#only Syntax's though is referenced a lot

[beauleifu]

WHO WANTS TOXICINSANITY ANGST

[harrowing-of-hell]

Hi! I read your meta about harrow intending to go back her body and consume gideon's soul. So what does the phrase "There's a difference between keeping a shred of dance card and saving the last dance" mean by this your pov?

For anyone who's seeing this post and hasn't seen the aforementioned meta that prompted, here it is for reference.

TLDR; The argument is that Harrowhark didn't willingly choose to stay in the River at the end of HtN. Presented with no viable alternatives to save Gideon's soul, she chooses to go back to her body, but is unable to because Alecto has already displaced both her and Gideon.

The main supporting evidence for this is that within the sequence where Harrow leaves the Canaan House bubble and ends up in the unreal version of the Locked Tomb (where Alecto's body is missing and her chains are broken), there are times in the narration where Harrow does things not knowing why she does them, or where things she expects to happen/experience don't occur.

As a reader I default to close reading when I'm trying to understand what's happening in a scene-- which means taking into account not only what is being said (the text on the page), but how the author is choosing to say it (syntax, word choice, sentence structure, etc). With that in mind, the entire ending of Chapter 53 of HtN is written less like Harrow is making a deliberate choice to stay in the River and more like Harrow is merely acting on impulse after being thrown into an unexpected situation.

---

@tiny-blackbird Sorry that it took me so long to answer this!

I will begin by prefacing that my argument that Harrow had actually chosen to leave the River is not me also arguing that Harrow was gonna completely give up on saving Gideon. I think she's much too stubborn and maladjusted to do that so quickly.

Rather, I think the scene with Magnus and Abigail was a moment of realization for Harrow that she has no choice but to go back, resume consuming Gideon's soul, and become a full Lyctor for the time being, even though she very obviously doesn't want to. And I feel like the narrative supports this view!

Here it's clear that Harrow is genuinely being swayed by Abigail and Magnus' argument and the narrative takes a moment to acknowledge that.

The "choice" being referred to is the choice of whether to consume Gideon's soul— the choice of lyctorhood, essentially— and is referenced earlier in HtN when Harrow reads the letter she addressed to herself.

But it's different now: in the Canaan House bubble, Harrowhark is realizing that she has no options available to her but to live. She's making the painful choice to say "Yes" this time.

I feel like a lot of people forget this moment when they say that Harrowhark chose to stay in the River to save Gideon's life. I understand why, given that almost directly after this Dulcinea tells Harrow about her body being controlled by something.

But I think that also fails to take into consideration that even if Harrowhark wanted to take the chance on it being Gideon who was controlling her body (even when Dulcinea herself wasn't sure), Harrowhark, again, has no viable alternatives to remain in the River (at least, no options that she knows of at the time).

I think Harrow is willing to do a lot to save Gideon's soul, and the lobotomy is proof of that, but if she goes insane in the River she loses any chance she has of saving Gideon, meanwhile if she goes back she can think of other methods. She could try the lobotomy for a second time lmao.

Back to your question, I think "There's a difference between keeping a shred of dance card and saving the last dance" is Harrow pointing out that there's a difference of hope in the comparison Magnus is making here.

In keeping the shred of the dance card, Magnus had already given up hope of continuing a relationship with Abigail, just as he is asking Harrowhark to give up hope about trying to bring Gideon back from the dead.

Meanwhile with Harrowhark— you don't save the last dance for someone if you've already given up hope that they'll show up to the dance in the first place.

Magnus had given up hope. Harrowhark has not.

What Harrow's saying is a rejection of the idea that she's merely a mausoleum for Gideon, holding onto whatever she can of who Gideon was a person.

Instead, Harrowhark is mourning Gideon's death just as much as she is eagerly awaiting, and expecting, Gideon's return. She's saying she's not so much a mausoleum, it's more like she's watching over Gideon's things until Gideon can come back to claim them.

That's what I think Harrow means by saving the last dance, and I think that's reflected in how Harrow already had a letter written for Gideon alongside the envelope that contained Gideon's sunglasses.

Even in her mourning Harrow anticipated that she'd be able to bring Gideon back.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

On the language debate, I personally headcanon that the main language spoken at NRC is a common one. (?) (Like how English is the business language, or like how generally Native Americans had a common language that they spoke when trading with other tribes.) And Crowley or the Mirror used magic so that You was temporary fluent in that language.

After the ceremony, Yuu has to learn the common language and picks it up really fast (as one would in such a situation). Therefore, Yuu can still speak it when away from NRC.

(I also headcanon English as an ancient language akin to Latin, because I heard that Arabic was canonically an ancient language.)

[Referencing this post!]

I’d buy that everyone at NRC speaks the common language to some level of proficiency; it’s like how international students typically need to speak the language of whichever country they hope to study in and need to prove their fluency in an exam beforehand. As I said in the original post, the light novel does mention a translation spell over the school, so maybe that’s part of the “magic” that helps Yuu to understand what the others are saying.

Now, it’s theoretically possible for Yuu to learn the common language of Twisted Wonderland in a year, but I don’t think immersion alone would cut it (especially since the main story is only up to like 2/4 to 3/4 of a year so far) . They’d probably have to put in significant effort outside of everyday conversations to pick up its rules (because remember that language isn’t just vocabulary but also grammar, syntax, and social conventions). Yuu would also need consistent feedback from people since that’s how one usually “fixes” their incorrect language use. It’s similar to how adults would correct a child learning their first language; ie a kid says “wadur” instead of “water”.)

One site I looked at suggested that, depending on the language categorization (I, II, III, of IV), it can take 24-92 weeks’ worth of time to become an “advanced” speaker. Realistically, just getting to the basic conversational level could be hundreds or thousands (700-2500+) of hours on its own—and Yuu has to do this on their own time between homework, going to classes, and managing all the issues that Crowley doesn’t 💀 To me, that doesn’t sound like a lot of free time. Counterpoint to my own point though, we also have to consider that Yuu is... well, technically Yuu can be any age you want, but most Yuus are implied or portrayed to be 16-18. The critical window for language acquisition is theorized to be anywhere from the first three years of life up to as late as 17-18 years. After this critical window, the ability for language development tapers off. So, thinking about that, Yuu's brain could still be very pliable and able to absorb new language (though they'd have to work quite intensely to pack in as much as they can before this ability starts to decline).

Something that I feel would be difficult for Yuu is that the characters often use slang (Cater, Floyd, Idia, etc.) and/or uncommon words (like Vil’s “pulchritude”). The former may not follow the standardized rules of a language or may be idioms (other non-literal meanings for common words), which could make it hard for a non-native speaker to understand. The latter would not be used that often, so Yuu would be forced to guesstimate what the word means. I’d imagine this would make fluency challenging, because as immersed as Yuu is in Twisted Wonderland, less frequently used words are harder to grasp.

Maybe Crowley cast a translation spell ON Yuu so that they can still converse with people in the common tongue whenever they leave NRC? Or, since the events basically occur in an AU, more than a year has passed so it has allowed Yuu more time to absorb the language. Language in TWST and how it works… It’s really interesting to think about!

[beansterpie]

ES21 japanese volumes - part 1/??

part 2 >>

Sooooo I recently got my hands on the complete Eyeshield 21 manga series in Japanese and as someone who's only ever read the story through fan-translations on dodgy websites online, I wanted to go through and "live" blog about it, so to speak. I thought it would be interesting to see the changes between the languages and where the fan-translations likely fail with mistranslations. (No shade btw, I think fan-translations are great both as a hobby and the fact that they're doing their work for free, but it's also a reality that the vast majority of fan-translators are amateurs, many of whom don't fluently speak the language they're translating, so there's bound to be mistakes!) Also, I wanna know what they're originally saying because I’m nosey <3

I know the official English translation by VIS is allegedly pretty decent, bar the toning down of some things (like Hiruma's language lol) so if you've had the chance to read the official version, feel free to chime in on differences with the fan-translation that I'll be referencing, or potential differences between the Japanese version too!

And finally, while I am half Japanese and grew up there, tragically my language skills are imperfect. I speak it, but my vocabulary isn't very robust, so I do look up the definitions for a lot of words and kanji, as well as more nuanced connotations or references that may go over my head. Bilingual problems <3 But again, it's good practice for me and I think it'll be kind of fun!

Right off the bat, this page. What it’s saying is essentially, “You better come out and play (in the) American Football match!” But because Japanese syntax is different from English, it’s structured like “American Football Match you better play!!” The translator was confused by the final line, because in Japanese a way to say ‘participating in a match’ is by using 出る which means to ‘go out’— sort of like ‘go out (into) the match’. Maybe a better option would have been ‘get the fuck out and play!!” or just “you better fucking play!!”. It still keeps the overall sentence structure which sounds awkward in English, but at least it gets the meaning across.

(I’m not gonna get into every little mistranslation btw, because that would take forever, but I felt that was a good way to explain how frequently there are little mistakes like this.)

Putting the rest under a cut because I imagine this will get long

Look at our boy <3 So as you know, we start our story with Sena Kobayakawa timidly seeing if he passed his high school entrance exam into Deimon High School, with his childhood friend/older sister figure, Mamori Anezaki lending moral support.

In the third panel, what Sena says is actually “I feel like I’ve been praised for the first time in 10 years—” (maybe they changed it because that was too pathetic 😭) Then in the fourth panel, what Mamori says is more along the lines of “And to think you were a total mess in math and English… It’s all thanks to Mamori-sensei!”

Also I want to point out that Mamori is a little cheekier in the first few chapters. Like obviously still kind and nurturing in personality (her name is literally ‘to protect’), but she teases Sena and feels more like an older sister than like, an overprotective mom lol. Miss that for her 😔

Then along comes our kind senpai to accost our clueless protag...

There’s no mistranslation, but I just wanted to mention that the way Hiruma talks in Japanese is so funny? Like in panel 1, he’s speaking with a dramatic affect, he sounds like some sort of npc in a jrpg giving the protag a quest. And then in panel 2, his ‘of course!’ is this shortened, slang version of the word that sounds almost cute and very modern after the previous line. Hiruma uses a lot of slang in general, though I can’t say if any of it is like, common or used by teenagers (of the time, anyway) or if it’s just Hiruma-isms.

(Look at Kurita doing the sign of the cross in panel 3 😂)

I can’t believe Hiruma managed to physically emulate the experience of contracting some shady internet virus…..

Something that’s done with Hiruma’s dialogue a lot (it’s done w/ other characters too, but most often with Hiruma) is where there’ll be a word/term in kanji that means one thing and pronounced in a certain way, but then the furigana (so the phonetic pronounciation, basically) next to it says something different. Now, in some stories (like Berserk for my pals out there), this is used to create poignant, layered meanings in the text. In ES21 however, it’s mostly used for sports manga flavor. For example, in the above page in Hiruma’s spam fax message, he uses the word 作戦, which means tactics or strategy, and is pronounced: “sa - ku - se - nn” さ-く-せ-ん. But the furigana next to that word reads タクティクス which is quite literally just the English word ‘tactics’ spelled phonetically in Japanese lol (aka a loanword).

He does this A LOT, most frequently with sports terminology, where the kanji are pretty dense, technical terms, and the furigana a loanword version of the same meaning. (though now that I think about it, it might also be because while パワー (power) and スピード (speed) are frequently used and well known loanwords to the average Japanese person, タクティクス (tactics) might be more obscure, so the kanji is there to like, clarify the meaning? 🤔)

Also I love all the early 2000’s tech we see in the early chapters— flip phones and fax machines galore! Even within the later segments of the series, the flip phones start to magically get more advanced, but in my heart ES21 takes place in like, 2003. If they ever do a remake of the anime (which is unlikely to say the least) I’d want them to maintain the early 00’s vibes. It just wouldn’t be the same if everyone had smart phones.

Skipping ahead a few pages, I remember this bit never really made sense, but I got enough of the general gist that I kind of shrugged and moved along. But!! the translation is just making stuff up here?

So for context: it’s Sena’s first day at Deimon, and Mamori (who’s a grade above him) advises him to make proper friends this year, since he has a history of only ‘hanging out’ with shitty bullies who used him as an errand boy.

In the English translation, Sena seems to get a text from a mystery number, telling him to pay up for a bet we never saw happening. He goes to meet up with the texter, who we assume at this point is a previous aquaintence, since he had Sena's number? Maybe one of those bullies that Sena hung out with from middle school? They make Sena go and get them an unspecified thing, but because Sena ran there and back so quickly, they don't believe that Sena actually went, and is lying when he says they were sold out. They drag Sena to a small shed to beat him up, and in the last panel of the third page, Sena says that he's been their errand boy since kindergarden?

So for a number of years I was under the impression that the Ha-ha brothers knew Sena from before the series, even though that never seemed to come up in the rest of the story.

But in the original version, Sena is actually getting a text from Mamori-- which makes sense because it was established earlier that his cell phone is brand new and he only has Mamori's number in his contacts. Mamori's text says: "If someone tries to make you run their errands, tell them 'let's decide by rock-paper-scissors!'" Sena is understandably kind of embarrassed by this, and mutters to himself that he's not a kid anymore.

Then it cuts to Sena being picked on to be an errand boy lmao. Presumably this is because Sena just looks like an easy target to bullies, not because of any previous aquaintence rip. The blond bully tells Sena to go buy them bread (which might sound weird, but Japan has a lot of tasty snack breads that they sell everywhere). In panels 2+3 of the second page, Sena timidly tries to bring up the rock-paper-scissors thing, but is intimidated into giving up and just doing what he's told.

Again, they don't believe that Sena actually went all the way to the school store and back with how quick he was, so they decide to beat him up in the shed. As he's being dragged, Sena says, "It really was sold out! I've gotten used to being an errand boy since kindergarden, so I've just gotten fast--!"

So yeah, if there were any other people who've only read fan-translations and were confused by this bit, there you go.

oh you just know it smelled like ass in here.....

(I never noticed the shotgun propped against the desk on the right before lol, idk why I'm surprised, but Hiruma really just left his Actual Guns lying around huh?)

(2nd pic - Kurita: "New club applicants!!?")

There he is!! Our boy Kurita!! I do miss when he occassionally had like, more human features lol. As much as I love his big ol' smiley face, it does rub me the wrong way when the fat characters (because Komusubi falls into this too) are the only ones with anpanman faces.

(anpanman, for the uninitiated)

(Kurita: "To literally clash with the opponent in order to pursue a goal together with everyone-- that moment is exhilerating!")

Aw look at Sena feeling inspired! Honestly I really love how Kurita is Sena's first friend he makes in the series, and that vibe in the early chapters where it's just Sena, Kurita and Hiruma is so much fun <3

(P1: Kurita: "Way to go Sena!" Imaginary Coach: "It's thanks to you that we could participate in the Christmas Bowl!" Mamori: "You're so cool Sena!"

P2: Mamori: "You have to make the first move!" Sena: "U-um!"

P3: Sena: "Can I... be the team shumu*?" Kurita: "WHAAATT!? O-OF-OF COURSE!")

*Ok soooo I don't fully understand what a shumu is lol, or how you'd translate it to English. The word itself apparently means 'person in charge' so? The fan-translation just calls it the manager, but based on something Hiruma says later, I get the impression that the shumu and the manager are technically different roles? But when Mamori becomes the manager later, she takes on a lot of what are allegedly 'shumu tasks', along with Hiruma, so idk. If anyone's read the official VIS translation, feel free to chime in on how they did it, because I'd be curious to know!

That being said, adorable of Sena to think he could have handled that responsiblity at all 😂 our boy has many talents, but being smart and organized is not among them.

Ok fun feelings are over, it's time for pain.

(Sena looking at his contact list, having just added Kurita's number, then wham D: )

The three bullies from before were waiting to get revenge. The dialogue is a bit different in the original. Juumonji (the blond one) actually says: "That fatso a friend of yours, Sena? Tell me his contact info-- if you do that, we'll let you go." To which Sena timidly and reluctantly agrees. Then Kuroki (the dark haired one) says: "But do you think one bat will be enough? With that brute strength..." In the final panel, Juumonji says: "It's better with just one, since we're gonna call the police beforehand." Togano (with the glasses): "The police?"

Juumonji: "As long as we get him wrapped up in the fight, it'll be fine. We'll say we got these wounds from being assaulted by the fatso with the bat -- We'll get him disqualified from the American Football tournament." One of the others: "Ooohh, smart!"

I guess the overall sentiment isn't that different, but knowing that the initial demand was for Sena to hand over Kurita's contact info with the promise that they would spare him if he obeyed-- and that at first he agreed-- makes his change of heart feel even more significant.

(Sena: "IF YOU'RE GONNA HIT ME, THEN HIT ME!!! I'LL NEVER TELL YOU (Kurita's info)!!!")

Tell 'em Sena!! A part of me sort of wishes the story maintained this serious story beat instead of undercutting it with humor in the next panel (not shown here) but at the same time, ES21 is overall a more lighthearted, comedic story which I love it for, so I don't think I'd like it getting too angsty. I'll always have Berserk in my corner if I want some actual angst lol.

(1st pic: various sounds of surprise or pain, and in the last panel: "Oi, don't let him get away!"

2nd pic: Sena -- "No way!!!" Hiruma: "Hm? Oh it's that guy" )

Lol I do love the little details Murata included, like Kuroki taking a swing at Sena as he's biting Juumonji's hand but then totally missing in the fourth panel because Sena's so fast. Also I'm always on the lookout for the kinds of stuff Hiruma buys, snack wise. We know he loves sugarless gum, obv, and drinks coke based on that one time he bought some for himself, Kurita & Sena, but what else are in those bags? I want to know!!

--------

And lol apparently I'm only allowed 30 images per post rip, so I guess I'll end this here. I guess I can.... reblog and continue? Or I might just make another post for the next part 🤔 Besides this got way too long, so I'll have to be more brief in future posts lol.

I'm honestly not expecting more than like, five people to interact with this lol, but if anyone is interested in specific points of the story they want me to look at, please feel free to ask!

[dkniade]

“欲买桂花同载酒” / Zhongli’s osmanthus wine idle line

(Disclaimer: I don’t know that much about syntax, so I apologize for the wildly inaccurate syntax trees. I made the mistake of warming up with something that’s not English prose haha… I’ll be focusing on the meaning of the line and its hanzi characters, so the syntax is only there to help me explain some things.)

.

“欲买桂花同载酒”…

.

This line is from the Chinese songci (宋词, a form of traditional Chinese poetry) 《唐多令·芦叶满汀洲》，by 刘过 (Liu Guo). It’s the one referenced in Zhongli’s osmanthus wine idle line in Chinese. (By the way, it does not directly mean “Osmanthus wine tastes the same as I remember”, but more on that later.)

载 (zai3) as a verb could have the meaning of “to carry (something)(with a vehicle)”. For example, “这车可载三箱酒。” = “This car can carry three crates of wine.”

And since the rest of the songci talks about a harbour scene with boats, 载 could indeed be seen as a verb in the poem’s context, and the vehicle is implied to be a boat. So in the context of the songci, this line could be understood in English prose as “[I] wish to buy some osmanthus and ride [a boat] along with some wine.”

.

However, despite the songci’s context, none of these hanzi characters in the line itself directly mean “boat”. While looking at it closer today, the syntactic structure felt a little strange to me even though I’m not familiar with Chinese songci syntax.

It turns out 载 has multiple meanings. 载, pronounced with the fourth tone (zai4), as a preposition used in pairs (in modern Chinese), could mean “simultaneously” or “at the same time”. For example, 载笑载哭 should probably mean “laughing at crying at the same time” or “laughing while crying”…

Also, the original songci doesn’t follow the osmanthus line with a section about old friends, but instead the idea of old friends is actually mentioned two lines prior. For the bolded sections, I’m doing a modern English translation, referencing the modern Chinese translation from the Gushiwen website here, but note that the original songci uses the poetic Chinese wenyan (文言) syntax.

.

“黄鹤断矶头，故人今在否？旧江山浑是新愁。欲买桂花同载酒，终不似，少年游。”

“故人今在否？” = “Are [my] old friends still alive in this moment?”

“欲买桂花同载酒” = “[I] wish to buy some osmanthus and ride [a boat] along with some wine.”

.

It’s pretty cool that Genshin Impact alluded to the friends idea present in the poem too. Also, both Liu Guo’s songci poem and Zhongli’s line use the term 故人 (gu4ren2) to mean “old friend(s)”.

.

Meaning, Zhongli’s poetic-sounding Chinese idle line “欲买桂花同载酒…只可惜故人，何日再见呢？” is closer to “I wish to buy some osmanthus and also some wine… But as for those old friends, when would I meet them again?” in modern English with the game’s context (without taking into account that the real poem alluded to here is about boating). (This is a rough translation that follows the overall sentence structure in Chinese a little closer.)

Thus Genshin Impact’s English localization of “Osmanthus wine tastes the same as I remember… But where are those who share the memory?” might actually be okay in terms of meaning even if it lacks the nuance from the poetic reference. Well, I would’ve liked the first part (the songci) to be localized in Shakespearean English, and the second part to be in modern English, since the difference in syntax and tone still stands out a lot in Chinese… In an English localization, if a character who usually speaks in English prose suddenly quotes something in Shakespearean English, it’s easier to pick up on the fact that it might be a line of poetry ‘cause of the contrast, I believe.

.

Somewhat unrelated, but in terms of poetic structure, it seems the entire poem in Chinese has an usually strict rhyming scheme, rhyming nine out of the twelve ending sounds together (roughly speaking. Not gonna go into the phonology of it haha)

Usually Chinese songci have a more diverse (?) rhyming scheme. E.g. “水调歌头•明月几时有” by 苏轼 (Su Shi), which miiight be the base inspiration for Liyue’s general storyline and cast

.

In the end… Zhongli quotes a line of songci with seven hanzi/syllables. It’s a wild guess but maybe it refers to the original Seven Archons?

欲买桂花同载酒…只可惜故人，何日再见呢…

[nottawriter]

20 questions game

Thank you @luthordamnvers for the tag!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Individual stories: 10 (some are series and 1 translation)

2. What’s your total AO3 words count?

Individual stories: 337,399

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Supergirl- Primarily, Arrowverse with the main focus on Supercorp, but other ships as well

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

PRIDE and Prejudice (Super gay retelling of the classic), Tell Me It’s Not Too Late (Post-S4 finale), I Believe in a Thing Called Love (Entire Season 6 episodic rewrite), Wouldn’t It Be Nice (50 First Dates Movie AU/Continuation), What Has Been Lost (Human/Original AU Series).

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Usually. I appreciate getting the comments, so I try to repay that effort.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

When She’s Gone, the Darkness Comes

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

PRIDE and Prejudice… though it could be said Lena and Kara both get very happy endings in Speak Now (18+ Explicit Sexual Content)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really “hate”

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

See Question 7 lol… I do have smaller sex scenes in other fics, but nothing that compares in scope

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

My Human/Original AU Series is an amalgamation of original story work with various locations, character names, character descriptions, and/ or conversations, pulled, used, and/ or referenced from throughout all of the CW Arrowverse and DC Comics Universe, though primarily Supergirl. It’s not really crazy, but it is intricately woven throughout the storyline.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, my I Believe in a Thing Called Love into Spanish.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Not yet, but I’m not opposed.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Supercorp... There are others (Avatrice, Caitvi, lots of wlw really), but nothing compares to the hold they still have on me.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I plan on finishing all of my actual WIPs that have writing associated with them. There are a couple of WIP ideas I have that I’m not sure I’ll ever get to… A Christmas fic, one loosely based on the movie D.A.R.Y.L., a couple with other main relationships

16. What are your writing strengths?

No idea… Someone once told me they love the way I sometimes write a singular scene from different POVs, telling the story in pieces to eventually for the whole… Not sure that’s a strength. I guess plotting out the story details then?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Lol stealing @luthordamnvers‘s answer: Actually writing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

English is the only language I really know, so in the past when I’ve needed to write in a different language (I’ve done Spanish and Icelandic), I used Google translator- which I now know is kind of bad at what it’s supposed to do. I need to ask a native speaker to check on the Spanish I’ve done, but I don’t know any Icelanders. For Kryptonian, I use the Doyle dictionary but I don’t know if I do the grammar/ syntax right or not.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Supergirl/ Supercorp.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Oh, this one’s hard… Um, I like a couple of my fics for very different reasons, but I guess the Human/Original AU Series is the one that’s taken the most effort and I’m most proud of… It also started as my first, so you can see how I’ve grown as a writer as it continues which is fun/interesting/embarrassing for me lol

Tags, but no pressure: @casualsavant @itsalliebitheway @fyonahmacnally @natalievoncatte @villainousunsub @vox-ex

[donnerpartyofone]

Due to my various disorders I often feel like I am living the same day over and over and over again. This effect is created by any combination of A) my inability to learn something, B) my inability to form new habits, C) my lack of awareness/memory of something I did, and D) my failure to execute on something I keep meaning to do--along with my basic inability to just fucking pick my battles and let some shit go--but lately the Groundhog Day experience has been dialed up to 11 and this exacerbation is definitely compounded by problems of enshitification.

Like a few times a week for the last several weeks, I remembered something--a fact, a piece of media, an excerpt from a book, something I personally wrote, etc--that I wanted to reference or revisit. In most instances Item X is something that I gave a lot of thought to, and perhaps something that I actively researched or workshopped; it's almost never just something that I passively absorbed then half-forgot. I may remember everything about it, and everything about the time when I was working on it, and I just need the citation...and now there is no evidence of it at all, anywhere. I look for traces of Item X everywhere I can think of: I'm sure I talked to Person Y about it, I'm sure I took a screencap and sent it to Person Z, I posted about it. My phone won't find it, it's not in my email; am I using the wrong search term? Or misspelling something? Or did I delete it by accident? Or is the actual search function I'm using just finicky? Or did I send the screencap without verbalizing what it was and just saying like "Dude check this out!"? Even though I know what's going to happen, I search for Item X on my Tumblr. What usually happens is that Tumblr gives me like 3-5 results it has deigned to index that are NOT the one I want; you'd think that this is a "numbers game" and that eventually the thing I want would be in the indexed set just by coincidence, but it NEVER IS. Like how am I so strangely lucky to have this perfect consistency? It seems impossible! Then I try using the syntax I learned to search my blog via Google, and this also never works. It doesn't work on Duck Duck Go either, although it's interesting to me that each search engines gives me different undesirable output. I search my computer and my external drives, but Windows 11 makes it very hard for my dumb ass to distinguish between searches of my local machinery and searches of OneDrive which is incomplete and which I prefer to never use because I hate the feeling that I'm renting my own files from somebody else and I just like to know where the fuck my shit is--I don't even like to use the coat rack in an office, I want all my shit where I can see it--so when my computer says "No Results" I have absolutely no confidence that I'm getting a full account of the facts.

........................................so now I'm back at square one, repeating the same agonizing detective work I slogged through the last time I referenced Item X, only now it's worse, because Tumblr is worse, and Google is worse, and possibly I have been subconsciously sabotaging myself between last time and this time to make all my own systems and tools worse. And I HATE that I'm wasting this amount of time and energy--two things I don't have a lot of!--but if I don't do it my broken mind is going to torture me more and more with each passing second of inaction, so I am FORCED to do this by reason of insanity.

The thing I'm trying to look up now, PLEASE TELL ME IF THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR, is what I THINK is an excerpt from a piece by Rainer Maria Rilke in which he says SOMETHING LIKE:

"Jesus is pointing to God, but like dogs, we look only at the finger."

I remember what a hard time I had finding this before. After a long drawn-out process of testing different search terms, I found it in a Google Books preview of a page from I THOUGHT BUT APPARENTLY AM WRONG?! Letters to a Young Poet. Now I'm trying that again and finding No Results for "jesus" or "finger". So maybe like, Letters was the last thing I looked up before I found the correct volume OR the correct author, and that's the last thing my brain recorded on this topic. Or maybe I'm looking at the wrong edition with incomplete previews on Google Books. I don't fucking know. But the reason I want so badly to cite this now is that it has relevance to the Aaron Bushnell conversation.

I'm feeling really bad about the fact that Aaron Bushnell's desire to underline the Palestinian genocide has had the almost exclusive result of underlining the actions of Aaron Bushnell. And before you get excited to talk to me about that, I must be very clear that this is exactly what I don't want to talk about. I understand the discourse. I have my own strong opinions about his suicide and what it means, and what are the right and wrong ways to talk about it. Whatever aspect of this you are itching to bring up, including the buried reports of previous self-immolations, I promise I am aware of them. I'm not saying that these conversations don't matter. I am just deeply concerned that energy that was once fully devoted to protest is now being shoaled into this ideological cul-de-sac about Aaron Bushnell specifically. This happens on the left all the fucking time and it's exhausting and disheartening. The right seems to stay congealed in a big blob of generalized solidarity, furthering its broad-strokes agendas persistently, while the left gets mired in theory and semantics and purity testing and academics and all this stuff that, while it is very stimulating, has no measurable effect on our rights, our safety, or our efficacy. Or rather, if it does have an effect, it's to drain our resources and destroy our focus and, at worst, "help the enemy".

So while it may be easier and more immediately satisfying to bicker with each other about Aaron Bushnell than it is to wrap one's mind around the enormity of genocide and the incredible imbalance of power that perpetuates it, I really don't think this particular bit of discourse is actually helping anyone. If you're one of the people who is trying to think of this in terms of "what Aaron Bushnell would have wanted", I think it's a good bet that he didn't want people to stop talking about Palestine and start talking about him alone. Don't look at the finger, look where it's pointing.

And for God's sake if you recognize the approximate quote I'm struggling to fully recall PLEASE DM ME.

[roadtogse]

Day 271: Grateful for the Journey so Far

Successfully passing two GIAC exams and earning the subsequent certifications that go along with them feels very surreal. I remember when I first heard about SANS from a relative years ago. This led me down the rabbit hole of security certifications and SANS courses. Many sounded so interesting but the cost was ultimately a barrier so I did not pursue any. It was not until I participated in CyberFastTrack that I gave it much thought again. Even though I did not earn a scholarship from SANS it put me on a track to find another source of funding which thankfully I was able to receive. I know that cost is a barrier to many and I feel so incredibly blessed for this opportunity and in the future hope to give back to individuals who were in similar circumstances as me.

In October I earned the GFACT certification and then finally earned the PenTest+ certification in November. Both involved a lot of late night studying and sacrifices from all the fun things. The GFACT solidified a lot of foundational knowledge I had and also helped me prepare for the PenTest+ as well. Between studying for these two certifications and a lot of my day to day work activities, I felt like it was all finally coming together. Just in time for the disaster that would be log4shell. ;)

I started my studies for the GSEC in December but that went on the back burner until January when I could start in earnest. This course was definitely a step up in terms of difficulty compared to the GFACT. I really enjoyed the sections on cloud security for AWS as this was a subject I was wanting to learn more about. I also really enjoyed the PowerShell labs as I had not done any kind of scripting in over a year and it reminded me of how much joy I find in it.

I used the same general methodology for studying which is reading the course material and hand writing notes. I find video lectures to be really hard to pay attention to so I prefer reading the material instead. I also ran through the labs a couple times each to get comfortable with commands and syntax especially. I also used the same indexing method I came up with based on advice from numerous posts I read online. This definitely deserves its own post in the future. The aim of the game for me is speed, being able to quickly reference something if needed in the exam. With so many books for this course, speed referencing is an importantly ability.

The GSEC exam would be my first exam with the Cyber Live questions and I was nervous about what they would be like. Thankfully the provided labs and materials more than adequately prepared me for the questions. When exam day came I found myself really enjoying the hands on questions. It really tests your knowledge in a different way than multiple choice questions can. They were not too dissimilar from the labs and I look forward to more Cyber Live questions on future exams.

Due to funding reasons, I am taking some time off before pursuing the next certification in my program at SANS. Ever the avid learner I am using this time to complete coursework towards earning an MBA in IT Management at Western Governors University. It is definitely a change in thinking to go from technical subjects to business subjects but I am learning a lot. I have spent most of my career in government settings so the transition to a large multinational corporation has been nothing short of a culture shock. This degree is really helping me understand business processes and how IT can drive business initiatives. I am of course trying to put my own security spin on things as I go.

Until next time, persistence is the only skill.

[mockinggold]

If you guys ever feel like your writing is bad, here’s the first chapter of my first ever fanfic

“"Tch- Like I would want to be around any of you extras," said Kacchan. He leaned farther in his chair and smirked.

"Aw c'mon Bakugou, we'll have a blast!" Kirishima smiled. "We'll go and get something good to eat and hang out like real bros. I'll get you dinner on me!"

Kacchan sat up straighter looking at Kirishima. He regained his composure and scoffed "Whatever. I'll go just to keep your sanity shitty hair, and so you all get off my ass about it." Kacchan glanced up at Kirishima. Kirishima nudged him on the shoulder and smiled.

"Yeah that's what I'm talking about!" Kirishima chuckled. "Hey Midoriya, who all else is coming?"

I look up at Kirishima and flipped up my fingers with each name I said. "Well," I started. "We've got you, me, Kacchan, Uraraka, Iida, Tsu, Sero, Tokoyami, Yaoyorozu, Kaminari, Ashido, Jirou... and I think that's it"

"What's with the listing of names?" I heard from behind. I turned around to see a tall, muscular, heterochromatic guy staring down at me. I was caught slightly off guard by this and I felt my checks get a little warm.

"Oh, uh, hey Todoroki-kun! I-um... we're just going to the mall after school today to hang out and uh, yeah. I mean it's nothing too exciting but you're welcome to come if you'd like to," I stammered, regaining my composure halfway through.

Todoroki smirked. "Add me to your count then," he said. "Class ends in 7 minutes. Seeing as Aizawa is asleep, I have some loose ends I need to tie up. I'll be outside the main entrance when you guys are ready. See you soon." Todoroki calmly walked towards the exit. As he passed me, he lightly brushed against my shoulder. I felt the ghost of his contact linger for a few seconds longer before I glance back to see the last of his red and white hair sweep out of the door.

I blushed a little wondering if his small touch was intentional or not. Todoroki has always been a huge mystery to me, and maybe that's what's drawn me to him for so long. After the sports festival, it's clear he's been trying to be more social with the class but that doesn't stop me from wanting to know more about him. Not only about his quirk, but about his character. What makes him laugh, cry, yell, smile. I want to know what keeps him awake, what makes him fall fast asleep. I want to know so badly-

"OI DEKU!" Kacchan shouted. I jumped from the yell. "Are you gonna stand there or are you coming with us?" I glance up at the clock. Did I really just think about Todoroki for 7 minutes? I shook my head and grabbed my notebook.

"I'm coming!" I shouted to no one in particular. I picked up my pace for a bit until I caught up to Uraraka. I walked next to her as she giggled a little. I cocked my head at looked at her waiting for an explanation.

"It's super obvious, yknow?" She giggled.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Your crush on Todoroki. You always stare off into space for a long time with a dumb smile whenever he is or has been around. It's adorable and you should definitely ask him on a date." She smiled.

I felt my face heat up a little. And then a lot. "What? Oh! I-I-I think you got it all wrong. I mean yeah I stare off and mutter sometimes but it's not because of Todoroki I mean yeah sometimes I think about Todoroki-I mean his quirks and how they work and stuff I do that for everyone I'm just saying that it's not like I think about him for hours on end I mean that would be ridiculous right?" I said painfully fast. Even I felt that that was over the top.

"I see," she smirked. "Well if that's how you'd like to treat it, then go ahead. Hang on I need to catch up with Iida." She started skipping ahead. She suddenly turned around and yelled back at me. "Keep in mind you never denied my statement!" She grinned and caught up to Iida.

I felt my face get red hot. I knew she knew she was right. But at the same time, it felt hopeless. It's obvious Yaoyorozu liked Todoroki and it was most likely that he liked her back. Who wouldn't like him. He's the sweetest, kindest, cutest, strongest, bravest-

My train of thought was cut off by running into a wall.

I managed to startle myself to the point of falling.

"That looked like it hurt." Todoroki chuckled. "You were almost out the door too." He reaches out his hand to me and smiled. He had the smile that you could look at and feel safe and warm for the rest of your days. A smile that could make a demon blush. His mismatched eyes stayed locked with mine, they twinkled like no other. Those blue and gray eyes could catch your attention from a mile away. I cut myself off from staring and smiled back. I reached out my hand to grab his. We grasped each other's wrists and he pulled me up in one swift motion.

"Thanks" I muttered trying to avoid eye contact. I felt like he could see straight through me and how flustered I was.

He glanced towards the exit and smirked. "Of course," he said. I smiled back at him, aware of the dust of light pink in my cheeks.”

This was the entire chapter

Honestly, this is embarrassing to post for me. I could go on for hours about how terrible this is.

- POV used terribly

- Just about every sentence beginning with a name or pronoun unless I was making a burst of conscious effort not to

- Capitalization of entire words

- starting the story in a time where it seemed as though the beginning half of the story hadn’t been explained

- recapping crucial information as background information from past

- unrealistic enter/exit of characters

- unrealistic dialogue

- emotionally 2-D characters and emotions

- set up for no growth

- appears rushed

- plot unclear

- mixing of tenses (I still do it on accident though I try not to)

- unnecessary filler (I do that still too but I’m working on it)

- unrealistic and choppy time passes

- no good plot information given aside from character love interest

That was only what I could come up with in three minutes without referencing the text. If I gave myself ten more minutes I could expand on that list a lot

Please don’t get discouraged when you feel as though you’re not improving !!! You are always improving and the best way to know that you’re improving is to NEVER delete anything you write. It’s good to look back on so you can see growth

The best way for you to improve is to read !!! Keep reading fan fictions or any novel that is well written because you will absorb that grammar and writing style and be able to use some of it for your own !!! Seeing well written things will expand your vocabulary, sentence structure, syntax, and diction. There are so many ways to write the same sentence and the more you read, the more you find. Reading does wonders for your writing

Also practice !!! Even if you don’t post it, do little warm ups for yourself where you write short 300-500 word scenes and try out different styles, descriptions, dialogue techniques, anything. You’ll get more comfortable with how you write and you’ll allow yourself to be able to try new things without getting discouraged easily !!!

If you see a certain writing style you like, try it out !!! There’s no shame in copying a writing style and messing with it to build your own with it. Unless you’re copying word for word, referencing writing styles is a great tool to find your own and to be able to help create your own. Do not try to turn yourself into another author, you may like someone’s writing style, but not like writing it and that’s okay

I’m not any New York bestseller, but if I can encourage at least one person to not give up and keep writing and keep improving, that’s enough. Even if you look at what I posted and think ‘that’s like my writing style’ that’s okay. That style is simply not for me but if that’s the style you like and the one you want to improve on, go for it !!! Writing is an amazing talent and I encourage everyone to keep doing it. Share your writing with me, I’d love to read it !!!

[um-southridge2020blog]

Tips for writing a college essay

1. Start early. The additional time you have, the less pressure you'll have. What's more, you'll have a lot of time to give the article your best exertion.

2. Be yourself. Pause for a minute to consider what intrigues you, what you love to discuss, what causes you to pay attention if it's referenced in class or on TV. At that point expound on it.

Perhaps the greatest mix-up understudies make is "composing what they think others need to hear, as opposed to about an issue, occasion, or individual that truly had criticalness for them," says Richard M. Fuller, senior member of confirmation and monetary guide at Hamilton College (NY). An exposition like that isn't simply exhausting to compose it's exhausting to peruse.

3. Be legitimate. You're running late (see #1), you can't consider what to compose and somebody messages you an endearing story. With simply a change to a great extent, it very well may be an extraordinary article, you think. It's what you would have composed on the off chance that you'd recently had sufficient opportunity.

Try not to be tricked! School affirmation officials have perused hundreds-even large number of expositions. They are aces at finding any type of counterfeiting. Adjusting an email story, purchasing an article from some Internet webpage, getting another person to compose your exposition affirmation individuals have seen it all. Try not to chance your school profession by taking the path of least resistance.

4. Take a danger. Then again, a few dangers can pay off. Try not to agree to the paper that every other person is composing. Envision an affirmation official up late, perusing the 50th paper of the day-yours. Do you need that individual to fall asleep on the grounds that the person in question has just perused ten papers on that subject?

"The peril lies not recorded as a hard copy terrible expositions but rather recorded as a hard copy regular papers the one that affirmation officials will peruse many," says Scott Anderson, partner head of school advising at Mercersburg Academy (PA). "My recommendation? Ask your companions what they are composing and afterward don't expound on that!"

5. Keep in core interest. This is your opportunity to explain to confirmation officials precisely why they ought to concede you. Shockingly, a few understudies attempt to list each and every explanation their heavenly scholarly record, their athletic ability, their locale administration all in a page or two. At the point when that occurs, the paper appears as though a staple rundown.

All things being equal, perused the paper question cautiously and write down a couple of thoughts. At that point pick the one that resembles the most amusing to expound on. Adhere to that principle topic all through the exposition. You don't need to list every one of your accomplishments that is the thing that the remainder of the application is for. Utilize the article to help the affirmation officials become more acquainted with you personally.

6. Write and revise. Try not to attempt to compose a show-stopper on your first attempt. It's impractical and all that weight is probably going to give you a mental obstacle. For your first draft, compose whatever rings a bell about your point. Try not to stress a lot over syntax or spelling. Simply get it down on paper (or PC screen). At that point let it "rest" for a couple of hours or a couple of days.

At the point when you return to the draft, search for approaches to make it more engaged and better composed. A few people are "fat" scholars: they compose long, tedious first drafts that should be abbreviated later. Others are "thin" scholars: they compose short and straightforward first drafts and afterward need to add subtleties or guides to "tissue out" the skeleton. In any case, don't be hesitant to roll out significant improvements at this stage. Are there subtleties that don't generally identify with the subject? Cut them. Do you need another model? Put it in.

Here are two different things to attempt, proposed by school advisor Marti Phillips-Patrick.

1. Remove the initial and closing sections, and afterward check whether your exposition appears to be more grounded. These passages are frequently the well on the way to have superfluous detail.

2. Go through the paper and cut out each "very" and each "many." Words like these are obscure, and your composing is frequently more grounded without them.

7. Get per second assessment. Indeed, even top of the line writers request that others read their original copies before they're shipped off the distributer. At the point when you've revamped the exposition agreeable to you, discover somebody who can offer you guidance on the most proficient method to make it surprisingly better. Pick an individual you regard and who knows something about composing a most loved English instructor, a parent, a companion who composes for the school paper. Request that they mention to you what they like best about your paper and what you can do to improve it.

Analysis of your composing can be difficult to hear, however attempt to tune in with a receptive outlook. You don't need to roll out each improvement proposed all things considered, it's your paper and nobody else's-except for you ought to truly think about every recommendation.

8. Proofread. At long last, you're prepared to send your exposition. One moment! Peruse it throughout once again, searching for those little mistakes that can sneak in as you compose or alter. In case you're utilizing a PC, additionally run a spell check.

Some of the time, it tends to be hard to get minor grammatical errors you've perused the paper so often that you see what should be there as opposed to what is there. To ensure you find everything, give perusing your paper a shot boisterous or having another person recited it for all to hear to you. Another procedure is to peruse the article in reverse, from the last sentence to the first. That makes it sufficiently new for blunders to stick out.

9. Don't mistake applying on the web for sending email. Applying on the web is similarly as genuine as applying "as it was done in the good 'ol days." It might feel like you're sending email, however you're definitely not.

"One thing I've frequently observed is that understudies who apply online submit shoddy articles," says Palmer Muntz, head of confirmation at Oregon Institute of Technology. He has discovered that papers submitted online will in general be a lot more limited than those submitted on paper. Furthermore, understudies frequently use email language-no capitalization, or truncations, for example, BTW or "thanx"- which are not fitting to a proper record. Put forth sure that you put as much attempt into an online exposition as you would on the off chance that you were sending it snail mail.

10. Don't expect a lot from an exposition. The application article is significant, yet it's not by any means the only thing that is thought of. "Could [the essay] have any kind of effect in getting the 'dainty versus thick' envelope? Totally," says Fuller. "However, that is the special case as opposed to the standard."

That is on the grounds that affirmation officials take a gander at the entire bundle your scholastics, extracurricular exercises, state sanctioned tests, and different variables. An incredible paper seldom compensates for a feeble scholastic record. Then again, an average exposition won't really entrust your application to the "deny" list. So create your article too composed as you can, however don't squeeze yourself that the remainder of the application blurs in significance.

[littleoldrachel]

Eleventh chapter is up! Read it here on ao3, or here on ff.net, or under the cut. 

100 Ways to Say I Love You Summary: In which actions speak louder than words, Sirius and Remus sort of fall in to a relationship, and even though neither of them have said those three all-important words, they both know it anyway.Or: 100 Ways to Say I Love You by Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. Previous |  chapter 11/100 - “You can have half.” | Next Based on this post by p0ck3tf0x Tw for grief, anxiety, hints at depression, a use of the f-word, mentions of child abuse.

Against James’ wishes, Remus’ advice, and Akilah’s concerns, Sirius returns to work just a few days after the news breaks. Having lost four days to his grief, his schedule is tighter than ever, but the pressure is a blessing in disguise - because he plunges headfirst into his projects, and just… does not surface.

Time loses all meaning, now that he's spending every single second in the office - sketching, programming, editing, it's all time-consuming work that requires Sirius’ utmost attention.

His friends bring meals to the office and his colleagues force him outside once in a while for some fresh air, but without his graphics tablet in hand, he's a shell of a person, aimlessly fidgeting and tugging at his clothes. He needs to be busy and productive because otherwise he's just the waste of space his parents always claimed he was, haunted by memories and longing for relief - but nobody seems to want to accept that. He begins to sleep at the office, but with no semblance of a schedule; he crashes beneath his workstation whenever exhaustion gets the better of him, and wakes to expressions of concern, aching shoulders, and the feeling of bone-deep fatigue that no amount of sleep can solve.

His grief is a current that keeps pulling him away from the work he's trying so hard to focus on, and every time it's a little harder to propel himself back to it. It tugs and claws and drags at him, and no matter how firmly he tries to embed himself in the sand, his pain is relentless.

But so are his friends in their compassion. Lily brings him his medication, and texts him reminders to actually take it, you silly angel. Frank cooks his favourite comfort foods, and doesn't complain a jot when Sirius cannot manage more than a mouthful. Kingsley makes him drinks by the gallon - some alcoholic, some not, some piping, some ice-cold, depending on how sad he looks at that moment.

Alice sends him videos of animals doing stupidly adorable things that thaw his frozen heart like nothing else can, and bakes him cookies and cakes that go largely uneaten. Peter seems to be the only one who understands Sirius’ need to be at work, because he enables him like the rest of the group refuse to - taking him to work, bringing him fresh clothes, asking him about the projects, and it's refreshingly normal where nothing else is. James encourages him to talk about his feelings, takes him to therapy, and doesn't get mad ever when it all gets too much and Sirius screams at him to fuck off, Prongs, I'm fine. Every time Sirius thinks James has peaked as a best friend, he goes and pulls something like this, which just reminds Sirius how utterly indebted he is for this friendship.

Marlene gets in touch with a promise to chase up the issue with Alphard leaving Sirius everything. Sirius wants to shout that he doesn't give a fuck, he wouldn't touch a penny if he could just have Alphard back, but he knows that she feels guilty she can't be there physically, so he lets her do what she needs to without arguing. On top of all of this, there are well wishes and messages of love from school friends he hasn't spoken to in years. It's a lot.

(It's too much, and every day, more and more messages stack up in his inbox that he simply doesn't have the energy or the will to respond to).

And then there's Remus.

Lovely, soft, understanding Remus, who comes to the office just to sit in silence and be with him because he somehow knows that the memories are a little less intrusive with his presence. Who brings him flowers just because Sirius’ shoulders slump a little less with the sight of them. Who stops him from torturing his heart with a caffeine overload. Who witnesses every single panic attack and anxiety attack and supports him through them no matter what he's supposed to be doing. Who never asks for anything from him but gives and gives and gives, and Sirius takes it all greedily, because God knows he's earned the right to be selfish.

(Sirius cannot comprehend why he's spiralling when he has literally the best support network he could ask for, but he hates himself for this perceived flaw in any case. And this self hatred only shoves him harder into his work - he doesn't spare a thought for what he's going to do when he's finished because all that is keeping him going right now is the fact that he needs to get these done).

His therapist tells him that the way he's responding is normal and expected, and he wants to yell fuck off in her stupid face, because if it is normal to be this angry and numb and depressed and overwhelmed, he is uninterested in ‘normal’ and ‘expected.’ He tries to channel this frustration into his art - because healthy outlets are important, she also reminds him, but there’s just… some kind of barrier? Blocking his emotions from the blank white page? He wants to fucking smash something - because fuck healthy coping mechanisms, fuck it all.

Of his two projects, the most pressing task is a double page spread in the next month's issue, which will introduce a character of Sirius’ own design, complete with costume, backstory, and a personal article. He has enough free reign that he barely needs to ask Akilah's guidance at all (which is a blessing because the thought of talking to anyone brings him out in cold sweats and ragged breaths).

His character is one he's been perfecting since his Final Project at university, and perhaps this makes it such an easy task despite the fogginess of his brain. He pours his tattered heart and battered soul into first the paper sketches, then into the tablet, his eyes aching from the attention to detail. What he ends up with actually stirs a feeling of something in his stomach, and he clings to the thought of something that isn't grief-related like a lifeline.

Ember, a trans woman of colour whose 'real job’ is in chemical engineering, can manipulate shadows to travel through the world, and she's, in Lily's words, completely fucking awesome, I love being bi. Sirius maps out her afro with painstaking strokes, referencing and counter referencing her features to ensure he's doing this right, and by right, he means don't be a racist fuck and make her nose all like a white person, in Frank's words.

The comic strip of her origin story involves an unhappy childhood, a found family, and a journey of self-acceptance that is so close to his own, it's almost embarrassing, except he's so in love with Ember, he doesn't give a single shit. Her superpowers come about from an experiment gone-wrong at work, the product of enthusiastic conversations he'd had with Gideon about the plausibility of this incident all those years ago. It’s nostalgic in just the way he needs - living in the past, a past in which Alphard was alive and well and thriving, means that he can pretend, however briefly, that the ground hasn’t collapsed beneath him.

The final section - the personal article - presents the greatest challenge, and he half-heartedly bashes out a few paragraphs on the importance of representation that make him wince in their detachedness. It takes almost a full bottle of whiskey late one night to actually allow the emotions to spill out, into sentences about how works like Queerllustration’s saved his life, how the realisation that people like him could be heroes too meant so much to anxious, closeted twelve-year-old Sirius. It’s cheesy and personal and possibly too-much when he sends the article to Remus to edit, because as gifted as Sirius is with pictures, it's Remus who's best with words. Remus sends an edited version back within a few hours, and Sirius loves him for it - both the eloquent way he's rearranged Sirius’ syntax and the speed with which he's turned a diamond-in-the-rough shiny.

The end result is one that, even in his grief and frustration, Sirius is proud of.

(He thinks Alphard would be too).

(If only he were here to see it).

The second project is one that Sirius had been so excited to be commissioned, because the idea of a mural for a children's ward sparks the sense of adventure and hopefulness that he sorely needs. Fresh from the adrenalin of churning out his first project, he refuses all offers of time-off or an extension, and ploughs onwards, ignoring how flat and empty the world outside his sketchpad has become.

Remus comes to the office at eight o'clock at night one day, and watches him work for a while in silence. He’s been working on the mural mock-ups for hours by now - a fact, he knows by the ache of his shoulders and the sting of tired eyes. Eventually, Remus shifts from his spot in Sirius’ swivel chair, and crouches before him, cupping a hand to his cheek and forcing Sirius to meet his gaze.

“Please come home,” Remus says softly, and the vulnerability in his eyes almost breaks Sirius. He almost caves. Almost.

“I have to finish this section,” Sirius mumbles, reluctantly removing himself from the warmth of Remus’ palm, and turning back to his designs.

Remus says nothing, and Sirius cannot bear to look back at him, for the disappointment in them will be unbearable. When Remus gets up and leaves, Sirius feels his already-broken heart shrivelling, and he forces himself to breathe through the pain of it, concentrating as hard as he can to distract from the ache in his chest.

But then -

The door clicks open once more, and Sirius jerks around in surprise. Remus is standing there, his expression heart-rendingly kind. He’s got a blanket wrapped about his shoulders and arms full of take-out containers.

(Sirius wants to sob at the gesture - at how good Remus is, and how much he cares - but he can’t seem to remember how. Or rather, there’s something that doesn’t allow the tears to come, they’re somewhere inside him, but trapped).

Remus sits beside him, and Sirius tucks against his side, huddling into the blanket that Remus drapes between them. When Remus pops the lids on the various containers, the aroma of Indian food hits his nostrils, and for the first time in weeks, the smell doesn’t nauseate him. He manages more than a few mouthfuls, listens to Remus natter about his day, allows himself this hour to just be.

Because then it’s back to the grind, and no amount of pleading from Remus will persuade him to cut himself some slack.

(Why should he take it easy when Alphard cannot take anything ever again?)

The finished design is pretty fucking epic; superheroes will decorate the wall, clad in brightly coloured costumes and masks, but these superheroes are special, because some are in wheelchairs or on crutches or missing limbs, some have Special Needs, some have no hair, some have oxygen tanks. In other words, they look like the children he’s seen on his visits to the ward, all with various illnesses and injuries, all far stronger than anyone their age should have to be.

(And if there’s a hero in there who’s older, with crinkles around his grey eyes and a wild mane of platinum hair, whose features make Sirius’ chest pang, then what of it?)

The commissioners are utterly thrilled with it. The children are delighted, the families are admiring, the medical staff appreciative. Congratulations, interview requests, and thanks come pouring in at an alarming rate. Plans are made for it to be painted the following month, and the attention it attracts funds a second commission in another section of the hospital. All Sirius hears is how well he’s done, that he’s a rising star, that this is only the beginning of a bright future. And of course, he’s grateful, these are things he’s dreamed of hearing his whole life.

But it’s too much.

Of the people clamouring his brilliance, there are none more enthusiastic or proud than his friends, all of whom photograph it from every single angle, save any and all mentions of his name in the local paper’s coverage, are more supportive than he deserves.

And Sirius -

Does not register any of it.

It's almost like he thought that finishing these projects and making a name for himself would feel like enough - would counter the horrible, unacceptable truth that Alphard is gone.

But nothing has changed.

Alphard is still gone.

And logically, Sirius knew that completing these projects and pretending things were normal wouldn’t change this fact.

But he still feels like a failure for it.

When the paint is dry on the walls, Sirius leaves the hospital, nodding at the nurses he’s come to know by name, and… walks. He walks past the tube stop he needs to take if he’s heading back to the office, past the stop that leads home, past the buses that he could catch to Peter’s - and he just keeps walking.

The sun drifts lower and lower in the sky, until the Christmas lights are flickering on and Sirius is low-key shaking with the cold the evening brings. Businessmen shove past him impatiently whilst tourists amble in front of him, and no matter where he positions himself, he is in the way, a burden, an annoyance, empty, empty, empty. Catching sight of his reflection in the shop windows is a nasty surprise; he barely recognises himself in the heavy bags beneath his eyes and the downwards twist of his mouth, but he can’t find it in himself to care.

By the time his nose is running from the cold air and his limbs are well and truly numb, the crowds have thinned out, but he doesn’t stop walking. His mind is oddly blank, and his feet keep carrying him, as though each step might shake off the incredible weight of grief he’s shouldering.

(It doesn’t).

He’s not sure at what point the tears start coming. In fact, it’s only when an older gentleman leaving a mosque stops him in concern that he’s even aware that he’s crying. He accepts the tissue the man is pressing on him, but waves off any other questions, dabbing his leaking eyes and forging onwards.

It’s ironic that the harder he cries, the more people avoid meeting his gaze. The tears are streaming and his vision is too-blurred to see straight - he’s a complete fucking wreck, and nobody cares enough to help him.

(Except that’s not quite true).

(Because there are friends who would help him only a phone call away, and it would break James’ too-generous heart to know that Sirius was walking the streets alone and devastated).

(As it is, it’s Remus’ door he ends up at).

(Because of course it’s Remus. It’s always been Remus).

He’s trying to pluck up the courage to knock on the door, when the man himself comes round the corner. Remus is wearing his university sweater - the one that Sirius likes to steal and curl up in because it’s huge and carries Remus’ scent better than anything else - and has his earphones in, a carrier bag swinging loosely from his fingers. Sirius hasn’t been spotted yet, which gives him approximately five seconds to arrange his features into something a little less distressing, and wipe his eyes.

Then, Remus looks up. The second his eyes meet Sirius’, he’s running - and Remus doesn’t run - but he makes the short distance down the corridor in record time, and presses a hand to Sirius’ cheek.

Neither of them say anything for a moment, but Remus’ eyes flit frantically over Sirius’ face, before he loops his arm around Sirius, and tugs them both inside his apartment.

(Were he in a better state of mind, Sirius would be concerned over the fact that Remus doesn’t bother with a key, because his lock’s still fucking broken).

Winky hops down from her perch on Remus’ countertop, and purrs as she winds through their legs, following them to the sofa. Remus pulls Sirius down beside him, and Sirius goes, willingly, hugging as closely to Remus as is possible. The tears, which have momentarily eased, return again in full force, and Sirius is racked with sobs as he arches into Remus’ lap. “W-why am I - crying - again?” Sirius manages, and Remus runs a soothing hand up Sirius’ back. “Why can’t I stop?”

“Because you’ve repressed this for too long,” says Remus so gently that Sirius doesn’t even flinch at the blunt honesty of it. “Because you pushed through it, and didn’t let yourself grieve.”

Sirius screws his eyes shut, the pain in his chest mounting with every ragged breath he draws. “It hurts, Moony.” He claws at his chest vaguely, though hurts doesn’t even cover it - it’s all-encompassing, all-consuming -

“I’m sorry, love,” Remus whispers. He twines their fingers together, rubbing his chest in circular motions. It does nothing to ease the pain, but it’s a reminder that he’s not alone in this hell-hole, and it’s Remus.

“Hurts,” Sirius repeats to himself.

“What can I do?” Remus says, the desperation seeping into his tone.

Sirius shakes his head, has to bite his tongue to stop himself from snapping something like bring back my dead uncle, and murmurs, “just hold me?”

“Of course,” Remus whispers, tugging Sirius even tighter against his chest.

Eventually, Sirius’ flow of tears ceases, though this has more to do with dehydration and exhaustion than because he’s nowhere near done feeling terrible about it. From that point, the intense cuddles morph into something more relaxed; the tv is left on a Netflix show they’ve both seen before, Remus reheats some leftovers, and Winky settles down in Sirius’ lap. Sirius looks blearily at the menorah in Remus’ window - it’s electric, because anything else in a flat so poorly-built and badly-designed seems too risky - and watches as Remus lights another of its candles. He looks so beautiful in the candlelight - all soft edges and warm golden glow - and he ducks his head self-consciously when he catches Sirius’ staring. “Happy Hanukkah,” he says.

“Happy Hanukkah,” Sirius returns, trying to ignore the thought of is Remus missing Hanukkah with his family? Is that because of me?

“Where do we go from here?” Remus asks, what must be several hours later, judging by the temperature drop in the room. Sirius, almost cozy and comfortable in his nest of blankets-safety-Remus, takes an anxious breath, because he knows what he needs, but it’s not what he wants.

“I think… I need to sign off work for a while. But like, properly this time.”

Remus squeezes his hip where his hand is resting. “I think that sounds like a really smart idea. I’m proud of you.”

“I love you,” Sirius says quietly, and one day, when his head is less grief-heavy and his heart less broken, he will be able to say those words with the full significance of everything in his soul. But today is not that day.

Remus replies at once, and the words bring a warmth around his heart that is the most feeling he’s had in far too long. “I love you too.”

And so begins a true healing period. One in which Sirius lets himself sob when he feels his heart re-shattering, scream when everything feels so unfair dammit, smile when something pleasant happens - because lovely things do happen, and he doesn’t have to live the rest of his life feeling guilty for it.

(Or so his therapist says. He’ll get there eventually).

In other news, he’s sort of living at Remus’ now? For the time being at least? The first night he’d slept over, Remus had had to go to work the next day, and Sirius just… didn’t leave. And then he continued to not leave. He spends the time Remus is working hanging out with his friends in their various workplaces, or binge-watching shows with Winky, or sketching for fun, not for work, I promise, Prongs. It’s the first time in forever that his mind has been able to just be, and he can feel the weight lifting a little with every day he spends waking up to the sight of Remus bashing his alarm clock in annoyance.

That’s not to say it’s easy - it’s not. There are days where getting out of bed is Far Too Much, and he cannot breathe for panicking. There are times when he remembers that he’s probably really overstayed his welcome at Remus’ and works himself into a tizzy about burdening his best friend.

But there are also lazy Saturday mornings with pancakes and syrup, late-night excursions for ice cream, tug-of-wars with Winky, outfit-selecting for Remus, phone conversations to Remus’ family… it’s all so fucking domestic, and it makes Sirius’ heart ache for what could be. The thing is, living with Remus is safe and warm and comfortable, and Sirius wants it all, all of this and so much more.

(“Is it helping?” James asks him one Wednesday evening, when Remus has a bar shift and it’s just the two of them in the flat. Sirius feels guilty for the wistfulness in James’ eyes as he nods, but his heart flutters as James admits, “you seem so much better these days. Remus is so damn good for you”).

In Sirius’ incredibly unbiased opinion, he’s inclined to agree, because days later - days? weeks? months, even? - he opens his eyes, takes a breath, and isn’t bombarded with painful memories. And a little while after that, he wakes up and finds that his chest isn’t a gaping hole - it’s more like there’s the skin covering the wound is thin and fragile, but healing. He’s healing.

Before Sirius’ colossal and overwhelming breakdown, Marlene had promised to help him with the Will Situation, because an official-looking letter arrived from his parents’ lawyer that had made him burst into tears without even opening it. He kind of assumes she’s got better things to do, until one day, he gets the following cryptic message:

Marlene: ahem, bow down before me, underling, for I have worked magic and it is finally time to recognise my brilliance

Sirius: ????????

Sirius: i kno ur brilliant i don’t understand

Marlene: true, true

Marlene: but no seriously, I’ve dealt with your shitty family and the will money is yours. They can’t touch it, or you.

Sirius: ??????

Sirius: !!!!!!!

Sirius: are you for real???

[Sirius is calling]

“Marls,” Sirius half-sobs the second she picks up, “Marls - thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Marlene’s voice - usually full of the fire and justice that make her such a successful lawyer - is soft, but no less protective. “It’s amazing what you can achieve with accusations of child abuse and neglect.”

Sirius winces, because she’s right, but the truth hurts. “I love you,” he says, and Marlene makes an mhm sound that Sirius knows is accompanied by a hair flip. “I - I don’t know how to thank you enough -”

“No seriously, don’t mention it. You’re my friend and I would do anything for you, yada-yada-yada, let’s not get sappy.” Marlene’s briskness has returned, and Sirius can’t help the fond smile his lips curve into. “I’m gonna send you over the details of emails between me and their fuckheads - I mean lawyer scum - and the form you need to sign, and then the money is yours.”

There’s a pause, in which Sirius exhales, trying to process everything all at once, and Marlene softens her tone again: “And Sirius, love?”

“Mmm?” Sirius says vaguely, still too affected to deal with more.

“It’s a lot. The money, I mean. He’s left you everything.”

“I don’t care about the money - as long as I don’t have to face them again, I couldn’t care less about-”

“You will, when you see it.”

(Despite Marlene’s efforts to warn him, waking up one morning with an extra two digits on his account balance is a shock, to put it mildly. Once he’s finished logging in and out of his account, refreshing the page, and even contacting his bank, it finally begins to sink in that Alphard has given him everything. And the implications of that generosity are huge).

Because, here’s the other thing: Sirius knows that Remus is poor. Living with Remus had been like a brick in the face at university, because he’d never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from, or choosing between paying the gas bills and paying for school textbooks. But Remus did have to, saved and scrimped every penny like it was goldust, and got terrifyingly annoyed at the rest of them if they were ever wasteful. But somehow, in Sirius’ disgusting throne of privilege, since university he’s sort of forgotten what it looks like to be poor. It’s only as he watches Remus cut open toothpaste tubes to scrape off the remnants, or mix his toiletries with water when they’re half-full, or save potato peelings for homemade soups, that he remembers. (And he’s completely disgusted with himself that he ever forgot).

He watches Remus’ pile of bank letters grow, watches the way Remus’ wrinkles deepen and his shoulders climb higher and higher with tension whenever he’s opening his bills. He watches Remus’ gaze skip straight over the Tesco Finest selections, to the reduced to clear and everyday value ones. He watches Remus wear through the sole of his shoes, shrug and continue wearing them, because what choice does he have?

And his door’s still fucking broken.

Sirius thinks it’s this last thing that causes the spark of inspiration in his brain, and once it’s ignited, it’s unstoppable.

“We should move out and get a place together,” is what he proposes over dinner that night, his heart hammering and palms sweating.

Remus raises his eyebrows, forces a laugh, and says, “very funny, Padfoot.”

“No, I’m serious -”

“So am I,” Remus says, laying his fork back on the plate. “We’ve talked about this before. This place is a shithole but it’s also the only London property in my budget.”

“Not if we were living together.”

Remus pauses, and for a split-second, Sirius thinks he’s going to agree. “You and I have wildly different budgets,” he says eventually, taking a sip of his drink, and not meeting Sirius’ eye. “And besides, I thought you were saving up for your own place?”

“Just listen to me, for a second,” Sirius says, reaching across the table and wrapping his hand around Remus’ wrist. Remus looks at him, but says nothing, and Sirius takes this as a sign to continue. “I’ve researched this properly, Moony. This place is awful, and I hate the thought of you living somewhere like this… but if we joined forces - well, with the money from Alphard, we could get somewhere together - somewhere nice and safe.”

Remus has stiffened, and Sirius feels the anxiety creeping up his spine like a serpent.

Fuck.

“I don’t want your money, Sirius,” says Remus tightly. “Or Alphard’s. Let’s drop it.”

“But it could help us find somewhere to live,” Sirius protests, his anxiety making him clumsy and insensitive, but also unable to stop his efforts. “You could live somewhere with a landlord who’ll fix your door, and where you don’t get faggot written on your mailbox, and where-”

Remus stands abruptly, taking his bowl to the sink, and scrubbing at it harshly. “Drop. It.”

“Just explain it to me then!

“I just did, you’re not listening.”

“If this is about the money, then you know I don’t care -”

“Exactly, you don’t care about it,” spits Remus, whirling back around to face him and - oh, he’s pissed. “Because you’ve never had to. You look at a place like this and think, oh what a dump, and throw your money around, but for some of us, this is as good as it gets, okay?”

He’s not quite shouting, but this is no longer a conversation, and Sirius feels awful and shaky. “But I’m offering you a way out of that,” he says in a small voice, even as he digs himself further and further into this grave.

Remus closes his eyes, presses his fingers against his mouth, and says, “I don’t want your money. I’m really happy that Alphard’s left you enough money that you’re able to offer this, and I know this comes from a good place, but-”

“You can have half,” is what spills out of his mouth, and he knows how it sounds - it may have come from a place of utmost care and concern but right now, it just sounds privileged and classist and awful. “I-”

“I don’t want your money,” Remus repeats. His face has shuttered off, and Sirius feels a swell of annoyance because this wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

“Stop being so bloody proud, I just want to help,” Sirius snaps back, hating himself even as he’s ruining everything. “I love you, and I don’t want you to live like this.”

Remus laughs, but the sound is wrong-wrong-wrong, miserable and cruel and so un-Remus-like that Sirius flinches. “If you really loved me, you would understand that you’re being a massive dick about this.”

Silence falls. Winky looks between them, at the shattered remnants of their friendship/relationship/whatever they are to each other. Sirius’ chest hurts once more, but this is an entirely different type of heartbreak, one that he’s not sure he’ll survive.

“You can go.” Remus won’t look at him.(Sirius has ruined everything).

[contentbew4re]

Speaking in Code

I’m actually surprised by the extent I’ve actually enjoyed coding over the past few months. It’s definitely something I have always wanted to do but found difficult to stick to due to the lack of tangibility about it all. As referenced in previous posts - coding is often seen to a means to an end, historically to build a website, although maybe apps etc might be a more common application now, but rarely as a means for creative expression in and of itself. My initial approach to coding was quite hack-y, I skipped the idea of doing any sort of formal beginner course and instead, armed with the some miniscule basics picked up customising tumblr themes, would just think of something I wanted to make and then work out how to do it - usually with a lot of head scratching, googling and general frustration until everything aligned for the veritable house of cards to all stay in place. When things come out correct first time, I’m usually completely shocked - even when I might be relatively confident that - in principle - I have inputted the correct code (although time and repetition have recently conspired to make this slightly more common and less surprising). Learning to code in general (even just for a specific area such as the web) is so vast and unending that it’s inevitable that most peoples knowledge will be quite subjective, and obviously until now, working to purpose, this has been extremely so in my case - yet there is at least some sort of relatively simple logic to CSS and HTML, so I wanted to see if I could potentially build on what I had taught myself and get a slightly more rounded understanding of the languages, so recently did the W3 Schools HTML and CSS courses. Generally, I was pretty happy with how much I’d picked up - although I might not have known every HTML tag or CSS variable, I could apply the logic I’d already picked up to get through it all without too much trouble. What this means is that not only could I build a ‘normal’ website without too much difficulty (god forbid!) and also that I can pretty much get my pages looking exactly how I want them... up to a point.

The missing part of my knowledge is really javascript and as my ideas are starting to get a little more ambitious I’m realising it’s something I’m going to have to start getting my head around. The particular aspect of Javascript I’m most interested in learning is the ways in which it can manipulate the HTML <canvas> tag. As the name suggests this allows for more specifically ‘art’ based coding possibilities (outside of the content orientated <div> structure of HTML/CSS). In a lot of ways it seems like a modern equivalent to Flash (looking through his code files it was pretty clear that a lot Rafael Rozendal’s early works had been converted from Flash to being HTML canvas based - presumably - on the formers imminent obsolescence), and is the basis for a lot of online games etc, but it also allows for ‘free hand’ drawing and relatively sophisticated animation functionality (my principle interest however lies in ‘painting’ backdrops for my text work to sit upon). As exhibited in my previous post I have been experimenting a little with canvas based Javascript coding , but I’m realising that the sophistication of Javascript relative to HTML/CSS is such that its not something that can be hacked together quite so easily so I’m starting to do the thing I’ve always avoided up until now and started with the basics (not yet of canvas based uses, but in general - the bare bones of its syntax). So far I think having a distinct application I want to be able to apply the code to has been a real motivator at least, but I’m being cautious not to get too ahead of myself and hit burnout. Submitting to the idea that I wont know everything immediately, and that a natural duration to learning is neccessary in order for things to stick, is a tough pill to swallow though still! At the moment I’m working from a book called ‘A Smarter Way to Learn Javascript’ which operates to the principle of 10 minutes reading and then 20 minutes of provided online exercises and tests, encouraging you to break/refresh after before coming back... so far so good... but still keen to get working on the canvas as soon as possible!

[yellow401]

Just Outside the Circle

The recent excommunion of a Mormon general authority certainly caused a ruckus in some circles around here. When the comments page of the article on the subject made the Salt Lake Tribune’s top six, I knew it was time to stay away.

News coverage of the situation made note of the the interesting fact that it’s been 28 years since someone in such a position has been excommunicated, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes more common in the future. Why? Because it’s hard to be Mormon! And I dare say it’s not going to get any easier. The world is awash

(I fully realize that it’s probably too soon to start using language like “awash,” given that significant portions of Texas, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, The Caribbean, and Florida are or recently were underwater, and I apologize for always being about seven viral news stories behind when I blog. It turns out that blogging the way I do it is exhausting (not because blogging is exhausting en sí, but because I’m not very good at it. This post, for example, was first composed in a notebook on a bus.) and I’ve been too depressed to write much (that’s not precisely true; I wrote another novel earlier this year. But it turns out that writing a novel that nobody has seen yet is easier than writing a blog post that everyone will see right away. Note also that I didn’t say I polished a novel earlier this year. It was enjoyable to write but I’m worried that if I reread it too closely I’ll be somewhat horrified. Maybe not horrified. Is Fridge Sadness a thing? Let’s just say I could probably give it to a shrink to read and receive a fully-fledged diagnosis in return.). Please forgive me.)

in pornography, drug abuse, abuse, cynicism, hatefulness, and stress, to say nothing of the physical hardship, financial difficulty, and lack of basic needs that so much of the world experiences today. It’s not easy to be anybody, for heaven’s sake.

So it was that while news of the recent excommunion of a Mormon General authority created a ruckus in some circles around here, it brought me to a surprisingly (for anyone who has never seen past my snarky, vaguely arrogant public demeanor) tender place.

While I was never ex’ed, I spent a few years, digamos, disaffected from the Church; living, as P. Uchtdorf might put it, well below my privileges, eating beans out of a can on a cruise ship.

(“Digamos” = “shall we say.” “En sí” = “in and of itself.” For some reason I’m using Spanish words today, perhaps when the syntax is more concise in Spanish (because I’m clearly concerned about an economy of words in this post). In a part of the above-mentioned book that takes place in an undisclosed location in México, I decided to have a couple of conversations in Spanish and translate them into English in the footnotes, which is useful for sentences like “Y ahora que él regrese, muriéndose de la misma enfermedad de la cual pidió la cura sin que tuviera esa enfermedad, sí, es bien raro,” (“And now for him to come back, dying from the same disease he asked to be cured of without being sick, yes, it’s quite weird.”) but not so much for sentences like “Ah” (”Ah”) or “No” (”No”). Y bien, basta de ombliguismo por ahora.)

Toward the end of this time, I had a dream, after a mostly sleepless night, that I don’t remember. What I do remember is that when I woke up I had a powerful feeling that it was time for me to stop standing just outside the circle; that it was time for me to fully live the Gospel and accept responsibility for my shortcomings. It was very vivid; it was as though I could see a group of people standing in a circle and I was just outside, able to step forward and join them if I could just bring myself to do it.

That was Thanksgiving morning. One evening in early December I was sitting with my roommates, all of whom were Mormon. One of my roommates had apparently asked for a blessing earlier in the day, and everyone but me gathered around to give it. Then another roommate (all this “roommate roommate” business is going to get confusing rather quickly--shall we call him “Jake?” Así sea (let it be so).) named “Jake” asked if he could also have a blessing, so everyone shuffled around and “Jake” got a blessing. But, just a few words in, “Jake” stopped the blessing. He looked at me (I was seated deferentially on a couch in the opposite corner of the room). He said my name, then, “I want you to stand just outside the circle with us.” Nobody objected, so I got up and stood right by the circle with my head bowed for the remainder of the blessing.

I was quite touched; I was barely able to contain my tears the whole time the blessing was going on. I even felt bold enough to ask for my own blessing, something I certainly wouldn’t have considered a few moments before.

“Jake” was the mouthpiece. One of the first things he said was, “Your Heavenly Father loves you, and He’s very proud of you—”

My eyes flew open. That couldn’t be right. I was a disgusting, contemptible sinner, a loathsome boil on the left butt-cheek of the Church, was I not? I hated myself, so didn’t God hate me? Didn’t He? Well?

I took some notes about the blessing, and about the conversation “Jake” and I had later that night (which I have already referenced in an earlier post), and I changed, after that night: I really tried my hardest to live just outside the circle until such a time as I might be let back in. I had been going to church the whole time because, y’know, BYU; but I started trying harder to get something out of it. I started taking notes at church—a practice I can’t say I’ve kept up ever since (because, y’know, kids . . .). I realized that I had not made time in my schedule to go to the temple when the time came, so I started catching the bus to the temple and sitting in the waiting room for a couple of hours at a time. I also messed up a lot. But I was trying—trying so hard that, at times, it felt like my soul was being held together with a force field. But, eventually, I got my temple recommend back. I got married. We moved. And I realized that all I had to do was show up to my new branch doing a reasonable impression of a Mormon and no one would be the wiser that I was newly fully active in the Church.

Since then, as I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been a spectacularly mediocre member of the Church. But I’m still here, six-and-a-half years later, and I’ve no intention of budging. And I’ve learned—I’m not the only one. There are loads of us standing just outside the circle—or just inside, having only recently entered, or re-entered. The whole idea of everyone at church being perfectly righteous people who confidently march through life accumulating ever-more-grandiose blessings simply isn’t true upon close inspection—behind many a white shirt or floral-print blouse lie hidden doubt, discouragement, even despair. We’ve been told this—Neal A. Maxwell: “The Church is for the perfecting of the saints; it is not a well-provisioned rest home for the already perfected.” Dieter F. Uchtdorf: “The Church is not an automobile showroom—a place to put ourselves on display so that others can admire our spirituality, capacity, or prosperity. It is more like a service center, where vehicles in need of repair come for maintenance and rehabilitation.” —though it can be hard to remember. The way to heaven is strait and narrow, but people arrive at it from many directions.

When I first went to an LDS addiction recovery meeting, I was ashamed of myself—so ashamed that I got and walked out a few minutes after I had sat down. Then I was too ashamed to go back into that room, so I went to another one (and stayed). Shame, shame, shame. Sneak in, sneak out. Don’t be seen. Where do I go on Wednesday nights? I don’t go anywhere. Don’t be silly. I used to avoid the gaze of other young single adults who were at the stake center for Institute-related activities. But then I started to wonder—how many of you lot need to be in here? I started to realize that we were not so different, and I learned (with practice) to hold my head high as I walked bast the gym with the volleyball nets and into the classroom with the circle of chairs.

So it is with all of us—as I was reminded in church yesterday, even one sin will keep us out of heaven, and we’ve all sinned more than once. We’re all in this together. So what if two men walk into Sacrament Meeting and hold hands in the pew? So what if the old woman sitting on the back row smells like smoke? Isn’t it good for them to be at church, too? Are they keeping all the commandments? Nope. Do they know better? Probably. Isn’t it good for them to be at Church, too? Yo creo que sí.

[pastpatientlywaitingforimagines]

I wrote a thing

It’s not a Hamilton thing, and it’s not a homework thing (both of which I should have probably done instead of writing this).

I wrote a thing about Cosmopolitan’s Demisexuality Article. It’s 1300+ words, and I’m pretty proud of it. If you’re interested, it’s under the cut.

A Demisexual Reads Cosmopolitan’s “Everything You Need To Know About Demisexuality” Article (On Snapchat 3/19/17)

When I first Saw Cosmo’s article, I’ll admit I was a little bit excited. Finally something on large scale media about my small scale sexuality. I myself had learned about it from a favorite YouTuber and after realizing I identified closely, did more research on the topic of demisexuality and the ace-spectrum in general. I assumed most people would swipe by this particular article because it wasn’t something people know well enough to catch their attention, but it was at least a way to get the word “demisexual” out there in the universe besides the community of Tumblrites and Youtubers that I know so I gave it a shot. I’m now going to put a disclaimer here: *Everybody interprets their sexuality differently. I am basing most of my critique on personal experience and research. Somebody who experiences and identifies demisexuality differently than I do may disagree with my statements, but I will try to be as general and informative as possible. This is just a reaction to some of the statements made in the initial article*

What initially caught my eye were the chosen photographs to accompany the article. The title page is a man and a woman sensually kissing with rose petals falling and sexy music in the background. The photo in the middle of the article is of a girl in her underwear lying “sexily” on a bed. As a demisexual I don’t quite understand this choice. As a critic I’m a little bit concerned for those who are not familiar with demisexuality. If this is someone’s first exposure to demisexuality and the ace-spectrum, I would say this is very misleading for the obvious reason. Asexual… as in, Not Sexual.

The article is set up simply. A few general questions those who don’t know what demisexuality is are bolded and used as headers for paragraphs that give the information. The first one reads:

“What is Demisexuality?”

The first paragraph answering this question is pretty basic. It explains how not everyone is into casual sex and may prefer to have an emotional connection first, but people who are demisexual require an emotional connection. Pretty simple, pretty accurate. Good job Cosmo! The only thing that stuck out to me was the last line “It’s part of their sexual orientations”. It may have been unintentional, and I could be wrong but there are some people (myself included) who use demisexual as their standalone orientation. I have also seen variations such as demibisexual, pandemisexual, etc. but in my experience most people just call it their sexual orientation. Many demisexuals accompany their demisexuality with a romantic orientation (heteroromantic, homoromantic, biromantic, etc.) but that is a separate entity than the sexual orientation. This is just a minor critique, but it did stand out to me as I read.

In the second paragraph, the Demisexuality Resource Center and AVEN are referenced. Great! The article explains asexuality a little, since demisexuality is on the asexual spectrum. This part was pretty well done. I especially liked the “…demisexuals are capable of sexual attraction but only in specific circumstances, not on a regular basis.” While this is true for other sexualities, especially those on the ace-spectrum, in the context of the article and demisexuality for those who don’t know about it, this is a good way to describe it. What I didn’t like was how the author goes on to say that demisexuals sometimes refer to themselves as gray-ace. While this is true, I also have seen that gray-aces are their own sexuality as well. Through my research I’ve noticed that a lot of the ace-spectrum compensates for the lack of representation by lumping together for ease of explanation, but I felt as if this was an erasure of gray-aces who don’t identify as demisexuals as well.

The next heading was “What is it like to be demisexual?”, and it opens with a quote from a writer who is demisexual. Yes! Using demisexual people in a demisexual article is pretty important to understanding because we’re the people who know how to explain it best. The quote very accurately described the absence of sexual desire that accompanies the ace-spectrum in a demisexual way.

The next paragraph has a quote from the Demisexuality Resource Center, and talked about how little representation of asexuality and specifically demisexuality there is in pop culture and how that contributes to the “brokenness” that a lot of demisexual people feel. This whole section was well written and explained in a simple yet accurate way how demisexuals feel. You’re doing great, Cosmo!

The last heading is “What do critics of the label say?” and here’s where I get most fired up. First paragraph in this section is relatively good. It explains the unfortunately typical responses many demisexuals face, especially when coming out. Pretty simple, pretty accurate, can maybe get the general audience to now see what we get hit with out in the world. Props to the author of the article for having this be the ending section of the article as well. Had they led with these general misconceptions, the audience may have gotten these claims stuck in their heads before they even learned about asexuality and demisexuality. The author’s next paragraph talks about how demisexuals describe their sexual feelings and how “they literally don’t get turned on” unless the emotional connection is there.

The next sentence is about people with low sex drive due to depression, hormonal imbalances, and more, which is good for comparison, I agree, but the end of the sentence completely disregards what the whole previous section of the article was about. The article says they get “bothered” by the lack of sex drive, and feel like something’s missing. While this is probably true (I have no experience to back this up) the next sentence states that demisexuals feel that how they’re experiencing attraction is part of who they are.

While this isn’t untrue, it can be misleading. Many demisexuals, as the author said in the previous section, feel that something is missing, that they're broken. Many don’t even realize that there’s a term for how they feel sexual attraction. In my personal sexuality journey, I would get very scared when I did feel sexual attraction because it wasn’t something I normally experienced, but when I didn’t experience it I was different from everyone else.

At the end, it does say that a version of the article was published in February of 2015, so maybe there’s more to this article than I’m seeing. It’s kind of expected considering the size restraints of the Snapchat article. I also haven’t researched if the author of the article is demisexual, so that could also play a factor in the research and writing of the article in the first place.

Overall, I’d give this article a 4/10. It was decent, in my opinion. It gave the gist of demisexuality, but it didn’t do a very good job of showing the small pinpoint it is on the spectrum of asexuality. It also contradicted itself, as I said, but maybe that’s just syntax.

Even though I’m the only (out) demisexual person I know, this article didn’t go unnoticed like I assumed in the beginning. My boyfriend’s best friend sent the article to him, knowing that I’m demisexual. My boyfriend and I had a good laugh about it, considering the article provided a minimal amount of information compared to my boyfriend and I living it through our sexual relationship and my own sexuality. In the end, everyone’s experience with their sexuality will be a bit different from the next person over, and labels are what you make of them. I think it’s a good thing that the world has seen a glimpse into the life of a demisexual, but I also think it’s difficult to write a piece for a sexuality so paradoxically specific and general and I hope I captured the complexities in my own writing.

[jenny-digital-culture]

Task 3 - Interactivity

Open Form - A type of interactivity where the user communicates with a computer and has a dialogue. For example, the input allows the user to tell the computer what to do, such as a game controller has letter X which makes the character jump. Rules and syntax are used to allow the development of an interactive conversation.

Closed Form - Where little interactivity is required between the user and computer. software that runs without requiring interaction with the user

Physical interactivity - How we affect the physical world around us. This is characterised as a one-way process between ourselves and an object.  Physical interaction can range from something as simple as picking up a pencil to flying a plane.

Internal and cognitive - This is when our brain fills in the missing parts of, say, a film simply by using logic. An example of this is when a character takes two steps upstairs in one clip then the film instantly changes to the character taking their last step reaching the top of the stairs. Directors do this editing technique to keep the film from boring the audience - the film would be a lot more dull if it was filmed in real-time. Our brains can film in the information that’s missing due to the contextual information supplied.

Keyboard - People are able to communicate with computers via keyboard. This allows the user to type code, or more simply, to send messages to someone across the world. Communication is now more simple than ever thanks to the internet and computers.

Mouse - The computer mouse enabled the user to explore the computer’s interface, the coordination is so simple that the user can look at the screen while mindlessly using this tool. With just a couple of clicks and a scroller, users are able to explore programmes and command tasks on the computer.

Video - Users are now able to talk to others over camera though using the internet. Popular apps such as Skype, and facetime, allow people to talk face-to-face no matter how far apart they are. This is great for business for conference calls, saving money on travel and allowing the businesses to expand, or more simply good for long distance relationships.

Microphone - Users can talk to eachother, or record sound using the microphone in the laptop or plugged in externally. This makes it so easy for people to talk to each other with their voices, or even to record music without an expensive studio. Successful music producer Steve Lacy claims he recorded samples of music to send to huge artists using only his iPhone and GarageBand.

Computer simulation is when a computer is used to represent the changing responses of one system by the behaviour of another system modelled after it. This is the actual running of the program that contains equations and algorithms in order to carry out specific rules and behaviours. Therefore meaning that simulation is basically the process of running a model. Simulations are brilliant as simulation modelling solves real-world problems efficiently and reliably.

Hypertext is useful as it allows the cross-referencing between text and graphic material. For example, a blog post talking about a delicious meal could link the reader to its recipe on another website via the hypertext. Hypertext is usually underlined and highlighted in a colour such as blue so the user instantly knows it’s a link to a page or downloadable document.

In order to play a computer game, the user must be able to interact with the software using some kind of device. Due to this, controllers have been invented for games consoles and PCs, and specific keys and the mouse can even be assigned to different interactions within a game on a PC. The use also needs a screen to see the simulation being carried out. Lastly, the user needs some kind of computer to run the system such as a PC, console like a Playstation, or a handheld console like a GameBoy.

Time-based work is contemporary artworks that include video, film, slide, audio, or computer technologies as they have a duration of time as a dimension and therefore reveal themselves to the viewer over time. An example of a time-based work is Titanic; a drama film that runs for a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes. The viewer can not experience this simply by looking at it for a split second or minute, they must watch the film as it runs in its own time to take in the work in its entirety. Another example of time-based work is music, for example, ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ by The Beatles has a duration of 3 minutes and 5 seconds. At any different time of the song, a different part will be playing, therefore making it time-based.

In order to interact with a drawing or C.A.D. application, the user must be able to interact with the programs, preferably without solely using binary interactions. An example of this is allowing the user to use a mouse to draw on the program, all they have to do is simply press down and hold as they drag the mouse across the page. Another way to interact with one of these programs is to attach a tablet to the computer, meaning the user can hold a stylus and draw, allowing for more accurate results with ease of use.

[mediacommsandorangejuice]

A variation on the last essay about internet culture and media.  I didn’t finish the referencing and I talk about tenplay instead of kickstarter.  I don’t remember why I changed it before handing it in, but here’s the other version anyway.

The rapid onset and evolution of the internet has, and continues to, create huge changes to the way media texts are produced, distributed, and understood. The most powerful feature of the internet is its facilitation of polylogical communication – connecting hundreds, thousands of people and allowing them to interact and collaborate creatively in a completely democratic or decentralised environment (ref: lecture). Reddit is an excellent example of how this power has changed the production and consumption of texts, while Tenplay exemplifies the old structure struggling to maintain its status quo while keeping up with the 21st century.  Reddit has been described as “The gateway to everything interesting going on in the world” (Grey, 2015).  It is a hub of news, discussion, and user generated content about every possible topic.  The website has given rise to countless global communities, which have then developed their own dialects of acronyms and images that outsiders would have difficulty understanding.  Tenplay offers nothing new, and only the barest minimum of customisation options, it only shows evidence of changing distribution methods.

The internet has wrought huge changes to the way texts are produced, distributed, and understood, and Reddit demonstrates all of these. It embodies every aspect of the definition of Polylogical communication.  According to Watson (2015) polylogical communication is democratic or decentralised, universal, and mostly unmediated; allowing overlapping communication of any type (one-one, one-many, many-many, etc.).  Reddit is “a beautiful fractal” (Grey, 2015) of ‘subreddits’, forums dedicated to any and all possible subjects, and the popular topics of each are decided by the democratic ‘upvote’ system in which users vote content up or down depending on their preference and its relevance.  Anyone can join the website and immediately starting submitting content of their own and discussing others content.  Although most subreddits have moderators to ensure content is relevant and respectful, discussions are otherwise unmediated.  As well as the many-many communication seen in the threads, Reddit also has a private messaging system allowing one-one communication.  Subreddits such ‘I Am A’, in which users reveal an interesting job or hobby of theirs and then field questions about it, or ‘Ask A Scientist’ also offer a modicum of one-many communication.   Frequently a discussion in one subreddit will require a link to another, and when a subreddit focusses on a particularly popular topic it will often fracture into several smaller subreddits to avoid clutter.

If Reddit is the epitome of polylogical communication, Tenplay is dialogical.  Dialogical communication is mostly from the producer to the user, but with limited feedback from the audience (Watson, 2015). Tenplay offers replays of TV shows shown on the Ten, One, and Eleven freeview channels, as well as having a free membership feature offering further features.  Members can create playlists of videos, enter competitions, and vote in polls for reality TV shows.  The customisation options, competitions, and social media integration add a limited amount of feedback for users, but the predominant direction of communication remains from the producer to user.

The focus on polylogical communication by Reddit and similar websites has allowed significant changes in the way texts are produced, distributed and understood. The biggest feature of Reddit that allows these changes is the existence of global, interest-based communities. Users of the website are provided with a place to find and talk to others who share their interests, and from these relationships they can create new content, remix existing content, and share anything they create with an audience they know will like it.  Perhaps the biggest impact these communities have had though, is on the way content is understood.

Websites like Reddit, and even specific subreddits or groups of subreddits, have given rise to new dialects native to the internet.  Text-based communication lacks the audio and visual cues that allow a nuanced understanding of verbal speech.  To make up for this, internet users have employed a variety of creative tactics.  As most early users, and many current users of these websites have at least a basic understanding of programming, it is unsurprising that syntax and expressions from various programming languages have been coopted to express various emotions.  For example, when typing a piece that is intended as sarcastic, users will often add ‘/s’ to signify both the presence and end of sarcasm.  Another tactic is to simply write a description of the emotion or emotive action a user wishes to convey. This would be surrounded by some form of parentheticals, for example ‘*screams*’.  Alternately users integrate visual representations of their emotions.  This can range from ever-evolving emoticons (most recent ones including non-latin characters to convey more complex situations) to reaction images (often unrelated and usually captioned photographs or cartoons).  These new ways to communicate all affect the way content is understood, and often also contribute to remix culture, for example turning a still from a TV show into a reaction image.

While Reddit drives changes in the production, distribution, and understanding of content, Tenplay is very much a reaction to them. The website was launched in 2013, 8 years after the YouTube, and 5 years after Netflix launched its online streaming service (Ref) (Ref) (Ref).  The distribution of video and TV shows was changing, and traditional media had no choice but to adopt the trends to stay relevant.  Users were demanding more control over when and how they consumed media, which forced the creation of these catch-up services. The production of the content continued in the traditional way, and changes in understanding seem to have barely been considered. Although Tenplay offers some customisation and interactive features, the website still follows a dialogical communication method. Conversations are limited to the producer and the user, there is no comment section or forum where fans can talk to each other about the content.

The internet has brought about a lot of changes to the way media texts are produced, distributed, and understood.  While both Reddit and Tenplay are evidence of these changes, one is a driver of them while the other is a reaction.  Changing trends in distribution forced catch-up streaming services like Tenplay to become a reality, with changes in production and understanding of the texts being held in the status-quo.  Meanwhile community based website like Reddit are hubs for remixing and discussion of content.  Their polylogical focus allows changes to occur rapidly at all three levels, production, distribution, and understanding of media content.

Bibliography

CPG Grey. 2013. “What is reddit?” YouTube video, posted September 9, 2013. Accessed October 21, 2015. https://youtu.be/tlI022aUWQQ

King, Andrew. 2015. “Remix Culture.” Accessed October 22, 2015. https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-6004631-dt-content-rid-5157449_1/courses/KCB101_15se2/KCB101%20-%20Week%2011.pdf

Network Ten. 2015. “Tell me about tenplay!”  Accessed October 23, 2015. http://tenplay.com.au/faqs#TellMe

Network Ten. 2015. “My TV.” Accessed October 23, 2015. http://tenplay.com.au/general/my-tv

Reynolds, Megan. 2013. “Tenplay launch helps Ten to strong catchup numbers.” Accessed October 25, 2015. http://mumbrella.com.au/homelands-audience-jumps-consolidated-ratings-catch-tv-184407

Turner, Aiden. 2015. “TENplay cracks Apple TV in TV Everywhere push.” Accessed October 24, 2015. http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/computers/gadgets-on-the-go/tenplay-cracks-apple-tv-in-tv-everywhere-push-20150130-131vha.html

Watson, Anne-Francis. 2015. “Digital Media & Remix Culture.” Accessed October 21, 2015. https://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-5803896-dt-content-rid-4345549_1/xid-4345549_1

Wikipedia. 2015. “Netflix.” Accessed October 25, 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix#Internet_video_streaming

Wikipedia. 2015. “Youtube.” Accessed October 25, 2015. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube