#this is NOT a post to left-criticize the enlightenment. you know who you are

[dostoyevsky-official]

in the age of extremes hobsbawm looks to explain the constant attempts at popular fronts between liberals, communists, socialists, and on the street, anarchists, from the interwar to the postwar, the Allies, and the popular governments before the onset of the cold war. his response is a line that's stuck with me for years: the difference between them and their enemies is that they all come out of the enlightenment, approve it, and want to extend its principles further, in their way; their enemies break with, rejecting it entirely.

the people we are against aren't conservatives, they're reactionaries. they break with the enlightenment and they're proud of it. they say so explicitly: see BAP, moldbug, thiel, etc., this is their presidency, the Vance presidency. there is no parliamentary procedure in the politics of moderation and contestation the way it's been attempted for the last decade to put them down. they need to be treated as enemies, ruthlessly

[regulusrules]

Yo, I saw your post about orientalism in relation to the "hollywood middle-east" tiktok!

How can a rando and university dropout get into and learn more about? Any literature or other content to recommend?

Hi!! Wow, you have no idea how you just pressed a button. I'll unleash 5+ years on you. And I'll even add for you open-sourced works that you can access as much as I can!

1. Videos

I often find this is the best medium nowadays to learn anything! I'll share with you some of the best that deal with the topic in different frames

• This is a video of Edward Said talking about his book, Orientalism. Said is the Palestinian- American critic who first introduced the term Orientalism, and is the father of postcolonial studies as a critical literary theory. In this book, you’ll find an in-depth analysis of the concept and a deconstruction of western stereotypes. It’s very simple and he explains everything in a very easy manner.

• How Islam Saved Western Civilization. A more than brilliant lecture by Professor Roy Casagranda. This, in my opinion, is one of the best lectures that gives credit to this great civilization, and takes you on a journey to understand where did it all start from.

• What’s better than a well-researched, general overview Crash Course about Islam by John Green? This is not necessarily on orientalism but for people to know more about the fundamental basis of Islam and its pillars. I love the whole playlist that they have done about the religion, so definitely refer to it if you're looking to understand more about the historical background! Also, I can’t possibly mention this Crash Course series without mentioning ... ↓

• The Medieval Islamicate World. Arguably my favourite CC video of all times. Hank Green gives you a great thorough depiction of the Islamic civilization when it rose. He also discusses the scientific and literary advancements that happened in that age, which most people have no clue about! And honestly, just his excitement while explaining the astrolabe. These two truly enlightened so many people with the videos they've made. Thanks, @sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog

2. Documentaries

• This is an AMAZING documentary called Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Villifies A People by the genius American media critic Jack Shaheen. He literally analysed more than 1000 movies and handpicked some to showcase the terribly false stereotypes in western depiction of Arab/Muslim cultures. It's the best way to go into the subject, because you'll find him analysing works you're familiar with like Aladdin and all sorts.

• Spain’s Islamic Legacy. I cannot let this opportunity go to waste since one of my main scopes is studying feminist Andalusian history. There are literal gems to be known about this period of time, when religious coexistence is documented to have actually existed. This documentary offers a needed break from eurocentric perspectives, a great bird-view of the Islamic civilization in Europe and its remaining legacy (that western history tries so hard to erase).

• When the Moors Ruled in Europe. This is one of the richest documentaries that covers most of the veiled history of Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain). Bettany Hughes discusses some of the prominent rulers, the brilliance of architecture in the Arab Muslim world, their originality and contributions to poetry and music, their innovative inventions and scientific development, and lastly, La Reconquista; the eventual fall and erasure of this grand civilization by western rulers.

3. Books

• Rethinking Orientalism by Reina Lewis. Lewis brilliantly breaks the prevailing stereotype of the “Harem”, yk, this stupid thought westerns projected about arab women being shut inside one room, not allowed to go anywhere from it, enslaved and without liberty, just left there for the sexual desires of the male figures, subjugated and silenced. It's a great read because it also takes the account of five different women living in the middle east.

• Nocturnal Poetics by Ferial Ghazoul. A great comparative text to understand the influence and outreach of The Thousand and One Nights. She applies a modern critical methodology to explore this classic literary masterpiece.

• The Question of Palestine by Edward Said. Since it's absolutely relevant, this is a great book if you're looking to understand more about the Palestinian situation and a great way to actually see the perspective of Palestinians themselves, not what we think they think.

• Arab-American Women's Writing and Performance by S.S. Sabry. One of my favourite feminist dealings with the idea of the orient and how western depictions demeaned arab women by objectifying them and degrading them to objects of sexual desire, like Scheherazade's characterization: how she was made into a sensual seducer, but not the literate, brilliantly smart woman of wisdom she was in the eastern retellings. The book also discusses the idea of identity and people who live on the hyphen (between two cultures), which is a very crucial aspect to understand arabs who are born/living in western countries.

• The Story of the Moors in Spain by Stanley Lane-Poole. This is a great book if you're trying to understand the influence of Islamic culture on Europe. It debunks this idea that Muslims are senseless, barbaric people who needed "civilizing" and instead showcases their brilliant civilization that was much advanced than any of Europe in the time Europe was labelled by the Dark Ages. (btw, did you know that arabic was the language of knowledge at that time? Because anyone who was looking to study advanced sciences, maths, philosophy, astronomy etc, had to know arabic because arabic-speaking countries were the center of knowledge and scientific advancements. Insane, right!)

• Convivencia and Medieval Spain. This is a collection of essays that delve further into the idea of “Convivencia”, which is what we call for religious coexistence. There's one essay in particular that's great called Were Women Part of Convivencia? which debunks all false western stereotypical images of women being less in Islamic belief. It also highlights how arab women have always been extremely cultured and literate. (They practiced medicine, studied their desired subjects, were writers of poetry and prose when women in Europe couldn't even keep their surnames when they married.)

4. Novels / Epistolaries

• Granada by Radwa Ashour. This is one of my favourite novels of all time, because Ashour brilliantly showcases Andalusian history and documents the injustices and massacres that happened to Muslims then. It covers the cultural erasure of Granada, and is also a story of human connection and beautiful family dynamics that utterly touches your soul.

• Dreams of Trespass by Fatma Mernissi. This is wonderful short read written in autobiographical form. It deconstructs the idea of the Harem in a postcolonial feminist lens of the French colonization of Morocco.

• Scheherazade Goes West by Fatma Mernissi. Mernissi brilliantly showcases the sexualisation of female figures by western depictions. It's very telling, really, and a very important reference to understand how the west often depicts middle-eastern women by boxing them into either the erotic, sensual beings or the oppressed, black-veiled beings. It helps you understand the actual real image of arab women out there (who are not just muslims btw; christian, jew, atheist, etc women do exist, and they do count).

• Letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. This is a feminist travel epistolary of a British woman which covers the misconceptions that western people, specifically male travelers, had recorded and transmitted about the religion, traditions and treatment of women in Constantinople, Turkey. It is also a very insightful sapphic text that explores her own engagement with women there, which debunks the idea that there are no queer people in the middle east.

---------------------

With all of these, you'll get an insight about the real arab / islamic world. Not the one of fanaticism and barbarity that is often mediated, but the actual one that is based on the fundamental essences of peace, love, and acceptance.

[arealtrashact]

What is the appeal/what do you like about Saw? I enjoy horror as a genre and have seen people post about saw a lot on here and had the opportunity to watch it so I did. But. I'm kind of confused? what I enjoy about horror is (a lot of different things, some of which are:) the anticipation, the contrast of good, pleasant times and the deeply horrific things which then happen, a plot that is unpredictable even if it's clear it will only end badly, I enjoy not knowing how exactly it will be bad and then the film slowly revealing that to me. Saw did very few of these things. Maybe it's just not a film for me, (I haven't watched many slashers and I can imagine they might be similar and it's just a subgenre I don't understand/am destined not to like?) but even so I just cannot understand what people enjoy about it??? from the get go it's grim and horrific, which means that when things get worse, they never really feel that bad because you have no example of goodness in that universe to compare it to? The characters are. Pretty two dimensional and also not necessarily likeable. Idk I could go on but I don't want to sound like a dickhead who loves the sound of their own voice writing a really critical review of something I don't understand. I feel like with the fanbase it has on this website, I must be missing something. Please enlighten me!!! And if you can't explain it I would love any articles/analyses of the franchise that go some way to explain why people like it if you know of any. Sorry for littering your inbox with this mini essay lol but I watched it last week and I'm still just like. Disappointed and confused and you're the first person on my dash to post something related to it so lucky you, you get to be the receiver of this ask !!! Thank you in advance if you even read this far lol, I'd really appreciate if you could point me in the direction of some kind of explanation !!! No worries if not tho, have a good rest of your week 🌻🧡

I think you had it when you said, 'Maybe it's just not a film for me'. It really is as simple as that.

There isn't always a deeper meaning or some secret detail everyone else who does enjoy it is privy to. There is no magic answer that will enlighten you into the appeal that something holds for certain people.

That being said, you shouldn't feel confused or left out by being perturbed by something as polarizing as Saw lol.

I can't answer for everybody who likes this franchise because I'm sure everyone has different reasons but speaking solely for myself : I like these movies for all the reasons you listed that you don't.

These films are like chicken soup for my soul, and have been since I was about ten years old. They make me laugh, they provide me with catharsis, and ( contrary to your statement) I find the characters very charming. I could wax on about what these movies did for me at that tender age but I am not in the habit of analyzing why I love the things that I do ( I think I'd find some patterns I wouldn't want to acknowledge /coughs/ ). All I know is that when Hello Zepp starts playing at the end of every installment, my heart swells with uncomplicated joy.

[max1461]

One of the most frustrating things is making a post that you think is right, and also important, but which unintentionally conveys something that you think is subtly wrong. Especially when the post gets popular. You want to keep it circulating, you want your point to keep spreading. But you worry that you're spreading something bad along with it, a misconception that your readers might not even know they're absorbing.

That post I made about the Meiji restoration a while ago was one of these. I ended up making in unrebloggable, mostly because I was just getting tired of that discourse. I think it was a good post and I stand by it. I criticized the Meiji government for an ideology that saw "Westernizing" and "industrializing/modernizing/becoming competitive with the Great Powers" as necessarily part-and-parcel, and I criticized contemporary political leaders who think the same thing. And I think that's a fair criticism in both cases.

But I did have a major concern about that post, which is that it I think it played into this idea that the Meiji restoration was some absolute break in Japanese history, where Japan stopped being... idk, "authentically Japanese" and started being "a Westernized country". Which is almost exactly the type of narrative I'm trying to critique! Like, no! Disregarding even the general dubiousness of those categories: there was serious continuity between pre-Meiji and post-Meiji Japan, this wasn't an early-Soviet-Union-level reshaping of society.

Maybe I shouldn't say that, I don't know enough about the early Soviet Union. But you get my point. I worry that my post made it sound as if the Meiji government were ripping up shrine gates and shit left and right, shredding kimonos and foisting Western suits upon people, and banishing nay-sayers to the gulag. No! That would not really be an accurate description of what happened.

So I worried about giving the wrong impression. I think I've posted about this already.

But my whole point, really, the point I was trying to make with that post and the point I am perennially trying to make, is that the modern world is not inherently "Western". Not in principle or in actual fact. Modernity was made across the whole globe. That sounds like a sort of trite statement, a meaningless inversion of the typical Western chauvinist narrative, but it isn't! The more you learn about early modern history the more clear this really becomes.

Japan was an early industrializer. Not among the very first wave, but ultimately still early. This means it was not only "on par", in terms of access to material wealth and technology, with many nations in Europe, but that its industrialization also meaningfully predated that of much of Europe, especially Eastern Europe. The core element of industrial society—the industrial factory—is a technology. A technology invented in Britain, which just like any technology spread first to nearby regions and later to far off regions. Of course in the increasingly interconnected modern world, sometimes technologies make big geographical jumps, as industrialism made to Japan in the nineteenth century.

And of course I'm oversimplifying the history here, but my point is that this is all ordinary. There's a narrative which sees the whole process of the spread of industrialism as almost mystically exceptional. A divine enlightenment was given to the West, which from then on separated the West and the Westernized in their very essence from the rest, the unenlightened masses, the savages. The White Man's Burden. But, aside from being a perennial justification for colonialism, this view is intellectually immature. It's a just-so story.

Like all inventions, the industrial factory and the technologies which emerged around it have a geographical place of origin. But like all inventions, they spread—both inside and outside the West—and people in the places to which they spread immediately started iterating on them and adapting them to local conditions and contributing to the larger sum-of-effects we call the modern world. Modernity was made all over the globe. Japanese modernity is not a mere Western importation, layered on top of indigenous pre-modernity. It was made right there in Japan, by Japanese people, in Japanese institutions, and so on and so forth. It drew from ideas developed elsewhere (as cultures always have! As Japan did with China just centuries before!), developed in France and Germany and Britain, and it contributed ideas which were then taken up in France and Germany and Britain.

And these kind of effects are easy to see with Japan, because it was an early industrializer, but once you pay attention you see them everywhere. The making of the modern world not as a unilateral imposition of the West upon the rest, but as a mutual engagement of many societies across the globe making something new together—sometimes cooperatively, usually competitively, and very often at the expense of the most marginal. But, still, together, as an aggregate process.

Our world was made everywhere. I do think it sounds completely trite, especially because I'm rather tired and don't have the wherewithal to source more specific examples. But I really do think this because meaningfully clear when you engage with the history.

[plutorine]

An Analysis of Raskolnikov's Natal Chart Placements (Part 1)

this is in continuation of my post re: raskolnikov's birth chart, as i did say i would make another discussing his major placements. before we begin, here are some things i wanna mention:

under the replies of that post i linked above, i used rostov/rostov-on-don as rodya's birthplace, but as user vintageshits pointed out, there is also textual evidence that suggests rodya hails from zaraysk. i tried using that too, and it more or less gives the same placements that rodya might have if his hometown was rostov.

i am not a professional astrologer, and most of what i have deduced from rodya's chart is merely an accumulation of my own observations/learnings over the past seven years of studying astrology. there will always be different interpretations for each aspect/placement; you are more than welcome to add on to the discussion if you wish to do so in the replies! :^)

also, this is a LONG read. maybe have some snacks / drinks ready XD spoilers about the book too

ARIES RISING, PLUTO in 1H

Gives off commanding, individualistic vibes; Rodya often prefers to be left alone and has grown accustomed to being alone (although I’d say that this is also due to his personality/way of living); he likes to be given his space and he is not above demanding it.

RESTING BITCH FACE!!! Every Aries rising I know has a signature RBF and they can’t hide it even if they tried. Couple this with the fact that Rodya also has Pluto in the 1st house; it’s very easy for him to come off as intimidating and sullen, and may also be critical of how he looks. remember that scene when somebody pointed out his worn out hat in chapter 1 and he started grumbling about it? yep. exactly.

BUT — never forget that what is intimidating may also be weirdly charming in the eyes of others! makes absolute sense why Dostoevsky wrote Rodya to be “exceptionally handsome… with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown (translation is debatable but i’m a dark brown-haired rodya truther) hair”; i had a classmate who was an aries rising and they had the most defined, alluring eyes ever — it was like they could see right through my physical body lol

Another applicable description that matches these placements is the passage: “...there was a sort of haughty pride and reserve about him, as though he were keeping something to himself.”

This one, I think, comes off as more of a result of having an Aries ASC square Saturn and Jupiter: “He seemed to some of his comrades to look down upon them all as children, as though he were superior in development, knowledge, and convictions, as though their interests were beneath him.”

Saturn touching the Ascendant often makes one come off as standoffish, cold, and reserved; people with this (undeveloped) aspect may seem as though they’re “above you” and act like they “know better than you” when really they just have a stick up their ass (this is a self-drag, I have Saturn in my 1st house and I used to act like this). Jupiter contacting the ASC may also have a hand in the passage above, especially the “haughty” part. Rodya acts as if he’s more “enlightened” (Jupiter) than his peers when really… he’s having delusions of grandeur due to not having eaten/drunk anything for days 💀

On a more physical perspective, these two aspects may contribute to Rodya’s “above average” height! Jupiter is the planet of expansion, and Saturn “elongates” what it touches (though, some may also say that having these touch one’s ASC may make them short/stout bc Saturn is also about limitations and Jupiter also “expands”, but ig in Rodya’s case we can interpret them in the former way.)

May be quite restless too; they often come off as agitated or always “on the move”; this was probably one of the reasons why Rodya hated his small room so much — there wasn’t enough space for him to be able to literally move around and draw out all that pent up energy inside him. This can also be explained by his chart ruler (Mars) being in Virgo, which is commonly known for its very nervous Mercurial energy.

His ASC also squares his moon, which I think also adds to the whole jitteriness he has; and his overall moody demeanor. The Capricorn moon in him wants him to suppress his emotional reactions, but his Aries rising wants it to be on display! Not anymore surprised as to why it was so easy for him to threaten Luzhin that he was going to throw him down the stairs LMAO (and more fittingly, because he didn’t want another word about his mother [the Moon, in astrology] coming out of Luzhin’s mouth). He can also be quite sensitive about the topic of his family, though may also be distant when he’s actually with them. There’s a lot of struggle with accepting his needs, as well, and this is also in connection with his Virgo Mars, again.

It makes sense too, that Rodya has a disconnect with his innermost thoughts/emotions and the things he does. Remember, when Razumikhin described him to Pulcheria and Dunya, he said that Rodya “...does not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart freely.”

Also irritable, due to that Martian influence. My previous roommate had this placement; it was really easy to excite her / rile her up, be it for a positive or a negative reason. Acting out of instinct is also a main characteristic of Aries Risings. They always do the first thing that comes to their mind — in Rodya’s case it’s to help people (financially), which he ends up regretting afterwards because he’s already so broke XD — which may or may not always work in their favor.

Maybe it's just an observation on my part, but I find that Aries Risings always have to be the first in everything…? Or at least, they always want to do something that makes them stand out or confirms their suspicion/thoughts about an unknown thing that no one else has dared to do before. Perhaps that explains why Rodya was so hellbent on testing that theory (which he ended up not actually believing LMAO)

Another note on Rodya’s propensity to help others; his chart ruler is also in the 6th house, which is the house of service, routines and health — part of what he frequently does is quite literally go around helping people.

SCORPIO SUN in 8H

Quite possibly the most fitting adjectives in the book that can sum up Rodya are “...morose, gloomy, proud and haughty”; “suspicious and fanciful”; and “...fearfully reserved” (thank you, Razumikhin). These words capture what Plutonic energy is, in some of its rawest forms.

Being a Scorpio Sun myself (though I have mine in the 5th house), Rodya mirrors a lot of who I was when I was younger: heavily secretive, paranoid(as in, always feeling like everyone is out to get them); prideful and conceited at times. Rodya knows he’s intelligent, that’s why he can’t help but feel as though he’s the smartest in the room, but his propensity to detach and isolate himself from others renders him unable to realize how he and his ideas relate to others, and this leaves his identity and worldviews/perspectives unchecked. He’s just stuck in his own little world; inside his echo chamber where he repeats his ideologies to himself over and over again, convincing himself that he’s “enlightened” above others. All that talk about wanting to prove whether he was a trembling creature or if he “had the right” ties in with this.

The catch is, this makes him so terribly lonely. Part of what I have learned from astrology is that the house opposite where one’s Sun is the area of our life which we have to learn to “exist in”. For me, this was the 11th house. My methods of self-expression were always just limited to the purpose of “putting on a show” (5th house) for others, but as I grew older, I learned how to use my talents for more humanitarian causes (11th house). Going back to Rodya, his manner of experiencing life (Sun) is stuck behind the private screens of the 8H, which hides it away from the grounding reality of the 2H, ruled by Taurus. Another way to look at this 2H-8H juxtaposition is that Rodya's ego is on some obscure, nonphysical place (8H) instead of being grounded in real life (2H). He lives only for his mind, and forgoes his physical state. Well, we all know how he wouldn't eat for days and that his sleeping habit is shit. Dude's probably rank too. Oh Rodya.

I guess the best and most redeeming quality of Rodya being a Scorpio Sun is his capacity for rebirth and transformation. We get a glimpse of the initial stages of this while he’s serving his sentence in Siberia. His old self slowly begins a path of renewal towards his transformation into this “new self” that will have shed all what used to be who he was when he was twenty-three.

Sun Sextile Saturn: This reinforces even more that super serious and uptight nature of his (to a degree that is almost comical, like bro would it kill you if you stopped taking yourself so seriously??) Sun aspecting Saturn also denotes heavy responsibility as a young child, or having thrust into the role of a parent at an early age. We aren’t exactly given an age for Rodya when Roman Raskolnikov died, but we can assume that it happened pretty early. This heavy responsibility to fill in his father’s shoes is one of the reasons why Rodya feels so, so burdened by the fact that he’s not going anywhere with his education in St. Petersburg, knowing that Pulcheria and Dunya are also counting on him to get a job so he could support them, being the remaining man in the family; this may also be another reason why his pride couldn’t take it when he learned Dunya was getting married to a rich asshole like Luzhin, so she could contribute significantly to the family — he should be doing that, not his younger sister.

Sun Square Neptune: Did somebody say LIGHTWEIGHT? One of the possible interpretations of this placement is a heightened sensitivity to alcohol and other substances. I fucking cackled when I saw this aspect (I, unfortunately, have this as well), and it brings me back to that scene in Part 1 Chapter 5 where Rodya was absolutely zonked out because he drank a “wineglassful” of vodka 😭 On a more serious note, this placement also points to an absent father figure, or at least having experienced the loss of a father. The person’s sense of self also tends to fluctuate. Ever wondered why Rodya is so prone to switching  between his god complex and crippling depression? This is one of the reasons why.

Little astro tidbit about having 8th house placements: these natives are often the types who’ll just randomly have people involve them or tell them about the wildest shit in their lives, like unprovoked. For example, they’d be just chilling then suddenly a random ass stranger or somebody they don’t really know well starts telling them about their personal business. This was the same thing that happened to Rodya when Marmeladov suddenly approached him in the tavern and started narrating his life story to him 😭 and the entire time Rodya just,,, took it all in XD

CAPRICORN MOON in 10H

Just when we thought Rodya could not be more service-oriented (that is, when he’s not busy being an asshole), he’s also given a Capricorn moon to top it all off! Most Cap moons I know go out of their way to make sure the ones they care for are alright; they spend much time and effort on that sort of thing. Will they let you take care of them though? No LOL they’d rather be caught dead in a ditch than admit that they want to be taken care of

All that pushback Razumikhin got when he helped Rodya out makes so much more sense. Rodya could not fathom why Razumikhin would himself go out of his way to learn about his trifles despite the fact that they don’t really talk much (like,, Rodya doesn’t even say ‘hi’ to him at all out in the street) and aren’t close; although, Rodya is aware that Razumikhin is kind, and he even tells him this when he dropped by his place

When a Cap moon does care, they will put others’ needs first and foremost, esp if they can see that the person really needs help and is in a more dire situation than they are. Not above setting themselves back just so they could help.

Another one of those moon signs who come off as really serious, cold, and calculating; but they’re really softies (and drama queens) deep down, especially when they have water placements. Might also like to keep themselves busy with other things so they won’t have to experience an Emotion™️. I always like to say that Capricorns are just Scorpios in suits lol

I also noticed that with Moon in 10H, it can indicate a tendency of your parents to baby you?? idk but i definitely feel those vibes from Rodya and Pulcheria, esp when she first sees him, his room ("this isn't a room, this is a coffin"), and when he visits her for the last time. or maybe this manifests even as becoming "softer" when you're with your parents?? there's something so sadly endearing abt how Rodya talks in this scene:

"Here you are!" she began, faltering with joy. "Don't be angry with me, Rodya, for welcoming you so foolishly with tears. [...] Sit down dear boy, you must be tired; I see you are. Ah, how muddy you are." "I was in the rain yesterday, mother..." Raskolnikov began.

They might also have a thing for needing something to hold onto when they’re feeling upset/unwell? Capricorn’s cardinal energy mixed with a fixed Scorpio sun further points to being “twitchy” bc they can’t sit still (all that Mars influence,,) — cue “where’s my sock!! give me my sock!!!”

Another placement that points to Rodya's want of gaining some sort of "power" or "control" — and he has the capacity to do so, too (how he goes about obtaining it though, is another conversation). He can be (could have been) really successful if he wills himself to. Moon in 10H natives have this air to them of being well-established in whatever field they choose to dedicate their efforts in.

Feels emotions really deeply when they do allow themselves to (or when faced with the inevitable fate of experiencing them lol). I find that Saturnians are also kind of like Plutonians when it comes to feelings. When they invest in an emotion, you best believe they will feel it to its fullest; which is why I believe that underneath Rodya’s prideful and cold exterior is a heart that is capable of feeling love in the deepest, most profound way. What he said in Part 6 Chapter 7: “But why are they so fond of me if I don’t deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved me, and I too had never loved anyone! Nothing of all this would have happened.” (Constance Garnett translation) — really broke my heart knowing Rodya fought against the desire to jump into the Neva because he knew he was loved despite his wrongdoings and all his rough edges; this consciousness was very strong that he felt regretful about being so loved by the people around him. He’s so,, :^(((( I just want to give him a hug :^(( he’ll probably cuss me out but whatever :<

Pig-headed, and will not stop until they get to do what they want to do. My partner is a Capricorn sun and it’s more or less the same — the moment Capricorns set their mind on something, they will see to it that they get it done, no matter what. Pair that with a really driven Aries rising and a Scorpio sun, and you have an unstoppable force.

Moon Conjunct Jupiter: drama queen placement wbk; i made a post about how i always associate Rodya draping himself over his couch like a D*sney princess would XD we just feel emotions deeply and we tend to get pretty extra about expressing it too, esp in front of people we trust,, or idk anyone who's willing to listen really. Though in Rodya's case, his Moon is also conjunct his Saturn, which means he limits his expression of emotions; or that he hides it from others — bro would rather choke than be direct with what he actually feels

Moon Square Pluto: another limiting aspect on his expression of emotions, though this aspect gives his capability to feel more depth and dimension. so when Rodya gets into his feelings, he really plunges into it. at the same time, the obscure yet volatile energy of Pluto also adds another layer to his Aries rising's impulsivity. Additionally, his Moon coming into contact with his Pluto in a square may also indicate pain that stems from the family / the mother. all that this placement reminds me of is that last conversation he had with Pulcheria. the most gut-wrenching shit i've ever read/watched.

WHEW. That's only like half of his big 6 placements. I'm currently working on the others (Mercury, Venus, Mars), but I might not be able to finish/get the post up any time soon because I'll be starting the last semester of my undergrad next week, and I'll no doubt be very busy again 😔

[horizon-verizon]

I was going to post the post that sparked this, but I feel like it's in bad taste, like talking about someone behind their back. But: what the hell with so many TGs that claim that book! Aemond into a loyal son and brother and show! Aemond was stripped of those traits I'm the meme of the woman spitting out her drink while laughing. Aemond who left his mother, sister and niece on their own? Is that your Aemond knight in shining armor and family man?

And see how they ensure that they have reading comprehension unlike TB and they know that the truth of the story is gray on gray and they are the only ones who see the misogyny... That's why they wait furiously and bloodily for the moment of "Aegon roasting Rhaenyra." And those are the exact words, it is very important for me to point out the language they use because they make sure to be as explicit as possible about the type of painful death they wish for her.

Do these people know that this is femicide? These enlightened intellectuals capable of supporting complex characters and identifying the true themes of history talk about feminicio and refuse to recognize it.

I feel like I should retire those TG and team neutral the ability to use the words critical thinking, gray morality, and misogyny until they can identify the femicide clearly described in the narrative.

But go ahead, keep telling me how the show was ruined because passive Rhaenyra is actually a girl-boss and she 100% deserved to die brutally, that's not misogynistic at all.

Now you and many others know what it is like for Dany stans when people bleat about Jon Snow being Azor Ahai.

[ci4ws]

Monday 5th August 22:00

My dad travelled to Africa today. He taught me how he makes his delectable, homemade chicken wings, I was the one that was making sure it was cooking well. It was so interesting, how that time with him played out. I supported him in taking his suitcases down, once we were finally down, he gave me a goodbye and a hug. The hug was what took me off guard, I never would’ve expected it, at all. It was nice. Like really. It felt genuine which soothes my soul. Once he left I felt so exhilarated, walking around, jamming to some upbeat music till I got out of breath.

By then, I scrolled on TikTok, I saw this video of a black woman, boasting on the fact how she’s 33 but looks far much younger than her age, 16 (Said her) all thanks to retinol. I really couldn’t believe it, like she looked younger than me, and I’m actually 16! That’s what made me really sad. I’m an attempt to dismiss it, it led me to actually think about the significance of the things I see on the media. How celebratory to have a youthful appearance is, seeing posts left and right of people, talking about looks, appearance, attractive people just vibing, while their face is the centre of the attention and the series of praise. Posts about models who are absolutely stunning. At ages of close proximity to mine. I feel insecure, in a way that I don’t feel that I can even compete in that level of attractiveness, I’m doubting my looks, I don’t feel good, but when I think about any negative criticism despite being so minute, I just don’t feel good. Like I want to be accepted by all. I guess criticism is almost like a needle being shunned to my back. Common feeling, but it just makes life difficult to navigate with these concerns in my head. It’s getting more foggy any action I take has consequences, I didn’t sign up to it, but it’s what makes life interesting. I don’t like all the issues happening in my life, to be completely honest with you, 2024 would be categorised as one of the bad years for me, but also a year that’s served me with great enlightenment. Without a doubt I’d be thinking in the way I do without those events that spurred. So there is good, but bad, and the bad is kind of what I focus on more. Since I want to fix it and experience that equilibrium, finally being able to achieve my goals, without these setbacks, but you know. :/ it’s gonna take time, hopefully I will achieve those goals, and whatever consequences come into play aren’t horrible. ���.

Also the social media world is sooo much different compared to the outside world and that’s obvious. Yet, I’m more comfortable interacting with in it than going outside, out in the open, guards down, head spinning, it’s too much. 😞 especially with the way it’s documented by the news, all these sad, horrible things. It’s makes me very paranoid to step out into that horizon. I think too much for my own good at times and this is an example of it. Through TikTok, I get a view of people’s minds, what they’re thinking, from the stuff they talk about and it just, with all the criticism of how individuals behave outside, I want to use that to be, perfect. And it’s so draining, I’m not someone who does use makeup but I can understand the amount of work being put just to look presentable, not having to doubt yourself or overthink when your outside, it’s tiring. :( which is why I don’t go out much. Luckily I get a sense of reassurance by posts that document, free will to do anything they wish and seeing those people in public that do absolutely crazy things 😅😂 it’s crazy, but I admire them in the way that their the ones that have control over their fears and doubts, when preforming things like that in public. Honestly, I need some of the things they have 🤭.

[you-get-me-closer-to-god]

Vamptember Day 1

“5+1 / Pantheist / Leather”

SUMMARY: Struggling to keep up with your college lectures, an interesting pair come to your rescue.

PAIRING: Platonic Armand, Daniel, and Female Reader

WORD COUNT: 2,385

WARNINGS: none!

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Yippeee!! Vamptember is afoot! So I’m planning on making this a series and adding onto it every day. I don’t know if I can up the word count any more than 2k but by god will I try, gang. I will be posting this also on Ao3 a little later, if you’d rather read it there. I also plan on adding a few characters here and there of course ;)

I chose “Pantheist” for today’s prompt, cause I’m a slut for religion. Enjoy!

Baruch Spinoza was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, born in Amsterdam, the Dutch Republic, and mostly known under the Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza. One of the foremost and seminal thinkers of the Enlightenment, modern biblical criticism, and 17th-century Rationalism. At least, that’s what your notes say. And you hope to God it’s all correct, because all throughout your evening lecture, you had not been paying attention. Your brain was fried after waking up at six in the morning for the free breakfast in the dining hall. And even though your body couldn’t afford loosing any more sleep, your wallet definitely couldn’t afford any groceries, so it was your only chance to eat all day. What was even more disheartening was that your very last class was scheduled to start at nine o’clock at night. At. Night. When you would usually be snuggled up in bed, fast asleep after reading a few chapters of the book on your bedside table.

So there you sat, nodding off every few minutes, trying desperately to stay conscious as your mind weaved the professor’s words into a lovely little dream for you to quickly slip into.

And every time you tried to zone back in, your professor’s five-syllable words and complicated “if this then that” curriculum just left you all the more discouraged. You ended up doodling in the margins of your notebook hopelessly until he called for the end of class. The room shuffled around you as college students from all walks of life stumbled sleepily to their dorms, slamming textbooks shut and slinging bags over their shoulders. You just sat there, yawning, waiting for an opening to join them in the trudge back home. It reminded you of a war movie you had seen with your dad one time, watching the people file out like a brigade of soldiers, thousand yard stares and dry blood-shot eyes on every face.

Except one.

One bright, young face in particular stood out from the crowd, not just his face, but his whole being. It’d be hard not to stand out with red hair like that.

His eyes were clear as they searched the room calmly, he moved- not necessarily energetically, but it was clear he seemed to have an abundance of energy.

That was a guy who was used to the late-night schedule. Easily descending the stairs to the door, he carried his backpack like it weighed nothing. Which you knew was impossible, if he indeed had all the required reading in there. You didn’t quite make out what he was saying, but he turned to a friend who walked next to him and began to speak.

His friend looked pretty much like how you felt.

Slouchy posture, languid steps, dark circles under his grey eyes, messy blonde hair pointing this way and that. It looked like he was trusting his more enlivened friend to walk him in the right direction. And given how the other brought his arm around his slouchy friend to lead him through the doorway, instead of smacking into the frame, that was probably the case.

You watched as the pair disappeared down the hall and you slowly pushed yourself up out of your seat as an opening in the crowd presented itself. Slowly making your way down the steps, you followed the brigade of students out of the room and onto the campus, into the cool night air, dorm room bound.

The interesting pair of friends lingered in your mind as you drifted off to sleep that night. You’re pretty sure you’ve heard talk of them around, but, you’ve never seen them yourself, until that point.

The “polite young foreign genius” and his “less polite, gangly friend”. There were stories, oh were there stories, but you never payed any attention to them. Gossip always left a bad taste in your mouth, as much as you loved it, so you just did the adult thing and assumed everything you heard was false. Though, some rumors did give you a good laugh. Like how the younger one was a prince from some European country, and, being so out of touch with society, he payed this poor miserable sob to hang out with him.

It was funnier now having lay your own eyes on them. You could totally see it.

The next night, Nine o’clock returned, and you sat at the same desk with your notebook open, trying to decipher your sleep-deprived hand writing from the other night. You gave up after a few attempts and only being able to make out ‘Baruch Spinoza???’ scribbled in sharp, frustrated pencil. Great, incredibly helpful, as the name was also written on the board right in front of you.

A heavy sigh came from your lips and you rubbed your face in an attempt to clear your brain fog. You had no idea how you were going to graduate if you couldn’t even stay awake for the classes. On top of that, barely surviving on free cereal and hash browns in the cafeteria was certainly not optimal brain food. You considered laying your head down on the desk right there and withering away as students began filling up seats. You gave it a shot, resting your forehead on your folded arms and trying to ignore the every growing hunger in your stomach, the tension headache slowly forming behind your eyes.

The quiet and creaky auditorium gradually filled with voices, rising in volume as more and more people began to strike up conversation around you. It irritated you. You were grumpy and you wanted everyone in the world to stop talking. Or, at least give you the answers to the upcoming test. Either one would’ve lifted your spirits.

“No, I didn’t know him personally, Daniel, you’re not very funny.”

A unique voice lifted up and out of the clamor from behind you, catching your interest immediately.

“Now if you would’ve said ‘Giordano Bruno’ we might have had a very interesting conversation,”

He pronounced the Italian name with ease, nailing the accent perfectly.

“-However these ‘professors’ read one book and suddenly they are the masters and we pay them. You’ve read ‘Ethics’, Daniel, take to the stage and give us your best shot. I’m sure you’d be doing a better job than this fop.”

His tone was passionate and irritated, Daniel, you assumed, chuckled quietly next to him.

“I think I should take offense to that.”

As you listened to their conversation, you realized that some actually helpful notes would make your year, possibly save your life and college career. And from what little you’ve heard from them so far, their notes would definitely be better than yours. Well- anyone’s notes would be better than yours, but these two seemed to know what they were doing. You lifted your head from your arms gingerly and turned around to ask.

But you were embarrassingly dumbfounded.

You don’t know how you didn’t realize it last night, it must have been the sleep deprivation or the lighting, or the fact that he sat very near to you now, but the red head was possibly the most beautiful person you had ever seen in your life.

Smooth auburn hair in delicate curls and waves rested just above his shoulders, a richly deep color that you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing naturally. Dark brown eyes that held your stare unblinkingly, almost against your will with an oddly cold and unforgiving expression. It unnerved you slightly.

Pale round face and dignified posture, his mouth in a slight pout or frown. You would’ve been surprised if he wasn’t a prince.

You cleared your throat, breaking away slightly, realizing you were being incredibly rude.

“I’m sorry- I was just wondering if you guys had any notes I could copy? I must have fallen asleep in the middle of the lecture and…”

You held up your notebook to them, showing your sad and pathetically empty page, and shrugged.

The blonde nodded, mumbling a “sure” and reached into his bag, pulling out a crumpled spiral-bound composition book that looked water damaged, and began flipping through pages.

“Thank you so much, I just- I don’t usually do this, it’s just this schedule.” You replied, feeling a bit like a burden as he flipped through page after page, looking for the correct notes. One of the pages was brown and wrinkly, as if someone had spilt a full cup of coffee all over it.

“It’s no problem, I have it somewhere…”

You shifted a little, noticing the other staring at you still. You glanced back and met his gaze again, unsure if you did something wrong.

You wanted to ask him what his problem was, but he cut you off.

“You don’t often fall asleep during a lecture? Is this correct?”

He had a hint of an accent you couldn’t quite place, but it was all around enjoyable. His voice was oddly clear and sharp, it penetrated the noise in the auditorium easily.

“Yeah, that’s right.” You answered him, feeling a little judged.

“Why is that, do you think?”

He spoke unapologetically, never breaking eye contact. You suddenly felt like you were at a job interview. You furrowed your eyebrows and unconsciously stood up straighter. Were you going to have a bully? He seemed young enough to be bullying people still.

“I’m sorry?” You said, finally.

“What do you think of this professor? Do you think him adequate for what you are paying for tuition?” He rolled the “r” on the word “professor”.

“Oh.”

A bit of relief washed through you as you realized he was complaining about the teacher again, not taking a dig at your academic determination. Although, it felt like a loaded question. He looked like he had a plethora of opinions waiting to be released as he awaited your answer.

“I don’t really- yes? I think I do. I’m not sure really. I haven’t been awake for any of his lectures yet.” You laughed nervously.

He turned his head calmly to look at his friend, who ignored him as he still flipped through the pages.

“This is exactly what I’m talking about, Daniel. This poor girl can’t even keep her eyes open.”

He gestured to you with an open hand, still facing Daniel, who finally ripped out a page from his composition notebook and handed it to you, his tired grey eyes meeting yours.

“There it is.”

And before you could thank him-

“Are you a pantheist yourself?”

You looked from one to the other, feeling a bit of whiplash beginning to fester in your neck.

“A what?”

“A pantheist. Such as Baruch Spinoza, the topic of the lecture.“

His brown eyes bore into yours, he barely ever moved, and when he did, to gesture with his hand or adjust his seat, he did it with a sort of biblical grace. Like how you imagined Jesus moved. Your eyes caught the motion of his hand and noticed pale fingers decorated with rings.

“I was raised Christian but…” You said, writing the notes hurriedly into your own notebook, squinting at the messy handwriting.

“My relationship with the big man is a bit complicated now.” You gave him a tight smile “What about you? You seem to know a lot about it.”

He gave you a slow and understanding nod before replying.

“It is one topic of many that interest me, however I’m no loyal to it than yourself.”

He stared down at you with regal posture and stillness as you hunched over your paper, scribbling the last few sentences. With these few paragraphs alone you were already thinking of all the books you needed to borrow from the campus library. In all honesty, with the amount of class you slept away yesterday, you were looking at an all-nighter surrounded by books and a bucket sized coffee cup.

“Again, thank you so much. You have no idea how much this helped. I‘ve got my work cut out for me.” You looked up and smiled gratefully, giving the paper back to him.

“Sure.” Daniel replied. He began opening his notebook to place the paper back inside, when the paper was delicately taken out of his hand. He didn’t even take pause and he closed his notebook anyway, as if used to his friend’s sticky fingers.

“It was such a pleasure to talk with you. It is not very often I find someone so willing for a conversation like myself, I tell you.”

As he spoke to you, he took a pen which rested atop his desk, very sleek and elegant, it looked like it had a nice heft and weight to it as it shifted between his fingers. He jotted down something at the bottom of the page, dark eyelashes resting on his cheekbones as his eyes cast downward before flitting up again and handing the page back to you.

Curiously, you took it again with two fingers, glancing at Daniel for any sign of correction or confusion. He merely placed his notebook back into his bag, uncaring.

“We do not need it.” Daniel’s friend assured you, “Please keep it.”

You stared at him for a second, and smiled. Something about his energy was…addicting. His subtle feline movements, his confident tone and gestures, the cool, pointed expression that never wavered from his face. He was all too perfect.

It was almost eerie…

The auditorium around you had quieted down gradually as the professor walked in, his heels thumping on the old wood floor. Desks creaked and chairs scooted in as friends departed from their conversations to sit down.

“Again, thank you so much.” You whispered, giving both a grateful nod, which they returned, before finally turning around in your seat again and peering at the page you were gifted.

Immediately it caught your eye. In rich black ink and curling neat cursive, was a short paragraph on the bottom of the page, an odd contrast with the lazy and dull pencil writing above it.

It was an apartment address, in a neighborhood you passed frequently just outside campus. A very wealthy neighborhood, if you remembered correctly.

Under the address, was a short note written in handwriting that matched his looks perfectly, small, neat, and clean.

“If ever you should need help again, please have no hesitance in coming by our apartment.”

-Armand

——————————————————————————

Let the self-insert cringe commence!!!!

@the-vagabond-angel my muse <3

[dramas-vs-novels]

Okay but what is this class?

So, within the film school were 3 areas of study, and you had to pick ONE to do:

Telecommunication law and policy.

Media Sciences (The academic studies. If they could show you something and put electrodes on your head to read your brain, they're happy)

Design and Production-- actually making shit. Scriptwriting, studio, field production, sound design, editing, etc.

I did a self-created hybrid major, bridging Media Sciences with Design and Production.

----

Laid that ground information because I can only describe the classes from the way I approached them. The media psychology students got something totally different out of it and my brain just doesn't stop where theirs stopped.

If I mention the sex class, I'll end up writing that 100,000 word essay on how it is applied to LITA, so let's talk the horror one (my fav).

What the class does is get into physiologically, what happens to a person while watching horror? A lot of that is really obvious- you can become tense, anxious, your stress levels actually go DOWN overall (which is not how it feels in the moment), and you experience a rush of adrenaline.

Then you dig deeper. What is contributing to the tension? The human brain processes things at different speeds, sight is slower than sound. So sound mixing becomes both critical to creating a horror atmosphere, and also a cheat code. Anything becomes spooky if it SOUNDS spooky.

Monkey brain hear spooky, monkey brain no like spooky. Now it's dark. Monkey brain cannot see danger approach. Monkey brain fight or flight grow big.

Now, if you don't have a valve to bring the tension down (something scary, jump scares are the most lazy way), monkey brain get bored. Monkey brain start adapting to the adrenaline and your adrenal gland is like "Guys this party sucks".

And that's why M. Night Shamalan movies blow. Level tension. So at the end when he tries to ramp it up your brain has already gotten bored and gone home so it's just like "Who the fuck cares".

What else is in horror movies? Violence!

But guess what? Monkey brain feel things if they see gruesome stuff. Boy monkey brains especially.

But what's this? Girl monkey brains are different than boy monkey brains. Girl monkey brains have SO MANY MORE nerve endings (that equals empathy). You show gruesome to girl monkey brain, girl monkey brain is like "childbirth and periods are more gruesome than this" (girl monkey brain not the most feminist, the feminism comes from evolution and enlightenment).

But you show a girl monkey brain the FACE of someone in pain- the agony and the terror... That's going to slam into those nerve endings and activate Empathy Mode- and now you can imagine how that violence FEELS.

Know your demographic- based on your subject matter, the likely ratio of boy monkey brains to cater to vs girl monkey brains. Set your balance of violence and face shots to keep both on the same page with that tension you are rising and lowering.

And I did say I didn't want to get into the sex one because I don't want to rabbit hole, but sex and horror tend to walk hand in hand because they're such primal triggers.

That's the "monkey brain" theme up there. They are not speaking to you as a rational human person. They're speaking to the root code of your DNA (do not try to hijack my post to argue anti-feminist things because of monkey brain, I'm talking horror and sex).

They're poking at instinctive responses you do not consciously control on average.

So yeah

I created a hybrid major track for myself within the department (I love that my uni gave students the freedom to do that) to study media psychology and apply it not to research on the human condition, but to learn to basically brain wash and mind control my audiences.

To reach into the monkey brain and hypnotize them until they end up- as the video game design majors would say- in a flow-state where time stops existing. Just the story is left. Like a dream you don't realize you are dreaming.

... ... ... When my professor realized how I was mixing the two tracks, he started calling it the Super Villain Major.

I have no regrets.

[ultra-kek]

Can i be controversial here like i know people are annoyed by “qrt dunks” or whatever but i’m getting annoyed at this opposite attitude in the replies and reblogs here of like blaming people for the existence of the alt right like some random guy with 100 followers at most who are all left of center anyways going “this is not true” about something or making a joke about some alt right figurehead could ever possibly actually constitute “free publicity”. I don’t know what to call it other than it feeling like adjacent to victim blaming or something with how nonsensical it is.

Like you realize that twitter is just filled to the brim with neonazis because of musk, right? Do you really think its the fault of random leftists that neonazis exist? This could be a reasonable complaint if it was about some Leftist Microcelebrity replying to deeply unpopular content for validation but do you really think most people are that?

You know what this is just actually stupid. “thats how hateful shit spreads so much farther than it should have” regardless of how annoyed you are by it coming up how the fuck is it the fault of people criticizing or complaining about it? And not the fault of the… actual alt right ideologues?

Its important to recognize something is bait but i hate this reaction to people responding to these things, especially this last one that amounts to actual victim blaming about harassment. I technically replied to a right wing post one time exclusively just to point out to the non right wing OP to notice that theyre interacting with them so that they, an actual news and theory blog that really would need to avoid sharing this conent, could stop sharing it, only to get a shit ton of harassment from alt right shitheads for it. Is it my fault for being harassed because I acknowledged the existence of them? It’s not like you can avoid them by just not acknowledging their presence like this is some sort of fairy tale and they only appear if you say their name three times fast.

Like what are you even expecting at this point. Aren’t leftist writings the one place you would reasonably expect these things to come up, to be discussed, criticized, analyzed, etc? It feels like everyone is going to far about annoyed at quote retweets and instead wishing to never acknowledge the rising alt right ever, like as if fascism and bigotry could go away if you just stick your head in the sand and pretend to not notice it. It’s immature. Maybe it shouldn’t be your annoying friend that loves “qrt dunks” or “the enlightened leftist @ communismguy” but someone has to talk about it.

twitter feed simulator

[victoriaduran]

Beyond the Classroom: Insights From A Marketing Student

In marketing, success often depends on who you know as much as what you know. Networking in this industry is not just a casual activity — it is a dedicated effort that requires persistence.

This semester, I had the incredible opportunity to attend weekly marketing seminars, where industry professionals shared invaluable insights into their career journeys and current roles. This experience was truly enlightening. Each speaker brought a unique perspective, showcasing the range of opportunities within the marketing field.

Lessons Learned: Tips & Tricks Along the Way

Among the many guest speakers I had the privilege of hearing from, four professionals stood out to me: Caleigh Heck, Blair Roebuck, Sian Mitchell, and Michael Sauvé. Their presentations both inspired and provided me with profound insights into their respective areas within the marketing field. After their talks, I made sure to connect with them on LinkedIn. This not only allowed me to express my gratitude for their impactful presentations but also opened the door for future interactions and mentorship opportunities.

Among these speakers, Caleigh Heck’s career journey resonated with me the most. As a recent George Brown College graduate, Caleigh’s transition from finding a co-op placement to becoming a Paid Media Specialist at D2L showcased the possibilities and opportunities to grow within the marketing field, particularly for young professionals like myself. In addition, Caleigh’s enthusiasm for analytics and A/B testing sparked a new interest in me in an area I had never previously considered – analytics.

From marketing science to paid media to SEO to public relations, the marketing field is full of possibilities and opportunities, with numerous areas of specialization to choose from. However, as many speakers experienced, the road to that dream job is not always a straight path. This realization has been both humbling and empowering, serving as a reminder that success in marketing is not limited to a single trajectory and may not look the same for everyone.

As someone who initially pursued a career in psychology before transitioning to marketing, this perspective truly resonated with me. It has reinforced my belief that regardless of one’s background or starting point, it is possible to thrive and succeed in this field through perseverance and dedication.

The marketing seminar series provided me with the invaluable opportunity to learn from accomplished industry professionals whose stories of perseverance and success left a lasting impact. One of the most important lessons I took away from this experience is the critical role networking plays in marketing. Building relationships with professionals not only opens doors to new opportunities but also provides invaluable insights and perspectives that can fuel my personal and professional growth.

The Key That Unlocks All Doors: Networking

Network, network, network. You hear this a lot as a student starting out in marketing. However, many mistakenly believe that networking is solely about connecting with powerful and established professionals in the industry. In reality, your peers — those sitting beside you in the classroom — are an essential part of your network as well. Their diverse experiences, insights, and connections can be just as valuable as those of industry leaders.

Throughout the semester, my classmates and I maintained a group chat on LinkedIn titled “Getting a Co-op!” where we shared co-op opportunities that came across our feed daily. This collective effort demonstrates the power of networking among peers. Together, we navigated the challenges of finding co-op placements, leveraging our networks to support each other’s professional growth.

Furthermore, although I did not volunteer this semester, I made a consistent effort to expand my network and engage with professionals and classmates on LinkedIn. I actively engaged with posts by commenting and resharing them with my thoughts, as well as creating two original posts. These efforts not only helped me stay connected but also allowed me to contribute to meaningful discussions within the marketing community.

Moreover, to keep myself updated on the latest marketing news and networking events, I subscribe to email newsletters like the Morning Brew and Strategy Daily, as well as actively follow LinkedIn accounts such as Monday Girl and Toronto Marketing Hub. These have proven to be invaluable sources of information. Additionally, Krista Kelly’s weekly emails, which feature a curated list of marketing roles in Toronto and the GTA were instrumental in my job search.

These resources not only helped me stay informed but also provided me with a strategic advantage in identifying potential job opportunities and staying ahead of the curve in the competitive marketing landscape.

From perfecting my CV to networking to going above and beyond by creating a portfolio, I devoted myself to securing an internship. After months of searching, submitting over fifty applications, and attending six interviews, I successfully landed a marketing internship at an IT company that I could not be more excited about.

While networking was not part of how I got the position, landing this internship opened new doors. Shortly after accepting my offer, I was invited to an exclusive event at Microsoft, where I had the chance to network with professionals from various sectors, including marketing.

Key Takeaways

As I reflect on this semester, I am grateful for the opportunities and insights I gained from the marketing seminar series and its guest speakers. It has been an amazing experience to hear directly from industry professionals, gain firsthand knowledge of their career journeys, and learn about their paths to success in the marketing field.

However, as the semester comes to an end, here are some key takeaways from my experience when it comes to networking and landing a marketing co-op:

Quality over quantity. While submitting many job applications is important, focusing on the quality of applications and tailoring them to each position can significantly increase your chances of success. Do your research and write that cover letter!

Persistence pays off. It can be very discouraging not hearing back from potential employers after spending so much time writing a cover letter and perfecting your CV, but do not give up. I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, so keep applying and stay positive – the right opportunity will come along.

Peer connections matter. While connecting with industry professionals is essential, never underestimate the value of fostering meaningful connections with your peers. They may only be your classmates now but they could eventually become your co-workers, potential collaborators, or even mentors.

[meeda]

long ramble about idk.. politics?

re: that last post, it got me thinking about the evolution of my own beliefs overtime, starting from maybe 2012 ish when I was a teenager and a pretty stereotypical left liberal sjw type. I mean most of it is still the same shit I believe today, if not a little more naive and annoying about it. I was also a raging “feminazi”, as it was called back in the day, and as many a teenage boy on the internet would label me as because I had the radical notion that women are people

I think the turning point in 2014 (if you know you know) happened as a result of overcorrecting my sjw-ness. Thinking that I was somehow “cringe” for believing in the things I did, in the manner of which I did. Thinking hey, maybe social justice and feminism has gone too far actually. Thinking hmm, maybe men have it rough too actually, and it’s all feminism’s fault. then discovering other people that thought the way I did.

Despite being knee deep in anti sjw, anti feminism, mra nonsense, I still retained most of my core beliefs. I never actually called myself anti feminist because I knew that in my heart I still supported “real feminism” (which ironically enough included men’s issues). I didn’t fall for the alt right pipeline because i have always supported lgbtq rights and racial equality. I’ve always been religiously agnostic, and I never cared for religious extremism.

Turning point #2 happened shortly after the blm movement started gaining traction. It kinda snapped me out of everything and brought me back to reality, and it also showed me the true colors of many of the anti sjw bloggers i followed. because now the mask was off, and they started becoming full on racist. It was embarrassing and I started to become ashamed that I ever associated myself with people like that.

enter the trump era. by this point i was already out of the anti sjw echo chamber and boy oh boy was i glad because this mask off moment just became a whole face transplant. no emotion could compare to what i felt seeing the beliefs I once entertained suddenly morph into the alt right movement and qanon. It felt like i dodged a bullet.

my relationship with feminism was and is complicated. I was born, raised, and socialized as female. i think it’s only natural that i feel very strongly about female centered issues. Like I mentioned before i was a naive but staunch feminist as a teenager. I remember the teacher asking a show of hands who here identifies as a feminist. I was only one of three people, in a class of majority females, that raised their hand. I remember telling my friend at the time (who, in retrospect, was probably a closeted transwoman) that they’re a fool for wishing they were born female because why on earth would you ever want to be a woman in a violently patriarchal society.

to me, the allure of anti feminism was the chance to redeem myself for harboring misandrist beliefs and not seeing things from a male perspective. but it was also the opportunity to question my own beliefs instead of blindly believing what i, as an afab, am “supposed” to believe. This overcorrection, years later, swung to the other end of the horseshoe when i rediscovered radical feminism in 2021. Prior to that moment I’ve always looked at rad feminism with disdain, even when i was still a so called “feminazi”. They were too extreme for me. It didn’t help when things like gender critical and trans exclusionary feminism were on the rise as well, which contradict not only my core beliefs but my existence. but there was something about it, something that reminded me of the same feeling i had when i discovered anti feminism. Like i was discovering forbidden knowledge. It was time to dip my toes in.

I orbited radfem circles for awhile to try to enlighten myself but it didn’t take long for me to realize that something felt wrong. It felt less like I was trying to “see other perspectives” and more like I was doomscrolling. Bad news after bad news after bad news. It almost felt like they were having a competition for who could share the worst injustices towards women. I did learn some actually useful things, like the detriments of the adult entertainment and sex industry. How “choice feminism” only benefits the patriarchy. The evolution of contraceptives. But the bitterness, the lack of empathy, the tone deafness. The last straw for me was when i saw a terf gleefully express their joy about the murder of brianna ghey, and said they wished it happened more often. It was time to get out of there.

This decade has been a roller coaster for my personal beliefs, but I think for the most part, my core beliefs have stayed the same. I still care about humanity deeply. As juvenile as it feels to say, I do just want things to be better for everyone. None of us asked to be born. Not one of us. Literally we’re all here against our will and we had 0 say on the circumstances of our birth. But we’re here, and we’re here together. The least we can do is help one another.

[automatismoateo]

How seeking God led me to (almost) true atheism. via /r/atheism

How seeking God led me to (almost) true atheism.

Earlier today I posted this in a smaller sub because this one was still private; I'm reposting it here and I hope it's OK. This is my first post and I'm still getting the hang of reddit, so apologies if I mess up!

Hello fellow atheists, I'd like to share my personal experience with religion and atheism. If you wish to skip this bulk of text (totally understandable!) there's a brief and concise TLDR at the bottom of this post. I was born in an agnostic family and my parents always allowed me to choose for myself whether to believe in the supernatural or not at all. I chose to go to catechism when I was a child, mostly because I wanted to be around my friends; I wasn't certainly making a conscious choice. That was a mistake that, in my opinion, it cost me dearly. The Catholic Church is no joke, the way they inculcated that religious nonsense into my head still has its repercussions to this day, 20 years later. I was effectively indoctrinated, brainwashed into believing in a lot of unhealthy things - the worst of all? an unrelenting gnawing feeling of guilt whenever I would do something that the Catholic Church would deem 'sinful'. In spite of what I said above, I somehow managed to snap out of it (partly, at least) after Communion. I stopped going to Church at 11 yo and my parents didn't object - in fact, they looked relieved. However, the damage was done. My psyche had been effectively moulded by the Church's teachings and the fear of the supernatural was there, like a beast lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce at me whenever I was at my weakest. Fast-forwarding 15 years into the future, I've managed to live my life mostly without the so called fear of God, but never completely. The worst came during the Pandemic, when loneliness and sadness took the better of me and I started to read the Bible again - as if trying to find some solace in that collection of nonsensical books. Alas, I seemed to have found it, solace, albeit at the time I didn't know it was false, as every word found within those pages. I began to 'see' signs of God everywhere - living in the homeland of the Catholic Church didn't help either, as there's a bloody church every 20 meters round here, and people always ready to brainwash you with their faith. I won't go into detail in regard of what went on into my head, as you can well imagine what did, but I'll tell you that I swayed my own self into believing I was being called to serve God - I nearly joined a convent, that's how serious this all was getting; and day by day, I felt the growing weight of the shackles of religion weighing me down.

But then, and I thank my parents for this, who taught me to always take things with a grain of salt and use that fantastic thing called critical thinking, I started reading the Bible again - TRULY reading it this time, cover to cover. By this time, I was already in contact with a local deacon, with whom I would meet weekly to discuss my discernment, which was going rather well, till I began to bring up the ugly, uncomfortable questions that not even the enlightened deacon could answer. I had began doing serious research, borrowing old and new texts alike on the history of Christianity and Judaism from various libraries here in Rome, as well as scouring the net of course. I even read several suras from the Quran and compared the two holy books, and the so called apocryphal gospels, parts of which can be found in the Quran. After weeks of intense reading, I realised that the whole holy scripture, upon which Christians base their doctrine and dogmas, made absolutely no sense to me. There was so much incoherence, from historical and theological point of views alike! Not even the most skilled apologetic could've changed my mind about this at that point. After that, I left the Church behind, hoping that this time around it would be for good. Alas, it was not. The 'spiritual' need returned a couple of times, but it was never as strong as that crisis I had during the pandemic, thankfully. Gradually, I've drifted towards atheism and nowadays I feel like I'm mostly healed of the religious sickness. However, despite dismissing most supernatural nonsense as just fiction, I feel there's a small part of me which wants those stories to be true. I would really want to get rid of this subtle, inner desire but I don't know if I will ever be able to. TLDR: I struggled my whole life with religious teachings I was brainwashed with as a child. During the pandemic, overcome with loneliness and sadness, I grew extremely close to the Church again and have even thought to join a convent. I never did, because through reading and research I came to the conclusion that these holy scriptures and the religions based upon them, are just complete nonsense. I'm now an atheist, who, however, is still struggling with supernatural beliefs, at times. I've got a couple of questions for you: 1) did any of you go through anything similar? 2) if so, did you manage to become fully atheists after that? How did you do it? Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I needed to share this experience with someone, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter.

Submitted June 14, 2023 at 02:51PM by nihilisticbliss4u (From Reddit https://ift.tt/XckdZSy)

[chop-zulyzulyyy]

Throne and Sickle Ch.1

Chapter 1: Tell Me You Caught That

----------

Turtle bros x fem!parkour!reader

Summary: In which the turtles record their training one fateful night, and find the rooftops hold stories with a beginning....and an end.

Author Note: Helloo Hii! This is my very first fanfic that I’ve chosen to post publicly! I’ve written before, long ago in the time of dinosaurs 🦖 lol and over time I felt I lost my touch. I sincerely hope you enjoy this, and I’m welcome to constructive criticism! Please be as honest as you can, within reason of course. Thanks for being here on the start of my journey to becoming a better writer and fellow fan :)

Disclaimer: I don’t own ROTTMNT, sigh.

Genre(s): A bunch of stuff, really. You'll figure it out ;)

WARNINGS: Heavy topics NOT for the lighthearted; like seriously it’ll get dark in some parts. Mentions of s*xual assault, bl**d, sh*rp objects, and more. I will do my best to organize in a way that readers can identify the warning sign!

City lights, when viewed with naked eyes, seem to get a new life.. -Aishini.

Ah, New York. What a town. If its combination of musty gas, hot dogs, and mutants were on Us Weekly the headline would be ‘Mama Just Killed a Man’ with the sub-headline of the possibility of contracting an identity crisis being free.99. But alas, who knows. The fine art of bullshit was such a wide range that it left room for all kinds of adventures. For a group of four turtle brothers, this one was for the books.

The night was bustling with pedestrians, and the twinkling lights left little to the imagination of what Christmas was like even though it was February. Faint honking horns of angry Boomers could be heard, paired with the occasional loud radio stations blasting from stereo speakers. It seemed like everyone was outside of their homes tonight, and thus would be one of the riskiest patrol slash training sessions they’ve ever done.

“Aaaaand there! Hold still hold still~.” Donnie muttered. Nimble reptilian fingers only scientists and artists could applaud set up the inner workings of wiring miniature video cameras to multiple buildings, and somewhere in the back of his head was a small whispering voice claiming this was a dangerous idea as he reached up to the small device. It was, but the four of them agreed it would probably help in seeing their training mistakes via camera footage. Shiny, purple cubes were discretely attached to all buildings that were on their designated path tonight, and everything in between had been so easily hacked. He couldn’t be more positive that there was nothing short of a fruitful night out.

Sharpie eyebrows rose in smug satisfaction.

His dear brother on the other hand, wasn’t convinced. Donnie could tell by the way his hands continuously cradled his chin or crossed over each other in contemplation. Behind Leo were his other two brothers: Raph sitting down Mikey for a brief pep talk. As expected, really, for their youngest would attempt to showcase a new fighting move tonight. Each of them had one training session to present which was a pretty decent piece of advice given by Splinter. He mentioned along the lines of adapting to any kind of situation thrown at them- the need to be creative in order to defeat crime. (Or about pineapples and lime- couldn’t really understand with the disgusting mush that was ratatouille in their dad’s mouth). Anyway, at least one special move would suffice for now. They can regroup and share pointers but moving forward it would be commonplace to improve because staying at their current level of skill was just utterly unacceptable.

Raph was the first to come up with something and wasn’t afraid to show it off last month. Leo followed shortly after, but the blue-clad turtle scheduled his move during a rainstorm. Most would say it’s brave, others would say it’s stupid. But in the spirit of enlightenment; a kind elderly civilian had forgotten their laundry hanging outside in between an alley. Leo had plenty of time to rectify his maneuvering, the twat, there’s no way he did not have it coming. Donnie himself wouldn’t do his yet, but tonight was Mikey’s night.

Leo huffed, “I seriously doubt these little rubix cubes are going to help us stay on the downlow. If none of you remembered, we just had Meat Sweats get spotted by the cops-like have you seen the theories people are coming up with on the internet? Aliens. Cosmetic surgery gone wrong. Gwyneth Paltrow! I can’t afford being thrown outta town before basking in their praise. Donnie-bro-Donnie look at me does this look like a face that needs to be blacklisted?”

“Are you saying my tech isn’t enough as security, you little shit?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

A vein popped on Donnie’s forehead, fist trembling, “Well if you ran like your mouth, you’d be safe from being spotted.”

Leo’s eyes blew open, “Swing hermano-!”

Raph stumbled in between the brothers, “Don’t make me send your spiffy little butts on home! Let’s do what we came here to do, fellas. Leo, you’re right to be worried but Donnie wouldn’t give the green light if there was too much risk for us tonight. We’re here to help Mikey. Capiche?”

Leo sighed and waved a hand. Mikey turned to Donnie, “How are your cameras going to help us?”

“I’m so glad you asked, little Angelo!” Donnie posed, flowers and stars flowing behind him as he stuck a tongue out at Leo, “These babies have been modified to detect thermal energy- heat emitted by humans and mutants would be caught on surveillance. If their trajectory path interferes with ours, S.H.E.L.D.O.N will capture it live and send me the real time feed. All of the other cameras I’ve hacked have been wired to follow along and save to file- there isn’t anything that we won’t see.  Not to worry.” He placated as he quickly typed into his arm brace.

“And we are…set up to begin. Ready on your mark, Angelo.” Donnie perked, finger guns out.

A pat on the shoulder from Raph, and a thumbs up from Leo did nothing for Mikey’s nerves as his three brothers readied themselves on the building ledge in camera view. The orange clad box turtle took the biggest breath possible. They’re right, he thought. Things would be a-okay if they said so. Time to blow them all away!

Within a snap of a finger, four wisps of rising dust were left to be seen.

•.*.•

Things were not okay! He nearly killed three innocent pigeons- aww what kind of monster hurts little birdies they ain’t hurt nobody! Mikey panicked, dodging cable antennas as he sprinted across rooftops. It was only ten minutes since they started, and he’s tripped over cable cords and trash bins. Raph had a short two-minute melee with a gang of pigeon miscreants. How was he supposed to pull this off with things bumbling and tumbling like this?

“Mikey! Take a deep breath buddy you can do it!” Leo’s voice echoed on a building beside him.

“O-okay!” He called back. Cold sweat made him clammy all over now. What if the sweat made him slip on something?

Raph crouched down on the building before him, causing all brothers to halt in their place on different buildings. With a worried frown, his eyes bore into Mikey’s.

“It’s alright if you need to restart, little man. Take a second to get yourself together and then we can focus on simply getting from Point A to Point B.”

“Technically we’ll be facing inevitable discrepancies of the plan if we stop for even 5 minut- shutting up now.”

Mikey stood upright so stiff his muscles began to clench painfully. He didn’t understand what was getting to him. Maybe it’s because he didn’t get enough rest, or maybe it’s because he misplaced his favorite can of spray paint. He shook his head. No, that wasn’t it. Glancing to each of his brothers he noticed urgency growing in their voices. Their looks. Their postures. It’s been frustrating nearly losing most of their battles now that the Foot was searching for the armor. But no, it wasn’t that either, as much as it made sense.

Well…there is that one thing; Mikey thought back to yesterday when April texted them an article. A group of civilian ruffians skilled in parkour were making quite a bit of unrest on the police scanners. People talk, and if their kids are around, those chatterboxes would catch the entire human population’s attention. Rumor had it this group was the modern Robin Hood- stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, and as fast as they appeared, those guys were gone in seconds. Some pretty powerful organizations have been outed in result of these ‘Robin Hoods’ meddling into their affairs and a few riots too many have taken place. Ironically, authorities have been ordered by higher-ups to stop these Robin Hoods. Mikey could see the problem when their numbers coincide with the brothers. What’s worse, him and the others could easily be mistaken as those criminals if they were caught… but training was a time-sensitive priority now.

Add to the fact that the problem did not only affect the brothers but all mutants; villains and allies alike. The cards dealt were:

On one hand, remain in the sewers and halt training- leading to repeated losses in their war at their level of strength. But. They would be safe from risk of arrest and human police authorities can do their job without spotting them. On the other hand, get ahead in their skills while the enemies remain low- but play with the high chance of being mistaken as the Robin Hoods and take the fall.

Glancing down at his hands, Mikey studied his mystic chain whip in hand and thought back to when they first got the weapons. Mystic mumbo jumbo didn’t play a critical role in their upbringing, but it felt like destiny called the four brothers to come across Mayhem nearly a year ago for important reasons: to be the greatest ninjas out there. To be heroes. To keep the city of New York safe.

Mikey sighed; he wasn’t making things better by standing here. The orange terrapin tightened his grip. He had to do his best. Mikey was in no position to downplay his skill just because he was nervous that he won’t do it right before even trying. No matter what his family and him could handle anything. He could do this.

He took a deep breath once more, eyes welled up in renewed confidence as Mikey whirled to Raph, “Nothing to it! I’m ready to get this party started!”

A large grin spread across Leo’s face, pleased. “Alright, there ya go!”

As Raph sighed in relief Donnie huffed, unable to fight the lift of his lips. He tapped away at his brace.

“Alright, restarting the session in 3…2..1!”

Mikey took the lead once more, darting rooftop to rooftop as they were marked with cameras as feather-like footsteps followed him immediately. A flick of his wrist resulted in the chain whip unfolding, length exponentially increasing in its glowing glory until the chains made a large circle around him. Lights of buildings and lamp posts all around became blurs, and ahead was the infamous Grand Central Station: his chosen starting marker. It was time to get down to business.

“Donnie! I need you to send multiple shots at me from every direction while we run, think you can help me out?”

Battle shell expanded; Donnie bowed in mock politeness “But of course! Any range in particular?”

“Stick with mid to long range, thanks!”

“As you wish.” Donnie flew a few meters ahead and hid from view while Mikey turned to Leo, who perked up in attention with a smirk as they ran.

“I’m ready for a speed-off, Leo. How about you?”

“Oooooh count me in. What do you need?”

Mikey bounced off a passing apartment balcony and gave a toothy grin, “While Donnie sends attacks at me, focus on attacking my chains. I wanna try to use tempo and defense for my ultimate move.”

His brother gave a wink and disappeared into a portal to who knew where, but he’d be waiting for Mikey. Last but definitely not least, Mikey faced Raph. The red clad brother excitedly beaming down at him from the higher buildings he was jumping over.

“Big Red, I need you to do something really important. From here to the end, do your best to catch me or get me off balance.”

“You got it!”

Raph nodded and pulled back, positioning himself a few meters behind Mikey. Said turtle nodded to himself, apprehension causing sweat to roll down his scaly green cheek as he neared Central Station. About 300 meters left. The second he got there would mean his best chance of accomplishing his special move was to use his senses and by no means slow down.

200 meters. If he failed this, it wouldn’t really be failing. His brothers were crazy smart to understand his motive and still work together to come up with a similar battle strategy. Either way this was gonna be epic.

100 meters.

50.

10.

0.

All at once purple, blue and red streams of mystic energy swarmed him much like a colony of bees. Donnie weaved around all brothers, neon laser beams whizzing out and Mikey wasn’t going to lie, those things hurt.  A few stung his arms as Mikey maneuvered his hands waving high, swooping low, faking left, reversing right, gyrating around- all motion available to bend the chains to his will. Most of the beams were caught by his chain, the neon light merging into the golden glow before disappearing. Mikey wished he could see the flabbergasted look on Donnie’s face. Then he remembered this was all being recorded.

Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have laughed out loud at that because Donnie’s expression morphed from shock to annoyance in a snap. The purple turtles’ jet pack with guns grew even more guns- bro whAT-!

Now that Donnie kicked it up a notch, Mikey felt the rising energy in his chains orbiting around him begin to resonate a whirring sound when a blue crescent light sliced centimeters from his face.

“Eye focused, Mikey!” Leo’s shout echoed somewhere from the side, dashing into multiple open portals for his convenience. Uh-oh. Mike forgot about those. Swinging in between cellular towers, Mikey feigned directions just out of Raph’s mystic hands as he was too big to fit into those spaces like Mikey could. But it was working. His chains were intact around him at the speed of light but now he had to move them fluidly to his advantage. Donnie furrowed his brows in the distance, dodging laundry lines mid flight and began using the power of everything in his arsenal at his baby brother- only for the chains to keep absorbing his shots. Leo, Mikey could tell, was running out of options in keeping up with the chains. Instead of Leo’s attacks disrupting the circular movement as before, every time he tried slashing them from any direction the speed of the chains was knocking him in momentum of the weapon. Leo and Donnie were growing restless, dedicating further to their task and thus quadrupling their efforts. Not to say Mikey wasn’t breaking a sweat, everything was burning, but he couldn’t tell them that this was his plan.

However.

The chains gave a loud clang when Raph swat at the weapon in order to duck under and grab him.

“G-ah!” Mikey gasped, immediately dropping down along the length of a building and allowing gravity to swoop him through an alley. This was dangerously getting too low for them where civilians can see them. On the other side of the alley, luckily, was a drop off to a construction zone, miles wide where no lamp posts reached. Mikey could use that space for his move, though Raph would also have a better means to catch him without anything in his path. Passing the last of laundry lines and apartment bricks, the group dashed into the open in pursuit of the orange terrapin now basically floating with bright orange chains as his wings when he felt a large hand grip onto his ankle. Caught in a panic Mikey sent energy to coat his leg and swung it down to slice through Raph’s red mystic energy. Hearing a hiss of pain he dashed away, but his chains wobbled off balance. Leo took this second to strike slashing waves of blue energy to dent into the chains range of motion as Donnie shot more lasers from above. Gritting his teeth Mikey gulped.

He had to get this back in control.

Mikey stopped atop a dirt hill and swirled around to face them, catching them off guard for a moment before closing his hands into fists and slowly moving them towards the center of his chest. The chain orbit spun faster, and faster, and faster until all they could see was a white halo shrinking into layers that enveloped Mikey in a cocoon-like state. But it burned. It burned so much so close to his skin that it felt like he was being roasted alive. Sweat stung his eyes: he shut them too tight he began to see stars behind his eyelids.

“Mikey, what are you doing?! If it’s hurting you then stop!” He could hear Raph and the others shout at him.

Just a bit more.

“Mikey!”

Bringing his fisted hands together, Mikey felt the trembling of the chains coiled so impossibly tight that the energy soaked in them was beginning to overwhelm them. Like a tire being pumped with too much air.

Like the stars colliding to create-

“SUPERNOVA!”

Leaping up sky high with his limbs spread wide, Mikey grinned in the millisecond it took for the chain to explode into tiny little beams of light, flickering between blue, orange, and purple variations of energy. Metal once welded together became individual sources of his mystic weapon shooting out all around. To them, Mikey resembled a firework. Bright, striking in his display of light. They watched in awe as Mikey let out a breathless exhilarated laugh, an “it worked!” reaching their ears. Raph, Leo, and Donnie noticed the disbanded chain remained still in the air around him until Mikey slowly shifted a hand, a dozen pieces of metal shifting in tandem and each straightening out into miniature needle points.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Leo cheered, followed by Donnie's whistles. The three turtles joyously cheered, celebrating this display of talent and execution Mikey put in so much effort on his own to showcase.

“O-okay, somebody please catch me!” Mikey sputtered, causing Leo to dart over and up as Mikey fell from the sky in exhaustion. Landing in Leo’s arms, the group of brothers circled around him, gasps of breath being the only thing he was capable of mustering. Donnie typed a million codes per second as Leo and Raph both spoke over each other- but Mikey barely registered most of it. He shakily lifted a thumbs-up. His mystic chain, now devoid of mystic power, swiftly returned to its original form, jingling to a drop on the dirt hill with a thump.

“I-I need a lot more kinks to work out *gasp* but this is good for us, r-right? It’s good?”

Raph gently shook Mikey’s shoulder, “It’s more than good. You did amazing tonight, big man. We can do a lot with this! But right now, we’re gonna get you to tip-top shape to be able to handle this strain on your energy. That’s first. Did you get all that, Donnie?”

Typing met his ears, “Yeperoos. Cameras remain functional, no damages, no alerts” Donnie mused, lifting his eyes from his screen with a smirk, “I say this was an exceptional showcase. Brava, Angelo. A well-thought-out plan of action.”

“Those baddies won’t know what hit ‘em.” Leo praised, then he grimaced, “But seriously, those chains sting like a mother-man my arms are gonna be sore for weeks.”

Mikey’s cheeks were beginning to hurt from his constant smiling and rested his head on Leo’s plastron.

“That’s great, guys. I’m just gonna…*yawn*I-Ima just… take a break...” He mumbled off, exhaustion quietly sending him off to dreamland.

“Poor champ’s all tuckered out.” Leo snickered.

Raph opened his arms to Leo, “Give him here, you open us a portal home.”

Gently handing Mikey over to Raph’s arms, Leo whipped out his odachi when Donnie’s wrist beeped. Donnie scowled, the light of his screen illuminating the tense frown lines on his face and causing Leo and Raph share a serious look. The camera cubes Donnie constructed were labeled along the path by numbers beginning with 0-1 and spaced out gradually by quarter mile, then to half-mile, and quickly to full mile on the account of the increasing speed they rallied throughout the path. The last camera cube designated to follow them was 5-0; about sixty meters from their position on the hill.

Camera 4-9 pinged.

“Get down.” Donnie muttered. In sync the three brothers crouch down and slowly, ever so quiet, shifted to the other side of the hill for cover. Donnie cupped a hand over his brace, dimming most of the light as Leo discreetly peered over the field in the direction of the apartment building they passed right before reaching the construction zone. Leo’s gaze hardened; with their mutated bodies, enhanced senses were part of the package. Although, it was easier to find the camera with no light sources obstructing his view. Immediately Leo spotted the smallest circle of red light from a camera lens on the roof, where a figure was still but… he couldn’t tell what they were doing. This wasn’t good. He crouched down beside Raph and leaned over him to meet Donnie’s eyes.

“We got a bogey on the roof.” The blue terrapin whispered. Donnie furrowed his brows in concentration, flickering between Leo’s eyes and the camera feed on his brace. A frame popped up, switching from thermal imaging to night vision. Raph, Leo, and Donnie found the figure to be female; petit in stature, and maybe around their age give or take a few years. Her figure was donned in simple athletic gear. Form what they could tell no weapons could be seen, no knives. No guns. She was angled to where they couldn’t see her face clearly, and from the way one leg was on the roof and the other on the ledge it appeared as though she had no qualms being on such a high altitude.

And how many times have they heard about humans being ‘comfortable’ around on rooftops? Thousands. On police scanners.

“…She’s gotta be one of them.” Raph whispered. Questions whirred up a mile a minute within each of them. What did she want? How long has she been watching them? Was this an ambush? The turtle brothers watched with bated breath when she slowly, not a sound made, turned her head over her shoulder straight at the camera cube.

Her face was concealed, a cloth type of material covering the lower half of the face and the breeze of the night shifted her hair over her eyes. But they felt her eyes stare into the camera. Into them. If they hadn’t gotten enough surprises, the next moment stunned them all into stillness.

A card was shown.

S.O.S

...

——————————————————

🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎

Aaaaand that's a wrap! Please let me know what you think! Stay tuned for Chapter 2! Thanks for reading :)

Fun fact: An appendage on the alligator snapping turtle's tongue resembles a worm, helping this ambush predator lure prey 👀

🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎🤎

[zoejayw]

hello im back with my questions,, ty in advance !! - do u have any tips for the composition of front pages/ cover pages? like how to position the title and the text etc? - what are your thoughts on studying art you dont like? do you think its worth spending time to look at a piece and just pick out stuff u dont like so u can avoid it? - your post on your other blog about how you dont want to be a professional artist but youve also never wanted anything else just resonated with me so hard. did u find enlightenment in the ~3-4 days since u said that and could u share it w us pls and ty - i really appreciate art like yours where symbolism etc isnt extremely obvious and it means that when i revisit that work i get to discover new stuff each time!! its wonderful. any advice for making sure your art is conveying that level of info correctly and youre not overdoing it or making it so subtle that no one picks up on it?

hihi anon welcome back ill stick these under a readmore because its getting very long

i honestly have no specific advice regarding this one! i would go about treating it the same way i'd treat any other combo of images/words, where i view the space taken up by the words as it's own compositional element same as anything else. i'm very very bad at typography and i'd suggest looking at the works of people who do do typography for inspiration, because the way people who Know typography use text is soooo different from the way the rest of us plebians are doing it. but anyway, heres a few really rough examples of the way you could position text on a title page for something. you can see immediately that the aspect ratio of the areas where your other visual elements would be is wildly different between all of these things, which means you'd need a different proportioned drawing to adequately use the space in each case. so i feel like this is the kind of thing it's really important to thumb out ahead of time, just so you're not left with awkward crops or dead space once you go to add text

i think studying things you don't like is insanely critical in all areas, not just art. in many ways engaging with something you like is much more passive than engaging with something you don't. I find that on average, people are less likely to pick up on individual elements of art they like compared to art they dislike. You need a little bit of roughage for things to stick in your brain, sometimes. It has to burn going down a bit. Being able to understand and articulate what you think isn't working about a piece or a style lets you isolate elements that do work, and lets you get that much more in line with your own taste. The array of art I like is impossibly wide and varied. The stuff I explicitly and without exception dislike is a much smaller and more concrete pool of things, and knowing what those things are so I can avoid them is much more helpful for narrowing down my own technique than having five billion different styles I actively aspire to. I think analyzing stuff you dislike is also interesting when you take the time to question if what you're seeing and disliking is an area where the artist is unskilled on a technical level, and failing to execute something, or if the execution is intentional/successful but merely outside of your taste bracket. This can be kind of an arbitrary distinction at times but I find it helpful to at least give some thought to. If something feels unskilled - what would a more skillful execution look like? Would you like it then? If something is just outside of your tastes - where do you think the appeal lies for people who do find it appealing? You can get a ton of mileage out of this stuff

unfortunately i did not find enlightenment there. my problems with becoming a professional artist are not the same problems everyone else is having for the most part. there was a lot of replies on that post about how being an artist under late stage capitalism sucks and while thats true thats not whats stopping me. what's stopping me is my horrible health problems and recent development of a life ruining disability. i Can't pursue art professionally, or literally any other field, because i can't put in more than a couple hours of work a day max on anything. i had to delete that post because it was honestly really frustrating to have to sit through a bunch of tags in my notifs that boiled down to 'ugh yeah i would LOVE to be a professional artist if it didnt involve doing/learning stuff i didnt want to sometimes, and instead i was just giving enough money to live on to do exactly what i want whenever i wanted' which is just to me a deeply entitled mindset. A lot of creatives actually Do get paid to make whatever they want whenever they want! But these are the kind of people who have spent years and years of their life building up a following and improving their craft. I'm not sure why people think they should be allowed to skip that part and go right to getting paid for it.

As for symbolism, I think you're looking at it a little bit wrong! There is no one level of symbolism i'm using that can get 'correctly' conveyed, it just isn't possible. Communication in general, but especially in the case of more abstracted symbolism, is an inherently asymmetrical act. The ability to communicate something relies just as heavily as it does on your audience's ability to understand and interpret as it relies on your own communicative skill. Visual literacy in particular varies a lot from person to person, because it's not taught in the same way as textual literacy or verbal literacy. A find a lot of the symbolism I use pretty blunt and not that subtle. Some of it is also stuff that I know nobody but me will ever notice. Plenty of stuff is in the middle ground between these two extremes. Having a wide spread ensures that there will be at least a little bit of something for everyone, and that those people who are dedicated enough to return back to your work later will find it newly rewarding. I really don't know to convey How to do this because there's an almost infinite number of things you can do with visual symbolism, so my advice would be primarily

understand when you are working with imagery that has become cliched. Almost everything has been done before, but some things have been done more than others. The term has a lot of negative connotations, and is very much down to a matter of opinion/culturally dependent, but there's some types of imagery that are just sooooo overused that anyone with familiarity on the subject is probably already sick of it. This does not mean you can't use them. This means you have to be careful. Think about stuff like biblical imagery in the west, like something being in black and white with one object selectively colored, like red string imagery, like visuals where a character looks into a mirror and sees a reflection different from their true self. This is all stuff i'd consider to be cliched. The benefits of cliched imagery is that it is accessible enough for even the least visually inclined viewer to understand what is being conveyed by it. The downsides are that it's very easy to come off as trite to anyone with more familiarity. My personal tastes for working with cliche is to lean into it. If you know what you're doing has been done before over and over again, embrace that. Don't try to be subtle with it; trying to be subtle with something that is too culturally ubiquitous for subtlety always reads as insanely condescending to me. my gut reaction is 'oh you think you're being clever with this? youre not!' so i try not to be clever. like with how i'm using tarot imagery for my comic. tarot stuff is obscenely cliche at this point. although some individual instances are more or less subtle than others, overall there is zero attempt to mask what i'm doing. it's pretty much got a big neon sign on it that says 'hey guys! we're doing a tarot thing! so lets all have a fun time with that!' when you use cliche, try and do it because your audience is familiar with it, not despite that.

trust your instincts. you don't have to understand your own symbolism. you don't have to be able to sit down and explain in words what everything you're drawing means. if we were only going to limit ourselves to things we could explain in words, we could just be writing things instead of drawing things. visuals don't have to translate 1:1 to concrete literary ideas and something just feeling right can be more than a good enough reason to include it. it's not bullshit or fake symbolism or pretentious just because you can't sit down and bust out an essay about it. some stuff is allowed to be ambiguous or weird. we would never get any New imagery if we were limited to using imagery that could be explained. toss whatever you can in wherever you can and let it coagulate into something coherent as you go.

consider the way your body of work informs itself. if you randomly stick a pineapple into one image, that could mean something, but it could also not. if you become the guy who sticks random pineapples into every drawing, then it definitely means something. you don't need to artificially curate this, but rather, you can just lean into the sort of visuals you find intriguing/compelling and allow that to become symbolic or meaningful through its presence in your larger body of work. symbolism is inherently relational, there is no discrete visual which is on its own a symbol. it has to relate to something outside of itself to mean anything. you can build that meaning yourself.

hope this is helpful or interesting at least!

[fatliberation]

Here Are Some Fat Positive Activists, Educators, Therapists, and Artists to Know!

First and foremost, the pioneer of organized fat activism:

• Bill Fabrey (he/him)

Bill Fabrey, a self-proclaimed fat admirer, founded NAAFA (the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) in 1969 after gaining an understanding of the day-to-day oppression and discrimination faced by his wife, Joyce. Fabrey founded the organization in hopes to raise awareness of weight stigma, criticize biased studies, and increase overall acceptance and accessibility to fat Americans. He is considered one of the pioneers of the fat liberation movement, and is heavily involved to this day.

• Judy Freespirit, Sara Fishman, Lynn McAfee, Ariana Manow, & Gudrun Fonfa (she/her for each)

(Members of The Fat Underground, 1979)

Fat, radical, feminist members of NAAFA! Their agenda was much more aggressive than NAAFA’s, and eventually they broke off and formed their own group called The Fat Underground, which acted as a catalyst in the creation and mobilization of the fat liberation movement. Based in LA in the 1970s, the Fat Underground did not fight to change discriminatory laws but rather discriminatory thoughts and practices in different aspects of society, which included those of doctors and other health professionals who perpetuated the unhealthy habits encouraged by diet culture. In 1973, Judy Freespirit and Alderbaran published the “Fat Liberation Manifesto” which establishes that fat people are entitled to what they were denied on a daily basis: “human respect and recognition.” The other objectives then outline the commercial exploitation of fat bodies by both corporations and scientific institutions. (x) I will go into more detail about the Fat Underground in my next post, “The History of Fat Activism!”

• Dr. Lindo Bacon (they/them), PhD

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Creator of the concept of HAES (Health At Every Size).

Dr. Bacon is best known for their paradigm-shifting research and advocacy upending the weight discourse. They have mined their deep academic proficiency, wide-ranging clinical expertise and own personal experience to write two best-selling books, Health at Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, and the co-authored Body Respect: What Conventional Health Books Get Wrong, Leave Out, or Just Plain Fail to Understand about Weight. Both are credited with transforming the weight discourse and inspiring a hopeful new course for the fat liberation movement. Dr. Bacon holds their PhD in physiology, as well as graduate degrees in psychology and exercise metabolism. Dr. Bacon formerly taught at City College of San Francisco, in the Health Education, Psychology, Women’s Studies, and Biology Departments. A professor and researcher, for almost two decades Dr. Bacon has taught courses in social justice, health, weight and nutrition; they have also conducted federally funded studies on health and weight and published in top scientific journals. Their research has been supported by grants from the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Institutes of Health. A truly great pioneer in medical health research! 

https://lindobacon.com/ | HAES | IG

• Aubrey Gordon, a.k.a. Your Fat Friend (she/her)

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Aubrey Gordon writes about the social realities of life as a very fat person, previously publishing anonymously as Your Fat Friend. She is the author of What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Lit Hub, Vox, Gay Mag, and has been covered in outlets around the world. She also hosts the podcast Maintenance Phase, in which she and cohost Michael Hobbes debunk and decode wellness and weight loss trends. Her articles are incredibly heartfelt and enlightening. You can read all of them at www.yourfatfriend.com !!

@ yrfatfriend on IG & Twitter

• Sabrina Strings (she/her), PhD

Sabrina Strings is an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine and the author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, which exposes fatphobia’s roots in anti-blackness. Strings contributed an opinion story to The New York Times titled “It’s Not Obesity. It’s Slavery.” With Lindo Bacon (creator of HAES), she coauthored “The Racist Roots of Fighting Obesity,” published in Scientific American. Strings has a BA in psychology and an MA and PHd in sociology. This book is #1 on my to-read list!!

https://www.sabrinastrings.com

• Hannah Fuhlendorf (she/her), MA LPCC NCC

Hannah is a highly educated and experienced counselor whose work focuses on self acceptance, eliminating the effects of internalized oppression, and practicing through a HAES lens. She is a fat liberationist who puts out educational videos daily. Hannah is also married to a healthcare professional, and the two of them are working toward making the medical field more accessible to fat people in their local community, and offering education on how to be fat allies. I really admire Hannah and the work that she does!

@ hannahtalksbodies on IG and TikTok

• Tracy Cox (she/her)

Tracy is an award-winning performer and artist, who co-created the web series “Angry Fat People” with Matthew Anchel, which takes a pop culture approach on serious issues faced by fat performers. She has been interviewed by the New York Times on fat politics and accessibility, and currently has a huge following on IG where she unpacks fat performance, fashion, and politics. You may know her as the creator of the ‘fat vanity’ trend on TikTok!

@ sparklejams on IG & TikTok

• Da’Shaun L. Harrison (they/them) 

Da’Shaun is a non-binary abolitionist, community organizer, and writer. They are currently a managing editor and columnist at Wear Your Voice Magazine. They travel throughout the United States and abroad to speak at conferences, colleges, and lead workshops focused on Blackness, queerness, gender, class, religion, (dis)abilities, fatness, and the intersection at which they all meet. Da’Shaun is the author of the book Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness, which is expected to be published in July 2021. They have an incredibly enlightening social media presence as well!!

@ dashaunlh on IG and Twitter

• Lauren Buchness (she/her)

Lauren Buchness is one of my favorite artists. She’s a contemporary artist and fat activist based in Tucson, Arizona. By combining painting & performance, she aims to question Western standards of beauty and create conversations that alter preconceived notions about the fat body. Go check out her gorgeous work!!

@ ladybuchness on IG and TikTok

If you’re interested in learning about diet culture and intuitive eating, check out

Shana Minei Spence (she/her), MS RDN CDN

Shana is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist who opposes food restriction and encourages intuitive eating! She spreads food positive daily messages on her platform. She used to work in fashion, but she left after being dissatisfied with the industry and went back to school to become involved in food policy and public health. She offers counseling on a HAES approach. I have much respect for Shana!

@ thenutritiontea on IG

And right here on tumblr (who was my personal introduction to fat lib) -

@ bigfatscience !!!

An anonymous fat liberationist. They share so many great resources, diving head-first into the scientific research of weight and health, they’ve found that the relation between the two is extremely complex. They tackle the biases of  research in a system that profits off of fatphobia, and they offer a fat positive perspective based on scientific studies. Their blog serves as an easily accessible resource for fat folx and fat activists who want to learn about fat positive science to support their own personal interests/activism. Thank you for your work, bigfatscience!! (if you have questions for them, you will have a greater chance of getting a response with anon off!) 

• Sonalee Rashatwar (she/they), LCSW MEd

Sonalee is an award-winning clinical social worker, sex therapist, and grassroots organizer. They’re a superfat queer bisexual non-binary therapist and co-owner of Radical Therapy Center. Sonalee is specialized in treating sexual trauma, internalized fatphobia, immigrant kid guilt, and South Asian family systems, while offering fat positive sexual healthcare. Go, Sonalee!!

@ thefatsextherapist on IG

• Fat Rose (org)

Fat Rose organizes fat people, building a more radical fat liberation movement in strong relationship with other social movements, such as anti-fascism, anti-ableism, and anti-racism. Check them out on Facebook!

fatrose.org

Honorable IG mentions: (Some anti diet culture specific blogs in here, as well)

@fatangryblackgirl  @msgigggles @thefatphobiaslayer @bodyimagewithbri @saucyewest @fatpositivetherapy @fatlippodcast @chairbreaker 

BOOKS

And here’s an amazing list of fat-positive book recommendations from HannahTalksBodies!

Science & Health:

Health at Every Size by Lindo Bacon PhD

Body Respect by Lindo Bacon PhD and Lucy Aphramor PhD, RD

Secrets from the Eating Lab by Traci Mann PhD

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison MPH, RD

Fat Liberation:

Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings PhD

Fat Activism by Dr. Charlotte Cooper

Fat Politics by J. Eric Oliver

The Fat Studies Reader by Esther Rothblum (Editor) and Sondra Solovay (Editor)

Fat Shame by Amy Erdman Farrell

Self Acceptance:

The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

Things No One will Tell Fat Girls by Jes Baker

Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnson PhD

Happy Fat by Sofie Hagan

You have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar

Thanks for reading! Please feel free to share this list of resources!

Image descriptions below.

1. [ID: A black and white photo of Bill Fabrey, a straight-sized, balding white man with thick black glasses wearing a suit and tie, standing at a poduim in front of a sign that reads, “NAAFA”. Beside the image is another photo of Fabrey, from his left side.]

2. [ID: A black and white photo of seven fat, female and gender non-conforming members of The Fat Underground, performing a recital.]

3. [ID: The cover of Sabrina Strings’ book, Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia. On the cover is an illustration of four upper-class white people in fancy colonial period clothing showing shock and disgust at a Black woman’s exposed body. Beside the book cover is a photo of Sabrina Strings, a straight-sized Black woman with dark brown curly hair wearing a blouse.]

4. [ID: Hannah Fulhendorf, a fat, white woman with straight hair dyed blue, wearing a black tank top and holding her shoulder while smiling brightly and looking into the camera.]

5. [ID: An artistic picture of Tracy Cox, a fat, white woman with long, straight brown hair, laying topless on a bed of flowers. There are flower petals placed strategically in her hair on her skin, and along her lower eyelid. Beside that image, is an image of the album cover for Angry Fat People, picturing two angry faces made out of white paper against a grey background. In the top left corner, black, bolded text that reads “AFP” and “FAT LIBERATION”.]

6. [ID: Da’Shaun L. Harrison, a fat, non-binary Black person with a beard, glasses, and long dreadlocks, wearing a shirt that reads, “TO BE VISIBLY QUEER IS TO CHOOSE YOUR HAPPINESS OVER YOUR SAFETY. -DA’SHAUN HARRISON” against a natural backdrop of autumn leaves.]

7. [ID: A watercolor painting by Lauren Buchness of a white and tattooed fat body, hands caressing abstract rolls of fat with wild blueberries and grapefruit between folds. Beside it is another Buchness watercolor painting of Black hands with long sharp nails, caressing the midsection of a fat Black body, with purple crystals growing out of the skin.]

8. [ID: Shana Minei Spence, a straight-sized, Black woman smiling with bright pink lipstick and her long wavy hair pulled back, wearing a floral pattern shirt and jean shorts. She is holding small marquee that reads, “BE CAREFUL OF WELLNESS COMPANIES THAT SAY THEY’RE PROMOTING HEALTH YET ARE STILL ONLY TRYING TO GET YOUR BODY SMALLER” and a heart symbol.]

9. [ID: Sonalee Rashatwar, a superfat, South Asian non-binary person with short black hair, wearing a long floral dress, standing in front of large glowing text that reads, “BIG GIRL ENERGY” against a coarse-textured wall.]

10. [ID: A circular logo with a red fist in the center, with text surrounding it that reads, “FATTIES AGAINST FASCISM” with roses separating the word “RESIST”. Beside it is another image, of eleven fat and superfat activists, standing and sitting on mobility scooters, holding fists and middle fingers in the air, wearing T-shirts and holding banners that both read, “FATTIES AGAINST FASCISM”. In front of the group is a large cardboard sign that spells the acronym “F.A.B.” which stands for “Fat Antifascist Brigade”.]