#the variants of this later i have to tell you about them ACTUALLY divorced first before i get into the hot divorcee energy of it all)

[tenwhiteandalusians]

so no one was going to tell me if i got literally one episode further tenax drops that he’s the one who saved scorpus from his mom’s pimp AND that he’s intimately familiar with scorpus’ dick when he was younger. guys. guys.

[crowemoji]

I'm planning to make a comic in the isekai genre just purely out of hatred with how boring and dogshit a majority of stuff is there in that genre.

I want to make it mostly comedy. Yes, mostly. I want some serious stuff in here too so that it's thrilling.

Here's my ocs, the main four:

Hino Toshiro, the protagonist we follow, the one that gets isekai'd. Oh right, he gets isekai'd into his own video game. He was originally an indie game developer (I just wanted to follow the classic tropes you see in a lot of isekais and be stupid about them).

I wanted him to look a bit more unique when compared to other isekai protagonists, so I didn't go with the basic hairstyle almost every male protagonist has (can these guys be creative for once).

He has a bite mark because the protagonist of the game got bit and died from it, so Toshiro becomes him, essentially 'respawning' but he kept the bite mark. In order for Hino to not get shot at first sight, he looks around for a dead body and uses the lab coat from it in order to cover it. The bite mark has turned into a scar and all that blood has dried up (it looks fresh in the concept art but this was something I thought of later after I drew him). He can't get infected but he knows that the bite mark stayed because that was a feature in his own game. The feature being that whenever you die, the wound from your previous body stays, so you have to find new ways to make sure you aren't getting killed by the people who are supposed to help you.

And because he's the developer and one of the writers (his friend group consists of people that also want to make a game with him, so that's his development team), he was able to research a lot of stuff about biology and microbiology. He isn't as experienced as a person with an actual degree obviously, so he isn't a know-it-all type guy.

Kinoshita Hitomi, one of the characters from the fictional biotech company, (I haven't thought of a name yet). She worked as a clinical technician before the apocalypse from the game happened.

She used to play baseball when she was a teen but abandoned it because of her parents wanting her to specialize in some sort of medical related career. Now it's useful here because she can kill zombies with only one or two or three swings (it depends on where she hits them, but usually two).

Maria Cumberman, you can tell she's not japanese by her name, she's from Canada and came here to get employed in the company. She's very young for being a microbiologist and one of the researchers for finding a cure for rabies but considered a savant so she got her degree earlier than most.

Let me add on a bit more: The research for finding a cure for rabies backfired, causing the apocalypse in the game, the virus took over 2 months to completely mess up everything in the building. This rabies variant takes over a lot faster than the regular version. It still takes some time to act, but not as slow as rabies [can be], it's acting time is predictable however, so that helps.

Because she was one of the researchers, she blames herself and feels extremely guilty about it. She and the others are trying to find the cure themselves, but Maria is the only one actually experienced in this type of thing, so they need her alive.

I haven't thought too much about the plot yet (I wanted to design my characters first), so I need to think of why the virus spread that quickly.

Tanaka Futoshi, worked as a business development manager.

He has a ring which was from a previous marriage. He divorced his now ex-wife of 6 years (she was a piece of shit), but he didn't want to get rid of the ring because 1. it was expensive and 2. it looked neat (it doesn't look that cool here but I'll add more stuff when I get to making more detailed reference sheet), so he moved the ring from his ring finger to his middle finger to silently say 'fuck you' to his ex. It doesn't really affect him in the current time because he moved on but it's a funny backstory for his ring.

Height chart.

Tanaka looks a little off but I don't really care to redraw him.

That's all. Here's some more concept sketches.

Other stuff about the world, not necessarily only about the characters:

The lab coat;

Company logo;

And ID card tier codes (tier I, II, III, and IV). This appears on the bottom of someone's ID and depending on what tier of access they've been given, they can gain access to various rooms and equipment. The ID scanners also check the fingerprints that exist on a special holographic sticker to ensure that the person who's in possession of the ID is the actual owner. I can't put the concept image of that here because image limit.

That's it, hopefully I get to make an actual decent comic instead of it being boring and dogshit like the isekais I'm making fun of (if it becomes something like that, feel free to shoot me).

My plan is to make it black and white like mangas usually are, but it has some colour... well, the only thing that's going to have colour is blood. But I think it will make it a bit more interesting to look at because I personally love looking at artworks that do that type of thing.

I've drawn comics before but they're always short and they're not even my own characters, so this is gonna be my way of practicing. Hope you had fun reading. If you'd like some more stuff about it don't be afraid to ask (if you even want to).

[therabbitthatpostthings]

I have been addicted to watching those phone short dramas. They are all so bad and the Chinese ones always such good production value. The English ones have like non of the surrounding mics to make the audio better (boom mics???). You can always tells when one is made by the same company cause they reuse sets and clothing so often.

Every story is the same, they have like 4 plot lines:

Some rich women hides her wealth from others and the others treat her badly and calm her a poor poor gutter bitch until she reveals herself as the rich girl and they all regret it.

Some poor girl divorces her cheating loser husband and is poor again but falls in love with a rich guy who is richer than the guy she left.

Some man (or woman sometimes) is the CEO on disguise or is not recognized and gets flash married to another person who is usually rich (not always) to get back at their cheating partner.

Some wife (regardless of wealth) is made into a maid of the husband’s rich family and treated badly, she was usually tricked, pressured, manipulated or was blinded by love and married him. The husband gets another woman pregnant or is saying he did and that woman becomes a bully as well. He usually has a sister and/or mean mom. If he loves the wife and doesn’t know about the abuse, 9/10 they get back to together by the end. If he hates her, he will regret his actions and/or try to kill her when she moves on. If the wife is seen with another rich guy, that’s usually her brother and they claim she’s sleeping with him cause god forbid a woman have family. And then they have some half assed explanation on why this emotionally constipated man CANNOT communicate with his WIFE about his insecurities that lead to this domino tower of abuse and hatred. Also the mistress is usually lying about the baby or they both know the baby isn’t his but his late brothers kid and to save their reputations they say it’s his and NEVER mention to the wife cause the mom wants the wife gone anyway.

Sane plot as the last time but this time she has three older brothers, the oldest is always the CEO of the family business that she will be working at (and sometimes get bullied when/if she goes undercover, usually by the mistress), middle kid is a doctor, youngest is an artist/musician (usually the beloved one by the husbands sister). The mistress is usually pretending to be the rich brother’s sister or claims to be related to them usually by an uncle. In the end she rather marries the eldest brother cause he’s actually adopted or if she only has one brother, she marries his best friend who she was engaged to in childhood. This plot line also works three suitors unrelated to her and she’ll go with the one she’s known the longest, the one the audience is usually rooting for anyway.

Or better yet, all of these are the same but there were Asian dramas first and got remade into English and the translators did not account for many things so you have people referring to MIL as Auntie, husband are brother and wife as sister. All poorly translated honorifics.

I EAT IT UP EVERYTIME- it’s so shitty yet I love it. God I haven’t even mentioned the English variants of werewolves/lycans, mafia, Cinderella stories, flash marriages, the ceo who was kidnapped as a kid and saved by a random girl and then meets her years later and does everything to make her fall in love with him, secret/masked heiress.

THE PERIOD DRAMAS-

God I love these-

[actias-android]

#I feel like it’s different because you cannot transition to nonhuman#you just are or you aren’t like a sexuality#now I do agree that trans people may experience being nonhuman combined with their gender#this isn’t about that in particular#this is about it being the ‘same thing’#plus I think if we say it’s the same thing I feel worried it would reinforce transphobia in some ways#I say this as someone who is both nonhuman and transgender#it’s important to understand that most trans people aren’t nonhuman and I feel worried it would be similar to ‘attack helicopter jokes’

Hi I have a lot of thoughts about these tags.

My sexuality has been all the fuck over the place over the course of my life. As has my gender. I have been everything except completely straight and pretty much every variant on gender. Some of those changes were voluntary and some weren't but they were all absolutely real changes that I went through. It is not my goddamn fault if a homophobe or transphobe looks at me and goes, "Well, I think it's fakey-fakes if you actually chose at some points to present how you present and feel how you feel." Nah. I was tired of men after I got divorced and I voluntarily identified as lesbian for a while. I decided later that I wasn't that disinterested after all and went with bisexual, then decided I wasn't interested in anything and voluntarily identified as asexual. These were decisions for me. At any point I could have changed course some other way or not changed course at all. I have run the entire spectrum of genders or lacks thereof and after having tried them all on, I decided to call myself what I call myself now. Transitioning medically was not a thing that just fell on me from the sky. I chose to do it, I actively took steps, I am fiercely proud of the fact that this was my call and I changed my body because I wanted to.

I have adopted the exact labels and identities I use (and in some places, don't use), intentionally, because they serve a single goal, that of making me the happiest out of all possible labels and identities. I will drop them and assume new ones if better ones that make me happier come along, or if they stop making me happy.

I used to think that too, that if I compared being nonhuman to being trans, it would make trans people look silly. But it is NOT substantially different. Strip off the details and it is still, at its core, someone saying, "I look this way now, but I'm that way actually, and I want to be acknowledged that way in some capacity." If you have the autonomy to declare that your body looks A but you are B, you have that autonomy, full stop. If you don't, you don't.

Also, to challenge the idea that you can't transition to nonhuman: says who? Assuming that a species identity is an immutable biological state is first of all kind of silly from a science perspective (there is literally no single satisfying definition of 'species' to begin with) and second of all, this is the same bioessentialist assumption that would say that since I was born with 'female' characteristics (there is literally no single satisfying definition of 'female') that I cannot be 'male' now (for which there is no single satisfying definiton also). 'Transitioning' is not one single biological event, it is ongoing and multidimensional, and it is both social and internal. If you're trans and you only tell your closest friends that you want to be called different pronouns and be treated as that role, that is not different from being nonhuman and telling your closest friends that you want to be called a different kind of thing and treated as such. You are not less trans if you tell nobody and only refer to yourself by your chosen signifiers, nor are you less nonhuman.

This is 100% about it being the same thing and I also say this as someone who is nonhuman and transgender. These are two prongs of the same root argument, which is that self-determination, no matter how 'weird' or 'normal' it may seem to onlookers, is an inalienable human right (yes we are using that word liberally here, don't worry about it). I do of course realize that most trans people aren't nonhuman. However, there are WAY more of them than you'd likely think because they aren't Participating In The Community, and there is a STRONG counter-cultural undercurrent right now of reclaiming one's dehumanization, and as a group, trans people have had SO much of that particular trauma. But even with that, that isn't really the point.

I am not saying that being nonhuman is being transgender, except insofar as it is a type of generic 'trans' as in 'across from' in the same way that transgender is to cisgender. But what I am saying is that these are two concepts living under the same general umbrella of being allowed to self-identify and self-determine, and it is that umbrella that is being attacked by recent laws and shitty public figures. It does not reinforce transphobia to say that you want to be seen a certain way, full stop. It reinforces transphobia to treat people as lesser than others for identifying in a way that isn't socially approved. We are in this together and we are not and should not be meaningfully separate. Do you see? This is why the attack helicopter jokes are shitty to both groups. If the claim were dissimilar, the disparagement would also need to be dissimilar, but "I'm going to say I'm the dumbest identity I can think of, hahaha, I'm so funny," is taking direct aim at the common denominator: it does not matter what we're identifying as, the haters are going to hate, and if that's what you're basing your decisions off, you've got the wrong end of the snake in your hand.

I used to be like, "being nonhuman is similar but not identical to being trans," but actually I think past me was wrong. It's exactly the same thing and that thing is just "you can do whatever you want forever."

[thewebcomicsreview]

Homestuck 2 has updated! Christmas is ruined!

Previously, on Homestuck 2: Literally nothing happened, and a non-trivial portion of the patreon supporters gave up and quit. Can this update pull a Christmas miracle and right the sinking ship of Homestuck 2? Probably not, but let’s find out! 

We’re back in Candyland, having completely skipped over Karkat and John talking about Dave’s apparent death, because this comic is only interested in long conversations when they’re boring and not about anything at all. That’s alright, I got the gist of it.

When Karkat is finally gone, John still doesn’t move. It isn’t as though he has nowhere else to go, since there are quite a few places he might attempt to make himself useful, for better or for worse.

So, it appears to be morning now, meaning that John’s son has been missing in a war zone for almost 24 hours and I guess John literally forgot Harry existed?

Prediction: This conversation is going to end in some variant of “Where is our son?” “Oh shit!”

ROXY: hey john can u do me a quick solid

ROXY: actly idk how quick itll be but its definitely solid

ROXY: harry anderson says i just missed u being here but could u skip back on over?

What.

So, I went back and checked, and apparently nowhere is it explicitly said that Harry Anderson was also looking for the Vriskas, so I guess he....stayed home? Which makes sense, I suppose, but maybe a “Stay here I’ll go look for them” would’ve helped. I wasn’t the only one who thought Harry was out looking for Vriska too. 

ROXY: sup

ROXY: follow me

ROXY: well were just going to my room so i guess technically u know the way

JOHN: haha ok.

John follows, trying to shake the ominous feeling he got from what she’d just said. He’d been in and out of this house a lot in the past few days. Why should this be any different?

Is Roxy....horny? Is the solid she’s looking for John’s dick? I mean, that’d make her saying Harry wasn’t available kind of weird, but I think this framing is a fake-out.

...

What the fuck is that lamp, Jesus Christ it’s awful. Just a cat’s asshole, facing the door.

ROXY: r u kiddin me rn egbert

JOHN: i’m not? unless you were, in which case yeah lets say i was also kidding.

JOHN: oh my god, i’m sorry, i don’t know why this making me freak out.

ROXY: i remember our past boot knockin with fondness but that is a situation im not interested in revisiting

Oh hey, it was a fakeout. Good job, Homestuck 2. You successfully implied something just through the art. Art which, by the way, looks a lot better than the last chapter. There are backgrounds and everything. I wonder if Chapter 15 was rushed out due to Hiveswap and that’s why it was so weak?

He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced?

I’m not the biggest fan of the way the narration is going JOHN IS AFRAID OF SEX WITH ROXY LIKE HE’S A TEENAGE VIRGIN AGAIN (LIKE IN HS1!) AND IT DOESN’T REALLY MAKE SENSE PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IT’LL BE IMPORTANT LATER, but okay, noted.

ROXY: u said ur house is gone??

JOHN: yep.

JOHN: completely.

ROXY: jeez

Heh. I like Roxy, still. 

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

If this comic actually uses the phrase “home” and “stuck” in the same sentence I’m turning this blog around and we’ll go right back to Winnipeg.

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

I feel unqualified to talk about how hard Roxy is pushing the June Egbert thing.

....Is that the fucking portal from Hiveswap under a tarp? Also hi Candy Callie, appearing in HS2 for the first time. One of the Calliope’s is nonbinary, I think, but I honestly can’t remember and I think it’s Meat Calliope? 

JOHN: do i get to know what that big thing under the sheet is?

ROXY: hmmmmmm no

JOHN: oh ok.

JOHN: are you sure? i mean, it seems like a pretty prominent feature of the room.

JOHN: space.

JOHN: wherever we are.

ROXY: and a totally mysterious n COMPLETELY inconspicuous feature it will have to remain for now

ROXY: we r kinda in a hurry here fyi

ROXY: and by that i mean

ROXY: we are in precisely the amount of hurry that means im excused from having to a that specific q rn

JOHN: right, sorry.

JOHN: i will pay no attention to the object behind the curtain.

ROXY: u catch on fast egbert

Oh thing HS2 has not been great at is that it has a lot of plot mysteries that are supposed to keep us enticed but they don’t really get implanted into the audience’s head (Remember Vrissy mysteriously collapsing that one time? Probably not, she did it off screen and the boys kind of laughed it off). This one’s hard to miss.

JOHN: so... this is all downstairs?

JOHN: it seems like you had a lot of work done.

ROXY: well no not x actly

ROXY: were in the old meteor

It’s kind of weird how this meteor keeps popping up like this. 

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

This is an unexpected but not unwelcome direction for Callie to have gone.

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

CALLIOPE: how much do yoU know aboUt black holes?

Oh, wow, we’re going right there, then. This does seem like a bit of a reaction to complaints HS2 wasn’t shmoovin’ enough, but maybe I’m reading too much into it.

CALLIOPE: no, i mean, what if oUr whole WORLD was inside a black hole.

JOHN: ok.

A’ight, that got a laugh out of me

JOHN: ugh, i fucking KNEW it!

JOHN: i'm so sorry.

JOHN: i'm so sorry that i put the earth inside a black hole everyone. ):

I like this conversation a lot. 

ROXY: iirc at least part of y u got so weepy was the fact that u couldnt believe a version of earth existed where ppl got 2 watch more mcconaughey films than you

JOHN: listen.

JOHN: i simply don't think you all appreciated the gift you were given.

Quite a bit, in fact.

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

Roxy and John have a good dynamic. 

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

JOHN: ...right.

John’s phone has very good coverage, since he was able to talk to Terezi in the epilogues, as we’re being subtly reminded of here with that ... before the “right”. I wonder if it still works after alt-Calliope left.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

Okay, so we are now being explicitly told that living in the black hole is fucking with the characters and is part of the reason they make such baffling decisions, like Rose not telling Kanaya about Yiffy, or naming her daughter “Yiffy” in the first place.

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

So, the plan is literally for Vriska to be such a Huge 8itch that the black hole itself gets sick of her and yeets Earth C out of its own event horizon to freedom.

This is actually a great plan. 

And that’s Hamsteak. This definitely feels like a bit of a reaction to complaints about HS2, but hey, I dig it, I guess? Definite improvement over the last chapter.

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

madeline miller’s ‘the song of achilles’

Achilles Lamenting the Death of Patroclus (1855) by Nikolai Ge

What I loved about The Song of Achilles: this and this and this. 

My interest in classics began circa 2005, with Disney’s animated series based off of their rendition of Hercules. Fast forward to several years later, to when I stumbled across one of my grandad’s books; several of my rose-tinted childhood memories would be tainted by the knowledge that the actual Heracles had very little in common with Disney’s adaptation of him. 

The historical period that I was really invested in for most of my preteen and early teenage years were the Dark Ages, and Medieval Europe in general; so my Greek mythology phase was short-lived, and my knowledge of it is… well, I know Dionysus fucked himself with a wooden dildo to fulfil a promise he made, and that he’s perhaps the only decent bloke up there on Olympus (I’d tell Zeus to go fuck himself but he’d probably go through with it), and also that Dionysus is BTS’s best song since Boy Meets Evil, and that Stray Kids did a bangin’ cover of it late last year. 

In other words: vague and superficial. 

But I know enough to tell you that Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles is one of the best books I’ve ever read, hands down. 

The story of Achilles and Patroclus and the Trojan War is pretty common knowledge, I’ll warrant, but just in case: SPOILERS AHEAD. 

Retelling a story almost everyone knows isn’t easy; you’ve got the plot down and how to get there, but you’ve got to write it in a way that doesn’t read like a middle school book report you scrapped together a night before the assignment was due (… not that I know what that’s like, haha). And Miller does an excellent job of it; her diction? Brilliant. Her prose? Incredible. Her characterizations? Completely not ever been done before. 

The Song of Achilles is told in Patroclus’s first-person point of view; most of it is about his early years with Achilles; Patroclus’s banishment to Phthia, meeting Achilles, befriending Achilles, and then both of them being tutored by Chiron (a far cry from Disney’s funny little goat man). The Trojan War takes up less of the book than I thought it would, at first (which, of course, I’m infinitely grateful for- since we all know how THAT ends) (#RIP). 

Which brings me to one of the biggest questions I had up to the last few chapters before the end of the book: how will the story go on after Patroclus dies, since it’s in the first person? (The first-person POV threw me off at first; it’s been a while outside of contemporary YA that I’ve read anything in that POV, and it was a bit jarring- but the further I read, I realized that it was the best option for the book; it gave the story a depth, a level of emotion you couldn’t’ve achieved in the third person.)

And call me a masochist, but Patroclus’s death and the aftermath ended up being my favorite parts of the book. I’ve read stories that have given me actual, physical pain (one of my top two Harry Potter ships is Wolfstar, go figure), but this is the first time I’ve actually read something that made me cry (despite the numerous Ao3 comments I’ve left that are variants of ‘omg I’m crying’). Like, actual, physical tears welling up in my eyes. 

There’s this particular scene, in the ninth chapter, where Chiron is telling Patroclus and Achilles about Heracles, and how he, unlike Disney’s well-intentioned, bumbling himbo, goes insane and kills his family. Achilles, my sweet summer child, is quite reasonably agitated by this; how it was unfair, how Heracles’ wife and children paid for the gods’ tiff with Heracles with their own lives. And Chiron says: 

“… Perhaps it is he greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.” 

Go ahead, Miller; twist the goddamn knife. It’s not like I needed my heart, anyway. 

Also, unrelated, but I find it interesting how countries that are continents apart end up having quite similar legends. My roots are from an entirely different continent than Greece, but we have a folktale quite similar to the legend of Aesclepius. 

But I digress. 

Character-wise: Achilles; half-mortal, hero of the Trojan war, the greatest warrior among men. And despite his demigod status, he remains so human. And this might be controversial, but… he comes off a lot more fleshed-out than Patroclus himself. Which is perhaps my sole gripe with this book. 

Patroclus is… well, he exists. He’s the son his father never wanted. He kills a boy. Falls in love with Achilles. Spends a concerning amount of time describing Achilles’ feet. 

Honestly, up until the chapters in Troy, he doesn’t have much of a personality. And maybe it’s because Miller wanted to remain as true to the Iliad and Odyssey, and, if my memory serves me correct, neither of them give a lot to Patroclus in the way of character development; but still, he comes off a bit- bland. Of course, towards the end, his character gets a bigger role than ‘loves Achilles’; especially seen in how he defies Achilles to spare Briseis, and then dons the armor and subsequently gets himself killed (#ApolloIsOverParty), but up till then, he’s pretty meh. 

Briseis is another one of my favorite characters; it was a bit difficult for me to divorce my perception of her from Emily Hauser’s For the Most Beautiful. Her friendship with Patroclus (and, by extension, Achilles; even if he did screw her over afterwards) was perhaps the only good to come out of the war. 

And then we have the obligatory: fuck Thetis and FUCK Agamemnon (thank you, Clytemnestra).

Achilles and Patroclus’ love was wonderfully written, and I love how them being queer wasn’t the central focus of the story (admittedly, the ancient Greeks were markedly more casual about homosexuality than the bible-belt world we live in today). A lot of the (non-fanfiction) queer lit I’ve read tends to make everything revolve around, “bUt I aM bOy,,, aNd I LiKe bOy,,, bUT hOW???”, and homophobia is the biggest obstacle to their relationship. And those stories are realistic and need to be told- but we need literature with more variety. 

My final verdict: a work of art. I’m going to read Circe and Galatea.

[gayden--yuki]

A big Yu-Gi-Oh Sevens post

New series! Awesome! The new art style will take some getting used to and Yuga’s hair isn’t nearly stupid enough but hey, it should be fun. I like that they’re not introducing a new summoning type as well since the game already had too much of that

This post is going to be mostly speculation about the series, along with just pointing out things that might be interesting

Okay so my first point is about the new art style. I know that it’s had mixed responses but hopefully it along with the simpler character designs means more interesting and dynamic movement. The previous series tended to lack that, and it was really obvious when you compare simpler looking characters like Ai’s movement to the human characters in that show. And hey, it worked for pokemon

The trailer doesn’t exactly show us much though. And hey, I’m just a person on the internet. Maybe I’m completely wrong

Anyway onto the characters. I’m gonna link to this webpage which does a better job summarising the characters than I can. But let’s look at Yuga

This is Yuga and he’s the new protagonist. He’s an inventor and the youngest protagonist yet at 11. But I want to draw your attention to this part of the above webpage’s summary of him

He thinks the Duels run by adults currently are overly rigid and super unfun, so he develops his own rule set that he dreams of entertaining the world with

He makes up his own rules instead of using the official ones. This is exactly how 11 year olds play this game and I love that

Also the entertainment thing reminds me of Yuya but I’ve only watched like 2 episodes of arc v so what do i know

I don’t have much to say about the other characters. If you want their names and appearances and even what their names mean check out the website I linked that’s where I’m getting all my info from. I’ll link it again here

Next up: the monsters

On the left is Sevens Road Magician, Yuga’s ace monster. On the right is Rush Dragon Dragears. Both are, perhaps unsurprisingly, level 7 monsters

Sevens Road Magician is a magician monster, which makes Yuga the third protagonist to use some variant of the magician archetype (fourth if you count Yusaku’s Cyberse Magician, but that was only one monster). It also has the dark magical circle in the background, which a quick google search tells me is a thing exclusive to Yugi’s magicians aka the dark magicians. This is extra interesting, considering blue eyes white dragon appears in the trailer

It also only has 2100 attack which is really low for a level 7 monster. It had better have a good effect to make up for this. Also, this is a deviation from the trend of ace monsters having 2500 attack which I know was technically broken first by vrains but decode talker’s effect lets it boost itself to 2500 and also Yusaku’s ace was supposed to be firewall dragon anyway before it was banished to the tcg and ocg banlist for being too overpowered. Flame wingman had 2100 attack, so maybe another ace is coming later on?

You know what does have 2500 attack? Rush Dragon Dragears, which is Luke’s (the blue haired guy) ace. It’s not clear if this guy is the rival or not, but if he is this is also a deviation from the norm since rival’s aces usually have 3000 attack. It could also be that the guy using blue eyes is the rival

The ‘rush’ in the monster’s name probably refers to the new rush duels, and ‘dragears’ is a portmanteau of dragon and gears. ‘Gears’ is notable because Yuga is the inventor, and it’s stated that machines tend to break around Luke

It’s also stated that Yuga calls his inventions ‘roads’ (which is a pun on his name, for anyone curious). My guess is that he somehow invented or at least named Sevens Road Magician, and possibly Rush Dragon Dragears too. It looks like he at least has a connection to the latter monster

The parallels to DM are also very apparent with these two monsters. One has obvious ties to the dark magician archetype and the other is a blue dragon, plus we have a dark spellcaster and a light dragon (or at least, I assume that’s their types. I can’t read Japanese). Needless to say I’m very excited to learn more about them.

Plus, the title king of duels which the characters are fighting for according to the brief plot summary sounds very similar to king of games. Take this with a grain of salt though since 5Ds had the king of riding duels title but was mostly divorced from DM

Now onto rush duels. They seem to be the new gimmick, and I can’t help but compare them to speed duels from vrains. There’ll probably be a mix of master and rush duels in sevens, like how vrains had a mix of speed and master duels. It’s also stated that Yuga is the inventor of rush duels, and their focus is on winning duels quickly. Looks like we’ve come a long way from the 6 episode long duels in DM. I don’t doubt that the length of duels will still be 1 or 2 episodes though

What are rush duels exactly? Basically they’re regular duels except you can normal summon as much as you want in your turn, and at the start of your turn you draw until you have 5 cards in your hand. Special cards with the new layout seen on the earlier cards will be used in this format, so it won’t break the game thank goodness

One of the reasons I liked vrains so much was because their archetypes were really good in the actual game. It’ll be weird going from that to cards that can’t even be used in the TCG unless they get reprinted in the original card format

I am very fond of Sevens Road Magician though. He looks like a very friendly guy

My final point is the the series is probably called sevens because it’s the seventh series. Also the duel disk is shaped like a 7 which is pretty neat

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about the new info we’ve gotten. I guess we’ll have to wait until April so see how much I got right

Feel free to add on anything else you’ve noticed

[schroedingersk8]

No that isn't incel thing! Sorry it came out this way. It is sometimes frustrating to hope that there will be someone out there to accept and love us the way we are, kinks and warts and all. Your post 12 touched a nerve a bit I think . Sorry.

Answering as Mistress K8 Morgan, k8morgan.com

Hello again, and welcome back, my kind Anonymous Reader!!! A first for me, I think, to have a conversation via blog! I am flattered, so thank you, again!

I hear you, about frustration, and I think I can sense it in your questions. And I am sorry if my past post has brought it up, again. Though, would I be correct to presume that it has never been too far from the surface, at least lately? I am afraid it is not just you, and it is not just for you that this seems so frustrating! I think anyone, myself including, who has ever come across my writings, and anyone who will do so in the future, has felt your pain… 

I know I myself have! Some eight years ago, I was married, and so deeply depressed and in such a dark place I was wondering whether I, with my kinks and warts, even had the right to exist… I envied people whom I have seen as “normal”, for how much easier did they have it! They have nothing to hide, nothing to pretend, nothing to suppress… How I wanted to be normal! How I loathed myself! And how I wished I could just get rid of my kinks and quirks simply through denying, to myself and everyone, that they exist. I think most kinky people can relate to this feeling, sadly…

And then, after a strange turn of events, I realised something – I am as normal as anyone else, and as miserable as anyone, normal or not, who hates themselves because they themselves cannot accept themselves for who they are. It took almost all the strength I had back then to look at myself, and see myself, and stare at myself, until I realised that I am fine, not only I have the right to exist, I have the right to be respected, with all kinks and warts, and to be happy. It was a painful process, but it was one of those that did not kill me but made me grow, and it made me strong, and it made me proud! 

And I needed that strength, and that pride: I had a deep hole to dig myself out of. I was sick of being manipulated by men and society alike to have children, so I knew I had to get myself neutered. That took colossal effort – anyone who has ever tried to do that without having three dozen children first will tell you how difficult it is. But I managed, I pushed, and I pushed, and I pushed, and one day it became hard enough! 

The surgery was my first victory against the world of “normals”. The divorce from the otherwise wonderful man who couldn’t accept my kinks and quirks, and the subsequent freedom was second. And it was excruciatingly difficult. There was a moment there where I pulled through on a mere bluff. A millisecond away from folding like an origami swan and giving up. Yes, I am no Nelson Mandela, and my “Road to Freedom” probably wasn’t as meaningful for the humanity as a whole, but it was very important for me. And I felt I owed both of those to the chance thought that I, with my kinks and quirks, was valid, was great, and had a right to exist without designating myself to the gutter.

It took me a year to rebuild myself, my sense of self-worth and my self esteem around my acceptance of myself. It took probably as much to learn to love and celebrate the result, and probably twice that time to become proud. But I have never let anybody even suggest that maybe I should consider “becoming normal” ever again. And after the dust settled, I felt an inner need to become a Professional Dominatrix. To love, nurture and cherish, with pride, what I have have once loathed…

Overcompensation? Perhaps. But it hasn’t worn off yet, in six years, and I have never been happier. Actually, this week, a friend of mine has suggested that maybe my FetLife profile was in need of an overhaul. It was under my still lifestyle name, a variant on that from 8 years ago, with pictures and writings dating back to those early days of “enlightment”, when I came back from vanilla exile and embraced kink again after nearly suffocating myself in an unhappy marriage. I went back onto FetLife, and I looked at those – I looked ten years older than I do now, 8 years later, tired, and so deeply unhappy. It was shocking to see myself like that! 

Old profile reminded me of those days. And it made me think, that some 8 years ago, I had a choice: to continue hating myself, my own kinks, my own warts, disrespecting my own beliefs, and denying myself the right of existence, thus being perpetually unhappy, whatever the partner, relationship, life situation – or to rise to the challenge and actually change things and turn my life around. 

I have made the right choice. Every step along that path felt liberating! Now I stand tall, proud and happy. This is why I can so simply and swiftly say that it does not matter whether your partner is kinky or not. Believe me, there are enough narrow-minded kinky douchebags out there. The IMPORTANT thing is that you learn to accept, love and respect yourself, your kinks and warts. On your own. Once you see how much strength it takes, and how strong you are, and you won’t accept less from others. The moment you feel that self love and self respect you will stop taking bullshit from people… 

And you will realise that a partner, or even a friend, who is respectful and accepting of who you are is more important than telling Twitter you are such-and-such mistress’s slave. This is what my previous post was about. Not everybody who is kinky needs a 24/7 kink partner. Very few people do! But every kinky person needs a respectful, understanding and accepting partner! And then you will find the way to satisfy your kink needs. Maybe that will be with a Pro Domme? Maybe that will be at a Fetish Club? Maybe that will be on online? Or maybe a proper FLR relationship? 

That will depend on your needs and whether or not some of them can be mitigated simply by self-acceptance. I became a Pro Domme to satisfy mine… I liked, and still like, the variety. Now I see a lot of clients who dream about leaving their wives and families for a kinky FLR to show them that with a regular 2-3 hr session they actually become most happy individuals even within their current settings, because they have accepted their own kink and are letting it blossom. And it is certainly cheaper than most divorces would be! And you are single – telling a new partner about your kinks is a tad less risque than telling it to your wife of 15 years.

You seem to be on the right path. You are not giving up on yourself, nor on hope to find a partner and to be happy with all your kinks and warts. You are already further ahead than I once was… Press on, and may the odds be ever in your favour! 

No one, under the penalty of the EU copyright laws, is allowed to use or reproduce my blog or individual posts, or even passages, in any way, shape or form, be it for Netflix series, Amazon books, or anything of the kind, regardless of the credit given.

[sage-nebula]

(DO NOT reblog this, please; I just need to vent for a second.)

So, this morning, I received a call from my mom (stepmom, the not abusive one) that---

Well, okay, let me back up.

This morning my mom called me, and at first I let it go to voicemail, because I figured that it was going to be nothing more than a reminder that my aunt is having a New Year’s Eve party that I’m not going to. (She has one every year, but she also doesn’t have easy interent access, and it’s a family event, so . . . I don’t go.) I was sleeping at the time, and I didn’t want to have what I felt was going to be a pointless conversation, so I let it go to voicemail.

However, instead of leaving me a message, my mom called me immediately after my phone would have taken her to voicemail. At that point, feeling rather irritated, my thought process was, Somebody better be dying, before I answered the phone, feeling rather irritated.

Well . . . famous lost thoughts, kind of.

It turns out that my dad is in the hospital. It’s nothing too serious---it’s just appendicitis. I mean, that could be serious, depending, but he was able to have the surgery, and appendicitis surgeries have an 84% success rate. In any case, according to my mom, Sir (what I call my dad, usually) didn’t want me or my siblings to come up to the hospital, because he felt that it would be embarrassing to have us all there and would therefore stress him out. And you know, I get that. I don’t like having people fuss over me, either. So I told my mom to let me know how things went, especially if there were any complications, and I went back to sleep.

I woke up several hours later, and there hadn’t been any news, which I figured was fine. “No news is good news,” as the saying goes. However, shortly after I woke up, my older sister texted me, and was pissed because our aunt (different aunt, one we’re blood related to) had apparently told her about Sir being in the hospital, and no one else had, and so she was livid.

What you have to understand is that my sister and our biological mother have . . . a lot in common, in many different ways (which actually might have something to do with why my sister still has a relationship with our biological mother, whereas I haven’t spoken to the cunt in about twelve years---and yes, I know that’s a very harsh word, and I ordinarily wouldn’t use it, so that should tell you how horrible my biological mother is, that she would deserve that). One of the things they have in common is that they both tend to have victimization / martyr complexes, in that any single slight against them (even just perceived slights) get blown up into drama that they do not let go of, and cannot see the other side of. Whether it was my biological mother continuing to rant about the divorce even eight years after it happened, or whether it was her throwing a fit in a Subway because they were out of the Italian bread she wanted for her sandwich (and then, when I---a mere twelve-year-old---told her that she was embarrassing me, I got yelled at, because apparently I was embarrassing her by telling her that she was embarrassing me), any perceived slight or insult gets blown way out of proportion, and everyone in the surrounding area is to blame for it.

And that’s basically what happened here.

My sister texted me demanding to know why she wasn’t told. I explained to her, calmly, that Sir didn’t want her to be told because he knew that she is stubborn like him (I thought that maybe comparing her to him would ease her feelings, but I was wrong), and that she would bring her entire family up to the hospital even if he told her not to, and as such, he did not want her to be told until after the surgery was over so that she had good news and everyone would be happy. This message that I sent her was calm, it assured her that things were fine, it let her know that it was Sir’s decision to not tell her, it should have ended the converation there.

But with the way my sister is, it didn’t.

She texted me back saying that, what the fuck, what if it wasn’t good news, what if that was her only chance to see him, she had to learn from family members 1500 miles away, “That’s completely Fucked up!!!!!”

I heaved a sigh, and texted back that if it was serious, all of us siblings would have been told to come up. But instead, we were told to stay home (which we did) because it was not serious. I reitereated that Sir was going to be fine, and that there was no need to worry.

Now, at this point, a rational adult might say that, okay, she still wishes she had been told, but she’s glad that he’s going to be okay. At worst, she might say that she plans to take this up with him when he’s better, since it was his decision. That’s what a mature, rational adult would say, right?

Well, that’s not what this thirty-three year old adult woman decided to say.

Instead, she texted me back with, “No, YOU were all told to stay home, I wasn’t told SHIT! I had to find out from out of state family members...at least I know where I stand.” 

mfw:

Setting aside for a moment how self-centered it is to still be more worried about your own feelings than your ailing father, the whole “at least I know where I stand” is so petty and passive-aggressive that it makes any sympathy I might have had for her evaporate. It’s the same exact guilt tripping nonsense that our biological mother would pull. Which, yeah, you could say, “Well, she just learned the abusive behavior, it’s a result of her own abuse . . .” but no, my sister is in her thirties, she should know better. If I know better, then she could learn better, and in any case, I’m no longer in a place in my life where I want to deal with this bullshit.

So, as you could imagine, at this point my patience had pretty much run its course. So I replied with, “Look, you can talk to Dad about this when he’s recovered. It was his decision (that he might have made because, idk, you wouldn’t even listen to him when he said he didn’t want a birthday party this past Xmas, much less if he told you to stay home while he’s in the hospital). But please save the tantruming for when he’s better. Appendicitis surgeries have an 84% success rate, but he still doesn’t need the stress.”

And that bit about the birthday party is true, by the way. At the immediate family family event this past Christmas, she kept insisting how the two of us had to plan a huge birthday party for him. When I told her that I didn’t have the money for that, she replied, “I'm not worried about the money,” at which point I replied, rather indignantly, “I am!” And honestly, she should be, because she’s even more broke than I am given that she has a family to support, but whatever. The point is, she said she didn’t care, and when Sir overheard this conversation and told her, repeatedly, that he didn’t want a birthday party and that it would upset him if she threw him one, she kept telling him he was going to have one because it was a milestone birthday, yadda yadda. So you know, that probably played a part in him not wanting her to be told, because he knew she wouldn’t fucking listen if she was told to stay away. (Also evidenced by her, “WHAT IF IT WAS MY LAST CHANCE TO SEE HIM??” like . . . clearly you would have gone up to the hospital, which is what he didn’t want, which is why he didn’t tell you, how is this so hard to understand?)

Anyway, at that point she realized that she was running out of things to counter me with / yell at me for, so she decided to try to criticize my grammar by saying, “It’s Tantrums, I don’t believe Tantruming is a word..and it’s my father and his health and I had a right to be informed . . .” And then went on about how she obviously listened about his birthday party, because she didn’t throw him one. Never mind that the birthday in question is the one two years from now, versus the one he just had, and she knows this, but whatever, I let that go in favor of addressing her grammar.

Or rather, addressing her correction of my grammar.

See, here’s the thing: Not only does she routinely have issues in her grammar that I could correct but don’t because I’m not that kind of asshole (I mean, just look at that text: She capitalized both “tantruming” and “tantrums” when she shouldn’t have, she only had two dots instead of three for ellipses, and she didn’t space her ellipses, which---I know tumblr formatting always smashes ellipses together, but they’re supposed to be spaced out, with one space surrounding each dot), but I knew that I was right, or at least right enough. While “tantruming” is likely not recognized as a word by modern dictionaries, it still is in a modern slang lexicon, and words that are used often enough in a slang context are often adopted into formal dictionaries (see: ain’t). So in my reply text, I let her know that in the modern lexicon, tantruming is an accepted verb variant of tantrum. I then, because I was feeling rather pissed off, sarcastically praised her for trying to correct an English major with linguistics certification on what is or isn’t a word. (I don’t actually have linguistics certification, but I mean, she only has a high school equivalency degree because I did half her coursework for her while I was still in high school myself, so the point stands. She really should not be trying to pick this battle with me.)

She didn’t give up. Instead, she replied with, “Funny you mention being an English major when you started a sentence with But, that’s a grade school no no.” 

I don’t even know what sentence she was referring to, honestly, since my last message didn’t include that---but I did get to correct her again with, “Incorrect according to most modern style and grammar guides. Here, educate yourself:” and a link to a modern style and grammar guide which explained that beginning a sentence with a conjunction is actually usually correct grammar.

In any case, while I was sending that snappy text, she texted me back with a message saying that she was done with the conversation and, “At least our aunt cared enough to let me know.” 

Which, again, more guilt-tripping nonsense, designed to do nothing more than make me feel bad and grovel for forgiveness while spouting apologies. But I’m not in the business of doing that when I haven’t done anything wrong (okay, snapping at her about grammar isn’t right, but she started it), so instead I replied with, “You’re behaving like a self-centered child, so that is fine by me.”

And for someone who claimed that she was done with the conversation, well, that just pulled her right back into it, for she said, “I’m self centered for being concerned for my father, do you have a clue how Fucked up that sounds...You lower yourself to call names yet I’m the child? I love my father and had a right to know, that’s the bottom line.”

And ohh, fam, at that point I let her have it. My response was a veritable essay, so here we go:

“First of all, the one who initially stooped to ad hominem was you when you tried (and failed) to criticize my grammar in lieu of having an actual response. So yes, I’ve criticized your behavior, but you were the first to stoop to juvenile personal attacks.

“Second, yes, you ARE being self-centered. You care more about YOUR FEELINGS than YOUR AILING FATHER’S WISHES. You think, despite him needing surgery, that the biggest tragedy here is that you weren’t told. News flash: You only have a right to know what HE WANTS you to know when it pertains to HIS PERSONAL AFFAIRS. Being his daughter does NOT give you a right to override his boundaries and personal consent. Instead of thinking about how victimized you feel, why don’t you instead think about how you want him to get better, and want to have a calm, adult discussion with him about this when he is? That would be a reasonable response.

“And lastly, you have been taking this out on and yelling at ME when it was NOT my decision. I tried to explain things calmly to you at first, using facts, but you’re so wrapped up in your own drama that you refused to hear it. So yes, you ARE being self-centered and immature, and I’m done dealing with it. I put up with enough of this behavior in my childhood. If you feel like behaving like an adult, message me then. Otherwise, please refrain.”

At that point, my mother (again, the non-abusive one) called, and let me know that the surgery was fine and that, although my dad might have to stay in the hospital for another day or so, he should be fine. So, good news! She then asked how things were going, and I let her know that I had been fighting with my sister for the past hour, and offered to screenshot and send her the receipts if she wanted them. She said she did not want them. Nonetheless, my sister just replied with “Peace” (as I saw after I got off the phone with my mom), so whatever. She’s pissed, but whatever, we’ve had worse fights in childhood. And if not, who cares, honestly. I rarely talk to my sister, and if she’s going to behave like this, I don’t even want to.

Anyway, that was just a spot of venting. Again, please do not reblog this, I’ll just delete it if you do. I just wanted to get it off my chest, because goddamn, what a way to end the fucking year, am I right?

Good riddance, 2017. May 2018 be better than you.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT THE OTHER ROAD AHEAD

VCs to come back when they have more traction. The kids see to that. It's quite a leap to start a startup, then whether you realize it yet or not. If parents told their kids the truth about it. It seemed the planet was being irretrievably ruined. For most people the best plan probably is to go to work for you, as Google has, you have to introduce yourself, or someone with connections in the movie business. Palo Alto you happen to run into Sean Parker, who understands the domain really well because he started a similar startup himself, and also knows all the investors. Whereas it's easy to know how high they'd go, but I think it can scale all the way back to high school, flushing out all the arbitrary stuff people are measured by now. Why do startups have to be secretive with other companies, who to hire, everything. It was when I'd finished one project and was deciding what to do next. The plan was to put art galleries on the Web even now, ten years later. And you know what?

If one tries a new programming language or a new discovery. They use different words, certainly. There is a bit of a debate inside our partnership about the airbed concept. He invented television. Of those eight, it now looks as if at least four succeeded. Because their current business model depends on overcharging people who have incomplete information about prices. This fallacy is usually there in the background when you hear someone saying we don't need to rely on other defenses. As with gangs, we have some idea what secrecy would be like, because that's how things used to be done with levers and cams and gears are now done with loops and trees and closures.

Suppose another multiple of three. Until a few centuries ago, the main sources of wealth were mines, slaves and serfs, land, and cattle, and the next you're doomed. If you'd been around when that change began around 1000 in Europe it would have seemed a great bet a few months. The problem with feeling you're doomed is not just that it's more preposterous to claim about anywhere else. And what drives them both is the number of employees at Craigslist looks like a misprint. These things don't scale linearly. They'll learn a lot, and that job at Microsoft will still be waiting for them if they wanted to start a startup, we never anticipated that founders would grow successful startups on nothing more than YC funding. But design is a definite skill. In a big company, it would be more fun. When they'd been independent, they could release changes instantly. That seems like saying that blue is heavy, or that we'd meet them again.

The power of chance meetings is more variable than people around you care about the kind of work the recipe is in big companies, software has to go through one lame idea before realizing that a startup has made money, and partly because people pay for these things, so one doesn't need to change. So if you want to make your fortune was a crazy thing to do, I'd encourage you to focus more on the basis of education than wealth. We could hire employees, but we are still in the gathering data phase. They're probably good at judging new inventions for casting steel or grinding lenses, but they pay attention. And after having spent their whole lives doing things that are false, and being regarded as odd by outsiders on that account, the cognitive dissonance pushing children to regard themselves as Xes, despite the fact that I still thought at age 11 that teachers were infallible shows what a job the system must have done on my brain. In a feudal society, there are three reasons. If you feel you're really helping people, you'll keep working even when it seems like your startup is worth investing in, and they'll close it, whatever type of lead it is. Wow. There's a narrow variant: is it bad that the current legal system, to apply for patents to build up the patent portfolio they'll need to. So governments that forbid you to accumulate wealth are in effect decreeing that you work slowly. That's why we're doing it during the summer—so even college students can participate. Like nuclear weapons, the main sources of wealth were mines, slaves and serfs, land, and cattle, and the second is worth twice as much.

A lot of the spread of modern religions, and explains why their doctrines are a combination of factors. What I like about Boston or rather Cambridge is that the function of swearwords is to mark the speaker as an adult. If it gets easier to start a startup, is start a consulting business you can then gradually turn into a product business. Are you still in NYC? If they want to conceal the existence of these words for as long as you didn't fail out of laziness or incurable stupidity. The kids see to that. What should they do? Imagine having to ask permission to release software to users. But among the many other things I was ignorant of was how much debris there already was in my head. To almost everyone except criminals, it seems that most people are insulated from it most of the startups we've funded. But if a kid asks you Is there a God?

He found they were one thirteenth as productive after the acquisition. Startups are often described as a pie. I've heard from cities: in London you can still reach the ball, even if you're producing it unknowingly. Instead of going to venture capitalists with a business plan and trying to convince myself I could start a company when he wrote the first version of Facebook. It's obvious that biotech or software startups exist to solve hard technical problems, but I suspect that if you need money, you should be smarter. The mere fact that someone needs you makes you want to sell the company. But even those they use no more than necessary. But you never have to pretend that's what they're doing when they patent algorithms. CEOs, movie stars, hedge fund managers, professional athletes. Instead of working at a low intensity for forty years, you work as hard as you possibly can. It was only after hearing reports of friends who'd done it that they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events. As long as you stay on the territory of truth, you're strong.

Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on. It wasn't the vet's fault; the cat had a congenitally weak heart; the anaesthesia was too much for one person to bear. It seems to be a smooth presenter if you understand something well and tell the truth you don't have that feeling that your life is flying by like you do in the second. But money is just the effect of grading. Instead of trading violins directly for potatoes, you trade violins for, say, to make your fortune was a crazy thing to do. Nearly everyone who works is satisfying some kind of irresponsible pied piper, leading impressionable young hackers down the road to ruin. Wealth is what people want. It's when you can see that people there actually care what paintings look like. For the foreseeable future, people will rally around you: investors, customers, other companies, or deal with other companies, or in most schools. You shouldn't put the blame on one parent, because divorce is never only one person's fault. But I think it will also be found to be true in businesses that don't seem to matter. Because this phrase is not only manufacturing companies that create wealth.

Thanks to Geoff Ralston, Trevor Blackwell, Sarah Harlin, Robert Morris, and Steve Huffman for putting up with me.

[quranreadalong]

#11, Surah 2

THE QURAN READ-ALONG: DAY 11

After all that unfortunate business yesterday, today’s subject is slightly more peaceful: regulations concerning your womenfolk.

But first, I hope you’re not a Muslim planning on marrying a practitioner of polytheism, because the intro to today’s section has some bad news for you.

Wed not idolatresses till they believe; for lo! a believing bondwoman is better than an idolatress though she please you; and give not your daughters in marriage to idolaters till they believe, for lo! a believing slave is better than an idolater though he please you. These invite unto the Fire

Kuffar hell counter: 1!

It should be noted that the third word here, al-mushrikat, is somewhat controversial in how all-encompassing it is. All Islamic scholars agree it applies to polytheists, but some believe that it applies to anyone who is not Muslim. As we’ll see, another Medinan surah seems to say that Muslim men can marry Christians or Jews (but Muslim women are never allowed to marry any non-Muslim in any interpretation of Islam). But other parts imply that Christians themselves engage in polytheism! We’ll get back to this subject in surah 5. Regardless: if you’re a Muslim guy engaged to a polytheistic woman, you should just resign yourself to The Fire now.

How about we move on to another women-related topic, though? Such as… menstruation? Mohammed enlightens us and tells us that it is icky and bad.

They question thee (O Muhammad) concerning menstruation. Say: It is an illness, so let women alone at such times and go not in unto them till they are cleansed.

Period sex: absolutely haram! Women are impure during their periods. (Women can’t even pray or fast while menstruating.) But non-period sex: very good, because women exist for you to put your dick in them. More precisely, “your women are a tilth for you (to cultivate)”. Sahih International’s translation gets rid of the metaphor and just goes for it with “your wives are a place of sowing of seed for you”. Now why would Mohammed need to tell his followers that they are entitled to their wives’ vaginas? Let us see...

We, the people of Quraysh, used to have sexual intercourse with our wives from the back (in the vagina). When we migrated to Al-Madinah and married some Ansari women, we wanted to do the same with them. They disliked it and made a big issue out of it. The Ansari women had followed the practice of the Jews who have sex with their women while they lay on their sides. Then, Allah revealed: (Your wives are a tilth for you, so go to your tilth, when or how you will)

Mohammed’s crew wants to get freaky doggy-style with their new Medinan wives, but they’re lame prudes because they have been corrupted by Ze Jews. Mohammed lets everyone know that they can screw their wives in whatever position they want. Feminism! (Bad!)

Three bad ayat to start the day, how depressing. Let’s get some goodness up in here. 2:224 tells Muslims not to use their faith as an excuse to avoid being “righteous”. This means if you swear to do something “by Allah”, but realize it’d be better to not do that thing, then you can break the oath even though it was said in Allah’s name. One’s intentions in saying oaths are worth more than the oaths themselves.

That was a nice little intermission. Back to rules about what you can do with your women! The entire rest of this section is about marital issues.

Say, for example, you’re done with your wife. Perhaps she has developed a furry fetish and this is the last straw for your marriage. You say “I swear to Allah I’ll never sleep with you again! We’re finished!”. If you do this, 2:226 there is a four-month period in which you can change your mind. But if you’re really done with your wife and her Sonic the Hedgehog erotic costumes, and you really want a divorce, that’s fine (and neutral) too. In the event of divorce, here’s what’s up:

Women who are divorced shall wait, keeping themselves apart, three (monthly) courses. And it is not lawful for them that they should conceal that which Allah hath created in their wombs if they are believers in Allah and the Last Day. And their husbands would do better to take them back in that case if they desire a reconciliation. And they (women) have rights similar to those (of men) over them in kindness, and men are a degree above them. Allah is Mighty, Wise.

The waiting period is to make sure they’re not pregnant; if they are, they should probably go back to their husband to raise the child with him. Also, men are above women in terms of responsibility and authority, just in case you were wondering. Eh, it can still go in the neutral pile, at least it doesn’t tell you to beat them or anything (that comes later!) Actually I changed my mind, saying men have authority over women is bad, sorry Mo.

2:229 continues the list of divorce regulations. You can get married, announce that you’re getting divorced, then revoke that and remain married to the same lady, then repeat the process, but the third time you say you’ll divorce her it’s permanent and irrevocable. According to a hadith, men don’t have to financially provide for their wives after this, assuming they’re not pregnant.

This process is called talaq, and it’s really the only method of divorce mentioned in the Quran itself. It is always initiated by the man, it can be done for any reason, and it is accomplished just by telling your wife you’re divorcing her. There is another form of divorce mentioned in the ahadith--more on that later--but talaq is the one derived from the Quran. Some of you may have heard of a variant of this, called “triple talaq”, which is a deeply stupid tradition wherein the guy divorces his wife just by saying the word “talaq” three times at once. Women’s rights activists dislike this practice, as it can turn a woman into an unsupported divorcee with zero warning time.

Most but not all Islamic jurists these days frown upon “triple talaq”, saying that while it’s technically allowable, the pronouncements should really separated by a month or more (but ideally there should just be one pronouncement and the divorce should be finalized after the waiting period). In the very early days of Islam, triple talaq was common under some leaders and uncommon under others, so it is quite an old practice.

The ayah also stipulates that a husband shouldn’t take back his mahr (dower given to the woman upon marrying her/consummating the marriage), unless “ye fear that they may not be able to keep the limits of Allah”, in which case the woman should give him the money. Pretty vague, but whatever. (If a woman wants to end her marriage, and the man agrees to it, she does have to give back the mahr. That’s the other form of divorce I mentioned, called khul.)

If you’ve done all that but you’re now missing your divorced ex, there’s a way to get her back! All she has to do is... marry and divorce another guy, then you can have her again!

…Look, pal, I don’t make the rules, Allah does. Anyway, those two ayat are dumb but neutral. 2:231-32 are comparatively good ayat, telling men in the middle of the divorce process to either take their wives back or finalize the divorce and let their wives marry someone else after the waiting period; i.e. don’t play games.

I should mention here that Muslim girls are told that all of this was unheard of at the time and that Islam granted women rights they’d never had before. This is false. Pre-Islamic Arabia had a huge number of marriage and divorce traditions, varying by tribe, religion, and location, and some were unquestionably more progressive than those described here. In particular, some groups in Mohammed’s neck of the woods granted women easy ways to divorce their husbands and to retain their property upon marriage, even preventing their husbands from inheriting it if so desired. But I’ll talk more about that in a later surah.

We have some instructions for breastfeeding up next. Muslim women are told to ideally breastfeed for two years or so, but if they have to use a wet nurse, that’s fine too. Neutral and basically the same as Talmudic law. 2:234 has instructions for widows: they are to remain single for exactly four months and ten days before remarrying (again due to the possibility of pregnancy). Also neutral, as are 2:235, which tells men not to propose to women before that period is up, and 2:236, which tells men that they can divorce women even if they haven’t had sex yet. If you haven’t agreed on a mahr yet, then just give her a small gift and send her packing. But if you have, then you’re on the hook for half the agreed-upon mahr, unless the woman’s male guardian says you don’t have to do that, which is preferable. Eh.

That’s a pretty good place to stop for today. I hope all of you would-be divorcees have been enlightened.

NEXT TIME: A bit more about women, David and Goliath, and more jihad!

The Quran Read-Along: Day 11

Ayat: 17

Good: 4 (2:224-25, 2:231-32)

Neutral: 9 (2:226-27, 2:229-30, 2:233-37)

Bad: 4 (2:221-23, 2:228)

Kuffar hell counter: 1 (2:221)

⇚ previous day | next day ⇛

[jclifou]

indulge me.

;;I want some marriage of convenience AU’s guys. The below were designed with Belle in mind, but realistically could work with any woman in Villeneuve, and maybe some in Paris or Marseilles.

All of the following variations, regardless of the partner, have one impact: they're all negative. Because no matter which way you look at it, LeFou has just gone off and married a woman--meaning he's married someone he's not sexually and (very probably not romantically) interested in, and that their marriage bars that selfsame woman from chasing her own opportunities for love and attraction which she might have otherwise earned. But!, keep in mind--for him, this is a defensive strategy. Homosexuality was outlawed during the relevant period: he would have been burned alive as a heretic if anyone so much as SUSPECTED he was queer. My poor li'l cinnamon roll. So marrying a woman (as opposed to remaining a lifelong bachelor) was the ultimate defense. "Gay? Huh? But I'm married???? To a lady???? A very pretty lady??? Hahahahaha...ha...me...gay. *sweats nervously*" That sort of thing.

The following variations were designed especially with Belle in mind, so they all have one common factor: the starting ground. Gaston must either be dead or presumed dead. The relativity of this as a factor if the other partner isn’t a Belle is up to the other party; there’s very little it adds, aside from a fuller dose of dependency on LeFou’s part. Some of these are alternately designed with anyone but Belle in mind, because they depend on Gaston being alive. Just be aware of what you’re jumping into!

There’s the possibility in almost all of these, by the by, for the wife in question to only later discover LeFou’s sexuality. I can’t stress enough how much of a no-go this was for the time. If my partner would prefer, there’s always the option to play a resentful/terrible/evil/mean wife who abuses him (likely verbally) in private/public but whom he desperately needs to remain married to--both because divorce was unthinkable and because he would be at greater risk for persecution without a wife or with a wife who tattles on him. Blackmailing is fun! :D For anyone interested in playing with the conventions of this sort of marriage, but isn’t a mademoiselle--a Stanley, for example, or any like muse--this is an especially fun option to jump in with. LeFou penned in by this marriage, wholly unable to escape, but falling in love with/becoming entangled with someone else.

One variation I'm willing to explore is that now, years after his disownment, the Marquis de Lafay has realized that he was unable to find a suitable heir--maybe Adelaide only has girls, maybe Robine is young too marry and he doesn't like Adelaide's husband, who tf cares?--and so he offers the inheritance, the title, the land, all of it to LeFou...on the condition that he marry, and marry respectably. Although a village girl is hardly a the sort of wife suiting an aristo, a suitably pretty and well-mannered girl would be enough to please his father, particularly if she could “blend in” well with society. Especially with Gaston dead, LeFou would feel lonely enough and pressured enough, especially for the money, to cave to his father's demands. The only issue with this one is that it's going to be a perpetually miserable sort of a thing: no matter how well LeFou likes his wife, frankly, his father is detestable and the upper-crust society he would be inducted into is stuffy, boring, and constrictive. Being the Marquis de Lafay affords him the same protection a woman would in other variants: he's upper-crust, upperclass, can't be gay. That's how the thinking used to go, if I’m not mistaken. But unless he and his wife grow ultra close, and his wife expresses her own heartache over their position as Marquis and Marquise de Lafay, and LeFou realizes their marriage offers him the protection (if not the money) he needs, he would be unlikely to leave the position, leading to a progressively more miserable entanglement.

Another variation I'd be willing to play is less monetarily motivated; LeFou gets shook because a new man of the cloth comes to take Pere Robert's place in Villeneuve, and he suspects--and is highly unforgiving of, as the times would be--LeFou's sexuality. So LeFou courts and marries to escape the prejudice. Kind of already doing this one with @strangespecialmostpelicular, though!

A third option is really only open to a Belle, as it would work best with her. So. Stay with me here, this one needs a lot of backgrounding. Belle was originally betrothed to Gaston for insert contrivance of your choice here. But her father goes missing one day; she goes missing for a few days, with Maurice raving about a monster in a castle. When Belle shows back up, she’s bruised and cut--but not severely. More like she had been lost and stumbling around in the woods. Privately, Belle tells her Papa that she escaped; publicly, that she got lost looking for him. But the Beast is unhappy, and she fears for her life. She’s never been happy with the idea of being betrothed to Gaston, but at least now it seems she might be protected. He’s surprisingly tender, taken aback by her display of vulnerability when she asks him to protect her. He laughs at the idea of a monster, but of course agrees. In a freak accident in the woods (involving a terrible and angered beast, not that anyone knows this), Gaston has passed away. And Belle is afraid again, but no one in the village will take her seriously. I think this verse is generally opened to some fun stuff--especially if after their marriage Belle goes missing again, hauled back to the castle because fight me pissy Beast is pissy, just let me have a dark AU, and LeFou has to go save her and try to succeed where his hero failed--but I have to admit, the premise is weak in that I don’t know the how or why for Belle’s marriage to LeFou in this case.

For a fourth option, and I don't know how this would have happened speficially, but somehow LeFou has a heart to heart with a girl. Maybe in his sorrow and loneliness following Gaston’s death he opened up to her, who knows? --Though, if this is the case, it’s best if we foreground the relationship in this thread with at least the tentative kind of admiration and friendship I tend to extend towards Belle’s. To the girl’s surprise, she learns things about him she never thought to wonder at before. He's kind, he's softspoken, he's well-read. He's afraid for his life. He's not attracted to women. He fears that now, without Gaston to protect him, someone will catch him and kill him--beat him to death in an alley, light him on the pyre, stone him, flay him. Gaston meant protection, you see. Being Gaston's friend meant no one thought to cast doubt on him, because they knew that meant facing Gaston. The girl, kindhearted, decides/agrees to protect LeFou by marrying him, since she knows he would never be safe or happy having to leave village after village and hope the rumors never followed him. But there's a catch, and one that’s especially interesting for a Belle. Some time after their wedding, perhaps when/if they're preparing to leave Villeneuve--LeFou, after marriage, would do anything it takes to make his protector happy--who should arrive back in town but Gaston? (Imagine the hurt and betrayal and the rage and the fear and the conflict, and how it gets quadrupled if LeFou has married Belle. I’m just saying.) **This is also just a generally fun idea for any Gaston with an interest in it!

For a fifth and currently final variation, without dipping into any other AU’s, is an option technically closed to Belle’s: Gaston gets married (perhaps to a Belle?, but it needn’t be a Belle) and actually gets to remain fully alive for this one. Good for you, Gaston! It’s also a variation which might be more fun for a Gaston to play in than for a wife, although I do think there are some cutesy moments for LeFou to have both with his own wife and Gaston’s. But Gaston’s marriage does lessen some of the protection his mere presence offers to LeFou, as it does open the door for suspicion to fall upon him. Scrambling, LeFou courts and marries the first girl who says yes--but of course, Gaston grows weary of his bride, having officially ended the chase with his marriage vows, and only a few short months after his wedding is restless and on the prowl, and demands more and more of LeFou’s time and attention, as in their bachelor days. I don’t know where all else to take this one, except to have a very cringey LeFou trying to make amends with and giving apologies to le wives. I can imagine them even being quite charmed by how sweet he is, and giving Gaston the biz for not being as sweet. And we get to keep LeFou pining over Gaston! Always a good time.

I should note: I’m obviously open to more ideas and variations! These are just some that I came up with on my own, pretending he’s beside me. :)