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night-rhea · 4 years ago

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Night Rhea’s Profile

“Lets have tea one day. I will bring the tea, you will bring the view.”

Thanks @hogwartsmystory for letting us use this template!

Name: Night "Nur" Rhea

Gender: Genderfluid (They/Them)

Birth Date: 11 July 1973

Species: Human

Blood Status: Pureblood

Sexuality: Bisexual

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Nationality: British/ Turkish

Myer Briggs Personality Type: ENFJ - The Giver

THE MAGE

1st Wand: Red oak, dragon heartstring, flexible, 13″

2st Wand: Cypress, phoenix feather, unyielding flexibility, 14″

"Cypress wands are associated with nobility. The great medieval wandmaker, Geraint Ollivander, wrote that he was always honoured to match a cypress wand, for he knew he was meeting a witch or wizard who would die a heroic death. Fortunately, in these less blood-thirsty times, the possessors of cypress wands are rarely called upon to lay down their lives, though doubtless many of them would do so if required. Wands of cypress find their soul mates among the brave, the bold and the self-sacrificing: those who are unafraid to confront the shadows in their own and others’ natures.

Animagus: Black Hawk

⦁ Night’s one of the favorite thing is being in sky. No matter the weather, day or night, you can see Night in the sky or daydreaming while looking at clouds/stars. They spend little too much time as a hawk. Night’s hawk form is a regular Black Hawk with blue eyes.

Misc Magical Abilities: Legilimens, Occlumens

⦁ Being Legilimens in Rhea family is not something unexpected. Night's father Matthew realized his younger child is Legilimens when they were seven years old. But he never believed they can use it perfectly. Night didnt used Legilimency properly until their fifth year. İn two years, Night was able to use this ability without wand. Even though it was enough for them, Snape warned Night about not stopping training, and wanted them to learn Occlumency too. Yakup was already Occlumens and very skilled Legilimens, and with a threat of their also Legilimens uncle, Night didnt questioned at all. With their brother's help, Night mastered these two magical ability in years.

Boggart Form: Night had 3 different Boggart in their life

⦁ Yakup (Jacob), with dark mark on his arm and looking at Night madly.

⦁ Rowan, saying everything would be better if it was Night who died.

⦁ Theirself, covered with blood and smiling madly, with Dark Mark.

⦁ Amortentia: (What do they smell like?) Deep forest, rain, ocean, cold air, jasmine, black tea

⦁ Patronus: Hawk, Hebridean Black-Dragon (After Rowan’s death)

Dragon patronus; One of the most powerful and formidable creatures of the magical world, dragons are ambitious and dominant. With the ability to breathe fire, they quickly assert themselves, garnering both fear and respect from those around them. They are unafraid to take risks and prefer to live by their own set of rules. They are quick to lead and do not back down from a challenge. Dragons are strong in their convictions and will stand for what they believe is right. Those with a dragon for a Patronus are sure to be fierce fighters, and the Dementors better be ready for a challenge.

Patronus Memory:

Playing with Cordell, Barnaby and Atlas (@vixenmcmahenhphm ) when they were child.

The first night they spend watching stars with Talbott.

Mirror of Erised:

İn childhood: Night with Yakup, their mom and their grandfather, all standing together and smiling.

İn adulthood: All of Night’s friends and family being together and alive

Specialized/Favourite Spells:

Wingardium Leviosa

Flipendo Maxima

Colorovia

Accio

APPEARANCE

Their casual look:

How i draw their hair:

Faceclaim: Alexander LeRoy - Ruby Rose

0Voice Claim: English: Ruby Rose-Turkish: Şebnem Ferah

Night had a thick Turkish accent when they started Hogwarts but in years it disappeared. They never liked this accent.

Have loud voice, and have no control on it.

Always have a smile on their face, unless they are having really rough moment.

Weird/ funny faces are something you can see often

Their hair gets more straight and darker and as they grown

Height: 183cm in Hogwarts-last year-, 188 cm when they are adult

Weight: Heavier than they looks

Physique: With spells and potions, they change their looks/body so often.

Eye Colour: Sky blue

Hair Colour: Navy Blue/ Blue

Skin Tone: Pale

Body Modifications and Scarrings:

Four piercings in ears, one in right, three in left side

Many scars and burn marks espacially after Buried Vault

Dark Mark on left arm

Few on their neck after war

Big burn mark on their left arm (where Dark Mark was)

Inventory:

Too many tiny chocolates so they can share

Yakup's and theirs old drawing notebook

Pronoun bracelets

Their grandma's old jasmine perfume

Quil, ink and a blue tiny notebook (written in Turkish so no one knows what they are writing)

Their own Rhea locket

Yakup's Rhea locket

Fashion:

Loves buttoned shirts, but cant stand without rolling slevees up

Shorts and pants

Mostly hates skirts, but will wear it sometimes

Likes black boots, especially with heels

Sweeters on shirts, when they need to look good

Hoodies, especially on rough days

Wears binder, most of time

Dress and suits on events, depends on how they are feeling

Doesnt like makeup, but okay with eyeliner

Always wears pronoun bracelets:

Grey- They/Them

Black- He/Him

White- She/Her

ALLEGIANCES

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Ilvermorny House: Wampus

Affiliations/Organizations:

Circle of Khanna

Order of the Phoenix

Death Eaters

Professions:

Curse Breaker: After graduating, Night worked with Bill and Yakup as a Curse Breaker.

Double Agent: İn Death Eaters, actually working for Order.

Dragonologist: After war, they moved to Romania and specialized Hebridean Black's. Night worked and lived here as dragonologist for nearly ten year.

Flying instructor: When Night moved back to England, they also started to work in Hogwarts as flying instructor, Quidditch referee, and coach.

HOGWARTS INFORMATION

Class Proficiencies:

· Astronomy: O

· Charms: O

· DADA: E

· Flying: O

· Herbology: A

· History of Magic: A

· Potions: O

· Transfiguration: E

Electives:

COMC: A

Divination: A

Muggle Studies: A

Quidditch: Chaser-Beater

⦁ Night started to play Quidditch in their second year as a Chaser. While they wasnt the best chaser, Night was enough to help Slytherin to win the Cup. They meet Gryfindor Chaser-Vixen during practise and whole year, they werent be able to be better chaser than her. The rivalry between her and Night made the dark haired kid realize maybe being chaser wasnt really something for them. in third year, thanks to McNully, they started to play as a beater, and find theirself being more succesfull than ever. After that, Vixen and Night's rivalry become more friendly. (Beginning of Nixen Au)

⦁ Their favorite practise partners are Charlie, Samantha (@samshogwarts ), Vixen (@vixenmcmahenhphm ) Andre, Orion and Rath.

⦁ Whenever Night was angry or stressed, and even flying didnt make them calm, they took the beaters bat and destroy some dummies. İn fourth year, Night injured some second year student. They were angry about Merula, and just wanted hurt something. So they went for dummies in Training Ground. Night wasnt looking actually where they was hitting, there was just the feeling of fullness . A sharp scream bring them to reality. İt was the first time they hurt someone out of anger, and unfortunatelly wasnt the last.

Favourite Professors:

Madam Hoach: She is strong and powerfull woman and her tough behavior makes Night adore her. And one quick note, Night is really afraid of making her mad. During their school life, Night interacted with her so often thanks to their Quidditch love.

McGonnagal: Even if she is not Night's head of house, Night find her much more easier to talk than other proffesors. They feel deeply guilty about the times they had to lie to her. McGonnagal and Talbott's close relationship makes Night feel even more warm about her.

Flitwick: He is someone who Night doesnt have any problem to talk. They enjoy his classes, and little chats they share. Night often share the teas their granpa send them from Turkey, and Flitwick always appreciate.

Least Favourite Professors:

Snape: No one need a reason to dislike him, but Night actually doesnt hate him.

RELATIONSHIPS

Father: Matthew Rhea

Second son of Alexander and Alycia Rhea. Known for his dicipline he got from his father, and his talent in Legilimency. İn Rhea family, the ones worth is same as their power in this magical ability. Being better than his older brother, made Matthew the golden child of family. And as you can imagine it seperated the brothers. Matthew was loyal follower of Dark Lord, a feared Death Eater. He believed wizarding world will be better with Voldemort, and never regretted for following him. Even if it cost his life.

He was never the father figure to Night. They doesnt remember him smiling to them, even for once. On Night's fifth birthday, Matthew decided to send them to Turkey, to Seline's family. For three years, Night stayed away from their home, with their grandfather and only comes back in summers when Yakup is back from Hogwarts. İn 1981 (When Night was eight years old) Matthew died in war, and Seline let Night to come back.

Mother: Seline Rhea

Youngest in five sibling, fourth daughter of İbrahim and Saadet Yavuz. Seline lost her mother when she was two, so she has no memory of Saadet. İbrahim never treat any of his child differently and loved them all same, but Seline never been close to him, or most of her siblings. Even when she was a child, she was quiet, and keeping her distance from everyone. Books were her best and only friends. So when Seline meet with Matthew, leaving her home and country wasnt actually hard decision to made. Seline loved Matthew with her whole heart. He wasnt trying to change her, and that was what she was asking for, for her whole life. Young woman knows, that he was interested in her being Legilimens, but she didnt care. If she was powerfull enough for him to want her as his wife, she thinks its something she should be proud of.

She fit perfectly in Rhea's. Her new house was nothing like Yavuz's warm and loud house, just like how she is also nothing like. Seline couldnt be more proud, when she and Matthew discovered Jacob is also Legilimens. She was excited for her second child too, but when she hold her newborn, she saw the look on Matthew eyes. The disapointment. He didnt like his child to have bright blue hair. At first, Seline didnt think it will be problem, its only color of hair after all. But real problem was, Night being nothing like a Rhea. They were energetic, loud child. Running in house, climbing on whatever they finds, jumping on every water pot they saw. Seline knows they were exactly like her own siblings, nieces. Night wasnt nothing like Jacob (Seline's Turkish accent turned his name into Yakup).

On the fifth birthday that Night turned five, she didnt even say anything when Matthew told her to send Night to Turkey, next to her father.

After Matthew died, Yakup was her everything. And Night was.. Just someone from her past, her own family, something she wanted to leave her behind but couldnt. Unfortunatelly, not so long after Matthew death, Yakup get expelled from Hogwarts and went missing. To find him, Seline did something she thought she wont be ever doing it. She begged Matthew's brother Jonathan for help. And her answer was only a smile. A cold smile, belongs to someone who is happy to have all the control on family now

Night's three year, when they were alone with their mother was, rough. Everyday was about Yakup, about finding him. To have Seline's attention, Night do everything they can do to act like Yakup, look like Yakup. İt was impossible for them, but in their mind it was their only goal. Being someone their mother will love.

The first time Seline looked lovingly at them, was when Night was about to get in Hogwarts Express. When they promised her to find Yakup.

Sibling: Jacob (Yakup) Rhea

Yakup and Night werent able to spend much time together, when they were child. Thanks to their ten year difference between their ages, they only saw each other in summers. İn their cold house, Yakup was the only one who loved Night deeply, other than their nany Goni. He was well aware of how his Pip wasnt like his other cousins, other Rhea's, and that was enough reason for him to love them. Their smile and loud excited voice was the thing warms the house in Yakup's eyes.

When he get expelled, he knows all of his burdens became Night's. He regretted deeply, but there was nothing he can do from a portrait. He waited for his "sister" to rescue him, waited so patiently and dreamed the day they reunited. But when Night finally came, it wasnt like how he imagined.

They both wanted to have back the ones they remember from seven years ago. But the truth is, both were so different now, and they doesnt want to admit it. Their old beautiful relationship was gone now, and wont be same for so long. After Hogwarts, they fight a lot. Argued a lot, couldnt agree on same things. Until Night took the mission that will change their life forever.

When Night first runned away, right after they killed an auror in front of him, Yakup lived the hardest weeks in his life. He saw in their eyes himself, how he was when he first get expelled. He already knew Night changed so much, when Rowan died. And couldnt help but feel like all of it was his fault. Now his Pip was so lost inside, so lost that couldnt able to see whats wrong or right. So he searched for Night with everything he has.

Of course he didnt know it was all part of their plan. Thankfully soon enough, Night came back to him to explain everything. That they will be a spy in Death Eaters, and needs him to be their Secret Keeper. But also they needed him to promise. Promise to see the mission more important than their life. (Will be contunied in Future AU)

After war, their relationship was better than ever, and they finally have the sibling they both missed so much.

Grandfather (Mother's Dad): İbrahim Yavuz

Lovely Turkish old man who looked after his five children alone, after his wife died. He loved all of his kids all same, but his kids are all different. Four daughter and one son, Seline was the youngest one, and the coldest one to İbrahim.

One day when Night and their nany Goni showed up on his door, he was more suprised than he was happy. Living with tiny energetic child who cant understand his own language for three years was actually hard for İbrahim. But thanks to Goni who can talk to both languages, Night started to understand and talk Turkish in short time. Well enough to have an accent actually. With their cousins, aunts and uncle here, Night actually had a big and lovely home there. Their name was hard to pronounce in Turkish, so İbrahim gave them another name. He never liked Night's names meaning, and choose the name that means entirelly opposite of 'Night'. "Nur". It means " The light of the God" and İbrahim thinks it fits his grandchildren more.

As much as Night loved the Yavuz household and Turkey, they missed their mother, brother,home. Ibrahim wasnt sure if Seline would take Night back to England, if Matthew didnt died. He was hoping Seline would come back now, with her son. But Seline refused, and instead of coming back to Turkey, she took Night back.

Night wrote letters to him so often, and in every change they visit Turkey. İbrahim was parent to them, more than their own family and they couldnt be more grateful to have him as grandfather.

Uncle: Jonathan Rhea

First son of Alexander and Alycia Rhea. He is only two years older than Matthew. He married with Elyssa Black, and had two child. Cora Rhea, a Legilimens and two years older than Jacob; and Cordell Rhea in same age with Night. İn 1981, Jonathan lost his daughter and his wife.

Losing half of his own family shaked him deeply, but on the other hand, now Matthew is also gone,and it was good enough to make him forget about his pain. All the responsibilty of Rhea's is now Jonathan's. He is the only one who is head of family now. Or at least, its what he think.

Little he know Seline will be the biggest impediment to him. She wont let him to take the big house (Where Matthew and her staying with their childs, because Matthew was the head of family) She refused him, and told him Yakup will be the one who will take Matthew's place. She knows how Jonathan hate her and Yakup. He wouldnt let Seline stay in family or even England. So she fight with Jonathan with all her power. Until Yakup disappears.

After that, Seline lost her hopes, she even begged him to help her find her son.She promised to leave England if he helps. But Jonathan didnt care, he took everything he wanted after all. The house, being the important one. He was no longer the one who is forgotten in his little brothers shadow. He is the one who is in control now. He even took Night from Seline. Night lived in his house from their fourth year to seventh year.

When Night started Hogwarts, Jonathan told his son to stop them. From finding Yakup. Because he cant risk his nephew to come back, and took everything he earned. Unfortunatelly, his fears will come true and Yakup will come back. Jonathan will hate him with all his being and this hate will be dangerous when Voldemort returns.

Jonathan will be the one, who offer Night a place in Death Eaters when Night run away from their first crime. He will say he is proud of them for choosing the right way and realizing Yakup is the traitor one, not him. And will say Matthew would be also proud of them.

During war time, Jonathan will be the biggest enemy of Night, even if he wont know about it.

Love Interest:

Talight- Talbott Winger

Night and him meet in third year thanks to Penny. Night didnt even know his name,and Talbott was staying away from the cursed vault kid to avoid trouble. It actually took them long time to be close friends. But once they became friends, they found theirselves a way to escape from other. At first, they see each other as a someone who can understand other ones feelings. Talbott learned Night isnt always as happy as they seems or they isnt just a selfish troublemaker. And Night learned Talbott isnt someone who has stone cold heart and doesnt care about others. They so often fly together in night, sit in silent in owlery, read their own books in libary,and sometimes running/flying around just for fun. Talbott learned to like some harmless chaos, and Night learned to be not afraid of silence. İn fourth year, Night realized they have deeper feelings for him, but couldnt risk to lose his friendship. They were happy enough to have him as friend. But Tulip reading their secret notebook out loud didnt help them to hide their feelings. The notebook was written in Turkish so no one could understand, but Night completely forget about how Tulip actually knows Turkish. Even if it happened out of Night's control, it didnt end like how Night feared.

As much as they both loved each other, being in relationship is something these two doesnt know well. İn fifth year, they dealed with some tiny (!) jealousy. Night meets with Jae, and being in detention whole year help them become a close friend in short time. Being busy with Rakepick and her tasks, Night was quiet busy and Jae was the only one they can see without needing help. (Remember how Rowan said they were only comes to their friend to get help?) Our little bird didnt like to feel in this way. But this feeling wasnt just keeping "him" awake in nights. It was eating Night from inside too. They were aware of how they couldnt see Talbott so often, and actually missing their piecefull times together. They couldnt help but notice how he got close with Badeea. Not that they thinks Talbott shouldnt have friends. Actually they were happy about how these two Ravenclaw sharing their own worlds to each other. Night just, felt unsure if they are good enough for Talbott, in a way Badeea is more than enough. Night and Badeea were so different, and Night couldnt help but compare theirself with her. Our couple didnt actually broke up, but i can say they had some walls between their hearts now, the ones they both didnt wanted but thought other one needs it. They goes to Summer Festival, with different people. Wanna guess who?? Of course Badeea and Jae. They both watch each other laugh with someone else. But in the end of the year, when Night and others came back from Buried Vault, Talbott was the one who hold them while they were crying.

Next two year, they both supported each other. (Yes im just skipping all the things because, there is things im excited to write and draw and dont wanna spoil it here). But before graduation, Night wanted to break up. To focus on theirselves. Night knows how Talbott worked hard to be auror, and they doesnt want him to worry about them while having so many things to worry about already. Talbott didnt like the idea of course, refused at first. He blamed them, get angry, didnt talked to them for days. But then, he understood why Night saying these. To accept it, he wanted them to promise him something. That they will come back to him. No matter as what, as a lover, as a friend, as a someone who still have warmt in their heart for him.

Well, in a way, Night keep their promise. (Will be continued in Future AU)

Nelix- Felix Rosier

İn Hogwarts, their relationship was mostly about Felix trying to keep Night out of trouble and fail every time. He became Dragonologist when he graduated, and Night send him maybe too many letters to ask about life in Romania. (Charlie also aprecciated his letters too, as you can imagine.) Being Dragonologist was Night's dream job, even if they doesnt think they will be doing it in future. So after graduation, just to see Charlie, dragons and Romania (definitelly not to see Felix, please) they travelled there a lot.

Seeing each other again, with other Death Eaters was not what they both hoped. Night knew Felix would be there. But for him, seeing Night there was shocking. He was disappointed, but thought about maybe Night was forced by their family, just like him. (Will be continued in Future AU)

After all the rough time they managed to survive, they both needed to heal from what they saw, what they did. And being far away from England was just what they needed.

Nixen AU- Vixen McMahen (@vixenmcmahenhphm )

Marhea AU- Atlas Marson (@vixenmcmahenhphm )

(Just leaving note here, im always open for making ship au's. If youre interested, let me know so we can have fun!)

Best Friends:

Rowan Khanna

Talbott Winger

Barnaby Abernathy Lee

Ben Copper

Bill Weasley

Charlie Weasley

Andre Egwu

Jae Bo Kim

Tonks

Erika Rath

Merula Snyde

Chiara Lobosca

Tulip Karasu

Liz Tuttle

Badeea Ali

Enemy:

Patricia Rakepick- R

Jonathan Rhea- Death Eaters

Dormmates:

Rowan Khanna, Liz Tuttle, Marina Willow (@mira-shard)

(Send me dm if you want your mc and Night be roommates! Two spots open for girls room!)

Barnaby Abernathy Lee, Cordell Rhea

(Send me dm if you want your mc and Night be roommates! Two spots open for boys room!)

Pets:

Marshall: Night look after Yakup's closest friend, a black cat, after he disappears. After him, poor kitty become so quiet,and in nights cant sleep without Night in room. They promised Marshall to take Yakup back, but before he can come back Marshall passed away (İn beginning of fifth year). After him, Night didnt have any pet.

Closest MC Friends: Let me know if i can put your mc's name here!

Miscellaneous:

⦁ With Felix words, Night is “too chaotic and energetic like a Gryfindor”. You can see them running around anytime -mostly after Jae, Vixen or Tonks- or laughing with tears on their face. Not to mention they have a loud voice and you will hear when they laugh everytime. (Chiara admit it later that she was afraid of telling her secret to Night just because of this. But dont worry, they can be very secretive.) Night’s face always wears their emotions, that means you can see a lot of weird and funny expressions.

⦁ Chocolate is the key of happy Night. Whenever they have a chocolate frog, you can see a bright smile on their face. Bad Quidditch match? They will eat chocolate angrily on Pitch. Bad exam? Chocolate again with a face that shows you how their brain is burned. Snape’s favorite punishment for Night? Honeydukes Ban. Night will probably just curl up on grass in Training Grounds and wait for the day pass. Also a cup of tea could make Night very happy too. Thanks to their grandpa, they know how to make tea in every way, so they would be so happy if you join them for tea.

⦁ Because of that bright attitude of them, Night wasnt taken seriously at first. When some older Slytherins talked about Jacob in common room, everyone in room learned about how Night doesnt hold back when they are angry. İn years, they did a lot of things out of anger that they will regret later.

⦁ Night is a person who cant tell easily their negative feeling.When they got sad, they got quiet. Mostly Night just hide their sadness behind their smile and hope that it will be gone.

#night rhea #hphm #hogwarts mystery #hphm mc #harry potter hogwarts mystery #jacobs sibling #harry potter hogwarts game #harry potter #hphm jacobs sibling #hp hogwarts mystery #hogwarts aesthetic #character profile

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kewltie · 5 years ago

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omfgggg pregnant!deku. imagine where no. 1 hero is not only an omega but is pregnant and it's still early in his first trimester so he's running around kicking ass but IT'S DEKU so ppl frets and worry over his safety that even villains r like uh i dont wanna mess w/ that. deku is like ridiculously popular & well like even among criminal bc he believes in 2nd chances & rehab of the criminals/villains & fight for disenfranchised youths who fell on the wrong side of the track. so yea, they fight against him but they're also kinda soft for him!!!

so when they found out their fav hero is pregnant & still patrolling there's like some super-secret nonverbal agree among them that they won't stop doing what they are doing but like,,,, nobody fucking touch deku ok or you'll deader than dead. which is ALL KIND OF HILARIOUS bc deku coming to a bank robbery & the criminals doesnt stop their crime but when they fight him, they're like super careful w/ him making sure he doesn't get knock back, fall, or hurt himself too much.

when deku finally captured them and as they're about to taken away, they happily congratulated him on his pregnancy & ask if he'd thought of names yet & one of them is like, "oh, when my husband was pregnant eating X & Y really help with the nausea." and izuku is like,,, thanks???

there's like so many ppl invested in deku's pregnancy that it bizarre bc he's not the first or the last omega to ever be pregnant but he's deku, prohero, no.1 rank, and symbol of hope. all that means is there's a hyper fixation on everything about him esp now that he's pregnant. talk shows, news channel, & celeb gossip show are all talking about it one way or another. whether he's should take an early leave of work or not bc of the danger of his job, the baby's sex, his pregnancy craving, bump watch (I KNOW), & even a countdown to his due date.

the entire country is in a baby fever just bc of deku. everybody talk obsessively about it & even if you find that one person who does not care they def know someone who does. all this happen while deku just go about his day like all of Japan isnt watching his every move lol. the strangest thing about deku's pregnancy is that there's no sign of the other parent?? deku isnt even dating anyone. he never mention any alpha AT ALL, only declaring that he plans to raise his baby all by himself as a single parent which blew their fucking mind bc wtfffff.

look, deku is the most famous omega around, sitting high atop of the world as the no. 1 hero & is adore by the mass--he's greatest omega of his generation some would say so yea there's lot of expectation & hope place on him but deku is deku & he does what he wants. ppl speculate that maybe he's pregnant bc he had a one night stand and this was accident, maybe he has been in a secret relationship all this time, maybe this baby was from a spurned lover or WORST yet a produce of rape... LIKE there's so many rumor swirling around but the answer is actually v v v simple. deku has always wanted a child and since he's nearing 30 right now, he thought it's hightime he has one and the other father? JUST A DONOR. it's nothing serious or complicated as ppl imagine to be.

deku wants a kid and now he has one!! but ppl just can't comprehend how it could be that simple when the most notoble omega in all of japan decide he wants a kid W/O having a mate and he's going to raise this baby all by himself and nope he's not even going to quit his job at ALL to have a family. deku is just--blowing their mind lol

the world doesn't so much get over it as they just kinda get dragged along bc deku does not give a single fuck wut other think and proceed to be immersed in his pregnancy and try to survive the next 6 months while everyone waited on bated breath to see what deku does next. the only thing that stick is the constant rumor mill of who is the donor of deku's baby. they assume that deku wouldn't just pick a stranger bc he's sentimental like that so speculations run amok about every alpha that is closely associate with deku.

there are public polls, betting rings w/ billions on the line, televised debates, internet flame wars, and ACTUAL ARGUMENTS B/T FAMILY/FRIENDS/COWORKERS on who the fuck is deku's donor! even more than deku's baby, they're fucking obsessed on finding out who is the actual donor. the thing is it's not THAT big of a secret. all of class A are in the loop, his mom know (ofc), and even his agency but they all managed to keep it a secret bc deku's privacy is the utmost important & beside the other father would literally MURDER them if it ever get expose.

this is how it went: bullied by his pr team, deku went on a variety show where they have to babysit kids & put through various childbearing challenge while cameras record them for entertainment purpose. It's there when deku realized "ah, I WANT THIS. I WANT THIS V BADLY." deku is climbing close to his 30 now, he's well established presence in the hero world, and his life is pretty stable so it's high time he have his own little family but the thing is babies are two ppl business. they don't just come from thin air so deku did the next best thing.

katsuki would like to say he didn't see this coming the same way you would not expect to be attack by a shark on land, but in this case deku is that fucking shark & katsuki is the idiot that get completley blindsided by him when deku cornered him one day and asked for his sperm.

ok, bakudeku aint dating. they have deep & complicated history that is not only confusing o everybody else but also confusing to them. 'friend' would be to light of a word but anything else is left undefined bc how do you explain more than 2 decades of w/e they are to each other. katsuki doesn't want to talk about the amount of time he'd used image of deku to get off while in rut just so he can survive through it, while the next few days trying to resist punching deku in the face bc he act like a sacrificial idiot who got a cross he wants to bear.

it's not 100% healthy his therapist unhelpfully pointed out but the core of all his volatile feelings have always been named deku & katsuki doesn't know how to compartmentalize it properly bc katsuki may have squashed to something small & insignificant but it's heavy & permanent. so when deku laid his fucked up request at katsuki's feet, he broke the table they were using and nearly walked out if deku didn't catch him by the arm in time.

"kacchan, pls here me out first," deku begged of him, his sweet permeating the air; he's NOT PLAYING FAIR AT ALL. whoever said alphas are the dominate sex in the world have never met an omega, a determine goal focus omega with babies on the brain like deku.

"kacchan, recently i realized that im only getting older so i want a child when i still can," deku explained. "so won't you help me? i know settling down right now is the farthest thing from your mind, but im not asking you anything like that," he continued as katsuki quietly fumed in the background. "i just want your help in making this selfish wish of mine come true. you're among my top choices, kacchan."

Katsuki jerked up. "wait, you mean to say there's a fucking list of alphas you plan to extort their sperm from?" he seethed, feeling like deku had took a goddamn knife to his pride and butcher it completely. "how many other ppl have you asked before you even came to me?!"

"im not extorting anything from anyone." Deku frowned. "and, well, you always lectured me about diving head first w/o any backup plans," he pointed out, "so i made sure to leave several options open just in case the first one fell through. see? i did thought this one thru."

katsuki nearly broke another piece of furniture at the thought of deku asking someone else to father his child as though he was just another face in a long list of ppl deku could use. "What did every alpha on ur shitty list rejected u already so now have to come to me for help?"

deku, who was no.1 for a reason, narrowed his eyes and the air crackled around them. "kacchan, this is extremely important to me so i wouldnt just chose anyone. i only know a handful of alphas i can trust and someone im happy to share the other half of my child with. you're the 1st person that came to my mind when i thought about a child growing inside of me," he said, wrapping his arm around his flat tummy. "despite our many differences you're the one i admire the most. your strength & ambition, grounded by your strong drive & work ethics. the fact that you got where you are w/ your own hands & wits to guide you, i think you're just amazing. so how could i not want those kind of qualities for my own child," deku explained. "im sure a child born from half of your genes you will shine just brightly as you do."

katsuki felt so taken back that found his tongue heavy and words were escaping him. on one hand he felt a rush of pride and a strange sensation of happiness that deku had specifically chosen him out of his potential candidates bc of the greatness he had seem in katsuki but he'd also narrowed katsuki out not bc of some sentimental bullshit or lingering feelings but he thought of providing his future child with the best gene pool as possible so his child can flourish. it's a damn ego busting for katsuki but deku was clearly a man on a mission.

katsuki hesitated and thought what it would mean to have a child out there who carry a lil part of him in them; it's unnerving and humbling at the same time. he never thought of it himself but deku had dream of this, wanted this so badly enough to beg katsuki for help.

"alright," he said finally, not knowing exactly what compelled him to agree, but the look of utter happiness spreading across deku's face as he can barely contain his joy. a single word from him had caused deku's word to shift and rearranged itself to make room for another life.

and that's how katsuki got con into helping izuku make a baby lol. but, really katsuki was the one who agreed to it out of his own will bc he's an idiot & also terribly whipped; omegas are the ones ppl should be frighten of bc once they make up their mind it's hard to move them. they're an unstoppable force, something to be reckon w/ esp when that omega is the no.1 hero who fought his way to the top of the rankings and maintain that status quo for many years despite how many times katsuki tried to topple him from that perch LOL.

katsuki already lost the war before he'd even put a foot down on battlefront the moment deku'd opened his mouth & demanded his sperm AND HE KNEW IT TOO. so that was how katsuki found himself preparing to empty his balls in front of a two-way mirror in a mating clinic bc of deku. omegas, esp males, are the most fertile when they're in heat & when an alpha go in a rut, but the both of them have this arrangment that's more of a duty than any feelings involve bc they cant risk getting mix up in the hormones. this is for deku & his future child!!! so the clinic had prepared a large room w/ two way dividing mirrors& open air vents circulating b/t the two rooms so they can breathe in each other scene where deku can have his heat on one side and katsuki can watch BUT NOT TOUCH and get his rut on so he can produce sperm.

it's uh, not supposed to be v sexy since it's all clinical & shit but bakudeku being bakudeku they nearly tear the room apart to get to each other in heat/rut madnes. deku had blushed earlier as he asked to be bind with quirk restrictions cuff just in case he go crazy which HE DID. at first the nurses there was more worry about katsuki going crazy and out of control bc he has been known to fall pretty high on the alpha aggression and they fear it would be katsuki who would be dangerous; BUT NOPE it's deku all all along who almost broke the REINFORCED MIRROR just so he can get to katsuki!!!! DEKU WHO PPL SOMETIMES FORGET IS LIKE THE NO. 1 HERO FOR A REASON. soft and sweet deku who single handedly can fuck you up with just his fingers if he want to. he's an omega on a mission and he wants that knot up his ass AND HE WANTS IT NOW.

the nurses & docs have to use everything in their toolkit to pull bakudeku apart. when it's all said and done, katsuki embarrassingly produce buckets of cum enough to last deku a looooooong long time if the first one didn't take lol while deku couldn't look at katsuki in the eyes. they are both horridly embarrass about their 'not mating' and their action toward each other there even though they never actually touch each other through out the whole heat/rut procedure. despite the fact that they DIDN'T HAVE ANY SEX, it was still the hottest exp for both.

katsuki never seen more more feral and fierce omega who nearly broke the entire room just to get to him, in that moment if katsuki wasn't in love already he would have been half way there and izuku didn't expect KATSUKI AT ALL. the way he had handle izuku was completely diff. in izuku's heat fever, katsuki was the lone anchor who'd provided him grounding. he tried to calm deku down from his ramp up hormones even though he was as clearly affected as deku. forceful but not unforgiving, commanding not unyielding, firm but gentle.

it was electric.

it was as though izuku was a wild animal unleashed and katsuki managed to tamed him and he never had even had to raise a single finger to do it. it was all in his words that cut through izuku's hazy feverish wants and desires. the kind of alpha that made deku's knees weak.

after that, they have wordless mutual agreement to never talk about it. deku got the sperms he wanted and katsuki had finally fullfiedd his obligation and isn't responsible for deku or his future child. HE'S DONE. they dont have anything to do w/ each other anymore. RIGHT??? ha.

it's funny bc izuku had his hope on a child but didn't think it would take so soon! he'd thought he would fail a few times first before he get really lucky w/ conception bc of his age now that he's older, this 'psuedo mating' can't replace real mating, & biology is fucking weird. even the fertility doc couldn't promise this procedure to insert bkg's sperm in him when he's still got in a heat fever will work 100% and if they fail, they have to wait for another HEAT to come before it could work. which mean months of waiting in b/t so izuku is desperate. BUT it took one try. THAT'S ALL IT TOOK as izuku anxiously waited for the news in next couple of weeks. he took at home pregnacy tests and when hall 3 results were positive he'd cried and called his mom but even then he didn't tell anyone bc he was so scare it just was a fluke.

he'd kept this secret until he finally got the visit to his doc and could get the firm confirmation he needed! when the doc revealed that he was indeed pregnant, izuku fell to his knees in relief bc finally, FINALLY, his dream of having a baby had came true. he's a father now!!

the doc had warned that the first trimester would be rough on him bc of his age and miscarriage is more likely for him than most male omega. maybe he should consider taking an early pregnacy leave bc of the danger his job poses to him & the unborn baby. deku had agonized over it. ultimately, he decided to continue w/ his hero work but won't take on as much stuff as before. he plans to be more careful & attentive to his safety, and defer his more dangerous work to his colleagues instead. all his friends and coworkers go out of their way to help him w/ this

izuku got an entire community of heroes WHO DO THEIR BEST TO ENSURE HIS PREGNACY GO SMOOTHLY bc look izuku may be doing this alone but HE'S NOT ACTUALLY ALONE bc he got his friends, colleagues, and mom to support him through this bc they know how much this means to him!!

katsuki was one of the last to find out but only bc deku plan to see him in person to tell him bc katsuki HAD GIVEN HIM ONE OF THE BEST GIFTS (beside OFA) and he wanted to thank katsuki in person but class A are a bunch of gossip mongers so he found out through their groupchat. it started as a joke about katsuki & his super seed bc what a fucking stud bakugou katsuki to have ONE TRY and is able to knocked izuku up so quickly lmao. w/e the fuck katsuki is doing or eating, apparently it works wonder for him bc one of his sperm luck out & hit jackpot. his so called friends cant stop ribbing into him for knocking up deku so quickly bc they know from deku's worry that it wasn't going to be an easy conception but IT'S BAKUGOU KATSKUKI, outdoing himself once more bc he never does anything by half, not even his own sperm lol.

izuku met up with katsuki right outside his agency bc he knew wassup and how to corner katsuki effectively by trapping him when he just high off his patrol when he least expect an ambush esp when he was too busy avoiding izuku's attempts to reach him bc of COMPLICATED FEELS.

it's not cowardice that kept katsuki away, but izuku was the source of all his confusing feelings already & now w/ the news that he's carrying katsuki's child now it'd gotten worst. izuku, though, was nothing if not persistent. he zeroed in katsuki right away w/ purposeful steps.

"kacchan, i'm so glad to meet you here," izuku says as though he hadn't coordinate this w/ katsuki's coworkers, who are all SOFT for izuku anyway lmao, to get katsuki alone JUST LIKE THIS. katsuki knew he was caught bc every one his friends & colleagues are FUCKING TRAITORS.

"what," he snapped, clenching the hands at his side as he tried to keep his gaze from izuku's still very flat tummy. it's weird to think a life was quickly taking shape there when it's not like izuku looked any diff but he smiling more brightly & warmth coming from his person. was this what they call the pregnancy glow? bc deku was fucking blinding that katsuki wanted to shove his hand to deku's face to block it out.

"what you want," he demanded again even tho they both know why deku was here.

unperturbed, deku smiled. "im pregnant now so thank you. you'd helped fulfilled one of my biggest dreams & im ever so grateful for it!" he continued, rocking happily back & forth on his heels but the words barely registered katsuki kept staring at the way deku's body swing out & he opened his mouth before he could think better of it.

"should you be even moving liek that ?" he asked BC SINCE FINDING OUT IZUKU IS PREGNANT HE LOST HIS MIND. as soon as the words left his mouth he knew he was a dead man walking.

izuku leveled him a glare so fierce that he actually took a step back w/ chills running up his back. "kacchan i may be pregnant but im not an invalid," izuku said with the sharp edge of a smile and thinly veiled steel in his voice. the scariest part was that he hadn't drop a single smile but the ominous threas was there. "do you want me to show you how much of not invalid i am?"

katsuki scowled, face pinching at the thought whether this was just the usual deku's bs or this was deku's bs + the pregnancy hormones that get him so rile up. either way, katsuki no matter how much of an ass he was, he wasn't going to punch a pregnant omega to prove a point.

"fine, that was dumb sorry," he said, scratching the back of his ear in annoyance. "so was that all you wanted to say?"

deku's eyes crinkle in amusement as katsuki's scowl deepens. "yea, i just wanted you to hear the news from me personally and expressed my thanks."

"i'll take good care of them," he said softly, a stray hand caressing his stomach carefully. "I promise i'll be good to them so you dont have to worry."

katsuki paused and then, "I know," he said bc he does. deku was going to be a good parent w/o a doubt. That is a truth.

deku's eyes light up at katsuki's words and there was a hint of wetness in them that katsuki had the unnerving fear that he was going to cry right here and katsuki's entire agency going to charge out & murder him for making a pregnant omega, THE PREGNANT OMEGA DEKU cry in public.

"t-thank you," he sniffs, but THANKFULLY NO ACTUAL CRYING INVOLE, "it makes me so happy to hear that you in believe me. i won't fail you, i swear!" he said it like he was making a vow for world peace or some shit bc of how serious it had sounded but this was important to him.

"yea, okay," katsuki said, looking away bc got this entire conversation was agonizing bc here he was talking to the person, but not JUST ANY RANDOM PERSON, who is carrying a baby w/ half of katsuki's dna & they're not fucking each other. like,,, that's fucking weird okay.

"that's all i wanted to say," deku told him, fully aware how uncomfortable this talk was making him, "so I won't bother you anymore." he gave one last smile and turned to go but KATSUKI WHO SHOULD HAVE LET IT END THERE found himself opening his mouth and grabbing deku by the arm.

it was careful, a firm but gentle hand placed his forearm like deku was glass that stopped him for a moment. "if--if," katsuki said, swallowing around a stone in his throat, "you find yourself needing anything, call me ok? ANYTHING i dont care just call me and i'll be there."

a slow but the brightest fucking smile he had ever seen bloom on deku's flushed face. "ok, i'll let you know," he replied, bc this was KATSUKI PUTING HIMSELF OUT THERE AND WANTING TO GET INVOLVE IN IZUKU'S PREGNACY even tho deku had given him a clean break from it. HE CHOSE THIS.

katsuki doesn't know what he was thinking then but the words slipped passed his guard before he can stop it & now he fucking doomed himself, doom himself to 3am late night calls of deku crying in hysteric at his home bc he ran out of some rare hard to find fruit bc CRAVINGS. so now katsuki had to dragged himself all the way across town to hunt for this shit. the morning news of that day was hero ground zero harrassing shopkeeper in the FUCKING ASS'S OCLOCK FOR SOME FRUIT AND DEMANDING IT NOW FOR W/E REASON, WHILE LOOKING SO FURIOUS & UNHINGED.

look, it's not like deku doesn't have an entire network of ppl to reach out to if he ever needed anything bc they would even laid down their life for him but even when he's cursing a storm trying to get deku's his midnight craving, he's so relief it's him that deku called first. besides, he firmly knew wut he had signed up for the moment he had opened his mouth. offering is help in the pregnancy process was him choosing to get involve and commit to deku & his (god fucking damn shit, he can't think of it as *theirs* bc that's too dangerous) baby. and bc this is bakugou katsuki and he never does any by halves so even though he may have been reluctant at first but now that he's firmly on board he's going in full throttle w/ no break in sight. katsuki dumps all his $$ on pregnacy & prenatal care books.

he read papers, argued on pregnancy forum, & even harassed his parents on it just so he can come at this like a fucking boss bc while he has full faith in deku to put the safety of the fetus first but also HE DOESN'T FUCKING TRUST DEKU TO PUT HIMSELF FIRST which is just as import. deku has the self-preservation of a damn child & he can't expect a *child* to take care of himself so KATSUKI OBVIOUSLY GOT TO DO IT FOR HIM. so he make diet plans, prepare prep meals for deku ahead of them, annoyed deku's coworkers to watch out for him lest he does something stupid. he make it his firm mission that this pregnancy will go smoothly as possible so even when he's running errands for deku, getting his weird ass food craving, and taking deku to visit his ob-gyn, sitting in the waiting room anxiously for any news in case SOMETHING GO WRONG.

He even drives himself crazy learning about the things a pregnant person can't do/is at risk of doing & he doesn't know how anyone can fucking take this for 10 months bc it's like walking on a precarious tight rope. it's scary & humbling and he just want deku & the baby to be ok.

there are still crimes and villains to wrangle, and the world keeps on spinning; nothing really change all that much now that deku's pregnant but katsuki finds himself personally accolating his precious time and energy toward deku & the baby. he became one of those *PEOPLE*, ugh. he never got it even when his friends had popped out spawns of their own. he wasn't going to get dragged down by biology & all that general bullshit about settling down. he's at the top of his game & prize to take over deku's position as no.1. he got no time for playing family.

yet here he is standing in the middle of a fucking baby store, staring down a damn baby crib and having a melt down. who the fuck knew that baby cribs come in so many fucking versions and THERE ARE JUST TOO MANY OF THEM. he thought he had come prepare but no this was toughs shit. he only saw this store in passing while on a patrol & thought he should drop by but the next thing he knew he got trapped here for three fucking hours just looking at baby cribs. he already got several people walking passed him, eyeing him weirdly as he internally freak out.

there are ridiculous amount of info floating on the internet about crib buying guide like the bars could only be certain inches apart, non-toxic paints, diff kind of mattress, safe headboards, etc etc. all of that to ensure the baby doesn't fucking DIE bc babies are like FRAGILE.

he calls deku & as soon as he picks up, the first thing katsuki says is, "last year, there were 1,842 babies death due to sudden infant death syndrome."

a long pointed pause, and then, "oh geez," deku answers, "where are you? I'll be right there, okay? don't go anywhere!"

#bakudeku #not!fic #sperm donor au

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jenna-jayde-the-renagade · 4 years ago

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So my life has gone to shit.. I dont trust anybody anymore, and honest to god I cant help but keep thinking of ways to end it. My mom keeps telling me how to feel about this whole thing, that I should be grateful that i got in finally to see a specialist. Reality is I dont even trust those subhuman animals anymore, and frankly they're gonna have to earn my trust. After 4 fucking years, my life, my future being ruined. My mental health going downhill, all for the second time now. Add on to that, I dont get any meds for the pain so this has pushed me into addiction now for a second time. I've been dehumanized and humiliated, treated with nothing but the utmost disrespect while being stigmatized for being mentally ill, transgender and a recovering addict for most of it. They ignored me for 4 years, my body is damaged, and frankly help just might have came too little too late. I wont just suffer through the next one, the next time this happens I'm gonna end my life, my suffering on my own god damn terms. Atleast I still have control over that..

Fuck the canadian healthcare system. Some days I honestly just want to start selling drugs, and fly to a country where I can just pay to play and get the best care in the god damn world. Cause 4 years now I've been telling them to refer me to a specialist, I've been telling them that it's probably crohns or some other GI issue. They need to do a colonoscopy and a scope to find it, so that's what I would ask for. I would never get it, so i more or less gave up on the healthcare system. They would leave me on the floor thrashing in pain for hours. Treating me like a drug addict in withdrawal when I didnt even have any opioids in my system. I would be lucky if I got an IV for fluids, and even more lucky if they pumped me full of a bunch of over the counter drugs and others that didnt work like gravol, tauridol, buscopan, zofran, and haliperidol. I would tell them each time, that this was the hundredth time they tried gravol, and it doesnt help people when they're screaming in pain. They treat the nausea. Its bullshit because I am in so much pain that its making me nauseous and until they get rid of the pain, the vomiting is just gonna continue. They always treat me like I'm full of shit, and when I turn out to be right and continue puking, thrashing and screaming in pain, they just get angry at the fact they were wrong. Our doctors and nurses are a bunch of sociopathic, apathetic adult children who in my experience take pleasure in watching you suffer. The worse I get the more they smile. They are so stupid, blind almost because if their stupid fucking machine says I'm ok then I guess it's all in my head. They only think that theres nothing wrong with me because theyve only ever done a blood test or an xray. Never ever once have they done a single test that would have found the issue, crohns cant be found just on a blood test. The emergency room doctors think it can be, my family doctor and everybody else I've talked to says otherwise.

On January 1st I was having another flare up, and they shoved me in the psych observation room because they genuinely didnt want to deal with me. They ignore me, and I keep going in because I want help. I dont want to end up relapsing again cause I cant take the god damn pain! But nope, I get treated like a crazy person now.. they did it against my will. And they even tried to take my phone and my keys. I was puking constantly, I needed water to keep hydrated and they left me for 4 hours, locked in, no meds, no help or nothing. So I just cracked.. I had nothing to barf in, to wipe my nose with, or to wipe the cold sweat off me. So I puked in every corner of that room, I puked beside the bed especially because a mop wouldnt fit in there. I pissed in the corner, I would hack up some phlegm and spit it all over the floors and walls, I blew snot rockets on every surface too! After a while some nurse came in and gave me a barf bag. I threw it on the floor and just continued to puke over every hard surface in the place. I was puking every 5 seconds I swear, and the doctor finally came in at 3 hours and 15 minutes. At 3.5 hrs they give me two pills. I straight up tell them there is no point in even taking them. I couldnt even keep water down and these people are stupid enough to make me take pills? Come on. You need to hold it in for atleast an hour to see even the most minimal affects. I was puking every 5 seconds, to the point that I puked before I took the pills, and I puked them out the moment after I swallowed. They had given me a fucking gravol tab, and some Ativan, the latter of which I couldnt even hold under my tongue long enough. I barfed it onto the floor when it was half dissolved. They come back with this clear liquid shit in a shot glass. I swallowed it right after I puked. The liquid burned my insides, and i puked that shit out even quicker. I asked them to give me IV medications for that exact reason, I always ask for IV medications cause its literally a waste of your time and mine to just pump me full of pills when I can't keep them down and they hurt my tummy as they dissolve. They tell me to just "breathe deeply and relax" and to "just try jayden, you gotta try", so then I try, and when they end up being wrong, and I can't take shit. They end up saying that I'm manipulating, that I'm drug seeking or I'm not trying hard enough to make it work. Absolute bullshit, over the course of 4 years I have quite literally told them what to do. I have multiple family members with this disease, and my grandmother was ignored like this too. She told me to ask them for a colonoscopy and a scope, and to ask them to treat the pain, not the nausea cause the pain literally causes the nausea. The sooner the pain is gone the sooner I can be normal and tell them what's going on. Instead I'm left to suffer in the worst pain a human being can feel. I get treated like shit and told it's all in my head. I gave up on getting a diagnosis in year two. I just want to shoot dope whenever the pain comes. Dope atleast takes it away, after all they would be giving me some of the strongest shit they have at the hospital if I was some boomer with a sprained ankle. It would take the pain away. Thats for sure. Being a mentally ill, drug using, autistic tranny they just see that. I get nothing. No help, no answers, not even some relief when my screaming can be heard far and wide.

I want to die right now, and I keep trying to think of a painless way to do it.. buying $400 worth of street fentanyl and slipping into a nice, peaceful opioid coma seems like a wonderful idea right now.. that would end the fucking suffering atleast..

I wont be wearing a colostomy bag. Colostomy bags arent sexy, they are fucking disgusting and you cant just be body positive when you have a fucking bag full of your own shit hanging off you, and your only way of having penetrative sex sewed up permanently and taken away from me. Not like I could even be a decent fuck for anybody at this point anyways. Its painful to shit, let alone anything else. I dont want to give up food either. I love food, food is literally my life and the only way I have to bond with certain people! Like my family for example. Nothing makes me just want to slip.into that coma more then the worry of the future.

Will I be sitting at a family gathering eating bland gluten free, dairy free, all organic 100% vegan fair trade horse shit on a plate while my family actually gets to enjoy the food I used to be able to eat? Moms spaghetti, grandmas meat pies, the baked goods, fresh tomatoes out of my garden and others. A good fucking steak even? Cause honestly a birthday isnt a birthday if I dont have my birthday meal.

I know for a fact my body is damaged from 4 years of suffering. I used to bounce back, now it takes the wind out of my sails for a month.

Needless to say, I just want to fucking die more then anything else. Positivity and anything I love is gone, and all that I have left is knowing that Alberta health services, coast mountain health services, providence health services, and interior health services have all fucked me in the biggest way humanely possible. So thankful for free fucking healthcare!!

You get what you bloody well pay for!!

#thisiswhattranslookslike #girlslikeus #transgender #mtf #trans #transition #hrt #transgender girl #transformation #chronic illness #chronic pain #chronically sick #crohns disease

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relatablemormonmoments · 4 years ago

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Dallin H. Oaks, Sat morning Oct 2020

Sigh lets get this over with...

Y'all know how much I dislike him

Time of anger and hatred

Peaceful protest -> destructive behavior

Unkind references in church meetings (my dude we havent had church meetings in months)

Political atmosphere is unruly

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that use you and persecute you

Why does this sound kinda antisemitic?

Loving our enemies and adversaries is not easy, and requires self discipline greater than we are capable of.

Ask and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find

How do we keep commandments when we are subject to laws of man

Live peacefully under civil authority

Don't contend with anger, for that is of the Devil

No one can make us angry, it is our choice

Anger is division and enmity

BIPOC members, sweetie I'm so sorry you have to hear this. This white man doesnt get to tell you to forgive and forget the people who have historically oppressed you

When we try to understand and relate to people of a different culture, we should try to get to know them

It is a time honored adage that love begetts love

World in which we live would benefit if men and women exercised pur love of christ. It has no plas for bigotry and hatred

"Keep the laws of our countries" "let no man break the laws of the land because they match the laws of G-d" (keep saying that when we're under increasingly fascist rule)

We don't agree with all that is done with law but we obey it and peacefully participate in elections

Dont violently resist the outcome

1st amendment guarantees right of people to peacefully assemble and protest against the government and injustices

Yes there has been racism

"Racism thrives on hatred, oppression, and silence"

We must so better as members to root out racism (the only thing I've agreed with you saying all day)

No right to undermine the government's police powers (sigh)

All of us should understand the limits of our rights and importance of our duties

No grievance fit object addressed by mob law

"Anarchy undermines rather than protects rights"

"This country should be better at eliminating racism"

This nations history of racism is not a happy one

Founding generations came from many nations and ethnicities

Need for many refinements (voting rights for women and abolition of slavery for example)

Constitutional patriotism

United by and through constitution regardless of ideological disagreements

We have no eternal allies or perpetual enemies

Follow eternal and perpetual interests

Teachings of Savior (inspired constitution of US and laws of many countries)

And that's on colonialism/imperialism baby. Not necessarily christianity being right.

It is possible through the help of our Lord Jesus Christ

We are loved and will be helped by the Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.

He says some good things and then ruins it by being like "you have no right to be angry about injustices and the police are right in enforcing the law just dont fight it"

#mormon #lds #queerstake #lds general conference #ldsteen #tumblrstake #latter day saints conference #the church of jesus christ of latter day saints

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alatismeni-theitsa · 5 years ago

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Do you have any advice for greek people in diaspora who want to de-assimilate? My family immigrated to america when my great grandparents came over, and im kinda struggling to reconnect with my heritage when everyone in my family likes to pretend it doesnt exist. I grew up speaking some greek but even my parents admitted they want to forget all their greek and its really heartbreaking to see

I am sorry your parents treat Greek culture like a secret in the family. :/ It breaks my heart as well. But I am actually amazed that some Greek has stayed in the family from the time of your great grandparents!

To begin, assimilating isn’t exactly bad. Many people through the centuries have moved to other countries and became citizens of the new place in every way. Sure, you leave your old customs behind but you get new ones and you become part of a new community. It’s a natural process, happening since the beginning of humanity. Of course, it comes down to personal choice. Your parents want to not stand out. You want to keep the best of the new culture and the old culture.

I don’t want to assume things about you. Ι am saying this just in case you feel this way: please do not scorn the culture of the place where you live. Every culture is different and interesting, even if it seems mundane to you. The new culture is most likely the bigger part of you and it needs some care, too.

For example, I have spoken to many immigrants in the US and most of them dislike the US. At the same time, through our dicussions, they show me - and tell me - they couldn’t be less American. They had a very different upbringing than the people from their parents’ motherland.

I think it would be best if you got comfortable with both sides of you, the Greek one and the assimilated one. If your children and your children’s children live away from Greece, they will get more and more assimilated. It’s impossible to de-assimilate completely and forever. As many other Greeks, I am planning to leave Greece in a very short time. It’s sad to think my traditions won’t continue to the next generations. But it’s a reality we must face - and we should probably try to be positive about it.

That being said, it’s perfectly fine to have the desire to know more about your roots for whatever reason. So here is my advice to you:

1) You may want to read the history of Greece. All of it, not just from 300 BC to 100 AC as most foreigners do. Preferably, find works that have someone Greek as a writer or supervisor (because Greeks usually try to depict accurately what happened), or writers who truly feel Greece, like Richard Clogg. Our history and pain has shaped the way we look at the world and it’s a perspective you should be familiar with, since you are driving in! (Yes, more depression for everyone!)

2) Learn where your family comes from. Maybe by asking your grandparents or your parents you can learn the exact place/town or the geographical compartment of your family. Look for the specific dances and traditional costume of that area from YouTube videos or a Greek community in your area! See if the people there were great warriors, great merchants, great wine producers. See if there are any Greek heroes of the 1821 revolution coming from your place!

That may need lots of Google searching but I think you will get somewhere. I am also availiable if you want me to give you more information about a specific place.

For every Greek tribe there is a tag on my blog, like #macedonia, #epirus, #thrace and more. I have tags for most of the towns, too! You can also search for the different Greek “tribes” (Pontiacs, Kappadokians, Thracians and so on) which are often named after the place they lived. Everyone falls into some of them and you probably come from one (or two) as well!

3) Learn some more Greek. I suggest that because learning Greek means learning how Greeks think. I suppose you know the basics but how about the 20+ weird phrases we have to playfully say someone is gay, like “he flogs the dolphin”, “he shakes the pear tree” etc. What about the Greek phrases which stem from war and pirate raids and… hating the Turks?? How about the Mediterranean expressions like calling a mole “olive” or saying “I am in an open sea” when we feel lost, or saying “he pressed my oil out” when someone tires us?

Greekpod101 on YouTube will help you learn the basics and a little more! They also have a site. But basically going on Youtube and typing “learn Greek” will do the trick. For more weird or advanced stuff you can look at my tag #learn greek and #greek language.

4) Greek memes - Greek diaspora social media. They are surprisingly educational! @hooplagreeks on instagram is one of my fave meme profiles! Watch youtubers of Greek diaspora as “Greek in the City” or the Greek comedian Basile! On instagram you may want to follow @greekfestvictoria (videos of Greek dances and people, and photos of the community) and @newdiaspora (“a digital storytelling platform, focusing on the new generation of Greeks living abroad during the crisis in their homeland”) and @ greek_diaspora (some things for Greek culture).

On my tag #greek diaspora you may find more people like you! Some have asked me similar stuff so I may be repeating stuff in those posts as well.

5) Cook/eat Greek food. If your grandparents and mum know recipes, take them as if they are gold. It’s a great way to get familiar with the local Greek ingredients and the Greek palette. Heck, look for Greek recipes on the internet and cook them! If you don’t know where to start, my tag #greek cuisine may be helpful.

6) Read Greek classic literature (in Greek if you can, but you can also find works translated in English). Elitis, Sahtouris, Seferis, Venezis, Papadiamantis, Mirivilis, Delta, Empirikos, Zei, Kazantzakis are only a few of the literary gems Greeks have to offer. Enjoy good writing, the Greek perspective, and get to know the newer Greek society in a unique and authentic way. Here is a list with more of them (link).

7) Meet more Greeks! Through groups on insta or fb, through Tumblr blogs etc. Watch youtubers of Greek diaspora as “Greek in Town” or the comedian Basile! Maybe there is one Greek community near you area and you can pay a visit for festivals! (No day, Independence Day, 1st of March, Easter meal, Dance festivals etc). Don’t be shy to go there. From what I have seen, people from all backgrounds are welcome there. Plus, Greeks LOVE showing their culture so you are going to learn a lot of things from them.

8) Be proud. I know it may sound kind of weird but I feel being proud is one key element of being Greek. In every anniversary wars we won, in our schools we sing prideful songs and hang posters with our war heroes, always standing proud. The students and the army parade in the streets the small children wearing traditional costumes (parade is kinda of a facist remnant - ew - but it shows that we want to instill pride even in our children. It has a few positive elements I guess :P). To sum up, be proud of a people who endured natural catastrophes, wars, genocide, famine, occupation, slaughters and slavery and can still stand!

9) Travel to Greece? I don’t know how affortable it is for you and how easy it is but I recommend it. Your tickets don’t need to be for summer. (Honestly, you may want to avoid summer. It’s too hot and too crowdy in tourist areas. Spring is our best season ;). You can come off season and just see the place and meet the people. See the species Grecus Hellenicus in its narutal habitat! Maybe you’ll make some new friends to discuss about Greek culture!

10) Search the tags on this blog. In #greek people you will see Greeks of every era, in #vintage you will find old towns and traditional settings. In #paradosiaki foresia await some of the Greek traditional clothes. #greek language, #greek culture and #greek tradition, #greek festival, #greek music are self explanatory.

I think that’s all I’ve got! Good luck in your journey and I am here if you need anything else :D You can dm me and ask stuff, anything you want! I would be happy to help you get in touch with your roots!

#answered #greek diaspora #greek culture #advice #thepostiamlookingfor

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restrainedcontrol · 5 years ago

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1ST RULE: tag muses you would like to know better. no 2ND RULE: BOLD the statements that are true for your muse.

Tagged by: stole from @paintedboxturtle

Tagging: cheeto cause i’d like to know what goes through his tiny head to see why he doesnt understand he isnt allowed outside

MUSE: Hamato Raphael FC: Himself OCCUPATION: Ninja who occasionally helps save the world and fight crime AGE: 16 SEXUALITY: Bi-ace PRONOUNS: He/him

APPEARANCE:

I am 5'7" or taller god i wish

I should wear glasses

I have at least one tattoo

I have at least one piercing

I have blonde hair

I have brown hair

I have brown eyes

I have short hair?? (no hair????)

My abs are at least somewhat defined

I have or have had (knee) braces

PERSONALITY:

I love meeting new people

People tell me that I’m funny

Helping others with their problems is a big priority for me

I enjoy physical challenges

I enjoy mental challenges

I’m playfully rude with people I know well

I started saying something ironically and now I can’t stop saying it

There is something I would change about my personality

ABILITY:

I can sing well

I can play an instrument

I can do over 30 push-ups without stopping

I’m a fast runner

I can draw well

I have a good memory

I’m good at doing math in my head

I can hold my breath underwater for over a minute

I have beaten at least 15 people in arm wrestling

I know how to cook at least 3 meals from scratch (lmao this idiot cant cook)

I know how to throw a proper punch

I know how to wield a variety of weapons

I can use magic proficiently

HOBBIES:

I enjoy playing sports

I’m on a sports team at my school or somewhere else

I’m in an orchestra or choir at my school or somewhere else

I have learned a new song in the past week

I work out at least once a week

I’ve gone for runs at least once a week in the warmer months

I have drawn something in the past month

I enjoy writing

I do or have done martial arts

EXPERIENCES:

I have had my first kiss

I have had alcohol

I have scored the winning goal in a sports game

I have watched an entire season of a TV show in one sitting

I have been at an overnight event

I have been in on a taxi

I have been in the hospital or ER in the past year.

I have beaten a video game in one day

I have visited another country (it was an accident i swear)

I have been to one of my favourite band’s concerts

RELATIONSHIPS:

I’m in a relationship

I have a crush on a celebrity

I have a crush on someone I know

I have been in at least 3 relationships

I have never been in a relationship

I have asked someone out or admitted my feelings to them

I get crushes easily

I have had a crush on someone for over a year

I have been in a relationship for at least a year

I have had feelings for a friend

MY LIFE:

I have at least one person I consider a “best friend”

I live close to my school

My parents are still together alive

I have/had at least one sibling

I live in the United States

There is snow right now where I live

I have hung out with a friend in the past month

I have a smartphone

I have at least 15 CD’s

I share my room with someone

RANDOM SHIT:

I have break-danced

I know a person named Jamie

I have had a teacher with a last name that’s hard to pronounce

I have dyed my hair

I’m listening to one song on repeat right now

I have punched someone in the past week

I know someone who has gone to jail

I have broken a bone

I have eaten a waffle today

I know what I want to do with my life

I speak at least 2 languages

#//meme #paintedboxturtle

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shanascarlett · 5 years ago

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Thoughts on Hasbro Universe after Revolution

Im big fan of G.I. Joe/Transformers. But when I heard that there are more than 2 franhises in one universe, it blew my mind. So I decided to check out them. One of them I heard when I was kid.

Revolution was big. For some it was epic, other think it was mess. I understand why ppl love and hate it. Personally I love it. There’s conflict and how heroes unite against evil. It was the beggining of massive universe. So, how it turned out?

To be fair.... not so good.

Its my own opinion. You can disagree with me. If you love aftermath of Revolution, thats fine. I just want to tell about the conclusion of Hasbro Comic Book Universe.

Optimus Prime.

I think the writer put a lot of his view on life: disappointment on every religion. I really didnt like how he made that Optimus Prime is always wrong. Even when he listens and he does what he was asked to do, ppl still angry at him. “You should listened to me!” and “You shouldn’t listen to me!”. I love that they put Joes, but here’s the big issue: OOC of Mainframe and Flint with his daughter look similar the same age.

Remember when Trasnformers had the mystery of their religion and mythology? Mix of Sci-Fi and Cosmic Fantasy. Yeah, forget about that. It was all Shockwave’s evil plan. Another big disappointment for me.

I like how they described the ghost of Bumblebee, but Shockwave being one of 13 Primes looks very... confusion to me.

Lost Light

Lost Light deserves to be called a weak sequel. Remember when in MTMTE was magic mystery, adventure, gore and development of characters and relationships? Here I found nothing. New characters for me are not interesting. And yes about them being “trans”. Im not transphobic and sorry if my opion might hurt you or offend. I just dont see transgenders in Transformers. I dont see transformers suffering of gender dysphoria. Hell, I doubt they suffer of homophobia, bc they are totally fine with mlm and wlw. If you dont know, hetero relationships are for the population of Earth. And Transformers managed told that they can love each other, but their love is not like Earth’s bc they dont have to have sex to create life. They have strong emotion connection to each other.

Speaking about love. I love Chromedome/Rewind love story bc it was developed. We saw the birth of connection, loss, pain, reunion, fear and happiness. Same with Cyclonus and Tailgate. To be fair I dont ship the last two as romantic couple, but as platonic couple. For me they dont have that emotional connection like Chrome/Rewind but they care each other. In Lost Light nothing. You just accept that a lot characters are couple to each other. Why and how? Just accept it. This is why I dont feel emotional connection to Lug and Anode. To be fair I thought they are friend and Lug looks a lot like a boy. If they’d develop her more better, I think I’d like her. The whole Lost Light is just comics of couples. I was thinking when they’re gonna do the Orgy like in Ancient Rome.

Also here’s another disappointment in religion. Everything was lie. As I told earlier - I didnt like it. I’d rather to rewatch TFP, Bayverse or G1. BC I felt emptiness. MTMTE is masterpiece.

G.I. Joe

Where do I begin? Was written by socialist who doesnt know anything about military, ruined Quick Kick who was nice and gentle, made Scarlett an idiot, turned charasmatic Shipwreck into fat vegan, new characters have no backstory or reasons why they joined to Joes. Also: huge hypocricy. Scarlett says that G.I. Joe is now international team, but they refuse to work with USA. I get it they tried to turn G.I. Joe into Overwatch, but OW was working with every country. Including USA, where they had one of their headquarters. American G.I. Joe was more progressive bc they were helping every country who had deal with Cobra or any threat. They even teamed up with Russian soldiers.

The huge disappointment was no explanation about Snake Eyes rebirth (and no love story of Snake/Scarlett) and Quick Kick being an ass. Just check G.I. Joe ARAH show. There Quick Kick was nice. I miss that one....

The only good stuff was about Rock n’ Roll nightmares and guilt for shooting Grand Slam, grumpy Grand Slam and Doc being half-alien. Thats alll.

Revolutionaries

It was a bit better bc its literally crossover with conflict and backstories. Here they at least tried to make story interesting. And brought a lot interesting references. Especially to 90s: KLAW, Slaugther and even to original Action Force.

M.A.S.K.: Mobile Armored Strike Kommand

At 1st they tried but then it all felt down. I wouldnt call it horrible. You can check out 1st issues. I can say that only villains were interesting. While main heroes... here’s the problem.

Original Matt Trekker was an engineer, millionaire, helped ppl and white. Why the last important? BC in reboot he became boring black guy who seeks vengeance for his father death and the main bad guy is white man. Im not racist bc I like how it was done in Spawn, but it wasnt so obvious who is the bad guy who just wants to take over the world. I get it you hate Trump. He is a clown.

Also original Trekker raises his son alone. So he is widowed. It could play in reboot: lost all, but tries to keep his son safe. So much potential for drama of lonely father. But we got what we got. I just go to rewatch Spawn animated series.

If they wanted “diverse” why they didnt put more poc characters from MASK? You know there are actual canon black man and indian man? Even native american man?

ROM

It was boring. 1st issues were interesting and brutal bc of alien invansion. You wouldnt know who is the enemy and who is the friend. But drama...

Whole Rom’s drama was about losing his humanity. At 1st we see him as cold-hearted alien. Then they all forget about it. Original Rom from Marvel was losing his humanity until he met brave girl Brandy who made him to remember his loss of homeplanet and love of his life. He was afraid to be alone and to be complete machine. And yes, in reboot his old girlfriend is alive. But I felt nothing with this. I prefer to read original comics bc I felt sorry for Rom.

Micronauts: Wrath of Karza

It was boring. The only thing I can remember is Larissa being Baron Karza’s daughter. I dont compare reboot with original series bc I havent read yet. I liked the new one bc of Baron Karza and his wife (and their fetish).

First Strike

Hoo- boy. It was bad. Preety bad. Not bc villains tried to destroy Cybertron. Not bc TF thought its gonna be war of humans and TF. No, it all was good. The main villain is Joe Colton who wants to destroy Cybertron to save Earth. And that he was bad from the beginning. His motivation sounds like Miles Mayhem from M.A.S.K.. That shock effect of surprise villain doesnt work here. It looks like disrespect to Joe fans. They managed to ruin Scarlett’s character who was turned into G.I. Joe not bc she was the best. She was in Joes bc she didnt do 50 push-ups. If you dont know, G.I. Joe is elite guard where they take the best men and women bc they do a lot dangerous work. So the whole story arc is full disrespect to Joe fan. I dont know about you, but I was offended by that.

Was there smth good? Team up of villains and the easter egg of Visionaries.

Rom vs. Transformers: Shining Armor

I almost forget about the plot bc it was boring. Rom was rude like every commander (yeah, for someone “losing humanity”). New character was boring. So everythng was boring. Even Autobots didint save the situation.

Rom & the Micronauts

Well, they at least tried with characters development. I really liked how characters interact with each other. But the whole story was “meh”

Scarlett's Strike Force

It was very short and cancelled. BC that writer Sitterson wrote offensive tweet about Nine Eleven. I get it what he was trying to do: to make comics based on cartoon G.I. Joe. This is why Quick Kick and Spirit fight against Storm Shadow. Personally I thought it was racist bc “only asian fight agains asian”. And Storm Shadow has the worst redesign I’ve ever seen. Theres nothing to talk about the comics bc its unfinished and cancelled. So theres nothing.

Transformers vs. Visionaries

This comic had potential. But the ending ruined it. The story is about colonization to save living race. But it will kill another nation. Its interesting theme. And how they managed? Nothing. For some reason everyone in peace and safe. The ending is just weird. I think writer didint know how to end that conflict so she wrote “everyone safe and in peace. Colonization is bad”. Not the ending is the problem. Main characters: Leoric and Virulina redesigned very strong. Leoric looks like total different character (why not to create new character? He looks good). And Virulina looks like student from art-school, not the villain. The redesigned I like are Cryotek and Arzon. And the art was very good.

The last 2 ones I havent finished yet. I can tell this: TAAO isnt look so bad, but I’m ready for disapointing ending, like TF Unicron.

In conclusion:

I dont tell that it was done horrible. Its just explains why IDW decided to reboot TF and G.I. Joe. Low sales. BC I’ve noticed a lot easter eggs in those comics for future story plots. I think they’d made it good if IDW would give them chance.

If you love them, thats fine. I’ll enjoy my own version of Hasbro Universe.

#review #opinion #transformers #g.i. joe #gijoe #mask #m.a.s.k.#rom #rom the spaceknight #micronauts #visionaries #comics #idw #hasbro #hasbro universe

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whitemanschina · 5 years ago

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(part 2)

In the Chinese country side where Chinese women have rarely seen a white man, the sexual curiosity will spark. I remember a trip to China 10+ years back. This was Shanghai, used to be called the 'Whore of the Orient' go figure... Well, I was in China as part of a tour group when Western tourist were in the area, they were like instantly celebrities with Chinese all wanting to take pictures with them. if the Westerner is a man.....hehe...let's just say you'd be spending 0 dollars and you can start making a 'sex count' of how many Chinese girls you fuck. There was an expat forum (gone now) in China where the Western expats share all their 'sexual conquest'and exploits they have with their Chinese female students and even female Chinese teachers. They will tell each other where to find the easy Chinese women, where is the best school to poach young Chinese girls for sex (this was going on for many decades) . Many of those foreign expats also have Chinese mistresses (modern day concubines, except they only serve western males). It's gotten to the point where the Central government in Beijing issued a warning, explicitly targeting Chinese women telling them white men are spies and be weary of dating them. I'm talking about Chinese women in ALL LEVELS of Chinese society. From the young Chinese peasant girl from the country side, "white fetish" loving Chinese whores in the all the cities, even A-list highest paid TOP Chinese celebrities including Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li, Fan Bing Bing and dozens more, have either dated or married to WHITE MEN. You will not see anything of this sort in China. Only Chinese female celebrities have no issues getting intimate with western males. It's kinda crazy.....

Even Chinese women in the CCP have to control their desires assuming they developed "white fetish" which I am sure some have. It's a common trait in among women in China and the Far East.

All other Far Eastern countries are the same, but China is different because of is its the largest country in the world with an IMMENSE collective thought among so many Chinese women (in all levels of society) in regards to white men when in comes to dating, romance, intimacy and sex. They even have local shows in China where Chinese women basically have to use seduction and other means to be chosen by the man (white man, wasn't surprised, made me watch the entire show.) The point is, whoever the white man chooses, will be his Chinese wife.

Filipinas......unlike the sheer size of the China women's population and despite millions of Western men spreading their seeds inside Chinese pussies for centuries continuing to this day with signs of spreading to more and more Chinese women, the Chinese population remains 92% homogeneous. Filipinas got sexually dominated 1st by the Spanish and later on by the US. Because of population size compared to China, you can see many mixed-race filipinas. Filipinas were raped enmassed both by the Spanish and Americans that today a lot of Filipinos have Spanish or western blood thanks to their white expat father inseminating millions of Filipina whore mothers. This is also normal in the Philippines. Whereas Chinese women have "white sexual fetish" for Western men, Filipina have "white worship" for Western men.

The social cultural aspect of all this is the White man's massive control and influence over Chinese women and filipina women in the dating and sexual intimacy scene where it is accepted and often promoted (China advertising agencies use White men and Chinese women quite commonly in big public billboards either to sell products or to promote single Western men to meet Chinese ladies. it's like China doesnt really mind Westerner males having very intimate and sexually charged relationship with Chinese women because........200 some odd years of the Western man enjoying the total unrestricted sexuality of the the women in China became part of the "taboo culture". Just like the Qipao.....A "Chinese sexual attire" but actually, these clothing belonged to the minority Manchu people. Chinese designers changed the style a bit so the thighs are showing and more revealing.

If you made it this far, wow, you actually read all that? I thought history was boring? For me, history the sexual history between East and West is what turns me on the most. It's like I have even a stronger "yellow fever" than western men. I even have a vast collections of classic Asian porn magazines and maybe a 100 books regarding this East-West sexual dichotomy. I said what MILLIONS of East Asian males won't say, they can choose to ignore it, but most will probably end up on pornhub watching Asian porn (it's called 'Asian' porn but the only Asian is the woman getting fucked. Men from many races, black, white, latino, indian (I don't consider Indians to be Asian) are the ones fulfilling the yellow woman's "white fetish"

Some might think I am being racist because I keep targeting 'white man', but its just historic reality with evidence all around. However it's not just white men, even though they are most sought after by East Asian women. When Britain was ruling Hong Kong with like fewer than thousand brits and thousands of their Indian soldiers. Indian soldiers also took part in sexual activity with Chinese women. Today most Indo-Chinese pairing are between a Chinese woman and an Indian man. This is also the case in Singapore, even though its 80% Chinese majority and Indians make up like 5%, almost 90% of Indo-Chinese romance/intimacy/and sex are exclusively between Indian men and Chinese women.

I was very surprised that so many Chinese women in relationship with Indian males, especially in Singapore where Chinese people make up the bulk of the population, Indian men are not discriminated from getting it on with Chinese ladies. Despite political differences there are hundreds of Chinese massage parlors in India, but zero Indian massage parlor in China. That is very intriguing. Since many if not most Chinese massage parlors are hugely popular, Chinese triads fund these 'whore houses' disguised as a massage business throughout the world. Chinese women are prostituted by the millions every single day in 'massage parlors'. This is a multi-billion dollar industry that keeps growing.

Chinese population can always make more babies = more Chinese women so I am not worried about all the white men, black men, or even indian men screwing or marring Chinese women, but for the smaller population East Asian countries I am indeed worried that they end up like the Philippines, with half your population having the 'white man' gene inside their women and girls.

Feel soooooo good to get this all out!

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ismsposts · 3 years ago

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prologue

*wrote this on my notes apps 1st April 2022, 6pm*

Since this morning, i started to feel uneasy. nervous la easy to say. For no reason - or not?

Exactly a week ago, I was having trouble to sleep and randomly came across CN & DD scandal on yt after trying to find out about PDP scandal back in the days after binging J from the ROfficial after watching his congratulation single ft PDP to address the biggest scandal on yt history in related to PDP with the currently biggest youtuber in the world - TS. Fuhh. Thats a long one.

So yeah. That’s how I found this yt channel owned by this particular person whom i choose not to disclose - why? idk. Ok fine, lets called them HT. I started following HT since day one of finding out DD scandal. It was somewhat around 4am, after binging J and found out what really happen to the VS, I watched the VS old videos and immediately attracted to HT with one thought in mind - “why i didnt noticed this human before”. There’s one phase of my life where I used to watch VS videos I think sometime on 2018. Jumping on DD’s bandwagon way to late I guess.

Ok, back to how I react this few days. I wasnt really want to follow HT so much. At first I was just curious on DD scandal then I realised I didnt noticed HT from before. But that dream of mine made me do this. I saw HT in my dream and that was it. Game over man. One incident just enough to fall into the catch. And one week to finally realised that what i’m doing now is freakin sick.

I tweeted this just now, “too much of something is never a good thing” cause I do realised that i overdid myself. I wonder why I suddenly felt so uneasy, almost anxious, since morning today. Is it because of the caffeine or because of HT’s withdrawal.

I spent almost 24 hours last week on youtube. SICK! That’s why I decide to go on a yt detox - at least for a week. BUT, I cant! hahaha. I just need yt. I’ve tried to divert myself from youtube to binging netflix - currently watching snowpiercer S3. BUT failed. I still will go back to yt once I get bored. And you know what, I’ve been watching netflix 1.5x now. I guess that helps me a lot these days to complete 1 season faster.

Back to the story of HT. I wanted to share an early sign of HT addiction. I keep wanting HT. I know its not possible, but I pictured myself into HT’s life also known as day dreaming. I started to follow the way HT speak and laugh and HT’s face expression. Dang it. This is so bad! Binging HT productions on yt is one thing. But following HT stuff on ig is way too much i think. Its almost embarrassing to think about, but I just wanted to commemorate this moment. It will be funny to read this 5 or 10 years from now. If apple product is still relevant. Finger cross.

Now every time i went to yt homepage, i saw HT. How am I gonna withdraw from this addiction?? I give this feeling for another week. Let see if i still feel the same.

Few takeaway from discovering HT are..

1) I wanted to become a better person - I aspired to act like HT. At least i got the inspiration to start watching over my health more. I think I should start doing fitness or run or doing something physical and be active.

2) Discovering HT makes me wanted to go to NYC more than ever. Felt like the USA trip is coming sooner than i think. Trip from boston down to NYC, crossing over the country to LA, maybe spent 2-3 days visiting chicago or arizona or even SF. Idk. But I will do it. That’s one of my bucket list. But i know that i couldn’t do that alone, so imma start looking for a partner in crime whose ready for the adventure babyyy!

Lastly, 3) I questioned myself creatively, specifically on yt activities and mentally, on how i lead my life. I wanted to do yt just to make myself useful. nope jk. Actually i dont want an exposure. I just want to do something that 50 years old me would thank to. Like documenting my 20s & 30s. Its more than ever before, I feel like westerner doesnt seem to care about age so much. They just live their life! Contrary from where I came from. At certain age, i have to act this way, do this way and be this way. I no longer can do things 15 years old me did when I’m on my 20s. I no longer can travel solo and act foolishly on my 30s or 40s or when I’m married. Society-defined life - I dont wanna live that. Now im 27, almost 28, I want to keep my mental young and my body fit!

HT addiction isnt bad at all. At least I got to reinvent my self, challenged myself and start risking myself to step away from my comfort, boring life. I always complaining that my life wasnt as fun as others. That’s because I limit myself to move just around my safe zone.

So starting from the month of ramadan this year, I want to start a new life. In shaa Allah. I failed when i turned 27 tho its just 5 months ago. But i’m thrilled to start again. I tweeted today, “u r afraid to start something cause u might be bad at it.. truth is every things need to start somewhere and u cant be good at it on a first try - that's pure luck”

***

I think imma start a new website or blog or a social media account where I can write for no context. I write anonymously, random thoughts and in incognito mode. Well.. I wonder can i do that? hmmmm.

I guess lets just do it.

As a start, i think social media acc like fb, insta and whats popular now seems risky, at any second people can know the person behind the mask - which is me. Lol. So i think website is a good one. Or maybe twitter or any blogging apps will do. well well well… What’s it gonna be?

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automatismoateo · 4 years ago

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true face of islam. via /r/atheism

Submitted August 06, 2021 at 08:27PM by ehsanboy74 (Via reddit https://ift.tt/3lFzRbg) true face of islam.

so i felt like this needs to be heard. as a person living in a muslim country i felt like i have some information to share that would show the true face of islam that is being kept from the world. 1st of all: hijab in islam is NOT a choice. it might be a choice to muslims living in 1st world countries where islam doesnt have any power. but as someone who lives in the middle east i see women recieve actual punishments (up to 24 years of jail) for not wearing hijab correctly. 2nd: leaving islam equals death. alot of muslims living in 1st world countries will disagree and say "its not mentioned in the quran" while thats true islam, isnt all about quran in fact it has something called (hadith) which can be took as rules in islam and among those hadiths leaving islam equals death penalty. 3rd: the reason why islam has spread in the world is NOT because its peaceful and or complete. its because muslims attacked everywhere and forced their religion onto people saying "you either become muslims or we will kill your men and force marry your women" which can also be fact checked by a glance at history. 4th: in islam a wife is literally a sex slave which can be confirmed with another hadith that says( a mans wife has to agree to sexual relations any time the husband demands it even if its on top of a camel while riding it) or with a verse from quran that says( if a mans wife disobeys him 1st punishment should be reasoning 2nd would be not sleeping with them and 3rd would be hitting them) which explains alot. i think islam has been playing the victim role and hiding their true religions face for waaay too long and it needs to be stopped. so im calling out and reaching out to all ex muslim friends of mine in this subreddit to share everything they can revealing islams true face.

#reddit

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tommytedesco · 5 years ago

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Environmental Studies Midterm

The State of the Environment

The primary theme in these readings is the concept of natural capital and the separation of it into two groups: natural resources and ecological services. Googles defines “natural resources” as goods produced by nature that can be used for economic gain, but the concept of full-cost pricing implies that the degradation or support of ecological services as a result of the extraction of natural resources carries a measurable economic impact. I think there needs to be a shift in the general economic consciousness towards considering climate issues as one and the same with economic issues. I recall a moment in the last Democratic debate in which Bernie Sanders, when asked a question about the USMCA, made his most pointed criticism about climate change. Sanders said “the word ‘climate change’ to the best of my knowledge is not discussed in this new NAFTA agreement at all, which is an outrage" (Bhoem 2019). I think this is exactly the type of mentality politicians need to tackle the climate and sustainability crisis. Our short-term economic gain will kill us all if it does not consider the long-term impacts on sustainability.

(Fig. 1. Image from Global Footprint Network, screenshot by author.)

My overshoot day, a measure of my personal lifestyle sustainability, is the 29th of May. That means that by this date, assuming all 7+ billion people in the world lived like I did, humanity would use up more natural capital than Earth can sustainably replenish in a year. Earth overshoot day for the average human is August 1st, but it makes sense that I use more than the average person given that I live in America. I’m much more affluent than most people in the world, and the government I pay taxes to uses much more natural capital, so I take on part of their footprint as well. I’d like to decrease my footprint, but I’m afraid there is only so much I can do at Fordham University, where I have no control over where my electricity, food, and water is sourced from and have only limited control over my diet. I really appreciate the USG sustainability board and all they do to push through sweeping changes to the Fordham policy and budgeting. We need change to come even faster, of course, but I’ll turn off appliances in the meantime.

The nature of the ecological footprint analysis seems a little flawed to me, at least on a country by country basis. Miller and Spoolman state (p. 12-13) that ecological footprint is calculated by dividing the natural capital consumed by a nation, expressed in a square mile area figure, by the total square mile area of the country. It is supposed to give an idea of how many copies of Canada, for instance, Canadians would need to live sustainably. The issue, however, is that this greatly biases sustainability estimates in favor of countries with a larger land mass. Americans live in a much bigger country than British citizens, but this doesn’t mean that they are less morally culpable for using the same amount of natural capital per person as the British. In the ecological footprint statistic, countries with lower population density obtain results skewed in their favor, making it the Electoral College of sustainability statistics. Miller and Spoolman include Figure 1.10, which suggests that countries like Russia and Australia are highly sustainable while nations like Cuba are not. I believe this is a result of population density bias. Looking at the map provided by the Global Footprint Network (2010), which uses the much more telling global hectares per capita figure, gives a better glimpse of the current situation. Amazingly, despite its abundance of open land and low population density, the USA boasts one of the largest hectares per capita figures on the map.

(Fig. 2. Image from Janner.)

The concept of a tradeoff between further development and reigning in the exploitation and destruction of ecosystem services, as discussed in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s Summary for Decision Makers (2005) poses a fascinating moral quandary, but I think the benefits of economic development over the last century are highly overstated. While it’s true that GDP growth in developing countries should help the poor, it is more likely, as has been the case over the last century in America, that the vast majority of gains will go to a small minority at the top of the social ladder, widening the gap between the rich and the poor and opening the gates to newer and stronger forms of class-based oppression. This, in turn, will cause political unrest, unstable economies, further natural resource exploitation, and a lower quality of life in general, despite the absolute gains in income for the impoverished. The ill effects of income inequality cannot be overlooked.

The 1992 Warning to Humanity, while an important step toward climate awareness, drastically underestimated the severity of climate change. I am beginning to understand that, at the time of its writing, the issue of sustainability was much better understood than the issue of global climate change. It seems that science at the time wasn’t quite ready to make the call on climate change: “Predictions of global warming are still uncertain - with projected effects ranging from tolerable to very severe - but the potential risks are very great” (Union 1992). We now know that global warming is an existential threat within the next 100 years, and a threat to global civilization on an even shorter timescale. Some serious effects of global warming will be irreversible in as few as twelve years according to recent UN reporting (Watts 2018). The 2017 update on the warning by the Alliance of World Scientists notes that the effects predicted in 1992 are already coming and were greatly, tragically underestimated (Ripple 2017). The consensus is much clearer now than it was in 1992. We need a renewed focus to tackle these global issues on the exceptionally short timescale we’ve left ourselves.

The five points of the warning are certainly consistent with my moral beliefs, but I was curious about the last point. The fifth point reads “We must ensure sexual equality, and guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions” (Union 1992). Again, this is absolutely correct, but I had trouble figuring out exactly what the environmental implications are of sexual equality and reproductive rights. Miller and Spoolman discussed how poverty exacerbates environmental issues and impoverished groups have the most to lose from climate change and resource depletion (p. 17-18), but there was little discussion of sexual equality. My best guess, after talking to some friends about the topic, is that reproductive rights are a method of population control, but the third point already covers methods of population control. Another thought I had, which I doubt was the consideration of an intro-level environmental studies textbook, was the consideration in Murray Bookchin’s writings of the psychology of environmental harm. He claimed, if I was told correctly, that our violence towards the environment mirrors our violence towards other humans. Sexual violence, racially motivated violence, and violence towards the poor all exacerbate our violence towards the environment, and to tackle one form of violence, you have to tackle all of them. I haven’t read Bookchin myself, but he makes a point I’d like to investigate more - it could speak volumes about the intersection of environmental justice and other forms of social justice.

Discussion Question: What implications do sexual equality and reproductive rights have on issues of sustainability and climate change?

Word Count: 1224

References

“1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity.” Union of Concerned Scientists, www.ucsusa.org/resources/1992-world-scientists-warning-humanity.

Boehm, Eric. “Bernie Sanders Says He Won't Back Trump's New NAFTA Because It Doesn't Solve Climate Change. Huh?” Reason.com, Reason, 20 Dec. 2019, reason.com/2019/12/19/bernie-sanders-says-he-wont-back-usmca-because-it-doesnt-solve-climate-change-huh/.

Global Footprint Network. What is Your Ecological Footprint? https://www.footprintcalculator.org/.

Janner, Jolly. " World Map of Countries by Ecological Footprint," Wikimedia Commons, October 29, 2010. commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_map_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint_(2007).svg-.

Miller, G. Tyler and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Boston, Cengage Learning, 2018.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC.

Ripple, William J. et al. “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency.” Home Page | World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, 2017, scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/.

Watts, Jonathan. “We Have 12 Years to Limit Climate Change Catastrophe, Warns UN.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Oct. 2018, www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/global-warming-must-not-exceed-15c-warns-landmark-un-report.

The Environment Relies on Fundamental Science

To understand environmental change, one first has to grasp the fundamental concepts that underlie ecological functionality. It is first the physical-chemical concepts of conservation of energy and conservation of matter that allow us to understand the complex nutrient cycles and flow of energy in Earth’s ecosystems. These ecosystems are incredibly adaptable, owing to the biological phenomenon of evolution leading to biodiversity. The wide array of species on Earth and their interactions with their inorganic world form the basis for humanity’s continued presence on Earth. As ocean researcher Sylvia Earle says, “The rest of the living world can get along without us, but we can’t get along without them” (Miller and Spoolman 81).

Chapter Two begins with a review of basic chemistry, which is necessary for the understanding of higher-order problems in environmental science. Matter can be divided into elements, which take form as atoms, which are a part of molecules. The major macromolecules, built of constituent monomers, that are fundamental for life on Earth are lipids, proteins, nucleic acids, and complex carbohydrates, or sugars (Miller and Spoolman 37). Each of these plays a role in biological processes and needs to be cycled through the environment so that organisms can receive a steady supply for metabolism. In organisms, these macromolecules comprise cells. Nucleic acid sequences in cells program cell function and form the basis of inheritance of characteristics, without which evolution could not occur. Ecosystems without outside input, like Earth’s biosphere, need to cycle the chemicals they use because they cannot make more. The principle that matter cannot be created or destroyed is known as the law of conservation of matter.

Next, there are certain physical concepts that must be understood in order to tackle other problems of environmental science, and the most important of these concepts is the flow of energy. Most important are two rules known as the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed (Miller and Spoolman 42). It is the energy analog to the law of conservation of matter, and is indeed often called the law of conservation of energy. The second law of thermodynamics states that any transfer of energy turns some energy into heat, which disperses into the environment and is not usable for work (Miller and Spoolman 42). Ecosystems rely on a constant input of energy from the sun to supply anabolic processes in accordance with the first and second laws of thermodynamics.

Take a moment to appreciate the biosphere’s demonstrated mastery over these physical-chemical concepts in the absence of human adjustment. Over billions of years, time and probability have crafted a delicately balanced yet highly adaptable biosphere in accordance with these laws that human beings have only recently (on a geological timescale) described.

The end of Chapter Two discusses the concept of systems, which are sets of components that function and react in some regular way (Miller & Spoolman 43). Because systems respond to change in some regular way, we can talk about their inputs, outputs, and patterns more concisely. A positive feedback loop occurs when inputs to a system encourage further change to the system (Miller and Spoolman 43). At a certain point, known as the ecological tipping point, the change to the system spirals into disaster. A negative feedback loop is corrective. It occurs when inputs to a system discourage further change in that direction, bringing the system back towards an equilibrium (Miller and Spoolman 44). Given that a negative feedback loop is the good, naturally occurring process, I wonder how the phrase “positive feedback loop” made its way into common usage as a term parallel to “paying it forward.”

Much about ecosystems can be explained through the lens of the conservation of energy and matter. Earth has permanently limited chemical resources and a fixed rate of energy input from the Sun, so all life on Earth has to make efficient use of these resources. This competition for resources is just one of many ways that organisms can ensure reproductive success, which is the basis for continued existence. Each species can be said to occupy an ecological niche, or role, and species living in the same area tend to utilize different niches because species that compete in the same niche will tend to be less successful in acquiring the resources they need and reproducing (Miller and Spoolman 82). Our current biodiversity, characterized by millions of different patterns of behavior and ecological niches, is the result of millions of intertwined evolutionary paths that operated (and continue to operate) in accordance with the principles of sustainability.

I think the concept of sustainability through natural selection raises an interesting point about humanity’s place in the biosphere. The consequence of our unsustainable use of natural capital should be the destruction of our ecological niche and our spread into different niches. If we destroyed all possible resources we could use so that there was nowhere left for us to live, the result would be the extinction of humanity and most other terrestrial animals, but life on Earth would continue. Long after we are gone, bacteria and fungi would continue to decompose our corpses, plants would continue to cycle carbon dioxide into oxygen (even if only aquatic plants remained), and the sun would continue to feed energy into Earth’s grand ecosystem. It seems likely that animals and plants would, perhaps millions of years later, resettle the land that could no longer support us, and Earth’s biodiversity would flourish once again.

Knowing this, it becomes difficult for me to subscribe to anything but a humanistic approach to climate change and sustainability. I think centering climate change as some existential threat to all of planet Earth demonstrates some degree of hubris. While we are certainly “one with the Earth'' and all its life, we would not be the first or the last species to go extinct. I suppose a counterargument could be that our extinction event would take out many species along with us, but I am not convinced that this would be a uniquely human, uniquely awful event. Geological changes that result in species movement can introduce an invasive species to an area that causes destruction that eventually wipes out the invasive species as well as the native species. As I write this, I go back and forth in my head about whether or not human activity is different in this regard because we are aware of the change we are making and we have developed an ethical framework to analyze it. Throwing ethics out the window because what we are doing also can naturally occur seems inhuman, but I suppose someone could counter that, following this chain of logic, climate change could not be immoral if we did not know we were affecting it. I think there is a rich debate to be had about humanity’s role in the biosphere from a philosophical, ethical perspective.

Discussion question: Earth’s biodiversity would recoup after a man-made climate crisis and life on Earth would continue. How does this square with life-centric or earth-centric environmental worldviews?

Word Count: 1149

References

Miller, G. Tyler and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Boston, Cengage Learning, 2018.

A History of Everything

The primary point of the first part of our reading this week was Big History vs. conventional history and contrasting that idea with the distinct period of human influence on the environment known as the Anthropocene. Big History seeks to decenter the human cultural aspect of history and emphasizes the search for universal patterns and trends dating back to the Big Bang. Conventional history, on the other hand, generally begins with the advent of written language about 5000 years ago. Proponents of Big History would claim that conventional history ignores the much larger portion of human and pre-homo sapien history, which is rife with consequential events and environmental impact, and also that it separates human history from a universal, cosmological history on which sociocultural history is dependent. Critics of Big History might argue that it is simply part of the anti-humanist turn of academia, and that the nature of cosmological and pre-human “historical” studies is more akin to something like evolutionary biology or physical cosmology.

(Fig. 1. NASA/WMAP Science Team)

(Fig. 2.Paleantological Research Institution)

The Anthropocene epoch would follow the Holocene and distinguish itself on the grounds of vastly increased human capability for influencing the environment. The term has not found its way into official usage yet, but organizations like the Anthropocene Working Group are pushing for it based primarily on soil evidence. The greatly increased concentration of radioactive isotopes in the pedosphere, Earth’s soil layer, suggest a starting point of the Anthropocene in 1945, or the time of the Trinity nuclear bomb test (CITATION WIKIPEDIA). The term will be formally proposed to the International Commission on Stratigraphy by 2021. If the proposal is completed, the Anthropocene will enter academic usage and receive its own golden spike as a stratigraphic marker of its lower bound in the geological timescale.

(Fig. 3. Bahudhara.)

The latter half of our reading covered the history of environmentalism in the United States of America, starting with the tribal era and covering up to the modern interpretations of environmentalism and the fight against the deregulation “wise-use” movement that started in the 1980s. In the tribal era, the various groups we now refer to collectively as Native Americans lived on the land sustainably. This contrasted greatly with European settler expansionist policy that marked the frontier era, in which the American view of nature was that of something to be conquered and put to economic use. With the closing of the frontier officially announced in 1890 (Digital History 2019), the early conservation movement marked by Henry David Thoreau and George Perkins Marsh (Cengage 2007) exploded into a federal policy movement. Important events in this vein include the Forest Reserve Act of 1891, the Golden Age of Conservation under President Theodore Roosevelt, and the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps under President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Cengage 2007). After 1945, a heightened sense of collective human peril ushered in the environmentalist movement, with greater philosophical implications than the earlier conservationist movements (Stoll YEAR). Great gains for the environmentalists in the ‘60s and ‘70s were challenged by the Reagan administration. The fight against deregulation, defunding of renewable energy research, and selling of public land continues to this day.

(Fig. 4. Beder)

(Fig. 5. National Park Service)

The case study of the return of the American Bison exemplifies the landmark events of environmental history in the United States. The American Bison were once hunted exclusively by Native Americans who used nearly every part of the animal and limited their hunting to what they needed to survive, but this pattern was disrupted by the American push westward after the Civil War (Cengage 2007). An uptick in hunting for sport, hunting as a means of warfare against the Plains Indians, and hunting for tongues and hide (which left meat to rot), combined with increased protection of farmland, significantly decreased the American bison population. Coinciding approximately with the closure of the frontier and the popularization of the conservationist movement, an American bison population of just 85 finally found protection in Yellowstone National Park. From here, conservationists in the American Bison Society (1905) and the federal government worked to rebuild the bison population, which stands around 500,000 as of 2007.

I had never considered the difference between conservationism and environmentalism before. It makes chronological sense that environmentalism casts a wider net and deals with bigger issues than conservatism. Studying the Anthropocene and the origins of environmentalism, both with an asserted start date of 1945 (Wikipedia) confirms the importance of the advent of the nuclear bomb to the collective human psyche. Humans have long been influencing the Earth, and in one discussion I had with a friend, they claimed it made more sense to them to start the Anthropocene in the early 1800s because of the excess carbon buildup in the atmosphere that marked the start of large-scale manmade climate change. Geologists, however, want a rock layer that they can mark as the start of a new epoch, so they choose the nuclear bomb because it deposited radioactive material that we can detect in the soil strata. The difference in these proposed start dates poses an interesting philosophical question: how obvious must our destructive capacity become before we set out to control it? I hope that we soon reach a point where the global consensus is that of a state of emergency on climate change because we cannot allow environmental destruction to become much more potent before it runs away from us.

(Fig. 6. IPCC from Irfan)

(Fig. 7. NASA/Anders.)

I think I consider myself more of a conservationist than a preservationist - so, more in line with the thinking of Theodore Roosevelt than John Muir. The striking difference to me is in their separation of human society and nature. A preservationist view seeks to preserve untouched wilderness that humans may experience through nondestructive activities such as hiking or camping (Cengage 4). I think this voyeuristic enjoyment of the environment is effective in keeping small swathes of land untouched, but it does nothing to fix our deeply broken connection to the environment. I think conservationism is the key to forming a connection with the Earth that allows us to end the idea of dominating the environment. A truly sustainable world is one in which all land is used respectfully and sustainably all the time by a human race that recognizes itself as one piece in a system that took millions of years to develop and only a couple hundred to begin to destroy. Preservation is important, especially in the case of less robust ecosystems, but I think it is somewhat less important than the implementation of conservationist practices everywhere that humans use land for economic gain - which, to be realistic, is not going to end as long as we have people to feed and houses to electrify.

We also need to tackle our broken connection to each other, though. I was struck by how the American conservationist movement rallied behind the American bison as though human lives depended on that, but no great movement formed to compensate the Native American groups starved onto reservations for by this buffalo hunting. The intrinsic value of animals, humans, and habitats must be divorced from immediate economic gain or even natural beauty. Environmentalism for aesthetics is doomed to continue the pain and suffering of the marginalized groups that suffer the most during ecological collapse. Humans certainly are animals, but even more than that, they are peers, and environmental justice banks on the swift global implementation of that principle.

Word Count: 1193

Discussion question: Do we have the capacity to respond to existential threats before their effects are felt? If so, discuss historical precedent.

References

“3. Geological Time Scale.” Digital Atlas of Ancient Life, Paleantological Research Institution, www.digitalatlasofancientlife.org/learn/geological-time/geological-time-scale/.

“Anthropocene.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene.

Bahudhara. " Ediacaran GSSP," Wikimedia Commons, August 16 2008. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ediacaran_GSSP_-_closeup.JPG

“Big History.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 20 Dec. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_History.

Beder, Sharon. “Business-Managed Democracy.” Business-Managed Environment - Wise Use Movement, www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/environment/wise/index.html.

“Del-Sup-USEnvHist.pdf.” Google Drive, Google, drive.google.com/file/d/1RuRSAMjcAdIciXGO3JQhlO8SpGbeasFn/view.

“Del-U.s._environmentalism_since_1945[1](3).Pdf.” Google Drive, Google, drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0RSkxfVzBrMW02TnM/view.

Digital History, www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtid=2&psid=3154.

“Earthrise.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise.

Irfan, Umair. “Report: We Have Just 12 Years to Limit Devastating Global Warming.” Vox, Vox, 8 Oct. 2018, www.vox.com/2018/10/8/17948832/climate-change-global-warming-un-ipcc-report.

NASA/Bill Anders. " Earthrise," Wikimedia Commons, taken December 24 2006. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise.jpg

NASA/WMAP Science Team. " Timeline of the Universe," Wikimedia Commons, 2006. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CMB_Timeline300_no_WMAP.jpg

“Strong Forests, Stronger Communities: The Civilian Conservation Corps in the Northwest (U.S. National Park Service).” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/articles/vancouverbarracksccc.htm.

Philosophy Shapes our Environmental Response

The assigned textbook chapter compares and contrasts different environmental worldviews. It broadly groups them into human-centric, life-centric, and world-centric, and discusses the different suggested roles for humans in each of these philosophical bases for our species’ interaction with the environment. A human-centric worldview posits that human beings are the most important species in the biosphere, and through greater understanding and technological advancement we can eventually master our environment. A life-centric worldview holds that we have an ethical obligation to protect all life on planet earth. A world-centric worldview is like a life-centered worldview, but with the more abstract philosophical claim that we ought to preserve the world exactly as it naturally exists.

The next few readings discussed environmental justice, the creation of a land ethic to tether ourselves to the environment, and the harmful effects that come with being disconnected from our environment. The environmental justice movement, broadly, is the movement to investigate the distribution of environmental burdens among all communities of people, establish democratic control over our environmental interactions by the communities most affected by environmental burdens, and to meet all environmental issues at their intersection with social and political relationships between groups of people. Central to a discussion of environmental justice is a two-fold approach that divides our responsibilities as either intragenerational or intergeneration. An intragenerational environmental justice focuses on the obligations between groups of people, or distributive justice in the now, while an intergenerational environmental justice deals with the more abstract philosophical question: what is our environmental obligation to future generations? Neither can be neglected. A land ethic is Aldo Leopold’s proposed principle that binds individual and community actions to the environment (Aldo Leopold Foundation). Leopold claims that the lack of a land ethic is much to blame for our violent treatment of the natural world. Our disconnect from the environment causes us to degrade the life support systems that sustain us and also to lack a sense of personal belonging in the world.

The No Child Left Inside Movement is a part of the environmental justice movement that emphasizes the dangerous impact that a disconnect with nature has on child development. Endorsed by 58 organizations like the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society (Wikipedia), the movement has pushed for legislation that reassesses the current program and provides funding for new ventures into educational corridors like environmental studies, nutrition, and outdoor recreation. The movement was inspired by Richard Louv’s 2005 book Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-deficit Disorder. Nature-deficit disorder is a new term, coined in Louv’s book, that describes the harmful psychological effects of a child’s alienation from nature. It is well known that exposure to the natural world has positive psychological health effects on adults, but Louv’s use of the term explores the particularly negative effect of a disconnect from nature on a developing child. Our reading about the No Child Left Inside Movement is closely related to the next part of the reading that focuses on environmental citizenship and environmental education.

The last two readings dealt with environmental citizenship and the role of college education in preparing environmental citizens. Environmental citizenship has its philosophical roots in Aldo Leopold’s writing about the land ethic and its historical roots in the environmental education organization Environment Canada. In short, it is the idea that “each of us is an integral part of a larger ecosystem and that our future depends on each of us embracing the challenge and acting positively and responsibly toward our environment” (Hargrove). David Orr, founder of the Meadowcreek Project, an environmental education center in Arizona, writes about the educational reform that must take place to give students the power to become environmental citizens. Orr claims that we can never completely overcome our ignorance about the biosphere. The interconnected ecosystems that sustain all life on Earth have never been successfully emulated, and the humbling Biosphere 2 experiment does not leave prospects optimistic. Orr proposes that we replace our educational myths about the environment, which are rooted in anthropocentric hubris and construct a narrative that technology and science will allow us to master the biosphere, with environmental truths about the limits of our knowledge and what we can do to safely maintain the biosphere despite not understanding it in its entirety.

I think, with the urgency and scope of the problem at hand, the importance of swift action cannot be understated. All of our philosophical talks must take place at the same time as we implement solutions. If we wait until everything is figured out, right down to the last detail, so that we can be sure we will not fail in our implementation and exacerbate the problem, the issue of time will create entirely new problems, and the solutions we have discussed will be nowhere near good enough. Most people today seem to recognize that the timescales given to us by the UN in recent studies do not allow for a whole lot of deliberation before we start introducing massive, sweeping changes.

I note that there is strong opposition to sweeping, top-down changes dictated by a central authority, but I think that, so long as this authority is democratically agreed upon (and it is, according to numerous polls) (Zoya), there is nothing wrong with the state doing its damn job to serve the vast majority of people at the expense of some shareholders. I think unilateral opposition to coercive means in establishing a green future is shortsighted and neglectful of the political reality. If we continue to discuss, in no uncertain terms, how damning the climate emergency is, and studies continue to come out that claim we have X amount of years to avoid a global ecological tipping point that wipes out civilization as we know it and leads to the extinction of at least half of Earth’s biodiversity, and noted environmentalists like Jane Goodall are appearing on talk shows saying things like “We wouldn’t have these problems if Earth had a population of 500 million” (loosely quoted via Twitter:@tomselliot), and the establishment media continues to echo these sentiments without offering clear solutions, people who believe they have the solution will take the initiative by force. Generally, when people who possess only a surface-level understanding of an issue believe that the issue poses an existential threat, the solution they move to implement (in the absence of any real intellectual alternative) is quite bloody. The transition of the environmental academic from a deliberating body to an implementing-and-assessing body is imperative to stave off our slow but sure descent into ecofascism.

Word Count: 1080

Discussion Question: How do we swiftly and safely deal with a problem we don’t entirely understand?

References

Beck, Eckardt C. “The Love Canal Tragedy.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 22 Sept. 2016, archive.epa.gov/epa/aboutepa/love-canal-tragedy.html.

Clark, Wolf. “Intergenerational_Justice-Del.pdf.” Google Drive, Google, drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0RdUlDTjctNnJ2SGM/view.

Figueroa, Robert M.“environmental_justiceencycethicsdel.Pdf.” Google Drive, Google, drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0RczhaLWFEMFJWbjg/view.

Hargrove, Eugene C. “Environmentalcitizenship[1].Pdf.” Google Drive, Google, drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0ReDg0SGtHVmNmeEk/view.

“No Child Left Inside (Movement).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Sept. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Inside_(movement).

Orr, David. “What Is Education For?” Context Institute, 15 Sept. 2011, www.context.org/iclib/ic27/orr/.

Richard Louv. “Last Child in the Woods - Overview - Richard Louv.” Richard Louv Blog Full Posts Atom 10, Richard Louv, richardlouv.com/books/last-child/.

Teirstein, Zoya. “Poll: The Green New Deal Is as Popular as Legalizing Weed.” Grist, Grist, 22 July 2019, grist.org/article/poll-the-green-new-deal-is-as-popular-as-legalizing-weed/.

“The Land Ethic.” The Aldo Leopold Foundation, www.aldoleopold.org/about/the-land-ethic/.

@tomselliot. “Jane Goodall @ Davos: ‘All These [Environmental] Things We Talk about Wouldn't Be a Problem If There Was the Size of Population That There Was 500 Years Ago.‘The World Population 500 Years Ago Is Estimated Btwn 420 and 540 Million - 6.7 Billion Fewer People than Today. Pic.twitter.com/Aa8aztiAeZ.” Twitter, Twitter, 24 Jan. 2020, twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1220696092532187136.

Economics is an Environmental Study, Too

Chapter 23 of the textbook dealt with environmental economics while chapter 24 dealt with environmental politics. These two fields are closely related, as economic concepts generally inform decisions and all new environmental programs and assessments require diversion of assets from other sectors of the economy.

Environmental economics combines the social study of economics, which handles the “production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services that satisfy people’s needs and wants” (Miller and Spoolman 631), with concerns about the impact of human activities on the environment. More than just this, though, certain strains of environmental economics try to value ecosystem services, which generally do not pass through human markets and therefore are never formally assigned a value in the neoclassical economic model, in order to better understand the marginal cost of destroying our environment. Natural capital sustains all human capital, and human capital produces all manufactured capital, so attempting to value ecosystem services can seem like a task of valuing the indispensable, but there are dollar amounts on the cost of environmental destruction at the margins. Bringing an environmental consciousness to the study of economics roots the study in the reality that the flow of energy and materials begins with natural capital that we cannot afford to deplete.

Environmental politics combines environmental studies with political science, or the social science of how people organize to form governing bodies that make decisions with or without the use of force. To rectify the incongruencies between environmental planning and business administration, a state with a monopoly on the use of force can play a role as an enforcer of environmentalism. This takes the form of taxes, emissions regulations, waste disposal laws, and the formation of government agencies for monitoring and regulating human interaction with the environment. A stable political body committed to environmental protection can serve as an economic boon - it provides a consistent, safe direction for investment into research and development of green technologies, and organizes infrastructure in a manner that green development can be more efficiently utilized, like in the construction of bike paths and railways.

The major takeaway from the readings, for me, is that there exists a fundamental incongruence between our high-throughput, growth-minded capitalist economy and sustainable society, and that the corporate interests that reap the greatest rewards from the current economy lobby incessantly to preserve it and themselves. Donella Meadows put it best when she contrasted the view of neoclassical economists and ecological economists - “The first commandment of economics is: Grow. Grow forever… The first commandment of the earth is: Enough. Just so much and no more…” (Miller and Spoolman 648-49).

The connection between environmental economics and environmental politics is never so clear as it is when looking at the immense power of corporate money in lobbying Washington. Not only does the current distribution of the means of production encourage endless growth, but it concentrates wealth in the hands of corporations that benefit the most from this unsustainable state of affairs. The corporations that chop down more trees today than a forest can regrow tomorrow (because a resource will tend to devalue over time, naturally) and dump waste in places of least resistance like open oceans and disadvantaged communities get richer from these practices (why else would they practice them?) and put themselves in a unique position to influence politicians away from regulating their practices. Additionally, unsustainable industries like fossil fuel can flood the airwaves with ad buys and leverage power over corporate media to steer voters away from politicians who threaten their interests. Political prospects for environmental reform look much more promising if we are able to tackle the economic structures that maintain our political status quo.

Some regulatory policies proposed in the textbook are mere tweaks around the edges, and I am incredibly skeptical that these would even work in the long term, let alone stave off the environmental disaster awaiting us in the next 15-20 years. A good example of this is the cap-and-trade model of regulating industrial waste production. In this model, governments set caps on the total amount of harmful emissions that a corporation can give off in a given period with the caveat that, if a company’s emissions fall under the cap, they can sell the cap to another company so that the total emissions per business stays at the same level. This seems to me a laughably easy way for existing fossil fuel companies to consolidate their power and ensure that the cap never gets any lower, which is necessary for the system to work (the goal is net 0 emissions by a certain period). Rich companies can afford to buy out cap space from smaller corporations and put money into expansion rather than sustainable research and development, providing shareholders with quicker profits and making smaller companies offers they cannot refuse. The end result is smaller companies forced to comply with regulations that bigger companies do not, and the consolidation of wealth, and therefore political lobbying power, in the hands of fewer and fewer corporations. In this Citizens United age of politics, green regulations absolutely must limit the ability of the fossil fuel industry to lobby Washington, not expand it

Working environmental policy has to attack unsustainable businesses from multiple angles, leaving little recourse. A carbon tax can be circumvented by doctored self-reporting of emissions and perverse subsidies that cover additional taxes, so new tax legislation would require parallel legislation in accountability of reporting and removing subsidies from businesses above a certain emissions amount. There is, of course, room for discussion in the realm of how to implement these protections. Maybe there is a way to hold corporate emissions reports accountable without funneling money into a bloated bureaucratic investigating corps, or maybe subsidies can remain as long as high-emissions businesses can demonstrate that they are actively repurposing assets for use in sustainable energy. There are genuine economic and even ethical concerns regarding the millions of working class people who would be kicked to the curb if the fossil fuel industry were blown to bits overnight. A green “New Deal”, not to steal a political platform line, would have to include retraining for these workers, plans for repurposing current assets, and a new tax code that could fund the endeavor, or else the resulting economic fallout would cause significant damage.

There is not, however, any debate to be had about whether or not the economy needs to change. It needs to change - fast - but how we get there is mostly up for debate as long as all the debating parties can agree that industry heads must be targeted, not courted.

Word Count: 1097

Discussion Question: What distinctions, if any, can be made between economic interests and sustainable environment interests?

References

Costanza, Robert et al. “Natural Capital.pdf.” Google Drive, Google, drive.google.com/file/d/0BzKbjVLpnX0RRERLVGVvV2dZSWM/view.

“Environmental Law.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Feb. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_law.

Miller, G. Tyler and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Boston, Cengage Learning, 2018.

Partridge, Ernest. “Consumer or Citizen?” Template with Sidebar, gadfly.igc.org/politics/left/consumer.htm.

“Sustainable Business.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 10 Jan. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_business.

Overpopulation is a Fascist Myth

Beginning with data, the US Census Bureau population clock tells us that there is one birth every nine seconds and one death every eleven seconds. In the US, a country often cited to be on its third stage of population development, where population starts to level out as the average wealth per capita increases, we still experience a net gain of one person per 23 seconds (Population Clock). Worldwide, it is not even close. At our average rate of population growth, we gain a little under four thousand people daily (Population Clock). As of 9:30 PM this Sunday, the world population has grown by 200,000, according to the World Population Clock. Though the world population of 7.7 billion is around 23.3 times larger than the US population (3.3 million), the world population growth rate is nearly fifty times larger. These stats are taken to form the basis of the central argument of our textbook readings this week - that population is growing too fast and we are going to badly overshoot the world’s carrying capacity, causing ecological fallout. I believe this argument is flawed.

Watching the impossible hamster video, it seems clear to me that our issue is about unimpeded economic growth, not “too many people.” Capitalism, especially viewed through the lens of neoclassical economics (somewhat circular, as neoclassical economics exists more or less to justify a capitalist mode of production), relies on infinite growth to sustain a rate of profit that allows capitalists to continue betting against their competitors via investments and moving more resources around an economy. Putting aside more and more efficient forms of exploitation that develop under capitalism, which are necessary to sustain an increasing rate of profit, the most obvious result of this push for infinite growth is an infinite increase in aggregate demand on a planet with finite ecological services that are responsible for the existence of all human and manufactured capital. We run into a problem when we don’t respect nature’s limits on consumption, like the hamster that eats and eats and grows and grows until the whole world’s corn supply could not sustain it for two days (New Economics Foundation). An economy that complies with natural laws about consumption and growth, that grows “just so much and then no more” (Miller and Spoolman 648), is a steady-state economy.

Interestingly enough, as I blame capitalism, the history of the steady state economy begins with the writings of Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations. He stated that every country will one day reach the natural limits imposed on its economic growth by its soil, climate, and comparative advantage against other nations in trade, the rate of profit will fall to zero, and the economy will settle on a constant stock of people and capital (Wikipedia). This gracefully handles the issue of economic growth and population growth, the latter unable to continue without the former. The Classical model, as it is called, was updated in the mid to late 19th century by Karl Marx, who had little to no concern for ecological limits on economic growth, which he optimistically believed could be overcome by human invention. Marx instead placed limits specifically on the capitalist mode of production, which he believed must experience a decline in the rate of profits as a result of its inherent contradiction between labor and capital, and that only through communism could the world economy continue to grow until the means of production were capable of supporting a society that operated on the principle “from each according to ability, to each according to need” (Wikipedia). It should be noted, though, that this turn away from ecological concern was not a unique weakness of Marxism, but emblematic of shifts in economic consciousness in the late 20th century. The Neoclassical economics that replaced classical economics abandoned all concerns with ecological limits on economic growth present in Classical economics, and ecological concerns did not find their way back into the mainstream conversation until the Oil Crash of 1973 brought a new ecological economics, described by Herman Daly, to the forefront.

It could be stated that we face at once an issue of population growth and economic growth, and that the most intelligent approach is two-pronged. I strongly disagree that this is the pragmatic option, and I think that this line of argument threatens marginalized people and obfuscates who stands to benefit from the conditions that brought us here.

(Fig. 1. Afp.)

As shown in the preceding graphic, around half of all lifestyle consumption emissions are generated by the richest ten percent of consumers. The poorest fifty percent account for only ten percent. This gross inversion of the environmental consequences of overconsumption demonstrates very clearly that it is lifestyle differences, exacerbated by income inequality, that most stress our biosphere’s carrying capacity.

To go a little further, this graphic only shows lifestyle consumption emissions. When discussing emissions at large, it becomes clear very quickly that our issue is systemic. A study by the CDP non-profit, called the Carbon Majors Report, found in 2017 that around 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions since 1988 have been caused by just 100 companies worldwide, and more than half of industrial emissions from the same period can be blamed on just 25 companies (Tess). It is unfair to hold the rapid population growth in the economically ravaged post-colonial world responsible for issues largely caused by a small group of multinational fossil fuel companies and an overconsuming upper class.

Yet, in the face of these facts, the owners of capital push back to protect their existence. Among the proponents of the dangerous “overpopulation” line of argument are, quite disappointingly, some familiar faces in the environmental movement. Jane Goodall at the World Economic Forum just earlier this year stated that “the things we talk about wouldn’t be a problem if there was the size of the population that there was 500 years ago” (Twitter: @tomselliot). It is not explicitly stated how she plans on culling the excess 6.7 billion people to save the world, but if we are facing the imminent emergency she says we are, I expect bad actors to take up the cause on her part at some point in the next fifty years.

There is a fundamental mismatch between mainstream liberal messaging on this issue (We’re headed for calamity in 12 years!) and liberal soft-action on the issue (Bloomberg wanted to cut NYC emissions 30% by 2030 - hooray?). This is a contradiction that will most likely be resolved, if not by a massive political revolution at the ballot box, by a violent societal upheaval. I hope that whatever strongman administration takes control when the flaccid liberal establishment begins to crumble does not have the same views on overpopulation as its predecessor.

Alternative solutions are, by any account, radical, but they seem increasingly necessary. The degrowth movement started in France (Wikipedia). It stresses that negative economic growth alongside wealth redistribution that satisfies everyone’s basic needs and revaluation towards sustainable happiness rather than gratification through consumption. In other words, the degrowth movement “does not require martyring or a decrease in well-being” (Wikipedia). It’s not the eugenics program of total primitivism, which naturally leaves the disabled and the elderly at risk, but a societal restructuring that may in fact increase total happiness as people restructure their lives to derive gratification from interpersonal relationships.

Transition towns offer another solution, and they have even been implemented on a small scale. They emphasize local economic sustenance, which not only decreases our harmful reliance on long-distance shipping and the exportation of negative externalities (i.e. garbage) to the economically-besieged third world, but kindles neighborly bonds and a sense of community that increase long-term happiness for people who will not be able to consume at their current rate forever. In this way, the transition town movement is closely related to the degrowth movement. The road to low-throughput economies, a steady state of living in accordance with Earth’s eternal natural principles, is unclear, but movement-building initiatives like the Transition Town Totnes in the UK prove that it does exist (Wikipedia).

Word Count: 1348

Discussion Question: Are we facing a problem of overconsumption, overpopulation, or both?

References

Afp. “World's Richest 10% Produce Half of Global Carbon Emissions, Says Oxfam.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 2 Dec. 2015, www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/02/worlds-richest-10-produce-half-of-global-carbon-emissions-says-oxfam.

Berrett Koehler. “More Than Money - What is ‘The Good Life’ Parable.” Online video clip. Youtube. Google, August 8 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7JlI959slY.

“Current World Population.” Worldometer, www.worldometers.info/world-population/.

“Degrowth.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth#CITEREFZehner2012.

New Dream. “Visualizing a Plenitude Economy.” Online video clip. Youtube. Google, Sep. 15 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HR-YrD_KB0M

“PlaNYC.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 5 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlaNYC.

Riley, Tess. “Just 100 Companies Responsible for 71% of Global Emissions, Study Says.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 July 2017, www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change.

“Steady-State Economy.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy.

“The Impossible Hamster.” Vimeo, New Economics Foundation, 14 Nov. 2018, vimeo.com/8947526.

“Transition Town.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Mar. 2020, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transition_town.

“U.S. and World Population Clock.” Population Clock, www.census.gov/popclock/.

“World Death Clock.” Medindia, Medindia.net, www.medindia.net/patients/calculators/world-death-clock.asp.

On the End of Species

Chapter 9 of our textbook reading discussed the extinction of species. It compared the background extinction rate and the current rate of extinction and analyzed patterns in the decreased rate of speciation to argue that humans have caused or are imminently causing a sixth mass extinction event that will proceed at a much quicker rate than the five previous. The background extinction rate of about ten species per year (Miller and Spoolman 193) that persists throughout natural history is replaced today by an extinction rate about 1000 times higher - meaning 1000 species disappear from the face of the Earth every year. During this century, that rate is expected to climb to 10,000 times the background rate (Miller and Spoolman 193), or quick enough to vanish from the Earth, just in that hundred-year period, twenty to fifty percent of the world’s two million known species. Along with the destruction of the species we know would come the destruction of species we do not know through the cessation of crucial ecosystem services and the breaching of ecological tipping points as keystone species disappear. Environmentalist and biologist E.O. Wilson likens this to “burning millions of books that we have never read” (Miller and Spoolman 198).

The causes of extinction are summarized by the acronym HIPPCO: “Habitat destruction, degradation, and fragmentation; Invasive (non-native) species; Population growth and increasing use of resources; Pollution; Climate Change; and Overexploitation” (Miller and Spoolman 198).

The textbook discusses the Kudzu plant, which was introduced to the American South in the 1930s but rapidly spread and crowded out native plant species. The Kudzu bug was then introduced to control the spread of the Kudzu plant, but the bug turned out to be even harder to control, and its soybean diet threatened farmers throughout the South. To combat this, ecologists have to do creative, interdisciplinary work with biologists, geneticists, and engineers to find win-win solutions and population control methods. The Kudzu plant is currently being explored as a paper substitute, and its medicinal properties are under investigation. The Kudzu bug, on the other hand, may see its population controlled in the near future by the introduction of a certain wasp whose larvae attack the bugs’ eggs, or made into a non-issue by a genetic recombination that excludes their soybean diet.

The extinction of species is one of the most sensationalized aspects of the man-made ecological crisis facing the Earth, but this does not make it a trivial part of environmentalism. The continued existence of life on Earth depends on biodiversity great enough to ensure at least a handful of species survive any major catastrophe. In the short-term, it is the interactions of millions of species amongst each other and with their inorganic environment that produces, through emergent properties, the ecosystem services that sustain the global economy.

I think it also important to consider biodiversity in the additive-positive rather than the loss-negative. In other words, we should not seek to protect biodiversity simply because we stand to lose precious ecosystem services, but because great biodiversity is a source of human mental and physical health, cultural enrichment, and intellectual curiosity. The UN-conceived Convention on Biological Diversity published a report in October of 2010 that states “access to greenspace is associated with better health outcomes, shorter hospital visits and reduced convalescence time for patients than purely urban environments” (UN CBD COP 10). The report also associates environmental contact with a lower propensity for antisocial behavior in children and young adults. Both of these points further the argument that human contact with biodiversity is critical to good mental health.

Chapter 10 of our textbook discussed the disappearance of crucial ecosystems and centers of biodiversity like forests and grasslands, and how this ties into the issue of species extinction and ecosystem service depletion that was discussed in the previous chapter. Forest ecosystems, consisting of a dense population of large wooded trees and intricate underground root systems, perform some of the most basic and indispensable functions for all life on Earth - and some fairly useful ones, as well. Tree leaves remove carbon dioxide from the air and produce oxygen. They slow rainfall and regulate the release of water to reduce runoff, soil erosion, and flooding. The wood from tree trunks and branches is used as a crucial biofuel and industrial product, and eighty percent of medicinal plants come from forest biomes.

Deforestation and mismanagement of forest ecosystems threatens the beneficial and often crucial ecosystem services that these natural filters provide. Deforestation, or the “temporary or permanent removal of large expanses of forest for [other uses]” (Miller and Spoolman 227), has become a major problem in the last 65 years. In just two decades, the World Resources Institute (WRI) posits that forty percent of the world’s remaining intact forests will be logged away or converted to other uses in just two decades (Miller and Spoolman 227). Further, mismanagement of forest resources, such as the prevention of surface fires that reduce the risk of much more destructive crown fires or the use of clear-cutting over strip-cutting, can lead to deforestation down the road. Careful management of ecosystems is more than just a matter of decreasing demand for the ecosystems’ resources - it also involves educating ourselves on the safe, sustainable, and natural way in which to interact with these environments. A good example of this is overgrazing in grasslands, in which the solution is not simply to reduce the number of grazing animals (which are actually beneficial in stimulating growth and mixing soil nutrients), but to increase the area over which animals graze and avoid grazing any one spot for too long (Miller and Spoolman 239).

The destruction of forests and grasslands, like all ecological problems, has to be considered in terms of its tipping point. Forty percent destruction over two decades may not be reversible when we consider that issues like atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, soil erosion, and water runoff will be magnified by the loss of almost half of the world’s great air filters and soil stabilizers. Large swaths of forest and grassland need to be preserved now so that a certain level of irresponsible use of these ecosystems in the future can be tolerated by the biosphere.

Ultimately, of course, the goal should be the alignment of human well-being and environmental well-being so that violence towards the environment is ethically regarded as one and the same with violence towards another human. This means that, on top of preserving particularly fragile ecosystems far from human contact, we must establish livable, sustainable ecosystems in which humans can directly participate. Only through this reintroduction with the natural world, which Michael L. Rosenzweig calls “reconciliation ecology,” (Miller and Spoolman 248) can we imprint firmly and forever on the human consciousness a genuine and visceral concern for the everyday treatment of the world’s biodiversity and ecosystems.

Word Count: 1136

Discussion Question: Do you think it is more helpful to frame support for biodiversity and ecosystems in terms of what we stand to lose by destroying them or the benefits they bring to our lives today?

References

Miller, G. Tyler and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. Boston, Cengage Learning, 2018.

UN CBD COP 10. “The Importance of Biodiversity to Human Health.” Cohabinitiative, October 2010.

Practicum Essay Update

I have been attending weekly SEAJ meetings and learning about environmental history and different case studies of environmental activism through their weekly prepared powerpoint presentations. I recently worked with SEAJ members to tag clothes for the Fordham Flea, although my chemistry lab period kept me from attending the sales day. I enjoyed getting to meet people who were as passionate about this issue as I was. Oftentimes they wore their passion more outwardly than I did, which inspired me to work towards furthering Fordham’s commitment to sustainability.

I have never been a big fan of petitions. If I got Fordham to sign a petition, they would not have to face pressure from it until they failed to meet the expectations of the petition, if at all. That is much too late. Sustainability measures need to be preventive or proactive, so I have been considering a few possibilities.

A friend of mine used to be a member of the Gabelli School of Business, and in that time he created a business plan for an app that would incentivize recycling on campus. They are currently at the stage of seeking investors. I would like to report on their progress, their mission, and if necessary, to serve as an ambassador between their business group and Fordham environmental policy experts who can help implement their plan.

Admittedly, I have not asked this friend about his business progress in quite a while, and if they are not far along in their plans, I may end up with little practical material to write about. I do not want my practicum essay to be speculative, so I have a more realistic, if less ambitious, plan as well.

I think that environmental education is at the root of solving the environmental crisis. Looking through my blogs, I noticed that I feel strongly reconnecting people with the natural world is crucial to end this centuries-long campaign of violence against our ecosystems. To further our psychological return to the Earth, if only in a small way, I would like to make plant species labels to place around campus beside the trees and flowers that populate the campus. I think it would be beneficial to the Fordham student body to be reminded of the biodiversity all around them. Maybe, over time, it would foster a deeper appreciation for the ecosystem in and around the Fordham campus.

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