#or who don't know what the egg grading system is about

[jmflowers]

Thanks for the Red Delish history; they’re the apple I grew up with, and it was so interesting to read their storied past. Very intriguing stuff! I gotta branch out and try some more apples. Your passion has inspired me. Honestly honeydew is probably in my top 5 –maybe top 3– favorite fruits. Beats cantaloupe by a country mile

Oh man, I typed you out a whole beautiful answer and then lost it! Let’s see what I can remember… I think I started right here:

My dude, I could talk about apples (and fruit) all damn day. I grew up with Red Delicious apples, too, and remember liking them, even. But then I got spoiled by working on a farm, in close proximity to an orchard that grows 14 different varieties just of apples, and I don't think I could ever go back. (Don’t get me started on strawberries and raspberries and pumpkins and corn.) Not sure I'd eat a Red Delicious these days. Or a Gala.

Honeydew is a super cool fruit, too. We have such easy access to it because it’s one of a few that can grow in both hemispheres. It’s also a winter melon, which means it’s got a good thick skin to help protect it during transportation. Like apples, though, there are a bunch of different cultivars and they all have a slightly different taste. If I were a connoisseur like yourself and happened to live in the USA, I’d be heading to California in the late summer/early fall (August, September, or October) to eat a few in their peak season. Everything always tastes better in season if you can eat it right where it’s grown.

Your feelings on cantaloupe might actually be defined by what continent you live on, though. North America has a different type of cantaloupe taking precedence in the market than Europe does – in fact the rinds are different enough that I’m not sure I’d recognize a European Cantaloupe as a cantaloupe right away, having grown up in North America. Behind watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew make up the top three exported melons in the world. And they’re also in season in California around the same time as honeydew.

But listen, if we’re gonna trash cantaloupe, it’s gotta be on the grounds of their rinds being prime hangout grounds for salmonella. A mouldy cantaloupe in Illinois in 1942 was found to contain the highest yielding strain of mold for penicillin production after a worldwide search.

Honestly, like an embarrassing amount of fruit, I think most people just serve melon either over- or under-ripe. This mass-exportation world we live in takes us further and further away from our food sources and so we end up with things that no one actually knows what to do with or how to handle properly. All those “organization” videos of people loading their fridges with their groceries and washing their strawberries to put them away just makes me wonder if they’ve ever been on a strawberry farm, since most strawberry farmers will tell you the easiest way to ruin their flavour is to wash them too early.

Does it help or hurt my street cred if I follow all that up with a #buylocal? Haha

[crowmance]

dear a younger me

*assuming younger is like 12 right before my egg cracked

hi! I know i probably look a little different than you thought! didn't expect a girl in a dress, did you?

I know school is hard right now. Your best friend, who you've known as long as you can remember, just left for a different school, and you don't know how to be social without him, or even if you'll ever see him again (don't worry, you will!). You're stuck in an unfamiliar place, pulled out of your small neighborhood elementary school and stuck in a massive middle school with a class of hundreds, when you were used to a class of 30. You're being placed into phys ed classes for the first time in your life, and becoming more aware of your body, and the bodies of the people around you. The societal expectations of being a pre-teen boy, suddenly robbed of the person you considered your shield, and who dragged you through school with him, and who taught you that maybe it was ok to not be normal for the first time, are crushing. (he went to a different school for the last 2 years? my memory is spotty im not sure, of elementary school)

You're looking around at the others in your class, the other boys you want so desperately to fit in with. But no matter how hard you push yourself, everything just seems... off, especially when it comes to the gym classes you were forced into, where you watch the other boys change into their workout clothes. You're a "gifted" student, placed suddenly in a massive public middle school, and you've just learned what gifted means to the public school system and applied for a school especially for gifted students, so surely that's all. Until, finally, at the end of your first quarter in that school, you manage to transfer to the magnet school, where you finally are able to go to school with him again - and are put back into an environment where you can actually feel safe again. But still, even having retreated behind the friends you had and the new friends you're making, and back in a small, tight knit environment that can cater to your "giftedness" (or your ADHD, as you'd come to know), something still feels off, and still nags at you every day of your life. All things may come and go, and some of the people you meet will become fixtures or more than that even all these years later.

A little while after finally transferring to the school, you'll start talking with some others more on the periphery of your friend group, and you'll learn about Dragon, a non-binary person in your grade. They'll be your first exposure to the idea of changing the body you're in to be something else, and, after quite a lot more struggling than I can fit in a letter, you'll come to realize why you could never seem to be comfortable ever since you learned what the difference between a boy and a girl was according to the traditional society you were raised in. Surprise, you aren't a young boy, but rather a beautiful young woman, trapped behind societal expectations. And once you realize that, you'll finally be able to feel, perhaps not at peace, but on the road there. It'll be a while until you can finally start exploring who you really are, but having that seed of truth within you gives you the confidence to start seeking her out.

Of course, like many of the best things in life, this won't come easily. You'll have to face your parents lack of support, and having no healthy way to navigate your rapidly declining mental health, since you don't have health insurance - not that you even know what that is at this point in your life. You'll face your own deep set homophobia from your elementary school days, since you didn't know what a gay or a queer person was except when it was used to bully others - and yourself - by your peers. You'll have to navigate the hell of going through a puberty you don't want, and watching your body become something you'll learn to hate, without having any way around it.

Eventually you'll move into high school, and there you'll finally be granted the freedom and the safety to start to truly exploring yourself. Oh, there will be setbacks, and it'll be absolutely terrifying, but that seed of truth within yourself will finally be able to start to grow. The first day you wear a skirt to school is absolutely horrifying - what will everyone think? - but eventually you start throwing together outfits you like, and building confidence in yourself. You'll even get the occasional compliment on your outfit from people you went to middle school with, and break down crying from joy at it more than once. Oh, and not to mention the first time you use a women's restroom instead of a men's, the absolute terror of making someone uncomfortable in a space like that, which was actually not an issue after wrangling with it for years on end. Your parents will show flickers of support, and your mom will even take you to get some of your first feminine clothes, but they'll never truly catch on. There's plenty of fights and fear, and you'll not be able to start hormones until you turn 18, and the wait is crippling, but you'll get there. Strong, beautiful Iris, through hell and back, you'll get there.

Of course we have our own struggles to this day. I'm only just now learning to cope with the trauma I realized I felt through all of that, and the distance it's created with mom and dad, and oh, we have our fair share of medical issues. But you have so many new friends, who you've learned to love so deeply, and even a partner - or two. You get to help other trans people through their own journeys, and seeing the joy on their faces makes it all worth it sometimes. Some days it feels hopeless, but I remember how much you went through for me to be able to be free today. And what a beautiful freedom it truly is.

Remember how strong and beautiful you are,

Iris

[nothorses]

I think what's especially annoying to me about the "culturally Christian" argument is that people pushing the phrase (as a way of referring to individuals) tend to argue that it's describing a difference in what you know about cultures and religions outside of Christianity.

That's how they justify applying it to atheists and agnostics who don't come from a minority religion background, right? You don't know about any other religion, you must know about Christianity no matter what because that's the dominant religion here, which means you're closer to Christianity than anything else.

But like.

I was raised atheist by people who were raised atheist. Adults around me knew about Christianity, but because we never talked about it, I didn't know anything about any religion for a good chunk of my childhood.

I found out Christmas was a religious holiday when I was like 9; I thought it was about Santa before that, and I literally did not know what the nativity scene was.

I thought Easter was about eggs and bunnies until I was about the same age. I did not understand who Jesus was when it was finally explained to me; I received that information in 7th grade social studies class, when my teacher was explaining the divergence of the three Abrahamic religions.

I learned the vast majority of what I know about Christianity in art history classes I took for my degree, and I was, at the same time, working at a Jewish afterschool program; a not-insignificant part of my job was helping to lead Shabbat prayers and teaching kids about upcoming Jewish holidays. We discussed Jewish values and how they related to the structure of the program very regularly. I cannot stress enough that this was part of a Jewish community center in which a Rabbi worked and relevant gatherings and celebrations happened.

I would say I know more about Christianity, but it's not a huge margin, and a lot of that is repetition; things I've learned about Christianity have been reinforced and repeated over time, and that's not really true of Judaism for me. Had I worked at the JCC for more than two years, my answer might be different.

I would say that I received a lot of Christian messaging growing up, because our broader cultural values are heavily rooted in those ideas. Everyone gets that messaging. What they do with it might depend on their family's culture and religion, and it might depend on their own internal processing. I can say, personally, that much of that messaging didn't stick for me; I realized there was no "real" reason for those beliefs at a pretty young age, and spent a lot of time obsessing over the internal consistency of my own value system. I rejected a lot of them, often without even knowing where they were coming from.

So yeah, you could absolutely say I know more about Christianity, I've been exposed to more of it, and that I've been surrounded by more of it. But everyone in this country experiences this too some degree; to draw highly individualized conclusions about that based on the fact that I'm an atheist alone feels disingenuous, to say the least. Atheism is why I was questioning those things, and rejecting many of them; how is that different from other beliefs? Why does the fact that there is no higher power involved make that less significant than for those who do believe in one?

Don't get me wrong, our culture is Christian. This has an impact on individuals, and I think it's fair to say that some people are more driven to challenge those ideas than others. I'd argue that atheism does require challenging Christian ideas on its own, but I can concede that as a generally self-directed thing, it's easier for folks to just not self-reflect in that way than it might be when going through a guided conversion process.

But.

That line isn't hard and fast, and it's unfair to insist that it is just for the sake of convenience. Particularly when Christians themselves are unwilling to include anyone different from them, especially for the sake of sharing their power.

[duckapus]

(So you know how this

is a Thing in the Disgaea series? Wanted to do something with that in the SMG AU but make it Not A Joke.)

While relaxing at home, Shantae hears a knock on her lighthouse's front door, "Coming!"

As she walks over, she wonders who could be visiting this late in the evening. It probably wasn't either of her SMGs, seeing as they'd already had an incident involving Ammo Baron and an unusually large Egg (the capitalization there is important) and filled their Wacky Misadventure quota for at least the next few days. And her canon friends all usually had their own things going on at home right about now.

Well, no more time to speculate. She opens the door with a hopefully-not-too-wide smile (Avatar-grade GMod physics are a real bitch sometimes), "Good evening! What can I...do...uh..."

She's stunned speechless by who she finds; a very tall, very attractive woman who is also very clearly Laharl! She does her best to look up at them, and then very quickly further up when she underestimates the height difference. 'Ohhh, mother have mercy do NOT oogle your genderbent mean demon friend We Have Sexy Zombie Girlfriend at Home.'

For their part, Laharl looks uncharacteristically nervous, or at least is uncharacteristically not hiding their nerves behind either aloofness or rage, "Hi Shantae. If you're not too busy I was hoping for some magic advice?"

'Okay, friend needs help. That I can work with.' "Of course! Come on in."

The two head inside and into the living room, with Shantae settling into a chair while Laharl takes the couch.

"So, what kind of advice where you looking for?"

"Well, uh...I'm guessing you've noticed I look different right now?"

'Different is certainly right.' "Well, I wasn't gonna say anything but...wait, I think I remember this from your games. Did you get stuck like this again from a SMG adventure or something? 'Cause I definitely know a few tricks to make a transformation revert."

There's a flash of...relief? embarrassment? something across their face before they go back to nervous, "Oh, you know where it's from. That makes things easier. And ah, no, dispelling it isn't the problem, I actually changed on purpose this time and I already know the counterspell. I was actually wondering if you know how to modify a transformation."

'Huh, okay then.' "Yeah, I've done that before. Not sure how compatible our magic systems are, but I can at least tell you what works for me. So, what kind of changes are we looking for? Hair color, shoe size, you wanna add wings or a tail?"

"Ah, nothing that drastic, I really just...just want it to feel...more like "me," I guess..." Despite how much taller they are than usual, they quickly curl in on themselves as they say this, suddenly seeming smaller than she's ever seen them.

'Oh...ohhhh.' "This...isn't the first time you've used this form on purpose, is it?"

"...No. I ah, I don't use it very often, there's a lot about it that's honestly a bit much, especially given...well, if you've played the games you probably know about a particular phobia of mine?"

"Yeah...That. That boss fight really hit different after I actually met you."

"Right, so this?" they gesture to their chest, "Does not work for me. Plus it just generally feels like some...some stupid exaggerated fanservicy parody of me. Which makes sense since that's all it was really supposed to be but like, come on!"

"Trust me, I get it. But, you're using it anyway?"

"Yeah, well...at certain points being mildly uncomfortable like this is still an improvement over my boy form."

"About that, I've been using 'they' for you in my head since you got here since I wasn't really sure what was going on. Would you prefer 'she,' or..."

Laharl finally fully relaxes at that, her presence once again filling the room like it usually does, "Yes, please do."

"No problem. Now, to start off, we'll probably want to get you down to your usual age...wait, are you older right now? 'Cause it kind of seems like it, but with how much is different I'm not sure."

She tilts her hand in a 'so-so' gesture, "Kind of? It's-so I'm guessing you know how I got this form the first time?"

"Flonne's angel world flowers, right?"

"Exactly. Now for most of the demons affected it just messed with their internal magic in some way and caused minor physical changes, but I'm half human, so it outright suppressed my demon half. Not enough to interfere with my power level, thankfully, but it made it so I was technically only about forty percent demon. And since humans have far shorter lifespans than demons and my human half specifically came from my mother, the result was me going from a teenage boy to a woman in her early twenties."

"Huh. That's actually kinda neat. And in that case dropping your age is definitely the right starting point. Thankfully I have plenty of experience with that thanks to my Monkey form. So, how you want to start is-"

This goes on for the better part of the evening, and by the time the sun goes down Laharl has a form she can feel much more comfortable in.

After putting the finishing touches on the new and improved Girl Laharl, the demonic Avatar looks out one of the windows, "Oh, I didn't realize how late it was. I should probably be getting back to-" she gets up to leave, only to suddenly feel dizzy and lightheaded, "woah, uh..."

Shantae quickly shoots up and helps her stay steady, "Oh my gosh I am so sorry! I forgot how much of a workout someone's first time messing with transformation magic like that is!"

"It's-I'm fine! Just stood up too fast I think." typical Laharl stubbornness. she really is feeling more like herself, "I can still get home just fiIIIINE!"

Aaand once again Shantae saves her from faceplanting when she stumbles and trips over nothing, "Oh no, I am not letting you try to make a portal back to your castle when you can barely walk! I can call Etna and let her know you're crashing here tonight."

"Fiiiine..." she...is she actually pouting? 'Oh dear mother, sleepy Laharl is adorable!'

After getting laid down on the (actually alarmingly comfortable, like where did she find cushions this soft on her peanuts salary?) couch, she once again drops her usual attitude, looking up at Shantae with completely undisguised affection, "Hey, uh, thanks for...everything you did to help me tonight."

"Anytime." as she grabs a blanket for her guest, she adds "And I do mean that. Anytime you need help, with this or anything else, you can come to me, got it."

"Got it."

"And thank you for trusting me enough to tell me about all this." She crouches down so they'll be at eye level, even if Laharl's are already half-closed, "I know how hard it can be to come out to someone."

"Mmm, 'course I trust you. You're family." And with that she's out like a light.

Shantae...actually chokes up a little at that. With her parents out of the picture since before she can remember, and Scuttle Town being...well, Scuttle Town, she can count on her hands the number of people she'd honestly have called family before all this Meme stuff, especially since Seven Sirens and the other four half-genies hadn't existed yet when the pods dropped, and she knows full well that Laharl's own complicated family-related hangups are far worse. So for her to say that so openly and honestly, even while half asleep...

On some sort of impulse, she leans down and brushes Laharl's hair out of her face gently enough not to wake her, "I swear, I'll do my best to live up to that," With that said, she gets back up, opens her command box...and takes a picture of the sleeping Avatar before sending it to Etna.

>Hey, Laharl wore herself out and needed a place to crash, so dw when she's not back til tomorrow.

>HOLY SHIT SHES SO FUCKING CUTE!!!! i gota send this 2 Flonny n the Gs

>thx 4 helpin hr btw, none of us r shapeshifters so we coldnt do jack

>*thumbs up*

'Hell yeah, I got this sister thing on lockdown.'

[riddlerosehearts]

watched the dreamworks movie "home" today. some thoughts: -i wish this movie had a way more distinctive title. i don't have any of the streaming services it's on so i had to find a place to watch it and having it just be called "home" made that kind of difficult. i saw on wikipedia that this was based on a book called "the true meaning of smekday", so why wasn't something along those lines included in the title?

-the speech quirks that oh and the other aliens have mildly annoy me but i can look past them. i mostly just wish jim parsons had done more of a unique voice for oh because all i can hear the entire time is "sheldon cooper but he talks kind of funny". and i really don't like the big bang theory so that was distracting. also, why is rhianna playing a 7th grade girl?

-the plot starts because oh tries to send this one guy whose name i don't remember an invite to his house and accidentally sends it to literally the entire galaxy because there's a button that does that right next to the regular send button?? he says it's not his fault and that it's bad design and he's literally right what the fuck 😭 but the other guy gets mad at him because now their enemies will know where they are.

-this is just kind of unbelievable to me as a cause for conflict because like. Why. just why would that ever even happen. does every alien of their species have access to that kind of system, and if so, again, why!?!? but again, i looked past it because it's a kids movie so whatever i guess.

-and as for the rest of the movie, i had heard mixed things about it before and didn't really have any expectations for it. honestly i just didn't really like it as oh and tip's individual characters and their relationship never clicked for me or felt fleshed out enough, so the emotional beats never landed--one problem i had with tip in particular was that she didn't seem to act like a girl who was facing the trauma of not only being separated from her mom but having had her entire planet abducted? the whole thing just felt oddly paced and rushed to me and i was never really engaged in what was going on. however it did have some cute moments and i can see why some people might enjoy it. i can see what they were trying to do with oh and tip both being outcasts who through their very unlikely friendship find someone who they feel like they can fit in with, and how it has a bit of an anticolonialism message in the way that meeting tip teaches oh that the way his species had been living was wrong and they end up living on the moon at the end instead of taking over earth. it's a sweet story, although the entire thing is also very reminiscent of lilo and stitch and doesn't do enough to make itself stand out to me. the twist at the end where the leader of the gorgs (the enemy species) turned out to be the only gorg left who was trying to track down an egg containing his children was also pretty cute.

-overall, it wasn't completely awful imo. i put it in D tier on my list--where i put the "bad but not awful" movies. so it's above shark tale and turbo at least, but i'll still probably never watch it again.

[thelonewolf48]

MSHD Season 3, Episode 3

Let's see how wrong this series can go and still give us our ship.

This post got out of hand so, be warned that is LONG!

High Hills and the whole teaching three languages, robotics and computer science gives me war flashbacks to my own school (I went to a private catholic school up until 6th grade). But they did teach us a little about ecology and horticulture... as for the meditation, well, we slept around at least two hours in kindergarten and had like an hour for ourselves (aside from lunch break) for reading and doing other things... so, I don't see a problem there.

But I do know where this is going and I mean, sure, there are schools like that, but at least in my city public and private school accept everyone. Gay or not. NOW, that they discriminate the kids and their families... yeah, that happens everywhere in our conservative and religious society.

I don't like the translation change they did in Alta's comment: The subs read "Ah, wonderful, Miss Ana. They're gonna be as smart as their ma." To which Mariana and Ana simultaneously answer "Oh, God, I hope not" and "They will."

But what Alta really said was "How cute, Miss Ana. Are they going to attend the same school as you?" (Or, I guess, it sounds better as Are they gonna attend your alma mater?") Whichever it is... I don't like that they changed the comment because it seems that Mariana doesn't want the girls to be as smart as Ana, even though she tells everyone that Ana is really smart. Anyway, little easter egg.

You know what? I love Victor and Tere's dynamic. I've seen men like him, my dad and one of my uncles. My aunt had a high risk pregnancy and we all helped her out so, I kinda understand Victor but I don't think Tere isn't that bad... she just needs rest lol But I love them and the whole plots Tere does to try to go outside, while Victor tries to prevent her to escape. LOVE THEM!

Ro, cutie pie, I understand your hate and bad behavior... but the fact no one is telling him to tone down his comments is off. Especially, coming from a Mexican mom. Which, fair, not all moms are the same but if I ever said something like that or raised my voice or even rolled my eyes, my mom (and aunts and basically any grown up) would scold me and maybe ground me for a week (to say the least)

Again will rant about the subs! It sounds so damn aggressive, in the subs JC says "Did you not learn the lesson?" and Ana answers "I learned you're an asshole." WOW, WOW, WOW! JC actually says "See why I sued you?" and Ana answers something along the lines of "because you're stubborn" or "you're a fool." To tell someone asshole, here in Mexico, is like a really big thing and Ana didn't insult him here... so, I wonder why they decided to write asshole... I need answers!

And then, the next comment seems a bit off because she's not being as aggressive as the subs make Ana sound... (or maybe it's me who feels it's aggressive?) Anyway, the subs read "And you don't need to know everything if it's what's best for the girls. I figured it'd be okay" and in reality Ana says "Because I do include you in everything, but in due time. I don't even know if there's an spot available."

Subs, you're sus!

They did not just dressed a girl in a cosplay, right? ... No, they did... because of course that's how everyone looks like inside a japanese company... Never change, Mexico. Never change. LOL

Ferran and Mariana, sighs. I'm not gonna dig into that and I will rant about JC and Ana but that a few paragraphs later.

Subs... you're giving me a headache... It sounds so wrong how JC sounds when he says "if you come, dress nice" when in reality he tells Ana "think about it and let me know" SUBS YOU'RE ON THE AGRESSIVE SIDE!

Hmmm, eating soil strengthens the immune system, really? THEN WHY I GET SICK ALL THE TIME?!!!! I've eaten my share of soil and still get sick all the damn time! /sighs/ anyway, Ana throwing chocolates to the kids is so funny though!

Cynthia really is a mini Ana in the making lol, poor Pablo though.

I gotta love Romelia's guts and clever ideas, she doesn't buy that Mariana and Ana are dating but also wants to prove that Mariana and Ferran are together. I love her lol

SUBS HOLY SHIT, WHAT?

The subs: "I never want you to be seen in public with that dumb little slut ever again"

What they really said: "I never want you to be seen in public with that girl"

And the subs called Mariana little slut twice in the same scene... and he never said that...

Then, subs go into a different direction. In the subs, Ana says "With that mouth, I hope it all burns to the ground" JC says "Ana, come on, it's for the children", then Ana "No, this is for you, Juan Carlos" and Ana in reality says "I will not follow your discriminatory rules" JC's dialogue is the same but then Ana says "No, it's because of the children (that I'm saying this)"

And then, it's interesting that when Ana is telling JC's father off that again in the subs, Ana is attacking him when in reality she is defending JC and accepting part of the blame for their failed marriage. In subs, Ana says "And because you're an incompetent sorry old man, I will never help you" vs what she really says "Just because I don't fit into your old-fashioned, conservative mold."

Ana isn't just angry telling him off, she is also telling a message to everyone who thinks like him, viewers included (or at least, I hope that was the writers' intentions)

Subs being sus, again!

What's up with the subs and them calling everyone assholes? JC calling his father an asshole in the subs is totally wrong because he doesn't insult him... but I'm not gonna continue ranting about it.

Subs... I'm...

I don't know what to do with these subs... They're aggressive when they shouldn't be and then they aren't when they should!

Subs: Tere: "And you won't tell me what to do with my body! Or what I want with it! A body you won't touch! Even when the doctor says so. Get it out of your head, or it's a problem, hmm?"

Reality: "I'm a woman with her own life and body! A body you won't touch! Even when the doctor said we can fuck without problems, hmm?"

Subs: Tere: "Look at me. I am a woman. Never ever again say that! I am anything other than what you see right here. And now get out of my face, hmm?"

Reality: "I am a free, funny, and sexy woman! And I will not allow you to stop seeing me as such! Nor will I cease to be!"

Although similar in it's message, I think it gives the scene very different messages. Although, again, maybe it's just me.

Business partners with benefits... I need a business partner, anyone available? LOL

Cynthia and Pablo, 11/10

The other issue I have is that after Ana and Mariana crashed the school entrance, Ro goes back into a loving kid and we never see Ana acknowledging the bully Ro was suffering, nor we see Ro telling Ana he is sorry for the way he behaved... and now it turns out Ro was only trying to protect the babies... THAT'S... THAT'S... /sighs/

And I need to go, but I love that JC finally see the light and pulled the law suit off! YAAAAAAY now I wonder what mess will the writers throw at me... lol

[mydarksadshadow]

shadow work day 10

date: 22nd Dec '22

what is a list of things that I find inspiring?

inspiring toh bahot sari cheezein lagti hain. lekin sirf inspire hone se nahi chalta, usko life me apply krna zyada matter krta hai. waise the list would include feminism, feminists, people who fight through odds like not having a support system and yet still going on to achieve the things they wanted in life, people with unwavering optimism in finding better people for their lives despite getting disappointed repeatedly by shitty people (that's me, I'm tryna stay positive, I hope I find at least one friend soon, but I won't tell her any of my fears/weaknesses, ain't makin that mistake again). bas zyada aur kuch nahi, I think I am my own competition and strength. I trust myself enough to get out of this now.

what am I insecure about? when did these insecurities start and why?

I think I am still a bit insecure about my native tongue when my parents speak in front of people that I know, and I think it stems from my inferiority complex (IC). I have managed to overcome 99% of my ICs, except for this part. I have inherited my IC issues from my mom. she ain't insecure about the language part though surprisingly. I'm also insecure about failing 11th grade but as long as that part of me stays hidden from the rest of the world, I couldn't care about it any less at this point. one can't do much when their parents are cunts. I guess I am also insecure about my weaknesses like the fact that I don't really have a relationship with my parents so it'll be awkward to invite friends over cus we ain't a normal family by any means, and the loneliness feels quite painful too sometimes. my weaknesses make me insecure cus they are a reminder of how shit my life has been in the past couple of years and how horribly hopeless I have felt this whole time. ups and downs of life I guess. never letting my fucking egg and sperm donor control my fucking life again. motherfucking cunts. also, I just realized that currently, I don't feel worthy enough of having a loving, romantic relationship cus of how unworthy that fuckboy made me feel. he's the biggest cunt ever. maybe if I start spending more time with other people, I'll stop feeling like this.

what was my favorite activity as a child? do I still do this activity today?

I used to love reading and playing/spending time with my friends. It eased me from the pain and abuse I endured at home. I enjoyed reading a lot as it helped me escape the world for a few hours and it made me more self-aware and independent compared to my peers (i wish I also had more self-esteem though) and gave me hope for a better future, plus it made my English strong and gave me this cool-ass personality. *flips hair* I still try to read from time to time and I wish I did it more often, and I would love to have the company of some real non-toxic friends now. my fingers are always crossed for that. let's see how things pan out in the next couple of months.

what are the things that I am looking forward to during my lifetime?

I am looking forward to having a fulfilling career, wonderful friends who are kind, loving, supportive, and generous (and I mirror the same qualities in our friendship), and marrying the man of my dreams who is everything I could have desired for and he feels the same way about me and we make each other very happy. I also look forward to having 3 beautiful kids, and a pet dog, and a Persian cat, and living a comfortable & luxurious life with no money-related worries in life whatsoever, and actually feeling worthy of receiving healthy, unconditional love from people around me.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

So, I have a theory about uninsulated cables and I want to know if it holds water. So, Entrapta called Hordak out on using uninsulated cables. The meta on that is, of course, the Crew-Ra just wanted something techy-sounding for him to make a mistake on and threw that out there, but it comes across as such a dumbass mistake to anyone who knows the dangers of live wires. Since there has been discourse about Hordak's tech-prowess (don't worry, I'm a friend, not here to rawr at you), I have a headcanon that Hordak has good base-intelligence, but is only slightly more creative than a turnip because he is stymied by a need to follow the Ways of Prime. As such, is the use of uninsulated cables due to lack of materials (and Entrapta just happened to have better cables stashed in her hair?) or is that a Prime-thing that Hordak was imitating? Did Prime use uninsulated cables as a "don't care" or as a flex? The lack of keeping an efficient charge sounds like it might be no problem for a Galactic Emperor who has access to unlimited power (constantly harvesting conquered worlds for their electricity-generating resources). He is unlikely to care if his clones get electrocuted, but the resource-waste.... hmmm... maybe inefficient electrical systems were for him, like buying those big gas-guzzling trucks and installing coal-rollers are for some people (show they can afford it and how "big" they are). Wasting electricity with bad-cabling is like the Horde Prime equivalent of that for some reason. What do you think?

This post is absolutely unhinged and I love it

Anyway I wouldn't be surprised if Entrapta was carrying portal grade cables in her hair but i think it's more likely she stole them from a life support machine or something

I think it's entirely possible that Hordak is trying to replicate high-level technology using low-level resources, and therefore he's not doing it right. He's not going back to the basics because he doesn't understand them well enough. Perhaps Prime's tech didn't need insulated cables but Hordak's does because he's using different materials, and he doesn’t understand technology well enough to realise this. 

It's like trying to trace Jojo art when you don't know how to draw

Or trying to make caviar out of quail eggs

[jmtorres]

had a weird conversation today where I said Id gotten vaccinated for flu & covid (bivalent booster) and it knocked me flat and i slept for three days, and the guy i was chatting with thought i'd contracted the actual illnesses not been vaccinated

i think we have a reluctance to talk about normal vaccine effects--I don't even want to side effects, because you're deliberately setting off your immune system, this is what is supposed to happen. But because there's so much anti-vax bullshit we try to pretend vaccination is 100% positive and has no downsides and... I think that's actually more harmful in the long run, like people who may not have an opinion get a vaccine and the experience kinda sucks for a few days and they go "oh the anti-vaxxers were right!" well no they weren't, the vaccine is NOT worse than the disease, but it's not fun, that's true.

So it's always remotely possible you will have an allergic reaction to a vaccine, and this is why pharmacies ask you to hang around for 15 minutes after the jab to make sure you don't come down with hives or start having trouble breathing. This is really rare and if you've had all your childhood shots without a problem it's unlikely to affect you. But it's also why they ask you if you're allergic to any of the components of vaccines, like egg proteins, which, if you've got that allergy I'm sorry and you probably already know better than I do what vaccines you can have and what alternates are available to you. Anyway: an allergic reaction to a vaccine if you've never had one before is an abnormal problem and not one most people will ever deal with. But if you are worried, hang around the pharmacy for 15 minutes, they're equipped to help you if you do have an allergic reaction, and if you're going to have one it should happen in that time frame and you can stop worrying about it after.

But then: normal vaccine reactions. Many people get sore in the arm that was injected. This usually lasts a couple of days. I got two vaccines at once and opted to have them in the same arm so I only had one arm affected. It's really common to be fatigued the day or two after a vaccine, because your immune system is in overdrive. I ran a low-grade fever and flopped around adjusting my covers on and then off when it broke. Again, this is a normal immune response.

Some people are like that sounds like being sick, why bother getting vaccinated, why not just risk getting sick? Here's symptoms of the illnesses I got vaccinated for I got to skip the experience of:

runny nose, congestion, sore throat

headaches

full body aches

vomiting

diarrhea

fevers high enough to risk brain damage

difficulty breathing

hospitalization because you can't breathe

death

you think it won't happen to you but people do die of both covid and flu

not to mention long-term bullshit, I had a relatively mild case of covid a couple months ago and I'm still not up to my usual level of activity, plus I have scar tissue behaving super weirdly? and there are so many worse longterm covid effects ppl have reported. sense of taste or smell being permanently fucked up. lungs wonky for months. new blood pressure problems. worse fatigue.

so I got to avoid all that, and I got to choose when I wanted to deal with a couple of days of being too tired to do anything, so I could do it in a holiday weekend and not miss much.

Also, at no point was I contagious! I never risked giving even my minor miseries to other people!

And that's why I would rather get a vaccine and have a couple of sucky days while my immune system learns from it than get the actual disease.

Vaccines aren't fun. But in most cases they're better for you and for society than the disease they're preventing, and for those few people who have allergies or are immunocompromised in ways that prevent them from getting vaccinated, they're relying on as many of us who can get vaccinated to do so, to lower their risk of exposure. That's what herd immunity is and does--when the majority of a population is vaccinated, a disease can't spread through the population, so rare ppl who can't get vaccinated are protected.

Please get your vaccines! As of the beginning of September, 2022, in the US, this season's flu vaccine is out at pretty much all pharmacies, as well as the bivalent covid booster, which is supposed to protect against two common strains of omicron. Pharmacies can also handle all your standard childhood vaccinations and stuff like tetanus (you want a booster every ten years!) and HPV and others. Vaccines are preventative medicine so they're free under pretty much every insurance and government medical care.

[ID: "it's free real estate" meme edited to say "it's free healthcare!" end ID]

[haddonfieldproject]

<<PREVIOUS⏺<<CONTENTS>>

1.2.10 HALLOWEEN NIGHT/NOVEMBER 1st 5:32 am‬

Warren County, Illinois

Deputy Sheriff Ben Meeker roared his brown and tan police cruiser almost right up to the shattered front door of Jamie Lee's Diner. As his headlights sparkled across all the shattered glass around the parking lot, his heart sank. Deputy McGrath of the US Marshals followed quickly in his black GMC Savanna, his headlights cutting through the rain and illuminating the fat and frightened face of Justin Lore, the man who had phoned 911 twenty minutes before.

As Meeker popped open his door and stepped out into the storm, more cruisers: some county, some state, some unknown—probably Feds he gathered by the looks of them—tore over the curb and splashed into the parking lot as well. Within moments, the holocaust of multiple flashing lights illuminated the walls and windows of the diner like a Christmas tree.

“Jesus Gawd Ben,” Justin moaned, coming around the side of the car to meet Meeker, “It's like a gawd damn massacre in there. Where's Leigh?”

Ben put a hand on the shoulder of the man he had known his whole life and together they ran back toward the restaurant, stopping just outside doors under the cover of the awning. Once there, Ben removed the hood of his rain coat and leaned against a line of rusted newspaper dispensers that had been empty for at least six months. No one read the newspaper anymore.

“Leigh's busy,” Ben said, watching as Deputy McGrath exited the vehicle and walked casually toward them as if he was oblivious to the drenching rain. “He's had---a err..family emergency.”

Justin didn't seem to care, “It's so bad...” he said, visibly fighting back tears, “I took the weekend shifts at the mill because holidays comin' up and all, so I came in here to get some breakfast before headin' out to work..and it's just plain awful Bengie...just awful.”

“Are you ready Deputy Meeker?” McGrath asked matter-of-factly.

Meeker nodded, “Call Mitch Larabee over at the Mill and tell him what happened and then go home, take a hot shower, and try to go back to sleep.” He said to Justin, “If Mitch has any questions tell him to call me.”

Justin sniffed and nodded. Ben didn't wait for him to go, instead he un-holstered his sidearm, and followed McGrath into the restaurant, their boots crunching on broken glass as they stepped in. All the lights were on, the jukebox was still playing...

Mr. Sandman

Bring me a dream

Make him the cutest

That I've ever seen.

There was a smoky smell, something had definitely burned, or was still burning in the kitchen. Meeker was pretty sure it was eggs. Directly in front of the door, laying on her back on a bed of broken glass was Taylor Rumspitz, her lifeless eyes were fixed on the ceiling, both arms lay outstretched in a gory Christ-pose. The top half of her head was completely blown off and flies were already beginning to light on the corner of her half-open mouth. A tray of broken dishes sat in the puddle of her blood and brains, along with a blood-soaked receipt.

A pang of sadness struck Meeker's chest like an electric shock. She was such a good kid, he thought, working her way through Community College classes at Langdon, picking up late shifts to provide for her and her son. Meeker had dated her mother Carol Rumspitz in the eleventh grade. Now he'd have to tell her that her daughter was dead.

Another waitress, Wilhelmina Peters, another girl Meeker had dated in High School lay face-down in a puddle of blood in the middle of the aisle between the window booths and the tables. Meeker felt a lump form in his throat. He also recognized Marshall Weathers and his good friend Pat Reagor slumped over in one of the booths. They met every morning here before sun-up to go fishing out on Harris Lake, wonder what led them out here in the storm ‪this morning‬, Meeker thought.

Tradition. His mind answered.

McGrath's voice startled him, “Can you ID all these victims?”

“Yes sir,” Meeker said dryly.

More cops filed past them, spreading out in a fan all over the restaurant. In the far corner Meeker saw Kyla Ruckshaw and her seven year old son Davey slumped over in another booth. Kyla met her ex-husband early on Saturday mornings to pass the kid off, per their divorce agreement. Davey's dad Donald Yates worked late nights at the same mill as Justin Lore, and picked his son up when he got off of work. They had been doing that since Davey was in diapers.

Meeker felt light-headed all of a sudden, his legs felt like they were stuck in jello. That was the thing about being a small town cop Deputy McGrath, he thought, of course I can ID all these victims. I know everything about every single one of them.

And it's gonna be even worse for Leigh, he thought, thinking of his friend and mentor who was sitting up at Haddonfield General right now with his daughter, not knowing whether or not Annie was gonna survive the horrific attack on her from that psychopathic lunatic. Now we have two more crazies butchering the townspeople. It felt so surreal, It's like the end of the goddamn world, he thought, this is just gonna kill Leigh.

Officer Mullenix came from the kitchen looking very pale, “Booger's dead,” he said with a wretch, referring to “Booger” Bernard Tyson, the head breakfast cook at the diner. “They stuck his head in the grease fryer.”

That explains the smell, Meeker thought rubbing his temples with one hand and holstering his sidearm with the other. “What the fuck is going on?” he whispered.

“I'll tell you what's going on,” McGrath answered, pulling a piece of chewing gum from his pocket and popping it in his mouth, “What's going on is that you have two very disturbed individuals out there and they're apparently still at large.” He took a deep breath, “Deputy Meeker, we have to find these individuals. We have to end this right here, right now in your town.”

“I agree sir,” Meeker took a deep breath himself and straightened up, he raised his voice, “Well boys, we need to get to bagging and tagging. We need to collect all the evidence, get all the photos we can get.”

“Forensics is finishing up at the park with that Tramer boy and are en route now,” Officer Kinnerly aka 'Doughboy' called out.

Meeker nodded and waved his hand.

“But Deputy Sheriff Meeker sir?” Doughboy said.

Meeker turned, McGrath turned as well. “What is it Kip?” Meeker asked.

“EMS boys got on the horn after taking that last girl...”

“Alice Martin,” Meeker's voice cracked. He cleared his throat and raised his voice so the other officers could hear him, “Come on boys! These are our people men, we can at least remember their names.”

“Yes sir,” Doughboy corrected himself, “After they dropped Alice off at County General, EMS boys got on the horn and told us that the morgue at the hospital is full sir.”

“Shit,” McGrath breathed under his breath.

“It's the Fetanyl sir...you know...the morgue's pretty much been full up all the time this past few years.”

“What about Yuva's funeral home?” Meeker asked.

“Well, that Tramer boy is there and Mr. Gudipati says he's already got three others who passed earlier this week. He says he can't take anymore either.” Doughboy answered.

“That's what I was afraid of,” McGrath growled.

“Well we can take them over to Russellville, they have..” Meeker began but McGrath cut him off.

“No, they have to stay here in Warren County.”

“Why?” Meeker asked.

“I hate to tell you this Deputy Meeker, but shit has just officially hit the fan.” McGrath replied.

“Well we just don't have a place to put all these people. We're not used to having so many people come up dead in one night in a small town like this Deputy McGrath.” Meeker put his hands on his hips, “Just what do you suggest we do?”

McGrath smacked his gum. “We need to get in touch with Springfield.”

“Why's that?” Meeker asked..

McGrath pulled his phone from his pocket. “With a body count this high and no where left to process the victims, we're gonna have to call in a response team...you know what that means?”

“What, like a portable morgue?”

“That's part of it. It means a whole fucking fleet of forensic people, pathologists, medical examiners, coroners...the whole shabang.” McGrath answered, looking through the contacts list in his phone.

“Okay...” Meeker answered, sensing more.

“You see the problem with that is, since ‪9/11‬, these kind of Ops Teams..or D-MORTs as they are called....are operated by the National Disaster Medical System, and they can only be requested by the Governor.”

“Okay....,” Meeker led him on again.

“That's National, as in Washington DC... by sunrise Deputy Meeker, your little town is going to be crawling with feds.”

McGrath hit a button on his phone and put it to his ear. He then added, “And the press.”

Meeker put his hand on his head and winced.

NEXT>>

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

Hey, I saw you were doing headcanon stuff! So, I have this like burgeoning headcanon that Josh x Donna's first daughter is wlw. I don't know if you build off of other people's headcanons, but this one has been with me for a long time, and you are such a talented writer and storyteller in general that I thought maybe you'd be interested in taking a crack out of this very specific headcanon?!? I've just been projecting a lot of brainpower towards it and I want to talk to someone else about it!

Okay, so first, all my future headcanons for TWW spring from this original post that’s gotten around a bit. I’ve written a tiny bit of kidfic using them as well so I decided to connect yours to mine because tbh I love this idea and heck yeah, at least one of their daughters should be queer :D that’s just way more fun than if they’re both straight.

So, given what I’d already sorted out for the future, here are my thoughts. There are oh so many ideas behind the cut because apparently I can’t sleep but I can create a bunch of people out of thin air.

Their eldest daughter, Brianna Joan, started insisting everyone call her ‘Jo’ when she was five. They were both surprised by her stubbornness on the matter, but Josh was secretly pleased since her middle name was a tribute to his sister. Donna assumed it was a phase she would grow out of, like a lot of kids when they’re young and establishing their independence. She didn’t–and Jo later believed it was the first hint that she was never meant to be the girly daughter they might have expected.

Charlotte inherited her mother’s grace under pressure, along with her dancer’s form and creative flexibility. While Jo had Donna’s sass and sense of humor, she shared her dad’s brown hair and eyes, constant need to be in motion, and impulsive streak. Josh liked to say Jo got his athletic prowess, too, but Donna always countered with ‘your what now?’ and made the girls laugh. Jo surpassed him in sports talent by junior high, thanks in no small part to coaching by Charlie’s not-so-little-anymore sister Deena.

Junior high and high school were rough, especially girl’s softball and basketball. The rumors and slurs about which girls were probably gay because they were a little too good on the court or the mound bothered her, especially when she got sick of her unruly hair and cut it off at fourteen and the kids started aiming them at her…but it was hard to do the right thing and stand up to them when she was starting to wonder if maybe they were right.

The first crush she developed on an older, female student that she actually admitted to herself was a crush happened a year later, when she was trying to survive her entrance into high school. She came out to her best friend at sixteen and felt bad that she didn’t tell her parents first, but her dad was still working with the White House occasionally during his “retirement,” and her mom was starting her campaign for Congress, and the last thing Jo wanted to do was make that harder.

It wasn’t like she thought they’d be upset, or disappointed in her, exactly. But a tiny part of her did have doubts, after a couple of her friends had come out to their liberal parents and hit a cruel wall of family double-standards. Surely Josh Lyman and Donna Moss, champions of progressive causes, wouldn’t be that way…she hoped.

Just to be safe, Jo told them the week after her mom won her Congressional campaign, when it would cause the least trouble if they did freak out. Donna wasn’t surprised, not even a little, and only shared her worries at night with Josh. She knew how hard it was to be a woman in the world, and it could only be more painful for their eldest facing additional discrimination on top of that. “We just have to love her even harder,” Donna whispered, “and hope it’ll be enough.”

Unlike his wife, Josh was–as always–oblivious. Jo coming out was big surprise, but one he was happy about. She trusted them enough to tell them, and include them in her confusing teenage life. Surely that meant they were on the right track. “And hey,” he offered up in the initial shock of her disclosure, “I can’t exactly blame her. Women…are great. I’m a big fan. Of them.”

Just like he did with all the girl’s activities over the years, from dance to soccer, Josh threw himself into being a parental ally until he annoyed Jo with his enthusiasm. PFLAG, marches, fundraisers, sponsoring local clubs…"which one of us is gay again?” she would mutter to her sister with an eyeroll sometimes, out of earshot of the DC dad with the rainbow t-shirt passing out mini flags.

She was grateful though, especially after she survived college, and law school, and volunteered at a nonprofit that exposed her to so many kids whose parents didn’t care if they lived or died, simply because of who they turned out to be. Josh started getting handmade cards for his birthday and Father’s Day every year, filled with Jo’s illegible handwriting–that, he knew, she definitely didn’t get from him–telling him how much she loved and appreciated him. He put them on the fridge next to the sketches her little sister sent, like they were both still in grade school. Donna teased him about that, but whenever their friends visited she was the first one to casually point them out.

In the family, Charlotte was the only one that ever gave Jo any grief about her sexuality. It was mostly sibling sniping, because Charlotte was quieter than her sister but even more competitive, and she was never quite able to catch up with the three year gap between them. Still, it made Jo uncomfortable in her late teens because she and her baby sister were always so close growing up, and she couldn’t tell if the snark was coming from someplace deeper. When Charlie was fifteen, she got a week’s suspension for breaking a boy’s nose after he called her valedictorian sister a slur she refused to repeat to anyone. Jo worried less after that, and the sarcastic comments never happened again.

Toby’s son Huck came out as bisexual in college, and Jo joined his twin sister in being his closest support system while he braced for his parents’ reactions. There was a lot of hugging, and some knowing looks between Toby and Josh when the kids weren’t paying attention, and Huck had to pay Jo twenty bucks because she promised it would go over fine and he was certain it would be a disaster. He never learned to love the Yankees but he shared his father’s temperament from an early age. He and Charlie dated briefly in their twenties, causing a minor scandal to ripple through the connected families.

CJ’s daughter Nora, who was like a distant cousin Jo never got to visit enough in sunny California, only allowed the family to use her full name. She got a lot of weird looks when strangers overheard, or friends found out how old-fashioned it was, but Jo liked to call her by it anyway when they chatted. She never got to meet her dad’s mentor, and she thought based on the stories she’d heard that he would be embarrassed but proud to learn that Claudia Jean named her firstborn Leonora after she left the White House.

Nora was the one who introduced Jo to her future wife, an architect based out of Sacramento with an independent streak and temper that secretly reminded Josh of one of his exes. Unlike him and Amy, Jo and her fiance were a happy fit, sharing similar political beliefs but no professional rivalry. They spent as much time at home swapping stories and advice about their demanding careers as they did on community activism. Jo mellowed out a little after they got married–”she’s so much like you,” Donna told Josh with a smile–and they moved five times in three years before buying a house and starting their attempts to have a family.

That was the first time Jo ever really surprised her mom, who cried when she found out they were expecting. “I thought…you never talked about wanting kids,” Donna said carefully, and Jo just grinned that bright grin that was so much like her father’s. “I needed some time,” she told her mom, “to figure out what I wanted. But I think that if I manage to be half as good at it as you were, I’ll be an amazing mom.”

Josh and Donna bantered anxiously in the waiting room while each of their eldest daughter’s three kids came into the world. Two she gave birth to, and one she didn’t. They spoiled them all the same.

And when Charlotte brought the Lyman-Moss legacy back to the White House, Jo’s youngest son got to hunt Easter Eggs on the lawn. He stood next to his aunt during the photo op, just one of a dozen kids surrounding the first female President of the United States.

[thetrashiestoftrash]

This post outlines exactly why I took home ec in ninth grade, but it was optional, and a lot of schools don't even offer it.

I have a quick story, it was a pretty basic class. We learned a few simple cooking concepts, baked cookies, sewed a pillow, put together a basic home budget. One of our projects was just "eggs." Cook eggs, any way. It was a group project due to the limited cook stations, and we picked scrambled.

Look, there's not really anything easier than scrambled eggs. Sure, a lot of articles will tell you the "best" way to make them, and sure, some scrambled eggs are better than others, but they're pretty hard to screw up. Anyway, we completely botched them, and had to take the task home to retry.

It was one step above honor system, where I just had to get a parental figure to sign off that yes, I cooked eggs, and no, I didn't burn them again. My grandmother has a pretty overbearing presence, but she's the food expert, so she oversaw my scrambled eggs.

I asked her, Gramma, how will I know when they're done?

Instead of an answer, she told me a story. She said once there was an old man who applied for a job as a teacher. The interviewer asked him, "What kind of degree do you have?" And the man said he hadn't any. Any teaching certification? Nope. Had he ever worked as a teacher before? Sure hadn't.

Finally, the interviewer asked, exasperated, "What kind of experience do you have that qualifies you to be a teacher?"

And the old man said, "Well, I've been learning all my life."

This, you might notice, did not tell me a damn thing about cooking eggs. When I politely pointed this out, my grandmother said, "How long have you been eating scrambled eggs? You know what done eggs look like!"

(This isn't even helpful, because you want to take eggs off the heat RIGHT before they finish, because there's enough heat in the eggs and the pan itself to finish them off, but Gramma likes her eggs dry and overcooked, and it IS a decent philosophy towards learning to do new things)

i am not joking we need to force teach cooking in schools. like. it is an essential thing for survival. do you know how easy it is to make things if you know even the bare bones shit about how cooking works. we need to teach teenagers how far you can take an onion and some other veggies it''s sad that people grow up not knowing how to prepare literally anything. and i'm not talking about oh this home ed class taught me how to make chicken nuggets at home i'm talking about learning the balancing of sweetness and acidity and saltiness and bitterness and shit like that and techniques and oil temperatures and how meats cook. it needs to be taught because it's literally not even that difficult and it matters so much

[yyh-revival]

Ok so about hxh I don't dislike the show it's a good show. But the reason I prefer yyh is the set up makes more sense. It makes sense for a place like the demon world to have a fucked up tournament like the black tournament. The stuff that Koenma's dad pulled to fuck over demons given the system and that kind of character. You know what doesn't make sense? Giving known assasins and psychopaths more access and power. In HxH becoming a hunter means you get access to all sorts of locations pt.1

That regular civilians dont have access to and a liscence to kill without getting into trouble and all sorts of other shit. And they give that power to Hisoka who never tries to hide the fact he just likes killing people and randomly killed one of the examiners last time. And Illumi a assasin who freely admits that he wanted the liscence for a job. He says this to the people in charge of the exam. And he still gets his liscence what the fuck. Not to mention his family the secret pt2

oldeck family who the public doesnt know their faces have a house so famous that tour guide point it out while going through the city. Like it might have unbelievable security but why would you risk people knowing? Not that it’s a bad show or I dont enjoy it. I’m not that far into the series. But things like that kinda take out of it. It kinda takes me out of it. Especially when this world isnt like this world of chaos its actually kinda like our world. Or supposed to be Pt.3

Yes, I have to confess the setting didn’t sit right with me, either. I typically enjoy fantasy (in fact it’s my #1 favorite genre, and my preferred to write in, whether that’s high fantasy like LOTR or something like Fullmetal Alchemist, or even modern fantasies like stories about vampires, etc. All of my childhood favorites have fallen into this category… aaaand still do haha)

But the setting always did feel strange to me. I never understood who or what was in control of this Hunter licence, and why they were giving them out to children, or what the point of them even was.

More under the cut. Long analysis of character, slightly more productive than what I wrote yesterday, and some more dissing of HxH (I’m sorry) and its poor management of plot, setting, and character.  Also, from now on, tagging all discussions and comparisons of HxH and YYH as HHD (for hunter hunter discussion) to keep it out of the hxh tag. 

Once again, this is all just my opinion, my personal feelings, and are not meant to grade the merit of the show or insult anyone who enjoyed it!

See, I typically also like “secret clubs.” But I like them being fleshed out. In Mass Effect, we know what a Specter is. They have almost unlimited power, but 1) they answer to a council which can strip them of this power, and 2) they have a clear goal – serving the council and the interest of the council races.

For YYH, we have the same thing. Yusuke has more power than the average human, having the authority to kill and having access to knowledge most humans do not have. But he 1) answers to Koenma, 2) has a clear goal of protecting the innocent from evil demons and other psychic phenomena. 

And that stuff is outlined the MOMENT our protagonists enter the secret club, in clear words, and it doesn’t take, you know, forever… But HxH, I have no idea what the whole Hunter organization even is? I looked it up and turns out I saw the whole 1st season, 31 episodes… and I have no idea what this hunter thing is.

So yes, I totally agree. For comparison, in YYH, we go through a rather good introduction to Spirit World all before episode 5, an intro to what Spirit Detectives are without learning all the details, but enough to understand, by what, episode 8ish? We learn how Spirit World can bend rules with Kurama and Hiei within the first few episodes, too. We learn Spirit World is a bureaucracy, that it has rulers and managers (Enma and Koenma), that it is occupied by mostly two species (ogres and Spirit World citizens, who are like spirits, neither alive nor dead), that they have prisons, that they take interest in human lives and society, that they have the power to revive the dead but that there are clear rules and procedures. We learn Spirit World citizens can inhabit human bodies made specifically for them. We learn Spirit World can unlock human’s innate spiritual awareness. We learn the Spirit Detective job is sorta a new and untested thing (sending a kid to fight 3 demons… Koenma seriously didn’t think the job through yet). We learn Spirit World houses powerful treasures like the 3 artifacts. We learn they have a freakin’ treasure room to start with. We learn you can break into Spirit World and its vaults. We learn that living creatures, even demons, can enter it. We learn spirits and living creatures can interact with each other as if both were on the same plane, tangible and all, while in Spirit World. We learn Spirit World watches and records events of interest in the Human World, sometimes flat out spying on humans like when they watch Keiko being chased or when the little girl (the investigator) stalks Keiko along with Yusuke and Botan. We learn ghosts aren’t allowed to stay forever in the human world. We learn that the spirit and the body have separate energies that converge together. We learn Spirit World uses actual technology, not just magic, like VHS types and pocket watches. We learn Spirit World citizens can live incredibly long lives and look like babies while being a couple hundred years old or more.

^^ See all that? That’s what I know about Spirit World from watching the first EIGHT episodes. Episode 9 Yusuke enters Genkai’s tournament… How insanely concise is that? Episode 8, and we know so much about just one aspect of this world.

Whereas HxH? episode 31… and I still have zero clue what hunters are, what their purpose is, what they can do, who they work for if anyone, what the qualifications for them are (just being able to fight?) We know nothing. 31 episodes!! 

For another comparison, by episode 31, Yusuke is in the Dark Tournament, fighting Chuu. By this point, we had all four main characters go through the first cycle of their character arcs, we were introduced to most of the supporting cast, we had relationships established, we got backstory on some characters, we learned how spirit energy and psychics work more, we saw Yusuke begin his second cycle, we saw the introduction of a major villain… we had a lot. Whereas with HxH, all I remember is the damn big boat in the storm thing.

Speaking of character arcs… I wrote this in a response to something else, but I think it also makes my point here. I am incredibly fascinated with character arcs and character in general, even more than plot or setting or anything else. To me, character is all. So here’s my breakdown of some character growth within the first 8 episodes.

YYH never really feels like it drags, maybe only in those moments I mentioned before. But it had an incredibly strong opening. Excluding Hiei, within the first 7-8 episodes, we have two characters (kurama and Yusuke) go through full character arcs that affect them all the way down the line of the show. The other two join after episode 25, though we also get to see glimpses of character background and some development even earlier (Kuwabara’s sensitive side is shown with the kitty, his devotion to friends, his honor code – all before episode 8 as well, but that’s not really an arc. He doesn’t have one till about the Yukina Rescue arc concludes. Though his is a bit weak, mostly because Kuwabara was… pretty alright to start with? It’s hard to develop when there isn’t many places you can go. And out of all the 4 boys, Kuwabara had the least amount of baggage.)

For Yusuke, we have the theme of “caring/not caring.” Yusuke stars off believing no one loves him and that he’s better off not being in anyone’s life. The wake proves him wrong enough that he makes an effort to come back. Then when he thinks he’s missed his chance by throwing the egg, and sees his friends and family happily talking about him returning, he mourns because he knows he’s not coming back. 180 from “meh, ima stay a ghost it’s better I’m not in their lives.” So, he goes through a complete cycle just in that moment, from I don’t care, to I do care and I’m happy, to I do care and I am sad. Not just a simple arc, from point A to point B, but A to B to C. It’s a very well constructed growth of a character. Full arch, full growth, and that’s why it tugs at the heartstrings. Because the moment he started to care… he thought lost his chance.

That arc he goes through all before episode 5 cycles throughout the show, and makes us care because such a strong arc, such an emotional one, too, grabs the viewer’s heart by the balls and refuses to let go. 

It cycles in the Suzaku fight – he experiences horrible pain to save people, but in order to really motive himself, he must see Keiko in danger. He’s getting there, to the point of caring about humanity, but not quite. Then in the Dark Tournament, the lives of multiple people hang on his victory. But they’re still mostly people he cares about, though now that has extended beyond Keiko into Shizuru, Kuwabara, Kurama, Hiei, Yukina, etc., all of those people. He’s getting there, increasing the circle of people he cares for.

It keeps going up, challenging Yusuke to care more. The hospital had Keiko and shizuru in it. But also the new psychics. Then Sensui threatening all of humanity. Then the 3 kings arc threatening all of the realms. Yusuke progressively gives more of a shit about more people with time and new challenges and as he earns more friends.

And all of that is outlined in he first Fucking 4 episodes!! We know what hsi arc is, we know where he is going, we know what sort of character he is, and we get to see him become truly fleshed out in just 4 episodes.

That’s just Yusuke, too. Kurama also has a complete arc within the span of like two or three episodes, and those themes cycle throughout the show. (guilt, suicide and redemption – think Ura Urishima fight, when Kurama projects his want to sacrifice himself for Shiori to make up for his deception, where he tells the guy that suicide has no honor or redemption in it, even though the guy didn’t care for that, his lie was about getting out of having to hurt people without causing harm to his grandmother, not about redeeming himself – family, lies, the better of two evils – to lie to shiori and stay with her so she has a son, or stop lying to her and punish self for stealing her “real son” away)

It’s consistent, mostly concise, cyclical, and oh so fucking satisfying to my literature loving senses….

And then hxh… where apparently nothing of substance happens in the first Twenty Freakin Episodes. I legit cannot tell you about any character growth in that time. Or plot? They take a test. For who knows how long. Uh… kurapika starts to like leorio when before he didn’t? So he gets friendlier?? Maybe?? Killua begins a friendship with gon instead of getting himself that therapist… they play a ball game together. That gets them to like each other so much Gon goes chasing after Killua when he goes missing at the end of the season. Uh…. they are faced with the horror of fighting people they had to cooperate with before I guess. *shrugs* 

If you put a gun against my head, the only character growth or arc I could maybe try to name for the first 30 episodes is that Kurapika started to like Leorio and starts to address him with a bit more respect, cause they worked together, so uh… nope, nope, that’s not an arc in the slightest. Kurapika can simply be a person who doesn’t like others until he gets to know them… So yes, I’d get a bullet in the head.

And the fact that you need to skip the whole beginning of the show to even enjoy it, as @perpetuallyfrowning suggested … I can’t do that. I cannot enjoy any change in Gon if I don’t know where he was before. But I hate where he was before, and we’re stuck with that for so long… Even if you didn’t like Yusuke’s personality at first, you only have to deal with it for a bit because he changes so much so quickly.

So there it is, my rather lazy analysis of the beginning of YYH and HxH, looking at setting and character.

- Mod Lola

[savrenim]

Hey! Not sure if you answered this before, but what was your academic journey to grad school? Like in highschool did you take AP? Act/Sat? Did you need like A grades to get into college/uni? How's your undergrad years! What was your undergrad? If it's too personal/time consuming then you don't need to answer 🌸 but it would be really appreciated if you do! Good luck with all your studies! PS. I find kinship in the random anons on your blog. IDK why, but I guess it's like being in an egg carton.

No it’s fine, mostly my….academic journey is an outlier? like, it is by far above and beyond the things you need to succeed and get into grad school, and I have a lot of friends who didn’t have any sort of GPA or history like mine who are doing really well in grad school and have gotten into really good places.

I was a straight A student in grammar school and middle school; by the time I was in 8th grade, we got % grades instead of A, B, C, and I had a 99.875% but only because the 99 in math came from the fact that the teacher believed only Jesus was perfect so he didn’t give 100’s. My real percentage in math I believe was close to a 105, because I’d done a lot of extra credit.

I went to a private high school as well, pretty much entirely on scholarship, because my parents were paranoid about quality of education where I lived and I could. I tested out of Geometry despite the fact that I hadn’t taken it by bugging said 8th grade math teacher to give me a 2-month crash course, and then taking the Geometry Honors final from the prior year and getting….I think an 87? either way, it was enough to get me out of the course. I took AP classes the moment that I was allowed to; over my high school career, I took AP US History, AP European History, AP English Literature, AP English Language, and AP Calculus BC. I got 5’s on all of them. I also took the ACT and got 35/36 (and similar scores on all the subject tests…I think 1 34, counterbalanced by a 36?), although the ACT never really mattered to places I was applying. I was the closest thing our (non-competitive) fencing team had to a captain. I was in choir, and sometimes took on solo performances. I played fairly substantial roles in the musical every year. I also wrote a full draft of a novel that…I’ve still got, actually, and am trying to turn into an actual novel. I got straight A’s; I think my weighted GPA at the end of my high school career was a 4.63? 4.0 unweighted.

I’m also a high school dropout. Technically. But that was because I applied to college a year early, got in, got full scholarship, and the college said that they didn’t need a high school diploma or GED from me, so I went “peace” and then left home to go to college.

there was family drama going down at the same time and this was more a move to escape a hella abusive environment than me actually caring about going to college early, although also at the time I’d taken all of the math and physics classes my school had to offer, and didn’t want to spent senior year bored.

My first two years of college were fairly difficult for me because I was not aware of the fact that I was bipolar and started having more and more severe manic and depressive episodes, culminating in being hospitalized a week during spring semester of my sophomore year. You would not be able to tell any of this from my transcripts; while I was no longer getting straight A’s, it had gone down to an A- a semester, and I think a single B somewhere in there; my overall cumulative GPA was a 3.85. Still, I wasn’t particularly happy where I was at because it was small, in the middle of nowhere, and I’d just been through hell and wanted to start fresh, so I took my AA with highest distinction and applied to a whole bunch of transfer schools. I decided to go to the single one that gave me enough financial aid for that to be feasible.

(I am not going to say what my undergrad was, because I don’t like to post any sort of information on the internet that is specific enough for people to track me down. It was a very nice liberal artsy place.)

I stayed there for three years, as a combination of I wanted time to recover, I knew that I wanted to get into a hardcore serious graduate school and thus wanted professors to know me a lot better so that they could write letters of recommendation, and I wanted to properly joint-major in math and physics and needed the time to fit all of the classes in my schedule so that it would be slightly less hellish. Like, there was a semester where I was taking Real Analysis, Complex Analysis, Classical Mechanics, and Modern Physics — with a lab — and acting as a course tutor/ta for Dynamical Systems all at the same time. I wasn’t really “taking it easy.” But eh, whatever. I got straight A’s in every single math class I took, and I think….one B in physics, and a couple of A-’s sprinkled in sometimes, but otherwise straight A’s. I did research during the summers, published three papers in both math and physics, and presented at two conferences. And thus got into a couple pretty good grad schools and some nice fellowship offers and actually got to make a choice and I could not be happier with the place that I ended up.

Which, like, absolutely everything about my life story is so much overkill, please do not try to be like me, not only is it not necessary but it literally nearly killed me sometime in the middle there.

[metapianycist]

i didn't actually argue that transness should be brought up, in this post. my argument was for removing the gender roles from puberty education and describing bodies with actual medical terminology. like saying "people with ovaries will have these changes" instead of "girls will become women through these changes." i'd even be fine with educators saying "most girls will have these changes"

in my sex ed class when I was 11, the very first thing our teacher did was have us learn the medical terms for our genitals. the teacher asked us to give slang terms for them, and wrote them all on the chalkboard as we provided them. there was giggling, but our teacher planned for it. her objective was to tell us that if someone we don't know refers to our genitals with one of the words on the board, they're not being respectful. i didn't realize it at the time but this was meant to help innoculate us against grooming by sexual predators.

I'm a homeschooling parent and i take the approach of beginning sex education early, and incrementally adding information based on my individual child's readiness. she's 4 and she knows the words vulva and vagina. she knows that a uterus is a body part where a baby can grow and that she has one (because we saw it on ultrasounds before she was born). i don't sit down with my kid to do one dense puberty talk—instead, i give information as it comes up. my 4 year old is very interested in the human body, and she has a big illustrated book that details every body system, and i didn't object when she asked me to read the puberty pages to her. the only modifications i did when reading was replace "girls" and "boys" with "some people." i am certain she already knows that most people who experience testosterone puberty are boys, because most characters in media with facial hair and deep voices are men—but she also knows that one of her closest grownups is a woman who had a testosterone puberty until she began medical transition (during my kid's lifetime), and she knows that i had an estrogen puberty and am not a woman.

two of her closest grownups are on cross-sex hormones and one has had grs, so she knows what cross-sex hormones do, and how some people find the genitals they were born with distressing and need to change them to feel comfortable in their bodies. she also knows that some people feel better about their bodies if their chests are flat (or not flat).

she knows that people produce sperm and egg cells and that a sperm cell and an egg cell join and grow in a uterus to make a baby, thanks to the very wonderful small-children's book "what makes a baby" by corey silverberg.

we do this highly individualized sex education because we're homeschooling. in a traditional classroom, i am in favor of sex education that begins in the first year of schooling and incrementally adds more information as the kids get older. in places that do sex education like that, the emphasis for 5 year olds is on knowing the names of their body parts, like knowing that the urethra and the vagina are different. more information is added as kids advance into higher grades, so it's not information overload. i think ontario has this sex education model?

anyway. it's really easy (and more medically accurate) to say "people with ovaries will have these changes" or even "most girls will have these changes" instead of "girls will have these changes," because making trans and intersex kids feel like outsiders can be averted without putting them in the spotlight by directly talking about transness or intersex conditions (topics that, if discussed, need a lot of care to not reinforce transphobia and intersexism). because it is an actual medical fact that some women assigned female at birth (who are definitely categorized by medicine as female) will never menstruate, or will have an atypical endogenous puberty.

idk if you're going to read this but i think what I've written here might be helpful for other people?

what my trans self wants puberty education to be like: these are the effects that testosterone and estrogen have on bodies. both hormones are present in everyone’s body in different amounts.

what it was actually like, for maximum dysphoria: testosterone makes boys grow facial hair and get deeper voices. estrogen makes girls grow breasts and get periods. periods and breasts mean you’re becoming a woman!

[i-ran-away-without-a-map]

Thanks for explaining the definition of "witch" to me... a witch. It is in fact a practice, as many witches can be atheists, no belief system required. And it was not simply demonised, women were straight up murdered for accusations of witchcraft, sometimes those women were actual practitioners, other times they were simply wise women, nurses... or disobedient women. I mentioned it because of the literal witch hunts that used to take place back then, which were largely aimed against women. So, you know. A witch was used as an example of a bad woman, just like nowadays, only now we have new buzzwords.

I dunno what the hell biology you were taught in 9th grade, but in my country (which btw is in Eastern Europe and very homophobic)... we were in fact not taught anything homophobic? What are you even talking about? Are you trying to imply that learning about genetics or reproduction is somehow homophobic simply because it states that only heterosexual sex can create life? Cause that's the only thing I can think of that might bother some so called "queer people" and like, hate to break it to ya, but that's not homophobic, it's just reality. Nowhere in my biology classes at all did I learn about homosexuality being unnatural or whatever, we didn't even touch upon it cause it wasn't really within our lessons.

We didn't pick the title "terf" for ourselves? We've been saying it is a slur ever since it was created and it started being popularized. Many women called terfs aren't ever radfems, they just know to differentiate reality from delusions. Hell, many people called terfs can even be gay men, who sure as fuck aren't radfems, but they don't appreciate being called "transphobic" for being homosexuals (and good on them for standing up for themselves too). Terf is a slur which trans activists came up with, and it's not even an accurate one, since the only trans people we're "excluding" are transwomen; we're not excluding them for being trans though... we're excluding them for being male.

Ultimately, the whole debate here just comes down to these few simple facts:

- radfems seek to get rid of the concept of gender, which is a toxic social construct, a set of stereotypes that differ from culture to culture, but ultimately end up being a tool for oppressing women

- radfems seek to obtain female liberation; men are not a focus at all in this movement

Here are some helpful definitions, since these are usually sorely lacking in many trans activism circles:

- woman = adult human female (where female: of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilized by male gametes; a person bearing two X chromosomes in the cell nuclei)

- man = adult human male (where male: of or denoting the sex that produces gametes, especially spermatozoa, with which a female may be fertilized or inseminated to produce offspring; a person bearing an X and Y chromosome pair in the cell nuclei)

- homosexual = a person who is sexually attracted to people of their own biological sex

- lesbian = female homosexual (a woman attracted only to other women)

- gay = male homosexual (a man attracted only to other men)

- bisexual = a person attracted to both men and women

See how none of these have anything to do with "gender"? It's because all of these are based on the physical reality of one's body, aka reproductive sex. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species. Nobody can magically change from one sex to the other. And gender is not a physical reality, it is based on stereotypes. Get rid of the concept of gender and you get rid of the issue of gender dysphoria. The answer isn't to encourage people to create more ways to "express their gender"; it's to leave people alone and stop assuming being a man/woman means you automatically behave in a certain way.

I’ve recently had the displeasure of looking through some of the lgbtq+ blogs on here who are shamelessly transphobic and really, it’s sad.

So many people out here hating those who should be their allies, and for what? Nothing, that’s what. They claim to be feminists and then attack trans women for existing, saying they’re not “real women”.

Bitch, you’re not a feminist. A feminist is someone who believes that women should have the same political, social, and economic rights as men. Women. And what are you doing? You’re not trying to make us all equal. You’re trying to make yourselves feel better by putting other women down, telling them they’re not “good enough” to be a woman, a feminist.

So I’m a feminist. My dad is a feminist. My English professor is a feminist. My three year old cousin is a feminist. But you, terf? You are not. You do not stand for women’s right until you first stand with women - all women.

You aren’t “radical” - you’re cherry picking who and who can’t be a woman based on your personal definitions with no regard to who people are. You say things like “abolish gender!”

Try again, because if you really stood for abolishing gender you wouldn’t have a damn thing against trans people and in fact would be proud of them for being who they are. You stand for your personal gain, the gain of no one but cis females, and you disregard the entire rest of the lgbtqai+ community because you can’t think to look past your own desires and maybe show a little fuckin empathy.

You look to the male world for respect and then are so bold as to deny other people just as injured and just as discriminated against that same respect. Shame on you for daring to call yourself a feminist.