#my ape ancestors will be proud of me | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

veiledsilver · 3 years ago

Note

Top five moments you've felt like the universe was messing with you.

Oh boy everyone get ready this is a long list. In descending order, from mildly funny looking back on it to "oh god oh shit oh fuck":

5. Catfishing: College Edition

In 6th grade, I decided to apply to colleges early to see how they were like. I was scared that if they knew I was too young, they'd arrest me. So I created a gmail account as my persona, a white 12th grader named Emilie Alexander. Emilie was planning to go into nursing, dating a high school linebacker named Kyle Kenderson, and deathly allergic to bee stings. If she even came near a bee, she would die.

This part was of the utmost importance.

See, I was constantly paranoid that one day, the jig would be up- I might forget that my fake last name was Alexander. Or the college dean might come knocking at my door and tear up my home in his mad search for Emilie. If that happened I would fake her tragic death, presumably caused by one big fucking bee.

I secretly collected my information. What nearby states were the prettiest to visit. Which colleges were the safest and most affordable. How often they held courses that I liked. In my emails with colleges I tried to sound as mature and professional as possible.

Then, one day, a college member asked me what high school I was in, so they could check my records.

My blood froze.

It was time to bring out the bee.

In response to their question, I sent an email that was like this:

"Dear Mr. McLaughlin, I was a proud graduate of- ugh! Ah! Kyaaaa! Uwaa! W-w-what's this... huge goddamn bee doing here?! Eek, pardon my foul language! It's just that, as I told you earlier, being stung by a bee would kill me.... and now it's stung me thrice (three times)!!

What do I do?! I can't die... I've always wanted to attend your beautiful college...

But this is... the end...

Mr. McLaughlin...

*looks at you sadly*

Tell... my mother... I loved her...

*dies*"

He never responded, probably because he was rendered speechless, but I never touched that account again.

My private gmail for fun stuff like tumblr still has "Alexander" as a surname, though.

4. Wild and Authentic

Alright. Alright. So. My art teacher in middle school.

Right off the bat, they endeared themselves to the tumblr art kids- they proudly used they/them pronouns, dyed their hair vibrant colors, deeply encouraged OC creation, and was chill with any art style even if it was anime. Mx. Mason was very cool, except for one thing.

We had complete artistic freedom when it came to their assignments, EXCEPT FOR ONE THING.

Drumroll, please.

Take a deep breath if you must.

Ready?

...

Cats had to have extremely distinct whisker pores.

YES, they believed that modern depictions of cats were too streamlined. Too... idealized. As a cat owner themselves, they were convinced that society's vision of cats did not do their feral feline ancestors justice. In making their faces flawlessly smooth-furred, we were stripping the cat of its true nature.

I found this out the hard way, when I was drawing warrior cats fanart for class (it was of Firestar cuddled in the arms of an orange haired anime catgirl who was his reincarnation in my first ever comic series, Warriors Neko Desu! ♡ Heart Academy Dokidoki).

Mx. Mason came over to look at my magnum opus, and I expected them to have their socks knocked off at my artistic talent. They lifted up my drawing for all to see, and I smugly leaned back in my seat.

Only for them to launch into a passionate lecture about how, in neglecting to draw whisker pores on cats, I was DENYING THIS FICTIONAL CAT OF ITS WILD AUTHENTIC SELF.

My friends absolutely lost it when I told them this story, and there was a period of time when all our discord nicknames were wild and authentic too.

As for Firestar and his counterpart Hoshineko Orenji-chan, I never did give them wild authentic whisker holes, but that's to be expected of a kittypet, I guess.

3. Stan Jungkook Or Whatever

A couple years ago, my family and I flew to Seoul, South Korea, to visit our relatives and teach me more about my heritage. It was very nice! I got to visit shrines and festivals and palaces, and I was in awe that this was what my ancestors had once seen in their daily lives.

Then, when we went to the modern side of Korea, I realized just how much I didn't fit in.

It was clear that I didn't know how to act, or how to speak Korean, and I spent my days fumbling around and getting scammed multiple times by salesmen. But I clowned myself the most... during an interactive event with kpop stars.

They had this experimental event where holograms of the boys would sing onstage and dance in place of the actual idols. Before the show began, girls could stand in booths that scanned their appearances, and holograms of THEM could dance onstage with the hologram boys.

I didn't know this.

When Cousin Ae-cha told me to step inside one of the machines, I thought I'd be hilarious and stand backwards, so it would scan the back of me instead of my front. As I walked out, I saw other girls putting on their best makeup, cutest clothes, and most expensive accessories, and I slowly realized that I was in danger.

But the danger didn't come until halfway through the concert, where the boys looked eagerly off-stage and a holy staircase appeared and all the hologram girls descended from heaven. There were cherry blossoms. There were roses. There was me, among the crowd of beautiful airbrushed girls, walking backwards.

I felt the judgemental gazes of twenty girls and their mothers.

Each boy danced with a girl, who got a cute animated moment with special effects, and sang about how they found a dream girl to have a true love romance with. Finally, all the girls vanished except one, and it was me.

One of the boys didn't dance with any girls, and now he was all alone in the rain, feeling dejected that HE did not find his true love girl to have a dream romance with. Then the rain stopped, the sun came out, and I emerged. Still backwards.

He was thrilled and sang about how my face (that he didn't see) stole his heart, and now everyone in the audience was giggling, and he slowly brought me very close to kiss me... but because I was backwards, his nose was cutely nuzzling my hair.

The audience members- at least the adults- were now laughing their asses off. His lips met the back of my head, and together we vanished into the wind.

I'd say I couldn't show my face there ever again, but I never did show my face, so... hm...

2. Horrid Little Temptress

If I wasn't a minor, I'd need a drink before starting this story. Sadly, I cannot drown my sorrows- and neither should you after you hear this, because it's only fair.

Mrs. Appleby was my Spanish teacher in like, 9th grade. Even the wild and authentic art teacher thought she was insane. Appleby forced kids to brew tea for her and yelled at them when they didn't get it right, and I thought she had a chronic squint until I realised she just did that to mock me and my Asian eye-folds. She forced us to watch Dora the Explorer to "absorb knowledge." Everyone fucking hated Mrs. Appleby.

But the worst thing she ever did... was during the school festival.

See, whenever she's angry, she zooms right into kids' faces to scream at them. Her wrinkled flesh would blot out the goddamn sun and all you see are her bloodshot yellow eyeballs so victims just stayed rooted to the spot like cornered animals or something similar. This is important.

Because when she was sampling her own brownies (read: hoarding them so no one else could eat them), one parent foolishly decided to grab one and she thought it was a student and she grabbed his wrist so hard she could've nearly snapped it and... and... zoomed into his face.

Except she underestimated his height and kissed him by accident, but it was more like her mouth was sucking in his face like a vacuum.

His wife was shrieking like an ape. His kid, my classmate, saw his social life flash before his eyes.

In her defense, she did not mouth to mouth with him on purpose and afterwards she cried in the bathroom and when I foolishly followed her in to comfort her, because I am a teacher's pet through and through, she snatched the paper towels I got for her and wailed that she was a-

A-

HORRID LITTLE TEMPTRESS.

If I had decided to not be kind, I never would've heard that string of fucking words. But I did. And I paid for it dearly. The end.

1. Violence IS The Answer, Sometimes

Thomas, my dearly detested.

Back in sixth grade, I used to have a crush on him because he had the surfer boy look with nicely tanned skin and pale blond hair and the clearest aquamarine eyes I've ever seen. He also liked surfing and swimming. He seemed like the perfect little trophy waifu except for one absolute dealbreaker.

He and his parents were extremely conservative and so, when I told him I liked him, his response was basically "haha no you're a [slur] and would probably eat my dog."

I was horrified and ran away to cry. But then, by the next day, I decided I needed to punish him. Thomas walked in before class started and I was waiting for him with these hands. I kicked him so he doubled over, slammed his face into his chair's seat, and quickly clambered on top of him to SIT ON THE BACK OF HIS HEAD. He started shaking and twitching and trying to pry me off, but eventually he went limp and stopped moving.

I thought he fell asleep, but Mohammed, another classmate who was bullied by Thomas, told me that Thomas might never wake up again (not that he was very sad about this. I didn't know until later, but Thomas said slurs at him too).

While I was sitting on the guy, he'd straight up passed out from the lack of oxygen.

Screaming and crying, I told our homeroom teacher that Thomas suddenly fainted, and she was the type of Caucasian that thought all little Asian kids were sweet and innocent, so it didn't even cross her mind that? It might've been me? Who sat on his head when she walked in?

He was sent home early that day. I had to go to a different school next year because Thomas's mom threatened legal action. The only reason I didn't get punished further was because my rich cousins out-Karen'd her and donated a huge amount of money to the school to keep them quiet.

Anyway, I never did anything that insane ever again, because something like that is enough for a lifetime. My cousins made it clear they would never back me up again. I was sure this whole event would be put behind me, too.

But last fall, during my first day of online learning... who did I see in my zoom meeting... BUT THOMAS! I had my mic and camera off, but the moment he saw my name, his face went pale. His soul would've left his body, but then it would've gone to hell, so it wisely decided to stay inside.

Still, out of shame and embarrassment, I never turned my camera on for the rest of the school year.

#asks #there you have it #i feel like I'm confessing my sins to the pope

18 notes · View notes

crannab · 4 years ago

Text

Crowley blinked up at the ceiling, startled a bit from being summoned, and a bit dizzy, but otherwise a bit impressed by how elegantly the summoning was executed. He sat up, and examined the circle while listening to the ritual binding agreement. Well, that explained it. The circle, and the words and grimoire, were straight up Addams. The dizziness was from a purpose based summoning, not an identity based one. This should be all right, then. Addamses were pretty professional about their demon summonings-- kept their promises, paid their debts, and half the time they wanted someone to even out a dinner party or round out a card game. (The fact that the cards were always marked and the dinners usually included a course of light murder-- well, Crowley was the only demon who knew humanity well enough to realize that these things were unusual.)

As they worked through the rather boilerplate summoning deal, Crowley noticed that the lead summoner was female and young, not terribly unusual, but her two assistants were male, which was somewhat interesting. Also, there was something a bit familiar about the handwriting on some of the sigils. It nagged at him until the two assistants wheeled over a whiteboard with a diagram and formula on it. The way the numbers were written, it was exactly the way he had taught--

"Warlock?"

The gangly boy on the left pulled off his hood. "Nanny?"

"Warlock, love, what the heaven are you doing?"

The boy-- young man, now-- suddenly looked like he was about to cry. "It's calculus, Nanny! The AP test is in three months, our teacher just went on maternity leave, and the sub couldn't make change without step-by-step directions and a calculator! We need some help!"

"And so you thought demon summoning was the best option?" Crowley asked, a bit incredulously.

"It wasn't our first choice," the girl said, pulling her own hood off, "But all the acceptable private tutors were fully booked until after the exam. I'm Wednesday. Addams."

Crowley nodded, "You do your ancestors proud, Wednesday, that was a very well done summoning."

The girl nodded. Clearly not one who was much for words, there, so he turned to the third.

"And you are?"

The larger boy pulled off his hood, revealing a feminine pixie cut framing his round face, flower stud earrings, and a touch of lip gloss. "Henry," he said in a deep baritone, "The only tutor I could find kept praying over me to make me a real boy or something."

"He kept urging me to forsake my sin nature and accept Christ into my heart, which I think meant changing my name," Warlock said.

"And he told me I didn't really need to worry about calculus because girls didn't need math anyway. I think he started saying something about girls not being good at math, but I wasn't listening at that point. I was dislocating his finger for putting his hand on my thigh," Wednesday added.

Crowley nodded, "I'll need to take a look at your textbook. That looks like rotational mechanics, but I'm unfamiliar with the notation. Oh, and could I borrow a phone?"

"Are you going to curse him?" Wednesday asked.

"Oh, no. This definitely sounds like a job for a divine smiting," he replied, dialing the bookshop.

#good omens #addams family #fanfic

27 notes · View notes

lilhemmo · 5 years ago

Note

Kinda a silly request: Could you write a Vegeta x reader using this as a prompt- “I’m gonna fight the next person who talks shit about you.” “I’m such trash.” “Alright, put them up. Fight me.” Have fun with it!

a/n: you were right, this was loads of fun! please feel free to request more!!! this is definitely kind of an au??? haven’t really decided let’s just have fun with it!!

ps, i think this is semi-established relationship?? can’t really tell myself. just wanted vegeta to make out with reader, so this is what you get!

“I mean, what’s with the stupid monologuing all the time? And that stupid pointy hair he’s got?! How lame!��

“Shut up, Yamcha!” you find yourself screaming at dinner one night.

You’ve had it. You’ve had enough of it.

You growl, slamming your fists down on the table. He’s not here to defend himself, and that’s what makes it worse.

You narrow your eyes across the table, “The only reason you have anything nasty to say is because he’s not here to kick your ass. So keep your mouth shut before I do it for him.”

Your fangs are bared and your eyes are threatening to glow blue at the pure rage pouring through your body like liquid metal. The base of your spine starts to tickle and you know if you don’t control it, you’ll go super right here in front of everyone. You ache for your tail, longing for the time when you could rampage and blame it on the uncontrollable, archaic form of your ancestors.

The way your stomach twists makes it easy for you not to be hungry any longer. Your Saiyan brethren would be disappointed, but you don’t care. Ferocity eats away at you like an itch you can’t scratch and you walk away from the group before you’re threatening them one too many times.

After a while, you find yourself trudging along the sandy pathway that leads to the different areas of Capsule Corporation grounds. Your fingers pass over the bushes of flowers, plucking a plume for yourself. Holding it up to your nose, you lose yourself in the scent as you continue to where Vegeta and Goku normally train - a special arena built by Bulma to simulate natural fighting situations.

The grunting you hear off in the distance makes you feel like you’ve intruded on someone’s personal time - as a Saiyan, you know how important training is to the others. Vegeta’s form is hovering midair, mocking punches to a faux enemy as his hair glows a bright golden. He senses your energy and turns his attention to you, muscles tensing momentarily before his body relaxes.

“Oh, just you,” he clears his throat and levitates near the ground before pointing his toes and dropping downward. “What do you want?”

You narrow your eyes and curl your hands to fists, “Spar with me.”

Vegeta raises a brow, “Something has you angry. I can feel your energy rising the more you sit there, thinking about whatever pissed you off.”

“The earthlings have rubbed off on you, Prince,” you sneer, turning your hips so you’re in fighting position. “Shut up and fight me.”

Your Saiyan counterpart smirks and braces himself at the knees before charging at you, fists held forward in an attempt to land a punch to your face. You turn, allowing him to pass you by and also giving you the opportunity to land the heel of your foot into the base of his spine, successfully slamming his body into the dirt.

Vegeta lets loose a grunt and digs his hands into the soil, gritting his teeth as he glares up at you, “Cheap shot! Have you no pride?!”

“Pride enough for the both of us, baby.” You curl your toes and channel your Super Saiyan form, your scalp tickling as you stack your energy in your stomach. You grip your hands to fists and cry out in a feral rage, eyes blinded for a moment while you transform. When you come out of your power-induced cocoon, you see the cusp of Vegeta’s fist about to punch you right between the eyes.

His upper lip curls into a proud snarl as you grab him by the knuckles and stop his attack before he can touch you. You grip him harder and the sight of him reminds you why you’re here, sparking your anger all over again.

“F’ing Yamcha,” you growl, turning Vegeta’s wrist so he does a twirl midair before you sling him to the ground.

He catches himself before he crushes the earth beneath him, hovering only inches above the grass. Vegeta’s eyes simmer with ferocity and he lets out a short yell before his super form overtakes his body and his blue irises are scanning you for weaknesses in your form. With a quick shout, he bursts forward to land a punch to your gut.

The two of you trade blows, and with every fist he throws your way, you hear another insult, another one-liner from another villainous mouth. You feel the way the energy curls up in your spine, your super form threatening to become something much more menacing. Sweat drips from every orifice of your body and your face is bright red.

“Hey,” Vegeta’s voice calls you out of a blind rage of volleys.

You blink hard, pausing in midair, “Wh-What?”

He grabs both of your fists and immobilizes you, “What’s actually going on? You said Yamcha’s name earlier. Should I be worried about something?”

“Hell no,” you shake your head and power down, your hair falling back to your shoulders and your form slimming down. You sigh and he releases your fist, his own super form retreating.

“I’m just so sick and tired of you getting the brunt of everything,” you shake your head and the comments and remarks start repeating in your mind. You swallow, “The butt of the joke because they know you can’t do anything to them, not with Goku standing in the way. They’re only asses because they’re not afraid. I know I shouldn’t, but I want to make them afraid again.”

Your hands shake with the threat of power overtaking your body, blind rage like that of an ape curling around your spine and strengthening your posture. You grit your teeth and look him in the eyes, “Goku gets the praise every time. I’m sick of it! You do so much for us and...and this is what you get?!”

You’re surprised to hear Vegeta chuckling, and it only spurs your rage on. Your heels dig into the dirt and you break the surface of the earth, your form becoming heavier the longer you think about it.

“I’m gonna fight the next person who talks shit about you,” you vow, holding your hands in tight fists. You growl, your fangs bared as you look up at him, “I’m done holding back!”

Vegeta feels something stir in his stomach at the sight of you so enraged on his behalf. His pride swells and he tilts his head, considering you before he speaks, “I’m such trash. Such a waste of space. Pathetic excuse of a Saiyan.”

Your jaw drops, “Wh-Wha-fine. Put ‘um up. Let’s go.”

There is an air of confidence about him when you start sparring again, the both of you pushing one another to your very limits, trying to break through your ceiling of power. You scream and the very sound makes Vegeta’s hair stand on end, but it does more to fuel his desire than anything else.

Your fist connects with his stomach, tossing him in the air. You take the advantage of him being blindsided to teleport above him and, using your fists curled together, slam your hands into his back. He reels downward, unable to catch himself before he makes a deep dent into the earth below.

Just as you go after him, the group celebrating at Bulma’s makes their way into the woods, wondering where all the noise is coming from. Your eyes connect with Yamcha and you see red, flying towards him with power at your heels, your fists shaking with the need to send him to Other World for what he was saying earlier.

“Oh my god, wait, I’m-” Yamcha puts his hands in front to protect himself as best he can, but you never make contact.

Your jaw is close to snapping under the pressure of your teeth, fist just millimeters away from connecting with Yamcha’s nose. The only thing saving him is the pair of arms wrapped around your waist belonging to a certain Saiyan Prince.

“You’re lucky,” you seethe between your teeth, eyes narrowed at the earthling. “You’re lucky that he’s stronger than me, or else you’d be in other world crying to King Yemma right about now.”

Yamcha starts stuttering, but Vegeta has already bolted into the sky, leaving the group of earthlings dazed and confused below. Even in the distance you can hear Bulma complaining loudly about how much she’s going to have to pay someone to fix up the battle grounds.

“Why did you do that?” you ask once he’s deposited you on the balcony.

Vegeta’s mouth is on yours in a moment. His body backs you into a wall, hands gripping at your waist like his life depends on it. You feel the tip of his tongue nudging at you and you gasp, allowing him to map out the cavity of your mouth. You feel his palm tap at your hips and you jump up into his arms, rocking your hips against his as you situate yourself in his grip. Your hands tug at his hair, silently begging him to make quick work of your body with that devilish mouth.

“Can’t resist you when you’re bloodthirsty,” he growls against your collarbone before running the tip of his nose against your jugular. You gasp, hips canting as he bares his teeth to your veins, your body keening at the idea of a bruise blooming on your throat.

You grip his hair tighter, tugging at his scalp but it only spurs him on, “O-Only for you.”

“Damn right,” he mumbles into the swell of your chest. He presses sloppy, wet kisses to the area and when the balmy afternoon air washes over the two of you, you can’t help the way your thighs squeeze against his hips as gooseflesh blossoms on your skin.

Vegeta slams open the balcony door and tosses you onto the nearby mattress, the layout of your bedroom overly familiar to you both. He smirks as he closes the door and shuts the blinds, encasing the room in a shadow.

The last thing you see before your eyes screw shut is electricity crackling around his teal irises, palms open and ready to take you for all you’re worth.

a/n: wow, that turned.. spicier than i intended. request more if you like!

#vegeta x reader #prince vegeta #vegeta dbz #vegeta imagine #vegeta one shot #vegeta fanfiction #vegeta x you #vegeta blurb #dragon ball z #dragon ball

166 notes · View notes

mcrmadness · 4 years ago

Text

🌺💘🌷 GET TO KNOW YOUR MUTUALS TAG 🌷💘🌺

Rules: When you get this, it means someone wants to know more about you, so list 5 things about yourself you want your followers to know! They can be as simple as your age or as complex as your deepest fear, as long as it’s something you’re comfortable with sharing. When you’re done and if you want to, send this to 10 people you want to get to know better!

Tagged by: @cats-crushesandhistory, thank you!!! Tagging: @stufenlosregelbar, @hanhan156, @charlotte-lancer, @autumnrebel, @cupcakecurl, @lycanrvc, - six is enough for now. I’m probably forgetting about basically everyone, I literally had to go through these by letters because I can never remember anything when I should make a list and I still feel bad for not including _everyone. But I decided to include only those who I have interacted with at least a little bit - I literally don’t dare to speak to anyone unless they tell me first that I am allowed to approach them. I also did not tag anyone who I haven’t seen doing these tag games or who I don’t know if they like these or not. And all of you can also just skip this if this is not your cup of tea.

***

I can never write anything short (surprise...) so I’ll just give you a short list here and you can click the read more link and see more of my thoughs on each topic there.

I am a teetotaler and I have never even tried alcohol. I also don’t and have never smoked and I stay the f* away from drugs, too.

I love cats. Like, for real, they’re the best thing in this whole world.

I love all animals overall, and I am actually a horse groom, I have a the “Vocational Qualification in Horse Care and Management”, specializing in harness racing, and I have worked with horses for over 10 years so far.

As a kid, I was a huge dinosaur nerd and I still love them.

I love comics and I have also drawn comics since I was a kid. I still have all of my old comics saved. Lately I haven’t been drawing even nearly as much and only fanart, tho. Drawing is fun but I simultaneously love and hate it.

Lol it seems I have love for everything but humans :D:D:D:D:D:D I didn’t even realize that before making this list looooooooool XD But yeah, more rambling under the cut :D But thanks for reading, if you end up reading it.

1. I am a teetotaler and I have never even tried alcohol. I also don’t smoke (and never have) and I avoid drugs - so much so that I don’t know if getting ADHD medication would break this “rule” of mine because they are made from the same stuff as one well-known drug...

I think it started as me just being so “lawful” all the time and the legal drinking age in Finland is 18, so I wanted to follow the rules at all times so I didn’t even think about drinking before the age of 18 and I was often very much shocked by other teens who did that, and I also remember being really worried when my best friend started experimenting with alcohol as a teenager. Despite the legal drinking age being 18, basically everyone here still started (and starts?) drinking between the ages of 13 and 15. So at school, from Monday to Wednesday, all that happened was overhearing the drunk stories of other kids. And from Wednesday to Friday, it changed to them discussing their plans for the next weekend. It was like this every week. And I never could wrap my head around it (I spent my weekends at home being happy that I could have free time and play The Sims 2 or something).

Then at some point I guess I just felt like I don’t even need alcohol for having fun and I still haven’t felt like that, and I don’t think I ever will either. When I turned 18, I was super annoyed by everyone because EVERYONE asked me “So you’re turning 18, did you plan on going to a bar?” and I would always answer something like “I don’t even drink (alcohol) so why would I?” and what still annoys me a little is people telling me “That’s good. That’s a good decision, drinking is bad.” and like... if you really think so, why do you drink yourself, then?

2. I love cats. Maybe that is partially visible from my blog too but I really, really love cats, and for decades my favorite animal has been tiger. When I was born, we had already 3 cats in the house and the last one of them died when I was almost 13 (he would have turned 16 that year). Before I moved out at the age of 23, there was not a single day without cats and currently my parents have 4 (plus a dog). I am still dreaming of my own cat but I can’t take one now because animals are not allowed in my flat but whenever I move out of this, I will choose one with pets allowed and I will adopt a cat. Most likely a rescue cat if I can find one, or even two so they can keep each other company. As cute as kittens are, adult cats are also important and need homes.

3. I also love animals overall. I actually like them more than humans (but technically humans are just apes so they’re my least favorite animal, then) and when I was 7-years-old, whenever I was asked about my dream job, I always said or wrote “I don’t know, probably something to do with animals!” And since my teens I have had lots of different ideas for jobs but when I was 25, I graduated as a horse groom. And have been (on-off) working with horses for over 10 years now (currently unemployed). Originally I chose the horse work because I was so pissed by the capitalist system and the thought of an office job or job at a grocery store and such was just... ew, no, never! So I chose horses because if I have to work, then I will do something useful and someone’s gotta take care of the animals too and I love animals, and animal work doesn’t feel like work but more like a lifestyle, so I’ve been basically fooling the system AND myself by that. Sometimes I also dream of the work as a zookeeper.

4. As a kid, I was a huge dinosaur nerd and I still love them (Land Before Time FTW). With my siblings we had a huge collection of dinosaur toys and I also have always loved evolution and genetics, so what we did was to give an individual name for every dinosaur we had. And we knew the species of each of them, and we knew so many facts about them too. Each dino also had their own personality and we even created family trees for them. There were generations of these dinos and we also created this “growing up order” which meant we put them all standing next to each other, usually under my brother’s bed because we had so many of them and they didn’t fit anywhere else lol, from the youngest/smallest to the oldest. And our biggest mission, that never got finished, was “The Big Play” which was us playing that the ancestor parents aka the oldest and biggest of our toys were born and we would play with them and play how they grow older and eventually start having their own kids - who were the next generation in our “growing up order” :D

No wonder why I still love playing The Sims games, especially TS3! (I even have a Finnish simsblog.) Lots of the things I have done and loved as a kid still live so strong in me, they just come out differently than what they did then. Imagination and toys changed to video games, especially The Sims (but I did play video games a lot as a kid too) and my love for genetics and evolution is still really strong.

5. I love comics. My favorite comic book character of all times is Garfield - he’s a cat and I grew up with cats so obviously I fell in love with the Garfield comics too, and I grew up with them as well. My mom subscribed to the Finnish Garfield comic in the early 90s and I have full volumes starting from the year 1994. I also have lots and lots of earlier comics and I always hunt for them from second-hand shops and I don’t have too many of them missing anymore, and I’m really proud of my collection. I also collect Lucky Luke, Rantanplan and Asterix - I have almost all of the (Finnish publications of) Lucky Lukes and Rantanplan.

I have also always loved drawing and I drew my first actual comic when I was 9 or 10 years old. Before that I had been drawing lots of “image series”, one image per paper. I still have all my old comics here in a drawer and I have had so many different characters and majority of them have had endless “plots” aka no plots whatsoever :D Before I actually never drew humans, I started drawing human portraits as fanart when I was 16 and the first human comic characters I drew (also as a fanart) when I was 18 or so. Before that everything was animals of some sort - I have had ants, flies, dogs, cats, birds... even ghosts at some point, and I also created one very simple anthropomorphic creature just so that it was easy to draw and I could concentrate on drawing clothes and hair. Oh my god I loved drawing hairdos to these, and so often I had one female “main character” and I gave her a “growth spurt” where I just drew her in different ages until she was “adult” and I continued telling about her life as an “adult”. Very often these differen phases were literally phases, there were soooooo many different styles each just for one year :D Then at some point I started coming up with actual ideas and plots instead of just drawing whatever I felt like drawing. I still draw comics nowadays, but those are mainly fanart and I haven’t drawn about OC’s in years and currently I have no active ones (except for the “self-comics” about my deep thoughts etc.) and I don’t know how to create new ones, I just have no creativity unless it’s provoked by a fandom thing or when I get a base like The Sims 3 where I don’t have an empty canvas but am given the tools for creating something new.

It might be fun to share some of my old comics here one day but this blog isn’t really an “art blog”, even tho I post some of my drawings occassionally. But let me know if you’d like to see some and maybe I will make a post about that in the future.

#tag games #me #mcrmadness’ art talk

7 notes · View notes

vampiretime · 4 years ago

Text

Prologue: Mark my Words

One day, 521.1 million years ago, a lone Figure came shrieking out of a rift in the sky. He fell headfirst into a vast ocean, sending out a cloud of bubbles, boiling water and reality-warping particles, causing the biggest extinction event the Cambrian period would ever see. He was about 30 meters underwater now, and could see the rift in the sky slowly closing behind him. He made a motion equivalent to a shrug, as it was his intention to get “trapped” on this planet in the first place. His home world was boring and this planet, on this plane of existence, was teeming with potential. Well, it was teeming with potential. He looked at the creatures around him, floating vacantly toward the surface. All dead.

“Oops,” he said.

He swam deftly for about 12 miles until he came into contact with his first living creature. It was about a meter long, a twelfth of his height. It propelled itself through the water by undulating flaps on either side of its body. Its eyes were composed of thousands of lenses, and he thought he could tell it was assessing him with an intelligence he had never seen. Primitive but calculating. He extended a tendril toward it, hoping to make a connection. He made a connection, alright, as the thing swam to the tip of his appendage, opened its disc-like mouth and bit him. The Figure laughed and swatted the creature away. Pain was foreign to him, but he got the feeling that this planet revolved around it. “That little bastard was trying to hurt me,” he thought bemusedly.

He watched the thing swim away and decided to follow it. Not as himself though. He looked down at where the creature bit him and closed his many eyes. Within seconds, his body had morphed into a body like that of the creature. A female, he now understood as he took stock of his own body sensations. Something about his internal body map told him he could have offspring if he wanted to.

“How interesting,” he mused. “Maybe I ought to find a mate.”

So he swam after his newfound friend, hoping she could show him a healthy creature to mate with. He swam up beside her, thinking she’d be pleased to see him. But he could tell she was anything but. She charged at him, biting at his fins, making it hard for him to keep swimming.

“What’s wrong with you,” he cried, “I just want you to show me around!”

But the she-creature would not give up.

Finally the Figure broke free of her bite and turned back into himself. He wrapped his tendrils around the she-creature and pulled her apart, tossing the two weeping halves of her body to the side.

He sulked in confusion, frustration and grief for a moment, for he had killed his only friend, not just on this planet but in the whole multiverse. He tried to remember what he had read about Earth. His kind had been monitoring it for some time, but no one had ever come here, and had certainly never disguised themselves as Earth creatures, living in cognito among them, like he was planning to do. No, the old fuddy duddy bookish types were too cowardly for that.

But the behavior the she-creature had exhibited was something he remembered as being called “territorial.” For some odd reason, the creatures here could be defensive about everything, food, mates, and even living space. On his home world, his kind tended to help each other rather than attack, he thought smugly. But I suppose they can be territorial about ideas...those old-timers don’t want me to do research this way because it’s not how they want to do things. If that’s not territorial, I don’t know what is.

Suddenly something caught the Figure’s attention deep deep below him. Movement. He swam down until he saw the source: tens of thousands of little creatures with eight pairs of slender legs, a pair of claws and dozens of spines.

“Now this is more like it!” he said. “These look to be about the least territorial species I’ve ever seen!”

He swam closer, put his face inches from the swarm and wrapped a tendril around the spine of a creature on the periphery.

“Just going to borrow this, old chap.”

He broke off the spine and closed his eyes as he held it tighter and tighter until he was an adorable little squirming freak. And for 100 years, he continued to live with the Hallucigenia until he predicted that they would evolve in a direction he didn’t care for. So for the next several thousand millenia, he hopped from species to species. Ate among them, migrated among them, had sex among them, lived among them.

300,006 years ago, he encountered his first human as a mosquito in what is now Cameroon. He was flying about, having the time of his life, eating his fill of blood to feed his brood. He could feel plasmodia inside of him, and knew whichever creature in the food chain he bit next would be the next step in the life cycle of the parasite. It made him proud to be the only mosquito in the whole world that was self aware. He landed on an animal that had the capacity to walk upright, which caused him to stop and assess. Clearly her lineage had been descended from primates, but he saw a new idle cleverness in her. She was laying on her stomach, face dangling over the water of a puddle of water. The Figure paused on her shoulder and tried to see what she saw. She was gazing, just gazing, at herself, ceaselessly. Her hands trailed the cool water and she marvelled at her reflection, not even what it represented, but the reflection itself. Her eyes darted around, studying every distortion of her form. This went on for about twenty minutes before she felt him on her shoulder and tried to slap him with those incredible, sculpted hands. He flew off haughtily.

“Stupid creature,” he grumbled. “Just gazing into the puddle like that. Her species will be extinct within the next hundred years, mark my words.”

He didn’t have any other notable human encounters until 7198 years ago when he heard stirrings that humans might be the most interesting creature on the planet: one that builds civilizations, just like his ancestors had Back Home.

At the time he was living as a gazelle living near the Mesopotamian river. Gazelle sex was thrilling enough to keep the Figure coming back for more but he was tired of eating so much grass. And he was sick of those pesky ape creatures that hurled arrows and spears at him. One day he was eating some plants he particularly liked on the edge of the river when a huntress shot an arrow at him from 10 feet away on the opposite river bank. It hit him in the flank and he charged, running in three different directions before deciding on one. But by the time he decided, the huntress was upon him with a dagger. His physical vessel was panicking but from all this he was getting an idea...if you can’t beat them, join them. He looked into her eyes which gave her pause. She cocked her head and regarded him. While her guard was down he shed his body and grew to his natural 12 meters tall. The woman screamed until he hushed her with his tendrils.

“I just...need…this.” he said, gently sucking out some of her blood with one of his tubules. He slowly shrank as he slid into his new human suit. It happened to look exactly like the huntress, which would never do if they were to exist in the same village, and he had no desire to kill her.

He looked at his reflection in the river and slowly mushed his face around a little. He looked at her.

“How do I look?” he said, doing a spin for her.

She had been staring at him in utterly stunned silence, but slowly found her voice.

“I will tell everyone what you are,” she said quietly.

“What?” the Figure looked confused.

“I WILL TELL EVERYONE WHAT YOU ARE!” she yelled, rising to her feet.

“Tell them what?”

“That you’re a shapeshifter. That you’re evil.”

“Then you’ll have to tell them your secret too.”

Before she could ask what he meant, one of his spines from his old form sprang out of his back and pierced his human skin. As the rivulet of blood flowed down his arm, he jammed the bloody spine into her mouth. She startled, spitting and cursing.

“It’s too late, my dear,” said the Figure.

The huntress was doubled over in pain, feeling as if her insides were turning to liquid.

“What did you do to me?”

“For millions of years I’ve been alone on this planet. Now I finally have someone like me,” he said, smiling.

The huntress cried and prayed to her ancestors as her body contorted and the hallucinations started to come.

“What did you do to me?” she wailed, and passed out cold on the riverbank.

When she woke up the Figure was sitting next to her, still human-shaped. She gazed into his face, which was a badly stretched version of her own.

“I was wondering when you’d wake up,” he said.

“What happened?”

“You’re like me, now, I’m afraid,” he said, still smiling.

“What do you mean, like you?” she asked.

“Just try turning into someone else.”

“Someone else?”

“Yes, make your face into another’s.”

“What sort of riddle is this?”

“Not a riddle, a command. Do it, now.”

She furrowed her brow and obeyed. She looked away, and when she looked back at him she was wearing the face of her father.

“Look at yourself in the river,” the Figure said.

She did and cried out.

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“Aya,” she replied, weeping fearfully.

“Aya....you can call me Virulence. We’re going to have so much fun together.”

#prologue #its not quite done but it's the most finished part of the story so far #nat speaks

4 notes · View notes

lovelypieceofjade · 5 years ago

Text

Long post about Sekiro lore and Isshin

Sorry im on mobile so i cant put a "read more", just scroll a lot if you want to skip it ig sorry

So I've been thinking about Sekiro religiously because I'm Obssessed rn (and i need to distract myself from the mag finale). I've been scrolling through the tag and there's something I was thinking about that hasn't been talked about very much or at all from what I've seen and that is: Wolf is at least partly responsible for the fall of Ashina, and Isshin almost gives you his explicit consent to do so.

throughout the first half of the game, we're forced to fight our way through Ashina's first lines of defense against the Interior Ministry, in 2 different entryways into what seems to be Ashina's last and most heavily defended stronghold, the Castle. The first real threat is General Naomori Kawarda, a strong man versed in the Ashina artstyle and in charge of the farthest reaches of the currently free territory, which you cut down. Next is the Chained Ogre, a beast placed there probably to deroute the Red Guard, which would let General Tenzen Yamauchi and his men have a chance to push them back. You effectively destroy that line of defense and let one of the main entryways into the castle (the destroyed bridge which is quickly replaced anyway) free for the Interior Ministry.

The other main entrance to the Ashina Castle, the main gate, is guarded by (MY NAAAAAAAAMMEE, IIIS) Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa, a fearless warrior completely devoted to Genichiro if not the land of Ashina. He's alone in this task, and the boss stage littered with Interior Ministry corpses serves as proof of his ferocity and efficiency. But he's no match for a Wolf desperately trying to reach his lord. With him gone, only the Blazing Bull guards the Castle entrance, a desperate effort to keep the Red Guard at bay should Gyoubu fail.

Once in the Castle, you not only take down General Matsumoto and his squad of gunmen, you also eliminate one of the Seven Spears of Ashina in the reservoir, and once in the Castle proper, Jinsuke Saze, a master of the Ashina arts (and, since we find him in the dojo, probably not only a high-ranking member of their dwindling military but also a teacher for the soldiers and Samuraï. Killing him may have an effect on the overall mood of Ashina). Finally, you force Genichiro to flee, consumed by his desire for Kuro's immortality which he thinks will give Ashina the much-needed edge to win this war, even if their walls hadn't been systematically torn asunder by the Wolf.

What interests me is that, through all of this, Isshin has obviously kept a close eye on you. Not only that, he seems to give you the all-clear to tear down Ashina by giving you the secrets to his own school of sword-fighting! The first time you meet him is in his Tengu of Ashina disguise, right after killing Gyoubu, so you're obviously no match for him at this point. If he didn't want you to go through his own defenses, he could have given us knowledge of other entryways or ways to get around them and to Kuro, or simply kill you right here (which he won't, since he believes his own grandson to be in the wrong about immortality). Why would this man, who invented his own school of fighting and bathed the lands in blood for his ambitions, let you destroy the efforts of a lifetime?

I think the answer comes from his dialogue once you give him Ashina sake. During this interaction, the Wolf asks about the rebellion that happened in his youth. Isshin then reminisces about the past, and the land of Ashina. Paraphrasing: "It was a place where the (probably rejuvinating) water flowed straight from the source. We loved our land dearly, but we were heretics, and weak, so we were overrun. Amidst the chaos of war, we took our land back." Here, in few sentences, we get a snapshot of Ashina's history and of their people, people who worshipped gods that weren't aknowledged in the rest of Japan (probably the Divine Dragon and the Serpent God). During a time of intense war in all of Japan, Isshin Ashina cut through everything and everyone to free the land of his ancestors and take his rightfull place as not only a Lord, but a Sword Saint, someone who mastered fighting to a point his name alone struck fear in all of his enemies for decades to follow.

But then, he follows with (direct quote from the english translation): "But now... it's a place of death... it's a bitter thing indeed." He might be referring to the Interior Ministry cutting through his people, at least that's what I first thought. But there may be another meaning, coming from "bitter thing". My guess is that he's talking about the obsession with immortality that has taken hold in every part of Ashina, rotting away what made them proud in the first place. He has a distaste for the curse of the undying, that's made very clear by his implicit help given to the Wolf in multiple occasions to end Kuro's divine heritage.

So, I think that while Isshin doesn't want Ashina to burn, in his eyes, maybe it is worth burning anyway. The Buddhist priests of Senpou Temple have long since forgotten their original teachings, replaced by the search for immortality. Mibu village is controlled by the nobles of Fountainhead Palace (who were once human, at least some of them, before they craved the vigor of the young) and are now undying, corrupted. His own adopted grandson and head of military drank the Rejuvinating sediments, slowly corroding his humanity away. The only people not consumed by this quest are the inhabitants and protectors of the Sunken Valley and even then, immortal beings live there (the Guardian Ape being an example). Isshin Ashina may not want to see his work turn to ash, but if it eradicates this thirst for ressurection, the price may be worth paying. He will fight to the very end but never sink so low as to shed his own humanity.

This probably also ties in to how Isshin himself never became Shura despite the atrocious amount of killing he did to create his techniques, but that post is already way too long lmao I'll maybe try to dig my brain abt this later.

#royal talks #sekiro #sekiro lore #sekiro meta #long post #isshin ashina #this man has been in the back of my mind for a while #why let you fuck up his own people and land?#bc hes ashamed of what theyve become #yk maybe this was very clear for everyone and im dumdumb but i really wanted to try my hand at understanding something about this game #fromsoft games are designed to let you speculate so i wanted my fun #also maybe ill write why i think he never became shura despite apparently ample occasions to #i think it ties in to his very real humanity #this is a man who enjoys battle yes but also drinking laughing exchanging stories etc #he enjoys LIFE and HUMANITY too much for the shadow of shura to take root

40 notes · View notes

longsightmyth · 5 years ago

Text

Myth reads The Hawk’s Gray Feather, Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Look I’m getting tired of one-off tumblr posts that get lost. Stream of consciousness chapter by chapters!

So we know from Blackmantle that Arthur was going to show eventually to fight off the oppressive yoke of Edeyrn, evil half-sidhe druid and half brother of Gwyn ap Nudd, who was (is? She’s sort of a goddess now?) Athyn’s godson. We also know from The Silver Branch that Arthur was of the House of Don and one of Gwydion’s far-off ancestors, thereby from Gwynedd, aka one of the Space Welsh planets.

The narrator of this trilogy is Taliesin, bff and eventual brother-in-law to Arthur. Taliesin is super proud of Gwynedd in general and Arvon in particular. “I speak not to vaunt, for I myself was born on the borders of that land of sea and stone: I, Taliesin, youngest child of Gwyddno, lord of Cantred Gaaelod, and Medeni his wife, who died of some plague when I was yet too young to know her. There were often plagues in those times, many said sent by Edeyrn the Marbh-draoi, to chasten the race of Kymry, that if he could not bend their stiff necks then by the gods he would break them.”

Edeyrn has outlived all contemporaries (I mean, WE know why: half aes sidhe, etc etc, but most of the Kelts are still kind of like ‘wtf’) and overthrown Alawn last-king. “Almost since the day Edeyrn took power for himself, breaking the ancient rule of Ard-tiarnas and Fainne and Senate and Assembly and House of Peers that has served us so well and so long, there has been a resistance.”

Not a very EFFECTIVE resistance, apparently, since a lot of people went ‘oh sure we’ll take this opportunity to grab some power’ and a lot of those people were druids, so. Magic.

The Ban-Draoi were having none of that nonsense apparently, but I noticed in Blackmantle that the Ban-Draoi seemed to have less political power at that time than they do in Aeron’s. Maybe that’s still the case?

“As for the common folk of Keltia, they chose much as common folk, or indeed any folk, anywhere, would choose: to be left alone to live their lives as best they might; with honor if it could be managed, with the least degree of dishonor if not. Though not to be greatly praised, neither are they to be greatly blamed: they helped where and when and as they could, and if they could not help then at least they did not often hinder. They wished only to survive, and sometimes - oftentimes - even that poor grace was not to be given to them.” Ouch, y’all.

Taliesin has six siblings: Tegau, the eldest daughter and the heir, triplet boys (?!) Elwyn, Cadreth, and Adaon, two more sisters two years apart named Shelia and Rainild, and Taliesin born twenty (?!) years after them. All of them are part of the Counterinsurgency (the rebellion scorns to call itself a rebellion, because Edeyrn is the invader and insurgent, is the thinking). Tegau lost a breast in battle, said ‘no don’t grow it back, I want a fucking gold one to Make A Statement’. Taliesin clearly thinks she’s cooler than sliced bread.

He doesn’t see his dad much because he looks ridiculously like his mom and it makes his dad sad. Screw you, dad. Taliesin finds fatherly affection in a Super Secret Druid (though apparently it’s an open Super Secret to the family) named Ailithir, who I assume is Merlin. My memories of these books are fuzzy.

Taliesin’s nurse wakes him in the middle for the night for his father Gwyddno to tell him that Edeyrn has summoned Gwyddno and that Taliesin, as the only child of the manor home, is nominal lord, with Ailithir to keep an eye on him. Taliesin can tell everyone is worried, and his father gives him the feather Taliesin’s mother found the day she learned she was pregnant with Taliesin. It’s a grey hawk’s feather, naturally. “In the bardic speech it signifies courage, and far seeing, and swift striking, and high soaring beyond the flight of common wings.”

So yeah. We the readers know Gwyddno is as good as dead, and Ailithir pretty much confirms it when he talks about how Taliesin’s father and grandmother kept their little corner of Gwynedd from under Edeyrn’s control by being super clever rule-lawyers and pretending not to have any idea about the counterinsurgency. “In the ordinary way, your sister Tegau, as firstborn, would come to rule it in her turn.” I have only known about Tegau for like ten minutes and already if anything happened to her I would kill everyone in this book and then myself. If Tegau dies I will riot., and tbh Taliesin would probably join me.

Anyway Gwyddno has been called to account for basically everybody he knows being counterinsurgency. He’s very dead, he (and Taliesin) just don’t know it yet.

#myth reads #myth reads the hawk's gray feather #myth reads the keltiad #King Arthur in space

6 notes · View notes

minnesotadruids · 6 years ago

Note

What continues to draw you to reform druidry over other Druidic traditions?

Whoever you are, I love you. This is a great question!

The short answer is that from the time I started studying it in depth, the more I realized how similar it was to my own personal practices and devotional styles I developed back when I called my practice “rogue druidry.” I felt perfectly at home with Reformed Druidry (RDNA) the more I read their literature (A Reformed Druid Anthology, aka ARDA).

I’ll get to the part of what continues to draw me to the RDNA in a bit (or you can jump to the bottom) but first I feel the need to digress. :)

I’ll start with a timeline of events.

Winter-Spring 2004: I studied abroad in Ireland. Learned the Wheel of the Year and ancient Irish culture in an actual classroom setting. Wanted to learn more about druidry but that would have to wait for my return to Minnesota

Summer 2004: Researched the ancient druids, and learned we don’t know much about them. Researched the Druid Revival Movement of the 1700s to early 1900s, found it intriguing but lacking something. Researched Reformed Druidry, and stopped immediately when I read that the RDNA didn’t take itself seriously. It turns out that statement is not entirely accurate, but I wouldn’t know that for years. I researched ADF, but didn’t consider myself a hard polytheist like they want. I researched OBOD, then saw the price tag of the Bardic Course (I was making $6.75 an hour part time as a college telephone receptionist and campus tour guide).

After reading some books on druidry in the library, I decided to just do “rogue druidry.”

Rest of 2004 to 2010: Went out into the woods on my college campus with a chalice and a bottle of wine to consecrate, consecrated fires, cleansed and consecrated ritual objects. I acknowledged the raw forces of nature: the sun, the rain, the earth, the wind. I developed gestures and motions of endearment. I listened to pagan podcasts including Druidcast of OBOD.

2010: Isaac Bonewits passed away and I felt a longing to be part of an actual druid community again, starting another year of intensive research on Druidry.

2011: I made a very large chart comparing 12 different druid orders that denoted 18 criteria such as membership fees, theological focus, whether or not there’s a study program, etc. I felt at home with the RDNA, so I joined.

Also 2011: Started reading A Reformed Druid Anthology because it’s hundreds of pages of free literature.

The quirky King James writing style of ARDA made me laugh and I kept reading.

The Two Basic Tenets of belief are relatable which allow for anyone of any spiritual background to identify with, whether hard polytheist, duotheist, agnostic, pantheist, deist, or whatever.

I found the RDNA rituals to be deeply profound and meaningful

The RDNA rituals also involve consecrating a chalice, but containing whiskey instead of wine.

The RDNA was founded by freethinking students at a rather prestigious Minnesota college. For me this is homegrown druidism.

The literature is a living document with many contributors. There’s a movement meditation called the Four Salutations of Day, which is a bit like Tai Chi, but involves a druid staff:

My Tumblr profile picture is of me performing the Third Salutation of Day at sunset.

So what about the RDNA still captivates my heart?

Reformed Druidry is the foundation of neo-druidism in America. I am proud of being part of that legacy. Founded in 1963, it is the “awkward uncle” of ADF, and is therefore an ancestor of the Henge of Keltria, and therefore of the Druid Order of WhiteOak and Druids of the Mist. The RDNA is also the parent order that led to the creation of offshoots such as the New, the Schismatic, the Hasidic, and the Zen Druids of North America. Oh, and we inspired the independent creation of the Reformed Druids of Gaia, too.

The Ancient Order of Masonic Druids in America (AOMDA), a vestige of the Druid Revival era had been defunct for a few years before the RDNA was created. John Micheal Greer eventually rebooted AODA in 1976, dropping “Masonic” from their name and turning it into a mystical order.

The RDNA is also one year older than OBOD, but this is where I should say druidry is not a race to be the first at anything.

OBOD and AODA, by my impressions, are more about focusing on inner workings, and place less importance on ritual. The RDNA (and ADF) do place a significance on ritual and ceremony, which I really feel a drive for. I am also a dues-paying member of ADF, but I cannot enter a position of spiritual leadership in ADF because I am not a hard polytheist. There’s an oath in the clergy initiation of ADF in which you must essentially declare yourself a polytheist.

Nobody in the RDNA hierarchy profits (nor “non-profits”) from your spirituality here. This Druid Order is free to join, and the literature is free in its digital form. We typically operate in the red out of our love of druidry.

Most of the Rites of Passage are either available in the text or the general details are given so you can decide in advance whether or not you want to subject yourself to them. I’m a forthright kind of guy.

With no formal study program in the RDNA, it is your personal responsibility to find your own path to Awareness. Glory to the Eternal Student!

It is a matter of personal integrity and honesty to determine when you feel prepared for a rite of passage to ascend the ranks of the RDNA. There’s a bit of vetting to get to the Third Order (first level of the RDNA priesthood) though.

At its height, Oakdale Grove has had 12 active members. As of this post, there are about 9-10. For some, Reformed Druidry might only be a waypoint in their spirituality. For anyone who visits or joins, I am providing a service to celebrate a common bond and offer camaraderie. Dedication to Service is part of my vows and is a hallmark of the Priesthood of the RDNA. I entered the Third Order knowing that my vows would mean I owe my service to the Reformed Druid community. There’s no real prestige to being a Third Order Reformed Druid, but I do get to wear a big ribbon draped over my shoulders during rituals.

The RDNA is not an expansionist religion. We don’t try to recruit others or coerce anyone into joining. However, posting to social media including here on Tumblr is a passive way to allow others to learn more if they are curious enough, and if they ask for more information I will provide it. But we do rejoice when someone does decide to join.

The druids of the founding Grove have been active at Carleton College every year since 1963. Ideally they’re supposed to pass the tradition on to each wave of new students. The elected Arch-Druid of Carleton Grove is the seat of the Council of Dalon Ap Landu. It really says something about a spiritual movement whose leader changes annually and is roughly 21-22 years old. The youngest and brightest minds are sometimes the most innovative.

Sometimes an Arch-Druid will graduate from Carleton College without ordaining anyone there to the priesthood. Part of Oakdale Grove’s mission statement is to help the tradition stay alive at Carleton, and I’ve restored the priesthood there once already.

I’ve contributed rituals and rites of passage written in the RDNA style. The 30th Arch-Druid (emeritus) of Carleton College Grove has been curating our literature for about 26 years. He’s been working overseas since 2014 with limited access to a secure internet connection, so I’ve taken it upon myself to help curate our order’s literature on the side.

Out of the 137 ordained Third Order (or above) druids, I am probably one of the top five most actively engaged in this. Because of the eight year investment of time I’ve put into the Reformed Druids of North America (and I’ve probably spent two thousand dollars building up my Grove and others since 2011), Reformed Druidry is my passion, my commitment, and my spiritual home.

I’ll be 80 years old if I’m still alive to see the 100th anniversary celebration of the Reformed Druids of North America. Knowing that I’ve already had the privilege of meeting some of the founders and had rituals with them, I would love to see Reformed Druidism flourish in decades to come, for my contributions will become part of that legacy for the druids of the future.

#druids #druidry #druidism #pagan #about druidry #paganism

5 notes · View notes

sleepynegress · 7 years ago

Text

Now that I’ve let it marinate, here are my THOROUGH thoughts on Black Panther...

Cut because extensive spoilers...

First, it was a great film. Great in terms of being a big budget “blockbuster” fun movie and great in weight. Budget and weight are areas previous black superhero entries have lacked and why this one resonates so much now.

Now, I’m gonna break down the contents that stood out to me...

We open with a beautifully done and narratively resonant breakdown of the history of Wakanda. Basically, the civilizational advantage of inherited wealth (<- coming back to this), via space metal, times multi-trillions. They watch the world fight, violate, and destroy --ESPECIALLY to people on the same continent on which they exist-- and choose, smartly, to remain hidden.... Or who knows?? Maybe they would have defeated the guns of old and stopped the colonizers before they did real damage... Which is a what if?...

...That Killmonger symbolizes. He is the dream deferred, the one that exploded. He is the gaping wound of the enslaved that Wakanda did not even try to save. He is post-African black pain/rage at that scattered people that reaches for a home that was snatched from them generations ago... The ones taken from home without choice, with potential squandered by lesser people. Which is why he is the most sympathetic villain I’ve ever seen. Grounding him in Oakland, even to the point where even his vision took him back to that project (with the ancestral sky of Wakanda outside his window, honestly I cried). #killmongerwasntwrong

As for the Wakandan feminine... This movie was honestly, the most thoughtful mainstream rendering of black womanhood in the hands of a black man, I have seen on screen... I argue Daughters of the Dust is still the tops for me, but this mainstream big budget comicbook film(!) reminded me of it with certain elements...

Nakia is the “we knew and we told you but men stay not listening”, black woman from the future, ahead of even T’Challa until the movie’s plot resolves and catches up to her vision. Killmonger wasn’t wrong, but Nakia was right. The hashtag should be #NakiaWasRight. As usual, black women know and tell with a precision first, but rarely get the credit. Killmonger wasn’t wrong but toxic masculinity, courtesy of Western values and abandonment, corrupted his vision for himself and black and other oppressed peoples.

Okoye is the strength of black womanhood, -not the gross stereotypical SBW garbage that too many white people think is a compliment, but is really their trite way of saying “Pain must not affect them the same way!” No, she is disciplined, capable, beautiful, and beloved. As an aside, I just know Alek Wek screamed when she threw her wig in that one scene. That act reminded me so much of Wek doing similar at that runway show (which was iconic!) and pretty much made the same statement (that wig was totally raggedy and ugly on purpose).

Shuri is black potential unhindered and allowed to thrive. All because the expectations and opportunity in Wakanda are limitless... She is as important a cultural touchstone in terms of influencing young black girls to take up STEM fields as the film Hidden Figures is. She is black girl joy and magic rolled into one. Mischievous, loving, sweet, kind, curious. Letitia’s performance was brilliant because she played the girlhood we are so often denied so well, it was undeniable even by the usual suspects who would... That said, I can see people treating her too preciously in a direction could also go the way of dehumanization. She’s not a mascot, child, baby, or spirit animal. She’s an intelligent teenager, a genius. She’s not your token prop for proving how much you can adore “one special” black female character. I can already see the overly-precious and precocious cameos in white slash fic where she drops off a “tech thing”, is hugged, has her hair ruffled amiably, sasses cutely, and then disappears... WHITE PEOPLE, DON’T DO THIS.

Queen Ramonda, the female elders tending to blossoms, the elderly woman at council all represented a kind of feminine energy that is something we black folks (of course) had first, but is universal... The women who know the rituals, the medicines, the crafts, traditions, passed down among them. Just about every culture on Earth has this... A gathering of cooperative women who heal and guard traditions

T’Challa The Black Panther represents healthy/regal uncorrupted masculinity. Again, courtesy of the privileges of being Wakandian royalty, just like his sister. Steady, protective of his family, responsible, confident, and vulnerable. Heavy in burden, but projecting lightness and ease of wisdom to all alongside his tread, Shuri’s invention of sneakers was perfectly perfect for him.

M’Baku could have gone wrong easily, with his size and comic origins (“Man-Ape”) but no, he was strong in both mind and body, and most importantly human, (this is where white filmmakers would have ruined him and made him a lovable lout). A vegetarian who challenged, lost, teased, and made wise choices for his people.. A people that represented that proud underclass, even on the boundaries of supposedly enlightened Wakanda.

The TECH... OMG...The tech, the beads, the transportation, the organic design and flow and interconnectedness of it. The flying ships shaped like lifeforms already designed for flight. The energy bolts, shock absorbers and redistributors... If I remember my physics, energy expelled does not disappear. It HAS to be expended in some way. Shuri’s inventions all had that in common, effectively harvesting and using energy.

Now, I’m getting back to that inherited wealth, that I feel is one of the biggest messages taken away from this film: There is no such thing as benevolent privilege. ...Even if that .00000001% status literally dropped out of the sky, (which we know, did not happen that way for the actual privileged among us). Wakandians never exploited people, never actively subjugated, nor committed genocide and yet, their hands were still red... They were the passive bystanders, who knew what wrong was, but did nothing. This was T’Chaka leaving his nephew in that project, Erik glimpsing that ship fly away...

And yet, that kind if purposeful greedy, manic, snatched-away at the cost of stomping on “the other” kind of privilege WAS ALSO represented in this film via Claue. ...His racist taunts, his jealousy, his repugnant personality. He was the embodiment of the evil of whiteness. Brilliant performance by Serkis on that.

Freeman was an exposition machine for entry into the (white) Marvel world. He had to guided and instructed to obvious places (a nod to what black actors typical endure in white narratives). I found it fascinating reading one fan lament that the importance of Captain America’s shield was taken away because it wasn’t just his, wasn’t rare, but Wakandians had a bounty all this time. It was no longer this white hero’s “special thing”. They were sad about that, but not that it had been stolen and sold on the black market to become his shield in the first place. ...Freeman’s character represented white fans awaking to their own casual racism and disregard of the black other. In this case, it helped these advanced people hide. Sometimes, you don’t disabuse people of their low expectations.

As for random bits? Loved the thoughtful costuming and set design. NEVER has a black film set in “fantasy/scifi” had the money and work and black perspective this film has. LORDT Jordan got a juicy ASS! (I’m sorry, but I’m human yall), M’Baku is tall-thicc-hotness personified, Bassett is an immortal goddess, Lupita is a dainty doll made of empathy, The Dora Miljae is the power of black cooperative womanhood... Also shout-out to the elderly member of council with the Namibian influenced hairstyle.

The ancestral plane, yall... Note that it was twilight when T’Challa first visited, but brightly lit during his second visit.

“Bury me in the ocean with my ancestors who jumped from ships.” T’Challa taking Erik up to see the Wakandian sunset...

“...Hey auntie.” also, Jordan brilliantly played Erik as full of posturing as a mask for deep-seeded pain... Just jeez.

BATTLE RHINOS!!! where Nakia ended up after that car was destroyed, Okoye paddle-sailing on the damn road with a spear, Just THE WOMEN being the MVP’s in every way in this damn movie. Listen, I loved Wonder Woman? but it did not do cooperative womanhood nearly as well...NOT EVEN CLOSE... I’m probably gonna add more to this post... I’m still dazzled and gobsmacked a day later.

THAT SAID, my only quibbles are that you CAN TELL that this movie’s original cut was 6 hours long (editing felt a bit off at places) and the way fight scenes were filmed, weren’t filmed-and-cut as well as Winter Soldier.

But that’s it. These are my scattered thoughts.

ONE MORE THOUGHT!!! Could be that Killmonger did the Wakandians favor burning all those flowers, IF Thanos is going to Wakanda for the reason I think he is, in Infinity Wars... That might make it harder for him to locate.

Gotta link this, because totally neglected W’Kabi. I should add that I’ve only seen it once. But I hope to see it again.

#black panther #meta #discussion #spoilers

135 notes · View notes

nityarawal · 8 months ago

Text

4/4/2024

Morning Songs

That's A Lot Of 4's

4/4/2024

You Got A 4th For Me

Or We're You Just

Kidding Mommies

Didn't You Hear

Beyonce Crying

About 16 Cybertrucks

16 Chariots

Brahma

Inspired

Didn't You Hear

Beyonce Crying

No Mana

Her City Was

Flooded

No Prana

To Fly

How Can You Let

The Carbon Queen's

Molest

Our Children

Stardust

And Robot Us

They're Cold And

Calculating

Invitro Baes

Witchhunting

Clones

Need New Laws

For Mommies

At Court

Breeders At Large

For They've Martyred

Mastered Felonry

But That's Not God

Goddess Doesn't Gloat

Egotistical

Neither Does Real

Elon

Taylor

Britney

Or Beyonce

Queen B's Want To

Offer Cowgirl Diva

Services

Be A Bodyguard

Make More Beyonces

Poet Of Rumi

With Ma Army

Close Courts

But Not Robots

Of Us

For The Most Beautiful

Black Birds

That We've Seen

Live

Like 'Wild Elon'

In A Cage

For A Jewish Staffing

Agency

Does My Niece

Charlotte Barnes

Rawal

Manage The Beyonce

Brand

Does Charlotte

And Gay Bros

Decorate Space-X

And Help Bully

Elon Under His Desk

We're Not Worried

About The Monkeys

And Apes

We're Worried About

You

Ya' All Up In

The Air

Homeless

Like Bonobos

Practicing Medicine

On You

Breeding

Astronaut

Dissasters

Carbon Queen's

Selling The Likes

Of You

Endless Trafficking

So How You Gonna

Protect Me

How 'Ya Gonna

Deliver

My Babies

With Your

Pants On

How 'Ya Gonna

Be My Sister

When All Your

Jewish Attys

Just Want To "F"

Do You Love Me

More Mamma

Do You Love Me

Like A Sister

Do You Love Me

More Mamma

Agape Style

Could I Be An

Auntie

At Your Hearth

A Caretaker

Do You Love Me

More Mamma

Do You Trust Me

To Protect Your

Hearth

Journalist

'Cuz I'd Flash

The Beyonce

Card

All Day Long

And Jay Curatolo's

Eyes Will Roll

His Boss

P.D. Mathew

Robert's

And All His

Minions

Will Be So Inspired

When They Slap

That Junk Art

Wall

And Sing Your

Tunes

Of Apologies

To All

Officers Of

Yesteryear

Celebrated

Farewell

Jewish Attys Will

Build New Walls

Like The Slaves

Of Your Ancestors

But Their Won't

Be In Slavery

At All

For The Jewish Men

Cry On Their

Knees

Tripling Prices On

Real Estate

Discriminating

Racists

Begging

Forgive Us

"Others"

They Brand Us

Raiding Our Homes

Forgive Us

Tesla Is Swimming

In Floods

Beyonce's

Home

Under Water

She Claims

In Texas Hoe

Down

Forgive Us

Mamma

Why'd You Betray

Our VP

Why Wasn't She

Enough For Douggie

Elmhoff

Why'd You Betray

Beyonce

#Trumpleberry

Weren't American

Rockstars

Enough

You Had To Sell

As Robots

Missionising

World War 3

On Crack

Stormy Daniels'

On Plateau

Instead Of

Our "Dead" First

Lady

First Queen

Why'd You Need

A Ukranian

Baby Factory

Why'd The Jewish

Attys

Shame Their Glorious

Wives

Why'd They Sell Their

Daughters

On The Black Market

To Military

It's Not The Way

Of Our American

Girls'

You Came Here

Because You

Loved Us First

It's Not The Way

Of The American

Girls'

We're Prudes

Proud Prudes

Prudent Moms

Prudential Realtors

Investors

Mothers

Homesmart

Real Estate Moms

NAR

National Association

Of Realtors

If You Love Yourself

A "Natalie"

So Much

Than Learn To Honor

Her

Courts Took Her Man

On An Atty Con

He Wasn't Much

On His Own

She's The Broker

Black Swan

They Took Her Man

On An Atty Con

He Wasn't Much

On His Own

But He Was Her

Baby Daddy

Her Provider

She Entrusted

He Wasn't Much

We Yell Good Riddance

To Be Honest

We Want Our

White

Swans Back

Swimming

Free

And

Our Kids

And Jewish Attys

Clearly

Don't Deserve

Beyonce's

Goddesses

Sisterhood

Blessings

Peace,

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal

0 notes

teshknowledgenotes · 4 years ago

Text

The Revised Psychology of Human Misjudgment, by Charlie Munger - Notes

“Spend each day trying to be a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Systematically you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. Nevertheless, you build discipline by preparing for fast spurts. Slug it out one inch at a time day by day. At the end of the day – if you live long enough – most people get what they deserve”

Munger has drawn heavily from the study of psychology, economics, physics, biology and history, among other disciplines, in developing his system of “multiple mental models” to cut through difficult problems in complex social systems. It is a system like no other.

As a result his insights on business and life are unique, rare, and correct with unusual consistency. Adopting the “Munger” approach to thinking is difficult, as is imitating any genius. When asked his secret to success, Munger once answered simply “I’m rational.”

The Revised Psychology of Human Misjudgment, by Charlie Munger

This talk features Charlie’s original concept of “behavioural finance”.

Charlie addresses the importance of recognizing patterns to determine how humans behave, both rationally and irrationally. He shares with us his checklist of twenty-five standard causes of human misjudgment, which contains observations that are ingenious, counter intuitive and important. He also emphasizes the “lollapalooza” power of psychological misjudgments in combination.

I have long been very interested in standard thinking errors. However I was educated in an era wherein the contributions of non-patient-treating psychology to any understanding of misjudgment met little approval from members of the mainstream elite. Instead, interest in psychology was pretty well confined to a group of professors who talked and publish mostly for themselves.

Right after my time at Caltech and Harvard Law School, I possessed a vast ignorance of psychology. Those institutions failed to require knowledge of the subject. And of course they couldn’t integrate psychology with their other subject matter when they didn’t know psychology. The institutions were proud of their wilful avoidance of “fuzzy” psychology and “fuzzy” psychology professors. Soon after leaving Harvard, I began a long struggle to get rid of the most dysfunctional part of my psychological ignorance.

When I started law practice, I had respect for the power of genetic evolution and appreciation of man’s many evolution-based resemblances to less cognitively-gifted animals and insects. I was aware that man was a “social animal”, greatly and automatically influence by behaviour he observed in men around him. I also knew that man lived, like barnyard animals and monkeys, in limited-size dominance hierarchies, wherein he tended to respect authority and to like and cooperate with his own hierarchy members while displaying considerable distrust and dislike for competing men not in his own hierarchy.

But this generalized, evolution-based theory structure was inadequate to enable me to cope properly with the cognition I encountered. I was soon surrounded by much extreme irrationality, displayed in patters and sub patterns. So surround, I could see that I was not going to cope as well as I wished with life unless I could acquire a better theory structure on which to hang my observations and experiences. By then my craving for more theory had a long history. Partly, I had always loved theory as an aid in puzzle solving and as a means of satisfying my monkey-like curiosity.

I also got curious about social insects. It fascinated me that both the fertile female honeybee and the fertile female harvester ant could multiply their quite different normal life expectancy by exactly twenty by engaging in one gangbang in the sky. The extreme success of the ants also fascinated me, how a few behavioural algorithms caused such extreme evolutionary success grounded in extremes of cooperation within the breeding colony and almost always extremes of lethal hostility toward ants outside the breeding colony, even ants of the same species.

I will start my summary with a general observation that helps explain what follows. This observation is grounded in what we know about social insects. The limitations inherent in evolution’s development of the nervous-system cells that control behaviour are beautifully demonstrated by these insects, which often have a mere 100,000 or so cells in their entire nervous systems, compared to man’s multiple billions of cells in his brain alone.

Each ant, like each human, is composed of a living physical structure plus behavioural algorithms in its nerve cells. In the ant’s case, the behavioural algorithms are few in number and almost entirely genetic in origin. The an learns a little behaviour from experiences, but mostly it merely responds to ten or so stimuli with a few simple responses programmed into its nervous system by its genes.

Naturally the simple ant behaviour system has extreme limitations because of its limited nerve system repertoire. For instance, one type of ant, when it smells a pheromone give off by a dead ant’s body in the hive, immediately responds by cooperating with other ants in carrying the dead body out of the hive. And Harvard’s great E.O. Wilson performed on of the best psychology experiments ever done when he painted dead-ant pheromone on a live ant. Quite naturally, the other ants dragged this useful live ant out of the give even though it kicked and otherwise pheromone on a live ant. Quite naturally, the other ants dragged this useful live ant out of the hive even though it kicked and otherwise protested throughout the entire process. Such is the brain of the ant. It has a simple program of responses that generally work out all right, but which are imprudently used by rote in many cases.

Man is often wrong but generally useful, psychological tendencies are quite numerous and quite different. The natural consequence of this profusion of tendencies is the grand general principle of social psychology: cognition is ordinarily situation-dependent so that different situations often cause different conclusions, even when the same person is thinking in the same general subject area.

“Of what use is a philosopher who never offends anybody? - Diogenes

These are a list of psychology based tendencies that while generally useful often mislead.

1)Reward and Punishment Superresponse Tendency

One of my favourite cases about the power of incentives is the Federal Express case. The integrity of the Federal Express system requires that all packages be shifted rapidly among airplanes in one central airport each night. And the system has no integrity for the customers if the night work shift can’t accomplish its assignment fast. And Federal Express had one hell of a time getting the night shift to do the right thing. They tried moral suasion. They tried everything in the world without luck. And finally somebody got the happy thought that it was foolish to pay the night shift by the hour when what the employer wanted was not maximized billable hours of employee service but fault-free, rapid performance of a particular task. Maybe this person though if they paid the employees per and shift and let all night shift employees go home when all the planes were loaded, the system would work better. And behold that situation worked.

Money is the main incentive/reward that drives habits. A monkey can be trained to seek and work for an intrinsically worthless token, as if it were a banana, if the token is routinely exchangeable for a banana. So it is also with humans working for money only more so, because human money i exchangeable for many desired things in addition to food, and on ordinarily gains status from either holding or spending it. Moreover, a rich person will often through habit, work on connive energetically for money money long after he has almost no real need for more. Averaged out, money is a mainspring of modern civilization, having little precedent in the behaviour of nonhuman animals. Money rewards are also intertwined with other forms of reward. For instance, some people use money to buy status and others use status to get money, while still others sort of do both things at the same time.

Although money is the main driver among rewards, it is not the only reward that works. People also change their behaviour and cognition for sex, friendship, companionship, advancement in status and other non-monetary items.

2)Liking/Loving Tendency

A newly hatched baby goose is programmed, through the economy of its genetic program, to “love” and follow the first creature that is nice to it, which is almost always its mother. But, if the mother goose is not present right after the hatching, and a man is there instead, the gosling will “love” and follow the man, who becomes a sort of substitute mother.

Somewhat similarly a newly arrived human is “born to like and love” under the normal and abnormal triggering outcomes for its kind. Perhaps the strongest inborn tendency to love, ready to be triggered is that the human mother for its child. On the other hand, the similar “child-loving” behaviour of a mouse can be eliminated by the deletion of a single gene, which suggests that there is some sort of triggering gene in a mother mouse as well as in a gosling.

Each child like a gosling, will almost surely come to like and love, not only as driven by its sexual nature, but also in social groups not limited to its genetic or adoptive “family”. Current extremes of romantic love almost surely did not occur in man’s remote past. Our early human ancestors were surely more like apes triggered into mating in a pretty mundane fashion.

And what will a man naturally come to like and love, apart from his parent, spouse and child? Well he will like and love being liked and loved. And so many a courtship competition will be won by a person displaying exceptional devotion, and man will generally strive, lifelong, for the affection and approval of many people not related to him.

The phenomenon of liking and loving causing admiration also works in reverse. Admiration also causes or intensifies liking or love. With this “feedback mode” in place, the consequences are often extreme, sometimes even causing deliberate self-destruction to help what is loved.

Liking or love, intertwined with admiration in a feedback mode, often has vast practical consequences in areas far removed from sexual attachments. For instance, a man who is so constructed that he loves admirable persons and ideas with a special intensity has a huge advantage in life. This blessing came to both Buffett and myself in large measure, sometimes from the same persons and ideas. One common, beneficial example for us both was Warren’s uncle Fred Buffett, who cheerfully did the endless grocery store work that Warren and I ended up admiring from a safe distance. Even now, after I have known so many other people. I doubt if it is possible to be a nicer man than Fred Buffett was, and he changed me for the better.

There are large social policy implications in the amazingly good consequences that ordinarily come from people likely to trigger extremes of love and admiration boosting each other in a feedback mode. For instance, it is obviously desirable to attract a lot of lovable, admirable people into the teaching profession.

3)Disliking/Hating Tendency

In a pattern obverse to Liking/Loving Tendency, the newly arrived human is also “born to dislike and hate” as triggered by normal and abnormal triggering forces in it’s life. It is the same with most apes and monkeys.

As a result the long history of man contains almost continuous war. For instance, most American Indian tribes warred incessantly and some tribes would occasionally bring captives home to women so that all could join in the fun of torturing captives to death. Even with the spread of religion, and the advent of advanced civilization much modern war remains pretty savage. But we also get what we observe in present day Switzerland and the United States, wherein the clever political arrangements of man “channel” the hatreds and disliking of individuals and groups into nonlethal patterns including elections.

Disliking/Hating Tendency also acts as a conditioning device that makes the disliker/hater tend to 1) ignore virtues in the object of dislike, 2) dislike people, products, and actions merely associated with the object of his dislike, and 3) distort the other facts to facilitate hatred.

Distortion of that kind is often so extreme that miscongnition is shockingly large. When the World Trade Centre was destroyed, many Pakistanis immediately concluded that the Hindus did it, while many Muslims concluded that the Jews did it. Such factual distortions often make mediation between opponents locked in hatred either difficult or impossible.

4)Doubt-Avoidance Tendency

The brain of a man is programmed with a tendency to quickly remove doubt by reaching some decision.

It is easy to see how evolution would make animals, over the eons, drift toward such quick elimination of doubt. After all, the one thing that is surely counterproductive for a prey animal that is threatened by a predator is to take a long time in deciding what to do. And so man’s doubt-avoidance tendency is quite consistent with the history of his ancient, nonhuman ancestors.

So pronounced is the tendency in man to quickly remove doubt by reaching some decision that behaviour to counter the tendency is required from judges and jurors. Here, delay before decision making is forced. And one is required to so comfort himself, prior to conclusion time, so that he is wearing a “mask” of objectivity. And the “mask” works to help real objectivity along.

Of course, once one has recognized that man has a string doubt-avoidance tendency, it is logical to believe that at least some leaps of religious faith are greatly boosted by this tendency. Even if one is satisfied that his own faith comes from revelation, one still must account for the inconsistent faiths of others.

What triggers doubt-avoidance tendency? Well an unthreatened man, thinking of nothing in particular, is not being prompted to remove doubt through rushing to some decision. Doubt-Avoidance tendency is some combination of 1) puzzlement and 2) stress. And both of these factors naturally occur in facing religious issues.

Thus, the natural state of most men is in some form of religion. And this is what we observe.

5) Inconsistency-Avoidance Tendency

The brain of a man conserves programming space by being reluctant to change, which is a form of inconsistency avoidance. We see this in all human habits, constructive and destructive. Few people can list a lot of bad habits that they have eliminated, and some people cannot identify even one of these. Instead, practically everyone has a great many bad habits he has long maintained despite their being known as bad. Given this situation, it is not too much in many cases to appraise early-formed habits as destiny. When Marley’s miserable ghost says, “I wear the chains I forged in life”, he is taking about chains of habit that were too light to be felt before they became too strong to be broken.

It is easy to see that a quickly reached conclusion, triggered by doubt-avoidance, when combined with a tendency to resists any change in that conclusion, will naturally cause a lot of errors in cognition for modern man. And so it observably works out. We all deal much with others whom we correctly diagnose as imprisoned in poor conclusions that are maintained by mental habits they formed early and will carry to their graves.

So great is the bad decision problem caused by inconsistency avoidance tendency that our courts have adopted important strategies against it. For instance before making decisions, judges and juries are required to hear long and skillful presentations of evidence and argument from the side they will not naturally favour, given their ideas in place. And this helps prevent considerable bad thinking from “first conclusion bias”. Similarly other modern decision makers will often force groups to consider skillful counterarguments before making decisions. So people tend to accumulate large mental holdings of fixed conclusions and attitudes that are not often reexamined or changed, even though there is plenty of good evidence that they are wrong.

Inconsistency-Avoidance tendency has many good effects in civilization. For instance, rather than act inconsistently with public commitments, new or old public identities etc. Most people are more loyal in their roles in life as priests, physicians, citizens, soldiers, spouses, teachers, employees, etc.

One corollary of Inconsistency-Avoidance tendency is that a person making big sacrifices in the course of assuming a new identity will intensify his devotion to the new identity. After all, it would be quite inconsistent behaviour to make a large sacrifice for something that was no good. And thus civilization has invented many tough and solemn initiation ceremonies, often public in nature, that intensify new commitments made.

Tough initiation ceremonies can intensify bad contact as well as good. The loyalty of the new “made-man” mafia member, or of the military officer making the required “blood oath” of loyalty to Hitler, was boosted through the triggering of inconsistency-avoidance tendency.

Moreover, the tendency will often make a man a “patsy” of manipulative “compliance-practitioners” who gain advantage from triggering his subconscious Inconsistency-Avoidance tendency.

For instance modern education often does much damage when young students are taught dubious political notions and then enthusiastically push these notions on the rest of us. The pushing seldom convinces others. But as students pound into their mental habits what they are pushing out, the students are often permanently damaged. Educational Institutions that create a climate where much of this goes on are, I think irresponsible. It is important not to thus put one’s brain in chains before on has come anywhere near his full potentiality as a rational person.

6) Curiosity Tendency

There is a lot of innate curiosity in mammals, but its nonhuman version is highest among apes and monkeys. Man’s curiosity, in turn, is much stronger than that of his simian relatives. In advanced human civilization, culture greatly increases the effectiveness of curiosity in advancing knowledge. For instance, Athens developed much math and science out of pure curiosity while the Romans made almost no contribution to either math or science. They instead concentrated their attention on the ‘practical’ engineering of mines, roads, aqueducts, etc. Curiosity enhanced by the best of modern education much helps man to prevent or reduce bad consequences arising from other psychological tendencies. The curious are also provided with much fun and wisdom long after formal education has ended.

7) Kantian Fairness Tendency

Kant was famous for his “categorical imperative”, a sort of a “golden rule” that required humans to follow those behaviour patterns that, if followed by all others, would make the surrounding human system work best for everybody. And it is not too much to say that modern acculturated many displays, and expects from others, a lot of fairness as thus defined by Kant.

In a small community having a one-way bridge or tunnel for autos, it is the norm in the United States to see a lot of reciprocal courtesy, despite the absence of signs or signals. And many freeway drivers, including myself, will often let other drivers come on front of them, in lane changes or the like, because that is the courtesy they desire when roles are reversed. Moreover there is in modern human culture a lot of courteous lining up by strangers so that all are served on a “first-come-first-served” basis.

Also, strangers often voluntarily share equally in unexpected, unearned good and bad fortune. And, as an obverse consequence of such “fair-sharing” conduct, much reactive hostility occurs when fair-sharing is expected yet not provided.

8) Envy/Jealously Tendency

A member of a species designed through evolutionary process to want often-scarce food is going to be driven strongly toward getting food when it first sees food. And this is going to occur often and tend to create some conflict when the food is seen in the possession of another member of the same species. This is probably the evolutionary origin of the envy/jealousy tendency that lies so deep in human nature.

Envy/jealousy is extreme in myth, religion and literature wherein, in account after account, it triggers hatred and injury. It was regarded as so pernicious by the Jews of the civilization that preceded Christ that it was forbidden, by phrase after phrase, in the laws of Moses. You were even warned by the Prophet not to covet your neighbour’s donkey.

And envy/jealousy is also extreme in modern life. For instance, university communities often go bananas when some university employee in money management, or some professor in surgery, gets annual compensation in multiples of the standard professional salary and in modern investment banks, law firms etc. The envy/jealousy effects are usually more extreme than they are in university faculties. Many big law firms, fearing disorder from envy/jealousy have long treated all senior partners alike in compensation, no matter how different their contributions to firm welfare. As I have shared the observation of life with Warren Buffet over decades, I have heard him wisely say on several occasions: “It is not greed that drives the world, but envy”

9) Reciprocation Tendency

The automatic tendency of humans to reciprocate both favours and disfavours has long been noticed as extreme, as it is in apes, monkeys, dogs, and many less cognitively gifted animals. The tendency clearly facilitates group cooperation for the benefit of members. In this respect, it mimics such genetic programming of the social insects.

We see the extreme power of the tendency to reciprocate disfavours in some wars, wherein it increases hatred to a level causing very brutal conduct. For long stretches in many wars, no prisoners were take, the only acceptable enemy being a dead one. And sometimes that was not enough, as in the case of Genghis Khan, who was not satisfied with corpses. He insisted on their being hacked into pieces.

Reciprocation tendency does cause good results, doesn’t join forces only with the superpower of incentives. It also joins Inconsistency-Avoidance tendency in helping cause 1) The fulfillment of promises made as part of a bargain, including loyalty promises in marriage ceremonies and 2) correct behaviour expected from persons serving as priests, shoemakers, physicians and all else.

And the very best part of human life probably lies in relationships of affection wherein parties are more interested in pleasing than being pleased a not uncommon outcome in display of reciprocate tendency.

The final phenomenon we will consider is wide spread human misery from feelings of guilt. To the extent the feeling of guilt has an evolutionary base, I believe the most plausible cause is the mental conflict triggered in one direction by reciprocate favour tendency and in the opposite direction by reward super response tendency pushing one to enjoy one hundred percent some good thing. Of course, human culture has often greatly boosted the genetic tendency to suffer from feelings of guilt. Most especially religious culture has imposed hard to follow ethical and devotional demands on people. There is a charming Irish Catholic priest in my neighbourhood who, with rough accuracy, often says “The old Jews may have invented guilt, with but we Catholics perfected it” And if you like me and this priest, believe that averaged out, feelings of guild do more good than harm, you may join in my special gratitude for reciprocate favour tendency, no matter how unpleasant you find feelings of guilt.

10) Influence-from-Mere-Association Tendency

In the standard conditioned reflexes studied by Skinner and most common in the world, responsive behaviour, creating a new habit, is directly triggered by rewards previously bestowed. For instance, a man buys a can of branded shoe polish, has a good experience with it when shining his shoes, and because of this “reward,” buys the same shoe polish when he needs another can.

But there is another type of conditioned reflex wherein mere association triggers a response. For instance, consider the case of many men who have been trained by their previous experience in life to believe that when several similar items are presented for purchase, the one with the highest price will have the highest quality. Knowing this, some seller of an ordinary industrial product will often change his product’s trade dress and raise its price significantly hoping that quality seeking buyers hoping that quality seeking buyers will be tricked into becoming purchasers by mere association of his product and its high price. This industrial practice frequently is effective in driving up sales and even more so in driving up profits. For instance, it worked wonderfully with high-priced power tools for a long time. And it would work better yet with high-priced pumps at the bottom of oil wells. With luxury goods, the process works with a special boost because buyers who pay high prices often gain extra status from thus demonstration both their good taste and their ability to pay.

Even association that appears to be trivial, if carefully planned, can have extreme and peculiar effects on purchasers of products. The target purchaser of shoe polish may like pretty girls. And so he chooses the polish with the pretty girl on the can or the one with the pretty girl in the last ad for shoe polish that he saw.

Advertisers know about the power of mere association. You won’t see coke advertised alongside some account of the death of a child. Instead Coke ads picture life as happier than reality.

Similarly it is not from mere chance that military bands play such impressive music. That kind of music appearing in mere association with military service, helps to attract soldiers and keep them in the army. Most armies have learned to use mere association in this successful way.

However the most damaging miscalculations from mere association do not ordinarily come from advertisers and music providers.

Some of the most important miscalculations come from what is accidentally associated with one’s past success or one’s liking and loving or one’s disliking and hating, which includes a natural hatred for bad news.

To avoid being misled by the mere association of some fact with past success, use this memory clue. Think of Napolean and Hitler when they invaded Russia after using their armies with much success elsewhere. And there are plenty of mundane examples of results like those of Napoleon and Hitler. For instance a man foolishly gambles the in a casino and yet wins. This unlikely correlation causes him to try the casino again, or again and again, to his horrid detriment. Or a man gets lucky in an odds against venture headed by an untalented friend. So influenced he tries again what worked before with terrible results.

The proper antidotes to being made such a patsy by past success are 1) to carefully examine each past success, looking for accidental, non-causative factors associated with such success that will tend to mislead as one appraises odds implicit in a proposed new undertaking and 2) to look for dangerous aspects of the new undertaking that were not present when past success occurred.

11) Simple, Pain-Avoiding Psychological Denial

This phenomenon first me had in World War II when the super athlete, super student son of a family friend flew off over the Atlantic Ocean and never came back. His mother, who was a very sane woman, then refused to believe he was dead. That’s simple pain-avoiding psychological denial. The reality is too painful to bear, so one distorts the facts until they become bearable. We all do that to some extent, often causing terrible problems. The tendency’s most extreme outcomes are usually mixed up with love, death, and chemical dependency.

Where denial is used to make dying easier, the conduct meets almost no criticism. Who would begrudge a fellow man such help at such a time? But some people hope to leave life hewing to the iron prescription, “It is not necessary to hope in order to persevere” And there is something admirable in anyone able to do this.

12)Excessive Self-Regard Tendency

We all commonly observe the excessive self-regard of man. He mostly misappraises himself on the high side, like the ninety percent of Swedish drivers that judge themselves to be above average.

Man’s excess of self-regard typically makes him strongly prefer people like himself.

Excesses of self-regard often cause bad hiring decisions because employers grossly over appraise the worth of their own conclusions that rely on imporessions in face to face contact. The correct antidote to this sort of folly is to underweight face to face impressions and over weigh the applicant’s past record.

13) Overoptimism Tendency

About three centuries before the birth of Christ, Demosthenes, the most famous Greek orator, said “What a man wish, that also will he believe”. Demosthenes parsed out, was thus saying that man displays an excess of optimism even when he is already doing well.

14) Deprival-Superreaction Tendency

The quantity of man’s pleasure from a ten dollar gain does not exactly match the quantity of displeasure from a ten dollar loss. That is, the loss seems to hurt much more than the gain seems to help. If a man almost gets something he greatly wants and has it jerked away from him at the last moment, he will react much as if he had long owned the reward and had it jerked away. I include the natural human reactions to both kinds of loss experience, the loss of the possessed reward and the loss of the almost possessed reward. Man frequently incurs disadvantage by misframing his problems. He will often compare what is near instead of what really matters. For instance, a man with $10 million in his brokerage account will often be extremely irritated by the accidental loss of $100 out of the $300 in his wallet.

A man ordinarily reacts with irrational intensity to even a small loss or threatened loss of property, love, friendship, dominated territory, opportunity, status, or any other valued thing.

15) Social-Proof Tendency

The otherwise complex behaviour of man is much simplified when he automatically thinks and does what he observes to be thought and done around him. Such following often works fine. For instance, what simpler way could there be to find out how to walk to a big football game in a strange city than by following the flow of the crowd. For some such reason, man’s evolution left him with Social-Proof tendency to think and act as he sees others around him thinking and acting.

In social proof, it is not only action by others that misleads but also their inaction. In the presence of doubt, inaction by others becomes social proof that inaction is the right course.

16) Contrast-Misreaction Tendency

Because the nervous system of a man does not naturally measure in absolute scientific units, it must instead rely on something simpler. The eyes have a solution that limits their programming needs, the contrast in what is seen is registered. And as in sight, so does it go largely, in other senses. As a perception goes so goes cognition.

Contrast misreaction tendency is routinely used to cause disadvantage for customers buying merchandise and services. To make an ordinary price seem low, the vendor will very frequently create a highly artificial price that is much higher than the price always sought, then advertise his standard price as a big reduction from his phony price. Even when people know that this sort of customer manipulation is being attempted, it will often work to trigger buying. This phenomenon accounts in part for much advertising in newspapers. It also demonstrates that being aware of psychological ploys is not a perfect defence.

17) Stress-Influence Tendency

Everyone recognizes that sudden stress for instance from a threat, will cause a rush of adrenaline in the human body, prompting faster and more extreme reaction. In a phenomenon less well recognized but still widely known, light stress can lightly improve performance say, in examinations whereas heavy stress causes dysfunction.

18) Availability-Misweighing Tendency

This mental tendency echoes the words of the song: “When I’m not near the girl I love, I love the girl I’m near” Man’s imperfect, limited-capacity brain easily drifts into working with what’s easily available to it. And the brain can’t use what it can’ remember or what it is blocked from recognizing because it is heavily influenced by one or more psychological tendencies bearing strongly on it, as the fellow is influenced by the nearby girl in the song. And so the mind overweighs what is easily available.

Still, the special strength of extra-vivid images in influencing the mind can be constructively used 1) in persuading someone else to reach a correct conclusion or 2) as a device for improving one’s own memory by attaching vivid images, on after the other, to many items one doesn’t want to forget. Indeed such use of vivid images as memory boosters is what enabled the great orators of classical Greece and Rome to give such long, organized speeches without using notes.

The great algorithm to remember in dealing with this tendency is simple: An idea or a fact is not worth more merely because it is easily available to you.

19) Use-It-or-Lose-It Tendency

All skills attenuate with disuse. I was a whiz at calculus until age twenty, after which the skill was soon obliterated by total non use. The right antidote to such a loss is to make use of the functional equivalent of the aircraft simulator employed in pilot training. This allows a pilot to continuously practice all of the rarely used skills that he can’t afford to lose.

Throughout his life, a wise man engages in practice of all his useful, rarely used skills, many of them outside his discipline, as a sort of duty to his better self. If he reduces the number of skills he practices and therefore the number of skills he retains, he will naturally drift into error from man with a hammer tendency. His learning capacity will also shrink as he creates gaps, in the latticework of theory he needs a framework for understanding new experience. It is also man engages in practice of all his useful, rarely used skills, many of them outside his discipline, as sort of duty to his better self. If he reduces the number of skills he practices and therefore the number of skills he retains, he will naturally drift into error from man with a hammer tendency. His learning capacity will also shrink as he creates gaps in the latticework of theory he needs as a framework for understanding new experience. It is also essential for a thinking man to assemble his skills into a checklist that he routinely uses. Any other mode of operation will cause him to miss much that is important.

Skills for a very high order can be maintained only with daily practice. The pianist Paderewski once said that if he failed to practice for a single day, he could notice his performance deterioration and that, after a week’s gap in practice, the audience could notice it as well.

If a skills is raised to fluency, instead of merely being crammed in briefly to enable one to pass some test, then the skill 1) will be lost more slowly and 2) will come back faster when refreshed with new learning. These are not minor advantages, and a wise man engaged in learning some important skill will not stop until he is really fluent in it.

20) Drug-Misinfluence Tendency

This tendency’s destructive power is so widely known to be intense, with frequent tragic consequences for cognition and the outcome of life, that it needs no discussion here to supplement.

21) Senescence-Misinfluence Tendency

With advanced age there comes a natural cognitive decay, differing among individuals in the earliness of its arrival and the speed of its progression. Practically no one is good at learning complex new skills when very old. But some people remain pretty good in maintaining intensely practice old skills until late in life. Old people like me get pretty skilled without working at it, at disguising age related deterioration because social convention, like clothing, hides much decline.

Continuous thinking and learning, done with joy, can somewhat help delay what is inevitable.

22) Authority-Misinfluence Tendency

Living in dominance hierarchies as he does, like all his ancestors before him, man was born mostly to follow leaders, with only a few people doing the leading. And so, human society is formally organized into dominance hierarchies with their culture augmenting the natural follow the leader tendency of a man.

But automatic as most human reactions are, with the tendency to follow leaders being no exception, man is often destine to suffer greatly when the leader is wrong or when his leader’s ideas don’t get through properly in the bustle of life and are misunderstood.

Other versions of confused instructions from authority figures are tragic. In World War II, a new pilot for a general, who sat beside him in the co-pilot’s seat, was so anxious to please his boss that he misinterpreted some minor shift in the general’s position as a direction to do some foolish thing. The pilot crashed the plane and became a paraplegic.

When I once finished in the Rio Colorado in Costa Rica, my guide in a state of shock told me a story about an angler who’d earlier come to the river without ever having fished for a tarpon. A fishing guide like the one I had runs the boat and gives fishing advice, establishing himself in this context as the ultimate authority figure. In the case of this guide, his native language was Spanish, while the angler’s native language was English. The angler got a big tarpon on and began submitting to many directions from this authority figure called a guide: tip up, tip down, reel in, etc. Finally when it was necessary to put more pressure on the fish by causing more bending of the angler’s rod, the guide said in English: “Give him the rod, give him the rod”.

Well, the angler threw his expensive rod at the fist, and when last seen, it was going down the Rio Colorado toward the ocean. This example shows how power is the tendency to go along with an authority figure and how it can turn one’s brain into mush.

So strong is undue respect for authority that this CEO, and many even worse examples, have actually been allowed to remain in control of important business institutions for long periods after it was clear they should be removed. The obvious implication: Be careful whom you appoint to power because a dominant authority figure will often be hard to remove.

23) Twaddle Tendency

Man as a social animal who has the gift of language, is born to prattle and to pour out twaddle that does much damage when serious work is being attempted. Some people produce copious amounts of twaddle and others very little.

24) Reason-Respecting Tendency

There is in man, particularly one in an advanced culture, a natural love of accurate cognition and a joy in its exercise. This accounts for the widespread popularity of crossword puzzles, other puzzles, and bridge and chess columns, as well as all games requiring mental skill.

This tendency has an obvious implication. It makes man especially prone to learn well when a would be teacher gives correct reasons for what is taught, instead of simply laying out the desired belief ex cathedra with no reasons given. Few practices, there are wiser than not only thinking through reasons before giving orders but also communicating these reasons to the recipient of the order.

No one knew this better than Carl Braun, who designed oil refineries with spectacular skill and integrity. He had a very simple rule, one of many in his large, Teutonic company. You had to tell Who was to do What, Where, When, and Why. And if you wrote a communication leaving out your explanation of why the addressee was to do what was ordered, Braun was likely to fire you because Braun well knew that ideas got through best when reasons for the ideas were meticulously laid out.

In general, learning is most easily assimilated and used when, life long, people consistently hang their experience actually and vicarious, on a lattice work of theory answering their questions: Why? Indeed, the question “Why?” is a sort of Rosetta stone opening up the major potentiality of mental life.

Unfortunately Reason-Respecting tendency is so strong that even a person’s giving of meaningless or incorrect reasons will increase compliance with his orders and requests. This has been demonstrated in psychology experiments wherein “compliance practitioners” successfully jump to the head of the lines in front of copying machines by explaining their reason: “I have to make some copies” This sort of unfortunate by product of Reason-Respecting tendency is a conditioned reflex, based on a widespread appreciation of the importance of reasons. And, naturally the practice of laying out various claptrap reasons is much used by commercial and cult “compliance practitioners” to help them get what they don’t deserve.

25) Lollapalooza Tendency—The Tendency to Get Extreme Consequences from Confluences of Psychology Tendencies Acting in Favor of a Particular Outcome

This tendency was not in any of the psychology texts I once examined, at least in any coherent fashion, yet it dominates life. It accounts for the extreme result in the Milgram experiment and the extreme success of some cults that have stumbled through practice evolution into bringing pressure from many psychological tendencies to bear at the same time on conversion targets. The targets vary in susceptibility, like the dogs Pavlov worked with in his old age, but some of the minds that are targeted simply snap into zombie mode under cult pressure. Indeed that is one cult’s name for the conversion phenomenon: snapping.

0 notes