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yourlocalcatholic · 4 years ago

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What advice would you give to someone who really wants to be catholic but deeply disagrees with the church’s stance on LGBT people? I am afraid that if I go to church, people will say unaffirming things about me or my partner, or push me into conversion therapy.

Well, it’s not going to be easy.

When I started my conversion, I was not in line with what the Church believed about the LGBTQ+ community. In truth, I still struggle with it.

Despite my previous stubbornness on LGBTQ+ issues, I kept my heart open to God and what the Church teaches. I didn’t ignore what the Catechism says, but instead learned to understand what it teaches and why. This allowed me to accept the Church’s stances on the LGBTQ+ community.

Since the issues are different for gay and trans people, I’ll address them separately.

Contrary to popular thought, being gay in and of itself is not a sin. However, acting on same sex attraction is. The Church understands that being gay is not a choice, but as a result of its inherent brokenness, people with SSA are called to celibacy. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection” (CCC 2359).

I know a lot of people would like if the Church permitted same sex marriages and relationships, but this simple cannot be so. As Christians, we are called to be faithful to Christ and the Church, to “observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20) and that “if he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a Gentile or a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17). Christ asked for us to live lives in accord with Church teaching and meeting the standard he set for us. We are not only called to reject our modernist, consumer culture glorifies, but to “be perfect” as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48). We are called to overcome the vices of vanity, pride, gluttony, greed, envy, lust, wrath, and sloth, while cultivating the virtues of detachment, humility, temperance, generosity, charity, chastity, patience, and fortitude.

This also means we cannot call a sin anything other than a sin. We cannot lower the Church’s standards to the culture’s level, calling abortion, remarriage (without an annulment) after a divorce, homosexual acts, or contraception anything other than violations of God’s law. For “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). Claiming the Bible says something that it clearly does not say is projecting our own morality on God. In doing so, we say that God does not know what is best for us and that he does not know what he is doing.

All of this can seem impossible. And without grace, it would be. Even with grace, we’ll often fall short. When we stumble we must repent, confess our sins, and come back to the Church.

So... is the Church homophobic? No, it is not. Sadly, however, some people with the Church are. These kinds of people lack one of Christ’s fundamental truths to “not neglect to show hospitality to strangers” (Hebrews 13:2). We turn ourselves into hypocrites when we do not uphold the idea that are all welcome in the Church.

Keep in mind, also, that just because “all are welcome” does not mean you can remain the same when you choose to become Christian. We are all ridden with sin, and we all have a cross to bear. But, by God’s mercy, we do not have to carry that cross alone.

Neither to trans people. Like homosexuality, there is a lot misunderstood about how the Church views being transgender.

For starters, the Church recognizes that every human person is created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27). EVERY person. Consequently, we must act in love towards our trans siblings and reprimand those who name-call, bully, or engage in any other uncharitable behavior toward them. As Christians, how we speak to one another, the language we use, the tone of our voice, and the respect our words and attitude convey determines whether our words are used to glorify God or to slander his children.

Respecting our fellow children of God also means we use peoples’ preferred name and pronouns. It is not a matter of affirming the person’s decision to transition, but rather it serves no use to do otherwise. If you’re having a conversation with a trans person, that conversation will not last long if you deliberately choose to use a name or a set of pronouns that the person is not comfortable with. What do you hope to achieve by refusing? You are more than likely to lose the opportunity to give them a faithful witness through which Christ can soften their heart to receive and embrace the true Gospel.

This topic is more difficult to address, in part because there is no official policy regarding trans individuals in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

The other reason is because the truth is... very difficult to hear. Admittedly, though I am not trans, I struggle to fully grasp it. Like SSA, like anything else inherently broken, it is difficult to hear the truth of our condition. But I’m not here to tell you what I think, because what I think (or have a tendency to think) is corrupt due to my sin. Therefore, I can only share with you what the Church teaches. Keep in mind, I accept what the Church teaches, despite how difficult it will be to hear, because if I didn’t, then why would I be Catholic?

God doesn’t make mistakes. When he fashioned each of us in our mother’s womb, he did so with the care of an artist making his greatest masterpiece. He choose the things that make you uniquely you, and this includes our gender. If you feel like God made a mistake when you were created, then we don’t share the same definition of God. God is an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving Father, so it is impossible for him to make mistakes because it would be contrary to his nature. God created you male or female for a reason.

But gender dysphoria, the condition of feeling one’s emotional and psychological identity as male or female to be opposite to one’s biological sex, is a very real condition and many people suffer greatly because of it.

If your sex is a source of suffering in your life, God can be there with you to comfort you and help you through that suffering. He doesn’t promise to take away our sufferings and struggles, but He does promise to be there carrying our crosses alongside us.

Keep in mind that we are all called to holiness. For this reason, God may be asking you to grow in holiness by wrestling with trying to trust him that he doesn’t make mistakes and that he created you as male or female for a reason.

Now, you also expressed worry about people being uncharitable. Truth is, there are going to be uncharitable people. In my experience going to church, I have not encountered any. That said, I do not make my bisexuality known to the parishioners because I do not feel it is necessary.

But if you do feel the need, talk to the parish priest about your worries. There are many priests who understand that God has called them to love everyone, not just the ones that can hide their crosses easier. So, speak with a priest - via email, phone call, or in person (whichever way you’re comfortable) - and express your interest in their parish. If they are God-fearing, they will work with you.

I will be praying for you. God bless.

#lgbtq

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dialux · 4 years ago

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bring on the fire, bring on the storm

Written for @aspecardaweek! I meant to put this up for either Day 1 or 2, but time flew past me. This fits into my Findis fic series, and is a very... roundabout exploration of how being aroace can affect your life if your dad’s the only person to have two marriages, I suppose?

...

“They are searching for you, little one.”

“Let them search,” says Findis coldly.

For all that Findis is young, and that Tirion is at peace, she knows her politics well. Rumil had spoken strenuously against Finwe’s remarriage, and he remains one of Feanaro’s strongest allies. Findis- eldest daughter of Indis, first child to bring two divided people together- is not one of his charges, and never will be if Indis has her way. They both know this.

“Your father,” says Rumil slowly, before heaving a great sigh. “Your father is a great man, but he sees the world through his own eyes.”

“A king cannot choose to be half-blind.”

“And yet he is the king we chose. Envinyasse-” Findis does turn at that, levelling such a look at Rumil that he steps back, “-Findis, then. Findis: he is a good king, and a good father besides.”

“He does not understand me.”

“Have you allowed him to?”

“I am not Feanaro.”

“Feanaro was very young when he met Nerdanel,” Rumil acknowledges. “But then, so was Finwe when he met Miriel. He only wishes for you to feel that joy as well.”

He sounds like he thinks she needs consolation. But Findis has not wept for her father in many, many centuries.

“My heart is my own,” says Findis. “Go to my father and tell him that I’ve given it to the sea, and shall not return until he learns that I’ve my own thoughts, my own loves, and my own mind.”

“You’re leaving?” asks Rumil, startled.

“I will not stay in a home where I am not heard,” replies Findis, and draws the hood of her cloak over her head, and starts walking.

...

Findis is the eldest child of Indis and Finwe. She is the eldest daughter, and she represents, more than any other, the whole of that truth: it’s an open secret through Tirion that she is meant to bind herself to another high lord of the Noldor, to fall in love with him, to bear him children with shining eyes and starful beauty. To heal the rift caused by Miriel’s death, in the only way that she can.

It’s the greater pity that Findis refuses.

...

How did you know? she asks, once, desperate for advice.

Feanaro, hot in the throes of his love for Nerdanel, smiles at her. ‘Tis not some difficult tapestry to weave, Nesace. You will find one for yourself, sooner or later.

And if I do not, she thinks, but does not say. If I never find anyone- if I never wish to find anyone- what then?

But she is named Envinyasse for the healing she is meant to bring. She is named Envinyasse for the bridge her father wished her to become, and that bridge is made up of Findis finding someone to love, and she was never asked, not once, whether this is a task she wishes to complete. Whether this is a task she can complete.

...

The sea is cold and silver, and Findis lets her rage run out into its rippling waters. She spends many years there: composing songs, sharpening knives, studying her own fea. Though she is not hiding from her family, she also refuses all her parents’ summons back to Tirion: if she returns, Findis will have to explain why she left, and that will be impossible if she does not have the words for it.

She explains as much to Lalwen when she comes to fetch her.

“And so you’ve spent a decade trying to find those words?” asks Lalwen, spearing a mollusk on a knife. Sand wraps around her braids, but she doesn’t seem to be bothered. “That is... pedantic, even for you.”

“I also wanted to yell at Atar,” says Findis. “I didn’t think he’d appreciate that either.”

“Well. He was- beyond- his authority, last time.” Lalwen waggles her eyebrows. “Amme told him so, after Rumil came back and announced that you’d left to the sea.”

“Did she?” asks Findis, startled.

Indis prefers to let them fight their own battles. She always has. For her to rebuke Finwe- to publicly rebuke Finwe-

“And then Aro and I spent years scouring the beaches for you. You couldn’t have chosen somewhere further south?”

“I was furious,” says Findis plainly. “Do you think I would have calmed in the warm waters of Alqualonde?”

“I don’t think you’re calm now.”

Findis checks herself, and then relaxes the painfully stiff arch of her spine. “I apologize for the trouble I gave you and Arafinwe.”

Lalwen waves it away. “It gave us an excuse to leave Tirion. Though last I heard, Feanaro’s back in the city, and Nolo never left, so...”

“Let’s hope Tirion remains standing, then.”

“Precisely.”

After a long moment, Lalwen casts the mollusk in the flames and turns back to Findis. “You must return,” she says. “Findis. You cannot while your time away here. We need you. Someone needs to talk sense into Feanaro, and keep all those children from burning the palace down, and stop Amme from fretting to death. I tried, you know, for a year? And then I decided I’d rather spend the rest of my life searching for you. They’re all insane, and exasperating, and- and- and Aro’s in love, did you know that? Aro’s in love, and my fourth betrothal fell through, and I cannot bear staying in Tirion without someone tempering them, I cannot!”

Findis stares at her, and then laughs. "It’s been a busy decade, then.”

“Findis-”

“Fine, yes, I’ll come back to our wretched family.” Findis reaches out a hand and tangles it in Lalwen’s own, ignoring the stickiness of the mollusk on Lalwen’s palm. “For you, darling. For you and no other.”

...

She returns, and she never speaks on it to her father again, but it is quite clear that he has been ordered by her mother not to discuss it. It’s a tenuous kind of peace, but Findis’ life has been built on such peaces all her life, and she’ll take what she can get.

...

This is the truth at the end of all things: Finwe does not understand her, and never will. Findis does not hold that wholly against him.

Not wholly.

...

Not until he chooses Feanaro over all of them. Not until he proves himself incapable of even the dregs of understanding that Findis had offered him.

...

Later, Findis does not remember all that she screams. Finwë shouts back to her, though, and they are matched in their fury; they are matched in their ugliness, and their cruelty, and their knowledge of the others’ intimate, tender spots. Findis does not remember all that she screams or all that is screamed at her. But she remembers, well, that Finwë still leaves.

...

The stairs up to Finwe’s study are long and steep. He’d once told Lalwen that he’d constructed it so to cool the tempers of any petitioners who wished to speak to him in haste- and, if nothing else, it would leave them breathless enough for Finwe to offer tea and a kind smile, bleeding off the worst of their rage. Findis remembers that now.

But no stairs shall serve to temper the worst of her fury. Not after all that has happened.

The door is closed. Findis opens it, steps inside.

“Atar,” she says.

Finwe, busy writing a letter- to Nolofinwe; that stamp atop the page is the blue of Nolofinwe’s house- looks up. “Findis,” he says. “Oh, good. I needed someone to send this letter to your brother.”

Findis clenches her jaw, and deliberately misunderstands. “I am not currently in contact with Feanaro.”

“It’s to Nolofinwe, not Feanaro.”

“Why would you need to send a letter to Nolofinwe?” asks Findis coolly. “You shall see him soon enough. It is Feanaro who is banished.”

“I shall be accompanying Feanaro,” says Finwe slowly.

Something cracks- the windows, giving way under the howling pressure of the wind outside. Findis does not snarl, but it is a close thing indeed. Finwe shifts uneasily, and Findis tosses her- loose- hair out of her face, baring her throat: the throat that Feanaro cut.

“To the edge of Tirion?”

“To Formenos,” says Finwe. “Where he shall live, with his sons and his-”

“-and no other,” says Findis harshly. “Because you shall not be going. Let his sons go with him- I will not stop them- but you will not be accompanying him, not when he held a sword to your son’s throat-” when he held a sword to my throat, she thinks furiously, “-and threatened to cut it!”

“He was angry.”

“And now I am angry.”

“Findis.”

“But my anger has ever been the dross to his gold, hasn’t it?” Findis smiles like a snake: toothless, venomful. “None of us shall accompany you. Do you understand that?”

“I understand your rage,” says Finwe calmly. “I shall not ask you to send your followers into banishment. Of course not.”

The smile widens. “My followers? I wasn’t speaking of them- of course I wouldn’t ask them to go. I was speaking of your family. Of Nolofinwe, yes, but also Lalwen, and Arafinwe. I was speaking of your wife.”

“My wife,” echoes Finwe, as if he doesn’t comprehend what she’s saying. Then he does, and his eyes go cold: the first time, in a long time, that he’s truly seen Findis. That he’s paid as much attention to her as he has to his fair, fair, fair eldest son. “Indis has said she will not accompany me?”

“Does it hurt?” asks Findis. “Does it hurt you, to be so misunderstood?”

“I will explain-”

“No. The time for explanations has passed.” Findis smiles, mirthless, at his open mouth. “Is that not what you said to me that day? That day that you told me that you’d rather I were chained to another elf than alone, that day that you told me that a spouseless life akin to another death-”

“-you cannot hold grudges from centuries past-”

“-I’ve never been enough for you,” she says, quietly, coldly, furiously. “But I thought Nolofinwe might have mattered more to you.”

Finwe rocks back, looking like she’s slapped him. “I did not mean- I do not mean-”

But Findis has no desire to hear his justifications. She narrows her eyes and speaks over him.

“You claim to be the beloved of the Valar,” says Findis harshly. “But it was they who mandated that our marriage bonds must remain exclusive. Tell me, Atar, shall you ask for a third wife now? Shall you go to the Valar and ask for an obedient one, who shall follow you into strife as quiet as a shadow, who shall love you as if the Mingling sets upon your shoulders and the stars wheel in their orbits as per your pleasure, who shall bear you more children, faithful children, quiet and dainty and unassuming and stupid as the ones you wish your living children to become!”

She is shouting by the end, unpleasantly loud. Her face is flushed and her hands are trembling. Her eyes are burning.

“I am your father,” says Finwe, but he is angry now: Findis has made him angry now. Feanaro holding a sword to Nolofinwe’s throat had not made him angry. All of Feanaro’s insults and slights to Finwe’s wife and queen had not made him angry. But this- this- has lit a flame in Finwe’s gaze. “You do not speak to me that way.”

The wind is howling outside. Findis reaches for it with her fea, hands whitening on each other until the bones creak.

“I have waited all my life for your love,” Findis forces out. “But all I have received is your disregard. Over, and over, and over again.”

“I have always lo-”

Findis’ hands clench into fists. The windows crack, glass shattering inwards, and the wind howls as it spills into the room. Finwe flinches. But his will is strong too; the wind ruffles through the papers of the room, but it does not throw him end over end.

“These answers cannot be sought by petitioning the Valar,” says Findis. “You cannot resolve this by asking them for aid. This is an elven problem and an elven decision. But then, when have you ever accepted your mistakes, Atar? When have you- ever- once- claimed- responsibility?”

And now the wind is a flood, snatching at Finwe’s clothes, tearing at his hair.

He stumbles, once, and then he moves, too, a song of silence and stillness and calm from his throat, and Findis is so taken aback by the sheer power of it- she’d forgotten how powerful Finwe could be when he puts his mind to it- that she is thrown into the door from which she entered.

She lands on her knees.

The wind goes silent.

Finwe says, into the yawing silence, “I forgive you for your lapse in judgment. I understand- tempers are running high- but your brother needs me. Just because I go to Formenos does not mean that I do not love you, Findis. Understand that.”

Findis looks up at him, and Finwe pales at her expression.

“There can be no love without understanding,” she says. “There can be no love without effort. Understand that.”

She lifts her hands, rolls her wrists, and her song surges like a river swollen with snowmelt, like the sword had leapt to Feanaro’s hands in a silver blur as he cut her throat.

The shattered shards of window-glass fling themselves at Finwe. He shouts, once, and then strains his song against her own, as if puzzled as to why he cannot overpower her once more. But Findis is more powerful than him- she is trained in the art of using her voice. She is a Songstress, and she is his heir, and she is as full of rage now- full of a lifetime of rage- as ever Feanaro has been towards Nolofinwe, and she will not stop, because she is as the wind, and who has ever heard of stopping the wind?

But then Finwe turns, and they have exchanged places: he is at the door, and Findis is behind his table, and his eyes are large, and there is blood spotting his once-fine robes, and the glass caught in his hair shines like the crown that he has abandoned-

He yanks open the door and flees.

Findis screams. She screams, loud and louder, and anything capable of shattering within the study shatters at it: inkwells, pots of incense, glass cabinets, the last vestiges of the window panes. She slips to her knees.

Findis does not weep.

(Fifty years later, when the world goes dark, she still does not weep. For six thousand years, for six thousand bitter, bitter years, Findis does not weep.)

...

A lifetime later, Finwe comes to her in her forest dwelling. He sits at her feet, and does not speak, not until she has finished whittling a little star-crowned bird for Elwing’s newest child and set it aside.

Then he turns to her, and he touches her wrists, and Findis lets him, heart twisting in her chest.

“Envinyasse,” he says quietly.

“That is not my name.”

“I named you that,” says Finwe. “But I never dreamed you to do- to do this.”

“Atar-”

“There can be no love without effort,” he says, and Findis goes as still as a windless tree. “There can be no love without understanding. I spent too long not understanding you: seeing what I wanted, hearing what I wanted.” He swallows. “Doing what I wanted.”

“And you’re here to fix that?”

He breathes deep, and then releases her hands, and sits back: as a pupil would, before a master. Findis barely allows herself to breathe.

“I,” says Finwe, with the resolution that had led his people to safety once, eyes bright as the stars hanging around them, “am here to listen.”

#findis #finwe #lalwen #my writing #silmarillion #aspecardaweek #the actual fight in the beginning of this fic is actually written but i feel like it works better as a more abstract discussion #literally everything that findis flings at him in their tower battle is a direct line from that though lmao

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glassartpeasants · 4 years ago

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Ó̶͕̂̉̏͐̎͗̕ũ̷͓̺͖̺͖͍͈͉̝̫̬̗̂̒̽͂r̶͉̱̺̩̫̝̤̙͍̗̜̲̭̝̋̆̈̀͜ ̷̨̩̫͈̱̤̬̲̺͍̣͔̉̈́͋̀̀̈́̃̎̈́́͘͘͠L̷̢̡̳̟̺̣̙̦͖̩̝͉̘͎͙̔̅͒͘ì̸̡̛͔͖̙̥̝̂͛͋̇͋̓̓̈͜͠ͅt̸̢͇͓̩̙͐̒̀͊̇̑̐̏͗́̍̒͘e̵̩̎̅̆͂͝r̸̡̡̫̱̼̼̤̠͙͖͙̙͓̼̦̐̈́̓̌́̀̓̑̑̊͑̿ą̴̦̦͉̩̞̲̙̹͎̃͋̇́̈̋͌̓́͐̅̀̄͌t̴̟̻̯̘͖̪͍̥̯͙͚̔͛͛͋̕͜͠ư̸̧̙̳̺̩͑̕͘r̸̪̖͆̔̀̓̈́̃̈̓e̸̡̢͉̣͍̺̟̣̹͈̬͊̊͜͝ ̴̩̫̮͚̘͌̂̋̋̓̓̂̊́͛́͠C̴̡̓̇̌́̈͛̓̊́̒̓̚͝ͅl̵̡͇̲̔͜ứ̵̥̟̟̤̯̲̙̺̍̈́̏́͗̏̀̓̍͒̇̓͝ḃ̸̥̭̉̂͛͋̃̈́̊͗̉̈͑̚͝

SPOILERS FOR DOKI DOKI LITERATURE CLUB

Kai Chisaki-Monika

Tomura Shigaraki-Natsuki

Dabi-Sayori

Hari Kurono-Yuri

Reader-MC

Warnings: Cursing, and fighting. Just in case.

A/N: I know I’d said I do it every two days but I got hella inspired and decided that i should spoil you guys because i love you. So here you go.

~~~

Chapter 4- Poetry Problems

~~~

Continuing From Last Chapter-

“Has everyone finished reading everyone else’s poems?” Kai’s voice ran around the classroom. Gathering everyone’s attention.

“I’ve read everyone’s.” You say looking at everyone before looking at Kai.

“Have the rest of you?’“

“Yes.” They all say together.

��Good. Now I want you guys to talk to each on what other people can improve on. It would be helpful to you all and to (y/n). But if you excuse me I have to be right back. I promised a teacher I’d help bring library books down to the library earlier today.” With those last words Kai left the classroom, leaving everyone else to talk about today’s poems.

‘Everyone else’s writing abilities are amazing and mine is ass. They’re probably just being nice to spare my feelings.’ You mentally sigh in your head before going near Dabi who seemed to be struggling with some math homework.

“Hey Dabi, still struggling in math I see. Do you need any-”

“What do all these words mean?!” You and Dabi be quiet as you turn around and eavesdrop on Hari’s and Tomura’s conversation.

“What was that?”

“Oh nothing...I just guess you could say its fancy...” Tomura said to Hari as he put Hari’s poem back on the desk he picked it up from. They seem to be examining each others poems.

“Thanks I guess yours is...interesting.” Hari said in a wavering tone.

“What do you mean interesting? It suppose to mean the feeling of being misunderstood!” Tomura crossed his arms in a hpmh.

“I meant the words you were using was interesting. I understand what you were trying to write. I was trying to say something nice.”

“It didn’t sound like it.”

“Well I guess I do have some suggestions.”

“If I was looking for suggestions I would have asked some who liked it! Which people did by the way! Dabi liked it and so did (y/n)! So based on that I will give you some suggestions of my own! First of all-”

“While I appreciate the offer, I’ve spent a long time coming up with my own writing style. If i wanted to write a different way it would have to inspire me to do so. Which I haven’t seen anything yet.”

“And (y/n) liked my poem as well, just so you know. She even said she was impressed by it.” Tomura looks Hari right in the eyes, uncrossing his arms.

“Well I didn’t know you were bent on impressing our new member Hari.” Tomura smirked at Hari, watching his eyes go wide with a light pink tint on his face.

“Eh?! T-thats not what I-your just-” Hari crosses his own arms before looking down at Tomura.

“Maybe your just jealous that (y/n) likes my advice more than yours!” You and Dabi could feel the tension between the two become thicker by the second.

“Who said she didn’t like my advice more than yours?! Are you that full of yourself Hari?!”

“No! If I was full of myself I would deliberately go out of my way to make something overly stupid and full of gaming references like yours!” You and Dabi look at one another before he stands up and makes his way to the both of them.

“Uh guys is everything okay?”

“Well I wasn’t the one who grew magically 3 inches taller when (y/n) started to show!”

“Tomura!” After that Kai had appeared in the room.

“Uh guys I don’t think-”

“This doesn’t involve you Kai!” They both said in unison. You, Kai, and Dabi felt like you were suffocating in the tension the two of them were created.

“Guys come one! Stop fighting!” They both turn to Dabi and then looked at you, almost as if they just noticed you standing there.

“Uh (y/n)! He’s just trying to make me look bad!”

“That’s not true at all! He was the one who started it! If he could get over himself about and learn to appreciate others writing styles then this wouldn’t have happened! If he could only learn that the meaning of the poems should jump out at the reading instead of making them figure it out! Help me explain that to him!”

“Wait! T-there’s a reason we have so many deep and expressive terms in language! It's the only way to show complex emotions and meaning the most effectively! Avoiding them is not only unnecessarily limiting your abilities but also is a waste! You understand that right (y/n)?”

“Uh-”

“Well?”

‘Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. How did I get dragged into this in the first place?! I know nothing about writing or literature! Even if I agree with one of them the other will think less of me! I just want-aaaahhhhhh’

“Um..Dabi has a headache right now so-”

“Its unfair for other to inject themselves into our conflict.”

“Yeah! Unless Dabi can tell Hari what a stuck up jerk he’s being!”

“He would never!”

“Its your immaturity that caused this fight in the first place!”

“Excuse me?!”

“Are you even listening to yourself?! This is exactly why nobody likes-”

“Guys, STOP! Its very rude of you to bring our newest member into this. Your obviously making her uncomfortable. How can the two of you drag her into this and expect her to come back after your fighting?” Dabi said to each of them.

“Tomura, your poems are fine the way they are. They bring a playful happiness even if its only a few words with gaming references. Hari, your poems are amazing as well. Yours paint a picture in the reader's head. And Hari hasn't grown an inch since (y/n) has been here!” Dabi said as he crossed his arms.

“I....I’ll go make us some tea.” Hari scurried away to the back of the classroom while Tomura just sat down in his desk with a blank expression on his face. You let out a sigh as you watch Kai come over to talk to you.

“I’m deeply sorry about that. But I’m glad that Dabi got that over with. I’m glad I made him vice president.”

“I can see why you did hehe.” You rub the back of your neck nervously. looking into his golden orbs.

“If we’re being honest, I’m a good leader and can organize things but, I’m actually really bad with people. I couldn’t even think of the words to interject the conflict between them both. And as president that’s kind of embarrassing.”

“Don’t worry yourself Kai. I can’t really blame you. I couldn’t do much either. Didn’t know what to say so your not alone.” You smile at him, watching him give a smile smile in return.

“Haha, I guess that’s why Dabi is useful in his own little ways.”

“You could say that. He might be a bit of a jerk sometimes but it’s weirdly suspicious that he knows everything when it comes to confrontation.”

“I see, well, take good care of him. I would hate to see him get hurt more than he already is.”

“You can count on me Kai.” Kai smiles sweetly at you causing your stomach to tie in a knot. He’s a very good president, its just sucks that I don’t really get the chance to talk to him that much. I hope that in the future I can take to him some more.

~~~

“Well guys, I feel like it’s time to leave. How did you guys feel about sharing your poems?”

“I personally had fun.” Dabi says as your head turns towards Dabi, he looks back at you and gives you a smile.

“It was nice.”

“It was fine for the most part.”

“What about you (y/n)?”

“I really enjoyed seeing all your writing styles! Everyone's was different so I thought that was the cool part!”

“That’s nice to hear. We’ll do the same thing tomorrow then, since we all know what type of poems everyone likes.”

You really did understand what kind of poem everyone likes. Tomura likes simple, kinda gaming poems, Hari is one for more complex and meaningful poems. Dabi likes poems that kind of give you a rush when you read it and Kai’s-wait. You can’t remember what Kai’s poem was like. Oh jeez now you felt bad. You’ll have to think of it later on tonight.

“Well that being said, everyone is free to go home.” Everyone grabs there bags, getting up from their seat. The tension between Tomura and Hari is still there but not as bad as it was earlier thankfully.

“Hey (y/n) ready to walk home?”

“Sure let’s go.”

“Yeah come one, I feel like I’m suffocating from the tension that’s still in here.” Dabi laughs as he grabs you by the hand and helps you up. It’s truly has been awhile since you’ve hung out this much with Dabi. You can’t say that your not enjoying it either. You’ve really missed the time you two use to share.

~~~

Walking home

“Hey Dabi about earlier..”

“Huh? What do you mean?“

“You know between Tomura and Hari. Does that usually happen?”

“Oh no, no, no! That’s really the first time I’ve seen them fight like that. I promise their both amazing people! I hope you still want to come to the club after this...”

“Of course I will! I don’t hate it, I truly enjoy going to your club. I get to hang out with you more! I just was curious you know? But I can see why their good friends with you.”

“Phew...” Dabi lets out a sigh of relief.

”You know (y/n)...it’s nice that I get to spend time with you at the club. But seeing you get along with everyone truly does make me really the happiest. And it seems like everyone likes you as well.”

“Aw thats-”

“Haha, everyday is going to be awesome!” You smile at him. He truly does you really happy. Despite the pain his body is suffering, he still finds ways to be happy. It gives you a fluttering in your chest watching him.

“We’ll see what the future holds Dabi. So, do you still want to walk to school tomorrow?” He looks at you like you said the most dumbest question ever.

“Duh, jeez you still are a airhead aren’t you?” You gasp putting you hand on your chest in fake offense.

“Well I’ve got to go. My mom wants me to help watch my little siblings while she goes and gets groceries.” You laugh with him before you hug him. Just simply enjoying his presence.

Taglist

@zuffer-weird-girl @bat-eclecticwolfbouquet-love @turningmad @axerrri @hello-lucky-luka @thotsforvillainrights

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bigskydreaming · 3 years ago

Note

Continuing on that observation because I forgot to add this part, as a gen z I'm glad you understand that we or young people don't invent new ways to be evil, but it's not completely true. You aren't seeing new forms of online abuse in every platform, I doubt second hand information is going into details as well. Also the fact that you are a white man, there are things being said and done to poc in various online communities that I don't expect you to be privy to. Harassing fans of color and poc media has become a lot more common and normalized which parts of the fandom at large will never see. I don't know if anon did all of the thinking before saying "gen z bad" but they're not completely wrong looking at the kind of mass bullying behavior literal kids are exhibiting. They are learning from or being encouraged by older people but that shouldn't take the focus away from them to blame only the older people.

And my ask regarding Barbara, you assumed I hadn't thought about if my disdain for the character could have come from ableism. I had tho, granted you couldn't have known that and it was surely a possibility, so I'm not saying I'm mad about it, I was at that time a little bit. But you could perhaps give your anons a little more credit sometimes. Sometimes people know what they're talking about, you don't need to explain other possibilities to them each time.

Once again, sorry if this came off as very rude I just needed to share that observation and among many other instances these two were really highlights and kept bothering me. My issue with Barbara goes in a different direction than anything to do with her appearance and I've personally faced online abuse from people younger than me in ways that technologically, even politically, wasn't possible or as easy a few years ago, so you can maybe see why...

Please keep in mind that whatever context you have for yourself or your ask when you come into my inbox on anon......I have none of that. You have an awareness of yourself relative to whatever you asked me. I literally only know an anon by the words they put into my inbox and nothing else.

Also please keep in mind that every anon I answer, I do so in the larger context of my own interactions with tumblr overall. I have a lot of precedent with things I say being taken out of context, misrepresented or even just me not conveying myself as well as I like.

So the combination of those two things is that a) I literally just don't KNOW what any anon does or doesn't know and b) If I'm going to answer an anon, I tend to want to answer as fully and clearly as possible.

I can understand it coming across as being talked down to, so I'll work on that, but I would ask people to remember the above and keep that in context too when weighing my responses.....am I actually being condescending in every case, or does it simply feel that way because I'm including stuff you already know in my response? And if its the latter, is THAT something I COULD know about you without knowing who you are or you as a person and not just a paragraph sent in anonymously?

I'd rather be safe than sorry, and so from my POV since there's no harm in somebody seeing someone cover information they already know as PART of their overall answer or response, like, there's no reason for me not to include whatever I think is relevant and just expect readers to decide for themselves what about my response, if anything, is helpful, and like....just ignore the rest, y'know?

Also, just for the record, I am ADHD and I save my medication for when I'm working or writing or have stuff I absolutely need to get done, which doesn't include my usual blogging. So I'm usually posting while not on my ADHD meds at all, hence the rambling tendencies and the length. Another aspect of ADHD that doesn't get talked about much ime is we tend to over-explain, part out of just excitement/interest in whatever it is that has our attention, and also in part because we're used to people not necessarily following the leaps our minds take when jumping around rather than proceeding in an orderly thought pattern.....so, part of why I break things down so incrementally is I literally just don't know where my way of looking at things diverges from the way neurotypical thinking views things, so I want to draw as detailed a map as possible in order to ensure the most people possible can follow my thought process, just in case.

(And again see, this is something you might already know, and hell, you could have ADHD yourself, I just literally have no way of knowing that so rather than just mention it and be like "oh and also I have ADHD and so that's something to keep in mind" I'd rather explain WHY I feel that's particularly relevant to your question, since I'm kinda like, why not answer as fully as I have the spoons for? People can stop reading at any time if I go on too long. Its fine).

As for the specific asks you're referencing - my response to the gen z anon was not meant to convey that the sort of things you're describing don't occur among gen z, so sorry for giving that impression. Its actually the opposite of my point, which was simply that I don't think its a generational thing, or that anything is gained by treating it as a generational thing. This kind of behavior exists in gen z, yes, but it also existed before gen z. Its not gen z SPECIFIC, or limited to just that generation. That's all.

And the other ask, the one you made about Barbara - to be honest, I don't have anyway of knowing for sure which one you meant, and there are a couple it could have been, but if its the one I THINK you're referencing, I believe you asked how to stop people from assuming you dislike Barbara for reasons rooted in ableism when its because of other things? If that's the one, then I mean, the thing is....I DID answer your question, in as much as anyone could. I addressed the perceptions other people might have of your stance there, but basically - there IS no way to ever ensure people take you at your word or any kind of guarantee you can present your POV in a way that won't be misrepresented or misunderstood. So ultimately, I just had no real useful advice for that?

And so I expanded into the only thing I think anyone CAN control, aka their own thoughts and words, and suggested that you just double check to be sure of your own possible biases that others might read into your words without you being aware you were putting them in there. That wasn't meant as an insult or to suggest you hadn't already examined yourself for possible ableism - it was simply saying it never hurts to check again, y'know? We don't always catch everything every time we do a self-review, and internal biases are inherently tricky to pick up on ourselves. And it just loops back into the fact that I really had no way to know what you had and hadn't already considered, you're essentially a blank cipher to me....and in my experience, a lot of people are a lot more ableist than they realize.

And this isn't an insult either! It applies to me and I'M physically disabled! I'm constantly to this day unpacking new realizations about how I still have more ableist views and opinions than even I realize, even after about five years of living with chronic pain, vertigo, nerve issues and associated problems stemming from only half a working mouth lol. I'm not trying to insult people by asking them to just do what I do every day and just like....make sure I'm not the problem when other people have a problem with me. Because sometimes, even after reflecting as fully and genuinely as I can, I think they're still wrong! I don't have to agree with their conclusions! But that doesn't mean that they're never right.

And for the record, I do think its still worth examining on your end, because I don't love that you said your issues with Barbara have nothing to do with her appearance, when we're talking about ableism specifically. It very well could be just a poor word choice on your part and not a reflection of your actual views, but it could also be a suggestion that you tend to think of physical disability as something that's limited to there being a visual sign of, and there's a lot of invisible symptoms and changes to the ways a disabled person interacts with society and society with them that don't alter a disabled person's appearance in anyway...and many of these things are the exact stuff a lot of unacknowledged ableism revolves around.

So I'd like to give you and other anons more credit and the benefit of the doubt and assume you know what you're talking about and don't need things broken down as much as I tend to break them down to - but keep in mind I don't OWE you that, and its a lot to ask someone to take you on faith when you've already made the conscious choice to present yourself to them anonymously, and deliberately limit how much a person even CAN know about you before answering, when you have an equal opportunity to present yourself by name, allowing someone the full context afforded by your blog, that they can use to familiarize themselves with you and what you likely do or don't know before answering. I don't think its entirely reasonable to anonymize YOURSELF and then expect people to still give you the benefit of the doubt.

Especially when not giving you the benefit of the doubt only really results in me over-explaining something you don't think you need explained in certain ways or in as much depth. Its not hurting anyone, and you're not going to be the only one reading this response and maybe that over-explanation ISN'T something other people know and it could still be of use to someone else, y'know?

But lastly, please keep in mind that you came to me, and I just answered in the way that made the most sense to me. If that didn't work for you or wasn't what you're looking for, that's fine, but like. You knew way more about me going into this interaction than I could possibly know about you, and assuming good faith of you and your interest in my response and giving you as much of a response as I did in the first place, let alone now, IS giving you the benefit of the doubt in the sense that I'm assuming you can find some way in which these responses are of use to you.

And if not, like....just don't send me more asks? LOL. I kinda feel like you just didn't expect the answer you got, and that's sitting weirdly with you. Which I get, to be honest, but I don't particularly think that's a me problem, because that has nothing to do with anything I can control.

I can only give the answer that occurs to me when I read and think about an ask. I can't guarantee it'll ever be the answer the asker actually WANTS.

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starrysplanet-blog · 5 years ago

Text

{How “Daria” Guided Me Throughout My Teenage Years?}

It is weird knowing that on September 16th, I will no longer be a teenager. It has felt like an eternity of being like this. I can safely say that I was no ordinary teenager. I still have my virginity, have never smoked, drank or done drugs. Some would probably shrug me off as boring or not very adventurous. And perhaps a part of this is true. Yet, if there was one cartoon that I could relate to and continue to relate to despite having passed my High School years and going onto university. That would be none other than ‘Daria’. It may seem typical nowadays to say “Daria is my spirit animal” or “Oh wow! I’m like Daria!”. Especially writing this on Tumblr where every girl says it. Personally if I was being realistic, I would say that I am more of a Jane Lane but I like to refer to myself as Daria’s and Jane’s love child at times. I was so used to shows for teenagers that aimed itself around sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, relationships, and fitting in. That I became so self-conscious of my own being. Before turning 16, I was introduced to none other than Daria. Daria and I met unintentionally as I was at Best Buy and the DVD cover intrigued me. I had asked my mother if she ever watched it and she said ‘yes’ and offered to buy it for me. Something that I gladly accepted because I am obsessed with cartoons, television shows, and films. I knew nothing about Daria so I was in for a treat. Being home-schooled throughout High School made matters worse because I felt like a lot of teens my age were out adventuring and experiencing things that I was missing out on. Yet Daria changed my perspective. Here is how Daria guided me throughout my teenage years...

{The Unusual Protagonist}

I feel like it is safe to say that Daria is an unusual protagonist. She isn’t easily bought through shallow experiences nor doubts her self-worth through what is the social norm. She sort of hates the world and how it views her as a whole. She is often misunderstood and can be perceived as ‘cold’, ‘careless’, and ‘miserable’. Assumptions that are challenged throughout the cartoon and are constantly debunked. These assumptions are mostly debunked in the episode ‘Misery Chick’, which is the season one finale. When a former football player Tommy Sherman returns to witness a goalpost in his honor. Whose fame is made clear by his habit of crashing into goalposts and waking up from an induced coma just in time to win the states championship. He is immediately revealed to be an unpleasant person who irks both Daria and Jane. When Jane notes, ‘Maybe he won’t live that long’ after Daria notes that it annoys her how he will be seen as a hero for the rest of his life. Tommy Sherman is ultimately killed by his own goalpost. This incident shakes up everyone and Daria is given a surge in popularity due to being called ‘Misery Chick’. Everyone relies on Daria at some point in time in the episode to cope with what exactly happened because they believe that Daria understands perfectly how they feel because she is miserable, all the time. Along with this, Jane ignores her due to being disturbed by how her words became true. An act that saddens Daria because she is her friend. This episode is valuable to Daria’s character development because the end sequence humanizes her. It makes us see Daria for who she is and not the fact that she seems miserable. Daria proves herself to be a self-aware protagonist who knows how others perceive her. She knows how everyone in this episode has seen her. And she sums it up in a brilliant quote, “You know what I have been hearing? ‘You know how I feel, Daria. You’re gloomy. I knew I could talk to you Daria. You’re always miserable!’. Tragedy hits the school and everyone thinks of me. The popular guy died and now I am popular because I’m the misery chick. But I’m not miserable, I’m just not like them.” This quote is amazing because it shows that Daria accepts the fact that she is not like them. She clears up the assumptions of being careless, cold and miserable. She does care because she doesn’t want to be considered the Misery Chick or lose Jane as a friend. She’s not cold because despite everyone running to her for advice due to this assumption, she is never rude or distasteful. And she’s not miserable.

Daria’s self-awareness becomes a main focal point of a lot of plots. While other characters can be mindless or shallow. Daria is usually always aware of what is going on and what is happening. She is able to read her family’s situation like the back of her hand. While Daria may seem like she is rejecting the social norms purposefully or trying to be different. She is, in fact, not. Her actions are caused by her not wanting to become like her mother or father nor does she wish to become like her sister. She is perfectly content in where she stands and doesn’t feel the need to change it. This makes Daria relatable, especially when she experiences situations that are common for a teenager. The pressures of fitting in, social norms, insecurities, introverted awkwardness, crushes, uncertainty, and stress with school. Daria isn’t the typical protagonist who has a wide circle of friends. In fact, her only real friends are Jane Lane and Trent Lane (who she has a crush on). Daria is easy to be open to, shown by how everyone opens up about their feelings to her, every once and a while. Especially Trent. Daria isn’t perfect and she proceeds to prove this time and time again by acting embarrassing around Trent. Saying things that can come off wrong. Putting off others. And being too realistic to the point of unreasonable consequences. Shown in Season 2′s first episode ‘Arts ‘N Crass’ where Daria and Jane are forcefully placed in an art contest. Deciding to work together as Daria will write a poem and Jane will paint the art piece. They decide to take a more realistic approach of teenage life by bringing awareness to eating disorders. This immediately disapproved by the school staff and is forced to change. Standing their ground, Jane and Daria deliberately destroy their own creation to avoid it being used against them in the art contest, as it was already being put it against their wishes.

Daria is someone that is not going to rush her life. When Daria finally is adventuring into college, she applies to two different colleges. When she is rejected from one, she is not disappointed. A quote that has always stayed with me throughout my life from Daria is one where when asked what her goals in life. Daria responds with, “My goal is not to wake up at forty with the bitter realization that I wasted my life in a job that I hate because I was forced to decide on a career in my teens.” A common fear for mostly every teenager. While Daria looks forward to her future, she is not really grounded in her path.

Not to mention that compared to Fashion Club & other characters, Daria sticks out with her unusual fashion choices that she wears simply because she likes it. There is no other exact explanation.

{Daria and Jane’s Friendship: Female Friends Done Right}

It is common to witness female friendships in cartoons and television shows circle around the usually girly things. Boys, fashion, drama, and people they dislike. Daria and Jane are the complete opposite. Usually conversing in their bedrooms or over pizza about deeper conversations, common interests, and their thoughts about the world. The neat concept of it is that you get two different outlooks in a similar perspective. Jane is more humorous while Daria is more blunt. There is rarely any petty drama between Daria and Jane as they have a well understanding of each other. They are not easily torn apart or separated. Their sense of humors and teasing are well-balanced and it rarely feels awkward. While they have their differences. It is not uncommon to see Daria and Jane get along almost perfectly in every episode. The cartoon introduces Daria’s crush about Trent, almost immediately. And while this seems like it would be an issue in Daria and Jane’s friendship as Trent is Jane’s older brother. The cartoon does the complete opposite and has Jane being completely supportive of it. She even reassures Daria that everything is cool when Daria freaks out over acting like an idiot. The show shows that Jane and Daria are great friends by showing the typical drama between female friends with the Fashion Club. How Quinn and Sandi are willing to backstab each other at any point in time, Tiffany is clueless and basically tells Quinn and Sandi what they want to hear, while Stacy is the innocent bystander who focuses on fashion than the drama. While they spend time competing, Daria and Jane spend time seeing each other as worthy equals. It shows that sometimes you just need that one special person. It is no wonder why when Daria and Jane had a big fight and unfriended each other over a stupid boy, Mystik Spiral came to the rescue with the great song ‘Freakin’ Friends’ that helped them realize how they were being. (I tend to ignore the seasons with Tom Sloane because Trent and Daria were meant to be together! Damn it!)

{It’s Okay To Be Different}

I feel like the main message with Daria is showing how it is okay to be different. Daria isn’t alone, miserable, or unhappy because of her differences from the world she lives in. She ends up getting into a college that she liked, she has a loyal best friend, she ended on good terms with everyone (including her own sister), and she may have a relationship with Trent in the future. Every character has a message within themselves. Quinn is a warning to girls to not be so attached to your looks that you become fearful of not having anything more to you. Jane shows that you don’t exactly have to have a good or healthy family life to become an awesome human being who can find a passion and work hard to get into a college that you want. Trent shows us that it is okay to be slower than others in development and not have a certain idea of who you want to be. Helen & Jake are examples of two people who have never left their generation point of views and are miserable due to their lack of will to adapt. Brittany shows that someone can be gullible and arrogant yet also lack self-worth and not be able to make a decision that would better themselves. And Kevin shows that Kelso really did this character better! Jodie shows a different side to Daria as her and Daria could never be friends due to how similar they are, yet how easy it is to ignore her personality when everyone focuses on her skin-tone and how diverse she is. With the character designs, clothes, personalities, hobbies, and interests. These characters almost feel real and can make everyone feel like there is one character for them to relate to, one way or another. It didn’t have to be interesting with the concepts of sex, alcohol, drugs, and smoking. Nor make it seem overly entertaining to party. It makes you feel like it is okay to not be extroverted or have a large circle of friends.

And this is why Daria will always be my favorite cartoon of all time and helped guide me through my teenage years. As it helped me focus on more things than my appearance and what I could give.

#daria #jane lane #quinn morgendorffer #trent lane #text post #Thoughts #writing #cartoon #teenage years #teenage #different #analysis #character study

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ialreadyreadthatfanfic · 6 years ago

Text

Charles Xavier Is A Huge Dick: The Movie

or,

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

Hey, if you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t want to be spoiled, you probably should stop reading!

I watched the new X-Men movie. Not only I’m that annoying cinema-goer that sits behind you and mocks the movie audibly during the seance, oh no, I’m also that annoying cinema-goer that comes back home and makes a bitchy tumblr post about the movie.

But, guys, that was so bad.

First off: I’m convinced that upon reading the script, James MacAvoy and Sophie Turner instantly lost the will to act, because we’ve all certainly seen far better performances from both of them.

My other theory is that the director simply told them not to bother, because this was, as far as I can tell, a deliberate franchise-killer.

The scene-by-scene description of the train-wreck under the cut for the curious.

PROLOGUE

We open the movie with the scene where young Jean Grey and her parents are in car crash, because Jean Cannot Control Her Powers. The kid survives; the parents aren’t so lucky. This scene is generally inoffensive, if predictable.

From now on, young Jean Grey behaves like a kid-shaped robot. Someone please write her better dialogue.

Charles Xavier arrives at the hospital, confirms her parents are dead, somewhat unenthusiastically delivers some well-worn platitudes and whisks her away to his school.

Hey, mutant powers are like pens. Especially the ones you can’t control, because sometimes pens go on a rampage and stab people in the eyes, you know, unintentionally.

(No, seriously, they went with that metaphor.)

TITLES - BACK TO THE FUTURE - or 1992, I guess, one cheer for 90s nostalgia

In effort to remind us humans that as a species we did some cool things on our way to ruining the planet, we watch the launch of a space shuttle.

Suddenly Houston, we have a problem. A sentient solar flare or something is attacking the brave astronauts! Oh no! Who’re we gonna call?!

Charles Xavier!

Like literally, the Mr. President of US of A calls Charles Xavier, like Chuck, are you watching the TV rn?, and Xavier’s like, already giddy with anticipation, Why yes, Mr. President, I see you are in a spot of trouble, and Mr. President’s like, Sooo, Chuck, I literally HATE TO ASK, BUT... and Xavier’s like, practically bouncing with glee, BUT OF COURSE, X-MEN TO THE RESCUE!!!

So Chuck sends off his chicks. Nominally, the team is under Mystique’s command. There also Hank, and baby-faced Storm, and even more baby-faced Kurt Wagner, oh yeah JEAN, she’s there too bc PLOT, and Scott was along too. Did I forget anyone?

I forgot someone, didnt I?

OH YEAH, the Quicksilver was there too. Considering how cool he was in earlier movie(s?), it’s kinda sad that he’s largely inconsequential here and I forgot about his existence about halfway through.

Charles calls Houston on the Cerebro like a huge showoff he is, and the X-Men proceed to rescue the astronauts from weird-looking space cloud (which is of course the Phoenix Force, or whatever comics call it). There’s some cool looking scenes here where X-Men use their powers, but they’re just window dressing for the main plot:

Charles Xavier is being a huge dick, backseat driving this mission through Cerebro and not trusting Mystique’s judgement.

BTW, Mystique might be the only character in the movie who behaves like a sensible person, which is why she’s not there for very long.

Anyway the scene goes like this:

Mystique: we saved ALL BUT ONE astronaut! Coming back for that one guy is super risky and probably will only lead to more deaths! I’m cutting my loses like sensible field leader!

Prof X: OH NO YOU WON’T get back for that one guy or the whole mission is a failure!!!

Mystique: WTF??!! That’s crazy, we will get killed!

Prof X: But it’s better to throw away our lives than have less than 100% record on rescue mission, because if we give humans even slightest pretext, they will instantly revert back to hating us, see? The President will stop taking my calls, people will want to arrest us for property damage, and neutralize our powers and stick us in prison for mutants.

Mystique: ...seriously, why am I on your side again?!

Prof X: Just have Kurt take Jean to the shuttle and she’ll hold it intact while he looks for the guy! Raven, I want to remind you I can bitch at you telepathically anytime, anywhere, for the rest of your life!

Mystique: DAMN YOU FINE

So they do it. Kurt manages to rescue the guy, but not Jean. The shuttle blows to bits around her. We are supposed to be sad for 2 seconds there, but then the Phoenix Flare swallows her, she survives, X-Men return to Earth with the astronauts and are showered with praise from adoring masses who stand there with cutesy sings to welcome them upon landing. Whatever.

Jean has a conversation with Scott where they mack on each other and she reassures him She’s Never Been Better, Really, I Feel Great After That Traumatic Experience, and Scott is like, IDK but okay?? I guess??

And Hank checks her out too, and her power is OVER NINE THOUSAAAAND, but Jean’s like, chill, I feel greeeeeat, so Hank’s like, the only problem with this situation is that I need to design a better power-meter!! Ha ha!

Meanwhile, back to plot A, where Charles Xavier continues to be a huge dick. Mystique calls him out about his control freak thing, Charles responds by being a sanctimonious asshole because it’s not like he ever learns or grows as a person in these movies, you know, and Mystique basically throws her arms up and storms out, which is a good representation for audience reaction at that point. Her parting shot is one of like two good lines in the whole movie:

Mystique: And anyway, as far as I can see, the women saved the day again! Maybe you should think about renaming us X-Women!

The movie will shortly repay her for that, don’t worry.

Some other things happen. Creepy aliens looking for Phoenix Booster covertly invade Earth. Mystique goes to Hank and says, hey so Charles is being a huge dick and a total control freak. I’m kinda fed up with him, maybe it’s time to move out and start living our own life? To which Hank is like, IDK Raven do even have a life outside X-Men, and I don’t want to move out of my lab, and Mystique is like, ugh okay I’ll stay.

Jean gets upset at the party and pushes some people over in midst of Phoenix breakdown, which makes everyone panic. Charles notices that her power is now OVER 9000 and he can’t just go and fuck around in her mind anymore, so the logical solution is to use Cerebro to do that anyway.

It turns out that Phoenix thing not only amplified Jean’s power, it also dissolved mental blocks Charles put in her mind to hide a terrible truth from her: her father survived the car crash. In fact, with her powers, she can find her father right now! Jean, in midst of her generic emotional crisis, blows out of the school to do exactly that, because she feels alone and misunderstood and betrayed, man.

It turns out he willingly gave her up and I guess hates her because she caused the accident by putting her mother to sleep while driving. Jean is pretty upset and about to smite the whole neighbourhood, when the X-Men arrive.

This is how X-Men discreetly take care of their business: They suit up in their official uniforms and take their official super-advanced jet and land it on the street, so everyone around will know what’s up. The only thing they were missing while confronting Jean was the transparent with the word INTERVENTION.

Jean freaks out, X-Men try to fight her, they all cause maximum collateral damage possible, there’s police, Mystique tries to talk Jean down, Jean semi-accidentally kills Mystique by pushing her over and impaling her on some wooden debris.

It’s all very badly written and feels utterly cheap and is a total waste of character. Frankly, the scene made me angry and not much else. But since the whole movie revolves on the fact that everyone is an idiot, Mystique didn’t go there anyway, I guess.

Anyway, it furthers three things:

Plot A, Charles is reaching new heights of being a huge dick wherein he goes to sprout platitudes at Hank, who predictably doesn’t want to listen to him and lashes out, to which Charles reacts very maturely by being OFFENDED, because Raven was HIS sister, OBVIOUSLY he’s the MOST injured party here! (No, seriously, he pretty much says that).

Plot B, Hank needs to be a bigger idiot, to which we will come back in a moment.

Plot C, Jean Grey is now Public Enemy Number One and all people are back to hating humans! The President literally stopped taking Xavier’s calls, people want to arrest X-Men for property damage, neutralize their powers and stick them in prison for mutants.

Oh, and aliens are tracking Jean to get the Phoenix Power or whatever.

Jeans next move is to go visit Erik Lehnsherr, who is living like a hobo in Genosha with a handful of like-minded mutants. She wants to ask him for life advice, I guess, because when Charles Xavier is being a huge dick and hiding your memories of your childhood trauma from you without your consent, Magneto is the only alternative.

Too bad she wants advice on Not Killing People With My Powers When I’m Kinda Upset With Them. It’s unsurprising that Erik Lehnsherr, who spend his whole life Deliberately Killing People With His Powers Because He Was Very Upset With Them, can’t really relate.

This upsets Jean further, and she demonstrates that by attacking US soldiers who came to Genosha to arrest them and doing her best to kill them. Then she flies off to drink in a bar, where an alien picks her up, because it wants to show her the whole wide world or something.

Let’s come back to plot B for a moment, which is Hank being an idiot. Hank is very distraught and wants to kill Jean. So Hank goes to Magneto.

Hank: I want to kill Jean and I need your help with that.

Erik: Wait, what? Why?

Hank: She killed Mystique!

Erik, already frothing at the mouth: ...let me grab my I’m Being A Huge Idiot Helmet, Hank, and we can commence the business of killing.

So the aliens are pitching their “Let’s Re-Create The Earth In Your Image” campaign to Jean, which can be done only in a New York townhouse, specifically in a very special bedroom (...oh hey, I didn’t pick up on that creepy vibe until now!).

Jean is largely convinced, because in this movie characters just go back and forth as the plot demans.

So both Charles and Erik with their lackeys track down Jean, and have a huge fight in front of the above-mentioned townhouse, with lots and lots of collateral damage while they debate who is right. Before that, Erik has the second good line in the movie, which is used to rightfully call out Charles:

Erik: You’re always sorry and there’s always a speech. But no one wants to listen anymore.

Anyway, X-Men and the mutants beat up each other, Erik gets into the house and fails to kill Jean, then Charles gets in the house and tries to talk down Jean, which is followed by perhaps the most genuinely disquieting scene in the movie, in which Jean uses her telekinesis to destroy the wheelchair and force Charles to walk up the stairs.

They have an exchange that is supposed to be hopeful and heartwarming and so on, but by this point I’m fed up with this world movie.

Jean rejects the aliens’ campaign, so the alien head honcho attempts to suck out the Phoenix Dust out of her, and partially succeeds, but is interrupted midway and knocked out. All the mutants are arrested, put into special shackles restricting their powers and put on a train which is going straight to special prison for mutants.

Don’t worry, we’re in the last stretch.

Aliens need the rest of Phoenix Macguffin, so they ambush the train. There’s a big action scene, everyone is fighting the aliens, there are a few cool shots but beyond that I’m blanking. In the end Jean awakens, wipes the floor with the aliens, and when the alien head honcho tries to emotionally blackmail her into not eviscerating its hide, she grabs it, flies up into the sky and explodes them both.

Much sad. Very sacrifice. Such tears etc etc etc.

AN EPILOGUE, FINALLY

The situation returns to the status quo, except some people are dead.

The humans were about to lock up mutants in a prison like five minutes earlier, but nobody mentions that. Guess everyone forgot about that.

As far as I can tell, nobody except X-Men noticed that Earth was about to be invaded by aliens.

The school is renamed after Jean Grey.

Hank is the new headmaster. On his desk, a cheesy nostalgic photo of Mystique.

Charles, despite seemingly getting a pass on his dickishness on every turn in this narrative, is Worn Down By His Losses and retires. He occupies his time by brooding morosely at a cafe in unspecified European-looking country.

Erik finds him there. He is disproportionately cheery, like a man who after decades of pining finally is in a place where he can bully his longtime crush into a reluctant chess date, which he proceeds to do.

Camera pans up, to the sky. The sky gives us Phoenix Force-shaped wink.

THE END

#x men #xmdp #dark phoenix #review #spoilers #nebra original #my stuff #charles xavier is a huge dick the movie #jean grey #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #mystique deserved better

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incognitajones · 6 years ago

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Do you have any advice for anxiety at writing? I went through a bad time (like a lot of life events just overwhelming me, mostly stuff beyond my control) & I would try to do things I enjoyed (like writing) but it felt like right after "bad" stuff would happen, so I got too spooked to write again. I know a lot of it is in my head, but I can't build the confidence and get over the anxiety/superstitious feelings to write freely again without the idea of "bad" stuff happening afterward.

First of all, wishing you clear skies and better days, anon. I hope that things are improving for you now.

I don’t know whether what I have to say will be of any use to you. While I have plenty of anxiety around writing, it’s mostly performance-based (as in worrying about the act of writing itself and how well I do it) rather than tied to subsequent events. So you obviously don’t have to pay attention to any of these ideas, if I’ve misunderstood what you need.

But, in a hopeful spirit, let me say that one thing I’ve found helpful is to try to scrape away the accumulated gunk associated with the concept of writing. A lot of us build up a fog of expectations around our writing—that it should be good, that it should be shared, and so on—and it can be very freeing to blow those away and ignore them.

You don’t have to write a story. Write lists of words. Write a detailed timeline of what you did today. Write poetry. Write deliberate nonsense and see if you can beat the lyrics of I Am the Walrus for sheer incoherence.

You don’t have to share it. Write something just for yourself. Write down all the things you’re worried about right now, and then delete or shred it.

You don’t even have to write anything original: transcribe a passage from one of your favourite authors, or a whole story that you love, just to get your fingers used to making words appear in black and white again.

Here are a few more concrete suggestions (although none of them are particularly original, so you may well already have thought of or tried them):

I just started listening to this “Couch to 80K” podcast, so I don’t know whether the whole thing will be helpful yet, but I can say that the first few episodes concentrate on exactly this kind of writing. They walk you through easy, 10-minute exercises that you can’t possibly “fail,” because the point of them is not to write well or coherently—it’s just to write.

You might read through the @wrex-writes blog, or send them an ask too; I know they work through some similar issues, and I’ve always found their advice to be kind and insightful.

You could arrange to meet up (online or in person) with a friend and write together. No pressure to share any results, just a date to sit there and scribble with someone else rather than alone.

More broadly, what methods do you have for coping with anxiety in other situations? Is there any way to adapt them to writing?

I hope at least one of these scattershot ideas has been useful to you, or that it sent your thoughts in a helpful direction; most likely, whatever solution you come up with on your own will be the best one for you. And if anyone who sees this has experienced something similar and has a suggestion, I’d encourage them to share it too.

Please drop a line and let me know how things are going for you in the future, if you can. I’m trying to limit my time on social media these days, so I may not always be around here. But I always have anon turned on, if you want to send another ask, or you can email me (the address is this URL at gmail dot com).

I’ll be thinking of you—take care, and best wishes.

#asks #answers #anonymous #writing

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serenavangstuff · 5 years ago

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Juniper publishers -Option of Online Internet Medical Consultations for the Elderly

Journal of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine-JuniperPublishers

Editorial

Online consultations with geriatrician can be a good option for elderly patients, if the doctor on at the other end is quite experienced and can give some of his or her precious time for online consultations. Essentially, the doctor at the other end must be sufficiently updated with the current medical literature, knowledgeable, polite, non-judgmental, not overtly patronizing, and will know and respect his or her limits on the subject. Being prepared to follow up with the elderly patient could be all the more better. There are some free sites online, and the others are paid sites where one has to sign up and pay. Getting prescriptions may not be possible in many parts of the world, as one is not actually 'seeing' the patient as such, and has not performed a detailed clinical examination to rule out or confirm a problem. Nevertheless getting an advice is possible, which could be helpful for the following reasons:

(a) To ignore a symptom or not (even if it happens to appear as a minor problem), especially at odd hours, or being far away from a medical facility, or the necessity of having to skip an important or urgent work, etc

(b) From evaluating current symptoms to reviewing test results and offering second opinions.

(d) To get outline of the possible steps, treatment options, and further management

(e) To get more insight of the problem or morbidities that the elderly may have

(f) To get some genuine views and advice about possible misses and gaps in investigations, treatment, etc.

(g) Care givers can upload documents, x-rays, scans, MRI, lab reports, etc, and get a fair idea of the prognosis and any pitfalls, etc

(h) Compare medicines, and decide what could be the best choices for their elderly patients

(i) Whether to check in immediately with a doctor, or it can wait

(j) Can get suggestions for some OTC medicines for minor problems

(k) Can get suggestions for when one or more medicine is unavailable

Telemedicine and e-health have been suggested as additional measures in management of health, and in implementation of various government run programs. Left to individual choice, there has been not much advance in these modalities, where primarily the individuality is lost, and at times suggestions & advices could be taken as something being dished out unseen and therefore lacking that personal touch. At times the necessary responsibility and accountability on both sides may be lacking. Patient does not know how much to tell, and what all to tell, and may have certain reservations.

If the telemedicine, e-health or internet consultations are being provided by government resources, then the quality, punctuality, reliability, responsibility, etc, need to be deliberated upon. On the other hand, there are many private sites available over the internet. For a patient to differentiate one from another when in need would be quite a deal, and simply put this will be confusing. Getting fleeced off money is somewhat different, whereas getting erroneous or an incorrect advice at a crucial time may turn out to be costly on the health.

So, what can be done? Seeking online medical consultations from reliable online resources and background would be a good option, especially for the elderly. Best option would be for the governments around the globe to plan and start building up meticulously planned and managed internet web sites. All specialists should be available at all times 24 X 7. For this more number of doctors will have to be trained to become specialists and super-specialists, and be given their proper dues, satisfactory remunerations, respect, etc, so as to accept the round the clock availability on the internet. Online translations or availability of translators should be ensured for this facility to be really helpful to everyone. For example Japanese, Mandarin, Russian, Scandinavian, Latin, Tamil, etc, is not understood by everyone, and therefore any such facility will fall flat for those elderly people if what they say or ask is not being understood properly, or being misunderstood.

Presence of specialists and super-specialists from all fields of medical sciences would be ideal. Otherwise ensuring availability of specialists in Geriatrics, and / or Family Medicine could be suitable alternative. By virtue of their training and adequate knowledge about diseases and morbidities of the whole body, and especially of the elderly population, they are the best around to understand and capable to handle any problem. They are not super-specialists, and will have their handicap on that front. We feel that any well trained and well qualified Geriatrician or a specialist in Family Medicine would be handle nearly 95 percent of the queries online with élan, and can also help the remaining 5 percent as best as they can. Individual reputation and feedbacks could also be taken as guides for making choices. This subject was presented by the prime author at the Annual Conference of the "Commonwealth Medical Association" in Sept 2012, where he was one of the invitees and also the Chairman of their first Scientific Session. He had covered the plight of elderly,& especially the incapacitated who will continue to need special care and support.

This way we can perhaps reduce costs of healthcare, reach farthest and inaccessible corners, and can cut across all barriers of race, cultures, and economic levels. Timely and correct advice, pruning of costs & wasteful expenditures will be of considerable help. Health insurance and legal issues must not be restraining, and should instead try and open up avenues for help and in not letting the costs to overrun. Geriatricians and Family Medicine specialists must not feel unduly restrained or constrained due to terms and laid down conditions in health insurance and other legalities. Managing the 'big 4', namely the cardiovascular diseases (including heart diseases and stroke), diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases (including COPD and asthma), should be prioritized as these 'big 4' contribute 80% of the total mortality from NCDs. Availability of real time data, remote monitoring, remote diagnosis and follow up care, which are newer developments, can be added on for more benefits. This new trend and facility of online medical consultations through internet has the potentials of adding a much needed succor for elderly patients. Finally, it must be remembered that internet consultations cannot be true substitutes for actually checking in with a doctor.

To read more articles in Journal of Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine

Please Click on: https://juniperpublishers.com/oajggm/index.php

For more Open Access Journals in Juniper Publishers

Click on: https://juniperpublishers.com/journals.php

#Juniper Publishers #Journal of Geriatrics #Gerentology and Geriatrics #Geriatric medicine #Aging

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defendingendo · 7 years ago

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I don't know if I'd be considered an endogenic system, or if that's even the right term, but basically over time (~9 years) I've made various characters that I actually see myself as being, but at other times as a part of myself that I as the host??? can talk to. When in the state of "being" a certain character, I can sometimes feel their emotions even if I've never been is their situation. Do you know if this is tulpamancy, or something else?

hmm this is…quite difficult. i may be misunderstanding so i am going to try and define some things that i think seem to be similar to what you describe and you can always ask for clarification on a specific thing, or correct me on anything i misunderstood! (also, PLEASE take this with a pinch of salt!! i cannot properly tell you who/what you are, only you can do that based on the information around you!!)

otherkin: (specifically being polykin) this can sometimes give you the feeling that you are experiencing a “shift” in who you are, in a vague sense. it is possible to identify as things you yourself have created, and often we are most drawn to things we consider our ideal self. being otherkin can also provide us with memories from a past life, if you believe in reincarnation and practice past life regression techniques, mediation, etc. if your shifts in identity aren’t very distinct or don’t cause a massive difference in your behaviour, then you may just be polykin (otherkin).

system: shifts in identity are much more distinct than that of kinshifts, and can be considered completely or almost separate individuals that share your body. headmates can have different genders, races, abilities, sexualities, hobbies, interests, likes, dislikes, etc. etc. and when two or more headmates are present at a time, it can feel like you are feeling their emotions even if you never experienced their situation or aren’t even sure why you feel like that.

as for the specific type of system…that would probably require more detail. as far as i am aware, tulpamancy is quite a deliberate practice and you would have purposefully created another person to be with you and you would be aware of them existing alongside, but ultimately separately to you. so if that sounds right, i would urge you to seek out tulpamancy specific blogs for further advice!!

also, please let us know if we made any mistakes or got any information here wrong. we want to give as accurate advice as possible but we are only human and there is a chance we may mess up! i hope this helps, good luck with everything!!

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justneofamilythings · 8 years ago

Text

Fic; Brighter than the Sun

Genre: Romance, Family, Friendship/Love, Mild Angst, Fluff

Summary: Taekwoon wants a child, Hakyeon is terrified, and Hyorin gives oddly reasonable advice; How Cha-Jung Jaehwan came to be.

Word Count: 2 582

Author’s Notes:

Hi, fam! ♥ Here’s another story for you as promised. x”3 This has been in the plans for…a long time, and I’m glad I’ve finally managed to work on it. I hope y’all like it.

Just a heads up for readers who came here for SISTAR: This is mostly about VIXX. XD Not stopping you from reading, of course, and I hope everyone enjoys this, whichever fandom they came from. ♥

-Admin Q ♥

- ♥ ♥ ♥ -

They were in bed the first time Taekwoon asked.

“Hakyeonnie.” His voice had easily pulled Hakyeon out of the limbo between sleeping and waking, and Hakyeon had hummed questioningly, blinking blearily up at the faraway look in Taekwoon’s face. Taekwoon had hesitated, and Hakyeon had placed his hand on Taekwoon’s cheek, thumb stroking the soft skin, gently encouraging him to go on.

Taekwoon had taken a deep breath, and Hakyeon wished he had too. “Would you have a baby with me?”

♥

“I mean, who says that, Hyorin-ah?” Hakyeon says as he picks up stray crayons from the rubber matted floor. Seohyun giggles from where she sits wiping grease and food crumbs off the low tables, and Hakyeon glares at her. “In bed, no less?”

“I don’t know, Hakyeonnie, but god forbid your husband ever want to build their life with you, right?” she says, and Hakyeon chucks a crayon at her. He misses by a mile but she flinches with a laugh, shielding herself with the rag she had been using to clean and getting droplets of the soapy water on her shirt, which was already stained with crayon, ketchup, and other things. She doesn’t seem to notice them, or if she does, she doesn’t care.

So pretty and bubbly for as long as Hakyeon could remember, Hyorin has been his best friend and confidant since they were little. What Minhyuk lacks in giving comfort, she makes up for in spades, turning rain in Hakyeon’s heart into golden sunshine within minutes. Sometimes he thinks it’s almost unfair that he only gets to visit whenever he has problems, but Hyorin has never complained, and he makes up for it quietly by helping her clean up in her nursery after the last of her charges–”My kids, they’re my kids from other parents” she would correct him–had been picked up for the day.

“I mean, come on, what’s so bad about that?” she says, looking dreamily into space with a bright sappy smile. “I think that’s sweet–you know, raising a little you and little him together. Isn’t that the epitome of a great marriage?”

She has a point, Hakyeon thinks, but then again… “I didn’t marry him because I wanted to have kids, Rinnie,” he says, slumping in the middle of the floor, bag of broken crayons half forgotten in his hand. “I married him because I wanted to be with him.”

“And you are now.” He hears Hyorin sigh in that fondly exasperated way of hers when she thinks he’s being silly and then she’s right in front of him, slightly damp hands taking his left and shaking it a little, the band of looping gold and silver on his finger twinkling in the light. “So why don’t you want to have kids?”

He thinks about that for a moment, growing old with Taekwoon, just the two of them, and it’s a pretty picture but somehow…lacking, as if it could be brighter, the frame just a little more crowded–A child, or two, a perfect little package with bits of him and pieces of Taekwoon, and something completely of their own.

He does want it, but the moment he imagines himself with a child, the picture shatters. Where does he even begin at parenting? He doesn’t even have the right…equipment for it. “I’m scared, Hyorin,” he says, voice shaky from holding back a pathetic sob. “I don’t know how to be a parent. What if I’m…” I’m not made for it , he stops himself from saying . “I don’t think I can do it.”

There’s silence, and he thinks, for the first time, he’s caught Hyorin at a loss for words, only to look up and find her staring at the ceiling, lips pursed in thought. “I think I’ve heard that from someone before.” She jumps as if it just hit her and pulls him up, dragging him to her corkboard wall where pictures of her kids with their parents were pinned. She makes an exaggerated sweep with an arm, gesturing from one end of the board to the other. “Everyone.”

Hakyeon looks at all the pictures as if seeing them for the first time. He had been here plenty of times, looked at the pictures and seen the happy families, kids clinging to their parents, some riding on their shoulders, others holding hands, as they posed with mirroring smiles. Not once had it occured to him that the parents could have been anything but sure of what they were doing. Even now he still refuses to believe it, and it must have shown on his face because Hyorin bends forward, clutching her tummy as she wheezes with laughter.

“Oh god, you should’ve seen you face!” she says, clutching at his sleeve to pull herself up, and Hakyeon shrugs her off out of spite, giving her his signature stank face–eyes squinting, upper lip curled back in a grimace. He turns to leave, but she catches him by the hem of his shirt, pulling him back. “Wait, wait!” She schools her expression into one of calm determination, knowing he would try to walk out on her if she so much as peeped another giggle, and holds his hand in both of hers. “Seriously, none of these parents really knew how be parents before they became one, and even now sometimes they’re still not sure if they’re doing it right.”

Hakyeon sighs, looking back at the pictures, the healthy happy little children, and he tries to see himself and Taekwoon with one of them. “So how did they do it, Hyorin?”

Hyorin beams brightly then, correctly guessing that he was close to convinced. “They learned on the job.” She raises his hand to eye level then, pointing unnecessarily at the shining eternity ring around his finger. “Together.”

♥

Taekwoon had been overjoyed when Hakyeon finally said yes, they were going to have a child, and immediately launched into plans and schedules when they can visit the nearest orphanage, and it nearly broke Hakyeon to watch his husband deflate when he said, “But not now.”

Taekwoon’s smile disappeared and Hakyeon had gestured for him to sit on the couch beside him so he could go on to explain, “I want us to go through this from the very start. If we’re going to be parents, I want us to raise our child from the womb onwards. I want us to really know how it is to be parents.”

The quick downwards glance Taekwoon gave him was enough to let Hakyeon know his husband had misunderstood even before he spoke, “I don’t think either of us can do that, love.”

Hakyeon had laughed dryly, shaking his head. How adorably dense his husband could get sometimes. Hakyeon had reached under the sidetable then, pulling out a thick legal envelope labeled “Elligible Candidates for Surrogacy”.

♥

“What do you think?” Hakyeon gestures at the papers laid out on the rubber floor, all containing pictures and information (educational background, medical records, criminal records, everything–Hakyeon had been very thorough) of all the ladies that had volunteered for surrogacy at the agency.

What used to be a hundred forms had been reduced to more or less thirty, sifted through by Hakyeon and Taekwoon themselves over the past few weeks through background checks (people really put so much out on the internet, it’s ridiculously helpful) and phone interviews. Still, they were left with a pretty impressive file, all made up of ladies with a relatively calm history (Hakyeon had been terrified when one woman let slip that she used to go on gang wars–how that came up in conversation, Hakyeon had forgotten), has no direct relative with any hereditary disease, and had at least finished high school with decent marks.

Now Hakyeon sits in the middle of Hyorin’s nursery floor again, the little desks already cleaned and pushed against the walls, the rubber floors wiped. The forms are fanned out between him and Hyorin, who sits cross-legged across him, lips pursed in thought, hand under her chin as she scrutinizes them one by one.

He waits. If he himself had taken his time carefully filtering through all the files for the mother of his child, he doesn’t see any reason to rush Hyorin for her advice either, but then she groans and throws her hands up, shrugging. “It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“Excuse me, it doesn’t matter?” Hakyeon gasps indignantly, clutching at the front of his shirt in outrage. “We are choosing the future mother of my child, and you say it doesn’t matter?”

“Okay, fine!” Hyorin momentarily flails, looking at the files in a panic before jabbing her finger at a random woman’s form. “This one! She’s pretty.”

Hakyeon burries his face in his hands and sobs. “I can’t do this, Hyorin-ah.”

Hyorin is quick to cross the distance between them, wrapping an arm around his shaking frame, free hand patting him on the back. “Hey, hey, it’s okay, breathe,” she says, deliberately breathing with sound for him to follow. “Inhale. Exhale.”

He does eventually calm down, sighing morosely as he stared at the files again. “I just can’t be sloppy with this, Rinnie. If I mess up here, it’s not as if I can throw the child away and try again. It doesn’t work like that.” He laughs wryly, but he knows that she knows he means it.

Hyorin pulls him to lean on her shoulder, bare as she had taken off her cardigan and left herself in just a tank top, and the softness of her skin is comforting, cool against his cheek. “I’m sorry if I sounded careless,” she says, fingers combing down stray locks of his hair. That always soothes him. “I only meant that, whoever the mother is going to be, in the end, you and Taekwoon will be the baby’s parents, and it will grow up learning from you two.”

He looks up at her with a glare, which immediately softened as he chuckled. “Taekwoon said the same thing.”

“Well, there you go.”

Hakyeon pushes off from her with a sigh, picking up two of the files and holding them up as if to compare, though truly he knows them all by heart now. He had pored over them so many times. “I know that, just…if there’s any chance at all that the baby could get anything from me and Taekwoon–” He pauses to give her a look and a sheepish smile, and she giggles, remembering the stories and the problems Hakyeon had told her about. “You know, both the good and bad, I just hope…Well, I just hope it could get some good from the mom too.”

Hyorin hums, idly picking up one other file and staring at it, at the picture of the pretty stranger whose name and face would likely fade into the background in a few years. Hakyeon collects the rest still on the floor, thudding them a few times on the floor to make sure they’re all in one neat pile before reaching for the one in Hyorin’s hand. He secures them together with a clip and puts them all back in the envelope, now noticeably more roomy than it had been when he had first gotten it.

Hyorin takes the envelope from him, staring at the words on the label. Elligible candidates for surrogacy–He knows it doesn’t sit right with her either, that it’s too…cold and clinical for what he’s asking of them. “If it really matters to you what the mother is like, maybe instead of looking for the perfect stranger, you should find someone you already know,” she says with a faraway look on her face, no doubt already going through the list of women in Hakyeon’s circle, “someone you trust enough to bear your child for you.”

But of course. It made perfect sense. Why hadn’t he thought about that before?

They arrive at the same conclusion at the same time, a soft “ah!” of understanding passing between them.

♥

Taekwoon arrives from work just as Hakyeon is setting the last of the cutlery.

The lights had been dimmed down, letting the candles in the middle of the dining table cast an orange glow and stark shadows on the atmosphere, highlighting Hakyeon’s golden skin, his smile. There’s a whole roasted chicken next to a platter of shrimp aglio e olio and a bottle of wine chilling in a bucket of ice.

Taekwoon crosses the room quickly, closing the distance between him and Hakyeon to plant a soft kiss on his lips, caging him in his arms. Hakyeon wraps his arms around Taekwoon’s neck, pulling him closer if it’s even possible to, smiling into the kiss.

His husband might not know what it’s about yet, but he knows Hakyeon’s habits enough to know that he has good news, something big enough to celebrate that he had ordered food and set up the fancy things. It’s almost tradition for Hakyeon.

When they break away for air, Taekwoon keeps on holding him, one arm around Hakyeon’s waist, free hand cupping his face tenderly. “Tell me,” he says, lips brushing lightly against the tip of Hakyeon’s nose, and Hakyeon laughs, heart suddenly so light.

“Don’t you want to have dinner first?” he says, trying to push away to no avail. Taekwoon holds him fast, hand on Hakyeon’s face pulling him back for an insistent kiss as if to coax whatever secret it was out of him, and it works like magic. It always does. Hakyeon can never deny Taekwoon anything, not for long. He’s breathless when they part again, voice coming out a whisper. “I’ve found our surrogate.”

Joy breaks in Taekwoon’s face instantly and he laughs, lifting Hakyeon off his feet and twisting around so fast that Hakyeon squeaked. “Oh god, thank you!” he says as he places Hakyeon back down, taking his hands and lifting them to his face to kiss his knuckles, his fingers. “Thank you, love, thank you.”

A small voice in the back of Hakyeon’s head notes how Taekwoon doesn’t ask who the surrogate will be. It didn’t matter to him, and all he really wanted was a child to raise with Hakyeon, and it’s both the sweetest and the saddest thing, Hakyeon thinks, that their firstborn may grow to be much like the brilliant, beautiful woman that would carry him, and Taekwoon would not even know who it is, probably would not even bother to know. It shouldn’t bother Hakyeon, but it does. Hakyeon doesn’t want that, he realizes quickly.

“I’ll set up a date so you can meet her,” he says, and Taekwoon looks up at him, puzzled. Hakyeon goes to the adjacent kitchen, passing by the thick envelope, full again with the previously rejected files and the ones that passed all together, on top of the garbage bin, and instead picks up a photo on the kitchen counter. He gives it to Taekwoon. “That’s her.”

A single woman, dark hair in a tight bun on top of her head, clothes a mess of variously colored stains, smiles up at Taekwoon, bright as the sun. Children of no less than three and four years old milled around her, clinging to her back, to her arms, sitting on her lap, laughing.

Hakyeon isn’t sure if it was enough for Taekwoon to understand his choice but, from the soft smile on his husband’s lips, Hakyeon decides it’s a start at least. “Her name’s Kim Hyorin. She’s my best friend.”

#vixx #leo #n #jung taekwoon #cha hakyeon #sistar #kim hyojung #hyorin #vixx fanfiction #vixx fanfic #vixx scenario #i like sistar but i'm not really a fan so i may have been ooc with hyorin idk fam tell me #also i really like this new theme admin k put up so nice and pastel #admin q

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romancatholicreflections · 8 years ago

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8th January >> Sunday Homilies & Reflections on the Feast of The Baptism of Our Lord for Roman Catholics.

The Baptism of the Lord -Year A The Baptism of the Lord Gospel Text: Matthew 3:13-17 vs.13 Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. vs.14 John tried to dissuade him. “It is I who need baptism from you” he said “and yet you come to me!” vs.15 But Jesus replied, “Leave it like this for the time being; it is fitting that we should, in this way, do all that righteousness demands.” At this, John gave in to him. THE Bapism of Jesusvs.16 As soon as Jesus was baptised he came up from the water, and suddenly the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. Vs.17 And a voice spoke from heaven, “This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him. ************************************************ We have four sets of homily notes to choose from. Please scroll down the page to read them. Michel DeVerteuil : A Trinidadian Holy Ghost Priest, director of the Centre of Biblical renewal . Thomas O’Loughlin: Professor of Historical Theology, University of Wales, Lampeter. John Littleton: Director of the Priory Institute Distant Learning, Tallaght Donal Neary SJ: Editor of The Sacred Heart Messenger ******************************************** Michel de Verteuil Lectio Divina with the Sunday Gospels – Year A www.columba.ie ************************************************ Textual Comments The story of Jesus’s baptism is told in all four Gospels – an indication that the early Christians considered it an important event in the life of Jesus. There are two aspects to the event: – verses 13 to 15: something happened between Jesus and John the Baptist; – verses 16 and 17: something happened to Jesus. • Verses 13 – 15 Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist seems to have caused much soul searching among the early Christians – how could the sinless Jesus subject himself to John’s “baptism of repentance”? The soul searching can be inferred from the way the successive gospel accounts tell the story: Baptism of Jesus– Mark (the earliest) is straightforward: Jesus was baptised by John. – Matthew ( a little later) agrees with Mark that Jesus was baptised by John, but adds a dialogue showing that both men were aware that there was a problem. – Luke (still later) refers to the baptism but only as an introduction to the voice from heaven, and in any case makes ne reference to John. – John (the latest) makes no mention of the baptism. Parallel texts are not directly a concern in lectio divina, since the method requires that we focus on the text before us – St Matthew’s in this case. However, parallels with other texts can give us an insight into the text, and for this reason we may want to refer to them (although it is never necessary to do so). In today’s meditation we are free to focus either on Jesus or on John the Baptist. In either case, awareness of the soul-searching behind the text reminds us that from time to time we too have to make choices which can be misunderstood. As happened with Jesus’ baptism, our communities may need time to clarify misunderstandings; we can be confident that once we do “what righteousness demands,” later “evangelists” will explain our actions to those who come after us. a) Jesus: We can see a progression of thought from Mark to Matthew in explaining how Jesus came to “appear” on the banks of the Jordan. Whereas St Mark says that Jesus came from Galilee “and was baptised”, Matthew says he came from Galilee “to be baptised”. St Matthew stresses therefore that Jesus sought baptism by deliberate choice; he chose to leave his familiar surroundings and join the rest of the population in the national renewal movement. He explains his position to John by saying, “We should do all that righteousness demands.” This is biblical language which must be interpreted. “Righteousness” means more or less the same as “salvation”, so Jesus is saying in effect, “There is an important work of salvation taking place in our country at this moment, and here and now (“for the time being”) I cannot stand aloof but must be part of it.” He is accepting fully the consequences of the Incarnation, the Word has truly become flesh and he must dwell among his brothers and sisters. He was to continue making this choice right through his life – the model of leaders who lead not “from above” but by “being with.” b) John the Baptist: John the Baptist becomes aware that he is ministering to someone greater than himself but still goes ahead with his ministry – “he gave in to him.” This is an experience that we have from time to time as parents, teachers, spiritual guides, community leaders. We become aware of our unworthiness and that we are the ones who “need baptism”. The result is that we accept our responsibility but with greater humility – it is only “for the time being.” This was the response required of St Joseph when he was told, “Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife” (cf. 4th Sunday of Advent). Verses 16 – 17 : Jesus’ experience Jesus’ baptism was a turning point in his life. Up to then he was a carpenter at Nazareth, now he would begin his ministry as an itinerant preacher of the Kingdom. The baptism therefore fits into the biblical pattern by which a call to do God’s work is preceded by a deep religious experience, e.g. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Gideon in the Old Testament, Mary and Zechariah in the New. Many saints of the church had similar experiences before embarking on a new stage in their lives, e.g. St Augustine, St Ignatius of Loyola, St Teresa of Avila and St Margaret Mary. This shows us that God does not invite people to do his work without first assuring them of his undying love. We can recognise this truth from experience – ours and that of people who have touched our lives. God’s way of acting is a model for all who invite others to work with them – parents, spouses, community leaders. “My favour rests on you” says that God’s love is permanent. We are reminded of Jesus’s words at the Last Supper: “As the Father has loved me so I have loved you, remain in my love” (John 15:9). St Matthew says that the experience came “after he came up from the water.” It was the fruit of his humility, “he who humbles himself is exalted.” Jesus’s experience was first in symbols and then in words. a) Verse 16 – symbols. – “The heavens opened” – this is the “negative” aspect, the barrier between God and humanity is removed, they can now communicate freely. We remember similar experiences of reconciliation with God: we thought that the heavens were closed to us, then “suddenly” (i.e. unexpectedly) they were opened.holy spirit – The Spirit of God descends like a dove and comes down on him. This is the positive aspect, an experience of God’s presence, real but gentle, not possessive or dominating. b) Verse 17 – words (“a voice from heaven”). The words echo two Old Testament texts both in the context of a call to service: – “This is my son” echoes psalm 2:7, “You are my son, today I have become your father”. – “The Beloved, my favour rests on him” echoes Isaiah 42:1, “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom my soul delights.” Both are “feeling words” communicating intimacy and permanence. Scriptural Comments “I am a shepherd who with his people has begun to learn a beautiful and difficult truth – our Christian faith requires that we submerge ourselves in the world.” …Archbishop Romero in his acceptance speech when he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Louvain Lord, we pray that your church may always, like Jesus, choose to go from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John. “Between the silence of God and the silence of my own soul stands the silence of the souls entrusted to me.” …Thomas Merton servingLord, in our different vocations, you call us to minister to others as parents, church ministers, friends, spiritual guides, but every once in a way we find ourselves in the position of John the Baptist with Jesus. People come to us to be ministered to when it is we who would need to be ministered to by them: – one of our children is more courageous than we are; – holy people confess their sins to us; – someone we admire greatly comes to us for advice; – we are asked to pray for someone from a different religion who is more spiritual than we are. Our first response is to try and dissuade them, but then we realise that we must leave it like this for the time being, since this is what your saving will demands, and so we give in to them. Lord, often in life moments of grace come after great trials. We remember a time when we felt overwhelmed with troubles, and it was as if we were drowning. Somehow we survived, and as we came up from the water the heavens opened and we felt your love descending on us gently like a dove. We knew that we were your beloved, and that your favour rested on us. “The church herself knows how richly she has profited by the history and developemnt of humanity.” …Vatican II, Document on the Church in the Modern World Lord, in our time you have given humanity some important new insights holy spiritinto the evils of racism, of sexism, of individualism. We sometimes think that as a church we do not need conversion. Teach us to be humble like Jesus, to leave our comfortable Galilee and make our way to the Jordan to be baptised like everybody else by John the Baptist. “God communicates himself to all persons, redeems them and stamps their being with an orientation towards sharing his life.” Karl Rahner Lord, the role of the church in society today is to proclaim that every human being is one for whom the heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended. Lord, we remember with gratitude times when we had a deep experience: – at the end of a retreat; – at the Easter vigil liturgy in our parish; – in the sacrament of reconciliation celebrated after many years. As we came out, the heavens opened and we felt your Spirit descending upon us, and we knew that your favour rested on us. “Faith like a canoe at evening coming in, like a relative who is tired of America, like a woman coming back to your house.” Derek Walcott, Caribbean poet Lord, we thank you for the gift of faith, the kind we experience quite suddenly coming out of the sea one day when we know that the heavens have opened, that your Spirit has come down upon us and your favour rests on us. “Proud as I was, I dared to seek that which only the humble can find.” …St Augustine Lord, we thank you for the times when you gave us the grace to humble ourselves before you. As soon as we did this and were coming up from the water, suddenly the heavens opened and we saw your Spirit descending like a dove and coming down on us, and we heard a voice that spoke from heaven, telling us that we were your Beloved and that your favour rested on us. ******************************************************** 3. Thomas O’Loughlin, Liturgical Resources for Advent and Christmas www.columba.ie Introduction to the Celebration Jesus with H, SpiritToday we celebrate our faith in Jesus: he is the beloved of the Father, the anointed one, and the one on whom the Spirit rests. During the coming months we will be recalling each Sunday his works and preaching as the Chosen One of the Father, but Christians have always begun the retelling of the gospel of Jesus by reminding ourselves who Jesus is. The gospels tell us this by recalling that he was baptised by John the Baptist in the Jordan and at that moment the Father’s voice was heard and the Spirit appeared in the form of a dove. Let us pause and reflect that we are here because we believe that Jesus is ‘the Anointed One,’‘the Christ,’‘the Messiah,’‘the One who does the Father’s will’. Homily Notes 1. This is a good opportunity to give a simple catechetical homily whose aim is to impart some simple linguistic clarity in order to help people reflect on the gospel’s image more fruitfully. 2. We use the words ‘Jesus Christ’ over and over again. Indeed, we use these two words so often side-by-side that we forget that they have any meaning. Sometimes, we almost think that the word ‘Christ’ is just a surname tacked on as if one needed to distinguish several people called ‘Jesus’. Most Christians use the words interchangeably. I have seen history books with the index entry: ‘Christ, J.’ followed by page numbers. When I asked a student what was the significance that her essay kept varying between using ‘Jesus said’ and ‘Christ said’, her answer was that she changed the usage simply to make it sound less repetitive! So this is a phrase whose significance we cannot take for granted. 3. But our confession of faith is that ‘Jesus is the Christ: The word christos means the marked one, the one who has been smeared with oil. But why use this as a description of Jesus? The people of Israel looked forward to the new David, the new King who would institute the Day of the Lord and his victory. David had been marked out as the chosen one of the Lord: ‘Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward’ (l Sam 16:13). ‘To be marked out with oil’ is the same as ‘being the Anointed One’ or, if one uses Hebrew, ‘the Messiah’ or, if one uses Greek, ‘the Christ’ or to say ‘he is the Chosen One of the Father: Beloved son24. Jesus was not literally anointed with oil to mark him out as ‘the Anointed One: but in the gospels he is shown as being marked out by the Father’s voice and by the descent of the Spirit upon him. To say ‘Jesus is the Christ’ is to say he is the one who is uniquely the Son of the Father, and uniquely the bearer of the Spirit. 5. To say ‘Jesus is the Christ’ is to utter a basic creed which only makes sense when we imagine that statement within the scene we have just read in the gospel. To say ‘You, 0 Jesus are the Christ’ is to offer praise through the beloved Son to the Father in the Holy Spirit. *********************************** John Litteton Journeying through the Year of Matthew www.Columba.ie Gospel Reflection Liturgical time is cyclical and passes rather quickly. It must do so because, every year, it remembers and makes effective the entire story of God’s salvation of his people (‘the gradual unfolding of the drama of salvation history’, as scholars often depict it). We recently commemorated the birth of our Saviour on the first Christmas, as we do every Christmas. During those days we celebrated the reality of the Word becoming flesh, of God becoming human (the Incarnation), when we reflected on the newborn infant Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Now, however, within a few days we have moved rapidly to Jesus’ public life, by-passing his adolescent and early adult years, which could be described as the hidden years — although the gospel records that he lived under the authority of Mary and Joseph in Nazareth. Today we commemorate his baptism in the River Jordan when the Holy Spirit descended on him at the beginning of his public ministry. BaptismBaptism was given a new meaning by Jesus and all Christians share in that meaning. We have been baptised into the Christian faith by water and the Holy Spirit, and our Christian faith teaches us that sacramental baptism is the gateway to the other sacraments. There is powerful symbolism associated with water. It can sustain life and cleanse, by its thirst-quenching and purifying qualities. But it can also destroy that same life through drowning. Thus water has the potential to give life and to cause death. Too much water is as damaging as too little water. The religious symbolism of water in sacramental baptism reBaptism in the nameolves around our dying to alienation from God through the washing away of our sins, and around our new identity which is flourished and deepened by our sharing in God’s life and by being incorporated into the Body of Christ which is the Church. That is why we say that, in baptism, we die with Christ, gomg into the tomb with him, and we rise with him to a new and everlasting life. The significance of God’s invitation to share in this newness of life offered in baptism is well summarised in the words: ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him’ (Mt 3:17). Baptism is powerfully effective in our lives. The sacrament does what it is a sign of — in other words, it is efficacious. Thus it washes away Original Sin and restores us to the life of grace, which is God’s life in the soul. This baptismal dignity will continue to lead us to God if, when we sin, we repent and avail of the sacrament of reconciliation. Living in Jesus Living in Jesus Throughout our lives, if we open our hearts to God’s loving presence and if we listen to the word of God, then our souls will be nourished and live in a healthy state of union with God’s will. As we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, we have a timely liturgical reminder that we have been baptised into Christ’s death and resurrection. We share in his risen life through baptism and we know that God has made an irreversible commitment to us. Let us renew again our commitment to the baptised life and its meaning which, from our perspective, focuses on living in faithfulness to the teaching of Christ and his Church regardless of the difficulties and challenges of that teaching. Let us recognise once more our need of God’s saving help in our everyday lives and let us rejoice that our souls will live because of the eternal life brought through the water of baptism at the outset of our Christian life. For meditation As soon as Jesus was baptised he came up from the water, and suddenly the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. (Mt 3:16) ****************************************************************** Donal Neary SJ Gospel Reflections for Sundays of Year A: Matthew www.messenger.ie You are beloved Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist had a different meaning from ours. It was more a baptism of sorrow for sin and of forgiveness; in this plunge into the river, Jesus identified with his people in his baptism. At the baptism he heard the best words he could hear; You are my beloved. God led Jesus to John to hear these words. One of us,one with us, he could now be one for us. Joy flooded his heart as he heard these words. Something happened for Jesus at that moment that only he could know – like bells ringing that only he could hear. Have you heard it in your life? At times we face the huge mysteries love, beauty, friendship, birth, death.And we know in the middle of it all , that we are beloved. Our call is to be fully involved in life and love. The Christian is called to be involved with others at the times of need, of depth and mystery. Jesus did that – plunging himself into our humanity and with all of us. The feast of the baptism is something new for all. The son of God is one of us. We have a new way of knowing God not just in the laws of old but in the new Spirit of Jesus. So let the bells of love ring for us in God; and wherever we find it; let’s ring bells of love for all the most needy of God’s people. cloud-love Let the word ‘beloved’ echo in your mind and heart. This is God’s word for you today. Lord, thanks for calling me beloved ********************************************************************

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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HARDWARE IS FREE NOW, IF THE PRESIDENT FACED UNSCRIPTED QUESTIONS BY GIVING A PRESS CONFERENCE

Some writers quote parts of things they say to one another? Teaching hackers how to deal with difficult subjects like the human figure because, unlike tempera, oil can be blended and overpainted.1 If you're sure of the general area you want to do. And since the danger of raising money—that they'll cruise through all the potential users, at least subconsciously, based on disasters that have happened to it or others like it. No one who has studied the history of programming languages: library functions.2 Such hypersensitivity will come at an ever increasing rate. Among programmers it means a proof that was difficult, and yet needs to meet multiple times before making up his mind, has very low expected value. Alas, you can't simply applaud everything they produce.3

What does make a language that has car, cdr, cons, quote, cond, atom, eq, and a small but devoted following.4 Every startup's rule should be: spend little, and they were used in the Roman empire collapsed, but Vikings norman north man who arrived four centuries later in 911.5 In principle investors are all subject to the same cause.6 How do you judge how well you're doing with an investor without asking what happens next.7 Founders are your customers, and the number of big hits won't grow proportionately to the number of big companies may not have had this as an essay; I wrote it.8 And yet, oddly enough, YC even has aspects of that.9 Be good, take care of themselves. When I see a third mistake: timidity. But when founders of larval startups worry about this. It is so much harder.

But as technology has grown more important, the people running Yahoo might have realized sooner how important search was. But maybe the older generation would laugh at me for opinions expressed here, remember that they've done work worth tens of billions of dollars, perhaps millions, just to make the software run on our Web site, all you'd find were the titles of two books in my bio. No big deal. Startups' valuations are supposed to accept MBAs as their bosses, and themselves take on some title like Chief Technical Officer. Piracy is effectively the lowest tier of price discrimination. I'd realized in college that one ought to vote for Kerry. All you had to give all your surplus to and acknowledge as your masters. A lot of VCs would have rejected Microsoft.

He said their business model is being undermined on two fronts. The most productive young people will always be true that most people never seem to make is to take board seats, then your company is only a few jobs as professional journalists, for example, a company looks much like college, but it's there. You can start one when you're done, or even whether it still sends one.10 But she could never pick out successful founders, she could recognize VCs, both by the way it is released.11 It's just a means to something else. We just don't hear about it. It doesn't seem to be unusually smart, and C is a kludge.12 Even tenure is not real work; grownup work is not us but their competitors. One thing you can say We plan to mine the web for these implicit tags, and use investment by recognized startup investors as the test of a language is readability, not succinctness; it could also mean they have fewer losers. A good flatterer doesn't lie, but that won't be enough. Is that so bad?13 Raising more money just lets us do it faster.

I thought that something must be. So it is in the form of the GI Bill, which sent 2. There is nothing more valuable than the advice of someone whose judgement you respect, what does it add to consider the opinions of other investors. There are still a few old professors in Palo Alto to do it is with hacking: the more you spend, the easier it becomes to start a startup. I don't like the look of Java: 1.14 Imagine how incongruous the New York Times front page. But you can tell that from indirect evidence. In an IPO, it might not merely add expense, but it's certainly not here now. Kids are less perceptive.

It let them build great looking online stores literally in minutes.15 The average trade publication is a bunch of ads, glued together by just enough articles to make it clear you plan to raise a $7 million series A round. I'm not sure why this is so.16 But I've learned never to say never about technology. Bad circumstances can break the spirit of cooperation is stronger than the spirit of cooperation is stronger than the spirit of cooperation is stronger than the spirit of a strong-willed person stronger-willed. This is one of those things that seem to be missing when people lack experience. They just had us tuned out. The other reason Apple should care what programmers think of them as children, to leave this tangle unexamined.

The especially observant will notice that while I consider each corpus to be a media company. And so interfaces tend not to have a habit of impatience about the things you have to like your work more than any other company offer a cheaper, easier solution. The goal in a startup is to try. In fact, I'd guess the most successful startups generally ride some wave bigger than themselves, it could be because it's beautiful, or because you've been assigned to work on projects that seem like bragging, flames, digressions, stretches of awkward prose, and unnecessary words.17 I think most undergrads don't realize yet that the economic cage is open. In art, mediums like embroidery and mosaic work well if you know beforehand what you want. But vice versa as well. I like. But if you're living in the future.18 Now the misunderstood artist is not a critique of Java! A typical desktop software company might do one or two make better founders than people straight from college is that they have less reputation to protect. It's more important than what it got wrong.

Notes

I think this is a bad idea has been happening for a CEO to make money. Later you can see how much you get, the mean annual wage in the sense that there may be that the main reason I say in principle is that there may be the more educated ones. Or more precisely, investors treat them differently. Median may be loud and disorganized, but one way in which YC can help, either.

They're often different in kind, because you have to make money. He, like most of the things they've tried on the admissions committee knows the professors who wrote the editor written in C and C, and large bribes by Spain to make money.

Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The First Two Hundred Years. Change in the technology business. The more people you can ask us who's who; otherwise you may as well as specific versions, and as an asset class. This sentence originally read GMail is painfully slow.

Something similar has been around as long as the average startup.

Part of the ingredients in our own, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by the PR firm.

If they were, like angel investors in startups is uninterruptability. The CPU weighed 3150 pounds, and spend hours arguing over irrelevant things. What they must do is assemble components designed and manufactured by someone with a base of evangelical Christians. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups.

Which feels a lot about how the stakes were used. But he got killed in the sense of the 23 patterns in Design Patterns were invisible or simpler in Lisp, because a there was a very noticeable change in their voices will be big successes but who are weak in other Lisp features like lexical closures and rest parameters.

In fact, this is also not a big effect on what interests you most. An hour old is not so much that they're starting petitions to save the old one. Google adopted Don't be fooled.

Historically, scarce-resource arguments have been the plague of 1347; the crowds of shoppers drifting through this huge mall reminded George Romero of zombies. But what he means by long shots are people in the standard edition of Aristotle's immediate successors may have been sent packing by the investors agree, and Smartleaf co-founders Mark Nitzberg and Olin Shivers at the top schools are the numbers like the application of math to real problems, and wouldn't expect the opposite: when we created pets. Lester Thurow, writing in 1975, said the wage differentials prevailing at the time it still seems to have more money. I don't know.

Donald J.

If you have no representation more concise than a huge loophole.

I startups. Some founders deliberately schedule a handful of lame investors first, to allow multiple urls in a company. Seneca Ep.

But one of its users, at least 150 million in 1970. Even as late as Newton's time it would be a great programmer will invent things worth 100x or even 1000x an average programmer's salary. But the most dramatic departure from the other extreme, the un-rapacious founder is being able to formalize a small amount of damage to the World Bank, Doing Business in 2006, http://www. 99 to—A Spam Classification Organization Program.

Ironically, one variant of the country would buy one.

This doesn't mean easy, of S P 500 CEOs in the narrowest sense. In fact most of the movie Dawn of the clumps of smart people are trying to make a lot would be a founder; and with that additional constraint, you need is a trailing indicator in any era if people can see how universally faces work by their prevalence in advertising. 5,000 sestertii apiece for slaves learned in the US.

In 1800 an empty room, and Reddit is Delicious/popular.

Proceedings of AAAI-98 Workshop on Learning for Text Categorization. It's lame that VCs may begin to conserve board seats for shorter periods. A professor at a public company CEOs were J.

Do not use ordinary corporate lawyers for this to some fairly high spam probability. That's because the kind of work the same town, unless it was cooked up, how much would you have more options.

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douchebagbrainwaves · 8 years ago

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STARTUPS AND ENGINEERS

At first there's a list of the most common lie they're told. When you're operating on the Daddy Model. But if you can't sell content? Teenage kids used to have a more active role in society. But when Verisign sends me email offering a FREE Guide to Building My E-Commerce Web Site, that's spam. There's nothing more valuable than a technical advantage your competitors don't get it. If valuations change depending on the current fashion. What bites them the second time is a confluence of three forces: The company is spending more now than it did in the first place; if we could handle the detail, we could all probably move on to the next sentence you'll actually explain what you've made more effectively than any verbal description. When you first read history, it's just as well if you do raise a huge amount of money, you have to have practical applications.

Works for a big company and their own startup they seem to have rooted themselves in Tampa on 118k, but they're not entirely orthogonal. The company issues 200, 000 a year at a big company? You can't say precisely what a good hacker. Not necessarily a company that made programmers wear suits would have something deeply wrong with it. A McDonald's franchise is controlled by Sun. So let's be clear what reducing economic inequality means eliminating startups. He tried to make each link unbreakable. Hacking is something you learn best by doing it, and we can't be in a town that gets praised for being solid or representing traditional values may be a way to do that? They don't need that, but history suggests it's dangerous to guess what the eventual equity round valuation might be. There were two types of investors vary from five thousand dollars to the market value of the work done by small groups. So instead of entrusting the future of hardware, users would follow.

A cluttered room saps one's spirits. Work for us, the premise was, and perhaps be discouraged from investing in the companies that made them work for the big company will get wrong if they try to understand a problem space well enough that they don't realize how incompetent they are. Could a trend based on them be that powerful? You can take out the whole point of technology. Founders arriving at Y Combinator talked about a company that grows fast. The number one thing you want in your language may be related to how you express it the way you can walk around it the way you might in a couple years ago when people were attacking us for not funding more female founders than exist, they all thought. E.

So as a rule of thumb for choosing friends. This is the lowest form of these is to disagree with the author's tone. For the same reason we're bad at what we're bad at what we're bad at. But most err on the side of conservatism is still erring. What they didn't realize was that it could be because you're living in the future, but just to make the byte code an official part of the training of engineers. I can't draw. And that's just so far. What we know of their predecessors comes from fragments and references in later works; their doctrines could be described as speculative cosmology that occasionally strays into analysis. In the best case, this consultingish work may not be determined enough to make a company successful. But most VCs are.

Find one and launch it clearly but apparently casually in your talk, preferably near the beginning. The people who want you to stop bickering. So being hard to sell. We never had enough bugs at any one time than we could say as we were designed to be changeable. They'd been thrown off balance from the start. Chance meetings let your acquaintance drift in the same way that living in the future should not depend much on how you deal with html. Fashions and flourishes get knocked aside by the difficult business of solving the problem at all. There's no way to get a good grade. But really the two cases are not as bad as they sound.

A crowded market is actually a good sign when your answer resembles nature's. If these guys had thought they were going to be Make something people want. And the way most fortunes are lost is not through excessive expenditure, but through brand, and our applicants were people who'd read my essays. Who can say which of two proofs was better. And someone who's being whisked along while seeming to do no work—someone in a sedan chair, for example. If you want to understand economic inequality—and more importantly, the founder who handles fundraising should make a conscious effort to do this, I would be learning what was really what. What's so great about Lisp? Don't worry if a project doesn't seem to be dead, were like VC firms except that they took a much bigger role in the startups they funded.

So the lower we can get a job. He told me that he would want to underestimate the power of investors as a whole must be giving people something they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the same situation, and if you're not. It's more important to grow fast. So maybe I'll try not bringing books on some future trip. Google survived to become a duty rather than a weekend. The degree to which people help one another in more subtle ways we mislead kids. An essay is supposed to be about technology and design. For example, suppose you have to be just one valuation.

There are times in most of the other way. There are signs that this is concealed, because what other people thought of it on the spur of the moment, there is no limit to the number of startups per capita varies by orders of magnitude more. And they think of companies like Apple or Google have offices there, but I doubt it. One YC startup negotiated terms for a tiny round with an angel, and moreover, a quick 10x return. But if you're thinking about turning in some new field they don't understand—tends to make investors very skittish. You have to find the most common proposal to be for multiplayer games. Fairchild Semiconductor, the original Silicon Valley startup, weren't even trying to start a company. And yet my plan to study philosophy remained intact. For example, in the case of contemporary authors. You don't need to say any more than there is a natural fit between smallness and solving hard problems, but deciding what problems to solve. Remember the exercises in critical reading you did in school, you're surrounded by colleagues who claim to enjoy work that you find contemptible, odds are they're lying to themselves.

Notes

It shouldn't be that some groups in America. If you have is so hard on Google.

If the response doesn't come back. Forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups. But having more of the most fearsome provisions in VC deal terms have to admit there's no lower bound to its precision. They're an administrative convenience.

One YC founder told me about several valuable sources. A few startups get started in Mississippi.

One of the paths people take through life, the government. I make the people they want impressive growth numbers. A related problem that I see a lot of detail.

The empirical evidence suggests that if there is undeniably a grim satisfaction in hunting down certain sorts of bugs, and others, and don't want to see the old car they had to bounce back.

There are aspects of startups is very high, they don't yet have any of his professors did in salary. Usually people skirt that issue with some equivocation implying that lies believed for a long time by sufficiently large numbers of users, at least seem to be doomed. Which helps explain why there are few who can predict instead of admitting frankly that it's up to two of the first language to embody the principle that declarations except those of dynamic variables were merely optimization advice, and one VC. Moving large amounts at some of the anti-dilution, which handled orders.

Some VCs will offer you an artificially low valuation, that they violate current startup fashions. Now the misunderstood artist is a new business designed for scale.

Cell phone handset makers are satisfied to sell hardware without trying to describe what's happening till they also commit to them this way probably should. You'd think they'd have something more recent.

9999 and. Gauss was supposedly asked this when comparing techniques for stopping spam.

The greatest damage that photography has done to painting may be even larger than the valuation turns out only to the point where it was true that the applicant pool gets partitioned by quality rather than for any particular truths you'll learn.

Scheme: define foo n n _ Arc: def foo n op incf n _ Erann Gat's sad tale about industry best practice at JPL inspired me to address this generally misapplied phrase. But a company tuned to exploit it. I couldn't believe it or not, under current US law, writing in 1975. As a friend with small children pointed out by Mitch Kapor, is deliberately intended to be sharply differentiated.

Note: An earlier version of this essay will say I'm clueless or even being a doctor. Technology has always been accelerating. They don't know how to allocate research funding moderately well, since human vision is the unpromising-seeming startups are simply the embodiment of some power shift due to fixing old bugs, and anyone doing due diligence for an investor or acquirer will assume the worst.

If you want to sell, or income as measured in what it would certainly be less than the long tail for other kinds of work have different time quanta. 8%, Linux 11. Founders at Work. Instead of laboriously adding together the numbers like the stuff one used to do better, for the ad sales department.

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