one time, just with am stations and FM stations, but. Hey, now it's so easy to come up with a conspiratorial idea and then build a whole story around it. [01:04:00] [01:04:00] Show a video, that you've Photoshop pictures or Photoshop and who the fuck knows what's real today. Yes. it's fine. Me. I got a friend that continually sends me messages and half of them. And I don't tell them, this is, all made up. you can even see the phone, the bad Photoshop job in it. [01:04:26] And here's the fact, and I, and who am I to say that just the fact just based on where I found that is that factual info. I don't know. Where do you find the facts? That's frightened. So what are the real facts, pictures that are being displayed to you and they are somehow made up and not an authentic one? [01:04:53] I don't understand why people are going to that trouble to try to relay the information, to get the point across. [01:05:00] it should either make sense or not make sense. And then when, if we were to zoom back out and look at. With the crowd of people you're referring to going one way and another guy to go in this way. [01:05:13] I think those people that are going their own way have a higher level of thinking rather than following suit into the direction that they were told to go to based on what is being portrayed by the media. Because I am aware of the term portering as far as with framing. A certain message to get across, to make things look catastrophic, or to make things look consistent in society. [01:05:43] As far as there's so much, there's so much Trump, there's so much trauma happening on a daily basis. Come on, tune into channel 11, Fox two. They would just want to get viewers and that's disgusting. Cause if we really zoom out even higher and look at the person who's in charge [01:06:00] of. The actual, what is it? [01:06:02] NBC like the place that's in charge of all the fucking radio, the social media in general, it's comes down to one person when there's two different sides of, the government Republic news and, democratic news. It's being ran by one person with a sign. Is he on that's? What? Just blows my mind. It's. It's frightening. [01:06:28] And when you look at the power of social media, [01:06:37] the power of social media has, and the ease with which it is with which one or an entity can post anything on social media recently that, some of the social media platforms have been taking down purely. Unfactual, posts [01:07:00] could have an adverse effect on, people that would believe that shit. [01:07:06] But to answer your question, why do they even do that? Do people post these pictures that are incorrect? I think part of it gets back to something we said earlier today in this division, everything's. Black or white. All of a sudden there's no grayer. Everything's binary. you're with me. You're with, you're not with me. [01:07:29] If you're not with me, you're against me. it, this is good or this is bad. There's that? it is good for them, but it might hurt this group, but this big group it'll, it's good for it's no, it's. I have to show you how wrong you are to think the way you are. Look at this picture. [01:07:49] Did I Photoshop look at this picture, it says right here, or look at here, I can pull it. these statistics as you well know [01:08:00] numbers, statistics reports for everyone that says blue, you can find one that says red. Yes, you can blame the doctor that says, yeah, there's hydrate high hydroxy chlorine coup the drug that, Trump is pushing. [01:08:20] I can't even pronounce it well for a while as a cure in a therapy for COVID. you got a whole bunch of doctors that say, no, it's, not, there's only five, placebo research papers that are written and said, there's no effect. And then there's 2,500 doctors will say, yeah, it works. but no, we haven't done it with a randomized placebo test, based on what we've seen with these two patients at work. [01:08:49] So we're just in this world of. How do you even find a fact? and I think each of us [01:09:00] has our sources for what we believe to be factual and near as unbiased as one can be today. there's biased everywhere. Whether it's NBC or Fox, whether it's OAN or CNN, whether it's MSNBC or, Foxy or newsy, there's bias in everything that we all do in everything we do every, day that we're alive. [01:09:35] There's we make decisions and do things based on our biases. And. The real trick is to, regardless of your, for example, political or religious bias, the real trick is to whatever your job is to go out and do your job with trying to keep your bias under control. [01:10:00] yeah, I'm an atheist, so I don't like people that are religious. [01:10:07] But as a cop, I can't go shoot people as they come out of church, just cause I don't like those people. I have to, the judges making these decisions in court, they have a bias. Of course they have a bias. but they have to make their decisions without bias, 12 jurors on a jury. Each one of them has a bias, but their instruction is you go in there. [01:10:34] You disregard everything you think, feel or believe don't pay attention to anything you hear or read about this case? Just the facts that are presented here in court, and you make your decision. Is this person guilty or innocent? That's fucking impossible. So that was back to [01:11:00] trust and trust value, honor ethics like a boy scout oath, all those things help the old lady across the street. [01:11:08] And that's what I think is really missing in society in general today, but certainly very high governmental levels throughout the government, both on the blue side and the red side, the Democrats and Republicans, you listen to both of them and you're pissed off at both of them. You are there, they're both acting, both sides are acting like a bunch of little fucking babies. [01:11:34] Yeah. they just all are like in grade school, kids don't act as poorly as, badly as irresponsibly as our politicians do. And I'd like to believe that Biden and Harris. might from a leadership standpoint, whether they win [01:12:00] or lose grab hold of the politicians on both sides and say, this is how you run a campaign. [01:12:08] This is how you lead a country, especially a country in the world it's in crisis. we've got a public health crisis of some sort going on, regardless of who you want to believe. There's some shit going on. We have an economic crisis going on, regardless of why it's going on, it's going on. And we have people in the United States of America that should not be starving, that should not be living on the streets. [01:12:35] We've got enough, wealth in this country between a handful of people, literally, but as a country, we have enough, wealth to fix it. So that. that doesn't happen. That the poverty we have here, not only just, not only an urban yeah. Plight, in the Appalachian area there's [01:13:00] poverty like you. [01:13:01] And I probably can't even imagine Jen, in our wildest dreams that today in the United States, people are living in Michigan. Yeah, Michigan. That's exactly where I was going with Flint for seven years. I think it's been about seven years since it was discovered in the media about the water supply up there. [01:13:22] People are still dependent on bottled water today that lives in Flint. Nobody's done anything about that river that you know, has got all that contamination in it as well, depending on bottled water. Yeah. And most of these people probably don't have jobs cause they're factory worker kind of people. I don't know. [01:13:47] It's interesting. I think with Louisiana, there's something in their water as well. What if I'm not mistaken, can't get up their nose. I believe there's like a parasite or something that can attack the rain or something. But if we [01:14:00] rewind, let's look at the social media as far as if it doesn't portray the political agenda. [01:14:08] Shit gets pulled down. Is that some sort of a control, I would say, as far as being like, if you don't post what's relevant on what we're talking about, we're going to take your outside information and pull it down because we don't want to confuse people on what is actually being presented. [01:14:30] Certainly has the opportunity. To happen that way. A good example though, where, I think you see this censorship taking place because it is a form of censorship. Yes. But I think media in general has a duty to call your attention to, misleading statements. A good example was semi-recently, [01:15:00] were, 45. [01:15:02] Has said repeatedly, but this was after his first white house briefing. Recently, I want to say in the last 10 days where he said that children are virtually immune from COVID factually, that's just incorrect science based on the science it's incorrect. And so Facebook or Twitter, it was Twitter took that. [01:15:30] Tweet down and, they'd give you the reason, bait in a point you somewhere, where you can find a fact. And again, who's got the facts, as I asked earlier, who do you look to as factual? I don't know. I don't know. But what I will tell you is for however long, the CDC, for example, has been around. [01:15:51] It was the authority here in the United States relative to contagious and infectious diseases. For, I don't know, [01:16:00] 40 years, 50 years, 80 years, I don't know, long it's been around. I don't know it's been around for a while. And there were some prestigious doctors that, have led that organization to keep widespread epidemics and pandemics from help from occurring and helping the world deal with epidemics that might happen in their country. [01:16:21] So when. That group of scientists, doctors who specialize in that shit say, no, that's not right. I'm going to accept them over fucking an orange fucking leader that told us to go drink Lysol and sit under ultraviolet lights as a way to not get COVID. given that choice, that ABB I'll take B, I go with the science. [01:16:49] I'm curious though, as far as, who owns Twitter? That's one quick. That's my first question. And why was it taken down when [01:17:00] 45 says this? Yes, it seems pretty bizarre, but the fact of somebody in such high power says this bizarre thing and it's automatically taken down. Now, my question is, there a connection between somebody who owns. [01:17:17] That platform two 45. Yeah. that's if you listen to the politicians on both sides. Yes. I believe Twitter is part of a publicly-traded company. So there are many, stockholders that ultimately the board of directors gets to pick and choose the CEO it, and one might say, Just like Bezos is against Trump. [01:17:48] So anything that comes from Amazon or the Washington Post or any of the shit he owns is tainted. As far as Trump supporters go, that's just not. So [01:18:00] bayzos has at the end of the day if you collapse his empire, He's not going to lose his $65 billion. And if he loses $64.9 billion, he's still a billionaire. [01:18:17] Yes. financially he has nothing really to gain. He's attained that level in Maslow's hierarchy that he's into self-actualization that's all. And like he and bill Gates. they're trying to improve the world. Now with this wealth, they built with these platforms they've built. Now they can use this AI to deliver clean water, too, third, world countries. [01:18:45] And they do they're there. They're trying to do good. Do good. Or it's how they're not out trying to build Amazon bigger. for the sake of building Amazon bigger. You can, I think it's actually number three in [01:19:00] the fortune 500, I believe three or four. I can't remember the number. And then with bill Gates, I do remember reading about that with him, helping out their world countries, as far as getting that first, self-sufficient a wa like huge ass system, whatever it just cycles. [01:19:22] The rainwater, and just literally cycled shit and piss fresh water. Let's just be black. Yeah. That's exactly what it does. So that's, really good stuff. And I just don't understand why we can't have that in the political area. It is. I think part of its leadership, during Bush, during Reagan during Bush, during Clinton Carter, the there was not this kind of, there was hanky [01:20:00] panky politics is hanky panky at the end of the day, but it wasn't everything being done for one guy. [01:20:09] And I really believe, and I know I harp on this, but [01:20:16] all. 45 is concerned about is his himself, his entities and how the world perceives him in, the world. Laughs at him, I truly see him as an embarrassment. God bless Joe Biden, but Biden makes plenty of fo pause in his speech. who's smarter. I don't know. I guess Biden. I guess a lot of five years old, five-year-olds are more responsible and smarter than 45. [01:20:52] They don't say shit as stupid as he does. he comes out and just says, bizarre shit, whatever I think is [01:21:00] rolling off. End of his tongue. He just says, even though he's got a script, even though advisors tell him, no, don't talk about, the Lysol anymore. It's really not instant fix anything I need to fuck you. [01:21:12] I'm going to say what I want. and he goes up and sights people, to, have these attitudes, that COVID is not real. I don't know if it's real or not, but there's a lot of fucking sick people that have something that the world is trying to deal with. I would love to go into that, but also let's, look at that. [01:21:35] if we were to put those two individuals Biden and 45 against fifth graders, I believe there's a show called, are you smarter than a fifth grader? Do you think the political figures would actually win? And also the other one is I understand what the, with an individual, it's not about what they [01:22:00] say. [01:22:00] It's about how they act under pressure is the real character. So when you tell me that. 45 wants to say this and just disregard the paperwork that's been given that shows who he really is. Cause everything that's coming out is just shit that people made for him to say, but he really does not have the ability to control themselves. [01:22:25] So I can see with what you said earlier, as far as about being a narcissist. And I don't like that term that because it always gets thrown around in. And then just in the society in general, loosely. if we were to look at it in the DSM, five, it gets very specific and I'm not looking at it right now, but judging how just looking at, or remembering the definition, it shows a relation. [01:22:56] But since I'm not looking at this very moment, I don't want to say that, [01:23:00] but I just think it's really interesting on how things are playing out. Yeah, it is. And none of us really, even psychologists, people that, scientifically know this stuff know what's in that manual, all the symptoms of it. [01:23:19] because they're not treating him, they're not consulting with them. No one really has a, right. and, not so much a right, but no one has the facts to make that judgment. On him or anybody, but again, intuitively when you see someone act like this time and time again, if it looks like a duck and smells like a duck and walks like a duck, it's a fucking doc. [01:23:51] even though it doesn't walk around with a label, crack black, I'm a doc. but in whether he [01:24:00] is. A narcissist. He certainly has some narcissistic tendencies and behaves as if he is a narcissist, behaves as if he is a racist behaves as if he wants to divide this country further. For three and a half years, he's never really spoken to America every time he speaks. [01:24:29] Every time he holds one of his political rallies, he speaks to the 30% of the people that will always support him. And don't worry about getting enough people over to elect, him. can you imagine a president, a living president. Having his people contact a governor of a state, South Dakota to be specific and said, what will it take to get my head carved into Mount [01:25:00] Rushmore now? [01:25:03] And this is a fact nobody's disputed it. the white house has walked back. they didn't quite say that. And she did give them a little model of four foot model with his head on it. With, Lincoln and all the rest of the guys. but here's just shows you the stupidity. and this is just pure stupidity, factual stupidity. [01:25:24] I can point to that. Mount Rushmore is a national monument. It's a federal monument, the state it's not in their jurisdiction to make that call. It's the federal government. I don't know if it's Bureau land management or who takes care of that particular national founder. But, and again, if you're president, you're going to have one of your people, Hey, call up, call the governor. [01:25:48] She likes me. She gave me this model. Maybe we can get my head on it and maybe we can do it. they can do it with buzz saws and get it done before the election. That be cool. A picture of me in front of the mountain. [01:26:00] With my head carved on there and maybe the backside. you can see my ass too, I don't want to see my Dick cause it's real little, if you look at the size of my hands compared to these big jackets in this long time, and I know that's just his character, but yeah. [01:26:17] that's, pretty, compelling evidence that you got a narcissist there, while I'm alive and for him to say, it's no different really than president Obama accepting the Nobel peace prize. except that he didn't. Obama didn't give himself the prize. Trump wants himself carved into that monument. [01:26:46] There were a whole bunch, whatever the process is of how the foundation gives out those, the Nobel peace prize. That's how it happened, whether it was corrupt or not. I don't know, but it's something [01:27:00] Obama didn't have any choice in. He could have not accepted it. Yes. He just said, no, I don't want that. I'm just doing my job. [01:27:07] Yeah. and this was really in his first year as president. this was based on shit he did before being a president, I don't, understand all that, but what I do know, at least, from the late. Mid 1950s through present day, there's never been a sitting president or a living president did to ask to be on a piece of our money or carved into a monument, or, that's just bizarre shit who would do that? [01:27:44] I can see how they can say no. I need to carve my head on the front of, on Mount Rushmore. In fact, they could move out Roosevelt, just Ricardo his face into my face, and then I'll start from [01:28:00] scratch. He didn't see why he would ask as far as, Squigy real squeaky. Wheel gets the grease. [01:28:09] And I guess like you, you don't know unless you ask, all right. That's like logically in my head, trying to get something that you don't think you'll be able to get, but I'm just going to do it anyways. That would make sense. But what doesn't make sense is the fact that he's saying of what you're telling me is he's saying, I actually did look at the shit and. [01:28:30] Online, as far as sources go, and he did say this, but with the Lysol and the ultraviolet light, he doesn't take it seriously. So my question is, this actually a real thing that's happening? And I'm saying, what? Or what's the real thing is COVID this sickness, this thing that's going around killing 150. [01:28:57] 668,000. Thank [01:29:00] you. Yes. Is that real? Yeah, I, Okay. I'm thinking there's some reality to it. I really believe that. But here's where you, the dichotomies of leadership, when you joke about something that allegedly has killed a whole bunch of people. Yes. When you joke about that, then you get at least 30% of this country. That again, he can shoot, as he said, he could stand on fifth Avenue in New York city and shoot somebody and nobody will do anything about it. [01:29:42] So those 30% of the people that are behind him like that. When they hear him say, yeah, first of all, there's a threat because Lysol is a corporation. Their headquarters was just overloaded by phone calls coming in that day, [01:30:00] Okay. So life's all cure me. That's because these fucking idiots believe shit that comes out of his mouth he's leader of the free world for Christ sakes. [01:30:08] Why would he say that if it's not true? Why would he joke about it? As some number of things? People are actually dying from some. Some bug that call it, COVID call it the common flu, call it a cold, this is where the leader of the United States. If he, wasn't joking about it, I saw the, I saw him. [01:30:30] Why do that press briefing? He got pissed at the scientists. he got pissed at Burke's because dr. Burks wouldn't address it. And he went to the guy that he had in his pocket and the guy just said, Oh my God. he shrugged, what did you do with this guy? he wasn't kidding. [01:30:54] He wasn't sarcastic about it. I think I, after 69 years, I can judge a lot of people when they're being [01:31:00] sarcastic and I've seen enough of his shit and heard enough of his bullshit in Conway's bullshit to try to cover up his miss speakings. He doesn't misspeak, he's not an intelligent guy, but he's, a savvy streetwise guy. [01:31:18] Every time he says something he knows the reaction will get. And one thing he knows is that when he does this bizarre shit, he's always on television. He has all this fucking press. right now, people don't even know probably what Biden looks like. he hadn't been out and about since Kobe, that's an exact operation. [01:31:38] I know, he doesn't get all this free television. that's one of the reasons I believe. 45 started doing these COVID briefings again, and no doctor, none of the CDC people are in there. It's just him doing a little rally, a mini rally from the white house, brief press room for, [01:32:00] some crazy shit happening. [01:32:02] I have a one o'clock meeting with my copywriter. I'm redoing my website. Oh, shit. Is it already one 58? I just know. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. yeah, we can we'll end it right here. This is great. W a great episode. I think we talked about some interesting stuff builds you up or not. I don't know. It could be junk food, but it's food. [01:32:36] I'll get in touch with you later. Cause I wanted to see if you wanted to help, out with the social media. Cause I was going to start adding you on everything. Yeah, let's talk about okay. We can do, Hey, it was good seeing you and have a good rest of the week. I've got a few days left. Beat your [01:33:00] drum. [01:33:00] I will. You do the same. Thank you. Bye bye. Bye.

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