#these people that tend to see any sort of disagreement as the worst thing on fucking earth are just white americans

[yanqings]

these tenderqueer people or whatever the fuck its called and their posts drive me absolutely nuts. i dont even know how to explain it, its just as if they have the moral compass and comprehension skills of a child. hello is the object permanence even working up there

[canmom]

the especially crazy-making thing about this 'witnessing a genocide' situation is like...

ok, so there's lots of catastrophes that are genuinely kinda intractable. economics shit, climate change. the problems may be evident but there's lots of room for reasonable disagreement about how to solve them and it's easy to get stuck in a bad equilibrium where the only way out is coordinating an enormous collective action problem and nobody is making any headway. that's one kind of bleak, but at least it's a comprehensibly difficult form of bleak.

i know full well that 'genocide' is a geopolitical football where everyone wants to position what the other guy is doing is a genocide but what you're doing is merely anti-terrorism, assimilation, whatever. this is because the post-wwii consensus is pretty clear cut that genocide is one of the worst things imaginable and one of the only things that really merit going to war.

thus WWII, the official Good War, is retroactively cast as a war to end the Holocaust, even if in practice the Allies were pretty indifferent to what was happening and would turn away refugees, and their solution to the problem of millions of displaced people was to jump on board an ethnonationalist colonialist project that would send them all off to a newly defined 'Jewish state' in a spare country the British happened to have lying around in the Middle East... and well, we're seeing how well that's working out for everyone. subsequent stories of genocide, such as Rwanda, Cambodia, or Bosnia, tend to end with 'and then xyz country invaded and put an end to things and the genocidaires went to court and we put up museums at the mass graves and shot documentary films'. even though the nigh-universal hypocrisy about the subject is rancid, you can at least kind of imagine that there is some pretense that the objective of this whole affair is to stop these kind of mass deaths from happening.

at this point there is no ambiguity that what the Israeli army is doing in Gaza is genocide. they've cut off two million people without food, water, and electricity, shut off their communications, and rained the most sophisticated modern weapons on them indiscriminately for going on three weeks. they've blown up most of their completely overwhelmed medical infrastructure and done everything possible to disrupt it. this war is so one-sided it's not funny, it's just a massacre. Hamas can annoy Israel with rockets but can't do a damn thing to protect the population they're ruling. and there is nowhere for people in Gaza to run to. the border with Egypt is closed. an insultingly tiny trickle of aid has made it in, which will instantly disappear to the orders of magnitude more hungry people.

in short there is no option left besides wait to die.

but, ok. in contrast to all those intractable problems... this one is very simple to solve. Israel could stop dropping bombs whenever they feel like it, and negotiate for whatever they fucking want, e.g. prisoner exchanges. they could let the Palestinians out of the ghetto and dissolve the situation that creates Hamas. they could easily continue to maintain Palestinians as second-class citizens. (look at how lopsided South Africa remains.)

and if they won't, because the country is ruled by fascist maniacs with broad support across the settler population, the US - which has all the leverage in the world - could threaten to hang them out to dry until they call a ceasefire. Israel has so thoroughly made enemies of all its neighbours that they would not last long without that US backing. it needn't even get to that point, if the US said 'stop' and made it clear there was any sort of line... Israel might feel it has to do a little damage control and try to look good on camera. maybe hold off on the white phosphorous. leave a few houses standing.

but none of that is happening. none of it.

it seems like the ground invasion will be starting. it might be well underway when i wake up.

despite the 'simplicity', it's still not at all clear what one little human can do about it. if i go to a protest tomorrow, for the symbolic gesture of "having done something" if nothing else, maybe it will make me feel better, but the most likely immediate outcome is that the government (currently going through a rape scandal, i love the uk) is going to step up its internal repression of Muslims. somehow, the idea that the people are displeased with their democratically elected agents won't factor into it. the protestors become 'other' by virtue of protesting, another problem to control.

it's common to ask 'what would you have done if you lived in Germany (or Poland) during the Holocaust?' a lot of people imagine they'd be heroes, hiding Jewish people in their attic or becoming partisans in the woods or whatever. in practice, history suggests that most people would have gone along with it without much complaint, or even taken the opportunity to steal from the victims, moving into vacant houses, taking over companies, even helping the Nazis round people up.

i must not become an inner emigré. doing nothing when i could have done something is unacceptable. but what i feel, faced with this situation, is pathetically impotent.

i feel so sick.

[bardic-inspo]

❣️ 💢 💧!

Thanks for the ask!! :D Answering for Deacon x MacCready x Natasha

❣️— When do they first say I love you?

Well, spoilers but not spoilers, it hasn't happened yet between MacCready and Natasha in Bring the Gasoline, so I'm gonna be a big tease about answering this. I will say, and this really goes for all of them, falling in love kind of slowly washed over them. There were moments where things definitely, definitively, changed between them all, but I think falling in love was more like...terminal velocity. At a certain point, they realized that if they weren't there already, it was inevitable. In that vein, when it's first internally thought/felt doesn't necessarily match with when they first say it out loud.

For the OT3, Nat and MacCready do have a talk about, finding that moment where they share that with Deacon for the first time independent of each other. And, at some point, once they've all said it, then they start to share it freely and openly between the three of them. But they feel it's important to happen organically and especially from Nat/Mac's end....not to put any sort of pressure on Deacon. On Deacon's side of things, I think that despite repeated assurances, it takes them both saying it to him separately, in intimate moments, for him to really internalize that: shit, this isn't a passing fantasy, this isn't something fleeting, I'm just as a part of this as they are. I think for Deacon, it's the biggest catharsis to finally get to say it aloud, to both of them.

💢— What are some habits of theirs that would take some getting used to?

Deacon has a habit of self-isolating that I think grates on MacCready and Nat in different ways. Mac feels reassured through physical touch and quality time, which I see as his primary love languages, and when deprived of that, he feels deprived of affection, and of course that hurts him, especially coming from his partner. Nat has some pretty specific prior experiences with feeling romantic/affectionate neglect or abandonment, and so she's pretty sensitive to that, too. Deacon has to learn to better communicate during times when he needs space, and Nat/MacCready have to learn better than it isn't such a personal affront. It helps to heave each other.

MacCready has a short fuse sometimes. He tends to get snippy or grumpy easily, and will vocalize that. Deacon and Nat tend to spiral and overanalyze his temper, so it takes some practice on Mac's part to gain some more patience and temperance in his tone, and for Deacon and Nat to understand it as much smaller magnitude than they initially internalize it as.

Nat is a bit of a doomsayer. She has a bad tendency to think a small obstacle is The End Times of the relationship(s). Similarly, she thinks a misstep on her part is also The End Times. Not that she wants that at all, but more that she fears her partners want that. Deacon sometimes experiences similar doubt that his partners want an end to the relationship, but neither he nor Mac ever want or consider ending things for a moment, and so they're never of a like mind with Nat on this. They all have to learn to vocalize during disagreements that it isn't of some terminal degree, but that they do have to work through it to find a better place together.

💧— Random angst headcanon

Before understanding that both Nat and MacCready have feelings for him and, more importantly to Deacon, that their feelings for Deacon don't doesn't diminish their feelings for each other, Deacon feels just god awful guilty for having feelings for both/either of them. He feels like he's invading/coveting their relationship and therefore should leave, but desperately wants to stay with them, too. It's the happiest he's ever been and the worst he's ever felt all at once, thinking that not only he doesn't deserve it, but that he's somehow robbing happiness from people he so desperately cares about.

[Send me an emoji ask about my favorite OT3}

[blu-joons]

DATING SEVENTEEN A⇴Z HEADCANON ⇴ Kwon Soonyoung

A ⇴ AFFECTION 

Soonyoung is always incredibly soft with any affection that he gives you, he loves to have his arms around you, whether it’s your waist, neck, or shoulders, he’ll take whatever he can get when it comes to being close to you.

B ⇴ BEFORE DATING 

You were instantly drawn the charming smile he had when the two of you first went to the same coffee store. He caught your eye in the queue, and you could only manage a smile back at him before the waitress called you forwards and took your order, aware that Soonyoung’s eyes were firmly watching you.

C ⇴ CONFESSION 

The two of you coincidentally kept bumping into each other at the store most mornings, almost as if it was fate. You never said a word to each other until one time you went to give your order only to be told it was already sorted. Soonyoung had learnt your order off by heart and paid for your coffee when he saw you walking into the store on the promise that you’d let him take you out for dinner whenever you had the time.

D ⇴ DATES 

You’re both fond of adventuring on your dates and exploring plenty of new places. Soonyoung will drive you around for hours to find hotspots for dates and quiet places. Sometimes just driving around is enough for the two of you, especially at night. You’ll stop by a drive-thru and order yourselves from food, turn the speakers up high in the car and just go in whichever direction you decide, making the most of the peace and quiet from it all and also the time that you get to spend with each other and just be able to talk.

E ⇴ EXPERIENCE 

Soonyoung had zero dating experience before he met you, and so he relied on those around him to give him a lot of tips when it first came to impressing you. You could tell that he was nervous when your relationship first began, he often mumbled apologies out of fear that he was doing something wrong or had perhaps missed a trick. It took a lot of reassurance from you to allow him to settle and trust that what he was doing was alright, but as he learned more about dating, he definitely began to settle in your relationship more too.

F ⇴ FIGHTING 

If there’s ever something that has upset you or angered you, Soonyoung is always very understanding and willing to help to make a change. He’s not someone who gets upset if you find yourself wanting to argue, he’s the first to admit that he’s not perfect, and if he can do something to make your life easier, then he’ll definitely do it. Similarly, with you, if something frustrates him about you, he’ll understand that the two of you are different people and at sometimes differences can appear, it’s just about working through it and moving forwards. It takes a lot to argue with him, or at least try and create a disagreement between you both.

G ⇴ GETTING TO KNOW HIS FAMILY 

Finding the time in Soonyoung’s busy schedule is hard to be able to meet his family, but whenever he has the chance, he’ll take you to visit his family. They’ve heard enough about you from Soonyoung to know that they’ll love you but meeting you in person far exceeds all of their expectations for the person that you are.

H ⇴ HOME 

He often spends more time at the studio then his home anyway, so Soonyoung won’t be too fussed wherever he settles. If it’s easier for him to head back to the dorm at night, then he will, or if yours is better, he’ll arrive there. Soonyoung is in no rush to find a place together, which you’re understanding of when he’s so busy.

I ⇴ “I LOVE YOU” 

When he came home from tour and reunited with you, Soonyoung couldn’t help but tell you that he loved you. He never imagined that he’d struggle as much as he did with not being able to see you, but as he thought about it, the emotions that he felt of not being able to be around you added up to one answer, that he loved you.

J ⇴ JEALOUSY 

Soonyoung is someone who is full of confidence, so he’ll pit himself against any other guy quite happily and know that you’d pick him, therefore he doesn’t tend to get jealous too often. He also appreciates that you have other people in your life who aren’t him, and so if you want to spend your time with someone else, then he’ll understand that and won’t allow himself to get jealous. Although he can’t hide the fact that he’ll be relieved when you get home to him, and answer all of his questions about how your day was.

K ⇴ KIDS 

The two of you talked about your future from time to time, finding it important to see if you were on the same trajectories. Soonyoung loved to tell you all about how he hoped to be able to teach his children dancing in the future, having kids was a huge deal to him, but having children that would hopefully follow in his footsteps was a thought that made him very happy, and very excited for a future with you too.

L ⇴ LAUGHTER 

There is never a bad day whenever you’re in Soonyoung’s company, he’s one of the main members who can help to create a light and happy atmosphere. He also hates whenever you’ve had a bad day and come home sad, he always works hard to pick up anyone when they’re feeling down, but especially you. He’ll work tirelessly to try and make you smile again, no matter how long it takes or how down you’re feeling. He cares a lot about making sure that you live a happy life with him, and will put all his efforts into making you laugh, cracking joke after joke and forever making cheeky remarks that will make you grin.

M ⇴ MISSING 

The true sign that the other members need to know that Soonyoung is missing you is when his own mood drops, and he becomes quiet. He’s always the one to pick the others up, so they’ll be the first ones there to pick him up whenever he needs it too. He’ll force a smile onto his face whenever he calls you, because he knows that you miss him. and he doesn’t want to make things worse for you. Not having him around to brighten the mood will be hard on all of the boys, they rely on him too, so they’ll try desperately to pick him up, not just for his own sake, but for keeping the moral of the rest of the group high as well.

N ⇴ NICKNAMES

You often end up calling Soonyoung, ‘energiser,’ because he just never stops. If he’s not dancing or singing, he’s talking or running around the place looking after you, he never seems to take a moment to breathe.  

O ⇴ OBSESSION 

He’s obsessed with your smile and making sure that you’re happy. Just the thought of you being down is heart breaking for him, so he’ll do whatever he can to make you smile.

P ⇴ PDA 

Soonyoung is confident in your relationship, so he definitely doesn’t mind about being affectionate with you in public. Whilst he doesn’t do anything to draw attention to the two of you, the way he holds you in public sends a clear message to those watching you both that he’s in love with you and a very happy guy too.

Q ⇴ QUESTIONS 

Whenever he comes up with a new routine or sequence, Soonyoung will often ask you about it and see what you think. Your opinion means a lot to him, and so any steps that get approval from you instantly go towards the group too.

R ⇴ RANDOM FACTS 

His phone album is full of random photos of you that he’s taken over the years. Quite a few of them are unflattering and taken from the worst angles, but those ones are also Soonyoung’s favourites because even though you’re at your worst, he still loves the way you look. Every single photo goes a long way to helping him when he’s on tour and picking his mood up whenever he’s missing you, bringing a smile back to his face.

S ⇴ SEX 

Soonyoung has a lot of energy when it comes to getting intimate with you, he never tires, and never complains either. He’s always very physical around you, he loves to keep you nice and close and guide you into positions that he loves to get you in. There’s never too much distance between the two of you, and if you start to tire, then Soonyoung will encourage you to relax and let him do all the work to make you feel good.

T ⇴ TEXTS 

If he’s not able to see you throughout the day, then he’ll often send you videos of the things that he’s getting up to so you can still feel as if you’re there with him and take note of the places he’s visits for your future date nights too.

U ⇴ UNIVERSE 

Your support is by far the thing that means the most to Soonyoung, knowing that he has someone who is permanently backing him and pushing him to achieve his dreams is the boost he needs to make sure that he keeps going.

V ⇴ VACATION 

Going on holiday is a treat for you both regardless of where you are in the world. The two of you will often decide on a place, and if you can’t, you’ll take a globe and drop a pin in it, wherever it lands, the two of you go. As long as you’re adventuring then you’re both happy no matter where you are in the world.

W ⇴ WHINING 

Soonyoung tends to lean towards liking your attention, and whilst he can deal without it for a while, if you leave it too long, he’ll let you know about it.

X ⇴ XXXXX 

Kisses from Soonyoung are always soft and sweet, whenever he has you in his hold it becomes an instinct for him to press a kiss against your cheek or against the side of your head. For him, your kisses are another form of support, almost as if you’re sealing your approval that he’s doing well and reminding him that you’re right there with him. They’re incredibly comforting and reassuring for him to know that you’re there.

Y ⇴ YOU 

You’re his number one fan, always his cheerleader on the side-lines supporting him.

Z ⇴ ZZZ 

He loves to be close to you at night, it’s comforting for him to be able to feel the quiet sounds of your breath and the feeling of you wriggling beside him as you try to get comfortable, settling eventually in his arms.

---

Masterlist

[imasimpforshanks]

hiii, how are you? may i ask angst alphabet for Ace? thank you ❤️

Angst Alphabet - Portgas D. Ace

a/n: hi hi!! here you go! OMG angst is still really hard LOL I don’t want to think about their rough life 😔😔😔😔😔 ANYWHOOOOO thank you for requesting and I hope you enjoy<3

warnings: on the letter S there is mention of self harm

A-Accident (would they blame themselves if you died in an accident?)

Ace would definitely blame himself. He’s always thought he was a no-good demon child, son of a criminal that didn’t deserve to be alive (despite finding people that truly cared and loved him). You dying in an accident and him not being able to do anything about it would just reinforce what he already thinks of himself.

Regardless of your cause of death he is likely to attribute it to your association with himself, and because of that he will think it is entirely his fault, even if he wasn’t present at the time of your death.

B-Break up (How would they break up with you?)

His lessons with Makino really helped him develop manners and just a general sense of acceptable behaviour. So, Ace would just be clear and up front, no mixed messages, no miscommunication. He would take you some place quiet and away from others, and then he would be as honest and vulnerable as possible – it’s the least you deserve. The break-up would be very civil, you would definitely end on good terms (doesn’t make it any less sad though).

C-Crying (how would they make you cry?)

Sometimes Ace can take his teasing a little too far. Usually you can handle it, but there are just some days where his words cut deeper than ever intended (even if they have no malice behind them). It’s not his fault you’re having a bad day, or not realizing you are having a bad day. It’s just one of those things that happens sometimes. As soon as you start to cry though, he apologizes and reassures you so much, to make sure you known he doesn’t mean it and he’s only playing around.

D-Death (how would they react to your death?)

It would start out with a lot of confusion, like “what t-that must be some kind of a sick joke. H-how… w-what… they wouldn’t just die like that.” After it really sinks in that you have in fact died, Ace will just get angry. I don’t see him as much of a crier (spoiler alert – we only see him truly allow himself to cry on two occasions 1) when luffy got crazy hurt as a child and 2) when ace was on deaths door), so I believe he would react with anger.

Regardless of your cause of death (natural causes, accident, died in battle etc.) Ace would be unbelievably angry with himself, the world and you. He would be angry at himself for being unable to save you, someone he cares about and loves deeply. He would be angry at the world and whatever higher being there may be for choosing now to be your time. There are so many horrible, horrible people in the world, yet you had to die? It makes no sense. Lastly, he would be angry at you. Not a genuine anger but more so a “how could you just leave me like this? We were meant to be together forever.”

E-Emotion (what is one emotion they would try to hide the most and how would they do it?)

I think Ace tends to try his sadness. He tries to put on a brave face, not wanting anyone to see him cry as he doesn’t want to be viewed as weak or be even more of a burden on others.

F-Fight (how often do you fight? What do you fight about? Do you fight often? Etc.)

Fights with Ace, although they don’t happen often, can quickly get out of hand. He’s stubborn and his inability to accept that he’s not always right can cause a minor disagreement to escalate into an all-out fight. On a few occasions you have argued about him never turning his back on an opponent.

Your fights tend to be followed by cooldown time. Things can get quite heated (no pun intended) so you need some alone time and space to breathe. After that though, you comeback together and apologize.

G-Guilt (what is the biggest thing they feel guilty about?)

For his entire life, Ace has lived with the guilt of simply existing. He doesn’t think himself worthy of being alive. Can you blame him? It’s all anyone ever told him growing up. Despite eventually finding people who loved him for him, those feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness still remain and continue to plague his mind.

H-Heartbreak (what would cause them pain in the relationship? How would they deal during a break-up?)

During a break-up Ace is quiet. He doesn’t want to be around anyone or anything. He wants to be left completely alone so he can sort out his thoughts and feelings. He’d be quite devasted because he’s had so few people in his life love him on as deep a level as you did.

I-Injured (how would they react if you are badly injured?)

Ace would absolutely lose it if you were injured. He’d be concerned, upset, and angry all at once. First things first, he needs to know if you are going to be ok. Once that’s been established, he’ll be upset at himself for allowing this to happen. This will be replaced by the pure anger he feels at whoever, or whatever, caused this.

J-Jealousy (what do they do if they are jealous?)

When he gets jealous he turns into such a man child. He’s pouting and moping around while mumbling to himself. He develops quite a petty attitude. If you were to ask him “want to go get something to eat?” he’d respond with “why don’t you just go and ask ____ for some food.” But, as soon as you begin commenting on how jealous he’s acting he’s going to deny it to the end of his days.

K-Kill (would they kill for revenge?)

Ace literally hunted down Blackbeard so he could get revenge on him for killing Thatch. It’s not certain whether or not Ace had the intention of killing Blackbeard, however, he definitely had both the spirit and anger to go through with killing him. So, it is possible that Ace would kill for revenge. However, for the most part, he would prefer to just beat them senseless.

L-Loss (what is their greatest loss?)

Either Sabo or his mother’s death, would be considered Ace’s greatest loss. His mother died when he was a new-born, so he doesn’t particularly remember, or know, anything about her other than the fact that she was a kind wonderful woman. However, the loss of Sabo is something he remembers vividly. Losing Sabo had a major impact on Ace. It was an unfortunate wake up call as to how awful the world truly is.

M-Mistake (what is the worst mistake they ever made with you?)

One night, after a particularly bad day filled with a horrible series of events, Ace was letting off some steam (quite literally I suppose). Messing with his devil fruit power, throwing some flames around. He hadn’t noticed your presence and so his flames nearly burnt you. He was horrified, and he only felt worse after he noticed the pure terror in your eyes.

N-Nightmares (how often do they have them? What are they about? How do they deal with it?

Ace has nightmares frequently, they vary, but they all have the same underlying theme, that is, the people in his life don’t actually care about him and only view him the same way everyone else views the son of the pirate kind – a worthless devil with no right to life. He wakes up from his dreams in a sweat and finds himself in desperate need of fresh air (ya know to try and clear his mind). He ends up just sitting out on the deck of the Moby Dick looking up at the sky trying to tell himself it was all a dream. But his insecurity and self-doubt begin to resurface and soon he can’t discern imagination from reality. However, the moment someone else on the crew even speaks to Ace with something as simple as a “morning dude” he’s brought back down to earth and thinks to himself “no that’s right…. They love me… I wouldn’t be here right now if they didn’t.”

It’s a vicious cycle, but in the end, he manages to remember (even if it’s just for a little bit) that he is cherished.

O-Outrage (how and why would they get mad at you?)

When you continuously tell him there’s no need to stay and fight every single opponent. It’s okay to turn and runaway – in fact it’s safer to do that. When you say that he feels as though you don’t understand him. He’s not some careless, impulsive child who’s just looking for a fight (okay maybe he is a little bit). So he doesn’t really get super angry, it’s more so that he is frustrated and a little upset that you don’t try to see it from his perspective.

P-Past (what has happened in your relationship that changed the way you saw each other?)

It’s the same as the worst mistake he’s ever made with you – nearly burning you with his devil fruit. It made you realize that Ace can actually be quite dangerous (although you know he would NEVER hurt you intentionally). It made Ace realize that he needs to be more careful, the look of pure terror in your eyes has stayed with him ever since that incident, serving as a reminder.

Q-Quality (what is their most dangerous/toxic quality?)

His tendency to not back down from a fight is simultaneously his most endearing and toxic trait. He constantly places himself in dangerous situations with minimal concern for his own safety.

R-Rejection (how would they react to you rejecting their confession (or the other way around))

Having his confession rejected by you was definitely a blow to his self-esteem, but he respected and accepted your feelings. Instead of moping around about it he decides to laugh it off, trying to make light of a slightly disappointing situation.

S-Scars (battle or self-inflicted)

Ace does not have any scars, battle related or self-inflicted.

TW self-harm: I do think ace got worryingly close to self-harming, but Sabo and Luffy made him rethink it all.

T-Trust (have they ever broken your trust?)

The one and only time Ace broke your trust was after Blackbeards betrayal. You made him promise to take you with him when he left to hunt down Blackbeard because you didn’t want him to go alone. He promised but he had no intention of keeping that promise.

U-Urge (how badly do they want to see you after you guys separated?)

For a while Ace manages to get by by keeping himself preoccupied. But as soon as he lets up for even a minute, he realizes how much he misses you and is beyond tempted to just sail on back to wherever you are and tackle you to the ground plastering your face in lil kisses. When he’s not distracted, he really does miss you a lot. He hyper-fixates on what you could be doing at this very moment, whether or not you miss him too etc.

V-Vicious (what do they do when they lash out on you?)

When ace gets mad, he tends to get very loud. He raises his voice quite a lot and it becomes very, very frightening. He would never physically hurt you, but the anger and frustration in his voice is more than another to scare the shit out of you.

W-Weak (what makes them feel weak how do they try to avoid it?)

Constantly being reminded or associated with the Pirate King. Maybe it doesn’t make him feel weak, but it makes him feel horrible inside and stirs up a lot of feelings and remarks people would make when he was younger. Unfortunately, once word gets out there isn’t much Ace can do to stop this from happening, however, before this, Ace avoided this by not telling ANYONE. He only told Luffy and Sabo, with a very small handful of others knowing (i.e Garp).

X-X-ray (what do they hate and show it most obviously?)

He hates turning his back on a fight or turning his back on people that talk shit about those he cares about. This is seen during the Marineford arc. He doesn’t let Akainus words about Whitebeard slide. He doesn’t runaway. He has no tolerance for that shit.

Y-Yearn (what is one thing that they want but can’t have?)

Ok this may be dark as hell but, Ace just wants to not feel like a burden to the world. He wants to be viewed as something different/separate from his father, but he can’t change history.

Z-Zero (what do they do/say in your dying moments?)

He doesn’t let you go. He’ll hold on to you until he is forcefully separated from your body. He just starts to spout a lot of nonsense – things don’t make sense at all, but he can’t help it right now. He can’t think properly when you’re about to leave him. He just wants you to stay.

[alltoolewis]

Can you do a Marcus Rashford imagine where you're married and get along fine with everyone in his family except one of his sister's. Marcus' mum had called you all over for a girls lunch. Usually the air between you and his sister is just tense and you tend to keep it in whenever she says something to annoy you which is what you do during lunch too but let's just say today wasn't one of those days and she really grinds your bone this time and you decide you've had enough and shady comment back before excusing yourself, apologising to Marcus' mum before leaving. When Marcus gets home later on in the day, turns out he's already found out that you and his sister had a little disagreement. He's aware that you both don't get along so it wasn't a surprise. He comes home and you speak to him about it, him listening intently and trying to understand why you both can't get along. Even Marcus' comforting doesn't help, you feel frustrated by the situation and can't help the tears from welling up and he instantly pulls you into his chest and tries to make you feel better.

I didn't realise how much I wrote until I finished writing sorry lol.

Thank you.

This could of been a blurb itself hehe! Thank you so much for requesting ✨

-------

"Do i look like a puff pastry?" You yelled to your boyfriend who was was preoccupied by his PS5 rather than your 'very important' fashion show

"Huh?" Marcus laughed looking over to find your anxious stated looking in the mirror "what sort of question is that?"

Sighing you made your way over to your shared ben throwing your self next to your very amused partner!

"I just want to make a good impression!" You sighed snuggling your way into marcus chest

"Baby they already love you! You've met them loads of times!" Marcus pulled you deeper in his chest, if that was possible as he felt you shake.

"Okay i know Tara's very rude to you.... i dont know why okay! But ignore her baby.. please just go out and have a nice time, relax okay because whether she likes it or not your gonna be her sister in law"

Pecking his lips, you silently nodded, before getting out of his embrace. Preparing yourself for a very tense girls dinner date... but to your suprised you weren't prepared for the worst.

----

As soon as you arrived things were already super tense. It was just any normal rashford family outing. His mum, melanie and sister in law, emma constantly trying to kill the tension, however no matter how hard they tried, the tension wasn't going anywhere!

"Not long yet then (y/n) till you officially become a rashford" melanie screeched, grabbing your hand causing tara to roll her eyes.

"I know urmm.. 1 month left to go i think" you stutted, taras constant stares and eye rolls slowly starting to set off your anxiety.

"Wowww you sound so excited" tara tutted "tara enough" his mum warb3d clearly seeing how stressed you have become.

"Its okay mel!" You whispered, giving her a small smile.

"I am so excited tara!" You smiled at your clearly unamused soon to be sister in law "however I can't lie i am pretty nervous, marriage is a huge step.. the next step in our relationship. I know you've never gone beyond the talking stage, but once you finally meet someone and you get married, you'll understand why I'm nervous"

Smiling to yourself as you see Tara's shocked expression, clearly taken back at your sudden burst of confidence. Emma and melanie feeling very proud that you finally stuck up for yourself after years of Tara's bullying behaviour.

However the victory didn't last long....

As soon as you picked up your glass of red wine, tara nudged your leg from under the table, causing you to let out a gasp as the substance soaked into your all white playsuit.

"Oh noooo what are shame" tara sarcastically whined "oh well atleast marcus can pay for it to be cleaned... hes use to paying for everything anyway! Girls like you cant even afford there own rent nevermind dry cleaning"

Without saying a word, you quietly grabbed your bag, giving mel and emma a small tear stained smile. You excused yourself from the lunch. You always knew tara disliked you because of your past. Your parents barley had anything, you didnt get as many opportunities as the average child does. Every step of your career has come with challenges... challenges that you had to overcome yourself. You wanted to be proud of your roots however it was hard to be proud of something that alot of people shooted down.

--------

When marcus returned home from training he knew exactly where he'd find you. His mum already giving him the rundown of todays events, wanting him to make sure your okay after her daughters horrid words. Opening your bedroom door he found you wrapped in one of his jumpers, watching reruns of greys anatomy.

Climbing in next you he istanly pullz you into his chest, letting you let out all of your frustration. His heart breaking at each little hiccup as you struggled to find the right words to express whats happened. He never imagined his sister taking it this far, but all knew from holding your shaking state in his arms is that he needed to have a stern word with his sister. Makin sure she knows how much shes not only hurting you but also him.

--------

Requests are open! Who i write for is on my masterlist in my bio ✨

[random-thought-depository]

Tangent from my last post: reading over this and thinking about it, I’ve pinpointed a disagreement that I think reveals a fundamental disagreement I have with the ideas I was responding to there.

Seph’s essay talks about liberal sexual consent practices as requiring a shift toward a more Culture A style of social interaction; requiring a willingness to actively assert your own interests instead of engaging in Culture B accommodationism. And that’s true, but I immediately recognized that it’s incomplete in a way that I think fundamentally distorts what’s happening, though it took me a while to think out exactly how. Saying “no” involves a degree of Culture A type assertiveness, but respecting that “no” and pro-actively making sure your partner is enjoying things involves an attentiveness to feelings, an accommodationism, and an attentiveness to maintaining harmony that’s more Culture B.

Like, if you drew up two columns, one labeled “Macho Republican Dad Boomerpost Stuff” and one labeled “Softy SJW Stuff,” and started sorting things into those columns by which group they’re more stereotypically associated with (bacon, guns, capitalism, Christianity, complaining about “cancel culture,” and calling people sissies as an insult into the Republican Dad column, tofu, queerness, feminism, socialism, veganism, accusing people of microaggressions, and being a Wiccan into the SJW column, etc.), I think liberal sexual norms placing a high premium on explicit consent would definitely stereotypically belong in the “SJW” column. And in this context I think that’s revealing.

I think what’s happening here is fundamentally orthogonal to Culture A vs. Culture B. I think, like a lot of left vs. right divides, it fundamentally comes down to hierarchy vs. egalitarianism. Liberal sexual norms emphasizing consent are a rejection of the pecking order method of simply resolving sexual conflicts of interests in favor of the person with more power, whether that power is social status, physical strength, emotional intelligence, or just being more willing to press for their interests. Culture A vs. Culture B is fundamentally orthogonal to what’s really going on here; trying to understanding this issue through that lens is at best like trying to understand the US Civil War through the lens of doctrinal disputes between different types of Christianity (you may get some genuine insights, but you’ve mistaken the fringes of the conflict for its core), and at worst like trying to understand the US Civil War through the lens of doctrinal disputes between Sunni and Shia Islam.

Actually I think the “trying to understand the US Civil War through the lens of Christian doctrine disputes” may be a good analogy, because I think this does tie back to the “the left/liberal side of the culture war is waging a war against Culture A” hypothesis in a way that reveals how that idea is not exactly wrong but misses an important dimension of what’s happening. I think what’s happening is that hierarchy is more explicit and explicitly enforced in Culture A, and therefore as society becomes less like a pecking order hierarchy tends to assume Culture B characteristics.

Culture A is where you find the human hierarchies that look the most like actual pecking orders, which are maintained by literal physical pecking. It’s where you find the openly brutal world of bosses screaming “the leads aren’t weak, you are!” into a cringing subordinate’s face, cops quietly taking an uncooperative suspect into a convenient alley and roughing him up a little to “teach him to respect our authority,” gangsters beating somebody up for being insufficiently deferential to them, some 6′3 250 pound guy in the grips of road rage punching some 5′7 150 pound guy in the face over a smashed bumper, teachers disciplining students by giving them hard blows on the palm with a ruler, a swaggering thug threatening a woman with physical violence because she had the effrontery to object to him groping her, and jocks having some fun inflicting casual physical abuse on the nerds in the locker room and on the playground. Hierarchies in Culture A are often maintained by physical violence and the threat thereof and put-downs and other explicit verbal bullying. When somebody in Culture A thinks you’ve gotten a bit above your station and wants to put your in your place, they’re likely to either actually use physical violence against you, explicitly threaten you with it, or explicitly insult you. Abuse in Culture A tends to look like our stereotypical picture of some swaggering thug openly terrorizing somebody who has some sort of vulnerability.

By contrast, hierarchies in Culture B tend to operate under more polite fictions of relative egalitarianism, cooperativeness, and non-violence. Enforcement of Culture B hierarchies tends to be less overtly violent. Culture B hierarchies are more likely to be covert and legible only to somebody with inside knowledge (e.g. you’ve ostensibly got a group of equals, but some are more equal than others because of advantages that mostly aren’t explicitly acknowledged). Culture B tends to have more of an ideal that coercive power can only be legitimately exercised for moral reasons, while Culture A tends to have more of a “master morality” culture where power is seen as worthy of respect in itself (Culture A is what gave us “Chad” and “alpha” as aspirational ideals), which is why bullying in Culture B tends to have a moralistic and fearmongering nature (see: Tumblr call-out posts) while bullying in Culture A tends to follow a more “master morality” logic of “our victim is weak and aesthetically displeasing to us, and that in itself makes them deserve punishment” - though much like “Culture A rewards strength and technical skills, Culture B rewards social skills and popularity” that’s a dichotomy that can easily be overplayed; most human hierarchies come with a hefty dose of community-minded moralism (even if the community is a pirate ship or criminal gang or something like that), and social skills and popularity are hugely important in almost any culture. Culture B is for people who wouldn’t dream of doing anything so barbaric as yelling at you or punching you because they’re mad at you; they’d complain to the human resources department who’d force you to spend a Friday evening listening to somebody lecture you about the need to “make our store a welcoming environment for our valued customers.”

An archetypal abusive Culture A authority figure is the macho thuggish “respect mah authoritay!” cop. An archetypal abusive Culture B authority figure is the gaslighty Nice Lady Therapist. The former is more-or-less open about the fact that he sees himself as above you in the pecking order and if you dispute that he’ll be delighted to enforce the pecking order in approximately the way chickens do it. The latter pretends to be your friend (and perhaps believes themselves to be that), and expends a great deal of effort tailoring their pecking order enforcement to not look like pecking order enforcement - significantly, they might like to be as openly brutal as the “respect mah authoritay!” cop is, but in strong Culture B that social strategy just doesn’t work; their social strategy represents a compromise with socially influential ideals of egalitarianism and non-violence, a tribute that vice pays to virtue (less charitably, it may simply reflect playing to different strengths and trying to minimize different weaknesses, e.g. the thuggish cop may have chosen that social strategy because he’s a physically powerful but not particularly socially intelligent Biff Tannen type, while the Nice Lady Therapist may have chosen that social strategy because she’s a socially intelligent and Machiavellian but physically feeble 4′10 woman).

In short, Culture B tends to both meaningfully soften the blows of pecking order enforcement and obfuscate them. It follows that as equalizing movements gain ground and explicit pecking order logic becomes more taboo, hierarchy will increasingly take on Culture B characteristics. In 1700, if you angered your boss in some petty interpersonal way he might have whipped you, which was his right as your master. Today, if you anger your boss in some petty interpersonal way she might think a little about how to get revenge on you in a way that doesn’t risk blowback if you take it up with the union, and then find some excuse to arrange for you to have to attend some mandatory HR remedial training that isn’t officially a punishment but let’s be real, totally is. Maybe in 2200 you won’t have a boss because you’ll work in an officially egalitarian syndicalist union, but there will be some union members who are “more equal than others” because of personal connections or charisma or some combination of both, and if you anger one of them in a petty interpersonal way they might through whisper networks arrange a quiet campaign to make sure the union votes against your requests for your favorite foods on the workplace lunch menu.

I guess I’m staking out a position as a hedging kind-of partisan of Culture B here. There’s a lot of talk about how Culture B gets an undeserved good reputation and can be just as unfair and cruel as Culture A but in a more insidious way, and I’m sympathetic to that and I think there’s a lot of truth to that, but, y’know, if I had to choose between pecking order enforcement that has to maintain a plausible veneer of being something else and just open undiluted sadistic pecking order enforcement, I think I’d prefer the former. I think even just adding in a requirement of hypocrisy improves things, because it forces pecking order enforcement to optimize for plausible deniability instead of sadism and effective tyranny. Admittedly, as somebody who finds this very relatable I have a strong personal bias here.

An illustrative personal anecdote: the usual stereotype of high school is that bullied kids (or at least bullied boys) suffer a lot of casual physical abuse, but I noticed that in my school there was a lot of verbal bullying but mercifully little physical abuse; the worst that was likely to happen in terms of physical violence was somebody tripping you up or throwing a box of kleenix at you or spitting their drink at you or something like that. I suspect the reason was that blatant physical violence was pretty much the only form of bullying the school administration would reliably punish (though they’d likely punish the victim right along with the perpetrator), and that’s why it usually wasn’t done. I suspect what happened is that stereotype of chronic casual physical abuse reflects what schools were like when the baby boomers were growing up (and boomers then wrote fiction etc. that reflected that experience that shaped the pop culture stereotype), but then anti-bullying reforms came along and by the late ‘90s and early ‘00s they’d achieved one great success: mostly eliminating that schoolyard culture of casual physical violence. And that was a very incomplete fix, just addressing the tip of the iceberg of the problem and probably often redirecting bullying into psychological abuse rather than actually reducing it... but, y’know, I’m really glad my middle and high school experience didn’t conform to that pop culture stereotype of the school dweeb getting regularly beaten up by four or six bigger kids. I had an awful time in middle and high school, but judging from pop culture stereotypes it could have been so much worse, and if suspensions for kids who punched other kids is what created that difference, then I’m profoundly grateful for that reform.

I think the left is kinda-sorta waging war on Culture A as a side-effect of its war on pecking order culture, in which high-status people enjoy the advantages of Culture A while low-status people labor under the disadvantages of Culture B. It’s not an accident that Culture A is associated with men and Culture B is associated with women. Accommodation (sometimes to the point of self-harm) is a survival strategy for low-status people in a social structure that resembles a pecking order; if you’re going to lose the fight, it often makes sense to pre-emptively accept a settlement that favors the interests of the stronger person (often to the extent of trying to anticipate the stronger person’s wants, performing even the brain work of figuring out their preferences for them). Competitiveness is a social strategy for upward mobility in a pecking order society or defense of a place near the top of the pecking order (it also has more pro-social functions so we probably want to keep it around in some form, but social competition is very much part of its function). Women tend to be reluctant to openly advocate for their personal interests because for much of history a woman openly advocating for her personal interests was likely to provoke status-guarding retaliation from men. Men tend to be reluctant to show vulnerability and see doing so as feminine because for much of history other men were likely to perceive a vulnerable man as an opportunity to increase their own social status by lowering the vulnerable man’s social status, and as a rule of thumb to lower a man’s social status was to give him a social status more like a woman’s. In the context of a pecking order society, a lot of Culture B makes sense as social strategies for people at the bottom of the pecking order with little realistic shot of escaping its lower levels, and a lot of Culture A makes sense as social strategies for people at the top of the pecking order and people at the bottom or middle of the pecking order who have a realistic shot at using high-risk high-reward social strategies to move up in the hierarchy. I think there’s some complicating factors around reproductive dynamics that explain why this is a gendered thing instead of just a class thing, but I won’t get into that here. So it makes sense that as society becomes less like a pecking order that process will involve shifts toward Culture A in some areas and shifts toward Culture B in other areas, because those cultures are probably both somewhat maladaptive in a more egalitarian social context.

A relevant example is that for much of history vigorously advocating their own sexual interests was often very risky for women, so Culture B primes women to pre-emptively accept a settlement that favors the man’s sexual interests, so liberal consent norms work better if women develop more assertiveness about their own interests, which looks kind of Culture A-ish. At the same time, women now have more leverage to effectively demand that men perform pro-social Culture B behaviors of accommodation, empathy, and consideration for the feelings and interests of others in the context of heterosexual sex.

----------

Tangential aside: I think thinking of hierarchy as the fundamental tension point of the left vs. right conflict illustrates a way that post I was responding to might be kind of too meta and you might get an illuminating perspective by stepping back from all that meta-level theorizing about fundamental epistemological differences and looking at the object level.

If you analyze left-wing “cancel culture” at the object level, what does it look like it’s trying to do? It seems to me that it’s trying to lower the social acceptability of what leftists perceive as defenses of hierarchy. Who are the stereotypical targets of campus “cancel culture”? They might be a “race realist” who’s very eager to tell you about how he thinks certain human groups have lower IQs or other congenital traits maladaptive to modern society and darkly hint about political implications. They might be a business libertarian economist who wants to stump for the gospel of the free market. They might be somebody who has a habit of delivering the academic equivalent of boomerposts about kids these days with their coddling and their trigger warnings and their genders. They might be some principled “free speech” type who seems to spend a lot of their energy white knighting for neo-Nazis and other far-right types. They might be somebody who you’d think would be relatively unobjectionable to leftists but who’s said something that can be uncharitably interpreted as bigoted at some point. Besides raw factionalism, the obvious common point is something that can be reasonably interpreted as a defense of hierarchy. The “race realist” at least implicitly says “some groups are smarter or otherwise better than others and may therefore be rightfully deserving of privilege.” The business libertarian economist at least implicitly says “if you’re poor because you can’t get a job or can’t get a job that pays well, that’s basically your problem and the system working as intended; a society with great inequalities of wealth and status may not be ideal but it’s at least better than all the realistic alternatives.” The academic boomerposter at least implicitly says “some people struggle in our education system because of personal emotional sensitivities; their weakness is their own problem and us more functional people have no obligation to accommodate it, if that harms them it may be regrettable but it’s basically the system working as it should to weed out those unfit for it.” The principled free speech proponent at least implicitly says “wanting to kill the Jews and re-enslave the blacks and have white Sharia should be a tolerated opinion in our society, at least insofar as it should not be legally persecuted, and I am willing to devote considerable efforts to defending that principle.” The basically unobjectionable liberal who happens to have a dodgy comment or three in their social media record at least implicitly says “I don’t think I should get too much blowback for once implying that [insert group of concern here] maybe deserves the jackboot to the face.”

And sure, you can dispute the fairness of such judgements, but the over-arching project outlined by these targets seems fairly obvious: to raise the social costs of what leftists perceive as defending pecking orders.

And, like, yeah, there’s some meta-level differences about the role of tolerance and debate too, but I suspect a lot of the disagreement is really more object-level, over how objectionable certain opinions actually are, e.g. a lot of the dispute over “cancelling” the business libertarian guy is probably going to be over 1) how objectionable defense of hierarchy actually is, 2) whether libertarian beliefs are actually defenses of hierarchy.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Eating Everything.”

I am working my way through the list of suggestions that you guys left me, so this is the first installment from a Anon ask. I don’t know if this is what you wanted to read or where expecting to read, but this is what I came up with.

Intergalactic Journal of Biology and Medicine

Humans have one of the most resilient digestive tracts in the known universe. As an Omnivorous predatory species, humans are capable of digesting muscle , fat, carbohydrates (simple and complex), proteins and fibers taking many nutrients and extreme energy from them. Their use of carbs gives us an explanation as to why humans are so powerful because they require a lot of energy to use their bodies. Additionally, the stomach acid of a human is capable of digesting, non-food items though no nutrients can be pulled from it.

Generally speaking, the rule is that if you can eat it, a human can eat it, though, whether it is to their taste or not is questionable.

Furthermore, the human body reactivly ejects toxic substances once detected, so within reason, humans are capable of trying many foods without the negative consequences many of us would associate with sticking foreign substances in our mouth.

There GA intergalactic summit was held, on what was Earth time, November 5th, 4022. All members of the GA council were expected to attend, or at least a representative for every species in the known universe. At this time that would include the Rundi, Gibb, Tesraki, Bran, Vrul, Drev, etc. but worst of all, the humans. 

The Rundi steward, a class of government official who was specifically tasked with dealing with the drudgery of bureaucracy, was not pleased in the slightest. It was primarily his job to put everything together, and depending on how well he did, it could either make or break him in social hierarchy of his species. The Rundi were a primarily governmental planet, everything they did was based upon a structure of hierarchy and rule. Government was the greatest form of service, and Anarchy wasn’t even an afterthought in philosophical debate. The rundi were not capable of anarchy.

It was a planet of politicians in some form or another, every interaction had political underleanings, and their speech was always heavily guarded. For this reason, the Rundi had been the first in suggesting an intergalactic system of government. The terasaki had agreed only upon realizing they would be tasked with overseeing economics, but had benefited from the Rundi system of government seeing as they tended a bit towards social anarchy, a thought that the Rundi had seen as horribly barbaric, especially since their system was based primarily on the equal distribution of goods to support government structure. 

The Vrul had only agreed to join based on their own personal interest in survival. Generally they wanted nothing to do with intergalactic politics and would have been happy to maintain their own peaceful homeworld, but the introduction of other species into the galaxy had offered a great threat to them, and they had decided, out of necessity, to join the GA as being friends with the other species was in their own self interest. In turn that had meant sending their very, very skilled workers to help the rest of the galaxy, and that included their scientists and their doctors, and their mechanics.

And then of course there was the issue of the Drev and the humans, both scarily similar in social hierarchy and temperament. The Drev were warlike and honor bound, but once choosing a leader, they had been surprisingly willing to join in as long as they were given the opportunity to participate in any and all armed conflict that happened to take place across the galaxy. 

The humans….. The humans were another story. There was no one characteristic that helped to identify their motivations. The humans themselves were well versed in war, politics, economics, and science, but they did everything to the extreme. Where the Drev practiced war for honor,when humans waged war, they did it to kill, while the Rundi maintained government and played games within their own circles, the humans played against each other often mixing war and government into one. Their economic practices varied widely, but their current system played for keeps and focused on the greatest accumulation of wealth possible far beyond what the Tesraki did. Then when it came to science, they never considered WHETHER they should do something, but only if they COULD do something. 

And now here the steward was forced into the position of setting up this summit for all the different types of species. The catering alone had been a complete nightmare, and he had been forced to ship different sorts of food for thousands of miles in order to feed everyone in the proper manner. There were some species he did not have to worry about, like the Vrul, who were more plant based and so did not eat, but there were others, and that included the rundi and the Tesraki, who had every strict diet consisting of only very specific foods to eat. He found that he could tack the Drev onto some other species, seeing as their bodies were capable of metabolizing almost any plant as long as it retained a similar structure to human plants and fruit.

However, the humans themselves were the hardest part, because the range of food was so wide, he could hardly determine what was going to work and what was going to be a massive disaster. He honestly didn’t know, different sources said different things, and he couldn't bare to think about putting MEAT on the table…. That was just against his constitutions.

In fact, he was scrambling right up until the council had convened for the evening, and the mass tide of bodies came pouring into the room filling the vaulted ceiling with rockus chatter in dozens of different languages.

He could hear the humans coming a mile off.

The humans and the Rundi had a similar register when it came to hearing, and humans were known to be able to mimic Rundi vocalizations to some degree simply because they generally tended to communicate in deep grunts, hums and guttural vocalizations. The humans, wlel their language was just as varied as their culture clicking, hissing, snapping, humming and grunting filling the air with discordant and somehow, rhythmic quality..

Their presence turned heads.

They walked with the Drev delegation, which was no surprise to anyone. The humans had been unable to send their usual representative due to a social disagreement between earth and its neighboring sister, Mars. So who had they gone and sent….

Them….

The rundi Steward knew all about them….. Crewmembers of the UNSC Harbinger, the widest ranging vessel in the entire galaxy, and home to a crew that was indisputably certifiable. They were the most reckless, most dangerous, and most terrifying amalgamation of creatures in the galaxy somehow including one Drev, and a rather out of place Vrul whose behavior suggested he had caught whatever brain malady had overcome the humans, and was just as insane as they were.

He cringed horrifically at the sight of them.. Humans were a destructive force, and were known to cause chaos and mayhem wherever they went, even at the best of times, so this was bound to get interesting.

The delegates were seated, and the Steward welcomed them with gracious words of introduction he had spent months preparing. It was a very political thing for him to do, and included subtle compliments to all delegations involved, laid down some ground rules but made sure not to undermine the authority of the people he was speaking too..

However, to the humans, the attempt was obviously heavy handed brown nosing, though none of the other delegations seemed to notice.

He invited them in for refreshments and encouraged discussion between the parties.

Of course, the humans weren’t exactly ones to pass up the idea of food and were some of the first to the table examining the contents with great interest even the food that was not theirs. They seemed very amused watching the other delegations pick up their specific food and then move away to sit.

“What is this.” one of the humans commented holding up a rather stringy green tube that wriggled and squirmed in his hand, “Are these worms?”

One of the Tesraki looked over, “No, it’s a Cavestalk, a kind of plant. Probably not to your taste, they are known to be poisonous to other species. In other words, not human food.”

The human raised an eyebrow, “Buddy, humans are the sharks….. Or wait…. Maybe that's the goats of the universe, we can eat anything within reason, and even a couple of things outside of reason if given enough time.”

The Tesraki made a sort of shrug and wave with its large ears and then walked away. The steward watched the humans with a worried expression. It wouldn’t due to allow the humans to make themselves sick on his watch, but it seemed as if that idea was only becoming more and more likely as the humans poked and prodded at the leftovers of other species hardly bothering with the food that had been laid out for them…. Mostly strange fibrous plant materials.

And that is when it came, “I dare you to eat it.” 

The two humans locked eyes, one still holding the wriggling Cavestalk, “What.”

“I said, I dare you to eat it.” The human stuck out his chin at the other human in a primitive position of posturing, “How much do I get if I do.”

There was a moment of thought before, “Twenty credits. I’ll give you twenty credits to eat it.”

“What happens if it poisons me?”

There was a hand wave, “We have a doctor on board, he can just pump your stomach…. Chicken.”

A moment of silence passed between them, and the Rundi steward began moving towards them to stop something horrible he felt was about to happen. He wasn’t fast enough, and before he knew it, the human had thrown back his head and dropped the wriggly green thing into his mouth swallowing it whole like an alligator or a snake. 

People around looked on in somewhat fascinated disgust as the predator’s throat bobbed and he smacked his lips making a face, “Eh, I can still feel it moving…. Eh.” He paused, “Though, taste wise it isn’t so bad kind of like a wiggly asparagus.” After a moment his eyes narrowed, and he smacked his lips again, “Spicy asparagus, uh, that’s really really weird.” 

He reached the table just as the Vrul came running up shoulders squared in a very un-vrul way, “HE LITERALLY JUST SAID IT WAS POISONOUS TO OTHER SPECIES, AND NOW YOU’RE EATING IT! AND YOU OVER THERE.” A human looked up at him from where it had been prodding the Drev coiltree berries, “GET THOSE OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!”

They had attracted the attention of some of the closer tables now who were looking on in entertained confusion and worry.

A human waved a hand, “It’s alright Doc, we have you don’t we”

“I AM NOT THE MAGIC CURE FOR NEUROTOXIN.”

Another shrug, “Well it’s a good thing that I’ll throw up before anything really bad happens.” 

The rundi steward tried to intervene as the humans began prodding through the other food, “Drev can eat human fruit, so I bet these things are like fruit.” one of them pointed out popping the berries into his mouth and chewing with a contemplative look on his face, “Not bad.”

“Please, please, if you would remain within your own food groups.” The Rundi begged. HE was now realizing he should have written up some legal documents to avoid litigation if the humans were to be damaged on their property, but now was too late.

A human waved him off, “Don’t worry, everyone else is done eating, besides.” He Pointed towards the human food, “That's literally a pile of lettuce, I am a man, not a horse.”

“Horses don’t eat lettuce, also that’s not lettuce,it’s spinach.” Another human piped up prodding at a strange squishy red ball sloshing with a strange pink nectar, “This looks like candy.”

“Please don’t put that in your mouth.”

The humans swarmed away from the two dissenting voices. One of them picked up the strange pink orb and licked it. It’s eyes lit up and it bit into the piece wiping pink juice from it’s face as it did, “Ok, this, this is good 10/10 would try again.” And that only caused all the other humans to move over to try one.

“I SAID GET THAT OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!” The vrul demanded. 

The Rundi steward looked on in horror and worry. Vrul didn’t behave that way, everything here was just wrong. 

A Drev joined the party just then pointing to the pink orb, “I love those, but you should definitely try these too.” 

“No, no they should not.”

He was ignored, and the humans scooted over to look. It was a strange spiral plant in a light yellow color that made  a distinctive crunching sound as the humans bit down. They shrugged, “Sort of just like space celery if you ask me.”

Did these creatures have no sense of self preservation!

A group had gathered around the table strangely amused at the humans, who just ate…. Everything.

The Rundi steward almost keeled over watching his future go down the drain as other species began offering humans food. Whatever it was, they seemed unable to resist putting it in their mouths. A human made a face spitting something back out into his hand, “Ax bleh, tastes like Satan’s feet.” “Quick question. When was the last time you licked Satan’s feet.” “The last time I was at your mom’s house.” 

The humans made strange noises at each other as the Rundi stepped in and began grabbing things from the humans only to find the Vrul to be doing the same, “Stop it! Stop it all of you!.”

The human’s paused, as did the other delegates in surprise.

“STOP PUTTING THINGS IN YOUR MOUTH THAT YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE.”  The intervening silence was broken as one of the humans loudly crunched on one of the pink orbs. Everyone turned to look at her and she just glanced around the group.

“What?” She wondered past a mouth full of food.

A human waved a hand at him, “Keep your shorts on, we promise you won't get in trouble if one of us dies.” 

The Rundi stared on incredulous.

They were going to kill themselves, they were really going to kill themselves.

Maybe it was best if he resigned before being fired, at least he would be able to keep his dignity

[astrology-india]

Taurus Compatibility - The Best and Worst Match

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Taurus Compatibility - The Best and Worst Match

If you are lucky enough to have a Taurus in your life, then you already know what I am about to tell you.

Smart, friendly, and down to earth, the Taurus is a likely partner-in-conversation for just about anything from serious life advice to humorous banter.

Those born under the sign of Taurus are known throughout the zodiac as being trustworthy and dependable.

They come through in the clutch. Add in some friendliness and warmth for good seasoning and you got yourself a bull.

Ruled by Venus, the planet of love, it is not unheard of for the Taurus to partake in sensuality, even hedonism.

However, the bull seems to keep it in check, being well-grounded, practical, and focused on achieving their goals.

As a fixed sign, the Taurus is driven and determined.

They also have a reputation for being stubborn and even quick to temper, but let’s be clear here, you did not hear that from me. The Taurus is usually hardworking and committed. From love to career, they seem to know what they want and are fueled by stars to go and get it.

Below is everything you need to know about which zodiac signs are best and least suited for Taurus compatibility based on sun signs alone.

For the most accurate description regarding compatibility, it is important to understand your complete natal chart.

The Best Taurus Compatibility Matches

Taurus Compatibility is the best with their fellow earth signs who all value hard work, goals, and staying at home together.

The Taurus can be a winning combo with two of the sensitive and intelligent water signs as we will see below.

Taurus and Capricorn

The combination of Taurus and Capricorn is the power-couple of the zodiac.

Both hardworking, intelligent, and friendly signs, these two in love could take over the world if they desired to.

If the bull wanted a run for their money concerning stubbornness, Capricorn the goat can deliver.

This is a good thing, though. Both the Taurus and the Capricorn understand that the whole “stubborn” thing is an unfair critique anyway.

They both know that it is their devotion and commitment that people mistake the stubbornness for.

And this devotion? Well, it is for their friends, loved ones, family, careers, and their goals.

In my opinion, things that are well-worth being stubborn for and Capricorn/Taurus compatibility is excellent because these two share the same values.

The Capricorn is a bit more driven than the Taurus, who does not complain about taking it easy and indulging occasionally. The Capricorn digs all of that too.

So, when the more dominant and driven goat tires themselves out in the endless pursuit of achieving their goals, the sensual Taurus will be right there with dinner on the stove, the candles lit, and a good movie on deck.

Taurus and Virgo

The Taurus is sweet, and the Virgo is sensitive, no two sun signs could be more nurturing of each other.

Both signs are practical and hardworking and these two likely share the same priorities: loyalty to their partner, family, career, and staying at home.

Taurus compatibility with Virgo works so well because of some of the contrast of the two signs and the balance that they feed each other.

The Taurus is fixed and grounded. The bull is self-assured and proud. On the other hand, Virgo is a mutable sign who is known for being critical and sometimes goes off the deep end with worry.

In this harmoniously balanced relationship, the bull shows the over-analytical Virgo how to stay grounded and the Virgo keeps the Taurus in check when they go off into over-indulgence.

The Virgo knows how to get things done and will help the Taurus to focus and make their dreams into a reality.

In the bedroom, the Taurus will be much more open, as a sensual and physical sun sign. The Virgo is much more subdued.

This sun sign relationship is built on loyalty, so this is a good yin and yang balance if both parties share that deep connection.

Taurus and Cancer

What happens when two possessive, yet devoted sun signs meet and fall in love? They give each other fully to one another.

This could be seen rather remarkably in the Taurus/Cancer bond.

These two are domesticated, stable, and forward-looking.

They are alike in pretty much every way with only one real big difference: the Taurus is an earth sign, and the Cancer is a water sign.

What this means in broad terms is that while the Taurus lives through analyzing and rationalizing, the Cancer exists mostly through their emotions and intuition.

The Taurus thinks of every possible outcome to a decision while the Cancer goes off of feeling. This is also how the two primarily communicate as well.

If the above leads to any disagreements, it will be the many things that they agree on that will keep this couple together and the Cancer/Taurus compatibility going strong- mainly, staying at home.

The Taurus and Cancer are the two most domesticated signs of the zodiac.

These two signs are extremely loyal and seek security. Both the Taurus and the Cancer are hardworking and goal-oriented.

This perfect alignment of values will leave this couple with little to squabble about, which is a good thing because both signs have hot tempers.

Taurus and Pisces

If the Taurus has been wondering if there is any other sign out there that appreciates sensuality as much as they do, they need not look any further than Pisces- the most sensual of the zodiac.

The tough bull and the sensitive fish, who would have thought?

Just because the Pisces wears their feelings on their sleeve 24/7 and the stoic Taurus does not, really does not mean a thing.

The Taurus is pretty sensitive too and has a rich emotional life, even if they do not fully understand it.

Pisces is the ideal sun sign to help the Taurus get in touch with that side of themselves.

Both signs are intelligent homebodies who like to consume the finer things in life from the arts, cuisine, nature, music, books, and film.

Both the Taurus and Pisces love good conversation and humor.

The Pisces imagination will entertain and intrigue the Taurus to no end and in the bedroom Pisces intuition and Taurus sensuality together are dynamic.

All of this entirely depends on the specific Taurus and Pisces, of course. There is a chance that the two signs can over-indulge if not kept in check.

If both signs have it relatively together and are focused on their goals, then this is a beautiful, magical, almost physic relationship.

Least Taurus Compatible Matches

Some signs do not fare well with the Taurus romantically.

Taurus compatibility works the best with sun signs that share the same values. Some, like the sun signs below, have values that run counter to the Taurus’.

Taurus and Aquarius

Have you ever seen somebody kick over another person’s sandcastle at the beach? Maybe you have not but have seen a Taurus and Aquarius relationship. It is basically the same thing.

To better put this in perspective, imagine that the sandcastle is the Taurus’ need for comfort, stability, and security, and the foot that kicks it is everything about what the Aquarius represents.

The misunderstood Aquarius marches to the beat of their own drummer, and one could say that their objective in this life is to challenge traditions.

This means stability as we know it, something the Taurus looks for throughout their entire lives.

The Aquarius is off-beat and always playing with expansive and abstract ideas and has an alchemic way of bringing them into life.

The practical Taurus does not understand any of this at all and would much prefer to be with a more level-headed and down to earth person.

The Aquarius will have little interest in the Taurus anyway, as they see the bull as too materialistic and rigid.

Nothing about the Taurus will excite the Aquarius and vice-versa.

Taurus compatibility with Aquarius is not good. Both signs are extraordinary in their own right, but for a romantic relationship, they will do far better with a sun sign who shares their same values.

Taurus and Gemini

Taurus compatibility with Gemini is weak because the two signs have little in common.

In every aspect of their lives, The Taurus looks for stability like a heat-seeking missile. This is especially the case with their romantic involvement.

The Gemini is a free sign, not only because they are mutable, but the Gemini is particularly known to be flighty.

Maybe not in an ADD sort of way, but they do have this remarkable ability to jump from one thing to the next, often making decisions and taking actions at the drop of a dime.

The Taurus is much too grounded and cautious to understand the Gemini’s unpredictable ways.

In a sense, the double-sided and mutable Gemini (who is nicknamed “the twins”) may also have difficulty understanding why they do some of what they do as well.

Everything from activities to the conversation will go this way with the pair, leaving the Taurus desperately looking for some sense of routine and normalcy.

This is sure to bring out the stubbornness of the bull and the Gemini will think the Taurus takes everything too seriously.

Taurus and Sagittarius

Just because Taurus is ruled by the planet of love, Venus does not mean that their love is well-suited for everyone.

Taurus compatibility with Sagittarius is not good for many reasons, most pronounced is their difference in values.

The fire sign of Sagittarius is explosive and daring, a complete extrovert and social butterfly.

Meanwhile, the more reserved Taurus tends to lean towards being an introvert.

This should not be a total dealbreaker, however, the ruling planet of Sagittarius is Jupiter, which represents travel and exploration.

Taurus is one of the most domesticated sun signs and Sagittarius natives would likely work for the airlines if they do not already.

The Sagittarius is all about freedom and at the end of the day, the Taurus would much rather just stay at home with their partner.

Taurus compatibility with Sagittarius is highly doubtful as both seem to be here on earth worth completely different missions and both signs are pretty steadfast about making them into a reality.

Taurus and Aries

Remember the sandcastle analogy from earlier? Let’s use that again here.

The sandcastle still represents the Taurus’ values and this time the foot that kicks it represents the Aries.

Unlike the Aquarius in the earlier scenario, who has their reason for kicking the sandcastle, the Aries kicks it just to kick it. Aries, the aggressive young ram, thrives on conflict for conflict’s sake. The Taurus is hardworking and carefully constructs a comfortable, peaceful, and stable life for themselves.

Aries/Taurus compatibility is a big negative. If this relationship even starts, to begin with, it will end pretty quickly in one of three ways:

1) The Taurus ignores the Aries’s constant challenges to fight them, in which case the Aries leaves to go find someone else that will fight them.

2) The Taurus thinks the Aries is a bully, gets too stressed out, and then leaves.

3) The Aries pushes the Taurus just enough to bring out the bull’s famously bad, yet well-checked temper, and a fight that will end all fights ensues.

This locking of horns will likely be so bad that there cannot be any reconciliation ahead.

The Taurus Man

The Taurus man is a stoic in every sense of the word. Well, at least they want you to believe that.

Tough on the outside, the bull is a nature lover as a native of Venus. He is sweet and charming to those who know him.

The Taurus man is sensual and physically expressive, yet appearances would have you thinking that he was more reserved.

This is possibly true with his day-to-day decision making, but when he is in love, he is going to show it selflessly and with tons of affection.

The Taurus man is intelligent and communicative, he chooses his words wisely- he says what he means and means what he says.

He is hardworking and goal-oriented. Chances are this man who is successful and seeks a mate with a similar drive. Finding a partner who shares his values is a priority for him.

The Taurus man is a homebody. A force to be reckoned with at his 9-5, he cannot wait to get home and indulge in some good food, romantic company, and an evening in with his partner.

The Taurus, only matched by the Cancer, is the most domesticated of the sun signs.

The Taurus man is the perfect catch: an ambitious go-getter and a selfless and sensual lover at home.

Taurus Man Relationship Compatibility

The Taurus man works hard for his life of success, comfort, and peace and needs a partner who values the same things as him. He is loyal and devoted and seeks someone who is in it with them for the long haul.

Taurus man relationship compatibility works the greatest with Capricorn, Virgo, Cancer, and Pisces.

Taurus Man Sexual Compatibility

The Taurus man is physically expressive. While sex is physical, it is also much more than that to the Taurus man, who does not just make love in bed- he actually makes love in bed.

The best sexual partners for the Taurus man are Capricorn, Virgo, Cancer, and Pisces.

The Taurus Woman

The Taurus woman is the definition of a powerful woman. She is as strong as a bull, but as a native of Venus, she is as feminine as they come.

She is an artist at heart and drawn to things spiritual. If you told me that you know a Taurus woman from yoga class, I would not be surprised.

She is practical, intelligent, and communicative. While known for expressing her love physically, she needs stimulating conversation, preferably of the smart and humorous kind.

As a fixed sign, she is likely confident. The Taurus woman knows who she is and is looking for a partner who is the same.

The female bull is self-reliant and independent, so having a partner for her is a plus and not a necessity. She would much rather be alone than with someone insensitive, boring, or otherwise fake.

When in a relationship, she is devoted. Known to be a loyal lover, the Taurus woman seeks a partner who shares her values but also someone who does not bore her to death.

She appreciates genuine, interesting, and stable people in her life and to win her heart you will likely need to be patient and show and prove that you are a special catch.

Taurus Woman Relationship Compatibility

Taurus women are confident, independent, and self-reliant. She is tough yet sensual and full of love. When she is with a partner, she is fully invested. Highly devoted, the Taurus woman is looking for something solid and long term. Her compatibility is best with Capricorn, Virgo, Cancer, and Pisces.

Taurus Woman Sexual Compatibility

The Taurus woman is a physically expressive and powerfully sensual lover.

While she might come off as reserved, she lets her guard down in the bedroom, but only when in the company of a trusted companion who she is committed to.

The Taurus woman’s best sexual matches are Capricorn, Virgo, Cancer, and Pisces.

Final Thoughts

The intelligent and friendly earth sign of Taurus craves stability, comfort, and peace. If a sun sign shares these values, their differences will likely balance each other out in beneficial ways.

The Taurus in love is devoted; stubborn, yet selfless. They are trustworthy and dependable and in it for the long run.

Taurus compatibility is good with other domesticated homebodies who like to partake in sensuality at home: winning and dining, good books, and movies, with some stimulating conversation in the mix.

Some sun signs not only have different values than the Taurus, but their values actively go against what the Taurus works so diligently at building up for themselves, their sandcastle.

For this reason, Taurus compatibility is poor with Aquarius, Gemini, Sagittarius, and Aries.

Conversely, Taurus makes an excellent partner for sun signs Capricorn, Virgo, Cancer, and Pisces.

All of these signs prefer to stay at home and gravitate towards intellectually stimulating conversations and activities.

Some of these signs are hardworking and goal-oriented, and the others can be as well, depending on other aspects of their natal chart and their overall character.

[askpetethelibrarian]

ALA is so Square

ALA made the announcement about their Free Speech Zone to attendees in the last week or so. A couple tweets capturing most of the basics:

Credit where due, the long text was posted by @flexlibris on Twitter.

We’ll talk about it as “the square” from here on out, just for brevity. Ish.

Also, it should be noted that ALA has rolled this back, most likely based on the backlash from librarian Twitter.

As an aside, librarian twitter is possibly the worst twitter. It’s the worst I’ve been a part of. Because...well, it’s a very sensitive version of twitter, and...oof, I hate to say this, but it’s heavily trafficked by librarians who have nothing better to do than get outraged about shit on twitter. I don’t think ALL librarians have nothing better to do, but some of ya’ll, based on your timelines, need a little more workload. Just sayin’.

~

The Intent?

In tent? Eh?

I like to start with intent. Because while I know the popular vote right now swings towards impact over intent, I think it matters, and because it’s not talked about so much, I think we’ll have a period of time where intent might be lost. Once things are more balanced, I think we’ll want to talk intent again. So I’m ahead of the game and a goddamn genius is what I’m saying.

The intent is difficult to parse here. A lot of the arguments were along the lines of ALA continuing to prop up the white patriarchy or something, which I didn’t totally understand because, to be perfectly honest, I thought that this was sort of the naughty jail for people sharing views that, well, to reuse a phrase, prop up the white patriarchy. I thought the intent of the square was to put people in there who were sharing views that are viewed as racist/sexist as opposed to putting in people who are sharing views that are seen as progressive. But that’s how you know you fucked up: nobody likes it. People sharing views that go against the progressive grain (who I don’t think are huge ALA midwinter attendees, but whatever, that’s a whole ‘nother topic) think they’re going to bad boy jail. People sharing progressive views think they’re being restricted, continuing a path of blah blah blah.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful to either group. I’m just not really arguing either side in this debate because BOTH sides have the same problem with ALA’s idea, and BOTH sides feel attacked by it (in theory, at least. I didn’t actually see anyone willing to say “I wanted to say some anti-diversity stuff” at a library conference). 

I make it a habit to assume best intent. That’s a fraught idea, but I think about it like this:  #1 it’s up to me if that’s how I want to live life, not you. I’m not prescribing it for everyone.  #2 if doing this is a result of privilege...then I’ll take it. Assuming best intent seems like a good use of privilege to me.

So, if I assume best intent, I think ALA probably wasn’t trying to make a free speech jail. I think they, like many institutions, were trying to figure out a way to have legitimate discussions about topics without people just sitting in sessions tweeting about how horrible they are. 

For example, if I were to present at a conference, I might present on the topic of men in libraries. Which is going to touch some nerves. I might also present my personal feeling, which is that it’s unreasonable to expect that male representation in libraries will resemble male representation in the community. That view is based in a much longer discussion, which is that the majority of men, who cluster in spots on the gender spectrum, just aren’t as interest in books, reading, and librarianship. Now, this is not a progressive viewpoint. The progressive viewpoint is that we’re all indoctrinated from a young age to like what we like. I don’t tend to believe that so much, but in a session, I would tend to agree to disagree and move on with the fact of male librarianship being abysmally low, and that masculinity being redefined, if possible, will only lead to better representation in, say, 30 years. 

I think the square was designed as a space where people could have those discussions without those discussions derailing sessions. Not that I think these discussions aren’t valuable, but I think there are plenty of options to attend sessions based around those topics. I think it was also a way to silo those discussions in a place where all who enter are more in the “assuming best intent” mindset. That’s my guess. Heavy emphasis on “guess” because I really don’t know.

I also think that because ALA includes academic libraries and because librarians are an academically-inclined bunch, this is probably libraries following a model that has been used on college campuses. Several campuses use almost this exact model for protest and free speech, including the need to reserve time slots, and we’ll get into that shortly.

SEE, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS

I’m not so quick to blame ALA for making a boneheaded move. I think that librarians have brought this on ourselves. 

I don’t think we’re great at having the hard discussions about sensitive topics. Librarians tend to get very defensive about their work products and their professions, and it’s a problem on both the micro (single library) and macro (ALA) scale. 

I’ve mentioned this many times, but I can’t really talk about the lack of dudes in libraries without someone getting pissed off at me.

I don’t know, but I suspect that as a librarian of color, you’d probably wander into similar defensiveness if you talked about the whiteness of the profession. 

We can’t even talk about the square without basically accusing ALA of being a racist, nazi-esque mess. Our own organization, we can’t approach it with a question or even a “Can we talk about why this isn’t a good idea?”

CAN WE TALK ABOUT WHY THIS ISN’T A GOOD IDEA?

There’s an agnostic way of talking about this without getting into how or why it benefits one group or another. Because truly, it’s to no one’s benefit. 

The ACLU is against this concept. In short, speech that’s confined to a specific area is in no way free. But, more importantly, the purpose of attending a conference should be about learning and discussing, and rather than promoting learning and discussion, things like the square reduce discussion. They reduce opportunities for people to talk openly.

To take it further, a free speech zone indicates that the rest of the conference is NOT a free speech zone. 

If we can’t have civil discourse about our profession and views at a professional conference, then were ARE we able to have it? If librarians need referees to monitor and control conversations among colleagues, how will we interact with the public when there is no referee? If we can’t politely disagree, ask questions or make statements because we’re hurting someone’s feelings, then how are we ever going to address anything that actually matters?

SUGGESTION 1: ABANDON SAFETY-ISM

I think ALA is engaging in a bit of safety-ism, which is counter-productive.

Safety-ism isn’t the same as safety. Safety is making sure people are, well, safe. Safety-ism is prioritizing safety over all other things, and it coincides with the idea creep of safety including emotional comfort. 

People should not be harassed at a conference. If they are, the issues should be immediately dealt with by whoever’s throwing the conference. 

But, emotional discomfort shouldn’t be something that take priority. 

The ALA site says that attendees should vote with their feet, meaning that if they don’t like what’s going on in a session, they should leave. I 100% agree with this. If you don’t like what’s happening, if you’re feeling emotionally unsafe, leave. This applies to boredom or uselessness as well, but I digress.

There’s a famous saying I’ll paraphrase: If you walk into a library and can’t find anything that offends you, that’s a sucky library. Likewise, if you go to a conference and can’t find anything that offends you, it’s probably a sucky conference.

Safety is a priority. Physical safety. Safety from harassment. But emotional discomfort isn’t top dog. 

SUGGESTION 2: SET GROUND RULES

I think simple attendance ground rules really do solve this problem.

1. Speakers have the floor Please don’t interrupt speakers. You may have disagreements with a speaker, however the purpose of speakers is for them to express a point of view or explain a project. Different speakers have different styles, and they need to be given the room and space to express themselves completely. 

2. Attendees always vote with their feet This is always within your rights. At any time, stand up and leave.

3. The Protest Veto is a No-Go Please don’t try to silence any speakers or events via protesting or other methods. It’s not just about the speaker’s right to express themselves, it’s about the rights and needs of others to hear what that person is saying.

4. We value diversity of viewpoint We’re a very homogeneous group of people in a lot of ways. In trying to disrupt that, we will need to make room for people who don’t look like us, and we’ll need to make room for people who don’t think like us. 

5. Best intent It’s very unlikely someone spent the time and money to come here and be a jerk. If we can’t assume best intent, we can’t open ourselves up to new ideas and ways of thinking. If we can’t do that, we may as well not have a conference and everyone can continue doing what they’re doing, believing what they believe, and working the way they’re working currently. 

[angelalnazar]

plague beetle

a tale of doctor devorak and count lucio over the years.

hi here’s some jucio shit that i wrote back in july which never saw the light of day until rn // this was what july!spring made of their timeline so excuse any discrepancies :-)

>>

Julian Devorak was not afraid of the Count. Or, as he knew him, Lucio. Yes, Lucio was many things in his eyes—hot-headed, narcissistic, inappropriate at times (ah, who was he kidding, all of the time), and perhaps even formidable—but he had never found him frightening.

Ferocity on the battlefield and a short temper in his daily life, most people were undoubtedly intimidated by the Count, no matter how much they might laugh at him in private. He rose to the occasion in Vesuvia through the history of his work as a mercenary, successful and brutal, commanding respect. No, actually, commanding fear. The Count had always equated fear to power, had always seen fear as synonymous to respect.

But all that was really left behind of his mercenary days were their implications. Only stories of the Count’s vicious victories and quick reflexes remained on the tongues of his subjects. Only rumours of his conquests passed through Vesuvia. Julian knew there was more to it—to him, to Lucio—than that.

As a battlefield medic, he was too often occupied with the lives thrown into his hands to take too much notice of the actual fighting. And anyway, it made him uncomfortable. Too much... suffering. Unnecessary. Too much hostility. He preferred to focus on his patients, swiftly but carefully attending to their wounds. Often life threatening. Quite a bit of pressure, but nothing he hadn’t prepared himself for. During battles, it was much more important for medics’ work to first and foremost be fast. Tenderness came afterwards, merely an afterthought, if time constraints allowed it.

He had only heard of Lucio from others until then. Obviously, crossing paths with the respected mercenary in this line of work was inevitable, but there’d never been any particularly notable moments. Lucio’s condition at the time of his and Julian’s first interaction required a very delicate mix of caution and urgency. So, while most people saw Lucio at his most fierce and focused, Julian saw him at his most vulnerable. In pain. Allowing someone else to...well. Not take care of him, per se, but rather, truly tend to him.

It wasn’t Julian’s first amputation, but it was a novel enough procedure to him that the thought of carrying it out still caused a splatter of nausea to tickle his stomach. And as it turns out, amputations were intimate. Lucio didn’t want to live without his arm, he insisted he’d run all the risks if it meant keeping it—but, no, Julian was right; the chance of an infection was too high and too dangerous. It had to go. He was sorry. But it had to go. For Lucio’s well-being.

Trust was hard to come by. Julian had spent far too long travelling to trust easily. He knew that people were cruel, they would betray you the second they got the chance, the second they got the opportunity of personal gain. So, trust was hard to come by.

However, there was something about the fact that Lucio insisted from then on that Julian be his main medic that was comforting to him. And the false pretences Lucio used to poorly disguise his trust for Julian (he was just better than the other medics) didn’t stop him from the odd honey-mouthed comment on how nimble Julian’s fingers were, or the odd joke, a rare and genuine smile cracked in the privacy of their unconventional bond.

Parting ways wasn’t hard (or at least neither of them would admit it), but it was short-lived as, eventually, Julian’s work in Vesuvia as one of the palace doctors drew him right back to the Lucio, the newly proclaimed Count. Both of them found familiarity in their exchanges, consisting of matching smirks, the expected wisecracks from Julian, and Lucio’s usual teasing banter (albeit, arguably much more blatant). The ease of their communication helped both of them adjust. Julian was not afraid of Lucio.

_______________

Julian was not afraid of Lucio. However, the comfort did not last long, the Plague spreading soon after. Too soon after. Most of Julian’s time was spent in the dungeons, dank and depressing, working on finding a cure. It wasn’t fun. Neither was the Head Doctor, a morbid, unsettling character with eyes that would pierce through Julian completely.

The worst part of it was, undoubtedly, the patients. Or rather, their deceased corpses. Julian’s self blaming tendencies peaked, unnerving guilt of letting patients slip through his fingers keeping him up most nights. The only nights he really got any sleep were the ones where he was given the luxury of spending the night in his mostly unused house outside of the palace. It was a vacated safe place, far from and untouched by the eldritch horrors of the Red Plague.

Vesuvia lost its people dozens a day at first, and soon there were hundreds taking their last breaths daily. And Julian was no closer to finding any sort of inkling to what, why, or how. And then Lucio contracted the Plague. The symptoms were clear—the red sclera of his eyes, the bloody cough, the fatigue taking over him. It was painful just to watch. So, Asra the wandering magician’s help was enlisted.

He wasn’t pleased. His attitude towards Lucio wasn’t particularly affectionate, and his efforts to find a cure were, if Julian was honest with himself, half-assed. Though Julian tried to keep a semblance of professionalism with the magician, he couldn’t help himself—he was inexplicably drawn to him. It didn’t last long. Things got rocky.

Julian knew Asra wanted to leave. Asra’s apprentice, seemingly fond of Julian, expressed a desire to help the people of Vesuvia, but these words were always met with a certain cynicism from Asra, who deemed the apprentice’s actions as self destructive. Gradually, their disagreements got more heated. And finally, Asra, fed up, left. Julian couldn’t help but wonder whether he was part of the reason too.

Either way, Asra’s apprentice interned under Julian’s medical practices, learning from his first hand experience. Soon, however, the Plague took hold of the apprentice too. Although Lucio was still alive (rather pitifully), Asra’s apprentice was gone far too soon. As much as Julian wanted to scream, he didn’t have time. People were dying constantly. Who was he to stop trying to find a cure because of just one of the Plague’s victims? So he worked.

The guilt ate him alive. Lucio wasn’t getting any better either. No, he was definitely deteriorating. The weight loss came suddenly and hit hard. He spent most of his time in his wing, in bed. Julian’s sleepless nights got worse. He wouldn’t sleep at his own house, even when allowed the luxury. All waking hours would be spent in the medical facility, an hour or two of sleep caught in between research. He missed his sister, he missed Asra, he missed the apprentice... the only comfort he allowed himself was the occasional laughs he still shared with Lucio from time to time while treating him, though they were clearly more muted.

Things got worse, so much so that Julian was incapable of expressing it in words (though, by nature, he’d certainly love to try). For that exact reason, it came as such a shock to whatever was left of Vesuvia when Count Lucio announced that another Masquerade would be held. It didn’t seem like the time. Julian heard Countess Nadia arguing with her husband. But he was adamant. So, preparations began a few weeks in advance.

It was quite possibly the most hectic the Vesuvian palace had ever been—every available resource spent on research of the Red Plague, and the little staff that remained were put to work on the grand party’s planning. No one dared challenge the Count anymore. As he got sicker, his words slurred more often, his anger got harder to control, and he was even more easily upset. And that was saying something. Julian found himself dreading their interactions. The Count’s delirium made him prone to temper tantrums—although that was too childish a term for the intense fits of rage he now flew into.

Julian reminded himself of the solidarity they had shared on the battlefield. He tried to hold back tears, although he often failed in the solitude of his office. He reminded himself that he was not afraid of Lucio—that he was not afraid of the Count.

_______________

Julian was not afraid of the Count. He was taken aback by the resentment and mood swings that one human could harbour, yes, but he was not afraid. He never had been.

What the Count said, went. One would think that there would be a law against rulers in such a ruined state enforcing what they thought were suitable measures, but, unfortunately for Julian, there was not such a law.

The Count’s treatment times were very specific—he had to be taken care of and checked in on first at sunrise, then when the sun was highest in the sky, and then at sunset. If he ever called upon a doctor (which would almost always be Julian), he had to be tended to. As his illness worsened, these calls became more frequent, at unorthodox times.

Which is why, when Julian was told he had to see the Count right now in the middle of the night, he was not surprised. He was much more surprised, however, at the fact that the guard had said that the Count had insisted he come down to the dungeons to see Julian himself. Was... was he in the condition to be able to? Nonetheless, the Count arrived.

From the start, Julian knew that... something wasn’t right. The Count—Lucio—often had a glazed look in his eyes, or when he was enraged, a slightly mad look but... no, this definitely wasn’t normal. This was less mad, less loopy and more... more unhinged. Words tried to leave Julian’s throat, getting caught behind his teeth, not moving past his lips.

“Jules—” It was the first time the Count had ever called him anything but Julian. Julian could see he was holding onto something in a tightly closed fist, pressed close to his chest like it was something precious.

“Uh, ah, Count Lucio—” Julian’s mouth finally let him say something, cutting him off just as he saw the red scurry in Lucio’s palm, feeling like his blood supply had been cut off as he realised what Lucio—no, the Count had with him.

The Count was saying something now, chapped lips upturned as if whatever he was saying was amusing to him. His movement were sloppy as he made his way to Julian, whose body had gone on autopilot and was moving away from the man in front of him slowly. He tried clearing his mind but the fog was too thick. He was too tired, he was too afraid, he was too tired, too tired, too guilty, and useless and—

Lucio was close enough to thrust his fist in Julian’s face. It was still closed, but his jerky movements let his fingers loosen unpredictably. Julian’s fears were confirmed.

The ominous lighting of the dungeons unfortunately came to illuminate the Count’s hand. The red beetle he grasped grotesquely came to be bathed in red light. It was a plague beetle.

The Count was still speaking, but Julian couldn’t hear any of it as he kept backing up, the obviously delirious man still following. Julian’s back hit a rough brick wall behind him. Fuck. Was he literally cornered?

Julian’s naturally quick instincts were sluggish from the sleep deprivation, the anxiety, and most of all... the fear.

If Julian were to describe what happened after that, well—he wouldn’t. There were no solid memories from that moment. Just feelings. He felt fear. He felt a rough hand on his cheek as his eyes closed. He felt something soft yet brittle being pushing against his mouth. He felt the force of whatever words the Count spoke (he still isn’t sure what they were). Predominantly, he felt the crunch of the beetle in his mouth. He felt its legs squirming against his tongue. He felt himself gagging, he felt a hand being clamped over his mouth until he had no choice but to swallow. He felt the scratchiness of the beetle as it slid down his throat. He felt his hands on his face, wet with tears. He even... he felt anger.

But the next thing he knew, the Count was collapsing and he was pulling Julian down with him. And for a moment, Julian felt worry—he felt guilt—for he thought he had killed the Count.

Julian Devorak was afraid of the Count. No longer did he know who Lucio was. All he knew was that the Count of Vesuvia was many things. He was hot-headed, he was narcissistic, he was inappropriate and he was formidable. But most of all, he was frightening.

[mssapphire]

Deconstructing Romantic Love, and what’s actually wrong with it (pt. 1) - Desire and Admiration =/= Love.

In our infinite quest for happiness, one pervasive question we tend to have is: what is love? (baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no mo’). And in this quest we have tried to find a million different answers and we have tried to deconstruct and understand what works and what makes it dysfunctional.

In the last century or so, we have tried to come up with alternatives to what we have identified as the root of all evil and female oppression: heteropatriarchal romantic love. And I say in the last century because Romanticism is a 19th c. thing - and to understand how it completely changed society and our relational dynamics, I’d suggest Alain de Botton (it’s a long video but 1) it’s worth it and 2) if you don’t have the time to read his book(s), it’s a great alternative).

This has given way to different forms of “Ethical Non-Monogamy”. I’ll eventually write a post abut the history around different Free Love movements - and how the term has definitely meant different things in different moments of time, and how we have now devoid it of any meaning, to the point we’re back in the clutches of patriarchy through rampant consumerism of bodies. But that’s a post for another day.

What I’d like to explore today is that the problem doesn’t rely in what relationship model you choose to follow (monogamy, polyamory, relationship anarchy, open relationships), but in the way we (mis)understand love. I recently wrote a post about the meaning of being emotionally responsible, making an emphasis on why it’s so difficult for cis straight men. And following that thread, I’d like to come to another crossroads we (but, again, specially cis straight men) seem to find ourselves on: confounding admiration and desire with love. Let’s break that down.

I could really, really go on a tangent here, but I’ll try to stay focused. We could trace back our culture’s confabulation of love, admiration and desire to Courtly Love. Courtly Love taught men that love but, most importantly, loving the right way, was something that could make you a better person, morally (and even socially) superior. The right way to love a Lady, who was the purest being incarnated on the face of the earth, was to admire her beauty which was no doubt a display of her own moral worth (yes, these are white beauty standards, where the most celebrated type of woman was blonde, pale as porcelain, and with blue or green eyes) - and yes, physical appearance being equated to moral worth was a thing in Medieval times (you can guess which are the good guys or the bad guys in a Medieval story only through their physical description). But here comes the plot twist about Courtly Love: you didn’t even had to have met the object of your desire to love her. So you have an entire tradition of poems being written by men to, for and about women they hadn’t even met. They had just heard about their reputation, and they completely made up a fantasy as to who the woman was - a woman they not only proclaimed to love, but also a woman whom they loved so much they could die for her.

This was fertile grounds for Petrarch’s poetry, now in the Renaissance, who took Courtly Love one step further: actually attaching the object of his desire to a real, living person (Laura). Fast forward to Romanticism and the idea of loving someone to the point it kills you, and that they’re the one and only object of your desire, and your “soul mate”, and thus complete and complement you in every single way has now become the trend as to how we perceive love.

But that all sounds very exotic and distant. What about the present? Certainly, you can’t compare these guys to the guys on tinder trying to hook up with anyone who’ll say yes. But allow me to say: 1) yes, yes I can and 2) it’s not only these guys - but even those who seem “more decent” and actually take you out on a date, and even date you for a while. Allow me to elaborate.

Again, I am going to go ahead and quote bell hooks’ definition of love (this is something I do, a lot): you have to distinguish love as a feeling vs love as a verb (we’ll circle back to this). When you understand love as a feeling, and as a feeling only, desire and admiration tend to feel a lot like love. And the problem lies therein society’s portrayal’s of love: “love at first sight”, passionate sex as the ultimate display of what love is and should be, blind admiration towards that person and how you have to stick through thick and thin until death do us part (does that ring a bell?).

“Seeing no wrong” with the object of our affection (or what we now call “missing red flags”) is something we do when we blindly admire someone. And, thus, that convinces us that real love, true love, is that in which you find no conflict, and where the other person is perfect and without flaw. The problem with confusing admiration and love is that, to admire someone, we have to put them up on a pedestal, so we can continue to admire them without our image of them crumbling. Think about all the times you lost respect for your idols as you found out who they really were, as a person, above and beyond their work.

The same happens with desire - which is something more visceral and raw. That person is desirable as long as they fit the fantasy we have about them - which relies to physical attributes, yes, but about things they do and don’t do. Even more so, sex is something that gives you the illusion of intimacy, because sex is inherently emotional and vulnerable (and the idea that it isn’t is capitalistic bullshit, but that’s a topic for another post).  So while you’re engaging in sex, you can enjoy all those endorphins and mushy feelings, without actually doing the hard work of actually getting to know the person for real. The moment the person displays a behavior or an attribute that clashes with the idea we have in our heads (maybe they’re too awkward, or they have bad breath in the morning), our fantasy, built on desire, starts to crumble.

Let me drive the point home with a personal example. An ex of mine was initially deeply attracted to me because of my intelligence (it was a good thing that he found me physically attractive too). He would be delighted when he saw me debate other people (and destroy them), to the point it immediately triggered physical affection. But as the relationship progressed and we found ourselves sharing and discussing personal views, his attitude started to shift. A quality that he usually admired me for, became something that made him feel contempt. “You’re so smart” turned into “you’re too smart” which eventually turned to “I can never talk to you because everything turns into a debate”. My attitude and approach hadn’t changed. What was happening is what always happens in an emotional relationship where you’re actually getting to know the person: I was falling off the pedestal he put me in. 

And, suddenly, I was seen not only as a human being with flaws and shortcomings, and far from perfect - but having to be so close and vulnerable in front of me was also deeply uncomfortable to him. Because when you’re really close to someone, that makes you reflect on yourself. True love and intimacy is an exercise of self reflection, which allows you to become acquainted with the best and worst sides of you. In my ex’s case, having to be confronted by the intelligence he admired so much initially, made him feel stupid and insecure.

Which leads me to another thing: in this confabulation of admiration/desire for love, men also get another short end of the stick. Because patriarchy has convinced them that a woman’s love lies in her admiration for him, the object of their desire (who has to instantly desire them back just because they want this person) has one job and one job only: to admire and support him unconditionally. This means that men are permanently stuck in a position where they have to display strength and bravado, as they fulfill the role of protectors and providers. And what happens then? you never truly get to know who they are inside. So any sort of criticism, disagreement or conflict is perceived as a threat - if you’re not admiring them, you’re personally attacking them, and you don’t really love them.

Again, the problem with all of this is that we still haven’t understood what love actually is. According to bell hook, love is also a verb. It’s the actions you take in order to nurture the relationship, so you both feel seen, known, heard and understood. It’s getting to know the other person deeply and honestly. It’s seeing ourselves reflected in their eyes and getting to know new depths about us that we hadn’t before.

Think about it in another way: if that person wasn’t physically attractive to you anymore, would you still love them? if that person presented flaws that you hate, would you still love them? If they didn’t have the same social status or job? if they didn’t engage in specific activities with you? and what would you be willing to do if those things change? these are all important questions to assess where your feelings for someone stand.

To be clear: you can love someone and admire them and desire them. But just because someone desires you or just because someone admires you, that doesn’t mean they love you. Again, love is in the work you do. And if you do your homework, you will find yourself admiring that person on deeper more significant attributes, like their compassion and patience and integrity, while you even learn to understand and appreciate their flaws in the context of who they really are - that’s what being understood means.

The problem is not monogamy. In fact, I find it more responsible and sustainable to understand just how much work goes into having healthy loving relationships and deciding to have that with one person, than being a hot ass mess and falling in and out of an unending string of relationships because we’re trying to score “woke points” by denying monogamy. Because if you think you’re defying monogamy while at the same time you’re following the same romantic standards to relate, then you’re not really subverting anything.

Next time you feel like you might feel love for someone, ask yourself if what you’re feeling means that you actually have the willingness to do the work required to be in a healthy relationship with them. If you find their presence in your life worth the effort or not. If this is a nourishing relationship, then the answer will probably be yes.

[bigskydreaming]

To me the most strange thing about the Dick is a manchild take is that often the same people that say this are the same people that say that Dick's primary characterization should always be as a pillar of support for Bruce and the others. So, basically that Bruce and the others are so helpless that they should be mothered by a manchild. As a preference, I find it it kinda ???

Exactly! There’s no consistency to it, and the thing is, I feel like a lot of people tend to treat Dick as a plot device rather than an actual character in his own right. What I mean is, even in big ensemble fics that feature almost the entire family, when most everyone has their own little storylines, Dick’s sole storyline is acting as a supporting character in everyone else’s storyline. Essentially, its like rather than people going into writing a fic with a specific characterization of Dick in mind already, like they do for most characters, I feel like a lot of the stories out there start with the author figuring out what their plot is, what their preferred characters are doing….and then Dick’s characterization within their fic tends to end up being almost completely determined by what role they want him to play.

Like……as you said, a huge facet of his core characterization is that he almost always prioritizes being a pillar of support for Bruce and the others….but in fanfics, he’s just as likely to be the antagonistic foil that’s causing drama within the family by not understanding Jason or favoring Damian over Tim or whatever…..and its like he ends up that way purely because writers want some internal strife within the Batfam, but they want Tim and Jason to get along, and they want Bruce to interact with Jason as a son and Damian’s too young to cause the kinds of disruptions within the family from internal/ideological disagreements that authors are usually after….so Dick ends up shoehorned into the role of obstinate last holdout getting in the way of the whole family getting along because he just can’t get over himself or whatever.

But then go two fics down from that one and its a whole other ballgame, because in this fic now, Dick gets along with everyone, everyone loves him, but ultimately in the end his lack of contributing to family drama comes from the fact that as far as that fic is concerned, he’s too ineffectual to ever actually be a problem for the family. He’s just kinda there, solely because he was the first kid Bruce took in, but no attention is paid to the fact that he created Robin, DEFINED Robin. And instead the fact that he’s still alive at all is basically implied to be a fluke because he’s not really that bright compared to the others, not really exceptionally talented compared to the others, the only thing he has going for him is he has seniority, and he’s just too gosh-darned happy and perky and nice for anyone to stay mad at for long……so Dick ends up shoehorned here into the role of comic relief, either by cracking jokes constantly and never taking anything seriously for the sake of ‘family morale,’ or just by being the butt of the rest of the family’s constant jokes. With these fics, you get 50/50 odds of it going either way.

And then on the very next page of fics you’re likely to run into one where he’s supportive of all the others rather than antagonistic, yes, and he’s considered competent and effective at what he does, sure, but now with these fics, he’s basically relegated to the role of wallpaper, because the story’s not supposed to be about HIM and the authors don’t want him drawing focus away from their preferred characters. He’s not the character people should be hoping or expecting to see in a starring or even a major role, when reading their fics, is basically what the sentiment feels like there. 

Like, he’s there, he’s present, he’s competent and helpful, but it largely ends up feeling like all of that is because ironically, having him NOT be there and coming up with reasons and justifications for that….would draw or require more focus on him than they want to spend. So instead he’s present in the story, but that’s about it. 

He largely just….exists, within these types of stories. At best he’s there to be a glorified bodyguard to his various siblings, and be hanging around so that he can swoop in and save them from any major danger that isn’t the direct focus of the plot…..but he has little to no scenes other than ones where he’s directly acting to save, rescue, emotionally support or offer sage wisdom or a shoulder to lean on, for any of his siblings or Bruce himself. 

He has no problems of his own, as far as the fic ever mentions, no priorities or personal ambitions beyond ‘always be available for whatever his family needs, whenever his family needs it’ and everything you learn about him in the first couple chapters of that story, when establishing his place/status quo within that particular fic….like, who and what he is and cares about and prioritizes and even just talks about in the first couple chapters will basically still be the exact same things in the final chapters of the fic….because absolutely nothing throughout the fic has actually affected HIM, changed HIM, impacted HIM in any kind of meaningful way that would lead to actual character development or even just….change.

…wait, hang on, I take that back. There is one sizable exception in these types of fics, where there is focus on Dick’s POV and him being impacted by the plot and ‘changing’…..but that exception comes in one form, and one form only: Scenes Where Dick Self-Flagellates and Regrets Being the Worst Brother/Son Ever to Jason, Tim, Bruce, etc. And reflects on how massively he’s failed or let those members of his family down at one point or another in the past, when they have only ever been there for him, consistently, without fail, and thus they deserve better than his previous fuck-ups with them and he staunchly vows to Make It Right and from this day forward, Do Better and dedicate himself to being the best brother, son, blah blah blah that ever lived. 

(With the problem being - or well, my problem at least, lol - like…..rarely if ever are these things Dick is beating himself up over, like…actually his fault or things he should feel like a terrible human being for. And granted, Dick has a definite canon tendency towards self-blame and assuming the worst of his own actions and the fallout from his actions, so its not like its out of character for him to be an unreliable narrator in this regard…..BUT like….when you’re using an unreliable narrator to like, beat himself up for being just the worst ever, you kiiiiiiinda need to balance that out with the narrative or someone else in the narrative at some point contesting that unreliable narration…..and being like….what? No??? Omg enough with the Catholic guilt Dick, you’re not even Catholic, and you definitely aren’t responsible for me dying in Ethiopia at the exact same time you were light years away on an entirely different planet, dumbass.” ANYWAY).

So I mean….there are all these various roles Dick plays in different kinds of almost….I wanna say like ‘genres of Batfam fanfiction’……and IMO that’s how large parts of fandom manage to juggle all these completely contradictory views of Dick without ever finding it odd or illogical that he can be considered to be both the Batfamily’s primary source of emotional support one second, and the thorn in everyone’s side the next. Because many people, I feel, just aren’t approaching his character in terms of how his characterization, and thus his presence, would affect their plot, result in specific kinds of dynamics, interactions etc…..rather, they’re looking at it from the complete opposite direction. They do all that with the characters they’re more interested in writing, and then when they have most of it figured out, they basically just pigeon hole him into whatever gaps in the plot need filling, and go with whatever popular take on him is most convenient for what their story still needs or is lacking.

And it all kinda loops back around, I think, to make it this sort of self-perpetuating cycle…..writers aren’t as interested in writing Dick as they are the other siblings because they don’t find him all that compelling, except what they actually don’t find all that compelling is probably more accurately labeled various fanon views of him that have at most just a superficial relationship with his more developed canon characterizations. 

But regardless, they’re not that interested in him as a character, due to mostly equating him with fanon takes that prioritize his usefulness as a plot device with ready made connections to most anyone else a fic needs to bring in, rather than trying to view him, understand him and relate to him as an actual character in his own right…..so they too end up also just using him as a plot device rather than try and even just give him some more development themselves. 

And it all feeds back into itself, forming this constant feedback loop that’s ironically mostly just fueled by itself, rather than anything outside that loop of perception and perpetuation….like, y’know, his actual stories and his actual well-established dynamics with various other characters.

Its like….you know how sometimes people are like “how would you describe yourself/this person/this character in just three words, like what are the three words that best encompass them in your mind?” Like…..that’s not SUPPOSED to be an easy thing to do. That’s SUPPOSED to be a hard - and revealing  - question, because three words is a very very limited frame to try and condense entire personalities into in a way that’s in any way actually specific to them as an individual rather than just a list of generic traits that could equally apply to any number of people.

And yet….I do not think a lot of Batfam fans would consider that a hard question to answer about Dick Grayson, and therein lies my eternal frustration. Like I’m pretty sure we can all predict what a lot of those answers would be: “funny,” “angry,” “cheerful,” “supportive,” “moody,” “hopeful” and various other things related to either 1) Dick the Emotional Support Non-Entity, 2) Dick the Unattainable and Impossible to Match or Even Relate to Standard or 3) Dick the Antagonistic Foil, etc. 

But my point is……I do not think a lot of fans would find it difficult to reduce Dick down to just a short list of generic character traits….because that’s the pattern I’m talking about in fics. A huge amount of his depictions in fic could be summed up with just two or three adjectives….because whatever role he’s been designated in a particular fic……that’s it for him, most of the time. As in…..he doesn’t at any point break out of that very specific and definitive box the fic puts him in because its been slated as the role/place/designation he’s most ‘useful’ to the plot and the other characters and the story over all. So whatever he is in that fic….he’s usually JUST that one thing. His actions are usually perfectly in sync with whatever the other characters expect those actions to be, his mood is fairly consistent throughout with very little variation, and his motivations are usually fairly superficial and don’t require a lot of digging under the hood to see what’s really going on deep down beneath his surface level.

*Shrugs* Anyway, that’s my take on all that, and the various contradictions that all conversations about him are practically immersed in, all at the same time. Granted, I’m biased as hell and who can say if I’m actually on to anything there or not, but for me the most telling and pertinent question about fandom’s perception of Dick Grayson is:

When one of the few things everyone can agree on about him is that he’s a natural performer and the face he presents to people around him is often just a mask hiding his true thoughts and feelings….

Why on earth aren’t more writers interested in pulling back the mask and seeing, writing, revealing or expanding upon whatever might be underneath?

Cuz the way Dick’s primarily used in fics literally only makes sense to me if you’re prioritizing his role in fics based on what the plot or other characters require.

Looking at him purely on a character level, in terms of archetypes? “Eternal secret keeper who even (successfully) keeps secrets from the rest of a family made up entirely of people who are both adept secret keepers themselves and adept detectives”…..

Like how the hell do you tell me that archetype’s only narrative appeal lies in advancing everyone else’s plots? For all intents and purposes, Dick is essentially the trickster archetype within the Batfam, innately predisposed to constantly come into conflict with his chosen father figure, given that Bruce in contrast embodies a stern lawful judge type archetype. Thus with the two of them operating off of entirely different world views that nevertheless can overlap just often enough to make that not quite a given….given that trickster archetypes, by their very nature, have flexible alignments and can go in entirely different directions from one story to the next, all while still being true to themselves and their core archetype. 

Then you have Jason, with it being hilarious to me that people so often write Jason as being convinced Bruce will never understand him the way he does Dick, that they could never have the kind of bond Bruce and Dick had in his eyes…..with the funny part about this IMO being that Jason is one of the Batfam MOST similar to Bruce, archetype wise. Because Jason also operates almost entirely off of his own convictions, based entirely off his own moral code….WHICH IS THE EXACT SAME THING BRUCE DOES….the only part they actually disagree on is the precise specifics of their two differing moral codes. 

Jason has always had FAR more in common with Bruce than he realizes or cares to admit to, and if you look at Dick as a trickster archetype forced reluctantly into the role of arbitrator or peace-keeper purely because there’s no one else stepping up to do the job, even though its not a role he’s ideally suited for because of how it constantly forces him into shapes and actions that are contrary to his own nature and thus result in so much of Dick’s personal conflicts ultimately being with HIMSELF….

….eternally torn between trying to be true to himself and who he wants to be, while at the same time trying to be what his family needs him to be because he’s the only one of them with a track record showing he at least is willing to bend to try and accommodate all their conflicting viewpoints, whereas they all tend to try and just bulldoze each other into submission instead….which never works because they’re all equal parts Immovable Objects AND Unstoppable Forces at the same time…and each too stubborn to admit that their siblings/father/children are just as stubborn and willful as them so they could easily stalemate each other indefinitely, if they didn’t have a mediator present, who has enough flexibility to contort himself into whatever configuration is needed to find some kind of bridge or common ground between two conflicting family members who each refuse to budge even an inch….

Well anyway, my point with that little random offshoot was just that personally, I think Dick gets fed the fuck up with both Bruce and Jason at times and just wants to knock their heads together because its so frustrating to him that neither of them can see how alike they are and thus how they’re always THIS CLOSE to finding common ground, they literally just need to like….each move an inch to the right and maybe pivot like five degrees or less…..lolol.

Anyway. I kinda got carried away there with unnecessary narrative analysis and archetypes and whatnot that literally nobody asked, but umm, in response to your actual message itself….err…yes. Agreed. As a preference, I too find bwuh????? to be the most accurate response to the frigidly cold take that ‘Dick is the emotional support pillar for the Batfam but also Dick is massively dysfunctional and a disaster baby who is literally the worst of the Batfam at taking care of himself and not just dying because his favorite pizza place doesn’t deliver on a Tuesday and he doesn’t know how to get food another way so he’ll probably just starve I guess.’

Oh well.

[awed-frog]

When you say romance should be 18 and over do you mean the brand of romance we know today (aka toxic) or romance as a whole? If we wrote healthy romance aimed at younger crowds or presented unhealthy behaviour as unhealthy behaviour in regular romance (for older crowds) would that be a good solution?

Well - I see three questions here, all of them incredibly complex and beyond interesting: should art be political and is censorship ever a good idea and also is the romance genre okay? The answer to all of them, in my opinion, is ‘no but’.

1) Should art be political?

The stupid thing is, art is inherently political, whether you want it to or not, but art that’s deliberately political tends to be awful, and that’s a universal truth both for left-wing stuff and for right-wing stuff. When you willingly create political stuff, what you’re crafting is propaganda, and proganda is generally sad and bad. I guess there is propaganda that’s also good art - Victor Hugo’s The Man Who Laughs comes to mind - but the problem is, not all of us are Victor Hugo. 

That said, since whatever we create is political (because man is a social animal) and will have some kind of moral message, yes - ideally we want more art with an ethically ‘good’ moral message than we want garbage, because art (and here I include everything: books, movies and so on) is perhaps the most effective and impactful mind-shaper ever. That’s why Disney is doing its very best to be a monopoly, after all. But: I don’t have a good solution for how to ensure art is nice. I think art is nice when artists are nice, and artists are nice when they grow up in good, healthy societies. So the more a society rots from the inside out, the more likely it is you’ll find art that’s also rotten. I mean, while romance as a genre was always a bit dodgy (see below), what that article was talking about - the rise of the possessive, violent boyfriend and domestic abuse as the great love story - is sort of a recent phenomenon, and goes hand in hand with the deterioration of women’s rights in (Western) society. 

(As an aside, I’m not sure I agree (young) women are necessarily misogynistic for reading crap like Fiftfy Shades: I think (young) women are exhausted. Fifty Shades is, more than anything, an ode to undeserved capitalism - the only kind that seems open as an option today. After all, we know trickle-down capitalism doesn’t work and most of us will toil and toil for very little; Christian Grey is the antidote to that, the guy who shows up, basically kidnaps you, and smothers you in a life of riches for which the only thing you must do in return is give up. Having someone else decide on your job, your car, your possessions and clothes, where you’ll live, what you’ll eat and when, whether you’ll take birth control (lol: obviously not), when you’ll see your friends and family plus when and how you’ll orgasm - what women tried to escape for generations is suddenly the dream for many of us - not because of any new political ideology, but because we’re beyond tired. Women, like men, are now crushed in a neverending cycle of bs, underpaid jobs, and are apparently fed up enough in taking responsibility for anything that not only romance and ‘superhuman’ characters are booming, but a very specific kind of subset of that: essentially, slave fics. 

Just give up your agency, and you’ll be taken care of and cherished - forever.

I understand a kink is not the same as your actual political opinion, but still - I’m not enthusiastic about this trend, and I’m even less enthusiastic when it gobbles up young women who haven’t had time to experience real life relationships.)

No, I think that in the end, the answer is - if you reverse the rotting of society, automatically - statistically - you’ll get healthier artists and a healthier audience. So, really, the fight is always the same: better paid jobs, better (and free) schools, more opportunities for continued education of any kind, more democracy and transparency, more green spaces and better living conditions.

2) Is censorship ever a good idea?

Sadly, no. You’d think the logical conclusion of what I just said would be, ‘In the meantime, let’s ban the most dangerous stuff’ or something, and while part of me is tempted to support that, censorship has a way of ending very badly no matter how good and noble your intentions are.

(Self-censorship should be more of a thing, though: not everything that goes through our minds deserves to be seen and shared.)

What sucks at the moment is that on the one hand, capitalism is operating its own censorship; and on the other, its desperate search for new markets has led to a disastrous disintegration of actual human interactions.

So, problem one is that we only publish and market what makes a lot of money, and while that’s normal, to an extent, the result today is that everything is ‘almost the same’ as the previous thing (think sequels, prequels, remakes, obnoxious book covers for books that are basically all the same). So if ‘asshole boyfriend who beats you up’ suddenly makes money, it becomes very hard to escape the trope, because what will be offered to you everywhere is exactly that. This was less of a thing back when our main sources of entertainment were shared (movie theaters, the one family TV, school libraries and so on); now, it’s an epidemic, and as we see with Youtube algorithms, a dangerous one, because this obsession with watching and rewatching ‘almost the same’ inevitably leads to more and more extreme stuff.

Meanwhile, problem two is that the more tailor-made our entertainment is, the less we connect to real people. I know I sound about 90 here, but when all family members are glued to a different screen - mom watching the 50th remake of Eat, Pray, Love, dad down the rabbithole of lizard conspiracy theories, big brother now exploring some milk&peanut butter weirdness on Youporn and younger sister 30 fics deep into Stucky high school AUs - what do they have in common? What do they talk about? What can they even learn from each other? Until recently, and for aeons, fiction was shared, and its primary goal was to form a connection between group members. Now, that’s gone. We destroyed it, without even realizing what we were doing, in the space of twenty years. And yeah - I know you can create new communities, but a) these communities are virtual (which means, for the most part: not real) and b) they tend to connect like with like, which is comforting, perhaps, but not very useful. The whole point here is that we need to learn how to feel empathy and trust for those who’re different, and build a community with them - instead, what the internet is doing is isolating us inside our little bubbles, so much so that any minor disagreement is now seen as good reason to break off contact.

Censorship, however, doesn’t solve any of this. For starters, we need more regulation on how big corporations can get, what social media companies can and can’t do and who can access what kind of material. And it’d be great if we could all unplug a little, but uh - fat chance of that.

3) Is the romance genre okay?

Again, just my opinion, but personally, I mistrust it. There are no romance books for men? Instead, books for men feature a Main Character doing stuff and improving himself while accidentally meeting a Sexy Lamp he can go home to at the end of the story. And, well, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but isn’t this a healthier way to look at life? While good relationships are very meaningful (or even the most meaningful) part of any human life, if your goal is to get them, they won’t grow right. You shouldn’t be hyperfocused on finding love; I think it’s much better to be like Main Character: you work on your drawing skills, try a new sport, read poetry, defeat evil Russians, thus developing inner happiness and self-confidence, thus leading you towards towards a partner who’ll fall in love with who you are - not a partner who was looking for some empty shell to fill with their own expectations and preferences.

And I know - romance books and movies are full of exciting non-romantic events and stuff - but still, the fact they’re classified and intended as romance does imply that finding a romantic partner is the ultimate goal. Which, I don’t know, I don’t think it’s healthy, and is a particularly inappropriate message for young women. After all, why is it okay that young men are encouraged to go on ghost hunts, study dinosaurs and save the world while young women are taught to wait around for a broken (possibly violent, but it’s not his fault) bad boy only they can fix? It’s messed up, is what it is, and I may be extreme here, but even the tamest, sweetest romance revolves around the same message: that you’re not complete on your own, and that you should focus on relationships as a way to become a better, happier human being. 

Now, as much as I love this quote -

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.” — Oscar Wilde

- obviously there’s no direct cause-and-effect here - you don’t read one book and become a mindless Stepford wife - so I’m not saying, ‘no one should read romance ever’. It’s just - as I said in that other post, we should all enjoy diverse stuff. Read your romance novels, but also read the classics, read some philosophy, a random poem, a badly-written thriller - read Stephen King, read how the OED was written, or a Wikipedia article on the French resistance - anything and everything. Because of capitalism, because of this push towards personalized entertainment, we’re being forced and pigeonholing ourselves in smaller and smaller cages, and the worst thing is - we’re comfortable inside them, because this is the awful truth: cages are comfortable, and that’s why we need to get out before we forget what cages are for.

[As a final point: you say ‘if we wrote’, does it mean you’re an aspiring writer? If so, you shouldn’t worry about any of this. You write what you want, you write the stories you want to read. Just remember to get out of your cage as well - experience, discover, grow, read, dare - and then put all that into your books. I’m sure they’ll be great, whatever your favourite genre.]

[gotboredwrote]

Chapter 5: Tested

[[The American Publicist // JRD]]

Pairing: John Richard Deacon x Reader Word Count: 5.4K Style: Multi-Chapter Warnings: Mental health stuff (panic attack, clinical tests mentioned but not explained) Summary: Y/N was just hired to become a co-manager and publicist for the band Queen. The boys had never travelled abroad, so meeting an American was . . . intriguing, to say the least. Permanent Author’s Note: To clarify, I write because I get bored. Nothing is meant to be professional in any way, nor is meant to offend, cause anxiety, cause anger, cause sadness, or promote disagreement among readers in any sort of (semi)permanent way. A/N: Welcome back to the emotional roller-coaster! I hope you’re ready to ride again! Also, in an effort to get this out, there might be a few grammar errors I did not catch, sorry!

Masterlist // Previous Chapter // Next Chapter // Masterpost

~

Neither of you did anything productive Sunday. Come on – who would have been able to? The events of the private concert were swimming through your heads. The words of the song. The tension in the air.

And in your bodies. You tended to reserve this word for other  matters, but that was the most euphoric experience you had had in a long time. And you felt like you could say that, since it has been quite a while since the other event happened to you. John was in a similar position, except that he went home and took care of business. All while he was thinking about you. You were lying in bed Sunday night, still reeling from the events the day before. You were just trying to work on the paperwork you had neglected the day before, when you were startled by a phone call. It was 10:30pm, who could possibly be calling you?

“Hello?”

“Y/N? It-it’s me, love.”

You heart never starting beating so fast in your life.

~

“Hi Deaks, everything okay?”

“Um, yeah. I was just thinking about you-yesterday. What… happened yesterday.”

“Mhm?” You were getting shaky. You had no idea where he was going with this.

“I want to show the boys that song, and I wanted to ask you to do me a favor. Could you try and… react a certain way when you hear it again? I don’t really know how to put this, but can you maybe, try…acting like you have never heard it? The lads only know that I took you back to the studio to show you something, but they have no idea it was a song. Kind of want to surprise them.”

You could not really explain why, but you felt your heart crack a little bit. Were you hoping he would say something else? Something like “oh I feel the same way about you as you do me?” Again, this is real life, not fantasy. People do not magically fall for each other. Wishful thinking. You know for a fact he felt something when he wrote that song, you could see it in his body language when he performed it. And it was not just nerves getting the best of him. Something was going on in his mind when those words came to him, and you knew that it had nothing to do with you. You were not going to let yourself go down that road any more than you already had. It was a mistake to fall for him. You were just hoping it would go away eventually. You could not help but laugh at your own comment in your head.

“Yeah, John. I can do that. Anything for you.”

“Thank you, love.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“8:30am love, looking forward to it. Goodnight.”

“Night, John.”

You had just made a promise you could not keep. How were you supposed to act like you had never heard the song before? After what it did to you? And to John? You were afraid he would not be able to keep the same promise he made you make.

~

The sound of your alarm going off at 6:00am was worse than normal. You loved going to see the boys, but dragging yourself out of bed was no easy task in the first place. You got up like you would any other morning, showered, and picked up some breakfast on the way to studio. You always tended to get there early, but today you were arrived a little late because there was an accident on the road you took. It must had just happened because the radio did not tell you about it before you left. Since you arrived late, you knew everyone would already be there. You just hoped that they did not wait for you to start doing anything. You waltzed through the door of the main building around 8:55am, and did your best to make it to the Queen section of the building by 9:00am, that way you would not hear a word from Miami. You opened the door to the control room, and everyone was in their rightful places. Miami was at the control table, and all the boys were warming up their instruments mindlessly. You looked through the pane to see if you could make eye contact with John, but he was not facing the window. You were taken out of your trance by the beckoning of your name.

“Y/N. So glad you could join us.”

“Please save it, Miami. I had a long night and there was an accident on my way here, you’re lucky I’m here now.”

“Sorry… I didn’t mean for that to come across that rudely.”

“It-it wasn’t. I was actually ruder than you were. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Well, good morning, darling! We missed your pretty face!”

You threw your head in the direction of the glass and were greeted by four smiling faces. Freddie was grinning ear to ear, Brian and Roger were just smiling sweetly at you, and John had on his… signature smile. He was already off to a much better start than you were.

“John just informed us,” Roger began, “that he brought a song for us to play! But he wanted us to wait until you were here like we did that first Monday. Are you okay with us getting started while you get situated?”

You nodded in his direction, and proceeded to prove to John that two could play at his game. You smiled widely at him, and even added a wave, to which he nodded in recognition. You turned around to place all your new paperwork where it needed to go, not realizing that a crucial portion of it was not in its rightful place. But you had more pressing things to pay attention to. The boys had seemed ready to play the second you walked in, so you were no longer going to keep them waiting. You sat down on the couch, looking eager, with a notepad and pencil in your lap. You gave the thumbs up and off they went. The only part you could pay attention to was the bassline. It was familiar, obviously, since you had heard it before. But it had seemingly wormed its way into a part of your heart that was not going to be ignored. You tried your best to hide it, because John was doing a seemingly flawless job at it, but your chest ached. It ached to be back in that spot on the floor. With John and John alone. Hearing his voice and not Freddie’s booming, operatic one. Sure, his voice was gorgeous, but it was nothing compared to the raw emotion that came out in John’s when he sang this song. His song. His dream girl’s song. You were furiously taking notes so you did not have to look into the booth, you could not risk taking the chance of revealing something. The song was coming to a close and you had written down as much as your hand could handle. You pried your eyes away from your paper and looked up into the booth and your worst nightmare came true. You were met with the eyes of the one person who could screw up your cover. John’s. You immediately swallowed the breath you did not realize you had been holding in and gave him a sweet smile. Except you thought he was looking at your smile. When in reality he was looking at your neck. The necklace. You were still wearing the necklace. In fact, you had not taken it off. It brought you an intense amount of comfort after that evening, thinking about what John went through and what he did for you that night. It was your most cherished possession. You managed to keep yourself collected throughout the song, but as soon as John saw the glint of your necklace… He faltered. He knew the bassline at heart. He knew it Saturday night, so there was no reason he should not know it now. He messed up to the point where he messed up the rest of the band. Roger let out a groan, while Brian and Freddie just looked at him confusedly.

“You alright, mate?”

“Ye-yeah, just got a little bit fuzzy in the head for a second. I skipped breakfast, so… I’ll be alright.”

Roger looked at John with a secretive look, and John refused to look at him. Roger took that as his cue that those words were about a certain American acquaintance they had all come to know and adore. Their one-sided exchange was cut short when you piped up about your notes.

“That was an incredible song, John! I told you that you wouldn’t be in a band if you couldn’t write songs.” You looked at him endearingly, keeping up your end of the bargain much better than he was, considering he was starting to get red in the face. “Now I’m sure none of you noticed this and probably felt like I haven’t been doing my job, but I assure you I have! All the notes I took during the song, and all the other things I’ve written down during these sessions have all regarded where my brain went for the best way of promoting these songs. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but I have preferential choices for what order to release singles, what outfits to wear in photoshoots, the whole nine yards! As I was taking my notes, I realized that I left my big binder of notes in my car, and I’m sure Miami has some words for you boys,” you shot Miami a playful look, to which he chuckled in response, “so I will run out there super-fast and start coming up with some new ideas! Be back in a minute!”

What Y/N did not realize is that she had left her binder on the baby grand piano Saturday night during her private concert and was so mesmerized after the fact that she left it and did not realize it was not in her possession until just now. She had left the room before any of the boys noticed it sitting there, and her enthusiasm for what she had written peaked Brian, Roger, and Freddie’s interests. The only reason John was not paying attention to the binder at this point is because he was still trying to calm his breathing after seeing you wear the necklace. He was just pacing back and forth in a distance of about five feet, quietly plucking at the strings on his bass.

“I don’t know about you, blokes, but my interest was piqued when she mentioned outfits.”

The boys started to rummage through your papers, not realizing that there was an order to the way you had it set up. They also had no idea what was coming when you walked back into the room.

“I must seriously be having an off day. I must’ve left my binder at home because it isn’t in my car and I know-”

The three men crowded around the top of the baby grand stopped dead in their tracks, let the papers they were holding float back down to the piano, and watched you with intensity. Your eyes were as wide as saucers and some of the color had drained from your face. It was like you had just witnessed murder.

“Wha… why… why are my papers all-all over the place? Why did you go through them without asking me? Who gave you the right?” You breathing was beginning to get erratic, and you were thoroughly scaring all five men who were in the studio with you. “Why… why WHY?” And with that you started hyperventilating, nothing stopping the small streams of tears from cascading down your face. Your chest hurt. Different than the aching you had for John when they were playing. This was painful. You started feeling like you could not breathe, hence the hyperventilating. You felt faint and weak at the knees. What was happening to you? Why of all things did your papers being scattered do… whatever this was? Miami and the three at the piano simply stood completely still, completely unsure of what was happening or what to do. John had never moved faster. He quickly grabbed the sides of both of your shoulders, squeezed them, gently gets you to sit on the floor, and does everything he can to get your breathing back to normal, because even he knew there was no sense in trying to calm you down before you could breathe normally. He continually rubbed your shoulders, telling you “you’re okay, you’re perfect.” Anything that came to mind that he thought would bring your breathing back to normal. He considered it progress when your breathing calmed down enough to allow your body to be wracked with sobs, uncontrollable ones. At least now he felt like he could hold you close to him without your breathing stopping entirely. He held you, one arm snaked around your lower abdomen, hand wide and lightly gripping your side, the other clutching the back of your head to bring it down into the crook of his neck. He wanted you to feel protected. Protected from the evil feelings that were consuming your body at the moment. Eventually your sobs became sniffles, and you felt as though you could muster up the strength to talk to them. They were all looking at you expectantly, and still a little bit fearful.

“You all look, sniff, so scared right now. I’m so so-sorry. I don’t know what this even is but it has taken over my life. My brain and body don’t allow me to do anything with a sense of leisure or, or pleasure anymore. Sniff, everything has to be done in a particular way and if someone screws it up I… I can’t see straight, my hearing starts to go, my heart starts to beat so fast that it hurts, I feel like I’m gonna puke… I don’t know what to do.”

When John was at university, he had a couple of friends who were in the developing field of psychology, and from the few conversations he had overheard while they would study for their exams, he knew something was going on with your brain. And in that moment, right after you rambled on your apology to the boys, his emotions overflowed and he knew he was the only one who could take care of you.

“Lads, I think she needs a break for the day. C’mon love, you’re coming with me. I’m going to get you better, love.”

~

“Um, Deaky? Where exactly are we?” You asked him this because you and your favorite bassist were currently standing in front of a building that was completely unlike any building you had seen in the states or England.

“You’ll see, love. And when we get in there, if you start to freak out, I promise we can leave right away. I do think this will really help you, though.”

John could sense that you were still slightly on edge from the episode you had earlier, and there was a new wave hitting you now that you were in a new, scary environment. He pushed aside any feelings that threatened to resurface from the two “Misfire” performances that were still swirling through his body to take care of you. He reached for your hand to hold and squeeze it until you were separated from him, which he knew was coming, but you did not. You took his hand out of desperation for some grip onto familiarity, because you did not want to slip up again. He walks you over to a desk where a pleasant looking lady is seated, and she begins speaking to you in a sweet, quiet tone.

“Hello, you two. Welcome to the Mind Center of Central England. Did you have an appointment, or are you here for emergency or on-the-spot care?”

“On-the-spot, ma’am. My best friend just had an episode that involved a combination of tears, chest pain, and hyperventilating triggered by the sight of a well-organized binder of hers being scattered across a surface. I had a friend in college talk about places like these where you can administer some tests to see if there was a reason for her reaction, can you do that here?”

“Yes sir, we absolutely can. Let me go get all the paperwork and information you two need, and I will let a specialist know that there is someone here for testing. And sweetheart, I can see that you are tensing up every time I mention tests or doctors. Try to relax, nothing here is meant to hurt or scare you. We are only going to help, I promise, honey.”

“O-okay. Thanks.” She hit the nail on the head about how you were feeling. You had no idea what it was John was trying to accomplish here, and if you were not in a space where you felt like you needed to be respectful, you would probably be giving him an earful right about now. Not five minutes later, the lady from the desk returned with a short stack of papers that you assumed was a combination of information and papers asking you to sign your life away. You knew you were being dramatic, but John had not told you anything about what was about to happen, and frankly, it was kind of bothering you. Not that you were mad at him, but you were just kind of overwhelmed with the whole situation. You did not even know what happened before, and now you were in a place that you had never seen and did not know what was about to happen to you. And just as these thoughts were swimming through your mind you got to the part of the paperwork that stated no one but the patient was allowed in the back with you. John would have to leave your side. This was his idea, why did he have to leave? You and John are going over the paperwork and you’re signing what needs to be signed and initialing what needs to be initialed. The lady was explaining to you what would go down, but you could not focus on her words. You were still daunted by the fact that they were going to force John to some random place in this hospital and you would not know where he was or when you would get to see him again. You cut the lady off mid-explanation of the tests you would be taking to ask her about the question that would not leave your mind.

“Where are you going to take him?”

She gawked at you before returning to her original composure. “I’m… I’m sorry?”

“John. Where will he be while I’m doing this?”

“We have a room for the patient’s guests who decide to stay for the duration of the test, but we don’t typically see that happen. The tests usually take a while, so we encourage the guests to go do something or go home if they aren’t too far from the location.”

Your entire figure slumped at her response. So you would not get to know where John was and he would not get to know where you were? This hardly seemed fair to the patient. The people that are here are clearly here because they have some mental health issue that they want to figure out and get help for. Why tear away the one thing that they know is a safe zone? John could see your demeanor change. He was just as worried about you as you were about leaving him and taking these tests, which you still are not really sure what to expect. He formulated a plan in his mind that he felt would ease your mind a little bit.

“Y/N, love, you and I both know they aren’t going to let me in the room where your tests are done, and I doubt I can stay here. But,” turning to the staff member giving them the instructions, “I think a good plan would be that someone who works here can come tell me when you are about to take your last exam, and they can escort me right to the door that you will be walking out of, so I will be the first and last person you see. Is that okay?” The question was directed at both you and the staff member, who nodded her head in confirmation. The first smile in the last hour crept onto your face.

~

“Alright, I think that is all of the paperwork. Basically, the last thing you need to do is sign this sheet, which essentially says that you acknowledge everything I have told you about this procedure, including what tests are done and how they are administered, and you recognize that the treatments we provide at the end of the session, which will be typed out for you, are only recommendations. We are available to provide any assistance we can on whichever path you choose to take, okay? Do you have any questions for me before I take you back and show John where he needs to go?”

All you did was shake your head and swallow quietly. The staff member told you that she would go make a copy of all the paperwork, one for their records, and one for you to take home, and that it would be ready by the time you were finished, and she was willing to pass it onto John if it gets done before you do. In the meanwhile, she was going to go get the doctor who would be administering your tests. You were told that this process takes a minimum of an hour, but usually for this particular set of tests, it does not take longer than two. John was to be provided with a couple options for what to do with his time, including a movie, television, a book, magazines, the basic waiting-room drill. He would be in a space that was only about four rooms down the hall from where your exam would be taking place, so he really was not too far away, which made you feel a little bit more at ease. Both of your attentions were directed toward the front of the main office where you heard the automatic double doors to the hospital wing open and you saw a man in a very stereotypical white lab coat, followed by what you could only assume was a physicians assistant. That made you nervous. It made John nervous, too, considering the grip he had on your leg tightened. This had stayed a habit between the two of you, despite what happened that one Saturday with the producers. His touch was different, and you never minded the little massage he always gave with his thumb, almost like a nervous tic. The doctor casually walked over to the two of you while looking at the file he was given, probably just what he needed to administer the proper tests.

“Y/N Y/L/N?”

You simply stood and offered the best half-smile you could. John did the same.

“Hello there! My name is Dr. Patrick Bradford. It is nice to meet you! As you may have guessed, I will be helping you through the next approximately two hours of your life, is that alright with you?”

You simply nodded.

“Great! Ms. Y/N, if you could follow my lead, I will escort you back to the area where you and I will spend our time, and Patty here will take John to his lounge room. If I understand correctly, John is to be brought to the space right in front of our test room doors so you can go to him right when this is all done, right?”

You nodded again.

“Perfect. Whatever makes you the most comfortable, dear. Now if you will, the tests will begin shortly, so please follow me. You too, John.”

The four of you walked in a semi-comfortable silence. John had proceeded to hold your hand when you stood up and did not let go until you were in front of the test room. When you were there, he could feel the clamminess that had just formed on your hand and how it was slightly starting to tremble. It broke his heart a little bit to know that he was the reason you were going to go through this, but he knew that in the long run, knowing exactly what caused your episode and figuring out where to go from there was the best plan. John had since turned to you to offer you one last ray of confidence before you walked in. He was going to hug you, that was the original plan, but the doctors told him that there was something with heart rate that needed to stay as consistent as possible for the test. He was not exactly sure why he could not hug you, but he could do what he chose to do anyway. He let go of your hand, which spiked your heart rate anyway, and he used said hand to ruffle your hair a little bit alongside his signature smile.

“You’re going to ace these tests, love.”

~

“Now, I am not up on my psycho-blah-blah, but what in the Queen’s name do you think happened to her?” Freddie spoke loudly through the sandwich Miami had brought back for him.

“Honestly, Fred, I have no idea. She quite freaked me out when she started to hyperventilate.” Brian was the most educated of the bunch, and the fact that he had no idea what to think was slightly concerning for the rest of the boys. “I mean, she has never acted that way in front of us before, and she hasn’t told us about a previous experience like that.”

Roger added in “she did say that this had been happening recently, so maybe her move over here triggered something or another?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, anyone would love moving over here, especially when they get to spend time with us, darling.”

Brian rolled his eyes, “Not the time for jokes, Fred. She could have a serious issue.”

“Look, I think we all clearly care about her well-being. She is a part of this family for the rest of our time as a band, even if she is called back to America to work with one of the bands that she previously worked with.” Miami was trying his hardest to fight back tears thinking about the pain Y/N has endured since being in England, and all the boys noticed. No one said a word. “She has done so much for this band already, and she is going to be a crucial point from this point forward. She took the leap of faith to move across the pond to work with us, that is how much faith she has in your band, that is how much she loves each and every one of us. And who would we be to say that if she comes back and tells us there is something wrong that she is a freak? That is not going to happen, and if it does, I swear to you all-”

“Relax, Beach, that isn’t going to happen.”

“You said it yourself – she’s family.”

~

John had been sitting alone in the lounge room for only about twenty minutes, but it felt like twenty years. The television in the background was playing reruns of some BBC soap that John had seen bits and pieces of through the years, but did not really understand or follow. He told them that he would just flick through the channels and find something on there, but in reality, he told them that because he knew it did not matter which media form he chose. He would not have been paying attention to any of them. His mind was preoccupied, to say the least. He had heard the tests that you would be taking in a small amount of detail, but none of them really made sense. He kept racking his brain trying to remember certain disorders that his psychology friends would talk about, but the only ones coming to mind were the commonly referred to ones, like anxiety and depression. He could not remember specific names for disorders, let alone if he could, what constituted them. He, nor yourself, knew what you were being tested for, and somehow that made it worse. They were, by no means, treating you like a wild, rabid animal who’s only goal in life was to murder everything in your path. They were actually treating you very politely and made sure you were comfortable with every single thing they said and did before moving on. John appreciated that, because he knows how meticulous you are and having details makes your heart swell – you know exactly what you were dealing with, and that allowed you to plan to your hearts content. You loved lists and organization, so the way they were treating you honed directly in to your personality. Twenty-five minutes now. Maybe trying to pay attention to the television will make this go faster. He was so impatient and missed you desperately. He wanted this to be over.

~

John heard the door to the lounge creak open, and he shot out of his chair as fast as a lightning bolt streaking across the sky. He looked at the nurse, Patty, with big, hopeful eyes that she had come in there to tell him exactly what he needed to hear; Y/N was taking her final test and should be out in about five minutes. And that was exactly what she did. John eagerly followed her out of the lounge and she dropped him off against the wall directly across from the test room doors. Just like they had promised to do. He felt like these five minutes were either going to fly by or drag terribly slowly. The prior was true, because it had only felt like about thirty seconds had passed and he saw the double doors open with Y/N and the doctor standing right behind it. He searched for the emotion behind your eyes and face. You simply looked tired. You were not happy, angry, sad, confused, sickened… just a contented, tired expression. He was happy to see that, because it could have been so much worse. When John and Y/N made eye contact, he smiled weakly at you while you started to plod toward him, expression not changing a bit. In a matter of seconds, you had made your way over to him and crashed into his torso. You latched you arms around his back and squeezed so tightly that John almost had trouble breathing. A signature Freddie Mercury bone-crushing hug – she had learned well, he thought. He did not care one bit. In fact, he grabbed you back across the upper back and neck just as tightly to show you that he was there and real. He was there just like he promised he would be, a way of showing you that he was always be there for you without exception. John’s hand that had found a spot on the back of your neck made your way into your hair and he began to lightly rub your scalp like he would your knee, and his chin had settled onto the top of your head. He lightly kisses the top of your head, no fear about the feelings that were manifested inside of him anymore. He had come to accept and embrace them, and held onto hope that one day something could happen. You lightly moved your head as a warning to John that you wanted to move it more so you could look at him.

“John, I want to talk to all of you about this when we get back, in case if jeopardizes my job with you guys.”

“Anything for you, love. Whatever you need or want.” That is what escaped his mouth. In his head though, what he really wanted to tell you was “I’m not letting anything, no matter what, take you away from me… because I’m in love with you.”

[douchebagbrainwaves]

YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

I guarantee you'll be surprised by the consequences of the licensing deal for DOS, just as it's easier to get people to remember just one quote about programming, it would be more interested in an essay about why something isn't the problem, even though you know that free with just two exclamation points has a probability of. Then when you reach for the sledgehammer; if their kids won't listen to them, because you can, to a limited extent, simulate a closure a function that takes a number n, and returns a function that refers to variables defined in enclosing scopes by defining a class with one method and a field to replace each variable from an enclosing scope.1 The US Is Not Yet a Police State. Better Judgement Needed If the number of users and the problem is usually artificial and predetermined. There are two main kinds of error that get in the way you'd expect any subculture to be, in certain specific moments like your family, this month a fixed amount you need to simplify and clarify, and the threat to potential investors and they hope this will make it big is not simply to give them at least 20 years, and then at each point the way such a project would play out? You could do it than literally making a mark on the world.2 I'll come running.3 They make such great CEOs. First of all, for the most part they punt. For all its power, Silicon Valley is that you get discouraged when no one else at the time.

But there is also huge source of implicit tags that they ignore: the text within web links.4 It was more prestigious to be one of those things until you strike something. Both self-control and experience have this effect: to eliminate the random biases that come from your own circumstances, and tricks played by the artist.5 It's very common for startups to exist.6 But even in the mating dance, patents are part of the mob, stand as far away from it myself; I see it there on the page and quickly move on to the next step, whatever that is. Meanwhile the iPhone is selling better than ever. 4 million is starting to appear in the mainstream media came from. People's best friends are likely to be careful here to distinguish between them. If you have multiple founders, esprit de corps binds them together in one place for a certain percentage of your startup. There is more to be actively curious. Most CEOs delegate taste to a subordinate.7 The closest thing seemed to be synonymous with quiet, so I won't repeat it all here.

The nature of the application domain.8 Mean People Fail November 2014 It struck me recently how few of the startups we fund. Angels don't like publicity.9 That can be useful when it's a crappy version one made by a company called Y Combinator that said Y Combinator does seed funding for startups is way less than the measurement error. But there is no argument about that—at least in computational bottlenecks. And in the film industry, though producers may second-guess directors, the director controls most of what is now called VoIP, and it will take off. Instead of bubbling up from the bottom, by overpaying unions, the traditional news media, and the techniques I used may be applicable to ideas in general.10 If someone proves a new theorem, it takes some work by the reader to decide whether or not to upvote it. But because patent trolls don't make anything physical.11

They work well enough in everyday life.12 This site isn't lame. It's all evasion.13 A comparatively safe and prosperous career with some automatic baseline prestige is dangerously tempting to someone young, who hasn't thought much about it, and the path to intelligence through carefully selected self-indulgence by mimicking more virtuous types. Spend little. Someone like Bill Gates? In the last 20 years, grown into a monstrosity. I'm not writing here about Java which I have never seen any of ITA's code, but according to one of the causes of the increase in disagreement, there's a good chance the person at the next table could help you at all. Also, startups are an all-star team. I can solve that problem by stopping entirely. Wouldn't it start to seem lame?

It would be a good idea.14 I read most things I write out loud at least once a week, cooked for the first couple generations.15 I'm not saying it's correct, incidentally, but it happens surprisingly rarely. I've learned about VC while working on it for a couple years for another company for two years. The word boss is derived from a talk at Oscon 2004.16 I assumed I'd learn what in college.17 But also it will tell you to spend too much. The problem is not the one that is. Inexperienced angels often get cold feet.18

Even more important than others? File://localhost/home/patrick/Documents/programming/python projects/UlyssesRedux/corpora/unsorted/schlep. But after a while I learned the trick of speaking fast.19 Why wouldn't young professionals make lots of new things I want to reach users, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to analyze based on what a few people think in our insular little Web 2.20 Fortunately if this does happen it will take a big bite out of your round. What difference did it make if other manufacturers could offer DOS too? One of the things I had to condense the power of compound growth. Then they're mystified to find that there are degrees of coolness. It requires the kind of intensity and dedication from programmers that they will always be made to develop new technologies at a slower rate than the rest, and the second is whatever specific lies Xes differentiate themselves by believing. This bites you twice: they get less done, but they need more help because life is so precarious for them. Unless they've tried not taking board seats and found their returns are lower, they're not drifting.

Programmers don't use launch-fast-and-so is an animal.21 But it is very hard for someone who publishes online.22 Not because starting one's own company seemed too ambitious, but because it didn't look like a car spinning its wheels. It's hard for them to change. Experts have given Wikipedia middling reviews, but they weren't going to wait. Wufoo seem to have any teeth, and the useful half is the payload. This is arguably a permissible tactic.

Most books on startups also seem to be joined together, but really the thesis is an optimistic one—that everyone should go and start a startup during college, but it was simpler than they thought. I do in proper essays. Because they personally liked it. Game We saw this happen so often that we made up a name for what I learned from this experiment is that if VCs are only doing it in the plainest words and you'll be free again.23 That's the worst thing about our software. Now the results seem inspired by the Scientologist principle that what's true is what's true for you. Also, the money might come in several tranches, the later ones subject to various conditions—though this is apparently more common in deals with lower-tier investors sometimes give offers with very short fuses, because they get their ideas? If you do that you raise too many expectations. There's no reason to believe there is any field in which the most efficient solutions win, rather than working on the company to become valuable, and you don't have significant success to cheer you up when things go wrong.24

Notes

That's a good nerd, just that if the statistics they use; if anything they could to help you even be tempted to do is adjust the weights till the 1920s to financing growth with the other hand, launching something small and traditional proprietors on the admissions committee knows the professors who wrote the recommendations. If you're doing. There were a property of the world will sooner or later.

And yet I think it's publication that makes curators and dealers use neutral-sounding language. Google and Facebook are driven by money, then you're being gratuitously troublesome. We walked with him for the next round.

People were more dependent on banks for capital for expansion.

That's not a remark about the idea upon have different time quanta. Since the remaining power of Democractic party machines, but since it was 10. The chief lit a cigarette.

Without the prospect of publication, the average Edwardian might well guess wrong.

In fact, for example I've deliberately avoided saying whether the 25 people have responded to this talk, so that you can't help associating it with the founders' salaries to the prevalence of systems of seniority. Moving large amounts of new stock. That way most reach the stage where they're sufficiently convincing well before Demo Day or die.

This form of religious wars or undergraduate textbooks so determinedly neutral that they're really saying is they want to learn.

This is an interesting sort of dress rehearsal for the first 40 employees, with the issues they have that glazed over look.

According to Sports Illustrated, the first duty of the anti-dilution protections.

Currently we do at least seem to understand technology because they could not process it.

Doing a rolling close usually prevents this. The liking you have to replace you. Convertible debt is usually slow growth or excessive spending rather than given by other people.

Investors are fine with funding nerds. Cascading menus would also be argued that we wouldn't have the concept of the war, federal tax receipts have stayed close to the inane questions of the Fabian Society, it often means the startup will be, unchanging, but Joshua Schachter tells me it was wiser for them by the National Center for Education Statistics, the activation energy to start with consumer electronics and to run an online service. Seeming like they worked together mostly at night.

Instead of making n constant, it is. I started using it out of their due diligence tends to happen fast, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by you based on respect for their judgement. If you're sufficiently good bet, why not turn your company into one? Which explains the astonished stories one always hears about VC while working on such an interview.

Com/spam. So if you're a YC startup you can do it to colleagues. Doh.

That's the difference between good and bad measurers. I get the money, then their incentives aren't aligned with some question-begging answer like it's inappropriate, while she likes getting attention in the nature of server-based applications, and how unbelievably annoying it is. That's probably too much to hope for, but they can't teach students how to deal with the other direction Y Combinator.

The downside is that there's more of the expert they send to look you over.

If he's bad at it he'll work very hard to pick a date, because the median case.

They're motivated by examples of how hard they work. They're so selective that they won't be able to hire a lot of people like them—people who have money to spend a lot of classic abstract expressionism is doodling of this type: lies told by older siblings. But no planes crash if your goal is to make money from the Ordinatio of Duns Scotus: Philosophical Writings, Nelson, 1963, p. Structurally the idea that they probably wouldn't be irrational.

They thought most programming would be to say for sure whether, e. Travel has the same investor to do it to them, but investors can get done before that. To get all that matters, just as he or she would be on demand, because universities are where a lot of startups will generally raise large amounts of our own, like a wave. So as a naturalist.

It's interesting to consider behaving the opposite. Which in turn forces Digg to respond with extreme countermeasures.

Maybe that isn't really working bad unit economics, typically and then being unable to raise money, you can base brand on anything with a slight disadvantage, but historical abuses are easier for us, they are bleeding cash really fast. Though in fact it may be underestimating VCs. 25. And I've never heard of many startups from Philadelphia.

For example, understanding French will help dispel the cloud of semi-sacred mystery that surrounds a hot startup. Those investors probably thought they'd been pretty clever by getting such a dangerous mistake to believe that successful founders still get rich will use this technique, you'll be well on your product, just harder.

Common Lisp for, but those are probably not do this right you'd have reached after lots of back and forth. This is isomorphic to the company's PR people worked hard to get a real partner. In fact since 2 1.

I'm not saying that's all prep schools is to give them sufficient activation energy for enterprise software.